_ CHAPTER XXII
Even Giustinian Giustiniani came and went heavily, asking for the latest change before he returned to the Senate Chamber, and carrying with him always a vision of that white, pleading face which had so wrought upon his anger when he had seen it luminous with her hope for Venice. But now his anger was transferred to her confessor who had bewitched her, to all those Roman prelates who had paid her court--a mere child, not able to defend herself nor to understand, killing herself for a question beyond her! And Marcantonio, for love of her, useless and unmanned! It was more than his senatorial pride could endure to find himself powerless under such complications. To appease his wrath he denounced Fra Francesco through the Bocca di Leone, but when the friar was sought for, by order of the Ten, he was not found. Fra Paolo was appealed to, for he was the friend of the gentle confessor; but he had not known his plans. "If his conscience held him not, it was well for him to flee," he said, "and best for Venice."
But when Fra Paolo was alone in his cell, which, in those days of greatness, he would not exchange for quarters at the Ducal Palace though the Senate pleaded, the memory of a confidential talk held since this quarrel with Rome began brought a hint of the reason for this sudden flight.
He was tender of conscience and strong of faith, this good Fra Francesco; always sad, but never stern toward Fra Paolo's failure to hold a belief implicit as his own in some doctrines of his beloved Church which he held to be vital. Yet his reverence for Fra Paolo's great knowledge and holy life made him unwilling to criticize where he unconsciously questioned. It was the severest test of friendship to keep his faith and affectionate devotion in one who was taking so prominent a part in a movement opposing papal authority; but sometimes, when Fra Paolo had uttered many things he would not have tolerated in any other priest, Fra Francesco said only to himself, in great sadness, "It is God who maketh men different; we do not know the why!"
The gentle friar sometimes wondered in himself that he could not openly say to Fra Paolo when they met, after matins, the many things which had lain hot in his heart through the night--for how
could it be right to oppose the supreme authority? But when the placid face of his friend met his, bathed in the fresh benediction of his altar service--new each morning and never omitted--he forgot the horror with which he had been reasoning that Fra Paolo was hastening the curse upon Venice.
But if Fra Paolo derived no added
finesse for his masterful thought from the confidences he so often unconsciously invited from this lifelong friend, his faith in the sincerity and spiritual depth of this brother friar who, out of love for him, listened to much that pained him, taught him to value at its highest this opportunity of the closest scrutiny of his own motives, as he noted the impression of their talk on a nature as sincere and spiritual as it was transparent.
But that night, when they had passed from the cloister into Fra Paolo's study-cell, continuing as they walked the train of thought they had been discussing, his listener soon became so distrait that Fra Paolo, who was singularly conscious of unspoken moods, dropped the problem he was unfolding and laid his hand upon his shoulder with the rare tenderness expressed only where he hoped that he might serve.
"We were speaking of weighty matter and thy thoughts are not with me. Tell me thy trouble."
"It is a question of responsibility--the burden of the confessional," Fra Francesco answered simply.
Fra Paolo drew back his hand, and his tone was a shade less tender.
"Of all that hath been reposed in thee under that sacred seal thou must bear the burden alone."
"My brother, dost thou think I can forget my vow?" Fra Francesco exclaimed, reproachfully. "I spake not of that which hath been reposed in me, but of my duty growing out of that sacred office. It was for this I wanted counsel, and I had sought thee before to pray thee to confess me; but I know thy views and I ask thee not."
"Yet as brothers of one holy order thou mayest confide in me, if perchance it may bring thee comfort. For us of the Servi it is our duty of service."
Fra Francesco sat for a moment in silence. "Life is heavy," he said slowly, "and hard to interpret. Yet I seem to feel that thou wilt understand, though it be in the very matter of our difference. There is one--highly placed and noble in spirit, and to the Church a most devoted daughter--who cometh to me for teaching in this matter of the interdict. She asketh of me all its meaning--what it shall bring to Venice?"
"Thou tell her, then, it shall bring naught. For if it be pronounced it will be unjustly, and without due cause."
"Nay, Paolo, my brother; it is written in the nineteenth maxim of the 'Dictatus Papae' 'That none may judge the Pope.'"
"My brother, who gave thee thy conscience and thine intellect?" Fra Paolo questioned sternly. "And hath He who gave them thee so taught thee to yield them that it should be as if thou had'st not these gifts which, verily, distinguish man from the animals--to whom instinct sufficeth? Yet, if thou would'st have answer from one of our own casuists in whom thou dost place thy trust, the Cardinal Bellarmino, in his second book on the Roman Pontiffs, will teach thee that without prejudice to this maxim of Gregory thou mayest refuse obedience to a command extending beyond the jurisdiction of him who commands; as Gaetano in his first treatise on the 'Power of the Pope,' will also tell thee. For the peace of thine own mind, my brother, I would I might make thee understand!"
"Nay," answered Fra Francesco, not less earnestly. "Peace for him who hath faith cometh not with one intellectual solution, nor another; but with calm purpose to do the right, however it may be revealed."
"Which, as thou knowest, Francesco, Venice seeketh--and naught else. It is a matter of law in which thou hast made no studies, and therefore hard for thee. Now must I to the Council Chamber, but later I would willingly show thee all the argument. But of this be sure. The Republic will not offend against the liberty of the Holy Church; but she will protect her own."
"Fearest thou not, dear friend," Fra Francesco questioned, greatly troubled, "that thou mayest lead Venice o'erlightly to esteem this vow of obedience which every loyal son of the Church oweth to the Holy Father? My heart is sore for thee. I see not the matter as thou would'st have me."
"Nay," said Fra Paolo quietly, "to each one his burden! If thy conscience bears not out my teaching, thou art free from it. I interpret the law by the grace which God hath given me; I, also, being free from sin therein, if my understanding be not equal to the tasks wherein I seem to feel God's guidance."
"Yet tell me, I pray thee, Paolo mio, and be not displeased by mine insistence,--perchance it may help me to comprehend this mystery,--how knowest thou the limit beyond which one may without sin, judge that the Holy Father shall not command obedience of the sons of the Church?"
"I do not say, when it conflicts with that which is in itself against the law of God," Fra Paolo answered him, "this limitation thou also would'st admit; yet it may well-nigh seem to thee a blasphemy to suppose so strange a case, though many of the early fathers do provide against it. But, to take another case, when a command of the Sovereign Pontiff doth conflict with the rule of the Prince in his realm, see'st thou not what confusion should come if the Pope may revoke the laws of princes and replace them by his own in the temporal affairs of their dominions? And if it belong to his Holiness to judge which laws shall be revoked and what may be legislated to replace the old laws, ultimately but one power should everywhere reign--and that an ecclesiastical power. The matter is simple."
Fra Paolo's searching gaze noted the flush of feeling in the face of his friend, which was his only response.
"And thus will the Senate vote when the question shall come before them?" Fra Francesco had asked, after a pause; for this conversation had taken place in the earlier days of the struggle, while in many quarters opinions were forming.
"There can be no accurate recital of the manner of a happening before it hath taken place," the Teologo Consultore replied so placidly that his tone conveyed as little reproach as information; yet Fra Francesco could not again have put his question in any form.
Still he lingered, as if something more must be spoken, although Fra Paolo had already sent to summon his secretary. "I also," he said, asserting himself, with an effort which was always painful to his gentle soul, "I also would be faithful to my conscience and my vow; that which I believe--I can teach no other."
"More can one not ask of thee," Fra Paolo answered, suddenly unbending from the stilted mood of his last words. "By the light that is given him must each man choose his path."
"If," said Fra Francesco, speaking sorrowfully, "the blessed law of silence were added to our vow, how would it save a man perplexity and trouble! For that which one believeth must color his speech, though he would fain speak little. Thy light is larger than mine own--I know it to be so--and yet to me it bringeth no vision. I would it had been given us to see and teach alike!"
"In this matter of the confessional," said Fra Paolo, returning and speaking low, "if but thou didst believe with me that,
as a sacrament, it is oftenest unwise and best left unpractised, thy difficulties might be fewer."
"Nay, Paolo mio, tempt me not. I would I might believe it, but my conscience agreeth to my vow."
"As thou believest, so do; 'for whatsoever is not of faith is sin,'" said Fra Paolo solemnly. "That was a strong word spoken of doctrine to guard the conscience. I would I might scatter all the noble words of that noble Apostle Paul among the people and the priests, in our own tongue!"
"Sometimes thou seemest so like a rebel I know not why I come to thee in trouble"--Fra Francesco looked at him with grieving eyes--"except that in thine heart thou art indeed true."
"So help me God--it is my prayer!" Fra Paolo answered. "And for thee and me alike, however we may differ, there is this other helpful word in that same blessed book which they will not let the starving people share--'God is faithful who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.' May God be with thee!"
"And Christ and the Holy Mother have thee in their keeping!" Fra Francesco answered, with a yearning look in his loving face, in a tone that lingered on the sweet word "mother" and almost seemed to hint of an omission, as they clasped hands and parted.
This was the last time they had had speech together; but on the evening of the day when Venice had declared her loyalty to her Prince by unanimous vote, there was much animated talk of the matter in the refectory. Fra Francesco had joined the group and listened silently. But as the call to
compline rang through the cloisters and the friars scattered, he had turned his face to Fra Paolo, who read thereon a very passion of love, reproach, and pain which he could not forget. "When the duties of the Council press me less," he thought, "I will seek him out and reason with him."
But after that night the gentle friar was seen no more in Venice, and inquiry failed to develop a reason for his flight. They missed him in the Servi, where already they were beginning to gather up the pale happenings of his convent life with the kindly recollection which tinged them with a thread of romance, as his brothers of the order rehearsed them in the cloistered ways where he would come no more; for to him some ministry of beauty had always been assigned. The vines drooped for his tending, they said; and the pet stork who wandered in the close languished for his hand to feed the dainty morsel, and for his voice in that indulgent teasing which had provoked its proudest preening.
But this, perhaps, was only fancy, or their way of recognizing a certain grace they missed. But of the reason of his going, which most of them connected in some way with this movement in Venice over which he had often grieved, there was no open recognition among them--partly because they feared that ubiquitous ear of the Senate, which penetrated unseen through many closed doorways, partly because they realized how strange it was that their own sympathies had not confessed his view of right.
Furtively, too, the friars watched Fra Paolo; for the adoration of the gentle Fra Francesco for this idol of their order, from the day when they had entered the convent as boys together, had formed a cloister idyl--none the less that the response of the graver friar was not equally demonstrative, though it was felt to be true; for it was a marvel that two such opposite natures should hold so closely together and that Fra Francesco, for all his gentleness, should apparently retain opinions uninfluenced by the power and learning which all others recognized.
Yet, from those early days, Fra Francesco had abated nothing of his scrupulous and loving conservatism; never had he questioned a rule, nor chosen the least, instead of the most, permitted in an act of humility; and after his Church, the Madonna, and his patron saint, he expended the devotion of his nature upon his friend with a just estimate of his power and daring which filled his soul with anxious happiness. Often, in those earlier days, when the echoes of Fra Paolo's triumphs had penetrated to the refectory of the Servi, Fra Francesco had felt a strange premonition which had kept him long on his knees before the altar in the chapel. "Shield him, O Holy Mother, from danger," he had prayed, "nor let him wander from the lowly path of obedience for pride of that which thou permittest him to know!" And his day-dream of earthly happiness was the spending of his friend's great gifts in the service of the Holy Church, wherein he should ascend from honor to honor, enlarging her borders and strengthening her rule, attaining at last to the supreme position.
Weeks after Fra Francesco had disappeared from the convent a letter was brought by the gastaldo of Nicolotti, Piero Salin, who, in spite of opposition among the brothers, persisted in delivering it with his own hand, though it was rare that any one outside his usual circle was permitted to hold an interview with Fra Paolo; but Piero's masterful ways had not left him, and when he willed to do a thing the wills of others counted little. It was a pity--because the missive was mysterious, crumpled with long carrying--and if a trusty member of their own community had delivered it to Fra Paolo in his cell, there might have been some revelation!
But there was none. Fra Paolo was only a little more grave and silent than of wont; but often now he was so absorbed in government matters that he took less part in the social life of the Servi.
So Piero, laughing at the ease with which he had carried his point for nothing but the asking,--and it had to be done, since he had promised Marina,--had his interview alone with Fra Paolo, and passed easily through the group of disappointed friars, under those exquisitely wrought arcades to his gondola, thanking them with nonchalance and pressing them to avail themselves more often of the eager service of his barcarioli, that the blessing of the Madonna might be upon their traghetti, to the discomfiture of their rivals the Castellani. For Piero was a faithful gastaldo and lost no opportunity of seeking favor for the faction he represented, and there was a certain grace in his proffer, since priests and friars paid no fares.
Fra Paolo left alone read the message which held the tragedy of a life.
"I could not stay in Venice, dear friend of my whole life, to see thee guide our country into such sad error; for so to my heart it seemeth--may God help us both!
"And when there was no longer hope that my little word might prevail to hold any in that way which alone seemeth to me right--and thou, with thy great gifts, art using them for State and not for Church, Paolo mio, not for our Holy Church--I could not stay, because I love thee! I must have been ever chiding thee had I remained, as if God had made me for no use but to be a thorn in thy flesh--which I could not believe.
"But because He hath made thee great, He hath given thee thy conscience for thy guide, as mine to me; which holdeth me from grief over-much, for I know thee to be true and great.
"Therefore for peace, and not for gladness, have I left thee; for reverence to the Holy Father, and for the better keeping of all my vows.
"If perchance, at the feet of the Holy Father, my prayers and penances might, by miracle, avail to turn his wrath from Venice--it could not hurt thee!
"Yet because of this wish, which only holdeth life in me,--so sore is my heart at leaving Venice and thee and our dear home of the Servi,--well I know that never more mine eyes shall see these places of my love--and thee, my friend!
"If we learn by the way of pain, after this life God will forgive our errors!
"FRANCESCO, thy brother of the Servi." _