"Polidori_The Vampyre" - читать интересную книгу автора (Polidori John William)

apparent motives to his conduct. His companion was profuse in his
liberality; -- the idle, the vagabond, and the beggar, received from his
hand more than enough to relieve their immediate wants. But Aubrey could not
avoid remarking, that it was not upon the virtuous, reduced to indigence by
the misfortunes attendant even upon virtue, that he bestowed his alms; --
these were sent from the door with hardly suppressed sneers; but when the
profligate came to ask something, not to relieve his wants, but to allow him
to wallow in his lust, to sink him still deeper in his iniquity, he was sent
away with rich charity. This was, however, attributed by him to the greater
importunity of the vicious, which generally prevails over the retiring
bashfulness of the virtuous indigent. There was one circumstance about the
charity of his Lordship, which was still more impressed upon his mind: all
those upon whom it was bestowed, inevitably found that there was a curse
upon it, for they were all either led to the scaffold, or sunk to the lowest
and the most abject misery. At Brussels and other towns through which they
passed, Aubrey was surprised at the apparent eagerness with which his
companion sought for the centres of all fashionable vice; there he entered
into all the spirit of the faro table: he betted and always gambled with
success, except where the known sharper was his antagonist, and then he lost
even more than he gained; but it was always with the same unchanging face,
with which he generally watched the society around: it was not, however, so
when he encountered the rash youthful novice, or the luckless father of a
numerous family; then his very wish seemed fortune's law -- this apparent
abstractedness of mind was laid aside, and his eyes sparkled with more fire
than that of the cat whilst dallying with the half-dead mouse. In every
town, he left the formerly affluent youth, torn from the circle he adorned,
cursing, in the solitude of a dungeon, the fate that had drawn him within
the reach of this fiend; whilst many a father sat frantic, amidst the
speaking looks of mute hungry children, without a single farthing of his
late immense wealth, wherewith to buy even sufficient to satisfy their
present craving. Yet he took no money from the gambling table; but
immediately lost, to the ruiner of many, the last gilder he had just
snatched from the convulsive grasp of the innocent: this might but be the
result of a certain degree of knowledge, which was not, however, capable of
combating the cunning of the more experienced. Aubrey often wished to
represent this to his friend, and beg him to resign that charity and
pleasure which proved the ruin of all, and did not tend to his own profit;
but he delayed it -- for each day he hoped his friend would give him some
opportunity of speaking frankly and openly to him; however, this never
occurred. Lord Ruthven in his carriage, and amidst the various wild and rich
scenes of nature, was always the same: his eye spoke less than his lip; and
though Aubrey was near the object of his curiosity, he obtained no greater
gratification from it than the constant excitement of vainly wishing to
break that mystery, which to his exalted imagination began to assume the
appearance of something supernatural.

They soon arrived at Rome, and Aubrey for a time lost sight of his
companion; he left him in daily attendance upon the morning circle of an
Italian countess, whilst he went in search of the memorials of another
almost deserted city. Whilst he was thus engaged, letters arrived from