My Ten Years Imprisonment | Page 5

some unfortunate lover, harshly dealt with by her he adored, yet
resolved to bear it with dignified silence, I leave la Politica, such as
SHE IS, and proceed to something else.
At nine in the evening of that same unlucky Friday, the actuary
consigned me to the jailer, who conducted me to my appointed
residence. He there politely requested me to give up my watch, my
money, and everything in my pockets, which were to be restored to me
in due time; saying which he respectfully bade me good-night.
"Stop, my dear sir," I observed, "I have not yet dined; let me have
something to eat."
"Directly; the inn is close by, and you will find the wine good, sir."
"Wine I do not drink."
At this announcement Signor Angiolino gave me a look of unfeigned
surprise; he imagined that I was jesting. "Masters of prisons," he
rejoined, "who keep shop, have a natural horror of an abstemious
captive."
"That may be; I don't drink it."
"I am sorry for you, sir; you will feel solitude twice as heavily."
But perceiving that I was firm, he took his leave; and in half an hour I
had something to eat. I took a mouthful, swallowed a glass of water,
and found myself alone. My chamber was on the ground floor, and
overlooked the court-yard. Dungeons here, dungeons there, to the right,
to the left, above, below, and opposite, everywhere met my eye. I

leaned against the window, listened to the passing and repassing of the
jailers, and the wild song of a number of the unhappy inmates. A
century ago, I reflected, and this was a monastery; little then thought
the pious, penitent recluses that their cells would now re-echo only to
the sounds of blasphemy and licentious song, instead of holy hymn and
lamentation from woman's lips; that it would become a dwelling for the
wicked of every class- -the most part destined to perpetual labour or to
the gallows. And in one century to come, what living being will be
found in these cells? Oh, mighty Time! unceasing mutability of things!
Can he who rightly views your power have reason for regret or despair
when Fortune withdraws her smile, when he is made captive, or the
scaffold presents itself to his eye? yesterday I thought myself one of the
happiest of men; to-day every pleasure, the least flower that strewed
my path, has disappeared. Liberty, social converse, the face of my
fellow-man, nay, hope itself hath fled. I feel it would be folly to flatter
myself; I shall not go hence, except to be thrown into still more horrible
receptacles of sorrow; perhaps, bound, into the hands of the executioner.
Well, well, the day after my death it will be all one as if I had yielded
my spirit in a palace, and been conveyed to the tomb, accompanied
with all the pageantry of empty honours.
It was thus, by reflecting on the sweeping speed of time, that I bore up
against passing misfortune. Alas, this did not prevent the forms of my
father, my mother, two brothers, two sisters, and one other family I had
learned to love as if it were my own, from all whom I was, doubtless,
for ever cut off, from crossing my mind, and rendering all my
philosophical reasoning of no avail. I was unable to resist the thought,
and I wept even as a child.
CHAPTER II.

Three months previous to this time I had gone to Turin, where, after
several years of separation, I saw my parents, one of my brothers, and
two sisters. We had always been an attached family; no son had ever
been more deeply indebted to a father and a mother than I; I remember
I was affected at beholding a greater alteration in their looks, the

progress of age, than I had expected. I indulged a secret wish to part
from them no more, and soothe the pillow of departing age by the
grateful cares of a beloved son. How it vexed me, too, I remember,
during the few brief days I passed with them, to be compelled by other
duties to spend so much of the day from home, and the society of those
I had such reason to love and to revere; yes, and I remember now what
my mother said one day, with an expression of sorrow, as I went
out--"Ah! our Silvio has not come to Turin to see US!" The morning of
my departure for Milan was a truly painful one. My poor father
accompanied me about a mile on my way; and, on leaving me, I more
than once turned to look at him, and, weeping, kissed the ring my
mother had just given me; nor did I ever before quit