In Father Fabiano's Cell
"You can enter the Basilica at your pleasure, Signori; the gate is
unlocked," said the lay-brother, indicating the entrance to the church
with a half-formed gesture of his hand, which fell to his side again
when he had half raised it, as if the effort of extending his arm
horizontally had been too much for him. It was a matter of course to him
that any human beings who came to St. Apollinare could have no business
there but to see the old walls, which he, the friar, would have given so
much never to see again.
"We will do so presently," said Signor Logarini, in reply; "but, in the
first place, we wish to speak with Father Fabiano--he is the custode of
the church, is he not?"
"Father Fabiano is ill a-bed, Signor; I am only out of my bed since
yesterday, and it is as much as I can do to crawl. There's not many days
in the year, I think, that we are both well; and if we should be both
down together, God help us. It is not just the healthiest place in the
world, this."
"What is the matter with the padre? Has he been ill long?" asked the
lawyer, with a glance at the Commissary.
"Since yesterday afternoon. Why, I tell you I was in bed yesterday; he
down, I must turn out. Ah--h--h! it 'll all be over one of these days."
"But what ails the custode?" asked Signor Logarini again.
"Fever and ague, I suppose; that is what is always killing both of us
more or less. Pity it is so slow about it!" muttered the lay-brother,
returning to his seat in the sunshine.
"But I suppose that Father Fabiano is not so ill but that we can speak
with him? It is important that we should do so," said the Commissary,
eyeing the friar with a suspicious glance.
"There is nothing to prevent you or anybody else going to him that
choose to do so--nothing to prevent any one of those cattle doing so,
for that matter. There is neither bolt nor latch; you can go into his
chamber, if you are so minded," returned the lay-brother, rather
surlily.
"Will you go and tell him that--Signor Fortini from Ravenna wishes to
speak with him, and would be obliged by his permission to come into his
room for a few minutes. We don't wish to disturb him more than is
necessary."
"I'll tell him--though you might as well go to him yourselves at once
for that matter; it is weary work going up the stairs so often--and I
can hardly crawl."
And, so saying, the poor old lay-brother tottered off to one of the
numerous doorless entrances of the half-ruined mass of building, and set
himself wearily to climb a small stair, the foot of which was just
within it.
The lawyer and the Commissary looked at each other; and the latter said,
with a wink at his companion,--"I thought it better, you see, to say
nothing about the Commissary of Police; it would have frightened the old
fellow out of his wits; and it is always time enough to let him know who
we are if he won't speak without. But I know these animals of friars,
Signor Giovacchino, I know them well; and there isn't a man or woman,
townsman or countryman, noble or peasant that I wouldn't rather have to
deal with than a monk or a friar. Let 'em so much as smell the scent of
layman in any position of authority, and it makes 'em as obstinate and
contradictious and contrary as mules, and worse. If this old fellow here
has got anything to hide, you'll see that we shall not be able to get it
out of him."
"But I don't see what interest or wish he can have to hide anything from
us," said Fortini.
"N--n--no; one don't see that he should have but one can't be too
suspicious, mio buono Signor Giovacchino," said the police authority;
"and then, what does he mean by being ill?" he added, after a little
thought; "he was well yesterday. It looks me very much as if he did not
want to be questioned."
"I should not think that he can have much to tell. We shall see whether
his account confirms the story of the girl as to what took place in the
church. But the probability is that that part of her tale is all true
enough. The question is what did she do with herself during all those
hours that elapsed between the time she quitted the church and the time
when she reached her home? And I have little hope that the friar should
be able to throw any light upon that," said the lawyer.
"We shall see; here comes the lay-brother. Ugh! what a life it must be
to live in such a place as this from one year's end to the other;
nothing but a frate could stand it," said the Commissary, looking upon
the desolation around him with infinite disgust.
"Father Fabiano is not much fit to speak to anybody; the cold fit of the
ague is very strong upon him. But if you choose to go up to him you
can--specially as there is nothing to stop you. He is in the right-hand
cell on the first landing-place up that staircase," said the
lay-brother, feebly pointing to the entrance, from which he had come
out.
The lawyer and the police official followed the indications thus given
them, and found, as old Simone had said, that there was neither bolt,
lock, nor latch to prevent any creature that could push a door on its
hinges, from entering the little bare-walled room in which the friar lay
beneath a heavy quilted coverlet on a little narrow pallet.
There was not so much as a single chair in the room. The walls were
clean, and freshly whitewashed; and the brick floor was also clean.
There were a few pegs of deal in the wall on the side of the cell
opposite to the doorway, on which some garments were hanging; and on the
wall facing the bed there was a large, rudely carved, and yet more
rudely painted crucifix. By the side of the bed nearest the door there
hung, on a nail driven into the wall, a copper receptacle for holy
water, the upper part of which was ornamented with a figure of St.
Francis in the act of receiving the "Stigmata," in repousse work, by no
means badly executed. And pasted on the bare wall, immediately above the
pillow of the little bed, was a coloured print of the cheapest and
vilest description, representing the Madonna with the seven legendary
poignards sticking in her bosom, and St. Francis, supported on either
side by a friar of his order, kneeling at her feet.
These objects formed absolutely the entire furniture of the cell. There
was nothing else whatsoever in the room; neither the smallest fragment
of a looking-glass, nor any means or preparation for ablution
whatsoever.
The old monk lay on his back in the bed, wit his head propped rather
highly on a hard straw bolster; and the extreme attenuation of his body
was indicated by the very slight degree in which the clothes that
covered him were raised above the level of the bedstead. On the coverlet
upon his chest, there was a rosary of large beads turned out of
box-wood. The parts of each bead nearest to the string and in contact
with each other were black with the undisturbed dirt and dust of many
years. But the protuberant circumference of each wooden ball was
polished to a rich shining orange-colour by the constant handling of the
fingers.
It seemed both to Signor Fortini and to the Commissary, that there could
be no doubt about it, that the old man was really ill. He was lying in
his frock of thick brown woollen, and the cowl of it was drawn over his
head. He seemed to be suffering from cold, and his teeth were audibly
chattering in his head; and his thin, thin claw-like hands shook as they
clutched his crucifix. His face was lividly pale, and his eyes gleamed
out from under the cowl with a restless feverish brightness.
That he was ill could hardly be doubted. And it seemed to the lawyer and
the Commissary as well as to the old lay-brother, natural enough to
suppose that a man who fell ill at St. Apollinare was ill with fever and
ague. But whether that were really the nature of his malady, his
visitors had not sufficient medical knowledge to judge; but it was
probable enough that the aged monk had had quite sufficient experience
of fever and ague, to know pretty well himself, whether he were
suffering from that cause or not.
"We are sorry to find you ill, father," said Fortini; "and though we
have come from Ravenna on purpose to speak with you, we would not have
disturbed you if our business had not been important. Are you suffering
much now?"
"Not much more than usual," said the sick man, shutting his eyes, while
his pallid lips continued to move, as he muttered to himself an "Ave
Maria."
"And can you give us your attention for a few minutes?" rejoined the
lawyer.
"I will answer to your asking as far as I can; but my head is confused,
and I don't remember much clearly about anything. It seems to me as if I
had been lying on this bed for months and months," replied the old
friar.
"And yet, you know, you were up and well yesterday morning, when you
were with the young girl who came to copy the mosaics, you know, on the
scaffolding in the church?" said the lawyer.
"Yes; I was with the girl--Paolina Foscarelli, a Venetian--on the
scaffolding. Was it yesterday?"
"Yesterday it was that she was here. Yesterday morning. And it is hardly
necessary to ask you if you know what happened here in the Pineta much
about that time, or shortly afterwards. You have heard of the murder, of
course?"
So violent a trembling seized on the aged man as the lawyer spoke thus,
that he was unable to answer a word. His old hands shook so that he
could hardly hold the beads in his fingers, while his chattering teeth
and trembling lips tried to formulate the words of a prayer.
"Did you, or did you not hear that a dreadful murder was committed
yesterday morning in the Pineta not far from this place?" said the
Commissary, speaking for the first time, and in a less kindly manner
than the old lawyer had used.
A redoubled access of teeth-chattering and shivering was for some time
the only result elicited by this question. The old friar shook in every
limb; and the beads of the rosary rattled in his trembling fingers, as
he attempted to pass them on their string in mechanically habitual
accompaniment to the invocations his lips essayed to mutter.
"It is a terrible thing to speak of truly, father; and we are sorry to
be obliged to distress you by forcing such a subject on your thoughts;
but it is our duty to make these inquiries; and you can tell us the few
facts--they cannot be many or of much importance--which have come to
your knowledge on the subject," said the lawyer, speaking in more gentle
accents.
"I heard nothing; but I saw," said the aged man, closing his eyes, as if
to shut out the vision which was forced back upon his imagination; and
fumbling nervously with his beads, while his pale blue lips trembled
with mutterings of mechanically repeated ejaculations.
"Take your time, padre mio," said the lawyer gently, making a gesture
with his raised band, at the same time, to repress the less patient
eagerness of the Commissary of Police; "we do not want to hurry you.
Tell us what it was that you saw."