THE autumn and winter passed uneventfully.
Arthur was reading hard and had little spare time.
He contrived to get a glimpse of Montanelli once
or oftener in every week, if only for a few
minutes. From time to time he would come
in to ask for help with some difficult book; but
on these occasions the subject of study was
strictly adhered to. Montanelli, feeling, rather
than observing, the slight, impalpable barrier that
had come between them, shrank from everything
which might seem like an attempt to retain the
old close relationship. Arthur's visits now caused
him more distress than pleasure, so trying was the
constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as
if nothing were altered. Arthur, for his part,
noticed, hardly understanding it, the subtle
change in the Padre's manner; and, vaguely feeling
that it had some connection with the vexed
question of the "new ideas," avoided all mention
of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly
filled. Yet he had never loved Montanelli
so deeply as now. The dim, persistent sense of
dissatisfaction, of spiritual emptiness, which he
had tried so hard to stifle under a load of theology
and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the touch
of Young Italy. All the unhealthy fancies born of
loneliness and sick-room watching had passed
away, and the doubts against which he used to
pray had gone without the need of exorcism.
With the awakening of a new enthusiasm, a
clearer, fresher religious ideal (for it was more in
this light than in that of a political development
that the students' movement had appeared to
him), had come a sense of rest and completeness,
of peace on earth and good will towards men; and
in this mood of solemn and tender exaltation all
the world seemed to him full of light. He found
a new element of something lovable in the persons
whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli, who
for five years had been his ideal hero, was now in
his eyes surrounded with an additional halo, as a
potential prophet of the new faith. He listened
with passionate eagerness to the Padre's sermons,
trying to find in them some trace of inner kinship
with the republican ideal; and pored over the
Gospels, rejoicing in the democratic tendencies of
Christianity at its origin.
One day in January he called at the seminary to
return a book which he had borrowed. Hearing
that the Father Director was out, he went up to
Montanelli's private study, placed the volume on
its shelf, and was about to leave the room when
the title of a book lying on the table caught his
eyes. It was Dante's "De Monarchia." He
began to read it and soon became so absorbed that
when the door opened and shut he did not hear.
He was aroused from his preoccupation by Montanelli's
voice behind him.
"I did not expect you to-day," said the Padre,
glancing at the title of the book. "I was just
going to send and ask if you could come to me
this evening."
"Is it anything important? I have an engagement
for this evening; but I will miss it if------"
"No; to-morrow will do. I want to see you
because I am going away on Tuesday. I have
been sent for to Rome."
"To Rome? For long?"
"The letter says, 'till after Easter.' It is from
the Vatican. I would have let you know at once,
but have been very busy settling up things about
the seminary and making arrangements for the new
Director."
"But, Padre, surely you are not giving up the
seminary?"
"It will have to be so; but I shall probably come
back to Pisa, for some time at least."
"But why are you giving it up?"
"Well, it is not yet officially announced;
but I am offered a bishopric."
"Padre! Where?"
"That is the point about which I have to go to
Rome. It is not yet decided whether I am to
take a see in the Apennines, or to remain here as
Suffragan."
"And is the new Director chosen yet?"
"Father Cardi has been nominated and arrives
here to-morrow."
"Is not that rather sudden?"
"Yes; but----The decisions of the Vatican
are sometimes not communicated till the last
moment."
"Do you know the new Director?"
"Not personally; but he is very highly spoken
of. Monsignor Belloni, who writes, says that he
is a man of great erudition."
"The seminary will miss you terribly."
"I don't know about the seminary, but I am sure
you will miss me, carino; perhaps almost as much
as I shall miss you."
"I shall indeed; but I am very glad, for all
that."
"Are you? I don't know that I am." He sat
down at the table with a weary look on his face;
not the look of a man who is expecting high
promotion.
"Are you busy this afternoon, Arthur?" he said
after a moment. "If not, I wish you would stay
with me for a while, as you can't come to-night.
I am a little out of sorts, I think; and I want to
see as much of you as possible before leaving."
"Yes, I can stay a bit. I am due at six."
"One of your meetings?"
Arthur nodded; and Montanelli changed the
subject hastily.
"I want to speak to you about yourself," he
said. "You will need another confessor in my
absence."
"When you come back I may go on confessing
to you, may I not?"
"My dear boy, how can you ask? Of course I
am speaking only of the three or four months that
I shall be away. Will you go to one of the
Fathers of Santa Caterina?"
"Very well."
They talked of other matters for a little while;
then Arthur rose.
"I must go, Padre; the students will be waiting
for me."
The haggard look came back to Montanelli's
face.
"Already? You had almost charmed away
my black mood. Well, good-bye."
"Good-bye. I will be sure to come to-morrow."
"Try to come early, so that I may have time
to see you alone. Father Cardi will be here.
Arthur, my dear boy, be careful while I am gone;
don't be led into doing anything rash, at least before
I come back. You cannot think how anxious
I feel about leaving you."
"There is no need, Padre; everything is quite
quiet. It will be a long time yet."
"Good-bye," Montanelli said abruptly, and sat
down to his writing.
The first person upon whom Arthur's eyes fell,
as he entered the room where the students' little
gatherings were held, was his old playmate, Dr.
Warren's daughter. She was sitting in a corner
by the window, listening with an absorbed and
earnest face to what one of the "initiators," a tall
young Lombard in a threadbare coat, was saying
to her. During the last few months she had
changed and developed greatly, and now looked a
grown-up young woman, though the dense black
plaits still hung down her back in school-girl
fashion. She was dressed all in black, and had
thrown a black scarf over her head, as the room
was cold and draughty. At her breast was a spray
of cypress, the emblem of Young Italy. The
initiator was passionately describing to her the
misery of the Calabrian peasantry; and she sat
listening silently, her chin resting on one hand
and her eyes on the ground. To Arthur she
seemed a melancholy vision of Liberty mourning
for the lost Republic. (Julia would have seen in
her only an overgrown hoyden, with a sallow complexion,
an irregular nose, and an old stuff frock
that was too short for her.)
"You here, Jim!" he said, coming up to her
when the initiator had been called to the other end
of the room. "Jim" was a childish corruption of
her curious baptismal name: Jennifer. Her Italian
schoolmates called her "Gemma."
She raised her head with a start.
"Arthur! Oh, I didn't know you--belonged
here!"
"And I had no idea about you. Jim, since when
have you----?"
"You don't understand!" she interposed
quickly. "I am not a member. It is only that
I have done one or two little things. You see, I
met Bini--you know Carlo Bini?"
"Yes, of course." Bini was the organizer of the
Leghorn branch; and all Young Italy knew him.
"Well, he began talking to me about these
things; and I asked him to let me go to a students'
meeting. The other day he wrote to me to
Florence------Didn't you know I had been to
Florence for the Christmas holidays?"
"I don't often hear from home now."
"Ah, yes! Anyhow, I went to stay with the
Wrights." (The Wrights were old schoolfellows
of hers who had moved to Florence.) "Then Bini
wrote and told me to pass through Pisa to-day on
my way home, so that I could come here. Ah!
they're going to begin."
The lecture was upon the ideal Republic and
the duty of the young to fit themselves for it.
The lecturer's comprehension of his subject was
somewhat vague; but Arthur listened with devout
admiration. His mind at this period was curiously
uncritical; when he accepted a moral ideal
he swallowed it whole without stopping to think
whether it was quite digestible. When the lecture
and the long discussion which followed it were
finished and the students began to disperse, he
went up to Gemma, who was still sitting in the
corner of the room.
"Let me walk with you, Jim. Where are you
staying?"
"With Marietta."
"Your father's old housekeeper?"
"Yes; she lives a good way from here."
They walked for some time in silence. Then
Arthur said suddenly:
"You are seventeen, now, aren't you?"
"I was seventeen in October."
"I always knew you would not grow up like
other girls and begin wanting to go to balls and
all that sort of thing. Jim, dear, I have so often
wondered whether you would ever come to be
one of us."
"So have I."
"You said you had done things for Bini; I
didn't know you even knew him."
"It wasn't for Bini; it was for the other one"
"Which other one?"
"The one that was talking to me to-night--
Bolla."
"Do you know him well?" Arthur put in with
a little touch of jealousy. Bolla was a sore subject
with him; there had been a rivalry between them
about some work which the committee of Young
Italy had finally intrusted to Bolla, declaring
Arthur too young and inexperienced.
"I know him pretty well; and I like him very
much. He has been staying in Leghorn."
"I know; he went there in November------"
"Because of the steamers. Arthur, don't you
think your house would be safer than ours for that
work? Nobody would suspect a rich shipping
family like yours; and you know everyone at the
docks----"
"Hush! not so loud, dear! So it was in your
house the books from Marseilles were hidden?"
"Only for one day. Oh! perhaps I oughtn't to
have told you."
"Why not? You know I belong to the society.
Gemma, dear, there is nothing in all the world that
would make me so happy as for you to join us--
you and the Padre."
"Your Padre! Surely he----"
"No; he thinks differently. But I have sometimes
fancied--that is--hoped--I don't know----"
"But, Arthur! he's a priest."
"What of that? There are priests in the society
--two of them write in the paper. And why
not? It is the mission of the priesthood to lead
the world to higher ideals and aims, and what else
does the society try to do? It is, after all, more
a religious and moral question than a political one.
If people are fit to be free and responsible citizens,
no one can keep them enslaved."
Gemma knit her brows. "It seems to me,
Arthur," she said, "that there's a muddle somewhere
in your logic. A priest teaches religious
doctrine. I don't see what that has to do with
getting rid of the Austrians."
"A priest is a teacher of Christianity, and the
greatest of all revolutionists was Christ."
"Do you know, I was talking about priests to
father the other day, and he said----"
"Gemma, your father is a Protestant."
After a little pause she looked round at him
frankly.
"Look here, we had better leave this subject
alone. You are always intolerant when you talk
about Protestants."
"I didn't mean to be intolerant. But I think
Protestants are generally intolerant when they
talk about priests."
"I dare say. Anyhow, we have so often quarreled
over this subject that it is not worth while to
begin again. What did you think of the lecture?"
"I liked it very much--especially the last part.
I was glad he spoke so strongly about the
need of living the Republic, not dreaming of it.
It is as Christ said: 'The Kingdom of Heaven is
within you.'"
"It was just that part that I didn't like. He
talked so much of the wonderful things we ought
to think and feel and be, but he never told us practically
what we ought to do."
"When the time of crisis comes there will be
plenty for us to do; but we must be patient; these
great changes are not made in a day."
"The longer a thing is to take doing, the more
reason to begin at once. You talk about being
fit for freedom--did you ever know anyone so fit
for it as your mother? Wasn't she the most perfectly
angelic woman you ever saw? And what use
was all her goodness? She was a slave till the day
she died--bullied and worried and insulted by your
brother James and his wife. It would have been
much better for her if she had not been so sweet
and patient; they would never have treated her
so. That's just the way with Italy; it's not
patience that's wanted--it's for somebody to get
up and defend themselves------"
"Jim, dear, if anger and passion could have
saved Italy she would have been free long ago;
it is not hatred that she needs, it is love."
As he said the word a sudden flush went up
to his forehead and died out again. Gemma
did not see it; she was looking straight before
her with knitted brows and set mouth.
"You think I am wrong, Arthur," she said
after a pause; "but I am right, and you will grow
to see it some day. This is the house. Will you
come in?"
"No; it's late. Good-night, dear!"
He was standing on the doorstep, clasping her
hand in both of his.
"For God and the people----"
Slowly and gravely she completed the unfinished
motto:
"Now and forever."
Then she pulled away her hand and ran into
the house. When the door had closed behind her
he stooped and picked up the spray of cypress
which had fallen from her breast.
