The short southern winter drew to a close. Everything that could fade
had faded. The vines stretched a network of dry twigs, the olive trees
were ashen, the pines were black. The gray of crags and houses looked
bleak under the white dazzle of the mountain-wreath, and the dazzling
blue of the sky. Sometimes both were swathed in heavy clouds, and the
town was almost set afloat in floods of rain.
It was the time for in-door work, and closer domestic life.
The last days of this season were given up to penitential exercises
similar in intention to the Holy Week of the Catholic church, though
different in form,—having, in fact, only form enough, and that of the
simplest, to suggest the spirit. Like all the instruction given in San
Salvador, its object was less to act upon the passive soul than to set
the soul itself in action.
The admonition to these devotions was brief: “At this time, while Nature
sits in desolation, mourning over her decay and trembling before the
winter winds, let us invite those veiled angels of the Lord, sorrow and
fear, to enter our hearts and dwell awhile with us. Let us read and
ponder in silence the life and death of the Divine Martyr. Let us
remember that while we have rejoiced in peace, plenty, honor and
justice, thousands and tens of thousands of our kind in the outer world
have suffered starvation of body and mind, have been hunted like wild
beasts, and branded on the forehead by demons disguised as men; and let
us remember that that same Divine Martyr, our King and our Lord, said of
these same children of sorrow and despair: _Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto them_—whether good or evil—_ye have done it unto me_.”
The exercises began on Saturday night, and continued eight days, ending
on the second Monday morning. There was a visit at night to the cemetery
by all but the children, the sick, and the very aged. On Saturday the
children would visit the Basilica to commemorate the blessing of the
children by Christ, and, strewing the place with freshly budded myrtle
twigs, would ask his blessing before the Throne. Mothers would take
their infants there and hold them up, but would not speak. “For their
angels shall speak for them,” they said.
Sunday was kept as Easter, and was a day of roses; and on Monday morning
the whole town, all dressed in white, would go to the Basilica in
procession, tossing their Easter lilies into the tribune as they passed,
till the sweet drift would heap and cover the steps and upper
balustrades, leaving only the Throne, gold-shining above a pyramid of
perfumed snow.
For up through the dark soil and out of the prevailing grayness, already
a wealth of unseen buds were pushing their way out to the broadening
sunshine, to burst into bloom before the week should be over. The
gardens had their sheltered rose-trees and lily-beds, and every house
its cherished plants, watched anxiously, and coaxed forward, or
retarded, as the time required.
The first Sunday was called the Day of Silence; for no one issued from
his house after having entered it on returning from the cemetery, and
each head of a family became its priest on that day, reading and
expounding to his household the story of the passion of Christ, the
Divine Martyr.
On Monday morning, after the procession of lilies, Dylar and Tacita
would be publicly betrothed; and a week later their marriage would take
place.
“I do not know, Tacita,” he said to her, “if our form of marriage will
satisfy you. It has nothing of that ceremonial which you are accustomed
to see, though we hold marriage to be a sacrament.”
It was Saturday morning of their Holy Week, and the two were walking
apart under the northern mountains. They had already assumed the
mourning dress of gray and black worn by all during that week, and the
long gray wool cloaks with fur collars worn in the winter were not yet
discarded. But their faces were bright, Tacita’s having a red rose in
each cheek.
“Elena has told me something,” she said. “And how could I be otherwise
than satisfied? For so my father and mother were married, and so—you
will be!”
“Our position in regard to a priesthood, if ever to be regretted, is
still unavoidable. Our foundation was a beginning the world anew, all
depending on one man, with the help of God. No authority whatever was to
enter from outside; but all was to conform as nearly as possible to the
word of Christ; and as if to atone for any omission, he was elected
King. Our people were of every clime and every belief; yet they were all
won, by love,—not by force, nor argument, nor fear,—to accept Christ,
and to live more in accordance with his commands than any other
community in the world is known to do. When any of them go out into the
world they choose the form of Christian worship which suits them best;
and some, returning, have wished to see a priesthood introduced here.
But that question brought in the first note of discord heard in our
councils since the foundation. Some wanted one form, and some another.
The subject then was forbidden, and we returned to the plan of our
founder: to live apart, a separate and voiceless nation, waiting till
God shall see fit to break down our boundaries. On Easter Sunday we lay
our bread and wine on the footstool, opening the gates, and with prayer
and song ask him to bless it, our invisible High Priest. Then each one,
preparing himself as his conscience shall dictate, goes humbly up the
steps his foot can touch at no other time, and takes of the sacramental
bread, touches it to the wine set in a wide golden vase beside it, and
comes down and eats it, kneeling. The little square of snowy bread looks
as if a drop of blood had fallen on it where it met the wine. I think
that many a heart is full of holy peace that day.”
“Well they might be,” said Tacita. “But of the marriage, tell me. What
have we to do? I am half afraid.”
“First, then,” said Dylar, “On Saturday you lead the girls to the
Basilica for the Blessing, as Iona used to do, Ion leading the boys. On
Sunday you do only as the others. On Monday morning a company of matrons
go for you and take you to the Basilica for the lilies. All are in white
and all wear veils of white, you like the rest. But you alone have a
lily on your breast. All come out. You, surrounded still by your guard
of matrons, remain in the court just outside the portal, at the right,
and I, with the Council, at the left. All the others are below, outside
the green. Professor Pearlstein, as president of the council, then asks
in a loud voice if any one can show reason why I should not demand your
hand in marriage. He waits a moment, then says: ‘Speak now, or forever
after hold your peace.’ No sound is heard. I forbid the wind to breathe,
the birds to sing!”
“And then?” said Tacita, smiling, as he stopped and flashed the words
out fierily.
His eyes softened on her blushing face, and they stood opposite each
other under the lacelike branches of an almond-tree where minute points
thick upon all the boughs betrayed the imminent blossom-drift.
“And then,” said Dylar, “I shall come forward into the path where the
lamps of the sanctuary shine out through the portal, and I shall say:
‘If Tacita Mora consents willingly to promise herself to me this day as
my betrothed wife, in the presence of God and of these my people, let
her come forth alone and lay her hand in mine.’”
He pronounced the words with seriousness and emphasis. His tones
thrilled her heart.
“And then?” she said, almost in a whisper.
He smiled faintly, but with an infinite tenderness. “And then, my Lady,
if even at so late a moment you doubt, or fear, you need not answer.”
“How could I doubt, or fear!” she exclaimed, and turned homeward.
They walked almost in silence, side by side, till they reached the
Arcade, where they were to separate till they should meet in the scene
which he had just been describing. And there they said farewell with but
a moment’s lingering.
That evening all retired as soon as sundown; but they rose again at
midnight and assembled in the avenue and square, from whence, in
companies of a hundred, each with its leader, they started for the
cemetery.
As they went, they recited the prayers for the dead by companies, the
Amen rolling from end to end of the line.
Entering the ravine was like entering a cavern. But for the sparse lamps
set along the way they could not have kept the path. They went in
silence here, only the sound of their multitudinous steps echoing, till
a faint light began to shine into the darkness before them from where,
just out of sight, every letter had been outlined with fire of that
legend over the arch:—
I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE.
Then from the midst of the long procession rose a single voice reciting
the psalm: _The Lord is my Shepherd_.
No one, having once heard it, could mistake the voice of Dylar for any
other. It was of a metallic purity, and gave worth to every word it
uttered.
_Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil, for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort
me._
As they listened they felt not the stones under their feet. Solemn and
buoyant, into their souls there entered something of that spirit which
has made and will make men and women march singing to martyrdom.
They passed under the arch, and in at the lower door of the cemetery.
All the doors from top to bottom were open, and the lamps shed a dim
radiance through the long, hushed corridors of the dead; but their
flames caught a tremor as the breathing multitude went by, two by two.
They ascended inside, by ways that seemed a labyrinth, to the upper tier
just under the grassy hollow of Basil’s Rest. Issuing there, they
descended by the outer stairs, filling all the galleries on the eastern
side of the mountain. The waning moon, rising over the eastern
mountains, saw a great pyramid of pallid faces all turned her way, a dim
and silent throng that did not move,—as though the dead had come forth
to look at the rising of some portentous star, long prophesied, or to
watch if the coming dawn should bring in the Day of Judgment.
Presently a murmur was heard. All were reciting in a whisper the prayers
for the dead, each striving to realize that they would one day, perhaps
not far distant, be said for himself.
This multitudinous whisper, the chill of the upper air, the solemn
desolation of the terrestrial scene and the live scintillating sky with
that gleaming crescent unnaturally large between the eastern
mountain-tops, all made Tacita’s hair rise upon her head. Into what
morning-country did it mount, like mists from the earth at sunrise, this
cloud of supplicating sighs from out their earth-bound souls? Were these
shadowy forms about her, indistinguishable from the rock save for their
pallid faces, were they living men and women? or would they not, at the
first hint of dawn, reënter, mute and slow, those cavernous doors, and
lie down again in the narrow beds which they had quitted, for what dread
expiation!—for what hope long deferred!
Not much of earthly vanity can cling to such a vigil. The ordinary human
life, slipped off so like a garment, would be assumed again, freed for a
time, at least, from dust and stain.
When, at length, a faint aurora showed in the east, a choir of men’s
voices sang an invocation to the Holy Ghost as the Illuminator.
That song dispelled all fear, and life grew sweet again:—life to be
helpful, joyful, and patient in; life in which to search out the harmony
and worth of life;—life to grow old in and wait after work well
done;—life to feel life slip away, and to catch dim glimpses and feel
blind intuitions, in the midst of creeping shadows, of a sure soul-rise
in some other sphere!
As they went down, Tacita heard a whisper from Elena close to her cheek:
“‘Dig for your gold, my children, says Earth, your Mother. Deep in your
hearts it lies hidden.’”