It was true, never had loftier and more resplendent beauty appeared on
the faces of the dead. Dario's countenance, so lately aged and earthen,
had assumed the pallor and nobility of marble, its features lengthened
and simplified as by a transport of ineffable joy. Benedetta remained
very grave, her lips curved by ardent determination, whilst her whole
face was expressive of dolorous yet infinite beatitude in a setting of
infinite whiteness. Their hair mingled, and their eyes, which had
remained open, continued gazing as into one another's souls with eternal,
caressing sweetness. They were for ever linked, soaring into immortality
amidst the enchantment of their union, vanquishers of death, radiant with
the rapturous beauty of love, the conqueror, the immortal.
But Victorine's sobs at last burst forth, mingled with such lamentations
that great confusion followed. Pierre, now quite beside himself, in some
measure failed to understand how it was that the room suddenly became
invaded by terrified people. The Cardinal and Don Vigilio, however, must
have hastened in from the chapel; and at the same moment, no doubt,
Doctor Giordano must have returned with Donna Serafina, for both were now
there, she stupefied by the blows which had thus fallen on the house in
her absence, whilst he, the doctor, displayed the perturbation and
astonishment which comes upon the oldest practitioners when facts seem to
give the lie to their experience. However, he sought an explanation of
Benedetta's death, and hesitatingly ascribed it to aneurism, or possibly
embolism.
Thereupon Victorine, like a servant whose grief makes her the equal of
her employers, boldly interrupted him: "Ah! Sir," said she, "they loved
each other too fondly; did not that suffice for them to die together?"
Meantime Donna Serafina, after kissing the poor children on the brow,
desired to close their eyes; but she could not succeed in doing so, for
the lids lifted directly she removed her finger and once more the eyes
began to smile at one another, to exchange in all fixity their loving and
eternal glance. And then as she spoke of parting the bodies, Victorine
again protested: "Oh! madame, oh! madame," she said, "you would have to
break their arms. Cannot you see that their fingers are almost dug into
one another's shoulders? No, they can never be parted!"
Thereupon Cardinal Boccanera intervened. God had not granted the miracle;
and he, His minister, was livid, tearless, and full of icy despair. But
he waved his arm with a sovereign gesture of absolution and
sanctification, as if, Prince of the Church that he was, disposing of the
will of Heaven, he consented that the lovers should appear in that
embrace before the supreme tribunal. In presence of such wondrous love,
indeed, profoundly stirred by the sufferings of their lives and the
beauty of their death, he showed a broad and lofty contempt for mundane
proprieties. "Leave them, leave me, my sister," said he, "do not disturb
their slumber. Let their eyes remain open since they desire to gaze on
one another till the end of time without ever wearying. And let them
sleep in one another's arms since in their lives they did not sin, and
only locked themselves in that embrace in order that they might be laid
together in the ground."
And then, again becoming a Roman Prince whose proud blood was yet hot
with old-time deeds of battle and passion, he added: "Two Boccaneras may
well sleep like that; all Rome will admire them and weep for them. Leave
them, leave them together, my sister. God knows them and awaits them!"
All knelt, and the Cardinal himself repeated the prayers for the dead.
Night was coming, increasing gloom stole into the chamber, where two
burning tapers soon shone out like stars.
And then, without knowing how, Pierre again found himself in the little
deserted garden on the bank of the Tiber. Suffocating with fatigue and
grief, he must have come thither for fresh air. Darkness shrouded the
charming nook where the streamlet of water falling from the tragic mask
into the ancient sarcophagus ever sang its shrill and flute-like song;
and the laurel-bush which shaded it, and the bitter box-plants and the
orange-trees skirting the paths now formed but vague masses under the
blue-black sky. Ah! how gay and sweet had that melancholy garden been in
the morning, and what a desolate echo it retained of Benedetta's winsome
laughter, all that fine delight in coming happiness which now lay prone
upstairs, steeped in the nothingness of things and beings! So dolorous
was the pang which came to Pierre's heart that he burst into sobs, seated
on the same broken column where she had sat, and encompassed by the same
atmosphere that she had breathed, in which still lingered the perfume of
her presence.
But all at once a distant clock struck six, and the young priest started
on remembering that he was to be received by the Pope that very evening
at nine. Yet three more hours! He had not thought of that interview
during the terrifying catastrophe, and it seemed to him now as if months
and months had gone by, as if the appointment were some very old one
which a man is only able to keep after years of absence, when he has
grown aged and had his heart and brain modified by innumerable
experiences. However, he made an effort and rose to his feet. In three
hours' time he would go to the Vatican and at last he would see the Pope.