CONSOLATRIX AFFLICTORUM.
“Furl we the sail and pass with tardy oar
Through these bright regions, casting many a glance
Upon the dream like issues and romance
Of many-colored life that Fortune pours
Round the Crusaders till, on distant shores,
Their labors end.”—WORDSWORTH.
Miriamne’s welcome at the “Retreat of the Palestineans,” at London, was
most cordial. The Grand Master of the returned knights and his wife
received her as a daughter; the companion knights vied with each other in
efforts to serve the child of their once honored comrade, Sir Charleroy
de Griffin. But the maiden never for a moment lost sight of her mission.
No sooner had she been bidden to rest than she questioned as to her
father’s welfare. The Grand Master attempted to assure her that she might
recuperate after her journey, but she only the more urged her desire to
be taken to her parent at once.
“Worthy Master, dalliance would not be rest, but torture, to me. Being
now so near my father, I’m filled with a ruling, all-exciting longing to
see him, at once!”
“Be patient, daughter, for a little season; all is done for him that can
be. The princely revenues of the knights of Europe are at the behest of
each of our veterans, as he hath need.”
“Ah! but your wealth can not provide him what I bring—a daughter’s love!”
“And yet, daughter, since you press me, I must explain that he is under a
cloud which would make thy offering vain at present.”
“There is no need, kind commander, to make evasive explanations. I have
been forewarned of my father’s troubles of mind.”
“But he is violent at times, and we are compelled to keep him secluded in
the asylum of our brotherhood.”
“Good Master, that but the more increases my ardor to hasten a meeting
with him. I want to try the cure of love upon him; I’ve all faith in its
efficacy. When may I go?”
The foregoing was a sample of Miriamne’s words each day. Her appeals
touched all hearts and finally over-persuaded the medical attendants,
who, in fact, began to fear lest refusal would unsettle the maiden’s
mind. She was all vehemence and urgency on this subject.
The meeting was a sorrowful and brief one.
She was not prepared for such a spectacle as her father presented, and
her cry, “Take me to him,” was changed to one more vehement now:
“Take me away!”
Terror supplemented her utter disappointment. To both feelings there
was added a sense of humiliation. She imagined her return to Bozrah,
empty-handed; the possible gibes of her mother and others. Her great
faith seemed fruitless and her enthusiasm ebbed. Then she began to
question within herself whether or not, after all, the new faith she
had embraced was not a splendid illusion! She was in “Doubting Castle,”
with “Giant Despair,” and the mighty, impelling question, “What wilt
Thou have me to do?” little by little lost its grip on her will. It had
seemed to her the voice of God; now it seemed little more than the echo
of words heard in a dream. She was moved now by a desire to get away from
something, but she could not define the thing. Certainly she desired to
escape her disappointment, but not knowing how, she sought to get away
from its scene. If she could have run away from herself she would have
been glad to have done so. She fled from the asylum, as soon as night
came to hide her flight. She had not strength to go far, and the Asylum
park of many acres of lawns and groves, afforded her solitude; that that
she now chiefly desired. The night the desolate girl thus went forth was
a lovely one; a reflection of that other night of sorrow when she fled
from the old stone-house home to the chapel of Adolphus at Bozrah. And
the memory of that night returned to the girl with some consoling. Again
she looked up to the firmament and was calmed by the eternal rest that
seemed on all above, and again she yearned to go up further to the only
seeming haven of righteousness and peace.
Then came the reaction; the prolonged tension had done its work, and the
young woman dropped down on the earth. How long she lay in her blank
dream she knew not. If during its continuance she in part recovered
consciousness, she had no desire nor strength to rise or throw off her
weakness.
Ere long her absence was known at the Grand Master’s and an eager search
was instituted. Foremost in the quest was the young chaplain of the
knights and his quest brought him first to the object of search.
“Can I aid my lady?” said the chaplain, in kindly tones, standing a
little distance away from her, in part through a feeling of delicacy akin
to bashfulness, and in part fearing lest by any means he should affright
her.
The young woman lay motionless; her eyes closed; her face as the face of
the lifeless. Receiving no answer, the man questioned within himself:
“Is she dead?” Fear emboldened him, and he essayed active assistance.
Delicately, gently, firmly he raised up the prostrate woman. She seemed
to realize that some one was assisting her, but she was very passive.
Her head, drooping, rested on the young man’s shoulder, and she sighed a
weary, broken sentence:
“I’m so glad you came, Father Adolphus!”
“Not Father Adolphus, but one rejoiced to serve a friend of his.”
The maiden was silent a few moments, as if listening to words coming
to her from a distance, through confusions. Memory was struggling to
re-enforce semi-consciousness. Then came comprehension; she realized
the presence of a stranger, and, with an effort, stood erect. Her eyes
turned on the chaplain’s face with questionings, having in them mingled
surprise, timidity and rebuke. The man interpreted her glance and made
quick reply:
“At my lady’s services, the Chaplain of the Palestineans. We are all
anxious at the Grand Master’s concerning yourself.”
“Anxious for me!” She found words to say that much, and hearing her own
words she recalled her recent thoughts of herself, as one being very
miserable and very worthless. She turned her eyes from the young man
toward the woodland, in the darkness appearing like a gateway to black
oblivion. She yearned to bury herself in the oblivion utterly, and her
looks betrayed the thought. The youth gently touched her arm, saying:
“Despair has no place here; the Palestineans vanquish it.”
She then looked down toward where she had been lying, both nerves and
will weakening. It seemed to her a bed, even on the earth, were inviting,
especially so if she could take there a sleep that knew no waking.
The young man had ministered to his fellow-beings long enough to have
become a good interpreter of hearts. He discerned the thoughts of the one
before him, and offered prompt remedies, words wisely spoken:
“Our faith makes us all hope to see our guest happy ere long.”
Then she gave way to a flood of tears. The tears moved the man to
exercise His professional function, and forgetting all else he spoke
as a comforter to a sorrowing woman. She listened, but, except for her
sobs, was silent until he questioned: “Shall I stay to guide back to the
‘Refuge,’ or return to send help?”
She answered by turning toward him a face pale and blank, lighted alone
by eyes all appealing. He interpreted the look and continued: “I’ll tarry
to aid. Shall we now seek the ‘Refuge?’”
Then she exclaimed, “Alas, there seems no refuge for me!”
“The troubles of Miriamne de Griffin enlist all hearts at this place, I
assure you.”
“And this, your kindness, with your happiness ever before me, but makes
to myself my own desolation more manifest! Ah, I’m but a hulk in a dark
tide!”
“Lady, say not so, I beseech you. Look, there!” Languidly, mechanically,
she turned her eyes in the direction the speaker pointed; then suddenly
drew back from sight of a white apparition, standing out boldly from a
background of dark shrubbery. Her nerves all unstrung were for the moment
victimized by superstitious dreads.
“Only, calm, pure marble; a fear-slayer; not fear-invoker! Look
at its pedestal!” assuringly spoke the chaplain. The maiden
did as bidden and slowly read, repeating each word aloud:
“_Sancta-Maria-Consolatrix-Afflictorum._”
“By easy interpretation: ‘Mother of Jesus, consoler of the sorrowing!’”
responded the young man.
“Ah, like all consolations nigh to me, this is only stone and set in deep
shadows! It can not come to me!”
“True, yon form is passionless stone; but the truth eternal, which it
emblemizes, is living and fervent.”
“Life and fervor? Death and sorrow submerge both!”
“There is mother-love in the heart of God; to one so nearly orphan as my
friend, it must be comforting to look up believing that in heaven there
are fatherhood, motherhood and home! This is the sermon in yon stone.”
Then the chaplain gently, reverently drew the sorrow stricken maiden
toward the “Refuge” and she followed, unresisting. As they moved along,
she essayed to seek further acquaintance with her guide.
“May I know the chaplain’s name?”
“Certainly; to those that are intimates, ‘Brother’ or ‘Friend;’ for such
I’ve renounced my former self and name.”
“But if I should need and wish to send for you? I might. I could not call
for ‘Brother.’”
“Ah, I’m by right, ‘Cornelius Woelfkin;’ yet the names are misnomers,
since I’m not kin to the wolf, nor am I ‘a heart-giving light’ as my name
implies; at least if I give light it is but dim.”
The meeting of the young people, apparently accidental, was in fact an
incident in a far-reaching train of Providences. The young woman was in
trouble and needing such sympathy as one who was both young and wise
could give; the young man was courteous, pure-minded, wise beyond his
years, free from the conceits common to young men of capacity, and being
a natural philanthropist, naturally sympathetic. The young woman was at
the age that yearns for a girl friend, and needs a mother’s counsel; the
young man had much of his mother in his make-up; enough to fit him to win
his way into the confidence and fine esteem of a refined and trusting
young woman; but not enough to make him effeminate. Somehow he exactly
met the needs of Miriamne’s life. He could advise her as sincerely and
wisely as a mother and companion her as affectionately as a girl friend.
Having neither girl friend nor mother, the young chaplain became both to
her.
They were both impressible and inexperienced in the matters that belong
to the realms of the heart, in its grander emotions; therefore with a
charming simplicity they outlined their intentions and the limitations
of their relations. They assured each other, again and again, probably
in part to assure themselves, that they were to be very true and very
sensible young friends. Their converse often ran along after this manner.
“We understand each other so well!”
“Yes, and are so well adapted to each other!”
“We have had too much experience to spoil this helpful relation between
us, by giving away to any sway of the romantic emotions.”
“There has seldom been in the world a friendship between a young man and
young woman so exalted and wise as ours is.”
They agreed that she should call him “brother,” and he should call her
“sister.” At first they said they wished they were indeed akin by ties
of blood; though in time they were glad they were not. In this they were
like many another pair who have had such a wish, and in their case as in
many another like it, the wish, was a prediction of its own early demise.
Among the works of art in the park of the Palestineans was a commanding
bronze of Pallas-Athene, the goddess believed by her pagan devotees to
be the patroness of wisdom, art and science. She was the Virgin of the
Romans and the Greeks, their queenly woman, deemed by her wisdom ever
superior to Mars, god of war. She was represented bearing both spear
and shield; but these as emblems of her moral potencies. In a word, she
was the result of the efforts of those ancients to express a perfection
that was virgin and matchless, because too fine and exalted to have an
equal. Between the “White Madonna” and this Minerva, Chaplain Woelfkin
and the Maid of Bozrah often walked, back and forth, in very complacent
conversations. They desired themes, the ideals afforded them; they were
in a frame of mind that delighted in Utopianism, and the effigies of the
women guided their day-dreams. Youth, quickened by dawning, though as yet
unperceived, love, naturally begins building a Pantheon filled with fine
creations. That is the time of hero-worship in general; afterward comes
the iconoclastic period when every idol is cast down to make place for
the only one that the heart crowns. Cornelius praised sincerely Miriamne,
when she said she would be as the Græco-Roman goddess—very wise, very
pure, very strong. Day by day, he believed she was becoming like Minerva.
Then he thought it very fine for the maiden to emulate the goddess in
every thing, even her perpetual virginity. Again, walking near the
Madonna and discoursing of her as the ideal of womanhood, as the mother,
the minister, the saint, the maiden said she would emulate the latter;
the chaplain in his heart prayed that she might.
Once he finely said: “A pure, patient woman is God’s appointed and best
consoler of the afflicted. Miriamne, be like Mary, and Sir Charleroy will
find restoration.”
The young woman was encouraged by the words to increase her efforts in
her father’s behalf. Now she did so not only because prompted by a sense
of duty, but because filial love seemed a fine ornament for a maiden.
Birds in mating-times put on their finest plumage; men and women do
likewise. The chaplain was a humanitarian by profession, and naturally
joined the maiden in her efforts for her father’s recovery. So their
thoughts and their works ran in parallel lines. They had unbounded
delight in their companionship and common efforts. This delight they
innocently explained to themselves as the natural result and reward of
their fine, exalted, frank, wise, brother-like, sister-like friendship.
In hours of their supremest satisfaction they generously expressed
sorrow for the world at large, because so few in it knew how to attain
such bliss as they enjoyed. In a word, they were a very fine and a
very innocent pair, a complete contrast with Rizpah and Sir Charleroy
at Gerash. The latter took their course under the torrid influences of
Astarte of the brawny Giants, the former moved forward charmed and led by
those things that were held to be the belongings of the fine women whose
statues graced the park of the Palestineans. Miriamne asked wisdom later
of her elect counselor, and he advised her to send letters to Bozrah
urging her mother to join her in London, in efforts in behalf of their
insane kinsman.
The young man very wisely argued: “He is a fragment, flung out of a
wrecked home; his perturbed mind is clouded by the wild passions of a
misled heart. We must balance his brain by calming his heart. He is
filled with hatings, and love alone is hate’s cure. If the past losses be
recovered, he must be brought back to the place of loss.”
Miriamne wrote to her mother, glad to please her counselor by so doing,
and yet almost hopeless of gaining any answer that was favorable. The
maiden renewed her visit to her father’s lodge in the asylum. She was not
permitted, nor did she then desire, to see her parent. She shuddered when
she remembered the one dreadful meeting of the beginning, and was content
to sit outside the door of his cell or keep, day by day, to perform such
little services as she could. Sometimes she would call the insane man by
his name, or title; sometimes she would call out: “Father, would you like
to see Miriamne?” or “Father, your daughter is here.” At other times she
would sit near his door singing Eastern songs, especially such as she had
heard were favorites of her parents in their younger days.
Days passed onward, and there appeared no result beyond the fact that
when she was thus engaged the knight became very quiet. At the suggestion
of Chaplain Woelfkin, she changed her method, and began in hearing of
the knight a recital of the history of Crusader days. In this she was
encouraged, for an attendant told her that her father each day, when she
began, drew close to his barred door to listen. As she came near the
time of the Acre campaign, the knight’s face was flushed with interest.
Having followed the narrative up to the fall of the city and the flight
of Sir Charleroy and his comrades, she paused. Then she was surprised
and delighted at once, for the incarcerated man in a voice both calm and
natural, ejaculated the words: “Go on!”
Miriamne would have rushed to the prison door had not Cornelius, who
stood not far away, motioned her to remain seated and to continue. For a
moment she was at a loss how to proceed, but then she bethought herself
of an experiment. She described by a kind of a parable the career of her
father, as follows:
“And the noble knight, after years of illness, was found by his loving
daughter. Under her kindly care he recovered, and at her earnest request
he returned to his home in Palestine. There he spent many happy years
with his reunited family, consisting of a wife, daughter and twin sons.
He is living there now, and all that family agree that theirs is the most
happy and loving home on earth.”
“It’s a lie! a lie!” almost shouted the lunatic. “Sir Charleroy is
not there. He went mad; the devil stole his skull and left his brain
uncovered to be scratched by a million of bats. That’s why he went mad; I
know him; he went mad, and is mad yet, and you get away with your lying!”
The daughter fled in terror at the succeeding outburst of wild profanity;
but she was still rejoiced, that a chord of memory had been struck. It
gave a harsh response, yet it gave a response, and that was much. She
continued her efforts as before. The interviews were not fruitless,
but they were costing her fearfully. She complained to no one, yet her
youthful locks, in a few months streaked with silver, told the story of
suffering.
One day there was delivered at the Grand Master’s a huge package directed
to herself. Miriamne, filled with wonder, called help to open the case.
Just under the cover she beheld a letter. She knew the handwriting. It
was her mother’s. Her heart took a great leap, and as a flash of joy
there ran through her mind the thought:
“Mother has sent something to help. Perhaps it’s her clothing, and she is
coming!”
Tremblingly Miriamne read the epistle. How formal:
“MIRIAMNE DE GRIFFIN:—Thou went’st without my leave. Do not
return till sent for. Thou left’st a loving mother for a
worthless father, and this is a daughter’s reward. Thou dost
say Sir Charleroy is mad. I knew it, and think that the curse
is descending on thee. But I doubt not the man has cunning in
his madness, and has prompted thee to inveigle me into his
toils again. Once he had me in England, and there he put me on
the rack of his merciless temper and lust! Shame on him for
that time! Shame on me if he have opportunity to repeat it! I
send thee a comforter. Put it before his eyes, and tell him
that the woman of Bozrah is before him. Tell him that she, like
Rizpah of old, is true to the death to her sons, and, while
waking, never forgets to curse the vultures!”
No love was added. There was no name appended. Miriamne felt like one
disowned. She dreaded to examine the contents of the case; but a servant,
who began the opening just then, spread it out. As she suspected, after
she had read the letter, it was the (to her) hateful picture of ancient
Rizpah.
It was evening, and the maiden sought a refuge from her troubles in the
park. It was, on her part, another flight from the face of Rizpah of
Gibeah; another seeking of solitude from man that she might gain that
sense of nearness to the Eternal Father under the calm, silent stars of
His canopy. It was like that flight from the old stone house of Bozrah to
the chapel of Father Adolphus that she had made long before.
The maiden’s course brought her to the “White Madonna,” and there she
found her counselor and brother, the chaplain. He had heard that Miriamne
was desponding that day, and had bent his course hither, confident that
the “_Consolatrix Afflictorum_” would prove a tryst. The scenery around
Pallas Athene was the finer by far, but to a troubled heart there was the
more allurement in the place where the love of heaven was expressed.
The Minerva expressed self-sufficiency; the “White Madonna,” God’s
sufficiency. One expressed justice, culture, the perfection of human
gifts, regnant and victorious; the other spoke of welcome, healing,
mercy, and help for those who were in pitiable needs. The virgin evolved
by the philosophers of the Greeks was a concept touching but few of
humanity, and fitted to be crowned only in a world of perfections, such
as has not yet existed. The “White Madonna” depicted a real character who
had a human heart and heavenly traits, and that easily found acceptance
in human affections.
The maiden and her counselor sat together for a long time; she speaking
of her social miseries, he of God’s remedies; she describing the
thickness of the night about her; he telling her in beautiful parables
that there was a refuge and an asylum, though the night obscured all for
a time. As they conversed the rising moon flooded the “White Madonna”
with silvering light, and the chaplain rapturously exclaimed:
“See, the moon gets its light from the sun, and gives it to the image. We
do not see the sun, but we see its work and glory reflected! So God hands
down from heaven to His children, by His angels and ministers, the powers
and blessings that they need. Miriamne, we have a Father who forgets none
and is munificent to all!”
[Illustration: Paul Veronese.
THE WEDDING AT CANA.]