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54 - Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin · Melmoth The Wanderer

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  Speaker 1: Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Macharin, Chapter thirty eight.
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  Speaker 1: Load told the bell, The priests prayed woll the tapers
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  Speaker 1: they all burned bright. The monk, her son and her daughter,
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  Speaker 1: the nun, they told their beads all night. The second night,
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  Speaker 1: the monk and the nun, they told their beads as
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  Speaker 1: fast as they could tell, and I the louder grew
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  Speaker 1: the noise, the faster went the bell. The third night
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  Speaker 1: came the monk and the nun forgot their beads. They
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  Speaker 1: fell to the ground, dismayed. There was not a single
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  Speaker 1: saint in heaven whom they did not call to their
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  Speaker 1: aid Southey Monsadahir concluded the tale of the Indian the
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  Speaker 1: victim of Melmoth's passion, no less than of his destiny,
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  Speaker 1: both alike, unhallowed and unutterable, and he announced his intention
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  Speaker 1: of disclosing to him the fates of the other victims,
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  Speaker 1: whose skeletons were preserved in the vault of the jew
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  Speaker 1: Adonaya in Madrid. He added that the circumstances relating to
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  Speaker 1: them were of a character still darker and more awful
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  Speaker 1: than those he had recited, as they were the result
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  Speaker 1: of impressions made on masculine minds, without any excitement but
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  Speaker 1: that of looking into futurity. He mentioned too that the
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  Speaker 1: circumstances of his residence in the House of the Jew,
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  Speaker 1: his escape from it, and the reasons of his subsequent
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  Speaker 1: arrival in Ireland were scarcely less extraordinary than anything he
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  Speaker 1: had hitherto related. Young Melmoth, whose name perhaps the reader
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  Speaker 1: has forgot, did seriously incline to the purpose of having
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  Speaker 1: his dangerous curiosity further gratified. Nor was he, perhaps altogether
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  Speaker 1: without the wild hope of seeing the original of that
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  Speaker 1: portrait he had destroyed, burst from the walls, and take
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  Speaker 1: up the fearful tale himself. The narrative of the Spaniard
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  Speaker 1: had occupied many days. At their termination, Young Melmouth signified
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  Speaker 1: to his guest that he was prepared to hear the sequel.
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  Speaker 1: A night was fixed for the continuation of the recital.
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  Speaker 1: Young Melmoth and his guest met in the usual apartment.
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  Speaker 1: It was a dreary, stormy night. The rain that had
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  Speaker 1: fallen all day seemed now to have yielded to the
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  Speaker 1: wind that came in strong and sudden burst. Suddenly hushed
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  Speaker 1: as if collecting strength for the tempest of the night.
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  Speaker 1: Monzarda and Melmouth drew their chairs closer to the fire,
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  Speaker 1: looking at each other with the aspect of men who
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  Speaker 1: wished to inspire each other with courage to listen and
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  Speaker 1: to tell, and other more eager to inspire it because
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  Speaker 1: neither feels it himself. At length, monzard collected his voice
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  Speaker 1: and resolution to proceed, But as he went on he
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  Speaker 1: perceived he could not fix his hearer's attention, and he poured.
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  Speaker 1: I thought, said Malmouth, answering his silence. I thought I
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  Speaker 1: heard a noise as of a person walking in the passage.
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  Speaker 1: Hush and listen, said Monzarda. I would not wish to
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  Speaker 1: be overheard. They paused and held their breath. The sound
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  Speaker 1: was renewed. It was evidently that of steps approaching the
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  Speaker 1: door and then retiring from it. We are watched, said Malmouth,
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  Speaker 1: half rising from his chair. But at that moment the
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  Speaker 1: door opened and a figure appeared at it, which Monsarda
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  Speaker 1: recognized for the subject of his narrative and his mysterious
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  Speaker 1: visitor in the prison of the inquisition, and Melmouth for
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  Speaker 1: the original of the picture and the being whose unaccountable
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  Speaker 1: appearance had filled him with consternation as he sat beside
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  Speaker 1: his dying uncle's bed. The figure stood at the door
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  Speaker 1: for some time, and then advancing slowly till it gained
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  Speaker 1: the center of the room. It remained there fixed for
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  Speaker 1: some time, but without looking at them. It then approached
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  Speaker 1: the table where they sat in a slow but distinctly
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  Speaker 1: heard step, and stood before them as a living being.
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  Speaker 1: The profound horror that was equally felt by both was
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  Speaker 1: differently expressed by each. Monzada crusted himself repeatedly and attempted
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  Speaker 1: to utter many prayers. Melmouth, nailed to his chair, fixed
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  Speaker 1: his sightless eyes on the form that stood before him.
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  Speaker 1: It was indeed Melmoth, the Wanderer, the same as he
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  Speaker 1: was in the past century, the same as he may
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  Speaker 1: be in censurers to come, should the fearful terms of
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  Speaker 1: his existence be renewed. His natural force was not abated,
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  Speaker 1: but his eye was dim. That appalling and supernatural luster
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  Speaker 1: of the visual organ, that beacon lit by an infernal
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  Speaker 1: fire to tempt or to warm the adventurers of despair
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  Speaker 1: from that coast on which many struck and some sunk,
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  Speaker 1: That portentous light was no longer visible. The form and
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  Speaker 1: figure were those of a living man of the age
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  Speaker 1: indicated in the portrait which the young malmoth had destroy'd,
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  Speaker 1: but the eyes were as the eyes of the dead.
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  Speaker 1: As the Wanderer a advance, still nearer till his figure
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  Speaker 1: touched the table, Mansaden and malmouth started up in irrepressible horror,
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  Speaker 1: and stood in attitudes of defense, though conscious at the
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  Speaker 1: moment that all defense was hopeless against a being that
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  Speaker 1: withered and mocked at human power. The Wanderer waved his
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  Speaker 1: arm with an action that spoke defiance without hostility, and
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  Speaker 1: the strange and solemn accents of the only human voice
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  Speaker 1: that had respired mortal air beyond the period of mortal life,
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  Speaker 1: and never spoken but to the ear of guilt or suffering,
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  Speaker 1: and never uttered to that ear aught but despair rolled
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  Speaker 1: slowly on their hearing like a peal of distant thunder mortals.
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  Speaker 1: You are here to talk of my destiny and of
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  Speaker 1: the events which it has involved. That destiny is accomplished,
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  Speaker 1: I believe, and with it terminate those events that have
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  Speaker 1: stimulated your wild and wretched curiosity. I am here to
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  Speaker 1: tell you of both I of whom you speak, am
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  Speaker 1: here who can tell so well of Melmoth, the wanderer
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  Speaker 1: as himself, now that he is abound to resign that
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  Speaker 1: existence which has been the object of terror and wonder
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  Speaker 1: to the world. Maumouth, you behold your ancestor, the being
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  Speaker 1: on whose portrait is inscribed the date of a centuary,
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  Speaker 1: and a harp is before you. Monsada, you see an
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  Speaker 1: acquaintance of a later date. A grim smile of recognition
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  Speaker 1: wandered over his features as he spoke. Fear nothing, he added,
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  Speaker 1: observing the agony and terror of his involuntary hearers. What
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  Speaker 1: have you to fear, he continued, while a flash of
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  Speaker 1: derisive malignity once more lit up the sockets of his
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  Speaker 1: dead eye. You Signor, are armed with your bees, and you, Melmoth,
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  Speaker 1: are fortified by that vain and desperate inquisitiveness which might,
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  Speaker 1: at a former period have made you my victim, and
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  Speaker 1: his features underwent a short but horrible convulsion, but now
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  Speaker 1: makes you only my mockery. Have you ought to quench
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  Speaker 1: my thirst? He added, seating himself. The senses of Monsada
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  Speaker 1: and his companion reeled in delirious terror, and the former
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  Speaker 1: in a kind of wild comfort. Duns filled the glass
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  Speaker 1: of water and offered it to the wanderer with a hand,
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  Speaker 1: as steady but somewhat colder, as he would have presented
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  Speaker 1: it to one who sat beside him in human companionship.
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  Speaker 1: The wanderer raised it to his lips and tasted a
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  Speaker 1: few drops, then, replacing it on the table, said with
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  Speaker 1: a laugh, wild indeed, but no longer ferocious have you seen?
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  Speaker 1: Said he to Monsardre and Belmouth, who gazed with dim
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  Speaker 1: and trebled sight on this vision, and wist not what
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  Speaker 1: to think? Have you seen the fate of Dounjan, Not
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  Speaker 1: as he is pantomime d on your boultry stage, but
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  Speaker 1: as he is represented in the real horrors of his
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  Speaker 1: destiny by the Spanish writer. There the specter returns the
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  Speaker 1: hospitality on his inviter and summons him in turn to
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  Speaker 1: a feast. The banquet hall is at church. He arrives,
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  Speaker 1: it is illuminated with a mysterious light. Invisible hands hold
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  Speaker 1: lamps fed by no earthly substance, to light the apostick
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  Speaker 1: to his doom. He enters the church and is greeted
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  Speaker 1: by innumerous company. The spirits of those whom he has
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  Speaker 1: wronged and murdered are prison from their channel and swathed
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  Speaker 1: in shrouds stand there to welcome him. As he passes
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  Speaker 1: among them. They call on him in hollow sands to
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  Speaker 1: pledge them in coublets of blood, which they present to him.
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  Speaker 1: And beneath the altar by which stands the spirit of
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  Speaker 1: him whom the parricide has murdered, the gulf of Perdition
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  Speaker 1: is yawning to receive him through such a band I
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  Speaker 1: must soon prepare to pass, is adorer, Thy form will
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  Speaker 1: be the last I must encounter, and the most terrible. Now,
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  Speaker 1: for the last drop I must taste of Earth's produce,
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  Speaker 1: the last that shall wet my mortal lips. He slowly
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  Speaker 1: finished the draft of water. Neither of his companions had
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  Speaker 1: the power to speak. He sat down in a posture
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  Speaker 1: of heavy musing, and neither ventured to interrupt him. They
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  Speaker 1: kept silence till the morning was dawning, and a faint
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  Speaker 1: light streamed through the closed shutters. Then the wanderer raised
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  Speaker 1: his heavy eyes and fixed them on melmoth. Your ancestor
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  Speaker 1: has come home, he said, His wanderings are over. What
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  Speaker 1: has been told or believed of me is now of
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  Speaker 1: light availed me. The secret of my destiny rests with myself.
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  Speaker 1: If all that fear has invented and credulity believed of
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  Speaker 1: me be true to what does it amount that if
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  Speaker 1: my crimes have exceeded those of mortality, so will my punishment.
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  Speaker 1: I have been on earth a terror, but not an
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  Speaker 1: evil to its inhabitants. None can participate in my destiny,
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  Speaker 1: but with his own consent. None have consented. None can
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  Speaker 1: be involved in its tremendous penalties. But by participation I
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  Speaker 1: alone must sustain the penalty. If I have put forth
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  Speaker 1: my hand and eaten of the fruit of the interdicted tree,
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  Speaker 1: am I not driven from the presence of God and
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  Speaker 1: the region of paradise, and sent to wander amid worlds
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  Speaker 1: of barrenness and curse forever and ever. It has been
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  Speaker 1: reported of me that I obtain from the enemy of
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  Speaker 1: souls a range of existence beyond the period allotted to mortality,
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  Speaker 1: A power to pass over space without disturbance or delay,
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  Speaker 1: and visit remote regions with the swiftness of thought, to
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  Speaker 1: encounter tempests without the hope of their blasting me, and
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  Speaker 1: penetrate into dungeons whose bolts was flax and towel at
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  Speaker 1: my touch. It has been said that this power was
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  Speaker 1: accorded to me, that I might be enabled to tempt
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  Speaker 1: wretches in their fearful hour of extremity, with the promise
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  Speaker 1: of deliverance and immunity, on condition of their exchanging situations
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  Speaker 1: with me. If this be true, it bears attestation to
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  Speaker 1: a truth uttered by the lips of one I may
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  Speaker 1: not name, and echoed by every human heart in the
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  Speaker 1: habitable world. No one has ever exchanged destinies with Melmoth,
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  Speaker 1: the wanderer. I have traversed the world in the search,
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  Speaker 1: and no one to gain that world would lose his
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  Speaker 1: own soul. Not Stanton in his cell, nor y Monsada
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  Speaker 1: in the prison of the Inquisition, nor Waalberg, who saw
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  Speaker 1: his children perishing with want, nor another. He paused, and
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  Speaker 1: though on the verge of his dark and doubtful voyage,
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  Speaker 1: he seemed to cast one look of bitter and retrospective
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  Speaker 1: anguish on the receding shore of life, and see through
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  Speaker 1: the mists of memory one form that stood there to
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  Speaker 1: bid him farewell. He rose, Let me, if possible obtain
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  Speaker 1: an hour's repose, I repose sleep, he repea, answering the
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  Speaker 1: silent astonishment of his hearer's looks. My existence is still human,
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  Speaker 1: And a ghastly and derisive smile wandered over his features
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  Speaker 1: for the last time as he spoke. How often had
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  Speaker 1: that smile frozen the blood of his victims? Malmoth and
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  Speaker 1: Monzada quitted the apartment, and the wanderer, sinking back in
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  Speaker 1: his chair, slept profoundly. He slept, But what were the
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  Speaker 1: visions of his last earthly slumber? The wanderer's dream? He
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  Speaker 1: dreamed that he stood on the summit of a precipice
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  Speaker 1: whose downward height no eye could have measured but for
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  Speaker 1: the fearful waves of a fiery ocean that lashed and
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  Speaker 1: blazed and roared at its bottom, sending its burning spray
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  Speaker 1: far up so as to drench the dreamer with its
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  Speaker 1: sulfurous reign. The whole glowing ocean below was alive. Every
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  Speaker 1: billow bore an agonizing soul that rose like a wreck
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  Speaker 1: or a putrid course on the waves of Earth's oceans,
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  Speaker 1: uttered a shriek as it burst against that adamantine precipice, sunk,
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  Speaker 1: and rose again to repeat that tremendous experiment. Every billow
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  Speaker 1: of fire was thus instinct, with immortal and agonizing exist
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  Speaker 1: Each was freighted with a soul that rose on the
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  Speaker 1: burning wave in torturing hope, burst on the rock in despair,
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  Speaker 1: added its eternal shriek to the roar of that fiery ocean,
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  Speaker 1: and sunk to rise again in vain and forever. Suddenly
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  Speaker 1: the Wanderer felt himself flung half way down the precipice.
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  Speaker 1: He stood in his dream, tottering on a crag midway
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  Speaker 1: down the precipice. He looked upward, but the upper air,
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  Speaker 1: for there was no heaven, showed only blackness, unshadowed and impenetrable.
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  Speaker 1: But blacker than that blackness, he could distinguish a gigantic,
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  Speaker 1: outstretched arm that held him as in sport, on the
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  Speaker 1: ridge of that infernal precipice, while another that seemed in
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  Speaker 1: its motions to hold fearful and invisible conjunction with the
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  Speaker 1: arm that grasped him, as if both belonged to some
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  Speaker 1: being too vast and horrible even for the imagery of
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  Speaker 1: a dream to shape. Pointed upwards to a dial plate
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  Speaker 1: fixed on the top of that precipice, and which the
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  Speaker 1: flashes of that ocean of fire made fearfully conspicuous. He
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  Speaker 1: saw the mysterious single hand the revolt. He saw it
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  Speaker 1: reach the appointed period of one five oh years, For
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  Speaker 1: in this mystic plate, centuries were marked, not ours. He
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  Speaker 1: shrieked in his dream, and with that strong impulse often
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  Speaker 1: felt in sleep, burst from the arm that held him
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  Speaker 1: to arrest the motion of the hand. In the effort,
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  Speaker 1: he fell, and, falling, grasped it all that might save him.
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  Speaker 1: His fall seemed perpendicular. There was nought to save him.
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  Speaker 1: The rock was as smooth as ice. The ocean of
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  Speaker 1: fire broke at its foot. Suddenly a group of figures appeared, ascending.
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  Speaker 1: As he fell. He grasped at them successively, first Stanton,
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  Speaker 1: then Walburg, Allen, Mortimer, is it Dora, Monsada? All past him?
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  Speaker 1: To each he seem'd, in his slumber to cling in
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  Speaker 1: order to break his fall. All ascended the precipice. He
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  Speaker 1: caught it each in his downward flight, but all forsook
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  Speaker 1: him and ascended. His last despairing reverted glance was fix'd
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  Speaker 1: on the clock of eternity. The upraised black arm seem'd
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  Speaker 1: to push forward the hand. It arrived that its period.
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  Speaker 1: He fell, He sunk, He blazed, He shrie the burning
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  Speaker 1: waves boomed over his sinking head, and the clock of
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  Speaker 1: Eternity rung out its awful chime. Room for the soul
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  Speaker 1: of the Wanderer, And the waves of the burning ocean
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  Speaker 1: answered as they lashed the adamantine rock. There is room
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  Speaker 1: for more, the Wanderer awoke, and of chapter thirty eight,