The bell for vespers would ring, I would hear the
steps of those who were hastening to join in the service of God, and
tedious as that service had once appeared to me, I would now have given
worlds to be permitted to join in it, as a defence against that
_horrible midnight mass of Satan_(2), that I was awaiting to be summoned
to. I knelt however in my cell, and repeated what prayers I could
recollect, while every toll of the bell struck on my heart, and the
chaunt of the choir from below sounded like a repulsive echo to an
answer which my fears already anticipated from heaven. (1) Vide Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History for the truth of this part
  of the narrative. I have suppressed circumstances in the original too
  horrible for modern ears. (2) This expression is not exaggerated. In the dreams of sorcery, or
  of imposture, the evil spirit was supposed to perform a mass in
  derision; and in Beaumont and Fletcher there is mention of “_howling a
  black Santis_,” _i. e._ Satan’s mass. “One evening that I still continued to pray, and audibly, as the monks
passed my cell they said, “Do _you_ presume to pray? Die, desperate
wretch,--die and be damned. Precipitate yourself into the infernal gulph
at once, no longer desecrate these walls by your presence.” At these
words I only redoubled my prayers; but this gave greater offence, for
churchmen cannot bear to hear prayers uttered in a form different from
their own. The cry of a solitary individual to God, sounds like
profanation in their ears. They ask, Why do they not employ our form? How dare they hope to be heard? Alas! is it forms then that God regards? or is it not rather the prayer of the heart which alone reaches him, and
prospers in its petition? As they called out, passing my cell, “Perish,
impious wretch, perish,--God will not hear you,” I answered them on my
knees with blessings,--which of us had the spirit of prayer? That night
was one of trial I could no longer support. My frame was exhausted, my
mind excited, and, owing to our frail nature, this battle of the senses
and soul is never long carried on without the worst side remaining
conqueror. I was no sooner laid down than the voice began to whisper. I
began to pray, but my head swam round, my eyes flashed fire,--fire
almost tangible, my cell appeared in flames. Recollect my frame worn out
with famine, my mind worn out with persecution. I struggled with what I
was conscious was delirium,--but this consciousness aggravated its
horror. It is better to be mad at once, than to believe that all the
world is sworn to think and _make_ you be so, in spite of your own
consciousness of your sanity. The whispers this night were so horrible,
so full of ineffable abominations, of--I cannot think of them,--that
they _maddened my very ear_. My senses seemed deranged along with my
intellect. I will give you an instance, it is but a slight one, of the
horrors which----” Here the Spaniard whispered Melmoth(3). The hearer
shuddered, and the Spaniard went on in an agitated tone. (3) We do not venture to guess at the _horrors_ of this whisper, but
  every one conversant with ecclesiastical history knows, that _Tetzel_
  offered indulgences in Germany, even on the condition that the sinner
  had been guilty of the _impossible_ crime of violating the mother of
  God. “I could bear it no longer. I sprung from my bed, I ran through the
gallery like a maniac, knocking at the doors of the cells, and
exclaiming, “Brother such a one, pray for me,--pray for me, I beseech
you.” I roused the whole convent. Then I flew down to the church; it was
open, and I rushed in. I ran up the aisle, I precipitated myself before
the altar, I embraced the images, I clung to the crucifix with loud and
reiterated supplications. The monks, awakened by my outcries, or perhaps
on the watch for them, descended in a body to the church, but,
perceiving I was there, they would not enter,--they remained at the
doors, with lights in their hands, gazing on me. It was a singular
contrast between me, hurrying round the church almost in the dark, (for
there were but a few lamps burning dimly), and the groupe at the door,
whose expression of horror was strongly marked by the light, which
appeared to have deserted me to concentrate itself among them. The most
impartial person on earth might have supposed me deranged, or possessed,
or both, from the state in which they saw me. Heaven knows, too, what
construction might have been put on my wild actions, which the
surrounding darkness exaggerated and distorted, or on the prayers which
I uttered, as I included in them the horrors of the temptation against
which I implored protection. Exhausted at length, I fell to the ground,
and remained there, without the power of moving, but able to hear and
observe every thing that passed. I heard them debate whether they should
leave me there or not, till the Superior commanded them to remove that
abomination from the sanctuary; and such was the terror of me into which
they had _acted_ themselves, that he had to repeat his orders before he
could procure obedience to them. They approached me at last, with the
same caution that they would an infected corse, and dragged me out by
the habit, leaving me on the paved floor before the door of the church. They then retired, and in this state I actually fell asleep, and
continued so till I was awoke by the bell for matins. I recollected
myself, and attempted to rise; but my having slept on a damp floor, when
in a fever from terror and excitement, had so cramped my limbs, that I
could not accomplish this without the most exquisite pain. As the
community passed in to matins, I could not suppress a few cries of pain. They must have seen what was the matter, but not one of them offered me
assistance, nor did I dare to implore it. By slow and painful efforts, I
at last reached my cell; but, shuddering at the sight of the bed, I
threw myself on the floor for repose. “I was aware that some notice must be taken of a circumstance so
extraordinary--that such a subversion of the order and tranquillity of a
convent, would force an inquiry, even if the object was less remarkable. But I had a sad foreboding, (for suffering makes us full of presages),
that this inquiry, however conducted, would terminate unfavourably to
me. I was the Jonah of the vessel--let the storm blow from what point it
would, I felt the lot was to fall on me. About noon, I was summoned to
the apartment of the Superior. I went, but not as at former times, with
a mixture of supplication and remonstrance on my lips,--with hope and
fear in my heart,--in a fever of excitement or of terror,--I went
sullen, squalid, listless, reckless; my physical strength, borne down by
fatigue and want of sleep; my mental, by persecution, incessant and
insupportable. I went no longer shrinking from, and deprecating _their
worst_, but defying, almost desiring it, in the terrible and indefinite
curiosity of despair.