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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 7. The Pope - Chapter 17 |
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_ PART SEVEN. THE POPE CHAPTER XVII Roma returned to the Vatican with the Capuchin. There were the same gorgeous staircases and halls, the same soldiers, chamberlains, Bussolanti and Monsignori, the same atmosphere of the palace of an emperor. But in the little plain apartment which they entered, not as before by way of the throne room, but by a secret corridor with cocoanut matting and narrow frosted windows, the Pope stood waiting, like a simple priest, in a white woollen cassock. He smiled as Roma approached, a sad smile, and his weary eyes, when she looked timidly into his face, were full of the measureless pity that is in the eyes of the surgeon who is about to vivisect a dumb creature because it is necessary for the welfare of the human race. She knelt and kissed his ring. He raised her and put her to sit on the lounge, sitting in the arm-chair himself, and continuing to hold her hand. The Capuchin stood by the window, holding the curtain aside as if looking out on the piazza. "You believe the Holy Father would not send for you to injure you?" he said. "I am sure he would not, your Holiness," she answered. "And though I disapprove of your husband's doings, you know I would not willingly do him any harm?" "The Holy Father would not do harm to any one; and my husband is so good, and his aims are so noble, that nobody who really knew him could ever try to injure him." He looked into her face; it shone with a frightened joy, and pity grew upon him. "Your devotion to your husband is very sweet and beautiful, my daughter, and it grieves the Holy Father's heart to trouble it. But it seems to be his duty to do so, and he must do his duty." Again she looked up timidly, and again the sense came to him of dumb eyes full of entreaty. "My daughter, your husband's motives may not be bad. They may even be good and noble. It is often so with men of his sympathies. They see the disparity of wealth and poverty, and their hearts are torn with anger and with pity. But, my child, they do not know that true and lasting reforms, such as affect the whole human family, can only be accomplished by God and by the authority of His Holy Church and Pontificate, and that it must be the bell of St. Peter's which announces them to the world." As the Pope was speaking the colour ran up Roma's face like a flag of distress. She looked helplessly round at the Capuchin. The dumb eyes seemed to ask when the blow would fall. "As a consequence, what is he doing, my daughter? Ignoring the Church, which like a true mother is ever anxious to bear the burden of human weakness and suffering; he is setting up a new gospel, such as would reduce mankind to a worse barbarism than that from which Christ freed us. Is this conduct worthy of your devotion, my child?" Roma fixed her timid eyes on the Pope's face and answered: "I have nothing to do with my husband's opinions, your Holiness. I have only to be true to the friendship he gives me and the love I bear him." "My child," said the Pope, "ask yourself what your husband is doing at this moment. Not content with sowing the seeds of discord in Parliament and by the press, he is wandering through Europe, gathering up the adventurers who work in darkness in every country, and hatching a conspiracy which would lead to a state of anarchy throughout the world." Roma withdrew her hand from the hand of the Pope and made an exclamation of dissent. "Ah, I know what you would say, my daughter. He did not set out to produce anarchy. Such men never do. They begin with evolution and end with revolution. They begin with peace and end with violence. And the only sequel to your husband's aims must be the destruction of civil society, of Government, and of the Church." Roma's fingers were clasped convulsively in her lap. She lifted her timid but passionate face and said: "I know nothing about that, your Holiness. I only know that whatever he is doing his heart laid it upon him as a duty, and his heart is pure and noble." "My daughter, your husband may be the greatest of patriots in spirit and intention, but nevertheless he is one of the criminal and visionary teachers of this unhappy time who are deluding the ignorant crowd with promises that can never be realised. Anarchy, chaos, the uprooting of religion and morality, of justice, human dignity, and the purity of domestic life--these are the only possible fruits of the seed he is sowing." The timid eyes began to flash. "I did not come here to hear this, your Holiness." The Pope put his hand tenderly on her hands. "Remember, my child, what you said yourself on your former visit." Roma dropped her head. "The authorities know all about it." "Holy Father!" "It was necessary." "Then ... then somebody must have told them." "I told them. The Holy Father revealed no more than was necessary to relieve his conscience and to prevent crime. It was your own tongue that told the rest, my daughter." He recalled what had passed in the cabinet of the Prime Minister, and Roma felt as if something choked her. "No matter!" she said, with the same frightened but passionate face. "David Rossi is prepared for anything, and he will be prepared for this." "The authorities already knew more than I could tell them," said the Pope. "They knew where your husband was and what he was doing. They know where he is now, and they are preparing to arrest him." Roma's nerves grew more and more excited, the timid look gave place to a look of defiance. "They tell me that he is in Berlin at this moment. Is it true?" Roma did not reply. "They say their advices from official sources leave no doubt that he is engaged in conspiracy." Still Roma did not reply. "They say confidently that the conspiracy points to rebellion, and is intended to include regicide. Is it so?" Roma bit her lip and remained silent. "Can't you trust me, my child? Don't you know the Holy Father? Only give me some hope that these statements are untrue, and the Holy Father is ready to withstand all evil influences against you, and face the world in your defence." Roma felt as if something would snap within her brain. "I cannot say ... I do not know," she faltered. "But have you any uncertainty, my daughter? If you have the least reason to believe that these statements are slanders of malicious imaginations, tell me so, and I will give your husband the benefit of the doubt." Roma rose to her feet, but she held on to the edge of the table that stood by her side, rigid, quivering, frail and silent. The Pope looked up at her with weary eyes, and continued in a caressing tone: "If unhappily you have no doubt that your husband is engaged in dangerous enterprises, can you not dissuade him from them?" "No," said Roma, struggling with her tears, "that is impossible. Whether he is right or wrong, it is not for me to sit in judgment upon him. Besides, long ago, before we were married, I promised that I would never stand between him and his work, and I never can--never." "But if he loves you, my child, would he not wish for your sake to avoid the danger?" "I can't ask him. I told him to go on without thinking of me, and I would take care of myself whatever happened." Her eyes were now shining with her tears. The Pope patted the hand on the table. "Can you not at least go to him and warn him, and thus leave him to judge for himself, my daughter?" "Yes ... no, that is impossible also." "Why so, my child?" "Because I don't know where he is, and I shouldn't know where to find him. In his last letter he said it was better I should not know." "Then he has cut himself off from you entirely?" "Entirely. I am to see him next in Rome." "And meantime, that he may not run the risk of being traced by his enemies, he has stopped all channels of communication with his friends?" "Yes." The Pope's face whitened visibly, and an inward voice said to him, "This is God's hand. Death is waiting for the man in Rome, and he is walking blindly on to it." The weary eyes looked with compassion on Roma's quivering face. "There's no help for it," thought the Pope. "Suppose, my child ... suppose it were within your power to hinder evil consequences, would you do it?" "I am a woman, Holy Father. What can a woman do to hinder anything?" "In the history of nations it has sometimes happened that a woman has been able to save life and protect society by raising a little hand like this." The Pope lifted Roma's quivering fingers from the table. "If there is anything I can do, your Holiness, without breaking my promise or betraying my husband...." "It is a terrible ordeal, my child. For a wife, God knows how terrible." "No matter! If it will save my husband.... Tell me, your Holiness." He told her the proposal of the Prime Minister and the promise of the King. His voice vibrated. He was like a man who was wounding himself at every word. She looked at him until he had finished, without ability to speak. "You ask me to _denounce_ my husband?" "It is the only way to save him, my daughter." She looked round the room with helpless eyes, full of a dumb appeal for mercy or the chance of escape. "Holy Father," she said in a choking voice, "that is what his enemies have been asking me to do all this time, and because I have refused they have persecuted me with poverty and shame. And now that I come to you for refuge and shelter, thinking your fatherly arms will protect me, you ... even you...." She broke off as by a sudden thought, and said: "But it is impossible. He is my husband, therefore I cannot witness against him." "My heart bleeds for you, my child, and I am ashamed to gainsay you. But an oath is not necessary to a denunciation, and if it were so the law of this unchristian country would not recognise you as Rossi's wife." "But he will know who has denounced him. I am the only one in the world to whom he has told his secrets, and he will hate me and part from me." "You will have saved his life, my daughter." "What is it to me to have saved his life if he is lost to me for ever?" "Is it you that say that, my child--you that have sacrificed so much already? Doesn't the highest love remember first the welfare of the loved one and think of itself the last?" "Yes, yes; I didn't know what I was saying. But he will curse me for destroying his cause." "His cause will be destroyed in any case. It is doomed already. And when his visionary schemes are in the dust, and all is lost and vain, and your tears are powerless to bring back the past...." "But he will be banished, and I shall never see him again." "It will be the less of two evils, my child," said the Pope. And in the solemn, vibrating voice that rang in Roma's ears like the voice of Rossi, he added, "'Whosoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be shed.'" Again Roma held on to the table, feeling at every moment as if she might fall with a crash. "That's what would come to your husband if he were arrested and condemned for a conspiracy to kill the King. And even if the humane spirit of the age snatched him from death--what then? A cell in a prison on a volcanic rock in the sea, a stone sepulchre for the living dead, buried like a toad in a hole left by the running lava of life, guarded, watched, tortured in body and soul--a figure of tremendous tragedy, the hapless man once worshipped by the people spreading impotent hands to the outer world, until madness comes to his relief and suicide helps him to escape into eternity and leave only his wasted body on the earth." Roma could bear the nervous tension no longer. "I'll do it," she said. "My brave child!" said the Capuchin, turning from the window, with a face broken up by emotion. "It is one thing to repeat a secret if it is to harm any one, and quite another thing if it is to do good, isn't it?" said Roma. "Indeed it is," said the Capuchin. "He will never forgive me--I know that quite well. He will never imagine I would have died rather than do it. But I shall know I have done it for the best." "Indeed you will." Roma's eyes were shining with fresh tears, and she was struggling to keep back her sobs. "When we parted on the night he went away he said perhaps we were parting for ever. I promised to be faithful to death itself, but I was thinking of my own death, not his, and I didn't imagine that to save his life I must betray his...." But at that moment she broke down utterly, and the Pope, who had returned to his seat, rose again to comfort her. "Calm yourself, my daughter," he said. "What you are going to do is an act of heroic self-sacrifice. Be brave and Heaven will reward you." She grew calmer after a while, and then Father Pifferi made arrangements for the visit to the Procura. He would call for her at ten in the morning. "Wait!" said Roma. A new light had come into her face--the light of a new idea. "What is it, my daughter?" said the Pope. "Holy Father, there is something I had forgotten. But I must tell you before it is too late. It may alter your view of everything. When you hear it you may say, 'You must not speak a word. You shall not speak. It is impossible.'" "Tell me, my child." Roma hesitated and looked from the Capuchin to the Pope. "How can I tell you," she said. "It is so difficult. I hadn't meant to tell any one." "Go on, my daughter." "My husband's name...." "Well?" "Rossi is not really his name, your Holiness. It is the name he took on returning to Italy, because the one he had borne abroad had been involved in trouble." "Just so," said the Pope. "Holy Father, David Rossi was a friendless orphan." "I have heard so," said the Pope. "He never knew his father--not even by name. His mother was a poor unhappy woman who had been cruelly deceived by everybody. She drowned herself in the Tiber." "Poor soul," said the Pope. "He was nursed in the Foundling, your Holiness, and brought up in a straw hut in the Campagna, and then sold as a boy into England." The Pope moved uneasily in his seat. "My father found him on the streets of London on a winter's night, your Holiness, carrying a squirrel and an accordion. He wore a ragged suit of velveteens which used to be laughed at by the London boys, and that was all that sheltered his little body from the cold. 'Some poor man's child,' my father thought. But who can say if it was so, your Holiness?" The Pope was silent. A sudden change had come over his face. Roma's eyes were held down, her voice was agitated, she was scarcely able to speak. "My father was angry with the boy's father, I remember, and if at that time he had known where to find him I think he would have denounced him to the public or even the police." The Pope's head sank on his breast; the Capuchin looked steadfastly at Roma. "But who knows if he was really to blame, your Holiness? He may have been a good man after all--one of those who have to suffer all their lives for the sins of others. Perhaps ... perhaps that very night he was walking the streets of London, looking in vain among its waifs and outcasts for the little lost boy who owned his own blood and bore his name." The Pope's face was white and quivering. His elbows rested on the arms of his chair and his wrinkled hands were tightly clasped. Roma stopped. There was a prolonged silence. The atmosphere of the room seemed to be whirling round with frightful rapidity to one terrific focus. "Holy Father," said Roma at length, in a low tone, "if David Rossi were _your own son_, would you still ask me to denounce him?" The Pope lifted a face full of suffering and said in his deep, vibrating voice, "Yes, yes! More than ever for that--a thousand times more than ever." "Then _I will do it_," said Roma. The Pope rose up in great emotion, laid both hands on her shoulder, and said, "Go in peace, my daughter, and may God grant you at least a little repose." _ |
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