I
[As this part opens, the unhappy Clara is describing her hurried
return to the same ill-fated abode at Mettingen. Hence kind
friends had borne her after the catastrophe of her brother
Wieland’s “transformation.” This was the crowning horror of all:
the morbid fanatic, prepared by gloomy anticipations of some
terrible sacrifice to be demanded in the name of religion, had
found himself goaded to blind fury, by a mysterious compelling
voice, to yield up to God the lives of his beloved wife and family;
and had done the awful deed!
Though chained in his madhouse, he persists in his delusion;
insists that it still remains for him to sacrifice his sister
Clara; and twice breaks away in wild efforts to find and destroy
her.]
I took an irregular path which led me to my own house. All was
vacant and forlorn. A small enclosure near which the path led was
the burying ground belonging to the family. This I was obliged to
pass. Once I had intended to enter it, and ponder on the emblems
and inscriptions which my uncle had caused to be made on the tombs
of Catharine and her children; but now my heart faltered as I
approached, and I hastened forward that distance might conceal it
from my view.
When I approached the recess, my heart again sunk. I averted my
eyes, and left it behind me as quickly as possible. Silence
reigned through my habitation, and a darkness which closed doors
and shutters produced. Every object was connected with mine or my
brother’s history. I passed the entry, mounted the stair, and
unlocked the door of my chamber. It was with difficulty that I
curbed my fancy and smothered my fears. Slight movements and
casual sounds were transformed into beckoning shadows and calling
shapes.
I proceeded to the closet. I opened and looked round it with
fearfulness. All things were in their accustomed order. I sought
and found the manuscript where I was used to deposit it. This
being secured, there was nothing to detain me; yet I stood and
contemplated awhile the furniture and walls of my chamber. I
remembered how long this apartment had been a sweet and tranquil
asylum; I compared its former state with its present dreariness,
and reflected that I now beheld it for the last time.
Here it was that the incomprehensible behavior of Carwin was
witnessed; this the stage on which that enemy of man showed himself
for a moment unmasked. Here the menaces of murder were wafted to
my ear; and here these menaces were executed.
These thoughts had a tendency to take from me my self-command. My
feeble limbs refused to support me, and I sunk upon a chair.
Incoherent and half-articulate exclamations escaped my lips. The
name of Carwin was uttered and eternal woes—woes like that which
his malice had entailed upon us—were heaped upon him. I invoked
all-seeing heaven to drag to light and punish this betrayer, and
accused its providence for having thus long delayed the retribution
that was due to so enormous a guilt.
I have said that the window shutters were closed. A feeble light,
however, found entrance through the crevices. A small window
illuminated the closet, and, the door being closed, a dim ray
streamed through the keyhole. A kind of twilight was thus created,
sufficient for the purposes of vision, but, at the same time,
involving all minuter objects in obscurity.
This darkness suited the color of my thoughts. I sickened at the
remembrance of the past. The prospect of the future excited my
loathing. I muttered, in a low voice, “Why should I live longer?
Why should I drag a miserable being? All for whom I ought to live
have perished. Am I not myself hunted to death?”
At that moment my despair suddenly became vigorous. My nerves were
no longer unstrung. My powers, that had long been deadened, were
revived. My bosom swelled with a sudden energy, and the conviction
darted through my mind, that to end my torments was, at once,
practicable and wise.
I knew how to find way to the recesses of life. I could use a
lancet with some skill, and could distinguish between vein and
artery. By piercing deep into the latter, I should shun the evils
which the future had in store for me, and take refuge from my woes
in quiet death.
I started on my feet, for my feebleness was gone, and hasted to the
closet. A lancet and other small instruments were preserved in a
case which I had deposited here. Inattentive as I was to foreign
considerations, my ears were still open to any sound of mysterious
import that should occur. I thought I heard a step in the entry.
My purpose was suspended, and I cast an eager glance at my chamber
door, which was open. No one appeared, unless the shadow which I
discerned upon the floor was the outline of a man. If it were, I
was authorized to suspect that some one was posted close to the
entrance, who possibly had overheard my exclamations.
My teeth chattered, and a wild confusion took the place of my
momentary calm. Thus it was when a terrific visage had disclosed
itself on a former night. Thus it was when the evil destiny of
Wieland assumed the lineaments of something human. What horrid
apparition was preparing to blast my sight?
Still I listened and gazed. Not long, for the shadow moved; a
foot, unshapely and huge, was thrust forward; a form advanced from
its concealment, and stalked into the room. It was Carwin!
While I had breath, I shrieked. While I had power over my muscles,
I motioned with my hand that he should vanish. My exertions could
not last long: I sunk into a fit.
Oh that this grateful oblivion had lasted forever! Too quickly I
recovered my senses. The power of distinct vision was no sooner
restored to me, than this hateful form again presented itself, and
I once more relapsed.
A second time, untoward nature recalled me from the sleep of death.
I found myself stretched upon the bed. When I had power to look
up, I remembered only that I had cause to fear. My distempered
fancy fashioned to itself no distinguishable image. I threw a
languid glance round me: once more my eyes lighted upon Carwin.
He was seated on the floor, his back rested against the wall; his
knees were drawn up, and his face was buried in his hands. That
his station was at some distance, that his attitude was not
menacing, that his ominous visage was concealed, may account for my
now escaping a shock violent as those which were past. I withdrew
my eyes, but was not again deserted by my senses.
On perceiving that I had recovered my sensibility, he lifted his
head. This motion attracted my attention. His countenance was
mild, but sorrow and astonishment sat upon his features. I averted
my eyes and feebly exclaimed, “Oh, fly!—fly far and forever!—I
cannot behold you and live!”
He did not rise upon his feet, but clasped his hands, and said, in
a tone of deprecation, “I will fly. I am become a fiend, the sight
of whom destroys. Yet tell me my offense! You have linked curses
with my name; you ascribe to me a malice monstrous and infernal. I
look around: all is loneliness and desert! This house and your
brother’s are solitary and dismantled! You die away at the sight
of me! My fear whispers that some deed of horror has been
perpetrated; that I am the undesigning cause.”
What language was this? Had he not avowed himself a ravisher? Had
not this chamber witnessed his atrocious purposes? I besought him
with new vehemence to go.
He lifted his eyes:—“Great heaven! what have I done? I think I
know the extent of my offenses. I have acted, but my actions have
possibly effected more than I designed. This fear has brought me
back from my retreat. I come to repair the evil of which my
rashness was the cause, and to prevent more evil. I come to
confess my errors.”
“Wretch!” I cried, when my suffocating emotions would permit me to
speak, “the ghosts of my sister and her children,—do they not rise
to accuse thee? Who was it that blasted the intellect of Wieland?
Who was it that urged him to fury and guided him to murder? Who,
but thou and the devil, with whom thou art confederated?”
At these words a new spirit pervaded his countenance. His eyes
once more appealed to heaven. “If I have memory—if I have being—
I am innocent. I intended no ill; but my folly, indirectly and
remotely, may have caused it. But what words are these? Your
brother lunatic! His children dead!”
What should I infer from this deportment? Was the ignorance which
these words implied real or pretended? Yet how could I imagine a
mere human agency in these events? But, if the influence was
preternatural or maniacal in my brother’s case, they must be
equally so in my own. Then I remembered that the voice exerted was
to save me from Carwin’s attempts. These ideas tended to abate my
abhorrence of this man, and to detect the absurdity of my
accusations.
“Alas!” said I, “I have no one to accuse. Leave me to my fate.
Fly from a scene stained with cruelty, devoted to despair.”
Carwin stood for a time musing and mournful. At length he said,
“What has happened? I came to expiate my crimes: let me know them
in their full extent. I have horrible forebodings! What has
happened?”
I was silent; but, recollecting the intimation given by this man
when he was detected in my closet, which implied some knowledge of
that power which interfered in my favor, I eagerly inquired, “What
was that voice which called upon me to hold when I attempted to
open the closet? What face was that which I saw at the bottom of
the stairs? Answer me truly.”
“I came to confess the truth. Your allusions are horrible and
strange. Perhaps I have but faint conceptions of the evils which
my infatuation has produced; but what remains I will perform. It
was MY VOICE that you heard! It was MY FACE that you saw!”
For a moment I doubted whether my remembrance of events were not
confused. How could he be at once stationed at my shoulder and
shut up in my closet? How could he stand near me and yet be
invisible? But if Carwin’s were the thrilling voice and the fiery
image which I had heard and seen, then was he the prompter of my
brother, and the author of these dismal outrages.
Once more I averted my eyes and struggled for speech:—“Begone!
thou man of mischief! Remorseless and implacable miscreant,
begone!”
“I will obey,” said he, in a disconsolate voice; “yet, wretch as I
am, am I unworthy to repair the evils that I have committed? I
came as a repentant criminal. It is you whom I have injured, and
at your bar am I willing to appear and confess and expiate my
crimes. I have deceived you; I have sported with your terrors; I
have plotted to destroy your reputation. I come now to remove your
terrors; to set you beyond the reach of similar fears; to rebuild
your fame as far as I am able.
“This is the amount of my guilt, and this the fruit of my remorse.
Will you not hear me? Listen to my confession, and then denounce
punishment. All I ask is a patient audience.”
“What!” I replied; “was not thine the voice that commanded my
brother to imbrue his hands in the blood of his children?—to
strangle that angel of sweetness, his wife? Has he not vowed my
death, and the death of Pleyel, at thy bidding? Hast thou not made
him the butcher of his family?—changed him who was the glory of
his species into worse than brute?—robbed him of reason and
consigned the rest of his days to fetters and stripes?”
Carwin’s eyes glared and his limbs were petrified at this
intelligence. No words were requisite to prove him guiltless of
these enormities: at the time, however, I was nearly insensible to
these exculpatory tokens. He walked to the farther end of the
room, and, having recovered some degree of composure, he spoke:—
“I am not this villain. I have slain no one; I have prompted none
to slay; I have handled a tool of wonderful efficacy without
malignant intentions, but without caution. Ample will be the
punishment of my temerity, if my conduct has contributed to this
evil.” He paused.
I likewise was silent. I struggled to command myself so far as to
listen to the tale which he should tell. Observing this, he
continued:—
“You are not apprised of the existence of a power which I possess.
I know not by what name to call it.[1] It enables me to mimic
exactly the voice of another, and to modify the sound so that it
shall appear to come from what quarter and be uttered at what
distance I please.
“I know not that everyone possesses this power. Perhaps, though a
casual position of my organs in my youth showed me that I possessed
it, it is an art which may be taught to all. Would to God I had
died unknowing of the secret! It has produced nothing but
degradation and calamity.”
[1] Biloquium, or ventrilocution. Sound is varied according to the
variations of direction and distance. The art of the ventriloquist
consists in modifying his voice according to all these variations,
without changing his place. See the work of the Abbe de la
Chappelle, in which are accurately recorded the performances of one
of these artists, and some ingenious though unsatisfactory
speculations are given on the means by which the effects are
produced. This power is, perhaps, given by nature, but is
doubtless improvable, if not acquirable, by art. It may, possibly,
consist in an unusual flexibility or extension of the bottom of the
tongue and the uvula. That speech is producible by these alone
must be granted, since anatomists mention two instances of persons
speaking without a tongue. In one case the organ was originally
wanting, but its place was supplied by a small tubercle, and the
uvula was perfect. In the other the tongue was destroyed by
disease, but probably a small part of it remained.
This power is difficult to explain, but the fact is undeniable.
Experience shows that the human voice can imitate the voice of all
men and of all inferior animals. The sound of musical instruments,
and even noises from the contact of inanimate substances, have been
accurately imitated. The mimicry of animals is notorious; and Dr.
Burney (“Musical Travels”) mentions one who imitated a flute and
violin, so as to deceive even his ears.