My Ten Years' Imprisonment. Silvio Pellico

mother has got your old room in readiness, and we are all expecting you to come. Pressing affairs now call me away, but lose no time, I entreat you, in preparing to rejoin us once more.” His kind and affecting expressions added to my grief. Compassion and filial piety, not unmingled with a species of remorse, induced me to feign assent; yet afterwards I reflected how much more worthy it had been, both of my father and myself, to have frankly told him that most probably, we should never see each other again, at least in this world. Let us take farewell like men, without a murmur and without a tear, and let me receive the benediction of a father before I die. As regarded myself, I should wish to have adopted language like that; but when I gazed on his aged and venerable features, and his grey hairs, something seemed to whisper me, that it would be too much for the affectionate old man to bear; and the words died in my heart. Good God! I thought, should he know the extent of the evil, he might, perhaps, run distracted, such is his extreme attachment to me: he might fall at my feet, or even expire before my eyes. No! I could not tell him the truth, nor so much as prepare him for it; we shed not a tear, and he took his departure in the same pleasing delusion as before. On returning into my dungeon I was seized in the same manner, and with still more aggravated suffering, as I had been after the last interview; and, as then, my anguish found no relief from tears.

      I had nothing now to do but resign myself to all the horrors of long captivity, and to the sentence of death. But to prepare myself to bear the idea of the immense load of grief that must fall on every dear member of my family, on learning my lot, was beyond my power. It haunted me like a spirit, and to fly from it I threw myself on my knees, and in a passion of devotion uttered aloud the following prayer:—“My God! from thy hand I will accept all—for me all: but deign most wonderfully to strengthen the hearts of those to whom I was so very dear! Grant thou that I may cease to be such to them now; and that not the life of the least of them may be shortened by their care for me, even by a single day!”

      Strange! wonderful power of prayer! for several hours my mind was raised to a contemplation of the Deity, and my confidence in His goodness proportionately increased; I meditated also on the dignity of the human mind when, freed from selfishness, it exerts itself to will only that which is the will of eternal wisdom. This can be done, and it is man’s duty to do it. Reason, which is the voice of the Deity, teaches us that it is right to submit to every sacrifice for the sake of virtue. And how could the sacrifice which we owe to virtue be completed, if in the most trying afflictions we struggle against the will of Him who is the source of all virtue? When death on the scaffold, or any other species of martyrdom becomes inevitable, it is a proof of wretched degradation, or ignorance, not to be able to approach it with blessing upon our lips. Nor is it only necessary we should submit to death, but to the affliction which we know those most dear to us must suffer on our account. All it is lawful for us to ask is, that God will temper such affliction, and that he will direct us all, for such a prayer is always sure to be accepted.

CHAPTER XVI.

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      For a period of some days I continued in the same state of mind; a sort of calm sorrow, full of peace, affection, and religious thoughts. I seemed to have overcome every weakness, and as if I were no longer capable of suffering new anxiety. Fond delusion! it is man’s duty to aim at reaching as near to perfection as possible, though he can never attain it here. What now disturbed me was the sight of an unhappy friend, my good Piero, who passed along the gallery within a few yards of me, while I stood at my window. They were removing him from his cell into the prison destined for criminals. He was hurried by so swiftly that I had barely time to recognise him, and to receive and return his salutation.

      Poor young man! in the flower of his age, with a genius of high promise, of frank, upright, and most affectionate disposition, born with a keen zest of the pleasures of existence, to be at once precipitated into a dungeon, without the remotest hope of escaping the severest penalty of the laws. So great was my compassion for him, and my regret at being unable to afford him the slightest consolation, that it was long before I could recover my composure of mind. I knew how tenderly he was attached to every member of his numerous family, how deeply interested in promoting their happiness, and how devotedly his affection was returned. I was sensible what must be the affliction of each and all under so heavy a calamity. Strange, that though I had just reconciled myself to the idea in my own case, a sort of phrensy seized my mind when I depicted the scene; and it continued so long that I began to despair of mastering it.

      Dreadful as this was, it was still but an illusion. Ye afflicted ones, who believe yourselves victims of some irresistible, heart-rending, and increasing grief, suffer a little while with patience, and you will be undeceived. Neither perfect peace, nor utter wretchedness can be of long continuance here below. Recollect this truth, that you may not become unduly elevated in prosperity, and despicable under the trials which assuredly await you. A sense of weariness and apathy succeeded the terrible excitement I had undergone. But indifference itself is transitory, and I had some fear lest I should continue to suffer without relief under these wretched extremes of feeling. Terrified at the prospect of such a future, I had recourse once more to the only Being from whom I could hope to receive strength to bear it, and devoutly bent down in prayer. I beseeched the Father of mercies to befriend my poor deserted Piero, even as myself, and to support his family no less than my own. By constant repetition of prayers like these, I became perfectly calm and resigned.