Charles Maturin - Melmoth the Wanderer (Charles Robert Maturin) - the complete collection, comprehensive, unabridged and illustrated - (Literary Thoughts Edition)

“(After these lines several were unintelligible to me, apparently from the agitation under which they were written;—the precipitancy and fiery ardor of my brother’s character communicated itself to his writings. After many a defaced page I could trace the following words.) * * * * * *

“It was singular enough that you, who were the object of my inveterate hatred before my residence in the convent, became the object of my interest from that moment. I had adopted your cause from pride, I now upheld it from experience. Compassion, instinct, whatever it was, began to assume the character of a duty. When I saw the indignity with which the lower classes were treated, I said to myself, “No, he shall never suffer that,—he is my brother.” When I succeeded in my exercises, and was applauded, I said, “This is applause in which he never can share.” When I was punished, and that was much more frequently, I said, “He shall never feel this mortification.” My imagination expanded. I believed myself your future patron, I conceived myself redeeming the injustice of nature, aiding and aggrandizing you, forcing you to confess that you owed more to me than to your parents, and throwing myself, with a disarmed and naked heart, on your gratitude alone for affection. I heard you call me brother,—I bid you stop, and call me benefactor. My nature, proud, generous, and fiery, had not yet quite emancipated itself from the influence of the Director, but every effort it made pointed, by an indescribable impulse, towards you. Perhaps the secret of this is to be found in the elements of my character, which always struggled against dictation, and loved to teach itself all it wished to know, and inspire itself with the object of its own attachments. It is certain that I wished for your friendship, at the moment I was instructed to hate you. Your mild eyes and affectionate looks haunted me perpetually in the convent. To the professions of friendship repeatedly made me by the boarders, I answered, “I want a brother.” My conduct was eccentric and violent,—no wonder, for my conscience had begun to operate against my habits. Sometimes I would apply with an eagerness that made them tremble for my health; at others, no punishment, however severe, could make me submit to the ordinary discipline of the house. The community grew weary of my obstinacy, violence, and irregularities. They wrote to the Director to have me removed, but before this could be accomplished I was seized with a fever. They paid me unremitting attention, but there was something on my mind no cares of theirs could remove. When they brought me medicine with the most scrupulous punctuality, I said, “Let my brother fetch it, and if it be poison I will drink it from his hand; I have injured him much.” When the bell tolled for matins and vespers, I said, “Are they going to make my brother a monk? The Director promised me differently, but you are all deceivers.” At length they muffled the bell. I heard its stifled sound, and I exclaimed, “You are tolling for his funeral, but I,—I am his murderer!” The community became terrified at these exclamations so often repeated, and with the meaning of which they could not accuse themselves. I was removed in a state of delirium to my father’s palace in Madrid. A figure like yours sat beside me in the carriage, alighted when we stopped, accompanied me where I remained, assisted me when I was placed again in the carriage. So vivid was the impression, that I was accustomed to say to the attendants, “Stop, my brother is assisting me.” When they asked me in the morning how I had rested? I answered, “Very well,—Alonzo has been all night at my bed-side.” I invited this visionary companion to continue his attentions; and when the pillows were arranged to my satisfaction, I would say, “How kind my brother is,—how useful,—but why will he not speak?” At one stage I absolutely refused nourishment, because the phantom appeared to decline it. I said, “Do not urge me, my brother, you see, will not accept of it. Oh, I entreat his pardon, it is a day of abstinence,—that is his reason, you see how he points to his habit,—that is enough.” It is very singular that the food at this house happened to be poisoned, and that two of my attendants died of partaking of it before they could reach Madrid. I mention these circumstances, merely to prove the rivetted hold you had taken both of my imagination and my affections. On the recovery of my intellect, my first inquiry was for you. This had been foreseen, and my father and mother, shunning the discussion, and even trembling for the event, as they knew the violence of my temper, intrusted the whole business to the Director. He undertook it,—how he executed it is yet to be seen. On our first meeting he approached me with congratulations on my convalescence, with regrets for the constraints I must have suffered in the convent, with assurances that my parents would make my home a paradise. When he had gone on for some time, I said, “What have you done with my brother?” “He is in the bosom of God,” said the Director, crossing himself. I understood him in a moment,—I rushed past him before he had finished. “Where are you going, my son?” “To my parents.” “Your parents,—it is impossible that you can see them now.” “But it is certain that I will see them. Dictate to me no longer,—degrade yourself not by this prostituted humiliation,” for he was putting himself in a posture of intreaty,—“I will see my parents. Procure for me an introduction to them this moment, or tremble for the continuance of your influence in the family.” At these words he trembled. He did not indeed dread my influence, but he dreaded my passions. His own lessons were bitterly retaliated on him that moment. He had made me fierce and impetuous, because that suited his purpose, but he had neither calculated on, or prepared himself for, this extraordinary direction which my feelings had taken, so opposite to that which he had laboured to give them. He thought, in exciting my passions, he could ascertain their direction. Woe be to those, who, in teaching the elephant to direct his trunk against their foes, forget that by a sudden convolution of that trunk, he may rend the driver from his back, and trample him under his feet into the mire. Such was the Director’s situation and mine, I insisted on going instantly to my father’s presence. He interposed, he supplicated; at last, as a hopeless resource, he reminded me of his continual indulgence, his flattery of my passions. My answer was brief, but Oh that it might sink into the souls of such tutors and such priests! “And that has made me what I am. Lead the way to my father’s apartment, or I will spurn you before me to the door of it.” At this threat, which he saw I was able to execute, (for you know my frame is athletic, and my stature twice that of his), he trembled; and I confess this indication of both physical and mental debility completed my contempt for him. He crawled before me to the apartment where my father and mother were seated, in a balcony that overlooked the garden. They had imagined all was settled, and were astonished to see me rush in, followed by the Director, with an aspect that left them no reason to hope for an auspicious result of our conference. The Director gave them a sign which I did not observe, and which they had not time to profit by,—and as I stood before them livid from my fever, on fire with passion, and trembling with inarticulate expressions, they shuddered. Some looks of reproach were levelled by them at the Director, which he returned, as usual, by signs. I did not understand them, but I made them understand me in a moment. I said to my father, “Senhor, is it true you have made my brother a monk?” My father hesitated; at last he said, “I thought the Director had been commissioned to speak to you on that subject.” “Father, what has a Director to do in the concerns of a parent and child? That man never can be a parent,—never can have a child, how then can he be a judge in a case like this?” “You forget yourself,—you forget the respect due to a minister of the church.” “My father, I am but just raised from a death-bed, my mother and you trembled for my life,—that life still depends on your words. I promised submission to this wretch, on a condition which he has violated, which—” “Command yourself, Sir,” said my father, in a tone of authority which ill suited the trembling lips it issued from, “or quit the apartment.” “Senhor,” interposed the Director, in a softened tone, “let not me be the cause of dissension in a family whose happiness and honour have been always my object, next to the interests of the church. Let him go on, the remembrance of my crucified Master will sustain me under his insults,” and he crossed himself. “Wretch!” I cried, grasping his habit, “you are a hypocrite, a deceiver!” and I know not of what violence I might have been guilty, but my father interposed. My mother shrieked with terror, and a scene of confusion followed, in which I recollect nothing but the hypocritical exclamations of the Director, appearing to struggle between my father and me, while he mediated with God for both. He repeated incessantly, “Senhor, do not interpose, every indignity I suffer I make a sacrifice to Heaven; it will qualify me to be an intercessor for my traducer with God;” and, crossing himself, he called on the most sacred names, and exclaimed, “Let insults, calumnies, and blows, be added to that preponderance of merit which is already weighed in the scales of heaven against my offences,” and he dared to mix the claims of the intercession of the saints, the purity of the immaculate Virgin, and even the blood and agony of Jesus Christ, with the vile submissions of his own hypocrisy. The room was by this time filled with attendants. My mother was conveyed away, still shrieking with terror. My father, who loved her, was driven by this spectacle, and by my outrageous conduct, to a pitch of fury,—he drew his sword. I burst into a laugh, that froze his blood as he approached me. I expanded my arms, and presented my breast, exclaiming, “Strike!—this is the consummation of monastic