Vendetta: a story of one forgotten
Corelli, Marie, 1855-1924
English
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VENDETTA
A STORY OF ONE FORGOTTEN
By MARIE CORELLI
Author of "ARDATH," "THELMA," "A ROMANCE OF TWO WORLDS," "WORMWOOD,"
etc., etc.
PREFACE
Lest those who read the following pages should deem this story at
all improbable, it is perhaps necessary to say that its chief
incidents are founded on an actual occurrence which took place in
Naples during the last scathing visitation of the cholera in 1884.
We know well enough, by the chronicle of daily journalism, that the
infidelity of wives is, most unhappily, becoming common--far too
common for the peace and good repute of society. Not so common is an
outraged husband's vengeance--not often dare he take the law into
his own hands--for in England, at least, such boldness on his part
would doubtless be deemed a worse crime than that by which he
personally is doomed to suffer. But in Italy things are on a
different footing--the verbosity and red-tape of the law, and the
hesitating verdict of special juries, are not there considered
sufficiently efficacious to sooths a man's damaged honor and ruined
name. And thus--whether right or wrong--it often happens that
strange and awful deeds are perpetrated--deeds of which the world in
general hears nothing, and which, when brought to light at last, are
received with surprise and incredulity. Yet the romances planned by
the brain of the novelist or dramatist are poor in comparison with
the romances of real life-life wrongly termed commonplace, but
which, in fact, teems with tragedies as great and dark and soul-
torturing as any devised by Sophocles or Shakespeare. Nothing is
more strange than truth--nothing, at times, more terrible!
MARIE CORELLI.
August, 1886.
VENDETTA!
CHAPTER I.
I, who write this, am a dead man. Dead legally--dead by absolute
proofs--dead and buried! Ask for me in my native city and they will
tell you I was one of the victims of the cholera that ravaged Naples
in 1884, and that my mortal remains lie moldering in the funeral
vault of my ancestors. Yet--I live! I feel the warm blood coursing
through my veins--the blood of thirty summers--the prime of early
manhood invigorates me, and makes these eyes of mine keen and
bright--these muscles strong as iron--this hand powerful of grip--
this well-knit form erect and proud of bearing. Yes!--I am alive,
though declared to be dead; alive in the fullness of manly force--
and even sorrow has left few distinguishing marks upon me, save one.
My hair, once ebony-black, is white as a wreath of Alpine snow,
though its clustering curls are thick as ever.
"A constitutional inheritance?" asks one physician, observing my
frosted locks.
"A sudden shock?" suggests another.
"Exposure to intense heat?" hints a third.
I answer none of them. I did so once. I told my story to a man I met
by chance--one renowned for medical skill and kindliness. He heard
me to the end in evident incredulity and alarm, and hinted at the
possibility of madness. Since then I have never spoken.
But now I write. I am far from all persecution--I can set down the
truth fearlessly. I can dip the pen in my own blood if I choose, and
none shall gainsay me! For the green silence of a vast South
American forest encompasses me--the grand and stately silence of a
virginal nature, almost unbroken by the ruthless step of man's
civilization--a haven of perfect calm, delicately disturbed by the
fluttering wings and soft voices of birds, and the gentle or stormy
murmur of the freeborn winds of heaven. Within this charmed circle
of rest I dwell--here I lift up my overburdened heart like a
brimming chalice, and empty it on the ground, to the last drop of
gall contained therein. The world shall know my history.
Dead, and yet living! How can that be?--you ask. Ah, my friends! If
you seek to be rid of your dead relations for a certainty, you
should have their bodies cremated. Otherwise there is no knowing
what may happen! Cremation is the best way--the only way. It is
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