Books: The Master Christian

M >> Marie Corelli >> The Master Christian

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Gherardi looked at him scrutinizingly, and noted the lack-lustre
eyes, the helpless childish expression, of the half-young, half-old
face confronting his own.

"Guard the dead as much as you please," he said harshly. "But take
heed how you spy on the living! Be careful of the sick man lying
yonder--we want him back with us in Rome to-morrow."

Ambrosio nodded.

"Back in Rome--good--good!" he said. "Then he is living after all! I
thought he was dead in his sins as I am,--but you tell me he lives,
and will go back to Rome!--Oh yes--I will take care of him--good
care!--do not fear! I know how to guard him so that he shall not
escape you!"

Gherardi looked at him again sharply, but he was playing with his
long rosary and smiling foolishly, and there seemed no use in
wasting further speech upon him. So, muffling himself in his cloak,
he strode away, and Ambrosio entered the cell.

"You shall have meat and wine presently," he said, approaching the
bed where Florian lay. "The devil has given orders that you shall be
well fed!"

Varillo looked up and smiled kindly. He could assume any expression
at command, and it suited his purpose just now to be all gentleness.

"My poor friend!" he said compassionately. "Your wits are far
astray! Devil? Nay--he who has just left us is more of a saint!"

Ambrosio's brown eyes flashed, but he maintained a grave and
immovable aspect.

"The devil has often mocked us in saint's disguise," he said slowly.
"I tell the porter here every night to keep the gates well locked
against him,--but this time it was no use; he has entered in. And
now we shall have great work to get him out!"

Varillo resting his head on one arm, studied him curiously.

"You must have lived a strange life in the world!" he said. "That is
if you were ever in the world at all. Were you?"

"Oh yes, I was in the world," replied Ambrosio calmly. "I was in the
midst of men and women who passed their whole lives in acts of
cruelty and treachery to one another. I never met a man who was
honest; I never saw a woman who was true! I wondered where God was
that He permitted such vile beings to live and take His name in
vain. He seemed lost and gone,--I could not find Him!"

"Ah!" ejaculated Florian languidly. "And did yon discover Him here?
In this monastery?"

"No--He is not here, for we are all dead men," said Ambrosio. "And
God is the God of the living, not the God of the dead! Shall I tell
you where I found him?" And he advanced a step or two, raising one
hand warningly as though he were entrusted with some message of
doom--"I found Him in sin! I tried to live a life of truth in a
world of lies, but the lies were too strong for me,--they pulled me
down! I fell--into a black pit of crime--reckless, determined,
conscious wickedness,--and so found God--in my punishment!"

He clasped his hands together with an expression of strange ecstasy.

"Down into the darkness!" he said. "Down through long vistas of
shadow and blackness you go, glad and exultant, delighting in evil,
and thinking 'God sees me not!' And then suddenly at the end, a
sword of fire cuts the darkness asunder,--and the majesty of the
Divine Law breaks your soul on the wheel!"

He looked steadfastly at Varillo.

"So you will find,--so you must find, if you ever go down into the
darkness."

"Ay, if I ever go," said Florian gently. "But I shall not."

"No?--then perhaps you are there already?" said Ambrosio smiling,
and playing with his rosary. "For those who say they will never sin
have generally sinned!"

Varillo held the same kind look of compassion in his eyes. He was
fond of telling his fellow-artists that he had a "plastic" face,--
and this quality served him well just now. He might have been a hero
and martyr, from the peaceful and patient expression of his
features, and he so impressed by his manner a lay-brother who
presently entered to give him his evening meal, that he succeeded in
getting rid of Ambrosio altogether.

"You are sure you are strong enough to be left without an
attendant?" asked the lay-brother solicitously, quite captivated by
the gentleness of his patient. "There is a special evening service
to-night in the chapel, and Ambrosio should be there to play the
organ--for he plays well--but this duty had been given to Fra
Filippo--"

"Nay, but let Ambrosio fulfil his usual task," said Varillo
considerately. "I am much better--much stronger,--and as my good
friend Monsignor Gherardi desires me to be in Rome to-morrow, and to
stay with him till I am quite restored to health, I must try to rest
as quietly as I can till my hour of departure."

"You must be a great man to have Domenico Gherardi for a friend!"
said the lay-brother wistfully.

Here Ambrosio suddenly burst into a loud laugh.

"You are right! He is a great man!--one of the greatest in Rome, or
for that matter in the world! And he means to be yet greater!" And
with that he turned on his heel and left the cell abruptly.

Varillo, languidly sipping the wine that had been brought to him
with his food, looked after him with a pitying smile.

"Poor soul!" he said gently.

"He was famous once," said the lay-brother, lowering his voice as he
spoke. "One of the most famous sculptors in Europe. But something
went wrong with his life, and he came here. It is difficult to make
him understand orders, or obey them, but the Superior allows him to
remain on account of his great skill in music. On that point at
least he is sane."

"Indeed!" said Varillo indifferently. He was beginning to weary of
the conversation, and wished to be alone. "It is well for him that
he is useful to you in some regard. And now, my friend, will you
leave me to rest awhile? If it be possible I shall try to sleep now
till morning."

"One of us will come to you at daybreak," said the lay-brother. "You
are still very weak--you will need assistance to dress. Your clothes
are here at the foot of the bed. I hope you will sleep well."

"Thank you!" said Varillo, conveying an almost tearful look of
gratitude into his eyes--"You are very good to me! God bless you!"

The lay-brother made a gentle deprecatory gesture of his hands and
retired, and Varillo was left to his own reflections. He lay still,
thinking deeply, and marvelling at the unexpected rescue out of his
difficulties so suddenly afforded him.

"With Gherardi to support me, I can say anything!" he mused, his
heart beating quickly and exultingly. "I can say anything and swear
anything! And even if the sheath of my dagger has been found, it
will be no proof, for I can say it is not mine. Any lie I choose to
tell will have Gherardi's word to warrant it!--so I am safe--unless
Angela speaks!"

He considered this possibility for a moment, then smiled.

"But she never will! She is one of those strange women who endure
without complaint,--she is too lofty and pure for the ways of the
world, and the world naturally takes vengeance upon her. There is
not a man born that does not hate too pure a woman; it is his joy to
degrade her if he can! This is the way of Nature; what is a woman
made for except to subject herself to her master! And when she rises
superior to him--superior in soul, intellect, heart and mind, he
sees in her nothing but an abnormal prodigy, to be stared at,
laughed at, despised--but never loved! The present position of
affairs is Angela's fault, not mine. She should not have concealed
the work she was doing from her lover, who had the right to know all
her secrets!"

He laughed,--a low malicious laugh, and then lay tranquilly on his
pillows gazing at the gradually diminishing light. Day was
departing--night was coming on,--and as the shadows lengthened, the
solemn sound of the organ began to vibrate through the walls of the
monastery like far-off thunder growing musical. With a certain
sensuous delight in the beautiful, Varillo listened to it with
pleasure; he had no mind to probe the true meaning of music, but the
mere sound was soothing and sublime, and seemed in its gravity, to
match the "tone" of the light that was gradually waning. So
satisfied was he with that distant pulse of harmony that he began
weaving some verses in his head to "His Absent Lady,"--and succeeded
in devising quite a charming lyric to her whose honour and renown he
was ready to kill. So complex, so curious, so callous, yet sensuous,
and utterly egotistical was his nature, that had Angela truly died
under his murderous blow, he would have been ready now to write such
exquisite verses in the way of a lament for her loss, as should have
made a world of sentimental women weep, not knowing the nature of
the man.

The last glimpse of day vanished, and the cell was only illuminated
by a flickering gleam which crept through the narrow crevice of the
door from the oil lamp outside in the corridor. The organ music
ceased--to be followed by the monotonous chanting of the monks at
their evening orisons,--and in turn, these too came to an end, and
all was silent. Easily and restfully Florian Varillo, calling
himself in his own mind poet, artist, and lover of all women rather
than one, turned on his pillow and slept peacefully,--a calm deep
sleep such as is only supposed to visit the innocent and pure of
conscience, but which in truth just as often refreshes the senses of
the depraved and dissolute, provided they are satisfied with evil as
their good. How many hours he slept he did not know, but he was
wakened at last by a terrible sense of suffocation, and he sat up
gasping for breath, to find the cell full of thick smoke and burning
stench. The flickering reflection of the lamp was gone, and as he
instinctively leaped from his bed and grasped his clothes, he heard
the monastery bell above him swinging to and fro, with a jarring
heavy clang. Weak from the effects of his illness, and scarcely able
to stand, he dragged on some of his garments, and rushing to the
door threw it open, to be met with dense darkness and thick clouds
of smoke wreathing towards him in all directions. He uttered a loud
shriek.

"Fire!"

The bell clanged on slowly over his head, but otherwise there was no
response. Stumbling along, blinded, suffocated, not knowing at any
moment whether he might not be precipitated down some steep flight
of stairs or over some high gallery in the building, he struggled to
follow what seemed to be a cooling breath of air which streamed
through the smoke as though blowing in from some open door, and as
he felt his way with his hands on the wall he suddenly heard the
organ.

"Thank God!" he thought, "I am near the chapel! The fire has broken
out in this part of the building--the monks do not know and are
still at prayer. I shall be in time to save them all! . . ."

A small tongue of red flame flashed upon his eyes--he recoiled--then
pressed forward again, seeing a door in front of him. The organ
music sounded nearer and nearer; he rushed to the door, half choked
and dizzy, and pushing it open, reeled into the organ loft, where at
the organ, sat the monk Ambrosio, shaking out such a storm of music
as might have battered the gates of Heaven or Hell. Varillo leaped
forward--then, as he saw the interior of the chapel, uttered one
agonized shriek, and stood as though turned to stone. For the whole
place was in flames!--everything from the altar to the last small
statue set in a niche, was ablaze, and only the organ, raised like a
carven pinnacle, appeared to be intact, set high above the blazing
ruin. Enrapt in his own dreams, Ambrosio sat, pouring thunderous
harmony out of the golden-tubed instrument which as yet, with its
self-acting machinery, was untouched by the flames, and Varillo
half-mad with terror, sprang at him like a wild beast

"Stop!" he cried "Stop, fool! Do you not see--can you not
understand--the monastery is on fire!"

Ambrosio shook him off, his brown eyes were clear and bright,--his
whole expression stern and resolved.

"I know it," he replied. "And we shall burn--you and I--together!"

'Oh, mad brute!" cried Varillo. "Tell me which way to go!--where are
the brethren?"

"Outside!" he answered "Safe!--away at the farther end of the
garden, digging their own graves, as usual! Do you not hear the
bell? We are alone in the building!--I have locked the doors,--the
fire is kindled inside! We shall be dead before the flames burst
through!"

"Madman!" shrieked Varillo, recoiling as the thick volumes of smoke
rolled up from the blazing altar. "Die if you must!--but I will not!
Where are the windows?--the doors?--"

"Locked and bolted fast," said Ambrosio, with a smile of triumph.
"There is no loophole of escape for you! The world might let you go
free to murder and betray,--but I--Ambrosio,--a scourge in the
Lord's hand--I will never let you go! Pray--pray before it is too
late! I heard the devil tempt you--I heard you yield to his
tempting! You were both going to ruin a woman--that is devil's work.
And God told me what to do--to burn the evil out by flame, and
purify your soul! Pray, brother, pray!--for in the searching and
tormenting fire it will be too late! Pray! Pray!"

And pressing his hands again upon the organ he struck out a passage
of chords like the surging of waves upon the shore or storm-winds in
the forest, and began to sing,

"Confutatis maledictis
Flammis acribus addictis
Voci me cum benedictis!"

Infuriated to madness but too physically weak to struggle with one
who, though wandering in brain, was sound in body, Varillo tried to
drag him from his seat,--but the attempt was useless. Ambrosio
seemed possessed by a thousand electric currents of force and
resolution combined. He threw off Varillo as though he were a mere
child, and went on singing--

"Oro supplex et acclinis
Cor contritum quasi cinis:
Gere curam mei finis.
. . . .
Lacrymosa dies illa,--"

Driven to utter desperation, Varillo stood for a moment inert,--
then, suddenly catching sight of a rope hanging from one of the
windows close at hand, he rushed to it and pulled it furiously. The
top of the window yielded, and fell open on its hinge--the smoke
rushed up to the aperture, and Florian, still clinging to the rope,
shouted, "Help!--Help!" with all the force he could muster. But the
air blowing strongly against the smoke fanned the flames in the body
of the chapel,--they leaped higher and higher,--and--seeing the red
glow deepening about him, Ambrosio smiled.--"Cry your loudest, you
will never be heard!" he said--"Those who are busy with graves have
done with life! You had best pray while you have time--let God take
you with His name on your lips!"

And as the smoke and flame climbed higher and higher and began to
wreathe itself about the music gallery, he resumed his solemn
singing.

"Lacrymosa dies illa,
Qua resurgat ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine
Dona eis requiem!"

But Varillo still shrieked "Help!" and his frenzied cries were at
last answered. The great bell overhead ceased ringing suddenly,--and
its cessation created an effect of silence even amid the noise of
the crackling fire and the continued grave music of the organ. Then
came a quick tramp of many feet--a hubbub of voices--and loud
battering knocks at the chapel door. Ambrosio laughed triumphantly.

"We are at prayers!" he cried--"We admit no one! The devil and I are
at prayers!"

Varillo sprang at him once more.

"Madman! Show me the way!" he screamed. "Show me the way down from
this place or I will strangle you!"

"Find your own way!" answered Ambrosio--"Make it--as you have always
made it!--and follow it--to Hell!"

As he spoke the gallery rocked to and fro, and a tall flame leaped
at the organ like a living thing ready to seize and devour. Still
the knocking and hammering continued, and still Ambrosio played wild
music--till all at once the chapel door was broken open and a group
of pale spectral faces in monk's cowls peered through the smoke, and
then retreated again.

"Help!" shrieked Varillo--"Help!"

But the air rushing through the door and meeting with that already
blowing through the window raised a perfect pyramid of flame which
rose straight up and completely encircled the organ. With a
frightful cry Varillo rushed to Ambrosio's side, and cowering down,
clung to his garments.

"Oh, God!--Oh, God! Have mercy!--"

"He will have mercy!" said Ambrosio, still keeping his hands on the
organ-keys and drawing out strange plaintive chords of solemn
harmony--"He will have mercy--be sure of it! Ambrosio will ask Him
to be merciful!--Ambrosio has saved you from crime worse than
death,--Ambrosio has cleansed you by fire! Ambrosio will help you to
find God in the darkness!"

Smoke and flame encircled them,--for one moment more their figures
were seen like black specks in the wreathing columns of fire--for
one moment more the music of the organ thundered through the
chapel,--then came a terrific crash--a roar of the victorious flames
as they sprang up high to the roof of the building, and then--then
nothing but a crimson glare on the Campagna, seen for miles and
miles around, and afterwards described to the world by the world's
press as the "Burning Down of a Trappist Monastery" in which no
lives had been lost save those of one Fra Ambrosio, long insane, who
was supposed to have kindled the destructive blaze in a fit of
mania,--and of a stranger, sick of malarial fever, whom the monks
had sheltered, name unknown.

XXXVI.

The same night which saw the red glare of the burning monastery
reflected from end to end of the Campagna, like the glow of some
gigantic pagan funeral pyre, saw also the quiet departure of
Cardinal Bonpre and his "foundling" Manuel from Rome. Innocent of
all evil, their escape was after the manner of the guilty; for the
spies of the Vatican were on guard outside the Sovrani Palace, and
one priest after another "relieved the watch" in the fashion of
military sentries. But like all too cunning schemers, these pious
detectives overreached the goal of their intention, and bearing in
mind the fact of the Cardinal's unsuspecting simplicity, it never
occurred to them to think he had been put on his guard so soon, or
that he would take advantage of any secret way of flight. But the
private door of Angela's studio through which Florian Varillo had
fled, and the key of which he had thrown into the Tiber, had been
forced open, and set in use again, and through this the harmless
prelate, with his young companion, passed without notice or
hindrance, and under the escort of Aubrey Leigh and Cyrillon
Vergniaud, reached the railway station unintercepted by any message
or messenger from the Papal court, and started for Paris and London.
When the train, moving slowly at first from the platform, began to
rush, and finally darted swiftly out of sight, Aubrey breathed more
easily.

"Thank God!" he said. "They are safe for the present! England is a
free country!"

"Is it?" And Vergniaud smiled a little. "Are you sure? England
cannot dispute the authority of the Vatican over its own sworn
servants. Are you not yourself contending against the power of Rome
in Great Britain?"

"Not only against Rome do I contend," replied Aubrey. "My battle is
against all who seek to destroy the true meaning and intention of
Christianity. But so far as Romanism is concerned,--we have a
monarch whose proudest title is Defender of the Faith--that is
Defender of the Faith against Papal interference."

"Yes? And yet her bishops pander to Rome? Ah, my dear friend!--your
monarch is kept in ignorance of the mischief being worked in her
realm by the Papal secret service! Cardinal Bonpre in London is as
much under the jurisdiction of the Pope as if he still remained in
Rome, and though he may be able to delay the separation between
himself and the boy he cherishes, he will scarcely avert it!"

"Why should they wish to part that child from him I wonder!" said
Aubrey musingly.

Cyrillon shrugged his shoulders.

"Who can tell! They have their reasons, no doubt. Why should they
wish to excommunicate Tolstoi? But they do! Believe me, there is a
time of terror coming for the religious world--especially in your
great English Empire. And when your good Queen dies, the trouble
will begin!"

Aubrey was silent for some minutes.

"We must work, Cyrillon!" he said at last, laying a hand on his
friend's shoulder. "We must work and we must never leave off
working! One man may do much,--all history proves the conquering
force of one determined will. You, young as you are, have persuaded
France to listen to you,--I am doing my best to persuade England to
hear me. We are only two--but others will follow. I know it is
difficult!--it is harassing and often heartbreaking to insist on
Truth when the whole world's press is at work bolstering up false
gods, false ideals, false art, false sentiment,--but if we are firm-
-if we hold an unflinching faith, we shall conquer!"

"You are brave!" said Cyrillon with a glance of mingled trust and
admiration. "But you are an exception to the majority of men. The
majority are cruel and treacherous, and stupid as well. Dense
stupidity is hard to fight against! Who for example, do you suppose,
will understand the lesson of Donna Sovrani's great picture?"

"All the New World!" said Aubrey, with enthusiasm,--"It is for the
New World--not the Old. And that reminds me to-day the picture is on
view to the art-critics and experts for the first time. I prophesy
it will be sold at once!"

"That would make her father happy," said Cyrillon slowly. "But she--
she will not care!"

Aubrey looked at him attentively.

"Have you seen her?"

"Yes. For a moment only. I called at the Sovrani Palace and her
father received me. We talked for some time together. I think he
knows who dealt the murderous blow at his daughter, but he says
nothing positive. He showed me the picture. It is great--sublime! I
could have knelt before it! Then he took me to see Her--and I would
have knelt still more readily! But--she is changed!"

"And--are you?" asked Aubrey with a slight smile.

"Changed? I? No--I shall never change. I loved her at first sight--I
love her still more now. Yet I see the truth--she is broken-
hearted!"

"Time and great tenderness will heal the wound," said Aubrey gently.
"Meanwhile have patience!"

Cyrillon gave him a look more eloquent than speech, and by mutual
consent they said no more on the subject of Angela just then.

Next morning at the American Consulate, Sylvie, Comtesse
Hermenstein, was quietly married by civil law to Aubrey Leigh. The
ceremony took place in the presence of the Princesse D'Agramont,
Madame Bozier, and Cyrillon Vergniaud. When it was over the wedded
lovers and their friends returned to the Sovrani Palace, there to
join Angela who had come down from her sick room to grace the
occasion. She looked as fair and fragile as the delicate "Killmeny"
of the poet's legend, just returned from wondrous regions of
"faery," though the land poor Angela had wandered away from was the
Land of Sweet Delusion, which enchanted garden she would never enter
again. Pale and thin, with her beautiful eyes drooping wearily under
their dreamy tired lids, she was the very ghost of her former self;-
-and the child-like way in which she clung to her father, and kept
near her father always, was pathetic in the extreme. When Sylvie and
Aubrey entered, with their three companions, she advanced to greet
them, smiling bravely, though her lips quivered.

"All happiness be with you, dear!" she said softly, and she slipped
a chain of fine pearls round Sylvie's neck. "These were my mother's
pearls,--wear them for my sake!"

Sylvie kissed her in silence,--she could not say anything, even by
the way of thanks,--her heart was too full.

"We shall be very lonely without you, darling," went on Angela.
"Shall we not, father?" Prince Pietro came to her side, and taking
her hand patted it consolingly--"But we shall know you are happy in
England--and we shall try and come and see you as soon as I get
strong,--I want to join my uncle and Manuel. I miss Manuel very
much,--he and my father are everything to me now!"

She stretched out her hand to Aubrey, who bent over it and kissed it
tenderly.

"You are happy now, Mr. Leigh?" she said smiling.

"Very happy!" said Aubrey. "May you be as happy soon!"

She shook her head, and the smile passed from her eyes and lips,
leaving her face very sorrowful.

"I must work," she said. "Work brings content--if it does not insure
joy." Her gaze involuntarily wandered to her great picture, "The
Coming of Christ," which now, unveiled in all its splendour,
occupied one end of her studio, filling it with a marvellous colour
and glow of light. "Yes, I must work! That big canvas of mine will
not sell I fear! My father was right. It was a mistake"--and she
sighed--"a mistake altogether,--in more ways than one! And what is
the use of painting a picture for the world if there is no chance to
let the world see it?"

Prince Pietro looked at her benevolently.

"Your father was right, you think? Well, Angela mia, I think I had
better be the first to own that your father was wrong! The picture
is already sold;--that is if you consent to sell it!"