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Nightmare Abbey

T >> Thomas Love Peacock >> Nightmare Abbey





SCYTHROP (_to Marionetta_)

These remarks are rather uncharitable. There is great good in human
nature, but it is at present ill-conditioned. Ardent spirits cannot
but be dissatisfied with things as they are; and, according to their
views of the probabilities of amelioration, they will rush into the
extremes of either hope or despair--of which the first is enthusiasm,
and the second misanthropy; but their sources in this case are the
same, as the Severn and the Wye run in different directions, and both
rise in Plinlimmon.


MARIONETTA

'And there is salmon in both;' for the resemblance is about as close
as that between Macedon and Monmouth.

* * * * *




CHAPTER VIII


Marionetta observed the next day a remarkable perturbation in
Scythrop, for which she could not imagine any probable cause. She was
willing to believe at first that it had some transient and trifling
source, and would pass off in a day or two; but, contrary to this
expectation, it daily increased. She was well aware that Scythrop had
a strong tendency to the love of mystery, for its own sake; that is
to say, he would employ mystery to serve a purpose, but would first
choose his purpose by its capability of mystery. He seemed now to have
more mystery on his hands than the laws of the system allowed, and to
wear his coat of darkness with an air of great discomfort. All her
little playful arts lost by degrees much of their power either to
irritate or to soothe; and the first perception of her diminished
influence produced in her an immediate depression of spirits, and a
consequent sadness of demeanour, that rendered her very interesting to
Mr Glowry; who, duly considering the improbability of accomplishing
his wishes with respect to Miss Toobad (which improbability naturally
increased in the diurnal ratio of that young lady's absence), began
to reconcile himself by degrees to the idea of Marionetta being his
daughter.

Marionetta made many ineffectual attempts to extract from Scythrop the
secret of his mystery; and, in despair of drawing it from himself,
began to form hopes that she might find a clue to it from Mr Flosky,
who was Scythrop's dearest friend, and was more frequently than any
other person admitted to his solitary tower. Mr Flosky, however, had
ceased to be visible in a morning. He was engaged in the composition
of a dismal ballad; and, Marionetta's uneasiness overcoming her
scruples of decorum, she determined to seek him in the apartment which
he had chosen for his study. She tapped at the door, and at the sound
'Come in,' entered the apartment. It was noon, and the sun was shining
in full splendour, much to the annoyance of Mr Flosky, who had
obviated the inconvenience by closing the shutters, and drawing
the window-curtains. He was sitting at his table by the light of a
solitary candle, with a pen in one hand, and a muffineer in the other,
with which he occasionally sprinkled salt on the wick, to make it burn
blue. He sate with 'his eye in a fine frenzy rolling,' and turned his
inspired gaze on Marionetta as if she had been the ghastly ladie of
a magical vision; then placed his hand before his eyes, with an
appearance of manifest pain--shook his head--withdrew his hand--rubbed
his eyes, like a waking man--and said, in a tone of ruefulness most
jeremitaylorically pathetic, 'To what am I to attribute this very
unexpected pleasure, my dear Miss O'Carroll?'


MARIONETTA

I must apologise for intruding on you, Mr Flosky; but the interest
which I--you--take in my cousin Scythrop--


MR FLOSKY

Pardon me, Miss O'Carroll; I do not take any interest in any person or
thing on the face of the earth; which sentiment, if you analyse it,
you will find to be the quintessence of the most refined philanthropy.


MARIONETTA

I will take it for granted that it is so, Mr Flosky; I am not
conversant with metaphysical subtleties, but--


MR FLOSKY

Subtleties! my dear Miss O'Carroll. I am sorry to find you
participating in the vulgar error of the _reading public,_ to whom
an unusual collocation of words, involving a juxtaposition of
antiperistatical ideas, immediately suggests the notion of
hyperoxysophistical paradoxology.


MARIONETTA

Indeed, Mr Flosky, it suggests no such notion to me. I have sought you
for the purpose of obtaining information.


MR FLOSKY _(shaking his head)_

No one ever sought me for such a purpose before.


MARIONETTA

I think, Mr Flosky--that is, I believe--that is, I fancy--that is, I
imagine--


MR FLOSKY

The [Greek: toytesti], the _id est_, the _cioè_, the _c'est à dire_,
the _that is_, my dear Miss O'Carroll, is not applicable in this
case--if you will permit me to take the liberty of saying so. Think
is not synonymous with believe--for belief, in many most important
particulars, results from the total absence, the absolute negation of
thought, and is thereby the sane and orthodox condition of mind; and
thought and belief are both essentially different from fancy, and
fancy, again, is distinct from imagination. This distinction between
fancy and imagination is one of the most abstruse and important points
of metaphysics. I have written seven hundred pages of promise to
elucidate it, which promise I shall keep as faithfully as the bank
will its promise to pay.


MARIONETTA

I assure you, Mr Flosky, I care no more about metaphysics than I do
about the bank; and, if you will condescend to talk to a simple girl
in intelligible terms--


MR FLOSKY

Say not condescend! Know you not that you talk to the most humble of
men, to one who has buckled on the armour of sanctity, and clothed
himself with humility as with a garment?


MARIONETTA

My cousin Scythrop has of late had an air of mystery about him, which
gives me great uneasiness.


MR FLOSKY

That is strange: nothing is so becoming to a man as an air of mystery.
Mystery is the very key-stone of all that is beautiful in poetry, all
that is sacred in faith, and all that is recondite in transcendental
psychology. I am writing a ballad which is all mystery; it is 'such
stuff as dreams are made of,' and is, indeed, stuff made of a dream;
for, last night I fell asleep as usual over my book, and had a vision
of pure reason. I composed five hundred lines in my sleep; so that,
having had a dream of a ballad, I am now officiating as my own Peter
Quince, and making a ballad of my dream, and it shall be called
Bottom's Dream, because it has no bottom.


MARIONETTA

I see, Mr Flosky, you think my intrusion unseasonable, and are
inclined to punish it, by talking nonsense to me. (_Mr Flosky gave a
start at the word nonsense, which almost overturned the table._) I
assure you, I would not have intruded if I had not been very much
interested in the question I wish to ask you.--(_Mr Flosky listened
in sullen dignity._)--My cousin Scythrop seems to have some secret
preying on his mind.--(_Mr Flosky was silent._)--He seems very
unhappy--Mr Flosky.--Perhaps you are acquainted with the cause.--(_Mr
Flosky was still silent._)--I only wish to know--Mr Flosky--if it is
any thing--that could be remedied by any thing--that any one--of whom
I know any thing--could do.


MR FLOSKY (_after a pause_)

There are various ways of getting at secrets. The most approved
methods, as recommended both theoretically and practically in
philosophical novels, are eavesdropping at key-holes, picking the
locks of chests and desks, peeping into letters, steaming wafers, and
insinuating hot wire under sealing wax; none of which methods I hold
it lawful to practise.


MARIONETTA

Surely, Mr Flosky, you cannot suspect me of wishing to adopt or
encourage such base and contemptible arts.


MR FLOSKY

Yet are they recommended, and with well-strung reasons, by writers of
gravity and note, as simple and easy methods of studying character,
and gratifying that laudable curiosity which aims at the knowledge of
man.


MARIONETTA

I am as ignorant of this morality which you do not approve, as of the
metaphysics which you do: I should be glad to know by your means, what
is the matter with my cousin; I do not like to see him unhappy, and I
suppose there is some reason for it.


MR FLOSKY

Now I should rather suppose there is no reason for it: it is the
fashion to be unhappy. To have a reason for being so would be
exceedingly common-place: to be so without any is the province of
genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought
to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odyssey, which held
forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will
give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of
querulous impatience under imaginary evils.


MARIONETTA

Will you oblige me, Mr Flosky, by giving me a plain answer to a plain
question?


MR FLOSKY

It is impossible, my dear Miss O'Carroll. I never gave a plain answer
to a question in my life.


MARIONETTA

Do you, or do you not, know what is the matter with my cousin?


MR FLOSKY

To say that I do not know, would be to say that I am ignorant of
something; and God forbid, that a transcendental metaphysician, who
has pure anticipated cognitions of every thing, and carries the whole
science of geometry in his head without ever having looked into
Euclid, should fall into so empirical an error as to declare himself
ignorant of any thing: to say that I do know, would be to pretend to
positive and circumstantial knowledge touching present matter of fact,
which, when you consider the nature of evidence, and the various
lights in which the same thing may be seen--


MARIONETTA

I see, Mr Flosky, that either you have no information, or are
determined not to impart it; and I beg your pardon for having given
you this unnecessary trouble.


MR FLOSKY

My dear Miss O'Carroll, it would have given me great pleasure to have
said any thing that would have given you pleasure; but if any person
living could make report of having obtained any information on any
subject from Ferdinando Flosky, my transcendental reputation would be
ruined for ever.

* * * * *




CHAPTER IX


Scythrop grew every day more reserved, mysterious, and distrait; and
gradually lengthened the duration of his diurnal seclusions in his
tower. Marionetta thought she perceived in all this very manifest
symptoms of a warm love cooling.

It was seldom that she found herself alone with him in the morning,
and, on these occasions, if she was silent in the hope of his speaking
first, not a syllable would he utter; if she spoke to him indirectly,
he assented monosyllabically; if she questioned him, his answers
were brief, constrained, and evasive. Still, though her spirits were
depressed, her playfulness had not so totally forsaken her, but that
it illuminated at intervals the gloom of Nightmare Abbey; and if, on
any occasion, she observed in Scythrop tokens of unextinguished or
returning passion, her love of tormenting her lover immediately got
the better both of her grief and her sympathy, though not of her
curiosity, which Scythrop seemed determined not to satisfy. This
playfulness, however, was in a great measure artificial, and usually
vanished with the irritable Strephon, to whose annoyance it had been
exerted. The Genius Loci, the _tutela_ of Nightmare Abbey, the
spirit of black melancholy, began to set his seal on her pallescent
countenance. Scythrop perceived the change, found his tender
sympathies awakened, and did his utmost to comfort the afflicted
damsel, assuring her that his seeming inattention had only proceeded
from his being involved in a profound meditation on a very hopeful
scheme for the regeneration of human society. Marionetta called him
ungrateful, cruel, cold-hearted, and accompanied her reproaches with
many sobs and tears; poor Scythrop growing every moment more soft
and submissive--till, at length, he threw himself at her feet, and
declared that no competition of beauty, however dazzling, genius,
however transcendent, talents, however cultivated, or philosophy,
however enlightened, should ever make him renounce his divine
Marionetta.

'Competition!' thought Marionetta, and suddenly, with an air of the
most freezing indifference, she said, 'You are perfectly at liberty,
sir, to do as you please; I beg you will follow your own plans,
without any reference to me.'

Scythrop was confounded. What was become of all her passion and her
tears? Still kneeling, he kissed her hand with rueful timidity, and
said, in most pathetic accents, 'Do you not love me, Marionetta?'

'No,' said Marionetta, with a look of cold composure: 'No.' Scythrop
still looked up incredulously. 'No, I tell you.'

'Oh! very well, madam,' said Scythrop, rising, 'if that is the case,
there are those in the world--'

'To be sure there are, sir;--and do you suppose I do not see through
your designs, you ungenerous monster?'

'My designs? Marionetta!'

'Yes, your designs, Scythrop. You have come here to cast me off, and
artfully contrive that it should appear to be my doing, and not yours,
thinking to quiet your tender conscience with this pitiful stratagem.
But do not suppose that you are of so much consequence to me: do not
suppose it: you are of no consequence to me at all--none at all:
therefore, leave me: I renounce you: leave me; why do you not leave
me?'

Scythrop endeavoured to remonstrate, but without success. She
reiterated her injunctions to him to leave her, till, in the
simplicity of his spirit, he was preparing to comply. When he had
nearly reached the door, Marionetta said, 'Farewell.' Scythrop looked
back. 'Farewell, Scythrop,' she repeated, 'you will never see me
again.'

'Never see you again, Marionetta?'

'I shall go from hence to-morrow, perhaps to-day; and before we meet
again, one of us will be married, and we might as well be dead, you
know, Scythrop.'

The sudden change of her voice in the last few words, and the burst
of tears that accompanied them, acted like electricity on the
tender-hearted youth; and, in another instant, a complete
reconciliation was accomplished without the intervention of words.

There are, indeed, some learned casuists, who maintain that love has
no language, and that all the misunderstandings and dissensions of
lovers arise from the fatal habit of employing words on a subject to
which words are inapplicable; that love, beginning with looks, that
is to say, with the physiognomical expression of congenial mental
dispositions, tends through a regular gradation of signs and symbols
of affection, to that consummation which is most devoutly to be
wished; and that it neither is necessary that there should be, nor
probable that there would be, a single word spoken from first to
last between two sympathetic spirits, were it not that the arbitrary
institutions of society have raised, at every step of this very simple
process, so many complicated impediments and barriers in the shape
of settlements and ceremonies, parents and guardians, lawyers,
Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in
order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to
fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the
onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and
such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary
through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and
volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions of some of
the [Greek: epea pteroenta], or _winged words_ which are pressed into
his service in despite of himself.

At this conjuncture, Mr Glowry entered, and sitting down near them,
said, 'I see how it is; and, as we are all sure to be miserable do
what we may, there is no need of taking pains to make one another more
so; therefore, with God's blessing and mine, there'--joining their
hands as he spoke.

Scythrop was not exactly prepared for this decisive step; but he could
only stammer out, 'Really, sir, you are too good;' and Mr Glowry
departed to bring Mr Hilary to ratify the act.

Now, whatever truth there may be in the theory of love and language,
of which we have so recently spoken, certain it is, that during Mr
Glowry's absence, which lasted half an hour, not a single word was
said by either Scythrop or Marionetta.

Mr Glowry returned with Mr Hilary, who was delighted at the prospect
of so advantageous an establishment for his orphan niece, of whom he
considered himself in some manner the guardian, and nothing remained,
as Mr Glowry observed, but to fix the day.

Marionetta blushed, and was silent. Scythrop was also silent for a
time, and at length hesitatingly said, 'My deal sir, your goodness
overpowers me; but really you are so precipitate.'

Now, this remark, if the young lady had made it, would, whether she
thought it or not--for sincerity is a thing of no account on these
occasions, nor indeed on any other, according to Mr Flosky--this
remark, if the young lady had made it, would have been perfectly
_comme il faut_; but, being made by the young gentleman, it was _toute
autre chose_, and was, indeed, in the eyes of his mistress, a most
heinous and irremissible offence. Marionetta was angry, very angry,
but she concealed her anger, and said, calmly and coldly, 'Certainly,
you are much too precipitate, Mr Glowry. I assure you, sir, I have
by no means made up my mind; and, indeed, as far as I know it, it
inclines the other way; but it will be quite time enough to think of
these matters seven years hence. Before surprise permitted reply, the
young lady had locked herself up in her own apartment.

'Why, Scythrop,' said Mr Glowry, elongating his face exceedingly, 'the
devil is come among us sure enough, as Mr Toobad observes: I thought
you and Marionetta were both of a mind.'

'So we are, I believe, sir,' said Scythrop, gloomily, and stalked away
to his tower.

'Mr Glowry,' said Mr Hilary, 'I do not very well understand all this.'

'Whims, brother Hilary,' said Mr Glowry; 'some little foolish love
quarrel, nothing more. Whims, freaks, April showers. They will be
blown over by to-morrow.'

'If not,' said Mr Hilary, 'these April showers have made us April
fools.'

'Ah!' said Mr Glowry, 'you are a happy man, and in all your
afflictions you can console yourself with a joke, let it be ever so
bad, provided you crack it yourself. I should be very happy to laugh
with you, if it would give you any satisfaction; but, really, at
present, my heart is so sad, that I find it impossible to levy a
contribution on my muscles.'

* * * * *




CHAPTER X


On the evening on which Mr Asterias had caught a glimpse of a female
figure on the sea-shore, which he had translated into the visual sign
of his interior cognition of a mermaid, Scythrop, retiring to his
tower, found his study preoccupied. A stranger, muffled in a cloak,
was sitting at his table. Scythrop paused in surprise. The stranger
rose at his entrance, and looked at him intently a few minutes, in
silence. The eyes of the stranger alone were visible. All the rest
of the figure was muffled and mantled in the folds of a black cloak,
which was raised, by the right hand, to the level of the eyes. This
scrutiny being completed, the stranger, dropping the cloak, said, 'I
see, by your physiognomy, that you may be trusted;' and revealed to
the astonished Scythrop a female form and countenance of dazzling
grace and beauty, with long flowing hair of raven blackness, and
large black eyes of almost oppressive brilliancy, which strikingly
contrasted with a complexion of snowy whiteness. Her dress was
extremely elegant, but had an appearance of foreign fashion, as if
both the lady and her mantua-maker were of 'a far countree.'

'I guess 'twas frightful there to see
A lady so richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.'

For, if it be terrible to one young lady to find another under a tree
at midnight, it must, _à fortiori_, be much more terrible to a young
gentleman to find a young lady in his study at that hour. If the
logical consecutiveness of this conclusion be not manifest to my
readers, I am sorry for their dulness, and must refer them, for more
ample elucidation, to a treatise which Mr Flosky intends to write, on
the Categories of Relation, which comprehend Substance and Accident,
Cause and Effect, Action and Re-action.

Scythrop, therefore, either was or ought to have been frightened; at
all events, he was astonished; and astonishment, though not in itself
fear, is nevertheless a good stage towards it, and is, indeed, as it
were, the half-way house between respect and terror, according to Mr
Burke's graduated scale of the sublime.[7]

'You are surprised,' said the lady; 'yet why should you be surprised?
If you had met me in a drawing-room, and I had been introduced to
you by an old woman, it would have been a matter of course: can the
division of two or three walls, and the absence of an unimportant
personage, make the same object essentially different in the
perception of a philosopher?'

'Certainly not,' said Scythrop; 'but when any class of objects
has habitually presented itself to our perceptions in invariable
conjunction with particular relations, then, on the sudden appearance
of one object of the class divested of those accompaniments, the
essential difference of the relation is, by an involuntary process,
transferred to the object itself, which thus offers itself to our
perceptions with all the strangeness of novelty.'

'You are a philosopher,' said the lady, 'and a lover of liberty. You
are the author of a treatise, called "Philosophical Gas; or, a Project
for a General Illumination of the Human Mind."'

'I am,' said Scythrop, delighted at this first blossom of his renown.

'I am a stranger in this country,' said the lady; 'I have been but a
few days in it, yet I find myself immediately under the necessity of
seeking refuge from an atrocious persecution. I had no friend to whom
I could apply; and, in the midst of my difficulties, accident threw
your pamphlet in my way. I saw that I had, at least, one kindred mind
in this nation, and determined to apply to you.'

'And what would you have me do?' said Scythrop, more and more amazed,
and not a little perplexed.

'I would have you,' said the young lady, 'assist me in finding some
place of retreat, where I can remain concealed from the indefatigable
search that is being made for me. I have been so nearly caught once or
twice already, that I cannot confide any longer in my own ingenuity.'

Doubtless, thought Scythrop, this is one of my golden candle-sticks.
'I have constructed,' said he, 'in this tower, an entrance to a small
suite of unknown apartments in the main building, which I defy any
creature living to detect. If you would like to remain there a day or
two, till I can find you a more suitable concealment, you may rely on
the honour of a transcendental eleutherarch.'

'I rely on myself,' said the lady. 'I act as I please, go where I
please, and let the world say what it will. I am rich enough to set
it at defiance. It is the tyrant of the poor and the feeble, but the
slave of those who are above the reach of its injury.'

Scythrop ventured to inquire the name of his fair _protégée_. 'What
is a name?' said the lady: 'any name will serve the purpose of
distinction. Call me Stella. I see by your looks,' she added, 'that
you think all this very strange. When you know me better, your
surprise will cease. I submit not to be an accomplice in my sex's
slavery. I am, like yourself, a lover of freedom, and I carry my
theory into practice. _They alone are subject to blind authority who
have no reliance on their own strength_.'

Stella took possession of the recondite apartments. Scythrop intended
to find her another asylum; but from day to day he postponed his
intention, and by degrees forgot it. The young lady reminded him of
it from day to day, till she also forgot it. Scythrop was anxious to
learn her history; but she would add nothing to what she had already
communicated, that she was shunning an atrocious persecution. Scythrop
thought of Lord C. and the Alien Act, and said, 'As you will not
tell your name, I suppose it is in the green bag.' Stella, not
understanding what he meant, was silent; and Scythrop, translating
silence into acquiescence, concluded that he was sheltering an
_illuminée_ whom Lord S. suspected of an intention to take the
Tower, and set fire to the Bank: exploits, at least, as likely to be
accomplished by the hands and eyes of a young beauty, as by a drunken
cobbler and doctor, armed with a pamphlet and an old stocking.

Stella, in her conversations with Scythrop, displayed a highly
cultivated and energetic mind, full of impassioned schemes of liberty,
and impatience of masculine usurpation. She had a lively sense of all
the oppressions that are done under the sun; and the vivid pictures
which her imagination presented to her of the numberless scenes of
injustice and misery which are being acted at every moment in every
part of the inhabited world, gave an habitual seriousness to her
physiognomy, that made it seem as if a smile had never once hovered on
her lips. She was intimately conversant with the German language and
literature; and Scythrop listened with delight to her repetitions of
her favourite passages from Schiller and Goethe, and to her encomiums
on the sublime Spartacus Weishaupt, the immortal founder of the sect
of the Illuminati. Scythrop found that his soul had a greater capacity
of love than the image of Marionetta had filled. The form of Stella
took possession of every vacant corner of the cavity, and by degrees
displaced that of Marionetta from many of the outworks of the citadel;
though the latter still held possession of the _keep_. He judged, from
his new friend calling herself Stella, that, if it were not her real
name, she was an admirer of the principles of the German play from
which she had taken it, and took an opportunity of leading the
conversation to that subject; but to his great surprise, the lady
spoke very ardently of the singleness and exclusiveness of love, and
declared that the reign of affection was one and indivisible; that it
might be transferred, but could not be participated. 'If I ever love,'
said she, 'I shall do so without limit or restriction. I shall hold
all difficulties light, all sacrifices cheap, all obstacles gossamer.
But for love so total, I shall claim a return as absolute. I will have
no rival: whether more or less favoured will be of little moment. I
will be neither first nor second--I will be alone. The heart which I
shall possess I will possess entirely, or entirely renounce.'

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