Giannella was not the only person who was suffering from the effects
of the scirocco. Across the way good Fra Tommaso was weighed down by
unaccustomed spiritual depression hitherto unknown to his cheerful
nature. He did not ascribe it to the weather, but to the small progress
he was making towards the saintliness which the Cardinal, thirty years
before, had pointed out to him as his goal. Padre Anselmo had done
the same every week since then; and Fra Tommaso confessed to himself,
with many misgivings, that he was woefully far away from it still.
Twice lately he had lost his temper with the schoolboy who served
the first Mass; this morning he had been so carried away as to box
the youngster's ears for trying to trip him up as he came out of the
sacristy; also he had had more distractions than usual of late, and
only last Saturday had made up his mind that he would break the bonds
which held him to the world at one blow--and not look at a single face
in the church. This had been hard work indeed, but he had succeeded in
keeping his eyes on the ground as he went about his duties, and had not
even looked up when somebody knocked over a chair. Still he was very
unhappy, and when the midday gun boomed from Sant' Angelo found it hard
to put much spirit into his bell-ringing. That blessed fellow over at
Santa Eulalia would have it all his own way to-day, for Fra Tommaso's
arms ached, and his peals trailed off into silence while all the other
belfries were clanging with sound. As they ceased he heard his rival
still ding-donging it across the river, and it was with a dreadful
sense of deficiency and defeat that he closed the church and climbed
the long flights to his loggia.
As he emerged from the semi-darkness of the stairs into the blaze of
light and heat on the roof he sank down in the strip of shade by the
doorstep of his room and leaned back, weary and breathless, against the
lintel. How hot and sweet the "basilica" was smelling there in its box
on the parapet, and how pleasantly the perfume mingled with that of
the cabbage soup simmering confidentially on the charcoal inside the
room! Ah, it was pleasant up here; the world and its temptations lay
six flights below; no distractions could climb as high as this, thank
Heaven.
His pigeons came fluttering down from the eaves to welcome him, and
hopped about, anxiously waiting for their largesse of corn. He was
about to rise and fetch it when he glanced up and saw that one of
the number had not joined the rest, but perched on a flower-pot with
averted head as if in a fit of bad temper. Fra Tommaso feared it must
be ailing and, getting up stiffly, prepared to capture it. As he moved,
the others gathered eagerly round his feet, their burnished plumage
giving out splendid glints of purple and green in the sun. The old man
bent down to them laughing. "Patience, patience, you gluttonous ones,"
he said, "you shall have it all in good time."
Then he rubbed his eyes and looked at them again. All the seven were
there, yes, seven. He looked up at the parapet, and there, viciously
pulling a grand red carnation to pieces, sat an eighth, an audacious
stranger who evidently intended to make himself at home.
Out came Fra Tommaso's head from the strip of shade, the sun causing
him to blink painfully and showing the deep lines on his dark old face
and the greenish seams of his worn robe. With outstretched hand he
cautiously approached his visitor; but the caution was thrown away, for
the strange bird landed on his shoulder and began playfully pecking
at his grizzled hair, murmuring soft little sounds as if to entreat
his indulgence. It made no resistance when he lifted it off to see it
closer, but as he did so, his fingers came in contact with metal, with
ribbon--what was this? He almost let the creature go in his amazement,
when he discovered that it wore a tiny silver collar and that a ribbon,
slender as a thread, was attached to the collar and passed under one
wing. With shaking hand he pulled at the silk, and then almost reeled
in surprise, for out came a fold of paper with writing showing through
its thin tissue. Holy Saints preserve us! What portent was this?
His first impulse was one of fear. He moved a step to hurl the uncanny
creature over the parapet; then curiosity overpowered him. He must see
what was written on the paper. He knew that he should have no more
peace of mind unless he did. Clumsily he got the missive free and
opened it with knotty fingers that had never handled a love letter
before. All was dim till he pulled out his horn spectacles and fixed
them on his nose; then, careless of the sun that was beating on his
bare head, deaf to the cries of his faithful retainers clamoring for
food, he read this surprising message:
"Angel of my heart, for three days I have not seen thy beautiful
face. I expire of anguish. I consume with torment. When shall I
behold thee again? Ah, let it be soon, or I shall throw myself
into the river. I cannot support existence parted from thee. Thine
for all eternity. R."
Now indeed Fra Tommaso's head reeled and he had to put out a hand to
the parapet to keep himself from falling. He nearly knocked over the
cherished lemon-tree, and as he bumped against it was aware of the
unknown bird perched on a branch, gazing at him with a wicked, knowing
gleam in its bright eyes. The sacristan recoiled in horror. What demon
was this, assailing him in his old age with lures which he had bravely
renounced in his distant youth? No other thought occurred to him than
that he had been singled out for supernatural trial by the powers of
darkness; as soon as he could collect his senses he breathed a fervent
prayer to dear Saint Anthony of the many temptations to preserve him
from yielding a hair's-breadth to their wiles.
This was instantly effectual, for the unblessed visitor suddenly
spread its wings, rose up into the air and fluttered away over the
roof. Fra Tommaso breathed more easily for a moment; then he realized
that he still retained the missive of evil in his hand. Ah, it must
be destroyed at once. In his haste to reach the fire he stumbled over
the uneven bricks, startling his own innocent pigeons so that they
scurried away from under his feet. Once inside his room he almost ran
to the square of bricks in the corner where the charcoal was burning
in one opening, lifted off the earthenware pot with its cabbage soup
bubbling so appetizingly, and dropped the communication of the Fiend
among the coals. Then, as if fearing that it would fly out in his face,
he replaced the pot firmly. He had conquered the first assault of the
enemy at one blow, but he felt that he must be on the alert for the
next attack.
Exhausted with so many emotions, he sat down, wiping his face, to
collect his thoughts. What dreadful sin or weakness had he fallen
into of late? What inner traitor had opened his heart's door to
the adversary? Poor Fra Tommaso was conscious of having battled
rather manfully against his besetting sin, his love of watching the
congregation, of weaving his own little stories about the bright
young faces and the tired old ones, his sympathy for the widow who
always cried a little at Mass, and even for the pretty, naughty girl
who had actually passed a note from her prayer-book into the hand of
the young man who paused for a moment beside her chair. He had tried
not to wonder what could be the matter over there with Giannella,
that the blinds of her workroom window, whence she had often waved a
smiling greeting to her old friend the sacristan, should be tightly
closed--and that neither she nor Mariuccia should have come to the
church for some days. He was sure he had been faithful to last
Saturday's resolve to keep his eyes on the ground as he came and went.
Last Saturday, and this was Tuesday. Three days. The period mentioned
in that wicked letter!
The terrible conviction was forced upon him that his tempter was some
member of the congregation who had noticed his refusal to look around
and, aided by the powers of darkness, was taking means to shake his
resolution. "For three days I have not seen thy beautiful face." There
was not a mirror in the whole of the San Severino establishment, and
Fra Tommaso had not seen his own face for some thirty years. He put
up his hand and felt it in a wondering way. It seemed very rough and
stubbly; the pious barber who shaved him for nothing only called on
Saturday evenings. Surely none but the Father of Lies could tell him
that it was beautiful!
Well, that enemy could be subdued. He rose wearily; the first weapon
to employ being self-denial, Fra Tommaso sternly removed his dinner
from the fire and put it out of sight in the cupboard. Then, instead
of taking his siesta, he went down and set about cleaning one or two
corners of the church with such good will that his broom dislodged
clouds of dust and sent them flying about him till the stray sunbeams
caught them in the air and turned them into a hundred floating aureoles
above his good gray head. Perhaps they were reflections of some real
and lovely halo stored up for the single of heart.
* * * * * * * * *
Twelve hours later Rome lay sleeping under the August moon, sleeping in
a flood of silver that spread and broadened as the perfect orb swung
slowly up till it marked its zenith in the faint yet living argent of
the sky. The stars seemed to withdraw from its path, their delicate,
infinite myriads weaving ethereal veils of moving silver arc above
arc, in the measureless spaces beyond, like immortal spirits watching
the progress of some incarnate loveliness through a world apart from
theirs, a world holding it by an unseen yet inseverable tie to its
splendid tangibilities of marble palaces and leaping fountains and deep
old gardens full of oleander fragrances and cypress shades.
Rain had fallen in the hills, and with the full of the moon had come
a cool breeze from the west; before it the miasmas of the scirocco
broke up and fled. In the midnight silence the wind blew softly over
the seven hills, singing little songs of health and freshness near at
hand. On Fra Tommaso's loggia the carnations were reaching out to the
coolness, the little lemon-tree was spreading each leaf like a shining
spearhead in the calm, unscorching light; and between the carnations
and the lemon-tree a young man stood bareheaded, leaning over the
parapet and gazing with sorrowful eyes at a closed window in the palace
wall across the way.
Rinaldo had passed the most wretched day of his life; every hour of
it had been a drawn-out purgatory. This was the third of his trial,
for he had had no news of Giannella since the Saturday morning when
Sora Amalia had told him that she was ill. What was happening behind
those impenetrable walls? Was his beloved suffering, dying perhaps,
longing for a word from him, and wondering that she received none,
that he did not come to her? How could he? Twice each day he had rung
at the green door in the hope of learning something; and each time
the little shutter behind the grating had been withdrawn, two fierce
spectacled eyes had identified him from between the bars--and then the
shutter was pushed sharply into place and the guardian of the house had
retreated and closed another door within. The Professor had evidently
forbidden Mariuccia to answer the bell, and Rinaldo could think of no
means of communicating with her. As a forlorn hope he had despatched
Themistocles with an impassioned letter, and Themistocles, evil fowl,
had stayed away many hours, got rid of his message--and returned with
no answer. Giannella must be ill indeed if she could not send him one
little word to show that she was alive, was thinking of her faithful
Rinaldo. Perhaps, he told himself, his sudden declaration of love, the
adorable thing unnamed till now, had frightened or offended her. But
in that case surely she would have sent it back. No, he was sure that
she had received it, and almost sure that she was even now holding it
in her fast-chilling hand or pressing it feebly to her dying lips!
Death is forever on duty in the antechamber of youth's picturesque
imagination; the slightest accent of sorrow calls him up, and he seems
to put his head in at the door and say, "Here I am, my dear. Use me as
you like. Is it for yourself? Then it shall be all flowers and elegies
and lovely memories for your mourning friends. Oh, it is for your best
beloved? I see. I can manage that too, and leave you a hero and a
martyr, bravely carrying a broken heart to an early grave at your lost
one's side."
And youth bows its head and weeps in ecstatic pain on the henchman's
indulgent shoulder, and then says, "Another time, good friend," and
then flies back, a thousand times deeper in love with living, to kind,
familiar life, strengthened and sane once more.
Rinaldo's heart had been drawing him all day to the point when he could
at least feel near to Giannella, Fra Tommaso's loggia. In the cool
midnight, when he could count on the owner's heaviest sleep, he stole
thither and stood with outstretched hands, praying to the closed window
that barred in his dream of happiness. The breeze played comfortably
on his brow, the bath of moonlight calmed his fretted nerves; he
hardly knew whether the moisture in his eyes were tears or the dewy
benedictions of the night. "Giannella, Giannella, flower of my soul,"
he murmured, "speak to me, dream of me. I am here, my heart calls
you--come, come."
There was a sound across the way, the click of a receding bolt, the
stealthy scraping of wood on stone. Then a shutter swung open, and
out of the dark rough frame, like a flower breaking in snow from its
rejected sheath, Giannella leaned out, a vision of whiteness mantled in
falling gold, and raised her lovely face to the sky.
A cry broke from her lover's lips and startled her. She shook back
her hair and straightened herself, resting both hands on the sill as
her gaze explored the night, traveling slowly up to the higher level
opposite. Then a cry of terrified joy rang out in the stillness, for
she thought she saw a spirit--Rinaldo's.
The next moment she knew it was her lover, in the flesh, though how he
came to be standing there seemed a secret between him and some kind
archangel--for a word came to her across the dividing depth, a word
so pulsing with passion that only living lips could have given it
utterance, "Amore mio, amore mio!"
Rinaldo's hands were stretched out as if he would lift her over the
abyss to his side. They two were alone in the world of the night; above
them hung the gentle moon in calm, encouraging splendor; all barriers
save that of the narrow empty space were left far below, and what was
space to them? Each could hear the other's voice, see the other's eyes,
and there was none between them. What more could the delicate young
love desire as yet?
"Rinaldo, is it you?" came the tremulous, happy tones. "O my soul, I
die of joy. It seemed as if I should never see you again."
"I have died a thousand deaths, Giannella," he answered. "They told me
you were ill--I could not get to you. O Heaven give me wings. Call,
call, my heart's love, and your sister angels will bring you over to
me."
"To 'clausura?'" she replied. "Figlio mio, you stand on such holy
ground that its guardians would chase the angels away, if they were
sisters of mine. How did you get there? Is it safe for you? Oh, take
care. If anything should happen to you--" She leaned further out and he
could see all the tender anxiety in her eyes.
"How I came?" he repeated. "Cuore mio, I have been here so often
watching for you as you came and went past that window--my feet would
find the way in the dark, I think."
"But it is Fra Tommaso's loggia," she persisted. "I am afraid for
you! The Fathers will be so angry if they find you there. They might
send you to prison, and I should die of grief. Oh, go back now. I am
frightened. Where is Fra Tommaso?"
"Sound asleep, in there," Rinaldo replied, laughing and pointing over
his shoulder to the tightly closed door of the one room. "Have no
fears, he is snoring sublimely. Do you think such a night as this was
made for snuffy old sacristans? No, indeed. All the lovers in paradise
are on our side, keeping him quiet so that we may speak at last. Tell
me, my beautiful angel, do you love me?"
The beautiful angel did not answer in words, but held out her arms with
a gesture of such true tenderness that Rinaldo's heart seemed to leap
across the gulf and nestle in them.
"I knew it," came his enraptured cry. "You are for me, core of my
heart. Oh, but we shall be happy, happy."
"Ah, Rinaldo," she replied, her face changing, "there are too many
obstacles--you do not know--they are trying to make me marry the
Professor."
"They? Who?" he asked fiercely. "Tell me their names--then leave them
to me."
"It is he, Bianchi, and the Princess. She said it was my duty. But it
is not." She straightened up with sudden energy. "I know now, thank
God, I know. But there is much trouble, Mariuccia wants to tell you
about it, to ask you to help us. You will see--you are so clever--you
will understand what should be done."
"Why do anything, my dear, except walk over to San Severino with
Mariuccia and ask one of the Fathers to marry us? The home is ready, I
hunger for you. Leave everything behind and come."
"No," she replied gravely, "that is not the way. We must leave no bad
feeling behind to make other people miserable. He is the padrone, he
has let me live here for years--he has never been unkind--till lately,
and Mariuccia thinks some evil person has cast a spell over him. We
must make him see reason, and the Princess must understand too. She was
very good to me once. It would seem a piece of treason to just run away
like that--it would not bring us happiness, Rinaldo mio."
"You shall have it your own way, bene mio," he said, "but promise
me one thing. When we have done all we can to make them understand,
when it is explained to them that we love each other, that I am a
galantuómo, that I give you what they have never given you, a happy
home, such as the best, sweetest girl in the world should have--the
appartamentino is of a prettiness--and so cheap--then, if they still
oppose us, you will say, 'Arrivederci, signori miei. It is now
finished. I take the liberty of sending you some confetti, for I
espouse Rinaldo Goffi without another moment's delay.' Will you promise
me that, Giannella?"
"Oh yes," she laughed back, "if Signor Goffi still wants me. Does he
know that I have no dowry, no family, no pretty clothes to wear when he
takes me out for a walk--that I am nearly twenty-one, and as stupid as
a cabbage? Has he considered all these tribulations?"
"If you say another word I shall jump across the street into your
room," he declared; "love will carry me over quite safely. And how
Mariuccia will scold when she finds me there."
"Audacious one, you grow indiscreet," said Giannella. "To-morrow
morning Mariuccia will look for you after the first Mass. Oh, I am so
much better. I shall not be ill any more. You have cured me, dear,
enlightened doctor. So to-morrow be sure to come to the church in time.
I shall not be there, she will not let me go out so soon, but she will
tell you everything. Now go, go, beloved, we have talked too long.
Even the moon is getting tired of listening to us, see, she veils her
face. Good-night, good-night!"
A little cloud had drifted up from the west, shadowing the silvery air
to gray, but Rinaldo saw Giannella lean forward and blow him a kiss.
Then she resolutely drew the blind into place; he heard the bolt click,
and turned to depart. Only just in time, for he became aware that Fra
Tommaso was moving in his room. The next instant Rinaldo was over the
dividing wall and racing for his own terrace through the ups and downs
of the little city on the roof. Then the sacristan's door opened with
a rusty creak and the old man, still dazed with sleep, came out and
looked about him. The paleness of dawn was in the east, his pigeons
stirred and scratched in their cote, and he went and drove them in
again with sharp taps.
"Unmannerly fowls that you are," he grumbled, "what have you been
making such a disturbance about? I could have sworn someone was talking
here. Silly ones, it is only three o'clock. We can all go back to bed
for an hour."