The Saint Part 41

"Your words, spoken at dear Santa Scolastica," he said, and continued: "Be pure in your lives, for otherwise you will dishonour Christ before the world. Be pure in your thoughts, for otherwise you will dishonour Christ before the spirits of good, and the spirits of evil, which strive together in the souls of all living beings."

When he had spoken these words he encircled the head of the fair-haired youth with his arm, almost as if to defend him from evil, and prayed, in his soul, for him who was, perhaps, his greatest hope. Then he resumed:

"Be holy. Seek neither riches nor honours. Put your superfluous possessions--measured by the inner voice of the Spirit--into a common fund for your works of truth and of charity. Give friendly help to all the human suffering you may encounter; be meek with those who offend you, who deride you, and they will be many, even within the Church herself; be dauntless in the presence of evil; lend yourselves to the necessities of one another, for if you do not live thus you cannot serve the Spirit of Truth. Live thus, that the world may recognise the Truth by your fruits, that your brothers may recognise by your fruits that you belong to Christ."

Don Clemente, distressed by his laboured breathing, bent over him, and, in a low voice, begged him to rest. Benedetto took his hand, and pressed it, and was silent for a few seconds. Then raising his great s.h.i.+ning eyes to Don Clemente's face, he said, _"Hora ruit."_

And he resumed:

"Let each one perform his religious duties as the Church prescribes, according to strict justice and with perfect obedience. Do not give your union a name, or speak collectively, or draw up rules, beyond those I have dictated! Love one another, love is enough. Communicate with one another. Many are doing the same work in the Church for which you are preparing yourselves, through the moral preparations I have prescribed for you; I mean the work of purifying the faith, and imbuing life with the purified faith. Honour them and learn from them, but do not allow them to become members of your union unless they come to you of their own free will, and pour their superfluity into the common fund. This shall be the sign that they are sent unto you by G.o.d."

Here Benedetto paused, and gently begged Giovanni Selva to come nearer.

"I wish to see you," he said. "What I have said and, above all, what I am going to say, was born of you."

He stretched out his hand, and taking Don Clemente's hand, he added:

"The Father knows it. Each should feel G.o.d's presence within himself, but each should feel it also in the other, and I feel it so strongly in you. Yes," he continued, turning to Don Clemente, as if appealing to his authority, "this is the true foundation of human fraternity, and therefore those who love their fellow men and believe they are cold toward G.o.d are nearer the Kingdom than many who imagine they love G.o.d, but who do not love their fellow-men."

The young priest who was standing, almost timidly, behind Selva, exclaimed, "Oh! yes, yes!" Selva bowed his head with a sigh. The tall, dark figure leaning against the doorpost did not move, but the gaze fixed on Benedetto became inexpressibly intense, tender and sad.

Don Clemente again bent over the invalid, entreating him to pause a moment, and the sister also begged him to rest. Neither Mayda nor any of the disciples spoke. Benedetto drank a little water, thanked the sister, and began to speak once more:

"Purify the faith for grown men, who cannot thrive on the food of infants. This part of your work is for those who are outside the Church, whether they belong to her by name or not--for those with whom you will be constantly mingling. Work to glorify the idea of G.o.d, wors.h.i.+pping above all things, and teaching that there is no truth which is opposed to G.o.d or to His laws. But be equally cautious that the infants do not approach their lips to the food for grown men. Be not offended by an impure faith, an imperfect faith, when the life is pure and the conscience upright; for in comparison with the infinite depths of G.o.d, there is little difference between your faith and the faith of a simple, humble woman, and if the woman's conscience be upright, and her life pure, you will not pa.s.s before her in the Kingdom of Heaven. Never publish writings concerning difficult religious questions, for sale, but rather distribute them with prudence, and never put your name to them.

"Labour that the purified faith may penetrate into life. This labour is for those who are in the Church,--and for those who wish to be in the Church,--and their name is legion, they are infinite in number; for those who really believe in the dogmas, and would gladly believe in more dogmas; I who really believe in the miracles, and are glad to believe in more miracles, but who do not really believe in the Beat.i.tudes, who say to Christ, 'Lord, Lord!' but who think it would be too hard to _do_ all.

His will, and who have not even zeal enough to search for Him in the Holy Book; who do not know that religion is, above all things, action and life. Teach such as these who pray abundantly, often idolatrously, to practise, besides the prayers which are prescribed, the mystic prayer as well, in which is the purest faith, the most perfect hope, the most perfect charity, which in itself purifies the soul and purifies life. Do I tell you to take, publicly, the place of the pastors? No; let each one work in his own family, each one among his own friends, and those who can, with the pen. Thus you will till the soil from which the pastors arise. My sons, I do not promise you that you will renew the world. You will labour in the night-time, without visible gain, like Peter and his companions on the Sea of Galilee. But, at last, Christ will come, and then your gain shall be great."

He was silent, praying for his disciples, sighing in the prescience of much suffering to come to them from many enemies of many kinds. Then he p.r.o.nounced the last words:

"Later, give me your prayers; now, your kiss."

The disciples, with one voice, begged him to bless them. He sought to avoid this, saying he did not feel himself worthy.

"I am only the poor blind man, whose eyes Christ has opened with clay."

Don Clemente did not appear to have heard. He knelt down saying, "Bless me, also!"

With humble obedience Benedetto laid his hand on Don Clemente's head, said the words of the ritual benediction, and kissed him. He did the same with all the others, one by one. Each one seemed to feel the breath of the Spirit flowing into him from that hand. When the priest's turn came, he murmured:

"Master, and to us?"

The dying man composed himself and replied: "Be poor, live in poverty.

Be perfect. Take no pleasure in t.i.tles nor in proud vestments, neither in personal authority nor in collective authority. Love those who hate you; avoid factions; make peace in G.o.d's name; accept no civil office; do not tyrannise over souls, nor seek to control them too much; do not train priests artificially; pray that you may be many, but do not fear to be few; do not think you need much human knowledge,--you need only much respect for reason and much faith in the universal and inseparable Truth."

The last to come forward was Maria Selva. She knelt at a short distance from the bed. The sick man smiled at her, and motioned to her to rise.

"I have already blessed you in your husband," said he, "I cannot distinguish you. You are a part of his soul. You are his courage.

Let this courage increase in the painful hours which await him. And, together, may you be the poetry of Christian love, until the end. Stay here a little while, both of you."

As the disciples pa.s.sed out, the room grew darker. The rumbling of thunder was heard, and the sister went to close the window. First, however, she glanced into the garden, and exclaimed, "Poor things!"

Benedetto heard, and wished to know what she meant. He was told that the garden was full of people who had come to see him, and that a heavy shower was threatening. He begged the Selvas to wait, and the Professor to allow the people to enter.

A heavy trampling sounded, on the narrow wooden stairs. The door was thrown open, and several persons entered on tiptoe. In a moment the room was full. A crowd of bare heads peered in at the door. No one spoke; all were gazing at Benedetto, and they were reverent and respectful.

Benedetto greeted them with both hands, with widespread arms.

"I thank you," he said. "Pray, as I have surely taught some of you to do. And may G.o.d be with you always!"

A big, stout man answered, his face crimson:

"We will pray, but you are not going to die. Don't believe that. But please give us your blessing."

"Yes, give us your blessing, give us your blessing!" was repeated by many voices.

Meanwhile, from the narrow stairway the impatient voices could be heard of those who wished to come up, and could not. Benedetto said something in an undertone to Don Clemente. Don Clemente ordered those present to file past the bed and then leave the room, that the others might do the same.

One by one they all pa.s.sed. They were poor people from the Testaccio--workmen, clerks from shops, women who sold fruit, pedlars and beggars. From time to time Benedetto said a word of dismissal, in a tired voice: "_Addio_."--"Farewell!"--"We shall meet in Paradise."--Some in pa.s.sing silently bent the knee, others touched the bed and then made the sign of the cross. Some begged him to pray for them or for their dear ones, while others called down blessings upon him. One asked to be forgiven because he had believed the slanderers, and at that a series of "Forgive me also, me also!" sounded. The hunchback from Via della Marmorata was there, and began telling him amidst her tears that the old priest had confessed; and would have liked to tell him all her grat.i.tude, had not those behind her pushed her away, and taken her from the sight of him for ever. Many pa.s.sed thus before him for the last time, and, weeping, went from him, forever,--many he had comforted, in body and in mind. He recognised some, and greeted them with a gesture.

On they pa.s.sed, often turning their tearful faces back towards him. The stream that pa.s.sed down brushed against the stream that pa.s.sed up the narrow stairs, and gave them their impressions of the sorrowful room in advance:--"Ah! what a face."--"Ah! what a voice!"--"Good G.o.d! he is dying!"--"He is one of G.o.d's angels!"--"You will see!"--"He has Paradise in his eyes!" And not a few were murmuring curses against the wretches who had slandered him; not a few spoke, with a shudder, of poison, or murder. _Dio!_--He had been taken away by the police, and had returned in this state. A mournful, continuous rumbling of thunder, and the loud steady splash of the rain, drowned both the sorrowful and the angry whisperings. When the stream of people had ceased to flow out, Mayda had the window opened, for the air had become vitiated. Benedetto asked them to raise his head a little. He wanted to see the great pine-tree, with its top bending towards the Coelian Hill. The dark green crown of the pine cleft the stormy sky. He gazed at it a long time. When his head was resting on the pillow once more, he motioned to Dom Clemente to bend down to him, and whispered almost into his ear:

"Do you know, when they brought me here from the villa I longed to be laid under the pine-tree, which we see from the window, so that I might die there. But I thought at once that this was something too strongly desired, and that it was not good. And besides," he added, smiling, "after all the habit would have been missing."

A slight movement of Don Clemente's lips revealed to him that he had brought the habit with him from Subiaco. Benedetto experienced a great wave of intense inward emotion. He clasped his hands, and remained silent as long as the inward struggle was going on, the struggle between the desire that the vision might be fulfilled, and the consciousness that its fulfilment could not come about naturally. He concentrated his mind in an act of abnegation to the Divine Will.

"The Lord wishes me to die here," he said. "But still he permits me, at least, to have the habit on my bed, before I die." Don Clemente bent over him, and kissed his forehead.

Meanwhile the Selvas were waiting a little way off. Benedetto called them to him, and told them that he would receive Signora Dessalle in half an hour, but he begged her not to come alone. She might come with them. Mayda went out with the Selvas. The sister was dozing. Then Benedetto asked Don Clemente to go to the Pontiff, afterwards, and to tell him that the end of the vision had not been fulfilled, that thus all that had seemed miraculous in his life had vanished and that before his death he had felt the sweetness of the Pope's blessing.

"And tell him," he added, "that I hope to speak in his heart again."

His breathing was less laboured, but his voice was growing weaker, and his strength was going with the fever. Don Clemente took his wrist and held it for some time. Then he rose.

"Are you going for the habit?" Benedetto murmured, with a sweet smile.

The Padre's handsome face flushed. He quickly conquered the human sentiment which prompted him to prevaricate, and replied:

"Yes, _caro_, I think the hour is come."

"What time is it?"

"Half-past five."

"Do you think it will be at seven? At eight?"

"No, not so soon, but I want you to have this consolation at once." In a small sitting-room at the villa, Giovanni Selva, after consulting his watch, said to his wife, "Go, now."

It had been arranged that Maria and Noemi should accompany Jeanne to see Benedetto. Noemi stretched out her hands to her brother-in-law.

"Giovanni," she said, trembling, "I have some news to give him concerning my soul. Do not be offended if I tell him first."

Jeanne guessed the nature of the news Noemi had for the dying man: her conversion to Catholicism, in the near future. All the strength she had gathered in herself for the supreme moment now forsook her. She embraced Noemi, and burst into tears. The Selvas strove to encourage her, mistaking the cause of her tears. Between her sobs she entreated them to go, to go; she herself could not possibly go. Only Noemi understood.