CHAPTER XXXI.
THE MAGICIAN'S WIFE.
All the rumbling of the coaches, the booming of the bells swingingto the full extent, the rolling of the drums, all the majesty of thesociety the Princess Louise had discarded in order to live in thenunnery, glided over her soul and died away at the base of her cellwall, like the useless tide. She had refused to return to the court,and while her sisterhood were still agitated by the royal visit, shealone did not quiver when the heavy door banged and shut out the worldfrom her solitude.
She summoned her treasurer to her.
"During these two days of frivolous uproar," she inquired, "have thepoor been visited, the sick attended, and those soldiers on guard givenbread and wine!"
"Nobody has wanted in this house."
Suddenly the kick of a horse was heard against the woodwork of thestables.
"What is that? Has any courtier remained?"
"Only his eminence the Cardinal de Rohan; that is the horse of theItalian lady who came here yesterday to crave hospitality of yourhighness."
"True; I remember. Where is she?"
"In her room, or in the church. She refuses all food save bread, andprayed in the chapel all through the night."
"Some very guilty person, no doubt," said the lady superior, frowning.
"I know not, for she speaks to no one."
"What is she like?"
"Handsome, but proud, along with tenderness."
"How did she act during the royal ceremony?"
"She peeped out of her window, hiding in the curtains, and examinedeverybody as though she feared to see an enemy."
"Some member of the class which I have reigned over. What is her name?"
"Lorenza Feliciani."
"I know of no person of that name, but show her in."
Princess Louise sat in an ancient oak chair, carved in the reign ofHenri II. and used by nine Carmelite abbesses. Before this seat ofjustice many poor novices had quailed between spiritual and temporalpower.
A moment following the treasurer returned, ushering in the foreignerwhom we know; she wore a long veil. With the piercing eye of her race,Princess Louise studied Lorenza on her entering the closet; but herhostile feelings became sisterly and benevolent on seeing so much graceand humility in the visitor, so much sublime beauty, and, in short, somuch innocence in the large black eyes wet with tears.
The princess prevented her dropping on her knees.
"Draw near and speak," said she. "Are you called Lorenza Feliciani?"
"Yes, lady."
"You want to confide a secret to me?"
"I am dying with the desire."
"But why do you not go to the penitential chamber? I have no power butto console; a priest can comfort and forgive." She spoke the last wordhesitatingly.
"I need comfort alone; and to a woman alone can I entrust myconfession. Will you listen patiently to my most strange story, to betold to you alone, for you are mighty, and I require the hand of heavento defend me."
"Defend? Are you pursued and attacked?"
"Yes, indeed, my lady," said the fugitive, with unutterable fright.
"Reflect, madame, that this is a nunnery and not a castle," said theprincess; "what agitates mankind enters here but to be extinguished;weapons to use against man are not here; it is the abode of God, not ofmight, repression and justice."
"The very thing I seek," answered Lorenza; "in the abode of God alonecan I find a life of rest."
"But not of vengeance. If you want reprisal on your foes, apply to themagistrates."
"They can do nothing against the man whom I dread."
"Who can he be?" asked the lady superior, with secret and involuntaryfright.
"Who?" said the Italian, approaching the princess-abbess under the swayof mysterious exaltation. "I am certain that he is one of those devilswho war against mankind, endowed by their Prince Satan with superhumanpower."
"What are you telling me?" said the other, regarding the woman to makesure that she was not mad.
"What a wretch am I to have fallen across the path of this demon,"groaned Lorenza, writhing her lovely arms, seemingly reft from aflawless ancient statue. "I am possessed of a fiend," she gasped, goingup to the lady and speaking in a low voice, as if afraid to hear herown tones.
"Possessed! Speak out, if you are in your senses."
"I am not mad, though I may become so, if you drive me away."
"But allow me to say that I see you like a creature favored by heaven;you seem rich and are beauteous; you express yourself correctly, andyour face does not wear traces of the terrible and mysterious complaintcalled demoniac possession."
"In my life, madame, and its adventures resides the sinister secretwhich I wish I could keep from myself. Lady, I am a Roman, where myfather came of the old patricians, but like most Roman nobles, heis poor. I have also a mother and elder brother. In France, when anaristocratic family has a son and a daughter, she is put into a nunnerythat the money which should have been her marriage portion shall buythe son a military commission. Among us, the daughter is sacrificed tohelp the son rise in holy orders. I was given no education, while mybrother was trained to be a cardinal, as my mother simply said. I wasdestined to take the veil among the Subiaco Carmelites. Such a futurehad been held out to me from youth as a necessity. I had no will orstrength in the matter. I was not consulted but ordered, and had toobey. We Roman girls love society without knowing anything about it,as the suffering souls in paradise love heaven. I was surrounded byexamples which would have doomed me, had the idea of resistance cometo me, but none such came. But my mother fondled me a little more thanusual when the fatal day dawned.
"My father gathered five hundred Roman crowns to pay my entrance feeinto the convent, and we set out for Subiaco. It is some nine leaguesfrom Rome; but the mountain roads were so bad that we were five hoursgetting over three of them. But the journey pleased me, though it mightbe fatiguing. I smiled on it as my last pleasure, and along the roadbade farewell to the trees, bushes, stones and the dried grass itself.I feared that in the nunnery would be not even grass and flowers.
"Suddenly, amid my dreams, and as we were passing between a grove anda pile of rocks, the carriage stopped. I heard my mother scream, andmy father jumped to get his pistols. My eyes and mind dropped from theskies to the earth, for we were stopped by highwaymen."
"Poor girl!" exclaimed Princess Louise, interested in the tale.
"I was not frightened, for the brigands waylaid us for money, and whatthey took was to pay my way into the nunnery; hence there would be adelay until it was made up again, and I knew that it would take timeand trouble. But when, after sharing this plunder, the bandits, insteadof letting us go our way, sprang upon me, and I saw my father's effortsto defend me and my mother's tears in entreaty, then I comprehendedthat a great though unknown misfortune threatened me, and I began tocall for mercy. It was natural, though I knew that it was uselesscalling and that nobody would hear in this wild spot. Hence, withoutheeding my father's struggles, my mother's weeping, or my appeals, thebanditti tied my hands behind my back, and began throwing dice on oneof their handkerchiefs spread on the ground, while burning me withhideous glances, which I understood from terror giving me clearness ofsight.
"What most frightened me was not to see any stake on the board. Ishuddered as the dice cup passed from hand to hand, at the thought thatI was the stake.
"All of a sudden, one of them, with a yell of triumph, jumped up, whilethe others ground their teeth and swore. He ran up to me, took me inhis arms and pressed his lips to mine. The contact of redhot iron couldnot have drawn a more heartrending scream from me.
"'Rather death, O God!' I shrieked.
"My mother writhed on the ground where my father lay, in a dead swoon.My only hope was that one of the losing villains would kill me out ofspite with the dagger he held in his clenched fist. I waited for thisstroke--longed, prayed for it.
"Suddenly a horseman rode up the path. He spoke to one of thesentinels
, who let him pass, exchanging a sign with him. He was ofmedium stature, imposing in mien and resolute in gaze. He came on atthe walking pace of his horse, calm and tranquil. He stopped in frontof me. The bandit who had clutched me turned round sharply at the firstblow of the whistle which the stranger carried in the handle of hisriding whip. He let me drop to the ground.
"'Come here,' said the horseman, and as the bandit hesitated, he formeda triangle with his arms, crossing his forefingers upon his breast.
"As though this were the token of a mighty master, the robber went upto the stranger, who stooped down to his ear, and said:
"'Mak.'
"I am sure he uttered but this single word, for I looked at him as onelooks at the knife about to slay oneself, and listened as one does forthe sentence of life or death.
"'Benak,' answered the highwayman.
"Subdued like a lion, with growling, he returned to me, untied the roperound my wrists, and did the same release for my parents. As the coinhad been shared, every man went and put his portion on a flat rock. Nota piece was missing. Meanwhile I felt myself coming to life again inthe hands of my father and mother.
"'Be off,' said the deliverer to the robbers, who obeyed and dived intothe wood to the last man.
"'Lorenza Feliciani,' said the stranger, covering me with a superhumangaze, 'you are free to go your way.'
"My father and mother thanked the stranger who knew me and yet wasunknown to us. They stepped into the carriage where I followed themwith regret, for some unknown power irresistibly attracted me towardmy savior. He remained unstirring in the same spot, as if to continuebetween us and harm. I looked at him as long as I could and theoppression on my bosom did not go off until he was lost to view. In acouple of hours we reached Subiaco."
"But who was this extraordinary man?" cried Princess Louise, moved bythe simplicity of the story.
"Kindly let me finish. Alas! this is not the whole of it.
"On the road, we three did nothing but talk about the singularliberator who had come mysteriously and powerfully like an agent ofheaven. Less credulous than me, my father suspected him to be one ofthose heads of the robber leagues infesting the suburbs of Rome, whohave absolute authority to reward, punish and share. Though I could notargue against my father's experience, I obeyed instinct and the effectof my gratitude, and did not believe him a robber. In my prayers to theMadonna, I set aside a special one for her to bless my savior.
"That same day I entered the convent. As the money was ready, nothingprevented my reception. I was sad but more resigned than ever. Asuperstitious Italian, I believed that heaven had protected me fromthe devils to hand me over pure to the religious haven. So I yieldedwith eagerness to the wishes of my parents and the lady superior. Apetition to be made a nun without having to go through the novitiatein the white veil was placed before me, and I signed it. My father hadwritten it in such fervent strains that the pope must have thought therequest was the ardent aspiration of a soul disgusted with the worldand turning to solitude. The plea was granted and I only had to be anovice for one month. The news caused me neither joy nor displeasure.I seemed already to be dead to the world, and a corpse with simply theimpassible spirit outliving it.
"They kept me immured a fortnight for fear the worldly craving wouldseize me, and on the fifteenth morning ordered me to go down into thechapel with the other sisters.
"In Italy, the convent chapels are public churches, the pope notbelieving that priests should make a private house of any place setaside for the worshippers of the Divine.
"I went into the choir and took my place. Between the green screenssupposed to veil the choir in was a space through which the nave couldbe viewed. By this peep-crack out on the world I saw a man standing byhimself among the kneeling crowd. The previous feeling of uneasinesscame over me once more--the superhuman attraction to my soul to draw itforth, as I have seen my brother move iron filings on a sheet of paperby waving a magnet underneath it.
"Alas! vanquished and subjugated, with no power to withstand thisattraction, I bent toward him, clasping my hands as in worship, andwith lips and heart I sent him my thanks. My sisters stared at me withsurprise, for they had not comprehended my words nor my movement. Tofollow the direction of my gesture and glance, they rose on tiptoeto peer over into the nave, and I trembled; but the stranger haddisappeared. They questioned me, but I only blushed and faltered, asnext I turned pale.
"From that time, madame," said Lorenza, in despair, "I have lived inthe control of the devil!"
"I cannot say I see anything supernatural in this," observed theprincess, with a smile. "Pray be calm, and proceed."
"You do not know what I feel. The demon possesses me entirely--body andsoul. Love would not make me suffer so much; would not shake me like atree by the storm, and would not give me the wicked thoughts coming tome. I ought to confess these to the priest, and the demon bids me notto think of such a thing.
"One day a pious friend, a neighbor and a Roman lady, came to see me.She passed most of the time praying before the image of the Virgin.That night in undressing I found a note in the lining of my robe. Itcontained these lines:
"'It is death here in Rome for a nun to love a man. But will you not risk death for him who saved your life?'
"That made his possession of me complete, lady; for I should lie if Isaid that I thought about anybody more than I do about that man."
Frightened at her own words, Lorenza stopped to study the abbess' sweetand intelligent countenance.
"This is not demoniac possession," said Louise of France with firmness."It is but an unfortunate passion, and unless in the state of regret,human passions have no business here."
"Regret? you see me in tears, on my knees, entreating you to deliver mefrom the power of this infernal wretch, and you talk of my regret? Morethan that, I feel remorse!
"My misery could not escape my companions' eyes. The superior wasnotified, and she acquainted my mother. Only three days after I hadtaken the vows, I saw the three persons enter my cell who were my onlykin--my mother, father and brother. They came to embrace me for thelast time, they said, but I saw that they had another aim. Left alonewith me, my mother questioned me. The influence of the demon was plainonce more, for I was stubbornly silent.
"The day when I was to take the black veil came amid a terriblestruggle with myself, for I feared that then the fiend would work hisworst. Yet I trusted that heaven would save me as it had when therobbers seized me, forgetting that heaven had sent that man to rescueme.
"The hour of the ceremonial arrived. Pale, uneasy, but not apparentlymore agitated than usual, I went down into the church. I hurriedlyassented to everything, for was I not in the holy edifice and was I notmy own mistress while that demon was out of the way? All at once I feltthat his step was on the sill; irresistible attraction as before causedme to turn my eyes away from the altar, whatever my efforts.
"All my strength fled me, even while the scissors were thrust forwardto cut my hair off--my soul seemed to leap out of my throat to go andmeet him, and I fell prostrate on the stone slabs. Not like a womanswooning but like one in a trance. I only heard a murmur, when theceremony was interrupted by a dreadful tumult."
The princess clasped her hands in compassion.
"Was not this a dreadful event," said the Roman, "in which it was easyto recognize the intervention of the enemy of mankind?"
"Poor woman!" said the abbess, with tender pity; "take care! I amafraid that you are apt to attribute to the wonderful what was butnatural weakness. I suppose you saw this man, and you fainted away.There was nothing more. Continue."
"Madame, when I came to my senses," said Lorenza, "it was night. Iexpected to find myself in the chapel or in my cell. But I saw rocksand trees around me; clouds; I was in a grotto and beside me was a man,that persecutor! I touched myself to make sure if I were alive and notdreaming. I screamed, for I was clad in bridal white. On my brow was awreath or white roses--such as the bride of man--or in religion--wears."
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br /> The princess uttered an exclamation.
"Next day," resumed the Italian, sobbing, and hiding her head in herhands, "I reckoned the time which had elapsed, I had been three days inthe trance, ignorant of what transpired."