Τηλε μ’ ειργουσι ψυχαι, ειδωλα καμοντων.
HOMER.
“We have now to retrace a short period of our narrative to the night on
which Don Francisco di Aliaga, the father of Isidora, “fortuned,” as he
termed it, to be among the company whose conversation had produced so
extraordinary an effect on him.
“He was journeying homewards, full of the contemplation of his
wealth,--the certainty of having attained complete security against the
evils that harass life,--and being able to set at defiance all external
causes of infelicity. He felt like a man “at ease in his
possessions,”--and he felt also a grave and placid satisfaction at the
thought of meeting a family who looked up to him with profound respect
as the author of their fortunes,--of walking in his own house, amid
bowing domestics and obsequious relatives, with the same slow
authoritative step with which he paced the mart among wealthy merchants,
and saw the wealthiest bow as he approached,--and when he had passed,
point out the man of whose grave salute they were proud, and whisper,
That is Aliaga the rich.--So thinking and feeling, as most prosperous
men do, with an honest pride in their worldly success,--an exaggerated
expectation of the homage of society,--(which they often find frustrated
by its contempt),--and an ultimate reliance on the respect and devotion
of their family whom they have enriched, making them ample amends for
the slights they may be exposed to where their wealth is unknown, and
their newly assumed consequence unappreciated,--or if appreciated, not
valued:--So thinking and feeling, Don Francisco journeyed homeward.
“At a wretched inn where he was compelled to halt, he found the
accommodation so bad, and the heat of the weather so intolerable in the
low, narrow, and unwindowed rooms, that he preferred taking his supper
in the open air, on a stone bench at the door of the inn. We cannot say
that he there imagined himself to be feasted with trout and white bread,
like Don Quixote,--and still less that he fancied he was ministered unto
by damsels of rank;--on the contrary, Don Francisco was digesting a
sorry meal with wretched wine, with a perfect internal consciousness of
the mediocrity of both, when he beheld a person ride by, who paused, and
looked as if he was inclined to stop at the inn. (The interval of this
pause was not long enough to permit Don Francisco to observe
particularly the figure or face of the horseman, or indeed to recognize
him on any future occasion of meeting; nor was there any thing
remarkable in his appearance to invite or arrest observation.) He made a
sign to the host, who approached him with a slow and unwilling
pace,--appeared to answer all his inquiries with sturdy negatives,--and
finally, as the stranger rode on, returned to his station, crossing
himself with every mark of terror and deprecation.
“There was something more in this than the ordinary surliness of a
Spanish innkeeper. Don Francisco’s curiosity was excited, and he asked
the innkeeper, whether the stranger had proposed to pass the night at
the inn, as the weather seemed to threaten a storm? “I know not what he
proposes,” answered the man, “but this I know, that I would not suffer
him to pass an hour under my roof for the revenues of Toledo. If there
be a storm coming on, I care not--those who can raise them are the
fittest to meet them!”
“Don Francisco inquired the cause of these extraordinary expressions of
aversion and terror, but the innkeeper shook his head and remained
silent, with, as it were, the circumspective fear of one who is inclosed
within a sorcerer’s circle, and dreads to pass its verge, lest he become
the prey of the spirits who are waiting beyond it to take advantage of
his transgression.
“At last, at Don Francisco’s repeated instances, he said, “Your worship
must needs be a stranger in this part of Spain not to have heard of
Melmoth the wanderer.”--“I have never heard of the name before,” said
Don Francisco; “and I conjure you, brother, to tell me what you know of
this person, whose character, if I may judge by the manner in which you
speak of him, must have in it something extraordinary.”--“Senhor,”
answered the man, “were I to relate what is told of that person, I
should not be able to close an eye to-night; or if I did, it would be to
dream of things so horrible, that I had rather lie awake for ever. But,
if I am not mistaken, there is in the house one who can gratify your
curiosity--it is a gentleman who is preparing for the press a collection
of facts relative to that person, and who has been, for some time, in
vain soliciting for a license to print them, they being such as the
government, in its wisdom, thinks not fit to be perused by the eyes of
Catholics, or circulated among a Christian community.”
“As the innkeeper spoke, and spoke with an earnestness that at least
made the hearer believe he felt the conviction he tried to impress, the
person of whom he spoke was standing beside Don Francisco. He had
apparently overheard their conversation, and seemed not indisposed to
continue it. He was a man of a grave and composed aspect, and altogether
so remote from any appearance of imposition, or theatrical and
conjuror-like display, that Don Francisco, grave, suspicious, and
deliberate as a Spaniard, and moreover a Spanish merchant, may be, could
not avoid giving him his confidence at sight, though he forbore any
external expression of it.
“Senhor,” said the stranger, “mine host has told you but the truth. The
person whom you saw ride by, is one of those beings after whom human
curiosity pants in vain,--whose life is doomed to be recorded in
incredible legends that moulder in the libraries of the curious, and to
be disbelieved and scorned even by those who exhaust sums on their
collection, and ungratefully depreciate the contents of the volumes on
whose aggregate its value depends. There has been, however, I believe,
no other instance of a person still alive, and apparently exercising all
the functions of a human agent, who has become already the subject of
written memoirs, and the theme of traditional history. Several
circumstances relating to this extraordinary being are even now in the
hands of curious and eager collectors; and I have myself attained to the
knowledge of one or two that are not among the least extraordinary. The
marvellous period of life said to be assigned him, and the facility with
which he has been observed to pass from region to region, (knowing all,
and known to none), have been the principal causes why the adventures in
which he is engaged, should be at once so numerous and so similar.”
“As the stranger ceased to speak, the evening grew dark, and a few large
and heavy drops of rain fell. “This night threatens a storm,” said the
stranger, looking abroad with some degree of anxiety--“we had better
retire within doors; and if you, Senhor, are not otherwise occupied, I
am willing to pass away some hours of this unpleasant night in relating
to you some circumstances relating to the wanderer, which have come
within my certain knowledge.”
“Don Francisco assented to this proposal as much from curiosity, as from
the impatience of solitude, which is never more insupportable than in an
inn, and during stormy weather. Don Montilla, too, had left him on a
visit to his father, who was in a declining state, and was not to join
him again till his arrival in the neighbourhood of Madrid. He therefore
bid his servants shew the way to his apartment, whither he courteously
invited his new acquaintance.
“Imagine them now seated in the wretched upper apartment of a Spanish
inn, whose appearance, though dreary and comfortless, had in it,
nevertheless, something picturesque, and not inappropriate, as the scene
where a wild and wondrous tale was to be related and listened to. There
was no luxury of inventive art to flatter the senses, or enervate the
attention,--to enable the hearer to break the spell that binds him to
the world of horrors, and recover to all the soothing realities and
comforts of ordinary life, like one who starts from a dream of the rack,
and finds himself waking on a bed of down. The walls were bare, and the
roofs were raftered, and the only furniture was a table, beside which
Don Francisco and his companion sat, the one on a huge high-backed
chair, the other on a stool so low, that he seemed seated at the
listener’s foot. A lamp stood on the table, whose light flickering in
the wind, that sighed through many apertures of the jarring door, fell
alternately on lips that quivered as they read, and cheeks that grew
paler as the listener bent to catch the sounds to which fear gave a more
broken and hollow tone, at the close of every page. The rising voice of
the stormy night seemed to make wild and dreary harmony with the tones
of the listener’s feelings. The storm came on, not with sudden violence,
but with sullen and long-suspended wrath--often receding, as it were, to
the verge of the horizon, and then returning and rolling its deepening
and awful peals over the very roof. And as the stranger proceeded in his
narrative, every pause, which emotion or weariness might cause, was
meetly filled by the deep rushing of the rain that fell in
torrents,--the sighs of the wind,--and now and then a faint, distant,
but long-continued peal of thunder. “It sounds,” said the stranger,
raising his eyes from the manuscript, “like the chidings of the spirits,
that their secrets are disclosed!”