University of Virginia Library

22. CHAPTER XXII.

The inhabitants of the HUT received me with
a mixture of joy and surprize. Their homely welcome,
and their artless sympathy, were grateful to
my feelings. In the midst of their inquiries, as to
my health, they avoided all allusions to the source
of my malady. They were honest creatures, and
I loved them well. I participated in the tears which
they shed when I mentioned to them my speedy departure
for Europe, and promised to acquaint them
with my welfare during my long absence.

They expressed great surprize when I informed
them of my intention to visit my cottage. Alarm
and foreboding overspread their features, and they
attempted to dissuade me from visiting an house
which they firmly believed to be haunted by a thousand
ghastly apparitions.

These apprehensions, however, had no power
over my conduct. I took an irregular path which
led me to my own house. All was vacant and forlorn.
A small enclosure, near which the path led,
was the burying-ground belonging to the family.
This I was obliged to pass. Once I had intended
to enter it, and ponder on the emblems and inscriptions
which my uncle had caused to be made on
the tombs of Catharine and her children; but now
my heart faltered as I approached, and I hastened
forward, that distance might conceal it from my
view.

When I approached the recess, my heart again
sunk. I averted my eyes, and left it behind me as

quickly as possible. Silence reigned through my
habitation, and a darkness which closed doors and
shutters produced. Every object was connected
with mine or my brother's history. I passed the
entry, mounted the stair, and unlocked the door of
my chamber. It was with difficulty that I curbed
my fancy and smothered my fears. Slight movements
and casual sounds were transformed into beckoning
shadows and calling shapes.

I proceeded to the closet. I opened and looked
round it with fearfulness. All things were in their
accustomed order. I sought and found the manuscript
where I was used to deposit it. This being
secured, there was nothing to detain me; yet I stood
and contemplated awhile the furniture and walls of
my chamber. I remembered how long this apartment
had been a sweet and tranquil afylum; I compared
its former state with its present dreariness,
and reflected that I now beheld it for the last time.

Here it was that the incomprehensible behaviour
of Carwin was witnessed: this the stage on which
that enemy of man shewed himself for a moment
unmasked. Here the menaces of murder were
wasted to my ear; and here these menaces were
executed.

These thoughts had a tendency to take from me
my self-command. My feeble limbs refused to support
me, and I sunk upon a chair. Incoherent and
half-articulate exclamations escaped my lips. The
name of Carwin was uttered, and eternal woes,
woes like that which his malice had entailed upon
us, were heaped upon him. I invoked all-seeing
heaven to drag to light and to punish this betrayer,
and accused its providence for having thus long
delayed the retribution that was due to so enormous
a guilt.

I have said that the window shutters were closed.
A feeble light, however, found entrance through the
crevices. A small window illuminated the closet,
and the door being closed, a dim ray streamed
through the key-hole. A kind of twilight was thus
created, sufficient for the purposes of vision; but,
at the same time, involving all minuter objects in
obscurity.

This darkness suited the colour of my thoughts.
I sickened at the remembrance of the past. The
prospect of the future excited my loathing. I muttered
in a low voice, Why should I live longer?
Why should I drag a miserable being? All, for
whom I ought to live, have perished. Am I not
myself hunted to death?

At that moment, my despair suddenly became
vigorous. My nerves were no longer unstrung.
My powers, that had long been deadened, were revived.
My bosom swelled with a sudden energy,
and the conviction darted through my mind, that
to end my torments was, at once, practicable and
wise.

I knew how to find way to the recesses of life.
I could use a laneet with some skill, and could distinguish
between vein and artery. By piercing deep
into the latter, I should shun the evils which the
future had in store for me, and take refuge from my
woes in quiet death.

I started on my feet, for my feebleness was gone,
and hasted to the closet. A lancet and other small
instruments were preserved in a case which I had
deposited here. Inattentive as I was to foreign considerations,
my ears were still open to any sound of
mysterious import that should occur. I thought I
heard a step in the entry. My purpose was suspended,
and I cast an eager glance at my chamber

door, which was open. No one appeared, unless
the shadow which I discerned upon the floor, was
the outline of a man. If it were, I was authorized
to suspect that some one was posted close to the entrance,
who possibly had overheard my exclamations.

My teeth chattered, and a wild confusion took
place of my momentary calm. Thus it was when
a terrific visage had disclosed itself on a former night.
Thus it was when the evil destiny of Wieland assumed
the lineaments of something human. What
horrid apparition was preparing to blast my sight?

Still I listened and gazed. Not long, for the
shadow moved; a foot, unshapely and huge, was
thrust forward; a form advanced from its concealment,
and stalked into the room. It was Carwin!

While I had breath I shrieked. While I had
power over my muscles, I motioned with my hand
that he should vanish. My exertions could not last
long; I sunk into a fit.

O that this grateful oblivion had lasted for ever!
Too quickly I recovered my senses. The power
of distinct vision was no sooner restored to me, than
this hateful form again presented itself, and I once
more relapsed.

A second time, untoward nature recalled me from
the sleep of death. I found myself stretched upon
the bed. When I had power to look up, I remembered
only that I had cause to fear. My distempered
fancy fashioned to itself no distinguishable
image. I threw a languid glance round me; once
more my eyes lighted upon Carwin.

He was seated on the floor, his back rested against
the wall, his knees were drawn up, and his face was
buried in his hands. That his station was at some
distance, that his attitude was not menacing, that

his ominous visage was concealed, may account for
my now escaping a shock, violent as those which
were past. I withdrew my eyes, but was not again
deserted by my senses.

On perceiving that I had recovered my sensibility,
he lifted his head. This motion attracted my
attention. His countenance was mild, but sorrow
and astonishment sat upon his features. I averted
my eyes and feebly exclaimed—“O! fly—fly far
and for ever!—I cannot behold you and live!”

He did not rise upon his feet, but clasped his
hands, and faid in a tone of deprecation—“I will
fly. I am become a fiend, the sight of whom destroys.
Yet tell me my offence! You have linked
curses with my name; you ascribe to me a malice
monstrous and infernal. I look around; all is
loneliness and desert! This house and your brother's
are solitary and dismantled! You die away
at the sight of me! My fear whispers that some
deed of horror has been perpetrated; that I am the
undesigning cause.”

What language was this? Had he not avowed
himself a ravisher? Had not this chamber witnessed
his atrocious purposes? I besought him with new
vehemence to go.

He lifted his eyes—“Great heaven! what have
I done? I think I know the extent of my offences.
I have acted, but my actions have possibly effected
more than I designed. This fear has brought
me back from my retreat. I come to repair the
evil of which my rashness was the cause, and to
prevent more evil. I come to confess my errors.”

“Wretch!” I cried when my suffocating emotions
would permit me to speak, “the ghosts of my
sister and her children, do they not rise to accuse
thee? Who was it that blasted the intellects of

Wieland? Who was it that urged him to fury,
and guided him to murder? Who, but thou and
the devil, with whom thou art confederated?”

At these words a new spirit pervaded his countenance.
His eyes once more appealed to heaven.
“If I have memory, if I have being, I am innocent.
I intended no ill; but my folly, indirectly
and remotely, may have caused it; but what words
are these! Your brother lunatic! His children
dead!”

What should I infer from this deportment? Was
the ignorance which these words implied real or
pretended?—Yet how could I imagine a mere human
agency in these events? But if the influence
was preternatural or maniacal in my brother's case,
they must be equally so in my own. Then I remembered
that the voice exerted, was to save me
from Carwin's attempts. These ideas tended to
abate my abhorrence of this man, and to detect the
absurdity of my accusations.

“Alas!” said I, “I have no one to accuse.
Leave me to my fate. Fly from a scene stained
with cruelty; devoted to despair.”

Carwin stood for a time musing and mournful.
At length he faid, “What has happened? I came
to expiate my crimes: let me know them in their
full extent. I have horrible forebodings! What
has happened?”

I was silent; but recollecting the intimation given
by this man when he was detected in my closet,
which implied some knowledge of that power
which interfered in my favor, I eagerly inquired,
“What was that voice which called upon me to
hold when I attempted to open the closet? What
face was that which I faw at the bottom of the
stairs? Answer me truly.”

“I came to confess the truth. Your allusions
are horrible and strange. Perhaps I have but saint
conceptions of the evils which my infatuation has
produced; but what remains I will perform. It was
my voice that you heard! It was my face that
you saw!”

For a moment I doubted whether my remembrance
of events were not confused. How could
he be at once stationed at my shoulder and shut up
in my closet? How could he stand near me and
yet be invisible? But if Carwin's were the thrilling
voice and the fiery visage which I had heard
and seen, then was he the prompter of my brother,
and the author of these dismal outrages.

Once more I averted my eyes and struggled for
speech. “Begone! thou man of mischief! Remorseless
and implacable miscreant! begone!”

“I will obey,” said he in a disconsolate voice;
“yet, wretch as I am, am I unworthy to repair
the evils that I have committed? I came as a repentant
criminal. It is you whom I have injured,
and at your bar am I willing to appear, and confess
and expiate my crimes. I have deceived you: I
have sported with your terrors: I have plotted to
destroy your reputation. I come now to remove
your errors; to set you beyond the reach of similar
fears; to rebuild your same as far as I am able.

“This is the amount of my guilt, and this the
fruit of my remorse. Will you not hear me? Listen
to my consession, and then denounce punishment.
All I ask is a patient audience.”

“What!” I replied, “was not thine the voice
that commanded my brother to imbrue his hands in
the blood of his children—to strangle that angel of
sweetness his wife? Has he not vowed my death,
and the death of Pleyel, at thy bidding? Hast thou

not made him the butcher of his family; changed
him who was the glory of his species into worse
than brute; robbed him of reason, and consigned
the rest of his days to fetters and stripes?”

Carwin's eyes glared, and his limbs were petrified
at this intelligence. No words were requisite
to prove him guiltless of these enormities: at the
time, however, I was nearly insensible to these exculpatory
tokens. He walked to the farther end
of the room, and having recovered fome degree of
composure, he spoke—

“I am not this villain; I have slain no one; I
have prompted none to slay; I have handled a tool
of wonderful efficacy without malignant intentions,
but without caution; ample will be the punishment
of my temerity, if my conduct has contributed to
this evil.” He paused.—

I likewise was silent. I struggled to command
myself so far as to listen to the tale which he should
tell. Observing this, he continued—

“You are not apprized of the existence of a
power which I possess. I know not by what name
to call it.[1] It enables me to mimic exactly the

voice of another, and to modify the sound so that
it shall appear to come from what quarter, and be
uttered at what distance I please.

“I know not that every one possesses this power.
Perhaps, though a casual position of my organs in
my youth shewed me that I possessed it, it is an art
which may be taught to all. Would to God I had
died unknowing of the secret! It has produced nothing
but degradation and calamity.

“For a time the possession of so potent and stupendous
an endowment elated me with pride. Unfortified
by principle, subjected to poverty, stimulated
by headlong passions, I made this powerful
engine subservient to the supply of my wants, and
the gratification of my vanity. I shall not mention
how diligently I cultivated this gift, which seemed
capable of unlimited improvement; nor detail the
various occasions on which it was successfully exerted
to lead superstition, conquer avarice, or excite
awe.

“I left America, which is my native soil, in my
youth. I have been engaged in various scenes of
life, in which my peculiar talent has been exercised
with more or less success. I was finally betrayed
by one who called himself my friend, into acts
which cannot be justified, though they are susceptible
of apology.

“The perfidy of this man compelled me to withdraw
from Europe. I returned to my native country,
uncertain whether silence and obscurity would
save me from his malice. I resided in the purlieus
of the city. I put on the garb and assumed the
manners of a clown.

“My chief recreation was walking. My principal
haunts were the lawns and gardens of Mettingen.
In this delightful region the luxuriances
of nature had been chastened by judicious art, and
each successive contemplation unfolded new enchantments.

“I was studious of seclusion: I was satiated
with the intercourse of mankind, and discretion required
me to shun their intercourse. For these reasons
I long avoided the observation of your family,
and chiefly visited these precincts at night.

“I was never weary of admiring the position
and ornaments of the temple. Many a night have
I passed under its roof, revolving no pleasing meditations.
When, in my frequent rambles, I perceived
this apartment was occupied, I gave a different
direction to my steps. One evening, when
a shower had just passed, judging by the silence that
no one was within, I ascended to this building.
Glancing carelessly round, I perceived an open letter
on the pedestal. To read it was doubtless an
offence against politenefs. Of this offence, however,
I was guilty.

“Scarcely had I gone half through when I was
alarmed by the approach of your brother. To
scramble down the cliff on the opposite side was
impracticable. I was unprepared to meet a stranger.
Besides the aukwardness attending such an
interview in these circumstances, concealment was
necessary to my safety. A thousand times had I

vowed never again to employ the dangerous talent
which I possessed; but such was the force of habit
and the influence of present convenience, that I
used this method of arresting his progress and leading
him back to the house, with his errand, whatever
it was, unpersormed. I had often caught parts,
from my station below, of your conversation in
this place, and was well acquainted with the voice
of your sister.

“Some weeks after this I was again quietly seated
in this recess. The lateness of the hour secured
me, as I thought, from all interruption. In this,
however, I was mistaken, for Wieland and Pleyel,
as I judged by their voices, earnest in dispute, ascended
the hill.

“I was not sensible that any inconvenience could
possibly have flowed from my former exertion; yet
it was followed with compunction, because it was
a deviation from a path which I had assigned to
myself. Now my aversion to this means of escape
was enforced by an unauthorized curiosity, and by
the knowledge of a bushy hollow on the edge of
the hill, where I should be safe from discovery.
Into this hollow I thrust myself.

“The propriety of removal to Europe was the
question eagerly discussed. Pleyel intimated that
his anxiety to go was augmented by the silence of
Theresa de Stolberg. The temptation to interfere
in this dispute was irresistible. In vain I contended
with inveterate habits. I disguised to myself the
impropriety of my conduct, by recollecting the
benefits which it might produce. Pleyel's proposal
was unwise, yet it was enforced with plausible arguments
and indefatigable zeal. Your brother
might be puzzled and wearied, but could not be convinced.
I conceived that to terminate the controversy

in favor of the latter was conferring a benefit
on all parties. For this end I profited by an opening
in the conversation, and assured them of Catharine's
irreconcilable aversion to the scheme, and
of the death of the Saxon baroness. The latter
event was merely a conjecture, but rendered extremely
probable by Pleyel's representations. My
purpose, you need not be told, was effected.

“My passion for mystery, and a species of imposture,
which I deemed harmless, was thus awakened
afresh. This second lapse into error made
my recovery more difficult. I cannot convey to
you an adequate idea of the kind of gratification
which I derived from these exploits; yet I meditated
nothing. My views were bounded to the passing
moment, and commonly suggested by the momentary
exigence.

“I must not conceal any thing. Your principles
teach you to abhor a voluptuous temper; but,
with whatever reluctance, I acknowledge this temper
to be mine. You imagine your servant Judith
to be innocent as well as beautiful; but you took
her from a family where hypocrisy, as well as licentiousness,
was wrought into a system. My attention
was captivated by her charms, and her principles
were easily seen to be flexible.

“Deem me not capable of the iniquity of seduotion.
Your servant is not destitute of feminine and
virtuous qualities; but she was taught that the best
use of her charms consists in the sale of them. My
nocturnal visits to Mettingen were now prompted
by a double view, and my correspondence with
your servant gave me, at all times, access to your
house.

“The second night after our interview, so brief
and so little foreseen by either of us, some dæmon

of mischief seized me. According to my companion's
report, your perfections were little less than
divine. Her uncouth but copious narratives converted
you into an object of worship. She chiefly
dwelt upon your courage, because she herself was
deficient in that quality. You held apparitions and
goblins in contempt. You took no precautions
against robbers. You were just as tranquil and
secure in this lonely dwelling, as if you were in the
midst of a crowd.

“Hence a vague project occurred to me, to put
this courage to the test. A woman capable of
recollection in danger, of warding off groundless
panics, of discerning the true mode of proceeding,
and profiting by her best resources, is a prodigy.
I was desirous of ascertaining whether you were
such an one.

“My expedient was obvious and simple: I was
to counterseit a murderous dialogue; but this was
to be so conducted that another, and not yourself,
should appear to be the object. I was not aware
of the possibility that you should appropriate these
menaces to yourself. Had you been still and listened,
you would have heard the struggles and
prayers of the victim, who would likewife have
appeared to be shut up in the closet, and whose
voice would have been Judith's. This scene would
have been an appeal to your compassion; and the
proof of cowardice or courage which I expected
from you, would have been your remaining inactive
in your bed, or your entering the closet with
a view to assist the sufferer. Some instances which
Judith related of your fearlesness and promptitude
made me adopt the latter supposition with some degree
of confidence.

“By the girl's direction I found a ladder, and

mounted to your closet window. This is scarcely
large enough to admit the head, but it answered
my purpose too well.

“I cannot express my confusion and surprize at
your abrupt and precipitate flight. I hastily removed
the ladder; and, after some pause, curiosity
and doubts of your safety induced me to follow you.
I found you stretched on the turf before your brother's
door, without sense or motion. I felt the
deepest regret at this unlooked-for consequence of
my scheme. I knew not what to do to procure
you relief. The idea of awakening the family naturally
presented itself. This emergency was critical,
and there was no time to deliberate. It was
a sudden thought that occurred. I put my lips to
the key-hole, and founded an alarm which effectually
roused the sleepers. My organs were naturally
forcible, and had been improved by long and
affiduous exercise.

“Long and bitterly did I repent of my scheme.
I was somewhat consoled by reflecting that my purpose
had not been evil, and renewed my fruitless
vows never to attempt such dangerous experiments.
For some time I adhered, with laudable forbearance,
to this resolution.

“My life has been a life of hardship and exposure.
In the summer I prefer to make my bed of
the smooth turf, or, at most, the shelter of a summer-house
suffices. In all my rambles I never
found a spot in which so many picturesque beauties
and rural delights were assembled as at Mettingen.
No corner of your little domain unites fragrance
and secrecy in so perfect a degree as the recess in
the bank. The odour of its leaves, the coolness
of its shade, and the music of its water-fall, had
early attracted my attention. Here my sadness was

converted into peaceful melancholy—here my
slumbers were sound, and my pleasures enhanced.

“As most free from interruption, I chose this as
the scene of my midnight interviews with Judith.
One evening, as the sun declined, I was seated
here, when I was alarmed by your approach. It
was with difficulty that I effected my escape unnoticed
by you.

“At the customary hour, I returned to your
habitation, and was made acquainted by Judith,
with your unusual absence. I half suspected the
true cause, and felt uneasiness at the danger there
was that I should be deprived of my retreat; or, at
least, interrupted in the possession of it. The girl,
likewise, informed me, that among your other singularities,
it was not uncommon for you to leave
your bed, and walk forth for the sake of night-airs
and starlight contemplations.

“I desired to prevent this inconvenience. I found
you easily swayed by fear. I was influenced, in
my choice of means, by the facility and certainty
of that to which I had been accustomed. All that
I forsaw was, that, in future, this spot would be
cautiously shunned by you.

“I entered the recess with the utmost caution,
and discovered, by your breathings, in what condition
you were. The unexpected interpretation
which you placed upon my former proceeding, suggested
my conduct on the present occasion. The
mode in which heaven is said by the poet, to interfere
for the prevention of crimes,[2] was somewhat
analogous to my province, and never failed to occur
to me at seasons like this. It was requisite to break

your slumbers, and for this end I uttered the powerful
monosyllable, “hold! hold!” My purpose was
not prescribed by duty, yet surely it was far from
being atrocious and inexpiable. To effect it, I
uttered what was false, but it was well suited to my
purpose. Nothing less was intended than to injure
you. Nay, the evil resulting from my former act,
was partly removed by assuring you that in all
places but this you were safe.