Chapter 4

"What justice! Your justice is blind, my dear. Blind, deaf, and bald. And if you said a foolish thing yesterday do you wish to repeat it again to-day? And if you do not believe what is said of Lucia are there lacking reasons for sending away a servant? Send her away because she does not take the spots off your coat, because she does not darn your stockings. Anything! Send her away because she cooks your macaroni without sauce, and your squash without salt."

"The real reason would always be the other one," answered Don Rocco gloomily.

Even Professor Marin could not easily answer an argument of this kind. He could only mumble between his teeth: "Holy Virgin, what a pig-head!"

They reached the few consumptive cypresses along the ridge that led from the hill to another still higher hill. There they stopped again; and the professor, who was fond of Don Rocco on account of his simple goodness, and also because he could make him the butt of amiable banter, made him sit down by his side on the grass, and attempted a final argument, seeking in every way to extract from him his reasons for continuing so long to believe in the innocence of Lucia; but he did not succeed in getting at any result. Don Rocco kept always referring to what he had said the evening before to Countess Carlotta, and repeated that he could not change.

"Then, good-bye St. Luke, my son," said the resigned Marin.

Don Rocco began to wink furiously, but said not a word.

"The Countess Carlotta was expecting you today," said the professor, "but you did not go to her. She therefore charged me to tell you that if you did not immediately consent to send away Lucia on the first of December, you will be free for the new year, and even before if you wish."

"I cannot leave before Christmas," said Don Rocco timidly. "The parish priest always needs assistance at that time."

The professor smiled.

"What do you suppose?" said he. "That Countess Carlotta hasn't a priest ready and waiting? Think it over, for there is still time."

Don Rocco communed with himself. It rarely happened that he went through so rapid a process of reasoning. Granted, that this woman was a cause for scandal in the country, and that the countess had another priest at her disposal, the decision to be taken was obvious.

"Then," he answered, "I will leave as soon as possible. My father and my sister were to come and visit me one of these days. So that now it will be I who will visit them instead."

He even had in his heart the idea of taking this woman away from the village with him. His people had no need of a servant, and he, if he delayed finding a place, would not be able to keep her. But certain reasonable ideas, certain necessary things, never reached his heart, and reached his head very late, and when they did Don Rocco would either give himself a knock on the forehead, or a scratch behind, as if it bothered him.

In returning to St. Luke the professor told how the police were in search of the Moro, who was suspected as an accomplice in a recent highway murder, certain authors of which had fallen that very morning into the hands of justice. Don Rocco heard this not without satisfaction; for he now was able to explain why the man had not come. "Who knows," he made bold to say, "that he may not have gone away, and that he may not return? And then all this gossip will come to an end. Do you not think so?"

"Yes, my dear," answered the professor, who understood the point of his discourse, "but you know the Countess Carlotta. Henceforth whether the Moro goes or remains is of no consequence to her. Lucia must be dismissed."

Don Rocco said no more, neither did the professor. The former accompanied the latter as far as the church cypresses, stood looking after him until he disappeared at the end of the lane, and then returned, sighing, to his house. Later, when, bending under the weight of his cloak, he was passing, lamp in hand, through the entry leading to the choir of St. Luke, his doubt of the previous night came up again violently. "Had it really been a confession?" He stopped in the shadow of the deserted entry, looking at the lamp, giving vent for a moment to the sweet, tempting thoughts of the inert spirit. "Were he to take some pretext to send the woman away, to live and die in peace in his St. Luke." All at once his heart began to beat fiercely. These were thoughts from the devil. In the same way as perhaps in ancient times and in the same place some monk, tormented by heated nocturnal visions of love and of pleasure, may have done, Don Rocco made hastily the sign of the cross, hastened to the choir, and became immersed in a devout reading of the prayer-book.

V.

Ten days after, at the same hour, Don Rocco was praying before the altar of the Virgin, under the pulpit.

He was on the eve of leaving St. Luke for ever. He had agreed with the Countess Carlotta to give as an excuse a brief absence, a visit of a couple of weeks to his old father; and to write afterwards that for family reasons he could not return, and then this had happened that the poor old peasant, before learning of the new state of affairs, had written, asking for assistance; and Don Rocco had been obliged to sell some furniture as well to save cost of transportation as in order not to arrive home with empty hands. He was returning with the intention of remaining as short a time as possible, and of going away as chaplain wherever it pleased the Curia to which he had directed his request.

No certain information had been secured, either of the wine or of the thieves; but suspicions were rife against a woman who kept an inn, a new favorite of the Moro, who was thought to have received the wine. The Moro was said by some to have fled, by others to have gone into hiding. It seemed as if the police were of the second opinion. They came and went, searching everywhere, but always uselessly.

Lucia had returned, and for several days had behaved in an unusual and peculiar manner. She neglected her work, was brusque with her master, and wept without apparent motive. One evening she went out, saying that she intended going to the parish church to say her prayers. At nine o'clock Don Rocco, as she had not returned, went philosophically to bed, and never knew at what time she came into the house. On the contrary, he congratulated himself the next day on the happy change that had taken place in her, owing to her religious exercises, because she seemed no longer as she had been, but was quiet, attentive, active, spoke with satisfaction of the approaching departure, the position which Don Rocco hoped to find for her with a certain arch-priest, a friend of his; a promotion for her. She seemed to be possessed of an entirely novel ascetic zeal. As soon as Don Rocco retired for the night, she would go to church to spend there hour after hour.

And now, Don Rocco had taken his last supper in the monastic refectory, was reading his breviary for the last time in the little church of St. Luke, as rustic, simple, and religious as he, from its pavement to the black beams of its roof. His heart was heavy, poor priest, thus to leave his nest without honor; to carry humiliation and bitterness to his father and his sister, whose only hope and pride he was! He had every reason to frown as he looked at his breviary.

When he had finished reading, he took his seat on a bench. It was painful to him to take leave of his church. It was his last evening! He stood there with fixed eyes, his eyelids moving regularly, discouraged, cast down, like a stricken beast awaiting the axe. He had passed some hours of the afternoon among his vines, those planted three years before, which had already given him their first fruit. The large cypresses, the splendid view of the plain and of the other hillsides, inspired him with not a single dream; his peasant's heart grew tender toward the beautiful vines, the fertile furrows. Though blushing and ashamed of it, he had taken a sprig of a vine and an ear of corn to carry away as mementos. This was his poetry. Of the church he could carry away nothing. But he left there his heart, a little everywhere; on the altar that had witnessed his first exposition of the Gospel, on the ancient altar front that inspired him with devotion as he said Mass, on the beautiful Madonna, whose mantle had been modestly raised around her neck by his care, on the tomb of a bishop to whom, two centuries before, the peace of St. Luke had seemed preferable to worldly splendors. Who could tell whether he would ever have again a church so his own--entirely his own? He could not seem to rise, he felt an inner sense of dissolution, of which he had never dreamed. His eyelids kept on winking as if bidding away importunate tears. In fact, he did not weep, but his little eyes shone more than usual.

At half-past nine Lucia entered the church through the choir to look after her master. "I am coming at once, at once, go back," said Don Rocco.

He believed himself alone in the church, but had he bent his head back he might have seen something unusual. Very slowly a human head showed itself in the pulpit by the light of the petroleum lamp and looked down upon the priest. It had the diabolic eyes of the Moro set in a shaven ecclesiastical face. The head rose up in the shadow, two long arms made in the air a violent gesture of impatience. At the same time Don Rocco repeated to the woman who stood hesitating: "Go back, go back, I am coming at once."

She went out.

Then the priest got up from his bench and went up to the high altar. The human figure in the pulpit came down again, and went rapidly into hiding. Don Rocco turned around so as to stand in cornu epistolae, toward the empty benches, imagined them full of people, of his people of every Sunday, and a spirit of eloquence entered into him.

"I bless you all," said he in a strong voice. "I wish that you were all present, but that is not possible, because I must not let any one know. I bless you all, and ask you to pardon me if I have been wanting. Gloria Dei cum omnibus vobis."

The temptation was too strong for a certain person to resist. A cavernous voice resounded through the empty church:

"Amen."

Don Rocco remained breathless, with his hands in the air.

"Hurry up," said the servant, returning. "Do you not remember that you must leave out your cloak and your clothes?"

Poor Don Rocco was not well found in clothes, for he carried on his back omnia bona sua, and there was sewing to be done and spots to be taken out, according to Lucia, before the journey of the next morning. Don Rocco descended from the altar without answering and went all through the church, lowering the lamp between all the benches and confessionals.

"What is it; what are you looking for?" asked the servant, anxiously coming along behind him. For a while Don Rocco did not answer.

"I said a few words of prayer," he said finally, "and I heard some one answer 'Amen.'"

"You fancied so." replied Lucia. "It must have been a trick of the imagination."

"No, no," said Don Rocco. "I really heard the 'Amen.' It seemed to be a voice from under the earth. A great big voice. It did not seem that of a man, but rather of a bull."

"It may have been the bishop," suggested the woman. "Isn't there a bishop buried here? Such things have been heard of."

Don Rocco kept silent. In his simplicity, in his innate disposition to faith, he was inclined to willingly believe anything supernatural, especially if connected with religion. The more astonishing it was, the more did he in sign of reverence knit his brows and drink it in devoutly.

"Now let us go," said the woman. "It is late, you know, and I have considerable work to do."

"Let us at least recite a pater, an ave, and a gloria to St. Luke," said Don Rocco. "It is the last evening that I say my prayers here. I must leave a salute." He spoke of a pater, and an ave, and a gloria; but he strung along at least a dozen, finding as many reasons to salute other saints of his particular acquaintance. One was to promote the eternal salvation of the two devotees, one their temporal salvation, one the grace to conquer temptations, one a suitable position, one a good death, and another a good journey. The last pater was recited by Don Rocco with remarkable fervor for the complete conversion of a sinful soul. Had the priest been less absorbed in his paters he might, perhaps, have heard after the fourth or fifth some smothered ejaculations of that humorous bishop who had perpetrated the "Amen." But he heard only Lucia answering him with much devotion, and was touched to the heart by it.

A few moments after he was still meditating, in the dark, in the wretched little bed of his cell, on the salutary and evident effects of the divine grace which he had sought in the sacraments. He meditated also on the action of the Moro, on the ray of light that had shone into that dark conscience, harbinger, if nothing less, of better and lasting light. And in his mystic imagination he saw the design of Providence which recompensed him for a sacrifice which he had suffered for duty's sake. It was a blessing to think of that, to know that he was losing all his few earthly possessions for such a recompense. He offered up also the sorrow of his father and his sister, his own humiliation, the straitened circumstances in which he should find himself. He saw in front of his bed, through the window, the vague, far-off brightness of the sky, his hope, his end. Little by little his eyes closed, in a delicious sense of confidence and peace. He slept profoundly.

VI.

He was not yet entirely awake when the clock of St. Luke struck half-past seven. Immediately after the bells also rang, because Don Rocco had the day before notified the boy accustomed to serve him at Mass that he would meet him at about eight o'clock. He jumped out of bed, and went to get the clothes that Lucia was to have placed outside the door. Nothing there. He called once, twice, three times. No answer. Perplexed, he returned to his room and called out of the window: "Lucia! Lucia!" Perfect silence. Finally the little sacristan appeared. He had not seen Lucia. He had come to get the keys of the church, had found the gate of the courtyard open, as well as the door of the house; no one in the kitchen, no one in the sitting-room. Not finding the keys, he had entered the church by the inner entry. Don Rocco sent him to the sitting-room to get his clothes, as it was there that Lucia usually worked in the evening. The boy returned to say that there were no clothes there. "How? There are no clothes?" Don Rocco ordered him to stand on guard before the entrance of the house and went down to look for them himself, in his shirt. Half-way down the stairs he stopped and sniffed. What an abominable odor of pipe was this? Don Rocco, with darkened brow, went on. He went directly to the sitting-room, looked, searched; there was nothing. He returned to the kitchen, his heart beating. A horrid smell, but no clothes. Yes, under the table there was a little pile of soiled things; a jacket, a pair of drawers, a peasant's hat. Don Rocco gathered up, unfolded, and examined them with portentous frowns. It seemed to him that he had seen these things somewhere before. His brain did not yet understand anything, but his heart began to understand and to beat more strongly than before. He took hold of his chin and his cheeks with his left hand, squeezed them hard, trying to squeeze from them the where, the how, and the when. And lo! his eyes rested on the wall, and he finally perceived something there which was not there the day before. There was written in charcoal on the right: "Many salutations." And on the left:

"The wine is good."

"The servant is good."

"The cloak is good."

"Don Rocco is good."

He read, raised his hand to his head, read again--read again, seemed to lose his eyesight, felt a sensation of cold, of torpidity spreading from his breast throughout his body. Some one called out in the courtyard, "Where is that Don Rocco?" With difficulty he went up to his room again, cast himself on his bed, almost without knowing what he was doing, almost without thought or sensation.

Below they were looking and calling for him. Professor Marin was there, and some few other persons who had come to attend the Mass. No one could understand how the door of the church was still closed. The professor went into the house, called Lucia, called Don Rocco, without receiving any answer. He finally reached the room of the priest and stood still on the doorsill, amazed to see him in bed. "Well," said he, "Don Rocco! in bed? And what about Mass?"

"I cannot," answered Don Rocco in a low voice, immovable on his back like a mummy.

"But what is it?" replied the other, approaching the bed with sincere alarm. "What is the matter with you?"

This troubled face, this affectionate tone, softened poor Don Rocco's heart, petrified by pain and surprise. This time two real tears fell from his palpitating eyelids. His mouth, closed tight, was twisting and trembling, but still resisted. Seeing then that he answered not a word, the professor ran to the stairs and called down that the physician should be sent for.

"No, no," Don Rocco forced himself to say without moving. His voice was filled with sobs. The professor heard him only as he was returning to the bed.

"No?" said he. "But what, then, is the matter? Speak."

Meanwhile three poor women and a beggar, who had come to listen to Mass, entered quite frightened into the room, surrounding the two, and in their turn questioning Don Rocco. He kept silent like a Job, seeking to master himself. Perhaps his annoyance at all these curious faces hanging over his own helped him. "Go away," said he finally to the last comers. "There is no need of the doctor, no need of anything, go away!"

The four faces withdrew somewhat, but continued looking at him fixedly with an expression, perhaps, of increased alarm.

"Go away, I tell you!" continued Don Rocco.

They went out silently and stopped outside to listen and spy.

"Well, then," said the professor, "what are your feelings?"

"Nothing."

"But, then, why are you in bed?"

Don Rocco turned with his face to the wall. The tears were coming back again now. He was unable to speak.

"But in the name of heaven," insisted the professor, "what is it?"

"I am getting over it, I am getting over it," sobbed Don Rocco.

The professor did not know what to do nor what to think. He asked him whether he wanted water, and the old beggar went down at once to get a glassful and gave it to Marin. Don Rocco did not want it in the least, but kept on repeating: "Thanks, thanks, I am getting over it," and drank it obsequiously.

"Well, then?" continued the professor.

"You are right," answered Don Rocco.

"About what?"

"About the woman."

"Lucia? Right! And by the way, where is Lucia? Not here? Run away?"

Don Rocco nodded. Marin looked at him stupefied and repeating, "Run away? Run away?" The other four came back into the room echoing, "Run away? Run away?"

"But listen!" said the professor. "Are you staying in bed for this reason? Are you humiliating yourself in this way? Come on and get dressed."

Don Rocco looked at him, reddened up to the top of his head, narrowed his tear-wet eyes in a smile, which meant: "Now it will be your turn to laugh."

"I have no clothes," he said.

"What?"

The professor added to this word a gesture which meant, "Did she carry them away?" Don Rocco responded also by a mere nod; and seeing that his friend with difficulty restrained a burst of laughter, he also tried to laugh.

"Poor Don Rocco," said the professor, and added, still with a laugh in his throat, heartfelt words of sympathy, of comfort, and asked for every detail of what had happened. "Oh, if you had only listened to me!" he concluded. "If you had only sent her away!"

"Yes," said Don Rocco, accepting even this with humiliation. "You are right. And now what will the countess say?"

The professor sighed.

"What can I say, my son? She will say nothing. This also has happened, that your successor wrote yesterday that he had definitively gotten rid of his present engagements and was at the disposal of the countess."

Don Rocco was silent, heart-broken. "I must look at the time," said he, after a moment's silence, "because at half-past nine they will come here with a horse to take me away. It will be necessary to ask the archpriest or the chaplain to lend me a suit of clothes."

"Let me, let me!" exclaimed the professor, full of zeal. "I will go home and send it to you immediately. You will give it back to me at your leisure, when you are able." A lively gratitude cleared the face and moved the eyelids of Don Rocco.

"Thanks!" said he, fixing his eyes humbly on the end of his nose. "Thank you very much!"

"Body of Bacchus!" he added to himself, as the professor was going down the stairs. "He is a span higher than I am, that just occurs to me!"

But it certainly did not occur to him to call him back.

VII.

At half-past nine Don Rocco appeared in the doorway of his house to start on his exodus. The overcoat of the professor danced around his heels and swallowed up his hands down to his finger tips. The stove-pipe hat, of enormous size, came down to his ears. The professor followed right behind him, laughing silently. In the courtyard some people attracted by the report of what had happened were laughing. "Oh, Don Rocco, see what he looks like!" said the women. And one of them would tell him about some action of Lucia, and another about another, things of all kinds which he had never suspected. "Enough, enough," he answered, disturbed in his conscience at all this malicious gossip. "It is now all over, all over."

He went on, followed by them all, gave a last look at the fig tree near the bell-tower, and passing between the cypresses in front of the church, turned back toward the door, devoutly raised his hat, and bent his knee.

The little wagon was awaiting him on the main road. The driver, seeing him in this costume, laughed no less heartily than the rest.

Then Don Rocco took leave of all, again thanked the professor, sent his respects to the countess, and reduced to silence those who were still heaping abuse on Lucia. When he had taken his seat the beggar approached him and put his right hand upon one of his shoes. "Is this yours?" said he.

"Yes, yes, the shoes are," answered the priest with a certain satisfaction, as the horse started.

The beggar carried to his forehead the hand that had touched the shoe of Don Rocco, and said with solemnity:

"In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

SAN PANTALEONE

BY

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

The Translation by George McLean Harper.

I.

The great sandy piazza, glittered as if strewn with powdered pumice. Its whitewashed houses held a strange metallic glow, like the walls of an immense furnace cooling off. The glare of the clouds, reflected from the stone pillars of the church at its far end, gave them the appearance of red granite. The church windows blazed as with inward fire. The sacred images had assumed life-like colors and attitudes, and the massive edifice seemed lifted now, in the splendor of the new celestial phenomenon, to a prouder domination than ever, above the houses of Radusa.

Groups of men and women, gesticulating and talking loudly, were pouring from the streets into the square. Superstitious terror grew in leaps and bounds from face to face. A thousand awful images of divine punishment rose out of their rude fancies; and comments, eager disputes, plaintive appeals, wild stories, prayers, and cries were mingled in a deep uproar, as of a hurricane approaching. For some time past this bloody redness of the sky had lasted through the night, disturbing its tranquillity, illumining sullenly the sleeping fields, and making dogs howl.