Part 7

“Shortly after this first visit of mine, the Duchesse de St. Loisy presented to the convent two long mirrors for the reception room. About this same time Sister Seraphine was put in charge of the room to receive guests and the relatives of the _jeunes demoiselles_ on visiting days. Callers at the convent were not very frequent in those days. Traveling facilities were not what they have come to be since, so Sister Seraphine was left alone for hours in the great room.

“Here she acquired the habit of looking at herself in one of the mirrors. At first eyes stared blankly back at eyes. She could not see _herself_. It is difficult, always, to get acquainted with oneself. That to me, Mischna Stepanoff, has been one of the pleasures of living--to find within me things that I did not dream were there. Sister Seraphine after a while discovered her mouth. She was surprised, as you may imagine. It was as if it were the mouth of some strange unknown person who dwelled within her. It was--_the other_--made visible!

“Soon she sensed, rather than reasoned, that it was in harmony with the fragrant creative spring outside; that she was part of an universal nature that lived and laughed. It seemed to her that even in repose her mouth laughed. It was like the pagan sunshine, which always laughed. She became interested in her mouth. She became fascinated with the many things that it expressed, with its color, its flexibility, and its capacity for joyous sensation, if by chance she touched it to a flower.

“One night, just before she closed and left the great room for the night, she leaned long by the mirror’s edge looking up at the stars through a near-by window. They were merry that night, the stars. It was spring, which is youth in the world, and they laughed. They laughed so gayly, so alluringly, that she turned impulsively and kissed her own mouth in the mirror.

“For days after this Sister Seraphine was meditative and beyond her habit thoughtful. She could not look at the mirrors. Her cheeks flushed with shame. She felt disgraced and dishonored. Every time she was obliged to pass by the great mirrors, she carefully turned her eyes away.

“During these days it seemed as if Spring, like a bandit, broke through the ponderous convent walls. Its murmur and its mystery and its fragrance and its buoyant life were everywhere. They poured invisibly through the somber, painted windows. They swept enticingly down the long bare halls. All night they sang beneath the casements of the penitential chambers. They awoke with the first penetrating sweetness of the dawn.

“Each morning, in the opening flower cups, Sister Seraphine found other mouths that looked like hers. She saw there the same desirous, satiny lips. The same brilliant color burned upon them, the same dewy ripeness. One night, unable to sleep, so many and so mighty were the voices that called her, she got up softly and tiptoed down the long bare corridors to the reception room. It was not ever really night anywhere that spring, it seems to me as I recall it. The frail gray shadows of summer made instead a sort of semi-day.

“She knelt down on the floor in front of one of the mirrors. There she saw a white face under an aureole of short gold hair, two eyes that shone like stars, and a mouth that was red as a wound. Again she kissed it. When she crept back to her room, she found it lonelier than before. Something, she knew not what, was missing. The world was empty. Some joy had gone out of life.

“The next day she asked for permission to see Father Richards, the aged priest of the parish.

“‘Father,’ she began, ‘you know that I have never left the convent walls, do you not?’

“‘Yes, my daughter.’

“‘You know that I have known no other home.’

“‘Yes, my daughter.’

“‘That I have read only my breviary and the books of the saints. And yet, Father, I have sinned, sinned grievously--’

“‘How, my daughter?’

“‘I have kissed--’

“‘Kissed?’

“‘Yes, Father. I have kissed a mouth, because I wanted to; because it was red and sweet, like the flowers outside in the spring.’

“‘What! You say--Explain, my daughter!’ said the aged priest, greatly puzzled.

“‘I kissed my own mouth, Father. I kissed it in the mirror, not once, Father, but twice. And I am not sorry. It gave me pleasure, Father. Were not mouths made to kiss? And the pleasure was not that which I have felt when I kissed the white feet of the Virgin. And I am not sorry, Father.’

“‘It is your youth, my daughter; spring, too, in the blood. You must pray and fast--especially fast. That will subdue evil.’

“‘No, Father. I think differently. I will not. I am going away. The great mirrors in the drawing-room there have shown me my mouth, Father. And it has told me of another life--a life to which I belong! Do you know what made it so red, so wonderful, so faultless, Father, this mouth of mine? It was the splendid, free, pleasure-loving, tempestuous lives that they lived who made me. There is not in this mouth of mine one servile curve, one penitential or humiliating line, one touch of pleading or regret. Although I have not seen them, I know that it must have been a great race that bore me. They did not even leave me a name to which I have a just claim. But right here, on my mouth, Father, they set the red seal of their pleasures, their aristocratic arrogance, their fearlessness, and their power.

“‘I can see the life they lived! I can see it all--through the days and the nights and the years. A regal life it was, in great moat-encircled castles, amid clash of steel, cries of joy and triumph and music and the madness of power.

“‘I can see the white glorious faces of the women they loved, framed in fluttering and triumphant banners.

“‘Think of the kisses given by brave men to the lips of beautiful women! Think of the banquets and the feasting in great halls, where a thousand candles flickered over satins and silks and gems and laces and smooth shoulders and lustrous hair! Think of the wine they drank in those long, long nights of revelry--wine that had treasured up and kept the sweetness of a thousand springs; think of the songs, the laughter, the dance, the jests! Think of the resounding hunt across fields vivid with spring; the inspiriting call of the horns, the tossing of plumes, the eyes afire with joy!

“‘Think of their daring and their high-hearted days when they cheerfully placed life in the balance, to weigh against a kiss! Think of the strength that took whatsoever it wanted, regardless of results; that flung defiance in the face of Fate!

“‘This mouth, Father, told all this to me. This mouth is their message to me.

“‘Do you know what has happened, Father? The strangest, the most unbelievable, the most preposterous thing in the world! I have been seduced by my own mouth! A miracle! A miracle of earth, not of heaven, Father--by my own mouth!

“‘I am going away, too, Father, now.’

“And right there, before the feeble and astonished old man, she tore off her hood and the bindings of her brow, and went out into the spring that was waiting for her--across the fields, and away. Think of the audacity, the power of decision, the strong, quick-working will that nothing could enfeeble!

“You have both heard of Madame X----, have you not, who had such a genius for life and luxury, whose sables the Tzaritza envied, who had at her feet half the desirable men of France? She was Sister Seraphine.”

“Every one has a right to happiness, do you not think so?” exclaimed Mischna Stepanoff, the joy of her own lost youth leaping to her eyes.

THE SACRED RELICS OF SAINT EUTHYMIUS

About the middle of the sixteenth century there was built, on the westward-fronting coast of Istria, a pleasure palace. The builder, Paul, Count of Radknothy, was a Hungarian nobleman of wealth and power, who had traveled widely and formed his taste upon the best models of the day.

On his frequent journeys he tarried oftenest in Venice. The rich and luxurious city held for him the charm it has never failed to hold for the people of the North.

Here he met La Fiorita, a dancer renowned for her beauty. She was his senior by a number of years and a woman of unsavory reputation. The story of her amours, which had been many, sounded like a page from Masuccio, and had been the talk of Italy. She had been _persona grata_ with the nobles of that licentious age. She had ruled as temporary mistress of many a summer palace hidden away among the Italian hills. For Count Radknothy she had the fascination which women of mature years have had for younger men. He married her and took her away to his Istrian home.

She was glad of this lucky stroke of fortune. She realized that, considering the life she had led, her beauty could not last in its perfection.

In the second year after her marriage, shortly before the time of her first confinement, she was miraculously saved from death at the hands of an assassin by a Carthusian nun, whom the blow struck. The assassin, who paid for the attempt with his life, was a follower of her old days, in whose heart her beauty had been more than a fancy.

This escape from death back into the luxurious life she had never ceased to look upon as the kindness of Providence, aroused the religious fanaticism that slumbers in the Italian soul. In return, she made a vow that the unborn child should be sacred to the church. Later, a daughter was born to Count and Countess Radknothy, who was christened Elsbeth.

Overjoyed at her safe delivery, chastened in mind by the favors of Heaven, the Countess decided that the child should take the veil in a convent of the Silent Sisters. Then she felt that she had atoned for the sins of her youth. Accordingly, when little Elsbeth was twelve years old, she was sent to the Hungarian Convent of St. Euthymius.

This convent, which had once been the war-castle of a feudal lord, and which bore witness to its past in its stern and forbidding exterior, was situated in northwestern Hungary, just south of the Little Carpathians, and surrounded by their gloomy forests. It stood on an elevation. On the north a lake lay, whose outlet was the shallow Ipoly, which to southward joins the Danube. It was a hilly, thinly populated country of ancient mansions separated from each other by miles of woodland.

From the convent but one building was visible, the family chapel of the Ràkoczi, a family of royal lineage whose male members had led the wars for Hungarian independence. The castle was on the other side of the chapel and its rear was toward the lake. On the north side of the convent there was but one window. From this the warlike baron used to watch his enemies approach. Beneath the window, clinging to the wall, was a staircase. This was the room which was assigned to Elsbeth.

Notwithstanding her childish immaturity, it was evident that she had inherited her mother’s blond beauty, which, in her case, was made more brilliant by the father’s Hungarian blood. During the two years that had preceded her daughter’s birth, La Fiorita had luxuriated in her Istrian palace. Here, freed from the efforts of a dancer’s life, and cherished by a love in the flower of its youth, her beauty had reached its perfection. In addition, little Elsbeth had inherited her mother’s abundant vitality and her taste for music and dancing.

Because of the child’s love of music and the noble family to which she belonged, the rules of St. Euthymius were lifted, and she was permitted to take her lute with her. La Fiorita consoled herself with the thought that the lute would take the place of conversation, which was forbidden. With this solicitude she dismissed the subject. She felt that she had purchased the forgiveness of Heaven and gave herself over unrestrainedly to the life of pleasure she loved.

It was autumn when Elsbeth reached St. Euthymius. The repellent exterior of the convent-fortress was softened by the richness of the season. Autumn once seen among the mountains of Hungary is something always to remember. A languid radiance enfolds the landscape. The stern Carpathians float in a mist of blue, through which white, fragile birches and fiery maples gleam. The forests and the mountains are reflected in the water. Along the roads ferns expand into fans of gold. The woodlands exhale an aromatic perfume.

The witchery of the season dulled the first pain of separation. But when the rains of November scattered the leaves, and the wind sang about the lonely towers and echoed down the bare corridors, she cried like a little child to go home. The sisters’ efforts to comfort her were vain. Equally vain were their attempts to divert her mind with lessons and prayer. She still cried to go home.

There was no devotional chord in her nature to respond to the good sisters’ teachings. They were like a voice calling in a land where no one lives. When winter came, the entire world was black and white. Without, the snow and the bare trees--or the blacker pines and firs; within, white, echoing rooms, where silent, black-clad figures moved. The sight filled her with grief, and by contrast called to mind her bright-gowned, beautiful mother.

When spring came, she was so pale and thin that the kind sisters would have sent word of her condition to her parents, had it not been expressly stated that no word was to be sent to disturb the peace of the Istrian home.

When she was seventeen, the sisters decided that she was sufficiently instructed in the duties of the order to be made a member. Obediently she took the veil and the vow of silence. This occasioned no fresh grief, since it could not interfere with her source of happiness--her dreams.

In the spring of the following year, shortly after vespers, when she was in her room alone, she heard some one playing upon a lute a melody of enchanting rhythm. Hastily she unfastened the window square. In the melody floated, with the breath of the soft spring night. It came from the lake. She vibrated pleasurably to it. In it were poured out the longing heart of youth and the soft allurements of love. Instinctively she threw off the cloak and hood. She unclasped the black mantle at her throat. In her eyes, upon her face, glowed that look of inspired joy with which La Fiorita had held her admirers. Snatching the lute from the wall, she repeated the melody and improvised an answer. The unknown musician understood and followed her lead. Thus they conversed for an hour through the medium of music.

The next morning Elsbeth was summoned to the Superior. Some of the sisters said that they had heard music in the night coming from her room, and of a kind not suitable for convent walls. Had not years of silence lamed their tongues and made them incapable of utterance, they would have been eloquent in their description of the melodies they had heard. As it was, they insisted vehemently upon their wickedness.

“My daughter,” said the Superior, “since this is the first complaint against you, you shall go unpunished. We have shown forbearance because of your youth. Now that you are older, and have become one of us permanently, it is right that you should obey the rules and uphold them. In the future play sacred music, or such as befits the vows you have taken.” With this the Superior dismissed her.

It was later that night when the lute called beneath her window. Her answer was a sharp note of warning. The unseen musician understood. When again he touched the strings, it was midnight, and the shy summer stars had been hours a-twinkle. He played the same alluring cantilena, but softly, tenderly, as if meant for a loved one’s ears alone. He swept the strings so delicately it was but a breath of musical fragrance upon the night.

Elsbeth trembled. The blood coursed pleasurably through her veins. Her soul expanded with joy. Fear was forgotten. She thought only of the unseen one upon the lake who called to her.

He had understood what she said the night before. He had come again. She took her lute and replied clearly and daringly. Then again the soft melodic whisper floated up from the water. Her answer was firm and triumphant, shrilling on one sustained crystal note of longing. This passionate appeal for life, for freedom, touched the hearer’s heart, as the murmurous caress which followed proved.

Six years had passed since any one had spoken to her like that, six silent years of convent life. She was like one buried alive, calling out to the warm, sweet world on the other side of the grave. Her lute told this in a song of unrest.

The next day there was a solemn meeting of the sisters in the great audience hall of St. Euthymius. Sister Seraphita had heard the music. She had awakened the others, who, in their turn, awakened the Mother Superior. Never had their unworldly ears heard sounds like these. They plunged them into an alien world, where they trembled. They troubled their minds with the tone-pictures they flashed upon the senses. The music concealed a persistent suggestion that there are nobler things than a life of prayer and penance. It brought back memories of forgotten days. It touched their arid hearts to strange tremors. It sent a-flutter insistent voices as the sea sends abroad upon the wind the story of its secret longing. It gave transient energy to dead instincts. It set vibrating thoughts inimical to convent life. The stupidest among them felt this, and they agreed that it must be stopped.

In addition, it had been whispered that it sounded as if two lutes were being played, instead of one. Of course, they knew that that was impossible. No one could gain entrance to the convent. If they did hear two lutes, who was it who played the other one?

A look of awful comprehension brightened their dull old eyes. It was marvelous playing, too. They remembered that. Even the Superior said that she had not heard its equal. No mortal fingers swept that other lute. No mortal fingers could so fill the castle with resonance. There _were_ two lutes! Who played the other? It was Satan who did it--Satan and none other!

Then the Superior recalled what she had heard of the music and dancing madness that had taken possession of the nuns of the south of France in the early years of the church. How it had been proved to be the work of Satan and how the evil spirit had been exorcised. Abbé X---- had written a book about it. After discussing the subject, Elsbeth was sent for.

“My dear daughter,” began the Superior, “it grieved me to learn of your disobedience. I, together with the sisters, have decided that forfeiture of the lute is a just punishment. Sister Seraphita may now bring it to my room and hang it upon the wall. As for you, my daughter, I recommend the prayers for the penitent.” Then she rose, signifying that the session was at an end.

Elsbeth said nothing. Her mind was so filled by the occurrences of the past days that the meaning barely reached her.

That night the melody floated up to where she stood waiting, just as the sickle of the moon swung to a level with the black tree-tops.

How could she answer now? Hastily she unfastened the window. Then she remembered a lace handkerchief belonging to her mother, which she picked up the day they took her away. It was filmy and light. It would float upon the water. He would see it fluttering down. In one corner was embroidered, in the colored needlework of the day, the crest of the house of Radknothy.

The changed music that came told her that he had caught the handkerchief. He understood the message. In the answering tones there was something deferential.

Then he played the melody of the first night, modulating it masterfully, and using the theme as the basic idea for many a sweetly extemporized caprice. As she stood alone in the dim cell listening, while the warm spring night caressed the short, bright curls upon her head, it thrilled her with a joy that was akin to pain. It was like the memory of something that had vanished--a tragic past that had swept her away upon billows of flame. It was the sense-memory of a past whose incidents she could not recall, but whose fervor flashed upon her.

The sisters heard the music. One by one, softly, they crept to the Mother Superior’s door to see if she were awake. There she sat, a terrified, trembling old figure, her eyes staring at the lute upon the wall, while her pale lips murmured a prayer. One by one they peered in to make sure that the lute was really there, hanging motionless upon the wall. Yet its music echoed down the long corridors and floated in at the windows. A ghastly procession they made! Shrunken and hollow of cheek, toothless, yellow and wrinkled of face! The candles silhouetted sharply and distorted their bald and trembling heads.

Yes, there was the lute, motionless, just where Sister Seraphita had hung it. Yet they could hear its music. What a horrible thing! To listen to music made by a lute hung out of reach upon a wall! Their shrunken chins and toothless lips trembled. Their knees knocked together. It was all their old, weak hands could do to hold the candles.

Here was proof of the work of the evil spirit. Every sister in the convent was a witness. Perhaps it was Satan himself who swept the strings. In addition, they had heard that the coming of an evil spirit is accompanied by a breath of cool air or a freshening breeze. Whenever the wind came stronger, the music was noticeably louder. That was another proof.

The next day and the next were given over to prayer. But each night the same dreadful thing occurred, the same luxurious and sinful melody came floating on the midnight. The aged sisters were distracted. They were grieved, too. No scandal had ever touched St. Euthymius.

On the fourth day they met in solemn council, to which Elsbeth was summoned, in order to be questioned. She said that each night, in accordance with the Superior’s orders, she had gone early to bed after repeating thrice the prayers for the penitent. Quickly she fell asleep. Then she dreamed--but so vividly that the following day she was unable to tell the dream from reality--that the Mother Superior came to her door, knocked softly, opened it and held out the lute. She took it and improvised upon it the rest of the night. Softly then again the knocking came, the Superior opened the door, took the lute and went away. Each night she dreamed the same dream. And each morning she found her door as she had left it.