He was the Mentor who showed me the
road to freedom and to manhood; he showed me how at a blow I might shiver
the chains that held me, and shake them from me like the cobwebs that they
were. He tested me, too; tried my courage and my will; and to my undoing
was it that he found me wanting in that hour. My regrets for him went near
to giving me the resolution that I lacked. Yet even these fell short.
I would to God I had given heed to him. I would to God I had flung back my
head and told my mother--as he prompted me--that I was lord of Mondolfo,
and that Falcone must remain since I so willed it.
I strove to do so out of my love for him rather than out of any such fine
spirit as he sought to inspire in me. Had I succeeded I had established my
dominion, I had become arbiter of my fate; and how much of misery, of
anguish, and of sin might I not thereafter have been spared!
The hour was crucial, though I knew it not. I stood at a parting of ways;
yet for lack of courage I hesitated to take the road to which so invitingly
he beckoned me.
And then, before I could make any answer such as I desired, such as I
strove to make, my mother spoke again, and by her tone, which had grown
faltering and tearful--as was her wont in the old days when she ruled my
father--she riveted anew the fetters I was endeavouring with all the
strength of my poor young soul to snap.
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