Chapter V: The Saint (3)

There were steps in the ante-room; two gentle taps at the door; the Selvas entered with Noemi. Maria Selva came in first, and seeing Benedetto dressed thus, could not restrain a movement of indignation, of regret, and a soft laugh; then she blushed and wished to speak a word of protest, but could not find the right one. The tears came to Noemi’s eyes. All four were silent for a moment and understood each other. Then Giovanni murmured:

“‘_Non fu dal vel del cuor giawmai disciolto_’”[*1*];

and pressed the hand of him who in his awkward garments still appeared august to him.

“But you must not wear these things!” exclaimed Maria, less mystic than her husband.

Benedetto made a gesture which said, “Let us not speak of that,” and looked at the master of his master with eyes full of longing and reverence.

“Are you aware,” said he, “how much truth and how much good have come to me from you?”

Giovanni did not know how strongly he had influenced this man through Don Clemente. He supposed he had read his books. He was moved, and in his heart thanked God, who was thus gently showing him that he had worked some real good in a soul.

“How happy I should have been,” Benedetto continued, “to have worked in your garden,

[FN 1: “Of the heart’s veil she never was divested.”
DANTE’S _Paradiso_, Canto iii.

(Longfellow’s translation) ] have sometimes seen you, to
have heard you speak!”

A stifled exclamation escaped Noemi when reminded of that evening full of memories she could not express. Giovanni took this opportunity of offering hospitality to Benedetto, Don Clemente having told him he intended leaving Jenne that night. They could leave together, if he wished, after the interview which he was going to grant Giovanni’s sister-in-law. Noemi, very pale, looked fixedly at Benedetto for the first time, awaiting his answer.

“I thank you,” said he. “If I knock at your door, you will throw it open to me. I can say no more at present.”

Giovanni and his wife prepared to leave. Benedetto begged them to remain. Surely the _Signorina_ had no secrets from them; at least not from her sister, if perhaps from her brother-in-law. Even this indirect appeal to Maria was of no avail, for Noemi remarked, with much embarrassment, that these secrets were not her own. The Selvas withdrew.

Benedetto remained standing, and did not invite Noemi to be seated. He was aware that a friend of Jeanne’s stood before him, and he foresaw what was coming--a message from Jeanne.

“_Signorina_?” said he.

His manner was not discourteous, but signified clearly, “The quicker the better.”

Noemi understood. She would have been offended had another person acted thus; but with Benedetto she was not offended. With him she felt humble.

“I have been requested to ask you,” she began, “whether you know anything about a person with whom you must have been intimately acquainted, whom, I believe, you also loved very dearly? I am not sure I pronounce the name correctly, I am not an Italian. It is Don Giuseppe Flores.”

Benedetto started. He had not expected this.

“No!” he exclaimed anxiously, “I know nothing.”

Nomei gazed at him a moment in silence. Before continuing she would have liked to ask his forgiveness for the pain she was about to cause him. She said sadly and in a low tone:

“Some one has written to me to tell you that he is no longer of this world.”

Benedetto bowed his head, and hid his face in his hands. Don Giuseppe, dear Don Giuseppe; dear, great, pure soul; dear luminous brow, dear eyes, full of God, dear, kind voice! Softly came two tears, which Noemi did not see; then he heard Don Giuseppe’s voice saying within him, “Do you not feel that I am here, that I am with you, that I am in your heart?”

After a long silence Noemi said softly:

“Forgive me! I am sorry I was obliged to cause you so much pain.”

Benedetto raised his head.

“Pain, and still not pain,” said he. Noemi maintained a reverent silence. Benedetto asked if she knew when this person had passed away.

Towards the end of April, she believed. She was absent from Italy at the time. She was in Belgium, at Bruges, with a friend to whom the news had been sent. She had understood from her friend that that person--a sense of delicacy prevented Noemi from pronouncing the name--had died a very holy death. She had also been asked to say that his papers had been entrusted to the bishop of the city. Benedetto made a gesture of approval which might also serve to close the interview. Noemi did not move.

“I have not yet finished,” she said, and hastened to add:

“I have a Catholic friend--I myself am not a Catholic, I am a Protestant--who has lost her faith in God. She has been advised to devote herself to deeds of charity. She lives with her brother, who is very hostile to all religions. This innovation, the fact that his sister interests herself in charities, that she associates with people who promote good works from religious principles, is most displeasing to him. At present he is ill; he becomes irritated, excited, protests against these virtuous bigots, does not wish his sister to visit the poor, to protect young girls, or to provide for abandoned children. He says all these things are clericalism, are utopianism, that the world wags in its own way, and that it must be allowed to wag in its own way, that all this associating with the lower classes only serves to put false and dangerous ideas into their heads. Now, my friend has been told that she must either leave her brother, or lie to him, by doing secretly what she has hitherto done openly. She is in sore need of sound advice! She writes to me to ask you for it. She has read in the newspapers that you are helping so many here in these hills, and she hopes you will not refuse.”

“As her brother is ill, both bodily and mentally,” Benedetto answered, “does she not find deeds of charity to perform in her own house? Will she arrive at a knowledge of God by becoming a bad sister? Let her give up her works of charity and devote herself to her brother; let her attend to his bodily ills, and to his moral ills, with all the affection”--he was going to say “which she bears him,” but he corrected himself, that he might not thus clearly admit a knowledge of the person--“with all the affection of which she is capable; let her make herself precious to him; let her win him by degrees, without sermons, by her goodness alone. It will do her much good also, this striving to incarnate in herself true goodness, active, untiring, patient, prudent goodness. And she will win him, little by little, without words; she will persuade him that all she does is well done. Then she can take up her works of charity again, take them up alone, and she will succeed better. Now she performs them because she has been advised to do so, and perhaps she does not succeed very well. Then she will be prompted by the habit of goodness, acquired with her brother, and she will have better success.”

“I thank you!” said Noemi. “I thank you for my friend, and also for myself, for I am much pleased with what you have said. And may I repeat your advice, your words of encouragement, in your name?”

The question seemed superfluous, because the words of encouragement and advice had been spoken by Benedetto in direct answer to the friend. But Benedetto was troubled. It was an explicit message which Noemi asked of him for Jeanne.

“Who am I?” he said. “What authority do I possess? Tell her I will pray!”

Noemi was trembling inwardly. It would have been so easy now to speak to him of religion! And she did not dare. Ah! but to lose such an opportunity! No, she must speak; but she could not reflect a quarter of an hour upon what she should say. She said the first thing that came into her head.

“I beg your pardon, but as you speak of praying, I should like to ask you if you really approve of all my brother-in-law’s religious views?”

As soon as she had uttered the question, it seemed to her so impertinent, so awkward, that she was ashamed. She hastened to add, conscious she was saying something still more foolish, but, nevertheless, feeling impelled to say it. “Because my brother-in-law is a Catholic, and I am a Protestant, and I should like to know what to believe.”

“_Signorina,_” Benedetto answered, “the day will come when all shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, upon the hilltops; to-day it is best to worship Him in the shadows, in figures, from deep Valleys. Many there are who can rise, some higher than others, towards the spirit and the truth; but many cannot. There are plants which bear no fruit above a certain altitude, and if carried still higher, they die. It would be folly to remove them from the climate which suits them. I do not know you, and I cannot say if your brother-in-law’s religious views, planted without preparation in you, would bear good fruit. But I advise you to study Catholicism carefully, with Signor Selva’s help; for there is not one conscientious Protestant who knows it well.”

“You will not come to Subiaco?” Noemi inquired timidly.

A note of hidden melancholy rang in her voice, and aroused in Benedetto’s heart a sense of sweet pain, which at once turned to fear, so new was it.

“No,” said he, “I think not.”

Noemi wished, and still did not wish to say she was sorry. She pronounced some confused words.

They heard some one in the ante-room. Noemi bowed, and Benedetto doing the same, the interview came to an end, without any further leave taking.

The Duchess also was anxious to speak with Benedetto. She brought her companions, both male and female, with her. No longer young, but still frivolous, half superstitious, half sceptical, egotistical but not heartless, she was devoted to the consumptive daughter of her old coachman, Having heard of the Saint of Jenne and his miracles, she had arranged this excursion, partly for amusement, partly to satisfy her curiosity, and she wished to ascertain if it would be wiser to have the Saint come to Rome, or to send the girl to him. At the house of a cardinal, her cousin, she had become acquainted with one of the priests now staying at Jenne, This man, having met her, had given her his own opinion of the Saint, announcing the downfall of his reputation. But, as the Duchess had little confidence in any priest, and was curious to know a man to whom such a romantic past was attributed, and as her companions--one woman in particular--shared her curiosity she resolved, at any cost, to find a means of approaching him.

An elderly, English gentlewoman was of her party; a lady famous for her wealth and her peculiar _toilettes_, for her theosophic and Christian mysticism, metaphysically in love with the Pope and also with the Duchess who laughed at her friends. These friends, on beholding Benedetto in that strange outfit, exchanged glances and smiles which very nearly became giggles; but the elderly Englishwoman forestalling them all constituted herself their spokeswoman. She said, in bad French, that she was aware she was speaking to a man of culture, that she, with her friends, of both sexes and of all nationalities, was working to unite all Christian Churches under the Pope, reforming Catholicism in certain particulars which were really too absurd, and which no one honestly believed were of any further use, such particulars as ecclesiastical celibacy and the dogma of hell. She needed a saint to accomplish these reforms. Benedetto would be that saint, because a spirit (she herself was not a spiritualist, but a friend of hers was), the Spirit of the Countess Blavatzky herself, had revealed this fact. It was therefore necessary that he should come to Rome, and there his saintly gifts would also enable him to render a service to the Duchess di Civitella, here present. She ended her discourse thus:

_“Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou! Quittez-le bientôt! Bientôt!”_

Having let his stern gaze wander rapidly round the circle of mocking or stolid faces, from the Duchess’s _lorgnon_ to the journalist’s eye-glass, Benedetto replied:

_“À l’instant, madame!”_

And he left the room.

He left the room and the house, crossed the square, walking awkwardly in his ill-fitting clothes, and, without looking to right or left, took the road leading down the slope, impelled by his spirit rather than by the weakened powers of his body. He intended to pass the night under some tree, and, on the morrow, go to Subiaco; from there, with Don Clemente’s aid, he would go to Tivoli, where he knew a good old priest, who was in the habit of coming to Santa Scolastica from time to time. He no longer thought of accepting the Selvas’ hospitality, which would have been precious to him. His heart was pure and at peace, but he could not forget that the young foreign girl’s sweet voice, and the tone of sadness in which she had said “You will not come to Subiaco?” had awakened strange echoes within him, and that in that one second the thought had flashed across his mind: “Had Jeanne been like this, I should not have left her!” The mystics were right; penance and fasting were of no avail. But it had all disappeared now. Only the humiliating sense of a frailty essentially human remained, which, though it may have come forth triumphant from hard trials, may also reappear unexpectedly, and be overthrown by a breath. The little town was deserted. The storm over, the people from Trevi, Filettino, and Vallepietra had started homeward, discussing the events of the morning, the case of doubtful healing, and that in which the healing had not been effected, the warnings which had been swiftly sown by hidden hands against the corrupter of the people, the false Catholic. On leaving the town Benedetto was seen by two or three women of Jenne. The secular garments filled them with amazement; they concluded he had been excommunicated and allowed him to pass in silence.

A few steps beyond, some one who was running overtook him. It was a slender, fair lad, with blue eyes full of intelligence.

“Are you going to Rome, Signor Maironi?” he said.

“I beg you not to call me by that name!” Benedetto answered, ill-pleased to find that his name, who knows by what means, had been revealed. “I do not yet know whether I go to Rome.”

“I shall follow you,” the young man said, impulsively.

“You will follow me? But why should you follow me?”

In reply the young man took his hand, and, in spite of Benedetto’s resistance and protests, raised it to his lips.

“Why?” said he. “Because I am sick of the world, and could not find God, and to-day it Seems to me that, through you, I have been born to happiness! Please, please, let me follow you!

“_Caro_ [dear one];” Benedetto replied, greatly moved, “I myself do not know whither I shall go!”

The young man entreated him to say, at least, when he should see him again, and exclaimed, seeing Benedetto really did not know what to answer:

“Oh! I shall see you in Rome! You will surely go to Rome!”

Benedetto smiled:

“In Rome? And how will you find me there?”

The lad answered that he would certainly be talked of in Rome, that every one would know where to find him.

“If it be God’s will!” said Benedetto, with an affectionate gesture of farewell.

The lad detained him a moment, holding his hand.

“I am a Lombard also,” said he. “I am Alberti, from Milan. Do not forget me!”

And his intense gaze followed Benedetto until he disappeared at a bend of the mule-path.

* * * * *

At sight of the cross with its great arms, rising on the brow of the hill, Benedetto suddenly shuddered with emotion, and was obliged to stop. When he once more started forward he was seized with giddiness. Swaying, he stepped aside a few yards, leaving the way free for passers-by, and sank upon the grass, In a hollow of the field. Then, closing his eyes, he realised that this was no passing disturbance, but something far more serious. He did not become entirely unconscious, but he lost the sense of hearing and of touch, his memory, and all account of time. When he first recovered his senses, the feeling on the backs of his hands, of the coarse cloth, different from that of his usual habit, filled him with a curiosity, rather amused than troubled, concerning his own identity. He felt his breast, the buttons, the button-holes, without understanding. He thought. A boy from Jenne, who passed near him in the field, ran to the town and reported excitedly that the Saint was lying dead on the grass, near the cross.

Benedetto reflected, with that shade of cloudy reason which governs us when we sleep and when we first awake. These were not his clothes. They were Piero Maironi’s clothes. He was still Piero Maironi. This thought terrified him, and he recovered his senses completely. He rose to a sitting posture, looked at himself, looked about him at the field and the hills, veiled in the shades of evening. At sight of the great cross, his mind regained its composure. He felt ill, very ill. He tried to rise to his feet, but found it difficult to do so. Directing his steps towards the mulepath, he asked himself what he should do in that condition. Some one coming swiftly down the path from Jenne stopped before him; he heard the exclamation: “Oh! my God! it is you!” He recognised the voice of the woman who had spoken so passionately to him while the storm was raging. She alone of all those at Jenne who had heard the boy’s story had come to him. The others had either not believed or not wished to believe. She had come running, and mad with grief. Now she had stopped suddenly, and stood speechless, not two steps from him. He, not suspecting she had come on his account, wished her good-night and passed on. She did not return his salutation, for, after the first moment of joy, she was distressed to see him walk with such difficulty, and she did not dare to follow him. She saw him stop and speak to a man riding a mule, who was coming up. She rushed forward to hear what was said. The man was a muleteer, sent by the Selvas to look for Benedetto. The Selvas, with two mules for the ladies, had left Jenne soon after him, thinking to overtake him on the hillside. Reaching the Anio without having seen him, they questioned a passer-by coming from Sublaco. He could give them no news of Benedetto. Noemi, who was to take the last train for Tivoli, went on with Giovanni, hiding her disappointment. The muleteer had been sent back to Jenne to look for Benedetto, and to fetch a parasol which had been forgotten at the inn. Maria was awaiting his return among the rocks of the Infernillo. The young school-mistress heard Benedetto ask the muleteer to bring him a little water from Jenne, for the sake of charity. The two men were still talking, but she sped away, without waiting to hear more.

After a brief consultation with the muleteer, Benedetto had consented to ride down to where Signora Selva was waiting. Left alone, he seated himself near the cross, and waited for the man to return with the water and the parasol. The crescent moon was rising, gilding the bright sky, above the hills of Arcinazzo; the evening was warm and breathless. Benedetto felt his temples throb and burn; his breath came quick and short, but he suffered no pain. The sweet-scented grass of the field, the scattered trees, the great shadowy hills, all, to him, was alive, was filled with religion; all was sweet with a mystery of adoring love which bent even the crescent moon towards the heights in the opalescent sky. Don Giuseppe Flores whispered in his heart that it would be sweet to die thus with the day, praying in unison with the innocent things.

Hurried steps were heard in the direction of Jenne. They stopped a short distance from him. A little girl came towards Benedetto, timidly offered him a bottle of water and a glass, and then turned and fled. Benedetto, astonished, called her to him. She came slowly, shyly, and did not answer when he asked her name, her parents’ name. A voice said:

“She is the innkeeper’s child.”

Benedetto recognised the voice and the person also, though the moonlight was pale; she had remained at a distance, prompted by the same sense of delicacy which had moved her to bring the child with her.

“I thank you,” said he. She came a little nearer, holding the child by the hand, and asked softly:

“Do you know the priests have been talking to the dead man’s mother? Do you know the woman now accuses you of killing her son?”

Benedetto replied with some severity in his tone:

“Why do you tell me this?”

She saw she had displeased him by repeating this accusation, and exclaimed in distress;

“Oh! forgive me!”

Presently she added:

“May I ask you a question?”

“Speak.”

“Shall you never return to Jenne?”

“Never.”

The woman was silent. They could hear steps approaching in the distance; it was the muleteer and his mule. She said in a lower tone:

“For pity’s sake, one word more! How do you picture to yourself the future life? Do you believe we shall meet those we have known in this life?”

If the moonlight had not been so pale, Benedetto would have seen two great tears rolling down the young girl’s face.

“I believe,” he replied, “that until the death of our planet, our future life will be one of labour upon it, and that all those minds which aspire to truth, to unity, will meet there, and labour together.” The muleteer’s hobnailed shoes, which grated among the pebbles, could be heard very near them. The woman said:

“_Addio_! Farewell!”

The tears sounded in her voice now. Benedetto answered:

“_A Dio_! God be with you!”

Mounted on the mule, he goes down into the shadows of the valley. He is burning with fever. He is going to Casa Selva, after all. He knows, for the muleteer has told him, that he will not see Noemi there; but that is indifferent to him, he does not fear her, does not even remember the moment of gentle emotion. Another feverish thought is stirring in his soul. There is a whirl of words spoken by Don Clemente, by the lad Alberti, by the elderly Englishwoman, while fragments of the Vision flash like pictures before his mind’s eye. Yes, he will go to Casa Selva, but only for a short time. As he ascends, the mighty voice of the Anio roars louder, ever louder, out of the depths:

“Rome! Rome! Rome!”