Vagabond life in Mexico/The Desierto
CHAPTER V.
The Desierto.
After fastening our horses in the outer court of the convent, we chose, near the entrance of the building, the cell which seemed to be most convenient for shelter. The first moments of our halt were devoted to an interchange of reflections, half merry, half serious, upon the danger we had run. Don Romulo confessed that he had taken part in seventeen conspiracies; that he had been banished, under circumstances of great aggravation, from three republics—from Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia, but that the danger he had just escaped was the most imminent he had ever experienced in his life. As for the monk, the student, and the officer, they owned frankly enough that, when the danger appeared most imminent, and they had seemed callous to it, they were far from feeling so in their minds. After some more talk of a like kind, our eyes roamed around the old monastery to which chance had directed us for shelter. Situated in the midst of a tract of country which reminds one of the Grande Chartreuse of Grenoble, the convent of the Desierto is, to all outward appearance, far from being in a ruinous condition. Its cupolas and spires still shoot as high as ever above the pines which surround it; and although half a century has rolled away since the monks quitted it, ivy has not yet entirely covered the embrasures of its deserted cells. The green moss which grows upon its walls shows only the want of repair and the ravages of time. You must pass through the first quadrangle, which is still in good preservation, so as to reach the interior of the convent, before seeing the spectacle of melancholy and desolation which there meets your eye. The dilapidated cupolas admit the daylight through large chinks, the pilasters in the cloisters are crumbling away, large stones have been forced from their sockets, heaps of ruins block up the choir and the nave of the chapel, and a thick mantle of pellitories covers the rubbish. The vapors which hang in a dense curtain round the summit of the mountain, at the foot of which the convent is built, fall in fine rain on the bare stones, and cover every thing with an icy moisture. Above the high altar, through one of the numerous fissures in the dome, the condensed vapor escapes, and falls drop by drop with the regularity of a water-clock, as if to mark the flight of time, and to relieve, by the light noise it makes on the marble, the melancholy silence which reigns in this dreary solitude. Such is the convent of the Desierto, seen by the light of day and under a clear sky. Let any one fancy its appearance at the time we sought refuge within its walls, when the storm, which had lasted since twilight, was scarcely over. Imagine the beams of the moon, fitfully streaming through its deserted arches, and the wind whistling in the empty nave, in its organ loft, in its solitary cells, and he will have some idea of the shelter in which we spent the remainder of the night.
We stood shivering in our wet clothes, and our first business was to seek materials for a fire. We took each a different part of the convent. The quarter in which I was engaged happened to be the most ruinous in the whole building. The remembrance of the old monk of St. Francis often came into my mind; and, in passing along the deserted galleries, I could not help fancying I saw him flitting through the gloomy arches. Around me the pillars stretched their great shadows upon the ground, whitened by the moonbeams. A stillness, as of the grave, rested every where. The ivy curtains alone shook in the wind.
From the cloister I entered a vast corridor. Through the large chinks in the vaulted roof above the moonbeams stealthily penetrated. In the distance I thought I observed a red glow on the flag stones playing amid the surrounding whiteness, and imagined I heard the snort of a horse which did not seem to proceed from the court where we had fastened our steeds. At the same instant my companions called me; I eagerly joined them. They had collected some brushwood, as they could find nothing better. The officer, Don Blas, affirmed that he had seen, by the light of the moon, in a distant court, a horse which was not one of ours. The student pretended he had met the ghost of one of the monks who had been buried in the convent. A short silence succeeded. Don Romulo was the first to break it.
"Here is a charming variety of horrors; the horse of a bandit; the ghost of a monk; spectres and male factors!"
We tried to induce Fray Serapio to pronounce the classical formula of exorcism in his formidable Latin, but the monk replied tartly,
"My Latin won't drive away the spectre you talk of; it will rather attract it. God grant it may not appear! Be assured this is no freak of the imagination. The phantom seen by Señor Don Blas is a reality. It is my superior, the Reverend Father Epigmenio, who comes here every year, at the return of the Holy Week, to fulfill a penitential vow imposed on him for some sins of his youth. If he recognize me, how can I justify my present disguise and foolish excursion?"
The Franciscan's reply set us completely-at our ease, and we sympathized very little in his anxiety. Wishing, however, to have no meeting between the two, we resolved to light our fire in a cell in a retired part of the convent, and to stretch ourselves on our wet cloaks round it. The student, the officer, and the hidalgo were soon sound asleep; the monk and I remained awake. Fray Serapio, on the watch to catch the slightest noise, trembled all over at the thought of being surprised by his superior, while my mind was filled with the story of Fray Epigmenio, so unfortunately interrupted. Seeing the Franciscan was not inclined to sleep, I pressed him to finish it. My companion, who could not shut an eye, was overjoyed at finding this means of whiling away the time. He consented with a very good grace, and crept more closely to the fire.
"I left," said he, "Fray Epigmenio at the moment when chance had delivered to his care a female in a swoon. His first impulse was to run away; his second was to remain, and he remained. He ceased even to shout for the wounded horseman, whose return he did not now particularly desire; and when the young lady, coming out of her faint, opened her languid eyes, the reverend father lost his senses entirely. If at this moment the stranger had appeared, the monk would have strangled him, for you have doubtless guessed by this time that the stranger in black was no other than the devil!"
To this unexpected assertion my only reply was a shake of the head. Fray Serapio, believing I agreed with him, continued:
"Fray Epigmenio yielded to temptation. He fell deeply, madly in love. For a time his vows were forgotten, but the prickings of conscience at last aroused him, and he resolved to confess his fault. He was taken before the tribunal of the Inquisition.[1] Till the final judgment was pronounced, they were both kept in confinement, the monk in his cell, the female in a dungeon. Some weeks passed in miserable anticipation. One evening, the cell of Fray Epigmenio was the theatre of a scene, in which the intervention of the devil was as clearly seen as in the meeting in the forest. Kneeling before his crucifix, the monk was asking from God that peace which his soul had lost. All at once he was startled by a footfall in his cell. A man stood before him, who regarded him with a stern, watchful eye. This man was no other than the stranger who had appeared to the recluse a month before in the wood; his dress was the same, and he appeared still paler than on the night in which the monk had found him bathed in blood. Fray Epigmenio stepped back, but the stranger did not stir. The formula of exorcism, hastily stammered out, had no effect upon him. The monk then called for help, but it was too late. When they entered the cell the stranger had disappeared. Epigmenio, bleeding from a dagger thrust, lay in a swoon before his folding-stool, and you could see the impress of the villain's bloody fingers. Time has not effaced these marks; they are still there."
"I can guess the conclusion of your story," said I to Fray Serapio; "the female was condemned as a sorceress, and the monk was acquitted."
"The female," said Serapio, "confessed on the rack that she had been in league with the devil, and was condemned to expiate the crime by a public act; but she did not undergo that punishment. Her keepers found her one morning lying dead on the floor of her dungeon, strangled with the beautiful black tresses which had proved so fatal to Fray Epigmenio. As for the monk, his wound was slight; it soon healed. Condemned to five years menial servitude in the con vent of St. Francis, he was made the convent gardener. Almost at the same period the Inquisition ceased to exist, and the convent of the Desierto was abandoned as unhealthy. The visit which Fray Epigmenio makes at the same time every year to this ruined building is the only memorial of this event."
Fray Serapio paused. I was weary for want of sleep; he seemed also ready to drop with fatigue, and I forbore troubling him with any remarks on the story I had just heard. I had already lain down by the side of my companions, who were all fast asleep. Suddenly the Franciscan shook me by the arm, and invited me precipitately to follow him. I rose and accompanied him to a window which commanded a view of the inner courts of the convent, which were still bathed in the silvery light of the moon. The monk, whose stern and forbidding countenance had awakened my attention in the garden of St. Francis, was at this moment traversing one of the courts. We remarked that his steps were more tottering, and his body more bent than usual. When he disappeared, "Follow me," said Fray Serapio, "to the cell which was his, which he has just quitted." We soon arrived at the cell, but nothing distinguished it from the others. The walls were quite bare; the wind whistled through the parasitical plants which clung to the disjointed stones. A pine torch, stuck into an interstice of the wall, was just expiring. Fray Serapio fanned the dying flame, and, with all the obstinacy of a conscientious cicerone, he pretended to point out upon the wall the traces of the five fingers of the unknown who had stabbed the monk in his prison. I did not tell Serapio that the black stains on the wall had been produced by damp, and not by the hand of Satan. I seized, however, this opportunity of informing the worthy monk that the story of his unfortunate superior could be perfectly well explained without the intervention of the devil. The superiors of Fray Epigmenio, jealous of his rigid virtue, had probably set the trap into which he had fallen. They had found an adroit monk and a female willing to work through their plans, and the brutal fanaticism of the monk had unhappily spoiled every thing. The Inquisition had got wind of the matter. The farce was then turned into a tragedy. The vengeance of the father, who repented the selling of his child, her unhappy end, and the blighted, melancholy life which Fray Epigmenio had been afterward doomed to lead, were the unhappy consequences of the shameful intrigue hatched in the very convent in which we now were. Such was my commentary on Fray Serapio's story; but he, with an obstinacy only equaled by his credulity, held fast by his own interpretation.
Next morning we arrived at the hacienda of the friend of Don Diego Mercado, where the cordial reception we experienced soon made us forget the dangers and sufferings of the previous night.
On my return to Mexico I resumed my visits to the convent of St. Francis, and I read with more interest than ever the narratives preserved in these valuable archives, for I had now a thorough conviction that the old Spanish fanaticism, of which there were many instances in these documents, had still firm root in the minds of the people of Mexico. There is a close connection between the past and present race of the in habitants of the cloisters, which the frivolous manners of the monks, as seen by me in the streets of Mexico, had not led me to suspect. The Inquisition has passed away, but it has left in the clergy a well-defined outline, a singularly deep-rooted tradition of demoralization, superstitious ignorance, and fanaticism.
Every time I went to the convent of St. Francis I met Fray Epigmenio, sometimes in the cloisters, some times sunk in reverie in the arbor. One day, however, I traversed the whole convent in search of him, but in vain. Just as I was quitting it I met Fray Serapio. The presence of the Franciscan in his convent was so very rare an occurrence that I could not help inquiring why he had condescended so far as to break through his usual habits.
"It is a pity," cried Fray Serapio, "but don't ask me why. Fray Epigmenio has just breathed his last. A lingering fever hung about him a long time; he died this morning, and the duty of watching the corpse of the reverend father has been assigned to me. Could any one have played me a more scurvy trick?"
"I don't understand you," I replied. "You surely don't mean poor Fray Epigmenio?"
"Who then, if it isn't he? Do you know what this duty makes me lose? A charming assignation, mon cher." And, as a commentary on these words, there darted from his eyes an expressive glance which, told more than he said. I had not the heart to reproach the monk for his heartless talk, uttered, too, in such a cavalier tone. At this moment the first strokes of the passing-bell interrupted our conversation. "Good-by!" said Fray Serapio; "the bell calls me to my post." I shook him by the hand, and, on retiring, could not help reflecting on the singular contrast which these two men presented, inhabitants of the same convent, both under the same rules, both regardless of the sanctity of their mission; the one uniting libertinism with credulity, the other pushing piety to fanaticism, till it degenerated into cruelty. This contrast, I said sadly to myself, is a faithful picture of Mexican life. Who can tell how many unhappy wretches there are, in the numerous convents in Mexico, who have commenced with the first and ended with the second?
Among the persons who have figured in this narrative, one only succeeded in securing a peaceful life after a youth of stirring adventure: this was the student Don Diego Mercado, who, belonging to a rich family in Mexico, had always looked to the future without uneasiness. As for Don Blas, he met his death in a petty encounter with some robbers on the high road. Don Romulo's lot was at once more brilliant and more varied. After having, as I said before, taken part in seventeen conspiracies, and been banished from three republics, Don Romulo, after engaging in another political intrigue, was forced to quit Mexico in the same way as he had left Peru, Colombia, and Ecuador. On returning to the last-mentioned state, in which he had been born, he was raised to the presidency; and this time, being at the head of affairs in his own country, one would think he ought to have renounced his revolutionary principles. We do not know, however, if his conversion was sincere. There are some political agitators whom the attainment of supreme power cannot correct, and who still prefer the precarious advantages gained by intrigue to the pleasures of unlimited authority.
- ↑ Suppressed in Mexico in 1810. The old palace of the Inquisition, situated n the street St. Domingo, is now used as a custom-house.