The Saint Part 24

"Give me your name," said Benedetto.

The other offered him his card. His name was Elia Viterbo. Benedetto looked at him curiously.

"Yes, indeed," he said, "I am a Jew; but these two baptised ones are no better Christians than I am. I have, moreover, no religious prejudices."

The interview was over. As they were leaving, the youngest of the party, the man of the stream of questions, made a last onslaught.

"Tell us, at least, if you believe Catholics should vote on political questions?"

Benedetto was silent. The other insisted:

"Will you not answer even that question?"

Benedetto smiled.

"_Non expedit_," said he.

There were steps in the ante-room; two gentle taps at the door; the Selvas entered with Noemi. Maria Selva came in first, and seeing Benedetto dressed thus, could not restrain a movement of indignation, of regret, and a soft laugh; then she blushed and wished to speak a word of protest, but could not find the right one. The tears came to Noemi's eyes. All four were silent for a moment and understood each other. Then Giovanni murmured:

"'_Non fu dal vel del cuor giawmai disciolto_'"[*1*];

and pressed the hand of him who in his awkward garments still appeared august to him.

"But you must not wear these things!" exclaimed Maria, less mystic than her husband.

Benedetto made a gesture which said, "Let us not speak of that,"

and looked at the master of his master with eyes full of longing and reverence.

"Are you aware," said he, "how much truth and how much good have come to me from you?"

Giovanni did not know how strongly he had influenced this man through Don Clemente. He supposed he had read his books. He was moved, and in his heart thanked G.o.d, who was thus gently showing him that he had worked some real good in a soul.

"How happy I should have been," Benedetto continued, "to have worked in your garden,

[FN 1: "Of the heart's veil she never was divested."

DANTE'S _Paradiso_, Canto iii.

(Longfellow's translation) ] have sometimes seen you, to have heard you speak!"

A stifled exclamation escaped Noemi when reminded of that evening full of memories she could not express. Giovanni took this opportunity of offering hospitality to Benedetto, Don Clemente having told him he intended leaving Jenne that night. They could leave together, if he wished, after the interview which he was going to grant Giovanni's sister-in-law. Noemi, very pale, looked fixedly at Benedetto for the first time, awaiting his answer.

"I thank you," said he. "If I knock at your door, you will throw it open to me. I can say no more at present."

Giovanni and his wife prepared to leave. Benedetto begged them to remain. Surely the _Signorina_ had no secrets from them; at least not from her sister, if perhaps from her brother-in-law. Even this indirect appeal to Maria was of no avail, for Noemi remarked, with much embarra.s.sment, that these secrets were not her own. The Selvas withdrew.

Benedetto remained standing, and did not invite Noemi to be seated. He was aware that a friend of Jeanne's stood before him, and he foresaw what was coming--a message from Jeanne.

"_Signorina_?" said he.

His manner was not discourteous, but signified clearly, "The quicker the better."

Noemi understood. She would have been offended had another person acted thus; but with Benedetto she was not offended. With him she felt humble.

"I have been requested to ask you," she began, "whether you know anything about a person with whom you must have been intimately acquainted, whom, I believe, you also loved very dearly? I am not sure I p.r.o.nounce the name correctly, I am not an Italian. It is Don Giuseppe Flores."

Benedetto started. He had not expected this.

"No!" he exclaimed anxiously, "I know nothing."

Nomei gazed at him a moment in silence. Before continuing she would have liked to ask his forgiveness for the pain she was about to cause him.

She said sadly and in a low tone:

"Some one has written to me to tell you that he is no longer of this world."

Benedetto bowed his head, and hid his face in his hands. Don Giuseppe, dear Don Giuseppe; dear, great, pure soul; dear luminous brow, dear eyes, full of G.o.d, dear, kind voice! Softly came two tears, which Noemi did not see; then he heard Don Giuseppe's voice saying within him, "Do you not feel that I am here, that I am with you, that I am in your heart?"

After a long silence Noemi said softly:

"Forgive me! I am sorry I was obliged to cause you so much pain."

Benedetto raised his head.

"Pain, and still not pain," said he. Noemi maintained a reverent silence. Benedetto asked if she knew when this person had pa.s.sed away.

Towards the end of April, she believed. She was absent from Italy at the time. She was in Belgium, at Bruges, with a friend to whom the news had been sent. She had understood from her friend that that person--a sense of delicacy prevented Noemi from p.r.o.nouncing the name--had died a very holy death. She had also been asked to say that his papers had been entrusted to the bishop of the city. Benedetto made a gesture of approval which might also serve to close the interview. Noemi did not move.

"I have not yet finished," she said, and hastened to add:

"I have a Catholic friend--I myself am not a Catholic, I am a Protestant--who has lost her faith in G.o.d. She has been advised to devote herself to deeds of charity. She lives with her brother, who is very hostile to all religions. This innovation, the fact that his sister interests herself in charities, that she a.s.sociates with people who promote good works from religious principles, is most displeasing to him. At present he is ill; he becomes irritated, excited, protests against these virtuous bigots, does not wish his sister to visit the poor, to protect young girls, or to provide for abandoned children. He says all these things are clericalism, are utopianism, that the world wags in its own way, and that it must be allowed to wag in its own way, that all this a.s.sociating with the lower cla.s.ses only serves to put false and dangerous ideas into their heads. Now, my friend has been told that she must either leave her brother, or lie to him, by doing secretly what she has. .h.i.therto done openly. She is in sore need of sound advice!

She writes to me to ask you for it. She has read in the newspapers that you are helping so many here in these hills, and she hopes you will not refuse."

"As her brother is ill, both bodily and mentally," Benedetto answered, "does she not find deeds of charity to perform in her own house? Will she arrive at a knowledge of G.o.d by becoming a bad sister? Let her give up her works of charity and devote herself to her brother; let her attend to his bodily ills, and to his moral ills, with all the affection"--he was going to say "which she bears him," but he corrected himself, that he might not thus clearly admit a knowledge of the person--"with all the affection of which she is capable; let her make herself precious to him; let her win him by degrees, without sermons, by her goodness alone. It will do her much good also, this striving to incarnate in herself true goodness, active, untiring, patient, prudent goodness. And she will win him, little by little, without words; she will persuade him that all she does is well done. Then she can take up her works of charity again, take them up alone, and she will succeed better. Now she performs them because she has been advised to do so, and perhaps she does not succeed very well. Then she will be prompted by the habit of goodness, acquired with her brother, and she will have better success."

"I thank you!" said Noemi. "I thank you for my friend, and also for myself, for I am much pleased with what you have said. And may I repeat your advice, your words of encouragement, in your name?"

The question seemed superfluous, because the words of encouragement and advice had been spoken by Benedetto in direct answer to the friend. But Benedetto was troubled. It was an explicit message which Noemi asked of him for Jeanne.

"Who am I?" he said. "What authority do I possess? Tell her I will pray!"

Noemi was trembling inwardly. It would have been so easy now to speak to him of religion! And she did not dare. Ah! but to lose such an opportunity! No, she must speak; but she could not reflect a quarter of an hour upon what she should say. She said the first thing that came into her head.

"I beg your pardon, but as you speak of praying, I should like to ask you if you really approve of all my brother-in-law's religious views?"

As soon as she had uttered the question, it seemed to her so impertinent, so awkward, that she was ashamed. She hastened to add, conscious she was saying something still more foolish, but, nevertheless, feeling impelled to say it. "Because my brother-in-law is a Catholic, and I am a Protestant, and I should like to know what to believe."

"_Signorina,_" Benedetto answered, "the day will come when all shall wors.h.i.+p the Father in spirit and in truth, upon the hilltops; to-day it is best to wors.h.i.+p Him in the shadows, in figures, from deep Valleys.

Many there are who can rise, some higher than others, towards the spirit and the truth; but many cannot. There are plants which bear no fruit above a certain alt.i.tude, and if carried still higher, they die. It would be folly to remove them from the climate which suits them. I do not know you, and I cannot say if your brother-in-law's religious views, planted without preparation in you, would bear good fruit. But I advise you to study Catholicism carefully, with Signor Selva's help; for there is not one conscientious Protestant who knows it well."

"You will not come to Subiaco?" Noemi inquired timidly.