Und den Mordstahl seh' ich blinken;
Und das Morderauge gluhn!
"Kassandra."
(And I see the steel of Murder glitter, And the eye of Murder glow.)Viola was in the prison that opened not but for those already condemned before adjudged.Since her exile from Zanoni, her very intellect had seemed paralysed.All that beautiful exuberance of fancy which, if not the fruit of genius, seemed its blossoms; all that gush of exquisite thought which Zanoni had justly told her flowed with mysteries and subtleties ever new to him, the wise one,--all were gone, annihilated; the blossom withered, the fount dried up.From something almost above womanhood, she seemed listlessly to sink into something below childhood.With the inspirer the inspirations had ceased; and, in deserting love, genius also was left behind.
She scarcely comprehended why she had been thus torn from her home and the mechanism of her dull tasks.She scarcely knew what meant those kindly groups, that, struck with her exceeding loveliness, had gathered round her in the prison, with mournful looks, but with words of comfort.She, who had hitherto been taught to abhor those whom Law condemns for crime, was amazed to hear that beings thus compassionate and tender, with cloudless and lofty brows, with gallant and gentle mien, were criminals for whom Law had no punishment short of death.But they, the savages, gaunt and menacing, who had dragged her from her home, who had attempted to snatch from her the infant while she clasped it in her arms, and laughed fierce scorn at her mute, quivering lips,--THEY were the chosen citizens, the men of virtue, the favourites of Power, the ministers of Law! Such thy black caprices, O thou, the ever-shifting and calumnious,--Human Judgment!
A squalid, and yet a gay world, did the prison-houses of that day present.There, as in the sepulchre to which they led, all ranks were cast with an even-handed scorn.And yet there, the reverence that comes from great emotions restored Nature's first and imperishable, and most lovely, and most noble Law,--THEINEQUALITY BETWEEN MAN AND MAN! There, place was given by the prisoners, whether royalists or sans-culottes, to Age, to Learning, to Renown, to Beauty; and Strength, with its own inborn chivalry, raised into rank the helpless and the weak.The iron sinews and the Herculean shoulders made way for the woman and the child; and the graces of Humanity, lost elsewhere, sought their refuge in the abode of Terror.
"And wherefore, my child, do they bring thee hither?" asked an old, grey-haired priest.
"I cannot guess."
"Ah, if you know not your offence, fear the worst!""And my child?"--for the infant was still suffered to rest upon her bosom.
"Alas, young mother, they will suffer thy child to live.'
