The clear star beamed in the purple-tinted air, its rays fell upon him, and upon the marble Psyche; he trembled whilst he contemplated the image of immortality, his glance even appeared impure to him. He threw a covering over it, he touched it once more in order to veil its form, but he could not view his work.
Still, sombre, buried in his own meditations, he sat there the whole day; he took no heed of what passed around him, no one knew what was agitating this human heart. Days passed by, weeks passed by; the nights were the longest. One morning, the twinkling star saw him rise from his couch—pale—trembling with fever; he walked to the marble statue, lifted the cover, gazed upon his work with a sorrowful, deep, long look, and then almost sinking under the weight, he drew the statue into the garden. There was a sunken, dried-up well, within it, into which he lowered the Psyche, threw earth upon it and covered the fresh grave with small sticks and nettles.
"Away! Away," was the short funereal service.
The star in the rosy red atmosphere saw this, and two heavy tears trembled on the deathly pale cheeks of the fever sick one—sick unto death, as they called him.
The lay brother Ignatius came to him as a friend and as a physician. He came, and with the consoling words of religion, he spoke of the peace and happiness of the church, of the sins of man, of the mercy and peace of God.
The words fell like warm sun beams on the moist, fermenting ground; they dispersed and cleared away the misty clouds, from the troubled thoughts which had held possession of him; he gazed upon his past life; everything had been a failure, a deception—yes, had been. Art was an enchantress, that but leads us into vanity, into earthly pleasures. We become false to ourselves, false to our friends, false to our God. The serpent speaks ever in us: "Taste and thou shalt become like unto God."
Now, for the first time, he appeared to understand himself, to have discovered the road to truth, to peace.
In the church was God's light and brightness, in the monk's cell was found that peace, which enables man to obtain eternal bliss.
Brother Ignatius supported him in these thoughts, and the decision was firmly made—a worldling became a servant of the church;—the young artist took leave of the world, and entered the cloister.
How joyfully, how cordially the brothers greeted him! How festive the ordination! It seemed to him that God was in the sunshine of the church, and beamed within it, from the holy pictures and from the shining cross. He stood in the evening sunset, in his little cell, and opened his window and gazed in the spring-time over old Rome—with her broken temples, her massive, but dead Colosseum; her blooming acacias, her flourishing evergreens, her fragrant roses, her shining lemons and oranges, her palm trees fanned by the breeze—and felt touched and satisfied. The quiet, open Campagna extended to the blue snow-topped mountains, which appeared to be painted on the air. Everything breathed beauty and peace. The whole—a dream!