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, Vol. I.

T >> Thomas De Quincey >> Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers, Vol. I.




Kate had the good sense to see the danger of revealing her sex, or her
relationship, even to her own brother. The grasp of the Church never
relaxed, never 'prescribed,' unless freely and by choice. The nun, if
discovered, would have been taken out of the horse-barracks, or the
dragoon-saddle. She had the firmness, therefore, for many years, to
resist the sisterly impulses that sometimes suggested such a
confidence. For years, and those years the most important of her life--
the years that developed her character--she lived undetected as a
brilliant cavalry officer under her brother's patronage. And the
bitterest grief in poor Kate's whole life, was the tragical (and, were
it not fully attested, one might say the ultra-scenical,) event that
dissolved their long connection. Let me spend a word of apology on poor
Kate's errors. We all commit many; both you and I, reader. No, stop;
that's not civil. You, reader, I know, are a saint; I am _not_,
though very near it. I _do_ err at long intervals; and then I
think with indulgence of the many circumstances that plead for this
poor girl. The Spanish armies of that day inherited, from the days of
Cortez and Pizarro, shining remembrances of martial prowess, and the
very worst of ethics. To think little of bloodshed, to quarrel, to
fight, to gamble, to plunder, belonged to the very atmosphere of a
camp, to its indolence, to its ancient traditions. In your own defence,
you were obliged to do such things. Besides all these grounds of evil,
the Spanish army had just there an extra demoralization from a war with
savages--faithless and bloody. Do not think, I beseech you, too much,
reader, of killing a man. That word '_kill_' is sprinkled over
every page of Kate's own autobiography. It ought not to be read by the
light of these days. Yet, how if a man that she killed were----? Hush!
It was sad; but is better hurried over in a few words. Years after this
period, a young officer one day dining with Kate, entreated her to
become his second in a duel. Such things were every-day affairs.
However, Kate had reasons for declining the service, and did so. But
the officer, as he was sullenly departing, said--that, if he were
killed, (as he thought he _should_ be,) his death would lie at
Kate's door. I do not take _his_ view of the case, and am not
moved by his rhetoric or his logic. Kate _was_, and relented. The
duel was fixed for eleven at night, under the walls of a monastery.
Unhappily the night proved unusually dark, so that the two principals
had to tie white handkerchiefs round their elbows, in order to descry
each other. In the confusion they wounded each other mortally. Upon
that, according to a usage not peculiar to Spaniards, but extending (as
doubtless the reader knows) for a century longer to our own countrymen,
the two seconds were obliged in honor to do something towards avenging
their principals. Kate had her usual fatal luck. Her sword passed sheer
through the body of her opponent: this unknown opponent falling dead,
had just breath left to cry out, 'Ah, villain, you have killed me,' in
a voice of horrific reproach; and the voice was the voice of her
brother!

The monks of the monastery, under whose silent shadows this murderous
duel had taken place, roused by the clashing of swords and the angry
shouts of combatants, issued out with torches to find one only of the
four officers surviving. Every convent and altar had a right of asylum
for a short period. According to the custom, the monks carried Kate,
insensible with anguish of mind, to the sanctuary of their chapel.
There for some days they detained her; but then, having furnished her
with a horse and some provisions, they turned her adrift. Which way
should the unhappy fugitive turn? In blindness of heart she turned
towards the sea. It was the sea that had brought her to Peru; it was
the sea that would perhaps carry her away. It was the sea that had
first showed her this land and its golden hopes; it was the sea that
ought to hide from her its fearful remembrances. The sea it was that
had twice spared her life in extremities; the sea it was that might now
if it chose, take back the bauble that it had spared in vain.


KATE'S PASSAGE OVER THE ANDES.

Three days our poor heroine followed the coast. Her horse was then
almost unable to move; and on _his_ account, she turned inland to a
thicket for grass and shelter. As she drew near to it, a voice
challenged--'_Who goes there_?' Kate answered, '_Spain_.' '_What
people_?' '_A friend_.' It was two soldiers, deserters, and almost
starving. Kate shared her provisions with these men: and, on hearing
their plan, which was to go over the Cordilleras, she agreed to join
the party. _Their_ object was the wild one of seeking the river
_Dorado_, whose waters rolled along golden sands, and whose pebbles
were emeralds. _Hers_ was to throw herself upon a line the least liable
to pursuit, and the readiest for a new chapter of life in which
oblivion might be found for the past. After a few days of incessant
climbing and fatigue, they found themselves in the regions of perpetual
snow. Summer would come as vainly to this kingdom of frost as to the
grave of her brother. No fire, but the fire of human blood in youthful
veins, could ever be kept burning in these aerial solitudes. Fuel was
rarely to be found, and kindling a secret hardly known except to
Indians. However, our Kate can do everything, and she's the girl, if
ever girl _did_ such a thing, or ever girl did _not_ such a thing, that
I back at any odds for crossing the Cordilleras. I would bet you
something now, reader, if I thought you would deposit your stakes by
return of post, (as they play at chess through the post-office,) that
Kate does the trick, that she gets down to the other side; that the
soldiers do _not_: and that the horse, if preserved at all, is
preserved in a way that will leave him very little to boast of.

The party had gathered wild berries and esculent roots at the foot of
the mountains, and the horse was of very great use in carrying them.
But this larder was soon emptied. There was nothing then to carry; so
that the horse's value, as a beast of burthen, fell cent per cent. In
fact, very soon he could not carry himself, and it became easy to
calculate when he would reach the bottom on the wrong side the
Cordilleras. He took three steps back for one upwards. A council of war
being held, the small army resolved to slaughter their horse. He,
though a member of the expedition, had no vote, and if he had the votes
would have stood three to one--majority, two against him. He was cut
into quarters; which surprises me; for, unless _one_ quarter was
considered his own share, it reminds one too much of this amongst the
many _facetiæ_ of English midshipmen, who ask (on any one of their
number looking sulky) 'if it is his intention to marry and retire from
the service upon a superannuation of £4 4s. 4 1/2d. a year, paid
quarterly by way of bothering the purser.' The purser can't do it with
the help of farthings. And as respects aliquot parts, four shares among
three persons are as incommensurable as a guinea is against any attempt
at giving change in half-crowns. However, this was all the
preservation that the horse found. No saltpetre or sugar could be had:
but the frost was antiseptic. And the horse was preserved in as useful
a sense as ever apricots were preserved or strawberries.

On a fire, painfully devised out of broom and withered leaves, a horse-
steak was dressed, for drink, snow as allowed _a discretion_. This
ought to have revived the party, and Kate, perhaps, it _did_. But
the poor deserters were thinly clad, and they had not the boiling heart
of Catalina. More and more they drooped. Kate did her best to cheer
them. But the march was nearly at an end for _them_, and they
were going in one half hour to receive their last billet. Yet, before
this consummation, they have a strange spectacle to see; such as few
places could show, but the upper chambers of the Cordilleras. They had
reached a billowy scene of rocky masses, large and small, looking
shockingly black on their perpendicular sides as they rose out of the
vast snowy expanse. Upon the highest of these, that was accessible,
Kate mounted to look around her, and she saw--oh, rapture at such an
hour!--a man sitting on a shelf of rock with a gun by his side. She
shouted with joy to her comrades, and ran down to communicate the
joyful news. Here was a sportsman, watching, perhaps, for an eagle; and
now they would have relief. One man's cheek kindled with the hectic of
sudden joy, and he rose eagerly to march. The other was fast sinking
under the fatal sleep that frost sends before herself as her merciful
minister of death; but hearing in his dream the tidings of relief, and
assisted by his friends, he also staggeringly arose. It could not be
three minutes' walk, Kate thought, to the station of the sportsman.
That thought supported them all. Under Kate's guidance, who had taken a
sailor's glance at the bearings, they soon unthreaded the labyrinth of
rocks so far as to bring the man within view. He had not left his
resting-place; their steps on the soundless snow, naturally, he could
not hear; and, as their road brought them upon him from the rear, still
less could he see them. Kate hailed him; but so keenly was he absorbed
in some speculation, or in the object of his watching, that he took no
notice of them, not even moving his head. Kate began to think there
would be another man to rouse from sleep. Coming close behind him, she
touched his shoulder, and said, 'My friend, are you sleeping?' Yes, he
_was_ sleeping; sleeping the sleep from which there is no awaking;
and the slight touch of Kate having disturbed the equilibrium of the
corpse, down it rolled on the snow: the frozen body rang like a hollow
iron cylinder; the face uppermost and blue with mould, mouth open,
teeth ghastly and bleaching in the frost, and a frightful grin upon the
lips. This dreadful spectacle finished the struggles of the weaker man,
who sank and died at once. The other made an effort with so much
spirit, that, in Kate's opinion, horror had acted upon him beneficially
as a stimulant. But it was not really so. It was a spasm of morbid
strength; a collapse succeeded; his blood began to freeze; he sat down
in spite of Kate, and _he_ also died without further struggle.
Gone are the poor suffering deserters; stretched and bleaching upon the
snow; and insulted discipline is avenged. Great kings have long arms;
and sycophants are ever at hand for the errand of the potent. What had
frost and snow to do with the quarrel? Yet _they_ made themselves
sycophantic servants of the King of Spain; and _they_ dogged his
deserters up to the summit of the Cordilleras, more surely than any
Spanish bloodhound, or any Spanish tirailleur's bullet.

Now is our Kate standing alone on the summits of the Andes, in solitude
that is shocking, for she is alone with her own afflicted conscience.
Twice before she had stood in solitude as deep upon the wild--wild
waters of the Pacific; but her conscience had been then untroubled.
Now, is there nobody left that can help; her horse is dead--the
soldiers are dead. There is nobody that she can speak to except God;
and very soon you will find that she _does_ speak to him; for
already on these vast aerial deserts He has been whispering to
_her_. The condition of Kate is exactly that of Coleridge's
'_Ancient Mariner_.' But possibly, reader, you may be amongst the
many careless readers that have never fully understood what that
condition was. Suffer me to enlighten you, else you ruin the story of
the mariner; and by losing all its pathos, lose half the jewels of its
beauty.

There are three readers of the 'Ancient Mariner.' The first is gross
enough to fancy all the imagery of the mariner's visions delivered by
the poet for actual facts of experience; which being impossible, the
whole pulverizes, for that reader, into a baseless fairy tale. The
second reader is wiser than _that_; he knows that the imagery is _not_
baseless; it is the imagery of febrile delirium; really seen, but not
seen as an external reality. The mariner had caught the pestilential
fever, which carried off all his mates; he only had survived--the
delirium had vanished; but the visions that had haunted the delirium
remained. 'Yes,' says the third reader, 'they remained; naturally they
did, being scorched by fever into his brain; but how did they happen to
remain on his belief as gospel truths? The delirium had vanished: why
had not the painted scenery of the delirium vanished, except as
visionary memorials of a sorrow that was cancelled? Why was it that
craziness settled upon this mariner's brain, driving him, as if he were
a Cain, or another Wandering Jew, to 'pass like night--from land to
land;' and, at uncertain intervals, wrenching him until he made
rehearsal of his errors, even at the hard price of 'holding children
from their play, and old men from the chimney corner?' [Footnote: The
beautiful words of Sir Philip Sidney, in his '_Defense of Poesie_.']
That craziness, as the _third reader_ deciphers, rose out of a deeper
soil than any bodily affection. It had its root in penitential sorrow.
Oh, bitter is the sorrow to a conscientious heart, when, too late, it
discovers the depth of a love that has been trampled under foot! This
mariner had slain the creature that, on all the earth, loved him best.
In the darkness of his cruel superstition he had done it, to save his
human brothers from a fancied inconvenience; and yet, by that very act
of cruelty, he had himself called destruction upon their heads. The
Nemesis that followed punished _him_ through _them_--him, that wronged,
through those that wrongfully he sought to benefit. That spirit who
watches over the sanctities of love is a strong angel--is a jealous
angel; and this angel it was

'That lov'd the bird, that lov'd the man,
That shot him with his bow.'

He it was that followed the cruel archer into silent and slumbering
seas;

'Nine fathom deep he had follow'd him
Through the realms of mist and snow.'

This jealous angel it was that pursued the man into noon-day darkness,
and the vision of dying oceans, into delirium, and finally, (when
recovered from disease) into an unsettled mind.

Such, also, had been the offence of Kate; such, also was the punishment
that now is dogging her steps. She, like the mariner, had slain the one
sole creature that loved her upon the whole wide earth; she, like the
mariner, for this offence, had been hunted into frost and snow--very
soon will be hunted into delirium; and from _that_ (if she escapes
with life) will be hunted into the trouble of a heart that cannot rest.
There was the excuse of one darkness for _her_; there was the
excuse of another darkness for the mariner. But, with all the excuses
that earth, and the darkness of earth, can furnish, bitter it would be
for you or me, reader, through every hour of life, waking or dreaming,
to look back upon one fatal moment when we had pierced the heart that
would have died for us. In this only the darkness had been merciful to
Kate--that it had hidden for ever from her victim the hand that slew
him. But now in such utter solitude, her thoughts ran back to their
earliest interview. She remembered with anguish, how, on first touching
the shores of America, almost the very first word that met her ear had
been from _him_, the brother whom she had killed, about the
'Pussy' of times long past; how the gallant young man had hung upon her
words, as in her native Basque she described her own mischievous little
self, of twelve years back; how his color went and came, whilst his
loving memory of the little sister was revived by her own descriptive
traits, giving back, as in a mirror, the fawn-like grace, the squirrel-
like restlessness, that once had kindled his own delighted laughter;
how he would take no denial, but showed on the spot, that, simply to
have touched--to have kissed--to have played with the little wild
thing, that glorified, by her innocence, the gloom of St. Sebastian's
cloisters, gave a _right_ to his hospitality; how, through
_him_ only, she had found a welcome in camps; how, through
_him_, she had found the avenue to honor and distinction. And yet
this brother, so loving and generous, it was that she had dismissed
from life. She paused; she turned round, as if looking back for his
grave; she saw the dreadful wildernesses of snow which already she had
traversed.

Silent they were at this season, even as in the panting heats of noon,
the Zaarrahs of the torrid zone are oftentimes silent. Dreadful was the
silence; it was the nearest thing to the silence of the grave. Graves
were at the foot of the Andes, _that_ she knew too well; graves were at
the summit of the Andes, _that_ she saw too well. And, as she gazed, a
sudden thought flashed upon her, when her eyes settled upon the corpses
of the poor deserters--could she, like _them_, have been all this while
unconsciously executing judgment upon herself? Running from a wrath
that was doubtful, into the very jaws of a wrath that was inexorable?
Flying in panic--and behold! there was no man that pursued? For the
first time in her life, Kate trembled. _Not_ for the first time, Kate
wept. Far less for the first time was it, that Kate bent her knee--that
Kate clasped her hands--that Kate prayed. But it _was_ the first time
that she prayed as _they_ pray, for whom no more hope is left but in
prayer.

Here let me pause a moment for the sake of making somebody angry. A
Frenchman, who sadly misjudges Kate, looking at her through a Parisian
opera-glass, gives it as _his_ opinion--that, because Kate first
_records_ her prayer on this occasion, therefore, now first of all
she prayed. _I_ think not so. _I_ love this Kate, blood-
stained as she is; and I could not love a woman that never bent her
knee in thankfulness or in supplication. However, we have all a right
to our own little opinion; and it is not you, '_mon cher_,' you
Frenchman, that I am angry with, but somebody else that stands behind
you. You, Frenchman, and your compatriots, I love oftentimes for your
festal gaiety of heart; and I quarrel only with your levity and that
eternal worldliness that freezes too fiercely--that absolutely blisters
with its frost--like the upper air of the Andes. _You_ speak of
Kate only as too readily you speak of all women; the instinct of a
natural scepticism being to scoff at all hidden depths of truth. Else
you are civil enough to Kate; and your '_homage_' (such as it may
happen to be) is always at the service of a woman on the shortest
notice. But behind _you_, I see a worse fellow; a gloomy fanatic;
a religious sycophant that seeks to propitiate his circle by bitterness
against the offences that are most unlike his own. And against him, I
must say one word for Kate to the too hasty reader. This villain, whom
I mark for a shot if he does not get out of the way, opens his fire on
our Kate under shelter of a lie. For there is a standing lie in the
very constitution of civil society, a _necessity_ of error,
misleading us as to the proportions of crime. Mere necessity obliges
man to create many acts into felonies, and to punish them as the
heaviest offences, which his better sense teaches him secretly to
regard as perhaps among the lightest. Those poor deserters, for
instance, were they necessarily without excuse? They might have been
oppressively used; but in critical times of war, no matter for the
individual palliations, the deserter from his colors _must_ be
shot: there is no help for it: as in extremities of general famine, we
shoot the man (alas! we are _obliged_ to shoot him) that is found
robbing the common stores in order to feed his own perishing children,
though the offence is hardly visible in the sight of God. Only
blockheads adjust their scale of guilt to the scale of human
punishments. Now, our wicked friend the fanatic, who calumniates Kate,
abuses the advantage which, for such a purpose, he derives from the
exaggerated social estimate of all violence. Personal security being so
main an object of social union, we are obliged to frown upon all modes
of violence as hostile to the central principle of that union. We are
_obliged_ to rate it, according to the universal results towards
which it tends, and scarcely at all, according to the special condition
of circumstances, in which it may originate. Hence a horror arises for
that class of offences, which is (philosophically speaking)
exaggerated; and by daily use, the ethics of a police-office translate
themselves, insensibly, into the ethics even of religious people. But I
tell that sycophantish fanatic--not this only, viz., that he abuses
unfairly, against Kate, the advantage which he has from the
_inevitably_ distorted bias of society; but also, I tell him this
second little thing, viz., that upon turning away the glass from that
one obvious aspect of Kate's character, her too fiery disposition to
vindicate all rights by violence, and viewing her in relation to
_general_ religious capacities, she was a thousand times more
promisingly endowed than himself. It is impossible to be noble in many
things, without having many points of contact with true religion. If
you deny _that_ you it is that calumniate religion. Kate
_was_ noble in many things. Her worst errors never took a shape of
self-interest or deceit. She was brave, she was generous, she was
forgiving, she bore no malice, she was full of truth--qualities that
God loves either in man or woman. She hated sycophants and dissemblers.
_I_ hate them; and more than ever at this moment on her behalf. I
wish she were but here--to give a punch on the head to that fellow who
traduces her. And, coming round again to the occasion from which this
short digression has started, viz., the question raised by the
Frenchman--whether Kate were a person likely to _pray_ under other
circumstances than those of extreme danger? I offer it as _my_
opinion that she was. Violent people are not always such from choice,
but perhaps from situation. And, though the circumstances of Kate's
position allowed her little means for realizing her own wishes, it is
certain that those wishes pointed continually to peace and an unworldly
happiness, if _that_ were possible. The stormy clouds that
enveloped her in camps, opened overhead at intervals--showing her a far
distant blue serene. She yearned, at many times, for the rest which is
not in camps or armies; and it is certain, that she ever combined with
any plans or day-dreams of tranquillity, as their most essential ally,
some aid derived from that dovelike religion which, at St. Sebastian's,
as an infant and through girlhood, she had been taught so profoundly to
adore.

Now, let us rise from this discussion of Kate against libellers, as
Kate herself is rising from prayer, and consider, in conjunction with
_her_, the character and promise of that dreadful ground which
lies immediately before her. What is to be thought of it? I could wish
we had a theodolite here, and a spirit-level, and other instruments,
for settling some important questions. Yet no: on consideration, if one
_had_ a wish allowed by that kind fairy, without whose assistance
it would be quite impossible to send, even for the spirit-level, nobody
would throw away the wish upon things so paltry. I would not put the
fairy upon any such errand: I would order the good creature to bring no
spirit-level, but a stiff glass of spirits for Kate--a palanquin, and
relays of fifty stout bearers--all drunk, in order that they might not
feel the cold. The main interest at this moment, and the main
difficulty--indeed, the 'open question' of the case--was, to ascertain
whether the ascent were yet accomplished or not; and when would the
descent commence? or had it, perhaps, long commenced? The character of
the ground, in those immediate successions that could be connected by
the eye, decided nothing; for the undulations of the level had been so
continual for miles, as to perplex any eye but an engineer's, in
attempting to judge whether, upon the whole, the tendency were upwards
or downwards. Possibly it was yet neither way; it is, indeed, probable,
that Kate had been for some time travelling along a series of terraces,
that traversed the whole breadth of the topmost area at that point of
crossing the Cordilleras, and which perhaps, but not certainly,
compensated any casual tendencies downwards by corresponding reascents.
Then came the question--how long would these terraces yet continue? and
had the ascending parts _really_ balanced the descending?--upon
_that_ seemed to rest the final chance for Kate. Because, unless
she very soon reached a lower level, and a warmer atmosphere, mere
weariness would oblige her to lie down, under a fierceness of cold,
that would not suffer her to rise after once losing the warmth of
motion; or, inversely, if she even continued in motion, mere extremity
of cold would, of itself, speedily absorb the little surplus energy for
moving, which yet remained unexhausted by weariness.

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