And then came
silence,--the awful silence of the Campagna--a silence like no other
silence in the world--brooding like darkness around the dead.
XXIV.
The next morning dawned with all the strange half mystical glow of
light and colour common to the Italian sky,--flushes of pink warmed
the gray clouds, and dazzling, opalescent lines of blue suggested
the sun without declaring it,--and Sylvie Hermenstein, who had
passed a restless and wakeful night, rose early to go on one of what
her society friends called her "eccentric" walks abroad, before the
full life of the city was up and stirring. She, who seemed by her
graceful mignonne fascinations and elegant toilettes, just a
butterfly of fashion and no more, was truly of a dreamy and poetic
nature,--she had read very deeply, and the griefs and joys of
humanity presented an ever-varying problem to her refined and
penetrative mind. She was just now interesting herself in subjects
which she had never studied so closely before,--and she was
gradually arriving at the real secret of the highest duty of life,--
that of serving and working for others without consideration for
oneself. A great love was teaching her as only a great love can;--a
love which she scarcely dared to admit to herself, but which
nevertheless was beginning to lead her step by step, into that
mysterious land, half light, half shadow, which is the nearest road
to Heaven,--a land where we suffer gladly for another's sorrow, and
are joyous in our own griefs, because another is happy! To love ONE
greatly, means to love ALL more purely,--and to find heart-room and
sympathy for the many sorrows and perplexities of those who are not
as uplifted as ourselves.
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