My way lay through the city. I had scarcely entered it when I was seized
with a general sensation of sickness. Every object grew dim and swam
before my sight. It was with difficulty I prevented myself from sinking
to the bottom of the carriage. I ordered myself to be carried to Mrs.
Baynton's, in hope that an interval of repose would invigorate and
refresh me. My distracted thoughts would allow me but little rest.
Growing somewhat better in the afternoon, I resumed my journey.
My contemplations were limited to a few objects. I regarded my success,
in the purpose which I had in view, as considerably doubtful. I
depended, in some degree, on the suggestions of the moment, and on the
materials which Pleyel himself should furnish me. When I reflected on
the nature of the accusation, I burned with disdain. Would not truth,
and the consciousness of innocence, render me triumphant? Should I not
cast from me, with irresistible force, such atrocious imputations?
What an entire and mournful change has been effected in a few hours! The
gulf that separates man from insects is not wider than that which severs
the polluted from the chaste among women. Yesterday and to-day I am the
same. There is a degree of depravity to which it is impossible for me
to sink; yet, in the apprehension of another, my ancient and intimate
associate, the perpetual witness of my actions, and partaker of my
thoughts, I had ceased to be the same. My integrity was tarnished
and withered in his eyes. I was the colleague of a murderer, and the
paramour of a thief!
His opinion was not destitute of evidence: yet what proofs could
reasonably avail to establish an opinion like this? If the sentiments
corresponded not with the voice that was heard, the evidence was
deficient; but this want of correspondence would have been supposed by
me if I had been the auditor and Pleyel the criminal. But mimicry might
still more plausibly have been employed to explain the scene. Alas! it
is the fate of Clara Wieland to fall into the hands of a precipitate and
inexorable judge.
But what, O man of mischief! is the tendency of thy thoughts? Frustrated
in thy first design, thou wilt not forego the immolation of thy victim.
To exterminate my reputation was all that remained to thee, and this my
guardian has permitted. To dispossess Pleyel of this prejudice may be
impossible; but if that be effected, it cannot be supposed that thy
wiles are exhausted; thy cunning will discover innumerable avenues to
the accomplishment of thy malignant purpose.
Why should I enter the lists against thee? Would to heaven I could
disarm thy vengeance by my deprecations! When I think of all the
resources with which nature and education have supplied thee; that thy
form is a combination of steely fibres and organs of exquisite ductility
and boundless compass, actuated by an intelligence gifted with infinite
endowments, and comprehending all knowledge, I perceive that my doom
is fixed. What obstacle will be able to divert thy zeal or repel thy
efforts? That being who has hitherto protected me has borne testimony to
the formidableness of thy attempts, since nothing less than supernatural
interference could check thy career.
Musing on these thoughts, I arrived, towards the close of the day, at
Pleyel's house. A month before, I had traversed the same path; but how
different were my sensations! Now I was seeking the presence of one who
regarded me as the most degenerate of human kind. I was to plead the
cause of my innocence, against witnesses the most explicit and unerring,
of those which support the fabric of human knowledge. The nearer I
approached the crisis, the more did my confidence decay. When the chaise
stopped at the door, my strength refused to support me, and I threw
myself into the arms of an ancient female domestic. I had not courage to
inquire whether her master was at home. I was tormented with fears that
the projected journey was already undertaken. These fears were removed,
by her asking me whether she should call her young master, who had just
gone into his own room. I was somewhat revived by this intelligence, and
resolved immediately to seek him there.
In my confusion of mind, I neglected to knock at the door, but entered
his apartment without previous notice. This abruptness was altogether
involuntary. Absorbed in reflections of such unspeakable moment, I had
no leisure to heed the niceties of punctilio. I discovered him standing
with his back towards the entrance. A small trunk, with its lid raised,
was before him in which it seemed as if he had been busy in packing
his clothes. The moment of my entrance, he was employed in gazing at
something which he held in his hand.
I imagined that I fully comprehended this scene. The image which he held
before him, and by which his attention was so deeply engaged, I doubted
not to be my own. These preparations for his journey, the cause to which
it was to be imputed, the hopelessness of success in the undertaking on
which I had entered, rushed at once upon my feelings, and dissolved me
into a flood of tears.
Startled by this sound, he dropped the lid of the trunk and turned. The
solemn sadness that previously overspread his countenance, gave
sudden way to an attitude and look of the most vehement astonishment.
Perceiving me unable to uphold myself, he stepped towards me without
speaking, and supported me by his arm. The kindness of this action
called forth a new effusion from my eyes. Weeping was a solace to
which, at that time, I had not grown familiar, and which, therefore,
was peculiarly delicious. Indignation was no longer to be read in the
features of my friend. They were pregnant with a mixture of wonder and
pity. Their expression was easily interpreted. This visit, and these
tears, were tokens of my penitence. The wretch whom he had stigmatized
as incurably and obdurately wicked, now shewed herself susceptible of
remorse, and had come to confess her guilt.
This persuasion had no tendency to comfort me. It only shewed me, with
new evidence, the difficulty of the task which I had assigned myself. We
were mutually silent. I had less power and less inclination than ever to
speak. I extricated myself from his hold, and threw myself on a sofa.
He placed himself by my side, and appeared to wait with impatience and
anxiety for some beginning of the conversation. What could I say? If my
mind had suggested any thing suitable to the occasion, my utterance was
suffocated by tears.
Frequently he attempted to speak, but seemed deterred by some degree of
uncertainty as to the true nature of the scene. At length, in faltering
accents he spoke:
"My friend! would to heaven I were still permitted to call you by that
name. The image that I once adored existed only in my fancy; but though
I cannot hope to see it realized, you may not be totally insensible to
the horrors of that gulf into which you are about to plunge. What heart
is forever exempt from the goadings of compunction and the influx of
laudable propensities?
"I thought you accomplished and wise beyond the rest of women. Not a
sentiment you uttered, not a look you assumed, that were not, in
my apprehension, fraught with the sublimities of rectitude and the
illuminations of genius. Deceit has some bounds. Your education could
not be without influence. A vigorous understanding cannot be utterly
devoid of virtue; but you could not counterfeit the powers of invention
and reasoning. I was rash in my invectives. I will not, but with life,
relinquish all hopes of you. I will shut out every proof that would tell
me that your heart is incurably diseased.
"You come to restore me once more to happiness; to convince me that you
have torn her mask from vice, and feel nothing but abhorrence for the
part you have hitherto acted."
At these words my equanimity forsook me. For a moment I forgot the
evidence from which Pleyel's opinions were derived, the benevolence of
his remonstrances, and the grief which his accents bespoke; I was filled
with indignation and horror at charges so black; I shrunk back and
darted at him a look of disdain and anger. My passion supplied me with
words.
"What detestable infatuation was it that led me hither! Why do I
patiently endure these horrible insults! My offences exist only in
your own distempered imagination: you are leagued with the traitor who
assailed my life: you have vowed the destruction of my peace and honor.
I deserve infamy for listening to calumnies so base!"
These words were heard by Pleyel without visible resentment. His
countenance relapsed into its former gloom; but he did not even look at
me. The ideas which had given place to my angry emotions returned, and
once more melted me into tears. "O!" I exclaimed, in a voice broken by
sobs, "what a task is mine! Compelled to hearken to charges which I feel
to be false, but which I know to be believed by him that utters them;
believed too not without evidence, which, though fallacious, is not
unplausible.
"I came hither not to confess, but to vindicate. I know the source
of your opinions. Wieland has informed me on what your suspicions are
built. These suspicions are fostered by you as certainties; the tenor
of my life, of all my conversations and letters, affords me no security;
every sentiment that my tongue and my pen have uttered, bear testimony
to the rectitude of my mind; but this testimony is rejected. I am
condemned as brutally profligate: I am classed with the stupidly and
sordidly wicked.
"And where are the proofs that must justify so foul and so improbable
an accusation? You have overheard a midnight conference. Voices have
saluted your ear, in which you imagine yourself to have recognized
mine, and that of a detected villain. The sentiments expressed were
not allowed to outweigh the casual or concerted resemblance of voice.
Sentiments the reverse of all those whose influence my former life had
attested, denoting a mind polluted by grovelling vices, and entering
into compact with that of a thief and a murderer. The nature of these
sentiments did not enable you to detect the cheat, did not suggest to
you the possibility that my voice had been counterfeited by another.
"You were precipitate and prone to condemn. Instead of rushing on the
impostors, and comparing the evidence of sight with that of hearing, you
stood aloof, or you fled. My innocence would not now have stood in
need of vindication, if this conduct had been pursued. That you did not
pursue it, your present thoughts incontestibly prove. Yet this conduct
might surely have been expected from Pleyel. That he would not hastily
impute the blackest of crimes, that he would not couple my name with
infamy, and cover me with ruin for inadequate or slight reasons, might
reasonably have been expected." The sobs which convulsed my bosom would
not suffer me to proceed.
Pleyel was for a moment affected. He looked at me with some expression
of doubt; but this quickly gave place to a mournful solemnity. He fixed
his eyes on the floor as in reverie, and spoke:
"Two hours hence I am gone. Shall I carry away with me the sorrow that
is now my guest? or shall that sorrow be accumulated tenfold? What is
she that is now before me? Shall every hour supply me with new proofs of
a wickedness beyond example? Already I deem her the most abandoned and
detestable of human creatures. Her coming and her tears imparted a gleam
of hope, but that gleam has vanished."
He now fixed his eyes upon me, and every muscle in his face trembled.
His tone was hollow and terrible--"Thou knowest that I was a witness of
your interview, yet thou comest hither to upbraid me for injustice! Thou
canst look me in the face and say that I am deceived!--An inscrutable
providence has fashioned thee for some end. Thou wilt live, no doubt, to
fulfil the purposes of thy maker, if he repent not of his workmanship,
and send not his vengeance to exterminate thee, ere the measure of thy
days be full. Surely nothing in the shape of man can vie with thee!
"But I thought I had stifled this fury. I am not constituted thy judge.
My office is to pity and amend, and not to punish and revile. I deemed
myself exempt from all tempestuous passions. I had almost persuaded
myself to weep over thy fall; but I am frail as dust, and mutable as
water; I am calm, I am compassionate only in thy absence.--Make this
house, this room, thy abode as long as thou wilt, but forgive me if I
prefer solitude for the short time during which I shall stay." Saying
this, he motioned as if to leave the apartment.
The stormy passions of this man affected me by sympathy. I ceased to
weep. I was motionless and speechless with agony. I sat with my hands
clasped, mutely gazing after him as he withdrew. I desired to detain
him, but was unable to make any effort for that purpose, till he had
passed out of the room. I then uttered an involuntary and piercing
cry--"Pleyel! Art thou gone? Gone forever?"
At this summons he hastily returned. He beheld me wild, pale, gasping
for breath, and my head already sinking on my bosom. A painful dizziness
seized me, and I fainted away.
When I recovered, I found myself stretched on a bed in the outer
apartment, and Pleyel, with two female servants standing beside it. All
the fury and scorn which the countenance of the former lately expressed,
had now disappeared, and was succeeded by the most tender anxiety. As
soon as he perceived that my senses were returned to me, he clasped his
hands, and exclaimed, "God be thanked! you are once more alive. I had
almost despaired of your recovery. I fear I have been precipitate and
unjust. My senses must have been the victims of some inexplicable and
momentary phrenzy. Forgive me, I beseech you, forgive my reproaches. I
would purchase conviction of your purity, at the price of my existence
here and hereafter."
He once more, in a tone of the most fervent tenderness, besought me to
be composed, and then left me to the care of the women.