John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2)

by J. H. Shorthouse

  *CHAPTER XV.*

  In the vast Church of the Santa Chiara, with its open nave which spreaditself on every side like a magic hall of romance, the wide floor andthe altars of the side Chapels had been crowded all day by prostrateworshippers; but when Inglesant entered it about sunset, it wascomparatively empty. A strange unearthly perfume filled the Church, andclouds of incense yet hovered beneath the painted ceiling, and obscuredthe figure of the Saint chasing his enemies. Streaks of light,transfigured through the coloured prism of the prophets and martyrs thatstood in the painted glass, lighted up the wreaths of smoke, andcoloured the marbles and frescoes of the walls and altars. The mysticglimmer of the sacred tapers in the shaded chapels, and the concludingstrains of the chanting before the side altars, which had followed thevesper service and benediction, filled the Church with half light andhalf shadow, half silence and half sound, very pleasing and soothing tothe sense.

  Inglesant passed up the Church towards the high altar, before which heknelt; and as he did so, a procession, carrying the Sacrament, enteredby another door, and advanced to the altar, upon which it was againdeposited. The low, melancholy miserere--half entreating, halfdesponding--spoke to the heart of man a language like its own; and asthe theme was taken up by one of the organs, the builder's art and themusician's melted into one--in tier after tier of carved imagery, waveafter wave of mystic sound. All conscious thought and striving seemedto fade from the heart, and before the altar and amid the swell of soundthe soul lost itself, and lay silent and passive on the Eternal Love.

  Behind the high altar Inglesant found the friar by the grave of the wiseKing. Upon the slabs of the Gothic tomb, covered with carving andbas-relief, the King is seated and dressed in royal robes; but upon thesarcophagus he lies in death bereft of all his state, and clothed in nogarment but a Franciscan's gown. Beside him lies his son in his royalrobes, covered with fleurs-de-lis; and other tombs of the kingly race ofAnjou surround him, all emblazoned with coat armour and device of rank.

  Between the tombs of the two kings stood the friar, his head bowed uponhis hands. The light grew every moment less and less bright, and theshadows stretched ever longer and longer across the marble floor. Thelamps before the shrines, and the altar tapers in the funeral chapels,shone out clearer and more distinct. The organs had ceased, but thedolorous chanting of the miserere from beyond the high altar still cameto them with a remote and wailing tone.

  Inglesant advanced towards the friar, who appeared to be aware of hispresence by instinct, and raised his head as he drew near. He returnedno answer to Inglesant's greeting, but seated himself upon a bench nearone of the tombs, and began at once, like a man who has little time tospend.

  "I am desirous," he said, "of telling you at once of what has occurredto me. Who can tell what may happen at any moment to hinder unless Ido? It is a strange and wonderful story, in which you and I and all menwould be but puppets in the Divine Hand were not the Divine Love suchthat we are rather children led onward by their Father's hand--welcomedhome by their Mother's smile."

  It was indeed a strange story that the friar told Inglesant in thedarkening Church. In places it was incoherent and obscure. The firstpart of his narrative, as it relates to others besides himself, is toldhere in a different form, so that, if possible, what really happenedmight be known. The latter part, being untranslatable into any otherlanguage and inexplicable upon any basis of fact, must be told in hisown words.

  "When you left me at the mountain chapel," said the friar, "I thought ofnothing but that I had escaped with life. I thought I had met with aFantastic, whose brain was turned with monkish fancies, and I blessed myfortunate stars that such had been the case. I thought little of theDivine vengeance that dogged my steps."

  When Inglesant met Malvolti upon the mountain pass (as he gathered fromthe friar's narrative) the latter, utterly penniless and undone, havingexhausted every shift and art of policy, and being so well-known in allthe cities of Italy that he was safe in none of them, had bethoughthimself of his native place. It was, indeed, almost the only place wherehis character was unknown, and his person comparatively safe. But ithad other attractions for the hunted and desperate man. Malvolti'sfather had died when his son was a boy, and his mother in a year or twomarried again. His step-father was harsh and unkind to the fatherlesschild, and the seeds of evil were sown in the boy's heart by thetreatment he received; but a year after this marriage a little girl wasborn, who won her way at once into the heart of the forlorn and unhappylad. He was her constant playmate, protector, and instructor. Forseveral years the only happy moments of his life were passed when hecould steal away with her to the woods and hills, wandering for hourstogether alone or with the wood-cutters and charcoal-burners; and when,after a few years, the unkindness of his parents and his own restlessand passionate nature sent him out into the world in which he played soevil a part, the image of the innocent child followed him into scenes ofvice, and was never obliterated from his memory. The murmur of theleaves above the fowling-floor where they lay together during themid-day heat, the splash of the fountains where they watched the flocksof sheep drinking, followed him into strange places and foreigncountries, and arose to his recollection in moments of danger, and evenof passion and crime.

  The home of Malvolti's parents had been in the suburb, of a small townof the Bolognese. Here, at some little height above the town on theslope of the wooded hills, a monastery and chapel had been erected, andin course of time some few houses had grouped themselves around, amongwhich that of Malvolti's father had been the most considerable. The sunwas setting behind the hills when Malvolti, weary, dispirited, and dyingof hunger, came along the winding road from the south, which skirted theprojecting spurs of the mountains. The slanting rays penetrated thewoods, and shone between the openings of the hills, lighting up thegrass-grown buildings of the monastery, and the belfry of the littleChapel, where the bell was ringing for vespers. Below, the plainstretched itself peacefully; a murmur of running water blended with thetolling of the bell. A waft of peace and calm, like a breeze fromparadise, fell upon Malvolti's heart, and he seemed to hear soft voiceswelcoming him home. He pictured to himself his mother's kind greeting,his sister's delight; even his stern step-father's figure was softenedin the universal evening glow. It was a fairy vision, in which thepassing years had found no place, where the avenging footsteps thatfollow sin did not come, and which had no reality in actual existence.He turned the angle of the wood, and stood before his home. It lay inruins and desolate.

  The sun sank below the hills, the bell went on tolling monotonouslythrough the deepening gloom. Dazed and faint, Malvolti followed itstones into the Chapel, where the vesper service began. When it wasended the miserable man spoke to one of the monks, and craved some food.Deprived of his last hope, his senses faint and dull with weariness andhunger, and lulled by the soft strains of devout sound--his lifeconfessed at last to have been completely a failure, and the wages ofsin to have turned to withered leaves in his hand--his heart was moredisposed than perhaps it had ever been to listen to the soft accents ofpenitence, and to hear the whispering murmur that haunts the shadowywalks of mortified repentance. Comforted by food, the kindly words ofpity and exhortation stole upon his senses, and he almost fancied thathe might find a home and peace without further wandering and punishment.He was much deceived.

  He inquired concerning the fate of those whom, debased and selfish as hewas, he still loved, especially now, when the sight of long-forgottenbut still familiar places recalled the past, and seemed to obliteratethe intervening years. The monks told him a story of sorrow and of sin,such as he himself often had participated in, and would have heard atanother time with a smile of indifference. His step-father was dead,killed in a feud which his own insolent temper had provoked. His motherand sister had continued for some time to live in the same house, andthere perhaps he might have found them, had not a gentleman, whoseconvenience had led him to claim the hospitali
ty of the monastery for anight's rest, chanced to see his sister in the morning as he mounted hishorse. The sight of a face, whose beauty combined a haughty clearnessof outline with a certain coy softness of expression, and a figure ofperfect form, detained him from his intended journey, and he obtainedadmittance into the widow's house. What wizard arts he practised themonks did not know, but when he departed he left anxiety and remorsewhere he had found content and a certain peace. In due time the twowomen, despairing of his return, had followed him, and the younger, themonks had heard (and they believed the report)--ill-treated andspurned--was now living in Florence a life of sin. The softenedexpression of rest and penitence which had begun to show itself inMalvolti's face left it, and the more habitual one of cruel and hungrysin returned as he inquired,--

  "Did the Reverend Fathers remember the name of this man?"

  The good monks hesitated as they saw the look in the inquirer's face;but it was not their duty to conceal the truth from one who undoubtedlyhad a right to be informed of it.

  "It is our duty to practise forgiveness, even of the greatest injuries,my son," one of them replied; "our blessed Lord has enjoined it, andleft us this as an example, that He has forgiven us. The man was calledil Cavaliere di Guardino."

  The monks were relieved when they saw that their guest showed no emotionupon hearing this name; only he said that he must go to Florence andendeavour to find his sister.

  But in truth there was in the man's mind, under a calm exterior, acrisis of feeling not easy to describe. That the Cavaliere, hisfamiliar accomplice, in whose company and by whose aid he had himself sooften committed ravages upon the innocent, should, in the chance medleyof life, be selected to inflict this blow, affected him in a strange andunaccustomed way, with the sense of a hitherto unrecognized justice atwork among the affairs of men. He was so utterly at the end of all hishopes, life was so completely closed to him, and his soul was so sorelystricken, in return for all his sins, in the only holy and sacred spotthat remained in his fallen nature,--his love and remembrance of hissister,--that it seemed as if a revulsion of feeling might take place,and that, in this depth and slough, there might appear, though dimly,the possibility of an entrance into a higher life. He was better knownin Florence than in any city of Italy, except Rome; and if he went therehis violent death was almost certain, yet he determined to go. Heassured Inglesant afterwards, in relating the story, that his object wasnot revenge, but that his desire was to seek out and rescue his sister.Revenge doubtless brooded in his mind; but it was not the motive whichurged him onward.

  He told Inglesant a strange story of his weary journey to Florence,subsisting on charity from convent to convent; of his wandering up anddown in the beautiful city, worn out with hunger and fatigue, unknown,and hiding himself from recognition. Amid the grim forms of vice thathaunted the shadowy recesses of the older parts of the city, in thevaulted halls of deserted palaces and the massive fastnesses ofpatrician strife, he flitted like a ghost, pale and despairing, urged onby a restless desire that knew no respite. In these dens of a recklesslife, which had thrown off all restraint and decorum, he recognized manywhom he had known in other days, and in far different places. In thesegloomy halls, which had once been bright with youth and gaiety, but werenow hideous with poverty and crime,--in which the windows were darkened,and the coloured ceilings and frescoed walls were blurred with smoke anddamp, and which were surrounded by narrow alleys which shut out thelight, and cut them off from all connection with the outer world,--he atlast heard of the Cavaliere. He was told that, flying from Rome afterhis sister's marriage, he had been arrested for some offence in thesouth of Italy, and those into whose hands he fell being old enemies,and bearing him some grudge, he was thrown into prison, and evencondemned to the galleys; for, since the Papal election, he was nolonger able to claim even a shadow of protection from any of the greatfamilies who had once been his patrons. After a short imprisonment hewas deputed, among others, to perform some such office as Inglesant hadseen undertaken by the slaves in Naples; for the plague had raged forsome summers past, with more or less intensity, in southern Italy.While engaged in this work he had managed to make his escape, and hadnot long since arrived in Florence, where he had kept himself closelyconcealed. Malvolti was told the secret lurking-place where he mightprobably be found.

  "It was a brilliantly hot afternoon," continued Malvolti, speaking veryslowly; "you will wonder that I tell you this; but it was the last timethat I ever saw the sun. I remember the bright and burning pavementseven in the narrow alleys out of which I turned into the long and darkentries and vaulted rooms. I followed some persons who entered beforeme, and some voices which led me onward, into a long and lofty room inthe upper stories, at the farther end of which, before a high windowpartially boarded up, some men were at play. As I came up the room, allthe other parts of which lay in deep shadow, the light fell stronglyupon a corner of the table, and upon the man who was casting the dice.He had just thrown his chance, and he turned his head as I came up. Heappeared to be naked except his slippers and a cloak or blanket of whitecloth, with pale yellow stripes. His hair was closely cropped; hisface, which was pale and aquiline, was scarred and seamed with deeplines of guilt and misery, especially around the eyes, from whichflashed a lurid light, and his lips were parted with a mocking andSatanic laugh. His dark and massive throat and chest and his long andsinewy arms forced their way out of the cloth with which he was wrapped,and the lean fingers of both hands, which crossed each otherconvulsively, were pointed exultantly to the deuce of ace which he hadthrown. The last sight I ever saw, the last sight my eyes will everbehold until they open before the throne of God, was this demon-likefigure, standing out clear and distinct against the shadowy gloom inwhich dim figures seemed to move, and the dice upon the table by hisside.

  "He burst out into a wild and mocking laugh. 'Ah, Malvolti,' he said,'you were ever unlucky at the dice. Come and take your chances in thenext main.'

  "I know not what fury possessed me, nor why, at that moment especially,this man's mocking villany inspired me with such headlong rage. Iremembered nothing but the crimes and wrongs which he had perpetrated.I drew the dagger I carried beneath my clothes, and sprang upon him witha cry as wild as his own. What happened I cannot tell. I seemed tohear the laughter of fiends, and to feel the tortures of hell on everyside. Then all was darkness and the grave."

  Overpowered as it seemed by the recollection of his sufferings, thefriar paused and sank upon his knees upon the pavement. The misererehad died away, and a profound gloom, broken only by the flicker oftapers, filled the Church. Inglesant was deeply moved,--less, however,by sympathy with the man's story than by the consciousness of theemotions which he himself experienced. It was scarcely possible tobelieve that he was the same man who, some short years before, hadlonged for this meeting with a bloodthirsty desire that he might takesome terrible vengeance upon his brother's murderer. Now he stoodbefore the same murderer, who not so long before had attempted to takehis life also with perhaps the very dagger of which he now spoke; and ashe looked down upon him, no feeling but that of pity was in his heart.In the presence of the awful visitant who at that moment was filling thecity which lay around them with death and corruption, and before whoseeternal power the strife and enmity of man shrank away appalled andsilenced, it was not wonderful that inordinate hate should cease; but,as he gazed upon the prostrate man before him, an awe-inspiring feelingtook possession of Inglesant's mind, which still more effectuallycrushed every sentiment of anger or revenge. The significance of hisown half-conceived action was revealed to him, and he recognized, withsomething approaching to terror, that the cause was no longer his, thatanother hand had interposed to strike, and that his sword had spared themurderer of his brother only that he might become the victim of thatdivine vengeance which has said, "I will repay."

  The friar rose from his knees. "I found myself in the monastery of theCappucines on the bank of the river, blind, and holding life by thefaintes
t thread. That I lived was a miracle. I had been struck withsome twenty wounds, and in mere wantonness my eyes had been pierced as Ilay apparently dead. I was thrown into the river which flowed by gloomyvaults beneath the houses, and had been carried down by the stream tothe garden of a monastery where I was found. As I recovered strengththe monks thought that my reason would not survive. For days and nightsI lay bound, a raving madman. At last, when my pains subsided, and mymind was a little calmed and subdued, I was sent out into the world andbegged my way from village to village, not caring where I went, my mindan utter blank, filled only now and then with horrible sights anddreams. I had no sense of God or Christ; no feeling but a blindsenseless despair and confusion. Thus I wandered on. I got at last aboy to lead me and buy me food. I know not why I did not rather liedown and die. Sometimes I did fling myself down, resolving not to moveagain; but some love of life or some divine prompting caused me to riseand wander on in my miserable path. At last, towards the end of theyear, I came to Rome, and wandered about the city seeking alms. The boywho led me, and who had attached himself to me, God knows why, told meall he saw and all that passed; and I, who knew every phase and incidentof Roman life, explained to him such things in a languid and indifferentway; for I found no pleasure nor relief in anything. I grew more andmore miserable; our life was hard, and we were ill-fed, and the terrorsof my memory haunted my spirits, weakened and depressed for want offood. The forms of those whom I had wronged, nay, murdered, lay beforeme. They rose and looked upon me from every side. My misery wasgreater than I could bear. I desired death, and tried to accomplish it,but my hand always failed. I bought poison, but my boy watched me andchanged the drink. I did not know this, and expected death. It did notcome. Then suddenly, as I lay in a kind of trance, that morning in themountain pass came into my remembrance, and it flashed suddenly into mymind that I was not my own; that no poison could hurt me, no sword slayme; that the sword of vengeance was in the Lord's hand, and would workHis will alone. What greater punishment could be in store for me I knewnot, but stunned by this idea I ceased to strive and cry any more. Iwaited in silence for the final blow; it came. The year had come nearlyto an end, and it was Christmas Eve. All day long, in the Churches inRome, had the services, the processions, the religious shows, gone on.My boy and I had followed them one by one, and he had, in his boyishway, told me all that he saw. The new Pope went in procession to St.John di Laterano, with all the Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, andBishops, all the nobility and courtiers, and an interminable length ofattendants, Switzers, soldiers, led horses, servants, pages, richcoaches, litters, and people of every class, under triumphal arches,with all excess of joy and triumph. As midnight drew on the streets wereas light as day. Every pageant became more gorgeous, every service moresweet and ravishing, every sermon more passionate. I saw it all in mymind's eye,--all, and much beside. I saw in every Church, lighted bysacred tapers before the crucifix, the pageants and ceremonies that, inevery form and to every sense, present the story of the mystic birth, ofthat divine fact that alone can stay the longing which, since men walkedthe earth, they have uttered in every tongue, that the Deity would comedown and dwell with man. We had wandered through all the Churches, andat last, wearied out, we reached the Capitol, and sank down beneath thebalusters at the top of the marble stairs. Close by, in the Ara Coeli,the simple country people and the faithful whose hearts were as those oflittle children, kneeling as the shepherds knelt upon the plains ofBethlehem, saw the Christ-Child lying in a manger, marked out fromcommon childhood by a mystic light which shone from His face and form;while the organ harmonies which filled the Church resigned their wontedsplendours, and bent for once to pastoral melodies, which, born amid therustling of sedges by the river brink, have wandered down through thereed-music and festivals of the country people, till they grew to be themost fitting tones of a religion which takes its aptest similes from thevineyard and the flock. All over Rome the flicker of the bonfiresmingled with the starlight. I was blind, yet I saw much that would havebeen hidden from me had I been able to see. I saw across the roofsbefore me, the dome of the Pantheon and St. Peter's, and the long lineof the Vatican, and the round outline of St. Angelo in the light of thewaning moon. This I should have seen had I had my sight; but I sawbehind me now what otherwise I should not have seen--the Forum, and thelines of arches and ruins, and beyond these the walks of the Aventineand of the Coelian, with their vineyards and white convents, and tallpoplar and cypress trees. I saw beyond them the great Churches of theLateran and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, standing out from the greencountry, pale and spectral in the light. To the left I saw Santa MariaMaggiore, stately and gorgeous, facing the long streets of palaces andcourts, and the gardens and terraces of the Quirinale, all distinct andclear in the mystic light. The white light covered the earth like ashroud, and over the vault of the sky were traced, by the pale stars,strange and obscure forms, as over the dome of St. Peter's at eveningwhen the Church is dim. A confused sound filled my ears, a sound ofchanting and of praise for that advent that brought peace to men, asound of innumerable passing feet, and in all the Churches and basilicasI saw the dead Christs over the altars and the kneeling crowds around.Suddenly it seemed to me that I was conscious of a general movement andrush of feet, and that a strange and wild excitement prevailed in everyregion of Rome. The Churches became emptied, the people pouring outinto the streets; the dead Christs above the altars faded from theircrosses, and the sacred tapers went out of their own accord; for itspread through Rome, as in a moment, that a miracle had happened at theAra Coeli, and that the living Christ was come. From where I stood Icould see the throngs of people pouring through every street and lane,and thronging up to the' Campadoglio and the stairs; and from thedistance and the pale Campagna, and San Paolo without the walls, andfrom subterranean Rome, where the martyrs and confessors lie, I couldsee strange and mystic shapes come sweeping in through the brilliantlight.

  "He came down the steps of the Ara Coeli, and the sky was full ofstarlike forms, wonderful and gracious; and all the steps of the Capitolwere full of people down to the square of the Ara Coeli, and up to thestatue of Aurelius on horseback above; and the summit of the Capitolamong the statues, and the leads of the palace Caffarelli, were full ofeager forms; for the starlight was so clear that all might see; and thedead gods, and the fauns, and the satyrs, and the old pagans, thatlurked in the secret hiding-places of the ruins of the Caesars, crowdedup the steps out of the Forum, and came round the outskirts of thecrowd, and stood on the fallen pillars that they might see. And Castorand Pollux, that stood by their unsaddled horses at the top of thestairs, left them unheeded and came to see; and the Marsyas who stoodbound broke his bonds and came to see; and spectral forms swept in fromthe distance in the light, and the air was full of Powers andExistences, and the earth rocked as at the Judgment Day.

  "He came down the steps into the Campadoglio, and He came to me. He wasnot at all like the pictures of the saints; for He was pale, and worn,and thin, as though the fight was not yet half over--ah no!--but throughthis pale and worn look shone infinite power, and undying love, andunquenchable resolve. The crowd fell back on every side, but when Hecame to me He stopped. 'Ah!' He said, 'is it thou? What doest thouhere? Knowest thou not that thou art mine? Thrice mine--mine centuriesago when I hung upon the cross on Calvary for such as thou--mine yearsago, when thou camest a little child to the font--mine once again, when,forfeit by every law, thou wast given over to me by one who is a servantand friend of mine. Surely, I will repay.' As He spoke, a shudder anda trembling ran through the crowd, as if stirred by the breath of Hisvoice. Nature seemed to rally and to grow beneath Him, and heaven tobend down to touch the earth. A healing sense of help and comfort, likethe gentle dew, visited the weary heart. A great cry and shout rosefrom the crowd, and He passed on; but among ten thousand times tenthousand I should know Him, and amid the tumult of a universe I shouldhear the faintest whisper of His voice."

  The friar
stopped and looked at Inglesant with his darkened eyeballs, asthough he could read his looks. Inglesant gazed at him in silence.That the man was crazed he had no doubt; but that his madness shouldhave taken this particular form appeared to his listener scarcely lessmiraculous than if every word of his wonderful story had been true.

  "Heard you nothing else?" he said at last.

  An expression of something like trouble passed over the other's face.

  "No," he said in a quieter voice; "by this time it was morning. Theartillery of St. Angelo went off. His Holiness sang mass, and all daylong was exposed the cradle of the Lord."

  There was another pause which Inglesant scarcely knew how to break.Then he said,--

  "And have you heard nothing since of the Cavaliere?"

  "He is in this neighbourhood," said Malvolti, "but I have not found him.I wondered and was impatient, ignorant and foolish as I am; now I knowthe reason. The Lord waited till you came. How could he be foundexcept by us both? We must lose no time, or it will be too late. Howdid you know that he was here?"

  Inglesant told him.

  "It was the Lord's doing," said the friar, a light breaking over hisdarkened face. "It was Capace. You remember, at Florence, the leaderof that extravagant frolic of the Carnival, who was dressed as acorpse?"

  "I remember," said Inglesant, "and the poor English lad who was killed."

  "He is one of the Lord's servants," continued the friar, "whom He calledvery late. I do not know that he was guilty of any particular sins, buthe was the heir of a poor family, and lived for many years in luxury andexcess. He was brought under the influence of Molinos's party, andshortly after I had seen the Lord, he came to me to know whether heshould become a religious. I told him I thought there was a time oftrial and of sifting for the Lord's people at hand, and that I thoughtthe strongholds were the safest spots. He joined the order de Servi.Not three weeks ago I was with him at Frescati, at the house of theCappucines, when I heard that the Cavaliere was here. You must haveseen him three or four days afterwards."