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Updated: June 14, 2025
Like most men acquainted with the literature of a country, but not accustomed to daily conversation with its natives, the English words and fashion of periods that occurred to Volktman were rather those used in books than in colloquy; and a certain solemnity and slowness of tone accompanied with the frequent, almost constant use of the pronoun singular the thou and the thee, gave a strangeness and unfamiliar majesty to his dialect that suited well with the subjects on which he so loved to dwell.
Volktman continued his pursuits with an ardour that increased as do all species of monomania with increasing years; and in the accidental truth of some of his predictions, he forgot the erroneous result of the rest. He corresponded at times with the Englishman, who, after a short sojourn in England, had returned to the Continent, and was now making a prolonged tour through its northern capitals.
His marriage had been blessed with but one daughter, who at the time of this catastrophe was about eight years of age. His love for his child in some measure reconciled Volktman to life; and as the shock of the event subsided, he returned with a pertinacity which was now subjected to no interruption, to his beloved occupations and mysterious researches.
"Sit thee down, child," said he to Lucilla, kindly; "sit thee down." Lucilla obeyed, and took her seat upon the very stool on which she had been seated the last night on which the Englishman had seen her. "I have been thinking," said Volktman, as he placed his hand on his daughter's head, "that I shall soon leave thee; and I should like to see thee protected by another before my own departure."
She learned that language with surprising facility; and as Volktman loved its sound she grew familiar with its difficulties, by always addressing her father in a tongue which became inexpressibly dear to her. And the young stranger delighted to hear that soft and melodious voice, with its trembling, Italian accent, make music from the nervous and masculine language of his native land.
Stung by his thoughts, and impatient of rest, he hurried into the air; he traversed the city; he passed St. Sebastian's Gate, gained the Appia Via, and saw, lone and sombre, as of old the house of the departed Volktman. He had half unconsciously sought that direction, in order to strengthen his purpose, and sustain his conscience in its right path.
"My schemes are just, and the Heavens wrote their decrees in their clearest language," answered the astrologer. "Thou art on the eve of quitting Rome." "On what occasion?" The astrologer hesitated the young visitor pressed the question. "The lord of the fourth house," said Volktman, reluctantly, "is located in the eleventh house. Thou knowest to whom the position portends disaster."
As she saw the image, which, the reader will recollect, was of a remarkable design, the whole of her conversation with Volktman on the subject rushed into her mind, and she resolved that very night to prove the efficacy of the charm on which he had so confidently insisted. Fraught with the chimerical delusion, she now longed for the hours to pass, and the night to come.
"True," said Volktman; "and to-morrow will not, I think, be unfavourable to our stirring abroad, for the moon will be of the same age as at my birth an accident that thou wilt note, my child, to be especially auspicious towards any enterprise." The poor astrologer so rarely stirred from his home, that he did well to consider a walk of a mile or two in the light of an enterprise.
Speak, speak! in mercy speak! tell me more! convince me that you have but vainly guessed my secret, or that you have a right to know it!" "Did not your father forsake, for the blue skies of Rome, his own colder shores?" continued Constance, adopting the heightened and romantic tone of the one she addressed; and, "Percy Godolphin is that name still familiar to the ear of Lucilla Volktman?"
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