I SEEK--AND FIND
The hopes of a young man upon his travels may be lighter than feathers
whirled about by the wind, but they soar as high and are as little to be
reasoned with. Going to Pistoja that fine summer's morning, my
convictions of triumph were sealed to me. And why, indeed! Because I had
confronted and discomfited my redoubtable adversary of the mountain, and
rescued a poor family from hateful sacrifice, I was, forsooth! to find
Aurelia in Pistoja, to fall with tears at her feet, to be pardoned and
absolved, to rise to the life of honour and respect once more. She was
to rejoin her husband, I my classes and all my former bliss: all was to
be as it had been. Most unreasonable hope! Yet I declare that these were
my convictions upon approaching Pistoja, and that, far from diminishing,
as I drew nearer and nearer to the city, so did they increase and take
root in my mind. It was therefore as a man prepared and dedicated that I
entered the gates, as a man under orders that I took my way through the
crowded street, as a man guided by an inner light, requiring not the
functions of his senses, that I paced steadfastly forward, neither
asking the way nor looking about for it, and only paused when I was
before the worn portal of a great red-brick church whose facade, never
finished, presented to the world the ragged ends of bricks and mortar.
Here, I say, I paused, but not for uncertainty's sake, rather that I
might take full breath for my high adventure: as a man may hold his
energies curbed on the entry into battle, or, with his hand at the
chamber door, upon his marriage night; or even at his last hour, when
the sands are nearly run and the priest has done his best, and before
him lies all that dark unexplored plain he must travel alone. I breathed
no articulated prayer, all my being prayed, every pulse and current in
my body, every urgency of my soul tended upwards to my advocate and
guardian in heaven. I bowed my head, I made the sign of the Cross, I
pushed the curtains and went in. Before me stretched a vast and empty
church, desolate exceedingly, at the far end of which, in the gloomy
fog, before a lamp-lit altar I saw a woman kneeling stiffly, with
uplifted head, as if she watched, not prayed--watched there and waited,
knowing full well the hour was come and the man.
Her head was hooded in a dark handkerchief; I could see her thin hands
clasped together--on the altar-rail; even as I realised these things
about her (which, besides her rigid, unprayerful pose, were all there
were to see) I must admit to myself that she bore no resemblance to my
lady. That one matter of devotion, and the devotional attitude were
enough to condemn her. For Aurelia was no bargainer in church, but lent
herself unreservedly to the holy commerce--her generous body, her ardent
soul--and asked no interest for the usufruct. Have I not seen her rain
kisses upon the tomb of St. Antony more passionately than I could have
dared upon her hand? Had she ever risen from the outpouring of prayer
without the dew of happy tears to bear witness in her eyes to her riven
heart? Her piety was, indeed, her great indulgence, so eager, so
luxurious, pursued with such appetite as I have never seen in England or
France, nor (assuredly) in Padua, where there is no zest, but much
decorum, in the practice of religion. To see her in church was, as it
were, to see a child in her mother's lap--able to laugh, to play, to
sulk and pout, ah, and to tell a fib, being so sure of forgiveness! No
secret too childish to be kept back, no trouble too light; the mustiness
of the season's oil, the shocking price of potherbs, the delinquency of
the milliner's apprentice who had spoiled a breadth of silk. She could
grumble at her husband, or impart and expect heaven to share her delight
at some little kindness he had done her. Since I have heard her speak
calmly to the Madonna about some young gentleman who had followed her
three days running to Mass, I am very sure that she and Our Lady were in
full agreement on my account. Thus it was that she, who had been early
parted from her earthly parents, nestled into the arms of her heavenly
parents. Upon what warm waves of feeling would Aurelia float into the
bosom of the Mother of Sorrows! With what endearments use her, with what
long kisses coax her for little mercies, with what fine confidence
promise her little rewards! And to compare this passionate flooding of
heart and mind, of corporeal and spiritual faculty with any incense
which that rigid watcher of mysteries had to offer up, were an absurdity
and a profanation impossible even to my deluded vision.
While I watched and compared, however, I did not turn away. I cannot
understand my interest or curiosity, which were very real; I knew that
Aurelia was not in this church, but for all that I stood rooted by a
pillar at the door and kept my gaze fixed upon the woman in the distant
chapel. She may have continued kneeling there, motionless, for some
quarter-hour more; in itself the act of suspense is an absorbing one. So
much was I possessed by it that I forgot all beside it--that I was a
lover, not of this shrouded unknown, that I was penniless and outcast,
that I was hungry, ignorant, uncertain, unforgiven. I think that, in
some indefinable way, the spirit of Aurelia may have been about me,
pervading this cold church, linking me and that other; I think that
Aurelia's soul may have whispered to mine, "Behold thy duty there." I
cannot tell. But this I may say with truth, that when the thin hands at
the rail unclasped and one made the cross over the form that knelt so
lonely there; when the woman lifted her head, and slowly rising, turned
and came up the church; when our looks met, and I found my eyes
searching the grave face and sombre eyes of Virginia, that unhappy child
for whom I had spent my last gold piece--I was neither startled nor
disappointed, but felt rather that I had known all along that it was
she.
I assume that I was in that exalted frame of mind which I have
endeavoured to describe. This young girl's eyes, fixed upon me, appeared
like beacons in that dark place, sullen fires lit at night to warn me
that I was still upon sentry duty about her person. "Money! Can a soul
be saved by money? The enemy is hungry about the wall," said the eyes of
Virginia, "be steadfast, on the watch." Neither of us gave recognition
of the other, neither of us spoke; but when she was level with me, I
turned and walked by her side to the door. I held the curtain back for
her to pass out; she bowed her head and accepted the service as
seriously as a princess. Together we went down the steps, side by side
we crossed the piazza, took the main street, turned to the right under
an archway and went down a steep and narrow lane--all this in perfect
silence. We reached a little piazza, a bay in the lane, raised upon a
parapet from the road level. Here, breaking our long and nervous
abstinence, Virginia stopped, saying, "I am tired; let us sit down."