CHAPTER XI. HILDA'S TOWER. HEN we have once known Rome, and left her where she lies, like a long-decaying corpse, retaining a trace of the noble shape it was, but with accumulated dust and a fungous growth overspreading all its more admirable features, - left her in utter weariness, no doubt, of her narrow, crooked, intricate streets, so uncomfortably paved with little squares of lava that to tread over them is a penitential pilgrimage, so Indescribably ugly, moreover, so cold, so alley-like, into which the sun never falls, and where a chill wind forces its deadly breath into our lungs, left her, tired of the sight of those immense seven-storied, yellow-washed hovels, or call them palaces, where all that is dreary in domestic life seems magnified and multiplied, and weary of climbing those staircases, which ascend from a groundfloor of cook-shops, cobblers' stalls, stables, and regiments of cavalry, to a middle region of princes, cardinals, and ambassadors, and an upper tier of artists, just beneath the unattainable sky, left her, worn out with shivering at the cheerless and smoky fireside by day, and feasting with our own substance the ravenous little populace of a Roman bed at night, - left her, sick at heart of Italian trickery, which has uprooted whatever faith in man's integrity had endured till now, and sick at stomach of sour bread, sour wine, rancid butter, and bad cookery, needlessly bestowed on evil meats, - left her, disgusted with the pretence of holiness and the reality of nastiness, each equally omnipresent, - left her, half lifeless from the languid atmosphere, the vital principle of which has been used up long ago, or corrupted by myriads of slaughters, - left her, crushed down in spirit with the desolation of her ruin, and the hopelessness of her future, - left her, in short, hating her with all our might, and adding our individual curse to the infinite anathema which her old crimes have unmistakably brought down, - when we have left Rome in such mood as this, we are astonished by the discovery, by and by, that our heartstrings have mysteriously attached themselves to the Eternal City, and are drawing us thitherward again, as if it were more familiar, more intimately our home, than even the spot where we were born. It is with a kindred sentiment, that we now follow the course of our story back through the Flaminian Gate, and, treading our way to the Via Portoghese, climb the staircase to the upper chamber of the tower, where we last saw Hilda. Hilda all along intended to pass the summer in Rome; for she had laid out many high and delightful tasks, which she could the better complete while her favorite haunts were deserted by the multitude that thronged them, throughout the winter and early spring. Nor did she dread the summer atmosphere, although generally held to be so pestilential. She had already made trial of it, two years before, and found no worse effect than a kind of dreamy languor, which was dissipated by the first cool breezes that came with autumn. The thickly populated entre of the city, indeed, is never affected by the feverish fluence that lies in wait in the Campagna, like a beeging foe, and nightly haunts those beautiful lawns and oodlands, around the suburban villas, just at the season hen they most resemble Paradise. What the flaming vord was to the first Eden, such is the malaria to these veet gardens and groves. We may wander through nem, of an afternoon, it is true, but they cannot be made home and a reality, and to sleep among them is death. hey are but illusions, therefore, like the show of gleamag waters and shadowy foliage in a desert. But Rome, within the walls, at this dreaded season, joys its festal days, and makes itself merry with charcteristic and hereditary pastimes, for which its broad Hazzas afford abundant room. It leads its own life with freer spirit, now that the artists and foreign visitors are cattered abroad. No bloom, perhaps, would be visible ■ a cheek that should be unvisited, throughout the sumer, by more invigorating winds than any within fifty iles of the city; no bloom, but yet, if the mind kept s healthy energy, a subdued and colorless well-being. here was consequently little risk in Hilda's purpose to ass the summer days in the galleries of Roman palces, and her nights in that aerial chamber, whither the eavy breath of the city and its suburbs could not aspire. would probably harm her no more than it did the white oves, who sought the same high atmosphere at sunset, nd, when morning came, flew down into the narrow creets, about their daily business, as Hilda likewise did. With the Virgin's aid and blessing, which might be oped for even by a heretic, who so religiously lit the mp before her shrine, the New England girl would sleep ecurely in her old Roman tower, and go forth on her ctorial pilgrimages without dread or peril. In view of : such a summer, Hilda had anticipated many months of lonely, but unalloyed enjoyment. Not that she had a churlish disinclination to society, or needed to be told that we taste one intellectual pleasure twice, and with double the result, when we taste it with a friend. But, keeping a maiden heart within her bosom, she rejoiced in the freedom that enabled her still to choose her own sphere, and dwell in it, if she pleased, without another inmate. Her expectation, however, of a delightful summer was wofully disappointed. Even had she formed no previous plan of remaining there, it is improbable that Hilda would have gathered energy to stir from Rome. A torpor, heretofore unknown to her vivacious though quiet temperament, had possessed itself of the poor girl, like a half-dead serpent knotting its cold, inextricable wreaths about her limbs. It was that peculiar despair, that chill and heavy misery, which only the innocent can experience, although it possesses many of the gloomy characteristics that mark a sense of guilt. It was that heart-sickness, which, it is to be hoped, we may all of us have been pure enough to feel, once in our lives, but the capacity for which is usually exhausted early, and perhaps with a single agony. It was that dismal certainty of the existence of evil in the world, which, though we may fancy ourselves fully assured of the sad mystery long before, never becomes a portion of our practical belief until it takes substance and reality from the sin of some guide, whom we have deeply trusted and revered, or some friend whom we have dearly loved. When that knowledge comes, it is as if a cloud had suddenly gathered over the morning light; so dark a cloud, that there seems to be no longer any sunshine behind it or above it. The character of our individual beloved one having invested itself with all the attributes right, - that one friend being to us the symbol and repsentative of whatever is good and true, - when he falls, e effect is almost as if the sky fell with him, bringing Own in chaotic ruin the columns that upheld our faith. Je struggle forth again, no doubt, bruised and bewilered. We stare wildly about us, and discover - or, it ay be, we never make the discovery - that it was not ctually the sky that has tumbled down, but merely a ail structure of our own rearing, which never rose gher than the house-tops, and has fallen because we unded it on nothing. But the crash, and the affright ad trouble, are as overwhelming, for the time, as if the atastrophe involved the whole moral world. Rememering these things, let them suggest one generous move for walking heedfully amid the defilement of earthly ays! Let us reflect, that the highest path is pointed ut by the pure Ideal of those who look up to us, and ho, if we tread less loftily, may never look so high gain. Hilda's situation was made infinitely more wretched by ne necessity of confining all her trouble within her own onsciousness. To this innocent girl, holding the knowlIge of Miriam's crime within her tender and delicate oul, the effect was almost the same as if she herself had articipated in the guilt. Indeed, partaking the human ature of those who could perpetrate such deeds, she felt er own spotlessness impugned. Had there been but a single friend, - or, not a friend, Ince friends were no longer to be confided in, after Iiriam had betrayed her trust, - but, had there been any alm, wise mind, any sympathizing intelligence; or, if ot these, any dull, half-listening ear into which she might ave flung the dreadful secret, as into an echoless cavern, - what a relief would have ensued! But this awful ! |
