The next morning, among the first visitors at the Ascoli Palace was
the master-sculptor, Luca Lomi. He seemed, as the servants thought,
agitated, and said he was especially desirous of seeing Count Fabio. On
being informed that this was impossible, he reflected a little, and then
inquired if the medical attendant of the count was at the palace, and
could be spoken with. Both questions were answered in the affirmative,
and he was ushered into the doctor’s presence.
“I know not how to preface what I want to say,” Luca began, looking
about him confusedly. “May I ask you, in the first place, if the
work-girl named Nanina was here yesterday?”
“She was,” said the doctor.
“Did she speak in private with any one?”
“Yes; with me.”
“Then you know everything?”
“Absolutely everything.”
“I am glad at least to find that my object in wishing to see the count
can be equally well answered by seeing you. My brother, I regret to
say--” He stopped perplexedly, and drew from his pocket a roll of
papers.
“You may speak of your brother in the plainest terms,” said the doctor.
“I know what share he has had in promoting the infamous conspiracy of
the Yellow Mask.”
“My petition to you, and through you to the count, is, that your
knowledge of what my brother has done may go no further. If this scandal
becomes public it will ruin me in my profession. And I make little
enough by it already,” said Luca, with his old sordid smile breaking out
again faintly on his face.
“Pray do you come from your brother with this petition?” inquired the
doctor.
“No; I come solely on my own account. My brother seems careless what
happens. He has made a full statement of his share in the matter from
the first; has forwarded it to his ecclesiastical superior (who will
send it to the archbishop), and is now awaiting whatever sentence they
choose to pass on him. I have a copy of the document, to prove that he
has at least been candid, and that he does not shrink from consequences
which he might have avoided by flight. The law cannot touch him, but the
Church can--and to the Church he has confessed. All I ask is, that he
may be spared a public exposure. Such an exposure would do no good to
the count, and it would do dreadful injury to me. Look over the papers
yourself, and show them, whenever you think proper, to the master of
this house. I have every confidence in his honor and kindness, and in
yours.”
He laid the roll of papers open on the table, and then retired with
great humility to the window. The doctor looked over them with some
curiosity.
The statement or confession began by boldly avowing the writer’s
conviction that part of the property which the Count Fabio d’Ascoli
had inherited from his ancestors had been obtained by fraud and
misrepresentation from the Church. The various authorities on which this
assertion was based were then produced in due order; along with some
curious particles of evidence culled from old manuscripts, which it must
have cost much trouble to collect and decipher.
The second section was devoted, at great length, to the reasons which
induced the writer to think it his absolute duty, as an affectionate son
and faithful servant of the Church, not to rest until he had restored
to the successors of the apostles in his day the property which had been
fraudulently taken from them in days gone by. The writer held himself
justified, in the last resort, and in that only, in using any means for
effecting this restoration, except such as might involve him in mortal
sin.
The third section described the priest’s share in promoting the marriage
of Maddalena Lomi with Fabio; and the hopes he entertained of securing
the restitution of the Church property through his influence over his
niece, in the first place, and, when she had died, through his influence
over her child, in the second. The necessary failure of all his
projects, if Fabio married again, was next glanced at; and the time at
which the first suspicion of the possible occurrence of this catastrophe
occurred to his mind was noted with scrupulous accuracy.
The fourth section narrated the manner in which the conspiracy of the
Yellow Mask had originated. The writer described himself as being in
his brother’s studio on the night of his niece’s death, harassed by
forebodings of the likelihood of Fabio’s marrying again, and filled
with the resolution to prevent any such disastrous second union at
all hazards. He asserted that the idea of taking the wax mask from
his brother’s statue flashed upon him on a sudden, and that he knew of
nothing to lead to it, except, perhaps, that he had been thinking just
before of the superstitious nature of the young man’s character, as he
had himself observed it in the studio. He further declared that the idea
of the wax mask terrified him at first; that he strove against it as
against a temptation of the devil; that, from fear of yielding to
this temptation, he abstained even from entering the studio during his
brother’s absence at Naples, and that he first faltered in his good
resolution when Fabio returned to Pisa, and when it was rumored, not
only that the young nobleman was going to the ball, but that he would
certainly marry for the second time.
The fifth section related that the writer, upon this, yielded to
temptation rather than forego the cherished purpose of his life by
allowing Fabio a chance of marrying again--that he made the wax mask in
a plaster mold taken from the face of his brother’s statue--and that he
then had two separate interviews with a woman named Brigida (of whom he
had some previous knowledge ), who was ready and anxious, from motives
of private malice, to personate the deceased countess at the masquerade.
This woman had suggested that some anonymous letters to Fabio would pave
the way in his mind for the approaching impersonation, and had written
the letters herself. However, even when all the preparations were made,
the writer declared that he shrank from proceeding to extremities; and
that he would have abandoned the whole project but for the woman Brigida
informing him one day that a work-girl named Nanina was to be one of the
attendants at the ball. He knew the count to have been in love with this
girl, even to the point of wishing to marry her; he suspected that her
engagement to wait at the ball was preconcerted; and, in consequence, he
authorized his female accomplice to perform her part in the conspiracy.
The sixth section detailed the proceedings at the masquerade, and
contained the writer’s confession that, on the night before it, he had
written to the count proposing the reconciliation of a difference that
had taken place between them, solely for the purpose of guarding himself
against suspicion. He next acknowledged that he had borrowed the key of
the Campo Santo gate, keeping the authority to whom it was intrusted in
perfect ignorance of the purpose for which he wanted it. That purpose
was to carry out the ghastly delusion of the wax mask (in the very
probable event of the wearer being followed and inquired after) by
having the woman Brigida taken up and set down at the gate of the
cemetery in which Fabio’s wife had been buried.
The seventh section solemnly averred that the sole object of the
conspiracy was to prevent the young nobleman from marrying again, by
working on his superstitious fears; the writer repeating, after this
avowal, that any such second marriage would necessarily destroy
his project for promoting the ultimate restoration of the Church
possessions, by diverting Count Fabio’s property, in great part,
from his first wife’s child, over whom the priest would always have
influence, to another wife and probably other children, over whom he
could hope to have none.
The eighth and last section expressed the writer’s contrition for having
allowed his zeal for the Church to mislead him into actions liable to
bring scandal on his cloth; reiterated in the strongest language his
conviction that, whatever might be thought of the means employed, the
end he had proposed to himself was a most righteous one; and concluded
by asserting his resolution to suffer with humility any penalties,
however severe, which his ecclesiastical superiors might think fit to
inflict on him.
Having looked over this extraordinary statement, the doctor addressed
himself again to Luca Lomi.
“I agree with you,” he said, “that no useful end is to be gained now by
mentioning your brother’s conduct in public--always provided, however,
that his ecclesiastical superiors do their duty. I shall show these
papers to the count as soon as he is fit to peruse them, and I have no
doubt that he will be ready to take my view of the matter.”
This assurance relieved Luca Lomi of a great weight of anxiety. He bowed
and withdrew.
The doctor placed the papers in the same cabinet in which he had secured
the wax mask. Before he locked the doors again he took out the flat box,
opened it, and looked thoughtfully for a few minutes at the mask inside,
then sent for Nanina.
“Now, my child,” he said, when she appeared, “I am going to try our
first experiment with Count Fabio; and I think it of great importance
that you should be present while I speak to him.”
He took up the box with the mask in it, and beckoning to Nanina to
follow him, led the way to Fabio’s chamber.