Magdalen

“ Through the dingy window at the north the moon was looking in, and lighting up that end of the garret with a weird, ghostly kind of light, which made Magdalen shiver more than utter darkness would have done. She knew she was alone; there was no sign of life around her, except the huge rat, which, frightened at this unlooked-for visitation, sprang from Magdalen knew not where, and running past her disappeared in a hole low down under the eaves, reminding Magdalen of what Hester had said of “the loose plank under the rafters where you have to stoop.” ”

“ Ah, Magdalen, daughters can't be always young and sweet-tempered, like your brace of pretty partridges yonder. They grow old, Cousin Magdalen—old and ugly and spiteful; and are more bitter and worthless than the wild pumpkin. But I speak not of those who are present, for I would say nothing to offend my respected Cousin Ascension, whom may God preserve, though she never married. ”

“ Magdalen Graham ...
Magdalen. Yours, always, only yours.
Brown. I warn you, monstrous rogue, abduction earns
A lengthy term of penal servitude.
Smith. Inept fool!—Lady, life, the shooting star,
Is no more worth than is the miser's gold,
The cultured man's impressions, lust's delight;
It is a prison innocence may break;
A moment mere of immortality.
Magdalen. Watch for the moon: she slips her sable shawl,
And silver lace. Behold!
Smith. The happy night
Heaves a deep long-drawn sigh of sweet content.
Magdalen. Oh, if the world would look on us like that! ”

“ And Magdalen mingled amongst the crowd to listen to the words of the young master.
Some of his disciples having said in speaking to him of Magdalen, that she had been seduced and then abandoned by a young doctor of the law, the figure of Jesus became grave, severe, and almost menacing, and he exclaimed——
'Woe to you, doctors of the law! Woe to you, hypocrites! You are like unto whitened sepulchres; the outside appears gay, but within all is bones and putridity. Thus, outwardly you appear just in the eyes of men, but inwardly you are full of iniquity and hypocrisy. ”

“ But I beg pardon for running from my subject; women's pens, Sir, are not used to order.
In my calamitous distress I applied to the Magdalen House; and I was received with all that humanity which distinguishes the worthy managers of it. I fancied and foreboded every good to myself, when, on the day of admission, I perceived many of the gentlemen wipe their eyes while I was relating some of my early miseries! For alas, Sir, though I am old in grief, I have yet seen but nineteen years! It is impossible for me to describe, as I ought, the comforts I found in that house. ”

“ Whatever Magdalen’s fate, she would always carry it, to all outward seeming, with the stateliness of a queen who wears her crown.
‘You were so absorbed, you scarcely heard my name,’ she said, in her clear, rather sarcastic tones, and with a slight cool smile. ‘I am glad to find you in. I heard that Michael was coming home to-day, and I did not wish to go away without saying good-bye.’
‘You are going away?’ said Eleanor. ‘Are you going for long?’
‘Most likely I shall never see you again,’ Magdalen pursued. ‘It is not probable that our paths will ever cross. ”

“ I see the red mouth tarnished, the face grey,
And smileless silent eyes of Magdalen.
The lights have laughed their last; without, the street
Darkling, awaiteth her whose feet have trod
The silly souls of men to golden dust. ”

“ Before Magdalen could pursue her advantage, the vagabond had recovered his balance: Wragge was himself again.
“Smart,” said the captain, laughing indulgently, and drumming with his umbrella on the pavement. “Some men might take it seriously. I’m not easily offended. Try again.”
Magdalen looked at him through the gathering darkness in mute perplexity. All her little experience of society had been experience among people who possessed a common sense of honor, and a common responsibility of social position. ”

“ He is selfish, he is ungrateful, he is ungenerous—he is only twenty, and he has the worst failings of a mean old age already. And this is the man I find you meeting in secret—the man who has taken such a place in your favor that you are deaf to the truth about him, even from my lips! Magdalen! this will end ill. For God’s sake, think of what I have said to you, and control yourself before it is too late!” She stopped, vehement and breathless, and caught her sister anxiously by the hand.
Magdalen looked at her in unconcealed astonishment. ”

“ Magdalen has frightened me.”
Norah rose hurriedly; rose, startled and distressed by Miss Garth’s reply.
“Don’t think ill of Magdalen,” she said. “Magdalen suffers in secret more than I do. Try not to grieve over what you have heard about us this morning. Does it matter who we are, or what we keep or lose? What loss is there for us after the loss of our father and mother? Oh, Miss Garth, there is the only bitterness! What did we remember of them when we laid them in the grave yesterday? Nothing but the love they gave us—the love we must never hope for again. ”

“ John the Baptist in Siena, Venice, and Berlin. Of these, the Magdalen in the Baptistery at Florence is the most typical and the most uncompromising. She stands upright, a mass of tattered rags, haggard, emaciated, almost toothless. Her matted hair falls down in thick knots; all feminine softness has gone from the limbs, and nothing but the drawn muscles remain. It is a thin wasted form, piteous in expression, painful in all its ascetic excess. The Magdalen has, of course, been the subject of hostile criticism. ”

“ So Magdalen, in tears more wise, Dissolved those captivating eyes, Whose liquid chains could, flowing, meet To fetter her Redeemer's feet. The sparkling glance, that shoots desire, Drenched in those tears, does lose its fire ”

“ It was the morn when the tall and shapely tower of Magdalen is crowned with a fillet of shining white, awaiting the first step of sunrise. Once a year, for generations, this has been the sign of it—eager eyes, and gaping mouths, little knuckles blue with cold, and clumsy little feet inclined to slide upon the slippery lead. All are bound to keep together for the radiant moment; all are a little elated at their height above all other boys; all have a strong idea that the sun, when he comes, will be full of them ”

“ Some say they are now retreating with the cattle they have taken; while others maintain that they are waiting to fight our men."
"Oh, my sons, my sons, what will happen to them!" cried Magdalen, bursting into tears.
"Why do you cry, wife, before God gives you cause?" returned her husband. "Are not all men born to fight the infidel? Our boys are not alone—all their friends and neighbours are with them."
"Say not this to me, Gregory, for I am not a fool nor blind. All their friends indeed! ”

“ Many years ago Magdalen had accepted not without tears, one such offering from a very poor man indeed.
Loving-kindness, tenderness, have their warped, stunted shoots as well as their free-growing, stately blossoms. It is the same marvellous, fragrant life struggling to come forth through generous or barren soil. There are some thin, dwarfed, almost scentless flowers of love and friendship, of which we can discern the faint fragrance only when we are on our knees. But some of us have conscientious scruples about kneeling down except at shrines. ”

“ Alone in the night, Magdalen might dare to be herself again—might dream of the past, and wake from the dream, encountering no curious eyes to notice that she was in tears—might ponder over the future, and be roused by no whisperings in corners, which tainted her with the suspicion of "having something on her mind." ”

“ Miss Garth’s head drooped low over the mute revelation of Magdalen’s return to her better self.
“Oh, never doubt her again!” pleaded Norah. “We are alone now—we have our hard way through the world to walk on as patiently as we can. If Magdalen ever falters and turns back, help her for the love of old times; help her against herself.” ”

“ She had forgotten all, save that her father looked with eyes of love upon her. The shrill voice broke the heavenly spell, and Magdalen knelt again in prayer at the Saviour's feet.
She closed her eyes as though she would shut out the sorrow from her soul, while a look of deep pain settled on her features which her father mistook for physical suffering. There was something in her pale face then, that reminded him of her dear, dead mother. ”

“ The little man then vanished, leaving his gifts behind him, and Magdalen hastened joyfully home. Her first care was to prepare herb tea for the patient, whose health was miraculously restored as soon as she had tasted it. But when Magdalen tried to cut the cheese the kind-hearted gnome had given her, she was amazed to find it was a solid lump of pure gold! She and her mother were so rich with this treasure that they soon purchased the Bründlisalp, where Magdalen and Alois, a happy husband and wife, tended their flocks together. ”

“ And Ivor, in a sudden wild fury, threw away the cigarette he was about to light, and banged out of the house.
He knew very well where Magdalen was. Of course. Magdalen wasn’t the sort of woman to hang about just anywhere all the time between lunch and dinner—like Virginia and Lois and that crowd, who either sat about for hours in one place or dashed about to a thousand places in an afternoon, doing nothing at all. Magdalen was not like that, she either had a purpose or she hadn’t; and if she hadn’t, she sat at home reading a book. She read a lot of books. ”

“ A good friendship it was, with a kind of chivalry about it which was not the less real because it was rather odd—very odd, some might think. But Magdalen had a way of melting things and men, a Renaissance way she had of bringing the godlessness out of a man so that it seemed to him he was a god. She was romantic to the end, this Magdalen, in her shadowy way, saying to the youngest of her three friends: “Perhaps one day you will come out to join us, Ivor. But not until you are very tired, remember, for I hear it’s no place for a striving person, and you are a striving person, you know. ”

“ One day he produced his cold to Magdalen, by special request, for he had avoided seeing her for a week; and Magdalen said that he had caught the thing because he was run down and that he must go away. She pointed out that he was the luckiest man in the world, with or without a cold in the head.
“You’re free, Ivor!” she said. “A man with no ties and plenty of money—my dear, the world’s for you! And here you are, hanging about London in January, when you might be in all the lovely warm places in the world, having marvellous adventures in the sun!” ”

“ If harm befall him, Oxford will suffer the stain of an indelible disgrace."
"Can nothing be done?" cried Magdalen earnestly. "Oh, can we do nothing? You are rich, you are powerful, you have many friends in high places--can you do nothing?"
"Whatever I can do, I will do," answered Arthur gravely. "I fear me in a crisis like this it will be little; and yet I will leave no stone unturned. I will even see the cardinal himself if I can achieve it, and if his life or safety are in peril. I would risk much for him and for Dalaber, for both are dear to me. ”

“ Three times, during 352 the day he spent at Parma, he returned to the contemplation of this picture; and truly painting never produced its superior, scarcely its rival. The Holy Child sits in his mother’s lap, with an angel beside him, who smiles as he exhibits to the Magdalen the page on which her sins were inscribed, now white as snow, and the Magdalen kisses the Saviour’s foot, and looks still repentant but consoled. ”

“ Holy Magdalen, defend him!
(Renier falls back.)
Now, now defend him, if to chastity
Thou'rt vowed in heaven.
Vittia. Fool!—Camarin, strike!
Yolanda. He's wounded!
[Pg 86]
Camarin. Oh!... Berengere!... treachery!
(He staggers and sinks back heavily toward the pillar. There is breathless, strained suspense. Then he strikes the sacred column, and as he does so the image above sways, totters and crushes upon him. A cry, "The Magdalen!" goes up around.)
Hassan (hurrying to him; after awe and silence) .
He's dead.
Alessa. The Magdalen!
Hassan. No breath in him. ”

“ But Magdalen had begun her exhortation, and was not to be easily stopped. In the same cold but energetic style she went on—
‘If you once let him see that you think his affairs are anything to you, your chance is gone.’
‘My chance—of what?’ thought Eleanor, looking, as she now felt, very grave.
Magdalen saw this gravity. Her thought was, ‘Silly, sentimental creature! The idea of coming rushing in with a mission or a vocation to improve her brother! Some women never will learn.’ Then, after a moment’s pause, she continued—
‘Men are odd, you know. ”

“ Thereupon the Marseillaise dismissed her slaves, and offered the Jewess an ivory armchair with cushions embroidered in gold. But Mary Magdalen, pushing it back with disgust, seated herself on the ground with feet crossed in the shade of the great plane-tree stirred by the murmuring breeze.
“Daughter of the Gentiles,” she said, “you have not despised the disciples of the Lord. For this reason I will teach you to know Jesus as I know Him, to the end that you shall love Him as I love Him. I was a sinner when I saw for the first time the most beautiful of the sons of men.” ”

“ Magdalen turned homewards after the seven years, and found on the way a spring, where she washed her hands, with a sigh over their disfigurement. She heard a voice that said, Magdalen, thou hast sinned. She asked for new penance, and was sent back to the mountain for seven years more. At the end of this second term she died, and was borne to the skies with every honor from the Virgin, saints, and angels.
Danish A is translated by Prior, II, 25, No 44: Swedish C by William and Mary Howitt, Literature and Romance of Northern Europe, I, 282.
A.
Percy MS., p. ”