I tried to swallow it, but could not, and hurried away, as
the bell tolled, to attend vespers; for I wished to have no cause of
complaint against my neglect of duties. I hastened down. The door was
again shut; service began; and again I was compelled to retire without
partaking of it. The next day I was excluded from matins; the same
degrading scene was acted over when I appeared at the door of the
refectory. Food was sent to my cell, that a dog would have rejected; and
the door was shut when I attempted to enter the church. A thousand
circumstances of persecution, too contemptible, too minute, either for
recollection or repetition, but infinitely harassing to the sufferer,
were heaped on me every day. Imagine, Sir, a community of upwards of
sixty persons, all sworn to each other to make the life of one
individual insupportable; joined in a common resolution to insult,
harass, torment, and persecute him; and then imagine how that individual
can support such a life. I began to dread the preservation of my
reason--of my existence, which, miserable as it was, still fed on the
hope of my appeal. I will sketch one day of my life for you. _Ex uno
disce omnes._ I went down to matins, and knelt at the door; I did not
dare to enter. When I retired to my cell, I found the crucifix taken
away. I was about to go to the Superior’s apartment to complain of this
outrage; in the passage I happened to meet a monk and two boarders. They
all shrunk close to the walls; they drew in their garments, as if
trembling to encounter the pollution of my touch. I said mildly, “There
is no danger; the passage is wide enough.” The monk replied, “Apage
Satana. My children,” addressing the boarders, “repeat with me, apage
Satana; avoid the approach of that demon, who insults the habit he
desecrates.” They did so; and to render the exorcism complete, they spit
in my face as they passed. I wiped it off, and thought how little of the
spirit of Jesus was to be found in the house of his nominal brethren. I
proceeded to the apartment of the Superior, and knocked timidly at the
door. I heard the words, “Enter in peace;” and I prayed that it might be
in peace. As I opened the door, I saw several monks assembled with the
Superior. The latter uttered an exclamation of horror when he saw me,
and threw his robe over his eyes; the monks understood the signal; the
door was closed, and I was excluded. That day I waited several hours in
my cell before any food was brought me. There is no state of feeling
that exempts us from the wants of nature. I had no food for many days
requisite for the claims of adolescence, which were then rapidly
manifesting themselves in my tall, but attenuated frame. I descended to
the kitchen to ask for my share of food. The cook crossed himself as I
appeared at the door; for even at the door of the kitchen I faultered at
the threshold. He had been taught to consider me as a demon incarnate,
and shuddered, while he asked, “What do you want?”--“Food,” I replied;
“food;--that is all.”--“Well, you shall have it--but come no
further--there is food.” And he flung me the offal of the kitchen on the
earth; and I was so hungry, that I devoured it eagerly. The next day I
was not so lucky; the cook had learned the secret of the convent, (that
of tormenting those whom they no longer have hopes of commanding), and
mixed the fragments he threw to me, with ashes, hair, and dust. I could
hardly pick out a morsel that, famished as I was, was eatable. They
allowed me no water in my cell; I was not permitted to partake of it at
refection; and, in the agonies of thirst, aggravated by my constant
solicitude of mind, I was compelled to kneel at the brink of the well,
(as I had no vessel to drink out of), and take up the water in my hand,
or lap it like a dog. If I descended to the garden for a moment, they
took the advantage of my absence to enter my cell, and remove or destroy
every article of furniture. I have told you that they took away my
crucifix. I had still continued to kneel and repeat my prayers before
the table on which it stood. That was taken away,--table, chair, missal,
rosary, every thing, disappeared gradually; and my cell presented
nothing but four bare walls, with a bed, on which they had rendered it
impossible for me to taste repose. Perhaps they dreaded I might,
however, and they hit on an expedient, which, if it had succeeded, might
have deprived me of reason as well as repose. “I awoke one night, and saw my cell in flames; I started up in horror,
but shrunk back on perceiving myself surrounded by demons, who, clothed
in fire, were breathing forth clouds of it around me. Desperate with
horror, I rushed against the wall, and found what I touched was cold. My
recollection returned, and I comprehended, that these were hideous
figures scrawled in phosphorus, to terrify me. I then returned to my
bed, and as the day-light approached, observed these figures gradually
decline. In the morning, I took a desperate resolution of forcing my way
to the Superior, and speaking to him. I felt my reason might be
destroyed amid the horrors they were surrounding me with. “It was noon before I could work myself up to execute this resolution. I
knocked at his cell, and when the door was opened, he exhibited the same
horror as at my former intrusion, but I was not to be repelled. “My
father, I require you to hear me, nor will I quit this spot till you do
so.”--“Speak.”--“They famish me,--I am not allowed food to support
nature.”--“Do you deserve it?”--“Whether I do or not, neither the laws
of God or man have yet condemned me to die of hunger; and if _you_ do,
you commit murder.”--“Have you any thing else to complain of?”--“Every
thing; I am not allowed to enter the church,--I am forbid to pray,--they
have stripped my cell of crucifix, rosary, and the vessel for holy
water. It is impossible for me to perform my devotions even
alone.”--“_Your_ devotions!”--“My father, though I am not a monk, may I
not still be a Christian?”--“In renouncing your vows, you have abjured
your claim to either character.”--“But I am still a human being, and as
such--But I appeal not to your humanity, I call on your authority for
protection. Last night, my cell was covered with representations of
fiends. I awoke in the midst of flames and spectres.”--“So you will at
the last day!”--“My punishment will then be enough, it need not commence
already.”--“These are the phantoms of your conscience.”--“My father, if
you will deign to examine my cell, you will find the traces of
phosphorus on the walls.”--“_I_ examine your cell? _I_ enter it?”--“Am I
then to expect no redress? Interpose your authority for the sake of the
house over which you preside.