It was found that the bier on which she was placed could not be carried through the wicket-door behind the altar. It was, therefore, brought in solemn procession through the aisle of the church, and across the court, into the convent. The Abbess, supported by two nuns, walked close behind the bier. Four Cistertian sisters carried over it a canopy, and all the rest followed,—then the brethren of the different orders, and lastly the people, who now behaved with the most respectful silence. The bier was covered with roses and myrtle wreaths; and thus the procession moved slowly on.
The sisters who belonged to the choir must have returned to their station; for as we reached the middle of the long and spacious aisle, deep fearful tones of the organ sounded mournfully from above. Then, lo! as if awoke by those notes, Aurelia once more raised herself slowly up, and lifted her clasped hands in fervent prayer to Heaven. Again the people fell upon their knees, and called out, "Sancta Rosalia, ora pro nobis!" Thus was the vision realized, which, at my first meeting with Aurelia, I had announced, though then actuated only by base and devilish hypocrisy.
The bier was first set down in the great hall of the convent; and as the nuns and the brethren formed a circle, and prayed around her, she suddenly fell into the arms of the Abbess, with a long deep sigh. She was dead!
The multitude were still gathered round the gates, and when the bell announced to them the death of the consecrated virgin, all broke out into new lamentations. Many of them made a vow to remain in the village till after the funeral of Aurelia, and to devote that period to fasting and prayer. The rumour of this fearful event was rapidly spread abroad, so that Aurelia's obsequies, which were solemnized four days thereafter, resembled one of the highest festivals of the church on the canonization of a saint. As formerly, on St Bernard's eve, the convent lawn was covered with a great crowd from the town of Königswald, and from all quarters; but there was no longer to be heard among them the wonted voice of mirth. Their time was spent in sighs and tears; and if a voice was raised aloud, it was but to utter execrations against the murderer, who had supernaturally vanished, nor could a trace of him be discovered. Far deeper was the influence of these three days (which I spent mostly in the garden-chapel) on the weal of my soul, than my long laborious penitence in the Capuchin Convent of Rome. When I reflected on my past life, I perceived plainly how, although armed and protected from earliest youth with the best lessons of piety and virtue, I had yet, like a pusillanimous coward, yielded to Satan, whose aim was to foster and cherish the criminal race, from which I was sprung, so that its representatives might still be multiplied, and still fettered by bonds of vice and wickedness upon the earth. My sins were but trifling and venial when I first became acquainted with the choir-master's sister, and first gave way to the impulses of pride and self-confidence. But, alas! I was too careless to remember the doctrine which I had yet often inculcated on others, that venial errors, unless immediately corrected, form a sure and solid foundation for sins which are mortal. Then the Devil threw that Elixir into my way, which, like a poison working against the soul instead of the body, completed his victory over me. I heeded not the earnest admonitions of the unknown painter, the Abbess, or the Prior.
Aurelia's appearance at the confessional was a decisive effort for my destruction. Then, as the body, under the influence of poison, falls into disease, so my spirit, under the operation of that hellish cordial, was infected and destroyed by sin. How could the votary, the slave of Satan, recognize the true nature of those bonds by which Omnipotence, as a symbol of that eternal love, (whose marriage festival is death,) had joined Aurelia's fate and mine?
Rejoicing in his first victories, Satan then haunted me in the form of an accursed madman, between whose spirit and mine there seemed to be a reciprocal and alternate power of influencing each other. I was obliged to ascribe his apparent death (of which I in reality was guiltless) to myself; and thus became familiarized with the thought of murder. Or was Victorin really killed, and did the Arch-Fiend re-animate his body, (as the vampyres in Hungary rise from the grave,) for his own especial purposes? May it not suffice to say, that this brother, called Victorin, who derived his birth from an accursed and abominable crime, became to me an impersonization of the evil principle, who forced me into hideous guilt, and tormented me with his unrelenting persecution?
Till that very moment when I heard Aurelia pronounce her vows, my heart was not yet pure from sin; not till then had the Evil One lost over me his dominion; but the wonderful inward tranquillity—the cheerfulness as if poured from Heaven into my heart, when she addressed to me her last words, convinced me that her death was the promise of my forgiveness and reconciliation. Then, as in the solemn requiem, the choir sung the words—"Confutatis maledictis, flammis acribus addictis," I trembled; but at the passage, "Voca me cum benedictis," it seemed to me as if I beheld, in the dazzling radiance of celestial light, Aurelia, who first looked down with an expression of saintly compassion upon me, and then lifting up her head, which was surrounded with a dazzling ring of stars, to the Almighty, preferred an ardent supplication for the deliverance of my soul! At the words, "Ora supplex et acclinis cor contritum, quasi cinis," I sank down into the dust; but how different now were my inward feelings of humility and submission, from that passionate self-condemnation, those cruel and violent penances, which I had formerly undergone at the Capuchin Convent!
Now, for the first time, my spirit was enabled to distinguish truth from falsehood, and by the new light, which was then shed around me, every temptation of the devil must, from henceforward, remain vain and ineffectual. It was not Aurelia's death, but the cruel and horrible manner in which it had occurred, by which I had been at first so deeply agitated. But how short was the interval, ere I perceived and recognized in its fullest extent, even in this event, the goodness and mercy of Heaven! The martyrdom of the pious, the tried, and absolved bride! Had she then died for my sake? No! It was not till now, after she had been withdrawn from this world, that she appeared to me like a dazzling gleam, sent down from the realms of eternal love, to brighten the path of an unhappy sinner. Aurelia's death was, as she had before said, our marriage festival, the solemnization of that love, which, like a celestial essence, has its throne and dominion above the stars, and admits nought in common with grovelling and perishable earthly pleasures! These thoughts indeed raised me above myself; and accordingly these three days in the Cistertian Convent might truly be called the happiest of my life.
After the funeral obsequies, which took place on the fourth day, Leonardus was on the point of returning with the brethren home to his own convent. When their procession was ready to set out, the Abbess summoned me to a private audience. I found her alone, in her high vaulted parlour, the same room wherein I had my first introduction, and which then inspired me with such awe and terror. She was now in the greatest emotion, and tears burst involuntarily from her eyes.