The Hill of Venus
herself--who must subdue men for men's sake,--she does reject them."
And linking his arm in that of Francesco, the Prior drew him back into
the dusk of the deserted chapel and pointing to the form of the
crucified Christ above the high-altar said:
"Look up! Nails would not have held him on the cross, had Love not
held him there!"
And Francesco sank upon his knees in a paroxysm of grief. The Prior
watched the scalding tears that streamed down the pale, wan face;
then, when Francesco had sobbed himself into a state bordering almost
on apathy, the Prior retraced his steps and left him to himself.
The moonlight streamed through the windows, and lay in broad patches
upon the marble floor. Francesco staggered at last from his kneeling
posture. Keeping in the shadow of the pillars, he crept softly towards
the chancel and paused at the altar. There he knelt again. Deep
silence reigned. Then came deep, heavy, tearless sobs. He was wringing
his hands as one in bodily pain.
The sound of his own voice re-echoing through and dying away among the
arches of the roof filled him with fantastic terror as the phantom of
some unknown presence. For a moment he swayed and would have fallen.
It seemed to him as if he had seen Ilaria's face in the purple dusk.
His heart stood still.
He stared spellbound. But it had vanished. He was conscious of nothing
save a sickening pressure of the blood, that seemed as if it would
tear his breast asunder, then it surged back, tingling and burning,
through his body.
It was on the following day.
The ceremony had been accomplished.
Francesco stood before the high altar among the monks and acolytes and
read the Introitus aloud in steady tones. All the cathedral was a
blaze of light and color, from the holiday dresses of the peasants to
the pillars with their flaming draperies and wreaths of flowers. The
religious orders from the adjoining monasteries with their candles and
torches, the companies of the parishes, with their crosses and
pennons, lighted up the dim side-chapels; in the aisles the silken
folds of processional banners drooped their gilded staves and tassels,
glinting under the arches. The surplices of the choristers gleamed,
rainbow-tinted, beneath the colored windows; the sunlight lay on the
chancel floor in checkered stains of orange and purple and green.
Behind the altar hung a shimmering veil of silver tissue, and against
the veil and the decorations and the altar-light, the Prior's figure
stood out in its trailing white robe like a marble statue that had
come to life.
The light of a hundred candles shone in the deep still eyes about him,
eyes that had no answering gleam. At the elevation of the Host the
Prior descended from his platform and knelt before the altar. There
was a strange, even stillness in his movement. The sea of human life
and motion seemed to surge around and below him and die away in the
stillness. A censer was brought to Francesco, he raised his hand with
the action of an automaton and put the incense into the vessel,
looking neither to the right nor left. Then he too knelt, swinging the
censer slowly to and fro. He took from the Prior the sacred golden
sun, while the choristers burst into a peal of triumphal melody:
Pange linqua gloriosi
Corporis mysterium.
Sanguinisque pretiosi
Quem in mundi pretium
Fructus ventris gloriosi
Rex effudit gentium.
Francesco stood above the monks, motionless under the white canopy,
holding the Eucharist aloft with steady hands. Two by two passed the
monks, with lighted candles held left to right, with banners and
torches, with crosses and images and flags, they swept slowly down the
broad nave past the garlanded pillars, the sound of their chanting
dying into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing of new and newer
voices, as the unending stream flowed on and yet new footsteps echoed
down the incense-laden nave.
One by one the visiting brotherhoods passed with their white shrouds
and veiled faces, the brothers of the Misericordia, black from head to
foot, their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in their masks;
the mendicant friars with their dusky cowls and bare brown feet, the
russet Benedictines and the white-robed grave Dominicans. They all
bore testimony to the irrevocable step the son of the Grand Master had
taken. A monk followed, holding up a great cross between two acolytes
with gleaming candles. On and on the procession passed, form
succeeding to form and color to color. Long white surplices, grave and
seemly, gave place to gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials. The
roses were strewn, the procession filed out.
When the chant had ceased, Francesco passed between the silent rows of
the monks, where they knelt, each man in his place, the lighted
candles uplifted. And he saw their hungry eyes fixed on the sacred
body that he bore. To right and left the white-robed acolytes knelt
with their censers, as peal after peal of song rang out, resounding
under the arches, echoing along the vaulted roof.
Wearily, mechanically, Francesco went through the remaining part of
his consecration, which had no longer any meaning for him, prayer
eluding him as a vapor. After the Benediction he covered his face. The
voice of the monk reading aloud the indulgences, swelled and sank like
a far-off murmur from a world to which he belonged no more.
CHAPTER IV
THE CALL
During the months that followed, it had become Francesco's habit to
spend most of his leisure time in loneliness on the spot whence he had
beheld the passing of Conradino's iron-serried hosts and where he had
received Ilaria's message. The monks rarely visited the place, and
Francesco's solitude was undisturbed. He never prayed, nor even held a
religious thought while there; but the place was well chosen for
meditation. Situated upon the very summit of the hill, whose slopes
were bathed in purest air and sunlight, his gaze could easily traverse
the intervening space and follow the shining course of the river down
to the blue waters of the lake of Nemi, many miles away. Following the
same direction still, till vision was repulsed by the barrier of
shadowy hills, one knew that just beyond lay the sunny Apulian land,
the spot to which Francesco's eyes ever turned; towards which once in
a passion of rebellion, he had strained his arms, then let them drop
again, helpless at his sides, acknowledging his defeat.
Autumn and winter had come and gone. Again spring was in the land, and
with it at last an evening came; it was Saturday, a night of devotions
and special Aves at the cloisters. The holy office was still in
progress, and Francesco, kneeling in the last row of full-vowed
brethren, was striving to turn his thoughts from useless unhappiness,
watching the play of the candlelight over the high-altar. Thus he
failed to hear the opening of the outer door, and the rapid steps that
passed and returned by the corridor. It was but a lay brother, and not
a monk turned his head. But when a murmured message was delivered in
the Vestibulum, when the jingle of chain-armor and the heavy tread of
nailed feet came echoing towards them, there was a general lifting of
eyes, a craning of necks and a perceptible increase in the speed of
the responses.
The services ended, the monks betook themselves to their
confessionals. A small number still lingered about the door, waiting
the possible arrival of Romuald, the Prior, of whom they might
incidentally learn the title and quality of the stranger. Francesco
had retired into a dim corner, seemingly indifferent to the advent of
the visitor. This appearance was not so much affectation, as a great
struggle to crush back the hope that would sometimes slumber, but
never die, within his breast.
Presently, however, there was a stir in the arch of the corridor,
caused by the advent of one of the Prior's attendants, who stopped
still to look about the chapel. Finally, discovering what he sought,
he approached Francesco, beckoning to him to follow him.
Francesco rose and came forward, his knees shaking, with wildly
beating heart. He followed his guide without looking to right or left,
walking very slowly, that he might regain something of his
self-possession. Had the summons come at last? Concerning its import
he did not speculate, so it sent him into a sphere of action, away
from this self-centred life at the cloisters, the very calm of which
offered no haven for the storm-tossed soul.
When he entered the Prior's presence, his manner was impassively
expectant. Romuald rose slowly from his place, an overpowering, almost
conscience-stricken pity in his heart, which refused to come to his
lips, as on the face of the young monk there was unveiled at last all
the majesty of the bitter loneliness which he had suffered so long and
so silently.
When the Prior turned to Francesco, his words dropped monotonously
from his lips.
"A messenger has arrived from His Holiness, Pope Clement, summoning
you to Rome! You will depart on the morrow!"
Francesco bowed his head in silence and withdrew. As one in a trance
he went out into the empty corridor. At last the call had come: To
Rome,--to Rome! He would leave the dreary solitude of these
mountain-heights, leave their purity and sanctity and peace for the
strife and turmoil of a fevered world. To Rome,--to Rome! His pulses
beat faster at the thought. Thither had those preceded him, among whom
he had spent the golden days of his youth; thither she had gone whose
image filled the dark and desolate chambers of his heart; now lost to
him for aye and evermore! And thither Conradino was marching with his
iron hosts to claim the dominion of the Southlands, his inheritance,
his very own! To Rome,--to Rome! Once it had been the dearest wish of
his soul. Now an unspeakable dread seized him with the summons. He was
the bondsman of the Church,--her shackles were pitiless. Every feeling
must be stifled, the voice of the heart hushed in her grim service.--
Francesco entered his cell; a moment later the cell was in darkness.
But could Francesco's open eyes have served the purpose of a lantern,
a dozen monks might have read by their light, unceasingly, till
matins.
CHAPTER V
THE DELLS OF VALLOMBROSA
It was a windless morning. Stillness and sunlight lay upon the world,
when on the back of his own good steed, which had seen heavy service
since last he rode it, Francesco bade farewell to the cloisters of
Monte Cassino. Though hampered by his monk's habit, he sat in the
saddle with the poise of a nobleman, as he gathered up the reins. With
a cut upon his horse's neck and a word in the pointed black ear, he
was off at a swinging gallop, out and away through the open gate, past
the walls of his prison, giving never a thought to the gaze from
twenty pairs of curious eyes which followed him until he was out of
sight.
Free of the cloister! Oh, the rare intoxication of that thought! And
quickly upon it came the memory of that other departure, when he had
turned his back on the south, had strained his eyes towards the
setting sun. Then spring had awakened in the land, everything was
promise, save the life upon which he was entering. The spring had
gone, and with the spring the happiness of his life. A summer
landscape stretched before him; and he rode towards the setting sun.
Francesco rode slowly enough. The fresh, free air came joyously to his
nostrils. His eyes, less sunken than they had looked for months,
though he knew it not, were seeking out those small tokens of beauty,
which friendly nature gladly exhibits to so devoted a seeker. Two
shrines had he already passed without a Pater Noster, filled with a
quick, delirious happiness, which rose continually from his heart to
his lips.