 | THE FOURTH PICTURE. Adrian, the neophyte |  |
LIFE AND DEATH.
And as the chime of life and the knell of death
mingled their strange and contrasted sounds, the
wide doors of the northern part of the cathedral
were flung suddenly open, and a band of rosy-cheeked
children came thronging into the temple, walking
two by two, and scattering rose-buds and leaves
of laurel by the way.
And then came a fair maiden, clad in robes of
snow-white, side by side with a gallant cavalier, all
gorgeous in the blaze of golden attire, with a sword
by his side, and a snow-white plume drooping over
his youthful brow.
As the eye of the Abbot rested upon the youthful
pair slowly approaching the centre of the temple,
where he stood, he also beheld, winding through
the opened door, the gay throng of beauteous maidens
and gallant cavaliers, each lip with its smile,
and each eye with its flash of joy, while the air
echoed with the music of the marriage lay.
As the merry strain came pealing gaily along the
cathedral, the massive doors opening to the south,
were opened wide, and a hymn for the dead, chaunted
by manly voices, rose solemnly upon the air,
and mingled with the marriage song.
Winding from the shadow of the southern door,
and walking two by two, a band of dark-robed
monks raised the death song, and as they sung,
they slowly approached the centre of the cathedral,
where the Abbot stood gazing at this singular scene
of life and death.
Amid the band of monks, attired in a tunic of
white, over which, sweeping to the floor, descended
the folds of a robe of black velvet, there walked,
with slow and measured step, a youth in the flush
of early manhood, yet with a face pale as death,
shaded by long locks of rich brown hair, that fell
along his shoulders in massive curls. His hands
were folded fixedly upon his breast, and his dark
grey eyes gleamed forward in one unvarying, unchanging
glance. No smile was on his lip, no
frown was on his brow. All calm, all composed,
all silent and still.
“How calm, and yet how pale he looks!” murmured
the Abbot, as the two processions, with their
songs of life and death intermingling, approached
the column. “Onward he stalks, slow and solemn
in pace. His face is calm—his eye is clear and
steady in its glance, and yet there is something o
omen in that even gait, that unalterable look, that
freezing eye!”
As he spoke, the procession of life and the procession
of death, on the point of turning toward
magnificent dome, and the eye of the Abbot rested
upon the forms of beauteous maidens, brilliant with
jewels, and gallant cavaliers, with their plumes of
white waving in the air with each motion of the
figure, or floating aside with each bend of the head.
And in their midst, side by side with his bride,
Lord Urban Di Capello tripped gaily onward, the
smile on his passionless lip, the vacant glance in
his eye, and the ready compliment, or skilfully-prepared
flattery, ever on his tongue.
The Lady Rose of Ellarini!
How queenly was her air, how magnificent her
step, how proud the inclination of her swan-like
neck, as, moving onward in her robes of white, she
glanced around with a flashing eye and a peerless
look, while she surveyed the scene, where every
eye, and glance, and tone, and voice, had but one
object of attention, and that object her own fair faee
and lovely form.
Adrian the Neophyte stood in the full light of the
dome; and as the sunbeams fell brightly over his
erect form, his folded arms, his mingled robes of
white and black, the gallants and damozels of the
marriage procession started back with a sudden
thrill of fear, and each gazer noted, that there was
a strange expression resting upon his massive brow,
a strange compression of his lips, and a strange and
unknown steadiness in the glance of his eye.
The fair bride looked upon him, but his glance
met not the glance of her eye, and for a moment
the proud and peerless Lady Rose, the Flower of
Ellarini, with all her fame and beauty, with her
bridal robes, and her future of hope, envied the
poor and nameless monk with his robes of sacrifice
and his doom of eternal solitude.
Why should she envy him—the nameless Neophyte?
She knew not; Yet a thought flashed over her
proud heart that she might have acted a nobler
part, than by toying and trifling with the soul of
the Enthusiast as though it were a thing of no
value.
Yet she was a gay thing and a fair, and her heart
was the heart of a woman of the world.
“Urban Di Capello—Rose of Ellarini!” the voice
of the Abbot was heard above the song of life and
the hymn of death. “The blessing of heaven be
upon ye, as ye pass onward through the gates of
Youth into the future of Happiness and Hope!”
And as he spoke the bridal procession wound on
its way to the altar of white.
“Adrian, my son and brother! God be with thee
in thy solitude, and thy soul will have room for
never a care of earth, never a pang of her woes,
her wrongs, and her sorrows! The blessing of
Heaven be upon thee, as thou passeth through the
gate of Eternal Solitude into the presence of
God!
And the procession of dark robed monks wended
heir way toward the altar of black, and the hymn
of life and the hymn of death, broke louder and yet
louder upon the air, while high over all the marriage
chime and the death-knell mingled their
notes of bliss and woe, with a combination of discord
and harmony, that seemed like a mockery of
the petty joys and petty sorrows that make up the
sum of human life.
Adrian the Neophyte stood upon the Altar of
Black.
| THE FOURTH PICTURE. Adrian, the neophyte | |