The Saint Part 13

Noemi threatened to leave her. Jeanne clasped her hands in supplication, and asked, looking her straight in the eyes, as though to read her soul:

"How shall I arrange my hair? How shall I dress?"

Noemi answered thoughtlessly:

"Why, just as you please."

Jeanne stamped her foot angrily. Noemi understood.

"As a peasant girl," said she.

"You silly creature!"

Noemi laughed.

Jeanne sighed out the usual reproach:

"You do not love me! You do not love me!"

Then Noemi became serious, and asked her if she really wished to entice him back again--her precious Maironi?

"I want to be beautiful!" Jeanne exclaimed. "There!"

She really was beautiful at that moment, in her dressing-gown of a warm yellow tint, with her streaming dark hair down to a hand's-breadth below her waist. She looked far lovelier and younger than the night before.

Her eyes shone with that look of intense animation which, in former days, they had been wont to a.s.sume when Maironi entered the room, or even when she heard his step outside.

"I wish I had the _toilette_ I wore at Praglia," she said. "I should like to appear before him in my green fur-lined cloak, now, in May! I should like him to see at a glance how unchanged I am, and how much I wish to remain unchanged! Oh! my G.o.d, my G.o.d!"

With a sudden impulse she threw her arms about Noemi's neck, and pressed her face against her shoulder, stifling a sob and murmuring words Noemi could not distinguish.

"No, no, no!" she cried at last. "I am mad! I am wicked! Let us go away, let us go away!" She raised her tearful face. "Let us go to Rome!" said she.

"Yes, yes!" Noemi answered in great agitation, "we will go to Rome. We will leave at once. Let me go and ask when the next train starts."

Jeanne immediately seized upon her and held her back. No, no, it was madness. What would her sister say? What would her brother-in-law think?

It was madness, an impossibility! And besides, besides, besides--She hid her face, whispering behind her hands that she would be satisfied if she could only see him for one moment; but she could not--no, no--she could not leave without having seen him.

"Enough!" said she, uncovering her face, after a long pause. "Let us dress! I will wear whatever you please; sackcloth, if you wish it, or even haircloth!"

Her face had resumed the aggrieved smile she had worn before.

"Who can tell?" she said. "Perhaps it will do me good to see him in the dress of a peasant!"

"It would cure _me_ at once!" Noemi muttered; then she blushed, for she felt she had spoken a great untruth.

When Signora Selva knocked at the door to say the carriage was waiting, Jeanne, with mock humility, begged Noemi to allow her to wear a certain large Rembrandt hat of which she was very fond. The black, feather-laden brim, drooping over her pale face, above the sombre light in her eyes, above the tall figure wrapped in a dark cloak, seemed to partake of her feelings, gloomy, pa.s.sionate, and haughty. When she said good morning to Maria Selva she felt the admiration she aroused. She saw it in Giovanni's eyes also, but it was admiration of a different sort, and not of a sympathetic nature. As soon as she and Noemi had left him and were on their way down to the gate, where the carriage was waiting, Jeanne asked her if she really had not told her brother-in-law anything at all?

Upon being rea.s.sured she murmured:

"I thought you must have."

When they had proceeded a few paces she pressed her friend's arm very hard and exclaimed, much pleased, and as though she had made an unexpected discovery:

"At any rate, I am still beautiful!"

Noemi did not heed her. She was wondering if the name Dessalle had conveyed anything to the monk. Had Maironi ever mentioned it to him? If he had told him of this love, had he not perhaps concealed the woman's name? At the bottom of her heart there lurked a lively curiosity to see this man who had awakened such a strong pa.s.sion in Jeanne and had disappeared from the world in such a strange manner. But she would have liked to see him alone. It was terrifying to think of these two meeting without any preparation. If she could only speak to the monk first, to this Don Clemente, to make sure he knew, and to enlighten him if he did not know; if she could only find out from him something of that other man, the state of his mind, his intentions. "But enough!" she said to herself as she entered the carriage. "Providence must provide! And may Providence help this poor creature!" When they left the carriage where the mule-path begins, Jeanne proposed timidly, and as one who expects a refusal and knows it is justified, that she should go up to the convents by herself, a small boy, who had run after the carriage all the way from Subiaco, acting as guide. The refusal came indeed, and was most emphatic. Such a thing was out of the question! What was she thinking of? Then Jeanne begged at least to be left alone with him should she find him. Noemi did not know what to answer.

"What if I went up before you?" said she. "If I asked for Padre Clemente, and tried to find out from him what he is, what he is doing, and what he thinks; this, your--"

Jeanne interrupted her, horrified.

"The Padre? Speak to the Padre?" she exclaimed, pressing both hands to Noemi's face as though to silence her words. "Woe to you if you speak to the Padre!"

They started slowly up the rocky mule-path, Jeanne often stopping, seized with trembling, and vibrating like a taut cord in the wind. In silence she stretched out her hands that Noemi might feel how cold they were, and smiled. In the sea of clouds rushing towards the hills the pale eye of the sun appeared; the sun, too, was curious.

Don Clemente said Ma.s.s at about seven o'clock, spoke with the Abbot, and then went to the Ospizio where pilgrims were sheltered. He found Benedetto asleep, his arms crossed upon his breast, his lips slightly parted, his face reflecting an inward vision of beat.i.tude. Don Clemente stroked his hair, calling him softly. The young man started, raised his head with a dazed look, and, springing out of bed, grasped and kissed Don Clemente's hand. The monk withdrew it with an impulse of humility, quickly checked by the purity of his soul, by his consciousness of the dignity of his office.

"Well?" he said. "Did the Lord speak to you?"

"I am subject to His will," Benedetto replied, "as a leaf in the wind, a leaf which knows nought."

The monk took his head between his hands, drawing him towards him, and pressed his lips upon his hair, letting them rest there while their souls silently communed.

"You must go to the Abbot," he said. "Afterwards you can come to me."

Benedetto fixed his gaze upon him, questioning him without words: "Why this visit?" Don Clemente's eyes were veiled in silence, and the disciple humbled himself in a mute but visible impulse of obedience.

"At once?" he inquired.

"At once."

"May I first go and wash in the torrent?"

The master smiled:

"Go, wash in the torrent." Bathing in the water which sometimes, after heavy rains, sings in the Pucceia Valley to the east of the monastery, and cuts in rivulets across the road to the Sacro Speco, below Santa Crocella, was the only physical pleasure in which Benedetto allowed himself to indulge. It was still sprinkling; mist smoked slowly in the deep valley; the trembling shallow waters complained to Benedetto as they hastened across the road, but rested quiet and content in the hollow of his hands; and through his forehead, his eyes, his cheeks, his neck, they infused deep into his heart a sense of the sweet chast.i.ty of their soul, a sense of Divine bounty. Benedetto poured the water over his head copiously, and the spirit of the water entered into his thoughts. He felt that the Father was sending him forth upon new paths, but that He would carry him in His mighty hand. He reverently blessed the creature through which so much light of grace had come to him, the most pure water! Then he bent his steps towards the Ospizio. Don Clemente, who was waiting for him in the courtyard, started when he caught sight of him, so transfigured did he appear. Under his thick, damp hair his eyes shone with quiet celestial joy, and the fleshless face, the colour of ivory, wore that expression of occult spirituality which flowed from the brushes of the _Quattrocento_. How could that face harmonise with peasant's attire? In his heart Don Clemente congratulated himself upon a thought which he had conceived during the night, and had already communicated to the Abbot, namely, to give Benedetto an old lay-brother's habit. Before consenting or refusing the Abbot wished to see Benedetto and speak with him.

The Abbot, while waiting for Benedetto, was strumming with his knuckles a piece of his own composition, accompanying the sound with horrible contortions of lips, nostrils and eyebrows. Upon hearing a gentle knock at the door, he neither answered nor stopped playing. Having finished the piece he began it again, and played it a second time from beginning to end. Then he stopped and listened. Another knock was heard, more gentle than the first. The Abbot exclaimed.

"_Seccatore_! Some bore!"

After some angry chords he began playing chromatic scales. From chromatic scales he pa.s.sed to broken chords. Then he listened again for three or four minutes. Hearing nothing more he went to open the door, and perceived Benedetto, who fell upon his knees.

"Who are you?" he demanded roughly.

"My name is Piero Maironi," Benedetto answered; "but here at the monastery they call me Benedetto."

And he made a movement to take the Abbot's hand and kiss it.