The romances of Charles Robert Maturin mark the transition
stage between the old crude "Gothic" tales of terror and the
subtler and weirder treatment of the supernatural that had its
greatest master in Edgar Allan Poe. Maturin was born at Dublin
in 1782, and died there on October 30, 1824. He became a
clergyman of the Church of Ireland; but his leanings were
literary rather than clerical, and his first story, "Montorio"
(1807), was followed by others that brought him increasing
popularity. Over-zealousness on a friend's behalf caused him
heavy financial losses, for which he strove to atone by an
effort to write for the stage. Thanks to the good offices of
Scott and Byron, his tragedy, "Bertram," was acted at Drury
Lane in 1816, and proved successful. But his other dramatic
essays were failures, and he returned to romance. In 1820 was
published his masterpiece, "Melmoth the Wanderer," the central
figure of which is acknowledged to be one of the great Satanic
creations of literature. The book has been more appreciated in
France than in England; one of its most enthusiastic admirers
was Balzac, who paid it the compliment of writing a kind of
sequel to it.
_I.--The Portrait_
"I want a glass of wine," groaned the old man; "it would keep me alive a
little longer."
John Melmoth offered to get some for him. The dying man clutched the
blankets around him, and looked strangely at his nephew.
"Take this key," he said. "There is wine in that closet."
John knew that no one but his uncle had entered the closet for sixty
years--his uncle who had spent his life in greedily heaping treasure
upon treasure, and who, now, on his miserable death-bed, grudged the
clergyman's fee for the last sacrament.
When John stepped into the closet, his eyes were instantly riveted by a
portrait that hung on the wall. There was nothing remarkable about
costume or countenance, but the eyes, John felt, were such as one feels
they wish they had never seen. In the words of Southey, "they gleamed
with demon light." John held the candle to the portrait, and could
distinguish the words on the border: "Jno. Melmoth, anno 1646." He gazed
in stupid horror until recalled by his uncle's cough.
"You have seen the portrait?" whispered old Melmoth.
"Yes."
"Well, you will see him again--he is still alive."
Later in the night, when the miser was at the point of death, John saw a
figure enter the room, deliberately look round, and retire. The face of
the figure was the face of the portrait! After a moment of terror, John
sprang up to pursue, but the shrieks of his uncle recalled him. The
agony was nearly ended; in a few minutes old Melmoth was dead.
In the will, which made John a wealthy man, there was an instruction to
him to destroy the portrait in the closet, and also to destroy a
manuscript that he would find in the mahogany chest under the portrait;
he was to read the manuscript if he pleased.
On a cold and gloomy evening John entered the closet, found the
manuscript, and with a feeling of superstitious awe, began to read it.
The task was a hard one, for the manuscript was discoloured and
mutilated, and much was quite indecipherable.
John was able to gather, however, that it was the narrative of an
Englishman, named Stanton, who had travelled in Spain in the seventeenth
century. On one night of storm, Stanton had seen carried past him the
bodies of two lovers who had been killed by lightning. As he watched, a
man had stepped forward, had looked calmly at the bodies, and had burst
into a horrible demoniac laugh. Stanton saw the man several times,
always in circumstances of horror; he learnt that his name was Melmoth.
This being exercised a kind of fascination over Stanton, who searched
for him far and wide. Ultimately, Stanton was confined in a madhouse by
relatives who wanted to secure his property; and from the madhouse he
was offered, but refused, release by Melmoth as a result of some
bargain, the nature of which was not revealed.
After reading this story, John Melmoth raised his eyes, and he started
involuntarily as they encountered those of the portrait. With a shudder,
he tore the portrait from its frame, and rushed into his room, where he
flung its fragments on the fire.
The mansion was close by the iron-bound coast of Wicklow, in Ireland,
and on the next night John was summoned forth by the news that a vessel
was in distress. He saw immediately that the ship was doomed. She lay
beating upon a rock, against which the tempest hurled breakers that
dashed their foam to a height of thirty feet.
In the midst of the tumult John descried, standing a little above him on
the rock, a figure that showed neither sympathy nor terror, uttered no
sound, offered no help. A few minutes afterwards he distinctly heard the
words, "Let them perish!"
Just then a tremendous wave dashing over the vessel extorted a cry of
horror from the spectators. When the cry had ceased, Melmoth heard a
laugh that chilled his blood. It was from the figure that stood above
him. He recalled Stanton's narrative. In a blind fury of eagerness, he
began to climb the rock; but a stone gave way in his grasp, and he was
hurled into the roaring deep below.
It was several days before he recovered his senses, and he then learned
that he had been rescued by the one survivor of the wreck, a Spaniard,
who had clutched at John and dragged him ashore with him. As soon as
John had recovered somewhat, he hastened to thank his deliverer, who was
lodged in the mansion. Having expressed his gratitude, Melmoth was about
to retire, when the Spaniard detained him.
"Señor," he said, "I understand your name is"--he gasped--"Melmoth?"
"It is."
"Had you," said the Spaniard rapidly, "a relative who was, about one
hundred and forty years ago, said to be in Spain?"
"I believe--I fear--I had."
"Are you his descendant? Are you the repository of that terrible secret
which--?" He gave way to uncontrollable agitation. Gradually he
recovered himself, and went on. "It is singular that accident should
have placed me within the reach of the only being from whom I could
expect either sympathy or relief in the extraordinary circumstances in
which I am placed--circumstances which I did not believe I should ever
disclose to mortal man, but which I shall disclose to you."
_II.--The Spaniard's Story_
I am, as you know, a native of Spain; but you are yet to learn that I am
a descendant of one of its noblest houses--the house of Monçada. While I
was yet unborn, my mother vowed that I should be devoted to religion. As
the time drew near when I was to forsake the world and retire to a
monastery, I revolted in horror at the career before me, and refused to
take the vows. But my family were completely under the influence of a
cunning and arrogant priest, who threatened God's curse upon me if I
disobeyed; and ultimately, with a despairing heart, I consented.
"The horror with which I had anticipated monastic life was nothing to my
disgust and misery at the realisation of its evils. The narrowness and
littleness of it, the hypocrisies, all filled me with revolt; and it was
only by brooding over possibilities of escape that I could avoid utter
despair. At length a ray of hope came to me. My younger brother, a lad
of spirit, who had quarrelled with the priest who dominated our family,
succeeded with great difficulty in communicating with me, and promised
that a civil process should be undertaken for the reclamation of my
vows.
"But presently my hopes were destroyed by the news that my civil process
had failed. Of the desolation of mind into which this failure plunged
me, I can give no account--despair has no diary. I remember that I used
to walk for hours in the garden, where alone I could avoid the
neighbourhood of the other monks. It happened that the fountain of the
garden was out of repair, and the workmen engaged upon it had had to
excavate a passage under the garden wall. But as this was guarded by day
and securely locked by night, it offered but a tantalising image of
escape and freedom.
"One evening, as I sat gloomily by the door of the passage, I heard my
name whispered. I answered eagerly, and a paper was thrust under the
door. I knew the handwriting--it was that of my brother Juan. From it I
learned that Juan was still planning my escape, and had found a
confederate within the monastery--a parricide who had turned monk to
evade his punishment.
"Juan had bribed him heavily, yet I feared to trust him until he
confided to me that he himself also intended to escape. At length our
plans were completed; my companion had secured the key of a door in the
chapel that led through the vaults to a trap-door opening into the
garden. A rope ladder flung by Juan over the wall would give us liberty.
"At the darkest hour of the night we passed through the door, and
crawled through the dreadful passages beneath the monastery. I reached
the top of the ladder-a lantern flashed in my eyes. I dropped down into
my brother's arms.
"We hurried away to where a carriage was waiting. I sprang into it.
"'He is safe,' cried Juan, following me.
"'But are you?' answered a voice behind him. He staggered and fell back.
I leapt down beside him. I was bathed in his blood. He was dead. One
moment of wild, fearful agony, and I lost consciousness.
"When I came to myself, I was lying in an apartment not unlike my cell,
but without a crucifix. Beside me stood my companion in flight.
"'Where am I?' I asked.
"'You are in the prison of the Inquisition,' he replied, with a mocking
laugh.
"He had betrayed me! He had been all the while in league with the
superior.
"I was tried again and again by the Inquisition--, charged not only with
the crime of escaping from the convent and breaking my religious vows,
but with the murder of my brother. My spirits sank with each appearance
before the judges. I foresaw myself doomed to die at the stake.
"One night, and for several nights afterwards, a visitor presented
himself to me. He came and went apparently without help or hindrance--as
if he had had a master-key to all the recesses of the prison. And yet he
seemed no agent of the Inquisition--indeed, he denounced it with caustic
satire and withering severity. But what struck me most of all was the
preternatural glare of his eyes. I felt that I had never beheld such
eyes blazing in a mortal face. It was strange, too, that he constantly
referred to events that must have happened long before his birth as if
he had actually witnessed them.
"On the night before my final trial, I awoke from a hideous dream of
burning alive to behold the stranger standing beside me. With an impulse
I could not resist, I flung myself before him and begged him to save me.
He promised to do so--on one awful and incommunicable condition. My
horror brought me courage; I refused, and he left me.
"Next day I was sentenced to death at the stake. But before my fearful
doom could be accomplished, I was free--and by that very agency of fire
that was to have destroyed me. The prison of the Inquisition was burned
to the ground, and in the confusion I escaped.
"When my strength was exhausted by running through the deserted streets,
I leaned against a door; it gave way, and I found myself within the
house. Concealed, I heard two voices--an old man's and a young man's.
The old man was confessing to the young one--his son--that he was a Jew,
and entreating the son to adopt the faith of Israel.
"I knew I was in the presence of a pretended convert--one of those Jews
who profess to become Catholics through fear of the Inquisition. I had
become possessed of a valuable secret, and instantly acted upon it. I
burst out upon them, and threatened that unless the old man gave me
hiding I should betray him. At first he was panic-stricken, then,
hastily promising me protection, he conducted me within the house. In an
inner room he raised a portion of the floor; we descended and went along
a dark passage, at the end of which my guide opened a door, through
which I passed. He closed it behind me, and withdrew.
"I was in an underground chamber, the walls of which were lined with
skeletons, bottles containing strange misshapen creatures, and other
hideous objects. I shuddered as I looked round.
"'Why fearest thou these?' asked a voice.' Surely the implements of the
healing art should cause no terror.'
"I turned and beheld a man immensely old seated at a table. His eyes,
although faded with years, looked keenly at me.
"'Thou hast escaped from the clutches of the Inquisition?' he asked me.
"'Yes,' I answered.
"'And when in its prison,' he continued, leaning forward eagerly, 'didst
thou face a tempter who offered thee deliverance at a dreadful price?'
"'It was so,' I answered, wondering.
"'My prayer, then, is granted,' he said. 'Christian youth, thou art safe
here. None save mine own Jewish people know of my existence. And I have
employment for thee.'
"He showed me a huge manuscript.
"'This,' he said, 'is written in characters that the officers of the
Inquisition understand not. But the time has come for transcribing it,
and my own eyes, old with age, are unequal to the labour. Yet it was
necessary that the work should be done by one who has learnt the dread
secret.'
"A glance at the manuscript showed me that the language was Spanish, but
the characters Greek. I began to read it, nor did I raise my eyes until
the reading was ended."
_III.--The Romance of Immalee_
"The manuscript told how a Spanish merchant had set forth for the East
Indies, taking his wife and son with him, and leaving an infant daughter
behind. He prospered, and decided to settle in the East; he sent for his
daughter, who came with her nurse. But their ship was wrecked; the child
and the nurse alone escaped, and were stranded on an uninhabited island
near the mouth of the Hooghly. The nurse died; but the child survived,
and grew up a wild and beautiful daughter of nature, dwelling in lonely
innocence, and revered as a goddess by the natives who watched her from
afar.
"To the Island, when Immalee (so she called herself) was growing into
pure and lovely womanhood, there came a stranger--pale-faced, wholly
different from the dark-skinned people she had seen from the shores of
the island. She welcomed him with innocent joy. He came often; he told
her of the outer world, of its wickedness and its miseries. She, too
untutored to realise the sinister bitterness of his tone, listened with
rapt attention and sympathy. She loved him. She told him that he was her
all, that she would cling to him wheresoever he went. He looked at her
with stern sorrow; he left her abruptly, nor did he ever visit the
island again.
"Immalee was rescued, her origin was discovered, and she became Isidora
de Aliaga, the carefully nurtured daughter of prosperous and devout
Spanish parents. The island and the stranger were memories of the past.
Yet one day, in the streets of Madrid, she beheld once more the
well-remembered eyes. Soon afterwards she was visited by the stranger.
How he entered and left her home when he came to her--and again he came
often--she could not tell. She feared him, and yet she loved him.
"At length her father, who had been on another voyage, announced that he
was returning, and bringing with him a suitable husband for his
newly-found daughter. Isidora, in panic, besought the stranger to save
her. He was unwilling. At last, in response to her tears, he consented.
They were wedded, so Isidora believed, by a hermit in a ruined
monastery. She returned home, and he renewed his visits, promising to
reveal their marriage in the fullness of time.
"Meanwhile, tales had reached her father's ears of a malignant being who
was permitted to wander over the earth and tempt men in dire extremity
with release from their troubles as the result of their concluding an
unspeakable bargain. This being himself appeared to the father, and
warned him that his daughter was in danger.
"He returned, and pressed on with preparations for the bridal ceremony.
Isidora entreated her husband to rescue her. He promised, and went away.
A masked ball was given in celebration of the nuptials. At the hour of
twelve Isidora felt a touch upon her shoulder. It was her husband. They
hastened away, but not unperceived. Her brother called on the pair to
stop, and drew his sword. In an instant he lay bleeding and lifeless.
The family and the guests crowded round in horror. The stranger waved
them back with his arm. They stood motionless, as if rooted to the
ground.
"'Isidora, fly with me!' he said. She looked at him, looked at the body
of her brother, and sank in a swoon. The stranger passed out amid the
powerless onlookers.
"Isidora, the confessed bride of an unhallowed being, was taken before
the Inquisition, and sentenced to life-long imprisonment. But she did
not survive long; and ere she died, her husband appeared to her, and
offered her freedom, happiness, and love--at a dreadful price she would
not pay. Such was the history of the ill-fated love of Immalee for a
being to whom mortal love was a boon forbidden."
_IV.--The Fate of Melmoth_
When Monçada had completed the tale of Immalee, he announced his
intention of describing how he had left the house of the Jewish doctor,
and what was his purpose in coming to Ireland. A time was fixed for the
continuation of the recital.
The night when Monçada prepared to resume his story was a dark and
stormy one. The two men drew close to the fire.
"Hush!" suddenly said Monçada.
John Melmoth listened, and half rose from his chair.
"We are watched!" he exclaimed.
At that moment the door opened, and a figure appeared at it. The figure
advanced slowly to the centre of the room. Monçada crossed himself, and
attempted to pray. John Melmoth, nailed to his chair, gazed upon the
form that stood before him--it was indeed Melmoth the Wanderer. But the
eyes were dim; those beacons lit by an infernal fire were no longer
visible.
"Mortals," said the Wanderer, in strange and solemn accents, "you are
here to talk of my destiny. That distiny is accomplished. Your ancestor
has come home," he continued, turning to John Melmoth. "If my crimes
have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment. And the time
for that punishment is come.
"It is a hundred and fifty years since I first probed forbidden secrets.
I have now to pay the penalty. None can participate in my destiny but
with his own consent. _None has consented._ It has been reported of me,
as you know, that I obtained from the enemy of souls a range of
existence beyond the period of mortality--a power to pass over space
with the swiftness of thought--to encounter perils unharmed, to
penetrate into dungeons, whose bolts were as flax and tow at my touch.
It has been said that this power was accorded to me that I might be
enabled to tempt wretches at their fearful hour of extremity with the
promise of deliverance and immunity on condition of their exchanging
situations with me.
"No one has ever changed destinies with Melmoth the Wanderer. _I have
traversed the world in search, and no one to gain that world would lose
his own soul!_" He paused. "Let me, if possible, obtain an hour's
repose. Ay, repose--sleep!" he repeated, answering the astonishment of
his hearers' looks. "My existence is still human!"
And a ghastly and derisive smile wandered over his features as he spoke.
John Melmoth and Monçada quitted the apartment, and the Wanderer,
sinking back in his chair slept profoundly.
The two men did not dare to approach the door until noon next day. The
Wanderer started up, and they saw with horror the change that had come
over him. The lines of extreme age were visible in every feature.
"My hour is come," he said. "Leave me alone. Whatever noises you may
hear in the course of the awful night that is approaching, come not
near, at peril of your lives. Be warned! Retire!"
They passed that day in intense anxiety, and at night had no thought of
repose. At midnight sounds of indescribable horror began to issue from
the Wanderer's apartment, shrieks of supplication, yells of blasphemy--
they could not tell which. The sounds suddenly ceased. The two men
hastened into the room. It was empty.
A small door leading to a back staircase was open, and near it they
discovered the trace of footsteps of a person who had been walking in
damp sand or clay. They traced the footsteps down the stairs, through
the garden, and across a field to a rock that overlooked the sea.
Through the furze that clothed this rock, there was a kind of track as
if a person had dragged his way, or been dragged, through it. The two
men gained the summit of the rock; the wide, waste, engulfing ocean was
beneath. On a crag below, something hung as floating to the blast.
Melmoth clambered down and caught it. It was the handkerchief which the
Wanderer had worn about his neck the preceding night. That was the last
trace of the Wanderer.
Melmoth and Monçada exchanged looks of silent horror, and returned
slowly home.
* * * * *