San Salvador

Front matter

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by

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ScEnE I

THe family in Palazzo Loredan, in the Grand Canal, Venice, had finished their midday breakfast, and coffee was brought in.

There was the Marchesa Loredan, a widow. her widowed only daughter with a little son and his tutor, and Don Claudio Loredan, the Marchesa’s second son. Her eldest son was married; and the youngest, Don Enrico, was a monsignore, and coadjutor of an old canon whom he was impatiently waiting to succeed. )

The breakfast had not been acheerful one. Don Claudio, usually the life of the family and its harmonizing element, had been silent and preoccupied; and Madama Loredan’s black brows had two deep lines between them, — sure signs of a storm.

She rose as the coffee was bought in.

“Carry a téte-a-téte down to the arbor,” she said to the servant; and to her son, “I wish to speak to you, Claudio.”’

The tutor rose respectfully, making sly but intense signals to his pupil to do the same. But the boy, occupied in counting the cloves of a mandarin orange, did not choose to see them.

A long window of the dining-room opened on a

DY) PROLOGUE.

baleony, and from the balcony a stair descended to the garden. This garden, a square the width of the house, would soon be a mass of bloom; but spring had hardly come as yet. The little arbor in the centre was covered with rosebuds, and the orange-trees were In blossom. There was a table in the arbor, with a chair at each side. |

Madama literally swept across the dining-room; for she did not lift a fold of the trailing robe of glossy white linen bordered with black velvet that followed her imperious steps.

Don Claudio was familiar with the several indications of his mother’s moods, and he followed in silence, carefully avoiding the glistening wake of her progress. When she had seated herself in the arbor, he took the chair opposite her, half filled a little rose-colored cup with coffee, dropped a single cube of sugar into it, stirred it with a tiny spoon that had the Loredan shield at the end of its slender twisted stem, and gravely set the cup before her.

He had not once raised his eyes to her face.

She watched him with a scrutinizing gaze. He was evidently expecting a reprimand; yet there was neither anger nor confusion in his handsome face. It had not lost its preoccupied and even sorrowful expression. She sipped her coffee in silence, and waited till he had drunk his.

“You were at Ca’ Mora last evening and this morning,” she said abruptly, when he set his cup down.

*“My master is dying!” he responded quietly.

Madama was for a moment disconcerted. The old professor with whom her son had for two years been studying oriental languages was a man of note among the learned. He had exercised a beneficial influence over the mind of Don Claudio; and for a while she had been glad that an enthusiasm for study should counteract the natural downward tendency of a life full of worldly prosperity and its attendant temptations. Only of late had she become aware of any danger in this intimacy.

“Dying!” she echoed. “I did not know that he was ill.”” She hesitated a moment, then bitterness prevailed.

“Of course his granddaughter has need of consolation,’? she added with a sneer.

“T have not seen her to-day,”’ Don Claudio said, controlling himself. Then, with a sudden outburst, “I would gladly console her!” he exclaimed, and looked at his mother defiantly.

His defiance of her was like the flash of a wax taper on steel. Madama leaned forward and raised a warning finger.

“You will leave her to be consoled by her equals,”’ she said. ‘‘And when her grandfather is dead, you will see her no more. Woe to her if you disobey me!”

The young man shrugged his shoulders to hide a tremor.

“Woe to her!” repeated his mother, marking the tremor.

Don Claudio remained silent.

“Has she succeeded in compromising you?” Madama asked.

The quick blood covered her son’s face.

“You might, at least, refrain from slandering her!” he exclaimed. Then his voice became supplicating. ‘Mamma, all that Tacita Mora lacks is rank. She has a fair portion; and she has been delicately reared and guarded. Her manners are exquisite. And there can be no undesirable connection, for she will be quite alone in the world.”

His mother made an impatient gesture, and was about to speak; but he held his hands out to her.

‘*Mamma, I love her so!” he exclaimed. ‘You do not know her. She is not one of those girls who give a man opportunities, and are always on the lookout foralover. We have never spoken a word of love. We have only looked at each other. But I cannot lose her!”

He threw himself on his knees at his mother’s side, and burst into tears.

She drew his head to her ents. and kissed him.

_ “You have only looked at each other!” she repeated. ‘My poor boy! As if that were not enough! Claudio, we all have to go through with it, as with teething. It is a madness. The only safe way is to follow the counsel of those who have had experience. It is only the pang of a day. This kind of passion does not endure; but order does. This is a passing fever of the fancy and the blood. Be patient a little while, and it will cure itself. Do not allow it to compromise your future. You will be glad of having listened to me when your love shall have died out.”

“Tt will never die!” he sobbed.

“Tt will die!”’ she said. ‘And now, listen to me. I have told the Sangredo that you are going to visit them this afternoon. It is a week since Bianca came home from school. You should have gone sooner. Go, and make yourself agreeable. If you do so, I will consent to your going once more to see Professor Mora, and I will myself go _ to inquire for him.”

The young man rose, and stood hesitating and frowning.

“Go, my dear!” his mother urged. “It is only a civility, and commits you to nothing.”

He went slowly away, knowing well that further appeal was useless. His mother followed him after a moment.

““My gondola!” she said to a servant who was taking off the tablecloth, and went on to an adjoining boudoir where her daughter sat.

‘Boys are such a trial! ”’ she said with an impatient sigh, and dropped intoasofa. ‘‘ Alfonso has, happily,-reached the age of reason. Enrico is under good guardianship, or I should tremble for his future, he is so impatient. It is true, Monsignor Sealchi does live longer than we thought he would; but, as I say to Enrico, can I kill Monsignor Scalchi in order that you may be made a canon we 6 PROLOGUE.

at once? Wait. He cannot live long. Enrico declares that he will never die. And now Claudio, with his folly!”

“What will he do?” the daughter asked.

“He will do as I command him! ” the Marchesa answered sharply. “I only wish, Isabella, that you would be half as resolute with your son. Peppino may go without his dessert this evening. It may make him remember to rise the next time that the mistress of the house leaves the table.”

ScENE II

In a boarding-house, on the Riva degli Schiavoni, a number of tourists, among them some artists, are seated at their one o’clock dinner.

Says a lady, “They say that the old Greek, or Arabic, or Turkish, or Hindu, or Boston Professor whom we met at the Lido last month— you remember him, Mr. James? — well— where did I begin? I’ve lost my nominative case.”

2d Lady. They say that he is dying, poor old man! My gondolier told me this morning that Professor Mora has visited every part of the globe, and knows a thousand languages. He seemed even to doubt if the professor might not have been to the moon. The gondolier evidently looks upon him with wonderment. And as for the professor’s granddaughter, she is one of the marvels of the earth.

1st Lady. Mr. James can tell you all about

PROLOGUE. v that. I think he did succeed in getting a sketch of the girl, if not of her grandfather. I don’t know where he keeps it, unless it is worn next his heart. It is not among the sketches that he shows to people. In fact, everything about this family in mysterious and uncommon.

A gentleman. What is it, Mr. James? The story promises to be interesting. ;

Mr. James (sotto voce). Damn the women! (Aloud.) This old professor, [ am told, came here fifteen years ago, some say, from the East. Shortly after, his widowed daughter with her little girl followed him. JI am not aware that they behaved in a mysterious manner, unless it is a mystery that people should be able to live quietly and innocently, and mind their own business; all which the Mora certainly achieved. They were not rich, but to the poor and unfortunate they were angels of mercy.

Ist Lady (striking in). FEverybody didn’t think so.

Mr. James. Everybody doesn’t think that God is good. Of course there were servants’ stories and gossips’ stories, and those who wished to believe them did believe them.

Gentleman. Will the girl be left alone? _

1st Lady. Do not cherish any hopes, sir. The mother is dead; but the young lady has an admirer. He is a fine young man with a palace and an ancestry, and the most beautiful eyes in the world. She goes out with him in his gondola by moonlight. It is so romantic!

Mr. James. Did you ever see them out together by moonlight, or at any other hour? |

1st Lady. Others have.

Mr. James. What others? Name one!

1st Lady. Really, sir! (leaves the table).

Mr. James. The Signorina Mora will not be left alone. There is a respectable woman with her —

2d Lady. <A nurse!

Mr. James. —a very respectable woman with her who has been here since her mother died, two years ago. She is an elderly woman of very pleas-. ant appearance and manners. Some one has said that she belongs to some charitable order that nurses the sick.

2d Lady (ina stage voice). “Juliet! Where.’s the girl? What, Juliet!”

Gentleman. Ahem!

Scene IIT.

In the church of Saint X. the half of the Chapter on duty that week had just come out of choir, and were taking off their vestments and laying them away, each in his proper drawer in the wall of the sacristy. The sound of alternate singing and praying yet came from the church. A Novena was going on; and Monsignor Scalchi, the old canonico for whose place Monsignor Loredan waited so impatiently, officiated.

Some of the clergy hastened away, others lingered, chatting together. One stood watching the gloomy way in which Monsignor Loredan flicked a speck of dust from his broad-brimmed hat.

“Well?” said the young man, aware of the other’s gaze, but without looking at him.

““T was wondering how Monsignor Sealchi is,”’ his friend said.

‘““When he sees me, he coughs,” said the coadjutor.

At that moment the person of whom they spoke entered the sacristy, with a priest at either hand. A rustling cope of cloth of gold covered his whole person, his eyes were downcast, his hands folded palm to palm, and he murmured prayers as he came.

The young men stood respectfully aside as he passed, his garments smelling of incense, and. went to disrobe at the other end of the sacristy.

‘Don’t lose courage, Don Enrico!” said one of the group. “He looks feeble. He can scarcely - lift his feet from the floor.”

“Poh!” exclaimed Don Enrico. “He is as strong as I am. He buys his shoes too long, so that they may drag at the heels and make him seem weak in the legs.”

He yawned, saluted with a graceful wave of the hand, and sauntered out into the silent piazza.

“Don Enrico is out of temper about his brother’s affairs, as well as his own,”’ one of his friends said when he was out of hearing. ‘They say that Claudio is in love with Tacita Mora, and is making a fool of himself. If he should offend the Sangredo, Don Enrico will lose the cardinal’s patronage. Professor Mora was as blind as a bat. He thought that Tacita was a child, and that Don Claudio was enamored of the Chinese language.”

‘“‘But the nurse never leaves the girl,”’ some one — said.

“Oh! the nurse is dark!” said one of the sacristans.

Yes; they all agreed that the nurse was dark.

One after another they dropped away, till only Monsignor Scalchi was left kneeling at a prie-dieu, and an under-sacristan going about his work, filling a silver lamp for the shrine of Saint X., shaving down the lower ends of great yellow wax torches to set in triple-footed iron stands for a funeral, counting out wafers for the altar. There was silence save for a light lapse of water against the steps outside; there was a sleepy yellow sunshine on the marble floor, and a smell of incense in the soft air.

As Monsignor Scalchi rose from his knees, a second under-sacristan entered.

“Here are the books from San Lazzaro, Monsignore,” he said. “But the translations from the Turkish are not yet ready. The illness of Professor Mora delayed them. He was to have looked them over.”

**Did you learn how the professor is?” asked the prelate, glancing over the books given him.

“T went to ask, Monsignore. Gian says that he is failing fast. The Marchesa Loredan has been to see him.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Monsignor Scalchi, looking up from the volume in his hand.

“Yes; and Gian says that the nurse watches over everything.”

“The nurse seems to be a dark one,’ nore remarked.

“Yes,” said the sacristan, ‘‘the nurse is dark.”’

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ScENE LV.

The mistress of Palazzo Sangredo sat in one of her stateliest salons talking with her cousin, the Countess Bembo. At some distance from them, half enveloped in the drapery of a great window, Bianca Sangredo peeped out into the Canal.

“T saw him myself ! ’’ said the countess in a vehement whisper. ‘I saw him go into the house, and I saw him come out. And he was there again this morning, and stopped half an hour. You ought to have an explanation with the marchesa. Everybody knows that the families wish for a marriage between him and Bianca. If Sangredo would stay at home and attend to his duties, Don Claudio would not dare to behave so. But Sangredo never is at home.”

“Oh, yes, he is!” said Sangredo’s wife languidly. ‘“‘He is always at home in Paris. But the marchesa declares that Claudio goes to Ca’ Mora to study, and that he already speaks Arabic like a sheik. Professor Mora is famous. Papadopoli says that since Mezzofanti no one else has known so many languages.”’

“Yes,” said her cousin sharply. ‘And the professor’s granddaughter will teach him to conjugate amore in every one of them.”

“Mamma,” said Bianea from the window, ‘Don Claudio’s gondola is at the step.”

‘““Come and sit by me, child!’ her mother said hastily.

When their visitor entered the salon, the two elder ladies received him with the utmost cordiality. Bianea only bent her head, and did not leave her mother’s side; but her childlike dimpling smile was full of kindness. She had a charming snow-drop stillness and modesty..

‘“‘T have already seen you to-day, Don Claudio,” said the Countess Bembo. “I passed you near the Giudecea; and you did not look at me, though our gondolas almost touched.”

‘“‘T beg your pardon ! ” he said seriously. ‘‘I had been, or was going, tothe house of Professor Mora, and I saw no one. He lies at the point of death. It is a great grief to me.”

The ladies began to question and sympathize. After all, things might not be so bad as. they had feared.

“He will be a loss to the world, as well as to his friends,”” Don Claudio said. ‘His knowledge of languages is something wonderful. Besides that, he is one of the best of men, His mode of teaching caught the attention at once. ‘Sometimes,’ he once said to me, ‘you may see protruding from the earth an ugly end of dry stick. Pull it, and you find a long root attached. Follow the root, and it may lead you toa beautiful plant laden with blossoms. And so a seemingly dry and insignificant fact may prove the key to a treasure of hidden knowledge.’ That was his way of teaching. However dry the proposition with which he began a discourse, it was sure to lead to something interesting.”

“You must feel very sad!’ the young girl said compassionately.

“It is sad,” he answered, and let his eyes dwell on her fair, innocent face. Then, the entrance of other visitors creating a little stir, he bent toward her and murmured “Thanks ! ”

SAN SALVADOR.

Chapter I

Ir 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 old professor, 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.

“YT 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.”

‘“‘T 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 in rebellion 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 ’ Jive 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.

“Tt 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 baffling problem! 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 itall. 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: Zhe 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.’

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 I sought by taking the lowlier way, if the supernatural might not have aided material science, as 1magination 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 donot 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 eycle 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:

“‘T was tossed hither and thither. I had such failures that life seemed to me a mockery, and such successes that | 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.

“T have known one perfect thing on si, ”” 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 sofainside. 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.

“‘T remember all !” she whispered back.

“Thou wilt be strong and faithful?” he asked in the same tone.

“T will be strong and faithful,” she answered.

He said nomore. His breath fluttered on her cheek, and seemed to stop.

‘“‘Hlena!’’ she cried.

After bending for a moment over the bed, the nurse had gone to the window, and stepped out into the baleony. 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! ”’

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 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! ’T is 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.”

Chapter II

Proressor Mora was buried in the cemetery of San Michele, with the rites of the Roman Church, though he had not received the last sacraments. That he had not, was supposed to have been the fault of the nurse. It was known, however, that he had made his Easter Communion; and those who had seen him before the altar at San Giorgio on that occasion spoke of his conduct as very edifying.

Many of them would doubtless have been puzzled, and even scandalized, could they have read his mind. ‘That he was, in soul, prostrate at the feet of his Creator, there could be no doubt. He had often, of late years, spent an hour in some church, kneeling, or sitting in deep thought. He found it easier to recollect himself in the quiet of such a place, surrounded by religious images.

On this last Easter he had questioned : —

“Shall I confess my sins to a priest? Why not? It can dome no harm, and it may do me good. I will declare what I know of my own wrong-doing, addressing God in the hearing of this man. He uses many instruments. Perhaps the forgiveness of God may be spoken to me by the lips of this man. Shall I tell this man that I do not know whether he has any authority, or not? No. I am doing the best that I can; and his claim that he has authority will have no weight with me.”

It was the same with his communion.

“Ts it true that the Blessed Christ, the Son of God, is mystically concentrated and hidden in the wafer which will be placed upon my tongue, and that he will pervade my being, as the souls of a thousand roses are concentrated in a vial of attar, and scent all the house with their sweetness? I do not know. Nothing that God wills is impossible. _ If I ery out to him, O my Father, I search, and grope, and cannot find my Saviour! Send him, therefore, to meet my soul in this wafer, that I may live! At this point let me touch him, and receive help, as the sick woman received it from his garment’s hem! — he could meet me there, if it were his will, and pour all heaven into my soul through that channel. Does he will it? I do not know. But since it is not impossible, I will bow myself as if he were here. Is there a place where God is not?”