"Providence," says a powerful but dangerous author of another
land--"has placed Disgust at the door of all bad places."
But, alas, she keeps herself behind the door as we go in, and it is
only when we come out that we meet her face to face! The road to evil
is undoubtedly a flowery path, smoothed down and softened with every
care, so that no obstruction, no difficulty, may retard our steps, or
keep us within the bounds of right. It is only when we would turn
again that we discover the thorns.
Such may seem a strange homily wherewith to begin an account of the
journey of Morley Ernstein and Frederick, Count Lieberg. It is
nevertheless an undoubted fact, dear reader, that of all the many
persons well calculated to smooth that high road to vice, of which we
have just spoken, the young Baronet could have found none more
dangerous than the man who, placed side by side with him, commenced,
on the day following that with which we terminated our last chapter, a
tour through lands where temptation is cheap, example abundant, and
punishment rare--except, indeed, that silent punishment of the heart,
the sentence of God's own law, to which man has sometimes added
corporeal infliction, but from which he can never take away one fiery
drop.
They sat side by side in Morley's carriage, turning over that of Count
Lieberg to servants and baggage; for, as we have seen, Morley had no
less than three men in his train--the courier, the groom, and good
Adam Gray--while Lieberg was armed with a courier and a valet, so that
they were plenty certainly to occupy both vehicles. The conversation
between the two travelling companions was, of course, modified by the
circumstances in which they were placed. It was no longer the wide,
discursive, rambling play of fancy which had characterized their
communications at an earlier period of their acquaintance, but it was
full of deeper thoughts and feelings. It was no longer the even flow
of a bright and sparkling rivulet, dancing rapidly on, uninterrupted
by any obstacle, glistening over the pebbles of its bed, and whirling
in murmuring eddies from the banks; but it was the mountain-torrent,
amongst rocks and precipices, now pausing in deep silent pools, now
dashing through stones and crags, and now plunging, in an eager
cataract, over the edge of the precipitous cliff.
It might be that Lieberg's mind had itself taken a different mood from
the various scenes through which he had lately gone, from the violent
passions which had actuated him, from the bitter disappointment of
pride, and vanity, and love. Or was it that he purposely gave to all
he said that tone which made it harmonize with the mood and temper of
his companion at that moment? Who shall say which? Certain it is,
however, that he, as usual, led the conversation, and led it in that
exact strain which bore the mind of Morley Ernstein along with him. He
suffered the pauses that took place to be long; he forced not his
fellow-traveller to speak; he meditated, as well as Morley, and only
roused himself from his silence to cast forth some fierce and flashing
sarcasm at the world and all that it contains, or to utter some deep
and stern comment upon human happiness or human efforts. It was like
the stillness of the storm's approach broken by the flash of the
thunder. Then, if he found his companion so disposed, he would go on
in a rambling and meditative manner, with a dark gloom pervading all
he said, like the shadow of the cloud, remaining even when the voice
of the tempest is still.
"Do you see that mother nursing her child, Morley?" he said, after a
pause, as they drove through one of those small, miserable villages,
to be found so frequently upon the road from Calais to Paris--"do you
see yon mother nursing her child? Is it not a pretty sight?"
"I think it is," replied Morley, somewhat surprised at the sneering
turn of the lip that accompanied his words.
"Ay," continued Lieberg, "it is indeed a sweet sight to see the sowing
of hopes that go on from blight to blight, till all are blasted to the
very root. For what is she nursing it, Morley? For sickness, and
sorrow, and disappointment; for anguish of body and of mind; to find
virtue become a curse, or pleasure alone in vice; for sin, crime,
misery, and death, the grave and corruption, and hell hereafter! It is
a sweet sight, indeed; and yet, if there be truth, either in Holy
Writ, or in worldly experience, such is what we have just seen. The
child was a girl, was it not?"
"I think so," replied Morley, gloomily.
"Poor thing!" said Lieberg--"the more her misery. Men can find
pleasure, or, at all events, relief from their cares, if they are wise
enough to seek it. Women are altogether slaves--their minds to
prejudices, their bodies to passions or to follies. They are worse
than any other slaves, the slaves of two masters--of man, and of
vanity."
Morley replied not, and the conversation dropped; but it is true, and
therefore must be admitted, that the tone assumed by his companion was
that which harmonized with the feelings in his own bosom, although he
might see in many cases the falseness of his arguments, and the
fallacy of all his deductions. Those feelings were of angry
discontent, and he would not take the trouble to refute Lieberg, even
where he perceived he was most wrong. It was like hearing a man who
has deeply injured us accused of faults that he has not committed--too
often do we listen, and internally dissent, but are silent, and
perhaps are pleased.
After a pause of some minutes, Lieberg took up the same topic again,
pointing out how superior was the situation of man to woman; but still
the theme was, that man could drown every sorrow and every care by
varying excitements. It was too pleasant a doctrine for Morley, in his
state of mind at the time, willingly to resist, and he yielded
gradually to the belief that the only course for him to pursue was, to
drown the memory of Juliet Carr by anything that could occupy or
interest him. He proposed to himself innocent objects, it is true; but
where is the man who can gallop his horse headlong at a fence, and say
that he will not leap it?
The first day's journey passed in such conversation as we have
described, and the carriages paused at Beauvais, for the night. It was
yet light; and to while away an hour ere dinner was ready, Morley
Ernstein, without giving any notice to Lieberg, who had gone to
another room, strolled out to the fine old cathedral, and entered
those doors which, in Roman-catholic countries, are never shut against
the worshipper.
He gazed up towards the high transept, the magnificent proportions of
which must ever bow the heart to religious feelings, first calling to
taste, and taste leading on imagination, and imagination bringing a
thousand devout images in her train, as is always the case when
appealed to by anything grand and solemn. There is something, also, in
the architecture of Gothic churches, which has certainly a more
devotional effect than the light and graceful buildings of the Greeks.
There are near relationships between all grand sensations. Awe is the
sister of Devotion; and I believe that feelings truly sublime can
never be awakened in the human heart without ideas of religion rising
up with them. Man often becomes sensible of his littleness in the
midst of the works of his own hands; the eye runs up the tall column,
till it loses the tracery of the capital in the airy gloom above; he
stands at the foot of it as an insect, and thinks of the God for whose
worship that structure was raised, and to whom it is less than the
ant-hill on which we set our unconscious feet.
Morley Ernstein felt the influence of the place. The shady hour; the
solemn arches; the sober hue of the building; the solitary lamp at a
shrine on the other side; the kneeling figure of a woman, half
hidden in the gloom; a receding step, that echoed along the vacant
vault;--all made him feel inclined to stay and meditate; and the
better spirit seemed to think her hour was come again, and lifted her
voice to take the bitterness from his wounded heart. It was in vain,
however, for the fiend was near him, and ere Morley had reached the
end of the choir, Lieberg was by him, and his hand upon his arm.
How was it that he whiled Morley away from those contemplations, which
were likely to lead him to higher and holier feelings than those which
his counsels could inspire? It was by no light laugh--it was by no,
bitter sneer--it was by none of those means which he might have
employed at another time. He knew that there was a spirit dwelt in the
air of that place which would not suffer any method of the kind to
succeed. He called Morley's attention, then, to the beauties of the
building, he descanted upon columns and arches with the most refined
and delicate taste, he destroyed the grand effect of the whole by
engaging his companion's fancy in the examination of details, and,
drawing him out of the church, after having taken a turn round it, he
pointed to some of the grotesque ornaments, the grinning heads, and
monstrous forms which found place in the architecture of that day, and
then, and not till then, he ventured upon a sneer.
"See, Morley," he said, "how these people think fit to decorate the
temples of their God, with heads of devils and serpents! Thus is it
with us all, I fear; and if we were to look to the temple which we
raise to God in our own hearts, we should find it as full of grinning
fooleries as the outside of a French cathedral. The very image that we
draw of him, nine times out of ten, if we could embody it, would be no
better than the great idol of Juggernaut; and, alas! like that idol,
we often make it, in bloody triumph, roll over a crowd of human
things, crushing all sweet affections, and joys, and happiness,
beneath the wheels of one superstition or another. Is it more
drivelling or more foolish to ornament a temple like that with toads,
and bats, and dragons of stone, than to suppose that the God who made
us and gave us powers of enjoyment, should quarrel with us for using
those powers, or tasting pleasure wherever we find it?"
"It must depend upon the kind of pleasure, Lieberg," replied Morley,
somewhat sharply. "God will never quarrel with us, I am sure, for that
which neither injures ourselves, nor other individuals, nor society in
general--which neither degrades the spirit that he has given us, nor
takes away from the glory of the giver. But it is a wide subject,
Lieberg, which I will not discuss with you in my present mood; one
thing, however, is very certain, that man's foolish imaginations can
no more alter the nature of God, than those foolish ornaments can
affect the prayers that are offered in sincerity beneath those walls.
He has told us what he is, and with that we must rest satisfied."
Lieberg made no farther reply, for he was well aware, that one evil
thought, that one dark doubt in regard to right and wrong, once
implanted in the human mind, remains for its time buried in silence
and apparent forgetfulness, till the summer day of temptation causes
it to germinate and produce the richest harvest which a tempter can
desire. He left the subject, therefore, were it was, and the following
morning the two companions proceeded on their way towards the French
metropolis.
They stayed not long in that capital, nor shall I pause upon all the
events that occurred there. Lieberg took care that Morley should not
want temptation, and it was not by any ordinary means that he
stimulated him to yield to it. He urged him not, he argued not with
him in order to induce him to plunge into the ordinary dissipations of
youth, but he proceeded by the sap and mine: every word, every tone,
and every look being directed to show without an effort--to impress
upon the mind of his companion as a self-evident truth, that a greater
or a less degree of vice was an inevitable necessity, an incident in
the life of every young man, without which, youth never reached
manhood. He took it for granted--or, at least, he seemed to do
so--that Morley's views on those subjects must be the same as his
own--nay, that he must be already in some degree dipped in the stream,
which is certainly neither that of immortality nor oblivion; and he
more than once thought fit to suppose that his young companion went
hither, or went thither with views which never entered into his head.
At the same time, as his acquaintance was very extensive in Paris, he
contrived that his fellow-traveller should be cast, whether he liked
it or not, into such society as he thought fit.
Tools for any work are never wanting in Paris; a thousand accidents
brought about a meeting between Morley and this fair lady, or that
beautiful girl; and amidst the bright, the gay, and the fascinating,
there were many willing and well-skilled to lead youth upon the
flowery path of passion. A moment of strong temptation came, working
itself up by various accidents like clouds gathering together for a
storm. Lieberg watched it coming, and chose the precise moment when
the whole fabric of Morley's good feelings and good principles
tottered, for the purpose of making a great effort to overthrow them
altogether; but he strove for it, not as other men would have striven.
It was a sombre evening, the moment of danger he knew was to be
towards nine o'clock that night, and Lieberg sought not to make his
companion pass the hours in any occupation which might banish thought
and reflection; on the contrary, it seemed as if a deep and heavy
gloom had fallen upon himself; his conversation was of the darkest and
desponding character; and, as they sat alone together, he skilfully
called up every idea that might pile such a load upon Morley's heart
and mind, as would impel him to anything in order to cast it off.
"Such evenings as this make me sad," he said, with his dark, bright
eyes resting mournfully upon the young Englishman. "Autumn, indeed, is
always to me a time of darkness. It is the death-bed of the year, and
still, when I think how many pleasures have slipped by us
untasted--how few will ever return again,--when I think of the
emptiness of many things that I have sought and cared about, I feel a
cloud come over my spirit that I would give worlds to disperse! What a
difference, Morley," he continued, looking out of the window--"what a
difference between this evening and that on which I some time ago met
you in the park, with a beautiful girl hanging on your arm, and
looking as if she loved you!"
Morley shrunk as if he had been rending open his heart, and bent down
his eyes upon the table, but Lieberg went on--"I, too, was happier
then," he continued; "but those dreams fade, and I do believe, after
all, that with women, the virtue and the high principle which we
admire is but coldness of nature. They will be to all appearance as
fond, as attached, as devoted, as may be, but put some small
stumbling-block in their way, and we shall find that they will whirl
all our happiness to the wind without a hesitation or a care."
Morley stretched out his hand to the Burgundy that stood by with a
sort of convulsive grasp, filled the tumbler to the brim, and drank it
off without a pause.
"Give me the woman of passion," continued Lieberg--"she who yields to
the impetuous torrent of her love without fears of the consequences or
thoughts of the future--a thousand to one she betrays me, it is true,
but still she is mine while I possess her, and she can never inflict
upon me the pang of the cold-hearted, virtuous coquette, who raises
love almost to a pitch of agony, and then disappoints it with an agony
more terrible, verifying the Icelandic fable of the damned, whose
torture is, to be first burned in the heart of Hecla, and then plunged
into its eternal snows. There have been periods in my life, Morley,
when I have felt more bitterly than you know of; and it is ever in
such dull times as this that the memory of all which is sad and dark
in the past comes upon me. I wish the Salon was opened; I think I
could go and stake my last louis, to see if, by the gambler's feverish
joy, I could cast off this oppressive weight upon my breast. Give me
the wine, Morley, and let us have the windows closed--I love not the
world nor anything in it!"
Thus went he on for some time in a tone of dark despondency, which
made the moral poison that mingled with all he said ten times more
potent and dangerous than when it came diluted with gayer things. Had
he presented to Morley's mind the memory of Juliet Carr in all her
purity and goodness, he would have called up a warning angel rather
than a fiend; but it was the memory of sorrows alone that he recalled,
of that anguish of mind which--as corporeal pain will sometimes drive
the wretch, in a moment of madness, to fly to deadly poison for the
repose of death--will often urge on the spirit to a thousand harmful
things, even for a moment's relief.
As he proceeded, the load seemed to lie more and more heavy upon
Morley's heart. At first it bore him down, and seemed to overpower
him, but gradually he rose to struggle against it; the wine seemed to
strengthen him; he took another and another draught, but then he
paused, saying, he would drink no more: Already, however, it had
produced some effect, not in intoxicating, not in clouding his senses,
but in sending that fire through the veins which none but the
Burgundian grape can produce. He became impatient of Lieberg's gloomy
tone--he was glad when the clock struck nine.
"Ha! there is the hour," cried Lieberg. "Now will you come to the
Salon, Morley? We shall find some excitement, at least, in those
mischievous pieces of pasteboard."
"No," answered Morley, "I have an engagement to-night; my carriage
must be by this time in the court;" and hurrying away to escape
further question, the sound of wheels were heard the moment after.
A dark smile came upon Lieberg's countenance. He, too, went forth, but
he was not absent more than an hour; and then, speaking a word to his
valet as he passed, he walked into the sitting-room, and sat down to
read. It was past one o'clock when the valet entered, suddenly
saying--"That is his carriage now, sir."
Lieberg went out into the corridor, and passed Morley Ernstein, as,
with a slow step, the young Englishman mounted the stairs. He gave him
but a word of salutation, and hurried on; but Lieberg marked the
haggard eye and the flushed cheek, and, entering his own bed-room, he
stood silent for a moment in the midst of the floor, with a look of
fierce triumph. It was as if he had won a great victory.
But there must have been a motive for all this. There was, and his
words showed it: "He has fallen!" he cried--"he has fallen! The first
plunge is taken! Who shall stop him now?--Neither Heaven nor hell. He
shall go on--he shall go on! and ere many a year, I will show her this
god of her idolatry as low and empty a licentious debauchee as any
that crawls through opera saloons, or spends his days and nights
between the gaming table and the brothel!"