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. III.
EDINBURGH:
PRINTED FOR ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND COMPANY,
AND HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. CHEAPSIDE,
LONDON.
1820.
MELMOTH.
CHAPTER XII.
Juravi lingua, mentem injuratam gero.----
Who brought you first acquainted with the devil?
SHIRLEY’S ST PATRICK FOR IRELAND.
“I ran on till I had no longer breath or strength, (without perceiving
that I was in a dark passage), till I was stopt by a door. In falling
against it, I burst it open, and found myself in a low dark room. When I
raised myself, for I had fallen on my hands and knees, I looked round,
and saw something so singular, as to suspend even my personal anxiety
and terror for a moment.
“The room was very small; and I could perceive by the rents, that I had
not only broken open a door, but a large curtain which hung before it,
whose ample folds still afforded me concealment if I required it. There
was no one in the room, and I had time to study its singular furniture
at leisure.
“There was a table covered with cloth; on it were placed a vessel of a
singular construction, a book, into whose pages I looked, but could not
make out a single letter. I therefore wisely took it for a book of
magic, and closed it with a feeling of exculpatory horror. (It happened
to be a copy of the Hebrew Bible, marked with the Samaritan points).
There was a knife too; and a cock was fastened to the leg of the table,
whose loud crows announced his impatience of further constraint(1).
(1) Quilibet postea paterfamilias, cum _gallo_ præ manibus, in medium
primus prodit. * * * * * * * *
Deinde expiationem aggreditur et capiti suo ter gallum allidit,
singulosque ictus his vocibus prosequitur. Hic Gallus sit permutio pro
me, &c. * * * * * * * Gallo deinde imponens manus, eum statim mactat,
&c.
Vide Buxtorf, as quoted in Dr Magee (Bishop of Raphoe’s) work on the
atonement. Cumberland in his Observer, I think, mentions the discovery
to have been reserved for the feast of the Passover. It is just as
probable it was made on the day of expiation.
“I felt that this apparatus was somewhat singular--it looked like a
preparation for a sacrifice. I shuddered, and wrapt myself in the
volumes of the drapery which hung before the door my fall had broken
open. A dim lamp, suspended from the ceiling, discovered to me all these
objects, and enabled me to observe what followed almost immediately. A
man of middle age, but whose physiognomy had something peculiar in it,
even to the eye of a Spaniard, from the clustering darkness of his
eye-brows, his prominent nose, and a certain lustre in the balls of his
eyes, entered the room, knelt before the table, kissed the book that lay
on it, and read from it some sentences that were to precede, as I
imagined, some horrible sacrifice;--felt the edge of the knife, knelt
again, uttered some words which I did not understand, (as they were in
the language of that book), and then called aloud on some one by the
name of Manasseh-ben-Solomon. No one answered. He sighed, passed his
hand over his eyes with the air of a man who is asking pardon of himself
for a short forgetfulness, and then pronounced the name of “Antonio.” A
young man immediately entered, and answered, “Did you call me,
Father?”--But while he spoke, he threw a hollow and wandering glance on
the singular furniture of the room.
“I called you, my son, and why did you not answer me?”--“I did not hear
you, father--I mean, I did not think it was on me you called. I heard
only a name I was never called by before. When you said ‘Antonio,’ I
obeyed you--I came.”--“But _that_ is the name by which you must in
future be called and be known, to me at least, unless you prefer
another.--You shall have your choice.”--“My father, I shall adopt
whatever name you choose.”--“No; the choice of your new name must be
your own--you must, for the future, either adopt the name you have
heard, or another.”--“What other, Sir?”--“_That of parricide._” The
youth shuddered with horror, less at the words than at the expression
that accompanied them; and, after looking at his father for some time in
a posture of tremulous and supplicating inquiry, he burst into tears.
The father seized the moment. He grasped the arms of his son, “My child,
I gave you life, and you may repay the gift--my life is in your power.
You think me a Catholic--I have brought you up as one for the
preservation of our mutual lives, in a country where the confession of
the true faith would infallibly cost both. I am one of that unhappy race
every where stigmatized and spoken against, yet on whose industry and
talent the ungrateful country that anathematizes us, depends for half
the sources of its national prosperity. I am a Jew, “an Israelite,” one
of those to whom, even by the confession of a Christian apostle,
“pertain the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving
of the law, and the service of God, and the promises; whose are the
fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh--” Here he paused, not
willing to go on with a quotation that would have contradicted his
sentiments. He added, “The Messias will come, whether suffering or
triumphant(2). I am a Jew. I called you at the hour of your birth by the
name of Manasseh-ben-Solomon. I called on you by that name, which I felt
had clung to the bottom of my heart from that hour, and which, echoing
from its abyss, I almost hoped you would have recognized. It was a
dream, but will you not, my beloved child, realize that dream? Will you
not?--will you not? The God of your fathers is waiting to embrace
you--and your father is at your feet, imploring you to follow the faith
of your father Abraham, the prophet Moses, and all the holy prophets who
are with God, and who look down on this moment of your soul’s
vacillation between the abominable idolatries of those who not only
adore the Son of the carpenter, but even impiously compel you to fall
down before the image of the woman his mother, and adore her by the
blasphemous name of Mother of God,--and the pure voice of those who call
on you to worship the God of your fathers, the God of ages, the eternal
God of heaven and earth, without son or mother, without child or
descendant, (as impiously presumed in their blasphemous creed), without
even worshipper, save those who, like me, sacrifice their hearts to him
in solitude, at the risk of those hearts being PIERCED BY THEIR OWN
CHILDREN.”
(2) The Jews believe in two Messias, a suffering and a triumphant one,
to reconcile the prophecies with their own expectations.
“At these words, the young man, overcome by all he saw and heard, and
quite unprepared for this sudden transition from Catholicism to Judaism,
burst into tears. The father seized the moment, “My child, you are now
to profess yourself the slave of these idolaters, who are cursed in the
law of Moses, and by the commandment of God,--or to enrol yourself among
the faithful, whose rest shall be in the bosom of Abraham, and who,
reposing there, shall see the unbelieving crawling over the burning
ashes of hell, and supplicate you in vain for a drop of water, according
to the legends of their own prophet. And does not such a picture excite
your pride to deny them a drop?”--“I would not deny them a drop,” sobbed
the youth, “I would give them these tears.”--“Reserve them for your
father’s grave,” added the Jew, “for to the grave you have doomed me.--I
have lived, sparing, watching, temporizing, with these accursed
idolaters, for _you_. And now--and now you reject a God who is alone
able to save, and a father kneeling to implore you to accept that
salvation.”--“No, I do not,” said the bewildered youth.--“What, then, do
you determine?--I am at your feet to know your resolution. Behold, the
mysterious instruments of your initiation are ready. There is the
uncorrupted book of Moses, the prophet of God, as these idolaters
themselves confess. There are all the preparations for the year of
expiation--determine whether those rites shall now dedicate you to the
true God, or seize your father, (who has put his life into your hands),
and drag him by the throat into the prisons of the Inquisition. You
may--you can--_will you?_”
“In prostrate and tremulous agony, the father held up his locked hands
to his child. I seized the moment--despair had made me reckless. I
understood not a word of what was said, except the reference to the
Inquisition. I seized on that last word--I grasped, in my despair, at
the heart of father and child. I rushed from behind the curtain, and
exclaiming, “If he does not betray you to the Inquisition, _I will_.” I
fell at his feet. This mixture of defiance and prostration, my squalid
figure, my inquisitorial habit, and my bursting on this secret and
solemn interview, struck the Jew with a horror he vainly gasped to
express, till, rising from my knees, on which I had fallen from my
weakness, I added, “Yes, I will betray you to the Inquisition, unless
you instantly promise to shelter me from it.” The Jew glanced at my
dress, perceived his danger and mine, and, with a _physical_ presence of
mind unparalleled, except in a man under strong impressions of mental
excitation and personal danger, bustled about to remove every trace of
the expiatory sacrifice, and of my inquisitorial costume, in a moment.
In the same breath he called aloud for _Rebekah_, to remove the vessels
from the table; bid _Antonio_ quit the apartment, and hastened to clothe
me in some dress that he had snatched from a wardrobe collected from
centuries; while he tore off my inquisitorial dress with a violence that
left me actually naked, and the habit in rags.
“There was something at once fearful and ludicrous in the scene that
followed. Rebekah, an old Jewish woman, came at his call; but, seeing a
third person, retreated in terror, while her master, in his confusion,
called her in vain by her _Christian_ name of Maria. Obliged to remove
the table alone, he overthrew it, and broke the leg of the unfortunate
animal fastened to it, who, not to be without his share in the tumult,
uttered the most shrill and intolerable screams, while the Jew,
snatching up the sacrificial knife, repeated eagerly, “Statim mactat
gallum,” and put the wretched bird out of its pain; then, trembling at
this open avowal of his Judaism, he sat down amid the ruins of the
overthrown table, the fragments of the broken vessels, and the remains
of the martyred cock. He gazed at me with a look of stupified and
ludicrous inanity, and demanded in delirious tones, what “my lords the
Inquisitors had pleased to visit his humble but highly-honoured mansion
for?” I was scarce less deranged than he was; and, though we both spoke
the same language, and were forced by circumstances into the same
strange and desperate confidence with each other, we really needed, for
the first half-hour, a rational interpreter of our exclamations, starts
of fear, and bursts of disclosure. At last our mutual terror acted
honestly between us, and we understood each other. The end of the matter
was, that, in less than an hour, I felt myself clad in a comfortable
garment, seated at a table amply spread, watched over by my involuntary
host, and watching him in turn with red wolfish eyes, which glanced from
his board to his person, as if I could, at a moment’s hint of danger
from _his_ treachery, have changed my meal, and feasted on his
life-blood. No such danger occurred,--my host was more afraid of me than
I had reason to be of him, and for many causes. He was a Jew _innate_,
an impostor,--a wretch, who, drawing sustenance from the bosom of our
holy mother the church, had turned her nutriment to poison, and
attempted to infuse that poison into the lips of his son. I was but a
fugitive from the Inquisition,--a prisoner, who had a kind of
instinctive and very venial dislike to giving the Inquisitors the
trouble of lighting the faggots for _me_, which would be much better
employed in consuming the adherent to the law of Moses. In fact,
impartiality considered, there was every thing in my favour, and the Jew
just acted as if he felt so,--but all this I ascribed to his terrors of
the Inquisition.
“That night I slept,--I know not how or where. I had wild dreams before
I slept, if I did sleep; and after,--such visions,--such _things_,
passed in dread and stern reality before me. I have often in my memory
searched for the traces of the first night I passed under the roof of
the Jew, but can find nothing,--nothing except a conviction of my utter
insanity. It might not have been so,--I know not how it was. I remember
his lighting me up a narrow stair, and my asking him, was he lighting me
_down_ the steps of the dungeons of the Inquisition?--his throwing open
a door, and my asking him, was it the door of the torture-room?--his
attempting to undress me, and my exclaiming, “Do not bind me too
tight,--I know I must suffer, but be merciful;”--his throwing me on the
bed, while I shrieked, “Well, you have bound me on the rack,
then?--strain it hard, that I may forget myself the sooner; but let your
surgeon not be near to watch my pulse,--let it cease to throb, and let
me cease to suffer.” I remember no more for many days, though I have
struggled to do so, and caught from time to time glimpses of thoughts
better lost. Oh, Sir, there are some _criminals of the imagination_,
whom if we could plunge into the _oubliettes_ of its magnificent but
lightly-based fabric, its lord would reign more happy. * * * * * * *
“Many days elapsed, indeed, before the Jew began to feel his immunity
somewhat dearly purchased, by the additional maintenance of a
troublesome, and, I fear, a deranged inmate. He took the first
opportunity that the recovery of my intellect offered, of hinting this
to me, and inquired mildly what I purposed to do, and where I meant to
go. This question for the first time opened to my view that range of
hopeless and interminable desolation that lay before me,--the
Inquisition had laid waste the whole track of life, as with fire and
sword. I had not a spot to stand on, a meal to earn, a hand to grasp, a
voice to greet, a roof to crouch under, in the whole realm of Spain.
“You are not to learn, Sir, that the power of the Inquisition, like that
of death, separates you, by its single touch, from all mortal relations.
From the moment its grasp has seized you, all human hands unlock their
hold of yours,--you have no longer father, mother, sister, or child. The
most devoted and affectionate of all those relatives, who, in the
natural intercourse of human life, would have laid their hands under
your feet to procure you a smoother passage over its roughnesses, would
be the first to grasp the faggot that was to reduce you to ashes, if the
Inquisition were to demand the sacrifice. I knew all this; and I felt,
besides, that, had I never been a prisoner in the Inquisition, I was an
isolated being, rejected by father and mother,--the involuntary murderer
of my brother, the only being on earth who loved me, or whom I could
love or profit by,--that being who seemed to flash across my brief
_human_ existence, to illuminate and to blast. The bolt had perished
with the victim. In Spain it was impossible for me to live without
detection, unless I plunged myself into an imprisonment as profound and
hopeless as that of the Inquisition. And, if a miracle were wrought to
convey me out of Spain, ignorant as I was of the language, the habits,
and the modes of obtaining subsistence, in that or any other country,
how could I support myself even for a day. Absolute famine stared me in
the face, and a sense of degradation accompanying my consciousness of my
own utter and desolate helplessness, was the keenest shaft in the
quiver, whose contents were lodged in my heart. My consequence was
actually lessened in my own eyes, by ceasing to become the victim of
persecution, by which I had suffered so long. _While people think it
worth their while to torment us, we are never without some dignity,
though painful and imaginary._ Even in the Inquisition I belonged to
somebody,--I was watched and guarded;--now, I was the outcast of the
whole earth, and I wept with equal bitterness and depression at the
hopeless vastness of the desert I had to traverse.
“The Jew, not at all disturbed by these feelings, went daily out for
intelligence, and returned one evening in such raptures, that I could
easily discover he had ascertained his own safety at least, if not mine.
He informed me that the current report in Madrid was, that I had
perished in the fall of the burning ruins on the night of the fire. He
added, that this report had received additional currency and strength
from the fact, that the bodies of those who had perished by the fall of
the arch, were, when discovered, so defaced by fire, and so crushed by
the massive fragments, as to be utterly undistinguishable;--their
remains had been collected, however, and mine were supposed to be among
the number. A mass had been performed for them, and _their cinders,
occupying but a single coffin_(3), were interred in the vaults of the
Dominican church, while some of the first families of Spain, in the
deepest mourning, and their faces veiled, testified their grief in
silence for those whom they would have shuddered to acknowledge their
mortal relationship to, had they been still living. Certainly a lump of
cinders was no longer an object even of religious hostility. My mother,
he added, was among the number of mourners, but with a veil so long and
thick, and attendance so few, that it would have been impossible to have
known the Duchess di Monçada, but for the whisper that her appearance
there had been enjoined for penance. He added, what gave me more perfect
satisfaction, that the holy office was very glad to accredit the story
of my death; they wished me to be believed dead, and what the
Inquisition wishes to be believed, is rarely denied belief in Madrid.
This signing my certificate of death, was to me the best security for
life. In the communicativeness of his joy, which had expanded his heart,
if not his hospitality, the Jew, as I swallowed my bread and water, (for
my stomach still loathed all animal food), informed me that there was a
procession to take place that evening, the most solemn and superb ever
witnessed in Madrid. The holy office was to appear in all the pomp and
plenitude of its glory, accompanied by the standards of St Dominic and
the cross, while all the ecclesiastical orders in Madrid were to attend
with their appropriate insignia, invested by a strong military guard,
(which, for some reason or other, was judged necessary or proper), and,
attended by the whole populace of Madrid, was to proceed to the
principal church to humiliate themselves for the recent calamity they
had undergone, and implore the saints to be more personally active in
the event of a future conflagration.
(3) This extraordinary fact occurred after the dreadful fire which
consumed sixteen persons in one house, in Stephen’s Green, Dublin,
1816. The writer of this heard the screams of sufferers whom it was
impossible to save, for an hour and a half.
“The evening came on--the Jew left me; and, under an impression at once
unaccountable and irresistible, I ascended to the highest apartment in
his house, and, with a beating heart, listened for the toll of the bells
that was to announce the commencement of the ceremony. I had not long to
wait. At the close of twilight, every steeple in the city was vibrating
with the tolls of their well-plied bells. I was in an upper room of the
house. There was but one window; but, hiding myself behind the blind,
which I withdrew from time to time, I had a full view of the spectacle.
The house of the Jew looked out on an open space, through which the
procession was to pass, and which was already so filled, that I wondered
how the procession could ever make its way through such a wedged and
impenetrable mass. At last, I could distinguish a motion like that of a
distant power, giving a kind of indefinite impulse to the vast body that
rolled and blackened beneath me, like the ocean under the first and
far-felt agitations of the storm.
“The crowd rocked and reeled, but did not seem to give way an inch. The
procession commenced. I could see it approach, marked as it was by the
crucifix, banner, and taper--(for they had reserved the procession till
a late hour, to give it the imposing effect of torch-light.) And I saw
the multitude at a vast distance give way at once. Then came on the
stream of the procession, rushing, like a magnificent river, between two
banks of human bodies, who kept as regular and strict distance, as if
they had been ramparts of stone,--the banners, and crucifixes, and
tapers, appearing like the crests of foam on advancing billows,
sometimes rising, sometimes sinking. At last they came on, and the whole
grandeur of the procession burst on my view, and nothing was ever more
imposing, or more magnificent. The habits of the ecclesiastics, the
glare of the torches struggling with the dying twilight, and seeming to
say to heaven, We have a sun though yours is set;--the solemn and
resolute look of the whole party, who trod as if their march were on the
bodies of kings, and looked as if they would have said, What is the
sceptre to the cross?--the black crucifix itself, trembling in the rear,
attended by the banner of St Dominick, with its awful inscription.--It
was a sight to convert all hearts, and I exulted I was a Catholic.
Suddenly a tumult seemed to arise among the crowd--I knew not from what
it could arise--all seemed so pleased and so elated.
“I drew away the blind, and saw, by torch-light, among a crowd of
officials who clustered round the standard of St Dominick, the figure of
my companion. His story was well known. At first a faint hiss was heard,
then a wild and smothered howl. Then I heard voices among the crowd
repeat, in audible sounds, “What is this for? Why do they ask why the
Inquisition has been half-burned?--why the virgin has withdrawn her
protection?--why the saints turn away their faces from us?--when a
parricide marches among the officials of the Inquisition. Are the hands
that have cut a father’s throat fit to support the banner of the cross?”
These were the words but of a few at first, but the whisper spread
rapidly among the crowd; and fierce looks were darted, and hands were
clenched and raised, and some stooped to the earth for stones. The
procession went on, however, and every one knelt to the crucifixes as
they advanced, held aloft by the priests. But the murmurs increased too,
and the words, “parricide, profanation, and victim,” resounded on every
side, even from those who knelt in the mire as the cross passed by. The
murmur increased--it could no longer be mistaken for that of adoration.
The foremost priests paused in terror ill concealed--and this seemed the
signal for the terrible scene that was about to follow. An officer
belonging to the guard at this time ventured to intimate to the chief
Inquisitor the danger that might be apprehended, but was dismissed with
the short and sullen answer, “Move on--the servants of Christ have
nothing to fear.” The procession attempted to proceed, but their
progress was obstructed by the multitude, who now seemed bent on some
deadly purpose. A few stones were thrown; but the moment the priests
raised their crucifixes, the multitude were on their knees again, still,
however, holding the stones in their hands. The military officers again
addressed the chief Inquisitor, and intreated his permission to disperse
the crowd. They received the same dull and stern answer, “The cross is
sufficient for the protection of its servants--whatever fears you may
feel, I feel none.” Incensed at the reply, a young officer sprung on his
horse, which he had quitted from respect while addressing the Suprema,
and was in a moment levelled by the blow of a stone that fractured his
skull. He turned his blood-swimming eyes on the Inquisitor, and died.
The multitude raised a wild shout, and pressed closer. Their intentions
were now too plain. They pressed close on that part of the procession
among which their victim was placed. Again, and in the most urgent
terms, the officers implored leave to disperse the crowd, or at least
cover the retreat of the obnoxious object to some neighbouring church,
or even to the walls of the Inquisition. And the wretched man himself,
with loud outcries, (as he saw the danger thickening around him), joined
in their petition. The Suprema, though looking pale, bated not a jot of
his pride. “These are my arms!” he exclaimed, pointing to the crucifixes,
“and their inscription is εν-τουτω-νικα. I forbid a sword to be drawn,
or a musket to be levelled. On, in the name of God.” And on they
attempted to move, but the pressure now rendered it impossible. The
multitude, unrepressed by the military, became ungovernable; the crosses
reeled and rocked like standards in a battle; the ecclesiastics, in
confusion and terror, pressed on each other. Amid that vast mass, every
particle of which seemed in motion, there was but one emphatic and
discriminate movement--that which bore a certain part of the crowd
strait on to the spot where their victim, though inclosed and inwrapt by
all that is formidable in earthly, and all that is awful in spiritual
power--sheltered by the crucifix and the sword--stood trembling to the
bottom of his soul. The Suprema saw his error too late, and now called
loudly on the military to advance, and disperse the crowd by any means.
They attempted to obey him; but by this time they were mingled among the
crowd themselves. All order had ceased; and besides, there appeared a
kind of indisposition to this service, from the very first, among the
military. They attempted to charge, however; but, entangled as they were
among the crowd, who clung round their horses hoofs, it was impossible
for them even to form, and the first shower of stones threw them into
total confusion. The danger increased every moment, for one spirit now
seemed to animate the whole multitude. What had been the stifled growl
of a few, was now the audible yell of all--“Give him to us--we must have
him;” and they tossed and roared like a thousand waves assailing a
wreck. As the military retreated, a hundred priests instantly closed
round the unhappy man, and with generous despair exposed themselves to
the fury of the multitude. While the Suprema, hastening to the dreadful
spot, stood in the front of the priests, with the cross uplifted,--his
face was like that of the dead, but his eye had not lost a single flash
of its fire, nor his voice a tone of its pride. It was in vain; the
multitude proceeded calmly, and even respectfully, (when not resisted),
to remove all that obstructed their progress; in doing so, they took
every care of the persons of priests whom they were compelled to remove,
repeatedly asking their pardon for the violence they were guilty of. And
this tranquillity of resolved vengeance was the most direful indication
of its never desisting till its purpose was accomplished. The last ring
was broken--the last resister overcome. Amid yells like those of a
thousand tigers, the victim was seized and dragged forth, grasping in
both hands fragments of the robes of those he had clung to in vain, and
holding them up in the impotence of despair.
“The cry was hushed for a moment, as they felt him in their talons, and
gazed on him with thirsty eyes. Then it was renewed, and the work of
blood began. They dashed him to the earth--tore him up again--flung him
into the air--tossed him from hand to hand, as a bull gores the howling
mastiff with horns right and left. Bloody, defaced, blackened with
earth, and battered with stones, he struggled and roared among them,
till a loud cry announced the hope of a termination to a scene alike
horrible to humanity, and disgraceful to civilization. The military,
strongly reinforced, came galloping on, and all the ecclesiastics, with
torn habits, and broken crucifixes, following fast in the rear,--all
eager in the cause of human nature--all on fire to prevent this base and
barbarous disgrace to the name of Christianity and of human nature.
“Alas! this interference only hastened the horrible catastrophe. There
was but a shorter space for the multitude to work their furious will. I
saw, I felt, but I cannot describe, the last moments of this horrible
scene. Dragged from the mud and stones, they dashed a mangled lump of
flesh right against the door of the house where I was. With his tongue
hanging from his lacerated mouth, like that of a baited bull; with one
eye torn from the socket, and dangling on his bloody cheek; with a
fracture in every limb, and a wound for every pore, he still howled for
“life--life--life--mercy!” till a stone, aimed by some pitying hand,
struck him down. He fell, trodden in one moment into sanguine and
discoloured mud by a thousand feet. The cavalry came on, charging with
fury. The crowd, saturated with cruelty and blood, gave way in grim
silence. But they had not left a joint of his little finger--a hair of
his head--a slip of his skin. Had Spain mortgaged all her reliques from
Madrid to Monserrat, from the Pyrennees to Gibraltar, she could not have
recovered the paring of a nail to canonize. The officer who headed the
troop dashed his horse’s hoofs into a bloody formless mass, and
demanded, “Where was the victim?” He was answered, “Beneath your horse’s
feet(4);” and they departed. * * * * * * * * *
(4) This circumstance occurred in Ireland 1797, after the murder of
the unfortunate Dr Hamilton. The officer was answered, on inquiring
what was that heap of mud at his horse’s feet,--“The man you came
for.”
“It is a fact, Sir, that while witnessing this horrible execution, I
felt all the effects vulgarly ascribed to fascination. I shuddered at
the first movement--the dull and deep whisper among the crowd. I
shrieked involuntarily when the first decisive movements began among
them; but when at last the human shapeless carrion was dashed against
the door, I echoed the wild shouts of the multitude with a kind of
savage instinct. I bounded--I clasped my hands for a moment--then I
echoed the screams of the thing that seemed no longer to live, but still
could scream; and I screamed aloud and wildly for life--life--and mercy!
One face was turned towards me as I shrieked in unconscious tones. The
glance, fixed on me for a moment, was in a moment withdrawn. The flash
of the well-known eyes made no impression on me then. My existence was
so purely mechanical, that, without the least consciousness of my own
danger, (scarce less than that of the victim, had I been detected), I
remained uttering shout for shout, and scream for scream--offering
worlds in imagination to be able to remove from the window, yet feeling
as if every shriek I uttered was as a nail that fastened me to
it--dropping my eye-lids, and feeling as if a hand held them open, or
cut them away--forcing me to gaze on all that passed below, like
Regulus, with his lids cut off, compelled to gaze on the sun that
withered up his eye-balls--till sense, and sight, and soul, failed me,
and I fell grasping by the bars of the window, and mimicking, in my
horrid trance, the shouts of the multitude, and the yell of the
devoted(5). I actually for a moment believed myself the object of their
cruelty. The drama of terror has the irresistible power of converting
its audience into its victims.
(5) In the year 1803, when Emmett’s insurrection broke out in
Dublin--(_the fact_ from which this account is drawn was related to me
by an eye-witness)--Lord Kilwarden, in passing through Thomas Street,
was dragged from his carriage, and murdered in the most horrid manner.
Pike after pike was thrust through his body, till at last he was
_nailed to a door_, and called out to his murderers to “put him out of
his pain.” At this moment, a shoemaker, who lodged in the garret of an
opposite house, was drawn to the window by the horrible cries he
heard. He stood at the window, gasping with horror, his wife
attempting vainly to drag him away. He saw the last blow struck--he
heard the last groan uttered, as the sufferer cried, “put me out of
pain,” while sixty pikes were thrusting at him. The man stood at his
window as if nailed to it; and when dragged from it, became--an _idiot
for life_.
“The Jew had kept apart from the tumult of the night. He had, I suppose,
been saying within himself, in the language of your admirable poet,
“Oh, Father Abraham, what these Christians are!”
But when he returned at a late hour, he was struck with horror at the
state in which he found me. I was delirious,--raving, and all he could
say or do to soothe me, was in vain. My imagination had been fearfully
impressed, and the consternation of the poor Jew was, I have been told,
equally ludicrous and dismal. In his terror, he forgot all the technical
formality of the Christian names by which he had uniformly signalized
his household, since his residence in Madrid at least. He called aloud
on Manasseh-ben-Solomon his son, and Rebekah his maid, to assist in
holding me. “Oh, Father Abraham, my ruin is certain, this maniac will
discover all, and Manasseh-ben-Solomon, my son, will die uncircumcised.”
“These words operating on my delirium, I started up, and, grasping the
Jew by the throat, arraigned him as a prisoner of the Inquisition. The
terrified wretch, falling on his knees, vociferated, “My cock,--my
cock,--my cock! oh! I am undone!” Then, grasping my knees, “I am no
Jew,--my son, Manasseh-ben-Solomon, is a Christian; you will not betray
him, you will not betray _me_,--me who have saved your life.
Manasseh,--I mean Antonio,--Rebekah,--no, Maria, help me to hold him. Oh
God of Abraham, my cock, and my sacrifice of expiation, and this maniac
to burst on the recesses of our privacy, to tear open the veil of the
tabernacle!”--“Shut the tabernacle,” said Rebekah, the old domestic whom
I have before mentioned; “yea, shut the tabernacle, and close up the
veils thereof, for behold there be men knocking at the door,--men who
are children of Belial, and they knock with staff and stone; and,
verily, they are about to break in the door, and demolish the carved
work thereof with axes and hammers.”--“Thou liest,” said the Jew, in
much perturbation: “there is no carved work thereabout, nor dare they
break it down with axes and hammers; peradventure it is but an assault
of the children of Belial, in their rioting and drunkenness. I pray
thee, Rebekah, to watch the door, and keep off the sons of Belial, even
the sons of the mighty of the sinful city--the city of Madrid, while I
remove this blaspheming carrion, who struggleth with me,--yea,
struggleth mightily,” (and struggle I did mightily). But, as I
struggled, the knocks at the door became louder and stronger; and, as I
was carried off, the Jew continued to repeat, “Set thy face against
them, Rebekah; yea, set thy face like a flint.” As he retired, Rebekah
exclaimed, “Behold I have set my back against them, for my face now
availeth not. My back is that which I will oppose, and verily I shall
prevail.”--“I pray thee, Rebekah,” cried the Jew, “oppose thy FACE unto
them, and verily that shall prevail. Try not the adversary with thy
back, but oppose thy face unto them; and behold, if they are men, they
shall flee, even though they were a thousand, at the rebuke of one. I
pray thee try thy face once more, Rebekah, while I send this scape-goat
into the wilderness. Surely thy face is enough to drive away those who
knocked by night at the door of that house in Gibeah, in the matter of
the wife of the Benjamite.” The knocking all this time increased.
“Behold my back is broken,” cried Rebekah, giving up her watch and ward,
“for, of a verity, the weapons of the mighty do smite the lintels and
door-posts; and mine arms are not steel, neither are my ribs iron, and
behold I fail,--yea, I fail, and fall backwards into the hands of the
uncircumcised.” And so saying, she fell backwards as the door gave way,
and fell not, as she feared, into the hands of the uncircumcised, but
into those of two of her countrymen, who, it appeared, had some
extraordinary reason for this late visit and forcible entrance.
“The Jew, apprized who they were, quitted me, after securing the door,
and sat up the greater part of the night, in earnest conversation with
his visitors. Whatever was their subject, it left traces of the most
intense anxiety on the countenance of the Jew the next morning. He went
out early, did not return till a late hour, and then hastened to the
room I occupied, and expressed the utmost delight at finding me sane and
composed. Candles were placed on the table, Rebekah dismissed, the door
secured, and the Jew, after taking many uneasy turns about the narrow
apartment, and often clearing his throat, at length sat down, and
ventured to entrust me with the cause of his perturbation, in which,
with the fatal consciousness of the unhappy, I already began to feel _I_
must have a share. He told me, that though the report of my death, so
universally credited through Madrid, had at first set his mind at ease,
there was now a wild story, which, with all its falsehood and
impossibility, might, in its circulation, menace us with the most
fearful consequences. He asked me, was it possible I could have been so
imprudent as to expose myself to view on the day of that horrible
execution? and when I confessed that I had stood at a window, and had
involuntarily uttered cries that I feared might have reached some ears,
he wrung his hands, and a sweat of consternation burst out on his pallid
features. When he recovered himself, he told me it was universally
believed that my spectre had appeared on that terrible occasion,--that I
had been seen hovering in the air, to witness the sufferings of the
dying wretch,--and that my voice had been heard summoning him to his
eternal doom. He added, that this story, possessing all the credibility
of superstition, was now repeated by a thousand mouths; and whatever
contempt might be attached to its absurdity, it would infallibly operate
as a hint to the restless vigilance, and unrelaxing industry of the holy
office, and might ultimately lead to my discovery. He therefore was
about to disclose to me a secret, the knowledge of which would enable me
to remain in perfect security even in the centre of Madrid, until some
means might be devised of effecting my escape, and procuring me the
means of subsistence in some Protestant country, beyond the reach of the
Inquisition.
“As he was about to disclose this secret on which the safety of both
depended, and which I bent in speechless agony to hear, a knock was
heard at the door, very unlike the knocks of the preceding night. It was
single, solemn, peremptory,--and followed by a demand to open the doors
of the house in the name of the most holy Inquisition. At these terrible
words, the wretched Jew flung himself on his knees, blew out the
candles, called on the names of the twelve patriarchs, and slipped a
large rosary on his arm, in less time than it is possible to conceive
any human frame could go through such a variety of movements. The knock
was repeated,--I stood paralyzed; but the Jew, springing on his feet,
raised one of the boards of the floor in a moment, and, with a motion
between convulsion and instinct, pointed to me to descend. I did so, and
found myself in a moment in darkness and in safety.
“I had descended but a few steps, on the last of which I stood
trembling, when the officers of the Inquisition entered the room, and
stalked over the very board that concealed me. I could hear every word
that passed. “Don Fernan,” said an officer to the Jew, who re-entered
with them, after respectfully opening the door, “why were we not
admitted sooner?”--“Holy Father,” said the trembling Jew, “my only
domestic, Maria, is old and deaf, the youth my son is in his bed, and I
was myself engaged in my devotions.”--“It seems you can perform them in
the dark,” said another, pointing to the candles, which the Jew was
re-lighting.--“When the eye of God is on me, most reverend fathers, I am
never in darkness.”--“The eye of God _is_ on you,” said the officer,
sternly seating himself; “and so is another eye, to which he has deputed
the sleepless vigilance and resistless penetration of his own,--the eye
of the holy office. Don Fernan di Nunez,” the name by which the Jew
went, “you are not ignorant of the indulgence extended by the church, to
those who have renounced the errors of that accursed and misbelieving
race from which you are descended, but you must be also aware of its
incessant vigilance being directed towards such individuals, from the
suspicion necessarily attached to their doubtful conversion, and
possible relapse. We know that the black blood of Grenada flowed in the
tainted veins of your ancestry, and that not more than four centuries
have elapsed, since your forefathers trampled on that cross before which
you are now prostrate. You are an old man, Don Fernan, but not an _old
Christian_; and, under these circumstances, it behoves the holy office
to have a watchful scrutiny over your conduct.”
“The unfortunate Jew, invoking all the saints, protested he would feel
the strictest scrutiny with which the holy office might honour him, as a
ground of obligation and a matter of thanksgiving,--renouncing at the
same time the creed of his race in terms of such exaggeration and
vehemence, as made me tremble for his probable sincerity in any creed,
and his fidelity to me. The officers of the Inquisition, taking little
notice of his protestations, went on to inform him of the object of
their visit. They stated that a wild and incredible tale of the spectre
of a deceased prisoner of the Inquisition having been seen hovering in
the air near his house, had suggested to the wisdom of the holy office,
that the living individual might be concealed within its walls.
“I could not see the trepidation of the Jew, but I could feel the
vibration of the boards on which he stood communicated to the steps that
supported me. In a choaked and tremulous voice, he implored the officers
to search every apartment of his house, and to raze it to the ground,
and inter him under its dust, if aught were found in it which a faithful
and orthodox son of the church might not harbour. “That shall doubtless
be done,” said the officer, taking him at his word with the utmost _sang
froid_; “but, in the mean time, suffer me to apprize you, Don Fernan, of
the peril you incur, if at any future time, however remote, it shall be
discovered that you harboured or aided in concealing a prisoner of the
Inquisition, and an enemy of the holy church,--the very first and
lightest part of that penalty will be your dwelling being razed to the
ground.” The Inquisitor raised his voice, and paused with emphatic
deliberation between every clause of the following sentences, measuring
as it were the effect of his blows on the increasing terror of his
auditor. “You will be conveyed to our prison, under the suspected
character of a relapsed Jew. Your son will be committed to a convent, to
remove him from the pestilential influence of your presence;--and your
whole property shall be confiscated, to the last stone in your walls,
the last garment on your person, and the last denier in your purse.”
“The poor Jew, who had marked the gradations of his fear by groans more
audible and prolonged at the end of every tremendous denunciatory
clause, at the mention of confiscation so total and desolating, lost all
self-possession, and, ejaculating--“Oh Father Abraham, and all the holy
prophets!”--fell, as I conjectured from the sound, prostrate on the
floor. I gave myself up for lost. Exclusive of his pusillanimity, the
words he had uttered were enough to betray him to the officers of the
Inquisition; and, without a moment’s hesitation between the danger of
falling into their hands, and plunging into the darkness of the recess
into which I had descended, I staggered down a few remaining steps, and
attempted to feel my way along a passage, in which they seemed to
terminate.