At first Consuelo, having passed from a room where a hundred torches
burned, to a room lighted by a solitary lamp, saw nothing but a kind of
mystic light around her, which her eyes could not penetrate. Gradually,
however, they became used to darkness; and as she perceived nothing
between her and the walls of a room of an octagonal form, like the one
she left, she ventured to examine the characters on the wall. This was a
solitary and long inscription, arranged in many circular lines around
the room, which had no outlet. As she saw this, Consuelo asked herself,
not how she could get out of the room, but for what purpose it could
have been made. Thoughts of evil which she endeavored to repress,
obtruded themselves upon her mind, and they were confirmed by the
inscriptions she read, as lamp in hand she slowly walked around the
room.
"Look at the beauty of these walls, cut in the rock, twenty-four feet
thick, and which have stood for a thousand years uninjured by war, or
the efforts of time. This model of architectural masonry was built by
the hand of slaves, doubtless to contain the treasures of some mighty
lord. Yes, to bury in the depths of the rock, in the bowels of the
earth, the treasures of hatred and vengeance. Here twenty generations of
men have suffered, wept and blasphemed. Some were innocent--some were
heroic--all were victims or martyrs: prisoners of war--serfs who had
revolted, or who were too much crushed by taxes to be able to pay
more--religious innovators, sublime heretics, unfortunate men, conquered
warriors, fanatics, saints, and criminals--men educated in the ferocity
of camps to rapine and war, who had in return been subjected to horrible
reprisals--such are the catacombs of feudality and military or religious
despotism. Such are the abodes that the powerful made for their victims,
to stifle their cries, and conceal their existence from the light of
day. Here there is no air to breathe, no ray of light, no stone to rest
the head--nothing but an iron ring fastened in the wall to hold the
chain, and keep them from selecting their resting-place on the damp and
icy floor. Here air, light and food are at the disposal of the guards
posted in the upper room, where they pleased to open the door for a
moment and throw in a morsel of bread to hundreds of victims chained and
heaped together on the day after a battle. Often they wounded or
murdered each other, and often, yet more horrible, one alone remained,
stifled in suffering and despair, amid the loathsome carcases of his
companions, and sometimes attacked by the worms before death, and
sinking in putrefaction before life had become extinct. Behold! O
neophyte, the source of human grandeur, which you perhaps have looked on
with envy and admiration. Crushed skulls, human bones, dried and
withered tears, blood-spots, are the translations of the coats of arms,
if you have such bequeathed you by nobility. This is what should be
quartered on the escutcheons of the princes you have served, or aspire
to serve, if you be a man of the people. Yes, this is the foundation of
noble titles, of the hereditary glory and riches of the world. Thus has
been built up a caste, which all other classes of men yet venerate and
preserve. Thus have men contrived to elevate themselves from father to
son above their fellows."
Having passed thrice around the room, and read this inscription,
Consuelo, filled with grief and terror, placed the lamp on the floor, to
rest herself. The lonely place was as silent as the grave, and terrible
thoughts arose in her mind. Her eager fancy evoked dark visions. She
thought she saw livid shadows, covered with hideous wounds, flitting
around the hall, and crawling on the floor beside her. She thought she
heard their painful sighs, and the rattling of their chains. She evolved
the past in her mind, as she had imagined it in the middle ages, and as
it continued during the religious wars. She fancied she heard, in the
guard-room above, the heavy tread of iron-shod men, the rattling of
their pikes, their coarse laughter, their mad songs, their threats and
oaths when the victims complaints reached them and interrupted their
terrible sleep; for those jailors had slept over their prison, over that
unhealthy abyss, whence the miasmata of the tombs, and of hell, were
exhaled.
Pale, her eyes staring, her hair erect with terror, Consuelo saw and
heard nothing. When she had recalled her own existence, and strove to
shake off the chill which had seized her, she saw that a stone had been
removed, and that another passage was opened for her. She approached,
and saw a narrow and stiff stairway, which she descended with great
difficulty, and which ended in another cavern, darker and smaller than
the first. When she touched the floor, which was soft, and yielded under
her feet, Consuelo put down her lamp, to see if she did not sink in mud.
She saw naught hut a fine dust, smaller than the finest sand, containing
here and there a broken rib, a piece of a thigh bone, fragments of a
skull, a jaw, with teeth yet solid and white, exhibiting youth and power
crushed by a violent death. A few skeletons, almost entire, had been
taken from the dust, and were placed against the wall. One had been
perfectly preserved, and was chained around the waist, as if the
prisoner had been condemned to die without being able to lie down. The
body, instead of inclining forward, was stiffened and drawn back, with
an expression of utter disdain. The ligaments of the body and limbs were
ossified. The head was thrown back, and seemed to look at the roof; the
teeth, contracted by a last effort, smiled terribly with some outbreak
of fanaticism. Above the body the name and story of the prisoner were
written, in large red letters, on the wall. He was an obscure martyr of
religious persecution, and the last victim immolated in this place. At
his feet knelt a skeleton; the head, detached from the vertebræ, lay on
the pavement, but the stiffened arms yet embraced the knees of the
martyr: this was his wife. The inscription bore, among other details,
the following--
"N----died here with his wife, his three brothers, and his two children,
because they would not renounce Lutheranism, and maintained, even amid
tortures, a denial of the infallibility of the pope. He died erect,
without being able to see his family suffering at his feet, on the ashes
of his friends and fathers."
Opposite this inscription was thus written--
"Neophyte, the light earth on which you tread is twenty feet deep. It is
neither sand nor clay, but the ashes of man. This was the ossuary of the
castle. Here were thrown those who died in the grave above, when there
was no room. It is all that remains of twenty generations of victims.
Blessed and rare are the nobles who can reckon among their ancestors
twenty generations of murderers and executioners!"
Consuelo was less terrified at these funereal ensignia than she had been
in the jail at the phantoms of her own mind; there is something so grave
and solemn in the very appearance of death, though the weakness of fear
and the lacerations of pity obscure the enthusiasm and serenity of
strong and believing souls. In the presence of these relics, the noble
adept of Albert's religion felt respect and charity rather than terror
and consternation. She knelt before the martyr's remains, and feeling
her moral strength failing, cried, as she kissed the lacerated hand,
"Oh, it is not the august spectacle of a glorious destruction which
fills us with horror and pity, but the idea of life disputing with the
torments of agony. It is the thought of what passes in these broken
hearts that fills the souls of those who live with bitterness and
terror. You, unfortunate victim, dead, and with your head turned to
heaven, are not to be feared, for you have not failed. Your heart has
exhaled itself in a transport which fills me with exultation."
Consuelo rose slowly, and with a degree of calmness unloosed the veil
which covered the dead bones by her side. A narrow and low door opened
before her. She took her lamp, and forbearing to look back, entered a
corridor which descended rapidly. On her right and left she saw cells,
the appearance of which was entirely sepulchral. These dungeons were too
low for one to stand erect, and scarcely long enough for a person to
sleep in them. They appeared the work of Cyclops, so massive and so
strong was their masonry. They seemed to be intended for dens of wild
and savage animals. Consuelo, however, would not be deceived. She had
seen the arenæ veronia; she was aware that the tigers and bears kept
for the amusements of the circus, for the combats of the gladiators,
were a thousand times better furnished. Besides she read over the iron
gates that these impenetrable dungeons were appropriated to conquered
princes, to brave captains, to the prisoners who were most important
from rank and intelligence. Care to prevent their escape exhibited the
love and respect with which they had inspired their partisans. There had
been stifled the voices of the lions whose roaring had filled the world
with terror.
Their power and will had been crushed against an angle in the wall.
Their herculian breasts had been burst in aspirations for air at an
imperceptible window, cut through a wall twenty-four feet. Their eagle
glance was exhausted in seeking for light amid darkness. There were
buried alive persons whom they dared not kill by day. Illustrious men,
noble hearts, there suffered from the use, and possibly the abuse, of
power.
Having wandered for some time amid the dark and damp galleries, Consuelo
heard a sound of running water, which reminded her of the terrible
cavern of Riesenberg. She was, however, too much occupied by the
misfortunes and crimes of humanity, to think of herself. She was forced
for a time to pause and go around a cistern on the level of the ground,
lighted by a torch she read on a sign-board these words:
"There they drowned them."
Consuelo looked down to see the interior of the well. The water of the
rivulet, over which an hour before she had glided so peacefully, fell
down into a frightful gulf, and whirled angrily round, as if it was
anxious to take possession of a victim. The red light of the resinous
torch made the water blood-colored.
At last Consuelo came to a massive door, which she sought in vain to
open. She asked if, as in the initiations in the pyramids, she was about
to be lifted in the air by invisible chains, while some cavern suddenly
opened and put out her lamp. Another terror seized her, for as she
walked down the gallery, she saw that she was not alone, though the
person who accompanied her trod so lightly that she heard no noise. She
fancied that she heard the rustling of a silk dress near her own, and
that, when she had passed the well, the light of the torch reflected two
trembling shadows on the wall instead of one. Who, then, was the
terrible companion she was forbidden to look back on, under the penalty
of losing the fruit of all her labors, and never being able to cross the
threshold of the temple? Was it some terrible spectre, the appearance of
which would have frozen her courage, and disturbed her reason? She saw
his shadow no more, but she imagined she heard his respiration near her.
She waited to see the terrible door reopen. The two or three minutes
which elapsed during this expectation, seemed an age. The mute acophyte
terrified her. She was afraid that he wished to test her by speaking,
and forcing her by some _ruse_ to look back. Her heart beat violently.
At last she saw that an inscription above the door was yet to be read:
"This is your last trial, and it is the most cruel. If your courage be
exhausted, strike thrice on the left of the door. If not, strike thrice
on the right. Remember, the glory of your initiation will be in
proportion to your efforts."
Consuelo did not hesitate, but went to the right. One of the doors
opened as if of itself, and she went into a vast room, lighted with many
lamps. She was alone, and at first could not distinguish the strange
objects around her. They were machines of wood, iron, and bronze, the
use of which she knew not. Strange arms were displayed on the table, or
hung on the wall. For one moment she fancied herself in some museum of
weapons, for she saw muskets, cannons, culverins, and a perfect array of
the weapons on which those now used are improvements. Care had been
taken to collect all the instruments men use in immolating each other.
When the neophyte had passed once or twice through the room, she saw
others of a more refined character and some more barbarous--collars,
wheels, saws, pulleys, hooks--a perfect gallery of instruments of
torture--and, above all, a scroll supported by maces, hooks, dentated
knives, and other torturing irons. The scroll read--
"They are all precious.--They have been used."
Consuelo felt her strength give way. A cold perspiration rolled down her
hair, and her heart ceased to beat. Incapable of shaking off the feeling
of horror and the terrible visions that crowded around her, she examined
all that stood before her with that stupid curiosity which, when we are
terrified, takes possession of us. Instead of closing her eyes, she
looked at a kind of bronze bell, the cap of which was immense, and
rested on a large body without limbs, yet which reached as low as the
knees. It was not unlike a colossal statue, coarsely carved, intended
for a tomb. Gradually, Consuelo overcame her torpor, and comprehended
that the victim was to be placed beneath this bell. Its weight was so
vast that it was impossible to lift it up. The internal body was so
immense that motion was impossible. There was no intention of stifling
the person put within, for the vizor of the helmet was open at the face,
and all the circumference was pierced with little holes, in some of
which stilettoes were yet pierced. By means of these cruel wounds they
sought to torment the victim so as to wrest from him charges against his
relations or friends, or confessions of political or religious
faith.[14] On the top of the casque was carved, in the Spanish
language--
"Viva la Santa Inquisicion!"
Beneath was a prayer, which seemed dictated by savage compassion, but
which perhaps emanated from the hand of the poor mechanic ordered to
make the instrument of torture--
"Holy mother of God, have mercy on the sinner!"
A lock of hair, torn out by torture, and which doubtless had been
stained with blood, was below this inscription. It had, perhaps, come
through one of the orifices which had been enlarged by the daggers. The
hairs were grey.
All at once Consuelo saw nothing, and ceased to suffer. Without being
informed by any sentiment of physical suffering, she was about to fall
cold and stiff on the pavement, as a statue thrown from its pedestal,
but, as her head was coming in contact with the infernal machine, she
was caught in the arms of a man. This was Leverani.
[Footnote 14: Any one may see an instrument of this kind, and also a
hundred others no less ingeniously constructed, in the arsenal of
Venice. Consuelo never saw it, for the interior of the prisons of the
Inquisition and the PIOMBE of the ducal palace were never open to the
people until the occupation of the city by troops of the French
Republic.]