第63章

"It pleased God, however, to place a mighty temptation in my path, which might have persuaded me to forego all thoughts of vengeance, to forget my vow, to forget the voices which invoked me from the grave.This was Margaret Liebenheim.Ah! how terrific appeared my duty of bloody retribution, after her angel's face and angel's voice had calmed me.With respect to her grandfather, strange it is to mention, that never did my innocent wife appear so lovely as precisely in the relation of granddaughter.So beautiful was her goodness to the old man, and so divine was the childlike innocence on her part, contrasted with the guilty recollections associated with him--for he was among the guiltiest toward my mother--still Idelayed HIS punishment to the last; and, for his child's sake, Iwould have pardoned him--nay, I had resolved to do so, when a fierce Jew, who had a deep malignity toward this man, swore that he would accomplish HIS vengeance at all events, and perhaps might be obliged to include Margaret in the ruin, unless I adhered to the original scheme.Then I yielded; for circumstances armed this man with momentary power.But the night fixed on was one in which Ihad reason to know that my wife would be absent; for so I had myself arranged with her, and the unhappy counter-arrangement I do not yet understand.Let me add, that the sole purpose of my clandestine marriage was to sting her grandfather's mind with the belief that HIS family had been dishonored, even as he had dishonored mine.He learned, as I took care that he should, that his granddaughter carried about with her the promises of a mother, and did not know that she had the sanction of a wife.This discovery made him, in one day, become eager for the marriage he had previously opposed; and this discovery also embittered the misery of his death.At that moment I attempted to think only of my mother's wrongs; but, in spite of all I could do, this old man appeared to me in the light of Margaret's grandfather--and, had Ibeen left to myself, he would have been saved.As it was, never was horror equal to mine when I met her flying to his succor.Ihad relied upon her absence; and the misery of that moment, when her eye fell upon me in the very act of seizing her grandfather, far transcended all else that I have suffered in these terrific scenes.She fainted in my arms, and I and another carried her upstairs and procured water.Meantime her grandfather had been murdered, even while Margaret fainted.I had, however, under the fear of discovery, though never anticipating a reencounter with herself, forestalled the explanation requisite in such a case to make my conduct intelligible.I had told her, under feigned names, the story of my mother and my sisters.She knew their wrongs: she had heard me contend for the right of vengeance.Consequently, in our parting interview, one word only was required to place myself in a new position to her thoughts.I needed only to say I was that son; that unhappy mother, so miserably degraded and outraged, was mine.

"As to the jailer, he was met by a party of us.Not suspecting that any of us could be connected with the family, he was led to talk of the most hideous details with regard to my poor Berenice.

The child had not, as had been insinuated, aided her own degradation, but had nobly sustained the dignity of her sex and her family.Such advantages as the monster pretended to have gained over her--sick, desolate, and latterly delirious--were, by his own confession, not obtained without violence.This was too much.

Forty thousand lives, had he possessed them, could not have gratified my thirst for revenge.Yet, had he but showed courage, he should have died the death of a soldier.But the wretch showed cowardice the most abject, and--,but you know his fate.

"Now, then, all is finished, and human nature is avenged.Yet, if you complain of the bloodshed and the terror, think of the wrongs which created my rights; think of the sacrifice by which I gave a tenfold strength to those rights; think of the necessity for a dreadful concussion and shock to society, in order to carry my lesson into the councils of princes.

"This will now have been effected.And ye, victims of dishonor, will be glorified in your deaths; ye will not have suffered in vain, nor died without a monument.Sleep, therefore, sister Berenice--sleep, gentle Mariamne, in peace.And thou, noble mother, let the outrages sown in thy dishonor, rise again and blossom in wide harvests of honor for the women of thy afflicted race.Sleep, daughters of Jerusalem, in the sanctity of your sufferings.And thou, if it be possible, even more beloved daughter of a Christian fold, whose company was too soon denied to him in life, open thy grave to receive HIM, who, in the hour of death, wishes to remember no title which he wore on earth but that of thy chosen and adoring lover, "MAXIMILIAN."Introduction to Melmoth the WandererBalzac likens the hero of one of his short stories to "Moliere's Don Juan, Goethe's Faust, Byron's Manfred, Maturin's Melmoth--great allegorical figures drawn by the greatest men of genius in Europe.""But what is 'Melmoth'? Why is HE classed as 'a great allegorical figure'?" exclaimed many a surprised reader.Few had perused--few know at this day--the terrible story of Melmoth the Wanderer, half man, half devil, who has bartered away his soul for the glory of power and knowledge, and, repenting of his bargain, tries again and again to persuade some desperate human to change places with him--penetrates to the refuge of misery, the death chamber, even the madhouse, seeking one in such utter agony as to accept his help, and take his curse--but ever fails.