"That's why I'm sure of you, Roma, sure of your love and sure of your loyalty. Otherwise how could I stay an hour longer after this awful event, tortured by the fear of a double martyrdom—the martyrdom of myself and of the one who is dearest to me in the world?
"The spring is coming to take me home to you, darling. Don't you smell the violets? Adieu!
"Your Faithful Husband."
Roma slept little that night. Joy, relief, disappointment, but, above all, fear for Rossi, apprehension about his plans, and overpowering dread of the consequences kept her awake for hours. Early next day a man in a blue uniform brought a letter from the Braschi Palace. It ran:—
"Dear Roma,—I must ask you to come across to my office this morning, and as soon as convenient. You will not hesitate to do so when I tell you that by this friendly message I am saving you the humiliation of a summons from the police. Yours, as always, affectionately,
Bonelli."
The Minister of the Interior sat in his cabinet before a table covered with blue-books and the square sheets of his "projects of law," and the Commendatore Angelelli, with his usual extravagant politeness, was standing and bowing by his side.
"And what is this about proclamations issued by Rossi?" said the Baron, fixing his eye-glasses and looking up.
"We have traced the printer who published them," said Angelelli. "After he was arrested he gave the name of the person who paid him and provided the copy."
The Baron bowed without speaking.
"It was a certain lady, Excellency," said Angelelli in his thin voice, "so we thought it well to wait for your instructions."
"You did right, Commendatore. Leave that part of the matter to me. And Rossi himself—he is still in England?"
"In France, your Excellency, but we have letters from both London and Paris detailing all his movements."
"Good."
"The Chief Commissioner writes that during his stay in London Rossi lodged in Soho, and received visits from nearly all the representatives of revolutionary parties. Apparently he united many conflicting forces, and not only the Democratic Federations and the Socialist and Labour Leagues, but also the Radical organisations and various religious guilds and unions gathered about him."
The Baron made a gesture of impatience. "It's a case of birds of a feather. London has always been the central home of anarchy under various big surnames. What does the Commissioner understand to be Rossi's plan?"
"Rossi's plan, the Commissioner thinks, is to send back the Italian exiles, and to disperse them, with money and literature gathered abroad, among the excited millions at home."
"Wonderful!" said the Baron.
Angelelli laughed his thin laugh, like a hen cackling over its nest. Then he said:
"But the Prefect of Paris has formed a more serious opinion, your Excellency."
"What is it?"
"That Rossi is conspiring to assassinate the King."
The Baron blinked the glasses from his nose and sat upright.
"Apparently he was having less success in Paris, where the moral plea has been overdone, when reports of the Rocco incident...."
"A most unlucky affair, Commendatore."
"Meeting at cafés in order to avoid the control of the police ... In short, although he has no exact information, the Prefect warns us to keep double guard over the person of his Majesty."
The Baron rose and perambulated the hearthrug. "A pretty century, truly, for fools who pass for wise men, and for weaklings who threaten when the distance is great enough!... Commendatore, have you mentioned this matter to anybody else?"
"To nobody whatever, Excellency."
"Then think no more about it. It's nothing. The public mind must not be alarmed. Tighten the cord about our man in Paris. Adieu!"
The Baron's next visitor was the Prefect of the Province, who looked more solemn and soldierly than ever.
"Senator," said the Baron, "I sent for you to say that the Council has determined to put an end to the state of siege."
The Prefect bowed again severely.
"The insurrection has been suppressed, the city is quiet, and the severities of military rule begin to oppress the people."
The Prefect bowed again and assented.
"The Council has also resolved, dear Senator, that the country shall celebrate the anniversary of the King's accession with general rejoicings."
"Excellent idea, sir," said the Prefect. "To wipe out the depression of the late unhappy times by a public festival is excellent policy. But the time is short."
"Very short. The anniversary falls on Easter Monday. That is to say, a week from to-day. You will therefore take the matter in hand immediately and push it on without further delay. The details we will discuss later, and arrange all programmes of presentations and processions. Meantime I have written a proclamation announcing the event. Here it is. You can take it with you."
"Good!"
"The King will also sign a decree of amnesty to all the authors and accomplices of the late acts and attempts at rebellion who were not the organising and directing minds. That is also written. Here it is. But his Majesty has not yet signed it."
The Prefect took a second paper from the Baron's hand, glanced his eyes over it, and read certain passages. "'Seeing that on a day of public rejoicing we could not restrain an emotion of grief ... turning a pitying eye upon the inexperienced youths drawn into a vortex of political disorder ... we therefore decree and command the following acts of sovereign clemency....' May I expect to receive this in the course of the day, your Excellency?"
"Yes. And now for your own part of the enterprise, dear Senator. You will order all mayors of towns to assemble in Rome to complete the preparations. You will arrange a procession to the Quirinal, when the people will call the King on to the balcony and sing the National Hymn. You will order banners to be made bearing suitable watchwords, such as 'Long live the King,' 'May he govern as well as reign,' 'Long live the Crown,' the 'Flag,' and (perhaps) the 'Army.' You will oppose these generating ideas to 'Atheism' and'Anarchy.' The essential point is that the people must be caused by festivals, songs, bands of music, and processions to think of the throne as their bulwark and the King as their saviour, and to take advantage of every opportunity to attest their gratitude to both. You follow me?"
"Perfectly."
"Then lose no time, Senator.... One moment."
The Prefect had risen and reached the door.
"If you can double the King's guard and change the company every day until the festival is over...."
"Easily, your Excellency. But wait; the Vatican Chief of Police has asked for help on Holy Thursday."
"Give it him. Let the timid old man of the Sacred College have no excuse for saying we take more care of the King than of the Pope."
The Minister of Justice was the next of the Baron's visitors. He was a short man with a smiling and rubicund face, and he wore yellow kid gloves.
"All goes well and wisdom is justified of her children," said the Baron, rising again and promenading the hearthrug. "The national sentiment, dear colleague, is a sword, and either we must use it on behalf of the Government and the King, or stand by and see it used by the hostile factions."
"Men like Rossi are not slow to use it, sir," said the little Minister.
"Tut! It's not Rossi I'm thinking of now. It's the Church, the clergy, rich in money and in the faith of the populace. That's why I wanted to do something as set-off against those mourning demonstrations which the Pope has appointed."
"Yes, the old gentleman of the Vatican knows the instincts and cravings of our people, doesn't he, sir? He knows they like a show, and the seasoning of their pleasures with a little religion."
"It's the rustiest old weapon in the Pope's arsenal, dear colleague, but it may serve unless we do something. If the people can be persuaded that the Pope is their one friend in adversity, there couldn't be a better feather in the Papal cap. Happily our people love to sing and to dance as well as to weep and to pray. So we needn't throw up the sponge yet."
Both laughed, and the little Minister said, "Besides, it is so easy to change religious processions into political ones.And then the Vatican is always intriguing with the powers of rebellion and preaching obedience to the Pope alone."
The creaking of the Baron's patent-leather boots stopped, and he drew up before his colleague.
"Watch that sharply," he said, "and if you see any sign on the part of the Vatican of intriguing with men like Rossi, any complicity with conspiracy, or any knowledge of plots pointing to revolution and regicide, let the Council hear of it immediately."
The Baron's face had suddenly whitened with passion, and his little colleague looked at him in alarm. A secretary entered the room and handed the Baron a card. The Baron fixed his eye-glasses and read: "Monsignor Mario, Cameriere Segreto Partecipante di Sua Santità Pio X. Vaticano."
"St. Anthony! Talk of the angels...." muttered the little Minister.
"Will you perhaps...."
"Certainly," said the Minister, and he left the room.
"Show the Monsignor in," said the Baron.
The Monsignor was young, tall, slight, almost fragile, and had thin black hair and large spiritual eyes. As he entered in the long black overcoat, which covered his cassock, he bowed and looked slowly round the room. His subdued expression was that of a sheep going through a gate where the dogs may be, and his manner suggested that he would fly at the first alarm.
The Baron looked over his eye-glasses and measured his man in a moment. "Pray sit," he said, and at the next moment the young Monsignor and the Baron were seated at opposite sides of the table.
"I am sent to you by a venerable and illustrious personage...."
"Let us say the Pope," said the Baron.
The young Monsignor bowed and continued, "to offer on his behalf a word of counsel and of warning."
"It is an unusual and distinguished honour," said the Baron.
"I am instructed to inform you that the Holy Father has reason to believe a further and more serious insurrection ispreparing, and to warn you to take the necessary steps to secure public order and to prevent bloodshed."
The Baron did not move a muscle. "If the Holy Father has special knowledge of a plot that is impending...."
"Not special, only general, but sufficient to enable him to tell you to hold yourself in readiness."
"How long has the Holy Father been aware of this?"
"Not long. In fact, only since yesterday morning," said the Monsignor, and fearing he had said too much he added, "I only mention this to show you that the Holy Father has lost no time."
"But if the Holy Father knows that a conspiracy is afoot, he can no doubt help us to further information."
The Monsignor shook his head.
"You mean that he will not do so?"
"No."
"Am I, then, to understand that the information with which his Holiness honours me came to him secretly?"
"Yes, sir, secretly, and it is, therefore, not open to further explanation."
"So it reached him by the medium of the confessional?"
The Monsignor rose from his seat. "Your Excellency cannot be in earnest."
"You mean that it did not reach him by the medium of the confessional?"
"Certainly not."
"Then he is able to tell me everything, if he will?"
The Monsignor became agitated. "The Holy Father's information came through a channel that is assimilated to the confessional, and is almost as sacred and inviolate."
"But obedience to the Pope obliterates from all other responsibility. His Holiness has only to say 'Speak,' and his faithful child must obey."
The Monsignor became confused. "His informant is not even a Catholic, and he has, therefore, no right to command her."
"So it is a woman," said the Baron, and the young ecclesiastic dropped his head.
"It is a woman and a non-Catholic, and she visited the Holy Father at the Vatican yesterday morning; is that so?"
"I do not assert it, sir, and I do not deny it."
The Baron did not speak for a moment, but he lookedsteadily over his eye-glasses at the flushed young face before him. Then he said in a quiet tone:
"Monsignor, the relations of the Pope and the Government are delicate, and if anything occurred to carry the disagreement further it might result in a serious fratricidal struggle."
The Monsignor was trying to regain his self-possession, and he remained silent.
"But whatever those relations, it cannot be the wish of the Holy Father to cover with his mantle the upsetters of order who are cutting at the roots of the Church as well as the State."
"Therefore I am here now, sir, thus early and thus openly," said the Monsignor.
"Monsignor," said the Baron, "if anything should occur to—for example—the person of the King, it cannot be the wish of his Holiness that anybody—myself, for instance—should be in a position to say to Parliament and to the Governments of Europe, 'The Pope knew everything beforehand, and therefore, not having revealed the particulars of the plot, the venerable Father of the Vatican is an accomplice of murderers.'"
The young ecclesiastic lost himself utterly. "The Pope," he said, "knows nothing more than I have told you."
"Yes, Monsignor, the Pope knows one thing more. He knows who was his informant and authority. It is necessary that the Government should know that also, in order that it may judge for itself of the nature of the conspiracy and the source from which it may be expected."
The Monsignor was quivering like a limed bird. "I have delivered my message, and have only to add that in sending me here his Holiness desired to prevent crime, not to help you to apprehend criminals."
The Baron's eye-glasses dropped from his nose, and he spoke sharply and incisively. "The Government must at least know who the lady was who visited his Holiness at the Vatican yesterday morning, and led him to believe that a serious insurrection was impending."
"That your Excellency never will, or can, or shall know."
The Monsignor was bowing himself out of the room when the Baron's secretary opened the door and announced another visitor.
"Donna Roma, your Excellency."
The Monsignor betrayed fresh agitation, and tried to go.
"Bring her in," said the Baron. "One moment, Monsignor."
"I have said all I am authorised to say, sir, and I feel warned that I must say no more."
"Don't say that, Monsignor.... Ah, Donna Roma!"
Roma, who had entered the room, replied with reserve and dignity.
"Allow me, Donna Roma, to present Monsignor Mario of the Vatican," said the Baron.
"It is unnecessary," said Roma. "I met the Monsignor yesterday morning."
The young ecclesiastic was overwhelmed with confusion.
"My respectful reverence to his Holiness," said the Baron, smiling, "and pray tell him that the Government will do its duty to the country and to the civilised world, and count on the support of the Pope."
Monsignor Mario left the room without a word.
The Baron pushed out an easy-chair for Roma and twisted his own to face it.
"How are you, my child?"
"One lives," said Roma, with a sigh.
"What is the matter, my dear? You are ill and unhappy."
She eluded the question and said, "You sent for me—what do you wish to say?"
He told her the printer of certain seditious proclamations had been arrested, and in the judicial inquiry preparatory to his trial he had mentioned the name of the person who had employed and paid him.
"You cannot but be aware, my dear, that you have rendered yourself liable to prosecution, and that nothing—nothing whatever—could have saved you from public exposure but the good offices of a powerful friend."
Roma drew her lips tightly together and made no answer.
"But what a situation for a Minister! To find himself ruled by his feelings for a friend, and thus weakened in theeyes of his servants, who ought to have no possible hold on him."
Roma's gloomy face began to be compressed with scorn.
"You have perhaps not realised the full measure of the indignity that might have befallen you. For instance—a cruel necessity—the police would have been making a domiciliary visitation in your apartment at this moment."
Roma made a faint, involuntary cry, and half rose from her seat.
"Your letters and most secret papers would by this time be exposed to the eyes of the police.... No, no, my child; calm yourself, be seated; thanks to my intervention, this will not occur."
Roma looked at him, and found him more repulsive to her at that moment than he had ever been before. Even his daintiness repelled her—the modified perfume about his clothes, his waxed moustache, his rounded finger-nails, and all the other refinements of the man who loves himself and sets out to please the senses of women.
"You will allow, my dear, that I have had sufficient to humiliate me without this further experience. A ward who persistently disregards the laws of propriety and exposes herself to criticism in the most ordinary acts of life was surely a sufficient trial. But that was not enough. Almost as soon as you have passed out of my legal control you join with those who are talking and conspiring against me."
Roma continued to sit with a gloomy and defiant face.
"How am I to defend myself against the humiliations you put upon me in your own mind? You give me no chance to defend myself. I cannot know what others have told you. I know no more than you repeat to me, and that is nothing at all."
Roma was biting her compressed lips and breathing audibly.
"How am I to defend myself against the humiliations I suffer in the minds of the public? There is only one way, and that is to allow it to be believed that, in spite of all appearances, you are still playing a part, that you are going to all lengths to punish the enemy who traduced you and publicly degraded you."
Roma tried to laugh, but the laugh was broken in her throat by a rising sob.
"I have only to whisper that, dear friend, and society, atall events, will credit it. Already it knows the very minute details of your life, and it will believe that when you threw away every shred of propriety and went to live in that man's apartment, it was only in order to play the old part—shall I say the Scriptural part?—of possessing yourself ofthe inmost secrets of his soul."
The clear, sharp whisper in which the Baron spoke his last words cut Roma like a knife. She threw up her head with scorn.
"Let it believe what it likes," she said. "If society cares to think that I have allowed my life to be turned upside down for the sake of hatred, let it do so."
The Baron's secretary interrupted by opening the door.
"Nazzareno, Excellency," said the secretary.
"Ah! Let him come in," said the Baron. "You remember Nazzareno, Roma? My steward at Albano?"
An elderly man with a bronzed face and shaggy eyebrows, bringing an odour of the fields and the farmyard, was ushered into the room.
"Come in, Nazzareno! You've not forgotten Donna Roma? You planted a rosebush on her first Roman birthday, you remember. It's a great tree by this time, perhaps."
"It is, Excellency," said the steward, bowing and smiling, "and nearly as full of bloom as the Signorina herself."
"Well, what news from Albano?"
The steward told a long story of operations on the estates—planting birch in the top fields, and eucalyptus in the low meadow, fencing, draining, and sowing.
"And ... and the Baroness?" said the Baron, turning over some papers.
"Ah! her Excellency is worse," said the old man. "The nurse and the doctor thought you had better be told exactly, and that is the object of my errand."
"Yes?" The papers rustled in the Baron's fingers as he shuffled and sorted them.
The steward told another long story. Her Excellency was weaker, or she would be quite ungovernable. And so changed! When he was called in yesterday she was so much altered that he would not have known her. It was a question of days, and all the servants were saying prayers to Mary Magdalene.
"Have some dinner downstairs before you return, Nazzareno," said the Baron. "And when you see the doctor thisevening, say I'll come out some time this week if I can. Good-morning!"
The repulsion the Baron had inspired in Roma deepened to loathing when he began to speak affectionately the moment the door had closed on the steward.
"Look at this, dearest. It's from his Majesty."
She did not look at the letter he put before her, so he told her what it contained. It offered him the Collar of the Annunziata, the highest order in Italy, making him a cousin to the King.
She could not contain herself any longer. "I want to tell you something," she said, "so that you may know once for all that it is useless to waste further thought on me."
He looked at her with an indulgent smile.
"I am married to Mr. Rossi," she said.
"But that is impossible. There was no time."
"We were married religiously, in the parish church, on the morning he left Rome."
The indulgent smile gave way to a sarcastic one.
"Then why did he leave you behind? If he thoughtthatwas a good marriage, why didn't he take you with him? But perhaps he had his own reason, and the denunciation of the poor man in prison was not so far amiss."
"That was an official lie, a cowardly lie," said Roma, and her eyes burned with anger.
"Was it? Perhaps it was. But I have just heard something else about Mr. Rossi that is undoubtedly true. I have heard from the Prefect of Paris that he is organising a conspiracy for the assassination of the King."
A look of fear which she could not restrain crossed Roma's face.
"More than that, and stranger than that, I have just heard also that the Pope has some knowledge of the plot."
Roma felt terror seizing her, and she said in a constrained voice, "Why? What has the Pope told you?"
"Only that an insurrection is impending. It seems that his informant is a woman.... Who can she be, I wonder?"
The Baron was fixing his eyes on her and she tried to elude his gaze.
"Whoever she is she must know more," he said in a severe voice, "and whatever it is she must reveal it."
Roma got up, looking very pale, and feeling very feeble.When she reached the door the Baron was smiling and holding out his hand.
"Will you not shake hands with me?" he said.
"What is the use?" she answered. "When people shake hands it means that they wish each other well. You do not wish me well. You are trying to force me to betray my husband....But I'll die first," she said, and then turned and fled.
When Roma was gone the Baron wrote a letter to the Pope:
"Your Holiness,—Providential accident, as your chamberlain would tell you, has enabled his Majesty's Government to judge for itself of that source of your Holiness's information which your Holiness very properly refused to reveal. At the same time official channels have disclosed to his Majesty's Government the nature of the conspiracy of which your Holiness so patriotically forewarned them. This conspiracy appears to be no less serious than an attempt to assassinate the King, but as detailed knowledge of so vile a plot is necessary in order to save the life of our august sovereign, his Majesty's Government asks you to grant the Prime Minister the honour of an audience with your Holiness in the cause of order and public security. Hoping to hear of your Holiness's convenience, and trusting that your Holiness will not disappoint the hopes of those who are dreaming even yet of a reconciliation of Church and State, I am, with all reverence, your Holiness's faithful son and servant,
Bonelli."
Roma went home full of uncertainty, and wrote in a nervous and straggling hand a hasty letter to Rossi.
"My dearest," she said, "your letter reached me safely last evening, and though I cannot answer it properly at the present moment, I must send a brief reply by mid-day's mail, because there are two or three things it is imperative I should say immediately.
"The first is that I wrote you a very important letter to London twelve days ago, and it is clear that you have not yet received it. The contents were of the greatest seriousness and also of the greatest secrecy, and I should die if anyother eye than yours were to read them; therefore do not lose a moment until you ask for the letter to be sent after you to Paris. Write to London by the first post, and when the letter has come to your hand, do telegraph to me saying so. 'Received,' that will be sufficient, but if you can add one other little word expressing your feeling on reading what I wrote—'Forgiven,' for instance—my feeling will not be happiness, it will be delirium.
"The next thing I have to say, dearest, is about your letters. You know they are more precious to me than my heart's blood, and there is not a word or a line of them I would sacrifice for a queen's crown. But they are so full of perilous opinions and of hints of programmes for dangerous enterprises, that for your sake I am afraid. It is so good of you to tell me what you are thinking and doing, and I am so proud to be the woman who has the confidence as well as the love of the most-talked-of man in Europe, that it cuts at my heart to ask you to tell me no more about your political plans. Nevertheless, I must. Think what would happen if the police took it into their heads to make a domiciliary visitation in this house. And then think of what a fearful weapon it puts into the hands of your enemies, if, hearing that I know so much, they put pressure upon me that I cannot withstand! Of course, that is impossible. I would die first. But still....
"My last point, dearest...."
Her pen stopped. How was she to put what she wished to say next? David Rossi was in danger—a double danger—danger from within as well as danger from without. His last letter showed plainly that he was engaged in an enterprise which his adversaries would call a plot. Roma remembered her father, doomed to a life-long exile and a lonely death, and asked herself if it was not always the case that the reformer partly reformed his age, and was partly corrupted by it.
If she could only draw David Rossi away from associations that were always reeking of revolution, if she could bring him back to Rome before he was too far involved in plots and with plotters! But how could she do it? To tell him the plain truth that he was going headlong todomicilio coattowas useless. She must resort to artifice. A light shot through her brain, her eyes gleamed, and she began again:
"My last point, dearest, is that I am growing jealous. Yes, indeed, jealous! I know you love me, but knowing it doesn't help me to forget that you are always meeting women who must admire and love you. I tremble to think you may be happy with them. I want you to be happy, yet I feel as if it would be treason for you to be happy without me. What an illogical thing love is! But where Love reigns jealousy is always the Prime Minister, and in order to banish my jealousy you must come back immediately...."
Her pen stopped again. The artifice was too trivial, too palpable, and he would certainly see through it. She tore up the sheet and began afresh.
"My last point, dearest, is that I fear you are forgetting me in your work. While thinking of the revolution you are making in Europe, you forget the revolution you have already made in this poor little heart. Of course I love your glory more than I love myself, yet I am afraid it is taking you away from me, and will end by leading you up, up, up, out of a woman's reach. Why didn't I give you my portrait to put in your watch-case when you went away? Don't let this folly disgust you, dearest. A woman is a foolish thing, isn't she? But if you don't want me to make a torment of everything you will hasten back in time to...."
She threw down the pen and began to cry. Hadn't she promised him that, come what would, her love for him should never stand in his way? In the midst of her tears a little stab at her heart made her think of something else, and she took up the pen again.
"My last point, dearest, is that I am ill, and very, very anxious to see you soon. My health has been failing ever since you left Rome. Perhaps the anxieties I have gone through have been partly the cause of this, but I am sure that your absence is chiefly responsible, and that no doctor and no medicine would be so good for me as one rush into your arms. Therefore come and give me back all my health and happiness. Come, I beg of you. Leave it to others to do your work abroad. Come at oncebefore things have gone too far; come, come, come!"
She hesitated, wanting to say, "Not that I amveryill...." And then, "You mustn't come if there is any risk to yourself...." And again, "I would never forgive myself if...." But she crushed down her qualms, sealed her letter, and sent the Garibaldian to post it.
Then she gathered up the entire body of David Rossi's letters, and putting some light firewood into the stove she sat on the ground to burn them. It was necessary to remove all evidence that could be used against him in the event of a domiciliary visitation. One by one as the letters, were passed into the fire she read parts of them, and some of the passages seemed to stand out afresh in the flames. "Your friend must be a true woman, and it was very sweet of you to be so tender with her." ... "There is always a little twinge when I read between the lines of your letters. Are you not dissimulating?... to keep up my spirits?" ... "You shall smile and recover all your girlish spirits.... I shall hear your silvery laugh again as I did on that glorious day in the Campagna." ... "It shows how rightly I judged the moral elevation of your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and your heart of gold."
While the letters were burning she felt herself to be under the influence of a kind of delirium. It was almost as though she were committing murder.
The Pope had begun the day with the long task of administering the sacrament to the lay members of his household, yet at eight o'clock he was back in his library in the midst of his morning receptions surrounded by a bevy of camerieri, monsignori, and messengers. First came a Cardinal Prefect of Propaganda to report the doings of his congregation; then an ambassador from Spain to tell of the suppression of religious orders; and finally the majordomo to recite the official programme for the public ceremonies which the Pope had ordered for Holy Thursday.
It was now ten o'clock, and Cortis, the valet, brought the usual plate of soup. Then came a large man with bold features and dark complexion, wearing a purple robe edged with red and a red biretta. It was the Cardinal Secretary of State.
"What news this morning, your Eminence?" said the Pope.
"The Government," said the Cardinal Secretary, "has just published a proclamation announcing a jubilee in honourof the King's accession. It is to begin on Monday next, and there are to be great feasts and rejoicings."
"A jubilee at a time like this! What a wild mockery of the people's woes! How many poor women and children must go hungry before this royal orgy has been paid for! God be with us! Such injustice and tyranny in the Satanic guise of clemency and indulgence is almost enough to explain the homicidal theories of the demagogues and to justify men like Rossi.... Any further news of him?"
"Yes. He is at present in Paris, in close intercourse with the leaders of every abominable sect."
"You have seen this man Rossi, your Eminence?"
"Once. I saw him on the morning of the jubilee of your Holiness, when he attempted to present a petition."
"What is he like to look upon—the typical demagogue; no?"
"No. I am bound to say no, your Holiness. And his conversation, though it is full of the jargon of modern Liberalism, has none of the obscenities of Voltaire."
"Some one said ... who was it, I wonder?... some one said he resembled the Holy Father."
"Now that you mention it, your Holiness, there is perhaps a remote resemblance."
"Ah! who knows what service for God and humanity even such a man might have done if in early life his lines had been cast in better places."
"They say he was an orphan from his infancy, your Holiness."
"Then he never knew a father's care and guidance! Unhappy son! Unhappy father!"
"Monsignor Mario," said the low voice of a chamberlain, and at the next moment the Pope's messenger to the Prime Minister was kneeling in the middle of the floor.
In nervous tones and broken sentences the Monsignor told his story. The Pope listened intently, the vertical lines on his forehead deepening and darkening every moment, until at length he burst out impatiently:
"But, my son, you do not say that you said all this in addition to your message?"
"I was drawn into doing so in defence of your Holiness."
"You told the Minister that my information came through the channel of a simple confidence?"
"He insinuated that the Holy Father was perhaps breaking the seal of the confessional...."
"That my informant was a non-Catholic and a woman?"
"He implied that your Holiness had only to command her to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, and therefore...."
"And you said she was here on Saturday morning?"
"He hinted that the Holy Father was an accomplice of criminals if he had known this without revealing it before, and that was why...."
"And she came in at that moment, you say?"
"At that very moment, your Holiness, and said she had met me on Saturday morning."
"Man, man, what have you done?" cried the Pope, rising from his seat and pacing the room.
The chamberlain continued to kneel in utter humility, until the Pope, recovering his composure, put both hands on his shoulders and raised him to his feet.
"Forgive me, my son. I was more to blame than you were. It was wrong to trust any one with a verbal message in the cabinet of a fox. The Holy Father should have no intercourse with such persons. But this is God's hand. Let us leave everything to the Holy Spirit."
At that moment the Papal Majordomo returned with a letter. It was the Baron's letter to the Pope. After the Pope had read it he stepped into a little adjoining room which contained nothing but a lounge and an easy-chair. There he lay on the lounge and turned his face to the wall.
At four o'clock in the afternoon the Pope and Father Pifferi were again walking in the garden. The groves of Judas trees were shedding their crimson blossoms and the path had a covering of bloom; the atmosphere was full of the odour of honey-suckle and violet, and through the sunlit air the swallows were darting with shrill cries and the glitter of wings.
"And what does your Holiness intend to do?" asked the Capuchin.
"Providence will direct us," said the Pope with a sigh.
"But your Holiness will refuse the request of the Government?"
"How can I do so without exposing myself to misunderstanding? Suppose the King is assassinated, what then? The Government will tell the world that the Pope knew all and did nothing."
"Let them. It will not be an incident without parallel in the history of the Church. And the world will only honour your Holiness the more for standing firm on your sanctity of the human soul."
"Yes, if the confessional were in question. The world knows that the seal of the confessional is sacred, and must be observed at all costs. But this is not a case of the confessional."
"Didn't your Holiness say you would observe it as such?"
"And I shall. But what about the public? Accident has told the Government that this is not a case of the confessional, and the Government will tell the world. What follows? If I refuse to do anything the enemies of the Church will give it out that the Holy Father is an accomplice of a regicide, ready and willing to intrigue with the agents of rebellion to regain the temporal power."
"Then you will receive the Prime Minister?"
"No! Or if so, only in the company of his superior."
"The King?"
"Yes."
The Capuchin removed his skull-cap with an uneasy hand, and walked some paces without speaking.
"Will he come, your Holiness?"
"If he thinks I hold the secret on which his life depends, assuredly he will come."
"But you are sovereign as well as Pope—is it possible for you to receive him?"
"I will receive him as the King of Sardinia, the King of Italy, if you will, but not as the King of Rome."
The Capuchin took his coloured handkerchief from his sleeve and rolled it in his palms, which were hot and perspiring.
"But, Holy Father," he said, "what will be the good? Say that all difficulties of etiquette can be removed, and you can meet as man to man, as David Leone and Albert Charles—why will the King come? Only to ask you to put pressure upon your informant to give more information."
The Pope drew himself up on the gravel path and smote his breast with indignation. "Never! It would be an insult to the Church," he said. "It is one thing to expect the Holy Father to do his duty as a Christian even to his enemy, it is another thing to ask him to invade the sanctity of a private confidence."
The Capuchin did not reply, and the two old men walked on in silence. As the light softened the swallows increased their clamour, and song-birds began to call from neighbouring trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was picking its way at his heels.
"Ah, Meesh, Meesh! I've got you safely this time.... It was the poor mother-bird again, I suppose. Where is her nest, I wonder?"
They found it in the old sarcophagus, which was now almost lost in leaves. The eggs had been hatched, and the fledglings, with eyes not yet opened, stretched their featherless necks and opened their beaks when the Pope put down his hand to touch them.
"Monsignor," said the Pope over his shoulder, "remind me to-morrow to ask the gardener for some worms."
The cat, from his prison under the Pope's arm, was watching the squirming nest with hungry eyes.
"Naughty Meesh! Naughty!" said the Pope, shaking one finger in the cat's face. "But Meesh is only following the ways of his kind, and perhaps I was wrong to let him see the quarry."
The Pope and the Capuchin walked back to the Vatican for joy of the sweet spring evening with its scent of flowers and song of birds.
"You are sad to-day, Father Pifferi," said the Pope.
"I'm still thinking of that poor lady," said the Capuchin.
At the first hour of night the Pope attended the recitation of the rosary in his private chapel, and then returning to his private study, a room furnished with a table and two chairs, he took a light supper, served by Cortis in the evening dress of a civilian. His only other company was the cat, which sat on a chair on the opposite side of the table. After supper he wrote a letter. It ran:
"Sire,—Your Minister informs us that through official channels he has received warning of a plot against your life,and believing that we can give information that will help him to defeat so vile a conspiracy, he asks us for a special audience. It is not within our power to promise more assistance than we have already given; but this is to say that if your Majesty yourself should wish to see us, we shall be pleased to receive you, with or without your Minister, if you will come in private and otherwise unattended, at the hour of 21-1/2 on Holy Thursday, to the door of the Canons' House of St. Peter's, where the bearer of this message will be waiting to conduct you to the Sacristy.
"Nil timendum nisi a Deo.
Pius P.P.X."
The ceremonies in St. Peter's on Maundy Thursday exceeded in pomp and magnificence anything that could be remembered in Rome.
It was a great triumph for the Church. In the face of the anti-religious Governments of Europe she had proved that the mightiest sentiment of the people was the sentiment of religion.
The Papal Court was proud of itself. Some of its members made no effort to conceal their delight at the blow they had struck at the ruling classes. But there was one man in Rome who felt no joy in his triumph. It was the Pope.
At nine o'clock at night he visited the "urn" called the "Sepulchre." Borne amid the light of torches on hissediawith hisflabelliwaving on either hand, under a white canopy upheld by prelates, he passed through the glittering rooms of his own palace, along the dark corridors of the Vatican and down the marble stairs, accompanied by his guards in helmets and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet veil, into the great Basilica, lit only by large candles in iron stands, and looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom and the smoky air. But after he had visited the Sepulchre, gorgeously illuminated, while the cantors sang theVerbum Caro, after he had knelt in silence and had risen, and the torches of his procession had been put out, and he had returned to his chair to be borne into the Sacristy, and the poor people, lifted to a height of emotion not often reached by the human soul, had broken again into a last delirious shout of affection, he dropped his head and wept.
At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the custodian in black cassock and biretta, who was warming his hands over a large bronze scaldino; but in the Archpriest's room adjoining, with its gilt arm-chair and stools of red plush, Father Pifferi in his ordinary brown habit was waiting for the Pope. The bearers put down the chair, knelt and kissed the Pope's feet in spite of his protest, backed themselves out with deep obeisance, and left the two old men together.
"Have they arrived?" asked the Pope.
"Not yet, your Holiness," said the Capuchin.
"Father, have you any faith in presentiments?"
"Sometimes, your Holiness. When they continue and are persistent..."
"I have had a presentiment which has been with me all my life—all my life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who abases and lifts up has thought fit to raise my lowliness to the most sublime dignity that exists on earth, but I have always lived in the fear that some day I should be torn down from it, and the Church would suffer."
"God forbid, your Holiness!"
"That was why I refused every place and every honour. You know how I refused them, Father!"
"Yes, but God knew better, your Holiness, and He preserved you to be a blessing and a comfort to His people."
"His holy will be done! But the shadow which has been over me will not be lifted. Cause prayers to be said for me. Pray for me yourself, Father."
"Your Holiness is in low spirits. And to-day of all days! Ah, how happy is the Church which has seen the hand of God place in the chair of St. Peter a soul capable of comprehending the necessities of His children and a heart desirous of satisfying them!"
"I hardly know what is to come of this interview, Father, but I must leave myself in the hands of the Holy Spirit."
"There is no help for it now, your Holiness."
"Perhaps I should not have gone so far but for this wave of anarchy which is sweeping over the world.... You believe the man Rossi is secretly an anarchist?"
"I am afraid he is, your Holiness, and one of the worst enemies of the Church and the Holy Father."
"They say he was an orphan from his infancy, and never knew father, or mother, or home."
"Pitiful, very pitiful!"
"I have heard that his public life is not without a certain perverted nobility, and that his private life is pure and good."
"His relation to the lady would seem to say so, your Holiness."
"But the Holy Father may be sorry for a wayward son, and yet be forced to condemn him for all that. He must cut himself off from all such men, lest his adversaries should say that, while preaching peace and the moral law, he is secretly encouraging the devilish agents of atheism, anarchy, and rebellion."
"Perhaps so, your Holiness."
"Father, do you think the care of temporal things is ever a danger and temptation?"
"Sometimes I think it is, your Holiness, and that the Holy Father would be better without lands or fleshly armies."
"How late they are!" said the Pope; but at the same moment the door opened, and a Noble Guard knelt on the threshold.
"Well?"
"The personages you expect have come, your Holiness."
"Bring them in," said the Pope.
The young King, who wore the uniform of a cavalry officer, with sword and long blue cloak, knelt to the Pope and kissed his ring, while the Prime Minister, who was in ordinary civilian costume, bowed deeply, but remained standing.
"Pray sit," said the Pope, seating himself in the gilded arm-chair, with the Capuchin on his left.
The King sat on one of the wooden stools in front of the Pope, but the Baron continued to stand by his side. Between the Pope and the King was a wooden table on which two large candles were burning. The young King was pale, and the expression of his twitching face was one of pain.
"It was good of your Holiness to see us," he said, "and perhaps the gravity of our errand may excuse the informality of our visit."
The Pope, who was leaning forward on the arms of his chair, only bent his head.
"His Excellency," said the King, indicating the Baron,"tells me he has gained proof of an organised conspiracy against my life, and he says that your Holiness holds the secret of the conspirators."
The Pope, without responding, looked steadily into the face of the young King, who became nervous and embarrassed.
"Not that I'm afraid," he said, "personally afraid. But naturally I must think of others—my family—my people—even of Italy—and if your Holiness...if your...your Holiness..."
The Baron, who had been standing with one arm across his breast, and the other supporting his chin, intervened at this moment.
"Your Majesty," he said, "with your Majesty's permission, and that of his Holiness," he bowed to both sovereigns, "it may be convenient if I state shortly the object of our visit."
The young King drew a breath of relief, and the Pope, who was still silent, bent his head again.
"Some days ago your Holiness was good enough to warn his Majesty's Government that from private sources of information you had reason to fear that an assault against the public peace was to be attempted."
The Pope once more assented.
"Since then the Government has received corroboration of the gracious message of your Holiness, coupled with very definite predictions of the nature of the revolt intended. In short, we have been told by our correspondents abroad that a conspiracy of European proportions, involving the subversive elements of England, France, and Germany, is to be directed against Rome as a centre of revolution, and that an attempt is to be made to assail constituted society by striking at our King."
"Well, sir?"
"Your Holiness may have heard that it is the intention of the Government and the nation to honour the anniversary of his Majesty's accession by a festival. The anniversary falls on Monday next, and we have reason to fear that Monday is the day intended for the outbreak of this vile conspiracy."
"Well?"
"Your Holiness may have differences with his Majesty, but you cannot desire that the cry of suffering should mingle with the strains of the royal march."
"If your Government knows all this, it has its remedy—let it alter the King's plans."
"The advice with which your Holiness honours us is scarcely practicable. For the Government to alter the King's plans would be to alarm the populace, demoralise the services, and to add to the unhappy excitement which it is the object of the festival allay."
"But why do you come to me?"
"Because, your Holiness, our information, although conclusive, is too indefinite for effective action, and we believe your Holiness can supply the means by which we may preserve public order, and"—with an apologetic gesture—"save the life of the King."
The Pope was moving uneasily in his chair. "I will ask you to be good enough to speak more plainly," he said.
The Baron's heavy moustache rose at one corner to a fleeting smile. "Your Holiness," he said, "is already aware that accident disclosed to us the source of your information. It was a lady. This knowledge enabled us to judge who was the subject of her communication. It was the lady's lover. Official channels give us proof that he is engaged abroad in plots against public order, and thus..."
"If you know all this, sir, what do you want with me?"
"Your Holiness may not be aware that the person in question is a Deputy, and that a Deputy cannot be arrested without the fulfilment of various conditions prescribed by law. One of those conditions is that some one should be in a position to denounce him."
The Pope half rose from his chair. "You ask me to denounce him?"
The Baron bowed very low. "The Government does not presume so far," he said. "It only hopes that your Holiness will require your informant to do so."
"Then you want me to outrage a confidence?"
"It was not a confession, your Holiness, and even if it had been, as your Holiness knows better than we do, it would not be without precedent to reveal the facts which are necessary to be known in order to prevent crime."
The Capuchin's sandals were scraping on the floor, but the Pope raised his left hand, and the friar fell back.
"You are aware," said the Pope, "that the lady you speak of as my informant is married to the Deputy?"
"We are aware that she thinks she is."
"Thinks?" said the indignant voice of the Capuchin, but the Pope's left hand was raised again.
"In short, sir, you ask me to require the wife to sacrifice her husband."
"If your Holiness calls it so,—to perform an act that will preserve the public peace...."
"Idocall it so."
The Baron bowed, the young King was restless, and there was a moment's silence. Then the Pope said:
"Putting aside the extreme unlikelihood that the lady knows more than she has said, and we have already communicated, what possible inducement do you expect us to offer her that she should sacrifice her husband?"
"Her husband's life," said the Baron.
"His life?"
"Your Holiness may not know that the Governments of Europe, having ascertained the existence of a widespread plot against civil society, have joined in measures of repression. One of these is the extension to all countries of what is called the Belgian clause in treaties, whereby persons guilty of regicide or of plots directed against the lives of sovereigns are made liable to extradition."
"Well?"
"The Deputy Rossi is now in Berlin. If he were denounced with the conditions required by law as conspiring against the life of the King, we might have him arrested to-night and brought back as a common murderer."
"Well?"
"Your Holiness may not have heard that since the late unhappy riots the Parliament, in spite of the protests of his Majesty, has re-established capital punishment for all forms of high treason."
"Therefore," said the Pope, "if the wife were to denounce her husband for participation in this conspiracy he would be sentenced to death."
"For this conspiracy—yes," said the Baron. "But the present is not the only conspiracy the man Rossi has engaged in. Eighteen years ago he was condemned in contumacy for conspiracy against the life of the late King. He has not yet suffered for his crime, because of the difficulty of bringing it home. In that case, as in this, there is only one person known to the authorities who can fulfil the conditions required by law. That person is the informant of your Holiness."
"Well?"
"If your Holiness can prevail upon the lady to identify her lover as the man condemned for the former conspiracy, you will be helping her to save her husband's life from the penalty due for the present one."
"How so?"
"His Majesty is willing to promise your Holiness that, whatever the result of a new trial in assize to follow the old one in contumacy, he will grant a complete pardon."
"And then?"
"Then the Deputy Rossi will be banished, the threatened conspiracy will be crushed, the public peace will be preserved, and the King's life will be saved."
The Pope leaned forward on the arms of his chair, but he did not speak, and there was silence for some moments.
"Thus your Holiness must see," said the Baron suavely, "that, in asking you to obtain the denunciation of the man Rossi, the Government is only looking to your Holiness to fulfil the mission of mercy to which your venerated position has destined you."
"And if I refused to exercise this mission of mercy?"
The Baron bowed gravely. "Your Holiness will not refuse," he said.
"But if I do—what then?"
"Then ... your Holiness.... I was about to say something."
"I am listening."
"The man we speak of is the bitterest enemy of the Church. Whatever his hypocrisies, he is at once an atheist and a freemason, sworn to allow no private interests or feelings, no bonds of patriotism or blood, to turn him aside from his purpose, which is to overthrow Society and the Church."
"Well?"
"He is also a bitter personal enemy of the Holy Father, and knows no object so dear as that of tearing him from his place and shaking the throne of St. Peter."
"Well, sir?"
"The police and the army of the Government are the only forces by which the Holy Father can be protected, and without them the bad elements which lurk in every community would break out, the Holy Father would be driven from Rome, and his priests assaulted in the streets."
"But what will happen if I refuse to outrage the sanctity of an immortal soul in spite of all this danger?"
"Your Holiness asks me what will happen if you refuse to obtain the denunciation of a man whom your Holiness knows to be conspiring against public order?"
"I do."
"What will happen will be ... your Holiness, I am speaking...."
"Go on."
"That, if the crime is committed and the King is killed, I, the Minister of his Majesty, will be in a position to say—and to call upon this friar to witness—that the Pope knew of it beforehand, and under the most noble sentiments about the sanctity of an immortal soul gave a supreme encouragement of regicide."
"And then, sir?"
"The world draws no nice distinctions, your Holiness, and the Vatican is now at war with nearly all the powers and peoples of Europe. In the presence of a monstrous crime against the most innocent and the most highly placed, the world would say that what the Pope did not prevent the Pope desired, what the Pope desired the Pope designed, and that the Vicar of the Prince of Peace attempted to rebuild his temporal power by means of the plots of conspirators and the daggers of assassins."
The sandals of the Capuchin were scraping the floor again, and once more the Pope put up his hand.
"You come to me, sir, when you have exhausted all other means of obtaining your end?"
"Naturally the Government wishes if possible to spare your Holiness an unusual and painful ordeal."
"The lady has resisted all other influences?"
"She has resisted all influences which can be brought to bear upon her by the proper authorities."
"I have heard of it, sir. I have heard what your 'authorities' have done to humble a helpless woman. She had been the victim of a heartless man, and by knowledge of that fact your 'authorities' have tempted and tried her. They tried her with poverty, with humiliation, with jealousy and the shadow of shame. But the blessed God upheld her in the love which had awakened her soul, and she withstood them to the last."
The Baron, for the first time, looked confused.
"I have also heard that in order to achieve the same end one of your gaols has been the scene of a scandal which has outraged every divine and human law."
"Your Holiness must not accept for truth all that is printed in the halfpenny papers."
"Is it true that in the cell where a helpless unfortunate was paying the penalty of his crime your 'authorities' introduced a police agent in disguise to draw him into a denunciation of his accomplice?"
"These are matters of state, your Holiness. I do not assert them and I do not deny."
"In the name of humanity I ask you are such 'authorities' punished, or do they sit in the cabinets of your Ministers of the Interior?"
"No doubt the officials went too far, your Holiness; but shall we, for the sake of a miserable malefactor who told one story to-day and another to-morrow, drag our public service through courts of law? Pity for such persons is morbid sentimentality, your Holiness, unworthy of a strong and enlightened Government."
"Then God destroy all such Governments, sir, and the bad and unchristian system which supports them! Allow that the manwasa miserable malefactor, it was not he alone that was offended, but in his poor, degraded person the spirit of Justice. What did your 'authorities' do? They tortured the man by his love for his wife, by the memory of his murdered child, by all that was true and noble and divine in him. They crucified the Christ in that helpless man, and you stand here in the presence of the Vicar of Christ to excuse and defend them."
The Pope had risen in his chair and lifted one hand over his head with a majestic gesture. Involuntarily the young King, who had been ashen pale for some moments, dropped to his knees, but the Baron only folded his arms and stiffened his legs.
"Have you ever thought, sir, of the end of the unjust Minister? Think of his dying hour, tortured with the memory of young lives dissolved, mothers dead, widows desolate, and orphans in tears. Think of the day after his death, when he who has passed through the world like the scourge of God lies at its feet, and no one so mean but he may spurn the dishonoured carcass. You are aiming high, your Excellency, but beware, beware!"
The Pope sat, and the King rose to his feet.
"Your Majesty," said the Pope, "the day will come when we must both present ourselves before God to render to Him an account of our deeds, and I, being far more advanced in years, will assuredly be the first. But I would not dare to meet the eye of my Judge if I did not this day warn you of the dangers in which you stand. Only God knows by what inscrutable decree of Providence one man is made a Pope or a King, while another man, his equal or superior, is made a beggar or a slave. But God who made Popes and Kings meant them to be the fathers, not the seducers of their subjects. A sovereign may be a man of good intentions, but if he is weak, and allows himself to fall into the hands of despotic Ministers, he is a worse affliction than the cruellest tyrant. Think well, your Majesty! A throne may be a quagmire, and a man may be buried in it, and buried alive."
The young King began to falter some incoherent words, but without listening the Pope rose to end the audience.
"You promise me," said the Pope, "that if—I sayif—in order to avoid bloodshed and to prevent a crime, I obtain from this lady the identification of her husband as the person condemned for the former conspiracy, you will spare and pardon him whatever happens?"
"Holy Father, I give you my solemn word for it."
"Then leave me! Let me think!... Wait! If she consents, where must she go to?"
"To the Procura by the Ponte Ripetta, and, as time presses, at ten o'clock on Saturday morning," said the Baron.
"Leave me! Leave me!"
The King knelt again and kissed the Pope's hand, but the Baron only bowed as he passed out behind his sovereign.
The opening of the doors let in a wave of sound that was like the roll of a great wind in a cave. Tenebræ had been going on for some time in the Basilica, and the people were singing the Miserere.
"Did you hear him, Father?" said the Pope. "Isn't it almost enough to justify a man like Rossi that he has to meet a despot like that?"
"We'll talk of it to-morrow," said the Capuchin.
The friar touched a bell, and thepalfrenierireturned with the chair.