A Crystal Age: Chapter 18

Chapter 18

Chastel's words sank deep in my heart--deeper than words had ever sunk
before into that somewhat unpromising soil; and although she had
purposely left me in the dark with regard to many important matters, I
now resolved to win her esteem, and bind her yet more closely to me by
correcting those faults in my character she had pointed out with so much
tenderness.

Alas! the very next day was destined to bring me a sore trouble. On
entering the breakfast-room I became aware that a shadow had fallen on
the house. Among his silent people the father sat with gray, haggard
face and troubled eyes; then Yoletta entered, her sweet face looking
paler than when I had first seen it after her long punishment, while
under her heavy, drooping eyelids her skin was stained with that
mournful purple which tells of a long vigil and a heart oppressed with
anxiety. I heard with profound concern that Chastel's malady had
suddenly become aggravated; that she had passed the night in the
greatest suffering. What would become of me, and of all those bright
dreams of happiness, if she were to die? was my first idea. But at the
same time I had the grace to feel ashamed of that selfish thought.
Nevertheless, I could not shake off the gloom it had produced in me,
and, too distressed in mind to work or read, I repaired to the Mother's
Room, to be as near as possible to the sufferer on whose recovery so
much now depended. How lonely and desolate it seemed there, now that she
was absent! Those mountain landscapes, glowing with the white radiance
of mimic sunshine, still made perpetual summer; yet there seemed to be a
wintry chill and death-like atmosphere which struck to the heart, and
made me shiver with cold. The day dragged slowly to its close, and no
rest came to the sufferer, nor sign of improvement to relieve our
anxiety. Until past midnight I remained at my post, then retired for
three or four miserable, anxious hours, only to return once more when it
was scarcely light. Chastel's condition was still unchanged, or, if
there had been any change, it was for the worse, for she had not slept.
Again I remained, a prey to desponding thoughts, all day in the room;
but towards evening Yoletta came to take me to her mother. The summons
so terrified me that for some moments I sat trembling and unable to
articulate a word; for I could not but think that Chastel's end was
approaching. Yoletta, however, divining the cause of my agitation,
explained that her mother could not sleep for torturing pains in her
head, and wished me to place my hand on her forehead, to try whether
that would cause any relief. This seemed to me a not very promising
remedy; but she told me that on former occasions they had often
succeeded in procuring her ease by placing a hand on her forehead, and
that having failed now, Chastel had desired them to call me to her to
try my hand. I rose, and for the first time entered that sacred chamber,
where Chastel was lying on a low bed placed on a slightly raised
platform in the center of the floor. In the dim light her face looked
white as the pillow on which it rested, her forehead contracted with
sharp pain, while low moans came at short intervals from her twitching
lips; but her wide-open eyes were fixed on my face from the moment I
entered the room, and to me they seemed to express mental anguish rather
than physical suffering. At the head of the bed sat the father, holding
her hand in his; but when I entered he rose and made way for me,
retiring to the foot of the bed, where two of the women were seated. I
knelt beside the bed, and Yoletta raised and tenderly placed my right
hand on the mother's forehead, and, after whispering to me to let it
rest very gently there, she also withdrew a few paces.

Chastel did not speak, but for some minutes continued her low, piteous
moanings, only her eyes remained fixed on my face; and at last, becoming
uneasy at her scrutiny, I said in a whisper: "Dearest mother, do you
wish to say anything to me?"

"Yes, come nearer," she replied; and when I had bent my cheek close to
her face, she continued: "Do not fear, my son; I shall not die. I cannot
die until that of which I have spoken to you has been accomplished."

I rejoiced at her words, yet, at the same time, they gave me pain; for
it seemed as though she knew how much my heart had been troubled by that
ignoble fear.

"Dear mother, may I say something?" I asked, wishing to tell her of my
resolutions.

"Not now; I know what you wish to say," she returned. "Be patient and
hopeful always, and fear nothing, even though we should be long divided;
for it will be many days before I can leave this room to speak with you
again."

So softly had she whispered, that the others who stood so near were not
aware that she had spoken at all.

After this brief colloquy she closed her eyes, but for some time the low
moans of pain continued. Gradually they sank lower, and became less and
less frequent, while the lines of pain faded out of her white,
death-like face. And at length Yoletta, stealing softly to my side,
whispered, "She is sleeping," and withdrawing my hand, led me away.

When we were again in the Mother's Room she threw her arms about my neck
and burst into a tempest of tears.

"Dearest Yoletta, be comforted," I said, pressing her to my breast; "she
will not die."

"Oh, Smith, how do you know?" she returned quickly, looking up with her
eyes still shining with large drops.

Then, of Chastel's whispered words to me, I repeated those four, "I
shall not die," but nothing more; they were however, a great relief to
her, and her sweet, sorrowful face brightened like a drooping flower
after rain.

"Ah, she knew, then, that the touch of your hand would cause sleep, that
sleep would save her," she said, smiling up at me.

"And you, my darling, how long is it since you closed those sweet
eyelids that seem so heavy?"

"Not since I slept three nights ago."

"Will you sit by me here, resting your head on me, and sleep a little
now?"

"Not there!" she cried quickly. "Not on the mother's couch. But if you
will sit here, it will be pleasant if I can sleep for a little while,
resting on you."

I placed myself on the low seat she led me to, and then, when she had
coiled herself up on the cushions, with her arms still round my neck,
and her head resting on my bosom, she breathed a long happy sigh, and
dropped like a tired child to sleep.

How perfect my happiness would have been then, with Yoletta in my arms,
clasping her weary little ministering hands in mine, and tenderly
kissing her dark, shining hair, but for the fear that some person might
come there to notice and disturb me. And pretty soon I was startled to
see the father himself coming from Chastel's chamber to us. Catching
sight of me he paused, smiling, then advanced, and deliberately sat down
by my side.

"This one is sleeping also," he said cheerfully, touching the girl's
hair with his hand. "But you need not fear, Smith; I think we shall be
able to talk very well without waking her."

I had feared something quite different, if he had only known it, and
felt considerably relieved by his words; nevertheless, I was not
over-pleased at the prospect of a conversation just then, and should
have preferred being left alone with my precious burden.

"My son," he continued, placing a hand on my shoulder, "I sometimes
recall, not without a smile, the effect your first appearance produced
on us, when we were startled at your somewhat grotesque pilgrim costume.
Your attempts at singing, and ignorance of art generally, also impressed
me unfavorably, and gave me some concern when I thought about the
future--that is, _your_ future; for it seemed to me that you had
but slender foundations whereon to build a happy life. These doubts,
however, no longer trouble me; for on several occasions you have shown
us that you possess abundantly that richest of all gifts and safest
guide to happiness--the capacity for deep affection. To this spirit of
love in you--this summer of the heart which causes it to blossom with
beautiful thoughts and deeds--I attribute your success just now, when
the contact of your hand produced the long-desired, refreshing slumber
so necessary to the mother at this stage of her malady. I know that this
is a mysterious thing; and it is commonly said that in such cases relief
is caused by an emanation from the brain through the fingers. Doubtless
this is so; and I also choose to believe that only a powerful spirit of
love in the heart can rightly direct this subtle energy, that where such
a spirit is absent the desired effect cannot be produced."

"I do not know," I replied. "Great as my love and devotion is, I cannot
suppose it to equal, much less to surpass, that of others who yet failed
on this occasion to give relief."

"Yes, yes; only that is looking merely at the surface of the matter, and
leaving out of sight the unfathomable mysteries of a being compounded of
flesh and spirit. There are among our best instruments peculiar to this
house, especially those used chiefly in our harvest music, some of such
finely-tempered materials, and of so delicate a construction, that the
person wishing to perform on them must not only be inspired with the
melodious passion, but the entire system--body and soul--must be in the
proper mood, the flesh itself elevated into harmony with the exalted
spirit, else he will fail to elicit the tones or to give the expression
desired. This is a rough and a poor simile, when we consider how
wonderful an instrument a human being is, with the body that burns with
thought, and the spirit that quivers and cries with pain, and when we
think how its innumerable, complex chords may be injured and untuned by
suffering. The will may be ours, but something, we know not what,
interposes to defeat our best efforts. That you have succeeded in
producing so blessed a result, after we had failed, has served to deepen
and widen in our hearts the love we already felt for you; for how much
more precious is this melody of repose, this sweet interval of relief
from cruel pain the mother now experiences, than many melodies from
clear voices and trained hands."

In my secret heart I believed that he was taking much too lofty a view
of the matter; but I had no desire to argue against so flattering a
delusion, if it were one, and only wished that I could share it with
him.

"She is sleeping still," he said presently, "perhaps without pain, like
Yoletta here, and her sleep will now probably last for some hours."

"I pray Heaven that she may wake refreshed and free from pain," I
remarked.

He seemed surprised at my words, and looked searchingly into my face.
"My son," he said, "it grieves me, at a moment like the present, to have
to point out a great error to you; but it is an error hurtful to
yourself and painful to those who see it, and if I were to pass it over
in silence, or put off speaking of it to another time, I should not be
fulfilling the part of a loving father towards you."

Surprised at this speech, I begged him to tell me what I had said that
was wrong.

"Do you not then know that it is unlawful to entertain such a thought as
you have expressed?" he said. "In moments of supreme pain or bitterness
or peril we sometimes so far forget ourselves as to cry out to Heaven to
save us or to give us ease; but to make any such petition when we are in
the full possession of our faculties is unworthy of a reasonable being,
and an offense to the Father: for we pray to each other, and are moved
by such prayers, remembering that we are fallible, and often err through
haste and forgetfulness and imperfect knowledge. But he who freely gave
us life and reason and all good gifts, needs not that we should remind
him of anything; therefore to ask him to give us the thing we desire is
to make him like ourselves, and charge him with an oversight; or worse,
we attribute weakness and irresolution to him, since the petitioner
thinks my importunity to incline the balance in his favor."

I was about to reply that I had always considered prayer to be an
essential part of religion, and not of my form of religion only, but of
all religions all over the world. Luckily I remembered in time that he
probably knew more about matters "all over the world" than I did, and so
held my tongue.

"Have you any doubts on the subject?" he asked, after a while.

"I must confess that I still have some doubts," I replied. "I believe
that our Creator and Father desires the happiness of all his creatures
and takes no pleasure in seeing us miserable; for it would be impossible
not to believe it, seeing how greatly happiness overbalances misery in
the world. But he does not come to us in visible form to tell us in an
audible voice that to cry out to him in sore pain and distress is
unlawful. How, then, do we know this thing? For a child cries to its
mother, and a fledgling in the nest to its parent bird; and he is
infinitely more to us than parent to child--infinitely stronger to help,
and knows our griefs as no fellow-mortal can know them. May we not,
then, believe, without hurt to our souls, that the cry of one of his
children in affliction may reach him; that in his compassion, and by
means of his sovereign power over nature, he may give ease to the racked
body, and peace and joy to the desolate mind?"

"You ask me, How, then, do we know this thing? and you answer the
question yourself, yet fail to perceive that you answer it, when you say
that although he does not come in a visible form to teach us this thing
and that thing, yet we know that he desires our happiness; and to this
you might have added a thousand or ten thousand other things which we
know. If the reason he gave us to start with makes it unnecessary that
he should come to tell us in an audible voice that he desires our
happiness, it must also surely suffice to tell us which are lawful and
which unlawful of all the thoughts continually rising in our hearts.
That any one should question so evident and universally accepted a
truth, the foundation of all religion, seems very surprising to me. If
it had consisted with his plan to make these delicate mortal bodies
capable of every agreeable sensation in the highest degree, yet not
liable to accident, and not subject to misery and pain, he would surely
have done this for all of us. But reason and nature show us that such an
end did not consist with his plan; therefore to ask him to suspend the
operations of nature for the benefit of any individual sufferer, however
poignant and unmerited the sufferings may be, is to shut our eyes to the
only light he has given us. All our highest and sweetest feelings unite
with reason to tell us with one voice that he loves us; and our
knowledge of nature shows us plainly enough that he also loves all the
creatures inferior to man. To us he has given reason for a guide, and
for the guidance and protection of the lower kinds he has given
instinct: and though they do not know him, it would make us doubt his
impartial love for all his creatures, if we, by making use of our
reason, higher knowledge, and articulate speech, were able to call down
benefits on ourselves, and avert pain and disaster, while the dumb,
irrational brutes suffered in silence--the languishing deer that leaves
the herd with a festering thorn in its foot; the passage bird blown from
its course to perish miserably far out at sea."

His conclusions were perhaps more logical than mine; nevertheless,
although I could not argue the matter any more with him, I was not yet
prepared to abandon this last cherished shred of old beliefs, although
perhaps not cherished for its intrinsic worth, but rather because it had
been given to me by a sweet woman whose memory was sacred to my
heart--my mother before Chastel.

Fortunately, it was not necessary to continue the discussion any longer,
for at this juncture one of the watchers from the sick-room came to
report that the mother was still sleeping peacefully, hearing which, the
father rose to seek a little needful rest in an adjoining room. Before
going, however, he proposed, with mistaken kindness, to relieve me of my
burden, and place the girl without waking her on a couch. But I would
not consent to have her disturbed; and finally, to my great delight,
they left her still in my arms, the father warmly pressing my hand, and
advising me to reflect well on his words concerning prayer.

It was growing dark now, and how welcome that obscurity seemed, while
with no one nigh to see or hear I kissed her soft tresses a hundred
times, and murmured a hundred endearing words in her sleeping ears.

Her waking, which gave me a pang at first, afforded me in the end a
still greater bliss.

"Oh, how dark it is--where am I?" she exclaimed, starting suddenly from
repose.

"With me, sweetest," I said. "Do you not remember going to sleep on my
breast?"

"Yes; but oh, why did you not wake me sooner? My mother--my mother--"

"She is still quietly sleeping, dearest. Ah, I wish you also had
continued sleeping! It was such a delight to have you in my arms."

"My love!" she said, laying her soft cheek against mine. "How sweet it
was to fall asleep in your arms! When we came in here I could scarcely
say a word, for my heart was too full for speech; and now I have a
hundred things to say. After all, I should only finish by giving you a
kiss, which is more eloquent than speech; so I shall kiss you at once,
and save myself the trouble of talking so much."

"Say one of the hundred things, Yoletta."

"Oh, Smith, before this evening I did not think that I could love you
more; and sometimes, when I recalled what I once said to you--on the
hill, do you remember?--it seemed to me that I already loved you a
little too much. But now I am convinced that I was mistaken, for a
thousand offenses could not alienate my heart, which is all yours
forever."

"Mine for ever, without a doubt, darling?" I murmured, holding her
against my breast; and in my rapture almost forgetting that this angelic
affection she lavished on me would not long satisfy my heart.

"Yes, for ever, for you shall never, never leave the house. Your
pilgrimage, from which you derived so little benefit, is over now. And
if you ever attempt to go forth again to find out new wonders in the
world, I shall clasp you round with my arms, as I do now, and keep you
prisoner against your will; and if you say 'Farewell' a hundred times to
me, I shall blot out that sad word every time with my lips, and put a
better one in its place, until my word conquers yours."

Back to chapter list of: A Crystal Age