Melmoth, imagining he was engaged in some devotional ejaculation, was going to retire, when the Spaniard detained him. “Señor, I understand your name is—” He paused, shuddered, and with an effort that seemed like convulsion, disgorged the name of Melmoth.
“My name is Melmoth.”
“Had you an ancestor, a very remote one, who was—at a period perhaps beyond family tradition—It is useless to inquire,” said the Spaniard, covering his face with both his hands, and groaning aloud.
Melmoth listened in mingled excitement and terror. “Perhaps, if you would proceed, I could answer you—go on, señor.”
“Had you,” said the Spaniard, forcing himself to speak, abruptly and rapidly, “had you, then, a relative who was, about one hundred and forty years ago, said to be in Spain.”
“I believe—yes, I fear—I had.”
“It is enough, señor—leave me—tomorrow perhaps—leave me now.”
“It is impossible to leave you now,” said Melmoth, catching him in his arms before he sunk on the floor. He was not senseless, for his eyes were rolling with terrible expression, and he attempted to articulate. They were alone.
Melmoth, unable to quit him, called aloud for water; and while attempting to open his vest, and give him air, his hand encountered a miniature portrait close to the heart of the stranger. As he touched it, his touch operated on the patient with all the force of the most powerful restorative. He grasped it with his own cold hand with a force like that of death, and muttered in a hollow but thrilling voice, “What have you done?” He felt eagerly the ribbon by which it was suspended, and, satisfied that his terrible treasure was safe, turned his eyes with a fearful calmness of expression on Melmoth, “You know all, then?”
“I know nothing,” said Melmoth faltering.
The Spaniard rose from the ground, to which he had almost fallen, disengaged himself from the arms that supported him, and eagerly, but staggeringly, hurrying towards the candles (it was night), held up the portrait full before Melmoth’s eye. It was a miniature likeness of that extraordinary being. It was painted in a coarse and unartist-like style, but so faithfully, that the pencil appeared rather held by the mind than by the fingers.
“Was he—was the original of this—your ancestor?—Are you his descendant?—Are you the depository of that terrible secret which—” He again fell to the ground convulsed, and Melmoth, for whose debilitated state this scene was too much, was removed to his own apartment.
It was several days before he again saw his visitor; his manner was then calm and collected, till he appeared to recollect the necessity of making an apology for his agitation at their last meeting. He began—hesitated—stopped; tried in vain to arrange his ideas, or rather his language; but the effort so obviously renewed his agitation, that Melmoth felt an exertion on his part necessary to avert its consequences, and began most inauspiciously to inquire into the motive of his voyage to Ireland.
After a long pause, the Spaniard said, “That motive, señor, a few days past I believed it was not in mortal power to compel me to disclose. I deemed it incommunicable as it was incredible. I conceived myself to be alone on the earth, without sympathy and beyond relief. It is singular that accident should have placed me within the reach of the only being from whom I could expect either, and perhaps a developement of those circumstances which have placed me in a situation so extraordinary.” This exordium, delivered with a composed but thrilling gravity, had an effect on Melmoth. He sat down and prepared to listen, and the Spaniard began to speak; but after some hesitation, he snatched the picture from his neck, and trampling on it with true continental action, exclaimed, “Devil! devil! thou chokest me!” and crushing the portrait, glass and all, under his feet, exclaimed, “Now I am easier.”
The room in which they sat was a low, mean, wretchedly furnished apartment; the evening was tempestuous, and as the windows and doors rattled in the blast, Melmoth felt as if he listened to some herald of “fate and fear.” A deep and sickening agitation shook his frame; and in the long pause that preceded the narrative of the Spaniard, the beating of his heart was audible to him. He rose, and attempted to arrest the narration by a motion of his hand; but the Spaniard mistook this for the anxiety of his impatience, and commenced his narrative, which, in mercy to the reader, we shall give without the endless interruptions, and queries, and anticipations of curiosity, and starts of terror, with which it was broken by Melmoth.
Tale of the Spaniard
I am, señor, as you know, a native of Spain, but you are yet to learn I am a descendant of one of its noblest houses—a house of which she might have been proud in her proudest day—the house of Monçada. Of this I was not myself conscious during the first years of my life; but during those years, I remember experiencing the singular contrast of being treated with the utmost tenderness, and kept in the most sordid privacy. I lived in a wretched house in the suburbs of Madrid with an old woman, whose affection for me appeared prompted as much by interest as inclination. I was visited every week by a young cavalier and a beautiful female; they caressed me, called me their beloved child, and I, attached by the grace with which my young father’s capa was folded, and my mother’s veil adjusted, and by a certain air of indescribable superiority over those by whom I was surrounded, eagerly returned their
