The Hill of Venus

At that moment Francesco felt that, wherever he went, he would bear his shadow with him none the less surely, because its presence might be hidden by the general negative of that sunlight, which so inexorably illumined every detail of the road that lay before him.

The shadow!

Was he indeed a living soul created in the image of his Maker, or an echo merely shouted by some fiend in derision, destined to wander forever disconsolate among the waste places, seeking and finding not? —

Now he saw Ilaria come up the moonlit path.

For a moment he wavered, trembling in every limb. Then the memory of their meeting at the fountain swept over him in a mighty wave. He called to mind the sweet smile of long ago, the touch of her hands.

No longer master of his feelings, he took a step forward, his eyes, straining into the night, riveted upon her. There was a hint of melancholy in the curve about the mouth and the farseeing eyes.

Another moment and he found himself face to face with Ilaria Caselli.

As she noted the shadow across her path, she paused sharply, then, as their eyes met, he saw the flowing motion of her figure stiffening into curves that lent a suggestion of resistance. He caught the momentary impatience of her brow and the start of resentment in her eyes.

His purpose vanquished, he stood mute in the face of the striking chill of her pride.

For a moment they regarded each other in silence, a silence that resembled the settling waters after the plunging of a stone.

Her face was very white, and her eyes, as they met his, shone with an almost supernatural lustre.

Yet this silence was putting the two asunder, contrasting them vividly, balancing them one against the other.

The repose and the self-confidence ran all towards the woman.

Her face waited.

She seemed to look down from above on Francesco the monk.

A moment ago he had had so much to say, and now his own voicelessness begot anger and rebellion.

Ilaria was looking at him, as if she saw something, and nothing, and Francesco felt that her eyes called him a fool. Her air of aloofness, as of standing above some utterly impersonal matter, put the man under her feet.

She could not have trampled upon him more victoriously than by displaying the utter indifference with which she seemed to rediscover his existence.

For a moment, that seemed interminable, they stood at gaze, as if some hidden hand had been laid upon them, arresting every movement.

Then her lips parted slightly.

"Faithless!"

Then she was gone. —

How long Francesco remained rooted to the spot, he did not know.

He felt as one who has walked into a place, where all the doors were closed, where calm, contemptuous faces were watching him from the windows.

His chief desire now was to get away from Rome as quickly as possible. The Pontiff was at Viterbo. Thither he would travel with the dawn. He was tired of humiliations. Restless and baffled though he felt in his effort to conform his thoughts to the life he was henceforth to lead, he resented even compassion.

The moon had risen higher and the sky was sprinkled with myriads of stars.

Francesco stood leaning against the fountain, and heard the bells on distant Aventine tolling through the night. Their music filled the air. He tried to hush the anxiety of his heart by prayer. It was in vain.

He felt the love for the friends of his youth turning slowly into hate. Once again he had proved himself, once again he had been crucified on the altar of Duty!

Let the stormy billows of life then sweep him onward to whatever destiny a dark fate had consigned him! Since loyalty had proved his undoing, why cling to outward show? —

How perfect was the night!

The distant hillsides were hushed. The very leaves were still. The olive woods shone silvery in the moonlight!

The splashing of the fountains came clear to him in the intense stillness. In the moonlight the roses were nodding to each other and the perfume of magnolias permeated the balmy night air. Farther in the shade he could see the Lucciola, in whose heart were hidden the love-words caught from lovers' lips, – what a mission for a flower! On the highroad he heard the tramp of horses' feet. They came nearer, stopped, then died away in the distance.

Afraid even to move Francesco peered through the leaves.

But the only sound he could hear was the beating of his own heart.

He stood alone in the garden.

Love seemed to have died out of the eyes of life, and the world seemed to shiver in disillusionment.

A great weariness came to him, a weariness of the heart, spreading with the swiftness of poison in the blood. His head drooped, as if the moonlight had wilted the strong neck. His eyes lost their lustre of haughtiness and fell into a vague, brooding stare. He was dull and weary; but yesterday he had thought well of the world; there seemed nor valor, nor pity, anywhere. —

Yet Francesco felt that this state could not endure.

Purposeless he had drifted on the waves of destiny, the blind victim of another's will. Prayers and penances had not availed to rouse him to the acceptance of his fate.

There must be something to fill out his life, some great palpable purpose to which he would devote himself, some high mission, in the fulfilment of which the consciousness of a false existence would become gradually blurred, and eventually wiped out.

His whole nature craved for action; the still life of the cloister, far from extinguishing the smouldering fire, had kept it alive with the fuel of dead hopes and broken ambitions.

What mattered it in the end in whose cause he fought and bled, so he came out from under the dreary cloud of passive endurance, a slow paralysis of all that was best of him?

His love for Ilaria had remained with him, had haunted him all these long and weary months. He felt it would remain with him forever, even though he banished her image from his heart. And banish it he must! He must shake off the dreamer, he must look life in the face. Boldly he must enter the arena in the unequal fight.

"Ave Domina, morituri te salutant!" —

The thought seemed to give him back some of his former elasticity. All wavering was at an end. The road seemed dark. Yet there must be a way.

Could he but accomplish some great deed, could he but make a name for himself, but prove himself worthy of the love she bore him once, – that, at least, would be atonement!

A higher light gleamed in Francesco's eyes, and he heaved a great sigh as he was about to step into the clearing, when the sound of approaching footsteps caused him to pause and listen.

They seemed to come in his direction.

In the brilliant moonlight he recognized Conradino and Frederick of Austria, Conrad Capecé and the brothers Lancia. They had been making the rounds of the gardens and were returning to the palace. In the gaunt warrior who followed in their wake he recognized the Count Palatine.

Where the glistening gravel paths branched off, leading into different parts of the blossoming wilderness, they were joined by another group. Francesco recognized among them Raniero Frangipani, and the ground began to burn under his feet.

A thousand invisible eyes seemed to peer at him in his concealment; a thousand invisible fingers seemed to point towards him, – the renegade.

They were coming nearer. Now he could hear the sound of their voices. There was no further doubt; they were coming in his direction.

It was too late to retrace his steps. If he remained where he stood, they might pass him unheeded, unseen. At this moment Francesco dreaded even the sound of a human voice, the sight of a human face. On the pinnacle of a high resolve he but craved to escape unnoticed, unseen, to be spared further humiliation.

Following a strange, inexplicable impulse, or seized with a sudden irresistible panic, which mocked his intentions to scorn, he started to retreat in an opposite direction, when a treacherous moonbeam revealed him to the eye of Raniero Frangipani.

Two mighty bounds brought him to his side, and ere Francesco knew what was happening, he found himself dragged over the greensward and stood pale and trembling before the assembled company.

Conradino had paused precipitately, as if some bird of evil omen had crossed his path. The others immediately surrounded Francesco, who was writhing in the futile endeavor to release himself from the grip which was upon him. In the struggle the cowl had dropped back, revealing Francesco's features, set and deadly pale, and the cry: "A monk!" was not for the cloth, but him it covered.

Two men had uttered it as with one voice, the Viceroy of Apulia and the Count Palatine, while in the faces of their companions Francesco read only loathing and hatred, such as any traitor would inspire.

The Frangipani released his victim with a reluctant scowl.

Conrad Capecé seized Francesco by the shoulders and looked into his face.

He felt moved despite himself by the expression of petrified grief which he read in the face of the youth, who, unable longer to endure the glances of hatred which he instinctively felt resting upon him, had dropped his gaze.

"What is your purpose here?" the Apulian queried sternly.

Twice, in the thrall of conflicting emotions, Francesco started to reply, a hot wave of shame chasing the pallor from his cheeks.

The words died on his lips.

At last, with a supreme effort, throwing back his head as in mute defiance, he replied:

"My business is with the Pontiff!"

"The business of a traitor, – a spy!"

It was the voice of Raniero Frangipani that had fallen sharply on his ear.

Francesco made no reply. Only he seemed to grow a shade more gray.

In his stead spoke Don Enrico, the Senator of Rome, who had stepped to the Viceroy's side.

"It must have been known to you that the Pontiff has abandoned the city and has fled to Viterbo. Do not try to deceive us! We shall find means to learn the truth!"

The threatening tenor of the Spaniard's voice recalled Francesco to himself. He turned to Capecé who was regarding him gloomily.

"My lord, I have never spoken a falsehood. I arrived in Rome but yesterday from Monte Cassino. Of the state of the city I knew nothing. My business is with the Pontiff."

"Then why did you not depart on learning that Clement and the Provencals have fled?"

A choking sensation came to Francesco. His hand went to his throat.

The Viceroy saw and understood.

With a sweep of the hand he bade the others stand aside.

"Go!" – The command was tinged with scorn and contempt.

"I vouch for this monk!" Francesco heard him address the Senator of Rome, as with head bowed down he walked slowly away. But with a sharp pang another voice smote his unwittingly listening ear.

"A renegade!"

It was the voice of Raniero Frangipani. —

On that night, when Francesco returned to the inn and had repaired to his chamber, he lay on his bed without moving, without even thinking.

He had passed into a strange, half-apathetic state, in which his own misery was hardly more to him than a dull and mechanical weight, pressing on some wooden thing that had forgotten to be a soul.

In truth, it seemed of little consequence how all ended. The one thing that mattered to any sentient being, was to be spared the unbearable pain.

It seemed to him as if he had left some terrible shadow of himself, some ghostly trail of his personality, to haunt the room. He sat trembling and cowering, not daring to look up, lest he should see the phantom presence of his other self.

At last the pain worked as its own anaesthetic.

Francesco's eyelids drooped and he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

CHAPTER III

QUAINT WAYFARERS

EARLY on the following morning Francesco left Rome through the ancient Flaminian gate and started upon his journey towards Viterbo.

It was a fair morning, golden and light.

Over the Campagna hung white mists, that hovered longest where the Tiber rolled; but over the green mountains of Rocca Romana the woods were alight with sunbeams and the glancing streams ran sparkling through meadows, starred with dragon-flower and cyclamen, and shaded with heavy boughs of beach and chestnut.

In lieu of following the Via Aurelia, where it wound towards the coast by Santa Marinella and Santa Severa and mediaeval Palo, and the volcanic soil and the steep ravines by Cervetri, where the long avenues of cliff sepulchres are all that remain to show the site of ancient Caeré, Francesco pursued the beaten cattle-tracks, avoiding the Maccarese marshes and following the course of the Aeroné as far as the high cliffs, up by forsaken Galera. And soon the downs and moors, the tumuli and tombs and the heaving expanse of the Roman Campagna lay behind him, and with them the fear of encountering roving companies of Provencals, which might still remain in these regions.

It was a morning such as is only seen in Southern climes, and on similar elevations; the air so pure and bright that every object appeared translucent.

The valley into which Francesco descended, although partially veiled in mists, began to disclose its variety and richness, contrasting strangely with the undulating monotony of the Campagna, which lay behind him. Little villages appeared, nestling on the craggy bases of the mountains, castles and watch-towers rose on remote pinnacles; forests of oak and pine waved freshly in the morning wind; pastures of brightest emerald bordered the river; every rock displayed in its nooks and crevices wild-flowers of brilliant hues; every breath wafted across the vale brought new intoxicating odors.

The very cataract in the distance, though lost in snowy mists, wore a diadem, a rainbow of palest pink and azure, like a semi-circular spectral bridge.

Francesco chose the wider path, and lost himself in a tangled underbrush of myrtle, stunted vines and high weeds, while the loftier forest-trees continually showered their golden dew upon him, as he passed under their odorous, lightly-swaying branches.

If the life at Monte Cassino had seemed hard and uneventful, these few days in the larger, wider world had crowded experiences upon Francesco with an impetuosity that had left him a little bewildered. Hungry for a heart, his soul, bleeding under the leash of Fate, looked down upon life as from an isolation, and found it as desolate and empty as the most ascetic soul might have desired.

Heartening himself, he tried to see some reasonable purpose linking all these happenings. He was being tempted and ill-used for the sake of a finer patience and stronger discipline, serving his novitiate in a rougher and more riotous house, meeting winds that had not reached him behind the walls of Monte Cassino.

He had taken his discipline, his schooling and his vows as a matter that was inevitable. But the lure of the outer world, combined with the memories of the past, had thrummed incessantly and insistently against the armor of his cowl.

And as, with the silence of a great resolve, he pushed slowly along his solitary path, he wondered vaguely at the ultimate goal.

He had been taught that a monk should accept all the ordinances and ask no questions, clasping an austere docility like a girdle about his loins.

Nevertheless, his eyes lost their lustre, as he remembered the scenes of the past night, and they fell into a vague brooding stare.

Yet he no longer felt angry with those who had turned from him in disdain. For a time the fire in his heart had sunk too low even for anger. He was dull and weary and a little stunned by the night's bafflings, and the collapse of his resolves.

He was fighting against destiny, and the wave was mightier than the vessel that had ventured upon it.

Francesco had started out before dawn, brushing the dew from the meadow-grass and following the misty twilight track of a brook that traced its serpentine course through the forest glades. The songs of birds went throbbing through the woodland.

Francesco had come to a place where four ways met, with a stone cross standing on a hillock, when out of the dusk of the forest aisles rode the portly bulk of a man, who was hardly astir so early in order to admire the beauties of the dawn, for he came along the greensward with the gait of one who combines caution with alertness.

No sooner had the Duke of Spoleto laid eyes upon Francesco than he broke out into a glad roar.

"Whither are you bound so lone and so early?" he bellowed after mutual greeting. "Has the soil of Rome ignited under your holy feet?"

"I am bound for Viterbo," Francesco replied, glad to have the monotony of the journey and the trend of his ruminations relieved by one who had, at one time, been of such signal service to him.

"And whither do you travel?" he asked in turn.

"Every road leads to Rome, or the devil," the duke roared sagaciously, "though three days of knight-errantry have brought nothing but petticoats. The world is overburdened with women!"

Francesco nodded, although he was not sure of the fact.

Enlarging on the subject, as they rode side by side, the Duke of Spoleto opined that women were capable of giving a deal of trouble.

Francesco considered the suggestion with due seriousness without venturing an expression on the subject.

"You come from Rome?" the duke queried at last.

"The Ghibellines are in possession of the town," Francesco replied with heavy heart.

The duke laughed.

"The spirit of chivalry runs counter to the growlings of the fathers," he said, then paused dramatically. "Anjou's name is a great and stinking sore. The whole country holds its nose because of its stench. As for him who succeeded the Cobbler's son in the chair of St. Peter: – he has yet to learn that self-righteousness but needs the devil's kiss on the forehead."

Francesco made no reply.

The Duke of Spoleto struck his fist into his palm.

"Meat, drink and the love of woman, – these things matter more than Heaven and Hell and the solemn ravings of an ascetic though," he added meditatively, "the holy fathers of the Church teach that woman is the seed and core of all evil. Perchance we find therein the reason of their own pitiable estate!"

Francesco remained silent for a space, and the duke gave him a queer puzzled look.

"Look you," he said at last, picturesquely, "you seem not like other monks, fit but to be made a mock of by sluts who are ready to laugh at an ass' hind legs. That gentry I hate, – a mad medley of the devil."

The duke spat with emphasis and rubbed his palms.

Francesco ventured to enlighten the lord of the forests.

"Yet – may not one be as one standing on the threshold, with a light in one's hand, illumining the path of others, yet remaining himself in the gloom?"

The duke shrugged.

"Sophistry is the devil's pastime," he said dubiously. "Many an old-established ghost there is, who has never seen such a thing as an honest monk. And there is nothing that ghosts love as they do novelties!"

Francesco pondered over the wisdom of his companion, but did not feel called upon to enlarge upon it. He was even now far from convinced of his own sincerity and steadfastness of purpose. He was as a man shipwrecked on a stormy sea, ever rocking with the waves, with no beacon-light beckoning him to shore.

"You have seen Conradino?" the duke said after a pause.

It might have been a statement, it might have been a question.

Francesco nodded.

"Rome is as Ghibelline at this hour as if the Pope had lived forever at Viterbo!"

The Duke of Spoleto shrugged.

"A passing fever! Many a one's soul is in sympathy with one's snout!"

"You do not love the cowl," Francesco ventured, with a sidelong glance at his companion, whose nose was in the air as if he sniffed countless monasteries and convents.

After a time the Duke of Spoleto growled.

"If the world were so perilous a place, were it not more manly to go out and conquer it than to hide from it like a girl that bars the door of the room? What if Christ and the apostles had shut themselves up in stone cells, the grim silence, the half-starved sanctity of the cloister? What has it done for the world? Men make a patchwork quilt of life and call the patchwork religion and law!"

He threw the challenge into the balance of his discontent.

Knitting his brows, he continued:

"Speak not of the Church to me! We are bidden to perceive therein the body of the Lord Christ! But what is it we see? The most complete mechanism for controlling men, manipulated by human intelligence! You bid me regard the monks in Italy as holy people in the midst of an evil world?"

He paused with a dramatic gesture.

"Rank heresy!" he bellowed, answering his own question. "A Church with no lust of temporal power is unthinkable. The Church requires a statesman for a leader, not a saint! Behold your saintly Clement at Viterbo, invoking the divine wrath upon the heads of the just claimants of these realms! Cast off the garb which disgraces your manhood! Mount a steed, challenge the devil, and slay dragons!"

Francesco felt heavy at heart.

An inner voice had long apprised him that the duke had recognized the man beneath the garb, and that he was addressing his confidences to the ghost of Francesco's self.

Now and then he surprised a sidelong glance, directed towards himself, as if his burly companion were appraising his manhood, his muscles and his strides.

His surmise fell not far short of the mark, for after a brief silence the lord of the woods spat vigorously.

"And howsoever did you happen into the cloth?" he blurted with a blunt directness, as if eager to dispose of the question.

"That is a long story," Francesco replied. "He, however, who suffered the most thereby, was least concerned in the cause!" —

The duke nodded, as if the matter were perfectly clear to him.

"You were promised special rewards and dispensations?"

Francesco's look of surprise informed the duke of the nature of the answer before he spoke.

"He who would sup with the Devil must needs have a long spoon!" the duke roared sententiously, and apparently well pleased with his own penetration.

They now travelled upon a more densely populated tract; they passed wayfarers and pilgrims; great folk on horseback with little folk licking their stirrup.

They passed an old crone at the roadside, eating her meagre meal out of a basket. Her fingers were like claws; her eyes were half-shut and she had wisps of hair on her chin. When she saw the twain, she scratched her chin with a talon and begged Francesco for a blessing, which the latter gave, while the duke shouted:

"Shave your chin, old fool! Shave your chin!"

Two hairy beggars, brandishing cudgels, emerged from the thicket.

No sooner did they lay eyes on the duke, than they bounded down the road and out of sight.

The Duke of Spoleto smote his thighs and laughed like a woodpecker.

They passed two howl-women, making for a near-by castle and practising their doleful chants.

The duke greeted them with a grotesque bow.

"Why so joyful, fascinating graces?" he bellowed through his auburn bristles. "Is the fiend assembling a chorus in these regions, to lead it in procession to hell? I commend his taste!"

The howl-women gibbered some inarticulate response and blew down the road, to the great delight of the duke.

A fat reeve with heavy saddle-bags and a fiery face whipped a mouse-colored nag right about and departed the way he came, as soon as he spied the duke in the distance.

The duke's mirth increased as the mud-sticker, as he called him, took to flight. He seemed vastly pleased with the respect he inspired.

At last, at a cross-road, they came upon two women in red cloaks and gaudy tunics, seated on the greensward, with a certain dubious alertness about the eyes, that glimmered between hunger and discontent. By their side in the grass lay a viol; they seemed to have chosen the spot to rest.

As the duke and his companion approached, the twain watched them with a peculiar, hard-eyed intentness, glanced at each other, and smiled.

"Whither away, my dear?" said the taller of the two. "It is fair weather for a journey!" —

The duke bowed profusely.

"Fair weather for a good thirst," he replied, nodding at the stone bottle which reposed in the capacious lap of the speaker.