Chapter LI: Part III (1)

Gondriac had seen many strange things come to pass of late years: stupendous things, as when M. le Marquis climbed up the cliff like a common man to condole with old Caboff; wonderful things, as when M. le Marquis was rescued by old Caboff in the storm; tragic things, as when he went forth and died in the place of young Caboff; but nothing so untoward as this had ever happened at Gondriac before: M. le Marquis was going to marry Alba. The wonder was both lessened and heightened by the romantic story concerning Alba’s birth, which was spread through the village simultaneously with the announcement. The fatherless girl, who had owned no name but Alba, was the daughter of a nobleman, who had been affianced by his family to a great heiress, but who fell in love with a penniless orphan and married her secretly; a few months after his marriage he was ordered off to Egypt with Bonaparte and was killed in his first engagement. The young wife lived to give birth to her child, and then died, leaving it to the care of an old friend of her mother, a childless widow, whom the Revolution had ruined, and who now gained her bread by needlework. Virginie accepted the charge, and adopted as her own the little one, whose sole provision was a pittance which the father had been able to secure to his wife as a dower. Her heart, hungering for some one on whom to lavish its great capacity for loving, bestowed upon the baby more than a mother’s tenderness; she loved it with a love that seemed to gather up into one passion all the loves that a woman’s heart can hold. She left the shelter of her native place, where all had known her from her childhood, and where, in spite of her poverty, she held her head high, and went to live at Gondriac, where no old familiar face would smile upon her, but where her secret would be secure, and none would know that she was not Alba’s mother. This was the story she told Hermann when he asked her for Alba’s hand.

“I thought to let the secret die with me,” she said, “and that the child might have loved me to the end as her own mother; but now she must hear the truth. To me she will always be my child, my very own—as truly mine as if I had given her birth.”

“Let her know nothing until she is my wife, and then I will break it to her,” replied the young lord; “and I doubt but she will love you more dearly still when she learns the truth.”

Alba was very happy—so happy at times that it was more than she could bear; she would often heave great sighs for very bliss as she sat upon the rocks, her hand clasped in Hermann’s.

“Why do you sigh, my Alba?” he asked her once reproachfully. “Are you afraid I shall not make you happy?”

“I am afraid of being too happy; I am so happy now that I could die of it. And by and by, when I am your wife, and you will never leave me, and that all I used to long for when I believed in fairies shall be mine—I feel as if the joy of it must kill me. Hermann, we will try to be very good together, will we not? We will do our best to make everybody good and happy. There shall be no poor people here, and when they are sick we will have a good doctor to come and take care of them, and I will go and nurse them myself. I hope they will all love me. Do you think they will? Sometimes I am frightened lest they shouldn’t care for me any more when I am a great lady, living in a castle.”

“You foolish child! They will care ten times more for you then,” said Hermann, “because you will be able to do so much for them.” Then, looking at her with a smile at once tender and suspicious, “What a greedy little thing it is for love!” he said. “You can’t care for me as I do for you, Alba, or else my love would be enough for you; I don’t long for anybody’s love but yours.”

“It is not so much that as that I long to make them happy,” explained Alba; “and how can I do that until I can make them love me?”

They quarrelled over this philosophy of hers, and then made plans for the future.

“You will take me to see all the beautiful places you have told me of, will you not?” said Alba.

“I will take you round the world, if you like it—that is, if you don’t get tired of it before we are half way.”

“Tired! with you? I should never be tired—never, never, never.” She repeated the word in a low voice, as if speaking to herself, while looking dreamily out over the sea, where a ship, with her white sails set, was drifting away into the sunset.

“Where shall we go to first?” said Hermann.

“To Egypt, I think; or perhaps to Italy—I am dying to see the city with the streets of water, and Spain, where the palaces grow, and Moorish temples; but let us go first of all to Germany and see the countries where you won the battles. I should like that best. O Hermann, Hermann! how happy we shall be.” And then, as if her heart were overfull of joy, she began to sing. Hermann liked this better. Those silent, rapturous moods sometimes frightened him, as if they were a demand for something that he could not give. M. de Gondriac was as much in love as a man could be, and so far he would have no difficulty in making his wife’s happiness his chief concern; but he was quite aware that this was not to be achieved by the usual commonplace means. Something more than ordinary love, let it be ever so tender and chivalrous, was needed to satisfy the cravings of a heart like Alba’s. She worshipped him as the noblest of men; and it was no easy thing to realize this ideal. Would he be able to achieve it, to live up to her exalted standard through the coming years, when the glamour of young love’s idealizing mists should have cleared away, and his wife would be at leisure to observe him with her clear, intelligent eyes?

But a cloud was gathering over these sunny days of courtship. M. de Gondriac was summoned to Paris by the chief of the War Office. The call, of course, brooked no delay. His arm, though nearly healed, still incapacitated him from joining his regiment; but he must go in person and certify to this. Though they might admit him unfit for active service, he might be retained in attendance on the emperor; Bonaparte liked to have high-sounding names upon his personal staff. But Hermann would not alarm Alba by suggesting this possibility. They parted in sweet sorrow, looking forward to meeting soon again.

Alas! is it a decree of fate that the course of true love never shall run smooth? Are poets prophets, or do the loves of all humanity conspire to make their voice an oracle? The days went by, and Alba waited; but Hermann neither came nor wrote, and they could get no tidings of him. Had he been ordered to the frontier, in spite of his disabled arm, and killed or taken prisoner? Doubts crowded upon Alba’s heart until they almost stopped its pulses. But Virginie feared even worse than this, and, if her fears were true, there was no comfort in store. M. de Gondriac had felt strong enough to brave the emperor’s displeasure at a distance; but how when he stood face to face with it, with the power of that magnetic will, with the ridicule of his equals, with the blandishments of refined court ladies? Was his love of the metal to challenge these antagonistic forces and prevail?

Spring passed, and summer, and now it was harvest-time; the reapers waded through the yellow fields, the sickle was singing in the corn, the grapes hung heavy on the vine. But no news came from Hermann. Alba pined and drooped, and at last fell ill. The doctor came from X—— and saw her, and said that it would be nothing; it was weakness and oppression on the heart; she wanted care and nourishment. But no care revived her. She grew weaker and weaker, and the low fever came, and there was no strength left to battle with it. But Virginie would not see the danger; when the neighbors came for news, she would answer, with a smile on her wan face: “Thank God! no worse. The child is very weak; but last night she slept a little.” Thus twenty days went by, and then there came a change, and on the twenty-first day, as the Vesper bell was tolling, the _curé_ came, and Alba was anointed as a bride for heaven. The old man wept like a child as he blessed her and departed. “God comfort you, Mère Virginie!” he said, laying his hand heavily on the mother’s head. But Virginie was like one in whom the faculty of pain or of despair was paralyzed. “She will not die, M. le Curé. God is merciful; his heart is kind,” she said. When the sun was going down, Alba spoke: “Mother, bring me his picture and the pearls he gave me; I should like to wear them once before I go....” They brought the pearls and decked her in them; they smoothed back the moist, dark hair and crowned her with the queenly coronet; they clasped the necklace round her throat and the bracelets on her arms, while she lay quite passive, as if unconscious of what they were doing. Never had she looked so beautiful as at this hour in the deepening twilight, with the shadow of death stealing on her and touching her features with a celestial pathos. Virginie could not but see it now. Alba was going from her. But, no! it should not be. No, there was a God in heaven, a merciful, all-powerful God; it should not be. He would save her child even at this extremity. She had not cried to him loud enough before, but now she would cry and he should hear her, now that she knew how dire was her need of him. She knelt down at a little distance from the bed and began to pray. It was terrible to see her; to see how despair and faith wrestled within her. The agony of the strife was visible in her face; it was pale as death, and the big drops stood upon her brow, that was contracted as by breathless pain; her eyes were open, fixed in a rigid stare as on some unseen presence; her white lips, drawn in, were slightly parted, as if to let the words escape that she could not articulate; her hands were locked together, bloodless from the fierce grip of the fingers. Old Jeanne cowered in the corner as she watched her.

An hour went by. The tide was coming in; the waves were washing on the shore with the old familiar sound. The moon rose and stirred the shadows on the plain; its light stole through the latticed window and overflowed in a silver stream upon the bed, illuminating it like a shrine in the darkened chamber.

“Mother!” murmured Alba faintly.

“My child!”

“Kiss me, mother.... I am going....”

“Alba! my child!... O God! O God! have pity on me....”

But Alba had passed beyond the mother’s voice.

* * * * *

There are cries, we sometimes say, that might wake the dead—cries that sound like a disembodied spirit, as if a human soul had broken loose with all its terrors and hopes and concentrated life of love and agony, and, escaping in a voice, traversed the void of space and pierced into the life beyond. Those who have heard that cry will remember the silence that followed it—a silence like no other, infinite, death-like, as if the pulse of time stood still, hearkening for the echo on the other side.

The neighbors came and grieved. “How beautiful she is!” they whispered to one another, as they stood by the couch where Alba lay smiling in her death-sleep and decked in her bridal pearls. “No wonder our young lord loved her. How strange that he should have left her! Has she died of love, I wonder?” Many thought more of Virginie than of Alba. “She will die of grief,” they said. For Virginie had not shed a tear, not uttered one wail of lamentation, since that great cry that followed Alba into the dark beyond. She and Jeanne had arrayed her in her bridal dress—those splendid robes of silk and lace which her lover in his pride had prepared for her; it was a foolish fancy, but the mother, remembering how her lost one had loved these splendors, seemed filled with a vague idea that they might even now give her some pleasure. When this was done she sat with her hands lying loosely locked together on her knees, gazing on the dead face, as mute and motionless as if she were dead herself. Yet some said they noticed a strange look like a gleam of disbelief in her eyes now and then, as if she thought death but mocked her with some kind intent.

The night and the day passed, and the night again, and to-day at noon the dead bride was to be borne away. Friends crowded in for a last look; then, as the hour drew near, there was a movement without, a sound of voices chanting in the distance, the tramp of feet approaching, and they knew it was time for them to go. But Virginie still sat there, pallid, immovable, like a statue set up to stir pity and reverence in the hearts of the beholders. Mme. Caboff laid a hand upon her arm and pressed her gently to come away. “The child is not dead, but sleepeth,” she said; “take comfort in that thought.”

Then Virginie rose like one waking from a trance, and that strange gleam of disbelief which some had noticed in her eyes was now visible to all. “Go ye away, my friends,” she said, “and leave me here awhile with my child and God.” There was no murmur of dissuasion, though many thought that grief had made her mad; the majesty of grief subdued them to obedience, and one by one they passed out of the room in silence.

Then Virginie knelt down and lifted up her voice in a last supreme appeal to God.

“She is not dead, but sleepeth! Was that a message from thee, Lord? Thou hast whispered it to my heart before. And what if she were dead—are not death and sleep alike to thee? Canst thou not wake from one as easily as from the other? She is not dead, but sleepeth! When the Jews laughed thee to scorn, thou didst glorify thy Father and raise the dead girl to life again, and all the people blessed thee. Thou didst pity the widow and restore her son, though she knew not of thy presence nor believed in thee. Wilt thou be less pitiful to me, who believe and cry to thee? Son of David, look down upon me, have pity upon me, and awake my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Canst thou not wake her from this sleep as readily as thou didst raise Lazarus from the grave where he had lain four days? Christ crucified! Redeemer! Saviour! Father! hearken to my prayer and have mercy on me! By thy pity for the widow, and for Lazarus’ sisters, and for thy own Mother at the foot of the cross, and for John and Magdalen, and for thy murderers, have pity on me and call back my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Father! by the birth of thy dear Son, by his thirty-three years’ toil and poverty, by his bloody sweat, by his scourging, by the nails that were hammered into his hands and feet, by the lance that cut into his heart, by his death and sleep in the sepulchre, by his victory over the grave, by his resurrection and his reign of glory at thy right hand, hear me and give me back my child! She is not dead, but sleepeth. Lord! I believe in thy name, I believe in thy love, I believe in thy mercy and omnipotence. I believe; O God! help thou my unbelief. The child is not dead, but sleepeth.”

She rose from her knees, and, pressing the crucifix with one hand on the breast of the dead, she held the other uplifted with priest-like solemnity. There was a pause of intense and awful silence; the chanting without had ceased; every ear was strained, every heart stood still, listening to the prayer they dared not say _amen_ to. Then Virginie’s voice arose again, sounding not like hers, but rather like a voice that came from some depth of life within, beyond her, and making the mute void vibrate to its solemn tones: “_Alba! in the name of the living God, awake!_...”

Then silence closed upon her speech, and every pulse was stilled to a deeper hush.... The white lids quivered, the sleeper’s breast heaved beneath the pressure of the cross, sending forth a soft, long sigh, and Alba was awake.

“Mother!”

And now a cry arose from without the cottage which must surely have been heard in heaven; for the rocks took it up and bore it out to sea, and the waves rolled it back to the reverberating shore, and deep called unto deep, and louder and louder it rose and rang, until it thrilled the welkin, and heaven sent back to earth the shout of jubilee and praise.

But there was one who did not join in it. When the first ecstasy of her thanksgiving was past, and Virginie had clasped the loved one in her arms, and felt the warm blood returning to the cold lips under her kisses, she saw that Alba was like one whose spirit was not there; her eyes were open in a wide, intense gaze, as if straining to see beyond their ken, her ears were deaf to the sounds around her, hearkening for a voice that others could not hear.

“My child, my darling, let us give thanks together!” Virginie said when they were once more alone. But Alba turned her eyes upon her mother with that far-off gaze that seemed to reach beyond the veil. “Mother,” she said, speaking in low, fearful tones—“mother, why did you call me back? Did you not know I was with God? I was with God,” she continued in the same hushed tones; “I was in heaven with the angels and all the blessed ones, so full of happiness that I have no words to speak of it.”

“Tell me what you saw, my child. It was a dream; but God sometimes gives us visions in a dream.”

“It was no dream, mother. I was dead. My soul had left my body and taken flight into eternity. I stood before the throne and saw the vision of God. But of this I cannot speak.”

Alba paused like one whom reverence made dumb, and then continued: “I sang. O the joy of victory that thrilled through me as I lifted up my voice, and heard it amongst all the voices of the blessed! That was the wonder. Voice upon voice uprose, till all the hosts of heaven were singing, and yet you heard each singer distinct from all the rest; each voice was different, as star differeth from star when all are shining. And there was room in the vast space for silence. I heard the silence, deep, palpitating, as when we hold our breath to listen, and I heard the songs as they rolled out in full organic numbers from the countless choir. I heard my own voice, clear and sweet and loud like the clarion of an archangel; thousands of nightingales singing as one bird in the stillness of the summer night were nothing to it! And then the joy of recognition and of love—the very air was warm with love. Every spirit in the angelic host—the saints, the prophets of the old law, the martyrs and confessors and virgins—all loved me and knew me with an individual knowledge, and I knew them. And—I know not how it was—though all were resting in a halcyon peace, none were idle; they were busy at some task in which the faculties of mind and soul, new-born and glorified and quickened a thousand-fold, were eagerly engaged. I seemed to see that they were governing the world and caring for the souls of men—of those chiefly whom they loved on earth. For this I know: that no true bond is broken by death; the loves of time live on into eternity; the sorrows of earth are felt and pitied up in heaven, and the blessed clasp us in their cherishing sympathies closer than they did on earth. For the life in heaven is manifold, and, while the blessed citizens toiled, and sang as if their very being were dissolving into music, their souls were dwelling in the light of the vision of God, feeding on its beauty in unbroken contemplation. All was activity, and a fulness of life compared to which our life is death, yet all was steeped in peace, in rest unutterable. O mother! why did you call me back from it?”

“It was a dream, my child; your soul was in a trance; perhaps it was at my prayer God woke you from it in time. But, Alba, are you not glad to be with me again? It seems to me that even in heaven I should have missed you!”

“I did not feel that I was parted from you; you seemed nearer to me there than when I was on earth. But, mother, I saw standing near the martyrs, yet not of them, a soul arrayed in crimson—that flaming light that I call crimson, not knowing its real name—and she stretched forth her arms to greet me with a greater joy than all the rest, and she called herself my mother?”

Virginie’s heart stood still. Had heaven betrayed her secret? If so, it were vain to try to hide it any longer. She told the truth to Alba. “And now,” she said, “you will love that mother in heaven better than you love me!” There was a look of humble, beseeching misery in her face as she said this that was most pitiful. But Alba did not answer; that far-off gaze was in her eyes again. At last, slowly turning them upon Virginie, she said: “Now I can understand why you called me back. If you had been my real mother you would have let me go; your love would have been brave enough to part with me, to suffer when you knew that I was happy.”

There was no anger in her voice, no reproach in her look; but the words held the bitterness of death to Virginie, and pierced her heart like blades of poisoned steel.

* * * * *

The mystery of the young lord’s silence ceased to occupy the first place in local gossip, now that a more exciting theme had been provided, but it held its place in Virginie’s mind and was seldom out of her thoughts.

“Would it not be a great joy to you to see him again?” she said to Alba.

“I should be glad of it, mother; but the time is so short it matters little whether I see him here or not.”

“You never loved him, Alba.”

“I loved him with my whole soul; I loved him too well. I would have died for love of him.”

She had died for love of him, the mother thought.

“And yet you do not care to see him again?”

“I am satisfied to wait until we meet in heaven.”

The spark was dead; it was useless trying to blow the cold ashes into a flame. Virginie devoured her heart in uncomplaining silence. If Alba’s reproach was merited, if her love had been at fault, tainted in its origin with egotism and cowardice, then it was meet that she should suffer and expiate the sin.

But Hermann, meantime, was on his way to Gondriac. He had not been killed or wounded or faithless; he had been confined at Vincennes by order of the emperor, in hopes that solitude might help him to see the folly of this intended marriage, and bend his stubborn fancy to the reasonable will of his imperial master. The experiment had failed. The emperor was dethroned, a captive now himself, and M. de Gondriac was free and speeding on the wings of love to claim the reward of his fidelity.

Before he reached the cottage on the cliff he had learned the story of Alba’s—resurrection, was it?—of her having passed in spirit through the gates of death, and come back to life so changed men hardly knew her for the same. “It was a trance,” the _curé_ said, when Hermann stopped on the road to take his greeting.

“It was death, monseigneur,” said the fishermen who gathered round his saddle-bow. “She died of love, and the mother’s prayer called her back to life; but the child left her heart in heaven and pines to be gone again.”

Hermann sent his horse on to the castle and made his way up the cliff, pondering this strange story. She had died of love of him, they said in their simple superstition, and was pining to die again. Sweet Alba! He would make her life such a paradise of love that she should have no reason to regret her glimpse of heaven. As he drew near the low, thatched cottage the purr of Virginie’s spinning-wheel came to him with the old familiar welcome. He opened the door and entered unannounced.

“Monseigneur!” She dropped her yarn with a cry.

The glad surprise subsided, Hermann in a few words explained all, and then heard the details of the wonderful tale Virginie had to tell.

“You will find her somewhere on the rocks,” she said. “It may be that the sudden sight of you will startle her dead heart into life and bring back a thrill of the old happiness; if not, I pray God to take her to himself, for the sight of the child’s patient misery is killing me.”

But M. de Gondriac had no such dismal apprehensions as he went out to seek his beautiful one. How would she meet him? Would it be with the old shy glance of pleasure, giving him her hand to kiss, and forbidding any tenderer caress by that air of virgin pride that sat on her so queenly? Or would joy break down the barriers and send her bounding into his arms? He trod the sandy grass with a quick, strong step, but the sound of his footfalls fell upon her ear unheeded; she sat motionless, with her face set towards the sea till he was at her side.

“Alba!”

Then she looked up, and a pale blush, faint as the heart of a white rose, clouded her face.

“Hermann!”

He caught her in his arms and kissed her, and she took his caress as she might have done a brother’s. The placid tenderness of her manner chilled him.

“Alba! my wife! You are glad to see me back again!” he said, still holding her close to him and looking into her eyes for some answering sigh, some flash of the old coy, shrinking fondness; but they looked back into his limpid, calm, passionless as a dove’s. She smiled and lifted up her face to kiss him. He bent down to receive it, but that proffered kiss was like the iron entering into his soul. The Alba whom he had left was not here; she had gone, he knew not whither, and in her place another being had come—a shadow of the woman who had loved him with all a woman’s tenderness. He sat down beside her and related the history of his life since they had parted, all he had suffered for her sake, and how light he held the suffering now that the reward was his; and she listened calmly, and spoke her gratitude with a gentle humility that was very touching. Then they were silent for a while, Alba apparently not caring to speak, Hermann longing to do so, but not daring to say what his mind was full of. At last Alba broke the spell.

“You know that I was dead,” she said; “I should be in heaven now, if mother had not called me back.”

“My darling! I will make a heaven for you on earth.”

“I once thought that was possible. I thought that heaven could give me nothing better than your love; but now I know that all the love of earth is but a shadow, a mockery compared to the love of heaven. It is nothing, nothing beside it! O Hermann! when we talk of happiness we are like blind fools. We don’t know what happiness means.”

“Alba! you have ceased to love me, or you would not speak so!”

“I love you as well as ever—nay, better than I did before; but, O Hermann! I should have loved you so infinitely better up in heaven. If you knew what the life of love is there!”

She clasped her hands, and her dark eyes shone with a supernatural light, as if the brightness of glory, invisible to him, were reflected there.

“You will tell me about it, darling, but not now,” he said, a terrible dread seizing him. “I want you to think of me a little now, and not so much of heaven. We must fix our wedding-day; it shall be soon, shall it not? There is no need for any delay.”

“No, there is no need,” she repeated. Then, after a pause, she said, looking calmly into his face: “Hermann, why should we not wait to wed one another in heaven?”

“There is no marrying or giving in marriage there,” he replied: but he had grown ashy pale, and the chill of a horrible fear was in his heart, deepening with every word that Alba spoke.

“You are angry with me,” she said, misunderstanding his pallor and the changed expression of his face. “O Hermann! don’t think that I have ceased to love you. I love you with all my heart. I have never loved any one, never could love any one, but you. Say you are not angry with me!”

“No, darling, I am not angry; but I thought we were to be so happy together, and I see that you are changed. But, Alba, I will not hold you to your promise; you shall not marry me unless you wish it.”

“I do wish it. I wish to make you happy. I have no other wish on earth now.”

He kissed her without answering, and they went home.

The terrible fear which for a moment possessed him was soon dispelled. Alba was not mad. Whatever was the mysterious change that had come over her, her reason was unimpaired. But all else was changed: the conditions of life had become reversed, the spiritual relations between the seen and the unseen were in some way disturbed, and things thrown out of their natural proportion. But the nature of the experience by which this change had been wrought eluded Hermann’s grasp, baffling reason while it compelled belief. Belief in what? Had Alba’s spirit, infringing the laws that rule our mortal state, broken loose from its prison, and been permitted to stand before the gates of pearl and taste of those joys which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive, and then been sent back to earth, home-sick as an exiled angel? Was this thing possible? Is anything not possible to Him who bids the lilies blow and the stars shine, and who holds the sea in the hollow of his hand? Hermann de Gondriac did not stop to investigate the mystery. His was one of those human souls whose deepest convictions lie dormant in their depths, not only unanalyzed but unrecognized, for want of a voice to question them. He loved Alba, and he would trust to his love to mend the broken spring and reconcile to the happiness of earth this heart enamored by the bliss of heaven.

* * * * *

The wedding-day rose bright and fair; a golden glow was on the flood; the sun shone on the breakers, turning the green to sapphire blue, while the tide flowed in, swelling the anthem of the dawn; the yellow woods round Alba’s home glistened like a golden zone, fit symbol of the enchanted life awaiting her within their magic ring. No sad Vesper bell was tolling; merrily the silver-footed chimes, like messengers of joy, tripped on to meet her on the morning air, as she came forth, once more arrayed in bridal pearls. A train of little children, clad in white and piping canticles, went on before, strewing flowers upon her path.

Pale as a lily in her snow-white robes was Alba, her dark eyes glowing with a light that was most beautiful; and when the bridegroom turned to greet her at the altar, her smile, they said, was like the smile of an angel.

The wedding rite began; the ring was passed, the solemn words were spoken: “_Until death do part ye...._” Then Alba, with a cry of joy, as when we greet some vision of delight, fell forward and was caught in Hermann’s arms.

“Farewell, beloved!... Mother, farewell!...”

“Alba! my wife! O God! can it be possible?...”

But loud above the lover’s wail and that of all the people Virginie’s voice was heard in tones more of jubilee than lamentation: “Thy will be done, O Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord!”

* * * * *

That night the moon rose late; the sea-gulls, poised above the purple flood, heard the waves wash softly on the noiseless shore; the stars came out and looked into the shining sea below; the rocks gleamed white as snow-peaks in the moonlight, and all the land lay listening to the silver silence. From out its depths a voice was calling, though only those who hearkened heard it, and the voice said: “Thou shalt see His face, ... and night shall be no more, and they shall not need the light of the lamp, nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall enlighten them, and they shall reign for ever and ever.”

THE END.

ITALY.
WRITTEN AFTER READING “POEMS OF PLACES—ITALY,” EDITED BY H. W.
LONGFELLOW.

I.

Amid those shining ways of Italy
I thought of one who walks with bandaged eyes,
Led by some loving guide who, in sweet guise
Of eloquent speech, makes blinded vision see
The very lines that make tall towers fair,
The peaceful saints that guard cathedral door—
In death still keeping watch the people o’er—
Lifting tired souls to holy heights of prayer.
Even frail nest familiar form doth wear
Built far above upon the shoulders broad
Of sculptured friar, bearing light the load
His brother birds give, trustful, in his care.
So, poet-led, seemeth scarce need of eyes,
Pictured earth’s loveliness in words so wise.

II.

The blinded wanderer sees the far-off light
Of shadowy Alp, and his the lingering glow
That breathes in western skies along the low
And gleaming marshes darkening with the night.
Not bluer to fond eyes that see most clear
Are Naples’ waves than break they in his sight;
Nor floats St. Peter’s dome in softer light,
Seen from the Pincian, than its image fair
Rests in the pilgrim’s heart that in Rome sings
Its _Nunc dimittis_, whether it hold dear
For Brutus’ sake the city, or revere
The holier presence shadowing with strong wings
The mighty one, earth’s new Jerusalem,
Whose virtue fills her very garment’s hem.

III.

He sees the shadows o’er the valley creep—
Nay, even knows he, through his guide’s clear speech,
Where, at each hour, the ilex shade shall reach.
Though blinded, he can feel the sunshine steep
The hill he climbs; fair Italy’s soft air
Grow yet more soft with pity for poor eyes
That only feel the brightness of her skies,
Not know the infinite depths that glisten there.
And quick his ears catch sound of falling stream,
Twitter of leaves in Vallombrosan woods,
Bird-carol flung from chestnut solitudes;
While soft-voiced waves, like music in a dream,
Now tread with rippling touch Sorrento’s shore,
Now rise and fall Venetian stairway o’er.

IV.

He hears in Roman mouth the Tuscan speech;
Hears Naples chant the light of Syracuse,
Siena’s tongue, in guileless praise let loose,
In its pure utterance ancient glory teach.
And tells the poet to the wondering heart
Old histories of older Latin days;
Of distraught Italy’s sad, stormy ways
When feud and treason tore her sons apart,
When Dante ate the exile’s bitter bread,
When eagles dark swept down upon the land,
And lilies white, that should all stain withstand,
With deeds unworthy were discolorèd.
While from the Vaudois’ shivering mountain crown
The echoes of their bard-sung wars sweep down.

V.

Singeth the poet of still nearer days
When all the little lands fade one by one,
Like wan stars melting 'neath Sardinia’s sun—
While, for her crowning, 'mid the strangers’ praise,
Hastes Italy unto the Capitol.
Life of her sons laid down for her new life,
Maidens their soldiers arming for the strife,
Weeping the field where love and banner fall.
Sings he of carbine and of bayonet
That gleam and darken on Perugian hills,
Of sorrow that a frightened city fills,
And priestly robe with blood defenceless wet.
White Roman robe earth’s shadow marketh dark—
World-licensed target for the poets’ mark!

VI.

The pilgrim hearkens to his guide’s strong words,
Basks in their sunshine, thanketh for their dew,
Yet wonders, could his eyes behold the blue
As well as ears can mark the song of birds,
If something still he lacks he might not find—
Some perfect key of heavenly harmony
That should attune all sad discordancy,
In true accord the clashing fragments bind.
Soft fall the _Angelus_ bells on listening ear,
The _Miserere_, in distress divine,
Wails from the heart of city Leonine.
Feels he the light that makes his darkness clear,
Grasps he the chord of pure and infinite blue
His picture lacks to make its color true.

VII.

So, poet-led, I trod Italian ways,
Seeing the glimmer of pale olive-trees,
Drifting, entranced, o’er warm Sicilian seas,
Hearkening Siena’s perfect speech of praise,
Drinking of Trevi’s fountain, o’er and o’er,
Yet craving ever something still more rare,
Some gift of grace that Italy must wear
To make her so the heart’s-best evermore;
Some crown above her hills, than her blue seas
More luminous, beyond her painters’ fame,
Or passionate poets’ soaring words of flame,
More than all proudest earthly destinies.
So drowned, amid the peal of Saxon bells,
Thought of that life wherein her true soul dwells.

VIII.

Seemed it as if the poet built a shrine—
Lifting its towers in the radiant air
The doves might haunt to make it seem more fair,
Lifting its columns that an art divine
With watching saints should crown, setting its floor
In firm mosaic, where, alas! inwrought
Should forms misshapen of ungentle thought
Sadden the Roman sunshine wandering o’er,
That, creeping onward, still should hope to kiss
The gladder sunshine of St. Philip’s feet.
Heaped high the altar with all flowers sweet—
Rich Italy’s unstinted loveliness—
Kindled the lamp before the inmost shrine,
Withheld the presence of the Guest Divine!

THE SEVEN VALLEYS OF THE LAVEDAN.

On the 4th of July, 1876—the day after the coronation of Notre Dame de Lourdes, _la plus noble dame qui fut jamais_, to use the expression of an old chronicler—we set out for the springs of Cauterets. South of Lourdes the mountains seem to stand apart to afford a passage to the headlong Gave. Here begins the Lavedan, the old _Pagus Lavitanensis_, which comprises seven valleys that extend to the very frontier of Spain. This was the ancient country of the Sotiates, who were famous for their horsemanship, as Lavedan has always been for its horses. In the middle ages it became a vicomté, which dated from the early Carlovingians and flourished for more than seven centuries. The vicomtes of Lavedan figured in all the great wars of their time, particularly against the Moors in Spain, and became so powerful as to defy the Count of Bigorre, their own liege lord. They displayed great valor, too, against the English, who for sixty years held the citadel of Lourdes that commanded the entrance to their valleys, as well as several fastnesses among the mountains. We find members of their race among the bishops, abbots, and Knights-Templars of the province, as if able in every path of life to assert their capacity. The last of the old lords fought with Dunois the brave under the banner of Joan of Arc at Orleans. His only grandchild married Charles de Bourbon, a favorite of Henry IV.’s. The glory of this family, however, is mostly confined to the Pyrenees, and might never have come down to modern times had it not been for the faithful chroniclers of the Lavedan monasteries. It is, in fact, first mentioned in 945 in a cartulary of the abbey of St. Savin, of which it was a benefactor.

Hardly had we entered the valley of the Lavedan before we saw, on an isolated mount at the left, the dismantled tower of Hieou, one of the signal-towers that, in times of border warfare, used to transmit messages from the Spanish frontier to the heart of France. The shores of the Gave were deliciously fresh, but the mountains on both sides are at first treeless and uninteresting. Nothing grows on them but the purple heather, and patches of odorous shrubs that perfume the valley. Here and there on their sides are great heaps of black slate from the numerous quarries. But these mountains have a certain austere charm of their own, not unbefitting sentinels that guard the approaches to the grotto of the Virgin. We passed group after group of pilgrims returning from the recent celebration, with red crosses fastened to their breasts, or blue-and-white badges of the Immaculate Conception, saying their rosaries or singing a hymn. They invariably saluted us politely as we drove past, and two bronzed mountaineers whom we stopped for information sped us on our way with the pious wish: “May God accompany you!”

After several leagues the mountains became wooded, and a bend of the river, along which we kept, brought us into the delightful basin of Argelés, one of the valleys of the Lavedan. This is the Eden of the Pyrenees. On the mountain slopes grow the walnut and the oak. The roads are shaded with long lines of ash-trees. The meadows were covered with rich harvests. The thickets were blooming with roses. The houses were almost buried among fruit-trees of all kinds. Every now and then we came to a tall cross with the insignia of the Passion, or some wayside niche with its Virgin and fresh flowers before her. We passed the square tower of Vidalos on a height, and farther on came to the ancient castle of Vieuzac, once a military post that kept alive the signal-fires in troubled times. On every hand were quaint-looking villages with pretty chapels half-hidden in the folds of the mountains, each with some old monument, or older tradition, to which it fondly clings. From Agos to Pierrefitte, only about six miles, there are ten charming villages set in a framework of mountains no poet could describe. They close around this happy valley, as if to shield it from all outward influences. During the Huguenot ascendency in the neighboring province of Béarn it is said no taint of the new religion ever found its way into this valley. At the north is Mount Balandraü, easily ascended, that affords a fine view of the country, which is full of wonderful contrasts. The Gave winds swiftly through the most beautiful of valleys; on every hand are the mountains, sometimes like a vast rampart of verdure, sometimes swelling up, one after the other, like great waves, with a high peak occasionally, jagged as a saw, and in the distance the eternal glaciers glittering in the sun and feeding the numerous cascades and torrents that lash the mountain sides.

To this peaceful valley came St. Orens from his native Spain, in the fourth century, before whom, according to the Spanish legend, a supernatural light burned and a mysterious hand pointed the way. And it was yonder umbrageous mountain that, when he sought to escape from the fame of his sanctity, opened at his approach and hid him in its bosom.

Here, too, four centuries after, came St. Savin, son of the Count of Barcelona, when he forsook the grandeurs of the world for a cell in the wilderness. A few years since there were vestiges of his cell at Pouey Aspé, after a thousand years; and tradition points out the fountain that sprang up from a blow of his staff when the stream that flowed past his cell dried up in the summer. His tomb is still honored in the abbey church of St. Savin, which is one of the most conspicuous objects in the landscape, with its queer steeple, shaped like an extinguisher.

No tourist fails to visit St. Savin: the archæologist on account of its old Romanesque church of the tenth century; the artist for its picturesque site; the pious to honor one of the most popular saints of the seven valleys; and the political economist because, in the middle ages, this abbey was the nucleus of a little republic of eight villages, called the Pascal of St. Savin, the inhabitants of which had from time immemorial the right of universal suffrage, and where even the women, without the advantages of modern progress, were admitted to vote!

The abbey of St. Savin—that is what remains of it—stands on the side of a mountain amid dense groves of chestnut-trees. According to the old cartularies, it was founded by Charlemagne on the site of the Palatium Æmilianum erected by the Romans after the conquest to keep the country in subjection, but ruined by the Saracens. Roland himself is said to have received hospitality from the monks. Pulci, in his _Rotta di Roncisvalle_, relates how he delivered them from the giants Alabastre and Passamonte, and their brother Morgante only escaped being cleft in two by submitting to be baptized in the church. This monastery, renowned in legend and song, was burned to the ground by the fierce Normans, and it was more than a century before it rose from its ashes. It was restored by Raymond I., Count of Bigorre, about the middle of the tenth century. He gave the house to the monks of St. Benedict, and bestowed on them the valley of Cauterets, on condition that they would build a church there in honor of St. Martin, and provide accommodations for those who should frequent the springs. He also made over to them his rights to the game in the _pascal_ valleys, as well as certain claims on the produce of the dairy. The abbey became likewise an object of bounty to other neighboring lords, who confided in St. Savin when alive, and in death wished to lie near his hallowed shrine. Cornelia de Barbazan, grandmother of a Vicomtesse de Lavedan, had great devotion to St. Savin, and gave the monastery one-half the abbey of Agos. The other half belonged to Arnaud de Tors, a lord who only had two children, and they were deaf mutes. He offered them both to God and St. Savin, and subsequently his wife, himself, and all he possessed. Cornelia’s husband outlived her, and on his death-bed asked the monks of St. Savin for the monastic habit, and gave them also all he owned at Agos. The kings of Navarre, the vicomtes of Béarn, and Henry IV. himself proved themselves the zealous patrons of this monastery.

The abbey of St. Savin became the intellectual as well as moral centre of the valleys around. Several of the abbots were noted for their sanctity, and most of them were from good families. They figured among the great lords of the province, and when they visited the little states of their republic the people came out to meet them with young maidens bearing flowers in a basket. They had certain feudal rights over the eight villages, but bound themselves, on taking possession of their office, to respect the customs and privileges of the inhabitants, believed to have been handed down from the beginning of time. The people were none of them serfs, but all free citizens who had the right of deciding by majority of votes every question that affected the interests of the republic. Each village was a little state by itself, and sent its representatives to the general assembly, which was held in the cloister of St. Savin. The women themselves, as we have said, had a voice in public affairs. An old record of 1316 says that when the people of Cauterets came together in the porch of the church to decide whether they should yield to the abbot’s proposition to change the site of the town and baths, they all consented, except one strong-minded woman, named Gaillardine de Fréchou, who stoutly held out against the lord abbot. Women seem to have been regarded in these valleys as something sacred. In the old statutes of the country, drawn up by the abbot of St. Savin and other dignitaries of the province, one of the articles declared that if a criminal took refuge under a woman’s protection, his person was safe, on condition of his repairing the damage. She gave him asylum, as if a temple, or had something of the nature of a divinity! This code also forbade the creditors seizing the oxen and agricultural implements of the laborer. The people elected seven judges to try all criminal cases, but the abbot exercised the higher prerogatives of justice. He never stained his hands with blood, however; it was the Count of Bigorre alone who could impose the sentence of death. The abbot had special rights, also, which he jealously guarded as a means of revenue. The pastors of the eight villages could say Low Mass for their flocks and administer the Holy Communion, but High Mass had to be attended at St. Savin, where the children were also brought to be baptized and the dead for burial, unless in exceptional cases. The obligation of baptism and burial at St. Savin was not confined to the Pascal, but extended to the sixty villages of the valleys of Argelés and Azun. The people had the privilege of hunting in the forests and fishing in the streams—and the game and trout are not to be despised in these days—but the abbot had a right to the skins and a shoulder of certain animals, and an annual tribute of fish.

The monks of St. Savin were noted for their hospitality, and they often received visits from those who frequented the baths of Cauterets. In the sixteenth century they welcomed Catharine of Navarre in spite of her _Contes_ and taste for the doctrines of Calvin; and in the seventeenth the poet Bertin, who, in his light, scoffing way, has celebrated “the long dinner and short Mass of the good abbot of St. Savin,” though he does not seem to have attended the latter, brief as it might have been.

Margaret of Navarre had been staying at Cauterets, where she is said to have composed the _Heptaméron_. She set out thence for Tarbes, but the bridges had all been carried away by rains, which she says were “so marvellous and great that it seemed as if God had forgotten his promise to Noe not to destroy the earth again by water.” The preface to her work says: “After riding all day she and her suite towards evening espied a belfry, where, as well as they could, but not without great trouble and difficulty, they succeeded in arriving, and were kindly received by the abbot and monks of the abbey, called St. Savin. The abbot, who was of an excellent family, lodged them very honorably, and, as he conducted them to their rooms, made inquiries as to the dangers they had undergone. After listening to their account he told them they were not alone in their misfortunes, for there were two young ladies in another apartment who had escaped great danger. These poor ladies, at half a league from Pierrefitte, had met a bear descending from the mountain, from which they fled at such speed that their horses fell dead on arriving at their place of refuge.”