ABSTRACT
In our melancholy journey towards Madrid, nothing occurred worth noticing, unless it were the increasing gloom that clouded the mind of my unhappy friend. – I observed with extreme concern, that the longer he reflected on the perfidy and ingratitude of his mistress, the less able he became to endure it: for he still adored her, conscious as he was of her unworthiness, and though he was convinced, that, had he become her husband, he must have been more completely wretched: – Ashamed of avowing a passion which pride and reason alike condemned, he attempted, but in vain, to conquer it: sometimes he carefully abstained from naming Xaviera for several days together – then talked of her incessantly for a few hours, and afterwards relapsed into mournful silence, and spoke to nobody otherwise than what was immediately requisite: – he sometimes talked of taking the habit of the order of St. Francis, and retiring from the world; – then, of going to England with us, and abandoning for ever his country, where hardly one connection remained to sooth and console him, and where he should be continually reminded of all he had lost. I frequently fancied that he betrayed symptoms of intellects overwhelmed and injured by the greatness of his calamity, and I communicated my apprehensions to Isabella: but she was more sanguine than I was, or less willing to allow such an effect to the charms of Xaviera (whom she allowed to be a pretty-ish woman, but by no means so very attractive as to turn the head of any man when he came coolly to reflect on her character); and we were equally willing to flatter ourselves, that time, the great and almost unfailing remedy for the diseases of the mind, would gradually restore Villanova to reason and tranquillity. – The letters however than awaited him at Madrid, made all his wounds bleed afresh: he learned that the dispensation for his marriage with Xaviera was obtained; but that very soon after she had been permitted to leave the convent, she quitted the country-house to which she had retired; and, taking with her her jewels, and a sum of money with which Villanova’s agent readily supplied her from funds of her own (that during her disgrace had been sequestered and put into the power of Villanova, as her nearest relation), she had declared, that she had been enjoined, as a penance for her path indiscretions, to visit in the humblest style the shrine of Neustra Senhora de Montserrat; – that her 78cousin had approved of her pious design, and had agreed that it was better for her to absent herself from Portugal till the disagreeable events that had occurred were forgotten; and that they should neither of them return to Lisbon till they were married, which they had settled should be at Madrid. – Such a story was extremely plausible; and though the friend and agent of Villanova was rather surprised that he himself had not mentioned this scheme, yet the reserved and reasonable conduct of Xaviera, and the gratitude and affection she expressed for Villanova, conquered any doubts that arose; so that, supplying her with even more money than she had asked for (for her demands were very moderate), he accelerated her departure with only a female servant, and such other attendants as she herself chose, and who were absolutely necessary for such a journey. By what means she had carried on a correspondence with her Neapolitan lover, or where they met, Villanova was yet ignorant; but he knew enough to convince him of the meditated perfidy of his faithless Xaviera – enough to sting his soul with all the pangs that are inflicted by mortified pride and disappointed affection, added to distracting jealousy and unextinguished passion.
