"I remember hearing a very vague account, some time ago, of the motives of his conversion."
"There is, mark you, no more striking an example of the power of prayer, and of the state of almost divine ecstasy, to which it may lead a religious soul. In a few words, I will relate to you this instructive and tragic history. Rancey--but I beg your pardon; I fear I am trespa.s.sing on your time."
"No, no," answered Hardy, hastily; "You cannot think how interested I am in what you tell me. My interview with the Abbe Gabriel was abruptly broken off, and in listening to you I fancy that I hear the further development of his views. Go on, I conjure you.
"With all my heart. I only wish that the instruction which, thanks to our angelic priest, I derived from the story of Rancey might be as profitable to you as it was to me."
"This, then, also came from the Abbe Gabriel?"
"He related to me this kind of parable in support of his exhortations,"
replied Rodin. "Oh, sir! do I not owe to the consoling words of that young priest all that has strengthened and revived my poor old broken heart?"
"Then I shall listen to you with a double interest."
"Rancey was a man of the world," resumed Rodin, as he looked attentively at Hardy; "a gentleman--young, ardent, handsome. He loved a young lady of high rank. I cannot tell what impediments stood in the way of their union. But this love, though successful, was kept secret, and every evening Rancey visited his mistress by means of a private staircase. It was, they say, one of those pa.s.sionate loves which men feel but once in their lives. The mystery, even the sacrifice made by the unfortunate girl, who forgot every duty, seemed to give new charms to this guilty pa.s.sion. In the silence and darkness of secrecy, these two lovers pa.s.sed two years of voluptuous delirium, which amounted almost to ecstasy."
At these words Hardy started. For the first time of late his brow was suffused with a deep blush; his heart throbbed violently; he remembered that he too had once known the ardent intoxication of a guilty and hidden love. Though the day was closing rapidly, Rodin cast a sidelong glance at Hardy, and perceived the impression he had made. "Some times," he continued, "thinking of the dangers to which his mistress was exposed, if their connection should be discovered, Rancey wished to sever these delicious ties; but the girl, beside herself with pa.s.sion, threw herself on the neck of her lover, and threatened him, in the language of intense excitement, to reveal and to brave all, if he thought of leaving her. Too weak and loving to resist the prayers of his mistress, Rancey again and again yielded, and they both gave themselves up to a torrent of delight, which carried them along, forgetful of earth and heaven!"
M. Hardy listened to Rodin with feverish and devouring avidity. The Jesuit, in painting, with these almost sensual colors, an ardent and secret love, revived in Hardy burning memories, which till now had been drowned in tears. To the beneficent calm produced by the mild language of Gabriel had succeeded a painful agitation, which, mingled with the reaction of the shocks received that day, began to throw his mind into a strange state of confusion.
Rodin, having so far succeeded in his object, continued as follows: "A fatal day came at last. Rancey, obliged to go to the wars, quitted the girl; but, after a short campaign, he returned, more in love than ever.
He had written privately, to say he would arrive almost immediately after his letter. He came accordingly. It was night. He ascended, as usual, the private staircase which led to the chamber of his mistress; he entered the room, his heart beating with love and hope. His mistress had died that morning!"
"Ah!" cried Hardy, covering his face with his hands, in terror.
"She was dead," resumed Rodin. "Two wax-candles were burning beside the funeral couch. Rancey could not, would not believe that she was dead.
He threw himself on his knees by the corpse. In his delirium, he seized that fair, beloved head, to cover it with kisses. The head parted from the body, and remained in his hands! Yes," resumed Rodin as Hardy drew back, pale and mute with terror, "yes, the girl had fallen a victim to so swift and extraordinary a disease, that she had not been able to receive the last sacraments. After her death, the doctors, in the hope of discovering the cause of this unknown malady, had begun to dissect that fair form--"
As Rodin reached this part of his narrative, night was almost come.
A sort of hazy twilight alone reigned in this silent chamber, in the centre of which appeared the pale and ghastly form of Rodin, clad in his long black gown, whilst his eyes seemed to sparkle with diabolic fire.
Overcome by the violent emotions occasioned by this story, in which thoughts of death and voluptuousness, love and horror, were so strangely mingled, Hardy remained fixed and motionless, waiting for the words of Rodin, with a combination of curiosity, anguish and alarm.
"And Rancey?" said he, at last, in an agitated voice, whilst he wiped the cold sweat from his brow.
"After two days of furious delirium," resumed Rodin, "he renounced the world, and shut himself up in impenetrable solitude. The first period of his retreat was frightful; in his despair, he uttered loud yells of grief and rage, that were audible at some distance. Twice he attempted suicide, to escape from the terrible visions."
"He had visions, then?" said Hardy, with an increased agony of curiosity.
"Yes," replied Rodin, in a solemn tone, "he had fearful visions. He saw the girl, who, for his sake, had died in mortal sin, plunged in the heat of the everlasting flames of h.e.l.l! On that fair face, disfigured by infernal tortures, was stamped the despairing laugh of the d.a.m.ned! Her teeth gnashed with pain; her arms writhed in anguish! She wept tears of blood, and, with an agonized and avenging voice, she cried to her seducer: "Thou art the cause of my perdition--my curse, my curse be upon thee!""
As he p.r.o.nounced these last words, Rodin advanced three steps nearer to Hardy, accompanying each step with a menacing gesture. If we remember the state of weakness, trouble, and fear, in which M. Hardy was--if we remember that the Jesuit had just roused in the soul of this unfortunate man all the sensual and spiritual memories of a love, cooled, but not extinguished, in tears--if we remember, too, that Hardy reproached himself with the seduction of a beloved object, whom her departure from her duties might (according to the Catholic faith) doom to everlasting flames--we shall not wonder at the terrible effect of this phantasmagoria, conjured up in silence and solitude, in the evening dusk, by this fearful priest.
The effect on Hardy was indeed striking, and the more dangerous, that the Jesuit, with diabolical craft, seemed only to be carrying out, from another point of view, the ideas of Gabriel. Had not the young priest convinced Hardy that nothing is sweeter, than to ask of heaven forgiveness for those who have sinned, or whom we have led astray? But forgiveness implies punishment; and it was to the punishment alone that Rodin drew the attention of his victim, by painting it in these terrible hues. With hands clasped together, and eye fixed and dilated, Hardy trembled in all his limbs, and seemed still listening to Rodin, though the latter had ceased to speak. Mechanically, he repeated: "My curse, my curse be upon thee?"
Then suddenly he exclaimed, in a kind of frenzy: "The curse is on me also! The woman, whom I taught to forget her sacred duties, and to commit mortal sin--one day plunged in the everlasting flames--her arms writhing in agony--weeping tears of blood--will cry to me from the bottomless pit: "My curse, my curse be upon thee!"--One day," he added, with redoubled terror, "one day?--who knows? perhaps at this moment!--for if the sea voyage had been fatal to her--if a shipwreck--oh, G.o.d! she too would have died in mortal sin--lost, lost, forever!--Oh, have mercy on her, my G.o.d! Crush me in Thy wrath--but have mercy on her--for I alone am guilty!"
And the unfortunate man, almost delirious, sank with clasped hands upon the ground.
"Sir," cried Rodin, in an affectionate voice, as he hastened to lift him up, "my dear sir--my dear friend--be calm! Comfort yourself. I cannot bear to see you despond. Alas! my intention was quite the contrary to that."
"The curse! the curse! yes, she will curse me also--she, that I loved so much--in the everlasting flames!" murmured Hardy, shuddering, and apparently insensible to the other"s words.
"But, my dear sir, listen to me, I entreat you," resumed the latter; "let me finish my story, and then you will find it as consoling as it now seems terrible. For heaven"s sake, remember the adorable words of our angelic Abbe Gabriel, with regard to the sweetness of prayer."
At the name of Gabriel, Hardy recovered himself a little, and exclaimed, in a heart-rending tone: "Ay! his words were sweet and beneficent. Where are they now? For mercy"s sake, repeat to me those consoling words."
"Our angelic Abbe Gabriel," resumed Rodin, "spoke to you of the sweetness of prayer--"
"Oh, yes! prayer!"
"Well, my dear sir, listen to me, and you shall see how prayer saved Rancey, and made a saint of him. Yes, these frightful torments, that I have just described, these threatening visions, were all conquered by prayer, and changed into celestial delights."
"I beg of you," said Hardy, in a faint voice, "speak to me of Gabriel, speak to me of heaven--but no more flames--no more h.e.l.l--where sinful women weep tears of blood--"
"No, no," replied Rodin; and even as, in describing h.e.l.l, his tone had been harsh and threatening, it now became warm and tender, as he uttered the following words: "No; we will have no more images of despair--for, as I have told you, after suffering infernal tortures, Rancey, thanks to the power of prayer, enjoyed the delights of paradise."
"The delights of paradise?" repeated Hardy, listening with anxious attention.
"One day, at the height of his grief, a priest, a good priest--another Abbe Gabriel--came to Rancey. Oh, happiness! oh, providential change! In a few days, he taught the sufferer the sacred mysteries of prayer--that pious intercession of the creature, addressed to the Creator, in favor of a soul exposed to the wrath of heaven. Then Rancey seemed transformed. His grief was at once appeased. He prayed; and the more he prayed, the greater was his hope. He felt that G.o.d listened to his prayer. Instead of trying to forget his beloved, he now thought of her constantly, and prayed for her salvation. Happy in his obscure cell, alone with that adored remembrance, he pa.s.sed days and nights in praying for her--plunged in an ineffable, burning, I had almost said amorous ecstasy."
It is impossible to give an idea of the tone of almost sensual energy with which Rodin p.r.o.nounced the word "amorous." Hardy started, changing from hot to cold. For the first time, his weakened mind caught a glimpse of the fatal pleasures of asceticism, and of that deplorable catalepsy, described in the lives of St. Theresa, St. Aubierge and others.
Rodin perceived the other"s thoughts, and continued "Oh, Rancey was not now the man to content himself with a vague, pa.s.sing prayer, uttered in the whirl of the world"s business, which swallows it up, and prevents it from reaching the ear of heaven. No, no; in the depth of solitude, he endeavored to make his prayers even more efficacious, so ardently did he desire the eternal salvation of his mistress."
"What did he do then--oh! what did he do in his solitude?" cried Hardy, who was now powerless in the hands of the Jesuit.
"First of all," said Rodin, with a slight emphasis, "he became a monk."
"A monk!" repeated Hardy, with a pensive air.
"Yes," resumed Rodin, "he became a monk, because his prayers were thus more likely to be favorably accepted. And then, as in solitude our thoughts are apt to wander, he fasted, and mortified his flesh, and brought into subjection all that was carnal within him, so that, becoming all spirit, his prayers might issue like a pure flame from his bosom, and ascend like the perfume of incense to the throne of the Most High!"
"Oh! what a delicious dream!" cried Hardy, more and more under the influence of the spell; "to pray for the woman we have adored, and to become spirit--perfume--light!"
"Yes; spirit, perfume, light!" said Rodin, with emphasis. "But it is no dream. How many monks, how many hermits, like Rancey, have, by prayers, and austerity, and macerations, attained a divine ecstasy! and if you only knew the celestial pleasures of such ecstasies!--Thus, after he became a monk, the terrible dreams were succeeded by enchanting visions.
Many times, after a day of fasting, and a night pa.s.sed in prayers and macerations, Rancey sank down exhausted on the floor of his cell! Then the spirit freed itself from the vile clogs of matter. His senses were absorbed in pleasure; the sound of heavenly harmony struck upon his ravished car; a bright, mild light, which was not of this world, dawned upon his half-closed eyes; and, at the height of the melodious vibrations of the golden harps of the Seraphim, in the centre of a glory, compared to which the sun is pale, the monk beheld the image of that beloved woman--"
"Whom by his prayers he had at length rescued from the eternal flames?"
said Hardy, in a trembling voice.
"Yes, herself," replied Rodin, with eloquent enthusiasm, for this monster was skilled in every style of speech. "Thanks to the prayers of her lover, which the Lord had granted, this woman no longer shed tears of blood--no longer writhed her beautiful arms in the convulsions of infernal anguish. No, no; still fair--oh! a thousand times fairer than when she dwelt on earth--fair with the everlasting beauty of angels--she smiled on her lover with ineffable ardor, and, her eyes beaming with a mild radiance, she said to him in a tender and pa.s.sionate voice: "Glory to the Lord! glory to thee, O my beloved! Thy prayers and austerities have saved me. I am numbered amongst the chosen. Thanks, my beloved, and glory!"--And therewith, radiant in her felicity, she stooped to kiss, with lips fragrant with immortality, the lips of the enraptured monk--and their souls mingled in that kiss, burning as love, chaste as divine grace immense as eternity!"
"Oh!" cried Hardy, completely beside himself; "a whole life of prayer, fasting, torture, for such a moment--with her, whom I mourn--with her, whom I have perhaps led to perdition!"
"What do you say? such a moment!" cried Rodin, whose yellow forehead was bathed in sweat like that of a magnetizer, and who now took Hardy by the hand, and drew still closer, as if to breathe into him the burning delirium; "it was not once in his religious life--it was almost every day, that Rancey, plunged in divine ecstasy, enjoyed these delicious, ineffable, superhuman pleasures, which are to the pleasures of earth what eternity is to man"s existence!"
Seeing, no doubt, that Hardy was now at the point to which he wished to bring him, and the night being almost entirely come, the reverend father coughed two or three times in a significant manner, and looked towards the door. At this moment, Hardy, in the height of his frenzy, exclaimed, with a supplicating voice: "A cell--a tomb--and the Ecstatic Vision!"
The door of the room opened, and Father d"Aigrigny entered, with a cloak under his arm. A servant followed him, bearing a light.