Chapter XI: Away From Love and the World

I

Donna Fedele, who was in pain, was lying on her bed reading. The maid came in to say that the little girl to whom her mistress taught French had come for her lesson. Donna Fedele hesitated for a moment, and then said she did not feel able to give the lesson that day. Presently the maid returned with a bunch of Alpine roses the child had brought for her teacher. The Signora was touched, and told the maid to call to the little girl from the window, for she was already on her way to the gate.

"I will hear you read," said the teacher, when she had thanked the child for the flowers with a kiss, "Get your book."

The book was "La Fontaine." The child read the fable of the locust and the ant--badly and with an atrocious accent. Donna Fedele was obliged to correct her at almost every word, and had great difficulty in making her understand the lesson the fable is meant to teach. She lost patience both with herself and the child, who, when asked if she had rather be the locust or the ant, promptly replied "The ant," and there was no making her see the harshness and unkindness of that provident insect's answer.

The little girl had just gone when Leila came in, and found her friend completely exhausted.

"How could I possibly leave you," she said, sitting down beside her, "when you are like this!"

Donna Fedele stretched out her hand to her, and repeated "La Fontaine's" lines in a low tone:

"'La cigale ayant chanté tout l'été,
Se trouva fort dépourvue
Quand la bise fut venue.'

have telegraphed for a kind 'ant,'" she added.

Leila hid her tearful face in the bedclothes, as if to stifle the cry that sprang from her heart: "I will not go! I will not! I will not!"

That morning she had received two letters, one from her father, the other from the archpriest of Velo. The letter from her father, which Molesin had carefully revised, was a withdrawal of his permission to go away with Donna Fedele. Sior Momi wrote that both the maid Teresina and his housekeeper had suddenly deserted him. Teresina was bound to leave immediately, and the housekeeper was already gone. His health was becoming rapidly impaired, and his daughter's presence was absolutely necessary. The archpriest's letter, which had been inspired by the chaplain, contained an appeal to Leila's kindness of heart on behalf of a poor family at Lago di Velo, who were in need of both spiritual and material aid. Signor Marcello had helped them, and the archpriest trusted that Leila would be willing to continue this work of charity, adding to her kindness a personal visit. Neither Leila nor Donna Fedele suspected that there was any connection between the two letters, but under the shock of the first Leila had quivered like some small wild animal. Donna Fedele had given her time to relieve her feelings, and then, very gently and softly, had advised her to think over it. The mere suggestion of the possibility implied by such advice was enough to make Leila burst into tears. Then her friend had tried to console her with tender caresses, and, touching as lightly as possible upon the legal obligation to obey the summons, pointed out the good she might do her father by purifying his home and surroundings and by her example. Should anything of a scandalous nature take place in the house, then no one would be able to oblige her to remain, and she should return to the Villino. She, Donna Fedele, would find a means of protecting her. In a few months now she would be of age and her own mistress, and her father could then remain at the Montanina only with her consent. At this point Leila, who was greatly overcome, confessed that it was her intention to relinquish Signor Marcello's heritage as soon as she should come of age. Donna Fedele shuddered at thought of such an affront to her dead friend, and reproached the girl bitterly, accusing her of unreasoning pride. Leila, in her turn, became angry.

"After all," said she, "what right have you to talk to me in this way?"

Donna Fedele was too hurt to speak, but presently, with a fresh outburst of grief, Leila flung her arms about her friend's neck, sobbing:

"I will do as you wish!"

II

This had happened on Saturday. It was decided that Leila should return to the Montanina in the course of a few days, when the elderly cousin to whom Donna Fedele had telegraphed should have arrived. This cousin would accompany the invalid to Turin, where Carle was to examine her, as soon as she should be able to take the journey. For the time being travelling was out of the question.

That same evening as Leila was going to sleep in her own room Donna Fedele called her to her bedside.

"Listen, dear," she began. "I have received a letter from Alberti. I have been hesitating whether to show it to you, but I have finally decided to let you see it. I may not be acting wisely, but I beg you not to make me regret having done so. I wish you, once for all, to see him as he really is. Do not read it here," she said, giving Leila the letter. "Take it to your own room. You can bring it back to me in the morning."

III

Leila sat on the edge of her bed with the letter in her hand, trying to fix her thoughts on something that would calm the throbbing of her heart. She remembered "La Fontaine's" fable, and repeated the lines Donna Fedele had quoted. At last she determined to read the letter.

She found it impossible to read it straight through. First she counted the pages. There were twelve. Then she read the address. Dasio? Where was Dasio? She glanced at the first lines: "I am writing to you from a small and lonely village high up among the mountains and the mists...." She turned to the last words: "Pray that I may find peace. I have more need of it now than I shall ever have, and I hope I have discovered the path that leads to it, but I have still a long way to go."

She shook with emotion, but quickly controlled herself, and rapidly turned over the twelve pages, seeking her own name. It was there, it was really there! She glanced at the words--fearfully, thirstingly--reading, and yet not reading. There was much concerning her, and the sweet was mingled with the bitter. Leila perceived this, but running thus through the pages she could form no idea of the writer's state of mind, of his feelings toward herself. Would it not be better, she thought, to do no more than glance at the words, to refrain from reading them carefully, if they were going to increase her suffering? For she had promised to go on living. Her thirst to read grew, and her determination to resist stiffened. But suddenly and rapidly both began to weaken, one annihilating the other. Automatically she began once more to read, beginning where her name was first mentioned:

"_Leila!_ I am both ashamed of my emotion and angry with myself, dear Mother Fedele, but the truth is that I suddenly felt the blood freeze in my veins, and laying down my pen, I buried my face in my hands, and remained thus I know not how long, struggling against the desire to picture her to myself as being here. Now the spasm has passed, and I am full of contempt for not being able to be just towards a child who is not to blame that she judged me wrongly, that she does not possess the qualities with which I insanely imagined her to be endowed, and for no other reason than that she is beautiful."

At this point Leila, quivering from head to foot, gripped the letter so hard as to crumple its edges, but she controlled herself and read on eagerly:

"But one day I shall even be grateful to her for having repulsed me, for I shall see clearly that I could never have been happy with a woman so far removed, and in so many ways, from my mode of thought. To-day my dangerous inclination would be to seek in love, not an affinity of ideas but only love itself; to-day I would have the woman of my choice ask me for love alone, and I could wish that there exist for us no past and no future, but only an eternal present, wherein only the unreasoning senses should throb in perfect harmony. But I know that should this mad dream come true, life would quickly bring disenchantment. The Scriptures say, 'Woe to him who is alone!' 'No, no! Strength and glory to him who is alone,' say I!

"The healing of my wounds is not my only preoccupation in this solitude. Would it not perhaps be better to keep them open? They have made a man of me. But the peace of this place enables me to meditate upon that solution of the religious problem for which I once fought, but about which I no longer feel so certain. Dear friend, dear Mother Fedele, to no one save to you could I confess this terrible uncertainty, and perhaps I would not do so even to you did I not feel the horror of it, and, at the same time, the desire to set it before me in black and white."

Leila looked on to discover any further references to herself and to his love. She saw the names of Don Aurelio and of Benedetto, and turning back, read the same passage over again, beginning with the words, "To-day my dangerous inclination..." and ending with "the unreasoning senses, throbbing in perfect harmony." Here she paused, trembling, and, still struggling against pride, she raised the words to her lips, which she pressed half-open upon them, with a gentle touch, as if vaguely forming a kiss that pride half forbade. Once more she read the lines, and kept her eyes fixed upon them until the rest of the page became a misty blur around these magic words. She read no farther, but undressing herself, placed the letter under her pillow and got into bed. She dreamed of a great multitude of wind-tossed beings, with whom she mingled, flying in an agony of fear above a hideous stream, which flowed darkly in the depths below. Suddenly she felt herself falling through space; and awoke. She felt for the letter, suddenly overtaken by the fear that it showed in parts too clearly that Alberti's love for her was dying. She lit a candle, and sitting up in bed, read the letter carefully, studying the most painful passages. It ran as follows:

"_Dasio_....

"DEAR FRIEND,--I am writing to you from a small, lonely village, high up among the mountains and the mists. For the time being I have broken with Milan and with the world. I will tell you all, for I love you as a son, and if this pretence motherhood be not displeasing to you, I should like to call you 'Mother Fedele.' May I? And so I am going to tell you everything. I have long felt ill at ease in my uncle's house. My uncle is a good man who has solved the problem of combining religious intolerance with charity. If all intolerant people were like my uncle they would compel the whole world to respect their doctrines. But he has not kept in touch with religious questions, and, accepting the opinions of certain persons who do not know my true feelings, he sets me down as a lost sheep. Neither in intellectual matters have we anything in common, and I feel, too, that he disapproves of my not having followed some regular and profitable occupation.

"Annoyances of a serious nature, of which Don Aurelio has surely told you, drove me to seek peace and quietude at Velo d'Astico. You know what peace I found there! On my return to Milan I discovered urgent reasons why I should not continue to live on my uncle's bounty, and it was immediately after our sad visit to the cemetery of Velo that I read in the _Corriere_ the announcement of a vacancy for the post of parish-doctor at Valsolda in the province of Como. The announcement attracted me, for I should soon be obliged to go to that place to perform a sacred duty towards the person and memory of the man I have loved best in this world. I started for Valsolda at once, telling my uncle that I was going to apply for the post, and that I wished to see the country, with which I was quite unacquainted.

"I did not tell him of my determination to leave Milan for good, if at Valsolda or elsewhere, whether or not I secured the post, I could find a quiet place of retreat.

"One of the Lake of Lugano boats brought me to a village which, they told me, was the centre of Valsolda. As soon as I had set foot there I saw that it was no place for me, that I should not find there the solitude I desired. I heard of a decent inn in the highest and most remote village in the valley, and here I am in this hermitage called Dasio, resting amidst the cool, dark verdure, beneath mighty crags that tower above it on the north and east. Here I am, apparently at a distance of four or five hours from Milan, but, in reality, immeasurably remote from it. My inn, at which I am the only visitor, is called 'Pension Restaurant du Jardin.' I am writing in a comfortable square room, and I have carried paper and ink to the broad sill of a window that looks out upon a vast sweep of verdure, rolling downwards to the lake's deep mirror, amidst an all-pervading silence. Were my soul at peace, and all the ties that still bind me to the world severed for ever, I should be better able to feel this peace in all things, this harmony between the mighty hills and the tiny churches in the valley, calling humanity back to God. Near my inn stands the village church. From my window I can read the words '_Divo Bernardino_' upon its front. Is it he of Siena? I hope so. Indeed, I do not know any other. On the right, lower down, and in the distance, a campanile stands out above the lake. Had I peace within me I could feel more intensely the peace of these venerable churches, of these stones, that are ignorant of our struggles, and are the guardians of the Catholic spirit of our fathers. Alas! dear Mother Fedele, I can hold no converse either with the hills, the valleys, or the churches. I cannot feel the quiet of all things because there is no peace within my soul, but only a weary round of impulses continuously coming and going. Even when they cease I am not at rest, but rather faint with a mortal exhaustion. From mortal exhaustion I pass to a state of bitter irritation, and from bitterness to paralysing terrors. I do not give way unresistingly to these feelings, but the very struggle excludes peace. The first effect of the silence of Dasio is to make me even more painfully alive to the voices of the world from which I have fled.

"I feel at times as if some evil spirit had undertaken to keep me mindful of them. My window looks out on the church-place of San Bernardino. Some children are playing there, and a merry voice has just cried out: 'Leila!'"

Long before reaching this point the young girl had begun to tremble. She trembled lest her pride should forsake her, lest the writer's harshest words concerning her should seem too mild, lest also she should discover some sign that his love for her was disappearing. She passed over the part of the letter she had already read and went on:

"My present state of mind regarding the Catholic faith is not altogether new, but it is only recently that I have realised this.

"As a lad I was often beset by doubts. During my student days in Rome I was like a piece of seaweed that has been torn up by the roots, and floats at the mercy of the tide. But then I met the man whose body will soon be brought hither and laid to rest. I worshipped him, and as long as he lived no shadow of doubt ever again assailed me. I would gladly have given my life for my faith and the Church. I may have wished, at times, that ecclesiastical authority had taken another course in this matter or that, but the possibility of rebellion against it never occurred to me either then or for some time after my Master's death. Then the unjust accusations of wilful dissent from Catholic doctrine brought against him, the hostility which I, as his disciple, met with from a Pharisaical rabble, and, on the other hand, the corrosive effect of hypercriticism and contact with certain aimless doctrinaires--all these influences prepared the gradual dissolution, which is steadily advancing, of the body of my beliefs. Do not think, dear friend, that I am losing my faith as some do, who, less clever and cultured than they think, despise Catholicism on account of certain ritualistic practices, or of some obscurities in its dogmas, that appear to them simply absurd and even laughable. This is but the pettiness of presumptuous minds that know little of Catholicism, and have the audacity to criticise the religion of St. Augustine, of Dante, and of Rosmini. No, it is for other reasons that my faith is weakening. The doubt that is shaping in my mind is that this Divine religion is about to share the fate of Judaism, that the divine element is about to issue from it as Christianity issued from Judaism, leaving behind what was worn out and surpassed. As Catholicism completed Judaism, so a more ideal religion may perhaps complete Catholicism. Are there to be forerunners who must endure sacrifice? Must I sacrifice myself, and preach this Word, in opposition to the Word I have preached heretofore? My Roman friends wish me to speak at the cemetery in Oria, when the body of my Master, Benedetto, is laid in its final resting-place. I fear I could not do so without hypocrisy, because Benedetto believed steadfastly in the immortality of the Catholic Church, and in the duty of obedience. If, presently, I come to think, as I now fear I shall, that he was mistaken, I should be dishonouring his beloved memory by speaking at his grave. A more faithful disciple than I must be found.

"Don Aurelio, who is still in Milan, waiting for pupils, does not know these views of mine. I had not the courage to confide in him, and I shall certainly not be brave enough to write. Besides, why should I cause him such sorrow as he would surely experience? I cannot look to him for help, for I am already aware what his answer would be. He, in himself, is an argument in favour of the Catholic Church, a stronger argument than any he could bring forward either in words or writing, but insufficient nevertheless; for pure and noble souls, souls full of honest conviction, may be found in every Church, and even outside of any Church.

"There you have the painful truth concerning the state of my mind. The suffering this causes me arises from the conviction that, if I break with Catholicism, I shall lose all positive religious faith, and then how shall I go on living?

"As I am writing to you as a son I will add a few words about my new financial position. Heretofore I have relied largely upon my uncle's great generosity. But to-day I am happy in the thought that my uncle, who is as niggardly towards himself as he is generous to others, will now be able to benefit some charity with the money he once lavished upon his nephew, who was always more or less reprehensible in his eyes. I shall live upon the income of the small capital to which my parents' fortune has been reduced. It represents something like four or five lire a day, a sum which, here, or in some other place like this, will suffice for my material wants, which, fortunately, are not great. From what I hear, I conclude that it will be useless for me to apply for the position of physician here, as the doctor who has been holding it temporarily is sure to be appointed. This is the chief difficulty. I cannot live without books and papers, and I must therefore earn something by my profession, but any practice I might acquire here would bring me very little. As I said before, this is the difficulty, but I assure you that this new sense of poverty--a poverty that is only relative, and far removed from penury--is very sweet to me. It is not that I exult in my independence of a benefactor; I exult only, in that I am now almost completely independent of _things_, and also that I am come down among the humble, come down out of a world dominated by conventionalities and hypocrisies to a world of greater simplicity. This would be a true joy to me, if my soul were capable of joy.

"Write to me, dear friend. Direct to Dasio, near San Mamette, Province of Como. You had perhaps better not tell me of the little person I must learn to forget.

"And now goodbye. One of the guards has just come in to beg me to prescribe for his child, who has been eating too much fruit. You see it will not be difficult for me to acquit myself with honour with my first patient!

"I kiss your hand.
"Your devoted son, "MASSIMO.

"PS.--Fancy! I have only just noticed the sacred picture upon the wall above my bed. It represents Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee, stretching out His hand to Peter, who is afraid that he may sink. Peter doubted Christ, and Christ stretched out a loving hand to him. Will He not stretch it out also to one who doubts Peter, if Peter withhold his hand? At any rate, it is a strange coincidence that at this period of my inner life, here in Dasio, hanging upon the wall of an inn, and above a bed upon which, but last night, I passed long, sleepless hours thinking of Christ and Peter, I should meet with this reproof: _Modicæ fidei, quare dubitasti?_

"But I am not superstitious."

* * * * *

Leila read the pages that dealt with religion without understanding much beyond their groundwork of grief, but she was conscious of a dull pain at her own incapacity. She felt also that Donna Fedele had done wrong in not respecting another's confidences, and she felt remorse at having taken advantage of this breach of faith. Nevertheless, she could not resist reading the letter. The expressions concerning the joy of poverty from one whom she had accused of sordid purposes cut her to the heart. She told herself that she was unworthy of him, and that it would be best for him to go on thinking that she despised him.

At the words "the little person I must learn to forget" her heart throbbed, not in anger but in assent. She crept under the bedclothes. From time to time she was still shaken with trembling, and her breast heaved, but not a single tear did she shed.

* * * * *

The next morning when she entered her friend's room she placed the letter on the bedside table, with an air of indifference. Donna Fedele was sitting up in bed writing. She did not answer when Leila asked how she had passed the night. From the young girl's face her friend judged how her questioner had passed it. Donna Fedele asked for a kiss and whispered:

"Did I do wrong?"

"Of course not," said Leila coldly. "I knew."

"You knew?" Donna Fedele cried in astonishment. "Surely there were many things in that letter you did not know!"

"Please do not let us discuss it," the girl pleaded.

Donna Fedele on embracing Leila had felt the throbbing of her proud little heart too distinctly to believe her cold words.

"I have answered his letter," she said. "Please read the answer."

Leila's first impulse was to refuse, in order to avoid useless pain, but fearing to be led into uttering imprudent words, she took the letter and read it.

"MY DEAR SON,--I gladly accept you as a son and immediately write to you as such. Yet I am so far from my usual self that, had I not four pieces of news that I wish you to know at once, I should put off writing to you until to-morrow. The first, I have told you already--that I gladly look upon you as my son. The second is, that you are greatly mistaken concerning Leila and her feelings."

Here the girl looked up, and, seizing the pen, drew it, with lightning rapidity, through the last two lines.

"Leila! What are you doing?" cried Donna Fedele in amazement, stretching out her hand to take the letter. The young girl moved back a few steps, and went on reading without answering, still holding the pen in her trembling fingers.

"Do you think you have any right to retaliate in that way?" Donna Fedele continued indignantly.

She was labouring under the misapprehension that Leila's act had been an angry protest against the harsh words contained in Alberti's letter. Leila made no answer, but read on in silence.

"The third is, that Peter did indeed doubt, but on feeling the waters yielding beneath his feet, he called out, '_Lord, save me!_' The fourth is, that your new mother needs you far more than the guard's child does, for to-morrow the Villino delle Rose will be more lonely than Dasio, because Leila is going back to the Montanina. Her father insists upon it. Write to Don Aurelio. I am not satisfied with the reasons you give for not doing so. I see you with one foot outside the path in which I myself walk humbly, and without feeling the stones, the thorns, and the dust that torment you, with all your science and philosophy. But I am not capable of arguing with you, who are so clever and so wise. Write to Don Aurelio. Goodbye.

"MOTHER FEDELE."

When she had finished Leila silently handed the letter to Donna Fedele, who was gazing at her with anxious eyes, and waiting in vain for a single word.

"How do you suppose I can send it now?" said she.

"Forgive me," the girl answered coldly, "but I did right."

And she left the room.