Book: Wieland; or The Transformation, An American Tale

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Now that I was left alone with Wieland, the perils of my
situation presented themselves to my mind. That this paroxysm
should terminate in havock and rage it was reasonable to
predict. The first suggestion of my fears had been disproved by
my experience. Carwin had acknowledged his offences, and yet
had escaped. The vengeance which I had harboured had not been
admitted by Wieland, and yet the evils which I had endured,
compared with those inflicted on my brother, were as nothing.
I thirsted for his blood, and was tormented with an insatiable
appetite for his destruction; yet my brother was unmoved, and
had dismissed him in safety. Surely thou wast more than man,
while I am sunk below the beasts.

Did I place a right construction on the conduct of Wieland?
Was the error that misled him so easily rectified? Were views
so vivid and faith so strenuous thus liable to fading and to
change? Was there not reason to doubt the accuracy of my
perceptions? With images like these was my mind thronged, till
the deportment of my brother called away my attention.

I saw his lips move and his eyes cast up to heaven. Then
would he listen and look back, as if in expectation of some
one's appearance. Thrice he repeated these gesticulations and
this inaudible prayer. Each time the mist of confusion and
doubt seemed to grow darker and to settle on his understanding.
I guessed at the meaning of these tokens. The words of Carwin
had shaken his belief, and he was employed in summoning the
messenger who had formerly communed with him, to attest the
value of those new doubts. In vain the summons was repeated,
for his eye met nothing but vacancy, and not a sound saluted his
ear.

He walked to the bed, gazed with eagerness at the pillow
which had sustained the head of the breathless Catharine, and
then returned to the place where I sat. I had no power to lift
my eyes to his face: I was dubious of his purpose: this
purpose might aim at my life.

Alas! nothing but subjection to danger, and exposure to
temptation, can show us what we are. By this test was I now
tried, and found to be cowardly and rash. Men can deliberately
untie the thread of life, and of this I had deemed myself
capable; yet now that I stood upon the brink of fate, that the
knife of the sacrificer was aimed at my heart, I shuddered and
betook myself to any means of escape, however monstrous.

Can I bear to think--can I endure to relate the outrage which
my heart meditated? Where were my means of safety? Resistance
was vain. Not even the energy of despair could set me on a
level with that strength which his terrific prompter had
bestowed upon Wieland. Terror enables us to perform incredible
feats; but terror was not then the state of my mind: where then
were my hopes of rescue?

Methinks it is too much. I stand aside, as it were, from
myself; I estimate my own deservings; a hatred, immortal and
inexorable, is my due. I listen to my own pleas, and find them
empty and false: yes, I acknowledge that my guilt surpasses
that of all mankind: I confess that the curses of a world, and
the frowns of a deity, are inadequate to my demerits. Is there
a thing in the world worthy of infinite abhorrence? It is I.
What shall I say! I was menaced, as I thought, with death,
and, to elude this evil, my hand was ready to inflict death upon
the menacer. In visiting my house, I had made provision against
the machinations of Carwin. In a fold of my dress an open
penknife was concealed. This I now seized and drew forth. It
lurked out of view: but I now see that my state of mind would
have rendered the deed inevitable if my brother had lifted his
hand. This instrument of my preservation would have been
plunged into his heart.

O, insupportable remembrance! hide thee from my view for a
time; hide it from me that my heart was black enough to meditate
the stabbing of a brother! a brother thus supreme in misery;
thus towering in virtue!

He was probably unconscious of my design, but presently drew
back. This interval was sufficient to restore me to myself.
The madness, the iniquity of that act which I had purposed
rushed upon my apprehension. For a moment I was breathless with
agony. At the next moment I recovered my strength, and threw
the knife with violence on the floor.

The sound awoke my brother from his reverie. He gazed
alternately at me and at the weapon. With a movement equally
solemn he stooped and took it up. He placed the blade in
different positions, scrutinizing it accurately, and
maintaining, at the same time, a profound silence.

Again he looked at me, but all that vehemence and loftiness
of spirit which had so lately characterized his features, were
flown. Fallen muscles, a forehead contracted into folds, eyes
dim with unbidden drops, and a ruefulness of aspect which no
words can describe, were now visible.

His looks touched into energy the same sympathies in me, and
I poured forth a flood of tears. This passion was quickly
checked by fear, which had now, no longer, my own, but his
safety for their object. I watched his deportment in silence.
At length he spoke:

"Sister," said he, in an accent mournful and mild, "I have
acted poorly my part in this world. What thinkest thou? Shall
I not do better in the next?"

I could make no answer. The mildness of his tone astonished
and encouraged me. I continued to regard him with wistful and
anxious looks.

"I think," resumed he, "I will try. My wife and my babes
have gone before. Happy wretches! I have sent you to repose,
and ought not to linger behind."

These words had a meaning sufficiently intelligible. I
looked at the open knife in his hand and shuddered, but knew not
how to prevent the deed which I dreaded. He quickly noticed my
fears, and comprehended them. Stretching towards me his hand,
with an air of increasing mildness: "Take it," said he: "Fear
not for thy own sake, nor for mine. The cup is gone by, and its
transient inebriation is succeeded by the soberness of truth.

"Thou angel whom I was wont to worship! fearest thou, my
sister, for thy life? Once it was the scope of my labours to
destroy thee, but I was prompted to the deed by heaven; such, at
least, was my belief. Thinkest thou that thy death was sought
to gratify malevolence? No. I am pure from all stain. I
believed that my God was my mover!

"Neither thee nor myself have I cause to injure. I have done
my duty, and surely there is merit in having sacrificed to that,
all that is dear to the heart of man. If a devil has deceived
me, he came in the habit of an angel. If I erred, it was not my
judgment that deceived me, but my senses. In thy sight, being
of beings! I am still pure. Still will I look for my reward in
thy justice!"

Did my ears truly report these sounds? If I did not err, my
brother was restored to just perceptions. He knew himself to
have been betrayed to the murder of his wife and children, to
have been the victim of infernal artifice; yet he found
consolation in the rectitude of his motives. He was not devoid
of sorrow, for this was written on his countenance; but his soul
was tranquil and sublime.

Perhaps this was merely a transition of his former madness
into a new shape. Perhaps he had not yet awakened to the memory
of the horrors which he had perpetrated. Infatuated wretch that
I was! To set myself up as a model by which to judge of my
heroic brother! My reason taught me that his conclusions were
right; but conscious of the impotence of reason over my own
conduct; conscious of my cowardly rashness and my criminal
despair, I doubted whether any one could be stedfast and wise.

Such was my weakness, that even in the midst of these
thoughts, my mind glided into abhorrence of Carwin, and I
uttered in a low voice, O! Carwin! Carwin! What hast thou to
answer for?

My brother immediately noticed the involuntary exclamation:
"Clara!" said he, "be thyself. Equity used to be a theme for
thy eloquence. Reduce its lessons to practice, and be just to
that unfortunate man. The instrument has done its work, and I
am satisfied.

"I thank thee, my God, for this last illumination! My enemy
is thine also. I deemed him to be man, the man with whom I have
often communed; but now thy goodness has unveiled to me his true
nature. As the performer of thy behests, he is my friend."

My heart began now to misgive me. His mournful aspect had
gradually yielded place to a serene brow. A new soul appeared
to actuate his frame, and his eyes to beam with preternatural
lustre. These symptoms did not abate, and he continued:

"Clara! I must not leave thee in doubt. I know not what
brought about thy interview with the being whom thou callest
Carwin. For a time, I was guilty of thy error, and deduced from
his incoherent confessions that I had been made the victim of
human malice. He left us at my bidding, and I put up a prayer
that my doubts should be removed. Thy eyes were shut, and thy
ears sealed to the vision that answered my prayer.

"I was indeed deceived. The form thou hast seen was the
incarnation of a daemon. The visage and voice which urged me to
the sacrifice of my family, were his. Now he personates a human
form: then he was invironed with the lustre of heaven.--

"Clara," he continued, advancing closer to me, "thy death
must come. This minister is evil, but he from whom his
commission was received is God. Submit then with all thy wonted
resignation to a decree that cannot be reversed or resisted.
Mark the clock. Three minutes are allowed to thee, in which to
call up thy fortitude, and prepare thee for thy doom." There he
stopped.

Even now, when this scene exists only in memory, when life
and all its functions have sunk into torpor, my pulse throbs,
and my hairs uprise: my brows are knit, as then; and I gaze
around me in distraction. I was unconquerably averse to death;
but death, imminent and full of agony as that which was
threatened, was nothing. This was not the only or chief
inspirer of my fears.

For him, not for myself, was my soul tormented. I might die,
and no crime, surpassing the reach of mercy, would pursue me to
the presence of my Judge; but my assassin would survive to
contemplate his deed, and that assassin was Wieland!

Wings to bear me beyond his reach I had not. I could not
vanish with a thought. The door was open, but my murderer was
interposed between that and me. Of self-defence I was
incapable. The phrenzy that lately prompted me to blood was
gone; my state was desperate; my rescue was impossible.

The weight of these accumulated thoughts could not be borne.
My sight became confused; my limbs were seized with convulsion;
I spoke, but my words were half-formed:--

"Spare me, my brother! Look down, righteous Judge! snatch me
from this fate! take away this fury from him, or turn it
elsewhere!"

Such was the agony of my thoughts, that I noticed not steps
entering my apartment. Supplicating eyes were cast upward, but
when my prayer was breathed, I once more wildly gazed at the
door. A form met my sight: I shuddered as if the God whom I
invoked were present. It was Carwin that again intruded, and
who stood before me, erect in attitude, and stedfast in look!
The sight of him awakened new and rapid thoughts. His recent
tale was remembered: his magical transitions and mysterious
energy of voice: Whether he were infernal or miraculous, or
human, there was no power and no need to decide. Whether the
contriver or not of this spell, he was able to unbind it, and to
check the fury of my brother. He had ascribed to himself
intentions not malignant. Here now was afforded a test of his
truth. Let him interpose, as from above; revoke the savage
decree which the madness of Wieland has assigned to heaven, and
extinguish for ever this passion for blood!

My mind detected at a glance this avenue to safety. The
recommendations it possessed thronged as it were together, and
made but one impression on my intellect. Remoter effects and
collateral dangers I saw not. Perhaps the pause of an instant
had sufficed to call them up. The improbability that the
influence which governed Wieland was external or human; the
tendency of this stratagem to sanction so fatal an error, or
substitute a more destructive rage in place of this; the
sufficiency of Carwin's mere muscular forces to counteract the
efforts, and restrain the fury of Wieland, might, at a second
glance, have been discovered; but no second glance was allowed.
My first thought hurried me to action, and, fixing my eyes upon
Carwin I exclaimed--

"O wretch! once more hast thou come? Let it be to abjure thy
malice; to counterwork this hellish stratagem; to turn from me
and from my brother, this desolating rage!

"Testify thy innocence or thy remorse: exert the powers
which pertain to thee, whatever they be, to turn aside this
ruin. Thou art the author of these horrors! What have I done
to deserve thus to die? How have I merited this unrelenting
persecution? I adjure thee, by that God whose voice thou hast
dared to counterfeit, to save my life!

"Wilt thou then go? leave me! Succourless!"

Carwin listened to my intreaties unmoved, and turned from me.
He seemed to hesitate a moment: then glided through the door.
Rage and despair stifled my utterance. The interval of respite
was passed; the pangs reserved for me by Wieland, were not to be
endured; my thoughts rushed again into anarchy. Having received
the knife from his hand, I held it loosely and without regard;
but now it seized again my attention, and I grasped it with
force.

He seemed to notice not the entrance or exit of Carwin. My
gesture and the murderous weapon appeared to have escaped his
notice. His silence was unbroken; his eye, fixed upon the clock
for a time, was now withdrawn; fury kindled in every feature;
all that was human in his face gave way to an expression
supernatural and tremendous. I felt my left arm within his
grasp.--

Even now I hesitated to strike. I shrunk from his assault,
but in vain.--

Here let me desist. Why should I rescue this event from
oblivion? Why should I paint this detestable conflict? Why not
terminate at once this series of horrors?--Hurry to the verge of
the precipice, and cast myself for ever beyond remembrance and
beyond hope?

Still I live: with this load upon my breast; with this
phantom to pursue my steps; with adders lodged in my bosom, and
stinging me to madness: still I consent to live!

Yes, I will rise above the sphere of mortal passions: I will
spurn at the cowardly remorse that bids me seek impunity in
silence, or comfort in forgetfulness. My nerves shall be new
strung to the task. Have I not resolved? I will die. The
gulph before me is inevitable and near. I will die, but then
only when my tale is at an end.



Chapter XXVI


My right hand, grasping the unseen knife, was still
disengaged. It was lifted to strike. All my strength was
exhausted, but what was sufficient to the performance of this
deed. Already was the energy awakened, and the impulse given,
that should bear the fatal steel to his heart, when--Wieland
shrunk back: his hand was withdrawn. Breathless with affright
and desperation, I stood, freed from his grasp; unassailed;
untouched.

Thus long had the power which controuled the scene forborne
to interfere; but now his might was irresistible, and Wieland in
a moment was disarmed of all his purposes. A voice, louder than
human organs could produce, shriller than language can depict,
burst from the ceiling, and commanded him--TO HOLD!

Trouble and dismay succeeded to the stedfastness that had
lately been displayed in the looks of Wieland. His eyes roved
from one quarter to another, with an expression of doubt. He
seemed to wait for a further intimation.

Carwin's agency was here easily recognized. I had besought
him to interpose in my defence. He had flown. I had imagined
him deaf to my prayer, and resolute to see me perish: yet he
disappeared merely to devise and execute the means of my relief.

Why did he not forbear when this end was accomplished? Why
did his misjudging zeal and accursed precipitation overpass that
limit? Or meant he thus to crown the scene, and conduct his
inscrutable plots to this consummation?

Such ideas were the fruit of subsequent contemplation. This
moment was pregnant with fate. I had no power to reason. In
the career of my tempestuous thoughts, rent into pieces, as my
mind was, by accumulating horrors, Carwin was unseen and
unsuspected. I partook of Wieland's credulity, shook with his
amazement, and panted with his awe.

Silence took place for a moment; so much as allowed the
attention to recover its post. Then new sounds were uttered
from above.

"Man of errors! cease to cherish thy delusion: not heaven or
hell, but thy senses have misled thee to commit these acts.
Shake off thy phrenzy, and ascend into rational and human. Be
lunatic no longer."

My brother opened his lips to speak. His tone was terrific
and faint. He muttered an appeal to heaven. It was difficult
to comprehend the theme of his inquiries. They implied doubt as
to the nature of the impulse that hitherto had guided him, and
questioned whether he had acted in consequence of insane
perceptions.

To these interrogatories the voice, which now seemed to hover
at his shoulder, loudly answered in the affirmative. Then
uninterrupted silence ensued.

Fallen from his lofty and heroic station; now finally
restored to the perception of truth; weighed to earth by the
recollection of his own deeds; consoled no longer by a
consciousness of rectitude, for the loss of offspring and
wife--a loss for which he was indebted to his own misguided
hand; Wieland was transformed at once into the man OF SORROWS!

He reflected not that credit should be as reasonably denied
to the last, as to any former intimation; that one might as
justly be ascribed to erring or diseased senses as the other.
He saw not that this discovery in no degree affected the
integrity of his conduct; that his motives had lost none of
their claims to the homage of mankind; that the preference of
supreme good, and the boundless energy of duty, were
undiminished in his bosom.

It is not for me to pursue him through the ghastly changes of
his countenance. Words he had none. Now he sat upon the floor,
motionless in all his limbs, with his eyes glazed and fixed; a
monument of woe.

Anon a spirit of tempestuous but undesigning activity seized
him. He rose from his place and strode across the floor,
tottering and at random. His eyes were without moisture, and
gleamed with the fire that consumed his vitals. The muscles of
his face were agitated by convulsion. His lips moved, but no
sound escaped him.

That nature should long sustain this conflict was not to be
believed. My state was little different from that of my
brother. I entered, as it were, into his thought. My heart was
visited and rent by his pangs--Oh that thy phrenzy had never
been cured! that thy madness, with its blissful visions, would
return! or, if that must not be, that thy scene would hasten to
a close! that death would cover thee with his oblivion!

What can I wish for thee? Thou who hast vied with the great
preacher of thy faith in sanctity of motives, and in elevation
above sensual and selfish! Thou whom thy fate has changed into
paricide and savage! Can I wish for the continuance of thy
being? No.

For a time his movements seemed destitute of purpose. If he
walked; if he turned; if his fingers were entwined with each
other; if his hands were pressed against opposite sides of his
head with a force sufficient to crush it into pieces; it was to
tear his mind from self-contemplation; to waste his thoughts on
external objects.

Speedily this train was broken. A beam appeared to be darted
into his mind, which gave a purpose to his efforts. An avenue
to escape presented itself; and now he eagerly gazed about him:
when my thoughts became engaged by his demeanour, my fingers
were stretched as by a mechanical force, and the knife, no
longer heeded or of use, escaped from my grasp, and fell
unperceived on the floor. His eye now lighted upon it; he
seized it with the quickness of thought.

I shrieked aloud, but it was too late. He plunged it to the
hilt in his neck; and his life instantly escaped with the stream
that gushed from the wound. He was stretched at my feet; and my
hands were sprinkled with his blood as he fell.

Such was thy last deed, my brother! For a spectacle like
this was it my fate to be reserved! Thy eyes were closed--thy
face ghastly with death--thy arms, and the spot where thou
liedest, floated in thy life's blood! These images have not,
for a moment, forsaken me. Till I am breathless and cold, they
must continue to hover in my sight.

Carwin, as I said, had left the room, but he still lingered
in the house. My voice summoned him to my aid; but I scarcely
noticed his re-entrance, and now faintly recollect his terrified
looks, his broken exclamations, his vehement avowals of
innocence, the effusions of his pity for me, and his offers of
assistance.

I did not listen--I answered him not--I ceased to upbraid or
accuse. His guilt was a point to which I was indifferent.
Ruffian or devil, black as hell or bright as angels, thenceforth
he was nothing to me. I was incapable of sparing a look or a
thought from the ruin that was spread at my feet.

When he left me, I was scarcely conscious of any variation in
the scene. He informed the inhabitants of the hut of what had
passed, and they flew to the spot. Careless of his own safety,
he hasted to the city to inform my friends of my condition.

My uncle speedily arrived at the house. The body of Wieland
was removed from my presence, and they supposed that I would
follow it; but no, my home is ascertained; here I have taken up
my rest, and never will I go hence, till, like Wieland, I am
borne to my grave.

Importunity was tried in vain: they threatened to remove me
by violence--nay, violence was used; but my soul prizes too
dearly this little roof to endure to be bereaved of it. Force
should not prevail when the hoary locks and supplicating tears
of my uncle were ineffectual. My repugnance to move gave birth
to ferociousness and phrenzy when force was employed, and they
were obliged to consent to my return.

They besought me--they remonstrated--they appealed to every
duty that connected me with him that made me, and with my
fellow-men--in vain. While I live I will not go hence. Have I
not fulfilled my destiny?

Why will ye torment me with your reasonings and reproofs?
Can ye restore to me the hope of my better days? Can ye give me
back Catharine and her babes? Can ye recall to life him who
died at my feet?

I will eat--I will drink--I will lie down and rise up at your
bidding--all I ask is the choice of my abode. What is there
unreasonable in this demand? Shortly will I be at peace. This
is the spot which I have chosen in which to breathe my last
sigh. Deny me not, I beseech you, so slight a boon.

Talk not to me, O my revered friend! of Carwin. He has told
thee his tale, and thou exculpatest him from all direct concern
in the fate of Wieland. This scene of havock was produced by an
illusion of the senses. Be it so: I care not from what source
these disasters have flowed; it suffices that they have
swallowed up our hopes and our existence.

What his agency began, his agency conducted to a close. He
intended, by the final effort of his power, to rescue me and to
banish his illusions from my brother. Such is his tale,
concerning the truth of which I care not. Henceforth I foster
but one wish--I ask only quick deliverance from life and all the
ills that attend it.--

Go wretch! torment me not with thy presence and thy
prayers.--Forgive thee? Will that avail thee when thy fateful
hour shall arrive? Be thou acquitted at thy own tribunal, and
thou needest not fear the verdict of others. If thy guilt be
capable of blacker hues, if hitherto thy conscience be without
stain, thy crime will be made more flagrant by thus violating my
retreat. Take thyself away from my sight if thou wouldest not
behold my death!

Thou are gone! murmuring and reluctant! And now my repose is
coming--my work is done!



Chapter XXVII


[Written three years after the foregoing, and dated at Montpellier.]


I imagined that I had forever laid aside the pen; and that I
should take up my abode in this part of the world, was of all
events the least probable. My destiny I believed to be
accomplished, and I looked forward to a speedy termination of my
life with the fullest confidence.

Surely I had reason to be weary of existence, to be impatient
of every tie which held me from the grave. I experienced this
impatience in its fullest extent. I was not only enamoured of
death, but conceived, from the condition of my frame, that to
shun it was impossible, even though I had ardently desired it;
yet here am I, a thousand leagues from my native soil, in full
possession of life and of health, and not destitute of
happiness.

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