THE SOUL.
Although the Countess of Rionuevo, Tito’s terrible enemy, plays so odious
a part in our story, she was not an old and ugly woman, as many will
perhaps have imagined. Physical nature is also sometimes deceptive.
This illustrious woman was, at this time, but thirty-five years of age,
and in the fulness of a magnificent beauty—tall, active and well formed;
her eyes, blue and treacherous as the sea, concealed great depths under
a languid and suave manner. The frankness of her mouth, the soft tint
of her skin, and the queenly grace of her bearing, proved that neither
sorrow nor passion had perceptibly diminished her incomparable beauty.
Thus it was that on seeing her now, stricken and suffering, overcome
by terror, and racked with pain, the least compassionate would have
experienced a peculiar pity, closely akin to horror or fear. Though Tito
thoroughly hated the woman, he could not avoid this inexplicable feeling
of sympathy and dread, and, mechanically taking the beautiful hand which
she tendered him he whispered with more sorrow than resentment,
“Do you know me, Countess?”
“Save me!” replied the dying woman, not heeding his question.
At this moment another person emerged noiselessly from behind the
curtains, and joined the two speakers, half reclining on the pillow and
supporting his head on his hand.
It was Death!
“Save me!” repeated the Countess, who felt intuitively that our hero
hated her; “they say you are a magician, that you commune with Death.
Save me!”
“You fear death greatly, Countess!” responded the youth with
indifference, at the same time releasing her hand.
That stupid cowardice, that animal terror, which left no room for any
other thought or sensation, disgusted Tito profoundly, for it showed him
the wretchedly selfish spirit of the author of all his troubles.
“Countess!” he then exclaimed, “think of your past and of your future!
Think of God and of your neighbor! Try to save the soul, since the body
is no longer yours.”
“Ah! I am going to die,” exclaimed the Countess.
“No, you are not.”
“Not to die!” shrieked the poor woman, with savage joy.
The youth continued with severity:
“No! because you have never lived. On the contrary, you are to enter the
soul-life, which for you will be endless suffering, as for the just it is
eternal happiness.”
“Ah! then I am to die,” murmured the patient anew, shedding tears for the
first time in her life.
“Countess, you will not die,” again replied the physician, with
indescribable majesty.
“Have pity on me,” said the poor woman, regaining hope.
“You will not die,” continued the youth, “because you weep. The soul
never dies, and repentance can open to us the doors of eternal life.”
“My God! my God!” cried the Countess, distracted by that cruel
uncertainty.
“You do well to appeal to Him. Save the soul! I repeat, save the soul!
Your beautiful body (that earthly idol), and your sacrilegious existence
have ended forever. This temporal life, these earthly joys, that
prosperity and beauty, that luxury and fortune which you have striven
so hard to preserve, the riches you have usurped, the air, the sun, the
world you have known till now, all are lost to you, they have even now
disappeared. To-morrow nothing will remain but dust and darkness, vanity
and corruption, solitude and oblivion; the soul alone survives, Countess.
Think of your soul.”
“Who are you?” softly asked the dying woman, gazing at him in
astonishment. “I have known you before now. You hate me, it is you who
kill me. Ah!”
At this instant Death placed his white hand upon her head, and
said:—“Finish, Tito, the last hour approaches.”
“I do not wish her to die,” replied Tito, “even yet she may amend; even
yet remedy all the evil she has done. Save her body, and I will answer
for her soul.”
“Conclude, Tito! conclude; the last hour is about to strike.”
“Poor woman!” murmured the youth, looking at her with compassion.
“You pity me,” said the dying woman with ineffable tenderness. “I who
never acknowledged you, never loved you. Never have I felt as now for
you. Pity me. Tell me. My heart softens at the sound of your sad voice.”
And it was true.
The Countess exalted by the terror of that supreme moment, suffering
remorse, fearing punishment, and deprived of all that constituted her
pride and pleasure upon earth, commenced to feel the first breathings of
a soul, which until now had remained lost and silent in the depths of her
iniquity; a soul always insulted, but full of patience and heroism; a
soul, in fact, to be compared to the sad daughter of criminal parents,
who, quiet and silent, shrinks from sight and weeps alone, until one
day, when at the first sign of repentance that she observes, recovers
her spirit, rushes to their arms and lets them hear her pure, sweet
voice—song of the lark, music of heaven, which appears to welcome the
dawn of virtue after the darkness of sin.
“You ask me who I am?” responded Tito, comprehending all this. “I
scarcely know myself. I was your mortal enemy, but now I do not hate
you. You have heard the voice of truth, the voice of death, and you have
responded, God be praised! I came to this bed of sorrow to ask from you
the happiness of my life; but now I can leave, content without it, for
I believe I have brought about your redemption, that I have saved your
soul. Heavenly Jesus! in that I have pardoned my injuries and done good
to my enemy, I am satisfied; I am happy; I ask no more.”
“Who are you, mysterious and sublime boy? Who are you? so good and so
beautiful, who come like an angel to my death-bed, to make my last
moments so sweet?” asked the Countess, eagerly, taking Tito’s hand.
“I am the Friend of Death,” replied the youth; “do not be surprised then
that I quiet your heart. I speak to you in his name, therefore you have
believed me. I am delegated to come to you by that compassionate divinity
who is the peace of the earth, the truth of the worlds, the redeemer
of the spirit, the messenger of God; who is all but forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness is in life, Countess, not in death. Remember, and you will
know me.”
“Tito!” exclaimed the Countess, losing consciousness.
“She is dead?” the physician asked Death.
“No, there still remains a half an hour.”
“But will she speak again?”
“Tito,” sighed the dying woman.
“Finish,” added Death.
The youth bent over the Countess, o’er whose beautiful countenance there
shone a new and divine beauty; and from those eyes where the fire of
life melted in languishing and melancholy glances, from that gasping and
half-opened mouth, flushed with fever, from those soft warm hands, and
that white throat turned toward him in infinite anguish, he met such an
eloquent expression of repentance and tenderness, such loving caresses
and earnest entreaties, so infinite and solemn a promise, that without
hesitating an instant he left the bed, called the Duke of Monteclaro, the
Archbishop and three of the other nobles who were in the apartment, and
said to them: “Listen to the public confession of a soul which returns
to God.” Those persons approached the dying woman, induced more by his
inspired face than by his words.
“Duke,” murmured the Countess, on seeing Monteclaro, “my confessor has
a key—Sire,” she continued, turning toward the Archbishop, “ask him for
it—. This boy, this physician, this angel, is natural and acknowledged
son of the Count of Rionuevo, my late husband, who when dying, wrote
you a letter, Duke, asking Elena’s hand for him. With this key—in my
bedroom—all the papers—I pray you—I command you.”
At these words she fell back upon the pillow, the light gone from her
eyes, the breath from her lips, the color from her face.
“She is dying!” exclaimed Tito. “Remain with her, Sire,” he added,
addressing the Archbishop. “And you, Duke, listen to me.”
“Wait,” said Death, as he heard the youth.
“What more?” he replied.
“Thou hast not forgiven her.”
“Tito!—your forgiveness!”—murmured the dying woman.
“Tito!” exclaimed the Duke of Monteclaro, “is it you?”
“Countess, may God pardon you as I do. Die in peace,” said the son of
Crispina Lopez, with religious fervor.
At this moment Death bent over the Countess, and pressed his lips to her
brow.
That kiss resounded in the throat of a corpse.
One cold, tremulous tear coursed down the dead woman’s cheek.
Tito wiped away his own, and turned to answer Monteclaro. “Yes, Duke, it
is I.”
As the Archbishop read the funeral prayers, Death disappeared. It was
midnight.