Agnes seemed pleased with the enthusiastic discourse of her uncle. The tears gradually dried from her eyes as she listened to him, and the hope so natural to the young and untried heart began to reassert itself. God was merciful, the world beautiful; there was a tender Mother, a reigning Saviour, protecting angels and guardian saints: surely, then, there was no need to despair of the recall of any wanderer; and the softest supplication of the most ignorant and unworthy would be taken up by so many sympathetic voices in the invisible world, and borne on in so many waves of brightness to the heavenly throne, that the most timid must have hope in prayer.
In the afternoon, the monk went to the town to seek the young artist, and also to inquire for the stranger for whom his pastoral offices were in requisition, and Agnes remained alone in the little solitary garden.
It was one of those rich slumberous afternoons of spring that seem to bathe earth and heaven with an Elysian softness; and from her little lonely nook shrouded in dusky shadows by its orange-trees, Agnes looked down the sombre gorge to where the open sea lay panting and palpitating in blue and violet waves, while the little white sails of fishing-boats drifted hither and thither, now silvered in the sunshine, now fading away like a dream into the violet vapor bands that mantled the horizon. The weather would have been oppressively sultry but for the gentle breeze which constantly drifted landward with coolness in its wings. The hum of the old town came to her ear softened by distance and mingled with the patter of the fountain and the music of birds singing in the trees overhead. Agnes tried to busy herself with her spinning; but her mind constantly wandered away, and stirred and undulated with a thousand dim and unshaped thoughts and emotions, of which she vaguely questioned in her own mind. Why did Father Francesco warn her so solemnly against an earthly love? Did he not know her vocation? But still he was wisest and must know best; there must be danger,144 if he said so. But then, this knight had spoken so modestly, so humbly, — so differently from Giulietta’s lovers! — for Giulietta had sometimes found a chance to recount to Agnes some of her triumphs. How could it be that a knight so brave and gentle, and so piously brought up, should become an infidel? Ah, uncle Antonio was right, — he must have had some foul wrong, some dreadful injury! When Agnes was a child, in traveling with her grandmother through one of the highest passes of the Apennines, she had chanced to discover a wounded eagle, whom an arrow had pierced, sitting all alone by himself on a rock, with his feathers ruffled, and a film coming over his great, clear, bright eye, — and, ever full of compassion, she had taken him to nurse, and had traveled for a day with him in her arms; and the mournful look of his regal eyes now came into her memory. “Yes,” she said to herself, “he is like my poor eagle! The archers have wounded him, so that he is glad to find shelter even with a poor maid like me; but it was easy to see my eagle had been king among birds, even as this knight is among men. Certainly, God must love him, — he is so beautiful and noble! I hope dear uncle will find him this afternoon; he knows how to teach him; as for me I can only pray.”
Such were the thoughts that Agnes twisted into the shining white flax, while her eyes wandered dreamily over the soft hazy landscape. At last, lulled by the shivering sound of leaves, and the bird-songs, and wearied with the agitations of the morning, her head lay back against the end of the sculptured fountain, the spindle slowly dropped from her hand, and her eyes were closed in sleep, the murmur of the fountain still sounding in her dreams. In her dreams she seemed to be wandering far away among the purple passes of the Apennines, where she had come years ago when she was a little girl; with her grandmother she pushed through old olive-groves, weird and twisted with many a quaint gnarl, and rustling their pale silvery leaves in noonday twilight. Sometimes she seemed to carry in her bosom a wounded eagle, and often she sat down to stroke it and to try to give it food from her hand, and as often it looked upon her with a proud, patient eye, and then her grandmother seemed to shake her roughly by the arm and bid her throw the silly bird away; — but then again the dream changed, and she saw a knight lie bleeding and dying in a lonely hollow, — is garments torn, his sword broken, and his face pale and faintly streaked with blood; and she kneeled by him, trying in vain to stanch a deadly wound in his side, while he said reproachfully, “Agnes, dear Agnes, why would you not save me?” and then she thought he kissed her hand with his cold dying lips; and she shivered and awoke, — to find that her hand was indeed held in that of the cavalier, whose eyes met her own when first she unclosed them, and the same voice that spoke in her dream said, “Agnes, dear Agnes!”
For a moment she seemed stupefied and confounded, and sat passively regarding the knight, who kneeled at her feet and repeatedly kissed her hand, calling her his saint, his star, his life, and whatever other fair name poetry lends to love. All at once, however, her face flushed crimson red, she drew her hand quickly away, and, rising up, made a motion to retreat, saying, in a voice of alarm, —
“Oh, my Lord, this must not be! I am committing deadly sin to hear you. Please, please go! please leave a poor girl!”
“Agnes, what does this mean?” said the cavalier. “Only two days since, in this place, you promised to love me; and that promise has brought me from utter despair to love of life. Nay, since you told me that, I have been able to pray once more; the whole world seems changed for me: and now will you take it all away, — you, who are all I have on earth?”
“My Lord, I did not know then that I was sinning. Our dear Mother knows I said only what I thought was true and right, but I find it was a sin.”
“A sin to love, Agnes? Heaven must be full of sin, then; for there they do nothing else.”
“Oh, my Lord, I must not argue with you; I am forbidden to listen even for a moment. Please go. I will never forget you, sir, — never forget to pray for you, and to love you as they love in heaven; but I am forbidden to speak with you. I fear I have sinned in hearing and saying even this much.”
“Who forbids you, Agnes? Who has the right to forbid your good, kind heart to love, where love is so deeply needed and so gratefully received?”
“My holy father, whom I am bound to obey as my soul’s director,” said Agnes. “He has forbidden me so much as to listen to a word, and yet I have listened to many. How could I help it?”
“Ever these priests!” said the cavalier, his brow darkening with an impatient frown; “wolves in sheep’s clothing!”
“Alas!” said Agnes, sorrowfully, “why will you” —
“Why will I what?” he said, facing suddenly toward her and looking down with a fierce, scornful determination.
“Why will you be at war with the Holy Church? Why will you peril your eternal salvation?”
“Is there a Holy Church? Where is it? Would there were one! I am blind and cannot see it. Little Agnes, you promised to lead me; but you drop my hand in the darkness. Who will guide me, if you will not?”
“My Lord, I am most unfit to be your guide. I am a poor girl, without any learning; but there is my uncle I spoke to you of. Oh, my Lord, if you only would go to him, he is wise and gentle both. I must go in now, my Lord, — indeed, I must. I must not sin further. I must do a heavy penance for having listened and spoken to you, after the holy father had forbidden me.”
“No, Agnes, you shall not go in,” said the cavalier, suddenly stepping before her and placing himself across the doorway; “you shall see me, and hear me too. I take the sin on myself; you cannot help it. How will you avoid me? Will you fly now down the path of the gorge? I will follow you, — I am desperate. I had but one comfort on earth, but one hope of heaven, and that through you; and you, cruel, are so ready to give me up at the first word of your priest!”
“God knows if I do it willingly,” said Agnes; “but I know it is best; for I feel I should love you too well, if I saw more of you. My Lord, you are strong and can compel me, but I beg you to leave me.”
“Dear Agnes, could you really feel it possible that you might love me too well?” said the cavalier, his whole ma
nner changing. “Ah! could I carry you far away to my home in the mountains, far up in the beautiful blue mountains, where the air is so clear, and the weary, wrangling world lies so far below that one forgets it entirely, you should be my wife, my queen, my empress. You should lead me where you would, your word should be my law. I will go with you wherever you will, — to confession, to sacrament, to prayers, never so often; never will I rebel against your word; if you decree, I will bend my neck to king or priest; I will reconcile me with anybody or anything only for your sweet sake; you shall lead me all my life; and when we die, I ask only that you may lead me to our Mother’s throne in heaven, and pray her to tolerate me for your sake. Come, now, dear, is not even one unworthy soul worth saving?”
“My Lord, you have taught me how wise my holy father was in forbidding me to listen to you. He knew better than I how weak was my heart, and how I might be drawn on from step to step till — My Lord, I must be no man’s wife. I follow the blessed Saint Agnes! May God give me grace to keep my vows without wavering! — for then I shall gain power to intercede for you and bring down blessings on your soul. Oh, never, never speak to me so again, my Lord! — you will make me very, very unhappy. If there is any truth in your words, my Lord, if you really love me, you will go, and you will never try to speak to me again.”
“Never, Agnes? never? Think what you are saying!”
“Oh, I do think! I know it must be best,” said Agnes, much agitated; “for, if I should see you often and hear your voice, I should lose all my strength. I could never resist, and I should lose heaven for you and me too. Leave me, and I will never, never forget to pray for you; and go quickly too, for it is time for my grandmother to come home, and she would be so angry, — she would never believe I had not been doing wrong, and perhaps she would make me marry somebody that I do not wish to. She has threatened that many times; but I beg her to leave me free to go to my sweet home in the convent and my dear Mother Theresa.”
“They shall never marry you against your will, little Agnes, I pledge you my knightly word. I will protect you from that. Promise me, dear, that, if ever you be man’s wife, you will be mine. Only promise me that, and I will go.”
“Will you?” said Agnes, in an ecstasy of fear and apprehension, in which there mingled some strange troubled gleams of happiness. “Well, then, I will. Ah! I hope it is no sin!”
“Believe me, dearest, it is not,” said the knight. “Say it again, — say, that I may hear it, — say, ‘If ever I am man’s wife, I will be thine,’ — say it, and I will go.”
“Well, then, my Lord, if ever I am man’s wife, I will be thine,” said Agnes. “But I will be no man’s wife. My heart and hand are promised elsewhere. Come, now, my Lord, your word must be kept.”
“Let me put this ring on your finger, lest you forget,” said the cavalier. “It was my mother’s ring, and never during her lifetime heard anything but prayers and hymns. It is saintly, and worthy of thee.”
“No, my Lord, I may not. Grandmother would inquire about it. I cannot keep it; but fear not my forgetting; I shall never forget you.”
“Will you ever want to see me, Agnes?”
“I hope not, since it is not best. But you do not go.”
“Well, then, farewell, my little wife! farewell, till I claim thee!” said the cavalier, as he kissed her hand, and vaulted over the wall.
“How strange that I cannot make him understand!” said Agnes, when he was gone. “I must have sinned, I must have done wrong; but I have been trying all the while to do right. Why would he stay so, and look at me so with those deep eyes? I was very hard with him, — very! I trembled for him, I was so severe; and yet it has not discouraged him enough. How strange that he would call me so, after all, when I explained to him I never could marry! Must I tell all this to Father Francesco? How dreadful! How he looked at me before! How he trembled and turned away from me! What will he think now? Ah, me! why must I tell him? If I could only confess to my mother Theresa, that would be easier. We have a mother in heaven to hear us; why should we not have a mother on earth? Father Francesco frightens me so! His eyes burn me! They seem to burn into my soul, and he seems angry with me sometimes, and sometimes looks at me so strangely! Dear, blessed Mother,” she said, kneeing at the shrine, “help thy little child! I do not want to do wrong: I want to do right. Oh that I could come and live with thee!”
Poor Agnes! a new experience had opened in her heretofore tranquil life, and her day was one of conflict. Do what she would, the words that had been spoken to her in the morning would return to her mind, and sometimes she awoke with a shock of guilty surprise at finding she had been dreaming over what the cavalier said to her of living with him alone, in some clear, high, purple solitude of those beautiful mountains which she remembered as an enchanted dream of her childhood. Would he really always love her, then, always go with her to prayers and mass and sacrament, and be reconciled to the Church, and should she indeed have the joy of feeling that this noble soul was led back to heavenly peace through her? Was not this better than a barren life of hymns and prayers in a cold convent? Then the very voice that said these words, that voice of veiled strength and manly daring, that spoke with such a gentle pleading, and yet such an undertone of authority, as if he had a right to claim her for himself, — she seemed to feel the tones of that voice in every nerve; — and then the strange thrilling pleasure of thinking that he loved her so. Why should he, this strange, beautiful knight? Doubtless he had seen splendid high-born ladies, — he had seen even queens and princesses, — and what could he find to like in her, a poor little peasant? Nobody ever thought so much of her before, and he was so unhappy without her; — it was strange he should be; but he said so, and it must be true. After all, Father Francesco might be mistaken about his being wicked. On the whole, she felt sure he was mistaken, at least in part. Uncle Antonio did not seem to be so much shocked at what she told him; he knew the temptations of men better, perhaps, because he did not stay shut up in one convent, but traveled all about, preaching and teaching. If only he could see him, and talk with him, and make him a good Christian, — why, then, there would be no further need of her; and Agnes was surprised to find what a dreadful, dreary blank appeared before her when she thought of this. Why should she wish him to remember her, since she never could be his? — and yet nothing seemed so dreadful as that he should forget her. So the poor little innocent fly beat and fluttered in the mazes of that enchanted web, where thousands of her frail sex have beat and fluttered before.
CHAPTER XIII. THE MONK AND THE CAVALIER
Father Antonio had been down through the streets of the old town of Sorrento, searching for the young stonecutter, and finding him had spent some time in enlightening him as to the details of the work he wished him to execute.
He found him not so easily kindled into devotional fervors as he had fondly imagined, nor could all his most devout exhortations produce one quarter of the effect upon him that resulted from the discovery that it was the fair Agnes who originated the design and was interested in its execution. Then did the large black eyes of the youth kindle into something of sympathetic fervor, and he willingly promised to do his very best at the carving.
“I used to know the fair Agnes well, years ago,” he said, “but of late she will not even look at me; yet I worship her none the less. Who can help it that sees her? I don’t think she is so hard-hearted as she seems; but her grandmother and the priests won’t so much as allow her to lift up her eyes when one of us young fellows goes by. Twice these five years past have I seen her eyes, and then it was when I contrived to get near the holy water when there was a press round it of a saint’s day, and I reached some to her on my finger, and then she smiled upon me and thanked me. Those two smiles are all I have had to live on for all this time. Perhaps, if I work very well, she will give me another, and perhaps she will say, ‘Thank you, my good Pietro!’ as she used to, when I brought her birds’ eggs or helped her across the ravine, years ago.”
; “Well, my brave boy, do your best,” said the monk, “and let the shrine be of the fairest white marble. I will be answerable for the expense; I will beg it of those who have substance.”
“So please you, holy father,” said Pietro, “I know of a spot, a little below here on the coast, where was a heathen temple in the old days; and one can dig therefrom long pieces of fair white marble, all covered with heathen images. I know not whether your Reverence would think them fit for Christian purposes.”
“So much the better, boy! so much the better!” said the monk, heartily. “Only let the marble be fine and white, and it is as good as converting a heathen any time to baptize it to Christian uses. A few strokes of the chisel will soon demolish their naked nymphs and other such rubbish, and we can carve holy virgins, robed from head to foot in all modesty, as becometh saints.”
“I will get my boat and go down this very afternoon,” said Pietro; “and, sir, I hope I am not making too bold in asking you, when you see the fair Agnes, to present unto her this lily, in memorial of her old playfellow.”
Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe Page 178