CHAPTER VI
THE WALK TO THE CONVENT
Elsie returned from the confessional a little after sunrise, muchrelieved and satisfied. Padre Francesco had shown such a deep interestin her narrative that she was highly gratified. Then he had given heradvice which exactly accorded with her own views; and such advice isalways regarded as an eminent proof of sagacity in the giver.
On the point of the marriage he had recommended delay,--a course quitein accordance with Elsie's desire, who, curiously enough, ever sinceher treaty of marriage with Antonio had been commenced, had cherishedthe most whimsical, jealous dislike of him, as if he were about to getaway her grandchild from her; and this rose at times so high that shecould scarcely speak peaceably to him,--a course of things which causedAntonio to open wide his great soft ox-eyes, and wonder at the ways ofwomankind; but he waited the event in philosophic tranquillity.
The morning sunbeams were shooting many a golden shaft among theorange-trees when Elsie returned and found Agnes yet kneeling at herprayers.
"Now, my little heart," said the old woman, when their morning meal wasdone, "I am going to give you a holiday to-day. I will go with you tothe Convent, and you shall spend the day with the sisters, and so carrySaint Agnes her ring."
"Oh, thank you, grandmamma! how good you are! May I stop a little onthe way, and pick some cyclamen and myrtles and daisies for her shrine?"
"Just as you like, child; but if you are going to do that, we must beoff soon, for I must be at my stand betimes to sell oranges: I had themall picked this morning while my little darling was asleep."
"You always do everything, grandmamma, and leave me nothing to do: itis not fair. But, grandmamma, if we are going to get flowers by theway, let us follow down the stream, through the gorge, out upon thesea-beach, and so walk along the sands, and go by the back path up therocks to the Convent: that walk is so shady and lovely at this time inthe morning, and it is so fresh along by the seaside!"
"As you please, dearie; but first fill a little basket with our bestoranges for the sisters."
"Trust me for that!" And the girl ran eagerly to the house, and drewfrom her treasures a little white wicker basket, which she proceededto line curiously with orange-leaves, sticking sprays of blossoms in awreath round the border.
"Now for some of our best blood-oranges!" she said; "old Jocunda saysthey put her in mind of pomegranates. And here are some of these littleones,--see here, grandmamma!" she exclaimed as she turned and held up abranch just broken, where five small golden balls grew together with apearly spray of white buds just beyond them.
The exercise of springing up for the branch had sent a vivid glowinto her clear brown cheek, and her eyes were dilated with excitementand pleasure; and as she stood joyously holding the branch, while theflickering shadows fell on her beautiful face, she seemed more like apainter's dream than a reality.
Her grandmother stood a moment admiring her.
"She's too good and too pretty for Antonio or any other man: sheought to be kept to look at," she said to herself. "If I could keepher always, no man should have her; but death will come, and youth andbeauty go, and so somebody must care for her."
When the basket was filled and trimmed, Agnes took it on her arm. Elsieraised and poised on her head the great square basket that containedher merchandise, and began walking erect and straight down the narrowrocky stairs that led into the gorge, holding her distaff with itswhite flax in her hands, and stepping as easily as if she bore noburden.
Agnes followed her with light, irregular movements, glancing asidefrom time to time, as a tuft of flowers or a feathery spray of leavesattracted her fancy. In a few moments her hands were too full, andher woolen apron of many-colored stripes was raised over one arm tohold her treasures, while a hymn to Saint Agnes, which she constantlymurmured to herself, came in little ripples of sound, now from behinda rock, and now out of a tuft of bushes, to show where the wandererwas hid. The song, like many Italian ones, would be nothing inEnglish,--only a musical repetition of sweet words to a very simpleand childlike idea, the _bella_, _bella_, _bella_ ringing out in everyverse with a tender joyousness that seemed in harmony with the wavingferns and pendent flowers and long ivy-wreaths from among which itsnotes issued. "Beautiful and sweet Agnes," it said, in a thousandtender repetitions, "make me like thy little white lamb! BeautifulAgnes, take me to the green fields where Christ's lambs are feeding!Sweeter than the rose, fairer than the lily, take me where thou art!"
At the bottom of the ravine a little stream tinkles its way amongstones so mossy in their deep, cool shadow as to appear all verdure;for seldom the light of the sun can reach the darkness where they lie.A little bridge, hewn from solid rock, throws across the shrunkenstream an arch much wider than its waters seem to demand; for in springand autumn, when the torrents wash down from the mountains, its volumeis often suddenly increased.
This bridge was so entirely and evenly grown over with short thick mossthat it might seem cut of some strange kind of living green velvet, andhere and there it was quaintly embroidered with small blossoming tuftsof white alyssum, or feathers of ferns and maiden's-hair which shookand trembled to every breeze. Nothing could be lovelier than this mossybridge, when some stray sunbeam, slanting up the gorge, took a fancyto light it up with golden hues, and give transparent greenness to thetremulous thin leaves that waved upon it.
On this spot Elsie paused a moment, and called back after Agnes, whohad disappeared into one of those deep grottoes with which the sides ofthe gorge are perforated, and which are almost entirely veiled by thependent ivy-wreaths.
"Agnes! Agnes! wild girl! come quick!"
Only the sound of "_Bella, bella Agnella_" came out of the ivy-leavesto answer her; but it sounded so happy and innocent that Elsie couldnot forbear a smile, and in a moment Agnes came springing down with aquantity of the feathery lycopodium in her hands, which grows nowhereso well as in moist and dripping places.
Out of her apron were hanging festoons of golden broom, crimsongladiolus, and long, trailing sprays of ivy; while she held aloft intriumph a handful of the most superb cyclamen, whose rosy crowns riseso beautifully above their dark quaint leaves in moist and shady places.
"See, see, grandmother, what an offering I have! Saint Agnes will bepleased with me to-day; for I believe in her heart she loves flowersbetter than gems."
"Well, well, wild one,--time flies, we must hurry." And crossing thebridge quickly, the grandmother struck into a mossy footpath that ledthem, after some walking, under the old Roman bridge at the gateway ofSorrento. Two hundred feet above their heads rose the mighty arches,enameled with moss and feathered with ferns all the way; and below thisbridge the gorge grew somewhat wider, its sides gradually recedingand leaving a beautiful flat tract of land, which was laid out as anorange-orchard. The golden fruit was shut in by rocky walls on eitherside which here formed a perfect hotbed, and no oranges were earlier orfiner.
Through this beautiful orchard the two at length emerged from the gorgeupon the sea-sands, where lay the blue Mediterranean swathed in bandsof morning mist, its many-colored waters shimmering with a thousandreflected lights, and old Capri panting through sultry blue mists, andVesuvius with his cloud-spotted sides and smoke-wreathed top burstinto view. At a little distance a boat-load of bronzed fishermen hadjust drawn in a net, from which they were throwing out a quantity ofsardines, which flapped and fluttered in the sunshine like scales ofsilver. The wind blowing freshly bore thousands of little purple wavesto break one after another at the foamy line which lay on the sand.
Agnes ran gayly along the beach with her flowers and vines flutteringfrom her gay striped apron, and her cheeks flushed with exerciseand pleasure,--sometimes stopping and turning with animation toher grandmother to point out the various floral treasures thatenameled every crevice and rift of the steep wall of rock which roseperpendicularly above their heads in that whole line of the shore whichis crowned with the old city of Sorrento: and surely never did rockywall show to the open
sea a face more picturesque and flowery. The deepred cliff was hollowed here and there into fanciful grottoes, drapedwith every varied hue and form of vegetable beauty. Here a crevicehigh in air was all abloom with purple gillyflower, and depending infestoons above it the golden blossoms of the broom; here a cleft seemedto be a nestling-place for a colony of gladiolus, with its crimsonflowers and blade-like leaves; here the silver-frosted foliage ofthe miller-geranium, or of the wormwood, toned down the extravagantbrightness of other blooms by its cooler tints. In some places itseemed as if a sort of floral cascade were tumbling confusedly over therocks, mingling all hues and all forms in a tangled mass of beauty.
"Well, well," said old Elsie, as Agnes pointed to some superbgillyflowers which grew nearly half-way up the precipice, "is the childpossessed? You have all the gorge in your apron already. Stop looking,and let us hurry on."
After a half-hour's walk, they came to a winding staircase cut in therock, which led them a zigzag course up through galleries and grottoeslooking out through curious windows and loop-holes upon the sea, tillfinally they emerged at the old sculptured portal of a shady gardenwhich was surrounded by the cloistered arcades of the Convent of SaintAgnes.
The Convent of Saint Agnes was one of those monuments in which thepiety of the Middle Ages delighted to commemorate the triumphs of thenew Christianity over the old Heathenism.
The balmy climate and paradisiacal charms of Sorrento and the adjacentshores of Naples had made them favorite resorts during the latterperiod of the Roman Empire,--a period when the whole civilized worldseemed to human view about to be dissolved in the corruption ofuniversal sensuality. The shores of Baiae were witnesses of the orgiesand cruelties of Nero and a court made in his likeness, and thepalpitating loveliness of Capri became the hotbed of the unnaturalvices of Tiberius. The whole of Southern Italy was sunk in adebasement of animalism and ferocity which seemed irrecoverable, andwould have been so, had it not been for the handful of salt which aGalilean peasant had about that time cast into the putrid, fermentingmass of human society.
We must not wonder at the zeal which caused the artistic Italian natureto love to celebrate the passing away of an era of unnatural vice anddemoniac cruelty by visible images of the purity, the tenderness, theuniversal benevolence which Jesus had brought into the world.
Sometime about the middle of the thirteenth century, it had been afavorite enterprise of a princess of a royal family in Naples to erecta convent to Saint Agnes, the guardian of female purity, out of thewrecks and remains of an ancient temple of Venus, whose white pillarsand graceful acanthus-leaves once crowned a portion of the precipiceon which the town was built, and were reflected from the glassy blueof the sea at its feet. It was said that this princess was the firstlady abbess. Be that as it may, it proved to be a favorite retreat formany ladies of rank and religious aspiration, whom ill-fortune in someof its varying forms led to seek its quiet shades, and it was well andrichly endowed by its royal patrons.
It was built after the manner of conventual buildings generally,--in ahollow square, with a cloistered walk around the inside looking upon agarden.
The portal at which Agnes and her grandmother knocked, after ascendingthe winding staircase cut in the precipice, opened through an archedpassage into this garden.
As the ponderous door swung open, it was pleasant to hear the lullingsound of a fountain, which came forth with a gentle patter, like thatof soft summer rain, and to see the waving of rose-bushes and goldenjessamines, and smell the perfumes of orange-blossoms mingling withthose of a thousand other flowers.
The door was opened by an odd-looking portress. She might beseventy-five or eighty; her cheeks were of the color of very yellowparchment drawn in dry wrinkles; her eyes were those large, dark,lustrous ones so common in her country, but seemed, in the generaldecay and shrinking of every other part of her face, to have acquireda wild, unnatural appearance; while the falling away of her teeth leftnothing to impede the meeting of her hooked nose with her chin. Add tothis, she was humpbacked, and twisted in her figure; and one needs allthe force of her very good-natured, kindly smile to redeem the imageof poor old Jocunda from association with that of some Thracian witch,and cause one to see in her the appropriate portress of a Christianinstitution.
Nevertheless, Agnes fell upon her neck and imprinted a very ferventkiss upon what was left of her withered cheek, and was repaid by ashower of those epithets of endearment which in the language of Italyfly thick and fast as the petals of the orange blossom from her groves.
"Well, well," said old Elsie, "I'm going to leave her here to-day.You've no objections, I suppose?"
"Bless the sweet lamb, no! She belongs here of good right. I believeblessed Saint Agnes has adopted her; for I've seen her smile, plain ascould be, when the little one brought her flowers."
"Well, Agnes," said the old woman, "I shall come for you after the AveMaria." Saying which, she lifted her basket and departed.
The garden where the two were left was one of the most peacefulretreats that the imagination of a poet could create.
Around it ran on all sides the Byzantine arches of a cloistered walk,which, according to the quaint, rich fashion of that style, had beenpainted with vermilion, blue, and gold. The vaulted roof was spangledwith gold stars on a blue ground, and along the sides was a series offresco pictures representing the various scenes in the life of SaintAgnes; and as the foundress of the Convent was royal in her means,there was no lack either of gold or gems or of gorgeous painting.
Full justice was done in the first picture to the princely wealthand estate of the fair Agnes, who was represented as a pure-looking,pensive child, standing in a thoughtful attitude, with long ripples ofgolden hair flowing down over a simple white tunic, and her small handsclasping a cross on her bosom, while, kneeling at her feet, obsequiousslaves and tire-women were offering the richest gems and the mostgorgeous robes to her serious and abstracted gaze.
In another, she was represented as walking modestly to school, andwinning the admiration of the son of the Roman Praetor, who fellsick--so says the legend--for the love of her.
Then there was the demand of her hand in marriage by the princelyfather of the young man, and her calm rejection of the gorgeous giftsand splendid gems which he had brought to purchase her consent.
Then followed in order her accusation before the tribunals as aChristian, her trial, and the various scenes of her martyrdom.
Although the drawing of the figures and the treatment of the subjectshad the quaint stiffness of the thirteenth century, their generaleffect, as seen from the shady bowers of the garden, was of a solemnbrightness, a strange and fanciful richness, which was poetical andimpressive.
In the centre of the garden was a fountain of white marble, whichevidently was the wreck of something that had belonged to the old Greektemple. The statue of a nymph sat on a green mossy pedestal in themidst of a sculptured basin, and from a partially reversed urn on whichshe was leaning, a clear stream of water dashed down from one mossyfragment to another, till it lost itself in the placid pool.
The figure and face of this nymph, in their classic finish of outline,formed a striking contrast to the drawing of the Byzantine paintingswithin the cloisters, and their juxtaposition in the same enclosureseemed a presentation of the spirit of a past and present era: the pastso graceful in line, so perfect and airy in conception, so utterlywithout spiritual aspiration or life; the present limited in artisticpower, but so earnest, so intense, seeming to struggle and burn, amidits stiff and restricted boundaries, for the expression of some divinerphase of humanity.
Nevertheless, the nymph of the fountain, different in style andexecution as it was, was so fair a creature, that it was thought best,after the spirit of those days, to purge her from all heathen andimproper histories by baptizing her in the waters of her own fountain,and bestowing on her the name of the saint to whose convent she wasdevoted. The simple sisterhood, little conversant in nice points ofantiquity, regarded her as Saint Agnes dispens
ing the waters of purityto her convent; and marvelous and sacred properties were ascribed tothe water, when taken fasting with a sufficient number of prayers andother religious exercises. All around the neighborhood of this fountainthe ground was one bed of blue and white violets, whose fragrancefilled the air, and which were deemed by the nuns to have come up therein especial token of the favor with which Saint Agnes regarded theconversion of this heathen relic to pious and Christian uses.
This nymph had been an especial favorite of the childhood of Agnes, andshe had always had a pleasure which she could not exactly account forin gazing upon it. It is seldom that one sees in the antique conceptionof the immortals any trace of human feeling. Passionless perfectionand repose seem to be their uniform character. But now and then fromthe ruins of Southern Italy fragments have been dug, not only pure inoutline, but invested with a strange pathetic charm, as if the calm,inviolable circle of divinity had been touched by some sorrowing senseof that unexplained anguish with which the whole lower creation groans.One sees this mystery of expression in the face of that strange andbeautiful Psyche which still enchants the Museum of Naples. Somethingof this charm of mournful pathos lingered on the beautiful featuresof this nymph,--an expression so delicate and shadowy that it seemedto address itself only to finer natures. It was as if all the silent,patient woe and discouragement of a dumb antiquity had been congealedinto this memorial. Agnes was often conscious, when a child, of beingsaddened by it, and yet drawn towards it with a mysterious attraction.
About this fountain, under the shadow of bending rose trees and yellowjessamines, was a circle of garden seats, adopted also from the ruinsof the past. Here a graceful Corinthian capital, with every whiteacanthus-leaf perfect, stood in a mat of acanthus-leaves of Nature'sown making, glossy green and sharply cut; and there was a long portionof a frieze sculptured with graceful dancing figures; and in anotherplace a fragment of a fluted column, with lycopodium and colosseum vinehanging from its fissures in graceful draping. On these seats Agneshad dreamed away many a tranquil hour, making garlands of violets, andlistening to the marvelous legends of old Jocunda.
In order to understand anything of the true idea of conventual life inthose days, we must consider that books were as yet unknown, exceptas literary rarities, and reading and writing were among the rareaccomplishments of the higher classes; and that Italy, from the timethat the great Roman Empire fell and broke into a thousand shivers,had been subject to a continual series of conflicts and struggles,which took from life all security. Norman, Dane, Sicilian, Spaniard,Frenchman, and German mingled and struggled, now up and now down;and every struggle was attended by the little ceremonies of sackingtowns, burning villages, and routing out entire populations to uttermisery and wretchedness. During these tumultuous ages, those buildingsconsecrated by a religion recognized alike by all parties afforded tomisfortune the only inviolable asylum, and to feeble and discouragedspirits the only home safe from the prospect of reverses.
If the destiny of woman is a problem that calls for grave attentioneven in our enlightened times, and if she is too often a sufferer fromthe inevitable movements of society, what must have been her positionand needs in those ruder ages, unless the genius of Christianity hadopened refuges for her weakness, made inviolable by the awful sanctionsof religion?
What could they do, all these girls and women together, with thetwenty-four long hours of every day, without reading or writing, andwithout the care of children? Enough; with their multiplied diurnalprayer periods, with each its chants and ritual of observances,--withthe preparation for meals, and the clearing away thereafter,--with thecare of the chapel, shrine, sacred gifts, drapery, and ornaments,--withembroidering altar-cloths and making sacred tapers,--with preparingconserves of rose leaves and curious spiceries,--with mixing drugs forthe sick,--with all those mutual offices and services to each otherwhich their relations in one family gave rise to,--and with diversfeminine gossipries and harmless chatterings and cooings, one canconceive that these dove-cots of the Church presented often some of themost tranquil scenes of those convulsive and disturbed periods.
Human nature probably had its varieties there as otherwhere. There werethere the domineering and the weak, the ignorant and the vulgar, andthe patrician and the princess, and though professedly all brought onthe footing of sisterly equality, we are not to suppose any Utopiandegree of perfection among them. The way of pure spirituality wasprobably, in the convent as well as out, that strait and narrow onewhich there be few to find. There, as elsewhere, the devotee whosought to progress faster toward heaven than suited the paces of herfellow-travelers was reckoned a troublesome enthusiast, till she gotfar enough in advance to be worshiped as a saint.
Sister Theresa, the abbess of this convent, was the youngest daughterin a princely Neapolitan family, who from her cradle had been destinedto the cloister, in order that her brother and sister might inheritmore splendid fortunes and form more splendid connections. She had beensent to this place too early to have much recollection of any othermode of life; and when the time came to take the irrevocable step, sherenounced with composure a world she had never known.
Her brother had endowed her with a _livre des heures_, illuminatedwith all the wealth of blue and gold and divers colors which the artof those times afforded,--a work executed by a pupil of the celebratedFra Angelico; and the possession of this treasure was regarded by heras a far richer inheritance than that princely state of which she knewnothing. Her neat little cell had a window that looked down on thesea,--on Capri, with its fantastic grottoes,--on Vesuvius, with itsweird daily and nightly changes. The light that came in from the jointreflection of sea and sky gave a golden and picturesque coloring to thesimple and bare furniture, and in sunny weather she often sat there,just as a lizard lies upon a wall, with the simple, warm, delightfulsense of living and being amid scenes of so much beauty. Of the lifethat people lived in the outer world, the struggle, the hope, thefear, the vivid joy, the bitter sorrow, Sister Theresa knew nothing.She could form no judgment and give no advice founded on any suchexperience.
The only life she knew was a certain ideal one, drawn from the legendsof the saints; and her piety was a calm, pure enthusiasm which hadnever been disturbed by a temptation or a struggle. Her rule in theConvent was even and serene; but those who came to her flock from thereal world, from the trials and temptations of a real experience, werealways enigmas to her, and she could scarcely comprehend or aid them.
In fact, since in the cloister, as everywhere else, character willfind its level, it was old Jocunda who was the real governess of theConvent. Jocunda was originally a peasant woman, whose husband had beendrafted to some of the wars of his betters, and she had followed hisfortunes in the camp. In the sack of a fortress, she lost her husbandand four sons, all the children she had, and herself received an injurywhich distorted her form, and so she took refuge in the Convent.Here her energy and _savoir-faire_ rendered her indispensable inevery department. She made the bargains, bought the provisions (beingallowed to sally forth for these purposes), and formed the mediumby which the timid, abstract, defenseless nuns accomplished thosematerial relations with the world with which the utmost saintlinesscannot afford to dispense. Besides and above all this, Jocunda's wideexperience and endless capabilities of narrative made her an invaluableresource for enlivening any dull hours that might be upon the hands ofthe sisterhood; and all these recommendations, together with a strongmother-wit and native sense, soon made her so much the leading spiritin the Convent that Mother Theresa herself might be said to be underher dominion.
"So, so," she said to Agnes, when she had closed the gate afterElsie,--"you never come empty-handed. What lovely oranges!--worthdouble any that one can buy of anybody else but your grandmother."
"Yes, and these flowers I brought to dress the altar."
"Ah, yes! Saint Agnes has given you a particular grace for that," saidJocunda.
"And I have brought a ring for her treasury," said Agnes, taking outthe gift of the Caval
ier.
"Holy Mother! here is something, to be sure!" said Jocunda, catching iteagerly. "Why, Agnes, this is a diamond,--and as pretty a one as everI saw. How it shines!" she added, holding it up. "That's a prince'spresent. How did you get it?"
"I want to tell our mother about it," said Agnes.
"You do?" said Jocunda. "You'd better tell me. I know fifty times asmuch about such things as she."
"Dear Jocunda, I will tell you, too; but I love Mother Theresa, and Iought to give it to her first."
"As you please, then," said Jocunda. "Well, put your flowers here bythe fountain, where the spray will keep them cool, and we will go toher."