But there was one who did not join in it. When the first ecstasy of her thanksgiving was past, and Virginie had clasped the loved one in her arms, and felt the warm blood returning to the cold lips under her kisses, she saw that Alba was like one whose spirit was not there; her eyes were open in a wide, intense gaze, as if straining to see beyond their ken, her ears were deaf to the sounds around her, hearkening for a voice that others could not hear.
“My child, my darling, let us give thanks together!” Virginie said when they were once more alone. But Alba turned her eyes upon her mother with that far-off gaze that seemed to reach beyond the veil. “Mother,” she said, speaking in low, fearful tones—“mother, why did you call me back? Did you not know I was with God? I was with God,” she continued in the same hushed tones; “I was in heaven with the angels and all the blessed ones, so full of happiness that I have no words to speak of it.”
“Tell me what you saw, my child. It was a dream; but God sometimes gives us visions in a dream.”
“It was no dream, mother. I was dead. My soul had left my body and taken flight into eternity. I stood before the throne and saw the vision of God. But of this I cannot speak.”
Alba paused like one whom reverence made dumb, and then continued: “I sang. O the joy of victory that thrilled through me as I lifted up my voice, and heard it amongst all the voices of the blessed! That was the wonder. Voice upon voice uprose, till all the hosts of heaven were singing, and yet you heard each singer distinct from all the rest; each voice was different, as star differeth from star when all are shining. And there was room in the vast space for silence. I heard the silence, deep, palpitating, as when we hold our breath to listen, and I heard the songs as they rolled out in full organic numbers from the countless choir. I heard my own voice, clear and sweet and loud like the clarion of an archangel; thousands of nightingales singing as one bird in the stillness of the summer night were nothing to it! And then the joy of recognition and of love—the very air was warm with love. Every spirit in the angelic host—the saints, the prophets of the old law, the martyrs and confessors and virgins—all loved me and knew me with an individual knowledge, and I knew them. And—I know not how it was—though all were resting in a halcyon peace, none were idle; they were busy at some task in which the faculties of mind and soul, new-born and glorified and quickened a thousand-fold, were eagerly engaged. I seemed to see that they were governing the world and caring for the souls of men—of those chiefly whom they loved on earth. For this I know: that no true bond is broken by death; the loves of time live on into eternity; the sorrows of earth are felt and pitied up in heaven, and the blessed clasp us in their cherishing sympathies closer than they did on earth. For the life in heaven is manifold, and, while the blessed citizens toiled, and sang as if their very being were dissolving into music, their souls were dwelling in the light of the vision of God, feeding on its beauty in unbroken contemplation. All was activity, and a fulness of life compared to which our life is death, yet all was steeped in peace, in rest unutterable. O mother! why did you call me back from it?”
“It was a dream, my child; your soul was in a trance; perhaps it was at my prayer God woke you from it in time. But, Alba, are you not glad to be with me again? It seems to me that even in heaven I should have missed you!”
“I did not feel that I was parted from you; you seemed nearer to me there than when I was on earth. But, mother, I saw standing near the martyrs, yet not of them, a soul arrayed in crimson—that flaming light that I call crimson, not knowing its real name—and she stretched forth her arms to greet me with a greater joy than all the rest, and she called herself my mother?”
Virginie’s heart stood still. Had heaven betrayed her secret? If so, it were vain to try to hide it any longer. She told the truth to Alba. “And now,” she said, “you will love that mother in heaven better than you love me!” There was a look of humble, beseeching misery in her face as she said this that was most pitiful. But Alba did not answer; that far-off gaze was in her eyes again. At last, slowly turning them upon Virginie, she said: “Now I can understand why you called me back. If you had been my real mother you would have let me go; your love would have been brave enough to part with me, to suffer when you knew that I was happy.”
There was no anger in her voice, no reproach in her look; but the words held the bitterness of death to Virginie, and pierced her heart like blades of poisoned steel.