Melmoth the Wanderer

by Charles Maturin

  ‘As Donna Clara and the priest (on their tenth perusal of the letter) arrived at these words, the clock in the hall below struck three. ‘That is a singular coincidence,’ said Fra Jose. ‘Do you think it nothing more, Father?’ said Donna Clara, turning very pale. ‘I know not,’ said the priest; ‘many have told credible stories of warnings permitted by our guardian saints, to be given even by the ministry of inanimate things. But to what purpose are we warned, when we know not the evil we are to shun?’ – ‘Hush! – hark!’ said Donna Clara, ‘did you hear no noise?’ – ‘None,’ said Fra Jose listening, not without some appearance of perturbation – ‘None,’ he added, in a more tranquil and assured voice, after a pause; ‘and the noise which I did hear about two hours ago, was of short continuance, and has not been renewed.’ – ‘What a flickering light these tapers give!’ said Donna Clara, viewing them with eyes glassy and fixed with fear. ‘The casements are open,’ answered the priest. ‘So they have been since we sat here,’ returned Donna Clara; ‘yet now see what a stream of air comes rushing against them! Holy God! They flare as if they would go out!’

  ‘The priest, looking up at the tapers, observed the truth of what she said, – and at the same time perceived the tapestry near the door to be considerably agitated. ‘There is a door open in some other direction,’ said he, rising. ‘You are not going to leave me, Father?’ said Donna Clara, who sat in her chair paralyzed with terror, and unable to follow him but with her eyes.

  ‘The Father Jose made no answer. He was now in the passage, where a circumstance which he observed had arrested all his attention, – the door of Isidora’s apartment was open, and lights were burning in it. He entered it slowly at first, and gazed around, but its inmate was not there. He glanced his eye on the bed, but no human form had pressed it that night – it lay untouched and undisturbed. The casement next caught his eye, now glancing with the quickness of fear on every object. He approached it – it was wide open, – the casement that looked towards the garden. In his horror at this discovery, the good Father could not avoid uttering a cry that pierced the ears of Donna Clara, who, trembling and scarce able to make her way to the room, attempted to follow him in vain, and fell down in the passage. The priest raised and tried to assist her back to her own apartment. The wretched mother, when at last placed in her chair, neither fainted or wept; but with white and speechless lips, and a paralytic motion of her hand, tried to point towards her daughter’s apartment, as if she wished to be conveyed there. ‘It is too late,’ said the priest, unconsciously using the ominous words quoted in the letter of Don Francisco.’

  CHAPTER XXIV

  Responde meum argumentum – nomen est nomen –

  ergo, quod tibi est nomen – responde argumentum.

  BEAUMONT and FLETCHER’S

  Wit at Several Weapons1

  ‘That night was the one fixed on for the union of Isidora and Melmoth. She had retired early to her chamber, and sat at the casement watching for his approach for hours before she could probably expect it. It might be supposed that at this terrible crisis of her fate, she felt agitated by a thousand emotions, – that a soul susceptible like hers felt itself almost torn in pieces by the struggle, – but it was not so. When a mind strong by nature, but weakened by fettering circumstances, is driven to make one strong spring to free itself, it has no leisure to calculate the weight of its hindrances, or the width of its leap, – it sits with its chains heaped about it, thinking only of the bound that is to be its liberation – or –

  ‘During the many hours that Isidora awaited the approach of this mysterious bridegroom, she felt nothing but the awful sense of that approach, and of the event that was to follow. So she sat at her casement, pale but resolute, and trusting in the extraordinary promise of Melmoth, that by whatever means he was enabled to visit her, by those she would be enabled to effect her escape, in spite of her well-guarded mansion, and vigilant household.

  ‘It was near one (the hour at which Fra Jose, who was sitting in consultation with her mother over that melancholy letter, heard the noise alluded to in the preceding chapter) when Melmoth appeared in the garden, and, without uttering a word, threw up a ladder of ropes, which, in short and sullen whispers, he instructed her to fasten, and assisted her to descend. They hurried through the garden, – and Isidora, amid all the novelty of her feelings and situation, could not avoid testifying her surprise at the facility with which they passed through the well-secured garden gate.

  ‘They were now in the open country, – a region far wilder to Isidora than the flowery paths of that untrodden isle, where she had no enemy. Now in every breeze she heard a menacing voice, – in the echoes of her own light steps she heard the sound of steps pursuing her.

  ‘The night was very dark, – unlike the midsummer nights in that delicious climate. A blast sometimes cold, sometimes stifling from heat, indicated some extraordinary vicissitude in the atmosphere. There is something very fearful in this kind of wintry feeling in a summer night. The cold, the darkness, followed by intense heat, and a pale, meteoric lightning, seemed to unite the mingled evils of the various seasons, and to trace their sad analogy to life, – whose stormy summer allows youth little to enjoy, and whose chilling winter leaves age nothing to hope.

  ‘To Isidora, whose sensibilities were still so acutely physical, that she could feel the state of the elements as if they were the oracles of nature, which she could interpret at sight, – this dark and troubled appearance seemed like a fearful omen. More than once she paused, trembled, and turned on Melmoth a glance of doubt and terror, – which the darkness of the night, of course, prevented him from observing. Perhaps there was another cause, – but as they hurried on, Isidora’s strength and courage began to fail together. She perceived that she was borne on with a kind of supernatural velocity, – her breath failed, – her feet faultered, – and she felt like one in a dream.

  ‘Stay!’ she exclaimed, gasping from weakness, ‘stay! – whither am I going? – where do you bear me?’ – ‘To your nuptials,’ answered Melmoth, in low and almost inarticulate tones; – but whether rendered so by emotion, or by the speed with which they seemed to fly along, Isidora could not discover.

  ‘In a few moments, she was forced to declare herself unable to proceed, and leaned on his arm, gasping and exhausted. ‘Let me pause,’ said she ominously, ‘in the name of God!’ Melmoth returned no answer. He paused, however, and supported her with an appearance of anxiety, if not of tenderness.

  ‘During this interval, she gazed around her, and tried to distinguish the objects near; but the intense darkness of the night rendered this almost impossible, – and what she could discover, was not calculated to dispel her alarm. They seemed to be walking on a narrow and precipitous path close by a shallow stream, as she could guess, by the hoarse and rugged sound of its waters, as they fought with every pebble to win their way. This path was edged on the other side by a few trees, whose stunted growth, and branches tossing wild and wide to the blast that now began to whisper mournfully among them, seemed to banish every image of a summer night from the senses, and almost from the memory. Every thing around was alike dreary and strange to Isidora, who had never, since her arrival at the villa, wandered beyond the precincts of the garden, – and who, even if she had, would probably have found no clue to direct her where she now was. ‘This is a fearful night’ said she, half internally. She then repeated the same words more audibly, perhaps in hope of some answering and consolatory sounds. Melmoth was silent – and her spirits subdued by fatigue and emotion, she wept. ‘Do you already repent the step you have taken?’ said he, laying a strange emphasis on the word – already. ‘No, love, no!’ replied Isidora, gently wiping away her tears; ‘it is impossible for me ever to repent it. But this loneliness, – this darkness, – this speed, – this silence, – have in them something almost awful. I feel as if I were traversing some unknown region. Are these indeed the winds of heaven that sigh around me? Are these trees of nature’s growth, that nod at me li
ke spectres? How hollow and dismal is the sound of the blast! – it chills me though the night is sultry! – and those trees, they cast their shadows over my soul! Oh, is this like a bridal night?’ she exclaimed, as Melmoth, apparently disturbed at these words, attempted to hurry her on – ‘Is this like a bridal? No father, no brother, to support me! – no mother near me! – no kiss of kindred to greet me! – no congratulating friends!’ – and her fears increasing, she wildly exclaimed, ‘Where is the priest to bless our union? – where is the church under whose roof we are to be united?’

  ‘As she spoke, Melmoth, drawing her arm under his, attempted to lead her gently forward. ‘There is,’ said he, ‘a ruined monastery near – you may have observed it from your window.’ – ‘No! I never saw it. Why is it in ruins?’ – ‘I know not – there were wild stories told. It ws said the Superior, or Prior, or – I know not what – had looked into certain books, the perusal of which was not altogether sanctioned by the rules of his order – books of magic they called them. There was much noise about it, I remember, and some talk of the Inquisition, – but the end of the business was, the Prior disappeared, some said into the prisons of the Inquisition, some said into safer custody – (though how that could be, I cannot well conceive) – and the brethren were drafted into other communities, and the building became deserted. There were some offers made for it by the communities of other religious houses, but the evil, though vague and wild reports, that had gone forth about it, deterred them, on inquiry, from inhabiting it, – and gradually the building fell to ruin. It still retains all that can sanctify it in the eyes of the faithful. There are crucifixes and tombstones, and here and there a cross set up where there has been murder, – for, by a singular congeniality of taste, a banditti2 has fixed their seat there now, – and the traffic of gold for souls, once carried on so profitably by the former inmates, is exchanged for that of souls for gold, by the present.’

  ‘At these words, Melmoth felt the slender arm that hung on his withdrawn, – and he perceived that his victim, between shuddering and struggling, had shrunk from his hold. ‘But there,’ he added, ‘even amid those ruins, there dwells a holy hermit, – one who has taken up his residence near the spot, – he will unite us in his oratory, according to the rites of your church. He will speak the blessing over us, – and one of us, at least, shall be blessed.’ – ‘Hold!’ said Isidora, repelling, and standing at what distance from him she could, – her slight figure expanding to that queen-like dignity with which nature had once invested her as the fair and sole sovereign of her own island-paradise. ‘Hold!’ she repeated – ‘approach me not by another step, – address me not by another word, – till you tell me when and where I am to be united to you, – to become your wedded wife! I have borne much of doubt and terror, – of suspicion and persecution, – but’ – ‘Hear me, Isidora,’ said Melmoth, terrified at this sudden burst of resolution. ‘Hear me,’ answered the timid but heroic girl, springing, with the elasticity of her early movements, upon a crag that hung over their stony path, and clinging to an ash-tree that had burst through its fissures – ‘Hear me! Sooner will you rend this tree from its bed of stone, than me from its trunk! Sooner will I dash this body on the stony bed of the stream that groans below my feet, than descend into your arms, till you swear to me they will bear me to honour and safety! For you I have given up all that my newly-taught duties have told me was holy! – all that my heart long ago whispered I ought to love! Judge by what I have sacrificed, of what I can sacrifice – and doubt not that I would be my own victim ten thousand times sooner than yours!’ – ‘By all that you deem holy!’ cried Melmoth, humbling himself even to kneel before her as she stood, – ‘my intentions are as pure as your own soul! – the hermitage is not an hundred paces off. Come, and do not, by a fantastic and causeless apprehension, frustrate all the magnanimity and tenderness you have hitherto shewed, and which have raised you in my eyes not only above your sex, but above your whole species. Had you not been what you are, and what no other but you could be, you had never been the bride of Melmoth. With whom but you did he ever seek to unite his dark and inscrutable destiny? Isidora,’ he added, in tones more potent and emphatic, perceiving she still hesitated, and clung to the tree – ‘Isidora, how weak, how unworthy of you is this! You are in my power, – absolutely, hopelessly in my power. No human eye can see me – no human arm can aid you. You are as helpless as infancy in my grasp. This dark stream would tell no tales of deeds that stained its waters, – and the blast that howls round you would never waft your groans to mortal ear! You are in my power, yet I seek not to abuse it. I offer you my hand to conduct you to a consecrated building, where we shall be united according to the fashion of your country – and will you still persevere in this fanciful and profitless waywardness?’