Who may she be that steals through yonder cloister,
And, as the beam of evening tints her veil,
Unconsciously discloses saintly features,
Inform'd with the high soul of saintly virtue?
During several days after Ellena's arrival at the monastery of San
Stefano, she was not permitted to leave the room. The door was locked
upon her, and not any person appeared except the nun, who brought her a
scanty portion of food, and who was the same, that had first admitted
her into that part of the convent appropriated to the abbess.
On the fourth day, when, probably, it was believed that her spirits
were subdued by confinement, and by her experience of the suffering she
had to expect from resistance, she was summoned to the parlour. The
abbess was alone, and the air of austerity, with which she regarded
Ellena, prepared the latter to endure.
After an exordium on the heinousness of her offence, and the necessity
there was for taking measures to protect the peace and dignity of a
noble family, which her late conduct had nearly destroyed; the abbess
informed her, that she must determine either to accept the veil, or
the person whom the Marchesa di Vivaldi had, of her great goodness,
selected for her husband.
"You never can be sufficiently grateful," added the abbess, "for the
generosity the Marchesa displays, in allowing you a choice on the
subject. After the injury you have endeavoured to inflict upon her and
her family, you could not expect that any indulgence would be shewn
you. It was natural to suppose, that the Marchesa would have punished
you with severity; instead of which, she allows you to enter into our
society; or, if you have not strength of mind sufficient to enable
you to renounce a sinful world, she permits you to return into it,
and gives you a suitable partner to support you through its cares and
toils,--a partner much more suitable to your circumstances than him, to
whom you had the temerity to lift your eye."
Ellena blushed at this coarse appeal to her pride, and persevered
in a disdainful silence. Thus to give to injustice the colouring of
mercy, and to acts most absolutely tyrannical the softening tints of
generosity, excited her honest indignation. She was not, however,
shocked by a discovery of the designs formed against her, since, from
the moment of her arrival at San Stefano, she had expected something
terribly severe, and had prepared her mind to meet it with fortitude;
for she believed, that, so supported, she should weary the malice of
her enemies, and finally triumph over misfortune. It was only when she
thought of Vivaldi that her courage failed, and that the injuries she
endured seemed too heavy to be long sustained.
"You are silent!" said the abbess, after a pause of expectation. "Is
it possible, then, that you can be ungrateful for the generosity of
the Marchesa? But, though you may at present be insensible to her
goodness, I will forbear to take advantage of your indiscretion, and
will still allow you liberty of choice. You may retire to your chamber,
to consider and to decide. But remember, that you must abide by the
determination you shall avow; and, that you will be allowed no appeal
from the alternatives, which are now placed before you.--If you reject
the veil, you must accept the husband who is offered you."
"It is unnecessary," said Ellena, with an air of dignified
tranquillity, "that I should withdraw for the purposes of considering
and deciding. My resolution is already taken, and I reject each of the
offered alternatives. I will neither condemn myself to a cloister,
or to the degradation, with which I am threatened on the other hand.
Having said this, I am prepared to meet whatever suffering you shall
inflict upon me; but be assured, that my own voice never shall sanction
the evils to which I may be subjected, and that the immortal love of
justice, which fills all my heart, will sustain my courage no less
powerfully than the sense of what is due to my own character. You are
now acquainted with my sentiments and my resolutions; I shall repeat
them no more."
The abbess, whose surprise had thus long suffered Ellena to speak,
still fixed upon her a stern regard, as she said, "Where is it that
you have learned these heroics, and acquired the rashness which
thus prompts you to avow them!--the boldness which enables you to
insult your Superior, a priestess of your holy religion, even in her
sanctuary!"
"The sanctuary is prophaned," said Ellena, mildly, but with dignity:
"it is become a prison. It is only when the Superior ceases to respect
the precepts of that holy religion, the precepts which teach her
justice and benevolence, that she herself is no longer respected. The
very sentiment which bids us revere its mild and beneficent laws, bids
us also reject the violators of them: when you command me to reverence
my religion, you urge me to condemn yourself."
"Withdraw!" said the abbess, rising impatiently from her chair; "your
admonition, so becomingly delivered, shall not be forgotten."
Ellena willingly obeyed, and was led back to her cell, where she sat
down pensively, and reviewed her conduct. Her judgment approved of
the frankness, with which she had asserted her rights, and of the
firmness, with which she had reproved a woman, who had dared to demand
respect from the very victim of her cruelty and oppression. She was the
more satisfied with herself, because she had never, for an instant,
forgotten her own dignity so far, as to degenerate into the vehemence
of passion, or to faulter with the weakness of fear. Her conviction of
the abbess's unworthy character was too clear to allow Ellena to feel
abashed in her presence; for she regarded only the censure of the good,
to which she had ever been as tremblingly alive, as she was obdurately
insensible to that of the vicious.
Ellena, having now asserted her resolutions, determined to avoid, if
possible, all repetition of scenes like the last, and to repel by
silence only, whatever indignity might be offered her. She knew that
she must suffer, and she resolved to endure. Of the three evils, which
were placed before her, that of confinement, with all its melancholy
accompaniments, appeared considerably less severe, than either the
threatened marriage, or a formal renunciation of the world; either
of which would devote her, during life, to misery, and that by her
own act. Her choice, therefore, had been easy, and the way was plain
before her. If she could endure with calmness the hardships which she
could not avoid, half their weight would be unfelt; and she now most
strenuously endeavoured to attain the strength of mind, which was
necessary to support such equanimity.
For several days after the late interview with the abbess, she was
kept a close prisoner; but on the fifth evening she was permitted to
attend vespers. As she walked through the garden to the chapel, the
ordinary freshness of the open air, and the verdure of the trees and
shrubs were luxuries to her, who had so long been restricted from the
common blessings of nature. She followed the nuns to a chapel where
they usually performed their devotions, and was there seated among the
novices. The solemnity of the service, and particularly of those parts,
which were accompanied by music, touched all her heart, and soothed and
elevated her spirit.
Among the voices of the choir, was one whose expression immediately
fixed her attention; it seemed to speak a loftier sentiment of devotion
than the others, and to be modulated by the melancholy of an heart,
that had long since taken leave of this world. Whether it swelled with
the high peal of the organ, or mingled in low and trembling accents
with the sinking chorus, Ellena felt that she understood all the
feelings of the breast from which it flowed; and she looked to the
gallery where the nuns were assembled, to discover a countenance, that
might seem to accord with the sensibility expressed in the voice. As no
strangers were admitted to the chapel, some of the sisters had thrown
back their veils, and she saw little that interested her in their
various faces; but the figure and attitude of a nun, kneeling in a
remote part of the gallery, beneath a lamp, which threw its rays aslant
her head, perfectly agreed with the idea she had formed of the singer,
and the sound seemed to approach immediately from that direction.
Her face was concealed by a black veil, whose transparency, however,
permitted the fairness of her complexion to appear; but the air of her
head, and the singularity of her attitude, for she was the only person
who remained kneeling, sufficiently indicated the superior degree of
fervency and penitence, which the voice had expressed.
When the hymn had ceased, she rose from her knees, and Ellena, soon
after, observing her throw back her veil, discovered, by the lamp,
which shed its full light upon her features, a countenance, that
instantly confirmed her conjecture. It was touched with a melancholy
kind of resignation; yet grief seemed still to occasion the paleness,
and the air of languor, that prevailed over it, and which disappeared
only when the momentary energy of devotion seemed to lift her spirit
above this world, and to impart to it somewhat of a seraphic grandeur.
At those moments her blue eyes were raised towards Heaven, with such
meek, yet fervent love, such sublime enthusiasm as the heads of Guido
sometimes display, and which renewed, with Ellena, all the enchanting
effects of the voice she had just heard.
While she regarded the nun with a degree of interest which rendered
her insensible to every other object in the chapel, she fancied she
could perceive the calmness in her countenance to be that of despair,
rather than of resignation; for, when her thoughts were not elevated
in prayer, there was frequently a fixedness in her look, too energetic
for common suffering, or for the temper of mind, which may lead to
perfect resignation. It had, however, much that attached the sympathy
of Ellena, and much that seemed to speak a similarity of feeling.
Ellena was not only soothed, but in some degree comforted, while she
gazed upon her; a selfishness which may, perhaps, be pardoned, when it
is considered, that she thus knew there was one human being, at least,
in the convent, who must be capable of feeling pity, and willing to
administer consolation. Ellena endeavoured to meet her eye, that she
might inform her of the regard she had inspired, and express her own
unhappiness; but the nun was so entirely engaged by devotion, that she
did not succeed.
As they left the chapel, however, the nun passed close by Ellena, who
threw back her veil, and fixed upon her a look so supplicating and
expressive, that the nun paused, and in her turn regarded the novice,
not with surprize only, but with a mixture of curiosity and compassion.
A faint blush crossed her cheek, her spirits seemed to faulter, and she
was unwilling to withdraw her eyes from Ellena: but it was necessary
that she should continue in the procession, and, bidding her farewel
by a smile of ineffable pity, she passed on to the court, while
Ellena followed with attention still fixed upon the sister, who soon
disappeared beyond the door-way of the Abbess's apartment, and Ellena
had nearly reached her own, before her thoughts were sufficiently
disengaged to permit her to enquire the name of the stranger.
"It is sister Olivia whom you mean, perhaps," said her conductress.
"She is very handsome," said Ellena.
"Many of the sisters are so," replied Margaritone, with an air of pique.
"Undoubtedly," said Ellena; "but she, whom I mean, has a most touching
countenance, frank, noble, full of sensibility; and there is a gentle
melancholy in her eye, which cannot but interest all who observe her."
Ellena was so fascinated by this interesting nun, that she forgot
she was describing her to a person, whose callous heart, rendered
her insensible to the influence of any countenance, except, perhaps,
the commanding one of the lady abbess; and to whom, therefore,
a description of the fine traits, which Ellena felt, was as
unintelligible as would have been an Arabic inscription.
"She is passed the bloom of youth," continued Ellena, still anxious to
be understood; "but she retains all its interesting graces, and adds to
them the dignity of"----
"If you mean that she is of middle age," interrupted Margaritone,
peevishly, "it is sister Olivia you mention, for we are all younger
than she is."
Ellena, raising her eyes almost unconsciously, as the nun spoke this,
fixed them upon a face sallow, meagre, seemingly near fifty years an
inhabitant of this world; and she could scarcely suppress the surprize
she felt, on perceiving such wretched vanity lingering among the
chilled passions of so repulsive a frame, and within the sequestered
shade of a cloister. Margaritone, still jealous of the praise bestowed
on Olivia, repelled all further enquiry, and, having attended Ellena to
her cell, locked her up for the night.
On the following evening Ellena was again permitted to attend vespers,
and, on the way to the chapel, the hope of seeing her interesting
favourite reanimated her spirits. In the same part of the gallery, as
on the preceding night, she again appeared, and kneeling, as before,
beneath the lamp, in private orison, for the service was not begun.
Ellena endeavoured to subdue the impatience she felt to express her
regard, and to be noticed by the holy sister, till she should have
finished. When the nun rose, and observed Ellena, she lifted her veil,
and, fixing on her the same enquiring eye, her countenance brightened
into a smile so full of compassion and intelligence, that Ellena,
forgetting the decorums of the place, left her seat to approach her;
it seemed as if the soul, which beamed forth in that smile, had long
been acquainted with hers. As she advanced, the nun dropped her veil,
a reproof which she immediately understood, and she withdrew to her
seat; but her attention remained fixed on the nun during the whole
service.
At the conclusion, when they left the chapel, and she saw Olivia pass
without noticing her, Ellena could scarcely restrain her tears; she
returned in deep dejection to her room. The regard of this nun was not
only delightful, but seemed necessary to her heart, and she dwelt, with
fond perseverance, on the smile that had expressed so much, and which
threw one gleam of comfort, even through the bars of her prison.
Her reverie was soon interrupted by a light step, that approached her
cell, and in the next moment the door was unlocked, and Olivia herself
appeared. Ellena rose with emotion to meet her; the nun held forth her
hand to receive hers.
"You are unused to confinement," said she, curtsying mournfully, and
placing on the table a little basket containing refreshment, "and our
hard fare"----
"I understand you," said Ellena, with a look expressive of her
gratitude; "you have a heart that can pity, though you inhabit these
walls;--you have suffered too, and know the delicate generosity of
softening the sorrows of others, by any attention that may tell them
your sympathy. O! if I could express how much the sense of this affects
me!"
Tears interrupted her. Olivia pressed her hand, looked steadily upon
her face, and was somewhat agitated, but she soon recovered apparent
tranquillity, and said, with a serious smile, "You judge rightly, my
sister, respecting my sentiments, however you may do concerning my
sufferings. My heart is not insensible to pity; nor to you, my child.
You were designed for happier days than you can hope to find within
these cloisters!"
She checked herself as if she had allowed too much, and then added,
"But you may, perhaps, be peaceful; and since it consoles you to know
that you have a friend near you, believe me that friend--but believe it
in silence. I will visit you when I am permitted--but do not enquire
for me; and if my visits are short, do not press me to lengthen them."
"How good this is!" said Ellena, in a faultering voice. "How sweet too
it is! you will visit me, and I am pitied by you!"
"Hush!" said the nun, expressively; "no more; I may be observed. Good
night, my sister; may your slumbers be light!"
Ellena's heart sunk. She had not spirits to say, "Good night!" but
her eyes, covered with tears, said more. The nun turned her own away
suddenly, and, pressing her hand in silence, left the cell. Ellena,
firm and tranquil under the insults of the abbess, was now melted into
tears by the kindness of a friend. These gentle tears were refreshing
to her long-oppressed spirits, and she indulged them. Of Vivaldi she
thought with more composure than she had done since she left the villa
Altieri; and something like hope began to revive in her heart, though
reflection offered nothing to support it.
On the following morning, she perceived that the door of her cell had
not been closed. She rose impatiently, and, not without a hope of
liberty, immediately passed it. The cell, opening upon a short passage,
which communicated with the main building, and which was shut up by a
door, was secluded, and almost insulated from every other chamber; and
this door being now secured, Ellena was as truly a prisoner as before.
It appeared then, that the nun had omitted to fasten the cell only
for the purpose of allowing her more space to walk in the passage,
and she was grateful for the attention. Still more she was so, when,
having traversed it, she perceived one extremity terminate in a narrow
stair-case, that appeared to lead to other chambers.
She ascended the winding steps hastily, and found they led only to a
door, opening into a small room, where nothing remarkable appeared,
till she approached the windows, and beheld thence an horizon, and a
landscape spread below, whose grandeur awakened all her heart. The
consciousness of her prison was lost, while her eyes ranged over the
wide and freely-sublime scene without. She perceived that this chamber
was within a small turret, projecting from an angle of the convent
over the walls, and suspended, as in air, above the vast precipices of
granite, that formed part of the mountain. These precipices were broken
into cliffs, which, in some places, impended far above their base,
and, in others, rose, in nearly-perpendicular lines, to the walls of
the monastery, which they supported. Ellena, with a dreadful pleasure,
looked down them, flagged as they were with larch, and frequently
darkened by lines of gigantic pine bending along the rocky ledges,
till her eye rested on the thick chesnut woods that extended over
their winding base, and which, softening to the plains, seemed to form
a gradation between the variegated cultivation there, and the awful
wildness of the rocks above. Round these extensive plains were tumbled
the mountains, of various shape and attitude, which Ellena had admired
on her approach to San Stefano; some shaded with forests of olive and
almond trees, but the greater part abandoned to the flocks, which, in
summer, feed on their aromatic herbage, and on the approach of winter,
descend to the sheltered plains of the _Tavogliere di Puglia_.
On the left opened the dreadful pass which she had traversed, and the
thunder of whose waters now murmured at a distance. The accumulation
of overtopping points, which the mountains of this dark perspective
exhibited, presented an image of grandeur superior to any thing she had
seen while within the pass itself.
To Ellena, whose mind was capable of being highly elevated, or sweetly
soothed, by scenes of nature, the discovery of this little turret
was an important circumstance. Hither she could come, and her soul,
refreshed by the views it afforded, would acquire strength to bear her,
with equanimity, thro' the persecutions that might await her. Here,
gazing upon the stupendous imagery around her, looking, as it were,
beyond the awful veil which obscures the features of the Deity, and
conceals Him from the eyes of his creatures, dwelling as with a present
God in the midst of his sublime works; with a mind thus elevated, how
insignificant would appear to her the transactions, and the sufferings
of this world! How poor the boasted power of man, when the fall of a
single cliff from these mountains would with ease destroy thousands
of his race assembled on the plains below! How would it avail them,
that they were accoutred for battle, armed with all the instruments of
destruction that human invention ever fashioned? Thus man, the giant
who now held her in captivity, would shrink to the diminutiveness of a
fairy; and she would experience, that his utmost force was unable to
enchain her soul, or compel her to fear him, while he was destitute of
virtue.
Ellena's attention was recalled from the scene without by a sound from
within the gallery, and she then heard a key turning in the door of
the passage. Fearing that it was sister Margaritone who approached,
and who, informed by her absence of the consolatory turret she had
discovered, would perhaps debar her from ever returning to it, Ellena
descended with a palpitating heart, and found that nun in the cell.
Surprize and severity were in her countenance, when she enquired by
what means Ellena had unclosed the door, and whither she had been.
Ellena answered without any prevarication, that she had found the
door unfastened, and that she had visited the turret above; but she
forbore to express a wish to return thither, judging that such an
expression would certainly exclude her in future. Margaritone, after
sharply rebuking her for prying beyond the passage, and setting down
the breakfast she had brought, left the room, the door of which she did
not forget to secure. Thus Ellena was at once deprived of so innocent a
means of consolation as her pleasant turret had afforded.
During several days, she saw only the austere nun, except when she
attended vespers; where, however, she was so vigilantly observed, that
she feared to speak with Olivia, even by her eyes. Olivia's were
often fixed upon her face, and with a kind of expression which Ellena,
when she did venture to look at her, could not perfectly interpret.
It was not only of pity, but of anxious curiosity, and of something
also like fear. A blush would sometimes wander over her cheek, which
was succeeded by an extreme paleness, and by an air of such universal
languor as precedes a fainting fit: but the exercises of devotion seemed
frequently to recal her fleeting spirits, and to elevate them with hope
and courage.
When she left the chapel, Ellena saw Olivia no more that night; but on
the following morning she came with breakfast to the cell. A character
of peculiar sadness was on her brow.
"O! how glad I am to see you!" said Ellena; "and how much I have
regretted your long absence! I was obliged to remember constantly what
you had enjoined, to forbear enquiring after you."
The nun replied with a melancholy smile, "I come in obedience to our
lady abbess," said she, as she seated herself on Ellena's mattress.
"And did you not wish to come?" said Ellena, mournfully.
"I did wish it," replied Olivia; "but"-- and she hesitated.
"Whence then this reluctance?" enquired Ellena.
Olivia was silent a moment.
"You are a messenger of evil news!" said Ellena; "you are only
reluctant to afflict me."
"It is as you say," replied Olivia; "I am only reluctant to afflict
you; and I fear you have too many attachments to the world, to allow
you to receive, without sorrow, what I have to communicate. I am
ordered to prepare you for the vows, and to say, that, since you have
rejected the husband which was proposed to you, you are to accept the
veil; that many of the customary forms are to be dispensed with; and
that the ceremony of taking the black veil, will follow without delay
that of receiving the white one."
The nun paused; and Ellena said, "You are an unwilling bearer of this
cruel message; and I reply only to the lady abbess, when I declare,
that I never will accept either; that force may send me to the altar,
but that it never shall compel me to utter vows which my heart abhors;
and if I am constrained to appear there, it shall be only to protest
against her tyranny, and against the form intended to sanction it."
To Olivia this answer was so far from being displeasing, that it
appeared to give her satisfaction.
"I dare not applaud your resolution," said she; "but I will not condemn
it. You have, no doubt, connections in the world which would render a
seclusion from it afflicting. You have relations, friends, from whom it
would be dreadful to part?"
"I have neither," said Ellena, sighing.
"No! Can that be possible? and yet you are so unwilling to retire!"
"I have only one friend," replied Ellena, "and it is of him they would
deprive me!"
"Pardon, my love, the abruptness of these enquiries," said Olivia;
"yet, while I entreat your forgiveness, I am inclined to offend again,
and to ask your name."
"That is a question I will readily answer. My name is Ellena di
Rosalba."
"How?" said Olivia, with an air of deliberation; "Ellena di"----
"Di Rosalba," repeated her companion; "and permit me to ask your motive
for the enquiry: do you know any person of my name?"
"No," relied the nun, mournfully; "but your features have some
resemblance to those of a friend I once had."
As she said this, her agitation was apparent, and she rose to go.
"I must not lengthen my visit, lest I should be forbidden to repeat
it," said she. "What answer shall I give to the abbess? If you are
determined to reject the veil, allow me to advise you to soften your
refusal as much as possible. I am, perhaps, better acquainted with her
character than you are; and O, my sister! I would not see you pining
away your existence in this solitary cell."
"How much I am obliged by the interest you express for my welfare,"
said Ellena, "and by the advice you offer! I will yield my judgment
in this instance to yours; you shall modulate my refusal as you think
proper: but remember that it must be absolute; and beware, lest the
abbess should mistake gentleness for irresolution."
"Trust me, I will be cautious in all that relates to you," said Olivia.
"Farewell! I will visit you, if possible, in the evening. In the mean
time the door shall be left open, that you may have more air and
prospect than this cell affords. That staircase leads to a pleasant
chamber."
"I have visited it already," replied Ellena, "and have to thank you for
the goodness, which permitted me to do so. To go thither will greatly
soothe my spirits; if I had some book, and my drawing-instrument, I
could almost forget my sorrows there."
"Could you so?" said the nun, with an affectionate smile. "Adieu!
I will endeavour to see you in the evening. If sister Margaritone
returns, be careful not to enquire for me; nor once ask her for the
little indulgence I give you."
Olivia withdrew, and Ellena retired to the chamber above, where she
lost for a while all sense of sorrow amidst the great scenery, which
its windows exhibited.
At noon, the step of Margaritone summoned Ellena from her retreat, and
she was surprised that no reproof followed this second discovery of her
absence. Margaritone only said, that the abbess had the goodness to
permit Ellena to dine with the novices, and that she came to conduct
her to their table.
Ellena did not rejoice in this permission, preferring to remain in
her solitary turret, to the being exposed to the examining eyes of
strangers; and she followed dejectedly, through the silent passages to
the apartment where they were assembled. She was not less surprised
than embarrassed to observe, in the manners of young people residing
in a convent, an absence of that decorum, which includes beneath its
modest shade every grace that ought to adorn the female character,
like the veil which gives dignity to their air and softness to their
features. When Ellena entered the room, the eyes of the whole company
were immediately fixed upon her; the young ladies began to whisper
and smile, and shewed, by various means, that she was the subject
of conversation, not otherwise than censorious. No one advanced to
meet and to encourage her, to welcome her to the table, or still
less display one of those nameless graces, with which a generous and
delicate mind delights to reanimate the modest and the unfortunate.
Ellena took a chair in silence; and, though she had at first felt
forlorn and embarrassed by the impertinent manners of her companions, a
consciousness of innocence gradually revived her spirits, and enabled
her to resume an air of dignity, which repressed this rude presumption.
Ellena returned to her cell, for the first time, with eagerness.
Margaritone did not fasten the door of it, but she was careful to
secure that of the passage; and even this small indulgence she seemed
to allow with a surly reluctance, as if compelled to obey the command
of a superior. The moment she was gone, Ellena withdrew to her pleasant
turret, where, after having suffered from the coarse manners of the
novices, her gratitude was the more lively, when she perceived the
delicate attention of her beloved nun. It appeared that she had
visited the chamber in Ellena's absence, and had caused to be brought
thither a chair and a table, on which were placed some books, and a
knot of fragrant flowers. Ellena did not repress the grateful tears,
which the generous feelings of Olivia excited; and she forbore, for
some moments, to examine the books, that the pleasing emotions she
experienced might not be interrupted.
On looking into these books, however, she perceived, that some of them
treated of mystical subjects, which she laid aside with disappointment;
but in others she observed a few of the best Italian poets, and a
volume or two of Guicciardini's history. She was somewhat surprised,
that the poets should have found their way to the library of a nun, but
was too much pleased with the discovery to dwell on the enquiry.
Having arranged her books, and set her little room in order, she seated
herself at a window, and, with a volume of Tasso, endeavoured to
banish every painful remembrance from her mind. She continued wandering
in the imaginary scenes of the poet, till the fading light recalled her
to those of reality. The sun was set, but the mountain-tops were still
lighted up by his beams, and a tint of glorious purple coloured all the
west, and began to change the snowy points on the horizon. The silence
and repose of the vast scene, promoted the tender melancholy that
prevailed in her heart; she thought of Vivaldi, and wept--of Vivaldi,
whom she might, perhaps, never see again, though she doubted not that
he would be indefatigable in searching for her. Every particular
of their last conversation, when he had so earnestly lamented the
approaching separation, even while he allowed of its propriety, came
to her mind; and, while she witnessed, in imagination, the grief and
distraction, which her mysterious departure and absence must have
occasioned him, the fortitude, with which she had resisted her own
sufferings, yielded to the picture of his.
The vesper-bell, at length, summoned her to prepare for mass, and
she descended to her cell to await the arrival of her conductress.
It was Margaritone, who soon appeared; but in the chapel she, as
usual, saw Olivia, who, when the service had concluded, invited her
into the garden of the convent. There, as she walked beneath the
melancholy cypresses, that, ranged on either side the long walks,
formed a majestic canopy, almost excluding the evening twilight, Olivia
conversed with her on serious, but general, topics, carefully avoiding
any mention of the abbess, and of the affairs of Ellena. The latter,
anxious to learn the effect of her repeated rejection of the veil,
ventured to make some enquiries, which the nun immediately discouraged,
and as cautiously checked the grateful effusions of her young friend
for the attentions she had received.
Olivia accompanied Ellena to her cell, and there no longer scrupled
to relieve her from uncertainty. With a mixture of frankness and
discretion, she related as much of the conversation, that had passed
between herself and the abbess, as it appeared necessary for Ellena to
know, from which it seemed that the former was as obstinate, as the
latter was firm.
"Whatever may be your resolution," added the nun, "I earnestly advise
you, my sister, to allow the Superior some hope of compliance, lest she
proceed to extremities."
"And what extremity can be more terrible," replied Ellena, "than either
of those, to which she would now urge me? Why should I descend to
practice dissimulation?"
"To save yourself from undeserved sufferings," said Olivia mournfully.
"Yes, but I should then incur deserved ones," observed Ellena; "and
forfeit such peace of mind as my oppressors never could restore to
me." As she said this, she looked at the nun with an expression of
gentle reproach and disappointment.
"I applaud the justness of your sentiment," replied Olivia, regarding
her with tenderest compassion. "Alas! that a mind so noble should be
subjected to the power of injustice and depravity!"
"Not subjected," said Ellena, "do not say subjected. I have accustomed
myself to contemplate those sufferings; I have chosen the least of such
as were given to my choice, and I will endure them with fortitude; and
can you then say that I am subjected?"
"Alas, my sister! you know not what you promise," replied Olivia; "you
do not comprehend the sufferings which may be preparing for you."
As she spoke, her eyes filled with tears, and she withdrew them from
Ellena, who, surprised at the extreme concern on her countenance,
entreated she would explain herself.
"I am not certain, myself, as to this point," said Olivia; "and if I
were, I should not dare to explain it."
"Not dare!" repeated Ellena, mournfully. "Can benevolence like yours
know fear, when courage is necessary to prevent evil?"
"Enquire no further!" said Olivia; but no blush of conscious duplicity
stained her cheek. "It is sufficient that you understand the
consequence of open resistance to be terrible, and that you consent to
avoid it."
"But how avoid it, my beloved friend, without incurring a consequence
which, in my apprehension, would be yet more dreadful? How avoid it,
without either subjecting myself to a hateful marriage, or accepting
the vows? Either of these events would be more terrible to me, than any
thing with which I may be menaced."
"Perhaps not," said the nun. "Imagination cannot draw the horrors
of---- But, my sister, let me repeat, that I would save you! O,
how willingly save you from the evils preparing! and that the only
chance of doing so is, by prevailing with you to abandon at least the
appearance of resistance."
"Your kindness deeply affects me," said Ellena; "and I am fearful
of appearing insensible of it, when I reject your advice; yet I
cannot adopt it. The very dissimulation, which I should employ in
self-defence, might be a means of involving me in destruction."
As Ellena concluded, and her eyes glanced upon the nun, unaccountable
suspicion occurred to her, that Olivia might be insincere, and that,
at this very moment, when she was advising dissimulation, she was
endeavouring to draw Ellena into some snare, which the abbess had laid.
She sickened at this dreadful supposition, and dismissed it without
suffering herself to examine its probability. That Olivia, from whom
she had received so many attentions, whose countenance and manners
announced so fair a mind, and for whom she had conceived so much
esteem and affection, should be cruel and treacherous, was a suspicion
that gave her more pain, than the actual imprisonment in which she
suffered; and when she looked again upon her face, Ellena was consoled
by a clear conviction, that she was utterly incapable of perfidy.
"If it were possible that I could consent to practise deceit," resumed
Ellena, after a long pause, "what could it avail me? I am entirely in
the power of the abbess, who would soon put my sincerity to the proof;
when a discovery of my duplicity would only provoke her vengeance, and
I should be punished even for having sought to avoid injustice."
"If deceit is at any time excusable," replied Olivia, reluctantly, "it
is when we practise it in self-defence. There are some rare situations,
when it may be resorted to without our incurring ignominy, and yours
is one of those. But I will acknowledge, that all the good I expect is
from the delay which temporizing may procure you. The Superior, when
she understands there is a probability of obtaining your consent to her
wishes, may be willing to allow you the usual time of preparation for
the veil, and meanwhile something may occur to rescue you from your
present situation."
"Ah! could I but believe so!" said Ellena; "but, alas! what power can
rescue me? And I have not one relative remaining even to attempt my
deliverance. To what possibility do you allude?"
"The Marchesa may relent."
"Does, then, your possibility of good rest with her, my dear friend? If
so, I am in despair again; for such a chance of benefit, there would
certainly be little policy in forfeiting one's integrity."
"There are also other possibilities, my sister," said Olivia; "but
hark! what bell is that? It is the chime, which assembles the nuns
in the apartment of the abbess, where she dispenses her evening
benediction. My absence will be observed. Good night, my sister.
Reflect on what I have advised; and remember, I conjure you, to
consider, that the consequence of your decision must be solemn, and may
be fatal."
The nun spoke this with a look and emphasis so extraordinary, that
Ellena at once wished and dreaded to know more; but before she had
recovered from her surprize, Olivia had left the room.