The apartment was full of monks; the Superior
stood among them, while they formed a semicircle at a respectful
distance from him. I must have presented a miserable contrast to these
men arrayed against me in their pride of power,--their long and not
ungraceful habits, giving their figures an air of solemnity, perhaps
more imposing than splendour--while I stood opposed to them, ragged,
meagre, livid, and obdurate, the very personification of an evil spirit
summoned before the angels of judgment. The Superior addressed me in a
long discourse, in which he but slightly touched on the scandal given by
the attempt to repeal my vows. He also suppressed any allusion to the
circumstance which was known to every one in the convent but myself,
that my appeal would be decided on in a few days. But he adverted in
terms that (in spite of my consciousness that they were hollow) made me
shudder, to the horror and consternation diffused through the convent by
my late tremendous visitation, as he called it. “Satan hath desired to
have you,” he said, “because you have put yourself within his power, by
your impious reclamation of your vows. You are the Judas among the
brethren; a branded Cain amid a primitive family; a scape-goat that
struggles to burst from the hands of the congregation into the
wilderness. The horrors that your presence is hourly heaping on us here,
are not only intolerable to the discipline of a religious house, but to
the peace of civilized society. There is not a monk who can sleep within
three cells of you. You disturb them by the most horrible cries--you
exclaim that the infernal spirit is perpetually beside your bed--that he
is whispering in your ears. You fly from cell to cell, supplicating the
prayers of the brethren. Your shrieks disturb the holy sleep of the
community--that sleep which they snatch only in the intervals of
devotion. All order is broken, all discipline subverted, while you
remain among us. The imaginations of the younger members are at once
polluted and inflamed, by the idea of the infernal and impure orgies
which the demon celebrates in your cell; and of which we know not
whether your cries, (which all can hear), announce triumph in, or
remorse for. You rush at midnight into the church, deface the images,
revile the crucifix, spurn at the altar; and when the whole community is
forced, by this unparalleled atrocity of blasphemy, to drag you from the
spot you are desecrating, you disturb, by your cries, those who are
passing to the service of God. In a word, your howls, your distortions,
your demoniac language, habits, and gestures, have but too well
justified the suspicion entertained when you first entered the convent. You were abominable from your very birth,--you were the offspring of
sin--you are conscious of it. Amid the livid paleness, that horrible
unnatural white that discolours your very lips, I see a tinge like
crimson burning on your cheek at the mention of it. The demon who was
presiding at your natal hour--the demon of impurity and
anti-monasticism--pursues you in the very walls of a convent. The
Almighty, in my voice, bids you begone;--depart, and trouble us no
more.--Stop,” he added, as he saw I was obeying his directions
literally, “hold, the interests of religion, and of the community, have
required that I should take particular notice of the extraordinary
circumstances that have haunted your unhallowed presence within these
walls. In a short time you may expect a visit from the Bishop--prepare
yourself for it as you may.” I considered these as the final words
addressed to me, and was about to retire, when I was recalled. I was
desired to utter some words, which every one was eager to put into my
mouth, of expostulation, of remonstrance, of supplication. I resisted
them all as steadily as if I had known (which I did not) that the Bishop
had himself instituted the examination into the deranged state of the
convent; and that instead of the Superior inviting the Bishop to examine
into the cause of the disturbance in his convent, (the very last step he
would have taken), the Bishop, (a man whose character will shortly be
developed), had been apprized of the _scandal_ of the convent, and had
determined to take the matter into his own hands. Sunk in solitude and
persecution, I knew not that all Madrid was on fire,--that the Bishop
had determined to be no longer a passive hearer of the extraordinary
scenes reported to pass in the convent,--that, in a word, my _exorcism_
and my appeal were quivering in alternate scales, and that the Superior
himself doubted which way the scale might incline. All this I was
ignorant of, for no one dared to tell it to me. I therefore was about to
retire without uttering a word in answer to the many whispered speeches
to humble myself to the Superior, to implore his intercession with the
Bishop to suspend this disgraceful examination that threatened _us_ all. I broke from them as they surrounded me; and standing calm and sullen at
the door, I threw a retorting look at them, and said, “God forgive you
all, and grant you such an acquittal at his judgment-seat, as I hesitate
not to claim at that of the Bishop-visitant.” These words, though
uttered by a ragged demoniac, (as they thought me), made them tremble. Truth is rarely heard in convents, and therefore its language is equally
emphatical and portentous. “The monks crossed themselves, and, as I left the apartment, repeated,
“But how then,--what if we _prevented_ this mischief?”--“By what
means?”--“By any that the interests of religion may suggest,--the
character of the convent is at stake. The Bishop is a man of a strict
and scrutinizing character,--he will keep his eyes open to the
truth,--he will inquire into facts,--what will become of us? Were it not
better that----” “What?”--“You comprehend us.”--“And if I dared to
comprehend you, _the time is too short_.”--“We have heard of the death
of maniacs being very sudden, of----” “What do you dare to hint
at?”--“Nothing, we only spoke of what every one knows, that a profound
sleep is often a restorative to lunatics. _He_ is a lunatic, as all the
convent are ready to swear,--a wretch possessed by the infernal spirit,
whom he invocates every night in his cell,--he disturbs the whole
convent by his outcries.”

“The Superior all this time walked impatiently up and down his
apartment. He entangled his fingers in his rosary,--he threw on the
monks angry looks from time to time; at last he said, “I am myself
disturbed by his cries,--his wanderings,--his undoubted commerce with
the enemy of souls. I need rest,--I require a profound sleep to repair
my exhausted spirits,--_what would you prescribe?_” Several pressed
forward, not understanding the hint, and eagerly recommended the common
opiates--Mithridate, &c. &c. An old monk whispered in his ear,
“Laudanum,--it will procure a deep and sound sleep.