On the affectionate
energies of a wild, enterprising, and unaided being, and the
co-operation of a demon, who might snatch at a bribe, and then shake it
in triumph in his ears, as the seal of our mutual and eternal despair,
while he flung the key of liberation into an abyss where no light could
penetrate, and from which no arm could redeem it. “Under these impressions, I deliberated, I prayed, I wept in the agony
of doubt. At last I wrote a few lines to Juan, in which I honestly
stated my doubts and apprehensions. I stated first my doubts of the
possibility of my escape. I said, “Can it be imagined that a being whom
all Madrid, whom all Spain, is on the watch for, can elude their
detection? Reflect, dear Juan, that I am staked against a community, a
priesthood, a nation. The escape of a monk is almost impossible,--but
his concealment afterwards is downright impossible. Every bell in every
convent in Spain would ring out _untouched_ in pursuit of the fugitive. The military, civil, and ecclesiastical powers, would all be on the “qui
vive.” Hunted, panting, and despairing, I might fly from place to
place--no place affording me shelter. The incensed powers of the
church--the fierce and vigorous gripe of the law--the execration and
hatred of society--the suspicions of the lowest order among whom I must
lurk, to shun and curse their penetration; think of encountering all
this, while the fiery cross of the Inquisition blazes in the van,
followed by the whole pack, shouting, cheering, hallooing on to the
prey. Oh Juan! if you knew the terrors under which I live--under which I
would rather die than encounter them again, even on the condition of
liberation! Liberation! Great God! what chance of liberation for a monk
in Spain? There is not a cottage where I could rest one night in
security--there is not a cavern whose echoes would not resound to the
cry of my apostacy. If I was hid in the bowels of the earth, they would
discover me, and tear me from its entrails. My beloved Juan, when I
consider the omnipotence of the ecclesiastical power in Spain, may I not
address it in the language applied to Omnipotence itself: “If I climb up
to heaven, thou art _there_;--if I go down to hell, thou art _there_
also;--if I take the wings of the morning, and flee unto the _uttermost
parts of the sea_, _even there_--” And suppose my liberation was
accomplished--suppose the convent plunged in a profound torpor, and the
unsleeping eye of the Inquisition winked at my apostacy--where am I to
reside? how am I to procure subsistence? The luxurious indolence of my
early years unfit me for active employment. The horrible conflict of
apathy the deepest, with hostility the most deadly, in monastic life,
disqualifies me for society. Throw the doors of every convent in Spain
open, and for what will their inmates be fit? For nothing that will
either embellish or improve it. What could I do to serve myself?--what
could I do that would not betray me? I should be a persecuted,
breathless fugitive,--a branded _Cain_. Alas!--perhaps expiring in
flames, I might see _Abel_ not _my_ victim, but that of the
Inquisition.”

“When I had written these lines, with an impulse for which all can
account but the writer, I tore them to atoms, burnt them deliberately by
the assistance of the lamp in my cell, and went to watch again at the
door in the passage--the door of hope. In passing through the gallery, I
encountered, for a moment, a person of a most forbidding aspect. I drew
on one side--for I had made it a point not to mix, in the slightest
degree, with the community, beyond what the discipline of the house
compelled me to. As he passed, however, he touched my habit, and gave a
most significant look. I immediately comprehended this was the person
Juan alluded to in his letter. And in a few moments after, on descending
to the garden, I found a note that confirmed my conjectures. It
contained these words: “I have procured the money--I have secured our
agent. He is an incarnate devil, but his resolution and intrepidity are
unquestionable. Walk in the cloister to-morrow evening--some one will
touch your habit--grasp his left wrist, that will be the signal. If he
hesitates, whisper to him--“Juan,” he will answer--“Alonzo.” That is
your man, consult with him. Every step that I have taken will be
communicated to you by him.”

“After reading these lines, I appeared to myself like a piece of
mechanism wound up to perform certain functions, in which its
co-operation was irresistible. The precipitate vigour of Juan’s
movements seemed to impel mine without my own concurrence; and as the
shortness of the time left me no opportunity for deliberation, it left
me also none for choice. I was like a clock whose hands are pushed
forward, and I struck the hours I was impelled to strike. When a
powerful agency is thus exercised on us,--when another undertakes to
think, feel, and act for us, we are delighted to transfer to him, not
only our physical, but our moral responsibility. We say, with selfish
cowardice, and self-flattering passiveness, “Be it so--you have decided
for me,”--without reflecting that at the bar of God there is no bail. So
I walked the next evening in the cloister. I composed my habit,--my
looks; any one would have imagined me plunged in profound
meditation,--and so I was, but not on the subjects with which they
conceived I was occupied. As I walked, some one touched my habit. I
started, and, to my consternation, one of the monks asked my pardon for
the sleeve of his tunic having touched mine. Two minutes after another
touched my habit. I felt the difference,--there was an intelligential
and communicative force in his grasp. He seized it as one who did not
fear to be known, and who had no need to apologise. How is it that crime
thus seizes us in life with a fearless grasp, while the touch of
conscience trembles on the verge of our garment. One would almost parody
the words of the well known Italian proverb, and say that guilt is
masculine, and innocence feminine. _I grasped his wrist_ with a
trembling hand, and whispered--“Juan,” in the same breath. He
answered--“Alonzo,” and passed me onward in a moment. I had then a few
moments leisure to reflect on a destiny thus singularly entrusted to a
being whose affections honoured humanity, and a being whose crimes
disgraced it. I was suspended like Mahomet’s tomb between heaven and
earth. I felt an antipathy indescribable to hold any communication with
a monster who had tried to hide the stains of parricide, by casting over
their bloody and ineffaceable traces the shroud of monasticism. I felt
also an inexpressible terror of Juan’s passions and precipitancy; and I
felt ultimately that I was in the power of all I dreaded most, and must
submit to the operation of that power for my liberation. “I was in the cloisters the following evening. I cannot say I walked
with a step so equal, but I am sure I did with a step much more
artificially regular.