“Wretch,” said the Superior, “when have such papers as those profaned the convent before? When, till your unhallowed entrance, were we insulted with the memoirs of legal advocates? How comes it that you have dared to—”
“Do what, my father?”
“Reclaim your vows, and expose us to all the scandal of a civil court and its proceedings.”
“I weighed it all against my own misery.”
“Misery! is it thus you speak of a conventual life, the only life that can promise tranquillity here, or ensure salvation hereafter.”
These words, uttered by a man convulsed by the most frantic passion, were their own refutation. My courage rose in proportion to his fury; and besides, I was driven to a point, and forced to act on my defence. The sight of the papers added to my confidence. I said, “My father, it is in vain to endeavour to diminish my repugnance to the monastic life; the proof that that repugnance is invincible lies before you. If I have been guilty of a step that violates the decorum of a convent, I am sorry—but I am not reprehensible. Those who forced me into a convent, are guilty of the violence which is falsely ascribed to me. I am determined, if it be possible, to change my situation. You see the efforts I have already made, be assured they will never cease. Disappointment will only redouble their energy; and if it be in the power of heaven or earth to procure the annulment of my vows, there is no power in either I will not have recourse to.”
I expected he would not have heard me out, but he did. He even listened with calmness, and I prepared myself to encounter and repel that alternation of reproach and remonstrance, of solicitation and menace, which they so well know how to employ in a convent. “Your repugnance to a conventual life is then invincible?”
“It is.”
“But to what do you object?—not to your duties, for you perform them with the most edifying punctuality—not to the treatment you receive, for it has been the most indulgent that our discipline admits of—not to the community itself, who are all disposed to cherish and love you;—of what do you complain?”
“Of the life itself—that comprehends everything. I am not fit to be a monk.”
“Remember, I implore you, that though the forms of earthly courts must be obeyed, from the necessity that makes us dependent on human institutions, in all matters between man and man, they never can be available in matters between God and man. Be assured, my deluded child, that if all the courts on earth pronounced you absolved from your vows this moment, your own conscience never can absolve you. All your ignominious life, it will continue to reproach you with the violation of a vow, whose breach man has connived at, but God has not. And, at your last hour, how horrible will those reproaches be!”
“Not so horrible as at the hour I took that vow, or rather at the hour when it was extorted.”
“Extorted!”
“Yes, my father, yes—I take Heaven to witness against you. On that disastrous morning, your anger, your remonstrances, your pleadings, were as ineffectual as they are now, till you flung the body of my mother before my feet.”
“And do you reproach me with my zeal in the cause of your salvation?”
“I do not wish to reproach you. You know the step I have taken, you must be aware I will pursue it with all the powers of nature—that I will never rest till my vows are annulled, while a hope of it remains—and that a soul, determined as mine, can convert despair itself into hope. Surrounded, suspected, watched as I have been, I yet found the means of conveying my papers to the hands of the advocate. Calculate the strength of that resolution which could effectuate such a measure in the very heart of a convent. Judge of the futility of all future opposition, when you failed in defeating, or even detecting, the first steps of my design.” At these words the Superior was silent. I believed I had made an impression on him. I added, “If you wish to spare the community the disgrace of my prosecuting my appeal within its walls, the alternative is easy. Let the door be left unguarded some day, connive at my escape, and my presence shall never molest or dishonour you another hour.”
“How! would you make me not only a witness, but an accomplice in your crime? Apostate from God, and plunged in perdition as you are, do you repay the hand stretched out to save you, by seizing it, that you may drag me into the infernal gulf along with you?” and he walked up and down the cell in the most violent agitation. This unlucky proposal operated on his master-passion (for he was exemplarily rigid in discipline), and produced only convulsions of hostility. I stood waiting till this fresh burst had subsided, while he continued to exclaim incessantly, “My God, for what offence am I thus humiliated?—for what inconceivable crime is this disgrace precipitated on the whole convent? What will become of our character? What will all Madrid say?”
“My father, whether an obscure monk lives, dies, or recalls his vows, is an object of little importance beyond the walls of his convent. They will forget me soon, and you will be consoled by the restored harmony of the discipline, in which I should always be a jarring note. Besides, all Madrid, with all the interest you ascribe to it, could never be made responsible for my salvation.”
He continued to walk up and down, repeating, “What will the world say? What will become of us?” till he had worked himself into a state of fury; and,
