The Hill of Venus
themselves from distant wildernesses into the gloomy vales below,
mingled with the chant from remote convents.
How long he had stood there, endeavoring to fix some purpose in his
life, something that would fill out the emptiness of his existence and
give him the strength to bear up under the burden of his destiny,
Francesco could not have told, when a vague glittering movement on the
opposite mountain slopes attracted his gaze, a glitter that told of an
armed array marching and riding among the hills. Even the woods seemed
peopled with shadowy forms, slowly emerging into the bright light of
high-noon, while out of the stillness there leaped the cry of a horn,
hawberks glimmered and armor shone. Beyond the armed array the
mountains towered solemn and stupendous, fringed as with aureoles of
lambent flame. The horsemen came from the North; there was a swirl of
thought in Francesco's brain, then his hand went to his heart:
Conradino and his iron hosts were marching on Rome!
And he, who had dreamed of espousing at some day the cause of the last
of the Hohenstauffen, who had hoped, by some great effort, to win the
crown of life and Ilaria's love, stood here on the summit of Monte
Cassino, separated by mountains, chasms and torrents from the
glistening throng, which wound in one long, sinuous line towards the
ravines of Camaldoli, separated by a whole world from the realization
of the hopes nurtured in his childhood. He was the bondsman of the
Church,--the bondsman of the Pope.
It was an indisputable fact; he was being caught in constantly ever
narrowing circles.
Many questions would hourly assail him, questions like the hill-towns
of Umbria, built on the brink of precipices, walled round with
barriers of unhewn rock, seeming so near from the ravine below, where
the wanderer sees every roof, every cypress tree, every pillared
balcony, but which he cannot approach by scaling the unscalable, sheer
precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, circling up and down
endless undulations of vineyard and oakwood, coming forever upon a
tantalizing glimpse of towers and walls, forever seemingly close to
the heights above him, yet forever equally distant, till, at last, by
a sharp unexpected turn of the gradually winding road, he stands
before the gates.
Thus was it with his own isolated soul, a soul unaffected by any
other, unlinked in any work, or feeling, or suffering with any any
other soul,--nay even with any physical thing.
Thus it stood between himself and Ilaria. Thus they would forever
remain alone, never move, never change, never cease absorbing through
all eternity that which the eye cannot see.
A soul purged perchance, of every human desire or will, isolated from
all human affection, raised above the limits of time and space,
hovering in a limbo of endless desire, twisting mystical half
reasoning away from the peace-hungry soul!
What a fate was his! What a vortex of passions he had been thrust
into!
In the streets of Rome, Guelphs and Ghibellines were fighting. To
southward the Provencals ravaged the land. All over Italy the
free-lance companies lay waste and burned. The coarse religion of the
cloister had no uplifting tendency. It was rather a perpetual smart.
The first fervor of the great Franciscan and Dominican movements had
long been spent. Nothing, save the ill-regulated enthusiasm of
heretical sects, had arisen to take its place. In monasteries and
convents scandals were almost the order of the day. It was true, the
torch of Franciscan faith still passed privately from hand to hand.
Some of the ablest men of the Church were discussing the daring tenets
of direct Franciscan inspiration. Representatives of all phases of
mediaeval thought mingled with the adherents of a mystic Oriental
trend.
Nevertheless, Francesco, in the dead of night, found himself waking to
the sense of a dreadful loss and loneliness. He had entered a hushed
world, where human and earthly values alike were ignored or forgotten,
and the drama of the soul was all in all. The demon of disillusionment
which had beset him ever since he had ascended the heights of Monte
Cassino began to unfold his gloomy wings over the far horizon of his
soul.
No one knew, save himself and perhaps he not fully, how deep a
yearning for guidance underlay his sensitive distaste for the control
of men. His was a nature that craved to follow, as others craved to
lead, but which submitted itself reluctantly, and never at the call of
convention.
Devastated Italy rose before his eyes,--nay, the whole world opened to
the inner vision, one great battle-field. Unconsciously his eyes
followed the direction of the horsemen. Their vanguard had long
disappeared in the dusk of distant forest-aisles; still Swabia's
iron-serried ranks were pouring from the sheltering boughs of the oaks
above San Geminiano.--
Evening drew on apace.
A procession, with its gay dresses and colored tapers gleaming like a
rainbow against the verdant hills along the curving, climbing road
from San Vitale, attracted Francesco's gaze, and with it a sudden dull
pain contracted his heart as he strained his eyes towards the valley.
It seemed like a bridal procession in its pomp, its splendor. A woman
bestriding a palfrey rode gaily by the side of a man conspicuous in
dark velvet. Directly beneath where he stood, she suddenly raised her
head, as if she had divined his presence and desired a witness to her
glory.
With a low cry of pain Francesco drew back.
At that moment, notwithstanding the height, he had recognized the
magically fair features of Ilaria Caselli.
Like an animal hunted to death, that wishes to die in its lair, he was
about to withdraw, when he faced what appeared to be a peasant who had
come with provisions to the cloister.
As he saw the young monk he paused with a salutation, then,
approaching him, he whispered:
"Have you heard the news? Messer Raniero Frangipani and Madonna Ilaria
Caselli are passing on their bridal journey to Rome!"
Francesco's face was so pale that no earthly tint seemed to have
remained in it. Only the large eyes gave evidence of life.
"You come to me from her?" he questioned to the peasant.
"She bade me tell you that from no motive of coercion,--but of her own
free will and choice, the Frangipani's proposal had been accepted!"
Francesco gave a sudden cry like one who leaps over a precipice, and,
falling on his knees, buried his face in his hands.
When he roused himself from the stupor which benumbed his limbs the
peasant had disappeared, with him the bridal procession and the
Swabian contingents of Conradino.
The full moon gazed down upon him through the great silence of the
mountain-world, and a thousand pines thrust up their midnight spears
towards the stars.
CHAPTER III
TONSURE AND THORN
The following weeks dragged along in hopeless monotony. The last night
of Francesco's novitiate had come. There would not be a loophole of
escape for him now. On the morrow, the eternal vows were to pass his
lips. This night he was to spend in the chapel of the saint on his
knees, supposedly in prayer. It was a solitary vigil, for no companion
could be granted him. A dangerous thing for a novice it was, had the
monks but realized it:--putting one for ten hours alone at the mercy
of his thoughts. And Francesco shuddered as they left him, kneeling
upon the stones before the solitary shrine.
Could he have seen himself he would have staggered! How old and
emaciated, shrunken and hopeless he looked, as he knelt there in his
ungainly garments. The face which had formerly borne an open
expression of happiness, was hard now, unreadable and impassive. His
hands, once white and well cared for, had become almost transparent.
As he held his body straight from the knees upward, it was difficult
to perceive how much weaker this body had grown. There was a
pathetically haughty poise to the head still; but the skin was
colorless.
The love for Ilaria, her witch-like face, her witch-like eyes, had
remained with him. He had hoped against hope, that by some human, or
divine interposition, the yoke about to be imposed upon him would be
shattered, that it would prove but a period of probation, a horrid
nightmare forsooth, which would be dispelled by some divine ray, give
him back to earth, to life, to love, for which his heart yearned with
a feverish longing that was fast sapping his strength. His prayers had
been in vain: the moments were fleeting fast towards the consummation
of his destiny.
It suffered him no longer in the incense-saturated gloom of the
chapel. Escaping from his solitary vigil he traversed the courtyard
and almost unconsciously reached the spot whence on the night of his
arrival at the cloisters he had looked down upon the mountain world of
Central Italy.
Above, space soared. Glancing below, he was seized as with a sudden
dizziness. All idea of limitation seemed to have ceased in this
infinity, for he looked down upon a firmament of cloud. And even as he
looked, it was vanishing dream-wise, revealing in widening rifts the
world, that gave it birth. A world,--how flat for all its serrated
mountain ranges, how insignificant for all its far horizons, compared
with that immensity of the starry vault above.
As he gazed with wide, longing eyes, slowly the consciousness of
physical existence seemed to widen, till it extended to the horizon
and in the very extension was transfigured. Francesco tried to summon
images of devotion. But the images mocked the vast concave. He only
saw the deep eyes of Ilaria Caselli. Was not the universe his prayer?
Sharp summits, glistening and far, were better cries of the soul than
he could use.
Long he stood there on the moon-steeped height and gazed to southward
where the winding road led into the plains of Apulia to Avellino, the
cradle of his destiny. And as he gazed, thoughts, or impressions
rather, began to float through his spirit Heaven, like fleecy clouds
which, having withdrawn to the horizon begin to return slowly,
wandering as it seemed at random, yet shepherded steadily by the wind
towards the central upper deeps of the sky.
Faint, clear, a melody, recalling things long left and lost, throbbed
through the silence of the night. He listened, then gazed, spellbound.
Below him the swift waters of the Liris were smitten to tawny light.
Son of the earth once more, he was once more slave of his thoughts.
Far above a world of compromise, conflict and delusion, a world that
was soon to be upheaved by mortal strife, his destiny had lifted him
into this high sphere of purity and peace. No purity save in
isolation. Yet the mass of men were never meant to climb. Should he
take his patient place with the slow, ascending throng,--would not the
old story repeat itself, the old turmoil, conflict, failure?
Turning suddenly, Francesco gave a start.
By his side stood the Prior.
He was not slow to read the distress in the face of the youth.
"This great peace of the world above and about us--does it not
reconcile your soul?" the Prior spoke with a slow sweep of his hand.
"Is there anything greater than isolation above the herd?"
A great bitterness welled up in Francesco's heart, and his eyes filled
with tears, as he turned to his interlocutor with the protest of his
soul.
"You would reject the very affirmations of existence! You cry to the
imperious demands of Nature to create, to propagate, a mere perpetual
No! Let those like-minded betake themselves to monasteries and to
cells. As for myself--"
He broke off with a sob. Had he not lost the clue to Life?
The Prior regarded him quietly.
"The Church does not discourage the actions of the individual,--as
long as they do not conflict with the eternal laws. As for