Slowly restored to a perfect consciousness of his situation; to a
recollection of the fatal avowal, by which he had irretrievably
committed himself, and of the singular event which had produced it; the
Missionary still lay motionless and silent; still lay supported by the
Neophyte which love alone had given him. He dreaded a recovery from the
partial suspension of all his higher faculties; he shrank from the
obtrusive admonitions of reason and religion, and sought to perpetuate
an apparent state of insensibility, which gave him up to the indulgence
of a passive but gracious feeling, scarcely accompanied by any positive
perception, and resembling, in its nature and influence, some confused
but delightful dream, which, while it leaves its pleasurable impression
on the senses, defies the accuracy of memory to recall or to arrange it.
His heart now throbbed lightly, for it was disburdened of its fatal
secret; his mind reposed from its conflicts, for it had passed the
crisis of its weakness in betraying it: he felt the tears of love on his
brow; he felt an affectionate hand returning the pressure of his; and a
sense of a sacred communion, which identified the soul of another with
his own, possessed itself of his whole being; and passion was purified
by an intelligence which seemed to belong alone to mind. Alive to
feelings more acute, to a sensibility more exquisite, than he had
hitherto known; all external objects faded from his view for the moment;
life was to him a series of ideas and feelings, of affections and
emotions: he sought to retain no consciousness, but that of loving and
being loved; and if he was absorbed in illusion, it was an illusion
which, though reason condemned, innocence still ennobled and
consecrated.
Luxima hung over him in silence, and her countenance was the reflection
of all the various emotions which flitted over his. The repose which
smoothed his brow, communicated to hers its mild and tranquil
expression; her pulse quickened to the increasing throb of his temples;
and the vital hues which revisited his cheek, rosed hers with the bright
suffusion of love and hope. Fearing almost for his life, she bowed her
head to catch the low-drawn respiration, and returned every breath of
renovating existence with a sigh of increasing joy.
“Luxima!” said a voice, which, though low and tremulous, reached her
inmost soul.
“I am here, father!” she replied in emotion, and bashfully withdrawing
her arm from beneath a head which no longer needed support.
The Missionary took the hand thus withdrawn, and pressed it, for the
first time, to his lips. The modest eyes of the vestal Priestess sank
beneath the look which accompanied the tender act: it was the first look
of love acknowledged and returned; it penetrated and mingled itself with
the very existence of her to whom it was directed; it resembled, in its
absorbing and delicious influence, the ecstacy of enthusiasm, which, in
the days of her religious illusion, descended on her spirit to kindle
and to entrance it; which had once formed the inspiration of the
Prophetess, and animated beyond the charms of human beauty the
loveliness of the woman. Turning away her glance in timid disorder, she
sought for resource against herself in the objects which encompassed
her: she threw up her eyes to that heaven, to whose exclusive love she
had once devoted herself, and, from a sudden association of ideas, she
turned them to the mouldering altar of the god whose service she had
abandoned. The religion of her spirit and of her senses, of truth and
error, alike returned with all their influence on her soul; and she
shuddered as she looked on the shrine where she had once worshipped with
a pure, pious, and undivided feeling: the moonlight fell in broken rays
upon its shining fragments, and formed a strong relief to their lustre
in the massive foliage of a dark tree which shaded it. The air was
breathless, and the branches of this consecrated and gigantic tree
alone were agitated; they waved with a slow but perceptible undulation;
the fearful eyes of the apostate pursued their mysterious motion, which
seemed influenced by no external cause: they bowed, they separated, and
through their hitherto impervious darkness gleamed the vision of a human
countenance! if human it might be called; which gave the perfect image
of Brahma, as he is represented in the _Avatar_ of “the Destroyer.” It
vanished--the moon sank in clouds--the vision lasted but a moment; but
that moment for ever decided the fate of the Priestess of Cashmire!
Luxima saw no more--with a loud and piercing shriek she fell prostrate
on the earth.
The Missionary started in horror and amazement; the form which now lay
pale and lifeless at his feet, had, an instant before, by its animated
beauty rivetted his eyes, absorbed his thoughts, and engrossed his
exclusive attention, as half-averted, half-reposing in his arms, it had
mingled in its expression and its attitude the tender confidence of
innocence and love, the dignified reserve of modesty and virtue; still
seeing no object but herself, he remained ignorant of the cause of her
emotion, and was overwhelmed by its effects. He trembled with a selfish
fondness for a life on which his happiness, his very existence, now
depended: he raised her in his arms; he murmured on her ear words of
peace and love. He threw back her long dark tresses, that the air might
play freely on her face; and he only withdrew his anxious looks from the
beauty of her pale and motionless countenance, to try if he could
discover, in the surrounding scene, any cause for a transition of
feeling so extraordinary; but nothing appeared which could change
happiness into horror, which could tend to still the pulse of love in
the throbbing heart, or bleach its crimson hue upon the glowing cheek.
The moon had again risen in cloudless majesty, rendering the minutest
blossom visible: the stillness of the air was so profound, that the
faintest sigh was heard in dying echoes. All was boundless solitude and
soothing silence. The mystery, therefore, of Luxima’s sudden
distraction was unfathomable. She still lay motionless on the shoulder
of the Missionary; but the convulsive starts, which at intervals shook
her frame, the broken sighs which fluttered on her lips, betrayed the
return of life and consciousness. “Luxima!” exclaimed the Missionary,
pressing the cold hands he held; “Luxima, what means this heart-rending,
this fearful emotion? Look at me! Speak to me! Let me again meet thine
eye, and hang upon thy voice--fatal eye and fatal voice--my destruction
and my felicity! still I woo and fear the return of their magic
influence. Luxima, if Heaven forbids our communion in happiness, does it
also deny us a sympathy in sorrow? Art thou to suffer alone? or rather,
are my miseries to be doubled in my ignorance of thine? Oh! my beloved,
if conscience speak in words of terror to thy soul, what has not mine to
fear? It is I, I alone, who should be miserable in being weak. Created
to feel, thou dost but fulfil thy destiny, and in thee nature contemns
the false vow by which superstition bound thee to thy imaginary god. In
thee it is no crime to love! in me, it is what I abhor no less than
crime--it is sin, it is shame, it is weakness. It is I alone who should
weep and tremble; it is I alone who have fallen, and whose misery and
whose debasement demand pity and support. Speak to me then, my too well
beloved disciple; solace me by words, for thy looks are terrific. O
Luxima! give me back that soft sweet illusion, which thy voice of terror
dissipated, or take from me its remembrance; give me up at once to
reason and to remorse, or bid me, with one look of love, renounce both
for ever at thy feet, and I will obey thee! I!--Redeemer of the World!
hast thou then quite forsaken him whom thou didst die to save? Is the
bearer of thy cross, is the minister of thy word, abandoned by his
Saviour? Is he so steeped in misery and sin, that the spirit, which thy
grace once enlightened, dares not lift itself to thee, and cry for mercy
and salvation? Is the soul, which was tempted to error in its zeal for
thy cause, to sink into the endless night prepared for the guilty?
Woman! fiend! whatever thou art, who thus by the seeming ways of Heaven
leadest me to perdition, leave me! fly me! loose thy fatal hold on my
heart, while yet the guilty passions, which brood there, have made me
criminal in thought alone.”
Luxima shuddered; she raised her drooping head from the bosom which
recoiled from supporting her, and she fixed on the agitated countenance
of the Monk a look, tender, and reproachful, even through the expression
of horror and remorse, which darkened its softness and its lustre. This
look had all its full effect; but Luxima shrunk back from the arms which
again involuntarily extended to receive and to support her; and, in a
solemn and expressive voice, she said, “It is all over!--ere that orb
shall have performed its nightly course we shall be _parted for ever_!”
The Missionary was silent, but horror and consternation were in his
looks.
Luxima threw round her a wild and timid glance; then creeping toward
him, she said, in a low whispering voice, “Sawest thou nothing, some few
minutes back, which froze thy blood, and harrowed up thy soul?”
“Nothing,” he replied, watching, in strong emotion, the sad wild
expression of her countenance.
“That is strange,” she returned, with a deep sigh, “most strange!” Then,
after a pause, she demanded, with a vacant look, “Where are we, father?”
“Luxima! Luxima!” he exclaimed, gazing on her in fear and in amazement,
“what means this sudden, this terrific change? Merciful Heaven! does thy
mind wander; or hast thou quite forgotten thine own consecrated shades,
the ‘_confluence of the streams_,’ where first the Christian Missionary
addressed the Priestess of Brahma? Hast thou forgotten the altar of thy
once worshipped god?”
At these words, emphatically pronounced, to steady her wavering
recollection, lightning from heaven seemed to fall upon the head of the
apostate Priestess; her limbs were convulsed, her complexion grew livid,
she threw her eyes wildly round her, and murmuring, in a low quick
voice, a Brahminical invocation, she sprung forward with rapid bound,
and fell prostrate before the shrine of her former idol. There the
Christian dared not follow her: he arose, and advanced a few steps, and
paused, and gazed; then, wringing his hands in agony, he said, “Happy in
her illusion, she returns to her false gods for support and comfort,
while I, debased and humbled, dare not raise my eyes and heart in
supplications to the God of Truth.” As he spoke, he cast a look on the
cross, which hung from his rosary; but it was still humid with tears,
which love had shed, it still breathed the odours of the tresses the
wind had wafted on its consecrated surface. He shuddered, and let it
fall, and groaned, and covered his eyes with his robe, as if he sought
to shut out the light of the Heaven he had offended. When again he
raised his head, he perceived that Luxima was moving slowly towards him,
not, as she had left him, in delirium, and in tears; but in all the
dazzling lustre of some newly-awakened enthusiasm; resembling in her
motions and her look the brilliant, the blooming, the inspired
Prophetess, who had first disturbed his imagination and agitated his
mind, in the groves of Lahore; extending her right hand to forbid his
approach, she paused and leaned on the branch of a blasted tree, with
all the awful majesty of one who believed herself fresh from a communion
with a celestial being, and irradiated with the reflection of his glory.
“Christian!” she said, after a long pause, “the crisis of human
weakness is past, and the powers of the immortal spirit assert
themselves:--Heaven has interposed to save its faithless servant, and
she is prepared to obey its mandate: a divine hand has extended itself
to snatch her from perdition, and she refuses not its aid. Christian!
the hour of sacrifice is arrived--Farewell. Go! while yet thou mayest
go, in innocence; while yet the arm of eternal destruction has not
reached thee. O Christian! dangerous and fatal! while yet I have breath
and power to bid thee depart, leave me! The light of the great Spirit
has revisited my soul. Even now I am myself become a _part of the
Divinity_.” As she spoke, her eyes were thrown up, and the whites only
were visible; a slight convulsive smile gleamed across her features; and
she passed her right hand from her bosom to her forehead with a slow
movement. This mysterious act seemed to bestow upon her a new sense of
existence[10]. Her religious ecstacy slowly subsided--her eyes fell--the
colour revisited her cheek--she sighed profoundly, and after a silent
pause, she said,
“Christian, thou hast witnessed my re-union to the source of my
spiritual being. Oppose not thyself to the Heaven, which opens to
receive me: depart from me; leave me now--and for ever.”
“Luxima,” interrupted the Missionary, in the low wild accent of terror
and amazement; and perceiving that some delirium of religious fanaticism
had seized her imagination--“Luxima, what means this wondrous
resolution, this sudden change? Are all our powers alike reversed? Hast
thou risen above humanity, or have I fallen below it? And art thou, the
sole cause of all my weakness and my shame, to rise upon the ruin thou
hast made, to triumph upon the destruction thou hast effected? Part with
me now! abandon me in a moment such as this! O Luxima,” he added, with
tenderness and passion, and in a voice soft and imploring, “am I
deceived, or do you love me?”
Luxima replied not, but her whole countenance and form changed their
expression: she no longer looked like an inspired sibyl, borne away by
the illusions of her own disordered imagination, but like a tender and
devoted woman. She advanced; she fell at his feet, and kissed with
humility and passion the hem of his robe; but when he would have raised
her in his arms, she recoiled from his support, and seating herself on
a bank, at a little distance from him, she wept. He approached, and
stood near her: he saw in the rapid transitions of her manner, and her
conduct, the violent struggles of feeling and opinion, the ceaseless
conflicts of love and superstition; he saw imaged in her emotions the
contending passions which shook him to dissolution. He sighed heavily,
and mentally exclaimed,
“Alas! her virtue derives more strength even from error, than mine from
truth: she obeys her ideas of right as a Brahmin; I, as a Christian,
violate and forsake mine.” He turned his eyes on Luxima, and perceived
that she was now gazing with a look of exquisite fondness on him,
tempered with something of melancholy and sadness.
“It is hard,” said she, “to look on thee, and yet to part with thee! but
who will dare to disobey the mandate of a _God_, who comes in his _own
presence to save and to redeem us_?”
“What mean you, Luxima?” interrupted the Missionary, in emotion, and
throwing himself beside her.
“Hear me,” she returned; “_believe_, and _obey_.--From the moment I
first beheld thee, first listened to thee, I have ceased to be myself;
thy looks, thy words, encompassed me on every side; it seemed as if my
soul had anticipated its future fate, and already fled to accomplish it
in thee. I felt that, in ceasing to be near thee, I should cease to
exist: therefore I concealed from thee the danger which hung upon our
interviews, and all that might lead thee, for thine own sake or for
mine, to withdraw from me the heaven of thy presence--but the dream is
over! the God whom thou didst teach me to abandon, has this night
appeared on earth to reclaim his apostate.”
“Luxima! Luxima!”
“Hear me, father! If I live, this night the vision of Brahma, the God
whom I forsook, appeared to me amidst the ruins of his own neglected
altar!”
“Impossible! impossible!” exclaimed the Missionary vehemently.
“Then,” she returned, in a voice which resembled the heart-piercing
accent of melancholy madness, “then there lives some human testimony of
our interview, and thou art lost! thou, my soul’s own idol! Oh! then,
fly--for ever fly: let me feel death and shame but once, and not a
thousand, thousand times through thy destruction. But, no,” she added in
a calmer tone; “it was no human form I saw; I have oft before met that
awful vision in my dream of inspiration! haply it came to warn me of thy
danger, and to save _my_ life through _thine_--then go, leave me while
yet I have power to say--_leave me_!”
The Missionary heard her in uncontrolled emotion; but without any faith
in a fancied event, which he deemed but the vision of her own disordered
imagination, influenced by the agitation of her feelings, by the hour,
the scene, and by the fanaticism and superstitious horrors which still
governed her vacillating mind: but he saw that there was evidently, at
that moment, an obstinacy in her illusion, a bigotry in her faith, it
would be vain to attempt to dissipate or to vanquish, until a calmer
mood of thought and feeling should succeed to their present tumultuous
and unsettled state. Less surprised at the nature of her vision, than at
the peculiar result of its influence, he could not comprehend the
miracle by which she submitted to an eternal separation, at a moment
when his mind, broken and enervated, sunk under the tyranny of a passion
which had just reached its acmé. But he knew love only as a man, and
could not comprehend its nature in the heart of a woman:--with him the
existing moment was every thing, but her affection took eternity itself
into its compass; and though she could have more easily parted with her
life than with her lover, yet she did not hesitate to sacrifice her
felicity to his safety, to his glory, and to the hope of that eternal
reunion which might await two souls, which crime had not yet degraded;
for her tolerant, but zealous, religion, shut not the gates of Heaven
against all who sought it by a different path; and consecrating a human
feeling, in ascribing to it an immortal duration, love itself enabled
her to make the sacrifice religion demanded. The Missionary sought not
to subdue the influence of that wild and fervid imagination, which now,
he believed, held the ascendant; but he sought to combat the resolution
it had given birth to--and gazing on a countenance, where the enthusiasm
of religion still mingled with the expressions of tenderness and
passion, he said,
“Wondrous and powerful being! equally fatal in thy weakness and thy
force, in thy seducing softness, and resisting virtue: wilt thou now,
thus suddenly, thus unprepared, abandon me? now, that thou hast
trampled on my religion and my vows; now, that thou hast conquered my
habits of feeling, my principles of thinking, subdued every faculty of
my being to thy influence, and bereft me of all, save that long latent
power of loving passionately--that tyrannic and dreadful capability of
an exclusive devotion to a creature frail and perishable as myself, by
which thou hast effected my ruin, and changed the very constitution of
my nature?”
“Oh, no!” returned Luxima, endeavouring to conceal her tenderness and
her tears; “oh, no! Part we cannot. Go where thou mayest, my life must
still hang upon thine! my thoughts will pursue thee. Indissolubly
united, there is now but one soul between us. But, O father! to preserve
that soul pure and untainted--the human intercourse, that dear and fatal
symbol of our eternal union, ought, and can, no longer exist; the voice
of God and the law of man, alike oppose it: let us not further provoke
the wrath of both, let us remember our respective vows, and immolate
ourselves to their performance.” She arose as she spoke. The tears stood
trembling in her inflamed eyes, and that deadly sickness of the soul
which ushers in the moment of separation from all the heart holds
dearest, spread its livid hues over her cheek, its agony of expression
over her countenance.
“Woman! woman!” exclaimed the Missionary, wildly, and seizing her
trembling hands, “give me back my peace, or remain to solace me for its
loss; give me back to the Heaven from which you have torn me, or stay,
stay, and teach me to forget the virtue by which I earned its
protection. While yet a dreadful remembrance of my former self remains,
you dare not leave me to horror and remorse! You dare not, cold, or
cruel, or faithless, as you may be, you dare not say, ‘This moment is
our last.’ O Luxima! Luxima!”--Overcome by a sense of his weakness, he
drooped his head upon her hands, and wept. Had not the salvation of his
life been the purchase of her firmness and her resistance, Luxima would
have granted to the tears of love, what its ardour or its eloquence
could now have obtained: but she knew the danger of remaining longer,
or of again meeting him in a place, where they had either been
discovered by the jealous guardians of her rigid order, or from which
they had been warned by a divine intimation. Mingling her tears with
his, after an affecting pause, she said, in a low voice, and scarcely
articulate from contending emotions,
“To-morrow, then, we shall again meet, when the sun sets behind the
mountains: but not here--not here! Oh, no! These shades have become
fearful and full of danger to my imagination. But if thou wilt repair to
the western arcades of the great banyan-tree, then----” The words died
away on her trembling lips, and she cast round a wild and timid look,
as if some minister of Heaven’s mercy was near to forbid an appointment,
which might be, perhaps, pregnant with destruction to both.
“_And then_,” repeated the Missionary, with vehemence and with firmness,
“we meet to part _for ever_!--or--_to part no more_!”
Luxima, at these words, turned her eyes on him, with a look of love,
passionate and despairing--then, folding her hands upon her bosom, she
raised those eloquent eyes to Heaven, with a glance of sweet and holy
resignation to its will. This seraph look of suffering and piety
operated like a spell upon the frantic feelings of her lover. The arms,
extended to detain her, fell back nerveless on his breast. He saw her
move slowly away, resembling the pensive spirit of some innocent
sufferer, whom sorrow had released from the bondage of painful
existence. He saw her light and perfect form, faintly tinged with the
moon-ray, slowly fading into distance, till it seemed to mingle with the
fleecy vapours of the night: then he felt as if she had disappeared from
his eyes for ever, and, turning to her image in his heart, he gave
himself up to suffering and to thought, to the alternate influence of
passion and remorse.