Home > Authors Index > Hall Caine > Eternal City > This page
The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
||
Part 6. The Roman Of Rome - Chapter 17 |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ PART SIX. THE ROMAN OF ROME CHAPTER XVII "Your Excellency," said Bruno, "this man is a witness by profession, and he was put into the next cell to torture me and make me denounce my friends. I didn't see his face, and I didn't know who he was until afterwards, and so he tore me to pieces. He said he was a proof-reader on the Official Gazette and heard everything. When my heart was bleeding for the death of my poor little boy--only seven years of age, such a curly-headed little fellow, like a sunbeam in a fog, killed in the riot, your Excellency--he poisoned my mind about my wife, and said she had run away with Rossi. It was a lie, but I was brought down by flogging and bread and water and I believed it, because I was mad and my soul was exhausted and dead. But when I found out who he was I tried to take back my denunciation, and they wouldn't let me. Your Excellency, I tell you the truth. Everybody should tell the truth here. I alone am guilty, and if I have accused anybody else I ask pardon of God. As for this man, he is an assassin and I can prove it. He used to be at the embassy in London, and when he was sacked he came to Mr. Rossi and proposed to assassinate the Prime Minister. Mr. Rossi flung him out of the house, and that was the beginning of everything." "This is not true," said Minghelli, red as the gills of a turkey. "Isn't it? Give me the cross, and let me swear the man a liar," cried Bruno. Roma was breathing hard and rising to her feet, but the advocate Fuselli restrained her and rose himself. In six sentences he summarised the treatment of Bruno in prison, and denounced it as worthy of the cruellest epochs of tyrannical domination, in which men otherwise honourable could become demons in order to save the dynasty and the institutions and to make their own careers. "Mr. President," he cried, "I call on you in the name of humanity to say that justice in Italy has nothing to do with a barbarous system which aims at obtaining denunciations through jealousy and justice through revenge." The president was deeply moved. "I have made a solemn promise under the shadow of that venerable image"--he pointed to the effigy above him--"to administer justice in this case, and to the last I will do my duty." The Public Prosecutor rose again and obtained permission to interrogate the prisoner. "You say the witness Minghelli told you that your wife had fled with the Honourable Rossi?" "He did, and it was a lie, like all the rest of it." "How do you know it was a lie?" Bruno made no answer, and the young officer took up a letter from his portfolio. "Do you know the Honourable Rossi's handwriting?" "Do I know my own ugly fist?" "Is that the Honourable Rossi's writing?" said the officer, handing the envelope to the usher to be shown to Bruno. "It is," said Bruno. "Sure of it?" "Sure." "You see it is a letter addressed to your wife?" "I see. But you needn't go on washing the donkey's head, Mister--I know what you are getting at." "You must not speak like that to him, Rocco," said the president. "Remember, he is the honourable representative of the law." "Mustn't I, Excellency? Then tell his honourableness that David Rossi and my wife are like brother and sister, and anybody who makes evil of that isn't stuff to take with a pair of tongs." Saying this, Bruno flung the letter back on to the table. "Don't you want to read it?" "Not I! It's somebody else's correspondence, and I'm not an honourable representative of the law." "Then permit me to read it to you," said the Public Prosecutor, and taking the letter out of the envelope he began in a loud voice: "'Dearest Elena....'" "That's nothing," Bruno interrupted. "They're like brother and sister, I tell you." The Public Prosecutor went on reading: "'I continue to be overwhelmed with grief for the death of our poor little Joseph.'" "That's right! That's David Rossi. He loved the boy the same as if he had been his own son. Go on." "'... Our child--your child--my child, Elena.'" "Nothing wrong there. Don't try to make mischief of that," cried Bruno. "'But now that the boy is gone, and Bruno is in prison, perhaps for years, the obstacles must be removed which have hitherto prevented you from joining your life to mine and living for me, as I have always lived for you. Come to me then, my dear one, my beloved....'" Here Bruno, who had been stepping forward at every word, snatched the letter out of the Public Prosecutor's hand. "Stop that! Don't go reading out of the back of your head," he cried. No one protested, everybody felt that whatever he did this injured man must be left alone. Roma felt a roaring in her ears, and for some minutes she could scarcely command herself. In a vague way she was conscious of the same struggle in her own heart as was going on in the heart of Bruno. This, then, was what the Baron referred to when he spoke of Rossi being untrue to her, and of the proof of his disloyalty in his own handwriting. Bruno, who was running his eyes over the letter, read parts of it aloud in a low husky voice: "'And now that the boy is gone and Bruno is in prison ... perhaps for years ... the obstacles must be removed....'" He stopped, looked up, and stared about him. His face had undergone an awful change. Then he returned to the letter, and in jerky sentences he read again: "'Come to me then ... my dear one ... my beloved....'" Until that moment an evil spirit in Roma had been saying to her, in spite of herself: "Can it be possible that while you have been going through all those privations for his sake he has been consoling himself with another woman?" Impossible! The letter was a manifest imposture. She wouldn't believe a word of it. But Bruno was still in the toils of his temptation. "Look here," he said, lifting a pitiful face. "What with the bread and water and the lashes I don't know that my head isn't light, and I'm fancying I see things...." The paper of the letter was crackling in his hand, and his husky voice was breaking. Save for these sounds and the tramp--tramp--tramp of the soldiers drilling outside, there was a dead silence in the court. "You are not fancying at all, Rocco," said the Public Prosecutor. "We are all sorry for you, and I am sure the illustrious gentlemen of the tribunal pity you. Your comrade, your master, the man you have followed and trusted, is false to you. He is a traitor to his friend, his country, and his King. The denunciation you made in prison is true in substance and in fact. I advise you to adhere to it, and to cast yourself on the clemency of the court." "Here--you--shut up your head and let a man think," said Bruno. Roma tried to rise. She could not. Then she tried to cry out something, but her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. Would Bruno break down at the last moment? Bruno, whose face was convulsed with agony, began to laugh in a delirious way. "So my friend is false to me, is he? Very well, I'll be revenged." He reeled a little and the letter dropped from his hand, floated a moment in the air, and fell to the ground a pace or two farther on. "Yes, by God, I'll be revenged," he cried, and he laughed again. He stopped, lifted one leg, seemed to pull at his boot, and again stood erect. "I always knew the hour would come when I should find myself in a tight place, and I've always kept something about me to help me to get out of it. Here it is now." In an instant, before any one could be aware of what he was doing, he had uncorked a small bottle which he held in his hand and swallowed the contents. "Long live David Rossi!" he cried, and he flung the empty bottle over his head. Everybody was on his feet in a moment. It was too late. In thirty seconds the poison had begun its work, and Bruno was reeling in the arms of the Carabineers. Somebody called for a doctor. Somebody else called for a priest. "That's all right," said Bruno. "God is a good old saint. He'll look after a poor devil like me." Then he began to sing:--
In the tumult that ensued everybody was standing in the well of the judges' horse-shoe table. The deaf old woman, with her shawls slipping off her shoulders, was wringing her hands and crying. "God will think of this," she said. The Garibaldian was gazing vacantly out of his rheumy eyes and saying nothing. Roma, who had recovered control of herself, was looking at the letter, which she had picked up from the floor. "Mr. President," she cried over the heads of the others, "this letter is not in Mr. Rossi's handwriting. It is a forgery. I am ready to prove it." At that moment one of the Carabineers came back to tell the judges that all was over. "Gone!" said one after another, more often with a motion of the mouth than with the voice. The president was deeply agitated. "This court stands adjourned," he said, "but I take the Almighty to witness that I intend to ascertain all responsibility in this case and to bring it home to the guilty ones, whosoever and whatsoever they may be." _ |
||