He spoke with so much confidence and security that I began to feel as they say birds do when a serpent approaches ’em, powerless to withdraw from the noxious influence, however heartily I hated it, wondering almost whether this man could force me in spite of myself to consent to become his. I broke the spell with a vast effort by asking him the day of the month, which he told me, and shortly afterwards took his departure, leaving me to spend the night in sobs and tears, and urgent prayers to Heaven to save me or let me die.
December ye 15th.
Since my last writing, Amelia, I have endured three interviews with Sinzaun. Such is the horrible cunning of this wicked man, that he don’t present himself at regular intervals, nor inform me of his intended visit until a short time before he appears, so that I spend my whole time with the dread hanging over me of being suddenly confronted with him. This garden seems to be haunted with his image; the slightest footstep—even a shadow falling on the path—drives me into an agony of fear, and the wretch can’t help perceiving, when he comes, the condition my terror throws me into. This alone would prove his cruel nature, that with all the respect and admiration he professes for me, until I’m sick of hearing it, he continues to force himself upon me with the sole purpose of tormenting the being he feigns to love. Indeed, he goes so far as to rally me upon my apprehensions, telling me once that my lofty courage recalled to him some personage of one of the French poets who declared that he feared God and had no other fear,—“a sentiment,” says Sinzaun, “that I’ll venture to commend to my Clarissa, since it describes so exactly her own absence of alarm.” Oh, my dear, is it come to this, that my timidity is bringing a reproach upon the religion I humbly profess? And yet, who could avoid fearing this man? Sure to feel at ease in his presence would come near to sharing his evil deeds.
My dear girl will scarce credit it, but I am convinced that my persecutor entertains himself during his absences with devising fresh miseries for me. He comes to the house muffled in various disguises, and is at huge pains to explain to me that he runs an incredible risque of being tracked by spies, and that he can’t set out to pay me a visit save when he has seen the Nabob engrossed in some new and delightful plan of wickedness. “Then,” says he, “I fly on the wings of love to my charmer, confident that one short hour in her presence will stimulate my invention even to the point of devising fresh pleasures for Saradjot Dollah, such as may gain me a further audience of her.”
“Indeed, sir,” I said, “I can’t but think it a pity that you don’t attempt to lead the Nabob into the paths of virtue. In so novel a pursuit the Prince—and perhaps Meer Sinzaun also—would find a freshness and singularity far more agreeable than the dulness of the evenings you are so obliging as to sacrifice to the poor prisoner here.”
“Dulness! sacrifice!” he cried, brushing away my suggestion lightly; “sure Clarissa must be seeking for compliments. I’m hugely grateful, madam, for your obliging thought, but I’ll assure you that I amuse myself infinitely during these visits. I can’t recall any occasion of my life on which I have been better entertained.”
I can well believe it, Amelia. I never look at him if I can help it, for so great is the loathing with which the man inspires me that I can’t bear to meet his eye, but when through inadvertence I have done so, I perceive in it a sort of sombre ferocity united with delight in my sufferings that makes me tremble. Can my dear Miss Turnor figure to herself the being forced to enter a tyger’s cage for the purpose of diverting the tyger? Which would be the worse, does she think, this, or that the tyger should be so obliging as to exert himself to entertain you? I think she’ll say that one is as bad as the other, and this is my case with Sinzaun. I suffer equally when he compels me to speak and when he speaks himself, for the man, my dear, is an atheist. I would not write this terrible charge, lest my indignation against him should have caused me to judge him harshly, if I had not heard it from his own lips, but he has assured me more than once that the one deity in which he believes is gain, and the one incentive that moves men is advantage. “I believe in my Clarissa,” was the utmost I could get from him when I pressed him strongly on the point, and he added that his life had taught him there was no Providence, either to punish the evil or protect the good, but only a blind fate, out of whose unsteady dispositions the wise man must shape his own road to success. En’t this cruelty indeed, to seek to deprive a poor creature of her faith in God just when she needs it most? But sure Meer Sinzaun has overreached himself in this, for I need not go far to learn of the existence of the devil, and to disbelieve in God on the devil’s word would questionless be the extremest folly in the world. But having thus unfolded to me what he called the wise man’s creed, which he said he had gathered both from European philosophers and from the sages of the East, Sinzaun went on to show its practical application, desiring to prove that there was no truth nor honour nor virtue in the world, any more than Divine justice nor providence, and proceeded to turn into ridicule the very books he had been praising to me a month before. I can but be grateful he don’t know his Bible as well as he does Mr Richardson’s works, for sure ’twas only ignorance, and not good will, made him stop short of attacking that. He cited instance after instance to prove that there was no virtue in goodness, and no reward for’t if there were, and no shame in sin, nor punishment neither, and I could not hope to contend with him. You know, Amelia, I was always the one to be worsted in an argument. How I wished that my dear Mrs Hurstwood were present, with her ready tongue, to give the assailant as good as he brought, and to silence, if she could not convince him, whereas I could but sit quiet, or protest without hope of moving him, while he attacked everything in which the Christian believes. At last he took his leave, and summoning my courage, I said as I curtseyed to him—
“Permit me to say, sir, that I’m entirely at variance with the opinions you have chose to utter this evening.”
“A thousand thanks for the assurance, madam!” was the wretch’s reply. “My mind is inexpressibly relieved. I should be desolated if I thought my Clarissa shared those opinions I have indicated as my own.”
As much as to say that he would prefer his mistress to remain a believer in Christianity, because she would then be the better wife to him! Oh, Amelia, how can anything that is said or done move such a man? I dread and detest him more and more, and my only comfort is based on his assurance that he would wait patiently until he had gained my favour. If he can wait, so can I, if he don’t drive me mad first.