The Saint Part 26

"For pity's sake, one word more! How do you picture to yourself the future life? Do you believe we shall meet those we have known in this life?"

If the moonlight had not been so pale, Benedetto would have seen two great tears rolling down the young girl's face.

"I believe," he replied, "that until the death of our planet, our future life will be one of labour upon it, and that all those minds which aspire to truth, to unity, will meet there, and labour together." The muleteer's hobnailed shoes, which grated among the pebbles, could be heard very near them. The woman said:

"_Addio_! Farewell!"

The tears sounded in her voice now. Benedetto answered:

"_A Dio_! G.o.d be with you!"

Mounted on the mule, he goes down into the shadows of the valley. He is burning with fever. He is going to Casa Selva, after all. He knows, for the muleteer has told him, that he will not see Noemi there; but that is indifferent to him, he does not fear her, does not even remember the moment of gentle emotion. Another feverish thought is stirring in his soul. There is a whirl of words spoken by Don Clemente, by the lad Alberti, by the elderly Englishwoman, while fragments of the Vision flash like pictures before his mind's eye. Yes, he will go to Casa Selva, but only for a short time. As he ascends, the mighty voice of the Anio roars louder, ever louder, out of the depths:

"Rome! Rome! Rome!"

CHAPTER VI. THREE LETTERS

JEANNE TO NOEMI. VENA DI FONTE ALTA, July 4,----

Forgive me if I write to you in pencil. I have just reread your letter here, at a point half an hour distant from the hotel, seated on the edge of a stone basin where the flocks come to drink. The tiny stream of water which trickles into the basin from a small wooden pipe reminds me, with its gentle voice, of something which makes my heart ache; a walk with him across fields and through woods in the mist; a halt by this very spring, painful words, a few tears, something written in the water, a moment of happiness--the last. I made a great sacrifice for Carlino's sake when I returned to Vena after an absence of three years. I have always loved him, but the message from Jenne would make me face far greater sacrifices than this for him, make me face them willingly, though conscious of having lost all merit in them.

I am not satisfied with your letters; I will tell you why sometime, but not now. It is too difficult to write here. The mist is rolling down from the uplands high above the spring, and a cold west wind is blowing.

I must be careful of my health on Carlino's account, and this is another sacrifice, for I hate my health!

_Later_.

Noemi, could you not contrive to let the enclosed half-sheet of paper, upon which I have written in pencil, fall into _his_ hands? You hesitate to tell him how obedient I am; could you not, at least, help me to let him know it in this way?

I am not satisfied with your letters, first of all because they are too short. You know how eager I am to hear all about him. He is a guest in the same house with you; at Subiaco he can surely not know how to employ his time, and you sum up everything in two or three words!--He is better. He reads a great deal. He has been working in the kitchen-garden. Perhaps he will spend the summer with us. He writes.--And you have never yet told me what malady he is really suffering from, what he reads, where he will go if he does not spend the summer with you, whether he writes letters or books, and what you talk about together, for it is not possible that you never talk together. Do not repeat your excuse that the less you speak of him, the better it is for me. That is a convenient excuse you have invented, but it is foolish, because, whether you talk to me of him or not, it is all the same. My hopes are quite dead; they will not revive. Then write me long letters, I am sure he wishes to convert you, that you have very serious talks together, and that is why you tell me so little about him. It would not be a very glorious achievement to convert _you_, for you are sentimental in matters of religion; you do not possess that clear, cold, and positive insight which is, unfortunately, natural to me, and which I wish _I_ did not possess.

When do you intend to return to Belgium? Do not your affairs there need your attention? You once mentioned an agent in whom you had little confidence. We shall probably travel in August. At least, that is what Carlino says at present, but he changes his mind very easily. I should like to visit Holland with you, in September. Good-bye! Please write.

If he reads much you might get him to lend you a book, and leave the half-sheet of paper in it as a book-mark, At any rate, find some way.

That or something else; you are a woman! Contrive some means, if you love me! But I really believe you no longer love me at all! You would confess it if you told the truth! However, there is a lady at this hotel who is in love with me! Laugh, if you like, but it is true. She lives in Rome. Her husband is Under-Secretary of State. She is determined that I shall spend next winter in Rome. It will depend upon Carlino. This lady lays siege to him; he lets himself be besieged, and neither resists nor capitulates. Good-bye. Write, write, and again write!

NOEMI TO JEANNE (_from the French_)

I did still better! In my presence, my brother-in-law cited from memory a Latin pa.s.sage which impressed _him_, concerning certain monks of ancient times, before Christ. He begged Giovanni to write it down for him. We were in the olive-grove above the villetta, seated on the gra.s.s.

I immediately pa.s.sed a pencil to Giovanni, and the half-sheet of paper, with the blank side uppermost. He wrote, and Maironi took the paper, read the Latin pa.s.sage, and put the sheet into his pocket, without looking at the other side. It was an act of treason, and I have been guilty of treason for love of you. Will you ever doubt me again?

What can I tell you about his illness which I have not told you already?

He was troubled with fever for about two weeks. One day the physician would p.r.o.nounce it typhoid, and the next he would say it was not. At last the fever left him, but his strength has not returned completely; he is very thin; he seems to have some persistent, internal ailment; the doctor is very particular about the quality of his food; he has changed his way of living, eats meat and drinks a little wine. Yesterday a friend of Giovanni's came from Rome to see him; the famous Professor Mayda, Giovanni begged him to examine Maironi, and to advise him. He recommended some waters, which Maironi will certainly not take. I feel I know him well enough to be sure of that. However, during the last week he has improved rapidly. In the morning and evening he works a little in the kitchen-garden. This morning he rose very early, and what should he do but take it into his head to wash down the stairs! Yesterday Maria scolded the old servant because the stairs were not clean. When the old woman, who sleeps at Subiaco, arrived at seven o'clock, she found Maironi had done the work for her. My sister and my brother-in-law reproached him; Giovanni was almost severe, perhaps because he is so different from Maironi, and would never think of touching a broom, even if he lived in a cloud of cobwebs! What does Maironi read? He has never but once spoken to me of what he reads, and then only for a moment, as I shall tell you later. I wrote you that perhaps he would spend the summer with us, for I know Maria and Giovanni wish it. I now have a presentiment that he will not stay, but will go to Rome. This, however, is only my impression; I have no positive knowledge.

As to his wis.h.i.+ng to convert me, I do not know whether it would be an easy task or not, or whether Maironi thinks anything about it. You will notice that I call him Maironi in writing to you; in speaking to him I call him simply Benedetto, for that is his wish. I am sure Giovanni once thought of converting me. He found it so easy that he never speaks of it to me now. I should not think the same of Maironi. I believe that to him Christianity means, above all things, actions and life according to the spirit of Christ, of the risen Christ who lives for ever among us, of whom we have, as he puts it, the experience. It seems to me that the object of his religious mission is, not the placing of the creed of one Christian Church before another, although there is no doubt the holiness of the life he leads is strictly Catholic. Whenever I have heard him speak of dogmas, with Giovanni, it has never been to discuss the difference between Church and Church, but rather to expound certain formulas of faith, and to show what a strong light emanates from them when they are expounded in a certain way. Giovanni himself is past-master at this, but when Giovanni speaks you are impressed above all, by the immense store of knowledge his mind contains; when Maironi speaks you feel that the living Christ is in his heart, the risen Christ, and he fires you! In order to be perfectly, scrupulously sincere, I will tell you that although I do not think he intends to convert me, still I am not very sure of this. One day we were in the olive-grove. He and Giovanni were discussing a German book on the essence of Christianity, which, it seems, has made a stir, and was written by a Protestant theologian. Maironi observed that, when this Protestant speaks of Catholicism, he does so with a most honest intention of being impartial, but that, in reality, he does not know the Catholic religion. His opinion is that no Protestant does really know it; they are all of them full of prejudices, and believe certain external and remediable abuses in its practices to be essential to Catholicism. There was a basket of apricots standing near, and he chose one which had been very fine, but which was beginning to rot. "Here,"

said he, "is an apricot, which is slightly rotten. If I offer this apricot to one who does not know, but who wishes to be amiable, he will tell me that part of it is indeed firm and good, but that, unfortunately, part of it is diseased, and therefore, though he much regrets it, he cannot accept it. Thus this ill.u.s.trious Protestant speaks of Catholicism. But if I offer my apricot to one who knows, he will accept it even if it be entirely rotten; and he will plant the immortal seed in his own garden, in the hope of raising fine, healthy fruit."

These remarks he addressed to Giovanni, but his eyes sought mine continually. I must add that at Jenne also, he told me to learn to understand Catholicism. At any rate, if I remain a Protestant, it will not be because I do or do not understand, but rather in obedience to my most sacred feelings.

My dear Jeanne, there is something else I must tell you plainly. I have a suspicion that you are jealous, I believe you do not realise the inexpressible grief you would cause me, if this were really the case. I fear you do not realise the immense gravity of the offence it would be, first to him and then to me. Now I am going to open my heart to you. I should reproach myself if I did not do so, dear friend, reproach myself on your account, on his, and on my own. As to him, he is kind and gentle to all with whom he comes in contact, especially to the humble, and you might even be jealous of the old woman who comes from Subiaco to do the rough work in the house. With Maria and myself he shows his kindness and gentleness silently rather than in words. With us he is quiet, simple, and affable; he does not appear to wish to avoid us, but it has never happened that he has remained alone with either of us. In his eyes I am a soul, and souls are to him exactly what the tiniest plants in my father's great garden were to him; he would have liked to protect them from frost with the warmth of his own heart, and make then grow and flower by communicating his own vitality to them. But I am a soul like any other soul, the only difference perhaps being, that he deems me further removed from the truth, and consequently more exposed to frost.

But this is not apparent in his bearing.

As to myself, dearest, I certainly have a deep feeling for him, but it would be abominable to say that this feeling in the least resembles what men call by the familiar name. This sentiment is one of reverence, of a kind of devout fear, of awe; I feel his person is surrounded by something like a magic circle, into which I should never dare to penetrate. My heart beats no faster in his presence. I think, indeed, it beats more slowly but of this I am not sure. Dear Jeanne, I could not possibly speak more honestly than I have done, therefore I beg you, I entreat you, not to imagine anything different!

For the present I am not thinking of going to Belgium. I may possibly go there for a short time, later on. My kind regards to your brother. I should like to know if he has sent the old priest and the young woman to Formalhaut at last! I myself sometimes think of his Formalhaut! Tell him that if you and he come to Rome this winter, we will make music together. Good-bye I embrace you!

BENEDETTO TO DON CLEMENTE

_(Never sent)_

_Padre mio_, the Lord has departed from my soul, not, indeed, giving me up to sin, but He has taken from me all sense of His presence, and the despairing cry of Jesus Christ on the cross thrills, at times, through my whole being. If I strive to concentrate all my thoughts in the one thought of the Divine Presence, all my senses in an act of submission to the Divine Will, I derive only pain and discouragement from it. I feel like the beast of burden which falls under its load, and which, at the first cut of the whip, makes an effort to rise, and falls again; at a second blow, at a third, or a fourth, it only s.h.i.+vers, and does not attempt to rise. If I open the Gospels or the _Imitation_, I find no flavour in them. If I recite prayers, weariness overpowers me, and I am silent. If I prostrate myself upon the ground, the ground freezes me. If I make complaint to G.o.d at being treated thus, His silence seems to grow more hostile. If, on the authority of the great mystics, I say to myself that I am wrong to feel such affection for spiritual joys, to suffer thus when deprived of them, I answer myself that the mystics err, that in the state of conscious grace one walks safely, but that in this starless night of spiritual darkness one cannot see the way; there is no other rule than to withdraw one's foot when it touches the soft gra.s.s, and that is not sufficient, for there is also the danger of setting the foot in empty s.p.a.ce. Father, _Padre mio_, open your arms to me, that I may feel the warmth of your breast, filled with G.o.d! There are a hundred reasons why I should not go to Santa Scolastica, and in any case I should prefer to write. You are here present with me more than in the body; I can become one with you, can mingle with you more easily than if you stood before me; and I need to mingle with you in thought, I need to force my soul into yours. Perhaps I shall send you this letter, but perhaps I shall not send it. Father, father! it does me more good to write to you than to speak to you! I could not speak with the fire which now rushes to my pen, and which would not rush to my lips. Writing, I speak, I cry out to the immortal in you, I divest you of all that is mortal even in your soul, and which in your presence would extinguish my fire. I divest you of the mortality of an incomplete knowledge of things, of prudence, which would prompt you to veil your thoughts. No, I will not send this letter, but nevertheless it will reach you. I will burn it, but still it will reach you; for it is not possible that my silent cry should not come to you, perhaps now, in the darkness of the night, while you sleep, perhaps in two hours' time, still in the darkness of the night, while you pray with the brothers, in the dear church, where we wors.h.i.+pped so often together.

I know why I am wretched, I know why G.o.d has forsaken me. Always when G.o.d forsakes me, when all the living springs of my soul are dry, and the living germs are parched, and my heart becomes as a dead sea, I know the reason why. It is because I have heard sweet music behind me, and have looked back; or because the wind has brought me the scent of blossoming fields beside my path, and I have paused; or because the mist has risen before me, and I have been afraid; or because a thorn has pierced my foot, and I have felt vexation. Moments, flashes, but in that moment the door opens, an evil breath enters! It is always thus: an earnest glance, a word of praise enjoyed, an image lingered over, an offence recalled, any one of these suffices; the evil breath has time to enter.

And now all of these causes are joined together! Darkness descended upon my path; I set my foot in the soft gra.s.s, I felt it; I withdrew my foot, but not at once. Why do I speak in figures? Write, write the naked truth, cowardly hand! Write that this house is a nest of ease, and that, if I have enjoyed the soft bed, the fine linen, the odour of lavender, I have delighted still more in the conversation of Giovanni Selva, in the readings, which have filled me with the joys of the intellect, in the presence of two young and pure women, cultured and full of grace, in their secret admiration, in the perfume of a sentiment which I believe one of them harbours, in the vision of a life of retirement in this nest, with these beings, far from all that is vulgar, all that is low, unclean, and loathsome.

I have felt the sin of the world with the repulsion which shrinks from it, and not with the fiery sorrow which braves it and wrests souls from its clutches. Moments, flashes; I took refuge, as in times past, in the embrace of the cross; but, little by little, the cross turned to unfeeling, dead wood in my arms, and this was not as in times past! I told myself, "Spirits of evil, strong and cunning powers of the air, are conspiring against me, against my mission." I answered myself, "Pride, be gone!" And then the first idea took possession of me once more. In this sad manner I rocked to and fro, every day, and all day long. And because I did not allow any part of all this to transpire, because I understood that Signor Giovanni and the ladies did not doubt I was inwardly as calm, as pure as I was externally; I despised myself at certain moments for a hypocrite, only to tell myself the next moment that, on the contrary, my pure and calm exterior helped me to live--I allude to the spiritual life--that by appearing strong, I was forced to be strong. I compared myself to a tree whose marrow has been destroyed by worms, whose wood is rotten, but which still lives through its bark, by means of which it produces leaves and flowers, and can spread welcome shade. Then I told myself that this was good reasoning before men; but was it good reasoning before G.o.d, before G.o.d? And again I told myself that G.o.d could heal me, for though the tree may not be healed yet a man may be made whole. Again my mind was tormented, because I was incapable of doing what G.o.d would demand of me, in order that my will might once more work in unison with His. He would order me to flee, to flee! G.o.d is in the voice of the Anio, which, since the evening of my departure from Jenne, has been saying: "Rome, Rome, Rome!" And G.o.d is also in the strength of the invisible worms, which have gnawed the vital virtues of my body. Am I then to blame? Am I then to blame? Lord, hear my groan, which asks for justice!

I have said many times that I will leave as soon as I am strong enough, but they wish to keep me here, and how can I say to them "My friends, you are my enemies?" Behold my cowardice! Why can I not say so? Why should I not say so?

One day I read in the young Protestant girl's glance the question: "If you go, what will become of my soul? Should you not desire to lead me to your faith? I will not yet allow myself to be led." No, I cannot, I must not write all. How can I write the meaning of a glance, the accent of a word, commonplace in itself? They are not such glances as drove St. Jerome to plunge into icy water, or at least my emotion does not resemble his. Icy water is of no avail against a glance which is all sweet purity. Only fire can prevail against it, the fire of the Supreme Love! Ah! who will free me from my mortal heart, whose faintest throb thrills all the fibres of my body? Who will set free the immortal heart which is within it, like the germ of a fruit, preparing for itself a celestial body? I cannot, I must not write all, but this, indeed, I will write: The Lord seeks to ensnare me, to entrap me! When I shall have fallen, He will deride me! Why did it happen that I wrote the Latin quotation about those who live and do penance between the Dead Sea and the desert, _"Sine pecunia, sine ulla femina, omni venere abdicata socia palmarum_," on that piece of paper, which on the other side bore words from J. D., words still hot concerning my past sin and hers, words reminding me of the most terrible moments? How did a person so timid dare to force a secret communication upon me?

The wind has blown my window open. Oh! Anio, Anio! will you never tire of your commanding? I must start now, at once? Impossible, the doors are locked. Moreover, it would be shame to leave thus. I should be dishonouring G.o.d; they would say "what ungrateful, what mad servants has the Lord!" Come, spirit of my master, come, come! Speak to me; I will listen. What have you to say to me? What have you to say to me? Ah! you smile at my tempest; you tell me to leave, yes, but to leave honourably, to announce that the Lord Himself commands my departure. You tell me to obey the voice of G.o.d in the Anio. Now the wind is ceasing; as if satisfied, it seems to be growing quiet. Yes, yes, yes, with tears!

To-morrow, to-morrow morning! I will announce it. And I know to whom I shall go in Rome. Oh! light, oh! peace, oh! springs burst forth again in my soul: oh! dead sea, swelling with a wave of warmth! Yes, yes, yes, with tears! I return thanks! I return thanks! Glory be to Thee, our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done!

CHAPTER VII. IN THE WHIRLPOOL OF THE WORLD

It was already growing dark when a private carriage stopped at the door of a house in Via della Vite in Rome. Two ladies alighted, and quickly disappeared within the gloomy entrance, while the carriage drove away.

Presently another carriage arrived, deposited two more ladies before the same gloomy door, and in its turn rolled away. Thus, within a quarter of an hour, five carriages drove up, and no less than twelve female figures were engulfed by the dark portal. The narrow street then relapsed into its usual quiet. In about half an hour groups of men began to appear, coming from the Corso. They paused before the same door, read the number by the light of a neighbouring street-lamp, and then entered. In this manner about forty persons more were engulfed by the gloomy portal The last arrivals were two priests. The one who tried to read the number was near-sighted, and could not make it out. His companion said to him, laughing:

"Go in, go in! There is an odour of Luther in the air; it must be here!"

The first priest entered the evil-smelling darkness. By a black and dirty stair they mounted up, up, towards a small oil lamp, burning on the fourth floor. On reaching the third floor they struck a match to read the names upon the door-plates. A voice called out from above:

"Here, gentlemen, here!"

An affable young man in a dark morning suit came down to meet them. He showed them great deference, said the others were waiting for them, and conducted them through an ante-room and a pa.s.sage almost as dark as the stairway itself, to a large room, full of people, and dimly lighted by four candles and two old oil lamps. The young man apologised for the darkness, saying his parents would tolerate neither the electric light, nor gas, nor petroleum. All the men who had arrived in groups were a.s.sembled here. Three or four wore clerical dress. The others, with the exception of an old man with a red face and a white beard, seemed to be students. There were no women present. All were standing save the old man, who was evidently an important personage. Conversation was being carried on in low tones. The room was full of whisperings, like the murmur of tiny rivulets and falling drops in a cave. When the two priests had entered the young host said:

"We are ready!"

Those forming, the central group fell back in a circle, and Benedetto appeared in their midst. A small table with two candles upon it, and a chair, had been prepared for his use. He begged that the candles might be removed. Then he was dissatisfied with the table. Saying he was weary, he asked to be allowed to speak seated on the sofa, beside the old man with the flushed face and the white beard. Benedetto was dressed in black, and was paler and thinner than at Jenne. His hair had receded from his forehead, which had acquired something of the solemn aspect of the brow of Don Giuseppe Flores. His eyes had become a still brighter blue. Many of the faces turned eagerly towards him seemed more fascinated by those eyes and that brow than anxious to hear his words.

Making no gestures, his hands resting on his knees, be began speaking as follows:

"I must first state to whom I speak, for not all here present are of one mind concerning Christ and the Church. I do not address my remarks to the ecclesiastics; I believe and hope they are not in need of my words.