_Beatrice, her Creed, and her Love._
Euthanasia was meditating on this letter, when Beatrice entered, and sat
down beside her. She took her hand, and kissed it, and then said, "How
can you forgive my ingratitude? I am self-willed, sullen, and humorous;
alas! sometimes the memory of the evils I have suffered presses on me,
and I forget all my duties. Duties! until I knew you I had none; for
five years my life has been one scene of despair: you cannot tell what a
fall mine was."
"Forget, I do intreat you, poor sufferer, all your past unhappiness;
forget every thing that you once were."
"Aye, you say right; I must forget every thing, or to be what I am must
torture me to despair. Poor, misled, foolish, insensate Beatrice! I can
accuse myself alone for my many ills; myself, and that power who sits on
high, and scatters evil like dew upon the earth, a killing, blighting
honey dew."
"Hush! my poor girl, do not talk thus; indeed I must not have you utter
these sentiments."
"Oh! let me speak: before all others I must hide my bursting feelings,
deep, deep. Yet for one moment let me curse!"
Beatrice arose; she pointed to heaven; she stood in the same attitude,
as when she had prophesied to the people of Ferrara under the portico of
the church of St. Anna; but how changed! Her form thin; her face
care-worn; her love-formed lips withered; her hands and arms, then so
round and fair, now wrinkled and faded; her eyes were not the same; they
had lost that softness which, mingling with their fire, was as something
wonderful in brilliancy and beauty; they now, like the sun from beneath
a thunder cloud, glared fiercely from under her dark and scattered hair
that shaded her brow: but even now, as in those times, she spoke with
tumultuous eloquence:
"Euthanasia, you are much deceived; you either worship a useless shadow,
or a fiend in the clothing of a god. Listen to me, while I announce to
you the eternal and victorious influence of evil, which circulates like
air about us, clinging to our flesh like a poisonous garment, eating
into us, and destroying us. Are you blind, that you see it not? Are you
deaf, that you hear no groans? Are you insensible, that you feel no
misery? Open your eyes, and you will behold all of which I speak,
standing in hideous array before you. Look around. Is there not war,
violation of treaties, and hard-hearted cruelty? Look at the societies
of men; are not our fellow creatures tormented one by the other in an
endless circle of pain? Some shut up in iron cages, starved and
destroyed; cities float in blood, and the hopes of the husbandman are
manured by his own mangled limbs: remember the times of our fathers, the
extirpation of the Albigenses;--the cruelties of Ezzelin, when troops of
the blind, and the lame, and the mutilated, the scum of his prisons,
inundated the Italian states. Remember the destruction of the templars.
Did you never glance in thought into the tower of famine of Ugolino; or
into the hearts of the armies of exiles, that each day the warring
citizens banish from their homes? Did you never reflect on the guilty
policy of the Popes, those ministers of the reigning king of heaven?
Remember the Sicilian vespers; the death of the innocent Conradin; the
myriads whose bones are now bleached beneath the sun of Asia: they went
in honour of His name, and thus He rewards them.
"Then reflect upon domestic life, on the strife, hatred and
uncharitableness, that, as sharp spears, pierce one's bosom at every
turn; think of jealousy, midnight murders, envy, want of faith, calumny,
ingratitude, cruelty, and all which man in his daily sport inflicts upon
man. Think upon disease, plague, famine, leprosy, fever, and all the
aching pains our limbs suffer withal; visit in thought the hospital, the
lazar house; Oh! surely God's hand is the chastening hand of a father,
that thus torments his children! His children? his eternal enemies!
look, I am one! He created the seeds of disease, maremma, thirst, want;
he created man,--that most wretched of slaves; oh! know you not what a
wretch man is? and what a store house of infinite pain is this
much-vaunted human soul? Look into your own heart; or, if that be too
peaceful, gaze on mine; I will tear it open for your inspection. There
is remorse, hatred, grief--overwhelming, mighty, and eternal misery. God
created me: am I the work of a beneficent being? Oh, what spirit mingled
in my wretched frame love, hope, energy, confidence,--to find
indifference, to be blasted to despair, to be as weak as the fallen
leaf, to be betrayed by all! Now I am changed,--I hate;--my energy is
spent in curses, and if I trust, it is to be the more deeply wounded.
"Did not the power you worship create the passions of man; his desires
which outleap possibility, and bring ruin upon his head? Did he not
implant the seeds of ambition, revenge and hate? Did he not create love,
the tempter: he who keeps the key of that mansion whose motto must ever
be
Lasciate ogni speranza voi che intrate.
And the imagination, that masterpiece of his malice; that spreads honey
on the cup that you may drink poison; that strews roses over thorns,
thorns sharp and big as spears; that semblance of beauty which beckons
you to the desart; that apple of gold with the heart of ashes; that foul
image, with the veil of excellence; that mist of the maremma, glowing
with roseate hues beneath the sun, that creates it, and beautifies it,
to destroy you; that diadem of nettles; that spear, broken in the heart!
He, the damned and triumphant one, sat meditating many thousand years
for the conclusion, the consummation, the final crown, the seal of all
misery, which he might set on man's brain and heart to doom him to
endless torment; and he created the Imagination. And then we are told
the fault is ours; good and evil are sown in our hearts, and ours is the
tillage, ours the harvest; and can this justify an omnipotent deity that
he permits one particle of pain to subsist in his world? Oh, never.
"I tell thee what; there is not an atom of life in this all-peopled
world that does not suffer pain; we destroy animals;--look at your own
dress, which a myriad of living creatures wove and then died; those
sables,--a thousand hearts once beat beneath those skins, quenched in
the agonies of death to furnish forth that cloak. Yet why not? While
they lived, those miserable hearts beat under the influence of fear,
cold and famine. Oh! better to die, than to suffer! The whale in the
great ocean destroys nations of fish, but thousands live on him and
torment him. Destruction is the watchword of the world; the death by
which it lives, the despair by which it hopes: oh, surely a good being
created all this!
"Let me tell you, that you do ill to ally yourself to the triumphant
spirit of evil, leaving the worship of the good, who is fallen and
depressed, yet who still lives. He wanders about the world a proscribed
and helpless thing, hooted from the palaces of kings, excommunicated
from churches; sometimes he wanders into the heart of man, and makes his
bosom glow with love and virtue; but so surely as he enters, misfortune,
bound to him by his enemy, as a corpse to a living body, enters with
him; the wretch who has received his influence, becomes poor, helpless
and deserted; happy if he be not burnt at the stake, whipt with iron,
torn with red-hot pincers.
"The Spirit of Evil chose a nation for his own; the Spirit of Good tried
to redeem that nation from its gulph of vice and misery; and was cruelly
destroyed by it; and now, as the masterpiece of the enemy, they are
adored together; and he the beneficent, kind and suffering, is made the
mediator to pull down curses upon us.
"How quick and secure are the deeds of the evil spirit; how slow and
uncertain those of the good! I remember once a good and learned friend
of mine telling me that the country about Athens was adorned by the most
exquisite works man had ever produced; marble temples traced with divine
sculpture, statues transcending human beauty; the art of man had been
exhausted to embellish it, the lives of hundreds of men had been wasted
to accomplish it, the genius of the wisest had been employed in its
execution; ages had passed, while slowly, year by year, these wonders
had been collected; some were almost falling through exceeding age,
while others shone in their first infancy. Well:--a king, Philip of
Macedon, destroyed all these in three days, burnt them, razed them,
annihilated them. This is the proportionate energy of good and evil; the
produce of ages is the harvest of a moment; a man may spend years in
curbing his passions, in acquiring wisdom, in becoming an angel in
excellence; the brutality of a fellow creature, or the chance of war,
may fell him in an instant; and all his knowledge and virtues become
blank, as a moonless, starless night.
"Euthanasia, my heart aches, and my spirits flag: I was a poor, simple
girl; but I have suffered much; and endurance, and bitter experience
have let me into the truth of things; the deceitful veil which is cast
over this world, is powerless to hide its deformity from me. I see the
cruel heart, which lurks beneath the beautiful skin of the pard; I see
the blight of autumn in the green leaves of spring, the wrinkles of age
in the face of youth, rust on the burnished iron, storm in the very
breast of calm, sorrow in the heart of joy; all beauty wraps deformity,
as the fruit the kernel; Time opens the shell, the seed is poison."
The eyes of Beatrice shot forth sparks of fire as she poured out this
anathema against the creation; her cheeks were fevered with a hectic
glow; her voice, sharp and broken, which was sometimes raised almost to
a shriek, and sometimes lowered to a whisper, fell on the brain of
Euthanasia like a rain of alternate fire and ice; she shrunk and
trembled beneath the flood of terror that inundated and confounded her
understanding: but the eloquent prophetess of Evil ceased at last, and,
pale and exhausted, she sank down; clasping Euthanasia in her arms, she
hid her face on her knees, and sobbed, and wept: "Forgive me, if I have
said that which appears to you blasphemy; I will unveil my heart to you,
tell you my sufferings, and surely you will then curse with me the
author of my being."
Euthanasia spoke consolation alone; she bade her weep no more; that she
need no longer fear or hate; that she might again love, hope and trust;
and that she as a tender sister would sympathize with and support her.
The undisciplined mind of poor Beatrice was as a flower that droops
beneath the storm; but, on the first gleam of sunshine, raises again its
head, even though the hail-stones and the wind might have broken and
tarnished its leaves and its tints. She looked up, and smiled; "I will
do all that you tell me; I will be docile, good and affectionate;--I
will be obedient to your smallest sign, kindest, dearest Euthanasia.
Trust me, you shall make me a Catholic again, if you will love me
unceasingly for one whole year, and in the mean time I do not die. I am
very teachable, very, very tractable; but I have suffered greatly, as
one day you will know; for I will tell you every thing. Now, good bye; I
am very tired, and I think I shall sleep."
"Sleep then, poor creature; here is a couch ready for you; I will watch
near you; and may your dreams be pleasant."
"Give me your hand then; I will hold it while I rest; how small, and
white, and soft it is! Look at mine, it is yellow and dry; once it was
like yours; I think it was rather smaller, but never so well shaped; the
tips of my fingers and my nails were never dyed by so roseate a tint as
this, nor was the palm so silken soft. You are very beautiful, and very
good, dear Euthanasia; I hope you are, and will be happy."
Euthanasia kissed the forehead of this child of imagination and misery;
and soon she slept, forgetful of all her sufferings. Euthanasia felt
deeply interested in her; she felt that they were bound together, by
their love for one who loved only himself; she thought over her wild
denunciations; and, strange to say, she felt doubly warmed with
admiration of the creation, and gratitude towards God, at the moment
that Beatrice had painted its defects. She thought of the beauty of the
world and the wondrous nature of man, until her mind was raised to an
enthusiastic sentiment of happiness and praise. "And you also shall curb
your wild thoughts," whispered Euthanasia, as she looked at the sleeping
girl; "I will endeavour to teach you the lessons of true religion; and,
in reducing the wandering thoughts of one so lovely and so good, I shall
be in part fulfilling my task on the earth."
For several days after this conversation Beatrice became peaceful and
mild, saying little, and appearing complacent, almost content; she
attended mass, told her beads, and talked of going to confession.
Euthanasia was astounded; she was herself so steady in her principles,
so firm in opinion and action, slow to change, but resolute having
changed, that she was at a loss to understand the variable feelings and
swift mutations of the poor, untaught Beatrice.
"Confess!" she repeated; "you promised that I should convert you in a
year; but you have already forsaken your Paterin opinions!"
"No, indeed, I have not; but it is of so little consequence; I would
please you, dearest, by seeming what I am not; not that I am sure that I
am not what you desire. You know, if God is good, he will forgive my
errors: if he is evil, I care not to please him; so I shall endeavour to
please the virtuous and kind of this world, and you are one of those, my
best friend. Besides, now I think of it, this world seems too beautiful
to have been created by an evil spirit; he would have made us all toads,
the trees and flowers all mushrooms, and the rocks and mountains would
have been huge, formless polypi. Yet there is evil; but I will not
trouble myself more about it; you shall form my creed; and, as a lisping
infant, with clasped hands, I will repeat my prayers after you."
"Why so, dearest Beatrice? Why will you not recal the creeds of your
childhood, as your adoptive parents taught them you? I cannot school you
better than they."
"My childhood!" cried the prophetess; her eyes becoming dark and stormy,
"what to become again a dupe, a maniac? to fall again, as I have fallen?
Cease, cease, in mercy cease, to talk of my childhood; days of error,
vanity and paradise! My lessons must all be new; all retold in words
signifying other ideas than what they signified during my mad, brief
dream of youth. Then faith was not a shadow: it was what these eyes saw;
I clutched hope, and found it certainty; I heard the angels of heaven,
and saw the souls of the departed; can I ever see them again?"
"Sweetest and most unfortunate, drive away memory, and take hope to you.
Youth is indeed a dream; and, if I spent it not in your extacies, yet
believe me I was not then as I am now. I am older than you, and know
life better; I have passed the fearful change from dream to reality, and
am now calm. I have known all your throes; sometimes indeed they now
visit me; but I quench them, cast them aside, tread on them;--so may
you."
"Never! never!" replied Beatrice: "I was born for wretchedness. When the
fates twined my destiny, they mingled three threads; the first was green
hope, the second purple joy, the third black despair; but the two first
were very short, and soon came to an end; a dreary line of black alone
remains. Yet I would forget all that; and for many days I have been as
calm as a bird that broods, rocked on her tree by a gentle wind; full of
a quiet, sleepy life. Should this state continue longer, I might become
what you wish me to be; but I find my soul awakening, and I fear a
relapse; I fear the return of tears and endless groans. Oh! let me wrap
myself round you, my better angel, hope of my life; pour your balmy
words upon me; lay your cool, healthful cheek near my burning one, let
our pulses beat responsive! Oh! that once I could become less feverish,
less wild; less like a dark and crimsoned thunder-cloud, driven away,
away, through the unknown wildernesses of sky."
Euthanasia was glad to hear her suffering friend talk, however wildly;
for she observed that, when she had exhausted herself in speech, she
became calmer and happier; while, if she brooded silently over her
cares, she became almost insane through grief. Occasionally she sought
consolation in music; there was something magical in her voice, and in
the tones she could draw from the organ or the harp: in her days of
glory it had been said, that she was taught to sing by angelic
instructors; and now those remembered melodies remained, sole relics of
her faded honours. The recollection of this sometimes disturbed her; and
she would suddenly break off her song, and peevishly exclaim, that
music, like the rest of the world's masks, contained the soul of
bitterness within its form of beauty.
"Not so, dear girl," said Euthanasia; "Euterpe has ever been so dear a
friend of mine, that I cannot permit you to calumniate her unjustly;
there is to me an unalloyed pleasure in music. Some blessed spirit,
compassionate of man's estate, and loving him, sent it, to teach him
that he is other than what he seems: it comes, like a voice from a far
world, to tell you that there are depths of intense emotion veiled in
the blue empyrean, and the windows of heaven are opened by music alone.
It chastens and lulls our extacies; and, if it awakens grief, it also
soothes it. But more than to the happy or the sorrowful, music is an
inestimable gift to those who forget all sublimer emotions in the
pursuits of daily life. I listen to the talk of men; I play with my
embroidery-frame; I enter into society: suddenly high song awakens me,
and I leave all this tedious routine far, far distant; I listen, till
all the world is changed, and the beautiful earth becomes more
beautiful. Evening and all its soft delights, morning and all its
refreshing loveliness;--noonday, when the busy soul rests, like the sun
in its diurnal course, and then gathering new strength, descends; all
these, when thought upon, bring pleasure; but music is far more
delicious than these. Never do I feel happier and better, than when I
have heard sweet music; my thoughts often sleep like young children
nestled in their cradles, until music awakens them, and they open their
starry eyes. I may be mistaken; but music seems to me to reveal to us
some of the profoundest secrets of the universe; and the spirit, freed
from prison by its charms, can then soar, and gaze with eagle eyes on
the eternal sun of this all-beauteous world."
Beatrice smiled.--Since her days of happiness had ended, Euthanasia's
enthusiasm had become more concentrated, more concealed; but Beatrice
again awoke her to words, and these two ladies, bound by the sweet ties
of gratitude and pity, found in each other's converse some balm for
their misfortunes. Circumstances had thus made friends of those whom
nature seemed to separate: they were much unlike; but the wild looks of
Beatrice sometimes reflected the soft light of Euthanasia's eyes; and
Euthanasia found her heart, which was sinking to apathy, awake again, as
she listened to Beatrice. And, though we may be unhappy, we can never be
perfectly wretched, while the mind is active; it is inaction alone that
constitutes true wretchedness.
In the mean time her own journey to Florence was put off indefinitely.
She was too much interested in the fate of Beatrice, and already loved
her too well, to desert her; the poor prophetess appeared little capable
of the journey, since the most trifling circumstance would awaken her
wildest fancies, and fever and convulsions followed. Once indeed
Euthanasia had mentioned her wish to go thither; Beatrice looked at her
with flashing eyes, and cried, "Did you not promise never to desert me?
Are you faithless also?"
"But would you not accompany me?"
"Do you see that river that flows near Lucca?" exclaimed Beatrice. "I
fancy that it has flowed through the self-same banks these many thousand
years; and sooner will it desert them, than I this town. See you that
cypress, that grows towering above all its neighbour trees in that
convent-garden, I am as firm to this soil as that; I will never leave
this place but by force, and then I die."
She said these words in her wildest manner; and they were followed by
such an annihilation of strength, and such symptoms of fever, that
Euthanasia did not again dare mention her removal to Florence. She also
suffered less by her continued stay at Lucca; for the feelings of her
heart were so completely absorbed in pity and love for Beatrice, that
the painful ideas of many years' growth seemed rooted out by a new and
mightier power. She was so little selfish, that she could easily forget
her own sorrows, deep as they were, in her sympathy for the unhappy
prophetess, who had suffered evils tremendous and irremediable.
Castruccio often sent to learn of the welfare of this poor girl, and
Euthanasia answered his enquiries with exactness. She did this; for she
thought that perhaps the future destiny of Beatrice was in his hands,
and that he might engraft life and even happiness on the blighted plant.
One day Beatrice went out. It was the first time she had quitted the
palace; and Euthanasia was vexed and anxious. After an absence of some
hours she returned; she was clothed in a great coarse cloak that
entirely disguised her; she put it off; and, trembling, blushing,
panting, she threw herself into the arms of her protectress.
"I have seen him! I have seen him!"
"Calm yourself, poor fluttering bird; you have seen him: well, well, he
is changed, much altered; why do you weep?"
"Aye, he is changed; but he is far more beautiful than ever he was. Oh,
Euthanasia, how radiant, how divine he is! His eyes, which, like the
eagle's, could outgaze the sun, yet melt in the sweetest love, as a
cloud, shining, yet soft; his brow, manly and expansive, on which his
raven curls rest; his upturned lips, where pride, and joy, and love, and
wisdom, and triumph live, small spirits, ready to obey his smallest
will; and his head, cinctured by a slight diadem, looks carved out by
the intensest knowledge of beauty! How graceful his slightest motion!
and his voice,--his voice is here,----"
Beatrice put her hand upon her heart; her eyes were filled with tears;
and the whole expression of her face was softened and humanized.
Suddenly she stopped; she dried her eyes; and, fixing them on
Euthanasia, she took her two hands in hers, and looked on her, as if she
would read her soul. "Beautiful creature," she said, "once he told me
that he loved you. Did he not? does he not? Why are you separated? do
you not love him?"
"I did; once I did truly; but he has cast off that which was my love;
and, like a flower plucked from the stalk, it has withered--as you see
it."
"Aye, that is strange. What did he cast off?"
"Why will you make me speak? He cast off humanity, honesty, honourable
feeling, all that I prize."
"Forms, forms,--mere forms, my mistaken Euthanasia. _He_ remained, and
was not that every thing? Methinks, it would please me, that my lover
should cast off all humanity, and be a reprobate, and an outcast of his
species. Oh! then how deeply and tenderly I should love him; soiled with
crimes, his hands dripping blood, I would shade him as the flowering
shrub invests the ruin; I would cover him with a spotless veil;--my
intensity of love would annihilate his wickedness;--every one would hate
him;--but, if all adored him, it would not come near the sum of my
single affection. I should be every thing to him, life, and hope; he
would die in his remorse; but he would live again and again in the light
of my love; I would invest him as a silvery mist, so that none should
see how evil he was; I would pour out before him large draughts of love,
that he should become drunk with it, until he grew good and kind. So you
deserted this glorious being, and he has felt the pangs of unrequited
affection, the helpless throes of love cast as water upon the sand of
the desert? Oh, indeed I pity him!"
"Believe me," cried Euthanasia, "he has other affections. Glory and
conquest are his mistresses, and he is a successful lover; already he
has deluged our vallies in blood, and turned our habitations into black
and formless ruins; he has torn down the banners of the Florentines, and
planted his own upon the towers of noble cities; I believe him to be
happy."
"Thank God for that; I would pour out my blood, drop by drop, to make
him happy. But he is not married, and you have deserted him; I love him;
he has loved me; is it impossible--? Oh! foolish, hateful wretch that I
am, what do I say? No creature was ever so utterly undone!"
Beatrice covered her face with her hands; her struggles were violent;
she shrunk from Euthanasia's consoling embrace; and at length, quite
overcome, she sank in convulsions on the pavement of the hall. Her
paroxysm was long and fearful; it was succeeded by a heavy lethargic
sleep; during the first part of which she was feverish and uneasy; but,
after some hours, her cheeks became pale, her pulse beat slower, and her
breath was drawn regularly.
Euthanasia watched beside her alone: when she found that she was
sleeping quietly and deeply, she retired from her bedside; and, sitting
at some distance, she tried to school herself on the bitter feelings
that had oppressed her since the morning. Euthanasia was so
self-examining, that she never allowed a night to elapse without
recalling her feelings and actions of the past day; she endeavoured to
be simply just to herself, and her soul had so long been accustomed to
this discipline, that it easily laid open its dearest secrets.
Misfortune had not dulled her sense of right and wrong; her
understanding was still clear, though tinged by the same lofty
enthusiasm which had ever been her characteristic. She now searched her
soul to find what were the feelings which still remained to her
concerning Castruccio; she hardly knew whether it was hate or love.
Hate! could she hate one, to whom once she had delivered up all her
thoughts, as to the tribunal of her God, whom she had loved as one to
whom she was willing to unite herself for ever? And could she love one,
who had deceived her in her dearest hopes, who had lulled her on the
brink of a precipice, to plunge her with greater force to eternal
unhappiness? She felt neither hatred, nor revenge, nor contempt colder
than either; she felt grief alone, and that sentiment was deeply
engraven on her soul.