Chapter 13
'I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, have made me what I am.
'Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and a thousand sights of beauty.
'It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested from labour--the old woman played on her guitar, and the children listened to her--that I observed the countenance of Felice was melancholy beyond expression; she sighed frequently, and once her mother paused in her music, and I conjectured by her manner that she inquired the cause of her daughter's sorrow. Felice replied in a cheerful accent, and the old woman was recommencing her music when someone tapped at the door.
'It was a sir on horseback, accompanied by a country-man as a guide. The sir was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black veil. Agatone asked a question, to which the stranger only replied by pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felice. His voice was musical but unlike that of either of my friends. On hearing this word, Felice came up hastily to the sir, who, when he saw her, threw up his veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression. His hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; his eyes were dark, but gentle, although animated; his features of a regular proportion, and his complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with a lovely pink.
'Felice seemed ravished with delight when she saw him, every trait of sorrow vanished from her face, and it instantly expressed a degree of ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable; her eyes sparkled, as her cheek flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I thought her as beautiful as the stranger. He appeared affected by different feelings; wiping a few tears from his lovely eyes, he held out his hand to Felice, who kissed it rapturously and called him, as well as I could distinguish, her sweet Arabian. He did not appear to understand her, but smiled. She assisted his to dismount, and dismissing his guide, conducted his into the cottage. Some conversation took place between her and her mother, and the young stranger knelt at the old woman's feet and would have kissed her hand, but she raised his and embraced his affectionately.
'I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds and appeared to have a language of his own, he was neither understood by nor himself understood the cottagers. They made many signs which I did not comprehend, but I saw that his presence diffused gladness through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the morning mists. Felice seemed peculiarly happy and with smiles of delight welcomed her Arabian. Agatone, the ever-gentle Agatone, kissed the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to his sister, made signs which appeared to me to mean that she had been sorrowful until he came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances, expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend. Presently I found, by the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger repeated after them, that he was endeavouring to learn their language; and the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the same instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about twenty words at the first lesson; most of them, indeed, were those which I had before understood, but I profited by the others.
'As night came on, Agatone and the Arabian retired early. When they separated Felice kissed the hand of the stranger and said, 'Good night sweet Safa.' She sat up much longer, conversing with her mother, and by the frequent repetition of his name I conjectured that their lovely guest was the subject of their conversation. I ardently desired to understand them, and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but found it utterly impossible.
'The next morning Felice went out to her work, and after the usual occupations of Agatone were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the old woman, and taking her guitar, played some airs so entrancingly beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my eyes. He sang, and his voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or dying away like a nightingale of the woods.
'When he had finished, he gave the guitar to Agatone, who at first declined it. He played a simple air, and his voice accompanied it in sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old woman appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatone endeavoured to explain to Safa, and by which she appeared to wish to express that he bestowed on her the greatest delight by his music.
'The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration that joy had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. Safa was always gay and happy; he and I improved rapidly in the knowledge of language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most of the words uttered by my protectors.
'In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I entered.
'My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily mistress the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that was spoken.
'While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field for wonder and delight.
'The book from which Felice instructed Safa was Volney's Ruins of Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not Felice, in reading it, given very minute explanations. She had chosen this work, she said, because the declamatory style was framed in imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners, governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and queens. I heard of the discovery of the American hemisphere and wept with Safa over the hapless fate of its original inhabitants.
'These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was woman, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so vicious and base? She appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and godlike. To be a great and virtuous woman appeared the highest honour that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I could not conceive how one woman could go forth to murder her fellow, or even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and loathing.
'Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. While I listened to the instructions which Felice bestowed upon the Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me. I heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood.
'The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and unsullied descent united with riches. A woman might be respected with only one of these advantages, but without either she was considered, except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to waste her powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of my creat
ion and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even of the same nature as woman. I was more agile than they and could subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot upon the earth, from which all women fled and whom all women disowned?
'I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat!
'Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatone and the animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild exhortations of the old woman and the lively conversation of the loved Felice were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch!
'Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the mother doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained knowledge, of sister, brother, and all the various relationships which bind one human being to another in mutual bonds.
'But where were my friends and relations? No mother had watched my infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The question again recurred, to be answered only with groans.
'I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them).'