The Saint by Antonio Fogazzaro

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_"Nous vous attendons absolument, monsieur! Quittez ce vilain trou!
Quittez-le bientot! Bientot!"_

Having let his stern gaze wander rapidly round the circle of mocking
or stolid faces, from the Duchess's _lorgnon_ to the journalist's
eye-glass, Benedetto replied:

_"A l'instant, madame!"_

And he left the room.

He left the room and the house, crossed the square, walking awkwardly in
his ill-fitting clothes, and, without looking to right or left, took the
road leading down the slope, impelled by his spirit rather than by the
weakened powers of his body. He intended to pass the night under some
tree, and, on the morrow, go to Subiaco; from there, with Don Clemente's
aid, he would go to Tivoli, where he knew a good old priest, who was in
the habit of coming to Santa Scolastica from time to time. He no longer
thought of accepting the Selvas' hospitality, which would have been
precious to him. His heart was pure and at peace, but he could not
forget that the young foreign girl's sweet voice, and the tone of
sadness in which she had said "You will not come to Subiaco?" had
awakened strange echoes within him, and that in that one second the
thought had flashed across his mind: "Had Jeanne been like this, I
should not have left her!" The mystics were right; penance and fasting
were of no avail. But it had all disappeared now. Only the humiliating
sense of a frailty essentially human remained, which, though it may have
come forth triumphant from hard trials, may also reappear unexpectedly,
and be overthrown by a breath. The little town was deserted. The storm
over, the people from Trevi, Filettino, and Vallepietra had started
homeward, discussing the events of the morning, the case of doubtful
healing, and that in which the healing had not been effected, the
warnings which had been swiftly sown by hidden hands against the
corrupter of the people, the false Catholic. On leaving the town
Benedetto was seen by two or three women of Jenne. The secular garments
filled them with amazement; they concluded he had been excommunicated
and allowed him to pass in silence.

A few steps beyond, some one who was running overtook him. It was a
slender, fair lad, with blue eyes full of intelligence.

"Are you going to Rome, Signor Maironi?" he said.

"I beg you not to call me by that name!" Benedetto answered, ill-pleased
to find that his name, who knows by what means, had been revealed. "I do
not yet know whether I go to Rome."

"I shall follow you," the young man said, impulsively.

"You will follow me? But why should you follow me?"

In reply the young man took his hand, and, in spite of Benedetto's
resistance and protests, raised it to his lips.

"Why?" said he. "Because I am sick of the world, and could not find
God, and to-day it Seems to me that, through you, I have been born to
happiness! Please, please, let me follow you!

"_Caro_ [dear one];" Benedetto replied, greatly moved, "I myself do not
know whither I shall go!"

The young man entreated him to say, at least, when he should see him
again, and exclaimed, seeing Benedetto really did not know what to
answer:

"Oh! I shall see you in Rome! You will surely go to Rome!"

Benedetto smiled:

"In Rome? And how will you find me there?"

The lad answered that he would certainly be talked of in Rome, that
every one would know where to find him.

"If it be God's will!" said Benedetto, with an affectionate gesture of
farewell.

The lad detained him a moment, holding his hand.

"I am a Lombard also," said he. "I am Alberti, from Milan. Do not forget
me!"

And his intense gaze followed Benedetto until he disappeared at a bend
of the mule-path.

* * * * *

At sight of the cross with its great arms, rising on the brow of the
hill, Benedetto suddenly shuddered with emotion, and was obliged to
stop. When he once more started forward he was seized with giddiness.
Swaying, he stepped aside a few yards, leaving the way free for
passers-by, and sank upon the grass, In a hollow of the field. Then,
closing his eyes, he realised that this was no passing disturbance, but
something far more serious. He did not become entirely unconscious, but
he lost the sense of hearing and of touch, his memory, and all account
of time. When he first recovered his senses, the feeling on the backs of
his hands, of the coarse cloth, different from that of his usual habit,
filled him with a curiosity, rather amused than troubled, concerning his
own identity. He felt his breast, the buttons, the button-holes, without
understanding. He thought. A boy from Jenne, who passed near him in the
field, ran to the town and reported excitedly that the Saint was lying
dead on the grass, near the cross.

Benedetto reflected, with that shade of cloudy reason which governs us
when we sleep and when we first awake. These were not his clothes. They
were Piero Maironi's clothes. He was still Piero Maironi. This thought
terrified him, and he recovered his senses completely. He rose to a
sitting posture, looked at himself, looked about him at the field and
the hills, veiled in the shades of evening. At sight of the great cross,
his mind regained its composure. He felt ill, very ill. He tried to
rise to his feet, but found it difficult to do so. Directing his steps
towards the mulepath, he asked himself what he should do in that
condition. Some one coming swiftly down the path from Jenne stopped
before him; he heard the exclamation: "Oh! my God! it is you!" He
recognised the voice of the woman who had spoken so passionately to him
while the storm was raging. She alone of all those at Jenne who had
heard the boy's story had come to him. The others had either not
believed or not wished to believe. She had come running, and mad with
grief. Now she had stopped suddenly, and stood speechless, not two steps
from him. He, not suspecting she had come on his account, wished her
good-night and passed on. She did not return his salutation, for, after
the first moment of joy, she was distressed to see him walk with such
difficulty, and she did not dare to follow him. She saw him stop and
speak to a man riding a mule, who was coming up. She rushed forward to
hear what was said. The man was a muleteer, sent by the Selvas to look
for Benedetto. The Selvas, with two mules for the ladies, had left Jenne
soon after him, thinking to overtake him on the hillside. Reaching the
Anio without having seen him, they questioned a passer-by coming from
Sublaco. He could give them no news of Benedetto. Noemi, who was to
take the last train for Tivoli, went on with Giovanni, hiding her
disappointment. The muleteer had been sent back to Jenne to look for
Benedetto, and to fetch a parasol which had been forgotten at the inn.
Maria was awaiting his return among the rocks of the Infernillo. The
young school-mistress heard Benedetto ask the muleteer to bring him a
little water from Jenne, for the sake of charity. The two men were still
talking, but she sped away, without waiting to hear more.

After a brief consultation with the muleteer, Benedetto had consented
to ride down to where Signora Selva was waiting. Left alone, he seated
himself near the cross, and waited for the man to return with the water
and the parasol. The crescent moon was rising, gilding the bright sky,
above the hills of Arcinazzo; the evening was warm and breathless.
Benedetto felt his temples throb and burn; his breath came quick and
short, but he suffered no pain. The sweet-scented grass of the field,
the scattered trees, the great shadowy hills, all, to him, was alive,
was filled with religion; all was sweet with a mystery of adoring love
which bent even the crescent moon towards the heights in the opalescent
sky. Don Giuseppe Flores whispered in his heart that it would be sweet
to die thus with the day, praying in unison with the innocent things.

Hurried steps were heard in the direction of Jenne. They stopped a short
distance from him. A little girl came towards Benedetto, timidly offered
him a bottle of water and a glass, and then turned and fled. Benedetto,
astonished, called her to him. She came slowly, shyly, and did not
answer when he asked her name, her parents' name. A voice said:

"She is the innkeeper's child."

Benedetto recognised the voice and the person also, though the moonlight
was pale; she had remained at a distance, prompted by the same sense of
delicacy which had moved her to bring the child with her.

"I thank you," said he. She came a little nearer, holding the child by
the hand, and asked softly:

"Do you know the priests have been talking to the dead man's mother? Do
you know the woman now accuses you of killing her son?"

Benedetto replied with some severity in his tone:

"Why do you tell me this?"

She saw she had displeased him by repeating this accusation, and
exclaimed in distress;

"Oh! forgive me!"

Presently she added:

"May I ask you a question?"

"Speak."

"Shall you never return to Jenne?"

"Never."

The woman was silent. They could hear steps approaching in the distance;
it was the muleteer and his mule. She said in a lower tone:

"For pity's sake, one word more! How do you picture to yourself the
future life? Do you believe we shall meet those we have known in this
life?"

If the moonlight had not been so pale, Benedetto would have seen two
great tears rolling down the young girl's face.

"I believe," he replied, "that until the death of our planet, our future
life will be one of labour upon it, and that all those minds which
aspire to truth, to unity, will meet there, and labour together." The
muleteer's hobnailed shoes, which grated among the pebbles, could be
heard very near them. The woman said:

"_Addio_! Farewell!"

The tears sounded in her voice now. Benedetto answered:

"_A Dio_! God be with you!"

Mounted on the mule, he goes down into the shadows of the valley. He is
burning with fever. He is going to Casa Selva, after all. He knows, for
the muleteer has told him, that he will not see Noemi there; but that
is indifferent to him, he does not fear her, does not even remember the
moment of gentle emotion. Another feverish thought is stirring in his
soul. There is a whirl of words spoken by Don Clemente, by the lad
Alberti, by the elderly Englishwoman, while fragments of the Vision
flash like pictures before his mind's eye. Yes, he will go to Casa
Selva, but only for a short time. As he ascends, the mighty voice of the
Anio roars louder, ever louder, out of the depths:

"Rome! Rome! Rome!"

CHAPTER VI

THREE LETTERS

JEANNE TO NOEMI

VENA DI FONTE ALTA, July 4,----

Forgive me if I write to you in pencil. I have just reread your letter
here, at a point half an hour distant from the hotel, seated on the edge
of a stone basin where the flocks come to drink. The tiny stream of
water which trickles into the basin from a small wooden pipe reminds me,
with its gentle voice, of something which makes my heart ache; a walk
with him across fields and through woods in the mist; a halt by this
very spring, painful words, a few tears, something written in the water,
a moment of happiness--the last. I made a great sacrifice for Carlino's
sake when I returned to Vena after an absence of three years. I have
always loved him, but the message from Jenne would make me face far
greater sacrifices than this for him, make me face them willingly,
though conscious of having lost all merit in them.

I am not satisfied with your letters; I will tell you why sometime, but
not now. It is too difficult to write here. The mist is rolling down
from the uplands high above the spring, and a cold west wind is blowing.
I must be careful of my health on Carlino's account, and this is another
sacrifice, for I hate my health!

_Later_.

Noemi, could you not contrive to let the enclosed half-sheet of paper,
upon which I have written in pencil, fall into _his_ hands? You hesitate
to tell him how obedient I am; could you not, at least, help me to let
him know it in this way?

I am not satisfied with your letters, first of all because they are too
short. You know how eager I am to hear all about him. He is a guest in
the same house with you; at Subiaco he can surely not know how to employ
his time, and you sum up everything in two or three words!--He
is better. He reads a great deal. He has been working in the
kitchen-garden. Perhaps he will spend the summer with us. He
writes.--And you have never yet told me what malady he is really
suffering from, what he reads, where he will go if he does not spend the
summer with you, whether he writes letters or books, and what you talk
about together, for it is not possible that you never talk together. Do
not repeat your excuse that the less you speak of him, the better it
is for me. That is a convenient excuse you have invented, but it is
foolish, because, whether you talk to me of him or not, it is all the
same. My hopes are quite dead; they will not revive. Then write me long
letters, I am sure he wishes to convert you, that you have very serious
talks together, and that is why you tell me so little about him. It
would not be a very glorious achievement to convert _you_, for you are
sentimental in matters of religion; you do not possess that clear, cold,
and positive insight which is, unfortunately, natural to me, and which I
wish _I_ did not possess.

When do you intend to return to Belgium? Do not your affairs there need
your attention? You once mentioned an agent in whom you had little
confidence. We shall probably travel in August. At least, that is what
Carlino says at present, but he changes his mind very easily. I should
like to visit Holland with you, in September. Good-bye! Please write.
If he reads much you might get him to lend you a book, and leave the
half-sheet of paper in it as a book-mark, At any rate, find some way.
That or something else; you are a woman! Contrive some means, if you
love me! But I really believe you no longer love me at all! You would
confess it if you told the truth! However, there is a lady at this hotel
who is in love with me! Laugh, if you like, but it is true. She lives in
Rome. Her husband is Under-Secretary of State. She is determined that I
shall spend next winter in Rome. It will depend upon Carlino. This lady
lays siege to him; he lets himself be besieged, and neither resists nor
capitulates. Good-bye. Write, write, and again write!

NOEMI TO JEANNE (_from the French_)

I did still better! In my presence, my brother-in-law cited from memory
a Latin passage which impressed _him_, concerning certain monks of
ancient times, before Christ. He begged Giovanni to write it down for
him. We were in the olive-grove above the villetta, seated on the grass.
I immediately passed a pencil to Giovanni, and the half-sheet of paper,
with the blank side uppermost. He wrote, and Maironi took the paper,
read the Latin passage, and put the sheet into his pocket, without
looking at the other side. It was an act of treason, and I have been
guilty of treason for love of you. Will you ever doubt me again?

What can I tell you about his illness which I have not told you already?
He was troubled with fever for about two weeks. One day the physician
would pronounce it typhoid, and the next he would say it was not. At
last the fever left him, but his strength has not returned completely;
he is very thin; he seems to have some persistent, internal ailment; the
doctor is very particular about the quality of his food; he has changed
his way of living, eats meat and drinks a little wine. Yesterday a
friend of Giovanni's came from Rome to see him; the famous Professor
Mayda, Giovanni begged him to examine Maironi, and to advise him. He
recommended some waters, which Maironi will certainly not take. I feel I
know him well enough to be sure of that. However, during the last week
he has improved rapidly. In the morning and evening he works a little in
the kitchen-garden. This morning he rose very early, and what should he
do but take it into his head to wash down the stairs! Yesterday Maria
scolded the old servant because the stairs were not clean. When the
old woman, who sleeps at Subiaco, arrived at seven o'clock, she found
Maironi had done the work for her. My sister and my brother-in-law
reproached him; Giovanni was almost severe, perhaps because he is so
different from Maironi, and would never think of touching a broom, even
if he lived in a cloud of cobwebs! What does Maironi read? He has never
but once spoken to me of what he reads, and then only for a moment, as I
shall tell you later. I wrote you that perhaps he would spend the
summer with us, for I know Maria and Giovanni wish it. I now have a
presentiment that he will not stay, but will go to Rome. This, however,
is only my impression; I have no positive knowledge.

As to his wishing to convert me, I do not know whether it would be an
easy task or not, or whether Maironi thinks anything about it. You will
notice that I call him Maironi in writing to you; in speaking to him I
call him simply Benedetto, for that is his wish. I am sure Giovanni
once thought of converting me. He found it so easy that he never speaks
of it to me now. I should not think the same of Maironi. I believe that
to him Christianity means, above all things, actions and life according
to the spirit of Christ, of the risen Christ who lives for ever among
us, of whom we have, as he puts it, the experience. It seems to me that
the object of his religious mission is, not the placing of the creed
of one Christian Church before another, although there is no doubt the
holiness of the life he leads is strictly Catholic. Whenever I have
heard him speak of dogmas, with Giovanni, it has never been to discuss
the difference between Church and Church, but rather to expound certain
formulas of faith, and to show what a strong light emanates from
them when they are expounded in a certain way. Giovanni himself is
past-master at this, but when Giovanni speaks you are impressed above
all, by the immense store of knowledge his mind contains; when Maironi
speaks you feel that the living Christ is in his heart, the risen
Christ, and he fires you! In order to be perfectly, scrupulously
sincere, I will tell you that although I do not think he intends to
convert me, still I am not very sure of this. One day we were in the
olive-grove. He and Giovanni were discussing a German book on the
essence of Christianity, which, it seems, has made a stir, and was
written by a Protestant theologian. Maironi observed that, when this
Protestant speaks of Catholicism, he does so with a most honest
intention of being impartial, but that, in reality, he does not know the
Catholic religion. His opinion is that no Protestant does really know
it; they are all of them full of prejudices, and believe certain
external and remediable abuses in its practices to be essential to
Catholicism. There was a basket of apricots standing near, and he chose
one which had been very fine, but which was beginning to rot. "Here,"
said he, "is an apricot, which is slightly rotten. If I offer this
apricot to one who does not know, but who wishes to be amiable, he
will tell me that part of it is indeed firm and good, but that,
unfortunately, part of it is diseased, and therefore, though he much
regrets it, he cannot accept it. Thus this illustrious Protestant speaks
of Catholicism. But if I offer my apricot to one who knows, he will
accept it even if it be entirely rotten; and he will plant the immortal
seed in his own garden, in the hope of raising fine, healthy fruit."
These remarks he addressed to Giovanni, but his eyes sought mine
continually. I must add that at Jenne also, he told me to learn to
understand Catholicism. At any rate, if I remain a Protestant, it will
not be because I do or do not understand, but rather in obedience to my
most sacred feelings.

My dear Jeanne, there is something else I must tell you plainly. I have
a suspicion that you are jealous, I believe you do not realise the
inexpressible grief you would cause me, if this were really the
case. I fear you do not realise the immense gravity of the offence it
would be, first to him and then to me. Now I am going to open my heart
to you. I should reproach myself if I did not do so, dear friend,
reproach myself on your account, on his, and on my own. As to him, he is
kind and gentle to all with whom he comes in contact, especially to the
humble, and you might even be jealous of the old woman who comes from
Subiaco to do the rough work in the house. With Maria and myself he
shows his kindness and gentleness silently rather than in words. With us
he is quiet, simple, and affable; he does not appear to wish to avoid
us, but it has never happened that he has remained alone with either
of us. In his eyes I am a soul, and souls are to him exactly what the
tiniest plants in my father's great garden were to him; he would have
liked to protect them from frost with the warmth of his own heart, and
make then grow and flower by communicating his own vitality to them. But
I am a soul like any other soul, the only difference perhaps being,
that he deems me further removed from the truth, and consequently more
exposed to frost. But this is not apparent in his bearing.

As to myself, dearest, I certainly have a deep feeling for him, but it
would be abominable to say that this feeling in the least resembles what
men call by the familiar name. This sentiment is one of reverence, of
a kind of devout fear, of awe; I feel his person is surrounded by
something like a magic circle, into which I should never dare to
penetrate. My heart beats no faster in his presence. I think, indeed, it
beats more slowly but of this I am not sure. Dear Jeanne, I could not
possibly speak more honestly than I have done, therefore I beg you, I
entreat you, not to imagine anything different!

For the present I am not thinking of going to Belgium. I may possibly
go there for a short time, later on. My kind regards to your brother. I
should like to know if he has sent the old priest and the young woman to
Formalhaut at last! I myself sometimes think of his Formalhaut! Tell
him that if you and he come to Rome this winter, we will make music
together. Good-bye I embrace you!

BENEDETTO TO DON CLEMENTE

_(Never sent)_

_Padre mio_, the Lord has departed from my soul, not, indeed, giving me
up to sin, but He has taken from me all sense of His presence, and the
despairing cry of Jesus Christ on the cross thrills, at times, through
my whole being. If I strive to concentrate all my thoughts in the one
thought of the Divine Presence, all my senses in an act of submission to
the Divine Will, I derive only pain and discouragement from it. I feel
like the beast of burden which falls under its load, and which, at the
first cut of the whip, makes an effort to rise, and falls again; at a
second blow, at a third, or a fourth, it only shivers, and does not
attempt to rise. If I open the Gospels or the _Imitation_, I find no
flavour in them. If I recite prayers, weariness overpowers me, and I am
silent. If I prostrate myself upon the ground, the ground freezes me. If
I make complaint to God at being treated thus, His silence seems to grow
more hostile. If, on the authority of the great mystics, I say to myself
that I am wrong to feel such affection for spiritual joys, to suffer
thus when deprived of them, I answer myself that the mystics err, that
in the state of conscious grace one walks safely, but that in this
starless night of spiritual darkness one cannot see the way; there is no
other rule than to withdraw one's foot when it touches the soft grass,
and that is not sufficient, for there is also the danger of setting the
foot in empty space. Father, _Padre mio_, open your arms to me, that I
may feel the warmth of your breast, filled with God! There are a hundred
reasons why I should not go to Santa Scolastica, and in any case I
should prefer to write. You are here present with me more than in the
body; I can become one with you, can mingle with you more easily than if
you stood before me; and I need to mingle with you in thought, I need
to force my soul into yours. Perhaps I shall send you this letter, but
perhaps I shall not send it. Father, father! it does me more good to
write to you than to speak to you! I could not speak with the fire which
now rushes to my pen, and which would not rush to my lips. Writing, I
speak, I cry out to the immortal in you, I divest you of all that is
mortal even in your soul, and which in your presence would extinguish
my fire. I divest you of the mortality of an incomplete knowledge of
things, of prudence, which would prompt you to veil your thoughts. No,
I will not send this letter, but nevertheless it will reach you. I will
burn it, but still it will reach you; for it is not possible that my
silent cry should not come to you, perhaps now, in the darkness of
the night, while you sleep, perhaps in two hours' time, still in the
darkness of the night, while you pray with the brothers, in the dear
church, where we worshipped so often together.

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