CHAPTER III
THE GORGE
After her light supper was over, Agnes took her distaff, wound withshining white flax, and went and seated herself in her favorite place,on the low parapet that overlooked the gorge.
This ravine, with its dizzy depths, its waving foliage, its drippingsprings and the low murmur of the little stream that pursued its wayfar down at the bottom, was one of those things which stimulatedher impressible imagination, and filled her with a solemn and vaguedelight. The ancient Italian tradition made it the home of fauns anddryads, wild woodland creatures, intermediate links between vegetablelife and that of sentiment and reasoning humanity. The more earnestfaith that came in with Christianity, if it had its brighter lightsin an immortality of blessedness, had also its deeper shadows in theintenser perceptions it awakened of sin and evil, and of the mortalstruggle by which the human spirit must avoid endless woe and rise toendless felicity. The myths with which the colored Italian air wasfilled in mediaeval ages no longer resembled those graceful, floating,cloud-like figures one sees in the ancient chambers of Pompeii,--thebubbles and rainbows of human fancy, rising aimless and buoyant,with a mere freshness of animal life, against a black background ofutter and hopeless ignorance as to man's past or future. They wererather expressed by solemn images of mournful, majestic angels andof triumphant saints, or fearful, warning presentations of loathsomefiends. Each lonesome gorge and sombre dell had tales no more oftricky fauns and dryads, but of those restless, wandering demonswho, having lost their own immortality of blessedness, constantlylie in wait to betray frail humanity, and cheat it of that gloriousinheritance bought by the Great Redemption.
The education of Agnes had been one which rendered her wholesystem peculiarly sensitive and impressible to all influences fromthe invisible and unseen. Of this education we shall speak moreparticularly hereafter. At present we see her sitting in the twilighton the moss-grown marble parapet, her distaff, with its silvery flax,lying idly in her hands, and her widening dark eyes gazing intentlyinto the gloomy gorge below, from which arose the far-off complainingbabble of the brook at the bottom and the shiver and sigh of eveningwinds through the trailing ivy. The white mist was slowly rising,wavering, undulating, and creeping its slow way up the sides of thegorge. Now it hid a tuft of foliage, and now it wreathed itselfaround a horned clump of aloes, and, streaming far down below itin the dimness, made it seem like the goblin robe of some strange,supernatural being.
The evening light had almost burned out in the sky; only a band ofvivid red lay low in the horizon out to sea, and the round full moonwas just rising like a great silver lamp, while Vesuvius with its smokytop began in the obscurity to show its faintly flickering fires. Avague agitation seemed to oppress the child; for she sighed deeply, andoften repeated with fervor the Ave Maria.
At this moment there began to rise from the very depths of the gorgebelow her the sound of a rich tenor voice, with a slow, sad modulation,and seeming to pulsate upward through the filmy, shifting mists. It wasone of those voices which seem fit to be the outpouring of some spiritdenied all other gifts of expression, and rushing with passionatefervor through this one gate of utterance. So distinctly were thewords spoken, that they seemed each one to rise as with a separateintelligence out of the mist, and to knock at the door of the heart.
Sad is my life, and lonely! No hope for me, Save thou, my love, my only, I see!
Where art thou, O my fairest? Where art thou gone? Dove of the rock, I languish Alone!
They say thou art so saintly, Who dare love thee? Yet bend thine eyelids holy On me!
Though heaven alone possess thee, Thou dwell'st above, Yet heaven, didst thou but know it, Is love.
There was such an intense earnestness in these sounds, that large tearsgathered in the wide dark eyes, and fell one after another upon thesweet alyssum and maiden's-hair that grew in the crevices of the marblewall. She shivered and drew away from the parapet, and thought ofstories she had heard the nuns tell of wandering spirits who sometimesin lonesome places pour forth such entrancing music as bewilders thebrain of the unwary listener, and leads him to some fearful destruction.
"Agnes!" said the sharp voice of old Elsie, appearing at the door,"here! where are you?"
"Here, grandmamma."
"Who's that singing this time o' night?"
"I don't know, grandmamma."
Somehow the child felt as if that singing were strangely sacred toher,--a _rapport_ between her and something vague and invisible whichmight yet become dear.
"Is't down in the gorge?" said the old woman, coming with her heavy,decided step to the parapet, and looking over, her keen black eyesgleaming like dagger-blades into the mist. "If there's anybody there,"she said, "let them go away, and not be troubling honest women withany of their caterwauling. Come, Agnes," she said, pulling the girl bythe sleeve, "you must be tired, my lamb! and your evening prayers arealways so long, best be about them, girl, so that old grandmamma mayput you to bed. What ails the girl? Been crying! Your hand is cold as astone."
"Grandmamma, what if that might be a spirit?" she said. "Sister Rosatold me stories of singing spirits that have been in this very gorge."
"Likely enough," said Dame Elsie; "but what's that to us? Let 'emsing!--so long as we don't listen, where's the harm done? We willsprinkle holy water all round the parapet, and say the office of SaintAgnes, and let them sing till they are hoarse."
Such was the triumphant view which this energetic good woman took ofthe power of the means of grace which her church placed at her disposal.
Nevertheless, while Agnes was kneeling at her evening prayers, the olddame consoled herself with a soliloquy, as with a brush she vigorouslybesprinkled the premises with holy water.
"Now, here's the plague of a girl! If she's handsome,--and nobody wantsone that isn't,--why, then, it's a purgatory to look after her. Thisone is good enough,--none of your hussies, like Giulietta: but thebetter they are, the more sure to have fellows after them. A murrainon that cavalier,--king's brother, or what not!--it was he serenading,I'll be bound. I must tell Antonio, and have the girl married, foraught I see: and I don't want to give her to him either; he didn'tbring her up. There's no peace for us mothers. Maybe I'll tell FatherFrancesco about it. That's the way poor little Isella was carried away.Singing is of the Devil, I believe; it always bewitches girls. I'd liketo have poured some hot oil down the rocks: I'd have made him squeak inanother tone, I reckon. Well, well! I hope I shall come in for a goodseat in paradise for all the trouble I've had with her mother, and amlike to have with her,--that's all!"
In an hour more, the large, round, sober moon was shining fixedly onthe little mansion in the rocks, silvering the glossy darkness of theorange-leaves, while the scent of the blossoms arose like clouds aboutthe cottage. The moonlight streamed through the unglazed casement, andmade a square of light on the little bed where Agnes was sleeping,in which square her delicate face was framed, with its tremulous andspiritual expression most resembling in its sweet plaintive purity someof the Madonna faces of Fra Angelico,--those tender wild flowers ofItalian religion and poetry.
By her side lay her grandmother, with those sharp, hard, clearly cutfeatures, so worn and bronzed by time, so lined with labor and care, asto resemble one of the Fates in the picture of Michel Angelo; and evenin her sleep she held the delicate lily hand of the child in her ownhard, brown one, with a strong and determined clasp.
While they sleep, we must tell something more of the story of thelittle Agnes,--of what she is, and what are the causes which have madeher such.