“And soon all vision waxeth dull;
Men whisper, ‘He is dying;’
We cry no more ‘Be pitiful;’
We have no strength for crying.
No strength! No need! Then, soul of mine,
Look up and triumph rather:
Lo! in the depths of God’s Divine
The Son adjures the Father,
Be pitiful, O God!
RAYMOND underwent a searching examination, turning first upon the alleged conspiracy against the life of the Pope, and then upon his Master’s opinions, practices, and mode of life. With regard to the conspiracy, his answers were clear, unwavering, and explicit. No clever cross-questioning could entrap him, no threat of torture could shake his testimony. The Master was innocent.
But on the subject of the opinions taught in the academy he held his ground less firmly, perhaps because he knew it less thoroughly. He owned that the academicians had been accustomed to observe certain heathen festivals, especially that called the Palilia, and that of the Foundation of Rome; but he maintained that they did so merely as antiquarians, and for amusement. In the same manner he explained their practice of giving themselves heathen names borrowed from the ancients; he protested earnestly that it did not arise from any intention of renouncing their baptism. When pressed to admit that Pomponius in his teaching had called in question certain primary doctrines of the Faith, he said that these speculations were merely theses, put forward in the schools for the sake of argument, and that “the Master” (as he was careful to style Pomponius even then) had always denounced and detested Averroësm and Rationalism. He said that he himself had been a Greek in his childhood, but that when he came to Venice he had conformed to the Latin ritual, and since then had attended Mass, confessed occasionally, and lived in all things like a good Catholic. But he owned, though with some hesitation, that he could not think it a mortal sin to communicate in the leavened wafer, since his noble ancestors, now with God, had done so for many generations. It is difficult for us to understand the condition of mind that made this seem a serious matter to Raymond, while to have entertained speculative doubts upon the very existence of God was but a tariffing peccadillo.
He was remanded to his cell, with impressive warnings to be more explicit next time, and appalling threats of what would follow should he fail to satisfy his examiners.
Threats which were destined never to be fulfilled. Raymond was never doomed to learn “the Bread mystery of pain” on the rack or the pulley. This exemption was the more singular, because of all the pupils of Pomponius he might be supposed to know him the most intimately, since for years he had enjoyed his hospitality and dwelt beneath his roof. But it happened, fortunately for him, that the Papal Commissary and Inquisitor, Sanga of Chiozza, was at once a voluptuary and a virtuoso, with tastes, both fashionable and expensive, for “horses and brown Greek MSS.,” and other delights “of the flesh and of the mind.” These led to pecuniary embarrassment, and that to Jewish usurers. He owed a large sum to. Benedetto, the Jewish banker at Venice; and Benedetto’s son was now at hand to whisper that if his friend were too harshly dealt with, certain moneys would be urgently required, and must be forthcoming at once. Had his creditor been a Roman Jew the Commissary might have laughed at his threats; but the Republic know how to make her citizens respected abroad. The Commissary, like his master the Pope, was by birth a citizen of the Venetian Republic, and therefore anxious to stand well with the Signori; moreover he was aware that it was seldom safe or convenient to defraud a merchant of Venice. The Island City might have boasted, like Nuremberg, that her “hand reached every land.”
Had Raymond but known all this! Perhaps the fear that every day, every hour almost, might bring the dreaded agony, was even worse than its actual infliction, once for all. If it had come it would have passed, and probably have been succeeded by the inspiriting reaction that follows having faced and borne the worst. But as it was, spring melted into summer―the sultry Roman summer― and brought no change, no relief. All day the pitiless sun blazed down on the scorching leads of the Castle, and directly beneath these was the cell in which Raymond languished. Sleep was impossible, and the coarse food given him he could scarcely touch. His high spirit was well-nigh crushed at last. When one day he was told that “the Master” too was in prison―delivered up by the Venetian Senate into the lands of the pitiless Pope―he wept long and helplessly, like a child. But the next visit of the warder found him calm and tearless. “I wish,” he said, “to ask for a confessor. I think my sorrows will soon be over now.”
The official, who happened to be the more humane of the two that waited on him, answered kindly enough, “It is not a priest you should ask for, but a physician. I will get permission for Dr. Levi to visit you, and then it will be time enough to see about the confessor.”
It was true that he needed a physician; he had tossed all night on his mat, burning and gasping for air, but he was shivering now, even in the scorching heat of his cell.
In a happy hour for him the warder unlocked the door, and admitted, for a first visit out of many, a brisk little Jew, with wrinkled face and bushy eyebrows, small piercing black eyes, and black hair sprinkled with gray. Dr. Levi Volterra was a specimen of his race very different from Theodore or his father. Keen, shrewd, covetous, unscrupulous but not unkindly, cautious but determined, and above all persevering, he was just the man to resolve upon success and to achieve it. If, with him, success meant nothing but well-filled money bags, it was perhaps the fault of those who had denied the Jew all the other prizes of life. He was physician, astrologer, fortune teller, and upon occasion a dozen things besides, more or less creditable, but always lucrative. He had embraced the Christian faith after serious deliberation. “I shall lose the good will of my own people, but I shall gain that of the Goim, and they are the strongest,” such were the arguments that decided him. He never forgot that he had to make the fortune, not of Dr. Levi Volterra alone, but also of a black-eyed Jewish wife and a goodly number of thriving olive branches.
To such a man Theodore’s overtures were as the voice of the charmer “Charm he never so wisely” Dr. Levi would not endanger his place, not to say his head; but anything that could be done with safety for Raymond and his fellow-prisoners he would do. Already he pitied the persecuted students, and had shown them such trifling kindnesses as lay in his power.
Through his agency Theodore was now able to send messages of hope and encouragement to Raymond, and to provide better food for him. The doctor contrived also that he should be relieved from his fetters, and held out promises of soon being able to effect his removal to a more airy apartment. Under this treatment Raymond’s strength revived a little, and the low fever that had prostrated him gradually passed away.
It was a sign of returning life that he began to make little requests of the kindly doctor. To write to his mother, and to send the letter through Theodore’s agency, was his first desire. This being obtained, he asked for news of his companions, then for a few books, and at length, much to the doctor’s surprise, for “a bit of clay.” “Soft clay, such as they use for molding figures,” he explained.
“You shall have it,” said the doctor, smiling. “It is a good plan to occupy your hands. But hark you, Count Raymond, try no tricks with it on your own account, such as hiding billets, for example. My good friend and brother, Dr. Theodore Benedetto, manages all that with me, and any ill-advised interference on your part might bring us both to the pulley.”
Raymond satisfied him on this point. “I only want to amuse myself modeling the things I think of as I sit here all day idle,” he said; and the doctor, on his next visit, produced the clay from beneath his robe.
One evening shortly afterward Raymond was employed upon it, when both the warders entered his cell and ordered him to accompany them.
“You are to share the apartment of one of your companions; the doctor has obtained this great favor for you both,” he was told in answer to his inquires.
Raymond’s heart throbbed quick and fast as he accompanied the warders. While the door of his new prison was being unbarred he waited impatiently, expecting the next moment to clasp some beloved fellow-student in a brother’s embrace. But no arms were opened to receive him, no voice spoke a greeting. At first he thought the cell was tenantless. He was mistaken. There was a low, faint murmur of his name, and at length through the quickly falling twilight he discerned a wasted form, a pallid, deathlike face. In a moment he was kneeling beside the mat on which his fellow-prisoner lay. “My Callimachus, is it thou? Ah, carissimo!”
“Call me by the name my mother used; I have done with those vain heathen fancies now,” said the dying youth, for such he truly was.
“Dearest Agostino, is it thus we meet? How you must have suffered!” said Raymond, almost weeping.
“Yes, it has been bitter―bitter. But the worst is over now. You will find some wine on the table, Raymond. Give it me, pray you. For my strength is going, and I want to talk to you while I can. I have so much to say.”
Raymond found the wine and gave it. But the joy of seeing a friendly face and grasping a friendly hand did more than wine to revive the failing powers of Campano. For a brief season the flickering spark of life flashed into a flame. With Raymond’s arm around him and his head pillowed on Raymond’s shoulder he was able to converse, in a low tone indeed, but without pain or discomfort.
“You will be saved, Raymond; I am sure of it,” he said. “You must tell my father and my mother that they have my last thoughts and prayers. Tell them, too, that I did not disgrace our ancient name. I said no word that was false, and―all through―I was true to the Master.”
Raymond whispered some words of hope, but Campano shook his head. “I have done with all that,” he said. “Even the wish to live is gone from me. I used to long for the sunshine, the blue sky, the familiar faces―for the free boyish life in my father’s home, and, better still, our happy student days. Dost remember the Palilia, Raymond, and the sport we had then? Ah, but it was not well done to forget the good God as we did in those days.”
“If we erred, we have been sorely punished,” said Raymond bitterly. “What had you done, my Agostino―you that were ever blameless, more than most of us―to deserve the cruel anguish they have made you suffer?”
“Do not let us think of our deservings. No help comes that way. Let us think of the Cross, Raymond, and of what He suffered there. That was worse than the rack.”
“I have tried such thoughts,” said Raymond, “and I have found no comfort in them. It does not take the bitterness out of my pain to think of the pain endured by Anaxarchus, or Regulus, or Christ.”
“Regulus―or Christ! Mio caro, they are quite different. Regulus was an old Roman, dead and buried long ago; Christ is the Saviour.”
“True. But what then?”
“Can’t you see? That cross was borne for us. And He who bore it lives still for us―to help and save us.”
“You have become devout, my Agostino. Doubtless you have seen the priest?”
“Yes, and he has comforted me. Tomorrow I am to communicate he has promised it. He assures me the good God will accept my repentance, late though it is. But better than even his words (good words though they were) was this letter,” and with feeble hand he drew from beneath his pillow a closely written sheet of paper, and showed it to Raymond.
“I think I know the writing,” said he, looking at it with interest. “Whose is it?”
“The strange thing is, I know not. There is no name. I know only that the writer is a friend of Dr. Theodore’s, who has shown us all so much kindness, and that he sent it to me through Dr. Levi. Some good priest or friar doubtless. But whoever he is, night and day I pray God to bless him. Keep it, my Raymond, and read it for thyself―when I―have done with it.
“It came to me in the darkest hour, when first I felt that God―for whom we cared nothing in the old days—was strong and terrible, and angry with me. Every nerve in my body, quivering with intolerable pain, told me how dreadful the Pope’s anger could be. And, after all, he is but a man. But God’s anger! Christ’s, the Judge of all men! When I tried to look up, I could see nothing but that awful Face on the cross, could hear nothing but that terrible voice, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire.’
“I once heard a friar preach on that test, and I mocked him, Raymond―mocked him! I laughed at the poor ignorant people who wept and wailed aloud, and lashed themselves with scourges in the darkened church. Now all came back to me―the cries and groans and sobbing, and the mournful chant that rose above them all― ‘Dies iræ; Dies illæ.’ The priest told me God might forgive ―might―if the blessed Mother and all the holy saints were to intercede for me. But this letter says that He Himself is far tenderer, far more compassionate, than they. Think of it―the great Son of God more tender than sweet Mother Mary! See, His own words are here. How He received poor sinners who came to Him while on earth; how He has promised to cast out none that come—no, I thought, not even me; if I cry to Him out of the depths, He will hear and answer me. And He has. That Face on the cross, as I see it now, is not stern and awful. It is the Face of One who loves me. It shines on me the long night through with infinite pity and tenderness; it will shine on me through the longer night that is gathering around me now.
“I wonder what death will be like? What comes after?―It does not matter. I can never lose the sight of that Face, never feel afraid while He is there.”
Again those words occurred to Raymond, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. . . I go to prepare a place for you.” He repeated them aloud. “I think,” he said, “they must be His words, for He is the Son of God. ‘And if I go away, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.’”
“‘Unto myself,’” Agostino repeated, slowly but with deep feeling. “It is not hard to go to Him. Not harder than it would be to go home out of this dungeon. Nay, it is going home.”
This was the only conversation the reunited friends were able to hold. Agostino’s strength, which had seemed for a moment to return, ebbed again so quickly that Raymond, who spent the night in ministering to him with the tenderness of a brother, prayed the warder, when he came in the morning, to send at once both for the physician and the priest.
The physician could do but little; and as the ministrations of the priest required that he should be left alone with his penitent, Raymond, to his great sorrow, was removed to an adjoining cell. As he stooped down to kiss the pale forehead of his friend his tears fell fast upon it.
Agostino contrived to slip into his hand the stranger’s letter. “Take it,” he whispered― “safe with you. Addio, carissimo.”
Raymond would have lingered still, but the doctor hurried him away. “Come, signor,” he said, “you shall return again; I pledge my word for it.”
A promise kept to the ear, but brokers to the heart. When, two hours afterward, Raymond was led back to the cell, the solemn presence of death was there.
Contrary to the usual custom, no priestly watcher sat beside the bed; but four tapers had been lit, and burned in the daylight with a pale and ghastly gleam. Raymond felt the loneliness, the desolation, of the scene. Yet there was comfort in weeping over his friend without the restraint of a witnessing eye or ear, and the tears he shed seemed to bring a soothing influence with them. A calm, half listless, but half hopeful too, stole over his troubled spirit; perhaps it was a shadow of the peace that sealed the pallid features of the dead.