Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian Part 7

V.

Ten days after, at the same hour, Don Rocco was praying before the altar of the Virgin, under the pulpit.

He was on the eve of leaving St. Luke for ever. He had agreed with the Countess Carlotta to give as an excuse a brief absence, a visit of a couple of weeks to his old father; and to write afterwards that for family reasons he could not return, and then this had happened that the poor old peasant, before learning of the new state of affairs, had written, asking for a.s.sistance; and Don Rocco had been obliged to sell some furniture as well to save cost of transportation as in order not to arrive home with empty hands. He was returning with the intention of remaining as short a time as possible, and of going away as chaplain wherever it pleased the Curia to which he had directed his request.

No certain information had been secured, either of the wine or of the thieves; but suspicions were rife against a woman who kept an inn, a new favorite of the Moro, who was thought to have received the wine.

The Moro was said by some to have fled, by others to have gone into hiding. It seemed as if the police were of the second opinion. They came and went, searching everywhere, but always uselessly.

Lucia had returned, and for several days had behaved in an unusual and peculiar manner. She neglected her work, was brusque with her master, and wept without apparent motive. One evening she went out, saying that she intended going to the parish church to say her prayers. At nine o'clock Don Rocco, as she had not returned, went philosophically to bed, and never knew at what time she came into the house. On the contrary, he congratulated himself the next day on the happy change that had taken place in her, owing to her religious exercises, because she seemed no longer as she had been, but was quiet, attentive, active, spoke with satisfaction of the approaching departure, the position which Don Rocco hoped to find for her with a certain arch-priest, a friend of his; a promotion for her. She seemed to be possessed of an entirely novel ascetic zeal. As soon as Don Rocco retired for the night, she would go to church to spend there hour after hour.

And now, Don Rocco had taken his last supper in the monastic refectory, was reading his breviary for the last time in the little church of St.

Luke, as rustic, simple, and religious as he, from its pavement to the black beams of its roof. His heart was heavy, poor priest, thus to leave his nest without honor; to carry humiliation and bitterness to his father and his sister, whose only hope and pride he was! He had every reason to frown as he looked at his breviary.

When he had finished reading, he took his seat on a bench. It was painful to him to take leave of his church. It was his last evening! He stood there with fixed eyes, his eyelids moving regularly, discouraged, cast down, like a stricken beast awaiting the axe. He had pa.s.sed some hours of the afternoon among his vines, those planted three years before, which had already given him their first fruit. The large cypresses, the splendid view of the plain and of the other hillsides, inspired him with not a single dream; his peasant's heart grew tender toward the beautiful vines, the fertile furrows. Though blushing and ashamed of it, he had taken a sprig of a vine and an ear of corn to carry away as mementos. This was his poetry. Of the church he could carry away nothing. But he left there his heart, a little everywhere; on the altar that had witnessed his first exposition of the Gospel, on the ancient altar front that inspired him with devotion as he said Ma.s.s, on the beautiful Madonna, whose mantle had been modestly raised around her neck by his care, on the tomb of a bishop to whom, two centuries before, the peace of St. Luke had seemed preferable to worldly splendors. Who could tell whether he would ever have again a church so his own--entirely his own? He could not seem to rise, he felt an inner sense of dissolution, of which he had never dreamed. His eyelids kept on winking as if bidding away importunate tears. In fact, he did not weep, but his little eyes shone more than usual.

At half-past nine Lucia entered the church through the choir to look after her master. "I am coming at once, at once, go back," said Don Rocco.

He believed himself alone in the church, but had he bent his head back he might have seen something unusual. Very slowly a human head showed itself in the pulpit by the light of the petroleum lamp and looked down upon the priest. It had the diabolic eyes of the Moro set in a shaven ecclesiastical face. The head rose up in the shadow, two long arms made in the air a violent gesture of impatience. At the same time Don Rocco repeated to the woman who stood hesitating: "Go back, go back, I am coming at once."

She went out.

Then the priest got up from his bench and went up to the high altar.

The human figure in the pulpit came down again, and went rapidly into hiding. Don Rocco turned around so as to stand in cornu epistolae, toward the empty benches, imagined them full of people, of his people of every Sunday, and a spirit of eloquence entered into him.

"I bless you all," said he in a strong voice. "I wish that you were all present, but that is not possible, because I must not let any one know.

I bless you all, and ask you to pardon me if I have been wanting.

Gloria Dei c.u.m omnibus vobis."

The temptation was too strong for a certain person to resist. A cavernous voice resounded through the empty church:

"Amen."

Don Rocco remained breathless, with his hands in the air.

"Hurry up," said the servant, returning. "Do you not remember that you must leave out your cloak and your clothes?"

Poor Don Rocco was not well found in clothes, for he carried on his back omnia bona sua, and there was sewing to be done and spots to be taken out, according to Lucia, before the journey of the next morning.

Don Rocco descended from the altar without answering and went all through the church, lowering the lamp between all the benches and confessionals.

"What is it; what are you looking for?" asked the servant, anxiously coming along behind him. For a while Don Rocco did not answer.

"I said a few words of prayer," he said finally, "and I heard some one answer 'Amen.'"

"You fancied so." replied Lucia. "It must have been a trick of the imagination."

"No, no," said Don Rocco. "I really heard the 'Amen.' It seemed to be a voice from under the earth. A great big voice. It did not seem that of a man, but rather of a bull."

"It may have been the bishop," suggested the woman. "Isn't there a bishop buried here? Such things have been heard of."

Don Rocco kept silent. In his simplicity, in his innate disposition to faith, he was inclined to willingly believe anything supernatural, especially if connected with religion. The more astonishing it was, the more did he in sign of reverence knit his brows and drink it in devoutly.

"Now let us go," said the woman. "It is late, you know, and I have considerable work to do."

"Let us at least recite a pater, an ave, and a gloria to St. Luke,"

said Don Rocco. "It is the last evening that I say my prayers here. I must leave a salute." He spoke of a pater, and an ave, and a gloria; but he strung along at least a dozen, finding as many reasons to salute other saints of his particular acquaintance. One was to promote the eternal salvation of the two devotees, one their temporal salvation, one the grace to conquer temptations, one a suitable position, one a good death, and another a good journey. The last pater was recited by Don Rocco with remarkable fervor for the complete conversion of a sinful soul. Had the priest been less absorbed in his paters he might, perhaps, have heard after the fourth or fifth some smothered e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns of that humorous bishop who had perpetrated the "Amen."

But he heard only Lucia answering him with much devotion, and was touched to the heart by it.

A few moments after he was still meditating, in the dark, in the wretched little bed of his cell, on the salutary and evident effects of the divine grace which he had sought in the sacraments. He meditated also on the action of the Moro, on the ray of light that had shone into that dark conscience, harbinger, if nothing less, of better and lasting light. And in his mystic imagination he saw the design of Providence which recompensed him for a sacrifice which he had suffered for duty's sake. It was a blessing to think of that, to know that he was losing all his few earthly possessions for such a recompense. He offered up also the sorrow of his father and his sister, his own humiliation, the straitened circ.u.mstances in which he should find himself. He saw in front of his bed, through the window, the vague, far-off brightness of the sky, his hope, his end. Little by little his eyes closed, in a delicious sense of confidence and peace. He slept profoundly.

VI.

He was not yet entirely awake when the clock of St. Luke struck half-past seven. Immediately after the bells also rang, because Don Rocco had the day before notified the boy accustomed to serve him at Ma.s.s that he would meet him at about eight o'clock. He jumped out of bed, and went to get the clothes that Lucia was to have placed outside the door. Nothing there. He called once, twice, three times. No answer.

Perplexed, he returned to his room and called out of the window: "Lucia! Lucia!" Perfect silence. Finally the little sacristan appeared.

He had not seen Lucia. He had come to get the keys of the church, had found the gate of the courtyard open, as well as the door of the house; no one in the kitchen, no one in the sitting-room. Not finding the keys, he had entered the church by the inner entry. Don Rocco sent him to the sitting-room to get his clothes, as it was there that Lucia usually worked in the evening. The boy returned to say that there were no clothes there. "How? There are no clothes?" Don Rocco ordered him to stand on guard before the entrance of the house and went down to look for them himself, in his shirt. Half-way down the stairs he stopped and sniffed. What an abominable odor of pipe was this? Don Rocco, with darkened brow, went on. He went directly to the sitting-room, looked, searched; there was nothing. He returned to the kitchen, his heart beating. A horrid smell, but no clothes. Yes, under the table there was a little pile of soiled things; a jacket, a pair of drawers, a peasant's hat. Don Rocco gathered up, unfolded, and examined them with portentous frowns. It seemed to him that he had seen these things somewhere before. His brain did not yet understand anything, but his heart began to understand and to beat more strongly than before. He took hold of his chin and his cheeks with his left hand, squeezed them hard, trying to squeeze from them the where, the how, and the when. And lo! his eyes rested on the wall, and he finally perceived something there which was not there the day before. There was written in charcoal on the right: "Many salutations." And on the left:

"The wine is good."

"The servant is good."

"The cloak is good."

"Don Rocco is good."

He read, raised his hand to his head, read again--read again, seemed to lose his eyesight, felt a sensation of cold, of torpidity spreading from his breast throughout his body. Some one called out in the courtyard, "Where is that Don Rocco?" With difficulty he went up to his room again, cast himself on his bed, almost without knowing what he was doing, almost without thought or sensation.

Below they were looking and calling for him. Professor Marin was there, and some few other persons who had come to attend the Ma.s.s. No one could understand how the door of the church was still closed. The professor went into the house, called Lucia, called Don Rocco, without receiving any answer. He finally reached the room of the priest and stood still on the doorsill, amazed to see him in bed. "Well," said he, "Don Rocco! in bed? And what about Ma.s.s?"

"I cannot," answered Don Rocco in a low voice, immovable on his back like a mummy.

"But what is it?" replied the other, approaching the bed with sincere alarm. "What is the matter with you?"

This troubled face, this affectionate tone, softened poor Don Rocco's heart, petrified by pain and surprise. This time two real tears fell from his palpitating eyelids. His mouth, closed tight, was twisting and trembling, but still resisted. Seeing then that he answered not a word, the professor ran to the stairs and called down that the physician should be sent for.

"No, no," Don Rocco forced himself to say without moving. His voice was filled with sobs. The professor heard him only as he was returning to the bed.

"No?" said he. "But what, then, is the matter? Speak."

Meanwhile three poor women and a beggar, who had come to listen to Ma.s.s, entered quite frightened into the room, surrounding the two, and in their turn questioning Don Rocco. He kept silent like a Job, seeking to master himself. Perhaps his annoyance at all these curious faces hanging over his own helped him. "Go away," said he finally to the last comers. "There is no need of the doctor, no need of anything, go away!"

The four faces withdrew somewhat, but continued looking at him fixedly with an expression, perhaps, of increased alarm.

"Go away, I tell you!" continued Don Rocco.

They went out silently and stopped outside to listen and spy.