The Hill of Venus Read online

  CHAPTER I

  THE VIGIL OF SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA

  On the summit of a conical hill, rising above the great amphitheatreof forests that skirt the sunny Apulian plains, upon the ruins of atemple to Apollo and in a grove sacred to Venus here, in the sixthcentury had arisen the model of western monasticism, the cloisters ofMonte Cassino.

  From its sun-kissed heights the view extended on one side towardsArpinum where the Prince of Roman orators was born, on the other,towards Aquinum, already famous as the birth-place of Juvenal.Scarcely a pope or emperor of note there was who had not beenpersonally connected with its history. From its mountain crags it hadseen Goths, Lombards, Saracens and Normans devastate the land, hadwitnessed the death struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline, thediscomfiture of Rome, and the extinction of imperial dynasties.

  Up to the chapter house of the great Order of Benedict of Nursia,enthroned upon that predestined height, Francesco slowly and wearilymade his way. After a night, even more restless than the precedingone, he had journeyed all day, wishing, yet dreading, to behold hisultimate goal. And as he slowly rode up the hill his heart sank withthe sheer weight of his misery.

  It was evening.

  An immense silence, full of sadness, had fallen upon the world. Thedistant mountains were lost in a dome of roseate fire, which reachedalmost to the horizon, bordered by a line of pallid gold. Only in thewest, like the very Host, the sun, shrouded in golden mists, hung inthe heavens over the mystery of the sea. Slowly the light waschanging. It was the moment of Benediction. Great tongues of flamestole into the firmament; the hills took fire from the splendor of theskies. Across the world lay the shadow of the Mountain. The earthseemed as a smoking censer.

  As one wrapped in a dream, Francesco gazed across the land. Far andaway in the Umbrian plains a fire shone like a star fallen to earth;then another and another. Castellazzara flamed on the mountain;Proceno, Aquapendente, Elciola and Paladino in the plains. TorreAlfina high in the mountains lighted her beacon; San Lorenzo in thevalley answered it. Every hamlet chanted "Magnificat" and the hillsanswered: "Salve Regina!"

  It was the Vigil of Santa Maria Assunta.

  From the cloisters above came the sound of many droning voices. Theyseemed to intensify the stillness, rather than to disturb it.

  At last he paused before the great southern entrance to the cloisters.He pulled rein, but did not dismount. He was suddenly overwhelmed witha feeling strong enough to bow his head and to call from his lips adeep, heartbroken groan. After three days of freedom unspeakablyblessed he was now to enter the gates which would shut him in awayfrom the world of life, away from the world of men, perhaps for allhis remaining existence. Three brief days! That short time haddispelled from his spirit the dull crust of insensibility, with whichhe had striven to clothe it. He was once more to be laid bare to thelash of inward rebellion from which he shrank in horror. A pardonedprisoner recondemned to death,--it was easily compared to the life towhich he must voluntarily resign himself; that endless existence ofreligious slavery from whose soul-crushing monotony there was noescape, but death.

  Why no escape? Francesco stood there alone in the falling darkness.None in the cloisters had been advised of his coming. He mightyet--With a tightening of the lips he leaped from his horse and gavethe customary signal.

  After a wait of brief duration a lay-brother appeared, opened thegates and Francesco Villani entered the precincts of Monte Cassino.

  Without stating the reasons of his presence, he requested to beforthwith conducted into the presence of the Prior, and the monk,after having cared for Francesco's steed, and attended to his behest,returned after a short time and bade him follow. Arrived at thePrior's apartment, his guide knocked for admission. The door swunginward and Francesco entered alone.

  The Prior had just finished a special devotion in a small oratoryadjoining his chamber and was now seated before a massive oaken table,on which there lay a curiously illuminated parchment, from whose azureand golden initials Francesco's eyes turned shudderingly to the formof Romuald, Prior of Monte Cassino.

  His great and powerful frame was so worn with vigils and fasts that itseemed like that of a huge skeleton. He regarded the youth, whosecourtly garb and manners would not have remained unremarked even inthe most brilliant assembly, with an air of austerity mingled withapathy, which age and long solitude might well have engendered and,after a few brief words of welcome such as took little fromFrancesco's sense of forlornness, he bade the youth be seated.

  Without attempt at delay or circumlocution the son of the GrandMaster placed his father's letter in the Prior's hands, while heturned his face from this living Memento Mori in the garb whichhenceforth must be evermore his own.

  Francesco seated himself upon a settle, while the Prior weighed theletter absently in his hand as one undecided whether or not toacquaint himself with its contents. At last he broke the seal and,with the aid of a torch whose flickering light drew Francesco'sattention towards the open door of an oratory, Romuald slowly began toread. While thus engrossed, Francesco's gaze wandered down the dimvistas of corridors revealed beyond Romuald's chamber, which in thehalf-light presented an exceedingly gloomy aspect, reposing in theuncertain glimmer of stone lamps fixed in niches upon the walls. Thesecorridors were at intervals crossed by archways, marking thetermination of many flights of stairs leading by galleries to theupper chambers of the cloisters. A pulpit, supported on a pillar fixedin the wall, was revealed by the light of five or six stone lamps,which seemed to intensify rather than to dispel the gloom beyond.

  During the reading of Gregorio Villani's letter a sudden change hadcome over the Prior's face. Francesco noted it not, engrossed as hewas in scanning his surroundings, silently wondering if he would beable to strip off the gladness of earth, the joy of youth, theyearning of the flesh, to become the image of that spiritualizedabnegation which the Prior represented; if his strength would supporthis resolve.

  Suddenly a scowl darkened Romuald's brow, and from the letter in histrembling hands his dimmed eyes flashed upon the youth. Francescowondered. It was not long before he learned.

  Romuald, supporting his right arm on the table, turned to the youth.

  "You then are the son of Gregorio Villani! And you think to live hereamongst us, to enjoy the peace and the solitude of these cloisters,whose life-long enemy your father has been!"

  At the Prior's words Francesco had started.

  "I know nothing of my father's quarrels, nothing of the quarrels ofthe monks," he said.

  The Prior nodded absently.

  "You were raised at the Court of Avellino?"

  "Such was my father's will!"

  Romuald looked up at him curiously.

  "And now, his will is to make of you a monk, to do penance for his owntransgressions!"

  Francesco's head sank.

  "The burden is mine to bear!"

  A strange light shone in the Prior's eyes.

  "Then it is not your own desire?"

  Every vestige of color had left Francesco's face.

  "It is my wish!"--

  There was a brief pause.

  "You are loyal to the memory of him who gave you life but to destroyit," nodded the Prior, as unconsciously he picked up the letter fromthe table. Signs of deeper inward emotion were revealed upon his faceas, after regarding the youth with a gloomy interest, he said at last:

  "For one raised at court you will find the life of the cloisterarduous enough."

  A flood of memories rushed with these words over Francesco.

  They left his countenance paler than before,

  "I shall learn to bear it."

  A sudden gleam of pity seemed to beam from Romuald's passionless eyes.

  "It is a brave beginning of the new life,--for I doubt not you muststay. The word of His Holiness is law. To-night, since collation isover in the refectory, you will sup with me. To-morrow you shallexchange this garb for the simpler one."

  Sick at heart, Francesco nodded silent acquiesce
nce.

  At this moment a monk entered, carrying a platter which he placed upona table and, after arranging it according to the Prior's direction,left the latter alone with his guest.

  The collation was by no means traditionally meagre. In truth, itseemed to Francesco far above what his fancy about monastic life hadled him to expect.

  At last when everything upon the trenchers, together with the lastflagon of wine, had been done ample justice to, Francesco, after duethanksgiving, arose.

  Romuald's gaze had never relinquished the youth during the repast.

  "Now to St. Benedict's chapel, wherein already the bell is calling,"he said, rising slowly. "After compline you shall be conducted to yourcell,--one for yourself within the dormitory overhead. This is theway."

  A small door at one side of the Prior's room opened upon a narrowpassage, along which they walked side by side in semi-darkness, tillthe light from the chapter house met their eyes. Through this largeroom they passed, entering from it the great Church itself, thefurther end of which opened into a beautiful chapel consecrated manyyears ago to the founder of the cloister, St. Benedict of Nursia.

  When the Prior and his companion entered here, the monks were alreadyassembled. There was many a curious glance cast towards Francesco ashe strode along the kneeling company by the side of the Prior.

  So occupied was the newcomer with the novelty of the scene, that theold and familiar worship, witnessed among different surroundings, didnot pall upon him here.

  Mechanically his lips moved, while his eyes wandered over the whitecarven screen before the altar and the pillar that rose above it outof the range of candle-light, to mingle with the shadows above.

  Then, by a slight turn of the head, he could see the black, well-likeentrance to the large church, where one or two distant lamps, lightedby penitent monks before special shrines, flashed like infinitesimalstars through the gloom. As for the long rows of kneeling monks abouthim, they seemed to Francesco to differ not at all from those he hadknown and met in the monasteries of Apulia, or those he had seen inthe Augustinian monastery of San Cataldo. They were the sameunsympathetic forms, the same shorn pates, the same dull faces, forwhom the world outside the gates of the cloister was but a countryunredeemed. These were part of the hosts that formed the great army ofthe Church, with the aid of which she had slowly but surely obtainedher hold on the heritage of Emperor Frederick the Second; these werethe sentinels of the crusading host of Anjou. They knew no will, savethat of an irate, fanatical pontiff who looked about in vain for meansto rid himself of his dearly beloved son and his rapacious hordes. Ofthese he was henceforth to be a part, their loves his loves, theirhates his hates. In vain did he look about for a face idealized by thelife of the cloister, and, as he looked and wondered, the last prayerwas concluded.

  In irregular groups, amid a low murmur of conversation, the monks lefttheir devotions, now ended for another day. Francesco followed them asthey moved down the corridor.

  Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder. He turned about and gazedinto the face of the Prior.

  "Fra Ambrogio will conduct you to your cell," said Romuald, beckoningto a long, lean monk who stared awkwardly at the newcomer. "Thelast--in the western wing," was the Prior's laconic order, andFrancesco bowed in silence and followed his spectral guide.

  He was too weary to care to talk; even to inquire about his horse.

  In a short while the son of the Grand Master was alone in his dimlylighted cell. It was larger than he had anticipated and far moreworthily furnished.

  Upon a table had been placed the bundle which held his belongings.This he unrolled carelessly, intending to take from it only his tunicfor the night. With the movement something from the bundle fell outupon the stone floor. He stooped to pick it up. It was the littlesteel dagger which his hand had gripped on the fatal night of hisreturn from San Cataldo. Thinking nothing of the omen, he slipped theforbidden weapon between the leaves of a Missal which he placed on thetable, and there it remained for many a long day.

  Then he sat down upon his bed, covering his face with his hands.

  Ilaria's name rang in his ears; Ilaria's image filled every atom ofhis soul. In the paroxysm of grief which convulsed his frame, he shooklike a storm-swept reed; it was in vain he tried to compose his mindto the proper attitude for prayer.

  The crucifix above his bed swam in a misty cloud before his eyes. Itwas only after a long litany, mechanically repeated, that Francescosucceeded in recalling his wandering imagination to the mystery of theatonement. At last sheer physical weariness conquered the feverishagitation of his nerves and he lay down.

  The long night passed in unbroken blackness and silence. In the uttervoid and absence of all external impressions Francesco gradually lostconsciousness of time. The blackness of night seemed an illimitablething with no beginning and no ending; but, when at early dawn hewaked, there were tears in his eyes and the name of Ilaria on hislips.