'Credo in Dominum' were the words this monk wrote in the dust of the
high-road, as he lay a-dying there of Cavina's dagger; and they,
according to the Dominican record, were presently washed away by his
own blood--'rapida profusio sui sanguinis delevit professionem suoe
fidei.' Yet they had not been written in vain. On Cavina himself their
impression was less delible, for did he not submit himself to the
Church, and was he not, after absolution, received into that monastery
which his own victim had founded? Here, before this picture by Bellini,
one looks instinctively for the three words in the dust. They are not
yet written there; for scarcely, indeed, has the dagger been planted in
the Saint's breast. But here, to the right, on this little scroll of
parchment that hangs from a fence of osiers, there are some words
written, and one stoops to decipher them... JOANNES BELLINUS FECIT.
Now, had the Saint and his brother Dominican not been waylaid on their
journey, they would have passed by this very fence, and would have
stooped, as we do, to decipher the scroll, and would have very much
wondered who was Bellinus, and what it was that he had done. The
woodmen and the shepherd in the olive-grove by the roadside, the
cowherds by the well, yonder--they have seen the scroll, I dare say,
but they are not scholars enough to have read its letters. Cavina and
his comrade in arms, lying in wait here, probably did not observe it,
so intent were they for that pious and terrible Inquisitor who was to
pass by. How their hearts must have leapt when they saw him, at length,
with his companion, coming across that little arched bridge from the
town--a conspicuous, unmistakable figure, clad in the pied frock of his
brotherhood and wearing the familiar halo above his closely-shorn pate.
Cavina stands now over the fallen Saint, planting the short dagger in
his heart. The other Dominican is being chased by Cavina's comrade, his
face wreathed in a bland smile, his hands stretched childishly before
him. Evidently he is quite unconscious how grave his situation is. He
seems to think that this pursuit is merely a game, and that if he touch
the wood of the olive-trees first, he will have won, and that then it
will be his turn to run after this man in the helmet. Or does he know
perhaps that this is but a painting, and that his pursuer will never be
able to strike him, though the chase be kept up for many centuries? In
any case, his smile is not at all seemly or dramatic. And even more
extraordinary is the behaviour of the woodmen and the shepherd and the
cowherds. Murder is being done within a yard or two of them, and they
pay absolutely no attention. How Tacitus would have delighted in this
example of the 'inertia rusticorum'! It is a great mistake to imagine
that dwellers in quiet districts are more easily excited by any event
than are dwellers in packed cities. On the contrary, the very absence
of 'sensations' produces an atrophy of the senses. It is the constant
supply of 'sensations' which creates a real demand for them in cities.
Suppose that in our day some specially unpopular clergyman were
martyred 'at the corner of Fenchurch Street,' how the 'same old crush'
would be intensified! But here, in this quiet glade 'twixt Milan and
Como, on this quiet, sun-steeped afternoon in early Spring, with a
horrible outrage being committed under their very eyes, these callous
clowns pursue their absurd avocations, without so much as resting for
one moment to see what is going on.
Cavina plants the dagger methodically, and the Inquisitor himself is
evidently filled with that intense self-consciousness which sustains
all martyrs in their supreme hour and makes them, it may be, insensible
to actual pain. One feels that this martyr will write his motto in the
dust with a firm hand. His whole comportment is quite exemplary. What
irony that he should be unobserved! Even we, posterity, think far less
of St. Peter than of Bellini when we see this picture; St. Peter is no
more to us than the blue harmony of those little hills beyond, or than
that little sparrow perched on a twig in the foreground. After all,
there have been so many martyrs--and so many martyrs named Peter--but
so few great painters. The little screed on the fence is no mere vain
anachronism. It is a sly, rather malicious symbol. PERIIT PETRUS:
BILLINUS FECIT, as who should say.
'L'OISEAU BLEU'