Now fast approached the hour; and, ere ten had struck, a stranger of towering and gigantic proportions walked along the ruined refectory; without stopping to notice other objects, he advanced swiftly to Eloise, who sat on a mishapen piece of ruin, and, throwing aside the mantle which enveloped his figure, discovered to her astonished sight the stranger of the Alps, who of late had been incessantly present to her mind. Amazement, for a time, chained each faculty in stupefaction; she would have started from her seat, but the stranger, with gentle violence grasping her hand, compelled her to remain where she was.
“Eloise,” said the stranger, in a voice of the most fascinating tenderness—”Eloise!”
The softness of his accents changed, in an instant, what was passing in the bosom of Eloise. She felt no surprise that he knew her name; she experienced no dread at this mysterious meeting with a person, at the bare mention of whose name she was wont to tremble: no, the ideas which filled her mind were indefinable. She gazed upon his countenance for a moment, then, hiding her face in her hands, sobbed loudly.
“What afflicts you, Eloise?” said the stranger: “how cruel, that such a breast as thine should be tortured by pain!”
“Ah!” cried Eloise, forgetting that she spoke to a stranger; “how can one avoid sorrow, when there, perhaps, is scarce a being in the world whom I can call my friend; when there is no one on whom I lay claim for protection?”
“Say not, Eloise,” cried the stranger, reproachfully, yet benignly; “say not that you can claim none as a friend — you may claim me. Ah! that I had ten thousand existences, that each might be devoted to the service of one whom I love more than myself! Make me then the repository of your every sorrow and secret. I love you, indeed I do, Eloise, and why will you doubt me?”
“I do not doubt you, stranger,” replied the unsuspecting girl; “why should I doubt you? for you could have no interest in saying so, if you did not. — I thank you for loving one who is quite, quite friendless; and, if you will allow me to be your friend, I will love you too. I never loved any one, before, but my poor mother and Marianne. Will you then, if you are a friend to me, come and live with me and Marianne, at St. Irvyne’s?”
“St. Irvyne’s!” exclaimed the stranger, almost convulsively, as he interrupted her; then, as fearing to betray his emotions, he paused, yet quitted not the grasp of Eloise’s hand, which trembled within his with feelings which her mind distrusted not.
“Yes, sweet Eloise, I love you indeed.” At last he said, affectionately, “And I thank you much for believing me; but I cannot live with you at St. Irvyne’s. Farewell, for to-night, however; for my poor Eloise has need of sleep.” He then was quitting the abbey, when Eloise stopped him to inquire his name.
“Frederic de Nempere.”
“Ah! then I shall recollect Frederio de Nempere, as the name of a friend, even if I never again behold him.”
“Indeed I am not faithless; soon shall I see you again. Farewell, beloved Eloise.” Thus saying, with rapid step he quitted the ruin.
Though he was now gone, the sound of his tender farewell yet seemed to linger on the ear of Eloise; but with each moment of his absence, became lessened the conviction of his friendship, and heightened the suspicions which, though unaccountable to herself, possessed her bosom. She could not conceive what motive could have led her to own her love for one whom she feared, and felt a secret terror, from the conviction of the resistless empire which he possessed within her: yet though she shrank from the bare idea of ever becoming his, did she ardently, though scarcely would she own it to herself, desire again to see him.
Eloise now returned to Geneva: she resigned herself to sleep, but even in her dreams was the image of Nempere present to her imagination. Ah! poor deluded Eloise, didst thou think a man would merit thy love through disinterestedness? didst thou think that one who supposed himself superior, yet inferior in reality, to you, in the scale of existent beings, would desire thy society from love? yet superior as the fool here supposes himself to be to the creature whom he injures, superior as he boasts himself, he may howl with the fiends of darkness, in never-ending misery, whilst thou shalt receive, at the throne of the God whom thou hast loved, the rewards of that unsuspecting excellence, which he who boasts his superiority, shall suffer for trampling upon. Reflect on this, ye libertines, and, in the full career of the lasciviousness which has unfitted your souls for enjoying the slightest real happiness here or hereafter, tremble! Tremble! I say; for the day of retribution will arrive. But the poor Eloise need not tremble; the victims of your detested cunning need not fear that day: no! — then will the cause of the broken-hearted be avenged, by Him to whom their wrongs cry for redress.
Within a few miles of Geneva, Nempere possessed a country-house: thither did he persuade Eloise to go with him; “For,” said he, “though I cannot come to St. Irvyne’s, yet my friend will live with me.”
“Yes indeed I will,” replied Eloise; for whatever she might feel when he was absent, in his presence she felt insensibly softened, and a sentiment nearly approaching to love would, at intervals, take possession of her soul. Yet was it by no means an easy task to lure Eloise from the paths of virtue; it is true she knew but little, nor was the expansion of her mind such as might justify the exultations of a fiend at a triumph over her virtue; yet was it that very timid, simple innocence, which prevented Eloise from understanding to what the deep-laid sophistry of her false friend tended; and, not understanding it, she could not be influenced by its arguments. Besides, the principles and morals of Eloise were such, as could not easily be shaken by the allurements which temptation might throw out to her unsophisticated innocence.
“Why,” said Nempere, “are we taught to believe that the union of two who love each other is wicked, unless authorized by certain rites and ceremonials, which certainly cannot change the tenour of sentiments which it is destined that these two people should entertain of each other?”
“It is, I suppose,” answered Eloise calmly, “because God has willed it so; besides,” continued she, blushing at she knew not what, “it would—”
“And is then the superior and towering soul of Eloise subjected to sentiments and prejudices so stale and vulgar as these?” interrupted Nempere indignantly. “Say, Eloise, do not you think it an insult to two souls, united to each other in the irrefragable covenants of love and congeniality; to promise, in the sight of a Being whom they know not, that fidelity which is certain otherwise?”
“But I do know that Being!” cried Eloise with warmth; “and when I cease to know him, may I die! I pray to him every morning, and, when I kneel at night, I thank him for the mercy which he has shown to a poor friendless girl like me! He is the protector of the friendless, and I love and adore him!”
“Unkind Eloise! how canst thou call thyself friendless? Surely, the adoration of two beings unfettered by restraint, must be most acceptable! — But, come, Eloise, this conversation is nothing to the purpose: I see we both think alike, although the terms in which we express our sentiments are different. Will you sing to me, dear Eloise?” Willingly did Eloise fetch her harp; she wished not to scrutinize what was passing in her mind, but, after a short prelude, thus began:
SONG.
I.
Ah! faint are her limbs, and her footstep is weary.
Yet far must the desolate wanderer roam;
Though the tempest is stern, and the mountain is dreary.
She must quit at deep midnight her pitiless home.
I see her swift foot dash the dew from the whortle.
As she rapidly hastes to the green grove of myrtle;
And I hear, as she wraps round her figure the kirtle.
“Stay thy boat on the lake, — dearest Henry, I come.”
II.
High swell’d in her bosom the throb of affection.
As lightly her form bounded over the lea.
And arose in her mind every dear recollection:
“I come, dearest Henry, and wait but for thee.”
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How sad, when dear hope every sorrow is soothing.
When sympathy’s swell the soft bosom is moving.
And the mind the mild joys of affection is proving.
Is the stern voice of fate that bids happiness flee!
III.
Oh! dark lower’d the clouds’ on that horrible eve.
And the moon dimly gleam’d through the tempested air;
Oh! how could fond visions such softness deceive?
Oh! how could false hope rend a bosom so fair?
Thy love’s pallid corse the wild surges are laving.
O’er his form the fierce swell of the tempest is raving;
But, fear not, parting spirit; thy goodness is saving.
In eternity’s bowers, a seat for thee there.
“How soft is that strain!” cried Nempere, as she concluded.
“Ah!” said Eloise, sighing deeply; “It is a melancholy song; my poor brother wrote it, I remember, about ten days before he died. ‘Tis a gloomy tale concerning him; he ill deserved the fate he met. Some future time I will tell it you; but now, ‘tis very late. — Good-night.”
Time passed, and Nempere, finding that he must proceed more warily, attempted no more to impose upon the understanding of Eloise by such palpably baseless arguments; yet, so great and so unaccountable an influence had he gained on her unsuspecting soul, that ere long, on the altar of vice, pride, and malice, was immolated the innocence of the spotless Eloise. Ah, ye proud! in the severe consciousness of unblemished reputation, in the fallacious opinion of the world, why turned ye away, as if fearful of contamination, when yon poor frail one drew near? See the tears which steal adown her cheek! — She has repented, ye have not!
And thinkest thou, libertine, from a principle of depravity — thinkest thou that thou hast raised thyself to the level of Eloise, by trying to sink her to thine own? — No! — Hopest thou that thy curse has passed away unheeded or unseen? The God whom thou hast insulted has marked thee! — In the everlasting tablets of heaven, is thine offence written! — but poor Eloise’s crime is obliterated by the mercy of Him, who knows the innocence of her heart.
Yes — thy sophistry hath prevailed, Nempere!—’t is but blackening the memoir of thine offences! — Hark! what shriek broke upon the enthusiastic silence of twilight?—’T was the fancied scream of one who loved Eloise long ago, but now is — dead. It warns thee — alas! ‘t is unavailing!!—’T is fled, but not for ever.
It is evening; the moon, which rode in cloudless and unsullied majesty, in the leaden-coloured east, hath hidden her pale beams in a dusky cloud, as if blushing to contemplate a scene of so much wickedness.
‘T is done; and amidst the vows of a transitory delirium of pleasure, regret, horror, and misery, arise! they shake their Gorgon locks at Eloise! appalled she shudders with affright, and shrinks from the contemplation of the consequences of her imprudence. Beware, Eloise! — a precipice, a frightful precipice yawns at thy feet! advance yet a step further, and thou perishest! — No, give not up thy religion — it is that alone which can support thee under the miseries, with which imprudence has so darkly marked the progress of thine existence!
CHAPTER. X.
The elements respect their Maker’s seal!
Still like the scathed pine-tree’s height.
Braving the tempests of the night.
Have I’ scap’d the bickering flame.
Like the scath’d pine, which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath;
Yet it stands majestic even in death.
And rears its wild from there.
— Wandering Jew.
Yet, in an attitude of attention, Wolfstein was fixed, and, gazing upon Ginotti’s countenance, awaited his narrative.
“Wolfstein,” said Ginotti, “the circumstances which I am about to communicate to you are, many of them, you may think, trivial; but I must be minute, and, however the recital may excite your astonishment, suffer me to proceed without interruption.”
Wolfstein bowed affirmatively — Ginotti thus proceeded:
“From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by complete satiation, curiosity, and a desire of unveiling the latent mysteries of nature, was the passion by which all the other emotions of my mind were intellectually organized. This desire first led me to cultivate, and with success, the various branches of learning which led to the gates of wisdom. I then applied myself to the cultivation of philosophy, and the éclât with which I pursued it, exceeded my most sanguine expectations. Love I cared not for; and wondered why men perversely sought to ally themselves with weakness. Natural philosophy at last became the peculiar science to which I directed my eager inquiries; thence was I led into a train of labyrinthic meditations. I thought of death — I shuddered when I reflected, and shrank in horror from the idea, selfish and self-interested as I was, of entering a new existence to which I was a stranger. I must either dive into the recesses of futurity, or I must not, I cannot die.—’Will not this nature — will not the matter of which it is composed, exist to all eternity? Ah! I know it will; and, by the exertions of the energies with which nature has gifted me, well I know it shall.’ This was my opinion at that time: I then believed that there existed no God. Ah! at what an exorbitant price have I bought the conviction that there is one!!! Believing that priestcraft and superstition were all the religion which man ever practised, it could not be supposed that I thought there existed supernatural beings of any kind. I believed nature to be self-sufficient and excelling; I supposed not, therefore, that there could be any thing beyond nature.
“I was now about seventeen: I had dived into the depths of metaphysical calculations. With sophistical arguments had I convinced myself of the non-existence of a First Cause, and, by every combined modification of the essences of matter, had I apparently proved that no existences could possibly be, unseen by human vision. I had lived, hitherto, completely for myself; I cared not for others; and, had the hand of fate swept from the list of the living every one of my youthful associates, I should have remained immoved and fearless. I had not a friend in the world; — I cared for nothing but self. Being fond of calculating the effects of poison, I essayed one, which I had composed, upon a youth who had offended me; he lingered a month, and then expired in agonies the most terrific. It was returning from his funeral, which all the students of the college where I received my education (Salamanca), had attended, that a train of the strangest thought pressed upon my mind. I feared, more than ever, now, to die; and, although I had no right to form hopes or expectations for longer life than is allotted to the rest of mortals, yet did I think it were possible to protract existence. And why, reasoned I with myself, relapsing into melancholy, why am I to suppose that these muscles or fibres are made of stuff more durable than those of other men? I have no right to suppose otherwise than that, at the end of the time allotted by nature, for the existence of the atoms which compose my being, I must, like all other men, perish, perhaps everlastingly. — Here in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed that nature and chance which I believed in; and, in a paroxysmal frenzy of contending passions, cast myself, in desperation, at the foot of a lofty ash-tree, which reared its fantastic form over a torrent which dashed below.
“It was midnight; far had I wandered from Salamanca; the passions which agitated my brain, almost to delirium, had added strength to my nerves, and swiftness to my feet; but after many hours’ incessant walking, I began to feel fatigued. No moon was up, nor did one star illume the hemisphere. The sky was veiled by a thick covering of clouds; and, to my heated imagination, the winds, which in stern cadence swept along the night-scene, whistled tidings of death and annihilation. I gazed on the torrent, foaming beneath my feet; it could scarcely be distinguished through the thickness of the gloom, save at intervals, when the white-crested waves dashed at the base of the bank on which I stood. ‘T was then that I contemplated
self-destruction; I had almost plunged into the tide of death, had rushed upon the unknown regions of eternity, when the soft sound of a bell from a neighbouring convent, was wafted in the stillness of the night. It struck a chord in unison with my soul; it vibrated on the secret springs of rapture. I thought no more of suicide, but, reseating myself at the root of the ash-tree, burst into a flood of tears; — never had I wept before; the sensation was new to me; it was inexplicably pleasing. I reflected by what rules of science I could account for it: there philosophy failed me. I acknowledged its inefficacy; and, almost at that instant, allowed the existence of a superior and beneficent Spirit, in whose image is made the soul of man; but quickly chasing these ideas, and, overcome by excessive and unwonted fatigue of mind and body, I laid my head upon a jutting projection of the tree, and, forgetful of every thing around me, sank into a profound and quiet slumber. Quiet, did I say? No — It was not quiet. I dreamed that I stood on the brink of a most terrific precipice, far, far above the clouds, amid whose dark forms which lowered beneath, was seen the dashing of a stupendous cataract: its roarings were borne to mine ear by the blast of night. Above me rose, fearfully embattled and rugged, fragments of enormous rocks, tinged by the dimly gleaming moon; their loftiness, the grandeur of their mishapen proportions, and their bulk, staggering the imagination; and scarcely could the mind itself scale the vast loftiness of their aerial summits. I saw the dark clouds pass by, borne by the impetuosity of the blast, yet felt no wind myself. Methought darkly gleaming forms rode on their almost palpable prominences.
“Whilst thus I stood, gazing on the expansive gulf which yawned before me, methought a silver sound stole on the quietude of night. The moon became as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled with scintillations of inexpressible whiteness. Pleasing images stole imperceptibly upon my senses, when a ravishingly sweet strain of dulcet melody seemed to float around. Now it was wafted nearer, and now it died away in tones to melancholy dear. Whilst I thus stood enraptured, louder swelled the strain of seraphic harmony; it vibrated on my inmost soul, and a mysterious softness lulled each impetuous passion to repose. I gazed in eager anticipation of curiosity on the scene before me; for a mist of silver radiance rendered every object but myself imperceptible; yet was it brilliant as the noon-day sun. Suddenly, whilst yet the full strain swelled along the empyrean sky, the mist in one place seemed to dispart, and, through it, to roll clouds of deepest crimson. Above them, and seemingly reclining on the viewless air, was a form of most exact and superior symmetry. Rays of brilliancy, surpassing expression, fell from his burning eye, and the emanations from his countenance tinted the transparent clouds below with silver light. The phantasm advanced towards me; it seemed then, to my imagination, that his figure was borne on the sweet strain of music which filled the circumambient air. In a voice which was fascination itself, the being addressed me, saying, ‘Wilt thou come with me? wilt thou be mine?’ I felt a decided wish never to be his. ‘No, no,’ I unhesitatingly cried, with a feeling which no language can either explain or describe. No sooner had I uttered these words than methought a sensation of deadly horror chilled my sickening frame; an earthquake rocked the precipice beneath my feet; the beautiful being vanished; clouds, as of chaos, rolled around, and from their dark masses flashed incessant meteors. I heard a deafening noise on every side; it appeared like the dissolution of nature; the blood-red moon, whirled from her sphere, sank beneath the horizon. My neck was grasped firmly, and, turning round in an agony of horror, I beheld a form more hideous than the imagination of man is capable of portraying, whose proportions, gigantic and deformed, were seemingly blackened by the inerasible traces of the thunderbolts of God; yet in its hideous and detestable countenance, though seemingly far different, I thought I could recognise that of the lovely vision: ‘Wretch!’ it exclaimed, in a voice of exulting thunder; ‘saidst thou that thou wouldst not be mine? Ah! thou art mine beyond redemption; and I triumph in the conviction, that no power can ever make thee otherwise. Say, art thou willing to be mine?’ Saying this, he dragged me to the brink of the precipice: the contemplation of approaching death frenzied my brain to the highest pitch of horror. ‘Yes, yes, I am thine,’ I exclaimed. No sooner had I pronounced these words, than the visionary scene vanished, and I awoke. But even when awake, the contemplation of what I had suffered, whilst under the influence of sleep, pressed upon my disordered fancy; my intellect, wild with unconquerable emotions, could fix on no one particular point to exert its energies; they were strained beyond their power of exerting.
Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series Page 144