Pandere res alta terrâ et caligine mersas.
I’ll shew your Grace the strangest sight,--
Body o’me, what is it, Butts?--
HENRY THE EIGHTH.
“Of the desolation of mind into which the rejection of my appeal plunged
me, I can give no account, for I retain no distinguishing image. All
colours disappear in the night, and despair has no diary,--monotony is
her essence and her curse. Hours have I walked in the garden, without
retaining a single impression but that of the sounds of my
footsteps;--thought, feeling, passion, and all that employs them,--life
and futurity, extinct and swallowed up. I was already like an inhabitant
of the land where “all things are forgotten.” I hovered on the regions
of mental twilight, where the “light is as darkness.” The clouds were
gathering that portended the approach of utter night,--they were
scattered by a sudden and extraordinary light.
“The garden was my constant resort,--a kind of instinct supplying the
place of that choice I had no longer energy enough to make, directed me
there to avoid the presence of the monks. One evening I saw a change in
its appearance. The fountain was out of repair. The spring that supplied
it was beyond the walls of the convent, and the workmen, in prosecuting
the repairs, had found it necessary to excavate a passage under the
garden-wall, that communicated with an open space in the city. This
passage, however, was closely watched during the day while the workmen
were employed, and well secured at night by a door erected for the
purpose, which was chained, barred, and bolted, the moment the workmen
quitted the passage. It was, however, left open during the day; and this
tantalizing image of escape and freedom, amid the withering certainty of
eternal imprisonment, gave a kind of awakened sting to the pains that
were becoming obtuse. I entered the passage, and drew as close as
possible to the door that shut me out from life. My seat was one of the
stones that were scattered about, my head rested on my hand, and my eyes
were sadly fixed on the _tree and the well_, the scene of that false
miracle. I knew not how long I sat thus. I was aroused by a slight noise
near me, and perceived a paper, which some one was thrusting under the
door, where a slight inequality in the ground rendered the attempt just
practicable. I stooped and attempted to seize it. It was withdrawn; but
a moment after a voice, whose tones my agitation did not permit me to
distinguish, whispered, “Alonzo.”--“Yes,--yes,” I answered eagerly. The
paper was instantly thrust into my hands, and I heard a sound of steps
retreating rapidly. I lost not a moment in reading the few words it
contained. “Be here to-morrow evening at the same hour. I have suffered
much on your account,--destroy this.” It was the hand of my brother
Juan, that hand so well remembered from our late eventful
correspondence,--that hand whose traces I never beheld without feeling
corresponding characters of hope and confidence retraced in my soul, as
lines before invisible appear on exposure to the heat that seems to
vivify them. I am surprised that between this and the following evening
my agitation did not betray me to the community. But perhaps it is only
agitation arising from frivolous causes, that vents itself in external
indications,--I was absorbed in mine. It is certain, at least, that my
mind was all that day vacillating like a clock that struck every minute
the alternate sounds, “_There is hope,--there is no hope._” The
day,--the eternal day, was at last over. Evening came on; how I watched
the advancing shades! At vespers, with what delight did I trace the
gradual mellowing of the gold and purple tinges that gleamed through the
great eastern window, and calculated that their western decline, though
slower, must come at last!--It came. Never was a more propitious
evening. It was calm and dark--the garden deserted, not a form to be
seen, not a step to be heard in the walks.--I hurried on. Suddenly I
thought I heard the sound of something pursuing me. I paused,--it was
but the beating of my own heart, audible in the deep stillness of that
eventful moment. I pressed my hand on my breast, as a mother would on an
infant whom she tried to pacify;--it did not cease to throb, however. I
entered the passage. I approached the door, of which hope and despair
seemed to stand the alternate portresses. The words still rung in my
ears, “Be here to-morrow evening at the same hour.” I stooped, and saw,
with eyes that devoured the sight, a piece of paper appear under the
door. I seized and buried it in my habit. I trembled with such ecstacy,
that I thought I never should be able to carry it undiscovered to my
cell. I succeeded, however; and the contents, when I read them,
justified my emotion. To my unspeakable uneasiness, great part of it was
illegible, from being crushed amid the stones and damp clay contiguous
to the door, and from the first page I could hardly extract that he had
been kept in the country almost a prisoner, through the influence of the
Director; that one day, while shooting with only one attendant, the hope
of liberation suddenly filled him with the idea of terrifying this man
into submission. Presenting his loaded fowling piece at the terrified
wretch, he threatened him with instant death, if he made the least
opposition. The man suffered himself to be bound to a tree; and the next
page, though much defaced, gave me to understand he had reached Madrid
in safety, and heard for the first time the event of my ill-fated
appeal. The effect of this intelligence on the impetuous, sanguine, and
affectionate Juan, could be easily traced in the broken and irregular
lines in which he vainly attempted to describe it. The letter then
proceeded. “I am now in Madrid, pledged body and soul never to quit it
till you are liberated. If you possess resolution, this is not
impossible,--the doors even of convents are not inaccessible to a silver
key. My first object, that of obtaining a communication with you,
appeared as impracticable as your escape, yet it has been accomplished.
I understood that repairs were going on in the garden, and stationed
myself at the door evening after evening, whispering your name, but it
was not till the sixth that you were there.”
“In another part he detailed his plans more fully. “Money and secrecy
are the primary objects,--the latter I can insure by the disguises I
wear, but the former I scarce know how to obtain. My escape was so
sudden, that I was wholly unprovided, and have been obliged to dispose
of my watch and rings since I reached Madrid, to purchase disguises and
procure subsistence. I could command what sums I pleased by disclosing
my name, but this would be fatal. The report of my being in Madrid would
immediately reach my father’s ears. My resource must be a Jew; and when
I have obtained money, I have little doubt of effecting your liberation.
I have already heard of a person in the convent under very extraordinary
circumstances, who would probably not be disinclined to * * * * * * *
“Here a long interval occurred in the letter, which appeared to be
written at different times. The next lines that I could trace, expressed
all the light-heartedness of this most fiery, volatile, and generous of
created beings. * * * * * *
“Be not under the least uneasiness about me, it is impossible that I
should be discovered. At school I was remarkable for a dramatic talent,
a power of personation almost incredible, and which I now find of
infinite service. Sometimes I strut as a _Majo_(4), with enormous
whiskers. Sometimes I assume the accent of a Biscayan, and, like the
husband of Donna Rodriguez, “am as good a gentleman as the king, because
I came from the mountains.” But my favourite disguise is that of a
mendicant or a fortune-teller,--the former procures me access to the
convent, the other money and intelligence. Thus I am paid, while I
appear to be the buyer. When the wanderings and stratagems of the day
are over, you would smile to see the loft and pallet to which the heir
of Monçada retires. This masquerade amuses _me_ more than the
spectators. A consciousness of our superiority is often more delightful
when confined to our own breasts, than when expressed by others.
Besides, I feel as if the squalid bed, the tottering seat, the cobwebbed
rafters, the rancid oil, and all the other _agremens_ of my new abode,
were a kind of atonement for the wrongs I have done you, Alonzo. My
spirits sometimes sink under privations so new to me, but still a kind
of playful and wild energy, peculiar to my character, supports me. I
shudder at my situation when I retire at night, and place, for the first
time _with my own hands_, the lamp on the miserable hearth; but I laugh
when, in the morning, I attire myself in fantastic rags, discolour my
face, and modulate my accent, so that the people in the house, (where I
tenant a garret), when they meet me on the stairs, do not know the being
they saw the preceding evening. I change my abode and costume every day.
Feel no fears for me, but come every evening to the door in the passage,
for every evening I shall have fresh intelligence for you. My industry
is indefatigable, my zeal unquenchable, my heart and soul are on fire in
the cause. Again I pledge myself, soul and body, never to quit this spot
till you are free,--_depend on me, Alonzo_.”
(4) Something between a bully and a rake.
“I will spare you, Sir, the detail of the feelings,--feelings! Oh my
God, pardon me the prostration of heart with which I kissed those lines,
with which I could have consecrated the hand that traced them, and which
are worthy only to be devoted to the image of the great Sacrifice. Yet a
being so young, so generous, so devoted, with a heart at once so wild
and warm, sacrificing all that rank, and youth, and pleasure could
offer,--submitting to the vilest disguises, undergoing the most
deplorable privations, struggling with what must have been most
intolerable to a proud voluptuous boy, (and I knew he was all this),
hiding his revoltings under a gaiety that was assumed, and a magnanimity
that was real--and all this for me!----Oh what I felt! * * * * * *
“The next evening I was at the door; no paper appeared, though I sat
watching for it till the declining light made it impossible for me to
discover it, had it been there. The next I was more fortunate; it
appeared. The same disguised voice whispered “Alonzo,” in tones that
were the sweetest music that ever reached my ears. This billet contained
but a very few lines, (so I found no difficulty in _swallowing it_
immediately after perusal). It said, “I have found a Jew, at last, who
will advance me a large sum. He pretends not to know me, though I am
satisfied he does.--But his usurious interest and illegal practices are
my full security. I shall be master of the means of liberating you in a
few days; and I have been fortunate enough to discover how those means
may be applied. There is a wretch----”
“Here the billet ended; and for four following evenings the state of the
repairs excited so much curiosity in the convent, (where it is so easy
to excite curiosity), that I dared not to remain in the passage, without
the fear of exciting suspicion. All this time I suffered not only the
agony of suspended hope, but the dread of this accidental communication
being finally closed; for I knew the workmen could not have more than a
few days to employ on their task. This I conveyed the intelligence of to
my brother in the same way in which I received his billets. Then I
reproached myself for hurrying him. I reflected on the difficulties of
his concealment--of his dealing with Jews--of his bribing the servants
of the convent. I thought of all he had undertaken, and all he had
undergone. Then I dreaded that all might be in vain. I would not live
over those four days again to be sovereign of the earth. I will give you
one slight proof of what I must have felt, when I heard the workmen say,
“It will be finished soon.” I used to rise at an hour before matins,
displace the stones, trample on the mortar, which I mingled with the
clay, so as to render it totally useless; and finally, _re-act
Penelope’s web_ with such success, that the workmen believed the devil
himself was obstructing their operations, and latterly never came to
their task unless armed with a vessel of holy water, which they dashed
about with infinite sanctimony and profusion. On the fifth evening I
caught the following lines beneath the door. “All is settled--I have
fixed the Jew on _Jewish terms_. He affects to be ignorant of my real
rank, and certain (_future_) wealth, but he knows it all, and dare not,
for his own sake, betray me. The Inquisition, to which I could expose
him in a moment, is my best security--I must add, my _only_. There is a
wretch in your convent, who took sanctuary from _parricide_, and
consented to become a monk, to escape the vengeance of heaven in this
life at least. I have heard, that this monster cut his own father’s
throat, as he sat at supper, to obtain a small sum which he had lost at
gambling. His partner, who was a loser also, had, it seems, made a vow
to an image of the Virgin, that was in the neighbourhood of the wretched
house where they gamed, to present two wax tapers before it in the event
of his success. He lost; and, in the fury of a gamester, as he repassed
the image, he struck and spit at it. This was very shocking--but what
was it to the crime of him who is now an inmate of your convent? The one
defaced an image, the other murdered his father: Yet the former expired
under tortures the most horrible, and the other, after some vain efforts
to elude justice, _took sanctuary_, and is now a lay-brother in your
convent. On the crimes of this wretch I build all my hopes. His soul
must be saturated with avarice, sensuality, and desperation. There is
nothing he will hesitate at if he be bribed;--for money he will
undertake your liberation--for money he will undertake to strangle you
in your cell. He envies Judas the thirty pieces of silver for which the
Redeemer of mankind was sold. _His_ soul might be purchased at
half-price. Such is the instrument with which I must work.--It is
horrible, but necessary. I have read, that from the most venomous
reptiles and plants, have been extracted the most sanative medicines. I
will squeeze the juice, and trample on the weed.
“Alonzo, tremble not at these words. Let not your habits prevail over
your character. Entrust your liberation to me, and the instruments I am
compelled to work with; and doubt not, that the hand which traces these
lines, will soon be clasping that of a brother in freedom.”
“I read these lines over and over again in the solitude of my cell, when
the excitement of watching for, secreting, and perusing it _for the
first time_, were over, and many doubts and fears began to gather round
me like twilight clouds. In proportion as Juan’s confidence increased,
mine appeared to diminish. There was a terrifying contrast between the
fearlessness, independence, and enterprise of _his_ situation, and the
loneliness, timidity, and danger of mine. While the hope of escape,
through his courage and address, still burnt like an inextinguishable
light in the depth of my heart, I still dreaded entrusting my destiny to
a youth so impetuous, though so affectionate; one who had fled from his
parents’ mansion, was living by subterfuge and imposture in Madrid, and
had engaged, as his coadjutor, a wretch whom nature must revolt from.
Upon whom and what did my hopes of liberation rest? On the affectionate
energies of a wild, enterprising, and unaided being, and the
co-operation of a demon, who might snatch at a bribe, and then shake it
in triumph in his ears, as the seal of our mutual and eternal despair,
while he flung the key of liberation into an abyss where no light could
penetrate, and from which no arm could redeem it.
“Under these impressions, I deliberated, I prayed, I wept in the agony
of doubt. At last I wrote a few lines to Juan, in which I honestly
stated my doubts and apprehensions. I stated first my doubts of the
possibility of my escape. I said, “Can it be imagined that a being whom
all Madrid, whom all Spain, is on the watch for, can elude their
detection? Reflect, dear Juan, that I am staked against a community, a
priesthood, a nation. The escape of a monk is almost impossible,--but
his concealment afterwards is downright impossible. Every bell in every
convent in Spain would ring out _untouched_ in pursuit of the fugitive.
The military, civil, and ecclesiastical powers, would all be on the “qui
vive.” Hunted, panting, and despairing, I might fly from place to
place--no place affording me shelter. The incensed powers of the
church--the fierce and vigorous gripe of the law--the execration and
hatred of society--the suspicions of the lowest order among whom I must
lurk, to shun and curse their penetration; think of encountering all
this, while the fiery cross of the Inquisition blazes in the van,
followed by the whole pack, shouting, cheering, hallooing on to the
prey. Oh Juan! if you knew the terrors under which I live--under which I
would rather die than encounter them again, even on the condition of
liberation! Liberation! Great God! what chance of liberation for a monk
in Spain? There is not a cottage where I could rest one night in
security--there is not a cavern whose echoes would not resound to the
cry of my apostacy. If I was hid in the bowels of the earth, they would
discover me, and tear me from its entrails. My beloved Juan, when I
consider the omnipotence of the ecclesiastical power in Spain, may I not
address it in the language applied to Omnipotence itself: “If I climb up
to heaven, thou art _there_;--if I go down to hell, thou art _there_
also;--if I take the wings of the morning, and flee unto the _uttermost
parts of the sea_, _even there_--” And suppose my liberation was
accomplished--suppose the convent plunged in a profound torpor, and the
unsleeping eye of the Inquisition winked at my apostacy--where am I to
reside? how am I to procure subsistence? The luxurious indolence of my
early years unfit me for active employment. The horrible conflict of
apathy the deepest, with hostility the most deadly, in monastic life,
disqualifies me for society. Throw the doors of every convent in Spain
open, and for what will their inmates be fit? For nothing that will
either embellish or improve it. What could I do to serve myself?--what
could I do that would not betray me? I should be a persecuted,
breathless fugitive,--a branded _Cain_. Alas!--perhaps expiring in
flames, I might see _Abel_ not _my_ victim, but that of the
Inquisition.”
“When I had written these lines, with an impulse for which all can
account but the writer, I tore them to atoms, burnt them deliberately by
the assistance of the lamp in my cell, and went to watch again at the
door in the passage--the door of hope. In passing through the gallery, I
encountered, for a moment, a person of a most forbidding aspect. I drew
on one side--for I had made it a point not to mix, in the slightest
degree, with the community, beyond what the discipline of the house
compelled me to. As he passed, however, he touched my habit, and gave a
most significant look. I immediately comprehended this was the person
Juan alluded to in his letter. And in a few moments after, on descending
to the garden, I found a note that confirmed my conjectures. It
contained these words: “I have procured the money--I have secured our
agent. He is an incarnate devil, but his resolution and intrepidity are
unquestionable. Walk in the cloister to-morrow evening--some one will
touch your habit--grasp his left wrist, that will be the signal. If he
hesitates, whisper to him--“Juan,” he will answer--“Alonzo.” That is
your man, consult with him. Every step that I have taken will be
communicated to you by him.”
“After reading these lines, I appeared to myself like a piece of
mechanism wound up to perform certain functions, in which its
co-operation was irresistible. The precipitate vigour of Juan’s
movements seemed to impel mine without my own concurrence; and as the
shortness of the time left me no opportunity for deliberation, it left
me also none for choice. I was like a clock whose hands are pushed
forward, and I struck the hours I was impelled to strike. When a
powerful agency is thus exercised on us,--when another undertakes to
think, feel, and act for us, we are delighted to transfer to him, not
only our physical, but our moral responsibility. We say, with selfish
cowardice, and self-flattering passiveness, “Be it so--you have decided
for me,”--without reflecting that at the bar of God there is no bail. So
I walked the next evening in the cloister. I composed my habit,--my
looks; any one would have imagined me plunged in profound
meditation,--and so I was, but not on the subjects with which they
conceived I was occupied. As I walked, some one touched my habit. I
started, and, to my consternation, one of the monks asked my pardon for
the sleeve of his tunic having touched mine. Two minutes after another
touched my habit. I felt the difference,--there was an intelligential
and communicative force in his grasp. He seized it as one who did not
fear to be known, and who had no need to apologise. How is it that crime
thus seizes us in life with a fearless grasp, while the touch of
conscience trembles on the verge of our garment. One would almost parody
the words of the well known Italian proverb, and say that guilt is
masculine, and innocence feminine. _I grasped his wrist_ with a
trembling hand, and whispered--“Juan,” in the same breath. He
answered--“Alonzo,” and passed me onward in a moment. I had then a few
moments leisure to reflect on a destiny thus singularly entrusted to a
being whose affections honoured humanity, and a being whose crimes
disgraced it. I was suspended like Mahomet’s tomb between heaven and
earth. I felt an antipathy indescribable to hold any communication with
a monster who had tried to hide the stains of parricide, by casting over
their bloody and ineffaceable traces the shroud of monasticism. I felt
also an inexpressible terror of Juan’s passions and precipitancy; and I
felt ultimately that I was in the power of all I dreaded most, and must
submit to the operation of that power for my liberation.
“I was in the cloisters the following evening. I cannot say I walked
with a step so equal, but I am sure I did with a step much more
artificially regular. For the second time the same person touched my
habit, and whispered the name of Juan. After this I could no longer
hesitate. I said, in passing, “I am in your power.” A hoarse repulsive
voice answered, “No, I am in yours.” I murmured, “Well, then, I
understand you, we belong to each other.”--“Yes. We must not speak here,
but a fortunate opportunity presents itself for our communication.
To-morrow will be the eve of the feast of Pentecost; the vigil is kept
by the whole community, who go two and two every hour to the altar, pass
their hour in prayer, and then are succeeded by two more, and this
continues all night. Such is the aversion with which you have inspired
the community, that they have one and all refused to accompany you
during your hour, which is to be from two till three. You will therefore
be alone, and during your hour I will come and visit you,--we shall be
undisturbed and unsuspected.” At these words he quitted me. The next
night was the eve of Pentecost, the monks went two and two all night to
the altar,--at two o’clock my turn arrived. They rapped at my cell, and
I descended to the church alone.”