University of Virginia Library

12. CHAPTER XII.

My way lay through the city. I had scarcely
entered it when I was seized with a general sensation
of sickness. Every object grew dim and swam
before my sight. It was with difficulty I prevented
myself from sinking to the bottom of the carriage.
I ordered myself to be carried to Mrs. Baynton's,
in hope that an interval of repose would invigorate
and refresh me. My distracted thoughts would
allow me but little rest. Growing somewhat better
in the afternoon, I resumed my journey.

My contemplations were limited to a few objects.
I regarded my success, in the purpose which I had
in view, as considerably doubtful. I depended, in
some degree, on the suggestions of the moment,
and on the materials which Pleyel himself should
furnish me. When I reflected on the nature of
the accusation, I burned with disdain. Would not
truth, and the consciousness of innocence, render
me triumphant? Should I not cast from me, with
irresistible force, such atrocious imputations?

What an entire and mournful change has been
effected in a few hours! The gulf that separates
man from infects is not wider than that which fevers
the polluted from the chaste among women.
Yesterday and to-day I am the same. There is a
degree of depravity to which it is impossible for me
to sink; yet, in the apprehension of another, my
ancient and intimate associate, the perpetual witness
of my actions, and partaker of my thoughts,

I had ceased to be the same. My integrity was tarnished
and withered in his eyes. I was the colleague
of a murderer, and the paramour of a thief!

His opinion was not destitute of evidence: yet
what proofs could reasonably avail to establish an
opinion like this? If the sentiments corresponded
not with the voice that was heard, the evidence
was deficient; but this want of correspondence
would have been supposed by me if I had been
the auditor and Pleyel the criminal. But mimicry
might still more plausibly have been employed to
explain the scene. Alas! it is the fate of Clara
Wieland to fall into the hands of a precipitate and
inexorable judge.

But what, O man of mischief! is the tendency
of thy thoughts? Frustrated in thy first design,
thou wilt not forego the immolation of thy victim.
To exterminate my reputation was all that remained
to thee, and this my guardian has permitted.
To dispossess Pleyel of this prejudice may be impossible;
but if that be effected, it cannot be supposed
that thy wiles are exhausted; thy cunning
will discover innumerable avenues to the accomplishment
of thy malignant purpose.

Why should I enter the lists against thee? Would
to heaven I could disarm thy vengeance by my deprecations!
When I think of all the resources
with which nature and education have supplied
thee; that thy form is a combination of steely fibres
and organs of exquisite ductility and boundless compass,
actuated by an intelligence gifted with infinite
endowments, and comprehending all knowledge,
I perceive that my doom is fixed. What obstacle
will be able to divert thy zeal or repel thy efforts?
That being who has hitherto protected me has
borne testimony to the formidableness of thy attempts,

since nothing less than supernatural interference
could check thy career.

Musing on these thoughts, I arrived, towards the
close of the day, at Pleyel's house. A month before,
I had traversed the same path; but how different
were my sensations! Now I was seeking
the presence of one who regarded me as the most
degenerate of human kind. I was to plead the
cause of my innocence, against witnesses the most
explicit and unerring, of those which support the
fabric of human knowledge. The nearer I approached
the crisis, the more did my confidence decay.
When the chaise stopped at the door, my
strength refused to support me, and I threw myself
into the arms of an ancient female domestic. I
had not courage to inquire whether her master was
at home. I was tormented with fears that the projected
journey was already undertaken. These
fears were removed, by her asking me whether she
should call her young master, who had just gone
into his own room. I was somewhat revived by
this intelligence, and resolved immediately to seek
him there.

In my confusion of mind, I neglected to knock
at the door, but entered his apartment without
previous notice. This abruptness was altogether
involuntary. Absorbed in reflections of such unspeakable
moment, I had no leisure to heed the
niceties of punctilio. I discovered him standing
with his back towards the entrance. A small trunk,
with its lid raised, was before him, in which it
seemed as if he had been busy in packing his clothes.
The moment of my entrance, he was employed in
gazing at something which he held in his hand.

I imagined that I fully comprehended this scene.
The image which he held before him, and by which

his attention was so deeply engaged, I doubted not
to be my own. These preparations for his journey,
the cause to which it was to be imputed, the
hopelessness of success in the undertaking on which
I had entered, rushed at once upon my feelings, and
dissolved me into a flood of tears.

Startled by this sound, he dropped the lid of the
trunk and turned. The solemn sadness that previously
overspread his countenance, gave sudden
way to an attitude and look of the most vehement
astonishment. Perceiving me unable to uphold myself,
he stepped towards me without speaking, and
supported me by his arm. The kindness of this
action called forth a new effusion from my eyes.
Weeping was a solace to which, at that time, I had
not grown familiar, and which, therefore, was peculiarly
delicious. Indignation was no longer to
be read in the features of my friend. They were
pregnant with a mixture of wonder and pity.
Their expression was easily interpreted. This visit,
and these tears, were tokens of my penitence. The
wretch whom he had stigmatized as incurably and
obdurately wicked, now shewed herself susceptible
of remorse, and had come to confess her guilt.

This persuasion had no tendency to comfort
me: It only shewed me, with new evidence, the
difficulty of the task which I had assigned myself.
We were mutually silent. I had less power and
less inclination than ever to speak. I extricated
myself from his hold, and threw myself on a sofa.
He placed himself by my side, and appeared to wait
with impatience and anxiety for some beginning of
the conversation. What could I say? It my mind
had suggested any thing suitable to the occasion, my
utterance was suffocated by tears.

Frequently he attempted to speak, but seemed deterred

by some degree of uncertainty as to the true
nature of the scene. At length, in faltering accents
he spoke:

“My friend! would to heaven I were still permitted
to call you by that name. The image that
I once adored existed only in my fancy; but though
I cannot hope to see it realized, you may not be
totally insensible to the horrors of that gulf into
which you are about to plunge. What heart is
forever exempt from the goadings of compunction
and the influx of laudable propensities?

“I thought you accomplished and wise beyond
the rest of women. Not a sentiment you uttered,
not a look you assumed, that were not, in my apprehension,
sraught with the sublimities of rectitude
and the illuminations of genius. Deceit has
some bounds. Your education could not be without
influence. A vigorous understanding cannot be utterly
devoid of virtue; but you could not counterfeit
the powers of invention and reasoning. I was
rash in my invectives. I will not, but with life,
relinquish all hopes of you. I will shut out every
proof that would tell me that your heart is incura—
bly diseased.

“You come to restore me once more to happiness;
to convince me that you have torn her mask
from vice, and feel nothing but abhorrence for the
part you have hitherto acted.”

At these words my equanimity forsook me. For
a moment I forgot the evidence from which Pleyel's
opinions were derived, the benevolence of his remonstrances,
and the grief which his accents bespoke;
I was filled with indiguation and horror at
charges so black; I shrunk back and darted at him
a look of disdain and anger. My passion supplied
me with words.

“What detestable infatuation was it that led me
hither! Why do I patiently endure these horrible
insults! My offences exist only in your own distempered
imagination: you are leagued with the
traitor who assailed my life: you have vowed the
destruction of my peace and honor. I deserve infamy
for listening to calumnies so base!”

These words were heard by Pleyel without visible
resentment. His countenance relapsed into its
former gloom; but he did not even look at me.
The ideas which had given place to my angry
emotions returned, and once more melted me into
tears. “O!” I exclaimed, in a voice broken by
sobs, “what a task is mine! Compelled to hear-ken
to charges which I feel to be false, but which
I know to be believed by him that utters them;
believed too not without evidence, which, though
fallacious, is not unplausible.

“I came hither not to confess, but to vindicate.
I know the source of your opinions. Wieland has
informed me on what your suspicions are built.
These suspicions are fostered by you as certainties;
the tenor of my life, of all my conversations and
letters, affords me no security; every sentiment that
my tongue and my pen have uttered, bear testimony
to the rectitude of my mind; but this testimony is
rejected. I am condemned as brutally profligate: I
am classed with the stupidly and sordidly wicked.

“And where are the proofs that must justify so
foul and so improbable an accusation? You have
overheard a midnight conference. Voices have saluted
your ear, in which you imagine yourself to
have recognized mine, and that of a detected villain.
The sentiments expressed were not allowed
to outweigh the casual or concerted resemblance of
voice. Sentiments the reverse of all those whose

influence my former life had attested, denoting a
mind polluted by grovelling vices, and entering into
compact with that of a thief and a murderer. The
nature of these sentiments did not enable you to
detect the cheat, did not suggest to you the possibility
that my voice had been counterseited by another.

“You were precipitate and prone to condemn.
Instead of rushing on the impostors, and comparing
the evidence of sight with that of hearing, you
stood aloof, or you fled. My innocence would
not now have stood in need of vindication, if this
conduct had been pursued. That you did not pursue
it, your present thoughts incontestibly prove.
Yet this conduct might surely have been expected
from Pleyel. That he would not hastily impute
the blackest of crimes, that he would not couple
my name with infamy, and cover me with ruin for
inadequate or slight reasons, might reasonably have
been expected.” The sobs which convulsed my
bosom would not suffer me to proceed.

Pleyel was for a moment affected. He looked at
me with some expression of doubt; but this quickly
gave place to a mournful solemnity. He fixed his
eyes on the floor as in reverie, and spoke:

“Two hours hence I am gone. Shall I carry
away with me the sorrow that is now my guest?
or shall that sorrow be accumulated tenfold? What
is she that is now before me? Shall every hour
supply me with new proofs of a wickedness beyond
example? Already I deem her the most abandoned
and detestable of human creatures. Her coming
and her tears imparted a gleam of hope, but that
gleam has vanished.”

He now fixed his eyes upon me, and every
muscle in his face trembled. His tone was hollow

and terrible—“Thou knowest that I was a witness
of your interview, yet thou comest hither to upbraid
me for injustice! Thou canst look me in
the face and say that I am deceived!—An inscrutable
providence has fashioned thee for some end.
Thou wilt live, no doubt, to fulfil the purposes
of thy maker, if he repent not of his workmanship,
and send not his vengeance to exterminate
thee, ere the measure of thy days be full. Surely
nothing in the shape of man can vie with thee!

“But I thought I had stifled this fury. I am
not constituted thy judge. My office is to pity and
amend, and not to punish and revile. I deemed myself
exempt from all tempestuous passions. I had
almost persuaded myself to weep over thy fall; but
I am frail as dust, and mutable as water; I am
calm, I am compassionate only in thy absence.—
Make this house, this room, thy abode as long as
thou wilt, but forgive me if I prefer solitude for the
short time during which I shall stay.” Saying this,
he motioned as if to leave the apartment.

The stormy passions of this man affected me by
sympathy. I ceased to weep. I was motionless
and speechless with agony. I sat with my hands
clasped, mutely gazing after him as he withdrew.
I desired to detain him, but was unable to make
any effort for that purpose, till he had passed out
of the room. I then uttered an involuntary and
piercing cry—“Pleyel! Art thou gone? Gone
forever?”

At this summons he hastily returned. He beheld
me wild, pale, gasping for breath, and my head already
sinking on my bosom. A painful dizziness
seized me, and I fainted away.

When I recovered, I found myself stretched on
a bed in the outer apartment, and Pleyel, with two

female servants standing beside it. All the fury and
scorn which the countenance of the former lately
expressed, had now disappeared, and was succeded
by the most tender anxiety. As soon as he perceived
that my senses were returned to me, he clasped
his hands, and exclaimed, “God be thanked! you
are once more alive. I had almost despaired of
your recovery. I fear I have been precipitate and
unjust. My senses must have been the victims of
some inexplicable and momentary phrenzy. Forgive
me, I beseech you, forgive my reproaches. I
would purchase conviction of your purity, at the
price of my existence here and hereafter.”

He once more, in a tone of the most servent
tenderness, besought me to be composed, and then
left me to the care of the women.