THE IMPRISONED WITNESS.
When souls come freshly from their God,
They breathe the very air of Heaven!
To children on this earthly sod,
Angelic trusts are sometimes given.
And like bright spirits wandering through
The haunted depths of tears and sin,
Their gentle words drop down like dew,
Where wisdom fails, they charm and win.
It is strange--nay, it is horrible--that so much of barbarism still
lingers in the laws and customs of a free land. Without crime or offence
of any kind, a person may be taken, here in the city of New York, and
confined for months among the most hideous malefactors; his self-respect
broken down; his associations brutalized; and all, that the law may be
fulfilled. What must that law be which requires oppression, that it may
render justice?
In New York, the poor witness--a man who has the misfortune to know
anything of a crime before the courts, is himself exactly in the place
of a criminal. Like the malefactor, he must give bonds for his prompt
appearance on the day of trial, or lacking the influence to obtain
these, must himself share the prison of the very felon his evidence will
condemn. Strangers thus--sea-faring men, and persons destitute of
friends--are often imprisoned for months among the very dregs of
humanity; innocent, and yet suffering the severest penalties of guilt.
This injustice, so glaring that a savage would blush to acknowledge it,
exists almost unnoticed in a city overrun with benevolent societies,
crowded with churches, and inundated with sympathies for the wronged of
every nation or city on earth. If ostentatious charity would, for a
time, give way to simple justice, New York like all the American cities
we know of, would obtain for itself more respect abroad and more real
prosperity at home.
It was under this law that Julia Warren, a young creature, just
bursting into the first bloom of girlhood, pure, sensitive, and
guileless as humanity can be, was dragged like a thief into the city
prison. She had known the deepest degradation of poverty, and that is
always so closely crowded against crime in cities, that it seems almost
impossible to keep the dew upon an innocent nature. But Julia had been
guarded in her poverty by principle so firm, by love so holy, that
neither the close neighborhood of sin nor the gripe of absolute want had
power to stain the sweet bloom of a nature that seemed to fling off evil
impressions as the swan casts off waterdrops from its snowy bosom,
though its whole form is bathed in them.
This young creature, in all her gentle innocence, without crime, without
even the suspicion of a fault, was now the inmate of a prison, the
associate of felons, hand-in-hand with guilt of a kind and degree that
had never entered even her imagination.
At first, when the officer separated the poor girl from her
grandparents, she struggled wildly, shrieked for help, and at last fell
to imploring the man, with eyes so wild and eloquence so startling, that
he paused in one of the dark corridors leading from the court, and
strove to soothe her, supposing that she was terrified by the gloom of
the place.
"No, no!" she answered. "It is not that. I did not see that it was dark.
I did not look at anything. My grandfather--poor grandma! Let me go with
them. I'm not afraid. I don't care for being in prison, only let me stay
where they are!"
"Your grandmother is not here!"
"Not here--not here!" answered the poor creature, wildly and aghast.
"Then what has become of her? Let me go--let me go, I say. She will
die!"
Julia unlocked the hands that she had clasped, flung back the hair from
her face, and fled down the corridor so swiftly, that the keeper, taken
by surprise, was left far behind. An officer, coming in from the court,
seized her by the arm as she was passing him.
"Not so fast, canary bird; not quite so fast. It takes swifter wings
than yours to get out of this cage."
Julia looked at the man, breathless with affright.
"What do you hold me for? Why can't I go?" she gasped forth.
"Because you are a prisoner, little one!"
"But I have done nothing!"
"Nobody ever does anything that comes here," said this man, with a
contemptuous smile. "Never were so many innocent people crowded
together."
As he spoke, the man tightened his hold on her arm, and moved forward,
forcing her along with him.
The poor creature winced under the pain of his grasp.
"You hurt my arm," she said, in a low voice.
"Do I?" replied the man, affected by the despondency of her tone. "I did
not mean to do that; but it would be difficult to touch a little,
delicate thing like you without leaving a mark. Come, don't cry. I did
not hurt you on purpose."
"I know it. It is not that," answered the girl, lifting her eyes, from
which the big tears were dropping like rain.
"Well, well, go quietly to the women's department. They will not keep
you long, unless you have been stealing, or something of that sort."
"Stealing!" faltered the girl, "stealing!" The color flashed into her
pale, wet cheeks; a faint, scornful smile quivered over her lips.
The officer from whom she had fled now came up. "Come," he said, with a
shade of impatience, "I cannot be kept waiting in this way."
"I am ready!" answered the poor girl, in a voice of utter despondency,
while her head dropped upon her bosom. "If I am a prisoner, take me
away. But what--what have I done?"
"Never mind; settle that with the court. I am in a hurry, so come
along!"
Julia neither expostulated nor attempted to resist.
She gave her hand to the officer, who led her quickly forward. They
threaded the dim, vault-like passage, and paused before a grated door,
through which the trembling girl could see dark, squalid figures moving
about in the dusky twilight that filled the prison. Two or three faces,
haggard and fiend like, were pressed up against the bars. One was that
of a negro woman, scarred with many a street brawl, whose inflamed eyes
glared wickedly upon the innocent creature whom the laws had sent to be
her companion.
"Get back--back with you!" commanded the officer, dashing his keys
against the grating. "Your hideous faces frighten the poor thing!"
The faces flitted away, grinning defiance, and sending back a burst of
hoarse laughter that made Julia shiver from head to foot. She drew close
to the man, clinging to his garments, while he turned the heavy lock and
thrust the door half open. The dim vista of a hall, with cells yawning
on one side, and filled with gloomy light, through which wild, impish
figures wandered restlessly to and fro, or sat motionless against the
walls, met Julia's gaze. She shrank back, clinging desperately to her
conductor--
"Oh, mercy, mercy! Not here--not here!" she cried, pallid and shivering.
The man raised her firmly in his arms, and passing through the door, set
her down. She heard the clank of keys; the shooting of a heavy bolt. She
saw the shadow of this, her last friend, fall across the grating; and
then, in dreary desolation, she sat down upon a wooden bench, and
leaning her cold cheek against the wall, closed her eyes. The tears
pressed through those long, dark eyelashes, and rolled, one by one, in
heavy drops, over her face. Her arms hung helplessly down; all the
energies of her young life seemed utterly prostrated.
The hall was full of women of all ages, and bearing every stamp that
vice or sorrow impresses on the countenance. Some, old and hardened in
evil, stood aloof looking upon the heart-stricken girl with their stony,
pitiless eyes; others, younger, more reckless and fierce in their
sympathies, gathered around in a crowd, commenting upon her grief, some
mockingly, others with a touch of feeling. Black and white, all huddled
around the bench she occupied, pouring their hot breath out, till she
sickened and grew faint, as if the boughs of a Upas tree were drooping
over her.
"She's sick--she's fainting away!" cried one of the women. "Bring some
water!"
"No," cried another. "If we had a drop of brandy now. But water, bah!"
"It's the horrors--see how she trembles," exclaimed a third, with a
chuckle and a toss of the head.
"No such thing. She's too young--too handsome!"
"Oh, get away! Don't I know the symptoms?" interrupted the first
speaker, with a coarse laugh. "Ain't I young--ain't I handsome? Who says
no to that? And yet haven't you heard me yell--haven't you heard me rave
with the horrors?"
"That was because the doctor prescribes brandy," interposed a
sly-looking mulatto woman, folding her arms and turning her head saucily
on one side. "When that medicine comes, you are still enough."
This retort was followed by a general laugh, in which the object joined,
till the tears rolled down her cheeks.
In the midst of this coarse glee, Julia had fallen like a withered
flower, upon the bench. That moment, the huge negress, who had so
terrified the poor creature at the grating, plunged out from a cell in
the upper end of the hall, and came toward the group with a tin cup full
of water in her hand.
Had a fiend come forth on an errand of mercy, it would not have seemed
more out of place than that hideous creature under the influence of a
kind impulse. She came down the hall as rapidly as her naked feet,
hampered by an old pair of slip-shod shoes, could move. The dress hung
in rents and festoons of dirty and faded calico around her gaunt limbs,
trailing the stone floor on one side, and lifted high above her clumsy
ankles on the other.
The women scattered as she approached, giving her a full view of the
fainting girl.
"So you've done it among you--smothered her. How dare you? Didn't you
see that I took a fancy to her, before she came in? Let her alone. I
want a pet, and she's mine."
"Yours!" "Why, it was your face that frightened her to death. There
hasn't been a bit of color in her lips since she saw you," answered the
woman that had so eagerly recommended brandy, and who kept her place in
spite of the formidable negress. "Here, give me the water, and get out
of my sight."
The negress pushed this woman roughly aside, and kneeling down by the
senseless girl, bathed her forehead with the water. Julia did not stir.
Her face continued deathly white; a faint violet tinge lay upon her lips
and around her eyes; her little hands fell down to the stone floor; her
feet dropped heavily from the bench. This position, more than the still
face even, was fearfully like death.
"Call a keeper," cried half a dozen voices, "she is scared to death!"
"The doctor!" urged as many more voices. "It will take a doctor to bring
her out of that fit!"
"We won't have a doctor," exclaimed the old negress, stoutly. "He'd call
it tremens, and give her brandy or laudanum. I tell you, she isn't one
of that sort! Don't believe a drop of the ardent ever touched her lips!"
Again a coarse laugh broke up from among the prisoners.
The negress dashed a handful of water across the poor face over which
that laughter floated like the orgies of fiends around a death couch.
She rose to one knee, and turned her fierce eyes upon the scoffers.
I have never stained a page in my life with profane language, even when
describing a profane person; never have placed the name of God
irreverently into the lips of an ideal character. Sooner would I feel an
oath burning upon my own soul, than register one where it might
familiarize itself to a thousand souls, surprised into its use by their
confidence in the author. Even here, where profanity is the common
language of the place, I will risk a feebler description in my own
language, rather than for one instant break through the rule of a life.
Yet amid language and scenes which I could not force this pen to write,
and creatures, most of them, brutalized by vice to a degree that I
shrink from describing, this young guileless creature was plunged by the
laws of an enlightened people. When she opened her eyes, that scarred,
black face, less repulsive from a touch of kindly feeling, but hideous
still, was the first object that greeted them.
The woman, as I have said, had risen to one knee. The holy name of God
trembled on her coarse lips, prefacing a torrent of abusive
expostulation that broke from them in the rudest and most repulsive
language.
"You needn't laugh, don't I know better--fifty times better than any of
you? Haven't I been here--this is the fifteenth time? Don't I go to my
country-seat on Blackwell's Island every summer of my life? How many
times have you been there, the best of you, I should like to ask? Twice,
three times. Bah! what should you know of life? Stand out of the way.
She's beginning to sob. You shan't stifle her again, I promise you. It
was the water did it. Which of you could be got out of a fit with
water--tell me that? Here, just come one of you and feel her breath,
while the tears are in it--sweet as a rose, moist as dew. I tell you,
she never tasted anything stronger than bread and milk in her life!"
The woman clenched this truth with an imprecation on herself which made
the young girl start up and look wildly around, as if she believed
herself encompassed by a band of demons.
"What is the matter? Are you afraid?" said the white prisoner, that had
formerly spoken, bending over her.
"Get out of the way," said the negress, with another oath. "It's my pet,
I tell you."
The terrible creature, whose very kindness was brutal, reached forth
her arm and attempted to draw Julia to her side, but the poor girl
recoiled, shuddering from the touch, and fell upon her knees, covering
her ears with both hands.
"Are you afraid of _me_? Is that it?" shouted the negress, almost
touching the strained fingers with her mouth.
"Yes, yes!" broke from her tremulous lips, and Julia kept her eyes upon
the woman in a wild stare. "I am afraid."
"This is gratitude," said the woman, fiercely. "I brought her to, and
she looks at me as if I was a mad dog."
Julia cowered under the fiery glance with which these words were
accompanied. This only exasperated her hideous friend, and with an angry
grip of the teeth, she seized one little hand, forcing it away from the
ear, that was on the instant filled with a fresh torrent of curses.
"Oh, don't! Pray, pray. It is dreadful to swear so!"
"Swear! Why, I didn't swear--not a word of it. Have been talking milk
and water all the time just for your sake. Leave it all to these ladies,
if I haven't!" said the woman, evidently impressed with the truth of her
assertion, and appealing, with an air of simple confidence, to her
fellow-prisoners: for profanity had become with her a fixed habit, and
she was really unconscious of it.
A laugh of derision answered this singular appeal, and a dozen voices
gave mocking assurance that there had been a mistake about the matter,
saying,
"Oh, no! old Mag never swore in her life."
Tortured by the wild tumult, and driven to the very confines of
insanity, Julia could scarcely forbear screaming for help. She started
up, avoiding the negress with a desperate spring sidewise, and staggered
toward the grated door. It seemed to her impossible to draw a deep
breath, in the midst of those wretched beings!
"Mamma, mamma!" said a soft, sweet voice, from one of the cells, and as
Julia turned her face, she saw through the narrow iron door-way the head
of a child, bending eagerly forward and radiant with joyous surprise.
Julia paused, held forth both her trembling hands, and entered the
cell, smiling through her tears as if an angel had called.
The child arose from the floor, for it had been upon its hands and
knees, and putting back its golden hair, that broke into waves and curls
in spite of neglect, with two soiled and dimpled hands, it gazed upon
the intruder in speechless disappointment. Julia saw this, and her heart
sank again.
"It was not me you wanted," she said, laying her hand tremblingly on the
child's shoulder. "You are sorry that I came?"
"Yes," answered the child, and his soft, brown eyes filled with tears.
"I thought it was mamma. It was dark, and I could not see, but it seemed
as if you were mamma."
Julia stooped down and kissed the child. In that dim light, it was
difficult to say which of those beautiful faces seemed the most angelic.
"But I love you. I am glad to see you," she said, in a voice that made
the little boy smile through his tears. He fixed his eyes upon her in a
long, earnest gaze, and then nestling close to her side, murmured, "And
I love you!"
There was a narrow bed in the cell, and Julia sat down upon it, lifting
the child to her knee. In return, she felt a little arm steal around her
neck and a warm cheek laid against her own. The innocent nature of the
child blended with that of the maiden, as blossoms in a strange
atmosphere may be supposed to lean toward each other.
"Do they shut up children in this wicked place? How came you here,
darling?"
"I don't know!" answered the child, shaking its beautiful head.
"But did you come alone?"
"Oh, no! _She_ came with me."
"Who--your mamma?" questioned Julia, so deeply interested in the child,
that for the moment, her own grief was forgotten.
"No, not her. They call her my mamma, but she isn't. Come here, softly,
and I will let you see."
He drew Julia to the entrance, and pointed with his finger toward a
female, who sat cowering by a stove a little distance up the passage.
There was something so picturesque in the bold, Roman outlines of this
woman's face, that it riveted Julia's attention. The large head was
covered with masses of dull, black hair, gathered up in a loose coil
behind, and falling down the cheeks in dishevelled waves. The nose,
rising in a haughty and not ungraceful curve; the massive forehead and
heavy chin, with a large mouth coral red and full of sensual expression,
gave to that head, bending downward with its side-face toward the light,
the interest and effect of some old picture, which, without real beauty,
haunts the memory like an unforgotten sin.
This woman had evidently received some injury on the forehead, for a
scarlet silk handkerchief was knotted across it, the ends mingling
behind with the neglected braids of her hair, which, but for it, must
have fallen in coils over her neck and shoulders.
Her dress, of blue barége, had once been elegant, if not rich; but in
that place, faded and soiled, with the flounces half torn away, and the
rents gathered rudely up with pins that she had found upon the
stone-floor of her prison, it had a look of peculiar desolation. Every
fold bespoke that flash poverty which profligacy makes hideous.
A book with yellow covers, soiled and torn, lay open upon this woman's
lap; and with her large, full arms loosely folded on her bosom, she bent
over it with a look of gloating interest, that betrayed all the
intensity of her evil nature. You could see her black eyes kindle
beneath their inky lashes, as she impatiently dashed over a leaf, or was
molested in any way by the noise around.
You could not look upon this woman for an instant without feeling the
influence which a strong character, even in repose, fixes upon the mind.
Powerful intellect and strong passions--the one utterly untrained, the
other curbless and fierce--broke through every curve of her sensual
person and every line of her face.
As Julia stood in the cell-door, with one arm around the child, this
woman chanced to look up, and caught those beautiful eyes fixed so
steadily upon her. She returned the glance with a hard, impudent stare,
which filled the young creature with alarm, while it served to fascinate
her gaze.
The woman seemed enraged that her glance had not made the stranger cower
at once. Crushing her book in one hand, she arose and came forward,
sweeping her way through the prisoners with that sort of undulating
swagger into which vice changes what was originally grace. She came up
to Julia with an oath upon her lips, demanding why she had been staring
at her so?
Julia did not answer, but shrunk close to the child, who cringed against
her, evidently terrified by the menacing attitude and fierce looks that
his temerity had provoked.
"Come here, you little wretch," exclaimed the termagant, securing him by
the arm, and jerking him fiercely through the cell-door. "How dare you
speak to anybody here without leave? Come along, or I'll break every
bone in your body."
With a swing of the arm, that sent the child whirling forward in fierce
leaps, she landed him at her old seat, and sitting down, crowded the
beautiful creature between her and the hot stove, setting one foot,
bursting through a white slipper of torn and dirty satin, heavily in his
lap to hold him quiet, while she went on with her French novel.
The poor little fellow bent his head, dropped his pretty hands on the
floor, each side of him, and sat motionless and meek, like some heavenly
cherub crushed beneath the foot of a demon. Once he struggled a little,
and made an effort to creep back, for the heat pouring from the huge
mass of iron which stood close before him, had become insupportable.
The woman, without lifting her eyes from the book, put her hand down
upon his shoulder with a fierce imprecation, and ordered him to be
quiet. The poor infant dared not move again, though his face, his neck,
and his little arms became scarlet with the heat, and perspiration stood
upon his forehead like rain, saturating his golden hair, and even his
garments. He lifted his soft eyes, full of terror and of entreaty, to
the hard face above him, but it was gloating over one of those foul
passages with which Eugene Sue has cursed the world, and the innocent
creature shrank from the expression as he had cowered from the heat.
Tears now crowded into his eyes, and he turned them, with a look of
helpless misery, upon the young girl who stood regarding him, with looks
of unutterable pity.
Julia Warren could not withstand this look. She was no longer timid; the
prison was forgotten now; her very soul went forth in compassion for the
one being more helpless than herself, whom she might have the power to
protect. She went softly up to the woman, and touched her upon the arm.
Compassion gave the young creature that exquisite tact which makes
generous impulses so beautiful.
"Please, madam, let the child stay with me a little longer; I will keep
him very quiet while you read!"
The meek demeanor, the soft, sweet tone in which this was uttered, fell
upon the sense like a handful of freshly gathered violets. The woman had
loved pure things once, and this voice started her heart as if a gush of
perfumed air had swept through it. She looked up suddenly, and fixing
her large, bold eyes upon the girl, seemed wondering alike at her
loveliness and courage in thus addressing her.
Julia endured the gaze with gentle forbearance, but she could not keep
her eyes from wandering toward the child, who, seizing her dress with
one hand, was shrouding his face in the folds.
"How came you here?" demanded the woman, rudely.
"I don't know," was the meek answer.
"Don't know, bah! What have you done?"
"Nothing!"
"Nothing!" repeated the woman, with a sickening sneer; "so you're not a
chicken after all; know the ropes, ha! nothing! I never give that
answer--despise it--always have the courage to own what I have the
courage to act; it's original; I like it. Take my advice, girl, own the
truth and shame the--the old gentleman. He's an excellent friend of
mine, no doubt, but I love to put the old fellow out of countenance with
the truth now and then. The rest of them never do it; not one of them
ever committed a crime in their lives--unfortunate, nothing more."
"Will you let me take up the child?" said Julia, with a pleading smile;
"see, the heat is killing him!"
The woman glanced sharply at the little creature, half moved her foot,
and then pressed it down again, and drew back a little, dragging the
child with her; but she resisted the effort which Julia made to release
him.
"Not now, the child's mine; I'll make him as wicked as I like myself,
but he shan't run wild among the prisoners!"
"Are you really his mother?" said Julia.
"Yes, I am really his mother!" was the mocking reply; "what have you
against it?"
"Nothing, nothing--only I should think you would be afraid to have him
here!"
"And your mother--she isn't afraid to have you here, I suppose."
"I have no mother!" said Julia, in a tone of sadness, that made itself
felt even upon the bad nature of her listener.
"No mother, well don't mourn for that," said the woman, with a touch of
passionate feeling. "Thank God for it, if you believe in a God; she
won't follow you here with her white, miserable face; she won't starve
to keep you from sin--or die--die by inches, I tell you, because all is
of no use. You won't see her crowded into a pine coffin, and tumbled
into Potter's Field, and feel--feel in the very core of your heart that
you have sent her there. Thank God--thank God, I say, miserable girl,
that you have no mother!"
The woman had risen as she spoke, her imposing features, her whole form
quivering with passion. Tears crowded into her lurid eyes, giving them
fire, depth, and expression. She ceased speaking, fell upon the seat
again, and, covering her face with the soiled novel, sobbed aloud.
The child, released from the bondage of her foot, stood up, trembling
beneath the storm of her words; but when she fell down and began to
weep, his lips grew tremulous, his little chest began to heave, and
climbing up the stool upon which his mother crouched, he leaned over and
kissed her temple.
This angel kiss fell upon her forehead like a drop of dew; she dashed
the novel from her face, and flung her arm over the child.
"Look!" she cried, with a fierce sob, turning her dusky and tear-stained
face upon the young girl. "He has got a mother; look on her, and then
dare to mourn because you have none!"
"But I have a grandfather and grandmother that love me as if I were
their own child," said Julia, deeply moved by the fierce anguish thus
revealed to her.
"And where are they?"
"My grandfather is here."
"Here! How came it about? What is he charged with?"
Julia's lips grew pale at the word "murder!" Even the woman seemed
appalled by the mention of a crime so much more serious than she had
expected.
"But you--they do not charge you with murder?" she questioned, in a
subdued voice.
"No!" said Julia, innocently. "They charge me with being a witness!"
Once more a torrent of fiery imprecations burst from the lips of that
miserable woman--imprecations against a law hideous almost as her own
sins. Julia recoiled, aghast, beneath this profane violence. The child
dropped down from the stool, and crept to her side, weeping. The woman
saw this, and checked herself.
"Then you have really done nothing?"
Julia shook her head and smiled sadly.
"A beautiful country--beautiful laws, that send an innocent child to
take lessons in life here, and from women like us. Oh, my dear, it's a
great pity you haven't been in the Penitentiary half a dozen times;
lots of benevolent people would be ready to reform you at any expense
then."
Julia smiled dimly. She did not quite understand what the woman was
saying.
"It makes my heart burn to see you here," continued the woman,
vehemently; "it's a sin--a wicked shame; but I'll take care of you.
There's some good left in me yet. Just get acquainted with that little
wretch, and no one else; stay in your cell; the keeper won't let them
crowd in upon you. The matron will be here by-and-bye. She'll be a
mother to you; she's a Christian--a thorough, cheerful, hard-working
Christian. I believe in these things, though I would not own it to every
one. Kind, because she can't help it without going against her own
nature. I like that woman--there isn't a creature here wicked enough not
to like her."
"When shall I see her?" questioned Julia, brightening beneath this first
gleam of hope.
"To-morrow morning--perhaps before--I don't know exactly. She's in and
out whenever there is good to be done. But come, go into my cell--they
haven't given you one yet, I suppose--the whole gang of them are coming
this way again."
Julia looked up and saw a crowd of women coming up from the grated door,
where they had been drawn by some noise in the outer passage. Terrified
by the dread of meeting that horrible old negress again, she grasped the
little hand that still held to her garments, and absolutely fled after
the woman, who entered the cell where she had first seen the child.
The prisoners were amused by her evident terror, and gathered around the
entrance; but as Julia sat down upon the bed, pale and panting with
affright, her self-constituted guardian started forward and dashed the
iron door in their faces, with a clang that sounded from one hollow
corridor to another, like the sudden clang of a bell.
"There," she said, with a smile that for a moment swept away the fierce
expression from her face, "I'd like to see one of them bold enough to
come within arm's length of that. My home's my castle, if it is in a
prison. I've been here often enough to know my rights. If the laws won't
keep you free from that gang, I will!"
It was wonderful the influence that gentle girl had won over the
depraved being who protected her thus. After she entered the cell, no
rude or profane word passed the woman's lips. She seemed to have shut
out half that was wicked in her own nature when she dashed the iron door
against her fellow-prisoners. Her large, black eyes brightened with a
sort of rude pleasure as she saw her child creep into Julia's lap, and
lay his head on her bosom.
"How naturally you take to one another," she said, letting down the
black masses of her hair, and beginning to disentangle the braids with
her fingers, as if the pure eyes of her guest had reproached their
untidy state. "When I was a little girl, we had plenty of wild roses in
a swamp near the house. It is strange, I have not thought of them in ten
years; but when I saw you and the child sitting there together, it
seemed as if I could reach out my hands and fill them."
Julia did not answer; her eyes were bent on the child, who had ceased to
cry, and lay quietly in her arms--so quietly that she could detect a
drowsy mist stealing over his eyes. The woman went on threading out her
long hair in silence. After awhile Julia, who had been watching the
soft, brown eyes of the child as the white lids dropped over them
gradually like the closing petals of a flower, looked up with a smile,
so pure, so bright, that the woman unconsciously smiled also.
"He is sound asleep," said the young girl, putting back the moist curls
from his forehead. "See what a smile, I have been watching it deepen on
his face since his eyes began to close."
The woman put back her hair with both hands, and turned her eyes with a
sort of stern mournfulness upon the sleeping boy.
"He never goes to sleep on my bosom like that," she said, at last, with
a bitter smile, and more bitter tone. "How could he? My heart beats
sometimes loud enough to scare myself; I wonder if wild flowers really
do blossom over Mount Etna? If they do, why should not my own child
rest over my own heart?"
"My grandfather has told me that flowers _do_ grow around volcanoes,"
said Julia, with a soft smile, "but it is because the fire never reaches
them; if scorched once they would perish!"
"And my heart scorches everything near it. Is that what you mean?" said
the woman, with a degree of mildness that was peculiarly impressive in a
voice usually so stern and loud.
"When you were angry to-day, he trembled; when you wept he kissed you,"
answered the gentle girl, looking mildly into the dark face of her
companion, whose fierce nature yielded both respect and attention to the
moral courage that spoke from those young lips.
"Well, what if I do frighten him? We love that best which we fear most.
It is human nature; at any rate it was my nature, and should be my
child's," said the woman, striving to cast off the influence of which
she was becoming ashamed.
"And did you ever fear any one?"
"Did I ever _love_ any one?" was the answer, given in a voice so deep,
so earnest, that it seemed to ring up from the very bottom of a heart
where it had been buried for years.
"I hope so, I trust so--do you not love your child?"
The woman dashed back the entire weight of her hair with an impetuous
sweep of one hand; then, with the whole Roman contour of her face
exposed, she turned a keen look upon the young face lifted so innocently
to hers. Long and searching was that look. The shadows of terrible
thoughts swept over that face. Some words, it might be of passion, it
might be of prayer--for bitterness, grief and repentance, all were
blended in that look--trembled unuttered on her lips. Then she suddenly
flung up her arms and falling across the bed, cried out in bitter
anguish--"Oh, my God!--my God! can I never again be like her?"