Little Novels of Italy Part 4

Tall enough she was, her head seemingly about a foot from the cross-beam of the door. She was cloaked from crown to foot; nothing but the oval of her face, colourless white with lips very wan, and a droop to them inexpressibly sad, showed out of the dark column she made. The servant shrank into the pa.s.sage and stayed there praying; of the three men at the table only one, Can Grande himself, had the spirit left to be courteous. He got up; the other two remained seated, Francesco with his face in his arms.

"Madonna," began the tyrant; but she uncloaked her hand and put a finger to her sad lips.

"I may not stay," she said, in a voice so weary that it drew tears to Baldinanza's wicked old eyes--"I may not stay; but I must warn you, Can Grande, before I go. Walk not in the streets this night, walk not by the Piazza, pa.s.s not the arched way; peril lies there. No sword shall help you, nor the royal seat you have,--enter it not. Now I have warned you; let me go."

She put back her lifted hand under her cloak. Can Grande saw the round head of the Babe asleep. For five minutes after her disappearance no one spoke.

Francesco was the first. He groaned, "G.o.d have mercy upon me a sinner,"

between his hands. Then Baldinanza began to swear by all devils in Christendom and Jewry, not blasphemously, but in sheer desperate search for a little courage. Can Grande shook his head like a water-clogged hound, as if to get the ring of that hollow voice out of his ears. The first to rise was the eldest of the three. His eyes were very bright, and you could see the long scar plainly shining on his cheek.

"I am a sinner too," said he, "but this night I will sleep clean." He made to go.

"Do you desert me, comrade?" Can Grande asked.

The old dog turned upon his master.

"Mother of Pity!" he said in a whisper, "you are never going after this?"

"I am going, good sir. What of you?" Baldinanza blinked hard. "I am your servant, Can Grande," he said shortly; "where you go I follow. That is how I read the Book of the Law."

"Well, Checco," the tyrant went on, turning to the youngster still at the table, "what of you?"

Francesco threw up his arms. "Never, Excellency, never!" he groaned in his anguish. "I dare not, I dare not!" He concealed neither his tears, nor his despair, nor his bodily fear.

Can Grande shrugged. "Are you ready, Ubaldo?" he asked.

Baldinanza bowed his head. The two men cloaked and masked themselves, and went out of the palace. The moon shone broad over the Piazza; it was a cold white night. They crossed at the farther corner, went up a few steps, and then were lost in the glooms of the arched way.

They never came out alive. Six hired daggers hacked the life out of them and their hearts from their bodies. To this day the unwholesome place is called for a testimony the "Volto Barbaro," the horrid entry. So died in his sin Can Grande II., a man who feared nothing and won nothing but fear, and Can Signorio his son reigned in his stead. You might trust the cloth-white lackey and the stricken conscience of Francesco della Rocca Rossa to spread the news they had.

VIII

THE REPROACHES

A scared city of blank cas.e.m.e.nts, a city of citizens feverishly asking questions whose answers they knew beforehand, a city of swift feet and hushed voices, was Verona on the morrow of Can Grande's murder. They carried the two torn bodies covered with one sheet to Sant' Anastasia, and laid them there, not in state but just huddled out of sight, while the bishop and his canons sang a requiem, and "Dirige" and "Placebo"

went whining about the timbers of the roof. n.o.body mourned the man, yet he had his due. His yellow-skinned wife knelt at his feet; Can Signorio, the new tyrant, frozen rigid, armed in mail, knelt at his head. The mercenaries held the nave, the bodyguard the door, archers lounged in the Piazza. All this parade of force was mere superfluity; Verona had no desire to revolt. The Veronese were for rending their hearts and not their rulers that day.

In the afternoon the show of a trial-at-law was made. The depositions of the lackey, of Rocca Rossa, of the finders of the murdered, and the hunters for the murderers, were taken and recorded by the _Podesta_ in the presence of the council. After that the six unknown dastards were publicly condemned to death by the civil power from the loggia of the palace, and as publicly excommunicated by the bishop from the steps of the cathedral. It was felt on all hands that on this occasion the bishop had wielded the heavier arm: at least, in the absence of the criminals, he had brought his chances level. But what gave him most weight was that which had made the testimony of Francesco and the lackey overshadow every event of a week full of events--the interposition of Madonna of the Peach-Tree. Not a soul in the city was left to doubt; it might be said that not a soul was left to save, if faith can save you. The churches were packed from dawn to dark, not an altar in a chapel went bare of a ma.s.s. There were not enough of them. Altars were set up in the squares, and the street-ends blocked by a kneeling, bowing, weeping, adoring crowd. The bishop spoke the common mind when at Vespers that night he gave notice that he should go forthwith to purge the Carmelite church of the stain upon it, "at the request of my reverend brother the Prior Provincial of the Order." He set out then and there in solemn procession of the whole cathedral chapter. Rank formed on rank behind him till his ordered following trailed across Verona like a host.

Now, although, as it has been said, and truly said, there was no soul in the city who doubted, there was one soul very much in doubt. That was Fra Battista's. The offer of purgation had come in frenzy from the lips of his prior; by its acceptance Fra Battista saw himself driven to one of two courses. He must destroy his reputation for obedience to heavenly commands which it had been rank heresy in him to overlook, or that other reputation he had won, for being a desperate lover, upon which he shrewdly surmised some of his fame depended. He may have been right about that--I am not here to defend him. If he admitted his guilt, he would be unfrocked; he would show like a chanticleer stripped of his hackles before his hens. If he denied it, he could never preach to the women again. Admit it? Be degraded? Eh, that would be a nasty shift!

Deny it? Oh, preposterous! The whole day he battled with himself, voice crying against voice, without result. Observe, it was a mere case of expediency: he had no thought to own a fault or repudiate a slander--the fellow had no conscience at all. Expediency, indeed, was his conscience, his attention to it the ladder whereby he hoped to climb to the only heaven he knew. No imagination had he, but very tender senses.

Applause--the hushed church, the following eyes, the sobered mouths, a sob in the breath--stood him for glory. He had worked for this, and, by the Lord! he had won it. And now he must lose it. Eh, never, never!

Stated thus, he knew the issue of his battle. He knew he could not give up these things--eye-service, lip-service, heart-service--of which he had supped so thirstily. Rather be unfrocked, driven out of the city, reviled, and spit upon, than admit such a shame as that other: to prove himself a vapourer before his slaves, to be p.r.i.c.ked like a bulging bladder, slit open like a rotten bag--G.o.d of the love of women, never, never in life! The other course, then? He pictured himself, the tall and comely youth, standing up alone before the grim a.s.sembly of elders, flinty old men who knew nothing of my Lord Amor, how he rides afield in a rose-coloured garment, throwing a flower and a dart to boy or girl as he goes. He saw a dewy-eyed Battista owning himself Love's priest. The women called him Sebastian for his beauty. A Sebastian he was, _per Dio!_ stuck all over with Amor's fiery darts. Like Sebastian, by his persecutors he would be stripped bare; like that martyr's enemies, they would wound his tender flesh; like Sebastian he would endure, casting his eyes upwards; and like Sebastian he would infallibly be wept by the women.

If women will weep for you they will bleed for you; the fount of tears feeds a river as well as betrays a hidden well. Good, then; good, then!

He saw a future in all this. From the other spike of the dilemma he saw nothing but his impaling; in this case, if he was impaled, balm at least would be laid upon his wounds. Fra Battista determined to brazen it out before Verona.

They lit the tapers in the sanctuary betimes; and then all the brethren in their hoods sat in choir awaiting the bishop. With him and his clergy should come the reverend prior. Fra Battista was to stand on the rood-step to make his purgation. He would be backed by the light. So much of grace they would do him, that he should face a sea of dark, and be seen but in outline by it.

The bishop's procession, long announced by the indefinable hum a great crowd breeds, swept up the nave with a slippering of countless feet.

The bishop in purple, his canons in scarlet, his cross-bearer, his chaplains and singing-men, the bearer of his mitre, his ring on a cushion; after these the archdeacon and his chaplains, the clergy of the city, heads of religious orders, representatives of the civil arm, Can Signorio with the officers of his household; finally, the silent, eager people, edging past each other, whispering, craning their heads to see what there was and what there was not to be seen. So came Verona in a mult.i.tude to the great business of Fra Battista and the rag-picker's wife, in reality thrilling with but one thought: Madonna of the Peach-Tree was in the city, for any waking soul to see!

After the penitential psalms, a litany, and the office appointed, the bishop stood with his back to the altar, and spoke _urbi et orbi_ from the text, "G.o.d, who in divers times and in divers places," etc. I cannot do more than report the sum of his discourse, which was that, as it was plain these late marvels had some root in the hidden ways of men's hearts, so it behoved him as a father to lay all such ways bare. That for himself, if he might speak as a man only, he was conscious of no sin unpurged which the apparitions might condemn, and certainly (alas!) of no graces of his own which they could have been designed to reward. Let each speak for himself. If there was any man in that vast a.s.sembly unshriven, let him confess now what his fault was; so that instant prayer might be made to their glorious Visitant for forgiveness by intercession. If, on the other hand, there was some Christian virtue blossoming in secret, let them (brethren) find it speedily out, that thanks might be given for mercies vouchsafed. It was noticed afterwards that the death by butchery of the feudal lord was pa.s.sed by without a comment. There might have been reason for this in the circ.u.mstance that Can Grande II. had been warned of his sin, had nevertheless set out to commit it, and had died in the act, as it had been foretold. To discuss all this in the hearing of Can Signorio, his successor, might have been a task too delicate for the bishop. But I believe that the scent of the miraculous, which was all about him, was too much for him. He could nose out nothing beyond the line which that fragrance seemed to point. All his thoughts, with those of his auditors, were upon Madonna of the Peach-Tree, whom there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect with Fra Battista, his doings and undoings. No one detected this, so Can Grande may have been inspired. A great to-do, which no one had the rights of, was followed by mysterious appearances which no one pretended to understand. What more natural than that one mystery should be allowed to explain the other?

The bishop having ended, the prior (who was very nervous) began. There were certainly foxes here and there in the vineyard, wild grapes on the vines as well as grapes. No community was so holy but that, through excess of zeal, over-inflamed by charity, it might nurture upon its bosom a fanged snake. Might he not allude to the detestable and never-enough-to-be-condemned sin of simony which, as they knew only too well, had fattened in the Dominican convent at B----? What should he say of that Friar Minor, the famous preacher of S----, who had been found dead of a surfeit of melons and white wine? Alas! he brought the taint of gluttony--a deadly sin--upon his order! Wonderful, then, would it be in such days as these if the most renowned of all orders and most venerable, that of Mount Carmel, should pa.s.s unscathed through the tempting fires! Not only wonderful, but in itself a snare. What a temptation to the sin of pride in the order! What a drawing on of others (too disposed already) to the sin of envy, to uncharitable speaking--ah, and to unlovely dealing! Let sin be owned, therefore, since men were born sinners; but let purgation be done, the wicked member plucked out, etc.

He pa.s.sed to the sin of Fra Battista--that promising young apostle--handled it soberly yet gingerly, hinted extenuating circ.u.mstances--the pride of life, young blood, the snares of women, Satan's favourite sitting-places, etc.--drew a tear or two from his own eyes and floods from La Testolina; and then called Fra Battista to come forth that he might purge himself or be purged by the canon law.

Thus exhorted, Fra Battista, becomingly tonsured, delicately combed, with an aspect most meek and hands at a pretty droop, came demurely out of the friars' door into the full light of the chancel. To the bishop he bowed, to the altar he bent a knee, to his father in religion he bent both, to the hush in the nave he cast a glance of wistful appeal. It was truly aimed. They could see nothing of his face, nothing but the shape of him, yet the women were sure he made a wistful appeal. Many were affected; the anxiety to hear him was intense, the squeezing fearful. An enormous fish-seller from the Lago di Garda, who had come in express, leaned over La Testolina and ground a braized heel into her toes.

"_Achi!_" whimpered the little laundress; but "Snakes of Purgatory!"

said the other, "what's a toe more or less when Madonna is round the corner with a blessing for us in her maunch?"

In a rapt silence, with no preface at all, Fra Battista made direct confession to all his G.o.ds (whether remote or throned within the sanctuary-rail) that he had committed the sin whereof he was accused. A perceptible shiver of sensation swept over the church, although everybody in it was sure, before he had uttered a word, what that word ought to be. Indeed he had never denied it; but not to deny is different from bold affirmation. The prior, whose avowal had also been tacit, looked pained: avowals are painful things. The bishop, more used to avowals, did his best to look shocked; the archdeacon (professionally enough) thought avowal the most indecent part of an indecent business.

The Dominicans looked at each other, frankly delighted; the Friars Minor told each other what they had always said. What the people thought can only be guessed, for the nave was in darkness; but when Battista had made an end, a shuddering sigh came from a woman far down the church, and then stopped, hidden in some hasty new movement there which could not be accounted for. There seemed to be a stampede, a sudden rush to the side, the surging of some great unsuspected wave, which broke, as it were, in the midst of the throng, and washed an open s.p.a.ce to right and left. Up in the choir, after the first surge of this wave (which made every heart beat), all ears heard the long-drawn following "Ah!"--not fear only, not expectation made real, but rather awe, expectation shown just. It began low and hollow, ran up to a hiss: then the silence was such that the cracking of a man's ankle-bone by the door sounded like a carter's whip to him upon the bishop's throne. In that deathly state the whole body of people remained breathless, waiting what was to ensue.

Out of the dark, stealing (it appeared) from the middle of the nave and floating down the church upon a bodily silence, came a cold voice. Like a wind from the snow-mountains it came in a thin stream, before which Fra Battista shrivelled visibly.

"O thou craven!" it said, "thou wicked man! what sin can be greater than thine? If thou hadst done this thing thou ownest to, it had gone better with thee than now, when thou standest a liar and boaster in a filthy cause. Wilt thou foul thyself, Battista, and think it honour? I tell thee that it was more tolerable for that stoned simple wretch than it shall be for thee; and it were better that men should go unsouled like the dogs, committing offence with their bodies, than souled horribly like thee, thou sinner of the mind, idolater of thine own image! Dost thou yet make slippery the ways of Mount Carmel, Battista? Dost thou yet hang the pearls which are the tears of Mary about thy neck? It shall be in such case that Carmel will be her holy hill no more, and those same pearls turned to leaden bulls to seal thee in Tophet. There is no mercy for the coward, and none for him that serves false G.o.ds. Go forth, thou groper after vainglory, kennel with the swine!"

The voice ceased. Fra Battista, who had been rocking under its chill breath, fell with a thud. The bishop adored the altar; the rest--priests, monks, people alike--broke into "Salve Regina," so loud, so wild, the very church seemed to shake. At that time the west doors flung open of themselves, and a roaring wind swept round, disastrous to candles. A quick flicker of blue flame jagged across the nave; the thunder came instant, pealing, crackling, braying ruin, fading at last to a distant grumble; and then the rain. No one got home that night with a dry skin; but it was Madonna who had quenched the doubting of Fra Battista, and washed fragrant the memory of Vanna to whomsoever had loved her once. As her lovers in early days had been many, it follows that they all forgot in the delight of reminiscence any harsh judgments she had received.

IX

THE CROWNING PROOF

The week went its way without further miracle; but Verona had supped full of miracles, and had need to digest. The signs and wonders she had witnessed, as one soul, in the church of the Carmelites had been so astonishing that you will easily understand how all little differences between order and order were forgotten. The root of disturbance--Vanna and her baby, Fra Battista and his luxurious imaginings, Balda.s.sare and his addition--were also forgotten. Balda.s.sare was at Mantua, Vanna had been stoned to death ("martyred" was now the word)--all was well. Fra Battista had been quietly ridded the very next morning: unfrocked, he took the way of the Brenner and the mountains, and Veronese history knows nothing further certainly of him. It is thought he may have got so far as Prague, where at any rate a perfervid preacher called Baptist von Bern was burnt for heresy in the year 1389--a spreader of anabaptistical doctrines he was, Gospels of the Spirit, Philadelphianism, and what not.

Everything settled down to routine: Can Signorio to tyranny and coquetting with Visconti of Milan (who finally swallowed him up), the bishop to accommodating the claims of G.o.d, the Pope, and his temporal lord, to those of salvation and his stomach; and in like manner did every person in this narrative after his kind.

Then, on a bright morning in early September, old Balda.s.sare came limping up the Ponte Navi with his pack on his back, paused a minute on the bridge, as his habit was, to look down on the busy laundresses by the water, spat twice, and so doing was observed, threw a cracked "Buon'

giorno, La Testolina!" over the side, and went on his slow way to the Via Stella.

It was still very early, but not so early that Vanna was not in her shop-door sewing and crooning to the baby on her lap. She heard his step the moment he rounded the bottom corner of the street, blushed prettily from neck to temples, caught up the child, and went out to meet her lord. Standing before him in her cool cotton gown, there was no sun in the dusky place but what her halo of hair made, no warmth but that of her welcoming mouth. Half shyly she stopped, holding up the baby for him to see: it was not for her to make advances, you must understand; but it needed no magic to make one believe that what a man's wife should be to a man that was young Monna Vanna to her rag-picker. Balda.s.sare blinked and tried to look hara.s.sed; the next minute he had pinched Vanna's cheek. She put the baby into his wiry old arms--a very right move of hers.

"Eh, _bambinaccio_," he muttered, highly pleased, "it is good to see thee! So thou art come out to meet thy old dad--thou and thy little rogue of a mother? Come, the pair of ye, and see what my pack has in store."

The baby crowed and bubbled, Vanna nested her arm closer in his ribs, and the trio went into the house.

A keen shot from one eye sufficed to a.s.sure the old fellow that as well as a little beauty he had a domestic treasure to wife. The house was as fresh as her cheeks, as trim as her shape. "Now the saints be good to this city of Verona," said he, "as to me they have proved not amiss."

This was great praise from Balda.s.sare; his generosity gave it point.

From his pack came a pair of earrings--wagging, tinkling affairs of silver and coral; next some portentous pins, shining globes like p.r.i.c.kly pears; a coral and bells for Master Niccola, and a _scaldino_ of pierced bra.s.s for the adornment of the house. "Thank you, Balda.s.sare," said Vanna to her blinking old master; then she kissed him. Before she knew where she was, before she could say, "Gia!" he put his arm round her and whispered in her ear. Then she clung to him, sobbing, laughing, breathing quick; and the rest it were profanation to report.