After an hour’s devotional exercise with hands, and mumbling prayer dronings and enumerations, wearied nature closed the scene with sleep, and he sank forward with his body and face prone upon the virgin bed of vine, in dreamless oblivion. In this condition he was found, as the ruddy beams of day began to dispel the lingering misty light of dawn, by the mayorong, who in sad fright made the courts and colonnades resound to his calls for assistance. Fearing that the vital spark had forever fled from the prostrate form of the kind-hearted padre, who, in despite of his incertitude, begot from his thoughtless reliance upon instinctive impressions, was alike the cherished favorite of the Heracleans, Kyronese, and Betongese, the mayorong made no effort for his resuscitation. The shrill, wailing cry, reverberating in anguished appeal, reached not only his own people who were preparing for morning salutation, but the Heracleans, who hurried in the greatest consternation to the quarters of the corps to learn the cause of the fearful outcry. Proof to the mayorong’s mournful cry, hastening footsteps, and exclamations of the excited throng, the padre continued unconscious, the gathering assemblage regarding his prostrate body with blanched faces and horror-struck gaze. When at length their surprised emotions had subsided into thoughtful sadness, “presence of mind” revived under the impression of regretful sympathy, which caused Cleorita and Oviata to kneel and raise the padre’s head, and with the assistance of their grandfather to turn him upon his back. As gentle hands withdrew the dank hair that enshrouded his eyes, the fall of tears upon his face brought forth a deep sigh, as if conscious of the source from whence they came; this, with a muttered ave, was followed by a quivering stretch for relief from the stiffness of his limbs, significant alike of retained vitality and reviving consciousness. Then, as if under the herald impulse of a dream of dread, he, with a spasmodic start, suddenly raised his head from the pillowed lap of Cleorita, bringing his nose in abrupt contact with the toe of the figure that projected over the pediment of the statue. This brought forth, with tears, his accustomed ejaculation, “My goodness gracious!” while he administered to it extreme unction with the soothing touch of his hand. The grimaced accompaniment, in revulsion, brought forth, in contrast from the depth of sadness, an irresistible outburst of laughter, from the late mourners whose eyes were yet moist with the tears of sorrow.
Starting up, amazed at his own unaccountable position, and the assemblage of faces that bestowed upon him their gaze, with mingled expressions of grief and mirth, the padre’s fingers sought his hair for the disentanglement of his bewildered impressions. Failing in his attempt to recall the causeful events, his looks appealed to Cleorita and Oviata, whose eyes were glistening with gladness through their misty veil of tears, like the sun’s rays through the cilium of rosebuds sparkling with dew drops; but the anxious inquiries of new arrivals diverted explanation from them. Evil tidings are ever quick in spreading when borne by the scandalous impulse of gossiping tongues intent upon marvelous impression, but with sad sympathy the alarm had spread from portal to portal, with tongueless celerity, heralding the source of affectionate bereavement.
Among the nearest, and earliest to be apprised of the padre’s supposed demise, was a young widow named Madonnasta, who resided with her parents without the oppidum gate, in the racept of the latifundium. Her husband had been taken by the savage besiegers when returning from a forage sortie; their hatred against the whites had been embittered by cruelties practiced for intimidation while the Jesuits were endeavoring to found missions among them for subjective utilization and the ruling advance of instinctive religion and civilization. In woful ignorance, they accredited their civilized foes with a united faith in a common form of worship, designed for the immolation of all unbelievers. Prompted by revengeful defiance, the unfortunate captive had been stretched and bound to a cross, the sacrificial emblem of Christian faith; and in that condition had been suspended over the brink of the precipice, in view of the besieged, who were forced to witness his agonized struggles, under the scorching heat of the sun, increased by the absorption and reflection of the basaltic rock, aggravated by the pain of his bonds, and the gnawings of hunger and thirst; but not without witnessing the desperate sallies made by sympathy for his rescue, in which with a wife’s devotion Madonnasta had engaged. When at length death relieved his mortal torments, and the vultures, with time and the elements, had severed the cords that bound the bleached skeleton to the crucial framework, and it to the precipice, it fell to a resting place beneath; then a successful sortie was made for their recovery, and they were cremated with the wood of crucifixion; but a portion was retained by the widowed wife, who with great care and ingenuity formed it into an emblematic cross, corresponding in memorial form with the one upon which her husband had suffered; this she suspended from her neck, as an instinctive memento of the sad scene of her mortal bereavement. Her devotion to the relic soon imparted to sorrowing emotions the hallucid impression that the crossed pieces of wood were enacting the part of a spiritualized medium of communication with the animus of her departed husband, and were consulted at certain hours of the day for direction. As the hallowed memories clustered around the waking hours of the morning, when from repose the grateful impressions of thanksgiving had been revived for affectionate reciprocation, she was ever the first in readiness for the orison hour of morning greeting. In these moods, the fervor evinced by her reverential endearments plainly indicated the instinctive lapse of her faith into the implied belief of material transubstantiation eucharistic for imparting the hallucination of actual presence for the renewal of connubial felicity. These impressions, which from their sincerity involved consolation, in no wise impaired the sanity of her thoughts and acts in matters pertaining to the rational employments of her bodily existence in purity of intention. On the contrary, it strengthened the outflowing tide of her affection, so that its tangibility was imparted with a perceptible thrill from touch, voice, and presence, to all within the sway of purity and goodness.
It was the good fortune of the padre, on the morning succeeding to that of his first Heraclean advent, while yet subject to the relict baneful effects of whiskey, tobacco, and their habitual hereditaments of impurity, to be attracted by the beneficent fervor of the widowed Madonnasta’s pitying glances of sympathy, while passing the portals of her father’s house. The effect of these interviewing glances became immediately reformatory, for he sought a retired spot, where he “devoted” himself for an hour to the rapid chewing of his remaining tobacco,—supplied from the limited store of his friend the doctor, for a stipulated butterfly consideration,—the while ruminating upon the incomparable charms of his inconuistic discovery. After fully expressing its narcotic power to the offaled dregs, he, in the vernacular phrase of instinct, incontinently swore off, while from a fountain in the crematium he thoroughly abluted his mouth; then returning past the house of Madonnasta, he paid her his reverence free from the actual impression of defilement. Afterwards, whenever he contemplated a visit to the predisposed object of his adoration, he subjected his mouth to a thorough purification with the chloride of lime, recommended by his “friend” as an excellent deodorizer for the correction of effluviums. This politic course partook of in advisorial advocacy, and exampled acceptance, the ostrich’s fatuity, who in closing or concealing the eyes to self-reflection “supposes” its material body is rendered invisible to others. With the passage of time and his reproof pilgrimage to Amelcoy, he gradually became impressed with the mishaps attendant upon self-indulgence, and under the direction of goodwill he had obtained with her greetings manifestations of affectionate approval, which inclined her to study his language with rapid achievement and understanding success. These inter-allusions will afford the reader an understanding impression of antecedent and subsequent passages, elicited from the eventful singularities of the morning’s transpositions.
When the padre’s forlorn or dead estate was announced by the mournful cadences of the mayorong’s call, Madonnasta was among the first of her people who had flown upon the wings of sympathy, to realize with her own eyes the truth of the startling rumor that knelled the second bereavement of her hopes.
The padre, at the moment of her approach, was endeavoring, with his right hand in his hair, to establish an equilibrium for the use of reflective thought, while his eyes wandered from face to face in search for the cause of their congregated anxiety, manifested in his behalf. Observing the roseate flush of gladness that quickly succeeded the pallor of dread anticipation in Madonnasta’s face, when she found that he still lived, the padre essayed to address her in his own language, but upon the instant of his first articulation she caught sight of the cross dangling from his neck suspended by its chain of beads. Suddenly raising her hands in the clasped attitude of thankful surprise, she uttered the exclamation, “Al han espousita directicio!” (It is by thy fond direction!) and springing forward fondly clasped his neck in a joyfully conscious swoon. This episode proved fortunate, else she would have discovered his great trepidation and lack of glad reciprocation, which would have sadly chilled the realization of her transubstantial vision of predilected reunion dedicated for enactment through the padre’s substituted mortality. With his usual tardy perception, dulled from the renewal of superstitious impression, he gave only mechanical support to the form of Madonnasta, resplendent with the charms premised from prospective reduplication in the body.
Cleorita observing his perplexity and evident abashment, pointed to the cross of Madonnasta, and his own, then with eucharistical fervor he bestowed upon her lips a baptismal kiss, while with a blush of shame he concealed the pendent emblem, suspended from his own neck, beneath his vest. This devotional exercise and symbol, recalled to his memory the events of the night, with a circumstantial impression that Madonnasta had by miraculous interposition been converted to the Christian faith, which led him to exclaim with enthusiastic ardor, “Upon my conscience’ sake, it’s a miracle, how she has kept the faith among pagans!” With pity and admiration, he again administered the baptismal rite of instinctive communion, which served to revive the lapsed faculties of his incumbent burthen. As his somewhat tardy tenderness revived the waiting perceptions of his angelic godsend herald, sighs, like the rustling flutter of leaves stirred in the stillness of noon-day by the advance of a shower, betokened the restoration of vital energy, with the genial accompaniment of joyful tears. When at length the rosy eyelids of Madonnasta began with trembling vibrations to unfold, the padre’s features in waiting expectation flickered with the ignis-fatuus expression of catholic zeal, in the full belief of miraculous intervention for the preservation of the ordinances of revealed religion under the fructifying influence of saving grace. As with a convulsive shudder the full orbs of Madonnasta’s wondering eyes were unveiled, and made glorious with the expression of delegated affection, the padre’s face became illuminated with the propagandic light of zealotry, causing him to seize and bestow upon her cross an emblematic kiss of reverence. This act fully revived the pervading strength of Madonnasta’s hallucination, causing her, with a look of fond recollection, peculiar to widowed grief, to embrace his neck, while with her lips she realized to his fanatical zeal the confirmation of faith.
The wonderingly amused spectators of this pantomimically enacted scene of mutual hallucination, with this act of consummation opened a passage for Mr. Welson and the prætor, who had been attracted from the house of Corycebæus by the hurrying excitement within the city portal. A glance sufficed for the assurance of a provisional “wedding” crisis, and the prætor was about to add his sanction, but the moment the padre observed his intention, he started back objuringly in the greatest alarm, muttering an interposing exorcism, at the same time exposing his own and Madonnasta’s crosses as shields of protection. His impetuous array startled the prætor with the fear that the padre was in reality instinctively mad. But M. Hollydorf explained to his adopted father that the padre’s disarray of thought had undoubtedly been occasioned by an unusual conjunction of circumstances, recommending an adjournment to the ordinarium of the corps for an investigation of facts, and a mutual understanding, under the sanction of advisement. When convened Corycæus related all that had transpired within the scope of his waking knowledge, which extended through the devotional vigil of the padre. It was easy to trace from subsequent events the source of Madonnasta’s and the padre’s coincident delusions. She had recognized in him the transubstantiated form preferred as a substitute by her crucified husband, from the cross attachment to his rosary; and he, from the bias of an instinctive Christian education, had supposed from coincident impressions that she was a miraculous convert appealing to him for a husband’s protection. The Dosch advised that the padre should be made acquainted with the circumstances attending the death of Madonnasta’s husband, and her consequent monumental delusion from the derangement of her instinctive perceptions occasioned by affectionate solicitude. Then, if he chose, in prospect of their incurability, to solace her with his companionship during their allotted terms of mortal sojourn, their union should receive Heraclean approval, upon the plea of like illusive adaptation.
The padre was greatly abashed when the facts in plain demonstration were confirmed by Correliana and her mother. Mr. Welson then urged him to accept the coincidence as an omen of happy premonition. He then gratefully received the rites of sanctioned betrothal without demurring, after Madonnasta had been offered a like privilege of revocal by a statement of his mythological delusions derived from the ghostly precepts of a Christian education. Both with firm adhesion retained the bias of first impressions, and were escorted with joyful mirth to the house of Madonnasta’s parents, where, with parental welcome, the padre assured the assemblage that he felt himself proof against lonely relapse into the mythological haunts of instinct. After the padre’s betrothal and domiciliation, Mr. Welson with the Dosch returned to the house of Corycebæus.
While the prominent eccentricities of the last two conjunctions were the subjects of mirthful explication, Mr. Welson abruptly addressed the Dosch and Doschessa with an inquiry, which, like the shadow of a cloud passing over a landscape made humorous by man’s instinctive invention, caused gleams of joyous transition from the reflection of absurdity, which, with authority, we are permitted to report.