Meanwhile Paul had gone into the church.
A few eager penitents were waiting for him, gathered round the
confessional; the woman who had arrived first was already kneeling
at the little grating, whilst the others waited their turn in the
benches close by.
Nina Masia was kneeling on the floor under the holy-water stoup,
which looked as though it were resting on her wicked little head,
while several boys who were early astir were gathered in a circle
round her. Hurrying in with his thoughts elsewhere the priest knocked
up against them, and his anger rose instantly as he recognized the
girl, who had been placed there by her mother on purpose that she
might attract attention. She seemed to be always in his way, at once
a hindrance and a reproach.
"Clear out of this instantly!" he bade them, in a voice so loud that
it was heard all over the church; and immediately the circle of boys
spread itself out and moved a little farther off, with Nina still
in the middle, but they grouped themselves round her in such a way
that she could be seen by every one. The women all turned their heads
to look at her, though without interrupting their prayers for an
instant: she really looked as if she were the idol of the barbaric
little church, redolent of the smell of the fields brought in by the
peasants and flooded with the rosy haze of a country morning.
Paul walked straight up the nave, but his secret anguish grew ever
greater. As he passed, his cassock brushed against the seat where
Agnes usually sat; it was the old family pew, the kneeling-stool in
front of it richly carved, and with his eyes and measured paces he
calculated the distance between it and the altar.
"If I watch for the moment when she rises to carry out her fatal
threat I shall have time to get into the sacristy," was his
conclusion, and he shivered now as he entered.
Antiochus had hurried down from the belfry to help Paul robe himself,
and was waiting for him beside the open cupboard where his vestments
hung. He had a pale and serious, almost tragic air, as though already
over-shadowed by the future career which had been settled for him the
previous evening. But the gravity was transient and a smile flickered
over the boy's face, just fresh from the windswept belfry; his eyes
sparkled with joy beneath their decorously lowered lids, and he had
to bite his lips to check the ready laugh; his young heart responded
to all the radiance, the inspirations, the joyousness of that festal
morning. Then his eyes clouded suddenly as he was arranging the
lace of the alb over the priest's wrist and he shot a quick look at
his master, for he had perceived that the hand beneath the lace was
trembling and he saw that the beloved face was pallid and distraught.
"Do you feel ill, sir?"
Paul did feel ill, although he shook his head in denial. He felt as
though his mouth were full of blood, yet a tiny germ of hope was
springing up in the midst of his distress.
"I shall fall down dead, my heart will break; and then, at least,
there will be an end of everything."
He went down into the church again to hear the confessions of the
women, and saw his mother at the bottom of the nave near the door.
Stern and motionless she knelt there, keeping watch over all who
entered the church, over the whole church itself, ready, apparently,
to support and hold it up were it even to collapse upon her head.
But he had no more courage left: only that tiny germ of hope within
his heart, the hope of death, grew and grew till the breath in him
stifled and failed.
When he was seated inside the confessional he felt somewhat calmer;
it was like being in a grave, but at least he was hidden from view
and could look his horror in the face. The subdued whispering of the
women behind the gratings, broken by their little sighs and their
warm breath, was like the rustling of lizards in the long grass on
the ridge. And Agnes was there too, safe in the secret retreat where
he had so often taken her in his thoughts. And the soft breathing
of the young women, the scent of their hair and their gala dress,
all perfumed with lavender, mingled with his distress and further
inflamed his passion.
And he gave them all absolution, absolved them from all their sins,
thinking that perhaps before many days had passed he himself would be
a suppliant to them for their compassion.
* * * * *
Then he was seized with the craving to get out, to see whether Agnes
had arrived. But her seat was empty.
Perhaps she was not coming after all. Yet sometimes she remained
at the bottom of the church, kneeling on a chair which her servant
brought for her. He turned to look, but saw only his mother's rigid
figure, and as he knelt before the altar and began the Mass, he felt
that her soul was bending before God, clothed in her grief as he was
clothed in his alb and stole.
Then he determined not to look behind him again, to close his eyes
each time he had to turn round to give the blessing. He felt as if
he were climbing ever higher up some steep and stony Calvary, and a
sensation of giddiness seized him whenever the ritual obliged him to
face the congregation. Then he closed his eyes to shut out the sight
of the abyss that yawned at his feet; but even through his closed
eyelids he saw the carven bench and the figure of Agnes, her black
dress standing out in relief against the grey wall of the church.
And Agnes was really there, dressed in black with a black veil
round her ivory-white face; her eyes were fixed on her prayer-book,
the gilt clasp of which glittered in her black-gloved hands, but
she never turned a page. The servant with the head of a slave was
kneeling on the floor of the aisle beside the bench, and every now
and then she raised her eyes, like a faithful dog, to her mistress's
face, as though in silent sympathy with the sad thoughts that
possessed her.
And he beheld everything from his place at the altar and hope died
within him; only from the bottom of his heart he told himself it was
impossible that Agnes would carry out her insane threat. He turned
the pages of the Gospel, but his faltering voice could scarcely
pronounce the words; he broke into a sweat of apprehension, and
caught hold of the book as he felt himself fainting.
In a moment he pulled himself together. Antiochus was looking at him,
watching the awful change that came over his face as over the face
of a corpse, keeping close beside him to support him if he fell,
and glancing at the old men by the altar rails to see if they had
noticed the priest's distress. But nobody noticed it--even his mother
remained in her place, praying and waiting without seeing anything
amiss with her son. Then Antiochus drew still closer to him with a
protecting movement, so that Paul looked round startled, but the boy
gave him a reassuring glance out of his bright eyes, as much as to
say:
"I am here, it's all right, go on----"
And he went on, climbing that steep Calvary till the blood flowed
back into his heart and the tension of his nerves relaxed. But it was
the relaxation of despair, the abandonment to danger, the quiet of
the drowning man who has no more strength to battle with the waves.
When he turned again to the congregation he did not close his eyes.
"The Lord be with you."
Agnes was there in her place, bent over the page she never turned,
the gilt clasp of the book shining in the dim light. The servant was
crouching at her feet and all the other women, including his mother
at the bottom of the church, were sitting back on their heels on the
bare floor, ready to resume their kneeling position immediately the
priest should move the book.
And he moved the book and went on with the prayers and the slow
gestures of the ritual. And a feeling of tenderness crept into his
despair at the thought that Agnes was bearing him company on his
road to Calvary, as Mary had followed too, that in another moment she
would mount the altar steps and stand beside him once again, having
overcome their transgression, to expiate together as together they
had sinned. How could he hate her if she brought his punishment with
her, if her hatred was only love disguised?
Then came the Communion, and the few drops of wine went down into
his breast like quickening blood; he felt strong, revived, his heart
filled with the presence of God.
And as he descended the steps towards the women the figure of Agnes
in her seat stood out prominent amidst the crowd of bowed heads. She,
too, had bowed her head upon her hands; perhaps she was summoning her
courage before she moved. And suddenly he felt infinite pity for her;
he would have liked to go down to her and give her absolution, and
administer the Communion as to a dying woman. He, too, had summoned
his courage, but his hands shook as he held the wafer to the women's
lips.
* * * * *
Immediately the Communion was ended an old peasant began to intone a
hymn. The congregation sang the verses after him in subdued voices,
and repeated the antiphons twice out loud. The hymn was primitive
and monotonous, old as the earliest prayers of man uttered in
forests where as yet scarcely man dwelt, old and monotonous as the
breaking of waves on a solitary shore; yet that low singing around
her sufficed to bring Agnes's thoughts back, as though she had been
rushing breathless by night through some primeval forest and had
suddenly emerged upon the seashore, amidst sandhills covered with
sweet flowers and golden in the light of dawn.
Something stirred in the very depths of her being, a strange emotion
gripped her throat; she felt the world turning round with her as
though she had been walking head downwards and now resumed her
natural position.
It was her past and the past of all her race that surged up and took
hold of her, with the singing of the women and the old men, with the
voices of her nurse and her servants, the men and women who had
built and furnished her house, and ploughed her fields and woven the
linen for her swaddling clothes.
How could she denounce herself before all these people who looked up
to her as their mistress and held her even purer than the priest at
the altar? And then she, too, felt the presence of God around her and
within her, even in her passion itself.
She knew very well that the punishment she meant to inflict upon the
man with whom she had sinned was her own punishment too; but now a
merciful God spoke to her with the voices of the old men and women
and the innocent children, and bade her beware of her own self,
counselled her to seek salvation.
As her people round her sang the verses of the hymn, all the days of
her solitary life unrolled themselves before her inward vision. She
saw herself again a little child, then a young girl, then a grown
woman in this same church, on this same seat blackened and worn
by the elbows and knees of her forefathers. In a sense the church
belonged to her family; it had been built by one of her ancestors,
and tradition said that the image of the Madonna had been captured
from Barbary pirates and brought back to the village by a far-away
grandfather of hers.
She had been born and brought up amidst these traditions, in an
atmosphere of simple grandeur that kept her aloof from the smaller
people of Aar, yet still in the midst of them, shut in amongst them
like a pearl in its rough shell.
How could she denounce herself before her people? But this very
feeling of being mistress even of the sacred building rendered more
insufferable still the presence of the man who had been her companion
in sin, and who appeared at the altar wearing a mask of saintliness
and bearing the holy vessels in his hands--tall and splendid he stood
above her as she knelt at his feet, guilty in that she had loved him.
Her heart swelled anew with rage and grief as the hymn rose and
fell around her, like a supplication rising from out some abyss,
imploring help and justice, and she heard the voice of God, dark and
stern, bidding her drive His unworthy servant out of His temple.
She grew pale as death and broke into a cold sweat; her knees shook
against the seat, but she bowed no more and with head erect she
watched the movements of the priest at the altar. And it was as
though some evil breath went out from her to him, paralysing him,
enveloping him in the same icy grip that held her fast.
* * * * *
And he felt that mortal breath that emanated from her will, and
just as on bitter winter mornings, his fingers were frozen and
uncontrollable shivers ran down his spine. When he turned to give the
benediction he saw Agnes gazing at him. Their eyes met as in a flash,
and like a drowning man he remembered in that instant all the joy of
his life, joy sprung wholly and solely from love of her, from the
first look of her eyes, the first kiss of her lips.
Then he saw her rise from her seat, book in hand.
"Oh God, Thy will be done," he stammered, kneeling--and he seemed
to be actually in the Garden of Olives, watching the shadow of an
inexorable fate.
He prayed aloud and waited, and midst the confused sound of the
people's prayers he thought he could distinguish Agnes's step as she
moved toward the altar.
"She is coming--she has left her seat, she is between her seat and
the altar. She is coming ... she is here--every one is staring at
her. She is at my side!"
The obsession was so strong that the words failed on his lips. He saw
Antiochus, who had already begun to extinguish the candles, suddenly
turn and look round, and he knew for certain that she was there,
close to him, on the chancel steps.
He rose to his feet, the roof seemed to fall down upon his head and
fracture it; his knees scarcely upheld him, but with a sudden effort
he managed to get up to the altar again and take the pyx. And as he
turned to enter the sacristy he saw that Agnes had advanced from her
seat to the railing and was about to mount the steps.
"Oh, Lord, why not let me die?" and he bowed his head over the pyx as
though baring his neck to the sword that was about to strike it. But
as he entered the sacristy door he looked again and perceived Agnes
bowed at the altar railing as she knelt on the lowest step.
* * * * *
She had stumbled at the lowest step outside the railing, and as
though a wall had suddenly risen up before her, she had dropped on
her knees. A thick mist dimmed her sight and she could go no further.
Presently the dimness cleared and she could see the steps again, the
yellow carpet before the altar, the flowers upon the table and the
burning lamp. But the priest had disappeared, and in his place a ray
of sunlight smote obliquely through the dusk and made a golden patch
upon the carpet.
She crossed herself, rose to her feet and moved towards the door. The
servant followed her and the old men, the women and the children
turned to smile at her and bless her with their eyes; she was their
mistress, their symbol of beauty and of faith, so far removed from
them and yet in the midst of them and all their misery, like a wild
rose amongst the brambles.
At the church door the servant offered her holy water on the tips
of her fingers, and then stooped to brush off the dust of the altar
steps which still clung to her dress. As the girl raised herself
again she saw the ashen face of Agnes turned towards the corner where
the priest's mother had knelt through all the service. Then she saw
the mother sitting motionless on the ground, her head sunk forward
on her breast, her shoulders leaning against the wall as though she
had made a supreme effort to uphold it in a great collapse. Noticing
the fixed gaze of Agnes and the servant, a woman also turned to look,
then sprang quickly to the side of the priest's mother, spoke to her
in a whisper and raised her face in her hand.
The mother's eyes were half-closed, glassy, the pupils upturned; the
rosary had dropped from her hand and her head fell sideways on to the
shoulder of the woman who held her.
"She is dead!" shrieked the woman.
And instantly the whole congregation was on its feet and crowding to
the bottom of the church.
Meanwhile Paul had gone back into the sacristy with Antiochus, who
was carrying the book of the Gospel. He was trembling with cold and
with relief; he actually felt as though he had just escaped from a
shipwreck, and he wanted to energize and walk about to warm himself
and convince himself that it had all been a bad dream.
Then a confused murmur of voices was heard in the church, at first
low, then growing quickly louder and louder. Antiochus put his head
out of the sacristy door and saw all the people collected together at
the bottom of the nave, as though there were some obstruction at the
entrance, but an old man was already hastening up the chancel steps
and making mysterious signs.
"His mother is taken ill," he said.
Paul, still robed in his alb, was down there at one bound and threw
himself on his knees that he might look more closely into his
mother's face as she lay stretched on the ground, with her head in a
woman's lap and hemmed in by the pressing crowd.
"Mother, mother!"
The face was still and rigid, the eyes half-closed, the teeth
clenched in the effort not to cry aloud.
And he knew instantly that she had died of the shock of that same
grief, that same terror which he had been enabled to overcome.
And he, too, clenched his teeth that he might not cry aloud when he
raised his head; and across the confused mass of the people surging
round, his eyes met the eyes of Agnes fixed upon him.
* * * * *
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and
non-hyphenated variants. For those words, the variant more frequently
used was retained.
Obvious punctuation errors were fixed.
Other printing errors, which were not detected during the revision of
the printing process of the original book, have been corrected.
A Table of Content was added before the Translator's Note.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Woman and the Priest, by Grazia Deledda