A Crystal Age: Chapter 13

Chapter 13

As I approached the building, soft strains floating far out into the
night-air became audible, and I knew that the sweet spirit of music, to
which they were all so devoted, was present with them. After listening
for awhile in the shadow of the portico I went in, and, anxious to avoid
disturbing the singers, stole away into a dusky corner, where I sat down
by myself. Yoletta had, however, seen me enter, for presently she came
to me.

"Why did you not come in to supper, Smith?" she said. "And why do you
look so sad?"

"Do you need to ask, Yoletta? Ah, it would have made me so happy if I
could have won your mother's affection! If she only knew how much I wish
for it, and how much I sympathize with her! But she will never like me,
and all I wished to say to her must be left unsaid."

"No, not so," she said. "Come with me to her now: if you feel like that,
she will be kind to you--how should it be otherwise?"

I greatly feared that she advised me to take an imprudent step; but she
was my guide, my teacher and friend in the house, and I resolved to do
as she wished. There were no lights in the long gallery when we entered
it again, only the white moonbeams coming through the tall windows here
and there lit up a column or a group of statues, which threw long, black
shadows on floor and Wall, giving the chamber a weird appearance. Once
more, when I reached the middle of the room, I paused, for there before
me, ever bending forward, sat that wonderful woman of stone, the
moonlight streaming full on her pale, wistful face and silvery hair.

"Tell me, Yoletta, who is this?" I whispered. "Is it a statue of some
one who lived in this house?"

"Yes; you can read about her in the history of the house, and in this
inscription on the stone. She was a mother, and her name was Isarte."

"But why has she that strange, haunting expression on her face? Was she
unhappy?"

"Oh, can you not see that she was unhappy! She endured many sorrows, and
the crowning calamity of her life was the loss of seven loved sons. They
were away in the mountains together, and did not return when expected:
for many years she waited for tidings of them. It was conjectured that a
great rock had fallen on and crushed them beneath it. Grief for her lost
children made her hair white, and gave that expression to her face."

"And when did this happen?"

"Over two thousand years ago."

"Oh, then it is a very old family tradition. But the statue--when was
that made and placed here?"

"She had it made and placed here herself. It was her wish that the grief
she endured should be remembered in the house for all time, for no one
had ever suffered like her; and the inscription, which she caused to be
put on the stone, says that if there shall ever come to a mother in the
house a sorrow exceeding hers, the statue shall be removed from its
place and destroyed, and the fragments buried in the earth with all
forgotten things, and the name of Isarte forgotten in the house."

It oppressed my mind to think of so long a period of time during which
that unutterably sad face had gazed down on so many generations of the
living. "It is most strange!" I murmured. "But do you think it right,
Yoletta, that the grief of one person should be perpetuated like that in
the house; for who can look on this face without pain, even when it is
remembered that the sorrow it expresses ended so many centuries ago?"

"But she was a mother, Smith, do you not understand? It would not be
right for us to wish to have our griefs remembered for ever, to cause
sorrow to those who succeed us; but a mother is different: her wishes
are sacred, and what she wills is right."

Her words surprised me not a little, for I had heard of infallible men,
but never of women; moreover, the woman I was now going to see was also
a "mother in the house," a successor to this very Isarte. Fearing that I
had touched on a dangerous topic, I said no more, and proceeding on our
way, we soon reached the mother's room, the large glass door of which
now stood wide open. In the pale light of the moon--for there was no
other in the room--we found Chastel on the couch where I had seen her
before, but she was lying extended at full length now, and had only one
attendant with her.

Yoletta approached her, and, stooping, touched her lips to the pale,
still face. "Mother," she said, "I have brought Smith again; he is
anxious to say something to you, if you will hear him."

"Yes, I will hear him," she replied. "Let him sit near me; and now go
back, for your voice is needed. And you may also leave me now," she
added, addressing the other lady.

The two then departed together, and I proceeded to seat myself on a
cushion beside the couch.

"What is it you wish to say to me?" she asked. The words were not very
encouraging, but her voice sounded gentler now, and I at once began.
"Hush," she said, before I had spoken two words. "Wait until this
ends--I am listening to Yoletta's voice."

Through the long, dusky gallery and the open doors soft strains of music
were floating to us, and now, mingling with the others, a clearer,
bell-like voice was heard, which soared to greater heights; but soon
this ceased to be distinguishable, and then she sighed and addressed me
again. "Where have you been all the evening, for you were not at
supper?"

"Did you know that?" I asked in surprise.

"Yes, I know everything that passes in the house. Reading and work of
all kinds are a pain and weariness. The only thing left to me is to
listen to what others do or say, and to know all their comings and
goings. My life is nothing now but a shadow of other people's lives."

"Then," I said, "I must tell you how I spent the time after seeing you
to-day; for I was alone, and no other person can say what I did. I went
away along the river until I came to the grove of great trees on the
bank, and there I sat until the moon rose, with my heart full of
unspeakable pain and bitterness."

"What made you have those feelings?"

"When I heard of you, and saw you, my heart was drawn to you, and I
wished above all things in the world to be allowed to love and serve
you, and to have a share in your affection; but your looks and words
expressed only contempt and dislike towards me. Would it not have been
strange if I had not felt extremely unhappy?"

"Oh," she replied, "now I can understand the reason of the surprise your
words have often caused in the house! Your very feelings seem unlike
ours. No other person would have experienced the feelings you speak of
for such a cause. It is right to repent your faults, and to bear the
burden of them quietly; but it is a sign of an undisciplined spirit to
feel bitterness, and to wish to cast the blame of your suffering on
another. You forget that I had reason to be deeply offended with you.
You also forget my continual suffering, which sometimes makes me seem
harsh and unkind against my will."

"Your words seem only sweet and gracious now," I returned. "They have
lifted a great weight from my heart, and I wish I could repay you for
them by taking some portion of your suffering on myself."

"It is right that you should have that feeling, but idle to express it,"
she answered gravely. "If such wishes could be fulfilled my sufferings
would have long ceased, since any one of my children would gladly lay
down his life to procure me ease."

To this speech, which sounded like another rebuke, I made no reply.

"Oh, this is bitterness indeed--a bitterness you cannot know," she
resumed after a while. "For you and for others there is always the
refuge of death from continued sufferings: the brief pang of
dissolution, bravely met, is nothing in comparison with a lingering
agony like mine, with its long days and longer nights, extending to
years, and that great blackness of the end ever before the mind. This
only a mother can know, since the horror of utter darkness, and vain
clinging to life, even when it has ceased to have any hope or joy in it,
is the penalty she must pay for her higher state."

I could not understand all her words, and only murmured in reply: "You
are young to speak of death."

"Yes, young; that is why it is so bitter to think of. In old age the
feelings are not so keen." Then suddenly she put out her hands towards
me, and, when I offered mine, caught my fingers with a nervous grasp and
drew herself to a sitting position. "Ah, why must I be afflicted with a
misery others have not known!" she exclaimed excitedly. "To be lifted
above the others, when so young; to have one child only; then after so
brief a period of happiness, to be smitten with barrenness, and this
lingering malady ever gnawing like a canker at the roots of life! Who
has suffered like me in the house? You only, Isarte, among the dead. I
will go to you, for my grief is more than I can bear; and it may be that
I shall find comfort even in speaking to the dead, and to a stone. Can
you bear me in your arms?" she said, clasping me round the neck. "Take
me up in your arms and carry me to Isarte."

I knew what she meant, having so recently heard the story of Isarte, and
in obedience to her command I raised her from the couch. She was tall,
and heavier than I had expected, though so greatly emaciated; but the
thought that she was Yoletta's mother, and the mother of the house,
nerved me to my task, and cautiously moving step by step through the
gloom, I carried her safely to that white-haired, moonlit woman of stone
in the long gallery. When I had ascended the steps and brought her
sufficiently near, she put her arms about the statue, and pressed its
stony lips with hers.

"Isarte, Isarte, how cold your lips are!" she murmured, in low,
desponding tones. "Now, when I look into these eyes, which are yours,
and yet not yours, and kiss these stony lips, how sorely does the hunger
in my heart tempt me to sin! But suffering has not darkened my reason; I
know it is an offense to ask anything of Him who gives us life and all
good things freely, and has no pleasure in seeing us miserable. This
thought restrains me; else I would cry to Him to turn this stone to
flesh, and for one brief hour to bring back to it the vanished spirit of
Isarte. For there is no one living that can understand my pain; but you
would understand it, and put my tired head against your breast, and
cover me with your grief-whitened hair as with a mantle. For your pain
was like mine, and exceeded mine, and no soul could measure it,
therefore in the hunger of your heart you looked far off into the
future, where some one would perhaps have a like affliction, and suffer
without hope, as you suffered, and measure your pain, and love your
memory, and feel united with you, even over the gulf of long centuries
of time. You would speak to me of it all, and tell me that the greatest
grief was to go away into darkness, leaving no one with your blood and
your spirit to inherit the house. This also is my grief, Isarte, for I
am barren and eaten up by death, and must soon go away to be where you
are. When I am gone, the father of the house will take no other one to
his bosom, for he is old, and his life is nearly complete; and in a
little while he will follow me, but with no pain and anguish like mine
to cloud his serene spirit. And who will then inherit our place? Ah, my
sister, how bitter to think of it! for then a stranger will be the
mother of the house, and my one only child will sit at her feet, calling
her mother, serving her with her hands, and loving and worshiping her
with her heart!"

The excitement had now burned itself out: she had dropped her head
wearily on my shoulder, and bade me take her back. When I had safely
deposited her on the couch again, she remained for some minutes with her
face covered, silently weeping.

The scene in the gallery had deeply affected me; now, however, while I
sat by her, pondering over it, my mind reverted to that vanished world
of sorrow and different social conditions in which I had lived, and
where the lot of so many poor suffering souls seemed to me so much more
desolate than that of this unhappy lady, who had, I imagined, much to
console her. It even seemed to me that the grief I had witnessed was
somewhat morbid and overstrained; and, thinking that it would perhaps
divert her mind from brooding too much over her own troubles, I
ventured, when she had grown calm again, to tell her some of my
memories. I asked her to imagine a state of the world and the human
family, in which all women were, in one sense, on an equality--all
possessing the same capacity for suffering; and where all were, or would
be, wives and mothers, and without any such mysterious remedy against
lingering pain as she had spoken of. But I had not proceeded far with my
picture before she interrupted me.

"Do not say more," she said, with an accent of displeasure. "This, I
suppose, is another of those grotesque fancies you sometimes give
expression to, about which I heard a great deal when you first came to
us. That all people should be equal, and all women wives and mothers
seems to me a very disordered and a very repulsive idea The one
consolation in my pain, the one glory of my life could not exist in such
a state as that, and my condition would be pitiable indeed. All others
would be equally miserable. The human race would multiply, until the
fruits of the soil would be insufficient for its support; and earth
would be filled with degenerate beings, starved in body and debased in
mind--all clinging to an existence utterly without joy. Life is dark to
me, but not to others: these are matters beyond you, and it is
presumptuous in one of your condition to attempt to comfort me with idle
fancies."

After some moments of silence, she resumed: "The father has said to-day
that you came to us from an island where even the customs of the people
are different from ours; and perhaps one of their unhappy methods is to
seek to medicine a real misery by imagining some impossible and
immeasurably greater one. In no other way can I account for your strange
words to me; for I cannot believe that any race exists so debased as
actually to practice the things you speak of. Remember that I do not ask
or desire to be informed. We have a different way; for although it is
conceivable that present misery might be mitigated, or forgotten for a
season, by giving up the soul to delusions, even by summoning before the
mind repulsive and horrible images, that would be to put to an unlawful
use, and to pervert, the brightest faculties our Father has given us:
therefore we seek no other support in all sufferings and calamities but
that of reason only. If you wish for my affection, you will not speak of
such things again, but will endeavor to purify yourself from a mental
vice, which may sometimes, in periods of suffering, give you a false
comfort for a brief season, only to degrade you, and sink you later in a
deeper misery. You must now leave me."

This unexpected and sharp rebuke did not anger me, but it made me very
sad; for I now perceived plainly enough that no great advantage would
come to me from Chastel's acquaintance, since it was necessary to be so
very circumspect with her. Deeply troubled, and in a somewhat confused
state of mind, I rose to depart. Then she placed her thin, feverish
white hand on mine. "You need not go away again," she said, "to indulge
in bitter feelings by yourself because I have said this to you. You may
come with the others to see me and talk to me whenever I am able to sit
here and bear it. I shall not remember your offense, but shall be glad
to know that there is another soul in the house to love and honor me."

With such comfort as these words afforded I returned to the music-room,
and, finding it empty, went out to the terrace, where the others were
now strolling about in knots and couples, conversing and enjoying the
lovely moonlight. Wandering a little distance away by myself, I sat down
on a bench under a tree, and presently Yoletta came to me there, and
closely scrutinized my face.

"Have you nothing to tell me?" she asked. "Are you happier now?"

"Yes, dearest, for I have been spoke to very kindly; and I should have
been happier if only--" But I checked myself in time, and said no more
to her about my conversation with the mother. To myself I said: "Oh,
that island, that island! Why can't I forget its miserable customs, or,
at any rate, stick to my own resolution to hold my tongue about them?"

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