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n the novel itself we wander, bewildered, baffled and distracted through labyrinthine mazes. No Ariadne awaits on the threshold with the magic ball of twine to guide us through the complicated windings. We stumble along blind alleys desperately retracing our weary steps, and, after stumbling alone and unaided to the very end, reach the darkly concealed clue when it has ceased to be either of use or of interest to us. Many an adventurer must have lain down, dispirited and exhausted, without ever reaching his distant and elusive goal. Disentangled and simplified almost beyond recognition, the story runs thus: In 1670, Count Orazio and his younger brother are the sole representatives of the family of Montorio. Orazio has married Erminia di Vivaldi, whom he loves devotedly. She does not return his love. The younger brother determines to take advantage of this circumstance to gain the title and estates for himself, and succeeds in arousing Orazio's jealousy against a young officer, Verdoni, to whom Erminia had formerly been deeply attached. In a violent passion Orazio slays Verdoni before the eyes of Erminia, who falls dead at his feet. This part of his design accomplished, the younger brother plots to murder Orazio himself, who, however, discovers the innocence of his wife and the hideous perfidy of his brother. Temporarily bereft of reason, Orazio sojourns alone on a desert island. When his senses are restored, he resolves to devote the rest of his life to vengeance. For fifteen years he buries himself in occult studies, and when his diabolical schemes have matured, returns, disguised as the monk Schemoli, to the scene of the murder. He becomes confessor to his brother, who has assumed the title and estates. It is his intention to compel the Count's sons, Annibal and Ippolito, to murder their father. Death at the hands of parricides seems to him the only appropriate catastrophe for the Count's career of infamy. To reconcile the two victims--Annibal and Ippolito--to their task, he "relies mainly on the doctrine of fatalism." The most complex and ingenious "machinery" is used to work upon their superstitious feelings. No device is too tortuous if it aid his purpose. Even the pressure of the Inquisition is brought to bear on one of the brothers. Each, after protracted agony, submits to his destiny, and the swords of the two brothers meet in the Count's body. When the murder is safely accomplished, it is proved that Annibal a
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