In the lane every thing was silent, and the darkness was extreme. Man,
woman, and child were gone out to view the procession. For some time I
could scarcely distinguish a single object; the doors and windows were
all closed. I now chanced to come to an open door; within I saw no one
but an old man, who was busy over some metallic work at a chafing-dish
of fire. I had no room for choice; I expected every moment to hear the
myrmidons of the inquisition at my heels. I rushed in; I impetuously
closed the door, and bolted it; I then seized the old man by the collar
of his shirt with a determined grasp, and swore vehemently that I
would annihilate him that instant, if he did not consent to afford me
assistance. Though for some time I had perhaps been feebler than he,
the terror that now drove me on, rendered me comparatively a giant. He
intreated me to permit him to breathe, and promised to do whatever I
should desire. I looked round the apartment, and saw a rapier hanging
against the wall, of which I instantly proceeded to make myself
master. While I was doing this, my involuntary host, who was extremely
terrified at my procedure, nimbly attempted to slip by me and rush into
the street. With difficulty I caught hold of his arm, and, pulling him
back, put the point of my rapier to his breast, solemnly assuring him
that no consideration on earth should save him from my fury, if he
attempted to escape a second time. He immediately dropped on his knees,
and with the most piteous accents intreated me to spare his life. I
told him that I was no robber, that I did not intend him the slightest
harm, and that, if he would implicitly yield to my direction, he might
assure himself he never should have reason to repent his compliance.
By this declaration the terrors of the old man were somewhat appeased.
I took the opportunity of this calm to go to the street door, which I
instantly locked, and put the key in my bosom.
Nothing but the most fortunate concurrence of circumstances could
have thus forwarded my escape. The rearing of the horse of the
life-guardsman was purely accidental. The concourse and press of the
crowd from all sides could alone have rendered this circumstance of any
magnitude. The gap which was made by the pushing forwards and resiling
of the horses continued barely long enough for me to spring through,
and closed again in an instant. It is astonishing that the thought
of escape should have thus suddenly darted into my mind, which, but
a moment before, was in a state of dejection, equally incompatible
with activity and with hope. That in the lane down which I rushed I
should have met no human creature, and that the first open door I
saw should lead to the residence of a decrepid old man, who appeared
to be its single inhabitant, were occurrences equally extraordinary,
yet seem to have been both indispensable to my safety. One point
more concurred with this fortunate train, and assisted to still the
palpitations of my beating heart: I perceived, by certain indications
in the countenance of my host, that he was by parentage a Jew. I
presently concluded, that he was what in Spain they denominate a new
christian; for that otherwise he would not have been allowed to reside
at large in a Spanish city. But, upon that supposition, I did not
believe that christianity was very deeply mingled up in him with the
vital principle: the converts of the inquisition are not conspicuous
for their sincerity. Now, then, for the first time I thought, in the
course of twelve years, I had opportunity to communicate with a man,
whose soul was not enslaved to the blood-thirsty superstition of this
devoted country. All I had seen during the period of my confinement
were hyenas, tigers, and crocodiles--they were not men.
I had no sooner soothed my host into a temper to listen to my story,
than I told him with all imaginable frankness whence I came, and
to what I had been destined. The mention of sorcery however, and
preternatural practices, I suppressed; for I suspected that persons of
all religions entertained an equal horror against these. I suffered
him to imagine that the allegation against me had been the crime of
heresy: all sects of the christian superstition might be supposed
equally obnoxious or acceptable to a Jew. I emphatically appealed to
the persecutions which had been so long directed against the religion
of his ancestors, and observed how disgraceful it would be in him
to assist the operation of a principle, the effects of which his
fathers had so deeply deplored, and so perfectly abhorred. I assured
him that I would bring him into no danger, and that all I asked was
the protection of a few hours: I would leave him in the course of
the following day, and he should hear of me no more. I reminded him,
that the danger he had to fear was in betraying, not in protecting
me. The inquisition looked upon every new christian with an eye of
the severest jealousy; and the mere fact, if known, that I had taken
refuge in his house, would infallibly subject him to the purgation of a
temporary imprisonment in their dungeons. It would be in vain for him
to affirm that he had no choice in what had occurred; he was without a
witness to confirm his relation, and the assertions of a man born of
Jewish parents never obtained credit in the court of the inquisition.
I added, with solemn asseverations, that the moment I set foot beyond
the territory of Spain, I would remit to him the sum of six hundred
pistoles as an acknowledgment for his kindness.
During the whole of my discourse, I watched his countenance with the
utmost minuteness. It gradually relaxed from the terror which had at
first appeared in it, to expressions of compassion and complacence.
I saw nothing that ought to alarm me. When it was his turn to speak,
he earnestly assured me that he took a warm interest in my story,
and would cheerfully perform every thing I required. He was happy
that my favourable stars had led me to his habitation, and would
rejoice, to the latest hour of his existence, if they rendered him
instrumental in preserving the life of a human being from so deplorable
a catastrophe. While I talked to him, I easily perceived that the
arguments I used, which produced the most sensible effect upon his
features, were those of the dangers arising to him from betraying
me, and the reward of six hundred pistoles which I promised him in
the event of my success. His motives however were blended together
in his mind; and he had no sooner formed a determination, grounded
perhaps upon the meanest considerations, than he became eloquent in
a panegyric of his own benevolence, by which he was not, I believe,
more anxious to impose upon me, than to put the change upon himself. I
considered all that he said, his gestures, and the very tones of his
voice, with eager anxiety; the terror of the inquisition penetrated to
the marrow in my bones; and the fate awarded against me by that court
became inexpressibly more horrible to my thoughts, now that I saw the
probability of escaping it. Every thing that I observed in the Jew was
apparently fair, plausible, and encouraging; but nothing had power to
quell the agitations of my apprehensive soul.
We were still engaged in discussing the topics I have mentioned, when
I was suddenly alarmed by the noise of some one stirring in the inner
apartment. I had looked into this room, and had perceived nothing
but the bed upon which the old man nightly reposed himself. I sprung
up however at the sound, and, perceiving that the door had a bolt on
the outside, I eagerly fastened it. I then turned to Mordecai, such
previously to his conversion had been the name of my host: “Wretch,”
said I, “did not you assure me that there was no one but yourself in
the house?” “Oh,” cried Mordecai, “it is my child! it is my child!
she went into the inner apartment, and has fallen asleep on the bed.”
“Beware!” I answered; “the slightest falsehood more shall instantly be
expiated in your blood.” “I call Abraham to witness,” rejoined the once
more terrified Jew, “it is my child! only my child!” “Tell me,” cried
I, with severity of accent, “how old is this child?” “Only five years,”
said Mordecai: “my dear Leah died when her babe was no more than a year
old; and, though we had several children, this single one has survived
her.” “Speak to your child; let me hear her voice!” He spoke to her,
and she answered, “Father, I want to come out.” I was satisfied it was
the voice of a little girl. I turned to the Jew: “Take care,” said I,
“how you deceive me now; is there no other person in that room?” He
imprecated a curse on himself if there were: I opened the door with
caution, and the little girl came forward. As soon as I saw her, I
seized her with a rapid motion, and retired back to a chair. “Man,”
said I, “you have trifled with me too rashly; you have not considered
what I am escaped from, and what I have to fear; from this moment this
child shall be the pledge of my safety; I will not part with her an
instant as long as I remain in your house; and with this rapier in my
hand I will pierce her to the heart, the moment I am led to imagine
that I am no longer in safety.” The Jew trembled at my resolution;
the emotions of a father worked in his features, and glistened in his
eye. “At least let me kiss her!” said he. “Be it so!” replied I: “one
embrace, and then, till the dawn of the coming day, she remains with
me.” I released my hold; the child rushed to her father, and he caught
her in his arms. “My dear Leah,” cried Mordecai, “now a sainted spirit
in the bosom of our father Abraham! I call God to witness between us,
that, if all my caution and vigilance can prevent it, not a hair of
this child shall be injured! Stranger, you little know by how strong
a motive you have now engaged me to your cause. We poor Jews, hunted
on the face of the earth, the abhorrence and execration of mankind,
have nothing but family affections to support us under our multiplied
disgraces; and family affections are entwined with our existence, the
fondest and best-loved part of ourselves. The God of Abraham bless you,
my child! Now, sir, speak! what is it you require of me?”
I told the Jew that I must have a suit of clothes conformable to the
appearance of a Spanish cavalier, and certain medical ingredients that
I named to him, together with his chafing-dish of coals to prepare
them; and, that done, I would then impose on him no further trouble.
Having received his instructions, he immediately set out to procure
what I demanded. He took with him the key of the house; and, as soon
as he was gone, I retired with the child into the inner apartment, and
fastened the door. At first I applied myself to tranquillise the child,
who had been somewhat alarmed at what she had heard and seen: this
was no very difficult task. She presently left me, to amuse herself
with some playthings that lay scattered in a corner of the apartment.
My heart was now comparatively at ease; I saw the powerful hold I had
on the fidelity of the Jew, and firmly persuaded myself that I had no
treachery to fear on his part. Thus circumstanced, the exertion and
activity with which I had lately been imbued left me; and I insensibly
sunk into a sort of slumber.
The night was now far advanced, and I was still reclined insensible
upon Mordecai’s bed, when suddenly a jargon of various sounds seemed
from all sides to assail me. My mind was confused; I heard something,
but seemed wholly unconscious what I was, and where. I wanted to
escape from the disturbance; but it continued, and even increased.
At length I was forced to command my attention; and the first thing I
perceived was a beating at the door of the chamber. The little girl
was come to the bedside, and endeavouring to shake me. “Sir, sir,” she
cried in an eager accent, “my father wants to come in, and I cannot
slip the bolt of the door.” By slow degrees I began to comprehend my
situation, and to recollect what had happened immediately before.
I felt greatly alarmed; I feared by the disturbance that Mordecai
had not returned alone. I essayed to speak; my organs refused their
office. I endeavoured to move; my limbs felt palsied, and absolutely
lifeless. I experienced a sinking and sickness of heart that seemed to
be the immediate precursor of death. By listening occasionally to the
discourse which the father and the daughter began to hold with each
other, I became satisfied that Mordecai was without a companion. I
endeavoured to make the little girl understand that I was incapable of
rising from the bed; and, having at length succeeded, she communicated
the information to her father. With considerable trouble he loosened
the door at its hinges, and entered the room. I found myself in the
extremest degree feeble and languid; the Jew however assiduously
administered to me of cordials he had in his possession, and by degrees
I felt myself considerably restored.
Now, for the first time, I was at leisure to attend to the state of
my strength and my health. My confinement in the inquisition, and the
treatment I had experienced, had before rendered me feeble, and almost
helpless; but these appeared to be circumstances scarcely worthy of
attention, in the situation in which I was then placed. The impulse I
felt, in the midst of the confusion in the grand street of Valladolid,
produced in me an energy and power of exertion which nothing but the
actual experience of the fact could have persuaded me was possible.
This energy, once begun, appeared to have the faculty of prolonging
itself; and I did not relapse into imbecility, till the occasion
seemed to be exhausted which called for my exertion. I examined myself
by a mirror with which Mordecai furnished me: I found my hair as
white as snow, and my face ploughed with a thousand furrows. I was
now fifty-four, an age which, with moderate exercise and a vigorous
constitution, often appears like the prime of human existence; but
whoever had looked upon me in my present condition, would not have
hesitated to affirm that I had reached the eightieth year of my age.
I examined with dispassionate remark the state of my intellect: I was
persuaded that it had subsided into childishness. My mind had been as
much cribbed and immured as my body. I was the mere shadow of a man,
of no more power and worth than that which a magic lantern produces
upon a wall. These are thy works, Superstition!--this the genuine and
proper operation of what is called Christianity! Let the reader judge
of what I had passed through and known within those cursed walls by the
effects; I have already refused, I continue to refuse, to tell what I
suffered, and how those effects were produced. Enough of compassion,
enough of complaint: I will confine myself, as far as I am able, to
simple history.
Being recovered, as far as the cordials and attention of Mordecai were
capable of recovering me, I desired for the remainder of the night
to be alone, except that I was still resolved to retain the little
Jewess as the pledge of my safety. I was greatly obliged to my host for
the punctuality he had already displayed: he had found considerable
difficulty in procuring the articles of which I stood in need, owing
partly to the lateness of the hour, and partly to the presence of the
king, and the general hurry and confusion which had been produced by
the solemn entry of the inquisition. His efforts too to recover me
from the languor and lethargy into which I had sunk, had a character
of generosity; and perhaps I ought now to have trusted him without a
hostage. But my heart was too earnestly bent upon accomplishing its
present object, to afford harbour to the punctilios of delicacy. The
same earnestness caused me to insist upon Mordecai’s repairing the
injury which the hinges of the door had sustained; and I was careful
to satisfy myself that every thing was restored to a state of perfect
security.
I was now once again alone. The little girl, who had been unusually
disturbed, and roused at an unseasonable hour, sunk into a profound
sleep. I heard the noise which Mordecai made in undressing himself,
and composing his limbs upon a mattrass, which he had dragged for the
present occasion into the front room, and spread before the hearth. I
soon found by the hardness of his breathing that he also was asleep.
I unfolded the papers he had brought me; they consisted of various
medical ingredients I had directed him to procure; there were also two
or three vials, containing syrups and essences. I had near me a pair
of scales with which to weigh my ingredients; a vessel of water; the
chafing-dish of my host, in which the fire was nearly extinguished;
and a small taper, with some charcoal to relight the fire, in case
of necessity. While I was occupied in surveying these articles and
arranging my materials, a sort of torpor came suddenly over me, so as
to allow me no time for resistance. I sunk upon the bed. I remained
thus for about half an hour, seemingly without the power of collecting
my thoughts. At length I started, felt alarmed, and applied my utmost
force of mind to rouse my exertions. While I drove, or attempted to
drive, my animal spirits from limb to limb, and from part to part,
as if to enquire into the general condition of my frame, I became
convinced that I was dying. Let not the reader be surprised at this:
twelve years’ imprisonment, in a narrow and unwholesome cell, may
well account for so sudden a catastrophe. Strange and paradoxical as
it may seem, I believe it will be found in the experiment that the
calm and security which succeed to great internal injuries are more
dangerous than the pangs and hardships that went before. I was now
thoroughly alarmed: I applied myself, with all vigilance and expedition
to the compounding my materials. The fire was gone out; the taper was
glimmering in the socket: to swallow the julep when I had prepared
it, seemed to be the last effort of which my organs and muscles were
capable. It was the elixir of immortality, exactly made up according to
the prescription of the stranger.
Whether from the potency of the medicine, or the effect of imagination,
I felt revived the moment I had swallowed it. I placed myself
deliberately in Mordecai’s bed, and drew over me the bed-clothes. I
fell asleep almost instantly. I believe my first sleep was perfectly
sound and insensible; but in no long time I was visited with the
pleasantest dreams imaginable. Nothing was distinct; nothing was
attended with the consciousness of my former identity; but every thing
was gay, cheerful, invigorating, and delicious. I wandered amidst
verdant lawns, and flower-enamelled gardens. I was saluted with the
singing of a thousand birds, and the murmuring of a thousand fountains.
Kids, fawns, and lambs frisked and gamboled before me. At a distance,
through an opening in the trees, I discerned nymphs and their swains
dancing a variety of antic measures. I advanced towards them; they
approached towards me. Fifes, oboes, recorders, and instruments of a
hundred names, commenced a cheerful and melodious concert. Myself and
the dancers now were met; they placed me in the midst of them. They
began a choral song; the motion of their limbs conformed to their
numbers. I was the theme of the general chaunt; they ascribed to me the
beauty of Apollo, the strength of Hercules, the invention of Mercury,
and the youth of Bacchus.
My sleep was not long; in a few hours I awakened. With difficulty I
recognised the objects about me, and recollected where I had been. It
seemed to me that my heart had never beat so vigorously, nor my spirits
flowed so gay. I was all elasticity and life; I could scarcely hold
myself quiet; I felt impelled to bound and leap like a kid upon the
mountains. I perceived that my little Jewess was still asleep; she had
been unusually fatigued the night before. I know not whether Mordecai’s
hour of rising were come; if it were, he was careful not to disturb his
guest. I put on the garments he had prepared; I gazed upon the mirror
he had left in my apartment. I can recollect no sensation in the course
of my life, so unexpected and surprising as what I felt at that moment.
The evening before, I had seen my hair white, and my face ploughed with
furrows; I looked fourscore. What I beheld now was totally different,
yet altogether familiar; it was myself, myself as I had appeared on the
day of my marriage with Marguerite de Damville; the eyes, the mouth,
the hair, the complexion, every circumstance, point by point, the same.
I leaped a gulf of thirty-two years. I waked from a dream, troublesome
and distressful beyond all description; but it vanished, like the
shades of night upon the burst of a glorious morning in July, and left
not a trace behind. I knew not how to take away my eyes from the mirror
before me.
I soon began to consider that, if it were astonishing to me that,
through all the regions of my countenance, I could discover no trace of
what I had been the night before, it would be still more astonishing
to my host. This sort of sensation I had not the smallest ambition to
produce: one of the advantages of the metamorphosis I had sustained,
consisted in its tendency, in the eyes of all that saw me, to cut off
every species of connection between my present and my former self. It
fortunately happened that the room in which I slept, being constructed
upon the model of many others in Spain, had a stair at the further
end, with a trap-door in the ceiling, for the purpose of enabling the
inhabitant to ascend on the roof in the cool of the day. The roofs
were flat, and so constructed, that there was little difficulty in
passing along them from house to house, from one end of the street to
the other. I availed myself of the opportunity, and took leave of the
residence of my land host in a way perfectly unceremonious, determined
however speedily to transmit to him the reward I had promised. It may
easily be believed that Mordecai was not less rejoiced at the absence
of a guest whom the vigilance of the inquisition rendered an uncommonly
dangerous one, than I was to quit his habitation. I closed the trap
after me, and clambered from roof to roof to a considerable distance.
At length I encountered the occasion of an open window, and fortunately
descended, unseen by any human being, into the street. Having with
difficulty succeeded, on this occasion of public solemnity, in engaging
an apartment in one of the hotels of Valladolid, I sent into it, as
soon as I was able, a chest, containing every necessary of apparel, and
particularly a suit of clothes. I then changed my dress, and threw the
clothes which Mordecai had provided into the chest I had purchased. As
long as they continued safely locked up, and the key in my possession,
no faculty possessed by any human creature could detect my identity,
and expose me afresh to my former jailors. The only peril under which
I had before laboured, was from Mordecai, who, if he had seen me in the
garments he had procured, might have recognised them; and, though a
peril from this source came barely within the limits of possibility, it
was easily avoided, and I therefore chose to avoid it.
I passed the whole of this day in a species of enjoyment, which, as it
has no parallel in the ordinary transactions of mankind, so are there
no terms in the received languages of the world that are adequate
to the description of it. It has often been a subject of melancholy
and complaint among mortals, that, while the whole vegetable system
contains in it a principle of perpetual renewal, man alone,--the
ornament and lord of the universe, man,--knows no return to youth.
When the sun declines in the west, the flowers droop, and fold up
their frail and delicate leaves; but soon the eyelids of the morn
are again opened, and again they rejoice in his invigorating beams.
Upon the approach of winter, the beech, the ash, and the monarch-oak,
scatter their withered foliage over the plains; but spring reappears,
and nakedness is no longer their reproach, and they clothe themselves
anew in their leafy honours. With what a melancholy sensation does
the old man survey his decaying limbs! To me, he cries, there is no
second morning, and no returning spring. My head, pressed down with
years, shall never again erect itself in conscious manhood. These hoary
locks shall no more be adorned with the auburn of glossy youth. My
weather-beaten trunk shall at no time clothe itself with a smoother
rind. A recruited marrow shall never fill these bones, nor a more
vigorous sap circulate through my unstrung limbs. I recollect what I
was in the prime of manhood, with vain regrets; the memory answers no
other end than to torment and upbraid me.
The useless wish of the old man, the object of his hopeless sigh, was
mine. Common and every-day blessings have little value in the eye of
their possessor. The young man squanders the endowments of youth, and
knows not to prize them. If the young man had once been old, if the
old man could again be young, then, and then only, they would justly
estimate their wealth. The springy limb, the bounding frame, the vigour
that sets fatigue at defiance, and revels in pleasures unexhausted,
would then by the near and conscious comparison, of feebleness and
lassitude, the drooping limb, the aching head, and the frame decayed in
all its senses, be well understood. Such was my situation. Yesterday
I was fourscore; to-day I was twenty. Yesterday I was a prisoner,
crippled in every articulation; to-day I was a citizen of the world,
capable of all its delights. To-morrow I was destined to have been
dragged to the stake with ignominy, and to suffer intolerable anguish
amidst the shouts and huzzas of an unfeeling populace; to-morrow I was
at liberty to employ as I pleased, to choose the theatre upon which it
should be spent, and the gratifications that should be crowded into
it. What was most material, my mind was grown young with my body.
Weary of eternal struggle, I had lately resigned the contest, and sunk
under the ill-fortune that relentlessly pursued me. Now I felt within
me a superfluity of vigour; I panted for something to contend with,
and something to conquer. My senses unfolded themselves to all the
curiosity of remark; my thoughts seemed capable of industry unwearied,
and investigation the most constant and invincible. Ambition revived
in my bosom; I longed for new engagements and new relations; I desired
to perform something, that I might myself regard with complacence, and
that I might see the world start at and applaud.
I determined, for reasons that I shall presently have occasion to
unfold, that my first visit should be to my daughters at my paternal
estate of St. Leon. I proposed to spend two or three days in
preparations for this journey. By mere accident, by a most censurable
heedlessness, I became in some degree a spectator of the _auto da fé_
in which I was destined to have been a victim. Unawares I had become
entangled in the crowd, and could with difficulty escape, or even
prevent my being carried nearer the centre of the scene. I saw the
galleries and accommodations that had been erected for the spectators:
I saw the windows and roofs of the houses crowded with beholders. The
shrieks of the sufferers I could not hear; they were drowned in the
infernal exultations of the multitude. But what was worst of all,
I discerned some of the condemned, fixed as they were upon small
boards, near the top of stakes about four yards high, and therefore
greatly above the heads of the assembly, while the flames, abundantly
fed with faggots and dry fuel, climbed aloft, and seemed eager to
embrace their victims. As I have already said, there were thirty of
these death-devoted frames; and, if my eye did not count them all, my
fancy well supplied what sense was unable to discover. The impression
I felt at that moment was horrible beyond all conception. I exerted
my new-found strength, and pushed out of the press with irresistible
vigour. If at that instant I could have felt exultation, even in the
consciousness of my own safety, I should regard myself as the most
execrable of monsters.