SAN SALVADOR.
SAN SALVADOR.
SAN SALVADOR.
SAN SALVADOR.
CHAPTER I.
It was a still night, and all eastward-looking Venice, above a certain height, was enameled as with ivory by the light of a moon but little past its full. Below, flickering reflections from the water danced on the dark walls. The bending lines of street lamps showed in dull golden blotches in that radiant air. The same golden spots were visible on gun-boat or steamship, and on a gondola moored at the steps of Casa Mora.
Above this waiting gondola a window stood wide open to the night. It seemed to be the only open window in Venice. All the others had their iron shutters closed.
Seen from without, this open window was as dark as the mouth of a cave. But inside, so penetrating an effulgence filled the room, one might have read the titles of the books in cases that lined all the walls.
The wide-open, curtainless window admitted a square of moonlight so splendid as to seem tangible; and in the midst of it, on a pallet, lay the oldprofessor, his face, hair, and beard almost as white as the pillow they rested on. A slender girl knelt at his right hand, her head bowed down. One could see that her thick knot of hair was floss-fine and gold-tinted, and her neck white and smooth. At the opposite side of the couch a young man was seated, bending toward it. In an arm-chair near the foot, with her back to the light, sat a woman. Her cheek resting on her hand, she gazed intently at the dying man.
After a prolonged silence he stirred, and stretched a thin hand to touch the girl’s head.
“Go and rest awhile, my Tacita!” he said. “I will recall thee. Go, Elena. I will recall thee.”
The two rose at once and went out of the room, hand in hand, closing the door.
“I charge thee to let the girl alone!” Professor Mora exclaimed the moment they were gone.
The young man started.
“This is no time for idle compliments,” the other pursued with a certain vehemence. “I know that thou hast taken a fancy to Tacita because she is beautiful and good. She is of a tender nature, and may have some leaning toward thee. I should have been a more jealous guardian of both.”
“I know that my mother has been here to-day,” Don Claudio said bitterly.
“Thy mother is a worldly woman,” the old man replied. “But in this she is right. Marry the girl they have chosen for thee. It is not in thy nature, boy, to be immovable and persistent inrebellion even against manifest injustice. Thy protest would be the passion of a moment. They would wear out thy courage and endurance. But even with their consent, Tacita is not for thee. I forbid it! Dost thou hear, Don Claudio Loredan? I forbid it!”
“You seemed to like me!” Don Claudio exclaimed reproachfully.
The professor moved his hand toward the speaker. “I love thee, Claudio. But that makes no difference. He who would have Tacita must live even as I have, without luxury or splendor, striving to learn what human life means, and following the best law that his soul knows.”
The young man sighed. He had no such plan of life.
“It will be a moment’s pain,” the other went on. “But thy honor and her peace are at stake. I charge thee”—he half rose in his earnestness—“I charge thee to let the girl alone! Remember that one day thou wilt have to lie as I lie here now, all earthly passion burned to ashes, and only the record of thy conscience to support, or cast thee down.”
“Be tranquil!” said Don Claudio faintly, and bowed his face into his hands. “I will obey.”
The old man sank back upon his pillow with a murmured word of blessing, and looked out at the violet sky. For a while he remained silent. Then he spoke again, as if soliloquizing.
“The unfathomable universe! The bafflingproblem! Only the shades of night and of life reveal something of the mystery to us. For eighty years I have studied life from every side. I was hungry to know. And the more I learned of any subject the more clearly I perceived the vastness of my own ignorance. I tried in vain to grasp the plan of it all. I built up theories, fitting into them the facts I knew. Sometimes the mosaic grew to show a pattern; and then, just as I began to rejoice, all became confusion again. I was Tantalus. Again and again the universe held its solution before my soul. Only a line more, and it was mine! Yet it was forever snatched away.”
He was silent a little while; then resumed: “In one of those moments of disappointment I recollected a text of the Hebrew Bible taught me in my childhood:The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. When I learned it, two paths of life were opening out before my mind. One was like a hidden rivulet, flowing ever in lowly places, seeking ever the lowest place, refreshing, beneficent. The other was like a mountain path, and a star shone over it. I chose the mountain path. It was often steep and hard, and the star recedes as you climb. But the air on those heights is sometimes an elixir. We had a song at home:—
‘Sweet is the path that leads to what we love.’
‘Sweet is the path that leads to what we love.’
‘Sweet is the path that leads to what we love.’
‘Sweet is the path that leads to what we love.’
How many a time I sang it to keep my courage up!
“In that moment of recollection I asked myself if I might not have more surely attained to what Isought by taking the lowlier way, if the supernatural might not have aided material science, as imagination aids in the mathematics. What means the story of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life? Many of those old tales contain a golden lesson. We do not study the past enough; and therefore human life becomes a series of beginnings without visible results. There are a few centuries of progress, something is learned, something gained, a clearer light seems to announce the dawn of some great day, and men begin to extol themselves; and then a shadowy hand sweeps the board clean, and the boasters disappear, they and their achievements. Perhaps out of each fading cycle God gathers up a few from destruction.Many are called, but few chosen, said the King. For the others the story of Sisyphus was told.”
Again there was a pause; and again he spoke:
“I was tossed hither and thither. I had such failures that life seemed to me a mockery, and such successes that I would fain have lived a thousand years. Of one thing in it all I am glad: I never complained of God in failure, nor glorified myself in success. I give thanks for that!”
He closed his eyes and seemed to pray.
After a moment he spoke again.
“I have known one perfect thing on earth,” he said, and clasped his hands. “I have found in life one beauty that grows on the soul forever. One being in touching the earth has consecrated it. There is no flaw in Jesus of Nazareth.”
The pause that followed was so long that Don Claudio bent to touch the cold hands.
The dying man roused himself.
“Farewell, my beloved pupil!” he said. “God be with thee! Go in peace! And tell them to come to me.”
The young man knelt, and weeping, pressed his lips to the cold hand that could not lift itself.
“Farewell! God be with you!” he echoed in a stifled voice; and rose and went out of the room.
A light shone through the open door of an adjoining chamber, and Tacita and the nurse could be seen each lying on a sofa inside. They started up at the sound of Don Claudio’s step.
“He wants you,” the young man said, and pressed the hand of each as they passed by him, then went down to his gondola. A moment later they heard the ripple of his passage across the lagoon.
Tacita knelt beside her grandfather and took his hand in hers. He drew her, and she put her face close to his.
“Dost thou remember all, my child?” he whispered.
“I remember all!” she whispered back.
“Thou wilt be strong and faithful?” he asked in the same tone.
“I will be strong and faithful,” she answered.
He said no more. His breath fluttered on her cheek, and seemed to stop.
“Elena!” she cried.
After bending for a moment over the bed, the nurse had gone to the window, and stepped out into the balcony. She returned at that frightened call, and knelt by the bed.
In the silence that followed, a gondola slipped under the balcony; and presently there rose from it a singing voice, low toned, but impassioned and distinct. It sang:—
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!Danger is in our path,The enemy, in wrath,Lurks to delude our souls from finding thee!We cry to thee! We cry to thee!San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!Danger is in our path,The enemy, in wrath,Lurks to delude our souls from finding thee!We cry to thee! We cry to thee!San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We cry to thee!Danger is in our path,The enemy, in wrath,Lurks to delude our souls from finding thee!We cry to thee! We cry to thee!San Salvador,We cry to thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,
We cry to thee!
Danger is in our path,
The enemy, in wrath,
Lurks to delude our souls from finding thee!
We cry to thee! We cry to thee!
San Salvador,
We cry to thee!”
The dying man, half sunk into a lethargy, started awake.
“The mountains!” he exclaimed, looking eagerly out at the dark outline of housetops against the eastern sky. “The mountains and the bells!”
He panted, listened, sighed at the silence, and sank back again.
The singer recommenced more softly; but every word was so distinctly uttered that it seemed to be spoken in the chamber:—
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We turn to thee!All mercy as thou art,Forgive the erring heartThat wandered far, but, weeping, homeward flies.We turn to thee! We turn to thee!San Salvador,We turn to thee.”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We turn to thee!All mercy as thou art,Forgive the erring heartThat wandered far, but, weeping, homeward flies.We turn to thee! We turn to thee!San Salvador,We turn to thee.”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We turn to thee!All mercy as thou art,Forgive the erring heartThat wandered far, but, weeping, homeward flies.We turn to thee! We turn to thee!San Salvador,We turn to thee.”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,
We turn to thee!
All mercy as thou art,
Forgive the erring heart
That wandered far, but, weeping, homeward flies.
We turn to thee! We turn to thee!
San Salvador,
We turn to thee.”
“The mountains!” murmured the dying man. “The curtain and the Throne!”
Again the voice sang:—
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We live in thee!’Tis love that holds the threads of fate;Death’s but the opening of a gate,The parting of a mist that hides the skies.We live in thee! We live in thee!San Salvador,We live in thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We live in thee!’Tis love that holds the threads of fate;Death’s but the opening of a gate,The parting of a mist that hides the skies.We live in thee! We live in thee!San Salvador,We live in thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,We live in thee!’Tis love that holds the threads of fate;Death’s but the opening of a gate,The parting of a mist that hides the skies.We live in thee! We live in thee!San Salvador,We live in thee!”
“San Salvador, San Salvador,
We live in thee!
’Tis love that holds the threads of fate;
Death’s but the opening of a gate,
The parting of a mist that hides the skies.
We live in thee! We live in thee!
San Salvador,
We live in thee!”
There was one more sigh from the pillow. A whisper came: “We live in Thee!”
“My dear,” said the nurse, laying her hand softly on Tacita’s bowed head, “Professor Mora is no longer an infirm old man.”