Still, I was not deceived. There was a light before me, and as I dashed on involuntarily, I saw that it proceeded from the tapers of my companions, whom I had nearly overtaken. The reaction of my feelings almost prostrated me. My heart beat like a tilt hammer, my breath was well nigh spent, my pulses leaped with fever, and yet I felt that my face must be blanched, and I should not have been surprised if my hair had turned gray.
In a few seconds I had joined my party and relighted my taper. Nobody knew through what a crisis I had passed, nor did I say anything about it except to remark, casually, that I had extinguished my candle by letting it fall. From inquiries I learned that from the moment I had missed my companions until I had rejoined them, not more than two minutes had elapsed; and still, by the measure of my mind, I had lived through months of pain.
If I had not already known it, I should have been convinced then that time can be reckoned only by feeling; that no clock can keep the record of the heart; and that the soul strikes hours every moment of its existence.
ADVICE TO EXPLORERS.
I would advise those who may feel inclined to go through the Catacombs to take a box of wax matches in their pocket, and a little luncheon besides, so that if their taper be blown out, or they be lost, they may at least be relieved from the terror of absolute darkness and immediate starvation. When persons are missed down there, a search is immediately made for them, and nobody would feel half so uncomfortable while he had light and food as he would in the midst of gloom, and haunted by the necessity of dining on himself.
The moist and grave-like odor which fills the Catacombs, added to the images of death on every side, intensifies their sepulchral aspect, and makes those wandering in the ghastly haunts seem to themselves only half alive. The faces of those with me did not appear any more natural than their voices, and all of us had a certain taint of the tomb. Even the tapers flickered and sank in the unwholesome atmosphere, as though even fire, which rages in the centre of the earth, could not support itself in that dusky Golgotha.
In some places the skulls have been arranged in the form of crosses and set into the wall—probably by the priests of Paris, who, like all their tribe, delight in symbols and devices coupling death and religion; forgetting that the creed they preach declares there is no death, that true religion leads to eternal life. Monks of all ages—and there are many monks who have never taken orders—have been little more than sacerdotal sextons, revelling in disease and decay, lamentation and funerals, as if Nature had set their spirits to the music of bereavement and woe.
Bones, bones, bones! Skulls, skulls, skulls! I can well believe six millions of mortal remains have been deposited in the Catacombs, which look as if they might have been the graveyard of the globe since the dawn of creation. They furnish the most extensive bone-yard I have ever visited. They do not contain nearly so many dead, in all probability, as the Catacombs of Rome; but on the Seine the dead are exhibited to much more advantage than on the Tiber. The French make the most of everything, and their osseous arrangement and display are not equalled anywhere.
FONDNESS FOR SOUVENIRS.
Americans have often been laughed at for their fondness for relics, and very deservedly too; for they seek mementos in all places, and under every variety of circumstances. I should never have suspected any of my countrymen of a disposition to deprive the Catacombs of any of their horrors; and yet several of them actually carried off shin and thigh bones in order to recall the pleasure they had experienced in Paris. One fellow—I think he was a medical student from Boston—tried to secure a whole skull; but as he could not very conveniently get it into his pocket, he was reluctantly forced to leave it behind. Possibly he was an admirer of the first Napoleon, and anxious to obtain a souvenir of Bonaparte. I presume I have met men who, if they were given time and opportunity, would despoil that horrid vault of a very large proportion of its revolting treasures.