After the evening song of salutation, on the day following the members
of the corps’ visit to the school of the “ninyetas” they accepted the
prætor’s invitation to join with his family in listening to the recital
of the Dosch, which we transcribe.
* * * * *
During the ravages of the “coast” and yellow fever in Rio Janeiro in the
year 18—, it made sad havoc among our provincial offshoots of Brazilian
parentage, owing to a lack of means for provisionary precautions, so
that I felt it a special duty and privilege devolving upon me to give my
personal supervision for its arrest. The joint efforts of our Manatitlan
corps of censors and nurses soon succeeded in rescuing our adherents
from the deadly influence of the pestilence, affording us leisure to
render succoring advice to the good of the Giga race. Among the
foreigners, one had attracted my particular attention from the fact that
he studiously avoided companionship with others, beyond the enforced
necessities required for business relations. This, together with other
singularities pertaining to his deportment, attracted a desire for an
auramental investigation of the cause of his non-alliance with the herd.
My first discovery after entering into auricular communication with his
thoughts was, that his preference for communion with himself arose from
a natural repugnance for association with men in form, whose instincts
were degraded below the bestial capacity of the lower orders of
animality. This, I soon learned, had its origin from the sympathetic
impression of the animus of goodness revealed in desire. While studying
his characteristics, as a key for after-thought substitution, I found
that the intrusion of an indelicate impression from his own instinctive
propensities, or in word reflection from others, gave him acute pain. Or
when from natural promptings, induced from a genial disposition, he had
been influenced to listen to or relate a humorous story, strongly
tinctured with the passionate rulings of instinctive induction, for days
afterwards he would subject himself to remorseful reproof. These
sensitive traits, indicating a desire for the attainment of instinctive
purity, although rare in the associations of Giga men, are by no means
singular or unrealistic with the conceptions of the thoughtful. But a
lack of discrimination in society association, subject to the arbitrary
rule of money, blunts the perceptions of intelligent refinement, under
the impress of the selfish policy it imposes for the successful
enlistment of patronage. Vulgarity impairs the powers of inclination for
refined perception, in like manner and degree with the action of foul
odors upon the sense of smell, which renders it obtuse for the delicate
appreciation of a well selected bouquet.
With this reflective introduction of our auramentee, we will ask you to
picture him in meditative mood leaning against a huge pile of coffee-
filled bags, waiting in the shadow they cast upon the wharf to witness
the variegated effects of light imparted from the rays of the declining
sun upon the beautifully environed waters of the harbor bay of Rio de
Janeiro. The surface of the water, with its deeper blendings of green
and blue, were tinted with the yellow light, while the rippled wavelets,
gently moved by the waft of the evening breeze, sparkled in bright
effulgence as their crests toppled and broke in foamy succession.
As the sierra peaks of the des Orgoaes began to cast their long shadows
over the distant foliaged and villa-fringed bay of Jurbajuba, he was
attracted from his reveried meditations by the distant strains of music,
in harmonious accord with his mood. The instrumental combination in trio
was so blended in harmony that he failed to recognize their individual
characteristics, until a near approach enabled him to distinguish the
movements of the performers. While yet distant his attention was
impressed with the beseeching undertone of melancholy that pervaded the
apparently improvised variations of familiar melodies, as if in wailing
supplication for sympathy. As the boat approached the wharf, within its
shadow, the awning was retroverted to admit of the upright position of a
harp, supported by a woman yet young, but the resemblance of her
features to a boy and girl, sitting upon either side of the stern
thwart, proclaimed the relationship of mother. The children were yet
within their first decade of years, but had advanced to the stage that
rules with its impressions the after course of Giga life, in act, for
good or evil. Their instrumental prelude had attracted all within
hearing to the wharf, for the unusual tones of sad sweetness proved
alike irresistible to the troglodyte negro and more insensate sea-
monster of brutality, the slave-ship’s captain. The eyes of the mother,
whose face was overshadowed by the broad brim of a Tuscan hat, moved
with a quick glance from face to face of the gathered assemblage upon
the wharf, while she directed the concerted movement of her children’s
musical appeal, from violin and dulcetina, by touching in timed lead the
strings of the harp. When all accessible to her sight had been passed in
review, her eyes became suffused with the sad mists of disappointment,
which were imparted to her children’s, upraised with hope. Drawing her
veil to screen her emotions, she commenced a plaintive refrain, her
fingers imparting to the strings of the harp an anguished tone of
petition, so evident in its pleadings, that the uncouth negroes
reverentially removed the turbaned bandas from their heads in
recognition of the woful strains, and for the moment were raised above
the grovelings of their debased condition. After the third repetition,
the instrumental air was changed into an accompaniment for their voices,
which in song preferred the following petition in Italian and English:—
“Father dear, art thou near?
Then listen without fear;
We came not to reprove,
But erring steps to soothe.
“Italy, dear land of our birth,
Though exiled, the choicest of earth,
Truly, thou wast cherished for love,
With only one object above.
“But alas, how frail was my stay!
Beguiled by a wanton away,
These pledges of love now remain,
To haunt me with loss, and the stain.
“To save, I have sought every trace,
A pilgrim to this distant place,
Hopeless, I have come in despair,
And now forlorn, breathe the last prayer.”
When the refrain had been repeated for the fourth time without response,
or sign of recognition, the mother sank back on her seat; the harp
following, with its weight would have forced her backward into the
water, but for the timely arrest of the padrone. In a moment her neck
was encircled with the arms of her children, who bestowed, unabashed by
the curious presence of the assemblage, the spontaneous promptings of
their affection, in solace for the encouragement of hope. Never, in the
course of a life devoted to auramental association with the Giga race,
had I ever witnessed an influence that so quickly dispersed varied
evidences of brutality in human expression, as from these manifestations
of suffering in alliance with innocence, affection, and beauty, hallowed
in preluded expression of emotions by instrumental and vocal music. The
repulsive sensuality, so brutally prominent in the slave captain’s and
their “owner’s” visages, which exceeded in the loathsome vulgarity of
selfishness the hyena’s, gave place to the shadowy reflection of
sympathetic pity, as if from the impression of a reality retrieved from
the dim memories of childhood. In default of tears, to the moisture of
which their eyes had long been dead, they relieved their pockets of the
last representative coins of sympathy, for bestowal “in charity” upon
these wandering minstrels, who had recalled a flitting reminiscence of a
mother’s memory, which once entitled them to an alliance with
affectionate humanity. In contrast, the black faces of the negroes
glistened with moisture from eyes still open to the founts of primitive
sympathy; those acting as boatmen collecting the coins with scrupulous
honesty, deposited them in the sachels of the children.
The mother, aroused with the continued sound of falling money, for, as
with the exampled impulse of panic fear in battle, and the gambler’s
reckless course in the downward path of fate, charity becomes heedless
of self under the associate impression of congregated bestowal, made an
effort to free her eyes from tears, that she might give expression to
her thankfulness and stay the uncalled-for gifts of money. Then making
known her desire to land, the padrone directed the boat to the stairway
of the pier, the eyes of the children the while being engaged in a
wandering search among the spectators, with a woful expression of loving
desire. Ascending the stairway from the water, the motley crowd opened a
free passage; the foreigners following the example of the negroes,
removed their hats in token of respect. My auramentee had been greatly
moved from the first sound of the instrumental prelude, but the
appealing sadness of their voiceful invocation enlisted his sympathetic
excitability beyond control. Unable, with his utmost exertions, to
approach within speaking distance, he followed in the wake of the
procession until he saw the padrone and boat’s crew deposit the harp and
baggage of the mother and children, at the street door of a house
occupied by an _attaché_ of the English consulate, in a court opening
upon the Rua da Dereita. As their entertainer proved to be an
acquaintance of the auramentee, he returned to his hotel well satisfied
with the assurance of their congenial safety, which had fulfilled his
kind intentions. On the second day after their arrival he obtained an
introduction, and with an unobtrusive offer of service gained their
confidence. When but partially recovered from the anxiety and fatigue of
the voyage, they commenced their street perambulations as musicians,
with a pecuniary success more than equal to the exalted expectations of
favorite opera singers, which to the credit of the Rioans was bestowed
from the enlistment of true sympathy in their behalf, rather than in
acknowledgment for their musical talent. The family of the emperor
became interested from the universal expression of sympathy bestowed in
recognition of their sufferings; although the cause was unknown, they
extended to them their protection. Failing in their endeavors to
dissuade them from the exposure of street concertizing, by the offer of
a less laborious and more pleasing method of rendering their talent
provident, they were content to aid them with their special protection
and patronage. A week later, in a private interview, she gave them such
reasons for the course she had chosen, that they used their power to
facilitate the attainment of her object.
On the nineteenth day succeeding that of her landing, my auramentee was
detained until a late hour in the evening at his place of business, and
was hastening to pay a short visit to his _protégés_, when he was
intercepted by a messenger from a friend who had been suddenly
prostrated with an attack of the coast fever, who urged him to make
haste as the symptoms threatened a fatal issue. We found the doctor in
attendance on our arrival, who accepted a thought suggestion, and on the
supposition that it was his own, adopted the recommendation, which
served to relieve his patient from the fatal tendency, thereby relieving
my auramentee from his apprehensions, in time to fulfill his first
intentions. This fever scourge of Brazil differs from the yellow type of
northern latitudes; as in Rio, during the first stages of accession, it
is exceedingly erratic; suddenly appearing in one department to rage
with deadly vigor for a few days, and then in apparent transfer,
subsiding, to reënact in a remote district its fatal ravages. At a later
period of its sway, when the partially exhausted venom has become more
generally dispersed, it flits hither and thither with demon activity,
fastening upon its prey without premonitory symptoms, perceptible to
curative observation, devoted to empirical treatment, although
distinctly visible in inceptive cause to our censors. Even with
coincident cause and effect clearly exposed for detection in current
transfer, the Giga physicians utterly ignore ante-investigation, for
prevising the means of prevention. This observance of limits,
overleaping adjoining, to locate itself in remote districts, gives plain
indication of local infecting agency, and we discover that the
fermentable cause was overlooked, and allowed to exhaust itself in
putrefactive dissemination. With this hint, in recurring attestation of
the fatuous fatalism that will ever attend the curative devisements of
humanity, while they neglect the means of prevention, we will resume our
demonstration in narrative vindication of the axiom, that remedy is
inherent with the cause.
But a few minutes had passed, after the auramentee had reached his
hotel, before he was summoned to the house of his Italian _protégés_. On
our arrival we found the mother in the height of the febrile stage of
the plague’s accession, but calm and resigned in thought, although
impressed with a premonition of the disease’s fatality, which with our
knowledge we felt that it was impossible to avert, still we suggested
remedies for transient relief. With the morning’s dawn, after soothing
the anxious fears of her children, she expressed to them her desire to
converse with the auramentee alone. Notwithstanding the unusual nature
of the request, it was cheerfully complied with. She then related to him
the cause of her husband’s estrangement and desertion, affirming that
her sole object in following him was for his rescue from self-inflicted
wretchedness, as she had brought with her a feeling of fatality, that
warned her that her own and children’s days were numbered. This feeling
had been confirmed in her mind by the strange sympathy which had been
shown in her behalf, as the source of her sorrows was only known to an
appreciative few. We used all our powers of persuasion to induce a more
hopeful mood, by endeavoring to convince her that she was yielding to
superstitious feelings unworthy of the courage which had sustained her
through the trials of desertion, and her long search which had been
continued in a manner humiliating to the affectionate pride of a mother
in behalf of her children, exhorting her to bear up bravely until she
had achieved the object of her mission. With a wailing sigh, quickly
suppressed, she averted her face, while with choked utterance, scarcely
raised above a whisper, she despairingly murmured, “I have seen him.”
Surprise, mingled with an oppressive sorrow, held us speechless; for
words of sympathy, however pure in expression, would have added to the
pangs of her agonized affection, which seemed already struggling for
liberation from the body, held back by her children’s love; but divided,
and bereaved of the sentient unity of her affection, grief overshadowed
and dimmed her assurance of a happy immortality. A silence of many
minutes followed, unbroken save by convulsed sobs, which she vainly
tried to suppress; at last a flood from the fount of tears enabled her
to regain self-command, but only to be borne back for the realization of
deeper woe. Her children, with anxious solicitation for the revival of
fond memories, had caught the reflection of their mother’s lullaby, with
which she had soothed them in dawning infancy, when with undimmed eyes
she had breathed her affection in song. Then no cloud had arisen to
darken with its gloom the joys of her wedded life. The daughter had been
encouraged, with guided hands, to touch the strings of the harp during
the period of toddling babyhood, when from feeble, faltering incertitude
an answering response came to the mother’s leading song. Soon her tiny
fingers, instructed by a retentive memory, enabled her to render with
remarkable accuracy the most difficult compositions within the compass
of her reach. The sadly harmonious memorial that had opened with renewed
anguish the fount of the mother’s tears, was the sleep requiem early
impressed on the daughter’s dawning memory. Commencing with an imitative
prelude, suggestive of childhood’s hesitating touch, accompanied with
her brother’s violin, the various canzanatas were modulated with the
far-off lisp of invocation, as if from dawning perception, intuitively
increasing in volume until it reached the flowing harmony of present
maturity. From the joyous expression of childhood’s buoyancy, the strain
suddenly changed into the sad wailing of uncertainty, improvised with
mournful variations descriptive of their wanderings and disappointments.
Again, in renewal, as if led by some inspiration beyond their control,
they reached their present source of sorrow. The burden of the plaintive
strains was frequently interrupted with sobbing outbursts, rendering
their touch tremulous and uncertain, the efforts made for suppression
being easily detected by hesitations, which they endeavored to cover
with bolder movements. Recovering, as if with the sudden impression of
hopeful assurance, there came a stream of melody of inconceivable
purity, as from an echo of futurity bearing in waft joyful gladness.
This change caused the mother to whisper, with tears fresh flowing over
a sadly joyous expression, “I would have so, it is our requiem.”
With the lullaby, that was improvised in quick succession, the mother
again clasped her hands convulsively, while the spasmodic workings of
her compressed lips and trembling eyelids bespoke the inward struggle
made to suppress the gathering strength of her emotions. But with the
rehearsal of the melodious symphonies of the halcyon days of united
love, grief found vent in an abundant flow of tears, which called forth
from the auramentee stifled throbs of masculine sympathy. But while the
melodies were growing more earnest in the sad sweetness of their
expression, the strain suddenly ceased with the startled cry of,
“Father!”
The mother sprang from the bed, but with tottering dizziness fell back,
still retaining her consciousness with a placid expression, which
despite the ashy paleness of the face bespoke the full consummation of
earthly hopes. The children gently opening the door led in the wretched
father, upon whose features were imprinted with haggard remorse the
interwoven lines of despair. Blind with the searing touch of hopeless
shame, he passed the auramentee unnoticed; then pressed down by the
remorseful revival of first affection, he knelt at the bedside and was
enfolded in his wife’s arms. Not a syllable had been spoken save the
word, father, and the auramentee feeling that his voice and presence
would prove alike embarrassing, quietly withdrew.
Five hours later, while crossing the palace plaza on his return from a
walk on the Botofogian beach, we met the husband hastening back to his
house of refuge and partner in disgrace. Although evidently bracing
himself for the utmost exertion of his powers of resistance and speed,
in opposition to the foe whose seal was legibly visible in the ashy
paleness of his face, the wavering uncertainty of his steps betokened
speedy prostration. The natives, accustomed to the symptoms, detected
the cause of his swaying progress, and held their course as far to the
windward as possible, following his movements with eyes subject to the
instinctive fascination that a person under the doom of deadly infection
attracts. Becoming fully impressed with his condition from increasing
weakness, and the fixed stare of the passers-by, who avoided him, his
steps faltered and a momentary shadow of dismay caused a wavering of his
eyes and lips; but in quick revulsion he again braced himself, with a
determination that bespoke the energetic self-possession of the
Englishman in extremity. Leaning against the palace wall, which he had
reached, he hastily buttoned his coat to his throat, then drawing in his
breath resolutely, he again started forward with a defiant stride. But
he was in the deadly grasp of a foe who toyed with his mortal powers as
relentlessly in sacrificial oblation, as he had with the ties of
affection. This fact his tottering steps soon betrayed, for in despite
of his desperate struggles he sank back in a half kneeling and leaning
position against a pediment of stone, in transition for the tower of a
neighboring church, while its priest passed by on the other side hastily
crossing himself and muffling his face with aversion.
The imploring language of his eyes, which he cast around with beseeching
entreaty for help, moved even the stolid pity of the natives to unwonted
activity, causing them to start in search of the brotherhood in charge
of the department. But the auramentee, forgetful of the unfortunate’s
great wrong, gave him supporting assistance, while urging with his voice
the necessity for the utmost exertion of self-determination. Pointing to
the Hotel des Estrangeiros he made an effort to take from his pocket a
card partially in view. Understanding his wish, the auramentee took it,
adding to its anticipated intention in his own handwriting, “sick with
the fever,” dispatched it by a kindly hand to its destination. Scarcely
five minutes elapsed before a female form darted from the portal and
directed her steps in wild dismay to the stricken one’s side, and
kneeling claimed the support of his head, while with a kiss she
supplicated, “Oh, Edward, what can I do?” A faint smile lighted his face
at this appeal, as he whispered the ever abiding talismanic word,
“home,” so dear to the honest attachments of instinct, however much
misused in collateral signification. The auramentee then entreated him
to muster all the energy possible in aid of their support. Raising him
with great difficulty to an upright position upon his feet, all his
efforts to walk proved abortive, but a kind-hearted Frenchman who was
passing, volunteered his aid to bear the doomed bodily to his hotel and
bed. By profession a nurse, the Frenchman undertook the patient’s
charge, after he was placed in bed, but gave no hopes of his recovery;
on the contrary, with the coolness of a physician, urged him to use
quick dispatch if he wished to dispose of anything by his will for the
living advantage of others, as it was impossible for him to live longer
than two or three hours.
A smile, with the answering words, “It is well,” aroused the anguished
despair of the being, who still ministered with all absorbing thought
her tender care and caresses, bringing forth the expostulation, “Oh,
Edward, Edward, if you go, you must not leave me! for wherever you go, I
must go with you!”
The dying man raised his eyes to hers with a look of unutterable
fondness, then, with mustered energy, whispered: “Julia, it is hard to
part from you, after so much suffering. But living, it would prove to us
both a continued scene of remorseful misery, without the possibility of
atonement, while dying, I have gloomy forebodings that there will be for
us no future. Yet, whatever may come after death, it is better that I
should die as the cause, than live as the renewed source of misery to
others.”
Such a look of despairing desolation as she cast upon her expiring lover
I had never before seen depicted upon the face of Giga woman. Her
beauty, surpassing, in fair unblemishing complexion those of kindred
type, was refined by the hopeless anguish of its expression, which in
its passionless void betokened, as with him, a reviving hope struggling
for the bodily retrievement of an assured immortality. At the expiration
of an hour, her arm that supported his head grew lax and nerveless; but
his efforts to raise himself recalled her thoughts for his assistance.
Perceiving that it was his desire to be left alone with her, while he
yet retained his consciousness, the auramentee was prompted to inform
him of his kindly attentions bestowed upon his wife and children, as it
offered the opportunity of affording mutual consolation, by conveying to
his wife and children some affectionate token or message. The
announcement revived his energies, imparting to his “allovee” a kindred
impression of desire. Beckoning the auramentee nearer, in earnest,
whispered accents, he implored him to plead with his wife, Julia’s
forgiveness, as the “sin” of desertion was wholly his own. “Say to her,”
he continued, “that it was my own unencouraged infatuation; against
which she, loving, did all that she could to resist my entreaties,
striving earnestly in the toils to escape from me and ‘love’s’
allurements. She is not wanton, but pure and devoted as a wife can be,
although misguided. It is my own ‘heart’ that is divided, even in death,
which makes me feel doubly thankful for its nearer rescue.”
Charged with this message we left them, Julia courting the virulence of
the malady with an assiduous intention that plainly declared her
determination to share in death his grave, in opposition to his own and
the Frenchman’s vehement protestations. We reached the bedside of his
wife in time to receive her last recognition, who answered with a smile
and pressure of the hand her husband’s last petition, and while passing
away invoked, with the reviving spark of conscious vitality, the
auramentee’s guardian protection of her children, should they survive,
as she was aware that they had been seized with the fever in the
presence of their father, who had bestowed upon them his care with the
intention of returning. After bestowing upon the children his
affectionate care in the fulfillment of his accepted charge, he hastened
as speedily as possible to the bedside of the doomed husband, and found
the dying lovers supported in each other’s arms. For Julia, in the short
period of our absence, had excited the latent seeds of the infection,
and was already nearing the confines of her desire. The husband,
although speechless, still retained his consciousness, with the power of
making known, with grateful expression, the consolation imparted from
our tidings. Julia, in anticipation of death, placed her attendant in
charge of the auramentee, desiring him to send her back to Italy, as she
had followed her own misguided steps from affection. The auramentee
promised the faithful discharge of all their wishes in the event of his
own preservation. Then with a sorrowful farewell, in freedom from the
bitterness of our first impressions, we left them with a sure remedy at
hand for the cure of their self-inflicted unhappiness. Returning to the
children, we bestowed upon them our personal care and affection until
death relieved us of our charge; but the scenes that preceded their
final departure from life are too harrowing for recital. Let it suffice,
that on the morrow when the western hills cast their shadows over the
city, under the upward halo of the setting sun, the father, mother, and
children, with their cousin Julia, whose beauty was the sad cause of her
own and their misery, were borne together, in their bodies’ materiality,
for burial far beyond the city’s limits. The place of interment had been
granted as a special mark of interest by the emperor, whose family were
deeply affected by the tragic end of their _protégés_. The harp, violin,
and dulcetina were retained by Captain Greenwood, the auramentee, as
mementoes of the sad scenes described, and are held in “devout”
estimation as pledges of affectionate remembrance.
Annette, the companion of Julia, while assisting in packing the
instruments for shipment to Montevideo, displayed versatile
accomplishments as a musician that astonished Captain Greenwood, and
while playing some airs found noted in the satchels of the children, she
was frequently moved to tears, and in explanation of the cause, it
transpired in revelation that she was the daughter of Signor Pozzuoli,
the inventor of the dulcetina, and early teacher of the children, a
majority of the preserved musical annotations being of her own
composition. On the day previous to the one appointed for the sailing of
the steamer for Montevideo the captain proposed to introduce Annette to
the consignee of a ship about to sail for Leghorn. She then declared her
desire to accompany him to Montevideo, as she felt a disinclination to
return to Italy, urging that her musical ability would prove amply
sufficient for her support, if he would assume the character of guardian
for her countenance and protection. From the mutual interest engendered
from the scenes through which they had passed, the captain encouraged
her decision, gladly assuming the charge of protector. In closing, the
Dosch said, I have related the history of the dulcetina, with desire of
enforcing the absolute necessity of the Manatitlan system of education,
if the Giga race really wish to bequeath happiness from unity in the
marriage alliance, as a memorial source of example to succeeding
generations. As scenes of the kind are constantly increasing in an
engendered series from degenerate inoculation, with thoughtful
consideration its practicability must be apparent to the meanest
capacity. The relation will also impress upon you the characteristic
value of your late companion, when relieved from the influence of habit,
as well as the discernment of Correliana, which penetrated beneath the
crisp asperities of his outer husk. In the exceptions we are about to
advise, you will recognize the prudence of our judgment. The “brides”
will surely afford an invincible security from their incorruptible
purity and goodness, which, with kindred beauty in personal endowment,
would insure constancy in defiance of all the temptations that could be
proffered by the most lauded belles of civilized society, even if the
ages of their intended husbands were less by two thirds. The countenance
of Correliana, during the recital of the Dosch, was a mirror of
reflection for the grateful expression of her thoughts.