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“We were listening to the sound of the tempest, when all of a sudden I felt one of Atala’s tears fall upon my breast. ‘Storm of the heart,’ I cried to myself, ‘is it a drop of your rain?’ Then embracing her I loved, I said, ‘Atala, you are concealing something from me. Open your heart to me, O beauty! It does one so much good when a friend looks into one’s soul. Tell me this secret of grief which you persist in hiding from me. Ah! I see you are weeping for your country.’ She immediately retorted, ‘Child of men, why should I weep for my country, since my father came not from the land of palms?’—‘What!’ I replied, with profound astonishment, ‘your father was not from the land of palms! What was he then who brought you upon this earth? Reply!’ Atala answered in these words:
“‘Before my mother brought to the warrior Simaghan, as a marriage portion, thirty mares, twenty buffaloes, a hundred measures of nut-oil, fifty beaver-skins, and a quantity of other riches, she had known a man of white flesh. Now the mother of my mother threw water in her face, and forced her to marry the magnanimous Simaghan, who was like unto a king, and honored by the people as a genius. But my mother said to her new spouse, “My bosom has conceived; kill me.” Simaghan replied to her, “May the Great Spirit preserve me from such an action! I will not mutilate you. I will neither cut off your nose nor your ears, because you have been sincere and have not betrayed my couch. The fruit of your bosom shall be my fruit, and I will not visit you till after the departure of the bird of the rice-fields, when the thirteenth moon shall have shone.” About that time I issued from my mother’s bosom, and I began to grow, proud as a Spaniard and as a savage. My mother made me a Christian, so that her God and the God of my father might also be my God. Afterwards love-sickness fell upon her, and she went down into the little pit furnished with skins, from which no one ever comes out.’
“Such was Atala’s story. ‘And who was your father, then, poor orphan?’ I said to her; ‘how was he called by men upon earth, and what name did he bear among the genii?’—‘I never washed my father’s feet,’ said Atala: ‘I only know that he lived with his sister at Saint Augustine, and that he ever remained faithful to my mother. Philip was his name amongst the angels, and men called him Lopez.”
“At these words I uttered a cry which re-echoed throughout the solitude; the soumis of my transports mingled with those of the storm. Pressing Atala to my heart, I exclaimed with sobs, ‘O my sister! O daughter of Lopez! daughter of my benefactor!’ Atala, alarmed, sought to ascertain the cause of my agitation; but when she learnt that Lopez was the generous host who had adopted me at Saint Augustine, and whom I had quitted in order to be free, she was herself stricken with joy and confusion.
“This fraternal friendship which came upon us and joined its love to our love, was too much for our hearts. Already had I intoxicated myself with her breath, already had I drunk all the magic of love upon her lips. With my eyes raised towards heaven, amidst the flash of the lightnings, I held my spouse in my arms in the presence of the Eternal. Splendid pomp, worthy of our misfortunes and of the grandeur of our loves; superb forests, that shook your creeping plants and your leafy domes as though they were to be the curtains and the canopy of our couch; overflowing river, roaring mountains, frightful and sublime Nature, were you then but a combination prepared to deceive us, and could you not for one moment conceal a man’s felicity amidst your mysterious horrors?
“Suddenly a vivid flash, followed by a clap of thunder, ran through the thickness of the shades, filled the forest with sulphur and light, and rent a tree close by us. We fled. O surprise! In the silence which followed, we heard the sound of a bell. Both speechless, we listened to the sound, so strange in a desert. At the same instant a dog barked in the distance. It approached, redoubled its cries, came up to us, and howled with joy at our feet. An old hermit, carrying a small lantern, was following the animal through the darkness of the forest. ‘Heaven be praised!’ he cried, as soon as he perceived us; ‘I have been looking for you a long time! Our dog smelt you as soon as the storm commenced, and has guided me hither. Poor children, how young you are, and how you must have suffered! Come; I have brought a bear-skin. It shall be for this young woman, and there is some wine in our gourd. Let God be praised in all His works! His mercy is great and His goodness is infinite!’
“Atala threw herself at the feet of the monk. ‘Chief of prayer,’ said she to him, ‘I am a Christian. Heaven has sent you to save me!’ ‘My daughter,’ said the hermit, raising her up, ‘we usually ring the mission-bell during the night and during tempests, to call strangers; and, in imitation of the example of our brethren of the Alps and of the Liban, we have taught our dog to discover lost travellers.’