"A white-haired fisherman!"
The words of the king repeated themselves over and over again in my tortured brain. Yes--I was greatly changed, I looked worn and old--no one would recognize me for my former self. All at once, with this thought, an idea occurred to me--a plan of vengeance, so bold, so new, and withal so terrible, that I started from my seat as though stung by an adder. I paced up and down restlessly, with this lurid light of fearful revenge pouring in on every nook and cranny of my darkened mind. From whence had come this daring scheme? What devil, or rather what angel of retribution, had whispered it to my soul? Dimly I wondered--but amid all my wonder I began practically to arrange the details of my plot. I calculated every small circumstance that was likely to occur in the process of carrying it out. My stupefied senses became aroused from the lethargy of despair, and stood up like soldiers on the alert armed to the teeth. Past love, pity, pardon, patience--pooh! what were all these resources of the world's weakness to ME? What was it to me that the bleeding Christ forgave His enemies in death? He never loved a woman! Strength and resolution returned to me. Let common sailors and rag-pickers resort to murder and suicide as fit outlets for their unreasoning brute wrath when wronged; but as for me, why should I blot my family scutcheon with a merely vulgar crime? Nay, the vengeance of a Romani must be taken with assured calmness and easy deliberation--no haste, no plebeian fury, no effeminate fuss, no excitement. I walked up and down slowly, meditating on every point of the bitter drama in which I had resolved to enact the chief part, from the rise to the fall of the black curtain. The mists cleared from my brain--I breathed more easily--my nerves steadied themselves by degrees--the prospect of what I purposed doing satisfied me and calmed the fever in my blood. I became perfectly cool and collected. I indulged in no more futile regrets for the past--why should I mourn the loss of a love I never possessed? It was not as if they had waited till my supposed sudden death--no! within three months of my marriage they had fooled me; for three whole years they had indulged in their criminal amour, while I, blind dreamer, had suspected nothing. NOW I knew the extent of my injury; I was a man bitterly wronged, vilely duped. Justice, reason, and self-respect demanded that I should punish to the utmost the miserable tricksters who had played me false. The passionate tenderness I had felt for my wife was gone--I plucked it from my heart as I would have torn a thorn from my flesh--I flung it from me with disgust as I had flung away the unseen reptile that had fastened on my neck in the vault. The deep warm friendship of years I had felt for Guido Ferrari froze to its very foundations--and in its place there rose up, not hate, but pitiless, immeasurable contempt. A stern disdain of myself also awoke in me, as I remembered the unreasoning joy with which, I had hastened--as I thought--home, full of eager anticipation and Romeo-like ardor. An idiot leaping merrily to his death over a mountain chasm was not more fool than I! But the dream was over--the delusion of my life was passed. I was strong to avenge--I would be swift to accomplish. So, darkly musing for an hour or more, I decided on the course I had to pursue, and to make the decision final I drew from my breast the crucifix that the dead monk Cipriano had laid with me in my coffin, and kissing it, I raised it aloft, and swore by that sacred symbol never to relent, never to relax, never to rest, till I had brought my vow of just vengeance to its utmost fulfillment. The stars, calm witnesses of my oath, eyed me earnestly from their judgment thrones in the quiet sky--there was a brief pause in the singing of the nightingales, as though they too listened--the wind sighed plaintively, and scattered a shower of jasmine blossoms like snow at my feet. Even so, I thought, fall the last leaves of my white days--days of pleasure, days of sweet illusion, days of dear remembrance; even so let them wither and perish utterly forever! For from henceforth my life must be something other than a mere garland of flowers--it must be a chain of finely tempered steel, hard, cold, and unbreakable--formed into links strong enough to wind round and round two false lives and imprison them so closely as to leave no means of escape. This was what must be done--and I resolved to do it. With a firm, quiet step I turned to leave the avenue. I opened the little private wicket, and passed into the dusty road. A clanging noise caused me to look up as I went by the principal entrance of the Villa Romani. A man servant--my own man-servant by the by--was barring the great gates for the night. I listened as he slid the bolts into their places, and turned the key. I remembered that those gates had been thoroughly fastened before, when I came up the road from Naples--why then had they been opened since? To let out a visitor? Of course! I smiled grimly at my wife's cunning! She evidently knew what she was about. Appearances must be kept up--the Signor Ferrari must be decorously shown out by a servant at the chief entrance of the house. Naturally!--all very unsuspicious--looking and quite in keeping with the proprieties! Guido had just left her then? I walked steadily, without hurrying my pace, down the hill toward the city, and on the way I overtook him. He was strolling lazily along, smoking as usual, and he held a spray of stephanotis in his hand--well I knew who had given it to him! I passed him--he glanced up carelessly, his handsome face clearly visible in the bright moonlight--but there was nothing about a common fisherman to attract his attention--his look only rested upon me for a second and was withdrawn immediately. An insane desire possessed me to turn upon him--to spring at his throat--to wrestle with him and throw him in the dust at my feet--to spit at him and trample upon him--but I repressed those fierce and dangerous emotions. I had a better game to play--I had an exquisite torture in store for him, compared to which a hand-to-hand fight was mere vulgar fooling. Vengeance ought to ripen slowly in the strong heat of intense wrath, till of itself it falls--hastily snatched before its time it is like unmellowed fruit, sour and ungrateful to the palate. So I let my dear friend--my wife's consoler--saunter on his heedless way without interference--I passed, leaving him to indulge in amorous musings to his false heart's content. I entered Naples, and found a night's lodging at one of the usual resorts for men of my supposed craft, and, strange to say, I slept soundly and dreamlessly. Recent illness, fatigue, fear, and sorrow, all aided to throw me like an exhausted child upon the quiet bosom of slumber, but perhaps the most powerfully soothing opiate to my brain was the consciousness I had of a practical plan of retribution--more terrible perhaps than any human creature had yet devised, so far as I knew. Unchristian you call me? I tell you again, Christ never loved a woman! Had He done so, He would have left us some special code of justice.