“The day that followed I have no more power of describing, than of
analysing a dream to its component parts of sanity, delirium, defeated
memory, and triumphant imagination. The sultan in the eastern tale, who
plunged his head in a bason of water, and, before he raised it again,
passed through adventures the most vicissitudinous and incredible--was a
monarch, a slave, a husband, a widower, a father, childless,--in five
minutes, never underwent the changes of _mind_ that I did during that
memorable day. I was a prisoner,--free,--a happy being, surrounded by
smiling infants,--a victim of the Inquisition, writhing amid flames and
execrations. I was a maniac, oscillating between hope and despair. I
seemed to myself all that day to be pulling the rope of a bell, whose
alternate knell was _heaven_--_hell_, and this rung in my ears with all
the dreary and ceaseless monotony of the bell of the convent. Night came
at last. I might almost say _day came_, for that day had been my night. Every thing was propitious to me,--the convent was all hushed. I put my
head several times out of my cell, to be assured of this,--_all was
hushed_. There was not a step in the corridor,--not a voice, not a
whisper to be heard under a roof containing so many souls. I stole from
my cell, I descended to the church. This was not unusual for those whose
consciences or nerves were disturbed, during the sleepless gloom of a
conventual night. As I advanced to the door of the church, where the
lamps were always kept burning, I heard a human voice. I retreated in
terror;--then I ventured to give a glance. An old monk was at prayers
before one of the images of the saints, and the object of his prayers
was to be relieved, not from the anguish of conscience, or the
annihilation of monasticism, but from the pains of a toothache, for
which he had been desired to apply his gums to the image of a saint
quite notorious for her efficacy in such cases(5). The poor, old,
tortured wretch, prayed with all the fervency of agony, and then rubbed
his gums over and over again on the cold marble, which increased his
complaint, his suffering, and his devotion. I watched, listened,--there
was something at once ludicrous and frightful in my situation. I felt
inclined to laugh at my own distress, while it was rising almost to
agony every moment. I dreaded, too, the approach of another intruder,
and feeling my fear about to be realized by the approach of some one, I
turned round, and, to my inexpressible relief, saw my companion. I made
him comprehend, by a sign, how I was prevented from entering the church;
he answered me in the same way, and retreated a few steps, but not
without shewing me a bunch of huge keys under his habit. This revived my
spirits, and I waited for another half-hour in a state of mental
excruciation, which, were it inflicted on the bitterest enemy I have on
earth, I think I would have cried, “Hold,--hold, spare him.” The clock
struck two,--I writhed and stamped with my feet, as loud as I dared, on
the floor of the passage. I was not at all tranquillized by the visible
impatience of my companion, who started, from time to time, from his
hiding-place behind a pillar of the cloister, flung on me a
glance----no, a glare--of wild and restless inquiry, (which I answered
with one of despondency), and retired, grinding curses between his
teeth, whose horrible grating I could hear distinctly in the intervals
of my long-withheld breath. At last I took a desperate step. I walked
into the church, and, going straight up to the altar, prostrated myself
on the steps. The old monk observed me. He believed that I had come
there with the same purpose, if not with the same feelings, as himself;
and he approached me, to announce his intention of joining in my
aspirations, and intreating an interest in them, _as the pain had now
reached from the lower jaw to the upper_. There is something that one
can hardly describe in this union of the lowest with the highest
interests of life. I was a prisoner, panting for emancipation, and
staking my existence on the step I was compelled to take,--my whole
interest for time, and perhaps for eternity, hung on a moment; and
beside me knelt a being whose destiny was decided already, who could be
nothing but a monk for the few years of his worthless existence, and who
was supplicating a short remission from a temporary pain, that I would
have endured my whole life for an hour’s liberty. As he drew near me,
and supplicated an interest in my prayers, I shrunk away. I felt a
difference in the object of our addresses to God, that I dared not
search my heart for the motive of. I knew not, at the moment, which of
us was right,--he, whose prayer did no dishonour to the place,--or I,
who was to struggle against a disorganized and unnatural state of life,
whose vows I was about to violate. I knelt with him, however, and prayed
for the removal of his pain with a sincerity that cannot be questioned,
as the success of my petitions might be the means of procuring his
absence. As I knelt, I trembled at my own hypocrisy. I was profaning the
altar of God,--I was mocking the sufferings of the being I supplicated
for,--I was the worst of all hypocrites, a hypocrite on my knees, and at
the altar. Yet, was I not compelled to be so? If I _was_ a hypocrite,
who had made me one? If I profaned the altar, who had dragged me there,
to insult it by vows my soul belied and reversed faster than my lips
could utter them? But this was no time for self-examination. I knelt,
prayed, and trembled, till the poor sufferer, weary of his ineffectual
and unanswered supplications, rose, and began to crawl away. For a few
minutes I shivered in horrible anxiety, lest some other intruder might
approach, but the quick decisive step that trod the aisle restored my
confidence in a moment,--it was my companion. He stood beside me. He
uttered a few curses, which sounded very shocking in my ears, more from
the force of habit, and influence of the place, than from the meaning
attached to them, and then hurried on _to the door_. A large bunch of
keys was in his hand, and I followed instinctively this pledge of my
liberation. (5) Vide Moore’s View of France and Italy. “The door was very low--we descended to it by four steps. He applied his
key, muffling it in the sleeve of his habit to suppress the sound. At
every application he recoiled, gnashed his teeth, stamped--then applied
both hands. The lock did not give way--I clasped my hands in agony--I
tossed them over my head. “Fetch a light,” he said in a whisper; “take a
lamp from before one of those figures.” The levity with which he spoke
of the holy images appalled me, and the act appeared to me nothing short
of sacrilege; yet I went and took a lamp, which, with a shuddering hand,
I held to him as he again tried the key. During this second attempt, we
communicated in whispers those fears that left us scarce breath even for
whispers.