“Though life and liberty seemed so near, our situation was still very
critical. The morning light that aided our escape, might open many an
eye to mark it. There was not a moment to be lost. My companion proposed
to ascend first, and I did not venture to oppose him. I was too much in
his power to resist; and in early youth superiority of depravity always
seems like a superiority of power. We reverence, with a prostituted
idolatry, those who have passed through the degrees of vice before us.
This man was criminal, and crime gave him a kind of heroic immunity in
my eyes. Premature knowledge in life is always to be purchased by guilt.
He knew more than I did,--he was my all in this desperate attempt. I
dreaded him as a demon, yet I invoked him as a god.
“In the end I submitted to his proposal. I was very tall, but he was
much stronger than I. He rose on my shoulders, I trembled under his
weight, but he succeeded in raising the trap-door,--the full light of
day broke on us both. In a moment he dropt his hold of the door,--he
fell to the ground with a force that struck me down. He exclaimed, “The
workmen are there, they have come about the repairs, we are lost if we
are discovered. They are there, the garden is full of them already, they
will be there the whole day. That cursed lamp, it has undone us! Had it
but kept in for a few moments, we might have been in the garden, might
have crossed the wall, might have been at liberty, and now----” He fell
to the ground convulsed with rage and disappointment, as he spoke. To me
there was nothing so terrible in this intelligence. That we were
disappointed for a time was evident, but we had been relieved from the
most horrible of all fears, that of wandering in famine and darkness
till we perished,--we had found the way to the trap-door. I had
unfailing confidence in Juan’s patience and zeal. I was sure that if he
was watching for us on that night, he would watch for many a successive
night. Finally, I felt we had but twenty-four hours or less to wait, and
what was that to the eternity of hours that must otherwise be wasted in
a convent. I suggested all this to my companion as I closed the
trap-door; but I found in his complaints, imprecations, and tossing
restlessness of impatience and despair, the difference between man and
man in the hour of trial. He possessed active, and I passive fortitude.
Give him something to do, and he would do it at the risk of limb, and
life, and soul,--he never murmured. Give me something to suffer, to
undergo, to submit, and I became at once the _hero of submission_. While
this man, with all his physical strength, and all his mental hardihood,
was tossing on the earth with the imbecillity of an infant, in a
paroxysm of unappeasable passion, I was his consoler, adviser, and
supporter. At last he suffered himself to hear reason; he agreed that we
must remain twenty-four hours more in the passage, on which he bestowed
a whole litany of curses. So we determined to stand in stillness and
darkness till night; but such is the restlessness of the human heart,
that this arrangement, which a few hours before we would have embraced
as the offer of a benignant angel for our emancipation, began to
display, as we were compelled to examine its aspect more closely,
certain features that were repulsive almost to hideousness. We were
exhausted nearly to death. Our physical exertions had been, for the last
few hours, almost incredible; in fact, I am convinced that nothing but
the consciousness that we were engaged in a struggle for life or death,
could have enabled us to support it, and now that the struggle was over,
we began to feel our weakness. Our mental sufferings had not been
less,--we had been excruciated body and soul alike. Could our mental
struggles have operated like our bodily ones, we would have been seen to
weep drops of blood, as we felt we were doing at every step of our
progress. Recollect too, Sir, the unnatural atmosphere we had breathed
so long, amid darkness and danger, and which now began to show its
anti-vital and pestilent effect, in producing alternately on our bodies
deluges of perspiration, succeeded by a chill that seemed to freeze the
very marrow. In this state of mental fever, and bodily exhaustion, we
had now to wait many hours, in darkness, without food, till Heaven
pleased to send us night. But how were those hours to be passed? The
preceding day had been one of strict abstinence,--we began already to
feel the gnawings of hunger, a hunger not to be appeased. We must fast
till the moment of liberation, and we must fast amid stone walls, and
damp seats on floors of stone, which diminished every moment the
strength necessary to contend with their impenetrable hardness,--their
withering chillness.
“The last thought that occurred to me was,--with what a companion those
hours must be passed. With a being whom I abhorred from my very soul,
while I felt that his presence was at once an irrepealable curse, and an
invincible necessity. So we stood, shivering under the trap-door, not
daring to whisper our thoughts to each other, but feeling _that despair
of incommunication_ which is perhaps the severest curse that can be
inflicted on those who are compelled to be together, and compelled, by
the same necessity that imposes their ungenial union, not even to
communicate their fears to each other. We _hear_ the throb of each
others hearts, and yet dare not say, “My heart beats in unison with
yours.”
“As we stood thus, the light became suddenly eclipsed. I knew not from
what this arose, till I felt a shower, the most violent perhaps that
ever was precipitated on the earth, make its way even through the
trap-door, and drench me in five minutes to the skin. I retreated from
the spot, but not before I had received it in every pore of my body.
You, Sir, who live in happy Ireland, blessed by God with an exemption
from those vicissitudes of the atmosphere, can have no idea of their
violence in continental countries. This rain was followed by peals of
thunder, that made me fear God was pursuing me into the abysses where I
had shrunk to escape from his vengeance, and drew from my companion
blasphemies more loud than thunder, as he felt himself drenched by the
shower, that now, flooding the vault, rose almost to our ancles. At last
he proposed our retiring to a place which he said he was acquainted
with, and which would shelter us. He added, that it was but a few steps
from where we stood, and that we could easily find our way back. I did
not dare to oppose him, and followed to a dark recess, only
distinguished from the rest of the vault by the remains of what had once
been a door. It was now light, and I could distinguish objects plainly.
By the deep hollows framed for the shooting of the bolt, and the size of
the iron hinges that still remained, though covered with rust, I saw it
must have been of no common strength, and probably intended to secure
the entrance to a dungeon,--there was no longer a door, yet I shuddered
to enter it. As we did so, both of us, exhausted in body and mind, sunk
on the hard floor. We did not say a word to each other, an inclination
to sleep irresistibly overcame us; and whether that sleep was to be my
last or not, I felt a profound indifference. Yet I was now on the verge
of liberty, and though drenched, famishing, and comfortless, was, in any
rational estimate, an object much more enviable than in the
heart-withering safety of my cell. Alas! it is too true that our souls
always contract themselves on the approach of a blessing, and seem as if
their powers, exhausted in the effort to obtain it, had no longer energy
to embrace the object. Thus we are always compelled to substitute the
pleasure of the pursuit for that of the attainment,--to reverse the
means for the end, or confound them, in order to extract any enjoyment
from either, and at last fruition becomes only another name for
lassitude. These reflections certainly did not occur to me, when, worn
out with toil, terror, and famine, I fell on the stone floor in a sleep
that was not sleep,--it seemed the suspension both of my mortal and
immortal nature. I ceased from animal and intellectual life at once.
There are cases, Sir, where the thinking power appears to accompany us
to the very verge of slumber, where we sleep full of delightful
thoughts, and sleep only to review them in our dreams: But there are
also cases when we feel that our sleep is a “sleep for ever,”--when we
resign the hope of immortality for the hope of a profound repose,--when
we demand from the harassings of fate, “Rest, rest,” and no more,--when
the soul and body faint together, and all we ask of God or man is to let
us sleep.
“In such a state I fell to the ground; and, at that moment, would have
bartered all my hopes of liberation for twelve hours profound repose, as
Esau sold his birth-right for a small but indispensible refreshment. I
was not to enjoy even this repose long. My companion was sleeping too.
Sleeping! great God! what was his sleep?--that in whose neighbourhood no
one could close an eye, or, worse, an ear. He talked as loudly and
incessantly as if he had been employed in all the active offices of
life. I heard involuntarily the secret of his dreams. I knew he had
murdered his father, but I did not know that the vision of parricide
haunted him in his broken visions. My sleep was first broken by sounds
as horrible as any I ever had heard at my bed-side in the convent. I
heard sounds that disturbed me, but I was not yet fully awake. They
increased, they redoubled,--the terrors of my habitual associations
awoke me. I imagined the Superior and the whole community pursuing us
with lighted torches. I felt the blaze of the lights in contact with my
very eye-balls. I shrieked. I said, “Spare my sight, do not blind me, do
not drive me mad, and I will confess all.” A deep voice near me
muttered, “Confess.” I started up fully awake,--it was only the voice of
my sleeping companion. I stood on my feet, I viewed him as he lay. He
heaved and wallowed on his bed of stone, as if it had been down. He
seemed to have a frame of adamant. The jagged points of stone, the
hardness of the floor, the ruts and rudenesses of his inhospitable bed,
produced no effect on him. He could have slept, but his dreams were from
within. I have heard, I have read, of the horrors attending the dying
beds of the guilty. They often told us of such in the convent. One monk
in particular, who was a priest, was fond of dwelling on a death-bed
scene he had witnessed, and of describing its horrors. He related that
he had urged a person, who was sitting calmly in his chair, though
evidently dying, to intrust him with his confession. The dying person
answered, “I will, when those leave the room.” The monk, conceiving that
this referred to the relatives and friends, motioned them to retire.
They did so, and again the monk renewed his demands on the conscience of
the penitent. The room was now empty. The monk renewed his adjuration to
the dying man to disclose the secrets of his conscience. The answer was
the same,--“I will, when those are gone.”--“_Those!_”--“Yes, those whom
you cannot see, and cannot banish,--send them away, and I will tell you
the truth.”--“Tell it now, then; there are none here but you and
me.”--“There are,” answered the dying man. “There are none that I can
see,” said the monk, gazing round the room. “But there are those that I
do see,” replied the dying wretch, “and that see me; that are watching,
waiting for me, the moment the breath is out of my body. I see them, I
feel them,--stand on my right side.” The monk changed his position. “Now
they are on the left.” The monk shifted again. “Now they are on my
right.” The monk commanded the children and relatives of the dying
wretch to enter the room, and surround the bed. They obeyed the command.
“Now they are every where,” exclaimed the sufferer, and expired(6).
(6) Fact,--me ipso teste.
“This terrible story came freshly to my recollection, accompanied by
many others. I had heard much of the terrors that surrounded the dying
bed of the guilty, but, from what I was compelled to hear, I almost
believe them to be less than the terrors of a guilty sleep. I have said
my companion began at first with low mutterings, but among them I could
distinguish sounds that reminded me too soon of all I wished to forget,
at least while we were together. He murmured, “An old man?--yes,--well,
the less blood in him. Grey hairs?--no matter, my crimes have helped to
turn them grey,--he ought to have rent them from the roots long ago.
They are white, you say?--well, to-night they shall be dyed in blood,
then they will be white no longer. Aye,--he will hold them up at the day
of judgment, like a banner of condemnation against me. He will stand at
the head of an army stronger than the army of martyrs,--the host of
those whose murderers have been their own children. What matter whether
they cut their parents’ hearts or their throats. I have cut _one_
through and through, to the very core,--now for the other, it will give
him less pain, I feel that,”--and he laughed, shuddered, and writhed on
his stony bed. Trembling with horror ineffable, I tried to awake him. I
shook his muscular arms, I rolled him on his back, on his face,--nothing
could awake him. It seemed as if I was only rocking him on his cradle of
stone. He went on, “Secure the purse, I know the drawer of the cabinet
where it lies, but secure him first. Well, then, you cannot,--you
shudder at his white hairs, at his calm sleep!--ha! ha! that villains
should be fools. Well, then, I must be the man, it is but a short
struggle with him or me,--he may be damned, and I must. Hush,--how the
stairs creak, they will not tell him it is his son’s foot that is
ascending?--They dare not, the stones of the wall would give them the
lie. Why did you not oil the hinges of the door?--now for it. He sleeps
intensely,--aye, how calm he looks!--the calmer the fitter for heaven.
Now,--now, my knee is on his breast,--where is the knife?--where is the
knife?--if he looks at me I am lost. The knife,--I am a coward; the
knife,--if he opens his eyes I am gone; the knife, ye cursed
cravens,--who dare shrink when I have griped my father’s throat?
There,--there,--there,--blood to the hilt,--the old man’s blood; look
for the money, while I wipe the blade. I cannot wipe it, the grey hairs
are mingled with the blood,--those hairs brushed my lips the last time
he kissed me. I was a child then. I would not have taken a world to
murder him then, now,--now, what am I? Ha! ha! ha! Let Judas shake his
bag of silver against mine,--he betrayed his Saviour, and I have
murdered my father. Silver against silver, and soul against soul. I have
got more for mine,--he was a fool to sell his for thirty. But for which
of us will the last fire burn hotter?--no matter, I am going to try.” At
these horrible expressions, repeated over and over, I called, I shrieked
to my companion to awake. He did so, with a laugh almost as wild as the
chattering of his dreams. “Well, what have you heard? I murdered
him,--you knew that long before. You trusted me in this cursed
adventure, which will risk the life of both, and can you not bear to
hear me speak to myself, though I am only telling what you knew
before?”--“No, I cannot bear it,” I answered, in an agony of horror;
“not even to effect my escape, could I undertake to sustain another hour
like the past,--the prospect of seclusion here for a whole day amid
famine, damps, and darkness, listening to the ravings of a ----. Look
not at me with that glare of mockery, I know it all, I shudder at your
sight. Nothing but the iron link of necessity could have bound me to you
even for a moment. I _am_ bound to you,--I must bear it while it
continues, but do not make those moments insupportable. My life and
liberty are in your hands,--I must add my reason, too, in the
circumstances in which we are plunged,--I cannot sustain your horrible
eloquence of sleep. If I am forced to listen to it again, you may bear
me alive from these walls, but you will bear me away an ideot, stupified
by terrors which my brain is unable to support. Do not sleep, I adjure
you. Let me watch beside you during this wretched day,--this day which
is to be measured by darkness and suffering, instead of light and
enjoyment. I am willing to famish with hunger, to shudder with cold, to
couch on these hard stones, but I cannot bear your dreams,--if you
sleep, I must rouse you in defence of my reason. All physical strength
is failing me fast, and I am become more jealous of the preservation of
my intellect. Do not cast at me those looks of defiance, I am your
inferior in strength, but despair makes us equal.” As I spoke, my voice
sounded like thunder in my own ears, my eyes flashed visibly to myself.
I felt the power that passion gives us, and I saw that my companion felt
it too. I went on, in a tone that made myself start, “If you dare to
sleep, I will wake you,--if you dose even, you shall not have a moment
undisturbed,--you shall wake with me. For this long day we must starve
and shiver together, I have wound myself up to it. I can bear every
thing,--every thing but the dreams of him whose sleep reveals to him the
vision of a murdered parent. Wake,--rave,--blaspheme,--but sleep you
shall not!”
“The man stared at me for some time, almost incredulous of my being
capable of such energy of passion and command. But when he had, by the
help of his dilated eyes, and gaping mouth, appeared to satisfy himself
fully of the fact, his expression suddenly changed. He appeared to feel
a community of nature with me for the first time. Any thing of ferocity
appeared congenial and balsamic to him; and, with oaths, that froze my
blood, swore he liked me the better for my resolution. “I _will_ keep
awake,” he added, with a yawn that distended like the jaws of an Ogre
preparing for his cannibal feast. Then suddenly relaxing, “But how shall
we keep awake? We have nothing to eat, nothing to drink, what shall we
do to keep awake?” And incontinently he uttered a volley of curses. Then
he began to sing. But what songs?--full of such ribaldry and looseness,
that, bred as I was first in domestic privacy, and then in the
strictness of a convent, made me believe it was an incarnate demon that
was howling beside me. I implored him to cease, but this man could pass
so instantaneously from the extremes of atrocity to those of
levity,--from the ravings of guilt and horror ineffable, to songs that
would insult a brothel, that I knew not what to make of him. This _union
of antipodes_, this unnatural alliance of the extremes of guilt and
light-mindedness, I had never met or imagined before. He started from
the visions of a parricide, and sung songs that would have made a harlot
blush. How ignorant of life I must have been, not to know that guilt and
insensibility often join to tenant and deface the same mansion, and that
there is not a more strong and indissoluble alliance on earth, than that
between the hand that dare do any thing, and the heart that can feel
nothing.
“It was in the midst of one of his most licentious songs, that my
companion suddenly paused. He gazed about him for some time; and faint
and dismal as the light was by which we beheld each other, I thought I
could observe an extraordinary expression overshadow his countenance. I
did not venture to notice it. “Do you know where we are?” he whispered.
“Too well;--in the vault of a convent, beyond the help or reach of
man,--without food, without light, and almost without hope.”--“Aye, so
its last inhabitants might well say.”--“Its last inhabitants!--who were
they?”--“I can tell you, if you can bear it.”--“_I cannot bear it_,” I
cried, stopping my ears, “I will not listen to it. I feel by the
narrator it must be something horrid.”--“It was indeed a horrid night,”
said he, unconsciously adverting to some circumstance in the narrative;
and his voice sunk into mutterings, and he forbore to mention the
subject further. I retired as far from him as the limits of the vault
admitted; and, burying my head between my knees, tried to _forbear to
think_. What a state of mind must that be, in which we are driven to
wish we no longer had one!--when we would willingly become “as the
beasts that perish,” to forget that privilege of humanity, which only
seems an undisputed title to superlative misery! To sleep was
impossible. Though sleep seems to be only a necessity of nature, it
always requires an act of the mind to concur in it. And if I had been
willing to rest, the gnawings of hunger, which now began to be exchanged
for the most deadly sickness, would have rendered it impossible. Amid
this complication of physical and mental suffering, it is hardly
credible, Sir, but it is not the less true, that my principal one arose
from the inanity, the want of occupation, inevitably attached to my
dreary situation. To inflict a suspension of the action on a being
conscious of possessing the powers of action, and burning for their
employment,--to forbid all interchange of mutual ideas, or acquirement
of new ones to an intellectual being,--to do this, is to invent a
torture that might make Phalaris blush for his impotence of cruelty.
“I had felt other sufferings almost intolerable, but I felt this
impossible to sustain; and, will you believe it, Sir, after wrestling
with it during an hour (as I counted hours) of unimaginable misery, I
rose, and supplicated my companion to relate the circumstance he had
alluded to, as connected with our dreadful abode. His ferocious good
nature took part with this request in a moment; and though I could see
that his strong frame had suffered more than my comparatively feeble
one, from the struggles of the night and the privations of the day, he
prepared himself with a kind of grim alacrity for the effort. He was now
in his element. He was enabled to daunt a feeble mind by the narration
of horrors, and to amaze an ignorant one with a display of crimes;--and
he needed no more to make him commence. “I remember,” said he, “an
extraordinary circumstance connected with this vault. I wondered how I
felt so familiar with this door, this arch, at first.--I did not
recollect immediately, so many strange thoughts have crossed my mind
every day, that events which would make a life-lasting impression on
others, pass like shadows before me, while thoughts appear like
substances. _Emotions are my events_--you know what brought me to this
cursed convent--well, don’t shiver or look _paler_--you were pale
before. However it was, I found myself in the convent, and I was obliged
to subscribe to its discipline. A part of it was, that extraordinary
criminals should undergo what they called extraordinary penance; that
is, not only submit to every ignominy and rigour of conventual life,
(which, fortunately for its penitents, is never wanting in such amusing
resources), but act the part of executioner whenever any distinguished
punishment was to be inflicted or witnessed. They did me the honour to
believe me particularly qualified for this species of recreation, and
perhaps they did not flatter me. I had all the humility of a saint on
trial; but still I had a kind of confidence in my talents of this
description, provided they were put to a proper test; and the monks had
the goodness to assure me, that I never could long be without one in a
convent. This was a very tempting picture of my situation, but I found
these worthy people had not in the least exaggerated. An instance
occurred a few days after I had the happiness to become a member of this
amiable community, of whose merits you are doubtless sensible. I was
desired to attach myself to a young monk of distinguished family, who
had lately taken the vows, and who performed his duties with that
heartless punctuality that intimated to the community that his heart was
elsewhere. I was soon put in possession of the business; from their
ordering me to _attach_ myself to him, I instantly conceived I was bound
to the most deadly hostility against him. The friendship of convents is
always a treacherous league--we watch, suspect, and torment each other,
for the love of God. This young monk’s only crime was, that he was
suspected of cherishing an earthly passion. He was, in fact, as I have
stated, the son of a distinguished family, who (from the fear of his
contracting what is called a degrading marriage, _i. e._ of marrying a
woman of inferior rank whom he loved, and who would have made him happy,
as fools, that is, half mankind, estimate happiness) forced him to take
the vows. He appeared at times broken-hearted, but at times there was a
light of hope in his eye, that looked somewhat ominous in the eyes of
the community. It is certain, that hope not being an indigenous plant in
the parterre of a convent, must excite suspicion with regard both to its
origin and its growth.
“Some time after, a young novice entered the convent. From the moment he
did so, a change the most striking took place in the young monk. He and
the novice became inseparable companions--there was something suspicious
in that. My eyes were on the watch in a moment. Eyes are particularly
sharpened in discovering misery when they can hope to aggravate it. The
attachment between the young monk and the novice went on. They were for
ever in the garden together--they inhaled the odours of the
flowers--they cultivated the same cluster of carnations--they entwined
themselves as they walked together--when they were in the choir, their
voices were like mixed incense. Friendship is often carried to excess in
conventual life, but this friendship was too like love. For instance,
the psalms sung in the choir sometimes breathe a certain language; at
these words, the young monk and the novice would direct their voices to
each other in sounds that could not be misunderstood. If the least
correction was inflicted, one would intreat to undergo it for the other.
If a day of relaxation was allowed, whatever presents were sent to the
cell of one, were sure to be found in the cell of the other. This was
enough for me. I saw that secret of mysterious happiness, which is the
greatest misery to those who never can share it. My vigilance was
redoubled, and it was rewarded by the discovery of a secret--a secret
that I had to communicate and raise my consequence by. You cannot guess
the importance attached to the discovery of a secret in a convent,
(particularly when the remission of our own offences depends on the
discovery of those of others.)
“One evening as the young monk and his darling novice were in the
garden, the former plucked a peach, which he immediately offered to his
favourite; the latter accepted it with a movement I thought rather
awkward--it seemed like what I imagined would be the reverence of a
female. The young monk divided the peach with a knife; in doing so, the
knife grazed the finger of the novice, and the monk, in agitation
inexpressible, tore his habit to bind up the wound. I saw it all--my
mind was made up on the business--I went to the Superior that very
night. The result may be conceived. They were watched, but cautiously at
first. They were probably on their guard; for, for some time it defied
even my vigilance to make the slightest discovery. It is a situation
incomparably tantalizing, when suspicion is satisfied of her own
suggestions, as of the truth of the gospel, but still wants the _little
fact_ to make them credible to others. One night that I had, by
direction of the Superior, taken my station in the gallery, (where I was
contented to remain hour after hour, and night after night, amid
solitude, darkness, and cold, for the chance of the power of retaliating
on others the misery inflicted on myself)--One night, I thought I heard
a step in the gallery--I have told you that I was in the dark--a light
step passed me. I could hear the broken and palpitating respiration of
the person. A few moments after, I heard a door open, and knew it to be
the door of the young monk. I knew it; for by long watching in the dark,
and accustoming myself to number the cells, by the groan from one, the
prayer from another, the faint shriek of restless dreams from a third,
my ear had become so finely graduated, that I could instantly
distinguish the opening of _that door_, from which (to my sorrow) no
sound had ever before issued. I was provided with a small chain, by
which I fastened the handle of the door to a contiguous one, in such a
manner, that it was impossible to open either of them from the inside. I
then hastened to the Superior, with a pride of which none but the
successful tracer of a guilty secret in convents, can have any
conception. I believe the Superior was himself agitated by the luxury of
the same feelings, for he was awake and up in his apartment, attended by
_four monks_, whom you may remember.” I shuddered at the remembrance. “I
communicated my intelligence with a voluble eagerness, not only unsuited
to the respect I owed these persons, but which must have rendered me
almost unintelligible, yet they were good enough not only to overlook
this violation of decorum, which would in any other case have been
severely punished, but even to supply certain pauses in my narrative,
with a condescension and facility truly miraculous. I felt what it was
to acquire importance in the eyes of a Superior, and gloried in all the
dignified depravity of an informer. We set out without losing a
moment,--we arrived at the door of the cell, and I pointed out with
triumph the chain unremoved, though a slight vibration, perceptible at
our approach, showed the wretches within were already apprised of their
danger. I unfastened the door,--how they must have shuddered! The
Superior and his satellites burst into the cell, and _I_ held the light.
You tremble,--why? I was guilty, and I wished to witness guilt that
palliated mine, at least in the opinion of the convent. I had only
violated the laws of nature, but they had outraged the decorum of a
convent, and, of course, in the creed of a convent, there was no
proportion between our offences. Besides, I was anxious to witness
misery that might perhaps equal or exceed my own, and this is a
curiosity not easily satisfied. It is actually possible to become
_amateurs in suffering_. I have heard of men who have travelled into
countries where horrible executions were to be daily witnessed, for the
sake of that excitement which the sight of suffering never fails to
give, from the spectacle of a tragedy, or an _auto da fe_, down to the
writhings of the meanest reptile on whom you can inflict torture, and
feel that torture is the result of your own power. It is a species of
feeling of which we never can divest ourselves,--a triumph over those
whose sufferings have placed them below us, and no wonder,--suffering is
always an indication of weakness,--we glory in our impenetrability. _I_
did, as we burst into the cell. The wretched husband and wife were
locked in each others arms. You may imagine the scene that followed.
Here I must do the Superior reluctant justice. He was a man (of course
from his conventual feelings) who had no more idea of the intercourse
between the sexes, than between two beings of a different species. The
scene that he beheld could not have revolted him more, than if he had
seen the horrible loves of the baboons and the Hottentot women, at the
Cape of Good Hope; or those still more loathsome unions between the
serpents of South America and their human victims(7), when they can
catch them, and twine round them in folds of unnatural and ineffable
union. He really stood as much astonished and appalled, to see two human
beings of different sexes, who dared to love each other in spite of
monastic ties, as if he had witnessed the horrible conjunctions I have
alluded to. Had he seen vipers engendering in that frightful knot which
seems the pledge of mortal hostility, instead of love, he could not have
testified more horror,--and I do him the justice to believe he felt all
he testified. Whatever affectation he might employ on points of
conventual austerity, there was none here. Love was a thing he always
believed connected with sin, even though consecrated by the name of a
sacrament, and called marriage, as it is in our church. But, love in a
convent!--Oh, there is no conceiving his rage; still less is it possible
to conceive the majestic and overwhelming extent of that rage, when
strengthened by principle, and sanctified by religion. I enjoyed the
scene beyond all power of description. I saw those wretches, who had
triumphed over me, reduced to my level in a moment,--their passions all
displayed, and the display placing me a hero triumphant above all. I had
crawled to the shelter of their walls, a wretched degraded outcast, and
what was my crime? Well,--you shudder, I have done with that. I can only
say want drove me to it. And here were beings whom, a few months before,
I would have knelt to as to the images round the shrine,--to whom, in
the moments of my desperate penitence, I would have clung as to the
“horns of the altar,” all brought as low, and lower than myself. “Sons
of the morning,” as I deemed them in the agonies of my humiliation, “how
were they fallen!” I feasted on the degradation of the apostate monk and
novice,--I enjoyed, to the core of my ulcerated heart, the passion of
the Superior,--I felt that they were all men like myself. Angels, as I
had thought them, they had all proved themselves mortal; and, by
watching their motions, and flattering their passions, and promoting
their interest, or setting up my own in opposition to them all, while I
made them believe it was only theirs I was intent on, I might make shift
to contrive as much misery to others, and to carve out as much
occupation to myself, as if I were actually living in the world. Cutting
my father’s throat was a noble feat certainly, (I ask your pardon, I did
not mean to extort that groan from you), but here were hearts to be
cut,--and to the core, every day, and all day long, so I never could
want employment.”
(7) Vide Charlevoix’s History of Paraguay.
“Here he wiped his hard brow, drew his breath for a moment, and then
said, “I do not quite like to go through the details by which this
wretched pair were deluded into the hope of effecting their escape from
the convent. It is enough that I was the principal agent,--that the
Superior connived at it,--that I led them through the very passages you
have traversed to-night, they trembling and blessing me at every
step,--that----” “Stop,” I cried; “wretch! you are tracing my course
this night step by step.”--“What?” he retorted, with a ferocious laugh,
“you think I am betraying you, then; and if it were true, what good
would your suspicions do you,--you are in my power? My voice might
summon half the convent to seize you this moment,--my arm might fasten
you to that wall, till those dogs of death, that wait but my whistle,
plunged their fangs into your very vitals. I fancy you would not find
their bite less keen, from their tusks being so long sharpened by an
immersion in holy water.” Another laugh, that seemed to issue from the
lungs of a demon, concluded this sentence. “I know I am in your power,”
I answered; “and were I to trust to that, or to your heart, I had better
dash out my brains at once against these walls of rock, which I believe
are not harder than the latter. But I know your interests to be some way
or other connected with my escape, and therefore I trust you,--because I
must. Though my blood, chilled as it is by famine and fatigue, seems
frozen in every drop while I listen to you, yet listen I must, and trust
my life and liberation to you. I speak to you with the horrid confidence
our situation has taught me,--I hate,--I dread you. If we were to meet
in life, I would shrink from you with loathings of unspeakable
abhorrence, but here mutual misery has mixed the most repugnant
substances in unnatural coalition. The force of that alchemy must cease
at the moment of my escape from the convent and from you; yet, for these
miserable hours, my life is as much dependent on your exertions and
presence, as my power of supporting them is on the continuance of your
horrible tale,--go on, then. Let us struggle through this dreadful day.
_Day!_ a name unknown _here_, where noon and night shake hands that
never unlock. Let us struggle through it, “hateful and hating one
another;” and when it has passed, let us curse and part.”
“As I uttered these words, Sir, I felt that terrible _confidence of
hostility_ which the worst beings are driven to in the worst of
circumstances, and I question whether there is a more horrible situation
than that in which we cling to each other’s hate, instead of each
other’s love,--in which, at every step of our progress, we hold a dagger
to our companion’s breast, and say, “If you faulter for a moment, this
is in your heart. I hate,--I fear, but I must bear with you.” It was
singular to me, though it would not be so to those who investigate human
nature, that, in proportion as my situation inspired me with a ferocity
quite unsuited to our comparative situations, and which must have been
the result of the madness of despair and famine, my companion’s respect
for me appeared to increase. After a long pause, he asked, might he
continue his story? I could not speak, for, after the slightest
exertion, the sickness of deadly hunger returned on me, and I could only
signify, by a feeble motion of my hand, that he might go on.
“They were conducted here,” he continued; “I had suggested the plan, and
the Superior consented to it. He would not be present, but his dumb nod
was enough. I was the conductor of their (intended) escape; they
believed they were departing with the connivance of the Superior. I led
them through those very passages that you and I have trod. I had a map
of this subterranean region, but my blood ran cold as I traversed it;
and it was not at all inclined to resume its usual temperament, as I
felt what was to be the destination of my attendants. Once I turned the
lamp, on pretence of trimming it, to catch a glimpse of the devoted
wretches. They were embracing each other,--the light of joy trembled in
their eyes. They were whispering to each other hopes of liberation and
happiness, and blending my name in the interval they could spare from
their prayers for each other. That sight extinguished the last remains
of compunction with which my horrible task had inspired me. They dared
to be happy in the sight of one who must be for ever miserable,--could
there be a greater insult? I resolved to punish it on the spot. This
very apartment was near,--I knew it, and the map of their wanderings no
longer trembled in my hand. I urged them to enter this recess, (the door
was then entire), while I went to examine the passage. They entered it,
thanking me for my precaution,--they knew not they were never to quit it
alive. But what were their lives for the agony their happiness cost me?
The moment they were inclosed, and clasping each other, (a sight that
made me grind my teeth), I closed and locked the door. This movement
gave them no immediate uneasiness,--they thought it a friendly
precaution. The moment they were secured, I hastened to the Superior,
who was on fire at the insult offered to the sanctity of his convent,
and still more to the purity of his penetration, on which the worthy
Superior piqued himself as much as if it had ever been possible for him
to acquire the smallest share of it. He descended with me to the
passage,--the monks followed with eyes on fire. In the agitation of
their rage, it was with difficulty they could discover the door after I
had repeatedly pointed it out to them. The Superior, with his own hands,
drove several nails, which the monks eagerly supplied, into the door,
that effectually joined it to the staple, _never to be disjoined_; and
every blow he gave, doubtless he felt as if it was a reminiscence to the
accusing angel, to strike out a sin from the catalogue of his
accusations. The work was soon done,--the work never to be undone. At
the first sound of steps in the passage, and blows on the door, the
victims uttered a shriek of terror. They imagined they were detected,
and that an incensed party of monks were breaking open the door. These
terrors were soon exchanged for others,--and worse,--as they heard the
door nailed up, and listened to our departing steps. They uttered
another shriek, but O how different was the accent of its despair!--they
knew their doom. * * * * * It was my penance (no,--my delight) to watch
at the door, under the pretence of precluding the possibility of their
escape, (of which they knew there was no possibility); but, in reality,
not only to inflict on me the indignity of being the convent gaoler, but
of teaching me that callosity of heart, and induration of nerve, and
stubbornness of eye, and apathy of ear, that were best suited to my
office. But they might have saved themselves the trouble,--I had them
all before ever I entered the convent. Had I been the Superior of the
community, I should have undertaken the office of watching the door. You
will call this cruelty, I call it curiosity,--that curiosity that brings
thousands to witness a tragedy, and makes the most delicate female feast
on groans and agonies. I had an advantage over them,--the groan, the
agony I feasted on, were real. I took my station at _the door_--that
door which, like that of Dante’s hell, might have borne the inscription,
“Here is no hope,”--with a face of mock penitence, and genuine--cordial
delectation. I could hear every word that transpired. For the first
hours they tried to comfort each other,--they suggested to each other
hopes of liberation,--and as my shadow, crossing the threshold, darkened
or restored the light, they said, “That is he;”--then, when this
occurred repeatedly, without any effect, they said, “No,--no, it is not
he,” and swallowed down the sick sob of despair, to hide it from each
other. Towards night a monk came to take my place, and to offer me food.
I would not have quitted my place for worlds; but I talked to the monk
in his own language, and told him I would make a merit with God of my
sacrifices, and was resolved to remain there all night, with the
permission of the Superior. The monk was glad of having a substitute on
such easy terms, and I was glad of the food he left me, for I was hungry
now, but I reserved the appetite of my soul for richer luxuries. I heard
them talking within. While I was eating, I actually lived on the famine
that was devouring them, but of which they did not dare to say a word to
each other. They debated, deliberated, and, as misery grows ingenious in
its own defence, they at last assured each other that it was impossible
the Superior had locked them in there to perish by hunger. At these
words I could not help laughing. This laugh reached their ears, and they
became silent in a moment. All that night, however, I heard their
groans,--those groans of physical suffering, that laugh to scorn all the
sentimental sighs that are exhaled from the hearts of the most
intoxicated lovers that ever breathed. I heard them all that night. I
had read French romances, and all their unimaginable nonsense. Madame
Sevignè herself says she would have been tired of her daughter in a long
tete-a-tete journey, but clap me two lovers into a dungeon, without
food, light, or hope, and I will be damned (that I am already, by the
bye) if they do not grow sick of each other within the first twelve
hours. The second day hunger and darkness had their usual influence.
They shrieked for liberation, and knocked loud and long at their dungeon
door. They exclaimed they were ready to submit to any punishment; and
the approach of the monks, which they would have dreaded so much the
preceding night, they now solicited on their knees. What a jest, after
all, are the most awful vicissitudes of human life!--they supplicated
now for what they would have sacrificed their souls to avert
four-and-twenty hours before. Then the agony of hunger increased, they
shrunk from the door, and grovelled apart from each other. _Apart!_--how
I watched that. They were rapidly becoming objects of hostility to each
other,--oh what a feast to me! They could not disguise from each other
the revolting circumstances of their mutual sufferings. It is one thing
for lovers to sit down to a feast magnificently spread, and another for
lovers to couch in darkness and famine,--to exchange that appetite which
cannot be supported without dainties and flattery, for that which would
barter a descended Venus for a morsel of food. The second night they
raved and groaned, (as occurred); and, amid their agonies, (I must do
justice to women, whom I hate as well as men), the man often accused the
female as the cause of all his sufferings, but the woman never,--never
reproached him. Her groans might indeed have reproached him bitterly,
but she never uttered a word that could have caused him pain. There was
a change which I well could mark, however, in their physical feelings.
The first day they clung together, and every movement I felt was like
that of one person. The next the man alone struggled, and the woman
moaned in helplessness. The third night,--how shall I tell it?--but you
have bid me go on. All the horrible and loathsome excruciations of
famine had been undergone; the disunion of every tie of the heart, of
passion, of nature, had commenced. In the agonies of their famished
sickness they loathed each other,--they could have cursed each other, if
they had had breath to curse. It was on the fourth night that I heard
the shriek of the wretched female,--her lover, in the agony of hunger,
had fastened his teeth in her shoulder;--that bosom on which he had so
often luxuriated, became a meal to him now.” * * * * * “Monster! and you
laugh?”--“Yes, I laugh at all mankind, and the imposition they dare to
practise when they talk of hearts. I laugh at human passions and human
cares,--vice and virtue, religion and impiety; they are all the result
of petty localities, and artificial situation. One physical want, one
severe and abrupt lesson from the tintless and shrivelled lip of
necessity, is worth all the logic of the empty wretches who have
presumed to prate it, from Zeno down to Burgersdicius. Oh! it silences
in a second all the feeble sophistry of _conventional_ life, and
ascetitious passion. Here were a pair who would not have believed all
the world on their knees, even though angels had descended to join in
the attestation, that it was possible for them to exist without each
other. They had risked every thing, trampled on every thing human and
divine, to be in each others sight and arms. One hour of hunger
undeceived them. A trivial and ordinary want, whose claims at another
time they would have regarded as a vulgar interruption of their
spiritualised intercourse, not only, by its natural operation, sundered
it for ever, but, before it ceased, converted that intercourse into a
source of torment and hostility inconceivable, except among cannibals.
The bitterest enemies on earth could not have regarded each other with
more abhorrence than _these lovers_. Deluded wretches! you boasted of
having hearts, I boast I have none, and which of us gained most by the
vaunt, let life decide. My story is nearly finished, and so I hope is
the day. When I was last here I had something to excite me;--talking of
those things is poor employment to one who has been a witness to them.
On the _sixth_ day all was still. The door was unnailed, we
entered,--they were no more. They lay far from each other, farther than
on that voluptuous couch into which their passion had converted the mat
of a convent bed. She lay contracted in a heap, a lock of her long hair
in her mouth. There was a slight scar on her shoulder,--the rabid
despair of famine had produced no farther outrage. He lay extended at
his length,--his hand was between his lips; it seemed as if he had not
strength to execute the purpose for which he had brought it there. The
bodies were brought out for interment. As we removed them into the
light, the long hair of the female, falling over a face no longer
disguised by the novice’s dress, recalled a likeness I thought I could
remember. I looked closer, she was my own sister,--my only one,----and I
had heard her voice grow fainter and fainter. I had heard----” and his
own voice grew fainter--it ceased.
“Trembling for a life with which my own was linked, I staggered towards
him. I raised him half up in my arms, and recollecting there must be a
current of air through the trap-door, I attempted to trail him along
thither. I succeeded, and, as the breeze played over him, I saw with
delight unutterable the diminution of the light that streamed through
it. It was _evening_,--there was no longer any necessity, no longer any
time for delay. He recovered, for his swoon arose not from exhausted
sensibility, but from mere inanition. However it was, I found my
interest in watching his recovery; and, had I been adequate to the task
of observing extraordinary vicissitudes of the human mind, I would have
been indeed amazed at the change that he manifested on his recovery.
Without the least reference to his late story, or late feelings, he
started from my arms at the discovery that the light had diminished, and
prepared for our escape through the trap-door, with a restored energy of
strength, and sanity of intellect, that might have been deemed
miraculous if it had occurred in a convent:--Happening to occur full
thirty feet below the proper surface for a miracle, it must be put to
the account of strong excitement merely. I could not indeed dare to
believe a miracle was wrought in favour of my profane attempt, and so I
was glad to put up with second causes. With incredible dexterity he
climbed up the wall, with the help of the rugged stones and my
shoulders,--threw open the trap-door, pronounced that all was safe,
assisted me to ascend after him,--and, with gasping delight, I once more
breathed the breath of heaven. The night was perfectly dark. I could not
distinguish the buildings from the trees, except when a faint breeze
gave motion to the latter. To this darkness, I am convinced, I owe the
preservation of my reason under such vicissitudes,--the glory of a
resplendent night would have driven me mad, emerging from darkness,
famine, and cold. I would have wept, and laughed, and knelt, and turned
idolater. I would have “worshipped the host of heaven, and the moon
walking in her brightness.” Darkness was my best security, in every
sense of the word. We traversed the garden, without feeling the ground
under our feet. As we approached the wall, I became again deadly
sick,--my senses grew giddy, I reeled. I whispered to my companion, “Are
there not lights gleaming from the convent windows?”--“No, the lights
are flashing from your own eyes,--it is only the effect of darkness,
famine, and fear,--come on.”--“But I hear a sound of bells.”--“The bells
are ringing only in your ears,--an empty stomach is your sexton, and you
fancy you hear bells. Is this a time to faulter?--come on, come on.
Don’t hang such a dead weight on my arm,--don’t fall, if you can help
it. Oh God, he has swooned!”
“These were the last words I heard. I had fallen, I believe, into his
arms. With that instinct that acts most auspiciously in the absence of
both thought and feeling, he dragged me in his brawny arms to the wall,
_and twisted my cold fingers_ in the ropes of the ladder. The touch
restored me in a moment; and, almost before my hand had touched the
ropes, my feet began to ascend them. My companion followed extempore. We
reached the summit,--I tottered from weakness and terror. I felt a
sickly dread, that, though the ladder was there, Juan was not. A moment
after a lanthorn flashed in my eyes,--I saw a figure below. I sprung
down, careless, in that wild moment, whether I met the dagger of an
assassin, or the embrace of a brother. “Alonzo, dear Alonzo,” murmured a
voice. “Juan, dear Juan,” was all I could utter, as I felt my shivering
breast held close to that of the most generous and affectionate of
brothers. “How much you must have suffered,--how much I have suffered,”
he whispered; “during the last horrible twenty-four hours, I almost gave
you up. Make haste, the carriage is not twenty paces off.” And, as he
spoke, the shifting of a lanthorn shewed me those imperious and
beautiful features, which I had once dreaded as the pledge of eternal
emulation, but which I now regarded as the smile of the proud but
benignant god of my liberation. I pointed to my companion, I could not
speak,--hunger was consuming my vitals. Juan supported me, consoled me,
encouraged me; did all, and more, than man ever did for man,--than man
ever did, perhaps, for the most shrinking and delicate of the other sex
under his protection. Oh, with what agony of heart I retrace his manly
tenderness! We waited for my companion,--he descended the wall. “Make
haste, make haste,” Juan whispered; “I am famishing too. I have not
tasted food for four-and-twenty hours, watching for you.” We hurried on.
It was a waste place,--I could only distinguish a carriage by the light
of a dim lanthorn, but that was enough for me. I sprung lightly into it.
“_He is safe_,” cried Juan, following me. “_But are you?_” answered a
voice of thunder. Juan staggered back from the step of the carriage,--he
fell. I sprung out, I fell too--on his body. I was bathed in his
blood,----he was no more.”