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BOOK IV - THE REWARD: CHAPTER 8
The jubilee of the Mountain Madonna fell on the feast of the
Purification. It was mid-November, but with a sky of June. The autumn
rains had ceased for the moment, and fields and orchards glistened with
a late verdure.
Never had the faithful gathered in such numbers to do honour to the
wonder-working Virgin. A widespread resistance to the influences of free
thought and Jansenism was pouring fresh life into the old formulas of
devotion. Though many motives combined to strengthen this movement, it
was still mainly a simple expression of loyalty to old ideals, an
instinctive rallying around a threatened cause. It is the honest
conviction underlying all great popular impulses that gives them their
real strength; and in this case the thousands of pilgrims flocking on
foot to the mountain shrine embodied a greater moral force than the
powerful ecclesiastics at whose call they had gathered.
The clergy themselves were come from all sides; while those that were
unable to attend had sent costly gifts to the miraculous Virgin. The
Bishops of Mantua, Modena, Vercelli and Cremona had travelled to Pianura
in state, the people flocking out beyond the gates to welcome them. Four
mitred Abbots, several Monsignori, and Priors, Rectors, Vicars-general
and canons innumerable rode in the procession, followed on foot by the
humble army of parish priests and by interminable confraternities of all
orders.
The approach of the great dignitaries was hailed with enthusiasm by the
crowds lining the roads. Even the Bishop of Pianura, never popular with
the people, received an unwonted measure of applause, and the
white-cowled Prior of the Dominicans, riding by stern and close-lipped
as a monk of Zurbaran's, was greeted with frenzied acclamations. The
report that the Bishop and the heads of the religious houses in Pianura
were to set free suppers for the pilgrims had doubtless quickened this
outburst of piety; yet it was perhaps chiefly due to the sense of coming
peril that had gradually permeated the dim consciousness of the crowd.
In the church, the glow of lights, the thrilling beauty of the music and
the glitter of the priestly vestments were blent in a melting harmony of
sound and colour. The shrine of the Madonna shone with unearthly
radiance. Hundreds of candles formed an elongated nimbus about her
hieratic figure, which was surmounted by the canopy of cloth-of-gold
presented by the Duke of Modena. The Bishops of Vercelli and Cremona had
offered a robe of silver brocade studded with coral and turquoises, the
devout Princess Clotilda of Savoy an emerald necklace, the Bishop of
Pianura a marvellous veil of rose-point made in a Flemish convent; while
on the statue's brow rested the Duke's jewelled diadem.
The Duke himself, seated in his tribune above the choir, observed the
scene with a renewed appreciation of the Church's unfailing dramatic
instinct. At first he saw in the spectacle only this outer and symbolic
side, of which the mere sensuous beauty had always deeply moved him; but
as he watched the effect produced on the great throng filling the
aisles, he began to see that this external splendour was but the veil
before the sanctuary, and to realise what de Crucis meant when he spoke
of the deep hold of the Church upon the people. Every colour, every
gesture, every word and note of music that made up the texture of the
gorgeous ceremonial might indeed seem part of a long-studied and
astutely-planned effect. Yet each had its root in some instinct of the
heart, some natural development of the inner life, so that they were in
fact not the cunningly-adjusted fragments of an arbitrary pattern but
the inseparable fibres of a living organism. It was Odo's misfortune to
see too far ahead on the road along which his destiny was urging him. As
he sat there, face to face with the people he was trying to lead, he
heard above the music of the mass and the chant of the kneeling throng
an echo of the question that Don Gervaso had once put to him:--"If you
take Christ from the people, what have you to give them instead?"
He was roused by a burst of silver clarions. The mass was over, and the
Duke and Duchess were to descend from their tribune and venerate the
holy image before it was carried through the church.
Odo rose and gave his hand to his wife. They had not seen each other,
save in public, since their last conversation in her closet. The Duchess
walked with set lips and head erect, keeping her profile turned to him
as they descended the steps and advanced to the choir. None knew better
how to take her part in such a pageant. She had the gift of drawing upon
herself the undivided attention of any assemblage in which she moved;
and the consciousness of this power lent a kind of Olympian buoyancy to
her gait. The richness of her dress and her extravagant display of
jewels seemed almost a challenge to the sacred image blazing like a
rainbow beneath its golden canopy; and Odo smiled to think that his
childish fancy had once compared the brilliant being at his side to the
humble tinsel-decked Virgin of the church at Pontesordo.
As the couple advanced, stillness fell on the church. The air was full
of the lingering haze of incense, through which the sunlight from the
clerestory poured in prismatic splendours on the statue of the Virgin.
Rigid, superhuman, a molten flamboyancy of gold and gems, the
wonder-working Madonna shone out above her worshippers. The Duke and
Duchess paused, bowing deeply, below the choir. Then they mounted the
steps and knelt before the shrine. As they did so a crash broke the
silence, and the startled devotees saw that the ducal diadem had fallen
from the Madonna's head.
The hush prolonged itself a moment; then a canon sprang forward to pick
up the crown, and with the movement a murmur rose and spread through the
church. The Duke's offering had fallen to the ground as he approached to
venerate the blessed image. That this was an omen no man could doubt. It
needed no augur to interpret it. The murmur, gathering force as it swept
through the packed aisles, passed from surprise to fear, from fear to a
deep hum of anger;--for the people understood, as plainly as though she
had spoken, that the Virgin of the Valseccas had cast from her the gift
of an unbeliever...
***
The ceremonies over, the long procession was formed again and set out
toward the city. The crowd had surged ahead, and when the Duke rode
through the gates the streets were already thronged. Moving slowly
between the compact mass of people he felt himself as closely observed
as on the day of his state entry; but with far different effect.
Enthusiasm had given way to a cold curiosity. The excitement of the
spectators had spent itself in the morning, and the sight of their
sovereign failed to rouse their flagging ardour. Now and then a cheer
broke out, but it died again without kindling another in the
uninflammable mass. Odo could not tell how much of this indifference was
due to a natural reaction from the emotions of the morning, how much to
his personal unpopularity, how much to the ominous impression produced
by the falling of the Virgin's crown. He rode between his people
oppressed by a sense of estrangement such as he had never known. He felt
himself shut off from them by an impassable barrier of superstition and
ignorance; and every effort to reach them was like the wrong turn in a
labyrinth, drawing him farther away from the issue to which it seemed to
lead.
As he advanced under this indifferent or hostile scrutiny, he thought
how much easier it would be to face a rain of bullets than this
withering glare of criticism. A sudden longing to escape, to be done
with it all, came over him with sickening force. His nerves ached with
the physical strain of holding himself upright on his horse, of
preserving the statuesque erectness proper to the occasion. He felt like
one of his own ancestral effigies, of which the wooden framework had
rotted under the splendid robes. A congestion at the head of a narrow
street had checked the procession, and he was obliged to rein in his
horse. He looked about and found himself in the centre of the square
near the Baptistery. A few feet off, directly in a line with him, was
the weather-worn front of the Royal Printing-Press. He raised his head
and saw a group of people on the balcony. Though they were close at
hand, he saw them in a blur, against which Fulvia's figure suddenly
detached itself. She had told him that she was to view the procession
with the Andreonis; but through the mental haze which enveloped him her
apparition struck a vague surprise. He looked at her intently, and their
eyes met. A faint happiness stole over her face, but no recognition was
possible, and she continued to gaze out steadily upon the throng below
the balcony. Involuntarily his glance followed hers, and he saw that she
was herself the centre of the crowd's attention. Her plain, almost
Quakerish habit, and the tranquil dignity of her carriage, made her a
conspicuous figure among the animated groups in the adjoining windows,
and Odo, with the acuteness of perception which a public life develops,
was instantly aware that her name was on every lip. At the same moment
he saw a woman close to his horse's feet snatch up her child and make
the sign against the evil eye. A boy who stood staring open-mouthed at
Fulvia caught the gesture and repeated it; a barefoot friar imitated the
boy, and it seemed to Odo that the familiar sign was spreading with
malignant rapidity to the furthest limits of the crowd. The impression
was only momentary; for the cavalcade was again in motion, and without
raising his eyes he rode on, sick at heart...
***
At nightfall a man opened the gate of the ducal gardens below the
Chinese pavilion and stepped out into the deserted lane. He locked the
gate and slipped the key into his pocket; then he turned and walked
toward the centre of the town. As he reached the more populous quarters
his walk slackened to a stroll; and now and then he paused to observe a
knot of merry-makers or look through the curtains of the tents set up in
the squares.
The man was plainly but decently dressed, like a petty tradesman or a
lawyer's clerk, and the night being chill he wore a cloak, and had drawn
his hat-brim over his forehead. He sauntered on, letting the crowd carry
him, with the air of one who has an hour to kill, and whose
holiday-making takes the form of an amused spectatorship. To such an
observer the streets offered ample entertainment. The shrewd air
discouraged lounging and kept the crowd in motion; but the open
platforms built for dancing were thronged with couples, and every
peep-show, wine-shop and astrologer's booth was packed to the doors. The
shrines and street-lamps being all alight, and booths and platforms hung
with countless lanterns, the scene was as bright as day; but in the
ever-shifting medley of peasant-dresses, liveries, monkish cowls and
carnival disguises, a soberly-clad man might easily go unremarked.
Reaching the square before the Cathedral, the solitary observer pushed
his way through the idlers gathered about a dais with a curtain at the
back. Before the curtain stood a Milanese quack, dressed like a noble
gentleman, with sword and plumed hat, and rehearsing his cures in
stentorian tones, while his zany, in the short mask and green-and-white
habit of Brighella, cracked jokes and turned hand-springs for the
diversion of the vulgar.
"Behold," the charlatan was shouting, "the marvellous Egyptian
love-philter distilled from the pearl that the great Emperor Antony
dropped into Queen Cleopatra's cup. This infallible fluid, handed down
for generations in the family of my ancestor, the High Priest of Isis--"
The bray of a neighbouring show-man's trumpet cut him short, and
yielding to circumstances he drew back the curtain, and a tumbling-girl
sprang out and began her antics on the front of the stage.
"What did he say was the price of that drink, Giannina?" asked a young
maid-servant pulling her neighbour's sleeve.
"Are you thinking of buying it for Pietrino, my beauty?" the other
returned with a laugh. "Believe me, it is a sound proverb that says:
When the fruit is ripe it falls of itself."
The girl drew away angrily, and the quack took up his harangue:--"The
same philter, ladies and gentlemen--though in confessing it I betray a
professional secret--the same philter, I declare to you on the honour of
a nobleman, whereby, in your own city, a lady no longer young and no way
remarkable in looks or station, has captured and subjugated the
affections of one so high, so exalted, so above all others in beauty,
rank, wealth, power and dignities--"
"Oh, oh, that's the Duke!" sniggered a voice in the crowd.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I name no names!" cried the quack impressively.
"No need to," retorted the voice.
"They do say, though, she gave him something to drink," said a young
woman to a youth in a clerk's dress. "The saying is she studied medicine
with the Turks."
"The Moors, you mean," said the clerk with an air of superiority.
"Well, they say her mother was a Turkey slave and her father a murderer
from the Sultan's galleys."
"No, no, she's plain Piedmontese, I tell you. Her father was a physician
in Turin, and was driven out of the country for poisoning his patients
in order to watch their death-agonies."
"They say she's good to the poor, though," said another voice
doubtfully.
"Good to the poor? Ay, that's what they said of her father. All I know
is that she heard Stefano the weaver's lad had the falling sickness, and
she carried him a potion with her own hands, and the next day the child
was dead, and a Carmelite friar, who saw the phial he drank from, said
it was the same shape and size as one that was found in a witch's grave
when they were digging the foundations for the new monastery."
"Ladies and gentlemen," shrieked the quack, "what am I offered for a
drop of this priceless liquor?"
The listener turned aside and pushed his way toward the farther end of
the square. As he did so he ran against a merry-andrew who thrust a long
printed sheet in his hand.
"Buy my satirical ballads, ladies and gentlemen!" the fellow shouted.
"Two for a farthing, invented and written by an own cousin of the great
Pasquino of Rome! What will you have, sir? Here's the secret history of
a famous Prince's amours with an atheist--here's the true scandal of an
illustrious lady's necklace--two for a farthing...and my humblest thanks
to your excellency." He pocketed the coin, and the other, thrusting the
broadsheets beneath his cloak, pushed on to the nearest coffee-house.
Here every table was thronged, and the babble of talk so loud that the
stranger, hopeless of obtaining refreshment, pressed his way into the
remotest corner of the room and seated himself on an empty cask. At
first he sat motionless, silently observing the crowd; then he drew
forth the ballads and ran his eye over them. He was still engaged in
this study when his notice was attracted by a loud discussion going
forward between a party of men at the nearest table. The disputants,
petty tradesman or artisans by their dress, had evidently been warmed by
a good flagon of wine, and their tones were so lively that every word
reached the listener on the cask.
"Reform, reform!" cried one, who appeared by his dress and manner to be
the weightiest of the company--"it's all very well to cry reform; but
what I say is that most of those that are howling for it no more know
what they're asking than a parrot that's been taught the litany. Now the
first question is: who benefits by your reform? And what's the answer to
that, eh? Is it the tradesmen? The merchants? The clerks, artisans,
household servants, I ask you? I hear some of my fellow-tradesmen
complaining that the nobility don't pay their bills. Will they be better
paid, think you, when the Duke has halved their revenues? Will the
quality keep up as large households, employ as many lacqueys, set as
lavish tables, wear as fine clothes, collect as many rarities, buy as
many horses, give us, in short, as many opportunities of making our
profit out of their pleasure? What I say is, if we're to have new taxes,
don't let them fall on the very class we live by!"
"That's true enough," said another speaker, a lean bilious man with a
pen behind his ear. "The peasantry are the only class that are going to
profit by this constitution."
"And what do the peasantry do for us, I should like to know?" the first
speaker went on triumphantly. "As far as the fat friars go, I'm not
sorry to see them squeezed a trifle, for they've wrung enough money out
of our women-folk to lie between feathers from now till doomsday; but I
say, if you care for your pockets, don't lay hands on the nobility!"
"Gently, gently, my friend," exclaimed a cautious flaccid-looking man
setting down his glass. "Father and son, for four generations, my family
have served Pianura with Church candles, and I can tell you that since
these new atheistical notions came in, the nobility are not the good
patrons they used to be. But as for the friars, I should be sorry to see
them meddled with. It's true they may get the best morsel in the pot and
the warmest seat on the hearth--and one of them, now and then, may take
too long to teach a pretty girl her Pater Noster--but I'm not sure we
shall be better off when they're gone. Formerly, if a child too many
came to poor folk they could always comfort themselves with the thought
that, if there was no room for him at home, the Church was there to
provide for him. But if we drive out the good friars, a man will have to
count mouths before he dares look at his wife too lovingly."
"Well," said the scribe with a dry smile, "I've a notion the good friars
have always taken more than they gave; and if it were not for the gaping
mouths under the cowl even a poor man might have victuals enough for his
own."
The first speaker turned on him contentiously.
"Do I understand you are for this new charter, then?" he asked.
"No, no," said the other. "Better hot polenta than a cold ortolan.
Things are none too good as they are, but I never care to taste first of
a new dish. And in this case I don't fancy the cook."
"Ah, that's it," said the soft man. "it's too much like the apothecary's
wife mixing his drugs for him. Men of Roman lineage want no women to
govern them!" He puffed himself out and thrust a hand in his bosom.
"Besides, gentlemen," he added, dropping his voice and glancing
cautiously about the room, "the saints are my witness I'm not
superstitious--but frankly, now, I don't much fancy this business of the
Virgin's crown."
"What do you mean?" asked a lean visionary-looking youth who had been
drinking and listening.
"Why, sir, I needn't say I'm the last man in Pianura to listen to
women's tattle; but my wife had it straight from Cino the barber, whose
sister is portress of the Benedictines, that, two days since, one of the
nuns foretold the whole business, precisely as it happened--and what's
more, many that were in the Church this morning will tell you that they
distinctly saw the blessed image raise both arms and tear the crown from
her head."
"H'm," said the young man flippantly, "what became of the Bambino
meanwhile, I wonder?"
The scribe shrugged his shoulders. "We all know," said he, "that Cino
the barber lies like a christened Jew; but I'm not surprised the thing
was known in advance, for I make no doubt the priests pulled the wires
that brought down the crown."
The fat man looked scandalised, and the first speaker waved the subject
aside as unworthy of attention.
"Such tales are for women and monks," he said impatiently. "But the
business has its serious side. I tell you we are being hurried to our
ruin. Here's this matter of draining the marshes at Pontesordo. Who's to
pay for that? The class that profits by it? Not by a long way. It's we
who drain the land, and the peasants are to live on it."
The visionary youth tossed back his hair. "But isn't that an inspiration
to you, sir?" he exclaimed. "Does not your heart dilate at the thought
of uplifting the condition of your down-trodden fellows?"
"My fellows? The peasantry my fellows?" cried the other. "I'd have you
know, my young master, that I come of a long and honourable line of
cloth-merchants, that have had their names on the Guild for two hundred
years and over. I've nothing to do with the peasantry, thank God!"
The youth had emptied another glass. "What?" he screamed. "You deny the
universal kinship of man? You disown your starving brothers? Proud
tyrant, remember the Bastille!" He burst into tears and began to quote
Alfieri.
"Well," said the fat man, turning a disgusted shoulder on this display
of emotion, "to my mind this business of draining Pontesordo is too much
like telling the Almighty what to do. If God made the land wet, what
right have we to dry it? Those that begin by meddling with the Creator's
works may end by laying hands on the Creator."
"You're right," said another. "There's no knowing where these
new-fangled notions may land us. For my part, I was rather taken by them
at first; but since I find that his Highness, to pay for all his good
works, is cutting down his household and throwing decent people out of a
job--like my own son, for instance, that was one of the under-steward's
boys at the palace--why, since then, I begin to see a little farther
into the game."
A shabby shrewd-looking fellow in a dirty coat and snuff-stained stock
had sauntered up to the table and stood listening with an amused smile.
"Ah," said the scribe, glancing up, "here's a thoroughgoing reformer,
who'll be asking us all to throw up our hats for the new charter."
The new-comer laughed contemptuously. "I?" he said. "God forbid! The new
charter's none of my making. It's only another dodge for getting round
the populace--for appearing to give them what they would rise up and
take if it were denied them any longer."
"Why, I thought you were hot for these reforms?" exclaimed the fat man
with surprise.
The other shrugged. "You might as well say I was in favour of having the
sun rise tomorrow. It would probably rise at the same hour if I voted
against it. Reform is bound to come, whether your Dukes and Princes are
for it or against it; and those that grant constitutions instead of
refusing them are like men who tie a string to their hats before going
out in a gale. The string may hold for a while--but if it blows hard
enough the hats will all come off in the end."
"Ay, ay; and meanwhile we furnish the string from our own pockets," said
the scribe with a chuckle.
The shabby man grinned. "It won't be the last thing to come out of your
pockets," said he, turning to push his way toward another table.
The others rose and called for their reckoning; and the listener on the
cask slipped out of his corner, elbowed a passage to the door and
stepped forth into the square.
It was after midnight, a thin drizzle was falling, and the crowd had
scattered. The rain was beginning to extinguish the paper lanterns and
the torches, and the canvas sides of the tents flapped dismally, like
wet sheets on a clothes-line. The man drew his cloak closer, and
avoiding the stragglers who crossed his path, turned into the first
street that led to the palace. He walked fast over the slippery
cobble-stones, buffeted by a rising wind and threading his way between
dark walls and sleeping house-fronts till he reached the lane below the
ducal gardens. He unlocked the door by which he had come forth, entered
the gardens, and paused a moment on the terrace above the lane.
Behind him rose the palace, a dark irregular bulk, with a lighted window
showing here and there. Before him lay the city, an indistinguishable
huddle of roofs and towers under the rainy night. He stood awhile gazing
out over it; then he turned and walked toward the palace. The garden
alleys were deserted, the pleached walks dark as subterranean passages,
with the wet gleam of statues starting spectrally out of the blackness.
The man walked rapidly, leaving the Borromini wing on his left, and
skirting the outstanding mass of the older buildings. Behind the marble
buttresses of the chapel, he crossed the dense obscurity of a court
between high walls, found a door under an archway, turned a key in the
lock, and gained a spiral stairway as dark as the court. He groped his
way up the stairs and paused a moment on the landing to listen. Then he
opened another door, lifted a heavy hanging of tapestry, and stepped
into the Duke's closet. It stood empty, with a lamp burning low on the
desk.
The man threw off his cloak and hat, dropped into a chair beside the
desk, and hid his face in his hands.
Content of BOOK IV - THE REWARD: CHAPTER 8 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
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