Ourika

Born to blush unseen,And waste its sweetness in the desert air."

"Are your friends then no object?" "I have no friends, Madam; I have patrons." "Ourika, you make yourself very needlessly unhappy." "Every thing in my life is needless, Madam, even my grief." "How can you nourish such bitter thoughts. You, Ourika, who were so devoted to Madame de B. during her distress, when every other friend had left her." "Alas! Madam, I am like an evil genius, whose power lasts in calamity, but who dies on the return of happiness." "Let me be your confidant, my dear; open your heart to me. Tell me your secret. No one can take a greater interest in you than I do, and I shall perhaps be able to do you good." "I have no secret," replied I; "my colour and my situation are my sole misfortunes, as you know, Madam." "Nay, do you deny that you have a secret sorrow? It is impossible to behold you for a moment without being certain of it." I persisted in what I had first said. She grew impatient, and I saw the storm rising that was to burst upon me. "Is this your good faith?" cried she. "Is this your vaunted sincerity? Ourika, take care. Reserve sometimes leads to deceit." "What, Madam, can I have to reveal to you? You, who foresaw my misery so long ago, I can tell you nothing that you do not know already." "I will not believe you," answered she; "and since you refuse to trust your secret to me, and pretend that you have none, I will convince you that I know it. Yes, Ourika; a senseless passion is the cause of all your grief, and your regret; and were you not so desperately in love with Charles, you would care very little about being a negress. Adieu. I leave you, I must own, with much less regard than I felt in coming here." So saying she quitted the room. I remained thunderstruck. What had she revealed to me? What horrid interpretation had she put upon my grief? Who? I nourish a criminal passion? I let it canker my heart! Was my wish to hold a link in the chain of my fellow-creatures, my longing after natural affections, and my grief at being desolate, was that the despair of guilty love? And when I thought that I was only envying the picture of his bliss, did my impious wishes aspire to the object itself? What cause had I given to be suspected of so hopeless a passion? Might I not love him more than my own life, and yet with innocence? Did the mother, when she threw herself into the lion's jaw to save her son, or the brothers and sisters, who intreated that they might die upon the same scaffold, and united their prayers to heaven as they went up to it, did they feel influenced by guilty love? Is not humanity alone the cause of the sublimest devotion of every kind? And why might I not have the same feelings for Charles, my friend from infancy, and the protector of my youth? And yet a secret voice unheard before warns me that I am guilty! Oh, heaven! remorse must then become a fresh torment to my wasted heart! Poor Ourika! Every species of misery must then oppress her! Poor Ourika! and are even her tears become a crime? Is she forbidden to think of him? Must she no longer dare even to be unhappy!

These thoughts threw me into a death-like stupor. Before night came I was taken violently ill, and in three days my life was despaired of. My physician declared that the sacrament should be promptly administered to me, for there was not a moment to lose. My confessor had died a short time since. Madame de B. sent for the parish priest, who could only bestow extreme unction upon me, for I was perfectly insensible to what was passing round me. But then when my death was hourly expected, when all hopes were over, then it was that God took pity on my soul, by preserving my life. Contrary to all expectation I continued to struggle against my illness; at the end of which time my senses returned to me. Madame de B. had never left me, and Charles's affection for me seemed returned. The priest had visited me every day, anxious to find an interval of reason to confess me; I desired it likewise as soon as I had thought again; I seemed led by an involuntary impulse to seek for repose in the bosom of religion. I made an avowal of my errors to the priest. The state of my soul did not frighten him. Like an old experienced mariner, he was accustomed to the tempest. He quieted my fears as to the passion I was accused of. "Your heart is pure," said he; "you have injured no one but yourself, and in that you were guilty. You will have to account for your happiness to God, for he entrusted it to you. It depended on yourself, since it lies in the performance of your duty. Have you ever considered in what that duty consisted? God should be the aim of man, but has your's been? Let not, however, let not thy courage fail thee, Ourika; but pray to God. He hears you, and will receive you in his arms. He knows no difference of men or colour. All are of equal value in his eye, and do thou strive to render thyself worthy of his favour."

Thus did this venerable man open the path of consolation to me. His simple words carried peace with them to my heart. I meditated on them, and drew from them, as a fertile mine, a store of new thoughts. I saw only that I had not known my duty; for there are duties for the lonely as well as for those connected in the world to perform. Though they are deprived of the ties of blood, heaven has granted them the whole world for their family. The charity sister, thought I, is not isolated on earth, though she has renounced its enjoyments. She has a family of her own choosing. She is the orphan's mother, the daughter of the aged, and a sister to the unhappy. How often have men of the world sought for retirement, there to adore in solitude the Author of all that is great and good, privately seeking to render their souls worthy of appearing before the Lord.

Sweet it is, oh God! to seek to please thee by purifying the heart for the great day of thy appearance. – But I had not done so! A senseless victim of each uncurbed impulse of my soul, I had pursued the enjoyments of the world, and had thrown away my happiness. Still I lost not all hope. – God was willing, perhaps, in throwing me on this foreign land, to take me to himself. He snatched me from my savage state of ignorance. He saved me from the vices of slavery, and permitted me to learn his laws. They point out my duty to me, and I will pursue it. Never more, oh Lord! will I offend thee for the favours thou hast granted me, or accuse thee of my faults.

The new light in which I viewed my situation, brought peace to my heart. I was astonished at the calm that it enjoyed after so many storms. An outlet had been opened for the torrent, and it now floated in peaceful tides, instead of carrying devastation with its current.

I soon determined upon taking the veil, and intreated Madame de B.'s permission to do so. "I shall be truly grieved, my dearest Ourika," said she, "to part with you, but I have done you so much harm by wanting to do you good, that I have no right to oppose your determination." Charles pleaded against it with great earnestness: he entreated, he conjured me to renounce it. "Hinder me not, Charles," cried I; "let me seek the only asylum where my prayers for you will be equally pure with the friendship I have ever entertained for you."

Here the young Nun abruptly ended her narrative. I continued to attend her, but all my endeavours to preserve her life were vain. She fell with the last leaves of Autumn.

THE END