The Cloister and the Hearth Part 99

Margaret seemed nearer and nearer.

It was Holy Thursday. No work this day. Fra Colonna and Gerard sat in a window and saw the religious processions. Their number and pious ardour thrilled Gerard with the devotion that now seemed to animate the whole people, lately bent on earthly joys.

Presently the Pope came pacing majestically at the head of his cardinals, in a red hat, white cloak, a capuchin of red velvet, and riding a lovely white Neapolitan barb, caparisoned with red velvet fringed and ta.s.selled with gold; a hundred hors.e.m.e.n, armed cap-a-pie, rode behind him with their lances erected, the b.u.t.t-end resting on the man's thigh. The cardinals went uncovered, all but one, de Medicis, who rode close to the Pope and conversed with him as with an equal. At every fifteen steps the Pope stopped a single moment, and gave the people his blessing, then on again.

Gerard and the friar now came down, and threading some bystreets reached the portico of one of the seven churches. It was hung with black, and soon the Pope and cardinals, who had entered the church by another door, issued forth, and stood with torches on the steps, separated by barriers from the people; then a canon read a Latin Bull, excommunicating several persons by name, especially such princes as were keeping the Church out of any of her temporal possessions.

At this awful ceremony Gerard trembled, and so did the people. But two of the cardinals spoiled the effect by laughing unreservedly the whole time.

When this was ended, the black cloth was removed, and revealed a gay panoply; and the Pope blessed the people, and ended by throwing his torch among them; so did two cardinals. Instantly there was a scramble for the torches: they were fought for, and torn in pieces by the candidates, so devoutly that small fragments were gained at the price of black eyes, b.l.o.o.d.y noses, and burnt fingers; in which hurtling his holiness and suite withdrew in peace.

And now there was a cry, and the crowd rushed to a square where was a large, open stage: several priests were upon it praying. They rose, and with great ceremony donned red gloves. Then one of their number kneeled, and with signs of the lowest reverence drew forth from a shrine a square frame, like that of a mirror, and inside was as it were the impression of a face.

It was the Verum icon, or true impression of our Saviour's face, taken at the very moment of his most mortal agony for us. Received as it was without a grain of doubt, imagine how it moved every Christian heart.

The people threw themselves on their faces when the priest raised it on high; and cries of pity were in every mouth, and tears in almost every eye. After a while the people rose, and then the priests went round the platform, showing it for a single moment to the nearest; and at each sight loud cries of pity and devotion burst forth.

Soon after this the friends fell in with a procession of _Flagellants_ flogging their bare shoulders till the blood ran streaming down; but without a sign of pain in their faces, and many of them laughing and jesting as they lashed. The bystanders out of pity offered them wine; they took it, but few drank it, they generally used it to free the tails of the cat, which were hard with clotted blood, and make the next stroke more effective. Most of them were boys, and a young woman took pity on one fair urchin. "Alas! dear child," said she, "why wound thy white skin so?" "Basta," said he, laughing, "'tis for your sins I do it, not for mine."

"Hear you that?" said the friar. "Show me the whip that can whip the vanity out of man's heart! The young monkey; how knoweth he that stranger is a sinner more than he?"

"Father," said Gerard, "surely this is not to our Lord's mind. He was so pitiful."

"Our Lord?" said the friar, crossing himself. "What has he to do with this? This was a custom in Rome six hundred years before he was born.

The boys used to go through the streets at the Lupercalia, flogging themselves. And the married women used to shove in, and try and get a blow from the monkeys' scourges; for these blows conferred fruitfulness--in those days. A foolish trick this flagellation; but interesting to the bystander; reminds him of the grand old heathen. We are so p.r.o.ne to forget all we owe them."

Next they got into one of the seven churches, and saw the Pope give the ma.s.s. The ceremony was imposing, but again spoiled by the inconsistent conduct of the cardinals, and other prelates, who sat about the altar with their hats on, chattering all through the ma.s.s like a flock of geese.

The eucharist in both kinds was tasted by an official before the Pope would venture on it: and this surprised Gerard beyond measure. "Who is that base man? and what doth he there?"

"Oh, that is 'The Preguste,' and he tastes the eucharist by way of precaution. This is the country for poison; and none fall oftener by it than the poor Popes."

"Alas! so I have heard; but after the miraculous change of the bread and wine to Christ his body and blood, poison cannot remain; gone is the bread with all its properties and accidents; gone is the wine."

"So says faith; but experience tells another tale. Scores have died in Italy poisoned in the host."

"And I tell you, father, that were both bread and wine charged with direst poison before his holiness had consecrated them, yet after consecration I would take them both withouten fear."

"So would I, but for the fine arts."

"What mean you?"

"Marry, that I would be as ready to leave the world as thou, were it not for those arts, which beautify existence here below, and make it dear to men of sense and education. No: so long as the Nine Muses strew my path with roses of learning and art, me may Apollo inspire with wisdom and caution, that knowing the wiles of my countrymen, I may eat poison neither at G.o.d's altar nor at a friend's table, since, wherever I eat it or drink it, it will a.s.suredly cut short my mortal thread; and I am writing a book--heart and soul in it--'The Dream of Polifilo,' the man of many arts. So name not poison to me till that is finished and copied."

And now the great bells of St. John Lateran's were rung with a clash at short intervals, and the people hurried thither to see the heads of St.

Peter and St. Paul.

Gerard and the friar got a good place in the church, and there was a great curtain, and, after long and breathless expectation of the people, this curtain was drawn by jerks, and at a height of about thirty feet were two human heads with bearded faces that seemed alive. They were shown no longer than the time to say an Ave Maria, and then the curtain drawn. But they were shown in this fas.h.i.+on three times. St. Peter's complexion was pale, his face oval, his beard gray and forked; his head crowned with a papal mitre. St. Paul was dark skinned, with a thick, square beard; his face also and head were more square and ma.s.sive, and full of resolution.

Gerard was awe-struck. The friar approved after his fas.h.i.+on.

"This exhibition of the 'imagines,' or waxen effigies of heroes and demiG.o.ds, is a venerable custom, and inciteth the vulgar to virtue by great and visible examples."

"Waxen images? What, are they not the apostles themselves, embalmed, or the like?"

The friar moaned.

"They did not exist in the year 800. The great old Roman families always produced at their funerals a series of these 'imagines,' thereby tying past and present history together, and showing the populace the features of far-famed worthies. I can conceive nothing more thrilling or instructive. But then the effigies were portraits made during life or at the hour of death. These of St. Paul and St. Peter are moulded out of pure fancy."

"Ah! say not so, father."

"But the worst is, this humour of showing them up on a shelf, and half in the dark, and by s.n.a.t.c.hes, and with the poor mountebank trick of a drawn curtain.

Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.

Enough; the men of this day are not the men of old. Let us have done with these new-fangled mummeries, and go among the Pope's books; there we shall find the wisdom we shall vainly hunt in the streets of modern Rome."

And, this idea having once taken root, the good friar plunged and tore through the crowd, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, till he had escaped the glories of the holy week, which had brought fifty thousand strangers to Rome; and had got nice and quiet among the dead in the library of the Vatican.

Presently, going into Gerard's room, he found a hot dispute afoot, between him and Jacques Bonaventura. That spark had come in, all steel from head to toe; doffed helmet, puffed, and railed most scornfully on a ridiculous ceremony, at which he and his soldiers had been compelled to attend the Pope; to wit the blessing of the beasts of burden.

Gerard said it was not ridiculous; nothing a Pope did could be ridiculous.

The argument grew warm, and the friar stood grimly neuter, waiting like the stork that ate the frog and the mouse at the close of their combat, to grind them both between the jaws of antiquity: when lo, the curtain was gently drawn, and there stood a venerable old man in a purple skull cap, with a beard like white floss silk, looking at them with a kind though feeble smile.

"Happy youth," said he, "that can heat itself over such matters."

They all fell on their knees. It was the Pope.

"Nay, rise, my children," said he, almost peevishly. "I came not into this corner to be in state. How goes Plutarch?"

Gerard brought his work, and kneeling on one knee presented it to his holiness, who had seated himself, the others standing.

His holiness inspected it with interest. "'Tis excellently writ," said he.

Gerard's heart beat with delight.

"Ah! this Plutarch, he had a wondrous art, Francesco. How each character standeth out alive on his page: how full of nature each, yet how unlike his fellow!"

_Jacques Bonaventura._] "Give me the signor Boccaccio."

_His Holiness._] "An excellent narrator, Capitano, and writeth exquisite Italian. But in spirit a thought too monotonous. Monks and nuns were never all unchaste: one or two such stories were right pleasant and diverting; but five score paint his time falsely, and sadden the heart of such as love mankind. Moreover he hath no skill at characters. Now this Greek is supreme in that great art: he carveth them with pen: and turning his page, see into how real and great a world we enter of war, and policy, and business, and love in its own place: for with him, as in the great world, men are not all running after a wench. With this great open field compare me not the narrow garden of Boccaccio, and his little mill-round of dishonest pleasures."

"Your holiness, they say, hath not disdained to write a novel."

"My holiness hath done more foolish things than one, whereof it repents too late. When I wrote novels I little thought to be head of the Church."