Chapter XII: Part 12

Father Gondo stopped speaking and smiled invitingly at the people. A quick movement passed through the crowd of listeners. Several seemed to have the intention of coming forward and testifying. They came a few steps, but then they stopped.

“I am waiting,” said the Father, and his eyes implored and called on the people to come.

No one came. The whole mass of people was in wailing despair that they would not testify to the advantage of their beloved image. But no one did so.

“My poor children,” said Father Gondo, sadly. “You have had Antichrist among you, and he has got possession of you. You have forgotten heaven. You have forgotten that you possess a soul. You think only of this world.

“Formerly it was said that the people of Diamante were the most religious in Sicily. Now it must be otherwise. The inhabitants of Diamante are slaves of the world. Perhaps they are even infidel socialists, who love only the earth. They can be nothing else. They have had Antichrist among them.”

When the people were accused in such a way, they seemed at last to be about to rise in resistance. An angry muttering passed through the ranks.

“The image is holy,” one cried. “When he came San Pasquale’s bells rang all day.”

“Could they ring for less time to warn you of such a misfortune?” rejoined the monk.

He went on with his accusations with growing violence. “You are idolaters, not Christians. You serve him because he helps you. There is nothing of the spirit of holiness in you.”

“He has been kind and merciful, like Christ,” answered the people.

“Is not just that the misfortune?” said the Father, and now all of a sudden he was terrible in his wrath. “He has taken the likeness of Christ to lead you astray. In that way he has been able to weave his web about you. By scattering gifts and blessings over you, he has lured you into his net and made you slaves of the world. Or is it not so? Perhaps some one can come forward and say the contrary? Perhaps he has heard that some one who is not present to-day has prayed to the image for a heavenly grace.”

“He has taken away the power of a _jettatore_,” said one.

“Is it not he who is as great in evil as the _jettatore_ who has power over him?” answered the father, bitterly.

They made no other attempts to defend the image. Everything that they said seemed only to make the matter worse.

Several looked round for Donna Micaela, who was also present. She stood among the crowd, heard and saw everything, but made no attempt to save the image.

When Father Gondo had said that the image was Antichrist she had been terrified, and when he showed that the people of Diamante had only asked for the good of this world, her terror had grown. She had not dared to do anything.

But when he said that she and all the others were in the power of Antichrist, something in her rose against him. “No, no,” she said, “it cannot be so.” If she should believe that an evil power had governed her during so many years, her reason would give way. And her reason began to defend itself.

Her faith in the supernatural broke in her like a string too tightly stretched. She could not follow it any longer.

With infinite swiftness everything of the supernatural that she herself had experienced flashed through her mind, and she passed sentence on it. Was there a single proven miracle? She said to herself that there were coincidences, coincidences.

It was like unravelling a skein. From what she herself had experienced she passed to the miracles of other times. They were coincidences. They were hypnotism. They were possibly legends, most of them.

The raging monk continued to curse the people with terrible words. She tried to listen to him to get away from her own thoughts. But all she thought was that what he said was madness and lies.

What was going on in her? Was she becoming an atheist?

She looked about for Gaetano. He was there also; he stood on the church steps quite near the monk. His eyes rested on her. And as surely as if she had told him it, he knew what was passing in her. But he did not look as if he were glad or triumphant. He looked as if he wished to stop Father Gondo, to save a little vestige of faith for her.

Donna Micaela’s thoughts had no mercy. They went on and robbed her soul. All the glowing world of the supernatural was destroyed, crushed. She said to herself that no one knew anything of celestial matters, nor could know anything. Many messages had gone from earth to heaven. None had gone from heaven to earth.

“But I will still believe in God,” she said, and clasped her hands as if still to hold fast the last and best.

“Your eyes, people of Diamante, are wild and evil,” said Father Gondo. “God is not in you. Antichrist has driven God away from you.”

Donna Micaela’s eyes again sought Gaetano’s. “Can you give a poor, doubting creature something on which to live?” they seemed to ask. His eyes met hers with proud confidence. He read in her beautiful, imploring eyes how her trembling soul clung to him for support. He did not doubt for a moment that he would be able to make her life beautiful and rich.

She thought of the joy that always met him wherever he showed himself. She thought of the joy that had roared about her that night in Palermo. She knew that it rose from the new faith in a happy earth. Could that faith and that joy take possession of her also?

She wrung her hands in anguish. Could that new faith be anything to her? Would she not always feel as unhappy as now?

Father Gondo bent forward over the fire.

“I say to you once more,” he cried, “if only one person comes and says that this image has saved his soul, I will not burn it.”

Donna Micaela had a sudden feeling that she did not wish the poor image to be destroyed. The memory of the most beautiful hours of her life was bound to it.

“Gandolfo, Gandolfo,” she whispered. She had just seen him beside her.

“Yes, Donna Micaela.”

“Do not let him burn the image, Gandolfo!”

The monk had repeated his question once, twice, thrice. No one came forward to defend the image. But little Gandolfo crept nearer and nearer.

Father Gondo brought the image ever closer to the fire.

Involuntarily Gaetano had bent forward. Involuntarily a proud smile passed over his face. Donna Micaela saw that he felt that Diamante belonged to him. The monk’s wild proceedings made Gaetano master of their souls.

She looked about in terror. Her eyes wandered from face to face. Was the same thing going on in all those people’s souls as in her own? She thought she saw that it was so.

“Thou, Antichrist,” said Father Gondo, threateningly, “dost thou see that no one has thought of his soul as long as thou hast been here? Thou must perish.”

Father Gondo laid the outcast on the pyre.

But the image had not lain there more than a second before Gandolfo seized him.

He caught him up, lifted him high above his head, and ran. Father Gondo’s pilgrims hurried after him, and there began a wild chase down Monte Chiaro’s precipices.

But little Gandolfo saved the image.

Down the road a big, heavy travelling-carriage came driving. Gandolfo, whose pursuers were close at his heels, knew nothing better to do than to throw the image into the carriage.

Then he let himself be caught. When his pursuers wished to hurry after the carriage, he stopped them. “Take care; the lady in the carriage is English.”

It was Signora Favara, who had at last wearied of Diamante and was travelling out into the world once more. And she was allowed to go away unmolested. No Sicilian dares to lay hands on an Englishwoman.

V

A FRESCO OF SIGNORELLI

A week later Father Gondo was in Rome. He was granted an interview with the old man in the Vatican and told him how he had found Antichrist in the likeness of Christ, how the former had entangled the people of Diamante in worldliness, and how he, Father Gondo, had wished to burn him. He also told how he had not been able to lead the people back to God. Instead, all Diamante had fallen into unbelief and socialism. No one there cared for his soul; no one thought of heaven. Father Gondo asked what he should do with those unfortunate people.

The old pope, who is wiser than any one now living, did not laugh at Father Gondo’s story; he was deeply distressed by it.

“You have done wrong; you have done very wrong,” he said.

He sat silent for a while and pondered; then he said: “You have not seen the Cathedral in Orvieto?”--“No, Holy Father.”--“Then go there now and see it,” said the pope; “and when you come back again, you shall tell me what you have seen there.”

Father Gondo obeyed. He went to Orvieto and saw the most holy Cathedral. And in two days he was back in the Vatican.

“What did you see in Orvieto?” the pope asked him.

Father Gondo said that in one of the chapels of the Cathedral he had found some frescoes of Luca Signorelli, representing “The Last Judgment.” But he had not looked at either the “Last Judgment” or at the “Resurrection of The Dead.” He had fixed all his attention on the big painting which the guide called “The Miracles of Antichrist.”

“What did you see in it?” asked the pope.

“I saw that Signorelli had painted Antichrist as a poor and lowly man, just as the Son of God was when he lived here on earth. I saw that he had dressed him like Christ and given him Christ’s features.”

“What more did you see?” said the pope.

“The first thing that I saw in the fresco was Antichrist preaching so that the rich and the mighty came and laid their treasures at his feet.

“The second thing I saw was a sick man brought to Antichrist and healed by him.

“The third thing I saw was a martyr proclaiming Antichrist and suffering death for him.

“The fourth thing I saw in the great wall-picture was the people hastening to a great temple of peace, the spirit of evil hurled from heaven, and all men of violence killed by heaven’s thunderbolts.”

“What did you think when you saw that?” asked the pope.

“When I saw it, I thought: ‘That Signorelli was mad. Does he mean that in the time of Antichrist evil shall be conquered, and the earth become holy as a paradise?’”

“Did you see anything else?”

“The fifth thing I saw depicted in the painting was the monks and priests piled up on a big bonfire and burned.

“And the sixth and last thing I saw was the Devil whispering in Antichrist’s ear, and suggesting to him how he was to act and speak.”

“What did you think when you saw that?”

“I said to myself: ‘That Signorelli is not mad; he is a prophet. Antichrist will certainly come in the likeness of Christ and make a paradise of the world. He will make it so beautiful that the people will forget heaven. And it will be the world’s most terrible temptation.’”

“Do you understand now,” said the pope, “that there was nothing new in all that you told me? The Church has always known that Antichrist would come, armed with the virtues of Christ.”

“Did you also know that he had actually come, Holy Father?” asked Father Gondo.

“Could I sit here on Peter’s chair year after year without knowing that he has come?” said the pope. “I see starting a movement of the people, which burns with love for its neighbor and hates God. I see people becoming martyrs for the new hope of a happy earth. I see how they receive new joy and new courage from the words ‘Think of the earth,’ as they once found them in the words ‘Think of heaven.’ I knew that he whom Signorelli had foretold had come.”

Father Gondo bowed silently.

“Do you understand now wherein you did wrong?”

“Holy Father, enlighten me as to my sin.”

The old pope looked up. His clear eyes looked through the veil of chance which shrouds future events and saw what was hidden behind it.

“Father Gondo,” he said, “that little child with whom you fought in Diamante, the child who was merciful and wonder-working like Christ, that poor, despised child who conquered you and whom you call Antichrist, do you not know who he is?”

“No, Holy Father.”

“And he who in Signorelli’s picture healed the sick, and softened the rich, and felled evil-doers to the earth, who transformed the earth to a paradise and tempted the people to forget heaven. Do you not know who he is?”

“No, Holy Father.”

“Who else can he be but the Antichristianity, socialism?”

The monk looked up in terror.

“Father Gondo,” said the pope, sternly, “when you held the image in your arms you wished to burn him. Why? Why were you not loving to him? Why did you not carry him back to the little Christchild on the Capitolium from whom he proceeded?

“That is what you wandering monks could do. You could take the great popular movement in your arms, while it is still lying like a child in its swaddling clothes, and you could bear it to Jesus’ feet; and Antichrist would see that he is nothing but an imitation of Christ, and would acknowledge him his Lord and Master. But you do not do so. You cast Antichristianity on the pyre, and soon he in his turn will cast you there.”

Father Gondo bent his knee. “I understand, Holy Father. I will go and look for the image.”

The pope rose majestically. “You shall not look for the image; you shall let him go his way through the ages. We do not fear him. When he comes to storm the Capitol in order to mount the throne of the world, we shall meet him, and we shall lead him to Christ. We shall make peace between earth and heaven. But you do wrong,” he continued more mildly, “to hate him. You must have forgotten that the sibyl considered him one of the redeemers of the world. ‘On the heights of the Capitol the redeemer of the world shall be worshipped, Christ or Antichrist.’”

“Holy Father, if the miseries of this world are to be remedied by him, and heaven suffers no injury, I shall not hate him.”

The old pope smiled his most subtle smile.

“Father Gondo, you will permit me also to tell you a Sicilian story. The story goes, Father Gondo, that when Our Lord was busy creating the world, He wished one day to know if He had much more work to do. And He sent San Pietro out to see if the world was finished.

“When San Pietro came back, he said: ‘Every one is weeping and sobbing and lamenting.’

“‘Then the world is not finished,’ said Our Lord, and He went on working.

“Three days later Our Lord sent San Pietro again to the earth.

“‘Everyone is laughing and rejoicing and playing,’ said San Pietro, when he came back.

“‘Then the world is not finished,’ said Our Lord, and He went on working.

“San Pietro was dispatched for the third time.

“‘Some are weeping and some are laughing,’ he said, when he came back.

“‘Then the world is finished,’ said Our Lord.

“And so shall it be and continue,” said the old pope. “No one can save mankind from their sorrows, but much is forgiven to him who brings new courage to bear them.”

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Miracles of Antichrist, by Selma Lagerlöf