Nightmare Abbey Page 10

  CHAPTER X

  On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a femalefigure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual signof his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to histower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The strangerrose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, insilence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the restof the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. Thisscrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'Isee, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed tothe astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzlinggrace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, andlarge black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikinglycontrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress wasextremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as ifboth the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'

  'I guess 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she, Beautiful exceedingly.'

  For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a treeat midnight, it must, _a fortiori_, be much more terrible to a younggentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If thelogical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to myreaders, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for moreample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, onthe Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.

  Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; atall events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itselffear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as itwere, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to MrBurke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]

  'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced toyou by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can thedivision of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportantpersonage, make the same object essentially different in theperception of a philosopher?'

  'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objectshas habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariableconjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearanceof one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, theessential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to ourperceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'

  'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. Youare the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Projectfor a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'

  'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.

  'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but afew days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity ofseeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whomI could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threwyour pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mindin this nation, and determined to apply to you.'

  'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,and not a little perplexed.

  'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding someplace of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigablesearch that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once ortwice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'

  Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a smallsuite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy anycreature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day ortwo, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely onthe honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'

  'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where Iplease, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to setit at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but theslave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'

  Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protegee_. 'Whatis a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose ofdistinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'thatyou think all this very strange. When you know me better, yoursurprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex'sslavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry mytheory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority whohave no reliance on their own strength_.'

  Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intendedto find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed hisintention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him ofit from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious tolearn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had alreadycommunicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythropthought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will nottell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, notunderstanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translatingsilence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an_illuminee_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take theTower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to beaccomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunkencobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.

  Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highlycultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of allthe oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictureswhich her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes ofinjustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in everypart of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to herphysiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered onher lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language andliterature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions ofher favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiumson the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sectof the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacityof love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stellatook possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degreesdisplaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, fromhis new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her realname, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play fromwhich she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading theconversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the ladyspoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, anddeclared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that itmight be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall holdall difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will haveno rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. Iwill be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which Ishall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'

  Scythrop did not dare to mention the name of Marionetta; he trembledlest some unlucky accident should reveal it to Stella, though hescarcely knew what result to wish or anticipate, and lived in thedouble fever of a perpetual dilemma. He could not dissemble to himselfthat he was in love, at the same time, with two damsels of minds andhabits as remote as the antipodes. The scale of predilection alwaysinclined to the fair one who happened to be present; but the absentwas never effectually outweighed, though the degrees of exaltation anddepression varied according to accidental variations in the outwardand visible signs of the inward and spiritual graces of his respectivecharmers. Passing and repa
ssing several times a day from the companyof the one to that of the other, he was like a shuttlecock between twobattledores, changing its direction as rapidly as the oscillations ofa pendulum, receiving many a hard knock on the cork of a sensitiveheart, and flying from point to point on the feathers of asuper-sublimated head. This was an awful state of things. He hadnow as much mystery about him as any romantic transcendentalist ortranscendental romancer could desire. He had his esoterical and hisexoterical love. He could not endure the thought of losing either ofthem, but he trembled when he imagined the possibility that some fataldiscovery might deprive him of both. The old proverb concerning twostrings to a bow gave him some gleams of comfort; but that concerningtwo stools occurred to him more frequently, and covered his foreheadwith a cold perspiration. With Stella, he could indulge freely in allhis romantic and philosophical visions. He could build castles in theair, and she would pile towers and turrets on the imaginary edifices.With Marionetta it was otherwise: she knew nothing of the world andsociety beyond the sphere of her own experience. Her life was allmusic and sunshine, and she wondered what any one could see tocomplain of in such a pleasant state of things. She loved Scythrop,she hardly knew why; indeed she was not always sure that she loved himat all: she felt her fondness increase or diminish in an inverse ratioto his. When she had manoeuvred him into a fever of passionate love,she often felt and always assumed indifference: if she found that hercoldness was contagious, and that Scythrop either was, or pretended tobe, as indifferent as herself, she would become doubly kind, and raisehim again to that elevation from which she had previously thrown himdown. Thus, when his love was flowing, hers was ebbing: when his wasebbing, hers was flowing. Now and then there were moments of leveltide, when reciprocal affection seemed to promise imperturbableharmony; but Scythrop could scarcely resign his spirit to the pleasingillusion, before the pinnace of the lover's affections was caught insome eddy of the lady's caprice, and he was whirled away from theshore of his hopes, without rudder or compass, into an ocean of mistsand storms. It resulted, from this system of conduct, that all thatpassed between Scythrop and Marionetta, consisted in making andunmaking love. He had no opportunity to take measure of herunderstanding by conversations on general subjects, and on hisfavourite designs; and, being left in this respect to the exercise ofindefinite conjecture, he took it for granted, as most lovers would doin similar circumstances, that she had great natural talents, whichshe wasted at present on trifles: but coquetry would end withmarriage, and leave room for philosophy to exert its influence on hermind. Stella had no coquetry, no disguise: she was an enthusiast insubjects of general interest; and her conduct to Scythrop was alwaysuniform, or rather showed a regular progression of partiality whichseemed fast ripening into love.

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