does not virtue outweigh all worldly titles and distinctions in the estimation of every rational and virtuous mind? Your lovely daughter's virtues are far superior to my empty titles or immense wealth. In accepting me as a husband, she would confer honor, not receive it. She descends to my level; I do not and cannot rise to hers – the gain, the honor, the advantage, of such an alliance would be mine."
"You are an enthusiast, Count; your passion has gotten the better of your judgment; that you love my daughter now I am perfectly willing to admit, but that your affection for her will sustain the shock of the ridicule of your associates, or the contempt and neglect with which your proud and titled kindred and countrymen will treat such a wife, whom they regard so infinitely beneath them, I very much doubt. Matches between people so widely separated by difference of rank, however arbitrary and absurd those distinctions may be, can never produce aught but unhappiness."
The Count was, notwithstanding the reasonableness of old Morelli's objections, as politely obstinate as young lovers are to old fathers, when those old fathers condescend to reason with them instead of resorting to the more usual and summary process of turning them out of doors, and forbidding their daughters to hold any farther communication with the dear rejected. In a subsequent conversation with his daughter he found that both parties were nearly in the same situation; Bianca with many tears confessing her love for Count Altenberg. There seemed then but two chances to escape from this state of embarrassment, namely, either to consent to Frederic's offer of his hand, or to send his daughter to an aged relative at Padua; which last plan was liable to so many objections that, after ruminating upon it for two days, he gave it up, and permitted the lovers to enjoy each other's society, though without giving a direct consent to their union.
In the mean time the libertine Plindorf was plotting destruction to the fair Bianca. He well knew that such a woman was not to be carried by the usual attacks of flattery and money; which last, whether administered in the form of rich and dazzling presents, or simply by itself, is almost uniformly found irresistible by old and young women, according to their tastes or situations; his plan was therefore necessarily more deeply laid than any he had heretofore practised. It was accordingly with a mingled emotion of pleasure and anxiety that he watched the progress of the attachment between the two lovers. Although he feared that her attachment might prove too strong to be easily shaken, he still hoped to be able to involve them in embarrassments, and then, under the guise of friendship and pretence of assisting them, further his own unprincipled views. The impetuosity of the young nobleman, and certain circumstances that he could not foresee, brought the affair to a crisis both unexpected and disastrous.
The Baron walked out one afternoon towards old Morelli's cottage, without any fixed object, for the unequivocal dislike that Bianca always manifested towards him, had determined him to cease his visits to her father's house, and make his approaches with the utmost caution. He approached a retired spot near the house, where the lovers frequently strolled to enjoy each other's society. Bianca had also wandered there in the hope of meeting Frederic. She was occupied gathering flowers, and arranging them in a nosegay, when a rustling among the bushes attracted her attention. She hastily advanced towards the spot, exclaiming "Frederic!" when the Baron, the man whom of all others she most hated, and, for some undefinable reason or other, feared, stood before her.
"Fairest Bianca!" said Plindorf, advancing, "let me not alarm you, although I am not the person you seemed to expect; let me hope that the presence of a friend and well-wisher to both parties is not disagreeable or terrifying."
Bianca, exceedingly alarmed at the sudden apparition of one so odious to her, had sunk down upon a rude seat. The Baron approached, and taking her passive hand, seated himself by her side. Mistaking the cause of her quietness, he ventured to press her trembling hand to his lips, and attempted to pass his arm around her waist. The terrified girl suddenly sprang from him with a loud shriek, and attempted to fly; the Baron again caught her hand, and endeavored forcibly to detain her. At that moment the Count Altenberg suddenly stood before them, his eyes flashing with rage.
"Villain," he exclaimed, as soon as his passion would give him utterance, "deceitful, cowardly scoundrel! take that" – striking him a violent blow, and at the same time unsheathing his sword.
The Baron was ready in an instant, but as soon as the Count felt his weapon clashing against that of his antagonist, he became at once cool and composed. Not so Plindorf, he dashed at his more youthful opponent with a fury that had well nigh brought the combat to a speedy and fatal issue, and compelled Frederic to exert his utmost skill. The peculiar danger of his situation, and almost certain death or remediless disgrace that awaited him, even if victorious, for having struck his superior officer, were present to the mind of the young officer in gloomy and terrible colors; but it was too late to retract. The fury of the Baron threw him off his guard – he received a mortal wound, and fell dead. The unhappy survivor stood for some seconds gazing upon the inanimate form before him; and as the features, after being convulsed for a little, settled into the iron stiffness of everlasting sleep, he uttered a deep sigh, and unconsciously moved away from the spot. At this moment Bianca, recovering from the stupor into which the terrible scene had thrown her, earnestly enjoined him to fly.
"There is no time to be lost," said the agonized girl; "fly at once to the sea-side – go on board any vessel that is about sailing – in a few days, I doubt not, this unhappy business will be hushed up."
"And where shall I fly?" said the Count; "where shall I go from him?" – indicating the slain nobleman by a movement of his hand – "do you know what I have done? I have in one moment sentenced myself to death; or, what is worse, to disgraceful and infamous privation of all my honors and rank."
"No, no – there is yet time – go immediately on board the American man-of-war in the harbor – they dare not search for you there."
With many entreaties and tears, she prevailed upon him to take measures for his safety; and with a lightened heart saw him, from the windows of her father's house, reach the water-side uninterrupted; saw him leave the shore in a little skiff, when the intervention of other objects hid him from her sight.
The two officers were missed that evening. The dead body of the ill-fated Baron was soon discovered; for many had seen him going towards old Morelli's cottage; but no traces of Count Altenberg have ever been discovered. Morelli and his daughter underwent a rigid examination; the former could throw no light upon the mysterious disappearance of Frederic, but Bianca, the pure-minded Bianca, unreservedly related all the circumstances. The examining officers forwarded an elaborate and circumstantial report of the case to Vienna, accompanied by an earnest petition in behalf of the absent Count. The Emperor laid the affair before a select council of old and experienced officers, who, after due deliberation, and weighing the excellence of Altenberg's character against the depravity of his slain antagonist, suggested the expediency of pardoning the offender. Proclamation was accordingly made to that effect, but without success.
The unhappy Bianca lived to experience, in all its bitterness, that "hope deferred that maketh the heart sick" and eventually breaks it. She died in less than two years after the flight of Frederic, a victim to a disorder that has no place in the catalogue of nosologists, and is not recognised as a malady; though it is as incurable and consigns almost as many victims to an untimely grave as consumption, with which it is very frequently confounded – I mean a broken heart. She was buried, according to her dying request, in the little arbor that Frederic had assisted her to erect and adorn, and where she had passed those most delightful moments in human existence, the days of the first love, and first courtship, of two young, affectionate, and virtuous beings. Blessed moments! that occur but once in the dreary threescore years and ten, and fade away before we have time to enjoy them, and we only become conscious of their existence from the certainty that they are gone for ever.
Several years ago, and, if I am not much mistaken, just after the peace of 1815, an officer, in full Austrian uniform, came on board one of our frigates then lying in the harbor of Genoa. From the richness of his regimentals, and a cross
