Chapter XII: The Voice of Italy

An elegant and hospitable court it was which the Archbishop-Elector Albrecht maintained at Mainz. I had no sooner made known my credentials than I was overwhelmed with kindnesses, both from the prince-prelate himself and all his courtiers. A kindly, open-handed, well intentioned lord was Albrecht, young and handsome, friendly to art and learning, pleasure loving, but not a rake. Alas! that ambition had led him into the Church, when he had fewer qualifications for leadership in things spiritual than had his Arabian horses. He lived the life of a luxurious secular magnate, with never a thought of any duty touching the ‘cure of souls’ such as was assumed to pertain to the episcopal state. To him all Tetzel’s doings were but a piece of clever secular business, the wrong whereof he could never have understood had he tried. Therefore the world has condemned him,--not because he was a knave, but because he knew not the time and the opportunity.

Life in this old Rhineland town seemed one perpetual holiday. The young western German nobles of the court were a mawkish lot, far inferior to their sturdy Saxon cousins. They wore curly, blond-dyed hair, laced tightly like women, and covered themselves with necklaces and bracelets; likewise they affected long tight hose of startling color, each leg of a different hue. With such gentry I had little in common, but others whom I met, poets, scholars, and soldiers, made my life very agreeable. Hunts, song recitals, giddy balls, and the like, whiled away our time. Above all there was the constant company of the Cardinale di Forli and of Marianna.

Forli, I soon learned, was in Mainz on an important mission from the Vatican touching the impending choice of a new Emperor. Every rumor from Vienna gave old Maximilian only a few more months, and the Pope had cause enough to be interested in his successor. Forli’s splendid travelling carriages and long retinue of handsome servants had made a deep impression on the good folk of Mainz. As a concession to Northern prudery Marianna had travelled as his “niece,” but I suspect that many sagacious mortals guessed the truth.

At our first meeting I of course heard all the gossip from Rome,--of the Pope’s successful stag hunts, of the nipping of a sensational conspiracy against His Holiness’s person, and particularly of the creation of thirty new cardinals.

“Absolutely unheard of,” Forli grumbled; “most unfair to us older members! But the treasury was dry, and every rascal could be taxed twenty to forty thousand ducats for his red hat. Then, too, what a magnificent banquet we had in their honor and at their expense at the Vatican!”

“You will be among the next creations,” threw out Marianna.

“Possibly,” I assented coldly, “but I doubt exceedingly if my career lies in the Church.”

So ended our conversation then, but what more privately I said to Marianna, I leave for the wise to imagine....

Pleasant indeed for me was that early springtime at Mainz. Again I was mingling with men of gentility and ideas; again I was speaking French, Latin, and often the incomparable Italian. Many a day I rode back to the Electoral schloss intoxicated by the favor and beauty of Marianna, while her tall palfrey pranced beside mine. Yet I was never wholly at my ease. Very soon this lotus eating at Mainz would end, and then--whither should I go? Back to Italy, to the roses, poets, Michelangelo’s sculptures and Raffaelo’s paintings? Or to Saxony, where the clouds of battle were gathering, where warriors were buckling on the cuirass for a contest not with French or Turkomans, but with powers spiritual and celestial,--and the stake the empire over men’s souls?

Marianna pressed me, but I long evaded discussing my intents. Quickly I had learned that arguments to turn the Prince-Archbishop in favor of Luther were as dust sprinkled on the ocean. Already the high prelates of Germany had prejudged his cause. “I will not lay down my head in peace,” the Bishop of Brandenburg had vowed, “until I cast Martin into the flames like _this_!” whereat into the roaring fireplace he had flung a dry faggot. From Rome issued anxious orders to “quiet the tumult.” And speedily I knew would come to Luther, to his friends, nay, to all Germany, the direful choice--to bow to the Vatican or join battle with Rome,--a battle older than the Church and always lost.

And where should I stand? I who had come to think of that friar of Wittenberg as of no other living man? I who knew that truth and God--if God there was--were with Luther and against Tetzel and Rome? Who had promised to revisit Wittenberg in the springtime? Who had also given my promise to Ilsa von Blankenburg to return to the Harzland, and to break the monotony of her barren life with her sottish and dying father? In short, what should be my great, abiding choice,--peace or storm, ease or knightly battle, Southland or Northland? How would Dame Hedwig’s song find its fulfilment?...

Coward fashion I postponed decision, and then, even as I deserved, it was thrust upon me. I was standing one afternoon at a glorious mullioned window in an upper hall of the palace, looking out upon the country just turning green under the northerning sun, when beside me stood Marianna. Her black dress of Lyons silk fell around her in lustrous sheen. On her hair were the white spring flowers I had left at her chambers that morning. What wonder my heart beat faster!

“Well, Gualtiero,” she began in her most musical Italian; “I have tidings for you.”

“Of what, Madonna?”

“My father is recalled to Italy. I cannot stay here alone. What--” oh! the subtlety of her eyes as she put the question--“what are you going to do?”

I stood for a long time sillily playing with my sword belt, and willing to give a thousand gulden for an hour’s quiet reflection.

“_Ecco!_” she cried in her sweetest mockery. “Since the Conte di Palaestro grew a German beard and put on German clothes he has either lost the use of his tongue, or forgotten how to understand my Tuscan! Do you not hear me? Am I not plain? I go back to Italy: and where go you?”

Her hands flew out in those gestures that double the eloquence of her race.

“A thousand pardons, Madonna,” I began awkwardly; “I had not expected this so soon. I had expected your father would stay longer. I had not arranged--”

“You had not arranged? You had not arranged? O Santo Spirito, you had not intended to go back to Italy the moment the year required by His Holiness had expired? Have you turned mad, Gualtiero?”

I dared not look her in the face. She knew her power over me, and used it pitilessly.

“You do not answer? You do not say ‘The year expires. I am away with you to Milan, Padua, Venice, Palaestro, instantly?’ Am I in turn of flesh and blood and expected to endure this, when you have promised--”

I knew she was deliberately creating her passion, but that did not make it easier to evade her. Vainly I raised a deprecating hand.

“What have I promised, Madonna?”

“Mater Dolorosa! Have you the perfidy to forget how, when you quitted Rome, you vowed to receive me at the end of the year at Palaestro? And _thus_ must I rate all your lip service, all your pretty speeches and courtly attention since you came to Mainz. O Gualtiero--”

Tears, sobbing, white hands pressed to her streaming eyes, ended the entreaty. When I approached with some effort to comfort her I was repulsed angrily.

“None of your caresses, Eccellenza! I am but a poor cardinal’s daughter, but I am southern born: better death than to endure ingratitude and faithlessness. If you hesitate to return to Italy, at least declare your reasons. Honor demands that!”

“I cannot well express them, and yet I would stay a season or so longer in Germany.”

“Cannot express them?” her eyes were now flashing daggers. “O miracle,--the Conte di Palaestro and his nimble tongue at a loss. Here, then. Answer as I suggest them. You fear the vengeance of the Archbishop of Bari?”

“Folly. He at least knows I am not the man to seek after.”

“Your castle--your noble and elegant Palazzo di Regenstein needs your amiable watch-care over its garrison of wolf-hounds?”

“Not so.” I rejoined abruptly.

“Ah,” spoke she archly; “I think you have spoken of a lady in a neighboring bandit’s warren; no doubt beautiful, nobly born, learned--the Contessa di Blankenburg.”

“I would not tarry for her,” I replied, though I felt my forehead glow guiltily.

“You find this charming German climate, with its thaws, and snows, and winter, more delectable than the breezes from Soracte and the Apennines?”

“Marianna,” spoke I, turning at bay at last, “do not chatter foolishness. Those are none of my reasons.”

“Then,” said she, looking me straight in the face, “the Wittenberg friar has bewitched you. You would stay for his sake.”

Instantly I felt the cords of my tongue loosed.

“Yes,” I answered. “I would stay for his sake. He is not a friar, he is a man. He is protesting against foul hypocrisy and iniquity. I do not follow all his theology, but I know _he_ for one believes all he preaches, and he is no ignorant, unlearned bawler either. He has hatched the egg, which great Master Erasmus laid years since,--the egg wherein is contained the exposure and ending of all this merry indulgence selling, and cant, and filching that men have called religion. For religion I care little; for theology I care less: but for an honest man fighting a brave fight I care much. And such a man is Martin Luther.”

I had spit out my words in a counter passion of fury, which Marianna cooled by a long, musical laugh that left me silent and flushed.

“O greater miracle! The Conte di Palaestro turning from his course to aid--an honest friar. Staying in Germany to aid--an honest friar. Yes, running even into the pains of heresy for his sake. What will your friends say? What will the Corso say? What will they say at Messere Chigi’s and Cardinal di Rocca’s parties? Give me wings--wings to flit back to Rome with the wondrous tidings. The tale is too good to keep!”

The laugh; her gesture more potent than the laugh; her words; the picture conjured up in my mind of my boon companions roaring at her recital,--all were like ice to freeze up my zeal and courage. Why, ah! why had I not been given an hour of calm reflection alone. But Marianna was there, alert, persistent, aggressive. She gave me no quarter.

“Come, now, Gualtiero. You say you will stand by this silly friar? Good, then, what will you do?”

“Plead for him, argue his cause with such German princes as I can visit.”

“And what can _they_ do?”

“Why, much. At their request His Holiness will go slowly.”

“Slowly? perhaps. But Rome is always most terrible when she moves slowly. Do you think your Luther will retract his errors?”

“Sooner will the stars fall. I have taken measure of the man.”

“Then, Gualtiero, speak sensibly. No princes can save him. They could not if they would. Many of your loutish Germans wish him well. Very likely. They have no armies, however. See in your mind his end.”

“You mean?--”

“A great company, perhaps at Rome in the Piazza di San Pietro,--for there he will be sent,--a great pile of faggots, a mighty blaze, a procession of Swiss guardsmen and the holy Inquisitors, your Wittenberg friar clothed in a yellow robe and pinioned in the midst--and then--”

“It cannot be. You are imagining.”

“This Augustinian is not the first to rail against what are called ‘the misdeeds of the Vatican.’ Others are before him: yes, and they did not lack brave friends. Recall them. What befell Arnold of Brescia?”

“Burned.”

“And Wyclif of England?”

“His bones cast into the river.”

“And John Hus?”

“Burned.”

“And Jerome of Prague?”

“Burned.”

“And Savonarola?”

“Burned.”

“And Martin Luther?--”

I stood dumb. Bursting into an irresistible passion she flung herself into my arms.

“Gualtiero! Gualtiero! Break this foul spell. Cast over this mad friar. You were not born for strife and disaster, and following a bad cause to a worse end. You were born for the South; for poetry and song; for all that is best from old Hellas and Rome; for blue skies and soft beds and fair visions; for happiness--and love--and for me!”

And then she covered my face with hot kisses.

Why did I succumb? Why does any man succumb when on one side are truth, honor, justice, salvation; and on the other expediency, pleasure, and a beautiful beseeching woman? I was neither a Socrates nor a Christian martyr.

I pressed her in my arms. I returned her kiss.

“I will go with you,” I said; “I will go with you to Palaestro.”

Since then I have often wondered if I did not almost commit the unpardonable sin of grieving the Holy Spirit; for I knew the good, and I chose the evil.