Melmoth the Wanderer 1820

by Charles Robert Maturin

  ‘“They never dare to dispute that it contains irresistible injunctions, – that those who believe in it should live in habits of peace, benevolence and harmony, – that they should love each other in prosperity, and assist each other in adversity. They dare not deny that the spirit that book inculcates and inspires, is a spirit whose fruits are love, joy, peace, long-suffering, mildness and truth. On these points they never presumed to differ. – They are too plain to be denied, so they contrive to make matter of difference out of the various habits they wear; and they cut each other’s throats for the love of God, on the important subject,* whether their jackets should be red or white – or whether their priests should be arrayed in silk ribbons,† or white linen,‡ or black household garments§ – or whether they should immerse their children in water, or sprinkle them with a few drops of it – or whether they should partake of the memorials of the death of him they all profess to love, standing or on their knees – or – But I weary you with this display of human wickedness and absurdity. One point is plain, they all agree that the language of the book is, “Love one another,” while they all translate that language, “Hate one another.” But as they can find neither materials or excuse from that book, they search for them in their own minds, – and there they are never at a loss, for human minds are inexhaustible in malignity and hostility; and when they borrow the name of that book to sanction them, the deification of their passions becomes a duty, and their worst impulses are hallowed and practised as virtues.” – “Are there no parents or children in these horrible worlds?” said Immalee, turning her tearful eyes on this traducer of humanity; “none that love each other as I loved the tree under which I was first conscious of existence, or the flowers that grew with me?” – “Parents? – children?” said the stranger; “Oh yes! There are fathers who instruct their sons –” And his voice was lost – he struggled to recover it.

  ‘After a long pause, he said, “There are some kind parents among those sophisticated people.” – “And who are they?” said Immalee, whose heart throbbed spontaneously at the mention of kindliness. – “Those,” said the stranger, with a withering smile, “who murder their children at the hour of their birth, or, by medical art, dismiss them before they have seen the light; and, in so doing, they give the only credible evidence of parental affection.’

  ‘He ceased, and Immalee remained silent in melancholy meditation on what she had heard. The acrid and searing irony of his language had made no impression on one with whom “speech was truth,” and who could have no idea why a circuitous mode of conveying meaning could be adopted, when even a direct one was often attended with difficulty to herself. But she could understand, that he had spoken much of evil and of suffering, names unknown to her before she beheld him, and she turned on him a glance that seemed at once to thank and reproach him for her painful initiation into the mysteries of a new existence. She had, indeed, tasted of the tree of knowledge, and her eyes were opened, but its fruit was bitter to her taste, and her looks conveyed a kind of mild and melancholy gratitude, that would have wrung the heart for giving its first lesson of pain to the heart of a being so beautiful, so gentle, and so innocent. The stranger marked this blended expression, and exulted.

  ‘He had distorted life thus to her imagination, perhaps with the purpose of terrifying her from a nearer view of it; perhaps in the wild hope of keeping her for ever in this solitude, where he might sometimes see her, and catch, from the atmosphere of purity that surrounded her, the only breeze that floated over the burning desert of his own existence. This hope was strengthened by the obvious impression his discourse had made on her. The sparkling intelligence, – the breathless curiosity, – the vivid gratitude of her former expression, – were all extinguished, and her down cast and thoughtful eyes were full of tears.

  ‘“Has my conversation wearied you, Immalee?” said he. – “It has grieved me, yet I wish to listen still,” answered the Indian. “I love to hear the murmur of the stream, though the crocodile may be beneath the waves.” – “Perhaps you wish to encounter the people of this world, so full of crime and misfortune,” – “I do, for it is the world, you came from, and when you return to it all will be happy but me.” – “And is it, then, in my power to confer happiness?” said her companion; “is it for this purpose I wander among mankind?” A mingled and indefinable expression of derision, malevolence and despair, overspread his features, as he added, “You do me too much honour, in devising for me an occupation so mild and so congenial to my spirit.”

  ‘Immalee, whose eyes were averted, did not see this expression, and she replied, “I know not, but you have taught me the joy of grief; before I saw you I only smiled, but since I saw you, I weep, and my tears are delicious. Oh! They are far different from those I shed for the setting sun, or the faded rose! And yet I know not –” And the poor Indian, oppressed by emotions she could neither understand or express, clasped her hands on her bosom, as if to hide the secret of its new palpitations, and, with the instinctive diffidence of her purity, signified the change of her feelings, by retiring a few steps from her companion, and casting on the earth eyes which could contain their tears no longer. The stranger appeared troubled, – an emotion new to himself agitated him for a moment, – then a smile of self-disdain curled his lip, as if he reproached himself for the indulgence of human feeling even for a moment. Again his features relaxed, as he turned to the bending and averted form of Immalee, and he seemed like one conscious of agony of soul himself, yet inclined to sport with the agony of another’s. This union of inward despair and outward levity is not unnatural. Smiles are the legitimate offspring of happiness, but laughter is often the misbegotten child of madness, that mocks its parent to her face. With such an expression he turned towards her, and asked, “But what is your meaning, Immalee?” – A long pause followed this question, and at length the Indian answered, “I know not,” with that natural and delicious art which teaches the sex to disclose their meaning in words that seem to contradict it. “I know not,” means, “I know too well.” Her companion understood this, and enjoyed his anticipated triumph. “And why do your tears flow, Immalee?” – “I know not,” said the poor Indian, and her tears flowed faster at the question.

  ‘At these words, or rather at these tears, the stranger forgot himself for a moment. He felt that melancholy triumph which the conqueror is unable to enjoy; that triumph which announces a victory over the weakness of others, obtained at the expence of a greater weakness in ourselves. A human feeling, in spite of him, pervaded his whole soul, as he said, in accents of involuntary softness, “What would you have me do, Immalee?” The difficulty of speaking a language that might be at once intelligible and reserved, – that might convey her wishes without betraying her heart, – and the unknown nature of her new emotions, made Immalee faulter long before she could answer, “Stay with me, return not to that world of evil and sorrow. – Here the flowers will always bloom and the sun be as bright as on the first day I beheld you. – Why will you go back to the world to think and to be unhappy?” The wild and discordant laugh of her companion, startled and silenced her. “Poor girl,” he exclaimed, with that mixture of bitterness and commiseration, that at once terrifies and humiliates; “and is this the destiny I am to fulfil? – to listen to the chirping of birds, and watch the opening of buds? Is this to be my lot?” and with another wild burst of unnatural laughter, he flung away the hand which Immalee had extended to him as she had finished her simple appeal. – “Yes, doubtless, I am well fitted for such a fate, and such a partner. Tell me,” he added, with still wilder fierceness, “tell me from what line of my features, – from what accent of my voice, – from what sentiment of my discourse, have you extracted the foundation of a hope that insults me with the view of felicity?” Immalee, who might have replied, “I understand a fury in your words, but not your words,” had yet sufficient aid from her maiden pride, and female penetration, to discover that she was rejected by the stranger; and a brief emotion of indignant g
rief struggled with the tenderness of her exposed and devoted heart. She paused a moment, and then checking her tears, said, in her firmest tones, “Go, then, to your world, – since you wish to be unhappy – go! – Alas! it is not necessary to go there to be unhappy, for I must be so here. Go, – but take with you these roses, for they will all wither when you are gone! – take with you these shells, for I shall no longer love to wear them when you no longer see them!” And as she spoke, with simple, but emphatic action, she untwined from her bosom and hair the shells and flowers with which they were adorned, and threw them at his feet; then turning to throw one glance of proud and melancholy grief at him, she was retiring. “Stay, Immalee, – stay, and hear me for a moment,” said the stranger; and he would, at that moment, have perhaps discovered the ineffable and forbidden secret of his destiny, but Immalee, in silence, which her look of profound grief made eloquent, shook sadly her averted head, and departed.’

  *As, by a mode of criticism equally false and unjust, the worst sentiments of my worst characters, (from the ravings of Bertram to the blasphemies of Cardonneau), have been represented as my own, I must here trespass so far on the patience of the reader as to assure him, that the sentiments ascribed to the stranger are diametrically opposite to mine, and that I have purposely put them into the mouth of an agent of the enemy of mankind.

  *The Catholics and Protestants were thus distinguished in the wars of the League.

  †Catholics.

  ‡Protestants.

  §Dissenters.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  Miseram me omnia terrent, et maris sonitus, et

  scopuli, et solitudo, et sanctitudo Apollinis.

  Latin play

  ‘Many days elapsed before the stranger revisited the isle. How he was occupied, or what feelings agitated him in the interval, it would be beyond human conjecture to discover. Perhaps he sometimes exulted in the misery he had inflicted, – perhaps he sometimes pitied it. His stormy mind was like an ocean that had swallowed a thousand wrecks of gallant ships, and now seemed to dally with the loss of a little slender skiff, that could hardly make way on its surface in the profoundest calm. Impelled, however, by malignity, or tenderness, or curiosity, or weariness of artificial life, so vividly contrasted by the unadulterated existence of Immalee, into whose pure elements nothing but flowers and fragrance, the sparkling of the heavens, and the odours of earth, had transfused their essence – or, possibly, by a motive more powerful than all, – his own will; which, never analysed, and hardly ever confessed to be the ruling principle of our actions, governs nine-tenths of them. – He returned to the shore of the haunted isle, the name by which it was distinguished by those who knew not how to classify the new goddess who was supposed to inhabit it, and who were as much puzzled by this new specimen in their theology, as Linnaeus himself could have been by a non-descript in botany. Alas! the varieties in moral botany far exceed the wildest anomalies of those in the natural. However it was, the stranger returned to the isle. But he had to traverse many paths, where human foot but his had never been, and to rend away branches that seemed to tremble at a human touch, and to cross streams into which no foot but his had ever been dipped, before he could discover where Immalee had concealed herself.

  ‘Concealment, however, was not in her thoughts. When he found her, she was leaning against a rock; the ocean was pouring its eternal murmur of waters at her feet; she had chosen the most desolate spot she could find; – there was neither flower or shrub near her; – the calcined rocks, the offspring of volcano – the restless roar of the sea, whose waves almost touched her small foot, that seemed by its heedless protrusion at once to court and neglect danger – these objects were all that surrounded her. The first time he had beheld her, she was embowered amid flowers and odours, amid all the glorious luxuries of vegetable and animal nature; the roses and the peacocks seemed emulous which should expand their leaves or their plumes, as a shade to that loveliness which seemed to hover between them, alternately borrowing the fragrance of the one, and the hues of the other. Now she stood as if deserted even by nature, whose child she was; the rock was her resting-place, and the ocean seemed the bed where she purposed to rest; she had no shells on her bosom, no roses in her hair – her character seemed to have changed with her feelings; she no longer loved all that is beautiful in nature; she seemed, by an anticipation of her destiny, to make alliance with all that is awful and ominous. She had begun to love the rocks and the ocean, the thunder of the wave, and the sterility of the sand, – awful objects, the incessant recurrence of whose very sound seems intended to remind us of grief and of eternity. Their restless monotony of repetition, corresponds with the beatings of a heart which asks its destiny from the phenomena of nature, and feels the answer is – “Misery.”

  ‘Those who love may seek the luxuries of the garden, and inhale added intoxication from its perfumes, which seem the offerings of nature on that altar which is already erected and burning in the heart of the worshipper; – but let those who have loved seek the shores of the ocean, and they shall have their answer too.

  ‘There was a sad and troubled air about her, as she stood so lonely, that seemed at once to express the conflict of her internal emotions, and to reflect the gloom and agitation of the physical objects around her; for nature was preparing for one of those awful convulsions – one of those abortive throes of desolation, that seems to announce a more perfect wrath to come; and while it blasts the vegetation, and burns up the soil of some visited portion, seems to proclaim in the murmur of its receding thunders, that it will return in that day, when the universe shall pass away as a scroll, and the elements melt with fervent heat, and return to fulfil the dreadful promise, which its partial and initiatory devastation has left incomplete. Is there a peal of thunder that does not mutter a menace, “For me, the dissolution of the world is reserved, I depart, but I shall return?” Is there a flash of lightning that does not say, visibly, if not audibly, “Sinner, I cannot now penetrate the recesses of your soul; but how will you encounter my glare, when the hand of the judge is armed with me, and my penetrating glance displays you to the view of assembled worlds?”

  ‘The evening was very dark; heavy clouds, rolling on like the forces of an hostile army, obscured the horizon from east to west. There was a bright but ghastly blue in the heaven above, like that in the eye of the dying, where the last forces of life are collected, while its powers are rapidly forsaking the frame, and feeling their extinguishment must shortly be. There was not a breath of air to heave the ocean, – the trees drooped without a whisper to woo their branches or their buds, – the birds had retired, with that instinct which teaches them to avoid the fearful encounter of the elements, and nestled with cowering wings and drooping heads among their favourite trees. There was not a human sound in the isle; the very rivulet seemed to tremble at its own tinklings, and its small waves flowed as if a subterranean hand arrested and impeded their motion. Nature, in these grand and terrific operations, seems in some degree to assimilate herself to a parent, whose most fearful denunciations are preceded by an awful silence, or rather to a judge, whose final sentence is felt with less horror than the pause that intervenes before it is pronounced.

  ‘Immalee gazed on the awful scene by which she was surrounded, without any emotion derived from physical causes. To her, light and darkness had hitherto been the same; she loved the sun for its lustre, and the lightning for its transitory brilliancy, and the ocean for its sonorous music, and the tempest for the agitation which it gave to the trees, under whose bending and welcoming shadow she danced, in time kept by the murmur of their leaves, that hung low, as if to crown their votarist. And she loved the night, when all was still, but what she was accustomed to call the music of a thousand streams, that made the stars rise from their beds, to sparkle and nod to that wild melody.

  ‘Such she had been. Now, her eye was intently fixed on the declining light, and the approaching darkness, – that preternatural gloom, that seems to say to the brightest
and most beautiful of the works of God, “Give place to me, thou shalt shine no more.”

  ‘The darkness increased, and the clouds collected like an army that had mustered its utmost force, and stood in obdured and collected strength against the struggling light of heaven. A broad, red and dusky line of gloomy light, gathered round the horizon, like an usurper watching the throne of an abdicated sovereign, and expanding its portentous circle, sent forth alternately flashes of lightning, pale and red; – the murmur of the sea increased, and the arcades of the banyan-tree, that had struck its patriarchal root not five hundred paces from where Immalee stood, resounded the deep and almost unearthly murmur of the approaching storm through all its colonnades; the primeval trunk rocked and groaned, and the everlasting fibres seemed to withdraw their grasp from the earth, and quiver in air at the sound. Nature, with every voice she could inspire from earth, or air, or water, announced danger to her children.

  ‘That was the moment the stranger chose to approach Immalee; of danger he was insensible, of fear he was unconscious; his miserable destiny had exempted him from both, but what had it left him? No hope – but that of plunging others into his own condemnation. No fear – but that his victim might escape him. Yet with all his diabolical heartlessness, he did feel some relentings of his human nature, as he beheld the young Indian; her cheek was pale, but her eye was fixed, and her figure, turned from him, (as if she preferred to encounter the tremendous rage of the storm), seemed to him to say, “Let me fall into the hands of God, and not into those of man.”