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I am rightly served, however, for beginning a correspondence like this; and still more for writing a second time." At dinner, Tremerello took up my wine, poured it into a flask, and put it into his pocket, observing: "I see that you are in want of paper;" and he gave me some.
I was touched; he was suffering and had no one to console him. "I will write him a few lines," exclaimed I. "I will take them this evening, then," said Tremerello, and he went out. I was a little perplexed on sitting down to my table: "Am I right in resuming this correspondence? was I not, just now, praising solitude as a treasure newly found? what inconsistency is this!
On the 11th of January, 1822, about nine in the morning, Tremerello came into my room in no little agitation, and said, "Do you know, Sir, that in the island of San Michele, a little way from Venice, there is a prison containing more than a hundred Carbonari." "You have told me so a hundred times. Well! what would you have me hear, speak out; are some of them condemned?" "Exactly."
I have told you too much too much already." "Then what is the use of trying to hide it? I know it too well. He is condemned to death." "Who? . . . he . . . Doctor Foresti?" Tremerello hesitated, but the love of gossip was not the least of his virtues. "Don't say, then," he resumed, "that I am a babbler; I never wished to say a word about these matters; so, remember, it is you who compel me."
This I did, and after long prayer, I went down, shook off the gnats, took the bitten gloves in my hands, and came to the determination to explain my apprehensions to Tremerello and warn him of the great danger to which he himself was exposed by bearing letters; to renounce the plan if he wavered, and to accept it if its terrors did not deter him.
Full of excitement, wonder, and terror, I stood at the window till the day dawned, I then got down oppressed by a feeling of deep sorrow, and imagined much greater misfortune than had really occurred. I was informed by Tremerello that only the ovens and the adjoining magazine had suffered, the loss consisting chiefly of corn and sacks of flour.
Such suspicions tormented and degraded me. I did not entertain them as regarded Angiola a single moment. Yet, from what Tremerello had said, a kind of doubt clung to me as to the conduct of those who had permitted her to come into my apartment. Had they, either from their own zeal, or by superior authority, given her the office of spy? in that case, how ill had she discharged such an office!
Coward as I am, standing on the brink of death, the fatal decree ready to strike me at any moment, yet to refuse to perform a simple act of love! Reply to him I must and will. Grant that it be discovered, no one can fairly be accused of writing the letter, though poor Tremerello would assuredly meet with the severest chastisement.
HE, indeed, was more to be envied than regretted; but, alas, for the unhappy survivors to whom he was everything! He had, moreover, been my neighbour when under the Piombi. Tremerello had brought me several of his poetical pieces, and had conveyed to him some lines from me in return. There was sometimes a depth of sentiment and pathos in his poems which interested me.
Whenever Tremerello now entered my room he was in the habit of saying, "I have got no answer yet." "It is all right," was my reply. About the third day from this, he said, with a serious look, "Signor N. N. is rather indisposed." "What is the matter with him?" "He does not say, but he has taken to his bed, neither eats nor drinks, and is sadly out of humour."
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