Books: The Master Christian

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"In what way?"

"Monseigneur, I always preface my remarks on these subjects with the
words 'IF we believe in Christ.' I say IF we believe, we must accept
His commands; and they are plain enough. 'WHEN YE PRAY, USE NOT VAIN
REPETITIONS AS THE HEATHEN DO, FOR THEY THINK THEY SHALL BE HEARD
FOR THEIR MUCH SPEAKING. BE NOT YE THEREFORE LIKE UNTO THEM, FOR
YOUR FATHER KNOWETH WHAT THINGS YE HAVE NEED OF BEFORE YE ASK HIM.'
Now if this is to be understood as the command of Christ, the
Messenger of God, do we not deliberately act against it in all
directions? Vain repetitions! The Church is full of them,--choked
with them! The priests who order us to say ten or twenty
'Paternosters' by way of penance, are telling us to do exactly what
Christ commanded us not to do! The terrible Litany of the Protestant
Church, with its everlasting 'Good Lord deliver us,' is another
example of vain repetition. Again--think of these words--'When thou
prayest, thou shalt NOT BE AS THE HYPOCRITES ARE, for they love to
pray standing in the synagogues, and at the corners of the streets
THAT THEY MAY BE SEEN OF MEN.' Is not all our churchgoing that we
may be seen of men?"

"Then, my son, it seems that you would do away with the Church
altogether in the extremity of your zeal!" said the Cardinal gently,
"There must surely be some outward seeming--some city set on a hill
whose light cannot be hid--some visible sign of Christ among us--"

"True, Monseigneur, but such a sign must be of so brilliant and pure
a nature,--so grand an uplifted Cross of unsullied light that it
shall be as the sun rising out of darkness! Oh, I would have
churches built gloriously, with every possible line of beauty and
curve of perfect architecture in their fabrication;--but I would
have no idolatrous emblems,--no superstitious ceremonies within
them,--no tawdry reliquaries of gems--no boast of the world's wealth
at all; but great Art,--the result of man's great Thought rendered
and given with pure simplicity! I would have great music,--and more
than all I would have thanksgiving always! And if valuables were
brought to the altar for gifts, the gifts should be given out again
to those in need-not kept,--not left untouched like a miser's
useless hoard, while one poor soul was starving!"

"My son, such a scheme of purification as yours will take centuries
to accomplish," murmured Bonpre slowly, "Almost it would need Christ
to come again!"

"And who shall say He will not come!" exclaimed Cyrillon fervently,
"Who shall swear He is not even now among us! Has he not told us all
to 'watch,' because we know not the hour at which He cometh? No,
Monseigneur!--centuries are not needed for Truth to make itself
manifest nowadays! We hold Science by the hand,--she is becoming our
familiar friend and companion, and through her guidance we have
learned that the Laws of the Universe are Truth,--Truth which cannot
be contradicted; and that only the things which move and work in
harmony with those laws can last. All else must perish! 'WHOSOEVER
IS NOT WITH ME IS AGAINST ME'--or in other words, whosoever opposes
himself to Eternal Laws must be against the whole system of the
Universe. and is therefore a discord which is bound to be silenced.
Monseigneur, Christ was a Divine Preacher of Truth;--and I, in my
humble man's way endeavour to follow Truth. And if I ever fail now,
after to-day's attempted crime, to honour the commands of Christ,
and obey them as closely as I can, then pass your condemnation upon
me, but not till then! Meanwhile, give me a good man's blessing!"

Deeply interested as he was, the Cardinal nevertheless still
hesitated. To him, though the sayings and opinions of the famous
"Gys Grandit" were not exactly new, there was something terrible in
hearing him utter them with such bold and trenchant meaning. He
sighed, and appeared lost in thought; till Manuel touched him gently
on the arm.

"Dear friend, are you afraid to bless this man who loves our
Father?"

"Afraid? My child, I am afraid of nothing--but there is grave
trouble in my heart--"

"Nay, trouble should never enter there!" said Manuel softly,
"Stretch out your hand!--let no human soul wait for a benediction!"

Profoundly moved, the Cardinal obeyed, and laid his white trembling
hand on Cyrillon's bent head.

"May God forgive thee the intention of thy sin today!" he said, in a
low and solemn tone--"May Christ guide thee out of all evil, and
lead thee through the wildness of the world to Heaven's own peace,
which passeth understanding!"

So gentle, so brave, so sweet and tender were the accents in which
he spoke these few simple works, that the tears filled Angela's
eyes, and Abbe Vergniaud, resting his head on one hand, felt a
strange contraction in his throat, and began to think of possible
happy days yet to be passed perchance in seclusion with this long-
denied son of his, who had sprung out of the secret ways of love,
first to slay and then to redeem him. Could there be a more plain
and exact measuring out of law? If he had not confessed his sin he
would have probably died in it suddenly without a chance of
amendment or repentance--but lo!--on confession, his life had been
saved as if by a miracle, and the very result of evil had been
transformed into consolation! So he sat absorbed, wondering--musing-
-and while the Cardinal spoke his blessing with closed eyes, all
heads were bent, and faces hidden. And in the reverent silence that
followed, the gentle prelate gave a sign of kind dismissal and
farewell to all, which they, understanding, accepted, and at once
made their brief adieuxthe Abbe Vergniaud only lingering a moment
longer than the rest, to bend humbly down and kiss his Apostolic
ring. Then they left him, alone with Manual.

On their way out of the house, through Angela's studio, the
Princesse D'Agramont paused for a few minutes to say further kind
words to the Abbe respecting the invitation she had given him to her
Chateau--, and while she was thus engaged, Angela turned hurriedly
to Cyrillon.

"As 'Gys Grandit' you receive many letters from strangers, do you
not?"

The young man regarded her earnestly, with unconcealed admiration
glowing in his fine eyes.

"Assuredly, Mademoiselle! And some of these letters are very dear to
me, because they make me aware of friends I might otherwise never
have known."

"You have one correspondent who is deeply interested in your
theories, and who sympathises keenly in all your religious views--"
she went on, lowering her eyes--"a certain Madame Angele--"

He uttered a quick exclamation of pleasure.

"You know her?"

She looked up,--her eyes sparkled--and she laid a finger on her
lips.

"Keep my secret!" she said--"I am so glad to meet you personally at
last!"

He stared, bewildered.

"You--you . . . !"

"Yes. I!" and she smiled--"The mysterious and Christian-Democratic
'Angele' is Angela Sovrani. So you see we have been unconscious
friends for some time!"

His face grew radiant, and he made a quick movement towards her.

"Then I owe you a great debt of gratitude!" he said--"For
encouragement--for sympathy--for help in dark hours!--and how
unworthy I have proved of your goodness . . . what must you think of
me--you--so beautiful--so good--"

She moved back a little with a warning gesture--and his words were
interrupted by the Abbe, who glancing from one to the other in a
little surprise, said, as he bent reverently over her hand and
kissed it,--

"We must be going, Cyrillon!"

Another few moments and Angela was left alone to think over, and try
to realise the strange and rapidly-occurring events of the day.
Whatever her thoughts were they seemed for a long time to be of a
somewhat April-like character, for her eyes brimmed over with tears
even while she smiled.

XVII.

In one of the few remaining streets of Rome which the vandal hand of
the modern builder and restorer has not meddled with, stands the
"Casa D'Angeli", a sixteenth-century building fronted with
wonderfully carved and widely projecting balconies--each balcony
more or less different in design, yet forming altogether in their
entirety the effect of complete sculptural harmony. The central one
looks more like a cathedral shrine than the embrasure of a window,
for above it angels' heads look out from the enfolding curves of
their own tall wings, and a huge shield which might serve as a copy
of that which Elaine kept bright for Lancelot, is poised between,
bearing a lily, a cross, and a heart engraven in its quarterings.
Here, leaning far forward to watch the intense gold of the Roman
moon strike brightness and shadow out of the dark uplifted pinions
of her winged stone guardians, stood Sylvie Hermenstein, who, in her
delicate white attire, with the moonbeams resting like a halo on her
soft hair, might have easily passed for some favoured saint whom the
sculptured angels were protecting. And yet she was only one whom the
world called "a frivolous woman of society, who lived on the
admiration of men". So little did they know her,--so little indeed
does the world know about any of us. It was true that Sylvie, rich,
lovely, independent, and therefore indifferent to opinions, lived
her own life very much according to her own ideas,--but then those
ideas were far more simple and unworldly than anybody gave her
credit for. She to whom all the courts of Europe were open,
preferred to wander in the woods alone, reading some favourite book,
to almost any other pleasure,--and as for the admiration which she
won by a look or turn of her head wherever she went, nothing in all
the world so utterly bored her as this influence of her own charm.
For she had tried men and found them wanting. With all the pent-up
passion of her woman's soul she longed to be loved,--but what she
understood by love was a much purer and more exalted emotion than is
common among men and women. She was suffering just now from an
intense and overpowering ennui. Rome was beautiful, she averred, but
dull. Stretching her fair white arms out over the impervious stone-
angels she said this, and more than this, to someone within the
room, who answered her in one of the most delightfully toned voices
in the world--a voice that charmed the ear by its first cadences,
and left the listener fascinated into believing that its music was
the expression of a perfectly harmonious mind.

"You seem very discontented," said the voice, speaking in English,
"But really your pathway is one of roses!"

"You think so?" and Sylvie turned her head quickly round and looked
at her companion, a handsome little man of some thirty-five years of
age, who stretching himself lazily full length in an arm-chair was
toying with the silky ears of an exceedingly minute Japanese
spaniel, Sylvie's great pet and constant companion. "Oh, mon Dieu!
You, artist and idealist though you are--or shall I say as you are
supposed to be," and she laughed a little, "you are like all the
rest of your sex! Just because you see a woman able to smile and
make herself agreeable to her friends, and wear pretty clothes, and
exchange all the bon mots of badinage and every-day flirtation, you
imagine it impossible for her to have any sorrow!"

"There is only one sorrow possible to a woman," replied the
gentleman, who was no other than Florian Varillo, the ideal of
Angela Sovrani's life, smiling as he spoke with a look in his eyes
which conveyed an almost amorous meaning.

Sylvie left the balcony abruptly, and swept back into the room,
looking a charming figure of sylph-like slenderness and elegance in
her clinging gown of soft white satin showered over with lace and
pearls.

"Only one sorrow!" she echoed, "And that is--?"

"Inability to win love, or to awaken desire!" replied Varillo, still
smiling.

The pretty Comtesse raised her golden head a little more proudly,
with the air of a lily lifting itself to the light on its stem--her
deep blue eyes flashed.

"I certainly cannot complain on that score!" she said, with a touch
of malice as well as coldness--"But the fact that men lose their
heads about me does not make me in the least happy."

"It should do so!" and Varillo set the little Japanese dog carefully
down on the floor, whereupon it ran straight to its mistress,
uttering tiny cries of joy, "There is no sweeter triumph for a woman
than to see men subjugated by her smile, and intimidated by her
frown;--to watch them burning themselves like moths in her clear
flame, and dying at her feet for love of her! The woman who can do
these things is gifted with the charm which makes or ruins life,--
few can resist her,--she draws sensitive souls as a magnet draws the
needle,--and the odd part of it all is that she need not have any
heart herself--she need not feel one pulse of the passion with which
she inspires others--indeed it is better that she should not. The
less she is moved herself, the greater is her fascination. Love
clamours far more incessantly and passionately at a closed gate than
an open one!"

Sylvie was silent for a minute or two looking at him with something
of doubt and disdain. The room they were in was one of those wide
and lofty apartments which in old days might have been used for a
prince's audience chamber, or a dining hall for the revelry of the
golden youth of Imperial Rome. The ceiling, supported by eight
slender marble columns, was richly frescoed with scenes from
Ariosto's poems, some of the figures being still warm with colour
and instinct with life--and on the walls were the fading remains of
other pictures, the freshest among them being a laughing Cupid
poised on a knot of honeysuckle, and shooting his arrow at random
into the sky. Ordinarily speaking, the huge room was bare and
comfortless to a degree,--but the Comtesse Sylvie's wealth, combined
with her good taste, had filled it with things that made it homelike
as well as beautiful. The thickest velvet pile carpets laid over the
thickest of folded mattings, covered the marble floors, and deprived
them of their usual chill,--great logs of wood burned cheerfully in
the wide chimney, and flowers, in every sort of quaint vase or bowl,
made bright with colour and blossom all dark and gloomy corners, and
softened every touch of melancholy away. A grand piano stood open,--
a mandoline tied with bright ribbons, lay on a little table near a
cluster of roses and violets,--books, music, drawings, bits of old
drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all sharp corners and
forbidding angles,--and where the frescoes on the wall were too
damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine old Flemish
tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the exquisite
clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was the
brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,--and Florian
Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised
underglance of admiration which is a trick common to Italians, and
which some women accept as a compliment and others resent as an
insult.

"Do you not agree with me?" he said persuasively, with a smile which
showed his fine and even teeth to perfection, "When the chase is
over the hunters go home tired! What a man cannot have, that very
thing is what he tries most to obtain!"

"You speak from experience, I suppose," said Sylvie, moving slowly
across the room towards the fire, and caressing her little dog which
she held nestled under her rounded chin like a ball of silk, "And
yet you, more than most men, have everything you can want in this
world--but I suppose you are not satisfied--not even with Angela!"

"Angela is a dear little woman!" said Florian, with an air of
emotional condescension, "The dearest little woman in the world! And
she is really clever."

"Clever!" echoed Sylvie, "Is that all?"

"Cara Contessa, is not that enough?"

"Angela is a genius," averred Sylvie, with warmth and energy, "a
true genius!--a great,--a sublime artist!"

"Che Che!" and Varillo smiled, "How delightful it is to hear one
woman praise another! Women are so often like cats spitting and
hissing at each other, tearing at each other's clothes and
reputations,--clothes even more than reputations,--that it is really
quite beautiful to me to hear you admire my Angela! It is very
generous of you!"

"Generous of me!" and the Comtesse Hermenstein looked him full in
the eyes, "Why I think it an honour to know her--a privilege to
touch her hand! All Europe admires her--she is one of the world's
greatest artists."

"She paints wonderfully well,--for a woman," said Varillo lazily,
"But there is so much in that phrase, cara Contessa, 'for a woman'.
Your charming sex often succeeds in doing very clever and pretty
things; but in a man they would not be considered surprising. You
fairy creatures are not made for fame--but for love!"

The Comtesse glanced him up and down for a moment, then laughed
musically.

"And for desertion, and neglect as well!" she said, "And sometimes
for bestowing upon YOUR charming sex every fortune and every good
blessing, and getting kicked for our pains! And sometimes it happens
that we are permitted the amazing honour of toiling to keep you in
food and clothing, while you jest at your clubs about the
uselessness of woman's work in the world! Yes, I know! Have you seen
Angela's great picture?"

Again Florian smiled.

"Great? No! I know that the dear little girl has fixed an enormous
canvas up in her studio, and that she actually gets on a ladder to
paint something upon it;--but it is always covered,--she does not
wish me to see it till it is finished. She is like a child in some
things, and I always humour her. I have not the least desire to look
at her work till she herself is willing to show it to me. But in
myself I am convinced she is trying to do too much--it is altogether
too large an attempt."

"What are YOU doing?" asked Sylvie abruptly.

"Merely delicate trifles,--little mosaics of art!" said Varillo with
languid satisfaction, "They may possibly please a connoisseur,--but
they are quite small studies."

"You have the same model you had last year?" queried Sylvie.

Their eyes met, and Varillo shifted uneasily in his chair.

"The same," he replied curtly.

Again Sylvie laughed.

"Immaculate creature!" she murmured, "The noblest of her sex, of
course! Men always call the women who pander to their vices
'noble'."

Varillo flushed an angry red.

"You are pleased to be sarcastic, fair lady." he said carelessly, "I
do not understand--"

"No? You are not usually so dense with me, though to those who do
not know you as well as I do, you sometimes appear to be the very
stupidest of men! Now be frank!--tell me, is not Pon-Pon one of the
'noble' women?"

"She is a very good creature," averred Varillo gently, and with an
air that was almost pious,--"She supports her family entirely on her
earnings."

"How charming of her!" laughed Sylvie, "And so exceptional a thing
to do, is it not? My dressmaker does the same thing,--she 'supports'
her family; but respectably! And just think!--if ever your right
hand loses its cunning as a painter, Angela will be able to
'support' YOU!"

"Always Angela!" muttered Varillo, beginning to sulk, "Cannot you
talk of something else?"

"No,--not for the moment! She is an interesting subject,--to ME! She
will arrive in Rome to-morrow night, and her uncle Cardinal Bonpre,
will be with her, and they will all stay at the Sovrani Palace,
which seems to me like a bit of the Vatican and an old torture-
chamber rolled into one! And, talking of this same excellent
Cardinal, they have almost canonized him at the Vatican,--almost,
but not quite."

"For what reason?"

"Oh, have you not heard? It appears he performed a miracle in Rouen,
curing a child who had been a cripple ever since babyhood, and
making him run about as well and strong as possible. One prayer did
it, so it is said,--the news reached the Vatican some days ago; our
charming Monsignor Gherardi told me of it. The secretary of the
Archbishop of Rouen brought the news personally to the Holy Father."

"I do not believe it," said Varillo indifferently, "The days of
miracles are past. And from what I know, and from what Angela has
told me of her uncle, Cardinal Bonpre, he would never lend himself
to such nonsense."

"Well, I only tell you what is just now the talk at the Vatican,"
said Sylvie, "Your worthy uncle-in-law that is to be, may be Pope
yet! Have you heard from Angela?"

"Every day. But she has said nothing about this miracle."

"Perhaps she does not know,"--and Sylvie began to yawn, and stretch
her white arms above her head lazily, "Oh, DIO MIO! How terribly
dull is Rome!"

"How long have you been here, Contessa?"

"Nearly a week! If I am not more amused I shall go away home to
Budapest."

"But how is one to amuse you?" asked Varillo, sitting down beside
her and endeavouring to take her hand. She drew it quickly from him.

"Not in that way!" she said scornfully, "Is it possible that you can
be so conceited! A woman says she is dull and bored, and straightway
the nearest man imagines his uncouth caresses will amuse her! TIENS
TIENS! When will you understand that all women are not like Pon-
Pon?"

Varillo drew back, chafed and sullen. His AMOUR PROPRE was wounded,
and he began to feel exceedingly cross. The pretty laugh of Sylvie
rang out like a little peal of bells.

"Suppose Angela knew that you wished to 'amuse' me in that
particularly unamusing way?" she went on, "You--who, to her, are
CHEVALIER SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE!"

"Angela is different to all other women," said Varillo quickly, with
a kind of nervous irritation in his manner as he spoke, "and she has
to be humoured accordingly. She is extremely fantastic--full of
strange ideas and unnatural conceptions of life. Her temperament is
studious and dreamy--self-absorbed too at times--and she is
absolutely passionless. That is why she will make a model wife."

The Comtesse drew her breath quickly,--her blood began to tingle and
her heart to beat--but she repressed these feelings and said,

"You mean that her passionless nature will be her safety in all
temptation?"

"Exactly!" and Varillo, smiling, became good natured again--"For
Angela to be untrue would be a grotesque impossibility! She has no
idea of the stronger sentiment of love which strikes the heart like
a lightning flash and consumes it. Her powers of affection are
intellectually and evenly balanced,--and she could not be otherwise
than faithful because her whole nature is opposed to infidelity. But
it is not a nature which, being tempted, overcomes--inasmuch as
there is no temptation which is attractive to her!"

"You think so?" and a sparkle of satire danced in Sylvie's bright
eyes, "Really? And because she is self-respecting and proud, you
would almost make her out to be sexless?--not a woman at all,--
without heart?--without passion? Then you do not love her!"

"She is the dearest creature to me in all the world!" declared
Florian, with emotional ardour, "There is no one at all like her!
Even her beauty, which comes and goes with her mood, is to an
artist's eye like mine, exquisite,--and more dazzling to the senses
than the stereotyped calm of admitted perfection in form and
feature. But, CARA CONTESSA, I am something of an analyst in
character--and I know that the delicacy of Angela's charm lies in
that extraordinary tranquillity of soul, which, (YOU suggested the
word!) may indeed be almost termed sexless. She is purer than snow--
and very much colder."

"You are fortunate to be the only man selected to melt that
coldness," said Sylvie with a touch of disdain, "Myself, I think you
make a great mistake in calling Angela passionless. She is all
passion--and ardour--but it is kept down,--held firmly within
bounds, and devoutly consecrated to you. Pardon me, if I say that
you should be more grateful for the love and trust she gives you.
You are not without rivals in the field."

Florian Varillo raised his eyebrows smilingly.

"Rivals? VERAMENTE! I am not aware of them!"

"No, I should say you had too good an opinion of yourself to imagine
any rival possible!" said the Comtesse, "But such a person may
exist!"

Varillo yawned, and flicked a grain of dust off his waistcoat with a
fastidious thumb and finger.

"Impossible! No one could possibly fall in love with Angela now! She
is an icicle,--no man save myself has the ghost of a chance with
her!"

"Of course not," said Sylvie impatiently, "Because she is betrothed
to you. But if things were not as they are--"

"It would make no difference, I assure you," laughed Varillo gaily,
"Angela does not like men as a rule. She is fondest of romance--of
dreams--of visions, out of which come the ideas for her pictures--"

"And she is quite passionless with all this, you think?" said
Sylvie, "The 'stronger sentiment which strikes the heart like a
flash of lightning, and consumes it', as you so poetically describe
it--could never possibly disturb her peace?"

"I think not," replied Varillo, with a meditative air, "Angela and I
glided into love like two children wandering by chance into a meadow
full of flowers,--no storm struck us--no sudden danger signal
flashed from our eyes--no trembling hurry of the blood bade us rush
into each other's arms and cling!--nothing of this marvel touched
us!--we loved with all the calm--but without the glory!"