The Saint Part 15

"No, no, go away, go away!"

The Abbot's voice trembled with anger. Benedetto obeyed. Hardly had he reached the corridor when he heard the angry man thundering on the piano.

Before entering Don Clemente's little cell, Benedetto stopped before the great window at the end of the corridor. Here, a few hours earlier, the master himself had lingered, contemplating the lights of Subiaco, and thinking of the enemy, the creature of beauty, of genius, of natural kindliness, who was perhaps come to strive with him for possession of his spiritual son, to strive with G.o.d Himself. Now the spiritual son felt a mysterious certainty that the woman he had loved so ill, during the time of his blind and ardent leaning towards inferior things, had discovered his presence in the monastery, and would come in search of him. Seeking deep in his own heart for the Spirit which dwelt there, he gained from it a pious sense of the Divine, which was surely in her also, hidden even from herself; and he felt a mystic hope that, by some dark way, she also would one day reach the sea of eternal truth and love, which awaits so many poor wandering souls.

Don Clemente had heard him coming, and had set his door ajar. Benedetto entered, and offered him the Abbot's letter. "I must leave the monastery," he said, very calmly. "At once, and for ever."

Don Clemente did not answer, but opened the letter. When he had read it he observed, smiling, that Benedetto's departure for Jenne had been decided upon the night before. True, but the Abbot had said never to return, Don Clemente's eyes were full of tears, but he still smiled.

"You are glad?" said Benedetto, almost plaintively,

Oh, glad! How could the master explain what he felt? His beloved disciple was leaving him, leaving him for ever, after three years of spiritual union; but then the hidden Will had made itself manifest; G.o.d was taking him from the monastery, setting his feet in other ways. Glad!

Yes; afflicted and glad, but he could not communicate the cause of his gladness to Benedetto, The Divine Word would have no value for Benedetto did he not interpret it for himself.

"Not glad," he said, "but at peace. We understand each other, do we not?

And now prepare yourself to listen to my last words, which I hope you will cherish."

Don Clemente's whole face flushed as he spoke thus, in low tones.

Benedetto bowed his head, and Don Clemente laid his hands upon it with gentle dignity.

"Do you desire to surrender your whole being to Supreme Truth, to His Church, visible and invisible?" said the low, manly voice.

As though he had expected both the action and the question, Benedetto answered at once, and in a firm voice:

"Yes."

The low voice:

"Do you promise, as from man to man, to remain unwed and poor, until I shall absolve you from your promise?"

The firm voice

"Yes."

The low voice:

"Do you promise to be obedient always to the authority of the Holy Church, administered according to her laws?"

The firm voice:

"Yes."

Don Clemente drew his disciple's head towards him, and said, his lips almost touching Benedetto's forehead:

"I asked the Abbot to allow me to give you the habit of a lay-brother, that on leaving here you might, at least, carry with you the sign of a humble religious office. The Abbot wished to speak with you before deciding."

Here Don Clemente kissed his disciple on the forehead, thus intimating what the Abbot's decision had been after their meeting; and into the kiss he put silent words of praise which his fatherly character and the humility of his disciple would not permit him to utter.

He did not notice that the disciple was trembling from head to foot.

"Here is what the Abbot wrote after talking with you," said he.

He showed Benedetto the sheet of paper, upon which the Abbot had written:

"I consent. Send him away at once, that I may not be tempted to detain him!"

Benedetto embraced his master impulsively, and rested his forehead against his shoulder without speaking. Don Clemente murmured: "Are you glad? Now it is I who ask you!"

He repeated his question twice without obtaining an answer. At last he heard a whisper:

"May I be allowed not to answer? May I pray a moment?"

"Yes, _caro_, yes!"

Beside the monk's narrow bed, and high above the kneeling-desk, a great bare cross proclaimed: "Christ is risen; now nail thy soul to me!" In fact some one, perhaps Don Clemente, perhaps one of his predecessors, had written, below it: "_Omnes superbiae motus ligno crucis affigat_."

Benedetto prostrated himself on the floor, and placed his forehead where the knees should rest. Through the open window of the cell, the pale light of the rainy sky fell obliquely upon the backs of the prostrate man and of the man standing erect, his face raised towards the great cross. The murmur of the rain, the rumble of the deep Anio, would have meant to Jeanne the distressed lament of all that lives and loves in the world; to Don Clemente they meant the pious union of inferior creatures with the creature supplicating the common Father. Benedetto himself did not notice them.

He rose, his face composed, and, in obedience to his master's gesture, put on the robe of a lay-brother, which was spread out upon the bed, and fastened the leathern girdle. When he was dressed he opened wide his arms and displayed himself, smiling to his master, who was gratified to see how dignified, how spiritually beautiful he was in that habit.

"You did not understand?" said Benedetto. "You were not reminded of something?"

No, Don Clemente had thought that Benedetto's intense emotion had been caused by his humility. Now he understood that he should have recalled something; but what?

"Ah!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Was it perhaps your vision?"

Yes, surely. Benedetto had seen himself dying on the bare ground, in the shade of a great tree, and wearing the habit of the Benedictines; and one argument against believing in the vision--in accordance with the advice of Don Giuseppe Flores and of Don Clemente--had been the seeming contradiction between this detail and his repugnance to the monastic vows, which had been ever increasing since his withdrawal from the world. Now this contradiction seemed to be vanis.h.i.+ng, and therefore the credibility of the prophetic nature of the vision was reappearing. Don Clemente was aware of this part of the vision, and should have been able to read in Benedetto's heart, his awe at being once more confronted with a mysterious, divine purpose concerning him, and his fear of falling into the sin of pride. Of this, he had not thought.

"Do not you think of it, either," said he, and he hastened to change the subject. He gave Benedetto some books and a letter for the parish-priest at Jenne, whose guest he would be for the present. Whether or no he should remain at Jenne, and in case he did not, whether he should return to Subiaco or go elsewhere, that Divine Providence must point out to him.

"_Padre mio_," Benedetto said, "truly I do not think of what may happen to me to-morrow. I think only of the words: _'Magister adest et vocat me!'_ but not as being spoken by a supernatural voice. I was wrong not to understand that the Master is always present, and always calling me, you, every one! If only our soul be hushed, we may hear His voice!"

A faint ray of suns.h.i.+ne glinted into the cell. Don Clemente reflected at once that should the rain cease, Signora Dessalle would very probably come to visit the monastery. He said nothing, but his inward anxiety betrayed itself by a slight shudder, by a glance at the sky which told Benedetto it was time to leave. He begged the privilege of praying, first in the Church of Santa Scolastica, and then at the Sacro Speco.

The sun disappeared, and it began to rain again. Master and disciple descended to the church together, and there, kneeling side by side, they lingered in prayer. That was their only farewell. At nine o'clock Benedetto took the road to the Sacro Speco. He left the monastery un.o.bserved, while Fra Antonio was confabulating with Giovanni Selva's messenger. At that moment the rays of the returning sun suddenly lit up the old walls, the road, the hill itself; shrill cries of gladness, swift wings of tiny birds broke through the green on all sides, and to his lips the words rose spontaneously:

"I am coming!"

III.

Jeanne and Noemi reached the monastery at ten o'clock. A few paces from the gate Jeanne was seized with a violent palpitation. She would have liked to visit the garden before the convent, the urchin from Subiaco having told her that the monks of Santa Scolastica had a fine kitchen-garden, and that some people belonging to them worked in it--an old man from Subiaco and a young stranger. Now, it was out of the question. Pale, exhausted, and leaning on Noemi's arm, she, with difficulty, dragged herself as far as the door, where a beggar stood, waiting for his bowl of soup. Fortunately Fra Antonio opened the door before Noemi had time to ring, and she entreated him to bring a chair and a gla.s.s of water for her friend, who was feeling unwell. Frightened at the sight of Jeanne, so deathly pale, and drooping against her companion's shoulder, the humble old lay-brother placed the bowl of soup he had brought for the beggar in Noemi's hands, and hastened away in search of the chair and the water. Thanks partly to the droll spectacle the astonished Noemi presented, as she stood holding the bowl of soup, partly to the rest--the water, the sight of the ancient cloister sleeping so peacefully, and the rea.s.sertion of her own will--a few minutes sufficed to restore Jeanne sufficiently. Fra Antonio went to call the _Padre foresterario_, to act as guide to the visitors.

"Tell him we are the two ladies staying at Signor Selva's house," said Noemi.

Don Clemente appeared, blus.h.i.+ng in the virginal purity of his soul because Jeanne was unaware that he knew her story, as he might have blushed had he been committing some fraud. He mistook Noemi, who came forward first, for Signora Dessalle. Tall, slim, and elegant, Noemi might well pa.s.s for a siren; she did not, however, look a day over five and twenty, and therefore could not be the woman of whose adventures Benedetto had told him. But the Benedictine was incapable of such calculations, and Noemi was anxious to satisfy herself that Fra Antonio had fulfilled his mission faithfully.