The author denies the supernatural, and seeks to combat the argument we use by showing that several eastern superstitions, especially the worship of Isis, were introduced into Rome about the same time with Christianity, and gained no little currency, in spite of the imperial edicts against them. This is true, but there was no radical difference between those eastern superstitions and the state religion, and they demanded and effected no change of morals or manners. They were all in the order of the national religion, were based on the same principle, only they were a little more sensual and corrupt. Their temporary success required no other basis than Roman paganism itself furnished. And the edicts against their mysteries and orgies were seldom executed. It needs no supernatural principle to account for the rapid rise and spread of Methodism in a Protestant community, for it is itself only a form of Protestantism. But Christianity was not, and is not, in any sense, a form or development of paganism; in almost every particular, it is its direct contradictory. It was based on a totally different principle, and held entirely different maxims of life. A worshipper of Bacchus or Isis could without difficulty conform to the national or state religion, and comply with all its requirements. The Christian could conform in nothing, and comply with no pagan requirements. He could take no part in the national festivities, the national games, amusements, or rejoicings, for these were all dedicated to idols. There is no analogy in the case.
Mr. Lecky denies that the conversion of Rome was a miracle, and that it was effected on the evidence of miracles. He admits that miracles are possible, though he confounds miracles with prodigies, and says there is five times more proof in the case of many miracles than would be required to prove an ordinary historical fact; but he rejects miracles, not for the want of proof, nor because science has disproved them, but because the more intelligent portion of mankind have gradually dropped them, and ceased to believe in them, as they have dropped the belief in fairies, dwarfs, etc. The enlightened portion of mankind, it must be understood, are those who think like Mr. Lecky, and profess a Christianity without Christ, moral obligation without God the creator, and hold effects are producible without causes. We confess that we are not of their number, and probably shall never be an enlightened man in their sense. We believe in miracles, and that miracles had not a little to do with the introduction and establishment of Christianity. As the author admits them to be possible, and that many are sustained by far greater proof than is needed to prove ordinary historical events, we hope that it will be allowed, that, in believing them, we are not necessarily involved in total darkness. But we have no space, at present, to enter upon the general question of miracles—a question that can not be properly treated without treating the whole question of the natural and the supernatural.
The author tells us that the early Christians at Rome rarely appealed, if at all, to miracles as proofs either of their doctrines or their mission. Yet that they sometimes did would seem pretty certain from the pains the pagans took to break the force of the Christian miracles by ascribing them to magic, or by setting up analogous or counter miracles of their own. Certain it is, however, that they appealed to the supernatural, and adduced not only the miracle of the resurrection of our Lord, which entered into the very staple of their preaching, and was one of the bases of their faith, but to that standing miracle of prophecy, and of a supernatural providence—the Jewish, people.The very religion they preached was supernatural, from beginning to end, and they labored to prove the necessity of faith in Christ, who was crucified, who rose from the dead, and is Lord of heaven and earth. There is no particular miracle or prophecy adduced to prove this that cannot, indeed, be cavilled at; but the Hebrew traditions and the faith of the Jewish people could not be set aside. Here was a whole nation whose entire life through many thousand years had been based on a prophecy, a promise of the Messiah. This prophecy, frequently renewed, and borne witness to by the national organization, the religious institutions, sacrifices, and offerings, and the entire national and moral life through centuries, is a most stupendous miracle. When you take this in connection with the traditions preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, which go back to the creation of the world—developing one uniform system of thought, one uniform doctrine, one uniform faith, free from all superstition; one uniform plan of divine providence, and throwing a marvellous light on the origin, duty, and end of man—you find a supernatural fact which is irresistible, and sufficient of itself to convince any unprejudiced mind that Christianity is the fulfilment of the promises made to Adam after his expulsion from the Garden, to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to the Jewish people.
We have no space here to develop this argument, but it is the argument that had great weight with ourselves personally, and, by the grace of God, was the chief argument that brought us to believe in the truth of Christianity, and in the church as the fulfilment of the synagogue. The apostles and early apologists continually, in one form or another, appeal to this standing miracle, this long-continued manifestation of the supernatural, as the basis of their proof of Christianity. They adduced older traditions than any the pagans could pretend to, and set forth a faith that had continued from the first man, which had once been the faith of all mankind, and from which the Gentiles had fallen away, and been plunged, in consequence, into the darkness of unbelief, and subjected to all the terrors of the vilest, most corrupt, and abominable superstitions. They labored to show that the Gentiles, in the pride of their hearts, had forsaken the God that made them, creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, visible or invisible, for Satan, for demons, and for gods made with their own hands, or fashioned by their own lusts and evil imaginations. They pursued, indeed, the same line of argument that Catholics pursue against Protestants, only modified by the fact that the Protestant falling away, so clearly foretold by St. Paul in his Epistles, is more recent, less complete, and Protestants have not yet sunk so low as had the Gentiles of the Roman empire.
But it was not enough to establish the truth of Christianity in the Roman mind. Christian morals are above the strength of nature alone; yet the pagans were not only induced to give up their own principle of morals, and to accept as true the Christian principle, but they gave up their old practices, and yielded a practical obedience to the Christian law. Those same Romans changed their manner of life, and attained to the very summits of Christian sanctity. The philosophers gave many noble precepts, preserved from a purer tradition than their own, but they had no power to get them practised, and our author himself says they had no influence on the people; yet they enjoined nothing above the forces of nature.The Christians came, taught the people a morality impracticable to nature even in its integrity, and yet what they taught was actually practised even by women, children, and slaves. How was this? It was not possible without supernatural aid, or the infusion of grace which elevates the soul above the level of nature, enabling it at once to act from a supernatural principle, and from a supernatural motive. All who have attempted the practise of Christian perfection by the strength of nature alone, have sadly failed. Take the charitable institutions, societies for relieving the poor, providing for the aged and infirm, protecting the fatherless and widows, for restoring the fallen, and reforming the vicious or criminal, established by non-Catholics—they are all comparative, if not absolute failures. Though modelled after institutions of the church, and supported at lavish expense, none of them succeed. They lack some essential element which is efficacious in Catholic institutions, and that element is undoubtedly supernatural grace, for that is all Catholics have that they have not in far greater abundance. They have humanity, natural benevolence, learning, ability, and ample wealth—why do they not succeed? Because they lack supernatural charity, and the blessing of God that always accompanies it. No other reasons can be assigned.
Mr. Lecky thinks the persecutions by the state, which the early Christians had to endure, or that the spread of Christianity in spite of them, are not worth anything in the argument. In the first place, he pretends that the persecutions were not very severe, and were for the most part confined to particular localities, and rarely became general in the empire; they were of brief duration, and came only at distant intervals, and the number of martyrs could not have been great. In the second place, the persecutions rather helped the persecuted religion, as persecution usually does. Rome, in reality, was tolerant, and most of the pagan emperors were averse to harsh measures, and connived at the growth of the new religion, which they regarded as one of the innumerable superstitions hatched in the East, and which must soon pass away.
Rome tolerated for conquered nations their national religion, or worship, but no religion except the state religion for Romans. The national gods recognized by the senate, and whose images were allowed to stand by the side of the Roman gods, might be worshipped; but no Roman citizen was allowed to desert the state religion, and nowhere in the empire was any religion tolerated that was not the national worship of some people subject or tributary to Rome. Now, Christianity was no national religion, and was hostile to the state religion, and utterly irreconcilable with it; for it there was no toleration; it was prohibited by the laws of the empire as well as by the edicts of the emperors. The Christians might at first be overlooked as too insignificant to excite hostility, or they might have been regarded, since they were chiefly Jews, as a Jewish sect; they might also, as they were a quiet, peaceable people, obeying the laws when not repugnant to the law of God, performing all their moral, social, and civil duties, and never mingling in the affairs of state, have been connived at for a time. But they had no legal protection, and if complained of and brought before the tribunals, and proved to be Christians, they had no alternative but to conform to the national religion or suffer death, often in the most excruciating forms; for the Romans were adepts in cruelty, and took delight in watching the writhings and sufferings of their victims.Even Trajan, while he prohibited the search for them, ordered, if accused and convicted of being Christians, that they should be put to death. Such being the law, the prefect or governor of a province could at any time, without any imperial edict, put the law in force against the Christians, if so disposed; and that they did so in all the provinces of the empire, frequently and with unsparing severity, we know from history. The Christians were safe at no time and nowhere in the empire, and it is probable that the number of victims of the ten general persecutions were by far the smaller number of those who suffered for the faith prior to the accession of Constantine. We place no confidence in the calculations of Gibbon or our author, and we have found no reason for believing that the Christian historians, or the fathers, exaggerated the number of those who received the crown of martyrdom.
It is a great mistake to suppose that paganism had lost its hold on the Roman mind till long after the Christians had become a numerous body in the empire. There were, no doubt, individuals who treated all religions with indifference, but never had the pagan superstitions a stronger hold on the mass of the people, especially in Rome and the western provinces, than during the first two centuries of our era. The republic had been transformed into the empire, and the government was never stronger, or the worship of the state more intolerant, more fervent, or more energetically supported by the government. The work of Romanizing the various conquered nations was effected under the emperors, and the signs of decline and dissolution of the empire did not appear till near the close of the third century. The Roman state and paganism seemed to be indissolubly linked together—so closely that the pagans attributed to the rise and progress of Christianity the decline and downfall of both. Certain it is, that paganism lost its hold on the people or the state only in proportion to the progress of Christianity; and the abandonment of the heathen gods and the desertion of the heathen temples were due to the preaching of the Gospel, not a fact which preceded and prepared the way for it. Converts are seldom made from the irreligious and indifferent classes, who are the last, in any age, to be reached or affected by truth and piety.
The fact is, that paganism fought valiantly to the last, and Christianity had to meet and grapple with it in its full force, and when supported by the strongest and most effective government that ever existed, still in the prime and vigor of its life. The struggle was harder and longer continued than is commonly supposed, and by no means ended with Constantine. Paganism reascended the throne—in principle, at least—under Constantius, the son, and avowedly under Julian, the nephew of the first Christian emperor. Every pagan statesman saw, from the first, that there was an irrepressible antagonism between Christianity and paganism, and that the former could not prevail without destroying the latter, and, of course, the religion of the state, and apparently not without destroying the state with it. The intelligent and patriotic portion of the Roman people must have regarded the spread of Christianity very much as the Protestant leaders regard the spread of Catholicity in our own country. They looked upon it as a foreign religion, and anti-Roman.It rejected the gods of Rome, to whom the city was indebted for her victories and the empire of the world. We may be sure, then, that the whole force of the state, the whole force of the pagan worship, backed by the passions and fanaticism of the people, whether of the city or the provinces, was exerted to crush out the new and offensive worship; and, whether the numbers of martyrs were a few more or a few less, the victory obtained by Christianity against such fearful odds is not explicable without the assumption of supernatural aid—especially when that victory carried with it a complete change of morals and manners, and the practice in not a few who underwent it of a heroic sanctity, or virtues which are confessedly above our natural strength.
No false or merely natural religion could have survived, far less have vanquished, such opposition as Christianity encountered at every point. The very fact that it thrived, in spite of the fearful persecution to which it was subjected, is a proof of its truth and divinity. We grant the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, but persecution fails only when it meets truth, when it meets God as the resisting force. We know the strength of superstition and the tenacity of fanaticism; but we deny that persecution has ever increased or multiplied the adherents or aided the growth of a false religion. There is no example of it in history. It is only the truth that does not succumb; and even they who profess the truth, when they have lost the practice of it, have yielded to the spirit of the world, and have ceased to be faithful to God, fail to stand before persecution, as was seen in the almost entire extinction of Catholics in the European nations that accepted the Protestant Reformation. The inefficacy of persecution to extinguish the doctrine persecuted is a commonplace of liberalism; but history proves the contrary, and hence the fact that Christianity, instead of being extinguished by the heathen persecution, spread under it, and even gained power by it, is no mean proof of its truth and its supernatural support.
The author obtains his adverse conclusion by substituting for the Christianity to which Rome was actually converted, and which actually triumphed in the empire, a Christianity of his own manufacture, a rationalistic Christianity, which has nothing to do with Christ Jesus, and him crucified; a Christianity despoiled of its mysteries, its doctrinal teachings, its distinctive moral precepts, and reduced to a simple moral philosophy. It is with him a theory, a school; not a fact, not a law, not an authority, not a living organism, nor of an order essentially different from paganism. His Christianity has its starting point in paganism, and only marks a particular stage in the general progress of the race. He does not see that it and paganism start from entirely different principles, and come down through separate and hostile lines, or that they have different ancestors. He does not understand that Christianity, if a development at all, is not the development of paganism, but of the patriarchal and Jewish religion, which placed the principle of duty in man's relation to God as his creator and final cause, not in the assumption of man's own divinity or godship. Hence he finds no need of supernatural aid to secure its triumph.
The author, placing Christianity in the same line with paganism, supposes that he accounts sufficiently for the conversion of Rome by the assumption that the Christians placed a stronger emphasis on certain doctrines held by the pagan philosophers, and were actuated by a greater zeal and enthusiasm than were those philosophers themselves.Yet he does not show the origin of the greater zeal, nor its character; and he entirely misapprehends the enthusiasm of the early Christians. They were, in no received sense of the word, enthusiasts, nor were they, in his sense of the word, even zealots. They in no sense corresponded to the character given them inThe Last Days of Pompeii. They were neither enthusiasts nor fanatics; and their zeal, springing from true charity, was never obtrusive nor annoying. We find in the earlier and later sects enthusiasts, fanatics, and zealots, who are excessively offensive, and yet are able to carry away the simple, the ignorant, and the undisciplined; but we never find them among the early orthodox Christians, any more than you do among Catholics at the present day. The early Christians did not "creep into houses and lead away silly women," nor assault people in the streets or market-place, and seek to cram Christianity down their throats, whether they would or not, but were singularly sober, quiet, orderly, and regular in their proceedings, as Catholics have always been, compelling not people to hear them against their will, and instructing in the faith only those who manifested a desire to be instructed. The author entirely mistakes both the Christian order of thought and the character of the early Christians who suffered from and finally triumphed over the pagan empire.
I.
Master Aloysius Swibert was an organist in a small Austrian town; but from afar his perfect knowledge of harmony, and freshness and delicacy of inspiration, were known and praised; and many a stranger artist, having heard him, wondered that he did not seek renown and even glory in larger cities, and saw with astonishment how his art and his simple friendships contented and ornamented a life requiring nothing more.
He gave his time to the study of the great masters, a study full of pure enjoyment, but laborious and difficult, and, with a singular simplicity of character, he never approached them without the greatest reserve and respect.
Obstinately he worked, allowing himself but little respite to indulge the flights of his fancy, or the inspiration which, now and then, came to him so luminously, so brightly that the brave artist cried out his thanks in ecstasy, in the fulness of his joy.
His musical thoughts are all in a tiny volume. No long fantasies—half pages mostly—sometimes only lines, short and excellent and original; blessed originality, not coarse or confusing, but healthy and true—the daughter and messenger of inspiration!
II.
Thus rolled the weeks, returning ever the Sunday so ardently desired; for to Master Swibert each Sunday was an event. He thought of the one passed, and looked forward to the coming one; all were equally dear. From the Saturday evening previous, all things sang to him his feast-day songs, and the next morning, collected and serious, in his best clothes, he sought his church and his organ.
He had his own ideas, considered extreme by some, on the ministry of the musician in the services of the church, on the respect due the place and the instrument. His heart beat when he approached the organ, and he played, following his conscience, sometimes well, sometimes better, never seeking success—on the contrary, dreading it.
His work accomplished, he walked with his sister, serious and happy. The people loved to see them pass, and, from the doors of their houses, saluted them amicably. In return, they gave each a pleasant smile, and rejoiced that men and things should wear their holiday robes, their Sunday colors. If the trees were green and the weather fine, their happiness was complete. It made the good man sad, though, if men or children worked, or even planned their occupations. "Poor creatures!" he said, "is not even Sunday for them?" And his heart beat as he spoke. But when he met whole families enjoying themselves, the fathers important, the mothers busy and happy, and the children gay and prattling, he entered his lodging so happily, kissed his sister, and awaited his friends.
III.
He had but two—that is too many—and these could only remember having passed one Sunday evening away from Master Swibert. On their arrival, there were three just men under the same roof—one more than is necessary in order that our Lord may be in the midst of them.
They supped, and the organist's sister, twelve years younger than he, a fresh and graceful girl, waited on his guests, and offered them some nice white cakes, prepared the day before. Each one paid her his heartfelt compliments, while, smiling and silent, with pleasure she received them.
After supper, Master Swibert seated himself at his piano and played for his friends his studies of the past week. The music was mingled with conversation, and art and philosophy beguiled the hours. Seated around a good-sized pot of beer, with consciences at ease, with active bodies and cheerful spirits, these companions pursued endless conversations in all that interested their honest hearts until, as night closed round them, their souls were elevated and they spoke of heaven. There seemed to be a marvellous contact between their natures and all that is spiritual.
Such was Master Swibert's interior on Sunday evenings. Could chance have led thither some growing youth, all ardor and enthusiasm, and had he essayed the eternal temptations of love and glory, his answer would have been a smile. There they had no place. The three friends were happy.
IV.
But in this world every thing passes, happiness especially. The day came when Master Swibert had to part from all he loved—his quiet habits, his home, and his country.
He was tall, and looked strong and healthy; yet his friends were disquieted about him, for he seemed restless, like a tree which outwardly appears vigorous, but at heart decayed and liable to fall with the first rough wind. His physicians gave a reason for their uneasiness, and ordered him south.
The organist and his sister set out one day, hurrying their adieus as people who run away. When they were at the foot of the Alps in Italy, they stopped at a sunny little town, a day's journey from Milan, which we will call Arèse. Master Swibert was then forty-four.
How this man, who, till now, had lived more like a priest than a man of the world, could be led by his passions to marry an Italian and a singer, is difficult to explain. Besides, it is superfluous to look for a reason for any unreasonable act. Perhaps the good old sun was the cause, laughing behind the trees at the follies of which he makes us guilty.
But the girl was pretty, reputed good, and dedicated to her parents every moment her vanity did not require. So the organist married her.
V.
They say love lives by contrasts; the god of such a union should have been well fed. But his life was short, for, after a few months only, he died. Perhaps of a fit of indigestion.
The Italian did not like the retired and exclusive life demanded of her, and the German could not accept the free behavior of his wife. He could not believe in the purity of a soul that sought vulgar homage and common admiration.
He was wrong to judge her by the ideas of his own country. His name there had been so honorably borne that, if it was for the singer too heavy a burden, death only could release her. This death took place under peculiar circumstances.
Paganini was just then being heard at Milan, and exercising that singular fascination that made his artistic personality the most characteristic of our time.
This age, which believes in no thing, accords him a legend, and, in truth, his power with the instrument he used was surprising and unequalled.
The fascination he possessed by his eccentric and well-executed performances is well known; how, for instance, he only appeared in a demi-obscurity, in some romantic scene; or, in some fit of inspiration, broke rudely the three strings of his instrument, and performed on the remaining one his most astonishing variations.
Whether it was skill, or a want of genius, no matter; the effect produced was marvellous. On the wife of Master Swibert the result was astonishing. Her child was born before its time, and in one of the side-scenes of the theatre of La Scala.
Its life seemed so feebly assured that it was baptized immediately with the name of Rose Marie; but Paganini, flattered by the adventure, insisting upon being godfather on the occasion, the little one was only known by the name of Paganina.
Thus was born the singular artist whose history we relate. We know the exterior facts, the accidents, we may say, of her life. Popular imagination has made of them an interesting legend; but these facts were produced by interior emotions little understood, and would be perfectly unintelligible could we not trace in her the two tendencies, the two natures, which she inherited from her parents.
Master Swibert arrived in time to say adieu to his wife, who did not survive her confinement. Then, as a miser with his treasure, he carried off his daughter. The child was feeble, but the organist felt within himself such an intensity of paternal love that he could not doubt she would live; "for," said he, "the vital forces of a creature are not wholly in itself, but in the love of its parents."
The sister of Master Swibert had married and left him. Therefore alone with his daughter, he entered an unoccupied house, where their new lives should develop themselves.
VI.
Happy the children born of Christian parents! They alone understand the integrity of affection that addresses itself to the soul, the delicacy of love which envelops the infant, from the bosom of its mother, conducting it through every danger, and, even in spite of maternal instinct, to the port of safety.
The organist could put in practice no personal theories of education. He thought a father and mother (he was both) have but one thing to do—to love and love on, to watch on their knees near the cradle of their child, to observe attentively the movements of the soul in its dawning light, to direct it on high, always on high, guard it from all that is impure, (triviality, even, he considered so;) and so, in fine, enforce the impressions of a saintly and ideal character, before even the child has consciousness of its perceptions.
Give your imagination to the interior of a family where such sentiments prevail; one sees marvellous things, that no painter can paint in colors true enough to render public. O pure and holy family joys! If we hesitate to describe you, it is from respect. We know with what discretion we should touch on holy things, and we hardly dare to make ourselves understood, to those who are fathers, by sketching the scenes of these first years of childhood between Master Swibert and his daughter.
VII.
Night has come; the child is going to sleep. Her father, pursuing his studies, is seated at the piano near the little being who has all his heart, and is now his inspiration; the waves of harmony go out into the night, white apparitions encircle the cradle, graze the earth, and fly away. The child sleeps.
Attentive and listening, her angel looks at her, opening slightly its wings to better protect her, and throwing over her closed eye-lids the bluish and transparent veil. The little face smiles sweetly.
In the morning she awakes, her soul filled with the joys of the night. She hears the birds sing, and the bright morning sun with heavenly rays gilds the cover of her little bed. She watches it play on her white curtains and turns toward her father, her eyes filled with tears, a weight on her heart. "Why do you weep, my daughter?" "Because, my father, I love you dearly, and I am too happy."
Yes, well may we discuss the joys of childhood. To sing them, poets lose their breath; to paint them, exhaust the colors of their palettes; and heap image upon image as their heated fancies may suggest, yet what have they done? Nothing. Yet the subject is worth their study. And how is it that there are so many who have known these joys in all their purity, who in their manhood gaze on into the future, and so seldom look to that past which made them so happy? Would they not, at times, give worlds to be again that little child at its mother's knee?
VIII.
Paganina was nearly seven years old, when she found a companion; the organist's sister died, leaving her only child to the care of her brother.
The little boy, named André, seemed to be of a gentle and even weak character. He was the same age as his cousin, but never was presented a more perfect contrast.
Paganina had not yet acquired that marvellous beauty that afterward became so celebrated, but something there was about her very strange and very attractive.
She was reticent and retiring, nonchalant in gesture and careless in behavior. Her face was always sad, an indescribable, almost ferociousennuiseeming completely to overpower her. But if some recital, some sudden expression touched her imagination, or music entranced her, her deep black eyes threw out a violet flame, and even sparkled. But that was all. The calm of an affected, scornful carelessness returned immediately.
Restlessness is the common host of the domestic hearth.
Master Swibert trembled to see the worldly and theatrical genius of the mother develop in the child; he knew well that, in a nature strong and deep as hers, such tastes would make terrible ravages. And the development of each successive year was not calculated to dispel his fears.
Everything in the child alarmed him, from her habitual concentration to her fits of passionate tenderness—the outburst of the moment, volcano-like, a jet of brilliant flame which sparkles and goes out.
IX.
Master Swibert could boast in his dying hours of never having deserted the child for an hour even. After having devoted the early hours of the day to her and her cousin's education, he superintended and guided their recreations—an important part, in good hands, of the training of a child.
He had the habit of taking every day a long walk. The route they loved best he called the German road. It was that by which the organist had come to Italy. The sight of it revived his memories, and flattered the melancholy love he gave his country.
On the way, the children listened to the stories of the good musician, who so willingly related them. They spoke of Germany; for on this chapter Master Swibert never tired. He led his little auditors into the world of ballads and legends, and we can readily imagine the pretty curiosity and happy astonishment which, at their age, he awakened. Their favorite legend was that of the great emperor Barbarossa, who slept so many centuries in an obscure grotto, leaning on a table of stone into which his beard had grown. These stories were better than our nurses tell; for the organist related them, not to impose on the credulity of his youthful auditory, but to extract the poetry they contained; and this he did wonderfully. Poetry never did harm to any one.
But the children loved, even better than the legends, the recitals suitable for them from the German poets. The story of Mignon delighted them. What could be told them sufficed; and they loved the little girl who had no other language than song, who took the face of an angel and aspired to heaven, where she went without scarcely having lived on earth.
Their imagination was inflamed. They longed to see the country of their dreams. Sometimes, at the turn of the road, they began to run, in the unavowed hope of seeing, at last, what was behind the mountain; but, the circuit passed, and only a long road, apparently without end, presenting itself, the poor little things cried with disappointment.Their father, ready to weep with them, took them in his arms to control them, and told them for the hundredth time one of his pretty ballads.
X.
The route into Germany is through a beautiful country. After traversing a plain for some distance, one enters into a deep gorge in the mountain and then begins to ascend.
This gorge gives passage to a torrent, dry in summer, but, becoming furious during the rains of autumn, uproots trees, carries away bridges, and, undermining the stones at their base, lowers, each year, the level of the neighboring elevations. The route accommodates itself poorly to this terrible neighbor, and follows it as far off as possible. Around on the left shore, it turns quickly at a certain height, and crosses the torrent over a very high bridge. There, continuing to ascend, it makes a circuit over a plain of moderate extent, while a narrow and badly constructed road, bordering the sides of the ravine, leaves it to descend to the magnificent residence which, from time immemorial, belongs to the family of the Ligonieri. It is called the Château Sarrasin.
A view unequalled presents itself from this elevation. Below it, on the first ladder of the heights, is seen the black mass of the chateau, so near that one can almost penetrate into the interior of the edifice; and beyond, the plain, displaying under the silvery net-work of its water-courses the richness of its vegetation; and finally, on the left, the wooded slopes of the mountain, crowned with glaciers, and developing into a gigantic hemicycle. When the dazzled eye is at rest, or gazing afar, it ever returns to the Chateau Sarrasin; and worthy is it of the closest regard.
Its name indicates its antiquated pretensions; but it has no uniformity of style; each age has given it a stone, and from the labor of centuries has resulted a whole of a character grand and majestic.
Proudly encamped on a perpendicular rock, accessible only on one side, it commands the plain and defies the mountain with its black and menacing tower, that seems to have been placed there to protect the other less hardy constructions.
From the road, the traveller raises his eyes to this eagle's nest; he contemplates with pleasure the terraces which shelve below, suspending over the precipice their flowering groves and massive oaks, and, naturally, he demands its history. Yet this history was not always to be praised. The chronicle credits those who inhabited it in past ages with a series of adventures more curious than moral, and enough to fill a book of legends.
The Ligonieri have followed the progress of civilization. In our day, they respect the laws, and even make themselves respected. They serve the state in the highest ranks of the administration, the army, and diplomacy. Yet it would seem that, after all, the devil has not lost much; for they tell wild stories of the castle's being fatal to conjugal love, of its reigning queens ever suffering in silence the affronts of some rival under its cursed roof. Popular recitals represent them isolated, lifting to heaven their innocent hands, and mingling their prayers with the noise of orgies and the songs of feasts. The favorites of the Chateau Sarrasin belonged mostly to the theatre, and among them was she who reigned a certain evening when the scene took place I am going to relate.
XI.
This evening, then, the organist and his two children had arrived on the elevation that commands the residence of the Ligonieri, and were looking about them. There was afêteat the Château Sarrasin.
The grandsalonof the ground floor was illuminated, and crowded with a brilliant assembly of guests. Long waves of light came from the windows and doors, and showed the crowd pressing around every opening, and in the shadows revealed groups seated attentively at cards.
All heads were turned toward one point; all looks were in the same direction, and attached themselves to a woman standing in the centre of the light, and surrounded by a chorus and a numerous orchestra.
This woman was clothed in green, and wore a crown of ivy, the ornament of the old bacchantes. A green diamond threw its lustrous rays from her impure forehead. She sang—not the songs that carry tired souls into the regions of the ideal, and make them forget for a moment the sadness of earth; but guilty joys and culpable pleasures were her theme. The metallic voice sang in response to her chorus; and, becoming more and more excited, the quick, passionate notes mounted into a demoniacal laugh. How sad, how true it is, that the human soul, once beyond the bounds of purity, rejoices in and receives new excitement from the delirium of blasphemy.
XII.
Attracted by the light, Paganina advanced toward the precipice. The passionate music had turned her brain. Her growing agitation became extreme, and she betrayed it in gestures and ardent words. When Master Swibert called her, she refused to obey.
Understanding at last, her father rose, pale as a corpse.
"Unfortunate child!" he cried, "thy bad angel is approaching thee. Now comes the hour when I regret thy birth. God grant that I may not be punished for having shown thee the spectacle of evil thou comprehendest so quickly."
The child advances, her father follows, and she begins to run. Wildly through the midst of the rocks she risks her life at every step. Her father, breathless, pursues her, frightened, and covered with a cold perspiration. His eyes, grown large already with fear, see his daughter precipitated into an endless abyss; and discover, also, in the future another abyss still more shadowed and more horrible, where, perhaps, will be lost the deeply-loved soul of his child.
The guests of the Château Sarrasin heard two cries mingle with the joyousness of theirféte. The organist seized his child just at the moment when, from the edge of the precipice, she would have plunged into eternity.
He had saved her life, but not regained her soul. That evening, the child separated herself from him in a spirit of revolt which almost broke his heart to witness.
XIII.
Master Swibert slept but little, and badly. When he awoke, he wondered how he had been able to omit to Paganina his usual good-night. His eyes fell instinctively on the door where, every morning, she came, half-clothed, to salute him. The sun's rays gilded the sill, and the good father's heart beat, thinking how happy he would be if at that moment she would appear. He said, "She is coming;" but she came not.
The organist walked up and down his room, interrupting, from time to time, his monotonous promenade, to listen, in hopes of hearing a word, a creaking, a fluttering of a robe. He heard nothing but the uncertain step of André, wandering sad and lonely in the parts of the house least occupied.
The hours passed. The organist still waited, his suffering becoming anguish. Sometimes he felt he must call out, "My child! my child!" Already he opened his arms to receive her; but his sense of duty prevailed, and he waited for her.
The night again returned, and Paganina had shown no signs of life. A bitter sadness, drop by drop, was accumulating in the heart of her unfortunate father. The most mournful thoughts took possession of him. He dreamed of his approaching death, and saw his child alone, abandoned to interior and exterior enemies, and in his weakness he reproached himself for having brought her into this world.
Already more than half the night had gone. Overwhelmed with sorrow, exhausted, he threw himself into an arm-chair, wondering if he could bear to suffer more, when Paganina entered noiselessly, on tiptoe, lest she should awaken her father, whom she believed asleep. She approached him gently, knelt by his side, and, taking one of his hands, covered it with silent tears.
What a change for our poor organist! An immense joy overflowed his heart, and spread over his whole being in delicious emotion. He forgot all past suffering and future inquietude. He lost all consciousness of the present but the knowledge that his daughter was there, pressed to his heart, and palpitating midst her sobs.
He leaned over, and two tears, the first shed by this austere man, fell on the young bowed head—her baptism of peace and pardon. Grief, repentance, the love of the child, obscured for a time, now manifested themselves violently. She hung convulsively on the neck of her father, and begged his pardon. They exchanged kisses, stifled cries, and little words of tenderness, that are the first elements of that pure and passionate, delicate and violent language of the domestic hearth, so little capable of description.
XIV.
The stars sparkled peacefully in a cloudless sky. The breath of the night, with its penetrating odors, came noiselessly, and mingled the white hair of the father with the black curls of the child. It refreshed their burning foreheads.
Peace has descended into their souls. Now and then a sob from Paganina is the only witness of the past storm.
Master Swibert, with his head inclined, speaks in a low voice. He says:
"My daughter, my tenderness for you knows no bounds. Trust to me. Arrived at the summit of life, I, whose head is whitening toward eternity, will tell you that, in this world, the only happiness given man is in the affections of his family. You cannot tell, before being a mother, what paternal affection is, and still less will you understand mine. I was ignorant of it myself until yesterday."
The child standing, her little feet united, pressed her head against the heart of her father.
The organist continued: "The angel of a woman never leaves the domestic hearth. If she lives in the world, her angel has forsaken her. A woman's crown is formed in shadow and silence; the gaze and admiration of a crowd will wither it. Your soul I love, my daughter; and our mutual love must never end. Do you understand me? Never! provided our souls rise together toward the abode of infinite love."