said,'Yonder are our mountains; let us return.'
"Upon the whole, I found that every means I took to divert his melancholywas fruitless, and that no resource was left but an attempt to combat hispassion by the arguments which reason suggested. I answered him, 'Yes,there are the mountains where once dwelt your beloved Virginia; and this isthe picture you gave her, and which she held, when dying, to her heart;that heart, which even in her last moments only beat for you.' I then gavePaul the little picture which he had given Virginia at the borders of thecocoa tree fountain. At this sight a gloomy joy overspread his looks. Heeagerly seized the picture with his feeble hands, and held it to his lips.His oppressed bosom seemed ready to burst with emotion, and his eyes werefilled with tears which had no power to flow.
"'My son,' said I, 'listen to him who is your friend, who was the friend ofVirginia, and who, in the bloom of your hopes, endeavoured to fortify yourmind against the unforeseen accidents of life. What do you deplore with somuch bitterness? Your own misfortunes, or those of Virginia? Your ownmisfortunes are indeed severe. You have lost the most amiable of women: shewho sacrificed her own interests to yours, who preferred you to all thatfortune could bestow, and considered you as the only recompense worthy ofher virtues. But might not this very object, from whom you expected thepurest happiness, have proved to you a source of the most cruel distress?She had returned poor, disinherited; and all you could henceforth havepartaken with her was your labours: while rendered more delicate by hereducation, and more courageous by her misfortunes, you would have beheldher every day sinking beneath her efforts to share and soften yourfatigues. Had she brought you children, this would only have served toincrease her inquietudes and your own, from the difficulty of sustainingyour aged parents and your infant family. You will tell me, there wouldhave been reserved to you a happiness independent of fortune, that ofprotecting a beloved object, which attaches itself to us in proportion toits helplessness; that your pains and sufferings would have served toendear you to each other, and that your passion would have gatheredstrength from your mutual misfortunes. Undoubtedly virtuous love can shed acharm over pleasures which are thus mingled with bitterness. But Virginiais no more; yet those persons still live, whom, next to yourself, she heldmost dear; her mother, and your own, whom your inconsolable affliction isbending with sorrow to the grave. Place your happiness, as she did hers, inaffording them succour. And why deplore the fate of Virginia? Virginiastill exists. There is he assured, a region in which virtue receives itsreward. Virginia now is happy. Ah! if, from the abode of angels, she couldtell you, as she did when she bid you farewell. 'O, Paul! life is but atrial. I was faithful to the laws of nature, love, and virtue. Heaven foundI had fulfilled my duties, and has snatched me for ever from all themiseries I might have endured myself, and all I might have felt for themiseries of others. I am placed above the reach of all human evils, and youpity me! I am become pure and unchangeable as a particle of light, and youwould recall me to the darkness of human life! O, Paul! O, my belovedfriend! recollect those days of happiness, when in the morning we felt thedelightful sensations excited by the unfolding beauties of nature; when wegazed upon the sun, gilding the peaks of those rocks, and then spreadinghis rays over the bosom of the forests.
"'How exquisite were our emotions while we enjoyed the glowing colours ofthe opening day, the odours of our shrubs, the concerts of our birds! Now,at the source of beauty, from which flows all that is delightful uponearth, my soul intuitively sees, tastes, hears, touches, what before shecould only be made sensible of through the medium of our weak organs. Ah!what language can describe those shores of eternal bliss which I inhabitfor ever? All that infinite power and celestial bounty can confer, thatharmony which results from friendship with numberless beings, exulting inthe same felicity, we enjoy in unmixed perfection. Support, then the trialwhich is allotted you, that you may heighten the happiness of your Virginiaby love which will know no termination, by hymeneals which will beimmortal. There I will calm your regrets, I will wipe away your tears. Oh,my beloved friend! my husband! raise your thoughts towards infiniteduration, and bear the evils of a moment.'
"My own emotion choked my utterance. Paul, looking's at me stedfastly,cried, 'She is no more! She is no more!' and a long fainting fit succeededthat melancholy exclamation. When restored to himself, he said, 'Sincedeath is a good, and since Virginia is happy, I would die too, and beunited to Virginia.' Thus the motives of consolation I had offered, onlyserved to nourish his despair. I was like a man who attempts to save afriend sinking in the midst of a flood, and refusing to swim. Sorrow hadoverwhelmed his soul. Alas! the misfortunes of early years prepare man forthe struggles of life: but Paul had never known adversity.
"I led him back to his own dwelling, where I found his mother and Madame dela Tour in a state of increased languor, but Margaret drooped most. Thoselively characters upon which light afflictions make a small impression, areleast capable of resisting great calamities.
"'O, my good friend,' said Margaret, 'me-thought, last night, I sawVirginia dressed in white, amidst delicious bowers and gardens. She said tome, 'I enjoy the most perfect happiness;' and then approaching Paul, with asmiling air, she bore him away. While I struggled to retain my son, I feltthat I myself was quitting the earth, and that I followed him withinexpressible delight. I then wished to bid my friend farewell, when I sawshe was hastening after me with Mary and Domingo. But what seems moststrange is, that Madame de la Tour has this very night had a dream attendedwith the same circumstances.'
"'My dear friend,' I replied, 'nothing, I believe, happens in this worldwithout the permission of God. Dreams sometimes foretell the truth.'
"Madame de la Tour related to me her dream, which was exactly similar; and,as I had never observed in either of those persons any propensity tosuperstition, I was struck with the singular coincidence of their dreams,which, I had little doubt, would soon be realized.
"What I expected took place. Paul died two months after the death ofVirginia, whose name dwelt upon his lips even in his expiring moments.Eight days after the death of her son, Margaret saw her last hour approachwith that serenity which virtue only can feel. She bade Madame de la Tourthe most tender farewell, 'in the hope,' she said, 'of a sweet and eternalreunion. Death is the most precious good,' added she, 'and we ought todesire it. If life be a punishment we should wish for its termination; ifit be a trial, we should be thankful that it is short.'
"The governor took care of Domingo and Mary, who were no longer able tolabour, and who survived their mistresses but a short time. As for poorFidele, he pined to death, at the period he lost his master.
"I conducted Madame de la Tour to my dwelling, and she bore her calamitieswith elevated fortitude. She had endeavoured to comfort Paul and Margarettill their last moments, as if she herself had no agonies to bear. Whenthey were no more, she used to talk of them as of beloved friends, fromwhom she was not distant. She survived them but one month. Far fromreproaching her aunt for those afflictions she had caused, her benignspirit prayed to God to pardon her, and to appease that remorse which theconsequences of her cruelty would probably awaken in her breast.
"I heard, by successive vessels which arrived from Europe, that thisunnatural relation, haunted by a troubled conscience, accused herselfcontinually of the untimely fate of her lovely niece, and the death of hermother, and became at intervals bereft of her reason. Her relations, whomshe hated, took the direction of her fortune, after shutting her up as alunatic, though she possessed sufficient use of her reason to feel all thepangs of her dreadful situation, and died at length in agonies of despair.
"The body of Paul was placed by the side of his Virginia, at the foot ofthe same shrubs; and on that hallowed spot the remains of their tendermothers, and their faithful servants, are laid. No marble covers the turf,no inscription records their virtues; but their memory is engraven upon ourhearts, in characters, which are indelible; and surely, if those purespirits still take an interest in what passes upon earth, they love towander ben
eath the roofs of these dwellings, which are inhabited byindustrious virtue, to console the poor who complain of their destiny, tocherish in the hearts of lovers the sacred flame of fidelity, to inspire ataste for the blessing of nature, the love of labour, and the dread ofriches.
"The voice of the people, which is often silent with regard to thosemonuments raised to flatter the pride of kings, has given to some parts ofthis island names which will immortalize the loss of Virginia. Near theIsle of Amber, in the midst of sandbanks, is a spot called the Pass ofSaint Geran, from the name of the vessel which there perished. Theextremity of that point of land, which is three leagues distant, and halfcovered by the waves, and which the Saint Geran could not double on thenight preceding the huricane, is called the Cape of Misfortune;
Paul and Virginia from the French of J.B.H. de Saint Pierre Page 20
