F. Marion Crawford

“ Why should she go? If she still felt that she must leave Rome for a time, she could go to one of the order's houses far away, but not to the East, the deadly East! Heaven did not love useless suffering; the Church condemned all self-sacrifice that was not meet, right, and reasonable. In due time she would come back, when all danger was over, when Giovanni had lived through the first days of surprise, disappointment, and passion.
The sunset glow had faded and twilight was coming on when the two went down the steps and crossed the cloistered garden to the chapel, for it was the hour for Vespers. ”

“ Angela was a brave girl and set herself the task of bearing it quietly because it was a natural and healthy consequence of loving dearly. It was not like the wrench of saying good-bye to a lover on his way to meet almost certain death. She told herself, and Giovanni told her, that in all probability he was not going to encounter any danger worse than may chance in a day's hunting over a rough country or in a steeple-chase, and that the risk was certainly far less than that of fighting a duel in Italy, where duelling is not a farce as it is in some countries. ”

“ Risk your own lives for your own glory, instead of sacrificing women on your altars—women who should live to be wives and mothers, an honour to mankind!'
'You are utterly unjust——'
'No, I am human, and I will not tolerate your human sacrifice! I am a man, and I will not let the woman I love be sent to a horrible death, to delight your Moloch of a God!'
'Captain Severi, you are raving.'
Giovanni's fiery rage leapt from invective to sarcasm.
'Raving! That is your answer, that is the sum of your churchman's argument! A man who will not let you make a martyr of the woman he adores is raving! ”

“ She broke off suddenly and pressed her handkerchief to her lips again.
'Only what you call the unreal can last unchanged for a while,' the painter said, catching at the word she had used, and thinking more of his art than of her. 'Only an ideal can be eternal, but every honest attempt to give it shape has a longer life than any living creature. Nature makes only to destroy, but art creates for the very sake of preserving the beautiful.'
She heard each sentence, but was too absorbed in the portrait to follow his meaning closely. ”

“ There was the nun's habit, too, and the veil and wimple, proclaiming another and a greater change from which there was no return.
Ippolito Saracinesca had never been in love, even in his early youth; it was no wonder that he was mistaken in such a man as Giovanni Severi. The only danger he reckoned with lay in Sister Giovanna's own heart, and he felt that he could count on her courage, her self-respect, and most of all on her profoundly religious nature. No danger is ever overcome without danger, said Mimos. ”

“ As for the brother who was in the Navy, Ugo rarely saw him or even heard of him, and since their father had died he himself had led a very lonely existence. His delight on learning that Giovanni had escaped and was returning may be imagined, for, in spite of his apparent coldness and love of solitude, he was a man of heart, and like many Italians of all classes his ideal of happiness would have been to live quietly under one roof with his brothers and sister. There is probably no other people in the world that finds such permanent satisfaction in what most of us would think a dull family life. ”

“ She went towards the door, gliding across the floor noiselessly in her felt shoes; but just before she went out she turned to Giovanni again, and suddenly her eyes were blazing like live coals.
'And if you have the heart to kill yourself when you have talked with her,' she said, 'you are a coward, who never deserved to live and be called a man!'
She was gone before Giovanni could have answered, and the man who had risked life and limb to save others twelve hours earlier smiled faintly at the good Mother's womanly wrath and feminine invective. ”

“ No man was ever really moved to change his mind by a woman's eloquence, though we will risk our lives for a look of yours, for a touch—for a kiss!'
Sister Giovanna sighed and turned from him. The razor-edge of extremest peril was passed, for the words that left him cold and unbelieving had brought back conviction to her soul. She could live for him, pray for him, die for him, but she would not sin for him nor lift a hand to loose the vows that bound her to the religious life. ”

“ Sister Giovanna stood upright beside the pillows, and prayed very earnestly in her heart that she might forget what she had heard, or at least bear her aunt no grudge for the irreparable wrong.
But the delirious woman, who still fancied that her nurse was her confessor, was waiting for the words of absolution, and after a few moments, as she did not hear them, she broke out again in senseless terror, with sobbing and more tears. ”

“ She could only draw one conclusion from this fact, but it was a grave one: in spite of her past life, her vows and her heartfelt faith, she was not free from material and earthly passion. Innocence is one thing, ignorance is another, and a trained nurse of twenty-five cannot and should not be as ignorant as a child, whether she be a nun or a lay woman. Sister Giovanna knew what she had felt: it had been the thrill of an awakened sense, not the vibration of a heartfelt sympathy ”

“ Could walls or bars keep such a man from the woman he loves? I [Pg 228] must face him myself, and to face him I must kill something in me—cut it out, tear it up from its roots—I am only a woman after all! A nun can be a woman still, a weak woman, who has loved a man very, very dearly——'
'Oh, Angela, hush! For the love of Heaven, my child, my child!'
To Sister Giovanna's unspeakable amazement, the unbending nature was breaking down, the marble saint, with the still white face, who had bidden her pray, and never see Giovanni again. ”

“ It is almost certain death and we all feel very badly about Angela.'
'Poor girl!' exclaimed Ugo. 'She must have cared for him so much that she is tired of living. Very few of those Sisters ever come back, I believe.'
'None,' said the Princess Chiaromonte in a tone that would certainly have arrested his attention if he had known everything. 'It is the saddest thing in the world,' she went on quickly, fearing that her hatred had betrayed itself. 'To think that year after year those good women voluntarily go to certain death! And not even to save life, for lepers cannot be cured, you know. ”

“ The little lodging in Trastevere was very silent, and Coco sat disconsolately drooping his wings on his perch when his mistress was out, as she was during more than half the day, giving the lessons by which she and Angela lived. The girl sometimes did not move from her chair throughout the long morning any more than if she had been paralysed, or at most she tried to tend the flowers. The roses were blooming now, and on fine days, when the windows were open, the aromatic perfume of the young carnations floated in with the sunbeams. ”

“ The great surgeon and the Mother Superior sat on opposite sides of his bed, and now that the sun had risen high the blinds were half drawn together and hooked in the old-fashioned Roman way, to keep out some of the light, while the glass was left open. A broad stripe of sunshine fell across the counterpane below Giovanni's knees, and a sharp twittering and a rushing of wings broke the stillness every few seconds, as the circling swallows flew past the half-open window. ”

“ It was Filmore Durand's odd speech that had come back to her often during two years; when she repeated it to herself she saw his portrait of Giovanni, which still hung in Madame Bernard's sitting-room, and presently it was not a picture seen in memory, but Giovanni himself.
Madame Bernard shrugged her shoulders and smiled vaguely.
'Death is a fact,' she said prosaically. 'It is the reason why we cannot live for ever!'
The reason was not convincing to Angela, but as she saw no chance of being understood, she went back to the starting-point. ”

“ Nothing could have saved Sister Giovanna then.
As he saw the truth more and more clearly, shame turned into something more like horror, and as different from mere humiliation as remorse is from repentance. Thinking over what he had done, he attempted to put himself in Angela's place, and to see, or guess, how he would behave if some stronger being tried to force him to choose between public ignominy and breaking a solemn oath. Moreover, he endeavoured to imagine what the nun, as distinguished from the mere woman, must have felt when she found herself trapped in a man's rooms and locked in. ”

“ It was all very well to be as strong as Angela, she reflected, and to have a great religious order behind one, supported by the whole body of the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church; and it was a fine thing to have so much character, and such a beautiful, grave face, and solemn, saintly eyes; but it showed weakness to turn as white as a sheet at the mention of a man's name, though he might be dead, and in a few minutes it would be a satisfaction to note the signs of inward distress when the grave supervising nurse came face to face with the brother of the man she had loved. ”

“ Angela heard and saw, for she understood what moved him, so far as almost childlike simplicity can have intuition of what most touches a strong man. She was less like the portrait now than a moment earlier; her lips, just parting in a little half-longing, half-troubled smile, were like dark rose leaves damp with dew, her eyelids drooped at the corners for an instant, and the translucent little nostrils quivered at the mysterious thrill that stirred her maiden being. ”

“ For a woman, for a girl you love! Do you think she will love you the more, or less, for keeping out of danger, if she is a true Italian as she thinks you are? Why is it that our Italy, which no one thought much of a few years ago, is coming to the front in so many ways now? It was not by staying at home for women's sake that our sailors have got nearer the North Pole than all the others who have tried! It is not by avoiding danger that our officers are learning to astonish everybody with their riding——'
'That is different,' objected Giovanni. ”

“ Marry her, of course! Do you suppose I have changed my mind?'
'But she is evidently a nun,' objected Ugo. 'She must have taken irrevocable vows. These nurses are not like Sisters of Charity, I believe, who make their promise for a year only and then are free during one night, to decide whether they will renew it.'
Giovanni Severi laughed, but not lightly, nor carelessly, nor scornfully. It was the short, energetic laughter of a determined man who does not believe anything impossible. ”

“ For a breathing-space both guessed what heaven might hold of rest, refreshment, and peace, and the march of tragic fate was stayed while mother and daughter communed together, and dreamed of never parting on earth but to meet in heaven, of keeping their sweet secret from all the world as something sacred for themselves, of working side by side, in one life, one love, one faith, one hope, of facing all earthly trouble together, and of fighting every battle of the spirit hand in hand. ”

“ Faith, Hope, and Charity are all we have to help us, all we can ask of Heaven. Believe, hope, and help others while you live, and all will go well hereafter, never fear! Not to help, not to believe, not to hope, even during one moment, is to fail in that moment. Where the sum is light, it is easy to count the dark places, but not the light itself. That is what I mean, my daughter, when I say, keep account of your failures but not of your successes. Try to remember it.'
'Indeed I will,' Angela answered. ”

“ Giovanni was indignant again, and rebelled.
'You used to tell me that your God was just!'
'And I have heard you say that your only god was honour!' retorted the nun.
'Yes!' he answered hotly. 'It is! Honour teaches that the first promise given must be fulfilled before all others!'
'I have been taught that vows made to God must not be broken.' [Pg 249]
She rose, as if the speech were final. Though they had been talking only a few minutes, she already felt that she could not bear much more. ”