The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1890-11-05
A TRAGEDY OF MASKS.

TAN tomb in fair Florence in the long ago
A one might have beheld this picture of
ER neace. A white bier on which is
stretched a white figure; the small face is
visible only in part through the white en-
| folding hands; the arms are bare and beau
tiful.
This seems vision of some lovely woman
fgnring death, for, though she lies so still,
there is lively look about the turn OF the
arm, a look that is hardly kept by form
that has been firmly clasped in deaths chill
embrace. In this vault burned seven yet
tall waxen candles. Tomorrow a heavier
stone will shut out every glimpse OF ealth,
of flowers, of sun from that house OF death.
Dull starlight now Quivers over the word.
Gusty winds sweep the groves and hedges.
The stars, anon unwrapping wild faces from
the drapeIy of the storm-track, cast bright
glance over the ruffled landscape and peep
into the still vault. All through the noisy
night of wind and rain the woman lies
deadly quiet She is cut off from all lie,
vet seemingly unclaimed of death.
In the darkest hour that preeedes the
dawning tremor runs through the earth.
! The healthy sleepers turn themselves for
| heavier sleeping; the watchers who walt by
| diving and dead SILVER; the sick feel as If all
| strength would ebb out with the departing
night. 1t is said that the dead arouse them
selves to look on life at just this hour.
Even so now does the woman on the bier
culver from head to feet Her lashes trem-
BILE on her pale cheeks, her lids lift them
| Selves her dark eyes opening SLOWLY survey
| all within their range One hand moves
softly.
she is still again.
AlasI is it only one moment of life that
the dead can claim 'twixt the night and the
| morning?
| Then falls on all nature a stiffness that is
| appalling For one moment all life so closely
| resembles death that motion is gone from
| the earth. If this horrible stiffness might
endure more than a heart beats while, all
| life would sink deep into death without
| struggle.
Such silence can be borne but moment
| then. like a sudden cry OF freedom that
| brings emancipation to chained captives.
voice of the wind calls out loudly, shrllly,
| and, answering their cry. every leaf springs
| to motion, every wavelet leaps to lie.
The woman, as if in the midst Of the
silence of the tomb she can feel sympathy
| with moving nature, ruStes now all her
wrappings and rises on her bier. Her Won
| dering eyes wander about the vault ilghted
| by seven candles, now burning low IN their
sockets. Her hands wonderngly touch the
| bier and the grave clothes and the wreath OF
! orange blossoms just falling from her couch.
| One candle flares up and dies. She I'M
| winds the cloth from her hands and feet.
| The other candles flash up, Splutter and
! die. She walks through the followed stone
| and presses her face against the glimpse of
| sky. That sky begins 10 open for showing
| of a few streaks OF dawn. The woman,
gazing out on the waking Of the world, be-
| gins to pant for freer breath. Suddenly
| terrible superstition, wild fear, tesh-con-
suming terror invades her stupor; tense
agony grasps her She struggles with the
| stones. She cries out Her own weak
voice is mockingy pelted back at her from
the narrow walls Outside this few square
| feet of awful stiffness is the weird so broad,
| yet SO full of love that no one OF the num-
berless beings therein need be lonely.
| Bonds that had held her there she had once
deemed too clamping; she would now gladly
| clasp them around her again might she thus
rid herself of these that death is welding
about her With one huge effort of despera-
| ton she pushes back the door.
! One step forward and she stands a
| stranger in the earth. One coming as from
| death to life, one who remembers her old
| place 50 distinctly, yet whose place Is no
| more.
Three days she has lain in strange state
and now on the fourth she comes from the
| tomb moving on those limbs that the bear
| ers had lifted so tenderly.
She turns her face eagerly toward her
| husbands house. Though she bad been
| willing wife, surely now he viii welcome
her joYfully. His loving heart will be soft
ened to her petty willfuineSs as hearts do
soften toward those parted by death.
The world is yet dim when she glides IN
| der the great pillars of her old home and
kneels at the great door. No answer to her
| tapping. She calls.
| There is startled murmur that answers
her, a hand hastily opens the door to show
! a worn, tear-scarred face staring out at her.
| Spirits are shy of humans. Perhaps some
| Of this shyneSs clings about her so nearly
spiritualized, for she stands afar off; she
| whispers: Il am here"
"Ah!' he cries, in agony, would that
my love would 50 come TO NE. What spirit
| dares take her dear form%
| But for that superstition that forbids
speech with, or touch Of the disembodied,
| he is held aloof from her.
81 am cold," she murmurs; Il am faint
with hunger"
He, weeping for her he deems dead, cries:
| Tempt me no longer, oh too fair spirit. lest
| yield to thy pleadings and let thee in.
Away. lest l love thee that art so like my
lost one; lest thus loving semblance | lose
herself in that world to come"
At his confession of imperishable love for
| herself she clasps her two hands, and, lean
ing forward, she trembles with eagerness
from her golden crown Of hair even to her
| slim feet. Then looked she more beautiful
than words could express.
| But with eyes averted he closes the door,
| and only murmurs OF grief and signs OF de-
| spar answer her.
Even more CHASTITY has the gray day
| grown when she stands pinched and SILVER
| ing at her mothers door.
another! my motherp' she calls. The
| mother awake with her grief, hastenS to
where stands the pale, trembling woman.
shadow cries the mother, why do
! you come to mock at griefp
| tsAtr p, a.rias tho unp,ap raanhip1
| outeager arms.
| "Ah, no." cries the mother, my daughter
is with saints and angels"
"But her body is cold. Warm her."
ooh, wicked spirit, why tempt me to break
open the grave, to grapple with death,
| to clasp to my heart this fair miracle of
| likeness1
Hearing this the daughter would have
crossed the threshold, but the mother. dis
tracted with grief, cries: Holy moth er.
| preserve mel Keep from me this desire to
rob heaven of an angel, the grave of its
own"
! The woman, standing before the hastily
closed door, begins to believe herself really
dead.
Are the dead so lonely?" she signs.
| "Truly the tomb is their only resting place."
Coming again to the entrance of the
| place of tombs she re-eDters the portals and
| seeks the vault she lately left Footprints
| are thickly pressed about the the spot. Strong
men have already rolledagainst the opening
| the heavier stone.
| The world is not for her. Husband and
mother will cherish but the memory of
herself. The grave is now closed against
| her.
With swift fearful pace she again passes
the dark portal. She moves through the
| early morning to gateway of tawny
| marble. great lion that has long been
in the hard hands of the tanner, Time, rises
from his crouching beside the polished
| pillars and walks with majestic pace beside
| her as she moves to the open door beyond.
Beyond that entrance young man sits in
| the great hail. He smiles in sleep through
| tears shed in waking hours. The woman
| gazes at him; her hand rests on the lions
| great mana Tho man roneps hiucaIf H.