Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

become a prey to hopeless love, to mad passion, to religious doubts, and to gloomy regrets that he had ever taken those vows which he now considered so wrong and reprehensible; even then, it did not occur to him that Agatha could be otherwise than happy, and he ceased writing to her, for he feared to betray his feelings and his new opinions, and thus to unsettle her mind and to awaken reflections which had probably never occurred to her, or, at least, to occasion her anxiety on his account. He could not now write to her in glowing strains of the purity, the peace, the beatitude of monastic life, for monastic life he had now begun to regard as the great incubus in the Roman Catholic religion. Better, he thought, to leave the gentle nun to the tranquillity of her uneventful and monotonous existence; he forgot that his continued silence would necessarily trouble her tranquillity by exciting her fears for his health, or her sorrow for his forgetfulness of her.

And, indeed, Agatha became very uneasy about her brother, when months and months passed without her hearing from him; he was her last earthly tie-was that, too, to be rudely snapped?

The old ladies with whom she had resided at Brussels had left that town, and settled themselves at Aix-la-Chapelle; but, even had they remained in Belgium, they never would have mentioned Alphonse. They would have thought it a crime against the Holy Virgin, and all the saints in the calendar, to have brought the name of her former lover before the eyes of a sedate nun. So very particular were they, that they never even alluded to the older Madame de Florennes, or to any of the acquaintances of Agatha's worldly days. They only told her of the number of pairs of stockings they knitted for the poor; of the warm spring in the open street at Burscheid; of the venerable Dom Kirche, and its sepulchral bell; and of the blind young priest, who was the favourite confessor of the ladies, and whose history was really so interesting.

The Baron Vanderhoven had written often to Sister Ursula after his wife's death, but his letters were full of his grief for her loss; and he also, probably from a feeling of delicacy, never mentioned his brother-inlaw. Latterly, however, his letters had become less frequent, he spent much of his time in Holland, and, since he had announced that he was going to make a long tour through various European countries, she had not heard from him.

It could not be said that Agatha was unhappy in conventual life; their little community was by no means a gloomy or austere one; the Lady Abbess herself was an amiable, well-educated, and rational woman, and she liked to see the nuns cheerful. Their seclusion was enlivened by the presence of about a dozen young ladies, who were received as boarders, or rather pupils, and who had masters for music, painting, languages, &c. Some of the nuns were partially engaged in superintending the studies of these girls; others had abundance of fancy and plain work to do; none were idle, and time, therefore, did not hang heavy on their hands.

But poor Agatha sometimes took an intense longing to hear of Alphonse, though she tried as much as possible to banish his image from her mind, and always severely blamed herself when he stole into her thoughts. Among the pupils was a young lady from Brussels, whose family moved in the same circle there as did the De Florennes: she hap

pened to be speaking of them one day in the hearing of Agatha, and the latter could not resist the temptation of making some inquiry about them. By this girl she was informed that Madame Alphonse led a very gay life, and gave a number of fashionable parties; that her mother-in-law and herself did not agree at all; and that Mr. de Florennes was frequently absent from home, and spent a good deal of his time at a little huntinglodge he had in the Ardennes, where, it was whispered, a pretty paysanne was the housekeeper and the attraction. Agatha further learned that Alphonse and "the Iceberg" had no children.

She was very, very sorry to hear that poor Alphonse was not happy in his domestic relations; at the same time, it was impossible for her not to feel some slight satisfaction in knowing that her wealthy rival, though she had bought a husband, had not secured his affection, and she thought it a just punishment on the selfish, hard-hearted, scheming old lady, that her rich daughter-in-law could not be made subservient to her.

VI.

AGATHA'S ANXIETY ABOUT HER BROTHER, AND HOW THE BARON VANDERHOVEN EMPLOYS ALPHONSE TO MAKE INQUIRIES ABOUT HIM.

TIME wore on, and still there came no letter from Rudolph. At length Agatha determined to write to the Abbot of St. Dreux, to ask tidings of him.

The abbot's answer was a dreadful blow to her. He told her that her brother had unfortunately been attacked by a brain fever, which had left behind not so much of bodily weakness as of aberration of mind; that it was dangerous for himself and others to let him go at large; and that it had been found necessary to remove him from the monastery to a lunatic asylum. The abbot added that every care would be taken of him at the asylum at Ghent, which was celebrated for being admirably well conducted, and that he himself had arranged to pay a handsome board for the poor mental invalid, so that every comfort should be afforded him. Agatha had no right to doubt the abbot's truth and kindness, but still she could not help feeling, from the guarded manner in which he wrote, that she had not been told all. She remembered how he had managed to separate Rudolph from her, when a brother's protection and friendship would have been invaluable to her; and she could not refrain from reflecting with a sigh of regret that if the abbot's influence had not drawn Rudolph to embrace a monastic life, if he had been left free to follow some other career, he might have made his way in the world, he might have acquired fortune and a good position in society; and then she, his only relative, would not have been left almost a dependent on the bounty of strangers, and probably would not have been forsaken by him who had once cared for her.

Agatha could not get over the idea that haunted her; therefore, with permission of the abbess, she wrote to Baron Vanderhoven, imploring him, as her only friend, to make some inquiries respecting her brother, and if it would not be giving him too much trouble, to see him at the asylum at Ghent.

When her letter reached the baron, he was just on the eve of starting

for Holland, where he was engaged to be married to a young Dutch lady. He had quite recovered his spirits, and though he had not altogether forgotten Hortense, he did not feel himself called on to devote the whole of his life to her memory. The Dutch girl was pretty, pleasant, and well born; he was tired of his own society, his home was dull, he could not do better than marry again.

As the wedding-day was fixed, and he had to go to Amsterdam immediately, it was impossible for him to visit Ghent, or make the inquiries requested by the Sister Ursula. Still he felt for the poor nun's anxiety about her brother, and did not wish to disappoint her. What was to be done? He turned the matter over and over in his own mind, until at length he resolved to entrust the commission to Alphonse de Florennes. He was an idle man, the short journey to Ghent would not put him to any inconvenience, and he owed some reparation to Agatha for his former conduct towards her.

The baron wrote to his brother-in-law accordingly, and Alphonse eagerly agreed to his request, in the hope that by fulfilling the trust confided to him he might have an opportunity of once more being placed in communication with his long lost Agatha, perhaps even of seeing her again.

Agatha herself was shocked and distressed when she found that it was to Alphonse she was to be indebted for the inquiry into her brother's situation. No, she could not bear this-Alphonse to be employed in her affairs, on her account; no, never, never!

This was too great a humiliation even for the patient, humble nun to endure. The baron's letter had made her very unhappy; she was surprised and grieved that her dear Hortense was already forgotten, and that her place was to be filled by another; and she was mortified, chagrined, and deeply sorry that Alphonse, of all people, should have been asked to render her any service. It must not be.

She wrote immediately to the baron, apologising for having troubled him, and entreating that he would not impose on Mr. de Florennes the task of doing anything for her. She withdrew the request, and begged that nothing whatever might be done in the matter. But her letter came too late. It arrived three hours after Baron Vanderhoven had set off for Holland, and Alphonse for Ghent.

Alphonse had gone at once to Maestricht to see the baron, and to receive his instructions; and then for the first time he heard that Agatha, the only woman he had ever really loved-Agatha, whom he still lovedhad retired into a convent when he broke his faith to her, and was now for ever lost to him and to the world! He seemed quite stunned by the intelligence, and with his usual impulsive feelings a fit of passionate remorse came over him. He cursed himself, his cupidity, his wife, and her money, which had been such a lure to him, and in the advantages of which he had by no means participated largely. He blamed his mother, fate, Providence, the world, and the exigeant claims of society. He stamped, he tore his hair, he wrung his hands in an agony of distress, and then he sat down, silent, sad, subdued, only murmuring to himself:

[ocr errors]

Agatha, my Agatha! my lost angel !"

The good, even-tempered baron was accustomed to what he used to call "Alphonse's heroics," so allowed the furious, the gloomy, and the melancholy moods to exhaust themselves, and then he said:

"If you are going to take this business in hand, Alphonse, you must set about it in a sensible, reasonable manner. It is said set a thief to catch a thief,' but I never heard that it was advisable to send one maniac to inquire into the condition of another."

"It is enough to make one mad, raving mad, to hear that that sweet girl has gone and buried herself in a convent. Would to Heaven she and my odious wife could change places! That frigid, heartless creature would. have suited a nunnery very well, but poor Agatha was made for a life replete with the warmest affections, the closest ties-for all that earth can yield of happiness!"

"It was your own inconstancy that thrust her from these pleasant paths," said the baron, dryly.

“I know it, I acknowledge it," replied Alphonse, in a voice choked with emotion; "and God knows I have been punished for my perjury. Oh! you cannot imagine what it is to be tied to a woman you hate, to see the same cold, unfeeling, mindless being ever before you. Madame de Florennes is the embodiment of apathy; no tear of sympathy ever glistens in her eye, no ray of the precious sunshine of the heart ever brings the faintest tinge to her uniformly pale cheek! She is a stone, a block of ice, only alive to one thing, and that is to taking care of her money; you can't think how she doles it out, this money for which I sacrificed myself! I have always been consoling myself with the thought that if she would do one kind act, and die, I might marry poor dear Agatha; but now that I know she has taken the veil, even that crumb of comfort is lost to me.'

"It ought to be a crumb of comfort to you to be able to do anything to relieve her from the anxiety which is evidently preying on her mind. But I am sorry I applied to you, Alphonse; it would have been better had I deputed my family physician to go to Ghent and inquire about this poor lunatic, or pretended lunatic, and paid him for his trouble."

Alphonse bit his lips, and an angry reply was upon them, but he checked himself, and merely said:

"I am not quite a fool, Vanderhoven. I have promised to undertake this investigation, and I shall carry it on as quietly and as discreetly as your doctor himself could have done. You need not give yourself any further trouble on the subject, but go in peace to your bride."

There was a slight inflection in his voice, a quick glance of the eye, which indicated that the thought of this bride was not quite a welcome one; truth to tell, Alphonse, so capricious, so changeable, so inconstant himself, was somewhat astonished, and somewhat displeased, that the husband of his sister—of the beautiful, the charming, the amiable Hortense could ever dream of putting another in the place which she had occupied.

SHAKSPEARE AND THE STAGE.

A VEXED QUESTION.

BY SIR NATHANIEL.

DOES Shakspeare improve, on the whole, by being acted? Is it a clear gain, or a demonstrable loss to him, to be transferred from the closet to the stage? Cela dépend, as the French say that depends.

Among other conditions,-histrionic ability left out of sight,-it depends partly on the intellectual culture, taste, and temperament of any one particular spectator; and partly on the characteristic qualities of any one particular play.

Says Mr. Emerson, the Essayist, after a fling at Malone, Warburton, Dyce, and Collier, for wasting their oil, as critics, editors, commentators, and emendators: "The famed theatres, Covent Garden, Drury Lane, the Park, and Tremont, have vainly assisted. Betterton, Garrick, Kemble, Kean, and Macready, dedicate their lives to this genius: him they crown, elucidate, obey, and express :-the genius knows them not. The recitation begins; one golden word leaps out immortal from all this painted pedantry, and sweetly torments us with invitations to its own inaccessible homes. That imagination which dilates the closet he writes in to the world's dimension, crowds it with agents in rank and order, as quickly reduces the big reality to be the glimpses of the moon. These tricks of his magic spoil for us the illusions of the greenroom.”* The feeling is a common one, albeit this transcendental mode of expressing it is rather uncommon, and not too intelligible, except in the drift.

When Boswell complained to Johnson of the Doctor's not having mentioned Garrick in his Preface to Shakspeare, and asked him if he did not admire him, "Yes," answered Johnson, " as a poor player, who frets and struts his hour upon the stage;'-as a shadow." But," persists Boswell, "has he not brought Shakspeare into notice?" At this, the Doctor takes fire, and blazes up. "Sir, to allow that, would be to lampoon the age. Many of Shakspeare's plays are the worse for being acted: Macbeth, for instance." And to Bozzy's "What, sir, is nothing gained by decoration and action ?" he seems to have vouchsafed no direct reply.

66

Johnson's low estimate, by the way, of stage appliances, as tending to illustrate the greatest of tragic poets, was a sore point with Boswell, whom it distressed as heterodox and unaccountable. One evening during the Doctor's sojourn in Edinburgh, when some friends of Bozzy's had dropped in," before whom the bear-leader was anxious, no doubt, that Ursa Major should exhibit to advantage, the following pathetic entry in the Journal indicates the status quo. "I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Dr. Johnson displayed another of his heterodox opinions, a contempt of tragic action. He said 'the action of all players in tragedy is bad. It should be a man's study to repress those signs of

* Representative Men, by R. W. Emerson: "Shakspeare."

Boswell's Life of Johnson, sub anno 1769.

« AnteriorContinuar »