Tales and Stories: Now First CollectedShelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
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Tales and Stories: Now First Collected
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft
English fiction -- 19th century; Short stories, English
For three days and nights there had been warfare in the streets of
Siena,—blood flowed in torrents,—yet the cries and groans of the fallen
but excited their friends to avenge them—not their foes to spare. On the
fourth morning, Ugo Mancini, with a scanty band of followers, was driven
from the town; succours from Florence had arrived for his enemies, and
he was forced to yield. Burning with rage, writhing with an impotent
thirst for vengeance, Ugo went round to the neighbouring villages to
rouse them, not against his native town, but the victorious Tolomei.
Unsuccessful in these endeavours, he next took the more equivocal step
of seeking warlike aid from the Pisans. But Florence kept Pisa in check,
and Ugo found only an inglorious refuge where he had hoped to acquire
active allies. He had been wounded in these struggles; but, animated by
a superhuman spirit, he had forgotten his pain and surmounted his
weakness; nor was it until a cold refusal was returned to his energetic
representations, that he sank beneath his physical sufferings. He was
stretched on a bed of torture when he received intelligence that an
edict of perpetual banishment and confiscation of property was passed
against him. His two children, beggars now, were sent to him. His wife
was dead, and these were all of near relations that he possessed. His
bitter feelings were still too paramount for him to receive comfort from
their presence; yet these agitated and burning emotions appeared in
after-times a remnant of happiness compared to the total loss of every
hope—the wasting inaction of sickness and of poverty.
For five years Ugo Mancini lay stretched on his couch, alternating
between states of intense pain and overpowering weakness; and then he
died. During this interval, the wreck of his fortunes, consisting of the
rent of a small farm, and the use of some money lent, scantily supported
him. His few relatives and followers were obliged to seek their
subsistence elsewhere, and he remained alone to his pain, and to his two
children, who yet clung to the paternal side.
Hatred to his foes, and love for his native town, were the sentiments
that possessed his soul, and which he imparted in their full force to
the plastic mind of his son, which received like molten metal the stamp
he desired to impress. Lorenzo was scarcely twelve years old at the
period of his father’s exile, and he naturally turned with fondness
towards the spot where he had enjoyed every happiness, where each hour
had been spent in light-hearted hilarity, and the kindness and
observance of many attended on his steps. Now, how sad the contrast!—dim
penury—a solitude cheered by no encouraging smiles or sunny
flatteries—perpetual attendance on his father, and untimely cares, cast
their dark shadows over his altered lot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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