A ROMANCE IN NEAPOLITAN LIFE.

Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 28, 24 January 1877, Page 3

A ROMANCE IN NEAPOLITAN LIFE.

- ■ ■■», " ;, The ■•'• Daily News V correspondent m Rome writes :— - A few words , of prologue before the curtain rises. Miss Vernieri, still m her teens, has lost her father, and lives with her mother m Salerno. She is beautiful, clever, and accomplished, and [ inherits 120,000 ducats, or about half a million lire. Her mother is completely under the power of the family physician, Dr Cosimati, who poses as protector of the widow and orphan. Eligible offers of marriage are made to Miss Vernieri, but are skilfully staved off by the doctor and his dupe the mother, their object being to enjoy the administration of the young lady's means, of which the mother was simply the depositary, and of which the prospective son-in-law would become absolute master. At length Miss Vernieri attains her majority, and her guardians anticipate her intentions of matrimony by proposing to her as her fiance her first cousin. This young gentleman resided m Naples, and thither the mother, the daughter, and family doctor repaired to arrange the nuptials. The youth.,, however, found no favour m the eyes of •Miss Vernieri, who, on the contrary, became desperately enamoured of a young advocate whom she met under the roof of an aunt m Naples. Her passion was returned, but the inamorato had every qualification for her hand but wordly estate, and knowing the mercenary views of her guardians she did not venture to speak to them of her love. She resisted, however, a outrance, all endeavours to make her marry her cousin ; and so with her mother and the doctor, whom she had successfully foiled, she returned to Salerno. Now begins the story. The favoured suitor has left Naples and followed Miss Veruiei'i to Salerno, where he takes apartments facing her palazzo. Notes are exchanged ; but the doctor's vigilance is too keen for Cupid's blockade runners. He and the mother opposed the contemplated match furiously, with the result of making the youug lady more resolute for it than ever. Open war, evidently, will not answer their end, so doctor and mother together change their tactics. One morning Madame Vernieri said to her daughter, " Are you really determined to marry him ! " " Yes." " Then, as I can't bear to see you unhappy, I give my consent." The young lady fell on her mother's neck, and wept with joy, till, gently disengaging herself, Madame Vernieri said, " Now, as your lover and his family live at Naples it is better that we should go there to fix the day of marriage, and get your trousseau ready." They started accordingly, and took apartments at the Hotel Mori, near the Fiortini theatre, intending to take a house m the country for the ensuing summer, the marriage having been arranged for the end of autumn. They had been but two days m the hotel when Dr Cosimati came m with a Signor Miraglia, whom he represented as a cousin of his, and as desirous of forming Miss Vernieri's acquaintance. The visit seemed one of pure courtesy. The young lady chatted pleasantly enough on current topics with the comer till he took his leave, and she thought no more about him. Forty-eight hours after the doctor proposed a drive into the country, at which the ladies were delighted, and all three were soon m a carriage bowling along the Via del Campo. Miss Vernieri, asked many questions as to the palazzi and villas they passed till they approached a grand edifice whose magnificent site awoke her admiration. Whose was it? The doctor, as if suddenly struck by an idea, ordered the driver to stop. "Here," he said "is precisely what you want, a country residence till the close of November. This palace is divided into suites of appartments. Come m and let us see how you like them." They alighted and entered, and the doctor asked for Madame Flourens. An iron gate was then opened, admitting to a courtyard, from which they mounted two flights of stairs, and then they were politely received by that lady. Dr. Cosimati then intimated that Miss Vernieri wished to take apartments for the summer m the palazzo, and would like to be shown through the various suites. Madame Flourens was only too delighted, and offered her arm to the young lady, who mechanically took, it, when the mother said languidly, " You can go alone, my dear, and make your choice, which is sure to satisfy me. I am tired, and will wait here with the doctor till you come back." Madame Flourens and Miss Vernieri then moved off, and the moment the door closed behind them the mother and doctor slipped stealthily through a private passage, gained the staircase, and were soon m the courtyard. Meanwhile Miss Vernieri was making the tour of the apartments, when, to her surprise, she saw across the corridor a young woman m an adjoining room standing half undressed, with her hair all down, and gesticulating and jabbering violently, "What on earth is that P. How came that girl here ?" " Ah ! never mind her," replied Madame Flonrens, " she is out of her mmd — she has got .brain disease." Miss Vernieri, struck with a strange misgiving, felt a sinking at the heart, but walked on m moody silence. At the end of the corridor they went into a hall where quite a crowd of women appeared, some shouting, some laughing, some gesticulating, some chasing imaginary butterflies, others rocking suppositious cradles, or caressing visionary sweethearts, or scolding Husbands equally visionary. It was an asylum, and that was the morning-room of nonviolent female lunatics. Then the terrible reality flashed upon her. Disen-

gaging her arm from Madame FlouivjV she rushed back through the. .corridor, crying " Mamma ! Mamma !" But m vain. She then made for the window, and seeing through the bars her mother and the doctor just leaving the courtyard, she screamed with the most appalling of voices, " Mamma, don't leave me m this dreadful place. Don't go away. lam not mad. Come back and take me out. If I remain here I shall turn mad indeed ! lam your daughter!" The mother was m the act of mounting the carriage when she heard her daughter's entreaties, and saw her terrorstricken face, and she was about to turn back; but Dr Cosimati seized her by the arm, pushed her roughly into the carriage, s.aying, " It is an affair of five minutes ; all will then be over," and ordered the coachman to drive off at the gallop. At that moment Miss Vernieri, crying, weeping, and gesticulating, was dragged from the window and consigned to the care of some ablebodied attendants/. The first paroxysms of mingled terror, grief, and indignation over Miss Vernieri became composed, and began to consider how she could extricate herself from the prison to which she had been diabolically consigned. She requested to see Madame Flourens, the lady superintendent, and opened the conversation by asking how she could have consented to become an instrument m such a base conspiracy. The lady smiled sadly. " Figlia mia ! were Ito believe all those who say they have been brought here as the victims of a conspiracy, I should have few patients on my hands." "But," remonstrated Miss Vernieri, " what legal proof have you that I am a fit subject for an asylum?" "The doctor who came here with you," replied Madame Flourens, " applied to me for the admission of a patient." I told him he must first have a certificate of the patient's madness, signed by the director of the establishment, who is the first alienist m Naples, Dr Miraglia. "Ah!" broke m Miss Vernieri, to whom this name was a revelati n, "the perfidious plotters ! That cousin of his whom Dr Cosimati presented to me was Dr Miraglia, then ! But how could the doctor certify my lunacy? I talk rationally envjugh. Oh, the monster !" " Figlia mia I behold my justification," and Madame Flourens produced the certificate of the alienist, Dr Miraglia, the director of the asylum m question, and of another not less famous, declaring that Miss Vernieri was non compos mentis. "When," asked the young lady, "does he pay his next visit?" "To-morrow." "Then tell him I must see him urgently." "Va bene," said Madame Flourens. The morrow came, and with it Dr Miraglia, who stood the indignant invectives of Miss Vernieri with professional equanimity, and abruptly terminated the interview with the words, " Go, go, and get cured ! You are mad." The young lady's spirit, however, was not broken even by this rebuff, and again she returned to the task of devising her extrication from the Flourens Asylum. Vigilantly watched, she yet succeeded m getting a letter conveyed to her lover, who, it may well be supposed, was m -the greatest distress athersudden and unaccountable disappearance. From the letter he quickly understood all, and able lawyer as he was, he went straight to work to rescue Miss Vernieri, and bring her persecutors to justice. He got the procurator of the fcng to send forthwith to the asylum an instructing judge (giudice instruttorc) and a notary. These gentlemen obtained immediate access to the young lady, and examined her with the most painstaking minuteness, putting questions of every kind, laying traps for her, and taking down her answers. She came out of the ordeal triumphantly, and the result was the immediate order from the Procuratore del R6 for her release, while criminal proceedings were at once taken against Dr Cosimati, the widow Vernieri, and Dr Miraglia. No sooner set at liberty than Miss Vernieri fled to the aunt at whose house she met her fiance". Their marriage took place immediately, and constancy had its reward. Meanwhile, the conspirators, whose object it had been to prevent (he marriage, and to invalidate Miss Vernieri's right to the control of her fortune by making her out mad, were put upon their trial at Salerno. They had already taken legal steps to complete their nefarious design, when the youug lady's release upset everything, and turned them from appellants into defendants. The section of accusation (as the Italian phrase goes) acquitted the mother as the dupe of Cosimati. Miraglia was admitted to have acted with bona fides, and he too was declared guiltless before the law, while the doctor was fully convicted. The Public Minister demanded, as his sentence, three years' imprisonment — a year for each day during which his victim was immured m the asylum, and that sentence was pronounced by the judges. Dr Cosimati appealed, and the term of imprisonment was reduced to one year. Not content with this remission of the sentence, the doctor — always, be ifc remarked, enjoying provisional liberty, that is, not imprisoned at all — applied to the Court of Cassation ; but his plea was rejected. Then he solicited the King's mercy, but Signor Vigliani, late Minister of Justice, refused him that also. The 18th March came, and with it the Left to power. The appeal to the King's mercy was renewed, and his Majesty was advised to grant it. Sentence was commuted to internement m a prescribed locality from May to November—six months, as Fanfulla puts i it, of villeggiatwa. So much for Italian ' justice.