THE SAINT'S REST
Agnes entered the city of Rome in a trance of enthusiastic emotion,
almost such as one might imagine in a soul entering the heavenly
Jerusalem above. To her exalted ideas she was approaching not only the
ground hallowed by the blood of apostles and martyrs, not merely the
tombs of the faithful, but the visible "general assembly and church of
the first-born which are written in heaven." Here reigned the appointed
representative of Jesus,--and she imagined a benignant image of a
prince clothed with honor and splendor, who was yet the righter of all
wrongs, the redresser of all injuries, the friend and succorer of the
poor and needy; and she was firm in a secret purpose to go to this
great and benignant father, and on her knees entreat him to forgive the
sins of her lover, and remove the excommunication that threatened at
every moment his eternal salvation. For she trembled to think of it,--a
sudden accident, a thrust of a dagger, a fall from his horse, might put
him forever beyond the pale of repentance,--he might die unforgiven,
and sink to eternal pain.
If any should wonder that a Christian soul could preserve within itself
an image so ignorantly fair, in such an age, when the worldliness and
corruption in the Papal chair were obtruded by a thousand incidental
manifestations, and were alluded to in all the calculations of simple
common people, who looked at facts with a mere view to the guidance of
their daily conduct, it is necessary to remember the nature of Agnes's
religious training, and the absolute renunciation of all individual
reasoning which from infancy had been laid down before her as the first
and indispensable prerequisite of spiritual progress. To believe,--to
believe utterly and blindly,--not only without evidence, but against
evidence,--to reject the testimony even of her senses, when set against
the simple affirmation of her superiors,--had been the beginning,
middle, and end of her religious instruction. When a doubt assailed her
mind on any point, she had been taught to retire within herself and
repeat a prayer; and in this way her mental eye had formed the habit
of closing to anything that might shake her faith as quickly as the
physical eye closes at a threatened blow. Then, as she was of a poetic
and ideal nature, entirely differing from the mass of those with whom
she associated, she had formed that habit of abstraction and mental
reverie which prevented her hearing or perceiving the true sense of a
great deal that went on around her. The conversations that commonly
were carried on in her presence had for her so little interest that
she scarcely heard them. The world in which she moved was a glorified
world,--wherein to be sure, the forms of every-day life appeared,
but appeared as different from what they were in reality as the old
mouldering daylight view of Rome is from the warm translucent glory of
its evening transfiguration.
So in her quiet, silent heart she nursed this beautiful hope of finding
in Rome the earthly image of her Saviour's home above, of finding in
the head of the Church the real image of her Redeemer,--the friend to
whom the poorest and lowliest may pour out their souls with as much
freedom as the highest and noblest. The spiritual directors who had
formed the mind of Agnes in her early days had been persons in the same
manner taught to move in an ideal world of faith. The Mother Theresa
had never seen the realities of life, and supposed the Church on earth
to be all that the fondest visions of human longing could paint it.
The hard, energetic, prose experience of old Jocunda, and the downright
way with which she sometimes spoke of things as a trooper's wife must
have seen them, were repressed and hushed down, as the imperfect faith
of a half-reclaimed worldling,--they could not be allowed to awaken
her from the sweetness of so blissful a dream. In like manner, when
Lorenzo Sforza became Father Francesco, he strove with earnest prayer
to bury his gift of individual reason in the same grave with his family
name and worldly experience. As to all that transpired in the real
world, he wrapped himself in a mantle of imperturbable silence; the
intrigues of popes and cardinals, once well known to him, sank away
as a forbidden dream; and by some metaphysical process of imaginative
devotion, he enthroned God in the place of the dominant powers, and
taught himself to receive all that came from them in uninquiring
submission, as proceeding from unerring wisdom. Though he had begun
his spiritual life under the impulse of Savonarola, yet so perfect had
been his isolation from all tidings of what transpired in the external
world that the conflict which was going on between that distinguished
man and the Papal hierarchy never reached his ear. He sought and aimed
as much as possible to make his soul like the soul of one dead, which
adores and worships in ideal space, and forgets forever the scenes and
relations of earth; and he had so long contemplated Rome under the
celestial aspects of his faith, that, though the shock of his first
confession there had been painful, still it was insufficient to shake
his faith. It had been God's will, he thought, that where he looked
for aid he should meet only confusion, and he bowed to the inscrutable
will, and blindly adored the mysterious revelation. If such could be
the submission and the faith of a strong and experienced man, who can
wonder at the enthusiastic illusions of an innocent, trustful child?
Agnes and her grandmother entered the city of Rome just as the
twilight had faded into night; and though Agnes, full of faith and
enthusiasm, was longing to begin immediately the ecstatic vision of
shrines and holy places, old Elsie commanded her not to think of
anything further that night. They proceeded, therefore, with several
other pilgrims who had entered the city, to a church specially set
apart for their reception, connected with which were large dormitories
and a religious order whose business was to receive and wait upon
them, and to see that all their wants were supplied. This religious
foundation is one of the oldest in Rome; and it is esteemed a work of
especial merit and sanctity among the citizens to associate themselves
temporarily in these labors in Holy Week. Even princes and princesses
come, humble and lowly, mingling with those of common degree, and all,
calling each other brother and sister, vie in kind attentions to these
guests of the Church.
When Agnes and Elsie arrived, several of these volunteer assistants
were in waiting. Agnes was remarked among all the rest of the company
for her peculiar beauty and the rapt enthusiastic expression of her
face.
Almost immediately on their entrance into the reception hall connected
with the church, they seemed to attract the attention of a tall lady
dressed in deep mourning, and accompanied by a female servant, with
whom she was conversing on those terms of intimacy which showed
confidential relations between the two.
"See!" she said, "my Mona, what a heavenly face is there!--that sweet
child has certainly the light of grace shining through her. My heart
warms to her."
"Indeed," said the old servant, looking across, "and well it
may,--dear lamb come so far! But, Holy Virgin, how my head swims! How
strange!--that child reminds me of some one. My Lady, perhaps, may
think of some one whom she looks like."
"Mona, you say true. I have the same strange impression that I have
seen a face like hers, but who or where I cannot say."
"What would my Lady say, if I said it was our dear Prince?--God rest
his soul!"
"Mona, it _is_ so,--yes," added the lady, looking more intently, "how
singular!--the very traits of our house in a peasant-girl! She is of
Sorrento, I judge, by her costume,--what a pretty one it is! That old
woman is her mother, perhaps. I must choose her for my care,--and,
Mona, you shall wait on her mother."
So saying, the Princess Paulina crossed the hall, and, bending affably
over Agnes, took her hand and kissed her, saying,--
"Welcome, my dear little sister, to the house of our Father!"
Agnes looked up with strange, wondering eyes into the face that was
bent to hers. It was sallow and sunken, with deep lines of ill-health
and sorrow, but the features were noble, and must once have been
beautiful; the whole action, voice, and manner were dignified and
impressive. Instinctively she felt that the lady was of superior birth
and breeding to any with whom she had been in the habit of associating.
"Come with me," said the lady; "and this--your mother"--she added.
"She is my grandmother," said Agnes.
"Well, then, your grandmother, sweet child, shall be attended to by my
good sister Mona here."
The Princess Paulina drew the hand of Agnes through her arm, and,
laying her hand affectionately on it, looked down and smiled tenderly
on her.
"Are you very tired, my dear?"
"Oh, no! no!" said Agnes,--"I am so happy, so blessed to be here!"
"You have traveled a long way?"
"Yes, from Sorrento; but I am used to walking,--I did not feel it to be
long,--my heart kept me up,--I wanted to come home so much."
"Home?" said the Princess.
"Yes, to my soul's home,--the house of our dear Father the Pope."
The Princess started, and looked incredulously down for a moment; then
noticing the confiding, whole-hearted air of the child, she sighed and
was silent.
"Come with me above," she said, "and let me attend a little to your
comfort."
"How good you are, dear lady!" said Agnes.
"I am not good, my child,--I am only your unworthy sister in Christ;"
and as the lady spoke, she opened the door into a room where were a
number of other female pilgrims seated around the wall, each attended
by a person whose peculiar care she seemed to be.
At the feet of each was a vessel of water, and when the seats were all
full, a cardinal in robes of office entered, and began reading prayers.
Each lady present, kneeling at the feet of her chosen pilgrim, divested
them carefully of their worn and travel-soiled shoes and stockings,
and proceeded to wash them. It was not a mere rose-water ceremony, but
a good hearty washing of feet that for the most part had great need
of the ablution. While this service was going on, the cardinal read
from the Gospel how a Greater than they all had washed the feet of His
disciples, and said, "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your
feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet." Then all repeated in
concert the Lord's Prayer, while each humbly kissed the feet she had
washed, and proceeded to replace the worn and travel-soiled shoes and
stockings with new and strong ones, the gift of Christian love. Each
lady then led her charge into a room where tables were spread with a
plain and wholesome repast of all such articles of food as the season
of Lent allowed. Each placed her _protégée_ at table, and carefully
attended to all her wants at the supper, and afterwards dormitories
were opened for their repose.
The Princess Paulina performed all these offices for Agnes with a
tender earnestness which won upon her heart. The young girl thought
herself indeed in that blessed society of which she had dreamed, where
the high-born and the rich become through Christ's love the servants
of the poor and lowly; and through all the services she sat in a sort
of dream of rapture. How lovely this reception into the Holy City! how
sweet thus to be taken to the arms of the great Christian family, bound
together in the charity which is the bond of perfectness!
"Please tell me, dear lady," said Agnes, after supper, "who is that
holy man that prayed with us?"
"Oh, he--he is the Cardinal Capello," said the Princess.
"I should like to have spoken with him," said Agnes.
"Why, my child?"
"I wanted to ask him when and how I could get speech with our dear
Father the Pope, for there is somewhat on my mind that I would lay
before him."
"My poor little sister," said the Princess, much perplexed, "you do not
understand things. What you speak of is impossible. The Pope is a great
king."
"I know he is," said Agnes,--"and so is our Lord Jesus; but every soul
may come to him."
"I cannot explain to you now," said the Princess,--"there is not time
to-night. But I shall see you again. I will send for you to come to
my house, and there talk with you about many things which you need to
know. Meanwhile, promise me, dear child, not to try to do anything of
the kind you spoke of until I have talked with you."
"Well, I will not," said Agnes, with a glance of docile affection,
kissing the hand of the Princess.
The action was so pretty,--the great, soft, dark eyes looked so
fawn-like and confiding in their innocent tenderness, that the lady
seemed much moved.
"Our dear Mother bless thee, child!" she said, laying her hand on her
head, and stooping to kiss her forehead.
She left her at the door of the dormitory.
The Princess and her attendant went out of the church-door, where her
litter stood in waiting. The two took their seats in silence, and
silently pursued their way through the streets of the old dimly-lighted
city and out of one of its principal gates to the wide Campagna beyond.
The villa of the Princess was situated on an eminence at some distance
from the city, and the night-ride to it was solemn and solitary. They
passed along the old Appian Way over pavements that had rumbled under
the chariot-wheels of the emperors and nobles of a bygone age, while
along their way, glooming up against the clear of the sky, were vast
shadowy piles,--the tombs of the dead of other days. All mouldering and
lonely, shaggy and fringed with bushes and streaming wild vines through
which the night-wind sighed and rustled, they might seem to be pervaded
by the restless spirits of the dead; and as the lady passed them, she
shivered, and, crossing herself, repeated an inward prayer against
wandering demons that walk in desolate places.
Timid and solitary, the high-born lady shrank and cowered within
herself with a distressing feeling of loneliness. A childless widow
in delicate health, whose paternal family had been for the most part
cruelly robbed, exiled, or destroyed by the reigning Pope and his
family, she felt her own situation a most unprotected and precarious
one, since the least jealousy or misunderstanding might bring upon
her, too, the ill-will of the Borgias, which had proved so fatal
to the rest of her race. No comfort in life remained to her but her
religion, to whose practice she clung as to her all; but even in this
her life was embittered by facts to which, with the best disposition
in the world, she could not shut her eyes. Her own family had been
too near the seat of power not to see all the base intrigues by which
that sacred and solemn position of Head of the Christian Church had
been traded for as a marketable commodity. The pride, the indecency,
the cruelty of those who now reigned in the name of Christ came over
her mind in contrast with the picture painted by the artless, trusting
faith of the peasant-girl with whom she had just parted. Her mind had
been too thoroughly drilled in the non-reflective practice of her faith
to dare to put forth any act of reasoning upon facts so visible and so
tremendous,--she rather trembled at herself for seeing what she saw and
for knowing what she knew, and feared somehow that this very knowledge
might endanger her salvation; and so she rode homeward cowering and
praying like a frightened child.
"Does my Lady feel ill?" said the old servant, anxiously.
"No, Mona, no,--not in body."
"And what is on my Lady's mind now?"
"Oh, Mona, it is only what is always there. To-morrow is Palm Sunday,
and how can I go to see the murderers and robbers of our house in
holy places? Oh, Mona, what can Christians do, when such men handle
holy things? It was a comfort to wash the feet of those poor simple
pilgrims, who tread in the steps of the saints of old; but how I felt
when that poor child spoke of wanting to see the Pope!"
"Yes," said Mona, "it's like sending the lamb to get spiritual counsel
of the wolf."
"See what sweet belief the poor infant has! Should not the head of the
Christian Church be such as she thinks? Ah, in the old days, when the
Church here in Rome was poor and persecuted, there were Popes who were
loving fathers and not haughty princes."
"My dear Lady," said the servant, "pray, consider, the very stones have
ears. We don't know what day we may be turned out, neck and heels, to
make room for some of their creatures."
"Well, Mona," said the lady, with some spirit, "I'm sure I haven't said
any more than you have."
"Holy Mother! and so you haven't, but somehow things look more
dangerous when other people say them. A pretty child that was, as you
say; but that old thing, her grandmother, is a sharp piece. She is a
Roman, and lived here in her early days. She says the little one was
born hereabouts; but she shuts up her mouth like a vise, when one would
get more out of her."
"Mona, I shall not go out to-morrow; but you go to the services, and
find the girl and her grandmother, and bring them out to me. I want to
counsel the child."
"You may be sure," said Mona, "that her grandmother knows the ins and
outs of Rome as well as any of us, for all she has learned to screw up
her lips so tight."
"At any rate, bring her to me, because she interests me."
"Well, well, it shall be so," said Mona.