The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (phonics readers .txt) 📗
- Author: E. L. Voynich
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your nephew–-Padre, what is the matter?
How white you are!”
Montanelli was standing up, pressing one hand
to his forehead. “I am a little giddy,” he said in
a curiously faint, dull tone. “Perhaps I was too
much in the sun this morning. I will go and lie
down, carino; it’s nothing but the heat.”
… . .
After a fortnight beside the Lake of Lucerne
Arthur and Montanelli returned to Italy by the
St. Gothard Pass. They had been fortunate as
to weather and had made several very pleasant excursions;
but the first charm was gone out of their
enjoyment. Montanelli was continually haunted
by an uneasy thought of the “more definite talk”
for which this holiday was to have been the opportunity.
In the Arve valley he had purposely
put off all reference to the subject of which they
had spoken under the magnolia tree; it would be
cruel, he thought, to spoil the first delights of
Alpine scenery for a nature so artistic as Arthur’s
by associating them with a conversation which
must necessarily be painful. Ever since the day
at Martigny he had said to himself each morning;
“I will speak to-day,” and each evening: “I will
speak to-morrow;” and now the holiday was over,
and he still repeated again and again: “To-morrow,
to-morrow.” A chill, indefinable sense of
something not quite the same as it had been, of
an invisible veil falling between himself and
Arthur, kept him silent, until, on the last evening
of their holiday, he realized suddenly that
he must speak now if he would speak at all.
They were stopping for the night at Lugano,
and were to start for Pisa next morning. He
would at least find out how far his darling had
been drawn into the fatal quicksand of Italian
politics.
“The rain has stopped, carino,” he said after
sunset; “and this is the only chance we shall have
to see the lake. Come out; I want to have a talk
with you.”
They walked along the water’s edge to a quiet
spot and sat down on a low stone wall. Close
beside them grew a rose-bush, covered with scarlet
hips; one or two belated clusters of creamy
blossom still hung from an upper branch, swaying
mournfully and heavy with raindrops. On the
green surface of the lake a little boat, with white
wings faintly fluttering, rocked in the dewy breeze.
It looked as light and frail as a tuft of silvery
dandelion seed flung upon the water. High up
on Monte Salvatore the window of some shepherd’s
hut opened a golden eye. The roses hung
their heads and dreamed under the still September
clouds, and the water plashed and murmured
softly among the pebbles of the shore.
“This will be my only chance of a quiet talk
with you for a long time,” Montanelli began.
“You will go back to your college work and
friends; and I, too, shall be very busy this winter.
I want to understand quite clearly what our position
as regards each other is to be; and so, if
you–-” He stopped for a moment and then
continued more slowly: “If you feel that you can
still trust me as you used to do, I want you to tell
me more definitely than that night in the seminary
garden, how far you have gone.”
Arthur looked out across the water, listened
quietly, and said nothing.
“I want to know, if you will tell me,” Montanelli
went on; “whether you have bound yourself
by a vow, or—in any way.”
“There is nothing to tell, dear Padre; I have
not bound myself, but I am bound.”
“I don’t understand––”
“What is the use of vows? They are not what
binds people. If you feel in a certain way about
a thing, that binds you to it; if you don’t feel that
way, nothing else can bind you.”
“Do you mean, then, that this thing—this—
feeling is quite irrevocable? Arthur, have you
thought what you are saying?”
Arthur turned round and looked straight into
Montanelli’s eyes.
“Padre, you asked me if I could trust you.
Can you not trust me, too? Indeed, if there were
anything to tell, I would tell it to you; but there
is no use in talking about these things. I have
not forgotten what you said to me that night; I
shall never forget it. But I must go my way and
follow the light that I see.”
Montanelli picked a rose from the bush, pulled
off the petals one by one, and tossed them into
the water.
“You are right, carino. Yes, we will say no
more about these things; it seems there is indeed
no help in many words–-Well, well, let us go
in.”
CHAPTER III.
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
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