CHAPTER XLV
THE FLIGHT OF HILDA'S DOVES
Along with the lamp on Hilda's tower, the sculptor now felt that a lighthad gone out, or, at least, was ominously obscured, to which he owedwhatever cheerfulness had heretofore illuminated his cold, artisticlife. The idea of this girl had been like a taper of virgin wax, burningwith a pure and steady flame, and chasing away the evil spirits out ofthe magic circle of its beams. It had darted its rays afar, and modifiedthe whole sphere in which Kenyon had his being. Beholding it no more, heat once found himself in darkness and astray.
This was the time, perhaps, when Kenyon first became sensible what adreary city is Rome, and what a terrible weight is there imposed onhuman life, when any gloom within the heart corresponds to the spell ofruin that has been thrown over the site of ancient empire. He wandered,as it were, and stumbled over the fallen columns, and among the tombs,and groped his way into the sepulchral darkness of the catacombs, andfound no path emerging from them. The happy may well enough continue tobe such, beneath the brilliant sky of Rome. But, if you go thither inmelancholy mood, if you go with a ruin in your heart, or with avacant site there, where once stood the airy fabric of happiness, nowvanished,--all the ponderous gloom of the Roman Past will pile itselfupon that spot, and crush you down as with the heaped-up marble andgranite, the earth-mounds, and multitudinous bricks of its materialdecay.
It might be supposed that a melancholy man would here make acquaintancewith a grim philosophy. He should learn to bear patiently his individualgriefs, that endure only for one little lifetime, when here are thetokens of such infinite misfortune on an imperial scale, and when somany far landmarks of time, all around him, are bringing the remotenessof a thousand years ago into the sphere of yesterday. But it is in vainthat you seek this shrub of bitter sweetness among the plants that rootthemselves on the roughness of massive walls, or trail downward from thecapitals of pillars, or spring out of the green turf in the palace ofthe Caesars. It does not grow in Rome; not even among the five hundredvarious weeds which deck the grassy arches of the Coliseum. You lookthrough a vista of century beyond century,--through much shadow, and alittle sunshine,--through barbarism and civilization, alternating withone another like actors that have prearranged their parts: througha broad pathway of progressive generations bordered by palaces andtemples, and bestridden by old, triumphal arches, until, in thedistance, you behold the obelisks, with their unintelligibleinscriptions, hinting at a past infinitely more remote than historycan define. Your own life is as nothing, when compared with thatimmeasurable distance; but still you demand, none the less earnestly, agleam of sunshine, instead of a speck of shadow, on the step or two thatwill bring you to your quiet rest.
How exceedingly absurd! All men, from the date of the earliestobelisk,--and of the whole world, moreover, since that far epoch, andbefore,--have made a similar demand, and seldom had their wish. If theyhad it, what are they the better now? But, even while you taunt yourselfwith this sad lesson, your heart cries out obstreperously for its smallshare of earthly happiness, and will not be appeased by the myriads ofdead hopes that lie crushed into the soil of Rome. How wonderfulthat this our narrow foothold of the Present should hold its own soconstantly, and, while every moment changing, should still be like arock betwixt the encountering tides of the long Past and the infiniteTo-come!
Man of marble though he was, the sculptor grieved for the Irrevocable.Looking back upon Hilda's way of life, he marvelled at his own blindstupidity, which had kept him from remonstrating as a friend, if with nostronger right against the risks that she continually encountered. Beingso innocent, she had no means of estimating those risks, nor even apossibility of suspecting their existence. But he--who had spentyears in Rome, with a man's far wider scope of observation andexperience--knew things that made him shudder. It seemed to Kenyon,looking through the darkly colored medium of his fears, that all modesof crime were crowded into the close intricacy of Roman streets, andthat there was no redeeming element, such as exists in other dissoluteand wicked cities.
For here was a priesthood, pampered, sensual, with red and bloatedcheeks, and carnal eyes. With apparently a grosser development of animallife than most men, they were placed in an unnatural relation withwoman, and thereby lost the healthy, human conscience that pertains toother human beings, who own the sweet household ties connecting themwith wife and daughter. And here was an indolent nobility, with no highaims or opportunities, but cultivating a vicious way of life, as ifit were an art, and the only one which they cared to learn. Here was apopulation, high and low, that had no genuine belief in virtue; andif they recognized any act as criminal, they might throw off allcare, remorse, and memory of it, by kneeling a little while at theconfessional, and rising unburdened, active, elastic, and incited byfresh appetite for the next ensuing sin. Here was a soldiery who feltRome to be their conquered city, and doubtless considered themselves thelegal inheritors of the foul license which Gaul, Goth, and Vandal havehere exercised in days gone by.
And what localities for new crime existed in those guilty sites,where the crime of departed ages used to be at home, and had its long,hereditary haunt! What street in Rome, what ancient ruin, what one placewhere man had standing-room, what fallen stone was there, unstained withone or another kind of guilt! In some of the vicissitudes of the city'spride or its calamity, the dark tide of human evil had swelled over it,far higher than the Tiber ever rose against the acclivities of theseven hills. To Kenyon's morbid view, there appeared to be a contagiouselement, rising fog-like from the ancient depravity of Rome, andbrooding over the dead and half-rotten city, as nowhere else on earth.It prolonged the tendency to crime, and developed an instantaneousgrowth of it, whenever an opportunity was found; And where could it befound so readily as here! In those vast palaces, there were a hundredremote nooks where Innocence might shriek in vain. Beneath meaner housesthere were unsuspected dungeons that had once been princely chambers,and open to the daylight; but, on account of some wickedness thereperpetrated, each passing age had thrown its handful of dust upon thespot, and buried it from sight. Only ruffians knew of its existence, andkept it for murder, and worse crime.
Such was the city through which Hilda, for three years past, had beenwandering without a protector or a guide. She had trodden lightly overthe crumble of old crimes; she had taken her way amid the grime andcorruption which Paganism had left there, and a perverted Christianityhad made more noisome; walking saint-like through it all, with white,innocent feet; until, in some dark pitfall that lay right across herpath, she had vanished out of sight. It was terrible to imagine whathideous outrage might have thrust her into that abyss!
Then the lover tried to comfort himself with the idea that Hilda'ssanctity was a sufficient safeguard. Ah, yes; she was so pure! Theangels, that were of the same sisterhood, would never let Hilda come toharm. A miracle would be wrought on her behalf, as naturally as a fatherwould stretch out his hand to save a best-beloved child. Providencewould keep a little area and atmosphere about her as safe and wholesomeas heaven itself, although the flood of perilous iniquity might hemher round, and its black waves hang curling above her head! But thesereflections were of slight avail. No doubt they were the religioustruth. Yet the ways of Providence are utterly inscrutable; and many amurder has been done, and many an innocent virgin has lifted her whitearms, beseeching its aid in her extremity, and all in vain; so that,though Providence is infinitely good and wise, and perhaps for that veryreason, it may be half an eternity before the great circle of its schemeshall bring us the superabundant recompense for all these sorrows! Butwhat the lover asked was such prompt consolation as might consist withthe brief span of mortal life; the assurance of Hilda's present safety,and her restoration within that very hour.
An imaginative man, he suffered the penalty of his endowment in thehundred-fold variety of gloomily tinted scenes that it presented tohim, in which Hilda was always a central figure. The sculptor forgot hismarble. Rome ceased to be anything, for him, but a labyrin
th of dismalstreets, in one or another of which the lost girl had disappeared. Hewas haunted with the idea that some circumstance, most important to beknown, and perhaps easily discoverable, had hitherto been overlooked,and that, if he could lay hold of this one clew, it would guide himdirectly in the track of Hilda's footsteps. With this purpose inview, he went, every morning, to the Via Portoghese, and made itthe starting-point of fresh investigations. After nightfall, too, heinvariably returned thither, with a faint hope fluttering at his heartthat the lamp might again be shining on the summit of the tower, andwould dispel this ugly mystery out of the circle consecrated by itsrays. There being no point of which he could take firm hold, his mindwas filled with unsubstantial hopes and fears. Once Kenyon had seemedto cut his life in marble; now he vaguely clutched at it, and found itvapor.
In his unstrung and despondent mood, one trifling circumstance affectedhim with an idle pang. The doves had at first been faithful to theirlost mistress. They failed not to sit in a row upon her window-sill,or to alight on the shrine, or the church-angels, and on the roofsand portals of the neighboring houses, in evident expectation of herreappearance. After the second week, however, they began to take flight,and dropping off by pairs, betook themselves to other dove-cotes. Only asingle dove remained, and brooded drearily beneath the shrine. Theflock that had departed were like the many hopes that had vanishedfrom Kenyon's heart; the one that still lingered, and looked sowretched,--was it a Hope, or already a Despair?
In the street, one day, the sculptor met a priest of mild and venerableaspect; and as his mind dwelt continually upon Hilda, and was especiallyactive in bringing up all incidents that had ever been connected withher, it immediately struck him that this was the very father with whomhe had seen her at the confessional. Such trust did Hilda inspirein him, that Kenyon had never asked what was the subject of thecommunication between herself and this old priest. He had no reason forimagining that it could have any relation with her disappearance,so long subsequently; but, being thus brought face to face with apersonage, mysteriously associated, as he now remembered, with her whomhe had lost, an impulse ran before his thoughts and led the sculptor toaddress him.
It might be that the reverend kindliness of the old man's expressiontook Kenyon's heart by surprise; at all events, he spoke as if therewere a recognized acquaintanceship, and an object of mutual interestbetween them.
"She has gone from me, father," said he.
"Of whom do you speak, my son?" inquired the priest.
"Of that sweet girl," answered Kenyon, "who knelt to you at theconfessional. Surely you remember her, among all the mortals to whoseconfessions you have listened! For she alone could have had no sins toreveal."
"Yes; I remember," said the priest, with a gleam of recollection in hiseyes. "She was made to bear a miraculous testimony to the efficacy ofthe divine ordinances of the Church, by seizing forcibly upon one ofthem, and finding immediate relief from it, heretic though she was.It is my purpose to publish a brief narrative of this miracle, forthe edification of mankind, in Latin, Italian, and English, from theprinting press of the Propaganda. Poor child! Setting apart her heresy,she was spotless, as you say. And is she dead?"
"Heaven forbid, father!" exclaimed Kenyon, shrinking back. "But she hasgone from me, I know not whither. It may be--yes, the idea seizes uponmy mind--that what she revealed to you will suggest some clew to themystery of her disappearance.'"
"None, my son, none," answered the priest, shaking his head;"nevertheless, I bid you be of good cheer. That young maiden is notdoomed to die a heretic. Who knows what the Blessed Virgin may at thismoment be doing for her soul! Perhaps, when you next behold her, shewill be clad in the shining white robe of the true faith."
This latter suggestion did not convey all the comfort which the oldpriest possibly intended by it; but he imparted it to the sculptor,along with his blessing, as the two best things that he could bestow,and said nothing further, except to bid him farewell.
When they had parted, however, the idea of Hilda's conversion toCatholicism recurred to her lover's mind, bringing with it certainreflections, that gave a new turn to his surmises about the mystery intowhich she had vanished. Not that he seriously apprehended--althoughthe superabundance of her religious sentiment might mislead her fora moment--that the New England girl would permanently succumb to thescarlet superstitions which surrounded her in Italy. But the incidentof the confessional if known, as probably it was, to the eagerpropagandists who prowl about for souls, as cats to catch a mouse--wouldsurely inspire the most confident expectations of bringing her over tothe faith. With so pious an end in view, would Jesuitical morality beshocked at the thought of kidnapping the mortal body, for the sake ofthe immortal spirit that might otherwise be lost forever? Would not thekind old priest, himself, deem this to be infinitely the kindest servicethat he could perform for the stray lamb, who had so strangely soughthis aid?
If these suppositions were well founded, Hilda was most likely aprisoner in one of the religious establishments that are so numerous inRome. The idea, according to the aspect in which it was viewed, broughtnow a degree of comfort, and now an additional perplexity. On the onehand, Hilda was safe from any but spiritual assaults; on the other,where was the possibility of breaking through all those barred portals,and searching a thousand convent cells, to set her free?
Kenyon, however, as it happened, was prevented from endeavoring tofollow out this surmise, which only the state of hopeless uncertainty,that almost bewildered his reason, could have led him for a momentto entertain. A communication reached him by an unknown hand, inconsequence of which, and within an hour after receiving it, he took hisway through one of the gates of Rome.