A few days later the fashionable world of Europe was startled by the
announcement of two things. One was the marriage of Sylvie, Countess
Hermenstein, to the "would-be reformer of the clergy," Aubrey Leigh,
coupled with her renunciation of the Church of her fathers. There was
no time for that Church to pronounce excommunication, inasmuch as she
renounced it herself, of her own free will and choice, and made no
secret of having done so. Some of her Hungarian friends were, or
appeared to be, scandalized at this action on her part, but the
majority of them treated it with considerable leniency, and in some
cases with approval, on the ground that a wife's religion ought to be
the same as that of her husband. If love is love at all, it surely
means complete union; and one cannot imagine a perfect marriage where
there is any possibility of wrangling over different forms of creed.
The other piece of news, which created even more sensation than the
first, was the purchase of Angela Sovrani's great picture, "The Coming
of Christ," by the Americans. As soon as this was known, the crowd of
visitors to the artist's studio assumed formidable proportions, and
from early morning till late afternoon, the people kept coming and
going in hundreds, which gradually swelled to thousands. For by-and-by
the history of the picture got about in disjointed morsels of
information and gossip which soon formed a consecutive and fairly
correct narration. Experts criticized it,--critics "explained" it--and
presently nothing was talked of in the art world but "The Coming of
Christ" and the artist who painted it, Angela Sovrani. A woman!--only a
woman! It seemed incredible--impossible! For why should a woman think?
Why should a woman dare to be a genius? It seemed very strange! How
much more natural for her to marry some decent man of established
position and be content with babies and plain needlework! Here was an
abnormal prodigy in the ways of womanhood,--a feminine creature who
ventured to give an opinion of her own on something else than
dress,--who presumed as it were, to set the world thinking hard on a
particular phase of religious history! Then, as one after the other
talked and whispered and commented, the story of Angela's own private
suffering began to eke out bit by bit,--how she had been brutally
stabbed m her own studio in front of her own picture by no other than
her own betrothed husband Florian Varillo, who was moved to his
murderous act by a sudden impulse of jealousy,--and how that same
Varillo had met with his deserts in death by fire in the Trappist
monastery on the Campagna. And the excitement over the great picture
became more and more intense--especially when it was known that it
would soon be taken away from Rome never to be seen there again. Angela
herself knew little of her rapidly extending fame,--she was in Paris
with the Princesse D'Agramont who had taken her there immediately after
Monsignor Gherardi's visit to her father. She was not told of Florian
Varillo's death till she had been some days in the French capital, and
then it was broken to her as gently as possible. But the result was
disastrous. The strength she had slowly regained seemed now to leave
her altogether, and she was stricken with a mute despair which was
terrible to witness. Hour after hour, she lay on a couch, silent and
motionless,--her large eyes fixed on vacancy, her little white hands
clasped close together as though in a very extremity of bodily and
mental anguish, and the Princesse D'Agramont, who watched her and
tended her with the utmost devotion, was often afraid that all her care
would be of no avail, and that her patient would slip through her hands
into the next world before she had time to even attempt to save her.
And Cyrillon Vergmaud, unhappy and restless, wandered up and down
outside the house, where this life, so secretly dear to him, was poised
as it were on the verge of death, not daring to enter, or even enquire
for news, lest he should hear the worst.
One cold dark afternoon however, as he thus paced to and fro, he saw
the Princesse D'Agramont at a window beckoning him, and with a
sickening terror at his heart, he obeyed the signal.
"I wish you would come and talk to her!" said the Princesse as she
greeted him, with tears in her bright eyes. "She must be roused from
this apathy. I can do nothing with her. But I think YOU might do much
if you would!"
"I will do anything--anything in the wide world!" said Cyrillon
earnestly. "Surely you know that!"
"Yes--but you must not be too gentle with her! I do not mean that you
should be rough--God forbid!--but if you would speak to her with
authority--if you could tell her that she owes her life and her work to
the world--to God--"
She broke off, not trusting herself to say more. Cyrillon raised her
hand to his lips.
"I understand!" he said. "You know I have hesitated--because--I love
her! I cannot tell her not to grieve for her dead betrothed, when I
myself am longing to take his place!"
The Princesse smiled through her tears.
"The position is difficult I admit!" she said, with a returning touch
of playfulness--"But the very fact of your love for her should give you
the force to command her back to life. Come!"
She took him into the darkened room where Angela lay--inert, immovable,
with always the same wide-open eyes, blank with misery and desolation,
and said gently,
"Angela, will you speak to Gys Grandit?"
Angela turned her wistful looks upon him, and essayed a poor little
ghost of a smile. Very gently Cyrillon advanced and sat down beside
her,--and with equal gentleness, the Princesse D'Agramont withdrew.
Cyrillon's heart beat fast; if he could have lifted that frail little
form of a woman into his arms and kissed away the sorrow consuming it,
he would have been happy,--but his mission was that of a friend, not
lover, and his own emotions made it hard for him to begin. At last he
spoke
"When are you going to make up your mind to get well, dear friend?"
She looked at him piteously.
"Make up my mind to get well? I shall never be well again!"
"You will if you resolve to be," said Cyrillon. "It rests with you!"
She was silent.
"Have you heard the latest news from Rome?" he asked after a pause.
She made a faint sign in the negative.
Cyrillon smiled.
"The Church has with all due solemnity anathematized your picture as an
inspiration of the Evil One! But it is better that it should be so
anathematized than that it should be reported as not your own work.
Between two lies, the emissaries of the Vatican have chosen the one
least dangerous to themselves."
Angela sighed wearily.
"You do not care?" queried Cyrillon. "Neither anathema nor lie has any
effect on you?"
She raised her left hand and looked dreamily at the circlet of rubies
on it--Florian Varillo's betrothal ring.
"I care for nothing," she said slowly. "Nothing--now he is gone!"
A bitter pang shot through Cyrillon's heart. He was quite silent.
Presently she turned her eyes wistfully towards him.
"Please do not think me ungrateful for all your kindness!--but--I
cannot forget!"
"Dear Donna Sovrani, may I speak to you fully and, frankly--as a
friend? May I do so without offence?"
She looked at him and saw how pale he was, how his lips trembled, and
the consciousness that he was unhappy moved her to a faint sense of
compunction.
"Of course you may!" she answered gently. "I know you do not hate me."
"Hate you!" Cyrillon paused, his eyes softening with a great tenderness
as they rested upon her. "Who could hate you?"
"Florian hated me," she said. "Not always,--no! He loved me once! Only
when he saw my picture, then his love perished. Ah, my Florian! Had I
known, I would have destroyed all my work rather than have given him a
moment's pain!"
"And would that have been right?" asked Cyrillon earnestly. "Would not
such an act have been one of selfishness rather than sacrifice?"
A faint color crept over her pale cheeks.
"Selfishness?--"
"Yes! Your love for him was quite a personal matter,--but your work is
a message to the world. You would have sacrificed the world for his
sake, even though he had murdered you!"
"I would!" she answered, and her eyes shone like stars as she spoke.
"The world is nothing to me; love was everything!"
"That is your way of argument," said Cyrillon. "But it is not God's
way!"
She was silent, but her looks questioned him.
"Genius like yours," he went on, "is not given to you for yourself
alone. You cannot tamper with it, or play with it, for the sake of
securing a little more temporal happiness or peace for yourself. Genius
is a crown of thorns,--not a wreath of flowers to be worn at a feast of
pleasure! You wished your life to be one of love,--God has chosen to
make it one of suffering. You say the world is nothing to you,--then my
dear friend, God insists that it shall be something to you! Have you
the right--I ask you, have you the right to turn away from all your
fellow mortals and say--'No--because I have been disappointed in my
hope and my love, then I will have nothing to do with life--I will turn
away from all who need my help--I will throw back the gifts of God with
scorn to the Giver, and do nothing simply because I have lost what I
myself specially valued!'"
Her eyes fell beneath his straight clear regard, and she moved
restlessly.
"Ah you do not know--you do not understand!" she said. "I am not
thinking of myself--indeed I am not! But I feel as if my work--my
picture--had killed Florian! I hate myself!--I hate everything I have
ever done, or could ever possibly do. I see him night and day in those
horrible flames!--Oh God! those cruel flames!--he seems to reproach
me,--even to curse me for his death!"
She shuddered and turned her face away. Cyrillon ventured to take her
hand.
"That is not like you, dear friend!" he said, his rich voice trembling
with the pity he felt for her. "That is not like your brave spirit! You
look only at one aspect of grief--you see the darkness of the cloud,
but not its brighter side. If I were to say that he whom you loved so
greatly has perhaps been taken to save him from even a worse fate, you
would be angry with me. You loved him--yes; and whatever he did or
attempted to do, even to your injury, you would have loved him still
had he lived! That is the angel half of woman's nature. You would have
given him your fame had he asked you for it,--you would have pardoned
him a thousand times over had he sought your pardon,--you would have
worked for him like a slave and been content to die with your genius
unrecognized if that would have pleased him. Yes I know! But God saw
your heart--and his--and with God alone rests the balance of justice.
You must not set yourself in opposition to the law; you,--such a
harmonious note in work and life,--must not become a discord!"
She did not speak. Her hand lay passively in his, and he went on.
"Death is not the end of life. It is only the beginning of a new school
of experience. Your very grief,--your present inaction, may for all we
know, be injuring the soul of the man whose loss you mourn!"
She sighed.
"Do you think that possible--?"
"I do think it very possible," he answered. "Natural sorrow is not
forbidden to us,--but a persistent dwelling on cureless grief is a
trespass against the law. Moreover you have been endowed with a great
talent,--it is not your own--it is lent to you to use for others, and
you have no right to waste it. The world has taken your work with joy,
with gratitude, with thanksgiving; will you say that you do not care
for the world?--that you will do nothing more for it?--Because one
love--one life, has been taken from you, will you discard all love, all
life? Dear friend, that will not be reasonable,--not right, nor just,
nor brave!"
A wistful longing filled her eyes.
"I wish Manuel were here!" she said plaintively. "He would understand!"
"Manuel is with Cardinal Bonpre in London," replied Cyrillon. "I heard
from Aubrey yesterday that they are going about together among the
poor, doing good everywhere. Would you like to join them? Your friend
Sylvie would be glad to have you stay with her, I am sure."
She gave a hopeless gesture.
"I am not strong enough to go--" she began.
"You will be strong enough when you determine to be," said Cyrillon.
"Your frightened soul is making a coward of your body!"
She started and drew her hand away from his gentle clasp.
"You are harsh!" she said, looking at him straightly. "I am not
frightened--I never was a coward!"
Something of the old steady light came back to her eyes, and Cyrillon
inwardly rejoiced to see it.
"My words seem rough," he said, "but truly they are not so. I repeat,
your soul is frightened--yes! frightened at the close approach of God!
God is never so near to us as in a great sorrow; and when we feel His
presence almost within sight and touch, we are afraid. But we must not
give way to fear; we must not grovel in the dust and hide ourselves as
if we were ashamed! We must rise up and grow accustomed to His glory,
and let Him lead us where He will!"
He paused, for Angela was weeping. The sound of her low sobbing smote
him to the heart.
"Angela--Angela!" he whispered, more to himself than to her. "Have I
hurt you so much?"
"Yes, yes!" she murmured between her tears. "You have hurt me!--but you
are right--you are quite right! I am
selfish--weak--cowardly--ungrateful too;--but forgive me,--have
patience with me!--I will try--I will try to bear it all more
bravely--I will indeed!"
He rose from her side and paced the room, not trusting himself to
speak. She looked at him anxiously and endeavoured to control her sobs.
"You are angry?"
"Angry!" He came back, and lifting her suddenly, but gently like a
little child, he placed her in an easy sitting position, leaning cosily
among her pillows. "Come!" he said smiling, as the colour flushed her
cheeks at the swiftness of his action--"Let the Princesse D'Agramont
see that I am something of a doctor! You will grow weaker and weaker
lying down all day--I want to make you strong again! Will you help me?"
He looked into her eyes, and her own fell before his earnest, reverent,
but undisguisedly tender glance.
"I will try to do what you wish," she said. "If I fail you must forgive
me--but I will honestly try!"
"If you try, you will succeed"--said Cyrillon, and bending down, he
kissed the trembling little hands--"Ah! forgive me! If you knew how
dear your life is--to--to many, you would not waste it in weeping for
what cannot be remedied by all your tears! I will not say one word
against the man you loved--for YOU do not say it, and you are the most
injured;--he is dead--let him rest;--but life claims you,--claims me
for the moment;--our fellow-men and women claim our attention, our
work, our doing for the best and greatest while we can,--our duty is to
them,--not to ourselves! Will you for your father's sake--for the
world's sake--if I dared say, for MY sake!--will you throw off this
torpor of sorrow? Only you can do it,--only you yourself can command
the forces of your own soul! Be Angela once more!--the guiding angel of
more lives than you know of!--"
His voice sank to a pleading whisper.
"I will try!" she answered in a low voice--"I promise!--"
And when the Princess D'Agramont entered she was surprised and
overjoyed to find her patient sitting up on her couch for the first
time in many days, talking quietly with the Perseus she had sent to
rescue the poor Andromeda from the jaws of a brooding Melancholia which
might have ended in madness or death. With her presence the
conversation took a lighter tone--and by-and-by Angela found herself
listening with some interest to the reading of her father's last letter
addressed to her kind hostess.
"Angela's picture is gone out of Rome"--he wrote--"It was removed from
the studio in the sight of an enormous crowd which had assembled to
witness its departure. The Voce Della Verita has described it as a
direct inspiration of the devil, and suggests the burning-down of the
studio in which it was painted, as a means of purifying the Sovrani
Palace from the taint of sulphur and brimstone. La Croix demands the
excommunication of the artist, which by the way is very likely to
happen. The Osservatore Romano wishes that the ship specially chartered
to take it to America, may sink with all on board. All of which kind
and charitable wishes on the part of the Vatican press have so
augmented the fame of 'The Coming of Christ' that the picture could
hardly be got through the crush of people craning their necks to get a
glimpse of it. It is now en route via Bordeaux for London, where it is
to be exhibited for six weeks. As soon as I have finished
superintending the putting by of a few home treasures here, I shall
join you in Paris, when I hope to find my dear girl nearly restored to
her usual self. It will please her to know that her friend the charming
Sylvie is well and very happy. She was married for the second time
before a Registrar in London, and is now, as she proudly writes, 'well
and truly' Mrs. Aubrey Leigh, having entirely dropped her title in
favour of her husband's plainer, but to her more valuable designation.
Of course spiteful people will say she ceased to be Countess
Hermenstein in order not to be recognized too soon as the 'renegade
from the Roman Church,' but that sort of thing is to be expected.
Society never gives you credit for honest motives, but only for
dishonest ones. We who know Sylvie, also know what her love for her
husband is, and that it is love alone which inspires all her actions in
regard to him. Her chief anxiety at present seems to be about Angela's
health, and she tells me she telegraphs to you every day for news--"
--"Is that true?" asked Angela, interrupting the reading of her
father's letter. "Does Sylvie in all her new happiness, actually think
of me so much and so often?"
"Indeed she does!" replied the Princess D'Agramont. "Chere enfant, you
must not look at all the world through the cloud of one sorrow! We all
love you!--we are all anxious to see you quite yourself again!"
Angela's eyes filled with tears as they rested on her friend's kindly
face, a face usually so brilliant in its animated expression, but now
saddened and worn by constant watching and fatigue.
"You are far too good to me," she said in a low voice--"And I am most
unworthy of all your attention."
Loyse D'Agramont paid no heed to this remark, but resumed reading the
Prince Sovrani's epistle--
"Let me see! . . . Sylvie--yes--here it is--'She telegraphs to you
every day for news, which is apparently the only extravagance she is
guilty of just now. She and her husband have taken rooms in some very
poor neighbourhood of London, and are beginning work in real earnest.
Our good Felix and his cherished foundling have been with them into
many wretched homes, cheering the broken-hearted, comforting the sick,
and assuring all those who doubt it that there is a God in spite of
priest-craft,--and I have received an English paper which announces
that Mr. Aubrey Leigh will give one of his famous "Addresses to the
People" on the last day of the year. I should like to hear him, though
my very slight knowledge of English would be rather against me in the
comprehension of what he might say. For all other news you must wait
till we meet. Expect me in Paris in a few days, and ask my Angela to
rouse herself sufficiently to give her old father a smile of welcome.
My compliments to "Gys Grandit," and to you the assurance of my devoted
homage. Pietro Sovrani.'"
The Princesse folded up the letter and looked wistfully at Angela.
"You will give him the smile of welcome he asks for, will you not,
little one?" she asked. "You are all he has in the world, remember!"
"I do remember," murmured Angela. "I know!"
"Aubrey and his wife are 'beginning work in real earnest'!" said
Cyrillon. "And how much their work will mean to the world! More than
the world can at present imagine or estimate! It seems to be a settled
thing that the value of great work shall never be recognised during the
worker's lifetime, but only afterwards--when he or she who was so
noble, so self-sacrificing, or so farseeing, shall have passed beyond
the reach of envy, scorn and contumely, into other regions of existence
and development. The finest deeds are done without acknowledgment or
reward, and when the hero or heroine has gone beyond recall, the whole
world stands lamenting its blindness for not having known or loved them
better. Donna Sovrani"--and his voice softened--"will also soon begin
again to work, like Aubrey and Sylvie, 'in real earnest.' Will she not?"
Angela raised her eyes, full of sadness, yet also full of light.
"Yes," she said. "I will! I will work my grief into a glory if I can!
And the loss of world's love shall teach me to love God more!"
Loyse D'Agramont embraced her.
"That is my Angela!" she said. "That is what I wanted you to feel--to
know--for I too have suffered!"
"I know you have--and I should have remembered it!" said Angela,
penitently. "But--I have been frozen with grief--paralysed in brain and
heart, and I have forgotten so many things!" She trembled and closed
her eyes for a moment,--then went on--"Give me a little time--a few
more days!--and I will prove that I am not ungrateful for your love--"
She hesitated, and then turning, gave her hand to Cyrillon,--"or for
your friendship."
He bent over the little hand and kissed it reverently, and soon
afterwards took his leave, more light of heart, and more hopeful in
spirit, than he had been for many days. He felt he could now go on with
his work, part of which was the task of distributing the money his
father had left him, among the poor of Paris. He considered that to
leave money to the poor after death is not half such a Christian act as
to give it while alive. Distributors, secretaries, lawyers, and
red-tapeism come in with the disposal of wealth after we are gone;--but
to give it to those in need with our own hands--to part with it freely
and to deny ourselves something in order to give it,--that is doing
what Christ asked us to do. And whether we are blessed or cursed by
those whom we seek to benefit, none can take away from us the sweet
sense of peace and comfort which is ours to enjoy, when we know that we
have in some small measure tried to serve our Divine Master, for the
"full measure" of content, "pressed down and running over" which He has
promised to those who "freely give," has never yet been known to fail.
And Cyrillon Vergniaud was given this happiness of the highest, purest
kind, as with the aid of the wondering and reluctant Monsieur Andre
Petitot, he gave poor families comfort for life, and rescued the sick
and the sorrowful,--and all he reserved to himself from his father's
large fortune was half a million francs. For he learned that most of
the money he inherited had come to the late Abbe through large bequests
left to him by those who had believed in him as a righteous priest of
spotless reputation, and Cyrillon's conscience would not allow him to
take advantage of money thus obtained, as he sternly told himself, "on
false pretences."
"My father would not have wished me to keep it after his public
confession," he said. "And I will not possess more than should have
been spared in common justice to aid my mother's life and mine. The
rest shall be used for the relief of those in need. And I know,--if I
told Angela--she would not wish it otherwise!"
So he had his way. And while his prompt help and personal supervision
of the distribution of his wealth brought happiness to hundreds of
homes, he was rewarded by seeing Angela grow stronger every day. The
hue of health came gradually back to her fair cheeks,--her eyes once
more recovered their steadfast brightness and beauty, and as from time
to time he visited her and watched her with all the secret passion and
tenderness he felt, his heart grew strong within him.
"She will love me one day if I try to deserve her love," he thought.
"She will love me as she has never loved yet! No woman can understand
the true worth of love, unless her lover loves her more than himself!
This is a joy my Angela has not yet been given,--it will be for me to
give it to her!"