to phrenzy, then to stupefaction,–he died! I was the secret, unsuspected adviser of the whole proceeding.' 'Monster!' I exclaimed, for truth had made us equal now, and even precluded the language that humanity would dictate when uttered to a dying man.–'But why?'–said he, with that calmness which had once attracted, and now revolted me, but which had at all times undisputed possession of his physiognomy;–'his sufferings were shorter, do you blame me for diminishing their duration?'–There was something cold, ironical, and jeering, even in the suavity of this man, that gave a certain force to his simplest observations. It seemed as if he had reserved the truth all his life, to utter it at his dying hour. 'Such is the fate of those who possess strong sensibility; those who have less languish away in an imperceptible decline. They spend their time in watching a few flowers, in tending birds. They are punctual in their religious exercises, they receive neither blame or praise,–they melt away in torpor and ennui. They wish for death, as the preparation it might put the convent to might produce a short excitement, but they are disappointed, for their state forbids excitement, and they die as they have lived,–unexcited, unawakened. The tapers are lit, they do not see them,–the unction is applied, they do not feel it,–prayers are uttered, they cannot partake in them;–in fact, the whole drama is acted, but the principal performer is absent,–is gone. Others indulge themselves in perpetual reverie. They walk alone in the cloister,–in the garden. They feed themselves with the poison of delicious, innutritive illusion. They dream that an earthquake will shake the walls to atoms, that a volcano will burst forth in the centre of the garden. They imagine a revolution of government,–an attack of banditti,–any thing, however improbable. Then they take refuge in the possibility of a fire, (if a fire bursts out in a convent, the doors are thrown open, and 'Sauve qui peut,' is the word). At this thought they conceive the most ardent hope,–they could rush out,–they could precipitate themselves into the streets, into the country,–in fact, they would fly any where to escape. Then these hopes fail,–they begin to get nervous, morbid, restless. If they have interest, they are indulged with remission from their duties, and they remain in their cells, relaxed,–torpid,–idiotical; if they have not interest, they are forced to the punctual performance of their duties, and then idiotism comes on much sooner, as diseased horses, employed in a mill, become blind sooner than those who are suffered to wear out existence in ordinary labour. Some of them take refuge in religion, as they call it. They call for relief on the Superior, but what can the Superior do? He is but human too, and perhaps feels the despair that is devouring the wretches who supplicate him to deliver them from it. Then they prostrate themselves before the images of the saints,–they invoke, they sometimes revile them. They call for their intercession, deplore its inefficacy, and fly to some other, whose merits they imagine are higher in the sight of God. They supplicate for an interest in the intercession of Christ and the Virgin, as their last resort. That resort fails them too,–the Virgin herself is inexorable, though they wear out her pedestal with their knees, and her feet with their kisses. Then they go about the galleries at night, they rouse the sleepers, they knock at every door,–they cry, 'Brother Saint Jerome, pray for me,–Brother Saint Augustine, pray for me.' Then the placard is seen fastened to the rails of the altar, 'Dear brothers, pray for the wandering soul of a monk.' The next day the placard bears this inscription, 'The prayers of the community are implored for a monk who is in despair.' Then they find human intercession as unavailing as divine, to procure them a remission of the sufferings which, while their profession continues to inflict on them, no power can reverse or mitigate. They crawl to their cells,–in a few days the toll of the bell is heard, and the brethren exclaim, 'He died in the odour of sanctity,' and hasten to spread their snares for another victim.' 'And is this, then, monastic life?' 'It is,–there are but two exceptions, that of those who can every day renew, by the aid of imagination, the hope of escape, and who cherish that hope even on their dying bed; and those who, like me, diminish their misery by dividing it, and, like the spider, feel relieved of the poison that swells, and would burst them, by instilling a drop of it into every insect that toils, agonizes, and perishes in their net,–like you.' At these last words, a glare of malignity flashed on the features of the dying wretch, that appalled me. I retreated from his bed for a moment. I returned, I looked at him,–his eyes were closed,–his hands extended. I touched him,–raised him,–he was dead,–those were his last words. The expression of his features was the physiognomy of his soul,–they were calm and pale, but still a cold expression of derision lingered about the curve of his lips.
'I rushed from the infirmary. I was at that time indulged, like all the other visitants of the sick, to go to the garden beyond the allotted hours, perhaps to diminish the chance of infection. I was but too ready to avail myself of this permission. The garden, with its calm moon-light beauty, its innocence of heaven, its theology of the stars, was at once a reproach and a consolation to me. I tried to reflect, to feel,–both efforts failed; and perhaps it is in this silence of the soul, this suspension of all the clamorous voices of the passions, that we are most ready to hear the voice of God. My imagination suddenly represented to me the august and ample vault above me as a church,–the images of the saints grew dim in my eyes as I gazed on the stars, and even the altar, over which the crucifixion of the Saviour of the world was represented, turned pale to the eye of the soul, as I gazed on the moon 'walking in her brightness.' I fell on my knees. I knew not to whom I was about to pray, but I never felt so disposed to pray. I felt my habit touched at this moment. I at first trembled, from the idea of being detected in a forbidden act. I started up. A dark figure stood beside me, who said in indistinct and faultering tones, 'Read this,' and he thrust a paper into my hand; 'I have worn it sewed into my habit for four days. I have watched you night and day. I had no opportunity but this,–you were in your cell, in the choir, or in the infirmary. Tear it in pieces, throw the fragments into the fountain, or swallow them, the moment you have read it.–Adieu. I have risked every thing for you,' and he glided away. I recognized his figure as he departed; it was the porter of the convent. I well understood the risk he must have run in delivering this paper, for it was the regulation of the convent, that all letters, whether addressed to or written by boarders, novices, or monks, were first to be read by the Superior, and I never knew an instance of its infringement. The moon gave me sufficient light. I began to read, while a vague hope, that had neither object or basis, trembled at the bottom of my heart. The paper contained these words:
'My dearest brother, (My God! how I started!) I see you revolt at the first lines which I address to you,–I implore you, for both our sakes, to read them with calmness and attention. We have been both the victims of parental and priestly imposition; the former we must forgive, for our parents are the victims of it too. The Director has their consciences in his hand, and their destiny and ours at his feet. Oh, my brother, what a tale have I to disclose to you! I was brought up, by the Director's orders, whose influence over the domestics is as unbounded as it is over their unhappy master, in complete hostility against you, as one who was depriving me of my natural rights, and degrading the family by your illegitimate intrusion. May not this palliate, in some degree, my unnatural repulsiveness when we first met? I was taught from my cradle to hate and fear you,–to hate you as an enemy, and fear you as an impostor. This was the Director's plan. He thought the hold he had over my father and mother too slight to gratify his ambition of domestic power, or realize his hopes of professional distinction. The basis of all ecclesiastical power rests upon fear. A crime must be discovered or invented. The vague reports circulated in the family, my mother's constant dejection, my father's occasional agitation, offered him a clue, which he followed with incessant industry through all its windings of doubt, mystery, and disappointment, till, in a moment of penitence, my mother, terrified by his constant denunciations if she concealed any secret of her heart or life from him, disclosed the truth.
'We were both infants then. He adopted immediately the plan he has since realized at the expence of all but himself. I am convinced he had not, from the first hour of his machinations, the least malignity against you. The aggrandizement of his interest, which ecclesiastics always individualize with that of the church, was his only object. To dictate, to tyrannize, to manage a whole family, and that of rank, by his knowledge of the frailty of one of its members, was all he looked to. Those who by their vows are excluded from the interest which natural affections give us in life, must seek for it in the artificial ones of pride and domination, and the Director found it there. All thenceforth was conducted and inspired by him. It was he who caused us to be kept asunder from our infancy,