was wandering, mad with the horror of impotent fear, around the white
walls of the convent, Sister Maddelena, for love of Michele, gave up her
life. How, was never known. That she was indeed dead was only a
suspicion, for when Biscari finally compelled the civil authorities to
enter the convent, claiming that murder had been done there, they found
no sign. Sister Maddelena had been sent to the parent house of the
barefoot Carmelites at Avila in Spain, so the Superior stated, because
of her incorrigible contumacy. The old Duke of Castiglione refused to
stir hand or foot in the matter, and Michele, after fruitless attempts
to prove that the Superior of Sta. Catarina had caused the death, was
forced to leave Sicily. He sought in Spain for very long; but no sign of
the girl was to be found, and at last he died, exhausted with suffering
and sorrow.
"Even the name of Sister Maddelena was forgotten, and it was not until
the convents were suppressed, and this house came into the hands of the
Muxaros, that her story was remembered. It was then that the ghost began
to appear; and, an explanation being necessary, the story, or legend,
was obtained from one of the nuns who still lived after the suppression.
I think the fact--for it is a fact--of the ghost rather goes to prove
that Michele was right, and that poor Rosalia gave her life a sacrifice
for love,--whether in accordance with the terms of the legend or not, I
cannot say. One or the other of you will probably see her to-night. You
might ask her for the facts. Well, that is all the story of Sister
Maddelena, known in the world as Rosalia di Castiglione. Do you like
it?"
"It is admirable," said Rendel, enthusiastically. "But I fancy I should
rather look on it simply as a story, and not as a warning of what is
going to happen. I don't much fancy real ghosts myself."
"But the poor Sister is quite harmless;" and Valguanera rose, stretching
himself. "My servants say she wants a mass said over her, or something
of that kind; but I haven't much love for such priestly hocus-pocus,--I
beg your pardon" (turning to me), "I had forgotten that you were a
Catholic: forgive my rudeness."
"My dear Cavaliere, I beg you not to apologize. I am sorry you cannot
see things as I do; but don't for a moment think I am hypersensitive."
"I have an excuse,--perhaps you will say only an explanation; but I live
where I see all the absurdities and corruptions of the Church."
"Perhaps you let the accidents blind you to the essentials; but do not
let us quarrel to-night,--see, the storm is close on us. Shall we go
in?"
The stars were blotted out through nearly all the sky; low, thunderous
clouds, massed at the head of the valley, were sweeping over so close
that they seemed to brush the black pines on the mountain above us. To
the south and east the storm-clouds had shut down almost to the sea,
leaving a space of black sky where the moon in its last quarter was
rising just to the left of Monte Pellegrino,--a black silhouette against
the pallid moonlight. The rosy lightning flashed almost incessantly, and
through the fitful darkness came the sound of bells across the valley,
the rushing torrent below, and the dull roar of the approaching rain,
with a deep organ point of solemn thunder through it all.
We fled indoors from the coming tempest, and taking our candles, said
"good-night," and sought each his respective room.
My own was in the southern part of the old convent, giving on the
terrace we had just quitted, and about over the main doorway. The
rushing storm, as it swept down the valley with the swelling torrent
beneath, was very fascinating, and after wrapping myself in a
dressing-gown I stood for some time by the deeply embrasured window,
watching the blazing lightning and the beating rain whirled by fitful
gusts of wind around the spurs of the mountains. Gradually the violence
of the shower seemed to decrease, and I threw myself down on my bed in
the hot air, wondering if I really was to experience the ghostly visit
the Cavaliere so confidently predicted.
I had thought out the whole matter to my own satisfaction, and fancied I
knew exactly what I should do, in case Sister Maddelena came to visit
me. The story touched me: the thought of the poor faithful girl who
sacrificed herself for her lover,--himself, very likely, quite
unworthy,--and who now could never sleep for reason of her unquiet soul,
sent out into the storm of eternity without spiritual aid or counsel. I
could not sleep; for the still vivid lightning, the crowding thoughts of
the dead nun, and the shivering anticipation of my possible visitation,
made slumber quite out of the question. No suspicion of sleepiness had
visited me, when, perhaps an hour after midnight, came a sudden vivid
flash of lightning, and, as my dazzled eyes began to regain the power of
sight, I saw her as plainly as in life,--a tall figure, shrouded in the
white habit of the Carmelites, her head bent, her hands clasped before
her. In another flash of lightning she slowly raised her head and looked
at me long and earnestly. She was very beautiful, like the Virgin of
Beltraffio in the National Gallery,--more beautiful than I had supposed
possible, her deep, passionate eyes very tender and pitiful in their
pleading, beseeching glance. I hardly think I was frightened, or even
startled, but lay looking steadily at her as she stood in the beating
lightning.
Then she breathed, rather than articulated, with a voice that almost
brought tears, so infinitely sad and sorrowful was it, "I cannot sleep!"
and the liquid eyes grew more pitiful and questioning as bright tears
fell from them down the pale dark face.
The figure began to move slowly towards the door, its eyes fixed on mine
with a look that was weary and almost agonized. I leaped from the bed
and stood waiting. A look of utter gratitude swept over the face, and,
turning, the figure passed through the doorway.
Out into the shadow of the corridor it moved, like a drift of pallid
storm-cloud, and I followed, all natural and instinctive fear or
nervousness quite blotted out by the part I felt I was to play in giving
rest to a tortured soul. The corridors were velvet black; but the pale
figure floated before me always, an unerring guide, now but a thin mist
on the utter night, now white and clear in the bluish lightning through
some window or doorway.
Down the stairway into the lower hall, across the refectory, where the
great frescoed Crucifixion flared into sudden clearness under the fitful
lightning, out into the silent cloister.
It was very dark. I stumbled along the heaving bricks, now guiding
myself by a hand on the whitewashed wall, now by a touch on a column wet
with the storm. From all the eaves the rain was dripping on to the
pebbles at the foot of the arcade: a pigeon, startled from the capital
where it was sleeping, beat its way into the cloister close. Still the
white thing drifted before me to the farther side of the court, then
along the cloister at right angles, and paused before one of the many
doorways that led to the cells.
A sudden blaze of fierce lightning, the last now of the fleeting trail
of storm, leaped around us, and in the vivid light I saw the white face
turned again with the look of overwhelming desire, of beseeching pathos,
that had choked my throat with an involuntary sob when first I saw
Sister Maddelena. In the brief interval that ensued after the flash, and
before the roaring thunder burst like the crash of battle over the
trembling convent, I heard again the sorrowful words, "I cannot sleep,"
come from the impenetrable darkness. And when the lightning came again,
the white figure was gone.
I wandered around the courtyard, searching in vain for Sister Maddelena,
even until the moonlight broke through the torn and sweeping fringes of
the storm. I tried the door where the white figure vanished: it was
locked; but I had found what I sought, and, carefully noting its
location, went back to my room, but not to sleep.
In the morning the Cavaliere asked Rendel and me which of us had seen
the ghost, and I told him my story; then I asked him to grant me
permission to sift the thing to the bottom; and he courteously gave the
whole matter into my charge, promising that he would consent to
anything.
I could hardly wait to finish breakfast; but no sooner was this done
than, forgetting my morning pipe, I started with Rendel and the
Cavaliere to investigate.
"I am sure there is nothing in that cell," said Valguanera, when we came
in front of the door I had marked. "It is curious that you should have
chosen the door of the very cell that tradition assigns to Sister
Maddelena; but I have often examined that room myself, and I am sure
that there is no chance for anything to be concealed. In fact, I had the
floor taken up once, soon after I came here, knowing the room was that
of the mysterious Sister, and thinking that there, if anywhere, the
monastic crime would have taken place; still, we will go in, if you
like."
He unlocked the door, and we entered, one of us, at all events, with a
beating heart. The cell was very small, hardly eight feet square. There
certainly seemed no opportunity for concealing a body in the tiny place;
and although I sounded the floor and walls, all gave a solid, heavy
answer,--the unmistakable sound of masonry.
For the innocence of the floor the Cavaliere answered. He had, he said,
had it all removed, even to the curving surfaces of the vault below; yet
somewhere in this room the body of the murdered girl was concealed,--of
this I was certain. But where? There seemed no answer; and I was
compelled to give up the search for the moment, somewhat to the
amusement of Valguanera, who had watched curiously to see if I could
solve the mystery.
But I could not forget the subject, and towards noon started on another
tour of investigation. I procured the keys from the Cavaliere, and
examined the cells adjoining; they were apparently the same, each with
its window opposite the door, and nothing-- Stay, were they the same? I
hastened into the suspected cell; it was as I thought: this cell, being
on the corner, could have had two windows, yet only one was visible, and
that to the left, at right angles with the doorway. Was it imagination?
As I sounded the wall opposite the door, where the other window should
be, I fancied that the sound was a trifle less solid and dull. I was
becoming excited. I dashed back to the cell on the right, and, forcing
open the little window, thrust my head out.
It was found at last! In the smooth surface of the yellow wall was a
rough space, following approximately the shape of the other cell
windows, not plastered like the rest of the wall, but showing the shapes
of bricks through its thick coatings of whitewash. I turned with a gasp
of excitement and satisfaction: yes, the embrasure of the wall was deep
enough; what a wall it was!--four feet at least, and the opening of the
window reached to the floor, though the window itself was hardly three
feet square. I felt absolutely certain that the secret was solved, and
called the Cavaliere and Rendel, too excited to give them an explanation
of my theories.
They must have thought me mad when I suddenly began scraping away at the
solid wall in front of the door; but in a few minutes they understood
what I was about, for under the coatings of paint and plaster appeared
the original bricks; and as my architectural knowledge had led me
rightly, the space I had cleared was directly over a vertical joint
between firm, workmanlike masonry on one hand, and rough amateurish work
on the other, bricks laid anyway, and without order or science.
Rendel seized a pick, and was about to assail the rude wall, when I
stopped him.
"Let us be careful," I said; "who knows what we may find?" So we set to
work digging out the mortar around a brick at about the level of our
eyes.
How hard the mortar had become! But a brick yielded at last, and with
trembling fingers I detached it. Darkness within, yet beyond question
there was a cavity there, not a solid wall; and with infinite care we
removed another brick. Still the hole was too small to admit enough
light from the dimly illuminated cell. With a chisel we pried at the
sides of a large block of masonry, perhaps eight bricks in size. It
moved, and we softly slid it from its bed.
Valguanera, who was standing watching us as we lowered the bricks to the
floor, gave a sudden cry, a cry like that of a frightened
woman,--terrible, coming from him. Yet there was cause.
Framed by the ragged opening of the bricks, hardly seen in the dim
light, was a face, an ivory image, more beautiful than any antique bust,
but drawn and distorted by unspeakable agony: the lovely mouth half
open, as though gasping for breath; the eyes cast upward; and below,
slim chiselled hands crossed on the breast, but clutching the folds of
the white Carmelite habit, torture and agony visible in every tense
muscle, fighting against the determination of the rigid pose.
We stood there breathless, staring at the pitiful sight, fascinated,
bewitched. So this was the secret. With fiendish ingenuity, the rigid
ecclesiastics had blocked up the window, then forced the beautiful
creature to stand in the alcove, while with remorseless hands and iron
hearts they had shut her into a living tomb. I had read of such things
in romance; but to find the verity here, before my eyes--
Steps came down the cloister, and with a simultaneous thought we sprang
to the door and closed it behind us. The room was sacred; that awful
sight was not for curious eyes. The gardener was coming to ask some
trivial question of Valguanera. The Cavaliere cut him short. "Pietro, go
down to Parco and ask Padre Stefano to come here at once." (I thanked
him with a glance.) "Stay!" He turned to me: "Signore, it is already two
o'clock and too late for mass, is it not?"
I nodded.
Valguanera thought a moment, then he said, "Bring two horses; the Signor
Americano will go with you,--do you understand?" Then, turning to me,
"You will go, will you not? I think you can explain matters to Padre
Stefano better than I."
"Of course I will go, more than gladly." So it happened that after a
hasty luncheon I wound down the mountain to Parco, found Padre Stefano,
explained my errand to him, found him intensely eager and sympathetic,
and by five o'clock had him back at the convent with all that was
necessary for the resting of the soul of the dead girl.
In the warm twilight, with the last light of the sunset pouring into the
little cell through the window where almost a century ago Rosalia had
for the last time said farewell to her lover, we gathered together to
speed her tortured soul on its journey, so long delayed. Nothing was
omitted; all the needful offices of the Church were said by Padre
Stefano, while the light in the window died away, and the flickering
flames of the candles carried by two of the acolytes from San Francesco
threw fitful flashes of pallid light into the dark recess where the
white face had prayed to Heaven for a hundred years.
Finally, the Padre took the asperge from the hands of one of the
acolytes, and with a sign of the cross in benediction while he chanted
the _Asperges_, gently sprinkled the holy water on the upturned face.
Instantly the whole vision crumbled to dust, the face was gone, and
where once the candlelight had flickered on the perfect semblance of the
girl dead so very long, it now fell only on the rough bricks which
closed the window, bricks laid with frozen hearts by pitiless hands.
But our task was not done yet. It had been arranged that Padre Stefano
should remain at the convent all night, and that as soon as midnight
made it possible he should say the first mass for the repose of the
girl's soul. We sat on the terrace talking over the strange events of
the last crowded hours, and I noted with satisfaction that the Cavaliere
no longer spoke of the Church with that hardness, which had hurt me so
often. It is true that the Padre was with us nearly all the time; but
not only was Valguanera courteous, he was almost sympathetic; and I
wondered if it might not prove that more than one soul benefited by the
untoward events of the day.
With the aid of the astonished and delighted servants, and no little
help as well from Signora Valguanera, I fitted up the long cold Altar in
the chapel, and by midnight we had the gloomy sanctuary beautiful with
flowers and candles. It was a curiously solemn service, in the first
hour of the new day, in the midst of blazing candles and the thick
incense, the odor of the opening orange-blooms drifting up in the fresh
morning air, and mingling with the incense smoke and the perfume of
flowers within. Many prayers were said that night for the soul of the
dead girl, and I think many afterwards; for after the benediction I
remained for a little time in my place, and when I rose from my knees
and went towards the chapel door, I saw a figure kneeling still, and,
with a start, recognized the form of the Cavaliere. I smiled with quiet
satisfaction and gratitude, and went away softly, content with the chain
of events that now seemed finished.
The next day the alcove was again walled up, for the precious dust could
not be gathered together for transportation to consecrated ground; so I
went down to the little cemetery at Parco for a basket of earth, which
we cast in over the ashes of Sister Maddelena.
By and by, when Rendel and I went away, with great regret, Valguanera
came down to Palermo with us; and the last act that we performed in
Sicily was assisting him to order a tablet of marble, whereon was
carved this simple inscription:--
HERE LIES THE BODY OF
ROSALIA DI CASTIGLIONI,
CALLED
SISTER MADDELENA.
HER SOUL
IS WITH HIM WHO GAVE IT.
To this I added in thought:--
"Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone."
NOTRE DAME DES EAUX.
Notre Dame des Eaux.
West of St. Pol de Leon, on the sea-cliffs of Finisterre, stands the
ancient church of Notre Dame des Eaux. Five centuries of beating winds
and sweeping rains have moulded its angles, and worn its carvings and
sculpture down to the very semblance of the ragged cliffs themselves,
until even the Breton fisherman, looking lovingly from his boat as he
makes for the harbor of Morlaix, hardly can say where the crags end, and
where the church begins. The teeth of the winds of the sea have
devoured, bit by bit, the fine sculpture of the doorway and the thin
cusps of the window tracery; gray moss creeps caressingly over the worn
walls in ineffectual protection; gentle vines, turned crabbed by the
harsh beating of the fierce winds, clutch the crumbling buttresses,
climb up over the sinking roof, reach in even at the louvres of the
belfry, holding the little sanctuary safe in desperate arms against the
savage warfare of the sea and sky.
Many a time you may follow the rocky highway from St. Pol even around
the last land of France, and so to Brest, yet never see sign of Notre
Dame des Eaux; for it clings to a cliff somewhat lower than the road,
and between grows a stunted thicket of harsh and ragged trees, their
skeleton white branches, tortured and contorted, thrusting sorrowfully
out of the hard, dark foliage that still grows below, where the rise of
land below the highway gives some protection. You must leave the wood by
the two cottages of yellow stone, about twenty miles beyond St. Pol, and
go down to the right, around the old stone quarry; then, bearing to the
left by the little cliff path, you will, in a moment, see the pointed
roof of the tower of Notre Dame, and, later, come down to the side porch
among the crosses of the arid little graveyard.
It is worth the walk, for though the church has outwardly little but its
sad picturesqueness to repay the artist, within it is a dream and a
delight. A Norman nave of round, red stone piers and arches, a delicate
choir of the richest flamboyant, a High Altar of the time of Francis I.,
form only the mellow background and frame for carven tombs and dark old
pictures, hanging lamps of iron and brass, and black, heavily carved
choir-stalls of the Renaissance.
So has the little church lain unnoticed for many centuries; for the
horrors and follies of the Revolution have never come near, and the
hardy and faithful people of Finisterre have feared God and loved Our
Lady too well to harm her church. For many years it was the church of
the Comtes de Jarleuc; and these are their tombs that mellow year by
year under the warm light of the painted windows, given long ago by
Comte Robert de Jarleuc, when the heir of Poullaouen came safely to
shore in the harbor of Morlaix, having escaped from the Isle of Wight,
where he had lain captive after the awful defeat of the fleet of Charles
of Valois at Sluys. And now the heir of Poullaouen lies in a carven
tomb, forgetful of the world where he fought so nobly: the dynasty he
fought to establish, only a memory; the family he made glorious, a name;
the Chateau Poullaouen a single crag of riven masonry in the fields of
M. du Bois, mayor of Morlaix.
It was Julien, Comte de Bergerac, who rediscovered Notre Dame des Eaux,
and by his picture of its dreamy interior in the Salon of '86 brought
once more into notice this forgotten corner of the world. The next year
a party of painters settled themselves near by, roughing it as best they
could, and in the year following, Mme. de Bergerac and her daughter
Heloise came with Julien, and, buying the old farm of Pontivy, on the
highway over Notre Dame, turned it into a summer house that almost made
amends for their lost chateau on the Dordogne, stolen from them as
virulent Royalists by the triumphant Republic in 1794.
Little by little a summer colony of painters gathered around Pontivy,
and it was not until the spring of 1890 that the peace of the colony was
broken. It was a sorrowful tragedy. Jean d'Yriex, the youngest and
merriest devil of all the jolly crew, became suddenly moody and morose.
At first this was attributed to his undisguised admiration for Mlle.
Heloise, and was looked on as one of the vagaries of boyish passion; but
one day, while riding with M. de Bergerac, he suddenly seized the
bridle of Julien's horse, wrenched it from his hand, and, turning his
own horse's head towards the cliffs, lashed the terrified animals into a
gallop straight towards the brink. He was only thwarted in his mad
object by Julien, who with a quick blow sent him headlong in the dry
grass, and reined in the terrified animals hardly a yard from the
cliffs. When this happened, and no word of explanation was granted, only
a sullen silence that lasted for days, it became clear that poor Jean's
brain was wrong in some way. Heloise devoted herself to him with
infinite patience,--though she felt no special affection for him, only
pity,--and while he was with her he seemed sane and quiet. But at night
some strange mania took possession of him. If he had worked on his Prix
de Rome picture in the daytime, while Heloise sat by him, reading aloud
or singing a little, no matter how good the work, it would have vanished
in the morning, and he would again begin, only to erase his labor during
the night.
At last his growing insanity reached its climax; and one day in Notre
Dame, when he had painted better than usual, he suddenly stopped,
seized a palette knife, and slashed the great canvas in strips. Heloise
sprang forward to stop him, and in crazy fury he turned on her, striking
at her throat with the palette knife. The thin steel snapped, and the
white throat showed only a scarlet scratch. Heloise, without that
ordinary terror that would crush most women, grasped the thin wrists of
the madman, and, though he could easily have wrenched his hands away,
d'Yriex sank on his knees in a passion of tears. He shut himself in his
room at Pontivy, refusing to see any one, walking for hours up and down,
fighting against growing madness. Soon Dr. Charpentier came from Paris,
summoned by Mme. de Bergerac; and after one short, forced interview,
left at once for Paris, taking M. d'Yriex with him.
A few days later came a letter for Mme. de Bergerac, in which Dr.
Charpentier confessed that Jean had disappeared, that he had allowed him
too much liberty, owing to his apparent calmness, and that when the
train stopped at Le Mans he had slipped from him and utterly vanished.
During the summer, word came occasionally that no trace had been found
of the unhappy man, and at last the Pontivy colony realized that the
merry boy was dead. Had he lived he _must_ have been found, for the
exertions of the police were perfect; yet not the slightest trace was
discovered, and his lamentable death was acknowledged, not only by Mme.
de Bergerac and Jean's family,--sorrowing for the death of their
first-born, away in the warm hills of Lozere,--but by Dr. Charpentier as
well.