Читать книгу Melmoth the Wanderer - Charles Robert Maturin - Страница 9

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'I have heard,' said the Squire, 'that from hell there is no retention.'

CERVANTES

For some hours after this exclamation, Melmoth lay silent, his memory returning,—his senses gradually defecated,—the intellectual lord slowly returning to his abdicated throne.—

'I remember all now,' he cried, starting up in his bed with a sudden vehemence, that terrified his old nurse with the apprehension of returning insanity; but when she approached the bed, candle in hand, cautiously veiling her eyes with the other, while she threw the full glare of the light on the face of the patient, she saw in a moment the light of sanity in his eyes, and the strength of health in his movements. To his eager inquiries of how he had been saved, how the storm had terminated, and whether any but himself had survived the wreck, she could not deny herself the gratification of answering, though conscious of his weakness, and solemnly charged neither to let him speak or hear, as she valued the recovery of his reason. She had faithfully observed the charge for several days,—a dreadful trial!—and now she felt like Fatima in Cymon, who, when threatened by the magician with the loss of speech, exclaims, 'Barbarian, will not my death then satisfy you?'

She began her narrative, the effect of which was, to lull Melmoth into a profound repose before half of it was concluded; he felt the full benefit of the invalids mentioned in Spenser, who used to hire Irish story-tellers, and found those indefatigable persons still pursuing the tale when they awoke. At first Melmoth listened with eager attention; soon he was in the situation of him described by Miss Baillie,

'Who, half asleep, but faintly hears,

The gossip's tale hum in his ears.'

Soon after his lengthened respiration gave token that she was only 'vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man;' while, as she closed the curtain, and shaded the light, the images of her story were faintly painted on his dream, that still seemed half a waking one.

In the morning Melmoth sat up, gazed round, remembered every thing in a moment, though nothing distinctly, but felt the most intense anxiety to see the stranger saved from the shipwreck, who, he remembered the gouvernante had told him, (while her words seemed to falter on the threshold of his closing senses), was still alive, and an inmate in his house, but weak and ill from the bruises he had received, and the exhaustion and terror he had undergone. The opinions of the household on the subject of this stranger were various. The knowledge of his being a Catholic had conciliated their hearts, for the first act of his recovered reason was to request that a Catholic priest might be sent for, and the first use of his speech was to express his satisfaction that he was in a country where he might enjoy the benefits of the rites of his own church. So far all was well; but there was a mysterious haughtiness and reserve about him, that somewhat repelled the officious curiosity of his attendants. He spoke often to himself in a language they did not understand; they hoped relief from the priest on this point, but the priest, after listening long at the invalid's door, pronounced the language in which he was soliloquizing not to be Latin, and, after a conversation of some hours with him, refused to tell what language the stranger spoke to himself in, and forbid all inquiry on the subject. This was bad enough; but, still worse, the stranger spoke English with ease and fluency, and therefore could have no right, as all the household argued, to torment them with those unknown sounds, that, sonorous and powerful as they were, seemed to their ears like an evocation of some invisible being.

'He asks for what he wants in English,' said the harassed housekeeper, 'and he can call for candle in English, and he can say he'll go to bed in English; and why the devil can't he do every thing in English?—He can say his prayers too in English to that picture he's always pulling out of his breast and talking to, though it's no saint, I am sure, he prays to, (from the glimpse I got of it), but more like the devil,—Christ save us!' All these strange rumours, and ten thousand more, were poured into Melmoth's ears, fast and faster than he could receive them. 'Is Father Fay in the house,' said he at last, understanding that the priest visited the stranger every day; 'if he be, let me see him.' Father Fay attended him as soon as he quitted the stranger's apartment.

He was a grave and decent priest, well 'spoken of by those that were without' the pale of his own communion; and as he entered the room, Melmoth smiled at the idle tattle of his domestics. 'I thank you for your attention to this unfortunate gentleman, who, I understand, is in my house.'—'It was my duty.'—'I am told he sometimes speaks in a foreign tongue.' The priest assented. 'Do you know what countryman he is?' 'He is a Spaniard,' said the priest. This plain, direct answer, had the proper effect on Melmoth, of convincing him of its veracity, and of there being no mystery in the business, but what the folly of his servants had made.

The priest proceeded to tell him the particulars of the loss of the vessel. She was an English trader bound for Wexford or Waterford, with many passengers on board; she had been driven up the Wicklow coast by stress of weather, had struck on the night of the 19th October, during the intense darkness that accompanied the storm, on a hidden reef of rocks, and gone to pieces. Crew, passengers, all had perished, except this Spaniard. It was singular, too, that this man had saved the life of Melmoth. While swimming for his own, he had seen him fall from the rock he was climbing, and, though his strength was almost exhausted, had collected its last remains to preserve the life of a being who, as he conceived, had been betrayed into danger by his humanity. His efforts were successful, though Melmoth was unconscious of them; and in the morning they were found on the strand, locked in each other's hold, but stiff and senseless. They shewed some signs of life when an attempt was made to remove them, and the stranger was conveyed to Melmoth's house. 'You owe your life to him,' said the priest, when he had ended. 'I shall go and thank him for it this moment,' said Melmoth; but as he was assisted to rise, the old woman whispered to him with visible terror, 'Jasus' sake, dear, don't tell him ye're a Melmoth, for the dear life! he has been as mad as any thing out of Bedlam, since some jist mintioned the name before him the ither night.' A sickening recollection of some parts of the manuscript came over Melmoth at these words, but he struggled with himself, and proceeded to the apartment of the stranger.

The Spaniard was a man about thirty, of a noble form and prepossessing manners. To the gravity of his nation was super-added a deeper tint of peculiar melancholy. He spoke English fluently; and when questioned on it by Melmoth, he remarked with a sigh, that he had learnt it in a painful school. Melmoth then changed the subject, to thank him with earnest gratitude for the preservation of his life. 'Senhor,' said the Spaniard, 'spare me; if your life was no dearer to you than mine, it would not be worth thanks.' 'Yet you made the most strenuous exertions to save it,' said Melmoth. 'That was instinct,' said the Spaniard. 'But you also struggled to save mine,' said Melmoth. 'That was instinct too at the moment,' said the Spaniard; then resuming his stately politeness, 'or I should say, the influence of my better genius. I am wholly a stranger in this country, and must have fared miserably but for the shelter of your roof.'

Melmoth observed that he spoke with evident pain, and he confessed a few moments afterwards, that though he had escaped without any serious injury, he had been so bruised and lacerated, that he still breathed with difficulty, and hardly possessed the use of his limbs. As he concluded the account of his sufferings during the storm, the wreck, and the subsequent struggle for life, he exclaimed in Spanish, 'God! why did the Jonah survive, and the mariners perish?' Melmoth, imagining he was engaged in some devotional ejaculation, was going to retire, when the Spaniard detained him. 'Senhor, I understand your name is—' He paused, shuddered, and with an effort that seemed like convulsion, disgorged the name of Melmoth. 'My name is Melmoth.' 'Had you an ancestor, a very remote one, who was—at a period perhaps beyond family-tradition—It is useless to inquire,' said the Spaniard, covering his face with both his hands, and groaning aloud. Melmoth listened in mingled excitement and terror. 'Perhaps, if you would proceed, I could answer you—go on, Senhor.' 'Had you,' said the Spaniard, forcing himself to speak, abruptly and rapidly, 'had you, then, a relative who was, about one hundred and forty years ago, said to be in Spain.' 'I believe—yes, I fear—I had.' 'It is enough, Senhor—leave me—to-morrow perhaps—leave me now.' 'It is impossible to leave you now,' said Melmoth, catching him in his arms before he sunk on the floor. He was not senseless, for his eyes were rolling with terrible expression, and he attempted to articulate. They were alone. Melmoth, unable to quit him, called aloud for water; and while attempting to open his vest, and give him air, his hand encountered a miniature portrait close to the heart of the stranger. As he touched it, his touch operated on the patient with all the force of the most powerful restorative. He grasped it with his own cold hand with a force like that of death, and muttered in a hollow but thrilling voice, 'What have you done?' He felt eagerly the ribbon by which it was suspended, and, satisfied that his terrible treasure was safe, turned his eyes with a fearful calmness of expression on Melmoth, 'You know all, then?'—'I know nothing,' said Melmoth faultering. The Spaniard rose from the ground, to which he had almost fallen, disengaged himself from the arms that supported him, and eagerly, but staggeringly, hurrying towards the candles, (it was night), held up the portrait full before Melmoth's eye. It was a miniature likeness of that extraordinary being. It was painted in a coarse and unartist-like style, but so faithfully, that the pencil appeared rather held by the mind than by the fingers.

'Was he—was the original of this—your ancestor?—Are you his descendant?—Are you the depository of that terrible secret which—' He again fell to the ground convulsed, and Melmoth, for whose debilitated state this scene was too much, was removed to his own apartment.

It was several days before he again saw his visitor; his manner was then calm and collected, till he appeared to recollect the necessity of making an apology for his agitation at their last meeting. He began—hesitated—stopped; tried in vain to arrange his ideas, or rather his language; but the effort so obviously renewed his agitation, that Melmoth felt an exertion on his part necessary to avert its consequences, and began most inauspiciously to inquire into the motive of his voyage to Ireland. After a long pause, the Spaniard said, 'That motive, Senhor, a few days past I believed it was not in mortal power to compel me to disclose. I deemed it incommunicable as it was incredible. I conceived myself to be alone on the earth, without sympathy and beyond relief. It is singular that accident should have placed me within the reach of the only being from whom I could expect either, and perhaps a development of those circumstances which have placed me in a situation so extraordinary.' This exordium, delivered with a composed but thrilling gravity, had an effect on Melmoth. He sat down and prepared to listen, and the Spaniard began to speak; but after some hesitation, he snatched the picture from his neck, and trampling on it with true continental action, exclaimed, 'Devil! devil! thou choakest me!' and crushing the portrait, glass and all, under his feet, exclaimed, 'Now I am easier.'

The room in which they sat was a low, mean, wretchedly furnished apartment; the evening was tempestuous, and as the windows and doors rattled in the blast, Melmoth felt as if he listened to some herald of 'fate and fear.' A deep and sickening agitation shook his frame; and in the long pause that preceded the narrative of the Spaniard, the beating of his heart was audible to him. He rose, and attempted to arrest the narration by a motion of his hand; but the Spaniard mistook this for the anxiety of his impatience, and commenced his narrative, which, in mercy to the reader, we shall give without the endless interruptions, and queries, and anticipations of curiosity, and starts of terror, with which it was broken by Melmoth.