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

power,—it begun by violating nature, and ends in filicide. Strike! give a glorious triumph to the influence of the church, and add to the merits of the holy Director. You have sacrificed your Esau, your first-born, already, let Jacob be your next victim.” My father retreated from me, and, revolted by the disfigurement which the violence of my agitation had caused, almost to convulsion, he exclaimed, “Demon!” and stood at a distance viewing, and shuddering at me. “And who has made me so? He who fostered my evil passions for his own purposes; and, because one generous impulse breaks out on the side of nature, would represent or drive me mad, to effectuate his purposes. My father, I see the whole power and system of nature reversed, by the arts of a corrupt ecclesiastic. By his means my brother has been imprisoned for life;—by his means our birth has been made a curse to my mother and to you. What have we had in the family since his influence was fatally established in it, but dissension and misery? Your sword was pointed against my heart this moment; was it nature or a monk that armed a parent against his child, whose crime was—interceding for his brother? Dismiss this man, whose presence eclipses our hearts, and let us confer together for a moment as father and son, and if I do not humiliate myself before you, spurn me for ever. My father, for God’s sake examine the difference between this man and me, as we stand before you. We are together at the bar of your heart, judge between us. A dry and featureless image of selfish power, consecrated by the name of the church, occupies his whole soul,—I plead to you by the interests of nature, that must be sincere, because they are contrary to my own. He only wishes to wither your soul,—I seek to touch it. Is his heart in what he says? does he shed a tear? does he employ one impassioned expression? he calls on God,—while I call only on you. The very violence which you justly condemn, is not only my vindication but my eulogy. They who prefer their cause to themselves, need no proof of their advocacy being sincere.” “You aggravate your crime, by laying it on another; you have always been violent, obstinate, and rebellious.” “But who has made me so? Ask himself,—ask this shameful scene, in which his duplicity has driven me to act such a part.” “If you wish to show submission, give me the first proof of it, by promising never to torture me by renewing the mention of this subject. Your brother’s fate is decided,—promise not to utter his name again, and——” “Never,—never,” I exclaimed, “never will I violate my conscience by such a vow; and his who could propose it must be seared beyond the power of Heaven to touch it.” Yet, in uttering these words, I knelt to my father, but he turned from me. I turned in despair to the Director. I said, “If you are the minister of Heaven, prove the truth of your commission,—make peace in a distracted family, reconcile my father to both his children. You can effect this by a word, you know you can, yet you will not utter it. My unfortunate brother was not so inflexible to your appeals, and yet were they inspired by a feeling as justifiable as mine.” I had offended the Director beyond all forgiveness. I knew this, and spoke indeed rather to expose than to persuade him. I did not expect an answer from him, and I was not disappointed,—he did not utter a word. I knelt in the middle of the floor between them. I cried, “Deserted by my father and by you, I yet appeal to Heaven. I call on it to witness my vow never to abandon my persecuted brother, whom I have been made a tool to betray. I know you have power,—I defy it. I know every art of circumvention, of imposture, of malignant industry,—every resource of earth and hell, will be set at work against me. I take Heaven to witness against you, and demand only its aid to insure my victory.” My father had lost all patience; he desired the attendants to raise and remove me by force. This mention of force, so repugnant to my habits of imperious indulgence, operated fatally on intellects scarcely recovering from delirium, and too strongly tried in the late struggle. I relapsed into partial insanity. I said wildly, “My father, you know not how mild, generous, and forgiving is the being you thus persecute,—I owe my life to him. Ask your domestics if he did not attend me, step by step, during my journey? If he did not administer my food, my medicines, and smoothe the pillows on which I was supported?” “You rave,” cried my father, as he heard this wild speech, but he cast a look of fearful inquiry on the attendants. The trembling servants swore, one and all, as well they might, that not a human being but themselves had been suffered to approach me since I quitted the convent, till my arrival at Madrid. The small remains of reason forsook me completely at this declaration, which was however true every word of it. I gave the lie to the last speaker with the utmost fury,—I struck those who were next me. My father, astonished at my violence, suddenly exclaimed, “He is mad.” The Director, who had till then been silent, instantly caught the word, and repeated, “He is mad.” The servants, half in terror, half in conviction, re-echoed the cry.

“I was seized, dragged away; and this violence, which always excited corresponding violence in me, realized all my father feared, and the Director wished for. I behaved just as a boy, scarce out of a fever, and still totally delirious, might be supposed to behave. In my apartment I tore down the hangings, and there was not a porcelain vase in the room that I did not dash at their heads. When they seized me, I bit their hands; when at length they were compelled to bind me, I gnawed the strings, and finally snapt them by a violent effort. In fact, I completely realized all the hopes of the Director. I was confined to my apartment for several days. During this time, I recovered the only powers that usually revive in a state of isolation,—those of inflexible resolution and profound dissimulation. I had soon exercise enough for both of them. On the twelfth day of my confinement, a servant appeared at the door of my apartment, and, bowing profoundly, announced, that if my health was recovered, my father wished to see me. I bowed in complete imitation of his mechanical movements, and followed him with the steps of a statue. I found my father, armed with the Director at his side. He advanced, and addressed me with an abruptness which proved that he forced himself to speak. He hurried over a few expressions of pleasure at my recovery, and then said, “Have you reflected on the subject of our last conversation?” “I have reflected on it.”—“I had time to do so.”—“And you have employed that time well?”—“I hope so.”—“Then the result will be favourable to the hopes of your family, and the interests of the church.” The last words chilled me a little, but I answered as I ought. In a few moments after the Director joined me, He spoke amicably, and turned the conversation on neutral topics. I answered him,—what an effort did it cost me!—yet I answered him in all the bitterness of extorted politeness. All went on well, however. The family appeared gratified by my renovation. My father, harassed out, was content to procure peace on any terms. My mother, still weaker, from the struggles between her conscience and the suggestions of the Director, wept, and said she was happy. A month has now elapsed in profound but treacherous peace on all sides. They think me subdued, but * * * * *

“In fact, the efforts of the Director’s power in the family would alone be sufficient to precipitate my determinations. He has placed you in a convent, but that is not enough for the persevering proselytism of the church. The palace of the Duke de Monçada is, under his influence, turned into a convent itself. My mother is almost a nun, her whole life is exhausted in imploring forgiveness for a crime for which the Director, to secure his own influence, orders her a new penance every hour. My father rushes from libertinism to austerity,—he vacillates between this world and the next;—in the bitterness of exasperated feeling, sometimes reproaches my mother, and then joins her in the severest penance. Must there not be something very wrong in the religion which thus substitutes external severities for internal amendment? I feel I am of an inquiring spirit, and if I could obtain a book they call the Bible, (which, though they say it contains the words of Jesus Christ, they never permit us to see) I think——but no matter. The very domestics have assumed the in ordine ad spiritualia character already. They converse in whispers—they cross themselves when the clock strikes—they dare to talk, even in my hearing, of the glory which will redound to God and the church, by the sacrifice my father may yet be induced to make of his family to its interests.