“These are the phantoms of your conscience.”
“My father, if you will deign to examine my cell, you will find the traces of phosphorus on the walls.”
“I examine your cell? I enter it?”
“Am I then to expect no redress? Interpose your authority for the sake of the house over which you preside. Remember that, when my appeal becomes public, all these circumstances will become so too, and you are to judge what degree of credit they will attach to the community.”
“Retire!” I did so, and found my application attended to, at least with regard to food, but my cell remained in the same dismantled state, and I continued under the same desolating interdiction from all communion, religious or social. I assure you, with truth, that so horrible was this amputation from life to me, that I have walked hours in the cloister and the passages, to place myself in the way of the monks, who, I knew, as they passed, would bestow on me some malediction or reproachful epithet. Even this was better than the withering silence which surrounded me. I began almost to receive it as a customary salutation, and always returned it with a benediction. In a fortnight my appeal was to be decided on; this was a circumstance I was kept in ignorance of, but the Superior had received a notification of it, and this precipitated his resolution to deprive me of the benefit of its eventual success, by one of the most horrible schemes that ever entered the human—I retract the expression—the monastic heart. I received an indistinct intimation of it the very night after my application to the Superior; but had I been apprised, from the first, of the whole extent and bearings of their purpose, what resources could I have employed against it?
That evening I had gone into the garden; my heart felt unusually oppressed. Its thick troubled beatings, seemed like the vibrations of a timepiece, as it measures our approach to some hour of sorrow.
It was twilight; the garden was empty; and kneeling on the ground, in the open air (the only oratory they had left me), I attempted to pray. The attempt was in vain;—I ceased to articulate sounds that had no meaning—and, overcome by a heaviness of mind and body inexpressible, I fell on the ground, and remained extended on my face, torpid, but not senseless. Two figures passed, without perceiving me; they were in earnest conversation.
One of them said, “More vigorous measures must be adopted. You are to blame to delay them so long. You will be answerable for the disgrace of the whole community, if you persist in this foolish lenity.”
“But his resolution remains unbroken,” said the Superior (for it was he).
“It will not be proof against the measure I have proposed.”
“He is in your hands then; but remember I will not be accountable for—” They were by this time out of hearing.
I was less terrified than you will believe, by what I had heard. Those who have suffered much, are always ready to exclaim, with the unfortunate Agag, “Surely the bitterness of death is past.” They know not, that that is the very moment when the sword is unsheathed to hew them in pieces. That night, I had not been long asleep, when I was awoke by a singular noise in my cell: I started up, and listened. I thought I heard someone hurry away barefooted. I knew I had no lock to my door, and could not prevent the intrusion of anyone into my cell who pleased to visit it; but still I believed the discipline of the convent too strict to allow of this. I composed myself again, but was hardly asleep, when I was again awoke by something that touched me.
I started up again; a soft voice near me said in whispers, “Compose yourself; I am your friend.”
“My friend? Have I one?—but why visit me at this hour?”
“It is the only hour at which I am permitted to visit you.”
“But who are you, then?”
“One whom these walls can never exclude. One to whom, if you devote yourself, you may expect services beyond the power of man.”
There was something frightful in these words. I cried out, “Is it the enemy of souls that is tempting me?”
As I uttered these words, a monk rushed in from the passage (where he had been evidently waiting, for his dress was on). He exclaimed, “What is the matter? You have alarmed me by your cries—you pronounced the name of the infernal spirit—what have you seen? what is it you fear?”
I recovered myself, and said, “I have seen or heard nothing extraordinary. I have had frightful dreams, that is all. Ah! Brother St. Joseph, no wonder, after passing such days, my nights should be disturbed.”
The monk retired, and the next day passed as usual; but at night the same whispering sounds awoke me again. The preceding night these sounds had only startled me; they now alarmed me. In the darkness of night, and the solitude of my cell, this repeated visitation overcame my spirits. I began almost to admit the idea that I was exposed to the assaults of the enemy of man.
I repeated a prayer, but the whisper, which seemed close to my ear, still continued. It said, “Listen—listen to me, and be happy. Renounce your vows, place yourself under my protection, and you shall have no cause to complain of the exchange. Rise from your bed, trample on the crucifix which you will find at the foot of it, spit on the picture of the Virgin that lies beside it, and—”
At these words I could not suppress a cry of horror. The voice ceased in a moment, and the same monk, who occupied the cell next to mine, rushed in with the same exclamations as on the preceding night; and, as he entered my cell, the light in his hand showed a crucifix, and a picture of the blessed Virgin, placed at the
