CHAPTER XVI.

THE MONTH OF OCTOBER.

The month of October in Italy is certainly a glorious season. The sun has contracted his heat, but not his splendor; he is less scorching, but not less bright. As he rises in the morning, he dashes sparks of radiance over awakening nature, as an Indian prince, upon entering his presence chamber, flings handfuls of gems and gold into the crowd; and the mountains seem to stretch forth their rocky heads, and the woods to wave their lofty arms, in eagerness to catch his royal largess. And after careering through a cloudless sky, when he reaches his goal and finds his bed spread with molten gold on the western sea, and canopied above with purple clouds, edged with burnished yet airy fringes, more brilliant than Ophir supplied to the couch of Solomon, he expands himself into a huge disk of most benignant effulgence, as if to bid farewell to his past course; but soon sends back, after disappearing, radiant messengers from the world he is visiting and cheering, to remind us he will soon come back, and gladden us again. If less powerful, his ray is certainly richer and more active. It has taken months to draw out of the sapless, shrivelled vine-stem, first green leaves, then crisp slender tendrils, and last little clusters of hard sour berries; and the growth has been provokingly slow. But now the leaves are large and mantling, and worthy in vine-countries to have a name of their own;[60] and the separated little knots have swelled up into luxurious bunches of grapes. And of these some are already assuming their bright amber tint, while those which are to glow in rich imperial purple, are passing rapidly to it, through a changing opal hue, scarcely less beautiful.

It is pleasant then to sit in a shady spot, on a hill-side, and look ever and anon, from one’s book, over the varied and varying landscape. For, as the breeze sweeps over the olives on the hill-side, and turns over their leaves, it brings out from them light and shade, for their two sides vary in sober tint; and as the sun shines, or the cloud darkens, on the vineyards, in the rounded hollows between, the brilliant web of unstirring vine-leaves displays a yellower or browner shade of its delicious green. Then, mingle with these the innumerable other colors that tinge the picture, from the dark cypress, the duller ilex, the rich chestnut, the reddening orchard, the adust stubble, the melancholy pine--to Italy what the palm-tree is to the East--towering above the box, and the arbutus, and laurels of villas, and these scattered all over the mountain, hill, and plain, with fountains leaping up, and cascades gliding down, porticoes of glittering marble, statues of bronze and stone, painted fronts of rustic dwellings, with flowers innumerable, and patches of greensward; and you have a faint idea of the attractions which, for this month, as in our days, used to draw out the Roman patrician and knight, from what Horace calls the clatter and smoke of Rome, to feast his eyes upon the calmer beauties of the country.

And so, as the happy month approached, villas were seen open to let in air; and innumerable slaves were busy, dusting and scouring, trimming the hedges into fantastic shapes, clearing the canals for the artificial brooklets, and plucking up the weeds from the gravel-walks. The _villicus_ or country steward superintends all; and with sharp word, or sharper lash, makes many suffer, that perhaps one only may enjoy.

At last the dusty roads become encumbered with every species of vehicle, from the huge wain carrying furniture, and slowly drawn by oxen, to the light chariot or gig, dashing on behind spirited barbs; and as the best roads were narrow, and the drivers of other days were not more smooth-tongued than those of ours, we may imagine what confusion and noise and squabbling filled the public ways. Nor was there a favored one among these. Sabine, Tusculan, and Alban hills were all studded over with splendid villas, or humbler cottages, such as a Mæcenas or a Horace might respectively occupy; even the flat Campagna of Rome is covered with the ruins of immense country residences; while from the mouth of the Tiber, along the coast of Laurentum, Lanuvium, and Antium, and so on to Cajeta, Bajæ, and other fashionable watering-places round Vesuvius, a street of noble residences may be said to have run. Nor were these limits sufficient to satisfy the periodical fever for rustication in Rome. The borders of Benacus (now the Lago Maggiore, north of Milan), Como, and the beautiful banks of the Brenta, received their visitors not from neighboring cities only, still less from wanderers of Germanic origin, but rather from the inhabitants of the imperial capital.

It was to one of these “tender eyes of Italy,” as Pliny calls its villas,[61] because forming its truest beauty, that Fabiola had hastened, before the rush on the road, the day after her black slave’s interview with Corvinus. It was situated on the slope of the hill which descends to the bay of Gaeta, and was remarkable, like her house, for the good taste which arranged the most costly, though not luxurious, elements of comfort. From the terrace in front of the elegant villa could be seen the calm azure bay, embowered in the richest of shores, like a mirror in an embossed and enamelled frame, relieved by the white sun-lit sails of yachts, galleys, pleasure-boats, and fishing-skiffs; from some of which rose the roaring laugh of excursionists, from others the song or harp-notes of family parties, or the loud, sharp, and not over-refined ditties of the various ploughmen of the deep. A gallery of lattice, covered with creepers, led to the baths on the shore; and half way down was an opening on a favorite spot of green, kept ever fresh by the gush, from an out-cropping rock, of a crystal spring, confined for a moment in a natural basin, in which it bubbled and fretted, till, rushing over its ledge, it went down murmuring and chattering, in the most good-natured way imaginable, along the side of the trellis, into the sea. Two enormous plane-trees cast their shade over this classic ground, as did Plato’s and Cicero’s over their choice scenes of philosophical disquisition. The most beautiful flowers and plants from distant climates had been taught to make this spot their home, sheltered, as it was, equally from sultriness and from frost.

Fabius, for reasons which will be explained later, seldom paid more than a flying visit for a couple of days to this villa; and even then it was generally on his way to some gayer resort of Roman fashion, where he had, or pretended to have, business. His daughter was, therefore, mostly alone, and enjoyed a delicious solitude. Besides a well-furnished library always kept at the villa, chiefly containing works on agriculture, or of a local interest, a stock of books, some old favorites, other lighter productions of the season (of which she generally procured an early copy at a high price), was brought every year from Rome, together with a quantity of smaller familiar works of art, such as, distributed through new apartments, make them become a home. Most of her morning hours were spent in the cherished retreat just described, with a book-casket at her side, from which she selected first one volume, and then another. But any visitor calling upon her this year, would have been surprised to find her almost always with a companion--and that a slave!

We may imagine how amazed she was when, the day following the dinner at her house, Agnes informed her that Syra had declined leaving her service, though tempted by a bribe of liberty. Still more astonished was she at learning, that the reason was attachment to herself. She could feel no pleasurable consciousness of having earned this affection by any acts of kindness, nor even by any decent gratitude for her servant’s care of her in illness. She was therefore at first inclined to think Syra a fool for her pains. But it would not do in her mind. It was true she had often read or heard of instances of fidelity and devotedness in slaves, even towards oppressive masters;[62] but these were always accounted as exceptions to the general rule; and what were a few dozen cases, in as many centuries, of love, compared with the daily ten thousand ones of hatred around her? Yet here was a clear and palpable one at hand, and it struck her forcibly. She waited a time, and watched her maid eagerly, to see if she could discover in her conduct any airs, any symptom of thinking she had done a grand thing, and that her mistress must feel it. Not in the least. Syra pursued all her duties with the same simple diligence, and never betrayed any signs of believing herself less a slave than before. Fabiola’s heart softened more and more; and she now began to think that not quite so difficult, which, in her conversation with Agnes, she had pronounced impossible--to love a slave. And she had also discovered a second evidence, that there _was_ such a thing in the world as disinterested love, affection that asked for no return.

Her conversations with her slave, after the memorable one which we have recounted, had satisfied her that she had received a superior education. She was too delicate to question her on her early history; especially as masters often had young slaves highly educated, to enhance their value. But she soon discovered that she read Greek and Latin authors with ease and elegance, and wrote well in both languages. By degrees she raised her position, to the great annoyance of her companions: she ordered Euphrosyne to give her a separate room, the greatest of comforts to the poor maid; and she employed her near herself as a secretary and reader. Still she could perceive no change in her conduct, no pride, no pretensions; for the moment any work presented itself of the menial character formerly allotted to her, she never seemed to think of turning it over to any one else, but at once naturally and cheerfully set herself about it.

The reading generally pursued by Fabiola was, as has been previously observed, of rather an abstruse and refined character, consisting of philosophical literature. She was surprised, however, to find how her slave, by a simple remark, would often confute an apparently solid maxim, bring down a grand flight of virtuous declamation, or suggest a higher view of moral truth, or a more practical course of action, than authors whom she had long admired proposed in their writings. Nor was this done by any apparent shrewdness of judgment or pungency of wit; nor did it seem to come from much reading, or deep thought, or superiority of education. For though she saw traces of this in Syra’s words, ideas, and behavior, yet the books and doctrines which she was reading now, were evidently new to her. But there seemed to be in her maid’s mind some latent but infallible standard of truth, some master-key, which opened equally every closed deposit of moral knowledge, some well-attuned chord, which vibrated in unfailing unison with what was just and right, but jangled in dissonance with whatever was wrong, vicious, or even inaccurate. What this secret was, she wanted to discover; it was more like an intuition than any thing she had before witnessed. She was not yet in a condition to learn, that the meanest and least in the Kingdom of Heaven (and what lower than a slave?) was greater in spiritual wisdom, intellectual light, and heavenly privileges, than even the Baptist Precursor.[63]

It was on a delicious morning in October, that, reclining by the spring, the mistress and slave were occupied in reading; when the former, wearied with the heaviness of the volume, looked for something lighter and newer; and, drawing out a manuscript from her casket, said:

“Syra, put that stupid book down. Here is something, I am told, very amusing, and only just come out. It will be new to both of us.”

The handmaid did as she was told, looked at the title of the proposed volume, and blushed. She glanced over the few first lines, and her fears were confirmed. She saw that it was one of those trashy works, which were freely allowed to circulate, as St. Justin complained, though grossly immoral, and making light of all virtue; while every Christian writing was suppressed, or as much as possible discountenanced. She put down the book with a calm resolution, and said:

“Do not, my good mistress, ask me to read to you from that book. It is fit neither for me to recite, nor for you to hear.”

Fabiola was astonished. She had never heard, or even thought, of such a thing as restraint put upon her studies. What in our days would be looked upon as unfit for common perusal, formed part of current and fashionable literature. From Horace to Ausonius, all classical writers demonstrate this. And what rule of virtue could have made that reading seem indelicate, which only described by the pen a system of morals, which the pencil and the chisel made hourly familiar to every eye? Fabiola had no higher standard of right and wrong than the system under which she had been educated could give her.

“What possible harm can it do either of us?” she asked, smiling. “I have no doubt there are plenty of foul crimes and wicked actions described in the book; but it will not induce us to commit them. And, in the meantime, it is amusing to read them of others.”

“Would you yourself, for any consideration, do them?”

“Not for the world.”

“Yet, as you hear them read, their image must occupy your mind; as they amuse you, your thoughts must dwell upon them with pleasure.”

“Certainly. What then?”

“That image is foulness, that thought is wickedness.”

“How is that possible? Does not wickedness require an action, to have any existence?”

“True, my mistress; and what is the action of the mind, or as I call it the soul, but thought? A passion which wishes death, is the action of this invisible power, like it, unseen; the blow which inflicts it is but the mechanical action of the body, discernible like its origin. But which power commands, and which obeys? In which resides the responsibility of the final effect?”

“I understand you,” said Fabiola, after a pause of some little mortification. “But one difficulty remains. There is responsibility, you maintain, for the inward, as well as the outward act. To whom? If the second follow, there is joint responsibility for both, to society, to the laws, to principles of justice, to self; for painful results will ensue. But if only the inward action exist, to whom can there be responsibility? Who sees it? Who can presume to judge it? Who to control it?”

“God,” answered Syra, with simple earnestness.

Fabiola was disappointed. She expected some new theory, some striking principle, to come out. Instead, they had sunk down into what she feared was mere superstition, though not so much as she once had deemed it. “What, Syra, do you then really believe in Jupiter, and Juno, or perhaps Minerva, who is about the most respectable of the Olympian family? Do you think they have any thing to do with our affairs?”

“Far indeed from it; I loathe their very names, and I detest the wickedness which their histories or fables symbolize on earth. No, I spoke not of gods and goddesses, but of one only God.”

“And what do you call Him, Syra, in your system?”

“He has no name but GOD; and that only men have given Him, that they may speak of Him. It describes not His nature, His origin, His attributes.”

“And what are these?” asked the mistress, with awakened curiosity.

“Simple as light is His nature, one and the same every where, indivisible, undefilable, penetrating yet diffusive, ubiquitous and unlimited. He existed before there was any beginning; He will exist after all ending has ceased. Power, wisdom, goodness, love, justice too, and unerring judgment belong to Him by His nature, and are as unlimited and unrestrained as it. He alone can create, He alone preserve, and He alone destroy.”

Fabiola had often read of the inspired looks which animated a sibyl, or the priestess of an oracle; but she had never witnessed them till now. The slave’s countenance glowed, her eyes shone with a calm brilliancy, her frame was immovable, the words flowed from her lips, as if these were but the opening of a musical reed, made vocal by another’s breath.

Her expression and manner forcibly reminded Fabiola of that abstracted and mysterious look, which she had so often noticed in Agnes; and though in the child it was more tender and graceful, in the maid it seemed more earnest and oracular. “How enthusiastic and excitable an Eastern temperament is, to be sure!” thought Fabiola, as she gazed upon her slave. “No wonder the East should be thought the land of poetry and inspiration.” When she saw Syra relaxed from the evident tension of her mind, she said, in as light a tone as she could assume: “But, Syra, can you think that a Being such as you have described, far beyond all the conception of ancient fable, can occupy Himself with constantly watching the actions, still more the paltry thoughts, of millions of creatures?”

“It is no occupation, lady, it is not even choice. I called Him light. Is it occupation or labor to the sun to send his rays through the crystal of this fountain, to the very pebbles in its bed? See how, of themselves they disclose, not only the beautiful, but the foul that harbors there; not only the sparkles that the falling drops strike from its rough sides; not only the pearly bubbles that merely rise, glisten for a moment, then break against the surface; not only the golden fish that bask in their light, but black and loathsome creeping things, which seek to hide and bury themselves in dark nooks below, and cannot; for the light pursues them. Is there toil or occupation in all this, to the sun that thus visits them? Far more would it appear so, were he to restrain his beams at the surface of the transparent element, and hold them back from throwing it into light. And what he does here he does in the next stream, and in that which is a thousand miles off, with equal ease; nor can any imaginable increase of their number, or bulk, lead us to fancy, or believe, that rays would be wanting, or light would fail, to scrutinize them all.”

“Your theories are beautiful always, Syra, and, if true, most wonderful,” observed Fabiola, after a pause, during which her eyes were fixedly contemplating the fountain, as though she were testing the truth of Syra’s words.

“And they sound like truth,” she added; “for could falsehood be more beautiful than truth? But what an awful idea, that one has _never_ been alone, has never had a wish to oneself, has never held a single thought in secret, has never hidden the most foolish fancy of a proud or childish brain, from the observation of One that knows no imperfection. Terrible thought, that one is living, if you say true, under the steady gaze of an Eye, of which the sun is but a shadow, for he enters not the soul! It is enough to make one any evening commit self-destruction, to get rid of the torturing watchfulness! Yet it sounds so true!”

Fabiola looked almost wild as she spoke these words. The pride of her pagan heart rose strong within her, and she rebelled against the supposition that she could never again feel alone with her own thoughts, or that any power should exist which could control her inmost desires, imaginings, or caprices. Still the thought came back: “Yet it seems so true!” Her generous intellect struggled against the writhing passion, like an eagle with a serpent; more with eye, than with beak and talons, subduing the quailing foe. After a struggle, visible in her countenance and gestures, a calm came over her. She seemed for the first time to feel the presence of One greater than herself, some one whom she feared, yet whom she would wish to love. She bowed down her mind, she bent her intelligence to His feet; and her heart too owned, for the first time, that it had a Master, and a Lord.

Syra, with calm intensity of feeling, silently watched the workings of her mistress’s mind. She knew how much depended on their issue, what a mighty step in her unconscious pupil’s religious progress was involved in the recognition of the truth before her; and she fervently prayed for this grace.

At length Fabiola raised her head, which seemed to have been bowed down in accompaniment to her mind, and with graceful kindness said:

“Syra, I am sure I have not yet reached the depths of your knowledge; you must have much more to teach me.” (A tear and a blush came to the poor handmaid’s relief.) “But to-day you have opened a new world, and a new life, to my thoughts. A sphere of virtue beyond the opinions and the judgments of men, a consciousness of a controlling, an approving, and a _rewarding_ Power too; am I right?” (Syra expressed approbation,) “standing by us when no other eye can see, or restrain, or encourage us; a feeling that, were we shut up forever in solitude, we should be ever the same, because that influence on us must be so superior to that of any amount of human principles, in guiding us, and could not leave us; such, if I understand your theory, is the position of moral elevation, in which it would place each individual. To fall below it, even with an outwardly virtuous life, is mere deceit, and positive wickedness. Is this so?”

“O my dear mistress,” exclaimed Syra, “how much better you can express all this than I!”

“You have never flattered me yet, Syra,” replied Fabiola, smilingly; “do not begin now. But you have thrown a new light upon other subjects, till to-day obscure to me. Tell me, now, was it not this you meant, when you once told me that in your view there was no distinction between mistress and slave; that is, that as the distinction is only outward, bodily and social, it is not to be put in comparison with that equality which exists before your Supreme Being, and that possible moral superiority which He might see of the one over the other, inversely of their visible rank?”

“It was in a great measure so, my noble lady; though there are other considerations involved in the idea, which would hardly interest you at present.”

“And yet, when you stated that proposition, it seemed to me so monstrous, so absurd, that pride and anger overcame me. Do you remember that, Syra?”

“Oh, no, no!” replied the gentle servant; “do not allude to it, I pray!”

“Have you forgiven me that day, Syra?” said the mistress, with an emotion quite new to her.

The poor maid was overpowered. She rose and threw herself on her knees before her mistress, and tried to seize her hand; but she prevented her, and, for the first time in her life, Fabiola threw herself upon a slave’s neck, and wept.

Her passion of tears was long and tender. Her heart was getting above her intellect; and this can only be by its increasing softness. At length she grew calm; and as she withdrew her embrace she said:

“One thing more, Syra: dare one address, by worship, this Being whom you have described to me? Is He not too great, too lofty, too distant for this?”

“Oh, no! far from it, noble lady,” answered the servant. “He is not distant from any of us; for as much as in the light of the sun, so in the very splendor of His might, His kindness, and His wisdom, we live and move and have our being. Hence, one may address Him, not as far off, but as around us and within us, while we are in Him; and He hears us not with ears, but our words drop at once into His very bosom, and the desires of our hearts pass directly into the divine abyss of His.”

“But,” pursued Fabiola, somewhat timidly, “is there no great act of acknowledgment, such as sacrifice is supposed to be, whereby He may be formally recognized and adored?”

Syra hesitated, for the conversation seemed to be trenching upon mysterious and sacred ground, never opened by the Church to profane foot. She, however, answered in a simple and general affirmative.

“And could not I,” still more humbly asked her mistress, “be so far instructed in your school as to be able to perform this sublimer act of homage?”

“I fear not, noble Fabiola; one must needs obtain a Victim worthy of the Deity.”

“Ah, yes! to be sure,” answered Fabiola. “A bull may be good enough for Jupiter, or a goat for Bacchus; but where can be found a sacrifice worthy of Him whom you have brought me to know?”

“It must indeed be one every way worthy of Him, spotless in purity, matchless in greatness, unbounded in acceptableness.”

“And what can that be, Syra?”

“Only Himself.”

Fabiola shrouded her face with her hands, and then looking up earnestly into Syra’s face, said to her:

“I am sure that, after having so clearly described to me the deep sense of responsibility under which you must habitually speak, as well as act, you have a real meaning in this awful saying, though I understand you not.”

“As surely as every word of mine is heard, as every thought of mine is seen, it is a truth which I have spoken.”

“I have not strength to carry the subject further at present; my mind has need of rest.”