*CHAPTER XVI.*
The night after Inglesant had met the friar in Naples there was "thesound of abundance of rain," and the "plague was stayed." As constantlyhappened in the cities desolated by this mysterious pestilence, noadequate reason could be perceived for its cessation. Some change inthe state of the atmosphere took place, and the sick did not die, atleast in the same proportion as formerly. This was the only indicationthat the most acute observer could detect; but the change wasmarvellously rapid. The moment that contact with the dead bodies becameless fatally infectious, help offered on all sides, tempted by the largerewards. The dead rapidly disappeared from sight, and the city began toresume something of its ordinary appearance. The terrors of the gravevanished into air, and gloomy resolutions faded from the mind. The fewsurvivors of the devoted men who, throughout the heat of the conflict,had remained at their posts were, many of them at least, forgotten andoverlooked; for their presence was an unpleasing reminder to those whoseconduct had been of a far more prudent and selfish sort. Those who hadfled returned into the city to look after their deserted homes, and tore-open their shops. The streets and markets were once more gay withwares. The friar was now as eager to leave Naples as he had before beendetermined to remain. His sole object was to find the Cavaliere, and heconstantly insisted that no time was to be lost if they wished to seehim alive. They left Naples together; the friar mounted upon a mulewhich Inglesant purchased for him.
Notwithstanding the friar's eagerness, their journey was slow, for hewas not able to resist the impulse to turn aside to help when anyappearance of distress or poverty called upon them for aid. Inglesantwas not impatient at this delay, nor at the erratic and apparentlymeaningless course of their singular journey. The country wasdelightful after the heavy rains, and seemed to rejoice, together withits inhabitants, at the abatement of the plague. People who hadremained shut up in their houses in fear now appeared freely in the oncedeserted roads. Doors were thrown open, and the voice of the lute andof singing was heard again in the land. As for those who had passedaway, it was wonderful how soon their name was forgotten, as of "a deadman out of mind;" and those who had come into comfortable inheritance offruit-closes, and olive-grounds and vineyards, and of houses of pleasurein the fields, which, but for the pestilence, had never been theirs,soon found it possible to reconcile themselves to the absence of thedead.
For some time after leaving Naples the road lay through a richlycultivated land, with long straight ditches on either side. Rows offorest trees crossed the country, and shaded the small closes offruit-trees and vines. Here and there a wine tavern, or a few cottages,or a village church, stopped them. At all of these the friar alightedfrom his mule, and made inquiries for any who were ill or in distress.In this way they came across a number of people of the peasant class,and heard the story of their lives; and now and then a religious, or acountry signore, riding by on his mule or palfrey, stopped to speak withthem.
They had proceeded for many days through this cultivated country, andhad at last, after many turnings, reached that part of the road whichapproaches the slopes of the Apennines about Frosinone. The path woundamong the hills, the slopes covered with chestnut trees, and the cragscrowned with the remains of Gothic castles. Fields of maize filled thevalleys, and lines of lofty poplars crossed the yellow corn. As theroad ascended, distant reaches of forest and campagna lay in brightsunlight between the craggy rocks, and down the wooded glens cascadesfell into rapid streams spanned here and there by a half-ruined bridge.At last they entered a deep ravine of volcanic tufa, much of whichcropped out from the surface, cold and bare. Between these sterilerocks laurels forced their way, and spread out their broad and brilliantleaves. Creeping plants hung in long and waving festoons, and pines andforest trees of great size crowned the summits. Here and theresepulchral excavations were cut in the rock, and more than onesarcophagus, carved with figures in relief, stood by the wayside.
The air in these ravines was close and hot, and sulphurous streamsemitted an unpleasant odour as they rode along. Inglesant felt oppressedand ill. The valley of the Shadow of Death, out of which he had comeinto the cool pastures and olive-yards, had left upon the mind anexaltation of feeling rather than terror; and in the history of thefriar, through the course of which traces of a devised plan penetratedthe confusion of a disordered brain, the gracious prediction of Molinosseemed to promise fulfilment. The supreme effort of Divine mercy surelyis that which shapes the faltering and unconscious actions of man into abeneficent and everlasting work.
But the very clearness and calm of this transcendental air produced awavering of the spiritual sense; and the companionship of a blindenthusiast, who, from the lowest depth of reckless sin, had suddenlyattained a height of religious fervour, did not tend to reduce the feverof his thoughts. The scenes and forms of death with which he had beenfamiliar in Naples returned again and again before his eyes, and his olddisease again tormented him; so that once more he saw strange figuresand shapes walking by the wayside. These images of a disordered fancyjostled and confused his spiritual perceptions. He felt wearied bythose thoughts and desires which had formerly been dear to him, and theceaseless reiteration of the friar's enthusiastic conceptions jarred andirritated him more than he liked to confess. The brain of the blindman, unoccupied by the sights of this world, was full of visions of amystic existence, blended and confused with such incidents and storiesof earth as he had heard along the way. With such phantasmalimaginations, he filled Inglesant's ears.
Proceeding in this manner, they came to a place where the ravine,opening out a little, exposed a distant view of the Campagna, with itsaqueducts and ruined tombs. At the opening of the valley stood one ofthose isolated rocks so strange to English eyes, yet so frequently seenin the paintings of the old masters, crowned with the ruins of a Temple,and fringed with trees of delicate foliage, poplars and pines. At thefoot of the rock an arch of ruined brickwork, covered with waving grassand creepers, spanned the road with a wide sweep, and on the oppositeside a black sulphurous pool exhaled a constant vapour. Masses ofstrange, nameless masonry, of an antiquity dateless and undefined,bedded themselves in the rocks, or overhung the clefts of the hills; andout of a great tomb by the wayside, near the arch, a forest of laurelforced its way, amid delicate and graceful frieze-work, moss-covered andstained with age.
In this strangely desolate and ruinous spot, where the fantastic shapesof nature seem to mourn in weird fellowship with the shattered strengthand beauty of the old Pagan art-life, there appeared unexpectedly signsof modern dwelling. The base of the precipitous rock for some distanceabove the road, was concealed by a steep bank of earth, the crumblingruin and dust of man and of his work. At the top of this bank was oneof those squalid erections, so common in Italy, where, upon a massivewall of old brickwork, embedded in the soil, a roof of straw affordssome kind of miserable shelter. Some attempt had been made to wall inthe space covered by this roof, and a small cross, reared from thegable, and a bell beneath a penthouse of wood, seemed to show that theshed had been used for some ecclesiastical purpose. At the bottom ofthe slope upon which this structure was placed, and on the other side ofthe ruined arch and of the road, there stood, near to the tomb, a verysmall hut, also thatched, and declared to be a tavern by its wine-bush.At the door of this hut, as Inglesant and the friar rode up, stood a manin a peasant's dress, in an attitude of perplexity and nervous dread. Along streak of light from the western sun penetrated the ruined arch,and shone upon the winding road, and against the blaze of light, rockand arch and hanging woods stood out dark and lowering in the delicateair.
The dazzling light, the close atmosphere of the valley, and the fumes ofthe sulphurous lake, affected Inglesant's brain so much that he couldscarcely see; but they did not appear to disturb the friar. Headdressed the man as they came up, and understanding more from his owninstinct than from the few words that Inglesant spoke that the man wasin trouble, he said,--
"You s
eem in some perplexity, my son. Confide in me, that I may helpyou."
As the man hesitated to reply, Inglesant said, "What is that building onthe hill?"
"It is a house for lepers," said the peasant.
"Are you the master of this tavern?" said Inglesant.
"No, Santa Madre," replied the man. "The mistress of the inn has fled.This is the case, Padre," he continued, turning to the friar. "I washired a week or so ago at Ariano to bring a diseased man here, who was aleper; but I did not know that he was a leper who was stricken with theplague. I brought him in my cart, and a terrible journey I had withhim. When I had brought him here, and the plague manifestly appearedupon him, all the lepers fled, and forsook the place. The Padrona, whokept this tavern upon such custom as the peasants who brought food tosell to the lepers brought her, also fled. I stayed a day or two tohelp the wretched man--they told me that he was a gentleman--till Icould stay no longer, such was his condition, and I fled. But, myFather, I have a tender heart, and I came back to-day, thinking that theholy Virgin would never help me if I left a wretched man to diealone--I, who only know where and in what state he is. I spoke to oneor two friars to come and help me, but they excused themselves. I camealone. But when I arrived here my courage failed me, and I dared not goup. I know the state he was in two days ago; he must be much moreterrible to look at now. Signore," concluded the man, turning toInglesant with an imploring gesture, "I dare not go up."
"Do you know this man's name?" said Inglesant.
"Yes; they told me his name."
"What is it?"
"Il Cavaliere di Guardino."
At the name of his wife's brother, Inglesant started, and would havedismounted, but checked himself in the stirrup, struck by the action ofthe friar. He had thrown his arms above his head with a gesture ofviolent excitement, his sightless eyeballs extended, his face lightedwith an expression of rapturous astonishment and delight.
"Who?" he exclaimed. "Who sayest thou? Guardino a leper, and strickenwith the plague! Deserted and helpless, is he? too terribly disfiguredto be looked upon? The lepers flee him, sayest thou? Holy and blessedLord Jesus, this is Thy work! He is my mortal foe--the ravisher of mysister--the destroyer of my own sight! Let me go to him! I willminister to him--I will tend him! Let me go!"
He dismounted from his mule, and, with the wonderful instinct he seemedto possess, turned towards the rock, and began to scramble up the hill,blindly and with difficulty, it is true, but still with sufficientcorrectness to have reached the ruin without help. There was, toInglesant, something inexpressibly touching and pitiful in his hurriedand excited action, and his struggling determination to accomplish theascent.
The peasant would have overtaken him to prevent his going up, probablymisdoubting his intention. Inglesant checked him.
"Do not stop him," he said. "He is a holy man, and will do what hesays. I will go with him. Stay here with my horse."
"You do not know to what you are going, signore," said the peasant,looking at Inglesant with a shudder; "let him go alone. _He cannotsee_."
Inglesant shook his head, and, his brain still slightly dizzy andconfused, hastened after the friar, and assisted him to climb the rockybank. When they had reached the entrance to the hut the friar wenthastily in, Inglesant following him to the doorway.
It was a miserable place, and nearly empty, the lepers having carriedoff most of their possessions with them. On a bed of straw on thefarther side, beneath the rock, lay what Inglesant _felt_ to be the manof whom he was in search. What he saw it is impossible to describehere. The leprosy and the plague combined had produced a spectacle ofinexpressible loathing and horror, such as nothing but absolute dutywould justify the description of. The corruption of disease made itscarcely possible to recognize even the human form. The poisoned air ofthe shed was such that a man could scarcely breathe it and live.
The wretched man was rolling on his couch, crying out at intervals,groaning and uttering oaths and curses. Without the slightest falteringthe friar crossed the room (it is true he could not see), and kneelingby the bedside, which he found at once, he began, in low and hurriedaccents, to pour into the ear of the dying man the consoling sound ofthat Name, which alone, uttered under heaven, has power to reach thedeparting soul, distracted to all beside. Startled by the sound of avoice close to his ear, for his sight also was gone, the sick man ceasedhis outcries and lay still.
Never ceasing for a moment, the friar continued, in a rapid and ferventwhisper, to pour into his ear the tenderness of Jesus to the vilestsinner, the eternal love that will reign hereafter, the sweetness andpeace of the heavenly life. The wretched man lay perfectly still,probably not knowing whether this wonderful voice was of earth orheaven; and Inglesant, his senses confused by the horrors of the room,knelt in prayer in the entrance of the hut.
The fatal atmosphere of the room became more and more dense. The voiceof the friar died slowly away; his form, bending lower over the bed,faded out of sight; and there passed across Inglesant's bewildered brainthe vision of Another who stood beside the dying man. The halo roundHis head lighted all the hovel, so that the seamless coat He wore, andthe marks upon His hands and feet, were plainly seen, and the palealluring face was turned not so much upon the bed and upon the monk asupon Inglesant himself, and the unspeakable glance of the Divine eyesmet his.
A thrill of ecstasy, terrible to the weakened system as the sharpestpain, together with the fatal miasma of the place, made a final rush andgrasp upon his already reeling faculties, and he lost all consciousness,and fell senseless within the threshold of the room.
When he came to himself he had been dragged out of the hut by thepeasant, who had ventured at last to ascend the hill. The place wassilent; the Cavaliere was dead, and the friar lay across the body in asort of trance. They brought him out and laid him on the grass,thinking for some time that he was dead also. By and by he opened hissightless eyes, and asked where he was; but he still moved as in atrance. He seemed to have forgotten what had happened; and, with thedeath of the Cavaliere, the great motive which had influenced him, andwhich, while it lasted, seemed to have kept his reason from utterlylosing its balance, appeared to be taken away. He had lived only tomeet and bless his enemy, and this having been accomplished, all reasonfor living was gone.
Inglesant and the peasant dug a grave with some implements they found inthe tavern, and hastily buried the body, the friar pronouncing abenediction. The latter performed this office mechanically, and seemedalmost unconscious as to what was passing. His very figure and shapeappeared changed, and presented but the shadow of his former self; hisspeech was broken and unintelligible. Inglesant gave the peasant money,which seemed to him to be wealth, and they mounted and rode silentlyaway.
At Venafro, where they found a monastery of the Cappucines, they stayedsome days, Inglesant expecting that his companion would recoversomething of his former state of health. But it soon became apparentthat this would not be the case; the friar sank rapidly into a conditionof mental unconsciousness, and the physicians told Inglesant that,although he might linger for weeks, they believed that a disease of thebrain was hastening him towards the grave. Inglesant was impatient toreturn to the Castello; and, leaving the friar to the care of thebrothers of his own order, he resumed his journey.
Was it a strange coincidence, or the omniscient rule and will of God,that, at the moment Inglesant lay insensible before the hut, the plaguehad done its work in the home that he had left? The old Count diedfirst, then some half of the servants, finally, in the deserted house, alittle child lay dead upon its couch, and beside it, on the marblefloor, lay Lauretta--dead--uncared for.
It was the opinion of Martin Luther that visions of the Saviour, whichhe himself had seen, were delusions of Satan for the bewildering of thePapists; and there is a story of a monk who left the Beatific Visionthat he might take his service in the choir.
Malvolti died at Venafro a short time after Inglesant had left him.
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John Inglesant: A Romance (Volume 2 of 2) Page 16