Chapter XXII: The First Step on the Mountain

Fra Angelo and his nephew were silent for a few moments. The monk was absorbed by the bitter yet glorious memories of his younger days. Michel gazed at him with delight; and, no longer wondering at the martial air and muscular strength concealed beneath the frock, mused with the admiration of an artist upon the strange poesy of that life of devotion to a single idea. If there was something abnormal and, to a certain extent, entertaining in the history of the Capuchin, who still boasted of his life as a bandit and seriously regretted it, there was something truly noble in the way in which the ex-brigand preserved his individual dignity, compromised as it had been in such extraordinary adventures. Dagger or crucifix in hand, slaying traitors in the forest or begging for the poor at the gates of palaces, he was always the same, proud, ingenuous, unbending in his ideas, seeking to do good by the most vigorous methods, detesting cowardly acts with such intensity that he was still quite capable of punishing them with his own hand, utterly unable to understand the selfish motives by which the world is governed, or to believe that any man would not be ready at any moment to attempt the impossible rather than palter with the expedients suggested by cold circumspection.

"Why do you admire the secondary hero of my story?" he said to his nephew when he emerged from his reverie. "Self-sacrifice and patriotism must amount to something in your eyes, for that man had no other motive, and, in the present state of society, would have been only a poor fool--perhaps a lunatic."

"Yes, uncle, sincere devotion and the sacrifice of one's whole individuality to an idea are noble things, and if I had known you in those days--if I had been a man grown--I should probably have followed you into the mountains. I might have been less devotedly attached than you were to the Prince of Castro-Reale, but I trust I should have had the same illusions and the same love for the cause of my country."

"Really, young man?" said Fra Angelo, fixing his penetrating eyes upon Michel's face.

"Really, uncle," the young man replied, proudly raising his head, and sustaining that searching glance with the assurance of conviction.

"And is it too late now to attempt anything, my poor boy?" said Fra Angelo, with a sigh. "Has the time passed when we can believe in the triumph of the truth, and is the new society, which I have had no better chance to study in my cloister than in my bandit's cave, determined to allow itself to be crushed forever?"

"I hope not, uncle. If I thought so, it seems to me that I should no longer have any blood in my veins, inspiration in my brain, or love in my bosom, and that I should no longer be capable of being an artist. But still we must recognize the fact that society is not what it must have been in this island at the beginning of your enterprise. Even if it has taken some steps toward intellectual discoveries, it is certain that the impulses of the heart have lost their energy."

"And you call that progress?" exclaimed the Capuchin, sorrowfully.

"No, far from it," Michel replied; "but how can those who are born during this state of society breathe any other air than that in which they were born, or entertain other ideas than those which have been forced into them? Must we not yield to the evidence, and bend our necks to the yoke of reality? Did not you yourself, my excellent uncle, when you passed from the exciting life of a free adventurer to the inflexible discipline of the cloister, did not you find that society was not what you thought, and that it was no longer possible to effect anything by violence?"

"Alas! that is true!" replied the monk. "During the ten years that I passed in the mountains, I did not know what revolutions were taking place in the manners of civilized mankind. When the _Destatore_ had sent me into the cities with his agents, to try to make satisfactory terms with the nobles whom he had known as loyal patriots, and with the rich and well-educated middle class citizens whom he had known as ardent liberals, I was forced to the conviction that those people were no longer the same, that they had brought up their children with other ideas, that they no longer cared to risk their fortunes and their lives in those hazardous undertakings in which only faith and enthusiasm can perform miracles. Yes, yes, the world had progressed--backward, according to my idea. People no longer talked of anything but making money, of fighting monopolies, of establishing competition, of founding new industries. They all deemed themselves rich already, they were in such haste to become so, and the government could purchase whomsoever it pleased, by the promise of the most trifling privilege. Yes, they had but to promise, to hold out hopes of fortune, and the most ardent patriots pounced upon those hopes, saying: 'industry will give us back our liberty!'

"The common people also believed it, and every employer could bring his employés to the feet of the new masters, the poor creatures imagining that their arms were about to bring them in millions. It was a sort of fever, a universal mania. I sought men, I found only machines. I talked of the fatherland and honor, they replied by discussing sulphur and silk weaving. I went away disheartened, but uncertain, not daring to censure too severely what I had seen, and saying to myself that it was not for me, ignorant and uncivilized as I was, to pass judgment upon the new resources which these mysterious discoveries were going to create for my country.

"But since then, great heaven! I have seen the result of these fine promises so far as the common people are concerned! I have seen some shrewd fellows restore their own fortunes by ruining their friends and paying court to the ruling powers. I have seen many families of petty tradespeople attain great wealth; but I have seen honorable men persecuted more and more; I have seen, especially, and I see now every day, more beggars and more poor wretches without bread, without homes, without education, without a future. And I ask myself what good you have done with your new ideas, your progress, your theories of equality! You despise the past, you spit upon the old abuses, and you have killed the future by creating new abuses more monstrous than the old. The best among you, the young men, are on the alert for the revolutionary doctrines of nations more advanced than ours. You consider yourselves highly enlightened, very strong, when you can say: 'No more nobles, no more priests, no more convents, no more of anything connected with the past!' And you do not see that you no longer have the poesy, the faith and the pride which gave life to the past.

"Let us see!" added the Capuchin, folding his arms over his heaving breast, and eyeing Michel with a half fatherly, half bullying, air: "you are a very young man, a child! You consider yourself very clever, because you know what people say and think in society at this moment. You look at this stupid monk, who passes the day breaking rock in order to set out an extra row of peppers or tomatoes on the lava next year, and you say:

"'That's a strange way for a man to pass his life! And yet this man was neither lazy nor dull. He might have been a lawyer or a tradesman, and have earned money like other men. He might have married, had children, and taught them to hold their own in society. He preferred to bury himself alive in a convent and beg! It is because he is under the influence of the past, and has always been the dupe of the old chimeras and old superstitions of his country!'

"Very good! now, do you know what I think as I look at you? I say to myself: 'Here is a young man who has come much in contact with the minds of other men, who has very quickly thrown off the fetters of his class, who does not choose to share the sufferings of his native country, the labors of his kinsmen. He will succeed; he is a handsome youth, keener and more logical in his ideas and his words at eighteen than I was at thirty. He knows a multitude of things which had seemed useless to me and which I did not even suspect, until the leisure of the cloister enabled me to educate myself a little. He stands there, smiling at my enthusiasm, and, mounted on his sound sense, his premature experience, his knowledge of men, and his profound study of the science of personal interest, looks upon me in his mind as a teacher looks upon his pupil. He is the mature man; and I, an old brigand and old monk, am the fearless youth, the blind and artless child! Strange transposition! He represents the new generation, all for gold and glory; and I the dust of ruins, the silence of the tomb!'

"Very good! but let the tocsin sound, let the volcano rumble, let the people roar, let that black point which we see in the roadstead, and which is the ship of State, bristle with guns to destroy the city at the first breath of aspiration toward liberty; let the brigands come down from the mountains, let the flames soar aloft to the clouds; and in that last convulsion of the dying fatherland, the young artist will take his brushes, he will go and take his seat upon a hill, out of all danger, and he will paint a picture, saying to himself: 'What an unfortunate people, and what a magnificent spectacle! I must hasten to put it on canvas! in an instant this people will have ceased to exist, its last hour is striking!'

"Whereas the old monk will take his gun, which is not yet rusty; he will turn his sleeves back to the shoulder, and without stopping to ask himself what will be the result of it all, he will rush into the scrimmage and will fight for his countrymen until his crushed and trampled body no longer resembles a human being. And I would rather die so, boy, than survive, as you will do, the destruction of my race!"

"My father! my father! do not believe it," cried Michel, conquered and carried off his feet by the Capuchin's exaltation. "I am not a coward! and if my Sicilian blood flowed sluggishly on foreign soil, it is quickened by the fiery breath which your breast exhales. Do not crush me beneath that terrible malediction! Take me in your arms and set me on fire with your flames. With you I feel really alive, and this new life intoxicates and enraptures me!"

"Good! here is an honest impulse at last!" said the monk, embracing him. "I like this better than the fine theories concerning art which you have persuaded your father to respect blindly."

"Forgive me, uncle," rejoined Michel, with a smile, "I do not surrender on that point. I will maintain with my last breath the dignity and importance of art. You said just now that in the midst of civil war I would coolly go and sit down in a corner, to paint episodes of the conflict instead of fighting. I would fight, I beg you to believe, and I would fight hard if the object were to drive out the enemy. I would gladly lay down my life; glory would come to me more quickly so than I shall attain it by studying painting, and I love glory: in that respect I fear that I am incorrigible. But if I were in truth doomed to survive the downfall of my people after fighting in vain for their triumph, it is probable that I should collect my painful reminiscences and paint many pictures, to reproduce and perpetuate the memory of those bloody catastrophes. The more excited and desperate I was, the better and more striking my work would be. It would speak to men's hearts; it would arouse admiration for our heroism, pity for our misfortunes, and I assure you that it might prove that I had served our cause better with my brush than I had done with my gun."

"Very good! very good!" rejoined the monk, with an ingenuous outburst of sympathy. "That is well said and well thought. We have a brother here who is a sculptor, and I consider that his work is no less useful to the cause of religion than mine is to the convent when I break up this lava. But that brother has faith, and he can carve the features of the Blessed Madonna without lowering the idea that we form of her. You will paint fine pictures, Michel; but only on the condition that you have taken part in the battle with heart and hand, and have been a zealous actor, not an unmoved spectator of events."

"Now we are altogether in accord, my father; there is no genius in art without conviction and without emotion: but as there is nothing more for us to dispute about, if you are content with me at last, pray tell me what is going on, and wherein you expect my assistance. Are we on the eve of some important undertaking?"

Fra Angelo was so excited that he had lost all notion of his surroundings. Suddenly his gleaming eyes filled with tears, his heaving breast fell with a deep sigh, his hands, which quivered as if they were feeling for pistols in his belt, fell back upon the cord around his waist and touched his chaplet.

"Alas! no," he said, glancing about with startled eyes, like a man suddenly aroused from sleep, "we are on the eve of nothing, and it may be that I shall die in my cell without ever renewing the priming of my gun. It was all a dream which you shared with me for an instant; but do not regret it, young man, it was a noble dream, and that instant, which did me inestimable good, may have made you a better man. The result of it has been that I know you and esteem you. Now we are friends for life and death. Let us not despair of anything. Look at Ætna! it is peaceful and radiant; it is hardly smoking, and does not make a sound. To-morrow, perhaps, it may belch forth its burning lava again and utterly destroy the ground on which we stand. It is the emblem and the image of the Sicilian people, and the hour for _Vespers_ may strike in the midst of dancing or of slumber. But the sun is sinking, and I have no more time to waste before telling you what I have to tell that concerns you. It is a matter entirely personal to you, of which I desired to speak with you, and it is a very serious matter. You cannot extricate yourself from it without my assistance and that of certain other persons who, like myself, are prepared to risk their liberty, their honor, and their lives, to save you."

"Is it possible, uncle?" cried Michel; "can I not take the risk alone? must you be involved in the mysterious perils which surround me without my knowledge? Is it not my father alone who is in danger, and cannot I save him?"

"Your father is in danger, too, but in less danger than you. Do not question me, but believe me. As I have told you, I detest unnecessary violence, but I shrink from nothing which is right and necessary. I must assist you, and I will assist you. You and your father can do nothing without the Capuchin of Ætna and the remnant of the _Destatore's_ band. We are all ready. You will forgive me if, before assuming such grave risks, I desired to ascertain how far you were deserving of the devotion of which you are to reap the benefits. If you had proved to be an egotist simply, I would have assisted you to escape; but, if you are worthy of the name of Sicilian, we will assist you to triumph over destiny."

"And you will not explain ----"

"I will explain nothing that it is not necessary for you to know. I am not allowed to do otherwise; and you must remember one thing, namely, that by seeking to find out more than I am able to tell you, you will simply increase our risks and add to the complications of your own situation. Come, do me the favor to rely upon your uncle, and to overcome the vain and restless curiosity of childhood. Try to become a man between now and this evening, for this evening it may be necessary to act."

"I will ask but one thing of you, uncle, and that is to provide for my father's safety and my sister's before thinking of me."

"That is all done, my boy; at the first signal your father will seek refuge in the mountains, and your sister with the lady who gave a ball last night. Ah! the bell is ringing for service. I am going to ask the superior's permission to go out with my nephew on some family business. Wait for me at the door of our chapel."

"And suppose he should refuse you?"

"He would compel me to disobey him, which would grieve me deeply, I confess, not because of the penance to-morrow, but because I do not like to fail in my duty. The old soldier looks upon his orders as the supreme law."

Five minutes later, Fra Angelo joined Michel again at the door of the church.

"Granted," he said, "but I am commanded, in order to pay my debt to God, to perform an act of faith and say a short prayer before the altar of the Virgin. As I am excused from attending the evening services, the least I can do is to ask pardon from my greatest superior. Come and pray with me, young man; it can do you no harm, and will give you strength."

Michel followed his uncle to the foot of the altar. The setting sun made the stained-glass windows glow as with fire, and strewed with sapphires and rubies the flagged floor on which the Capuchin knelt. Michel knelt beside him, and watched him as he prayed with simple fervor. A flame-colored pane, whose reflection fell upon his shaven head, made it appear luminous and, as it were, aflame. The young painter was seized with respect and enthusiastic admiration as he looked upon that noble, strong and ingenuous face, which humbled itself in all sincerity in prayer; and he, too, moved to the depths of his heart, prayed for his country, his family and himself, with a simple faith and candor which he had not known since his childhood.