CHAPTER VI. FRA GERVASIO
I did not again see my mother that day, nor did she sup with us thatevening. I was told by Fra Gervasio that on my account was she inretreat, praying for light and guidance in the thing that must bedetermined concerning me.
I withdrew early to my little bedroom overlooking the gardens, a roomthat had more the air of a monastic cell than a bedchamber fitting theestate of the Lord of Mondolfo. The walls were whitewashed, and besidesthe crucifix that hung over my bed, their only decoration was a crudepainting of St. Augustine disputing with the little boy on the seashore.
For bed I had a plain hard pallet, and the room contained, in addition,a wooden chair, a stool upon which was set a steel basin with its ewerfor my ablutions, and a cupboard for the few sombre black garments Ipossessed--for the amiable vanity of raiment usual in young men of myyears had never yet assailed me; I had none to emulate in that respect.
I got me to bed, blew out my taper, and composed myself to sleep. Butsleep was playing truant from me. Long I lay there surveying the eventsof that day--the day in which I had embarked upon the discovery ofmyself; the most stirring day that I had yet lived; the day in which,although I scarcely realized it, if at all, I had at once tasted loveand battle, the strongest meats that are in the dish of life.
For some hours, I think, had I lain there, reflecting and puttingtogether pieces of the riddle of existence, when my door was softlyopened, and I started up in bed to behold Fra Gervasio bearing a taperwhich he sheltered with one hand, so that the light of it was thrownupwards into his pale, gaunt face.
Seeing me astir he came forward and closed the door.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Sh!" he admonished me, a finger to his lips. He advanced to my side,set down the taper on the chair, and seated himself upon the edge of mybed.
"Lie down again, my son," he bade me. "I have something to say to you."
He paused a moment, whilst I settled down again and drew the coverlet tomy chin not without a certain premonition of important things to come.
"Madonna has decided," he informed me then. "She fears that having onceresisted her authority, you are now utterly beyond her control; and thatto keep you here would be bad for yourself and for her. Therefore shehas resolved that to-morrow you leave Mondolfo."
A faint excitement began to stir in me. To leave Mondolfo--to goout into that world of which I had read so much; to mingle with myfellow-man, with youths of my own age, perhaps with maidens likeLuisina, to see cities and the ways of cities; here indeed was matterfor excitement. Yet it was an excitement not altogether pleasurable;for with my very natural curiosity, and with my eagerness to have itgratified, were blended certain fears imbibed from the only quality ofreading that had been mine.
The world was an evil place in which temptations seethed, and throughwhich it was difficult to come unscathed. Therefore, I feared the worldand the adventuring beyond the shelter of the walls of the castle ofMondolfo; and yet I desired to judge for myself the evil of which Iread, the evil which in moments of doubt I even permitted myself toquestion.
My reasoning followed the syllogism that God being good and God havingcreated the world, it was not possible that the creation should be evil.It was well enough to say that the devil was loose in it. But that wasnot to say that the devil had created it; and it would be necessary toprove this ere it could be established that it was evil in itself--asmany theologians appeared to seek to show--and a place to be avoided.
Such was the question that very frequently arose in my mind, ultimatelyto be dismissed as a lure of Satan's to imperil my poor soul. It battledfor existence now amid my fears; and it gained some little ascendancy.
"And whither am I to go?" I asked. "To Pavia, or to the University ofBologna?"
"Had my advice been heeded," said he, "one or the other would have beenyour goal. But your mother took counsel with Messer Arcolano."
He shrugged, and there was contempt in the lines of his mouth. Hedistrusted Arcolano, the regular cleric who was my mother's confessorand spiritual adviser, exerting over her a very considerable influence.She, herself, had admitted that it was this Arcolano who had inducedher to that horrid traffic in my father's life and liberty which she wasmercifully spared from putting into effect.
"Messer Arcolano," he resumed after a pause, "has a good friend inPiacenza, a pedagogue, a doctor of civil and canon law, a man who, hesays, is very learned and very pious, named Astorre Fifanti. I haveheard of this Fifanti, and I do not at all agree with Messer Arcolano. Ihave said so. But your mother..." He broke off. "It is decided that yougo to him at once, to take up your study of the humanities under histutelage, and that you abide with him until you are of an age forordination, which your mother hopes will be very soon. Indeed, it isher wish that you should enter the subdeaconate in the autumn, and yournovitiate next year, to fit you for the habit of St. Augustine."
He fell silent, adding no comment of any sort, as if he waited to hearwhat of my own accord I might have to urge. But my mind was incapableof travelling beyond the fact that I was to go out into the worldto-morrow.
The circumstance that I should become a monk was no departure from theidea to which I had been trained, although explicitly no more than mymere priesthood had been spoken of. So I lay there without thinking ofany words in which to answer him.
Gervasio considered me steadily, and sighed a little. "Agostino," hesaid presently, "you are upon the eve of taking a great step, a stepwhose import you may never fully have considered. I have been yourtutor, and your rearing has been my charge. That charge I havefaithfully carried out as was ordained me, but not as I would havecarried it out had I been free to follow my heart and my conscience inthe matter.
"The idea of your ultimate priesthood has been so fostered in your mindthat you may well have come to believe that to be a priest is your owninherent desire. I would have you consider it well now that the timeapproaches for a step which is irrevocable."
His words and his manner startled me alike.
"How?" I cried. "Do you say that it might be better if I did not seekordination? What better can the world offer than the priesthood? Haveyou not, yourself, taught me that it is man's noblest calling?"
"To be a good priest, fulfilling all the teachings of the Master,becoming in your turn His mouthpiece, living a life of self-abnegation,of self-sacrifice and purity," he answered slowly, "that is the noblestthing a man can be. But to be a bad priest--there are other ways ofbeing damned less hurtful to the Church."
"To be a bad priest?" quoth I. "Is it possible to be a bad priest?"
"It is not only possible, my son, but in these days it is very frequent.Many men, Agostino, enter the Church out of motives of self-seeking.Through such as these Rome has come to be spoken of as the Necropolisof the Living. Others, Agostino--and these are men most worthy ofpity--enter the Church because they are driven to it in youth byill-advised parents. I would not have you one of these, my son."
I stared at him, my amazement ever growing. "Do you... do you think I amin danger of it?" I asked.
"That is a question you must answer for yourself. No man can know whatis in another's heart. I have trained you as I was bidden train you. Ihave seen you devout, increasing in piety, and yet..." He paused, andlooked at me again. "It may be that this is no more than the fruitof your training; it may be that your piety and devotion are purelyintellectual. It is very often so. Men know the precepts of religionas a lawyer knows the law. It no more follows out of that that they arereligious--though they conceive that it does--than it follows that alawyer is law-abiding. It is in the acts of their lives that we mustseek their real natures, and no single act of your life, Agostino, hasyet given sign that the call is in your heart.
"To-day, for instance, at what is almost your first contact with theworld, you indulge your human feelings to commit a violence; that youdid not kill is as much an accident as that you broke Rinolfo's leg. Ido not say that you did a very sinful thing. In a worldly youth of
youryears the provocation you received would have more than justifiedyour action. But not in one who aims at a life of humility andself-forgetfulness such as the priesthood imposes."
"And yet," said I, "I heard you tell my mother below stairs that I wasnearer sainthood than either of you."
He smiled sadly, and shook his head. "They were rash words, Agostino. Imistook ignorance for purity--a common error. I have pondered it since,and my reflection brings me to utter what in this household amounts totreason."
"I do not understand," I confessed.
"My duty to your mother I have discharged more faithfully perhaps than Ihad the right to do. My duty to my God I am discharging now, althoughto you I may rather appear as an advocatus diaboli. This duty is to warnyou; to bid you consider well the step you are to take.
"Listen, Agostino. I am speaking to you out of the bitter experience ofa very cruel life. I would not have you tread the path I have trodden.It seldom leads to happiness in this world or the next; it seldom leadsanywhere but straight to Hell."
He paused, and I looked into his haggard face in utter stupefactionto hear such words from the lips of one whom I had ever looked upon asgoodness incarnate.
"Had I not known that some day I must speak to you as I am speaking now,I had long since abandoned a task which I did not consider good. But Ifeared to leave you. I feared that if I were removed my place might betaken by some time-server who to earn a livelihood would tutor you asyour mother would have you tutored, and thrust you forth without warningupon the life to which you have been vowed.
"Once, years ago, I was on the point of resisting your mother." Hepassed a hand wearily across his brow. "It was on the night that GinoFalcone left us, driven forth by her because she accounted it her duty.Do you remember, Agostino?"
"O, I remember!" I answered.
"That night," he pursued, "I was angered--righteously angered to seeso wicked and unchristian an act performed in blasphemousself-righteousness. I was on the point of denouncing the deed as itdeserved, of denouncing your mother for it to her face. And then Iremembered you. I remembered the love I had borne your father, and myduty to him, to see that no such wrong was done you in the end as thatwhich I feared. I reflected that if I spoke the words that were burningmy tongue for utterance, I should go as Gino Falcone had gone.
"Not that the going mattered. I could better save my soul elsewhere thanhere in this atmosphere of Christianity misunderstood; and thereare always convents of my order to afford me shelter. But your beingabandoned mattered; and I felt that if I went, abandoned you would be tothe influences that drove and moulded you without consideration foryour nature and your inborn inclinations. Therefore I remained, and leftFalcone's cause unchampioned. Later I was to learn that he had found afriend, and that he was... that he was being cared for."
"By whom?" quoth I, more interested perhaps in this than in anythingthat he had yet said.
"By one who was your father's friend," he said, after a moment'shesitation, "a soldier of fortune by name of Galeotto--a leader of freelances who goes by the name of Il Gran Galeotto. But let that be. I wantto tell you of myself, that you may judge with what authority I speak.
"I was destined," Agostino, for a soldier's life in the following of myvaliant foster-brother, your father. Had I preserved the strength ofmy early youth, undoubtedly a soldier's harness would be strapped hereto-day in the place of this scapulary. But it happened that an illnessleft me sickly and ailing, and unfitted me utterly for such a life.Similarly it unfitted me for the labour of the fields, so that Ithreatened to become a useless burden upon my parents, who werepeasant-folk. To avoid this they determined to make a monk of me; theyoffered me to God because they found me unfitted for the service of man;and, poor, simple, self-deluded folk, they accounted that in doing sothey did a good and pious thing.
"I showed aptitude in learning; I became interested in the things Istudied; I was absorbed by them in fact, and never gave a thought to thefuture; I submitted without question to the wishes of my parents, andbefore I awakened to a sense of what was done and what I was, myself, Iwas in orders."
He sank his voice impressively as he concluded--"For ten yearsthereafter, Agostino, I wore a hair-shirt day and night, and for girdlea knotted length of whip-cord in which were embedded thorns that stungand chafed me and tore my body. For ten years, then, I never knew bodilyease or proper rest at night. Only thus could I bring into subjection myrebellious flesh, and save myself from the way of ordinary men which tome must have been a path of sacrilege and sin. I was devout. Had I notbeen devout and strong in my devotion I could never have endured whatI was forced to endure as the alternative to damnation, because withoutconsideration for my nature I had been ordained a priest.
"Consider this, Agostino; consider it well. I would not have you go thatway, nor feel the need to drive yourself from temptation by such a spur.Because I know--I say it in all humility, Agostino, I hope, and thankingGod for the exceptional grace He vouchsafed me to support me--that forone priest without vocation who can quench temptation by such agonizingmeans, a hundred perish, which is bad; and by the scandal of theirexample they drive many from the Church and set a weapon in the hands ofher enemies, which is a still heavier reckoning to meet hereafter."
A spell of silence followed. I was strangely moved by his tale,strangely impressed by the warning that I perceived in it. And yet myconfidence, I think, was all unshaken.
And when presently he rose, took up his taper, and stood by my bedsideto ask me once again did I believe myself to be called, I showed myconfidence in my answer.
"It is my hope and prayer that I am called, indeed," I said. "The lifethat will best prepare me for the world to come is the life I wouldfollow."
He looked at me long and sadly. "You must do as your heart bids you," hesighed. "And when you have seen the world, your heart will have learntto speak to you more plainly." And upon that he left me.
Next day I set out.
My leave-takings were brief. My mother shed some tears and many prayersover me at parting. Not that she was moved to any grief at losing me.That were a grief I should respect and the memory of which I shouldtreasure as a sacred thing. Her tears were tears of dread lest,surrounded by perils in the world, I should succumb and thus falsify hervows.
She, herself, confessed it in the valedictory words she addressed to me.Words that left the conviction clear upon my mind that the fulfilmentof her vow was the only thing concerning me that mattered. To the pricethat later might be paid for it I cannot think that she ever gave asingle thought.
Tears there were too in the eyes of Fra Gervasio. My mother had sufferedme to do no more than kiss her hand--as was my custom. But the friartook me to his bosom, and held me tight a moment in his long arms.
"Remember!" he murmured huskily and impressively. And then, putting mefrom him, "God help and guide you, my son," were his last words.
I went down the steps into the courtyard where most of the servants weregathered to see their lord's departure, whilst Messer Arcolano, who wasto go with me, paused to assure my mother of the care that he would haveof me, and to receive her final commands concerning me.
Four men, mounted and armed, stood waiting to escort us, and withthem were three mules, one for Arcolano, one for myself, and the thirdalready laden with my baggage.
A servant held my stirrup, and I swung myself up into the saddle, withwhich I was but indifferently acquainted. Then Arcolano mounted too,puffing over the effort, for he was a corpulent, rubicund man with thefattest hands I have ever seen.
I touched my mule with the whip, and the beast began to move. Arcolanoambled beside me; and behind us, abreast, came the men-at-arms. Thuswe rode down towards the gateway, and as we went the servants murmuredtheir valedictory words.
"A safe journey, Madonnino!"
"A good return, Madonnino!"
I smiled back at them, and in the eyes of more than one I detected alook of commiseration.
Once I turned, when the end of t
he quadrangle was reached, and I wavedmy cap to my mother and Fra Gervasio, who stood upon the steps where Ihad left them. The friar responded by waving back to me. But my mothermade no sign. Likely enough her eyes were upon the ground again already
Her unresponsiveness almost angered me. I felt that a man had the rightto some slight display of tenderness from the woman who had borne him.Her frigidity wounded me. It wounded me the more in comparison with theaffectionate clasp of old Gervasio's arms. With a knot in my throat Ipassed from the sunlight of the courtyard into the gloom of the gateway,and out again beyond, upon the drawbridge. Our hooves thudded brisklyupon the timbers, and then with a sharper note upon the cobbles beyond.
I was outside the walls of the castle for the first time. Before me thelong, rudely paved street of the borgo sloped away to the market-placeof the town of Mondolfo. Beyond that lay the world, itself--all at myfeet, as I imagined.
The knot in my throat was dissolved. My pulses quickened withanticipation. I dug my heels into the mule's belly and pushed on, theportly cleric at my side.
And thus I left my home and the gloomy, sorrowful influence of my mostdolorous mother.
BOOK II. GIULIANA