Part 19 (2/2)
The people in Madrid say that in the country we are stupid and uncouth; but they remain where they are, and never take the trouble to come and reform our manners. On the contrary, no sooner does any one make his appearance in the country who knows or is worth anything, or who thinks he knows or is worth anything, than he makes every possible effort to get away from it, and leaves the fields and provincial towns behind him.
Pepita and Luis pursue the opposite course, and I commend them for it with my whole heart. They are gradually improving and beautifying their surroundings, so as to make out of this secluded spot a paradise.
Do not imagine, however, that the inclination of Pepita and Luis for material well-being has cooled in the slightest degree their religious feelings. The piety of both grows deeper every day; and in each new pleasure or satisfaction which they enjoy, or which they can procure for their fellow-beings, they see a new benefaction of Heaven, in which they recognize fresh cause for grat.i.tude. More than this, no pleasure or satisfaction would be such, none would be of any worth, or substance, or value in their eyes, were it not for the thought of higher things, and for the firm belief they have in them.
Luis, in the midst of his present happiness, never forgets the dethronement of the ideal he had set up for himself. There are times when his present life seems to him vulgar, selfish, and prosaic, compared with the life of sacrifice, with the spiritual existence to which he believed himself called in the first years of his youth. But Pepita hastens, solicitous, to dispel his melancholy on such occasions; and then Luis comprehends and acknowledges that it is possible for man to serve G.o.d in every state and condition, and succeeds in reconciling the lively faith and the love of G.o.d that fill his soul, with this legitimate love of the earthly and perishable. But in the earthly and perishable he beholds the divine principle, as it were, without which, neither in the stars that stud the heavens, nor in the flowers and fruits that beautify the fields, nor in the eyes of Pepita, nor in the innocence and beauty of Periquito, would he behold anything lovely. The greater world, all this magnificent fabric of the universe, he declares, would without its all-seeing G.o.d seem to him sublime indeed, but without order, or beauty, or purpose. And as for the lesser world, as we are accustomed to call man, neither would he love it were it not for G.o.d; and this, not because G.o.d commands him to love it, but because the dignity of man, and his t.i.tle to be loved, have their foundation in G.o.d himself, who not only made the soul of man in his own likeness, but enn.o.bled also his body, making it the living temple of the Spirit, holding communion with it by means of the sacrament, and exalting it to the extreme of uniting with it his uncreate Word. In these and other arguments, which I am unable to set forth here, Luis finds consolation.
He reconciles himself to having relinquished his purpose of leading a life devoted to pious meditations, ecstatic contemplation, and apostolic works, and ceases to feel the sort of generous envy with which the father vicar inspired him on the day of his death; but both he and Pepita continue to give thanks, with great Christian devoutness, for the benefits they enjoy, comprehending that not to their own merit do they owe these benefits, but only to the goodness of G.o.d.
And so my children have in their house a couple of apartments resembling beautiful little Catholic chapels or oratories: but I must confess that these chapels have, too, their trace of paganism--an amorous-pastoral-poetic and Arcadian air, which is to be seen only beyond city walls.
The orchard of Pepita is no longer an orchard, but a most enchanting garden, with its _araucarias_, its Indian fig-trees, that grow here in the open air, and its well-arranged though small hot-house, full of rare plants.
The dining-room in which we ate the strawberries on the afternoon on which Pepita and Luis saw and spoke with each other for the second time has been transformed into a graceful temple, with portico and columns of white marble. Within is a s.p.a.cious apartment, comfortably furnished, and adorned by two beautiful pictures. One represents Psyche, discovering, by the light of her lamp, Cupid asleep on his couch; the other represents Chloe, when the fugitive gra.s.shopper has taken refuge in her bosom, where, believing itself secure, it begins to chirp in the pleasant hiding-place from which Daphne tries, meanwhile, to take it forth.
A very good copy, in Carrara marble, of the Venus de' Medici occupies the most prominent place in the apartment, and, as it were, presides over it. On the pedestal are engraved, in letters of gold, these words of Lucretius:
”_Nec sine te quidquam dias in luminis oras Exoritur, neque fit laetum, neque amabile quidquam._”
THE END.
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