Part 3 (1/2)
In time Emily recovers, but the horror of the Black Veil preys on her mind until, near the close of the third volume, Mrs.
Radcliffe mercifully consents to tell us not only what Emily thought that she beheld, but what was actually there.
”There appeared, instead of the picture she had expected, within the recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What added to the horror of the spectacle was that the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were visible on the features and hands... Had she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax... A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image made to resemble a human body in the state to which it is reduced after death ... he had made it a condition in his will that his descendants should preserve the image.”
Mrs. Radcliffe, realising that the secret she had so jealously guarded is of rather an amazing character, a.s.serts that it is ”not without example in the records of the fierce severity which monkish superst.i.tion has sometimes inflicted on mankind.” But the explanation falls so ludicrously short of our expectations and is so improbable a possibility, that Mrs. Radcliffe would have been wise not to defraud Catherine Morland and other readers of the pleasure of guessing aright. Few enjoy being baffled and thwarted in so unexpected a fas.h.i.+on. The skeleton of Signora Laurentina was the least that could be expected as a reward for suspense so patiently endured. But long ere this disclosure, we have learnt by bitter experience to distrust Mrs. Radcliffe's secrets and to look for ultimate disillusionment. The uncanny voice that ominously echoes Montoni's words is not the cry of a bodiless visitant striving to awaken ”that blus.h.i.+ng, shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man's bosom,” but belongs to an ordinary human being, the prisoner Du Pont, who has discovered one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's innumerable concealed pa.s.sages. The bed with the black velvet pall in the haunted chamber contains, not the frightful apparition that flashed upon the inward eye of Emily and of Annette, but a stalwart pirate who shrinks from discovery.
The gliding forms which steal furtively along the ramparts and disappear at the end of dark pa.s.sages become eventually, like the nun in Charlotte Bronte's _Villette_, sensible to feeling as to sight. The unearthly music which is heard in the woods at midnight proceeds, not from the inhabitants of another sphere, but from a conscience stricken nun with a lurid past. The corpse, which Emily believed to be that of her aunt, foully done to death by a pitiless husband, is the body of a man killed in a bandit's affray. Here Mrs. Radcliffe seems eager to show that she was not afraid of a corpse, but is careful that it shall not be the corpse which the reader antic.i.p.ates. She deliberately excites trembling apprehensions in order that she may show how absurd they are. We are befooled that she may enjoy a quietly malicious triumph. The result is that we become wary and cautious. The genuine ghost story, read by Ludovico to revive his fainting spirits when he is keeping vigil in the ”haunted” chamber, is robbed of its effect because we half expect to be disillusioned ere the close. It is far more impressive if read as a separate story apart from its setting. The idea of explaining away what is apparently supernatural may have occurred to Mrs. Radcliffe after reading Schiller's popular romance, _Der Geisterseher_ (1789), in which the elaborately contrived marvels of the Armenian, who was modelled on Cagliostro, are but the feats of a juggler and have a physical cause. But more probably Mrs. Radcliffe's imagination was held in check by a sensitive conscience, which would not allow her to trade on the credulity of simple-minded readers.
It is noteworthy that Mrs. Radcliffe's last work--_The Italian_, published in 1797--is more skilfully constructed, and possesses far greater unity and concentration than _The Mysteries of Udolpho_. The Inquisition scenes towards the end of the book are unduly prolonged, but the story is coherent and free from digressions. The theme is less fanciful and far fetched than those of _The Romance of the Forest_ and _Udolpho_. It seldom strays far beyond the bounds of the probable, nor overstrains our capacity for belief. The motive of the story is the Marchesa di Vivaldi's opposition to her son's marriage on account of Ellena's obscure birth. The Marchesa's far reaching designs are forwarded by the ambitious monk, Schedoni, who, for his own ends, undertakes to murder Ellena. _The Italian_ abounds in dramatic, haunting scenes. The strangely effective overture, which describes the Confessional of the Black Penitents, the midnight watch of Vivaldi and his lively, impulsive servant, Paulo, amid the ruins of Paluzzi, the melodramatic interruption of the wedding ceremony, the meeting of Ellena and Schedoni on the lonely sh.o.r.e, the trial in the halls of the Inquisition, are all remarkably vivid. The climax of the story when Schedoni, about to slay Ellena, is arrested in the very act by her beauty and innocence, and then by the glimpse of the portrait which leads him to believe she is his daughter, is finely conceived and finely executed. Afterwards, Ellena proves only to be his niece, but we have had our thrill and nothing can rob us of it. _The Italian_ depends for its effect on natural terror, rather than on supernatural suggestions. The monk, who haunts the ruins of Paluzzi, and who reappears in the prison of the Inquisition, speaks and acts like a being from the world of spectres, but in the fulness of time Mrs. Radcliffe ruthlessly exposes his methods and kills him by slow poison. She never completely explains his behaviour in the halls of the Inquisition nor accounts satisfactorily for the ferocity of his hatred of Schedoni. We are unintentionally led on false trails.
The character of Schedoni is undeniably Mrs. Radcliffe's masterpiece. No one would claim that his character is subtle study, but in his interviews with the Marchesa, Mrs. Radcliffe reveals unexpected gifts tor probing into human motives. He is an imposing figure, theatrical sometimes, but wrought of flesh and blood. In fiction, as in life, the villain has always existed, but it was Mrs. Radcliffe who first created the romantic villain, stained with the darkest crimes, yet dignified and impressive withal. Zeluco in Dr. John Moore's novel of that name (1789) is a powerful conception, but he has no redeeming features to temper our repulsion with pity. The sinister figures of Mrs. Radcliffe, with pa.s.sion-lined faces and gleaming eyes, stalk--or, if occasion demand it, glide--through all her romances, and as she grows more familiar with the type, her delineations show increased power and vigour. When the villain enters, or shortly afterwards, a descriptive catalogue is displayed, setting forth, in a manner not unlike that of the popular _feuilleton_ of to-day, the qualities to be expected, and with this he is let loose into the story to play his part and act up to his reputation. In the _Sicilian Romance_ there is the tyrannical marquis who would force an unwelcome marriage on his daughter and who immures his wife in a remote corner of the castle, visiting her once a week with a scanty pittance of coa.r.s.e food. In _The Romance of the Forest_ we find a conventional but thorough villain in Montalt and a half-hearted, poor-spirited villain in La Motte, whose ”virtue was such that it could not stand the pressure of occasion.” Montoni, the desperate leader of the condottieri in _The Mysteries of Udolpho_, is endued with so vigorous a vitality that we always rejoice inwardly at his return to the forefront of the story. His abundant energy is refres.h.i.+ng after a long sojourn with his garrulous wife and tearful niece.
”He delighted in the energies of the pa.s.sions, the difficulties and tempests of life which wreck the happiness of others roused and strengthened all the powers of his mind, and afforded him the highest enjoyment... The fire and keenness of his eye, its proud exaltation, its bold fierceness, its sudden watchfulness as occasion and even slight occasion had called forth the latent soul, she had often observed with emotion, while from the usual expression of his countenance she had always shrunk.”
Schedoni is undoubtedly allied to this desperado, but his methods are quieter and more subtle:
”There was something terrible in his air, something almost superhuman. The cowl, too, as it threw a shade over the livid paleness of his face increased its severe character and gave an effect to his large, melancholy eye which approached to horror ... his physiognomy ... bore the traces of many pa.s.sions which seemed to have fixed the features they no longer animated. An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance, and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate at a single glance into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts--few persons could endure their scrutiny or even endure to meet them twice ... he could adapt himself to the tempers and pa.s.sions of persons, whom he wished to conciliate, with astonis.h.i.+ng facility.”
The type undoubtedly owes something to Milton's Satan. Like Lucifer, he is proud and ambitious, and like him he retains traces of his original grandeur. Hints from Shakespeare helped to fas.h.i.+on him. Like Ca.s.sius, seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort
”As if he mock'd himself and scorn'd his spirit That could be moved to smile at anything.”
Like King John,
”The image of a wicked heinous fault Lives in his eye: that close aspect of his Does show the mood of a much-troubled breast.”
By the enormity of his crimes he inspires horror and repulsion, but by his loneliness he appeals, for a moment, like the consummate villain Richard III., to our pity:
”There is no creature loves me And if I die, no soul will pity me.
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself Find in myself no pity to myself?”
Karl von Moor, the famous hero of Schiller's _Die Rauber_ (1781), is allied to this desperado. He is thus described in the advertis.e.m.e.nt of the 1795 edition:
”The picture of a great, misguided soul, endowed with every gift of excellence, yet lost in spite of all its gifts. Unbridled pa.s.sions and bad companions.h.i.+p corrupt his heart, urge him on from crime to crime, until at last he stands at the head of a band of murderers, heaps horror upon horror, and plunges from precipice to precipice in the lowest depths of despair. Great and majestic in misfortune, by misfortune reclaimed and led back to the paths of virtue. Such a man shall you pity and hate, abhor yet love in the robber Moor.”
Among the direct progeny of these grandiose villains are to be included those of Lewis and Maturin, and the heroes of Scott and Byron. We know them by their world-weariness, as well as by their piercing eyes and pa.s.sion-marked faces, their ”verra wrinkles Gothic.” In _The Giaour_ we are told:
”Dark and unearthly is the scowl That glares beneath his dusky cowl:
”The flash of that dilating eye Reveals too much of times gone by.
Though varying, indistinct its hue Oft will his glance the gazer rue.”
Of the Corsair, it is said:
”There breathe but few whose aspect might defy The full encounter of his searching eye.”
Lara is drawn from the same model:
”That brow in furrowed lines had fixed at last And spoke of pa.s.sions, but of pa.s.sions past; The pride but not the fire of early days, Coldness of mien, and carelessness of praise; A high demeanour and a glance that took Their thoughts from others by a single look.”
The feminine counterpart of these bold impersonations of evil is the tyrannical abbess who plays a part in _The Romance of the Forest_ and in _The Italian_, and who was adopted and exaggerated by Lewis, but her crimes are petty and malicious, not daring and ambitious, like the schemes of Montoni and Schedoni.