The verdant landscape of Central Italy swings past the train that
carries me homeward. The looped vines--like slim green dancers holding
hands--speed backwards as we pass. Far behind me lies the white prison of
Trani; and the memory of Marie Tarnowska and of her sins and woes drifts
away from me, like some shipwrecked barque, storm-tossed and sinking,
that I have gazed upon, powerless to help.
The long summer day is drawing to its close; above the Apennines where
the sky is lightest the new moon floats like a little boat of amber on
an opal sea. Like a fragment of a dream the song returns to my memory,
the childish song of which I have never heard and shall never hear more
than the first two lines:
When little children sleep, the Virgin Mary
Steps with white feet upon the crescent moon...
As the train carries me homeward, back to the joys of life and love and
freedom, back to the welcome of friends and the safety of a sheltered
hearth, I think once more of her whom I have left in the gloom of her
prison cell.
Soon, very soon, the hour of her release will strike, and the iron doors
that have guarded her will open wide to let her pass.
What then, what then, Marie Tarnowska?
Who will await you at the prison gate? Surely Grief, Scorn, and Hatred
will be there. But by your side I seem to see a guardian spirit,
shielding your drooping head with outstretched wings. It is the sister
of lost Innocence--Repentance; and in her wake comes the blind singer,
Hope.
* * * * *