Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
“It is impossible,” returned the
grand inquisitor, while his words went like ice-shafts to the hearts of the
unhappy women. “In addition to the charges against them which I have already
glanced at, it appeareth that one Alessandro Francatelli, who is nearly related
to them both, hath abjured the Christian faith and become a Mussulman. This
fact was reported many months ago to the council of state: and in the cottage
lately habited by the prisoners was found a costly set of jewels, ornamented
with sundry Moslem devices and symbols, all of which are hateful to the true
Catholic. It is therefore natural to suppose that they themselves have secretly
abjured their country’s religion, and have already received the reward of their
apostasy.”
“No—never, never!” exclaimed the
aunt, clasping her hands together, and showing more anguish by this cruel
suspicion than by any other portion of the treatment which she had received at
the hands of the inquisition.
On her side, Flora appeared to be
astounded at the accusation made against her aunt and herself by the grand
inquisitor.
“My lord,” said Angelo Duras,
“the very statement which has just been put forth by your eminence furnishes a
new ground whereon I base my requisition for a delay of eight days, in order to
prepare a fitting defense on behalf of the prisoners. The council of state is
now sitting in deliberation on certain demands made by the newly arrived
Ottoman envoy, and should your eminence refuse my requisition for a delay, it
will be my duty forthwith to apply to that august body.”
The grand inquisitor endeavored
to reason with the advocate on the inconvenience of obstructing the business of
the tribunal—but Angelo Duras, knowing that he had the law on his side, was
firm; and the judge was finally compelled to accord the delay. Flora and her
aunt were accordingly conveyed back each to her separate cell; while Angelo
Duras retired, murmuring to himself, “I shall doubtless offend my brother by my
conduct in this respect, after my solemn promise to him to abandon the cause of
the Francatellis; but I prefer having obeyed that young man of godlike aspect
and persuasive manner who visited me ere now to abjure me not to neglect my
duty.”
The next case that occupied the
attention of the grand inquisitor on the present occasion was that of the Jew
Isaachar ben Solomon. The old man was indeed a miserable spectacle. His
garments hung loosely about his wasted and attenuated form—his countenance was
wan and ghastly—but the fire of his eyes was not altogether quenched. He was
heavily chained—and, as he walked between the two familiars who led him into
the tribunal, he could scarcely drag himself along. For the persecuted old man
had been confined for nearly seven months in the prison of the inquisition; and
during that period he had suffered acutely with the damps of his dungeon—the
wretched food doled out to him—and the anguish occasioned by conscious
innocence unjustly accused of a dreadful crime.
“Jew,” said the grand inquisitor,
“when last thou wast examined
by
me, thou didst obstinately refuse to confess thy grievous sins. This is the day
for the final investigation of thy case: and thou may’st produce witnesses in
thy favor, if thou canst.”
“My lord,” replied Isaachar ben
Solomon, in a weak and tremulous voice, “unless Heaven should work a miracle in
my favor, I have no hope in this life. I do not fear death, my lord; for,
persecuted, reviled, despised, accused as I am, I can yet lay my hand on my
heart and say I have never injured a fellow-creature. But, my lord,” he
continued, his voice growing stronger with excitement, “it is sufficient that I
am a Jew to insure my condemnation; and yet strange indeed is that Christian
faith, or rather should I say, most inconsistent is the conduct of those who
profess it, in so far as this ruthless persecution of my race is concerned. For
where, my lord, is your charity, where is your tolerance, where is your mercy?
If I be indeed involved in mental darkness, ’tis for you to enlighten me with
argument, not coerce me with chains. Never have I insulted a Christian on
account of his creed: wherefore should I be insulted in mine? Granting that the
Jew is in error, he surely deserves pity, not persecution. For how came I by
the creed which I profess? Even as your lordship obtained yours, which is that
of Christian. Our parents reared us each in the belief which they respectively
professed; and there is no more merit due to your eminence for being a
Christian, than there is blame to be attached to me for being a Jew. Had all
the religions of the earth been submitted to our consideration when we were
children, and had it been said to each of us, ‘Select a faith for yourself,’
then there might be some merit in choosing the one most popular and the most
assuredly conducive to personal safety. But such was not the case, my lord; and
I am a Jew for the same reason that you are a Christian—and I cling to the
creed of my forefathers even as you adhere tenaciously to that faith which your
ancestors have handed down to you. Reproach me not, then, because I am a Jew.
And now I will pass to another subject, my lord,” continued Isaachar, becoming
more and more animated as he proceeded.
“I am accused of a fearful crime,
of murder. The evidence rests upon the fact that stains of blood were observed
upon the floor of a room in my house. The answer is simple. Two men—one of
noble birth, the other a robber, fought in the room; and the blood of one of
them flowed from a slight wound. This is the truth—and yet I know that I am not
believed. Merciful heavens! of what would you accuse me? Of murder!—and it was
hinted, when last I stood before your eminence, that the Jews have been known
to slay Christian children as an offering to Heaven. My lord, the Jews worship
the same God as the Christians—for the Christians adopt that book in which the
Jews put faith. Then I appeal to your eminence whether the God whom the
Christians worship would delight in such sacrifices?—and as you must answer
‘Nay,’ the reply acquits the Jews also of the hideous calumny sought to be
affixed upon us. The Jews, my lord, are a merciful and humane race. The records
of your tribunals will prove
that the Jews are not addicted to the shedding of blood. They are too
patient—enduring—and resigned, to be given to vengeance. Behold how they cling
to each other—how they assist each other in distress;—and charity is not
narrowed to small circles, my lord, it is a sentiment which must become
expansive, because it nourisheth itself and is cherished by those good feelings
which are its only reward. Think you, my lord, that if I saw a fellow-creature starving
in the street, I should wait to ask him whether he were a Christian, a Jew, or
a Mussulman? Oh! no—no; the world’s bread was given for men of all nations and
all creeds!”
Isaachar would have continued his
address to the grand inquisitor; but sheer exhaustion compelled him to
desist—and he would have sunk upon the cold marble, had not the familiars
supported him.
“By his own words is he convicted
of disbelief in the most holy Catholic faith,” said the grand inquisitor. “But
I find, by a memorial which was addressed to me many mouths ago—indeed, very
shortly after the arrest of this miserable unbeliever—and signed by Manuel
Marquis of Orsini, that the said marquis hath important evidence to give on
behalf of the Jew. Now, though Manuel d’Orsini be himself a prisoner of the
holy office, yet as he hath not yet been judged, he is a competent witness.”
Orders were then given to
introduce the marquis; and Isaachar ben Solomon murmured to himself, “Is it
possible that the young man can have felt sympathy for me? Ah, then I was not
mistaken in him; in spite of his dissipation and his wildness he possesses a
generous heart.”
In a few minutes the Marquis of
Orsini was led into the judgment-hall. He was chained;—but he carried his head
erect—and, though his countenance was pale and careworn, his spirit was not
crushed. He bowed respectfully, but not cringingly, to the grand inquisitor,
and bestowed a friendly nod of recognition upon the Jew.
“This memorial, dated in the
month of March last, was signed by you?” said the grand inquisitor
interrogatively, as he displayed a paper to the marquis.
“That memorial was signed by me,”
answered Orsini, in a firm tone, “and I rejoice that your eminence has at
length granted me an opportunity of explaining the matter hinted at therein.
Your eminence sits there, it is presumed, to administer justice; then let
justice be done toward this innocent man—albeit that he is a Jew—for solemnly
do I declare that the blood which stained the floor in Isaachar’s house flowed
from my right arm. And it may not be amiss to observe,” continued the marquis,
“that the worthy Jew there did not only bind the wound for me with as much care
as if I myself had been an Israelite, or he a Christian—but he moreover offered
me the aid of his purse; and therefore am I under obligations to him which I
can never wholly discharge. In good sooth, my lord,” added Manuel, in whom
neither a lengthened imprisonment nor the awful solemnity of the present scene
could entirely subdue the flippancy which was habitual to his speech,—“in good
sooth,
my lord, he is a
splendid specimen of a Jew—and I pray your eminence to discharge him
forthwith.”
“This levity ill becometh you,
Manuel d’Orsini,” said the grand inquisitor; “for you yourself are in terrible
danger.”
Then, upon a signal given, the
familiars conveyed the marquis back to his dungeon: but ere he left the
judgment-hall, he had the satisfaction of beholding the Jew’s eyes fixed upon
him with an expression of boundless gratitude and deep sympathy. Tears, too,
were trickling down the cheeks of the Israelite: for the old man thought within
himself, “What matters it if the rack dislocate my limbs? But it is
shocking—oh! it is shocking to reflect that thy fellow-creatures, noble youth,
shall dare to deface and injure that godlike form of thine!”
“Jew,” suddenly exclaimed the
grand inquisitor, “I put no faith in the testimony of the witness who has just
appeared in thy favor. Confess thy sins—avow openly that thou hast murdered
Christian children to obtain their blood for use in thy sacrifices—and seek
forgiveness from Heaven by embracing the faith of Jesus!”
The unhappy Israelite was so
appalled by the open, positive, and undisguised manner in which an atrocious
charge was revived against him, that he lost all power of utterance, and stood
stupefied and aghast.
“Away with him to the
torture-chamber!” cried the grand inquisitor, in a stern and remorseless tone.
“Monster!” exclaimed the Jew,
suddenly recovering his speech, as that dreadful mandate warned him that he
would now require all his energy—all his presence of mind:—“monster!” he
repeated, in a voice indicative of loathing and contempt;—“and thou art a
Christian!”
The familiars hurried Isaachar
away to the torture-chamber, which, as we before stated, opened upon the tribunal.
And terrible, indeed, was the appearance of that earthly hell—that terrestrial
hades, invented by fiends in human shape—that den of horrors constituting,
indeed, a fitting foretaste of trans-stygian torment! The grand inquisitor
followed the victim and the familiars into this awful place: and, on a signal
being given by that high functionary, Isaachar was stripped of all his upper
clothing, and stretched on the accursed rack. Then commenced the torture—the
agonizing torture by means of that infernal instrument, a torture which
dislocated the limbs, appeared to tear the members asunder, and produced
sensations as if all the nerves of the body were suddenly being drawn out
through the brain.
“Dost thou confess? and wilt thou
embrace the Christian faith?” demanded the grand inquisitor from time to time.
“I have nothing to confess—I will
not renounce the creed of my forefathers!” answered Isaachar in a tone of
bitter agony, as he writhed upon the rack, while every fresh shock and jerk of
the infernal engine seemed as if it would tear the very life out of him. But
the old man remained firm in the declaration of his innocence of the dreadful
crime imputed to him: stanch also to his creed did he remain; and having
endured the full extent
of
that special mode of torture, he was borne back to his dungeon, cruelly
injured, with dislocated limbs, blood streaming from his mouth and nostrils,
and these terrible words of the grand inquisitor ringing in his ears—“Obstinate
and impenitent one, Satan claims thee as his own; therefore art thou condemned
to death by fire at the approaching
auto de-fe
!”
Half an hour afterward another
human being lay stretched upon that accursed rack, and agonizing—oh! most
agonizing were the female shrieks and rending screams which emanated from the
lips of the tortured victim, but which reached not beyond the solid masonry of
those walls and the massive iron-plated door. The white and polished arms were
stretched out in a position fearfully painful beyond the victim’s head, and the
wrists were fastened to a steel bar by means of a thin cord, which cut through
flesh, muscle and nerve to the very bone! The ankles were attached in a similar
manner to a bar at the lower end of the rack, and thus from the female’s hands
and feet thick clots of gore fell on the stone pavement. But even the blood
flowed not so fast from her lacerated limbs as streamed the big drops of agony
from her distorted countenance—that countenance erst so beautiful, and so well
beloved by thee, Manuel d’Orsini! For, oh! upon that rack lay stretched the
fair and half-naked form of Giulia of Arestino, its symmetry convulsing in
matchless tortures, the bosom palpitating awfully with the pangs of that
earthly hell, and the exquisitely-modeled limbs enduring all the hideous pains of
dislocation, as if the fibers that held them in their sockets were drawn out to
a tension at which they must inevitably snap in halves!