CHAPTER XVII.

A GLEAM OF HOPE.

I had not seen Priscilla for over a year, and had struggled hard against the madness that possessed me. Finding myself out of work, having completed what I had undertaken, as far as depended on me, I felt that passion, which I even loathed, reviving within me. Nothing would do but I must see my former accomplice again. I called as an old friend, and this time found her alone. She received me with ease, grace, and cordiality.

There are those who believe that a woman who has once lost even the modesty and chastity of thought, can never regain them, and become a truly modest and pure-minded woman. They are greatly mistaken. The Magdalene had fallen lower than that, and yet those were pure tears with which she washed our Lord’s feet, and but one purer heart than hers beat in the breasts of those holy women who stood near the cross, and heard the loud cry of the God-Man, as he bowed his head and consummated the world’s redemption. The Fountain, which that rude soldier opened with his spear that day, suffices to cleanse from the deepest filth, to wash away the foulest stains, and to make clean and fragrant the most polluted soul. O ye fallen ones, whether women or men, bathe in that fountain! and if your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow, and if they be red as crimson, they shall be white as wool.

I had never seen Priscilla more beautiful. The bloom had returned to her cheek; her form had regained its roundness, and her complexion its richness. Her eyes were serene and tranquil, and her countenance wore a sweet, pure, and peaceful expression. She had no need to fear me at that moment, for I stood, not repelled, but awed, and felt myself in the presence of virtue, not haughty, austere, and repellant, but lovely, chaste, and affectionate; natural, easy, and wholly unconscious of itself.

“I am glad to see you, Doctor,” said she, with a sweet smile. “Sit down. I have been hoping that you would call, but I was afraid that you had entirely deserted us.”

“You are changed, Priscilla, since I last saw you; and I should think my presence would now be even more disagreeable than then.”

“Not at all. I was never more glad to see you in my life, and I never met you with kinder or more pleasant feelings.”

I did not understand this speech, and began to draw, in my own mind, certain very foolish conclusions.

“Yes,” she resumed, “I wished to see you, and to see you as I now do, alone. It is of no use referring to what we were for so many years to each other; but I wanted to tell you that I did you no little wrong. You were not innocent, but I was the most guilty. We were both miserable; and you, you, my dear friend, are unhappy still.”

“I make no complaint. Nobody has heard me whine or whimper over my own lot. If I have suffered, I have done so in silence.”

“That may be. But you have not forgotten our sojourn at Rome in the winter of 1848-49?”

“Forgotten it? no, and shall not, as long as I live.”

“Do you remember an old Franciscan monk, that my husband concealed in our house for some weeks?”

“I do.”

“He was an old man, nearly fourscore. His head was almost perfectly bald, only a few gray hairs escaped from beneath his _calotte_, and partially shaded his temples; his form, which had been tall and manly, was now bent with years, labors, and mortifications; but his feelings seemed as fresh and playful as those of a child; and the expression of his face was calm, sweet, and affectionate. It was a peculiar expression, not often met with, but like that which, you may remember, we one day remarked in the face of Pius the Ninth. It was an expression of exceeding peace and celestial love, of a pure and holy soul shining through a pure and chaste body. The expression is indescribable, but once seen, can never be forgotten, and seems to be that which Italian painters seek to give to their saints, especially to the Madonna.

“This venerable old man had, as you may recollect, been denounced, by the Circulo del Populo, as an obscurantist, an enemy to the republic, and an adherent to the Pontifical authority. It was intended to include him in the number of priests and religious massacred at San Callisto. My husband had formed an acquaintance with him, and, having learned his danger, smuggled him into our house, where it was presumed nobody would think of looking for a proscribed priest.”

“I remember him; I did not at all like him, and, had I cared much about him, would have betrayed him to the Club; for I had the wish of Voltaire in my heart, that ‘the last king might be strangled with the guts of the last priest.’ But, as he seemed old and harmless, and generally kept out of my way, I let him pass.”

“He was a quiet, inoffensive man, and I own I was not sorry that he should escape the cruel death to which philanthropists and sworn friends of liberty doomed so many of his brethren. I was not cruel by nature, and my soul recoiled from the part I was often compelled to take. I thought it was hardly consistent for us, who advocated unbounded freedom of thought and action, to send the dagger to the heart, or coolly sever the carotid artery in the neck of those who chose to think and act differently from us; but I was held then by a force I could not resist.”

“You mean, Priscilla, now to reproach me.”

“No, my friend, no; I reproach only myself. Had I not originally consented, no power could have held me in that terrible thraldom. The agents you employed have no such power over us against our will; though, when we have once assented to their dominion, it is not always in our own power alone to reassert our liberty. My husband grew very fond of the venerable old man, and they spent hours, and even days, together. What was the subject of their conversation, I knew not, and did not inquire.

“You returned to Paris, to prevent, if possible, the French from interfering to suppress the Roman Republic, by organizing a new insurrection of the Subterraneans, and by reminding the Prince-President of his previous republican and socialistic professions, and making it evident to him that the reëstablishment of the Pope would be fatal to the supremacy of the state, whether republican or imperial. During your absence you left me tranquil, and I began, for the first time since my marriage, to enjoy the sweets and tranquillity of domestic life. The good Franciscan would sometimes spend an evening with me and my husband. He was of a childlike simplicity, and of most winning manners, but a man of a cultivated mind, extensive information, and various and profound erudition. He discoursed much on the old Roman Republic and Empire, on the grasping ambition and tyranny of the government, the hollowness of the Roman virtues and the old Roman people, the cruel and impure nature of their religion, and the looseness and profligacy of their manners.

“He sketched then the introduction of Christianity, showed what enemies it had to encounter, why it was opposed, the change it introduced into the moral and social life of the people, its triumphs over paganism, its conversion and civilization of the northern barbarians, and the chastity, peace, and happiness it had introduced into the cottage of the peasant, the castle of the noble, and even the palace of the monarch. His views seemed clear and precise, and his mind seemed to be enlightened, and singularly free from the cant of his profession, and from that credulity, ignorance, and superstition which you and I had been accustomed to associate with the name of monk. To every question I asked, he had a clear and intelligent answer; and he was always able to give a reason, and what appeared a good reason, for whatever judgment he hazarded. He was evidently a man of an order of intellect, ideas, and culture entirely different from any that had fallen under my observation; and I must own that when I listened to him, I was charmed. I seemed to be under the gentle but superior influence of a good spirit. I felt calm and tranquil, and I wished that I too might believe, be pure, holy, a Christian like him.

“Weeks passed on. At length we had a chance to send him in safety to Portici, where the Holy Father then held his court. The evening before he was to leave us, he came into the sitting-room, and sat down by me. ‘My dear lady,’ said he, ‘I leave you to-morrow, and I shall not see you after to-night. You must permit me to thank you for your kindness to the poor old proscribed monk, and your evident desire to procure him comfort; all so much the more commendable in you, since you are a stranger, and not of my religion. I give you my thanks and my blessing; they are all I have to give; and I shall not cease to pray the good God, who is no respecter of persons, to reward you for your goodness, and to grant you his grace.

“‘But, my dear lady, I am a priest; I am also an old man, and have not many days to tarry here. Let me speak to you in all sincerity and freedom.’

“Do so, my father, said I, as my eyes filled with tears.

“‘You are still young and beautiful,’ said he; ‘you have naturally a kind and warm heart, an enthusiastic disposition, and a sincere love of truth and justice. But, my dear child, your education has been sadly neglected, and you have been trained to walk in a path that leadeth where you would not go. You have fallen among evil counsellors and evil doers, and you are entangled in the meshes of the adversary of souls. This cause, to which you give your heart, soul, and body, is not what you think it. You sought liberty, you have found slavery; you sought love, and you have found only hatred; you sought virtue, disinterestedness, fidelity,—you have found only vice, selfishness, and treachery; you sought peace and social regeneration,—you have found only strife, war, murder, assassination, confusion, anarchy, and oppression. For yourself personally, the only peaceful days you have known for years have been during the last few weeks; and your present peace is disturbed by a mysterious dread, that I need not name or explain to you.

“‘Ask yourself, my child, and answer to yourself, honestly, if you have not been deceived, and been acting under a fatal delusion. Ask yourself if it was not a terrible mistake you committed, when you took Satan for the principle of good, and the Christian’s God for the principle of evil.’

“But, _padre mio_, what shall I do? I have a suspicion that what you say is true. I have been a proud, vain, rash, wicked woman. But what shall I do? I am bound in chains; I am damned.

“‘Damned, not yet, my child. As long as there is life, there is hope. Those chains must be broken.’

“But they are too strong for me.

“‘True, true, my child, but not too strong for the Lion of the tribe of Judah. You must be assisted——’

“At that moment the door was burst open; a gang of ruffians rushed in, and fell upon the aged monk. The old man gave me one look, made rapidly the sign of the cross over my head, as I had dropped on my knees to implore them not to harm him. I might as well have pleaded to my marble jambs. They threw him down. He rose upon his knees, folded his hands across his breast, and with a bright, celestial expression, exclaimed, O God, pardon them, and lay not this sin to their charge, for they know not what they do,—when the leader of the gang plunged a dagger to his heart. His blood flowed out into my face, and over my dress. After a minute, they took up the body, and removed it and themselves from my house. Though protected, to some extent, by our American character, we did not think it prudent to remain longer in Rome, under the Republic; and the next day we started for Paris, where we rejoined you.”

“But you never told me of the fate of that old monk before.”

“True, why should I? I could not, before we had separated, have spoken of him to you without arousing your indignation, and inducing you to send me again on some of those terrible secret missions on which you had so often sent me, and which I so abhorred. But I can speak calmly now, and without fear; and let me beg you to ask yourself the question the old monk urged me to ask myself. Truth is truth, let it be spoken by whom it may; and there is no reason why we should not follow good advice, because given by a monk, even if monks have been all our lifetime the object of our wrath, or of our derision.”

“Priscilla, I have asked myself that question; but it is of no use. I have pledged myself, body and soul, and sworn that, come what might, I would never repent.”

“But that oath was unlawful, and cannot bind. He who has your pledge is a deceiver, had no right to ask it, has no right to hold it.”

“But I cannot free myself from these chains of death and hell which bind me.”

“Such as you have been, such as I fear you are, I am told seldom find mercy; but the deliverance is not impossible. I, worse than you, have found it.”

“That is not so certain. You are free, only because I, in a sudden fit of despair, freed you. But I have but to will, and you are as completely in my power as ever.”

“That I doubt. Except when you called me to emancipate me, you have exerted no power over me, since the good old priest was received into our house in Rome.”

“That is owing to my forbearance.”

“Will you swear that? Will you swear that, within twenty-four hours after you had declared me free, you did not use all your art to enthrall me again? Did you not call again and again, within a month, at my house, for that very purpose?”

“But you avoided me, and I could not so much as touch the hem of your robe.”

“Very true, for I feared you, and I dare not defy you even now; but I feel very certain that, under the protection of a name at which even devils must bow, I am safe from all your arts.”

As she said that I rose, walked once or twice across the room, came up before her, took her hand unresistingly, and placed my hand on her head. I trembled. I was struck dumb, for I perceived at once that I had no power there; and, though I evoked them, no spirits came to my aid. But before I had let go her hand, her husband came into the room, saw us, feared what I might do, drew his dagger, and before Priscilla could stop him, or offer a word of explanation, aimed a blow at my heart. Priscilla attempted to avert it, and so far succeeded, as to change somewhat its direction. It penetrated, however, the chest, reached the lungs, and inflicted a wound which, though it is apparently healed, and I seem to myself to be suffering only from pulmonary consumption, which wastes me away slowly but surely, my surgeon tells me will yet prove the occasion of my death.

The moment James, a man of peace, and not at all given to striking, had struck the blow, he was filled with terror at what he had done. I assured him, for I retained my presence of mind, which I never yet lost in any case in my life, that so far as I was concerned, he need not blame himself, for I deserved the blow, and had long foreseen that sooner or later his hand must deal it; but, had he delayed a moment, he would have found it unnecessary, that his wife was safe from my annoyances, and proof against any art I possessed. Priscilla, as soon as she recovered from her fright, rather than swoon, told him as much; and we both did all in our power to reassure and console him. But the matter must not be bruited abroad, and he must conceal it for his and Priscilla’s sake. It was concluded that I must remain for the present in their house. James did what he could to stanch my wound, aided me to remove to another room, and sent immediately for a surgeon whom we both knew and could trust. For several weeks I lay at their house, nursed with great care and tenderness, till I was able to be removed to my own house. It was rumored that I had been stabbed in the street, but such things not being rare in our cities, it excited very little remark; and suspicion, though it fell on the secret societies known to exist, fell upon no individual in particular, and no pains were taken to ferret out the supposed assassin. The fact was noted in the journals, and was instantly forgotten.