People :
Author : William Godwin
Text :
Meanwhile it was necessary that I should make the best of the present circumstances. My heart was wounded; my spirit was in a manner broken; but not so utterly withered and destroyed as to make me rest supine in perpetual imprisonment. I felt with equal conviction and pungency that my character and my happiness had sustained the deepest injuries; but I felt it incumbent on me to collect and improve the fragments that remained. For some days indeed after the conference with Monluc, I was sunk in the deepest dejection. But, as that dejection subsided, I began to turn a steady attention upon the future. I recollected that an eternal and inexhaustible gift deserved to be made the subject of more than one experiment, before a decision was formed upon its merits. I shall become wiser, said I, as I go forward. Experience, however bitter, will teach me sagacity and discrimination. My next experiment shall be made with more prudence and a soberer gradation. I will remove to some distant country, where the disadvantages of my past adventures shall not follow me. I will take a new name. I shall then enjoy the benefit of a tyro just entering a scene, to all the personages of which he is wholly unknown. I shall be like a serpent that has stripped its tarnished and wrinkled skin, and comes forth in all the gloss and sleekness of youth. Surely, in an unknown land, with the prejudice of wealth in my favor, and no prejudices against me, I shall know how to conduct myself so as to obtain honor and respect. It is impossible that inexhaustible wealth and immortal youth, gifts so earnestly coveted by every creature that lives, gifts which if I were known to possess, my whole species from the mere impulses of envy would probably combine to murder me, as not able to endure the sight of one so elevated above his brethren,—it is impossible that such gifts should not be pregnant with variety of joy.
Marguerite greatly contributed to raise me from the dejection, into which my imprisonment and the conference of Monluc had sunk me. She was my better genius. I had been so accustomed to receive consolation from her lips in the most trying circumstances, that now the very sound of her voice was able to smooth my wrinkled brow, and calm my agitated spirit. I listened as to the sound of an angelic lyre; I was all ear; I drank in the accents of her tongue; and, in the dear delight, my cares were hushed, and my sorrows at an end. She talked to me of her daughters, whom she represented as about to have no protector but their father; she urged me to watch over them, and to take such steps as should most conduce to their future virtue and happiness; she pointed out the practicability of escape, and recommended to me to fly to some distant country: the dreams of future prosperity from the gifts of the stranger were not hers; they were all my own. It was inexpressibly affecting at this time to receive consolation from her, who had no consolation in her own breast, who had bid farewell to all the gay attractions of the world, and talked familiarly of her death as a thing certain to happen in no very long time. She had lost the purest gratifications of the domestic scene; she had lost her son; her heart was broken; yet with her dying accents she sought to dispel retrospect, and inspire cheerfulness, in the breast of her husband.
The reader may perhaps imagine that I was something too sanguine, when, surrounded with jailers and all the precautions of a prison, I planned the nature and scene of my next residence exactly as if I had been a person at large. But I took it for granted that the power of money I possessed would easily unlock to me the gates of my captivity. I believed that, upon the lowest calculation, personal liberty was clearly included among the gifts of the stranger. Impressed with this opinion, I fixed upon a negro, a servant of the prison, and who had the keys of my apartment, as the subject of my pecuniary experiment. The idea of applying to him had perhaps first occurred to me, from the mere circumstance of my seeing him more frequently than any other attendant of the prison. When I thought further of the matter, I judged, from the meanness of his rank and his apparent poverty, that I could not have chosen better. So far as related to the sum to be paid as the price of my liberty, it was indeed indifferent to me, whether it were large or small. I had however suffered so much from the inconsiderate lavishing of wealth, that I had no inclination on the present occasion to make ostentation of more than was necessary. But, what was of most importance to me, I was desirous that my first experiment should be a successful one. Though not unaware of the power of gold, I conceived that, among persons of middling rank and easier circumstances, there might be varieties of disposition, and I might be mistaken in my choice. Some might have the whim of integrity, or might place a sturdy sort of pride in showing that they were content with what they had, and were too high for a bribe. There might be persons who, though of plebeian rank, might value reputation as much as ever I had done, and be of opinion that no advance of station could compensate for the name or the consciousness of dishonor. These distinctions may seem an idle and superfluous refinement, when it is considered that I had the power of raising my bribe to the level of any man’s honesty or pride, be it as great as it might; and it may be thought that my offer might be so increased as to be too dazzling for mortal firmness to resist. Be that as it will, I am merely stating the reflections that passed through my mind, not entering into their vindication.
Taking the first opportunity then of accosting this man when he was alone with me, I addressed him thus:—
“My good friend, are not you poor?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Would not you readily do me a kindness?”
“If my master give me leave, I will.”
“You mistake me. Would you be my friend?”
“I do not know what you mean, sir. I have been used to call the man I love my friend. If you mean that, you know I cannot choose whether I will be a man’s friend; it comes of itself.”
“Can I not make you my friend?”
“That is, make me love you?”
I was surprised at the propriety of his answers. I am unable at this distance of time to recall the defects of his language: and I disdain the mimic toil of inventing a jargon for him suitable to the lowness of his condition: the sense of what he said I faithfully report. I had before been struck with a certain correctness of thinking in him; but I now examined his countenance more attentively than I had ever before done, and thought I could distinctly trace in it the indications of a sound understanding and an excellent heart.
“I do not know, sir,” continued he. “If I see that you are a good man, I believe I shall love you. But if it happened that you were good and generous to me, I am sure I should love you very much.”
“You are very poor?”
“So they tell me. I never had more than a shilling or two at a time in my life.”
“It is a very sad thing to be poor?”
“Why, yes, so I have heard, sir. But, for my own part, I am always merry and gay.”
“My good fellow, I will make you rich.”
“Thank you, sir! But what good will that do me?”
“You are a servant: I will make you a master of servants.”
“Now, that I should not like at all. I am merry, because I am lighthearted. If I had money, and property to take care of, and servants to direct, I am afraid they would make me grave and suspicious, and in every respect unlike what you see me.”
“Is it possible you should be pleased with your present situation, under the orders of one man in a house, and obliged to play the tyrant to the rest?”
“Why, as you say, sir, there may be more agreeable situations than the life of a jail. But, as to being under orders, I have no objection to that. I never knew any other condition, and therefore I am contented. It is not pleasant indeed to have a master who is always scolding and dissatisfied; but the gentleman I serve at present is reasonable; I know how to content him, and, when I have done that, he leaves me to please myself. You offer me money: now, sir, that is not what I call being generous; I count nothing for much, except when a man shows me has bowels, and convinces me that he thinks justice due even to a negro. I dare say however you designed it for generosity, and expected something from me in return. Tell me what it is you want, and whatever I can do with propriety, you may depend on it I will.”
“Do you approve of a man’s being deprived of his liberty?”
“Will you please to tell me what you mean by liberty? You offered me just now what you called liberty and independence; and I am content to be a servant.”
“Would you be pleased, instead of being a turnkey, to have the key turned on yourself?”
“That I should not. I understand the disagreeableness of that well enough, for when I first entered this place, it was as a prisoner.”
“If then, my good fellow, you were convinced that I was a man disposed to be generous to you in your own way, and to deserve your attachment and love, surely you would not refuse to deliver me from a situation which you have yourself felt to be so disagreeable and calamitous.”
“I understand you now, sir. I have already a master with whom I am satisfied, and I do not wish to change my service. When I was a prisoner, he found out that I was innocent; he got me cleared, and gave me employment. I am put here for the express purpose of seeing the prisoners in safe custody. That is the contract between me and my master. When I took the keys, by that action I pledged myself to be faithful to my trust; and the nobleness of my master’s behavior to me in removing me from being a prisoner to be a free servant, is a double bond upon my fidelity. I would sooner consent to be torn limb from limb, than fail in what is expected from me. You may be generous to a harmless stranger; you have most reason to be generous to a man you love; but, if you would heap benefits upon me merely because I proved myself a villain, I can only say it would be disgraceful to be the object of your favor.”
Thus saying, he quitted me, and withdrew from further parley. The conversation in which we had engaged, though I had had considerable experience in the world, was altogether new to me, and overwhelmed me with astonishment. I found in this trial, that the power of money was subject to limitations, of which previously I had not been in the slightest degree aware. I thought that nothing but the most extraordinary degree of resolution and self-denial could enable a man to resist its enticements; and I had even been told, though I did not believe, that every man had his price, and a bribe capable of indefinite augmentation must be in all cases victorious. Yet here was a poor creature utterly exempt from its operation. He had no sense of those attractions, which so often degrade the best, and convert virtue into the most shameless profligacy. It cost him no effort to be honest, and he uttered sentiments that would have given luster to the most heroic character, without any consciousness of their greatness. What I had seen, led me also to reflect on another singularity I discerned in him. In the midst of the admirable, I had almost said the sublime, integrity he discovered, (for is it not a criterion of the sublime to be great without an effort?) he was destitute of knowledge, of intellectual cultivation, and all those exquisite sensations that most distinguish the man from the brute. He passed on quietly in the road of ordinary life, and thought not of the ambition to be wise or great, to be honored by thousands, or a benefactor to ages yet unborn. Kings might have confessed their inferiority to this man. But is he to be regarded as the model of what a human creature should be wished to be? Oh, no!
But the most memorable feeling impressed upon me by this conversation, was a conviction of what I had been backward to confess, that knaves were the persons to whose assistance and concert I must look, and that I must be upon my guard against an honest man. No one was qualified to be my coadjutor, till he had proved himself unworthy of all just and honorable society. The friend I must seek, was a man whose very soul melted at a bribe, whom money would seduce to perpetrate whatever his judgment most abhorred. Honor and integrity in the most refined and the rudest state, Monluc and the negro, both refused. It is impossible to conceive a sensation more painful and humiliating, than was this conviction to my mind.
I was not long at leisure for these reflections. In a few minutes the master of the prison entered my apartment, and with him the negro whom I had endeavored to prevail on to assist in restoring me to liberty. The master began to reproach me in very harsh terms for attempting to seduce his servant from his duty, and asked me what sort of enjoyment or satisfaction a man could have in life, if he could not depend upon the people he put into his employment? To this I answered with sternness, “that I should hold no debate about right and wrong with a jailer; that he might depend upon it I would leave no stone unturned to set myself free, and, what was more, that I would be free; and that, for his part, it was his business to keep me if he could, but not to insult me.” I therefore insisted upon his quitting the room.
“What use,” replied the fellow, “do you think now there is in putting yourself in a passion? If I have not a right to speak to you, I know what I have a right to do, put you in the strong room, and load you with irons.”
I turned my back upon him. “And how came you,” said I to the negro, “to go and betray me? I should have expected better things of you. If you refused to serve me, at least you needed not have endeavored to hurt me.”
“I did nothing but my duty, sir. I have no wish to hurt you: but it is my business, not merely to take care of my master’s interests myself, but to see that they are not injured by any body else. If he was not put on his guard, you might have been more successful with the next turnkey you endeavored to bribe.”
“You will find it more to your interest, monsieur,” interposed the jailer, “to talk to me than to my servant. You are determined to be free, you say. If that is the case, and it is to happen, who has so good a right to benefit by your resolution as I have?”
My eyes were opened in a moment. I saw that the knave whose rigor and sternness could not hold out against the warmth of a bribe, the friend of whose assistance I was in want, stood before me.
“I do not wonder,” proceeded he, “that you preferred applying to one of my servants. Their honesty must be expected to be had at a cheaper market. But, for my part, I am determined that no man shall ever pass these walls, without my being the richer. If then your escape is a thing that must happen, let us see what you can afford to give me for it.”
“Dear master,” interposed the negro, “you surely will not listen to the gentleman’s offer. When I refused to betray my trust, it is impossible you should consent to betray yours!”
“Hold your tongue, blockhead!” said the other. “Do not you see that monsieur is determined to escape? I know he is rich. Though you have refused a bribe, I am sure that all your fellows will not. The thing will happen sooner or later in spite of every thing I can do; and there can be no harm in my helping to bring about, what it is impossible I should prevent.”
A morality like this seems exactly in its place in the breast of a jailer. We had already made some progress in adjusting the terms of our contract, when the keeper of the prison interposed:—
“But, monsieur, you will please to remark, that this is an affair which will be attended with difficulty. Whatever passes between you and me must be a secret. Your escape will be a thing open and notorious, and you must have a confederate, that I may not bear the blame of it. You must therefore take my black here along with you, that his flight may cause all the blame to fall upon him.”
“O, pray, master,” said the negro, “do not part with me! I love you, and will do any thing in the world, if you will let me stay. You saved my life for aught I know, and made a man of me again; you cannot think what good it does me to serve a master that has been so kind to me!”
“Get you gone!” replied his owner. “You are of no use to me; you are not fit for a jail; you are so simple, I cannot tell what to do with you!”
“Indeed I do not like to go with this gentleman; it will break my heart. He said he would be generous and kind to me, if I turned a villain; I shall never be able, and shall never desire to earn his kindness: but you rewarded me because I was innocent. He said he would make a master of me; and I am better as I am; I had much rather be a servant.”
The difficulties of this poor fellow were soon silenced by the peremptoriness of his master. The jailer told him that he would do him a great service, by thus giving his master an opportunity of representing him as the traitor; and, with this consideration, the negro dried his tears, and with a reluctant heart consented to accompany me. Thus were his exemplary fidelity and affection rewarded! So little do some men seem capable of feeling the value of attachment! The character of the master was a singular one. The meanness and mercenariness of his spirit were unredeemed by a single virtue. He was avarice personified. But he had found or imagined an interest in taking this negro, who had been want only thrown into prison by a former tyrant, for his servant; and this the poor fellow, in the simplicity of his heart, had mistaken for an act of exalted generosity. His avarice had swallowed up all his other passions; and his servants had neither impatience nor insolence to encounter from him: weighed therefore in the balance of the negro’s experience, he appeared a miracle of mildness and benevolence.
Our bargain was at length concluded; and, the next time Marguerite came to visit me, I announced to her the success of my negotiation. Before we parted, we sent for the jailer, and discussed with him the road I should take. My purpose was to pass into Italy; and Marguerite undertook by midnight to have every thing prepared to convey us to the foot of the mountains. This point being adjusted, the keeper of the prison left us; and, tenderly embracing Marguerite, I besought her to congratulate me upon the recovery of my liberty. She had heard however of the infamous nature of the charge against me, and, though she yielded it no credit, I could easily perceive that it rendered yet heavier the depression under which she labored. She returned my embrace; the tears stole down her cheeks; but she was silent. I endeavored to divert her thoughts and re-animate her spirits, by hinting at the new scenes before us, and the distant country to which we were about to remove; but in vain. “I will not reproach you, Reginald!” said she; “I will not desert my duty while I have power to perform it; you may depend upon my doing every thing I am able both for the children and yourself!”
She left me in a very melancholy frame of mind. I had not expected to see her thus languid and disconsolate; and upon the eve of my liberation, I felt it like caprice. Incomparable woman! She was incapable of giving intentional pain: but, with her exquisitely susceptible mind, she was unable to support the dreadful reverse in which I had involved her, or even at times to assume the gestures of cheerfulness and tranquility; gestures that, at the best, but ill disguised the grief within!
I was busily reflecting on what had just occurred, when the keeper of the prison reentered my apartment. “I am come, monsieur,” said he, “to take my leave of you. As I do not at all intend to lose my place, it is not proper that I should see you any more. You understand me?”
Two days had already elapsed since the conclusion of our contract, and I had provided myself for this and such other demands as seemed likely to be immediately impending. I should have preferred indeed to have delayed this payment till the moment of my departure: but what the jailer suggested appeared reasonable; and I could not assign, even to my own mind, any cause why I should be reluctant to comply with it. I paid to this wretch the price of his villany.
I now began to count the hours, and eagerly to anticipate the arrival of midnight. Though the moment of my liberty was so near, I yet contemplated with unspeakable loathing the scene of my confinement, which was associated with the deepest disgrace and the blackest charges that are incident to a human creature. I felt as if, in proportion as I removed from the hated spot, I should at least shake off a part of the burden that oppressed me, and grow comparatively young again.
Time was far from moving indeed with the rapidity my impatience required; but the hour of appointment at last was near, and I expected every moment the faithful negro to appear, and announce to me my freedom. The cathedral bell now sounded twelve; I heard the noise of steps along the gallery; and presently a key was applied to the door of my apartment. It opened; and three persons, whom I knew for servants of the prison, entered.
“Come, sir,” said one of them; “you must follow me.”
“Where is my friend the negro?” said I.
“Ask no questions; speak never a word; but come.”
It was strange that the master of the prison, whose temper was so full of anxiety and caution, should unnecessarily trust three of his people, who might easily have been kept ignorant of this hazardous secret! This circumstance however did not strike me at first so strongly as it ought to have done. I had perfect confidence in his fidelity to his profligate bargain, and expected every moment to meet the negro who was to be my guide. My conductors led me by a way which I soon perceived did not lead to the ordinary entrance of the prison.
“Where are we going?” said I.
“Hold your tongue, or you will spoil all;” replied one of them roughly.
I bethought me that there might be an objection to the dismissing me by the public gate; I recollected to have heard that there were several subterranean outlets to the citadel; I judged from the words I had just heard that my conductors were acquainted with the plan that had been formed; and for all these reasons I proceeded with tolerable ease and security. I was not much longer however permitted to doubt. I was conducted to one of the dungeons of the prison, and told that there I was to remain. At first I remonstrated loudly, and told them “that I had been promised my liberty, and not a treatment like this.”
“We know that, sir,” replied they, “and that is the reason you are brought here. It is our business to teach you that the greatest offense that can be committed by a man in prison is to attempt to escape.”
The shock and surprise that so unexpected an issue to my adventure produced, rendered me outrageous. I was no longer able to control my fury; and, without knowing what I proposed, I knocked down two of my attendants before they had an opportunity to secure me, and rushed up the flight of steps by which we had descended. The third however contrived to intercept me; and, while we struggled, the other two came to his assistance. They loaded me with fetters and chained me to the wall. I was then left in utter darkness.
I felt myself sore with the bruises I had received in the contest; but what was infinitely worse, I found the expectations of freedom I had so confidently entertained, baffled and disappointed. Marguerite and my children were at this moment waiting for me to join them. They would probably wait hour after hour in vain. To what cause would they attribute my failing of my appointment? To what cause was I myself to attribute my miscarriage? My hopes in this instance had been in the utmost degree sanguine; what was I to count upon for the future? Was money useless in every instance in which mankind agreed to think its power unquestionable? What was the source of the present catastrophe and the harsh treatment I endured? Was the keeper of the prison discovered, and dismissed from his office? Had the negro gone and given information against him? I formed a thousand conjectures as to what might have happened; but I was unable to rest in any.
I had remained about twelve hours in this situation, full of angry and disconsolate thoughts, when the principal jailer entered my dungeon. I looked at him with astonishment; the cloud vanished from my understanding, and I began to comprehend the solution of the enigma.
“Are you at large?” cried I, with indignation: “why then am I here?”
“You are here by my orders.”
“Execrable villain!” said I. “Did you not promise me my freedom? Have you not received the price of it? How dare you show yourself in my presence?” As I spoke, I shook my chains, I clenched my fists, I trembled with resentment and rage.
“If you are not perfectly quiet and reasonable,” said he, “I shall leave you to your fate and return no more.”
Nothing is more singular in a state of great mental effervescence, than the rapidity with which our ideas succeed each other. At such times we seem to think more in minutes than at other times in hours. I felt how miserable a slave a man is, the moment he falls completely into the power of another. The wretch who stood before me was more vacant of human affections than any one I ever saw. Yet I was his creature, to be molded as he pleased. A thousand injuries he could inflict upon me, for which neither the institutions of society nor the extraordinary endowments I derived from the stranger could afford a remedy. He might so torture my mind and baffle my wishes, as to kill in me every spark of lofty adventure and generous pride. My liberty might, for aught I knew, be for years at his disposal. I felt however that my best course was to regard him with contempt, and use him as I would a spade or a file, to execute my purposes, without suffering him to awaken my passions. I immediately grew more calm, and he perceived the revolution of my sentiments.
“You seem to wonder,” continued he, “that I did not keep my engagement with you? I pride myself upon being superior to the prejudices, by which other men are frightened, like children with a bugbear. I have therefore no rule but my interest: and I did not see how my interest bound me to keep my engagement with you.”
“And what became of the countess?”
“I neither know nor care. I suppose she stayed all night under the walls; I knew she durst not disturb the prison.”
I felt I had still emotions to suppress. I curbed my tongue, but they showed themselves in my eyes.
“How do you intend to dispose of me?”
“Keep you in close custody. I have got your thousand pounds; the next thing for me to take care of is, that I do not lose my place.”
“And for what purpose do you come to me now?”
“Why to tell you a secret, I have not quite determined what conduct to pursue, and therefore I came here that I might have a better opportunity of judging.”
“Are you not afraid that I should inform the government how you have cheated me?”
“You inform! Have not I got you under lock and key? I warrant you, I will take care what goes out of these walls to the government.”
“The countess has a license to visit me.”
“What care I for that? I can keep her at bay as long as I will. She will not easily go to the government; and she is not such a fool as not to know, that to lodge a complaint against me, is not the way to procure the liberty of a man condemned to perpetual imprisonment. I can at any time trump up a story of your attempting to corrupt the turnkeys, and be sure, when I do, I will not want for proofs. That will cover any thing I can do to annoy you, and answer any accusation you can make against me. Do you think that the word of a jailer will not be taken, before that of the murderer he has in custody?”
“I can bring your own servants as witnesses, three of whom assaulted me last night.”
“Dunce, do you think I trusted them with my secret? They have nothing to tell, and apprehend nothing but a plot between you and my black, who has been put into the penitentiary for his offense. He is my only confident; and I trust him, because his stupidity answers to me for his faith.”
“Suppose I were to double the bribe for which you sold me my liberty, what security should I have that you would abide by your bargain?”
“Oh, if you were to do that, it would alter the case.”
“Might you not then detain the money, and defy me, as you have done now?”
“Suppose that a thing which might happen: can you help yourself? can you do better?”
I saw there was no remedy, and I was constrained to allow the success of this twofold perfidy. It was with an ill grace, and an attempt at sullenness and indifference, that the jailer accepted my proposal. The second thousand however had irresistible charms; and, in spite of himself, the sensation that made his heart dance, relaxed his muscles, and played about his mouth. He was puzzled what to think of me. The facility with which I produced the sums he demanded, with less apparent effort than they might have come from a duke or a sovereign prince, startled and staggered him. He had still his qualms, and evidently doubted whether he should not raise his price a third time. I saw no safety but in pertinacity and firmness, and had the good fortune ultimately to check his doubtful, half-formed experiments.
I was led by the accidents which have just been related, into further and deeper reflections on the power of money, as well as on the nature of the situation in which I found myself placed by the legacy of the stranger. My present experiment had been made upon a subject apparently the most favorable that could have been devised, upon a man whose breast the love of gold occupied without a rival: yet with this man I very hardly succeeded. I was not indeed so blinded by the present dejection of my spirit and sickness of my heart, as to imagine that I had not a secure game with this base-minded wretch, if I consented to play it. I had only to enlarge my bribe, to change it from the limited sum of two thousand pounds to the more brilliant offer of two thousand per annum, and no doubt I might have led him with me to the extremity of the globe. However he might have demurred, however he might have doubted, however curiosity, whetted even to agony by the goadings of avarice, might have prompted him to an incessant inquiry within himself as to the solution of my character and my powers, his grasping spirit would infallibly have chained his tongue, and been surety for his fidelity. But I could not yet prevail upon myself to endow such groveling and noxious propensities with so rich a reward. I considered, in the language of the stranger, that the talent I possessed was of the most momentous nature, and bestowed by the governor of the universe for the highest purposes; and I should have held myself unjustifiable in enriching by its means, however urgent the necessity might appear, the most worthless of mankind.
The sentiments of my tyrant varied every hour; he was fickle, anxious, and undetermined; harassed with the double fear of losing the sum already obtained, and of not securing the whole of what was capable of being acquired. He parted with me at last with all the pangs of a lover, who witnesses the ceremony of his mistress’s taking the monastic veil, and being sundered from him for ever. I was his Fortunatus’s purse, and this was the last day he was to enjoy the use of it; I was to him as the buried treasure of some long-forgotten hoarder, and he feared he should quit his digging before he had carried off every thing that the field concealed. At length however he began to apprehend that he had urged the refinement of an unprincipled avarice as far as it would go; and therefore in a few days, the negro being already discharged from his penance, he suffered us to escape together.
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January 05, 2021 : Chapter 22 -- Added.
January 17, 2022 : Chapter 22 -- Updated.
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