Valperga (46 page)

"I tell thee what; there is not an atom of life in this
all--peopled world that does not suffer pain; we destroy
animals;--look at your own dress, which a myriad of living
creatures wove and then died; those sables,--a thousand hearts once
beat beneath those skins, quenched in the agonies of death to
furnish forth that cloak. Yet why not? While they lived, those
miserable hearts beat under the influence of fear, cold and famine.
Oh! better to die, than to suffer! The whale in the great ocean
destroys nations of fish, but thousands live on him and torment
him. Destruction is the watchword of the world; the death by which
it lives, the despair by which it hopes: oh, surely a good being
created all this!

"Let me tell you, that you do ill to ally yourself to the
triumphant spirit of evil, leaving the worship of the good, who is
fallen and depressed, yet who still lives. He wanders about the
world a proscribed and helpless thing, hooted from the palaces of
kings, excommunicated from churches; sometimes he wanders into the
heart of man, and makes his bosom glow with love and virtue; but so
surely as he enters, misfortune, bound to him by his enemy, as a
corpse to a living body, enters with him; the wretch who has
received his influence, becomes poor, helpless and deserted; happy
if he be not burnt at the stake, whipped with iron, torn with
red-hot pincers.

"The Spirit of Evil chose a nation for his own; the Spirit
of Good tried to redeem that nation from its gulf of vice and
misery, and was cruelly destroyed by it; and now, as the
masterpiece of the enemy, they are adored together; and he the
beneficent, kind and suffering, is made the mediator to pull down
curses upon us.

"How quick and secure are the deeds of the evil spirit; how
slow and uncertain those of the good! I remember once a good and
learned friend of mine telling me, that the country about Athens
was adorned by the most exquisite works man had ever produced;
marble temples traced with divine sculpture, statues transcending
human beauty; the art of man had been exhausted to embellish it,
the lives of hundreds of men had been wasted to accomplish it, the
genius of the wisest had been employed in its execution; ages had
passed, while slowly, year by year, these wonders had been
collected; some were almost falling through exceeding age, while
others shone in their first infancy. Well:--a king, Philip of
Macedon, destroyed all these in three days, burnt them, razed them,
annihilated them. This is the proportionate energy of good and
evil; the produce of ages is the harvest of a moment; a man may
spend years in curbing his passions, in acquiring wisdom, in
becoming an angel in excellence; the brutality of a fellow
creature, or the chance of war, may fell him in an instant; and all
his knowledge and virtues become blank, as a moonless, starless
night.

"Euthanasia, my heart aches, and my spirits flag: I was a
poor, simple girl; but I have suffered much; and endurance, and
bitter experience have let me into the truth of things; the
deceitful veil which is cast over this world, is powerless to hide
its deformity from me. I see the cruel heart, which lurks beneath
the beautiful skin of the pard; I see the blight of autumn in the
green leaves of spring, the wrinkles of age in the face of youth,
rust on the burnished iron, storm in the very breast of calm,
sorrow in the heart of joy; all beauty wraps deformity, as the
fruit the kernel; Time opens the shell, the seed is
poison."

The eyes of Beatrice shot forth sparks of fire as she poured out
this anathema against the creation; her cheeks were fevered with a
hectic glow; her voice, sharp and broken, which was sometimes
raised almost to a shriek, and sometimes lowered to a whisper, fell
on the brain of Euthanasia like a rain of alternate fire and ice;
she shrunk and trembled beneath the flood of terror that inundated
and confounded her understanding: but the eloquent prophetess of
Evil ceased at last, and, pale and exhausted, she sank down;
clasping Euthanasia in her arms, she hid her face on her knees, and
sobbed, and wept: "Forgive me, if I have said that which
appears to you blasphemy; I will unveil my heart to you, tell you
my sufferings, and surely you will then curse with me the author of
my being."

Euthanasia spoke consolation alone; she bade her weep no more;
that she need no longer fear or hate; that she might again love,
hope and trust; and that she as a tender sister would sympathize
with and support her. The undisciplined mind of poor Beatrice was
as a flower that droops beneath the storm; but, on the first gleam
of sunshine, raises again its head, even though the hail-stones and
the wind might have broken and tarnished its leaves and its tints.
She looked up, and smiled; "I will do all that you tell me; I
will be docile, good and affectionate;--I will be obedient to your
smallest sign, kindest, dearest Euthanasia. Trust me, you shall
make me a Catholic again, if you will love me unceasingly for one
whole year, and in the mean time I do not die. I am very teachable,
very, very tractable; but I have suffered greatly, as one day you
will know; for I will tell you every thing. Now, good bye; I am
very tired, and I think I shall sleep."

"Sleep then, poor creature; here is a couch ready for you;
I will watch near you; and may your dreams be pleasant."

"Give me your hand then; I will hold it while I rest; how
small, and white, and soft it is! Look at mine, it is yellow and
dry; once it was like yours; I think it was rather smaller, but
never so well shaped; the tips of my fingers and my nails were
never dyed by so roseate a tint as this, nor was the palm so silken
soft. You are very beautiful, and very good, dear Euthanasia; I
hope you are, and will be happy."

Euthanasia kissed the forehead of this child of imagination and
misery; and soon she slept, forgetful of all her sufferings.
Euthanasia felt deeply interested in her; she felt that they were
bound together, by their love for one who loved only himself; she
thought over her wild denunciations; and, strange to say, she felt
doubly warmed with admiration of the creation, and gratitude
towards God, at the moment that Beatrice had painted its defects.
She thought of the beauty of the world and the wondrous nature of
man, until her mind was raised to an enthusiastic sentiment of
happiness and praise. "And you also shall curb your wild
thoughts," whispered Euthanasia, as she looked at the sleeping
girl; "I will endeavour to teach you the lessons of true
religion; and, in reducing the wandering thoughts of one so lovely
and so good, I shall be in part fulfilling my task on the
earth."

For several days after this conversation Beatrice became
peaceful and mild, saying little, and appearing complacent, almost
content; she attended mass, told her beads, and talked of going to
confession. Euthanasia was astounded; she was herself so steady in
her principles, so firm in opinion and action, slow to change, but
resolute having changed, that she was at a loss to understand the
variable feelings and swift mutations of the poor, untaught
Beatrice.

"Confess!" she repeated; "you promised that I
should convert you in a year; but you have already forsaken your
Paterin opinions!"

"No, indeed, I have not; but it is of so little
consequence; I would please you, dearest, by seeming what I am not;
not that I am sure that I am not what you desire. You know, if God
is good, he will forgive my errors: if he is evil, I care not to
please him; so I shall endeavour to please the virtuous and kind of
this world, and you are one of those, my best friend. Besides, now
I think of it, this world seems too beautiful to have been created
by an evil spirit; he would have made us all toads, the trees and
flowers all mushrooms, and the rocks and mountains would have been
huge, formless polypi. Yet there is evil; but I will not trouble
myself more about it; you shall form my creed; and, as a lisping
infant, with clasped hands, I will repeat my prayers after
you."

"Why so, dearest Beatrice? Why will you not recall the
creeds of your childhood, as your adoptive parents taught them you?
I cannot school you better than they."

"My childhood!" cried the prophetess; her eyes
becoming dark and stormy, "what to become again a dupe, a
maniac? to fall again, as I have fallen? Cease, cease, in mercy
cease, to talk of my childhood; days of error, vanity and paradise!
My lessons must all be new; all retold in words signifying other
ideas than what they signified during my mad, brief dream of youth.
Then faith was not a shadow: it was what these eyes saw; I clutched
hope, and found it certainty; I heard the angels of heaven, and saw
the souls of the departed; can I ever see them again?"

"Sweetest and most unfortunate, drive away memory, and take
hope to you. Youth is indeed a dream; and, if I spent it not in
your ecstasies, yet believe me I was not then as I am now. I am
older than you, and know life better; I have passed the fearful
change from dream to reality, and am now calm. I have known all
your throes; sometimes indeed they now visit me; but I quench them,
cast them aside, tread on them;--so may you."

"Never! never!" replied Beatrice: "I was born for
wretchedness. When the fates twined my destiny, they mingled three
threads; the first was green hope, the second purple joy, the third
black despair; but the two first were very short, and soon came to
an end; a dreary line of black alone remains. Yet I would forget
all that; and for many days I have been as calm as a bird that
broods, rocked on her tree by a gentle wind; full of a quiet,
sleepy life. Should this state continue longer, I might become what
you wish me to be; but I find my soul awakening, and I fear a
relapse; I fear the return of tears and endless groans. Oh! let me
wrap myself round you, my better angel, hope of my life; pour your
balmy words upon me; lay your cool, healthful cheek near my burning
one, let our pulses beat responsive! Oh! that once I could become
less feverish, less wild, less like a dark and crimsoned
thunder-cloud, driven away, away, through the unknown wildernesses
of sky."

Euthanasia was glad to hear her suffering friend talk, however
wildly; for she observed that, when she had exhausted herself in
speech, she became calmer and happier; while, if she brooded
silently over her cares, she became almost insane through grief.
Occasionally she sought consolation in music; there was something
magical in her voice, and in the tones she could draw from the
organ or the harp: in her days of glory it had been said, that she
was taught to sing by angelic instructors; and now those remembered
melodies remained, sole relics of her faded honours. The
recollection of this sometimes disturbed her; and she would
suddenly break off her song, and peevishly exclaim, that music,
like the rest of the world's masks, contained the soul of
bitterness within its form of beauty.

"Not so, dear girl," said Euthanasia; "Euterpe
has ever been so dear a friend of mine, that I cannot permit you to
calumniate her unjustly; there is to me an unalloyed pleasure in
music. Some blessed spirit, compassionate of man's estate, and
loving him, sent it, to teach him that he is other than what he
seems: it comes, like a voice from a far world, to tell you that
there are depths of intense emotion veiled in the blue empyrean,
and the windows of heaven are opened by music alone. It chastens
and lulls our ecstasies; and, if it awakens grief, it also soothes
it. But more than to the happy or the sorrowful, music is an
inestimable gift to those who forget all sublimer emotions in the
pursuits of daily life. I listen to the talk of men; I play with my
embroidery-frame; I enter into society: suddenly high song awakens
me, and I leave all this tedious routine far, far distant; I
listen, till all the world is changed, and the beautiful earth
becomes more beautiful. Evening and all its soft delights, morning
and all its refreshing loveliness;--noonday, when the busy soul
rests, like the sun in its diurnal course, and then gathering new
strength, descends; all these, when thought upon, bring pleasure;
but music is far more delicious than these. Never do I feel happier
and better, than when I have heard sweet music; my thoughts often
sleep like young children nestled in their cradles, until music
awakens them, and they open their starry eyes. I may be mistaken;
but music seems to me to reveal to us some of the profoundest
secrets of the universe; and the spirit, freed from prison by its
charms, can then soar, and gaze with eagle eyes on the eternal sun
of this all-beauteous world."

Beatrice smiled.--Since her days of happiness had ended,
Euthanasia's enthusiasm had become more concentrated, more
concealed; but Beatrice again awoke to her words, and these two
ladies, bound by the sweet ties of gratitude and pity, found in
each other's converse some balm for their misfortunes.
Circumstances had thus made friends of those whom nature seemed to
separate: they were much unlike; but the wild looks of Beatrice
sometimes reflected the soft light of Euthanasia's eyes; and
Euthanasia found her heart, which was sinking to apathy, awake
again, as she listened to Beatrice. And, though we may be unhappy,
we can never be perfectly wretched, while the mind is active; it is
inaction alone that constitutes true wretchedness.

In the mean time her own journey to Florence was put off
indefinitely. She was too much interested in the fate of Beatrice,
and already loved her too well, to desert her; the poor prophetess
appeared little capable of the journey, since the most trifling
circumstance would awaken her wildest fancies, and fever and
convulsions followed. Once indeed Euthanasia had mentioned her wish
to go thither; Beatrice looked at her with flashing eyes, and
cried, "Did you not promise never to desert me? Are you
faithless also?"

"But would you not accompany me?"