THE CONFESSIONAL
The reader, if a person of any common knowledge of human nature,
will easily see the direction in which a young, inexperienced, and
impressible girl would naturally be tending under all the influences
which we perceive to have come upon her.
But in the religious faith which Agnes professed there was a modifying
force, whose power both for good and evil can scarcely be estimated.
The simple Apostolic direction, "Confess your faults one to another,"
and the very natural need of personal pastoral guidance and assistance
to a soul in its heavenward journey, had in common with many other
religious ideas been forced by the volcanic fervor of the Italian
nature into a certain exaggerated proposition. Instead of brotherly
confession one to another, or the pastoral sympathy of a fatherly
elder, the religious mind of the day was instructed in an awful
mysterious sacrament of confession, which gave to some human being
a divine right to unlock the most secret chambers of the soul, to
scrutinize and direct its most veiled and intimate thoughts, and,
standing in God's stead, to direct the current of its most sensitive
and most mysterious emotions.
Every young aspirant for perfection in the religious life had to
commence by an unreserved surrender of the whole being in blind faith
at the feet of some such spiritual director, all whose questions must
be answered, and all whose injunctions obeyed, as from God himself.
Thenceforward was to be no soul-privacy, no retirement, nothing too
sacred to be expressed, too delicate to be handled and analyzed. In
reading the lives of those ethereally made and moulded women who
have come down to our day canonized as saints in the Roman Catholic
communion, one too frequently gets the impression of most regal
natures, gifted with all the most divine elements of humanity, but
subjected to a constant unnatural pressure from the ceaseless scrutiny
and ungenial pertinacity of some inferior and uncomprehending person
invested with the authority of a Spiritual Director.
That there are advantages attending this species of intimate direction,
when wisely and skillfully managed, cannot be doubted. Groveling and
imperfect natures have often thus been lifted up and carried in the
arms of superior wisdom and purity. The confession administered by
a Fénelon or a Francis de Sales was doubtless a beautiful and most
invigorating ordinance; but the difficulty in its actual working is the
rarity of such superior natures,--the fact that the most ignorant and
most incapable may be invested with precisely the same authority as the
most intelligent and skillful.
He to whom the faith of Agnes obliged her to lay open her whole soul,
who had a right with probing-knife and lancet to dissect all the finest
nerves and fibres of her womanly nature, was a man who had been through
all the wild and desolating experiences incident to a dissipated and
irregular life in those turbulent days.
It is true that he was now with most stringent and earnest solemnity
striving to bring every thought and passion into captivity to the
spirit of his sacred vows; but still, when a man has once lost that
unconscious soul-purity which exists in a mind unscathed by the fires
of passion, no after-tears can weep it back again. No penance, no
prayer, no anguish of remorse can give back the simplicity of a soul
that has never been stained.
Il Padre Francesco had not failed to make those inquiries into the
character of Agnes's mysterious lover which he assumed to be necessary
as a matter of pastoral faithfulness.
It was not difficult for one possessing the secrets of the confessional
to learn the real character of any person in the neighborhood, and it
was with a kind of bitter satisfaction which rather surprised himself
that the father learned enough ill of the cavalier to justify his using
every possible measure to prevent his forming any acquaintance with
Agnes. He was captain of a band of brigands, and, of course, in array
against the State; he was excommunicated, and, of course, an enemy of
the Church. What but the vilest designs could be attributed to such
a man? Was he not a wolf prowling round the green, secluded pastures
where as yet the Lord's lamb had been folded in unconscious innocence?
Father Francesco, when he next met Agnes at the confessional, put such
questions as drew from her the whole account of all that had passed
between her and the stranger. The recital on Agnes's part was perfectly
translucent and pure, for she had said no word and had had no thought
that brought the slightest stain upon her soul. Love and prayer had
been the prevailing habit of her life, and in promising to love and
pray, she had had no worldly or earthly thought. The language of
gallantry, or even of sincere passion, had never reached her ear; but
it had always been as natural to her to love every human being as for a
plant with tendrils to throw them round the next plant, and therefore
she entertained the gentle guest who had lately found room in her heart
without a question or a scruple.
As Agnes related her childlike story of unconscious faith and love, her
listener felt himself strangely and bitterly agitated. It was a vision
of ignorant purity and unconsciousness rising before him, airy and
glowing as a child's soap-bubble, which one touch might annihilate;
but he felt a strange remorseful tenderness, a yearning admiration,
at its unsubstantial purity. There is something pleading and pitiful
in the simplicity of perfect ignorance,--a rare and delicate beauty
in its freshness, like the morning-glory cup, which, once withered
by the heat, no second morning can restore. Agnes had imparted to
her confessor, by a mysterious sympathy, something like the morning
freshness of her own soul; she had redeemed the idea of womanhood
from gross associations, and set before him a fair ideal of all that
female tenderness and purity may teach to man. Her prayers,--well
he believed in them,--but he set his teeth with a strange spasm of
inward passion, when he thought of her prayers and love being given to
another. He tried to persuade himself that this was only the fervor of
pastoral zeal against a vile robber who had seized the fairest lamb of
the sheepfold; but there was an intensely bitter, miserable feeling
connected with it, that scorched and burned his higher aspirations like
a stream of lava running among fresh leaves and flowers.
The conflict of his soul communicated a severity of earnestness to
his voice and manner which made Agnes tremble, as he put one probing
question after another, designed to awaken some consciousness of sin
in her soul. Still, though troubled and distressed by his apparent
disapprobation, her answers came always clear, honest, unfaltering,
like those of one who _could_ not form an idea of evil.
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!"