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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 9. The People - Chapter 7 |
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_ PART NINE. THE PEOPLE CHAPTER VII David Rossi sat all day in his room in the Vatican reading the letters the Pope had left with him. They were the letters which Roma had addressed to him in London, Paris, and Berlin. He read them again and again, and save for the tick of the clock there was no sound in the large gaunt room but his stifled moans. The most violently opposed feelings possessed him, and he hardly knew whether he was glad or sorry that thus late, and after a cruel fate had fallen, these messages of peace had reached him. A spirit seemed to emanate from the thin transparent sheets of paper, and it penetrated his whole being. As he read the words, now gay, now sad, now glowing with joy, now wailing with sorrow, a world of fond and tender emotions swelled up and blotted out all darker passions. He could see Roma herself, and his heart throbbed as of old under the influence of her sweet indescribable presence. Those dear features, those marvellous eyes, that voice, that smile--they swam up and tortured him with love and with remorse. How bravely she had withstood his enemies! To think of that young, ardent, brilliant, happy life sacrificed to his sufferings! And then her poor, pathetic secret--how sweet and honest she had been about it! Only a pure and courageous woman could have done as she did; while he, in his blundering passion and mad wrath, had behaved like a foul-minded tyrant and a coward. What loud protestations of heroic love he had made when he imagined the matter affected another man! And when he had learned that it concerned himself, how his vaunted constancy had failed him, and he had cursed the poor soul whose confidence he had invited! But above all the pangs of love and remorse, Rossi was conscious of an overpowering despair. It took the form of revolt against God, who had allowed such a blind and cruel sequence of events to wreck the lives of two of His innocent children. When he took refuge in the Vatican he must have been clinging to some waif and stray of hope. It was gone now, and there was no use struggling. The nothingness of man against the pitilessness of fate made all the world a blank. Rossi had rung the bell to ask for an audience with his Holiness when the door opened and the Pope himself entered. "Holy Father, I wished to speak to you." "What about, my son?" "Myself. Now I see that I did wrong to ask for your protection. You thought I was innocent, and there was something I did not tell you. When I said I was guilty before God and man, you did not understand what I meant. Holy Father, I meant that I had committed murder." The Pope did not answer, and Rossi went on, his voice ringing with the baleful sentiments which possessed him. "To tell you the truth, Holy Father, I hardly thought of it myself. What I had done was partly in self-defence, and I did not consider it a crime. And then, he whose life I had taken was an evil man, with the devil's dues in him, and I felt no more remorse after killing him than if I had trodden on a poisonous adder. But now I see things differently. In coming here I exposed you to danger at the hands of the State. I ask your pardon, and I beg you to let me go." "Where will you go to?" "Anywhere--nowhere--I don't know yet." The Pope looked at the young face, cut deep with lines of despair, and his heart yearned over it. "Sit down, my son. Let us think. Though you did not tell me of the assassination, I soon knew all about it.... Partly in self-defence, you say?" "That is so, but I do not urge it as an excuse. And if I did, who else knows anything about it?" "Is there nobody who knows?" "One, perhaps. But it is my wife, and she could have no interest in saving me now, even if I wished to be saved.... I have read her letters." "If I were to tell you it is not so, my son--that your wife is still ready to sacrifice herself for your safety...." "But that is impossible, your Holiness. There are so many things you do not know." "If I were to tell you that I have just seen her, and, notwithstanding your want of faith in her, she still has faith in you...." The deep lines of despair began to pass from Rossi's face, and he made a cry of joy. "If I were to say that she loves you, and would give her life for you...." "Is it possible? Do you tell me that? In spite of everything? And she--where is she? Let me go to her. Holy Father, if you only knew! I'll go and beg her pardon. I cursed her! Yes, it is true that in my blind, mad passion I.... But let me go back to her on my knees. The rest of my life spent at her feet will not be enough to wipe out my fault." "Stay, my son. You shall see her presently." "Can it be possible that I shall see her? I thought I should never see her again; but I counted without God. Ah! God is good after all. And you, Holy Father, you are good too. I will beg her forgiveness, and she will forgive me. Then we'll fly away somewhere--we'll escape to Africa, India, anywhere. We'll snatch a few years of happiness, and what more has anybody a right to expect in this miserable world?" Exalted in the light of his imaginary future, he seemed to forget everything else--his crime, his work, his people. "Is she at home still?" "She is only a few paces from this place, my son." "Only a few paces! Oh, let me not lose a moment more. Where is she?" "In the Castle of St. Angelo," said the Pope. A dark cloud crossed Rossi's beaming face and his mouth opened as if to emit a startling cry. "In ... in prison?" The Pope bowed. "What for?" "The assassination of the Minister." "Roma?... But what a fool I was not to think of it as a thing that might happen! I left her with the dead man. Who was to believe her when she denied that she had killed him?" "She did not deny it. She avowed it." "Avowed it? She said that she had...." The Pope bowed again. "Then ... then it was ... was it to shield me?" "Yes." Rossi's eyes grew moist. He was like another man. "But the court ... surely no court will believe her." "She has been tried and sentenced, my son." "Sentenced? Do you say sentenced? For a crime she did not commit? And to shield me? Holy Father, would you believe that the last words I spoke to that woman ... but she is an angel. The authorities must be mad, though. Did nobody think of me? Didn't it occur to any one that I had been there that night?" "There was only one piece of evidence connecting you with the scene of the crime, my son. It was this." The Pope drew from his breast the warrant he had taken from Roma. "_She_ had it?" "Yes." Rossi's emotions whirled within him in a kind of hurricane. The despair which had clamoured so loud looked mean and contemptible in the presence of the mighty passion which had put it to shame. But after a while his swimming eyes began to shine, and he said: "Holy Father, this paper belongs to me and you must permit me to keep it." "What do you intend to do, my son?" "There is only one thing to do now." "What is that?" "_To save her._" There was no need to ask how. The Pope understood, and his breast throbbed and swelled. But now that he had accomplished what he came for, now that he had awakened the sleeping soul and given it hope and faith and courage to face justice, and even death if need be, the Pope became suddenly conscious of a feeling in his own heart which he struggled in vain to suppress. "Far be it from me to excuse a crime, my son, but the merciful God who employs our poor passions to His own great purposes has used your acts to great ends. The world is trembling on the verge of unknown events and nobody knows what a day may bring forth. Let us wait a while." Rossi shook his head. "It is true that a crime will be the same to-morrow as to-day, but the dead man was a tyrant, a ferocious tyrant, and if he forced you in self-defence..." Again Rossi shook his head, but still the Pope struggled on. "You have your own life to think about, my son, and who knows but in God's good service..." "Let me go." "You intend to give yourself up?" "Yes." The Pope could say no more. He rose to his feet. His saintly face was full of a dumb yearning love and pride, which his tongue might never tell. He thought of his years of dark searching, ending at length in this meeting and farewell, and an impulse came to him to clasp the young man to his swelling and throbbing breast. But after a moment, with something of his old courageous calm of voice, he said: "I am not surprised at your decision, my son. It is worthy of your blood and name. And now that we are parting for the last time, I could wish to tell you something." David Rossi did not speak. "I knew your mother, my son." "My mother?" The Pope bowed and smiled. "She was a great soul, too, and she suffered terribly. Such are the ways of God." Still Rossi did not speak. He was looking steadfastly into the Pope's quivering face and making an effort to control himself. The Pope's voice shook and his lip trembled. "Naturally, you think ill of your father, knowing how much your mother suffered. Isn't that so?" Rossi put one hand to his forehead as if to steady his reeling brain, and said, "Who am I to think ill of any one?" The Pope smiled again, a timid smile. "David...." Rossi caught his breath. "If, in the providence of God, you were to meet your father somewhere, and he held out his hand to you, would you ... wherever you met and whatever he might be ... would you _shake hands with him_?" "Yes," said Rossi; "if I were a King on his throne, and he were the lowest convict at the galleys." The Pope fetched a long breath, took a step forward, and silently held out his hand. At the next moment the young man and the old Pope were hand to hand and eye to eye. They tried to speak and could not. "Farewell!" said the Pope in a choking voice, and turning away he tottered out of the room. _ |
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