‘I HAVE some important business, said he, which demands my presence in Saragossa; my health will not permit me to take this journey, I must intreat you therefore to go in my stead; I have ordered my equipage to be got ready, and you will oblige me by setting out immediately.’
‘The Marquis de Benavides is older than me by a great number of years; I have always had the same respect for him as for a father, and he has held the place of one to me. Besides, I had no reason to urge which could dispense with my doing as he desired. I was obliged therefore to resolve to go; but I thought this ready compliance gave me a right to speak to him in favour of Madame de Benavides. What did I not say to soften him! he appeared to me to be shaken; I even fancied I saw tears in his eyes.’
‘I have loved Madame de Benavides, said he to me, with the most ardent passion, it is not yet extinguished in my heart; but time and her future conduct can only efface the remembrance of what I have seen.’
‘I durst not enter into any discourse with him concerning the cause of his complaints; that would have again recalled his former rage; I only desired permission to acquaint my sister-in-law with the hopes he had given me. He granted my request. This poor lady received the news I brought her with a kind of joy.’
‘I know, said she, that I can never be happy with Monsieur de Benavides; but I shall at least have the consolation of being where my duty calls me.’
‘After having again assured her of my brother’s good disposition to her, I took my leave of her. One of the chief domestics of the house, in whom I confided, had promised to be strictly attentive to every thing that regarded her, and to give me information.’
‘After these precautions, which I thought necessary, I set out for Saragossa. I had been there fifteen days without having any news from the castle, and was beginning to be very uneasy at this long silence, when I received a letter from the faithful domestic I mentioned. He informed me that three days after my departure, Monsieur de Benavides had discharged him and all the rest of his servants, except one man whom he named to me, and the wife of that man. I trembled as I read this letter, and without troubling myself any further about the business with which I was charged, I hired post-horses to return to the castle. When I was within a day’s journey of this place, received the fatal news of the death of Madame de Benavides. My brother, who wrote to me himself, appeared so greatly affected, that I could not suppose he had been accessary to it. He told me, the great love he had for his wife had subdued his resentment, and that he was ready to pardon her when death matched her from him: that she had relapsed a short time after my departure, and her fever encreasing, she died upon the fifteenth day of her illness. Since I came hither to seek some consolation in the company of Don Jerome, I have been informed my brother is plunged in the deepest sadness; that he sees no one, and he has even entreated me to defer seeing him for some time.’
‘I find no difficulty in complying with his request, continued Don Gabriel; those places in which I have seen the unfortunate Madame de Benavides, and where I shall no more see her, would increase my grief. Her death seems to have awakened all my former sentiments, and I know not whether the tears I shed do not more proceed from love than friendship: I have determined to go into Hungary, where I hope either to find death in the war, or to recover the peace I have lost.’
Here Don Gabriel ceased to speak. I was not able to answer him, but with tears; my voice was lost in sighs, Don Gabriel also wept bitterly: at length he left me without my being able to utter a single word. Don Jerome attended him out, and I was left alone. The melancholy relation I had just heard increased my impatience to see myself in a place where I might abandon myself, without interruption, to the excess of my grief.
The desire of executing this scheme hastened my cure: after having been long in a languishing condition, my wound was healed, my strength returned, and I found myself able in a little time to leave the convent.
The parting between Don Jerome and me was on his side full of tenderness and friendly concern; but the loss of Adelaida had left me insensible to all other impressions. I would not acquaint him with my design, lest he should endeavour to oppose it: I wrote to my mother, and sent my letter by Saint Laurent, making him believe that I would wait for an answer, in the place I then was.
This letter contained an account of all that had happened to me since I saw her last: I earnestly asked her pardon for leaving her, as I resolved to do, for ever. I added, that in tenderness to her maternal affection, I chose to spare her the sight of a miserable wretch, who had now nothing left to wish for but death; and lastly, I conjured her not to make any attempts to discover the place of my retreat, and recommended the faithful Saint Laurent to her protection.
When I parted with him, I gave him all the money I had about me, reserving only what was sufficient to defray my expences during my journey. The letter I had received from Madame de Benavides, and her picture, which I wore next my heart, was all the wealth I was possessed of. I travelled with an impatience which hardly allowed me to stop a moment, to the abbey de la F— Upon my arrival I demanded the habit of the order. The father abbot obliged me to undergo the probationary forms; and when they were finished, asked me whether the wretched diet, and other austerities did not appear more than equal to my strength. Absorbed in grief, I had not even perceived the difference of my diet, and the austerities he mentioned: my insensibility was taken for a mark of zeal, and I was received.
The certainty I now had that my tears might flow uninterrupted, and that I might pass my whole life in this sad employment, gave me some consolation; the horrid solitude, the melancholy silence that reigned in this cloister, the mortified countenances of all about me, left me wholly devoted to that grief which was become so precious to me, that it supplied the place of all I had lost. I performed, all the exercises of the cloister without thinking of their severity, for every thing was alike indifferent to me. I went every day into the thickest part of the wood; there would I read over the letter, and gaze on the picture of my Adelaida, bathe them both with my tears, and replacing them upon my heart, return with greater weight of grief.
Three years I led this melancholy life, while time neither alleviated my sorrow, nor brought the period to it which I so earnestly desired, when one morning I was summoned by the tolling of the bell to be present at the death of one of the religious. He was already laid upon the ashes, the last sacrament was going to be administred to him, when he desired to speak to the father abbot.
‘What I am going to say father, said the dying penitent, will animate with new fervour all who shall hear me, since by methods so extraordinary, I have been drawn out of the abyss of sin and misery into which I was plunged, and conducted into the port of salvation; I am unworthy of the name of brother, with which these holy religious have honoured me: in me you behold an unhappy woman, whom a profane passion has led to this sanctified place. I loved and was beloved by a young man of a rank equal to my own; the mutual hatred of our fathers was an insurmountable obstacle to our marriage: I was even obliged for the safety of my lover, to give my hand to another person, and in the choice of my husband, I endeavoured still to give him proofs of the continuance of my passion. The man who could not be supposed to inspire me with any sentiments but those of hatred or contempt, was preferred to every other who addressed me, because the sacrifice I made him should be compleat, and that he might have no cause for jealousy. The Almighty decreed that a marriage contracted with such criminal views should prove a source of misery to me. Although I would never after consent to see my lover, yet my husband and he met and wounded each other before my eyes. Terror and grief threw me into a violent illness; I was scarcely recovered when my husband shut me up in a private apartment of his castle, and caused it to be reported that I was dead.’
‘I continued two years in that melancholy confinement, with no other consolation, than what the compassion of her who daily brought me my food afforded me. My husband, not satisfied with the miseries he inflicted on me, had the cruelty to insult me under them. Oh my God, what do I say! dare I accuse of cruelty the instrument thou wast pleased to make use of for my punishment? these afflictions did not bring me to a just sense of the extravagances of my conduct: instead of weeping for my faults, I wept only for my lover.’
‘The death of my husband set me at liberty. The woman who served me, being the only person who knew the truth of my condition, came to open the doors of my prison, and informed me that I had passed for dead from the moment I entered it. Not doubting but the treatment I had met with from my husband had given rise to very unfavourable suspicions of my virtue, I deliberated whether it was not necessary I should pass the rest of my days in a convent; and I was confirmed in this design when I learned that the only person who could retain me in the world had not been heard of for a long time. I disguised myself in the habit of a man, that I might leave the castle without being known.’
‘The convent to which I resolved to retire was that in which I was educated, and is but a few leagues distant from hence. I was travelling to it when the solitariness of this place striking my imagination as I passed by, I alighted from my chaise, in order to indulge my sad reflections a few moments: a secret impulse which I could not resist led me into your chapel. Scarce had I entered when among the voices that sung the praises of our Lord, I distinguished one too well accustomed to reach my heart. I thought at first that my disordered imagination had deceived me by a fancied resemblance; but when I approached, notwithstanding the alteration which time, grief, and the austerities of a cloister had made in his countenance, I immediately knew that lover so dear to my remembrance.’
‘Great God! what became of me at this sight! what were the cruel agitations of my mind! far from praising the Almighty for calling him to so holy a profession, I blasphemed against him for having deprived me of him: you punished not my impious murmurs, oh my God! and you made use of my own folly and misery to draw me to your self!’
‘I was not able to leave a place which inclosed what I loved; and that we might no more be separated, I discharged my guide, and presented myself, father, to you. Deceived by the eagerness I discovered to be admitted into your cloister, you received me willingly. Alas! what were the dispositions I brought to your holy exercises? a heart filled with a profane passion, and every thought employed on the dear object of its tenderness.’
‘The Almighty, who by abandoning me to my wild affections, would give me greater cause for humbling myself one day before him, doubtless permitted those impoisoned delights which I tasted in breathing the same air, and living in the same house with him I loved. I followed him every where: I assisted him in his labours as much as my strength would allow, and in those moments I thought myself over-paid for all that I had suffered; but yet my imprudent tenderness did not carry me so far as to make myself known to him. But what was the motive that hindered me? the fear of disturbing the quiet of him for whom I had lost my own: but for this fear I should perhaps have attempted to snatch from God a soul which I believed wholly devoted to him.’
‘Two months are now elapsed, since in obedience to a regulation of our holy founder, who was desirous by a continual idea of death, to sanctify the lives of his religious, we have been obliged each to dig his own grave. I followed as usual him to whom I was attached by ties so shameful. The sight of his grave, the ardour with which he dug it, pierced my heart with such an excess of sorrow, that I was obliged to leave him, and retire to the most unfrequented part of the wood, to give free course to my tears. From that moment I was in continual apprehensions of losing him; the idea of his death was ever present to my mind; my tenderness increased, I followed him every where; and if I was some hours of the day without seeing him, I feared I should never see him more.’
‘But now the happy moment arrived when God was pleased to draw me to himself. I went with the man my soul so fondly loved, into the forest to get wood for the use of the house; after some time spent in this employment, I perceived that my companion had left me: anxious and uneasy at his absence, I could not help going to seek for him. After having wandered through great part of the forest, I saw him at length in one of the most retired parts of it, employed in gazing earnestly upon something he had taken from his bosom: he was in so profound a revery, that I came up close to him, and had leisure to look upon what he held in his hand, without his perceiving me. How great was my astonishment when I saw it was my own picture!’
‘I was now sensible, that far from enjoying that quiet I had been so unwilling to interrupt, he was like me, the miserable victim of a criminal passion. I saw the powerful hand of God ready to fall upon him; that fatal passion which I had carried with me even to the foot of his altar, seemed to have drawn the vengeance of heaven upon him who was the object of it.’
‘Full of this terrifying idea I came to prostrate myself before those altars; I implored of God my own conversion, in order to obtain that of my lover. Yes, oh my God, it was for him that I offered up my supplications to thee! for him I shed tears of remorse and grief; it was the desire of his salvation that brought me to thee. Thou hadst compassion upon my weakness; my prayer, profane as it was, thou didst not reject: my heart became sensible of the healing power of thy grace: from that blissful moment I experienced the peace of a soul which is with thee, and desires only thee; thou wast pleased to purify me by sufferings; I was seized with sickness soon after. If the partner of my wild affections still groans under the weight of his profane passion, let him cast his eyes upon me: let him view the wretch whom he has so madly loved: let him reflect upon that tremendous moment to which I am now arrived, and to which he shall shortly arrive. Oh, let him seek God ere he has silenced his mercy to listen only to his justice. But I feel the time of my last sacrifice approaching. I beseech these holy religious to offer up their prayers for my departing soul. I humbly intreat their pardon for the offence I have given them, and I acknowledge myself unworthy to partake of their sepulchre.’
The sound of that adored voice, now undisguised, and always present to my remembrance, made me know Adelaida at the first words she pronounced. What language can convey an idea of what I then felt! all that the most ardent love, all that the tenderest companion, all that the most poignant grief, and wildest despair could inspire, tore my distracted soul that moment. I was prostrate on the ground, like the other religious, while she was speaking: the fear of losing any one of her words restrained my cries; but when I found, that in uttering the last she had expired, the house ecchoed with my agonizing shrieks.
The religious running to me raised me from the ground; I tore myself put of their arms, flew to the corps of Adelaida, and kneeling down beside it, I bathed one of her lifeless hands with my tears. ‘I have lost you then a second time, my dear Adelaida, cried I, and I have lost you for ever. What! have you been so long with me, and did not my ungrateful heart acknowledge you? but we will never more be separated: death, added I, folding her in my arms, death, less cruel than my inexorable father, shall now, in spite of him, unite us for ever.’
True piety is never severe. The father abbot, moved at this light, endeavoured by the tenderest condolences, and the most holy exhortations to soften my grief, and prevail upon me to abandon the corps of Adelaida, which I held fast locked in my arms: finding me deaf to all he could urge, he was obliged to use force; they dragged me from the lovely body into my own cell, whither the father-abbot followed me: he staid with me the whole night, vainly attempting to calm my mind, my despair was increased by the consolations he offered me.
‘Give me Adelaida, said I, why have you separated us? oh, why did not my soul take its flight with hers? Alas! I can live no longer in a place where I have lost her, and where she suffered so many miseries. Permit me, added I, throwing myself at his feet, permit me to leave this cloister; what will you do with a miserable wretch whose despair will trouble your repose? suffer me to retire to some other solitude, there to wait for a final end to all my sorrows. My dear Adelaida will obtain of God that my penitence and prayers may be affectual for my salvation: and oh, father, do not refuse my last request, promise me that the same tomb shall unite our ashes, and I in return engage not to hasten that moment which my soul so ardently pants after.’
The father-abbot moved with compassion for my misfortunes, and perhaps desirous of removing from the eyes of his religious, an object which gave so much scandal to their piety, granted my request, and promised to do what I desired. I left the convent that moment, and came to this solitary wild, where I have lived several years, having no other consolation than that of weeping for what I have lost.