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Updated: June 9, 2025
It was the Count Antonio Oroboni, a native of Fratta, near Rovigo, and only twenty-nine years of age. Alas! we were soon interrupted by the ferocious cries of the sentinels. He in the gallery knocked as loud as he could with the butt-end of his musket, both at the Count's door and at mine.
The order, however, was not confirmed; but in the brief interval it was in force my health had greatly improved. It was the same with Maroncelli; but for the unhappy Oroboni it came too late. He had received for his companion the advocate Solera, and afterwards the priest, Dr. Fortini.
It was the first of August, 1830. Ten years had elapsed since I was deprived of my liberty: for eight years and a half I had been subjected to hard imprisonment. It was Sunday, and, as on other holidays, we went to our accustomed station, whence we had a view from the wall of the valley and the cemetery below, where Oroboni and Villa now reposed.
Fortini, a most religious and amiable man, who had been intimate with him from his childhood. Poor Oroboni! how bitterly we felt his death when the first sad tidings reached us! Ah! we heard the voices and the steps of those who came to remove his body! We watched from our window the hearse, which, slow and solemnly, bore him to that cemetery within our view.
It was thus, too, I composed the tragedy of Leoniero da Dertona, and various other works. Count Oroboni, after lingering through a wretched winter and the ensuing spring, found himself much worse during the summer. He was seized with a spitting of blood, and a dropsy ensued.
He was attended by his fellow-prisoner, D. Fortini, and by the Abate Paulowich, who hastened from Vienna upon hearing that he was dying. Although I had not been on the same intimate terms with him as with Count Oroboni, his death a good deal affected me. He had parents and a wife, all most tenderly attached to him.
The evening search being over, Oroboni and I began our conversation, always more extended than at any other hour. The other periods were, as related in the morning, or directly after dinner but our words were then generally very brief. At times the sentinels were so kind as to say to us: "A little lower key, gentlemen, or otherwise the punishment will fall upon us."
On that morning, I rose with a slight pain in my head, and a strong tendency to fainting. My legs trembled, and I could scarcely draw my breath. Poor Oroboni, also, had been unable to rise from his straw for several days past. They brought me some soup, I took a spoonful, and then fell back in a swoon.
"Why are you silent?" I enquired. He then seriously upbraided me for having broken my word and betrayed my friend's secret. His reproach was just; no friendship, however intimate, however fortified by virtue, can authorise such a violation of confidence, guaranteed, as it had been, by a sacred vow. Since, however, it was done, Oroboni was desirous of turning my fault to a good account.
The irritation which had obtained such a mastery over me, and rendered me so irreligious after my condemnation, continued several weeks, and then wholly ceased. The noble virtue of Oroboni delighted me.
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