The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER III

  TONSURE AND THORN

  The following weeks dragged along in hopeless monotony. The last nightof Francesco's novitiate had come. There would not be a loophole ofescape for him now. On the morrow, the eternal vows were to pass hislips. This night he was to spend in the chapel of the saint on hisknees, supposedly in prayer. It was a solitary vigil, for no companioncould be granted him. A dangerous thing for a novice it was, had themonks but realized it:--putting one for ten hours alone at the mercyof his thoughts. And Francesco shuddered as they left him, kneelingupon the stones before the solitary shrine.

  Could he have seen himself he would have staggered! How old andemaciated, shrunken and hopeless he looked, as he knelt there in hisungainly garments. The face which had formerly borne an openexpression of happiness, was hard now, unreadable and impassive. Hishands, once white and well cared for, had become almost transparent.As he held his body straight from the knees upward, it was difficultto perceive how much weaker this body had grown. There was apathetically haughty poise to the head still; but the skin wascolorless.

  The love for Ilaria, her witch-like face, her witch-like eyes, hadremained with him. He had hoped against hope, that by some human, ordivine interposition, the yoke about to be imposed upon him would beshattered, that it would prove but a period of probation, a horridnightmare forsooth, which would be dispelled by some divine ray, givehim back to earth, to life, to love, for which his heart yearned witha feverish longing that was fast sapping his strength. His prayers hadbeen in vain: the moments were fleeting fast towards the consummationof his destiny.

  It suffered him no longer in the incense-saturated gloom of thechapel. Escaping from his solitary vigil he traversed the courtyardand almost unconsciously reached the spot whence on the night of hisarrival at the cloisters he had looked down upon the mountain world ofCentral Italy.

  Above, space soared. Glancing below, he was seized as with a suddendizziness. All idea of limitation seemed to have ceased in thisinfinity, for he looked down upon a firmament of cloud. And even as helooked, it was vanishing dream-wise, revealing in widening rifts theworld, that gave it birth. A world,--how flat for all its serratedmountain ranges, how insignificant for all its far horizons, comparedwith that immensity of the starry vault above.

  As he gazed with wide, longing eyes, slowly the consciousness ofphysical existence seemed to widen, till it extended to the horizonand in the very extension was transfigured. Francesco tried to summonimages of devotion. But the images mocked the vast concave. He onlysaw the deep eyes of Ilaria Caselli. Was not the universe his prayer?Sharp summits, glistening and far, were better cries of the soul thanhe could use.

  Long he stood there on the moon-steeped height and gazed to southwardwhere the winding road led into the plains of Apulia to Avellino, thecradle of his destiny. And as he gazed, thoughts, or impressionsrather, began to float through his spirit Heaven, like fleecy cloudswhich, having withdrawn to the horizon begin to return slowly,wandering as it seemed at random, yet shepherded steadily by the windtowards the central upper deeps of the sky.

  Faint, clear, a melody, recalling things long left and lost, throbbedthrough the silence of the night. He listened, then gazed, spellbound.Below him the swift waters of the Liris were smitten to tawny light.Son of the earth once more, he was once more slave of his thoughts.

  Far above a world of compromise, conflict and delusion, a world thatwas soon to be upheaved by mortal strife, his destiny had lifted himinto this high sphere of purity and peace. No purity save inisolation. Yet the mass of men were never meant to climb. Should hetake his patient place with the slow, ascending throng,--would not theold story repeat itself, the old turmoil, conflict, failure?

  Turning suddenly, Francesco gave a start.

  By his side stood the Prior.

  He was not slow to read the distress in the face of the youth.

  "This great peace of the world above and about us--does it notreconcile your soul?" the Prior spoke with a slow sweep of his hand."Is there anything greater than isolation above the herd?"

  A great bitterness welled up in Francesco's heart, and his eyes filledwith tears, as he turned to his interlocutor with the protest of hissoul.

  "You would reject the very affirmations of existence! You cry to theimperious demands of Nature to create, to propagate, a mere perpetualNo! Let those like-minded betake themselves to monasteries and tocells. As for myself--"

  He broke off with a sob. Had he not lost the clue to Life?

  The Prior regarded him quietly.

  "The Church does not discourage the actions of the individual,--aslong as they do not conflict with the eternal laws. As forherself--who must subdue men for men's sake,--she does reject them."

  And linking his arm in that of Francesco, the Prior drew him back intothe dusk of the deserted chapel and pointing to the form of thecrucified Christ above the high-altar said:

  "Look up! Nails would not have held him on the cross, had Love notheld him there!"

  And Francesco sank upon his knees in a paroxysm of grief. The Priorwatched the scalding tears that streamed down the pale, wan face;then, when Francesco had sobbed himself into a state bordering almoston apathy, the Prior retraced his steps and left him to himself.

  The moonlight streamed through the windows, and lay in broad patchesupon the marble floor. Francesco staggered at last from his kneelingposture. Keeping in the shadow of the pillars, he crept softly towardsthe chancel and paused at the altar. There he knelt again. Deepsilence reigned. Then came deep, heavy, tearless sobs. He was wringinghis hands as one in bodily pain.

  The sound of his own voice re-echoing through and dying away among thearches of the roof filled him with fantastic terror as the phantom ofsome unknown presence. For a moment he swayed and would have fallen.It seemed to him as if he had seen Ilaria's face in the purple dusk.His heart stood still.

  He stared spellbound. But it had vanished. He was conscious of nothingsave a sickening pressure of the blood, that seemed as if it wouldtear his breast asunder, then it surged back, tingling and burning,through his body.

  It was on the following day.

  The ceremony had been accomplished.

  Francesco stood before the high altar among the monks and acolytes andread the Introitus aloud in steady tones. All the cathedral was ablaze of light and color, from the holiday dresses of the peasants tothe pillars with their flaming draperies and wreaths of flowers. Thereligious orders from the adjoining monasteries with their candles andtorches, the companies of the parishes, with their crosses andpennons, lighted up the dim side-chapels; in the aisles the silkenfolds of processional banners drooped their gilded staves and tassels,glinting under the arches. The surplices of the choristers gleamed,rainbow-tinted, beneath the colored windows; the sunlight lay on thechancel floor in checkered stains of orange and purple and green.Behind the altar hung a shimmering veil of silver tissue, and againstthe veil and the decorations and the altar-light, the Prior's figurestood out in its trailing white robe like a marble statue that hadcome to life.

  The light of a hundred candles shone in the deep still eyes about him,eyes that had no answering gleam. At the elevation of the Host thePrior descended from his platform and knelt before the altar. Therewas a strange, even stillness in his movement. The sea of human lifeand motion seemed to surge around and below him and die away in thestillness. A censer was brought to Francesco, he raised his hand withthe action of an automaton and put the incense into the vessel,looking neither to the right nor left. Then he too knelt, swinging thecenser slowly to and fro. He took from the Prior the sacred goldensun, while the choristers burst into a peal of triumphal melody:

  Pange linqua gloriosi Corporis mysterium. Sanguinisque pretiosi Quem in mundi pretium Fructus ventris gloriosi Rex effudit gentium.

  Francesco stood above the monks, motionless under the white canopy,holding the Eucharist aloft with steady hands. Two by two passed themonks, with lighted candles held left to righ
t, with banners andtorches, with crosses and images and flags, they swept slowly down thebroad nave past the garlanded pillars, the sound of their chantingdying into a rolling murmur, drowned in the pealing of new and newervoices, as the unending stream flowed on and yet new footsteps echoeddown the incense-laden nave.

  One by one the visiting brotherhoods passed with their white shroudsand veiled faces, the brothers of the Misericordia, black from head tofoot, their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in their masks;the mendicant friars with their dusky cowls and bare brown feet, therusset Benedictines and the white-robed grave Dominicans. They allbore testimony to the irrevocable step the son of the Grand Master hadtaken. A monk followed, holding up a great cross between two acolyteswith gleaming candles. On and on the procession passed, formsucceeding to form and color to color. Long white surplices, grave andseemly, gave place to gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials. Theroses were strewn, the procession filed out.

  When the chant had ceased, Francesco passed between the silent rows ofthe monks, where they knelt, each man in his place, the lightedcandles uplifted. And he saw their hungry eyes fixed on the sacredbody that he bore. To right and left the white-robed acolytes kneltwith their censers, as peal after peal of song rang out, resoundingunder the arches, echoing along the vaulted roof.

  Wearily, mechanically, Francesco went through the remaining part ofhis consecration, which had no longer any meaning for him, prayereluding him as a vapor. After the Benediction he covered his face. Thevoice of the monk reading aloud the indulgences, swelled and sank likea far-off murmur from a world to which he belonged no more.