The Saint Part 39

Noemi buried her face on Jeanne's shoulder, and said in a stifled voice: "How I wish that, afterwards, he might see us working together for his faith."

Jeanne did not answer, and Noemi went away.

Jeanne returned to Carlino to continue the reading, but he received her roughly. He declared he was tired of this sort of life, and that she was to prepare to leave with him to-morrow for Naples, Jeanne replied that this was folly, and that she would not leave. Then Carlino fired up, caught, her wrists, and shook her so that he really hurt her. She must absolutely go! Now that she tried to resist, the moment had come to tell her that he was acquainted with the reasons of her windings and twistings, of her mysteries, her red eyes, her bad reading, and also of her not wis.h.i.+ng to leave Rome. He had been informed of these things by anonymous letters. Woe to her if she did not break with that madman! Woe to her if she sacrificed her convictions to him, if she allowed herself to be won over to superst.i.tion, to bigotry, to the religion of the priests! He would never look on her face again. He would disown her as a sister, he who wished to live and die a free-thinker. No, no, she must break, break! They would go to Naples, to Palermo, to Africa if necessary!

"A free-thinker? Certainly. And what about my liberty?" Jeanne said without anger, simply reminding him of a right, but without the intention of taking advantage of it. Carlino thought, on the contrary, that she intended taking advantage of it in the way he feared, and lost his head completely. Jeanne grew faint as she listened to the abuse which this man poured forth with so much bitterness, this man whom she had known to be nervous, but had believed to be good and kind. She spoke no word in reply, but withdrew to her own room, trembling violently. She wrote him a few lines telling him that her dignity would not permit her to remain with him unless he apologised for his insults; that she was going away, and that if he wished to send her a word, he would find her at Casa Selva. She took only a small bag with her, and, leaving the letter on the writing-desk, went out accompanied by her maid.

She could not see any cabs near the hotel, so she started towards the Esedro intending to take the tram there. The west wind was blowing. The evergreen oaks along the avenue were writhing and groaning. It was dark, and hard walking on the uneven soil. The frightened maid exclaimed:

_"Gesummaria, Signora! Where are we going?"_

Jeanne, her head aflame, her heart and her pulse in a tumult, went on without answering. It seemed to her she was being borne through the darkness towards him, on the tide of an unknown sea.

Towards him, towards him. Towards his G.o.d also? The mighty wind confused her, roaring above and around her. Noemi's words, Carlino's words were rending her soul in a violent struggle. Towards his G.o.d also? Ah! how could she tell? In the meantime, towards him!

CHAPTER IX. IN THE WHIRLWIND OF G.o.d

I. At two o'clock on the following day Jeanne, with Maria and Noemi, was waiting at Casa Selva for news from Villa Mayda, her thoughts dwelling, from time to time, on the persistent silence at the Grand Hotel.

Giovanni had gone to Villa Mayda before seven o'clock. He had returned at nine. He had not been able to see Benedetto. Professor Mayda would not allow him or any one else to enter. He knew that the sick man had received the Sacraments, but more as an act of devotion than because he was in immediate danger. However, in the night a trace of fever had reappeared. It was hoped the attack might be conquered or checked.

Perhaps, in making this report to Jeanne, Giovanni had slightly coloured it with optimism. Benedetto was in the Professor's own room. Giovanni said it would not be possible to describe how full of exquisite, womanly tenderness were the attentions lavished upon him by this terrible Mayda, who was believed by many to be harsh and proud. Giovanni had gone back again after lunch about mid-day. From Carlino nothing had come, neither a written word, nor a message. Notwithstanding her other great sorrow, Jeanne could not help thinking of him also. What if his grief, his anger, had really made him ill? Her friends rea.s.sured her. Either the maid or the footman would have come to tell her. She had little confidence in the intelligence of these servants. What was to be done?

Jeanne was about to beg that some one might be sent to inquire, when, at a quarter-past two, hurried steps were heard in the hall, and Giovanni entered, in his great-coat, his hat in his hand. Jeanne glanced at his face, and understood that the moment was come. She rose, as white as death. Silently and immediately Maria and Noemi rose also, Maria watching Jeanne, while Noemi gazed at her brother-in-law, who, confronted by Jeanne's ghostly face, could find no words. Five or six terrible seconds pa.s.sed, but not more. Then Maria said, in a hushed voice:

"Are we to go?"

Her husband answered:

"We had better go."

Nothing more was said.

The three ladies went to put on their cloaks and hats, Jeanne into one room, Maria and Noemi into another. Giovanni followed his wife and Noemi. Well? The fever had greatly increased, and the Professor no longer hoped. Noemi, hearing this, put on her hat quickly, and went to the other room, where Jeanne was dressing. She turned, saw that Noemi was coming to kiss her, and checked her, with a gesture placing her finger on her lips. Noemi understood. It was a time for fort.i.tude; Jeanne would have neither kisses, nor words, nor tears. She did not ask for particulars, asked no questions. They all met presently, and Maria told her husband, in a low tone, to send for two closed cabs, for the sky had become overcast, and one of the thunderstorms of the Roman winter was threatening. No cabs would be necessary, for Giovanni had come in the landau, belonging to Casa Mayda. They entered the landau, which was closed. Then Jeanne noticed that her companions had on dark dresses, while she was wearing a gray dress, too light and too fas.h.i.+onable. She started slightly, and the others looked at her questioningly. She hesitated a moment, but reflected that she had neither the time nor the means to make a change, and answered:

"It is nothing."

The carriage moved on. No one spoke again.

Upon turning into Via del Pianto the carriage was stopped by an obstruction. It had grown darker still and was thundering. The horses were frightened, and Maria looked anxiously out of the window. Jeanne, seated opposite Giovanni, asked him in a low tone if he had telegraphed to Don Clemente. Giovanni answered that Don Clemente had been at Villa Mayda ever since half-past ten. The carriage started forward. When they reached Piazza Montanara it began to rain. The horses were trotting rapidly. When at last the coachman brought them down to a walk Maria looked at her husband--Is not this the Aventine? We must be near. This was said with the eyes, not with the lips. Jeanne had never pa.s.sed that way, but she also felt that they would soon reach their destination.

Holding herself very straight, she stared at the wall, which pa.s.sed before her eyes. She stared at it attentively, as if striving to count the c.h.i.n.ks between the stones. The horses broke into a trot. Beyond Sant' Anselmo the road leads downwards. People standing on the right and on the left looked into the carriage. Involuntarily Giovanni Selva murmured:

"Here we are."

Then Jeanne started violently, and covered her face with her hands.

Maria, who sat next to her, put her arm round her neck, and, bending close to her, whispered:

"Courage!"

But Jeanne drew back, avoiding her as much as possible, while Noemi shook her head, signing to her sister not to insist. Maria sighed, and the carriage, turning to the left, between two dense lines of people, pa.s.sed through a gateway. The wheels grated on the gravel and then stopped. A servant came to the door. The Professor desired them to come into the villa. Not until then did Giovanni Selva tell his companions that Benedetto was no longer in the villa, that he had begged to be carried to his little old room in the gardener's house. The carriage moved forward a few yards, and the four friends alighted before a flight of white marble steps, between two groups of palms. It was still raining, but not heavily, and no one thought about it, neither the populace crowding round the gate, nor a group of people who were watching the new arrivals, from the avenue bordered by orange trees, which ran parallel with the inclosing wall down to the gardener's little house. Some one left the group. It was di Leyn, who mounted the marble steps behind Selva, and, stopping him under the arch of the Pompeian vestibule, spoke to him in a low tone, without so much as a glance at the magnificent scene which was spread out before them between the two groups of palms: the river of begonias, tumbling down the slope of the Aventine, between two banks of _musae_; the black and stormy sky, striped with white down above the battlements of Porta San Paolo, above the pyramid of Caio Cestio, and above the little grove of cypress which springs from the heart of Sh.e.l.ley.

Selva entered the vestibule, and reappeared a moment later with his wife. They went down the steps with di Leyn, and turned in the direction of the people, who seemed to be expecting them in the avenue of orange-trees. At that moment a volley of angry voices rang out at the gate. The road was full of people. They had been waiting for hours, ever since the rumour spread in the Testaccio quarter that the Saint of Jenne had returned to Villa Mayda, but was ill. So far they had asked only for news. Now they demanded that a deputation be allowed to enter, and to see him. The servants refused to take the message, and an exchange of angry words was the result, which, however, suddenly stopped as the tall, dark figure of Professor Mayda appeared, coming from the orange-grove. The men took off their hats. He ordered the gate to be opened, told the people that all should see Benedetto later, but not now. In the meantime they might come into the garden. "Of course, poor things!"

And the people entered, slowly, respectfully, some gathering around the Professor and asking, with tears in their eyes:

"Is it true, _Signor Professore_? Is it true he is dying? Tell us!"

And behind them others pressed, anxiously awaiting the answer. The answer was only:

"Alas! What can I say to you?"

But the sad, manly face said more than the words and the crowd moved away mournfully, along the green slopes, which had taken on a livid hue under the black sky streaked with white and formed a mystic symbol of death, of the dark pa.s.sage from terrestrial shadows to the upper regions of infinite brightness.

II.

Benedetto loved Professor Mayda. When, at the Senator's house, he heard that the Professor had decided to carry him away to Villa Mayda, he showed great pleasure, He loved this man, who was perhaps, as yet, incapable of faith, but was profoundly convinced that there are enigmas which science cannot solve; who was generous, haughty with the great, but gentle with the humble. He loved the garden also, the trees, the flowers, and the gra.s.s, whose friend and servant he had been, as he had been the friend and servant of the Professor. Everything in this garden was full of sweet, innocent souls, in whose company he had adored G.o.d in certain moments of spiritual ecstasy, placing his lips on the tiny beings, on a flower, on a leaf, on a stem, in a breath of green coolness. He was happy in the thought of dying amidst them. Sometimes, under one of those pine-trees, its canopy, full of wind and of sound, turned towards the Coelian Hill, he had thought of the last scene in his vision, and had imagined himself stretched there on the gra.s.s, in the Benedictine habit, pale and calm, and surrounded by mournful faces, while the pine-tree above him sang the mysterious song of Heaven. Each time he had stifled in his heart this sense of pleasure, which was not unmixed with selfish, human vanity, and not entirely controlled and suppressed in submission to the Divine Will. But he had not been able to tear out its roots. Therefore he stretched out his arms gratefully to the Professor. But immediately he was a.s.sailed by scruples.

His intelligence and his Christian sentiment were in a state of contradiction. He was aware that he was not liked by the lady who had married the Professor's son, a naval officer, now in the East; he saw that his return to Villa Mayda would be displeasing to her, and a source of discord between her father-in-law and herself. But how could he say so now, without implying a want of justice and of charity in a person whom, from the very fact that she was his enemy, he was especially bound to love? He entreated the Professor to let him go to Sant' Onofrio.

The change was so sudden that it surprised Mayda. He thought a moment, understood, and then said, knitting his brows:

"Do you wish me never to forgive some one for something?"

Benedetto offered no further opposition. Only when that night the moment came to go down to the carriage, and he realised that he could not stand alone, he said to the Professor, smiling, and placing his hand on his friend's arm:

"You know that, if I continue thus, you will have a dead man in your house to-morrow or the day after?"

The Professor replied that he would not lie to him, that this was possible, but not certain.

"You know," Benedetto continued, no longer smiling, "that first you will have--"

"I understand what you mean," the Professor interrupted him. "Come in peace, dear friend. I am not a believer, as you are, but I wish I were; and I will throw my doors open respectfully to all whom you may wish me to see. Meanwhile shall we not take this with us?"

From the wall he took the Crucifix which Benedetto had brought with him, and then lifted the sick man in his powerful arms.

The journey was accomplished without accident. Stretched across the landau, upon a bank of cus.h.i.+ons, Benedetto, who seemed to have shrunk in stature, answered the Professor's frequent questions more often with a smile than with his feeble voice. The Professor kept his finger continually on Benedetto's pulse, and from time to time gave him a cordial. At the entrance to the villa, either from emotion or from fatigue, the sick man's poor, fleshless face blanched, and was covered with sweat, and he closed his great, s.h.i.+ning eyes. Mayda carried him to his own bed, and thus it happened that when Benedetto regained consciousness he was quite bewildered.

In his state of extreme weakness he did not regain consciousness without pa.s.sing through shadows of vain imaginings. He thought he was dead, and lying on the ever-dark face of the moon, in the centre of a funnel, formed by the solar rays, which streaked away to the infinite; and at the dark bottom of this funnel he saw the flaming eyes of the stars.

Little by little be realised he was on an enormous bed which stood in darkness, but was surrounded by a pale light, so dim that the walls were hardly visible. Great shadows were moving about him. Opposite him was a blue, open s.p.a.ce, all strewn with specks of light. His heart beat faster. Were they not, indeed, stars? He was obliged to remind himself of the feeling of the bed, and that he was alive, in order to convince himself that they were stars, but that he was not lying on the moon.

Where was he, then? He gave himself up to a sense of sweetness which was coming over him, the sweetness of hardly feeling his body any longer, but of feeling G.o.d in his soul, so near, so tender, so warm. He was where G.o.d wished him to be.

A hand was laid on his forehead, an electric light dazzled his eyes, and an affectionate, strong voice said:

"Well, how do you feel?"