A gleam of pleasure trembled over
his countenance, for he remembered the interest I had shewn for his
unfortunate friend. He said, in a voice hardly intelligible, “It is you,
then?” “Yes, my brother, it is I--can I do any thing for you?” After a
long pause, he added, “Yes, you can.” “Tell me then.” He lowered his
voice, which was before almost inaudible, and whispered, “Let none of
them come near me in my dying moments--it will not give you much
trouble--those moments are approaching.” I pressed his hand in token of
acquiescence. But I felt there was something at once terrifying and
improper in this request from a dying man. I said to him, “My dear
brother, you are then dying?--would you not wish an interest in the
prayers of the community?--would you not wish the benefit of the last
sacraments?” He shook his head, and I fear that I understood him too
well. I ceased any further importunity; and a few moments he uttered, in
tones I could hardly distinguish, “_Let them, let me die._--They have
left me no power to form another wish.” His eyes closed,--I sat beside
his bed, holding his hand in mine. At first, I could feel he attempted
to press it--the attempt failed, his hold relaxed. Fra Paolo was no
more. “I continued to sit holding the dead hand in mine, till a groan from an
adjacent bed roused me. It was occupied by the old monk with whom I had
held a long conversation the night before the miracle, in which I still
believed most firmly. “I have observed, that this man was of a temper and manners remarkably
mild and attractive. Perhaps this is always connected with great
weakness of intellect, and coldness of character _in men_. (It may be
different in women--but my own experience has never failed in the
discovery, that where there was a kind of feminine softness and
pliability in the male character, there was also treachery,
dissimulation, and heartlessness.) At least, if there be such an union,
a conventual life is sure to give it every advantage in its range of
internal debility, and external seductiveness.--That pretence of a wish
to assist, without the power, or even the wish, that is so flattering
both to the weak minds that exercise it, and the weaker on whom it is
exercised. This man had been always judged very weak, and yet very
fascinating. He had been always employed to ensnare the young novices. He was now dying--overcome by his situation, I forgot every thing but
its tremendous claims, and offered him every assistance in my power. “I
want nothing but to die,” was his answer. His countenance was perfectly
calm, but its calmness was rather that of apathy than of resignation. “You are, then, perfectly sure of your approach to blessedness?” “I know
nothing about it.” “How, my brother, are those words for a dying man to
utter?” “Yes, if he speaks the truth.” “But a monk?--a catholic?” “Those
are but names--I feel _that truth_, at least, now.” “You amaze me!” “I
care not--I am on the verge of a precipice--I must plunge from it--and
whether the by-standers utter outcries or not, is a matter of little
consequence to me.” “And yet, you expressed a willingness to die?”
“Willingness! Oh impatience!--I am a clock that has struck the same
minutes and hours for sixty years. Is it not time for the machine to
long for its winding up? The monotony of my existence would make a
transition, even to pain, desirable. I am weary, and would change--that
is all.” “But to me, and to all the community, you seemed to be resigned
to the monastic life.” “I seemed a lie--I lived a lie--I was a lie--I
ask pardon of my last moments for speaking the truth--I presume they
neither can refuse me, or discredit my words--I hated the monastic life. Inflict pain on man, and his energies are roused--condemn him to
insanity, and he slumbers like animals that have been found inclosed in
wood and stone, torpid and content; but condemn him at once to pain and
inanity, as they do in convents, and you unite the sufferings of hell
and of annihilation. For sixty years I have cursed my existence. I never
woke to hope, for I had nothing to do or to expect. I never lay down
with consolation, for I had, at the close of every day, only to number
so many deliberate mockeries of God, as exercises of devotion. The
moment life is put beyond the reach of your will, and placed under the
influence of mechanical operations, it becomes, to thinking beings, a
torment insupportable. “I never ate with appetite, because I knew, that with or without it, I
must go to the refectory when the bell rung. I never lay down to rest in
peace, because I knew the bell was to summon me in defiance of nature,
whether it was disposed to prolong or shorten my repose. I never prayed,
for my prayers were dictated to me. I never hoped, for my hopes were
founded not on the truth of God, but on the promises and threatenings of
man. My salvation hovered on the breath of a being as weak as myself,
whose weakness I was nevertheless obliged to flatter, and struggle to
obtain a gleam of the grace of God, through the dark distorted medium of
the vices of man. _It never reached me_--I die without light, hope,
faith, or consolation.”--He uttered these words with a calmness that was
more terrific than the wildest convulsions of despair. I gasped for
breath--“But, my brother, you were always punctual in your religious
exercises.” “That was mechanism--will you not believe a dying man?” “But
you urged me, in a long conversation, to embrace the monastic life; and
your importunity must have been sincere, for it was after my
profession.” “It is natural for the miserable to wish for companions in
their misery. This is very selfish, very misanthropic, you will say, but
it is also very natural. You have yourself seen the cages suspended in
the cells--are not the tame birds always employed to allure the wild
ones? We were caged birds, can you blame us for the deception?” In these
words I could not help recognizing that _simplicity of profound
corruption_(15),--that frightful paralysis of the soul, which leaves it
incapable of receiving any impression or making one,--that says to the
accuser, Approach, remonstrate, upbraid--I defy you. My conscience is
dead, and can neither hear, utter, or echo a reproach. I was amazed--I
struggled against my own conviction. I said, “But your regularity in
religious exercises--” “_Did you never hear a bell toll?_” “But your
voice was always the loudest and most distinct in the choir.” “_Did you
never hear an organ played?_” * * * * * * *

  (15) Vide Madame Genlis’s “Julien Delmour.”

I shuddered, yet I still went on with my queries--I thought I could not
know too much. I said, “But, my brother, the religious exercises in
which you were constantly engaged, must have imperceptibly instilled
something of their spirit into you?--is it not so? You must have passed
from the forms of religion into its spirit ultimately?--is it not so, my
brother? Speak on the faith of a dying man. May I have such a hope!