never can divest ourselves—a triumph over those whose sufferings have placed them below us, and no wonder—suffering is always an indication of weakness—we glory in our impenetrability.
I did, as we burst into the cell. The wretched husband and wife were locked in each other’s arms. You may imagine the scene that followed. Here I must do the Superior reluctant justice. He was a man (of course from his conventual feelings) who had no more idea of the intercourse between the sexes, than between two beings of a different species. The scene that he beheld could not have revolted him more, than if he had seen the horrible loves of the baboons and the Hottentot women, at the Cape of Good Hope; or those still more loathsome unions between the serpents of South America and their human victims,
22 when they can catch them, and twine round them in folds of unnatural and ineffable union. He really stood as much astonished and appalled, to see two human beings of different sexes, who dared to love each other in spite of monastic ties, as if he had witnessed the horrible conjunctions I have alluded to. Had he seen vipers engendering in that frightful knot which seems the pledge of mortal hostility, instead of love, he could not have testified more horror—and I do him the justice to believe he felt all he testified. Whatever affectation he might employ on points of conventual austerity, there was none here. Love was a thing he always believed connected with sin, even though consecrated by the name of a sacrament, and called marriage, as it is in our church. But, love in a convent!—Oh, there is no conceiving his rage; still less is it possible to conceive the majestic and overwhelming extent of that rage, when strengthened by principle, and sanctified by religion. I enjoyed the scene beyond all power of description. I saw those wretches, who had triumphed over me, reduced to my level in a moment—their passions all displayed, and the display placing me a hero triumphant above all. I had crawled to the shelter of their walls, a wretched degraded outcast, and what was my crime? Well—you shudder, I have done with that. I can only say want drove me to it. And here were beings whom, a few months before, I would have knelt to as to the images round the shrine—to whom, in the moments of my desperate penitence, I would have clung as to the ‘horns of the altar,’ all brought as low, and lower than myself. ‘Sons of the morning,’ as I deemed them in the agonies of my humiliation, ‘how were they fallen!’ I feasted on the degradation of the apostate monk and novice—I enjoyed, to the core of my ulcerated heart, the passion of the Superior—I felt that they were all men like myself. Angels, as I had thought them, they had all proved themselves mortal; and, by watching their motions, and flattering their passions, and promoting their interest, or setting up my own in opposition to them all, while I made them believe it was only theirs I was intent on, I might make shift to contrive as much misery to others, and to carve out as much occupation to myself, as if I were actually living in the world. Cutting my father’s throat was a noble feat certainly (I ask your pardon, I did not mean to extort that groan from you), but here were hearts to be cut—and to the core, every day, and all day long, so I never could want employment.”
Here he wiped his hard brow, drew his breath for a moment, and then said, “I do not quite like to go through the details by which this wretched pair were deluded into the hope of effecting their escape from the convent. It is enough that I was the principal agent—that the Superior connived at it—that I led them through the very passages you have traversed tonight, they trembling and blessing me at every step—that—”
“Stop,” I cried; “wretch! you are tracing my course this night step by step.”
“What?” he retorted, with a ferocious laugh, “you think I am betraying you, then; and if it were true, what good would your suspicions do you—you are in my power? My voice might summon half the convent to seize you this moment—my arm might fasten you to that wall, till those dogs of death, that wait but my whistle, plunged their fangs into your very vitals. I fancy you would not find their bite less keen, from their tusks being so long sharpened by an immersion in holy water.” Another laugh, that seemed to issue from the lungs of a demon, concluded this sentence.
“I know I am in your power,” I answered; “and were I to trust to that, or to your heart, I had better dash out my brains at once against these walls of rock, which I believe are not harder than the latter. But I know your interests to be some way or other connected with my escape, and therefore I trust you—because I must. Though my blood, chilled as it is by famine and fatigue, seems frozen in every drop while I listen to you, yet listen I must, and trust my life and liberation to you. I speak to you with the horrid confidence our situation has taught me—I hate—I dread you. If we were to meet in life, I would shrink from you with loathings of unspeakable abhorrence, but here mutual misery has mixed the most repugnant substances in unnatural coalition. The force of that alchemy must cease at the moment of my escape from the convent and from you; yet, for these miserable hours, my life is as much dependent on your exertions and presence, as my power of supporting them is on the continuance of your horrible tale—go on, then. Let us struggle through this dreadful day. Day! a name unknown here, where noon
