Agnes of Sorrento

When the confession was over, he came out of his recess to speak with Agnes a few words face to face. His eyes had a wild and haggard earnestness, and a vivid hectic flush on either cheek told how extreme was his emotion. Agnes lifted her eyes to his with an innocent wondering trouble and an appealing confidence that for a moment wholly unnerved him. He felt a wild impulse to clasp her in his arms; and for a moment it seemed to him he would sacrifice heaven and brave hell, if he could for one moment hold her to his heart, and say that he loved her, – her, the purest, fairest, sweetest revelation of God's love that had ever shone on his soul, – her, the only star, the only flower, the only dewdrop of a burning, barren, weary life. It seemed to him that it was not the longing, gross passion, but the outcry of his whole nature for something noble, sweet, and divine.

But he turned suddenly away with a sort of groan, and, folding his robe over his face, seemed engaged in earnest prayer. Agnes looked at him awestruck and breathless.

"Oh, my father!" she faltered, "what have I done?"

"Nothing, my poor child," said the father, suddenly turning toward her with recovered calmness and dignity; "but I behold in thee a fair lamb whom the roaring lion is seeking to devour. Know, my daughter, that I have made inquiries concerning this man of whom you speak, and find that he is an outlaw and a robber and a heretic, – a vile wretch stained by crimes that have justly drawn down upon him the sentence of excommunication from our Holy Father, the Pope."

Agnes grew deadly pale at this announcement.

"Can it be possible?" she gasped. "Alas! what dreadful temptations have driven him to such sins?"

"Daughter, beware how you think too lightly of them, or suffer his good looks and flattering words to blind you to their horror. You must from your heart detest him as a vile enemy."

"Must I, my father?"

"Indeed you must."

"But if the dear Lord loved us and died for us when we were his enemies, may we not pity and pray for unbelievers? Oh, say, my dear father, is it not allowed to us to pray for all sinners, even the vilest?"

"I do not say that you may not, my daughter," said the monk, too conscientious to resist the force of this direct appeal; "but, daughter," he added, with an energy that alarmed Agnes, "you must watch your heart; you must not suffer your interest to become a worldly love: remember that you are chosen to be the espoused of Christ alone."

While the monk was speaking thus, Agnes fixed on him her eyes with an innocent mixture of surprise and perplexity, which gradually deepened into a strong gravity of gaze, as if she were looking through him, through all visible things, into some far-off depth of mysterious knowledge.

"My Lord will keep me," she said; "my soul is safe in His heart as a little bird in its nest; but while I love Him, I cannot help loving everybody whom He loves, even His enemies: and, father, my heart prays within me for this poor sinner, whether I will or no; something within me continually intercedes for him."

"Oh, Agnes! Agnes! blessed child, pray for me also," said the monk, with a sudden burst of emotion which perfectly confounded his disciple. He hid his face with his hands.

"My blessed father!" said Agnes, "how could I deem that holiness like yours had any need of my prayers?"

"Child! child! you know nothing of me. I am a miserable sinner, tempted of devils, in danger of damnation."

Agnes stood appalled at this sudden burst, so different from the rigid and restrained severity of tone in which the greater part of the conversation had been conducted. She stood silent and troubled; while he, whom she had always regarded with such awful veneration, seemed shaken by some internal whirlwind of emotion whose nature she could not comprehend.

At length Father Francesco raised his head, and recovered his wonted calm severity of expression.

"My daughter," he said, "little do the innocent lambs of the flock know of the dangers and conflicts through which the shepherds must pass who keep the Lord's fold. We have the labors of angels laid upon us, and we are but men. Often we stumble, often we faint, and Satan takes advantage of our weakness. I cannot confer with you now as I would; but, my child, listen to my directions. Shun this young man; let nothing ever lead you to listen to another word from him; you must not even look at him, should you meet, but turn away your head and repeat a prayer. I do not forbid you to practice the holy work of intercession for his soul, but it must be on these conditions."

"My father," said Agnes, "you may rely on my obedience;" and, kneeling, she kissed his hand.

He drew it suddenly away, with a gesture of pain and displeasure.

"Pardon a sinful child this liberty," said Agnes.

"You know not what you do," said the father, hastily. "Go, my daughter, – go at once; I will confer with you some other time;" and hastily raising his hand in an attitude of benediction, he turned and went into the confessional.

"Wretch! hypocrite! whited sepulchre!" he said to himself, – "to warn this innocent child against a sin that is all the while burning in my own bosom! Yes, I do love her, – I do! I, that warn her against earthly love, I would plunge into hell itself to win hers! And yet, when I know that the care of her soul is only a temptation and a snare to me, I cannot, will not give her up! No, I cannot! – no, I will not! Why should I not love her? Is she not pure as Mary herself? Ah, blessed is he whom such a woman leads! And I – I – have condemned myself to the society of swinish, ignorant, stupid monks, – I must know no such divine souls, no such sweet communion! Help me, blessed Mary! – help a miserable sinner!"

Agnes left the confessional perplexed and sorrowful. The pale, proud, serious face of the cavalier seemed to look at her imploringly, and she thought of him now with the pathetic interest we give to something noble and great exposed to some fatal danger. "Could the sacrifice of my whole life," she thought, "rescue this noble soul from perdition, then I shall not have lived in vain. I am a poor little girl; nobody knows whether I live or die. He is a strong and powerful man, and many must stand or fall with him. Blessed be the Lord that gives to his lowly ones a power to work in secret places! How blessed should I be to meet him in Paradise all splendid as I saw him in my dream! Oh, that would be worth living for, – worth dying for!"

CHAPTER XII

PERPLEXITIES

Agnes returned from the confessional with more sadness than her simple life had ever known before. The agitation of her confessor, the tremulous eagerness of his words, the alternations of severity and tenderness in his manner to her, all struck her only as indications of the very grave danger in which she was placed, and the awfulness of the sin and condemnation which oppressed the soul of one for whom she was conscious of a deep and strange interest.

She had the undoubting, uninquiring reverence which a Christianly educated child of those times might entertain for the visible head of the Christian Church, all whose doings were to be regarded with an awful veneration which never even raised a question.

That the Papal throne was now filled by a man who had bought his election with the wages of iniquity, and dispensed its powers and offices with sole reference to the aggrandizement of a family proverbial for brutality and obscenity, was a fact well known to the reasoning and enlightened orders of society at this time; but it did not penetrate into those lowly valleys where the sheep of the Lord humbly pastured, innocently unconscious of the frauds and violence by which their dearest interests were bought and sold.

The Christian faith we now hold, who boast our enlightened Protestantism, has been transmitted to us through the hearts and hands of such, – who, while princes wrangled with Pope, and Pope with princes, knew nothing of it all, but in lowly ways of prayer and patient labor were one with us of modern times in the great central belief of the Christian heart, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

As Agnes came slowly up the path towards the little garden, she was conscious of a burden and weariness of spirit she had never known before. She passed the little moist grotto, which in former times she never failed to visit to see if there were any new-blown cyclamen, without giving it even a thought. A crimson spray of gladiolus leaned from the rock and seemed softly to kiss her cheek, yet she regarded it not; and once stopping and gazing abstractedly upward on the flower-tapestried walls of the gorge, as they rose in wreath and garland and festoon above her, she felt as if the brilliant yellow of the broom and the crimson of the gillyflowers, and all the fluttering, nodding armies of brightness that were dancing in the sunlight, were too gay for such a world as this, where mortal sins and sorrows made such havoc with all that seemed brightest and best, and she longed to fly away and be at rest.

Just then she heard the cheerful voice of her uncle in the little garden above, as he was singing at his painting. The words were those of that old Latin hymn of Saint Bernard, which, in its English dress, has thrilled many a Methodist class meeting and many a Puritan conference, telling, in the welcome they meet in each Christian soul, that there is a unity in Christ's Church which is not outward, – a secret, invisible bond, by which, under warring names and badges of opposition, His true followers have yet been one in Him, even though they discerned it not.

"Jesu dulcis memoria,Dans vera cordi gaudia:Sed super mel et omniaEjus dulcis præsentia."Nil canitur suavius,Nil auditur jocundius,Nil cogitatur dulcius,Quam Jesus Dei Filius."Jesu, spes pœnitentibus,Quam pius es petentibus,Quam bonus te quærentibus,Sed quis invenientibus!"Nec lingua valet dicere,Nec littera exprimere:Expertus potest credereQuid sit Jesum diligere."5

The old monk sang with all his heart; and his voice, which had been a fine one in its day, had still that power which comes from the expression of deep feeling. One often hears this peculiarity in the voices of persons of genius and sensibility, even when destitute of any real critical merit. They seem to be so interfused with the emotions of the soul, that they strike upon the heart almost like the living touch of a spirit.

Agnes was soothed in listening to him. The Latin words, the sentiment of which had been traditional in the Church from time immemorial, had to her a sacred fragrance and odor; they were words apart from all common usage, a sacramental language, never heard but in moments of devotion and aspiration, – and they stilled the child's heart in its tossings and tempest, as when of old the Jesus they spake of walked forth on the stormy sea.

"Yes, He gave his life for us!" she said; "He is ever reigning for us!

"'Jesu dulcissime, e throno gloriæOvem deperditam venisti quærere!Jesu suavissime, pastor fidissime,Ad te O trahe me, ut semper sequar te!'"6

"What, my little one!" said the monk, looking over the wall; "I thought I heard angels singing. Is it not a beautiful morning?"

"Dear uncle, it is," said Agnes. "And I have been so glad to hear your beautiful hymn! – it comforted me."

"Comforted you, little heart? What a word is that! When you get as far along on your journey as your old uncle, then you may talk of comfort. But who thinks of comforting birds or butterflies or young lambs?"

"Ah, dear uncle, I am not so very happy," said Agnes, the tears starting into her eyes.

"Not happy?" said the monk, looking up from his drawing. "Pray, what's the matter now? Has a bee stung your finger? or have you lost your nosegay over a rock? or what dreadful affliction has come upon you? – hey, my little heart?"

Agnes sat down on the corner of the marble fountain, and, covering her face with her apron, sobbed as if her heart would break.

"What has that old priest been saying to her in the confession?" said Father Antonio to himself. "I dare say he cannot understand her. She is as pure as a dewdrop on a cobweb, and as delicate; and these priests, half of them, don't know how to handle the Lord's lambs. Come now, little Agnes," he said, with a coaxing tone, "what is its trouble? – tell its old uncle, – there's a dear!"

"Ah, uncle, I can't!" said Agnes, between her sobs.

"Can't tell its uncle! – there's a pretty go! Perhaps you will tell grandmamma?"

"Oh, no, no, no! not for the world!" said Agnes, sobbing still more bitterly.

"Why, really, little heart of mine, this is getting serious," said the monk; "let your old uncle try to help you."

"It isn't for myself," said Agnes, endeavoring to check her feelings, – "it is not for myself, – it is for another, – for a soul lost. Ah, my Jesus, have mercy!"

"A soul lost? Our Mother forbid!" said the monk, crossing himself. "Lost in this Christian land, so overflowing with the beauty of the Lord? – lost out of this fair sheepfold of Paradise?"

"Yes, lost," said Agnes, despairingly, "and if somebody do not save him, lost forever; and it is a brave and noble soul, too, – like one of the angels that fell."

"Who is it, dear? – tell me about it," said the monk. "I am one of the shepherds whose place it is to go after that which is lost, even till I find it."

"Dear uncle, you remember the youth who suddenly appeared to us in the moonlight here a few evenings ago?"

"Ah, indeed!" said the monk, "what of him?"

"Father Francesco has told me dreadful things of him this morning."

"What things?"

"Uncle, he is excommunicated by our Holy Father the Pope."

Father Antonio, as a member of one of the most enlightened and cultivated religious orders of the times, and as an intimate companion and disciple of Savonarola, had a full understanding of the character of the reigning Pope, and therefore had his own private opinion of how much his excommunication was likely to be worth in the invisible world. He knew that the same doom had been threatened towards his saintly master, for opposing and exposing the scandalous vices which disgraced the high places of the Church; so that, on the whole, when he heard that this young man was excommunicated, so far from being impressed with horror towards him, he conceived the idea that he might be a particularly honest fellow and good Christian. But then he did not hold it wise to disturb the faith of the simple-hearted by revealing to them the truth about the head of the Church on earth.

While the disorders in those elevated regions filled the minds of the intelligent classes with apprehension and alarm, they held it unwise to disturb the trustful simplicity of the lower orders, whose faith in Christianity itself they supposed might thus be shaken. In fact, they were themselves somewhat puzzled how to reconcile the patent and manifest fact, that the actual incumbent of the Holy See was not under the guidance of any spirit, unless it were a diabolical one, with the theory which supposed an infallible guidance of the Holy Spirit to attend as a matter of course on that position. Some of the boldest of them did not hesitate to declare that the Holy City had suffered a foul invasion, and that a false usurper reigned in her sacred palaces in place of the Father of Christendom. The greater part did as people now do with the mysteries and discrepancies of a faith which on the whole they revere: they turned their attention from the vexed question, and sighed and longed for better days.

Father Antonio did not, therefore, tell Agnes that the announcement which had filled her with such distress was far less conclusive with himself of the ill desert of the individual to whom it related.

"My little heart," he answered, gravely, "did you learn the sin for which this young man was excommunicated?"

"Ah, me! my dear uncle, I fear he is an infidel, – an unbeliever. Indeed, now I remember it, he confessed as much to me the other day."

"Where did he tell you this?"

"You remember, my uncle, when you were sent for to the dying man? When you were gone, I kneeled down to pray for his soul; and when I rose from prayer, this young cavalier was sitting right here, on this end of the fountain. He was looking fixedly at me, with such sad eyes, so full of longing and pain, that it was quite piteous; and he spoke to me so sadly, I could not but pity him."

"What did he say to you, child?"

"Ah, father, he said that he was all alone in the world, without friends, and utterly desolate, with no one to love him; but worse than that, he said he had lost his faith, that he could not believe."

"What did you say to him?"

"Uncle, I tried, as a poor girl might, to do him some good. I prayed him to confess and take the sacrament; but he looked almost fierce when I said so. And yet I cannot but think, after all, that he has not lost all grace, because he begged me so earnestly to pray for him; he said his prayers could do no good, and wanted mine. And then I began to tell him about you, dear uncle, and how you came from that blessed convent in Florence, and about your master Savonarola; and that seemed to interest him, for he looked quite excited, and spoke the name over, as if it were one he had heard before. I wanted to urge him to come and open his case to you; and I think perhaps I might have succeeded, but that just then you and grandmamma came up the path; and when I heard you coming, I begged him to go, because you know grandmamma would be very angry, if she knew that I had given speech to a man, even for a few moments; she thinks men are so dreadful."

"I must seek this youth," said the monk, in a musing tone; "perhaps I may find out what inward temptation hath driven him away from the fold."

"Oh, do, dear uncle, do!" said Agnes, earnestly. "I am sure that he has been grievously tempted and misled, for he seems to have a noble and gentle nature; and he spoke so feelingly of his mother, who is a saint in heaven; and he seemed so earnestly to long to return to the bosom of the Church."

"The Church is a tender mother to all her erring children," said the monk.

"And don't you think that our dear Holy Father the Pope will forgive him?" said Agnes. "Surely, he will have all the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who would rejoice in one sheep found more than in all the ninety-and-nine who went not astray."

The monk could scarcely repress a smile at imagining Alexander the Sixth in this character of a good shepherd, as Agnes's enthusiastic imagination painted the head of the Church; and then he gave an inward sigh, and said, softly, "Lord, how long?"

"I think," said Agnes, "that this young man is of noble birth, for his words and his bearing and his tones of voice are not those of common men; even though he speaks so humbly and gently, there is yet something princely that looks out of his eyes, as if he were born to command; and he wears strange jewels, the like of which I never saw, on his hands and at the hilt of his dagger, – yet he seems to make nothing of them. But yet, I know not why, he spoke of himself as one utterly desolate and forlorn. Father Francesco told me that he was captain of a band of robbers who live in the mountains. One cannot think it is so."

"Little heart," said the monk tenderly, "you can scarcely know what things befall men in these distracted times, when faction wages war with faction, and men pillage and burn and imprison, first on this side, then on that. Many a son of a noble house may find himself homeless and landless, and, chased by the enemy, may have no refuge but the fastnesses of the mountains. Thank God, our lovely Italy hath a noble backbone of these same mountains, which afford shelter to her children in their straits."

"Then you think it possible, dear uncle, that this may not be a bad man, after all?"

"Let us hope so, child. I will myself seek him out; and if his mind have been chafed by violence or injustice, I will strive to bring him back into the good ways of the Lord. Take heart, my little one, – all will yet be well. Come now, little darling, wipe your bright eyes, and look at these plans I have been making for the shrine we were talking of, in the gorge. See here, I have drawn a goodly arch with a pinnacle. Under the arch, you see, shall be the picture of our Lady with the blessed Babe. The arch shall be cunningly sculptured with vines of ivy and passion-flower; and on one side of it shall stand Saint Agnes with her lamb, – and on the other, Saint Cecilia, crowned with roses; and on this pinnacle, above all, Saint Michael, all in armor, shall stand leaning, – one hand on his sword, and holding a shield with the cross upon it."

"Ah, that will be beautiful!" said Agnes.

"You can scarcely tell," pursued the monk, "from this faint drawing, what the picture of our Lady is to be; but I shall paint her to the highest of my art, and with many prayers that I may work worthily. You see, she shall be standing on a cloud with a background all of burnished gold, like the streets of the New Jerusalem; and she shall be clothed in a mantle of purest blue from head to foot, to represent the unclouded sky of summer; and on her forehead she shall wear the evening star, which ever shineth when we say the Ave Maria; and all the borders of her blue vesture shall be cunningly wrought with fringes of stars; and the dear Babe shall lean his little cheek to hers so peacefully, and there shall be a clear shining of love through her face, and a heavenly restfulness, that it shall do one's heart good to look at her. Many a blessed hour shall I have over this picture, – many a hymn shall I sing as my work goes on. I must go about to prepare the panels forthwith; and it were well, if there be that young man who works in stone, to have him summoned to our conference."

"I think," said Agnes, "that you will find him in the town; he dwells next to the cathedral."

"I trust he is a youth of pious life and conversation," said the monk. "I must call on him this afternoon; for he ought to be stirring himself up by hymns and prayers, and by meditations on the beauty of saints and angels, for so goodly a work. What higher honor or grace can befall a creature than to be called upon to make visible to men that beauty of invisible things which is divine and eternal? How many holy men have given themselves to this work in Italy, till, from being overrun with heathen temples, it is now full of most curious and wonderful churches, shrines, and cathedrals, every stone of which is a miracle of beauty! I would, dear daughter, you could see our great Duomo in Florence, which is a mountain of precious marbles and many-colored mosaics; and the Campanile that riseth thereby is like a lily of Paradise, – so tall, so stately, with such an infinite grace, and adorned all the way up with holy emblems and images of saints and angels; nor is there any part of it, within or without, that is not finished sacredly with care, as an offering to the most perfect God. Truly, our fair Florence, though she be little, is worthy, by her sacred adornments, to be worn as the lily of our Lady's girdle, even as she hath been dedicated to her."

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, 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."