I stand
a blasted tree,--I am struck to the heart, to the root,--I wither
alone,--but you are the Upas, under whose poisonous droppings all things
living have perished,--father--mother--brother, and last yourself;--the
erosions of the poison, having nothing left to consume, strike inward,
and prey on your own heart. Wretch, condemned beyond the sympathy of
man, beyond the redemption of the Saviour, what can you say to this?”--I
answered only, “Is Juan dead, and were you his murderer,--were you
indeed? I believe all you say, I must be very guilty, but is Juan dead?”
As I spoke, I lifted up to him eyes that no longer seemed to see,--a
countenance that bore no expression but that of the stupefaction of
intense grief. I could neither utter nor feel reproaches,--I had
suffered beyond the power of complaint. I awaited his answer; he was
silent, but his diabolical silence spoke. “And my mother retired to a
convent?” he nodded. “And my father?” he smiled, and I closed my eyes. I
could bear any thing but his smile. I raised my head a few moments
after, and saw him, with an habitual motion, (it could not have been
more), make the sign of the cross, as a clock in some distant passage
struck. This sight reminded me of the play so often acted in Madrid, and
which I had seen in my few days of liberation,--El diablo Predicador. You smile, Sir, at such a recollection operating at such a moment, but
it is a fact; and had you witnessed that play under the singular
circumstances I did, you would not wonder at my being struck with the
coincidence. In this performance the infernal spirit is the hero, and in
the disguise of a monk he appears in a convent, where he torments and
persecutes the community with a mixture of malignity and mirth truly
Satanic. One night that I saw it performed, a groupe of monks were
carrying the Host to a dying person; the walls of the theatre were so
slight, that we could distinctly hear the sound of the bell which they
ring on that occasion. In an instant, actors, audience, and all, were on
their knees, and the devil, who happened to be on the stage, knelt among
the rest, and crossed himself with visible marks of a devotion equally
singular and edifying. You will allow the coincidence to be irresistibly
striking. “When he had finished his monstrous profanation of the holy sign, I
fixed my eyes on him with an expression not to be mistaken. He saw it. There is not so bitter a reproach on earth as silence, for it always
seems to refer the guilty to their own hearts, whose eloquence seldom
fails to fill up the pause very little to the satisfaction of the
accused. My look threw him into a rage, that I am now convinced not the
most bitter upbraidings could have caused. The utmost fury of
imprecation would have fallen on his ear like the most lulling
harmony;--it would have convinced him that his victim was suffering all
he could possibly inflict. He betrayed this in the violence of his
exclamations. “What, wretch!” he cried;--“Do you think it was for your
masses and your mummeries, your vigils, and fasts, and mumbling over
senseless unconsoling beads, and losing my rest all night watching for
the matins, and then quitting my frozen mat to nail my knees to stone
till they grew there,--till I thought the whole pavement would rise with
me when I rose,--do you think it was for the sake of listening to
sermons that the preachers did not believe,--and prayers that the lips
that uttered them yawned at in the listlessness of their
infidelity,--and penances that might be hired out to a lay-brother to
undergo for a pound of coffee or of snuff,--and the vilest
subserviencies to the caprice and passion of a Superior,--and the
listening to men with God for ever in their mouths, and the world for
ever in their hearts,--men who think of nothing but the aggrandizement
of their temporal distinction, and screen, under the most revolting
affectation of a concern in spiritualities, their ravening cupidity
after earthly eminence:--Wretch! do you dream that it was for
this?--that this _atheism of bigotry_,--this creed of all the priests
that ever have existed in connexion with the state, and in hope of
extending their interest by that connexion,--could have any influence
over _me_? I had sounded every depth in the mine of depravity before
them. I knew them,--I despised them. I crouched before them in body, I
spurned them in my soul. With all their sanctimony, they had hearts so
worldly, that it was scarce worth while to watch their hypocrisy, the
secret developed itself so soon. There was no discovery to be made, no
place for detection. I have seen them on their high festivals, prelates,
and abbots, and priests, in all their pomp of office, appearing to the
laity like descended gods, blazing in gems and gold, amid the lustre of
tapers and the floating splendour of an irradiated atmosphere alive with
light, and all soft and delicate harmonies and delicious odours, till,
as they disappeared amid the clouds of incense so gracefully tossed from
the gilded censers, the intoxicated eye dreamed it saw them ascending to
Paradise. Such was the _scene_, but what was _behind the scene_?--_I saw
it all._ Two or three of them would rush from service into the vestry
together, under the pretence of changing their vestments. One would
imagine that these men would have at least the decency to refrain, while
in the intervals of the holy mass. No, I overheard them. While shifting
their robes, they talked incessantly of promotions and appointments,--of
this or that prelate, dying or dead,--of a wealthy benefice being
vacant,--of one dignitary having bargained hard with the state for the
promotion of a relative,--of another who had well-founded hopes of
obtaining a bishoprick, for what? neither for learning or piety, or one
feature of the pastoral character, but because he had valuable benefices
to resign in exchange, that might be divided among numerous candidates. Such was their conversation,--such and such only were their thoughts,
till the last thunders of the allelujah from the church made them start,
and hurry to resume their places at the altar. Oh what a compound of
meanness and pride, of imbecillity and pretension, of sanctimony so
transparently and awkwardly worn, that the naked frame of the natural
mind was visible to every eye beneath it,--that mind which is “earthly,
sensual, devilish.” Was it to live among such wretches, who, all-villain
as I was, made me hug myself with the thought that at least I was not
like them, a passionless prone reptile,--a thing made of forms and
dressings, half satin and shreds, half ave’s and credo’s,--bloated and
abject,--creeping and aspiring,--winding up and up the pedestal of power
at the rate of an inch a day, and tracking its advance to eminence by
the flexibility of its writhings, the obliquity of its course, and the
filth of its slime,--was it for this?”--he paused, half-choaked with his
emotions.