Chapter XVII: Front Matter (17)

It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza
had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of
the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old
Ducal Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the
Piazetta, by way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived
opposite the mouth of the canal San Marco, a female voice from
its recesses broke suddenly upon the night, in one wild,
hysterical, and long continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I
sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his single
oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of recovery,
and we were consequently left to the guidance of the current
which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel. Like
some huge and sable-feathered condor, we were slowly drifting
down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaux
flashing from the windows, and down the staircases of the Ducal
Palace, turned all at once that deep gloom into a livid and
preternatural day.

A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen
from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim
canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim;
and, although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a
stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon
the surface, the treasure which was to be found, alas! only
within the abyss. Upon the broad black marble flagstones at the
entrance of the palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a
figure which none who then saw can have ever since forgotten. It
was the Marchesa Aphrodite—the adoration of all Venice—the gayest
of the gay—the most lovely where all were beautiful—but still the
young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni, and the mother of
that fair child, her first and only one, who now, deep beneath
the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon her
sweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to
call upon her name.

She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in the
black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more
than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array,
clustered, amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her
classical head, in curls like those of the young hyacinth. A
snowy-white and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly the sole
covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summer and midnight
air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in the statue-like
form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of very vapor
which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe.
Yet—strange to say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned
downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay
buried—but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of
the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all
Venice—but how could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when
beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark, gloomy niche,
too, yawns right opposite her chamber window—what, then, _could_
there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in its ivy-wreathed
and solemn cornices—that the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered
at a thousand times before? Nonsense!—Who does not remember that,
at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable
far-off places, the woe which is close at hand?

Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the
water-gate, stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of
Mentoni himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a
guitar, and seemed _ennuye_ to the very death, as at intervals he
gave directions for the recovery of his child. Stupefied and
aghast, I had myself no power to move from the upright position I
had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and must have
presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and
ominous appearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I
floated down among them in that funereal gondola.

All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the
search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
sorrow. There seemed but little hope for the child; (how much
less than for the mother!) but now, from the interior of that
dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part of
the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the
Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach
of the light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy
descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in an instant
afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathing child
within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of the
Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became
unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to
the wonder-stricken spectators the graceful person of a very
young man, with the sound of whose name the greater part of
Europe was then ringing.

No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now
receive her child—she will press it to her heart—she will cling
to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas!
_another’s_ arms have taken it from the stranger—_another’s_ arms
have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the
palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip—her beautiful lip trembles;
tears are gathering in her eyes—those eyes which, like Pliny’s
acanthus, are “soft and almost liquid.” Yes! tears are gathering
in those eyes—and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the
soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallor of the
marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the very
purity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a
tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about
her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich
silver lilies in the grass.

Why _should_ that lady blush! To this demand there is no
answer—except that, having left, in the eager haste and terror of
a mother’s heart, the privacy of her own _boudoir_, she has
neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and utterly
forgotten to throw over her Venetian shoulders that drapery which
is their due. What other possible reason could there have been
for her so blushing?—for the glance of those wild appealing
eyes?—for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?—for the
convulsive pressure of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell,
as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of
the stranger. What reason could there have been for the low—the
singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
uttered hurriedly in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast conquered,”
she said, or the murmurs of the water deceived me; “thou hast
conquered—one hour after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be!”

The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the
palace, and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon
the flags. He shook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye
glanced around in search of a gondola. I could not do less than
offer him the service of my own; and he accepted the civility.
Having obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together
to his residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession,
and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of great
apparent cordiality.

There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being
minute. The person of the stranger—let me call him by this title,
who to all the world was still a stranger—the person of the
stranger is one of these subjects. In height he might have been
below rather than above the medium size: although there were
moments of intense passion when his frame actually _expanded_ and
belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his
figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at
the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has
been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more
dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity—singular,
wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to
intense and brilliant jet—and a profusion of curling, black hair,
from which a forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at
intervals all light and ivory—his were features than which I have
seen none more classically regular, except, perhaps, the marble
ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yet his countenance was,
nevertheless, one of those which all men have seen at some period
of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. It had no
peculiar, it had no settled predominant expression to be fastened
upon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten, but
forgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it
to mind. Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any
time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror of that
face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the
passion, when the passion had departed.

Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me,
in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him _very_ early
the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself
accordingly at his Palazzo, one of those huge structures of
gloomy, yet fantastic pomp, which tower above the waters of the
Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was shown up a broad
winding staircase of mosaics, into an apartment whose
unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an
actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with luxuriousness.

I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of his
possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms of
ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not
bring myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe
could have supplied the princely magnificence which burned and
blazed around.

Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was still
brilliantly lighted up. I judge from this circumstance, as well
as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend,
that he had not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding
night. In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber, the
evident design had been to dazzle and astound. Little attention
had been paid to the _decora_ of what is technically called
_keeping_, or to the proprieties of nationality. The eye wandered
from object to object, and rested upon none—neither the
_grotesques_ of the Greek painters, nor the sculptures of the
best Italian days, nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich
draperies in every part of the room trembled to the vibration of
low, melancholy music, whose origin was not to be discovered. The
senses were oppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes,
reeking up from strange convolute censers, together with
multitudinous flaring and flickering tongues of emerald and
violet fire. The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the
whole, through windows, formed each of a single pane of
crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand
reflections, from curtains which rolled from their cornices like
cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in
subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid-looking cloth of
Chili gold.

“Ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!”—laughed the proprietor, motioning me to
a seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself back at
full-length upon an ottoman. “I see,” said he, perceiving that I
could not immediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of so
singular a welcome—“I see you are astonished at my apartment—at
my statues—my pictures—my originality of conception in
architecture and upholstery! absolutely drunk, eh, with my
magnificence? But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me for my
uncharitable laughter. You appeared so _utterly_ astonished.
Besides, some things are so completely ludicrous, that a man
_must_ laugh or die. To die laughing, must be the most glorious
of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was Sir
Thomas More—Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in
the _Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of
characters who came to the same magnificent end. Do you know,
however,” continued he musingly, “that at Sparta (which is now
Palæochori,) at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among
a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a kind of _socle_, upon
which are still legible the letters ΛΑΞΜ. They are undoubtedly
part of ΓΕΛΑΞΜΑ. Now, at Sparta were a thousand temples and
shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly
strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the
others! But in the present instance,” he resumed, with a singular
alteration of voice and manner, “I have no right to be merry at
your expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot
produce anything so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My
other apartments are by no means of the same order—mere _ultras_
of fashionable insipidity. This is better than fashion—is it not?
Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage—that is, with
those who could afford it at the cost of their entire patrimony.
I have guarded, however, against any such profanation. With one
exception, you are the only human being besides myself and my
_valet_, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these
imperial precincts, since they have been bedizened as you see!”

I bowed in acknowledgment—for the overpowering sense of splendor
and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity
of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing, in
words, my appreciation of what I might have construed into a
compliment.

“Here,” he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered
around the apartment, “here are paintings from the Greeks to
Cimabue, and from Cimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen,
as you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtu. They
are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this.
Here, too, are some _chefs d’oeuvre_ of the unknown great; and
here, unfinished designs by men, celebrated in their day, whose
very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to silence
and to me. What think you,” said he, turning abruptly as he
spoke—“what think you of this Madonna della Pieta?”

“It is Guido’s own!” I said, with all the enthusiasm of my
nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
loveliness. “It is Guido’s own!—how _could_ you have obtained
it?—she is undoubtedly in painting what the Venus is in
sculpture.”

“Ha!” said he thoughtfully, “the Venus—the beautiful Venus?—the
Venus of the Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded
hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be
heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and
in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence
of all affectation. Give _me_ the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a
copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot
behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help—pity
me!—I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates
who said that the statuary found his statue in the block of
marble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his
couplet—

‘Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto
Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.’”

It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the
true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the
bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to
determine in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark
to have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor of my
acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning, still more
fully applicable to his moral temperament and character. Nor can
I better define that peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place
him so essentially apart from all other human beings, than by
calling it a _habit_ of intense and continual thought, pervading
even his most trivial actions—intruding upon his moments of
dalliance—and interweaving itself with his very flashes of
merriment—like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the
grinning masks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.

I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the
mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly
descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of
trepidation—a degree of nervous _unction_ in action and in
speech—an unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me at
all times unaccountable, and upon some occasions even filled me
with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in the middle of a sentence
whose commencement he had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be
listening in the deepest attention, as if either in momentary
expectation of a visitor, or to sounds which must have had
existence in his imagination alone.

It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and scholar
Politian’s beautiful tragedy “The Orfeo,” (the first native
Italian tragedy,) which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered
a passage underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the end
of the third act—a passage of the most heart-stirring
excitement—a passage which, although tainted with impurity, no
man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion—no woman without
a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and, upon
the opposite interleaf, were the following English lines, written
in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of my
acquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognising it as his
own:—

Thou wast that all to me, love,
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers;
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, “Onward!”—but o’er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute—motionless—aghast!

For alas! alas! with me The light of life is o’er. “No more—no more—no more,” (Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore,) Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree, Or the stricken eagle soar!

Now all my hours are trances;
And all my nightly dreams
Are where the dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian streams.

Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o’er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow!—
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow!

That these lines were written in English—a language with which I
had not believed their author acquainted—afforded me little
matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his
acquirements, and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing
them from observation, to be astonished at any similar discovery;
but the place of date, I must confess, occasioned me no little
amazement. It had been originally written _London_, and
afterwards carefully overscored—not, however, so effectually as
to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say, this
occasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a
former conversation with a friend, I particularly inquired if he
had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for
some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,)
when his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he
had never visited the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as
well here mention, that I have more than once heard, (without, of
course, giving credit to a report involving so many
improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, was not only
by birth, but in education, an _Englishman_.

“There is one painting,” said he, without being aware of my notice of the tragedy—“there is still one painting which you have not seen.” And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length portrait of the Marchesa Aphrodite.

Human art could have done no more in the delineation of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed downward to a curiously fashioned vase. One small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth; and, scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman’s _Bussy D’Ambois_, quivered instinctively upon my lips:

“He is up There like a Roman statue! He will stand Till Death hath made him marble!”

“Come,” he said at length, turning towards a table of richly
enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
fantastically stained, together with two large Etruscan vases,
fashioned in the same extraordinary model as that in the
foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I supposed to be
Johannisberger. “Come,” he said, abruptly, “let us drink! It is
early—but let us drink. It is _indeed_ early,” he continued,
musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer made the
apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise: “It is _indeed_
early—but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an
offering to yon solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers
are so eager to subdue!” And, having made me pledge him in a
bumper, he swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the
wine.

“To dream,” he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory
conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of
the magnificent vases—“to dream has been the business of my life.
I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of
dreams. In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better? You
behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural
embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian
devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are outstretched upon carpets
of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to the timid alone.
Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are the bugbears
which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the magnificent.
Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of folly has
palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose.
Like these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and
the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder
visions of that land of real dreams whither I am now rapidly
departing.” He here paused abruptly, bent his head to his bosom,
and seemed to listen to a sound which I could not hear. At
length, erecting his frame, he looked upwards, and ejaculated the
lines of the Bishop of Chichester:

_“Stay for me there! I will not fail_
_To meet thee in that hollow vale.”_

In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw
himself at full-length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock
at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a
second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni’s household burst into
the room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the
incoherent words, “My mistress!—my mistress!—Poisoned!—poisoned!
Oh, beautiful—oh, beautiful Aphrodite!”

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the
sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs
were rigid—his lips were livid—his lately beaming eyes were
riveted in _death_. I staggered back towards the table—my hand
fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet—and a consciousness of
the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul.

THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

[_Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris_.]

I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at
length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my
senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of
death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my
ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed
merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul
the idea of _revolution_—perhaps from its association in fancy
with the burr of a mill wheel. This only for a brief period, for
presently I heard no more. Yet, for a while, I saw—but with how
terrible an exaggeration! I saw the lips of the black-robed
judges. They appeared to me white—whiter than the sheet upon
which I trace these words—and thin even to grotesqueness; thin
with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immoveable
resolution—of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the
decrees of what to me was Fate, were still issuing from those
lips. I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them
fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no
sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious
horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable
draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my
vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first
they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white and slender
angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a
most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my
frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery,
while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of
flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help. And then
there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought
of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought came
gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full
appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to
feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if
magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into
nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of
darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a
mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and
stillness, night were the universe.

I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness
was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define,
or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest
slumber—no! In delirium—no! In a swoon—no! In death—no! even in
the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man.
Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the
gossamer web of some dream. Yet in a second afterward, (so frail
may that web have been) we remember not that we have dreamed. In
the return to life from the swoon there are two stages; first,
that of the sense of mental or spiritual; secondly, that of the
sense of physical, existence. It seems probable that if, upon
reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of the
first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of
the gulf beyond. And that gulf is—what? How at least shall we
distinguish its shadows from those of the tomb? But if the
impressions of what I have termed the first stage are not, at
will, recalled, yet, after long interval, do they not come
unbidden, while we marvel whence they come? He who has never
swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar
faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in
mid-air the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who
ponders over the perfume of some novel flower; is not he whose
brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence
which has never before arrested his attention.

Amid frequent and thoughtful endeavors to remember; amid earnest
struggles to regather some token of the state of seeming
nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been
moments when I have dreamed of success; there have been brief,
very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the
lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have had reference
only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness. These shadows
of memory tell, indistinctly, of tall figures that lifted and
bore me in silence down—down—still down—till a hideous dizziness
oppressed me at the mere idea of the interminableness of the
descent. They tell also of a vague horror at my heart, on account
of that heart’s unnatural stillness. Then comes a sense of sudden
motionlessness throughout all things; as if those who bore me (a
ghastly train!) had outrun, in their descent, the limits of the
limitless, and paused from the wearisomeness of their toil. After
this I call to mind flatness and dampness; and then all is
madness—the madness of a memory which busies itself among
forbidden things.

Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and sound—the
tumultuous motion of the heart, and, in my ears, the sound of its
beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again sound,
and motion, and touch—a tingling sensation pervading my frame.
Then the mere consciousness of existence, without thought—a
condition which lasted long. Then, very suddenly, thought, and
shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true
state. Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility. Then a
rushing revival of soul and a successful effort to move. And now
a full memory of the trial, of the judges, of the sable
draperies, of the sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then
entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later
day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to
recall.

So far, I had not opened my eyes. I felt that I lay upon my back,
unbound. I reached out my hand, and it fell heavily upon
something damp and hard. There I suffered it to remain for many
minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I
longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first
glance at objects around me. It was not that I feared to look
upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there should be
nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I
quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were
confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I
struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to
oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close. I
still lay quietly, and made effort to exercise my reason. I
brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from
that point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed;
and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since
elapsed. Yet not for a moment did I suppose myself actually dead.
Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we read in fiction, is
altogether inconsistent with real existence;—but where and in
what state was I? The condemned to death, I knew, perished
usually at the autos-da-fe, and one of these had been held on the
very night of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my
dungeon, to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place
for many months? This I at once saw could not be. Victims had
been in immediate demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all
the condemned cells at Toledo, had stone floors, and light was
not altogether excluded.

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my
heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed into
insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once started to my feet,
trembling convulsively in every fibre. I thrust my arms wildly
above and around me in all directions. I felt nothing; yet
dreaded to move a step, lest I should be impeded by the walls of
a tomb. Perspiration burst from every pore, and stood in cold big
beads upon my forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length
intolerable, and I cautiously moved forward, with my arms
extended, and my eyes straining from their sockets, in the hope
of catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces;
but still all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely.
It seemed evident that mine was not, at least, the most hideous
of fates.

And now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there
came thronging upon my recollection a thousand vague rumors of
the horrors of Toledo. Of the dungeons there had been strange
things narrated—fables I had always deemed them—but yet strange,
and too ghastly to repeat, save in a whisper. Was I left to
perish of starvation in this subterranean world of darkness; or
what fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me? That the result
would be death, and a death of more than customary bitterness, I
knew too well the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and
the hour were all that occupied or distracted me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid
obstruction. It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry—very
smooth, slimy, and cold. I followed it up; stepping with all the
careful distrust with which certain antique narratives had
inspired me. This process, however, afforded me no means of
ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its
circuit, and return to the point whence I set out, without being
aware of the fact; so perfectly uniform seemed the wall. I
therefore sought the knife which had been in my pocket, when led
into the inquisitorial chamber; but it was gone; my clothes had
been exchanged for a wrapper of coarse serge. I had thought of
forcing the blade in some minute crevice of the masonry, so as to
identify my point of departure. The difficulty, nevertheless, was
but trivial; although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at
first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and
placed the fragment at full length, and at right angles to the
wall. In groping my way around the prison, I could not fail to
encounter this rag upon completing the circuit. So, at least I
thought: but I had not counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or
upon my own weakness. The ground was moist and slippery. I
staggered onward for some time, when I stumbled and fell. My
excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate; and sleep soon
overtook me as I lay.

Upon awaking, and stretching forth an arm, I found beside me a
loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too much exhausted to
reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity.
Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with
much toil came at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the
period when I fell I had counted fifty-two paces, and upon
resuming my walk, I had counted forty-eight more—when I arrived
at the rag. There were in all, then, a hundred paces; and,
admitting two paces to the yard, I presumed the dungeon to be
fifty yards in circuit. I had met, however, with many angles in
the wall, and thus I could form no guess at the shape of the
vault, for vault I could not help supposing it to be.

I had little object—certainly no hope—in these researches; but a
vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall,
I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first I
proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly
of solid material, was treacherous with slime. At length,
however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly;
endeavoring to cross in as direct a line as possible. I had
advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner, when the
remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my
legs. I stepped on it, and fell violently on my face.

In the confusion attending my fall, I did not immediately
apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance, which yet, in a few
seconds afterward, and while I still lay prostrate, arrested my
attention. It was this: my chin rested upon the floor of the
prison, but my lips and the upper portion of my head, although
seemingly at a less elevation than the chin, touched nothing. At
the same time my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and
the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils. I put
forward my arm, and shuddered to find that I had fallen at the
very brink of a circular pit, whose extent, of course, I had no
means of ascertaining at the moment. Groping about the masonry
just below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a small
fragment, and let it fall into the abyss. For many seconds I
hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against the sides of
the chasm in its descent; at length there was a sullen plunge
into water, succeeded by loud echoes. At the same moment there
came a sound resembling the quick opening, and as rapid closing
of a door overhead, while a faint gleam of light flashed suddenly
through the gloom, and as suddenly faded away.

I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and
congratulated myself upon the timely accident by which I had
escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me
no more. And the death just avoided, was of that very character
which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales
respecting the Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny, there
was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or
death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved
for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung,
until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in
every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which
awaited me.

Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall—resolving
there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells, of
which my imagination now pictured many in various positions about
the dungeon. In other conditions of mind I might have had courage
to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses;
but now I was the veriest of cowards. Neither could I forget what
I had read of these pits—that the sudden extinction of life
formed no part of their most horrible plan.

Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours, but at
length I again slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as
before, a loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed
me, and I emptied the vessel at a draught. It must have been
drugged—for scarcely had I drunk, before I became irresistibly
drowsy. A deep sleep fell upon me—a sleep like that of death. How
long it lasted of course, I know not; but when, once again, I
unclosed my eyes, the objects around me were visible. By a wild
sulphurous lustre, the origin of which I could not at first
determine, I was enabled to see the extent and aspect of the
prison.

In its size I had been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its
walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this
fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what
could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances
which environed me, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But
my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in
endeavors to account for the error I had committed in my
measurement. The truth at length flashed upon me. In my first
attempt at exploration I had counted fifty-two paces, up to the
period when I fell; I must then have been within a pace or two of
the fragment of serge; in fact, I had nearly performed the
circuit of the vault. I then slept—and, upon awaking, I must have
returned upon my steps—thus supposing the circuit nearly double
what it actually was. My confusion of mind prevented me from
observing that I began my tour with the wall to the left, and
ended it with the wall to the right.

I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the
enclosure. In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus
deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of
total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep! The
angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches,
at odd intervals. The general shape of the prison was square.
What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other
metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the
depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was
rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which
the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures
of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other
more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls.
I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were
sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and
blurred, as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere. I now
noticed the floor, too, which was of stone. In the centre yawned
the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the
only one in the dungeon.

All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort—for my personal
condition had been greatly changed during slumber. I now lay upon
my back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of
wood. To this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a
surcingle. It passed in many convolutions about my limbs and
body, leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm to such
extent that I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself with
food from an earthen dish which lay by my side on the floor. I
saw, to my horror, that the pitcher had been removed. I say to my
horror—for I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst it
appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate—for the
food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned.

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. It was some
thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side
walls. In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my
whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is
commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held
what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of
a huge pendulum such as we see on antique clocks. There was
something, however, in the appearance of this machine which
caused me to regard it more attentively. While I gazed directly
upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I
fancied that I saw it in motion. In an instant afterward the
fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief, and of course slow. I
watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in
wonder. Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I
turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I
saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had issued from the
well, which lay just within view to my right. Even then, while I
gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes,
allured by the scent of the meat. From this it required much
effort and attention to scare them away.

It might have been half an hour, perhaps even an hour, (for I
could take but imperfect note of time) before I again cast my
eyes upward. What I then saw confounded and amazed me. The sweep
of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a
natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what
mainly disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended.
I now observed—with what horror it is needless to say—that its
nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel,
about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and
the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor
also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a
solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod
of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish
ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known
to the inquisitorial agents—_the pit_, whose horrors had been
destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of
hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule of all their
punishments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest
of accidents, I knew that surprise, or entrapment into torment,
formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of these
dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no part of the
demon plan to hurl me into the abyss; and thus (there being no
alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me.
Milder! I half smiled in my agony as I thought of such
application of such a term.

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than
mortal, during which I counted the rushing vibrations of the
steel! Inch by inch—line by line—with a descent only appreciable
at intervals that seemed ages—down and still down it came! Days
passed—it might have been that many days passed—ere it swept so
closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of
the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed—I
wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew
frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the
sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm, and
lay smiling at the glittering death, as a child at some rare
bauble.

There was another interval of utter insensibility; it was brief;
for, upon again lapsing into life there had been no perceptible
descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long; for I knew
there were demons who took note of my swoon, and who could have
arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt
very—oh! inexpressibly—sick and weak, as if through long
inanition. Even amid the agonies of that period, the human nature
craved food. With painful effort I outstretched my left arm as
far as my bonds permitted, and took possession of the small
remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As I put a portion
of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind a half formed
thought of joy—of hope. Yet what business had _I_ with hope? It
was, as I say, a half formed thought—man has many such, which are
never completed. I felt that it was of joy—of hope; but felt also
that it had perished in its formation. In vain I struggled to
perfect—to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all
my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile—an idiot.

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length. I
saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the
heart. It would fray the serge of my robe—it would return and
repeat its operations—again—and again. Notwithstanding its
terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more) and the
hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very
walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that,
for several minutes, it would accomplish. And at this thought I
paused. I dared not go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon
it with a pertinacity of attention—as if, in so dwelling, I could
arrest here the descent of the steel. I forced myself to ponder
upon the sound of the crescent as it should pass across the
garment—upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction
of cloth produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this
frivolity until my teeth were on edge.

Down—steadily down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure in
contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity. To the
right—to the left—far and wide—with the shriek of a damned
spirit! to my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger! I
alternately laughed and howled as the one or the other idea grew
predominant.

Down—certainly, relentlessly down! It vibrated within three
inches of my bosom! I struggled violently, furiously, to free my
left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand. I could
reach the latter, from the platter beside me, to my mouth, with
great effort, but no farther. Could I have broken the fastenings
above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the
pendulum. I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!

Down—still unceasingly—still inevitably down! I gasped and
struggled at each vibration. I shrunk convulsively at its every
sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the
eagerness of the most unmeaning despair; they closed themselves
spasmodically at the descent, although death would have been a
relief, oh, how unspeakable! Still I quivered in every nerve to
think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate
that keen, glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that
prompted the nerve to quiver—the frame to shrink. It was hope—the
hope that triumphs on the rack—that whispers to the
death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in
actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there
suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of
despair. For the first time during many hours—or perhaps days—I
thought. It now occurred to me that the bandage, or surcingle,
which enveloped me, was unique. I was tied by no separate cord.
The first stroke of the razorlike crescent athwart any portion of
the band, would so detach it that it might be unwound from my
person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case,
the proximity of the steel! The result of the slightest struggle
how deadly! Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the
torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possibility? Was
it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the track of the
pendulum? Dreading to find my faint, and, as it seemed, my last
hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a
distinct view of my breast. The surcingle enveloped my limbs and
body close in all directions—save in the path of the destroying
crescent.

Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position,
when there flashed upon my mind what I cannot better describe
than as the unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I
have previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated
indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to my burning
lips. The whole thought was now present—feeble, scarcely sane,
scarcely definite,—but still entire. I proceeded at once, with
the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution.

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon
which I lay had been literally swarming with rats. They were
wild, bold, ravenous—their red eyes glaring upon me as if they
waited but for motionlessness on my part to make me their prey.
“To what food,” I thought, “have they been accustomed in the
well?”

They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them,
all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish. I had fallen
into an habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter;
and, at length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement
deprived it of effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently
fastened their sharp fangs in my fingers. With the particles of
the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I thoroughly rubbed
the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from
the floor, I lay breathlessly still.