Thunder-struck at this barbarous decree, my little remaining strength abandoned me. I answered only by falling at her feet, and bathing them with tears. The domina, unmoved by my affliction, rose from her seat with a stately air: she repeated her commands in an absolute tone; but my excessive faintness made me unable to obey her. Mariana and Alix raised me from the ground, and carried me forwards in their arms. The prioress moved on, leaning on Violante, and Camilla preceded her with a torch. Thus passed our sad procession along the passages, in silence only broken by my sighs and groans. We stopped before the principal shrine of St. Clare. The statue was removed from its pedestal, though how I knew not. The nuns afterwards raised an iron grate, till then concealed by the image, and let it fall on the other side with a loud crash. The awful sound, repeated by the vaults above and caverns below me, roused me from the despondent apathy in which I had been plunged. I looked before me; an abyss presented itself to my affrighted eyes, and a steep and narrow stair-case, whither my conductors were leading me. I shrieked, and started back. I implored compassion, rent the air with my cries, and summoned both heaven and earth to my assistance. In vain! I was hurried down the stair-case, and forced into one of the cells which lined the cavern’s sides.
My blood ran cold, as I gazed upon this melancholy abode. The cold vapours hovering in the air, the walls green with damp, the bed of straw so forlorn and comfortless, the chain destined to bind me for ever to my prison, and the reptiles of every description, which, as the torches advanced towards them, I descried hurrying to their retreats, struck my heart with terrors almost too exquisite for nature to bear. Driven by despair to madness, I burst suddenly from the nuns who held me; I threw myself upon my knees before the prioress, and besought her mercy in the most passionate and frantic terms.
“If not on me,” said I, “look at least with pity on that innocent being, whose life is attached to mine! Great is my crime, but let not my child suffer for it! My baby has committed no fault. Oh! spare me for the sake of my unborn offspring, whom, ere it tastes life, your severity dooms to destruction!”
The prioress drew back hastily; she forced her habit from my grasp, as if my touch had been contagious.
“What!” she exclaimed with an exasperated air: “What! Dare you plead for the produce of your shame? Shall a creature be permitted to live, conceived in guilt so monstrous? Abandoned woman, speak for him no more! Better that the wretch should perish than live: begotten in perjury, incontinence, and pollution, it cannot fail to prove a prodigy of vice. Hear me, thou guilty! Expect no mercy from me, either for yourself or brat. Rather pray that death may seize you before you produce it; or, if it must see the light, that its eyes may immediately be closed again for ever! No aid shall be given you in your labour; bring your offspring into the world yourself, feed it yourself, nurse it yourself, bury it yourself: God grant that the latter may happen soon, lest you receive comfort from the fruit of your iniquity!”
This inhuman speech, the threats which it contained, the dreadful sufferings foretold to me by the domina, and her prayers for my infant’s death, on whom, though unborn, I already doted, were more than my exhausted frame could support. Uttering a deep groan, I fell senseless at the feet of my unrelenting enemy. I know not how long I remained in this situation; but I imagine that some time must have elapsed before my recovery, since it sufficed the prioress and her nuns to quit the cavern. When my senses returned, I found myself in silence and solitude. I heard not even the retiring foot-steps of my persecutors. All was hushed, and all was dreadful! I had been thrown upon the bed of straw: The heavy chain which I had already eyed with terror, was wound around my waist, and fastened me to the wall. A lamp glimmering with dull melancholy rays through my dungeon, permitted my distinguishing all its horrors. It was separated from the cavern by a low and irregular wall of stone. A large chasm was left open in it, which formed the entrance, for door there was none. A leaden crucifix was in front of my straw couch. A tattered rug lay near me, as did also a chaplet of beads; and not far from me stood a pitcher of water, and a wicker-basket containing a small loaf, and a bottle of oil to supply my lamp.
With a despondent eye did I examine this scene of suffering: when I reflected that I was doomed to pass in it the remainder of my days, my heart was rent with bitter anguish. I had once been taught to look forward to a lot so different! At one time my prospects had appeared so bright, so flattering! Now all was lost to me. Friends, comfort, society, happiness, in one moment I was deprived of all! Dead to the world, dead to pleasure, I lived to nothing but the sense of misery. How fair did that world seem to me, from which I was for ever excluded! How many loved objects did it contain, whom I never should behold again! As I threw a look of terror round my prison, as I shrunk from the cutting wind which howled through my subterraneous dwelling, the change seemed so striking, so abrupt, that I doubted its reality. That the duke de Medina’s niece, that the destined bride of the marquis de las Cisternas, one bred up in affluence, related to the noblest families in Spain, and rich in a multitude of affectionate friends—that she should in one moment become a captive, separated from the world for ever, weighed down with chains, and reduced to support life with the coarsest aliments—appeared a change so sudden and incredible, that I believed myself the sport of some frightful vision. Its continuance convinced me of my mistake with but too much certainty. Every morning I looked for some relief from my sufferings: every morning my hopes were disappointed. At length I abandoned all idea of escaping, I resigned myself to my fate, and only expected liberty when she came the companion of death.
My mental anguish, and the dreadful scenes in which I had been an actress, advanced the period of my labour. In solitude and misery, abandoned by all, unassisted by art, uncomforted by friendship, with pangs which if witnessed would have touched the hardest heart, was I delivered of my wretched burthen. It came alive into the world; but I knew not how to treat it, or by what means to preserve its existence. I could only bathe it with tears, warm it in my bosom, and offer up prayers for its safety. I was soon deprived of this mournful employment: the want of proper attendance, my ignorance how to nurse it, the bitter cold of the dungeon, and the unwholesome air which inflated its lungs, terminated my sweet babe’s short and painful existence. It expired in a few hours after its birth, and I witnessed its death with agonies which beggar all description.
But my grief was unavailing. My infant was no more; nor could all my sighs impart to its little tender frame the breath of a moment. I rent my winding-sheet, and wrapped in it my lovely child. I placed it on my bosom, its soft arm folded round my neck, and its pale cold cheek resting upon mine. Thus did its lifeless limbs repose, while I covered it with kisses, talked to it, wept, and moaned over it without remission day or night. Camilla entered my prison regularly once every twenty-four hours to bring me food. In spite of her flinty nature, she could not behold this spectacle unmoved. She feared that grief so excessive would at length turn my brain; and in truth I was not always in my proper senses. From a principle of compassion she urged me to permit the corse to be buried; but to this I never would consent. I vowed, not to part with it while I had life: its presence was my only comfort, and no persuasion could induce me to give it up. It soon became a mass of putridity, and to every eye was a loathsome and disgusting object, to every eye but a mother’s. In vain did human feelings bid me recoil from this emblem of mortality with repugnance. I withstood, and vanquished that repugnance. I persisted in holding my infant to my bosom, in lamenting it, loving it, adoring it! Hour after hour have I passed upon my sorry couch, contemplating what had once been my child. I endeavoured to retrace its features through the livid corruption with which they were overspread. During my confinement, this sad occupation was my only delight; and at that time worlds should not have bribed me to give it up. Even when released from my prison, I brought away my child in my arms. The representations of my two kind friends—[Here she took the hands of the marchioness and Virginia, and pressed them alternately to her lips]—at length persuaded me to resign my unhappy infant to the grave. Yet I parted from it with reluctance. However, reason at length prevailed; I suffered it to be taken from me, and it now reposes in consecrated ground.