A Golden Book of Venice Part 25

"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 G.o.d hath given me; I, also, being free from sin therein, if my understanding be not equal to the tasks wherein I seem to feel G.o.d'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 G.o.d," 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, a.s.serting 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 n.o.ble words of that n.o.ble 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 G.o.d--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--'G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sion 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 rehea.r.s.ed them in the cloistered ways where he would come no more; for to him some ministry of beauty had always been a.s.signed. 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. "s.h.i.+eld 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 pa.s.sed 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d will forgive our errors!

"FRANCESCO, thy brother of the Servi."

XXIII

As the cry of the populace rang down the Ca.n.a.l Grande, following the retreating ranks of the Jesuits, who, bound by their greater vows to Rome, had remained steadfast and refused obedience to the Senate's mandate, the Lady Marina, roused by the excitement which they dreaded, had started to her feet with a marvelous return of her former mental power and a fullness of comprehension which sought for no explanations.

She stood for a moment panting with hot, unspoken speech, turning from one to another, and then, with a sudden, great effort, repressed the words she would have spoken, asking quietly, after a pause in which no reference had been made to the expulsion of the confraternities:

"Which of the orders have gone? What more hath happened that I know not?"

"Nay, the orders of the monks and of the friars have chiefly been faithful to Venice," they told her, "and all is well. This society, which for long hath been cause of much disorder in our Republic, it is well that it leave Venice in peace."

She answered nothing, weighing their words silently. "Is it because they are faithful to their vows, and to their Church?" she asked at length, in quiet irony.

"Nay, but because they teach disobedience to princes and would thus undermine the law of the land," Marcantonio hastened to explain, grateful that she could at length discuss the question.

"Carina,--blessed be San Marco,--thou art like thyself! We will talk together; we will make all clear to thee; thou shalt grieve no more, carinissima!"

She put up her hand and touched his cheek with an answering caress--the first through all these weary days. "I shall get well, Marco mio," she said, with a sudden conviction that surprised them; but still there was no smile in her eyes, and their hearts were sad, though the change that had come over her was so extraordinary that they hoped much from the explanation which the great Santorio had authorized.

But for whom should they send in this moment, when life and death hung in the balance, to speak that authoritative word.

The Bishop of Aquileia, first and greatest of the Venetian bishops, had incurred the displeasure of the Senate for refusing to perform the duties of his office while the Republic remained under that fulminated but unacknowledged censure, and a new prelate, of opinions approved by the Most Serene Republic, sat in the vacated see. The Bishop of Vicenza had likewise signified his sympathy with the Holy See; and in Brescia their wandering prelate had scarcely yet received that strengthening monition of the watching Senate which was to recall him from his hiding-place and hold him steadfast in his cathedral service.

And for the Patriarch Vendramin, who had been summoned to Rome to receive the benediction of the Supreme Pontiff, but had been forbidden by the Senate to leave the Venetian domains, this episode, which was a feature of the struggle known to the whole of Venice, placed him so openly on the side of the Republic that it forbade his ministry with the Lady Marina.

But there was one so jealously guarded from all interruption and fatigue that strangers who came from far to see him were refused audience, by order of the Senate, or were received for a few moments only in some protected chamber of the Ducal Palace; for the springs of government moved at his touch, the matters which occupied him were weighty, and for these they would spare his strength. Yet again the Senate signified a rare consideration for the Ca' Giustiniani by permitting the attendance of their Teologo Consultore in the palazzo of the Lady Marina; for who so well could minister to her diseased mind as he who had unanswerably placed the question in its true light before all the Councils of the Republic?

She stood with bowed head and clasped hands as he approached her, her hair falling unbound, as in her maiden days, over the simply white robe which she had preferred in her illness, discarding all her jewels and all emblems of her state--pale as a vision, like a sad dream of the beautiful Madonna del Sorriso which the Veronese had painted for that altar of the Servi at which, each morning, Fra Paolo still dutifully ministered.

"Peace be with thee and to thine house, my daughter," said the Padre Maestro Paolo, spreading out his hands in priestly salutation as he entered the oratory of the palazzo Giustiniani, where the Lady Marina awaited him.

She had desired that the interview should take place in this chapel, which she had not visited since her illness. A faint odor of desolation stole through the dimness of the place to meet him--a breath from the withered rose-petals which had dropped from the golden vases upon the splendid embroidered altar-cloth and mingled with the dust of those many days which had remained guiltless of Ma.s.s or service; the altar candles were unlighted; the censer had lost its halo of mystic smoke.