The Master-Christian Part 58

The man needed no second bidding; delighted with his thirty francs, he called a gay "Buona notte, Signor!" and turning his horse's head jogged down the road at a tolerably smart pace. The horse knew as well as the driver, that the way now lay homeward, and lost no time. Varillo, left to himself, paused a moment and looked about him. The Campagna! How he hated it! Should he pa.s.s the night at that albergo, or walk on? He hesitated a little--then made for the inn direct. It was a bright, cosy little place enough, and the padrona, a cheery, dark-eyed woman seated behind the counter, bade him smiling welcome.

Lodging--oh yes! she said, there was a charming room at the Signor's disposal, with a view from the windows which in the early morning was superb! The Signor was an artist?

"No!" said Varillo, almost fiercely--"I am a tourist--travelling for pleasure!"

Ah! Then the view would enchant the Signor, because it would be quite new to him! The room should be prepared at once! Would the Signor take supper?

Yes,--the Signor would take supper. And the Signor went and sat in a remote corner of the common-room, with a newspaper of a week old, pretending to read its contents. And supper was soon served to him,--a tasty meal enough, flavoured with excellent wine,--and while he was drinking his third gla.s.s of it, a man entered, tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a heavy cloak, which he only partially loosened as he leaned against the counter and asked for a cup of coffee. But as he caught sight of the dark face, Varillo shrank back into his corner, and put up his newspaper to shield himself from view,--for he saw that the new-comer was no other than Monsignor Gherardi. His appearance seemed to create a certain amount of excitement and vague alarm in the little inn; the padrona evidently knew him well, and hastened to serve him herself with the coffee he asked for.

"Will you not sit down, Eccellentissima?" she murmured deferentially.

"No, I am in haste!" replied Gherardi, glancing carelessly about him--"My carriage waits outside. There is strange news in Rome to-night! The famous artist, Angela Sovrani, has been found in her studio, murdered!"

The padrona uttered a little cry.

"Murdered!"

"So it seems! Here are the papers from which they cry the news. I will leave them with you. It is perhaps the judgment of Heaven on the Sovrani's uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"

The mistress of the inn crossed herself devoutly.

"Guiosto cielo!--Would Heaven punish a Cardinal?"

"Certainly! If a Cardinal is a heretic!"

The stout padrona clasped her hands and shuddered.

"Not possible!"

"Quite possible!" And Gherardi drained his coffee-cup. "And when so great a personage of the Church is a renegade, he incurs two punishments--the punishment of G.o.d and the punishment of the Church!

The one comes first--the other comes--afterwards! Buena notte!"

And throwing down the money for his refreshment, Gherardi cast another glance around him, m.u.f.fled himself up in his coat and went out into the night. Florian Varillo breathed again. But he was not left in peace for long. The padrona summoned her husband from the kitchen where he performed the offices of cook, to read the halfpenny sheets of news her visitor had left with her.

"Look you!" she said in a low voice, "The wicked Monsignor who has thee, my poor Paolo, in his clutches for debt, has just pa.s.sed by and left evil tidings!--that beautiful girl who painted the famous pictures in Rome, has been murdered! Do you not remember seeing her once with her father at Frascati?"

Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded emphatically.

"That do I!" he answered--"Fair as an angel--kind-hearted too,--and they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And who could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor thing--she is engaged to be married too, to another artist named Florian Varillo.

Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they bent their heads over the paper together and read the brief announcement headed "a.s.sa.s.sinamento di Angela Sovrani!"

A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table in haste and overset his gla.s.s. It fell, shivering to atoms on the floor.

"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,--"A thousand apologies! My hand slipped--it was an accident--"

"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo, cautiously going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments--"It was an accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken nowadays by all the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I tremble to think of the murder of the Sovrani--the poor girl was so innocent of evil--and see you!--we might all be murdered in our beds with such villains about . . ."

He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered.

"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said hoa.r.s.ely,--"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!"

Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn, banging the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the night--true!--but--after all this foolish gabble he resolved he would not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did! Murder was in the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire against the clear sky now luminous with the moon and stars! He was in a fever and a fury--he walked on and on, little heeding where he went. What the devil had brought Gherardi to that particular inn at that particular time of night? He could not imagine. For though he knew most scandals in Rome, the scandal of the priest's "villa d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret too closely guarded for anyone save the sharpest of professional detectives to discover, and he was totally ignorant of it. He wondered restlessly whether the crafty Vatican spy had seen him while pretending not to see? If that were so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy himself as to whether he had really escaped observation, and tormented by this reflection he walked on and on, the burning impetus of his thoughts hastening his footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,--a chill, damp breath of the Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated and giddy, and there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which oppressed him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he stopped, and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not on the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees--he tried to locate it, but somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar with most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How bright the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense purple!--one could never paint them! The golden round of the moon spreading wide reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind like a magic ring environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out as the one criminal for whom all the world was seeking. He had no idea of the time,--his watch had stopped. He began to count up hours. He remembered that when he had gone to see Angela, it was about four o'clock. He had known perfectly well that she was alone, for he had seen the Cardinal drive past him in the streets on the way to the Vatican, and he had heard at his "Cercolo" or club, that Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a few hours. And, thus informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well.

Then, had he meant to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never had had any such intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to see her picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently--with the chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends to judge everything. He knew--none better--the glowing ardour and enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as colour is part of a rose,--his intention had been to freeze all that warmth with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it possible that she,--a mere woman,--could evolve from her own brain and hand, such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as "The Coming of Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he bitterly envied her her power,--he realized the weakness of his own efforts as compared with her victorious achievement, and he hated her accordingly, as all men hate the woman who is intellectually superior to themselves. After all, there was no way out of it, but the way he had chosen,--to kill her and make an end! To kill her and make an end! He muttered these words over and over to himself, as he stood irresolutely watching the broad patterns of the moonlight, and thinking confusedly about the time.

Yes,--it was four o'clock when he went to Angela's studio,--it must have been five, or past that hour when he left it,--when he slunk down the side-street which led to the river, and threw the key and his dagger together into the muddy tide. After that he had gone home,--and had superintended his valet, while that individual packed his portmanteau for Naples--and then--and then? Yes,--then he had written to Angela,--one of the pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed to receive from him,--how strange it was to write to a dead girl!--and he had gone out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of lilies to send to her,--lilies were for dead maidens always,--and he had sent the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must have been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not, and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies, he had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "pet.i.t cafe"

for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had he intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that. But on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,--an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to where he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that fiacre he hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to Frascati?

This he could not determine,--but to his uncertain memory it seemed to have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey. And now--here he was--with no habitation in sight save the solitary building whose walls loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He went towards it after a while, walking slowly and almost mechanically;--he was extremely tired, and an oppressive sense of heat and weariness combined made him anxious to obtain a night's lodging somewhere,--no matter in what sort of place. Anything would be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an easy prey to the worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to the house among the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very high, closely intertwisted iron railing,--and when he came within a few paces of what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air, created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the sound.

He paused,--and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,--then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily persistent, began to stir the silence with words,--words, which to Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded h.e.l.lish and horrible.

"Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!"

"In die ilia tremenda!"

"Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!"

"Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was excessively superst.i.tious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing terrors of his coward conscience.

"Tremens factus sum ego!"

"Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!"

Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone seemed to tear his brain. He uttered an involuntary cry,--every weak impulse in his soul was aroused,--and in the excess of a miserable self-pity he longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and cruelty to the innocent woman who loved him,--to throw the blame on someone else,--if he could only find that someone else! Anything rather than own himself to be the mean wretch and traitor that he was. For he was a cultured and clever man,--a scholar,--an artist,--a poet;--these things were not consistent with murder! A man who painted beautiful pictures,--a man who wrote exquisite verses,--he could never be suspected of stabbing a helpless trusting woman in the back out of sheer jealousy, like a common hired a.s.sa.s.sin! No no! He could never be suspected! Why had he not thought of his intellectual gifts,--his position in the world of art, before? No one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the way he had imagined!--and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some explanation might be given,--someone else might be found guilty . . .

"Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra; Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

Again that horrible bell! Moved by a sudden desperate determination to find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came from, he braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a great gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,--and there seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and stared through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole frame shaking as with an ague fit. What were those dark terrible figures he saw? Were they phantoms or men? Gaunt and black and tall, they swayed to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty splendour of the moonlight,--they were busy with the ground, digging it and casting out shovels full of earth in heaps beside them. Each ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions,--each one worked at its task alone,--and only their voices mingled in harsh dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they chanted

"Dies ilia dies irae, Calamitatis et miseriae!"

"No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an infuriated madman--"What are you doing in there? Who told you to sing my ma.s.s or prepare my grave? I am not ready, I tell you! Not ready! I have done nothing to deserve death--nothing!--I have not been tried!--you must wait--you must wait till you know all--you must wait! . . ."

His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure nearest him. It paused in its toil and lifted its head,--and from the dark folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes glittered out like the eyes of a famished beast. The other spectres paused also, but only for a moment,--the bell boomed menacingly over their heads once more, and again they dug and delved, and again they chanted in dreary monotone--

"Dies magna et amara valde, Dum veneris judicare!

Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!"

Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before.

"Stop I tell you!" he cried--"It is too soon! You are burying me before my time. You have no proof against me--none! I am young,--full of life and strength--the world loves me--wants me!--and I--I will not die!--no I will not!--not yet! Not yet--I am not ready! Stop--stop! You do not know what you are doing--stop! You are driving me mad with your horrible singing!" And he shrieked aloud. "Mad, I tell you!--mad!"

For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move towards him--he clutched at them--fought with them--tore at their garments,--he would have killed them all, he thought, if the moonlight had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a cold silver circle of ice from which he could not escape,--yet he went on struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes, as he fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way through strange storms of mingled fire and snow--till all at once some strong invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and carried him away--and he remembered no more.

x.x.xII.

Away in Paris, a vast concourse of people were a.s.sembled round an open grave in Pere-la-Chaise, wherein the plain coffin of the Abbe Vergniaud had just been lowered. The day was misty and cold, and the sun shone fitfully through the wreaths of thin vapour that hung over the city, occasionally gleaming on the pale fine face of the famous "Gys Grandit", who, standing at the edge of the grave spoke his oration over the dead.

"To this, to this," he cried, "oh people of Paris, we all must come!

Our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our grand reforms, our loves and joys end here, so far as this world is concerned! He whom we have just laid in the earth was skilled in many devious ways of learning,--gifted with eloquence, great in scholarship, quick with the tongue as with the pen, he was a man whom perchance all France would have called famous had it not been for me! I am the blot on my father's name! I am the sin for which he has made the last expiation! People of Paris, for years he lived and worked among you,--outwardly smiling, witty of speech and popular with you all,--but inwardly a misery to himself in his own conscience, because he knew his life was not what he professed it to be. He knew that he did not believe what he asked YOU to accept as true. He knew that he had guilt upon his soul,--he knew that all the sins which none of you could guess at, G.o.d saw. For there is a G.o.d! Not the G.o.d of the priests, but the G.o.d of the Universe and of man's natural and spiritual instinct. He from whom nothing escapes,--He who ordains where every drop of dew shall fall,--He whose omnipresent vision perceives the flight of every small bird in the air and predetermines the building of its nest, and the manner of its end,--He is the G.o.d whom none can deceive. Those who dream they can play false with Him are mistaken. This dead man, my father, living among you for years, was contented for years to seem like you,--yes!--for you all have something which you think you can cover up from the searching eye of Fate; and many of you pretend to be what you are not,--while many more wear the aspect of men over the souls of beasts. My father who rests here to-day at our feet, was a priest of the Roman Church. In that capacity he should have been clothed with sanct.i.ty. Human, yet removed from common frailty. Yet reckless of his order, heedless of his vows, he, priest as he was, turned libertine, and betrayed an innocent woman. He destroyed her name--killed her honour--broke her heart!