CHAPTER XI
THE CONFESSIONAL
The reader, if a person of any common knowledge of human nature,will easily see the direction in which a young, inexperienced, andimpressible girl would naturally be tending under all the influenceswhich we perceive to have come upon her.
But in the religious faith which Agnes professed there was a modifyingforce, whose power both for good and evil can scarcely be estimated.
The simple Apostolic direction, "Confess your faults one to another,"and the very natural need of personal pastoral guidance and assistanceto a soul in its heavenward journey, had in common with many otherreligious ideas been forced by the volcanic fervor of the Italiannature into a certain exaggerated proposition. Instead of brotherlyconfession one to another, or the pastoral sympathy of a fatherlyelder, the religious mind of the day was instructed in an awfulmysterious sacrament of confession, which gave to some human beinga divine right to unlock the most secret chambers of the soul, toscrutinize and direct its most veiled and intimate thoughts, and,standing in God's stead, to direct the current of its most sensitiveand most mysterious emotions.
Every young aspirant for perfection in the religious life had tocommence by an unreserved surrender of the whole being in blind faithat the feet of some such spiritual director, all whose questions mustbe answered, and all whose injunctions obeyed, as from God himself.Thenceforward was to be no soul-privacy, no retirement, nothing toosacred to be expressed, too delicate to be handled and analyzed. Inreading the lives of those ethereally made and moulded women whohave come down to our day canonized as saints in the Roman Catholiccommunion, one too frequently gets the impression of most regalnatures, gifted with all the most divine elements of humanity, butsubjected to a constant unnatural pressure from the ceaseless scrutinyand ungenial pertinacity of some inferior and uncomprehending personinvested with the authority of a Spiritual Director.
That there are advantages attending this species of intimate direction,when wisely and skillfully managed, cannot be doubted. Groveling andimperfect natures have often thus been lifted up and carried in thearms of superior wisdom and purity. The confession administered bya Fenelon or a Francis de Sales was doubtless a beautiful and mostinvigorating ordinance; but the difficulty in its actual working is therarity of such superior natures,--the fact that the most ignorant andmost incapable may be invested with precisely the same authority as themost intelligent and skillful.
He to whom the faith of Agnes obliged her to lay open her whole soul,who had a right with probing-knife and lancet to dissect all the finestnerves and fibres of her womanly nature, was a man who had been throughall the wild and desolating experiences incident to a dissipated andirregular life in those turbulent days.
It is true that he was now with most stringent and earnest solemnitystriving to bring every thought and passion into captivity to thespirit of his sacred vows; but still, when a man has once lost thatunconscious soul-purity which exists in a mind unscathed by the firesof passion, no after-tears can weep it back again. No penance, noprayer, no anguish of remorse can give back the simplicity of a soulthat has never been stained.
Il Padre Francesco had not failed to make those inquiries into thecharacter of Agnes's mysterious lover which he assumed to be necessaryas a matter of pastoral faithfulness.
It was not difficult for one possessing the secrets of the confessionalto learn the real character of any person in the neighborhood, and itwas with a kind of bitter satisfaction which rather surprised himselfthat the father learned enough ill of the cavalier to justify his usingevery possible measure to prevent his forming any acquaintance withAgnes. He was captain of a band of brigands, and, of course, in arrayagainst the State; he was excommunicated, and, of course, an enemy ofthe Church. What but the vilest designs could be attributed to sucha man? Was he not a wolf prowling round the green, secluded pastureswhere as yet the Lord's lamb had been folded in unconscious innocence?
Father Francesco, when he next met Agnes at the confessional, put suchquestions as drew from her the whole account of all that had passedbetween her and the stranger. The recital on Agnes's part was perfectlytranslucent and pure, for she had said no word and had had no thoughtthat brought the slightest stain upon her soul. Love and prayer hadbeen the prevailing habit of her life, and in promising to love andpray, she had had no worldly or earthly thought. The language ofgallantry, or even of sincere passion, had never reached her ear; butit had always been as natural to her to love every human being as for aplant with tendrils to throw them round the next plant, and thereforeshe entertained the gentle guest who had lately found room in her heartwithout a question or a scruple.
As Agnes related her childlike story of unconscious faith and love, herlistener felt himself strangely and bitterly agitated. It was a visionof ignorant purity and unconsciousness rising before him, airy andglowing as a child's soap-bubble, which one touch might annihilate;but he felt a strange remorseful tenderness, a yearning admiration,at its unsubstantial purity. There is something pleading and pitifulin the simplicity of perfect ignorance,--a rare and delicate beautyin its freshness, like the morning-glory cup, which, once witheredby the heat, no second morning can restore. Agnes had imparted toher confessor, by a mysterious sympathy, something like the morningfreshness of her own soul; she had redeemed the idea of womanhoodfrom gross associations, and set before him a fair ideal of all thatfemale tenderness and purity may teach to man. Her prayers,--wellhe believed in them,--but he set his teeth with a strange spasm ofinward passion, when he thought of her prayers and love being given toanother. He tried to persuade himself that this was only the fervor ofpastoral zeal against a vile robber who had seized the fairest lamb ofthe sheepfold; but there was an intensely bitter, miserable feelingconnected with it, that scorched and burned his higher aspirations likea stream of lava running among fresh leaves and flowers.
The conflict of his soul communicated a severity of earnestness tohis voice and manner which made Agnes tremble, as he put one probingquestion after another, designed to awaken some consciousness of sinin her soul. Still, though troubled and distressed by his apparentdisapprobation, her answers came always clear, honest, unfaltering,like those of one who _could_ not form an idea of evil.
When the confession was over, he came out of his recess to speakwith Agnes a few words face to face. His eyes had a wild and haggardearnestness, and a vivid hectic flush on either cheek told how extremewas his emotion. Agnes lifted her eyes to his with an innocentwondering trouble and an appealing confidence that for a moment whollyunnerved him. He felt a wild impulse to clasp her in his arms; and fora moment it seemed to him he would sacrifice heaven and brave hell, ifhe could for one moment hold her to his heart, and say that he lovedher,--her, the purest, fairest, sweetest revelation of God's love thathad ever shone on his soul,--her, the only star, the only flower, theonly dewdrop of a burning, barren, weary life. It seemed to him that itwas not the longing, gross passion, but the outcry of his whole naturefor something noble, sweet, and divine.
But he turned suddenly away with a sort of groan, and, folding his robeover his face, seemed engaged in earnest prayer. Agnes looked at himawestruck and breathless.
"Oh, my father!" she faltered, "what have I done?"
"Nothing, my poor child," said the father, suddenly turning towardher with recovered calmness and dignity; "but I behold in thee a fairlamb whom the roaring lion is seeking to devour. Know, my daughter,that I have made inquiries concerning this man of whom you speak, andfind that he is an outlaw and a robber and a heretic,--a vile wretchstained by crimes that have justly drawn down upon him the sentence ofexcommunication from our Holy Father, the Pope."
Agnes grew deadly pale at this announcement.
"Can it be possible?" she gasped. "Alas! what dreadful temptations havedriven him to such sins?"
"Daughter, beware how you think too lightly of them, or suffer his goodlooks and flattering words to blind you to their horror. You must fromyour heart detest him as a vile enemy."
"Must I, my father?"
"Indeed you must."
"But if the dear Lord loved us and died for us when we were hisenemies, may we not pity and pray for unbelievers? Oh, say, my dearfather, is it not allowed to us to pray for all sinners, even thevilest?"
"I do not say that you may not, my daughter," said the monk, tooconscientious to resist the force of this direct appeal; "but,daughter," he added, with an energy that alarmed Agnes, "you must watchyour heart; you must not suffer your interest to become a worldly love:remember that you are chosen to be the espoused of Christ alone."
While the monk was speaking thus, Agnes fixed on him her eyes with aninnocent mixture of surprise and perplexity, which gradually deepenedinto a strong gravity of gaze, as if she were looking through him,through all visible things, into some far-off depth of mysteriousknowledge.
"My Lord will keep me," she said; "my soul is safe in His heart as alittle bird in its nest; but while I love Him, I cannot help lovingeverybody whom He loves, even His enemies: and, father, my heart prayswithin me for this poor sinner, whether I will or no; something withinme continually intercedes for him."
"Oh, Agnes! Agnes! blessed child, pray for me also," said the monk,with a sudden burst of emotion which perfectly confounded his disciple.He hid his face with his hands.
"My blessed father!" said Agnes, "how could I deem that holiness likeyours had any need of my prayers?"
"Child! child! you know nothing of me. I am a miserable sinner, temptedof devils, in danger of damnation."
Agnes stood appalled at this sudden burst, so different from the rigidand restrained severity of tone in which the greater part of theconversation had been conducted. She stood silent and troubled; whilehe, whom she had always regarded with such awful veneration, seemedshaken by some internal whirlwind of emotion whose nature she could notcomprehend.
At length Father Francesco raised his head, and recovered his wontedcalm severity of expression.
"My daughter," he said, "little do the innocent lambs of the flockknow of the dangers and conflicts through which the shepherds mustpass who keep the Lord's fold. We have the labors of angels laid uponus, and we are but men. Often we stumble, often we faint, and Satantakes advantage of our weakness. I cannot confer with you now as Iwould; but, my child, listen to my directions. Shun this young man; letnothing ever lead you to listen to another word from him; you must noteven look at him, should you meet, but turn away your head and repeat aprayer. I do not forbid you to practice the holy work of intercessionfor his soul, but it must be on these conditions."
"My father," said Agnes, "you may rely on my obedience;" and, kneeling,she kissed his hand.
He drew it suddenly away, with a gesture of pain and displeasure.
"Pardon a sinful child this liberty," said Agnes.
"You know not what you do," said the father, hastily. "Go, mydaughter,--go at once; I will confer with you some other time;" andhastily raising his hand in an attitude of benediction, he turned andwent into the confessional.
"Wretch! hypocrite! whited sepulchre!" he said to himself,--"to warnthis innocent child against a sin that is all the while burning in myown bosom! Yes, I do love her,--I do! I, that warn her against earthlylove, I would plunge into hell itself to win hers! And yet, when I knowthat the care of her soul is only a temptation and a snare to me, Icannot, will not give her up! No, I cannot!--no, I will not! Why shouldI not love her? Is she not pure as Mary herself? Ah, blessed is he whomsuch a woman leads! And I--I--have condemned myself to the society ofswinish, ignorant, stupid monks,--I must know no such divine souls, nosuch sweet communion! Help me, blessed Mary!--help a miserable sinner!"
Agnes left the confessional perplexed and sorrowful. The pale, proud,serious face of the cavalier seemed to look at her imploringly, andshe thought of him now with the pathetic interest we give to somethingnoble and great exposed to some fatal danger. "Could the sacrifice ofmy whole life," she thought, "rescue this noble soul from perdition,then I shall not have lived in vain. I am a poor little girl; nobodyknows whether I live or die. He is a strong and powerful man, and manymust stand or fall with him. Blessed be the Lord that gives to hislowly ones a power to work in secret places! How blessed should I be tomeet him in Paradise all splendid as I saw him in my dream! Oh, thatwould be worth living for,--worth dying for!"