CHAPTER XXV
THE CRISIS
Agnes was so entirely exhausted with bodily fatigue and mentalagitation that she slept soundly till awakened by the beams of themorning sun. Her first glance up at the gold-embroidered curtains ofher bed occasioned a bewildered surprise;--she raised herself andlooked around, slowly recovering her consciousness and the memory ofthe strange event which had placed her where she was. She rose hastilyand went to the window to look out. This window was in a kind ofcircular tower projecting from the side of the building, such as oneoften sees in old Norman architecture;--it overhung not only a wall ofdizzy height, but a precipice with a sheer descent of some thousandfeet; and far below, spread out like a map in the distance, lay aprospect of enchanting richness. The eye might wander over orchardsof silvery olives, plantations with their rows of mulberry-treessupporting the vines, now in the first tender spring green, scarletfields of clover, and patches where the young corn was just showingits waving blades above the brown soil. Here and there rose tuftsof stone-pines with their dark umbrella-tops towering above allother foliage, while far off in the blue distance a silvery belt ofglittering spangles showed where the sea closed in the horizon-line.So high was the perch, so distant and dreamy the prospect, that Agnesfelt a sensation of giddiness, as if she were suspended over it in theair,--and turned away from the window, to look again at what seemed toher the surprising and unheard-of splendors of the apartment. Therelay her simple peasant garb on the rich velvet couch,--a strange sightin the midst of so much luxury. Having dressed herself, she sat down,and, covering her face with her hands, tried to reflect calmly on theposition in which she was placed.
With the education she had received, she could look on this strangeinterruption of her pilgrimage only as a special assault upon herfaith, instigated by those evil spirits that are ever settingthemselves in conflict with the just. Such trials had befallen saintsof whom she had read. They had been assailed by visions of worldly easeand luxury suddenly presented before them, for which they were temptedto deny their faith and sell their souls. Was it not, perhaps, as apunishment for having admitted the love of an excommunicated hereticinto her heart, that this sore trial had been permitted to come uponher? And if she should fail? She shuddered, when she recalled thesevere and terrible manner in which Father Francesco had warned heragainst yielding to the solicitations of an earthly love. To her itseemed as if that holy man must have been inspired with a propheticforesight of her present position, and warned her against it. Thoseawful words came burning into her mind as when they seemed to issuelike the voice of a spirit from the depths of the confessional: "_Ifever you should yield to his love, and turn back from this heavenlymarriage to follow him, you will accomplish his damnation and yourown._"
Agnes trembled in an agony of real belief, and with a vivid terror ofthe world to come such as belonged to the almost physical certaintywith which the religious teaching of her time presented it to thepopular mind. Was she, indeed, the cause of such awful danger to hissoul? Might a false step now, a faltering human weakness, indeed plungethat soul, so dear, into a fiery abyss without bottom or shore? Shouldshe forever hear his shrieks of torture and despair, his curses onthe hour he had first known her? Her very blood curdled, her nervesfroze, as she thought of it, and she threw herself on her knees andprayed with an anguish that brought the sweat in beaded drops to herforehead,--strange dew for so frail a lily!--and her prayer roseabove all intercession of saints, above the seat even of the VirginMother herself, to the heart of her Redeemer, to Him who some divineinstinct told her was alone mighty to save. We of the present day maylook on her distress as unreal, as the result of a misguided senseof religious obligation; but the great Hearer of Prayer regards eachheart in its own scope of vision, and helps not less the mistaken thanthe enlightened distress. And for that matter, who is enlightened? whocarries to God's throne a trouble or a temptation in which there is notsomewhere a misconception or a mistake?
And so it came to pass. Agnes rose from prayer with an experiencewhich has been common to the members of the True Invisible Church,whether Catholic, Greek, or Protestant. "In the day when I cried Thouansweredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul." Shehad that vivid sense of the sustaining presence and sympathy of anAlmighty Saviour which is the substance of which all religious formsand appliances are the shadows; her soul was stayed on God, and was atpeace, as truly as if she had been the veriest Puritan maiden that everworshiped in a New England meeting-house. She felt a calm superiorityto all things earthly,--a profound reliance on that invisible aid whichcomes from God alone.
She was standing at her window, deep in thought, when Giuliettaentered, fresh and blooming, bearing the breakfast-tray.
"Come, my little princess, here I am," she said, "with your breakfast!How do you find yourself, this morning?"
Agnes came towards her.
"Bless us, how grave we are!" said Giulietta. "What has come over us?"
"Giulietta, have you seen poor grandmamma this morning?"
"Poor grandmamma!" said Giulietta, mimicking the sad tone in whichAgnes spoke, "to be sure I have. I left her making a hearty breakfast.So fall to, and do the same, for you don't know who may come to see youthis morning."
"Giulietta, is he here?"
"He!" said Giulietta, laughing. "Do hear the little bird! It begins tochirp already! No, he is not here yet; but Pietro says he will comesoon, and Pietro knows all his movements."
"Pietro is your husband?" said Agnes, inquiringly.
"Yes, to be sure,--and a pretty good one, too, as men go," saidGiulietta. "They are sorry bargains, the best of them. But you'll get aprize, if you play your cards well. Do you know that the King of Naplesand the King of France have both sent messages to our captain? Our menhold all the passes between Rome and Naples, and so every one sees thesense of gaining our captain's favor. But eat your breakfast, littleone, while I go and see to Pietro and the men."
So saying, she bustled out of the room, locking the door behind her.
Agnes took a little bread and water, resolved to fast and pray, as theonly defense against the danger in which she stood.
After breakfasting, she retired into the inner room, and opening thewindow, sat down and looked out on the prospect, and then, in a lowvoice, began singing a hymn of Savonarola's, which had been taughther by her uncle. It was entitled "Christ's Call to the Soul." Thewords were conceived in that tender spirit of mystical devotion whichcharacterizes all this class of productions.
"Fair soul, created in the primal hour, Once pure and grand, And for whose sake I left my throne and power At God's right hand, By this sad heart pierced through because I loved thee, Let love and mercy to contrition move thee!
"Cast off the sins thy holy beauty veiling, Spirit divine! Vain against thee the hosts of hell assailing: My strength is thine! Drink from my side the cup of life immortal, And love will lead thee back to heaven's portal!
"I, for thy sake, was pierced with many sorrows, And bore the cross, Yet heeded not the galling of the arrows, The shame and loss. So faint not thou, whate'er the burden be: But bear it bravely, even to Calvary!"
While Agnes was singing, the door of the outer room was slowly opened,and Agostino Sarelli entered. He had just returned from Florence,having ridden day and night to meet her whom he expected to find withinthe walls of his fastness.
He entered so softly that Agnes did not hear his approach, and hestood listening to her singing. He had come back with his mind burningwith indignation against the Pope and the whole hierarchy then rulingin Rome; but conversation with Father Antonio and the scenes he hadwitnessed at San Marco had converted the blind sense of personal wronginto a fixed principle of moral indignation and opposition. He nolonger found himself checked by the pleading of his early religiousrecollections; for now he had a leader who realized in his own p
ersonall his conceptions of those primitive apostles and holy bishops whofirst fed the flock of the Lord in Italy. He had heard from his lipsthe fearless declaration, "If Rome is against me, know that it isnot contrary to me, but to Christ, and its controversy is with God:doubt not that God will conquer;" and he embraced the cause with allthe enthusiasm of patriotism and knighthood. In his view, the mostholy place of his religion had been taken by a robber, who reigned inthe name of Christ only to disgrace it; and he felt called to pledgehis sword, his life, his knightly honor to do battle against him.He had urged his uncle in Milan to make interest for the cause ofSavonarola with the King of France; and his uncle, with that craftydiplomacy which in those days formed the staple of what was calledstatesmanship, had seemed to listen favorably to his views, intending,however, no more by his apparent assent than to withdraw his nephewfrom the dangers in which he stood in Italy, and bring him under hisown influence and guardianship in the court of France. But the wilydiplomate had sent Agostino Sarelli from his presence with the highestpossible expectations of his influence both with the King of France andthe Emperor of Germany in the present religious crisis in Italy.
And now the time was come, Agostino thought, to break the spell underwhich Agnes was held,--to show her the true character of the menwhom she was beholding through a mist of veneration arising entirelyfrom the dewy freshness of ignorant innocence. All the way home fromFlorence he had urged his horse onward, burning to meet her, to tellher all that he knew and felt, to claim her as his own, and to take herinto the sphere of light and liberty in which he himself moved. He didnot doubt his power, when she should once be where he could speak withher freely, without fear of interruption. Hers was a soul too good andpure, he said, to be kept in chains of slavish ignorance any longer.When she ceased singing, he spoke from the outer apartment, "Agnes!"
The name was uttered in the softest tone, but it sent the blood to herheart, as if it were the summons of doom. Everything seemed to swimbefore her, and grow dark for a moment; but by a strong effort shelifted her heart in prayer, and, rising, came towards him.
Agostino had figured her to himself in all that soft and sacredinnocence and freshness of bloom in which he had left her, a fair angelchild, looking through sad, innocent eyes on a life whose sins andsorrows, and deeper loves and hates, she scarcely comprehended,--onethat he might fold in his arms with protecting tenderness, while hegently reasoned with her fears and prejudices; but the figure thatstood there in the curtained arch, with its solemn, calm, transparentpaleness of face, its large, intense dark eyes, now vivid with somemysterious and concentrated resolve, struck a strange chill over him.Was it Agnes or a disembodied spirit that stood before him? For a fewmoments there fell such a pause between them as the intensity of someunexpressed feeling often brings with it, and which seems like a spell.
"Agnes! Agnes! is it you?" at last said the knight, in a low,hesitating tone. "Oh, my love, what has changed you so? Speak!--dospeak! Are you angry with me? Are you angry that I brought you here?"
"My Lord, I am not angry," said Agnes, speaking in a cold, sad tone;"but you have committed a great sin in turning aside those vowed to aholy pilgrimage, and you tempt me to sin by this conversation, whichought not to be between us."
"Why not?" said Agostino. "You would not see me at Sorrento. I soughtto warn you of the dangers of this pilgrimage,--to tell you that Romeis not what you think it is,--that it is not the seat of Christ, buta foul cage of unclean birds, a den of wickedness,--that he they callPope is a vile impostor"--
"My Lord," said Agnes, speaking with a touch of something evencommanding in her tone, "you have me at advantage, it is true, butyou ought not to use it in trying to ruin my soul by blaspheming holythings." And then she added, in a tone of indescribable sadness, "Alas,that so noble and beautiful a soul should be in rebellion against theonly True Church! Have you forgotten that good mother you spoke of?What must she feel to know that her son is an infidel!"
"I am not an infidel, Agnes; I am a true knight of our Lord and SaviourJesus Christ, and a believer in the One True, Holy Church."
"How can that be?" said Agnes. "Ah, seek not to deceive me! My Lord,such a poor little girl as I am is not worth the pains."
"By the Holy Mother, Agnes, by the Holy Cross, I do not seek to deceiveyou! I speak on my honor as a knight and gentleman. I love you trulyand honorably, and seek you among all women as my spotless wife, andwould I lie to _you_?"
"My Lord, you have spoken words which it is a sin for me to hear, aperil to your soul to say; and if you had not, you must not seek me asa wife. Holy vows are upon me. I must be the wife of no man here; it isa sin even to think of it."
"Impossible, Agnes!" said Agostino, with a start. "You have not takenthe veil already? If you had"--
"No, my Lord, I have not. I have only promised and vowed in my heart todo so when the Lord shall open the way."
"But such vows, dear Agnes, are often dispensed; they may be loosedby the priest. Now hear me,--only hear me. I believe as your unclebelieves,--your good, pious uncle, whom you love so much. I have takenthe sacrament from his hand; he has blessed me as a son. I believeas Jerome Savonarola believes. He it is, that holy prophet, who hasproclaimed this Pope and his crew to be vile usurpers, reigning in thename of Christ."
"My Lord! my Lord! I must not hear more! I must not,--I cannot,--I willnot!" said Agnes, becoming violently agitated, as she found herselflistening with interest to the pleadings of her lover.
"Oh, Agnes, what has turned your heart against me? I thought youpromised to love me a little?"
"Oh, hush! hush! don't plead with me!" she said, with a wild,affrighted look.
He sought to come towards her, and she sprang forward and threw herselfat his feet.
"Oh, my Lord, for mercy's sake let me go! Let us go on our way! We willpray for you always,--yes, always!" And she looked up at him in anagony of earnestness.
"Am I so hateful to you, then, Agnes?"
"Hateful? Oh, no, no! God knows you are--I--I--yes, I love you toowell, and you have too much power over me; but, oh, do not use it! IfI hear you talk I shall yield,--I surely shall, and we shall be lost,both of us! Oh, my God! I shall be the means of your damnation!"
"Agnes!"
"It is true! it is true! Oh, do not talk to me, but promise me, promiseme, or I shall die! Have pity on me! have pity on yourself!"
In the agony of her feelings her voice became almost a shriek, andher wild, affrighted face had a deadly pallor; she looked like one ina death-agony. Agostino was alarmed, and hastened to soothe her, bypromising whatever she required:
"Agnes, dear Agnes, I submit; only be calm. I promiseanything,--anything in the wide world you can ask."
"Will you let me go?"
"Yes."
"And will you let my poor grandmamma go with me?"
"Yes."
"And you will not talk with me any more?"
"Not if you do not wish it. And now," he said, "that I have submittedto all these hard conditions, will you suffer me to raise you?"
He took her hands and lifted her up; they were cold, and she wastrembling and shivering. He held them a moment; she tried to withdrawthem, and he let them go.
"Farewell, Agnes!" he said. "I am going."
She raised both her hands and pressed the sharp cross to her bosom, butmade no answer.
"I yield to your will," he continued. "Immediately when I leave youyour grandmother will come to you, and the attendants who brought youhere will conduct you to the high-road. For me, since it is your will,I part here. Farewell, Agnes!"
He held out his hand, but she stood as before, pale and silent, withher hands clasped on her breast.
"Do your vows forbid even a farewell to a poor, humble friend?" saidthe knight, in a low tone.
"I cannot," said Agnes, speaking at broken intervals, in a suffocatingvoice,--"for _your_ sake I cannot! I bear this pain for you,--for_you_! Oh, repent, and meet me in heaven!"
She gave him her hand; he kneele
d and kissed it, pressed it to hisforehead, then rose and left the room.
For a moment after the departure of the cavalier, Agnes felt a bitterpang,--the pain which one feels on first realizing that a dear friendis lost forever; and then, rousing herself with a start and a sigh,she hurried into the inner room and threw herself on her knees, givingthanks that the dreadful trial was past, and that she had not been leftto fail.
In a few moments she heard the voice of her grandmother in the outerapartment, and the old wrinkled creature clasped her grandchild in herarms, and wept with a passionate abandonment of fondness, calling herby every tender and endearing name which mothers give to their infants.
"After all," said Elsie, "these are not such bad people, and I havebeen right well entertained among them. They are of ourselves,--they donot prey on the poor, but only on our enemies, the princes and nobles,who look on us as sheep to be shorn and slaughtered for their wearingand eating. These men are none such, but pitiful to poor peasants andold widows, whom they feed and clothe out of the spoils of the rich.As to their captain,--would you believe it?--he is the same handsomegentleman who once gave you a ring,--you may have forgotten him, asyou never think of such things, but I knew him in a moment,--and sucha religious man, that no sooner did he find that we were pilgrims on aholy errand, than he gave orders to have us set free with all honor,and a band of the best of them to escort us through the mountains; andthe people of the town are all moved to do us reverence, and comingwith garlands and flowers to wish us well and ask our prayers. So letus set forth immediately."
Agnes followed her grandmother through the long passages and down thedark, mouldy stairway to the court-yard, where two horses were standingcaparisoned for them. A troop of men in high peaked hats, cloaked andplumed, were preparing also to mount, while a throng of women andchildren stood pressing around. When Agnes appeared, enthusiastic crieswere heard: "_Viva Jesu!_" "_Viva Maria!_" "_Viva! viva Jesu! nostroRe!_" and showers of myrtle-branches and garlands fell around. "Prayfor us!" "Pray for us, holy pilgrims!" was uttered eagerly by one andanother. Mothers held up their children; and beggars and cripples, agedand sick,--never absent in an Italian town,--joined with loud criesin the general enthusiasm. Agnes stood amid it all, pale and serene,with that elevated expression of heavenly calm on her features whichis often the clear shining of the soul after the wrench and torture ofsome great interior conflict. She felt that the last earthly chain wasbroken, and that now she belonged to Heaven alone. She scarcely saw orheard what was around her, wrapt in the calm of inward prayer.
"Look at her! she is beautiful as the Madonna!" said one and another."She is divine as Santa Catarina!" said others. "She might have beenthe wife of our chief, who is a nobleman of the oldest blood, but shechose to be the bride of the Lord," said others: for Giulietta, with awoman's love of romancing, had not failed to make the most among hercompanions of the love-adventures of Agnes.
Agnes meanwhile was seated on her palfrey, and the whole train passedout of the court-yard into the dim, narrow street,--men, women, andchildren following. On reaching the public square, they halted a momentby the side of the antique fountain to water their horses. The groupsthat surrounded it at this time were such as a painter would havedelighted to copy. The women and girls of this obscure mountain-townhad all that peculiar beauty of form and attitude which appears in thestudies of the antique; and as they poised on their heads their copperwater-jars of the old Etruscan pattern, they seemed as if they might bestatues of golden bronze, had not the warm tints of their complexion,the brilliancy of their large eyes, and the bright picturesque colorsof their attire given the richness of painting to their classicoutlines. Then, too, the men, with their finely-moulded limbs, theirfigures so straight and strong and elastic, their graceful attitudes,and their well-fitting, showy costumes, formed a no less imposingfeature in the scene. Among them all sat Agnes waiting on her palfrey,seeming scarcely conscious of the enthusiasm which surrounded her. Someadmiring friend had placed in her hand a large bough of blossominghawthorn, which she held unconsciously, as, with a sort of childlikesimplicity, she turned from right to left, to make reply to the requestfor prayers, or to return thanks for the offered benediction of someone in the crowd.
When all the preparations were at last finished, the procession ofmounted horsemen, with a confused gathering of the population, passeddown the streets to the gates of the city, and as they passed they sangthe words of the Crusaders' Hymn, which had fluttered back into thetraditionary memory of Europe from the knights going to redeem the HolySepulchre.
"Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all Nature, O Thou of God and man the Son! Thee will I honor, Thee will I cherish, Thou, my soul's glory, joy, and crown!
"Fair are the meadows, Fairer still the woodlands, Robed in the pleasing garb of spring: Jesus shines fairer, Jesus is purer Who makes the woful heart to sing!
"Fair is the sunshine, Fairer still the moonlight, And all the twinkling starry host: Jesus shines fairer, Jesus is purer, Than all the angels heaven can boast!"
They were singing the second verse, as, emerging from the darkold gateway of the town, all the distant landscape of silveryolive-orchards, crimson clover-fields, blossoming almond-trees,fig-trees, and grapevines, just in the tender green of spring, burstupon their view. Agnes felt a kind of inspiration. From the highmountain elevation she could discern the far-off brightness of thesea,--all between one vision of beauty,--and the religious enthusiasmwhich possessed all around her had in her eye all the value of themost solid and reasonable faith. With us, who may look on it from acolder and more distant point of view, doubts may be suggested whetherthis _naive_ impressibility to religious influences, this simple,whole-hearted abandonment to their expression, had any real practicalvalue. The fact that any or all of the actors might before night robor stab or lie quite as freely as if it had not occurred may well givereason for such a question. Be this as it may, the phenomenon is notconfined to Italy or the religion of the Middle Ages, but exhibitsitself in many a prayer-meeting and camp-meeting of modern days. Forour own part, we hold it better to have even transient upliftings ofthe nobler and more devout element of man's nature than never to haveany at all, and that he who goes on in worldly and sordid courses,without ever a spark of religious enthusiasm or a throb of aspiration,is less of a man than he who sometimes soars heavenward, though hiswings be weak and he fall again.
In all this scene Agostino Sarelli took no part. He had simply givenorders for the safe-conduct of Agnes, and then retired to his own room.From a window, however, he watched the procession as it passed throughthe gates of the city, and his resolution was immediately taken toproceed at once by a secret path to the place where the pilgrims shouldemerge upon the high-road.
He had been induced to allow the departure of Agnes from seeing theutter hopelessness by any argument or persuasion of removing a barrierthat was so vitally interwoven with the most sensitive religious nervesof her being. He saw in her terrified looks, in the deadly paleness ofher face, how real and unaffected was the anguish which his words gaveher; he saw that the very consciousness of her own love to him produceda sense of weakness which made her shrink in utter terror from hisarguments.
"There is no remedy," he said, "but to let her go to Rome and see withher own eyes how utterly false and vain is the vision which she drawsfrom the purity of her own believing soul. What Christian would notwish that these fair dreams had any earthly reality? But this gentledove must not be left unprotected to fly into that foul, unclean cageof vultures and harpies. Deadly as the peril may be to me to breathethe air of Rome, I will be around her invisibly to watch over her."