Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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"I wrote a loving letter and sent her flowers," he argued with
himself, "when I knew she would be dead! But her father would have
got them, and he would have wired to me in Naples, and I should have
come back overcome with sorrow,--and then I should have told them
all how the picture was a secret between my Angela and myself,--how
_I_ had painted the greater part of it, and how she in her sweetness
had wished me to surprise the world,--the plan was perfect, but it
is all spoiled!--spoiled utterly through that stupid blunder of the
sheath!"

Such a trifle! It seemed to him incredible--unjust--that so slight a
thing could intervene between him and the complete success of his
meditated treachery. For notwithstanding the fact that he had been a
great reader and student of books, he now, in this particular hour
of his own emergency, completely forgot what all the most astute and
learned writers have always expounded to an inattentive world--
namely, the fact that crime holds within itself the seed of
punishment. Sometimes that seed ripens quickly,--sometimes it takes
years to grow,--but it is always there. And it generally takes root
in a mere, slight circumstance, so very commonplace and casual as to
entirely escape the notice of the criminal, till the network of
destiny is woven so closely about him that he can no longer avoid
it,--and then he is shown from what a trifling cause the whole
result has sprung. Varillo's present state of mind was one of
absolute torture, for he felt that whoever found the sheath of his
dagger would at once recognise it and declare the owner. If Angela
had only been wounded,--if SHE had found it--she would never have
given up the name of its possessor,--the miserable man knew her
straight, pure soul intimately enough for that!

"If she heard, she would shield me and defend me at the cost of her
own life!" he said--"She was always like that! SHE would never
listen to anything that was said against me,--and if she lived, she
would love me still, and never say that I had tried to kill her!"
and he actually smiled at the thought. "How strangely some women are
constituted!--especially women like Angela, who set up an exalted
standard of life, and accommodate their daily conduct to it! They
are sublime fools!--and so useful to men! We can do anything we like
with them. We can ruin them--and they bear their shame in silence.
We can laugh away their reputations over a game at billiards, and
they are too pure and proud to even attempt to defend themselves. We
can vilify whatever work they do, and they endure the slander,--we
can murder them--" he paused," Yes, we can murder them, and they
die, without so much as leaving a curse behind them! Extraordinary!-
-angelic--superb!--and a wise Fate has ordained that we men shall
never sacrifice ourselves for SUCH women, or go mad for the love of
them! We love the virago better than the saint; we are afraid of the
woman who nags at us and gives us trouble--who screams vengeance
upon us if we neglect her in a trifle--who clamours for our money,
and insists on our gifts--and who keeps our lives in a perpetual
fever of excitement and terror. But the innocent woman we hate--very
naturally! Her looks are a reproach to us, and we like to kill her
when we can--and we often succeed morally,--but THAT is not called
murder. The other way of killing is judged as a crime--and--then--
the punishment is death!"

As this word passed his lips in a whisper, he trembled violently.
Death! It had a chill sound--yet he had not thought so when he
associated it with Angela. For of course Angela was dead. Was she
not? Surely she must be--he had driven the dagger straight home!

"She could not possibly live," he muttered--"Not after such a well
directed blow. And that amazing picture! If I could but claim it as
my work, I should be the greatest artist in the world! It would be
quite easy to make out a proof--only that cursed dagger-sheath is in
the way!"

He was startled out of his reverie by another stoppage of the
carriage, and this time the driver jumped down from his box and came
to the door.

"This is as far as I can take you, Signor," he said, looking
curiously at his passenger,--"It is quite half way to Frascati.
There is the inn I told you of--where those lights are," and he
pointed towards the left,--"The carriage road does not go up to it.
It is a great place for artists!"

"I am not an artist!" said Varillo brusquely.

"No? But artists are merry company, Eccellenza!--" suggested the
driver, wishing to make up for his previous sulkiness by an excess
of amiability--"And for a night, the albergo is a pleasant resting
place on the way to Frascati, for even the brigands who sup there
are good-natured!"

"Ah! There are brigands, are there?" said Varillo, getting out of
the fiacre and beginning to recover something of his usual
composure,--"And I daresay you are one of them if the truth were
known! Here is your money." And he gave the man two gold pieces, one
of twenty francs, the other of ten.

"Eccellenza, I have no change--"

"I want none!" said Varillo airily,--"You asked twenty-five francs--
there are thirty. And now--as you say you have business in Rome, be
off with you!"

The man needed no second bidding; delighted with his thirty francs,
he called a gay "Buona notte, Signor!" and turning his horse's head
jogged down the road at a tolerably smart pace. The horse knew as
well as the driver, that the way now lay homeward, and lost no time.
Varillo, left to himself, paused a moment and looked about him. The
Campagna! How he hated it! Should he pass the night at that albergo,
or walk on? He hesitated a little--then made for the inn direct. It
was a bright, cosy little place enough, and the padrona, a cheery,
dark-eyed woman seated behind the counter, bade him smiling welcome.

Lodging--oh yes! she said, there was a charming room at the Signor's
disposal, with a view from the windows which in the early morning
was superb! The Signor was an artist?

"No!" said Varillo, almost fiercely--"I am a tourist--travelling for
pleasure!"

Ah! Then the view would enchant the Signor, because it would be
quite new to him! The room should be prepared at once! Would the
Signor take supper?

Yes,--the Signor would take supper. And the Signor went and sat in a
remote corner of the common-room, with a newspaper of a week old,
pretending to read its contents. And supper was soon served to him,-
-a tasty meal enough, flavoured with excellent wine,--and while he
was drinking his third glass of it, a man entered, tall and broad-
shouldered, wrapped in a heavy cloak, which he only partially
loosened as he leaned against the counter and asked for a cup of
coffee. But as he caught sight of the dark face, Varillo shrank back
into his corner, and put up his newspaper to shield himself from
view,--for he saw that the new-comer was no other than Monsignor
Gherardi. His appearance seemed to create a certain amount of
excitement and vague alarm in the little inn; the padrona evidently
knew him well, and hastened to serve him herself with the coffee he
asked for.

"Will you not sit down, Eccellentissima?" she murmured
deferentially.

"No, I am in haste!" replied Gherardi, glancing carelessly about
him--"My carriage waits outside. There is strange news in Rome to-
night! The famous artist, Angela Sovrani, has been found in her
studio, murdered!"

The padrona uttered a little cry.

"Murdered!"

"So it seems! Here are the papers from which they cry the news. I
will leave them with you. It is perhaps the judgment of Heaven on
the Sovrani's uncle, Cardinal Bonpre!"

The mistress of the inn crossed herself devoutly.

"Guiosto cielo!--Would Heaven punish a Cardinal?"

"Certainly! If a Cardinal is a heretic!"

The stout padrona clasped her hands and shuddered.

"Not possible!"

"Quite possible!" And Gherardi drained his coffee-cup. "And when so
great a personage of the Church is a renegade, he incurs two
punishments--the punishment of God and the punishment of the Church!
The one comes first--the other comes--afterwards! Buena notte!"

And throwing down the money for his refreshment, Gherardi cast
another glance around him, muffled himself up in his coat and went
out into the night. Florian Varillo breathed again. But he was not
left in peace for long. The padrona summoned her husband from the
kitchen where he performed the offices of cook, to read the
halfpenny sheets of news her visitor had left with her.

"Look you!" she said in a low voice, "The wicked Monsignor who has
thee, my poor Paolo, in his clutches for debt, has just passed by
and left evil tidings!--that beautiful girl who painted the famous
pictures in Rome, has been murdered! Do you not remember seeing her
once with her father at Frascati?"

Paolo, a round-faced, timid-looking little Piedmontese, nodded
emphatically.

"That do I!" he answered--"Fair as an angel--kind-hearted too,--and
they told me she was a wonder of the world. Che, che! Murdered! And
who could have murdered her? Someone jealous of her fame! Poor
thing--she is engaged to be married too, to another artist named
Florian Varillo. Gran Dio! He will die of this misery!" And they
bent their heads over the paper together and read the brief
announcement headed "Assassinamento di Angela Sovrani!"

A sudden crash startled them. Varillo had sprung up from his table
in haste and overset his glass. It fell, shivering to atoms on the
floor.

"Pardon!" he exclaimed, laughing forcedly,--"A thousand apologies!
My hand slipped--it was an accident--"

"Do not trouble yourself, Signor," said the landlord, Paolo,
cautiously going down on his fat knees to pick up the fragments--"It
was an accident as you say. And truly one's nerves get shaken
nowadays by all the strange things one is always hearing! Myself, I
tremble to think of the murder of the Sovrani--the poor girl was so
innocent of evil--and see you!--we might all be murdered in our beds
with such villains about . . ."

He broke off, surprised at the angry oath Varillo uttered.

"Per Dio! Can you not talk of something else?" he said hoarsely,--
"There is a murder nearly every day in Rome!"

Without waiting for a reply he hastily strode out of the inn,
banging the door behind him. He had engaged his room there for the
night--true!--but--after all this foolish gabble he resolved he
would not go back. They would still talk of murder, if he did!
Murder was in the air! Murder seemed written in letters of fire
against the clear sky now luminous with the moon and stars! He was
in a fever and a fury--he walked on and on, little heeding where he
went. What the devil had brought Gherardi to that particular inn at
that particular time of night? He could not imagine. For though he
knew most scandals in Rome, the scandal of the priest's "villa
d'amour" at Frascati, was a secret too closely guarded for anyone
save the sharpest of professional detectives to discover, and he was
totally ignorant of it. He wondered restlessly whether the crafty
Vatican spy had seen him while pretending not to see? If that were
so, then he was lost! He could not satisfy himself as to whether he
had really escaped observation, and tormented by this reflection he
walked on and on, the burning impetus of his thoughts hastening his
footsteps. A cold wind began to rise,--a chill, damp breath of the
Campagna, bringing malaria with it. He felt heated and giddy, and
there was a curious sense of fulness in his veins which oppressed
him and made him uncertain of his movements. Presently he stopped,
and stood gazing vaguely from left to right. He was surely not on
the road to Frascati? There was a tall shadowy building not far from
him, surrounded with eucalyptus trees--he tried to locate it, but
somehow though, as a native of Rome and an artist, he was familiar
with most of the Campagna, he did not recognise this part of it. How
bright the stars were! Living points of fire flashing in dense
purple!--one could never paint them! The golden round of the moon
spreading wide reflections on the road, seemed to his excited mind
like a magic ring environing him, drawing him in, pointing him out
as the one criminal for whom all the world was seeking. He had no
idea of the time,--his watch had stopped. He began to count up
hours. He remembered that when he had gone to see Angela, it was
about four o'clock. He had known perfectly well that she was alone,
for he had seen the Cardinal drive past him in the streets on the
way to the Vatican, and he had heard at his "Cercolo" or club, that
Prince Sovrani had gone out of Rome for a few hours. And, thus
informed, he had timed his visit to Angela well. Then, had he meant
to kill her? No. He was quite certain that he never had had any such
intention. Then what had been his purpose? First, to see her
picture, and then to condemn it. Not harshly, but gently--with the
chill toleration and faint commiseration of the critic who pretends
to judge everything. He knew--none better--the glowing ardour and
enthusiasm of the genius which was as much a part of Angela as
colour is part of a rose,--his intention had been to freeze all that
warmth with a few apparently kind words. For he had never thought it
possible that she,--a mere woman,--could evolve from her own brain
and hand, such a poetic, spiritual and magnificent conception as
"The Coming of Christ." And when he saw what she had done, he
bitterly envied her her power,--he realized the weakness of his own
efforts as compared with her victorious achievement, and he hated
her accordingly, as all men hate the woman who is intellectually
superior to themselves. After all, there was no way out of it, but
the way he had chosen,--to kill her and make an end! To kill her and
make an end! He muttered these words over and over to himself, as he
stood irresolutely watching the broad patterns of the moonlight, and
thinking confusedly about the time. Yes,--it was four o'clock when
he went to Angela's studio,--it must have been five, or past that
hour when he left it,--when he slunk down the side-street which led
to the river, and threw the key and his dagger together into the
muddy tide. After that he had gone home,--and had superintended his
valet, while that individual packed his portmanteau for Naples--and
then--and then? Yes,--then he had written to Angela,--one of the
pretty gracious little notes she was accustomed to receive from
him,--how strange it was to write to a dead girl!--and he had gone
out to the nearest florist's shop, and chosen a basket of lilies to
send to her,--lilies were for dead maidens always,--and he had sent
the flowers and his love letter together. Then surely it must have
been about half-past six? He tried to fix the hour, but could not,
and again his thoughts went rambling on. After sending the lilies,
he had returned to his own house, and Pon-Pon had prepared a "petit
cafe" for him, and he had partaken of it, and had smoked a couple of
cigarettes with her, and then had said a leisurely good-bye, and had
started for the railway-station en route for Naples. What train had
he intended to go by? The eight o'clock express. He remembered that.
But on the way, he had discovered that loss of the dagger-sheath,--
an unforeseen fatality that had turned him back, and brought him to
where he now stood meditating. How long did the driver of that
fiacre he hired, take to bring him to the wayside inn on the road to
Frascati? This he could not determine,--but to his uncertain memory
it seemed to have been an unusually tedious and tiresome journey.
And now--here he was--with no habitation in sight save the solitary
building whose walls loomed darkly through the eucalyptus trees. He
went towards it after a while, walking slowly and almost
mechanically;--he was extremely tired, and an oppressive sense of
heat and weariness combined made him anxious to obtain a night's
lodging somewhere,--no matter in what sort of place. Anything would
be better than sleeping out on the Campagna, an easy prey to the
worst form of fever. As he approached more nearly to the house among
the trees, he saw that it was surrounded by a very high, closely
intertwisted iron railing,--and when he came within a few paces of
what appeared to be the entrance, he was startled by the sudden
heavy clang of a bell, which, striking through the still air,
created such harsh clamour that he instinctively shivered at the
sound. He paused,--and again the dismal boom crashed on his ears,--
then as its echo died away another deep monotone, steadily
persistent, began to stir the silence with words,--words, which to
Florian Varillo in his nervous excitation of mind sounded hellish
and horrible.

"Libera me Domine, de morte aeterna!"
"In die ilia tremenda!"
"Quando coeli movendi suntet terra!"
"Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

He listened, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. With that
strange weakness and effeminacy which often distinguishes the
artistic, and particularly the Italian artistic temperament, he was
excessively superstitious, and this unexpected chanting of a psalm
of death seemed to him at the moment, of supernatural and
predetermined origin, devised on purpose to intensify the growing
terrors of his coward conscience.

"Tremens factus sum ego!"
"Et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque venerit ira!"

Once more the great bell tolled heavily, and its discordant tone
seemed to tear his brain. He uttered an involuntary cry,--every weak
impulse in his soul was aroused,--and in the excess of a miserable
self-pity he longed to excuse himself for his crime of treachery and
cruelty to the innocent woman who loved him,--to throw the blame on
someone else,--if he could only find that someone else! Anything
rather than own himself to be the mean wretch and traitor that he
was. For he was a cultured and clever man,--a scholar,--an artist,--
a poet;--these things were not consistent with murder! A man who
painted beautiful pictures,--a man who wrote exquisite verses,--he
could never be suspected of stabbing a helpless trusting woman in
the back out of sheer jealousy, like a common hired assassin! No no!
He could never be suspected! Why had he not thought of his
intellectual gifts,--his position in the world of art, before? No
one in their senses could possibly accuse him in the way he had
imagined!--and even if the dagger-sheath were found, some
explanation might be given,--someone else might be found guilty . . .

"Quando coeli movendi sunt et terra;
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem!"

Again that horrible bell! Moved by a sudden desperate determination
to find out what this mysterious chanting was, and where it came
from, he braced himself up and walked resolutely and quickly on to a
great gateway, cross-barred and surmounted with tall spikes,--and
there seized by fresh panic, he clung to the grating for support and
stared through it affrightedly, his teeth chattering and his whole
frame shaking as with an ague fit. What were those dark terrible
figures he saw? Were they phantoms or men? Gaunt and black and tall,
they swayed to and fro, now bending, now rising, in the misty
splendour of the moonlight,--they were busy with the ground, digging
it and casting out shovels full of earth in heaps beside them. Each
ghostly figure stood by itself apart from its companions,--each one
worked at its task alone,--and only their voices mingled in harsh
dismal unison as, with the next stroke of the solemn bell, they
chanted

"Dies ilia dies irae,
Calamitatis et miseriae!"

"No!" shrieked Varillo suddenly, shaking the gateway like an
infuriated madman--"What are you doing in there? Who told you to
sing my mass or prepare my grave? I am not ready, I tell you! Not
ready! I have done nothing to deserve death--nothing!--I have not
been tried!--you must wait--you must wait till you know all--you
must wait! . . ."

His voice choked in utterance, and thrusting one hand through the
grating he made frantic gesticulations to the spectral figure
nearest him. It paused in its toil and lifted its head,--and from
the dark folds of a drooping cowl, two melancholy deep-set eyes
glittered out like the eyes of a famished beast. The other spectres
paused also, but only for a moment,--the bell boomed menacingly over
their heads once more, and again they dug and delved, and again they
chanted in dreary monotone--

"Dies magna et amara valde,
Dum veneris judicare!
Libera nos Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda!"

Wild with terror Varillo shook the gate more furiously than before.

"Stop I tell you!" he cried--"It is too soon! You are burying me
before my time. You have no proof against me--none! I am young,--
full of life and strength--the world loves me--wants me!--and I--I
will not die!--no I will not!--not yet! Not yet--I am not ready!
Stop--stop! You do not know what you are doing--stop! You are
driving me mad with your horrible singing!" And he shrieked aloud.
"Mad, I tell you!--mad!"

For one hazy moment he saw some of the dark figures begin to move
towards him--he clutched at them--fought with them--tore at their
garments,--he would have killed them all, he thought, if the
moonlight had not come in between him and them, and shut him up in a
cold silver circle of ice from which he could not escape,--yet he
went on struggling and talking and shrieking, contending sometimes,
as he fancied, with swords and daggers, and trying to find his way
through strange storms of mingled fire and snow--till all at once
some strong invisible force swooped down upon him, lifted him up and
carried him away--and he remembered no more.

XXXII.

Away in Paris, a vast concourse of people were assembled round an
open grave in Pere-la-Chaise, wherein the plain coffin of the Abbe
Vergniaud had just been lowered. The day was misty and cold, and the
sun shone fitfully through the wreaths of thin vapour that hung over
the city, occasionally gleaming on the pale fine face of the famous
"Gys Grandit", who, standing at the edge of the grave spoke his
oration over the dead.

"To this, to this," he cried, "oh people of Paris, we all must come!
Our ambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our grand reforms, our loves
and joys end here, so far as this world is concerned! He whom we
have just laid in the earth was skilled in many devious ways of
learning,--gifted with eloquence, great in scholarship, quick with
the tongue as with the pen, he was a man whom perchance all France
would have called famous had it not been for me! I am the blot on my
father's name! I am the sin for which he has made the last
expiation! People of Paris, for years he lived and worked among
you,--outwardly smiling, witty of speech and popular with you all,--
but inwardly a misery to himself in his own conscience, because he
knew his life was not what he professed it to be. He knew that he
did not believe what he asked YOU to accept as true. He knew that he
had guilt upon his soul,--he knew that all the sins which none of
you could guess at, God saw. For there is a God! Not the God of the
priests, but the God of the Universe and of man's natural and
spiritual instinct. He from whom nothing escapes,--He who ordains
where every drop of dew shall fall,--He whose omnipresent vision
perceives the flight of every small bird in the air and
predetermines the building of its nest, and the manner of its end,--
He is the God whom none can deceive. Those who dream they can play
false with Him are mistaken. This dead man, my father, living among
you for years, was contented for years to seem like you,--yes!--for
you all have something which you think you can cover up from the
searching eye of Fate; and many of you pretend to be what you are
not,--while many more wear the aspect of men over the souls of
beasts. My father who rests here to-day at our feet, was a priest of
the Roman Church. In that capacity he should have been clothed with
sanctity. Human, yet removed from common frailty. Yet reckless of
his order, heedless of his vows, he, priest as he was, turned
libertine, and betrayed an innocent woman. He destroyed her name--
killed her honour--broke her heart! Libertines of all classes from
kings to commoners, do this kind of thing every day, and deem it but
a small fault of character. Nevertheless it is a crime!--and for a
crime there is always punishment! For everything that is false,--for
everything that is mean,--for everything that is contemptible and
cowardly, punishment comes,--if not soon, then late. In this case
vengeance was forestalled,--for the sinner, repenting in time, took
his vengeance on himself. He confessed his sin before you all! That
was brave! How many of you here to-day would have such courage! How
many of you would throw off your cloaks of virtue and admit your
vices?--or having admitted them, try to amend them? But this is what
my father did. And for this he should be honoured! He told you all
fully and frankly that his professions of faith were false and vain
and conventional; and that he had seemed to you what he was not. Now
the committal of a sin is one thing,--but the frankly repentant
confession of that sin is another. Some of you will say--Who am I
that I should judge my father? Why truly I am nothing!--and should
have been nothing but the avenger of my mother's life and broken-
hearted misery. For that I lived,--for that I was ready to die! What
a trivial object of existence it must seem to you Parisians
nowadays!--to avenge a mother's name! Much better to fight a duel
for some paltry dancer! Yes!--but I am not so constituted. From my
childhood I worked for two things--vengeance and ambition; I put
ambition second, for I would have sacrificed it all to the fiercer
passion. But when I sought to fulfil my vengeance, the man on whom I
would have taken it, himself changed it into respect, pity,
admiration, affection,--and I loved what I had so long hated! So
even I, bent on cruelty, learned to be kind. But not so the Church!
The Church of Rome cannot forgive the dead priest whom we have laid
in all-forgiving Mother Earth to-day! Had he lived, the sentence of
excommunication would have been pronounced against him,--now that he
is dead, it is quite possible it may still be pronounced against his
memory. But what of that? We who know, who feel, who think,--we are
not led by the Church of Rome, but by the Church of Christ! The two
things are as different as this grave differs from high Heaven! For
we believe that when Magdalen breaks a precious box of perfume at
the feet of Christ 'she hath wrought a good work'. We also believe
that when a man stands 'afar off', saying 'Lord, be merciful to me a
sinner!' he goes back to his house again justified more than he who
says 'Lord, I thank Thee I am not as other men!' We believe that
Right is right, and that nothing can make it wrong! And simply
speaking, we know it is right to tell the truth, and wrong to tell a
lie. For a lie is opposed to the working forces of Nature, and those
forces sooner or later will attack it and overcome it. They are
beginning now in our swiftly advancing day, to attack the Church of
Rome. And why? Because its doctrine is no longer that of Christ, but
of Mammon! This is what my father felt and knew, when he addressed
his congregation for the last time in Notre Dame de Lorette. He knew
that he was doomed by disease to a speedy death,--though he little
guessed how soon that death would be. But feeling the premonition of
his end, he resolved to speak out,--not to condone or excuse himself
for having preached what he could not believe all those years,--but
merely to tell you how things were with him, and to trust his memory
to you to be dealt with as you choose. He has left a book behind
him,--a book full of great and noble thoughts expressed with most
pathetic humility; hence I doubt not that when you see the better
soul of him unveiled in his expressed mind, you will yet give him
the fame he merits. His Church judges him a heretic and castaway for
having confessed his sin at last to the people whom he so long
deceived,--but I for this, judge him as an honest man! And I have
some little right to my opinion, for as Gys Grandit I have sought to
proclaim the thoughts of many--"