Raphael - Pages of the Book of Life at Twenty | Page 6

the pensive and now sunken eye. His shirt, thrown
open on the chest, displayed his muscular though attenuated frame,
which might yet have appeared majestic, had his weakness allowed him
to sit erect.
He knew me at a glance, made one step forward with extended arms,
and fell back upon the bed. We first wept, and then talked together. He
related the past; how, when he had thought to cull the flowers or fruits
of life, his hopes had ever been marred by fortune or by death,--the loss
of his father, mother, wife, and child; his reverses of fortune, and the
compulsory sale of his ancestral domain; he told how he retired to his
ruined home, with no other companionship than that of his mother's old
herdsman, who served him without pay, for the love he bore to his
house; and lastly, spoke of the consuming languor which would sweep
him away with the autumnal leaves, and lay him in the churchyard
beside those he had loved so well. His intense imaginative faculty
might be seen strong even in death, and in idea he loved to endow with
a fanciful sympathy the turf and flowers which would blossom on his
grave.
"Do you know what grieves me most?" said he, pointing to the fringe
of little birds which were perched round the top of his bed. "It is to
think that next spring these poor little ones, my latest friends, will seek
for me in vain in the tower. They will no longer find the broken pane
through which to fly in; and on the floor, the little flocks of wool from
my mattress with which to build their nests. But the old nurse, to whom
I bequeath my little all, will take care of them as long as she lives," he
resumed, as if to comfort himself with the idea; "and after her--Well!
God will; for He feedeth the young ravens."
He seemed moved while speaking of these little creatures. It was easy
to see that he had long been weaned from the sympathy of men, and

that the whole tenderness of his soul, which had been repulsed by them,
was now transferred to dumb animals. "Will you spend any time among
our mountains?" he inquired. "Yes," I replied. "So much the better," he
added; "you will close my eyes, and take care that my grave is dug as
close as possible to those of my mother, wife, and child."
He then begged me to draw towards him a large chest of carved wood,
which was concealed beneath a bag of Indian corn at one end of the
room. I placed the chest upon the bed, and from it he drew a quantity of
papers which he tore silently to pieces for half an hour, and then bid his
old nurse sweep them into the fire. There were verses in many
languages, and innumerable pages of fragments, separated by dates,
like memoranda. "Why should you burn all these?" I timidly suggested;
"has not man a moral as well as a material inheritance to bequeath to
those who come after him? You are perhaps destroying thoughts and
feelings which might have quickened a soul."
"What matters it?" he said; "there are tears enough in this world, and
we need not deposit a few more in the heart of man. These," said he,
showing the verses, "are the cast-off, useless feathers of my soul; it has
moulted since then, and spread its bolder wings for eternity!" He then
continued to burn and destroy, while I looked out of the broken
window at the dreary landscape.
At length he called me once more to the bedside. "Here," said he--"save
this one little manuscript, which I have not courage to burn. When I am
gone, my poor nurse would make bags for her seeds with it, and I
would not that the name which fills its pages should be profaned. Take,
and keep it till you hear that I am no more. After my death you may
burn it, or preserve it till your old age, to think of me sometimes as you
glance over it."
I hid the roll of paper beneath my cloak, and took my leave, resolving
inwardly to return the next day to soothe the last moments of Raphael
by my care and friendly discourse. As I descended the steps, I saw
about twenty little children with their wooden shoes in their hands, who
had come to take the lessons which he gave them, even on his
death-bed. A little further on, I met the village priest, who had come to
spend the evening with him. I bowed respectfully, and as he noted my
swollen eyes, he returned my salute with an air of mournful sympathy.
The next day I