Whether I was mad or not, they cared very little; to
enroll a son of the first house of Spain among their converts, or to
imprison him as a madman, or to exorcise him as a demoniac, was all the
same to them. There was a _coup de theatre_ to be exhibited, and
provided they played first parts, they cared little about the
catastrophe. Luckily, during all this uproar of imposture, fear,
falsehood, and misrepresentation, the Superior remained steady. He let
the tumult go on, to aggrandize his importance; but he was resolved all
the time that I should have sanity enough to enable me to take the vows. I knew nothing of all this, but was astonished at being summoned to the
parlour on the last eve of my noviciate. I had performed my religious
exercises with regularity, had received no rebukes from the master of
the novices, and was totally unprepared for the scene that awaited me. In the parlour were assembled my father, mother, the Director, and some
other persons whom I did not recognize. I advanced with a calm look, and
equal step. I believe I was as much in possession of my reason as any
one present. The Superior, taking my arm, led me round the room, saying,
“You see----” I interrupted him--“Sir, what is this intended for?” He
answered only by putting his finger on his lips, and then desired me to
exhibit my drawings. I brought them, and offered them on one knee, first
to my mother, and then to my father. They were sketches of monasteries
and prisons. My mother averted her eyes--and my father said, pushing
them away, “I have no taste in those things.” “But you are fond of music
doubtless,” said the Superior; “you must hear his performance.” There
was a small organ in the room adjacent to the parlour; my mother was not
admitted there, but my father followed to listen. Involuntarily I
selected an air from the “Sacrifice of Jephtha.” My father was affected,
and bid me cease. The Superior imagined this was not only a tribute to
my talent, but an acknowledgement of the power of his party, and he
applauded without measure or judgement. Till that moment, I had never
conceived I could be the object of a party in the convent. The Superior
was determined to make me a Jesuit, and therefore was pledged for my
_sanity_. The monks wished for an exorcism, an _auto de fe_, or some
such bagatelle, to diversify the dreariness of monasticism, and
therefore were anxious I should be, or appear, deranged or possessed. Their pious wishes, however, failed. I had appeared when summoned,
_behaved_ with scrupulous correctness, and the next day was appointed
for my taking the vows. “That next day--Oh! that I could describe it!--but it is impossible--the
profound stupefaction in which I was plunged prevented my noticing
things which would have inspired the most uninterested spectator. I was
so absorbed, that though I remember facts, I cannot paint the slightest
trace of the feelings which they excited. During the night I slept
profoundly, till I was awoke by a knock at my door.--“My dear child, how
are you employed?” I knew the voice of the Superior, and I replied, “My
father, I was sleeping.” “And I was macerating myself at the foot of the
altar for you, my child,--the scourge is red with my blood.” I returned
no answer, for I felt the maceration was better merited by the betrayer
than the betrayed. Yet I was mistaken; for in fact, the Superior felt
some compunction, and had undergone this penance on account of my
repugnance and alienation of mind, more than for his own offences. But
Oh! _how false is a treaty made with God, which we ratify with our own
blood_, when he has declared there is but one sacrifice he will accept,
even that of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world! Twice in
the night, I was thus disturbed, and twice answered in the same
language. The Superior, I make no doubt, was sincere. He thought he was
doing all for God, and his bleeding shoulders testified his zeal. But I
was in such a state of mental ossification, that I neither felt, heard,
or understood; and when he knocked a second and third time at the door
of my cell to announce the severity of his macerations, and the efficacy
of his intercessions with God, I answered, “Are not criminals allowed to
sleep the night before their execution?” At hearing these words, which
must have made him shudder, the Superior fell prostrate before the door
of my cell, and I turned to sleep again. But I could hear the voices of
the monks as they raised the Superior, and bore him to his cell. They
said, “He is incorrigible--you humiliate yourself in vain--when he is
_ours_, you shall see him a different being--he shall then prostrate
himself before you.” I heard this, and slept on. The morning came--I
knew what it would bring--I dramatized the whole scene in my own mind. I
imagined I witnessed the tears of my parents, the sympathy of the
congregation. I thought I saw the hands of the priests tremble as they
tossed the incense, and even the acolytes shiver as they held their
robes. Suddenly my mind changed: I felt--what was it I felt?--a union of
malignity, despair, and power, the most formidable. Lightning seemed
flashing from my eyes as I reflected,--I might make the sacrificers and
the sacrificed change places in one moment,--I might blast my mother as
she stood, by a word,--I might break my father’s heart, by a single
sentence,--I might scatter more desolation around me, than it was
apparently possible for human vice, human power, or human malignity,
more potent than both, to cause to its most abject victim.--Yes!--on
that morning I felt within myself the struggles of nature, feeling,
compunction, pride, malevolence, and despair.--The former I had brought
with me, the latter had been all acquired in the convent. I said to
those who attended me that morning, “You are arraying me for a victim,
but I can turn the executioners into the victims if I please”--and I
laughed. The laugh terrified those who were about me--they
retreated--they represented my state to the Superior. He came to my
apartment. The whole convent was by this time alarmed--their credit was
at stake--the preparations had all been made--the whole world was
determined I was to be a monk, mad or not. “The Superior was terrified, I saw, as he entered my apartment. “My son,
what means all this?” “Nothing, my father--nothing but a sudden thought
that has struck me.” “We will discuss it another time, my son; at
present--” “_At present_,” I repeated with a laugh that must have
lacerated the Superior’s ears--“At present I have but one alternative to
propose--let my father or my brother take my place--that is all. I will
never be a monk.” The Superior, at these words, ran in despair round the
cell.