The dreams of Agnes, on the night after her conversation with the monk
and her singular momentary interview with the cavalier, were a strange
mixture of images, indicating the peculiarities of her education and
habits of daily thought.
She dreamed that she was sitting alone in the moonlight, and heard some
one rustling in the distant foliage of the orange-groves, and from them
came a young man dressed in white of a dazzling clearness like sunlight;
large pearly wings fell from his shoulders and seemed to shimmer with
a phosphoric radiance; his forehead was broad and grave, and above it
floated a thin, tremulous tongue of flame; his eyes had that deep,
mysterious gravity which is so well expressed in all the Florentine
paintings of celestial beings: and yet, singularly enough, this
white-robed, glorified form seemed to have the features and lineaments
of the mysterious cavalier of the evening before,--the same deep,
mournful, dark eyes, only that in them the light of earthly pride had
given place to the calm, strong gravity of an assured peace,--the same
broad forehead,--the same delicately chiselled features, but elevated
and etherealized, glowing with a kind of interior ecstasy. He seemed to
move from the shadow of the orange-trees with a backward floating of his
lustrous garments, as if borne on a cloud just along the surface of
the ground; and in his hand he held the lily-spray, all radiant with a
silvery, living light, just as the monk had suggested to her a divine
flower might be. Agnes seemed to herself to hold her breath and marvel
with a secret awe, and, as often happens in dreams, she wondered to
herself,--"Was this stranger, then, indeed, not even mortal, not even a
king's brother, but an angel?--How strange," she said to herself, "that
I should never have seen it in his eyes!" Nearer and nearer the vision
drew, and touched her forehead with the lily, which seemed dewy and
icy cool; and with the contact it seemed to her that a delicious
tranquillity, a calm ecstasy, possessed her soul, and the words were
impressed in her mind, as if spoken in her ear, "The Lord hath sealed
thee for his own!"--and then, with the wild fantasy of dreams, she saw
the cavalier in his wonted form and garments, just as he had kneeled to
her the night before, and he said, "Oh, Agnes! Agnes! little lamb of
Christ, love me and lead me!"--and in her sleep it seemed to her that
her heart stirred and throbbed with a strange, new movement in answer to
those sad, pleading eyes, and thereafter her dream became more troubled.
The sea was beginning now to brighten with the reflection of the coming
dawn in the sky, and the flickering fire of Vesuvius was waxing sickly
and pale; and while all the high points of rocks were turning of a rosy
purple, in the weird depths of the gorge were yet the unbroken shadows
and stillness of night. But at the earliest peep of dawn the monk had
risen, and now, as he paced up and down the little garden, his morning
hymn mingled with Agnes's dreams,--words strong with all the nerve of
the old Latin, which, when they were written, had scarcely ceased to be
the spoken tongue of Italy.
Splendor paternae gloriae,
De luce lucem proferens,
Lux lucis et fons luminis
Dies diem illuminans!
"Votis vocemus et Patrem,
Patrem potentis gratiae,
Patrem perennis gloriae:
Culpam releget lubricam!
"Confirmet actus strenuos,
Dentes retundat invidi,
Casus secundet asperos,
Donet gerendi gratiam!
"Christus nobis sit cibus,
Potusque noster sit fides:
Laeti bibamus sobriam
Ebrietatem spiritus!
"Laetus dies hic transeat,
Pudor sit ut diluculum,
Fides velut meridies,
Crepusculum mens nesciat!"[A]
[Footnote A:
Splendor of the Father's glory,
Bringing light with cheering ray,
Light of light and fount of brightness,
Day, illuminating day!
In our prayers we call thee Father,
Father of eternal glory,
Father of a mighty grace:
Heal our errors, we implore thee!
Form our struggling, vague desires;
Power of spiteful spirits break;
Help us in life's straits, and give us
Grace to suffer for thy sake!
Christ for us shall be our food;
Faith in him our drink shall be;
Hopeful, joyful, let us drink
Soberness of ecstasy!
Joyful shall our day go by,
Purity its dawning light,
Faith its fervid noontide glow,
And for us shall be no night!]
The hymn in every word well expressed the character and habitual pose
of mind of the singer, whose views of earthly matters were as different
from the views of ordinary working mortals as those of a bird, as he
flits and perches and sings, must be from those of the four-footed
ox who plods. The "_sobriam ebrietatem spiritus_" was with him first
constitutional, as a child of sunny skies, and then cultivated by every
employment and duty of the religious and artistic career to which from
childhood he had devoted himself. If perfect, unalloyed happiness has
ever existed in this weary, work-day world of ours, it has been in the
bosoms of some of those old religious artists of the Middle Ages, whose
thoughts grew and flowered in prayerful shadows, bursting into thousands
of quaint and fanciful blossoms on the pages of missal and breviary. In
them the fine life of color, form, and symmetry, which is the gift of
the Italian, formed a rich stock on which to graft the true vine of
religious faith, and rare and fervid were the blossoms.
For it must be remarked in justice of the Christian religion, that the
Italian people never rose to the honors of originality in the beautiful
arts till inspired by Christianity. The Art of ancient Rome was a
second-hand copy of the original and airy Greek,--often clever, but
never vivid and self-originating. It is to the religious Art of the
Middle Ages, to the Umbrian and Florentine schools particularly, that we
look for the peculiar and characteristic flowering of the Italian mind.
When the old Greek Art revived again in modern Europe, though at first
it seemed to add richness and grace to this peculiar development, it
smothered and killed it at last, as some brilliant tropical parasite
exhausts the life of the tree it seems at first to adorn. Raphael and
Michel Angelo mark both the perfected splendor and the commenced decline
of original Italian Art; and just in proportion as their ideas grew less
Christian and more Greek did the peculiar vividness and intense flavor
of Italian nationality pass away from them. They became again like the
ancient Romans, gigantic imitators and clever copyists, instead of
inspired kings and priests of a national development.
The tones of the monk's morning hymn awakened both Agnes and Elsie, and
the latter was on the alert instantly.
"Bless my soul!" she said, "brother Antonio has a marvellous power of
lungs; he is at it the first thing in the morning. It always used to be
so; when he was a boy, he would wake me up before daylight, singing.
"He is happy, like the birds," said Agnes, "because he flies near
heaven."
"Like enough: he was always a pious boy; his prayers and his pencil were
ever uppermost: but he was a poor hand at work: he could draw you an
olive-tree on paper; but set him to dress it, and any fool would have
done better."
The morning rites of devotion and the simple repast being over, Elsie
prepared to go to her business. It had occurred to her that the visit
of her brother was an admirable pretext for withdrawing Agnes from the
scene of her daily traffic, and of course, as she fondly supposed,
keeping her from the sight of the suspected admirer.
Neither Agnes nor the monk had disturbed her serenity by recounting the
adventure of the evening before. Agnes had been silent from the habitual
reserve which a difference of nature ever placed between her and her
grandmother,--a difference which made confidence on her side an utter
impossibility. There are natures which ever must be silent to other
natures, because there is no common language between them. In the same
house, at the same board, sharing the same pillow even, are those
forever strangers and foreigners whose whole stock of intercourse is
limited to a few brief phrases on the commonest material wants of life,
and who, as soon as they try to go farther, have no words that are
mutually understood.
"Agnes," said her grandmother, "I shall not need you at the stand
to-day. There is that new flax to be spun, and you may keep company with
your uncle. I'll warrant me, you'll be glad enough of that!"
"Certainly I shall," said Agnes, cheerfully. "Uncle's comings are my
holidays."
"I will show you somewhat further on my Breviary," said the monk.
"Praised be God, many new ideas sprang up in my mind last night, and
seemed to shoot forth in blossoms. Even my dreams have often been made
fruitful in this divine work."
"Many a good thought comes in dreams," said Elsie; "but, for my part, I
work too hard and sleep too sound to get much that way."
"Well, brother," said Elsie, after breakfast, "you must look well after
Agnes to-day; for there be plenty of wolves go round, hunting these
little lambs."
"Have no fear, sister," said the monk, tranquilly; "the angels have
her in charge. If our eyes were only clear-sighted, we should see that
Christ's little ones are never alone."
"All that is fine talk, brother; but I never found that the angels
attended to any of my affairs, unless I looked after them pretty sharp
myself; and as for girls, the dear Lord knows they need a legion apiece
to look after them. What with roystering fellows and smooth-tongued
gallants, and with silly, empty-headed hussies like that Giulietta, one
has much ado to keep the best of them straight. Agnes is one of the
best, too,--a well-brought up, pious, obedient girl, and industrious
as a bee. Happy is the husband who gets her. I would I knew a man good
enough for her."
This conversation took place while Agnes was in the garden picking
oranges and lemons, and filling the basket which her grandmother was to
take to the town. The silver ripple of a hymn that she was singing came
through the open door; it was part of a sacred ballad in honor of Saint
Agnes:--
"Bring me no pearls to bind my hair,
No sparkling jewels bring to me!
Dearer by far the blood-red rose
That speaks of Him who died for me.
"Ah! vanish every earthly love,
All earthly dreams forgotten be!
My heart is gone beyond the stars,
To live with Him who died for me."
"Hear you now, sister," said the monk, "how the Lord keeps the door of
this maiden's heart? There is no fear of her; and I much doubt, sister,
whether you would do well to interfere with the evident call this child
hath to devote herself wholly to the Lord."
"Oh, you talk, brother Antonio, who never had a child in your life,
and don't know how a mother's heart warms towards her children and her
children's children! The saints, as I said, must be reasonable, and
oughtn't to be putting vocations into the head of an old woman's only
staff and stay; and if they oughtn't to, why, then, they won't. Agnes is
a pious child, and loves her prayers and hymns; and so she will love her
husband, one of these days, as an honest woman should."
"But you know, sister, that the highest seats in Paradise are reserved
for the virgins who follow the Lamb."
"Maybe so," said Elsie, stiffly; "but the lower seats are good enough
for Agnes and me. For my part, I would rather have a little comfort as I
go along, and put up with less in Paradise, (may our dear Lady bring us
safely there!) say I."
So saying, Elsie raised the large, square basket of golden fruit to
her head, and turned her stately figure towards the scene of her daily
labors.
The monk seated himself on the garden-wall, with his portfolio by his
side, and seemed busily sketching and retouching some of his ideas.
Agnes wound some silvery-white flax round her distaff, and seated
herself near him under an orange-tree; and while her small fingers were
twisting the flax, her large, thoughtful eyes were wandering off on the
deep blue sea, pondering over and over the strange events of the day
before, and the dreams of the night.
"Dear child," said the monk, "have you thought more of what I said to
you?"