safer than ours for that work? Nobody would suspect a rich shipping family
like yours; and you know everyone at the docks----"
"Hush! not so loud, dear! So it was in your house the books from
Marseilles were hidden?"
"Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn't to have told you."
"Why not? You know I belong to the society. Gemma, dear, there is
nothing in all the world that would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
"Your Padre! Surely he----"
"No; he thinks differently. But I have sometimes fancied--that
is--hoped--I don't know----"
"But, Arthur! he's a priest."
"What of that? There are priests in the society --two of them write in
the paper. And why not? It is the mission of the priesthood to lead the
world to higher ideals and aims, and what else does the society try to do?
It is, after all, more a religious and moral question than a political one.
If people are fit to be free and responsible citizens, no one can keep them
enslaved."
Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me, Arthur," she said, "that there's
a muddle somewhere in your logic. A priest teaches religious doctrine. I
don't see what that has to do with getting rid of the Austrians."
"A priest is a teacher of Christianity, and the greatest of all
revolutionists was Christ."
"Do you know, I was talking about priests to father the other day, and
he said----"
"Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
After a little pause she looked round at him frankly.
"Look here, we had better leave this subject alone. You are always
intolerant when you talk about Protestants."
"I didn't mean to be intolerant. But I think Protestants are generally
intolerant when they talk about priests."
"I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled over this subject that
it is not worth while to begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
"I liked it very much--especially the last part. I was glad he spoke so
strongly about the need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it. It is as
Christ said: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.'"
"It was just that part that I didn't like. He talked so much of the
wonderful things we ought to think and feel and be, but he never told us
practically what we ought to do."
"When the time of crisis comes there will be plenty for us to do; but
we must be patient; these great changes are not made in a day."
"The longer a thing is to take doing, the more reason to begin at once.
You talk about being fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit for it
as your mother? Wasn't she the most perfectly angelic woman you ever saw?
And what use was all her goodness? She was a slave till the day she
died--bullied and worried and insulted by your brother James and his wife.
It would have been much better for her if she had not been so sweet and
patient; they would never have treated her so. That's just the way with
Italy; it's not patience that's wanted--it's for somebody to get up and
defend themselves------"
"Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have saved Italy she would have
been free long ago; it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
As he said the word a sudden flush went up to his forehead and died out
again. Gemma did not see it; she was looking straight before her with
knitted brows and set mouth.
"You think I am wrong, Arthur," she said after a pause; "but I am
right, and you will grow to see it some day. This is the house. Will you
come in?"
"No; it's late. Good-night, dear!"
He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her hand in both of his.
"For God and the people----"
Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished motto:
"Now and forever."
Then she pulled away her hand and ran into the house. When the door had
closed behind her he stooped and picked up the spray of cypress which had
fallen from her breast.
ARTHUR went back to his lodgings feeling as though he had wings. He was
absolutely, cloudlessly happy. At the meeting there had been hints of
preparations for armed insurrection; and now Gemma was a comrade, and he
loved her. They could work together, possibly even die together, for the
Republic that was to be. The blossoming time of their hope was come, and the
Padre would see it and believe.
The next morning, however, he awoke in a soberer mood and remembered
that Gemma was going to Leghorn and the Padre to Rome. January, February,
March--three long months to Easter! And if Gemma should fall under
"Protestant" influences at home (in Arthur's vocabulary "Protestant" stood
for "Philistine")------ No, Gemma would never learn to flirt and simper and
captivate tourists and bald-headed shipowners, like the other English girls
in Leghorn; she was made of different stuff. But she might be very
miserable; she was so young, so friendless, so utterly alone among all those
wooden people. If only mother had lived----
In the evening he went to the seminary, where he found Montanelli
entertaining the new Director and looking both tired and bored. Instead of
lighting up, as usual, at the sight of Arthur, the Padre's face grew darker.
"This is the student I spoke to you about," he said, introducing Arthur
stiffly. "I shall be much obliged if you will allow him to continue using
the library."
Father Cardi, a benevolent-looking elderly priest, at once began
talking to Arthur about the Sapienza, with an ease and familiarity which
showed him to be well acquainted with college life. The conversation soon
drifted into a discussion of university regulations, a burning question of
that day. To Arthur's great delight, the new Director spoke strongly against
the custom adopted by the university authorities of constantly worrying the
students by senseless and vexatious restrictions.
"I have had a good deal of experience in guiding young people," he
said; "and I make it a rule never to prohibit anything without a good
reason. There are very few young men who will give much trouble if proper
consideration and respect for their personality are shown to them. But, of
course, the most docile horse will kick if you are always jerking at the
rein."
Arthur opened his eyes wide; he had not expected to hear the students'
cause pleaded by the new Director. Montanelli took no part in the
discussion; its subject, apparently, did not interest him. The expression of
his face was so unutterably hopeless and weary that Father Cardi broke off
suddenly.
"I am afraid I have overtired you, Canon. You must forgive my
talkativeness; I am hot upon this subject and forget that others may grow
weary of it."
"On the contrary, I was much interested." Montanelli was not given to
stereotyped politeness, and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon Arthur.
When Father Cardi went to his own room Montanelli turned to Arthur with
the intent and brooding look that his face had worn all the evening.
"Arthur, my dear boy," he began slowly; "I have something to tell you."
"He must have had bad news," flashed through Arthur's mind, as he
looked anxiously at the haggard face. There was a long pause.
"How do you like the new Director?" Montanelli asked suddenly.
The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Arthur was at a loss
how to reply to it.
"I--I like him very much, I think--at least-- no, I am not quite sure
that I do. But it is difficult to say, after seeing a person once."
Montanelli sat beating his hand gently on the arm of his chair; a habit
with him when anxious or perplexed.
"About this journey to Rome," he began again; "if you think there is
any--well--if you wish it, Arthur, I will write and say I cannot go."
"Padre! But the Vatican------"
"The Vatican will find someone else. I can send apologies."
"But why? I can't understand."
Montanelli drew one hand across his forehead.
"I am anxious about you. Things keep coming into my head--and after
all, there is no need for me to go------"
"But the bishopric----"
"Oh, Arthur! what shall it profit me if I gain a bishopric and
lose----"
He broke off. Arthur had never seen him like this before, and was
greatly troubled.
"I can't understand," he said. "Padre, if you could explain to me
more--more definitely, what it is you think------"
"I think nothing; I am haunted with a horrible fear. Tell me, is there
any special danger?"
"He has heard something," Arthur thought, remembering the whispers of a
projected revolt. But the secret was not his to tell; and he merely
answered: "What special danger should there be?"
"Don't question me--answer me!" Montanelli's voice was almost harsh in
its eagerness. "Are you in danger? I don't want to know your secrets; only
tell me that!"
"We are all in God's hands, Padre; anything may always happen. But I
know of no reason why I should not be here alive and safe when you come
back."
"When I come back----Listen, carino; I will leave it in your hands. You
need give me no reason; only say to me, 'Stay,' and I will give up this
journey. There will be no injury to anyone, and I shall feel you are safer
if I have you beside me."
This kind of morbid fancifulness was so foreign to Montanelli's
character that Arthur looked at him with grave anxiety.
"Padre, I am sure you are not well. Of course you must go to Rome, and
try to have a thorough rest and get rid of your sleeplessness and
headaches."
"Very well," Montanelli interrupted, as if tired of the subject; "I
will start by the early coach to-morrow morning."
Arthur looked at him, wondering.
"You had something to tell me?" he said.
"No, no; nothing more--nothing of any consequence." There was a
startled, almost terrified look in his face.
A few days after Montanelli's departure Arthur went to fetch a book
from the seminary library, and met Father Cardi on the stairs.
"Ah, Mr. Burton!" exclaimed the Director; "the very person I wanted.
Please come in and help me out of a difficulty."
He opened the study door, and Arthur followed him into the room with a
foolish, secret sense of resentment. It seemed hard to see this dear study,
the Padre's own private sanctum, invaded by a stranger.
"I am a terrible book-worm," said the Director; "and my first act when
I got here was to examine the library. It seems very interesting, but I do
not understand the system by which it is catalogued."
"The catalogue is imperfect; many of the best books have been added to
the collection lately."
"Can you spare half an hour to explain the arrangement to me?"
They went into the library, and Arthur carefully explained the
catalogue. When he rose to take his hat, the Director interfered, laughing.
"No, no! I can't have you rushing off in that way. It is Saturday, and
quite time for you to leave off work till Monday morning. Stop and have
supper with me, now I have kept you so late. I am quite alone, and shall be
glad of company."
His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur felt at ease with him
at once. After some desultory conversation, the Director inquired how long
he had known Montanelli.
"For about seven years. He came back from China when I was twelve years
old."
"Ah, yes! It was there that he gained his reputation as a missionary
preacher. Have you been his pupil ever since?"
"He began teaching me a year later, about the time when I first
confessed to him. Since I have been at the Sapienza he has still gone on
helping me with anything I wanted to study that was not in the regular
course. He has been very kind to me--you can hardly imagine how kind."
"I can well believe it; he is a man whom no one can fail to admire--a
most noble and beautiful nature. I have met priests who were out in China
with him; and they had no words high enough to praise his energy and courage
under all hardships, and his unfailing devotion. You are fortunate to have
had in your youth the help and guidance of such a man. I understood from him
that you have lost both parents."
"Yes; my father died when I was a child, and my mother a year ago."
"Have you brothers and sisters?"
"No; I have step-brothers; but they were business men when I was in the
nursery."
"You must have had a lonely childhood; perhaps you value Canon
Montanelli's kindness the more for that. By the way, have you chosen a
confessor for the time of his absence?"
"I thought of going to one of the fathers of Santa Caterina, if they
have not too many penitents."
"Will you confess to me?"
Arthur opened his eyes in wonder.
"Reverend Father, of course I--should be glad; only----"
"Only the Director of a theological seminary does not usually receive
lay penitents? That is quite true. But I know Canon Montanelli takes a great
interest in you, and I fancy he is a little anxious on your behalf--just as
I should be if I were leaving a favourite pupil--and would like to know you
were under the spiritual guidance of his colleague. And, to be quite frank
with you, my son, I like you, and should be glad to give you any help I
can."
"If you put it that way, of course I shall be very grateful for your
guidance."
"Then you will come to me next month? That's right. And run in to see
me, my lad, when you have time any evening."
. . . . .
Shortly before Easter Montanelli's appointment to the little see of
Brisighella, in the Etruscan Apennines, was officially announced. He wrote
to Arthur from Rome in a cheerful and tranquil spirit; evidently his
depression was passing over. "You must come to see me every vacation," he
wrote; "and I shall often be coming to Pisa; so I hope to see a good deal of
you, if not so much as I should wish." Dr. Warren had invited Arthur to
spend the Easter holidays with him and his children, instead of in the
dreary, rat-ridden old place where Julia now reigned supreme. Enclosed in
the letter was a short note, scrawled in Gemma's childish, irregular
handwriting, begging him to come if possible, "as I want to talk to you
about something." Still more encouraging was the whispered communication
passing around from student to student in the university; everyone was to be
prepared for great things after Easter.
All this had put Arthur into a state of rapturous anticipation, in
which the wildest improbabilities hinted at among the students seemed to him
natural and likely to be realized within the next two months.
He arranged to go home on Thursday in Passion week, and to spend the
first days of the vacation there, that the pleasure of visiting the Warrens
and the delight of seeing Gemma might not unfit him for the solemn religious
meditation demanded by the Church from all her children at this season. He
wrote to Gemma, promising to come on Easter Monday; and went up to his
bedroom on Wednesday night with a soul at peace.
He knelt down before the crucifix. Father Cardi had promised to receive
him in the morning; and for this, his last confession before the Easter
communion, he must prepare himself by long and earnest prayer. Kneeling with
clasped hands and bent head, he looked back over the month, and reckoned up
the miniature sins of impatience, carelessness, hastiness of temper, which
had left their faint, small spots upon the whiteness of his soul. Beyond
these he could find nothing; in this month he had been too happy to sin
much. He crossed himself, and, rising, began to undress.
As he unfastened his shirt a scrap of paper slipped from it and
fluttered to the floor. It was Gemma's letter, which he had worn all day
upon his neck. He picked it up, unfolded it, and kissed the dear scribble;
then began folding the paper up again, with a dim consciousness of having
done something very ridiculous, when he noticed on the back of the sheet a
postscript which he had not read before. "Be sure and come as soon as
possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla. He has been staying here,
and we have read together every day."
The hot colour went up to Arthur's forehead as he read.
Always Bolla! What was he doing in Leghorn again? And why should Gemma
want to read with him? Had he bewitched her with his smuggling? It had been
quite easy to see at the meeting in January that he was in love with her;
that was why he had been so earnest over his propaganda. And now he was
close to her--reading with her every day.
Arthur suddenly threw the letter aside and knelt down again before the
crucifix. And this was the soul that was preparing for absolution, for the
Easter sacrament--the soul at peace with God and itself and all the world! A
soul capable of sordid jealousies and suspicions; of selfish animosities and
ungenerous hatred--and against a comrade! He covered his face with both
hands in bitter humiliation. Only five minutes ago he had been dreaming of
martyrdom; and now he had been guilty of a mean and petty thought like this!
When he entered the seminary chapel on Thursday morning he found Father
Cardi alone. After repeating the Confiteor, he plunged at once into the
subject of his last night's backsliding.
"My father, I accuse myself of the sins of jealousy and anger, and of
unworthy thoughts against one who has done me no wrong."
Farther Cardi knew quite well with what kind of penitent he had to
deal. He only said softly:
"You have not told me all, my son."
"Father, the man against whom I have thought an unchristian thought is
one whom I am especially bound to love and honour."
"One to whom you are bound by ties of blood?"
"By a still closer tie."
"By what tie, my son?"
"By that of comradeship."
"Comradeship in what?"
"In a great and holy work."
A little pause.
"And your anger against this--comrade, your jealousy of him, was called
forth by his success in that work being greater than yours?"
"I--yes, partly. I envied him his experience-- his usefulness. And
then--I thought--I feared-- that he would take from me the heart of the girl
I--love."
"And this girl that you love, is she a daughter of the Holy Church?"
"No; she is a Protestant."
"A heretic?"
Arthur clasped his hands in great distress. "Yes, a heretic," he
repeated. "We were brought up together; our mothers were friends--and I --
envied him, because I saw that he loves her, too, and because--because----"
"My son," said Father Cardi, speaking after a moment's silence, slowly
and gravely, "you have still not told me all; there is more than this upon
your soul."
"Father, I----" He faltered and broke off again.
The priest waited silently.
"I envied him because the society--the Young Italy--that I belong
to------"
"Yes?" Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped --would be given to
me, that I had thought myself --specially adapted for."
"What work?"
"The taking in of books--political books--from the steamers that bring
them--and finding a hiding place for them--in the town------"
"And this work was given by the party to your rival?"
"To Bolla--and I envied him."
"And he gave you no cause for this feeling? You do not accuse him of
having neglected the mission intrusted to him?"
"No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly; he is a true patriot
and has deserved nothing but love and respect from me."
Father Cardi pondered.
"My son, if there is within you a new light, a dream of some great work
to be accomplished for your fellow-men, a hope that shall lighten the
burdens of the weary and oppressed, take heed how you deal with the most
precious blessing of God. All good things are of His giving; and of His
giving is the new birth. If you have found the way of sacrifice, the way
that leads to peace; if you have joined with loving comrades to bring
deliverance to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see to it that your
soul be free from envy and passion and your heart as an altar where the
sacred fire burns eternally. Remember that this is a high and holy thing,
and that the heart which would receive it must be purified from every
selfish thought. This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is not for
the love of a woman, nor for the moment of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD
AND THE PEOPLE; it is NOW AND FOREVER."
"Ah!" Arthur started and clasped his hands; he had almost burst out
sobbing at the motto. "Father, you give us the sanction of the Church!
Christ is on our side----"
"My son," the priest answered solemnly, "Christ drove the moneychangers
out of the Temple, for His House shall be called a House of Prayer, and they
had made it a den of thieves."
After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
"And Italy shall be His Temple when they are driven out----"
He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
"'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith the Lord.'"
THAT afternoon Arthur felt the need of a long walk. He intrusted his
luggage to a fellow-student and went to Leghorn on foot.
The day was damp and cloudy, but not cold; and the low, level country
seemed to him fairer than he had ever known it to look before. He had a
sense of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass under his feet and
in the shy, wondering eyes of the wild spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia bush at the edge of a little strip of wood a bird was building
a nest, and flew up as he passed with a startled cry and a quick fluttering
of brown wings.
He tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout meditations proper to
the eve of Good Friday. But thoughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so much in
the way of this devotional exercise that at last he gave up the attempt and
allowed his fancy to drift away to the wonders and glories of the coming
insurrection, and to the part in it that he had allotted to his two idols.
The Padre was to be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before whose sacred
wrath the powers of darkness were to flee, and at whose feet the young
defenders of Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines, the old truths
in their new and unimagined significance.
And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at the barricades. She was made of the
clay from which heroines are moulded; she would be the perfect comrade, the
maiden undefiled and unafraid, of whom so many poets have dreamed. She would
stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, rejoicing under the winged
death-storm; and they would die together, perhaps in the moment of
victory--without doubt there would be a victory. Of his love he would tell
her nothing; he would say no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense of comradeship. She was to him a holy thing, a spotless
victim to be laid upon the altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance of
the people; and who was he that he should enter into the white sanctuary of
a soul that knew no other love than God and Italy?
God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop from the clouds as he entered
the great, dreary house in the "Street of Palaces," and Julia's butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as ever, confronted him upon the
stairs.
"Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"
"Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They are in the drawing room."
Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression. What a dismal house it
was! The flood of life seemed to roll past and leave it always just above
high-water mark. Nothing in it ever changed-- neither the people, nor the
family portraits, nor the heavy furniture and ugly plate, nor the vulgar
ostentation of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of everything. Even the
flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm spring days. Julia,
dressed for dinner, and waiting for visitors in the drawing room which was
to her the centre of existence, might have sat for a fashion-plate just as
she was, with her wooden smile and flaxen ringlets, and the lap-dog on her
knee.
"How do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving him the tips of her
fingers for a moment, and then transferring them to the more congenial
contact of the lap-dog's silken coat. "I hope you are quite well and have
made satisfactory progress at college."
Arthur murmured the first commonplace that he could think of at the
moment, and relapsed into uncomfortable silence. The arrival of James, in
his most pompous mood and accompanied by a stiff, elderly shipping-agent,
did not improve matters; and when Gibbons announced that dinner was served,
Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
"I won't come to dinner, Julia. If you'll excuse me I will go to my
room."
"You're overdoing that fasting, my boy," said Thomas; "I am sure you'll
make yourself ill."
"Oh, no! Good-night."
In the corridor Arthur met the under housemaid and asked her to knock
at his door at six in the morning.
"The signorino is going to church?"
"Yes. Good-night, Teresa."
He went into his room. It had belonged to his mother, and the alcove
opposite the window had been fitted up during her long illness as an
oratory. A great crucifix on a black pedestal occupied the middle of the
altar; and before it hung a little Roman lamp. This was the room where she
had died. Her portrait was on the wall beside the bed; and on the table
stood a china bowl which had been hers, filled with a great bunch of her
favourite violets. It was just a year since her death; and the Italian
servants had not forgotten her.
He took out of his portmanteau a framed picture, carefully wrapped up.
It was a crayon portrait of Montanelli, which had come from Rome only a few
days before. He was unwrapping this precious treasure when Julia's page
brought in a supper-tray on which the old Italian cook, who had served
Gladys before the harsh, new mistress came, had placed such little
delicacies as she considered her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church. Arthur refused everything but a
piece of bread; and the page, a nephew of Gibbons, lately arrived from
England, grinned significantly as he carried out the tray. He had already
joined the Protestant camp in the servants' hall.
Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix, trying
to compose his mind to the proper attitude for prayer and meditation. But
this he found difficult to accomplish. He had, as Thomas said, rather
overdone the Lenten privations, and they had gone to his head like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam
in a misty cloud before his eyes. It was only after a long litany,
mechanically repeated, that he succeeded in recalling his wandering
imagination to the mystery of the Atonement. At last sheer physical
weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and he lay down to
sleep in a calm and peaceful mood, free from all unquiet or disturbing
thoughts.
He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient knock came at his door. "Ah,
Teresa!" he thought, turning over lazily. The knock was repeated, and he
awoke with a violent start.
"Signorino! signorino!" cried a man's voice in Italian; "get up for the
love of God!"
Arthur jumped out of bed.
"What is the matter? Who is it?"
"It's I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our Lady's sake!"
Arthur hurriedly dressed and opened the door. As he stared in
perplexity at the coachman's pale, terrified face, the sound of tramping
feet and clanking metal came along the corridor, and he suddenly realized
the truth.
"For me?" he asked coolly.
"For you! Oh, signorino, make haste! What have you to hide? See, I can
put----"
"I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers know?"
The first uniform appeared at the turn of the passage.
"The signor has been called; all the house is awake. Alas! what a
misfortune--what a terrible misfortune! And on Good Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!"
Gian Battista burst into tears. Arthur moved a few steps forward and
waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded
Arthur, the master and mistress of the house brought up the rear of this
strange procession; he in dressing gown and slippers, she in a long
peignoir, with her hair in curlpapers.
"There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to
the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts!"
The quotation flashed across Arthur's mind as he looked at the
grotesque figures. He checked a laugh with a sense of its jarring
incongruity--this was a time for worthier thoughts. "Ave Maria, Regina
Coeli!" he whispered, and turned his eyes away, that the bobbing of Julia's
curlpapers might not again tempt him to levity.
"Kindly explain to me," said Mr. Burton, approaching the officer of
gendarmerie, "what is the meaning of this violent intrusion into a private
house? I warn you that, unless you are prepared to furnish me with a
satisfactory explanation, I shall feel bound to complain to the English
Ambassador."
"I presume," replied the officer stiffly, "that you will recognize this
as a sufficient explanation; the English Ambassador certainly will." He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur Burton, student of philosophy,
and, handing it to James, added coldly: "If you wish for any further
explanation, you had better apply in person to the chief of police."
Julia snatched the paper from her husband, glanced over it, and flew at
Arthur like nothing else in the world but a fashionable lady in a rage.
"So it's you that have disgraced the family!" she screamed; "setting
all the rabble in the town gaping and staring as if the thing were a show?
So you have turned jail-bird, now, with all your piety! It's what we might
have expected from that Popish woman's child----"
"You must not speak to a prisoner in a foreign language, madam," the
officer interrupted; but his remonstrance was hardly audible under the
torrent of Julia's vociferous English.
"Just what we might have expected! Fasting and prayer and saintly
meditation; and this is what was underneath it all! I thought that would be
the end of it."
Dr. Warren had once compared Julia to a salad into which the cook had
upset the vinegar cruet. The sound of her thin, hard voice set Arthur's
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up in his memory.
"There's no use in this kind of talk," he said. "You need not be afraid
of any unpleasantness; everyone will understand that you are all quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to search my things. I have nothing
to hide." The gendarmes, meanwhile, had finished their search, and the
officer in charge requested Arthur to put on his outdoor clothes. He obeyed
at once and turned to leave the room; then stopped with sudden hesitation.
It seemed hard to take leave of his mother's oratory in the presence of
these officials.
"Have you any objection to leaving the room for a moment?" he asked.
"You see that I cannot escape and that there is nothing to conceal."
"I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a prisoner alone."
"Very well, it doesn't matter."
He went into the alcove, and, kneeling down, kissed the feet and
pedestal of the crucifix, whispering softly: "Lord, keep me faithful unto
death."
When he rose, the officer was standing by the table, examining
Montanelli's portrait. "Is this a relative of yours?" he asked.
"No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of Brisighella."
On the staircase the Italian servants were waiting, anxious and
sorrowful. They all loved Arthur for his own sake and his mother's, and
crowded round him, kissing his hands and dress with passionate grief. Gian
Battista stood by, the tears dripping down his gray moustache. None of the
Burtons came out to take leave of him. Their coldness accentuated the
tenderness and sympathy of the servants, and Arthur was near to breaking
down as he pressed the hands held out to him.
"Good-bye, Gian Battista. Kiss the little ones for me. Good-bye,
Teresa. Pray for me, all of you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"
He ran hastily downstairs to the front door. A moment later only a
little group of silent men and sobbing women stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.PART I: CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth.
He found prison life fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp and
dark; but he had been brought up in a palace in the Via Borra, and neither
close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him. The food, also, was
both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained permission to send him
all the necessaries of life from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and, though the vigilance of the warders was less strict than he had
expected, he failed to obtain any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless, the tranquil frame of mind in which he had entered the
fortress did not change. Not being allowed books, he spent his time in
prayer and devout meditation, and waited without impatience or anxiety for
the further course of events.
One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell and called to him:
"This way, please!" After two or three questions, to which he got no answer
but, "Talking is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable and
followed the soldier through a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors, and
stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light room in which
three persons in military uniform sat at a long table covered with green
baize and littered with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory way. They
put on a stiff, business air as he came in, and the oldest of them, a
foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform, pointed to a
chair on the other side of the table and began the preliminary
interrogation.
Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn at, and had
prepared himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold and formal, but perfectly
courteous. The usual questions as to his name, age, nationality, and social
position were put and answered, and the replies written down in monotonous
succession. He was beginning to feel bored and impatient, when the colonel
asked:
"And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know about Young Italy?"
"I know that it is a society which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles
and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country."
"You have read this paper, I think?"
"Yes; I am interested in the subject."
"When you read it you realized that you were committing an illegal
action?"
"Certainly."
"Where did you get the copies which were found in your room?"
"That I cannot tell you."
"Mr. Burton, you must not say 'I cannot tell' here; you are bound to
answer my questions."
"I will not, then, if you object to 'cannot.'"
"You will regret it if you permit yourself to use such expressions,"
remarked the colonel. As Arthur made no reply, he went on:
"I may as well tell you that evidence has come into our hands proving
your connection with this society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It will be to your advantage to
confess frankly. In any case the truth will be sure to come out, and you
will find it useless to screen yourself behind evasion and denials."
"I have no desire to screen myself. What is it you want to know?"
"Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be implicated in matters of
this kind?"
"I thought about the subject and read everything I could get hold of,
and formed my own conclusions."
"Who persuaded you to join this society?"
"No one; I wished to join it."
"You are shilly-shallying with me," said the colonel, sharply; his
patience was evidently beginning to give out. "No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish to join it?"
Silence.
"Will you have the kindness to answer me?"
"Not when you ask questions of that kind."
Arthur spoke sullenly; a curious, nervous irritability was taking
possession of him. He knew by this time that many arrests had been made in
both Leghorn and Pisa; and, though still ignorant of the extent of the
calamity, he had already heard enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for
the safety of Gemma and his other friends. The studied politeness of the
officers, the dull game of fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed him, and the clumsy tramping backward
and forward of the sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon his ear.
"Oh, by the bye, when did you last meet Giovanni Bolla?" asked the
colonel, after a little more bandying of words. "Just before you left Pisa,
was it?"
"I know no one of that name."
"What! Giovanni Bolla? Surely you know him --a tall young fellow,
closely shaven. Why, he is one of your fellow-students."
"There are many students in the university whom I don't know."
"Oh, but you must know Bolla, surely! Look, this is his handwriting.
You see, he knows you well enough."
The colonel carelessly handed him a paper headed: "Protocol," and
signed: "Giovanni Bolla." Glancing down it Arthur came upon his own name. He
looked up in surprise. "Am I to read it?"
"Yes, you may as well; it concerns you."
He began to read, while the officers sat silently watching his face.
The document appeared to consist of depositions in answer to a long string
of questions. Evidently Bolla, too, must have been arrested. The first
depositions were of the usual stereotyped character; then followed a short
account of Bolla's connection with the society, of the dissemination of
prohibited literature in Leghorn, and of the students' meetings. Next came
"Among those who joined us was a young Englishman, Arthur Burton, who
belongs to one of the rich shipowning families."
The blood rushed into Arthur's face. Bolla had betrayed him! Bolla, who
had taken upon himself the solemn duties of an initiator--Bolla, who had
converted Gemma--who was in love with her! He laid down the paper and stared
at the floor.
"I hope that little document has refreshed your memory?" hinted the
colonel politely.
Arthur shook his head. "I know no one of that name," he repeated in a
dull, hard voice. "There must be some mistake."
"Mistake? Oh, nonsense! Come, Mr. Burton, chivalry and quixotism are
very fine things in their way; but there's no use in overdoing them. It's an
error all you young people fall into at first. Come, think! What good is it
for you to compromise yourself and spoil your prospects in life over a
simple formality about a man that has betrayed you? You see yourself, he
wasn't so particular as to what he said about you."
A faint shade of something like mockery had crept into the colonel's
voice. Arthur looked up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his mind.
"It's a lie!" he cried out. "It's a forgery! I can see it in your face,
you cowardly----You've got some prisoner there you want to compromise, or a
trap you want to drag me into. You are a forger, and a liar, and a
scoundrel----"
"Silence!" shouted the colonel, starting up in a rage; his two
colleagues were already on their feet. "Captain Tommasi," he went on,
turning to one of them, "ring for the guard, if you please, and have this
young gentleman put in the punishment cell for a few days. He wants a
lesson, I see, to bring him to reason."
The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy hole under ground. Instead
of bringing Arthur "to reason," it thoroughly exasperated him. His luxurious
home had rendered him daintily fastidious about personal cleanliness, and
the first effect of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor heaped with
accumulations of filth and garbage, the fearful stench of fungi and sewage
and rotting wood, was strong enough to have satisfied the offended officer.
When he was pushed in and the door locked behind him he took three cautious
steps forward with outstretched hands, shuddering with disgust as his
fingers came into contact with the slippery wall, and groped in the dense
blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down.
The long day passed in unbroken blackness and silence, and the night
brought no change. In the utter void and absence of all external
impressions, he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and when, on the
following morning, a key was turned in the door lock, and the frightened
rats scurried past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden panic, his heart
throbbing furiously and a roaring noise in his ears, as though he had been
shut away from light and sound for months instead of hours.
The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern gleam--a flood of blinding
light, it seemed to him --and the head warder entered, carrying a piece of
bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step forward; he was quite convinced
that the man had come to let him out. Before he had time to speak, the
warder put the bread and mug into his hands, turned round and went away
without a word, locking the door again.
Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For the first time in his life
he was savagely angry. But as the hours went by, the consciousness of time
and place gradually slipped further and further away. The blackness seemed
an illimitable thing, with no beginning and no end, and life had, as it
were, stopped for him. On the evening of the third day, when the door was
opened and the head warder appeared on the threshold with a soldier, he
looked up, dazed and bewildered, shading his eyes from the unaccustomed
light, and vaguely wondering how many hours or weeks he had been in this
grave.
"This way, please," said the cool business voice of the warder. Arthur
rose and moved forward mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying
and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's attempt to help him
up the steep, narrow steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached the
highest step a sudden giddiness came over him, so that he staggered and
would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
. . . . .
"There, he'll be all right now," said a cheerful voice; "they most of
them go off this way coming out into the air."
Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was
dashed into his face. The blackness seemed to fall away from him in pieces
with a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly into full consciousness, and,
pushing aside the warder's arm, walked along the corridor and up the stairs
almost steadily. They stopped for a moment in front of a door; then it
opened, and before he realized where they were taking him he was in the
brightly lighted interrogation room, staring in confused wonder at the table
and the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
"Ah, it's Mr. Burton!" said the colonel. "I hope we shall be able to
talk more comfortably now. Well, and how do you like the dark cell? Not
quite so luxurious as your brother's drawing room, is it? eh?"
Arthur raised his eyes to the colonel's smiling face. He was seized by
a frantic desire to spring at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear
it with his teeth. Probably something of this kind was visible in his face,
for the colonel added immediately, in a quite different tone:
"Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water; you are excited."
Arthur pushed aside the glass of water held out to him; and, leaning
his arms on the table, rested his forehead on one hand and tried to collect
his thoughts. The colonel sat watching him keenly, noting with experienced
eyes the unsteady hands and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim gaze
that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
"Now, Mr. Burton," he said after a few minutes; "we will start at the
point where we left off; and as there has been a certain amount of
unpleasantness between us, I may as well begin by saying that I, for my
part, have no desire to be anything but indulgent with you. If you will
like yours; and you know everyone at the docks----"
"Hush! not so loud, dear! So it was in your house the books from
Marseilles were hidden?"
"Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn't to have told you."
"Why not? You know I belong to the society. Gemma, dear, there is
nothing in all the world that would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
"Your Padre! Surely he----"
"No; he thinks differently. But I have sometimes fancied--that
is--hoped--I don't know----"
"But, Arthur! he's a priest."
"What of that? There are priests in the society --two of them write in
the paper. And why not? It is the mission of the priesthood to lead the
world to higher ideals and aims, and what else does the society try to do?
It is, after all, more a religious and moral question than a political one.
If people are fit to be free and responsible citizens, no one can keep them
enslaved."
Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me, Arthur," she said, "that there's
a muddle somewhere in your logic. A priest teaches religious doctrine. I
don't see what that has to do with getting rid of the Austrians."
"A priest is a teacher of Christianity, and the greatest of all
revolutionists was Christ."
"Do you know, I was talking about priests to father the other day, and
he said----"
"Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
After a little pause she looked round at him frankly.
"Look here, we had better leave this subject alone. You are always
intolerant when you talk about Protestants."
"I didn't mean to be intolerant. But I think Protestants are generally
intolerant when they talk about priests."
"I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled over this subject that
it is not worth while to begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
"I liked it very much--especially the last part. I was glad he spoke so
strongly about the need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it. It is as
Christ said: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.'"
"It was just that part that I didn't like. He talked so much of the
wonderful things we ought to think and feel and be, but he never told us
practically what we ought to do."
"When the time of crisis comes there will be plenty for us to do; but
we must be patient; these great changes are not made in a day."
"The longer a thing is to take doing, the more reason to begin at once.
You talk about being fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit for it
as your mother? Wasn't she the most perfectly angelic woman you ever saw?
And what use was all her goodness? She was a slave till the day she
died--bullied and worried and insulted by your brother James and his wife.
It would have been much better for her if she had not been so sweet and
patient; they would never have treated her so. That's just the way with
Italy; it's not patience that's wanted--it's for somebody to get up and
defend themselves------"
"Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have saved Italy she would have
been free long ago; it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
As he said the word a sudden flush went up to his forehead and died out
again. Gemma did not see it; she was looking straight before her with
knitted brows and set mouth.
"You think I am wrong, Arthur," she said after a pause; "but I am
right, and you will grow to see it some day. This is the house. Will you
come in?"
"No; it's late. Good-night, dear!"
He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her hand in both of his.
"For God and the people----"
Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished motto:
"Now and forever."
Then she pulled away her hand and ran into the house. When the door had
closed behind her he stooped and picked up the spray of cypress which had
fallen from her breast.
ARTHUR went back to his lodgings feeling as though he had wings. He was
absolutely, cloudlessly happy. At the meeting there had been hints of
preparations for armed insurrection; and now Gemma was a comrade, and he
loved her. They could work together, possibly even die together, for the
Republic that was to be. The blossoming time of their hope was come, and the
Padre would see it and believe.
The next morning, however, he awoke in a soberer mood and remembered
that Gemma was going to Leghorn and the Padre to Rome. January, February,
March--three long months to Easter! And if Gemma should fall under
"Protestant" influences at home (in Arthur's vocabulary "Protestant" stood
for "Philistine")------ No, Gemma would never learn to flirt and simper and
captivate tourists and bald-headed shipowners, like the other English girls
in Leghorn; she was made of different stuff. But she might be very
miserable; she was so young, so friendless, so utterly alone among all those
wooden people. If only mother had lived----
In the evening he went to the seminary, where he found Montanelli
entertaining the new Director and looking both tired and bored. Instead of
lighting up, as usual, at the sight of Arthur, the Padre's face grew darker.
"This is the student I spoke to you about," he said, introducing Arthur
stiffly. "I shall be much obliged if you will allow him to continue using
the library."
Father Cardi, a benevolent-looking elderly priest, at once began
talking to Arthur about the Sapienza, with an ease and familiarity which
showed him to be well acquainted with college life. The conversation soon
drifted into a discussion of university regulations, a burning question of
that day. To Arthur's great delight, the new Director spoke strongly against
the custom adopted by the university authorities of constantly worrying the
students by senseless and vexatious restrictions.
"I have had a good deal of experience in guiding young people," he
said; "and I make it a rule never to prohibit anything without a good
reason. There are very few young men who will give much trouble if proper
consideration and respect for their personality are shown to them. But, of
course, the most docile horse will kick if you are always jerking at the
rein."
Arthur opened his eyes wide; he had not expected to hear the students'
cause pleaded by the new Director. Montanelli took no part in the
discussion; its subject, apparently, did not interest him. The expression of
his face was so unutterably hopeless and weary that Father Cardi broke off
suddenly.
"I am afraid I have overtired you, Canon. You must forgive my
talkativeness; I am hot upon this subject and forget that others may grow
weary of it."
"On the contrary, I was much interested." Montanelli was not given to
stereotyped politeness, and his tone jarred uncomfortably upon Arthur.
When Father Cardi went to his own room Montanelli turned to Arthur with
the intent and brooding look that his face had worn all the evening.
"Arthur, my dear boy," he began slowly; "I have something to tell you."
"He must have had bad news," flashed through Arthur's mind, as he
looked anxiously at the haggard face. There was a long pause.
"How do you like the new Director?" Montanelli asked suddenly.
The question was so unexpected that, for a moment, Arthur was at a loss
how to reply to it.
"I--I like him very much, I think--at least-- no, I am not quite sure
that I do. But it is difficult to say, after seeing a person once."
Montanelli sat beating his hand gently on the arm of his chair; a habit
with him when anxious or perplexed.
"About this journey to Rome," he began again; "if you think there is
any--well--if you wish it, Arthur, I will write and say I cannot go."
"Padre! But the Vatican------"
"The Vatican will find someone else. I can send apologies."
"But why? I can't understand."
Montanelli drew one hand across his forehead.
"I am anxious about you. Things keep coming into my head--and after
all, there is no need for me to go------"
"But the bishopric----"
"Oh, Arthur! what shall it profit me if I gain a bishopric and
lose----"
He broke off. Arthur had never seen him like this before, and was
greatly troubled.
"I can't understand," he said. "Padre, if you could explain to me
more--more definitely, what it is you think------"
"I think nothing; I am haunted with a horrible fear. Tell me, is there
any special danger?"
"He has heard something," Arthur thought, remembering the whispers of a
projected revolt. But the secret was not his to tell; and he merely
answered: "What special danger should there be?"
"Don't question me--answer me!" Montanelli's voice was almost harsh in
its eagerness. "Are you in danger? I don't want to know your secrets; only
tell me that!"
"We are all in God's hands, Padre; anything may always happen. But I
know of no reason why I should not be here alive and safe when you come
back."
"When I come back----Listen, carino; I will leave it in your hands. You
need give me no reason; only say to me, 'Stay,' and I will give up this
journey. There will be no injury to anyone, and I shall feel you are safer
if I have you beside me."
This kind of morbid fancifulness was so foreign to Montanelli's
character that Arthur looked at him with grave anxiety.
"Padre, I am sure you are not well. Of course you must go to Rome, and
try to have a thorough rest and get rid of your sleeplessness and
headaches."
"Very well," Montanelli interrupted, as if tired of the subject; "I
will start by the early coach to-morrow morning."
Arthur looked at him, wondering.
"You had something to tell me?" he said.
"No, no; nothing more--nothing of any consequence." There was a
startled, almost terrified look in his face.
A few days after Montanelli's departure Arthur went to fetch a book
from the seminary library, and met Father Cardi on the stairs.
"Ah, Mr. Burton!" exclaimed the Director; "the very person I wanted.
Please come in and help me out of a difficulty."
He opened the study door, and Arthur followed him into the room with a
foolish, secret sense of resentment. It seemed hard to see this dear study,
the Padre's own private sanctum, invaded by a stranger.
"I am a terrible book-worm," said the Director; "and my first act when
I got here was to examine the library. It seems very interesting, but I do
not understand the system by which it is catalogued."
"The catalogue is imperfect; many of the best books have been added to
the collection lately."
"Can you spare half an hour to explain the arrangement to me?"
They went into the library, and Arthur carefully explained the
catalogue. When he rose to take his hat, the Director interfered, laughing.
"No, no! I can't have you rushing off in that way. It is Saturday, and
quite time for you to leave off work till Monday morning. Stop and have
supper with me, now I have kept you so late. I am quite alone, and shall be
glad of company."
His manner was so bright and pleasant that Arthur felt at ease with him
at once. After some desultory conversation, the Director inquired how long
he had known Montanelli.
"For about seven years. He came back from China when I was twelve years
old."
"Ah, yes! It was there that he gained his reputation as a missionary
preacher. Have you been his pupil ever since?"
"He began teaching me a year later, about the time when I first
confessed to him. Since I have been at the Sapienza he has still gone on
helping me with anything I wanted to study that was not in the regular
course. He has been very kind to me--you can hardly imagine how kind."
"I can well believe it; he is a man whom no one can fail to admire--a
most noble and beautiful nature. I have met priests who were out in China
with him; and they had no words high enough to praise his energy and courage
under all hardships, and his unfailing devotion. You are fortunate to have
had in your youth the help and guidance of such a man. I understood from him
that you have lost both parents."
"Yes; my father died when I was a child, and my mother a year ago."
"Have you brothers and sisters?"
"No; I have step-brothers; but they were business men when I was in the
nursery."
"You must have had a lonely childhood; perhaps you value Canon
Montanelli's kindness the more for that. By the way, have you chosen a
confessor for the time of his absence?"
"I thought of going to one of the fathers of Santa Caterina, if they
have not too many penitents."
"Will you confess to me?"
Arthur opened his eyes in wonder.
"Reverend Father, of course I--should be glad; only----"
"Only the Director of a theological seminary does not usually receive
lay penitents? That is quite true. But I know Canon Montanelli takes a great
interest in you, and I fancy he is a little anxious on your behalf--just as
I should be if I were leaving a favourite pupil--and would like to know you
were under the spiritual guidance of his colleague. And, to be quite frank
with you, my son, I like you, and should be glad to give you any help I
can."
"If you put it that way, of course I shall be very grateful for your
guidance."
"Then you will come to me next month? That's right. And run in to see
me, my lad, when you have time any evening."
. . . . .
Shortly before Easter Montanelli's appointment to the little see of
Brisighella, in the Etruscan Apennines, was officially announced. He wrote
to Arthur from Rome in a cheerful and tranquil spirit; evidently his
depression was passing over. "You must come to see me every vacation," he
wrote; "and I shall often be coming to Pisa; so I hope to see a good deal of
you, if not so much as I should wish." Dr. Warren had invited Arthur to
spend the Easter holidays with him and his children, instead of in the
dreary, rat-ridden old place where Julia now reigned supreme. Enclosed in
the letter was a short note, scrawled in Gemma's childish, irregular
handwriting, begging him to come if possible, "as I want to talk to you
about something." Still more encouraging was the whispered communication
passing around from student to student in the university; everyone was to be
prepared for great things after Easter.
All this had put Arthur into a state of rapturous anticipation, in
which the wildest improbabilities hinted at among the students seemed to him
natural and likely to be realized within the next two months.
He arranged to go home on Thursday in Passion week, and to spend the
first days of the vacation there, that the pleasure of visiting the Warrens
and the delight of seeing Gemma might not unfit him for the solemn religious
meditation demanded by the Church from all her children at this season. He
wrote to Gemma, promising to come on Easter Monday; and went up to his
bedroom on Wednesday night with a soul at peace.
He knelt down before the crucifix. Father Cardi had promised to receive
him in the morning; and for this, his last confession before the Easter
communion, he must prepare himself by long and earnest prayer. Kneeling with
clasped hands and bent head, he looked back over the month, and reckoned up
the miniature sins of impatience, carelessness, hastiness of temper, which
had left their faint, small spots upon the whiteness of his soul. Beyond
these he could find nothing; in this month he had been too happy to sin
much. He crossed himself, and, rising, began to undress.
As he unfastened his shirt a scrap of paper slipped from it and
fluttered to the floor. It was Gemma's letter, which he had worn all day
upon his neck. He picked it up, unfolded it, and kissed the dear scribble;
then began folding the paper up again, with a dim consciousness of having
done something very ridiculous, when he noticed on the back of the sheet a
postscript which he had not read before. "Be sure and come as soon as
possible," it ran, "for I want you to meet Bolla. He has been staying here,
and we have read together every day."
The hot colour went up to Arthur's forehead as he read.
Always Bolla! What was he doing in Leghorn again? And why should Gemma
want to read with him? Had he bewitched her with his smuggling? It had been
quite easy to see at the meeting in January that he was in love with her;
that was why he had been so earnest over his propaganda. And now he was
close to her--reading with her every day.
Arthur suddenly threw the letter aside and knelt down again before the
crucifix. And this was the soul that was preparing for absolution, for the
Easter sacrament--the soul at peace with God and itself and all the world! A
soul capable of sordid jealousies and suspicions; of selfish animosities and
ungenerous hatred--and against a comrade! He covered his face with both
hands in bitter humiliation. Only five minutes ago he had been dreaming of
martyrdom; and now he had been guilty of a mean and petty thought like this!
When he entered the seminary chapel on Thursday morning he found Father
Cardi alone. After repeating the Confiteor, he plunged at once into the
subject of his last night's backsliding.
"My father, I accuse myself of the sins of jealousy and anger, and of
unworthy thoughts against one who has done me no wrong."
Farther Cardi knew quite well with what kind of penitent he had to
deal. He only said softly:
"You have not told me all, my son."
"Father, the man against whom I have thought an unchristian thought is
one whom I am especially bound to love and honour."
"One to whom you are bound by ties of blood?"
"By a still closer tie."
"By what tie, my son?"
"By that of comradeship."
"Comradeship in what?"
"In a great and holy work."
A little pause.
"And your anger against this--comrade, your jealousy of him, was called
forth by his success in that work being greater than yours?"
"I--yes, partly. I envied him his experience-- his usefulness. And
then--I thought--I feared-- that he would take from me the heart of the girl
I--love."
"And this girl that you love, is she a daughter of the Holy Church?"
"No; she is a Protestant."
"A heretic?"
Arthur clasped his hands in great distress. "Yes, a heretic," he
repeated. "We were brought up together; our mothers were friends--and I --
envied him, because I saw that he loves her, too, and because--because----"
"My son," said Father Cardi, speaking after a moment's silence, slowly
and gravely, "you have still not told me all; there is more than this upon
your soul."
"Father, I----" He faltered and broke off again.
The priest waited silently.
"I envied him because the society--the Young Italy--that I belong
to------"
"Yes?" Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped --would be given to
me, that I had thought myself --specially adapted for."
"What work?"
"The taking in of books--political books--from the steamers that bring
them--and finding a hiding place for them--in the town------"
"And this work was given by the party to your rival?"
"To Bolla--and I envied him."
"And he gave you no cause for this feeling? You do not accuse him of
having neglected the mission intrusted to him?"
"No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly; he is a true patriot
and has deserved nothing but love and respect from me."
Father Cardi pondered.
"My son, if there is within you a new light, a dream of some great work
to be accomplished for your fellow-men, a hope that shall lighten the
burdens of the weary and oppressed, take heed how you deal with the most
precious blessing of God. All good things are of His giving; and of His
giving is the new birth. If you have found the way of sacrifice, the way
that leads to peace; if you have joined with loving comrades to bring
deliverance to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see to it that your
soul be free from envy and passion and your heart as an altar where the
sacred fire burns eternally. Remember that this is a high and holy thing,
and that the heart which would receive it must be purified from every
selfish thought. This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is not for
the love of a woman, nor for the moment of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD
AND THE PEOPLE; it is NOW AND FOREVER."
"Ah!" Arthur started and clasped his hands; he had almost burst out
sobbing at the motto. "Father, you give us the sanction of the Church!
Christ is on our side----"
"My son," the priest answered solemnly, "Christ drove the moneychangers
out of the Temple, for His House shall be called a House of Prayer, and they
had made it a den of thieves."
After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
"And Italy shall be His Temple when they are driven out----"
He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
"'The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith the Lord.'"
THAT afternoon Arthur felt the need of a long walk. He intrusted his
luggage to a fellow-student and went to Leghorn on foot.
The day was damp and cloudy, but not cold; and the low, level country
seemed to him fairer than he had ever known it to look before. He had a
sense of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass under his feet and
in the shy, wondering eyes of the wild spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia bush at the edge of a little strip of wood a bird was building
a nest, and flew up as he passed with a startled cry and a quick fluttering
of brown wings.
He tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout meditations proper to
the eve of Good Friday. But thoughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so much in
the way of this devotional exercise that at last he gave up the attempt and
allowed his fancy to drift away to the wonders and glories of the coming
insurrection, and to the part in it that he had allotted to his two idols.
The Padre was to be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before whose sacred
wrath the powers of darkness were to flee, and at whose feet the young
defenders of Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines, the old truths
in their new and unimagined significance.
And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at the barricades. She was made of the
clay from which heroines are moulded; she would be the perfect comrade, the
maiden undefiled and unafraid, of whom so many poets have dreamed. She would
stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder, rejoicing under the winged
death-storm; and they would die together, perhaps in the moment of
victory--without doubt there would be a victory. Of his love he would tell
her nothing; he would say no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense of comradeship. She was to him a holy thing, a spotless
victim to be laid upon the altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance of
the people; and who was he that he should enter into the white sanctuary of
a soul that knew no other love than God and Italy?
God and Italy----Then came a sudden drop from the clouds as he entered
the great, dreary house in the "Street of Palaces," and Julia's butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as ever, confronted him upon the
stairs.
"Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?"
"Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They are in the drawing room."
Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression. What a dismal house it
was! The flood of life seemed to roll past and leave it always just above
high-water mark. Nothing in it ever changed-- neither the people, nor the
family portraits, nor the heavy furniture and ugly plate, nor the vulgar
ostentation of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of everything. Even the
flowers on the brass stands looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in the warm spring days. Julia,
dressed for dinner, and waiting for visitors in the drawing room which was
to her the centre of existence, might have sat for a fashion-plate just as
she was, with her wooden smile and flaxen ringlets, and the lap-dog on her
knee.
"How do you do, Arthur?" she said stiffly, giving him the tips of her
fingers for a moment, and then transferring them to the more congenial
contact of the lap-dog's silken coat. "I hope you are quite well and have
made satisfactory progress at college."
Arthur murmured the first commonplace that he could think of at the
moment, and relapsed into uncomfortable silence. The arrival of James, in
his most pompous mood and accompanied by a stiff, elderly shipping-agent,
did not improve matters; and when Gibbons announced that dinner was served,
Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
"I won't come to dinner, Julia. If you'll excuse me I will go to my
room."
"You're overdoing that fasting, my boy," said Thomas; "I am sure you'll
make yourself ill."
"Oh, no! Good-night."
In the corridor Arthur met the under housemaid and asked her to knock
at his door at six in the morning.
"The signorino is going to church?"
"Yes. Good-night, Teresa."
He went into his room. It had belonged to his mother, and the alcove
opposite the window had been fitted up during her long illness as an
oratory. A great crucifix on a black pedestal occupied the middle of the
altar; and before it hung a little Roman lamp. This was the room where she
had died. Her portrait was on the wall beside the bed; and on the table
stood a china bowl which had been hers, filled with a great bunch of her
favourite violets. It was just a year since her death; and the Italian
servants had not forgotten her.
He took out of his portmanteau a framed picture, carefully wrapped up.
It was a crayon portrait of Montanelli, which had come from Rome only a few
days before. He was unwrapping this precious treasure when Julia's page
brought in a supper-tray on which the old Italian cook, who had served
Gladys before the harsh, new mistress came, had placed such little
delicacies as she considered her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church. Arthur refused everything but a
piece of bread; and the page, a nephew of Gibbons, lately arrived from
England, grinned significantly as he carried out the tray. He had already
joined the Protestant camp in the servants' hall.
Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix, trying
to compose his mind to the proper attitude for prayer and meditation. But
this he found difficult to accomplish. He had, as Thomas said, rather
overdone the Lenten privations, and they had gone to his head like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his back, and the crucifix swam
in a misty cloud before his eyes. It was only after a long litany,
mechanically repeated, that he succeeded in recalling his wandering
imagination to the mystery of the Atonement. At last sheer physical
weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and he lay down to
sleep in a calm and peaceful mood, free from all unquiet or disturbing
thoughts.
He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient knock came at his door. "Ah,
Teresa!" he thought, turning over lazily. The knock was repeated, and he
awoke with a violent start.
"Signorino! signorino!" cried a man's voice in Italian; "get up for the
love of God!"
Arthur jumped out of bed.
"What is the matter? Who is it?"
"It's I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our Lady's sake!"
Arthur hurriedly dressed and opened the door. As he stared in
perplexity at the coachman's pale, terrified face, the sound of tramping
feet and clanking metal came along the corridor, and he suddenly realized
the truth.
"For me?" he asked coolly.
"For you! Oh, signorino, make haste! What have you to hide? See, I can
put----"
"I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers know?"
The first uniform appeared at the turn of the passage.
"The signor has been called; all the house is awake. Alas! what a
misfortune--what a terrible misfortune! And on Good Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!"
Gian Battista burst into tears. Arthur moved a few steps forward and
waited for the gendarmes, who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes. As the soldiers surrounded
Arthur, the master and mistress of the house brought up the rear of this
strange procession; he in dressing gown and slippers, she in a long
peignoir, with her hair in curlpapers.
"There is, sure, another flood toward, and these couples are coming to
the ark! Here comes a pair of very strange beasts!"
The quotation flashed across Arthur's mind as he looked at the
grotesque figures. He checked a laugh with a sense of its jarring
incongruity--this was a time for worthier thoughts. "Ave Maria, Regina
Coeli!" he whispered, and turned his eyes away, that the bobbing of Julia's
curlpapers might not again tempt him to levity.
"Kindly explain to me," said Mr. Burton, approaching the officer of
gendarmerie, "what is the meaning of this violent intrusion into a private
house? I warn you that, unless you are prepared to furnish me with a
satisfactory explanation, I shall feel bound to complain to the English
Ambassador."
"I presume," replied the officer stiffly, "that you will recognize this
as a sufficient explanation; the English Ambassador certainly will." He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur Burton, student of philosophy,
and, handing it to James, added coldly: "If you wish for any further
explanation, you had better apply in person to the chief of police."
Julia snatched the paper from her husband, glanced over it, and flew at
Arthur like nothing else in the world but a fashionable lady in a rage.
"So it's you that have disgraced the family!" she screamed; "setting
all the rabble in the town gaping and staring as if the thing were a show?
So you have turned jail-bird, now, with all your piety! It's what we might
have expected from that Popish woman's child----"
"You must not speak to a prisoner in a foreign language, madam," the
officer interrupted; but his remonstrance was hardly audible under the
torrent of Julia's vociferous English.
"Just what we might have expected! Fasting and prayer and saintly
meditation; and this is what was underneath it all! I thought that would be
the end of it."
Dr. Warren had once compared Julia to a salad into which the cook had
upset the vinegar cruet. The sound of her thin, hard voice set Arthur's
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up in his memory.
"There's no use in this kind of talk," he said. "You need not be afraid
of any unpleasantness; everyone will understand that you are all quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to search my things. I have nothing
to hide." The gendarmes, meanwhile, had finished their search, and the
officer in charge requested Arthur to put on his outdoor clothes. He obeyed
at once and turned to leave the room; then stopped with sudden hesitation.
It seemed hard to take leave of his mother's oratory in the presence of
these officials.
"Have you any objection to leaving the room for a moment?" he asked.
"You see that I cannot escape and that there is nothing to conceal."
"I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a prisoner alone."
"Very well, it doesn't matter."
He went into the alcove, and, kneeling down, kissed the feet and
pedestal of the crucifix, whispering softly: "Lord, keep me faithful unto
death."
When he rose, the officer was standing by the table, examining
Montanelli's portrait. "Is this a relative of yours?" he asked.
"No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of Brisighella."
On the staircase the Italian servants were waiting, anxious and
sorrowful. They all loved Arthur for his own sake and his mother's, and
crowded round him, kissing his hands and dress with passionate grief. Gian
Battista stood by, the tears dripping down his gray moustache. None of the
Burtons came out to take leave of him. Their coldness accentuated the
tenderness and sympathy of the servants, and Arthur was near to breaking
down as he pressed the hands held out to him.
"Good-bye, Gian Battista. Kiss the little ones for me. Good-bye,
Teresa. Pray for me, all of you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!"
He ran hastily downstairs to the front door. A moment later only a
little group of silent men and sobbing women stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.PART I: CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress at the harbour's mouth.
He found prison life fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp and
dark; but he had been brought up in a palace in the Via Borra, and neither
close air, rats, nor foul smells were novelties to him. The food, also, was
both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained permission to send him
all the necessaries of life from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and, though the vigilance of the warders was less strict than he had
expected, he failed to obtain any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless, the tranquil frame of mind in which he had entered the
fortress did not change. Not being allowed books, he spent his time in
prayer and devout meditation, and waited without impatience or anxiety for
the further course of events.
One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell and called to him:
"This way, please!" After two or three questions, to which he got no answer
but, "Talking is forbidden," Arthur resigned himself to the inevitable and
followed the soldier through a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors, and
stairs, all more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light room in which
three persons in military uniform sat at a long table covered with green
baize and littered with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory way. They
put on a stiff, business air as he came in, and the oldest of them, a
foppish-looking man with gray whiskers and a colonel's uniform, pointed to a
chair on the other side of the table and began the preliminary
interrogation.
Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused, and sworn at, and had
prepared himself to answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold and formal, but perfectly
courteous. The usual questions as to his name, age, nationality, and social
position were put and answered, and the replies written down in monotonous
succession. He was beginning to feel bored and impatient, when the colonel
asked:
"And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know about Young Italy?"
"I know that it is a society which publishes a newspaper in Marseilles
and circulates it in Italy, with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country."
"You have read this paper, I think?"
"Yes; I am interested in the subject."
"When you read it you realized that you were committing an illegal
action?"
"Certainly."
"Where did you get the copies which were found in your room?"
"That I cannot tell you."
"Mr. Burton, you must not say 'I cannot tell' here; you are bound to
answer my questions."
"I will not, then, if you object to 'cannot.'"
"You will regret it if you permit yourself to use such expressions,"
remarked the colonel. As Arthur made no reply, he went on:
"I may as well tell you that evidence has come into our hands proving
your connection with this society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It will be to your advantage to
confess frankly. In any case the truth will be sure to come out, and you
will find it useless to screen yourself behind evasion and denials."
"I have no desire to screen myself. What is it you want to know?"
"Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be implicated in matters of
this kind?"
"I thought about the subject and read everything I could get hold of,
and formed my own conclusions."
"Who persuaded you to join this society?"
"No one; I wished to join it."
"You are shilly-shallying with me," said the colonel, sharply; his
patience was evidently beginning to give out. "No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish to join it?"
Silence.
"Will you have the kindness to answer me?"
"Not when you ask questions of that kind."
Arthur spoke sullenly; a curious, nervous irritability was taking
possession of him. He knew by this time that many arrests had been made in
both Leghorn and Pisa; and, though still ignorant of the extent of the
calamity, he had already heard enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for
the safety of Gemma and his other friends. The studied politeness of the
officers, the dull game of fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed him, and the clumsy tramping backward
and forward of the sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon his ear.
"Oh, by the bye, when did you last meet Giovanni Bolla?" asked the
colonel, after a little more bandying of words. "Just before you left Pisa,
was it?"
"I know no one of that name."
"What! Giovanni Bolla? Surely you know him --a tall young fellow,
closely shaven. Why, he is one of your fellow-students."
"There are many students in the university whom I don't know."
"Oh, but you must know Bolla, surely! Look, this is his handwriting.
You see, he knows you well enough."
The colonel carelessly handed him a paper headed: "Protocol," and
signed: "Giovanni Bolla." Glancing down it Arthur came upon his own name. He
looked up in surprise. "Am I to read it?"
"Yes, you may as well; it concerns you."
He began to read, while the officers sat silently watching his face.
The document appeared to consist of depositions in answer to a long string
of questions. Evidently Bolla, too, must have been arrested. The first
depositions were of the usual stereotyped character; then followed a short
account of Bolla's connection with the society, of the dissemination of
prohibited literature in Leghorn, and of the students' meetings. Next came
"Among those who joined us was a young Englishman, Arthur Burton, who
belongs to one of the rich shipowning families."
The blood rushed into Arthur's face. Bolla had betrayed him! Bolla, who
had taken upon himself the solemn duties of an initiator--Bolla, who had
converted Gemma--who was in love with her! He laid down the paper and stared
at the floor.
"I hope that little document has refreshed your memory?" hinted the
colonel politely.
Arthur shook his head. "I know no one of that name," he repeated in a
dull, hard voice. "There must be some mistake."
"Mistake? Oh, nonsense! Come, Mr. Burton, chivalry and quixotism are
very fine things in their way; but there's no use in overdoing them. It's an
error all you young people fall into at first. Come, think! What good is it
for you to compromise yourself and spoil your prospects in life over a
simple formality about a man that has betrayed you? You see yourself, he
wasn't so particular as to what he said about you."
A faint shade of something like mockery had crept into the colonel's
voice. Arthur looked up with a start; a sudden light flashed upon his mind.
"It's a lie!" he cried out. "It's a forgery! I can see it in your face,
you cowardly----You've got some prisoner there you want to compromise, or a
trap you want to drag me into. You are a forger, and a liar, and a
scoundrel----"
"Silence!" shouted the colonel, starting up in a rage; his two
colleagues were already on their feet. "Captain Tommasi," he went on,
turning to one of them, "ring for the guard, if you please, and have this
young gentleman put in the punishment cell for a few days. He wants a
lesson, I see, to bring him to reason."
The punishment cell was a dark, damp, filthy hole under ground. Instead
of bringing Arthur "to reason," it thoroughly exasperated him. His luxurious
home had rendered him daintily fastidious about personal cleanliness, and
the first effect of the slimy, vermin-covered walls, the floor heaped with
accumulations of filth and garbage, the fearful stench of fungi and sewage
and rotting wood, was strong enough to have satisfied the offended officer.
When he was pushed in and the door locked behind him he took three cautious
steps forward with outstretched hands, shuddering with disgust as his
fingers came into contact with the slippery wall, and groped in the dense
blackness for some spot less filthy than the rest in which to sit down.
The long day passed in unbroken blackness and silence, and the night
brought no change. In the utter void and absence of all external
impressions, he gradually lost the consciousness of time; and when, on the
following morning, a key was turned in the door lock, and the frightened
rats scurried past him squeaking, he started up in a sudden panic, his heart
throbbing furiously and a roaring noise in his ears, as though he had been
shut away from light and sound for months instead of hours.
The door opened, letting in a feeble lantern gleam--a flood of blinding
light, it seemed to him --and the head warder entered, carrying a piece of
bread and a mug of water. Arthur made a step forward; he was quite convinced
that the man had come to let him out. Before he had time to speak, the
warder put the bread and mug into his hands, turned round and went away
without a word, locking the door again.
Arthur stamped his foot upon the ground. For the first time in his life
he was savagely angry. But as the hours went by, the consciousness of time
and place gradually slipped further and further away. The blackness seemed
an illimitable thing, with no beginning and no end, and life had, as it
were, stopped for him. On the evening of the third day, when the door was
opened and the head warder appeared on the threshold with a soldier, he
looked up, dazed and bewildered, shading his eyes from the unaccustomed
light, and vaguely wondering how many hours or weeks he had been in this
grave.
"This way, please," said the cool business voice of the warder. Arthur
rose and moved forward mechanically, with a strange unsteadiness, swaying
and stumbling like a drunkard. He resented the warder's attempt to help him
up the steep, narrow steps leading to the courtyard; but as he reached the
highest step a sudden giddiness came over him, so that he staggered and
would have fallen backwards had the warder not caught him by the shoulder.
. . . . .
"There, he'll be all right now," said a cheerful voice; "they most of
them go off this way coming out into the air."
Arthur struggled desperately for breath as another handful of water was
dashed into his face. The blackness seemed to fall away from him in pieces
with a rushing noise; then he woke suddenly into full consciousness, and,
pushing aside the warder's arm, walked along the corridor and up the stairs
almost steadily. They stopped for a moment in front of a door; then it
opened, and before he realized where they were taking him he was in the
brightly lighted interrogation room, staring in confused wonder at the table
and the papers and the officers sitting in their accustomed places.
"Ah, it's Mr. Burton!" said the colonel. "I hope we shall be able to
talk more comfortably now. Well, and how do you like the dark cell? Not
quite so luxurious as your brother's drawing room, is it? eh?"
Arthur raised his eyes to the colonel's smiling face. He was seized by
a frantic desire to spring at the throat of this gray-whiskered fop and tear
it with his teeth. Probably something of this kind was visible in his face,
for the colonel added immediately, in a quite different tone:
"Sit down, Mr. Burton, and drink some water; you are excited."
Arthur pushed aside the glass of water held out to him; and, leaning
his arms on the table, rested his forehead on one hand and tried to collect
his thoughts. The colonel sat watching him keenly, noting with experienced
eyes the unsteady hands and lips, the hair dripping with water, the dim gaze
that told of physical prostration and disordered nerves.
"Now, Mr. Burton," he said after a few minutes; "we will start at the
point where we left off; and as there has been a certain amount of
unpleasantness between us, I may as well begin by saying that I, for my
part, have no desire to be anything but indulgent with you. If you will