The Gadfly, E. L. Voynich [best books to read for self development .txt] 📗
- Author: E. L. Voynich
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up together; our mothers were friends—and I
—envied him, because I saw that he loves her,
too, and because—because–-”
“My son,” said Father Cardi, speaking after a
moment’s silence, slowly and gravely, “you have
still not told me all; there is more than this upon
your soul.”
“Father, I–-” He faltered and broke off
again.
The priest waited silently.
“I envied him because the society—the Young
Italy—that I belong to––”
“Yes?”
“Intrusted him with a work that I had hoped
—would be given to me, that I had thought myself
—specially adapted for.”
“What work?”
“The taking in of books—political books—from
the steamers that bring them—and finding a hiding
place for them—in the town––”
“And this work was given by the party to your
rival?”
“To Bolla—and I envied him.”
“And he gave you no cause for this feeling?
You do not accuse him of having neglected the
mission intrusted to him?”
“No, father; he has worked bravely and devotedly;
he is a true patriot and has deserved nothing
but love and respect from me.”
Father Cardi pondered.
“My son, if there is within you a new light, a
dream of some great work to be accomplished for
your fellow-men, a hope that shall lighten the burdens
of the weary and oppressed, take heed how
you deal with the most precious blessing of God.
All good things are of His giving; and of His giving
is the new birth. If you have found the way
of sacrifice, the way that leads to peace; if you have
joined with loving comrades to bring deliverance
to them that weep and mourn in secret; then see
to it that your soul be free from envy and passion
and your heart as an altar where the sacred fire
burns eternally. Remember that this is a high and
holy thing, and that the heart which would receive
it must be purified from every selfish thought.
This vocation is as the vocation of a priest; it is
not for the love of a woman, nor for the moment
of a fleeting passion; it is FOR GOD AND THE PEOPLE;
it is NOW AND FOREVER.”
“Ah!” Arthur started and clasped his hands;
he had almost burst out sobbing at the motto.
“Father, you give us the sanction of the Church!
Christ is on our side–-”
“My son,” the priest answered solemnly,
“Christ drove the moneychangers out of the
Temple, for His House shall be called a House
of Prayer, and they had made it a den of thieves.”
After a long silence, Arthur whispered tremulously:
“And Italy shall be His Temple when they are
driven out–-”
He stopped; and the soft answer came back:
“‘The earth and the fulness thereof are mine,
saith the Lord.’”
CHAPTER V.
THAT afternoon Arthur felt the need of a long
walk. He intrusted his luggage to a fellow-student
and went to Leghorn on foot.
The day was damp and cloudy, but not cold; and
the low, level country seemed to him fairer than he
had ever known it to look before. He had a sense
of delight in the soft elasticity of the wet grass
under his feet and in the shy, wondering eyes of
the wild spring flowers by the roadside. In a
thorn-acacia bush at the edge of a little strip of
wood a bird was building a nest, and flew up as he
passed with a startled cry and a quick fluttering of
brown wings.
He tried to keep his mind fixed upon the devout
meditations proper to the eve of Good Friday.
But thoughts of Montanelli and Gemma got so
much in the way of this devotional exercise that at
last he gave up the attempt and allowed his fancy
to drift away to the wonders and glories of the
coming insurrection, and to the part in it that he
had allotted to his two idols. The Padre was to
be the leader, the apostle, the prophet before
whose sacred wrath the powers of darkness were
to flee, and at whose feet the young defenders of
Liberty were to learn afresh the old doctrines,
the old truths in their new and unimagined
significance.
And Gemma? Oh, Gemma would fight at
the barricades. She was made of the clay from
which heroines are moulded; she would be the
perfect comrade, the maiden undefiled and unafraid,
of whom so many poets have dreamed. She
would stand beside him, shoulder to shoulder,
rejoicing under the winged death-storm; and they
would die together, perhaps in the moment of
victory—without doubt there would be a victory.
Of his love he would tell her nothing; he would say
no word that might disturb her peace or spoil her
tranquil sense of comradeship. She was to him a
holy thing, a spotless victim to be laid upon the
altar as a burnt-offering for the deliverance of the
people; and who was he that he should enter into
the white sanctuary of a soul that knew no other
love than God and Italy?
God and Italy–-Then came a sudden drop
from the clouds as he entered the great, dreary
house in the “Street of Palaces,” and Julia’s butler,
immaculate, calm, and politely disapproving as
ever, confronted him upon the stairs.
“Good-evening, Gibbons; are my brothers in?”
“Mr. Thomas is in, sir; and Mrs. Burton. They
are in the drawing room.”
Arthur went in with a dull sense of oppression.
What a dismal house it was! The flood of life
seemed to roll past and leave it always just above
high-water mark. Nothing in it ever changed—
neither the people, nor the family portraits, nor the
heavy furniture and ugly plate, nor the vulgar
ostentation of riches, nor the lifeless aspect of
everything. Even the flowers on the brass stands
looked like painted metal flowers that had never
known the stirring of young sap within them in
the warm spring days. Julia, dressed for dinner,
and waiting for visitors in the drawing room which
was to her the centre of existence, might have sat
for a fashion-plate just as she was, with her wooden
smile and flaxen ringlets, and the lap-dog on her
knee.
“How do you do, Arthur?” she said stiffly, giving
him the tips of her fingers for a moment, and
then transferring them to the more congenial contact
of the lap-dog’s silken coat. “I hope you
are quite well and have made satisfactory progress
at college.”
Arthur murmured the first commonplace that
he could think of at the moment, and relapsed into
uncomfortable silence. The arrival of James, in his
most pompous mood and accompanied by a stiff,
elderly shipping-agent, did not improve matters;
and when Gibbons announced that dinner was
served, Arthur rose with a little sigh of relief.
“I won’t come to dinner, Julia. If you’ll excuse
me I will go to my room.”
“You’re overdoing that fasting, my boy,” said
Thomas; “I am sure you’ll make yourself ill.”
“Oh, no! Good-night.”
In the corridor Arthur met the under housemaid
and asked her to knock at his door at six in
the morning.
“The signorino is going to church?”
“Yes. Good-night, Teresa.”
He went into his room. It had belonged to his
mother, and the alcove opposite the window had
been fitted up during her long illness as an oratory.
A great crucifix on a black pedestal occupied the
middle of the altar; and before it hung a little
Roman lamp. This was the room where she had
died. Her portrait was on the wall beside the
bed; and on the table stood a china bowl which
had been hers, filled with a great bunch of her
favourite violets. It was just a year since her
death; and the Italian servants had not forgotten
her.
He took out of his portmanteau a framed picture,
carefully wrapped up. It was a crayon portrait
of Montanelli, which had come from Rome
only a few days before. He was unwrapping this
precious treasure when Julia’s page brought in a
supper-tray on which the old Italian cook, who had
served Gladys before the harsh, new mistress came,
had placed such little delicacies as she considered
her dear signorino might permit himself to eat
without infringing the rules of the Church.
Arthur refused everything but a piece of bread;
and the page, a nephew of Gibbons, lately arrived
from England, grinned significantly as he carried
out the tray. He had already joined the Protestant
camp in the servants’ hall.
Arthur went into the alcove and knelt down
before the crucifix, trying to compose his mind to
the proper attitude for prayer and meditation.
But this he found difficult to accomplish. He had,
as Thomas said, rather overdone the Lenten privations,
and they had gone to his head like strong
wine. Little quivers of excitement went down his
back, and the crucifix swam in a misty cloud before
his eyes. It was only after a long litany, mechanically
repeated, that he succeeded in recalling his
wandering imagination to the mystery of the
Atonement. At last sheer physical weariness
conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves, and
he lay down to sleep in a calm and peaceful mood,
free from all unquiet or disturbing thoughts.
He was fast asleep when a sharp, impatient
knock came at his door. “Ah, Teresa!” he
thought, turning over lazily. The knock was
repeated, and he awoke with a violent start.
“Signorino! signorino!” cried a man’s voice in
Italian; “get up for the love of God!”
Arthur jumped out of bed.
“What is the matter? Who is it?”
“It’s I, Gian Battista. Get up, quick, for Our
Lady’s sake!”
Arthur hurriedly dressed and opened the door.
As he stared in perplexity at the coachman’s pale,
terrified face, the sound of tramping feet and
clanking metal came along the corridor, and he
suddenly realized the truth.
“For me?” he asked coolly.
“For you! Oh, signorino, make haste! What
have you to hide? See, I can put–-”
“I have nothing to hide. Do my brothers
know?”
The first uniform appeared at the turn of the
passage.
“The signor has been called; all the house is
awake. Alas! what a misfortune—what a terrible
misfortune! And on Good Friday! Holy Saints,
have pity!”
Gian Battista burst into tears. Arthur moved
a few steps forward and waited for the gendarmes,
who came clattering along, followed by a shivering
crowd of servants in various impromptu costumes.
As the soldiers surrounded Arthur, the
master and mistress of the house brought up the
rear of this strange procession; he in dressing
gown and slippers, she in a long peignoir, with her
hair in curlpapers.
“There is, sure, another flood toward, and these
couples are coming to the ark! Here comes a
pair of very strange beasts!”
The quotation flashed across Arthur’s mind as
he looked at the grotesque figures. He checked
a laugh with a sense of its jarring incongruity—this
was a time for worthier thoughts. “Ave Maria,
Regina Coeli!” he whispered, and turned his eyes
away, that the bobbing of Julia’s curlpapers might
not again tempt him to levity.
“Kindly explain to me,” said Mr. Burton, approaching
the officer of gendarmerie, “what is the
meaning of this violent intrusion into a private
house? I warn you that, unless you are prepared
to furnish me with a satisfactory explanation, I
shall feel bound to complain to the English
Ambassador.”
“I presume,” replied the officer stiffly, “that
you will recognize this as a sufficient explanation;
the English Ambassador certainly will.” He
pulled out a warrant for the arrest of Arthur
Burton, student of philosophy, and, handing it to
James, added coldly:
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