Roma returned to the Vatican with the Capuchin. There were the same
gorgeous staircases and halls, the same soldiers, chamberlains,
Bussolanti and Monsignori, the same atmosphere of the palace of an
emperor. But in the little plain apartment which they entered, not as
before by way of the throne room, but by a secret corridor with cocoanut
matting and narrow frosted windows, the Pope stood waiting, like a
simple priest, in a white woollen cassock.
He smiled as Roma approached, a sad smile, and his weary eyes, when she
looked timidly into his face, were full of the measureless pity that is
in the eyes of the surgeon who is about to vivisect a dumb creature
because it is necessary for the welfare of the human race.
She knelt and kissed his ring. He raised her and put her to sit on the
lounge, sitting in the arm-chair himself, and continuing to hold her
hand. The Capuchin stood by the window, holding the curtain aside as if
looking out on the piazza.
"You believe the Holy Father would not send for you to injure you?" he
said.
"I am sure he would not, your Holiness," she answered.
"And though I disapprove of your husband's doings, you know I would not
willingly do him any harm?"
"The Holy Father would not do harm to any one; and my husband is so
good, and his aims are so noble, that nobody who really knew him could
ever try to injure him."
He looked into her face; it shone with a frightened joy, and pity grew
upon him.
"Your devotion to your husband is very sweet and beautiful, my daughter,
and it grieves the Holy Father's heart to trouble it. But it seems to be
his duty to do so, and he must do his duty."
Again she looked up timidly, and again the sense came to him of dumb
eyes full of entreaty.
"My daughter, your husband's motives may not be bad. They may even be
good and noble. It is often so with men of his sympathies. They see the
disparity of wealth and poverty, and their hearts are torn with anger
and with pity. But, my child, they do not know that true and lasting
reforms, such as affect the whole human family, can only be
accomplished by God and by the authority of His Holy Church and
Pontificate, and that it must be the bell of St. Peter's which announces
them to the world."
As the Pope was speaking the colour ran up Roma's face like a flag of
distress. She looked helplessly round at the Capuchin. The dumb eyes
seemed to ask when the blow would fall.
"As a consequence, what is he doing, my daughter? Ignoring the Church,
which like a true mother is ever anxious to bear the burden of human
weakness and suffering; he is setting up a new gospel, such as would
reduce mankind to a worse barbarism than that from which Christ freed
us. Is this conduct worthy of your devotion, my child?"
Roma fixed her timid eyes on the Pope's face and answered:
"I have nothing to do with my husband's opinions, your Holiness. I have
only to be true to the friendship he gives me and the love I bear him."
"My child," said the Pope, "ask yourself what your husband is doing at
this moment. Not content with sowing the seeds of discord in Parliament
and by the press, he is wandering through Europe, gathering up the
adventurers who work in darkness in every country, and hatching a
conspiracy which would lead to a state of anarchy throughout the world."
Roma withdrew her hand from the hand of the Pope and made an exclamation
of dissent.
"Ah, I know what you would say, my daughter. He did not set out to
produce anarchy. Such men never do. They begin with evolution and end
with revolution. They begin with peace and end with violence. And the
only sequel to your husband's aims must be the destruction of civil
society, of Government, and of the Church."
Roma's fingers were clasped convulsively in her lap. She lifted her
timid but passionate face and said:
"I know nothing about that, your Holiness. I only know that whatever he
is doing his heart laid it upon him as a duty, and his heart is pure and
noble."
"My daughter, your husband may be the greatest of patriots in spirit and
intention, but nevertheless he is one of the criminal and visionary
teachers of this unhappy time who are deluding the ignorant crowd with
promises that can never be realised. Anarchy, chaos, the uprooting of
religion and morality, of justice, human dignity, and the purity of
domestic life--these are the only possible fruits of the seed he is
sowing."
The timid eyes began to flash. "I did not come here to hear this, your
Holiness." The Pope put his hand tenderly on her hands.
"Remember, my child, what you said yourself on your former visit."
Roma dropped her head.
"The authorities know all about it."
"Holy Father!"
"It was necessary."
"Then ... then somebody must have told them."
"I told them. The Holy Father revealed no more than was necessary to
relieve his conscience and to prevent crime. It was your own tongue that
told the rest, my daughter."
He recalled what had passed in the cabinet of the Prime Minister, and
Roma felt as if something choked her. "No matter!" she said, with the
same frightened but passionate face. "David Rossi is prepared for
anything, and he will be prepared for this."
"The authorities already knew more than I could tell them," said the
Pope. "They knew where your husband was and what he was doing. They know
where he is now, and they are preparing to arrest him."
Roma's nerves grew more and more excited, the timid look gave place to a
look of defiance.
"They tell me that he is in Berlin at this moment. Is it true?"
Roma did not reply.
"They say their advices from official sources leave no doubt that he is
engaged in conspiracy."
Still Roma did not reply.
"They say confidently that the conspiracy points to rebellion, and is
intended to include regicide. Is it so?"
Roma bit her lip and remained silent.
"Can't you trust me, my child? Don't you know the Holy Father? Only give
me some hope that these statements are untrue, and the Holy Father is
ready to withstand all evil influences against you, and face the world
in your defence."
Roma felt as if something would snap within her brain. "I cannot say ...
I do not know," she faltered.
"But have you any uncertainty, my daughter? If you have the least reason
to believe that these statements are slanders of malicious imaginations,
tell me so, and I will give your husband the benefit of the doubt."
Roma rose to her feet, but she held on to the edge of the table that
stood by her side, rigid, quivering, frail and silent. The Pope looked
up at her with weary eyes, and continued in a caressing tone:
"If unhappily you have no doubt that your husband is engaged in
dangerous enterprises, can you not dissuade him from them?"
"No," said Roma, struggling with her tears, "that is impossible. Whether
he is right or wrong, it is not for me to sit in judgment upon him.
Besides, long ago, before we were married, I promised that I would never
stand between him and his work, and I never can--never."
"But if he loves you, my child, would he not wish for your sake to avoid
the danger?"
"I can't ask him. I told him to go on without thinking of me, and I
would take care of myself whatever happened."
Her eyes were now shining with her tears. The Pope patted the hand on
the table.
"Can you not at least go to him and warn him, and thus leave him to
judge for himself, my daughter?"
"Yes ... no, that is impossible also."
"Why so, my child?"
"Because I don't know where he is, and I shouldn't know where to find
him. In his last letter he said it was better I should not know."
"Then he has cut himself off from you entirely?"
"Entirely. I am to see him next in Rome."
"And meantime, that he may not run the risk of being traced by his
enemies, he has stopped all channels of communication with his friends?"
"Yes."
The Pope's face whitened visibly, and an inward voice said to him, "This
is God's hand. Death is waiting for the man in Rome, and he is walking
blindly on to it."
The weary eyes looked with compassion on Roma's quivering face. "There's
no help for it," thought the Pope.
"Suppose, my child ... suppose it were within your power to hinder evil
consequences, would you do it?"
"I am a woman, Holy Father. What can a woman do to hinder anything?"
"In the history of nations it has sometimes happened that a woman has
been able to save life and protect society by raising a little hand like
this."
The Pope lifted Roma's quivering fingers from the table.
"If there is anything I can do, your Holiness, without breaking my
promise or betraying my husband...."
"It is a terrible ordeal, my child. For a wife, God knows how terrible."
"No matter! If it will save my husband.... Tell me, your Holiness."
He told her the proposal of the Prime Minister and the promise of the
King. His voice vibrated. He was like a man who was wounding himself at
every word. She looked at him until he had finished, without ability to
speak.
"You ask me to _denounce_ my husband?"
"It is the only way to save him, my daughter."
She looked round the room with helpless eyes, full of a dumb appeal for
mercy or the chance of escape.
"Holy Father," she said in a choking voice, "that is what his enemies
have been asking me to do all this time, and because I have refused they
have persecuted me with poverty and shame. And now that I come to you
for refuge and shelter, thinking your fatherly arms will protect me,
you ... even you...."
She broke off as by a sudden thought, and said: "But it is impossible.
He is my husband, therefore I cannot witness against him."
"My heart bleeds for you, my child, and I am ashamed to gainsay you. But
an oath is not necessary to a denunciation, and if it were so the law of
this unchristian country would not recognise you as Rossi's wife."
"But he will know who has denounced him. I am the only one in the world
to whom he has told his secrets, and he will hate me and part from me."
"You will have saved his life, my daughter."
"What is it to me to have saved his life if he is lost to me for ever?"
"Is it you that say that, my child--you that have sacrificed so much
already? Doesn't the highest love remember first the welfare of the
loved one and think of itself the last?"
"Yes, yes; I didn't know what I was saying. But he will curse me for
destroying his cause."
"His cause will be destroyed in any case. It is doomed already. And when
his visionary schemes are in the dust, and all is lost and vain, and
your tears are powerless to bring back the past...."
"But he will be banished, and I shall never see him again."
"It will be the less of two evils, my child," said the Pope. And in the
solemn, vibrating voice that rang in Roma's ears like the voice of
Rossi, he added, "'Whosoever sheds man's blood by man shall his blood be
shed.'"
Again Roma held on to the table, feeling at every moment as if she might
fall with a crash.
"That's what would come to your husband if he were arrested and
condemned for a conspiracy to kill the King. And even if the humane
spirit of the age snatched him from death--what then? A cell in a prison
on a volcanic rock in the sea, a stone sepulchre for the living dead,
buried like a toad in a hole left by the running lava of life, guarded,
watched, tortured in body and soul--a figure of tremendous tragedy, the
hapless man once worshipped by the people spreading impotent hands to
the outer world, until madness comes to his relief and suicide helps him
to escape into eternity and leave only his wasted body on the earth."
Roma could bear the nervous tension no longer. "I'll do it," she said.
"My brave child!" said the Capuchin, turning from the window, with a
face broken up by emotion.
"It is one thing to repeat a secret if it is to harm any one, and quite
another thing if it is to do good, isn't it?" said Roma.
"Indeed it is," said the Capuchin.
"He will never forgive me--I know that quite well. He will never imagine
I would have died rather than do it. But I shall know I have done it for
the best."
"Indeed you will."
Roma's eyes were shining with fresh tears, and she was struggling to
keep back her sobs. "When we parted on the night he went away he said
perhaps we were parting for ever. I promised to be faithful to death
itself, but I was thinking of my own death, not his, and I didn't
imagine that to save his life I must betray his...."
But at that moment she broke down utterly, and the Pope, who had
returned to his seat, rose again to comfort her.
"Calm yourself, my daughter," he said. "What you are going to do is an
act of heroic self-sacrifice. Be brave and Heaven will reward you."
She grew calmer after a while, and then Father Pifferi made arrangements
for the visit to the Procura. He would call for her at ten in the
morning.
"Wait!" said Roma. A new light had come into her face--the light of a
new idea.
"What is it, my daughter?" said the Pope.
"Holy Father, there is something I had forgotten. But I must tell you
before it is too late. It may alter your view of everything. When you
hear it you may say, 'You must not speak a word. You shall not speak. It
is impossible.'"
"Tell me, my child."
Roma hesitated and looked from the Capuchin to the Pope. "How can I tell
you," she said. "It is so difficult. I hadn't meant to tell any one."
"Go on, my daughter."
"My husband's name...."
"Well?"
"Rossi is not really his name, your Holiness. It is the name he took on
returning to Italy, because the one he had borne abroad had been
involved in trouble."
"Just so," said the Pope.
"Holy Father, David Rossi was a friendless orphan."
"I have heard so," said the Pope.
"He never knew his father--not even by name. His mother was a poor
unhappy woman who had been cruelly deceived by everybody. She drowned
herself in the Tiber."
"Poor soul," said the Pope.
"He was nursed in the Foundling, your Holiness, and brought up in a
straw hut in the Campagna, and then sold as a boy into England."
The Pope moved uneasily in his seat.
"My father found him on the streets of London on a winter's night, your
Holiness, carrying a squirrel and an accordion. He wore a ragged suit of
velveteens which used to be laughed at by the London boys, and that was
all that sheltered his little body from the cold. 'Some poor man's
child,' my father thought. But who can say if it was so, your
Holiness?"
The Pope was silent. A sudden change had come over his face. Roma's eyes
were held down, her voice was agitated, she was scarcely able to speak.
"My father was angry with the boy's father, I remember, and if at that
time he had known where to find him I think he would have denounced him
to the public or even the police."
The Pope's head sank on his breast; the Capuchin looked steadfastly at
Roma.
"But who knows if he was really to blame, your Holiness? He may have
been a good man after all--one of those who have to suffer all their
lives for the sins of others. Perhaps ... perhaps that very night he was
walking the streets of London, looking in vain among its waifs and
outcasts for the little lost boy who owned his own blood and bore his
name."
The Pope's face was white and quivering. His elbows rested on the arms
of his chair and his wrinkled hands were tightly clasped.
Roma stopped. There was a prolonged silence. The atmosphere of the room
seemed to be whirling round with frightful rapidity to one terrific
focus.
"Holy Father," said Roma at length, in a low tone, "if David Rossi were
_your own son_, would you still ask me to denounce him?"
The Pope lifted a face full of suffering and said in his deep, vibrating
voice, "Yes, yes! More than ever for that--a thousand times more than
ever."
"Then _I will do it_," said Roma.
The Pope rose up in great emotion, laid both hands on her shoulder, and
said, "Go in peace, my daughter, and may God grant you at least a little
repose."