"Tommaso Mariotti," said the president, after the preliminary interrogations, "you are porter at the Piazza Navona, and will be able to say if meetings of political associations were held there, if the prisoner took part in them, and who were the organising authorities. Now answer me, were meetings ever held in your house?"
The old man turned his pork-pie hat in his hand, and made no answer.
"Answer me. We cannot sit here all day doing nothing."
"It's the Eternal City, Excellency—we can take our time," said the old man.
"Answer the president instantly," said the usher. "Don't you know he can punish you if you don't?"
At that the Garibaldian's eyes became moist, and he looked at the judges. "Generals," he said, "I am only an old man, not much good to anybody, but I was a soldier myself once. I was one of the 'Thousand,' the 'Brave Thousand' they called us, and I shed my blood for my country. Now I am more than threescore years and ten, and the rest of my days are numbered. Do you want me for the sake of what is left of them to betray my comrades?"
"Next witness," said the president, and at the same moment a thick, half-stifled voice came from the bench of the accused.
"Why the —— don't you go on with the trial?"
"Prisoner," said the president, "if you continue to make these interruptions I shall stop the trial and order you to be flogged."
Bruno answered with a peal of laughter. The president—he was a bald-headed man with the heavy jaw of a bloodhound—looked at him attentively for a moment, and then said to the men below:
"Go on."
The next witness was the Director of Regina Cœli. He deposed that the prisoner had made a statement to him which he had taken down in writing. This statement amounted to a denunciation of the Deputy David Rossi as the real author of the crime of which he with others was charged.
After the denunciation had been read the president asked the prisoner if he had any questions to put to the witness, and thereupon Bruno cried in a loud voice:
"Of course I have. It is exactly what I've been waiting for."
He had risen to his feet, kicked over a chair which stood in front of him, and folded his arms across his breast.
"Ask him," said Bruno, "if he sent for me late at night and promised my pardon if I would denounce David Rossi."
"It was not so," said the Director. "All I did was toadvise him not to observe a useless silence which could only condemn him to further imprisonment if by speaking the truth he could save himself and serve the interests of justice."
"Ask him," said Bruno, "if the denunciation he speaks of was not dictated by himself."
"The prisoner," said the Director, "made the denunciation voluntarily, and I rose from my bed to receive it at his urgent request."
"Ask him if I said one word to denounce David Rossi."
"The prisoner had made statements to a fellow-prisoner, and these were embodied in the document he signed."
The advocate Fuselli interposed. "Then the Court is to understand that the Director who dictated this denunciation knew nothing from the prisoner himself?"
The Director hesitated, stammered, and finally admitted that it was so. "I was inspired by a sentiment of justice," he said. "I acted from duty."
"This man fed me on bread and water," cried Bruno. "He put me in the punishment cells and tortured me in the strait-waistcoat with pains and sufferings like Jesus Christ's, and when he had reduced my body and destroyed my soul he dictated a denunciation of my dearest friend and my unconscious fingers signed it."
"Don't shout so loud," said the president.
"I'll shout as loud as I like," said Bruno, and everybody turned to look at him. It was useless to protest. Something seemed to say that no power on earth could touch a man in a mood like that.
The next witness was the chief warder. He deposed that he was present at the denunciation, that it was made voluntarily, and that no pressure whatever was put upon the prisoner.
"Ask him," cried Bruno, "if on Sunday afternoon, when I went into his cabinet to withdraw the denunciation, he refused to let me."
"It is not true," said the witness.
"You liar," cried Bruno, "you know it is true; and when I told you that you were making me drag an innocent man to the galleys I struck you, and the mark of my fist is on your forehead still. There it is, as red as a Cardinal, while the rest of your face is as white as a Pope."
The president no longer tried to restrain Bruno. Therewas something in the man's face that was beyond reproof. It was the outraged spirit of Justice.
The chief warder went on to say that at various times he had received reports that Rocco was communicating important facts to a fellow-prisoner.
"Where is this fellow-prisoner? Is he at the disposition of the court?" said the president.
"I'm afraid he has since been set at liberty," said the witness, whereupon Bruno laughed uproariously, and pointing to some one in the well, he shouted:
"There he is—there! The dandy in cuffs and collar. His name is Minghelli."
"Call him," said the president, and Minghelli was sworn and examined.
"Until recently you were a prisoner in Regina Cœli, and have just been pardoned for public services?"
"That is true, your Excellency."
"It's a lie," cried Bruno.
Minghelli leaned on the witness's chair, caressed his small moustache, and told his story. He had occupied the next cell to the prisoner, and talked with him in the usual language of prisoners. The prisoner had spoken of a certain great man and then of a certain great act, and that the great man had gone to England to prepare for it. He understood the great man to be the Deputy Rossi, and the great act to be the overthrow of the constitution and the assassination of the King.
"You son of a priest," cried Bruno, "you lie!"
"Bruno Rocco," said the president, "do not agitate yourself. You are under the protection of the law. Be calm and tell us your own story."
"Your Excellency," said Bruno, "this man is a witness by profession, and he was put into the next cell to torture me and make me denounce my friends. I didn't see his face, and I didn't know who he was until afterwards, and so he tore me to pieces. He said he was a proof-reader on the Official Gazette and heard everything. When my heart was bleeding for the death of my poor little boy—only seven years of age, such a curly-headed little fellow, like a sunbeamin a fog, killed in the riot, your Excellency—he poisoned my mind about my wife, and said she had run away with Rossi. It was a lie, but I was brought down by flogging and bread and water and I believed it, because I was mad and my soul was exhausted and dead. But when I found out who he was I tried to take back my denunciation, and they wouldn't let me. Your Excellency, I tell you the truth. Everybody should tell the truth here. I alone am guilty, and if I have accused anybody else I ask pardon of God. As for this man, he is an assassin and I can prove it. He used to be at the embassy in London, and when he was sacked he came to Mr. Rossi and proposed to assassinate the Prime Minister. Mr. Rossi flung him out of the house, and that was the beginning of everything."
"This is not true," said Minghelli, red as the gills of a turkey.
"Isn't it? Give me the cross, and let me swear the man a liar," cried Bruno.
Roma was breathing hard and rising to her feet, but the advocate Fuselli restrained her and rose himself. In six sentences he summarised the treatment of Bruno in prison, and denounced it as worthy of the cruellest epochs of tyrannical domination, in which men otherwise honourable could become demons in order to save the dynasty and the institutions and to make their own careers.
"Mr. President," he cried, "I call on you in the name of humanity to say that justice in Italy has nothing to do with a barbarous system which aims at obtaining denunciations through jealousy and justice through revenge."
The president was deeply moved. "I have made a solemn promise under the shadow of that venerable image"—he pointed to the effigy above him—"to administer justice in this case, and to the last I will do my duty."
The Public Prosecutor rose again and obtained permission to interrogate the prisoner.
"You say the witness Minghelli told you that your wife had fled with the Honourable Rossi?"
"He did, and it was a lie, like all the rest of it."
"How do you know it was a lie?"
Bruno made no answer, and the young officer took up a letter from his portfolio.
"Do you know the Honourable Rossi's handwriting?"
"Do I know my own ugly fist?"
"Is that the Honourable Rossi's writing?" said the officer, handing the envelope to the usher to be shown to Bruno.
"It is," said Bruno.
"Sure of it?"
"Sure."
"You see it is a letter addressed to your wife?"
"I see. But you needn't go on washing the donkey's head, Mister—I know what you are getting at."
"You must not speak like that to him, Rocco," said the president. "Remember, he is the honourable representative of the law."
"Mustn't I, Excellency? Then tell his honourableness that David Rossi and my wife are like brother and sister, and anybody who makes evil of that isn't stuff to take with a pair of tongs."
Saying this, Bruno flung the letter back on to the table.
"Don't you want to read it?"
"Not I! It's somebody else's correspondence, and I'm not an honourable representative of the law."
"Then permit me to read it to you," said the Public Prosecutor, and taking the letter out of the envelope he began in a loud voice:
"'Dearest Elena....'"
"That's nothing," Bruno interrupted. "They're like brother and sister, I tell you."
The Public Prosecutor went on reading:
"'I continue to be overwhelmed with grief for the death of our poor little Joseph.'"
"That's right! That's David Rossi. He loved the boy the same as if he had been his own son. Go on."
"'... Our child—your child—my child, Elena.'"
"Nothing wrong there. Don't try to make mischief of that," cried Bruno.
"'But now that the boy is gone, and Bruno is in prison, perhaps for years, the obstacles must be removed which have hitherto prevented you from joining your life to mine and living for me, as I have always lived for you. Come to me then, my dear one, my beloved....'"
Here Bruno, who had been stepping forward at every word, snatched the letter out of the Public Prosecutor's hand.
"Stop that! Don't go reading out of the back of your head," he cried.
No one protested, everybody felt that whatever he did this injured man must be left alone. Roma felt a roaring in her ears, and for some minutes she could scarcely command herself. In a vague way she was conscious of the same struggle in her own heart as was going on in the heart of Bruno. This, then, was what the Baron referred to when he spoke of Rossi being untrue to her, and of the proof of his disloyalty in his own handwriting.
Bruno, who was running his eyes over the letter, read parts of it aloud in a low husky voice:
"'And now that the boy is gone and Bruno is in prison ... perhaps for years ... the obstacles must be removed....'"
He stopped, looked up, and stared about him. His face had undergone an awful change. Then he returned to the letter, and in jerky sentences he read again:
"'Come to me then ... my dear one ... my beloved....'"
Until that moment an evil spirit in Roma had been saying to her, in spite of herself: "Can it be possible that while you have been going through all those privations for his sake he has been consoling himself with another woman?" Impossible! The letter was a manifest imposture. She wouldn't believe a word of it.
But Bruno was still in the toils of his temptation. "Look here," he said, lifting a pitiful face. "What with the bread and water and the lashes I don't know that my head isn't light, and I'm fancying I see things...."
The paper of the letter was crackling in his hand, and his husky voice was breaking. Save for these sounds and the tramp—tramp—tramp of the soldiers drilling outside, there was a dead silence in the court.
"You are not fancying at all, Rocco," said the Public Prosecutor. "We are all sorry for you, and I am sure the illustrious gentlemen of the tribunal pity you. Your comrade, your master, the man you have followed and trusted, is false to you. He is a traitor to his friend, his country, and his King. The denunciation you made in prison is true in substance and in fact. I advise you to adhere to it, and to cast yourself on the clemency of the court."
"Here—you—shut up your head and let a man think," said Bruno.
Roma tried to rise. She could not. Then she tried to cryout something, but her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. Would Bruno break down at the last moment?
Bruno, whose face was convulsed with agony, began to laugh in a delirious way. "So my friend is false to me, is he? Very well, I'll be revenged."
He reeled a little and the letter dropped from his hand, floated a moment in the air, and fell to the ground a pace or two farther on.
"Yes, by God, I'll be revenged," he cried, and he laughed again.
He stopped, lifted one leg, seemed to pull at his boot, and again stood erect.
"I always knew the hour would come when I should find myself in a tight place, and I've always kept something about me to help me to get out of it. Here it is now."
In an instant, before any one could be aware of what he was doing, he had uncorked a small bottle which he held in his hand and swallowed the contents.
"Long live David Rossi!" he cried, and he flung the empty bottle over his head.
Everybody was on his feet in a moment. It was too late. In thirty seconds the poison had begun its work, and Bruno was reeling in the arms of the Carabineers. Somebody called for a doctor. Somebody else called for a priest.
"That's all right," said Bruno. "God is a good old saint. He'll look after a poor devil like me." Then he began to sing:—
"The tombs are uncovered,The dead arise,The martyrs are risingBefore our eyes."
"Long live David Rossi!" he cried again, and at the next moment he was being carried out of court.
In the tumult that ensued everybody was standing in the well of the judges' horse-shoe table. The deaf old woman, with her shawls slipping off her shoulders, was wringing her hands and crying. "God will think of this," she said. The Garibaldian was gazing vacantly out of his rheumy eyes and saying nothing. Roma, who had recovered control of herself, was looking at the letter, which she had picked up from the floor.
"GOD WILL LOOK AFTER A POOR DEVIL LIKE ME.""GOD WILL LOOK AFTER A POOR DEVIL LIKE ME."
"Mr. President," she cried over the heads of the others, "this letter is not in Mr. Rossi's handwriting. It is a forgery. I am ready to prove it."
At that moment one of the Carabineers came back to tell the judges that all was over.
"Gone!" said one after another, more often with a motion of the mouth than with the voice.
The president was deeply agitated. "This court stands adjourned," he said, "but I take the Almighty to witness that I intend to ascertain all responsibility in this case and to bring it home to the guilty ones, whosoever and whatsoever they may be."
"My dear DavidRossi,—You will know all about it before this letter reaches you. It is one of those scandals of the law that are telegraphed to every part of the civilised world. Poor Bruno! Yet no, not poor—great, glorious, heroic Bruno! He ended like an old Roman, and killed himself rather than betray his friend. When they played upon his jealousy, and tempted him by a forged letter, he cried, 'Long live David Rossi!' and died. Oh, it was wonderful. The memory of that moment will be with me always like the protecting and strengthening hand of God. I never knew until to-day what human nature is capable of. It is divine.
"But how mean and little I feel when I think of all I went through in the court this morning! I was really undergoing the same tortures as Bruno, the same doubt and the same agony. And even when I saw through the whole miserable machination of lying and duplicity I was actually in terror for Bruno lest he should betray you in the end. Betray you! His voice when he uttered that last cry rings in my ears still. It was a voice of triumph—triumph over deception, over temptation, over jealousy, and over self.
"Don't think, David Rossi, that Bruno died of a broken heart, and don't think he went out of the world believing that you were false. I feel sure he came to that court with the full intention of doing what he did. All through the trial there was something in his bearing which left the impression of a purpose unrevealed. Everybody felt it, and even the judges ceased to protest against his outbursts. The poor prisoner in convict clothes, with dishevelled hair and bare neck, made every one else look paltry and small. Behindhim was something mightier than himself. It was Death. Then remember his last cry, and ask yourself what he meant by it. He meant loyalty, love, faith, fidelity. He intended to say, 'You've beaten me, but no matter; I believe in him, and follow him to the last.'
"As you see, I am here in your own quarters, but I keep in touch with 'Sister Angelica,' and still have no answer to my letter. I invent all manner of excuses to account for your silence. You are busy, you are on a journey, you are waiting for the right moment to reply to me at length. If I could only continue to think so, how happy I should be! But I cannot deceive myself any longer.
"It is perhaps natural that you should find it hard to forgive me, but you might at least write and put me out of suspense. I think you would do so if you knew how much I suffer. Your great soul cannot intend to torture me. To-night the burden of things is almost more than I can bear, and I am nearly heartbroken. It is my dark hour, dearest, and if you had to say you could never forgive me, I think I could easier reconcile myself to that. I have been so happy since I began to love you; I shall always love you even if I have to lose you, and I shall never, never be sorry for anything that has occurred.
"Not receiving any new letters from you, I am going back on the old ones, and there is a letter of only two months ago in which you speak of just such a case as mine. May I quote what you say?
"'Yet even if she were not so (i.e. worthy of your love and friendship), even if there were, as you say, a fault in her, who am I that I should judge her harshly? ... I reject the monstrous theory that while a man may redeem the past a woman never can.... And if she has sinned as I have sinned, and suffered as I have suffered, I will pray for strength to say, 'Because I love her we are one, and we stand or fall together.'
"It is so beautiful that I am even happy while my pen copies the sweet, sweet words, and I feel as I did when the old priest spoke so tenderly on the day I confessed, telling me I had committed no sin and had nothing to repent of. Have I never told you about that? My confessor was a Capuchin, and perhaps I should have waited for his advice before going farther. He was to consult his General or his Bishopor some one, and to send for me again.
"But all that is over now, and everything depends upon you. In any case, be sure of one thing, whatever happens. Bruno has taught me a great lesson, and there is not anything your enemies can do to me that will touch me now. They have tried me already with humiliation, with poverty, with jealousy, and even with the shadow of shame itself. There is nothing left but death.And death itself shall find me faithful to the last. Good-bye! Your poor unforgiven girl,
Roma."
The morning after writing this letter Roma received a visit from one of the Noble Guard. It was the Count de Raymond.
"I am sent by the Holy Father," he said, "to say that he wishes to see you."
PART SEVEN—THE POPE
On the morning appointed for the visit to the Vatican, Roma dressed in the black gown and veil prescribed by etiquette for ladies going to an audience with the Pope.
The young Noble Guard in civilian clothes was waiting for her in the sitting-room. When she came out of the bedroom he was standing with a solemn face before the bust of David Rossi, which she had lately cast afresh and was beginning to point in marble.
"This is wonderful," he said. "Perfectly wonderful! A most astonishing study."
Roma smiled and bowed to him.
"Christ of course, and such reality, such feeling, such love! But shall I tell you what surprises me most of all?"
"What?"
"What surprises me most is the extraordinary resemblance between your Christ and the Pope."
"Really?"
"Indeed yes! Didn't you know it? No? It is almost incredible. Younger certainly, but the same features, the same expression, the same tenderness, the same strength! Even the same vertical lines over the nose which make the shako dither on one's head when something goes wrong and His Holiness is indignant."
Roma's smile was dying off her face like the sun off a field of corn, and she was looking sideways out of the window.
"Has the Pope any relations?" she asked.
"None whatever, not a soul. The only son of an only son. You must have been thinking of the Holy Father himself, and asking yourself what he was like thirty years ago. Come now, confess it!"
Roma laughed. The soldier laughed. "Shall we go?" she said.
A carriage was waiting for them, and they drove by theTor di Nona, a narrow lane which skirts the banks of the Tiber, across the bridge of St. Angelo, and up the Borgo.
Roma was nervous and preoccupied. Why had she been sent for? What could the Pope have to say to her?
"Isn't it unusual," she asked, "for the Pope to send for any one—especially a woman, and a non-Catholic?"
"Most unusual. But perhaps Father Pifferi...."
"Father Pifferi?"
"He is the Holy Father's confessor."
"Is he a Capuchin?"
"Yes. The General at San Lorenzo."
"Ah, now I understand," said Roma. Light had dawned on her and her spirits began to rise.
"The Pope is very tender and fatherly, isn't he?"
"Fatherly? He is a saint on earth, that's what he is! Impetuous, perhaps, but so sweet and generous and forgiving. Makes you shake in your shoes if you've done anything amiss, but when all is over and he puts his arm on your shoulder and tells you to think no more about it, you're ready to die for him even at the stake."
Roma's spirits were rising every minute, and her nervousness was fading away. Since things had fallen out so, she could take advantage of her opportunities. She would tell the Pope everything, and he would advise with her and counsel her. She would speak about David Rossi, and the Pope would tell her what to do.
The great clock of the Basilica was striking ten with a solemn boom as the carriage rattled over the stones of the Piazza of St. Peter's—wet with the play of the fountains and bright with the rainbows made by the sun.
They alighted at the bronze gate, ascended the grand staircase, crossed a courtyard, passed through many gorgeous chambers, and arrived finally at an apartment hung with tapestries and occupied by a Noble Guard, who wore a brass helmet and held a drawn sword. The next room was the throne room, and beyond it were the Pope's private apartments.
A chaplain of the Pope's household came to say that by request of Father Pifferi the lady was to step into an anteroom; and Roma followed him into a small adjoining chamber, carpeted with cocoanut matting and furnished with a marble-topped table and two wooden chest-seats, bearing the papal arms. The little room opened on to a corridor overlookinga courtyard, a secret way to the Pope's private rooms, and it had a door to the throne room also.
"The Father will be here presently," said the chaplain, "and His Holiness will not be long."
Roma, who was feeling some natural tremors, tried to reassure herself by asking questions about the Pope. The chaplain's face began to gleam. He was a little man, with round red cheeks and pale grey eyes, and the usual tone of his voice was a hushed and reverent whisper.
"Faint? Yes, ladies do faint sometimes—often, I may say—and they nearly always cry. But the Holy Father is so gentle, so sweet."
The door to the throne room opened and there was a gleam of violet and an indistinct buzz of voices. The chaplain disappeared, and at the next moment a man in the dress of a waiter came from the corridor carrying a silver soup dish.
"You're the lady the Holy Father sent for?"
Roma smiled and assented.
"I'm Cortis—Gaetano Cortis—the Pope's valet, you know—and of course I hear everything."
Roma smiled again and bowed.
"I bring the Holy Father a plate of soup every morning at ten, but I'm afraid it is going to get cold this morning."
"Will he be angry?"
"Angry? He's an angel, and couldn't be angry with any one."
"He must indeed be good; everybody says so."
"He is perfect. That's about the size of it. None of your locking up his bedroom when he goes into the garden and putting the key into the pocket of his cassock, same as in the old Pope's days. I go in whenever I like, and he lets me take whatever I please. At Christmas some rich Americans wanted a skull-cap to save a dying man, and I got it for the asking. Now an old English lady wants a stocking to cure her rheumatism, and I'll get that too. I've saved a little hair from the last cutting, and if you hear of anybody...."
The valet's story of his perquisites was interrupted by the opening of the door of the throne room and the entrance of a friar in a brown habit. It was Father Pifferi.
"Don't rise, my daughter," he said, and closing the doorbehind the valet, he gathered up the skirts of his habit and sat down on the chest-seat in front of her.
"When you came to me with your confidence, my child, and I found it difficult to advise with you for your peace of mind, I told you I wished to take your case to a wiser head than mine. I took it to the Pope himself. He was touched by your story, and asked to see you for himself."
"But, Father...."
"Don't be afraid, my daughter. Pius the Tenth as a Pope may be lofty to sternness, but as a man he is humble and simple and kind. Forget that he is a sovereign and a pontiff, and think of him as a tender and loving friend. Tell him everything. Hold nothing back. And if you must needs reveal the confidences of others, remember that he is the Vicar of Him who keeps all our secrets."
"But, Father...."
"Yes."
"He is so high, so holy, so far above the world and its temptations...."
"Don't say that, my daughter. The Holy Father is a man like other men. Shall I tell you something of his life? The world knows it only by hearsay and report. You shall hear the truth, and when you have heard it you will go to him as a child goes to its father, and no longer be afraid."
"Thirty-five years ago," said Father Pifferi, "the Holy Father had not even dreamt of being Pope. He was the only child of a Roman banker, living in a palace on the opposite side of the piazza. The old Baron had visions, indeed, of making his son a great churchman by the power of wealth, but these were vain and foolish, and the young man did not share them. His own aims were simple but worldly. He desired to be a soldier, and to compromise with his father's disappointed ambitions he asked for a commission in the Pope's Noble Guard."
The old friar put his hands into the vertical pockets in the breast of his habit, and looked up at the ceiling as he went on speaking.
"All this is no secret, but what follows is less known. The soldier, who had the charm of an engaging personality,led the life of an ordinary young Roman of his day, frequenting cafés, concerts, theatres, and balls. In this character he met a poor woman of the people, and came to love her. She was a good girl, with soft and gentle manners, but a heart of gold and a soul of fire. He was a good man and he meant to marry her. He did marry her. He married her according to the rites of the Church, which are all that religion requires and God calls for."
Roma was leaning forward on her seat and breathing between tightly-closed lips.
"Unhappily, then as now, a godless legislature had separated a religious from a civil marriage, and the one without the other was useless. The old Baron heard of what had happened and tried to defeat it. A cardinal had just been created in Australia, and an officer of the Noble Guard had to be sent with the Ablegate to carry the biglietto and the skull-cap. At the request of the Baron his son was appointed to that mission and despatched in haste."
Roma could scarcely control herself.
"The young husband being gone, the father set himself to deal with the wife. He had not yet relinquished his hopes of seeing his son a churchman, and marriage was a fatal impediment. A rich man may have many instruments, and the Baron was able to use some that were evil. He played upon the conscience of the girl, who was pure and virtuous; told her she was not legally married, and that the laws of her country thought ill of her. Finally, he appealed to her love for her husband, and showed her that she was standing in his way. He was not a bad man, but he loved his son beyond truth and to the perversion of honour, and was ready to sacrifice the woman who stood between them. She allowed herself to be sacrificed. She wiped herself out that she might not be an obstacle to her husband. She drowned herself in the Tiber."
Roma could not control herself any longer, and made a half-stifled exclamation.
"Then the young husband returned. He had been travelling constantly, and no letters from his wife had reached him. But one letter was waiting for him at Rome, and it told him what she had done. It was then all over; there was no help for it, and he was overwhelmed with horror. He could not blame the poor dead girl, for all she had done had been done in love; he could not blame himself, for he hadmeant no wrong in making the religious marriage, and had hastened home to complete the civil one; and he could not reproach his father, for if the Baron's conduct had led to fearful consequences, it had been prompted by affection for himself. But the hand of God seemed to be over him, and his soul was shaken to its foundations. From that time forward he renounced society and all worldly pleasures. For eight days he went into retreat and prayed fervently. On the ninth day he joined a religious house, the Novitiate of the Capuchins at San Lorenzo. The young soldier, so gay, so handsome, so fond of social admiration, became a friar."
The old Capuchin looked tenderly at Roma, whose wet eyes and burning cheeks seemed to tell of sympathy with his story.
"In those days, my daughter, the nuns of Thecla served the Foundling of Santo Spirito."
Roma began to look frightened and to feel faint.
"It was usual for a member of our house to live in the hospital in order to baptize the children and to confess the sick and the dying. We took it in turns to do so, staying one year, two years, three years, and then going back to the monastery. I was myself at Santo Spirito for this purpose at the time I speak about, and it was not until three or four years afterwards that I became Superior of our House and returned to San Lorenzo. There I found the young Noble Guard, and, wisely or unwisely, I told him a new phase of his own story."
"There was a child?" said Roma, in a strange voice.
The Capuchin bent his head. "That much he knew already by the letter his wife had left for him. She had intended that the child should die when she died, and he supposed that it had been so. But pity for the little one must have overtaken the poor mother at the last moment. She had put the babe in the rota of the hospital, and thus saved the child's life before carrying out her purpose upon her own."
The Capuchin crossed his knees, and one of his bare feet in its sandal showed from under the edge of his habit.
"We had baptized the boy by a name which the mother had written on a paper attached to his wrist, and the identity of that name with the name of the Noble Guard led to my revelation. Nature is a mighty thing, and on hearing what I told him the young brother became restless and unhappy. The instincts of the man began to fight with thefeelings of the religious, and at last he left the friary in order to fulfil the duty which he thought he owed to his child."
"He did not find him?"
"He was too late. According to custom, the boy had been put out to nurse on the Campagna, by means of the little dower that was all his inheritance from the State. His foster parents passed him over to other hands, and thus by the abuse of a good practice the child was already lost."
Roma tried to speak, but she could not utter a word.
"What happened then is a long story. The old Baron was now dead and the young friar had inherited his princely fortune. Dispensations got over canonical difficulties, and in due course he took holy orders. His first work was to establish in Rome an asylum for friendless orphans. He went out into the streets to look for them, and brought them in with his own hands. His fame for charity grew rapidly, and he knew well what he was doing. He was looking for the little fatherless one who owned his own blood and bore his name."
Roma was now sitting with drooping head, and her tears were falling on her hands.
"Five years passed, and at length he came upon a trace of the boy and heard that he had been sent to England. The unhappy father obtained permission and removed to London. There he set up the same work as before and spent in the same way his great wealth. He passed five years more in a fruitless search, looking for his lost one day and night, winter and summer, in cold and heat, among the little foreign boys who play organs and accordions in the streets. Then he gave up hope and returned to Rome. His head was white and his heart was humble, but in spite of himself he rose from dignity to dignity until at length the old Baron's perverted ambitions were fulfilled. For his great and abounding charity, and still greater piety, he was promoted to be Bishop; seven years afterwards he was created Cardinal; and now he is Pope Pius the Tenth, the saint, the saviour of his people, once the storm-tossed, sorrowing, stricken man...."
"David Leone?"
The Capuchin bowed. "That was the Holy Father's name. He committed no sin and has nothing to reproach himself with, but nevertheless he has known what it is tofall and to rise again, to suffer and be strong. Tell me, my daughter, is there anything you would be afraid to confide to him?"
"Nothing! Nothing whatever!" said Roma, with tears choking her voice and streaming down her cheeks.
The door to the throne room opened again and a line of Cardinals came out and passed down the secret corridor, talking together as they walked, old men in violet, most of them very feeble and looking very tired. At the next moment the chaplain came in for Roma.
"The Holy Father will be ready to receive you presently," he said in a hushed and reverent whisper, and she rose to follow him.
A moment later Roma was at the door of the grand throne room. A chamberlain took charge of her there, and passed her to a secret chamberlain at the door of an anteroom adjoining. This secret chamberlain handed her on to a Monsignor in a violet cassock, and the Monsignor accompanied her to the door of the room in which the Pope was sitting.
"As you approach," he said in a low tone, "you will make three genuflexions—one at the door, another midway across the floor, the third at the Holy Father's feet. You feel well?"
"Yes," she faltered.
The door was opened, the Monsignor stepped one pace into the room, and then knelt and said—
"Donna Roma Volonna, your Holiness."
Roma was on her knees at the threshold; a soft, full, kindly voice, which she could have believed she had heard before, called on her to approach; she rose and stepped forward, the Monsignor stepped back, and the door behind her was closed.
She was in the Presence.
The Pope, dressed wholly in white, was seated in a simple chair by a little table in a homely room, surrounded by bookcases and some busts of former pontiffs. There were little domesticities of intimate life about him, an empty soup-dish, a cruet-stand, a plate and a spoon. He had aface of great sweetness and spirituality, and as Roma approached he bent his head and smiled a fatherly smile. She knelt and kissed his ring, and continued to kneel by his chair, putting one hand on the arm. He placed his own mittened hand over hers and patted it tenderly, while he looked into her face.
The little nervous perturbation with which Roma had entered the room began to leave her, and in the awful wearer of the threefold crown she saw nothing but a simple, loving human being. A feminine sense crept over her, a sense of nursing, almost of motherhood, and at that first moment she felt as if she wanted to do something for the gentle old man. Then he began to speak. His voice had that tone which comes to the voice of a man who has the sense of sex strong in him, when a woman is with him and his accents soften perceptibly.
"My daughter," he said, "Father Pifferi has spoken about you, and by your permission, as I understand it, he has repeated the story you told him. You have suffered, and you have my sympathy. And though you are not among the number of my children, I sent for you, that, as an old man to a young woman, by God's grace I might strengthen you and support you."
She kissed his ring again and continued to kneel by the arm of his chair.
"Long ago, my child, I knew one who was in something like the same position, and perhaps it is the memory of what befell that poor soul which impels me to speak to you.... But she is dead, her story is dead too; let time and nature cover them."
His voice had a slight tremor. She looked up. There was a hush, a momentary thrill. Then he smiled again and patted her hand once more.
"You must not let the world weaken you, my child, or cause you to doubt the validity of your marriage. Whether it is a good marriage, in effect as well as intention (one of you being still unbaptized), it is for the Church, not the world, to decide."
Again Roma kissed the ring of the Pope, and again he patted the hand that lay under his.
"Nevertheless, there is something I wish you to do, my daughter," he said, in the same low tones. "I wish you to tell your husband."
"Holy Father," said Roma, "I have already told him. I had done so before I spoke to Father Pifferi, but only under the disguise of another woman's story."
"And what did your husband say?"
"He said what your Holiness says. He was very charitable and noble; so I took heart and told him everything."
"And what did he say then?"
A cloud crossed her face. "Holy Father, he has not yet said anything."
"Not anything?"
"He is away; he has not replied to my letter."
"Has there been time?"
"More than time, your Holiness, but still I hear nothing."
"And what is your conclusion?"
"That my letter has awakened some pity, but now that he knowsIam the wife I spoke about andheis the husband intended, he cannot forgive me as he said the husband would forgive, and his generous soul is in distress."
"My daughter, could you wish me to speak to him?"
The cloud fled from her face. "It is more than I deserve, far more, but if the Holy Father would do that...."
"Then I must know the names—you must tell me everything."
"Yes, yes!"
"Who is your father, my child?"
"My father died in banishment. He was a Liberal—he was Prince Prospero Volonna."
"As I thought. Who was the other man?"
"He was a distant kinsman of my father's, and I have lately discovered that he was the principal instrument in my father's deportation. He was my guardian, a Minister and a great man in Italy. It is the Baron Bonelli, your Holiness."
"Just so, just so!" said the Pope, tapping his foot in obvious heat. "But go on, my child. Who is your husband?"
"My husband is a different kind of man altogether."
"Ah!"
"He has done everything for me, Holy Father—everything. Heaven knows what I should have been now without him."
"God bless him! God bless both of you!"
"I came to know him by the strangest accident. He is aLiberal too, and a Deputy, and thinking of the corruptions of the Government, he pointed to me as the mistress of the Minister. It was not true, but I was degraded, and ... and I set out to destroy him."
"A terrible vengeance, my child. Only the Minister could have thought of it."
"Then I found that my enemy was one of my father's friends, and a true and noble man. Holy Father, I had begun in hate, but I could not hate him. The darkness faded away from my soul, and something bright and beautiful came in its place. I loved him, and he loved me. With all our hearts we loved each other."
"And then?"
"Thenhecame back to me. I knew all the secrets I had set out to learn, but I could not give them up, and when I refused he threatened me."
"And what did you do?"
"I married my husband and withstood every temptation. It wasn't so very hard, for I cared nothing for wealth and luxury now. I only wanted to be good. God Himself should see how good I could be."
The Pope's eyes were moist. He was patting the young woman's trembling hand.
"My blessing rest on you, my daughter, and may the man you have married be worthy of your love and trust."
"Indeed, indeed he is," said Roma.
"He was your father's friend, you tell me?"
"Yes, your Holiness, and although we met again so recently, I had known him in England when I was a child."
"A Liberal, you say?"
"Yes, your Holiness."
"The enmity of the Minister was the fruit of political warfare?"
"Nothing but that at first, though now...."
"I see, I see. And the secrets you speak of are only...."
"Only the doings of twenty years ago, which are dead and done with."
"Then your husband is older than you are?"
The young woman broke into a sunny smile, which set the Pope smiling.
"Only ten years older, your Holiness. He is thirty-four."
"Where does he come from, and what was his father?"
"He was born in Rome, but he does not know who his father was."
"What is he like to look upon?"
"He is like ... I have never seen any one so like ... will your Holiness forgive me?"
The colour had mounted to her eyes, her two rows of pearly teeth seemed to be smiling, and the sunny old face of the Pope was smiling too.
"Say what you please, my daughter."
"I have never seen any one so like the Holy Father," she said softly.
Her head was held down and there was a little nervous tremor at her heart. The Pope patted her hand affectionately.
"Have I asked you his name, my child?"
"His name is David Rossi."
The Pope rose suddenly from his seat, and for the first time his face looked dark and troubled.
"David Rossi?" he repeated in a husky voice.
Roma began to tremble. "Yes," she faltered.
"David Rossi, the Revolutionary?"
"Indeed no, your Holiness, he is not that."
"But, my child, my child, he is the founder of a revolutionary society which this very day the Holy Father has condemned."
He walked across the room and she rose to her feet and looked after him.
"One of the men who are conspiring against the peace of the Church—banded together to fight the Church and its head."
"Don't say that, your Holiness. He is religious, deeply religious, and far more an enemy of the Government and the King."
She began to talk wildly, almost aimlessly, trying to defend Rossi at all costs.
"Holy Father," she said, "shall I tell you a secret? There is nobody else in the world to whom I could tell it, but I can tell it to you. My husband is now in England organising a great scheme among the exiles and refugees of Italy. What it is I don't know, but he has told me that it will lead to the conquest of the country and the downfall of the throne. Whether it is to be a conspiracy in the ordinary sense, or a constitutional plan of campaign, he has not said, but everything tells me that it is directed against the politicsof Rome, and not against its religion, and is intended to overthrow the King, and not the Pope."
The Pope, who had been standing with his back to Roma, turned round to her with a look of fright. His eyebrows had met over the vertical lines on his forehead, and this further reminder of another face threw Roma into still greater confusion.
"'When I come back, it will be with such a force behind me as will make the prisons open their doors and the thrones of tyrants tremble.' That's what he said, your Holiness. The movement will come soon, too, I am sure it will, and then your Holiness will see that, instead of being irreligious men, the leaders of the people...."
The Pope held up his hand. "Stop!" he cried. "Say no more, my child. God knows what I must do with what you have said already."
Then Roma saw what she had done in the wild gust of her emotion, and in her terror she tried to take it back.
"Holy Father, you must not think from what I say that David Rossi is for revolution and regicide...."
"Don't speak, my child. You cannot know what an earthquake you have opened at my feet. Let me think!"
There was silence for a moment, and then Roma gulped down the great lumps in her throat and said: "I am only an ignorant woman, Holy Father, and perhaps I have said too much, and do not understand. But what I have told your Holiness was told me in love and confidence. And the Holy Father is wise and good, and whatever he does will be for the best."
The Pope returned to his chair with a bewildered look, and did not seem to hear. Roma sank to her knees by his side and said in a low, pleading tone:
"My husband's faith in me is so beautiful, your Holiness. Oh, so beautiful. I am the only one in the world to whom he has told all his secrets, and if any of them should ever come back to him...."
"Don't be afraid, my daughter. What you said in simple confidence shall be as sacred as if it had been spoken under the seal of the confessional."
"If I could tell your Holiness more about him—who he is and where he comes from—a place so lowly and humble, your Holiness...."
"Tell me no more, my child. It is better I should notknow. Pity ought to have no place in what duty tells me to do. But I can love David Rossi for all that. I do love him. I love him as a lost and wayward son, whose hand is raised against his Father, though he knows it not."
There was a bell button on the Pope's chair. He pressed it, and the Participante returned to the room without knocking. The Pope rose and took Roma's hand.
"Go in peace and with my blessing, my child. I bless you! May my fatherly blessing keep you pure in heart, may it strengthen you in all temptations, comfort you in all trials, avert from you every evil omen, and bring you into the fold of Christ's children at the last."
The Participante stepped forward and signed to Roma to withdraw. She rose and left the presence chamber, stepping backward and too much moved to speak. Not until the door had been closed did she realise that she was crossing the throne room, and that the Bussolante was walking beside her.
When the Pope walked in his garden that afternoon as usual, the old Capuchin was with him. From the door of the Vatican they drove in the Pope's landau with two of the Noble Guard riding beside the carriage, and one of the chamberlains walking behind it, through lanes enshrouded in laurel and ilex, until they reached the summer-house on the top of the hill. There the old men stepped down, the Pope in his white cassock, white overcoat and red hat, the Capuchin in his brown habit, skull-cap and sandals. The Pope's cat, a creature of reddish coat, which followed him into the garden as a dog follows his master, leapt out of the carriage after them.
The Pope was more than usually grave and silent. Once or twice the Capuchin said, "And how did you find my young penitent this morning?"
"Bene, bene!" the Pope replied.
But at length the Pope, scraping the gravel at his feet with the ferrule of his walking-stick, began to speak on his own initiative.
"Father!"
"Your Holiness?"
"The inscrutable decree of God which made me your Pontiff has not altered our relations to each other as men?"
The Capuchin took snuff and answered, "Your Holiness is always so good as to say so."
"You are my master now just as you were thirty years ago, and there is something I wish to ask of you."
"What is it, your Holiness?"
"You have been a confessor many years, Father?"
"Forty years, your Holiness."
"In that time you have had many difficult cases?"
"Very many."
"Father, has it ever happened that a penitent, has revealed to you a conspiracy to commit a crime?"
"More than once it has happened."
"And what have you done?"
"Persuaded him to reveal it to the civil authorities, or else tell it to me outside the confessional."
"Has the penitent ever refused to do so?"
"Never."
"But if ... if the case were such as made it difficult for the penitent to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, having regard to the penalties the revelation would bring with it ... if by reason of ties of blood and affection such revelation were humanly impossible, and it would even be cruel to ask for it, what would you do then?"
"Nothing, your Holiness."
"Not even if the crime to be committed were a serious one, and it touched you very nearly?"
The Capuchin shook out his coloured print handkerchief and said, "That could make no difference, your Holiness."
"But suppose you heard in confession that your brother is to be assassinated, what is your duty?"
"My duty to the penitent who reveals his soul to me is to preserve his secret."
"And what is your duty to God?"
The handkerchief dropped from the Capuchin's hand.
The Pope paused, scraped the gravel with the ferrule of his stick, and said:
"Father, I am in the position of the confessor who has guilty knowledge of a conspiracy against the life of his enemy."
The Capuchin pushed his handkerchief into his sleeve and dropped back into his seat. After a moment the Pope told the story of what Roma had said of Rossi's plans abroad.
"A conspiracy," he said, "plainly a conspiracy."
"And what do you understand the conspiracy to be?"
"Who can say? Perhaps a recurrence to the custom of the Middle Ages, when citizens who had been banished by their opponents used to apply themselves in exile to attempt the reconquest of their country by stirring up the factions at home."
"You think that is Rossi's object?"
"I do."
The Capuchin shifted uneasily the skull-cap on his crown and said:
"Holy Father, I trust your Holiness will leave the matter alone."
"Why so?"
"In reading history I do not find that such enterprises have usually been successful. I see, rather, how commonly they have failed. And if it was so in the Middle Ages when the arts of war were primitive, how much less likely are the conspiracies of secret societies, the partial and superficial risings of refugees, to be serious now in the days of standing armies."
"True. But is that a good reason for doing nothing in this instance?"
"But, Holy Father, think. You cannot disclose the secrets this poor lady has revealed to you. Her confession was only a confidence, but your Holiness knows well that there is such a thing as a natural secret which it would be a great fault to reveal. Facts which of their own nature are confidential belong to this order. They are assimilated to the confessional, and as such they should be respected."
"Indeed they should."
"Then it is not possible for your Holiness to reveal what you heard this morning without bringing trouble to the penitent and wronging her in relation to her husband."
"God forbid that I should do so, whatever happens. But is a priest forbidden to speak of a sin heard in confession if he can do so in such a way that the identity of the penitent cannot be discovered?"
"Your Holiness intends to do that?"
"Why not?"
"The Holy Father knows best. For my own part, your Holiness, I think it a danger to tamper with the secrets of a soul, whatever the good end in view or the evil to be prevented."
The Capuchin looked round to where the horses were pawing the path and the Guards stood by the carriage.
"Thirty-five years ago we had a terrible lesson in such dangers, your Holiness."
The Pope dropped his head and continued to scrape the gravel.
"Your Holiness remembers the poor young woman who told her confessor she was about to marry a rich young man. The confessor thought it his duty to tell the young man's father in general terms that such a marriage was to be contracted. What was the result? The marriage took place in secret and ended in grief and death."
The Pope rose uneasily. "We will not speak of that. It was a case of a father's pride and perverted ambition. This is a different case altogether. A man who is a prey to diabolical illusions, an enemy of the Church and of social order, is hatching a plot which can only end in mischief and bloodshed. The Holy Father knows it. Shall he keep this guilty knowledge locked in his own bosom? God forbid!"
"Then you intend to warn the civil authorities?"
"I must. It is my duty. How could I lay my head on my pillow and not do it? But I will do it discreetly. I will commit no one, and this poor lady shall remain unknown."
The venerable old men, each leaning on his stick, walked down a path lined by clipped yews, shaded by cypresses, and almost overgrown with crocus, anemone, and violet. Suddenly from the bushes there came a flutter of wings, followed by the scream of a bird, and in a moment the Pope's cat had leapt on to a marble which stood in the midst of the jungle. It was an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a fountain, but the spring that had fed it was dry, and in its moss-grown mouth a bird had made its nest. The cat was about to pounce down on the eggs when the Pope laid hold of it.
"Ah, Meesh, Meesh," he said, "what an anarchist you are, to be sure!... Monsignor!"
"Yes, your Holiness," said the chamberlain, coming up behind.
"Take thisgatto rossoback to the carriage, and keep him indomicilio coattountil we come."
The Monsignor laughed and carried off the cat, and the Pope put his mittened hand gently on the little speckled eggs.
"Poor things! they're warm. Listen! That's the mother bird screaming in the tree. Hark! She's watching us,and waiting for us to go. How snugly she thought she kept her secret."
The Capuchin drew a long breath. "Yes, nature has the same cry for fear in all her offspring."
"True," said the Pope.
"It makes me think of that poor girl this morning."
The Pope walked back to the carriage without saying a word. As he returned to the Vatican, the Angelus was ringing from all the church bells of Rome, the city was bathed in crimson light, the sun was sinking behind Monte Mario, and the stone pines on the crest of the hill, standing out against the reddening sky, were like the roofless columns of a ruined temple.
Next day Francesca came up with a letter. The porter from Trinità de' Monti had brought it and he was waiting below for a present. In a kind of momentary delirium Roma snatched at the envelope and emptied her purse into the old woman's hand.
"Santo Dio!" cried Francesca, "all this for a letter?"
"Never mind, godmother," said Roma. "Give the money to the good man and let him go."
"It's from Mr. Rossi, isn't it? Yes? I thought it was. You've only to say three Ave Marias when you wake in the morning and you get anything you want. I knew the Signora was dying for a letter, so...."
"Yes, yes, but the poor man is waiting, and I must get on with my work, and...."
"Work? Ah, Signora, in paradise you won't have to waste your time working. A lady like you will have violins and celestial bread and...."
"The man will be gone, godmother," said Roma, hustling the deaf old woman out of the room.
But even when Roma was alone she could not at first find courage to open the envelope. There was a certain physical thrill in handling it, in turning it over, and in looking at the stamps and the postmark. The stamps were French and the postmark was of Paris. That fact brought a vague gleam of joy. Rossi had been travelling, and perhaps he had not yet received her letter.
With a trembling kiss and a little choking prayer shebroke the seal at last, and as the letter came rustling out of the envelope she glanced at the closing lines:
"Your Faithful Husband."
She caught her breath and waited a moment, tingling all over. Then she unfolded the paper and read:—
"Dearest,—A telegram from Rome, published in the Paris newspapers this morning, reports the trial and death of Bruno. To say that I am shocked is to say little. I am shaken to my foundations. My heart is bursting and my hand can with difficulty hold the pen.
"The news first reached me last evening, when I was in a restaurant with a group of journalists. We were at dinner, but I was compelled to rise and return to my lodgings. I must have been almost in delirium the whole night long. More than once I started from my sleep with the certainty that I heard Bruno's voice calling to me. Once I went to the window and looked out into the silent street. And yet I knew all the time that my poor friend lay dead in prison.
"Poor Bruno! I do not hold with suicide under any circumstances. A man's life does not belong to himself. Each of us is a soldier, and no sentinel ought to kill himself at his post. Who knows what the next turn of the battle will be? It is our duty to the General to see the fight out. But when the sentinel dies rather than pass a false watchword, suicide is sacrifice, death is victory, and God takes His martyr under the wings of His mercy.
"The poor fellow died believing I had been false to him! I knew him for eight years, and during that time he was more faithful to me than my shadow. He was the bravest, staunchest friend man ever had. And now he has left me, thinking I have wronged him at the last. Oh, my brother, do you not know the truth at last? In the world to which you are gone, does no heavenly voice tell you? Does not death reveal everything? Can you not look down and see all, tearing away the veil that clouded your vision here below? Is it only vouchsafed to him who remains on earth to know that he was true to the love you bore him? God forbid it! It cannot, cannot be.
"Dearest, I came to Paris unexpectedly ten days ago...."
Roma lifted her swimming eyes. "Then he hasn't received it," she thought.
"Called in haste, not only to organise our Italian people for the new crusade, but to compose by a general principle themany groups of Frenchmen who, under different names, have the same aspirations—Marxists, Possibilists, Boulangists, Guesdists, and Central Revolutionists, with their varying propaganda, co-operative, trade-unionist, anti-semite, national, and I know not what—I had almost despaired of any union of interests so pitifully subdivided when the news of Bruno's death came like a trumpet-blast, and the walls of the social Jericho fell before it. Everybody feels that the moment of action has arrived, and what I thought would be an Italian movement is likely to become an international one. A great outrage on the spirit of Justice breaks down all barriers of race and nationality.
"God guide us now. What did our Master say? 'The dagger of the conspirator is never so terrible as when sharpened on the tombstone of a martyr.' With all the heat of my own blood I tremble when I think what may be the effect of these tyrannies. Of course the ruling classes at home will wash their hands of this affair. When a Minister wants to play Macbeth he has no lack of grooms to dabble with Duncan's blood. But the people will make no nice distinctions. I wouldn't give two straws for the life of the King when this crime has touched the conscience of the people. He didn't do it? No, he does nothing, but he stands for all. Anarchists did not invent regicide. It has been used in all ages by people who think the spirit of Justice violated. And the names of some who practised it are written on marble monuments in letters of gold."
Roma began to tremble. Had the Pope been right after all? Was it really revolution and regicide which Rossi contemplated?
"Dearest, don't think that because I am so moved by all this that other and dearer things are not with me always. Never a day or an hour passes but my heart speaks to you as if you could answer. I have been anxious at not hearing from you for ten days, although I left my Paris address in London for your letters to be sent on. Sometimes I think my enemies may be tormenting you, and then I blame myself for not bringing you with me, in spite of every disadvantage. Sometimes I think you may be ill, and then I have an impulse to take the first train and fly back to Rome. I know I cannot be with you always, but this absence is cruel. Happily it will soon be over, and we shall see an end of all sadness. Don't suffer for me. Don't let my cares distress you. Whateverhappens, nothing can divide us, because love has united our hearts for ever.