my God strengthen me!” Then I dreaded to ask the protection
of God, doubting whether the cause in which I was engaged merited
his protection. My ideas, however, were all scattered by the sudden
entrance of the Superior and the four monks who had attended him on
the visit previous to the confession. At their entrance I rose,--no
one desired me to sit down. The Superior advanced with a look of fury,
and, dashing some papers on my table, said, “Is that your writing?” I
threw a hurried and terrified eye over the papers,--_they were a copy
of my memorial_. I had presence of mind enough to say, “That is not my
writing.” “Wretch! you equivocate, it is a copy of your writing.”--I
was silent.--“Here is a proof of it,” he added, throwing down another
paper. It was a copy of the memoir of the advocate, addressed to me,
and which, by the influence of a superior court, they had not the power
of withholding from me. I was expiring with anxiety to examine it, but
I did not dare to glance at it. The Superior unfolded page after page. He said, “Read, wretch! read,--look into it, examine it line by line.”
I approached trembling,--I glanced at it,--in the very first lines I
read _hope_. My courage revived.--I said, “My father, I acknowledge
this to be the copy of my memorial. I demand your permission to read
the answer of the advocate, you cannot refuse me this right.” “Read
it,” said the Superior, and he flung it towards me. “You may readily believe, Sir, that, under such circumstances, I could
not read with very steady eyes; and my penetration was not at all
quickened by the four monks disappearing from the cell, at a signal I
did not see. The Superior and I were now alone. He walked up and down my
cell, while I appeared to hang over the advocate’s memoir. Suddenly he
stopped;--he struck his hand with violence on the table,--the pages I
was trembling over quivered from the violence of the blow,--I started
from my chair. “Wretch,” said the Superior, “when have such papers as
those profaned the convent before? When, till your unhallowed entrance,
were we insulted with the memoirs of legal advocates? How comes it that
you have dared to----” “Do what, my father?” “Reclaim your vows, and
expose _us_ to all the scandal of a civil court and its proceedings.” “I
weighed it all against my own misery.” “Misery! is it thus you speak of
a conventual life, the only life that can promise tranquillity here, or
ensure salvation hereafter.” These words, uttered by a man convulsed by
the most frantic passion, were their own refutation. My courage rose in
proportion to his fury; and besides, I was driven to a point, and forced
to act on my defence. The sight of the papers added to my confidence. I
said, “My father, it is in vain to endeavour to diminish my repugnance
to the monastic life; the proof that that repugnance is invincible lies
before you. If I have been guilty of a step that violates the decorum of
a convent, I am sorry,--but I am not reprehensible. Those who forced me
into a convent, are guilty of the violence which is falsely ascribed to
me. I am determined, if it be possible, to change my situation. You see
the efforts I have already made, be assured they will never cease. Disappointment will only redouble their energy; and if it be in the
power of heaven or earth to procure the annulment of my vows, there is
no power in either I will not have recourse to.” I expected he would not
have heard me out, but he did. He even listened with calmness, and I
prepared myself to encounter and repel that alternation of reproach and
remonstrance, of solicitation and menace, which they so well know how to
employ in a convent. “Your repugnance to a conventual life is then
invincible?” “It is.” “But to what do you object?--not to your duties,
for you perform them with the most edifying punctuality,--not to the
treatment you receive, for it has been the most indulgent that our
discipline admits of,--not to the community itself, who are all disposed
to cherish and love you;--of what do you complain?” “Of the life
itself,--that comprehends every thing. I am not fit to be a monk.”
“Remember, I implore you, that though the forms of earthly courts must
be obeyed, from the necessity that makes us dependent on human
institutions, in all matters between man and man, they never can be
available in matters between God and man. Be assured, my deluded child,
that if all the courts on earth pronounced you absolved from your vows
this moment, your own conscience never can absolve you. All your
ignominious life, it will continue to reproach you with the violation of
a vow, whose breach man has connived at, but God has not. And, at your
last hour, how horrible will those reproaches be!” “Not so horrible as
at the hour I took that vow, or rather at the hour when it was
extorted.” “Extorted!” “Yes, my father, yes,--I take Heaven to witness
against you. On that disastrous morning, your anger, your remonstrances,
your pleadings, were as ineffectual as they are now, till you flung the
body of my mother before my feet.” “And do you reproach me with my zeal
in the cause of your salvation?” “I do not wish to reproach you. You
know the step I have taken, you must be aware I will pursue it with all
the powers of nature,--that I will never rest till my vows are annulled,
while a hope of it remains,--and that a soul, determined as mine, can
convert despair itself into hope. Surrounded, suspected, watched as I
have been, I yet found the means of conveying my papers to the hands of
the advocate. Calculate the strength of that resolution which could
effectuate such a measure in the very heart of a convent. Judge of the
futility of all future opposition, when you failed in defeating, or even
detecting, the first steps of my design.” At these words the Superior
was silent. I believed I had made an impression on him. I added, “If you
wish to spare the community the disgrace of my prosecuting my appeal
within its walls, the alternative is easy. Let the door be left
unguarded some day, connive at my escape, and my presence shall never
molest or dishonour you another hour.” “How! would you make me not only
a witness, but an accomplice in your crime? Apostate from God, and
plunged in perdition as you are, do you repay the hand stretched out to
save you, by seizing it, that you may drag me into the infernal gulph
along with you?” and he walked up and down the cell in the most violent
agitation. This unlucky proposal operated on his master-passion, (for he
was exemplarily rigid in discipline), and produced only convulsions of
hostility. I stood waiting till this fresh burst had subsided, while he
continued to exclaim incessantly, “My God, for what offence am I thus
humiliated?--for what inconceivable crime is this disgrace precipitated
on the whole convent? What will become of our character?