The Gadfly Part 58

"Not as a miner?"

"No, as a miner's f.a.g--odd-jobbing with the coolies. We had a barrack to sleep in at the pit's mouth; and one night--I had been ill, the same as lately, and carrying stones in the blazing sun--I must have got light-headed, for I saw you come in at the door-way. You were holding a crucifix like that one on the wall. You were praying, and brushed past me without turning. I cried out to you to help me--to give me poison or a knife--something to put an end to it all before I went mad. And you--ah------!"

He drew one hand across his eyes. Montanelli was still clasping the other.

"I saw in your face that you had heard, but you never looked round; you went on with your prayers. When you had finished, and kissed the crucifix, you glanced round and whispered: 'I am very sorry for you, Arthur; but I daren't show it; He would be angry.' And I looked at Him, and the wooden image was laughing.

"Then, when I came to my senses, and saw the barrack and the coolies with their leprosy, I understood. I saw that you care more to curry favour with that devilish G.o.d of yours than to save me from any h.e.l.l.

And I have remembered that. I forgot just now when you touched me; I--have been ill, and I used to love you once. But there can be nothing between us but war, and war, and war. What do you want to hold my hand for? Can't you see that while you believe in your Jesus we can't be anything but enemies?"

Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.

"Arthur, how can I help believing in Him? If I have kept my faith through all these frightful years, how can I ever doubt Him any more, now that He has given you back to me? Remember, I thought I had killed you."

"You have that still to do."

"Arthur!" It was a cry of actual terror; but the Gadfly went on, unheeding:

"Let us be honest, whatever we do, and not shilly-shally. You and I stand on two sides of a pit, and it's hopeless trying to join hands across it. If you have decided that you can't, or won't, give up that thing"--he glanced again at the crucifix on the wall--"you must consent to what the colonel----"

"Consent! My G.o.d--consent--Arthur, but I love you!"

The Gadfly's face contracted fearfully.

"Which do you love best, me or that thing?"

Montanelli slowly rose. The very soul in him withered with dread, and he seemed to shrivel up bodily, and to grow feeble, and old, and wilted, like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had awaked out of his dream, and the outer darkness was staring in upon an empty place.

"Arthur, have just a little mercy on me----"

"How much had you for me when your lies drove me out to be slave to the blacks on the sugar-plantations? You shudder at that--ah, these tender-hearted saints! This is the man after G.o.d's own heart--the man that repents of his sin and lives. No one dies but his son. You say you love me,--your love has cost me dear enough! Do you think I can blot out everything, and turn back into Arthur at a few soft words--I, that have been dish-washer in filthy half-caste brothels and stable-boy to Creole farmers that were worse brutes than their own cattle? I, that have been zany in cap and bells for a strolling variety show--drudge and Jack-of-all-trades to the matadors in the bull-fighting ring; I, that have been slave to every black beast who cared to set his foot on my neck; I, that have been starved and spat upon and trampled under foot; I, that have begged for mouldy sc.r.a.ps and been refused because the dogs had the first right? Oh, what is the use of all this! How can I TELL you what you have brought on me? And now--you love me! How much do you love me? Enough to give up your G.o.d for me? Oh, what has He done for you, this everlasting Jesus,--what has He suffered for you, that you should love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced hands He is so dear to you?

Look at mine! Look here, and here, and here----"

He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.

"Padre, this G.o.d of yours is an impostor, His wounds are sham wounds, His pain is all a farce! It is I that have the right to your heart!

Padre, there is no torture you have not put me to; if you could only know what my life has been! And yet I would not die! I have endured it all, and have possessed my soul in patience, because I would come back and fight this G.o.d of yours. I have held this purpose as a shield against my heart, and it has saved me from madness, and from the second death. And now, when I come back, I find Him still in my place--this sham victim that was crucified for six hours, forsooth, and rose again from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified for five years, and I, too, have risen from the dead. What are you going to do with me? What are you going to do with me?"

He broke down. Montanelli sat like some stone image, or like a dead man set upright. At first, under the fiery torrent of the Gadfly's despair, he had quivered a little, with the automatic shrinking of the flesh, as under the lash of a whip; but now he was quite still. After a long silence he looked up and spoke, lifelessly, patiently:

"Arthur, will you explain to me more clearly? You confuse and terrify me so, I can't understand. What is it you demand of me?"

The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.

"I demand nothing. Who shall compel love? You are free to choose between us two the one who is most dear to you. If you love Him best, choose Him."

"I can't understand," Montanelli repeated wearily. "What is there I can choose? I cannot undo the past."

"You have to choose between us. If you love me, take that cross off your neck and come away with me. My friends are arranging another attempt, and with your help they could manage it easily. Then, when we are safe over the frontier, acknowledge me publicly. But if you don't love me enough for that,--if this wooden idol is more to you than I,--then go to the colonel and tell him you consent. And if you go, then go at once, and spare me the misery of seeing you. I have enough without that."

Montanelli looked up, trembling faintly. He was beginning to understand.

"I will communicate with your friends, of course. But--to go with you--it is impossible--I am a priest."

"And I accept no favours from priests. I will have no more compromises, Padre; I have had enough of them, and of their consequences. You must give up your priesthood, or you must give up me."

"How can I give you up? Arthur, how can I give you up?"

"Then give up Him. You have to choose between us. Would you offer me a share of your love--half for me, half for your fiend of a G.o.d? I will not take His leavings. If you are His, you are not mine."

"Would you have me tear my heart in two? Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to drive me mad?"

The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.

"You have to choose between us," he repeated once more.

Montanelli drew from his breast a little case containing a bit of soiled and crumpled paper.

"Look!" he said.

"I believed in you, as I believed in G.o.d. G.o.d is a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."

The Gadfly laughed and handed it back. "How d-d-delightfully young one is at nineteen! To take a hammer and smash things seems so easy. It's that now--only it's I that am under the hammer. As for you, there are plenty of other people you can fool with lies--and they won't even find you out."

"As you will," Montanelli said. "Perhaps in your place I should be as merciless as you--G.o.d knows. I can't do what you ask, Arthur; but I will do what I can. I will arrange your escape, and when you are safe I will have an accident in the mountains, or take the wrong sleeping-draught by mistake--whatever you like to choose. Will that content you? It is all I can do. It is a great sin; but I think He will forgive me. He is more merciful------"

The Gadfly flung out both hands with a sharp cry.

"Oh, that is too much! That is too much! What have I done that you should think of me that way? What right have you---- As if I wanted to be revenged on you! Can't you see that I only want to save you? Will you never understand that I love you?"

He caught hold of Montanelli's hands and covered them with burning kisses and tears.

"Padre, come away with us! What have you to do with this dead world of priests and idols? They are full of the dust of bygone ages; they are rotten; they are pestilent and foul! Come out of this plague-stricken Church--come away with us into the light! Padre, it is we that are life and youth; it is we that are the everlasting springtime; it is we that are the future! Padre, the dawn is close upon us--will you miss your part in the sunrise? Wake up, and let us forget the horrible nightmares,--wake up, and we will begin our life again! Padre, I have always loved you--always, even when you killed me--will you kill me again?"

Montanelli tore his hands away. "Oh, G.o.d have mercy on me!" he cried out. "YOU HAVE YOUR MOTHER'S EYES!"

A strange silence, long and deep and sudden, fell upon them both. In the gray twilight they looked at each other, and their hearts stood still with fear.

"Have you anything more to say?" Montanelli whispered. "Any--hope to give me?"

"No. My life is of no use to me except to fight priests. I am not a man; I am a knife. If you let me live, you sanction knives."

Montanelli turned to the crucifix. "G.o.d! Listen to this----"

His voice died away into the empty stillness without response. Only the mocking devil awoke again in the Gadfly.