“This sun is stupefying.”
“Would you like to go?” I asked.
“No,” she replied, with a faint smile. “According to your advice, I
ought to bathe myself in sunshine. Let us stay here a little longer.
You said you wanted to read a few pages.”
She seemed as exhausted as if she had just come out of a swoon.
“Read, there!” she begged, pushing the book towards me.
I took it, opened it, and turned over the leaves here and there,
running my eyes over a few lines. The flying shadow of a swallow passed
over the pages, and we heard the rustle of wings close by.
“How astonished I was,” she added, “when you repeated St. Catherine’s
exhortation to me that day! I was still full of her spirit, and you
were magician enough to speak to me of her.”
There was such perfect confidence and abandonment in her voice, that
she could not have signified to me more plainly: “Here am I, I am
thine; I belong entirely to thee as no other living creature can, as no
inanimate thing can belong to thee. I am thy slave and thy chattel.”
She really seemed to possess a supernatural quality, to abolish in
herself that law in love which denies to man the privilege of being the
giver and the perpetual and perfect possession of the other. She really
seemed in the full sunlight to be transfigured by my imagination into
some crystal fluid, to become a liquid essence for me to absorb, and
bathe myself in like a perfume.
“I think,” I said, “that sometimes when you read this book you must
feel your soul evaporate like a drop of water on burning iron. Do you
not? 'Fire and abyss of charity dissolve for ever the cloud of my
body!’ cries the Saint. And you have marked these words in the margin.
You have a continual aspiration to fade away.”
Her pale face smiled at me in the sunshine, looking almost transparent
against the whiteness of the marble.
“Here is another place marked: 'Soul intoxicated, tormented, and
burning with love.’ And here is another: 'Be thou a tree of love,
grafted into the tree of life.’ What eloquence of passion the virgin
has! She fascinates all the silent, because she speaks and cries aloud
for them. But that which makes the book precious to whoever loves life
is the abundance of life-blood flowing through it, for ever boiling and
flaming like a sacrificial altar on the day of great sacrifices. This
Dominican nun seems to have had a crimson view of the world. She sees
everything through a veil of burning blood. 'The memory is filled with
blood,’ she says. 'I shall find the blood and the living _creatures_,
and I shall drink their love and affection in blood.’ A kind of ruddy
madness assails her at times. 'Drown yourselves in blood,’ she cries;
'bathe yourselves in blood, intoxicate yourselves in blood, clothe
yourselves in blood, mourn for yourselves in blood, rejoice in blood,
grow and strengthen yourselves in blood!’ She knows the full value
of that sweet and terrible liquid, for she sees it not only in the
chalice, but bursting from the veins of mankind, she who has been
caught in the whirlwind of life, who has worn her veil in the midst
of the fierce hatred and violent passions which have made her century
beautiful. Here is that marvellous letter of hers to Brother Raimondo
of Capua. Have you ever been able to read it without trembling to your
very marrow? 'And his head lay on my breast. Then I felt a great joy
within me, and the odour of his blood rose up.’ What I perceive here
is not only the eucharistic ecstasy, but also real voluptuousness. I
can almost see the young woman’s delicate nostrils tremble and dilate.
Hers too is that sentence I admire so much: 'Arming oneself with one’s
own sensuality.’ Her senses must have been very acute, for her whole
writings glow with lively images, strong in colour and movement, and
almost Dantesque in their vigour and audacity. Ah, sweet sister, she
is not the guide to lead you peacefully to the door of the cloister!
Her Dominican robe is full not only of the odour of blood, but of all
the odours of the proud life through which she moved unconquered. A
vast multitude clothed in sackcloth and in purple, in iron and in
gold, have swept her away like a whirlwind, with 'the fire of anger
and hatred,’ which burns just as fiercely as the fire of love. Friars,
nuns, hermits, light women, soldiers of fortune, princes, cardinals,
queens, popes, all the different temperaments of a hard and magnificent
century she deals with by her indefatigable will. She is powerful
in contemplation and in action. She calls Alberico of Balbiano her
'beloved brother,’ and the knights of the company of St. George her
'beloved sons.’ And she dares to write to Queen Joanna of Naples:
'Alas, one must weep over you as over one dead!’ And to Gregory XI.:
'Be a brave man and not a coward.’ And to the King of France she says:
'I will.’ That is why I admire her, Massimilla, and also because she
possesses a Garden, a House, and a Cell of self-knowledge; and because
this saying is hers: 'To eat and taste souls’; and lastly, because
it was she who wrote, before da Vinci: 'The intellect nourishes the
affections. Who knows most, loves most; and loving most, enjoys most.’
Lofty words, which are the rule of all beautiful inward life.”
As I was speaking, I could follow in Massimilla’s wide open, steady
eyes the slow rhythm of a wave which seemed to have some mysterious
musical relation with the sound of my voice; and this sensation was so
new and strange to me, that I prolonged what I was saying for fear of
interrupting it.
Indeed, hardly had I ceased speaking, when she bowed her head, and in
silence let two rivers of tears flow from her limpid eyes.
I did not ask her why she wept; but I took her hands, which were like
soft leaves burning with the midday heat. And under that glowing April
sky, beside that dazzling marble on which the shadow of the hand of
the dial seemed to have lain motionless for an indefinite time, amidst
those funereal yews and wreaths of anemones, I tasted a few moments of
unspeakable exultation. I _saw_ a spirit, not my own, suddenly reach
that part of life--and for a few seconds rest there--beyond which,
according to Dante’s words, none can pass with intent to return.
And it seemed to me that afterwards the rest of love and life could not
have any value for that spirit.
After this the blessed maiden seemed to resume the aspect of a figure
of Prayer, in which she had appeared to me the first day, as she sat
between her two brothers. Lifting her veil to look into the depth of
her eyes, I had seen a swift miracle worked under my gaze. The memory
of it dazzled me still, but the veil had fallen again, and for ever.
Once more she seemed to me like one who has “departed from this present
age.”
So much so, that when Oddo, one day, told me the pitiful story of her
engagement broken off by death, I listened as one listens to a legend
of ancient times, and felt then how strong and genuine my intellectual
detachment was.
She had been loved and asked in marriage by Simonetto Belprato two
years before; and, like Iphanea, had lost her betrothed almost on the
eve of the wedding.
“Già vicino alle sue nozze, beata
Le ghirlande apprestava; e le fu spento.”
Oddo recalled to my mind the faint memory of Simonetto, and described
to me the gentle youthful figure of the student, last heir of a noble
family of Trigento, living a retired life with his widowed mother in
the country, where he studied botany and died.
“Poor Simonetto!” said Oddo with brotherly regret, “I can see him
still in his botanising dress, his tin case slung over one shoulder,
his iron-shod stick and his green morocco pocket-book. He used to
spend almost his whole time botanising, or preparing and drying the
plants he had collected. His house was full of herbariums, and he might
well stamp his floreated coat-of-arms as an emblem on their covers.
You know what the Belprato arms are?--a shield divided by a bar of
gold, the upper half red with a silver lily, the lower green, strewn
with red flowers and golden leaves. Is it not a strange coincidence,
Claudio? That the last of the Belprato should be a botanist! I used
to prophesy to Massimilla in fun: 'You will end between two leaves
of grey paper.’ They were betrothed to each other in the garden over
his collecting, and they seemed made for each other. We were pleased
too, for Massimilla would have entered a good family, and would not
have lived very far away from us. (The Belprato, as you know, are of
very ancient nobility, though during the last few centuries they have
decayed. They came over from Spain to Naples with Alphonso of Aragon.)
Everything was ready for the wedding. I remember so well the day that
the wedding-dress, the kind gift of our aunt Sabrano, arrived from
Naples with its wreath of orange blossom. Massimilla tried it on; it
was delicious. Antonello and I wanted Anatolia and Violante to try it
on for luck; poor dear creatures! The wreath, I remember, got twisted
among Violante’s hair in such a strange way that it was impossible to
take it off without tearing out a few hairs clinging to the flowers.
One of the servants muttered that it was a bad omen. She was right.
Simonetto was, indeed, to fall a victim to his mania. It was autumn,
and he used often to go to Linturno to gather the water plants on
the stagnant river. There it was that he contracted the germs of the
poisonous fever which carried him off in two days. We had a funeral
instead of a wedding. Our usual bad fortune!”
We were in Antonello’s rooms; the blinds were drawn, and the place was
half dark, for outside the day was clouding over. I could not see the
sky out of the windows, yet I could feel the sensation of the gentle,
rather enervating, heat outside, and I felt sure that out of doors a
few drops of rain had begun to fall, some of those warm tears that are
so soft when they fall on face or hands. Antonello was lying motionless
on his bed without speaking. Every now and then a swallow could be
heard chattering.
“Perhaps,” I asked Oddo, “that is why Massimilla is going into the
convent?”
“I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” he replied. “It is a long time
ago now. But certainly life in this house must be more wearisome for
her than for the others. I always think she must feel as dried up and
extinguished as the plants in the herbariums Simonetto left her in his
will. Ah, that wedding-dress laid by in a cupboard like a relic! Think
of it! That white robe which by this time must be full of the odour of
dried plants! Think of it! Do you think that death can have any museum
in the world sadder than that of which Massimilla is the guardian?
Sometimes I am unjust; sometimes I cannot conceal the bitterness that
rises in my heart when I think that Massimilla is going away, is going
to forsake us. I feel as if her departure would bring about the final
dissolution. I feel as though a whirlwind would come to scatter and
destroy us all, like a heap of useless rags. And she in the meantime
is seeking to save herself. But I am unjust. She is perhaps the most
unhappy of all us here. What I used to say to her in jest has come
true. She believes herself to have become like the leaves and flowers
in a herbarium. To revive herself, to call up the illusion of living,
she forces herself into contact with living things. Have you not seen
her plunge her hands in the grass and hold them there, so as to feel
the caterpillars and insects among it run over her skin? Don’t you know
the hours and hours she spends in the garden looking for animals, and
making friends with them? In all this she is, as you said, a pattern of
Franciscan perfection. But what would you say if you knew that it is
really nothing but an anxious desire to realise life? I understand it;
I am perhaps the only one who understands....”
He said the last words in a low voice, almost as if he were talking
to himself; then he paused, possibly to contemplate within himself
the creation of his disturbed fancy. Was it only the dream of a sick
man? Or did the living Massimilla really correspond to this forsaken
guardian of dead plants? I did not linger over such doubts; for I
wished to absorb all the poetry which the strange fancies diffused
through the shadow of the room, where now the faint patter of the
rain reached us, and awakened in my nostrils the desire to inspire
the savour of the moist earth. I rose and opened the nearest window a
little; the smell of the earth floated in.
“During the first few months after Simonetto’s death,” Oddo resumed,
“she took great care of the herbariums. She used to pass long hours in
the room where they were kept, examining the plants and reading the
labels. And I used often to keep her company, for I was very sorry for
her. One day, I remember, I came upon her opening the cupboard in the
same room where her wedding-dress was kept. Another day, I remember, in
the springtime I saw her quite agitated because one of the narcissus
bulbs had flowered.... It was strange, wasn’t it, Claudio? I saw
that bulb come up again last spring. And this year? I have not asked
Massimilla.... Shall we go and see?”
He rose to his feet, seized with a feverish impatience, and took a
few steps towards the door. But Antonello, who was still lying on his
pillows, rose also with the same look--how well I remembered it!--as
had passed over his face when he warned us of the coming of the
gloomy sedan chair; and raising a finger to his lips to bid us keep
silence, he leant against the wall which formed a side of the loggia
and listened. Nothing was to be heard in the silence save the gentle
monotonous patter of the soft spring shower in the enclosed garden.
“Don’t go out!” whispered Antonello.
We did not ask why, for the cause of his terror was evident in his thin
contracted face. And as the sound of steps and voices reached us, Oddo
went up to the door, opened it a little, and peeped out. I went up to
it too, and, standing at his shoulder, I could see through the chink
Anatolia leading her mother along the covered loggia, with her arm in
hers, and one of the grey woman servants following. Princess Aldoina
walked with difficulty, leaning her whole weight upon her daughter.
She was strangely dressed in a grand gown with a long train, and was
decked out with false jewellery. She looked pale and enormous, with
her head raised and a little thrown back, her eyes half closed, and
an indescribable smile playing on her lips, as if the sound of the
rain on the pavement of the quadrangle had been a murmur of homage
from courtiers, through whose ranks she was passing, a queen on the
way to her throne. And the full light of sorrowful pity shone in the
daughter’s face as she leant over the mad woman.
As the apparition vanished, our souls for a few moments were full of
affectionate anguish. And while the echo of the sad footfalls was
still audible, the maiden’s figure in that attitude of pity and sorrow
which had revealed her to me in her true and supreme light rose before
me with extraordinary clearness. And my inmost soul felt an almost
religious awe, such as one feels in presence of a holy mystery; for
none of the previous actions wrought before my eyes by this pure spirit
of consolation seemed equal in value and significance to this action
performed by her, all unconscious of my hidden gaze. She rose suddenly
to a sublime height in my soul; she shone with the whole glory of
her moral beauty, supported by the whole force of her heroic will.
Contemplated thus, apart from any affinity to myself, in the secret of
her own life to which I was a stranger, in the absolute sincerity of
her feeling, she seemed to me a being of an ideal race; and my spirit
linked her with those noble creatures immortalised by the poets, divine
victims of a voluntary sacrifice. Antigone leading her blind father
by the hand, or prostrating herself to strew dust over her brother’s
corpse, was not more tender or stronger than she, had not a purer brow
nor a larger heart. In the midst of that sort of languid monotony,
in that enervating shadow where a sick man was sounding the depth of
his own ills, and a restless voice was calling up a vision of empty
misery from withered flowers, the _consoler_ appeared suddenly bringing
refreshment to my soul; and as a sudden light piercing a dark wall
makes the motionless sword glitter among the hanging trophies, so did
she strike a great flash out of my dormant will. There was strength in
her to produce miraculous fruit. Her substance might have nourished a
superhuman germ. She was indeed the “nourisher,” but such a one as the
virgin Antigone appeared to the blind Œdipus when he was exiled and
erring. Did not she alone, like the ancient heroine, keep alive in the
depths of her great heart the genial flame which had been extinguished
on the hearth of her failing race? Was not she alone the life of the
gloomy house? Massimilla in her barren garden, Violante in her cloud
of perfumes, paled before their sister as she walked along the path of
self-sacrifice with so firm a step, so sweet a smile.
And I thought of Him who was to come.
* * * * *
We were sitting, Prince Luzio and I, near an open balcony about the
hour in the afternoon when the fierce heat of that dying May was
beginning to be tempered, and the pilgrim clouds were throwing a few
deep blue shadows over the burning valley. The anniversary of King
Ferdinand’s death was approaching, so the loyal Prince, who always
celebrated it with mourning, was relating to me all the sorrows and
horrors of the long agony of the King; and against a background of
perfumes rising from the walled garden, the gloomy phantoms awakened
by the aged voice followed each other in long succession. The silent
journey over the heights of Ariano, and through the valley of Bovino
amid snowstorms; the fatal omens which occurred at every step; the
first signs of illness appearing one frosty evening when the King,
numb with cold, was toiling over the ice which covered the slope; his
anxious desire to continue on his road without any delays, as if
an inexorable destiny were urging him on; the fearful pallor which
suddenly came over him in presence of the crowd, amongst honours which
he felt to be the last he would receive; the cries which the attack
drew from him, but which were drowned by the clamour of the wedding
feast; the distress of the doctors who assembled round his bed to
consult under the hostile and suspicious eyes of the Queen; his burst
of tears when the Duchess of Calabria, a fresh, youthful figure,
entered the infected room where he lay aged and almost stupefied by
suffering; then his tragic good-bye to his own statue as the nurses
were carrying him into another room; then the embarcation on board
ship, a ceremony as sad as a funeral, and his mournful words as the
litter was carried down under the hatchways, which had been enlarged
by the strokes of hatchets; then the arrival at Caserta, the rapid
change for the worse, the putrid decay of his body on the great bed
surrounded by sacred images, miraculous relics, crucifixes, lamps, and
tapers; at the last the pomp of the Viaticum, the King sitting up among
the pillows quite unrecognisable, to the terror of those present; the
last words, the Christian serenity of his death, the dispute between
the Queen and the doctors about the embalming of the body, the band of
soldiers round the bier told off to cleanse incessantly the innumerable
terrible sores;--all these sorrows and all these horrors passed through
his recollection. And I listened and thought of the Duke of Calabria
sobbing in a corner like a girl. “Ah, what grand and beautiful
ambitions the odours of death might have nourished in his youthful
soul through those terrible spring weeks! In what proud intoxicating
meditations my soul would have been wrapped beneath the shadow of the
great trees, and how petty the eager agitation caused by the stirring
of the sap in their powerful trunks would have seemed in comparison
with mine!”
Prince Luzio told me how one day the Duke of Calabria, trembling and
aghast, suddenly entered his sick father’s room to tell him of the
expulsion of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and with what violent words the
King had condemned his relation’s timidity.
“Ah, if Ferdinand had not died!” exclaimed the old man, with an almost
threatening gesture. “A few hours before he expired he said: 'The crown
of Italy has been offered me....’ Don’t you think, Claudio, that a
Bourbon might have been wearing it now?”
“Perhaps,” I replied, very respectfully. “And if it were so, the
highest honours in the kingdom ought to be bestowed upon the Prince
of Castromitrano. Let me tell you how much I admire your dignity and
faith! You are one of the very few among our equals who have maintained
the sentiment of the virtue of race intact and intense. Rather than
renounce your privileges and take up an attitude unsuited to your
legitimate pride, rather than appear only a survival of yourself, you
retired from the world, but not until you had startled it with the
supreme splendour of your magnificence; and you have sought in solitude
to await the fortune which Fate may be reserving for your house.
Misfortune has treated you as a great man, for sorrow also has its
privileges, and yours have been fully acknowledged.”
The Prince’s fatherly face had become grave and attentive. The
veneration I felt in my soul for his beautiful white head was far
deeper than that expressed in my words; and added to it was a tender
feeling so pure that only a feminine presence could have inspired it.
The fact was that I felt the presence of Anatolia’s spirit. She had
appeared on the threshold of the door at the end of the room, had
passed silently along the wall, and had sat down in a shadowy corner,
looking white, mysterious, and propitious as a family genius.
“Far away from the world though you are,” I added, “and wrapped in such
a thick cloud of sadness, you have yet been able to nourish to this
day hope of the resurrection of that which is dead; and the prophecy
of your faith still rings in my ears. No doubt that which is dead
shall rise again, but it shall be changed. If you were to turn your
eyes for a single moment upon the spectacle which the world presents
to-day, you would feel your dream fall from your soul like a dry leaf,
and you would see that the recovery of his little state, and even the
acquisition of Italy, would be useless to Francis of Bourbon. Whether a
Bourbon or a Sabaudo be on the throne, the King is equally absent; for
that man cannot be called a king who has submitted to the will of the
many in accepting a prescribed and narrow office, and who then humbles
himself to fill it with all the diligence and modesty of a public
clerk who is perpetually spurred on by the fear of being dismissed.
Do I not speak truly? Nor would Francis be able to reign in any other
way. Directly after his father’s death he wrote out with his own hand
an edict to re-establish the results of the abolished constitution. And
it was Alessandro Nunziante who prevented its being published. Just
think of the lamentable proclamation of the 8th December, dated from
the guard-house at Gaeta. Was that the language of a king, and of a
vanquished king?”
Prince Luzio had listened in silence, with knitted brows, and now he
said, not without a shade of severity--
“One can see that you have the blood of Gian Paolo Cantelmo in your
veins.”
“The blood of all my ancestors is in my veins. Ah, dear father (let me
call you by that name!), I well know how painful it must be to you to
renounce an ideal of justice before which the flame of your loyalty
has burned for so many, many years; but I must tell you that for us
and our like there is no salvation unless we substitute energetic
purpose for empty hopes. Allow me to speak to you plainly and without
circumlocution. It is useless to hope that any heroic fire will
suddenly arise from the stagnant blood of Saint Louis. I have seen
the exile quite recently; he is full of placid resignation, given up
to good works and prayer; he remembers his short reign as a far-away,
painful dream. Your prophecy would call up a mild, incredulous smile
on his lips--that is all. If his spirit sometimes flies towards the
bay, not Capodimonte but the height of Camaldoli is its goal. He has
grown used to a quiet, pious life; the glitter of the crown no longer
disturbs his nights. Let us leave him to sleep peacefully!”
The head of the loyal prince had fallen on his breast, and I saw the
lines deepen on his bent brow like furrows full of thoughts.
“It is not for him alone that fate is dark. The twilight of kings is
ashy, blinded of all glory. Look even beyond the Latin countries.
Under the shadow of artificial thrones you will see false monarchs
fulfilling their public duties with the accuracy of automatons, or
giving their attention to the cultivation of their childish manias and
their petty vices. The most powerful of all, the lord of the hugest
multitudes, consumes away alone in his dark misanthropy, his herculean
muscles corroded by the moth of suspicion. He has not even the taste
for quenching the petty chemical formulas of his rebel subjects in
some magnificent massacre by the naked sword, such as might water and
fatten his barren lands. He has a truly royal soul, however, which
perhaps you may have been able to study near at hand, for he is of the
race of Maria Sophia. Wittelsbach attracts me by the immensity of his
pride and his melancholy. His efforts to make his life conformable to
his ideal are desperate in their violence. All human intercourse makes
him shudder with disgust and anger; all pleasure seems nauseous to him
unless it is what he himself has planned. Exempt from the venom of
love, hostile to all intruders, for years he has held intercourse with
no one, save the resplendent heroes which a creator of beauty has given
him as companions in super-terrestrial regions. In the depths of rivers
of music he slakes his anguished thirst for the divine, and then he
ascends to his solitary haunts, where, amidst the mystery of mountains
and lakes, his spirit creates the inviolable kingdom over which alone
he desires to reign. This profound feeling for solitude, this power
of breathing on the highest and loneliest summits, this consciousness
of being unique and unapproachable in life, makes Louis of Bavaria
truly a king, but king of himself and of his dreams. He is incapable
of stamping his will upon the multitude, and of bending it under the
yoke of his idea; he is incapable of reducing his inward power to
action. At the same moment he appears sublime and childish. When his
Bavarian troops were fighting the Prussians, he was far away from
the battlefield, hidden in one of his lake islands, where he forgot
his shame under one of those ridiculous disguises which he wears to
favour his visionary illusions. It would be better for him if, instead
of placing a screen between his majesty and his ministers, he could
attain to the marvellous nocturnal empire sung by his poet! It seems
incredible that he should not have left the world before now, carried
away by his flights of fancy....”
The Prince’s head was still bent in such a solemn attitude, that even
in the heat of speaking my heart smote me with the fear of having
wounded him; and a filial desire came over me to comfort him, to
lift up his grand white head, and to see the unwonted light of joy in
his eyes. Anatolia’s presence kindled a sort of generous fire in my
soul, and made me feel a great desire to reveal what was noblest and
strongest within me. She sat motionless and silent in the shadow like a
statue, but her attention shone on my soul like a flood of light.
“You see, my dear father,” I resumed, unable to control the tremor
throbbing in my voice--“you see how old legitimate monarchies are
everywhere declining, and how the Multitude stands by ready to swallow
them down its miry throat. Truly they deserve no other fate! And not
monarchies alone, but all great, and noble, and beautiful things,
all the sovereign ideals which once were the glory of struggling and
conquering Man, all are about to disappear under the immense flood
of corruption which is rising and swaying onwards. I will not tell
you how far the shame has gone, for I should have to use words which
would offend your ear; and afterwards it would seem as though the air
had to be purified with grains of incense. I came away from the city
choking with disgust, but now I think almost with rejoicing of the
general dissolution. When everything shall have been profaned, when
all the Altars of Thought and Beauty shall have been cast down, when
all the vessels containing ideal essences shall have been broken, when
ordinary life shall have reached such a pitch of degradation as seems
unsurpassable, when the last smoking torch shall have gone out in
the great darkness, then the Multitude will stop, suddenly seized by
a panic far exceeding any that has ever before shaken its miserable
soul; and, suddenly deprived of the frenzy which blinded it, will feel
itself astray in the desert strewn with ruins, without any path or
light to guide it. Then will the law of the need of heroes descend upon
it; and it will pray for the iron rod by which it must be disciplined
anew. And I believe, dear father, that these heroes, these new kings of
the earth, shall arise from our race, and that from this day all our
energies ought to be directed towards preparation for their earlier or
later advent. That is my faith.”
The Prince had lifted his head, and was looking at me with intent and
rather astonished eyes, as if I had appeared to him in an unexpected
light. But an unusual vivacity animating his whole person told me how
much he had been touched by my eagerness.
“I have lived for several years in Rome,” I continued, with greater
confidence, “that third Rome which was to have represented 'the
unconquerable love of the Latin race for the Latin soil,’ and whose
hills were to have shone with the marvellous light of a new ideal. I
have witnessed there the most shameful violations and the most obscene
connections which ever defiled a sacred spot. And I can understand
the lofty symbolism hidden in the act of the Asiatic conqueror, who
cast five myriads of human heads into the foundations of Samarkand,
when he wished to make it his capital. Don’t you think that the wise
tyrant meant to signify the necessity of severe pruning on the part
of those who are about to institute a really new order of things? It
was necessary to sacrifice and cast into the foundations of the third
Rome the men who were called liberators, and, according to the funeral
custom of the ancients, to place at their feet, at their sides, and in
the hands which freed their country the objects which they knew and
loved best, and then to dig out and drag down the heaviest granite
boulders from the mountain tops to close the deep sepulchre for all
eternity. But never were lives so tenacious and so pestiferous laid
in the earth! Quite lately, dear father, I heard the following in
Rome: 'The fleet of the Thousand only sailed from Quarto to obtain
state protection for the right of barter!’ And yet amidst the clatter
of traders I caught the sound of that remote mysterious voice which
lingers in every stone, and murmurs in every sea-shell; and the sublime
view of the Campagna consoled me for all my disgust. Ah, father, who
can ever despair of the fate of the world while Rome is still under
the heavens? When I think of her and worship her, I only see her as
she is figured on Nerva’s medal--with the rudder in her hand. When
I think of her and worship her, I can only describe her strength in
the words of Dante: 'In every generation of things, that is best
which is most perfectly One.’ And her principle of unity, as of old,
shall once more be the concentrating, ordering, and preserving force
of everything in the world that is good and amenable to order. The
Dantesque similes of the soil and the flames are well adapted to her,
because one can conceive the former as making a single base, and the
latter as united in a single and identical apex. I firmly believe that
the greatest height of power in the future will be that which shall
have its base and its apex in Rome; for I, a Latin, glory in having
set at the head of my faith the mystical truth expressed by the poet:
'It is certain that Nature disposed one place in the world to be
suitable for universal empire, and that that place is Rome.’ Now from
what mysterious union of races, what vast experience of culture, what
auspicious harmony of circumstances, shall the new King of Rome arise?”
The fine fever which had warmed my thoughts to intoxication in the
Latian desert again kindled in my veins; and the great phantoms created
by the sacred soil again took tumultuous possession of my spirit;
and all the hopes begotten by my violent pride in those solitudes
haunted by memories of the most bloody of human tragedies, rose again
and stirred vaguely, giving me a feeling of excitement which I could
scarcely endure. The venerable old man’s appearance assumed a graver
solemnity, for at that moment I looked upon him as the embodiment of
all those varied qualities which had expanded like flowers along the
stem of his ancient race under the warmth of the light of glory, and
had been manifested to the world in many magnificent characters; and
I was about to justify my ambitious dream to this man who was already
declining towards the grave, treating him as a judge to whom sorrow had
given insight; I was going to ask his good auspices as an omen, and to
propose to him as my equal the alliance which I desired.
My anxiety was heightened by the presence of the silent maiden in the
shadow, for she appeared to me in truth to be the one destined to
become through love “her who propagates and perpetuates the idealism
of a race favoured by Heaven.” I did not dare to turn towards her, so
sacred did the mystery of her virginity seem to me at that moment; but
I remembered the vague idea of hidden treasures, which the wonderful
light that shone in flashes from her transparent eyes had sometimes
awakened in me; and even without turning round I could feel a kind
of animated wealth throbbing in that strip of shadow, a living form
containing an inestimable prize, something infinitely grand and
mysterious, like the divine treasures guarded under veils in the holy
of holies of temples.
“You, as well as I, are convinced,” I added, “that every form of
excellence of the human type is the effect of an initial effort, which
by one selection after another reaches its highest intensity, and is
manifested in the race, modified by temporary circumstance. It is
not only our patrician pride which vaunts the virtue of Race, but it
is acknowledged also by the most exact science. The highest examples
of human conscience can only appear at the summit of a race which
has sprung up in time out of the continual accumulation of energies
and work; of a race in which during long periods of centuries the
fairest dreams, the most vigorous sentiments, the noblest thoughts,
the most lordly wills have been born and nourished. Now, take the
case of a race of remote royal origin, which is springing up under
the Latin sun in a happy land furrowed with the rivulets of a new
poetry. Transplanted into Italy, it flourishes with such vigour that
in a short time no other race can compare with it. 'Worthless is the
disciple who cannot outdo his master,’ da Vinci has pronounced. And
that race seems to have inscribed its greatness on an even bolder
motto: 'Worthless is the son who cannot outdo his father.’ Through
united and uninterrupted energies it goes on from one generation to
another, raising itself up to the higher manifestations of life. In
times of blind anger, when reason can trust to nothing but arms, it
seems already to understand 'that those men who above all others
possess strength of intellect are by nature lords over others.’ And
from the very beginning its discipline is of an intellectual nature,
and seems to have been dictated by Dante; for it consists in always
reducing to action the whole available power of intellect, first of
all by laying down theories, and then by working them out. In the most
important offices, as truly as on the bloodiest battle-fields and at
the most liberal banquets, this race excels: equally admirable whether
leading armies, governing states, conducting embassies, protecting
artists and sages, erecting palaces or churches. It mingles with
Italian life in all its most varied forms; it bathes itself in every
fresh fountain of culture. Living is to it the perpetual assertion and
increase of itself: living to it is ruling. The formidable instinct
of rulership is always driving it forward, while clear and steady
thought directs this lasting impulse. And always--like those careful
archers whom Machiavelli cites as examples--always it aims higher than
the mark. Its deeds are so illustrious that the greatest poets have
sung their renown, and the writers of history compare them to those of
the ancient generals, and quote them as the examples for the future.
Yet it seems that the strength of this race has not yet been fully
manifested, has not yet reached the unsurpassable height: it seems that
its accumulated energies must, either to-morrow, or in the course of a
century, or at some indefinite time, expand themselves in one supreme
manifestation....”
“_Cave, adsum!_” interrupted the Prince, with a grand smile. “Is not
that the motto of the race you are speaking of?”
“It might also bear the motto of the Montaga,” I replied readily, “_Sub
se omnia!_”
The Prince bowed with a gesture that served of itself to show that
my reply had not been a simple courtesy, but was indeed due to the
dignity of his great name. I saw him again before me with the figure
I remembered in my boyhood: a fine example of superior humanity,
every action revealing his distinction, his absolute separation from
the multitude, from common duties, and common virtues. It seemed
to me as if he had shaken the weight of sorrow that was crushing
him off his shoulders, and had risen up in all his manly strength,
his whole frame assuming that marvellous quality possessed by his
hands--those beautiful pure hands preserved unchanged as if they had
been embalmed--surviving ministers of a liberality which can only
be compared to the ancient “who for small services loved to reward
greatly.”
The last hour of daylight was fading away, and from the burning sky
the annunciation of summer came down on the patrician garden, where
amid the austere odour of centenarian box-trees, the statues--pale and
yet watchful, like memories in a faithful soul--called up by their
gestures the phantoms of past grandeur. But outside the cloister rose
the immense crown of rock fashioned by primeval fires, looking so harsh
and proud that it seemed worthy of supporting on each peak a Prometheus
Bound.
I had seen those same peaks on the first evening of my arrival, flaming
in the sky like rockets, shining with incredible radiance, the highest
of them standing out like a tongue of flame against the background of
general shadow, and cleaving the sky like a cry of hopeless passion.
I was alone then in that remote twilight, and the three mysterious
princesses were at hand in their walled garden, and my fate was still
apart from their fate. But now in the same conjunction of circumstances
the fate prophesied by that first agitation of my feelings was about to
be fulfilled: I was about to utter solemn and irrevocable words. Was
I indeed quite freed from perplexity? Had I at last chosen from those
three blessed ones, whom I had seen in fancy on that far away evening
receiving my spring gift with open arms, had I at last chosen out one
for the necessary union? And was I about to pronounce her name in her
father’s presence? Fresh uneasiness crept over me, and it seemed to
me as if Anatolia were no longer alone in the shadow, but as if her
sisters had come in silently and taken their places beside her, and as
if their eyes were fixed anxiously upon me.
As I turned round I saw the white motionless figure in the corner, and
everything else vanished, and all my vain restlessness was calmed.
She was the living symbol of security, the watcher and the guardian.
With her strength and her patience, lit up by her own smile, she had
turned sorrow into an adamantine armour which made her invincible.
She was made to guard, nourish, and defend to the death that which
was committed to her charge. And once again I saw her, in my dream,
watching, her pure brow radiant with prophecy over the son of my blood
and of my soul.
Then from the very roots of my being, where sleeps the indestructible
virtue of ancestors, there arose and went forth towards the Elect the
will to create that one to whom all the ideal riches of my race and my
own conquests and the maternal perfections were to be transmitted. And
deeper than ever grew the feeling of primary dependence which bound
my actual being to my remotest ancestors; and just as the summit of
the tree comprises in itself the whole life of the branching trunk
down to the deepest roots, so I felt the life of the whole race living
within me, that life which death could only destroy through its bodily
manifestations in the transitory forms taken by succeeding generations.
And the fulness and vehemence of that life seemed to overthrow the
limits of my natural powers.
“Not long ago you recognised in me, not without a shade of severity,
the descendant of Gian Paolo Cantelmo,” I said to the Prince, smiling.
“I must confess that in my house the examples of disobedience and
rebellion against kings are not rare. But the red Lion justifies
them; and you cannot be unaware of the patent which the Cantelmi
received from Charles II. of England. Being themselves of ancient
royal blood, they have never easily resigned themselves to treating
the king as other than their equal. It appears, too, that they never
fight any other adversary with such zeal as they fight the king. And
while Gian Paolo disturbed the slumbers of Ferdinand of Aragon, and
humbled Alphonso, James I. and Menappo defeated Manfred at Benevento,
James VIII. warred successfully against Ladislaus side by side with
Braccio di Montone and the Sforza, while Antonio opposed René of
Anjou. There is a natural tendency in every Cantelmo to form his own
party, to separate himself, and to define his own person and power
very clearly. It seems as if each of them founded his conception of
his own dignity upon the firm conviction 'that being one is the root
of being good, and that what is good is such, because it is one.’ I
joyfully acknowledge in this, one of the essential characteristics of
the ruler to come: of the Monarch, the Despot. But there is another
peculiarity which strengthens my faith, and that is the great number of
rulerships which have fallen into the hands of the Cantelmi on Latin
soil. It may be said that at different times and separately they have
held the government of all Italy. James I. is Ambassador for Peace to
the Republic of Genoa, Vicar in Lombardy, Captain-General in the March
of Ancona, Viceroy of the Abruzzi; James II. is Vicar and Podestà
of Florence; Bonaventura VIII., Viceroy of Sicily; Rostaino VII.,
Captain-General of the Serenissima, Senator of Rome.... Everywhere
they hold rule, and their experience of different peoples teaches
them to 'know well how men are to be gained or lost.’ Everywhere they
fight and lose their lives in the act of performing some prodigy of
valour: the 'good Cantelmo,’ immortalised in Tasso’s verse, stains
the walls of Jerusalem with his royal blood; James II. dies fighting
for the Florentines against Castruccio Castracane; Nicholas, first
Duke of Sora, dies with Constantine Paleologus in the defence of
Constantinople; Ascanio dies in the waters of Lepanto beside the
Archduke John of Austria; Bonaventura VIII. is deemed worthy by Charles
V. of the defence of the whole empire; and it is of him the Emperor
says that he would choose him for his champion had he to risk his
crown in a joust. The great Andrea is an extraordinary example of a
life spent entirely in ceaseless fighting from his earliest youth to
his latest breath.... He is indeed the most finished type which my
race has produced to this day. Andrea is one of the finest heroes of
will and strength. We need not reckon up the number of his exploits.
In Italy, Germany, Flanders, France, and Spain, innumerable are the
cities and fortresses acquired by him and added to the Catholic empire,
innumerable are the sieges he laid and sustained. He is the Poliorcetus
_par excellence_, a more fertile master of stratagem than any other,
at once eager and prudent; 'for in him we discover,’ says one of his
biographers, 'the union of all those gifts and qualities which in
other captains may be noticed separately.’ But what in my eyes raises
him above the heads of all others is the unheard-of severity of the
discipline he enforced on himself and his troops. Certain traits of
this rigour fill me with more enthusiasm than the sight of the banners
he took from the enemy. Though the troops he commanded are unpaid and
badly armed, he manages to have them as ready and obedient to his hand
as his own sword. No one ever understood better how to impress his own
personality on the conduct of others. Eloquent and nervous in speech he
yet always prefers the direct force of example to the power of words.
He always moves at the head of his troops, on foot when he leads the
infantry; he always sleeps in his clothes, eats and drinks nothing but
what his soldiers eat and drink, is always the first in assault, the
last in retreat; though covered with wounds, he refuses to take off
his armour; on the field of victory or in the conquered city he never
touches the booty. And in the war in Flanders he wins such terrible
renown, that mothers use his name to frighten their children into
obedience. Could any man determine his own likeness in clearer and more
vigorous outline? Was ever coined metal stamped with a prouder effigy?
In his time Andrea was surnamed the new Epaminondas. Well, even in this
indefatigable warrior, the intellectual character of his race comes
out. He is not only learned in speech, a distinguished mathematician,
a master of military architecture, a writer on the science of war, but
also a good connoisseur and splendid patron of the liberal arts. Eritio
Puteano, in dedicating a Latin work to him, calls him _Armorum gloria,
Litterarum tutela_. Cornelius Schult of Antwerp, presenting him with a
book of fantastic designs, represents him as Eros cultivating elegance
in the midst of arms, _Heros inter arma elegantias colens_. Andrea in
this carries on the family tradition, the origin of which shines in the
wreathed figure of Fanetta Cantelmo, Lady of Romanino, who composed
poetry 'with a certain divine fury,’ among the laurels of Provence, in
one of the courts of love. And does not some of the wonderful aptitude
which raised Alessandro above the other disciples of Da Vinci at Milan
seem to have been transmitted to him? He thinks out new methods of
fortification, constructs the celebrated fort on the Meuse, named in
honour of its inventor Fort Cantelmo, makes strange weapons which
seem almost magical to his contemporaries.... Is there not something
Leonardesque in these inventions, something which recalls Alessandro?”
I had uttered the name of him who lived in continual communion with my
spirit, and whom I held to be the genius of the race, destined some day
to reappear higher up the surviving family tree in some manifestation
of sublime life. 'Oh thou, be what thou oughtest to be.’ My task had
been developed along definite lines under his gaze and his teaching;
and now at the moment when I was about to take a great resolve, he
stood by my side. I saw him alive before my eyes, as if his white
tyrannical hand were resting on the corner of the table beside me, and
as if the statuette of Pallas and the pomegranate with its pointed leaf
and flaming flower were there too. 'Oh thou, be what thou oughtest to
be.’ And another youthful figure, apparently his younger brother, clung
to him as closely as his shadow.
“Alessandro and Hercules! These were the two purple flowers so early
cut off, which Leonardo and Ludovico gathered up and transmuted into
imperishable essences. Andrea Cantelmo when he died had already
displayed all the energies he possessed, and death overtook him on the
verge of old age, covered with glory after that siege of Balaguer,
which was the greatest of his heroic enterprises. But these two, facing
life with their hands full of all the seeds of hope, had every great
possibility open to them. Their youthful heads seemed made to wear
the royal crown, that ancient crown which their fathers had already
worn. In one of them Da Vinci divined the future founder of a new
principality, the triumphant tyrant who was to lay upon the multitude
the yoke of that science and beauty into which the great master
had initiated his favourite disciple. But fate interfered with the
fulfilment of his prophecy. Both of them threw away their lives in the
first burst of their ardour, for they were devoured by too vehement
enthusiasm. Hercules perished in the sands of the Po, fighting against
the Sclavonians; Alessandro on the banks of the Taro in the battle of
Fornovo. Do you remember the verses in which Ariosto celebrates the
beautiful son of Sigismond Cantelmo?
'Il più ardilo garzon che di sua etade
Fosse da un polo a l’altro e da l’estremo
Lito de gli Indi a quello ove il Sole cade....’
“His death was too cruel! He was made prisoner in a rash inroad, and
his head was cut off before his father’s eyes on the ship’s deck,
which was used as a block. I can imagine the blood spurting from the
wound like a flame and scorching the side of the galley. Indeed, I do
not only imagine it, I see it. What a wonderful and terrible storm of
youthful courage it must have been which provoked him to set spurs to
his horse and rush furiously against the enemy’s entrenchments! Ah,
dear father, I have known those storms myself, and my horse knows them,
and so do the ruins of the Roman Campagna....
“No doubt at that moment Hercules felt worthy of bestriding the winged
horse born of the blood of Medusa. _Cave, adsum!_ Ariosto, as he sings
his praises, uses an expression which of itself lights him up with
glory, showing how the bold youth died to maintain the resolution which
every Cantelmo makes--that of remaining at the post he has taken, and
has thought to be the best, even in the face of the worst forms of
death. He had a companion at his side during the assault. When both had
rushed upon the enemy,
'Salvossi il Ferrufin, resto il Cantelmo.’
“He stayed, one against a thousand. And the divine Ludovico places
his beautiful bleeding figure at the beginning of a song telling how
Bradamante performed prodigies with his golden lance. But the death of
Alessandro is like that of a demi-god. At Fornovo in the hottest of
the battle a hurricane arises, and the Taro overflows its banks with
terrible violence. Alessandro suddenly disappears, like one of those
ancient Greek heroes, carried away from the earth in a whirlwind, and
supposed to be transported to heaven. His body was never found on
the field or anywhere else. But he lives, lives on through the ages,
with life more intense than our own. Not only his portrait has been
transmitted to me by da Vinci, but his life, his true life. Ah, dear
father, if you had once seen that picture, you would never be able to
forget it. It is impossible to forget. Nothing in the world is of such
value to me, and no treasure was ever guarded with such passionate
jealousy. Who gave me strength to bear such long solitude and such
hard discipline? Who poured into my spirit in the midst of the harshest
rigour of discipline that kind of sober intoxication which makes
all effort seem light? Who but Alessandro? He represents to me the
mysteriously significant power of style, inviolable in my own person by
any one, even by myself. All my life develops beneath his steady gaze;
and in truth, dear father, he who can stand the searching trial of that
fire is not degenerate. 'Oh thou, be what thou oughtest to be!’ that is
his daily precept. But while he thus urges me to keep my personality
entire, he also places before my eyes the vision of an existence
superior to my own in dignity and power. And I am always thinking of
Him who is to come.”
I stopped, for I felt my voice change, and I feared that the blood
filling my heart might of a sudden overflow. And the old man’s soul
was in such deep communication with mine, that at that moment he
involuntarily stretched out both hands to me.
“Since a double will is necessary for the creation of that one who is
to outstrip his creators,” I added in a low voice, bending towards him,
“I could aspire to no higher union than that which would give me the
right to call you father, as I am doing now....”
And overcome by emotion, I sat leaning forward with his trembling hands
in mine, while his lips touched my brow without a word being spoken.
But in the silence, between the throbbing of my heart and her father’s
quick breathing, I heard the light step of Anatolia gliding out of
the room. Was she going to weep by herself? Her form, which I had seen
motionless and white in the shadow, shone on my inner heaven like a
constellation of tears. Was she going to weep alone? Perhaps she would
meet her sisters on the way.... This doubt suddenly made me uneasy. My
eyes fell on the cameo that shone on the father’s hand.
And as the perfume of evening rose up from the walled garden, a dim
sentiment spread through my soul, like a spell deepening round me with
the slow falling of the twilight.
How in the meantime fared the heart of her who was about to depart? In
what manner was her mystical life disposing itself round the memory of
that supreme hour marked by the hand on the luminous dial?
“ME LUMEN, VOS UMBRA REGIT.”
Perhaps she may have returned more than once to the little cemetery
with the yew-trees and anemones, and may perhaps again have laid her
slender hands on the dial to feel its heat, and she may have remembered
my exhortation: “Warm your hands in the sun, bathe them in the sun,
poor hands, for soon you will carry them crossed on your breast or
hidden under the coarse brown woollen habit in the shadow....” And more
than once perhaps, with her palm laid over the figures indicating the
divine moment, she may have waited, quivering in the great silence, to
see the shadow of the hand reach the extremity of her ring-finger, as
it did on that day of dreams; and perhaps she may have wept that the
miracle of love had not been renewed.
“SINE SOLE SILEO.”
I connected the picture of the guardian of dried plants sketched for me
by Oddo with the picture of that sad soul wandering round the sundial
which had pointed out the hour of blessedness for her in vain. And I
thought: “If only I had power to fashion for thee a beautiful fate, as
the artist fashions the obedient wax, O thou who earnest towards me out
of a barren garden where a funereal vow had imprisoned thee Massimilla,
thus should I complete thy ideal figure with death, with timely death I
should complete thy perfection; for no other hour awaits thee in which
thou canst hope to find any value, now that thou hast once penetrated
into that part of life, beyond which none can go who intend to return.
Guided by that divine memory, I would have thee return to the place
where in dreams I gathered crown-like anemones, to strew them on thy
head; and there I would have thee fall again into the harmonious
attitude that once I praised, close to the marble sundial. And the
moment the point of the shadow reached the tip of thy ring-finger
should be the moment of thy death. Then beneath the stony gaze of the
crouching caryatid I should myself dig the grave for thy frail remains;
and I should lay thee out as the gentle ladies laid out Beatrice in
Dante’s vision, and should spread their veil over thy head. But I
should not set a cross over thy grave, nor any other pious symbol;
rather I should call upon the youngest of the sons of the Graces, a
native of Palestine, like thy celestial Spouse; I should call upon
Meleager of Gadara, the hyacinth-garlanded, the sweet flute-player,
the poet who sings the early death of maidens; and he should carve an
epitaph worthy of thy gentle grace. Oh Earth, universal Mother, all
hail to thee; be gentle to this maiden, who weighs so lightly upon
thee.”
Thus it pleased me to adorn the sentiment with which she inspired me,
and turn her sadness into poetry.
“Has the narcissus bulb in the herbarium sprouted for the third time?”
I asked her suddenly one day, as we were boating on the Saurgo near the
dead city.
She was quite disturbed, and looked at me with startled eyes.
“How do you know?”