The Cardinal

by Henry Morton Robinson

  Tower of ivory,

  House of gold,

  Gate of heaven,

  Refuge of sinners,

  Comforter of the afflicted.

  Pray for me.

  By means of the Stations of the Cross he renewed in himself those painful intimations of mortality, of penitential suffering and atonement, that Christ had undergone as a man.

  Stephen applied to Alfeo Quarenghi for heavier assignments of work and volunteered to perform Monsignor Guardiano’s official duties while the latter took a month-long holiday. While Rome sweltered through August Stephen intensified his ascetic regime. Gradually the image of Ghislana Falerni began to fade; her voice grew dimmer. Like a slow, withdrawing wave she retreated down the beaches of Stephen’s heart, and left him standing before the tabernacle, alone.

  CHAPTER 3

  STEPHEN was on the verge of physical exhaustion when, early in September, Roberto Braggiotti suggested a walking trip through the Sabine Hills.

  “The vines are ripe in Tivoli; new wine is being pressed on the Sabine slopes,” said Roberto. “We will tramp mountain paths, lie on our backs in lemon orchards, listen to the crash of cataracts, and swim in ice-cold ponds. What do you say, Stefano?”

  “I say wonderful. Guardiano is back; he can take over my work. Let’s start tomorrow.”

  A canvas knapsack stuffed with extra socks and linen was the only luggage Stephen carried. He bought a denim shirt and looked longingly at some heavy-soled shoes, but the dread of breaking them in made him stick to his oldest pair of oxfords. Roberto turned up with a fine new pair of English-made walking boots, tweedy knickers, and an Alpine hat complete with feather. To get out of Rome quickly they took a train near Porta San Lorenzo and dropped off at Bagni, about twelve miles from the city.

  Braggiotti, all stride and tempo, had to be kept in check. “Take it easy, Excelsior,” Stephen advised. “This is a walking tour, not a steeplechase.”

  “But we must get into the hills tonight. There’s an inn at Vicovaro, hanging on a crag over a mountain torrent.”

  “It’ll be there tomorrow.” Stephen had his own technique for cutting Roberto down to size. “Plod the first day, trudge the next—haste makes blisters—that’s my text.”

  “You have the soul of a tortoise,” grumbled Roberto. “While I”—he touched the feather in his hat—“am a Roman eagle.”

  They did eight miles that day, slept at the Chalet des Cascades at Tivoli, and after an enormous breakfast were off again. Now they struck slightly northward through a grape-garlanded countryside; the air was saturated with a purplish haze. Barely twenty miles from Rome they saw tiny villages unchanged since Caesar’s time; in fields and vineyards peasants were gathering up the richness of earth—olives, grapes, and corn—in handmade baskets; occasionally a donkey-drawn cart with solid wooden wheels would creep past. It was all very picturesque and quite poverty-stricken.

  They paused at noon for lunch at a lazy tavern, sloughed their knapsacks, ate bowls of bean soup, and drank asciutto, the dry wine of the country. Afterwards they cooled hands, feet, and faces in a brook, then drowsed for an hour in a grove of pines. Stephen’s tensions began to vanish; Roberto’s nerviness abated somewhat, too. He was content to plod now and began favoring the heel of his left foot where the smart English walking boots were raising a blister. Walking, resting, they reached Vicovaro at twilight, and found the inn, as Stephen predicted, still on its crag overhanging the torrent. Supper, more wine, a cigarette on the terrace. Then too tired to talk, they fell asleep.

  At breakfast next morning, Stephen asked: “How well do you know this country?”

  “My family used to have a place outside Civitella, about ten miles from here. As a boy I spent my summers there.”

  “Then you probably know that Horace once owned land hereabouts.”

  “The Sabine farm? We used to picnic there. ‘O fons Bandusiae’— you’re not the only one who can spout odes, Fermoyle. But seriously now, what’s this affair going on between you and Horace? How does a barbarian like you, Stephen, happen to be so fond of a Roman poet?”

  “It’s a long story, and I love to tell it. Wait till we get out on the road.”

  From the innkeeper they bought a flask of wine, some bread and cheese, then setting their sights for Monte Gennaro, headed north. They worked the stiffness out of their muscles with a brief spurt of heel-and-toe walking, then settled down to a more leisurely pace. The ground was steadily rising here, and the higher altitude gave a sparkle to air and wit. Braggiotti was in a frolic mood. He wanted to run races, play games, engage in mental and physical rivalry with his companion.

  “I’ll bet you a dinner that I can give you the history of the Western world in one minute,” he said; then added: “while running.”

  Stephen scoffed. “We used to do that in parochial school. Make it tougher.”

  “You want variations? All right—I’ll give it to you backwards.”

  “The history or the running?”

  Braggiotti considered a moment. “Both.”

  “You’ve got a bet. Begin with the election of Warren G. Harding, analyze Lincoln’s patronage policy, and discuss James K. Polk’s attitude toward Mexico.”

  “Your country gets one sentence,” said Roberto. “Here it is: ‘America was discovered by an Italian who thought he was going someplace else.’”

  “Thanks for mentioning us at all,” said Stephen. “O.K.—here’s a nice piece of road. Get going.”

  Roberto turned around, and beginning with the treaty of Versailles poured out a torrential account of modern, medieval, and classic civilizations. Toward the end of his recital he increased his pace and rush of language until Stephen, holding the watch on him, had to break into a run to keep up. It was a dizzying, breathless stunt of high intellectual order, and when it was over Roberto aimed a playful cuff at Stephen’s head.

  “You see, Americus, how the Roman mind works. It holds in focus all periods, all cultures. Time runs backward, forward, any way you want.”

  “Could you do it walking on your hands?” said Stephen.

  “If this blister gets much worse, I may have to.” Roberto was limping slightly. “Maybe the unguent of your tale about Horace will soothe it.”

  “Would you really like to hear the official version?”

  “Yes, if you’ll skip the Lord Chesterfield bromide, ‘When I talked my best, I quoted Horace.’ I want the real story.”

  Stephen shifted his knapsack to the other shoulder, offered Braggiotti a swig from the wine bottle, then took one himself. “The real story begins with a lay brother who taught Latin in a parish high school in Medford, Massachusetts. This Brother Felix was a rare and savory specimen of the genus magister, with more devotion to religion than many an anointed priest I could name. Why he didn’t take Orders is a mystery; maybe he had the odd notion that teaching was just as important.”

  “This Felix interests me.”

  “Besides being a teacher, Brother Felix was a poet who didn’t presume to practice his art. ‘A poet,’ he used to say, ‘has no right to be mediocre.’ To offset this modesty, he developed the knack of reading poetry out loud so that it made sense as well as sound. Naturally he liked the mystics: Southwell, John of the Cross, Vaughan; not for their piety—I must make this clear to you, Berto—but for their poetic energy. Brother Felix had the sense to know that all religious rhymers aren’t divinely inspired, and that it takes more than a cry from the heart to make some pious nun a lark at heaven’s gate.”

  “The Inquisition should have looked into his case. What other heresy did he preach?”

  “Heresy is the word. In the midst of a culture devoted to baseball, whist parties, and sheet music, this Brother Felix taught the unpopular doctrine of elegance. His slightest action was the gesture of a man at ease before perfection. To see him lay a bit of store cheese on a cracker and carry it to his mouth—to watch him drink a glass of water—was an adventure in form.” Stephen solicited Braggiotti’s opin
ion. “Can you believe this, Roberto?”

  “I’ve known one or two such men in my life. Both were artists; one a musician, the other a sculptor.” Braggiotti’s critical sense came forward. “I must say, though, that their content wasn’t up to their notion of form.”

  “Exactly. Now you’re coming right into Brother Felix’s shop. He spent his life searching for the artist in whom form and content were equally balanced. And after much searching he found his man—a poet in whose work it is impossible to tell where diamond substance ends and informing light begins.” Stephen halted, and took hold of the top button on Braggiotti’s shirt. “Now, what would the name of that poet be?”

  “Dante?”

  “Good try. At his best, Dante is all luminosity. But too often his diamond purity is muddied with political and theologic sediment. Guess again.”

  “I hate to give credit to the nation that made these boots, but how about Shakespeare?”

  “The sonnets, maybe. But the plays are overloaded with rhetoric. Mind you, we’re not talking about how it feels to stand under an avalanche. We’re discussing vision and design. Come on now, don’t be stubborn. Say ‘Horace’ and get it over with.”

  Roberto pulled up dead lame. “I’m not stubborn.” He sat down on the grass in a hayfield and began unlacing his left boot. “But this blister is killing me.”

  “Let’s have a look.” Stephen pulled off the boot and sock, turned up the sole of Roberto’s foot, and saw the chafed, swollen heel. “The skin’s broken, Berto. Wait, I’ll wash it off with a little wine.”

  Dousing his pocket handkerchief with asciutto, Stephen tenderly bathed the blister. “There now. A bit of adhesive will fix it.”

  “If we had any.”

  “I brought some … just in case.” Stephen rummaged in his knapsack and came up with a spool of adhesive tape. “Lie on your back, Eagle Feather.”

  Leg in air, Roberto lay quietly in the grass. “Are you making the patch in the form of a cross?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Druid or Maltese?”

  “The latter.”

  “Why? Put your answer in the form of a syllogism.”

  “A syllogism it shall be. How does this strike you?

  In the funny papers all patches are Maltese;

  Braggiotti is something out of the funny papers;

  Therefore he should have a Maltese patch “

  “A tissue of fallacies,” cried Roberto, struggling to rise. “I’ll have to beat some elementary logic into your primitive skull.”

  Stephen gripped Braggiotti’s foot with a toehold. “Not till we finish our previous business. While I’ve got you where I want you”—he gave Roberto’s ankle a wrestler’s twist—“say ‘Horace twice.’”

  “Ouch, Fermoyle.”

  “Not ‘ouch, Fermoyle.’ ‘Horace twice’!”

  “Horace, Horace.”

  “No! Can’t you understand simple Italian? Say ‘Horace twice’!”

  “Horace twice, you damned idiot.” As Stephen laughingly released his hold, Braggiotti leapt off the grass. “Twist the foot of a Roman, will you?” He aimed a blow at his companion’s head. Stephen dodged it, seized Roberto by the wrist, then pivoted suddenly and levered the surprised Italian over his shoulder into a haystack.

  Braggiotti came out of the hay looking like an indignant faun. Wisps of hay stuck in his curly hair; he didn’t know whether to take his toss as a joke or an affront. “You spawn of guile, Fermoyle.”

  “Non me lo dica … perchè sono Romano,” said Stephen. The mimicry was so perfect, its application so deserved, that Roberto decided to laugh.

  Watching him pull the hay out of his curls, Stephen joined his companion in laughter.

  THEY CAME to the modern remains of the Sabine farm shortly after midday. Near the little village of Licenza they found a valley overshadowed by Monte Gennaro, the “rugged Lucretilis” of the odes. They climbed a knoll, crossed a rushing torrent, and came to an orchard in which men were picking fruit.

  “Isn’t Horace’s farm around here?” asked Roberto.

  “A pie tui” (at your feet), one of the workmen replied.

  Stephen gazed down a long alley of lemon trees. Was this truly the Sabine nest that had restored the poet when, tiring of Roman heat and intrigues, he would mount his ambling mule and jog toward his mountain farm? Yes, it could be. There was the gurgling brook and the crystalline spring, most celebrated, most loved and remembered among the fountains of earth. And above, on Gennaro’s slope, were the woods in which Horace had met the enormous wolf. A herd of goats cropped the grass under the trees where the poet, beguiling summer’s heat, had lain with his flask of Falernian.

  Across these antique recollections fell Roberto’s voice. “Sorry, old fellow, but I think my blister is really beginning to kick up.”

  “That’s serious. We must take care of it, Berto. Where’s the nearest town?”

  “Rocca Giovane. But there’s nothing there.”

  Stephen was truly solicitous. “Could we get back to Rome?”

  “Not till tomorrow. Say …” A half plan was forming in Roberto’s mind: “If we could commandeer a cart …”

  “What then?”

  “The Princess Lontana has a country place hereabouts. She’d have soap and hot water at the least.”

  “We’ll buy a cart.”

  They sat by the roadside for more than an hour until a two-wheeled carretta drawn by a spavined donkey came clopping through the dust. The driver was asleep. Why stay awake on such a drowsy afternoon? Stephen gently shook his shoulder, and Braggiotti did the talking.

  “Where are you going, amico mio?”

  “Two miles beyond Rocca Giovane.”

  Braggiotti made a proposition to the sleepy wagoner. “Would you, for twenty lire, take us a mile further?”

  For twenty lire—three days’ pay—the driver would have taken them to the brink of Lethe. Stephen thrust the money into the man’s hand, and the two Monsignors piled into the back of his cart.

  Through a bronzing countryside they jolted over ruts and boulders. It was dusk when the wooden wheels struck the graveled driveway of Princess Lontana’s country place. Passing shadowy oaks, they emerged into a rolling terrain of lawn, then saw a ramble of roofs, wings, and gables gathered into country-house unity by the combined skills of architect and landscaper. On a wide-flagged terrace a half-dozen people neither young nor old lounged on wicker chairs with drinks in their hands. They seemed to be waiting for nothing more important than a cool evening. As the cart rolled up the driveway, some of them even lifted their heads.

  “Get ready to hear a woman register surprise in six languages,” said Roberto.

  An upper servant, liveried and suspicious, came forward to ask the visitors’ business. Braggiotti handled him airily. “Tell the Princess Lontana that Monsignors Braggiotti and Fermoyle are making a parish visitation among the worthy poor. Help me off this tumbrel, will you, Stefano?”

  Close upon the shock of seeing two dust-begrimed prelates alight at her door, the Princess Lontana became a first-aid angel. “Umberto,” she directed the liveried servant, “put your arm under Monsignor Braggiotti and show him to the bathroom in the south wing. I will come with disinfectant, salves …”

  Half an hour later she was making pleasant chatter as she finished bandaging Roberto’s heel. “Such a welcome you will receive on the terrace … the shortage of men has been embarrassing … my reputation as a hostess will be saved. Good Umberto, try to borrow other flannels with longer legs for Monsignor Fermoyle. Ask Lord Chats-combe’s man to do something really fine. Does it feel better now, Roberto?”

  “Much better, thank you. And, Umberto, beg a more attractive scarf from the Englishman. These polka dots do not suit me. But no, never mind. If I must hobble, I shall have to be, like Byron, elegantly daring about the throat. Name me your guests, principessa”

  The match-making strain took charge of Princess Lontana. “There is the Marchesa d’
Alessandro—without her husband, of course. The Loria sisters, Margherita and Emfilia. Lord Horrox is concentrating on Margherita. Then there is the Baroness Sigismunda.”

  Roberto groaned. “That Bavarian huntress? I’ve been dodging her for years. If you must fill your house with unattached women, Loretta, why not get attractive ones?”

  “We have those, too. Your cousin Ghislana arrived only yesterday from Baia.”

  In the act of tying a borrowed scarf, Stephen heard the name. “Ghislana Falerni? Is she here?”

  “In the quite radiant flesh, Monsignor. You shall see. Her skin defies sunlight in a quite unbelievable way, and her seven trunks of Parisian modes will make you glad that you are a bachelor.” She gave a final pat to Roberto’s bandage. “Now, mes amis, finish adorning yourselves and make an immediate appearance. We dine under the stars at eight-thirty.” The Princess Lontana gazed up at the sky as though it were part of her decorative scheme. “With the planets in their present happy conjunction, the evening should be memorable.”

  CHAPTER 4

  TENSIONS of overdue rain stretched the air as Stephen descended to the terrace. Candles on the glass-topped dinner table burned straight upward to a breezeless sky; the earth lay begging for a shower. It was a night for summer’s-end masquing, and the players on Princess Lontana’s stage were eager for the country-house revels to begin. As always, the Princess’ introductions made everyone feel petted, distinguished. She displayed Stephen caressingly to her other guests, then bore him like a trophy toward Ghislana Falerni.

  From a willow chair the contessa greeted Stephen with her usual economy of speech and movement: hand, palm downward and ungloved, lips slower to speak than smile. She expressed pleasure at seeing him so unexpectedly and remarked that men were lucky to be able to borrow random flannels from each other. “No woman could trust a stitch not made for her,” she said. Stephen wanted to reply that every needleful of thread in the lemony voile confection the contessa was wearing must have been lifted in her name. But he rejected a cavalier’s opening. Guard well up, he determined to give no more of himself than good manners required.