Melmoth the Wanderer

by Charles Maturin

  ‘It was said that some vessel in distress arrived at the isle, – that the captain had rescued this lovely lonely being from the brutality of the sailors, – and, discovering from some remains of the Spanish tongue which she still spoke, and which he supposed must have been cultivated during the visits of some other wanderer to the isle, he undertook, like a man of honour, to conduct her to her parents, whose names she could tell, though not their residence, so acute and tenacious is the memory of infancy. He fulfilled his promise, and the pure and innocent being was restored to her family, who were then residing in the city of Benares.’ Aliaga, at these words, stared with a look of intelligence somewhat ghastly. He could not interrupt the stranger – he drew in his breath, and closed his teeth.

  ‘I have since heard,’ said the stranger, ‘that the family has returned to Spain, – that the beautiful inhabitant of the foreign isle is become the idol of your cavaliers of Madrid, – your loungers of the Prado, – your sacravienses,3 – your – by what other name of contempt shall I call them? But listen to me, – there is an eye fixed on her, and its fascination is more deadly than that fabled of the snake! – There is an arm extended to seize her, in whose grasp humanity withers! – That arm even now relaxes for a moment, – its fibres thrill with pity and horror, – it releases the victim for a moment, – it even beckons her father to her aid! – Don Francisco, do you understand me now? – Has this tale interest or application for you?’

  ‘He paused, but Aliaga, chilled with horror, was unable to answer him but by a feeble exclamation. ‘If it has,’ resumed the stranger, ‘lose not a moment to save your daughter!’ and, clapping spurs to his mule, he disappeared through a narrow passage among the rocks, apparently never intended to be trod by earthly traveller. Aliaga was not a man susceptible of strong impressions from nature; but, if he had been, the scene amid which this mysterious warning was uttered would have powerfully ministered to its effect. The time was evening, – grey and misty twilight hung over every object; – the way lay through a rocky road, that wound among mountains, or rather stony hills, bleak and bare as those which the weary traveller through the * western isles sees rising amid the moors, to which they form a contrast without giving a relief. Heavy rains had made deep gullies amid the hills, and here and there a mountain-stream brawled amid its stony channel, like a proud and noisy upstart, while the vast chasms that had been the beds of torrents which once swept through them in thunder, now stood gaping and ghastly like the deserted abodes of ruined nobility.4 Not a sound broke on the stillness, except the monotonous echo of the hoofs of the mules answered from the hollows of the hill, and the screams of the birds, which, after a few short circles in the damp and cloudy air, fled back to their retreats amid the cliffs.

  *

  ‘It is almost incredible, that after this warning, enforced as it was by the perfect acquaintance which the stranger displayed of Aliaga’s former life and family-circumstances, it should not have had the effect of making him hurry homewards immediately, particularly as it seems he thought it of sufficient importance to make it the subject of correspondence with his wife. So it was however.

  ‘At the moment of the stranger’s departure, it was his resolution not to lose a moment in hastening homewards; but at the next stage he arrived at, there were letters of business awaiting him. A mercantile correspondent gave him the information of the probable failure of a house in a distant part of Spain, where his speedy presence might be of vital consequence. There were also letters from Montilla, his intended son-in-law, informing him that the state of his father’s health was so precarious, it was impossible to leave him till his fate was decided. As the decisions of fate involved equally the wealth of the son, and the life of the father, Aliaga could not help thinking there was as much prudence as affection in this resolution.

  ‘After reading these letters, Aliaga’s mind began to flow in its usual channel. There is no breaking through the inveterate habitudes of a thorough-paced mercantile mind, ‘though one rose from the dead.’5 Besides, by this time the mysterious image of the stranger’s presence and communications were fading fast from a mind not at all habituated to visionary impressions. He shook off the terrors of this visitation by the aid of time, and gave his courage the credit due to that aid. Thus we all deal with the illusions of the imagination, – with this difference only, that the impassioned recal them with the tear of regret, and the unimaginative with the blush of shame. Aliaga set out for the distant part of Spain where his presence was to save this tottering house in which he had an extensive concern, and wrote to Donna Clara, that it might be some months before be returned to the neighbourhood of Madrid.

  Chapter XXXIV

  Husband, husband, I’ve the ring

  Thou gavest to-day to me;

  And thou to me art ever wed,

  As I am wed to thee!

  LITTLE’S POEMS1

  ‘The remainder of that dreadful night when Isidora disappeared, had been passed almost in despair by Donna Clara, who, amid all her rigour and chilling mediocrity, had still the feelings of a mother – and by Fra Jose, who, with all his selfish luxury and love of domination, had a heart where distress never knocked for admittance, that she did not find pity ready to open the door.

  ‘The distress of Donna Clara was aggravated by her fear of her husband, of whom she stood in great awe, and who, she dreaded, might reproach her with unpardonable negligence of her maternal authority.

  ‘In this night of distress, she was often tempted to call on her son for advice and assistance; but the recollection of his violent passions deterred her, and she sat in passive despair till day. Then, with an unaccountable impulse, she rose from her seat, and hurried to her daughter’s apartment, as if she imagined that the events of the preceding night were only a fearful and false illusion that would be dispersed by the approach of day.

  ‘It seemed, indeed, as if they were, for on the bed lay Isidora in a profound sleep, with the same pure and placid smile as when she was lulled into slumber by the melodies of nature, and the sound was prolonged in her dream by the whispered songs of the spirits of the Indian Ocean. Donna Clara uttered a shriek of surprise, that had the singular effect of rousing Fra Jose from a deep sleep into which he had fallen at the approach of day. Starting at the sound, the good natured, pampered priest, tottered into the room, and saw, with incredulity that slowly yielded to frequent application to his obstinate and adhesive eye-lids, the form of Isidora extended in profound slumber.

  ‘Oh what an exquisite enjoyment!’ said the yawning priest, as he looked on the sleeping beauty without another emotion than that of the delight of an uninterrupted repose. – ‘Pray, don’t disturb her,’ he said, yawning himself out of the room – ‘after such a night as we all have had, sleep must be a very refreshing and laudable exercise; and so I commend you to the protection of the holy saints!’ – ‘Oh, reverend Father! – Oh holy Father!’ cried Donna Clara clinging to him, ‘desert me not in this extremity – this has been the work of magic – of infernal spirits. See how profoundly she sleeps, though we are speaking, and it is now day-light.’ – ‘Daughter, you are much mistaken,’ answered the drowsy priest; ‘people can sleep soundly even in the day-time; and for proof send me, as I am now retiring to rest, a bottle of Foncarral or Valdepenas – not that I value the richest vintage of Spain from the Chacoli of Biscay to the Mataro of Catalonia, *2 but I would never have it said that I slept in the day-time, but for sufficient reason.’ – ‘Holy Father!’ answered Donna Clara, ‘do you not think my daughter’s disappearance and intense slumber are the result of preternatural causes?’ – ‘Daughter,’ answered the priest, contracting his brows, ‘let me have some wine to slake the intolerable thirst caused by my anxiety for the welfare of your family, and let me meditate some hours afterwards on the measures best to be adopted, and then – when I awake, I will give you my opinion.’ – ‘Holy Father, you shall judge for me in every thing.’ – ‘It were not amiss, daughter,’ said the priest retiring, ‘
if a few slices of ham, or some poignant3 sausages, accompanied the wine – it might, as it were, abate the deleterious effects of that abominable liquor, which I never drink but on emergencies like these.’ – ‘Holy Father, they shall be ordered,’ said the anxious mother – ‘but do you not think my daughter’s sleep is supernatural?’ – ‘Follow me to mine apartment, daughter,’ answered the priest, exchanging his cowl for a night-cap, which one of the numerous household obsequiously presented him, ‘and you will soon see that sleep is a natural effect of a natural cause. Your daughter has doubtless passed a very fatiguing night, and so have you, and so have I, though perhaps from very different causes; but all those causes dispose us to a profound repose. – I have no doubt of mine – fetch up the wine and sausages – I am very weary – Oh I am weak and worn with fasts and watching, and the labours of exhortation. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, and my jaws cling together, – perhaps a draught or two might dissolve their parching adhesion. But I do so hate wine – why the devil don’t you fetch up the bottle?’

  ‘The attendant domestic, terrified by the tone of wrath in which the last words were uttered, hurried on with submissive expedition, and Fra Jose sat down at length in his apartment to ruminate on the calamities and perplexities of the family, till he was actually overcome by the subject, and exclaimed in a tone of despair, ‘Both bottles empty! Then it is useless to meditate further on this subject.’

  *

  ‘He was roused at an earlier hour than he wished, by a message from Donna Clara, who, in the distress of a weak mind, accustomed always to factitious and external support, now felt as if every step she took without it, must lead to actual and instant perdition. Her fear of her husband, next to her superstitious fears, held the strongest power over her mind, and that morning she called Fra Jose to an early consultation of terror and inquietude. – Her great object was to conceal, if possible, the absence of her daughter on that eventful night; and finding that none of the domestics appeared conscious of it, and that amid the numerous household, only one aged servant was absent, of whose absence no one took notice amid the superfluous multitude of a Spanish establishment, her courage began to revive. It was raised still higher by a letter from Aliaga, announcing the necessity of his visiting a distant part of Spain, and of the marriage of his daughter with Montilla being deferred for some months – this sounded like reprieve in the ears of Donna Clara – she consulted with the priest, who answered in words of comfort, that if Donna Isidora’s short absence were known, it was but a slight evil, and if it were not known, it was none at all, – and he recommended to her, to ensure the secresy of the servants by means that he swore by his habit were infallible, as he had known them operate effectively among the servants of a far more powerful and extensive establishment. – ‘Reverend Father,’ said Donna Clara, ‘I know of no establishment among the grandees of Spain more splendid than ours.’ – ‘But I do, daughter,’ said the priest, ‘and the head of that establishment is – the Pope; – but go now, and awake your daughter, who deserves to sleep till doomsday, as she seems totally to have forgotten the hour of breakfast. It is not for myself I speak, daughter, but I cannot bear to see the regularity of a magnificent household thus interrupted; for myself, a basin of chocolate, and a cluster of grapes, will be sufficient; and to allay the crudity of the grapes, a glass of Malaga. – Your glasses, by the bye, are the shallowest I ever drank out of – could you not find some means to get from Ildefonso* glasses of the right make, with short shanks and ample bodies; Yours resemble those of Quichotte,5 all limbs and no trunk. I like one that resembles his squire, a spacious body and a shank that may be measured by my little finger.’ – ‘I will send to St Ildefonso this day,’ answered Donna Clara. – ‘Go and awake your daughter first,’ said the priest.

  ‘As he spoke, Isidora entered the room – the mother and the priest both stood amazed. Her countenance was as serene, her step as equal, and her mien as composed, as if she were totally unconscious of the terror and distress her disappearance the preceding night had caused. To the first short silence of amazement, succeeded a storm of interrogations from Donna Clara and Fra Jose in concert – why – where – wherefore – and what, and with whom and how – that was all they could articulate. They might as well have spared themselves the trouble, for neither that day nor many following, could the remonstrances, intreaties, or menaces of her mother, aided by the spiritual authority and more powerful anxiety of the priest, extort from her a word of explanation on the cause of her absence that awful night. When closely and sternly pressed, Isidora’s mind seemed to assume something of the wild but potent spirit of independence, which her early habits and feelings might have communicated to her. She had been her own teacher and mistress for seventeen years, and though naturally gentle and tractable, when imperious mediocrity attempted to tyrannize over her, she felt a sense of disdain which she expressed only by profound silence.

  ‘Fra Jose, incensed at her obstinacy, and trembling for the loss of his power over the family, threatened to exclude her from confession, unless she disclosed to him the secret of that night – ‘Then I will confess to God!’ said Isidora. Her mother’s importunity she found it more difficult to resist, for her feminine heart loved all that was feminine even in its most unattractive shape, and the persecution from that quarter was alike monotonous and unremitting.

  ‘There was a weak but harassing tenacity about Donna Clara, that is the general adjunct to the female character when it combines intellectual mediocrity with rigid principle. When she laid siege to a secret, the garrison might as well capitulate at once. – What she wanted in vigour and ability, she supplied by a minute and gnawing assiduity.6 She never ventured to carry the fort by storm, but her obstinacy blockaded it till it was forced to surrender. But here even her importunity failed. – Isidora remained respectfully, but resolutely silent; finding matters thus desperate, Donna Clara, who had a fine talent for keeping as well as discovering a secret, agreed with Fra Jose not to utter a syllable of the business to her father and brother. – ‘We will show,’ said Donna Clara, with a sagacious and self-approving nod, ‘that we can keep a secret as well as she.’ – ‘Right, daughter,’ said Fra Jose, ‘imitate her in the only point in which you can flatter yourself with the hope of resemblance.’

  *

  ‘The secret was, however, soon disclosed. Some months had elapsed, and the visits of her husband began to give an habitual calm and confidence to the mind of Isidora. He imperceptibly was exchanging his ferocious misanthropy for a kind of pensive gloom. – It was like the dark, cold, but unterrific and comparatively soothing night, that succeeds to a day of storm and earthquake. The sufferers remember the terrors of the day, and the still darkness of the night feels to them like a shelter. Isidora gazed on her espoused with delight, when she saw no longer his withering frown, or more withering smile; and she felt the hope that the calm purity of female hearts always suggests, that its influence will one day float over the formless and the void, like the spirit that moved upon the face of the waters,7 and that the unbelieving husband may yet be saved by the believing wife.

  ‘These thoughts were her comfort, and it was well she had thoughts to comfort her, for facts are miserable allies when imagination fights its battle with despair. On one of those nights that she expected Melmoth, he found her employed in her usual hymn to the Virgin, which she accompanied on her lute. ‘Is it not rather late to sing your vesper hymn to the Virgin after midnight,’ said Melmoth with a ghastly smile. ‘Her ear is open at all times, I have been told,’ answered Isidora. – ‘If it is, then, love,’ said Melmoth, vaulting as usual through the casement, ‘add a stanza to your hymn in favour of me.’ – ‘Alas!’ said Isidora, dropping her lute, ‘you do not believe, love, in what the Holy Church requires.’ – ‘Yes, I do believe, when I listen to you.’ – ‘and only then?’ – ‘Sing again your hymn to the Virgin.’

  ‘Isidora complied, and watched the effect on the listener. He seemed affected – he motion
ed to her to repeat it. ‘My love,’ said Isidora, ‘is not this more like the repetition of a theatrical song called for by an audience, than a hymn which he who listens to loves his wife better for, because she loves her God.’ – ‘It is a shrewd question,’ said Melmoth, ‘but why am I in your imagination excluded from the love of God?’ – ‘Do you ever visit the church,’ answered the anxious Isidora. A profound silence. – ‘Do you ever receive the Holy Sacrament?’ – Melmoth did not utter a word. – ‘Have you ever, at my earnest solicitation, enabled me to announce to my anxious family the tie that united us?’ – No answer. – ‘And now – that – perhaps – I dare not utter what I feel! Oh, how shall I appear before eyes that watch me even now so closely? – what shall I say? – a wife without a husband – a mother without a father for her child, or one whom a fearful oath has bound her never to declare! Oh! Melmoth, pity me, – deliver me from this life of constraint, falsehood, and dissimulation. Claim me as your wedded wife in the face of my family, and in the face of ruin your wedded wife will follow – will cling to – will perish with you!’ Her arms clung round him, her cold but heart-wrung tears fell fast on his cheek, and the imploring arms of woman supplicating for deliverance in her hour of shame and terror, seldom are twined round us in vain. Melmoth felt the appeal – it was but for a moment. He caught the white arms extended towards him – he fixed an eager and fearful look of inquiry on his victim-consort, as he asked – ‘And is it so?’ The pale and shuddering wife shrunk from his arms at the question – her silence answered him. The agonies of nature throbbed audibly in his heart. He said to himself – it is mine – the fruit of affection – the first-born of the heart and of nature – mine – mine, – and whatever becomes of me, there shall yet be a human being on earth who traces me in its external form, and who will be taught to pray for its father, even when its prayer falls parched and hissing on the fires that burn for ever, like a wandering drop of dew on the burning sands of the desert!