Why should I live? Do I not know
The life of woman is full of woe?
Toiling on, and on, and on,
With breaking heart and tearful eyes,
And silent lips, and in the soul
The secret longings that arise,
Which this world never satisfies!
Some more, some less, but of the whole
Not one quite happy,—no, not one!”
LONGFELLOW.
ACCOMPANIED by a female attendant, who carried a little basket containing the golden flowers, Sumac crossed the great square, and shortly afterward entered by a side-door the gardens which had formerly belonged to the Virgins of the Sun, but which were now appropriated to the nuns of Santa Clara. The stately terraces, faced with dark stone, and reaching down to the banks of the Huatanay, had once been adorned with all the flowers of that prolific clime, in their rich variety of form and coloring. And it is said that rarer flowers, silver pale or golden, wrought by the skilful hands of the Virgins of the Sun, mingled with the scarlet salvias, the crimson fuchsias, the variegated calceolarias, and the many-tinted orchids, looking as if they had grown up with them side by side. But now such flowers as these were esteemed too highly—not for the art that fashioned, but for the metal that composed them—to be left exposed to the changes of the elements. The terraces were beginning already to fall into ruin; and while some of the hardier flowers grew luxuriantly in sweet tangled thickets, others had perished, or become poor and scanty, under the less careful hand of the stranger.
When they entered the garden, the old Indian domestic resigned her basket to her young mistress, and then sat down on one of the terrace steps to wait, crooning a Quechua song.
Sumac slowly climbed the hill to the convent door. Even the short walk had wearied her, and the steep ascent tried her powers still further. Her breath came and went, and two or three times she stopped to rest. Reaching the door at last, she found it open, and entered.
“Tell my mother, Lucia wants her," she said in Spanish to a novice whom she happened to meet; for Sumac and Coyllur had been taught Spanish by the nuns. They had also their Christian names, used seldom amongst themselves, but often in their intercourse with the Spaniards. Sumac's was Lucia, Coyllur's Victoria.
The novice, to whom she was well known, led her at once into a parlor, saying, "I will tell Sister Maria.”
Sumac waited a while, first seated on a bench, then standing to gaze, with much admiration, on a very indifferent painting, in her eyes a wonderful work of art, representing Christ blessing the little children.
Ere long a worn and faded woman, in a dark serge robe, entered the room. She was not young, she was not beautiful—perhaps she had never been so; but when she looked at the Indian girl, there was a yearning, motherly tenderness in her face, which it may be the angels think a fairer thing than what we call beauty.
As she folded the slight form in an affectionate embrace, she exclaimed sorrowfully, "My poor child is almost a shadow now. I sometimes fear, Lucia, that you will soon vanish from our sight altogether.”
“And what if I do, mother?" asked the girl, seating herself beside her, and gazing fondly into her dim blue eyes with dark ones that were all too perilously bright. "Since they slew the Inca, I have not wished to live. Tell me, mother, is that also sin?”
Sister Maria sighed, as she answered, "It is always sin, my child, if we love the creature more than the Creator.”
Sumac crossed herself, and pointed to the picture. "You told me He takes away sin; you said He died for our sins on the cross.”
Amidst much darkness, ignorance, and confusion, that one grand and simple truth had found its way, like healing balm, into the crushed heart of the Indian girl; for Sister Maria, having learned that truth herself, was able to teach it. In early days—days far off, and tenderly remembered now—some pure and unadulterated drops of the water of life had fallen to her lot through the ministrations of the celebrated Fray Constantine Ponce de la Fuente, in Seville. Many years since then had she lived "in a dry and thirsty land where no water is," yet, like the lotus flower, she had treasured up a little store of the precious liquid, enough to quench the thirst of a weary wanderer in the desert. Thus it was that, happily, one poor mourner was not bid to look, as too many were, for comfort, to the "Madre Dolorosa," our Lady of Sorrows, but to the Man of Sorrows Himself, who is also the Lord of Life and Glory.”
Half unconsciously, Sister Maria murmured a few lines of the noble old Latin hymn, "Dies Iræ.”
“What do those words say, mother?" Sumac asked.
The nun gave a free Spanish translation of them, somewhat resembling ours:—
Think, O Savior, for what reason
Thou endured'st earth's pain and treason:
Do not lose me in that season.”
But Sumac did not approve.
“That does not seem a good prayer, mother," she said. "How could He lose me? He is God.”
“Keep that faith, my child," replied the nun, a little sorrowfully.
She was conscious of many a keen pulsation of fear, not that He would lose her, but that she might somehow lose Him, which would be the same thing practically. But why should she cast the shadow of her own doubt upon her pupil's more simple trust?
Sumac broke the pause that followed. "Mother, I have now a great sin, I am afraid," she said, in faltering tones.
Upon a few occasions—very few—Sumac and Coyllur had attended confession. They had been gently dealt with; yet they both hated it. Coyllur was nearly driven to open rebellion by the requirement; while to Sumac it was a dreaded and formidable ordeal. Yet she liked well to pour her simple confessions into the ear of her chosen teacher and friend; her "mother," as the motherless girl—motherless almost since the dawn of memory—loved to call her.
“What is this sin, my daughter?" asked the nun, tenderly taking and holding the small, brown, transparent hand.
“I have much sin, because it hurts me that Coyllur and Viracocha love each other," was Sumac's faltering acknowledgment.
“What, my child! And do they?" asked the nun, with a perceptible start.
“Yes," said the Indian girl, surprised in her turn at her friend's surprise. "It is right. He is noble, beautiful, and good; and he is one of our own.”
“How far has the matter gone? Does Coyllur really care for him? Is anything settled?" asked Sister Maria, with much more eagerness than might have been expected from her. She pitied the conquered race, and would fain spare them one wrong more, if she could.
Sumac looked at her, wondering. "Mother," she said, "surely you do not wish Coyllur to be a holy virgin? I might, if I live; but never Coyllur. She is too bright, too glad. She is like the little tuyas that go singing all the day from bough to bough. God, when He made her, meant her to be always happy, I am sure.”
“May it indeed be so," said the nun. "No, Lucia, I do not wish to see her undertake the religious life; she has no vocation for it. But, my child, does Prince Paullu know what you have told me now? or even your aunt, Dona Beatriz Coya?”
“My grandfather will tell Paullu when it is necessary," Sumac answered, not without a look that betrayed the distrust and dislike which even her gentle heart harbored towards the Inca who made himself the willing tool of the Spaniard. "My aunt," she added, "must be well aware of it already; they are both often at her house. And, in sooth, they never go there that I am not filled with fear lest Viracocha should fight with some Spanish caballero for paying attention to my sister.”
“He could not be so mad as to fight with a Spaniard! Lucia, my child, if there be still time, if remonstrance still avails—it is for her sake I speak, and for his—”
“But what is it you would say, my mother?" Sumac asked, with momentarily increasing agitation. "It is too late; they love each other. Who could be so cruel as to sunder them? What have you heard? What do you know?”
"I know nothing, my child;"—which was true: at least, Sister Maria only knew that the Mother Abbess was a kinswoman of the Viceroy, Don Francisco de Toledo; that three proud and needy young cavaliers—the nephews of both—were waiting in Cuzco for whatever fortune and their powerful kinsfolk might send them; and that the youngest and proudest of the three had cast his fiery dark eyes on the sweet face of Coyllur, and sworn to have her for his bride. And woe betide the Indian slave who should dare to cross the path of his master, the white man!
However, there were still a hundred possibilities in the future. Someone might change-something might happen; at all events, the trembling form, the eager parted lips, the wistful anxious eyes of her best-loved pupil were more at that moment to poor Sister Maria than any distant dangers that might menace Coyllur and Viracocha. To turn her thoughts from the subject that alarmed her, she asked, “But, my Lucia, why should it hurt you that they love each other?”
“I don't know," faltered Sumac, her head drooping more and more, until at last her face was quite overshadowed by her long and beautiful hair; "I can't tell. Only, mother," she added, looking quickly up into the nun's kind sorrowful eyes, “my heart pains me—here. It is hungry—it is empty—it is tired. When Viracocha speaks low and soft to Coyllur, it says within me—' You will never hear such words any more, Sumac —never any more!’ O mother, mother! there be many voices sweet to others; one voice only was sweet to Sumac,—but it will never speak again! Dark and evil it seems to me that he is dead, and that I am left alive.”
And Sumac laid herself, like a tired child, in her friend's pitying arms, and wept. It was not often that she spoke such words or wept such tears. If she had, she might have lived longer. Sister Maria mingled her tears of sympathy with the hot and passionate drops of Sumac's bitter sorrow. At last she said,— “Lucia, my child, would you desire to change your lot for that of Coyllur now?”
It was rather a strange question for a nun to ask. But Sister Maria had been a woman before she became a nun; and in spite of conventual life and discipline, the woman's heart throbbed in her bosom still.
“Oh no, no! Mother, don't you remember that I was to have been the sole Inca's bride?”
“Is it, then, because you esteem it so great an honor to be, as you call it, Coya—”
“Oh, hush, mother! what use is all that? Indeed, I never heeded such words when they spoke them; and I think there is much talk like the mountain snow, that melts when you take it in your hand. But, mother, you know I saw him. Once he laid aside the llautu, and the crimson tunic, and the white wing-feathers of the cora-quenque, and he put on the dress of a poor man, and came unknown to Cuzco, that he might look upon the city of his fathers;—that he might look too upon this poor face of mine, that has no beauty now. And then he said—he said—No, mamallay, I will not tell what he said—not even to you. Those words are all my own; they are the one thing poor Sumac has in this dark, cold world. Had he bidden me then, I would have gone forth gladly to the wild desert with him—for was he not the Inca But he did not; he told me he would come again. He did come again—you know how. They would not let me see him. Perhaps it was best; my face might have troubled him—might have shadowed with a thought of pain the noble calm of the look he wore, as beseemed him, to the last. It does not matter now—for me. I ought not to weep;—you tell me I may pray for him. And he received Holy Baptism,—most gladly, as they say. Moreover, he left his cause to God;—Christ is God.”
After one more gush of passionate tears came a sudden change of tone:
“Give him—give his memory up for Viracocha! Give the emerald of the mine for one of those green leaves in the garden yonder! Not that Viracocha is not good and brave. I love him well,—as my brother. But there are ten thousand green leaves for one green stone, mother.”
“So you think your own portion the best, and would rather keep it, with all its sorrow? Well, my child, I believe you are right," said the woman's heart of Sister Maria." Though, of course, earthly love is nothing, compared with heavenly—mere dust and dross," the nun interposed." Still, God knows," the woman said, taking up the parable again," it is less bitter to have once been loved, truly and nobly, and then to have been separated by man's hate and cruelty, than to find the trusted false, and to see what looked like gold fade away into tinsel.”
Sumac looked up, with interest and curiosity in her tearful eyes. The old wound ceased to throb, while she wondered whether some similar scar might not be found beneath the serge robe of a holy virgin.
“I scarcely know whether I ought to tell you foolish old stories," said the nun, as the color mantled to the roots of her thin hair, touched with gray. "Of course, all is past and gone—and no matter now. It seems as if it happened to some different person, long ago, in another life. Yet, not so long, after all. It is not easy in the convent to tell how time passes. I make strange mistakes sometimes. I think I have told you that I was born and brought up in Seville.”
“Seville! That is the great city beyond the Mother Sea, like Cuzco here," said Sumac, who had heard Jose talk of Seville.
“Not just like Cuzco; for there be many cities as great, or greater, in the Old World—though Seville is a fair city certainly.”
“Viracocha has told us of it. His patre, Fray Fernando, was born there. And I think he must be the best and kindest Spaniard that ever lived. Viracocha loves him more than any one on earth, save Coyllur.”
“It was in Seville that I spent my happy childhood. Father and mother, sisters and brothers, all loved me, the youngest, and made a little queen of me. It was that they were good and tender, not that I was beautiful. Even when I was young and lively, I do not think my face was as lovely as many other faces in my native land. You might see a hundred fairer any day on the Prado. Still, God had given me the fair hair people care for in my country, I suppose because it is not often seen; and these dim eyes were what men called zarca. They said I stole their azure from the sky. What idle tales to tell you now! All the saints forgive me Our Lady, with the seven swords in her breast, be merciful to me! What has tempted me to talk thus to thee, poor child, whom I should be seeking to edify?”
“But, you know, I want to hear what happened," said Sumac innocently.
"Nothing happened, Lucia; and that was just the trouble that made the blue eyes grow dim, and took the gold from the hair you see so dull and scanty. That was the trouble too that, God be thanked, made me think of Him. Then I remembered Fray Constantino's sermons, that we used to go and hear in the great church; and then, at last, I gave Him all that was left of my poor life.”
“But was there no one—," Sumac began, then stopped. "I don't know the right Spanish words to use," she said apologetically.
“Yes," Sister Maria confessed, with a faint flush on her faded cheek. “One there was who praised the blue eyes like the rest, but did not look like the rest when he praised them. Wherever I went, there he was, with that great brow and earnest face—saying so much in one word, looking so much in one glance. He was the only son of a very proud and noble, though not wealthy, family. And I thought—. But I am speaking idle words again. I will only tell you that, all at once, he vanished—without word, without sign. It was said that he had gone away to seek his fortune in this strange New World. If so, at least he might have bowed or looked farewell. He never came again. I never heard what became of him; and I shall never hear on this side the grave.”
“You may be sure he was killed in battle, mother," said Sumac, tenderly suggesting what seemed to her the most honorable and enviable fate.
“I know not. I only know that I was very sinful and very miserable. I thought more of him than of God. I prayed all the saints to send him back; and I had my heart full of wicked thoughts about them, because they did not, or could not. Then other troubles came: my kind and tender parents died, my brothers were scattered over the world, my sisters were married—not all happily. One brother, my favorite, was killed in Flanders, fighting against the heretics.”
“I know.—The English?”
“It did happen, strangely enough, that he fell by the hand of an Englishman. Then my proud heart broke at last. I gave up earthly hope, and turned, as I have told you, to God for comfort. My child, He does comfort the sorrowful, He does bind up the broken heart; though He takes more than a day to do His work.”
“He is good," said Sumac gently. Then hearing the sound of a bell, which she knew was meant to summon the nuns to prayer, she rose to go. Remembering her basket of flowers, she took it up, and put it in her friend's hand. "Here are flowers for the holy saint, mother," she said. "I am so stupid that I have forgotten his name.”
“San Martin, my child; whose feast we celebrate tomorrow. Truly, Lucia, these are very beautiful," said the nun, as she removed the fine cotton cloth that covered the basket, and took out, with admiring carefulness, the golden stalks of maize, with their rich golden grains sheathed in broad leaves of silver, and ornamented with tassels of delicate silver thread.
“San Martin. Was he the good man who, you told me, gave his cloak to the beggar? Will he be pleased with our flowers, do you think, mother? I am glad. But, mother, I want to make some now for our Lord Christ Himself. May I?”
“When it comes near Easter time, you shall. But now, dear child, the Lady Abbess bade me tell you she would fain you wrought a few for us, that we might send them to Spain, as an offering to the Mother House at Valladolid.”
“You shall have them, mother," said the girl. "But I would like, best of all, to make some to give to our Savior.”
“Give Him your heart, my child. That gift will please Him more than any other," said the nun, as she kissed her affectionately. "Now I must hasten, or I shall have to do a penance for coming late to prayers.”