My blood ran cold, as I gazed upon this melancholy abode. The cold vapours hovering in the air, the walls green with damp, the bed of straw so forlorn and comfortless, the chain destined to bind me forever to my prison, and the reptiles of every description which as the torches advanced towards them, I descried hurrying to their retreats, struck my heart with terrors almost too exquisite for nature to bear. Driven by despair to madness, I burst suddenly from the nuns who held me: I threw myself upon my knees before the prioress, and besought her mercy in the most passionate and frantic terms.
“If not on me,” said I, “look at least with pity on that innocent being, whose life is attached to mine! Great is my crime, but let not my child suffer for it! My baby has committed no fault: oh! spare me for the sake of my unborn offspring, whom ere it tastes life your severity dooms to destruction!”
The prioress drew back haughtily: she forced her habit from my grasp, as if my touch had been contagious.
“What?” she exclaimed with an exasperated air; “What? Dare you plead for the produce of your shame? Shall a creature be permitted to live, conceived in guilt so monstrous? Abandoned woman, speak for him no more! Better that the wretch should perish than live: begotten in perjury, incontinence, and pollution, it cannot fail to prove a prodigy of vice. Hear me, thou guilty! Expect no mercy from me either for yourself, or brat. Rather pray that death may seize you before you produce it; or if it must see the light, that its eyes may immediately be closed again forever! No aid shall be given you in your labour; bring your offspring into the world yourself, feed it yourself, nurse it yourself, bury it yourself: god grant that the latter may happen soon, lest you receive comfort from the fruit of your iniquity!”
This inhuman speech, the threats which it contained, the dreadful sufferings foretold to me by the domina, and her prayers for my infant’s death, on whom though unborn I already doted, were more than my exhausted frame could support. Uttering a deep groan, I fell senseless at the feet of my unrelenting enemy. I know not how long I remained in this situation; but I imagine that some time must have elapsed before my recovery, since it sufficed the prioress and her nuns to quit the cavern. When my senses returned, I found myself in silence and solitude. I heard not even the retiring footsteps of my persecutors. All was hushed, and all was dreadful! I had been thrown upon the bed of straw: the heavy chain which I had already eyed with terror, was wound around my waist, and fastened me to the wall. A lamp glimmering with dull, melancholy rays through my dungeon, permitted my distinguishing all its horrors: it was separated from the cavern by a low and irregular wall of stone: a large chasm was left open in it which formed the entrance, for door there was none. A leaden crucifix was in front of my straw couch. A tattered rug lay near me, as did also a chaplet of beads; and not far from me stood a pitcher of water, and a wicker basket containing a small loaf, and a bottle of oil to supply my lamp.
With a despondent eye did I examine this scene of suffering: when I reflected that I was doomed to pass in it the remainder of my days, my heart was rent with bitter anguish. I had once been taught to look forward to a lot so different! At one time my prospects had appeared so bright, so flattering! Now all was lost to me. Friends, comfort, society, happiness, in one moment I was deprived of all! Dead to the world, dead to pleasure, I lived to nothing but the sense of misery. How fair did that world seem to me, from which I was forever excluded! How many loved objects did it contain, whom I never should behold again! As I threw a look of terror round my prison, as I shrunk from the cutting wind which howled through my subterraneous dwelling, the change seemed so striking, so abrupt, that I doubted its reality.
That the Duke de Medina’s niece, that the destined bride of the Marquis de las Cisternas, one bred up in affluence, related to the noblest families in Spain, and rich in a multitude of affectionate friends, that she should in one moment become a captive, separated from the world forever, weighed down with chains, and reduced to support life with the coarsest aliments, appeared a change so sudden and incredible, that I believed myself the sport of some frightful vision. Its continuance convinced me of my mistake with but too much certainty. Every morning my hopes were disappointed. At length I abandoned all idea of escaping: I resigned myself to my fate, and only expected liberty when she came the companion of death.
My mental anguish, and the dreadful scenes in which I had been an actress, advanced the period of my labour. In solitude and misery, abandoned by all, unassisted by art, uncomforted by friendship, with pangs which if witnessed would have touched the hardest heart, was I delivered of my
