“I have not forgotten our conversation, Livia. That was the day you told
me I was going to pronounce _the most fearful vow there is in the world_.
But, sister, I was not the only one who made it.”
“No, certainly not. You mean to say that Lorenzo has violated the solemn
vow that bound you together.... Yes, Gina, it is horrible, I acknowledge,
but listen to me; if you continue to think more of your own wrongs than of
God, whom he has offended a thousand times more; if you continue to
complain and dwell on your injuries, the result will be, you will soon
seek likewise to be released from the fidelity you vowed to him. And then
(may God preserve me from ever seeing that day, when I shall be truly
separated from you!) your fall will be speedy, rapid, and terrible. You
will fall as low, perhaps, as you might now rise high.”
She saw me shudder at these words, and continued with her usual mildness:
“Now, my dearest Gina, may God and his angels watch over you!... It is
growing dark. The bell is about to summon me away. I have only time for
one word: _Forget your heart_, I implore you. Believe me, God will some
day satisfy its cravings, if you cease to listen so weakly to them,
longing to have them gratified at all costs. Forget your heart, I say, and
think only of your soul!”
The bell rang while she was speaking. She raised her hand, and made the
sign of the cross in the air. I bowed my head, and when I raised it again
she had disappeared. But she had not spoken in vain. The clouds that
obscured my reason began to disperse, my courage began to revive, and the
jewel within to regain the brilliancy that had been obscured in the depths
of my soul. The course I ought to pursue was set before me with painful
distinctness, but I no longer turned my eyes away from it.
I was not happy when I left the convent. I did not even feel calm or
consoled; but I had come to a decision.
It was so late when I arrived home that the garden was filled with
moonlight. I walked there a long time, absorbed in my reflections, and
sincerely endeavoring to strengthen a resolution whose fulfilment I did
not yet dare to consider. I trembled as I asked myself if it was necessary
to utter the decisive word before another day, or if I could wait till
after the _soirée_ organized by Lando, when it would be no longer possible
to defer it.
I still hesitated as to this point. Though I had come to a decision, I did
not cease to suffer, but I ceased to be weak. I was very far from the
summit, but I resolved to attain it, instead of remaining as far below as
I now stood. A circumstance, insignificant in itself, now occurred to
confirm the change in my mind.
The door of Lorenzo’s studio was open, and, wishing to shorten the way to
my chamber, I entered it, and was proceeding towards the other door when I
found myself face to face with the vestal of which I was the model. The
moon threw so brilliant a light over it as to produce a striking effect. I
stopped to look at it, and, while doing so, it seemed as if this statue of
myself spoke to me in its own way, and in a language similar to that I had
so recently been listening to.
And what was the idea which Lorenzo really intended to express in this
vestal—the finest of his productions?
One of those ideas which, under the inspiration of genius, sometimes
sprang from his soul, and seemed for an instant to show a sense of the
good equal to that he had of the beautiful. This was, alas! only a
transitory gleam of light, but it was sufficient to justify the ambitious
hopes I once felt for a day—hopes so fatally illusory at the very time
they were conceived!
Lorenzo’s idea in choosing the ancient guardians of the sacred fire as his
subjects was to represent under these two figures the woman who was true
to her highest mission, and the woman who was untrue to it; the latter
making use of the holy fire under her charge to kindle a flame that would
end in destruction and woe; the other striving to keep this very fire
alive, diffusing its clear, brilliant, beneficent light, not only over
herself, but over everything around her.
Such was the idea he had not been able to embody, he said, till he had me
for his model. All this was doubtless the dream of an artist; but while I
stood contemplating what had resulted from it, the effect I experienced
was so strange, the thoughts that came to my mind were so vivid, that they
could only have been the whisperings of the voice that for an hour had
spoken more and more clearly to my heart.
The statue, however idealized it might be by the genius of the sculptor,
resembled me sufficiently for me to recognize the likeness. Flooded as it
now was by a brilliant, unearthly light, I looked at it with an attention
I had never done before. I observed its simple, dignified attitude; the
head slightly inclined towards the symbolic flame that rose from the lamp
she bore in her hands with so much ease, and yet with care and vigilance;
and, finally, the mouth and eyes, in which it seemed to me no artist had
ever expressed so clearly the gentleness, firmness, and purity he wished
to depict. It was thus Lorenzo imagined the guardian of the divine fire
which not only burned on the sacred altar, but kindled and fed the noblest
inspirations of genius....
Yes, the conception was a beautiful one, and I felt proud and gratified
that he had found me worthy of being the model to realize it!
All at once I was struck with a kind of terror, as it occurred to me,
Shall this resemblance be merely external? Are not many things wanting in
my nature which this statue seeks to express, and of which its beauty is
only the reflection?...
O my God! I thank thee! Everything becomes an instrument in thy hand. It
was thou, and not this marble, who didst suggest this thought, and it was
through thy grace that, at that moment, quicker than I can express it, and
as clearly as the eye beholds a picture placed suddenly before it, I all
at once saw if Lorenzo were present, under the roof that was his, and
Gilbert were also there—Gilbert, who called himself my friend and not
his—there would exist at my fireside, there would be infused into my life,
a perpetual lie, unmistakable treachery, and constant danger. I saw and
realized that, though he might not apparently have anything to reproach me
for, everything within and around me would henceforth continually reproach
me. I saw if the sacred lamp did not actually fall from my hands, the
purity of its flame would speedily be dimmed, and certainly end by being
wholly extinguished....
All this became clearly visible and palpable, and in the presence of this
voiceless marble, before the image of this pagan priestess, I renewed the
tacit promise I had an hour before made to her who was the living
Christian realization of this ancient ideal of a virtue pure and chaste.