It was on the night previous to her examination (of which she was unapprised), that Isidora saw the door of her cell opened, and a figure appear at it, whom, amid the dreary obscurity that surrounded her, she recognized in a moment—it was Fra Jose. After a long pause of mutual horror, she knelt in silence to receive his benediction, which he gave with feeling solemnity; and then the good monk, whose propensities, though somewhat “earthly and sensual,” were never “devilish,” after vainly drawing his cowl over his face to stifle his sobs, lifted up his voice and “wept bitterly.”
Isidora was silent, but her silence was not that of sullen apathy, or of conscience-seared impenitence. At length Fra Jose seated himself on the foot of the pallet, at some distance from the prisoner, who was also sitting, and bending her cheek, down which a cold tear slowly flowed, over her infant. “Daughter,” said the monk, collecting himself, “it is to the indulgence of the holy office I owe this permission to visit you.”
“I thank them,” said Isidora, and her tears flowed fast and relievingly.
“I am permitted also to tell you that your examination will take place tomorrow—to adjure you to prepare for it—and, if there be anything which—”
“My examination!” repeated Isidora with surprise, but evidently without terror, “on what subject am I then to be examined?”
“On that of your inconceivable union with a being devoted and accursed.” His voice was choked with horror, and he added, “Daughter, are you then indeed the wife of—of—that being, whose name makes the flesh creep, and the hair stand on end?”
“I am.”
“Who were the witnesses of your marriage, and what hand dared to bind yours with that unholy and unnatural bond?”
“There were no witnesses—we were wedded in darkness. I saw no form, but I thought I heard words uttered—I know I felt a hand place mine in Melmoth’s—its touch was as cold as that of the dead.”
“Oh complicated and mysterious horror!” said the priest, turning pale, and crossing himself with marks of unfeigned terror; he bowed his head on his arm for some time, and remained silent from unutterable emotion.
“Father,” said Isidora at length, “you knew the hermit who lived amid the ruins of the monastery near our house—he was a priest also—he was a holy man, it was he who united us!” Her voice trembled.
“Wretched victim!” groaned the priest, without raising his head, “you know not what you utter—that holy man is known to have died the very night preceding that of your dreadful union.”
Another pause of mute horror followed, which the priest at length broke.—“Unhappy daughter,” said he in a composed and solemn voice, “I am indulged with permission to give you the benefit of the sacrament of confession, previous to your examination. I adjure you to unburden your soul to me—will you?”
“I will, my father.”
“Will you answer me, as you would answer at the tribunal of God?”
“Yes—as I would answer at the tribunal of God.” As she spake, she prostrated herself before the priest in the attitude of confession.
“And you have now disclosed the whole burden of your spirit?”
“I have, my father.” The priest sat thoughtfully for a considerable time. He then put to her several singular questions relative to Melmoth, which she was wholly unable to answer. They seemed chiefly the result of those impressions of supernatural power and terror, which were everywhere associated with his image.
“My father,” said Isidora, when he had ceased, in a faltering voice, “My father, may I inquire about my unhappy parents?”
The priest shook his head, and remained silent. At length, affected by the agony with which she urged her inquiry, he reluctantly said she might guess the effect which the death of their son, and the imprisonment of their daughter in the Inquisition, must have on parents, who were no less eminent for their zeal for the Catholic faith, than for their parental affection.
“Are they alive?” said Isidora.
“Spare yourself the pain of further inquiries, daughter,” said the priest, “and be assured, that if the answer was such as could give you comfort, it would not be withheld.”
At this moment a bell was heard to sound in a distant part of the structure. “That bell,” said the priest, “announces that the hour of your examination approaches—farewell, and may the saints be with you.”
“Stay, father—stay one moment—but one moment!” cried Isidora, rushing franticly between him and the door. Fra Jose paused. Isidora sunk before him, and, hiding her face with her hands, exclaimed in a voice choked with agony, “Father, do you think—that I am—lost forever?”
“Daughter,” said the priest in heavy accents, and in a troubled and doubting spirit, “Daughter—I have given you what comfort I could—press for no more, lest what I have given (with many struggles of conscience) may be withdrawn. Perhaps you are in a state on which I can form no judgment, and pronounce no sentence. May God be merciful to you, and may the holy tribunal judge you in its mercy also.”
“Yet stay, father—stay one moment—only one moment—only one question more.” As she spoke, she caught her pale and innocent companion from the pallet where it slept, and held it up to the priest. “Father, tell me, can this be the child of a demon?—can it be, this creature that smiles on me—that smiles on you, while you are mustering curses against it?—Oh, holy drops have sprinkled it from your own hand!—Father, you have spoke holy words over it. Father, let them tear me with their pincers, let them roast me on their flames, but will not my child escape—my innocent child, that smiles on you?—Holy father, dear father, look back on my child.” And she crawled after him on her knees, holding up the miserable infant in her arms, whose weak cry and wasted frame, pleaded against the dungeon-life to which its infancy had been doomed.
Fra Jose melted at the appeal, and he was
