Part 15

Her voice was so dry that it appeared artificial, and resembled the sounds articulated by an automaton.

"Cross yourself, signora!" she added again.

The advice seemed lugubrious in that lifeless mouth, in which the voice lost its human character and became a dead thing. Hippolyte made the sign of the cross, and looked at her companion.

In the space before the door of the hut the women ere in a circle as around a spectacle, making; from time to time some mechanical sign of condolence. And the circle was unceasingly renewed; some, already tired of looking, went away; others arrived from neighboring houses. And almost all, at the sight of this slow death, repeated the same gesture, repeated the same words.

The child reposed in a little cradle, of rough pine boards, like a small, lidless coffin. The poor creature, naked, sickly, emaciated, greenish, was wailing continuously and waving its debilitated arms and legs, which had nothing more than skin and bone, as if asking for help. And the mother, seated at the foot of the cradle, bent in two, her head so low that it almost touched her knees, seemed to hear nothing. It seemed as if some terrible weight rested on her neck and prevented her from rising. At times, mechanically, she placed on the edge of the cradle a coarse, callous hand, burnt by the sun; and she made the gesture of rocking without altering her attitude or breaking the silence. Then the holy images, the talismans, and the relics, with which the pine cradle was almost entirely covered, undulated and tinkled, during a momentary pause in the wail.

"Liberata! Liberata!" cried one of the women, shaking her. "Look, Liberata! The lady has come--the lady is in your house! Look!"

The mother slowly raised her head and looked around her, with a bewildered air; then she fixed on her visitor her dry and mournful eyes, in whose depths there was less of fatigued sorrow than inert and shadowy terror--the terror of nocturnal witchcraft against which no exorcism prevailed, the terror of those insatiable beings who now had the house in their power, and who would not abandon it perhaps but with the last corpse.

"Speak! Speak!" insisted one of the women, shaking her again by the arm. "Speak! Ask the lady to send you to the Madonna of the Miracles."

The others surrounded Hippolyte with supplications.

"Yes, signora. Be charitable to her! Send her to the Madonna. Send her to the Madonna!"

The child cried louder. In the tops of the pine-tree the sparrows were emitting heart-rending cries. In the neighborhood, between the deformed trunks of the olive-trees, a dog barked. The moon was beginning to cast its shadows. "Yes," stammered Hippolyte, incapable of sustaining longer the fixed gaze of the silent mother. "Yes, yes, we will send her--to-morrow."

"No, not to-morrow; Saturday, signora."

"Saturday is the Vigil."

"Let her buy him a candle."

"A fine candle."

"A ten-pound candle."

"Do you hear, Liberata? Do you hear?"

"The lady will send you to the Madonna!"

"The Madonna will pity you."

"Speak! Speak!"

"She's become dumb, signora."

"She hasn't spoken for three days."

In the midst of the confused cries of the women, the child cried still louder.

"Do you hear how he cries?"

"He always cries loudest, signora, at nightfall."

"Perhaps it's coming soon."

"Perhaps the child has seen----"

"Make the sign of the cross, signora."

"It's getting dark."

"Do you hear how he cries?"

"Isn't that the bell tolling?"

"No; one can't hear it here."

"Silence!"

"One can't hear it here."

"But I hear it."

"I hear it, too."

"_Ave Maria!_"

All were silent, made the sign of the cross, and bowed. It seemed as if several sonorous waves, scarcely perceptible, arrived from the distant market-town; but the child's wail filled every listener's ear. Once more, only this single wail could be heard. The mother had fallen on her knees at the foot of the cradle, prostrated to the earth. Hippolyte, her head bowed, was praying with fervor.

"Look, there, in the doorway!" whispered one of the women to her neighbor.

George, watchful and uneasy, turned his head. The doorway was full of shadow.

"Look, there, in the doorway! Don't you see something?"

"Yes, I see," replied the other, uncertain, a little frightened.

"What is it? What do you see?" asked a third.

"What is it?" demanded a fourth.

"What is it?"

Suddenly curiosity and fright seized them all. They looked toward the door. The child cried. The mother rose, and she, too, began to fix her dilated eyes on the door which the shadows rendered mysterious. The dog barked among the olive-trees.

"What is it?" said George, in a low voice, but not without requiring some effort to shake off the increasing uneasiness of his imagination. "What do you see?"

None of the women dared to answer. All, in the shadow, saw the outlines of a vague form.

Then he advanced toward the door. When he crossed the threshold, a furnace-like heat and a repugnant stench cut short his breath. He turned round, went out.

"It's a scythe," he said.

In fact, it was a scythe hanging on the wall.

"Ah! a scythe."

And the voices recommenced.

"Liberata! Liberata!"

"Are you mad?"

"She is mad."

"It's getting dark. Let us go."

"He's not crying any more."

"Poor creature! Is he asleep?"

"He has stopped crying."

"Take in the cradle; the evening is damp. We will help you, Liberata."

"Poor creature! Is he asleep?"

"One would think he were dead. He no longer moves."

"Take in the cradle, won't you? Don't you hear us, Liberata?"

"She is mad."

"Where is the lamp? Joseph will soon return. Have you no lamp? Joseph will soon return from the lime-kiln."

"She is mad. She doesn't speak any more."

"We are going. God be with you!"

"Poor tormented flesh! Is he sleeping?"

"He's sleeping, he's sleeping.... He's not in pain now."

"Oh, Lord Jesus, save him!"

"Protect us, O Lord!"

"Farewell, farewell! Good night!"

"Good night!"

"Good night!"

*CHAPTER III.*

The dog continued to bark in the olive-groves, while George and Hippolyte came back by the path towards Candia's house. When the animal recognized the guests of the house, he stopped barking, and came to meet them joyfully.

"Why, it's Giardino!" cried Hippolyte. And she stooped to caress the poor beast, with whom she had already become friends. "He was calling us. It's getting late."

The moon rose in the silence of the sky, slowly, preceded by a luminous wave which gradually covered the azure. All the sounds of the surrounding fields died away beneath this pacific light. And the unexpected cessation of every noise seemed almost supernatural to George, whom an inexplicable fright kept alert.

"Stop a moment," he said, holding Hippolyte back.

And he listened intently.

"What are you listening to?"

"It seemed to me----"

And both looked back in the direction of the barn, which the olive-trees concealed from view. But they heard nothing except the even and rocking rhythm of the sea in the curve of the little gulf. Over their heads a cricket clove the air in its flight with a grating sound like that of a diamond on a pane of glass.

"Don't you think the child is dead?" asked George, without dissimulating his emotion. "He stopped crying."

"That's true!" said Hippolyte. "And you believe he's dead?"

George did not reply. And they resumed their way back beneath the silvery olive-groves.

"Did you notice the mother well?" he asked at last, after a silence, possessed internally by the sombre image.

"My God! My God!"

"And that old woman who touched your elbow! What a voice! What eyes!"

His words betrayed the strange fright which dominated him, as if the recent spectacle had been a frightful revelation to him, as if life had suddenly been made manifest to him under a mysterious and savage aspect, bruising and stamping him with an indelible sign.

"You know, when I entered the house, on the ground behind the door there was the corpse of some beast--already half-decomposed. The smell was simply choking."

"What do you mean?"

"It was either a cat or a dog. I could not distinguish very well. It was difficult to see well inside."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, yes. Without any doubt there was a dead animal. The stench----"

A shudder of disgust ran through him as he thought of it.

"What could it be?" said Hippolyte, who felt herself becoming infected by the contagion of fear and disgust.

"How can I know?"

The dog gave a bark to announce their coming. They had arrived. Candia was waiting for them, and the table was already spread beneath the oak.

"How late you are, signora!" cried the affable hostess, with a smile. "Where have you been? What will you give me if I guess? Well, you have been to see the child of Liberata Maunella. May Jesus guard us from the Cunning One!"

When the lovers were at table, she approached, curious, to speak and question.

"Did you see him, signora? He gets no better; he's just as bad. Yet his father and mother have done everything to save him."

What had they not done! Candia related all the remedies attempted, all the exorcisms. The priest had been there, and, after having covered the child's head with the edge of his stole, had read verses from the Bible. The mother had suspended from the lintel of the door a waxen cross, blessed on Ascension Day; she had sprinkled with holy water the hinges of the imposts, and recited aloud the _Credo_, thrice in succession; she had put a handful of salt in a piece of linen, which afterwards she had knotted and hung around the neck of her dying son. The father _had done the seven nights_; for seven consecutive nights he had watched in the dark, before a lighted lantern covered with a pot, attentive to the slightest sound, ready to assail and seize the Ghoul. A single pin-prick would have sufficed to render it visible to human eyes. But the seven vigils had gone by without result. The child wasted away, and was consumed hour by hour, hopelessly. Finally, on the advice of a witch, the despairing father had killed a dog and put the body behind the door. This prevented the Ghoul entering before having counted all the hairs of the dead beast.

"Do you hear?" said George to Hippolyte.

They did not eat, their hearts oppressed with pity, struck with terror at the sudden apparition of these phantoms of an obscure and atrocious life, which environed the leisures of their useless love.

"May Jesus protect us from the Cunning One!" repeated Candia; and piously, with her open hand, she indicated the place where lay the living fruit. "May God protect your children, signora!"

Then she added:

"You're not eating this evening! You've no appetite. That innocent soul distresses your hearts. And your husband isn't eating, either. Look!"

Hippolyte said:

"Do many die--like that?"

"Oh!" went on Candia, "this is a bad district. The cursed brood swarms hereabouts. One is never safe. May Jesus protect us from the Cunning One!"

She repeated the conjuration, then added, pointing to a plate on the table:

"Do you see those fish? They are from the Trabocco; they were brought by Turchin."

And she lowered her voice.

"Do you want to know? For nearly a year, Turcum and all his family have been in the power of some witchcraft from which he has not yet been able to free himself."

"Who is Turchin?" asked George, listening breathlessly to the woman's words, fascinated by the mystery of these things. "The man from the Trabocco?"

And he recalled that earthy visage, almost chinless scarcely larger than a fist, with a long nose, prominent and pointed like the snout of a pike, between two small, glittering eyes.

"Yes, signor. Look over there. If your sight is good you can see him. To-night he is fishing by moonlight."

And Candia pointed out on the rocks the great fishing machine--that collection of trunks freed from their bark, planks and cables, whose strange whiteness resembled the colossal skeleton of some antediluvian amphibian. In the calm air was heard the creaking of the capstan. As the tide was low and the rocks were uncovered, the odor of the algae came up victorious from the beach, stronger and fresher than the effluvia from the fertile hill.

Hippolyte breathed in the intoxicating odor, already entirely occupied by that intense sensation which made her nostrils quiver and her eyes half-close. She murmured:

"Oh, how delicious! Don't you smell it, George?"

He, on his part, was very attentive to Candia's words, and saw in imagination the silent drama suspended over the sea. To the phantoms evoked by this simple woman in the serene night his soul, inclined to mystery and naturally superstitious, gave limitless life and tragic horror. For the first time he had a vast and confused vision of that race unknown to him, of all that miserable flesh, full of animal instincts and of bestial afflictions, bent and sweating on the glebe or buried in the depths of the cottages, beneath the perpetual menace of those dark powers. Amidst the sweet richness of the country which he had selected as the theatre of his love, he discovered a violent human agitation; and it was as if he had discovered a swarm of insects in the masses of magnificent hair impregnated with aroma. He felt the same shudder, already felt before this, at the contact with brutally revealed life: "recently, at the sight of his relatives, of his father, of his brother, of the poor, bigoted glutton." All at once, he felt as if he were no longer alone with his mistress amidst the benign growths, under the bark of which he had one day believed he had surprised a new emotion. He felt himself, on the contrary, environed and almost jostled by an unknown crowd, which, bearing in itself the same vitality which the trunks of trees possess, blind, tenacious, and unconquerable, adhered to him by the bond of the species and could immediately communicate to him its suffering, by a look, a gesture, a sigh, a sob, a groan, a cry.

"Ah! this district is bad," repeated Candia, shaking her head. "But the Messiah of Chapelles will come to purify the earth."[*]

{*} The episode of the Messiah of Chapelles is historical. Oreste de Amicis born in 1824 at Chapelles, played precisely the role assigned to him here by the novelist. He died in 1889. Antonio de Nino has collected and published curious documents concerning this personage.

"The Messiah?"

"Father," cried Candia, in the direction of the house, "when is the Messiah to be here?"

The old man appeared upon the threshold.

"One of these days," he replied.

And, turning toward the beach, which in the dim light cast by the half-moon disappeared to view in the direction of Ortona, he signified with a vague gesture the mystery of that new deliverer in whom the country people had placed their hope and faith.

"One of these days--very soon."

And the old man, who wanted to talk, approached the table, looked at his guests with an uncertain smile, and asked:

"Don't you know who it is?"

"Perhaps it is Semplice," said George in whose memory revived a distant and indistinct recollection of that Semplice di Sulmone who fell into an ecstasy, his eyes fixed on the sun.

"No, signor; Sembri is dead. The new Messiah is Oreste of Chapelles."

And the old man, in fervent and vividly colored language, related the new legend, such as it had been conceived by the rural population.

Oreste, being a capuchin monk, had known Semplice at Sulmone, and had learned from him the art of reading the future on the face of the rising sun. Then he began to travel all over the world: he had gone to Rome, and had spoken with the Pope; in another place he had spoken with the king. On his return to Chapelles, his birthplace, he had passed seven years in the cemetery in the company of skeletons, wearing a hair shirt, flagellating himself night and day, according to discipline. He had preached in the parish church, and had drawn tears and cries from the fishers. Then he had started once more on a pilgrimage to all the sanctuaries; he had remained thirty days on the mountain of Ancona; he had remained twelve days on Mount St. Bernard; he had climbed the highest peaks, struggling through the snow, his head bared. Returned again to Chapelles, he had recommenced to preach in his church. But, shortly afterwards, persecuted and driven away by his enemies, he had sought refuge in the Island of Corsica; and there he had made himself an apostle, resolved to traverse all Italy and to write the name of the Virgin in his blood on the gate of every city. As an apostle, he had returned to his native place, announcing that he had seen a star in the midst of a thicket of trees, and that from it he had received the Word. And, finally, by the inspiration of the Eternal Father, he had taken the great name of the New Messiah.

He was now making his pilgrimage through the rural districts dressed in a red tunic and a blue mantle, with long hair down to his shoulders, and his beard trimmed like Christ's. His apostles accompanied him--men who had abandoned the spade and plough to devote themselves to the triumph of the new faith. In Pantaleoni Donadio revived the spirit of Saint Matthew; in Antonio Secamiglio revived the spirit of Saint Peter; in Giuseppe Scurti, that of Maximin; in Maria Clara, that of Saint Elizabeth; and Vincent di Giambattista, who represented the archangel Saint Michael, was the messenger of the Messiah.

All these men had tilled the soil, mown the wheat, pruned the vines, pressed the olives; they had led the cattle to the fair and disputed over the prices; they had led a woman to the altar, and procreated children, and seen these children grow, flourish, die; in short, they had lived the ordinary life of country people amidst their equals. And now they passed, followers of the Messiah, considered as divine personages by the same people with whom, the previous week, they had argued concerning a measure of wheat. They passed transfigured, participating in the divinity of Oreste, invested with his grace. Whether in the fields or in the house, they had heard _a voice_, they had all at once felt pure souls enter into their sinful flesh. The spirit of Saint John was in Giuseppe Coppa; that of Saint Zacharias, in Pascal Basilico. The women, also, had received the sign. A woman of Senegallia, married to a certain Augustinone, a tailor at Chapelles, in order to demonstrate to the Messiah the ardor of her faith, had wanted to renew the sacrifice of Abraham, by setting fire to a mattress on which slept her children. Other women had given other proofs.

And the Elect now wandered through the country with his escort of Apostles and of Marys. From the most distant places of the coast and mountain, multitudes flocked to see him pass. At daybreak, when he appeared at the door of the house in which he had lodged, he always saw a great crowd kneeling in expectation. Erect on the threshold, he delivered the Word, received confessions, administered communion with pieces of bread. For his nourishment, he preferred eggs prepared with elder flowers, or with the tips of wild asparagus; he also ate a mixture of honey, nuts, and almonds, which he called _manna_, to recall the manna of the desert.

His miracles could no longer be counted. By the simple virtue of the thumb, index and middle fingers, raised in the air, he delivered the possessed, cured the infirm, resurrected the dead. If anyone went to consult him, he did not even give him time to open his mouth, and immediately told him the names of his parents, explained his family affairs, and revealed to him the most obscure secrets. He also gave news of the souls of the dead; he indicated places where treasures were hidden; with certain scapularies in the form of a triangle, he delivered hearts from melancholies.

"It's Jesus come back to earth," concluded Colas di Sciampagne, with a voice fervent with faith. "He will pass near here, too. Didn't you see how high the wheat is? Have you not noticed how the olive-trees are flourishing? Didn't you notice how the vines are laden with grapes?"

Respectful of the old man's beliefs, George asked gravely:

"And where is he now?"

"He is at Piomba," replied the old man.

And he pointed to the distant shores on the other side of Ortono, evoking in his guest's mind the vision of that corner of the province of Teramo bathed by the sea--an almost mystic vision of fertile lands watered by little, sinuous rivers, where, beneath the endless shivering of the poplars, a stream of water ran over a bed of polished sand.

After an interval of silence, Colas added:

"At Piomba, one word from him sufficed to stop the train on the railroad! My son saw it. Didn't Vito tell us that, Candia?"

Candia confirmed the old man's words, and gave the details of the wonderful event. The Messiah, attired in his red tunic, had advanced to meet the train, walking calmly between the two rails.

While speaking, Candia and the old man incessantly directed their gaze, as well as their gestures, towards the distance, as if the sacred person of the expected arrival were already visible to them.

"Listen!" interrupted Hippolyte, pulling the arm of George, who was absorbed in an inner view more and more vast and distinct. "Don't you hear something?"

She rose, crossed the court, went close to the parapet under the acacias. He followed her. They listened.

"It's a procession going on a pilgrimage to the Madonna of Casalbordino," said Candia.

In the peaceful moonlight a religious chant swelled its slow and monotonous rhythm, with an alternation of masculine and feminine voices at equal intervals. One of these half-choirs chanted a strophe in a low tone; the other half-choir chanted a refrain in a higher key, indefinitely prolonging the cadence. It was like the approach of a wave continuously rising and falling.

The procession approached with a rapidity which contrasted with the slowness of the rhythm. Already the first pilgrims appeared at the turn of the path, near the bridge of the Trabocco.

"Here they are," exclaimed Hippolyte, moved by the novelty of the scene and sounds. "Here they are. What a number of them!"

They advanced in a compact mass. And the opposition of the measure between their march and their chant was so strange that it gave them an almost fantastic appearance. It seemed as if a supernatural force impelled them on, unconscious, towards the goal, while the words emitted from their mouths remained suspended in the luminous air and continued to vibrate after their passage.

_Viva Maria!_ _Viva Maria!_

They passed with a heavy trampling, exhaling a sour, herdlike odor, so jammed one to the other that nothing emerged from their mass except the long sticks fashioned like a cross. The men marched in front, and the women, more numerous, behind, with the glittering of golden ornaments underneath their white bandelets.

_Viva Maria!_ _Viva her Creator!_

Near by, at every repetition, their chant had the vehemence of a cry; then it diminished in vigor, betraying fatigue, surmounted by a continual and unanimous effort, the initiative of which, in the two half-choirs, almost always started in a single and more powerful voice. And this voice dominated not only the others when it intoned the measure; but often, in the midst of the musical wave, it was maintained high and recognizable during the entire duration of the strophe or refrain, denoting a more imperious faith, a singular and dominating soul among that indistinct crowd.

George remarked it, and, very attentive, followed it as it waned in the distance, as long as his ear could recognize it. And that gave rise in him to an extraordinary sentiment of the mystic power which lay at the roots of the great indigenous race from which he himself had sprung.