Leila’s funeral took place the next day, the lovely waxen figure carried
on a bier strown with flowers. The family surrounded their dead, a
procession of friends preceding and following. The child’s home had been
in one of the smaller apartments of the cross-streets, reached by
stairways under the arches; and as it was the custom for funerals to
approach the Basilica by the avenue, they came across to the eastward
through alternating light and shadow, and, reaching the outer street,
returned by the bridge in front of the Arcade, the bells ringing _à
morto_ as they passed through the avenue. But it was not the clash of
all the bells together. It was a plaintive dropping, a tone or a chord,
like dropping tears.
“Will they not enter?” Tacita asked in a whisper of Elena when she saw
that not only those preceding the dead spread themselves around the
outside of the inclosure of the Basilica, but those who followed were
also remaining outside.
“No, my dear. The house of God is no place for corrupting human bodies.”
The bier was set down on the uppermost of the first steps; two men with
gilded staves drew aside the curtains of the portal, and the lights and
the Throne shone out on the mourning and the mourned. A few prayers were
said; and then, led by the chimes, they all sang.
Tacita knew enough of the language now to follow the sense of their
simple and brief appeal.
“Thou who didst mourn the friend that silent lay
In the dark tomb, behold our eyes that weep
A lifeless form that loved us yesterday.
Mourning, we lay its silence at thy feet,—
Thou who didst weep!
“Help of the sorrowful! Help us to say
Of this dear treasure which we may not keep,
The Lord hath given, and he takes away,
And still thy name with fervent blessings greet,—
Thou who didst weep!
Thou who didst weep!”
The windows of the Basilica had all been darkened and the lamps doubled;
and to those standing opposite the portal the two long rows of columns
and the climbing lights and upper glow might have seemed like Jacob’s
vision of the angelic stairway stretching from earth to heaven, from
shadow to light.
The hymn ended, they took up their dead and went on in silence. The road
that led to the cemetery led nowhere else. It turned from the plain at
the south side of the Basilica, hidden by the elevation of the little
rock plateau on which the structure was set, and passing along the side
of it, entered a deep and narrow ravine at the back. This ravine was
nearly half a mile long and walled with precipitous rocks that shut out
everything but the line of sky above and the topmost point of one white
snow-peak, serene against the blue.
Entering the ravine was to be reminded infallibly of the “valley of the
shadow of death.” Here the prayers began. A single voice in the centre
of the procession exclaimed:—
“The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away,” and like waves the
response rolled to front and rear and back again,—“Blessed be the name
of the Lord!”
The Miserere was repeated in the same way, and the Psalm “The Lord is my
Shepherd.”
The sun entered the ravine with them. There was only one hour of the day
when a direct beam shone in, and that, except when the days were
longest, scarcely reached the foot-way. It shone along over their heads
now; and as the road near its end made a turn further inward to the
mountains, it shone on a great golden legend set high above on an arch
springing from cliff to cliff:—
I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE!
Some men on the natural bridge that made the archway stood outlined
against the sky, looking down at the procession. To them the gray robes
and black sashes could have been scarcely distinguishable from the dark
rocks; but the form of the little maiden thus taking its last journey,
and those of the eight bearers, all in white, would shine out of the
shadows.
No perfumed garden flowers grew on that high land where they were
working when they heard the bells’ _à morto_; but they gathered snowy
daisies, scentless and pure, and made a little drift of their petals;
and as the dead approached and passed beneath, they dropped them down in
a thin shower as fine as any snow-crystals.
The ravine opened beyond the arch to what had been a torrent-bed
circling round a cone-shaped mountain almost destitute of verdure. The
whole mass of this mountain was a cemetery. Wide stairs and galleries
outside led to iron-bound doors at different heights. One of these doors
was open. The procession, crossing a bridge over dry stones, went up the
graded ascent to what might be called the second story. Here was a full
sunshine. The bearers set their burden down in it before the open door.
And here, at last, grief was allowed to have its way for a moment. The
mourners fell on their knees beside their dead. A choir of men and women
broke out singing:—
“Look thy last upon the sun!
Eyes that scarcely had begun
To distinguish near from far,
Star from lamp, or lamp from star;—
Eyes whose bitterest tears were dew
That a swift smile sparkled through.
Lift thy white lids once, before
Darkness seal them evermore!
“Speak, and bid the air rejoice,
Music of a childish voice!
One more word our hearts shall hail
Sweeter than the nightingale!
Smile again, O lips of rose!
Break the pitiless repose
That is builded like a wall
Where in vain we beat and call.
“Nevermore! Ah, nevermore!
Till we touch the heavenly shore,
Voice or smile of hers shall bless
Our heart-bleeding loneliness.
Jesus, King, and Brother mild!
Keep her yet a little child,
That her face we there may see
As we yield it back to thee!”
The parents and the child’s brother sobbed as they bent over the
unanswering dead, if the peaceful brightness of that flower-like face
could be called unresponsive, and they rose only when some of their
nearer friends bent over and would have lifted them. Then the bearers
took up the bier and passed out of the sun, and disappeared into what
from the outside seemed a profound darkness.
It was a long corridor formed precisely like a catacomb, except that the
greater part of it was masonry. The roof, floor, and walls were all of
unpolished gray stone with white marble tablets set in the walled-up
niches. Three iron lamps suspended from the ceiling threw all about a
tender golden light. At the farthest end of the corridor something white
reflected dimly. There were a few closed niches, but the greater number
of them were unoccupied. Outside one of these, opposite the second lamp,
a smaller lamp, as yet unlighted, was set in an iron ring fixed in the
masonry.
The bier was set down before this niche, which was lined with myrtle
sprigs, and had little lace bags filled with spices in the corners.
There were two silver rings inside attached to cords, one at the head
and one at the foot.
As Tacita entered, she saw the father lift his child and lay her in her
fragrant bed, and the mother place a pillow under her head. They crossed
her hands on her breast, and slipped one of the silver rings on to a
wrist and the other over the slender foot. They had been weeping loudly;
but when, their service done, they stood and looked at the peaceful and
lovely sleeper, something of her quiet came over them. They gazed
fixedly, as if their souls were groping after hers, or as if the wall of
her silence and immobility were not altogether impenetrable, and intent,
with hushed breathing, they could catch some sense of a light fuller
than that of the sun, and of sweet sounds, beautiful scenes and loving
companionship in what had seemed a void, and of nearness where infinite
distances had been straining at their heart-strings.
Tacita laid her bunch of white roses at the child’s feet. Then Elena led
her down the corridor and pointed to a name inscribed on the marble of a
closed niche. It was her father’s.
She kissed the marble, and stood thinking; then turned away. “God keep
him!” she said. “I cannot find him here.”
At the end of the corridor, in the centre of the wall, was an open
niche, all white marble, with a gilded cross lying in it, and so many
little bags of spices that all the neighborhood was perfumed by them.
This niche was called “The Resurrection;” and at every funeral the
mourners brought their tribute of perfumes to it.
Elena drew her companion’s attention to the niches around this open
tomb. “You see how small they are. They are all young infants. It is the
same in all the corridors. The end where the tomb of Christ is, is
called the cemetery of the Innocents.”
Outside, in the gallery, a choir was softly singing:—
“Thou who didst weep!”
“We will go now,” Elena whispered.
As they went, the mourners still stood before their dead, the husband
and wife hand in hand. The brother, with his hands clasped before him,
gazed steadfastly into his sister’s face, that was scarcely whiter than
his own.
The little lamp had been lighted, the chains attached to the chain of a
bell hung outside the door, and a plate of glass covered the niche.
People came and went quietly. Some had gone home; others were seated on
the stone benches outside. Dylar was leaning on the parapet; and when
Tacita and Elena came out, he accompanied them down and through the
ravine. When they reached the lane behind the church, he asked Tacita if
she would like to go up and see his cottage, which was just above the
college. She assented gladly, and Elena left them to go up the path
together.
The cottage was of the plainest, and contained but two rooms. The front
one had a glass door and two windows overlooking the town. There was a
table in the centre of the room with a revolving top surrounded by
drawers. A hammock hung at the back, and there were two chairs, a
bookcase and a closet. The floor was of green and white tiles, and the
roughly plastered walls were washed a dull green.
“You see, I have here everything that I need,” Dylar said. “My living
rooms are in the college; but I often come here. My writing and
planning, especially of our outside affairs, is done here. The business
of San Salvador is all portioned out and arranged, and can be done
without me. But the outside business requires a good deal of study.”
He brought the chairs out, and they sat down, and Dylar pointed out the
larger mountains, and named them, told where the torrents were and how
they had been or could be deviated, told where the signal-stations were,
and how they could know from them all that happened at their outer
stations. He showed her her own chamber windows in the Arcade, the
heights behind which, scarcely hidden from the town, she had entered San
Salvador, and, near the southeastern angle of the opening, a mountain
with a double peak, beyond which stood Castle Dylar.
The terrace where they sat was covered with a thin dry turf, and a
pine-tree grew at one side and an olive-tree at the other. The olive was
so old that its trunk was quite hollowed out, and the side next the rock
had long since died and been cut away. The single great outward branch
was full of blossoms. From the parapet one could look down and see the
river of ripening wheat that flowed quite round the rock on which the
college was built.
“This is the only spot in the world that I can properly call home,”
Dylar said. “It is the only place all mine, and where no stranger comes.
If I am wanted, a signal calls me.”
“You like to be here!” Tacita said with a certain pensiveness. “You like
to be alone!”
“You think so,” he said, “because I keep somewhat apart. It is necessary
that I should do so in order to avoid complicating intimacies. Then, I
have a great deal to think of. Besides, I will confess that when human
affection comes too near, and becomes personal, I feel a sense of
recoil. Human evil and sorrow I do not shrink from; but human love”—
Tacita moved backward a step, and clouded over.
“Not so!” Dylar exclaimed. “It is precisely because your friendship is
as delicate as a mist that I seek you, that I follow you. See that white
cloud on the pine-tree yonder! It is like you. The tree-top, the topmost
tree-top has caught and tries to hold it. Do you think that it would
like to stay?”
“It stays!” she murmured; and a faint rose-hue over her face and neck
and hands betrayed the sudden heart-throb. “It stays while it is held.”
Dylar looked at her with delight in his eyes.
“I am glad to have here at last the little girl of the _baiocco_,” he
said. “I never forgot her. When I no longer saw her, she grew up in my
mind. I fancied her saying to me across the world: ‘Why do you not come?
I am no longer a child!’”
Tacita gave him a startled glance, and quickly turned her eyes away.
Love the most ardent, the most impetuous, shone in his face.
“Tacita,” he said softly, “I am indeed a beggar now! But do not fear. I
will wait for your answer; but I could not wait before letting you know
surely that my fate is in your hands. And now, shall we go down?”
She turned to descend before him, but stopped, looking back over her
shoulder with lowered eyes that did not see his face. “May I have just
one little string of olive-blossoms?” she asked.
He gathered and gave it to her over the shoulder her cheek was touching.
“Ask me for the tree!” he exclaimed.
“Let it be mine where it stands,” she said, hiding a smile, and taking a
step forward.
“Ask me for the castle!” he said passionately, following her.
“I will first see the castle,” she said, still going, her face turned
from him.
“Will you go to-morrow to see it? Elena will accompany us.”
“If you ask me, I will go.”
They had reached the circle, and some men were there on their way to the
upper gardens. In the town they were alone again, and Dylar sketched
their programme for the next day.
“You and Elena will talk it over,” he said. “And if you wish any change
made, send me word this evening.”
They parted at the door, and Tacita went upstairs feeling as though she
floated in the air.