ARTHUR
100

"This," I said, following my conductor, "is the residence of Welbeck. What contrasts it with its serenity and splendor, pictorial walls, glazed decoration, gold-plated sofas, mirrors that meet from the ceiling to the floor, Tauris carpets, and , and the immaculate and transcendent brilliance of the quilt and napkin, in your former abode! Here fights and rough footsteps are eternal. The air was filled with a puff of disease and the smoke of debauchery. You were confined to a vacuum, and, perhaps, forced to share your narrow cell with a stupid bastard. Previously, the breeze was approached by your tall windows. Aromatic bushes are scattered in your fireplace. Rough clothes, nice clothes, show their faces shyly in your apartment, tread lightly on your marble floor, and do not suffer the sanctity of silence disturbed by whispers. Your lamp shoots its rays through the transparency of the alabaster, and your fragrant sap flows from the porcelain vase. That's how it was before the decoration of your hall, the decoration of your existence; but now— dear!—-"

We reached a room on the second floor. My conductor knocked on the door. No one answered. Repeated beats are not heard or not noticed by the person inside. Finally, while lifting the latch, we entered together.

The prisoner was lying on the bed, with his face facing the door. I advanced gently, gesturing for the guard to retreat. Welbeck did not fall asleep, but was simply buried in daydreams. I did not want to disturb his reflection, and stood with my eyes fixed on his form. He seemed unaware that someone was entering.

Finally, with a long sigh, he changed his posture, and looked at me in my unmoving and staring attitude. Remember in what circumstances we last parted. Welbeck, no doubt, had been carried away with him from that interview with the firm belief that I should die soon. However, his predictions were destined to be opposed.

His first emotion was surprise. It gives a place to be ashamed and angry. After observing me for some time, he shifted his gaze, and the efforts made to remove some of the barriers to breathing showed me that the sensation was the most excruciating kind. He placed his head on the pillow, and drowned in his previous musings. He belittles, or is unable, to utter a syllable of welcome or humiliation.

In the opportunity that has been given to me to look at his face, I have observed signs of a very different kind than those commonly seen. The gloomy and vicious ones were more conspicuous. Health has left her cheeks, and brought with her the flexible parts that previously allowed her to cover up secret torments and dangerous goals under the veil of virtue and cheerfulness. "Darling!" I said, loud enough for him to hear me, "this is a monument of destruction. Despair and mischievous lust are too deep-rooted in this heart for me to tear it apart."

This expression did not escape his attention. He turned around once more and threw a sullen look at me. There was a little bit in his eyes that made me shudder. They point out that his daydream is not sadness, but madness. I continued, in a less stern voice than before:

" The unhappy Clemenza ! I've done your message. I have visited him who is sick and in prison. You have caused suffering and terror, even a cause greater than you imagined . God willing that you will be satisfied with the report that I will make; that your perverted tenderness will agree to leave it to its destiny, will make it die alone; but it is patience that none of the eloquence I have will encourage you to practice. You must come and testify for yourself.

In speaking so, I am far from foreseeing the effect that will be produced on Welbeck's mind. I did not intend at all to instill confidence in him that Clemenza was near, and was preparing to enter his apartment; yet there was no other picture besides this, perhaps, of having awakened him from his lethargy, he said, and it evokes the attention I want to wake up to. He started to stand up, and looked at the door fearfully.

"What!" she cried. "What! Is he here? Your power, which has spread misery in my path, let me see it! But from this suffering I will save myself. When he shows up, I'll pluck out these eyes and hit him at his feet. ."

"Then I was dismissed. I'm breathing again. No; keep him out of jail. Drag him to the wheel or to the scaffold; peel him with a strip; torture him with hunger; choke his son in front of his face, and throw him into the hungry dogs that howl at the gate; but—keep him out of jail. Don't let him enter these doors." There he stopped; his eyes were fixed to the floor, and his mind was once again buried in daydreams. I continue: I continue:

"He was preoccupied with other sorrows besides those related to Welbeck's fate. He does not ignore you; he knows you are sick and imprisoned; and I have come to do for you whatever position your condition may require, and I have come on his advice. He, unfortunately! having a full job for her tears in watering her son's grave."

He started. "What! die off? You said the boy was dead?"

"He's dead. I witnessed his death. I saw her die in her mother's arms; the mother I once met under your roof bloomed and was gay, but who had been stained and withered. I saw him in the clothes of poverty.: under the roof of the damned: silent; alone; not comforted by human faces or sympathy; only approached by those who mock his distress, put up a noose for his innocence, he said, and push him into the bad. I saw her leaning against the face of her dying baby."

Welbeck put his hands on his head, and exclaimed, "Curse on your lips, messenger of hell! Sing your sad song somewhere else! Vanish away! If you don't feel in your heart red fangs with less guilty blood than yours."

Until recently the uproar in Welbeck's mind seemed to hinder him from recognizing his guests clearly. Now it seems like our last interview incident suddenly appeared in his memory.

"What! This is the criminal who robbed my cabinet, my poverty maker and all the evil it has caused! That has taken me to jail! What an idiot! You are the author of the scene you describe, and the horror of no number and no name. For whatever crimes I have urged since that interview, and the madness that made you destroy my property, they arose from your actions; they flowed from necessity, they flowed from necessity, the one you have held your hand to that decisive moment, will never exist.

"How dare you impose yourself on my privacy? Why am I not alone? To flying! and let my misery desire, at least, the aggravation of seeing the author. My eyes hate seeing you! My heart will suffocate you with itself. bitterness! Go!"

"I don't know," I answered, "why innocence should tremble at the ravings of a madman; why should he be overwhelmed by inappropriate reproach! Why does he not regret the mistakes of his enemies, work to correct those mistakes, and “Receive your fate, young man, that my hands are bound by my scorn; accept your destiny that no weapon can be reached. Much has passed since I saw you, and I am a new human being. I am no longer a coward and a coward. I have no motive other than contempt to dissuade me from atoning for the wrongs you have committed in your blood. I'd hate to take your life. Go away; and let your loyalty, at least, to the trust I have given you, be inviolable. You've hurt me enough, but if you want, more. You cannot betray the secrets stored on your chest, and deprive me of comfort because it reflects that my mistakes are known except one in between lives."