A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers

T >> Thomas De Quincey >> Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers




The day is come--the evening is come--when our poor Kate, that had for
fifteen years been so tenderly rocked in the arms of St. Sebastian and
his daughters, and that henceforth shall hardly find a breathing space
between eternal storms, must see her peaceful cell, must see the holy
chapel, for the last time. It was at vespers, it was during the
chanting of the vesper service, that she finally read the secret signal
for her departure, which long she had been looking for. It happened
that her aunt, the Lady Principal, had forgotten her breviary. As this
was in a private 'scrutoire, she did not choose to send a servant for
it, but gave the key to her niece. The niece, on opening the
'scrutoire, saw, with that rapidity of eye-glance for the one thing
needed in any great emergency, which ever attended her through life,
that _now_ was the moment for an attempt which, if neglected,
might never return. There lay the total keys, in one massive
_trousseau_, of that fortress impregnable even to armies from
without. Saint Sebastian! do you see what your pet is going to do? And
do it she will, as sure as your name is St. Sebastian. Kate went back
to her aunt with the breviary and the key; but taking good care to
leave that awful door, on whose hinge revolved her whole life,
unlocked. Delivering the two articles to the Superior, she complained
of a headache--[Ah, Kate! what did you know of headaches, except now
and then afterwards from a stray bullet, or so?]--upon which her aunt,
kissing her forehead, dismissed her to bed. Now, then, through three-
fourths of an hour Kate will have free elbow-room for unanchoring her
boat, for unshipping her oars, and for pulling ahead right out of St.
Sebastian's cove into the main ocean of life.

Catalina, the reader is to understand, does not belong to the class of
persons in whom chiefly I pretend to an interest. But everywhere one
loves energy and indomitable courage. I, for my part, admire not, by
preference, anything that points to this world. It is the child of
reverie and profounder sensibility who turns _away_ from the world as
hateful and insufficient, that engages _my_ interest: whereas Catalina
was the very model of the class fitted for facing this world, and who
express their love to it by fighting with it and kicking it from year
to year. But, always, what is best in its kind one admires, even though
the kind be disagreeable. Kate's advantages for her _role_ in this life
lay in four things, viz., in a well-built person, and a particularly
strong wrist; 2d, in a heart that nothing could appal; 3d, in a
sagacious head, never drawn aside from the _hoc age_ [from the instant
question of life] by any weakness of imagination; 4th, in a tolerably
thick skin--not literally, for she was fair and blooming, and decidedly
handsome, having such a skin as became a young woman of family in
northernmost Spain. But her sensibilities were obtuse as regarded
_some_ modes of delicacy, _some_ modes of equity, _some_ modes of the
world's opinion, and _all_ modes whatever of personal hardship. Lay a
stress on that word _some_--for, as to delicacy, she never lost sight
of the kind which peculiarly concerns her sex. Long afterwards she told
the Pope himself, when confessing without disguise her sad and infinite
wanderings to the paternal old man (and I feel convinced of her
veracity), that in this respect, even then, at middle age, she was as
pure as is a child. And, as to equity, it was only that she substituted
the equity of camps for the polished (but often more iniquitous) equity
of courts and towns. As to the third item--the world's opinion--I don't
know that you need lay a stress on _some_; for, generally speaking,
_all_ that the world did, said, or thought, was alike contemptible in
her eyes, in which, perhaps, she was not so _very_ far wrong. I must
add, though at the cost of interrupting the story by two or three more
sentences, that Catalina had also a fifth advantage, which sounds
humbly, but is really of use in a world, where even to fold and seal a
letter adroitly is not the least of accomplishments. She was a _handy_
girl. She could turn her hand to anything, of which I will give you two
memorable instances. Was there ever a girl in this world but herself
that cheated and snapped her fingers at that awful Inquisition, which
brooded over the convents of Spain, that did this without collusion
from outside, trusting to nobody, but to herself, and what? to one
needle, two hanks of thread, and a very inferior pair of scissors? For,
that the scissors were bad, though Kate does not say so in her memoirs,
I knew by an _a priori_ argument, viz., because _all_ scissors were bad
in the year 1607. Now, say all decent logicians, from a universal to a
particular _valet consequentia_, _all_ scissors were bad: _ergo_,
_some_ scissors were bad. The second instance of her handiness will
surprise you even more:--She once stood upon a scaffold, under sentence
of death--[but, understand, on the evidence of false witnesses]. Jack
Ketch was absolutely tying the knot under her ear, and the shameful man
of ropes fumbled so deplorably, that Kate (who by much nautical
experience had learned from another sort of 'Jack' how a knot _should_
be tied in this world,) lost all patience with the contemptible artist,
told him she was ashamed of him, took the rope out of his hand, and
tied the knot irreproachably herself. The crowd saluted her with a
festal roll, long and loud, of _vivas_; and this word _viva_ of good
augury--but stop; let me not anticipate.

From this sketch of Catalina's character, the reader is prepared to
understand the decision of her present proceeding. She had no time to
lose: the twilight favored her; but she must get under hiding before
pursuit commenced. Consequently she lost not one of her forty-five
minutes in picking and choosing. No _shilly-shally_ in Kate. She
saw with the eyeball of an eagle what was indispensable. Some little
money perhaps to pay the first toll-bar of life: so, out of four
shillings in Aunty's purse, she took one. You can't say _that_ was
exorbitant. Which of us wouldn't subscribe a shilling for poor Katy to
put into the first trouser pockets that ever she will wear? I remember
even yet, as a personal experience, that when first arrayed, at four
years old, in nankeen trousers, though still so far retaining
hermaphrodite relations of dress as to wear a petticoat above my
trousers, all my female friends (because they pitied me, as one that
had suffered from years of ague) filled my pockets with half-crowns, of
which I can render no account at this day. But what were my poor
pretensions by the side of Kate's? Kate was a fine blooming girl of
fifteen, with no touch of ague, and, before the next sun rises, Kate
shall draw on her first trousers, and made by her own hand; and, that
she may do so, of all the valuables in Aunty's repository she takes
nothing beside the shilling, _quantum sufficit_ of thread, one
stout needle, and (as I told you before, if you would please to
remember things) one bad pair of scissors. Now she was ready; ready to
cast off St. Sebastian's towing-rope; ready to cut and run for port
anywhere. The finishing touch of her preparations was to pick out the
proper keys: even there she showed the same discretion. She did do no
gratuitous mischief. She did not take the wine-cellar key, which would
have irritated the good father confessor; she took those keys only that
belonged to _her_, if ever keys did; for they were the keys that
locked her out from her natural birthright of liberty. 'Show me,' says
the Romish Casuist, 'her right in law to let herself out of that
nunnery.' 'Show us,' we reply, '_your_ right to lock her in.'

Right or wrong, however, in strict casuistry, Kate was resolved to let
herself out; and _did_ so; and, for fear any man should creep in whilst
vespers lasted, and steal the kitchen grate, she locked her old friends
_in_. Then she sought a shelter. The air was not cold. She hurried into
a chestnut wood, and upon withered leaves slept till dawn. Spanish diet
and youth leaves the digestion undisordered, and the slumbers light.
When the lark rose, up rose Catalina. No time to lose, for she was
still in the dress of a nun, and liable to be arrested by any man in
Spain. With her _armed_ finger, [aye, by the way, I forgot the thimble;
but Kate did _not_]--she set to work upon her amply-embroidered
petticoat. She turned it wrong side out; and with the magic that only
female hands possess, she had soon sketched and finished a dashing pair
of Wellington trousers. All other changes were made according to the
materials she possessed, and quite sufficiently to disguise the two
main perils--her sex, and her monastic dedication. What was she to do
next. Speaking of Wellington trousers would remind _us_, but could
hardly remind _her_, of Vittoria, where she dimly had heard of some
maternal relative. To Vittoria, therefore, she bent her course; and,
like the Duke of Wellington, but arriving more than two centuries
earlier, [though _he_ too is an early riser,] she gained a great
victory at that place. She had made a two days' march, baggage far in
the rear, and no provisions but wild berries; she depended for anything
better, as light-heartedly as the Duke, upon attacking, sword in hand,
storming her dear friend's entrenchments, and effecting a lodgment in
his breakfast-room, should he happen to have one. This amiable
relative, an elderly man, had but one foible, or perhaps one virtue in
this world; but _that_ he had in perfection,--it was pedantry. On that
hint Catalina spoke: she knew by heart, from the services of the
convent, a few Latin phrases. Latin!--Oh, but _that_ was charming; and
in one so young! The grave Don owned the soft impeachment; relented at
once, and clasped the hopeful young gentleman in the Wellington
trousers to his _uncular_ and rather angular breast. In this house the
yarn of life was of a mingled quality. The table was good, but that was
exactly what Kate cared little about. The amusement was of the worst
kind. It consisted chiefly in conjugating Latin verbs, especially such
as were obstinately irregular. To show him a withered frost-bitten
verb, that wanted its preterite, wanted its supines, wanted, in fact,
everything in this world, fruits or blossoms, that make a verb
desirable, was to earn the Don's gratitude for life. All day long he
was marching and countermarching his favorite brigades of verbs--verbs
frequentative, verbs inceptive, verbs desiderative--horse, foot, and
artillery; changing front, advancing from the rear, throwing out
skirmishing parties, until Kate, not given to faint, must have thought
of such a resource, as once in her life she had thought so seasonably
of a vesper headache. This was really worse than St. Sebastian's. It
reminds one of a French gayety in Thiebault or some such author, who
describes a rustic party, under equal despair, as employing themselves
in conjugating the verb _s'ennuyer,--Je m'ennuie, tu t'ennuies, il
s'ennuit; nous nous ennuyons_, &c.; thence to the imperfect--_Je
m'ennuyois, tu t'ennuyois_, &c.; thence to the imperative--_Qu'il
s'ennuye_, &c.; and so on through the whole melancholy conjugation.
Now, you know, when the time comes that, _nous nous ennuyons_, the best
course is, to part. Kate saw _that_; and she walked off from the Don's
[of whose amorous passion for defective verbs one would have wished to
know the catastrophe], and took from his mantel-piece rather move
silver than she had levied on her aunt. But the Don also was a
relative; and really he owed her a small cheque on his banker for
turning out on his field-days. A man, if he _is_ a kinsman, has no
right to bore one _gratis_.

From Vittoria, Kate was guided by a carrier to Valladolid. Luckily, as
it seemed at first, but it made little difference in the end, here, at
Valladolid, were the King and his Court. Consequently, there was plenty
of regiments and plenty of regimental bands. Attracted by one of these,
Catalina was quietly listening to the music, when some street ruffians,
in derision of the gay colors and the form of her forest-made costume--
[rascals! one would like to have seen what sort of trousers _they_
would have made with no better scissors!]--began to pelt her with
stones. Ah, my friends, of the genus _blackguard_, you little know
who it is that you are selecting for experiments. This is the one
creature of fifteen in all Spain, be the other male or female, whom
nature, and temper, and provocation have qualified for taking the
conceit out of you. This she very soon did, laying open a head or two
with a sharp stone, and letting out rather too little than too much of
bad Valladolid blood. But mark the constant villany of this world.
Certain Alguazils--very like some other Alguazils that I know nearer
home--having stood by quietly to see the friendless stranger insulted
and assaulted, now felt it their duty to apprehend the poor nun for
murderous violence: and had there been such a thing as a treadmill in
Valladolid, Kate was booked for a place on it without further inquiry.
Luckily, injustice does not _always_ prosper. A gallant young
cavalier, who had witnessed from his windows the whole affair, had seen
the provocation, and admired Catalina's behavior--equally patient at
first and bold at last--hastened into the street, pursued the officers,
forced them to release their prisoner, upon stating the circumstances
of the case, and instantly offered Catalina a situation amongst his
retinue. He was a man of birth and fortune; and the place offered, that
of an honorary page, not being at all degrading even to a 'daughter of
somebody,' was cheerfully accepted. Here Catalina spent a happy month.
She was now splendidly dressed in dark blue velvet, by a tailor that
did not work within the gloom of a chestnut forest. She and the young
cavalier, Don Francisco de Cardenas, were mutually pleased, and had
mutual confidence. All went well--when one evening, but, luckily, not
until the sun had been set so long as to make all things indistinct,
who should march into the ante-chamber of the cavalier but that sublime
of crocodiles, _Papa_, that we lost sight of fifteen years ago,
and shall never see again after this night. He had his crocodile tears
all ready for use, in working order, like a good industrious fire-
engine. It was absolutely to Catalina herself that he advanced; whom,
for many reasons, he could not be supposed to recognise--lapse of
years, male attire, twilight, were all against him. Still, she might
have the family countenance; and Kate thought he looked with a
suspicious scrutiny into her face, as he inquired for the young Don. To
avert her own face, to announce him to Don Francisco, to wish him on
the shores of that ancient river for crocodiles, the Nile, furnished
but one moment's work to the active Catalina. She lingered, however, as
her place entitled her to do, at the door of the audience chamber. She
guessed already, but in a moment she _heard_ from papa's lips what
was the nature of his errand. His daughter Catharine, he informed the
Don, had eloped from the convent of St. Sebastian, a place rich in
delight. Then he laid open the unparalleled ingratitude of such a step.
Oh, the unseen treasure that had been spent upon that girl! Oh, the
untold sums of money that he had sunk in that unhappy speculation! The
nights of sleeplessness suffered during her infancy! The fifteen years
of solicitude thrown away in schemes for her improvement! It would have
moved the heart of a stone. The _hidalgo_ wept copiously at his
own pathos. And to such a height of grandeur had he carried his Spanish
sense of the sublime, that he disdained to mention the pocket-
handkerchief which he had left at St. Sebastian's fifteen years ago, by
way of envelope for 'pussy,' and which, to the best of pussy's
knowledge, was the one sole memorandum of papa ever heard of at St.
Sebastian's. Pussy, however, saw no use in revising and correcting the
text of papa's remembrances. She showed her usual prudence, and her
usual incomparable decision. It did not appear, as yet, that she would
be reclaimed, or was at all suspected for the fugitive by her father.
For it is an instance of that singular fatality which pursued Catalina
through life, that, to her own astonishment, (as she now collected from
her father's conference,) nobody had traced her to Valladolid, nor had
her father's visit any connection with suspicious travelling in that
direction. The case was quite different. Strangely enough, her street
row had thrown her into the one sole household in all Spain that had an
official connection with St. Sebastian's. That convent had been founded
by the young cavalier's family; and, according to the usage of Spain,
the young man (as present representative of his house) was the
responsible protector of the establishment. It was not to the Don, as
harborer of his daughter, but to the Don, as _ex officio_ visitor
of the convent, that the hidalgo was appealing. Probably Kate might
have staid safely some time longer. Yet, again, this would but have
multiplied the clues for tracing her; and, finally, she would too
probably have been discovered; after which, with all his youthful
generosity, the poor Don could not have protected her. Too terrific was
the vengeance that awaited an abettor of any fugitive nun; but, above
all, if such a crime were perpetrated by an official mandatory of the
church. Yet, again, so far it was the more hazardous course to abscond,
that it almost revealed her to the young Don as the missing daughter.
Still, if it really _had_ that effect, nothing at present obliged
him to pursue her, as might have been the case a few weeks later. Kate
argued (I dare say) rightly, as she always did. Her prudence whispered
eternally, that safety there was none for her, until she had laid the
Atlantic between herself and St. Sebastian's. Life was to be for
_her_ a Bay of Biscay; and it was odds but she had first embarked
upon this billowy life from the literal Bay of Biscay. Chance ordered
otherwise. Or, as a Frenchman says with eloquent ingenuity, in
connection with this story, 'Chance is but the _pseudonyme_ of God
for those particular cases which he does not subscribe openly with his
own sign manual.' She crept up stairs to her bed-room. Simple are the
travelling preparations of those that, possessing nothing, have no
imperials to pack. She had Juvenal's qualification for carolling gaily
through a forest full of robbers; for she had nothing to lose but a
change of linen, that rode easily enough under her left arm, leaving
the right free for answering any questions of impertinent customers. As
she crept down stairs, she heard the Crocodile still weeping forth his
sorrows to the pensive ear of twilight, and to the sympathetic Don
Francisco. Now, it would not have been filial or lady-like for Kate to
do what I am going to suggest; but what a pity that some gay brother
page had not been there to turn aside into the room, armed with a
roasted potato, and, taking a sportsman's aim, to have lodged it in the
Crocodile's abominable mouth. Yet, what an anachronism! There
_were_ no roasted potatoes in Spain at that date, and very few in
England. But anger drives a man to say anything.

Catalina had seen her last of friends and enemies in Valladolid. Short
was her time there; but she had improved it so far as to make a few of
both. There was an eye or two in Valladolid that would have glared with
malice upon her, had she been seen by _all_ eyes in that city, as
she tripped through the streets in the dusk; and eyes there were that
would have softened into tears, had they seen the desolate condition of
the child, or in vision had seen the struggles that were before her.
But what's the use of wasting tears upon our Kate? Wait till to-morrow
morning at sunrise, and see if she is particularly in need of pity.
What now should a young lady do--I propose it as a subject for a prize
essay--that finds herself in Valladolid at nighfall, having no letters
of introduction, not aware of any reason great or small for preferring
any street in general, except so far as she knows of some reason for
avoiding one or two streets in particular? The great problem I have
stated, Kate investigated as she went along; and she solved it with the
accuracy with which she ever applied to _practical_ exigencies.
Her conclusion was--that the best door to knock at in such a case was
the door where there was no need to knock at all, as being unfastened,
and open to all comers. For she argued that within such a door there
would be nothing to steal, so that, at least, you could not be mistaken
in the ark for a thief. Then, as to stealing from _her_, they
might do that if they could.

Upon these principles, which hostile critics will in vain endeavor to
undermine, she laid her hand upon what seemed a rude stable door. Such
it proved. There was an empty cart inside, certainly there was, but you
couldn't take _that_ away in your pocket; and there were five
loads of straw, but then of those a lady could take no more than her
_reticule_ would carry, which perhaps was allowed by the courtesy
of Spain. So Kate was right as to the difficulty of being challenged
for a thief. Closing the door as gently as she had opened it, she
dropped her person, dressed as she was, upon the nearest heap of straw.
Some ten feet further were lying two muleteers, honest and happy
enough, as compared with the lords of the bed-chamber then in
Valladolid: but still gross men, carnally deaf from eating garlic and
onions, and other horrible substances. Accordingly, they never heard
her, nor were aware, until dawn, that such a blooming person existed.
But she was aware of _them_, and of their conversation. They were
talking of an expedition for America, on the point of sailing under Don
Ferdinand de Cordova. It was to sail from some Andalusian port. That
was the very thing for _her_. At daylight she woke, and jumped up,
needing no more toilet than the birds that already were singing in the
gardens, or than the two muleteers, who, good, honest fellows, saluted
the handsome boy kindly--thinking no ill at his making free with
_their_ straw, though no leave had been asked.

With these philo-garlic men Kate took her departure. The morning was
divine: and leaving Valladolid with the transports that befitted such a
golden dawn, feeling also already, in the very obscurity of her exit,
the pledge of her escape; she cared no longer for the Crocodile, or for
St. Sebastian, or (in the way of fear) for the protector of St.
Sebastian, though of _him_ she thought with some tenderness; so
deep is the remembrance of kindness mixed with justice. Andalusia she
reached rather slowly; but many months before she was sixteen years
old, and quite in time for the expedition. St. Lucar being the port of
rendezvous for the Peruvian expedition, thither she went. All comers
were welcome on board the fleet; much more a fine young fellow like
Kate. She was at once engaged as a mate; and _her_ ship, in
particular, after doubling Cape Horn without loss, made the coast of
Peru. Paita was the port of her destination. Very near to this port
they were, when a storm threw them upon a coral reef. There was little
hope of the ship from the first, for she was unmanageable, and was not
expected to hold together for twenty-four hours. In this condition,
with death before their faces, mark what Kate did; and please to
remember it for her benefit, when she does any other little thing that
angers you. The crew lowered the long-boat. Vainly the captain
protested against this disloyal desertion of a king's ship, which might
yet perhaps be run on shore, so as to save the stores. All the crew, to
a man, deserted the captain. You may say _that_ literally; for the
single exception was _not_ a man, being our bold-hearted Kate. She
was the only sailor that refused to leave her captain, or the king of
Spain's ship. The rest pulled away for the shore, and with fair hopes
of reaching it. But one half-hour told another tale: just about that
time came a broad sheet of lightning, which, through the darkness of
evening, revealed the boat in the very act of mounting like a horse
upon an inner reef, instantly filling, and throwing out the crew, every
man of whom disappeared amongst the breakers. The night which succeeded
was gloomy for both the representatives of his Catholic Majesty. It
cannot be denied by the greatest of philosophers, that the muleteer's
stable at Valladolid was worth twenty such ships, though the stable was
_not_ insured against fire, and the ship _was_ insured against the sea
and the wind by some fellow that thought very little of his
engagements. But what's the use of sitting down to cry? That was never
any trick of Catalina's. By daybreak, she was at work with an axe
in her hand. I knew it, before ever I came to this place, in her
memoirs. I felt, as sure as if I had read it, that when day broke, we
should find Kate hard at work. Thimble or axe, trousers or raft, all
one to _her_.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.