Transcriber’s Notes:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including inconsistencies in spelling, hyphenation, and
punctuation. Some corrections of spelling and punctuation have been
made. They are listed at the end of the text.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
MELMOTH
THE
WANDERER:
A
TALE.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “BERTRAM,” &c.
IN FOUR VOLUMES.
VOL. IV.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY,
AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE,
LONDON.
1820.
MELMOTH.
CHAPTER XXIII.
If he to thee no answer give,
I’ll give to thee a sign;
A secret known to nought that live,
Save but to me and mine.
* * * * *
Gone to be married.------
SHAKESPEARE.
“The whole of the next day was occupied by Donna Clara, to whom
letter-writing was a rare, troublesome, and momentous task, in reading
over and correcting her answer to her husband’s letter; in which
examination she found so much to correct, interline, alter, modify,
expunge, and new-model, that finally Donna Clara’s epistle very much
resembled the work she was now employed in, namely, that of
_overcasting_ a piece of tapestry wrought by her grandmother,
representing the meeting of king Solomon and the queen of Sheba. The new
work, instead of repairing, made fearful havock among the old; but Donna
Clara went on, like her countryman at Mr Peter’s puppet-show, playing
away (with her needle) in a perfect shower of back-strokes,
fore-strokes, side-thrusts, and counter-thrusts, till not a figure in
the tapestry could know himself again. The faded face of Solomon was
garnished with a florid beard of scarlet silk (which Fra Jose at first
told her she must rip out, as it made Solomon very little better than
Judas) that made him resemble a boiled scallop. The fardingale of the
queen of Sheba was expanded to an enormous hoop, of whose shrunk and
pallid wearer it might be truly said, “_Minima est pars sui_.” The dog
that, in the original tapestry, stood by the spurred and booted heel of
the oriental monarch, (who was clad in Spanish costume), by dint of a
few tufts of black and yellow satin, was converted into a tiger,--a
transformation which his grinning fangs rendered as authentic as heart
could wish. And the parrot perched on the queen’s shoulder, with the
help of a train of green and gold, which the ignorant mistook for her
majesty’s mantle, proved a very passable peacock.”
“As little trace of her original epistle did Donna Clara’s present one
bear, as did her elaborate overcasting to the original and painful
labours of her grandmother. In both, however, Donna Clara (who scorned
to flinch) went over the same ground with dim eye, and patient touch,
and inextinguishable and remorseless assiduity. The letter, such as it
was, was still sufficiently characteristic of the writer. Some passages
of it the reader shall be indulged with,--and we reckon on his gratitude
for not insisting on his perusal of the whole. The authentic copy, from
which we are favoured with the extracts, runs thus. * * * * * * * *
“Your daughter takes to her religion like mother’s milk; and well may
she do so, considering that the trunk of our family was planted in the
genuine soil of the Catholic church, and that every branch of of it must
flourish there or perish. For a Neophyte, (as Fra Jose wills me to word
it), she is as promising a sprout as one should wish to see flourishing
within the pale of the holy church;--and for a heathen, she is so
amenable, submissive, and of such maidenly suavity, that for the
comportment of her person, and the discreet and virtuous ordering of her
mind, I have no Christian mother to envy. Nay, I sometimes take pity on
them, when I see the lightness, the exceeding vain carriage, and the
unadvised eagerness to be wedded, of the best trained maidens of our
country. This our daughter hath nothing of, either in her outward
demeanour, or inward mind. She talks little, _therefore she cannot think
much_; and she dreams not of the light devices of love, and is therefore
well qualified for the marriage proposed unto her. * * * * * * * *
“One thing, dear spouse of my soul, I would have thee to take notice of,
and guard like the apple of thine eye,--our daughter is deranged, but
never, on thy discretion, mention this to Don Montilla, even though he
were the descendant in the right line of the Campeador, or of Gonsalvo
di Cordova. Her derangement will in no wise impede or contravene her
marriage,--for be it known to thee, it breaks out but at times, and at
such times, that the most jealous eye of man could not spy it, unless he
had a foretaught intimation of it. She hath strange fantasies swimming
in her brain, such as, that heretics and heathens shall not be
everlastingly damned--(God and the saints protect us!)--which must
clearly proceed from madness,--but which her Catholic husband, if ever
he comes to the knowledge of them, shall know how to expel, by aid of
the church, and conjugal authority. That thou may’st better know the
truth of what I hereby painfully certify, the saints and Fra Jose (who
will not let me tell a lie, because he in a manner holds my pen) can
witness, that about four days before we left Madrid, as we went to
church, and I was about, while ascending the steps, to dole alms to a
mendicant woman wrapt in a mantle, who held up a naked child for the
receiving of charity, your daughter twitched my sleeve, while she
whispered, ‘Madam, she cannot be mother to that child, for she is
covered, and her child is naked. If she were its mother, she would cover
her child, and not be comfortably wrapt herself.’ True it was, I found
afterwards the wretched woman had hired the child from its more wretched
mother, and my alms had paid the price of its hire for the day; but
still that not a whit disproved our daughter insane, inasmuch as it
showed her ignorant of the fashion and usages of the beggars of the
country, and did in some degree shew a doubt of the merit of alms-deeds,
which thou know’st none but heretics or madmen could deny. Other and
grievous proofs of her insanity doth she give daily; but not willing to
incumber you with ink, (which Fra Jose willeth me to call _atramentum_),
I will add but a few particulars to arouse your dormant faculties, which
may be wrapt in lethargic obliviousness by the anodyne of my somniferous
epistolation.”
“Reverend Father,” said Donna Clara, looking up to Fra Jose, who had
dictated the last line, “Don Francisco will know the last line not to be
mine--he heard it in one of your sermons. Let me add the extraordinary
proof of my daughter’s insanity at the ball.”--“Add or diminish, compose
or confound, what you will, in God’s name!” said Fra Jose, vexed at the
frequent erazures and lituras which disfigured the lines of his
dictation; “for though in style I may somewhat boast of my superiority,
in scratches no hen on the best dunghill in Spain can contend with you!
On, then, in the name of all the saints!--and when it pleases heaven to
send an interpreter to your husband, we may hope to hear from him by the
next post-angel, for surely such a letter was never written on earth.”
“With this encouragement and applause, Donna Clara proceeded to relate
sundry other errors and wanderings of her daughter, which, to a mind so
swathed, crippled, and dwarfed, by the ligatures which the hand of
custom had twined round it since its first hour of consciousness, might
well have appeared like the aberrations of insanity. Among other proofs,
she mentioned that Isidora’s first introduction to a Christian and
Catholic church, was on that night of penitence in passion-week, when,
the lights being extinguished, the _miserere_ is chaunted in profound
darkness, the penitents macerate themselves, and groans are heard on
every side instead of prayers, as if the worship of Moloch was renewed
without its fires;--struck with horror at the sounds she heard, and the
darkness which surrounded her, Isidora demanded what they were
doing.--“Worshipping God,” was the answer.
“At the expiration of Lent, she was introduced to a brilliant assembly,
where the gay fandango was succeeded by the soft notes of the
seguedilla,--and the crackling of the castanets, and the tinkling of the
guitars, marked alternate time to the light and ecstatic step of youth,
and the silvery and love-tuned voice of beauty. Touched with delight at
all she saw and heard,--the smiles that dimpled and sparkled over her
beautiful features reflecting every shade of pleasure they encountered,
like the ripplings of a brook kissed by the moon-beams,--she eagerly
asked, “And are not these worshipping God?”--“Out on it, daughter!”
interposed Donna Clara, who happened to overhear the question; “This is
a vain and sinful pastime,--the invention of the devil to delude the
children of folly,--hateful in the eyes of heaven and its saints,--and
abhorred and renounced by the faithful.”--“Then there are two Gods,”
said Isidora sighing, “the God of smiles and happiness, and the God of
groans and blood. Would I could serve the former!”--“I will take order
you shall serve the latter, heathenish and profane that you are!”
answered Donna Clara, as she hurried her from the assembly, shocked at
the scandal which her words might have given. These and many similar
anecdotes were painfully indited in Donna Clara’s long epistle, which,
after being folded and sealed by Fra Jose, (who swore by the habit he
wore, he had rather study twenty pages of the Polyglot fasting, than
read it over once more), was duly forwarded to Don Francisco.
“The habits and movements of Don Francisco were, like those of his
nation, so deliberate and dilatory, and his aversion to writing letters,
except on mercantile subjects, so well known, that Donna Clara was
actually alarmed at receiving, in the evening of the day in which her
epistle was dispatched, another letter from her husband.
“Its contents must be guessed to be sufficiently singular, when the
result was, that Donna Clara and Fra Jose sat up over them nearly the
whole of the night, in consultation, anxiety, and fear. So intense was
their conference, that it is recorded it was never interrupted even by
the lady telling her beads, or the monk thinking of his supper. All the
artificial habits, the customary indulgences, the factitious existence
of both, were merged in the real genuine fear which pervaded their
minds, and which asserted its power over both in painful and exacting
proportion to their long and hardy rejection of its influence. Their
minds succumbed together, and sought and gave in vain, feeble counsel,
and fruitless consolation. They read over and over again this
extraordinary letter, and at every reading their minds grew darker,--and
their counsels more perplexed,--and their looks more dismal. Ever and
anon they turned their eyes on it, as it lay open before them on Donna
Clara’s ebony writing-desk, and then starting, asked each other by
looks, and sometimes in words, “Did either hear some strange noise in
the house?” The letter, among other matter not important to the reader,
contained the singular passage following. * * * * * *
“In my travel from the place where I landed, to that whence I now
write, I fortuned to be in company with strangers, from whom I heard
things touching me (not as they meant, but as my fear interpreted
them) in a point the most exquisite that can prick and wound the soul
of a Christian father. These I shall discuss unto thee at thy more
leisure. They are full of fearful matter, and such as may perchance
require the aid of some churchman rightly to understand, and fully
to fathom. Nevertheless this I can commend to thy discretion, that
after I had parted from this strange conference, the reports of which
I cannot by letter communicate to thee, I retired to my chamber full
of sad and heavy thoughts, and being seated in my chair, pored over a
tome containing legends of departed spirits, in nowise contradictive
to the doctrine of the holy Catholic church, otherwise I would have
crushed it with the sole of my foot into the fire that burned before
me on the hearth, and spit on its cinders with the spittle of my
mouth. Now, whether it was the company I fortuned to be into, (whose
conversation must never be known but to thee only), or the book I had
been reading, which contained certain extracts from Pliny, Artemidore,
and others, full-filled with tales which I may not now recount, but
which did relate altogether to the revivification of the departed,
appearing in due accordance with our Catholic conceptions of Christian
ghosts in purgatory, with their suitable accoutrements of chains and
flames,--as thus Pliny writeth, “_Apparebat eidolon senex, macie et
senio confectus_,”--or finally, the weariness of my lonely journey, or
other things I know not,--but feeling my mind ill-disposed for deeper
converse with books or my own thoughts, and though oppressed by sleep,
unwilling to retire to rest,--a mood which I and others have often
experienced,--I took out thy letters from the desk in which I duly
reposit them, and read over the description which thou didst send me
of our daughter, upon the first intelligence of her being discovered
in that accursed isle of heathenism,--and I do assure thee, the
description of our daughter hath been written in such characters on the
bosom to which she hath never been clasped, that it would defy the art
of all the limners in Spain to paint it more effectually. So, thinking
on those dark-blue eyes,--and those natural ringlets which will not
obey their new mistress, art,--and that slender undulating shape,--and
thinking it would soon be folded in my arms, and ask the blessing of a
Christian father in Christian tones, I dozed as I sat in my chair; and
my dreams taking part with my waking thoughts, I was a-dreamt that such
a creature, so fair, so fond, so cherubic, sat beside me, and asked
me blessing. As I bowed to give it, I nodded in my chair and awoke.
Awoke I say, for what followed was as palpable to human sight as the
furniture of my apartment, or any other tangible object. There was a
female seated opposite me, clad in a Spanish dress, but her veil flowed
down to her feet. She sat, and seemed to expect that I should bespeak
her first. “Damsel,” I said, “what seekest thou?--or why art thou
here?” The figure never raised its veil, nor motioned with hand or lip.
Mine head was full of what I had heard and read of; and after making
the sign of the cross, and uttering certain prayers, I approached that
figure, and said, “Damsel, what wantest thou?”--“A father,” said the
form, raising its veil, and disclosing the identical features of my
daughter Isidora, as described in thy numerous letters. Thou mayest
well guess my consternation, which I might almost term fear, at the
sight and words of this beautiful but strange and solemn figure. Nor
was my perplexity and trouble diminished but increased, when the
figure, rising and pointing to the door, through which she forthwith
passed with a mysterious grace and incredible alacrity, uttered, _in
transitu_, words like these:--“Save me!--save me!--lose not a moment,
or I am lost!” And I swear to thee, wife, that while that figure sat or
departed, I heard not the rustling of her garments, or the tread of her
foot, or the sound of her respiration--only as she went out, there was
a rushing sound as of a wind passing through the chamber,--and a mist
seemed to hang on every object around me, which dispersed--and I was
conscious of heaving a deep sigh, as if a load had been removed from my
breast. I sat thereafter for an hour pondering on what I had seen, and
not knowing whether to term it a waking dream, or a dreamlike waking. I
am a mortal man, sensible of fear, and liable to error,--but I am also
a Catholic Christian, and have ever been a hearty contemner of your
tales of spectres and visions, excepting always when sanctioned by the
authority of the holy church, and recorded in the lives of her saints
and martyrs. Finding no end or fruit of these my heavy cogitations, I
withdrew myself to bed, where I long lay tossing and sleepless, till
at the approach of morning, just as I was falling into a deep sleep,
I was awoke by a noise like that of a breeze waving my curtains. I
started up, and drawing them, looked around me. There was a glimpse of
day-light appearing through the window-shutters, but not sufficient
to enable me to distinguish the objects in the room, were it not for
the lamp that burned on the hearth, and whose light, though somewhat
dim, was perfectly distinct. By it I discovered, near the door, a
figure which my sight, rendered more acute by my terror, verified as
the identical figure I had before beheld, who, waving its arm with a
melancholy gesture, and uttering in a piteous voice these words, “It is
too late,” disappeared. As, I will own to thee, overcome with horror at
this second visitation, I fell back on my pillow almost bereft of the
use of my faculties, I remember the clock struck three.”
“As Donna Clara and the priest (on their tenth perusal of the letter)
arrived at these words, the clock in the hall below struck three. “That
is a singular coincidence,” said Fra Jose. “Do you think it nothing
more, Father?” said Donna Clara, turning very pale. “I know not,” said
the priest; “many have told credible stories of warnings permitted by
our guardian saints, to be given even by the ministry of inanimate
things. But to what purpose are we warned, when we know not the evil we
are to shun?”--“Hush!--hark!” said Donna Clara, “did you hear no
noise?”--“None,” said Fra Jose listening, not without some appearance of
perturbation--“None,” he added, in a more tranquil and assured voice,
after a pause; “and the noise which I _did_ hear about two hours ago,
was of short continuance, and has not been renewed.”--“What a flickering
light these tapers give!” said Donna Clara, viewing them with eyes
glassy and fixed with fear. “The casements are open,” answered the
priest. “So they have been since we sat here,” returned Donna Clara;
“yet now see what a stream of air comes rushing against them! Holy God!
they flare as if they would go out!”
“The priest, looking up at the tapers, observed the truth of what she
said,--and at the same time perceived the tapestry near the door to be
considerably agitated. “There is a door open in some other direction,”
said he, rising. “You are not going to leave me, Father?” said Donna
Clara, who sat in her chair paralyzed with terror, and unable to follow
him but with her eyes.
“The Father Jose made no answer. He was now in the passage, where a
circumstance which he observed had arrested all his attention,--the door
of Isidora’s apartment was open, and lights were burning in it. He
entered it slowly at first, and gazed around, but its inmate was not
there. He glanced his eye on the bed, but no human form had pressed it
that night--it lay untouched and undisturbed. The casement next caught
his eye, now glancing with the quickness of fear on every object. He
approached it--it was wide open,--the casement that looked towards the
garden. In his horror at this discovery, the good Father could not avoid
uttering a cry that pierced the ears of Donna Clara, who, trembling and
scarce able to make her way to the room, attempted to follow him in
vain, and fell down in the passage. The priest raised and tried to
assist her back to her own apartment. The wretched mother, when at last
placed in her chair, neither fainted or wept; but with white and
speechless lips, and a paralytic motion of her hand, tried to point
towards her daughter’s apartment, as if she wished to be conveyed there.
“It is too late,” said the priest, unconsciously using the ominous words
quoted in the letter of Don Francisco.