“O soul of my soul! what has made thee afraid?” To which I responded:
“I fell asleep, and methought that I had lost thee.”
Woe is me! what an augury and what true foretellers of the future were these my words so suddenly thrust on my mind by some spirit from I know not where, and this I can now see plainly. But he made answer:
“O best and dearest of all women! death and death alone can make thee lose me.”
Hardly had he uttered these words when he heaved a deep sigh. When I asked the occasion of his sighing thus, hoping thereby to learn also the cause of his tears, he burst into such a fit of weeping that the tears began to gush from his eyes as from two fountains, and to fall upon his breast even more copiously than before. Such a spectacle filled me with painful misgivings, and the uncertainty and anxiety of which I had for some time been the prey ended with me also in a burst of tears, while, on the other hand, his sobs prevented him from answering directly the question I had put to him. But, as soon as he felt that he had recovered somewhat from this excruciating spasm of emotion, in a voice choked and often rent with sobs, he thus replied:
“Dearest of women, loved by me beyond everything else in the world, if my tears merit any credit as witnesses of the truth, thou wilt surely believe that they are not shed without bitter cause, as the event which is about to happen must certainly prove to thee. The reason why my eyes pour forth their tears in such abundance, whenever the recollection of all the happiness that we have known together recurs to my memory, is that now this very recollection tortures me, with the added pang that I cannot make of myself two persons, as I would wish to do, so that I could at once satisfy my love by staying here, and the filial piety I owe to a father by going to a place whither the most stringent necessity summons me, together with all the force of paternal authority. Conceive, then, the anguish of my despairing heart! On the one hand, I am torn by filial piety from thine arms, and, on the other, I am retained therein by the soul-subduing might of love.”
These words made their way into my wounded heart, and with them torments never felt before. And albeit their meaning was not at first clearly grasped by my understanding, yet when they smote mine ears and thereby effected a passage into my soul, they became the source of most agonizing tears, which, though they found a way of escape through mine eyes, left behind them in my heart an unendurable sense of utter woe,.
This was that hour when I felt that my pangs were more hostile to my pleasures than ever before; this was that hour which forced me to weep tears beyond measure, the like whereof had never by me been shed before, tears which neither his words nor his consolations could restrain. However, after I had wept most bitterly for a long time, I besought him, as well as I was able, to make clear to me, what was the nature of that filial piety which, he said, tore him from my arms. Whereupon he, not without many a burst of tears, made this answer:
“Inevitable death, the ultimate end of all things, has decreed that I should be at the present moment the only son of my father, who lately had many sons. He is now laden with years, wifeless, and without any near relative remaining to him who would attend to the comfort of his declining years. He has no hope of having any more children, and he insists on the presence of that only son whom he has not seen for so many years, and from whom he expects affection and some consolation. For months have I been trying to discover every manner of excuse which, by holding me blameless, would permit me to ignore his commands and not forsake thee.
Finally, I could see how utterly baseless and worthless were all these excuses. Every motive that can sway a mortal urges me to fulfil this duty. The days of my childhood, when I climbed his knees and was nursed tenderly on his lap, the love which he never afterward ceased for a moment to show me, the just and proper filial obedience which I should always pay him, and other reasons more serious still, all conjure me not to defer my visit to him any longer.
And, furthermore, the solemn entreaties and warnings of my friends and kindred have wrought upon me. They insist that, if I refuse to my father the solace of beholding me once more, I shall be the occasion of separating from his body his forlorn and disconsolate soul.
Alas! how strong are the laws of nature! Mighty as is my love for thee, I have not been able, nor am I able, to allow it to replace entirely this filial piety. And so I have decided, with thy permission, to see him once more, and to afford him the consolation of my company for some little space of time, though I know not how I shall ever be able to live without thee, how brief soever the period of my absence may be; and, therefore, do my tears fall so fast when this I recall to mind.”
And, after these words, he kept silence. If there be any of you, O ladies, for whose benefit I am now writing, whom such a disaster has befallen at the very moment when love engrossed her every thought, her alone do I expect to have understanding of the pangs that tortured my soul, which had until then fed wholly upon his love, and by that love had been violently inflamed; to other ladies I do not speak, for unless they have been tried as I have been, useless would be my telling them of that which nothing in their own lives has exemplified.
I will say, then, in as brief fashion as possible, that when I heard these words, my soul sought to escape from me, and doubtless would have escaped, but that it was at the moment clasped in the arms of him it loved most on earth. But, nevertheless, it was so dazed with terror and smarting under such heavy affliction, that for a time I was bereft of the power of uttering a single word.
But when, after a time, my mind had grown somewhat accustomed to the endurance of a sorrow such as never before had been my portion, this very sorrow restored a little faint courage to my spirit, and the eyes which had been strained and tearless overflowed with moisture, and the tongue at length was loosed and capable of utterance; and turning to him who was the lord of my life, I thus addressed him:
“O thou who art my only refuge, my final hope! may my words enter thy heart with sufficient force to alter thy new purpose; so wilt thou continue to love me as thou hast loved me, and they life and mine will not be exiled from this sad world before the hour appointed for our departure shall have come upon us. Thou, being drawn in different directions by filial piety and by love, art doubtful how thou shouldst act in the future. But surely, if the words were true in which thou didst formerly affirm, not once, but repeatedly, that I alone was loved by thee, no affection, filial or otherwise, should have power to withstand such love, or to take thee away elsewhere from my side; and now listen to the reason why this should be so.
It must be clear to thee, if thou believest that which thou thyself sayest, to what peril thou must expose my life, if thou forsakest me, knowing, as thou dost, that I have been hardly able to endure any day heretofore upon which I was prevented from seeing thee.
Therefore, thou mayest rest assured that, with thy absence, every comfort and pleasure of my life will vanish. And thinkest thou that this is the only calamity that shall befall me? Certainly, thou must be aware that every sorrow that can be imagined will beset me, and that these sorrows will, perhaps, or rather without any perhaps, surely slay me? Of a truth, thou must know how little strength there be in tender young women to endure such calamities with a firm mind.
Shouldst thou haply wish to answer that I, when first I loved thee, had to endure things as heavy to bear, I will in part agree with thee, but the cause of that was very different from this. As my hope depended on the exercise of my own will, that which could then be borne easily will press grievously on me when dependent on the will of another. Who has ever thwarted my desire when I wished eagerly for thy companionship, because I was enamored of thee as thou wert of me? Surely, no one. But things will shape themselves very differently when thou art far away from me. Moreover, at that time I knew only by sight who thou wert, although, even so, I set a high value
