CHAPTER IX. THE ICONOCLAST
It was a week later before we returned to the subject.
Meanwhile, the good priest of Casi and Leocadia had departed, bearingwith them a princely reward from the silent, kindly eyed Galeotto.
To tend me there remained only the boy Beppo; and after my long sixmonths of lenten fare there followed now a period of feasting that beganto trouble me as my strength returned. When, finally, on the seventhday, I was able to stand, and, by leaning on Gervasio's arm, to reachthe door of the hut and to look out upon the sweet spring landscape andthe green tents that Galeotto's followers had pitched for themselves inthe dell below my platform, I vowed that I would make an end of brothsand capons' breasts and trout and white bread and red wine and all suchsucculences.
But when I spoke so to Gervasio, he grew very grave.
"There has been enough of this, Agostino," said he. "You have gonenear your death; and had you died, you had died a suicide and had beendamned--deserving it for your folly if for naught else."
I looked at him with surprise and reproach. "How, Fra Gervasio?" I said.
"How?" he answered. "Do you conceive that I am to be fooled by tales offights with Satan in the night and the marks of the fiend's clawsupon your body? Is this your sense of piety, to add to the other foulimpostures of this place by allowing such a story to run the breadth ofthe country-side?"
"Foul impostures?" I echoed, aghast. "Fra Gervasio, your words aresacrilege."
"Sacrilege?" he cried, and laughed bitterly. "Sacrilege? And what ofthat?" And he flung out a stern, rigid, accusing arm at the image of St.Sebastian in its niche.
"You think because it did not bleed..." I began.
"It did not bleed," he cut in, "because you are not a knave. That is theonly reason. This man who was here before you was an impious rogue.He was no priest. He was a follower of Simon Mage, trafficking in holythings, battening upon the superstition of poor humble folk. A blackvillain who is dead--dead and damned, for he was not allowed time whenthe end took him to confess his ghastly sin of sacrilege and the moneythat he had extorted by his simonies."
"My God! Fra Gervasio, what do you say? How dare you say so much?
"Where is the money that he took to build his precious bridge?" he askedme sharply. "Did you find any when you came hither? No. I'll take oaththat you did not. A little longer, and this brigand had grown rich andhad vanished in the night--carried off by the Devil, or borne away torealms of bliss by the angels, the poor rustics would have said."
Amazed at his vehemence, I sank to a tree-bole that stood near the doorto do the office of a stool.
"But he gave alms!" I cried, my senses all bewildered.
"Dust in the eyes of fools. No more than that. That image--" his scornbecame tremendous--"is an impious fraud, Agostino."
Could the monstrous thing that he suggested be possible? Could any manbe so lost to all sense of God as to perpetrate such a deed as thatwithout fear that the lightnings of Heaven would blast him?
I asked the question. Gervasio smiled.
"Your notions of God are heathen notions," he said more quietly."You confound Him with Jupiter the Thunderer. But He does not use Hislightnings as did the father of Olympus. And yet--reflect! Consider themanner in which that brigand met his death."
"But... but..." I stammered. And then, quite suddenly, I stopped short,and listened. "Hark, Fra Gervasio! Do you not hear it?"
"Hear it? Hear what?"
"The music--the angelic melodies! And you can say that this place isa foul imposture; this holy image an impious fraud! And you a priest!Listen! It is a sign to warn you against stubborn unbelief."
He listened, with frowning brows, a moment; then he smiled.
"Angelic melodies!" he echoed with gentlest scorn. "By what snares doesthe Devil delude men, using even suggested holiness for his purpose!That, boy--that is no more than the dripping of water into little wellsof different depths, producing different notes. It is in there, in somecave in the mountain where the Bagnanza springs from the earth."
I listened, half disillusioned by his explanation, yet fearing that mysenses were too slavishly obeying his suggestion. "The proof of that?The proof!" I cried.
"The proof is that you have never heard it after heavy rain, or whilethe river was swollen."
That answer shattered my last illusion. I looked back upon the timeI had spent there, upon the despair that had beset me when the musicceased, upon the joy that had been mine when again I heard it,accepting it always as a sign of grace. And it was as he said. Not myunworthiness, but the rain, had ever silenced it. In memory I ran overthe occasions, and so clearly did I perceive the truth of this, that Imarvelled the coincidence should not earlier have discovered it to me.
Moreover, now that my illusions concerning it were gone, the sound wasclearly no more than he had said. I recognized its nature. It might haveintrigued a sane man for a day or a night. But it could never longerhave deceived any but one whose mind was become fevered with fanaticecstasy.
Then I looked again at the image in the niche, and the pendulum of myfaith was suddenly checked in its counter-swing. About that image therecould be no delusions. The whole country-side had witnessed the miracleof the bleeding, and it had wrought cures, wondrous cures, among thefaithful. They could not all have been deceived. Besides, from thewounds in the breast there were still the brown signs of the lastmanifestation.
But when I had given some utterance to these thoughts Gervasio for onlyanswer stooped and picked up a wood-man's axe that stood against thewall. With this he went straight towards the image.
"Fra Gervasio!" I cried, leaping to my feet, a premonition of what hewas about turning me cold with horror. "Stay!" I almost screamed.
But too late. My answer was a crashing blow. The next instant, as I sankback to my seat and covered my face, the two halves of the image fell atmy feet, flung there by the friar.
"Look!" he bade me in a roar.
Fearfully I looked. I saw. And yet I could not believe.
He came quickly back, and picked up the two halves. "The oracle ofDelphi was not more impudently worked," he said. "Observe this sponge,these plates of metal that close down upon it and exert the pressurenecessary to send the liquid with which it is laden oozing forth." As hespoke he tore out the fiendish mechanism. "And see now how ingeniouslyit was made to work--by pressure upon this arrow in the flank."
There was a burst of laughter from the door. I looked up, startled, tofind Galeotto standing at my elbow. So engrossed had I been that I hadnever heard his soft approach over the turf.
"Body of Bacchus!" said he. "Here is Gervasio become an image breaker tosome purpose. What now of your miraculous saint, Agostino?"
My answer was first a groan over my shattered illusion, and then adeep-throated curse at the folly that had made a mock of me.
The friar set a hand upon my shoulder. "You see, Agostino, that yourexcursions into holy things do not promise well. Away with you, boy! Offwith this hypocrite robe, and get you out into the world to do usefulwork for God and man. Had your heart truly called you to the priesthood,I had been the first to have guided your steps thither. But your mindupon such matters has been warped, and your views are all false; youconfound mysticism with true religion, and mouldering in a hermitagewith the service of God. How can you serve God here? Is not the worldGod's world that you must shun it as if the Devil had fashioned it? Go,I say--and I say it with the authority of the orders that I bear--go andserve man, and thus shall you best serve God. All else are but snares tosuch a nature as yours."
I looked at him helplessly, and from him to Galeotto who stood there,his black brows knit; watching me with intentness as if great issueshung upon my answer. And Gervasio's words touched in my mind some chordof memory. They were words that I had heard before--or something verylike them, something whose import was the same.
Then I groaned miserably and took my head in my hands. "Whither am Ito go?" I cried. "What place is there in all th
e world for me? I am anoutcast. My very home is held against me. Whither, then, shall I go?"
"If that is all that troubles you," said Galeotto, his tone unctuouslyhumorous, "why we will ride to Pagliano."
I leapt at the word--literally leapt to my feet, and stared at him withblazing eyes.
"Why, what ails him now?" quoth he.
Well might he ask. That name--Pagliano--had stirred my memory soviolently, that of a sudden as in a flash I had seen again the strangevision that visited my delirium; I had seen again the inviting eyes,the beckoning hands, and heard again the gentle voice saying, "Come toPagliano! Come soon!"
And now I knew, too, where I had heard words urging my return to theworld that were of the same import as those which Gervasio used.
What magic was there here? What wizardry was at play? I knew--for theyhad told me--that it had been that cavalier who had visited me, that manwhose name was Ettore de' Cavalcanti, who had borne news to them of onewho was strangely like what Giovanni d'Anguissola had been. But Paglianohad never yet been mentioned.
"Where is Pagliano?" I asked.
"In Lombardy--in the Milanes," replied Galeotto.
"It is the home of Cavalcanti."
"You are faint, Agostino," cried Gervasio, with a sudden solicitude, andput an arm about my shoulders as I staggered.
"No, no," said I. "It is nothing. Tell me--" And I paused almost afraidto put the question, lest the answer should dash my sudden hope. For itseemed to me that in this place of false miracles, one true miracle atleast had been wrought; if it should be proved so indeed, then wouldI accept it as a sign that my salvation lay indeed in the world. Ifnot...
"Tell me," I began again; "this Cavalcanti has a daughter. She was withhim upon that day when he came here. What is her name?"
Galeotto looked at me out of narrowing eyes.
"Why, what has that to do with anything?" quoth Gervasio.
"More than you think. Answer me, then. What is her name?"
"Her name is Bianca," said Caleotto.
Something within me seemed to give way, so that I fell to laughingfoolishly as women laugh who are on the verge of tears. By an effort Iregained my self-control.
"It is very well," I said. "I will ride with you to Pagliano."
Both stared at me in utter amazement at the suddenness of my consentfollowing upon information that, in their minds, could have no possiblebearing upon the matter at issue.
"Is he quite sane, do you think?" cried Galeotto gruffly.
"I think he has just become so," said Fra Gervasio after a pause.
"God give me patience, then," grumbled the soldier, and left me puzzledby the words.
BOOK IV. THE WORLD