Complete Works of Harriet Beecher Stowe

by Harriet Beecher Stowe

  And by the twinkle of the flickering lamp which threw its light upon the picture, Agnes thought surely the placid face brightened to a tender maternal smile, and her enthusiastic imagination saw in this an omen of success.

  Old Elsie was moody and silent this evening, — vexed at the thwarting of her schemes. It was the first time that the idea had ever gained a foothold in her mind, that her docile and tractable grandchild could really have for any serious length of time a will opposed to her own, and she found it even now difficult to believe it. Hitherto she had shaped her life as easily as she could mould a biscuit, and it was all plain sailing before her. The force and decision of this young will rose as suddenly upon her as the one rock in the middle of the ocean which a voyager unexpectedly discovered by striking on it.

  But Elsie by no means regarded the game as lost. She mentally went over the field, considering here and there what was yet to be done.

  The subject had fairly been broached. Agnes had listened to it, and parted in friendship from Antonio. Now his old mother must be soothed and pacified; and Antonio must be made to persevere.

  “What is a girl worth that can be won at the first asking?” quoth Elsie. “Depend upon it, she will fall to thinking of him, and the next time she sees him she will give him a good look. The girl never knew what it was to have a lover. No wonder she doesn’t take to it at first; there’s where her bringing up comes in, so different from other girls’. Courage, Elsie! Nature will speak in its own time.”

  Thus soliloquizing, she prepared to go a few steps from their dwelling, to the cottage of Meta and Antonio, which was situated at no great distance.

  “Nobody will think of coming here this time o’ night,” she said, “and the girl is in for a good hour at least with her prayers, and so I think I may venture. I don’t really like to leave her, but it’s not a great way, and I shall be back in a few moments. I want just to put a word into old Meta’s ear, that she may teach Antonio how to demean himself.”

  And so the old soul took her spinning and away she went, leaving Agnes absorbed in her devotions.

  The solemn starry night looked down steadfastly on the little garden. The evening wind creeping with gentle stir among the orange-leaves, and the falling waters of the fountain dripping their distant, solitary way down from rock to rock through the lonely gorge, were the only sounds that broke the stillness.

  The monk was the first of the two to return; for those accustomed to the habits of elderly cronies on a gossiping expedition of any domestic importance will not be surprised that Elsie’s few moments of projected talk lengthened imperceptibly into hours.

  Agnes came forward anxiously to meet her uncle. He seemed wan and haggard, and trembling with some recent emotion.

  “What is the matter with you, dear uncle?” she asked. “Has anything happened?”

  “Nothing, child, nothing. I have only been talking on painful subjects, deep perplexities, out of which I can scarcely see my way. Would to God this night of life were past, and I could see morning on the mountains!”

  “My uncle, have you not, then, succeeded in bringing this young man to the bosom of the True Church?”

  “Child, the way is hedged up, and made almost impassable by difficulties you little wot of. They cannot be told to you; they are enough to destroy the faith of the very elect.”

  Agnes’s heart sank within her; and the monk, sitting down on the wall of the garden, clasped his hands over one knee and gazed fixedly before him.

  The sight of her uncle, — generally so cheerful, so elastic, so full of bright thoughts and beautiful words, — so utterly cast down, was both a mystery and a terror to Agnes.

  “Oh, my uncle,” she said, “it is hard that I must not know, and that I can do nothing, when I feel ready to die for this cause! What is one little life? Ah, if I had a thousand to give, I could melt them all into it, like little drops of rain in the sea! Be not utterly cast down, good uncle! Does not our dear Lord and Saviour reign in the heavens yet?”

  “Sweet little nightingale!” said the monk, stretching his hand towards her. “Well did my master say that he gained strength to his soul always by talking with Christ’s little children!”

  “And all the dear saints and angels, they are not dead or idle either,” said Agnes, her face kindling: “they are busy all around us. I know not what this trouble is you speak of; but let us think what legions of bright angels and holy men and women are caring for us.”

  “Well said, well said, dear child! There is, thank God, a Church Triumphant, — a crowned queen, a glorious bride; and the poor, struggling Church Militant shall rise to join her! What matter, then, though our way lie through dungeon and chains, through fire and sword, if we may attain to that glory at last?”

  “Uncle, are there such dreadful things really before you?”

  “There may be, child. I say of my master, as did the holy Apostles: ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’ I feel a heavy presage. But I must not trouble you, child. Early in the morning I will be up and away. I go with this youth, whose pathway lies a certain distance along mine, and whose company I seek for his good as well as my pleasure.”

  “You go with him?” said Agnes, with a start of surprise.

  “Yes; his refuge in the mountains lies between here and Rome, and he hath kindly offered to bring me on my way faster than I can go on foot; and I would fain see our beautiful Florence as soon as may be. O Florence, Florence, Lily of Italy! wilt thou let thy prophet perish?”

  “But, uncle, if he die for the faith, he will be a blessed martyr. That crown is worth dying for,” said Agnes.

  “You say well, little one, — you say well! ‘Ex oribus parvulorum.’ But one shrinks from that in the person of a friend which one could cheerfully welcome for one’s self. Oh, the blessed cross! never is it welcome to the flesh, and yet how joyfully the spirit may walk under it!”

  “Dear uncle, I have made a solemn vow before our Holy Mother this night,” said Agnes, “to go on a pilgrimage to Rome, and at every shrine and holy place to pray that these great afflictions which beset all of you may have a happy issue.”

  “My sweet heart, what have you done? Have you considered the unsettled roads, the wild, unruly men that are abroad, the robbers with which the mountains are filled?”

  “These are all Christ’s children and my brothers,” said Agnes; “for them was the most holy blood shed, as well as for me. They cannot harm one who prays for them.”

  “But, dear heart of mine, these ungodly brawlers think little of prayer; and this beautiful, innocent little face will but move the vilest and most brutal thoughts and deeds.”

  “Saint Agnes still lives, dear uncle, — and He who kept her in worse trial. I shall walk through them all pure as snow, — I am assured I shall. The star which led the wise men and stood over the young child and his mother will lead me, too.”

  “But your grandmother?”

  “The Lord will incline her heart to go with me. Dear uncle, it does not beseem a child to reflect on its elders, yet I cannot but see that grandmamma loves this world and me too well for her soul’s good. This journey will be for her eternal repose.”

  “Well, well, dear one, I cannot now advise. Take advice of your confessor, and the blessed Lord and his holy Mother be with you! But come now, I would soothe myself to sleep; for I have need of good rest to-night. Let us sing together our dear master’s hymn of the Cross.”

  And the monk and the maiden sung together: —

  “Iesù, sommo conforto,

  Tu sei tutto il mio amore

  E’l mio beato porto,

  E santo Redentore.

  O gran bontà,

  Dolce pietà,

  Felice quel che teco unito sta!

  “Deh, quante volte offeso

  T’ ha l’ alma e ‘l cor meschino,

  E tu sei in croce steso

  Per salvar me, tapino!

  “Iesù, fuss’ io confitto

  Sopra quel duro l
igno,

  Dove ti vedo afflitto,

  Iesù, Signor benigno!

  “O croce, fammi loco,

  E le mie membra prendi,

  Che del tuo dolce foco

  Il cor e l’ alma accendi!

  “Infiamma il mio cor tanto

  Dell’ amor tuo divino,

  Ch’ io arda tutto quanto,

  Che paia un serafino!

  “La croce e’l Crocifisso

  Sia nel mio cor scolpito,

  Ed io sia sempre affisso

  In gloria ov’ egli è ito!”10

  Jesus, best comfort of my soul,

  Be Thou my only love,

  My sacred saviour from my sins,

  My door to heaven above!

  O lofty goodness, love divine,

  Blest is the soul made one with thine!

  Alas, how oft this sordid heart

  Hath wounded thy pure eye!

  Yet for this heart upon the cross

  Thou gav’st thyself to die!

  Ah, would I were extended there

  Upon that cold, hard tree,

  Where I have seen Thee, gracious Lord,

  Breathe out thy life for me!

  Cross of my Lord, give room! give room!

  To Thee my flesh be given!

  Cleansed in thy fires of love and pain,

  My soul rise pure to heaven!

  Burn in my heart, celestial flame,

  With memories of Him,

  Till, from earth’s dross refined, I rise

  To join the seraphim!

  Ah, vanish each unworthy trace

  Of earthly care or pride,

  Leave only, graven on my heart,

  The Cross, the Crucified!

  As the monk sung, his soul seemed to fuse itself into the sentiment with that natural grace peculiar to his nation. He walked up and down the little garden, apparently forgetful of Agnes or of any earthly presence, and in the last verses stretched his hands towards heaven with streaming tears and a fervor of utterance indescribable.

  The soft and passionate tenderness of the Italian words must exhale in an English translation, but enough may remain to show that the hymns with which Savonarola at this time sowed the mind of Italy often mingled the Moravian quaintness and energy with the Wesleyan purity and tenderness. One of the great means of popular reform which he proposed was the supplanting of the obscene and licentious songs, which at that time so generally defiled the 224minds of the young, by religious words and melodies. The children and young people brought up under his influence were sedulously stored with treasures of sacred melody, as the safest companions of leisure hours, and the surest guard against temptation.

  “Come now, my little one,” said the monk, after they had ceased singing, as he laid his hand on Agnes’s head. “I am strong now; I know where I stand. And you, my little one, you are one of my master’s ‘Children of the Cross.’ You must sing the hymns of our dear master, that I taught you, when I am far away. A hymn is a singing angel, and goes walking through the earth, scattering the devils before it. Therefore he who creates hymns imitates the most excellent and lovely works of our Lord God, who made the angels. These hymns watch our chamber-door, they sit upon our pillow, they sing to us when we awake; and therefore our master was resolved to sow the minds of his young people with them, as our lovely Italy is sown with the seeds of all colored flowers. How lovely has it often been to me, as I sat at my work in Florence, to hear the little children go by, chanting of Jesus and Mary, — and young men singing to young maidens, not vain flatteries of their beauty, but the praises of the One only Beautiful, whose smile sows heaven with stars like flowers! Ah, in my day I have seen blessed times in Florence! Truly was she worthy to be called the Lily City! — for all her care seemed to be to make white her garments to receive her Lord and Bridegroom. Yes, though she had sinned like the Magdalen, yet she loved much, like her. She washed His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head. Oh, my beautiful Florence, be true to thy vows, be true to thy Lord and Governor, Jesus Christ, and all shall be well!”

  “Amen, dear uncle!” said Agnes. “I will not fail to pray day and night, that thus it may be. And now, if you must travel so far, you must go to rest. Grandmamma has gone long ago. I saw her steal by as we were singing.”

  “And is there any message from my little Agnes to this young man?” asked the monk.

  “Yes. Say to him that Agnes prays daily that he may be a worthy son and soldier of the Lord Jesus.”

  “Amen, sweet heart! Jesus and His sweet Mother bless thee!”

  CHAPTER XVIII. THE PENANCE

  The course of our story requires us to return to the Capuchin convent, and to the struggles and trials of its Superior; for in his hands is the irresistible authority which must direct the future life of Agnes.

  From no guilty compliances, no heedless running into temptation, had he come to love her. The temptation had met him in the direct path of duty; the poison had been breathed in with the perfume of sweetest and most life-giving flowers: nor could he shun that temptation, nor cease to inhale that fatal sweetness, without confessing himself vanquished in a point where, in his view, to yield was to be lost. The subtle and deceitful visit of Father Johannes to his cell had the effect of thoroughly rousing him to a complete sense of his position, and making him feel the immediate, absolute necessity of bringing all the energy of his will, all the resources of his nature, to bear on its present difficulties. For he felt, by a fine intuition, that already he was watched and suspected; any faltering step now, any wavering, any change in his mode of treating his female penitents, would be maliciously noted. The military education of his early days had still left in his mind a strong residuum of personal courage and honor, which made him regard it as dastardly to flee when he ought to conquer, and therefore he set his face as a flint for victory.

  But reviewing his interior world, and taking a survey of the work before him, he felt that sense of a divided personality which often becomes so vivid in the history of individuals of strong will and passion. It seemed to him that there were two men within him: the one turbulent, passionate, demented; the other vainly endeavoring by authority, reason, and conscience to bring the rebel to subjection. The discipline of conventual life, the extraordinary austerities to which he had condemned himself, the monotonous solitude of his existence, all tended to exalt the vivacity of the nervous system, which, in the Italian constitution, is at all times disproportionately developed; and when those weird harp-strings of the nerves are once thoroughly unstrung, the fury and tempest of the discord sometimes utterly bewilders the most practiced self-government.

  But he felt that something must be done with himself, and done immediately; for in a few days he must again meet Agnes at the confessional. He must meet her, not with weak tremblings and passionate fears, but calm as Fate, inexorable as the Judgment-Day. He must hear her confession, not as man, but as God; he must pronounce his judgments with a divine dispassionateness. He must dive into the recesses of her secret heart, and, following with subtile analysis all the fine courses of those fibres which were feeling their blind way towards an earthly love, must tear them remorselessly away. Well could he warn her of the insidiousness of earthly affections; better than any one else he could show her how a name that was blended with her prayers and borne before the sacred shrine in her most retired and solemn hours might at last come to fill all her heart with a presence too dangerously dear. He must direct her gaze up those mystical heights where an unearthly marriage awaited her, its sealed and spiritual bride; he must hurry her footsteps onward to the irrevocable issue.

  All this was before him. But ere it could be done, he must subdue himself, — he must become calm and pulseless, in deadly resolve; and what prayer, what penance,228 might avail for this? If all that he had already tried had so miserably failed, what hope? He resolved to quit for a season all human society, and enter upon one of those desolate periods of retreat from earthly converse well known i
n the annals of saintship as most prolific in spiritual victories.

  Accordingly, on the day after the conversation with Father Johannes, he startled the monks by announcing to them that he was going to leave them for several days.

  “My brothers,” he said, “the weight of a fearful penance is laid upon me, which I must work out alone. I leave you to-day, and charge you not to seek to follow my footsteps; but, as you hope to escape hell, watch and wrestle for me and yourselves during the time I am gone. Before many days I hope to return to you with renewed spiritual strength.”

  That evening, while Agnes and her uncle were sitting together in their orange-garden, mingling their parting prayers and hymns, scenes of a very different description surrounded the Father Francesco.

  One who looks on the flowery fields and blue seas of this enchanting region thinks that the Isles of the Blest could scarcely find on earth a more fitting image; nor can he realize, till experience proves it to him, that he is in the immediate vicinity of a weird and dreary region which might represent no less the goblin horrors of the damned.

  Around the foot of Vesuvius lie fair villages and villas, garlanded with roses and flushing with grapes, whose juice gains warmth from the breathing of its subterraneous fires, while just above them rises a region more awful than can be created by the action of any common causes of sterility. There, immense tracts sloping gradually upward show a desolation so peculiar, so utterly unlike every common solitude of Nature, that one enters upon it with the shudder we give at that which is wholly unnatural. On all sides are gigantic serpent convolutions of black lava, their immense folds rolled into every conceivable contortion, as if, in their fiery agonies, they had struggled and wreathed and knotted together, and then grown cold and black with the imperishable signs of those terrific convulsions upon them. Not a blade of grass, not a flower, not even the hardiest lichen, springs up to relieve the utter deathliness of the scene. The eye wanders from one black, shapeless mass to another, and there is ever the same suggestion of hideous monster life, of goblin convulsions and strange fiend-like agonies in some age gone by. One’s very footsteps have an unnatural, metallic clink, and one’s garments brushing over the rough surface are torn and fretted by its sharp, remorseless touch, as if its very nature were so pitiless and acrid that the slightest contact revealed it.