III. THE DRAMA.
If my dream of happiness was bright, it was also of short duration, and I was to be awakened from it at the hermit’s grotto. On arriving there in the middle of the clay, I was surprised at not seeing Atala come forth to meet us. I cannot tell what sudden apprehension took possession of me. As we approached the grotto, I dared not call the daughter of Lopez; my imagination was equally frightened by the idea of the noise or of the silence that might follow my cries. Still more terrified by the dark appearance of the entrance to the rock, I said to the missionary, ‘O you, whom heaven accompanies and strengthens, penetrate into those shades!’
“How weak is the man who is governed by his passions! How strong is he who relies upon God! There was more courage in that religious heart, withered by seventy-six years, than in all the ardor of my youth. The man of peace entered the grotto, whilst I remained outside, full of terror. Soon a feeble murmur of complaint issued from the interior of the rock, and fell upon my ear. Uttering a cry as I recovered my strength, I rushed into the darkness of the cavern. Spirits of my fathers, you alone know the spectacle that met my view!
“The hermit had lighted a pine-torch, which he was holding with a trembling hand over Atala’s couch. With her hair in disorder, the young and beautiful woman, slightly raised upon her elbow, looked pale and suffering. Drops of painful sweat shone upon her forehead; her half-extinguished eyes still sought to express her love to me, and her mouth endeavored to smile. As though struck by lightning, with my eyes fixed, my arms outstretched, and my lips apart, I remained motionless. A profound silence reigned for a moment between the three personages of this scene of grief. The hermit was the first to break it. ‘This,’ he said, ‘can only be a fever occasioned by fatigue, and if we resign ourselves to God’s will, He will take pity on us.’
“At these words my heart revived, and, with the mobility of the savage, I passed suddenly from an excess of fear to an excess of confidence, from which, however, Atala soon aroused me. Shaking her head sadly, she made us a sign to approach her couch.
“‘My father,’ she said, in a weak voice, addressing herself to the hermit, ‘I am upon the point of death. O Chactas! listen without despair to the fatal secret I had concealed from you in order not to make you too miserable, and out of obedience to my mother. Try not to interrupt me by any marks of grief, which would shorten the few moments I have to live. I have many things to tell of, and from the beatings of my heart, which slacken—I do not know what icy burden presses within my bosom—I feel that I cannot make too much haste!’
“After a short silence, Atala continued thus:—
“‘My sad destiny began almost before I had seen the light. My mother had conceived me in misfortune. I wearied her bosom, and she brought me into the world with such painful difficulty that my life was despaired of. To save me, my mother made a vow. She promised the Queen of Angels that I should consecrate myself to an unwedded life if I escaped from death. That fatal vow is now hurrying me to the tomb!
“‘I was entering upon my sixteenth year when I lost my mother. Some hours before her death she called me to her bedside. “My daughter,” she said, in the presence of the missionary who was consoling her last moments, “you know the vow I made for you. Would you belie your mother? O my Atala, I am leaving you in a world that is not worthy of possessing a Christian—in the midst of idolators who persecute the God of your father and of your mother, the God who, after having given you life, has preserved it to you by a miracle. Ah, my dear child, by accepting the virgin’s veil, you only renounce the cares of the cabin and the fatal passions which have tormented your mother’s breast! Come, then, my well-beloved, come; swear upon this image of the Saviour’s Mother, held by the hands of this holy priest and of your dying parent, that you will not betray me in the face of heaven. Remember what I promised for you in order to save your life, and that, if you do not keep my promise, you will plunge your mother’s soul into eternal tortures.”
“‘O my mother, why spake you thus? O Religion, the cause of my ills and of my felicity, my ruin and my consolation at the same time! And you, dear and sad object of a passion that is consuming me even in the arms of death, you can now see, O Chactas, what has caused the hardship of our destiny! Melting into tears, and throwing myself upon my mother’s bosom, I promised all that I was asked to promise. The missionary pronounced over me the fearful language of my oath, and gave me the scapulary that bound me forever. My mother threatened me with her malediction if ever I broke my vow; and, after having advised me to keep the secret inviolably from the pagans, the persecutors of my religion, she expired, whilst holding me in a tender embrace.