I carried food to the stranger as occasion required in the course of
the day. He seemed indisposed to speak, and we exchanged scarcely more
than two or three words. The next morning was the implied time to which
the question of his confidence was deferred, and I went to him with the
full resolution of refusing it. Whether it were that he discerned this
resolution in my countenance, or that, in the interval that elapsed,
he had formed a meaner opinion of my character, and thought me unfit
for the purposes he intended I should answer, certain it is that he
anticipated me. At the same time he magnified the importance of the
gifts he had to communicate. He expressed himself astonished at the
precipitateness of his yesterday’s conduct. It was not till after much
trial and long probation that he could choose himself a confidant.
I was not at present fit for the character, nor perhaps ever should
be. The talent he possessed was one upon which the fate of nations
and of the human species might be made to depend. God had given it
for the best and highest purposes; and the vessel in which it was
deposited must be purified from the alloy of human frailty. It might be
abused and applied to the most atrocious designs. It might blind the
understanding of the wisest, and corrupt the integrity of the noblest.
It might overturn kingdoms, and change the whole order of human society
into anarchy and barbarism. It might render its possessor the universal
plague or the universal tyrant of mankind.
“Go, St. Leon!” added the stranger, “you are not qualified for so
important a trust. You are not yet purged of imbecility and weakness.
Though you have passed through much, and had considerable experience,
you are yet a child. I had heard your history, and expected to find
you a different man. Go; and learn to know yourself for what you are,
frivolous and insignificant, worthy to have been born a peasant, and
not fitted to adorn the rolls of chivalry, or the rank to which you
were destined!”
There was something so impressive in the rebuke and contempt of this
venerable sage, that made it impossible to contend with them. Never was
there a man more singular, and in whom were united greater apparent
contradictions. Observe him in a quiet and unanimated moment, you might
almost take him for a common beggar; a poor, miserable wretch, in whom
life lingered, and insensate stupidity reigned. But when his soul was
touched in any of those points on which it was most alive, he rose at
once, and appeared a giant. His voice was the voice of thunder; and,
rolling in a rich and sublime swell, it arrested and stilled, while
it withered all the nerves of the soul. His eye-beam sat upon your
countenance, and seemed to look through you. You wished to escape from
its penetrating power, but you had not the strength to move. I began to
feel as if it were some mysterious and superior being in human form,
and not a mortal, with whom I was concerned.
What a strange and contradictory being is man! I had gone to the
summer-house this morning, with a firm resolution to refuse the gifts
and the communication of the stranger. I felt as if lightened from
a burthen which the whole preceding day had oppressed me, while I
formed this resolution: I was cheerful, and conscious of rectitude and
strength of mind. How cheaply we prize a gift which we imagine to be
already in our power! With what philosophical indifference do we turn
it on every side, depreciate its worth, magnify its disadvantages, and
then pique ourselves upon the sobriety and justice of the estimate
we have made! Thus it was with me in the present transaction; but
when I had received the check of the stranger, and saw the proposed
benefit removed to a vast and uncertain distance, then it resumed all
its charms; then the contrast of wealth and poverty flashed full
upon my soul. Before, I had questioned the reality of the stranger’s
pretensions, and considered whether he might not be an artful impostor;
but now all was clearness and certainty: the advantages of wealth
passed in full review before my roused imagination. I saw horses,
palaces, and their furniture; I saw the splendour of exhibition and
the trains of attendants,--objects which had been for ever dear to my
puerile imagination; I contemplated the honour, love, obedience, troops
of friends, which are so apt to attend upon wealth, when disbursed with
a moderate degree of dignity and munificence. When I compared this with
my present poverty and desertion, the meanness of our appearance, our
daily labours, the danger that an untoward accident might sink us in
the deepest distress, and the hopelessness that my son or his posterity
should ever rise to that honour and distinction to which they had once
been destined, the effect was too powerful.
Another feeling came still further in aid of this: it was the
humiliating impression which the stranger had left upon my mind: this
seemed to be his great art, if in reality his conduct is to be imputed
to art. There is no enemy to virtue so fatal as a sense of degradation.
Self-applause is our principal support in every liberal and elevated
act of virtue. If this ally can be turned against us; if we can be
made to ascribe baseness, effeminacy, want of spirit and adventure, to
our virtuous resolutions; we shall then indeed feel ourselves shaken.
This was precisely my situation: the figure I made in my own eyes was
mean; I was impatient of my degradation; I believed that I had shown
myself uxorious and effeminate, at a time that must have roused in me
the spirit of a man, if there had been a spark of manly spirit latent
in my breast. This impatience co-operated with the temptations of
the stranger, and made me anxious to possess what he offered to my
acceptance.
I reasoned thus with myself: what excites my scruples is simply the
idea of having one single secret from my wife and family. This scruple
is created by the singular and unprecedented confidence in which we
have been accustomed to live. Other men have their secrets: nor do they
find their domestic tranquillity broken by that circumstance. The
merchant does not call his wife into consultation upon his ventures;
the statesman does not unfold to her his policy and his projects; the
warrior does not take her advice upon the plan of his campaign; the
poet does not concert with her his flights and his episodes. To other
men the domestic scene is the relaxation of their cares; when they
enter it, they dismiss the business of the day, and call another cause.
I only have concentrated in it the whole of my existence. By this means
I have extinguished in myself the true energy of the human character.
A man can never be respectable in the eyes of the world or in his own,
except so far as he stands by himself and is truly independent. He may
have friends; he may have domestic connections; but he must not in
these connections lose his individuality. Nothing truly great was ever
achieved, that was not executed or planned in solitary seclusion.
But if these reasons are sufficient to prove that the plan I have
lately pursued is fundamentally wrong, how much more will the
importance of what is proposed by the stranger plead my excuse for
deviating from it? How bitterly have I lamented the degradation of
my family! Shall I not seize this opportunity of re-installing them
in their hereditary honours? I deemed the ruin I had brought upon
them irreparable; shall I not embrace the occasion of atoning for my
fault? No man despises wealth, who fully understands the advantages
it confers. Does it not confer the means of cultivating our powers?
Does it not open to us the career of honour, which is shut against
the unknown and obscure? Does it not conciliate the prepossessions of
mankind, and gain for us an indulgent and liberal construction? Does
it not inspire us with graceful confidence, and animate us to generous
adventure? The poor man is denied every advantage of education, and
wears out his life in labour and ignorance. From offices of trust,
from opportunities of distinction, he is ignominiously thrust aside;
and though he should sacrifice his life for the public cause, he dies
unhonoured and unknown. If by any accident he comes into possession
of those qualities which, when discerned and acknowledged, command
the applause of mankind, who will listen to him? His appearance is
mean; and the fastidious auditor turns from him ere half his words are
uttered. He has no equipage and attendants, no one to blow the trumpet
before him and proclaim his rank; how can he propose any thing that
shall be worthy of attention? Aware of the prepossession of mankind in
this respect, he is alarmed and overwhelmed with confusion before he
opens his lips. Filled with the conscience of his worth, he anticipates
the unmerited contempt that is prepared to oppress him, and his very
heart dies within him. Add to these circumstances, the constitution of
our nature, the various pleasures of which it is adapted to partake,
and how many of these pleasures it is in the power of wealth to
procure. Yes; an object like this will sufficiently apologise for me to
those for whose sake alone it was estimable in my sight. It is, indeed,
nothing but our poverty and the lowness of our station that have thus
produced in us an habitual and unreserved communication of sentiments.
Wealth would, to a certain degree, destroy our contact, and take off
the wonder that we had each our thoughts that were not put into the
common stock.
These considerations decided my choice. I was not indeed without some
variations of mind, and some compunction of heart for the resolution
I had espoused. The longer the stranger remained with me, the more
evident it was that there was something mysterious between us; and
the unreserved affection and union that had lately reigned under my
roof suffered materially the effects of it. The stranger had been led
to my cottage, in the first instance, by the entire solitude in which
it was placed. There was nothing about which he was so solicitous as
concealment; the most atrocious criminal could not be more alarmed at
the idea of being discovered. I was unable to account for this; but
I was now too anxious for his stay and the promised reward, not to
be alert in gratifying all his wishes. The most inviolable secrecy,
therefore, was enjoined to the whole family; and the younger branches
of it, particularly the little Marguerite, it was necessary to keep
almost immured, to prevent the danger of their reporting any thing out
of the house, that might be displeasing to the stranger and fatal to my
expectations. Upon the whole my situation was eminently an uneasy one.
No experiment can be more precarious than that of a half-confidence;
and nothing but the sincere affection that was entertained for me could
have rendered it successful in this instance. My family felt that they
were trusted by me only in points where it was impossible to avoid it,
and that I was not therefore properly entitled to their co-operation;
I was conscious of ingratitude in making them no return for their
fidelity. They kept my secret because they were solicitous to oblige
me, not from any conviction that they were conferring on me a benefit;
but, on the contrary, suspecting that the object as to which they
were blindly assisting me would prove injurious to me as well as to
themselves.
The health of the stranger visibly declined; but this was a
circumstance which he evidently regarded with complacency. It was
the only source of consolation of which he appeared susceptible; his
mind was torn with painful remembrances, and agitated with terrible
forebodings. He abhorred solitude, and yet found no consolation in
society. I could not be much with him; my duty to my family, who were
principally supported by my labour, was a call too imperious to be
neglected. Even when I was with him, he commonly testified no desire
for conversation. “Stay with me,” he was accustomed to say; “give
me as much of your time as you can; but do not talk.” Upon these
occasions he would sit sometimes with his arms folded, and with the
most melancholy expression imaginable. He would then knit his brows,
wring his hands with a sadness that might have excited pity in the
hardest breast, or, with both hands closed, the one clasping the other,
strike himself impatiently on the forehead. At other times he would
rise from his seat, pace the room with hurried and unquiet steps, and
then again throw himself on his couch in the greatest agitation. His
features were often convulsed with agony. Often have I wiped away the
sweat, which would suddenly burst out in large drops on his forehead.
At those seasons he would continually mutter words to himself, the
sense of which it was impossible for me to collect. I could perceive
however that he often repeated the names of Clara!--Henry!--a wife!--a
friend! a friend!----and then he would groan as if his heart were
bursting. Sometimes, in the midst of these recollections, he would pass
the back of his hand over his eyes; and then, looking at it, shaking
his head, and biting his under lip, exclaim with a piteous accent,
“Dry!--dry!--all the moisture of my frame is perished!” Then, as if
recovering himself, he would cry with a startled and terrified voice,
“Who is there? St. Leon? Come to me! Let me feel that there is a human
being near me! I often call for you; but I find myself alone, deserted,
friendless!--friendless!”
At times when his recollection was more complete, he would say, “I know
I tire you! Why should I tire you? What gratification can it be to me
to occasion emotions of disgust?” Upon these occasions I endeavoured to
soothe him, and assured him I found pleasure in administering to his
relief. But he replied, “No, no: do not flatter me! It is long since
I have heard the voice of flattery! I never loved it! No; I know I am
precluded from ever exciting friendship or sympathy! Why am I not dead?
Why do I live, a burthen to myself, useful to none? My secret I could
almost resolve should die with me; but you have earned, and you shall
receive it.”
The stranger was not always in this state of extreme anguish, nor
always indisposed to converse. He had lucid intervals; and could
beguile the sorrow of his heart with social communication. We sometimes
talked of various sciences and branches of learning; he appeared to
be well informed in them all. His observations were ingenious; his
language copious; his illustrations fanciful and picturesque; his
manner bold and penetrating. It was easy to observe in him the marks
of a vigorous and masculine genius. Sometimes we discussed the events
at that time going on in the world. When we discoursed of events that
had passed, and persons that had died, more than a century before,
the stranger often spoke of them in a manner as if he had been an
eye-witness, and directly acquainted with the objects of our discourse.
This I ascribed to the vividness of his conceptions, and the animation
of his language. He however often checked himself in this peculiarity,
and always carefully avoided what could lead to any thing personal
to himself. I described to him the scenes of my youth, and related
my subsequent history; he on his part was invincibly silent on every
circumstance of his country, his family, and his adventures.
The longer I was acquainted with him, the more my curiosity grew. I
was restless and impatient to learn something respecting a man who
thus wrapped himself up in mystery and reserve. Often I threw out, as
it were, a line by which to fathom his secret. I talked of various
countries, I mentioned different kinds of calamities and even of
crimes, that by some incidental allusion I might discover at unawares
his country, his connections, or the nature of his story. When any
thing that offered seemed to lead to the desired point, I doubled my
questions, and endeavoured to construct them with the skill of a crafty
litigant in a court of justice. There were some subjects, the very
mention of which gave him uneasiness, and upon which he immediately
silenced me; but these were not of themselves enough to afford me a
clue, or to furnish materials out of which for me to construct the
history of the stranger. He did not always perceive the drift of my
questions and snares; but, when he did, he generally became loud,
resentful, and furious. There was nothing else that so completely
roused his indignation.
“St. Leon!” said he to me one day, “silence this inquisitive temper
of yours; check your rash and rude curiosity. The only secret I have
that can be of any importance to you, you shall one day know. But my
country, my family, my adventures, I have once told you, and I tell
you again, you shall never know. That knowledge can be of moment to no
one, and it shall never be disclosed. When this heart ceases to beat,
that tale shall cease to have a place on the face of the earth. Why
should my distresses and disgraces be published to any one? Is it not
enough that they have lacerated my bosom, that they have deprived me
of friends, that they have visited me with every adversity and every
anguish, that they have bowed me down to the earth, that they have made
thought, and remembrance, and life itself, a burthen too heavy to be
borne? Your present injudicious conduct, if persisted in, will have the
effect of driving me from your roof, of turning me once more upon the
world, upon that world that I hate, upon that world whose bruises and
ill treatment I feel in every fibre of my frame; of exposing me again
to fresh persecutions, and causing me to perish miserably in a dungeon,
or die upon a scaffold. Spare me, my generous host; I know you are
capable of generosity. Indeed I have endured enough to satiate the rage
of malice itself. You see what I suffer from the rage and tempest of
my own thoughts, even without the assistance of any external foe. Let
me die in that degree of tranquillity I am able to attain. I will not
trouble you long.”
At another time he addressed me in a different style. “You see, St.
Leon, that the anguish of mind I endure is such as is ordinarily
attributed to the recollection of great crimes; and you have very
probably conjectured that in my case it arises from the same source. If
you have, I forgive you; but I assure you that you are mistaken. Take
from yourself that uneasiness, if it has ever visited you; you are not
giving sanctuary to a villain! I am innocent. I can take no crime to
my charge. I have suffered more almost than man ever suffered; but I
have sinned little. The cause of my uneasiness and prime source of all
my misfortunes, I dare not disclose to you. Be contented with the plan
of my conduct. I have digested my purpose: I have determined where to
speak and where to be silent.”
The more I saw of this man, the more strange and unaccountable appeared
to me every thing that related to him. Why was he so poor, possessing,
as he pretended, inexhaustible wealth? Why was he unhappy, with so
great talents and genius, and such various information? Why was he
friendless, being, as he solemnly assured me, so perfectly innocent,
and of consequence so respectable? That he was an impostor, every
thing that I saw of him forbade me to believe. His sorrows were too
profound and excruciating, for it to be possible for me to rank them
among the actions that a man may play. The greatness of his powers, the
dignity of his carriage, the irresistible appearance of sincerity that
sparkled in his eye and modulated his voice, fully convinced me that he
really was what he pretended to be. I had heard of men who, under the
pretence of alchemy, fastened themselves upon persons possessing sums
of money; and, beguiling them with a delusive expectation of wealth,
reduced them to beggary and ruin. One such person I had had a brief
connection with during my residence in the Bordelois, though, finding
the incident by no means essential to the progress of my history, I
have passed it over, together with many others, in silence. But nothing
could be more unlike than that man and the person respecting whom I was
now concerned. In reality I possessed at that time, if I may be allowed
to say so, a more than common insight into the characters of mankind,
so as to be little likely, except under the tyranny of passion, as
in the instance of gaming, to be made the prey of imposition. I had
studied my species as it exhibits itself in history, and had mixed with
it in various scenes and under dissimilar aspects. I had accordingly,
in the transaction I have just alluded to, soon detected the plans of
the villain who expected to delude me. But what could be the purpose
of the stranger in this respect? The pretended alchemist in France had
obtained a certain sum of money of me, and demanded more. The stranger
never made such a demand of me; and perfectly knew that, even if I had
been inclined, I was not able to supply him. The alchemist had amused
me with descriptions of various processes for the transmutation of
metals, had exhibited his crucibles and retorts, and employed a sort
of dramatic _coup d’œil_ for the purpose of awakening my curiosity
and stimulating my passions. The stranger had simply stated, in the
plainest and most direct manner, that it was in his power to enrich
me; but had been silent as to the manner of producing the wealth he
promised, and had abstained from every effort to intoxicate my mind. I
felt therefore in this instance the effect, that, without being able
to solve the difficulties and contrarieties that hung about him, I yet
believed his assertions; nor was the inscrutability of his history and
his motives capable of shaking my confidence.
One day, during the period of his concealment, certain officers of
the bishop of Constance, accompanied by a foreigner in a Neapolitan
habit, came to my house, and, as it proved, with the express purpose
of searching for the man who had put himself under my protection.
Charles and myself were at work in the fields within sight of the
lake. Their appearance first caught the attention of Charles as they
approached the shore, and he enquired of me respecting the habit of
the foreigner, which was different from any he had been accustomed to
see. While we were yet speaking, I observed in them an intention to
land within sight of my cottage. This was an uncommon circumstance;
our privacy was rarely invaded, and we lived almost as much out of the
world as we should have done in the remotest island of the Atlantic
ocean. I reasoned in my own mind upon their appearance: they had
little resemblance to a party of pleasure; the habit of the officers
of justice I was perfectly acquainted with; and the suspicion of the
real nature of their errand immediately darted on my thoughts. Without
saying a word to Charles on the subject, I hastened with all the speed
I could exert to the apartment of the stranger, and acquainted him with
what I had seen. He concurred with me in the ideas I had formed, and
appeared much shocked at the intelligence. There was however no time to
be lost; and, after having for a moment given vent to an anguish which
was too powerful to be suppressed, he withdrew as hastily as he could
from the summer-house, and betook himself to the woods. He recommended
to me to leave him, telling me that he could conceal himself most
effectually alone, and observing that it would be necessary for me to
meet the officers, and endeavour as much as possible to remove their
suspicions.
Accordingly, as soon as he was gone, I threw open the windows of the
summer-house, removed the shutters, and took from it as effectually
as I could all appearance of having served as a place of concealment.
This was a precaution which the stranger had on a former occasion
recommended to me. It fortunately happened that Julia and the little
Marguerite were gone out together in the fields on the eastern side of
my cottage; otherwise infallibly the child by her innocent prattle,
and perhaps Julia by the apprehensive sensibility of her temper, would
have betrayed our secret, or at least have suggested to the officers
a feeling as if, by a longer stay and a more diligent search, they
might possibly succeed in the object of their expedition. As it was, I
received them at the door, and learned from their own mouths the nature
of their errand. Of Charles, whom they had crossed in the fields,
they had simply asked whether they were right as to the name of the
person who was proprietor of the cottage before them. They described
to me with great accuracy the appearance of the stranger, and insisted
that he had been an inhabitant of my cottage. They told me, they were
well informed that the summer-house in my garden had carefully been
shut up for more than a month past, and that some person had been
concealed there. I was interested in the distress of the stranger; I
was impressed with the dignity of his character; I implicitly confided
in his assertions of innocence, and the unjust persecution that he
suffered; I was not insensible to the proposed reward, the realising of
which probably depended on his safety. But, most of all, I considered
my honour as pledged for the protection of the man who had thus cast
himself upon my fidelity, and believed that I should be everlastingly
disgraced if he suffered any evil through treachery or neglect on my
part. I therefore answered confidently to the officers that they were
misinformed, and offered to conduct them over every part of my house
and demesnes, that they might satisfy themselves by inspection that
there was no person concealed any where within my possessions. I should
have been better pleased, openly to have defied their interrogatories,
and to have asked them whether, allowing their suspicions to be just,
they were entitled to believe that I was such a villain as to betray a
man who had thrown himself upon my generosity? But though this conduct
would have had a greater appearance of gallantry, I believed it would
have less of the reality, as it would have strengthened their idea of
my participation, and increased the danger of the person I was bound to
protect.
They accepted my offer of submitting to their search, and made a strict
examination of every place about my habitation in which the stranger
could be concealed. Disappointed here, they endeavoured by threats to
discover whether I was able to give them any information. To these I
calmly answered, that they had mistaken my character; that, though I
was a poor man, I had not forgotten that I was noble; that they were
already in possession of my spontaneous answer to their enquiries;
and that, in no case, and upon no supposition, should tyranny and
ill treatment extort from me what I was not in the first instance
disposed to give. My wife was present during this conversation, and, I
could perceive, felt an alarm for my danger that she would have been
incapable of feeling for a danger to herself.
Though I was extremely anxious that these men should be disappointed in
the object of their expedition, yet I did not neglect this opportunity
of endeavouring to obtain satisfaction for my own curiosity. I remarked
at first that the Neapolitan was an inquisitor, and this circumstance
had given additional poignancy to the uneasiness of Marguerite. But
the accusations of which the inquisition at this time took cognisance
were so numerous--the ecclesiastical power continually usurping upon
the civil--that I was little assisted in the judgment I was desirous
to frame by any inference to be deduced from this circumstance. I
questioned directly, with an air as if it were merely in the way of
conversation, what was the crime of the man of whom they were in
pursuit? and what was the cause forcible enough to induce a Neapolitan
inquisitor to follow so decrepit and forlorn an individual as he
described, beyond the Alps, and almost to the banks of the Danube? To
this he answered roughly, that though he was not able to discover the
object of his search, he was by no means convinced that I was not his
abettor and accomplice; and that as to his crime, that was not to be
named; the welfare of Christendom demanding that the criminal, and the
memory of his offences, should be buried together. At the same time he
warned me to consider well what I did, before I exposed myself to be
overwhelmed by the vengeance of the court of which he was a member. To
this I answered haughtily, that I had already condescended to repel
his suspicion, and that no other man than an inquisitor would have had
the stupidity or the audaciousness to question my veracity. I added,
that I was perfectly acquainted with the nature of his court, which was
an object of abhorrence to the whole Christian world; but that he was
mistaken if he supposed that the detestable nature of its proceedings
would enable him to practise every sort of outrage with impunity. The
officers withdrew into the little inclosure in front of my cottage, and
I overheard them consulting whether, having failed in their principal
object, they should carry me a prisoner along with them. The firmness
of my manner however had awed them, and the fearlessness I expressed
seemed to them to arise from a consciousness of innocence. They at
length departed as they came.
I watched them from my cottage as they descended to the shore, and
it was with no little pleasure that I perceived them re-embark, and
stand off for the opposite side of the lake. This spectacle for a time
entirely engaged me, and when I turned from the door I observed that
my beloved Marguerite had been in tears. She endeavoured to hide this
circumstance from my sight. I took her affectionately by the hand, and,
pressing her to my bosom, entreated her not to make herself uneasy.
“Ah, Reginald!” said she, “how can I avoid being uneasy, when I see
you exposed to this imminent danger? I thought that, in forfeiting our
fortune and our rank, and retiring to this obscure and sequestered
situation, we might at least promise ourselves the blessing of the
poor--oblivion and security; and that should have consoled me for all
I have lost. Who is this man that is thus mysteriously hidden among
us? What is the guilt from the punishment of which he thus anxiously
withdraws himself? What can be the nature of your connection with such
a man? And what will be the issue of so perilous an adventure?”
I hesitated. I knew not what to answer to so earnest an anxiety. I was
melted at the distress and the affection of Marguerite. She saw my
embarrassment, and proceeded:--
“Mistake me not, my beloved!” said she. “I have no desire to pry
into what you are willing to conceal. Forgive the perturbation which
has poured itself out in these involuntary questions. I repose an
entire confidence in you. I would sooner die than interfere with any
object you have at heart. Go on according to the dictates of your
own judgment, undisturbed by me. I will not doubt that you have
sufficient reasons for what you communicate, and what you suppress. I
am grieved indeed at the interruption of our obscure and unambitious
tranquillity; but I had resolved not to trouble you with my uneasiness
and apprehensions. The incident of this morning has extorted them from
me; but I will behave better in future.”
This scene was extremely distressing to me. My wife was oppressed with
fears, and I had nothing to answer her. The consolations that rose up
in my own mind I was prevented from communicating. The more generously
she confided in me, the more I felt the ungracious and disagreeable
nature of the concealment I practised. I endeavoured however to
encourage myself with the idea, that the labour would not be long, and
the harvest would prove abundant. I said in my own mind, The worst is
now over; the business has been commenced; the shock to my own family
has actually occurred; I must go on resolutely, and shut my eyes to the
temporarily displeasing circumstances that may be connected with the
completing my object.