Miss Marionetta Celestina O'Carroll
was a very blooming and accomplished young
lady. Being a compound of the Allegro Vivace
of the O'Carrolls, and of the Andante
Doloroso of the Glowrys, she exhibited in
her own character all the diversities of
an April sky. Her hair was light-brown: her
eyes hazel, and sparkling with a mild but
fluctuating light: her features regular:
her lips full, and of equal size: and her
person surpassingly graceful. She was a proficient
in music. Her conversation was sprightly,
but always on subjects light in their nature
and limited in their interest: for moral
sympathies, in any general sense, had no
place in her mind. She had some coquetry,
and more caprice, liking and disliking almost
in the same moment; pursuing an object with
earnestness while it seemed unattainable,
and rejecting it when in her power as not
worth the trouble of possession.
Whether she was touched with a penchant
for her cousin Scythrop, or was merely curious
to see what effect the tender passion would
have on so outré
>> note 1 a
person, she had not been three days in the Abbey before she threw out all
the lures of her beauty and accomplishments to make a prize of his heart.
Scythrop proved an easy conquest. The image of Miss Emily Girouette was already
sufficiently dimmed by the power of philosophy and the exercise of reason:
for to these influences, or to any influence but the true one, are usually
ascribed the mental cures performed by the great physician Time. Scythrop's
romantic dreams had indeed given him many pure anticipated cognitions of
combinations of beauty and intelligence, which, he had some misgivings, were
not exactly realised in his cousin Marionetta; but, in spite of these misgivings,
he soon became distractedly in love; which when the young lady clearly perceived,
she altered her tactics, and assumed as much coldness and reserve as she
had before shewn ardent and ingenuous attachment. Scythrop was confounded
at the sudden change; but, instead of falling at her feet and requesting
an explanation, he retreated to his tower, muffled himself in his night-cap,
seated himself in the president's chair of his imaginary secret tribunal,
summoned Marionetta with all terrible formalities, frightened her out of
her wits, disclosed himself, and clasped the beautiful penitent to his bosom.
While he was acting this reverie — in
the moment in which the awful president of
the secret tribunal was throwing back his
cowl and his mantle, and discovering himself
to the lovely culprit as her adoring and
magnanimous lover — the door of the
study opened, and the real Marionetta appeared.
The motives which had led her to the tower
were a little penitence, a little concern,
a little affection, and a little fear as
to what the sudden secession of Scythrop,
occasioned by her sudden change of manner,
might portend. She had tapped several times
unheard, and of course unanswered; and at
length, timidly and cautiously opening the
door, she discovered him standing up before
a black velvet chair, which was mounted on
an old oak table, in the act of throwing
open his striped calico dressing-gown, and
flinging away his night-cap, — which
is what the French call an imposing attitude.
Each stood a few moments fixed in their
respective places, — the lady in astonishment,
and the gentleman in confusion. Marionetta
was the first to break silence. "For
heaven's sake," said she, "my
dear Scythrop, what is the matter?"
"For heaven's sake, indeed," said
Scythrop, springing from the table; "for
your sake, Marionetta, and you are my heaven, — distraction
is the matter. I adore you, Marionetta, and
your cruelty drives me mad." He threw
himself at her knees, devoured her hand with
kisses, and breathed a thousand vows in the
most passionate language of romance.
Marionetta listened a long time in silence,
till her lover had exhausted his eloquence
and paused for a reply. She then said, with
a very arch look, "I prithee deliver
thyself like a man of this world." The
levity of this quotation,
>> note 2 and
of the manner in which it was delivered, jarred so discordantly on the high-wrought
enthusiasm of the romantic inamorato, that he sprang upon his feet, and beat
his forehead with his clenched fists. The young lady was terrified; and,
deeming it expedient to soothe him, took one of his hands in hers, placed
the other hand on his shoulder, looked up in his face with a winning seriousness,
and said, in the tenderest possible tone, "What would you have, Scythrop?"
Scythrop was in heaven again. "What
would I have? What but you, Marionetta? You,
for the companion of my studies, the partner
of my thoughts, the auxiliary of my great
designs for the emancipation of mankind."
"I am afraid I should be but a poor
auxiliary, Scythrop. What would you have
me do?"
"Do as Rosalia does with Carlos,
>> note 3 divine
Marionetta. Let us each open a vein in
the other's arm, mix our blood in a
bowl, and drink it as a sacrament of love.
Then we shall see visions of transcendental
illumination, and soar on the wings of
ideas into the space of pure intelligence."
Marionetta could not reply; she had not
so strong a stomach as Rosalia, and turned
sick at the proposition. She disengaged herself
suddenly from Scythrop, sprang through the
door of the tower, and fled with precipitation
along the corridors. Scythrop pursued her,
crying, "Stop, stop, Marionetta, — my
life, my love!" and was gaining rapidly
on her flight, when, at an ill-omened corner,
where two corridors ended in an angle, at
the head of a staircase, he came into sudden
and violent contact with Mr. Toobad, and
they both plunged together to the foot of
the stairs, like two billiard-balls into
one pocket. This gave the young lady time
to escape, and enclose herself in her chamber;
while Mr. Toobad, rising slowly, and rubbing
his knees and shoulders, said, "You
see, my dear Scythrop, in this little incident,
one of the innumerable proofs of the temporary
supremacy of the devil; for what but a systematic
design and concurrent contrivance of evil
could have made the angles of time and place
coincide in our unfortunate persons at the
head of this accursed staircase?"
"Nothing else, certainly," said
Scythrop: "you are perfectly in the
right, Mr. Toobad. Evil, and mischief, and
misery, and confusion, and vanity, and vexation
of spirit, and death, and disease, and assassination,
and war, and poverty, and pestilence, and
famine, and avarice, and selfishness, and
rancour, and jealousy, and spleen, and malevolence,
and the disappointments of philanthropy,
and the faithlessness of friendship, and
the crosses of love, — all prove the
accuracy of your views, and the truth of
your system; and it is not impossible that
the infernal interruption of this fall down
stairs may throw a colour of evil on the
whole of my future existence."
"My dear boy," said Mr. Toobad, "you
have a fine eye for consequences."
So saying, he embraced Scythrop, who retired,
with a disconsolate step, to dress for dinner;
while Mr. Toobad stalked across the hall,
repeating, "Woe to the inhabiters of
the earth, and of the sea, for the devil
is come among you, having great wrath."