CHAPTER IX
THE ARTIST MONK
On the evening when Agnes and her grandmother returned from theConvent, as they were standing after supper looking over the gardenparapet into the gorge, their attention was caught by a man in anecclesiastical habit, slowly climbing the rocky pathway towards them.
"Isn't that Brother Antonio?" said Dame Elsie, leaning forward toobserve more narrowly. "Yes, to be sure it is!"
"Oh, how glad I am!" exclaimed Agnes, springing up with vivacity, andlooking eagerly down the path by which the stranger was approaching.
A few moments more of clambering, and the stranger met the two women atthe gate with a gesture of benediction.
He was apparently a little past the middle point of life, and enteringon its shady afternoon. He was tall and well proportioned, and hisfeatures had the spare delicacy of the Italian outline. The round brow,fully developed in all the perceptive and aesthetic regions,--the keeneye, shadowed by long, dark lashes,--the thin, flexible lips,--thesunken cheek, where, on the slightest emotion, there fluttered abrilliant flush of color,--all were signs telling of the enthusiast inwhom the nervous and spiritual predominated over the animal.
At times, his eye had a dilating brightness, as if from the flickeringof some inward fire which was slowly consuming the mortal part, and itsexpression was brilliant even to the verge of insanity.
His dress was the simple, coarse, white stuff-gown of the Dominicanfriars, over which he wore a darker traveling-garment of coarse cloth,with a hood, from whose deep shadows his bright mysterious eyes lookedlike jewels from a cavern. At his side dangled a great rosary and crossof black wood, and under his arm he carried a portfolio secured with aleathern strap, which seemed stuffed to bursting with papers.
Father Antonio, whom we have thus introduced to the reader, was anitinerant preaching monk from the Convent of San Marco in Florence, ona pastoral and artistic tour through Italy.
Convents in the Middle Ages were the retreats of multitudes of natureswho did not wish to live in a state of perpetual warfare and offense,and all the elegant arts flourished under their protecting shadows.Ornamental gardening, pharmacy, drawing, painting, carving in wood,illumination, and calligraphy were not unfrequent occupations of theholy fathers, and the convent has given to the illustrious roll ofItalian Art some of its most brilliant names. No institution in modernEurope had a more established reputation in all these respects than theConvent of San Marco in Florence. In its best days, it was as near anapproach to an ideal community, associated to unite religion, beauty,and utility, as ever has existed on earth. It was a retreat from thecommonplace prose of life into an atmosphere at once devotional andpoetic; and prayers and sacred hymns consecrated the elegant labors ofthe chisel and the pencil, no less than the more homely ones of thestill and the crucible. San Marco, far from being that kind of sluggishlagoon often imagined in conventual life, was rather a sheltered hotbedof ideas, fervid with intellectual and moral energy, and before theage in every radical movement. At this period, Savonarola, the poetand prophet of the Italian religious world of his day, was superiorof this convent, pouring through all the members of the order the fireof his own impassioned nature, and seeking to lead them back to thefervors of more primitive and evangelical ages, and in the reaction ofa worldly and corrupt Church was beginning to feel the power of thatcurrent which at last drowned his eloquent voice in the cold waters ofmartyrdom. Savonarola was an Italian Luther,--differing from the greatNorthern Reformer as the more ethereally strung and nervous Italiandiffers from the bluff and burly German; and like Luther, he becamein his time the centre of every living thing in society about him. Heinspired the pencils of artists, guided the counsels of statesmen, and,a poet himself, was an inspiration to poets. Everywhere in Italy themonks of his order were traveling, restoring the shrines, preachingagainst the voluptuous and unworthy pictures with which sensual artistshad desecrated the churches, and calling the people back by theirexhortations to the purity of primitive Christianity.
Father Antonio was a younger brother of Elsie, and had early becomea member of the San Marco, enthusiastic not less in religion than inArt. His intercourse with his sister had few points of sympathy, Elsiebeing as decided a utilitarian as any old Yankee female born in thegranite hills of New Hampshire, and pursuing with a hard and sharpenergy her narrow plan of life for Agnes. She regarded her brother asa very properly religious person, considering his calling, but was alittle bored with his exuberant devotion, and absolutely indifferentto his artistic enthusiasm. Agnes, on the contrary, had from a childattached herself to her uncle with all the energy of a sympatheticnature, and his yearly visits had been looked forward to on her partwith intense expectation. To him she could say a thousand things whichshe instinctively concealed from her grandmother; and Elsie was wellpleased with the confidence, because it relieved her a little fromthe vigilant guardianship that she otherwise held over the girl. WhenFather Antonio was near, she had leisure now and then for a littleprivate gossip of her own, without the constant care of supervisingAgnes.
"Dear uncle, how glad I am to see you once more!" was the eagersalutation with which the young girl received the monk, as he gainedthe little garden. "And you have brought your pictures; oh, I know youhave so many pretty things to show me!"
"Well, well, child," said Elsie, "don't begin upon that now. A littletalk of bread and cheese will be more in point. Come in, brother, andwash your feet, and let me beat the dust out of your cloak, and giveyou something to stay Nature; for you must be fasting."
"Thank you, sister," said the monk; "and as for you, pretty one, nevermind what she says. Uncle Antonio will show his little Agnes everythingby-and-by. A good little thing it is, sister."
"Yes, yes,--good enough,--and too good," said Elsie, bustling about;"roses can't help having thorns, I suppose."
"Only our ever-blessed Rose of Sharon, the dear mystical Rose ofParadise, can boast of having no thorns," said the monk, bowing andcrossing himself devoutly.
Agnes clasped her hands on her bosom and bowed also, while Elsiestopped with her knife in the middle of a loaf of black bread, andcrossed herself with somewhat of impatience,--like a worldly-mindedperson of our day, who is interrupted in the midst of an observation bya grace.
After the rites of hospitality had been duly observed, the old dameseated herself contentedly in her door with her distaff, resigned Agnesto the safe guardianship of her uncle, and had a feeling of securityin seeing them sitting together on the parapet of the garden, with theportfolio spread out between them,--the warm twilight glow of theevening sky lighting up their figures as they bent in ardent interestover its contents. The portfolio showed a fluttering collection ofsketches,--fruits, flowers, animals, insects, faces, figures, shrines,buildings, trees,--all, in short, that might strike the mind of a manto whose eye nothing on the face of the earth is without beauty andsignificance.
"Oh, how beautiful!" said the girl, taking up one sketch, in which abunch of rosy cyclamen was painted rising out of a bed of moss.
"Ah, that indeed, my dear!" said the artist. "Would you had seen theplace where I painted it! I stopped there to recite my prayers onemorning; 'twas by the side of a beautiful cascade, and all the groundwas covered with these lovely cyclamens, and the air was musky withtheir fragrance. Ah, the bright rose-colored leaves! I can get no colorlike them, unless some angel would bring me some from those sunsetclouds yonder."
"And oh, dear uncle, what lovely primroses!" pursued Agnes, taking upanother paper.
"Yes, child; but you should have seen them when I was coming down thesouth side of the Apennines; these were everywhere so pale and sweet,they seemed like the humility of our Most Blessed Mother in her lowlymortal state. I am minded to make a border of primroses to the leaf inthe Breviary where is the 'Hail, Mary!'--for it seems as if that flowerdoth ever say, 'Behold the handmaid of the Lord!'"
"And what will you do with the cyclamen, uncle? does not that meansomething?"
"Yes, daughter," repl
ied the monk, readily entering into thatsymbolical strain which permeated all the heart and mind of thereligious of his day, "I can see a meaning in it. For you see that thecyclamen puts forth its leaves in early spring deeply engraven withmystical characters, and loves cool shadows, and moist, dark places,but comes at length to wear a royal crown of crimson; and it seems tome like the saints who dwell in convents and other prayerful places,and have the word of God graven in their hearts in youth, till theseblossom into fervent love, and they are crowned with royal graces."
"Ah!" sighed Agnes, "how beautiful and how blessed to be among such!"
"Thou sayest well, dear child. Blessed are the flowers of God that growin cool solitudes, and have never been profaned by the hot sun and dustof this world!"
"I should like to be such a one," said Agnes. "I often think, when Ivisit the sisters at the Convent, that I long to be one of them."
"A pretty story!" said Dame Elsie, who had heard the last words, "gointo a convent and leave your poor grandmother all alone, when she hastoiled night and day for so many years to get a dowry for you and findyou a worthy husband!"
"I don't want any husband in this world, grandmamma," said Agnes.
"What talk is this? Not want a good husband to take care of you whenyour poor old grandmother is gone? Who will provide for you?"
"He who took care of the blessed Saint Agnes, grandmamma."
"Saint Agnes, to be sure! That was a great many years ago, and timeshave altered since then; in these days girls must have husbands. Isn'tit so, Brother Antonio?"
"But if the darling hath a vocation?" said the artist, mildly.
"Vocation! I'll see to that! She sha'n't have a vocation! Suppose I'mgoing to delve, and toil, and spin, and wear myself to the bone, andhave her slip through my fingers at last with a vocation? No, indeed!"
"Indeed, dear grandmother, don't be angry!" said Agnes. "I will do justas you say,--only I don't want a husband."
"Well, well, my little heart,--one thing at a time; you shan't have himtill you say yes willingly," said Elsie, in a mollified tone.
Agnes turned again to the portfolio and busied herself with it, hereyes dilating as she ran over the sketches.
"Ah! what pretty, pretty bird is this?" she asked.
"Knowest thou not that bird, with his little red beak?" said theartist. "When our dear Lord hung bleeding, and no man pitied him, thisbird, filled with tender love, tried to draw out the nails with hispoor little beak,--so much better were the birds than we hard-heartedsinners!--hence he hath honor in many pictures. See here,--I shall puthim into the office of the Sacred Heart, in a little nest curiouslybuilt in a running vine of passion-flower. See here, daughter,--I havea great commission to execute a Breviary for our house, and our holyFather was pleased to say that the spirit of the blessed Angelico hadin some little humble measure descended on me, and now I am busy dayand night; for not a twig rustles, not a bird flies, nor a flowerblossoms, but I begin to see therein some hint of holy adornment to myblessed work."
"Oh, Uncle Antonio, how happy you must be!" said Agnes, her large eyesfilling with tears.
"Happy!--child, am I not?" said the monk, looking up and crossinghimself. "Holy Mother, am I not? Do I not walk the earth in a dreamof bliss, and see the footsteps of my Most Blessed Lord and his dearMother on every rock and hill? I see the flowers rise up in clouds toadore them. What am I, unworthy sinner, that such grace is granted me?Often I fall on my face before the humblest flower where my dear Lordhath written his name, and confess I am unworthy the honor of copyinghis sweet handiwork."
The artist spoke these words with his hands clasped and his fervid eyesupraised, like a man in an ecstasy; nor can our more prosaic Englishgive an idea of the fluent naturalness and grace with which suchimages melt into that lovely tongue which seems made to be the naturallanguage of poetry and enthusiasm.
Agnes looked up to him with humble awe, as to some celestial being; butthere was a sympathetic glow in her face, and she put her hands on herbosom, as her manner often was when much moved, and, drawing a deepsigh, said,--
"Would that such gifts were mine!"
"They are thine, sweet one," said the monk. "In Christ's dear kingdomis no mine or thine, but all that each hath is the property of others.I never rejoice so much in my art as when I think of the communion ofsaints, and that all that our Blessed Lord will work through me is theproperty of the humblest soul in his kingdom. When I see one flowerrarer than another, or a bird singing on a twig, I take note of thesame, and say, 'This lovely work of God shall be for some shrine, orthe border of a missal, or the foreground of an altar-piece, and thusshall his saints be comforted.'"
"But," said Agnes, fervently, "how little can a poor young maiden do!Ah, I do so long to offer myself up in some way to the dear Lord, whogave himself for us, and for his Most Blessed Church!"
As Agnes spoke these words, her cheek, usually so clear and pale,became suffused with a tremulous color, and her dark eyes had a deep,divine expression; a moment after, the color slowly faded, her headdrooped, and her long, dark lashes fell on her cheek, while her handswere folded on her bosom. The eye of the monk was watching her with anenkindled glance.
"Is she not the very presentment of our Blessed Lady in theAnnunciation?" said he to himself. "Surely, this grace is upon her forthis special purpose. My prayers are answered."
"Daughter," he began, in a gentle tone, "a glorious work has been doneof late in Florence under the preaching of our blessed Superior. Couldyou believe it, daughter, in these times of backsliding and rebukethere have been found painters base enough to paint the pictures ofvile, abandoned women in the character of our Blessed Lady; yea, andprinces have been found wicked enough to buy them and put them upin churches, so that the people have had the Mother of all Puritypresented to them in the guise of a vile harlot. Is it not dreadful?"
"How horrible!" said Agnes.
"Ah, but you should have seen the great procession through Florence,when all the little children were inspired by the heavenly preaching ofour dear Master. These dear little ones, carrying the blessed cross andsinging the hymns our Master had written for them, went from house tohouse and church to church, demanding that everything that was vile andbase should be delivered up to the flames,--and the people, beholding,thought that the angels had indeed come down, and brought forth alltheir loose pictures and vile books, such as Boccaccio's romances andother defilements, and the children made a splendid bonfire of them inthe Grand Piazza, and so thousands of vile things were consumed andscattered. And then our blessed Master exhorted the artists to givetheir pencils to Christ and his Mother, and to seek for her image amongpious and holy women living a veiled and secluded life, like that ourLady lived before the blessed Annunciation. 'Think you,' he said, 'thatthe blessed Angelico obtained the grace to set forth our Lady in suchheavenly wise by gazing about the streets on mincing women trickedout in all the world's bravery?--or did he not find her image in holysolitudes, among modest and prayerful saints?'"
"Ah," said Agnes, drawing in her breath with an expression of awe,"what mortal would dare to sit for the image of our Lady!"
"Dear child, there be women whom the Lord crowns with beauty when theyknow it not, and our dear Mother sheds so much of her spirit into theirhearts that it shines out in their faces; and among such must thepainter look. Dear little child, be not ignorant that our Lord hathshed this great grace on thee. I have received a light that thou art tobe the model for the 'Hail Mary!' in my Breviary."
"Oh, no, no, no! it cannot be!" said Agnes, covering her face with herhands.
"My daughter, thou art very beautiful, and this beauty was given theenot for thyself, but to be laid like a sweet flower on the altar of thyLord. Think how blessed, if, through thee, the faithful be reminded ofthe modesty and humility of Mary, so that their prayers become morefervent,--would it not be a great grace?"
"Dear uncle," said Agnes, "I am Christ's child. If it be as yousay,--which I did not know,--give me some days to pra
y and prepare mysoul, that I may offer myself in all humility."
During this conversation Elsie had left the garden and gone a littleway down the gorge, to have a few moments of gossip with an old crony.The light of the evening sky had gradually faded away, and the fullmoon was pouring a shower of silver upon the orange-trees. As Agnessat on the parapet, with the moonlight streaming down on her young,spiritual face, now tremulous with deep suppressed emotion, the painterthought he had never seen any human creature that looked nearer to hisconception of a celestial being.
They both sat awhile in that kind of quietude which often falls betweentwo who have stirred some deep fountain of emotion. All was so stillaround them, that the drip and trickle of the little stream which fellfrom the garden wall into the dark abyss of the gorge could well beheard as it pattered from one rocky point to another, with a slender,lulling sound.
Suddenly the reveries of the two were disturbed by the shadow of afigure which passed into the moonlight and seemed to rise from theside of the gorge. A man enveloped in a dark cloak with a peakedhood stepped across the moss-grown garden parapet, stood a momentirresolute, then the cloak dropped suddenly from him, and the cavalierstood in the moonlight before Agnes. He bore in his hand a tall stalkof white lily, with open blossoms and buds and tender fluted greenleaves, such as one sees in a thousand pictures of the Annunciation.The moonlight fell full upon his face, revealing his haughty yetbeautiful features, agitated by some profound emotion. The monk and thegirl were both too much surprised for a moment to utter a sound; andwhen, after an instant, the monk made a half-movement as if to addresshim, the cavalier raised his right hand with a sudden authoritativegesture which silenced him. Then turning toward Agnes, he kneeled, andkissing the hem of her robe, and laying the lily in her lap, "Holiestand dearest," he said, "oh, forget not to pray for me!" He rose againin a moment, and, throwing his cloak around him, sprang over the gardenwall, and was heard rapidly descending into the shadows of the gorge.
All this passed so quickly that it seemed to both the spectators likea dream. The splendid man, with his jeweled weapons, his haughtybearing, and air of easy command, bowing with such solemn humilitybefore the peasant-girl, reminded the monk of the barbaric princes inthe wonderful legends he had read, who had been drawn by some heavenlyinspiration to come and render themselves up to the teachings of holyvirgins, chosen of the Lord, in divine solitudes. In the poeticalworld in which he lived all such marvels were possible. There were athousand precedents for them in that devout dreamland, "The Lives ofthe Saints."
"My daughter," he said, after looking vainly down the dark shadows uponthe path of the stranger, "have you ever seen this man before?"
"Yes, uncle; yesterday evening I saw him for the first time, whensitting at my stand at the gate of the city. It was at the Ave Maria;he came up there and asked my prayers, and gave me a diamond ring forthe shrine of Saint Agnes, which I carried to the convent to-day."
"Behold, my dear daughter, the confirmation of what I have just saidto thee! It is evident that our Lady hath endowed thee with the greatgrace of a beauty which draws the soul upward towards the angels,instead of downward to sensual things, like the beauty of worldlywomen. What saith the blessed poet Dante of the beauty of the holyBeatrice?--that it said to every man who looked on her, '_Aspire!_'[2]Great is the grace, and thou must give special praise therefor."
[2] I cannot forbear quoting Mr. Norton's beautiful translation of this sonnet in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for February, 1859:--
"So gentle and so modest doth appear My lady when she giveth her salute, That every tongue becometh trembling mute, Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare. And though she hears her praises, she doth go Benignly clothed with humility, And like a thing come down she seems to be From heaven to earth, a miracle to show. So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh her, She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes Which none can understand who doth not prove. And from her lip there seems indeed to move A spirit sweet and in Love's very guise, Which goeth saying to the soul, 'Aspire!'"
"I would," said Agnes, thoughtfully, "that I knew who this strangeris, and what is his great trouble and need,--his eyes are so full ofsorrow. Giulietta said he was the King's brother, and was called theLord Adrian. What sorrow can he have, or what need for the prayers ofa poor maid like me?"
"Perhaps the Lord hath pierced him with a longing after the celestialbeauty and heavenly purity of paradise, and wounded him with a divinesorrow, as happened to Saint Francis and to the blessed Saint Dominic,"said the monk. "Beauty is the Lord's arrow, wherewith he pierceth tothe inmost soul, with a divine longing and languishment which findrest only in him. Hence thou seest the wounds of love in saints arealways painted by us with holy flames ascending from them. Have goodcourage, sweet child, and pray with fervor for this youth; for therebe no prayers sweeter before the throne of God than those of spotlessmaidens. The Scripture saith, 'My beloved feedeth among the lilies.'"
At this moment the sharp, decided tramp of Elsie was heard reenteringthe garden.
"Come, Agnes," she said, "it is time for you to begin your prayers, or,the saints know, I shall not get you to bed till midnight. I supposeprayers are a good thing," she added, seating herself wearily; "but ifone must have so many of them, one must get about them early. There'sreason in all things."
Agnes, who had been sitting abstractedly on the parapet, with her headdrooped over the lily-spray, now seemed to collect herself. She rose upin a grave and thoughtful manner, and, going forward to the shrine ofthe Madonna, removed the flowers of the morning, and holding the vaseunder the spout of the fountain, all feathered with waving maiden-hair,filled it with fresh water, the drops falling from it in a thousandlittle silver rings in the moonlight.
"I have a thought," said the monk to himself, drawing from his girdlea pencil and hastily sketching by the moonlight. What he drew was afragile maiden form, sitting with clasped hands on a mossy ruin, gazingon a spray of white lilies which lay before her. He called it, TheBlessed Virgin pondering the Lily of the Annunciation.
"Hast thou ever reflected," he said to Agnes, "what that lily mightbe like which the angel Gabriel brought to our Lady?--for, trustme, it was no mortal flower, but grew by the river of life. I haveoften meditated thereon, that it was like unto living silver with alight in itself, like the moon,--even as our Lord's garments in theTransfiguration, which glistened like the snow. I have cast about inmyself by what device a painter might represent so marvelous a flower."
"Now, brother Antonio," said Elsie, "if you begin to talk to the childabout such matters, our Lady alone knows when we shall get to bed. I amsure I'm as good a Christian as anybody; but, as I said, there's reasonin all things, and one cannot always be wondering and inquiring intoheavenly matters,--as to every feather in Saint Michael's wings, andas to our Lady's girdle and shoestrings and thimble and work-basket;and when one gets through with our Lady, then one has it all to goover about her mother, the blessed Saint Anne (may her name be everpraised!). I mean no disrespect, but I am certain the saints arereasonable folk and must see that poor folk must live, and, in order tolive, must think of something else now and then besides _them_. That'smy mind, brother."
"Well, well, sister," said the monk, placidly, "no doubt you are right.There shall be no quarreling in the Lord's vineyard; every one hath hismanner and place, and you follow the lead of the blessed Saint Martha,which is holy and honorable."
"Honorable! I should think it might be!" said Elsie. "I warrant me, ifeverything had been left to Saint Mary's doings, our Blessed Lord andthe Twelve Apostles might have gone supperless. But it's Martha getsall the work, and Mary all the praise."
"Quite right, quite right," said the monk, abstractedly, while hestood out in the moonlight busily sketching the fountain. By just sucha fountain, he thought, our Lady might have washed the clothes ofthe Bles
sed Babe. Doubtless there was some such in the court of herdwelling, all mossy, and with sweet waters forever singing a song ofpraise therein.
Elsie was heard within the house meanwhile making energetic commotion,rattling pots and pans, and producing decided movements among thesimple furniture of the dwelling, probably with a view to preparing forthe night's repose of the guest.
Meanwhile Agnes, kneeling before the shrine, was going through withgreat feeling and tenderness the various manuals and movements ofnightly devotion which her own religious fervor and the zeal of herspiritual advisers had enjoined upon her. Christianity, when itentered Italy, came among a people every act of whose life was coloredand consecrated by symbolic and ritual acts of heathenism. The onlypossible way to uproot this was in supplanting it by Christian ritualand symbolism equally minute and pervading. Besides, in those ageswhen the Christian preacher was utterly destitute of all the helpwhich the press now gives in keeping under the eye of converts thegreat inspiring truths of religion, it was one of the first officesof every saint whose preaching stirred the heart of the people, todevise symbolic forms, signs, and observances, by which the mobile andfluid heart of the multitude might crystalize into habits of devoutremembrance. The rosary, the crucifix, the shrine, the banner, theprocession, were catechisms and tracts invented for those who could notread, wherein the substance of pages was condensed and gave itself tothe eye and the touch. Let us not, from the height of our day, with thebetter appliances which a universal press gives us, sneer at the homelyrounds of the ladder by which the first multitudes of the Lord'sfollowers climbed heavenward.
If there seemed somewhat mechanical in the number of times which Agnesrepeated the "Hail, Mary!"--in the prescribed number of times she roseor bowed or crossed herself or laid her forehead in low humility onthe flags of the pavement, it was redeemed by the earnest fervor whichinspired each action. However foreign to the habits of a Northern mindor education such a mode of prayer may be, these forms to her wereall helpful and significant, her soul was borne by them Godward,--andoften, as she prayed, it seemed to her that she could feel thedissolving of all earthly things, and the pressing nearer and nearer ofthe great cloud of witnesses who ever surround the humblest member ofChrist's mystical body.
"Sweet loving hearts around her beat, Sweet helping hands are stirred, And palpitates the veil between With breathings almost heard."
Certain English writers, looking entirely from a worldly andphilosophical standpoint, are utterly at a loss to account for thepower which certain Italian women of obscure birth came to exercisein the councils of nations merely by the force of a mystical piety;but the Northern mind of Europe is entirely unfitted to read andappreciate the psychological religious phenomena of Southern races. Thetemperament which in our modern days has been called the mediistic, andwhich with us is only exceptional, is more or less a race-peculiarityof Southern climates, and gives that objectiveness to the conceptionof spiritual things from which grew up a whole ritual and a wholeworld of religious Art. The Southern saints and religious artistswere seers,--men and women of that peculiar fineness and delicacy oftemperament which made them especially apt to receive and projectoutward the truths of the spiritual life; they were in that state of"divine madness" which is favorable to the most intense conception ofthe poet and artist, and something of this influence descended throughall the channels of the people.
When Agnes rose from prayer, she had a serene, exalted expression,like one who walks with some unseen excellence and meditates on someuntold joy. As she was crossing the court to come towards her uncle,her eye was attracted by the sparkle of something on the ground, and,stooping, she picked up a heart-shaped locket, curiously made of alarge amethyst, and fastened with a golden arrow. As she pressed uponthis, the locket opened and disclosed to her view a folded paper. Hermood at this moment was so calm and elevated that she received theincident with no start or shiver of the nerves. To her it seemed aprovidential token, which would probably bring to her some furtherknowledge of this mysterious being who had been so especially confidedto her intercessions.
Agnes had learned of the Superior of the Convent the art of readingwriting, which would never have been the birthright of the peasant-girlin her times, and the moon had that dazzling clearness which revealedevery letter. She stood by the parapet, one hand lying in the whiteblossoming alyssum which filled its marble crevices, while she read andseriously pondered the contents of the paper.
TO AGNES
Sweet saint, sweet lady, may a sinful soul Approach thee with an offering of love, And lay at thy dear feet a weary heart That loves thee, as it loveth God above? If blessed Mary may without a stain Receive the love of sinners most defiled, If the fair saints that walk with her in white Refuse not love from earth's most guilty child, Shouldst thou, sweet lady, then that love deny Which all-unworthy at thy feet is laid? Ah, gentlest angel, be not more severe Than the dear heavens unto a loving prayer! Howe'er unworthily that prayer be said, Let thine acceptance be like that on high!
There might have been times in Agnes's life when the reception of thisnote would have astonished and perplexed her; but the whole strain ofthought and conversation this evening had been in exalted and poeticalregions, and the soft stillness of the hour, the wonderful calmnessand clearness of the moonlight, all seemed in unison with the strangeincident that had occurred, and with the still stranger tenor of thepaper. The soft melancholy, half-religious tone of it was in accordancewith the whole undercurrent of her life, and prevented that start ofalarm which any homage of a more worldly form might have excited.It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that she read it many timeswith pauses and intervals of deep thought, and then with a movementof natural and girlish curiosity examined the rich jewel which hadenclosed it. At last, seeming to collect her thoughts, she folded thepaper and replaced it in its sparkling casket, and, unlocking the doorof the shrine, laid the gem with its enclosure beneath the lily-spray,as another offering to the Madonna. "Dear Mother," she said, "if indeedit be so, may he rise from loving me to loving thee and thy dear Son,who is Lord of all! Amen!" Thus praying, she locked the door and turnedthoughtfully to her repose, leaving the monk pacing up and down in themoonlit garden.
Meanwhile the cavalier was standing on the velvet mossy bridge whichspanned the stream at the bottom of the gorge, watching the play ofmoonbeams on layer after layer of tremulous silver foliage in theclefts of the black, rocky walls on either side. The moon rode sohigh in the deep violet-colored sky, that her beams came down almostvertically, making green and translucent the leaves through which theypassed, and throwing strongly marked shadows here and there on theflower-embroidered moss of the old bridge. There was that solemn,plaintive stillness in the air which makes the least sound--the humof an insect's wing, the cracking of a twig, the patter of fallingwater--so distinct and impressive.
It needs not to be explained how the cavalier, following the steps ofAgnes and her grandmother at a distance, had threaded the path by whichthey ascended to their little sheltered nook,--how he had lingeredwithin hearing of Agnes's voice, and, moving among the surroundingrocks and trees, and drawing nearer and nearer as evening shadows drewon, had listened to the conversation, hoping that some unexpectedchance might gain him a moment's speech with his enchantress.
The reader will have gathered from the preceding chapter that theconception which Agnes had formed as to the real position of heradmirer from the reports of Giulietta was false, and that in realityhe was not Lord Adrian, the brother of the King, but an outcast andlandless representative of one branch of an ancient and noble Romanfamily, whose estates had been confiscated and whose relations hadbeen murdered, to satisfy the boundless rapacity of Caesar Borgia, theinfamous favorite of the notorious Alexander VI.
The natural temperament of Agostino Sarelli had been rather that of thepoet and artist than of the warrior. In the beautiful gardens
of hisancestral home it had been his delight to muse over the pages of Dante;to sing to the lute, and to write, in the facile flowing rhyme of hisnative Italian, the fancies of the dreamland of his youth.
He was the younger brother of the family,--the favorite son andcompanion of his mother, who, being of a tender and religious nature,had brought him up in habits of the most implicit reverence anddevotion for the institutions of his fathers.
The storm which swept over his house, and blasted all his worldlyprospects, blasted, too, and withered all those religious hopes andbeliefs by which alone sensitive and affectionate natures can be healedof the wounds of adversity without leaving distortion or scar. For hishouse had been overthrown, his elder brother cruelly and treacherouslymurdered, himself and his retainers robbed and cast out, by a manwho had the entire sanction and support of the Head of the ChristianChurch, the Vicar of Christ on Earth. So said the current belief of histimes,--the faith in which his sainted mother died; and the difficultywith which a man breaks away from such ties is in exact proportion tothe refinement and elevation of his nature.
In the mind of our young nobleman there was a double current. He was aRoman, and the traditions of his house went back to the time of MutiusScaevola; and his old nurse had often told him that grand story of howthe young hero stood with his right hand in the fire rather than betrayhis honor. If the legends of Rome's ancient heroes cause the pulses ofcolder climes and alien races to throb with sympathetic heroism, whatmust their power be to one who says, "These were my fathers"? Agostinoread Plutarch, and thought, "I, too, am a Roman!" and then he lookedon the power that held sway over the Tarpeian Rock and the halls ofthe old "Sanctus Senatus," and asked himself, "By what right does ithold these?" He knew full well that in the popular belief all thosehardy and virtuous old Romans whose deeds of heroism so transported himwere burning in hell for the crime of having been born before Christ;and he asked himself, as he looked on the horrible and unnaturalluxury and vice which defiled the Papal chair and ran riot throughevery ecclesiastical order, whether such men, without faith, withoutconscience, and without even decency, were indeed the only authorizedsuccessors of Christ and his Apostles?
To us, of course, from our modern standpoint, the question has aneasy solution,--but not so in those days, when the Christianity of theknown world was in the Romish church, and when the choice seemed to bebetween that and infidelity. Not yet had Luther flared aloft the bold,cheery torch which showed the faithful how to disentangle Christianityfrom Ecclesiasticism. Luther in those days was a star lying low in thegray horizon of a yet unawakened dawn.
All through Italy at this time there was the restless throbbing andpulsating, the aimless outreach of the popular heart, which marksthe decline of one cycle of religious faith and calls for some greatawakening and renewal. Savonarola, the priest and prophet of this dumbdesire, was beginning to heave a great heart of conflict towards thatmighty struggle with the vices and immoralities of his time in which hewas yet to sink a martyr; and even now his course was beginning to beobstructed by the full energy of the whole aroused serpent brood whichhissed and knotted in the holy places of Rome.
Here, then, was our Agostino, with a nature intensely fervent andpoetic, every fibre of whose soul and nervous system had been fromchildhood skillfully woven and intertwined with the ritual and faithof his fathers, yearning towards the grave of his mother, yearningtowards the legends of saints and angels with which she had lulled hiscradle slumbers and sanctified his childhood's pillow, and yet burningwith the indignation of a whole line of old Roman ancestors againstan injustice and oppression wrought under the full approbation of thehead of that religion. Half his nature was all the while battlingthe other half. Would he be Roman, or would he be Christian? All theRoman in him said "No!" when he thought of submission to the patentand open injustice and fiendish tyranny which had disinherited him,slain his kindred, and held its impure reign by torture and by blood.He looked on the splendid snow-crowned mountains whose old silversenate engirdles Rome with an eternal and silent majesty of presence,and he thought how often in ancient times they had been a shelter tofree blood that would not endure oppression; and so gathering to hisbanner the crushed and scattered retainers of his father's house, andoffering refuge and protection to multitudes of others whom the crimesand rapacities of the Borgias had stripped of possessions and meansof support, he fled to a fastness in the mountains between Rome andNaples, and became an independent chieftain, living by his sword.
The rapacity, cruelty, and misgovernment of the various regularauthorities of Italy at this time made brigandage a respectable andhonored institution in the eyes of the people, though it was ostensiblybanned both by Pope and Prince. Besides, in the multitude of contendingfactions which were every day wrangling for supremacy, it soon becameapparent, even to the ruling authorities, that a band of fighting menunder a gallant leader, advantageously posted in the mountains andunderstanding all their passes, was a power of no small importanceto be employed on one side or the other; and therefore it happened,that, though nominally outlawed or excommunicated, they were secretlyprotected on both sides, with a view to securing their assistance incritical turns of affairs.
Among the common people of the towns and villages their relations wereof the most comfortable kind, their depredations being chiefly confinedto the rich and prosperous, who, as they wrung their wealth out of thepeople, were not considered particular objects of compassion when thesame kind of high-handed treatment was extended toward themselves.
The most spirited and brave of the young peasantry, if they wished tosecure the smiles of the girls of their neighborhood, and win heartspast redemption, found no surer avenue to favor than in joining thebrigands. The leaders of these bands sometimes piqued themselves onelegant tastes and accomplishments; and one of them is said to havesent to the poet Tasso, in his misfortunes and exile, an offer ofhonorable asylum and protection in his mountain fortress.
Agostino Sarelli saw himself, in fact, a powerful chief, and there weretimes when the splendid scenery of his mountain fastness, its inspiringair, its wild eagle-like grandeur, independence, and security, gavehim a proud contentment, and he looked at his sword and loved it asa bride. But then again there were moods in which he felt all thatyearning and disquiet of soul which the man of wide and tender moralorganization must feel who has had his faith shaken in the religion ofhis fathers. To such a man the quarrel with his childhood's faith is anever-ending anguish; especially is it so with a religion so objective,so pictorial, and so interwoven with the whole physical and nervousnature of man, as that which grew up and flowered in modern Italy.
Agostino was like a man who lives in an eternal struggle ofself-justification,--his reason forever going over and over withits plea before his regretful and never-satisfied heart, which wasdrawn every hour of the day by some chain of memory towards thefaith whose visible administrators he detested with the whole forceof his moral being. When the vesper-bell, with its plaintive call,rose amid the purple shadows of the olive-silvered mountains,--whenthe distant voices of chanting priest and choir reached him solemnlyfrom afar,--when he looked into a church with its cloudy pictures ofangels, and its window-panes flaming with venerable forms of saintsand martyrs,--it roused a yearning anguish, a pain and conflict, whichall the efforts of his reason could not subdue. How to be a Christianand yet defy the authorized Head of the Christian Church, or how tobe a Christian and recognize foul men of obscene and rapacious deedsas Christ's representatives, was the inextricable Gordian knot, whichhis sword could not divide. He dared not approach the Sacrament, hedared not pray, and sometimes he felt wild impulses to tread down inriotous despair every fragment of a religious belief which seemed tolive in his heart only to torture him. He had heard priests scoff overthe wafer they consecrated,--he had known them to mingle poison forrivals in the sacramental wine,--and yet God had kept silence and notstruck them dead; and like the Psalmist of old he said, "Verily, I havecleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocenc
y. Is there aGod that judgeth in the earth?"
The first time he saw Agnes bending like a flower in the slantingevening sunbeams by the old gate of Sorrento, while he stood lookingdown the kneeling street and striving to hold his own soul in thesarcastic calm of utter indifference, he felt himself struck to theheart by an influence he could not define. The sight of that youngface, with its clear, beautiful lines, and its tender fervor, recalleda thousand influences of the happiest and purest hours of his life, anddrew him with an attraction he vainly strove to hide under an air ofmocking gallantry.
When she looked him in the face with such grave, surprised eyes ofinnocent confidence, and promised to pray for him, he felt a remorsefultenderness as if he had profaned a shrine. All that was passionate,poetic, and romantic in his nature was awakened to blend itself in astrange mingling of despairing sadness and of tender veneration aboutthis sweet image of perfect purity and faith. Never does love strikeso deep and immediate a root as in a sorrowful and desolated nature;there it has nothing to dispute the soil, and soon fills it with itsinterlacing fibres.
In this case it was not merely Agnes that he sighed for, but she stoodto him as the fair symbol of that life-peace, that rest of soul whichhe had lost, it seemed to him, forever.
"Behold this pure, believing child," he said to himself,--"a truemember of that blessed Church to which thou art a rebel! How peacefullythis lamb walketh the old ways trodden by saints and martyrs, whilethou art an infidel and unbeliever!" And then a stern voice within himanswered, "What then? Is the Holy Ghost indeed alone dispensed throughthe medium of Alexander and his scarlet crew of cardinals? Hath thepower to bind and loose in Christ's Church been indeed given to whoevercan buy it with the wages of robbery and oppression? Why does everyprayer and pious word of the faithful reproach me? Why is God silent?Or is there any God? Oh, Agnes, Agnes! dear lily! fair lamb! lead asinner into the green pastures where thou restest!"
So wrestled the strong nature, tempest-tossed in its strength,--soslept the trustful, blessed in its trust,--then in Italy, as now in alllands.