Bolla, allow me to introduce to you Mme. Zita Reni."
The gipsy glanced round at Gemma with a half defiant air and bowed
stiffly. She was certainly handsome enough, as Martini had said, with a
vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; and the perfect harmony and freedom of
her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and narrow,
and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost cruel. The
sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly's society was
intensified by the gypsy's presence; and when, a moment later, the host came
up to beg Signora Bolla to help him entertain some tourists in the other
room, she consented with an odd feeling of relief.
. . . . .
"Well, Madonna, and what do you think of the Gadfly?" Martini asked as
they drove back to Florence late at night. "Did you ever see anything quite
so shameless as the way he fooled that poor little Grassini woman?"
"About the ballet-girl, you mean?"
"Yes, he persuaded her the girl was going to be the lion of the season.
Signora Grassini would do anything for a celebrity."
"I thought it an unfair and unkind thing to do; it put the Grassinis
into a false position; and it was nothing less than cruel to the girl
herself. I am sure she felt ill at ease."
"You had a talk with him, didn't you? What did you think of him?"
"Oh, Cesare, I didn't think anything except how glad I was to see the
last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me a headache
in ten minutes. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest."
"I thought you wouldn't like him; and, to tell the truth, no more do I.
The man's as slippery as an eel; I don't trust him."
THE Gadfly took lodgings outside the Roman gate, near to which Zita was
boarding. He was evidently somewhat of a sybarite; and, though nothing in
the rooms showed any serious extravagance, there was a tendency to
luxuriousness in trifles and to a certain fastidious daintiness in the
arrangement of everything which surprised Galli and Riccardo. They had
expected to find a man who had lived among the wildernesses of the Amazon
more simple in his tastes, and wondered at his spotless ties and rows of
boots, and at the masses of flowers which always stood upon his writing
table. On the whole they got on very well with him. He was hospitable and
friendly to everyone, especially to the local members of the Mazzinian
party. To this rule Gemma, apparently, formed an exception; he seemed to
have taken a dislike to her from the time of their first meeting, and in
every way avoided her company. On two or three occasions he was actually
rude to her, thus bringing upon himself Martini's most cordial detestation.
There had been no love lost between the two men from the beginning; their
temperaments appeared to be too incompatible for them to feel anything but
repugnance for each other. On Martini's part this was fast developing into
hostility.
"I don't care about his not liking me," he said one day to Gemma with
an aggrieved air. "I don't like him, for that matter; so there's no harm
done. But I can't stand the way he behaves to you. If it weren't for the
scandal it would make in the party first to beg a man to come and then to
quarrel with him, I should call him to account for it."
"Let him alone, Cesare; it isn't of any consequence, and after all,
it's as much my fault as his."
"What is your fault?"
"That he dislikes me so. I said a brutal thing to him when we first
met, that night at the Grassinis'."
"YOU said a brutal thing? That's hard to believe, Madonna."
"It was unintentional, of course, and I was very sorry. I said
something about people laughing at cripples, and he took it personally. It
had never occurred to me to think of him as a cripple; he is not so badly
deformed."
"Of course not. He has one shoulder higher than the other, and his left
arm is pretty badly disabled, but he's neither hunchbacked nor clubfooted.
As for his lameness, it isn't worth talking about."
"Anyway, he shivered all over and changed colour. Of course it was
horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if
he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of that kind."
"Much more likely to have perpetrated them, I should think. There's a
sort of internal brutality about that man, under all his fine manners, that
is perfectly sickening to me."
"Now, Cesare, that's downright unfair. I don't like him any more than
you do, but what is the use of making him out worse than he is? His manner
is a little affected and irritating--I expect he has been too much
lionized--and the everlasting smart speeches are dreadfully tiring; but I
don't believe he means any harm."
"I don't know what he means, but there's something not clean about a
man who sneers at everything. It fairly disgusted me the other day at
Fabrizi's debate to hear the way he cried down the reforms in Rome, just as
if he wanted to find a foul motive for everything."
Gemma sighed. "I am afraid I agreed better with him than with you on
that point," she said. "All you good people are so full of the most
delightful hopes and expectations; you are always ready to think that if one
well-meaning middle-aged gentleman happens to get elected Pope, everything
else will come right of itself. He has only got to throw open the prison
doors and give his blessing to everybody all round, and we may expect the
millennium within three months. You never seem able to see that he can't set
things right even if he would. It's the principle of the thing that's wrong,
not the behaviour of this man or that."
"What principle? The temporal power of the Pope?"
"Why that in particular? That's merely a part of the general wrong. The
bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind and
loose. It's a false relationship to stand in towards one's fellows."
Martini held up his hands. "That will do, Madonna," he said, laughing.
"I am not going to discuss with you, once you begin talking rank
Antinomianism in that fashion. I'm sure your ancestors must have been
English Levellers in the seventeenth century. Besides, what I came round
about is this MS."
He pulled it out of his pocket.
"Another new pamphlet?"
"A stupid thing this wretched man Rivarez sent in to yesterday's
committee. I knew we should come to loggerheads with him before long."
"What is the matter with it? Honestly, Cesare, I think you are a little
prejudiced. Rivarez may be unpleasant, but he's not stupid."
"Oh, I don't deny that this is clever enough in its way; but you had
better read the thing yourself."
The pamphlet was a skit on the wild enthusiasm over the new Pope with
which Italy was still ringing. Like all the Gadfly's writing, it was bitter
and vindictive; but, notwithstanding her irritation at the style, Gemma
could not help recognizing in her heart the justice of the criticism.
"I quite agree with you that it is detestably malicious," she said,
laying down the manuscript. "But the worst thing about it is that it's all
true."
"Gemma!"
"Yes, but it is. The man's a cold-blooded eel, if you like; but he's
got the truth on his side. There is no use in our trying to persuade
ourselves that this doesn't hit the mark--it does!"
"Then do you suggest that we should print it?"
"Ah! that's quite another matter. I certainly don't think we ought to
print it as it stands; it would hurt and alienate everybody and do no good.
But if he would rewrite it and cut out the personal attacks, I think it
might be made into a really valuable piece of work. As political criticism
it is very fine. I had no idea he could write so well. He says things which
need saying and which none of us have had the courage to say. This passage,
where he compares Italy to a tipsy man weeping with tenderness on the neck
of the thief who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written."
"Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured
yelping at everything and everybody!"
"So do I; but that's not the point. Rivarez has a very disagreeable
style, and as a human being he is not attractive; but when he says that we
have made ourselves drunk with processions and embracing and shouting about
love and reconciliation, and that the Jesuits and Sanfedists are the people
who will profit by it all, he's right a thousand times. I wish I could have
been at the committee yesterday. What decision did you finally arrive at?"
"What I have come here about: to ask you to go and talk it over with
him and persuade him to soften the thing."
"Me? But I hardly know the man; and besides that, he detests me. Why
should I go, of all people?"
"Simply because there's no one else to do it to-day. Besides, you are
more reasonable than the rest of us, and won't get into useless arguments
and quarrel with him, as we should."
"I shan't do that, certainly. Well, I will go if you like, though I
have not much hope of success."
"I am sure you will be able to manage him if you try. Yes, and tell him
that the committee all admired the thing from a literary point of view. That
will put him into a good humour, and it's perfectly true, too."
. . . . .
The Gadfly was sitting beside a table covered with flowers and ferns,
staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy
collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma
knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff,
ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and expressionless.
"You are too kind," he said in his most chilling manner. "If you had
let me know that you wanted to speak to me I would have called on you."
Seeing that he evidently wished her at the end of the earth, Gemma
hastened to state her business. He bowed again and placed a chair for her.
"The committee wished me to call upon you," she began, "because there
has been a certain difference of opinion about your pamphlet."
"So I expected." He smiled and sat down opposite to her, drawing a
large vase of chrysanthemums between his face and the light.
"Most of the members agreed that, however much they may admire the
pamphlet as a literary composition, they do not think that in its present
form it is quite suitable for publication. They fear that the vehemence of
its tone may give offence, and alienate persons whose help and support are
valuable to the party."
He pulled a chrysanthemum from the vase and began slowly plucking off
one white petal after another. As her eyes happened to catch the movement of
the slim right hand dropping the petals, one by one, an uncomfortable
sensation came over Gemma, as though she had somewhere seen that gesture
before.
"As a literary composition," he remarked in his soft, cold voice, "it
is utterly worthless, and could be admired only by persons who know nothing
about literature. As for its giving offence, that is the very thing I
intended it to do."
"That I quite understand. The question is whether you may not succeed
in giving offence to the wrong people."
He shrugged his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth.
"I think you are mistaken," he said. "The question is: For what purpose did
your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and ridicule
the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to the best of my ability."
"And I can assure you that no one has any doubt as to either the
ability or the good-will. What the committee fears is that the liberal party
may take offence, and also that the town workmen may withdraw their moral
support. You may have meant the pamphlet for an attack upon the Sanfedists:
but many readers will construe it as an attack upon the Church and the new
Pope; and this, as a matter of political tactics, the committee does not
consider desirable."
"I begin to understand. So long as I keep to the particular set of
clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms, I may speak
sooth if the fancy takes me; but directly I touch upon the committee's own
pet priests--'truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when
the--Holy Father may stand by the fire and-----' Yes, the fool was right;
I'd rather be any kind of a thing than a fool. Of course I must bow to the
committee's decision, but I continue to think that it has pared its wit o'
both sides and left--M-mon-signor M-m-montan-n-nelli in the middle."
"Montanelli?" Gemma repeated. "I don't understand you. Do you mean the
Bishop of Brisighella?"
"Yes; the new Pope has just created him a Cardinal, you know. I have a
letter about him here. Would you care to hear it? The writer is a friend of
mine on the other side of the frontier."
"The Papal frontier?"
"Yes. This is what he writes----" He took up the letter which had been
in his hand when she entered, and read aloud, suddenly beginning to stammer
violently:
"'Y-o-you will s-s-s-soon have the p-pleasure of m-m-meeting one of our
w-w-worst enemies, C-cardinal Lorenzo M-montan-n-nelli, the B-b-bishop of
Brisig-g-hella. He int-t----'"
He broke off, paused a moment, and began again, very slowly and
drawling insufferably, but no longer stammering:
"'He intends to visit Tuscany during the coming month on a mission of
reconciliation. He will preach first in Florence, where he will stay for
about three weeks; then will go on to Siena and Pisa, and return to the
Romagna by Pistoja. He ostensibly belongs to the liberal party in the
Church, and is a personal friend of the Pope and Cardinal Feretti. Under
Gregory he was out of favour, and was kept out of sight in a little hole in
the Apennines. Now he has come suddenly to the front. Really, of course, he
is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the country. This
mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is one of the most
brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous in his way as
Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular enthusiasm over
the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public attention until the Grand
Duke has signed a project which the agents of the Jesuits are preparing to
lay before him. What this project is I have been unable to discover.' Then,
further on, it says: 'Whether Montanelli understands for what purpose he is
being sent to Tuscany, or whether the Jesuits are playing on him, I cannot
make out. He is either an uncommonly clever knave, or the biggest ass that
was ever foaled. The odd thing is that, so far as I can discover, he neither
takes bribes nor keeps mistresses--the first time I ever came across such a
thing.'"
He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes,
waiting, apparently, for her to speak.
"Are you satisfied that your informant is correct in his facts?" she
asked after a moment.
"As to the irreproachable character of Monsignor M-mon-t-tan-nelli's
private life? No; but neither is he. As you will observe, he puts in the
s-s-saving clause: 'So far as I c-can discover----
"I was not speaking of that," she interposed coldly, "but of the part
about this mission."
"I can fully trust the writer. He is an old friend of mine--one of my
comrades of '43, and he is in a position which gives him exceptional
opportunities for finding out things of that kind."
"Some official at the Vatican," thought Gemma quickly. "So that's the
kind of connections you have? I guessed there was something of that sort."
"This letter is, of course, a private one," the Gadfly went on; "and
you understand that the information is to be kept strictly to the members of
your committee."
"That hardly needs saying. Then about the pamphlet: may I tell the
committee that you consent to make a few alterations and soften it a little,
or that----"
"Don't you think the alterations may succeed in spoiling the beauty of
the 'literary composition,' signora, as well as in reducing the vehemence of
the tone?"
"You are asking my personal opinion. What I have come here to express
is that of the committee as a whole."
"Does that imply that y-y-you disagree with the committee as a whole?"
He had put the letter into his pocket and was now leaning forward and
looking at her with an eager, concentrated expression which quite changed
the character of his face. "You think----" "If you care to know what I
personally think --I disagree with the majority on both points. I do not at
all admire the pamphlet from a literary point of view, and I do think it
true as a presentation of facts and wise as a matter of tactics."
"That is------"
"I quite agree with you that Italy is being led away by a
will-o'-the-wisp and that all this enthusiasm and rejoicing will probably
land her in a terrible bog; and I should be most heartily glad to have that
openly and boldly said, even at the cost of offending or alienating some of
our present supporters. But as a member of a body the large majority of
which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my personal opinion; and
I certainly think that if things of that kind are to be said at all, they
should be said temperately and quietly; not in the tone adopted in this
pamphlet."
"Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?"
He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled
on his face.
"Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The thing's written like a
cafe chantant skit, not a political satire. But what's a man to do? If I
write decently the public won't understand it; they will say it's dull if it
isn't spiteful enough."
"Don't you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much
of it?"
He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.
"Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who
are always right! Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I may
come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini? Heavens, what a fate! No,
you needn't frown. I know you don't like me, and I am going to keep to
business. What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut out the
personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as it is, the
committee will very much regret that they can't take the responsibility of
printing it. If I cut out the political truth and make all the hard names
apply to no one but the party's enemies, the committee will praise the thing
up to the skies, and you and I will know it's not worth printing. Rather a
nice point of metaphysics: Which is the more desirable condition, to be
printed and not be worth it, or to be worth it and not be printed? Well,
signora?"
"I do not think you are tied to any such alternative. I believe that if
you were to cut out the personalities the committee would consent to print
the pamphlet, though the majority would, of course, not agree with it; and I
am convinced that it would be very useful. But you would have to lay aside
the spitefulness. If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is
a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them
at the beginning by the form."
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "I submit, signora;
but on one condition. If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it out next
time. When His Eminence, the irreproachable Cardinal, turns up in Florence,
neither you nor your committee must object to my being as spiteful as I
like. It's my due!"
He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling the chrysanthemums
out of their vase and holding them up to watch the light through the
translucent petals. "What an unsteady hand he has," she thought, seeing how
the flowers shook and quivered. "Surely he doesn't drink!"
"You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the
committee," she said, rising. "I cannot form any opinion as to what they
will think about it."
"And you?" He had risen too, and was leaning against the table,
pressing the flowers to his face
She hesitated. The question distressed her, bringing up old and
miserable associations. "I --hardly know," she said at last. "Many years ago
I used to know something about Monsignor Montanelli. He was only a canon at
that time, and Director of the theological seminary in the province where I
lived as a girl. I heard a great deal about him from--someone who knew him
very intimately; and I never heard anything of him that was not good. I
believe that, in those days at least, he was really a most remarkable man.
But that was long ago, and he may have changed. Irresponsible power corrupts
so many people."
The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with a
steady face.
"At any rate," he said, "if Monsignor Montanelli is not himself a
scoundrel, he is a tool in scoundrelly hands. It is all one to me which he
is--and to my friends across the frontier. A stone in the path may have the
best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all that. Allow
me, signora!" He rang the bell, and, limping to the door, opened it for her
to pass out.
"It was very kind of you to call, signora. May I send for a vettura?
No? Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please."
Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously. "My friends across
the frontier"-- who were they? And how was the stone to be kicked out of the
path? If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous eyes?
MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the first week of October.
His visit caused a little flutter of excitement throughout the town. He was
a famous preacher and a representative of the reformed Papacy; and people
looked eagerly to him for an exposition of the "new doctrine," the gospel of
love and reconciliation which was to cure the sorrows of Italy. The
nomination of Cardinal Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship in place of
the universally detested Lambruschini had raised the public enthusiasm to
its highest pitch; and Montanelli was just the man who could most easily
sustain it. The irreproachable strictness of his life was a phenomenon
sufficiently rare among the high dignitaries of the Roman Church to attract
the attention of people accustomed to regard blackmailing, peculation, and
disreputable intrigues as almost invariable adjuncts to the career of a
prelate. Moreover, his talent as a preacher was really great; and with his
beautiful voice and magnetic personality, he would in any time and place
have made his mark.
Grassini, as usual, strained every nerve to get the newly arrived
celebrity to his house; but Montanelli was no easy game to catch. To all
invitations he replied with the same courteous but positive refusal, saying
that his health was bad and his time fully occupied, and that he had neither
strength nor leisure for going into society.
"What omnivorous creatures those Grassinis are!" Martini said
contemptuously to Gemma as they crossed the Signoria square one bright, cold
Sunday morning. "Did you notice the way Grassini bowed when the Cardinal's
carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long as he's talked
about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the
Gadfly; now it's Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels flattered at the
attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him."
They had been hearing Montanelli preach in the Cathedral; and the great
building had been so thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing a
return of Gemma's troublesome headaches, had persuaded her to come away
before the Mass was over. The sunny morning, the first after a week of rain,
offered him an excuse for suggesting a walk among the garden slopes by San
Niccolo.
"No," she answered; "I should like a walk if you have time; but not to
the hills. Let us keep along the Lung'Arno; Montanelli will pass on his way
back from church and I am like Grassini-- I want to see the notability."
"But you have just seen him."
"Not close. There was such a crush in the Cathedral, and his back was
turned to us when the carriage passed. If we keep near to the bridge we
shall be sure to see him well--he is staying on the Lung'Arno, you know."
"But what has given you such a sudden fancy to see Montanelli? You
never used to care about famous preachers."
"It is not famous preachers; it is the man himself; I want to see how
much he has changed since I saw him last."
"When was that?"
"Two days after Arthur's death."
Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had come out on to the
Lung'Arno, and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her
face that he hated to see.
"Gemma, dear," he said after a moment; "are you going to let that
miserable business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes when
we were seventeen."
"We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen," she
answered wearily; and, leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the
bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held his tongue; he was almost
afraid to speak to her when this mood was on her.
"I never look down at water without remembering," she said, slowly
raising her eyes to his; then with a nervous little shiver: "Let us walk on
a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing."
They crossed the bridge in silence and walked on along the river-side.
After a few minutes she spoke again.
"What a beautiful voice that man has! There is something about it that
I have never heard in any other human voice. I believe it is the secret of
half his influence."
"It is a wonderful voice," Martini assented, catching at a subject of
conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called up by
the river, "and he is, apart from his voice, about the finest preacher I
have ever heard. But I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than
that. It is the way his life stands out from that of almost all the other
prelates. I don't know whether you could lay your hand on one other high
dignitary in all the Italian Church--except the Pope himself--whose
reputation is so utterly spotless. I remember, when I was in the Romagna
last year, passing through his diocese and seeing those fierce mountaineers
waiting in the rain to get a glimpse of him or touch his dress. He is
venerated there almost as a saint; and that means a good deal among the
Romagnols, who generally hate everything that wears a cassock. I remarked to
one of the old peasants,--as typical a smuggler as ever I saw in my
life,--that the people seemed very much devoted to their bishop, and he
said: 'We don't love bishops, they are liars; we love Monsignor Montanelli.
Nobody has ever known him to tell a lie or do an unjust thing.'"
"I wonder," Gemma said, half to herself, "if he knows the people think
that about him."
"Why shouldn't he know it? Do you think it is not true?"
"I know it is not true."
"How do you know it?"
"Because he told me so."
"HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?"
She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him. They
were standing still again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly
drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
"Cesare, you and I have been friends for all these years, and I have
never told you what really happened about Arthur."
"There is no need to tell me, dear," he broke in hastily; "I know all
about it already."
"Giovanni told you?"
"Yes, when he was dying. He told me about it one night when I was
sitting up with him. He said---- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the
truth, now we have begun talking about it--he said that you were always
brooding over that wretched story, and he begged me to be as good a friend
to you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it. And I have tried
to, dear, though I may not have succeeded--I have, indeed."
"I know you have," she answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment;
"I should have been badly off without your friendship. But--Giovanni did not
tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?"
"No, I didn't know that he had anything to do with it. What he told me
was about--all that affair with the spy, and about----"
"About my striking Arthur and his drowning himself. Well, I will tell
you about Montanelli."
They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal's carriage
would have to pass. Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she spoke.
"In those days Montanelli was a canon; he was Director of the
Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used to give Arthur lessons in philosophy
and read with him after he went up to the Sapienza. They were perfectly
devoted to each other; more like two lovers than teacher and pupil. Arthur
almost worshipped the ground that Montanelli walked on, and I remember his
once telling me that if he lost his 'Padre'--he always used to call
Montanelli so --he should go and drown himself. Well, then you know what
happened about the spy. The next day, my father and the Burtons--Arthur's
step-brothers, most detestable people--spent the whole day dragging the
Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room alone and thought of what I
had done----"
She paused a moment, and went on again:
"Late in the evening my father came into my room and said: 'Gemma,
child, come downstairs; there's a man I want you to see.' And when we went
down there was one of the students belonging to the group sitting in the
consulting room, all white and shaking; and he told us about Giovanni's
second letter coming from the prison to say that they had heard from the
jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in the confessional. I
remember the student saying to me: 'It is at least some consolation that we
know he was innocent' My father held my hands and tried to comfort me; he
did not know then about the blow. Then I went back to my room and sat there
all night alone. In the morning my father went out again with the Burtons to
see the harbour dragged. They had some hope of finding the body there."
"It was never found, was it?"
"No; it must have got washed out to sea; but they thought there was a
chance. I was alone in my room and the servant came up to say that a
'reverendissimo padre' had called and she had told him my father was at the
docks and he had gone away. I knew it must be Montanelli; so I ran out at
the back door and caught him up at the garden gate. When I said: 'Canon
Montanelli, I want to speak to you,' he just stopped and waited silently for
me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it haunted me for months
afterwards! I said: 'I am Dr. Warren's daughter, and I have come to tell you
that it is I who have killed Arthur.' I told him everything, and he stood
and listened, like a figure cut in stone, till I had finished; then he said:
'Set your heart at rest, my child; it is I that am a murderer, not you. I
deceived him and he found it out.' And with that he turned and went out at
the gate without another word."
"And then?"
"I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening
that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been carried
into a house near the docks; but that is all I know. My father did
everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up his
practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never hear
anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the water, too;
and indeed I believe I was near it at one time. But then, you know, when we
found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to come to myself--there
was no one else to nurse him. And after he died I was left with the little
ones on my hands until my elder brother was able to give them a home. Then
there was Giovanni. Do you know, when he came to England we were almost
afraid to meet each other with that frightful memory between us. He was so
bitterly remorseful for his share in it all--that unhappy letter he wrote
from prison. But I believe, really, it was our common trouble that drew us
together."
Martini smiled and shook his head.
"It may have been so on your side," he said; "but Giovanni had made up
his mind from the first time he ever saw you. I remember his coming back to
Milan after that first visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me till I
was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I thought I should hate
you. Ah! there it comes!"
The carriage crossed the bridge and drove up to a large house on the
Lung'Arno. Montanelli was leaning back on the cushions as if too tired to
care any longer for the enthusiastic crowd which had collected round the
door to catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had worn in
the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the lines of care
and fatigue. When he had alighted and passed, with the heavy, spiritless
tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house, Gemma turned away and
walked slowly to the bridge. Her face seemed for a moment to reflect the
withered, hopeless look of his. Martini walked beside her in silence.
"I have so often wondered," she began again after a little pause; "what
he meant about the deception. It has sometimes occurred to me----"
"Yes?"
"Well, it is very strange; there was the most extraordinary personal
resemblance between them."
"Between whom?"
"Arthur and Montanelli. It was not only I who noticed it. And there was
something mysterious in the relationship between the members of that
household. Mrs. Burton, Arthur's mother, was one of the sweetest women I
ever knew. Her face had the same spiritual look as Arthur's, and I believe
they were alike in character, too. But she always seemed half frightened,
like a detected criminal; and her step-son's wife used to treat her as no
decent person treats a dog. And then Arthur himself was such a startling
contrast to all those vulgar Burtons. Of course, when one is a child one
takes everything for granted; but looking back on it afterwards I have often
wondered whether Arthur was really a Burton."
"Possibly he found out something about his mother--that may easily have
been the cause of his death, not the Cardi affair at all," Martini
interposed, offering the only consolation he could think of at the moment.
Gemma shook her head.
"If you could have seen his face after I struck him, Cesare, you would
not think that. It may be all true about Montanelli--very likely it is-- but
what I have done I have done."
They walked on a little way without speaking,
"My dear," Martini said at last; "if there were any way on earth to
undo a thing that is once done, it would be worth while to brood over our
old mistakes; but as it is, let the dead bury their dead. It is a terrible
story, but at least the poor lad is out of it now, and luckier than some of
those that are left--the ones that are in exile and in prison. You and I
have them to think of, we have no right to eat out our hearts for the dead.
Remember what your own Shelley says: 'The past is Death's, the future is
thine own.' Take it, while it is still yours, and fix your mind, not on what
you may have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can do now to help."
In his earnestness he had taken her hand. He dropped it suddenly and
drew back at the sound of a soft, cold, drawling voice behind him.
"Monsignor Montan-n-nelli," murmured this languid voice, "is
undoubtedly all you say, my dear doctor. In fact, he appears to be so much
too good for this world that he ought to be politely escorted into the next.
I am sure he would cause as great a sensation there as he has done here;
there are p-p-probably many old-established ghosts who have never seen such
a thing as an honest cardinal. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they
do novelties----"
"How do you know that?" asked Dr. Riccardo's voice in a tone of
ill-suppressed irritation.
"From Holy Writ, my dear sir. If the Gospel is to be trusted, even the
most respectable of all Ghosts had a f-f-fancy for capricious alliances.
Now, honesty and c-c-cardinals--that seems to me a somewhat capricious
alliance, and rather an uncomfortable one, like shrimps and liquorice. Ah,
Signor Martini, and Signora Bolla! Lovely weather after the rain, is it not?
Have you been to hear the n-new Savonarola, too?"
Martini turned round sharply. The Gadfly, with a cigar in his mouth and
a hot-house flower in his buttonhole, was holding out to him a slender,
carefully-gloved hand. With the sunlight reflected in his immaculate boots
and glancing back from the water on to his smiling face, he looked to
Martini less lame and more conceited than usual. They were shaking hands,
affably on the one side and rather sulkily on the other, when Riccardo
hastily exclaimed:
"I am afraid Signora Bolla is not well!"
She was so pale that her face looked almost livid under the shadow of
her bonnet, and the ribbon at her throat fluttered perceptibly from the
violent beating of the heart.
"I will go home," she said faintly.
A cab was called and Martini got in with her to see her safely home. As
the Gadfly bent down to arrange her cloak, which was hanging over the wheel,
he raised his eyes suddenly to her face, and Martini saw that she shrank
away with a look of something like terror.
"Gemma, what is the matter with you?" he asked, in English, when they
had started. "What did that scoundrel say to you?"
"Nothing, Cesare; it was no fault of his. I-- I--had a fright----"
"A fright?"
"Yes; I fancied----" She put one hand over her eyes, and he waited
silently till she should recover her self-command. Her face was already
regaining its natural colour.
"You are quite right," she said at last, turning to him and speaking in
her usual voice; "it is worse than useless to look back at a horrible past.
It plays tricks with one's nerves and makes one imagine all sorts of
impossible things. We will NEVER talk about that subject again, Cesare, or I
shall see fantastic likenesses to Arthur in every face I meet. It is a kind
of hallucination, like a nightmare in broad daylight. Just now, when that
odious little fop came up, I fancied it was Arthur."
THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He had arrived
in Florence in August, and by the end of October three-fourths of the
committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage attacks
upon Montanelli had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli himself, who at
first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty satirist said or did,
began to acknowledge with an aggrieved air that Montanelli had better have
been left in peace. "Decent cardinals are none so plenty. One might treat
them politely when they do turn up."
The only person who, apparently, remained quite indifferent to the
storm of caricatures and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
Martini said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing a man
who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that Montanelli, one
day when the Archbishop of Florence was dining with him, had found in the
room one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons against himself, had read
it through and handed the paper to the Archbishop, remarking: "That is
rather cleverly put, is it not?"
One day there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: "The Mystery of
the Annunciation." Even had the author omitted his now familiar signature, a
sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant style would have
left in the minds of most readers no doubt as to his identity. The skit was
in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli
as the angel who, bearing the lilies of purity and crowned with the olive
branch of peace, was announcing the advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing
was full of offensive personal allusions and hints of the most risky nature,
and all Florence felt the satire to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet
all Florence laughed. There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's
grave absurdities that those who most disapproved of and disliked him
laughed as immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans.
Repulsive in tone as the leaflet was, it left its trace upon the popular
feeling of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
lampoon, however witty, seriously to injure it, but for a moment the tide
almost turned against him. The Gadfly had known where to sting; and, though
eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house to see him enter or
leave his carriage, ominous cries of "Jesuit!" and "Sanfedist spy!" often
mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two days after the
publication of the skit, the Churchman, a leading clerical paper, brought
out a brilliant article, called: "An Answer to 'The Mystery of the
Annunciation,'" and signed: "A Son of the Church." It was an impassioned
defence of Montanelli against the Gadfly's slanderous imputations. The
anonymous writer, after expounding, with great eloquence and fervour, the
doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards men, of which the new
Pontiff was the evangelist, concluded by challenging the Gadfly to prove a
single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing to the public not to
believe a contemptible slanderer. Both the cogency of the article as a bit
of special pleading and its merit as a literary composition were
sufficiently far above the average to attract much attention in the town,
especially as not even the editor of the newspaper could guess the author's
identity. The article was soon reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and
the "anonymous defender" was discussed in every coffee-shop in Florence.
The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on the new Pontificate and
all its supporters, especially on Montanelli, who, he cautiously hinted, had
probably consented to the panegyric on himself. To this the anonymous
defender again replied in the Churchman with an indignant denial. During the
rest of Montanelli's stay the controversy raging between the two writers
occupied more of the public attention than did even the famous preacher
himself.
Some members of the liberal party ventured to remonstrate with the
Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but they
did not get much satisfaction out of him. He only smiled affably and
answered with a languid little stammer: "R-really, gentlemen, you are rather
unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave in to Signora Bolla, that I
should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now. It is so nominated
in the bond!"
At the end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna,
and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke
of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both writers and
begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance by closing a
useless and unseemly war of words. On the following day the Churchman
contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly expressed
desire, "A Son of the Church" would withdraw from the controversy.
The last word remained with the Gadfly. He issued a little leaflet, in
which he declared himself disarmed and converted by Montanelli's Christian
meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation upon the neck of the
first Sanfedist he met. "I am even willing," he concluded; "to embrace my
anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as his Eminence and I
know, what that implies and why he remains anonymous, they would believe in
the sincerity of my conversion."
In the latter part of November he announced to the literary committee
that he was going for a fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went,
apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going there soon after and wishing
to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th of December a
political demonstration of the most extreme character burst out in the
States of the Church, along the whole chain of the Apennines; and people
The gipsy glanced round at Gemma with a half defiant air and bowed
stiffly. She was certainly handsome enough, as Martini had said, with a
vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; and the perfect harmony and freedom of
her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and narrow,
and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost cruel. The
sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly's society was
intensified by the gypsy's presence; and when, a moment later, the host came
up to beg Signora Bolla to help him entertain some tourists in the other
room, she consented with an odd feeling of relief.
. . . . .
"Well, Madonna, and what do you think of the Gadfly?" Martini asked as
they drove back to Florence late at night. "Did you ever see anything quite
so shameless as the way he fooled that poor little Grassini woman?"
"About the ballet-girl, you mean?"
"Yes, he persuaded her the girl was going to be the lion of the season.
Signora Grassini would do anything for a celebrity."
"I thought it an unfair and unkind thing to do; it put the Grassinis
into a false position; and it was nothing less than cruel to the girl
herself. I am sure she felt ill at ease."
"You had a talk with him, didn't you? What did you think of him?"
"Oh, Cesare, I didn't think anything except how glad I was to see the
last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me a headache
in ten minutes. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest."
"I thought you wouldn't like him; and, to tell the truth, no more do I.
The man's as slippery as an eel; I don't trust him."
THE Gadfly took lodgings outside the Roman gate, near to which Zita was
boarding. He was evidently somewhat of a sybarite; and, though nothing in
the rooms showed any serious extravagance, there was a tendency to
luxuriousness in trifles and to a certain fastidious daintiness in the
arrangement of everything which surprised Galli and Riccardo. They had
expected to find a man who had lived among the wildernesses of the Amazon
more simple in his tastes, and wondered at his spotless ties and rows of
boots, and at the masses of flowers which always stood upon his writing
table. On the whole they got on very well with him. He was hospitable and
friendly to everyone, especially to the local members of the Mazzinian
party. To this rule Gemma, apparently, formed an exception; he seemed to
have taken a dislike to her from the time of their first meeting, and in
every way avoided her company. On two or three occasions he was actually
rude to her, thus bringing upon himself Martini's most cordial detestation.
There had been no love lost between the two men from the beginning; their
temperaments appeared to be too incompatible for them to feel anything but
repugnance for each other. On Martini's part this was fast developing into
hostility.
"I don't care about his not liking me," he said one day to Gemma with
an aggrieved air. "I don't like him, for that matter; so there's no harm
done. But I can't stand the way he behaves to you. If it weren't for the
scandal it would make in the party first to beg a man to come and then to
quarrel with him, I should call him to account for it."
"Let him alone, Cesare; it isn't of any consequence, and after all,
it's as much my fault as his."
"What is your fault?"
"That he dislikes me so. I said a brutal thing to him when we first
met, that night at the Grassinis'."
"YOU said a brutal thing? That's hard to believe, Madonna."
"It was unintentional, of course, and I was very sorry. I said
something about people laughing at cripples, and he took it personally. It
had never occurred to me to think of him as a cripple; he is not so badly
deformed."
"Of course not. He has one shoulder higher than the other, and his left
arm is pretty badly disabled, but he's neither hunchbacked nor clubfooted.
As for his lameness, it isn't worth talking about."
"Anyway, he shivered all over and changed colour. Of course it was
horribly tactless of me, but it's odd he should be so sensitive. I wonder if
he has ever suffered from any cruel jokes of that kind."
"Much more likely to have perpetrated them, I should think. There's a
sort of internal brutality about that man, under all his fine manners, that
is perfectly sickening to me."
"Now, Cesare, that's downright unfair. I don't like him any more than
you do, but what is the use of making him out worse than he is? His manner
is a little affected and irritating--I expect he has been too much
lionized--and the everlasting smart speeches are dreadfully tiring; but I
don't believe he means any harm."
"I don't know what he means, but there's something not clean about a
man who sneers at everything. It fairly disgusted me the other day at
Fabrizi's debate to hear the way he cried down the reforms in Rome, just as
if he wanted to find a foul motive for everything."
Gemma sighed. "I am afraid I agreed better with him than with you on
that point," she said. "All you good people are so full of the most
delightful hopes and expectations; you are always ready to think that if one
well-meaning middle-aged gentleman happens to get elected Pope, everything
else will come right of itself. He has only got to throw open the prison
doors and give his blessing to everybody all round, and we may expect the
millennium within three months. You never seem able to see that he can't set
things right even if he would. It's the principle of the thing that's wrong,
not the behaviour of this man or that."
"What principle? The temporal power of the Pope?"
"Why that in particular? That's merely a part of the general wrong. The
bad principle is that any man should hold over another the power to bind and
loose. It's a false relationship to stand in towards one's fellows."
Martini held up his hands. "That will do, Madonna," he said, laughing.
"I am not going to discuss with you, once you begin talking rank
Antinomianism in that fashion. I'm sure your ancestors must have been
English Levellers in the seventeenth century. Besides, what I came round
about is this MS."
He pulled it out of his pocket.
"Another new pamphlet?"
"A stupid thing this wretched man Rivarez sent in to yesterday's
committee. I knew we should come to loggerheads with him before long."
"What is the matter with it? Honestly, Cesare, I think you are a little
prejudiced. Rivarez may be unpleasant, but he's not stupid."
"Oh, I don't deny that this is clever enough in its way; but you had
better read the thing yourself."
The pamphlet was a skit on the wild enthusiasm over the new Pope with
which Italy was still ringing. Like all the Gadfly's writing, it was bitter
and vindictive; but, notwithstanding her irritation at the style, Gemma
could not help recognizing in her heart the justice of the criticism.
"I quite agree with you that it is detestably malicious," she said,
laying down the manuscript. "But the worst thing about it is that it's all
true."
"Gemma!"
"Yes, but it is. The man's a cold-blooded eel, if you like; but he's
got the truth on his side. There is no use in our trying to persuade
ourselves that this doesn't hit the mark--it does!"
"Then do you suggest that we should print it?"
"Ah! that's quite another matter. I certainly don't think we ought to
print it as it stands; it would hurt and alienate everybody and do no good.
But if he would rewrite it and cut out the personal attacks, I think it
might be made into a really valuable piece of work. As political criticism
it is very fine. I had no idea he could write so well. He says things which
need saying and which none of us have had the courage to say. This passage,
where he compares Italy to a tipsy man weeping with tenderness on the neck
of the thief who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written."
"Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured
yelping at everything and everybody!"
"So do I; but that's not the point. Rivarez has a very disagreeable
style, and as a human being he is not attractive; but when he says that we
have made ourselves drunk with processions and embracing and shouting about
love and reconciliation, and that the Jesuits and Sanfedists are the people
who will profit by it all, he's right a thousand times. I wish I could have
been at the committee yesterday. What decision did you finally arrive at?"
"What I have come here about: to ask you to go and talk it over with
him and persuade him to soften the thing."
"Me? But I hardly know the man; and besides that, he detests me. Why
should I go, of all people?"
"Simply because there's no one else to do it to-day. Besides, you are
more reasonable than the rest of us, and won't get into useless arguments
and quarrel with him, as we should."
"I shan't do that, certainly. Well, I will go if you like, though I
have not much hope of success."
"I am sure you will be able to manage him if you try. Yes, and tell him
that the committee all admired the thing from a literary point of view. That
will put him into a good humour, and it's perfectly true, too."
. . . . .
The Gadfly was sitting beside a table covered with flowers and ferns,
staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy
collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma
knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff,
ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and expressionless.
"You are too kind," he said in his most chilling manner. "If you had
let me know that you wanted to speak to me I would have called on you."
Seeing that he evidently wished her at the end of the earth, Gemma
hastened to state her business. He bowed again and placed a chair for her.
"The committee wished me to call upon you," she began, "because there
has been a certain difference of opinion about your pamphlet."
"So I expected." He smiled and sat down opposite to her, drawing a
large vase of chrysanthemums between his face and the light.
"Most of the members agreed that, however much they may admire the
pamphlet as a literary composition, they do not think that in its present
form it is quite suitable for publication. They fear that the vehemence of
its tone may give offence, and alienate persons whose help and support are
valuable to the party."
He pulled a chrysanthemum from the vase and began slowly plucking off
one white petal after another. As her eyes happened to catch the movement of
the slim right hand dropping the petals, one by one, an uncomfortable
sensation came over Gemma, as though she had somewhere seen that gesture
before.
"As a literary composition," he remarked in his soft, cold voice, "it
is utterly worthless, and could be admired only by persons who know nothing
about literature. As for its giving offence, that is the very thing I
intended it to do."
"That I quite understand. The question is whether you may not succeed
in giving offence to the wrong people."
He shrugged his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth.
"I think you are mistaken," he said. "The question is: For what purpose did
your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and ridicule
the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to the best of my ability."
"And I can assure you that no one has any doubt as to either the
ability or the good-will. What the committee fears is that the liberal party
may take offence, and also that the town workmen may withdraw their moral
support. You may have meant the pamphlet for an attack upon the Sanfedists:
but many readers will construe it as an attack upon the Church and the new
Pope; and this, as a matter of political tactics, the committee does not
consider desirable."
"I begin to understand. So long as I keep to the particular set of
clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms, I may speak
sooth if the fancy takes me; but directly I touch upon the committee's own
pet priests--'truth's a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when
the--Holy Father may stand by the fire and-----' Yes, the fool was right;
I'd rather be any kind of a thing than a fool. Of course I must bow to the
committee's decision, but I continue to think that it has pared its wit o'
both sides and left--M-mon-signor M-m-montan-n-nelli in the middle."
"Montanelli?" Gemma repeated. "I don't understand you. Do you mean the
Bishop of Brisighella?"
"Yes; the new Pope has just created him a Cardinal, you know. I have a
letter about him here. Would you care to hear it? The writer is a friend of
mine on the other side of the frontier."
"The Papal frontier?"
"Yes. This is what he writes----" He took up the letter which had been
in his hand when she entered, and read aloud, suddenly beginning to stammer
violently:
"'Y-o-you will s-s-s-soon have the p-pleasure of m-m-meeting one of our
w-w-worst enemies, C-cardinal Lorenzo M-montan-n-nelli, the B-b-bishop of
Brisig-g-hella. He int-t----'"
He broke off, paused a moment, and began again, very slowly and
drawling insufferably, but no longer stammering:
"'He intends to visit Tuscany during the coming month on a mission of
reconciliation. He will preach first in Florence, where he will stay for
about three weeks; then will go on to Siena and Pisa, and return to the
Romagna by Pistoja. He ostensibly belongs to the liberal party in the
Church, and is a personal friend of the Pope and Cardinal Feretti. Under
Gregory he was out of favour, and was kept out of sight in a little hole in
the Apennines. Now he has come suddenly to the front. Really, of course, he
is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the country. This
mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is one of the most
brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous in his way as
Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular enthusiasm over
the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public attention until the Grand
Duke has signed a project which the agents of the Jesuits are preparing to
lay before him. What this project is I have been unable to discover.' Then,
further on, it says: 'Whether Montanelli understands for what purpose he is
being sent to Tuscany, or whether the Jesuits are playing on him, I cannot
make out. He is either an uncommonly clever knave, or the biggest ass that
was ever foaled. The odd thing is that, so far as I can discover, he neither
takes bribes nor keeps mistresses--the first time I ever came across such a
thing.'"
He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes,
waiting, apparently, for her to speak.
"Are you satisfied that your informant is correct in his facts?" she
asked after a moment.
"As to the irreproachable character of Monsignor M-mon-t-tan-nelli's
private life? No; but neither is he. As you will observe, he puts in the
s-s-saving clause: 'So far as I c-can discover----
"I was not speaking of that," she interposed coldly, "but of the part
about this mission."
"I can fully trust the writer. He is an old friend of mine--one of my
comrades of '43, and he is in a position which gives him exceptional
opportunities for finding out things of that kind."
"Some official at the Vatican," thought Gemma quickly. "So that's the
kind of connections you have? I guessed there was something of that sort."
"This letter is, of course, a private one," the Gadfly went on; "and
you understand that the information is to be kept strictly to the members of
your committee."
"That hardly needs saying. Then about the pamphlet: may I tell the
committee that you consent to make a few alterations and soften it a little,
or that----"
"Don't you think the alterations may succeed in spoiling the beauty of
the 'literary composition,' signora, as well as in reducing the vehemence of
the tone?"
"You are asking my personal opinion. What I have come here to express
is that of the committee as a whole."
"Does that imply that y-y-you disagree with the committee as a whole?"
He had put the letter into his pocket and was now leaning forward and
looking at her with an eager, concentrated expression which quite changed
the character of his face. "You think----" "If you care to know what I
personally think --I disagree with the majority on both points. I do not at
all admire the pamphlet from a literary point of view, and I do think it
true as a presentation of facts and wise as a matter of tactics."
"That is------"
"I quite agree with you that Italy is being led away by a
will-o'-the-wisp and that all this enthusiasm and rejoicing will probably
land her in a terrible bog; and I should be most heartily glad to have that
openly and boldly said, even at the cost of offending or alienating some of
our present supporters. But as a member of a body the large majority of
which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my personal opinion; and
I certainly think that if things of that kind are to be said at all, they
should be said temperately and quietly; not in the tone adopted in this
pamphlet."
"Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?"
He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled
on his face.
"Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The thing's written like a
cafe chantant skit, not a political satire. But what's a man to do? If I
write decently the public won't understand it; they will say it's dull if it
isn't spiteful enough."
"Don't you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much
of it?"
He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.
"Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who
are always right! Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I may
come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini? Heavens, what a fate! No,
you needn't frown. I know you don't like me, and I am going to keep to
business. What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut out the
personalities and leave the essential part of the thing as it is, the
committee will very much regret that they can't take the responsibility of
printing it. If I cut out the political truth and make all the hard names
apply to no one but the party's enemies, the committee will praise the thing
up to the skies, and you and I will know it's not worth printing. Rather a
nice point of metaphysics: Which is the more desirable condition, to be
printed and not be worth it, or to be worth it and not be printed? Well,
signora?"
"I do not think you are tied to any such alternative. I believe that if
you were to cut out the personalities the committee would consent to print
the pamphlet, though the majority would, of course, not agree with it; and I
am convinced that it would be very useful. But you would have to lay aside
the spitefulness. If you are going to say a thing the substance of which is
a big pill for your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening them
at the beginning by the form."
He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "I submit, signora;
but on one condition. If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it out next
time. When His Eminence, the irreproachable Cardinal, turns up in Florence,
neither you nor your committee must object to my being as spiteful as I
like. It's my due!"
He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling the chrysanthemums
out of their vase and holding them up to watch the light through the
translucent petals. "What an unsteady hand he has," she thought, seeing how
the flowers shook and quivered. "Surely he doesn't drink!"
"You had better discuss the matter with the other members of the
committee," she said, rising. "I cannot form any opinion as to what they
will think about it."
"And you?" He had risen too, and was leaning against the table,
pressing the flowers to his face
She hesitated. The question distressed her, bringing up old and
miserable associations. "I --hardly know," she said at last. "Many years ago
I used to know something about Monsignor Montanelli. He was only a canon at
that time, and Director of the theological seminary in the province where I
lived as a girl. I heard a great deal about him from--someone who knew him
very intimately; and I never heard anything of him that was not good. I
believe that, in those days at least, he was really a most remarkable man.
But that was long ago, and he may have changed. Irresponsible power corrupts
so many people."
The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and looked at her with a
steady face.
"At any rate," he said, "if Monsignor Montanelli is not himself a
scoundrel, he is a tool in scoundrelly hands. It is all one to me which he
is--and to my friends across the frontier. A stone in the path may have the
best intentions, but it must be kicked out of the path, for all that. Allow
me, signora!" He rang the bell, and, limping to the door, opened it for her
to pass out.
"It was very kind of you to call, signora. May I send for a vettura?
No? Good-afternoon, then! Bianca, open the hall-door, please."
Gemma went out into the street, pondering anxiously. "My friends across
the frontier"-- who were they? And how was the stone to be kicked out of the
path? If with satire only, why had he said it with such dangerous eyes?
MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence in the first week of October.
His visit caused a little flutter of excitement throughout the town. He was
a famous preacher and a representative of the reformed Papacy; and people
looked eagerly to him for an exposition of the "new doctrine," the gospel of
love and reconciliation which was to cure the sorrows of Italy. The
nomination of Cardinal Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship in place of
the universally detested Lambruschini had raised the public enthusiasm to
its highest pitch; and Montanelli was just the man who could most easily
sustain it. The irreproachable strictness of his life was a phenomenon
sufficiently rare among the high dignitaries of the Roman Church to attract
the attention of people accustomed to regard blackmailing, peculation, and
disreputable intrigues as almost invariable adjuncts to the career of a
prelate. Moreover, his talent as a preacher was really great; and with his
beautiful voice and magnetic personality, he would in any time and place
have made his mark.
Grassini, as usual, strained every nerve to get the newly arrived
celebrity to his house; but Montanelli was no easy game to catch. To all
invitations he replied with the same courteous but positive refusal, saying
that his health was bad and his time fully occupied, and that he had neither
strength nor leisure for going into society.
"What omnivorous creatures those Grassinis are!" Martini said
contemptuously to Gemma as they crossed the Signoria square one bright, cold
Sunday morning. "Did you notice the way Grassini bowed when the Cardinal's
carriage drove up? It's all one to them who a man is, so long as he's talked
about. I never saw such lion-hunters in my life. Only last August it was the
Gadfly; now it's Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels flattered at the
attention; a precious lot of adventurers have shared it with him."
They had been hearing Montanelli preach in the Cathedral; and the great
building had been so thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing a
return of Gemma's troublesome headaches, had persuaded her to come away
before the Mass was over. The sunny morning, the first after a week of rain,
offered him an excuse for suggesting a walk among the garden slopes by San
Niccolo.
"No," she answered; "I should like a walk if you have time; but not to
the hills. Let us keep along the Lung'Arno; Montanelli will pass on his way
back from church and I am like Grassini-- I want to see the notability."
"But you have just seen him."
"Not close. There was such a crush in the Cathedral, and his back was
turned to us when the carriage passed. If we keep near to the bridge we
shall be sure to see him well--he is staying on the Lung'Arno, you know."
"But what has given you such a sudden fancy to see Montanelli? You
never used to care about famous preachers."
"It is not famous preachers; it is the man himself; I want to see how
much he has changed since I saw him last."
"When was that?"
"Two days after Arthur's death."
Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had come out on to the
Lung'Arno, and she was staring absently across the water, with a look on her
face that he hated to see.
"Gemma, dear," he said after a moment; "are you going to let that
miserable business haunt you all your life? We have all made mistakes when
we were seventeen."
"We have not all killed our dearest friend when we were seventeen," she
answered wearily; and, leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the
bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held his tongue; he was almost
afraid to speak to her when this mood was on her.
"I never look down at water without remembering," she said, slowly
raising her eyes to his; then with a nervous little shiver: "Let us walk on
a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing."
They crossed the bridge in silence and walked on along the river-side.
After a few minutes she spoke again.
"What a beautiful voice that man has! There is something about it that
I have never heard in any other human voice. I believe it is the secret of
half his influence."
"It is a wonderful voice," Martini assented, catching at a subject of
conversation which might lead her away from the dreadful memory called up by
the river, "and he is, apart from his voice, about the finest preacher I
have ever heard. But I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than
that. It is the way his life stands out from that of almost all the other
prelates. I don't know whether you could lay your hand on one other high
dignitary in all the Italian Church--except the Pope himself--whose
reputation is so utterly spotless. I remember, when I was in the Romagna
last year, passing through his diocese and seeing those fierce mountaineers
waiting in the rain to get a glimpse of him or touch his dress. He is
venerated there almost as a saint; and that means a good deal among the
Romagnols, who generally hate everything that wears a cassock. I remarked to
one of the old peasants,--as typical a smuggler as ever I saw in my
life,--that the people seemed very much devoted to their bishop, and he
said: 'We don't love bishops, they are liars; we love Monsignor Montanelli.
Nobody has ever known him to tell a lie or do an unjust thing.'"
"I wonder," Gemma said, half to herself, "if he knows the people think
that about him."
"Why shouldn't he know it? Do you think it is not true?"
"I know it is not true."
"How do you know it?"
"Because he told me so."
"HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?"
She pushed the hair back from her forehead and turned towards him. They
were standing still again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly
drawing lines on the pavement with the point of her umbrella.
"Cesare, you and I have been friends for all these years, and I have
never told you what really happened about Arthur."
"There is no need to tell me, dear," he broke in hastily; "I know all
about it already."
"Giovanni told you?"
"Yes, when he was dying. He told me about it one night when I was
sitting up with him. He said---- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the
truth, now we have begun talking about it--he said that you were always
brooding over that wretched story, and he begged me to be as good a friend
to you as I could and try to keep you from thinking of it. And I have tried
to, dear, though I may not have succeeded--I have, indeed."
"I know you have," she answered softly, raising her eyes for a moment;
"I should have been badly off without your friendship. But--Giovanni did not
tell you about Monsignor Montanelli, then?"
"No, I didn't know that he had anything to do with it. What he told me
was about--all that affair with the spy, and about----"
"About my striking Arthur and his drowning himself. Well, I will tell
you about Montanelli."
They turned back towards the bridge over which the Cardinal's carriage
would have to pass. Gemma looked out steadily across the water as she spoke.
"In those days Montanelli was a canon; he was Director of the
Theological Seminary at Pisa, and used to give Arthur lessons in philosophy
and read with him after he went up to the Sapienza. They were perfectly
devoted to each other; more like two lovers than teacher and pupil. Arthur
almost worshipped the ground that Montanelli walked on, and I remember his
once telling me that if he lost his 'Padre'--he always used to call
Montanelli so --he should go and drown himself. Well, then you know what
happened about the spy. The next day, my father and the Burtons--Arthur's
step-brothers, most detestable people--spent the whole day dragging the
Darsena basin for the body; and I sat in my room alone and thought of what I
had done----"
She paused a moment, and went on again:
"Late in the evening my father came into my room and said: 'Gemma,
child, come downstairs; there's a man I want you to see.' And when we went
down there was one of the students belonging to the group sitting in the
consulting room, all white and shaking; and he told us about Giovanni's
second letter coming from the prison to say that they had heard from the
jailer about Cardi, and that Arthur had been tricked in the confessional. I
remember the student saying to me: 'It is at least some consolation that we
know he was innocent' My father held my hands and tried to comfort me; he
did not know then about the blow. Then I went back to my room and sat there
all night alone. In the morning my father went out again with the Burtons to
see the harbour dragged. They had some hope of finding the body there."
"It was never found, was it?"
"No; it must have got washed out to sea; but they thought there was a
chance. I was alone in my room and the servant came up to say that a
'reverendissimo padre' had called and she had told him my father was at the
docks and he had gone away. I knew it must be Montanelli; so I ran out at
the back door and caught him up at the garden gate. When I said: 'Canon
Montanelli, I want to speak to you,' he just stopped and waited silently for
me to speak. Oh, Cesare, if you had seen his face--it haunted me for months
afterwards! I said: 'I am Dr. Warren's daughter, and I have come to tell you
that it is I who have killed Arthur.' I told him everything, and he stood
and listened, like a figure cut in stone, till I had finished; then he said:
'Set your heart at rest, my child; it is I that am a murderer, not you. I
deceived him and he found it out.' And with that he turned and went out at
the gate without another word."
"And then?"
"I don't know what happened to him after that; I heard the same evening
that he had fallen down in the street in a kind of fit and had been carried
into a house near the docks; but that is all I know. My father did
everything he could for me; when I told him about it he threw up his
practice and took me away to England at once, so that I should never hear
anything that could remind me. He was afraid I should end in the water, too;
and indeed I believe I was near it at one time. But then, you know, when we
found out that my father had cancer I was obliged to come to myself--there
was no one else to nurse him. And after he died I was left with the little
ones on my hands until my elder brother was able to give them a home. Then
there was Giovanni. Do you know, when he came to England we were almost
afraid to meet each other with that frightful memory between us. He was so
bitterly remorseful for his share in it all--that unhappy letter he wrote
from prison. But I believe, really, it was our common trouble that drew us
together."
Martini smiled and shook his head.
"It may have been so on your side," he said; "but Giovanni had made up
his mind from the first time he ever saw you. I remember his coming back to
Milan after that first visit to Leghorn and raving about you to me till I
was perfectly sick of hearing of the English Gemma. I thought I should hate
you. Ah! there it comes!"
The carriage crossed the bridge and drove up to a large house on the
Lung'Arno. Montanelli was leaning back on the cushions as if too tired to
care any longer for the enthusiastic crowd which had collected round the
door to catch a glimpse of him. The inspired look that his face had worn in
the Cathedral had faded quite away and the sunlight showed the lines of care
and fatigue. When he had alighted and passed, with the heavy, spiritless
tread of weary and heart-sick old age, into the house, Gemma turned away and
walked slowly to the bridge. Her face seemed for a moment to reflect the
withered, hopeless look of his. Martini walked beside her in silence.
"I have so often wondered," she began again after a little pause; "what
he meant about the deception. It has sometimes occurred to me----"
"Yes?"
"Well, it is very strange; there was the most extraordinary personal
resemblance between them."
"Between whom?"
"Arthur and Montanelli. It was not only I who noticed it. And there was
something mysterious in the relationship between the members of that
household. Mrs. Burton, Arthur's mother, was one of the sweetest women I
ever knew. Her face had the same spiritual look as Arthur's, and I believe
they were alike in character, too. But she always seemed half frightened,
like a detected criminal; and her step-son's wife used to treat her as no
decent person treats a dog. And then Arthur himself was such a startling
contrast to all those vulgar Burtons. Of course, when one is a child one
takes everything for granted; but looking back on it afterwards I have often
wondered whether Arthur was really a Burton."
"Possibly he found out something about his mother--that may easily have
been the cause of his death, not the Cardi affair at all," Martini
interposed, offering the only consolation he could think of at the moment.
Gemma shook her head.
"If you could have seen his face after I struck him, Cesare, you would
not think that. It may be all true about Montanelli--very likely it is-- but
what I have done I have done."
They walked on a little way without speaking,
"My dear," Martini said at last; "if there were any way on earth to
undo a thing that is once done, it would be worth while to brood over our
old mistakes; but as it is, let the dead bury their dead. It is a terrible
story, but at least the poor lad is out of it now, and luckier than some of
those that are left--the ones that are in exile and in prison. You and I
have them to think of, we have no right to eat out our hearts for the dead.
Remember what your own Shelley says: 'The past is Death's, the future is
thine own.' Take it, while it is still yours, and fix your mind, not on what
you may have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can do now to help."
In his earnestness he had taken her hand. He dropped it suddenly and
drew back at the sound of a soft, cold, drawling voice behind him.
"Monsignor Montan-n-nelli," murmured this languid voice, "is
undoubtedly all you say, my dear doctor. In fact, he appears to be so much
too good for this world that he ought to be politely escorted into the next.
I am sure he would cause as great a sensation there as he has done here;
there are p-p-probably many old-established ghosts who have never seen such
a thing as an honest cardinal. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they
do novelties----"
"How do you know that?" asked Dr. Riccardo's voice in a tone of
ill-suppressed irritation.
"From Holy Writ, my dear sir. If the Gospel is to be trusted, even the
most respectable of all Ghosts had a f-f-fancy for capricious alliances.
Now, honesty and c-c-cardinals--that seems to me a somewhat capricious
alliance, and rather an uncomfortable one, like shrimps and liquorice. Ah,
Signor Martini, and Signora Bolla! Lovely weather after the rain, is it not?
Have you been to hear the n-new Savonarola, too?"
Martini turned round sharply. The Gadfly, with a cigar in his mouth and
a hot-house flower in his buttonhole, was holding out to him a slender,
carefully-gloved hand. With the sunlight reflected in his immaculate boots
and glancing back from the water on to his smiling face, he looked to
Martini less lame and more conceited than usual. They were shaking hands,
affably on the one side and rather sulkily on the other, when Riccardo
hastily exclaimed:
"I am afraid Signora Bolla is not well!"
She was so pale that her face looked almost livid under the shadow of
her bonnet, and the ribbon at her throat fluttered perceptibly from the
violent beating of the heart.
"I will go home," she said faintly.
A cab was called and Martini got in with her to see her safely home. As
the Gadfly bent down to arrange her cloak, which was hanging over the wheel,
he raised his eyes suddenly to her face, and Martini saw that she shrank
away with a look of something like terror.
"Gemma, what is the matter with you?" he asked, in English, when they
had started. "What did that scoundrel say to you?"
"Nothing, Cesare; it was no fault of his. I-- I--had a fright----"
"A fright?"
"Yes; I fancied----" She put one hand over her eyes, and he waited
silently till she should recover her self-command. Her face was already
regaining its natural colour.
"You are quite right," she said at last, turning to him and speaking in
her usual voice; "it is worse than useless to look back at a horrible past.
It plays tricks with one's nerves and makes one imagine all sorts of
impossible things. We will NEVER talk about that subject again, Cesare, or I
shall see fantastic likenesses to Arthur in every face I meet. It is a kind
of hallucination, like a nightmare in broad daylight. Just now, when that
odious little fop came up, I fancied it was Arthur."
THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He had arrived
in Florence in August, and by the end of October three-fourths of the
committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage attacks
upon Montanelli had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli himself, who at
first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty satirist said or did,
began to acknowledge with an aggrieved air that Montanelli had better have
been left in peace. "Decent cardinals are none so plenty. One might treat
them politely when they do turn up."
The only person who, apparently, remained quite indifferent to the
storm of caricatures and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
Martini said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing a man
who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that Montanelli, one
day when the Archbishop of Florence was dining with him, had found in the
room one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons against himself, had read
it through and handed the paper to the Archbishop, remarking: "That is
rather cleverly put, is it not?"
One day there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: "The Mystery of
the Annunciation." Even had the author omitted his now familiar signature, a
sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant style would have
left in the minds of most readers no doubt as to his identity. The skit was
in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli
as the angel who, bearing the lilies of purity and crowned with the olive
branch of peace, was announcing the advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing
was full of offensive personal allusions and hints of the most risky nature,
and all Florence felt the satire to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet
all Florence laughed. There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's
grave absurdities that those who most disapproved of and disliked him
laughed as immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans.
Repulsive in tone as the leaflet was, it left its trace upon the popular
feeling of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
lampoon, however witty, seriously to injure it, but for a moment the tide
almost turned against him. The Gadfly had known where to sting; and, though
eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house to see him enter or
leave his carriage, ominous cries of "Jesuit!" and "Sanfedist spy!" often
mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two days after the
publication of the skit, the Churchman, a leading clerical paper, brought
out a brilliant article, called: "An Answer to 'The Mystery of the
Annunciation,'" and signed: "A Son of the Church." It was an impassioned
defence of Montanelli against the Gadfly's slanderous imputations. The
anonymous writer, after expounding, with great eloquence and fervour, the
doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards men, of which the new
Pontiff was the evangelist, concluded by challenging the Gadfly to prove a
single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing to the public not to
believe a contemptible slanderer. Both the cogency of the article as a bit
of special pleading and its merit as a literary composition were
sufficiently far above the average to attract much attention in the town,
especially as not even the editor of the newspaper could guess the author's
identity. The article was soon reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and
the "anonymous defender" was discussed in every coffee-shop in Florence.
The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on the new Pontificate and
all its supporters, especially on Montanelli, who, he cautiously hinted, had
probably consented to the panegyric on himself. To this the anonymous
defender again replied in the Churchman with an indignant denial. During the
rest of Montanelli's stay the controversy raging between the two writers
occupied more of the public attention than did even the famous preacher
himself.
Some members of the liberal party ventured to remonstrate with the
Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but they
did not get much satisfaction out of him. He only smiled affably and
answered with a languid little stammer: "R-really, gentlemen, you are rather
unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave in to Signora Bolla, that I
should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now. It is so nominated
in the bond!"
At the end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna,
and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke
of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both writers and
begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance by closing a
useless and unseemly war of words. On the following day the Churchman
contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly expressed
desire, "A Son of the Church" would withdraw from the controversy.
The last word remained with the Gadfly. He issued a little leaflet, in
which he declared himself disarmed and converted by Montanelli's Christian
meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation upon the neck of the
first Sanfedist he met. "I am even willing," he concluded; "to embrace my
anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as his Eminence and I
know, what that implies and why he remains anonymous, they would believe in
the sincerity of my conversion."
In the latter part of November he announced to the literary committee
that he was going for a fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went,
apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going there soon after and wishing
to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th of December a
political demonstration of the most extreme character burst out in the
States of the Church, along the whole chain of the Apennines; and people