Ghetto Tragedies Part 6

"Oh no, mother. There were Pagan G.o.ds that people used to believe in at Rome and in Greece. In Greece, though, these G.o.ds changed their names."

"So!" said Zillah scornfully; "I suppose they wanted to have a fresh chance. And what's become of them now?"

"They weren't ever there, not really."

"And yet people believed in them? Is it possible?" Zillah clucked her tongue with contemptuous surprise. Then she murmured mechanically, "'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our G.o.d, who openest the eyes of the blind.'"

"Well, and what do people believe in now? The Pope!" Brum reminded her. "And yet _he's_ not true."

Zillah's heart sank. "But he's really there," she protested feebly.

"Oh yes, he's there, because pilgrims come from all parts of the world to get his blessing."

Her hopes revived.

"But they wouldn't come unless he really did them good."

"Well, if you argue like that, mother, you might as well say we ought to believe in Christ."

"Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+" The forbidden word jarred on Zillah. She felt chilled and silenced. She had to call up the image of the Irish Fire-Woman to restore herself to confidence. It was clear Brum must not be told; his unfaith might spoil all. No, the deception must be kept up till his eyes were opened--in more than one sense.

XV

After Mont Blanc, Brum's great interest was the leaning tower of Pisa.

"It is one of the wonders of the world," he said; "there are seven altogether."

"Yes, it is a wonderful world," said Zillah; "I never thought about it before."

And in truth Italy was beginning to touch sleeping chords. The cypresses, the sunset on the mountains, the white towns dozing on the hills under the magical blue sky,--all these broad manifestations of an obvious beauty, under the spur of Brum's incessant interrogatory, began to penetrate. Nature in unusual combinations spoke to her as its habitual phenomena had never done. Her replies to Brum did rough justice to Italy.

Florence recalled "Romola" to the boy. He told his mother about Savonarola. "He was burnt!"

"What!" cried Zillah. "Burn a Christian! No wonder, then, they burnt Jews. But why?"

"He wanted the people to be good. All good people suffer."

"Oh, nonsense, Brum! It is the bad who suffer."

Then she looked at his wasted, white face, grown thinner with the weariness of the long journey through perpetual night, and wonder at her own words struck her silent.

XVI

They arrived at last in the Eternal City, having taken a final run of many hours without a break. But the Pope was still to seek.

Leaving the exhausted Brum in bed, Zillah drove the first morning to the Vatican, where Brum said he lived, and asked to see him.

A glittering Swiss Guard stared blankly at her, and directed her by dumb show to follow the stream of people--the pilgrims, Zillah told herself. She was made to scrawl her name, and, thanking G.o.d that she had acquired that accomplishment, she went softly up a gorgeous flight of steps, and past awe-inspiring creatures in tufted helmets, into the Sistine Chapel, where she wondered at people staring ceilingwards through opera-gla.s.ses, or looking downwards into little mirrors.

Zillah also stared up through the gloom till she had a crick in the neck, but saw no sign of the Pope. She inquired of the janitor whether he was the Pope, and realized that English was, after all, not the universal language. She returned gloomily to see after Brum, and to consider her plan of campaign.

"The great doctor was not at home," she said. "We must wait a little."

"And yet you made us hurry so through everything," grumbled Brum.

Brum remained in bed while Zillah went to get some lunch in the dining-room. A richly dressed old lady who sat near her noticed that she was eating Lenten fare, like herself, and, a.s.suming her a fellow-Catholic, spoke to her, in foreign-sounding English, about the blind boy whose arrival she had observed.

Zillah asked her how one could get to see the Pope, and the old lady told her it was very difficult.

"Ah, those blessed old times before 1870!--ah, the splendid ceremonies in St. Peter's! Do you remember them?"

Zillah shook her head. The old lady's a.s.sumption of spiritual fellows.h.i.+p made her uneasy.

But St. Peter's stuck in her mind. Brum had already told her it was the Pope's house of prayer. Clearly, therefore, it was only necessary to loiter about there with Brum to chance upon him and extort his compa.s.sionate withdrawal of the spell of the Evil Eye. With a culminating inspiration she bought a photograph of the Pope, and overcoming the first shock of hereditary repulsion at the sight of the large pendent crucifix at his breast, she studied carefully the Pontiff's face and the Papal robes.

Then, when Brum declared himself strong enough to get up, they drove to St. Peter's, the instruction being given quietly to the driver so that Brum should not overhear it.

It was the first time Zillah had ever been in a cathedral; and the vastness and glory of it swept over her almost as a rea.s.suring sense of a greater G.o.d than she had wors.h.i.+pped in dingy synagogues. She walked about solemnly, leading Brum by the hand, her breast swelling with suppressed sobs of hope. Her eyes roved everywhere, searching for the Pope; but at moments she well-nigh forgot her disappointment at his absence in the wonder and ghostly comfort of the great dim s.p.a.ces, and the mysterious twinkle of the countless lights before the bronze canopy with its golden-flas.h.i.+ng columns.

"Where are we, mother?" said Brum at last.

"We are waiting for the doctor."

"But where?"

"In the waiting-room."

"It seems very large, mother."

"No, I am walking round and round."

"There is a strange smell, mother,--I don't know what--something religious."

"Oh, nonsense!" She laughed uneasily.

"I know what it smells like: cold marble pillars and warm coloured windows."

Her blood froze at such uncanny sensibility.

"It is the smell of the medicines," she murmured. Somehow his divination made it more difficult to confess to him.

"It feels like being in St. Paul's or the Abbey," he persisted, "when I used to shut my eyes to hear the organ better." He had scarcely ceased speaking, when a soft, slow music began to thrill with life the great stone s.p.a.ces.

Brum's grasp tightened convulsively: a light leapt into the blind face. Both came to a standstill, silent. In Zillah's breast rapture made confusion more confounded; and as this pealing grandeur, swelling more pa.s.sionately, uplifted her high as the mighty Dome, she forgot everything--even the need of explanation to Brum--in this wonderful sense of a Power that could heal, and her Hebrew benediction flowed out into sobbing speech:--

"'Blessed art Thou, O Lord our G.o.d, who openest the eyes of the blind.'"

But Brum had fainted, and hung heavy on her arm.