"My reward," the old man repeated. "I watched over you, I instructed
you, I prayed for you, I loved you. I tried to teach you by checking
you, the way to govern yourself. I tried to make a channel in your
soul that your great genius might not burst its bonds. I knew that
there was conflict ever within you between your duty to God and what
the world had to offer you--the old, old conflict between the city
and the world. I always feared it. All unknown to you I watched the
fight, and I saw that the world was winning. Then, my son, I sent you
to Marqua."
The old man paused, and his trembling hand wiped away the tears that
streamed down his face. Ramoni did not move. "I am afraid, my son,"
the voice came again, "that you never knew the city--well called the
Eternal--where with all the evil the world has put within its walls
the good still shines always. This, my son, is the city of the soul,
and you were born in it. It lives only for souls. It has no other
right to existence at all. There is only one royalty that may live in
Rome. We, who are of the true city, know that.
"And you, too, might have been of the city. The power of saving
thousands was given to you. I prayed only for the power of saving one.
I had to send you away, for you were not a Philip Neri. Only a saint
may live to be praised and save himself--in Rome.
"When you went away, my son, you went away with a sacrifice as your
merit, your salvation. Of that sacrifice the Church in Marqua was
born. It will grow on another sacrifice. Ask your heart if you could
make it? Alas, you can not! Then it will have to grow on Pietro's
pain.
"I have not seen you, for I am blind, but I have heard you. You want
to go back an Archbishop to finish what you say is 'your work.' You
think that your people are waiting. You want to bring the splendor of
the city to the world. My son, the work is not yours. The people are
not yours. The city, the true city, does not know you, for you have
forgotten the spirit of sacrifice. You went out to the world an
apostle, and you came back to the city a conqueror, but no longer an
apostle. Can't you see that God does not need conquerors?"
The old priest pressed the crucifix tightly against his breast. "What
would you take back to Marqua?" he demanded. "Nothing but your purple
and your eloquence. How could you, who have forgotten to pray in the
midst of affliction, teach your people how to pray in the midst of
their sorrows? Marqua does not need you, for Marqua needs the man you
might have been, but which you are not. The city does not need you,
for the city needs no man; but it is you who need the city, that you
may learn again the lesson that once made you the missionary of a
people."
Faintly, through the silence that fell the deeper as the old man's
words died away, there came the sound of footsteps pacing in another
room. Once more the old man took up his speech.
"They are Pietro's steps," he said. "All night long I have heard you
both. He has been sobbing under the burden he believes he is unworthy
to bear, while you have been raging that you were not permitted to
bear it. Pietro was only your servant. He would be your servant again
if he could. He loves you. I, too, love you. Perhaps I was selfish in
loving you, but I wanted for God your soul and the souls you were
leading to Him."
The old man arose. He put out his hand to grope his way back to the
door. It touched Ramoni, sitting rigid. He did not stir. The hand
reached over him, caught the lintel of the door and guided the blind
man to the hall. Then Ramoni stood up. Without a word he followed the
other. When he had overtaken him he laid his hand gently on the blind
man's arm and led him back to his cell.
When he came back the door of the chapel was open. Ramoni, going
within, found Pietro there, prostrate at the foot of the altar. Ramoni
knelt at the door, his eyes brimming with tears. He did not pray. He
only gazed upon the far-off tabernacle. And while he knelt the Great
Plan unfolded itself to him. He looked back on Marqua as a man who has
traveled up the hills looks down on the valleys. And, looking back, he
could see that Pietro's had been the labor that had won Marqua. There
came back to him all the memories of his servant's love of souls, his
ceaseless teaching, his long journeys to distant villages, his zeal,
his solicitude to save his superior for the more serious work of
preaching. Pietro had been jealous of the slightest infringement on
his right to suffer. Pietro had been the apostle. Before God the
conquest of Marqua had been Pietro's first, since he it was who had
toiled and claimed no reward.
A great peace suddenly mantled the troubled soul of Father Ramoni, and
with it a great love for the old General whose hand had struck him. He
thought of the painting hanging near where he knelt--"Moses Striking
the Rock." The features of Father Denfili merged into the features of
the Law Giver, and Father Ramoni knew himself for the rock, barren and
unprofitable. He fell on his face, and then his prayer came:
"Christ, humble and meek, soften me, and if there be aught of living
water within, let me give one drop for thirsty souls yet ere I am
called."
He could utter no other prayer.
Morning found both master and servant, now servant and master, before
the altar where both were servants.