A scared city of blank casements, a city of citizens feverishly asking
questions whose answers they knew beforehand, a city of swift feet and
hushed voices, was Verona on the morrow of Can Grande's murder. They
carried the two torn bodies covered with one sheet to Sant' Anastasia,
and laid them there, not in state but just huddled out of sight, while
the bishop and his canons sang a requiem, and "Dirige" and "Placebo"
went whining about the timbers of the roof. Nobody mourned the man, yet
he had his due. His yellow-skinned wife knelt at his feet; Can Signorio,
the new tyrant, frozen rigid, armed in mail, knelt at his head. The
mercenaries held the nave, the bodyguard the door, archers lounged in
the Piazza. All this parade of force was mere superfluity; Verona had no
desire to revolt. The Veronese were for rending their hearts and not
their rulers that day.
In the afternoon the show of a trial-at-law was made. The depositions of
the lackey, of Rocca Rossa, of the finders of the murdered, and the
hunters for the murderers, were taken and recorded by the _Podestà_ in
the presence of the council. After that the six unknown dastards were
publicly condemned to death by the civil power from the loggia of the
palace, and as publicly excommunicated by the bishop from the steps of
the cathedral. It was felt on all hands that on this occasion the bishop
had wielded the heavier arm: at least, in the absence of the criminals,
he had brought his chances level. But what gave him most weight was that
which had made the testimony of Francesco and the lackey overshadow
every event of a week full of events--the interposition of Madonna of
the Peach-Tree. Not a soul in the city was left to doubt; it might be
said that not a soul was left to save, if faith can save you. The
churches were packed from dawn to dark, not an altar in a chapel went
bare of a mass. There were not enough of them. Altars were set up in the
squares, and the street-ends blocked by a kneeling, bowing, weeping,
adoring crowd. The bishop spoke the common mind when at Vespers that
night he gave notice that he should go forthwith to purge the Carmelite
church of the stain upon it, "at the request of my reverend brother the
Prior Provincial of the Order." He set out then and there in solemn
procession of the whole cathedral chapter. Rank formed on rank behind
him till his ordered following trailed across Verona like a host.
Now, although, as it has been said, and truly said, there was no soul in
the city who doubted, there was one soul very much in doubt. That was
Fra Battista's. The offer of purgation had come in frenzy from the lips
of his prior; by its acceptance Fra Battista saw himself driven to one
of two courses. He must destroy his reputation for obedience to
heavenly commands which it had been rank heresy in him to overlook, or
that other reputation he had won, for being a desperate lover, upon
which he shrewdly surmised some of his fame depended. He may have been
right about that--I am not here to defend him. If he admitted his guilt,
he would be unfrocked; he would show like a chanticleer stripped of his
hackles before his hens. If he denied it, he could never preach to the
women again. Admit it? Be degraded? Eh, that would be a nasty shift!
Deny it? Oh, preposterous! The whole day he battled with himself, voice
crying against voice, without result. Observe, it was a mere case of
expediency: he had no thought to own a fault or repudiate a slander--the
fellow had no conscience at all. Expediency, indeed, was his conscience,
his attention to it the ladder whereby he hoped to climb to the only
heaven he knew. No imagination had he, but very tender senses.
Applause--the hushed church, the following eyes, the sobered mouths, a
sob in the breath--stood him for glory. He had worked for this, and, by
the Lord! he had won it. And now he must lose it. Eh, never, never!
Stated thus, he knew the issue of his battle. He knew he could not give
up these things--eye-service, lip-service, heart-service--of which he
had supped so thirstily. Rather be unfrocked, driven out of the city,
reviled, and spit upon, than admit such a shame as that other: to prove
himself a vapourer before his slaves, to be pricked like a bulging
bladder, slit open like a rotten bag--God of the love of women, never,
never in life! The other course, then? He pictured himself, the tall
and comely youth, standing up alone before the grim assembly of elders,
flinty old men who knew nothing of my Lord Amor, how he rides afield in
a rose-coloured garment, throwing a flower and a dart to boy or girl as
he goes. He saw a dewy-eyed Battista owning himself Love's priest. The
women called him Sebastian for his beauty. A Sebastian he was, _per
Dio!_ stuck all over with Amor's fiery darts. Like Sebastian, by his
persecutors he would be stripped bare; like that martyr's enemies, they
would wound his tender flesh; like Sebastian he would endure, casting
his eyes upwards; and like Sebastian he would infallibly be wept by the
women.
If women will weep for you they will bleed for you; the fount of tears
feeds a river as well as betrays a hidden well. Good, then; good, then!
He saw a future in all this. From the other spike of the dilemma he saw
nothing but his impaling; in this case, if he was impaled, balm at least
would be laid upon his wounds. Fra Battista determined to brazen it out
before Verona.
They lit the tapers in the sanctuary betimes; and then all the brethren
in their hoods sat in choir awaiting the bishop. With him and his clergy
should come the reverend prior. Fra Battista was to stand on the
rood-step to make his purgation. He would be backed by the light. So
much of grace they would do him, that he should face a sea of dark, and
be seen but in outline by it.
The bishop's procession, long announced by the indefinable hum a great
crowd breeds, swept up the nave with a slippering of countless feet.
The bishop in purple, his canons in scarlet, his cross-bearer, his
chaplains and singing-men, the bearer of his mitre, his ring on a
cushion; after these the archdeacon and his chaplains, the clergy of the
city, heads of religious orders, representatives of the civil arm, Can
Signorio with the officers of his household; finally, the silent, eager
people, edging past each other, whispering, craning their heads to see
what there was and what there was not to be seen. So came Verona in a
multitude to the great business of Fra Battista and the rag-picker's
wife, in reality thrilling with but one thought: Madonna of the
Peach-Tree was in the city, for any waking soul to see!
After the penitential psalms, a litany, and the office appointed, the
bishop stood with his back to the altar, and spoke _urbi et orbi_ from
the text, "God, who in divers times and in divers places," etc. I cannot
do more than report the sum of his discourse, which was that, as it was
plain these late marvels had some root in the hidden ways of men's
hearts, so it behoved him as a father to lay all such ways bare. That
for himself, if he might speak as a man only, he was conscious of no sin
unpurged which the apparitions might condemn, and certainly (alas!) of
no graces of his own which they could have been designed to reward. Let
each speak for himself. If there was any man in that vast assembly
unshriven, let him confess now what his fault was; so that instant
prayer might be made to their glorious Visitant for forgiveness by
intercession. If, on the other hand, there was some Christian virtue
blossoming in secret, let them (brethren) find it speedily out, that
thanks might be given for mercies vouchsafed. It was noticed afterwards
that the death by butchery of the feudal lord was passed by without a
comment. There might have been reason for this in the circumstance that
Can Grande II. had been warned of his sin, had nevertheless set out to
commit it, and had died in the act, as it had been foretold. To discuss
all this in the hearing of Can Signorio, his successor, might have been
a task too delicate for the bishop. But I believe that the scent of the
miraculous, which was all about him, was too much for him. He could nose
out nothing beyond the line which that fragrance seemed to point. All
his thoughts, with those of his auditors, were upon Madonna of the
Peach-Tree, whom there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to connect with
Fra Battista, his doings and undoings. No one detected this, so Can
Grande may have been inspired. A great to-do, which no one had the
rights of, was followed by mysterious appearances which no one pretended
to understand. What more natural than that one mystery should be allowed
to explain the other?
The bishop having ended, the prior (who was very nervous) began. There
were certainly foxes here and there in the vineyard, wild grapes on the
vines as well as grapes. No community was so holy but that, through
excess of zeal, over-inflamed by charity, it might nurture upon its
bosom a fanged snake. Might he not allude to the detestable and
never-enough-to-be-condemned sin of simony which, as they knew only too
well, had fattened in the Dominican convent at B----? What should he
say of that Friar Minor, the famous preacher of S----, who had been
found dead of a surfeit of melons and white wine? Alas! he brought the
taint of gluttony--a deadly sin--upon his order! Wonderful, then, would
it be in such days as these if the most renowned of all orders and most
venerable, that of Mount Carmel, should pass unscathed through the
tempting fires! Not only wonderful, but in itself a snare. What a
temptation to the sin of pride in the order! What a drawing on of others
(too disposed already) to the sin of envy, to uncharitable speaking--ah,
and to unlovely dealing! Let sin be owned, therefore, since men were
born sinners; but let purgation be done, the wicked member plucked out,
etc.
He passed to the sin of Fra Battista--that promising young
apostle--handled it soberly yet gingerly, hinted extenuating
circumstances--the pride of life, young blood, the snares of women,
Satan's favourite sitting-places, etc.--drew a tear or two from his own
eyes and floods from La Testolina; and then called Fra Battista to come
forth that he might purge himself or be purged by the canon law.
Thus exhorted, Fra Battista, becomingly tonsured, delicately combed,
with an aspect most meek and hands at a pretty droop, came demurely out
of the friars' door into the full light of the chancel. To the bishop he
bowed, to the altar he bent a knee, to his father in religion he bent
both, to the hush in the nave he cast a glance of wistful appeal. It was
truly aimed. They could see nothing of his face, nothing but the shape
of him, yet the women were sure he made a wistful appeal. Many were
affected; the anxiety to hear him was intense, the squeezing fearful. An
enormous fish-seller from the Lago di Garda, who had come in express,
leaned over La Testolina and ground a braized heel into her toes.
"_Achi!_" whimpered the little laundress; but "Snakes of Purgatory!"
said the other, "what's a toe more or less when Madonna is round the
corner with a blessing for us in her maunch?"
In a rapt silence, with no preface at all, Fra Battista made direct
confession to all his gods (whether remote or throned within the
sanctuary-rail) that he had committed the sin whereof he was accused. A
perceptible shiver of sensation swept over the church, although
everybody in it was sure, before he had uttered a word, what that word
ought to be. Indeed he had never denied it; but not to deny is different
from bold affirmation. The prior, whose avowal had also been tacit,
looked pained: avowals are painful things. The bishop, more used to
avowals, did his best to look shocked; the archdeacon (professionally
enough) thought avowal the most indecent part of an indecent business.
The Dominicans looked at each other, frankly delighted; the Friars Minor
told each other what they had always said. What the people thought can
only be guessed, for the nave was in darkness; but when Battista had
made an end, a shuddering sigh came from a woman far down the church,
and then stopped, hidden in some hasty new movement there which could
not be accounted for. There seemed to be a stampede, a sudden rush to
the side, the surging of some great unsuspected wave, which broke, as
it were, in the midst of the throng, and washed an open space to right
and left. Up in the choir, after the first surge of this wave (which
made every heart beat), all ears heard the long-drawn following
"Ah!"--not fear only, not expectation made real, but rather awe,
expectation shown just. It began low and hollow, ran up to a hiss: then
the silence was such that the cracking of a man's ankle-bone by the door
sounded like a carter's whip to him upon the bishop's throne. In that
deathly state the whole body of people remained breathless, waiting what
was to ensue.
Out of the dark, stealing (it appeared) from the middle of the nave and
floating down the church upon a bodily silence, came a cold voice. Like
a wind from the snow-mountains it came in a thin stream, before which
Fra Battista shrivelled visibly.
"O thou craven!" it said, "thou wicked man! what sin can be greater than
thine? If thou hadst done this thing thou ownest to, it had gone better
with thee than now, when thou standest a liar and boaster in a filthy
cause. Wilt thou foul thyself, Battista, and think it honour? I tell
thee that it was more tolerable for that stoned simple wretch than it
shall be for thee; and it were better that men should go unsouled like
the dogs, committing offence with their bodies, than souled horribly
like thee, thou sinner of the mind, idolater of thine own image! Dost
thou yet make slippery the ways of Mount Carmel, Battista? Dost thou yet
hang the pearls which are the tears of Mary about thy neck? It shall be
in such case that Carmel will be her holy hill no more, and those same
pearls turned to leaden bulls to seal thee in Tophet. There is no mercy
for the coward, and none for him that serves false gods. Go forth, thou
groper after vainglory, kennel with the swine!"
The voice ceased. Fra Battista, who had been rocking under its chill
breath, fell with a thud. The bishop adored the altar; the
rest--priests, monks, people alike--broke into "Salve Regina," so loud,
so wild, the very church seemed to shake. At that time the west doors
flung open of themselves, and a roaring wind swept round, disastrous to
candles. A quick flicker of blue flame jagged across the nave; the
thunder came instant, pealing, crackling, braying ruin, fading at last
to a distant grumble; and then the rain. No one got home that night with
a dry skin; but it was Madonna who had quenched the doubting of Fra
Battista, and washed fragrant the memory of Vanna to whomsoever had
loved her once. As her lovers in early days had been many, it follows
that they all forgot in the delight of reminiscence any harsh judgments
she had received.