“I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that
impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am. “Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies cloudless. It
surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the
most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a
thousand scents of delight and a thousand sights of beauty. “It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from
labour—the old man played on his guitar, and the children listened to him—that
I observed the countenance of Felix was melancholy beyond expression; he sighed
frequently, and once his father paused in his music, and I conjectured by his
manner that he inquired the cause of his son’s sorrow. Felix replied in a
cheerful accent, and the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped
at the door. “It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a country-man as a guide. The lady
was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black veil. Agatha asked a
question, to which the stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent,
the name of Felix. Her voice was musical but unlike that of either of my
friends. On hearing this word, Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she
saw him, threw up her veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and
expression. Her hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes
were dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular proportion,
and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink. “Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of sorrow
vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of
which I could hardly have believed it capable; his eyes sparkled, as his cheek
flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I thought him as beautiful as the
stranger. She appeared affected by different feelings; wiping a few tears from
her lovely eyes, she held out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously and
called her, as well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not
appear to understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to dismount, and
dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage. Some conversation took
place between him and his father, and the young stranger knelt at the old man’s
feet and would have kissed his hand, but he raised her and embraced her
affectionately. “I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds and
appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither understood by nor
herself understood the cottagers. They made many signs which I did not
comprehend, but I saw that her presence diffused gladness through the cottage,
dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the morning mists. Felix seemed
peculiarly happy and with smiles of delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the
ever-gentle Agatha, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to
her brother, made signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful
until she came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances,
expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by
the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them,
that she was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea instantly
occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the same end.
The stranger learned about twenty words at the first lesson; most of them,
indeed, were those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others. “As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they separated
Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, ‘Good night sweet Safie.’ He
sat up much longer, conversing with his father, and by the frequent repetition
of her name I conjectured that their lovely guest was the subject of their
conversation. I ardently desired to understand them, and bent every faculty
towards that purpose, but found it utterly impossible. “The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual occupations
of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old man, and taking
his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew
tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a
rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightingale of the woods. “When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first declined
it. She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but
unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old man appeared enraptured and
said some words which Agatha endeavoured to explain to Safie, and by which he
appeared to wish to express that she bestowed on him the greatest delight by
her music. “The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration that joy
had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. Safie was always
gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language, so that
in two months I began to comprehend most of the words uttered by my protectors. “In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and the green
banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes,
stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun became warmer, the
nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to
me, although they were considerably shortened by the late setting and early
rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of
meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village
which I entered. “My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily master the
language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who
understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended
and could imitate almost every word that was spoken. “While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was
taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and
delight. “The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney’s Ruins of
Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not
Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen this work,
he said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern
authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view
of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight
into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the
earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental
activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early
Romans—of their subsequent degenerating—of the decline of that mighty empire,
of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery of the American
hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of its original
inhabitants. “These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was man, indeed,
at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? He
appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all
that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous man
appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and
vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a
condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long
time I could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or
even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and
bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing. “Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I
listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange
system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of
property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble
blood. “The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions
most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united
with riches. A man might be respected with only one of these advantages, but
without either he was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond
and a slave, doomed to waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And
what was I? Of my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew
that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides,
endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the
same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser
diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my
stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like
me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all men fled and
whom all men disowned? “I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I
tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had
for ever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations
of hunger, thirst, and heat! “Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once
seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all
thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the
sensation of pain, and that was death—a state which I feared yet did not
understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and
amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with
them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and
unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming
one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the animated smiles of the
charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old man and the
lively conversation of the loved Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy
wretch! “Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the
difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the father doted
on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child, how all
the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge, how
the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge, of brother, sister, and all
the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual
bonds. “But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my infant days,
no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past
life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my
earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had
never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me.
What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans. “I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to return
to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of
indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love
and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half-painful
self-deceit, to call them).”