THE ITALIAN
A. RADCLIFFE
There lived in the Dominican convent
of the Spirito Santo, at Naples, a man called father Schedoni; an Italian, as
his name imported, but whose family was unknown, and from some circumstances,
it appeared that he wished to throw an impenetrable veil over its origin. For
whatever reason he was never heard to mention a relative, or the place of his
nativity, and he had artfully eluded every enquiry that approached the subject,
which the curiosity of his associates had occasionally prompted. There were,
however circumstances which appeared to indicate him to be a man of birth, and
of fallen fortune; his spirit, so it had sometimes looked forth from under the
disguise of his manners, seemed lofty: it sewed not, however, the aspiring of a
generous mind, but rather the gloomy pride of a disappointed one.
Among his associates no one loved him,
many dislike him, and more feared him. His ure was striking, but not so from
grace; he was tall, and though extremely thin, his limbs were large and
uncouth, and as he stalked along, wrapt in the black garments of his order,
there was something terrible in his air, something super-human. His cowl too,
as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face, it increased his
severe character, and gave an effect to his large melancholy eye, which
approached to horror. His was not the melancholy of a sensible and wounded
heart, but apparently that of a gloomy and ferocious disposition.
There was something in his physiognomy
extremely singular, and that can easily
be defined. It bored the traces of many passions, which seemed to have fixed
the features they no longer animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevail
over the deep lines of his countenance; and his eyes were so piercing that they
seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men, and to read
their most secret thoughts, few persons could support their scrutiny, or even
endure to meet them twice
