The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of Ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrend’ring up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to th’ insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod.--_Thanatopsis_.
It seemed a dream still, but a horrible sunless dream, all that
followed; and in after years Ambrose Bradley never remembered it without
a thrill of horror, finding it ever impossible to disentangle the
reality from illusion, or to separate the darkness of the visible
experience from that of his own mental condition. But this, as far as he
could piece the ideas together, was what he remembered.
Accompanied by the mysterious Abbé, he seemed to descend into the bowels
of the earth, and to follow the figure of a veiled and sibylline figure
who held a lamp. Passing through dark subterranean passages, he came to
a low corridor, the walls and ceiling of which were of solid stone, and
at the further end of which was a door containing an iron grating.
The priest approached the door, and said something in a low voice to
some one beyond.
There was a pause; then the door revolved on its hinges, and they
entered,--to find themselves in a black and vault-like chamber, the
darkness of which was literally ‘made visible’ by one thin, spectral
stream of light, trickling through an orifice in the arched ceiling.
Here they found themselves in the presence of a tall figure stoled in
black, which the Abbé saluted with profound reverence. It was to
all intents and purposes the figure of a woman, but the voice which
responded to the priest’s salutation in Italian was deep--almost--as
that of a man.
‘What is your errand, brother?’ demanded the woman after the first
formal greeting was over. As she spoke she turned her eyes on Bradley,
and they shone bright and piercing through her veil.
‘I come direct from the Holy Office,’ answered the Abbé, ‘and am deputed
to inquire of you concerning one who was until recently an inmate of
this sacred place,--a poor suffering Sister, who came here to find
peace, consolation, and blessed rest. This English signor, who
accompanies me, is deeply interested in her of whom I speak, and the
Holy Office permits that you should tell him all you know.
The woman again gazed fixedly at Bradley as she replied--
‘She who enters here as an inmate leaves behind her at the gate her past
life, her worldly goods, her kith and kin, her very name. Death itself
could not strip her more bare of all that she has been. She becomes
a ghost, a shadow, a cipher. How am I to follow the fate of one whose
trace in the world has disappeared?’
‘You are trifling with me!’ cried Bradley.
‘Tell me at once, is she or is she not an inmate of this living hell?’
‘Do not blaspheme!’ cried the Abbé in English, while the veiled woman
crossed herself with a shudder. ‘It is only in compassion for your great
anguish of mind that our blessed Sister will help you, and such words
as you are too prone to use will not serve your cause. Sister,’ he
continued in Italian, addressing the woman, ‘the English signor would
not willingly offend, though he has spoken wildly, out of the depth of
his trouble. Now listen! It is on the record of the Holy Office that
on a certain day some few months ago an English lady, under sanction,
entered these walls and voluntarily said farewell to the world for ever,
choosing the blessed path of a divine death-in-life to the sins and
sorrows of an existence which was surely life-in-death. The name she
once bore, and the date on which she entered the convent, are written
down on this paper. Please read them, and then perhaps you will be able
to guide us in our search.’
So saying, the Abbé handed to the woman a folded piece of paper. She
took it quietly, and, stepping slowly to the part of the chamber which
was lit by the beam of chilly sunshine, opened the paper and appeared to
read the writing upon it. As she did so, the dim and doubtful radiance
fell upon her, and showed through the black but semi-transparent veil
the dim outline of a livid human face.
Leaving the chamber, she approached a large vaulted archway at its inner
end, and beckoned to the two men. Without a word they followed.
Still full of the wild sense of unreality, like a man walking or groping
his way in a land of ghosts, Bradley walked on. Passing along a dismal
stone corridor, where, at every step he took,
He dragged
Foot-echoes after him!
past passage after passage of vaulted stone, dimly conscious as he went
of low doors opening into the gloomiest of cells, he hurried in the wake
of his veiled guide. Was it only his distempered fancy, or did he indeed
hear, from time to time, the sound of low wailings and dreary ululations
proceeding from the darkness on every side of him? Once, as they crossed
an open space dimly lit by dreary shafts of daylight, he saw a figure in
sable weeds, on hands and knees, with her lips pressed close against
the stone pavement; but at a word from his guide the figure rose with
a feeble moan and fluttered away down a corridor into the surrounding
darkness.
At last they seemed to pass from darkness into partial sunshine, and
Bradley found himself standing in the open air. On every side, and high
as the eye could reach, rose gloomy walls with overhanging caves and
buttresses, leaving only one narrow space above where the blue of heaven
was dimly seen. There was a flutter of wings, and the shadows of a
flight of birds passed overhead--doves which made their home in the
gloomy recesses of the roofs and walls.
Beneath was a sort of quadrangle, some twenty feet square, covered with
grass, which for the most part grew knee-deep, interspersed with nettles
and gloomy weeds, and which was in other places stunted and decayed, as
if withered by some hideous mildew or blight. Here and there there was
a rude wooden cross stuck into the earth, and indicating what looked to
the eye like a neglected grave.
The Sister led the way through the long undergrowth, till she reached
the side of a mound on which the grass had scarcely grown at all, and on
which was set one of those coarse crosses.
‘You ask me what has become of the poor penitent you seek. She died in
the holy faith, and her mortal body is buried _here_.’
With a wild shriek Bradley fell on his knees, and tearing the cross from
the earth read the inscription rudely carved upon it:--
‘Sister Alma.
_Obiit_ 18--.’
That was all. Bradley gazed at the cross in utter agony and desolation;
then shrieking again aloud, fell forward on his face. The faint light
from the far-off blue crept down over him, and over the two black
figures, who gazed in wonder upon him; and thus for a long time he lost
the sense of life and time, and lay as if dead.