University of Virginia Library

2. THE SECOND PICTURE.

EARTH DARKENS HEAVEN.

The student sat in his lonely cell. The hour
was silent as the grave, and a faint cresset, hung
from the side of a massive pillar, rough with age
and worn by time, flung its faint and scanty beams
over the face of the Neophyte, while the farther
recesses of the solitary home were wrapt in gloom
and shadow.

Adrian sat upon a bench of stone, projecting from
the dark grey wall, with his head drooped low upon
his breast, his right hand lay clenched upon
his knee, and the left drooping heavily by his side,
while the fingers of the hand carelessly entwined
a beaded rosary, which fell to the earth, with the
holy cross resting neglected upon the floor of
stone.

The dark grey eyes of the student glared fixedly
from beneath the eyebrows set together in a
frown, the thin lips tightly compressed, quivered
and trembled with a wild nervous movement,
while over his youthful face and open brow, a
deathly paleness rested like a veil, and the lamp-beams
tinted with a ruddy light the folds of his
dark robe, heaved upwards by the throbbings of
thought, that awoke the demon within his breast.

“I have seen her!” were the words that broke
murmuringly from his half closed lips—but oh,
how changed and hollow was his voice, since you
heard it last in the Cathedral aisle—“I have seen
the Beauty of Florence—The Rose of Ellarini!
I have seen her, beautiful and peerless as a vision
—I have sat by her side, have drank the glance
of her full dark eye, and looked upon the glow
of her cheek! These fingers have trembled with
hers, as they ran, all alive with music, along the
chords of the breathing harp! I have seen her
—and in my heart is hell, and in my brain is
fire!”

He paused, and his hands were clasped wildly
across his breast, while the strained sinews seemed
bursting from the skin with the wild effort.
And then gazing upward with a look full of utter
abandonment of soul, and in a voice made thrilling
by the despair of a soul, that sinks to night,
within the sight of Heaven, in a voice hollow and
ghastly, yet broken ever and anon, by tones of
pathos, that would have thrilled a heart of stone
to hear, he exclaimed, raising his hands on high—

“Oh, God—no longer mine—where now is my
Religion? My beautiful religion of dreams and
shadows? My faith of light? My belief of holy
love and hallowed hope? Where are they now?
Where the calm soul, and the heart that erewhile
knew no care? Where is now my hope—my
heaven—my life? Gone—gone—all gone!

THE DREAM OF EARTH.

“And on the throne of my soul, sits a fair image—but
not of Christ or God! An image of
beauty with shadowy eyes—full, liquid and black
as night—eyes that dart passion; and lips, ruby
with health, parting like severed rose buds, and
murmuring tones of music, that madden my very
brain!

“And oh, along each cheek, flushing with
life, are floating tresses of midnight hair—dark
night mingling with the first warming flush of
rose-hued day—and a single tress, dark, waving,
and glossy, falls twining round her neck of alabaster,
and rests in all its beauty upon the bosom
with its globes of snow. 'Twas thus when I saw
her last—but an hour since! That tress rises
with the throb of thought—it sinks with the ebbing
sigh. 'Tis the dark buoy of her soul, floating
o'er passion's wave, floating above the depths,
where passion's hopes lie anchored! And she
never can be mine!”

He started to his feet and paced the floor. The
rosary fell from his hand, and the cross rang with
a clanging sound upon the tesselated stone.

“Holy cross”—he cried, starting round and
gazing wildly upon the fallen emblem—“To me
thou hast been full of high hope and hallowed
joy. Father nor mother, brother nor sister hath
the orphan, but I have looked upon thee, and He
on Calvary stood before me, the Virgin was by

my side, the Presence of God was around me.
These were father, mother, sister and brother, to
me—and I was happy. Now! Oh, God! she never
can be mine!”

Again and again he paced the floor of stone,
again were his hands clasped wildly across his
breast, and his voice once more startled the air
with its sounds of mockery and despair.

“Lord Urban Di Capello”—he murmured—
“Rich, young, fair-tongued, and gallant in bearing!
The pride of Florence—the boast of her chivalry!
And can he love her? As I love, can he love?
Would he give his soul, his heaven, his all—in
life or death—would he give his God for her?
He loves as the gay gallant can love—but all this
madness of passion—this phantasy of affection—
this despair of heart—these can never wake a
thought within his bosom! Urban of Capello—
Rose of Ellarini! May the God of Heaven pity
me—but my soul is lost!

And sinking on the marble floor, in the solemn
voice of the olden time, the student sent up his
soul to Heaven in prayer, and as the memories of
Religion, the sanctities of enthusiasm, and the
imaginings of hallowed hope, fell wild and trembling
from his lips, the warm and gushing tears
came streaming from his eyes, and—Adrian the
Neophyte was with the olden time again.

“I will forget her!” he exclaimed, bounding on
his feet—“I will see her again and again, and as
I look upon her, I will conquer this madness of
soul! The struggle is hard—the reward is grand!
Adrain, the Neophyte, will come forth from the
ordeal of fire, unscathed and unharmed! And now
I will away to the mountain solitudes! No sleep
for me this night—but the clear sky and the free
air! I am ready for the ordeal!”

And as he sprang with a bounding step, thro'
the narrow door of his cell, his full grey eye
flashed with the light of hope, and his cheek
with the ruddy glow of youth, but —

The hollow laugh of supernatural omen broke
over the silence of the cell.