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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 44588
   :PG.Title: John Inglesant (Volume II of 2)
   :PG.Released: 2014-01-04
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: John Henry Shorthouse
   :DC.Title: John Inglesant (Volume II of 2)
              A Romance
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1881
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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JOHN INGLESANT (VOLUME II)
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      JOHN INGLESANT

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      A Romance

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      by

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      John Henry Shorthouse

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      [Greek: Agapetoí, nûn tékna Theoû esmen, kaì
      oúpo ephanerothe tí esómetha.]

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      VOL. II.

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      London
      MACMILLAN AND CO.
      1881 

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      *Printed by* R & R. CLARK, *Edinburgh*.

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.. _`CHAPTER I.`:

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   JOHN INGLESANT.

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   CHAPTER I.

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Inglesant travelled to Marseilles, and by packet boat
to Genoa.  The beauty of the approach by sea to this
city, and the lovely gardens and the country around gave him
the greatest delight.  The magnificent streets of palaces,
mostly of marble, and the thronged public places, the galleries
of paintings, and the museums, filled his mind with astonishment;
and the entrance into Italy, wonderful as he had expected
it to be, surpassed his anticipation.  He stayed some
time in Genoa, to one or more of the Jesuit fathers in which
city he had letters.  Under the guidance of these cultivated
men he commenced an education in art, such as in these days
can be scarcely understood.  From his coming into Italy a
new life had dawned upon him in the music of that country.
Fascinated as he had always been with the Church music at
London and Oxford, for several years he had been cut off from
all such enjoyment, and, at its best, it was but the prelude to
what he heard now.  For whole hours he would remain on
his knees at mass, lost and wandering in that strange world of
infinite variety, the mass music—so various in its phases, yet
with a monotone of pathos through it all.  The musical parties
were also a great pleasure.  He played the violin a little
in England, and rapidly improved by the excellent tuition he
met with here.  He became, however, a proficient in what the
Italians called the viola d'amore, a treble viol, strung with
wire, which attracted him by its soft and sweet tone.  Amid a
concord of sweet sounds, within hearing of the splash of
fountains, and surrounded by the rich colours of an Italian interior,
the young Englishman found himself in a new world of delight.
As the very soul of music, at one moment merry and the next
mad with passion and delightful pain, uttered itself in the
long-continued tremor of the violins, it took possession in all its
power of Inglesant's spirit.  The whole of life is recited upon
the plaintive strings, and by their mysterious effect upon the
brain fibres, men are brought into sympathy with life in all its
forms, from the gay promise of its morning sunrise to the
silence of its gloomy night.

From Genoa he went to Sienna, where he stayed some
time—the dialect here being held to be very pure, and fit for
foreigners to accustom themselves to.  He spoke Italian
before with sufficient ease, and associating with several of the
religious in this city he soon acquired the language perfectly.
There can be nothing more delightful than the first few days
of life in Italy in the company of polished and congenial men.
Inglesant enjoyed life at Sienna very much; the beautiful
clean town, all marble and polished brick, the shining walls
and pavement softened and shaded by gardens and creeping
vines, the piazza and fountains, the cool retired walks with
distant prospects, the Duomo, within and without of polished
marble inexpressibly beautiful, with its exceeding sweet music
and well-tuned organs, the libraries full of objects of the
greatest interest, the statues and antiquities everywhere
interspersed.

The summer and winter passed over, and he was still in
Sienna, and seemed loth to leave.  He associated mostly with
the ecclesiastics to whom he had brought letters of introduction,
for he was more anxious at first to become acquainted
with the country and its treasures of art and literature than to
make many acquaintances.  He kept himself so close and
studious that he met with no adventures such as most travellers,
especially those who abandon themselves to the dissolute
courses of the country, meet with,—courses which were said
at that time to be able to make a devil out of a saint.  He
saw nothing of the religious system but what was excellent and
delightful, seeing everything through the medium of his friends.
He read all the Italian literature that was considered necessary
for a gentleman to be acquainted with; and though the learning
of the Fathers was not what it had been a century ago, he
still found several to whom he could talk of his favourite
Lucretius and of the divine lessons of Plato.

When he had spent some time in this way in Italy, and
considered himself fitted to associate with the inhabitants
generally, the Benedictines took Inglesant to visit the family
of Cardinal Chigi, who was afterwards Pope, and who was a
native of Sienna.  The cardinal himself was in Rome, but his
brother, Don Mario, received Inglesant politely, and
introduced him to his son, Don Flavio, and to two of his nephews.
With one of these, Don Agostino di Chigi, Inglesant became
very intimate, and spent much of his time at his house.  In
this family he learnt much of the state of parties in Rome,
and was advised in what way to comport himself when he
should come there.  The Cardinal Panzirollo, who with the
Cardinal-Patron (Pamphilio), had lately been in great esteem,
had just died, having weakened his health by his continued
application to business, and the Pope had appointed Cardinal
Chigi his successor as first Secretary of State.  The Pope's
sister-in-law, Donna Olympia Maldachini, was supposed to be
banished, but many thought this was only a political retreat,
and that she still directed the affairs of the Papacy.  At any
rate she soon returned to Rome and to power.  This extraordinary
woman, whose loves and intrigues were enacted on
the stage in Protestant countries, was the sister-in-law of the
Pope, and was said to live with him in criminal correspondence,
and to have charmed him by some secret incantation—the
incantation of a strong woman over a weak and criminal
man.  For a long time she had abused her authority in the
most scandalous manner, and exerted her unbounded ascendency
over the Pope to gratify her avarice and ambition, which
were as unbounded as her power.  She disposed of all benefices,
which she kept vacant till she was fully informed of their
value; she exacted a third of the entire value of all offices,
receiving twelve years' value for an office for life.  She gave
audience upon public affairs, enacted new laws, abrogated
those of former Popes, and sat in council with the Pope with
bundles of memorials in her hands.  Severe satires were daily
pasted on the statue of Pasquin at Rome; yet it seemed so
incredible that Cardinal Panzirollo, backed though he was by
the Cardinal-Nephew, should be able to overthrow the power
of this woman by a representation he was said to have made
to the Pope, that when Innocent at length, with great
reluctance banished Olympia, most persons supposed it was only a
temporary piece of policy.

The Chigi were at this time living in Sienna, in great
simplicity, at their house in the Strada Romana, and in one or
two small villas in the neighbourhood; but they were of an
ancient and noble family of this place, and were held in great
esteem, and were all of them men of refinement and carefully
educated.  They had made considerable figure in Rome
during the Pontificate of Julius II.; but afterwards meeting
with misfortunes, were obliged to return to Sienna, where they
had continued to reside ever since.  At this time there was
no idea that the Cardinal of this house would be the next
Pope, and though well acquainted with the politics of Rome,
the family occupied themselves mostly with other and more
innocent amusements—in the arrangement of their gardens
and estates, in the duties of hospitality, and in artistic, literary,
and antiquarian pursuits.  The University and College of
Sienna had produced many excellent scholars and several
Popes, and the city itself was full of remains of antique art,
and was adorned with many modern works of great beauty—the
productions of that school which takes its name from the
town.  Among such scenes as these, and with such companions,
Inglesant's time passed so pleasantly that he was in
no hurry to go on to Rome.

The country about the city was celebrated for hunting,
and the wild boar and the stag afforded excellent and exciting,
if sometimes dangerous sport.  Amid the beautiful valleys,
rich with vineyards, and overlooked by rocky hills and castled
summits, were scenes fitted both for pleasure and sport; and
the hunting gave place, often and in a moment, to *al fresco*
banquets, and conversations and pleasant dalliance with the
ladies, by the cool shade near some fountain, or under some
over-arching rock.  Under the influence of these occupations,
so various and so attractive both to the mind and body, and
thanks to so many novel objects and continual change of
scene, Inglesant's health rapidly improved, and his mind
recovered much of the calm and cheerfulness which were
natural to it.  He thought little of the Italian, and the terrible
thoughts with which he had connected him were for the time
almost forgotten, though, from time to time, when any
accident recalled the circumstances to his recollection, they
returned upon his spirits with a melancholy effect.

The first time that these gloomy thoughts overpowered him
since his arrival at Sienna was on the following occasion.  He
had been hunting with a party of friends in the valley of
Montalcino one day in early autumn.  The weather previously had
been wet, and the rising sun had drawn upward masses of
white vapour, which wreathed the green foliage and the vine
slopes, where the vintage was going on, and concealed from
sight the hills on every side.  A pale golden light pervaded
every place, and gave mystery and beauty to the meanest
cottages and farm-sheds.  The party, having missed the stag,
stopped at a small osteria at the foot of a sloping hill, and
Inglesant and another gentleman wandered up into the
vineyard that sloped upwards behind the house.  As they went
up, the vines became gradually visible out of the silvery mist,
and figures of peasant men and women moved about—vague
and half-hidden until they were close to them; pigeons and
doves flew in and out.  Inglesant's friend stopped to speak to
some of the peasant girls; but Inglesant himself, tempted by
the pleasing mystery that the mountain slope—apparently full
of hidden and beautiful life—presented, wandered on, gradually
climbing higher and higher, till he had left the vintage far
below him, and heard no sound but that of the grasshoppers
among the grass and the olive trees, and the distant laugh of
the villagers, or now and then the music of a hunting horn,
which one of the party below was blowing for his own
amusement.  The mist was now so thick that he could see nothing,
and it was by chance that he even kept the ascending path.
The hill was rocky here and there, but for the most part was
covered with short grass, cropped by the goats which Inglesant
startled as he came unexpectedly upon them in the mist.
Suddenly, after some quarter of an hour's climbing, he came
out of the mist in a moment, and stood under a perfectly clear
sky upon the summit of the hill.  The blue vault stretched
above him without a cloud, all alight with the morning sun;
at his feet the grassy hill-top sparkling in dew, not yet dried
up, and vocal with grasshoppers, not yet silenced by the heat.
Nothing could be seen but wreaths of cloud.  The hill-top
rose like an island out of a sea of vapour, seething and rolling
round in misty waves, and lighted with prismatic colours of
every hue.  Out of this sea, here and there, other hill-tops, on
which goats were browsing, lay beneath the serene heaven;
and rocky points and summits, far higher than these, reflected
back the sun.  He would have seemed to stand above all
human conversation and walks of men, if every now and then
some break in the mist had not taken place, opening glimpses
of landscapes and villages far below; and also the sound of
bells, and the music of the horn, came up fitfully through the
mist.  Why, he did not know, but as he gazed on this, the
most wonderful and beautiful sight he had ever seen, the
recollection of Serenus de Cressy returned upon his mind
with intense vividness; and the contrast between the life he
was leading in Italy, amid every delight of mind and sense,
and the life the Benedictine had offered him in vain, smote
upon his conscience with terrible force.  Upon the lonely
mountain top, beneath the serene silence, he threw himself
upon the turf, and, overwhelmed with a sudden passion,
repented that he had been born.  Amid the extraordinary
loveliness, the most gloomy thoughts took possession of him,
and the fiend seemed to stand upon the smiling mount and
claim him for himself.  So palpably did the consciousness of
his choice, worldly as he thought it, cause the presence of evil
to appear, that in that heavenly solitude he looked round for
the murderer of his brother.  The moment appeared to him,
for the instant, to be the one appointed for the consummation
of his guilt.  The horn below sounding the recall drew his
mind out of this terrible reverie, and he came down the hill
(from which the mist was gradually clearing) as in a dream.
He rejoined his company, who remarked the wild expression
of his face.

His old disease, in fact, never entirely left him; he
walked often as in a dream, and when the fit was upon him
could never discern the real and the unreal.  He knew that
terrible feeling when the world and all its objects are slipping
away, when the brain reels, and seems only to be kept fixed
and steady by a violent exertion of the will; and the mind is
confused and perplexed with thoughts which it cannot grasp,
and is full of fancies of vague duties and acts which it cannot
perform, though it is convinced that they are all important to
be done.

The Chigi family knew of Inglesant's past life, and of his
acquaintance with the Archbishop of Fermo, the Pope's
Nuncio, and they advised him to make the acquaintance of
his brother, the Cardinal Rinuccini, before going to Rome.

"If you go to Rome in his train, or have him for a patron
on your arrival, you will start in a much better position than
if you enter the city an entire stranger,—and the present is
not a very favourable time for going to Rome.  The Pope is
not expected to live very long.  Donna Olympia and the
Pamphili, or pretended Pamphili (for the Cardinal-Nephew is
not a Pamphili at all), are securing what they can, using every
moment to enrich themselves while they have the power.
The moment the Pope dies they fall, and with them all who
have been connected with them.  It is therefore useless to go
to Rome at present, except as a private person to see the
city, and this you can do better in the suite of the Cardinal
than in any other way.  You may wonder that we do not
offer to introduce you to our uncle the Cardinal Chigi; but we
had rather that you should come to Rome at first under the
patronage of another.  You will understand more of our
reasons before long; meanwhile, we will write to our uncle
respecting you, and you may be sure that he will promote
your interests as much as is in his power."

The Cardinal Rinuccini was at that time believed to be at
his own villa, situated in a village some distance from Florence
to the north, and Don Agostino offered to accompany Inglesant
so far on his journey.

This ride, though a short one, was very pleasant, and
endeared the two men to each other more than ever.  They
travelled simply, with a very small train, and did not hurry
themselves on the route.  Indeed, they travelled so leisurely
that they were very nearly being too late for their purpose.
On their arrival at the last stage before reaching Florence,
they stopped for the night at a small osteria, and had no
sooner taken up their quarters than a large train arrived at
the inn, and on their inquiry they were informed it was the
Cardinal Rinuccini himself on his way to Rome.  They
immediately sent their names to his Eminence, saying they had
been coming to pay their respects to him, and offering to
resign their apartment, which was the best in the house.  The
Cardinal, who travelled in great state, with his four-post bed
and furniture of all kinds with him, returned a message that
he could not disturb them in their room; that he remembered
Mr. Inglesant's name in some letters from his brother; and
that he should be honoured by their company to supper.

The best that the village could afford was placed on the
Cardinal's table, and their host entertained the two young men
with great courtesy.

He was descended from a noble family in Florence, which
boasted among its members Octavio Rinuccini the poet, who
came to Paris in the suite of Marie de Medicis, and is said by
some to have been the inventor of the Opera.  Besides the
Pope's Legate another brother of the Cardinal's, Thomas
Battista Rinuccini, was Great Chamberlain to the Grand Duke of
Tuscany.  All the brothers had been carefully educated, and
were men of literary tastes; but while the Archbishop had
devoted himself mostly to politics, the Cardinal had confined
himself almost entirely to literary pursuits.  He owed his
Cardinal's hat to the Grand Duke, who was extremely partial
to him, and promoted his interests in every way.  He was a
man of profound learning, and an enthusiastic admirer of
antiquity, but was also an acute logician and theologian, and
perfectly well-read in Church history, and in the controversy
of the century, both in theology and philosophy.  Before the
end of supper Inglesant found that he was acquainted with
the writings of Hobbes, whom he had met in Italy, and of
whom he inquired with interest, as soon as he found Inglesant
had been acquainted with him.

The following morning the Cardinal expressed his sorrow
that the business which took him to Rome was of so important
a nature that it obliged him to proceed without delay.  He
approved of the advice that Inglesant had already received,
and recommended him to proceed to Florence with Don
Agostino, as he was so near; so that he might not have his
journey for nothing, and might see the city under very
favourable circumstances.  Inglesant was the more ready to agree
to this as he wished to see as much of Italy as he could,
unshackled by the company of the great, which, in the uncertain
state of health both of his body and mind, was inexpressibly
burdensome to him.  He had already seen in this last
journey a great deal of the distress and bad government which
prevailed everywhere; and he wished to make himself
acquainted, in some measure, with the causes of this distress
before going to Rome.  As he rode through the beautiful
plains he had been astonished at the few inhabitants, and at
the wretchedness of the few.  Italy had suffered greatly in her
commerce by the introduction of Indian silks into Europe.
Some of her most flourishing cities had been depopulated,
their nobles ruined; and long streets of neglected palaces,
deserted and left in magnificent decay, presented a melancholy
though romantic spectacle.  But bad government, and the
oppression and waste caused by the accumulated wealth and
idleness of the innumerable religious orders, had more to do
in ruining the prosperity of the country than any commercial
changes; and proofs of this fact met the traveller's eye on
every hand.

It seemed to Inglesant that it was very necessary that he
should satisfy himself upon some of these points before
becoming involved in any political action in the country; and he
shrank from entering Rome at present, and from attaching
himself to any great man or any party.  In a country where
the least false step is fatal, and may plunge a man in irretrievable
ruin, or consign him to the dungeons of the Holy Office,
it is certainly prudent in a stranger to be wary of his first steps.
Having communicated these resolutions to his friend, the two
young men, on their arrival at Florence, took lodgings privately
in the Piazza del Spirito Santo; and occupied their time for
some days in viewing the city, and visiting the churches and
museums, as though they had been simply travellers from
curiosity.

Inglesant believed the Italian to be in Rome, which was a
further reason for delaying his journey there.  He believed
that he was going to engage in some terrible conflict, and he
wished to prepare himself by an acquaintance with every form
of life in this strange country.  The singular scenes that strike
a stranger in Italy—the religious processions, the character
and habits of the poorer classes, their ideas of moral obligation,
their ecclesiastical and legal government—all appeared
to him of importance to his future fate.

As he was perfectly unacquainted with the person of his
enemy, there was a sort of vague expectation—not to say
dread—always present to his mind; for, though he fancied that it
would be in Rome that he should find the Italian, yet it was
not at all impossible that at any moment—it might be in
Florence, or in the open country—he might be the object of
a murderous attack.  His person was doubtless known to the
murderer of his brother, and he thus walked everywhere in the
full light, while his enemy was hidden in the dark.

These ideas were seldom absent from his mind, and the
image of the murderer was almost constantly before his eyes.
Often, as some marked figure crossed his path, he started and
watched the retreating form, wondering whether the object of
his morbid dread was before him.  Often, as the uncovered
corpse was borne along the streets, the thought struck him
that perhaps his fear and his search were alike needless, and
that before him on the bier, harmless and strewn with flowers,
lay his terrible foe.  These thoughts naturally prevented his
engaging unrestrainedly in the pursuits of his age and rank,
and he often let Don Agostino go alone into the gay society
which was open to them in Florence.

In pursuit of his intention Inglesant took every opportunity,
without incurring remark, of associating with the lower
orders, and learning their habits, traditions, and tone of
thought.  He chose streets which led through the poorer
parts of the town in passing from one part to another, and in
this way, and in the course of his visits to different churches
and religious houses, he was able to converse with the common
people without attracting attention.  In excursions into the
country, whether on parties of pleasure or for sport, he was
also able to throw himself in the same way among the peasantry.
Under the pretence of shooting quails he passed several
days in more than one country village, and had become
acquainted with several of the curés, from whom he gained much
information respecting the habits of the people, and of their
ideas of crime and of lawful revenge.

One of these curés—a man of penetration and intellect—strongly
advised him to see Venice before he went to Rome.

"Venice," he said to him, "is the sink of all wickedness,
and as such it is desirable that you should see the people there,
and mix with them; besides, as such, it is not at all unlikely
that the man you seek may be found there."

"What is the cause of this wickedness?" asked Inglesant.

"There are several causes," replied the priest.  "One is
that the Holy Office there is under the control of the State, and
is therefore almost powerless.  Wickedness and license of all
kinds are therefore unrestrained."

Inglesant mentioned this advice to Don Agostino, and his
desire to proceed to Venice; but as the other was unwilling to
leave Florence till the termination of the Carnival, which was
now approaching, he was obliged to postpone his intention for
some weeks.

On one of the opening days of the Carnival, Inglesant had
accompanied Don Agostino to a magnificent supper given by
the Grand Duke at his villa and gardens at the Poggia
Imperiale, some distance outside the Romana gate.

Inglesant had succeeded in throwing off for a time his
gloomy thoughts, and had taken his share in the gaiety of the
festival; but the effort and the excitement had produced a
reaction, and towards morning he had succeeded in detaching
himself from the company, many of whom—the banquet being
over—were strolling in the lovely gardens in the cool air
which preceded the dawn, and he returned alone to the city.
As this was his frequent custom, his absence did not surprise
Don Agostino, who scarcely noticed his friend's eccentricities.

When Inglesant reached Florence, the sun had scarcely
risen, and in the miraculously clear and solemn light the
countless pinnacles and marble fronts of the wonderful city
rose with sharp colour and outline into the sky.  It lay with
the country round it studded with the lines of cypress and
encompassed by the massy hills—silent as the grave, and
lovely as paradise; and ever and anon, as it lay in the morning
light, a breeze from the mountains passed over it, rustling
against the marble façades and through the belfries of its
towers, like the whisper of a God.  Now and again, clear and
sharp in the liquid air, the musical bells of the Campanili
rang out the time.  The cool expanse of the gardens, the
country walk, the pure air, and the silent city, seemed to him
to chide and reprove the license and gaiety of the night.
Excited by the events of the Carnival, his mind and imagination
were in that state in which, from the inward fancy,
phantoms are projected upon the real stage of life, and, playing
their fantastic parts, react upon the excited sense, producing
conduct which in turn is real in its result.

As Inglesant entered the city and turned into one of the
narrow streets leading up from the Arno, the market people
were already entering by the gates, and thronging up with
their wares to the Piazze and the markets.  Carpenters were
already at work on the scaffolds and other preparations for the
concluding festivals of the Carnival; but all these people, and
all their actions, and even the sounds that they produced, wore
that unreal and unsubstantial aspect which the very early
morning light casts upon everything.

As Inglesant ascended the narrow street, between the white
stone houses which set off the brilliant blue above, several
porters and countrywomen, carrying huge baskets and heaps
of country produce, ascended with him, or passed him as he
loitered along, and other more idle and equivocal persons,
who were just awake, looked out upon him from doorways and
corners as he passed.  He had on a gala dress of silk,
somewhat disordered by the night and by his walk, and must have
appeared a suitable object for the lawless attempts of the
ladroni of a great city; but his appearance was probably not
sufficiently helpless to encourage attack.

Half-way up the street, at the corner of a house, stood an
image of the Virgin, round which the villagers stopped for a
moment, as much to rest as to pay their devotions.  As
Inglesant stopped also, he noticed an old man of a wretched and
abject demeanour, leaning against the wall of the house as
though scarcely able to stand, and looking eagerly at some of
the provisions which were carried past him.  True to his
custom, Inglesant—when he had given him some small coin as an
alms—began to speak to him.

"You have carried many such loads as these, father, I
doubt not, in your time, though it must be a light one now."

"I am past carrying even myself," said the other, in a
weak and whining voice; "but I have not carried loads all
my life.  I have kept a shop on the Goldsmith's Bridge, and
have lived at my ease.  Now I have nothing left me but the
sun—the sun and the cool shade."

"Yours is a hard fate."

"It is a hard and miserable world, and yet I love it.  It
has done me nothing but evil, and yet I watch it and seek
out what it does, and listen to what goes on, just as if I
thought to hear of any good fortune likely to come to me.
Foolish old man that I am!  What is it to me what people
say or do, or who dies, or who is married? and why should I
come out here to see the market people pass, and climb this
street to hear of the murder that was done here last night, and
look at the body that lies in the room above?"

"What murder?" said Inglesant.  "Who was murdered,
and by whom?"

"He is a foreigner; they say an Inglese—a traveller here
merely.  Who murdered him I know not, though they do say
that too."

"Where is the body?" said Inglesant.  "Let us go
up."  And he gave the old man another small coin.

The old man looked at him for a moment with a peculiar
expression.

"Better not, Signore," he said; "better go home."

"Do not fear for me," said Inglesant; "I bear a charmed
life; no steel can touch me, nor any bullet hurt me, till my
hour comes; and my hour is not yet."

The old man led the way to an open door, carved with
tracery and foliaged work, and they ascended a flight of stairs.
It was one of those houses, so common in Italian towns, whose
plain and massive exterior, pierced with few and narrow
windows, gives no idea of the size and splendour of the rooms
within.  When they reached the top of the stairs, Inglesant
saw that the house had once, and probably not long before,
been the residence of some person of wealth.  They passed
through several rooms with carved chimney-pieces and
cornices, and here and there even some massive piece of
furniture still remained.  From the windows that opened on
the inner side Inglesant could see the tall cypresses of a
garden, and hear the splash of fountains.  But the house had
fallen from its high estate, and was now evidently used for the
vilest purposes.  After passing two or three rooms, they
reached an upper hall or dining-room of considerable length,
and painted in fresco apparently of some merit.  A row of
windows on the left opened on the garden, from which the
sound of voices and laughter came up.

The room was bare of furniture, except towards the upper
end, where was a small and shattered table, upon which the
body of the murdered man was laid.  Inglesant went up and
stood by its side.

There was no doubt whose countryman he had been.  The
fair English boy, scarcely bordering upon manhood—the heir,
probably, of bright hopes—travelling with a careless or
incompetent tutor, lay upon the small table, his long hair glistening
in the sunlight, his face peaceful and smiling as in sleep.  The
fatal rapier thrust, marked by the stain upon the clothes, was
the sole sign that his mother—waking up probably at that
moment in distant England, with his image in her heart—was
bereaved for ever of her boy.  Inglesant stood silent a few
moments, looking sadly down; that other terrible figure, upon
the white hearthstone, was so constantly in his mind, that this
one, so like it, scarcely could be said to recall the image of his
murdered brother; but the whole scene certainly strengthened
his morbid fancy, and it seemed to him that he was on the
footsteps of the murderer, and that his fate was drawing near.

"His steps are still in blood," he said aloud; "and it is
warm; he cannot be far off."

He turned, as he spoke, to look for the old man, but he
was gone, and in his place a ghastly figure met Inglesant's
glance.

Standing about three feet from the table, a little behind
Inglesant, and also looking fixedly at the murdered boy, was
the figure of a corpse.  The face was thin and fearfully white,
and the whole figure was wrapped and swathed in grave-clothes,
somewhat disordered and loosened, so as to give play
to the limbs.  This form took no notice of the other's presence,
but continued to gaze at the body with its pallid ghastly face.

Inglesant scarcely started.  Nothing could seem more
strange and unreal to him than what was passing on every
side.  That the dead should return and stand by him seemed
to him not more fearful and unreal than all the rest.

Suddenly the corpse turned its eyes upon Inglesant, and
regarded him with a fixed and piercing glance.

"You spoke of the author of this deed as though you
knew him," it said.

"I am on the track of a murderer, and my fate is urging
me on.  It seems to me that I see his bloody steps."

"This was no murder," said the corpse, in an irritated and
impatient voice.  "It was a chance melée, and an unfortunate
and unhappy thrust; we do not even know the name of
the man who lies there.  Are you the avenger of blood, that
you see murder at every step?"

"I am in truth the avenger of blood," said Inglesant
in a low and melancholy voice; "would I were not."

The corpse continued to look at Inglesant fixedly, and
would have spoken, but the voices which had been heard in
the garden now seemed to come nearer, and hurried steps
approached the room.  The laughter that Inglesant had heard
was stilled, and deep and solemn voices strove together, and
one above the rest said, "Bring up the murderer."

The corpse turned round impatiently, and the next moment
from a small door, which opened on a covered balcony and
outside staircase to the garden, there came hurriedly in a troop
of the most strange and fantastic figures that the eye could
rest upon.  Angels and demons, and savage men in lions' skins,
and men with the heads of beasts and birds, swarmed tumultuously
in, dragging with them an unfortunate being in his
night-clothes, and apparently just out of bed, whom they
urged on with blows.  This man, who was only half-awake,
was evidently in the extremity of terror, and looked upon
himself as already in the place of eternal torment.  He
addressed now one and now another of his tormentors, as well
as he could find breath, in the most abject terms, endeavouring,
in the most ludicrous manner, to choose the titles and
epithets to address them most in accordance with the
individual appearance that the spectre he entreated wore to his
dazzled eyes—whether a demon or an angel, a savage or a
man-beast.  When he saw the murdered man, and the terrible
figure that stood by Inglesant, he nearly fainted with terror;
but, on many voices demanding loudly that he should be
brought in contact with the body of his victim, he recovered
a little, and recognizing in Inglesant, at least, a being of an
earthly sphere, and by his dress a man of rank, he burst from
his tormentors, and throwing himself at his feet, he entreated
his protection, assuring him that he had been guilty of no
murder, having just been dragged from a sound sleep, and
being even ignorant that a murder had been committed.

Inglesant took little notice of him, but the corpse
interposed between the man and the fantastic crew.  It was still
apparently in a very bad humour, especially with Inglesant,
and said imperiously,—"We have enough and too much of
this foolery.  Have not some of you done enough mischief
for one night?  This gentleman says he is on the track of a
murderer, and will have it that he sees his traces in this
unfortunate affair."

At these words the masquers crowded round Inglesant
with wild and threatening gestures, apparently half earnest and
half the result of wine, and as many of them were armed with
great clubs, the consequences might have seemed doubtful to
one whose feelings were less excited than Inglesant's were.

He, however, as though the proceeding were a matter of
course, merely took off his hat, and addressed the others in
explanation.

"I am indeed in pursuit of a murderer, the murderer of
my brother—a gallant and noble gentleman who was slain
foully in cold blood.  The murderer was an Italian, his name
Malvolti.  Do any of you, signori, happen to have heard of
such a man?"

There was a pause after this singular address, but the next
moment a demon of terrific aspect forced his way to the front,
saying in a tone of drunken consequence,—

"I knew him formerly at Lucca; he was well born and
my friend."

"He was, and is, a scelerat and a coward," said Inglesant
fiercely.  "It would be well to be more careful of your
company, sir."

"Have I not said he was my friend, sir?" cried the demon,
furious with passion.  "Who will lend me a rapier?"

A silent and melancholy person, with the head of an owl,
who had several under his arm, immediately tendered him one
with a low bow, and the masquers fell back in a circle, while
the demon, drawing his weapon, threw himself into an attitude
and attacked Inglesant, who, after looking at him for a
moment, also drew his rapier and stood upon his guard.  It
soon appeared that the demon was a very moderate fencer;
in less than a minute his guard was entered by Inglesant's
irresistible tierce, and he would have been infallibly run
through the body had he not saved himself by rolling
ignominiously on the ground.

This incident appeared to restore the corpse to good
humour; it laughed, and turning to the masquers said,—

"Gentlemen, let me beg of you to disperse as quickly as
possible before the day is any farther advanced.  You know
of the rendezvous at one o'clock.  I will see the authorities
as to this unhappy affair.  Sir," he continued, turning to
Inglesant, "you are, I believe, the friend of Don Agostino di
Chigi, whom he has been introducing into Florentine society;
if it will amuse you to see a frolic of the Carnival carried out,
of which this is only the somewhat unfortunate rehearsal, and
will meet me this afternoon at two o'clock, at the Great Church
in the Via Larga, I shall be happy to do my best to entertain
you; a simple domino will suffice.  I am the Count Capece."

Inglesant gave his name in return.  He apologized for not
accepting the Count's courtesy, on the plea of ill-health, but
assured him he would take advantage of his offer to cultivate
his acquaintance.  They left the house together, the Count
covering himself with a cloak, and Inglesant accompanied him
to the office of police, from whence he went to his lodging
and to his bed.

He arose early in the afternoon, and remembering the
invitation he had received, he went out into the Via Larga.
The streets formed a strange contrast to the stillness and calm
of the cool morning.  The afternoon was hot, and the city
crowded with people of every class and rank.  The balconies
and windows of the principal streets were full of ladies and
children; trophies and embroideries hung from the houses
and crossed the street.  Strings of carriages and country carts,
dressed with flowers and branches of trees, paraded the streets.
Every variety of fantastic and grotesque costume, and every
shade of colour, filled and confused the eye.  Music, laughter,
and loud talking filled the ear.  Inglesant, from his simple
costume and grave demeanour, became the butt of several
noisy parties; but used as he was to great crowds, and to the
confused revelries of Courts, he was able to disentangle
himself with mutual good-humour.  He recognized his friends of
the morning, who were performing a kind of comedy on a
country cart, arched with boughs, in imitation of the oldest
form of the itinerant theatre.  He was recognized by them
also, for, in a pause of the performance, as he was moving
down a bye-street, he was accosted by one of the company,
enveloped in a large cloak.  He had no difficulty in recognizing
beneath this concealment his antagonist of the morning,
who still supported his character of demon.

"I offer you my apologies for the occurrences of this
morning, signore," he said, "having been informed by my friends
more closely concerning them than I can myself recollect.  I
am also deeply interested in the person of whom you spoke,
who formerly was a friend of mine; and I must also have been
acquainted with the signore, your brother, of which I am the
more certain as your appearance every moment recalls him
more and more to my mind.  I should esteem it a great
favour to be allowed to speak at large with you on these
matters.  If you will allow me to pay my respects at your
lodgings, I will conduct you to my father's house, il Conte
Pericon di Visalvo, where I can show you many things which
may be of interest to you respecting the man whom I
understand you seek."

Inglesant replied that he should gladly avail himself of his
society, and offered to come to the Count's house early the
next day.

He found the house, a sombre plain one, in a quiet street,
with a tall front pierced with few windows.  At the low door
hung a wine-flask, as a sign that wine was sold within; for the
sale of wine by retail was confined to the gentry, the common
people being only allowed to sell wholesale.  The Count was
the fortunate possessor of a very fine vineyard, which made his
wine much in request, and Inglesant found the whole
ground-floor of his house devoted to this retail traffic.  Having
inquired for the Count, he was led up the staircase into a
vestibule, and from thence into the Count's own room.  This was
a large apartment with windows looking on to the court, with
a suite of rooms opening beyond it.  It was handsomely
furnished, with several cages full of singing birds in the windows.
Outside, the walls of the houses forming the courtyard were
covered with vines and creeping jessamine and other plants,
and a fountain splashed in the centre of the court, which was
covered with a coloured awning.

The old Count received Inglesant politely.  He was a tall,
spare old man, with a reserved and dignified manner, more
like that of a Spaniard than of an Italian.  Rather to
Inglesant's surprise he introduced him to his daughter, on whom,
as she sat near one of the windows, Inglesant's eyes had been
fixed from the moment he had entered the room.  The Italians
were so careful of the ladies of their families, and it was so
unusual to allow strangers to see them, that his surprise was
not unnatural, especially as the young lady before him was
remarkably beautiful.  She was apparently very young, tall
and dark-eyed, with a haughty and indifferent manner, which
concentrated itself entirely upon her father.

The Count noticed Inglesant's surprise at the cordiality of
his reception, and seemed to speak as if in explanation.

"You are no stranger to us, signore," he said; "my son
has not only commended you to me, but your intimacy with
Count Agostino has endeared you already to us who admire
and love him."

As Agostino had told him the evening before that he knew
little of these people, though he believed the old Count to be
respectable, this rather increased Inglesant's surprise; but he
merely said that he was fortunate in possessing a friend whose
favour procured him such advantages.

"My son's affairs," continued the old man, "unavoidably
took him abroad this morning, but I wait his return every
moment."

Inglesant suspected that the Cavaliere, who appeared to
him to be a complete debauchée, had not been at home at all
that night; but if that were the case, when he entered the
room a few moments afterwards, his manner was completely
self-possessed and quiet, and showed no signs of a night of
revelry.

As soon as they were seated the Cavaliere began to explain
to Inglesant that both his father and himself were anxious to
see him, to confer respecting the unfortunate circumstances
which, as they imagined, had brought him to Italy upon a
mission which they assured him was madly imprudent.

"Our nation, signore," said the Cavaliere, "is notorious
for two passions—jealousy and revenge.  Both of these,
combined with self-interest, induced Malvolti to commit the foul
deed which he perpetrated upon your brother.  While in Italy
your brother crossed him in some of his amours, and also
resented some indiscretions, which the manners of our nation
regard with tolerance, but which your discreeter countrymen
resent with unappeasable disgust.  Our people never forgive
injuries; nay, they entail them on their posterity.  We ourselves
left our native city, Lucca, on account of one of these feuds,
which made it unsafe for us to remain; and I could show you
a gentleman's house in Lucca whose master has never set foot
out of doors for nine years, nay, scarcely looked out of window,
for fear of being shot by an antagonist who has several times
planted ambushes to take away his life.  It is considered a
disgrace to a family that one of its members has forgiven an
injury; and a mother will keep the bloody clothes of her
murdered husband, to incite her young sons to acts of vengeance.
You will see, signore, the evil which such ideas as these winds
about our lives; and how unwise it must be in a stranger to
involve himself needlessly in such an intrigue, in a foreign
country, unknown and comparatively without friends.  Italy
swarms with bravos hired to do the work of vengeance;
merchants are assaulted in their warehouses in open day; in the
public streets the highest personages in the land are not safe.
What will be the fate then of a stranger whose death is
necessary to the safety of an Italian?"

"I understand you, signore," said Inglesant, "and I thank
you for your good-will, but you are somewhat mistaken.  I
am not seeking the man of whom we speak, though, I confess,
I came to Italy partly with the expectation of meeting him,
when it is the will of God, or the will of the Devil whom He
permits to influence the affairs of men, that this man and I
should meet.  I shall not attempt to avoid the interview; it
would be useless if I did.  The result of that meeting who
can tell!  But as I said yesterday to the Count Capece, till
my hour comes I bear a charmed life that cannot be taken,
and any result I regard with supreme indifference, if so be I
may, by any means, escape in the end the snares of the Devil,
who seeks to take me captive at his will."

The two gentlemen regarded Inglesant with profound
astonishment as he uttered these words; and the young lady
in the window raised her eyes towards him as he was speaking
(he spoke very pure Italian) with some appearance of interest.

After a pause Inglesant went on, "I also venture to think,
signore," he said, "that you are unaware of the position of
this man, and of the condition to which his crimes have
brought him.  I am well informed from sure sources that he
is without friends, and that his crimes have raised him more
enemies in this country even than elsewhere; so that he is
afraid to appear openly, lest he fall a victim to his own
countrymen.  He is also in abject poverty, and is therefore to
a great extent powerless to do evil."

The Cavaliere smiled.  "You do not altogether know this
country, signore," he said; "there are always so many different
factions and interests at work that a daring useful man is never
without patrons, who will support and further his private
interests in return for the service he may render them; and (though
you may not be fully aware of it) it is because it is notorious
that you are yourself supported and protected by a most
powerful and widely spread faction, that your position in this
country is as assured and safe as it is."

His words certainly struck Inglesant.  The idea that he
was already a known and marked man in this wonderful
country, and playing an acknowledged part in its fantastic
drama, was new to him, and he remained silent.

"From all ordinary antagonists," continued the Cavaliere,
"this knowledge is sufficient to secure you; no man would
wish, unless ruined and desperate, to draw on his head the
swift and certain punishment which a hand raised against your
life would be sure to invoke.  But a reckless despairing man
stops at nothing; and should you, by your presence even,
endanger this man's standing in the favour of some new-found
patron, or impede the success of some freshly planned
scheme—perhaps the last hope of his ruined life—I would not buy
your safety at an hour's rate."

While the Cavaliere was speaking it was evident that his
sister was listening with great attention.  The interest that she
manifested, and the singular attraction that Inglesant felt
towards her, so occupied his thoughts that he could scarcely
attend to what the other was saying, though he continued
speaking for some time.  It is possible that the Cavaliere
noticed this, for Inglesant was suddenly conscious that he was
regarding him fixedly and with a peculiar expression.  He
apologized for his inattention on the ground of ill-health, and
soon after took his leave, having invited the Cavaliere to visit
him at his lodgings.

As Inglesant walked back through the streets of the city,
he was perplexed at his own sensations, which appeared so
different from any he had previously known.  The attraction
he experienced towards the lady he had just seen was quite
different from the affection he had felt for Mary Collet.  That
was a sentiment which commended itself to his reason and
his highest feelings.  In her company he felt himself soothed,
elevated above himself, safe from danger and from temptation.
In this latter attraction he was conscious of a half-formed fear,
of a sense of glamour and peril, and of an alluring force
independent of his own free-will.  The opinion he had formed of
her brother's character may have had something to do with
these feelings, and the sense of perpetual danger and insecurity
with which he walked this land of mystery and intrigue no
doubt increased it.  He half resolved not to visit the old
nobleman again; but even while forming the resolution he knew that
he should break it.

The circumstances in which he was placed, indeed, almost
precluded such a course.  The very remarkable beauty of the
young lady, and the extraordinary unreserve with which he had
been introduced to her—unreserve so unusual in Italy—while
it might increase the misgiving he felt, made it very difficult for
him to decline the acquaintance.  The girl's beauty was of a
kind unusual in Italy, though not unknown there, her hair being
of a light brown, contrasting with her magnificent eyes, which
were of the true Italian splendour and brilliancy.  She had
doubtless been kept in the strictest seclusion, and Inglesant
could only wonder what could have induced the old Count to
depart from his usual caution.

The next day, being Ash Wednesday, Inglesant was present
at the Duomo at the ceremony of the day, when the vast
congregation received the emblematic ashes upon their foreheads.
The Cavaliere was also present with his sister, whose name
Inglesant discovered to be Lauretta.  Don Agostino, to whom
Inglesant had related the adventure, and the acquaintance to
which it had led, was inclined to suspect these people of some
evil purpose, and made what inquiries he could concerning
them; but he could discover nothing to their discredit, further
than that the Cavaliere was a well-known debauchée, and that
he had been involved in some intrigue, in connection with
some of the present Papal family, which had not proved
successful.  He was in consequence then in disgrace with Donna
Olympia and her faction,—a disappointment which it was
said had rendered his fortunes very desperate, as he was very
deeply involved in debts of all kinds.  Don Agostino, the
Carnival being over, was desirous of returning to Sienna,
unless Inglesant made up his mind to go at once to Venice, in
which case he offered to accompany him.  His friend, however,
did not appear at all desirous of quitting Florence, at any
rate hastily, and Don Agostino left him and returned home,
the two friends agreeing to meet again before proceeding to
Venice.

His companion gone, Inglesant employed himself in frequenting
all those churches to which Lauretta was in the habit
of resorting during the Holy Season; and as every facility
appeared to be given him by her friends, he became very intimate
with her, and she on her part testified no disinclination to his
society.  It will probably occur to the reader that this
conduct was not consistent with the cautious demeanour which
Inglesant had resolved upon; but such resolutions have before
now proved ineffectual under similar circumstances, and
doubtless the like will occur again.  Lauretta looked round as a
matter of course, as she came out of the particular church she
had that day chosen, for the handsome cavalier who was certain
to be ready to offer the drop of holy water; and more than one
rival whom the beautiful devotee had attracted to the service,
noticed with envy the kindly look of the masked eyes which
acknowledged the courtesy; and, indeed, it is not often that
ladies' eyes have rested upon a lover more attractive to a girl
of a refined nature than did Lauretta's, when, in the dawn of
the March mornings, she saw John Inglesant waiting for her
on the marble steps.  It is true that she thought the Cavaliere
Inglese somewhat melancholy and sad, but her own disposition
was reserved and pensive; and in her presence Inglesant's
melancholy was so far charmed away that it became only an
added grace of sweetness of manner, and of tender deference
and protection.  The servant of the polished King of England,
the companion of Falkland and of Caernarvon, the French
Princess's favourite page, trained in every art that makes life
attractive, that makes life itself the finest art, with a memory
and intellect stored with the poetry and learning of the antique
world,—it would have been strange if, where once his fancy
was touched, Inglesant had not made a finished and attractive
lover.

The familiar streets of Florence, the bridges, or the walks
by the Arno, assumed a new charm to the young girl, when
she saw them in company with her pleasant and courteous
friend; and whether in the early morning it was a few spring
flowers that he brought her, or a brilliant jewel that he placed
upon her finger as he parted in the soft Italian night, it was
the giver, and the grace with which the gift was made, that
won the romantic fancy of the daughter of the south.  Their
talk was not of the kind that lovers often use.  He would
indeed begin with relating stories of the English Court, in the
bright fleeting days before the war, of the courtly refined
revels, of the stately dances and plays, and of the boating
parties on the wooded Thames; but most often the narrative
changed its tone instinctively, and went on to speak of sadder
and higher things; of self-denial and devotion of ladies and
children, who suffered for their King without complaint; of
the Ferrars and their holy life; of the martyred Archbishop and
of the King's death; and sometimes perhaps of some sight of
battle and suffering the narrator himself had seen, as when
the evening sun was shining upon the glassy slope of
Newbury, and he knelt beside the dying Caernarvon, unmindful
of the bullets that fell around.

"You have deserved well of the King," he whispered:
"have you no request that I may make to him, nothing for
your children, or your wife?"

And with his eyes fixed upon the western horizon the Earl
replied,—

"No, I will go hence with no request upon my lips but to
the King of kings."

How all this pleasant dalliance would have terminated,
had it continued, we have no means of knowing, for a sudden
and unexpected end was put to it, at any rate for a time.

Easter was over, and the Cavaliere had invited Inglesant
to join in a small party to spend a day or two at his vineyard
and country house among the Apennines, assuring him that
at that time of the year the valleys and hill-slopes were very
delightful.

The evening before the day on which the little company
was to start, Inglesant had an engagement at one of the
theatres in Florence, where a comedy or pantomime was being
performed.  The comedies in Italy at this time were paltry
in character in everything except the music, which was very
good.  Inglesant accompanied a Signore Gabriotto, a violin
player, who was engaged at the theatre, and of whom Inglesant
had taken lessons, and with whom he had become intimate.
This man was not only an admirable performer on the violin,
but was a man of cultivation and taste.  He had given much
study to the music of the ancients, and especially to their
musical instruments, as they are to be seen in the hands of
the Apollos, muses, fauns, satyrs, bacchanals, and shepherds
of the classic sculptors.  As they walked through the streets
in the evening sunlight, he favoured his companion, whom he
greatly admired as an excellent listener, with a long discourse
on this subject, showing how useful such an inquiry was, not
only to obtain a right notion of the ancient music, but also to
help us to obtain pleasanter instruments if possible than those
at present in use.

"Not, signore," he said, "that I think we have much to
learn from the ancients; for if we are to judge their instruments
by the appearance they make in marble, there is not one that
is comparable to our violins; for they seem, as far as I can
make out, all to have been played on either by the bare fingers
or the plectrum, so that they could not add length to their
notes, nor could they vary them by that insensible swelling
and dying away of sound upon the same string which gives so
wonderful a sweetness to our modern music.  And as far as I
can see, their stringed instruments must have had very low
and feeble voices from the small proportion of wood used
(though it is difficult to judge of this, seeing that all our
examples are represented in marble), which would prevent the
instruments containing sufficient air to render the strokes full
or sonorous.  Now my violin," continued the Italian with
enthusiasm, "does not speak only with the strings, it speaks
all over, as though it were a living creature that was all voice,
or, as is really the case, as though it were full of sound."

"You have a wonderful advantage," said Inglesant, "you
Italians, that is, in the cultivation of the art of life; for you
have the unbroken tradition, and habit and tone of mind,
from the old world of pleasure and art—a world that took the
pleasures of life boldly, and had no conscience to prevent its
cultivating and enjoying them to the full.  But I must say
that you have not, to my mind, improved during the lapse of
centuries, nor is the comedy we shall see to-night what might
be expected of a people who are the descendants of the old
Italians who applauded Terence."

"The comedy to-night," said the Italian, "would be nothing
without the music, the acting is a mere pretence."

"The comedy itself," said Inglesant, "would be intolerable
but for the buffoons, and the people show their sense in
demanding that place shall be found in every piece for these
worthies.  The play itself is stilted and unreal, but there is
always something of irony and wit in these characters, which
men have found full of satire and humour for four thousand
years: Harlequin the reckless fantastic youth, Pantaleone the
poor old worn-out 'Senex,' and Corviello the rogue.  In their
absurd impertinences, in their impossible combinations, in
their mistakes and tumbles, in their falling over queens and
running up against monarchs, men have always seemed to see
some careless, light-hearted, half-indifferent sarcasm and satire
upon their own existence."

When they reached the theatre, the slant rays of the setting
sun were shining between the lofty houses, and many people
were standing about the doors.  Inglesant accompanied the
violinist to the door of the playhouse, and took his place near
the orchestra, at either end of which were steps leading up on
to the stage.  The evening sunlight penetrated into the house
through Venetian blinds, lighting up the fittings and the
audience with a sort of mystic haze.  The sides of the stage were
crowded with gentlemen, some standing, others sitting on small
stools.  Many of the audience were standing, the rest seated on
benches.  The part occupied in modern theatres by the boxes
was furnished with raised seats, on which ladies and people of
distinction were accommodated.  There was no gallery.

As the first bars of the overture struck upon Inglesant's
ear, with a long-drawn tremor of the bass viols and a shrill
plaintive note of the treble violins, an irresistible sense of
loneliness and desolation and a strange awe crept over him
and weighed down his spirits.  As the fantastic music
continued, in which gaiety and sadness were mysteriously mingled,
the reverberation seemed to excite each moment a clearer
perception of those paths of intrigue and of danger in which he
seemed to walk.  The uneasy sentiment which accompanied,
he knew not why, his attachment to Lauretta, and the insidious
friendship of the Cavaliere, the sense of insecurity which
followed his footsteps in this land of dark and sinful deeds, passed
before his mind.  It seemed to his excited fancy at that
moment that the end was drawing very near, and amid the
fascination of the lovely music he seemed to await the note
of the huntsman's horn which would announce that the toils
were set, and that the chase was up.  From the kind of trance
in which he stood he was aroused by hearing a voice, distinct
to his ear and perfectly audible, though apparently at some
considerable distance, say—

"Who is that man by the curtain, in black satin, with the
Point de Venice lace?"

And another voice, equally clear, answered, "His name is
Inglesant, an agent of the Society of the Gesu."

Inglesant turned; but, amid the crowd of faces behind
him, he could discern nothing that indicated the speakers, nor
did any one else seem to have noticed anything unusual.  The
next moment the music ceased, and with a scream of laughter
Harlequin bounded on the stage, followed by Pantaleone in an
eager and tottering step, and after them a wild rout of figures,
of all orders and classes, who flitted across the stage amid the
applause of the people, and suddenly disappeared; while
Harlequin and Pantaleone as suddenly reappearing, began a lively
dialogue, accompanied by a quick movement of the violins.
As Inglesant took his eyes off the stage for a moment, they
fell on the figure of a man standing on the flight of steps at
the farther end of the orchestra, who regarded him with a fixed
and scrutinizing gaze.  It was a tall and dark man, whose
expression would have been concealed from Inglesant but for
the fiery brilliancy of his eyes.  Inglesant's glance met his as
in a dream, and remained fixed as though fascinated, at which
the gaze of the other became, if possible, more intense, as
though he too were spell-bound and unable to turn away.  At
this moment the dialogue on the stage ceased, and a girl
advanced to the footlights with a song, accompanied by the
band in an air adapted from the overture, and containing a
repetition of the opening bars.  The association of sound broke
the spell, and Inglesant turned his eyes upon the singer; when
he looked again his strange examiner was gone.

The girl who was singing was a Roman, reputed the best
treble singer then in Italy.  The sun by this time was set, and
the short twilight over.  The theatre was sparsely lighted by
candles, nearly the whole of the available light being
concentrated upon the stage.  This arrangement produced striking
effects of light and shade, more pleasing than are the brilliantly
lighted theatres of modern days.  The figures on the stage came
forward into full and clear view, and faded again into obscurity
in a mysterious way very favourable to romantic illusion, and
the theatrical arrangements were not seen too clearly.  The
house itself was shadowy, and the audience unreal and
unsubstantial; the whole scene wore an aspect of glamour and
romance wanting at the present day.

When the girl's song was over there was a movement among
the gentlemen on the stage, several coming down into the
house.  Inglesant took advantage of this, and went up on the
stage, from which he might hope to see something of the
stranger who had been watching him so closely, if he were
still in the theatre.

Several of the actors who were waiting for their turn mingled
with the gentlemen, talking to their acquaintance.  The strange
light thrown on the centre of the stage in which two or three
figures were standing, the multitude of dark forms in the
surrounding shadow, the dim recesses of the theatre itself full
of figures, the exquisite music, now soft and plaintive, anon gay
and dance-like, then solemn and melancholy, formed a singular
and attractive whole.  Lauretta had declined to come that
night, but Inglesant thought it was not improbable that the
Cavaliere would be there, and he was curious to see whether
he could detect him in company with the mysterious stranger.
From the moment that he had heard the distant voice inquiring
his name, the familiar idea had again occurred to his mind that
this could be none other than the murderer of his brother, of
whom he was in search; but this thought had occurred so
often, and in connection with so many persons, that had it not
been for the fixed and peculiar glance with which the stranger
had regarded him, he would have thought little of it.  He was,
however, unable to distinguish either of the persons of whom
he was in search from the crowd that filled the theatre; and his
attention was so much diverted by the constantly changing
scene before him that he soon ceased to attempt to do so.
At that moment the opening movement of the overture was
again repeated by the band, and was made the theme of an
elaborate variation, in which the melancholy idea of the music
was rendered in every variety of shade by the plaintive violins.
Every phase of sorrow, every form and semblance of grief that
Inglesant had ever known, seemed to float through his mind,
in sympathy with the sounds which, inarticulate to the ear,
possessed a power stronger than that of language to the mental
sense.  The anticipation of coming evil naturally connected
itself with the person of Lauretta, and he seemed to see her
lying dead before him upon the lighted stage, or standing in
an attitude of grief, looking at him with wistful eyes.  This last
image was so strongly presented to his imagination that it
partook almost of the character of an apparition; and before it the
crowded theatre, the gaily dressed forms upon the stage, the
fantastic actors, seemed to fade, and alone on the deserted
boards the figure of Lauretta, as he had last seen it, slight and
girl-like, yet of noble bearing, stood gazing at him with wild
and apprehensive eyes.  Curiously too, as his fancy dwelt
upon this figure, it saw in her hand a sealed letter fastened
with a peculiarly twisted cord.

The burden of sorrow and of anticipated evil became at
last too heavy to be borne, and Inglesant left the theatre and
returned to his lodgings.  But here he could not rest.  Though
he had no reason to visit the Count that night, and though
it was scarcely seemly, indeed, that he should do so, yet,
impelled by a restless discomfort which he sought to quiet, he
wandered again into the streets, and found himself not
unnaturally before the old nobleman's dwelling.  Once here, the
impulse was too strong to be denied, and he knocked at the
low sunken door.  The house seemed strangely quiet and
deserted, and it was some time before an old servant who
belonged to the lower part of the establishment, devoted to
the sale of the wine, appeared at the wicket, and, on being
assured whom it was who knocked at that unseasonable hour,
opened the door.

The house was empty, he averred.  The family had suddenly
departed, whither he knew not.  If the signore was pleased to
go upstairs, he believed he would find some letters for him left
by the Cavaliere.

Inglesant followed the old man, who carried a common
brass lamp, which cast an uncertain and flickering glare, the
sense of evil growing stronger at every step he took.  His
guide led him into the room in which he had first seen
Lauretta, which appeared bare and deserted, but showed no
sign of hasty departure.  Upon a marble table inlaid with
coloured stones were two letters, both directed to Inglesant.
The one was from the Cavaliere, excusing their departure on
the ground of sudden business of the highest political
importance, the other from Lauretta, written in a hasty trembling
hand.  It contained but a few lines—"that she was obliged
to follow her father;" but Inglesant hesitated a moment before
he broke the seal, for it was tied round with a curiously twisted
cord of blue and yellow silk, as he had seen in the vision his
fancy had created.





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.. _`CHAPTER II.`:

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   CHAPTER II.

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Lauretta's letter had informed Inglesant that she
would endeavour to let him know where she was; and
with that hope he was obliged to be content, as by no effort
he could make could he discover any trace of the fugitive's
route.  Florence, however, became distasteful to him, and he
would have left it sooner but for an attack of fever which
prostrated him for some time.  Few foreigners were long in
Italy, in those days, without suffering from the climate and the
miasmas and unhealthy vapours, which, especially at night,
were so hurtful even to those accustomed to the country.  In
his illness Inglesant was carefully nursed by some of the Jesuit
fathers, and those whom they recommended; and it is possible
that they took care that he should not be left too much to the
care of the physicians, whose attentions, at that period at any
rate, were so often fatal to their patients.  In the course of a
few weeks he was sufficiently recovered to think of leaving
Florence, and he despatched a messenger to Don Agostino,
begging him to meet him at Lucca, where they might decide
either to visit Venice or go on straight to Rome.  It was not
without some lingering hope that he might find Lauretta in
the town of her birth, that he set out for Lucca, but misfortune
followed his path.  It was reported that the plague had broken
out in Florence, and travellers who were known to have come
from thence were regarded with great suspicion.  Inglesant's
appearance, recently recovered from sickness, was not in his
favour; and at Fucecchio, a small town on the road to Lucca,
he was arrested by the authorities, and confined by them in the
pest-house for forty days.  It was a building which had
formerly been a gentleman's house, and possessed a small garden
surrounded by a high wall.  In this dreary abode Inglesant
passed many solitary days, the other inmates being three or
four unfortunates like himself,—travellers on business through
the country,—who, their affairs being injured by their detention,
were melancholy and despondent.  He was short of money,
and for some time was unable to communicate with any of his
friends either in Florence or Sienna.  With nothing but his
own misfortunes to brood upon, and with the apprehension of
the future, which almost amounted to religious melancholy,
frequently before his mind, it is surprising that he kept his
reason.  To add to his misfortunes, when the greater portion
of the time fixed for his detention was expired, one of the
inmates of the pest-house suddenly died; and although the
physicians pronounced his disease not to be the plague, yet
the authorities decreed that all should remain another forty
days within its dreary walls.  The death of this person greatly
affected Inglesant, as he was the only one of the inmates with
whom he had contracted any intimacy.

During the first part of his sojourn here, there was brought
to the house, as an inmate, a wandering minstrel, who, the
first evening of his stay, attracted the whole of the gloomy
society around him by his playing.  He played upon a small
and curiously shaped instrument called a vielle, somewhat like
a child's toy, with four strings, and a kind of small wheel instead
of a bow.  It was commonly used by blind men and beggars
in the streets, and was considered a contemptible instrument,
though some of these itinerant performers attained to such
skill upon it that they could make their hearers laugh and
dance, and it was said even weep, as they stood around them
in the crowded streets.  Inglesant soon perceived that the
man was no contemptible musician, and after his performance
was over he entered into conversation with him, asking him
why he, who could play so well, was content with so poor an
instrument.  The man, who appeared to have a great deal of
intelligence and humour, said that he was addicted to a
wandering and unsettled life, among the poorer and disorderly
classes in the low quarters of cities, in mountain villages, and
in remote hostelries and forest inns; that the possession of a
valuable viol, or other instrument, even if he should practice
sufficient self-denial to enable him to save money to purchase
such a one, would be a constant anxiety to him, and a source
of danger among the wild companions with whom he often
associated.  "Besides, signore," he said, "I am attached to this
poor little friend of mine, who will speak to me though to none
else.  I have learnt the secrets of its heart, and by what means
it may be made to discourse eloquently of human life.  You
may despise my instrument, but I can assure you it is far
superior to the guitar, though that is so high bred and
genteel a gentleman, found in all romances and ladies' bowers.
For any music that depends upon the touch of a string, and
is limited in the duration of the distinct sounds, is far inferior
to this little fellow's voice."

"You seemed trained to the profession of music," said
Inglesant.

"I was serving-lad to an old musician in Rome, who not
only played on several instruments, but gave a great deal of
time to the study of the science of harmony, and of the
mysteries of music.  He was fond of me, and taught me the viol,
as I was apt to learn."

"I have heard of musicians," said Inglesant, "who have
written on the philosophy of sound.  He was doubtless one
of them."

"There are things concerning musical instruments," said
the man, "very wonderful; such as the laws concerning the
octaves of flutes, which, make them how you will, you can
never alter, and which show how the principles of harmony
prevail in the dead things of the world, which we think so
blockish and stupid; and what is more wonderful still, the
passions of men's souls, which are so wild and untamable, are
all ruled and kept in a strict measure and mean, for they are
all concerned in and wrought upon by music.  And what can be
more wonderful than that a maestro in the art can take delight
in sound, though he does not hear it; and when he looks at
some black marks upon paper, he hears intellectually, and
by the power of the soul alone?"

"You speak so well of these things," said Inglesant, "that
I wonder you are content to wander about the world at village
fairs and country weddings, and do not rather establish
yourself in some great town, where you might follow your genius
and earn a competence and fame."

"I have already told you," replied the man, "that I am
wedded to this kind of life; and if you could accompany me
for some months, with your viol d'amore, across the mountains,
and through the deep valleys, and into the old towns where
no travellers ever come, and where all stands still from century
to century, you would never leave it, any more than I shall.
I could tell you of many strange sights I have witnessed, and
if we stay long in this place, perhaps you will be glad to hear
some tales to while away the time."

"You spoke but now," said Inglesant, "of the power that
music has over the passions of men.  I should like to hear
somewhat more of this."

"I will tell you a curious tale of that also," said the man.

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   THE VIELLE-PLAYER'S STORY.

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"Some twenty-five years ago there lived in Rome two
friends, who were both musicians, and greatly attached to each
other.  The elder, whose name was Giacomo Andria, was
maestro di capella of one of the churches, the other was an
accomplished lutinist and singer.  The elder was a cavaliere
and a man of rank; the younger of respectable parentage, of
the name of Vanneo.  The style of music in which each was
engaged was sufficiently different to allow of much friendly
contention; and many lively debates took place as to the
respective merits of 'Sonate da Chiesa' and 'Sonate da
Camera.'  Their respective instruments also afforded ground
for friendly dispute.  Vanneo was very desirous that his friend
should introduce viols and other instruments into the service,
in concert with the voices, in the Church in which Vanneo
himself sang in the choir; but the Cavaliere, who considered
this a practice derived from the theatre, refused to avail
himself of any instrument save the organ.  Vanneo was more
successful in inducing his friend to practice upon his favourite
instrument the lute, though Andria pretended at first to despise
it as a ladies' toy, and liable to injure the shape of the
performer.  His friend, however, though devoted to secular
music, brought to the performance and composition of it so
much taste and correct feeling, that Andria was ravished in
spite of himself, and of his preference to the solemn music of
the Church.  Vanneo excelled in contrasting melancholy and
pensive music with bright and lively cords, mingling weeping
and laughter in some of the sweetest melodies that imagination
ever suggested.  He accompanied his own voice on the lute,
or he composed pieces for a single voice with accompaniment
for violins.  In a word, he won his friend over to this grave
chamber music, in some respects more pathetic and serious
than the more monotonous masses and sonatas of the Church
composers.  Vanneo composed expressly for this purpose
fantasies on the chamber organ, interposed, now and then,
with stately and sweet dance music, such as Pavins (so named
from the walk of a peacock) Allemaines, and other delightful
airs, upon the violins and lute.  In these fancies he blended,
as it were, pathetic stories, gay festivities, and sublime and
subtle ideas, all appealing to the secret and intellectual
faculties, so that the music became not only an exponent of life
but a divine influence.  After these delightful meetings had
continued for several years, circumstances obliged Vanneo to
accompany a patron to France, and from thence he went over
into England, to the great King of that nation, as one of his
private musicians; for the Queen of England was a French
Princess, and was fond of the lute.  His departure was a
great grief to the Cavaliere, who devoted himself more than
ever to Church music and to the offices of religion.  He was
a man of very devout temper, and was distinguished for his
benevolent disposition, and especially for his compassion for
the poor, whom he daily relieved in crowds at his own door,
and in the prisons of Rome, which he daily visited.  From
time to time he heard from his friend, to whom he continued
strongly attached."

"I was brought up at the English Court," said Inglesant,
"and have been trying to recall such a man, but cannot recollect
the name you mention, though I remember several lutinists
and Italians."

"I tell the story as I heard it," replied the other.  "The
man may have changed his name in a foreign country.  One
day the Cavaliere had received a letter from his friend, brought
to him by some English gentleman travelling to Rome.  Having
read it, and spent some time with the recollections that its
perusal suggested to his mind, he set himself to the work in
which he was engaged—the composition of a motet for some
approaching festival of the Church; but although he attempted
to fix his mind upon his occupation, and was very anxious to
finish his work, he found himself unable to do so.  The
remembrance of his friend took complete possession of his mind;
and his imagination, instead of dwelling on the solemn music
of the motet, wandered perversely into the alluring world of
phantasied melody which Vanneo had composed.  Those sad
and pensive adagios, passing imperceptibly into the light gaiety
of a festival, never seemed so delightful as at that moment.
He rose from time to time, and walked to and fro in his
chamber, and as he did so he involuntarily took up a lute
which Vanneo had left with him as a parting gift, and which
always lay within reach.  As he carelessly touched the strings,
something of his friend's spirit seemed to have inspired him,
and the lute breathed again with something of the old familiar
charm.  Each time that he took it up, the notes formed
themselves again under his hand into the same melody, and at last
he took up a sheet of paper, intended for the motet, and scored
down the air he had involuntarily composed.  His fancy being
pleased with the occurrence, he elaborated it into a lesson,
and showed it to several of his associates.  He gave it the
name of 'gli amici,' and it became very popular among the
masters in Rome as a lesson for their pupils on the lute.
Among those who thus learnt it was a youth who afterwards
became page to a Florentine gentleman, one Bernard Guasconi,
who went into England and took service under the King of
that country, who, as you doubtless know better than I do,
was at war with his people."

"I know the Cavaliere Guasconi," said Inglesant, "and
saw him lately in Florence, where he is training running horses
for the Grand Duke."

"This war," continued the man, "appears to have been the
ruin of Vanneo; for the English people, besides hating their
King, took to hating all kinds of music, and all churches and
choristers.  Vanneo lost his place as one of the King's
musicians, and not being able to earn his living by teaching music
where so few cared to learn, he was forced to enlist as a soldier
in one of the King's armies, and was several times near losing
his life.  He escaped these dangers, however; but the army in
which he served being defeated and dispersed, he wandered
about the country, wounded, and suffering from sickness and
want of food.  He supported himself miserably, partly by
charity, especially among the Loyalist families, and partly by
giving singing lessons to such as desired them.  He was
without friends, or any means of procuring money to enable him
to return to Italy.  As he was walking in this manner one
day in the streets of London, without any hope, and with
scarcely any life, he heard the sound of music.  It was long
since the melody of a lute, once so familiar, had fallen on
his ear; and as he stopped to listen, the notes came to him
through the thick moist air like an angelic and divine murmur
from another world.  The music seemed to come from a small
room on the ground-floor of a poor inn, and Vanneo opened
the door and went in.  He found a young man, plainly dressed,
playing on a double-necked theorbo-lute, which, from the
number of its strings, enables, as you know, the skilful lutinist
to play part music, with all the varieties of fugues and other
graces and ornaments of the Italian manner.  The piece which
the young man was playing consisted of an allegro and yet
sweet movement on the tenor strings, with a sustained harmony
in thorough bass.  The melody, being carefully distributed
through the parts, spoke to Vanneo of gaiety and cheerfulness,
as of his old Italian life, strangely combined at the same time
with a soothing and pathetic melancholy, like a corpse carried
through the streets of a gay city, strewn with flowers and
accompanied with tapers and singing of boys.  The whole piece
finished with a pastorale, or strain of low and sweet notes.  As
Vanneo listened he was transported out of himself.  It was not
alone the beauty of the music which ravished him, but he was
conscious that a mysterious presence, as of his friend the
Cavaliere, was with him, and that at last the perfect sympathy
which he had sought so long was established; and that in the
music he had heard a common existence and sphere of life was
at last created, in which they both lived, not any longer separate
from each other, but enjoying as it were one common being of
melody and ecstatic life of sound.  When the music ceased
Vanneo accosted the lutinist, and inquired the name of the
composer; but this the young man could not tell him.  He
only knew it was a favourite lesson for skilful pupils among the
music-masters in Rome, and as such he had learnt it.  Vanneo
was confident the piece had been written by Andria, and by
none other, and told the young man so.  By this time they had
discovered that they were fellow-countrymen, and the lutinist
sent for refreshments, of which Vanneo stood very much in need.
He also told him that his name was Scacchi, and that he was
page to the Signore Bernard Guasconi, who was then in arms
for the King, and was besieged in some town of which I have
forgotten the English name."

"It was Colchester," said Inglesant; "I was in prison at
the time of the siege; but I know the history of it and its sad
ending."

"Becoming very familiar with Vanneo, he advised him to
accompany him to Colchester.  His master, he said, would
doubtless be set at liberty immediately as a foreigner and a
friend of the Grand Duke's, and he could accompany him
home to Italy as a domestic.  As no better prospect was open
to Vanneo of returning to his native country, he gladly accepted
the page's offer, and agreed to accompany him next day.  The
besiegers of the town which you call Colchester were engaging
persons from all parts of the country to work their trenches,
and the town not being far from London, many persons went
from that place to earn the wages offered.  Many of the
Loyalists also took advantage of this pretext, intending to join
the besieged if a favourable opportunity offered.  To one of
these parties Vanneo and the page joined themselves.  You
may wonder that I know so much of these matters, but I have
heard the story several times repeated by the page himself.
The weather was very cold and wet, and the companions
underwent much hardship on their march.  They travelled through
a flat and marshy country, full of woods and groves of trees,
and crossed with dykes and streams.  Vanneo, however, who
had endured so much privation and suffering, began to sink
under his fatigues.  After travelling for more than two days
they arrived at the leaguer.  They were told that the besieged
were expected every day to surrender at discretion; but they
were sent into the trenches with several other volunteers to
relieve those already there, many of whom were exhausted with
the work, and were deserting.  As they arrived at the extreme
limit of the lines the besiegers had planted four great pieces
of battering cannon against the town, and fired great shot all
the forenoon, without, however, doing much damage.  The
Royalists mustered all their troops upon the line, intending,
as it afterwards appeared, to break out at night and force their
way through the leaguer.  The lines were so close that the
soldiers could throw stones at each other as they lay in the
trenches; and Vanneo and the page could see the King's
officers plainly upon the city walls.  The Royalists did not
fire, being short of ammunition, and in the night a mutiny took
place among some of the foot-soldiers, which prevented the
project of cutting their way out from taking effect.  The
soldiers of both armies were now already mixed on many places
upon the line, and no fire was given on either side, as though
the Royalists were already prisoners.  The page left Vanneo,
who was worn-out and ill, and easily made his way into the
town, where he found his master.  When he returned to the
trenches he found Vanneo very ill, and a physician with him,
a doctor of the town, named Gibson, as I remember, who told
the page that he thought his companion was dying.  Vanneo,
in fact, appeared to be insensible, his eyes were closed, and
he was perfectly pale.  He lay in a small house, just within
the lines, which had been deserted by its inhabitants, who were
weavers.  The gentlemen were under arrest in the town, and
it was reported that several were to be immediately shot,
of whom it was whispered the Signore Guasconi was to be
one.  About two in the afternoon the general of the besieging
army entered the town, and a great rabble of the soldiers with
him.  The latter broke into many houses to search for plunder,
and among them into that in which Vanneo was lying.  As
they came into the room and saw the dying man, they stopped
and began to question the page as to who he was.  Before he
could reply Vanneo opened his eyes with a smile, raised himself
suddenly from the straw on which he lay, and, stretching
out his hand eagerly as one who welcomes a friend, exclaimed
in Italian, 'Cavaliere, the consonance is complete;' and having
said this he fell back upon the straw again, and, the smile still
upon his face, he died."

The musician stopped a moment, and then glancing at
Inglesant with a curious look said, "It is confidently said that
about that very moment the Cavaliere Andria died at Rome;
at any rate when the page returned to Italy and inquired for
him at Rome, he was dead.  He caught a fever in one of his
visits to the prisons, and died in a few days."

"Did the page tell you of the two gentlemen who were
shot at Colchester?" said Inglesant.

"Yes, he told me that Guasconi stood by with his doublet
off expecting his turn; but when the others were shot he was
taken back to his prison.  They only found out he was an
Italian by his asking leave to write to the Grand Duke."

"I have been told," he continued, "that this poor King
was a great lover of music, and played the bass viol himself."

"He was a great admirer of Church music," said Inglesant;
"I have often seen him appoint the service and anthems himself."

As the conversation of this man was a great entertainment
to Inglesant, so his sudden and unexpected death was a great
shock to him.  The physician could give no clear explanation
of his decease, and the general opinion was that he died of the
plague, though it was, of course, the interest of every one in the
pest-house that this should not be acknowledged.

A few days after the burial two of the Jesuit Fathers arrived
from Florence, accompanied by Don Agostino, who, having in
vain waited for his friend at Lucca, had sought him at Florence,
and finally traced him to his dreary prison.  By their influence
Inglesant was allowed to depart; and actuated still by his
desire to see Venice, set out, accompanied by Don Agostino,
in the hope of reaching that city.  They crossed the
Apennines, and journeyed by Modena, Mantua, Verona, and Padua.
These places, which at other times would have excited in
Inglesant the liveliest interest, were passed by him now as in
a dream.  The listless indifference which grew day by day,
developed at Padua into absolute illness; and Agostino took
lodgings for his friend in one of the deserted palaces of which
the city was full.  A few days' rest from travel, and from the
excitement produced by novel scenes and by the scorching
plains, had a soothing and beneficent effect; but Venice being
reported to be at that time peculiarly unhealthy, and Inglesant
becoming sensible that he was physically unable to prosecute
any inquiries there, the friends resolved to abandon their
journey in that direction, and to return towards Rome.  At
this juncture Don Agostino received letters which compelled
him to return hastily to Sienna, and after spending a few days
with his friend, he left, promising to return shortly and
accompany Inglesant to Rome, when he was sufficiently recruited by
a few weeks' repose.

The failure of the silk trade, owing to the importation of
silk from India into Europe, had destroyed the prosperity of
many parts of Italy; and in Padua long streets of deserted
mansions attested by their beauty the wealth and taste of the
nobility, whom the loss of the rents of their mulberry groves
had reduced to ruin.  Many houses being empty, rents were
exceedingly cheap, and the country being very plentiful in
produce, and the air very good, a little money went a long way in
Padua.  There was something about the quiet gloomy town,
with its silent narrow streets and its long and dim arcades,—by
which you might go from one end of the city to the other
under a shady covert,—that soothed Inglesant's weary senses
and excited brain.

His was that sad condition in which the body and the
mind, being equally, like the several strings of an ill-kept lute,
out of tune, jarred upon each other, the pains of the body
causing phantasms and delusions of the mind.  His
disappointment and illness at Florence, his long confinement in
the pest-house, and the sudden death of his friend the poor
musician, preyed upon his spirits and followed him even in his
dreams; and his body being weakened by suffering, and his
mind depressed by these gloomy events and images, the old
spiritual terrors returned with augmented force.  Nature
herself, in times of health and happiness so alluring and kind,
turns against the wretch thus deprived of other comfort.  The
common sights and events of life, at one time so full of
interest, became hateful to him; and amid the solemn twilights
and gorgeous sunsets of Italy, his imagination was oppressed
by an intolerable presentiment of coming evil.  Finally, he
despaired of himself, his past life became hateful to him, and
nothing in the future promised a hope of greater success.  He
saw himself the mere tool of a political faction, and to his
disordered fancy as little better than a hireling bravo and
mercenary.  The rustling of leaves, the falling of water, the summer
breeze, uttered a pensive and melancholy voice, which was not
soothing, but was like the distant moaning of sad spirits
foreboding disaster and disgrace.  On his first arrival in Padua
Don Agostino had introduced him to two or three ecclesiastics,
whose character and conversation he thought would please
his friend; but Inglesant made little effort to cultivate their
acquaintance.  His principal associate was the Prior of the
Benedictine monastery, a mile or two beyond the Ferrara Gate,
who, becoming at last distressed at his condition, advised him
to consult a famous physician named Signore Jovanni Zecca.

This man had the reputation of a wit, maintained chiefly
by a constant study of Boccalini's "Parnassus," with quotations
from which work he constantly adorned his discourse.  He
found Inglesant prostrate on a couch in his apartment, with
the Prior by his side.  The room had been the state reception
room of the former possessor, and the windows, which were
open, looked upon the wide space within one of the gates.  It
was the most busy part of the city, and for that reason the
rooms had been chosen by Don Agostino, as commanding the
most agreeable and lively prospect.

The Prior having explained to the physician the nature of
Inglesant's malady, as far as he was acquainted with it, inquired
whether the situation of the rooms seemed suitable to the
doctor, or whether it would be well to remove to some country
house.  The scene from the windows indeed was very lively,
and might be considered too distracting for an invalid.  The
prospect commanded the greater part of the Piazza, or Place
d'Armes, the gate and drawbridges and the glacis outside,
with a stretch of country road beyond, lined with poplars.
This extensive stage was occupied by ever-varying groups,—soldiers
on guard in stiff and picturesque uniform, men carrying
burdens, pack-horses, oxen, now and then a carriage with
a string of horses and with running footmen, peasant women,
priests, children, and beggars, with sometimes a puppet-show,
or a conjuror with apes, and side by side with these last, in
strange incongruity, the procession of the Host.

"From what I know of this gentleman's malady and disposition,"
said the physician, "I should suppose that these
sights and sounds, though perhaps hurtful to his physical
nature, are so dear to his moral nature that to speak against
them were useless.  These sounds, though physically unpleasant,
contain to the philosophic mind such moral beauty as to
be attractive in the highest degree, and to such a nature as
this my patient possesses offer a fascination which it would
be unwise to contend against."

"If," said the Prior to Inglesant with a smile, "your case
requires philosophic treatment, you are fortunate in having
secured the advice of Signore Zecca, who has the reputation
of a philosopher and wit, as well as that of a most skilful
physician."

"With respect to my calling as a physician, I may make
some claim certainly," said the doctor, "if descent has any
title to confer excellence, for my great-grandfather was that
celebrated Jovanni Zecca, after whom I am named, the
Physician of Bologna, whom you will find mentioned in the most
witty 'Ragguagli' of Messere Tragano Boccalini; therefore, if
I fail in my profession, it is not for want of generations of
experience and precept; but as regards my proficiency as a
philosopher, I have no one to depend upon but myself, and
my proficiency is indeed but small."

"You are pleased to say so, Signore Fisico," said Inglesant
languidly, "with the modesty usual with great minds;
nevertheless the remark which you have just made shows you to be
familiar with the deepest of all philosophy, that of human life.
It is my misfortune that I am too deeply impressed already
with the importance of this philosophy, and it is my inadequate
following of its teaching which is killing me."

"It is a subject of curious study," said the physician, "for
perplexity perhaps, certainly for much satire, but scarcely, I
should think, for martyrdom.  The noblest things in life are
mixed with the most ignoble, great pretence with infinite
substance, vain-glory with solidness.  The fool of one moment,
the martyr of the next: as in the case of that Spaniard
mentioned by Messere Boccalini, whose work doubtless you know,
signore, but if not, I should recommend its perusal as certain
to do much to work your cure.  This man—the Spaniard, I
mean—dying most gallantly upon the field of honour, entreated
his friend to see him buried without unclothing him; and with
these words died.  His body, being afterwards examined, it
was found that he who was so sprucely dressed, and who had
a ruff about his neck so curiously wrought as to be of great
value, had never a shirt on his back.  This discovery caused
great laughter among the vulgar sort of mankind; but by order
of Apollo, the great ruler of learning and philosophy, this
Spaniard was given a public and splendid funeral, equal to a
Roman triumph; and an oration was pronounced over him,
who was so happy that, in his great calamity, he was careful
of his reputation before his life.  His noble funeral seems to
me rather to proclaim the fact that our worst meannesses
cannot deprive us of the dignity of that pity which is due to
human nature standing by the brink of an open grave.  A
man has mistaken the secret of human life who does not look
for greatness in the midst of folly, for sparks of nobility in the
midst of meanness; and the well-poised mind distributes with
impartiality the praise and the blame."

"It is my misfortune," replied Inglesant, "that my mind
is incapable of this well-poised impartiality, but is worn out by
the unworthy conflict which the spirit within us wages with the
meannesses of life.  As the Psalmist says, 'The very abjects
make mouths at me, and cease not.'

"You are like those people, signore," said the physician,
"mentioned by Messere Boccalini, whom the greatest physicians
failed to cure, but who were immediately restored to active
health by the simple and common remedies of a quack.  You
seek for remedies among the stars and the eternal verities of
creation, whereas your ailment of mind arises doubtless from
some physical derangement, which perchance a learner in
healing might overcome."

"The fatal confusion of human life," said Inglesant, "is
surely too obvious a fact to be accounted for by the delusions
of physical disease."

The physician looked at Inglesant for a moment and said,—

"Some time, signore, I will tell you a story, not out of
Boccalini, which perchance will convince you that, strange as
it may seem, the realities of life and the delusions of disease
are not so dissimilar as you think."

"If it be so," said Inglesant, "your prescription is more
terrible than my complaint."

"I do not see that," replied the other.  "I have said nothing
but what should show you how unwise you will be, if you
overlook the bodily ailment in searching into the diseases of the
soul."

"I am well aware," replied Inglesant, "that my ailment is
one of the body as well as of the mind; but were my body
made perfectly whole and sound, my cure could scarcely be
said to be begun."

"I hold that most of the sorrows and perplexities of the
mind are to be traced to a diseased body," replied the physician,
not paying much attention to what his patient said; "the
passion of the heart, heavy and dull spirits, vain imaginations,
the vision of spectres and phantoms, grief and sorrow without
manifest cause,—all these things may be cured by purging away
melancholy humours from the body, especially as I conceive
from the meseraic veins; and the heart will then be comforted,
in the taking away the material cause of sorrow, which is not
to be looked for in the world of spirits, nor in any providential
government of God, nor even in outward circumstances and
perplexities, but in the mechanism of the body itself."

"What cures do you propound that may be hoped to work
such happy results?" said the Prior, for Inglesant did not
speak.

"We have many such cures in physics—physics studied
by the light of the heavenly science," said the physician; "such
as the Saturica Sancti Juliani, which grows plentifully on the
rough cliffs of the Tyrrhenian Sea, as the old Greek
chronographers called it, called St. Julian's Rock; the Epithymum,
or thyme, which is under Saturn, and therefore very fitted for
melancholy men; the Febrifuga, or, in our Italian tongue,
Artemisia Tenuifolia, good for such as be melancholy, sad,
pensive, and without power of speech; the distilled water of the
Fraga, or Strawberry, drunk with white wine reviveth the spirits,
and as the holy Psalmist says, 'Lætificat cor hominis;' and
the herb Panax, which grows on the top of the Apennine,
and is cherished in all the gardens of Italy for its wonderful
healing qualities; but the liquor of it, which you may buy in
Venice, is not distilled in Italy, but is brought from Alexandria,
a city of Egypt."

"You do not speak of the chemical medicines," said
Inglesant, "which were much thought of in England when I was
in Oxford; and many wonderful cures were worked by them,
though I remember hearing that the young doctor who first
introduced them, and wrought some great cures, died himself
soon after."

"I have indeed no faith in the new doctrine of chemical
compositions and receipts," said the physician, "which from
mere empirics must needs be very dangerous, but from a man
that is well grounded in the old way may do strange things.
The works of God are freely given to man.  His medicines
are common and cheap; it is the medicines of the new
physicians that are so dear and scarce to find."

Signore Zecca soon after took his leave, promising to send
Inglesant a cordial, the ingredients of which he said were
gathered on "a Friday in the hour of Jupiter," and which
would be sufficient to give sleep, pleasant dreams, and quiet
rest to the most melancholy man in the world.  For, as he
sensibly observed, "waking is a symptom which much tortures
melancholy men, and must therefore be speedily helped, and
sleep by all means procured.  To such as you especially, who
have what I call the temperament of sensibility, are fearful of
pain, covet music and sleep, and delight in poetry and romance,
sleep alone is often a sufficient remedy."

The doctor frequently visited Inglesant, who found his
humour and curious learning entertaining; and on one
occasion, when they were alone together, he reminded him of his
promise to relate a story which would prove his assertion that
the ills of the soul were occasioned by those of the body.

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NOTE.—The MSS. are here imperfect.





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.. _`CHAPTER III.`:

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   CHAPTER III.

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In spite, however, of the reasonings and prescriptions of the
physician, the oppression upon Inglesant's brain became
more intolerable.  Every new object seemed burnt into it by
the sultry outward heat, and by his own fiery thoughts.  The
livid scorched plains, with the dark foliage, the hot piazzas
and highways, seemed to him thronged with ghastly phantoms,
all occupied more or less in some evil or fruitless work.  As
to his physical sense all objects seemed distorted and awry, so
to his mental perception the most ordinary events bore in
them the germs, however slight, of that terrible act of
murderous terror that had marred and ruined his own life.  In
some form or other, in the passionate look, in the gambler's
gesture, in the lover's glance, in the juggler's grimace, in the
passion of the little child, he saw the stealthy trail of the
Italian murderer, before whose cowardly blow his brother fell.
The cool neglected courts of Padua afforded no relief to his
racked brain, no solace to his fevered fancy.  He frequented
the shadowed churches and the solemn masses daily without
comfort; for his conscience was once more weighted with the
remembrance of Serenus de Cressy, and of his own rejection
of the narrow path of the Holy Cross.  A sense of oppression
and confusion rested upon him mentally and physically, so
that he could see no objects steadily and clearly; but without
was a phantasmagoria of terrible bright colours, and within a
mental chaos and disorder without a clue.  A constant longing
filled his mind to accept De Cressy's offer, and he would have
returned to France but for the utter impossibility of making
the journey in his condition of health.  He withdrew himself
more and more from society, and at last, without informing
his friends of his intention, he retired to a small monastery
without the city, about a mile from the Traviso Gate, and
requested to be admitted as a novice.  The result of this step
at the outset was beneficial; for the perfect seclusion, and the
dim light of the cells and shaded garden, relieved the brain,
and restored the disordered sense of vision.

It was some time before Don Agostino received intelligence,
through the Prior, of this step of his friend's.  He
immediately came to Padua, and had several interviews with
Inglesant, but apparently failed to produce any impression
upon him.  He then returned to Florence, and induced the
Cardinal Rinuccini, from whose influence upon Inglesant he
hoped much, to accompany him to Padua.

The Cardinal was a striking-looking and singularly handsome
man, his countenance resembling the reputed portraits
of Molière, whose bust might be taken for that of a pagan god.
There was the same open free expression, as of a man who
confined his actions by no bounds, who tasted freely of that
tree of good and evil, which, it is reported, transforms a man
into a god, and of that other tree which, since the flaming
sword of the cherubim kept the way to the true, has passed
in the world for the tree of life; who had no prejudices nor
partialities, but included all mankind, and all the opinions of
men, within the wide range of perfect tolerance and lofty
indifference.  He found Inglesant in his novice's dress,
walking in the small walled-in garden of the monastery, beneath
the mulberry trees, his breviary in his hand.  After the first
greeting the Cardinal inquired touching his health.

"You are familiar with English, Eminence," replied
Inglesant, "and remember Hamlet; and you will therefore
understand the state of a man for whom the world is too strong."

"It is only the weak," replied the Cardinal, "for whom the
world is too strong.  You know what Terence says, 'Ita vita
est hominum quasi cum ludas tesseris,' or, as we should rather
say, 'Life is like a game of cards;' you cannot control the cards,
but of such as turn up you must make the most."

"Illud quod cecidit forte, id arte ut corrigas."

"The freewill, the reason, and the power of self-command,
struggle perpetually with an array of chance incidents, of
mechanical forces, of material causes, beyond foresight or
control, but not beyond skilful management.  This gives a
delicate zest and point to life, which it would surely want if we
had the power to frame it as we would.  We did not make the
world, and are not responsible for its state; but we can make
life a fine art, and, taking things as we find them, like wise
men, mould them as may best serve our own ends."

"We are not all wise, your Eminence, and the ends that
some of us make our aim are far beyond our reach."

"I was ever moderate in my desires," said the Cardinal
with a smile; "I shoot at none of these high-flying game.  I
am content to live from day to day, and leave the future to
the gods; in the meantime sweetening life as I can with some
pleasing toys, here and there, to relish it."

"You have read Don Quixote, Eminence," said Inglesant;
"and no doubt hold him to have been mad."

"He was mad, doubtless," replied the Cardinal smiling.

"I am mad, like him," replied the other.

"I understand you," said the Cardinal; "it is a noble
madness, from which we inferior natures are free; nevertheless,
it may be advisable for a time to consult some worldly
physician, that by his help this nobleness may be preserved a
little longer upon earth and among men."

"No worldly physician knows the disease, much less the
cure," said Inglesant.  "Don Quixote died in his bed at last,
talked down by petty common-place, acknowledging his
madness, and calling his noble life a mistake; how much more
shall I, whose life has been the more ignoble for some transient
gleams of splendour which have crossed its path in vain!  The
world is too strong for me, and heaven and its solution of life's
enigma too far off."

"There is no solution, believe me," said the Cardinal, "no
solution of life's enigma worth the reading.  But suppose there
be, you are more likely to find it at Rome than here.  Put off
that monk's dress, and come with me to Rome.  What solution
can you hope to find, brooding on your own heart, on this
narrow plot of grass, shut in by lofty walls?  You, and natures
like yours, make this great error; you are moralizing and
speculating upon what life ought to be, instead of taking it as it is;
and in the meantime it slips by you, and you are nothing, and
life is gone.  I have heard, and you doubtless, in a fine
concert of viols, extemporary descant upon a thorough bass in the
Italian manner, when each performer in turn plays such variety
of descant, in concordance to the bass, as his skill and present
invention may suggest to him.  In this manner of play the
consonances invariably fall true upon a given note, and every
succeeding note of the ground is met, now in the unison or
octave, now in the concords, preserving the melody throughout
by the laws of motion and sound.  I have thought that this is
life.  To a solemn bass of mystery and of the unseen, each
man plays his own descant as his taste or fate suggests; but
this manner of play is so governed and controlled by what
seems a fatal necessity, that all melts into a species of harmony;
and even the very discords and dissonances, the wild passions
and deeds of men, are so attempered and adjusted that
without them the entire piece would be incomplete.  In this way
I look upon life as a spectacle, 'in theatro ludus.'  Have you
sat so long that you are tired already of the play?"

"I have read in some book,"[#] said Inglesant, "that it is not
the play—only the rehearsal.  The play itself is not given till
the next life.  But for the rest your Eminence is but too right.
There is no solution within my own heart, and no help within
these walls."


[#] What this book is I do not know.  The remark was made by Jean
Paul, in Hesperus, some hundred years after Inglesant's day.


There can be little doubt that had Inglesant remained
much longer in the monastery, he would have sunk into a
settled melancholy.  The quiet and calm, while it soothed his
brain, and relieved it of the phantoms that distracted it, allowed
the mind to dwell exclusively upon those depressing thoughts
and ideas which were exhausting his spirit and reducing him
well-nigh to despair.  However undesirable at other times the
Cardinal's philosophic paganism might be, no doubt, at this
moment, his society was highly beneficial to Inglesant, to whom,
indeed, his conversation possessed a peculiar charm.  It could,
indeed, scarcely fail to attract one who himself sympathized
with that philosophy of tolerance of, and attraction to, the
multiform aspects of life which Paganism and the Cardinal
equally followed.  On the other hand, Rinuccini had from the
first been personally strongly attracted towards Inglesant, and,
as a matter of policy, attached just importance to securing his
services, both on account of what he had learnt from his
brother, and from the report of the Jesuits.

After some further conversation the Cardinal returned to
Padua in triumph, bringing Inglesant with him, whom he loaded
with kindness and attention.  A suite of apartments was placed
at his disposal, certain of the Cardinal's servants were ordered
to attend him, and the finest horses were devoted to his use
on the approaching journey.  After waiting in Padua some
days, to make preparations which were necessary in the
neglected state of Inglesant's affairs, they set out for Rome.  Don
Agostino was still in Florence, the politics of his family not
suffering him to visit the papal city at present.

Their first day's journey took them, through the fertile and
well-cultivated Venetian States, to Rovigo, where they crossed
the Po, dividing the territory of the Republic from the
Ferrarese, which State had lately been acquired by the Pope.

This country, which, while it possessed princes of its own,
had been one of the happiest and most beautiful parts of Italy,
was now abandoned and uncultivated to such an extent that
the grass was left unmown on the meadows.  At Ferrara, a vast
city which appeared to Inglesant like a city of the dead as he
walked through streets of stately houses without an inhabitant,
the chief concourse of people was the crowd of beggars who
thronged round the Cardinal's coach.  After dinner Inglesant
left his companion, who liked to linger over his wine, and
walked out into the quiet streets.  The long, deserted vistas of
this vast city, sleeping in the light and shadow of the afternoon
sun, disturbed now and then only by a solitary footstep, pleased
his singular fancies as Padua had done.  He entered several of
the Churches, which were mean and poorly adorned, and spoke
to several of the priests and loiterers.  Everywhere he heard
complaints of the poverty of the place, of the misery of the
people, of the bad unwholesome air, caused by the dearth of
inhabitants to cultivate the land.  When he came to inquire
into the causes of this, most held their peace; but one or two
idlers, bolder or more reckless than the rest, seeing that he
was a foreigner, and ignorant that he was riding in the train of
a Cardinal, whispered to him something of the severity of the
Papal government, and of the heavy taxes and frequent
confiscations by which the nephews of several Popes had enriched
themselves, and devoured many of the principal families of the
city, and driven away many more.  "They talk of the bad air,"
said one of these men to Inglesant; "the air was the same a
century ago, when this city was flourishing under its own
princes—princes of so eminent a virtue, and of so heroical a
nobleness, that they were really the Fathers of their country.
Nothing," he continued with a mute gesture of the hands,
"can be imagined more changed than this is now."

"But Bologna is under the Pope, also," said Inglesant,
"and is flourishing enough."

"Bologna," he answered, "delivered itself up to the Popedom
upon a capitulation, by which there are many privileges
reserved to it.  Crimes there are only punished in the persons
of those who commit them.  There are no confiscations of
estates; and the good result of these privileges is evident, for,
though Bologna is neither on a navigable river nor the centre
of a sovereignty where a Court is kept, yet its happiness and
wealth amaze a stranger; while we, once equally fortunate, are
like a city in a dream."

Inglesant returned to the inn to the Cardinal, and related
what he had heard; to all which dismal stories the Prelate only
replied by significant gesture.

The next morning, however, as he was entering his carriage
followed by his friend, he seemed to take particular notice of
the crowd of beggars that surrounded the inn.  In Inglesant's
eyes they only formed part (together with the strange, quiet
streets, the shaded gardens, and the ever-changing scenes of
their journey) in that shifting phantasm of form and colour,
meaningless to him, except as it might suddenly, and in some
unexpected way, become a part and scene of the fatal drama
that had seized upon and crippled his life.  But to the
Cardinal, who had the training of a politician, though he
subordinated politics to enjoyment, these swarms of beggars and these
decaying states had at times a deeper interest.

"These people," he said, as the carriage moved on, "certainly
seem very miserable, as you told me last night.  To
those whose tastes lay that way it would not be a useless
business to inquire into these matters, and to try to set them right.
Some day, probably far distant, some of us, or those like us
who clothe in scarlet and fine linen, will have to pay a
reckoning for these things."

"They are less unhappy than I am," said Inglesant.  "As
to the luxurious persons of whom you speak, it has been my
fate to be of their party all my life, and to serve them for very
poor reward; and I doubt not that, when their damnation, of
which your Eminence speaks, arrives, I shall share it with them.
But it might seem to one who knows little of such things that
some such attempt might be looked for from a sworn soldier
and prince of the Church."

The Cardinal smiled.  The freedom with which Inglesant's
sarcastic humour showed itself at times, when the melancholy
fit was upon him, was one of the sources of attraction which
attached the young Englishman to his person.

"Life is short," he said, "and the future very uncertain;
martyrs have died, nay, still harder fate, have lived long lives
of such devotion as that which you wish me to attempt, and
we see very little result.  Christianity is not of much use
apparently to many of the nations of the earth.  Now, on my
side, as I pass my life, I certainly enjoy this world, and I as
certainly have cultivated my mind to sustain, as far as I can
foresee the probable, the demand and strain that will be put
upon it, both in the exit from this life, and in the entrance
upon another.  Why then should I renounce these two
positive goods, and embrace a life of restless annoyance and
discomfort, of antagonism to existing systems and order, of certain
failure, disappointment, and the peevish protestation of a
prophet to whom the world will not listen?"

"There is no reason why, certainly," said Inglesant, "for
a sane man like your Eminence.  I see clearly it must only
have been madmen who in all ages have been driven into the
fire and upon the sword's point in pursuit of an idea which
they fancied was worth the pain, but which, as they never
realized it, they could never put to the test."

"I perceive your irony," said the Cardinal, "and I recognize
your wit.  What astonishes me is the interest you take
in these old myths and dreary services.  The charm of novelty
must have worn itself out by this time."

"Christ is real to many men," said Inglesant, "and the
world seems to manifest within itself a remedial power such
as may be supposed to be His."

"I do not dispute such a power," replied the Cardinal;
"I only wonder at the attachment to these old myths which
profess to expound it."

"The world has now been satisfied with them for some
centuries," said Inglesant; "and for my own part, even in the
blaze of a purer Mythos, I cannot help thinking that some of
us will look back with longing to 'one of the days of the Son
of man.'  I do not perceive either that your Eminence attempts
to improve matters."

"I can afford to wait," replied the Cardinal, with lofty
indifference; "the myths of the world are slow to change."

"This one certainly," replied Inglesant, with a smile, "has
been slow to change, perhaps because men found in it
something that reminded them of their daily life.  It speaks of
suffering and of sin.  The cross of Christ is composed of many
other crosses—is the centre, the type, the essence of all crosses.
We must *suffer* with Christ whether we *believe* in Him or not.
We must suffer for the sin of others as for our own; and in this
suffering we find a healing and purifying power and element.
That is what gives to Christianity, in its simplest and most
unlettered form, its force and life.  Sin and suffering for sin: a
sacrifice, itself mysterious, offered mysteriously to the Divine
Nemesis or Law of Sin,—dread, undefined, unknown, yet sure
and irresistible, with the iron necessity of law.  This the
intellectual Christ, the Platonic-Socrates, did not offer: hence his
failure, and the success of the Nazarene.  Vicisti Galilæe."





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.. _`CHAPTER IV.`:

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   CHAPTER IV.

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Among the letters of introduction to persons in Rome
which Inglesant carried with him, was one from Father
St. Clare to the Rector of the English College, a Jesuit.  The
Cardinal had invited him to remain an inmate of his family,
but there were several reasons which induced Inglesant to
decline the offer.  He was desirous of observing the situation and
habits of the great city in a more unfettered way than he would
probably be able to do if attached to the household of a great
man.  This reason alone would probably have decided him,
but it was not the only one.  In proportion as his mind
recovered its natural tone, and was able to throw off the
depression which had so long troubled him, another source of
perplexity had taken its place.  Most men, in those days, with the
exception of very determined Puritans, approached Rome with
feelings of veneration and awe.  Inglesant's training and
temperament inclined him to entertain these feelings as strongly
perhaps as any man of the day; but since he had been in Italy,
his eyes and ears had not been closed, and it had been
impossible for him to resist a growing impression, scarcely perhaps
amounting to conviction, that the nearer he approached the
Papal capital the more wretched and worse governed did the
country appear on every side.  In the muttered complaints
which reached his ear these evils were charged partly upon
the abuses of the Papal chair itself, but principally upon the
tyranny and oppression of the society of the Jesuits.  Inglesant
made these observations mostly in the taverns or cafés in the
evenings when those who were present, perceiving him to be a
foreigner, were more disposed to be communicative than they
otherwise would have been.  But the Cardinal was known to
associate rather with the Fathers of the Oratory than with the
Jesuits; and men did not hesitate therefore to speak somewhat
freely on these matters to his familiar companion.  These
accusations did not destroy Inglesant's faith in the Society,
but they made him anxious to hear the other side, and to see,
if possible from within, the working of this great and powerful
organization, and to understand the motives which prompted
those actions which were so much blamed, and which were
apparently productive of such questionable fruits.  If this were
to be done, it must be done at once.  He came to Rome
recommended to the Jesuits' College, almost an accredited agent.
He would be received without suspicion, and would probably
be enabled to obtain an insight into much of their policy.  But
if at the outset he associated himself with persons and interests
hostile, or at least indifferent, to those of the party to which he
belonged, and which he wished to understand, this opportunity
would doubtless soon be lost to him.  Acting upon these
considerations, he parted from the Cardinal, to whom he confided
his motives, and made his way to the English College or house,
which was situated in the street leading to St. Peter's and the
Vatican, and not far from the Bridge and Castle of St. Angelo.

The College was a large and fair house, standing in several
courts and gardens.  Inglesant was received with courtesy by
the rector, who said that he remembered seeing him in London,
and that he had also been at his father's house in Wiltshire.
He named to him several Priests who had also been there; but
so many Papists had been constantly coming and going at
Westacre, during the time that Father St. Clare had resided
there, that Inglesant could not recall them to mind.  The
rector, however, mentioned one whom he remembered, the
gentleman who had given him St. Theresa's Life.  He advised
Inglesant to remain some days at the College, as the usual
and natural resort of all Englishmen connected in any way with
the Court and Church of Rome, promising him pleasant rooms.
He showed him his apartment, a small but handsome guest-chamber,
looking upon a garden, with a sort of oratory or closet
adjoining, with an altar and crucifix.  The bell rang for supper,
but the rector had that meal laid for himself and his guest in
his private room.  The students, and those who took their
meals at the common table, had but one good meal in the
day, that being a most excellent one.  Their supper consisted
of a glass of wine and a manchet of bread.

The rector and Inglesant had much talk together, and
after the latter had satisfied his host, as best he could, upon
all those points—and they were many—connected with the state
of affairs in England upon which he desired information, the
rector began in his turn to give his guest a description of
affairs in Rome, and of those things which he should see, and
how best to see them.

"I will not trouble you now," he said, "with any policy
or State affairs.  You will no doubt wish to spend the next
few days in seeing the wonderful sights of this place, and in
becoming familiar with its situation, so that you may study
them more closely afterwards.  A man must indeed be
ill-endowed by nature who does not find in Rome delight in every
branch of learning and of art.  The libraries are open, and
the students have access to the rarest books; in the Churches
the most exquisite voices are daily heard, the palaces are
crowded with pictures and with statues, ancient and modern.
You have, besides, the stately streets and noble buildings of
every age, the presence of strangers from every part of the
world, villas covered with 'bassi relievi,' and the enjoyment
of nature in enchanting gardens.  To a man who loves the
practices of devotion I need not mention the life-long
employment among the Churches, relics, and processions.  It is this
last that gives the unique completeness of the Roman life
within itself.  To the abundance of its earthly wealth, to the
delights of its intellectual gratifications, is added a feeling of
unequalled security and satisfaction, kept alive, in a pious
mind, by the incessant contemplation of the objects of its
reverence.  I do not know if you are by taste more of a
scholar than of a religious, but both tastes are worthy of
cultivation, nor is all spiritual learning necessarily confined to the
last.  There is much that is very instructive in the lessons
which the silent stones and shattered monuments of the fallen
cities over which we walk teach us.  It has been well observed
that everything that has been dug out of the ruins of ancient
Rome has been found mutilated, either by the barbarians,
fanaticism, or time; and one of our poets, Janus Vitalis,
seeing all the massive buildings mouldered or mouldering away,
and the ever-changing Tiber only remaining the same,
composed this ingenious and pleasing verse—

   |  'Disce hinc quid possit fortuna; immota labascunt;
   |  Et quæ perpetuo sunt fluitura, manent.'

You will find that the Italian humour delights much in such
thoughts as these, which make the French and other nations
accuse us of melancholy.  The Italian has a strong fancy, yet
a strong judgment, and this makes him delight in such things
as please the fancy, while at the same time they are in
accordance with judgment and with reason.  He delights in music,
medals, statues, and pictures, as things which either divert his
melancholy or humour it; and even the common people, such as
shoemakers, have formed curious collections of medals of gold,
silver, and brass, such as would have become the cabinet of a
prince.  Do you wish to begin with the Churches or with the
antiquities?"

Inglesant said he wished to see the Churches first of all.

"You will, no doubt," said the rector, "find a great
satisfaction in such a choice.  You will be overcome with the
beauty and solemnity of these sacred places, and the sweetness
of the organs and of the singing will melt your heart.  At the
same time, I should wish to point out to you, to whom I wish
to speak without the least reserve, that you will no doubt see
some things which will surprise you, nay, which may even
appear to you to be, to say the least, of questionable advantage.
You must understand once for all, and constantly bear in
mind, that this city is like none other, and that many things
are natural and proper here which would be strange and ill-fitted
elsewhere.  Rome is the visible symbol and representation
of the Christian truth, and we live here in a perpetual
masque or holy interlude of the life of the Saviour.  As in
other countries and cities, outward representations are placed
before the people of the awful facts and incidents on which
their salvation rests, so here this is carried still farther, as
indeed was natural and almost inevitable.  It was a very small
step from the representation of the flagellation of Christ to the
very pillar on which He leant.  Indeed, where these representations
were enacted, the simple country people readily and
naturally conceived them to have taken place.  Hence, when
you are shown the three doors of Pilate's house in which
Jesus passed and repassed to and from judgment, the steps up
which He walked, the rock on which He promised to build
His Church, the stone on which the cock stood and crowed
when Peter denied Him, part of His coat and of His blood,
and several of the nails of His cross,—more possibly than were
originally used, over which the heretics have not failed to make
themselves very merry;—when you see all these things, I say,
and if you feel, as I do not say you will feel—but if you feel
any hesitancy or even some repulsion, as though these
miraculous things were to you matters more of doubt than worship,
you will not fail at once to see the true nature and bearing
of these things, nor to apply to them the solution which your
philosophy has doubtless given already to many difficult
questions of this life.  These things are true to each of us
according as we see them; they are, in fact, but shadows and
likenesses of the absolute truth that reveals itself to men in
different ways, but always imperfectly and as in a glass.  To
the simple-hearted peasant that pavement upon which in his
mind's eye he sees Jesus walking, is verily and indeed pressed
by the Divine feet; to him this pillar, the sight of which
makes the stinging whips creep along his flesh, is the pillar to
which the Lord was tied.  Our people, both peasant and
noble, are of the nature of children—children who are naughty
one moment and sincerely penitent the next.  They are now
wildly dissolute, the next day prostrate before the cross; and
as such, much that is true and beautiful in their lives seems
otherwise to the cold and world-taught heart.  But our Lord
honoured the childlike heart, and will not send away our poor
peasants when they come to Him with their little offerings,
even though they lay them at the feet of a Bambino doll."

"But do you not find," said Inglesant, "that this devotion,
which is so ephemeral, is rather given to the sensible object
than to the unseen Christ?"

"It may be so," said the rector; "there is no good but
what has its alloy; but it is a real devotion, and it reaches
after Christ.  Granted that it is dark, no doubt in the darkness
it finds Him, though it cannot see His form."

"Doubtless," said Inglesant, who saw that the rector did
not wish to dwell on this part of the subject, "as we say in
our service in England, we are the sheep of His pasture, and
we are all branded with the mark which He puts upon His
sheep—the innate knowledge of God in the soul.  I
remember hearing of a man who believed that he had a guardian
spirit who awoke him every morning with the audible words,
'Who gets up first to pray?'  If this man was deluded, it could
not have been by Satan."

In the morning, when Inglesant awoke, he saw from his
window, over the city wall, the Monte Mario, with its pine
woods, and the windows of its scattered houses, lighted by the
rising sun.  The air was soft and balmy, and he remained at
the open window, letting his mind grow certain of the fact that
he was in Rome.  In the clear atmosphere of the Papal city
there was a strange shimmer of light upon the distant hills, and
on the green tufts and hillocks of the waste ground beyond the
walls.  The warm air fanned his temples, and in the stillness
of the early morning a delicious sense of a wonderful and
unknown land, into the mysteries of which he was about to enter,
filled his mind.

It was indeed a strange world which lay before him, and
resembled nothing so much as that to which the rector had
aptly compared it the night before, a sacred interlude full of
wild and fantastic sights; Churches more sublime than the
dreams of fancy painted, across whose marble pavements saints
and angels moved familiarly with men; pagan sepulchres and
banqueting chambers, where the phantoms flickered as in
Tartarus itself; vaults and Christian catacombs, where the cry
of martyrs mingled with the chanting of masses sung beneath
the sod, and where the torch-light flashed on passing forms of
horror, quelled everywhere by the figure of the Crucified, that
at every turn kept the place; midnight processions and singing,
startling the darkness and scaring the doers of darkness,
mortal and immortal, that lurked among the secret places, where
the crimes of centuries stood like ghastly corpses at every step;
and above all and through all the life of Jesus, enacted and
re-enacted year after year and day by day continually, not in
dumb show or memorial only, but in deed and fact before the
eyes of men, as if, in that haunt of demons and possessed, in
that sink of past and present crime, nothing but the eternal
presence and power of Jesus could keep the fiends in check.

The rector took Inglesant over the College, and showed
him the life and condition of the inmates under its most
pleasing aspect.  As he then saw it it reminded him of a poem he
had heard Mr. Crashaw read at Little Gidding, describing a
religious house and condition of life, and he quoted part of it
to the rector:—

   |  "No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep
   |  Crowned woes awake, as things too wise for sleep:
   |  But reverend discipline, and religious fear,
   |  And soft obedience, find sweet biding here;
   |  Silence and sacred rest, peace and pure joys."
   |

When they had seen the College the rector said,—

"We will go this morning to St. Peter's.  It is better that
you should see it at once, though the first sight is nothing.
Then at three o'clock we will attend vespers at the Capello
del Coro, where there is fine music every day in the presence
of a cardinal; afterwards, as Rome is very full, there will be a
great confluence of carriages in the Piazza of the Farnese
Palace, which is a favourite resort.  There I can show you
many of the great ones, whom it is well you should know by
sight, and hear something of, before you are presented to them."

As they passed out into the street of the city the rector
began a disquisition on the discovery of antiquities in Rome.
He advised Inglesant to study the cabinets of medals which
he would meet with in the museums and palaces, as they
would throw great light upon the statues and other curiosities.

"A man takes a great deal more pleasure," he said, "in
surveying the ancient statues, who compares them with medals,
than it is possible for him to do without some such knowledge,
for the two arts illustrate each other.  The coins throw a great
light upon many points of ancient history, and enable us to
distinguish the kings and consuls, emperors and empresses,
the deities and virtues, with their ensigns and trophies, and a
thousand other attributes and images not to be learnt or
understood in any other way.  I have a few coins myself, which I
shall be glad to show you, and a few gems, among which is
an Antinous cut in a carnelian which I value very highly.  It
represents him in the habit of a Mercury, and is the finest
Intaglio I ever saw.  I obtained it by accident from a peasant,
who found it while digging in his vineyard."

Inglesant was too much occupied watching the passers-by
in the thronged streets to pay much attention to what he said.
The crowded pavements of Rome offered to his eyes a spectacle
such as he had never seen, and to his imagination a fanciful
pageant such as he had never pictured even in his dreams.
The splendid equipages with their metal work of massive
silver, the strange variety of the clerical costumes, the fantastic
dresses of the attendants and papal soldiers, the peasants and
pilgrims from all countries, even the most remote, crossed his
vision in an entangled maze.

As they crossed the bridge of St. Angelo, the rector
informed him of the invaluable treasures of antique art which
were supposed to lie beneath the muddy waters of the river.
They passed beneath the castle, and a few moments more
brought them to the piazza in front of the Church.

The colonnade was not finished, one side of it being then
in course of completion; but in all its brilliant freshness, with the
innumerable statues, white from the sculptor's hand, it had an
imposing and stately effect.  The great obelisk, or Guglia, as
the Italians called it, had been raised to its position some
seventy years before, but only one of the great fountains was
complete.  Crossing the square, which was full of carriages,
and of priests and laymen on foot, the rector and Inglesant
ascended the marble stairs which had formed part of the old
Basilica, and up which Charlemagne was said to have mounted
on his knees, and passing through the gigantic porch, with its
enormous pillars and gilt roof, the rector pushed back the
canvas-lined curtain that closed the doorway, and they entered
the Church.

The masons were at work completing the marble covering
of the massive square pillars of the nave; but though the work
was unfinished, it was sufficient to produce an effect of
inexpressible richness and splendour.  The vast extent of the
pavement, prepared as for the heavenly host with inlaying of
colours of polished stone, agate, serpentine, porphyry, and
chalcedon; the shining walls, veined with the richest marbles,
and studded with gems; the roof of the nave, carved with
foliage and roses overlaid with gold; the distant walls and
chambers of imagery, dim with incense, through which shone
out, scarcely veiled, the statues and tombs, the paintings and
crucifixes and altars, with their glimmering lights;—all settled
down, so to speak, upon Inglesant's soul with a perception of
subdued splendour, which hushed the spirit into a silent feeling
which was partly rest and partly awe.

But when, having traversed the length of the nave without
uttering a word, he passed from under the gilded roofs, and
the spacious dome, lofty as a firmament, expanded itself above
him in the sky, covered with tracery of the celestial glories and
brilliant with mosaic and stars of gold; when, opening on all
sides to the wide transepts, the limitless pavement stretched
away beyond the reach of sense; when, beneath this vast work
and finished effort of man's devotion, he saw the high altar,
brilliant with lights, surmounted and enthroned by its panoply
of clustering columns and towering cross; when, all around
him, he was conscious of the hush and calmness of worship,
and felt in his inmost being the sense of vastness, of splendour,
and of awe;—he may be pardoned if, kneeling upon the polished
floor, he conceived for the moment that this was the house of
God, and that the gate of heaven was here.

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.. _`CHAPTER V.`:

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   CHAPTER V.

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"It is almost impossible for a man to form in his
imagination," said the rector to Inglesant, as they left the
Church, "such beautiful and glorious scenes as are to be met
with in the Roman Churches and Chapels.  The profusion of
the ancient marble found within the city itself, and the many
fine quarries in the neighbourhood, have made this result
possible; and notwithstanding the incredible sums of money
which have been already laid out in this way, the same work
is still going forward in other parts of Rome; the last effort
still endeavouring to outshine those that went before it."

Inglesant found this assertion to be true.  As he entered
Church after Church, during the first few days of his sojourn in
Rome, he found the same marble walls, the same inlaid tombs,
the same coloured pavements.  In the sombre autumn
afternoons this splendour was toned down and veiled, till it
produced an effect which was inexpressibly noble,—a dim
brilliance, a subdued and restrained glory, which accorded well with
the enervating perfume and the strains of romantic music that
stole along the aisles.  In these Churches, and in the monasteries
adjoining, Inglesant was introduced to many priests and
ecclesiastics, among whom he might study most of the varieties
of devout feeling, and of religious life in all its forms.  To
many of these he was not drawn by any feeling of sympathy;
many were only priests and monks in outward form, being in
reality men of the world, men of pleasure, or antiquarians and
artists.  But, introduced to the society of Rome in the first
place as a "devoto," he became acquainted naturally with
many who aspired to, and who were considered to possess,
exceptional piety.  Among these he was greatly attracted by
report towards a man who was then beginning to attract attention
in Rome, and to exert that influence over the highest and
most religious natures, which, during a period of twenty years,
became so overpowering as at one time to threaten to work a
complete revolution in the system and policy of Rome.  This
was Michael de Molinos, a Spanish monk, who, coming to
Rome some years before, began to inculcate a method of
mystical devotion which he had no doubt gathered from the
followers of St. Theresa, who were regarded with great
veneration in Spain, where the contemplative devotion which they
taught was held in high esteem.  On his first coming to Rome
Molinos refused all ecclesiastical advancement, and declined
to practise those austerities which were so much admired.  He
associated with men of the most powerful minds and of the
most elevated thoughts, and being acknowledged at once to
be a man of learning and of good sense, his influence soon
became perceptible.  To all who came to him for spiritual
comfort and advice he insisted on the importance of mental
devotion, of daily communion, and of an inward application of
the soul to Jesus Christ and to His death.  So attractive were
his personal qualities, and so alluring his doctrine to minds
which had grown weary of the more formal ceremonies and
acts of bodily penance and devotion, that thousands thronged
his apartments, and "the method of Molinos" became not only
a divine message to many, but even the fashionable religion
of Rome.

It spoke to men of an act of devotion, which it called the
contemplative state, in which the will is so united to God and
overcome by that union that it adores and loves and resigns
itself up to Him, and, not exposed to the wavering of the mere
fancy, nor wearied by a succession of formal acts of a dry
religion, it enters into the life of God, into the heavenly places
of Jesus Christ, with an indescribable and secret joy.  It taught
that this rapture and acquiescence in the Divine Will, while it
is the highest state and privilege of devotion, is within the reach
of every man, being the fruit of nothing more than the silent
and humble adoration of God that arises out of a pure and
quiet mind; and it offered to every man the prospect of this
communion—a prospect to which the very novelty and
vagueness gave a hitherto unknown delight—in exchange for the
common methods of devotion which long use and constant
repetition had caused to appear to many but as dead and
lifeless forms.  Those who followed this method generally laid
aside the use of the rosary, the daily repeating of the breviary,
together with the common devotion of the saints, and applied
themselves to preserve their minds in an inward calm and
quiet, that they might in silence perform simple acts of faith,
and feel those inward motions and directions which they
believed would follow upon such acts.

To such a doctrine as this, taught by such a man, it is not
surprising that Inglesant was soon attracted, and he visited
Molinos's rooms several times.  On one of these occasions he
met in the anteroom a gentleman he had seen more than once
before, but had never spoken to.  He was therefore somewhat
surprised when he accosted him, and seemed desirous of some
private conference.  Inglesant knew that he was the Count
Vespiriani, and had heard him described as of a noble and
refined nature, and a hearty follower of Molinos.  They left
the house together, and driving to the gardens of the Borghese
Palace, they walked for some time.

The Count began by expressing his pleasure that at so early
a period of his residence in Rome Inglesant had formed the
acquaintance of Molinos.

"You are perhaps," he said, "not aware of the importance
of the movement, nor of the extent to which some of us are not
without hope that it may ultimately reach.  Few persons are
aware of the numbers already devoted to it, including men of
every rank in the Church and among the nobility, and of every
variety of opinion and of principle.  It cannot be supposed that
all these persons act thus under the influence of any extraordinary
elevation of piety or devotion.  To what then can their
conduct be ascribed?  It cannot have escaped your notice,
since you have been in Italy, that there is much that is rotten
in the state of government, and to be deplored in the condition
of the people.  I do not know in what way you may have
accounted for this lamentable condition of affairs in your own
mind; but among ourselves (those among us at any rate who
are men of intelligence and of experience of the life of other
countries, and especially Protestant ones) there is but one
solution—the share that priests have in the government, not only
in the Pope's territory, but in all the other courts of Italy
where they have the rule.  This does not so much arise from
any individual errors or misdoing as from the necessary unfitness
of ecclesiastics to interfere in civil affairs.  They have not
souls large enough nor tender enough for government; they are
trained in an inflexible code of morals and of conduct from
which they cannot swerve.  To this code all human needs must
bow.  They are cut off from sympathy with their fellows on
most points; and their natural inclinations, which cannot be
wholly suppressed, are driven into unworthy and mean channels;
and they acquire a narrowness of spirit and a sourness of mind,
together with a bias to one side only of life, which does not
agree with the principles of human society.  All kinds of
incidental evils arise from these sources, in stating which I do
not wish to accuse those ecclesiastics of unusual moral
turpitude.  Among them is the fact that, having individually so
short and uncertain a time for governing, they think only of
the present, and of serving their own ends, or satisfying their
own conceptions, regardless of the ultimate happiness or misery
which must be the consequence of what they do.  Whatever
advances the present interests of the Church or of themselves,
for no man is free altogether from selfish motives—whatever
enriches the Church or their own families, for no man can help
interesting himself in those of his own house,—is preferred to
all wise, great, or generous counsels.  You will perhaps wonder
what the mystic spiritual religion of Molinos has to do with all
this, but a moment's explanation will, I think, make it very clear
to you.  The hold which the priests have upon the civil
government is maintained solely by the tyranny which they exercise
over the spiritual life of men.  It is the opinion of Molinos
that this function is misdirected, and that in the place of a
tyrant there should appear a guide.  He is about to publish
a book called 'Il Guida Spirituale,' which will appear with
several approbations before it,—one by the general of the
Franciscans, who is a Qualificator of the Inquisition, and
another by a member of the society to which you are attached,
Father Martin de Esparsa, also one of the Qualificators.  This
book, so authorized and recommended, cannot fail not only
to escape censure, but to exert a powerful influence, and will
doubtless be highly esteemed.  Now the importance of Molinos's
doctrine lies in this, that he presses the point of frequent
communion, and asserts that freedom from mortal sin is the only
necessary qualification.  At the same time he guards himself
from the charge of innovation by the very title and the whole
scope of his book, which is to insist upon the necessity of a
spiritual director and guide.  You will see at once what an
important step is here gained; for the doctrine being once
admitted that mortal sin only is a disqualification for receiving
the sacrament, and the necessity of confession before
communion being not expressed, the obligation of coming always
to the priest, as the minister of the sacrament of penance,
before every communion, cannot long be insisted upon.  Indeed,
it will become a rule by which all spiritual persons who
adhere to Molinos's method will conduct their penitents, that
they may come to the sacrament when they find themselves
out of the state of mortal sin, without going at every time to
confession; and it is beginning to be observed already in Rome
that those who, under the influence of this method, are
becoming more strict in their lives, more retired and serious in
their mental devotions, are become less zealous in their whole
deportment as to the exterior parts of religion.  They are
not so assiduous at mass, nor in procuring masses for their
friends, nor are they so frequent at confession or processions.
I cannot tell you what a blessing I anticipate for mankind
should this method be once allowed; what a freedom, what
a force, what a reality religion would obtain!  The time is ripe
for it, and the world is prepared.  The best men are giving
their adherence; I entreat you to lend your aid.  The Jesuits
are wavering; they have not yet decided whether the new
method will prevail or not.  The least matter will turn the
scale.  You may think that it is of little importance which side
you take, but if so, you are mistaken.  You are not perhaps
aware of the high estimation in which the reports and letters
which have preceded you have caused you to be held at the
Jesuits' College.  You are supposed to have great influence
with the English Catholics and Protestant Episcopalians, and
the idea of promoting Catholic progress in England is the
dearest to the mind of the Roman Ecclesiastic."

Inglesant listened to the Count attentively, and did not
immediately reply.  At last he said,—

"What you have told me is of the greatest interest, and
commends itself to my conscience more than you know.  As
to the present state and government of Italy I am not
competent to speak.  One of the things which I hoped to learn
in Rome was the answer to some complaints which I have
heard in other parts of Italy.  I fear also that you may be too
sanguine as to the result of such freedom as you desire.  This
age is witness of the state to which too much freedom has
brought England, my own country, a land which a few years
ago was the happiest and wealthiest of all countries, now utterly
ruined and laid waste.  The freedom which you desire, and
the position of the clergy which you approve, is somewhat the
same as that which existed in the Protestant Episcopal Church
of England; but the influence they possessed was not sufficient
to resist the innovations and wild excesses of the Sectaries.
The freedom which I desire for myself I am willing to renounce
when I see the evil which the possession of it works among
others and in the State.  What you attempt, however, is an
experiment in which I am not unwilling to be interested; and
I shall be very curious to observe the result.  The main point
of your method, the freedom of the blessed sacrament, is a
taking piece of doctrine, for the holding of which I have always
been attracted to the Episcopal Church of England.  It is, as
you say, a point of immense importance, upon which in fact
the whole system of the Church depends.  I have been long
seeking for some solution of the mysterious difficulties of the
religious life.  It may be that I shall find it in your society,
which I perceive already to consist of men of the highest and
most select natures, with whom, come what may, it is an
honour to be allied.  You may count on my adherence; and
though I may seem a half-hearted follower, I shall not be
found wanting when the time of action comes.  I should wish
to see more of Molinos."

"I am not at all surprised," said the Count, "that you do
not at once perceive the full force of what I have said.  It
requires to be an Italian, and to have grown to manhood in
Italy, to estimate justly the pernicious influence of the clergy
upon all ranks of society.  I have travelled abroad, and when
I have seen such a country as Holland, a land divided between
land and sea, upon which the sun rarely shines, with a
cold and stagnant air, and liable to be destroyed by
inundations; when I see this country rich and flourishing, full of
people, happy and contented, with every mark of plenty, and
none at all of want; when I see all this, and then think of my
own beautiful land, its long and happy summers, its rich and
fruitful soil, and see it ruined and depopulated, its few
inhabitants miserable and in rags, the scorn and contempt instead
of the envy of the world; when I think of what she was an
age or two ago, and reflect upon the means by which such a
fall, such a dispeopling, and such a poverty, has befallen a
nation and a climate like this;—I dare not trust myself to speak
the words which arise to my lips.  Those with whom you
associate will doubtless endeavour to prevent these melancholy
truths from being perceived by you, but they are too evident
to be concealed.  Before long you will have painful experience
of their existence."

"You say," said Inglesant, "that one or two ages ago
Italy was much more prosperous than at present; were not
the priests as powerful then as now?"

"I do not deny," replied the Count, "that there have
been other causes which have tended to impoverish the country,
but under a different government many of these might have
been averted or at any rate mitigated.  When the commerce
of the country was flourishing the power of the wealthy
merchants and the trading princes was equal or superior to that
of the priests, especially in the leading States.  As their
influence and wealth declined, the authority of the clergy increased.
A wiser policy might have discovered other sources of wealth
and of occupation for the people; they only thought of establishing
the authority of the Church, of adorning the altars, of
filling the Papal coffers."

Inglesant may have thought that he perceived a weak
point in this explanation, but he made no reply, and the Count
supposed he was satisfied.

A few days afterwards he had the opportunity of a long
and private conversation with Molinos.

The Spaniard was a man of tall and graceful exterior, with
a smile and manner which were indescribably alluring and
sweet.  Inglesant confided to him something of his past
history, and much of his mental troubles and perplexities.  He
spoke of De Cressy and of the remorse which had followed
his rejection of the life of self-denial which the Benedictine
had offered him.  Molinos's counsel was gentle and kindly.

"It was said to me long ago," said Inglesant, "that 'there
are some men born into the world with such happy dispositions
that the cross for a long time seems very light, if not altogether
unfelt.  The strait path runs side by side with the broad and
pleasant way of man's desires; so close are they that the two
cannot be discerned apart.  So the man goes on, the favourite
seemingly both of God and his fellows; but let him not think
that he shall always escape the common doom.  God is
preparing some great test for him, some great temptation, all the
more terrible for being so long delayed.  Let him beware lest
his spiritual nature be enervated by so much sunshine, so that
when the trial comes, he may be unable to meet it.  His
conscience is easier than other men's; what are sins to them are
not so to him.  But the trial that is prepared for him will be no
common one; it will be so fitted to his condition that he cannot
palter with it nor pass it by; he must either deny his God or
himself.'  This was said to me by one who knew me not; but
it was said with something of a prophetic instinct, and I see
in these words some traces of my own fate.  For a long time
it seemed to me that I could serve both the world and God,
that I could be a courtier in kings' houses and in the house
of God, that I could follow the earthly learning and at the
same time the learning that is from above.  But suddenly the
chasm opened beneath my feet; two ways lay before me, and I
chose the broad and easy path; the cross was offered to me,
and I drew back my hand; the winnowing fan passed over the
floor, and I was swept away with the chaff."

"I should prefer to say," replied the Spaniard,—and as he
spoke, his expression was wonderfully compassionate and
urbane,—"I should prefer to say that there are some men
whom God is determined to win by love.  Terrors and
chastisements are fit for others, but these are the select
natures, or, as you have yourself termed them, the courtiers of
the household of God.  Believe me, God does not lay traps
for any, nor is He mistaken in His estimate.  If He lavishes
favour upon any man, it is because he knows that that man's
nature will respond to love.  It is the habit of kings to
assemble in their houses such men as will delight them by their
conversation and companionship, 'amor ac deliciæ generis
humani,' whose memory is fresh and sweet ages after, when they
be dead.  Something like this it seems to me God is wont to
do, that He may win these natures for the good of mankind and
for His own delight.  It is true that such privilege calls for a
return; but what will ensure a return sooner than the consideration
of such favour as this?  You say you have been unworthy
of such favour, and have forfeited it for ever.  You cannot have
forfeited it, for it was never deserved.  It is the kingly grace
of God, bestowed on whom He will.  If I am not mistaken in
your case, God will win you, and He will win you by
determined and uninterrupted acts of love.  It may be that in
some other place God would have found for you other work;
you have failed in attaining to that place; serve Him where
you are.  If you fall still lower, or imagine that you fall lower,
still serve Him in the lowest room of all.  Wherever you may
find yourself, in Courts or pleasure-houses or gardens of
delight, still serve Him, and you will bid defiance to imaginations
and powers of evil, that strive to work upon a sensitive and
excited nature, and to urge it to despair.  Many of these
thoughts which we look upon as temptations of God are but
the accidents of our bodily temperaments.  How can you,
nursed in Courts, delicately reared and bred, trained in
pleasure, your ear and eye and sense habituated to music and
soft sounds, to colour and to beauty of form, your brain developed
by intellectual effort and made sensitive to the slightest
touch—how can religious questions bear the same aspect to
you as to a man brought up in want of the necessaries of life,
hardened by toil and exposure, unenlightened by learning and
the arts, unconscious of the existence even of what is agony
or delight to you?  Yet God is equally with both of these; in
His different ways He will lead both of them, would they but
follow, through that maze of accident and casualty in which
they are involved, and out of the tumult of which coil they
complain to the Deity of what is truly the result of their own
temperaments, ancestry, and the besetments of life.  I tell
you this because I have no fear that it will exalt you, but to
keep you from unduly depreciating yourself, and from that
terrible blasphemy that represents God as laying snares for
men in the guise of pretended kindness.  God is with all,
with the coarse and dull as with the refined and pure, but He
draws them by different means,—those by terror, these by love."

Inglesant said little in answer to these words, but they
made a deep impression upon him.  They lifted a weight
from his spirits, and enabled him henceforward to take some
of the old pleasure in the light of heaven and the occurrences
of life.  He saw much of Molinos, and had long conferences
with him upon the solution of the greatest of all problems,
that of granting religious freedom, and at the same time
maintaining religious truth.  Molinos thought that his system
solved this problem, and although Inglesant was not altogether
convinced of this, yet he associated himself heartily, if not
wholly, with the Quietists, as Molinos's followers were called, in
so much that he received some friendly cautions from the
Jesuit College not to commit himself too far.

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It must not be supposed, however, that he was altogether
absorbed in such thoughts or such pursuits.  To him, as to all
the other inhabitants of Rome, each in his own degree and
station, the twofold aspect of existence in the strange Papal
city claimed his alternate regard, and divided his life and his
intellect.  The society of Rome, at one moment devout, the
next philosophic, the next antiquarian, artistic, pleasure-seeking,
imparted to all its members some tincture of its Protean
character.  The existence of all was coloured by the many-sided
prism through which the light of every day's experience was
seen.  Inglesant's acquaintance with the Cardinal introduced
him at once to all the different coteries, and procured him the
advantage of a companion who exerted a strong and cultivated
mind to exhibit each subject in its completest and most
fascinating aspect.  Accompanied by the Cardinal, and with one
or other of the literati of Rome, each in his turn a master of
the peculiar study to which the day was devoted, Inglesant
wandered day after day through all the wonderful city, through
the palaces, ruins, museums, and galleries.  He stood among
the throng of statues, that strange maze of antique life, which
some enchanter's wand seems suddenly to have frozen into
marble in the midst of its intricate dance, yet so frozen as to
retain, by some mysterious art, the warm and breathing life.
He saw the men of the old buried centuries, of the magic and
romantic existence when the world was young.  The beautiful
gods with their white wands; the grave senators and stately
kings; the fauns and satyrs that dwelt in the untrodden
woods; the pastoral flute players, whose airs yet linger within
the peasant's reeds; the slaves and craftsmen of old Rome,
with all their postures, dress, and bearing, as they walked those
inlaid pavements, buried deep beneath the soil, whose mosaic
figures every now and then are opened to the faded life of
to-day.  Nor less entrancing were those quaint fancies upon
the classic tombs, which showed in what manner the old pagan
looked out into the spacious ether and confronted death,—a
child playing with a comic masque, bacchanals, and wreaths
of flowers, hunting parties and battles, images of life, of
feasting and desire; and finally, the inverted torch, the fleeting
seasons ended, and the actor's part laid down.

Still existing as a background to this phantom life was the
stage on which it had walked; the ruined splendour of Rome,
in its setting of blue sky and green foliage, of ivy and creeping
plants, of laurels and ilex, enfolded in a soft ethereal radiance
that created everywhere a garden of romance.

"Nothing delights and entertains me so much in this
country," said Inglesant one day to a gentleman with whom
he was walking, "as the contrasts which present themselves
on every hand, the peasant's hut built in the ruins of a palace,
the most exquisite carving supporting its tottering roof, cattle
drinking out of an Emperor's tomb, a theatre built in a
mausoleum, and pantomime airs and the "plaudite" heard amid the
awful silence of the grave; here a Christ, ghastly, naked, on a
cross; there a charming god, a tender harmony of form and
life; triumphal arches sunk in the ruins not of their own only,
but of successive ages, monuments far more of decay and
death than of glory or fame; Corinthian columns canopied
with briars, ivy, and wild vine, the delicate acanthus wreaths
stained by noisome weeds.  The thoughts that arise from the
sight of these contrasts are pleasing though melancholy, such
ideas, sentiments, and feelings as arise in the mind and in the
heart at the foot of antique columns, before triumphal arches,
in the depths of ruined tombs, and on mossy banks of
fountains; but there are other contrasts which bring no such
soothing thoughts with them, nothing but what may almost be
called despair; profusion of magnificence and wealth side by
side with the utmost wretchedness; Christ's altar blazing with
jewels and marble, misery indescribable around; luxury, and
enjoyment, and fine clothes almost hustled by rags, and sores,
and filth.  Amid the lesson of past ages, written on every ruined
column and shattered wall, what a distance still exists between
the poor and the rich!  Should the poor man wish to overpass
it, he is driven back at once into his original wretchedness, or
condemned more mercifully to death, while every ruined
column and obelisk cries aloud, 'Let everything that creeps
console itself, for everything that is elevated falls.'"

"We Romans," said the gentleman, "preserve our ruins as
beggars keep open their sores.  They are preserved not always
from taste; nor from a respect of antiquity, but sometimes from
mere avarice, for they attract from every corner of the world
that crowd of strangers whose curiosity has long furnished a
maintenance to three-fourths of Italy.  But you were speaking
of the charming gods of the ancients.  We are not inferior to
them.  Have you seen the Apollo of Bermini pursuing Daphne,
in the Borghese Palace?  His hair waves in the wind, you
hear the entreaties of the god."

"Yes, I have seen it," said Inglesant; "it is another of
those wonderful contrasts with which Rome abounds.  We
are Catholic and Pagan at the same time."

"It is true," said the other; "nevertheless, in the centre of
the blood-stained Colisseo stands a crucifix.  The Galilean
has triumphed."

Inglesant stopped.  They were standing before the Apollo
in the Belvedere gardens.  Inglesant took from beneath his
vest a crucifix in ivory, exquisitely carved, and held it beside
the statue of the god.  The one the noblest product of buoyant
life, the proudest perfection of harmonious form, purified from
all the dross of humanity, the head worthy of the god of day
and of the lyre, of healing and of help, who bore in his day
the self-same name that the other bore, "the great physician;"
the other, worn and emaciated, helpless, dying, apparently
without power, forgotten by the world.  "Has the Galilean
triumphed?  Do you prefer the Christ?" he said.

The gentleman smiled.  "The benign god," he said, "has
doubtless many votaries, even now."

It is probable that the life of Rome was working its effect
upon Inglesant himself.  Under its influence, and that of the
Cardinal, his tone of thought became considerably modified.
In a strange and unexpected way, in the midst of so much
religion, his attention was diverted from the religious side of
life, and his views of what was philosophically important
underwent considerable change.  He read Lucretius less, and Terence
and Aristophanes more.  Human life, as he saw it existing
around him, became more interesting to him than theories and
opinions.  Life in all its forms, the Cardinal assured him, was
the only study worthy of man; and though Inglesant saw that
such a general assertion only encouraged the study of human
thought, yet it seemed to him that it directed him to a truth
which he had hitherto perhaps overlooked, and taught him to
despise and condemn nothing in the common path of men in
which he walked.  If this were true, the more carefully he
studied this common life, and the more narrowly he watched
it, the more worthy it would appear of regard; the dull and
narrow streets, the crowded dwellings, the base and vulgar life,
the poverty and distress of the poorer classes, would assume
an interest unknown to him before.

"This life and interest," the Cardinal would say, "finds its
best exponent in the old pantomime and burlesque music of Italy.
The real, every-day, commonplace, human life, which originates
absolutely among the people themselves, speaks in their own
music and street airs; but when these are touched by a master's
hand, it becomes revealed to us in its essence, refined and
idealized, with all its human features, which, from their very
familiarity, escape our recognition as we walk the streets.  In
the peculiarity of this music, its graceful delicacy and lively
frolic and grotesqueness, I think I find the most perfect
presentment, to the ear and heart, of human life, especially as the
slightest variation of time or setting reveals in the most lively
of these airs depths of pathos and melodious sorrow, completing
thus the analogy of life, beneath the gayest phases of which lie
unnoticed the saddest realities."

"I have often felt," said Inglesant, "that old dance-music
has an inexpressible pathos; as I listen to it I seem to be
present at long past festivities, whose very haunts are swept
away and forgotten; at evenings in the distant past, looked
forward to as all-important, upon whose short and fleeting hours
the hopes and enjoyments of a lifetime were staked, now lost
in an undistinguished oblivion and dust of death.  The young
and the beautiful who danced to these quaint measures, in a
year or two had passed away, and other forms equally graceful
took their place.  Fancies and figures that live in sound, and
pass before the eyes only when evoked by such melodies, float
down the shadowy way and pass into the future, where other
gay and brilliant hours await the young, to be followed as
heretofore by pale and disappointed hopes and sad realities,
and the grave."

"What do you mean," said the Cardinal, "by figures that
live in sound?"

"It seems to me," said Inglesant, "that the explanation of
the power of music upon the mind is, that many things are
elements which are not reckoned so, and that sound is one of
them.  As the air and fire are said to be peopled by fairy
inhabitants, as the spiritual man lives in the element of faith,
so I believe that there are creatures which live in sound.  Every
lovely fancy, every moment of delight, every thought and thrill
of pleasure which music calls forth, or which, already existing,
is beautified and hallowed by music, does not die.  Such as
these become fairy existences, spiritual creatures, shadowy but
real, and of an inexpressibly delicate grace and beauty, which
live in melody, and float and throng before the sense whenever
the harmony that gave and maintains their life exists again in
sound.  They are children of the earth, and yet above it; they
recall the human needs and hopes from which they sprang.
They have shadowy sex and rank, and diversity of bearing, as
of the different actors' parts that fill the stage of life.  Poverty
and want are there, but, as in an allegory or morality, purified
and released from suffering.  The pleasures and delights of
past ages thus live again in sound, the sorrows and disappointments
of other days and of other men mingle with our own,
and soften and subdue our hearts.  Apollo and Orpheus
tamed the savage beasts; music will soften our rugged nature,
and kindle in us a love of our kind and a tolerance of the
petty failings and the shortcomings of men."

It was not only music that fostered and encouraged in
Rome an easy tolerant philosophy.  No society could be more
adapted than that of the Papal city to such an end.  A people
whose physical wants were few and easily supplied (a single
meal in such a climate, and that easily procured, sufficing for
the day); a city full of strangers, festivals and shows; a
conscience absolutely at rest; a community entirely set apart from
politics, absolutely at one with its government by habit, by
interest, and by religion;—constituted a unique state and mental
atmosphere, in which such philosophy naturally flourished.
The early hours of the day were spent in such business as was
necessary for all classes to engage in, and were followed by the
dinner of fruit, vegetables, fish, and a little meat.  From dinner
all went to sleep, which lasted till six o'clock in the evening.
Then came an hour's trifling over the toilette, all business was
at an end, and all the shops were shut.  Till three o'clock in
the morning the hours were devoted to enjoyment.  Men,
women, and children repaired to the public walks, to the corso
and squares, to conversation in coteries, to assemblies in
arcaded and lighted gardens, to collations in taverns.  Even
the gravest and most serious gave themselves up to relaxation
and amusement till the next day.  Every evening was a festival;
every variety of character and conversation enlivened these
delicious hours, these soft and starry nights.

Nothing pleased Inglesant's fancy so much, or soothed his
senses so completely, as this second dawn of the day and rising
to pleasure in the cool evening.  Soothed and calmed by sleep,
the irritated nerves were lulled into that delicious sense for
which we have no name, but which we compare to flowing
water, and to the moistening of a parched and dusty drought.
All thoughts of trouble and of business were banished by the
intervening hours of forgetfulness, from which the mind,
half-aroused and fresh from dreamland, awoke to find itself in a
world as strange and fantastic as the land of sleep which it
had left; a land bathed in sunset light, overarched by
rainbows, saluted by cool zephyrs, soothed by soft strains of music,
delighted and amused by gay festivals, peopled by varied crowds
of happy people, many-coloured in dress, in green walks sparkling
with fairy lamps, and seated at al fresco suppers, before
cosy taverns famous for delicious wines, where the gossip of
Europe, upon which Rome looked out as from a Belvedere,
intrigue, and the promotions of the morning, were discussed.

Inglesant had taken lodgings in an antique villa on the
Aventine, surrounded by an uncultivated garden and by
vineyards.  The house was partly deserted and partly occupied by
a family of priests, and he slept here when he was not at the
Cardinal's palace, or with other of his friends.  The place was
quiet and remote from the throng and noise of Rome; in the
gardens were fountains in the cool shade; frescos and paintings
had been left on the walls and in the rooms by the owner of
the villa; the tinkling of convent bells sounded from the slopes
of the hills through the laurels and ilex and across the vines;
every now and then the chanting of the priests might be heard
from a small Chapel at the back of the house.

Inglesant awoke from his mid-day sleep one evening to the
splash of the fountain, and the scent of the fresh-turned earth
in the vineyard, and found his servant arranging his room for
his toilette.  He was to sup that evening at the Cardinal's
with some of the Fathers of the Oratory, and he dressed, as
was usual with him even in his most distracted moods, with
scrupulous care.  A sedan was waiting for him, and he set out
for the Cardinal's palace.

It was a brilliant evening; upon the hill-sides the dark
trees stood out against the golden sky, the domes and
pinnacles of the Churches shone in the evening light.  In the
quiet lanes, in the neighbourhood of the Aventine, the perfume
of odoriferous trees was wafted over lofty garden walls; quiet
figures flitted to and fro, a distant hum of noisy streets scarcely
reached the ear, mingled with the never-ceasing bells.  That
morning, before he went to sleep, Inglesant had been reading
"The Birds" of Aristophanes, with a voluminous commentary
by some old scholar, who had brought together a mass of
various learning upon the subject of grotesque apologue, fable,
and the fanciful representation of the facts and follies of human
life under the characters of animals and of inanimate objects.
A vast number of examples of curious pantomime and other
stage characters were given, and the idea preserved throughout
that, by such impersonations, the voices of man's existence
were able to speak with clearness and pathos, and were more
sure of being listened to than when they assumed the guise
of a teacher or divine.  Beneath a grotesque and unexpected
form they conceal a gravity more sober than seriousness itself,
as irony is more sincere than the solemnity which it parodies.
Truth drops her stilted gait, and becomes natural and real, in
the midst of ludicrous and familiar events.  The broad types
of life's players into which the race is divided, especially the
meanest,—thieves, beggars, outcasts,—with whom life is a reality
stripped of outward show, will carry a moral and a teaching
more aptly than the privileged and affected classes.  Mixed
with these are animals and familiar objects of household life,
to which everyday use has given a character of their own.
These, not in the literal repulsiveness or dulness of their
monotonous existence, but abstracted, as the types or emblems
of the ideas associated with each one—not a literal beggar, in
his dirt and loathsomeness, but poverty, freedom, helplessness,
and amusing knavery, personified in the part of a beggar—not
a mere article of household use in its inanimate stupidity, but
every idea and association connected with the use of such
articles by generations of men and women;—these and such
as these, enlivened by the sparkle of genius, set forth in gay
and exquisite music, and by brilliant repartee and witty dialogue,
certainly cannot be far behind the very foremost delineation
of human life.

Educated in the Court of King Charles to admire Shakespeare
and the Elizabethan stage, Inglesant was better able to
understand these things than the Italians were, suggestive as
the Italian life itself was of such reflections.  The taste for
music and scenery had driven dialogue and character from the
stage.  Magnificent operas, performed by exquisite singers,
and accompanied by mechanical effects of stupendous extent,
were almost the only scenic performances fashionable in Italy;
but this was of less consequence where every street was a
stage, and every festival an elaborate play.  The Italians were
pantomimic and dramatic in the highest degree without
perceiving it themselves.  The man who delights in regarding
this life as a stage cannot attach an overwhelming importance
to any incident; he observes life as a spectator, and does not
engage in it as an actor; but the Italian was too impetuous
to do this—he took too violent an interest in the events
themselves.

The narrow streets through which Inglesant's chair passed
terminated at last in a wide square.  It was full of confused
figures, presenting to the eye a dazzling movement of form and
colour, of which last, owing to the evening light, the prevailing
tint was blue.  A brilliant belt of sunset radiance, like molten
gold along the distant horizon, threw up the white houses into
strong relief.  Dark cypress trees rose against the glare of the
yellow sky, tinged with blue from the fathomless azure above.
The white spray of fountains flashed high over the heads of
the people in the four corners of the square, and long
lance-like gleams of light shot from behind the cypresses and the
white houses, refracting a thousand colours in the flashing
water.  A murmur of gay talk filled the air, and a constant
change of varied form perplexed the eye.

Inglesant alighted from his chair, and, directing his servants
to proceed at once to the Cardinal's, crossed the square on
foot.  Following so closely on his previous dreamy thoughts,
he was intensely interested and touched by this living
pantomime.  Human life had never before seemed to him so
worthy of regard, whether looked at as a whole, inspiring
noble and serious reflections, or viewed in detail when each
separate atom appears pitiful and often ludicrous.  The
infinite distance between these two poles, between the aspirations
and the exhortations of conscience, which have to do with
humanity as a whole, and the actual circumstances and capacities
of the individual, with which satirists and humourists have
ever made free to jest,—this contrast, running through every
individual life as well as through the mass of existence, seemed
to him to be the true field of humour, and the real science of
those "Humanities" which the schools pedantically professed
to teach.

Nothing moved in the motley crowd before him but what
illustrated this science,—the monk, the lover, the soldier, the
improvisatore, the matron, the young girl; here the childish
hand brandishing its toy, there the artisan, and the shop girl,
and the maid-servant, seeking such enjoyment as their confined
life afforded; the young boyish companions with interlaced
arms, the benignant priest, every now and then the stately
carriage slowly passing by to its place on the corso, or to the
palace or garden to which its inmates were bound.

Wandering amid this brilliant fantasia of life, Inglesant's
heart smote him for the luxurious sense of pleasure which he
found himself taking in the present movement and aspect of
things.  Doubtless this human philosophy, if we may so call
it, into which he was drifting, has a tendency, at least, very
different from much of the teaching which is the same in every
school of religious thought.  Love of mankind is inculcated as
a sense of duty by every such school; but by this is certainly
not intended love of and acquiescence in mankind as it is.
This study of human life, however, this love of human
existence, is unconnected with any desire for the improvement
either of the individual or of the race.  It is man as he is, not
man as he might be, or as he should be, which is a delightful
subject of contemplation to this tolerant philosophy which
human frailty finds so attractive.  Man's failings, his
self-inflicted miseries, his humours, the effect of his very crimes
and vices, if not even those vices themselves, form a chief part
in the changing drama upon which the student's eyes are so
eagerly set, and without these it would lose its interest and
attraction.  A world of perfect beings would be to such a man
of all things the most stale and unprofitable.  Humour and
pathos, the grotesque contrast between a man's aspirations and
his actual condition, his dreams and his mean realities, would
be altogether wanting in such a world.  Indignation, sorrow,
satire, doubt, and restlessness, allegory, the very soul and vital
salt of life, would be wanting in such a world.  But if a man
does not desire a perfect world, what part can he have in the
Christian warfare?  It is true that an intimate study of a
world of sin and of misfortune throws up the sinless character
of the Saviour into strong relief; but the student accepts this
Saviour's character and mission as part of the phenomena of
existence, not as an irreconcilable crusade and battle-cry
against the powers of the world on every hand.  The study of
life is indeed equally possible to both schools; but the pleased
acquiescence in life as it is, with all its follies and fantastic
pleasures, is surely incompatible with following the footsteps of
the Divine Ascetic who trod the wine-press of the wrath of
God.  With all their errors, they who rejected the world and
all its allurements, and taught the narrow life of painful
self-denial, must be more nearly right than this.

Nevertheless, even before this last thought was completely
formed in his mind, the sight of the moving people, and of the
streets of the wonderful city opening out on every side, full of
palaces and glittering shops and stalls, and crowded with life
and gaiety, turned his halting choice back again in the
opposite direction, and he thought something like this:—

"How useless and even pitiful is the continued complaint
of moralists and divines, to whom none lend an ear, whilst
they endeavour, age after age, to check youth and pleasure,
and turn the current of life and nature backward on its course.
For how many ages in this old Rome, as in every other city,
since Terence gossipped of the city life, has this frail faulty
humanity for a few hours sunned itself on warm afternoons in
sheltered walks and streets, and comforted itself into life and
pleasure, amid all its cares and toils and sins.  Out of this
shifting phantasmagoria comes the sound of music, always
pathetic and sometimes gay; amid the roofs and belfries peer
the foliage of the public walks, the stage upon which, in every
city, life may be studied and taken to heart; not far from
these walks is, in every city, the mimic stage, the glass in
which, in every age and climate, human life has seen itself
reflected, and has delighted, beyond all other pleasures, in
pitying its own sorrows, in learning its own story, in watching
its own fantastic developments, in foreshadowing its own fate,
in smiling sadly for an hour over the still more fleeting
representation of its own fleeting joys.  For ever, without any
change, the stream flows on, spite of moralist and divine, the
same as when Phaedria and Thais loved each other in old
Rome.  We look back on these countless ages of city life,
cooped in narrow streets and alleys and paved walks,
breathing itself in fountained courts and shaded arcades, where
youth and manhood and old age have sought their daily
sustenance not only of bread but of happiness, and have with
difficulty and toil enough found the one and caught fleeting
glimpses of the other, between the dark thunder clouds, and
under the weird, wintry sky of many a life.  Within such a
little space how much life is crowded, what high hopes, how
much pain!  From those high windows behind the flower-pots
young girls have looked out upon life, which their instincts
told them was made for pleasure, but which year after year
convinced them was, somehow or other, given over to pain.
How can we read this endless story of humanity with any
thought of blame?  How can we watch this restless quivering
human life, this ceaseless effort of a finite creature to attain to
those things which are agreeable to its created nature, alike in
all countries, under all climates and skies, and whatever change
of garb or semblance the long course of years may bring, with
any other thought than that of tolerance and pity—tolerance
of every sort of city existence, pity for every kind of toil and
evil, year after year repeated, in every one of earth's cities,
full of human life and handicraft, and thought and love and
pleasure, as in the streets of that old Jerusalem over which the
Saviour wept."

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The conversation that evening at the Cardinal's villa turned
upon the antiquities of Rome.  The chief delight of the
Fathers of the Oratory was in music, but the Cardinal
preferred conversation, especially upon Pagan literature and art.
He was an enthusiast upon every subject connected with the
Greeks,—art, poetry, philosophy, religion; upon all these he
founded theories and deductions which showed not only an
intimate acquaintance with Greek literature, but also a deep
familiarity with the human heart.  A lively imagination and
eloquent and polished utterance enabled him to extract from
the baldest and most obscure myths and fragments of antiquity
much that was fascinating, and, being founded on a true insight
into human nature, convincing also.

Inglesant especially sympathized with and understood the
tone of thought and the line of reasoning with which the
Cardinal regarded Pagan antiquity; and this appreciation
pleased the Cardinal, and caused him to address much of his
conversation directly to him.

The villa was full of objects by which thought and
conversation were attracted to such channels.  The garden was
entered by a portico or door-case adorned with ancient statues,
the volto or roof of which was painted with classic subjects,
and the lofty doors themselves were covered with similar ones
in relief.  The walls of the house, towards the garden, were
cased with bas-reliefs,—"antique incrustations of history" the
Cardinal called them,—representing the Rape of Europa, of
Leda, and other similar scenes.  These antique stones and
carvings were fitted into the walls between the rich pilasters
and cornicing which adorned the front of the villa, and the
whole was crossed with tendrils of citron and other flowering
shrubs, trained with the utmost art and nicety, so as to soften
and ornament without concealing the sculpture.  The gardens
were traversed by high hedges of myrtle, lemon, orange, and
juniper, interspersed with mulberry trees and oleanders, and
were planted with wide beds of brilliant flowers, according to
the season, now full of anemones, ranunculuses, and crocuses.
The whole was formed upon terraces, fringed with balustrades
of marble, over which creeping plants were trained with the
utmost skill, only leaving sufficient stone-work visible to relieve
the foliage.  The walks were full of statues and pieces of
carving in relief.  The rooms were ornamented in the same
taste, and the chimney of the one in which the supper was laid
was enriched with sculpture of wonderful grace and delicacy.

One of the Fathers of the Oratory asked Inglesant whether
he had seen the Venus of the Medicean palace, and what he
thought of it compared with the Venus of the Farnese; and
when he had replied, the other turned to the Cardinal and
inquired whether, in his opinion, the Greeks had any higher
meaning or thought in these beautiful delineations of human
form than mere admiration and pleasure.

"The higher minds among them assuredly," said the
Cardinal; "but in another and more important sense every
one of them, even the most unlettered peasant who gazed
upon the work, and the most worldly artist buried in the mere
outward conceptions of his art, were consciously or
unconsciously following, and even worshipping, a divinity and a
truth than which nothing can be higher or more universal.
For the truth was too powerful for them, and so universal that
they could not escape.  Human life, in all the phases of its
beauty and its deformity, is so instinct with the divine nature,
that, in merely following its variety, you are learning the highest
lessons, and teaching them to others."

"What may you understand by being instinct with the
divine nature?" said the Priest, not unnaturally.

"I mean that general consensus and aggregate of truth in
which human nature and all that is related to it is contained.
That divine idea, indeed, in which all the facts of human life
and experience are drawn together, and exalted to their utmost
perfection and refinement, and are seen and felt to form a whole
of surpassing beauty and nobleness, in which the divine image
and plastic power in man is clearly discerned and intellectually
received and appropriated."

The Priest did not seem altogether to understand this, and
remained silent.

"But," said Inglesant, "much of this pursuit of the beautiful
must have been associated, in the ideas of the majority
of the people, with thoughts and actions the most unlovely
and undesirable according to the intellectual reason, however
delightful to the senses."

"Even in these orgies," replied the Cardinal, "in the most
profligate and wild excesses of license, I see traces of this
all-pervading truth; for the renouncing of all bound and limit is
in itself a truth, when any particular good, though only sensual,
is freed and perfected.  This is, no doubt, what the higher
natures saw, and it was this that reconciled them to the license
of the people and of the unilluminated.  In all these aberrations
they saw ever fresh varieties and forms of that truth which,
when it was intellectually conceived, it was their greatest
enjoyment to contemplate, and which, no doubt, formed the
material of the instructions which the initiated into the
mysteries received.  It is impossible that this could be otherwise,
for there can be no philosophy if there be no human life from
which to derive it.  The intellectual existence and discourses
of Socrates cannot be understood, except when viewed in
connection with the sensual and common existence and carnal
wisdom of Aristophanes, any more than the death of the one
can be understood without we also understand the popular
thought and feeling delineated to us by the other.  And why
should we be so ungrateful as to turn round on this 'beast
within the man,' if you so choose to call it,—the human body
and human delight to which we owe not only our own existence
and all that makes life desirable, but also that very
loftiness and refinement of soul, that elevated and sublime
philosophy, which could not exist but for the contrast and antithesis
which popular life presents?  Surely it is more philosophical
to take in the whole of life, in every possible form, than to
shut yourself up in one doctrine, which, while you fondly dream
you have created it, and that it is capable of self-existence, is
dependent for its very being on that human life from which
you have fled, and which you despise.  This is the whole
secret of the pagan doctrine, and the key to those profound
views of life which were evolved in their religion.  This is the
worship of Priapus, of human life, in which nothing comes
amiss or is to be staggered at, however voluptuous or sensual,
for all things are but varied manifestations of life; of life,
ruddy, delicious, full of fruits, basking in sunshine and plenty,
dyed with the juice of grapes; of life in valleys cooled by
snowy peaks, amid vineyards and shady fountains, among
which however, 'Sæpe Faunorum voces exauditæ, sæpe visæ
formæ Deorum.'"

"This, Signore Inglesant," said the Priest, passing the wine
across the table, with a smile, "is somewhat even beyond the
teaching of your friends of the society of the Gesu; and would
make their doctrine even, excellently as it already suits that
purpose, still more propitious towards the frailty of men."

Inglesant filled his glass, and drank it off before he replied.
The wine was of the finest growth of the delicious Alban
vineyards; and as the nectar coursed through his veins, a
luxurious sense of acquiescence stole over him.  The warm
air, laden with perfume from the shaded windows, lulled his
sense; a stray sunbeam lighted the piles of fruit and the
deeply embossed gold of the service on the table before him,
and the mellow paintings and decorated ceiling of the room.
As he slowly drank his wine the memory of Serenus de Cressy,
and of his doctrine of human life, rose before his mind, and
his eyes were fixed upon the deep-coloured wine before him, as
though he saw there, as in a magic goblet, the opposing powers
that divide the world.  It seemed to him that he had renounced
his right to join in the conflict, and that he must remain as
ever a mere spectator of the result; nevertheless he said,—

"Your doctrine is delightful to the philosopher and to the
man of culture, who has his nature under the curb, and his
glance firmly fixed upon the goal; but to the vulgar it is death;
and indeed it was death until the voice of another God was
heard, and the form of another God was seen, not in
vineyards and rosy bowers, but in deserts and stony places, in
dens and caves of the earth, and in prisons and on crosses of
wood."

"It is treason to the idea of cultured life," said the Cardinal,
"to evoke such gloomy images.  My theory is at least free from
such faults of taste."

"Do not fear me," said Inglesant; "I have no right to
preach such a lofty religion.  An asceticism I never practised
it would ill-become me to advocate."

"You spoke of the death of Socrates," said the Priest;
"does this event fall within the all-embracing tolerance of your
theory?"

"The death of Socrates," said the Cardinal, "appears to have
been necessary to preserve the framework of ordinary every-day
society from falling to pieces.  At any rate men of good
judgment in that day thought so, and they must have known best.
You must remember that it was Socrates that was put to death,
not Plato, and we must not judge by what the latter has left us
of what the former taught.  The doctrine of Socrates was
purely negative, and undermined the principle of belief not
only in the Gods but in everything else.  His dialectic was
excellent and noble, his purpose pure and exalted, the clearing
of men's mind's of false impressions; but to the common fabric
of society his method was destruction.  So he was put to death,
unjustly of course, and contrary to the highest law, but according
to the lower law of expediency, justly; for society must preserve
itself even at the expense of its noblest thinkers.  But," added
the Cardinal with a smile, "we have only to look a little way for
a parallel.  It is not, however, a perfect one; for while the
Athenians condemned Socrates to a death painless and dignified,
the moderns have burnt Servetus, whose doctrine contained
nothing dangerous to society, but turned on a mere point of the
schools, at the stake."

"Why do they not burn you, Cardinal?" said one of the
Oratorians, who had not yet spoken, a very intimate friend of
the master of the house.

"They do not know whom to begin with in Rome," he
replied; "if they once commenced to burn, the holocaust would
be enormous before the sacrifice was complete."

"I would they would burn Donna Olympia," said the same
Priest; "is it true that she has returned?"

"Have patience," said the Cardinal; "from what I hear you
will not have long to wait."

"I am glad you believe in purgatory," said the Priest who
had spoken first.  "I did not know that your Eminence was so
orthodox."

"You mistake.  I do not look so far.  I am satisfied with
the purgatory of this life.  I merely meant that I fear we shall
not long have his Holiness among us."

"The moderns have burnt others besides Servetus," said
one of the guests—"Vaninus, for instance."

"I did not instance Vaninus," said the Cardinal, "because
his punishment was more justifiable, and nearer to that of
Socrates.  Vaninus taught atheism, which is dangerous to society,
and he courted his death.  I suppose, Mr. Inglesant, that your
bishops would burn Mr. Hobbes if they dared."

"I know little of the Anglican bishops, Eminence," replied
Inglesant; "but from that little I should imagine that it is not
impossible."

"What does Mr. Hobbes teach?" said one of the party.

The Cardinal looked at Inglesant, who shook his head.

"What he teaches would require more skill than I possess
to explain.  What they would say that they burnt him for would
be for teaching atheism and the universality of matter.  I fancy
that it is at least doubtful whether even Vaninus meant to deny
the existence of God.  I have been told that he was merely an
enthusiastic naturalist, who could see nothing but nature, which
was his god.  But as for Mr. Hobbes's opinions, he seems to me
to have proclaimed a third authority in addition to the two which
already claimed the allegiance of the world.  We had first the
authority of a Church, then of a book, now Mr. Hobbes asserts
the authority of reason; and the supporters of the book, even
more fiercely than those of the Church, raise a clamour against
him.  His doctrines are very insidiously and cautiously
expressed, and it proves the acuteness of the Anglican divines
that they have detected, under the plausible reasoning of
Mr. Hobbes, the basis of a logical argument which would, if
unconfuted, destroy the authority of Holy Scripture."

The Cardinal looked at Inglesant curiously, as though uncertain
whether he was speaking in good faith or not, but the
subject did not seem to possess great interest to the company
at table, and the conversation took another turn.





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   CHAPTER VI.

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Some few days after the conversation at the Cardinal's
villa, Inglesant received his first commission as an agent
of the Society of the Gesu.  He was invited to sup with the
Superior of the English Jesuits, Father Stafford, at the college
called St. Thomasso degli Inglesi.  After the meal, over which
nothing was spared to render it delicious, and during the
course of which the Superior exerted himself to please, the
latter said,—

"I am instructed to offer you a commission, which, if I
mistake not, will both prove very interesting to you, and will
also be of advantage to your interests.  You are probably
acquainted with the story of the old Duke of Umbria.  You
have heard that, wearied with age, and tired of the world, he
resigned the dukedom to his son, his only child, the object of
all his hopes and the fruit of careful training and instruction.
This son, far from realizing the brilliant hopes of his father,
indulged in every kind of riot and debauchery, and finally died
young, worn out before his time.  The old Duke, broken-hearted
by this blow, has virtually made over the succession to
the Holy Father, and lives now, alone and silent in his
magnificent palace, caring for no worldly thing, and devoting all
his thoughts to religion and to his approaching end.  He is
unhappy in the prospect of his dissolution, and the only persons
who are admitted to his presence are those who promise him
any comfort in the anticipation, or any clearness in the vision,
of the future life.  Quacks and impostors of every kind, priests
and monks and fanatics, are admitted freely, and trouble this
miserable old man, and drive him into intolerable despair.  To
give to this old man, whose life of probity, of honour, of
devotion to his people, of conscientious rectitude, is thus miserably
rewarded—to give some comfort to this miserable victim of a
jealousy which the superstitious miscall that of heaven, is a
mission which the ethereal chivalry of the soul will eagerly
embrace.  It is one, I may say without flattery, for which I hold
you singularly fitted.  A passionate religious fervour, such as
yours, combined in the most singular manner with the freest
speculative opinions, and commended by a courteous grace,
will at once soothe and strengthen this old man's shattered
intellect, distracted and tormented and rapidly sinking into
imbecility and dotage."

Father Stafford paused and filled his glass; then passing
the wine to Inglesant, he continued, half carelessly,—

"I said that the Duke had virtually made over the succession
of his State to the Papal See; but this has not been formally
ratified, and there has arisen some hesitation and difficulty
respecting it.  Some of the unsuitable advisers to whom the Duke
in his mental weakness has unfortunately lent an ear, have
endeavoured to persuade him that the interests of his people
will be imperilled by their country being placed under the mild
and beneficent rule of the Holy Father.  We hear something of
a Lutheran, who, by some unexplained means, has obtained
considerable influence with this unhappy old man; and we are
informed that there is great danger of the Duke's hesitating so
long before he completes the act of succession, that his death
may occur before it is complete.  You will of course exert the
influence which I hope and expect that you will soon gain at
the ducal Court, to hasten this consummation, so desirable for
the interests of the people, of the Papacy, and of the Duke
himself."

Inglesant had listened to this communication with great
interest.  The prospect which the earlier part of it had opened
before him was in many respects an attractive one, and the
flattering words of the Superior were uttered in a tone of
sincerity which made them very pleasant to hear.  The description
of the Duke's condition offered to him opportunities of mental
study of absorbing interest, and the characters of those by
whom he was surrounded would no doubt present combinations
and varieties of singular and unusual curiosity.  It must not be
denied, moreover, that there entered into his estimate of the
proposal made to him somewhat of the prospect of luxurious
and courtly life—of that soft clothing, both of body and spirit,
which they who live in kings' houses wear.  It is difficult
indeed for one who has been long accustomed to refined and
dainty living, where every sense is trained and strengthened by
the fruition it enjoys, to regard the future altogether with
indifference in respect to these things.  The palace of the Duke was
notorious throughout all Italy for the treasures of art which
it contained, though its master in his old age was become
indifferent to such delights.  But though these thoughts passed
through his mind as the Superior was speaking, Inglesant was
too well versed in the ways of Courts and Ecclesiastics not to
know that there was something more to come, and to attend
carefully for its development.  The latter part of the Superior's
speech produced something even of a pleasurable amusement,
as the skilfully executed tactics of an opponent are pleasing to
a good player either at cards or chess.  The part which he was
now expected to play, the side which he was about to espouse,
taken in connection with the difficulties and impressions which
had perplexed him since he had arrived in Italy, and which
had not been removed by what he had seen in Rome
itself, corresponded so exactly with the scheme which, to his
excited imagination, was being spiritually developed for his
destruction—a morbid idea, possibly, which the lofty beneficence
of Molinos's doctrine had only partially removed—that its
appearance and recognition actually provoked a smile.  But
the smile, which the Superior noticed and entirely misunderstood,
was succeeded by uneasiness and depression.  There was,
however, little hesitation and no apparent delay in Inglesant's
manner of acceptance.  The old habit of implicit obedience was
far from obliterated or even weakened, and though Father
St. Clare was not present the supreme motive of his influence was
not unfelt.  He had chosen his part when in Paris he had
turned his back upon De Cressy, and accepted the Jesuit's
offer of the mission to Rome.  He had lived in Rome, had
been received and countenanced and entertained as one who
had accepted the service of those who had so courteously and
hospitably treated him, and it was far too late now, when the
first return was expected of him, to draw back or to refuse.  To
obey was not only a recognized duty, it was an instinct which
not only long training but experience even served to strengthen.
He assured the Superior that he was perfectly ready to set out.
He assured himself indeed that it was not necessary to come to
a decision at that moment, and that he should be much better
able to decide upon his course of conduct when he had seen
the Duke himself, and received more full instructions from Rome.

The Superior informed Inglesant that he would be expected
to visit Umbria as a gentleman of station, and offered to provide
the necessary means.  Inglesant contented himself with declining
this offer for the present.  Since his arrival at Rome he had
received considerable sums of money from England, the result
of Lady Cardiff's bounty, and the Cardinal's purse was open to
him in several indirect ways.  He provided himself with the
necessary number of servants, horses, and other conveniences,
and some time, as would appear, after Easter, he arrived at
Umbria.

On his journey, as he rode along in the wonderful clear
morning light, in his "osteria" in the middle of the day, and
when he resumed his journey in the cool of the evening, his
thoughts had been very busy.  He remembered his conversation
with the Count Vespiriani, and was unable to reconcile
his present mission with the pledge he had given to the Count.
He was more than once inclined to turn back and refuse to
undertake the duty demanded of him.  Thoughts of Lauretta,
and of the strange fate that had separated him from her, also
occupied his mind; and with these conflicting emotions still
unreconciled, he saw at last the white façade of the palace
towering above the orange groves, and the houses and pinnacles
of the city.

The ducal palace at Umbria is a magnificent example of
the Renaissance style.  It is impossible to dwell in or near
this wonderful house without the life becoming affected, and
even diverted from its previous course, by its imperious influence.
The cold and mysterious power of the classic architecture
is wedded to the rich and libertine fancy of the Renaissance,
treading unrestrained and unabashed the maze of nature and
of phantasy, and covering the classic purity of outline with its
exquisite tracery of fairy life.  Over door and window and
pilaster throng and cling the arabesque carvings of foliage and
fruit, of graceful figures in fantastic forms and positions,—all
of infinite variety; all full of originality, of life, of motion, and
of character; all of exquisite beauty both of design and
workmanship.  The effect of the whole is lightness and joy, while
the eye is charmed and the sense filled with a luxurious
satisfaction at the abounding wealth of beauty and lavish
imagination.  But together with this delight to eye and sense there
is present to the mind a feeling, not altogether painless, of
oppressive luxury, and of the mating of incongruous forms,
arousing as it were an uneasy conscience, and affecting the
soul somewhat as the overpowering perfume of tropical vegetation
affects the senses.  To dwell in this palace was to breathe
an enchanted air; and as the wandering prince of story loses
his valour and strength in the magic castles into which he
strays, so here the indweller, whose intellect was mastered by
the genius of the architecture, found his simplicity impaired,
his taste becoming more sensuous and less severely chaste,
and his senses lulled and charmed by the insidious and
enervating spirit that pervaded the place.

At his first presentation Inglesant found the Duke seated
in a small room fitted as an oratory or closet, and opening by
a private door into the ducal pew in the Chapel.  His person
was bowed and withered by age and grief, but his eye was
clear and piercing, and his intellect apparently unimpaired.
He regarded his visitor with an intense and scrutinizing gaze,
which lasted for several minutes, and seemed to indicate some
suspicion.  There was, however, about Inglesant's appearance
and manner something so winning and attractive, that the old
man's eyes gradually softened, and the expression of distrust
that made his look almost that of a wild and hunted creature,
changed to one of comparative satisfaction and repose.  It is
true that he regarded with pleasure and hope every new-comer,
from whom he expected to derive consolation and advice.

Inglesant expected that he would inquire of the news of
Rome, of the Pope's health, and such-like matters; but he
seemed to have no curiosity concerning such things.  After
waiting for some time in silence he said,—

"Anthony Guevera tells us that we ought to address men
who are under thirty with 'You are welcome,' or 'You come
in a good hour,' because at that time of life they seem to be
coming into the world; from thirty to fifty we ought to greet
them with 'God keep you,' or 'Stand in a good hour;' and
from fifty onwards, with 'God speed you,' or 'Go in a good
hour,' for from thence they go taking their leave of the world.
The first is easy to say, and the wish not unlikely to be
fulfilled, but the last who shall ensure?  You come in a good
hour, graceful as an Apollo, to comfort a miserable old man;
can you assure me that, when I pass out of this world, I shall
depart likewise at a propitious time?  I am an old man, and
that unseen world which should be so familiar and near to
me seems so far off and yet so terrible.  A young man steps
into life as into a dance, confident of his welcome, pleased
himself and pleasing others; the stage to which he comes is
bright with flowers, soft music sounds on every side.  So ought
the old man to enter into the new life, confident of his welcome,
pleasing to his Maker and his God, the heavenly minstrelsy
in his ears.  But it is far otherwise with me.  I may lay me
down in the 'Angelica Vestis,' the monkish garment that
ensures the prayers of holy men for the departing soul; but
who will secure me the wedding garment that ensures
admission to the banquet above?"

"Do you find no comfort in the Blessed Sacrament,
Altezza?" said Inglesant.

"Sometimes I may fancy so; but I cannot see the figure
of the Christ for the hell that lies between."

"Ah!  Altezza," said Inglesant, his eyes full of pity, not
only for the old Duke, but for himself and all mankind, "it is
always thus.  Something stands between us and the heavenly
life.  My temptation is other than yours.  Communion after
communion I find Christ, and He is gracious to me—gracious
as the love of God Himself; but month after month and year
after year I find not how to follow Him, and when the road is
opened to me I am deaf, and refuse to answer to the heavenly
call.  You, Altezza, are in more hopeful case than I; for it
seems to me that your Highness has but to throw off that
blasphemous superstition which is found in all Christian creeds
alike, which has not feared to blacken even the shining gates
of heaven with the smoke of hell."

"All creeds are alike," said the Duke with a shudder, "but
mostly your northern religions, harsh and bitter as your skies.
I have heard from a Lutheran a system of religion that made
my blood run cold, the more as it commends itself to my
calmer reason."

"And that is, Altezza?" said Inglesant.

"This, that so far from the Sacrament of Absolution upon
earth, or at the hour of death, availing anything, God Himself
has no power to change the state of those who die without
being entirely purified from every trace of earthly and sensual
passion; to such as these, though otherwise sincere Christians,
nothing awaits but a long course of suffering in the desolate
regions of Hades, as the Lutheran calls it, until, if so may be,
the earthly idea is annihilated and totally obliterated from the
heart."

"This seems little different from the doctrine of the
Church," said Inglesant.

"It is different in this most important part," replied the
Duke, "that Holy Church purifies and pardons her penitent,
though he feels the passions of earth strong within him till the
last; but by this system you must eradicate these yourself.
You must purify your heart, you must feel every carnal lust,
every vindictive thought, every lofty and contemptuous notion,
utterly dead within you before you can enjoy a moment's
expectation of future peace.  He that goes out of this world
with an uncharitable thought against his neighbour does so
with the chances against him that he is lost for ever, for his
face is turned from the light, and he enters at once upon the
devious and downward walks of the future life; and what
ground has he to expect that he who could not keep his steps
in this life will find any to turn him back, or will have power
to turn himself back, from every growing evil in the world to
come?"

As the Duke spoke it seemed to Inglesant that these words
were addressed to him alone, and that he saw before him the
snare of the Devil, bated with the murderer of his brother,
stretched before his heedless feet for his eternal destruction.

The Duke took up a book that lay by him, and read,—

"The soul that cherishes the slightest animosity, and takes
this feeling into eternity, cannot be happy, though in other
respects pious and faithful.  Bitterness is completely opposed
to the nature and constitution of heaven.  The blood of Christ,
who on the cross, in the midst of the most excruciating torments,
exercised love instead of bitterness, cleanses from this sin also,
when it flows in our veins."

"I see nothing in this, Altezza," said Inglesant eagerly, "but
what is in accordance with the doctrines of the Church.  This is
that idea of sacramental purification, that Christ's Body being
assimilated to ours purifies and sanctifies.  His Body, being
exalted at that supreme moment and effort (the moment of His
suffering death), to the highest purity of temper and of
sweetness by the perfect love and holiness which pervaded His spirit,
has been able ever since, in all ages, through the mystery of the
Blessed Sacrament, to convert all its worthy recipients in some
degree to the same pure and holy state.  Many things which
men consider misfortunes and painful experiences are in fact
but the force of this divine influence, assimilating their hearts
to His, and attempering their bodies to the lofty purity of His
own.  This is the master work of the Devil, that he should
lure us into states of mind, as the book says, of bitterness and
of violence, by which this divine sweetness is tainted, and this
peace broken by suspicion, by hatred, and heat of blood."

"The book says somewhere," said the Duke, turning over the
leaves, "that, as the penitent thief rose from the cross to
Paradise, so we, if we long after Christ with all the powers of
our souls, shall, at the hour of death, rapidly soar aloft from our
mortal remains, and then all fear of returning to earth and
earthly desires will be at an end."

"It must surely," said Inglesant after a pause, speaking
more to himself than to the Duke, "be among the things most
surprising to an angelic nature that observes mankind, that,
shadows ourselves, standing upon the confines even of this
shadowy land, and not knowing what, if aught, awaits us
elsewhere, hatred or revenge or unkindness should be among the
last passions that are overcome.  When the veil is lifted, and
we see things as they really are, nothing will so much amaze us
as the blindness and perversity that marked our life among our
fellow-men.  Surely the lofty life is hard, as it seems hard to
your Grace; but the very effort itself is gain."

Inglesant left the presence of the Duke after his first
interview impressed and softened, but troubled in his mind more
than ever at the nature of the mission on which he was sent.
Now that he had seen the Duke, and had been touched by his
eager questions, and by the earnest searching look in the worn
face, his conscience smote him at the thought of abusing his
confidence, and of persuading him to adopt a course which
Inglesant's own heart warned him might not in the end be
conducive either to his own peace or to the welfare of his
people, whose happiness he sincerely sought.  He found that,
in the antechambers and reception rooms of the palace, and
even at the Duke's own table, the principal subject of
conversation was the expected cession of the dukedom to the Papal
See; and that emissaries from Rome had preceded him, and
had evidently received instructions announcing his arrival, and
were prepared to welcome him as an important ally.  On the
other hand, there were not wanting those who openly or
covertly opposed the cession, some of whom were said to be
agents of the Grand Duke of Florence, who was heir to the
Duchy of Umbria through his wife.  These latter, whose
opposition was more secret than open, sought every opportunity
of winning Inglesant to their party, employing the usual
arguments with which, since his coming into Italy, he had been
so familiar.  Many days passed in this manner, and Inglesant
had repeated conferences with the Duke, during which he made
great progress in his favour, and was himself won by his lofty,
kindly, and trustful character.

He had resided at Umbria a little less than a month, when
he received instructions by a courier from Rome, by which he
was informed that at the approaching festival of the Ascension
a determined effort was to be made by the agents and friends of
the Pope to bring the business to a conclusion.  The Duke had
promised to keep this festival, which is celebrated at Venice
and in other parts of Italy with great solemnity, with unusual
magnificence; and it was hoped that while his feelings were
influenced and his religious instincts excited by the solemn and
tender thoughts and imaginations which gather round the figure
of the ascending Son of man, he might be induced to sign the
deed of cession.  Hitherto the Duke had not mentioned the
subject to Inglesant, having found his conversation upon
questions of the spiritual life and practice sufficient to occupy
the time; but it was not probable that this silence would
continue much longer, and on the first day in Ascension week
Inglesant was attending Vespers at one of the Churches in the
town in considerable anxiety and trouble of mind.

The sun had hardly set, and the fête in the garden was not
yet begun, when, Vespers being over, he came out upon the
river-side lined with stately houses which fronted the palace
gardens towering in terraced walks and trellises of green hedges
on the opposite bank.  The sun, setting behind the wooded
slopes, flooded this green hill-side with soft and dream-like light,
and bathed the carved marble façade of the palace, rising above
it with a rosy glimmer, in which the statues on its roof, and the
fretted work of its balustrades, rested against the darkening
blue of the evening sky.  A reflex light, ethereal and wonderful,
coming from the sky behind him, and the marble buildings
and towers on which the sun's rays rested more fully than they
did upon the palace, brooded over the river and the bridge
with its rows of angelic forms, and, climbing the leafy slopes,
as if to contrast its softer splendour with the light above,
transfigured with colour the wreaths of vapour which rose from
the river and hung about its wharves.

The people were already crowding out of the city, and
forcing their way across the bridge towards the palace, where
the illuminations and the curious waterworks, upon which the
young Duke had, during his short reign, expended much money,
were to be exhibited as soon as the evening was sufficiently
dark.  The people were noisy and jostling, but as usual
good-tempered and easily pleased.  Few masques or masquerade
dresses had appeared as yet, but almost every one was armed
with a small trumpet, a drum, or a Samarcand cane, from which
to shoot peas or comfits.  At the corner of the main street that
opened on to the quay, however, some disturbing cause was
evidently at work.  The crowd was perplexed by two contending
currents, the one consisting of those who were attempting
to turn into the street from the wharf, in order to learn the
cause of the confusion, the other, of those who were apparently
being driven forcibly out of the street, towards the wharves and
the bridge, by pressure from behind.  Discordant cries and
exclamations of anger and contempt rose above the struggling
mass.  Taking advantage of the current that swept him onward,
Inglesant reached the steps of the Church of St. Felix, which
stood at the corner of the two streets, immediately opposite the
bridge and the ducal lions which flanked the approach.  On
reaching this commanding situation the cause of the tumult
presented itself in the form of a small group of men, who were
apparently dragging a prisoner with them, and had at this
moment reached the corner of the wharf, not far from the
steps of the Church, surrounded and urged on by a leaping,
shouting, and excited crowd.  Seen from the top of the broad
marble bases that flanked the steps, the whole of the wide
space, formed by the confluence of the streets, and over which
the shadows were rapidly darkening, presented nothing but a
sea of agitated and tossing heads, while, from the windows,
the bridge, and even the distant marble terraced steps that
led up to the palace, the crowd appeared curious, and
conscious that something unusual was in progress.

From the cries and aspect of the crowd, and of the men
who dragged their prisoner along, it was evident that it was
the intention of the people to throw the wretched man over
the parapets of the bridge into the river below, and that to
frustrate this intention not a moment was to be lost.  The
pressure of the crowd, greater from the opposite direction than
from the one in which Inglesant had come, fortunately swept
the group almost to the foot of the steps.  Near to Inglesant,
and clinging to the carved bases of the half-columns that
supported the façade of the Church, were two or three priests who
had come out of the interior, attracted by the tumult.  Availing
himself of their support, Inglesant shouted to the captors
of the unhappy man, in the name of the Church and of the
Duke, to bring their prisoner up the steps.  They probably
would not have obeyed him, though they hesitated for a
moment; but the surrounding crowd, attracted towards the
Church by Inglesant's gestures, began to press upon it from all
sides, as he had indeed foreseen would be the case, and finally,
by their unconscious and involuntary motion, swept the prisoner
and his captors up the steps to the side of the priests and of
Inglesant.  It was a singular scene.  The rapidly advancing
night had changed the golden haze of sunset to a sombre
gloom, but lights began to appear in the houses all around,
and paper lanterns showed themselves among the crowd.

The cause of all this confusion was dragged by his persecutors
up the steps, and placed upon the last of the flight,
confronting the priests.  His hair was disordered, his clothes
nearly torn from his limbs, and his face and dress streaked
with blood.  Past the curtain across the entrance of the Church,
which was partly drawn back by those inside, a flash of light
shot across the marble platform, and shone upon the faces of the
foremost of the crowd.  This light shone full upon Inglesant,
who stood, in striking contrast to the dishevelled figure that
confronted him, dressed in a suit of black satin and silver,
with a deep collar of Point-de-Venice lace.  The priests stood
a little behind, apparently desirous to learn the nature of the
prisoner's offence before they interfered; and the accusers
therefore addressed themselves to Inglesant, who, indeed, was
recognized by many as a friend of the Duke, and whom the
priests especially had received instructions from Rome to
support.  The confusion in the crowd meanwhile increased rather
than diminished; there seemed to be causes at work other than
the slight one of the seizure by the mob of an unpopular man.
The town was very full of strangers, and it struck Inglesant
that the arrest of the man before him was merely an excuse,
and was being used by some who had an object to gain by
stirring up the people.  He saw, at any rate, however this
might be, a means of engaging the priests to assist him, should
their aid be necessary in saving the man's life.

That there was a passionate attachment among the people
to a separate and independent government of their city and
state, an affection towards the family of their hereditary dukes,
and a dread and jealous dislike of the Pope's government and
of the priests, he had reason to believe.  It seemed to him that
the people were about to break forth into some demonstration
of this antipathy, which, if allowed to take place, and if taken
advantage of, as it would be, by the neighbouring princes,
would be most displeasing to the policy of Rome, if not entirely
subversive of it.  With these thoughts in his mind, as he stood
for a moment silent on the marble platform, and saw before
him, what is perhaps the most impressive of all sights, a vast
assemblage of people in a state of violent and excited opposition,
and reflected on the causes which he imagined agitated
them,—causes which in his heart he, though enlisted on the
opposite side, had difficulty in persuading himself were not
justifiable,—it came into his mind more powerfully than ever,
that the moment foretold to him by Serenus de Cressy was at
last indeed come.  Surely it behoved him to look well to his
steps, lest he should be found at last absolutely and unequivocally
fighting against his conscience and his God; if, indeed,
this looking well to their steps on such occasions, and not
boldly choosing their side, had not been for many years the
prevailing vice of his family, and to some extent the cause of
his own spiritual failure.

The two men who held the apparent cause of all this
uproar were two mechanics of jovial aspect, who appeared to
look upon the affair more in the light of a brutal practical joke
(no worse in their eyes for its brutality), than as a very serious
matter.  To Inglesant's question what the man had done they
answered that he had refused to kneel to the Blessed Sacrament,
as it was being carried through the streets to some poor,
dying soul, and upon being remonstrated with, had reviled
not only the Sacrament itself, but the Virgin, the Holy Father,
and the Italians generally, as Papistical asses, with no more
sense than the Pantaleoni of their own comedies.  The men
gave this evidence in an insolent half-jesting manner, as though
not sorry to utter such words safely in the presence of the
priests.

Inglesant, who kept his eyes fixed upon the prisoner, and
noticed that he was rapidly recovering from the breathless and
exhausted condition the ill-treatment he had met with had
reduced him to, and was assuming a determined and
somewhat noble aspect, abstained from questioning him, lest he
should make his own case only the more desperate; but, turning
to the priests, he rapidly explained his fears to them, and
urged that the man should be immediately secured from the
people, that he might be examined by the Duke, and the result
forwarded to Rome.  The priests hesitated.  Apart from the
difficulty, they said, of taking the man out of the hands of his
captors, such a course would be sure to exasperate the people
still further, and bring on the very evil that he was desirous of
averting.  It would be better to let the mob work their will
upon the man; it would at least occupy some time, and every
moment was precious.  In less than an hour the fireworks at
the palace would begin, might indeed be hastened by a special
messenger; and the fête once begun, they hoped all danger
would be over.  To this Inglesant answered that the man's
arrest was evidently only an excuse for riot, and had probably
already answered its purpose; that to confine the people's
attention to it would be unfavourable to the intentions of those who
were promoting a political tumult; and that the avowed cause
of the man's seizure, and of the excitement of the mob, being
disrespectful language towards the Holy Father, the tumult, if
properly managed, might be made of service to the cause of
Rome rather than the reverse.

Without waiting for the effect of this somewhat obscure
argument on the priests, Inglesant directed the men who held
their prisoner to bring him into the Church.  They were
unwilling to do so, but the crowd below was so confused and
tumultuous, one shouting one thing and one another, that it
seemed impossible that, if they descended into it again, they
would be allowed to retain their prey, and would not rather be
overwhelmed in a common destruction with him.  On the
other hand, by obeying Inglesant, they at least kept possession
of their prisoner, and could therefore scarcely fail of receiving
some reward from the authorities.  They therefore consented,
and by a sudden movement they entered the Church, the doors
of which were immediately closed, after some few of the
populace had managed to squeeze themselves in.  A messenger
was at once despatched to the palace to hasten the fireworks,
and to request that a detachment of the Duke's guard should
be sent into the Church by a back way.

The darkness had by this time so much increased that few
of the people were aware of what had taken place, and the
ignorance of the crowd as to the cause of the tumult was so
general that little disturbance took place among those who
were shut out of the Church.  They remained howling and
hooting, it is true, for some time, and some went so far as to
beat against the closed doors; but a rumour being spread
among the crowd that the fireworks were immediately to begin,
they grew tired of this unproductive occupation, and flocked
almost to a man out of the square and wharves, and crowded
across the bridge into the gardens.

When the guard arrived, Inglesant claimed the man as the
Duke's prisoner, to be examined before him in the morning.
The curiosity of the Duke in all religious matters being well
known, this seemed very reasonable to the officer of the guard,
and the priests did not like to dispute it after the instructions
they had received with regard to Inglesant's mission.  The
two artisans were propitiated by a considerable reward, and
the prisoner was then transported by unfrequented ways to the
palace, and shut up in a solitary apartment, whilst the rest of
the world delighted itself at the palace fêtes.

The garden festivities passed away amid general rejoicing
and applause.  The finest effect was produced at the
conclusion, when the whole mass of water at the command of the
engines, being thrown into the air in thin fan-like jets, was
illuminated by various coloured lights, producing the appearance
of innumerable rainbows, through which the palace itself,
the orangeries, the gardens, and terraces, and the crowds of
delighted people, were seen illuminated and refracted in varied
and ever-changing tints.  Amid these sparkling colours strange
birds passed to and fro, and angelic forms descended by unseen
machinery and walked on the higher terraces, and as it were
upon the flashing rainbows themselves.  Delicious music from
unseen instruments ravished the sense, and when the scene
appeared complete and nothing further was expected, an orange
grove in the centre of the whole apparently burst open, and
displayed the stage of a theatre, upon which antic characters
performed a pantomime, and one of the finest voices in Italy
sang an ode in honour of the day, of the Duke, and of the
Pope.





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.. _`CHAPTER VII.`:

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   CHAPTER VII.

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The Duke had engaged the next morning to be present
at a theatrical representation of a religious character,
somewhat of the nature of a miracle play, to be given in the
courtyard of the "Hospital of Death," which adjoined to the
Campo Santo of the city.

Before accompanying his Highness, Inglesant had given
orders to have the man, who had been the cause of so much
excitement the evening before, brought into his apartment,
that he might see whether or no his eccentricity made him
sufficiently interesting to be presented to the Duke.

When the stranger was brought to the palace early in the
morning, and having been found to be quite harmless, was
entrusted by the guard to two servants to be brought into
Inglesant's presence, he thought himself in a new world.
Hitherto his acquaintance with Italian life had been that of a
stranger and from the outside; he was now to see somewhat
of the interior life of a people among whom the glories of the
Renaissance still lingered, and to see it in one of the most
wonderful of the Renaissance works, the ducal palace of
Umbria.  Born in the dull twilight of the north, and having
spent most of his mature years amongst the green mezzotints
of Germany, he was now transplanted into a land of light and
colour, dazzling to a stranger so brought up.  Reared in the
sternest discipline, he found himself among a people to whom
life was a fine art, and the cultivation of the present and its
enjoyments the end of existence.  From room to room, as he
followed his guide, who pointed out from time to time such of
the beauties of the place as he considered most worthy of
notice, the stranger saw around what certainly might have
intoxicated a less composed and determined brain.

The highest efforts of the genius of the Renaissance had
been expended upon this magnificent house.  The birth of a
new instinct, differing in some respects from any instincts of
art which had preceded it, produced in this and other similar
efforts original and wonderful results.  The old Greek art
entered with unsurpassable intensity into sympathy with human
life; but it was of necessity original and creative, looking always
forward and not back, and lacked the pathos and depth of
feeling that accompanied that new birth of art which sought
much of its inspiration among the tombs and ruined grottoes,
and most of its sympathetic power among the old well-springs
of human feeling, read in the torn and faded memorials of past
suffering and destruction.  This new instinct of art abandoned
itself without reserve to the pursuit of everything which mankind
had ever beheld of the beautiful, or had felt of the pathetic
or the sad, or had dreamed of the noble or the ideal.  The
genius of the Renaissance set itself to reproduce this enchanted
world of form and colour, traversed by thoughts and spiritual
existences mysterious and beautiful, and the home of beings
who had found this form and colour and these mysterious
thoughts blend into a human life delicious in its very sorrows,
grotesque and incongruous in its beauty, alluring and attractive
amid all its griefs and hardships; so much so indeed that, in
the language of the old fables, the Gods themselves could not
be restrained from throwing off their divine garments, and
wandering up and down among the paths and the adventures
of men.  By grotesque and humorous delineation, by fanciful
representation of human passion under strange and unexpected
form, by the dumb ass speaking and grasshoppers playing upon
flutes, was this world of intelligent life reproduced in the rooms
and on the walls of the house through which the stranger
walked for the first time.

He probably thought that he saw little of it, yet the bizarre
effect was burning itself into his brain.  From the overhanging
chimney-pieces antique masques and figures such as he had
never seen, even in dreams, leered out upon him from
arabesque carvings of foliage, or skulked behind trophies of war,
of music, or of the arts of peace.  The door and window frames
seemed bowers of fruit and flowers, and forests of carved leaves
wreathed the pilasters and walls.  But this was not all; with
a perfection of design and an extraordinary power of fancy, this
world of sylvan imagery was peopled by figures and stories of
exquisite grace and sweetness, representing the most touching
incidents of human life and history.  Men and women; lovers
and warriors in conflicts and dances and festivals, in sacrifices
and games; children sporting among flowers; bereavement
and death, husbandry and handicraft, hunters and beasts of
chase.  Again, among briony and jasmin and roses, or perched
upon ears of corn and sheaves of maize, birds of every
plumage confronted—so the grotesque genius willed—fish and sea
monsters and shells and marine wonders of every kind.

Upon the walls, relieved by panelling of wood, were paintings
of landscapes and the ruined buildings of antiquity
overgrown with moss, or of modern active life in markets and
theatres, of churches and cities in the course of erection with
the architects and scaffold poles, of the processions and
marriages of princes, of the ruin of emperors and of kings.
Below and beside these were credenzas and cabinets upon
which luxury and art had lavished every costly device and
material which the world conceived or yielded.  Inlaid with
precious woods, and glittering with costly jewels and marbles,
they reproduced in these differing materials all those infinite
designs which the carved walls had already wearied themselves
to express.  Plaques and vases from Castel Durante or
Faience,—some of a strange pale colour, others brilliant with a grotesque
combination of blue and yellow,—crowded the shelves.

Passing through this long succession of rooms, the stranger
reached at last a library, a noble apartment of great size,
furnished with books in brilliant antique binding of gold and
white vellum, and otherwise ornamented with as much richness
as the rest of the palace.  Upon reading desks were open
manuscripts and printed books richly illuminated.  Connected
with this apartment by open arches, was an anteroom or
corridor, which again opened on a loggia, beyond the shady arches
of which lay the palace gardens, long vistas of green walks,
and reaches of blue sky, flecked and crossed by the spray of
fountains.  The decorations of the anteroom and loggia were
more profuse and extravagant than any that the stranger had
yet seen.  There was a tradition that this portion of the palace
had been finished last, and that when the workmen arrived at
it the time for the completion of the whole was very nearly
run out.  The attention of all the great artists, hitherto
engaged upon different parts of the entire palace, was
concentrated upon this unfinished portion, and all their workmen
and assistants were called to labour upon it alone.  The work
went on by night and day, not ceasing even to allow of sleep.
Unlimited supplies of Greek wine were furnished to the
workmen; and stimulated by excitement and the love of art,
emulating each other, and half-intoxicated by the delicious wine,
the work exceeded all previous productions.  For wild boldness
and luxuriance of fancy these rooms were probably unequalled
in the world.

In the anteroom facing the loggia the stranger found
Inglesant conversing with an Italian who held rather a singular
post in the ducal Court.  He was standing before a cabinet
of black oak, inlaid with representations of lutes and fifes,
over which were strewn roses confined by coloured ribbons,
and supporting vases of blue and yellow majolica, thrown into
strong relief by the black wood.  Above this cabinet was a
painting representing some battle in which a former Duke had
won great honour; while on a grassy knoll in the foreground
the huntsmen of Ganymede were standing with their eyes
turned upward towards the bird of Zeus, who is carrying the
youth away to the skies, emblematical of the alleged apotheosis
of the ducal hero.  Richly dressed in a fantastic suit of striped
silk, and leaning against the cabinet in an attitude of listless
repose, Inglesant was contemplating an object which he held
in his hand, and which both he and his companion appeared
to regard with intense interest.  This was an antique statuette
of a faun, holding its tail in its left hand, and turning its head
and body to look at it,—an occupation of which, if we may
trust the monuments of antiquity, this singular creature appears
to have been fond.  The Italian was of a striking figure, and
was dressed somewhat more gaily than was customary with his
countrymen; and the whole group was fully in unison with the
spirit of the place and with the wealth of beauty and luxury
of human life that pervaded the whole.

The man who was standing by Inglesant's side, and who
had the air of a connoisseur or virtuoso, was an Italian of
some fifty years of age.  His appearance, as has been said, was
striking at first sight, but on longer acquaintance became very
much more so.  He was tall and had been dark, but his hair
and beard were plentifully streaked with gray.  His features
were large and aquiline, and his face deeply furrowed and
lined.  His appearance would have been painfully worn,
almost to ghastliness, but for a mocking and humorous expression
which laughed from his eyes, his mouth, his nostrils, and
every line and feature of his face.  Whenever this expression
subsided, and his countenance sank into repose, a look of wan
sadness and even terror took its place, and the large black
eyes became fixed and intense in their gaze, as though some
appalling object attracted their regard.

This man had been born of a good but poor family, and
had been educated by his relations with the expectation of his
becoming an ecclesiastic, and he had even passed some time
as a novice of some religious order.  The tendency of his
mind not leading him to the further pursuit of a religious life,
he left his monastery, and addressed himself to live by his wits,
among the families and households of princes.  He had made
himself very useful in arranging comedies and pageantries, and
he had at one time belonged to one of those dramatic
companies called "Zanni," who went about the country reciting
and acting comedies.  Combined with this talent he discovered
great aptitude in the management of serious affairs, and was
more than once, while apparently engaged entirely on theatrical
performances, employed in secret State negotiations which
could not so well be entrusted to an acknowledged and
conspicuous agent.  In this manner of life he might have
continued; but having become involved in one of the contests
which disturbed Italy, he received a dangerous wound in the
head, and on rising from his sick bed in the Albergo in which
he had been nursed, he was merely removed to another as a
singular if not dangerous lunatic.  The symptoms of his
disease first manifested themselves in a very unpleasant
familiarity with the secrets of those around him, and it was probably
this feature of his complaint which led to his detention.  As
he improved in health, however, he ceased to indulge in any
conversation which might give offence, but, assuming a sedate
and agreeable manner, he conversed with all who came to
him, calling them, although strangers and such as he had
never before seen, by their proper names, and talking to them
pleasantly concerning their parents, relations, the coats-of-arms
of their families, and such other harmless and agreeable
matters.

What brought him prominently into notice was the strangely
prophetic spirit he manifested before, or at the moment of the
occurrence of, more than one public event.  He was taken
from the hospital and examined by the Pope, and afterwards
at several of the sovereign Courts of Italy.  Thus, not long
before the time when Inglesant met him in the ducal palace
at Umbria, he was at Chambery assisting at the preparation of
some festivals which the young Duke of Savoy was engaged in
celebrating.  One day, as he was seated at dinner with several
of the Duke's servants, he suddenly started up from his seat,
exclaiming that he saw the Duke de Nemours fall dead from
his horse, killed by a pistol shot.  The Duke, who was uncle
to the young monarch of Savoy, was then in France, where he
was one of the leaders of the party of the Fronde.  Before
many days were passed, however, the news reached Chambery
of the fatal duel between this nobleman and the Duke of
Beaufort, which occurred at the moment the Italian had thus
announced it.

These and other similar circumstances caused the man to
be much talked of and sought after among the courts of Italy,
where a belief in manifestations of the supernatural was
scarcely less universal than in the previous age, when,
according to an eye-witness, "the Pope would decide no question,
would take no journey, hold no sitting of the Consistory,
without first consulting the stars; nay, very few cardinals would
transact an affair of any kind, were it but to buy a load of
wood, except after consultation duly held with some astrologer
or wizard."  The credit which the man gained, and the benefits
he derived from this reputation, raised him many enemies,
who did not scruple to assert that he was simply a clever
knave, who was not even his own dupe.  Setting on one side,
however, the revelations of the distant and the unknown made
by him, which seemed inexplicable except by supposing him
possessed of some unusual spiritual faculty, there was in the
man an amount of knowledge of the world and of men of all
classes and ranks, combined with much learning and a
humorous wit, which made his company well worth having for his
conversation alone.  It was not then surprising that he should
be found at this juncture at the court of Umbria, where the
peculiar idiosyncrasies of the aged Duke, and the interest
attached to the intrigue for the session of the dukedom,
had assembled a strange and heterogeneous company, and
towards which at the moment all men's eyes in Italy were
turned.

"Yes, doubtless, it is an antique," the Italian was saying,
"though in the last age many artists produced masques and
figures so admirable as to be mistaken for antiques; witness
that masque which Messire Georgio Vassari says he put in a
chimney-piece of his house at Arezzo, which every one took
to be an antique.  I have seen such myself.  This little fellow,
however, I saw found in a vineyard near the Miserecordia—a
place which I take to have been at some time or other the
scene of some terrible event, such as a conflict or struggle or
massacre; for though now it is quiet and serene enough, with
the sunlight and the rustling leaves, and the splash of a
fountain about which there is some good carving, I think of Fra
Giovanni Agnolo,—for all this, I never walk there but I feel the
presence of fatal events, and a sense of dim figures engaged
in conflict, and of faint and distant cries and groans."

As he spoke these last words his eye rested upon the
strange figure of the man so hardly rescued from death the
night before, and he stopped.  His manner changed, and his
eyes assumed that expression of intense expectation of which
we have spoken before.  The appearance of the stranger, and
the contrast it presented to the objects around, was indeed
such as to make him almost seem an inhabitant of another
world, and one of those phantasms of past conflict of which
the Italian had just spoken.  His clothes, which had originally
been of the plainest texture, and most uncourtly make, were
worn and ragged, and stained with damp and dirt.  His form
and features were gaunt and uncouth, and his gesture stiff and
awkward; but, with all this, there was a certain steadiness
and dignity about his manner, which threw an appearance of
nobility over this rugged and unpleasing form.  Contrasted
with the dress and manner of the other men, he looked like
some enthusiastic prophet, standing in the house of mirth and
luxury, and predicting ruin and woe.

At this moment a servant entered the room, bringing a
sottocoppa of silver, upon which were two or three stiff
necked glasses, called caraffas, containing different sorts of
wine, and also water, and one or two more empty drinking-glasses,
so that the visitor could please himself as to the
strength and nature of his beverage.  Inglesant offered this
refreshment to the Italian, who filled himself a glass and drank,
pledging Inglesant as he did so.  The latter did not drink,
but offered wine and cakes to the stranger, who refused or
rather took no heed of these offers of politeness; he remained
silent, keeping his eyes fixed upon the face of the man
who, but a few hours before, had saved him from a violent
death.

"I have had some feelings of this kind myself, in certain
places," said Inglesant, in answer to the Italian's speech, "and
very frequently in all places the sense of something vanishing,
which in another moment I should have seen; it has seemed
to me that, could I once see this thing, matters would be very
different with me.  Whether I ever shall or not I do not know."

"Who can say?" replied the other.  "We live and move
amid a crowd of flitting objects unknown or dimly seen.  The
beings and powers of the unseen world throng around us.
We call ourselves lords of our own actions and fate, but we
are in reality the slaves of every atom of matter of which
the world is made and we ourselves created.  Among this
phantasm of struggling forms and influences (like a man
forcing his way through a crowd of masques who mock at
him and retard his steps) we fight our way towards the light.
Many of us are born with the seeds within us of that which
makes such a fight hopeless from the first—the seeds of
disease, of ignorance, of adverse circumstance, of stupidity; for
even a dullard has had once or twice in his life glimpses of
the light.  So we go on.  I was at Chambery once when a man
came before the Duke in the palace garden to ask an alms.
He was a worker in gold, a good artist, not unworthy of
Cellini himself.  His sight had failed him, and he could no
longer work for bread to give to his children.  He stood
before the Prince and those who stood with him, among
whom were a Cardinal and two or three nobles, with their
pages and grooms, trying with his dim eyes to make out one
from the other, which was noble and which was groom, and
to see whether his suit was rejected or allowed.  Behind
him, beyond the garden shade, the dazzling glitter stretched
up to the white Alps.  We are all the creatures of a day, and
the puny afflictions of any man's life are not worth a serious
thought; yet this man seemed to me so true an image of his
kind, helpless and half-blind, yet struggling to work out some
good for himself, that I felt a strange emotion of pity.  They
gave him alms—some more, some less.  I was a fool, yet even
now I think the man was no bad emblem of the life of each
of us.  We do not understand this enough.  Will the time ever
come when these things will be better known?"

As the Italian spoke the stranger took his eyes off
Inglesant and fixed them on the speaker with a startled
expression, as though the tone of his discourse was unexpected
to him.  He scarcely waited for the other to finish before he
broke in upon the conversation, speaking slowly and with
intense earnestness, as though above all things desirous of
being understood.  He spoke a strange and uncouth Italian,
full of rough northern idioms, yet the earnestness and dignity
of his manner ensured him an audience, especially with two
such men as those who stood before him.

"Standing in a new world," he said, "and speaking as I
speak, to men of another language, and of thoughts and habits
distinct from mine, I see beneath the tinsel of earthly rank
and splendour, and a luxury of life and of beauty, the very
meaning of which is unknown to me, something of a common
feeling, which assures me that the voice I utter will not be
entirely strange, coming as it does from the common Father.
I see around me a land given over to idolatry and sensual
crime, as if the old Pagans were returned again to earth;
and here around me I see the symbols of the Pagan worship
and of the Pagan sin, and I hear no other talk than that
which would have befitted the Pagan revels and the Pagan
darkness which overhung the world to come.  Standing on the
brink of a violent death, and able to utter few words that can
be understood, I call, in these short moments which are given
me, and in these few words which I have at command—I call
upon all who will listen to me, that they leave those things
which are behind, with all the filthy recollections of ages
steeped in sin, and that they press forward towards the
light,—the light of God in Jesus Christ."

He stopped, probably for want of words to clothe his
thoughts, and Inglesant replied,—

"You may be assured from the events of last night,
signore, that you are in no danger of violent death in this
house, and that every means will be taken to protect you,
until you have been found guilty of some crime.  You must,
however, know that no country can allow its customs and its
religion to be outraged by strangers and aliens, and you
cannot be surprised if such conduct is resented both by the
governors of the country and by the ignorant populace, though
these act from different motives.  As to what you have said
respecting the ornaments and symbols of this house, and of
the converse in which you have found us engaged, it would
seem that to a wise man these things might serve as an
allegory, or at least as an image and representation of human
life, and be, therefore, not without their uses."

"I desire no representation nor image of a past world of
iniquity," said the stranger, "I would I could say of a dead
life, but the whole world lieth in wickedness until this day.
This is why I travel through all lands, crying to all men that
they repent and escape the most righteous judgment of God,
if haply there be yet time.  These are those latter days in
which our Saviour and Redeemer Jesus Christ, the Son of
God, predicted that iniquity 'should be increased;' wherein,
instead of serving God, all serve their own humours and
affections, being rocked to sleep with the false and deceitful
lullaby of effeminate pleasures and delights of the flesh, and
know not that an horrible mischief and overthrow is awaiting
them, that the pit of Hell yawns beneath them, and that for
them is reserved the inevitable rigour of the eternal fire.  Is
it a time for chambering and wantonness, for soft raiment
and dainty living, for reading of old play-books such as the
one I see on the table, for building houses of cedar, painted
with vermilion, and decked with all the loose and fantastic
devices which a disordered and debauched intellect could
itself conceive, or could borrow from Pagan tombs and haunts
of devils, full of uncleanness and dead sins?"

"You speak too harshly of these things," said Inglesant.
"I see nothing in them but the instinct of humanity, differing
in its outward aspect in different ages, but alike in its meaning
and audible voice.  This house is in itself a representation of
the world of fancy and reality combined, of the material life
of the animal mingled with those half-seen and fitful glimpses
of the unknown life upon the verge of which we stand.  This
little fellow which I hold in my hand, speaks to me, in an
indistinct and yet forcible voice, of that common
sympathy—magical and hidden though it may be—by which the whole
creation is linked together, and in which, as is taught in many
an allegory and quaint device upon these walls, the Creator of
us all has a kindly feeling for the basest and most inanimate.
My imagination follows humanity through all the paths by
which it has reached the present moment, and the more
memorials I can gather of its devious footsteps the more
enlarged my view becomes of what its trials, its struggles, and
its virtues were.  All things that ever delighted it were in
themselves the good blessings of God—the painter's and the
player's art—action, apparel, agility, music.  Without these life
would be a desert; and as it seems to me, these things
softened manners so as to allow Religion to be heard, who
otherwise would not have been listened to in a savage world,
and among a brutal people destitute of civility.  As I trace
these things backward for centuries, I live far beyond my
natural term, and my mind is delighted with the pleasures of
nations who were dust ages before I was born."

"I am not concerned to dispute the vain pleasures of the
children of this world," exclaimed the stranger with more
warmth than he had hitherto shown.  "Do you suppose that I
myself am without the lusts and desires of life?  Have I no
eyes like other men, that I cannot take a carnal pleasure in
that which is cunningly formed by the enemy to please the
eye?  Am not I warmed like other men?  And is not soft
clothing and dainty fare pleasing to me as to them?  But I call
on all men to rise above these things, which are transitory and
visionary as a dream, and which you yourself have spoken of as
magical and hidden, of which only fitful glimpses are obtained.
You are pleasing yourself with fond and idle imaginations, the
product of delicate living and unrestrained fancies; but in this
the net of the devil is about your feet, and before you are
aware you will find yourself ensnared for ever.  These things
are slowly but surely poisoning your spiritual life.  I call upon
you to leave these delusions, and come out into the clear
atmosphere of God's truth; to tread the life of painful self-denial,
leaving that of the powerful and great of this world, and
following a despised Saviour, who knew none of these things,
and spent His time not in kings' houses gorgeously tricked out,
but knew not where to lay His head.  You speak to me of
pleasures of the mind, of music, of the painter's art; do you
think that last night, when beaten, crushed, and almost breathless,
in the midst of a blood-thirsty and howling crowd, I was
dimly conscious of help, and looking up I saw you in the
glare of the lanterns, in your courtier's dress of lace and silver,
calm, beneficent, powerful for good, you did not seem to my
weak human nature, and my low needs and instincts, beautiful
as an angel of light?  Truly you did; yet I tell you, speaking
by a nature and in a voice that is more unerring than mine,
that, to the divine vision, of us two at that moment you were
the one to be pitied,—you were the outcast, the tortured of
demons, the bound hand and foot, whose portion is in this
life, who, if this fleeting hour is left unheeded, will be
tormented in the life to come."

The Italian turned away his head to conceal a smile, and
even to Inglesant, who was much better able to understand
the man's meaning, this result of his interference to save his
life appeared somewhat ludicrous.  The Italian, however,
probably thinking that Inglesant would be glad to be relieved
from his strange visitor, seemed desirous of terminating the
interview.

"His Grace expects me," he said to Inglesant, "at the
Casa di Morte this morning, and it is near the time for him to
be there.  I will therefore take my leave."

"Ah! the Casa di Morte; yes, he will expect me there
also," said Inglesant, with some slight appearance of reluctance.
"I will follow you anon."

He moved from the indolent attitude he had kept till this
moment before the sideboard, and exchanged with the Italian
those formal gestures of leave-taking and politeness in which
his nation were precise.  When the Italian was gone Inglesant
summoned a servant, and directed him to provide the stranger
with an apartment, and to see that he wanted for nothing.  He
then turned to the fanatic, and requested him as a favour not
to attempt to leave the palace until he had returned from the
Duke.  The stranger hesitated, but finally consented.

"I owe you my life," he said,—"a life I value not at a
straw's weight, but for which my Master may perchance have
some use even yet.  I am therefore in your debt, and I will
give my word to remain quiet until you return; but this
promise only extends to nightfall; should you be prevented by
any chance from returning this day, I am free from my parole."

Inglesant bowed.

"I would," continued the man, looking upon his companion
with a softened and even compassionate regard, "I would I
could say more.  I hear a secret voice, which tells me that
you are even now walking in slippery places, and that your
heart is not at ease."

He stopped, and seemed to seek earnestly for some phrases
or arguments which he might suppose likely to influence a
courtier placed as he imagined Inglesant to be; but before he
resumed, the latter excused himself on the ground of his
attendance on the Duke, and, promising to see him again on
his return, left the room.

Inglesant found a carriage waiting to convey him to the
"Hospital of Death," as the monastic house adjoining the
public Campo Santo was called.  The religious performance
had already begun.  Passing through several sombre corridors
and across a courtyard, he was ushered into the Duke's
presence, who sat, surrounded by his Court and by the principal
ecclesiastics of the city, in an open balcony or loggia.  As
Inglesant entered by a small door in the back of the gallery a
most extraordinary sight met his eyes.  Beyond the loggia
was a small yard or burial-ground, and beyond this the Campo
Santo stretching out into the far country.  The whole of the
yard immediately before the spectators was thronged by a
multitude of persons, of all ages and ranks, apparently just
risen from the tomb.  Many were utterly without clothing,
others were attired as kings, bishops, and even popes.  Their
attitudes and conduct corresponded with the characters in
which they appeared, the ecclesiastics collecting in calm and
sedate attitudes, while many of the rest, among whom kings
and great men were not wanting, appeared in an extremity of
anguish and fear.  Beyond the sheltering walls which enclosed
the court the dazzling heat brooded over the Campo Santo to
the distant hills, and the funereal trees stood, black and sombre,
against the glare of the yellow sky.  At the moment of Inglesant's
entrance it appeared that something had taken place of
the nature of an excommunication, and the ecclesiastics in the
gallery were, according to custom, casting candles and flaming
torches, which the crowd of nude figures below were struggling
and fighting to obtain.  A wild yet solemn strain of music,
that came apparently from the open graves, ascended through
the fitful and half-stifled cries.

The first sight that struck upon Inglesant's sense, as he
entered the gallery from the dark corridors, was the lurid yellow
light beyond.  The second was the wild confused crowd of
leaping and struggling figures, in a strange and ghastly
disarray, naked or decked as in mockery with the torn and
disordered symbols of rank and wealth, rising as from the tomb,
distracted and terror-stricken as at the last great assize.  The
third was the figure of the Duke turning to him, and the eyes
of the priests and clergy fixed upon his face.  The words that
the fanatic had uttered had fallen upon a mind prepared to
receive them, and upon a conscience already awakened to
acknowledge their truth.  A mysterious conviction laid hold
upon his imagination that the moment had arrived in which he
was bound to declare himself, and by every tie which the past
had knotted round him to influence the Duke to pursue a
line of conduct from which his conscience and his better
judgment revolted.  On the one hand, a half-aroused and uncertain
conscience, on the other, circumstance, habit, interest,
inclination, perplexed his thoughts.  The conflict was uneven, the
result hardly doubtful.  The eyes of friends and enemies, of
agents of the Holy See, of courtiers and priests, were upon
him; the inquiring glance of the aged Duke seemed to
penetrate into his soul.  He advanced to the ducal chair, the
solemn music that streamed up as from the grave, wavered
and faltered as if consciousness and idea were nearly lost.
Something of the old confusion overpowered his senses, the
figures that surrounded him became shadowy and unreal, and
the power of decision seemed no longer his own.

Out of the haze of confused imagery and distracting thought
which surrounded him, he heard with unspeakable amazement
the Duke's words,—

"I have waited your coming, Mr. Inglesant, impatiently,
for I have a commission to entrust you with, or rather my
daughter, the Grand Duchess, has written urgently to me from
Florence to request me to send you to her without a moment's
delay.  Family matters relating to some in whom she takes
the greatest interest, and who are well known, she says, to
yourself, are the causes which lead to this request."

Inglesant was too bewildered to speak.  He had believed
himself quite unknown to the Grand Duchess, whom he had
never seen, but as he had passed before her in the ducal
receptions at Florence.  Who could these be in whom she
took so great an interest, and who were known to him?

But the Duke went on, speaking with a certain melancholy
in his tone.

"I have wished, Mr. Inglesant," he said, "to mark in some
way the regard I have conceived for you, and the obligation
under which I conceive myself to remain.  It may be that, in
the course that events are taking, it will no longer in a few
weeks be in my power to bestow favours upon any man.  I
desire, therefore, to do what I have purposed before you leave
the presence.  I have caused the necessary deeds to be
prepared which bestow upon you a small fief in the Apennines,
consisting of some farms and of the Villa-Castle of San Georgio,
where I myself in former days have passed many happy
hours."  He stopped, and in a moment or two resumed abruptly,
without finishing the sentence.

"The revenue of the fief is not large, but its possession
gives the title of Cavaliere to its owner, and its situation and
the character of its neighbourhood make it a desirable and
delightful abode.  The letters of naturalization which are
necessary to enable you to hold this property have been made
out, and nothing is wanting but your acceptance of the gift.
I offer it you with no conditions and no request save that, as
far as in you lies, you will be a faithful servant to the Grand
Duchess when I am gone."

The Duke paused for a moment, and then, turning slightly
to his chaplain, he said, "The reverend fathers will tell you
that this affair has not been decided upon without their
knowledge, and that it has their full approval."

These last words convinced Inglesant of the fact that had
occurred.  Although the Duke had said nothing on the subject,
he felt certain that the deed of cession had been signed,
and that for some reason or other he himself was considered
by the clerical party to have been instrumental in obtaining
this result, and to be deserving of reward accordingly.  He
had never, as we have seen, spoken to the Duke concerning
the succession, and his position at the moment was certainly
a peculiar one.  Nothing was expected of him but that he
should express his grateful thanks for the Duke's favour, and
leave the presence.  Surely, at that moment, no law of heaven
or earth could require him to break through the observances
of civility and usage, to enter upon a subject upon which he
was not addressed, and to refuse acts of favour offered to him
with every grace and delicacy of manner.  Whatever might be
the case with other men, he certainly was not one to whom
such a course was possible.  He expressed his gratitude with
all the grace of manner of which he was capable, he assured
the Duke of his readiness to start immediately for Florence,
and he left the ducal presence before many minutes had passed
away.

He found before long that all his conjectures were correct.
The Duke had signed the deed of cession, and the report
which was sent to Rome by the Papal agents stated that, in the
opinion of the most competent judges, this result was due to
Inglesant's influence.  Before his arrival the Duke had leaned
strongly towards the secular and anti-Papal interest, and had
even encouraged heretical and Protestant emissaries.  "Avoiding
with great skill all positive allusion to the subject," the
report went on to state, "Il Cavaliere Inglesant had thrown all
his influence into the Catholic and religious scale, and had by
the loftiness of his sentiment and the attraction of his manner
entirely won over the vacillating nature of the Duke."  Too
much satisfaction, the Cardinal of Umbria and the heads of
the Church in that city assured the Papal Court, could not be
expressed at the manner in which the agent of the Society had
fulfilled his mission.

Inglesant's departure from Umbria was so sudden that he
had no opportunity of again seeing the stranger whom he had
left in the palace, and he was afterwards at some trouble in
obtaining any information respecting him.  As far as could be
ascertained he waited in the palace, according to his promise,
until the evening, when, finding that Inglesant did not return,
he walked quietly forth, no man hindering him.  What his
subsequent fate was is involved in some obscurity; but it would
appear that, having publicly insulted the Host in some cathedral
in the south of Italy, he was arrested by the Holy Office,
and thrown into prison, from which there is reason to believe
he never emerged.





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.. _`CHAPTER VIII.`:

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   CHAPTER VIII.

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Not very long after Inglesant had left for Umbria, his
friend, Don Agostino di Chigi, suddenly came to
Rome.  The Pope's health was rapidly failing, and the
excitement concerning his successor was becoming intense.  The
choice was generally considered to lie between the Cardinals
Barbarini and di Chigi, though Cardinal Sacchetti was spoken
of by some, probably however merely as a substitute, should
both the other parties fail in electing their candidate.

It was the policy of the Chigi family to conduct their
matters with great caution; none of the family, with the
exception of the Cardinal, were openly in Rome; and when Don
Agostino arrived he resided in one of the deserted villas
hidden among vineyards and the gardens of solitary convents,
which covered the Palatine and the Aventine in the southern
portion of Rome within the walls.  He remained within or
with the Cardinal during the day, but at night he ventured
out into the streets, and visited the adherents of his family
and those who were working to secure his uncle's elevation.

One night the fathers of the Oratory gave a concert at
which one of the best voices in Rome was to sing.  It
happened that Don Agostino passed the gate as the company
were assembling, and as he did so the street was blocked by
the train of some great personage who arrived in a sedan of
blue velvet embroidered with silver, accompanied by several
gentlemen and servants.  Among the former, Agostino recognized
the Cavaliere di Guardino, the brother of Lauretta, of
whose acquaintance with Inglesant at Florence it may be
remembered he was aware, and with him another man whose
appearance seemed to recall some distant reminiscence to his
mind.  He could, however, see him but imperfectly in the
flickering torchlight.

Apart from his desire to remain unrecognized in Rome,
Agostino had no desire to associate with the Cavaliere, of
whose character he had a very bad opinion.  To his annoyance,
therefore, as the sedan entered the courtyard, the two
persons he had noticed, instead of following their patron, turned
round, and in leaving the doorway met Agostino face to face.
The Cavaliere recognized him immediately, and appeared to
grasp eagerly the opportunity to accost him.  He began by
complimenting him on the near prospect of his uncle's elevation
to the Papacy, professing to consider the chances of his
election very good indeed, and added that he presumed
business connected with these matters had brought him to Rome.
To this Agostino replied that, so far as he knew, his uncle
had no expectation of such an honour being at all likely to be
offered him, and that private affairs of his own, of a very
delicate nature,—of a kind indeed which a gentleman of the
Cavaliere's known gallantry could well understand,—had brought
him to Rome, as indeed he might see from the secrecy he
maintained, and by his not being present at any of the
entertainments which were going forward.  He then inquired in
his turn why the Cavaliere had not entered the college.  The
other made some evasive answer, but it appeared to Agostino
that both the Cavaliere and his companion were not on the
most familiar terms with the nobleman they had accompanied,
although it might suit their purpose to appear in his train.
Guardino indeed changed the subject hastily, and spoke of
Inglesant, praising him highly.  He inquired whether the
Cardinal di Chigi was acquainted with him, and whether it
was likely that either as an attendant upon him or upon
Cardinal Rinuccini, Inglesant would be admitted into the
conclave.

Don Agostino replied vaguely that Inglesant was then at
Umbria, and that he could offer no opinion as to the
probability of the latter part of his inquiry.

He thought that he could see from the expression on the
other's face that the Cavaliere thought that he was deceiving
him, and that he jumped at once to the conclusion that, as
the attendant of one or other of the Cardinals, Inglesant would
be present at the conclave.

Guardino went on to speak of Inglesant's character, regretting
the craze of mind, as he called it, which his ill health had
produced, and which rendered him, as he said, unfit for business
or for taking his part in the affairs of life.  He went on to
speak with unconcealed contempt of Inglesant's religious ideas
and scruples, and of his association with Molinos; intimating,
however, his opinion that it would not be impossible to
overcome these scruples, could a suitable temptation be found.
These fancies once removed, he continued, Inglesant's value
as a trusted and secret agent would be greatly increased.

He seemed to be talking abstractedly, and as a perfectly
disinterested person, who was discussing an interesting topic
of morals or mental peculiarity.

Agostino could not understand his drift.  He answered
him that the Jesuits did not need unscrupulous bravoes.  If
they did, they could be found in every street corner by the
score.  He added that he imagined that the services which
Inglesant had already performed, and might perform again,
were of a special and delicate character, for which his
temperament and habit of mind, which were chiefly the result of the
Society's training, especially fitted him.

They had by this time reached the Corso, and Agostino
took the opportunity of parting with his companions, excusing
himself on the ground of his pretended assignation.

He was no sooner gone than the Cavaliere, according to
the narrative which was afterwards related by Malvolti, began
to explain more clearly than he had hitherto done what his
expectations and intentions were.  He was forced to confide
in Malvolti more than he otherwise would have done, to
prevent his ridding himself of Inglesant's presence by violent
means.

When the Italian first saw Inglesant, whom he had never
met in England, in the theatre in Florence, he was startled
and terrified by his close resemblance to his murdered brother;
and his first thought was that his victim had returned to earth,
and, invisible to others, was permitted to avenge himself upon
his murderer by haunting and terrifying his paths.  When he
discovered, however, that the Cavaliere not only saw the
appearance which had so alarmed him, but could tell him who
Inglesant was, and to a certain extent what the motives were which
had brought him to Italy, his superstitious fears gave place to
more material apprehensions and expedients.  He at once
resolved to assassinate Inglesant on leaving the theatre, in the
first street through which he might pass—a purpose which
he might easily have accomplished during Inglesant's careless
and unguarded wanderings round the house of Lauretta's
father that night.  From this intention he was with difficulty
diverted by the reasoning of the Cavaliere, who represented to
him the rashness of such an action, protected as Inglesant was
by the most powerful of Societies, which would not fail to
punish any act which deprived it of a useful agent; the
unnecessary character of the attempt, Inglesant being at
present in complete ignorance that his enemy was near him; and
above all, the folly of destroying a person who might otherwise
be made the medium of great personal profit and advantage.
He explained to Malvolti Inglesant's connection with the
Chigi family, and the position of influence he would occupy
should the Cardinal be elected to the Popedom; finally, he
went so far as to hint at the possibility of an alliance between
Malvolti and his sister, should Inglesant remain uninjured.

Malvolti had only arrived in Florence on the previous day,
and the Cavaliere met him accidentally in the theatre; but
Guardino's plans with relation to Inglesant and his sister
were already so far matured, that he had arranged for the
abrupt departure of his father and Lauretta from Florence.
His object was to keep in his own hands a powerful magnet
of attraction, which would bind, as he supposed, Inglesant to
his interests; but he was by no means desirous that he should
marry his sister immediately, if at all.  The election for the
Papacy was of very uncertain issue, and if the di Chigi faction
failed, Inglesant's alliance would be of little value.  He had
two strings to his bow.  Malvolti, between whom and the
Cavaliere association in vice and even crime had riveted many
a bond of interest and dependence, was closely connected with
the Barbarini faction, as an unscrupulous and useful tool.
Should the Cardinal Barbarini be elected Pope, or should
Cardinal Sacchetti, who was in his interest, be chosen, his
own connection with Malvolti might be of great value to the
Cavaliere, and the greater service the latter could render to
the Barbarini faction in the approaching crisis the better.
The weak point of his position on this side was the character
of Malvolti, and the subordinate position he occupied among
the adherents of the Barbarini.  On the other hand, if
Cardinal Chigi were the future Pontiff, the prospects of any
one connected with Inglesant would be most brilliant, as
the latter, from his connection with the Jesuits, and as the
favourite of the Pope's nephew, would at once become one of
the most powerful men in Italy.  The weak point on this side
was that his hold on Inglesant was very slight, and that, even
supposing it to be strengthened by marriage with Lauretta,
Inglesant's character and temper were such as would probably
make him useless and impracticable in the attempt to secure
the glittering and often illicit advantages which would be
within his reach.  Between this perplexing choice the only
wise course appeared to be to temporize with both parties,
and to attempt, in the meantime, to secure an influence with
either.  The fortunes both of the Cavaliere and of Malvolti
were at this moment pretty nearly desperate, and their means
of influencing any one very small; indeed, having wasted what
had once been considerable wealth and talent, there remained
nothing to the Cavaliere but his sister, and of that last
possession he was prepared to make unscrupulous use.  It
would be of small advantage to him to give his sister's hand
to Inglesant unless he could first, by her means, corrupt and
debase his conscience and that lofty standard of conduct which
he appeared, to the Cavaliere at least, unswervingly to follow;
and the Italian devil at his side suggested a means to this
end as wild in conception as the result proved it impotent and
badly planned.

This Italian devil was not Malvolti, though that person
was one of his most successful followers and imitators.  When
the inspired writer has described the princes and angels which
rule the different nations of the earth, he does not go on to
enumerate the distinct powers of evil which, in different
countries, pursue their divers malific courses; yet it would
seem that those existences are no less real than the others.
That the character of the inhabitants of any country has much
to do in forming a distinct devil for that country no man can
doubt; or that in consequence the temptations which beset
mankind in certain countries are of a distinct and peculiar
kind.  This fact is sometimes of considerable advantage to
the object of the tempter's art, for if, acting upon his
knowledge of the character of any people, this merely local devil
lays snares in the path of a stranger, it is not impossible that
the bait may fail.  This was very much what happened to John
Inglesant.  Of the sins which were really his temptations the
Cavaliere knew nothing; but he could conceive of certain acts
which he concluded Inglesant would consider to be sins.
These acts were of a gross and sensual nature; for the Italian
devil, born of the fleshly lusts of the people, was unable to
form temptations for the higher natures, and of course his
pupils were equally impotent.  The result was singular.
Acting upon the design of ruining Inglesant's moral sense, of
debasing the ideal of conduct at which he aimed, and of
shattering and defiling what the Cavaliere considered the
fantastic purity of his conscience, he formed a scheme which had
the effect of removing Inglesant from a place where he was
under the strongest temptation and in the greatest danger of
violating his conscience, and of placing him in circumstances
of trial which, though dangerous, he was still, from the
peculiarity of his character, much better able to resist.

A marriage connection with Inglesant would at this juncture
be of little avail; but a wild and illicit passion, which
would involve him in a course of licentious and confused
action, in which the barriers of morality and the scruples of
conscience would be alike annihilated, and the whole previous
nature of the victim of lawless desire altered, would, if any
agent could produce so great a change, transform Inglesant
into the worldly-minded and unscrupulous accomplice that the
Cavaliere wished him to become.  How great the fall would
be he could of course in no way estimate; but he had sufficient
insight to perceive that the shock of it would probably
be sufficient (acting upon a consciousness so refined and
delicate as that of Inglesant) to render recovery, if ever attained,
very difficult and remote.

Upon this wild scheme he acted.  He had removed his
sister when he had thought that Inglesant had been sufficiently
ensnared to make his after course certain and precipitate.
Inglesant's character, which was so very imperfectly known to
the Cavaliere, and circumstances, such as his confinement in
the pest-house, had delayed the consummation of the plot.
But the Cavaliere conceived that the time had now arrived for
its completion.  He brought his sister back to Florence, and
placed her with the Grand Duchess, in some subordinate situation
which his family and his sister's character enabled him to
obtain.  Having had some previous knowledge of her, the
Duchess soon became attached to Lauretta, and obtained her
confidence.  From her she learnt Inglesant's story and
character, and wished to see him at the Court.  While the two
ladies were planning schemes for future pleasure, the Cavaliere
suddenly appeared at Florence, and informed his sister that
he had concluded, with the approbation of his father, a
marriage contract between herself and Malvolti.

Terrified by this threatened connection with a man whose
person she loathed and whose character she detested, Lauretta
flew to the Duchess, and entreated her to send at once for
Inglesant, who, they were both aware, was at that moment with
the Duke of Umbria, the Grand Duchess's aged father.  With
the result we are acquainted.





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.. _`CHAPTER IX.`:

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   CHAPTER IX.

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On his arrival at Florence Inglesant found himself at once
fêted and caressed, though the nature of his mission to
Umbria, antagonistic as his supposed influence had been to
the interests of the ducal party, might naturally have procured
for him a far different reception.  Trained as he had been in
courts, the caprices of princes' favour did not seem strange
to him, and were taken at their true worth.  Unsuspicious,
therefore, of any special danger, relieved from the intolerable
strain which the position at Umbria had exerted upon his
conscience, delighted with the society of his recovered mistress,
and flattered by the attentions of the Duchess and of the whole
Court, he gave himself up freely to the enjoyments of the hour.
Plentifully supplied with money from his own resources, from
the kindness of the aged Duke, and from the subsidies of his
patrons at Rome, he engaged freely in the parties formed for
the performance of masques and interludes, in which the Court
delighted, and became conspicuous for the excellence of his
acting and invention.

But it was not the purpose of the demon that followed on
his footsteps to give him longer repose than might lull his
senses, and weaken his powers of resisting evil.  Day after day
devoted to pleasure paved the way for the final catastrophe,
until the night arrived when the plot was fully ripe.  Supper
was over, and the Court sat down again to play.  Inglesant
remembered afterwards, though at the time it did not attract
his attention, that several gentlemen, all of them friends of
Guardino, paid him particular attention, and insisted on
drinking with him, calling for different kinds of wine, and
recommending them to his notice.  The saloons were crowded and
very hot, and when Inglesant left the supper room and came
into the brilliant marble hall lighted with great lustres, where
the Court was at play, he was more excited than was his wont.
The Court was gathered at different tables,—a very large one
in the centre of the hall, and other smaller ones around.  The
brilliant dresses, the jewels, the beautiful women, the
reflections in the numberless mirrors, made a dazzling and
mystifying impression on his brain.  The play was very high, and at
the table to which Inglesant sat down especially so.  He lost
heavily, and this did not tend to calm his nerves; he doubled
his stake, with all the money he had with him, and lost again.
As he rose from the table a page touched his elbow and handed
him a small note carefully sealed and delicately perfumed.  It
was addressed to him by his new title, "Il Cavaliere di San
Georgio," and scarcely knowing what he did, he opened it.
It was from Lauretta.

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"Cavaliere,

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Will you come to me in the Duchess's lodgings before
the Court rises from play?  I need your help.  L."

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Inglesant turned to look for the boy, who, he expected, was
waiting for him.  He was not far off, and Inglesant followed
him without a word.  They passed through many corridors
and rooms richly furnished until they reached the lodgings of
the Grand Duchess.  The night was sultry, and through the
open windows above the gardens the strange odours that are
born of darkness and of night entered the palace.  In the dark
arcades the nightingales were singing, preferring gloom and
mystery to the light in which all other creatures rejoice; and
in the stillness the murmur of brooks and the splash of the
fountains oppressed the ear with an unearthly and unaccustomed
sound.  Around the casements festoons of harmless
and familiar flowers and leaves assumed wild and repulsive
shapes, as if transformed into malicious demons who made
men their sport.  Inglesant thought involuntarily of those
plants that are at enmity with man, which are used for enchantments
and for poisoning, and whose very scent is death; such
saturnine and fatal flowers seemed more at home in the lovely
Italian night than the innocent plants which witness to lovers'
vows, and upon which divines moralize and preach.  The
rooms of the Duchess were full of perfume of the kind that
enervates and lulls the sense.  It seemed to Inglesant as
though he were treading the intricate pathways of a dream,
careless as to what befell him, yet with a passionate longing
which urged him forward, heedless of a restraining voice which
he was even then half-conscious that at other times he should
have heard.  The part of the palace where he was seemed
deserted, and the page led him through more than one
anteroom without meeting any one, until they reached a curtained
door, which the boy opened, and directed Inglesant to enter.
He did so, and found himself at once in the presence of
Lauretta, who was lying upon a low seat at the open window.
The room was lighted by several small lamps in different
positions, giving an ample, yet at the same time a soft and dreamy
light.  Lauretta was carelessly dressed, yet, in the soft light,
and in her negligent attitude, there was something that made
her beauty the more attractive, and her manner to Inglesant
was unrestrained and clinging.  Her growing affection, the
urgency of her need, and the circumstances of the hour, caused
her innocently to speak and act in a way the most fitted to
promote her brother's atrocious purposes.

"Cavaliere," she said, "I have sent for you because I have
no friend but you.  I have sent for you to help me against my
own family—my own brother—my father even, whom I love—whom
I loved—more than all the world beside.  They are
determined to marry me to a man whom I hate; to the man
whom you hate; to that Signor Malvolti, who, though they deny
it, is, I am fully persuaded, the murderer of your brother; to
that wretch whom Italy even refuses to receive; who, but for
his useful crimes, would be condemned to a death of torment.
My brother tells me that he will be here to-morrow to see me
and demand my consent.  He brings an authorization from
my father, and insists upon the contract being made without
delay.  I would die rather than submit to such a fate, but it
is not necessary to die.  I must, however, leave the Court and
escape from my brother's wardship.  If I can reach some place
of safety, where I can gain time to see my father, I am certain
that I shall be able to move him.  It cannot be that he will
condemn me to such a fate,—me! the pride and pleasure of
his life.  He must be deceived and misled by some of these
wicked intrigues and manoeuvres which ruin the happiness and
peace of men."

"I am wholly yours," said Inglesant; "whatever you desire
shall be done.  Have you spoken to the Duchess?"

"The Duchess advises me to fly," replied Lauretta; "she
says the Duke will not interfere between a father and his child;
especially now, when all Italy hangs in suspense concerning the
Papacy, and men are careful whom they offend.  She advises
me to go to the convent of St. Catherine of Pistoia, where I
lodged not many years ago while my father was in France.
The Abbess is a cousin of my father's; she is a kind woman,
and I can persuade her to keep me for a short time at least.
I wish to go to-night.  Will you take me?"

She had never looked so lovely in Inglesant's eyes as she
did while she spoke.  The pleading look of her dark eyes, and
the excitement of her manner, usually so reserved and calm,
added charms to her person of which he had previously been
unconscious.  In that country of formal restraint and suspicion,
of hurried, furtive interviews, a zest was given to accidental
freedom of intercourse such as the more unrestricted life of
France and England knew little of.  In spite of a suspicion of
treachery, which in that country was never absent, Inglesant
felt his frame aglow with devotion to this lovely creature, who
thus threw herself unreservedly into his keeping.  He threw
himself upon a cushion at Lauretta's feet, and encircled her
with his arms.  She spoke of youth and life and pleasure,—of
youth that was passing away so rapidly; of life that had
been to her dreary and dull enough; of her jealously-guarded
Italian home, of her convent cell, of her weak and helpless
father, of her tyrannous brother; of pleasure, of which she
had dreamed as a girl, but which seemed to fly before her as
she advanced; finally of himself, whom, from the first day she
had seen him in her father's room, she had loved, whom
absence had only endeared, her first and only friend.

He spoke of love, of protection, of help and succour for
the rest of life; of happy days to come at San Georgio, when
all these troubles should have passed away, when at last he
should escape from intrigue and State policy, and they could
make their home as joyous and free from care as that house
of a Cardinal, on a little hilly bank near Veletri, whence you
can see the sea, and which is called Monte Joiosa.  He spoke
of an Idyllic dream which could not long have satisfied either
of them,—himself especially, but which pleased them at that
moment, with an innocent and delicate fancy which calmed
and purified their excited thoughts.  Then, as the hour passed
by, he rose from her embrace, promising to provide horses,
and when the palace was quiet, to meet her at the end of one
of the long avenues that crossed the park; for the Court was
not at the Pitti Palace, but at the Poggia Imperiale without
the walls of Florence.

The soft night air played upon Inglesant's forehead as he
led his horses to the end of a long avenue, and waited for the
lady to join him.  He did not wait long; she came gliding
past the fountains, by the long rows of orange and cypress
hedges, and across the streaks of moonlight among the trees
that closed the gardens and the park.  As he lifted her into
the saddle, her glance was partly scared and partly trustful;
he felt as though he were moving in a delicious dream.

As they rode out of the park she told him that she had
received a message from the Duchess, recommending her to
stop at a pavilion on the borders of the great chase, beyond
the Achaiano Palace, half-way to Pistoia, which the Duchess
used sometimes when the Duke was diverting himself in the
chase.  She had sent a messenger to prepare the people who
kept the pavilion for their coming.  There was something
strange in this message, Lauretta said, which was brought, not
by one of the Duchess's usual pages, but by a boy who had
not been long at the palace, and who scarcely waited to give
his message, so great was his hurry.  It seemed of little
moment to Inglesant who brought the message, or whether
any treachery were at work or no; he was only conscious of
a delicious sense of coming pleasure which made him reckless
of all beside.  Along the first few miles of their road they
passed nothing but the long lines of elms, planted between
ridges of corn, upon which the vines were climbing in already
luxuriant wreaths.  Presently, however, after they had passed
the Achaiano Palace, the country changed, and they came
within the confines of the Duke's chase, thirty miles in
compass, planted with cork trees and ilex, with underwood of
myrtle thickets.  Through these shades, lovely indeed by day,
but weird and unhealthy by night, they rode silently, startled
every now and then by strange sounds that issued from the
forest depths.  The ground was fenny and uneven, and moist
exhalations rose out of the soil and floated across the path.

"The Duchess never sleeps at the pavilion," said Lauretta
at last suddenly; "it is dangerous to sleep in the forest."

"It will be as well to stop an hour or so, however," said
Inglesant, "else we shall be at Pistoia before they open the
gates."

Presently, in the brilliant moonlight, they saw the pointed
roofs of the pavilion on a little rising-ground, with the forest
trees coming up closely to the walls.  The moon was now
high in the heavens, and it was as light as day.  The upper
windows of the pavilion were open, and within it lights were
burning.  The door was opened to them before they knocked,
and the keeper of the pavilion came to meet them, accompanied
by a boy who took the horses.  The man showed no surprise
at their coming, only saying some servants of the Duchess had
been there a few hours previously, and had prepared a repast
in the dining-room, forewarning him that he should expect
visitors.  He accompanied them upstairs, for they saw nothing
of the other inmates of the place.  The rooms were arranged
with a sort of rustic luxury, and were evidently intended for
repose during the heat of the day.  A plentiful and delicate
collation was spread on one of the tables, with abundance of
fruit and wine.  The place looked like the magic creation of
an enchanter's wand, raised for purposes of evil from the
unhealthy marsh, and ready to sink again, when that malific
purpose was fulfilled, into the weird depths from which it
rose.

The old man showed them the other rooms of the apartment
and left them.  At the door he turned back and said,—

"I should not advise the lady to sleep here; the miasma
from the forest is very fatal to such as are not used to it."

Inglesant looked at him, but could not perceive that he
intended his word to have any deeper meaning than the
obvious one.  He said,—

"We shall stay only an hour or two; let the horses be
ready to go on."

The man left them, and they sat down at the table.

The repast was served in Faience ware of a strange delicate
blue, and consisted of most of the delicacies of the season with
a profusion of wine.

"This was not ordered by the Duchess," said Lauretta.

"We are safe from poison, Mignone," said Inglesant; "to
destroy you as well as me would defeat all purposes.  Not that
I believe the Cavaliere would wish me dead.  He rather hopes
that I may be of use to him.  Let us drink to him."

And he filled a glass for Lauretta of the Monte-pulciano,
the "King of Wines," and drank himself.

Lauretta was evidently frightened, yet she followed his
example and drank.  The night air was heavy and close, not
a breath of wind stirred the lights, though every window was
thrown open, and the shutters that closed the loggia outside
were drawn back.  In the brilliant moonlight every leaf of the
great forest shone with an unnatural distinctness, which, set in
a perfect silence, became terrible to see.  The sylvan arcades
seemed like a painted scene-piece upon a Satanic stage,
supernaturally alight to further deeds of sin, and silent and unpeopled,
lest the wrong should be interrupted or checked.  To Inglesant's
excited fancy evil beings thronged its shadowy paths,
present to the spiritual sense, though concealed of set
purpose from the feeble human sight.  The two found their eyes
drawn with a kind of fascination to this strange sight, and
Inglesant arose and closed the shutters before the nearest
casement.

They felt more at ease when the mysterious forest was
shut out.  But Lauretta was silent and troubled, and
Inglesant's efforts to cheer and enliven her were not successful.
The delicious wines to which he resorted to remove his own
uneasiness and to cure his companion's melancholy, failed of
their effect.  At last she refused to drink, and rising up
suddenly, she exclaimed,—

"Oh, it is terribly hot.  I cannot bear it.  I wish we had
not come!"

She wandered from the room in which they sat, through
the curtained doorway into the next, which was furnished with
couches, and sank down on one of them.  Inglesant followed
her, and, as if the heat felt stifling also to him, went out upon
the open verandah, and looked upon the forest once more.

Excited by the revels of the past few days, heated with wine,
with the night ride, and with the overpowering closeness of the
air, the temptation came upon him with a force which he had
neither power nor desire to resist.  He listened, but no sound
met his ear, no breath stirred, no living being moved, no
disturbance need be dreaded from any side.  From the people in
the pavilion he looked for no interference, from the object of
his desires he had probably no need to anticipate any disinclination
but what might easily be soothed away.  The universal
custom of the country in which he was now almost naturalized
sanctioned such acts.  The hour was admirably chosen, the
place perfectly adapted in every way, as if the result not of
happy chance but deeply concerted plan.

Why then did he hesitate?  Did he still partly hope that
some miracle would happen? or some equally miraculous
change take place in his mind and will to save him from
himself?  It is true the place and the temptation were not of his
own seeking, so far he was free from blame; but he had not
come wholly unharmed out of the fiery trial at Umbria, and,
by a careless walk since he came to Florence, he had prepared
the way for the tempter, and this night even he had disregarded
the warning voice and drifted recklessly onward.  We walk of
our own free will, heated and inflamed by wine, down the
flowery path which we have ourselves decorated with garlands,
and we murmur because we reach the fatal goal.

He gazed another moment over the illumined forest, which
seemed transfigured in the moonlight and the stillness into an
unreal landscape of the dead.  The poisonous mists crept over
the tops of the cork trees, and flitted across the long vistas in
spectral forms, cowled and shrouded for the grave.  Beneath
the gloom indistinct figures seemed to glide,—the personation
of the miasma that made the place so fatal to human life.

He turned to enter the room, but even as he turned a
sudden change came over the scene.  The deadly glamour of
the moonlight faded suddenly, a calm pale solemn light settled
over the forest, the distant line of hills shone out distinct and
clear, the evil mystery of the place departed whence it came,
a fresh and cooling breeze sprang up and passed through the
rustling wood, breathing pureness and life.  The dayspring
was at hand in the eastern sky.

The rustling breeze was like a whisper from heaven that
reminded him of his better self.  It would seem that hell
overdid it; the very stillness for miles around, the almost
concerted plan, sent flashing through his brain the remembrance
of another house, equally guarded for a like purpose—a house
at Newnham near Oxford, into which years ago he had himself
forced his way to render help in such a case as this.  Here
was the same thing happening over again with the actors
changed; was it possible that such a change had been wrought
in him?  The long past life of those days rushed into his
mind; the sacramental Sundays, the repeated vows, the light
of heaven in the soul, the kneeling forms in Little Gidding
Chapel, the face of Mary Collet, the loveliness that blessed
the earth where she walked, her deathbed, and her dying
words.  What so rarely happens happened here.  The revulsion
of feeling, the rush of recollection and association, was
too powerful for the flesh.  The reason and the affections
rallied together, and, trained into efficiency by past discipline,
regained the mastery by a supreme effort, even at the very
moment of unsatisfied desire.  But the struggle was fierce; he
was torn like the demon-haunted child in the gospel story;
but, as in that story, the demon was expelled.

He came back into the room.  Lauretta lay upon a couch
with rich drapery and cushions, her face buried in her hands.
The cloak and hood in which she had ridden were removed,
and the graceful outline of her figure was rendered more alluring
by the attitude in which she lay.  As he entered she raised
her head from her hands, and looked at him with a strange,
apprehensive, expectant gaze.  He remained for a moment
silent, his face very pale; then he said, slowly and uncertainly,
like a man speaking in a dream,—

"The fatal miasma is rising from the plain.  Lauretta, this
place is safe for neither of us, we had better go on."

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The morning was cloudy and chill.  They had not ridden
far before a splash of thunder-rain fell, and the trees dripped
dismally.  A sense of discomfort and disappointment took
possession of Inglesant, and so far from deriving consolation
from his conquest, he seemed torn by the demon of discontent.
He was half-conscious that his companion was regretting the
evil and luxurious house they had left.  The ride to Pistoia
was silent and depressed.  As they passed through the streets,
early as it was, they were watched by two figures half
concealed by projecting walls.  One of them was the Cavaliere,
the other was tall and dark.  Whether it was the devil in the
person of Malvolti, or Malvolti himself, is not of much
consequence, nor would the difference be great.  In either case the
issue was the same,—the devil's plot had failed.  It is not so
easy to ruin him with whom the pressure of Christ's hand yet
lingers in the palm.

When Inglesant presented himself again at the Convent
grate, after a few hours' sleepless unrest at an inn, he was
refused admittance; nor did repeated applications during that
day and the next meet with a more favourable response.  He
became the prey of mortification and disgust that, having had
the prize in his hand, he had of his own free will passed it
into the keeping of another.  On the evening of the third day,
however, he received a note from Lauretta informing him that
her brother had consented to postpone her betrothal to
Malvolti indefinitely, and that she, on her part, had promised not
to see Inglesant again until the Papal election had been
decided.  She entreated her lover not to attempt to disturb this
compromise, as by so doing he would only injure her whom
he had promised to help.  She promised to be true, and did
not doubt but that, having obtained the delay she sought, she
should be able to gain her father's consent to their marriage,
especially if the Papal election took the course they hoped it
would.

There was something cold and formal about the wording
of this note, which, however, might be explained by its contents
having been dictated to the writer; but, unsatisfactory as it was,
Inglesant was compelled to acquiesce in the request it
contained.  He was angry and disappointed, and it must be
admitted that he had some cause.  His mistress and his
pleasant life at the ducal Court had vanished in the morning
mist and rain, like the delusive pleasures of a dream, and the
regret which a temptation yielded to would leave behind is
not always counterbalanced by a corresponding elation when
the trial is overcome.  He departed for Rome, having sent
orders to Florence for his servants and baggage to meet him
on the road, and the same night on which he entered the city
Pope Innocent the Tenth expired.





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.. _`CHAPTER X.`:

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   CHAPTER X.

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The portion of the Vatican Palace set apart for the
election of the Pope, and called the Conclave, consisted
of five halls or large marble rooms, two chapels, and a gallery
seventy feet long.  Each of these halls was divided temporarily
into small apartments, running up both sides, with a broad
alley between them, formed of wood, and covered with green
or violet cloth.  One of these apartments was assigned to each
Cardinal with his attendants.  The entrance to the whole of
these rooms, halls, chapels, and gallery was by a single door
fastened by four locks and as many keys.  As soon as the
Cardinals had entered the Conclave this door was made fast,
and the four keys were given to the four different orders of
the city,—one to the Bishop of Rome, one to the Cardinals
themselves, a third to the Roman Nobility, and the fourth to
the Officer, a great noble, who kept the door.  A wicket in
the door, of which this Officer also kept the key, permitted
the daily meals and other necessaries to be handed to the
Cardinals' servants, every dish being carefully examined before it
was allowed to pass in.  Within the Conclave light and air
were only obtained by sky-lights or windows opening upon
interior courts, precluding communication from without.  The
gloom of the interior was so great, that candles were burnt
throughout the Conclave at noon-day.

From the moment the Conclave was closed a silence of
expectation and anxiety fell upon all Rome.  The daily life
of the city was hushed.  The principal thoroughfares and
fortresses were kept by strong detachments of armed troops,
and the approaches to the mysterious door were jealously
watched.  Men spoke everywhere in whispers, and nothing
but vague rumours of the proceedings within were listened to
in the places of public resort, and in the coteries and
gatherings of all ranks and conditions of the people.

In the interior of the Conclave, for those who were confined
within its singular seclusion, the day passed with a wearisome
monotony marked only by intrigue not less wearisome.
Early in the morning a tolled bell called the whole of its
inmates to mass in one of the small Chapels darkened with
stained glass, and lighted dimly by the tapers of the altar, and
by a few wax candles fixed in brass sockets suspended from
the roof.  The Cardinals sat in stalls down either side of the
Chapel, and at the lower end was a bar, kept by the master of
the ceremonies and his assistants, behind which the attendants
and servants were allowed to stand.  Mass being over, a table
was placed in front of the altar, upon which was a chalice and
a silver bell.  Upon six stools near the table are seated two
Cardinal-Bishops, two Cardinal-Priests, and two Cardinal-Deacons.
Every Cardinal in his turn, upon the ringing of
the bell, leaves his seat, and having knelt before the altar in
silent prayer for the guidance of heaven in his choice, goes
round to the front of the table and drops a paper, upon which
he has written the name of a Cardinal, into the chalice, and
returns in silence to his stall.

A solemn and awful stillness pervades the scene, broken
only by the tinkling of the silver bell.  The Cardinals, one by
one, some of them stalwart and haughty men with a firm step
and imperious glance, others old and decrepit, scarcely able to
totter from their places to the altar, or to rise from their knees
without help, advance to their mysterious choice.  To the eye
alone it was in truth a solemn and impressive scene, and by a
heart instructed by the sense of sight only, the awful presence
of God the Paraclete might, in accordance with the popular
belief, be felt to hover above the Sacred Host; but in the
entire assembly to whom alone the sight was given there was
probably not one single heart to which such an idea was
present.  The assembly was divided into different parties, each
day by day intriguing and manoeuvring, by every art of policy
and every inducement of worldly interest, to add to the number
of its adherents.  "If perchance," says one well qualified to
speak, "there entered into this Conclave any old Cardinal,
worn by conflict with the Church's enemies 'in partibus
infidelium,' amid constant danger of prison or of death, or
perchance coming from amongst harmless peasants in country
places, and by long absence from the centre of the Church's
polity, ignorant of the manner in which her Princes trod the
footsteps of the Apostles of old, and by the memory of such
conflict and of such innocence, and because of such ignorance,
was led to entertain dreams of Divine guidance, two or three
days' experience caused such an one to renounce all such
delusion, and to return to his distant battlefield, and so to see
Rome no more."

When every Cardinal has deposited his paper, the Cardinal-Bishop
takes them out of the chalice one by one, and hands
them to the Cardinal-Deacon, who reads out the name of the
elected, but not of the Cardinal who had placed the paper in
the chalice (which is written on part of the paper so folded
that even the reader does not see it); and as he reads the name,
every Cardinal makes a mark upon the scroll of names he has
before him.  When all the names have been read, the
Cardinal-Priest, from a paper which he has prepared, reads the
name of him who has had the most voices and the number of
the votes.  If the number be more than two-thirds of the
whole, the Cardinal who has received the votes is thereby
elected Pope; but if not, the Cardinal-Priest rings the silver
bell once more, and at the signal the master of the ceremonies,
Monsignor Fabei, advances up the Chapel, followed by a groom
carrying a brazier of lighted coals, into which, in the face of
the whole assembly, the papers are dropped one by one till all
are consumed.

At the beginning of the Conclave the Cardinals were
always divided into two, if not more parties, of such relative
strength as to make the attainment of such a majority by
either of them impossible for many days.  It was not until
the persistent intrigues of a fortnight had increased the
majority of any one Cardinal so much as to give a probability of
his being ultimately elected, that the waverers of all sides, not
willing to be known as the opponents of a new Pope, recorded
their voices in his favour, and thus raised the majority to its
necessary proportion.  For this very delicate matter occurred
at this period of the election, that, should the requisite
majority of voices be obtained, the master of the ceremonies and
his brazier were no longer called for, but the whole of the
papers were opened to their full extent, and the names of the
voters given to the world, whereby, as one conversant in these
matters observes, "Many mysteries and infidelities are brought
to light."  It is evident, therefore, that, as the majority of any
one Cardinal increased or showed signs of increasing, morning
and evening, as the suffrages were taken, the voting became a
very exciting and delicate matter.  No one could be certain
but that at the next voting the majority from the cause
mentioned would suddenly swell to the necessary size, and every
man's name be made clear and plain on whose side he had been.

Upon entering the Conclave the friends of Cardinal Chigi
adopted a quiet policy, and waited for the progress of events
to work for them.  The abuses of the late Pontificate, and
the excitement and indignation of popular opinion, had made
it clear to all parties that it was necessary to elect a Pope
whose character and reputation would restore confidence.  In
these respects no one seemed more qualified than Cardinal
Chigi, who was supposed to possess all the qualifications
necessary to ensure the Romans from the apprehension of a
revival of the past disorders, and to inspire the whole Christian
world with the hopes of witnessing a worthy successor of
St. Peter displaying the Christian virtues from the Papal Chair.
The great reputation he had gained at Münster, the determination
he was said to have manifested to reform all abuses, the
authority and influence he derived from his post of Secretary of
State, his attractive and gracious manner, the recommendation
of the late Pope upon his death-bed,—all tended to bring his
name prominently forward.  He was supported by the Spanish
Cardinals, chiefly on account of the enmity of the French Court
and of his professed opposition to Cardinal Mazarin.

But, in spite of these advantages, the enmity of the French
Court, and the opposition of the Barbarini family, the relations
and supporters of the late Pope, made it necessary for his
friends to observe extreme caution.  The French Cardinals
were ordered to vote for Sachetti, and Cardinal Barbarini for
the present supported him, also, with all his party, chiefly
because he had not yet made terms with the Spanish Court,
which opposed Sachetti; but also, as was supposed, because
he himself had aspirations towards the Papal Chair, should he
find the electors favourable to such a scheme.

Upon the entrance into the Conclave, therefore, Cardinal
Sachetti immediately obtained thirty-two or thirty-three votes.
These were not quite so many as the Barbarini expected, and
indeed had a right to count upon, after the professions which
the Cardinals of the party had made.  This was owing to the
defection of some members of what was called the Flying
Squadron, composed chiefly of young Cardinals, who were
supposed to be devoted to the Barbarini, but of whom several
were secretly favourable to Cardinal Chigi.

The Spanish faction, which was numerous enough to have
secured the election of any Cardinal had it been united, but
the members of which were agreed upon nothing but their
determined opposition to Sachetti, contented itself with voting
negatively at every scrutiny, making use of the form "accedo
nemini."  This course was pursued for two entire months,
during which time the scrutinies were taken regularly morning
and evening, always with a slightly varying but indecisive
result.

It would be difficult to realize the wearisomeness which
reigned in the Conclave during so protracted a period.  The
crowding together of so large a number of persons in a few
apartments, the closeness of the air, and the unbroken
monotony of the hours that passed so slowly, made the
confinement almost intolerable.  One Cardinal was taken ill, and
was obliged to be removed.  The great gallery was generally
used by the Cardinals themselves, for exercise and conversation,
while their attendants were compelled to content themselves
with their masters' apartments, or the corridors and
passages.  Those which opened on the interior courts, and
thereby afforded some fresh air, were especially resorted to.
Communication from without, though in theory absolutely
prevented, was really frequent, all the chief among the
Cardinals receiving advices from foreign Courts, and
conveying intelligence thither themselves.

At intervals the whole of the inmates were assembled to
listen to Father Quaechi, preacher to the Conclave, a Jesuit,
and secretly in favour of Cardinal Chigi, as was the Society in
general.  The sermon was so contrived as to influence its
hearers considerably by its evident application to the manners
and conduct of the Cardinal.

The famous De Retz, then an exile from France and a
supporter of Chigi, by whom he always sat in the Chapel, was
the principal intriguer in his favour.  He was in communication
with the nominal supporters of Barbarini, who sent him
intelligence by Monsignor Fabei when to vote for Sachetti, on
occasions when it would be of no real service to him, and
when to refrain.  On one of these latter occasions Fabei
entrusted his message to Inglesant, with whom he was
intimate, and it afterwards appeared that Sachetti, on that
scrutiny, wanted but very few votes to have secured his
election.  This circumstance made a deep impression on De
Retz, and he never recognized Inglesant afterwards without
alluding to it.

The day after this scrutiny Cardinal Barbarini appears to
have thought that the time was come for his friends to make
a demonstration in his behalf, and to the astonishment of the
Conclave thirty-one votes appeared in his favour in the next
scrutiny.  This caused the friends of Cardinal Chigi to pay
more attention to his conduct, and to the discourses of his
Conclavists and other partizans, who neglected no opportunity
of exalting his good qualities.

The exhaustion of the Conclave became extreme.  Cardinal
Caraffa, who, next to Sachetti and Chigi, stood the
greatest chance of election, became ill and died.  Twelve
other Cardinals were balloted for, one after another, without
result.  Cardinal San Clemente was then brought forward,
and, but for the hostility of the Jesuits, might have been
elected; but the Spanish Cardinals who supported him did
not dare openly to offend the Society, and the election failed.

The Barbarini began to despair of electing their candidate,
and having received favourable advices from the Court
of Spain, were willing, either with or without the concurrence
of their leader, to negotiate with the friends of Cardinal
Chigi.  Sachetti, finding his own chances hopeless, was not
averse to be treated with.  There remained only the Court of
France.

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   \*      \*      \*      \*      \*

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The MSS. are here defective.

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Be this as it may, Cardinal Sachetti's letter had the
desired effect upon Mazarin, who immediately sent the
necessary letters to the French Cardinals, withdrawing the
veto upon Chigi.  Nothing remained now but to gain the
concurrence of Cardinal Barbarini.  For a long time he
refused to accede, but, the members of his party who had
from the first secretly supported Chigi having now openly
declared in his favour, Barbarini at last consented to hold a
conference.  It took place immediately after the morning
scrutiny, and lasted but a short time.  But it sat long enough
to arrange that the next morning Cardinal Chigi should be
elected Pope.

This determination was so suddenly arrived at, and was
concealed so carefully, that nothing certainly was known during
the rest of the day, outside the number of those who had taken
part in the conference.  There were vague rumours, and many
discontents, but the time was so short that many who would
have declared in favour of Sachetti, had longer time been
given them, were not able to recover from their surprise.

Inglesant was of course informed by Cardinal Chigi of
what had occurred immediately after the conference, and
about mid-day he received a message from De Retz warning
him to be upon his guard.  During the afternoon, however,
some further intelligence of the feeling within the Conclave
came to the knowledge of that astute intriguer, and he sent
Monsignor Fabei to Inglesant about five o'clock.

This man was a favourable specimen of the Italian servant
of an Ecclesiastical Court.  Belonging to a family which had
been trained for generations in the service of the Curia, he
was a man to whom the difficulties which perplexed others,
and the anomalies which appeared to some men to exist
between Christian polity as it might be conceived to be and
Christian polity as it was practised in Rome, did not
exist;—a man to whom the Divine, so far as it was manifested to
him at all, took the form, without doubt or scruple, of that
gorgeous though unwieldy, and, as it seemed to some, slightly
questionable, economy of which he was the faithful servant.
He was honest, yet he appeared—such was the peculiarity of
his training and circumstances—to have solved the, on good
authority, insoluble problem of serving two masters at the
same time; for two opposing Cardinals, or two factions of
Cardinals, alike commanded his reverence and service at
the same moment.  Much of this service was no doubt
unthinking and unconscious, else the memoirs of such a man,
composed by himself without reserve, would be perhaps as
interesting a book as could be written.

"Something is going on within the Conclave, Cavaliere,"
he said, "of which I am not entirely cognizant.  Of course I
am aware of the communications which have been made
from outside during this most protracted Conclave.  The
Princes of the Church must have every opportunity given
them of arriving at a just conclusion in this most important
matter, and I have never been backward in affording every
assistance to their Eminences; but what we have to deal
with to-night is of a very different kind.  You have nothing
to dread from the chiefs of the opposite party; they have
accepted the situation, and will loyally carry out their
engagements.  But they have altered their policy without
consulting or remembering their supporters, and among
these, especially the inferior ones outside the Conclave, the
disappointment is severe.  They have not time, nor are they
in a position to make terms with the successful party, and
their expectations of advancement are annihilated.  They
are, many of them, absolutely unscrupulous, and would
hazard everything to gain time.  They have some means of
communication between the outside world of Rome and their
partizans within the Conclave, which they have not used till
now, and with which, therefore, I am unacquainted.  They are
employing it now.  What the exact effort will be I do not
know, but should your Padrone, Cardinal Chigi, fall ill
before to-morrow's scrutiny, it would delay his election, and
delay is all they want.  There are sufficient malcontents to
prevent his election if they had only time; two or three
days would give them all they want.  I should advise you
not to sleep to-night, but to watch with a wakefulness which
starts at every sound."

The apartment assigned to Cardinal Chigi was subdivided
into three smaller ones, the largest of which was appropriated
to the bedchamber of the Cardinal, the two others to his
attendants.  These apartments communicated with each
other, and only one opened upon the centre corridor
running down the Hall.  The Cardinal retired early to his own
chamber, and most of the other Cardinals did the same.  A
profound silence reigned in the Conclave; if any of the
attendants still stirred they were velvet-shod, and the floors
and walls, lined with velvet, prevented the least sound from
being heard.

Inglesant remained alone in the outermost of the three
apartments, and determined to keep his faculties on the
alert.  For some reason, however, either the fatigue of the
long confinement, or the deathlike stillness of the night, a
profound drowsiness overpowered him, and he continually
sank into a doze.  He tried to read, but the page floated
before his eyes, and it was only by continually rising and
pacing the small chamber that he kept himself from sinking
into a deep sleep.

A profound peace and repose seemed to reign in a place
where so many scheming and excited brains, versed in every
art of policy, were really at work.

Inglesant had sat down again, and had fallen once more
into a slight doze, when suddenly, from no apparent cause,
his drowsiness left him, and he became intensely and almost
painfully awake.  The silence around him was the same as
before, but a violent agitation and excitement disturbed his
mind, and an overpowering apprehension of some approaching
existence, inimical to himself, aroused his faculties to an
acute perception, and braced his nerves to a supreme effort.
In another moment, this apprehension, at first merely mental,
became perceptible to the sense, and he could hear a sound.
It was, as it were, the echo of a low faint creeping movement,
the very ghost of a sound.  Whence it came Inglesant could
not determine, but it was from without the apartment in
which he sat.  No longer able to remain passive, he rose,
drew back the velvet curtain that screened the entrance from
the corridor, opened the door silently, and went out.

The corridor was lighted here and there along its great
length by oil lamps suspended before every third door of the
Cardinals' rooms; but the dark and massive hangings, the
loftiness of the hall overhead, and the dimness of the lamps
themselves, caused the light to be misty and uncertain, as in a
confused and troubled dream.  One of these lamps was
suspended immediately above the door at which Inglesant
had appeared, and he stood in its full light, being himself
much more distinctly seen than he was himself able to see
anything.  He was richly dressed in dark velvet, after the
French fashion, and in the uncertain light his resemblance to
his murdered brother was, in this dress, very great.  He held
a slight and jewelled dagger in his hand.

As he paused under the suspended lamp the sound he had
before heard developed itself into low stealthy footsteps
approaching down the corridor, apparently on the opposite side,
and the next moment a figure, more like a phantom thrown
on the opposite wall than a substantial being, glided into
sight.  It was shrouded in dark and flowing drapery, and
kept so close to the heavy hangings that it seemed almost
the waving of their folds stirred by some unknown breeze.
Though it passed down the opposite side, it kept its attention
turned in Inglesant's direction, and almost at the same
moment at which he appeared through the opening door it
saw him and instantly stopped.  It lost its stealthy motion
and assumed an attitude of intense and speechless terror, such
as Inglesant had never seen depicted in a human being, and
by this attitude revealed itself more completely to his gaze.
The hood which shaded its face fell partly back, and displayed
features pale as death, and lustrous eyes dilated with horror,
and Inglesant could see that it held some nameless weapon
in its hand.  As it stood, arrested in its purpose, breathless
and uncertain, it seemed to Inglesant a phantom murderer,
or rather the phantom of murder itself, as though nothing
short of the murderous principle sufficed any longer to dog
his steps.

This strange figure confronted Inglesant for some seconds,
during which neither stirred, each with his eyes riveted upon
the other, each with his weapon in his hand.  Then the
phantom murmured in an articulate and broken voice, that
faltered upon the air as though tremulous with horror, "It is
himself!  He has taken the dagger from his bleeding wound."

Then, as it had come, it glided backwards along the heavy
drapery, becoming more and more lost in its folds, till, at
first apparently but the shadow of a shade, it faded more and
more into the hanging darkness, and vanished out of sight.

The next morning, at the scrutiny after early mass, Fabitis
Chigi, Cardinal and Secretary of State, was, by more than
two-thirds of the whole Conclave, elected Pope.





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.. _`CHAPTER XI.`:

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   CHAPTER XI.

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There is, perhaps, no comparison so apposite, though it
be a homely one, to the condition of affairs in Italy at
this time—upon the election of a new Pope—as that of a
change of trumps at a game of cards.  All persons and matters
remain the same as they were before, yet their values and
relationships are all changed; the aspect of the entire scene is
altered; those who before were in little esteem are exalted,
and those who were in great power and estimation are abased.
All the persons with whom Inglesant had been connected were
more or less affected by it, except Cardinal Rinuccini, to whom
it made little difference.  To the Cavaliere and to Malvolti it
was ruin.  The former was so deeply involved in debt, in
private feuds, and entanglements with the authorities, his
character was so utterly lost with all parties, and his means of
usefulness to any so small, that it is probable that even the
elevation to power of the Barbarini faction would not have
been of much use to him.  But, whatever might have been his
prospects had the election resulted otherwise, his only chance
now of safety from prison and even death was in Inglesant's
connection with his sister, and in the protection he might hope
to experience upon that account; his only hope depended
upon the force of Inglesant's affection.  The fear of private
assassination kept him almost confined to his chamber.
Malvolti's circumstances were still more hopeless; notorious for
every species of vice and crime, and hateful even to the very
bravoes and dregs of the Italian populace, he had now lost all
hope of alliance or even assistance from his friend the Cavaliere,
who discarded him the moment that he was of no further use.
Maddened by this treatment and by despair, no way seemed
open to him except that of desperate revenge.  Towards
Inglesant his hatred was peculiarly intense, being mixed with a
certain kind of superstitious dread.  He regarded him almost
as the shade of his murdered brother, returned from the grave
to dog his steps.  It was his presence which had thwarted his
last desperate attempt within the Conclave, his last hope of
earning protection and rewards.  He expected nothing but
punishment and severe retribution at Inglesant's hands.
Surrounded as he was by perils and enemies on every side, this
peril and this dreaded enemy stood most prominently in his
path; a blow struck here would be not only a measure of
self-defence, but a sweet gratification of revenge, and a relief from
an appalling supernatural terror.  This terrible semblance of
his murdered victim once out of his path, he might hope that
the vision of a bloody hearthstone in England might not be
so constantly before his eyes.

To Inglesant himself the bright prospects which seemed
opening before him gave little satisfaction.  He was exhausted
in body by his long detention within the Conclave, and the
tone of his spirit was impaired by the intrigue and hypocrisy
of which he had been a witness and a partaker.  It is impossible
to kneel morning after morning before the Sacrament, in
a spirit of worldliness and chicane, without being soiled and
polluted in the secret places of the soul.  The circumstances
of his visit to Umbria and to Florence, howbeit in both he had
been preserved almost by a miracle from actual sin, had left
an evil mark upon his conscience.  He felt little of the sweet
calm and peace he had enjoyed for a season in the company
of Molinos, during his first visit to Rome.  Something of his
old misery returned upon him, and he felt himself again the
sport of the fiend, who was working out his destruction by
some terrible crime, of which he was the agent, and the Italian
murderer the cause.

"This man is at large in Rome," said Don Agostino to him
one day; "I should advise you to have him assassinated.  It
is time the earth was rid of such a villain, and the Roman law
is useless in such a case.  All protection is withdrawn from
him, and every man, high and low, within the city will rejoice
at his death."

Inglesant shook his head.

"I do not value my life, God knows, at a straw's worth,"
he said.  "Because he murdered my brother, foully and treacherously,
he and I shall too surely meet some day; but the time
is not yet come.  Surely if the devil can afford to wait, much
more can I."

He spoke more to himself than to the other, and there is
reason to suppose that Don Agostino made arrangements to
have Malvolti assassinated on his own responsibility; but the
Italian avoided his bravoes for a time.

Some short time after the Pope's election, in the height of
the Carnival,[#] a masked ball was given in the Palace Doria, at
which Don Agostino had arranged a set composed entirely of
his own friends.  It was composed in imitation of the old
comedies of the Atellanas, upon which the Punchinello and
Harlequinade of all nations has been formed, and which, being
domestic dramas performed in masques by the Roman youth
with an old-fashioned elegance and simplicity, were peculiarly
fitted for performance at a modern masquerade.  A primitive
and rude form of pantomime, founded on caricature and
burlesque, with a few characters boldly drawn, has none of the
charm of the later comedy, which is a picture of real life with
its variety of character and incident, and possesses that
excellent art of showing men as they are, while representing them
as they seem to be.  But, though it fell short of this higher
perfection, the broad farce and few characters of the older form
of comedy are not wanting in much lively and yet serious
painting of human life, which is all the more serious and
pathetic from its broad and unconscious farce.  The jester, the
knave, the old man, the girl, the lover,—these types that are
eternal and yet never old,—with the endless complication in
which, both on the stage and real life, they are perpetually
involved, are susceptible of infinite application and interest to
the imagination.  As the rehearsal progressed Inglesant was
struck and interested with these ideas, and as the night came
on there seemed to him to be in the world nothing but play
within play, scene within scene.  Between the most incidental
acts of an excited and boisterous crowd and the most solemn
realities of life and death it seemed to him impossible to
distinguish otherwise than in degree; all appeared part of that
strange interlude which, between the Dramas of Eternity, is
performed continually upon the stage of life.

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[#] It is generally stated by historians
that the election of Cardinal
Chigi took place on April 7th, 1655,
and as Easter that year fell on April
15th, there appears some discrepancy
in this part of the narrative.  The
reader must decide between these contending authorities.

.. vspace:: 2

The set was a large one, consisting of the ordinary
pantomime types, supplemented by duplicates, peasants, priests,
sbirri (always a favourite subject of satire and practical jokes),
country girls, and others.  Don Agostino, whose wit was ready
and brilliant, took the part of clown or jester, and Inglesant
that of the stage lover, a *rôle* requiring no great effort to
sustain.  The part of Columbine was sustained by a young girl, a
mistress of Don Agostino, of considerable beauty and wit, and
as yet unspoiled by the wicked life of Rome.  She was dressed
as a Contadina, or peasant girl, in holiday costume.  Harlequin
was played by a young Count, a boy of weak intellect, involved
in every species of dissipation, and consigned to ruin by
designing foes, of whom some were of his own family.

As the ball progressed the party attracted great notice by
the clever interludes and acts they performed between the
dances.  In these the usual tricks and practical jokes were
introduced sparingly, relieved by a higher style of wit, and by
allusions to the topics of the day and to the foibles of the
society of Rome.  The parts were all well sustained, and Don
Agostino exerted himself successfully to give brilliancy and
life to the whole party.  The young Harlequin-Count, who
had at first seemed only to excel in lofty capers and somersaults,
was the first who showed tokens of fatigue.  He became
gradually listless and careless, so that he changed his part, and
became the butt of the rest, instead of their tormentor.

A dance in sets had just begun, and Inglesant could not
help being struck with his disconsolate manner, which showed
itself plainly, even through his masque and disguise.  It seemed
that others noticed it as well, for as Inglesant met the
Contadina in one of the combinations of the figure, she said in the
pause of the dance,—

"Do you see the Count, Cavaliere?  He is on the brink of
ruin, body and soul.  His cousin, and one or two more who
are in the set, are engaged with him in some desperate
complication, and are working upon his feeble mind and his
terror.  Cannot you help him at all?"

When the dance ceased Inglesant went over to the Count,
intending to speak to him, but his cousin and others of the
set were talking earnestly to him, and Inglesant stepped back.
He saw that the longer his treacherous friends spoke to him
the more broken down and crushed in spirit did the poor
Harlequin-Count become; and it was evident to Inglesant
that here a play was being enacted within the play, and that,
as often is the case, one of the deep tragedies of life was
appearing in the fantastic dress of farce.  As he stood dreamily
watching what occurred, Don Agostino called him off to
commence another comic act, and when at the first pause he
turned to look for the Count, he could no longer see him.  His
cousin and the others were present, however, and soon after
the set was again formed for another dance.

The stifling air of the crowded rooms, and the fatigue of the
part he had to perform, wrought upon Inglesant's brain; the
confused figures of the dance dazzled his sight, and the music
sounded strange and grotesque.  As the partners crossed each
other, and he came again to the Contadina in his turn, she
grasped his hand in hers, and said, hurriedly,—

"Do you see who is standing in the Count's place?"

Inglesant looked, and certainly, in the place of the dance
which should have been occupied by the Count, was a tall
figure in the dress of a white friar, over which was carelessly
thrown a black domino, which allowed the dark fiery eyes of
the wearer to be seen.

"The Count has gone," whispered the girl, trembling all
over as she spoke, "no one knows whither; no one knows
who this man is who has come in his place.  He is gone to
drown himself in the river; this is the devil who supports his
part."

In spite of the girl's visible agitation and his own excitement,
Inglesant laughed, and, taking her words as a jest, turned
again to look at the strange masque, intending to make some
ludicrous comment to reassure his friend.  To his astonishment
the words died upon his lips, and an icy chill seemed to
strike through his blood and cause his heart to beat violently.
A sensation of dread overpowered him, the dance-music sounded
wild and despairing in his ears, and the ever-varying throng of
figures, waving with a thousand colours, swam before his eyes.
In the appearance of the stranger, which was simply that of a
tall man, there was nothing to account for this; and except that
he kept his piercing eyes steadily fixed upon Inglesant, there
was nothing in his manner to attract attention.  Inglesant went
through the rest of the dance mechanically, and suddenly, as
it seemed to him, the music stopped.

The dance being over, most of Don Agostino's party, tired
with their exertions, withdrew to the buffet of an adjoining
apartment for refreshment.  Inglesant had taken off his
masque, and standing by the buffet, a little apart from the
rest, was fanning himself with it, and cooling his parched
throat with iced wine, when he was aware that the strange
figure had followed him.  It was standing before him with a
glass in its hand, which it seemed to fill from a bottle of
peculiar shape, which Inglesant recognized as one only used to
contain a rare Italian wine.

"Cavaliere," the strange masque said in a soft and polite
voice, "this wine will do you more good than that which you
are drinking; it cools and rests the brain.  Will you drink
with me?"

As he spoke he offered Inglesant the glass he held, and
filled another, and at the same instant, the Contadina came
up to Inglesant and hung upon his arm.

Inglesant, who was unmasked, stood with the glass in his
hand, waiting for the other to remove his domino before he
bowed and drank; but the stranger did not do so.

After a moment's pause, amid the breathless silence of the
whole group, who were looking on, the stranger said, speaking
with a courteous speech and gesture, which if acted were
perfectly well assumed,—

"Pardon me that I do not remove my masque; it is my
misfortune that I am not able to do so."

Impressed by the other's manner, it struck Inglesant in a
moment that this must be some great noble, perhaps a Prince
of the Church, for whom it would be injudicious to appear
unmasked, and bowing courteously, he raised the glass to his
lips.

As he did so the black eyes of the disguised friar were
fixed steadily upon him, and the Contadina said in his ear, in
an eager, frightened whisper,—

"Do not drink."

The tremor of her voice, and of her figure on his arm,
brought back in a moment the terror and distrust which the
bearing and manner of the other had dispelled, and raising
the cup, he let his lip rest for a moment in the liquor, but did
not drink.  Then replacing the glass upon the buffet, he said
coolly,—

"It is a good wine, but my English habit has spoiled my
taste.  I do not like the Italian Volcanic wines."

"I regret it," said the other, turning away; "they are a
quietus for the fever of life."

The party breathed more freely as he left the room, and
the Contadina, taking the glass which Inglesant had put down,
emptied its contents upon the floor.

They followed the domino into the ball-room, where they
saw him speaking to the Count's cousin, and to two or three
others of the group, who had remained there or sought
refreshment elsewhere.

As the last dance began, in the early daybreak which made
the lamps burn faintly, and cast a pale and melancholy light
over the gay dresses and the moving figures, over the gilding
and marble, and the dim lovely paintings on the walls,
Inglesant was conscious of a strange and death-like feeling that
benumbed his frame.  He was bitterly cold, and his sight
became dim and uncertain.  The music seemed to grow wilder
and more fantastic, and the crowded dancers, grotesque and
goblin-like to any eyes, became unreal as a dream to his.

Suddenly, as before, the music ceased, and not knowing
what he did, Inglesant became separated from his friends, and
was borne by the throng to the doors and down the staircase
into the courtyard and the street.

The Piazza and the Corso beyond were crowded with carriages,
and with servants carrying dim torches, and the morning
air was rent with confused noise.

Nearly unconscious, Inglesant allowed himself to be carried
onward by the crowd of persons leaving the palace on foot—a
motley throng in every variety of costume, and he was soon
borne out of the square into the Corso and down the street.

Suddenly he heard a voice behind, clear and distinct to
his ears, at least, amid the confused noise,—

"There he is—now strike!"

Turning round quickly, he saw the masque within two
yards of him, with something in the folds of his gown which
shone in the light.  In another moment he would have been
close to him, when they were swept apart by a sudden
movement of the crowd, and Don Agostino's carriage, surrounded
by servants, passed close by the spot to which Inglesant had
drifted.  He was recognized, and Agostino welcomed him
eagerly, saying,—

"I have been looking for you everywhere."

They proceeded along the Corso, Inglesant still like a
man in a dream, and turned down towards the bridge of
St. Angelo.  At the corner of a street leading to the river,
another pause occurred.  The carriage of a great French
noble and Prince of the Church—which had followed the
Corso farther on—was passing when they turned into the
street, and according to the formal etiquette of the day, even
at that hour and in the crowded street, Don Agostino's
coachman stopped his horses before the carriage of his master's
superior, and the servants opened the door that one of the
gentlemen at least might alight.  At the same moment, there
seemed to be some confusion in the crowd at the top of the
short street leading to the river; and Inglesant, still hardly
knowing what he did, alighted, with the double purpose of
seeing what was the matter, and of saluting his patron.  As he
did so, one of the servants said to him,—

"They are bringing up a dead body, sir."

It was true.  A body had just been drawn out of the
river, and, placed on nets and benches of a boat, was being
carried on the shoulders of fishermen up the street.  As it
passed, Inglesant could see the face, which hung drooping
towards him over the edge of the nets.  It was the face of the
Harlequin-Count.

It had scarcely passed, when Inglesant heard—as a man
hears over and over again repeated in a ghastly dream—the
same voice that spoke before, saying,—

"There he is again.  If you let him get back to the
coach you will lose him.  Go round by the horses' heads."

The restlessness of the impatient horses had made a little
space clear of the crowd, and the same had happened in front
of the horses of the Cardinal-Duke, so that the street between
them was comparatively clear.  Strangely frightened and
distressed, Inglesant struggled back to Agostino's carriage, and
had just reached the door when the masque, passing round the
horses' heads, sprang upon him, and struck a violent blow with
the glancing steel.  The state of his victim's brain saved him.
The moment he reached the door he reeled against it, and the
weapon glanced off his person, the hilt striking him a violent
blow on the chest.  He fell backwards into the coach, and
Agostino caught a second blow in his sleeve.  The startled
servants threw themselves upon the murderer, but he slipped
through their hands and escaped.

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Two days after the ball, when the morning of Ash Wednesday
broke with the lovely Italian dawn, a strange and sudden
transformation had passed over Rome.  Instead of a people
wild with pleasure, laughing, screaming, joking like children,
feasting, dancing, running about, from mere lightness of heart;
in the place of fairs, theatres, and booths in the open streets,
instead of the public gardens and walks crowded with
parti-coloured masquers, full of sportive pranks, and decked out
with every vagary and grotesque freak of costume, you saw a
city quiet and silent as the grave, yet full of human forms;
you heard nothing but the tolling of bells and the faint echo
of solemn chants.  The houses and churches were hung with
black; the gay tapestries and silks, the theatres, the play-actors,
and the gay dresses, had all vanished, and in their place
the streets were full of cowled and silent penitents.  They
walked with downcast and pallid faces; if you spoke to them
they did not answer, but gazed upon you with wondering eyes.
Men and women alike wore the black gown and hood of
penance, and from the proudest noble to the poorest peasant,
thronged into the Churches and received alike the emblem of
their common fate—the ashes and dust from whence they
came, and to which they would return.

Before the masked ball, exhausted in health by the long
confinement in the Conclave, and tormented in mind by
disappointed desire and by accusing conscience, Inglesant had
been sinking into almost as great misery as that which he had
endured before he came to Rome.  The perils and terror
that had entered unbidden among the guests during that night
of revelry had worked a marvellous change upon him, and he
awoke from a species of trance, which had lasted two days,
with his spirits cleared and strengthened.  He was, in fact,
like a man whom a violent fever has just left, languid in body,
but with a mind at rest and in peace, with the wild dreams
and visions of delirium gone.  The earth seems, at least to
him, calm and peaceful, full of voices of prayer and strains of
penitential song.  He looks out upon life languidly, it is
true, but with a friendly, pleased countenance, as upon a
well-known landscape recalling happy days.  So it was with
Inglesant, that the wild riot of the Carnival being over, the peace
of Lent began within his soul.  The blow that had been
struck at his life restored him to life, and took away the
superstitious dread that was gradually consuming his reason.  He
had met his brother's murderer, not alone in some solitary
place and picked time, planned before with diabolic purpose
by the enemy of mankind, but in a crowd, and as it seemed
by chance.  He had himself been passive, and urged by no
demoniac prompting to some terrible act of vengeance; still
more, his enemy had failed, miraculously, as it seemed to him.
Surely, then, his fears had been in vain; he was not delivered
over to Satan, nay, probably the Lord Himself still regarded
him with compassion, still watched over and defended his life.
Some work was doubtless reserved for him to do; for him,
living always on the verge of delirium, whom a little extra
pressure upon the brain-nerve might at any moment estrange
altogether from reason, and deprive of intellect and of
intercourse with men.  For such as he, nevertheless, under such
protection, what might not yet be possible?  The dews of the
Divine Grace cool the fevered brain more surely than any
cordial, and soften and water the parched and thirsty heart.
The pleasant Italian March day was soft and balmy as the
loveliest day of June in England.  The scent of jasmin and
Daphne flowers filled the air; soft showers fell at intervals
over the garden slopes of that part of Rome; the breath of
Zephyr swept sweetness into the weary sense.  Let him join
the hooded throng of penitents; let him, dust and ashes,
snatched it may be "*è flamma*" from the very flames, yet
still by the grace of God in his right mind, take his ashes with
a grateful heart.

For the appearance, amid the chaos of his life, of a guiding
Divine Hand, delightful as it is to any man, must be unspeakably
so to him who, to the difficulties, sufficiently great, which
ordinarily beset a man in his path through life, adds this
overwhelming one—the imminent chance at any moment of losing
consciousness altogether, with the power of thought and choice
of seeing objects rightly, and of self-control and self-command.
How eagerly one to whom life is complicated in such sort as
this must welcome a Divine guidance may easily be seen—one
who otherwise is wandering among a phantasmagoria of
objects, among which he must, so far as his wavering
consciousness allows him, and for the moment that consciousness
may remain his own, shape his course so as to avoid ruin.

In the fresh morning air, full of delicious warmth and sweetness,
and with this angelic messenger leading his soul, Inglesant
went out.  He had no sufficient motive to take him to any
particular Church; but chance or some nobler power directed
that he should turn his steps to the right in passing into the
Via di S. Giovanni, and following the crowd of penitents,
should arrive at the portico of the Church of the Lateran.

The space in front of the magnificent façade was crowded
with draped forms, and the wail of the rare organ music reached
the outer perfumed air.  The marble pavement of the interior,
precious beyond calculation, was thronged with the dark crowd,
and the costly marble of the walls and tombs was streaked and
veiled by the wreaths of incense which lingered in the building.
The low chanting and the monotonous accompaniment of the
organs filled the Church, and high over the altar, brilliant with
a thousand lights, flashed the countless gems of the wonderful
tabernacle, and the Cœna of plate of inestimable cost.  On
either side the gilded brass of the four columns of the Emperor
Titus, brought from Jerusalem itself, reflected back the altar
lights; and beset with precious stones where the body of the
Lord once had hung, was evident to all beholders the very
wood of the Holy Cross.

As Inglesant entered, the ashes had been sprinkled three
times with holy water, and the clouds of incense gradually rose
over the kneeling crowd, as the people began to receive the
ashes upon their foreheads, thronging up in silence and order.
At the same time the choir began to sing the Antiphons,
accompanied by the heavenly music of the matchless organs,
and penetrating by their distinct articulation the remotest
corners of the Church.

"Immutemur habitu," they began, "let us change our garments;
in ashes and sackcloth let us fast and lament before the
Lord.  Because," and the pealing anthem rose in ecstatic
triumph to the emblazoned roof, "plenteous in mercy to
forgive our sins is this God of ours."

"Ah! yes," thought Inglesant, "let us change our garments;
these dark robes that seem ashes and sackcloth, may
they not be the chosen garment of the marriage supper of the
King?  Clothed and in one's right mind, by the heavenly
mercy we already walk the celestial pavement, and hear the
pealing anthems of the angelic choir."

"Emendemus in melius," the anthem went on, "let us amend
for the better in that in which we have ignorantly sinned—ne
subito præoccupati die mortis, quæramus spatium poenitentiæ,
et invenire non possimus."

The mighty voice, as of God Himself, seemed to single out
and speak to Inglesant alone, "Lest suddenly overtaken by
the day of death."  Ah! who so well as he knew what that
meant, who so lately as he had stood face to face with the
destroyer?

He covered his face with his hands.

As the chanting of the Antiphon continued; he reached
the steps of the high altar, and in his turn knelt to receive the
ashes upon his brow.

In a pause of the anthem the chanting ceased, and the
organs played a slow movement in the interval.  Nothing was
heard but the monotonous undertone of the priests.

As Inglesant knelt upon the marble an overpowering sense
of helplessness filled his soul, so worthless and fragile he
seemed to himself before the eternal existence, that the idea
of punishment and penitence was lost in the sense of utter
nothingness.

"Ah!  Lord God," he thought, "shattered in mind and
brain I throw myself on Thee; without Thee I am lost in the
vortex of the Universe; my intellect is lost except it steadies
itself upon the idea of Thee.  Without Thee it has no
existence.  How canst Thou be angry with that which is not?"

He bowed his head in utter prostration of spirit to receive
the ashes.

"Memento, homo," the priest began—ah! surely it must
be easy to remember that, "quia pulvis es——"

Inglesant heard no more.  A sudden thrill of earth, like
the familiar scent of flowers to a dying man, passed through
him, and he lifted up his eyes.  Opposite to him across the
corner of the altar steps knelt Lauretta, her lustrous eyes full
of tears fixed upon him with an inexpressible tenderness and
interest.  His eyes met hers for an instant, then he dropped
his head again before the priest; but the thought and presence
of heaven was gone from him, and nothing but the roses and
loves of earth remained.

He rose from his knees.  The throng of penitents
surrounded him, and he suffered himself to be swept onward,
down the long nave, till he reached the door through which
the crowd was pouring out.  There, however, he stopped.





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.. _`CHAPTER XII.`:

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   CHAPTER XII.

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The old Duke of Umbria was dying.  He lay clothed,
as he had once said to Inglesant, in the "Angelica
Vestis," the sacred wafer in his mouth.  Below in the Palace
Chapel, in the great Duomo, in Rome itself, masses were being
said day by day, and the ineffable Host raised to heaven, in
intercessory prayer for this man's soul.  If any deserved an
unruffled passage over the dark river, he did.  He had sought
long and earnestly to find a more excellent way, and had shrunk
from no effort nor painful mortification if he might at last
walk in it when found.  He had resigned himself and all that
he possessed in implicit obedience to the doctrine and the See
of Rome.  He had crowned a blameless and beneficent life
by acts of unparalleled devotion and piety; nevertheless, an
unruffled passage he did not have.  The future was dark and
full of dread, and he suffered all the terrors of the grave with
a troubled mind.  Lying thus in dull misery of body, and in
mental apprehension and unrest, he bethought himself of
Inglesant.  Having surrendered himself, soul and body, into the
hands of those who stood about his bed, he knew that it was
useless to let his mind wander after any of those unauthorized
teachers from whom in past days he had sought instruction;
but in Inglesant he had, for the first time, met a man who,
walking to all appearance in the straitest paths of the Catholic
Church, seemed to possess a freedom of spirit greater than the
Sectaries themselves could boast.  Even when suffering the
rebukes of an accusing conscience, and the bewilderment of a
disordered brain, there was in Inglesant an unfettered possession
of the things of this life, and even of the life to come,
which had astonished the old man, who, unaccused by his own
conscience, was yet so confined and hampered in this world,
and in such continual dread of that other which was shortly to
be revealed to him.

He expressed to his director a wish that Inglesant might
be sent for.  It was impossible to deny him this request, even
had it been thought desirable.  Inglesant was a trusted
confidant of the dominant Society of Rome, a favourite of the new
Pope, and had, besides, been influential, as was believed, in
obtaining that crowning triumph—the cession of the Duchy to
the Papal See.  A messenger was therefore despatched to Rome
requesting his immediate presence.  The summons found him
with Lauretta and her father, engaged in preparations for his
speedy marriage.

This connection was regarded with great favour by Don
Agostino and most of his friends; but was looked upon, as
far as they condescended to notice it at all, with suspicion by
the heads of the Jesuit Society.

They were beginning to dread the influence of Molinos,
and Inglesant had already incurred some suspicion by his
intimacy with the Spaniard.  The Pope was supposed to be not
altogether opposed to the new doctrine, and the Jesuits were
unwilling to lose an obedient servant, who might be useful to
them.  There was, however, no sufficient reason in this why he
should be forbidden to visit the old Duke, who was certainly
dying, and therefore beyond the reach of dangerous influence;
and Inglesant, remembering the interest he had felt in the
Duke, and the favours which he had lavished upon him,
hastened to set out.

When he arrived in Umbria he found the Duke had rallied
a little, and he received him with the warmest expressions of
delight.  He was never content save when he was in the room,
and his very presence seemed to restore strength and life to
the exhausted old man.  Those who watched about his bed
in the interests of Rome, if they had felt any apprehensions of
the result of Inglesant's visit, were speedily reassured, for the
Duke did not seem desirous of conversing upon religious
matters with him, and, indeed, rather avoided them.  He
seemed to cling to Inglesant as to the only remaining link to
that world which he was so soon to leave, and to take a strange
pleasure in furnishing him with those appliances of earthly
enjoyment which had until now long ceased to be of interest to
himself.  Among other gifts he insisted on his accepting a
suit of superb armour which had been made expressly for his
idolized son.  In this suit, in which he caused Inglesant to
be arrayed, he declared that he well represented the patron
saint of his nation, St. George of England, and pleased himself
with the reflection that the fief with which he had endowed
Inglesant bore the name of the same saint.

"You are il Cavaliere di San Georgio," he said to his
favourite, as he stood by his couch, sheathed in the superb but
useless and fantastic armour of the seventeenth century, with
cuirass, greaves, and cuisses of polished and jewelled metal,
worn over the ordinary dress, and combined with the lace and
velvet which ornamented the whole.  It is true that the steel
plates were covered with silver and gold chasing of arabesques
not of the most Christian type, and the perfect sword-blade
was engraved with hieroglyphics not of the most saintly kind;
nevertheless Inglesant, as he stood, did certainly resemble
somewhat closely a splendid renaissance St. George.

"You are il Cavaliere di San Georgio," said the Duke,
"and you must wear that armour when you go to meet your
bride.  I have arranged a train worthy of so illustrious a
bridegroom."

Inglesant's marriage had taken a great hold in the imagination
of the dying man, and his mind, to the surprise of those
who had known him longest, seemed to dwell entirely upon
nuptials and festivals.  The strain and terror which his spirit
had suffered for so long had probably done their work, and,
like as on a harpsichord with a snapped string, the set purpose
and composure was lost, and nothing but fragments of fantasias
could be played.  That magic influence of the wonderful ducal
palace which Inglesant had been conscious of at his first visit,
and of which the Duke had seemed hitherto altogether regardless,
at the last moments of his life appeared to assert its power
and force; and what to others seemed mere dotage appeared to
Inglesant like a wintry gleam of mysterious light that might be
the earnest of a happier time,—a return from the dark regions
of superstitious fear to the simple delights of common human
life.  The sway of this strange house was as powerful over
Inglesant himself as it had been before; but he now stood
upon higher ground than he had done formerly.  The events
which had occurred in the meantime had not been entirely
without effect.  His triumph over the temptation of the flesh
in the forest pavilion had secured to him a higher place in the
spiritual walk, and the escape from the assassin's dagger had
sobered his spirit and indescribably touched his heart.  The
"Kings' Courts," of which this house was but a type,—the
Italian world in which he had lived so long,—had, therefore,
now less power than ever to crush Inglesant's religious instinct;
but it gave it a certain colour, a sort of renaissance Christianity,
which bore a likeness to the character of the art-world in which
it had grown up,—a Christianity of florid ornament and of
somewhat fantastic issues.

As the Duke gradually became weaker, and seemed every
day to be on the point of death, he became the more anxious
that Inglesant's marriage should be completed, and at last
insisted upon his delaying his return to Rome no longer.
Inglesant, who expected almost hour by hour the Duke's
decease, would have been content to wait; but the dying man
would take no denial.  He pleased himself with giving orders
for Inglesant's train, and ordered his favourite page, an Austrian
boy, to accompany him, and to return immediately when the
marriage was celebrated, that he might receive the fullest
description of the particulars of the event.

It was long before sunrise that Inglesant set out, accompanied
by his train, hoping to cross the mountains before the
heat began.  His company consisted of several men-at-arms,
with their grooms and horse boys, and the Austrian page.
They ascended the mountains in the earlier part of the night,
and towards dawn they reached a flat plain.  The night had
been too dark to allow them to see the steep and narrow
defiles, full of oaks and beech; and as they passed over the
dreary plain in the white mist, their figures seemed vast and
indistinct in the dim light; but now, as the streaks of the dawn
grew brighter in the east behind them, they could see the fir
trees clothing the distant slopes, and here and there one of
the higher summits still covered with white snow.  The scene
was cold and dead and dreary as the grave.  A heavy mist
hung over the mountain plain, and an icy lake lay black and
cold beneath the morning sky.  As they reached the crest of
the hill the mist rose, stirred by a little breeze at sunrise, and
the gorges of the descent lay clear before them.  The sun arose
behind them, gilding the mountain tops, and tracing streaks
and shades of colour on the rising mist sparkling with glittering
dew-drops; while dark and solemn beneath them lay the
pine-clothed ravines and sloping valleys, with here and there
a rocky peak; and farther down still the woods and hills gave
place at last to the plain of the Tiber, at present dark and
indistinguishable in the night.

As the sun arose behind them one by one the pine ravines
became lighted, and the snowy summits, soft and pink with
radiant light, stood out against the sky, which became every
instant of a deeper blue.  The sunlight, stealing down the
defiles and calling forth into distinct shape and vision tree and
rock and flashing stream, spread itself over the oak woods in
the valleys, and shone at last upon the plain, embossed and
radiant with wood and green meadow, and marble towers and
glistering water—the waters of the Tiber running onwards
towards Rome.  Mysterious forms and waves of light, the
creatures of the morning and of the mist, floated before the
sight, and from the dark fir trees murmurs and mutterings of
ethereal life fell upon the ear.  Sudden and passionate flushes
of colour tinted the pine woods and were gone, and beneath
the branches and across the paths fairy lights played for a
moment and passed away.

The party halted more than once, but it was necessary to
make the long descent before the heat began, and they
commenced carefully to pick their way down the stony mountain
road, which wound down the ravines in wild unequal paths.
The track now precipitous, now almost level, took them round
corners and masses of rock sometimes hanging above their
heads, revealing continually new reaches of valley, and new
defiles clothed with fir and oak.  Mountain flowers and
trailing ivy and creeping plants hung in festoons on every side,
lizards ran across the path, birds fluttered above them or
darted into the dark recesses where the mountain brooks were
heard; everything sang the morning psalm of life, with which,
from field and mountain solitudes, the free children of nature
salute the day.

The Austrian boy felt the beauty of the scene, and broke
out into singing.

"When the northern gods," he said to Inglesant, "rode
on their chevisance they went down into the deep valleys
singing magic songs.  Let us into this dark valley, singing
magic songs, also go down; who knows what strange and
hidden deity, since the old pagan times lost and forgotten, we
may find among the dark fir dingles and the laurel shades?"

And he began to sing some love ditty.

Inglesant did not hear him.  The beauty of the scene,
ethereal and unreal in its loveliness, following upon the long
dark mountain ride, his sleepless nights and strange familiarity
with approaching death by the couch of the old Duke, confused
his senses, and a presentiment of impending fate filled
his mind.  The recollection of his brother rose again in his
remembrance, distinct and present as in life; and more than
once he fancied that he heard his voice, as the cry of some
mountain beast or sound of moaning trees came up the pass.
No other foreshadowing than this very imperfect one warned
him of the approaching crisis of his life.

The sun was fully up, and the light already brilliant and
intense, when they approached a projecting point where the
slope of wood ended in a tower of rock jutting upon the road.
The path by which they approached it was narrow and ragged,
but beyond the rock the ground spread itself out, and the path
was carried inward towards the right, having the sloping
hillside on the one hand, covered with scattered oaks, while, on
the other, a slip of ground separated it from the ravine.  At
the turning of the road, where the opening valley lay before
them as they reached the corner, face to face with Inglesant
as he checked his horse, was the Italian, the inquisitive stranger
of the theatre at Florence, the intruder into the Conclave, the
masque of the Carnival ball, the assassin of the Corso—that
Malvolti who had treacherously murdered his brother and
sought his own life.  Alone and weary, his clothes worn and
threadbare, he came toiling up the pass.  Inglesant reined in
his horse suddenly, a strange and fierce light in his eyes and
face.  The Italian started back like some wild creature of the
forest brought suddenly to bay, a terrified cry broke from him,
and he looked wildly round as if intending flight.  The nature
of the ground caught him as in a trap; on the one hand the
sloping hillside steep and open, on the other tangled rugged
ground, slightly rising between the road and the precipice, cut
off all hope of sudden flight.  He looked wildly round for a
moment, then, when the horsemen came round the rocky wall
and halted behind their leader, his eyes came back to Inglesant's
face, and he marked the smile upon his lips and in his
eyes, and saw his hand steal downwards to the hunting piece
he carried at the saddle; then with a terrible cry, he threw
himself on his knees before the horse's head, and begged for
pity,—pity and life.

Inglesant took his hand from his weapon, and turning
slightly to the page and to the others behind him, he said,—

"This man, messeri, is a murderer and a villain, steeped
in every crime; a cruel secret midnight cut-throat and assassin;
a lurker in secret corners to murder the innocent.  He took
my brother, a noble gentleman whom I was proud to follow,
treacherously at an advantage, and slew him.  I see him now
before me lying in his blood.  He tried to take my life,—I,
who scarcely even knew him,—in the streets of Rome.  Now
he begs for mercy, what say you, gentleman? what is his due?"

"Shoot the dog through the head.  Hang him on the
nearest tree.  Carry him into Rome and torture him to death."

The Italian still continued on his knees, his hands clasped
before him, his face working with terror and agony that could
not be disguised.

"Mercy, monsignore," he cried.  "Mercy.  I cannot, I
dare not, I am not fit to die.  For the blessed Host,
monsignore, have mercy—for the love of Jesu—for the sake of
Jesu."

As he said these last words Inglesant's attitude altered,
and the cruel light faded out of his eyes.  His hand ceased
to finger the carabine at his saddle, and he sat still upon his
horse, looking down upon the abject wretch before him, while
a man might count fifty.  The Italian saw, or thought he saw,
that his judge was inclining to mercy, and he renewed his
appeals for pity.

"For the love of the crucifix, monsignore; for the blessed
Virgin's sake."

But Inglesant did not seem to hear him.  He turned to
the horsemen behind him, and said,—

"Take him up, one of you, on the crupper.  Search him
first for arms.  Another keep his eye on him, and if he moves
or attempts to escape, shoot him dead.  You had better come
quietly;" he continued, "it is your only chance for life."

Two of the men-at-arms dismounted and searched the
prisoner, but found no arms upon him.  He seemed indeed
to be in the greatest distress from hunger and want, and his
clothes were ragged and thin.  He was mounted behind one
of the soldiers and closely watched, but he made no attempt
to escape, and indeed appeared to have no strength or energy
for such an effort.

They went on down the pass for about an Italian league.
The country became more thickly wooded, and here and there
on the hillsides patches of corn appeared, and once or twice
in a sheltered spot a few vines.  At length, on the broad
shoulder of the hill round which the path wound, they saw
before them a few cottages, and above them, on the hillside,
in a position that commanded the distant pass till it opened
on the plain, was a Chapel, the bell of which had just ceased
ringing for mass.

Inglesant turned his horse's head up the narrow stony
path, and when the gate was reached, he dismounted and
entered the Chapel, followed by his train.  The Capella had
apparently been built of the remains of some temple or old
Roman house, for many of the stones of the front were carved
in bold relief.  It was a small narrow building, and possessed
no furniture save the altar and a rude pulpit built of stones;
but behind the altar, painted on the plaster of the wall, was
the rood or crucifix, the size of life.  Who the artist had been
cannot now be told; it might have been the pupil of some
great master, who had caught something of the master's skill,
or, perhaps, in the old time, some artist had come up the pass
from Borgo san Sepolcro, and had painted it for the love of
his art and of the Blessed Virgin; but, whoever had done it,
it was well done, and it gave a sanctity to the little Chapel,
and possessed an influence of which the villagers were not
unconscious, and of which they were even proud.

The mass had commenced some short time as the train
entered, and such few women and peasants as were present
turned in surprise.

Inglesant knelt upon the steps before the altar, and the
men-at-arms upon the floor of the Chapel, the two who guarded
the prisoner keeping close behind their leader.

The priest, who was an old and simple-looking countryman,
continued his office without stopping; but when he had
received the sacred elements himself, he turned, and, influenced
probably by his appearance and by his position at the altar,
he offered Inglesant the Sacrament.  He took it, and the
priest, turning again to the altar, finished the mass.

Then Inglesant rose, and when the priest turned again he
was standing before the altar with his drawn sword held
lengthwise across his hands.

"My Father," he said, "I am the Cavaliere di San Georgio,
and as I came across the mountains this morning on my way
to Rome, I met my mortal foe, the murderer of my brother, a
wretch whose life is forfeit by every law, either of earth or
heaven, a guilty monster steeped in every crime.  Him, as
soon as I had met him,—sent by this lonely and untrodden
way as it seems to me by the Lord's hand,—I thought to
crush at once, as I would a venomous beast, though he is
worse than any beast.  But, my Father, he has appealed from
me to the adorable Name of Jesus, and I cannot touch him.
But he will not escape.  I give him over to the Lord.  I
give up my sword into the Lord's hands, that He may work
my vengeance upon him as it seems to Him good.  Henceforth
he is safe from earthly retribution, but the Divine Powers
are just.  Take this sword, reverend Father, and let it lie upon
the altar beneath the Christ Himself; and I will make an
offering for daily masses for my brother's soul."

The priest took the sword, and kneeling before the altar,
placed it thereon like a man acting in a dream.

He was one of those child-like peasant-priests to whom
the great world was unknown, and to whom his mountain
solitudes were peopled as much by the saints and angels of
his breviary as by the peasants who shared with him the
solitudes and the legends that gave to these mountain fastnesses
a mysterious awe.  To such a man as this it seemed nothing
strange that the blessed St. George himself, in jewelled armour,
should stand before the altar in the mystic morning light, his
shining sword in his hand.

He turned again to Inglesant, who had knelt down once more.

"It is well done, monsignore," he said, "as all that thou
doest doubtless is most well.  The sword shall remain here as
thou sayest, and the Lord doubtless will work His blessed
will.  But I entreat, monsignore, thy intercession for me, a
poor sinful man; and when thou returnest to thy place, and
seest again the Lord Jesus, that thou wilt remind Him of His
unworthy priest.  Amen."

Inglesant scarcely heard what he said, and certainly did
not understand it.  His sense was confused by what had
happened, and by the sudden overmastering impulse upon
which he had acted.  He moved as in a dream; nothing
seemed to come strange to him, nothing startled him, and he
took slight heed of what passed.  He placed his embroidered
purse, heavy with gold, in the priest's hand, and in his
excitement totally forgot to name his brother, for whose repose
masses were to be said.

He signed to his men to release the prisoner, and, his
trumpets sounding to horse before the Chapel gate, he mounted
and rode on down the pass.

But his visit was not forgotten, and long afterwards, perhaps
even to the present day, popular tradition took the story
up, and related that once, when the priest of the mountain
Chapel was a very holy man, the blessed St. George himself,
in shining armour, came across the mountains one morning
very early, and himself partook of the Sacrament and all his
train; and appealed triumphantly to the magic sword—set
with gold and precious stones—that lay upon the altar from
that morning, by virtue of which no harm can befall the
village, no storm strike it, and, above all, no pillage of armed
men or any violence can occur.

The Austrian boy returned to Umbria with his story of
the marriage; but the old Duke never heard it.  No sooner
had Inglesant left him than his depression and despair
returned; he loathed the sight of the day, and of the costly
palace in which he lived; the gay arts and the devised fancies
by which men have sought to lure happiness became intolerable
to him; and, ill as he was, he caused himself to be
removed to the Castel Durante, amid the lonely mountain
ravines, to abide his end.  As Inglesant bowed beneath the
care-cloth—the fine linen cloth laid over the newly-married in
the Church,—kneeling till mass was ended, with his heart full
of love and brightness and peace, the last of the house of
Revere—"worn out," says the chronicler, with a burst of
unusual candour, "by priestly torments"—breathed his last,
and went to another world, where, it may be hoped, sacrifice
and devotion are better rewarded than they are here, and
superstitious terrors are unknown.





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.. _`CHAPTER XIII.`:

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   CHAPTER XIII.

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The Castello di San Georgio, or, as it might more
properly have been called, the "Casa" or Villa di San
Georgio, was built upon the summit of a small conical hill,
amid the sloping bases of the Apennines, at a part of their
long range where the summits were low and green.  In that
delightful region, the cultivation and richness of the plain is
united to the wildness and beauty of the hills.  The heat is
tempered in the shady valleys and under the thick woods.  A
delicious moisture and soft haze hangs about these dewy,
grassy places, which the sun has power to warm and gladden,
but not to parch.  Flowers of every hue cover the ground
beneath the oaks and elms.  Nightingales sing in the thickets
of wild rose and clematis, and the groves of laurel and of the
long-leaved olives are crowded with small creatures in the full
enjoyment of life and warmth.  Little brooks and rippling
streams, half hidden by the tangled thickets, and turned from
their courses by the mossy rocks, flow down from the hill
ravines, as joyful and clear as in that old time when each was
the care of some protecting nymph or rural god.  In the
waters of the placid lake are reflected the shadows of the hills
and the tremulous shimmer of waving woods.

In this favoured region, the Villa di San Georgio stood
upon its leafy hill-top, set in the background of the mountains.
The steep slope was terraced here and there in patches of
ground planted with fruit-trees, and at the foot, towards the
south, a large lake slept beneath the blue sky, its shores lined
with brushwood, interspersed here and there with grassy
slopes, where the orchis and hyacinth and narcissus sprang up
from the green rich turf.

Through this pastoral land, at all seasons of the year,
wandering shepherds with their flocks, peasants with their
cattle and dogs, ladies and cavaliers from the neighbouring
villas, woodmen, vine-dressers, fishermen from the lake,
traversed the leafy stage, and diversified the scene; but when
the grape was fully ripe, and the long year was crowned at last
with the fatness of the vintage, a joyous age of rural wealth
and jollity seemed for a time to fill the mellow, golden-tinted
land.  Then, indeed, wandering amid the woods and rocks
interspersed with vineyards and patches of yellow wheat, as
you met the loaded wain, or came upon the wine-press, trodden
by laughing girls and boys, you seemed to understand the
stories of the rural wanderings of the gods, for you met with
many a scene to which it might well be fancied that they
might still be allured, as to that garden at the foot of Mount
Bermion where the roses grew.  The gracious gods of plenty
still filled the luscious vats; rustling Zephyr still whispered
love among the flowers, still came laden with the ripening
odours of the fruit.  The little cherub Loves peeped out from
behind oak stems and ruined plinth and sculptured frieze,
half hidden among roots and leaves.

The Castello was a modern building, although there were
ruins in one of the courtyards of a very antique date.  It
consisted of three or four lofty blocks of buildings, at right angles
to each other, covered with low, red-tiled roofs.  The principal
windows were in the upper stories, and gave light to large and
handsome rooms, from which on all sides the most enchanting
landscapes satisfied the eye.

The weeks that succeeded Inglesant's marriage grew into
months, and the months into years, in this delightful scene.
The old Count spent some months in peaceful satisfaction
with his daughter and her husband, delighted with the
company of his one grandchild, a little boy.  In the spacious
dining-saloon, with its cool polished floor, it was a pretty sight
to see the old, courteous nobleman tempting the child with
the ripest fruit.  The shaded light fell upon the plate and
yellow ware on the table, and upon the old cabinets of Italian
marqueterie against the walls; whilst by the carved mantel-piece
sat the pleased parents, of whom it is recorded that in
Rome they passed for the handsomest pair in Italy.  In this
way, the days of some three sunny summers passed away,
while the winters were spent in the Papal city.

But this Arcadian life was not lasting.  The old Count
was not long content if absent from city life, and the time at
the Castello hung somewhat heavily upon the spirits of both
Inglesant and his wife.  They were neither of them fitted by
previous habits and education for a retired country life; but
the circumstance which outwardly appeared to weigh upon
Lauretta's mind was uncertainty concerning her brother's fate.
From the time of the marriage the Cavaliere had disappeared,
and from that day no word of tidings had been received
respecting him.  It was known that his circumstances were
desperate, and the danger he lay under from secret enemies
imminent.  The account which her husband had given her of
the condition in which he had seen Malvolti dwelt in her
imagination, and she brooded over the idea of her brother in
a similar state of destitution and misery.  It seemed probable
that, had he been assassinated, tidings of the event would have
reached his family; and if alive, it was strange that he had
made no application for assistance to those who were so well
able and so willing to render it.  This suspense and mystery
were more insupportable than certainty of evil would have
been.

The characters of Inglesant and his wife were of such a
nature as most effectively to produce and aggravate this
sleepless uneasiness.  Upon Lauretta's lenient and gracious,
if somewhat pleasure-loving disposition, the impression of the
unkindness she had experienced from her brother faded
without leaving a trace, and she thought only of some pleasant,
long-past incidents, when she had been a pretty, engaging
child; whilst the life of romance and excitement, combined
with a certain spiritual Quixotism, which Inglesant had so
long followed, had rendered any other uncongenial to him,
and it required little persuasion to induce him to re-enter
upon it.

But there were other causes at work which led to the same
result.  For many weeks a sultry wind had, without variation,
passed over the south of Italy, laden with putrid exhalations
from the earth, and by its sullen steadiness causing stagnation
in the air.  It would be difficult to describe the terrible effect
upon the mind and system of the long continuance of such a
state of the atmosphere.  A restless fear and depression of
spirits prepared the body for the seeds of disease, and the
contagion, which was not perhaps generated in the atmosphere,
was carried by it with fearful rapidity.  The plague
struck down its victims at once in city and in country, and
spared no rank nor condition of life.  Then all bond of fellowship
and of society was loosened, strange crimes and suspicions,—strange
even to that land of crime and treachery,—influenced
the lives and thoughts of all men.  Innocent persons were
hunted to death, as poisoners and spreaders of infection; the
terrors of the grave broke through the forms of artificial life,
and the depravity of the heart was exposed in ghastly nakedness,
as the bodies of the dead lay unburied by the waysides.

The Castello di San Georgio, standing on the summit of a
breezy hill, in a thinly-peopled district, was as safe a refuge as
could perhaps be found, and, if uneasiness of mind could have
been banished, might have been a happy one.  Three hundred
years before, in the child-like unconsciousness of spiritual
conflict which the unquestioned rule of Rome for so long
produced, it had been possible, in the days of Boccacio, for
cultivated and refined society to shut itself up in some earthly
paradise, and, surrounded by horrors and by death, to spend
its days in light wit and anecdote, undisturbed in mind, and
kept in bodily health by cheerful enjoyment; but the time for
such possibilities as these had long gone by.  A mental trouble
and uneasiness, which pervaded the whole of human life at
the most quiet times, gave place, at such periods of dread and
fear, to an intolerable restlessness, which altogether precluded
the placid enjoyment of the present, however guarded and
apparently secure.

The apprehension which most weighed upon Lauretta's
mind, was that her brother, flying from some city where the
pestilence raged, might be refused succour and assistance, and
might even be murdered in the village to which he might flee.
Such incidents were of daily occurrence, nor can it be wondered
at that human precaution and terror became cruel and merciless,
when it is an authenticated fact that the very birds themselves
forsook the country places, and disappeared from their
native groves at the approach of the plague.  Nor were
inanimate things, even, indifferent to the scourge; patches and
blotches of infection broke out upon the walls and houses, and
when scraped off would reappear until the house itself was
burnt down.

It was in the midst of this ghastly existence, this life in
death, that a wandering mendicant, driven from Rome by the
pestilence and craving alms at the Castello, asserted that he
knew the Cavaliere di Guardino, and that he was ill in Rome,
doubtless by this time dead.  The man probably lied, or, if it
were true that he had known the Cavaliere, as he had passed
him on the steps of the Trinita, the latter part of his story was
certainly imaginary.  It caused Lauretta, however, so much
distress, that her husband, to comfort her, proposed to ride to
Rome, and endeavour to discover the truth.  The plague was
not so virulent in Rome as it was in the south of Italy, and
especially in Naples, and to a man using proper precautions
the danger might not be very great.  Lauretta was distracted.
The restless anxiety, which gave her no peace until her
brother's fate was known, urged her to let her husband go.
How, then, should she be more at ease when, in addition to
one vision of dread and apprehension, she would be haunted
by another?  The new anxiety seemed a relief from the old;
anyhow the old was intolerable,—any change offered hope.

Upon his arrival at Rome Inglesant went hither and thither,
from place to place, as one false report and another led him.
Every beggar in the city seemed to have known the Cavaliere.
The contagion was sufficiently virulent to stop all amusements,
and to drive every one from the city who was not compelled to
remain.  The streets were almost deserted, and those who
passed along them walked apart, avoiding each other, and
seldom spoke.  The most frequented places were the churches,
and even there, the services were short and hurried, and
divested of everything that could attract the eye.  In the
unusual silence the incessant tolling of the bells was more marked
than ever.  White processions carrying the Host glided over
the hushed pavements.

Once Inglesant thought he had discovered the man of
whom he was in search.  The Cavaliere, the story now ran,
had arrived in Rome a few days ago from Naples, where the
plague had the mastery, so that the living could not bury the
dead.  He had come, flying towards the healthy north before
the pestilence, which had overtaken him as he entered the
Giovanni gate, and had taken refuge in a pest-house, which
had been established in the courtyard of a little church,
"S. Salvatoris in Laterano ad scalas sanctas."  Thither Inglesant
repaired, in the full glare of an afternoon in the late summer.
In a sort of cloister, round a little courtyard, the beds were
laid out side by side, on which lay the dying and the dead.
Between the worn stones of the courtyard, sprinkled with
water, bright flowers were springing up.  The monks were
flitting about; two or three of these also were dead already.
Inglesant inquired for the stranger who had arrived from
Naples.  He was dead, the monks told him, but not yet
taken away for burial; he lay there still upon his couch.  They
took Inglesant to a corner of the courtyard, where, looking
down upon the dead body, he saw at once it was not that of
the Cavaliere.  It was the body of a man in the very prime of
life, of a singularly noble and lofty look.  He lay with his
hand clasped over a little bit of crossed wood the monks had
made, his eyes closed, something like a smile upon his lips.

"The Cavaliere will not look like that," thought Inglesant
to himself.

Who was he?  In some part of Italy, doubtless, there
were at that moment those who waited for him, and wondered,
just as he and Lauretta were doing.  Perhaps in some distant
lazaretto some one might be standing over the body of the
Cavaliere, at just such a loss for a name and clue.  It did not
seem strange to Inglesant; he had wandered through these
cross ways and tangled paths of life from a child.

He went out into the hot sunshine and down the long
straight street, by the great church of the Sancta Maria, into
the Via Felix, scarcely knowing where he went.  Across the
whole breadth of Rome the few persons he met regarded him
with suspicion, and crossed over to the other side.  He
himself carried a pomander of silver in the shape of an apple,
stuffed with spices, which sent out a curious faint perfume
through small holes.  He wandered down the steps of the
Trinita, where even the beggars were few and quiet, and
seeking unconsciously the cooler air of the river, passed the
desolate Corso, and came down to the Ripetta, to the steps.

The sun was sinking now, and the western sky was all
ablaze with a strange light.  All through the streets the image
of the dead man had haunted Inglesant, and the silent city
seemed full of such pale and mystic forms.  The great dome
of St. Peter's stood out dark and clear against the yellow light,
which shone through the casements below the dome till the
whole seemed faint and ethereal as the air itself.  In the
foreground, across the river, were low meadows, and the bare
branches of trees the leaves of which had already withered
and fallen.  In the distance the pollard firs upon the ramparts
stood out distinctly in fantastic forms; to the left the spires
and domes of the city shone in the light; in front flowed the
dark river, still and slow.  The large steps by the water's edge,
usually so crowded and heaped with market produce, were
bare and deserted; a wild superstitious terror took possession
of Inglesant's mind.

In this solitude and loneliness, amid the busiest haunts of
life, with the image of death on every hand, he felt as though
the unseen world might at any moment manifest itself; the
lurid sky seemed ready to part asunder, and amid the silent
courts and pavements the dead would scarcely seem strangers
were they to appear.  He stood waiting, as though expecting
a message from beyond the grave.

And indeed it seemed to come.  As he stood upon the
steps a gray form came along the pathway on the further side
beneath the leafless trees and down the sloping bank.  It
entered the small boat that lay moored beneath the alders
and guided itself across the stream.  It stood erect and
motionless, propelling the skiff doubtless by an oar at the
stern, but from the place where Inglesant stood the boat
seemed to move of its own accord, like the magic bark in
some romance of chivalry.  In its left hand the figure held
something which shone in the light; the yellow glamour of
the sunset, dazzling to Inglesant's eyes, fluttered upon its
vestment of whitish grey, and clothed in transparent radiance this
shadowy revenant from the tomb.  It made no stay at the
landing-place, but, as though on an errand of life and death,
it came straight up the wide curved steps, holding forward in
its left hand a crucifix of brass.  It passed within a step of
Inglesant, who was standing, wonderstruck, at the summit of
the steps, his silver pomander in his hand.  As it passed him
he could see the face, pale and steadfast, with a bright lustre
in the eyes, and looking full upon him without pausing, the
friar, if it were a friar, said,—

"He is in Naples.  In that city, or near it, you will find
the man you seek.  Ay! and far more than you seek.  Let
there be no delay on your part."

Then, still holding the crucifix forward at arm's length, as
though to cleave the poisoned air before him as he went, the
figure passed up the street, turning neither to the right nor to
the left, and, taking no notice of any of the few loiterers in his
way, passed quickly out of sight.

Inglesant turned to two fishermen who were coming slowly
down towards the ferry.

"Did you see that Servite friar?" he said.

The men gazed at him uneasily.  "He is light-headed,"
one of them muttered; "he has the plague upon him, and does
not know what he says."

Though he said this, they might have seen the friar all the
same, for Inglesant's manner was excited, and those were
perilous times in which to speak to strangers in the streets.
The two men got into the boat, and passed over hastily to
the other side.

Naples!  It was walking straight into the jaws of death.
The dead were lying in the streets in heaps, sprinkled hastily
with lime; and lavish gifts of freedom and of gold could
scarcely keep the galley slaves from breaking out of the city,
though they knew that poverty and probably destruction
awaited them elsewhere.  But this strange message from
another world, which bore such an impress of a higher
knowledge, how could he disobey it?  "Far more than he
sought."  These words haunted him.  He made inquiries at the
monastery of the Jesuits in the Corso, but could hear nothing of
such a man.  Most of those to whom he spoke were of opinion
that he had seen a vision.  He himself sometimes thought it
an illusion of the brain, conjured up by the story of the man
who came from Naples, by the afternoon heat, and by the
sight of the dead; but in all this the divine wisdom might be
working; by these strange means the divine hand might guide.
"Let there be no delay on your part."  These words sounded
like a far-off echo of Father St. Clare's voice; once again the
old habit of obedience stirred within him.  Wife and child
and home stood in the path, but the training which first love
had been powerless to oppose was not likely to fail now.
Once again his station seemed to be given him.  Before—upon
the scaffold, at the traitor's dock, in prison,—he had been found
at the appointed post; would it be worth while now, when life
was so much farther run out, to falter and turn back?  The
higher walks of the holy life had indeed proved too difficult
and steep, but to this running-footman's sort of business he
had before proved himself equal;—should he now be found
untrustworthy even in this?

He resolved to go.  If he returned at all, he would be back
at the Castello before any increased apprehension would be felt;
if it were the will of God that he should never return, the Jesuit
fathers would undertake the care of Lauretta and his child.

He confessed and received the Sacrament at the Church
of the Gesu, in the Chapel of St. Ignatio, in the clear morning
light, kneeling upon the cold brilliant marble floor.  It was
the last day of July, very early, and the Church was swept and
garnished for the great festival of the Saint.  Inglesant did
not wait for the saddened festival, but left Rome immediately
that the early mass was done.


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.. _`CHAPTER XIV.`:

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   CHAPTER XIV.

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When Inglesant had passed the Pontine Marshes, and
had come into the flowery and wooded country
about Mola, where the traveller begins to rejoice and to delight
his eyes, he found this beautiful land little less oppressive
than the dreary marshes he had left.  The vineyards covered
the slopes, and hung their festoons on every side.  The citron
and jasmin and orange bloomed around him; and in the
cooler and more shady walks flowers yet covered the
ground, in spite of the heat.  The sober tints of the oaks and
beeches contrasted with the brilliant orange groves and
vineyards, and, with the palms and aloes, offered that variety
which usually charms the traveller; and the distant sea, calm
and blue, with the long headlands covered with battlements
and gay villas, with plantations and terraces, carried the eye
onward into the dim unknown distance, with what is usually a
sense of delightful desire.

But as Inglesant rode along, an overpowering sense of
oppression and heaviness hung over this beautiful land.  The
heat was intense; no rain nor dew had fallen for many weeks.
The ground in most places was scored and hard, and the
leaves were withered.  The brooks were nearly dry, and the
plantations near the roads were white with dust.  An
overpowering perfume, sickly and penetrating, filled the air, and
seemed to choke the breath; a deadly stillness pervaded the
land; and scarcely a human form, either of wayfarer or
peasant, was to be seen.

At the small towns near to Naples every form of life was
silent and inert.  Inglesant was received without difficulty, as
he was going towards Naples; but he was regarded with
wonder, and remonstrated with as courting certain death.  He
halted at Aversa, and waited till the mid-day heat was passed.
Here, at last, there seemed some little activity and life.  A
sort of market even appeared to be held, and Inglesant asked
the host what it meant.

"When the plague first began in Naples, signore," he
said, "a market was established here to supply the city with
bread, fresh meat, and other provisions.  Officers appointed
by the city came out hither, and conveyed it back.  But, as
the plague became more deadly, most of those thus sent out
never returned to the city, in spite of the penalties to which
such conduct exposed them.  Since the plague spread into
the country places, the peasants have mostly ceased to bring
their produce; but what little is brought you see here, and
one of the magistrates is generally obliged to come out from
Naples to receive it."

"Is the city suffering from famine, then?" asked Inglesant.

"The city is like hell itself, Signore il Cavaliere," replied
the host.  "They tell me that he who looks upon it will never
be able to sleep peacefully again.  They lie heaped together
in the streets, the dying and the dead.  The hospitals are
choked with dead bodies, so that none dare go in.  They
are blowing up masses of houses, so as to bury the bodies
under the ruins with lime and water and earth.  Twenty
thousand persons have died in a single day.  Those who have
been induced to touch the dead to cart them away never live
more than two days."

"The religious, and the physicians, and the magistrates,
then, remain at their posts?" said Inglesant.

The host shrugged his shoulders.

"There is not more to be said of one class than another,"
he said; "there are cowards in all.  Many of the physicians
fled; but, on the other hand, two strange physicians came
forward of their own accord, and offered to be shut up in the
Sancta Casa Hospital.  They never came out alive.  Many
of the religious fled; but the Capuchins and the Jesuits, they
say, are all dead.  Most of the Franciscan Friars are dead,
and all the great Carmelites.  They run to all houses that are
most infected, and to those streets that are the most thronged
with putrefied bodies, and into those hospitals where the
plague is hottest; and confess the sick and attend them to
their last gasp; and receive their poisonous breath as though
it were the scent of a rose."

"But is no attempt made to bury the dead?"

"They are letting out the galley slaves by a hundred at a
time," replied the host; "they offer freedom and a pension
for life to the survivors, but none do survive.  Fathers and
mothers desert their own children; children their parents;
nay, they throw them out into the streets to die.  What
would you have?"

The host paused, and looked at Inglesant curiously, as he
sat drinking some wine.

"Have you a lady-love in Naples, signore?" he said at
last; "or are you heir to a rich man, and wish to save his
gold?"

"I am leaving wife and child," replied Inglesant, bitterly,
"to seek a man whom I hate, whom I shall never find under
the heaps of dead.  You had better say at once that I am
mad.  That is nearest to the truth."

The host looked at him compassionately, and left the room.

In the cool of the evening Inglesant rode through the
deserted vineyards, and approached the barriers.  On the
way he met some few foot-passengers, pale and emaciated,
trudging doggedly onwards.  They were leaving death behind
them, but they saw nothing but misery and death elsewhere.
They took no notice of Inglesant as they passed.  Many of
them, exhausted and smitten with the disease, sank down and
died by the wayside.  When he arrived at the barriers, he
found them deserted, and no guard whatever kept.  He left
his horse at a little osteria without the gate, which also seemed
deserted.  There was hay in the stable, and the animal might
shift for himself if so inclined.  Inglesant left him loose.  As
he entered the city, and passed through the Largo into the
Strada Toledo, the sight that met his eyes was one never to
be forgotten.

The streets were full of people,—more so, indeed, than is
usual even in Naples; for business was at a stand, the houses
were full of infection, and a terrible restlessness drove every
one here and there.  The stately rows of houses and palaces,
and the lofty churches, looked down on a changing, fleeting,
restless crowd,—unoccupied, speaking little, walking hither
and thither with no aim, every few minutes turning back and
retracing their steps.  Every quarter of an hour or thereabouts
a confused procession of priests and laymen, singing doleful
and despairing misereres, and bearing the sacred Host with
canopy and crosses, came from one of the side streets, or out
of one of the churches, and proceeded along the Strada.  As
these processions passed, every one prostrated themselves,
with an excess and desperate earnestness of devotion, and
many followed the host; but in a moment or two those who
knelt or those who followed rose or turned away with gestures
of despair or distraction, as though incapable of sustained
action, or of confidence in any remedy.  And at this there
could be no wonder, since this crowd of people were picking
their way amid a mass of dead corruption on every side of
them under their feet.  On the stone pavement of the stately
Strada, on the palace stairs, on the steps before the churches,
lay corpses in every variety of contortion at which death can
arrive.  Sick people upon beds and heaps of linen—some
delicate and costly, some filthy and decayed—lay mingled
with the dead; they had been turned out of the houses, or
had deserted them to avoid being left to die alone; and every
now and then some one of those who walked apparently in
health would lie down, stricken by the heat or by the plague,
and join this prostrate throng, for whom there was no longer
in this world any hope of revival.

This sight, which would have been terrible anywhere, was
unutterably distressing and ghastly in Naples, the city of
thoughtless pleasure and of reckless mirth,—a city lying under
a blue and cloudless sky, by an azure sea, glowing in the
unsurpassable brilliancy and splendour of the sun.  As this
dazzling blue and gold, before which all colours pale, made
the scene the most ghastly that could have been chosen as the
theatre for such an appalling spectacle, so, among a people
child-like and grotesque, seducing the stranger into sympathy
with its delight—a people crowned with flowers, and clothed
in colours of every shade, full of high and gay spirits, and
possessed of a conscience that gives no pain—this masque and
dance of death assumed an aspect of intolerable horror.  Naples
was given over to pantomime and festival, leading dances and
processions with Thyrsis and garlands, and trailing branches of
fruit.  The old Fabulag and farce lingered yet beneath the
delicious sky and in the lovely spots of earth that lured the Pagan
to dream that earth was heaven.  The poles and scaffolds and
dead flowers of the last festival still lingered in the streets.

In this city, turned at once into a charnel-house,—nay, into
a hell and place of torment,—the mighty, unseen hand suddenly
struck down its prey, and without warning seized upon the
wretched conscience, all unprepared for such a blow.  The cast
of a pantomime is a strange sight beneath the glare and light
of mid-day; but here were quacks and nobles, jugglers and
soldiers, comic actors and "filosofi," pleasure seekers and
monks, gentry and beggars, all surprised as it were, suddenly,
by the light and glare of the death angel's torch, and crowded
upon one level stage of misery and despair.

Sick and dizzy with horror, and choked with the deadly
smell and malaria, Inglesant turned into several osteria, but
could find no host in any.  In several he saw sights which
chilled his blood.  At last he gave up the search, and, weary
as he was, sought the hospitals.  The approaches to some of
these were so blocked up by the dead and the dying who had
vainly sought admission, that entrance was impossible.  In
others the galley slaves were at work.  In every open spot of
ground where the earth could be disturbed without cutting off
the water pipes which ran through the city, trenches had been
dug, and the bodies which were collected from the streets and
hospitals were thrown hastily into them, and covered with lime
and earth.  Inglesant strayed into the "Monte della Misericordia,"
which had recently been cleared of the dead.  A few
sick persons lay in the beds; but the house seemed wonderfully
clean and sweet, and the rooms cool and fresh.  The
floors were soaked with vinegar, and the place was full of the
scent of juniper, bay berries, and rosemary, which were
burning in every room.  It seemed to Inglesant like a little heaven
and he sank exhausted upon one of the beds.  They brought
him some wine, and presently the Signore di Mauro, one of the
physicians appointed by the city, who still remained bravely at
his post, came and spoke to him.

"I perceive that you are a stranger in Naples, and
untouched by the disease," he said.  "I am at a loss to account
for your presence here.  This house is indeed cleared for a
moment, but it is the last time that we can expect help.  The
supply of galley slaves is failing, and when it stops entirely,
which it must in a few days, I see nothing in the future but
the general extirpation of all the inhabitants of this fated city,
and that its vast circumference, filled with putrefaction and
venom, will afterwards be uninhabitable to the rest of mankind."

This doleful foreboding made little impression upon Inglesant,
who was, indeed, too much exhausted both in mind and
body to pay much attention to anything.

"I am come to Naples," he said faintly, "in search of
another; will you let me stay in this house to-night?  I can
find no one in the inns."

"I will do better for you than that," said the good
physician; "you shall come to my own house, which is free from
infection.  I have but one inmate, an old servant, who, I
think, is too dry and withered a morsel even for the plague.
I am going at once."

Something in Inglesant's manner probably attracted him,
otherwise it is difficult to account for his kindness to a stranger
under such circumstances.

They went out together.  Inglesant by chance seemed to
be about to turn into another and smaller street—the physician
pulled him back hurriedly with a shudder.

"Whatever you do," he said in a whisper, "keep to the
principal thoroughfares.  I dare not recollect—the most heated
imagination would shrink from conceiving—the unutterable
horrors of the bye-streets."

Picking their way among the dead bodies, which the slaves,
with handkerchiefs steeped in vinegar over their faces, were
piling into carts, the two proceeded down the Strada.

Inglesant asked the physician how the plague first began
in Naples.

"It is the terrible enemy of mankind," replied the other—he
was rather a pompous man, with all his kindness and
devotion, and used long words—"that walks stained with
slaughter by night.  We know not whence it comes.  Before
it are beautiful gardens, crowded habitations, and populous
cities; behind it unfruitful emptiness and howling desolation.
Before it the guards and armies of mighty princes are as dead
men, and physicians are no protection either to the sick or to
themselves.  Some imagine that it comes from the cities of the
East; some that it arises from poverty and famine, and from
the tainted and perishing flesh, and unripe fruits and hurtful
herbs, which, in times of scarcity and dearth, the starving
people greedily devour to satisfy their craving hunger.  Others
contend that it is inflicted immediately by the hand of God.
These are mostly the priests.  When we have puzzled our
reason, and are at our wit's end through ignorance, we come
to that.  I have read something in a play, written by one of
your countrymen—for I perceive you are an Englishman—where
all mistakes are laid upon the King."

They were arrived by this time at the physician's house,
and were received by an old woman whose appearance fully
justified her master's description.  She provided for Inglesant's
wants, and prepared a bed for him, and he sank into an uneasy
and restless sleep.  The night was stiflingly hot, suppressed
cries and groans broke the stillness, and the distant chanting
of monks was heard at intervals.  Soon after midnight the
churches were again crowded; mass was said, and thousands
received the Sacrament with despairing faith.  The physician
came into Inglesant's room early in the morning.

"I am going out," he said; "keep as much as possible out
of the churches; they spread the contagion.  The magistrates
wished to close them, but the superstitious people would not
hear of it.  I will make inquiries, and if any of the religious,
or any one else, has heard your friend's name, I will send you
word.  I may not return."

Shortly after he was gone, the crowd thronging in one
direction before Inglesant's window caused him to rise and
follow.  He came to one of the slopes of the hill of Santo
Martino, above the city.  Here a crowd, composed of every
class from a noble down to the lowest lazzaroni, were engaged,
in the clear morning light, in building a small house.  Some
were making bricks, some drawing along stones, some carrying
timber.  A nun had dreamed that were a hermitage erected
for her order the plague would cease, and the people set to
work, with desperate earnestness, to finish the building.  By
the wayside up the ascent were set empty barrels, into which
the wealthier citizens dropped gold and jewels to assist the
work.  As Inglesant was standing by, watching the work, he
was accosted by a dignified, highly bred old gentleman, in a
velvet coat and Venice lace, who seemed less absorbed in the
general panic than the rest.

"This is a strange sight," he said; "what the tyranny of
the Spaniards was not able to do, the plague has done.  When
the Spaniard was storming the gates the gentlemen of the
Borgo Santa Maria and the lazzaroni fought each other in the
streets, and the gentlemen avowed that they preferred any
degree of foreign tyranny to acknowledging or associating with
the common people.  With this deadly enemy not only at the
gates but in the very midst of us, gentlemen and lazzaroni toil
together without a thought of suspicion or contempt.  The
plague has made us all equal.  I perceive that you are a
stranger.  May I ask what has brought you into this ill-fated
city at such a time?"

"I am in search of my relation, il Cavaliere di Guardino,"
replied Inglesant; "do you know such a name?"

"It seems familiar to me," replied the old gentleman.
"Have you reason to suppose that he is in Naples?"

Inglesant said that he had.

"The persons most likely to give you information would
be the Signori, the officers of the galleys.  They would
doubtless be acquainted with the Cavaliere before the plague became
so violent, and would know, at any rate, whether it was his
intention to leave Naples or not.  The galleys lie, as you
know, moored together there in the bay, and many other ships
lie near them, upon which persons have taken refuge who
believe that the plague cannot touch them on the water—an
expectation in which, I believe, many have been fatally deceived."

Inglesant thanked the gentleman, and inquired how it was
that he remained so calm and unconcerned amidst the general
consternation.

"I am too old for the plague," he replied; "nothing can
touch me but death itself.  I am also," he continued with a
peculiar smile, "the fortunate possessor of a true piece of the
holy Cross; so that you see I am doubly safe."

Inglesant went at once to the harbour, musing on the way
on these last words, and wondering whether they were spoken
in good faith or irony.

The scenes in the streets seemed more terrible even than
on the preceding day.  The slaves were engaged here and
there in removing the bodies, but the task was far beyond
their strength.  Cries of pain and terror were heard on all
sides, and every now and then a maddened wretch would
throw himself from a window, or would rush, naked perhaps,
from a house, and, stumbling and leaping over the corpses and
the dying, like the demoniac among the tombs, would fling
himself in desperation into the water of the harbour, or over
the walls into the moats.  One of these maniacs, passing close
to Inglesant, attempted to embrace a passer-by, who coolly
ran him through the body with his sword, the bystanders
applauding the act.

In the harbour corpses were floating, which a few slaves
in boats were feebly attempting to drag together with hooks.
They escaped their efforts, and rose and sank with a ghastly
resemblance to life.  Upon the quay Inglesant fortunately
found the physician, Signore Mauro, who was himself going
on board the galleys to endeavour to procure the loan of more
slaves.  He offered to take Inglesant with him.

As they went the physician told him he had not discovered
any trace of the Cavaliere; but what was very curious, he said,
many other persons appeared to be engaged in the same search.
It might be that all these people were in fact but one, multiplied
by the forgetfulness, and by the excited imaginations, of
those from whom Signore Mauro had obtained his information;
but, if these persons were to be believed, monks, friars,
physicians, soldiers, and even ladies, were engaged in this
singular search in a city where all ties of friendship were
forgotten, for a man whom no one knew.

As they shot over the silent water, and by the shadowy
hulks of ships lying idle and untended, with the cry of the city
of the dead behind them and the floating corpses around,
Inglesant listened to the physician as a man listens in a dream.
Long shadows stretched across the harbour, which sparkled
beneath the rays of the newly-risen sun; a sudden swoon
stole over Inglesant's spirits, through which the voice of the
physician sounded distant and faint.  He gave himself up for
lost, yet he felt a kind of dim expectation that something was
about to happen which these unknown inquirers foretold.

The galleys lay moored near together, with several other
ships of large size in company.  Signore Mauro climbed to
the quarter-deck of the largest galley, on which the
commodore was, and Inglesant followed him, still hardly knowing
what he did.  The oars were shipped, but the slaves were
chained to their benches, as though the galleys were at sea.
They were singing and playing at cards.  Upon the quarterdeck,
pointing to the long files of slaves, were two loaded
howitzers, behind each of which stood a gunner with a lighted
match.  Soldiers, heavily armed and with long whips, paraded
the raised gangway or passage, which ran the whole length of
the ship between the rows of benches upon which the slaves
were placed.  The officers were mostly on the quarter-deck;
they looked pale and excited, though it was singular that few
or no cases of the plague had occurred among the slaves who
remained on board.  The decks were washed with vinegar,
and the galleys and slaves were much cleaner than usual.

The physician stated his request to the commander, who
ordered ten slaves from every galley to be sent on shore.
Some were wanted to act as bakers, some as butchers, most
of the artizans in the city having fled or perished.  A
boatswain was ordered to make the selection.  He chose one or
two, and then called upon the rest to volunteer.  Inglesant
was standing by him on the gangway, looking down the files
of slaves.  There were men of every age, of every rank, and
almost of every country.  As the boatswain gave the word,
every hand was held up; to all these men death was welcome
at the end of two or three days' change of life, abundance of
food, and comparative freedom.  The boatswain selected ten
by chance.

Signore Mauro inquired among the officers concerning the
Cavaliere, but could obtain no positive information.  Most
had heard the name, some professed to have known him
intimately; all united in saying he had left Naples.  Inglesant
and the physician visited two or three other galleys, but with
no greater success.  They returned on shore as the heat was
becoming intense; the churches were crowded, and the Holy
Sacrament was exhibited every few moments.  The physician
refused to enter any of them.

Then Inglesant determined to try the hospitals again.  He
went to the "Santa Casa degli Incurabile," which the day
before he had not been able to approach for the dying and
the dead.  The slaves had worked hard all night, and hundreds
of corpses had been removed and buried in a vast trench
without the wall of the hospital.  Inglesant passed through
many of the rooms, and spoke to several of the religious
persons who were tending the sick, but could learn nothing of
the object of his search.  At last one of the monks conducted
him into the strange room called the "Anticamera di Morte,"
to which, in more orderly times, the patients whose cases were
hopeless were removed.

There, at the last extremity of life, before they were hurried
into the great pit outside the walls, lay the plague-stricken.
Some unconscious, yet with fearful throes and gasps awaiting
their release; some in an agony of pain and death, crying upon
God and the Saints.  Kneeling by the bedsides were several
monks; but at the farther end of the room, bending over a
sick man, was a figure in a friar's gown that made Inglesant
stop suddenly, and his heart beat quicker as he caught his
companion's arm.

"Who is that friar, Father?" he said, "the one at the end,
bending over the bed?"

"Ah! that," said the priest, "that is Father Grazia of the
Capuchins; a very holy man, and devoted to mortification
and good works.  He is blind, though he moves about so
cleverly.  He says that, to within the last few years, his life
was passed in every species of sin; and he relates that he was
solemnly given over to the vengeance of the blessed Gesu by
his mortal enemy, the minion of a Cardinal, and that the
Lord has afflicted him with untold sorrows and sufferings to
bring him to Himself, and to a life of holy mortification and
charity, which he leads unceasingly—night and day.  He is
but now come in hither, knowing that the sick man by whose
bed he is, is dying of the plague in its most fearful form,—a
man whom none willingly will approach.  Mostly he is in the
vilest dens of the city, reeking with pestilence, where to go, to
all save him, is certain death.  His holiness and the Lord's
will keep him, so that the plague cannot touch him.  Ah! he
is coming this way."

It was true.  The friar had suddenly started from his
recumbent position, conscious that the man before him was no
more.  At the same moment, his mind, released from the
attention which had riveted it before, seemed to become aware
of a presence in the chamber of death which was of the
intensest interest.  He came down the passage in the centre of
the room with an eager unfaltering step, as though able to see,
and coming to within a few feet of the two men, he stopped,
and looked towards them with an excited glance, as though
he saw their faces.  Inglesant was embarrassed, and hesitated
whether to recognize him or not.  At last, pitying the look in
the blind man's face, he said,—

"This holy Father is not unknown to me, though I know
not that he would desire to meet me again.  I am 'the
minion of a Cardinal' of whom you spoke."

The friar stretched out his hands before him, with an
eager, delighted gesture.

"I knew it," he said; "I felt your presence long before
you spoke.  It signifies little whether I am glad to find
you or no.  It is part of the Lord's purpose that we should
meet."

"This is a strange and sanctified meeting," said the priest,
"in the room of death, and by the beds of the dead.  Doubtless
you have much to say that can only be said to yourselves
alone."

"I cannot stay," said the friar, wildly.  "I came in here
but for a moment; for this wretched man who is gone to his
account needed one as wretched and as wicked as himself.
But they are dying now in the streets and alleys, calling upon
the God whom they know not; they need the vilest sinner to
whom the Lord has been gracious to kneel by their side; they
need the vilest sinner; therefore I must go."

He stopped for a moment, then he said more calmly,—"Meet
me in the Santa Chiara, behind the altar, by the tomb
of the wise King, this evening at sunset.  By that time,
though the need will be as pressing, yet the frail body will
need a little rest, and I will speak with you for an hour.  Fail
not to come.  You will learn how your sword was the sword,
and your breath was the breath of the Lord."

"I will surely be there," said Inglesant.

The friar departed, leaving the priest and Inglesant alone.
They went out into the garden of the hospital, a plot of
ground planted with fruit-trees, and with vines trailing over
the high stone walls.  Walking up and down in the shade,
with the intense blue of the sky overhead, one might for a
time forget the carnival of death that was crowding every
street and lane around.  Inglesant inquired of his companion
more particularly concerning the friar.

"He is a very holy man," said the priest, with a significant
gesture; "but he is not right in his head.  His sufferings
have touched his brain.  He believes that he has seen the
Lord in a vision, and not only so, but that all Rome was
likewise a witness of the miracle.  It is a wonderful story, which
doubtless he wishes to relate to you this evening."





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.. _`CHAPTER XV.`:

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   CHAPTER XV.

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In the vast Church of the Santa Chiara, with its open nave
which spread itself on every side like a magic hall of
romance, the wide floor and the altars of the side Chapels
had been crowded all day by prostrate worshippers; but when
Inglesant entered it about sunset, it was comparatively empty.
A strange unearthly perfume filled the Church, and clouds of
incense yet hovered beneath the painted ceiling, and obscured
the figure of the Saint chasing his enemies.  Streaks of light,
transfigured through the coloured prism of the prophets and
martyrs that stood in the painted glass, lighted up the wreaths
of smoke, and coloured the marbles and frescoes of the walls
and altars.  The mystic glimmer of the sacred tapers in the
shaded chapels, and the concluding strains of the chanting
before the side altars, which had followed the vesper service
and benediction, filled the Church with half light and half
shadow, half silence and half sound, very pleasing and
soothing to the sense.

Inglesant passed up the Church towards the high altar,
before which he knelt; and as he did so, a procession, carrying
the Sacrament, entered by another door, and advanced to
the altar, upon which it was again deposited.  The low,
melancholy miserere—half entreating, half desponding—spoke to
the heart of man a language like its own; and as the theme
was taken up by one of the organs, the builder's art and the
musician's melted into one—in tier after tier of carved imagery,
wave after wave of mystic sound.  All conscious thought and
striving seemed to fade from the heart, and before the altar
and amid the swell of sound the soul lost itself, and lay silent
and passive on the Eternal Love.

Behind the high altar Inglesant found the friar by the
grave of the wise King.  Upon the slabs of the Gothic tomb,
covered with carving and bas-relief, the King is seated and
dressed in royal robes; but upon the sarcophagus he lies in
death bereft of all his state, and clothed in no garment but a
Franciscan's gown.  Beside him lies his son in his royal robes,
covered with fleurs-de-lis; and other tombs of the kingly race
of Anjou surround him, all emblazoned with coat armour and
device of rank.

Between the tombs of the two kings stood the friar, his
head bowed upon his hands.  The light grew every moment
less and less bright, and the shadows stretched ever longer
and longer across the marble floor.  The lamps before the
shrines, and the altar tapers in the funeral chapels, shone out
clearer and more distinct.  The organs had ceased, but the
dolorous chanting of the miserere from beyond the high altar
still came to them with a remote and wailing tone.

Inglesant advanced towards the friar, who appeared to be
aware of his presence by instinct, and raised his head as he
drew near.  He returned no answer to Inglesant's greeting,
but seated himself upon a bench near one of the tombs, and
began at once, like a man who has little time to spend.

"I am desirous," he said, "of telling you at once of what
has occurred to me.  Who can tell what may happen at any
moment to hinder unless I do?  It is a strange and wonderful
story, in which you and I and all men would be but puppets
in the Divine Hand were not the Divine Love such that
we are rather children led onward by their Father's
hand—welcomed home by their Mother's smile."

It was indeed a strange story that the friar told Inglesant
in the darkening Church.  In places it was incoherent and
obscure.  The first part of his narrative, as it relates to others
besides himself, is told here in a different form, so that, if
possible, what really happened might be known.  The latter
part, being untranslatable into any other language and inexplicable
upon any basis of fact, must be told in his own words.

"When you left me at the mountain chapel," said the
friar, "I thought of nothing but that I had escaped with life.
I thought I had met with a Fantastic, whose brain was turned
with monkish fancies, and I blessed my fortunate stars that
such had been the case.  I thought little of the Divine
vengeance that dogged my steps."

When Inglesant met Malvolti upon the mountain pass (as
he gathered from the friar's narrative) the latter, utterly
penniless and undone, having exhausted every shift and art of policy,
and being so well-known in all the cities of Italy that he was
safe in none of them, had bethought himself of his native place.
It was, indeed, almost the only place where his character was
unknown, and his person comparatively safe.  But it had other
attractions for the hunted and desperate man.  Malvolti's
father had died when his son was a boy, and his mother in a
year or two married again.  His step-father was harsh and
unkind to the fatherless child, and the seeds of evil were sown
in the boy's heart by the treatment he received; but a year
after this marriage a little girl was born, who won her way at
once into the heart of the forlorn and unhappy lad.  He was
her constant playmate, protector, and instructor.  For several
years the only happy moments of his life were passed when he
could steal away with her to the woods and hills, wandering
for hours together alone or with the wood-cutters and
charcoal-burners; and when, after a few years, the unkindness of his
parents and his own restless and passionate nature sent him
out into the world in which he played so evil a part, the image
of the innocent child followed him into scenes of vice, and
was never obliterated from his memory.  The murmur of the
leaves above the fowling-floor where they lay together during
the mid-day heat, the splash of the fountains where they
watched the flocks of sheep drinking, followed him into strange
places and foreign countries, and arose to his recollection in
moments of danger, and even of passion and crime.

The home of Malvolti's parents had been in the suburb, of
a small town of the Bolognese.  Here, at some little height
above the town on the slope of the wooded hills, a monastery
and chapel had been erected, and in course of time some
few houses had grouped themselves around, among which that
of Malvolti's father had been the most considerable.  The sun
was setting behind the hills when Malvolti, weary, dispirited,
and dying of hunger, came along the winding road from the
south, which skirted the projecting spurs of the mountains.
The slanting rays penetrated the woods, and shone between
the openings of the hills, lighting up the grass-grown buildings
of the monastery, and the belfry of the little Chapel, where
the bell was ringing for vespers.  Below, the plain stretched
itself peacefully; a murmur of running water blended with the
tolling of the bell.  A waft of peace and calm, like a breeze
from paradise, fell upon Malvolti's heart, and he seemed to
hear soft voices welcoming him home.  He pictured to himself
his mother's kind greeting, his sister's delight; even his
stern step-father's figure was softened in the universal evening
glow.  It was a fairy vision, in which the passing years had
found no place, where the avenging footsteps that follow sin
did not come, and which had no reality in actual existence.
He turned the angle of the wood, and stood before his home.
It lay in ruins and desolate.

The sun sank below the hills, the bell went on tolling
monotonously through the deepening gloom.  Dazed and
faint, Malvolti followed its tones into the Chapel, where the
vesper service began.  When it was ended the miserable man
spoke to one of the monks, and craved some food.  Deprived
of his last hope, his senses faint and dull with weariness and
hunger, and lulled by the soft strains of devout sound—his
life confessed at last to have been completely a failure, and
the wages of sin to have turned to withered leaves in his
hand—his heart was more disposed than perhaps it had ever been
to listen to the soft accents of penitence, and to hear the
whispering murmur that haunts the shadowy walks of mortified
repentance.  Comforted by food, the kindly words of pity
and exhortation stole upon his senses, and he almost fancied
that he might find a home and peace without further wandering
and punishment.  He was much deceived.

He inquired concerning the fate of those whom, debased
and selfish as he was, he still loved, especially now, when the
sight of long-forgotten but still familiar places recalled the
past, and seemed to obliterate the intervening years.  The
monks told him a story of sorrow and of sin, such as he himself
often had participated in, and would have heard at another
time with a smile of indifference.  His step-father was dead,
killed in a feud which his own insolent temper had provoked.
His mother and sister had continued for some time to live in
the same house, and there perhaps he might have found them,
had not a gentleman, whose convenience had led him to claim
the hospitality of the monastery for a night's rest, chanced to
see his sister in the morning as he mounted his horse.  The
sight of a face, whose beauty combined a haughty clearness of
outline with a certain coy softness of expression, and a figure
of perfect form, detained him from his intended journey, and
he obtained admittance into the widow's house.  What wizard
arts he practised the monks did not know, but when he
departed he left anxiety and remorse where he had found content
and a certain peace.  In due time the two women, despairing
of his return, had followed him, and the younger, the monks
had heard (and they believed the report)—ill-treated and
spurned—was now living in Florence a life of sin.  The
softened expression of rest and penitence which had begun to
show itself in Malvolti's face left it, and the more habitual one
of cruel and hungry sin returned as he inquired,—

"Did the Reverend Fathers remember the name of this man?"

The good monks hesitated as they saw the look in the
inquirer's face; but it was not their duty to conceal the truth
from one who undoubtedly had a right to be informed of it.

"It is our duty to practise forgiveness, even of the greatest
injuries, my son," one of them replied; "our blessed Lord has
enjoined it, and left us this as an example, that He has forgiven
us.  The man was called il Cavaliere di Guardino."

The monks were relieved when they saw that their guest
showed no emotion upon hearing this name; only he said that
he must go to Florence and endeavour to find his sister.

But in truth there was in the man's mind, under a calm
exterior, a crisis of feeling not easy to describe.  That the
Cavaliere, his familiar accomplice, in whose company and by
whose aid he had himself so often committed ravages upon the
innocent, should, in the chance medley of life, be selected to
inflict this blow, affected him in a strange and unaccustomed
way, with the sense of a hitherto unrecognized justice at work
among the affairs of men.  He was so utterly at the end of all
his hopes, life was so completely closed to him, and his soul
was so sorely stricken, in return for all his sins, in the only
holy and sacred spot that remained in his fallen nature,—his
love and remembrance of his sister,—that it seemed as if a
revulsion of feeling might take place, and that, in this depth
and slough, there might appear, though dimly, the possibility
of an entrance into a higher life.  He was better known in
Florence than in any city of Italy, except Rome; and if he
went there his violent death was almost certain, yet he
determined to go.  He assured Inglesant afterwards, in relating the
story, that his object was not revenge, but that his desire was
to seek out and rescue his sister.  Revenge doubtless brooded
in his mind; but it was not the motive which urged him onward.

He told Inglesant a strange story of his weary journey to
Florence, subsisting on charity from convent to convent; of
his wandering up and down in the beautiful city, worn out with
hunger and fatigue, unknown, and hiding himself from recognition.
Amid the grim forms of vice that haunted the shadowy
recesses of the older parts of the city, in the vaulted halls of
deserted palaces and the massive fastnesses of patrician strife,
he flitted like a ghost, pale and despairing, urged on by a
restless desire that knew no respite.  In these dens of a reckless
life, which had thrown off all restraint and decorum, he
recognized many whom he had known in other days, and in far
different places.  In these gloomy halls, which had once been
bright with youth and gaiety, but were now hideous with
poverty and crime,—in which the windows were darkened,
and the coloured ceilings and frescoed walls were blurred with
smoke and damp, and which were surrounded by narrow alleys
which shut out the light, and cut them off from all connection
with the outer world,—he at last heard of the Cavaliere.  He
was told that, flying from Rome after his sister's marriage, he
had been arrested for some offence in the south of Italy, and
those into whose hands he fell being old enemies, and bearing
him some grudge, he was thrown into prison, and even condemned
to the galleys; for, since the Papal election, he was no
longer able to claim even a shadow of protection from any of
the great families who had once been his patrons.  After a
short imprisonment he was deputed, among others, to perform
some such office as Inglesant had seen undertaken by the
slaves in Naples; for the plague had raged for some summers
past, with more or less intensity, in southern Italy.  While
engaged in this work he had managed to make his escape, and
had not long since arrived in Florence, where he had kept
himself closely concealed.  Malvolti was told the secret
lurking-place where he might probably be found.

"It was a brilliantly hot afternoon," continued Malvolti,
speaking very slowly; "you will wonder that I tell you this;
but it was the last time that I ever saw the sun.  I remember
the bright and burning pavements even in the narrow alleys out
of which I turned into the long and dark entries and vaulted
rooms.  I followed some persons who entered before me, and
some voices which led me onward, into a long and lofty room
in the upper stories, at the farther end of which, before a high
window partially boarded up, some men were at play.  As I
came up the room, all the other parts of which lay in deep
shadow, the light fell strongly upon a corner of the table, and
upon the man who was casting the dice.  He had just thrown
his chance, and he turned his head as I came up.  He
appeared to be naked except his slippers and a cloak or
blanket of white cloth, with pale yellow stripes.  His hair was
closely cropped; his face, which was pale and aquiline, was
scarred and seamed with deep lines of guilt and misery,
especially around the eyes, from which flashed a lurid light, and
his lips were parted with a mocking and Satanic laugh.  His
dark and massive throat and chest and his long and sinewy
arms forced their way out of the cloth with which he was
wrapped, and the lean fingers of both hands, which crossed
each other convulsively, were pointed exultantly to the deuce
of ace which he had thrown.  The last sight I ever saw, the
last sight my eyes will ever behold until they open before the
throne of God, was this demon-like figure, standing out clear
and distinct against the shadowy gloom in which dim figures
seemed to move, and the dice upon the table by his side.

"He burst out into a wild and mocking laugh.  'Ah, Malvolti,'
he said, 'you were ever unlucky at the dice.  Come
and take your chances in the next main.'

"I know not what fury possessed me, nor why, at that
moment especially, this man's mocking villany inspired me
with such headlong rage.  I remembered nothing but the
crimes and wrongs which he had perpetrated.  I drew the
dagger I carried beneath my clothes, and sprang upon him
with a cry as wild as his own.  What happened I cannot
tell.  I seemed to hear the laughter of fiends, and to feel the
tortures of hell on every side.  Then all was darkness and
the grave."

Overpowered as it seemed by the recollection of his
sufferings, the friar paused and sank upon his knees upon the
pavement.  The miserere had died away, and a profound
gloom, broken only by the flicker of tapers, filled the Church.
Inglesant was deeply moved,—less, however, by sympathy with
the man's story than by the consciousness of the emotions
which he himself experienced.  It was scarcely possible to
believe that he was the same man who, some short years
before, had longed for this meeting with a bloodthirsty desire
that he might take some terrible vengeance upon his brother's
murderer.  Now he stood before the same murderer, who not
so long before had attempted to take his life also with perhaps
the very dagger of which he now spoke; and as he looked down
upon him, no feeling but that of pity was in his heart.  In the
presence of the awful visitant who at that moment was filling
the city which lay around them with death and corruption, and
before whose eternal power the strife and enmity of man shrank
away appalled and silenced, it was not wonderful that
inordinate hate should cease; but, as he gazed upon the prostrate
man before him, an awe-inspiring feeling took possession of
Inglesant's mind, which still more effectually crushed every
sentiment of anger or revenge.  The significance of his own
half-conceived action was revealed to him, and he recognized,
with something approaching to terror, that the cause was no
longer his, that another hand had interposed to strike, and
that his sword had spared the murderer of his brother only
that he might become the victim of that divine vengeance
which has said, "I will repay."

The friar rose from his knees.  "I found myself in the
monastery of the Cappucines on the bank of the river, blind,
and holding life by the faintest thread.  That I lived was a
miracle.  I had been struck with some twenty wounds, and in
mere wantonness my eyes had been pierced as I lay apparently
dead.  I was thrown into the river which flowed by gloomy
vaults beneath the houses, and had been carried down by the
stream to the garden of a monastery where I was found.  As
I recovered strength the monks thought that my reason would
not survive.  For days and nights I lay bound, a raving
madman.  At last, when my pains subsided, and my mind was a
little calmed and subdued, I was sent out into the world and
begged my way from village to village, not caring where I
went, my mind an utter blank, filled only now and then with
horrible sights and dreams.  I had no sense of God or Christ;
no feeling but a blind senseless despair and confusion.  Thus
I wandered on.  I got at last a boy to lead me and buy me
food.  I know not why I did not rather lie down and die.
Sometimes I did fling myself down, resolving not to move
again; but some love of life or some divine prompting caused
me to rise and wander on in my miserable path.  At last,
towards the end of the year, I came to Rome, and wandered
about the city seeking alms.  The boy who led me, and who
had attached himself to me, God knows why, told me all he
saw and all that passed; and I, who knew every phase and
incident of Roman life, explained to him such things in a
languid and indifferent way; for I found no pleasure nor relief
in anything.  I grew more and more miserable; our life was
hard, and we were ill-fed, and the terrors of my memory haunted
my spirits, weakened and depressed for want of food.  The
forms of those whom I had wronged, nay, murdered, lay before
me.  They rose and looked upon me from every side.  My
misery was greater than I could bear.  I desired death, and
tried to accomplish it, but my hand always failed.  I bought
poison, but my boy watched me and changed the drink.  I
did not know this, and expected death.  It did not come.
Then suddenly, as I lay in a kind of trance, that morning in
the mountain pass came into my remembrance, and it flashed
suddenly into my mind that I was not my own; that no poison
could hurt me, no sword slay me; that the sword of vengeance
was in the Lord's hand, and would work His will alone.  What
greater punishment could be in store for me I knew not, but
stunned by this idea I ceased to strive and cry any more.  I
waited in silence for the final blow; it came.  The year had
come nearly to an end, and it was Christmas Eve.  All day
long, in the Churches in Rome, had the services, the
processions, the religious shows, gone on.  My boy and I had
followed them one by one, and he had, in his boyish way, told
me all that he saw.  The new Pope went in procession to
St. John di Laterano, with all the Cardinals, Patriarchs,
Archbishops, and Bishops, all the nobility and courtiers, and an
interminable length of attendants, Switzers, soldiers, led horses,
servants, pages, rich coaches, litters, and people of every class,
under triumphal arches, with all excess of joy and triumph.
As midnight drew on the streets were as light as day.  Every
pageant became more gorgeous, every service more sweet and
ravishing, every sermon more passionate.  I saw it all in my
mind's eye,—all, and much beside.  I saw in every Church,
lighted by sacred tapers before the crucifix, the pageants and
ceremonies that, in every form and to every sense, present
the story of the mystic birth, of that divine fact that alone can
stay the longing which, since men walked the earth, they have
uttered in every tongue, that the Deity would come down and
dwell with man.  We had wandered through all the Churches,
and at last, wearied out, we reached the Capitol, and sank
down beneath the balusters at the top of the marble stairs.
Close by, in the Ara Cœli, the simple country people and the
faithful whose hearts were as those of little children, kneeling
as the shepherds knelt upon the plains of Bethlehem, saw the
Christ-Child lying in a manger, marked out from common
childhood by a mystic light which shone from His face and
form; while the organ harmonies which filled the Church
resigned their wonted splendours, and bent for once to pastoral
melodies, which, born amid the rustling of sedges by the river
brink, have wandered down through the reed-music and festivals
of the country people, till they grew to be the most fitting
tones of a religion which takes its aptest similes from the
vineyard and the flock.  All over Rome the flicker of the bonfires
mingled with the starlight.  I was blind, yet I saw much that
would have been hidden from me had I been able to see.  I
saw across the roofs before me, the dome of the Pantheon
and St. Peter's, and the long line of the Vatican, and the
round outline of St. Angelo in the light of the waning moon.
This I should have seen had I had my sight; but I saw behind
me now what otherwise I should not have seen—the Forum,
and the lines of arches and ruins, and beyond these the walks
of the Aventine and of the Cœlian, with their vineyards and
white convents, and tall poplar and cypress trees.  I saw
beyond them the great Churches of the Lateran and Santa
Croce in Gerusalemme, standing out from the green country,
pale and spectral in the light.  To the left I saw Santa Maria
Maggiore, stately and gorgeous, facing the long streets of
palaces and courts, and the gardens and terraces of the
Quirinale, all distinct and clear in the mystic light.  The white
light covered the earth like a shroud, and over the vault of
the sky were traced, by the pale stars, strange and obscure
forms, as over the dome of St. Peter's at evening when the
Church is dim.  A confused sound filled my ears, a sound of
chanting and of praise for that advent that brought peace to
men, a sound of innumerable passing feet, and in all the
Churches and basilicas I saw the dead Christs over the altars
and the kneeling crowds around.  Suddenly it seemed to me
that I was conscious of a general movement and rush of feet,
and that a strange and wild excitement prevailed in every
region of Rome.  The Churches became emptied, the people
pouring out into the streets; the dead Christs above the altars
faded from their crosses, and the sacred tapers went out of
their own accord; for it spread through Rome, as in a moment,
that a miracle had happened at the Ara Cœli, and that the
living Christ was come.  From where I stood I could see the
throngs of people pouring through every street and lane, and
thronging up to the' Campadoglio and the stairs; and from
the distance and the pale Campagna, and San Paolo without
the walls, and from subterranean Rome, where the martyrs and
confessors lie, I could see strange and mystic shapes come
sweeping in through the brilliant light.

"He came down the steps of the Ara Cœli, and the sky
was full of starlike forms, wonderful and gracious; and all the
steps of the Capitol were full of people down to the square of
the Ara Cœli, and up to the statue of Aurelius on horseback
above; and the summit of the Capitol among the statues, and
the leads of the palace Caffarelli, were full of eager forms; for
the starlight was so clear that all might see; and the dead
gods, and the fauns, and the satyrs, and the old pagans, that
lurked in the secret hiding-places of the ruins of the Cæsars,
crowded up the steps out of the Forum, and came round the
outskirts of the crowd, and stood on the fallen pillars that they
might see.  And Castor and Pollux, that stood by their
unsaddled horses at the top of the stairs, left them unheeded
and came to see; and the Marsyas who stood bound broke
his bonds and came to see; and spectral forms swept in from
the distance in the light, and the air was full of Powers and
Existences, and the earth rocked as at the Judgment Day.

"He came down the steps into the Campadoglio, and He
came to me.  He was not at all like the pictures of the saints;
for He was pale, and worn, and thin, as though the fight was
not yet half over—ah no!—but through this pale and worn
look shone infinite power, and undying love, and unquenchable
resolve.  The crowd fell back on every side, but when
He came to me He stopped.  'Ah!' He said, 'is it thou?
What doest thou here?  Knowest thou not that thou art
mine?  Thrice mine—mine centuries ago when I hung upon
the cross on Calvary for such as thou—mine years ago, when
thou camest a little child to the font—mine once again, when,
forfeit by every law, thou wast given over to me by one who
is a servant and friend of mine.  Surely, I will repay.'  As
He spoke, a shudder and a trembling ran through the crowd,
as if stirred by the breath of His voice.  Nature seemed to
rally and to grow beneath Him, and heaven to bend down to
touch the earth.  A healing sense of help and comfort, like
the gentle dew, visited the weary heart.  A great cry and
shout rose from the crowd, and He passed on; but among ten
thousand times ten thousand I should know Him, and amid
the tumult of a universe I should hear the faintest whisper of
His voice."

The friar stopped and looked at Inglesant with his darkened
eyeballs, as though he could read his looks.  Inglesant gazed
at him in silence.  That the man was crazed he had no doubt;
but that his madness should have taken this particular form
appeared to his listener scarcely less miraculous than if every
word of his wonderful story had been true.

"Heard you nothing else?" he said at last.

An expression of something like trouble passed over the
other's face.

"No," he said in a quieter voice; "by this time it was
morning.  The artillery of St. Angelo went off.  His Holiness
sang mass, and all day long was exposed the cradle of the
Lord."

There was another pause which Inglesant scarcely knew
how to break.  Then he said,—

"And have you heard nothing since of the Cavaliere?"

"He is in this neighbourhood," said Malvolti, "but I have
not found him.  I wondered and was impatient, ignorant and
foolish as I am; now I know the reason.  The Lord waited
till you came.  How could he be found except by us both?
We must lose no time, or it will be too late.  How did you
know that he was here?"

Inglesant told him.

"It was the Lord's doing," said the friar, a light breaking
over his darkened face.  "It was Capace.  You remember, at
Florence, the leader of that extravagant frolic of the Carnival,
who was dressed as a corpse?"

"I remember," said Inglesant, "and the poor English lad
who was killed."

"He is one of the Lord's servants," continued the friar,
"whom He called very late.  I do not know that he was
guilty of any particular sins, but he was the heir of a poor
family, and lived for many years in luxury and excess.  He
was brought under the influence of Molinos's party, and shortly
after I had seen the Lord, he came to me to know whether
he should become a religious.  I told him I thought there
was a time of trial and of sifting for the Lord's people at hand,
and that I thought the strongholds were the safest spots.  He
joined the order de Servi.  Not three weeks ago I was with
him at Frescati, at the house of the Cappucines, when I heard
that the Cavaliere was here.  You must have seen him three
or four days afterwards."





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.. _`CHAPTER XVI.`:

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   CHAPTER XVI.

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The night after Inglesant had met the friar in Naples
there was "the sound of abundance of rain," and the
"plague was stayed."  As constantly happened in the cities
desolated by this mysterious pestilence, no adequate reason
could be perceived for its cessation.  Some change in the
state of the atmosphere took place, and the sick did not die,
at least in the same proportion as formerly.  This was the
only indication that the most acute observer could detect; but
the change was marvellously rapid.  The moment that contact
with the dead bodies became less fatally infectious, help offered
on all sides, tempted by the large rewards.  The dead rapidly
disappeared from sight, and the city began to resume
something of its ordinary appearance.  The terrors of the grave
vanished into air, and gloomy resolutions faded from the
mind.  The few survivors of the devoted men who, throughout
the heat of the conflict, had remained at their posts were,
many of them at least, forgotten and overlooked; for their
presence was an unpleasing reminder to those whose conduct
had been of a far more prudent and selfish sort.  Those who
had fled returned into the city to look after their deserted
homes, and to re-open their shops.  The streets and markets
were once more gay with wares.  The friar was now as eager
to leave Naples as he had before been determined to remain.
His sole object was to find the Cavaliere, and he constantly
insisted that no time was to be lost if they wished to see him
alive.  They left Naples together; the friar mounted upon a
mule which Inglesant purchased for him.

Notwithstanding the friar's eagerness, their journey was
slow, for he was not able to resist the impulse to turn aside to
help when any appearance of distress or poverty called upon
them for aid.  Inglesant was not impatient at this delay, nor at
the erratic and apparently meaningless course of their singular
journey.  The country was delightful after the heavy rains,
and seemed to rejoice, together with its inhabitants, at the
abatement of the plague.  People who had remained shut up
in their houses in fear now appeared freely in the once deserted
roads.  Doors were thrown open, and the voice of the lute
and of singing was heard again in the land.  As for those who
had passed away, it was wonderful how soon their name was
forgotten, as of "a dead man out of mind;" and those who
had come into comfortable inheritance of fruit-closes, and
olive-grounds and vineyards, and of houses of pleasure in the
fields, which, but for the pestilence, had never been theirs, soon
found it possible to reconcile themselves to the absence of the
dead.

For some time after leaving Naples the road lay through a
richly cultivated land, with long straight ditches on either side.
Rows of forest trees crossed the country, and shaded the small
closes of fruit-trees and vines.  Here and there a wine tavern,
or a few cottages, or a village church, stopped them.  At all of
these the friar alighted from his mule, and made inquiries for
any who were ill or in distress.  In this way they came across
a number of people of the peasant class, and heard the story
of their lives; and now and then a religious, or a country
signore, riding by on his mule or palfrey, stopped to speak
with them.

They had proceeded for many days through this cultivated
country, and had at last, after many turnings, reached that part
of the road which approaches the slopes of the Apennines
about Frosinone.  The path wound among the hills, the slopes
covered with chestnut trees, and the crags crowned with the
remains of Gothic castles.  Fields of maize filled the valleys,
and lines of lofty poplars crossed the yellow corn.  As the
road ascended, distant reaches of forest and campagna lay in
bright sunlight between the craggy rocks, and down the wooded
glens cascades fell into rapid streams spanned here and there
by a half-ruined bridge.  At last they entered a deep ravine of
volcanic tufa, much of which cropped out from the surface,
cold and bare.  Between these sterile rocks laurels forced
their way, and spread out their broad and brilliant leaves.
Creeping plants hung in long and waving festoons, and pines
and forest trees of great size crowned the summits.  Here
and there sepulchral excavations were cut in the rock, and
more than one sarcophagus, carved with figures in relief, stood
by the wayside.

The air in these ravines was close and hot, and sulphurous
streams emitted an unpleasant odour as they rode along.
Inglesant felt oppressed and ill.  The valley of the Shadow of
Death, out of which he had come into the cool pastures and
olive-yards, had left upon the mind an exaltation of feeling
rather than terror; and in the history of the friar, through the
course of which traces of a devised plan penetrated the
confusion of a disordered brain, the gracious prediction of
Molinos seemed to promise fulfilment.  The supreme effort of
Divine mercy surely is that which shapes the faltering and
unconscious actions of man into a beneficent and everlasting
work.

But the very clearness and calm of this transcendental air
produced a wavering of the spiritual sense; and the
companionship of a blind enthusiast, who, from the lowest depth
of reckless sin, had suddenly attained a height of religious
fervour, did not tend to reduce the fever of his thoughts.
The scenes and forms of death with which he had been
familiar in Naples returned again and again before his eyes,
and his old disease again tormented him; so that once more
he saw strange figures and shapes walking by the wayside.
These images of a disordered fancy jostled and confused his
spiritual perceptions.  He felt wearied by those thoughts and
desires which had formerly been dear to him, and the ceaseless
reiteration of the friar's enthusiastic conceptions jarred
and irritated him more than he liked to confess.  The brain
of the blind man, unoccupied by the sights of this world, was
full of visions of a mystic existence, blended and confused
with such incidents and stories of earth as he had heard along
the way.  With such phantasmal imaginations, he filled
Inglesant's ears.

Proceeding in this manner, they came to a place where
the ravine, opening out a little, exposed a distant view of the
Campagna, with its aqueducts and ruined tombs.  At the
opening of the valley stood one of those isolated rocks so
strange to English eyes, yet so frequently seen in the paintings
of the old masters, crowned with the ruins of a Temple, and
fringed with trees of delicate foliage, poplars and pines.  At
the foot of the rock an arch of ruined brickwork, covered with
waving grass and creepers, spanned the road with a wide
sweep, and on the opposite side a black sulphurous pool
exhaled a constant vapour.  Masses of strange, nameless
masonry, of an antiquity dateless and undefined, bedded
themselves in the rocks, or overhung the clefts of the hills; and
out of a great tomb by the wayside, near the arch, a forest of
laurel forced its way, amid delicate and graceful frieze-work,
moss-covered and stained with age.

In this strangely desolate and ruinous spot, where the
fantastic shapes of nature seem to mourn in weird fellowship with
the shattered strength and beauty of the old Pagan art-life,
there appeared unexpectedly signs of modern dwelling.  The
base of the precipitous rock for some distance above the
road, was concealed by a steep bank of earth, the crumbling
ruin and dust of man and of his work.  At the top of this
bank was one of those squalid erections, so common in Italy,
where, upon a massive wall of old brickwork, embedded in
the soil, a roof of straw affords some kind of miserable shelter.
Some attempt had been made to wall in the space covered by
this roof, and a small cross, reared from the gable, and a bell
beneath a penthouse of wood, seemed to show that the shed
had been used for some ecclesiastical purpose.  At the bottom
of the slope upon which this structure was placed, and on the
other side of the ruined arch and of the road, there stood,
near to the tomb, a very small hut, also thatched, and declared
to be a tavern by its wine-bush.  At the door of this hut, as
Inglesant and the friar rode up, stood a man in a peasant's
dress, in an attitude of perplexity and nervous dread.  A long
streak of light from the western sun penetrated the ruined
arch, and shone upon the winding road, and against the blaze
of light, rock and arch and hanging woods stood out dark and
lowering in the delicate air.

The dazzling light, the close atmosphere of the valley, and
the fumes of the sulphurous lake, affected Inglesant's brain so
much that he could scarcely see; but they did not appear to
disturb the friar.  He addressed the man as they came up,
and understanding more from his own instinct than from the
few words that Inglesant spoke that the man was in trouble,
he said,—

"You seem in some perplexity, my son.  Confide in me,
that I may help you."

As the man hesitated to reply, Inglesant said, "What is
that building on the hill?"

"It is a house for lepers," said the peasant.

"Are you the master of this tavern?" said Inglesant.

"No, Santa Madre," replied the man.  "The mistress of
the inn has fled.  This is the case, Padre," he continued,
turning to the friar.  "I was hired a week or so ago at
Ariano to bring a diseased man here, who was a leper; but I
did not know that he was a leper who was stricken with the
plague.  I brought him in my cart, and a terrible journey I
had with him.  When I had brought him here, and the plague
manifestly appeared upon him, all the lepers fled, and forsook
the place.  The Padrona, who kept this tavern upon such
custom as the peasants who brought food to sell to the lepers
brought her, also fled.  I stayed a day or two to help the
wretched man—they told me that he was a gentleman—till
I could stay no longer, such was his condition, and I fled.
But, my Father, I have a tender heart, and I came back
to-day, thinking that the holy Virgin would never help me if I
left a wretched man to die alone—I, who only know where
and in what state he is.  I spoke to one or two friars to come
and help me, but they excused themselves.  I came alone.
But when I arrived here my courage failed me, and I dared
not go up.  I know the state he was in two days ago; he
must be much more terrible to look at now.  Signore,"
concluded the man, turning to Inglesant with an imploring
gesture, "I dare not go up."

"Do you know this man's name?" said Inglesant.

"Yes; they told me his name."

"What is it?"

"Il Cavaliere di Guardino."

At the name of his wife's brother, Inglesant started, and
would have dismounted, but checked himself in the stirrup,
struck by the action of the friar.  He had thrown his arms
above his head with a gesture of violent excitement, his
sightless eyeballs extended, his face lighted with an expression of
rapturous astonishment and delight.

"Who?" he exclaimed.  "Who sayest thou?  Guardino a
leper, and stricken with the plague!  Deserted and helpless, is
he? too terribly disfigured to be looked upon?  The lepers
flee him, sayest thou?  Holy and blessed Lord Jesus, this is
Thy work!  He is my mortal foe—the ravisher of my
sister—the destroyer of my own sight!  Let me go to him!  I
will minister to him—I will tend him!  Let me go!"

He dismounted from his mule, and, with the wonderful
instinct he seemed to possess, turned towards the rock, and
began to scramble up the hill, blindly and with difficulty, it is
true, but still with sufficient correctness to have reached the
ruin without help.  There was, to Inglesant, something
inexpressibly touching and pitiful in his hurried and excited action,
and his struggling determination to accomplish the ascent.

The peasant would have overtaken him to prevent his going
up, probably misdoubting his intention.  Inglesant checked him.

"Do not stop him," he said.  "He is a holy man, and will
do what he says.  I will go with him.  Stay here with my
horse."

"You do not know to what you are going, signore," said
the peasant, looking at Inglesant with a shudder; "let him go
alone.  *He cannot see*."

Inglesant shook his head, and, his brain still slightly dizzy
and confused, hastened after the friar, and assisted him to
climb the rocky bank.  When they had reached the entrance
to the hut the friar went hastily in, Inglesant following him to
the doorway.

It was a miserable place, and nearly empty, the lepers
having carried off most of their possessions with them.  On a
bed of straw on the farther side, beneath the rock, lay what
Inglesant *felt* to be the man of whom he was in search.  What
he saw it is impossible to describe here.  The leprosy and the
plague combined had produced a spectacle of inexpressible
loathing and horror, such as nothing but absolute duty would
justify the description of.  The corruption of disease made it
scarcely possible to recognize even the human form.  The
poisoned air of the shed was such that a man could scarcely
breathe it and live.

The wretched man was rolling on his couch, crying out at
intervals, groaning and uttering oaths and curses.  Without
the slightest faltering the friar crossed the room (it is true he
could not see), and kneeling by the bedside, which he found
at once, he began, in low and hurried accents, to pour into the
ear of the dying man the consoling sound of that Name, which
alone, uttered under heaven, has power to reach the departing
soul, distracted to all beside.  Startled by the sound of a voice
close to his ear, for his sight also was gone, the sick man ceased
his outcries and lay still.

Never ceasing for a moment, the friar continued, in a rapid
and fervent whisper, to pour into his ear the tenderness of
Jesus to the vilest sinner, the eternal love that will reign
hereafter, the sweetness and peace of the heavenly life.  The
wretched man lay perfectly still, probably not knowing whether
this wonderful voice was of earth or heaven; and Inglesant,
his senses confused by the horrors of the room, knelt in prayer
in the entrance of the hut.

The fatal atmosphere of the room became more and more
dense.  The voice of the friar died slowly away; his form,
bending lower over the bed, faded out of sight; and there
passed across Inglesant's bewildered brain the vision of Another
who stood beside the dying man.  The halo round His head
lighted all the hovel, so that the seamless coat He wore, and
the marks upon His hands and feet, were plainly seen, and the
pale alluring face was turned not so much upon the bed and
upon the monk as upon Inglesant himself, and the unspeakable
glance of the Divine eyes met his.

A thrill of ecstasy, terrible to the weakened system as the
sharpest pain, together with the fatal miasma of the place,
made a final rush and grasp upon his already reeling faculties,
and he lost all consciousness, and fell senseless within the
threshold of the room.

When he came to himself he had been dragged out of the
hut by the peasant, who had ventured at last to ascend the
hill.  The place was silent; the Cavaliere was dead, and the
friar lay across the body in a sort of trance.  They brought
him out and laid him on the grass, thinking for some time that
he was dead also.  By and by he opened his sightless eyes,
and asked where he was; but he still moved as in a trance.
He seemed to have forgotten what had happened; and, with
the death of the Cavaliere, the great motive which had
influenced him, and which, while it lasted, seemed to have kept
his reason from utterly losing its balance, appeared to be taken
away.  He had lived only to meet and bless his enemy, and
this having been accomplished, all reason for living was gone.

Inglesant and the peasant dug a grave with some implements
they found in the tavern, and hastily buried the body,
the friar pronouncing a benediction.  The latter performed
this office mechanically, and seemed almost unconscious as to
what was passing.  His very figure and shape appeared changed,
and presented but the shadow of his former self; his speech
was broken and unintelligible.  Inglesant gave the peasant
money, which seemed to him to be wealth, and they mounted
and rode silently away.

At Venafro, where they found a monastery of the Cappucines,
they stayed some days, Inglesant expecting that his
companion would recover something of his former state of health.
But it soon became apparent that this would not be the case;
the friar sank rapidly into a condition of mental unconsciousness,
and the physicians told Inglesant that, although he might
linger for weeks, they believed that a disease of the brain was
hastening him towards the grave.  Inglesant was impatient to
return to the Castello; and, leaving the friar to the care of the
brothers of his own order, he resumed his journey.

Was it a strange coincidence, or the omniscient rule and
will of God, that, at the moment Inglesant lay insensible before
the hut, the plague had done its work in the home that he
had left?  The old Count died first, then some half of the
servants, finally, in the deserted house, a little child lay dead
upon its couch, and beside it, on the marble floor, lay
Lauretta—dead—uncared for.

It was the opinion of Martin Luther that visions of the
Saviour, which he himself had seen, were delusions of Satan
for the bewildering of the Papists; and there is a story of a
monk who left the Beatific Vision that he might take his
service in the choir.

Malvolti died at Venafro a short time after Inglesant had
left him.





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.. _`CHAPTER XVII.`:

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   CHAPTER XVII.

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After the narration of the events just detailed the
papers from which the life of Mr. Inglesant has hitherto
been compiled become much less minute and personal in
character; and when the narrative is resumed, a considerable
period of time has evidently elapsed.  It is stated that some
time after the death of his wife Mr. Inglesant returned to
Rome, and assumed a novice's gown in some religious order,
but to which of the religious bodies he attached himself is
doubtful.  It might be thought that he would naturally
become a member of the Society of Jesus; but there is reason to
conclude that the rule which he intended to embrace was
either that of the Benedictines or the Carmelites.  As will soon
appear, he proceeded no farther than the noviciate, and this
uncertainty therefore is of little consequence.

It must be supposed that the distress caused by the death
of his wife and child, and by his absence from them at the
last, was one motive which caused Inglesant to seek in Rome
spiritual comfort and companionship from the Spanish priest
Molinos, in whose society he had before found so much
support and relief.  It was thought, indeed, by many beside
Inglesant, amid the excitement which the spread of the method
of devotion taught by this man had caused, that a dawn of
purer light was breaking over spiritual Rome.  God seemed
to have revealed Himself to thousands in such a fashion as to
make their past lives and worship seem profitless and unfruitful
before the brightness and peace that was revealed; and
the lords of His heritage seemed for a time to be willing that
this light should shine.  It appeared for a moment as if
Christendom were about to throw off its shackles, its infant
swaddling clothes, in which it had been so long wrapped, and,
acknowledging that the childhood of the Church was past,
stand forth before God with her children around her, no
longer distrusted and enslaved, but each individually complete,
fellow-citizens with their mother of the household of God.
The unsatisfactory rotation of formal penitence and sinful
lapse, of wearisome devotion and stale pleasures, had given
place to an enthusiasm which believed that, instead of
ceremonies and bowing in outer courts, the soul was introduced
into heavenly places, and saw God face to face.  A wonderful
experience, in exchange for lifeless formality and rule, of
communion with the Lord, with nothing before the believer, as he
knelt at the altar, save the Lord Himself, day by day,
unshackled by penance and confession as heretofore.  Thousands
of the best natures in Rome attached themselves to this
method; it was approved by a Jesuit Father, the Pope was
known to countenance it, and his nephews were among its
followers.  The bishops were mostly in favour of it, and in
the nunneries of Rome the directors and confessors were
preaching it; and the nuns, instead of passing their time over
their beads and "Hours," were much alone, engaged in the
exercise of mental prayer.

It would indeed be difficult to estimate the change that
would have passed over Europe if this one rule of necessary
confession before every communion had been relaxed; and in
the hope that some increased freedom of religious thought
would be secured, many adopted the new method who had no
great attachment to the doctrine, nor to the undoubted
extravagances which the Quietists, in common with other mystics,
were occasionally guilty of, both in word and deed.  It cannot
be denied, and it is the plea that will be urged in defence of
the action of the Jesuits, that freedom of thought as well as of
devotion was the motive of numbers who followed the teaching
of Molinos.  That free speculation and individual growth
could be combined with loyalty to acts and ceremonies,
hallowed by centuries of recollection and of past devotion, was
a prospect sufficiently attractive to many select natures.  Some,
no doubt, entered into this cause from less exalted motives—a
love of fame and a desire to form a party, and to be at the
head of a number of followers; but even among those whose
intentions were not so lofty and spiritual as those of Molinos
probably were, by far the greater number were actuated by a
desire to promote freedom of thought and of worship among
Churchmen.

But it was only for a moment that this bright prospect
opened to the Church.

The Jesuits and Benedictines began to be alarmed.
Molinos had endeavoured to allay the suspicion attached to
his teaching, and diminish the aversion that the Jesuits felt
towards him, by calling his book "The Spiritual Guide," and
by constantly enjoining the necessity of being in all things
under the direction of a religious person; but this was felt
to point more at the submission to general council than to
coming always to the priest, as to the minister of the
sacrament of penance, before every communion; especially as
Molinos taught that the only necessary qualification for
receiving was the being free from mortal sin.

Suddenly, when the reputation of this new society appeared
to be at its height, Molinos was arrested, and Father Esparsa,
the Jesuit whose approbation had appeared before "The
Spiritual Guide," disappeared.  What became of the latter
was not known, but it was generally supposed that he was
"shut up between four walls;" and at any rate he appeared no
more in Rome.  In the midst of the excitement consequent
on these events seventy more persons, all of the highest
rank,—Count Vespiniani and his lady, the Confessor of Prince
Borghese, Father Appiani of the Jesuits, and others equally
well-known,—were arrested in one day, and before the month
was over more than two hundred persons crowded the prisons
of the Inquisition.

The consternation was excessive, when a method of
devotion which had been extolled throughout Italy for the
highest sanctity to which mortals could aspire was suddenly
found to be heretical, and the chief promoters of it hurried
from their homes and from their friends, shut up in prison,
and in peril of perpetual confinement, if not death.  The arrest
of Father Appiani was the most surprising.  He was accounted
the most learned priest in the Roman College, and was
arrested on a Sunday in April as he came from preaching.
After this no one could guess on whom the blow would fall
next.  The Pope himself, it was reported, had been examined
by the Jesuits.  The imminence of the peril brought strength
with it.  The prisoners, it was whispered, were steady and
resolute, and showed more learning than their examiners.
Their friends who were still at large, recovering from their first
panic, assumed a bold front.  Many letters were written to
the Inquisitors, advising them to consider well what they did
to their prisoners, and assuring them that their interests would
be maintained even at the cost of life.  Nor did these protests
end here.  As soon as possible after the arrests a meeting was
held at Don Agostino's palace in the Piazza Colonna, to which
ladies were summoned as well as men.  There, in a magnificent
saloon, amid gilding and painting and tapestry, whose
splendour was subdued by softened colour and shaded light,
were met the elite of Rome.  There were ladies in rich attire,
yet in whose countenances was seen that refinement of beauty
which only religion and a holy life can give—ladies, who,
while appearing in public in the rank which belonged to them,
were capable in private of every self-denial, trained in the
practice of devotion and acts of mercy.  There were nuns of
the Conception and of the Palestrina, distressed and mortified
at being compelled to return to their beads and to their other
abandoned forms.  There were present Cereri, Cardinal-Bishop
of Como; Cardinals Carpegna and Cigolini, and
Cardinal Howard of England (the noblest and most
spiritually-minded of the Sacred College), Absolini and Coloredi,
Cardinals and Fathers of the Oratory, and Cardinal D'Estrées.
Petrucci himself, the most prominent advocate of the Quietist
doctrine, was in the room, though incognito, it not being
generally known that he was in Rome.  There were present
many Fathers of the Oratory, men of intellect, refinement, and
blameless lives; Don Livio, Duke di Ceri, the Pope's nephew
was there, and the Prince Savelli, many of the highest nobility,
and above a hundred gentlemen, all of whom, by their
presence, might be supposed to prove their attachment to the
teaching of Molinos, their superiority to the sordid motives of
worldly prudence and pleasure, and their devotion to spiritual
instincts and desires.  It would be difficult to imagine scenes
more unlike each other; yet, strange as it may appear, it was
nevertheless true that this brilliant company, attired in the
height of the existing mode, sparkling with jewels and
enriched with chastened colour, might not unfitly be considered
the successor of those hidden meetings of a few slaves in
Nero's household, who first, in that wonderful city, believed in
the crucified Nazarene.

The addresses were commenced by the Duke di Ceri, who
spoke of the grief caused by the arrest of their friends, and of
the exertions that had been made on their behalf.  He was
followed by other of the great nobles and cardinals, who all
spoke in the same strain.  All these speeches were delivered
in somewhat vague and guarded terms, and as one after
another of the speakers sat down, a sense of incompleteness
and dissatisfaction seemed to steal over the assembly, as
though it were disappointed of something it most longed to
hear.  The meeting was assured, over and over again, that
extreme measures would not be taken against those in prison;
that their high rank and powerful connections would save
them; the Duke di Ceri had expressly said that he believed
his relation and servant, Count Vespiniani, and his lady would
soon be released.  The fact was, though the Duke did not
choose, to state it publicly, that they had been proscribed
solely from information gained at the confessional; and this
having been much talked of, the Jesuits had resolved, rather
than bring any further odium on the sacrament of confession,
to discharge both the lady and her husband at once.  But,
though all this might be true, there was something that remained
unsaid—something that was filling all hearts.

What was to be the spiritual future of those assembled?
Was this gate of Paradise and the Divine Life to be for ever
closed, and was earth and all its littleness once more to be
pressed upon them without denial, and hypocrisy and the
petty details of a formal service once more to be the only
spiritual food of their souls?  Must they, if they resolved to
escape this spiritual death, quit this land and this glorious
Church, and seek, in cold and distant lands, and alien
Churches, the freedom denied by the tyranny of the leaders
of their own?  These thoughts filled all minds, and yet none
had given them utterance, nor was it surprising that it should
be so.  Select and splendid as that assembly was, no one
knew for certain that his neighbour was not a spy.  As was
known soon after, Cardinal D'Estrées, who sat there so calm
and lofty-looking, furnished the principal evidence against
Molinos, swearing that, being his intimate friend, he knew
that the real meaning of his friend's printed words was that
heretical one of which, in fact, Molinos had never dreamt.
It was no wonder that the speeches were cautious and vague.

At last Don Agostino rose, and in a quiet and unaffected
tone, requested a hearing for his very dear friend, the
Cavaliere di San Georgio, one well known to most of them, whose
character was known to all.

A murmur of satisfaction ran through the room, and the
audience settled itself down to listen, as though they knew
that the real business of the day was about to begin.
Inglesant rose in his seat immediately behind his host.  He was
evidently dressed carefully, with a view to the effect to be
produced upon a fastidious and ultra-refined assembly.  He
wore a cassock of silk, and the gown of a Benedictine made of
the finest cloth.  His head was tonsured, and his hair cut
short.  He had round his neck a band of fine cambric, and
at his wrists ruffles of rich lace; and he wore on his hand a
diamond of great value.  He had, indeed, to one who saw
his dress and not his face, entirely the look of a petit-mâitre,
and even—what is more contemptible still—of a petit-mâitre
priest; yet, as he rose in his seat, there was not a man in all
that assembly who would have given a silver scudo for the
chances of his life.

His romantic and melancholy story, the death of his wife
and child, his assumption of the religious life, and, above all,
his friendship with Molinos, were known to all; it seemed to
many a fitting close to a life of such vicissitude, that at this
crisis he should sacrifice himself in the spiritual cause that
was dear to all.

He had his speech written before him, every word
carefully considered and arranged by himself and some of the
first masters of style then in Rome.  He began deliberately
and distinctly, so that every word was heard, though he spoke
in a low voice.

After deprecating the judgment of the assembly upon the
artless and unpolished words he was about to address to it,
and excusing his rashness in consenting to speak in such an
assembly at all, he said,—

"The words of the noble and august personages who have
already spoken have left me little to say.  Nothing is
necessary to be added to their wise and reverend advice.  All that
remains for us to do is to attempt to carry out in action what
they have so well counselled.  Our first object, our first duty,
is the safety of our friends.  But, when this is happily
accomplished—as, under such leaders and protected by such names,
how can we doubt that it will be?—there are many among us
who, with sinking hearts and hushed voices, are inquiring,
'What will come next?'"

He paused, and looked up for a moment, and a murmur
of encouragement ran through the room.

"I am not mistaken when I say that in this room, and
also in Rome, are many hearts which, within the last few years,
and by the teaching of him for whom night and day the
prayers of the Church ascend to heaven, have found a peace
and a blessedness before unknown; many who have breathed
celestial air, and walked the streets of God.  Nor am I
mistaken—my heart and your presence tell me I am not
mistaken—when I say that many are asking themselves, 'How can
they renounce this heavenly birthright?  How can they live
without this Divine intercourse, which they have found so
sweet—which the purest saints have hallowed with their
approval?  How can they live without God who have seen
Him face to face?'  And many are asking themselves, 'Must
we leave the walks of men, and the Churches where the saints
repose, and wander into the wilderness—into byways among
the wild places of heresy, since the Church seems to close
the gates upon this way which is their life?'  I risk the
deserved censure of this august assembly when I venture to
advise—yet even this I am willing to do, if I may serve
any—and I venture to advise, No.  I myself was born in another
country, amid contending forms of faith.  I believe that, in the
sacrificial worship of our most Holy Church, room is amply
given for the perfection of the Contemplative State; and that
such lofty devotion can find no fitter scene than the altar of
the Lord.  As we may hope that, at some future time, the
whole Church may come to this holy state, and be raised
above many things which, though now perhaps necessary, may
in a higher condition fall away; so, if by our continuing in this
posture we may hasten such a happy time, this doubtless will
be the path Heaven wishes us to walk in.  But"—he paused,
and the whole assembly listened with breathless attention—"if
such is to be our course, it is evident that an understanding
is necessary of adjustment between ourselves and the
Fathers of the Holy Office and of the Society of Jesus—an
adjustment by which a silence must be allowed our Faith—a
silence which, for the sake of those amongst us whose
consciences are the most refined and heaven-taught, must be
understood to imply dissent to much that has lately been
acted and taught.  We must understand that this exertion of
authority is aimed only at the open teaching of doctrines in
which we still believe, and which are still dear to us; and that
liberty is allowed our faith so long as we observe a discreet
silence—a liberty which shall extend as far as to admission to
the Sacrament without previous confession.  On this point
surely it is necessary that we have a clearer understanding."

Inglesant stopped, and applause, sufficiently loud and
unmistakably sincere, showed that a large proportion of the
assembly approved of what had been said.

He spoke a word to Don Agostino, and then went on,—

"I am willing to confess, and this august assembly will be
willing to confess, that to the rulers of Christ's ark—those who
have to answer for the guidance of the peoples of the world,
and who know far better than we can the difficulties and
dangers which environ such a task—this allowance to the lower
masses of the people, so prone to run to extremes and to err
in excess, would seem unwise; and I am not unwilling also to
admit that we may have erred in making this way too public,
before the world was sufficiently prepared for it.  Both for
this, and for any other fault, we are willing to suffer penance,
and to submit to the Holy Church in silence; but, this
acknowledged and performed, we must be allowed, within certain
limits, to retain the freedom we have enjoyed, and some
manifest token must be given us that such will be the case."

A singular murmur again filled the room—a murmur
compounded of intense sympathy and of admiration at the
boldness of the speaker.

Inglesant went on.

"But you will ask me, how is this to be obtained?  I am
allowed to say that I have not undertaken the mission save at
the request of others whom it well becomes to direct my
service in all things.  They consider that for some reason I am
fitted for the task.  I am—and I speak with all gratitude—a
pupil of the reverend and holy Society of Jesus, and whatever
I possess I owe to its nursing care.  I am besides, though I
have never acted in such capacity, still an accredited agent of
the Queen Mother of England, that most faithful daughter—I
had almost said Martyr—of the Church.  I will see the
General of the Order, and if this assembly will allow me to
speak in its name, I will offer to him our dutiful submission if
he, on his part, will give us some public sign that we are
allowed our private interpretation upon the late events, and
our liberty upon the point which I have named."

When Inglesant sat down Cardinal Howard spoke.  He
was followed by several others, all of whom complimented the
Cavaliere upon his devotion to so good a cause; but abstained
from expressing any decided opinion on the expediency of his
proposal.  But when two or three speeches had been made,
the mixed character of the assembly began to show itself.  It
is true that it had been carefully selected, yet, in order to give
it importance and influence, it had been necessary to include
in the invitations as many as possible, and the result was soon
apparent.  There were many present who had joined the ranks
of the Quietists more from a weariness of the existing order
than from sincere devotion.  There were many present who
had joined them sincerely, but who, from timidity and caution,
were desirous to escape the anger of the Inquisition by
submission and silence, and who deprecated any risk of exciting
a still more harsh exertion of authority.  Both these parties,
increased by waverers from the more devoted portion of the
company, united in advising that no action should be taken,
farther than that which had been already used, and which, it
might be hoped, had secured the principal object of their
wishes, the release of their friends.

They argued that confession before each communion could
not be burdensome to those who were in a state of grace, and
therefore had nothing to confess; and even if it were, as the
Fathers of the Church judged it necessary for the suppression
of error, and for the good of the ignorant and unenlightened,
it ought to be submitted to most willingly by those farthest
advanced in the spiritual life.  These speakers also argued
that many things which were held by the Quietists harmlessly
to themselves were liable to be misunderstood, and that
anything which tended to draw off the mind from the mystery of
the Sacrifice of the Mass, or from the examples of the saints,
tended to divert the vulgar from devotion to the Saviour, and
savoured of Deism.

They argued that although perhaps many things were
unnecessary to those whose religious life was far advanced,
such as the breviary, beads, images, many prayers, etc., yet it
was not so to others, and that no doubt, where it was suitable,
relaxation would be easily obtained from one's director.  No
one had insisted more upon the necessity of a spiritual guide
than had Molinos, and it was now the time to prove the reality
of our obedience to the voice of the Church.

It was argued that many things in Molinos's writings seemed
to tend towards Calvinism, and the doctrine of Efficacious
Grace, which no one present—no true child of the Church—could
defend,—a doctrine which limited the Grace of God,
and turned the free and wide pastures of Catholicism into the
narrow bounds of a restricted sect; and it was finally hinted
that there was some reason to believe that the promoters of
the meeting were acting with a farther intention than at first
appeared, and that they desired to introduce changes into the
Catholic faith and discipline, under cover of this discussion.

This last insinuation was a home thrust, and was so felt by
the meeting.  The subject of Efficacious Grace had also been
introduced very skilfully by a young priest, a pupil of the
Jesuits himself.

After a brief consultation with his party Inglesant replied
that a great deal of what had been advanced was unanswerable;
that he himself, a pupil of the Jesuits, was as much opposed to
the doctrine of Efficacious Grace as any one could be; that
it was the intention of no one present to urge any course of
action unless the meeting unanimously approved of it; and that,
as it appeared that the majority of those present were prepared
to submit to the Holy Office, and did not desire any
negotiation, nothing farther would be attempted.

There weighed, in truth, upon the hearts of all, and had
probably oppressed Inglesant as he spoke, a sense of hopelessness
and of contention with an irresistible power.  In spite
of this feeling, however, the decision of the chiefs drew forth
expressions of impatience and regret from the more enthusiastic
partisans; but as these were mostly women, who could
not address the assembly, or such as were not prepared to
make themselves prominent in face of almost certain arrest,
the discussion became desultory and ineffectual, and the meeting
finally broke up without any decision having been arrived at.

The Piazza was full of carriages and servants, and the
Duke di Ceri had an enormous train of equipages following
his carriage to escort him beyond the gate, on the way to his
villa near Civita Vecchia, whither he returned immediately,
not choosing to stay in Rome.

The meeting being over, Don Agostino urged Inglesant to
leave Rome; indeed, the Duke had already pressed him to
accompany him to Civita Vecchia, but Inglesant declined.

The motives which influenced him were of a mixed nature.
He was prompted by the most sincere desire to find out a
way, both for himself and for others, in which the highest
spiritual walk, and the purest condition of spiritual worship,
might be possible within the Church of Rome.  There was
probably nothing in this world which he desired more than this,
for in this was included that still more important freedom, the
liberty of the reason; for if it were possible for the spirit to
be free, while fulfilling the outward observances, and
participating in the outward ordinances of the Church, so also it
must be possible for the reason to be free too.

It had been this very desire, singular as it may seem,
which had attached him to the Society of the Jesuits.  Not
only were their tenets—notably that of sufficient grace given
to all men—of wider and more catholic nature than the
Augustinian doctrines held by most bodies both of Churchmen
and Protestants, but the Society had always, in all its
dealings with men, shown a notable leaning to tolerance, even,
so its enemies asserted, of sin and vice.

But besides these motives which had something of a
refined and noble character, Inglesant had others.  A life of
intrigue and policy had, from training and severe practice,
become a passion and necessity of his life.  To leave the
field where such a fight was going on, to remain in Rome,
even, an inactive spectator, allowed to pursue his own path
merely from the ignoble fact that he was not worth arrest,—both
these courses of action were intolerable to him.  He had
promised Molinos that he would not be wanting in the hour
of trial, and he would keep his word.  He was utterly
powerless, as the events of the last few moments would have shown
him had he not known it before.  The most powerful, the
noblest confederacy fell away impotently before an invisible yet
well-understood power, and a sense of vague irresistible force
oppressed him, and showed him the uselessness of resistance.

Nevertheless he requested the loan of Don Agostino's
carriage that he might go at once to the General of the
Society.  He was shown at once into a small cabinet, where
he was kept waiting a few moments, the General in fact being
engaged at that moment in listening to a detailed account
of the meeting, and of the speeches delivered at it.  He
however entered the room in a few minutes, and the two men
saluted each other with the appearance of cordial friendship.
Inglesant had not changed his dress, and the General ran his
eyes over it with somewhat of an amused expression, doubtless
comparing the account he had just received with the appearance
of his visitor, the purpose of which he was fully alive to.

Inglesant began the conversation.

"Your reverence is probably acquainted already with the
meeting in the Piazza Colonna, and with its objects and results.
I, however, have come to relate what passed as far as you may
be disposed to listen, and to give any information, in a
perfectly open and sincere manner, which you may wish to receive.
In return for this I wish to ask your reverence two or three
questions which I hope will not be unpleasant, and which you
will of course answer or not as it pleases you."

"As I understand the meeting, Signore Cavaliere," said
the General with a slight smile, "it rejected your mediation, in
spite of the elaborate care with which the proposal was brought
before it, a care extending to the minutest particulars, and the
chastened eloquence and perfect style in which it was offered."

This sarcasm fell comparatively harmlessly upon Inglesant,
preoccupied as his thoughts were.  He therefore bowed,
saying,—

"The meeting rejected my mediation, or rather it thought
that no mediation was necessary, and trusted itself implicitly
to the fatherly care of the Society of Jesus."

"What does the meeting representing this new heresy demand?"

"It demands nothing but the deliverance of its friends
now in prison."

"And nothing else?"

"Nothing else from the meeting.  I am here to demand
something else."

"On your own behalf alone?"

"On my own responsibility solely; but if my request is
granted, many will be benefited by my work."

"Have you no abettors?  You came here in Don Agostino's
coach."

"I am Don Agostino's dear and intimate friend, and it is
not much that he should lend me his coach.  I have many
friends in Rome."

"I know it," said the Jesuit cordially, "and among them
the Order of Jesus is not the least sincere."

Inglesant bowed, and there was a slight pause.  Then the
General said,—

"What do you demand?"

"I demand spiritual freedom—the freedom of silence."

"Freedom will be abused."

"Not by me nor by my friends.  We pledge ourselves to
unbroken silence.  All we demand is freedom to worship God
in private as He Himself shall lead us.  We ask for no change
in public doctrine.  We seek no proselytes.  In fact, we confine
ourselves to one desire, the sacrament without confession."

The Jesuit made no reply, but continued to look fixedly
into Inglesant's face.

"It seems to me, Father," Inglesant went on, with a touch
of bitterness in his tone, "that the Society is changing its
policy, or rather that it has a different policy for different
classes of men.  So far as I have known it, it has pursued a
course of compromise with all men, and especially with the
weak and frail.  It has always appeared to me a trait much
to be admired, that in which it is likest to the divine charity
itself; but the world has been very severe upon it.  And when
the world says, 'You have pandered to vice in every form;
you have rendered the confessional easy of approach, and the
path of penitence smooth to the impenitent; you have been
lenient, nay more than lenient, to the loose liver, to the
adulterers and menslayers,—surely you might be mild to the
devout; surely you might extend a little of this infinite pity to
the submissive and obedient, to the pure in life and soul who
seek after God; 'Difficile est satiram non scribere.  Nam quis
iniquae tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus, ut teneat se.'  If the
world says this, what am I to answer?'  For, if it be so necessary
to confine the soul to narrow dogmas lest she go astray, it
must be also necessary to deal freely and sharply with these sins
of the flesh, lest they bring men to sensuality and to hell.  By
thus acting, as it seems to me, and not by making the righteous
sad, you would follow the teaching of those beautiful words of
one of your Fathers, who says, 'that the main design of our
Society is to endeavour the establishment of virtue, to carry
on the war against vice, and to cultivate an infinite number of
souls.'"

"You are a bold man, Signore Cavaliere.  For far less
words than you have spoken men have grown old in the
dungeons of Saint Angelo, where the light of day never comes."

Inglesant, who rather wished to be imprisoned, and
flattered himself that he should soon be released, was not
alarmed at this menace, and remained silent.

A pause ensued, during which something like this ran
through the Jesuit's mind:—

"Shall I have this man arrested at once, or wait?  He
came to us well recommended—the favourite pupil of an
important member of the Society, who assured us that he was
an instrument perfectly trained, ready at all points for use,
and of a temper and spirit far above the average, not to be lost
to the Order on any account.  He has proved all that was
said of him, and much more.  The Papal throne itself is
under obligation to him.  But do we want such a man so
much?  I have scores of agents, of instruments ready to my
hand, with whom I need use no caution—no finesse; why
waste any on one, however highly finished and trained?  But,
on the other hand, I speak this in Rome, where everything is
our own, and where the sense of power may have unfitted me
from properly understanding this man's value.  In the rough
regions *in partibus* such a tool as this, fine and true as steel,
tried in the fire as steel, doubtless is not lightly to be thrown
away; at all events, nothing is to be done hastily.  So long as
he is in Rome he is safe, and may be clapped up at any
moment.  I almost wish he would leave, and go back to his
teacher."

All this occupied but a few seconds, and, as the Jesuit
made no answer, Inglesant, who scarcely expected any definite
reply, took his leave.  To his surprise, however, the General
insisted on accompanying him to his coach.  They crossed
the courtyard to where the equipage of Don Agostino stood in
the street.  In the excited imagination of Rome at that
moment, the sight of Don Agostino's carriage before the
Jesuits' College had attracted a crowd.  When Inglesant
appeared, accompanied by the General, the excitement became
intense.  As they reached the carriage door, Inglesant knelt
upon the pavement, and requested the Jesuit's blessing; the
foremost of the crowd, impressed by this action, knelt too.
Inglesant rose, entered the carriage, and was driven off; and
two different rumours spread through Rome—one, that the
Society had come to terms with the Quietists through the
mediation of the Cavaliere; the other, that the Cavaliere di
San Georgio had betrayed the Quietists, and made his peace
with the Order; and this last report received the greatest
amount of credit.





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.. _`CHAPTER XVIII.`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XVIII.

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The Inquisitors and the Jesuits continued to adopt a
policy of great leniency to those who were in prison.
The majority, after one examination, were released, merely
going through the form of abjuring heresies and errors of
which they had never dreamed.  Owing to this politic course
of action, assisted by the dislike and contempt which the
people felt towards the then Pope, who was supposed to be a
favourer of Molinos, and of whose dull reign the Romans
were weary, a great change took place in the opinions of the
populace.  The credit of the Jesuits rose exceedingly, and
they became celebrated for their excessive mildness, who
before had been blamed for their rigour.  To such an extent
did they gain in popular estimation, that the chiefs of the
defeated party were unable to keep back great numbers of the
followers of Molinos from coming in to the Inquisitors every
day, to accuse themselves of heresy, and to offer themselves to
penance.  These being very gently treated, and dismissed in
peace, testified everywhere to the clemency of the Holy Office
and of the Jesuits.  The excitement, which before had set in
one direction, was now turned with equal impetuosity in
another; and many who had before, doubtless in perfect
sincerity, found—or fancied they found—spiritual satisfaction in
the "method of contemplation," now discovered an equal
benefit in an excessive orthodoxy.  The Quietist party was
utterly crushed, and put to ignominious silence; and Molinos
himself became an object of hatred and contempt; while, all
the time, with extraordinary inconsistency, it was publicly
reported that the reason of this surprising clemency was the
great support which his doctrine received from the mystical
Divinity, which had been authorized by so many canonizations,
and approved by so many Councils and Fathers of the Church.
The leaders of the defeated party lived as in a desert.
Their saloons, which only a few days before had been crowded,
were now empty, and Cardinal Petrucci himself was visited by
no one; while the Jesuits were everywhere received with
enthusiasm, so true to the character that the Satirist gave a
thousand years before did the Roman populace remain—

   |    "Sequitur fortunam, ut semper, et odit
   |  "Damnatos."
   |

Some slight portion of this popular applause fell to
Inglesant's lot, whichever report was believed—whether, as the
agent of the Society he had betrayed his friends, or had used
his influence to procure this unexpected policy of mercy—either
supposition procured him notoriety and even approbation.
It now only remained to watch the fate of Molinos,
and the inmates of Don Agostino's palace waited in silence
the policy of their triumphant opponents.  The Jesuits began
by circulating reports of his hypocrisy and lewd course of
life—facts of which they said they had convincing evidence.  They
said that these scandals had been proved before the Pope,
who then, and not till then, had renounced his cause.  The
Romans replied to this story that they believed it, for the
Pope was a good judge of such matters, but none at all of the
questions of theology on which the quarrel had previously
turned.  There was not at the time, and there never has
been since, the slightest evidence offered publicly that these
stories had the least foundation; but they amply served their
turn, insomuch that when Molinos was brought out to the
Minerva on the day of his condemnation, he was saluted by
the people with cries of "Fire!  Fire!" and, but that his
coach was resolutely defended by the Sbirri and guards, he
would have been massacred by the furious mob.

When the morning rose upon the day on which his condemnation
was to take place, the tribunal of the Minerva, and
all the avenues and corridors leading to it, were thronged with
an excited crowd.  For days before, all the efforts both of
money and favour had been exerted to procure good places
in the court itself, and those who were unable to gain these
coveted seats lined the corridors and staircases, while the
populace outside thronged the streets leading from the prison
of the Inquisition.  The windows and house tops were
crowded; scarcely an inhabitant of Rome but was to be found
somewhere on the line of route; the rest of the city was a
desert.

The vine-clad wastes of the Aventine, the green expanse
of the Campo Vacchino, and the leafy walls of the Colosseum
and of the arches, were lying under the morning sunlight, calm
and quiet as in the midst of a happy and peaceful world.  As
Inglesant came across from the lonely convent where he still
occasionally lodged, and turned out of the square of the Ara
Cœli, the silent tenantless houses and palaces looked down
with dim eyes like a city of the dead; and as he came into the
Via del Gesu the distant hum and murmur of the crowd first
broke upon his ear.  Here and there a belated spectator like
himself turned out of some bye-street or doorway, and hastened
towards the Piazza della Minerva.

Inglesant turned off by a side street, and, following the
narrow winding lanes with which he was well acquainted, came
out into the Via di Coronari at some midway distance between
the prison of the Inquisition and the Minerva.  He was just
in time.  As he stationed himself against the wall of the
Church of St. Maria de Anima and the German Hospital, he
knew, by the excitement and frantic cries of the crowd, that
Molinos was not far off.  He was brought along the street in
a large coach with glass windows, a Dominican friar seated at
his side.  On each side of the carriage and at the horses'
heads the Sbirri and Swiss guards exerted themselves manfully
to keep back the people and to clear the way.  A deafening
shout and cry rose unceasingly, and every few moments the
crowd, pressing upon the carriage and the guards, caused them
to come to a dead stop.  Clinging to the horses' heads, to
the carriage itself, to the halberds of the Swiss, climbing on
the steps and on the back of the coach, had the crowd
desired a rescue, Inglesant thought one bold and decided leader
might have accomplished it in a few desperate moments.  But
the mob desired nothing less.  This man—who but a few
weeks ago had been followed by admiring crowds, who had
been idolized in courtly saloons, whose steps and walks had
been watched with the tender and holy devotion with which a
people watches the man whose life it takes to be hid in God;
whom loving modest women had pointed out to their children
as the holy monk whom they must love and remember all
their lives; whom passionate women, on whose souls the light
of God had broken, had followed trembling, that they might
throw themselves at his feet, and clinging to his gown, hear
the words of gospel from his lips; to whom desperate men
had listened whom no other voice had ever moved;—this man
was now the execration of the mob of Rome.  Amidst the
roar and din around no word was distinguishable but that
terrible one of "Fire!" that pointed to a heretic's death at
the stake; and, but for the determined resistance of the
guards, Molinos would have been dragged from the coach and
butchered in the streets.

When the carriage arrived opposite the spot upon which
Inglesant had posted himself, he could see Molinos's face as
he sat in the coach.  He was carefully dressed in his priestly
habit, and looked about him with a cheerful serene countenance.
"He looks well," said a man, not far from Inglesant,
who had been very bitter against the prisoner; "the secret of
his success is not far to seek, for his face possesses all the
charms that are able to captivate, especially the fair sex."

When the coach was close to Inglesant the crowd made
another and most determined attack, and the horses came to
a stand.  The cries of "Fire!  Fire!" rose louder and more
fiercely, and the guards were for a moment beaten from one
of the doors.  It seemed that nothing could prevent the
people from dragging their victim into the street; Inglesant
felt his blood turn cold, fully expecting to see the massacre
performed before his eyes; but before the people could open
the door, which seemed fastened on the inside, the guard
rallied, and by the free use of their halberds and short swords
recovered the coach, and drove back the mob.

Through all this scene Molinos had preserved his perfectly
unconcerned expression, and his eyes, wandering calmly over
the people, at last rested upon the spot where Inglesant stood.
Whether he recognized him or not Inglesant did not know,
for he involuntarily drew back and shrank from his eye.  He
learnt afterwards that Molinos did recognize him, and also
noticed his recoil.  "He fears I should compromise him with
the furious crowd," he thought; "he need not fear."

Inglesant's movement was caused, however, by a thought
very different from this one, which indeed never occurred to
him.  He was ashamed to meet Molinos's eye.  In the
daylight and sunshine they had walked together, but when the
trial came, the one was taken, and all the rest escaped.  It
was impossible but that some at least of the fortunate many
should feel some pangs of uneasiness and doubt.  Inglesant
especially, the agent and confidant of the Jesuits, was open
to such thoughts, and before the single-hearted uncompromising
priest and confessor could not but feel in some sort
condemned.  The carriage passed on amid the unabated fury
of the people, and, turning aside down a narrow winding lane,
he entered the Dominicans' Church, to the reserved part of
which he had a ticket of admission, to be ready for the final
scene.

Molinos was taken to one of the corridors of the Minerva,
where he stood for some time looking about him very calmly,
and returning all the salutes which were made him by those
who had formerly been of his acquaintance.  To all inquiries
he returned but one answer; that they saw a man who was
defamed, but who was penitent (infamato ma penitente).
After he had stood here some time he was conducted into a
small apartment, where a sumptuous repast was spread before
him, and he was invited to partake as of his last luxurious
indulgence before being shut up in a little cell for life.  A
strange banquet! and a strange taste such delicacies must
have to a man at such a time.

After dinner he was carried into the Church, as in a
triumph, in an open chair upon the shoulders of the Sbirri.
The tapers upon the altar shrines showed more clearly than
did the dim and sober daylight that penetrated beneath the
darkened roofs the three mystic aisles of the strange Church,
which were filled with a brilliant company of cardinals, nobles,
innumerable ladies, gentlemen of every rank, ecclesiastics
without end.  The dark marble walls, the sumptuous crowd,
the rich colours of the stained glass, gave a kind of lurid
splendour to the scene; while on every side the sculptured
forms upon the monuments, with stolid changeless features,
stood out pale amidst the surrounding gloom; and here and
there, where free space was kept, the polished marble floor
reflected the sombre brilliancy of the whole.

As Molinos was brought up to his place he made a low
and devout reverence to the Cardinals, and his manner was
perfectly possessed and without a show of fear or shame.  He
was made to stand up before the altar, a chain was bound
round him and fastened to his wrists, and a wax taper was
placed in his hands.  Then with a loud voice a friar read his
Process, so as to be heard by all in the Church: and as some
of the articles were read, there were loud cries from the
reverend and polite assembly of "Fire!  Fire!"

In a few moments the sight was over, and Molinos was led
back to the street, to be placed this time in a close carriage,
and taken back to the prison, where his cell was prepared.
As Inglesant stepped back into the aisle of the Church he felt
some one pull him by his Benedictine gown, and turning round,
he saw a lady in a velvet masque.  She appeared excited, and,
as far as he could see, was weeping, and her voice, which he
thought he recognized, was broken and indistinct.

"Cavaliere," she said, "he will stop a moment in the
vestibule before they put him in the coach.  I want him to have
this—he must have it—it will be a relief and consolation to
him unspeakable.  They will stop all of us, and will let no
one come to him; but they will let you.  You are a Jesuit,
and their friend.  For the love of Gesu, Cavaliere, do him and
me, and all of us, this favour.  He will bless you and pray
for you.  He will intercede for you.  For the love of God,
Cavaliere!"

She was pleading with such eager tearfulness and such
hurried speech and gesture, that he could not doubt her truth,
yet he paused a moment.

"Surely I know your voice?" he said.

"Ah! you know me," replied the masque, "but that is of
no consequence.  Another moment, and it will be too late.
Cavaliere! for the love of Gesu!"

Inglesant took the small paper packet, which seemed to
contain a casket, and went down the fast emptying Church.
As he reached the entrance he turned and looked back for
the velvet masque, but she was nowhere to be seen.  His
mind was full of suspicion, yet he was not unwilling to fulfil
his mission.  He should, at any rate, speak to Molinos, and
perhaps grasp his hand.

In the vestibule Molinos stood alone, a circle being kept
at some distance round him by the guard.  His manner was
unchanged and calm.  The select crowd stood around gazing
at him with eager curiosity; outside might be heard again
the shouting of the mob, and the cry of "Fire!"  Inglesant
advanced towards the Captain of the Sbirri; but, to his
surprise, before he could speak, the latter made a sign, and the
guards fell back to let him pass.  A murmur ran through the
crowd, and every one pressed forward with intense eagerness.
Molinos looked up, and an expression of grateful pleasure
lighted up his face as he extended his hand.  Inglesant grasped
it with emotion, and looking him in the face, said,—

"Adieu, Father, you are more to be envied than we.  You
are clothed in the heavenly garment and sit down at the supper
of the King; we wander in the outer darkness, with an aching
conscience that cannot rest."

The expression of the other's face was compassionate and
beautiful, and he said,—

"Adieu, Cavaliere, we shall meet again one day, when the
veil shall be taken from the face of God, and we shall see Him
as He is."

As Inglesant grasped his hand he slipped the casket into
it, and as he did so dropped on one knee.  The hand of the
monk rested on his head for a moment, and in the next he had
risen and stepped back, and the guards closed in for the last
time round Molinos, and the crowd pressed after, following
them to the coach.

When the carriage had driven off, and the crowd somewhat
dispersed, Inglesant came down the steps, and was turning to
the right into the Corso when he was surprised to see that the
Captain of the Sbirri had not followed his prisoner, but was
standing on the causeway with two or three of his men, near
a plain carriage which was waiting.  As Inglesant came up he
turned to him, and said politely,—

"Pardon, Signore Cavaliere, I must ask you to come with
me.  You have conveyed a packet to a condemned prisoner—a
grave offence—a packet which contains poison.  You
will come quietly, no doubt."

"I will come quietly, certainly," said Inglesant.  "Where
are we going? to the Inquisition?"

"No, no," said the other, as he followed the new prisoner
into the coach, "yours is a civil offence; we are going to the
St. Angelo."

"The General must have a taste for theatricals," thought
Inglesant as the coach rolled off, "or he never could have
planned such a melodrama."

On their arrival at the castle he was conducted into a good
room, not in the tower, which commanded an extensive view
of St. Peter's.  Great liberty was allowed him, everything he
liked to pay for was procured for him, and at certain hours he
was allowed to walk on the glacis and fortifications.

The second day of his confinement was drawing to a close
when he was visited by the Dominican who had attended
Molinos.  This monk, who seemed a superior person, had
evidently been impressed by the conversation and character of
his prisoner.  After the first greeting he said,—

"That unhappy man requested me to bring you a message.
It was to the effect that he had done you wrong.  He saw you
among the crowd as he was being brought to the Minerva, and
noticed that you shrank back.  He accused you in his mind
of fearing to be compromised; he knows now that, on the
contrary, you were watching for an opportunity to do him a
service.  It was but the thought of a moment, but he could not
rest until he had acknowledged it, and begged your forgiveness.
He bade me also to tell you that 'the bruised reed is
not broken, nor the smoking flax quenched.'"

"Where did you leave him?" said Inglesant.

"At the door of his cell, which he calls his cabinet."

"'The smoking flax is not quenched,'" said Inglesant; "I
hear that one of his followers, a day or two ago, before the
tribunal told the examiners to their faces that they 'were a
company of unjust, cruel, and heretical men, and that the
measure which they dealt to others was the same that Christ
Himself had received from His persecutors.'"

"It is true," said the Dominican, "and it is true also that
he is released; such, on the contrary, is the clemency of the
Church."

After an imprisonment of about a fortnight, as Inglesant
was one day taking his usual walk upon the fortifications, he
was informed that the General of the Order was in his room,
and desired to see him.  He went to him immediately, and
was received with great appearance of friendliness.

"You will pardon my little plot, Cavaliere," said the
General, "especially as I gave orders that you should be made
very comfortable here.  I wished to see in what manner and
how far you were our servant, and I have succeeded admirably.
I find, as I imagined, that you are invaluable; but it
must be on your own terms, and at your own time.  You are
faithful and unflinching when you have undertaken anything,
but each mission must be entered upon or renounced at your
own pleasure.  I hope you have not been nourishing bitter
thoughts of me during your incarceration here."

"Far from it," replied Inglesant; "I have nothing to complain
of.  I have all I want, and the view from these windows
is, as you see, unrivalled in Rome.  If it consists with your
policy I should take it as a great favour were you to inform
me whether the velvet masque was a mere tool or not.  I
could have sworn that her accent and manner were those of a
person speaking the truth; still, when the Captain of the Sbirri
made way for me I thought I was in the toils."

"Your penetration did not err.  The lady was the Countess
of ——.  She conceived the idea of communicating
with Molinos herself, and confided it to her director—not in
confession, observe.  He consulted me, and we advised what
took place; and what may console you still farther, we did
the lady no wrong.  We have reason to know that, besides
the poison, some writing was conveyed to Molinos together
with the casket, by which he obtained information which he
was very desirous of receiving.  You will forgive me now,
since your 'amour propre' is not touched, and your friend's
purpose is served."

There was a pause, after which the General said,—

"You have deserved well of the Order—few better; and
whatever their enemies may say, the Companions of Jesus are
not unmindful of their children, nor ungrateful, unless the
highest necessities of the general good require it.  You
look upon the prosecution of Molinos as an act of intolerable
tyranny, and you are yourself eager to enter upon a crusade on
behalf of religious freedom and of the rights of private
devotion and judgment.  You are ready to engage almost
single-handed against the whole strength of the Society of Jesus,
of the Curia, and of the existing powers.  I say nothing of the
Quixotic nature of the enterprise; that would not deter you.
Nor of its utter hopelessness; how hopeless you may judge
from the sudden collapse of the party of Molinos—a party so
favoured in high places, so fashionable, patronized, as has been
said, even by the Pope himself.  You may also judge of this
from the fact, of which you are probably aware, that every
detail of your late meeting was communicated to us by the
President of that meeting, and by many of those who attended
it.  But in speaking of these matters to you, whose welfare I
sincerely seek, I address myself to another argument which I
imagine will have more weight.  You have only considered
this coveted spiritual freedom as the right of the favoured few,
of the educated and refined.  You have no desire and no
intention that it should be extended to the populace.  But
you do not consider, as those who have the guidance of the
Church polity are bound to consider, that to grant it to the
one and deny it to the other is impossible; that these
principles are sure to spread; that in England and in other
countries where they have spread they have been the occasion of
incalculable mischiefs.  You are standing, at this moment,
thanks chiefly to the nurture and clemency of the much-abused
Society of Jesus, at a point where you may choose one of two
roads, which, joining here, will never meet again.  The
question is between individual license and obedience to authority;
and upon the choice, though you may not think it, depends
the very existence of Christianity in the world.  Between
unquestioning obedience to authority and absolute unbelief there
is not a single permanent resting-place, though many temporary
halts may be made.  You will scarcely dispute this when
you remember that every heretical sect admits it.  They only
differ as to what the authority is to which obedience is due.
We, in Rome at least, cannot be expected to allow any
authority save that of the Catholic Church, and indeed what
other can you place instead of it—a Book?  Do you think
that those who have entered upon the path of inquiry will
long submit to be fettered by the pages of dead languages?
You know more of this probably than I do from your
acquaintance with the sceptics of other lands."

He paused as if waiting for a reply, but Inglesant did not
speak; perhaps the logic of the Jesuit seemed to him
unanswerable—especially in the St. Angelo at Rome.

After a few seconds the latter went on,—

"Ah!  I fear you still bear me some malice.  If so, I regret
it very much.  As I said before, you have no truer friend in
Rome than the Order and its unworthy General.  I am
convinced, both by my own experience and by the reports of
others, that you are an invaluable friend and agent of the
Society in countries where men like you, gentlemen of honour,
bold, unflinching, and of spotless name, are wanted at every
turn,—men who have the confidence of both parties, of enemies
as well as friends.  But long ere this you will have seen that
here in Rome we do things differently; here we strike openly
and at once, and we require agents of a far lower type, not so
much agents, indeed, as hammers ready to our hand.  Your
refined nature is altogether out of place.  As a friend I
recommend your return to England.  Father St. Clare is there, and
no doubt requires you, and I am very certain that the climate
of Rome will not suit your health.  You have passed some
years very pleasantly in Italy, as I believe, in spite of your
share in those great sorrows to which we all are heir; and
though I am grieved to separate you from your friends, the
noblest in Rome, yet it is better that you should be parted in
this manner than by sharper and more sudden means.  Every
facility shall be given you for transferring your property to
England, and I hope you will take with you no unpleasant
recollections of this city, and of the poor Fathers of Jesus, who
wish you well."

He pronounced these last words with so much feeling that
Inglesant could only reply,—

"I have nothing to say of the Society but what is good.
It has ever been most tender and parental to me.  I shall go
away with nothing but sadness and affection in my heart;
with nothing but gratitude towards you, Father, with nothing
but reverence towards this city—the Mother of the World."





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`CHAPTER XIX.`:

.. class:: center large bold

   CHAPTER XIX.

.. vspace:: 2

For a long time nothing was found among the papers
from which these memoirs have been compiled relative
to Mr. Inglesant's life subsequent to his return to England;
but at last the following imperfect letter was found, which is
here given as containing all the information on the subject
which at present is known to exist.

The date, with the first part of the letter, is torn off.  The
first perfect line is given.  The spelling has been modernized
throughout.  The superscription is as follows:—

.. class:: noindent white-space-pre-line

   Mr. Anthony Paschall,
      Physician,
         London,

   from his friend,
      Mr. Valentine Lee,
         Chirurgeon,
            Of Reading.

.. vspace:: 2

From a certain tone in parts of the letter it would seem
that the writer was one of those who gave cause for the
accusation of scepticism brought in those days against the medical
profession generally.

.. vspace:: 2

\* \* \* \* \* that vine, laden with grapes worked in
gold and precious stones, after the manner of Phrygian work,
which, according to Josephus, Tacitus, and other writers,
adorned the Temple at Jerusalem, and was seen of many when
that Temple was destroyed; a manifest continuance of the old
Eastern worship of Bacchus, so dear to the human fraility.
As says the poet Anacreon, "Make me, good Vulcan, a deep
bowl and carve on it neither Charles's wain, nor the sad Orion,
but carve me out a vine with its swelling grapes, and Cupid,
Bacchus, and Bathillus pressing them together."  For it is a
gallant philosophy, and the deepest wisdom, which, under the
shadow of talismans and austere emblems, wears the colours of
enjoyment and of life.

Methinks if the Puritans of the last age had known that
the same word in Latin means both worship and the culture
of polite life, they would not have condemned both themselves
and us to so many years of shadowy gloom and of a morose
antipathy to all delight.  And though they will perchance
retort upon me that the same word in the Greek meaneth both
worship and bondage, yet I shall reply that it was a service of
love and pleasure—a service in which all the beauties of earth
were called upon to aid, and in which the Deity was best
pleased by the happiness of His creatures, whose every faculty
of delight had been fully husbanded and trained.  In these
last happy days, since his gracious Majesty's return, we have
seen a restoration of a cheerful gaiety, and adorning of men's
lives, when painting and poetry, and, beyond all, music, have
smoothed the rough ways and softened the hard manners of men.

I came to Oxford, travelling in the Flying Coach with a
Quaker who inveighed greatly against the iniquity of the age.
At Oxford I saw more than I have space to tell you of;
amongst others, Francis Tatton, who, you will recollect, left
his religion since the King's return, and sheltered himself
amongst the Jesuits.  He was but lately come to Oxford, and
lodged at Francis Alder's against the Fleur-de-lis.  I dined
with him there along with some others, and it being a Friday,
they had a good fish dinner with white wine.  Among the
guests was one Father Lovel, a Jesuit.  He has lived in Oxford
many years to supply service for the Catholics, so bold and
free are the Papists now.

I conversed with another of the guests, a physician, who
after dinner took me to his house in Bear Lane, and showed
me his study, in a pleasant room to the south, overlooking
some of Christ Church gardens.  Here he began to complain
of the Royal Society, and the Virtuosi, and I soon saw that he
was a follower of Dr. Gideon Harvey and Mr. Stubbes.
"The country owes much," he said, "to such men as Burleigh,
Walsingham, Jewel, Abbot, Usher, Casaubon; but if this
new-fangled philosophy and mechanical education is to bear the
bell, I foresee that we shall look in vain in England for such
men again.  In these deep and subtle inquiries into natural
philosophy and the intricate mechanisms by which this world
is said to be governed, neither physic will be unconcerned nor
will religion remain unshaken amidst the writings of these
Virtuosi.  That art of reasoning by which the prudent are
discriminated from fools, which methodizes and facilitates our
discourse, which informs us of the validity of consequences
and the probability of arguments—that art which gives life to
solid eloquence, and which renders statesmen, divines,
physicians, and lawyers accomplished—how is this cried down
and vilified by the ignoramuses of these days!"

I pleased myself with inspecting this man's books, with
which his study was well stored, and with the view from his
window; but I let his tongue run on uncontradicted, seeing
that he was of the old Protestant and scholastic learning,
which is never open to let in new light.  He entertained me,
besides, with a long discourse to prove that Geber the chemist
was not an Indian King, and informed me with great glee that
the Royal Society, among other new-fangled propositions, had
conceived the idea of working silk into hats, which project,
though the hatters laughed at it, yet to satisfy them trial was
made, and for twenty shillings they had a hat made, but it
proved so bad that any one might have bought a better one
for eighteenpence.

He was entering upon a long argument against Descartes,
to refute whom he was obliged to contradict much that he
had said before, but at this time I excused myself and left him.

When I came out from this man's house the college bells
were going for Chapel, as they used to do in the old time;
methought it was the prettiest music I had heard for many a
day.  I went to see an old man I remembered in Jesus Lane.
I found him in the same little house, dressed in his gown tied
round the middle, the sleeves pinned behind, and his dudgeon
with a knife and bodkin; it was the fashion for grave people
to wear such gowns in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's
days.  He says he is 104.  When I was a boy at Oxon I
used to be always inquiring of him of the old time, the rood
lofts, the ceremonies in the College Chapels; and his talk is
still of Queen Bess her days, and of the old people who
remembered the host and the wafer bread and the roods in
the Churches.  In my time, at Oxford, crucifixes were common
in the glass in the study windows, and in the chamber windows
pictures of saints.  This was "before the wars."  What a
different world it was before the wars!  What strange
old-world customs and thoughts and stories vanished like
phantoms when the war trumpets sounded, and great houses and
proud names, and dominions and manors, and stately woods,
crumbled into dust, and every man did as seemed good to
himself, and thought as he liked.

On the Sunday I went to St. Mary's, and heard a preacher
and herbalist, who spoke of the virtues of plants and of the
Christian life in one breath.  He told us that Homer writ sublimely
and called them [Greek: cheires theon], the hands of the Gods,
and that we ought to reach to them religiously with praise
and thanksgiving.  "God Almighty," he said, "hath furnished
us with plants to cure us within a few miles of our own abodes,
and we know it not."

The next day I came to Worcester by the post, to the
house of my old friend Nathaniel Tomkins, who is now one
of the Prebends and Receptor.  He lives in the close, or
college green, as they call it here.  He comes of a family of
musicians.  His grandfather was chanter of the choir of
Gloucester; his father organist to this same Cathedral of
Worcester, and one of his uncles organist of St. Paul's and
gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and another, of whom more
anon, gentleman of the Privy Chamber to His Majesty Charles
the First, and well skilled in the practical part of music, and
was happily translated to the celestial choir of angels before
the troubles.

I was pleased to see the faithful city recovered from the
ashes in which she sat when I was here last, and the daily
service of song again restored to the Cathedral Church, though
the latter is much out of repair and dimmed as to its
splendour.  I like that religion the best which gives us sweet
anthems and solemn organ music and lively parts of melody.

I had not been here long when my friend the Receptor
told me that if I should stay two or three days longer, I should
hear as good a concert of violins as any in England, and also
hear a gentleman lately come from Italy, whose skill as a
lutinist and player on the violin had preceded him.  When I
asked for the name of this gentleman, he told me it was that
Mr. John Inglesant who was servant to the late King, and of
whom so much was spoken in the time of the Irish Rebellion.
When I heard this I resolved to stay, as you may suppose,
considering that we have more than once spoken together of
this person and desired to see him, especially since it had
been reported that he was returned to England.

I therefore willingly promised to remain, and spent my time
in practising on the violin, and in the city and cathedral.  I
walked upon the river bank, and up and down the fine broad
streets leading from the bridge to the cathedral.  From the
gates of the chancel down the stone steps the strange light
streamed on to the paved floor of the nave, chill and silent as
the grave until the strains of the organs awoke.  Mr. Tomkins
told me that the loyal gentry of the surrounding counties had,
during the usurpation, made it a point of honour to purchase
and trade in Worcester, for the relief and encouragement of
the citizens, who were reduced to so low an ebb by the battle
and taking of the city.

Thursday was the day appointed for the music meeting,
and on that day I accompanied Mr. Tomkins to the house of
Mr. Barnabas Oley, another of the Prebends, who, you may
remember, wrote a preface, a year or two ago, to Mr. Herbert's
"Country Parson."  He also lives in the College Green, and
we found the company assembling in an oak parlour, which
looked upon an orchard where the trees were in full blossom.
There were present several of the clergy, and two or three
physicians and other gentlemen, who practised upon the
violin.

As we entered the room, Mr. Oley was speaking of
Mr. Inglesant, who was expected to come presently with the Dean.
"I remember him well," he was saying, "when I was in
poverty and sequestration in the late troubles.  He was
supposed to be in all the King's secrets, and was constantly
employed in private messages and errands.  Some said that
he was a concealed Papist, but I have known him to attend
the Church service very devoutly.  I recollect when I was in
the garrison at Pontefract Castle, and used to preach there as
long as it held out for His Majesty, that this Mr. Inglesant
suddenly appeared amongst us, though the leaguer was very
close, and I know he attended service there once or twice.  I
was often at that time in want of bread, during my hidings
and wanderings, and obliged to change my habit, and did
constantly appear in a cloak and grey clothes.  On one of these
occasions, when I was in great distress and was diligently and
particularly sought for by the rebels, who would willingly have
gratified those that would have discovered me, I fell in with
this Mr. Inglesant at an inn in Buckinghamshire.  He was
then in company with one whom I knew to be a Popish priest,
but they both exerted themselves very kindly in my behalf,
and conducted me to the house of a Catholic gentleman in
those parts by whom I was entertained several days.  Before
this, I now recollect, at the beginning of the wars, I met
Mr. Inglesant at Oxford.  I was in the shop of a bookseller named
Forrest, against All Soul's College.  I remember that I took
up Plato's select dialogues 'De rebus divinis,' in Greek and
Latin, and excepted against some things as superfluous and
cabalistical, and that Mr. Inglesant, who was then a very
young man, defended the author in a way that showed his
scholarship.  It was summer weather and very warm, and the
enemy's cannon were playing upon the city as we could hear
as we talked in the shop."

While Mr. Oley was thus recollecting his past troubles,
Mr. Dean was announced, and entered the room accompanied
by Mr. Inglesant and by a servant who carried their violins.
You are, I know, acquainted with the Dean, who is also
Bishop of St. David's, and who, they say, will be Bishop of
Worcester also before long, so I need not describe him.  The
first sight of Mr. Inglesant pleased me very much.  He wore
his own hair long, after the fashion of the last age, but in other
respects he was dressed in the mode, in a French suit of black
satin, with cravat and ruffles of Mechlin lace.  His expression
was lofty and abstracted, his features pale and somewhat thin,
and his carriage gave me the idea of a man who had seen the
world, and in whom few things were capable of exciting any
extreme interest or attention.  His eyes were light blue, of
that peculiar shade which gives a dreamy and indifferent
expression to the face.  His manner was courteous and polite,
almost to excess, yet he seemed to me to be a man who was
habitually superior to his company, and I felt in his presence
almost as I should do in that of a prince.  Something of this
doubtless was due to the sense I had of the part he had played
in the great events of the late troubles, and of the nearness of
intercourse and of the confidence he had enjoyed with his late
Majesty of blessed memory.  It was impossible not to look
with interest upon a man who had been so familiar with the
secret history of those times, and who had been taken into the
confidence both of Papists and Churchmen.

When he had been introduced to the company, Mr. Oley
reminded him of the incidents he had been relating before his
arrival.  When he mentioned the meeting in the inn in
Buckinghamshire, Mr. Inglesant seemed affected.

"I remember it well," he said.  "I was with Father
St. Clare, whose deathbed I attended not two months after my
return to England.  Do you remember, Mr. Oley," he went on
to say, "the sermons at St. Martin's in Oxford, where
Mr. Giles Widdowes preached?  I remember seeing you there,
sir, and indeed his high and loyal sermons were much
frequented by the royal party and soldiers of the garrison; and I
have heard that he was most benevolent to many of the most
needy in their distress.  I remember that poor Whitford
played the organs there often, before he was killed in the
trenches."

"Ah," said Mr. Oley, "we have heard strange music in
our day.  I was in York when it was besieged by three very
notable and great armies—the Scotch, the Northern under
Lord Fairfax, and the Southern under the Earl of Manchester
and Oliver.  At that time the service at the Cathedral every
Sunday morning was attended by more than a thousand ladies,
knights, and gentlemen, besides soldiers and citizens; when
the booming of cannon broke in upon the singing of the
psalms, and more than once a cannon bullet burst into the
Minster amongst the people, like a furious fiend or evil spirit,
yet no one hurt."

After some talk of this nature we settled ourselves to our
music and to tune our instruments.  Mr. Inglesant's violin
was inscribed "Jacobus Stainer in Absam propé Œnipontem
1647;" Œnipons is the Latin name of Inspruck in Germany,
the chief city of the Tyrol, where this maker lived.  As soon
as Mr. Inglesant drew his bow across the strings I was
astonished at the full and piercing tone, which seemed to me
to exceed even that of the Cremonas.

We played a concert or two, with a double bass part for
the violone, which had a noble effect; and Mr. Inglesant
being pressed to oblige the company, played a descant upon
a ground bass in the Italian manner.  I should fail were I to
attempt to describe to you what I felt during the performance
of this piece.  It seemed to me as though thoughts, which I
had long sought and seemed ever and anon on the point of
realizing, were at last given me, as I listened to chords of
plaintive sweetness broken now and again by cruel and bitter
discords—a theme into which were wrought street and tavern
music and people's songs, which lively airs and catches, upon
the mere pressure of the string, trembled into pathetic and
melancholy cadences.  In these dying falls and closes all the
several parts were gathered up and brought together, yet so
that what before was joy was now translated into sorrow, and
the sorrowful transfigured to peace, as indeed the many
shifting scenes of life vary upon the stage of men's affairs.

The concert being over, Mr. Dean informed us that it was
his intention to attend the afternoon service in the Cathedral,
and Mr. Inglesant accompanying him, the physicians departed
to visit their patients, and my host and some of the clergy and
myself went to the Cathedral also, entering rather late.

After the service, in which was sung an anthem by
Dr. Nathaniel Giles, Mr. Dean retired to the vestry, and
Mr. Inglesant coming down the Church, I found myself close to him at
the west door.  We stopped opposite to the monument of
Bishop Gauden, who is depicted in his effigy holding a book,
presumably the "*Icôn Basilikè*" in his hand.  I inquired of
Mr. Inglesant what his opinions were concerning the authorship
of that work, and finding that he was disposed to converse,
we went down to the river side, the evening being remarkably
fine, and, crossing by the ferry, walked for some time in the
chapter meadows upon the farther bank.  The evening sun
was setting towards the range of the Malvern Hills, and the
towers and spires of the city were shining in its glow, and were
reflected in the water at our feet.

I said to Mr. Inglesant that I was greatly interested in the
events of the last age, in which he had been so trusted and
prominent an actor, and that I hoped to learn from him many
interesting particulars, but he informed me that he knew but
little except what the world was already possessed of.  He
said that he very deeply regretted that, during the last two
years of the life of the late King, he himself was a close
prisoner in the Tower; and was therefore prevented from
assisting in any way, or being useful to His Majesty.  He said
that there was something peculiarly affecting in the position
of the King in those days, as he was isolated from his friends,
and entirely dependant upon three or four faithful and
subordinate servants.  He said that, since his return to England,
he had made it his business to seek out several of these, and
had received much interesting information from them, which,
as he hoped it would soon be made public, he was not at
present at liberty to communicate.  Mr. Inglesant, however,
told me one incident relating to the last days of the King of
so affecting a character that, as it is too long to be repeated
here, I shall hope to inform you of when we meet together.
He said, moreover, that the fatal mistake the King made was
consenting to the death of Lord Strafford; that on many
occasions he had yielded when he should have been firm; but
that most of his misfortunes, such as reverses and indecisions
in the field, were caused by circumstances entirely beyond his
control.  There is nothing new in these opinions, but I give
them just as Mr. Inglesant stated them, lest you should think
I had not taken advantage of the opportunity presented to me.
It appeared to me that he was not very willing to discourse
upon these bygone matters of State intrigue.

Seeing this I changed the topic, and said that as Mr. Inglesant
had had much experience in the working of the Romish
system, I should be glad to know his opinion of it, and whether
he preferred it to that of the English Church.  Here I found
I was on different ground.  I saw at once beneath the veil of
polite manner, which was this man's second nature, that his
whole life and being was in this question.

"This is the supreme quarrel of all," he said.  "This is
not a dispute between sects and kingdoms; it is a conflict
within a man's own nature—nay, between the noblest parts of
man's nature arrayed against each other.  On the one side
obedience and faith, on the other, freedom and the reason.
What can come of such a conflict as this but throes and
agony?  I was not brought up by the Papists in England,
nor, indeed, did I receive my book learning from them.  I
was trained for a special purpose by one of the Jesuits, but
the course he took with me was different from that which he
would have taken with other pupils whom he did not design
for such work.  I derived my training from various sources,
and especially, instead of Aristotle, and the school-men, I was
fed upon Plato.  The difference is immense.  I was trained
to obedience and devotion; but the reason in my mind for
this conduct was that obedience and devotion and gratitude
were ideal virtues, not that they benefited the order to which
I belonged, nor the world in which I lived.  This I take to be
the difference between the Papists and myself.  The Jesuits
do not like Plato, as lately they do not like Lord Bacon.
Aristotle, as interpreted by the school-men, is more to their
mind.  According to their reading of Aristotle, all his Ethics
are subordinated to an end, and in such a system they see a
weapon which they can turn to their own purpose of maintaining
dogma, no matter at what sacrifice of the individual
conscience or reason.  This is what the Church of Rome has ever
done.  She has traded upon the highest instincts of humanity,
upon its faith and love, its passionate remorse, its self-abnegation
and denial, its imagination and yearning after the unseen.
It has based its system upon the profoundest truths, and upon
this platform it has raised a power which has, whether foreseen
by its authors or not, played the part of human tyranny, greed,
and cruelty.  To support this system it has habitually set itself
to suppress knowledge and freedom of thought, before thought
had taught itself to grapple with religious subjects, because it
foresaw that this would follow.  It has, therefore, for the sake
of preserving intact its dogma, risked the growth and welfare
of humanity, and has, in the eyes of all except those who
value this dogma above all other things, constituted itself the
enemy of the human race.  I have perhaps occupied a
position which enables me to judge somewhat advantageously
between the Churches, and my earnest advice is this.  You will
do wrong—mankind will do wrong—if it allows to drop out
of existence, merely because the position on which it stands
seems to be illogical, an agency by which the devotional
instincts of human nature are enabled to exist side by side
with the rational.  The English Church, as established by the
law of England, offers the supernatural to all who choose to
come.  It is like the Divine Being Himself, whose sun shines
alike on the evil and on the good.  Upon the altars of the
Church the divine presence hovers as surely, to those who
believe it, as it does upon the splendid altars of Rome.
Thanks to circumstances which the founders of our Church
did not contemplate, the way is open; it is barred by no
confession, no human priest.  Shall we throw this aside?  It has
been won for us by the death and torture of men like ourselves
in bodily frame, infinitely superior to some of us in self-denial
and endurance.  God knows—those who know my life know
too well—that I am not worthy to be named with such men;
nevertheless, though we cannot endure as they did, at least do
not let us needlessly throw away what they have won.  It is
not even a question of religious freedom only; it is a question
of learning and culture in every form.  I am not blind to the
peculiar dangers that beset the English Church.  I fear that
its position, standing, as it does, a mean between two extremes,
will engender indifference and sloth; and that its freedom will
prevent its preserving a discipline and organizing power,
without which any community will suffer grievous damage;
nevertheless, as a Church it is unique: if suffered to drop out of
existence, nothing like it can ever take its place."

"The Church of England," I said, seeing that Mr. Inglesant
paused, "is no doubt a compromise, and is powerless to
exert its discipline, as the events of the late troubles have
shown.  It speaks with bated assurance, while the Church of
Rome never falters in its utterance, and I confess seems to
me to have a logical position.  If there be absolute truth
revealed, there must be an inspired exponent of it, else from age
to age it could not get itself revealed to mankind."

"This is the Papist argument," said Mr. Inglesant; "there is
only one answer to it—Absolute truth is not revealed.  There
were certain dangers which Christianity could not, as it would
seem, escape.  As it brought down the sublimest teaching of
Platonism to the humblest understanding, so it was compelled,
by this very action, to reduce spiritual and abstract truth to
hard and inadequate dogma.  As it inculcated a sublime indifference
to the things of this life, and a steadfast gaze upon the
future; so, by this very means, it encouraged the growth of a
wild unreasoning superstition.  It is easy to draw pictures
of martyrs suffering the torture unmoved in the face of a
glorious hereafter; but we must acknowledge, unless we
choose to call these men absolute fiends, that it was these
selfsame ideas of the future, and its relation to this life, that
actuated their tormentors.  If these things are true,—if the
future of mankind is parcelled out between happiness and
eternal torture,—then, to ensure the safety of mankind at large,
the death and torment for a few moments of comparatively few
need excite but little regret.  From the instant that the founder
of Christianity left the earth, perhaps even before, this ghastly
spectre of superstition ranged itself side by side with the
advancing faith.  It is confined to no Church or sect; it exists
in all.  Faith in the noble, the unseen, the unselfish, by its
very nature encourages this fatal growth; and it is nourished
even by those who have sufficient strength to live above it;
because, forsooth, its removal may be dangerous to the
well-being of society at large, as though anything could be more
fatal than falsehood against the Divine Truth."

"But if absolute truth is not revealed," I said, "how can
we know the truth at all?"

"We cannot say how we know it," replied Mr. Inglesant,
"but this very ignorance proves that we can know.  We are
the creatures of this ignorance against which we rebel.  From
the earliest dawn of existence we have known nothing.  How
then could we question for a moment?  What thought should
we have other than this ignorance which we had imbibed from
our growth, but for the existence of some divine principle,
'Fons veri lucidus' within us?  The Founder of Christianity
said, 'The kingdom of God is within you.'  We may not only
know the truth, but we may live even in this life in the very
household and court of God.  We are the creatures of birth, of
ancestry, of circumstance; we are surrounded by law, physical
and psychical, and the physical very often dominates and rules
the soul.  As the chemist, the navigator, the naturalist, attain
their ends by means of law, which is beyond their power to
alter, which they cannot change, but with which they can work
in harmony, and by so doing produce definite results, so may we.
We find ourselves immersed in physical and psychical laws,
in accordance with which we act, or from which we diverge.
Whether we are free to act or not we can at least fancy that
we resolve.  Let us cheat ourselves, if it be a cheat, with this
fancy, for we shall find that by so doing we actually attain the
end we seek.  Virtue, truth, love, are not mere names; they
stand for actual qualities which are well known and recognized
among men.  These qualities are the elements of an ideal life,
of that absolute and perfect life of which our highest culture
can catch but a glimpse.  As Mr. Hobbes has traced the individual
man up to the perfect state, or Civitas, let us work still
lower, and trace the individual man from small origins to the
position he at present fills.  We shall find that he has attained
any position of vantage he may occupy by following the laws
which our instinct and conscience tell us are Divine.  Terror
and superstition are the invariable enemies of culture and
progress.  They are used as rods and bogies to frighten the
ignorant and the base, but they depress all mankind to the
same level of abject slavery.  The ways are dark and foul, and
the grey years bring a mysterious future which we cannot see.
We are like children, or men in a tennis court, and before our
conquest is half won the dim twilight comes and stops the
game; nevertheless, let us keep our places, and above all
things hold fast by the law of life we feel within.  This was
the method which Christ followed, and He won the world by
placing Himself in harmony with that law of gradual development
which the Divine Wisdom has planned.  Let us follow
in His steps and we shall attain to the ideal life; and, without
waiting for our 'mortal passage,' tread the free and spacious
streets of that Jerusalem which is above."

He spoke more to himself than to me.  The sun, which
was just setting behind the distant hills, shone with dazzling
splendour for a moment upon the towers and spires of the city
across the placid water.  Behind this fair vision were dark
rain clouds, before which gloomy background it stood in fairy
radiance and light.  For a moment it seemed a glorious city,
bathed in life and hope, full of happy people who thronged its
streets and bridge, and the margin of its gentle stream.  But
it was "breve gaudium."  Then the sunset faded, and the
ethereal vision vanished, and the landscape lay dark and chill.

"The sun is set," Mr. Inglesant said cheerfully, "but it will
rise again.  Let us go home."

I have writ much more largely in this letter than I intended,
but I have been led onward by the interest which I deny not
I feel in this man.  When we meet I will tell you more.

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   Your ever true friend,
      VALENTINE LEE.

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THE END.

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*Printed by* R. & R. CLARK, *Edinburgh*.

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