REMORSE.
“Pangs more corrosive and severe,
More fierce, more poignant and intense
Than ever hostile sword or spear
Waked in the breast of innocence.”
MARGARET OF ANJOU.
Rosalia Aguilar was not one to enjoy an hour’s impunity in sinning. From
the time of her passing Churchill’s Point—through all the days of her
passage down the bay to Norfolk—up to the time of her embarkation—and
through all the weeks of her long sea voyage, she had remained in a sort
of horrid waking dream—with her life broken off in the middle, and its
innocence and happiness wafted away—receding with the receding shores of
her native country. Raymond vainly waited for the struggle to cease,
when she might repose calmly in his power. The struggle _had_ ceased,
but the issue had not been what he hoped and expected. The struggle had
ceased—passion was conquered, and remorse was the victor, the judge, and
the executioner. Her health declined daily; her features grew sharp, and
her complexion of a blue transparent paleness. She became so feeble at
last as to be almost unable to go upon deck. Every day she expressed an
earnest wish to reach the end of her voyage. Every hour she besought
Raymond when he should land, to place her in some quiet, obscure
retreat, and leave her for ever—leave her to die alone—to die in peace.
And Raymond would endeavour to soothe her, while evading her despairing
entreaties. At last Rosalia ceased to make them, and seemed resigned to
her destiny. And Raymond deceived himself with the fond belief that she
was content, and pleased himself with the hope that once upon the shores
of sunny Italy her health and spirits would return, especially when
towards the end of the voyage, and after they had entered the
Mediterranean, she revived so much as to be able to come on deck every
morning and evening. In this seemingly promising state of affairs, they
arrived at Genoa—the post of Raymond Withers’s consulship. On the voyage
out Miss Aguilar had passed for what she really was—the ward of Captain
and Mrs. Wilde—going out under the protection of the new Consul, to
rejoin them. It had been the design of Raymond Withers, on reaching the
shores of Italy, to find some convenient and obscure, but beautiful
palazzo, buried in some fragrant grove by the side of some lovely
stream—furnish and adorn it to please his own luxurious taste, and
enshrine his idol there, where the privacy of the retreat would prevent
exposure for some time. How he expected to meet the further difficulties
that make “the way of the transgressors so hard” does not appear.
They landed at Genoa. Raymond Withers took his ward at once to a hotel,
saw her comfortably ensconced in her own apartment, and promising to
meet her at dinner, left her for the purpose of presenting his
credentials in the proper quarter.
It was about three o’clock when he left the hotel—it was five when he
returned, sought his own chamber, changed his dress, and sent a waiter
to the apartment of Miss Aguilar, to know if she were ready for dinner.
The man returned after some time, saying that he supposed the young lady
was sleeping, as he had knocked loudly but received no answer. Raymond
settled it in his own mind that she was taking an afternoon’s nap, and
waited patiently for an hour, then touching the bell, he sent the waiter
that answered it again to the chamber of Rosalia, and again the man
returned in a few minutes, with the information that the young lady was
still sleeping. Raymond thought that Rosalia was taking a very long
sleep, and hoped she might awake refreshed and cheerful, and be able to
spend the evening pleasantly with him. He ordered dinner and ate it
alone. Then selecting a delightful little private parlor, which
contained, among other luxuries, a grand piano, he took possession of
it, giving directions that an elegant little supper should be prepared
and set on the table there at ten o’clock.
And there he sat waiting, promising himself an evening of delight, with
Rosalia’s society, and his long lost luxury—music. At nine o’clock he
sent a third time to the chamber-door, and a third time the waiter
returned to say that no answer was given to his knock. Now, for the
first time, a feeling of uneasiness arose in Raymond Withers’s bosom;
and reluctant as he was to violate any of the external proprieties of
life, whatever he might do with its moralities, he determined to go to
her room and see what was the matter. He went, rapped at her door,
received no answer—rapped a second time and louder, and waited,
listening with his ear to the lock; _all was silent as death!_ Then he
tried the lock and found it fast. In real alarm now he knocked loudly,
beating and shaking the door, and calling on the name of Rosalia—then
suddenly stopping while the sounds died away in silence, he put his ear
to the key-hole and listened—_the stillness of the grave was within!_
Terrified now, he hastened from the door to the nearest bell-rope,
jerked it down, and broke the wires with his energetic pull, sending
peals of alarm through the house that brought the landlord and half the
servants in the establishment to his presence.
“Are you sure that this is the room in which the young American lady was
placed?” he inquired of the host.
“Si, Signore.”
“Are you _certain_?” he again asked in Italian.
“Si, Signore, _certainly_,” replied the landlord in the same language.
“Then I must have the door forced—the young lady entered this chamber at
three o’clock, and though summoned both to dinner and to supper, has not
made her appearance or replied to the call, or given, in fact, the
slightest sign of her presence, or even of her existence! and it is now
ten o’clock. I am extremely anxious concerning her, and must have the
door forced. Clear away all these people, signor landlord; I did not
want the whole establishment about my ears—and bring an instrument to
force this lock. I tell you that I am consumed with anxiety!”
“Si, Signore; what does Signore think may be the matter?” inquired the
host, as with a wave of his hand he dismissed all his attendants and
took a master key from his girdle.
“Matter! how can I tell? the lady may be ill, dead, in a lethargy; open
the door; _do!_ without more delay.”
The landlord placed the key in the door, turned it, and throwing open
the door, bowed, and was about to withdraw, when Raymond Withers
recalled him by a gesture, and both entered the chamber. The room was
unoccupied, the bed empty, and its perfectly smooth and neat appearance
proved that it had not been slept in. Yet Rosalia’s trunks were on the
floor; her pet doves, released from their cage, were perched upon the
top of the dressing-glass; and even her dark blue velvet travelling
dress and close beaver bonnet, lay upon the white Marseilles counterpane
that covered the bed. Raymond gazed around in perplexity and distress.
There was no other mode of exit from the room except the door by which
they had entered, and the windows; he went to one and raised it; pshaw!
the fall to the ground was fifty feet; a bird would have risked its neck
in taking the flight; and Raymond turned away from the window in
despair, to detect the landlord’s smile, which was quickly drawn in as
he met his guest’s anxious gaze of inquiry, and replied to it by saying—
“The young lady could only have left the room by the door at which we
entered, sir—and she must have locked her door, and taken the key with
her; and to prove it, see—there is no other means of exit from the room;
and when we came we found the door fastened, the room vacant, and the
key gone,” said he, pointing to the lock. Raymond Withers was half
stupified with astonishment at her absence, and alarm for her fate.
“Had she any acquaintance in the city?” inquired the host.
“Oh, of course not—_not one_—she was a perfect stranger.”
“She _may_ be in the house; I will inquire,” said the landlord.
“_Do_, and be quick, will you?” said Raymond Withers, lifting the lamp
from the dressing-table, where he had set it at first entering the room.
As he raised up the light, his eyes fell on a small white note that,
lying upon the white cover of the table, had escaped his first glance,
so that he had set the lamp down upon it and concealed it until this
instant. Snatching it up now, he saw that it was directed to himself in
the hand-writing of Rosalia; he tore it open and read—
“Good-bye, Raymond—I am gone. Forgive me, Raymond, all the sin I have
caused you to commit—all the suffering I have made you undergo—and
when I dare to pray, I will implore the God of Mercy to bless and heal
you. I have left you in this abrupt manner, Raymond, because I knew
that you would not have suffered me to depart had you suspected my
intentions; nor, to tell the truth, had I the courage to brave the
anguish of a parting scene. I had long resolved on this. Indeed, had
it not been for this resolution, I should never have lived to reach
the land, Raymond. This resolution was the secret of my recovery at
sea; a temporary recovery only, I begin now to think it was, Raymond,
for to-night a mortal languor overpowers me; I can scarcely raise
myself from my chair, or draw one weary foot after the other; yet must
their last strength be spent in bearing me away from you, as surely as
my last breath shall be spent in praying for you, Raymond. I do not
know where I am going—towards what point of the compass my failing
steps will stray—to some quiet spot where I can lie down and go to
sleep—I have not been to sleep since _that day_!—that day when I
kneeled down by the side of your lounge, and, with my head upon your
cushion, sobbed myself to sleep, while you looked gently in my face
and stroked my hair, soothing into stillness the tempest in my bosom.
Ah, that day, when waking up, I, unfortunate! became your Eve,
tempting you to sin! No more, alas! I have not slept since then; for
though I have laid down and shut my eyes, I have never lost
myself—never lost consciousness of my sin—my remorse—and never lost
sight of one image—the image of Hagar! oh! I feel it sacrilege for me
to trace the letters that form her name!—of Hagar, as she stood pale
in the grey morning light, with her black hair streaming down her wan
cheeks. In that form her spirit always stands before me night and day,
and I cannot shut it out and sleep. I shall escape this image in
leaving you, Raymond, and so I shall be permitted to go to sleep and
die; for it was you she followed, cleaved to, not me; and this is the
reason, I know it, she never looks indignant and reproachful as she
used to look at me, even when I did not understand her look—but
deprecating, loving, imploring, and most wretched as she used to look
at you when in her anguish she forgot that other eyes than yours were
on her. Good-bye, Raymond! my tears are falling fast—thank God, they
can flow once more! they have been scorching up in their fountains so
long! Ah, now I understand poor Hagar’s dry sobs! and the untold agony
breaking forth through them! as much more awful than the grief of
tears as the burning sirocco of the desert is more terrible than the
April shower. Well, I can weep now, thank God! Come, I shall be able
to sleep soon; perhaps I shall even grow calm enough to die.
Good-bye—take care of my doves; I would like to take them with me, but
they would perish where I shall go to sleep. Give them to Hagar’s
children—there! now the tears are raining from my eyes again. Oh,
Raymond, I would lose my soul to save, to redeem yours! would descend
into hell to purchase you a place among the archangels! Good-bye!
good-bye! Alas! I shall write all night; I cannot tear myself from the
paper that yet connects me with you. Good-night, Raymond! I pour my
whole heart and soul, my life and immortality in one blessing, and
breathe it in the words, _Good-Night_!
“Why has a revolution passed through my soul within the last minute,
and since writing the last good night? Why do I feel now as though it
were a sin to leave you? Am I going crazy again? Oh, my God! Let me
escape while a ray of reason is left to light my path! Good-night,
again, and yet again! Bless, _bless_ you, Raymond! Oh, if I could
dissolve my being into a fragrance of blessing, and envelope you in
it!—into a halo of blessing, and crown you with it!—that I could do
what I please with my own soul, and lose it in your heart to give you
fuller life! Yes, I would annihilate myself and give my spirit to
enlarge your life; and yet I cannot do a _less_ thing—I cannot,
_cannot_ break the heart of a sister woman—of Hagar—even for _you_.
Raymond! CANNOT! do you hear and understand, Raymond? For though I
would give my body to be burned, and my soul to perdition for your
sake, I have NO RIGHT TO SACRIFICE ANOTHER! and that truth has been
thundered in my ears until my very brain is stunned. My senses are
reeling, whirling. I scarcely know where I am, what I write, where I
go; I only feel, oh God! that I leave you for ever—that my whole soul
sobs forth in bitterest anguish its wail—_Good-Night_!”
The first part of this passionate and incoherent letter was nearly
illegible with the marks of tears; the last sentences were traced wildly
and scrawlingly.
Seeing the excitement, the insanity under which this letter must have
been written, and in the deepest grief for her loss, and the utmost
alarm for her safety, he hastened from the room, and caused the
strictest inquiries to be set on foot, that resulted, however, in
nothing satisfactory. The chambermaid who had attended her on her first
arrival was questioned, but could only say that just as soon as she had
assisted the young lady in removing her travelling dress, she had been
dismissed by her. The porter was examined, but had seen no one pass
answering to the description of the young American lady. So all the
people about the establishment were interrogated without any information
being elicited. A fruitless search was kept up through all the night—no
trace of the fugitive could be discovered. This was perhaps the very
first night’s rest that Raymond Withers, the systematic voluptuary, had
ever lost. Towards sunrise, after having given directions for the search
to be kept up, he threw himself upon his bed, and overcome by anxiety,
watching, and fatigue, slept the sleep of exhaustion. Late in the day he
awoke, with that dreary sense of vague weight that oppresses the head
and brain at the first awakening after a great sorrow. It was some
minutes before the fact was clear before his eyes. Rosalia fled—Rosalia
lost—wandering, and exposed, in all her tenderness and delicacy, to all
the horrors of unsheltered life. This was the first time that the
benevolence of Raymond Withers had been awakened for his victim. Her
mental and moral throes and struggles he had not pitied, because he had
not understood them; but the epicurean fully comprehended and greatly
exaggerated the importance of the physical sufferings she might have to
endure. He dressed in haste, and going out inquired anxiously if news
had been received of Miss Aguilar. He was told that no clue had been
found by which to trace her course. All that day was spent in a vain
search through the city and its suburbs—all that week was devoted to
sending messengers down all the public roads, and to the neighboring
villages seeking the lost one; but the end of the week—the end of the
month, found them as far from the attainment of their object as they
were at its commencement. Once or twice it had occurred to Raymond
Withers that she might have fled to Captain Wilde and Sophie, “her young
heart’s cynosure,” but then he quickly recollected that Captain and Mrs.
Wilde were a thousand miles off, at Constantinople. At last he
determined on sending off the letters and packets that had been
intrusted to Rosalia for Sophie, to write to Captain Wilde, and to
mention merely the facts that Miss Aguilar had come out under his
protection with the purpose of joining them at Constantinople—that
immediately upon landing at Genoa she had mysteriously disappeared, and
that though the most vigilant search had been instituted, and kept up
even to the present moment, no clue to her retreat had been found.
It has been said by some philosopher that “Without disease and pain, we
should never know that we have a body—and without sin and remorse, never
feel that we have a spirit.” Raymond Withers could have controverted the
first part of this proposition by his own experiences—he was deliciously
conscious of his bodily existence through its perfect health and keen
enjoyments; but he could have endorsed the latter clause with a pen
dipped in tears of blood. Through all its downy coverings of soft
voluptuousness, his spirit had been reached and wounded to the very
quick; and the method of his remorse was quite characteristic.
By his own agony at the loss of Rosalia, he was enabled for the first
time to understand and sympathize with the just and the greater anguish
of Hagar at his desertion, and to comprehend in a word, the enormity of
his offence. He might have gone on in his luxurious self-indulgence and
self-enjoyment for years, had he not yielded to a strong temptation, and
wounded his spirit with sin. Now all luxury palled upon his senses—he
turned, sickened, from the choicest viands of his table—despairing from
the most delightful prospects of nature, and from the most beautiful
specimens of art—music was torture, and even in the deepest repose of
his body the wounds of his spirit were most keenly felt, until the
sensitive epicurean, who would have shrunk from the slightest abrasion
of his delicate skin—invoked bodily pain as a relief from spiritual
anguish.
Was this illicit love cured, then? Ah, no! not when just as the cup of
guilty pleasure had been raised to his lips, it had been dashed untasted
to the ground—not when just as the prize was within his grasp it had
been snatched away. Nay, that very disappointment of his hopes at the
moment of their expected realization sharpened and intensified his
desire, while the sin—the sin, as well as the remorse he suffered, gave
power and depth to his passion! The boon for which he had bartered his
soul, defied God, and lost Heaven, became by the costly purchase a
priceless treasure.
There is a crisis in the rise and progress of an evil passion, when its
victim becomes morally insane, I had nearly written morally
irresponsible.
It is the period described in the beautiful language of Scripture, as
the time when the Spirit of God ceases to strive with the heart of
man—when he is given over to reprobacy of mind—when Ephraim, joined to
his idols, is left alone—when the prodigal son receives his portion and
is suffered to go forth and seek the desire of his heart, and find by
bitter experience, that forbidden things may be bright to the vision but
scorching to the touch—as the restless and eager infant permitted at
last to catch at the coveted flame of the candle, learns by its own
suffering that pain follows the contact of fire—in a word, when the
unbeliever is suffered to prove for himself the bitterness of sin. Is
this utter abandonment then? Ah, no! The heart that has sinned,
suffered, and repents, is forgiven. The babe has burned its fingers, and
learned that the flame is not to be touched with impunity, and we may be
sure it will not be touched again. The returning prodigal is received
half way without a single reproach for the past, without the exaction of
a single pledge for the future; is received upon his experience and his
penitence. Ephraim turning from his idols, is accepted; and the Spirit
of God comes again to dwell in the heart that is opened to receive him.
I say again, when a violator of the moral law suffers, it is not by the
vengeance of a God of infinite love and mercy—but it is by a pain he
finds in the sin itself. But this by the way.
The downward progress of evil has been aptly called a gently inclined
plane, of so gradual a descent that the sinner believes himself to be
walking on level ground all the while. “Easy is the descent to hell,”
said Horace, and doubtless such is most frequently the case; but there
are instances in which the downward course is very rapid; where the
sinner has started in a run, and after a while—and this answers to the
crisis, the insanity of passion—_gets an impetus_ that makes a pause
_impossible_, until he falls prostrate at the bottom of the abyss.
Such was the case with Raymond Withers—he had reached the crisis of his
moral disorder—the insanity of passion—when he was scarcely responsible
for his acts; yet not upon this account shall he enjoy impunity for he
could, by a little timely self-discipline, have saved himself from moral
mania.
He is answerable for the loss of his moral sanity, if not for acts of
his phrensy. But to those acts: With the fatuity of passion, he fancied
that were he free to seek the hand of Rosalia, her conscience would be
quieted, her reluctance overcome, and that she would give a cheerful
response to his love. He brooded over this idea of freedom from his
matrimonial bonds with the pertinacity of monomania, until it seemed
possible—next probable—then every way natural, proper, and
desirable—finally inevitable. A savage resolution, by fair means or
foul, to divorce his wife,—or, what was more feasible in his
apprehension, to compel her to divorce him—a morose determination to
recover and marry Rosalia, at any cost of his own integrity and peace,
and others’ rights and happiness, occupied his whole thoughts. It was
just at this crisis that he received a letter from Hagar. It was dated
from Heath Hall, just after the birth of her son. It announced that
fact, and gave a short but full account of all that happened since he
left home, as well as of all her plans for the future, as far as she had
laid them out. Could you have seen the succession of quick, short,
self-congratulatory nods with which he read this letter, the smile of
fiendish inspiration with which he folded it up and placed it in his
desk, you would have given him up for lost, though you had been his very
guardian angel!
With this diabolical grimace still upon his face, Raymond Withers took
pen and paper, sat down and wrote a reply, sealed and sent it off that
same day by a homeward-bound vessel.