The Hill of Venus. Gallizier Nathan

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СКАЧАТЬ Francesco exclaimed aghast.

      Then all the blood rushed to his heart.

      "You mean that I am to decide, here and now?"

      "Here and now!" came the low, inexorable voice.

      The youth sprang from his seat.

      "Then I say no, – no, – no!" he shouted, his eyes flashing fierce determination from the pale face. "I am not fit to be a monk! I will not be a monk! I am of the living, – I came for the sunlight, not the shadow of the cloister! Never – never – never!"

      A terrible, indefinable expression passed into the eyes of the sick man. It passed out again, but the trace remained.

      When he spoke again, his voice was weak, and there was a note in it of despair.

      "Deem you, that I have not thought of it, that I have not weighed in the balance all your objections to the life of the cloister when I asked this thing of you? You say you are of the court! You came for the sunlight, not the shadow! What man does not! But you forget, there is a force that shapes our ends, – you forget – your origin, – your birth! I am your father and my sin is yours! We are both impure in the sight of God! I have opened a means of salvation for both of us – the Way of the Cross. A glorious way it is, for by it my soul shall belong to you! In the sight of men you are as nothing! The blot of your birth can never be effaced! But you are my son! Therefore, here on my death-bed I command you to leave this world, that you may open the way to another, – a better one, – to both of us, – to both of us, Francesco, – to you and to me!"

      There was a long silence between them, a silence of dread and expectation for the one, – of fear and despair for the other.

      At last Francesco raised his head.

      "And she, whom I never knew, – she who was my mother," he asked bitterly – "have you saved her soul? Or is that too left for me to do?"

      "If prayers and penances avail, and masses untold, – her soul is in Heaven! Yet – how do I know if the sacrifice availed?"

      Francesco again relapsed into silence.

      Out of the mist before his eyes there rose his own life. He saw its shimmering past, – all the allurement for happiness it held out, – and the dreary future decreed for him, to atone for another's sin.

      "What is required to make a monk of me?" he queried with a dead voice. "What cloister am I to enter?"

      The sick man breathed quickly.

      "All these matters have I arranged. From His Holiness himself have I letters, sanctioning the matter. You will be given the right of friar's orders that shall free you at times from the weariness and monotony of the cloister. In all difficulties or troubles you will appeal directly to the Pontiff! These privileges are great!"

      "The Pontiff!" Francesco uttered with a start. "Pope Clement IV is the mortal enemy of those to whom I have pledged my troth, to whom I owe allegiance. I am a Ghibelline!" he concluded, as if struck by a new thought. "I can never become a monk!"

      For a moment the elder Villani lay silent, as if dazed by this sudden unforeseen resistance. He forced himself to answer calmly and not to betray his own misgivings.

      "Your reasons are mere sophistry!" he said, after a brief pause. "Has the party of Conradino the power to pave your way to Heaven, – to save my soul from perdition? To insure your mother's eternal peace? Your path lies henceforth with the Church, from which only my own perverseness and blindness had severed you. For you henceforth there are no commands save those of the Holy Father! What are Guelphs and Ghibellines to you in this of all homes, – when I am lying at the door of death?"

      "They will look upon me as an ingrate, a renegade, a traitor, – and she of all, – she – "

      He covered his face with his hands.

      "What say you?" asked his father drearily.

      "Where am I to go?" came the monotonous response.

      "You will repair to Monte Cassino, there to serve your novitiate. Your time is to be shortened by special dispensation. At the end of that period you will be called to Rome, to enter the Chapter House of the Order of St. John. It holds out greater honor and privileges than any in the world. You will take your orders directly from His Holiness. The path to glory and to holiness lies open to you. Are you satisfied?"

      A moan came from Francesco's lips.

      "My strength is failing, – your word, – to God!"

      Francesco stood beside his father's death-bed, his arms hanging limply by his side. His damp hair clung closely to his head. His eyes were dull and unseeing.

      Like a breath of the evening wind his youth had passed from him. His gaze was not upon his father's face, but turned inwardly upon the great aching void where his happiness had been.

      When he spoke his words were low, his tone and his face alike without expression.

      "In the sight of God, I promise to become a monk!"

      The old man, straining to catch the words, drank them into his soul.

      His face relaxed. A sigh passed his lips. His failing strength had apparently returned to him.

      "You may call Fra Anselmo," he said gently. "But first, my son, kneel to receive my blessing!"

      Francesco stumbled blindly to the bedside and forced himself to kneel. He shivered, as the sick man's hot, dry hand lay upon his hair, and only by main force he restrained himself from crying out aloud.

      Then the whispered phrase of the benediction fell meaningless upon his ear:

      "Pax tecum nunc et per omnia saecula, – Amen!" —

      CHAPTER II

      THE PLEDGE

      IN the antechamber of the elder Villani's sick-room, during the talk between father and son, the monks had quietly waited the termination of the interview. The Prior sat alone on a settle in a corner, his tonsured head bent so low that his face was unreadable, while with nervous fingers he stroked the cloth of his brown robe. One of the monks was engaged in expounding some dogma to his companions who obviously paid little heed to his words. A strange friar, who had on the previous night arrived from Rome, sat with the confessor of San Cataldo, but neither of them spoke. They, too, seemed to be listening for the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The two mediciners, more at ease, sat murmuring professionally between themselves, careless of the mental unrest of their colleagues of the soul. None in the room, save the strange friar, knew what the elder Villani was saying to his son, but there were few even among these world-strange men who had not guessed the truth long ago.

      The minutes dragged. The floating wicks in the quaint stone lamps wavered and flickered restlessly in their sconces, while the uneven light from the cresset-lantern, hung in the centre of the chamber, cast distorted shadows over floor and ceiling. To all present the wait was tedious. To the strange friar whose eyes roamed ever again towards the sick-chamber, it seemed interminable, and ever and anon the monk at his side leaned uneasily towards him. "Gregorio Villani will find the task no easy one. He had better left it to one of us!"

      Nevertheless, when their wait was ended, and the leather hangings of the door were raised by a white hand, all in the room were startled, СКАЧАТЬ