Flaminia [pp. 795-810]

Flamninia.
before him that supreme law of final
decay and oblivion; he whose life is
comparatively much shorter than that
of all other existences in this world,
he alone hopes for an eternity which
has no type here below, and which
he could not even have conceived in
himself, had it not been revealed to
him. Surrounded by errors, he
dreams the truth; wretched in this
life, he dreams of a happiness without alloy; mortal, he dreams of immortality. Is not all this an infallible proof of his future destiny? God,
who created man, would not he be
both cruel and unjust had he given
him all these profound aspirations toward a future state of happiness, only
to plunge him finally in the abyss of
eternal death? That secret voice
speaks to you also, my friend; it resounds in the silence of your heart,
and offers to you, as it does to others,
its consoling hopes. Why do you
not listen to it? When you saw before you, pale and discolored, destined to an inexorable decay, the
body of her whom you so much loved;
when the mouth that had so lately
spoken to you, closed for ever; when
those eyes, in which you had ever
read their tenderness, became fixed,
dull, and without expression; when
that hand, which had but a moment
before sought yours to press it for a
last time, fell forever pwerless, equally insensible to the kisses with which
you covered it, and to your tears,
which rained on it-" Here the baron, without trying to hide his emotion, dried, with the back of his hand,
the tears that this recollection of his
beloved Gertrude caused him. The
count continued: "That mouth,
those eyes, that hand, they are the
same; but where is the soul which
animated them? Did you not then
hear that interior voice which called
with yet greater force, Thou shalt
see her again? That body which the
earth will hide to-morrow is but the
form, and not the essence-the outward shape, but not the living spirit.
A soul which you loved, and which
rendered to thee an equal affection,
animated that form, and rendered it
palpable to your senses; that soul
has fled, and the body falls back lifeless. The outward form rests here
motionless and insensible, but the
soul has remounted toward that celestial country where it shall await
your coming, ready again to love you
with an affection which shall have to
suffer no second separation. And
this is so true, my friend, that even
whilst you deny this consciousness
that the soul has of its future life and
of its existence, you yourself obey
that feeling; for you are faithful, not
to the simple memory of Gertrude, but
to Gertrude whom you feel to be still
living, though far distant from you,
and you desire to be able to say to her,
when the moment of your meeting
shall come:' Thou seest that no other
love has ever been mingled with
thine in my heart; my own beloved
one, thou didst wait for me, and I
am come as full of thy recollection
and of thy love as on that day when
thou didst leave me."'
Whilst the count was thus speaking, the baron had literally hidden
himself in clouds of smoke, out of
which came forth, by and by, a voice,
trembling and changed by deep emotion, which answered:
"Ah! that I could believe as you
do! In taking away from men these
consoling thoughts, the materialists
cried loudly that they were but working for the happiness of humanity
yet wrapped in the shades of superstition; whilst, in truth, they were but
plunging it into a gulf yet more profound and more implacable; for there
is no real happiness possible where
there exists a constant fear of losing
that happiness. I know very well
798