The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (latest novels to read .txt) 📖

living creature–-”

 

“It’s a lie!” the Gadfly cried out with blazing

eyes. “And the bishopric?”

 

“The—bishopric?”

 

“Ah! you’ve forgotten that? It’s so easy to

forget! ‘If you wish it, Arthur, I will say I cannot

go. I was to decide your life for you—I, at

nineteen! If it weren’t so hideous, it would be funny.”

 

“Stop!” Montanelli put up both hands to his

head with a desperate cry. He let them fall again,

and walked slowly away to the window. There he

sat down on the sill, resting one arm on the bars,

and pressing his forehead against it. The Gadfly

lay and watched him, trembling.

 

Presently Montanelli rose and came back, with

lips as pale as ashes.

 

“I am very sorry,” he said, struggling piteously

to keep up his usual quiet manner, “but I must

go home. I—am not quite well.”

 

He was shivering as if with ague. All the Gadfly’s

fury broke down.

 

“Padre, can’t you see–-”

 

Montanelli shrank away, and stood still.

 

“Only not that!” he whispered at last. “My

God, anything but that! If I am going mad–-”

 

The Gadfly raised himself on one arm, and took

the shaking hands in his.

 

“Padre, will you never understand that I am

not really drowned?”

 

The hands grew suddenly cold and stiff. For a

moment everything was dead with silence, and

then Montanelli knelt down and hid his face on

the Gadfly’s breast.

 

… . .

 

When he raised his head the sun had set, and

the red glow was dying in the west. They had

forgotten time and place, and life and death; they

had forgotten, even, that they were enemies.

 

“Arthur,” Montanelli whispered, “are you

real? Have you come back to me from the dead?”

 

“From the dead–-” the Gadfly repeated,

shivering. He was lying with his head on Montanelli’s

arm, as a sick child might lie in its mother’s embrace.

 

“You have come back—you have come back

at last!”

 

The Gadfly sighed heavily. “Yes,” he said;

“and you have to fight me, or to kill me.”

 

“Oh, hush, carino! What is all that now? We

have been like two children lost in the dark,

mistaking one another for phantoms. Now we have

found each other, and have come out into the

light. My poor boy, how changed you are—how

changed you are! You look as if all the ocean of

the world’s misery had passed over your head—

you that used to be so full of the joy of life!

Arthur, is it really you? I have dreamed so often

that you had come back to me; and then have

waked and seen the outer darkness staring in

upon an empty place. How can I know I shall

not wake again and find it all a dream? Give

me something tangible—tell me how it all happened.”

 

“It happened simply enough. I hid on a goods

vessel, as stowaway, and got out to South America.”

 

“And there?”

 

“There I—lived, if you like to call it so, till—

oh, I have seen something else besides theological

seminaries since you used to teach me philosophy!

You say you have dreamed of me—yes, and

much! You say you have dreamed of me—yes,

and I of you–-”

 

He broke off, shuddering.

 

“Once,” he began again abruptly, “I was working

at a mine in Ecuador–-”

 

“Not as a miner?”

 

“No, as a miner’s fag—odd-jobbing with the

coolies. We had a barrack to sleep in at the pit’s

mouth; and one night—I had been ill, the same

as lately, and carrying stones in the blazing

sun—I must have got light-headed, for I saw you

come in at the doorway. You were holding a

crucifix like that one on the wall. You were praying,

and brushed past me without turning. I

cried out to you to help me—to give me poison or

a knife—something to put an end to it all before I

went mad. And you—ah––!”

 

He drew one hand across his eyes. Montanelli

was still clasping the other.

 

“I saw in your face that you had heard, but you

never looked round; you went on with your prayers.

When you had finished, and kissed the crucifix,

you glanced round and whispered: ‘I am

very sorry for you, Arthur; but I daren’t show it;

He would be angry.’ And I looked at Him, and

the wooden image was laughing.

 

“Then, when I came to my senses, and saw the

barrack and the coolies with their leprosy, I understood.

I saw that you care more to curry favour

with that devilish God of yours than to save me

from any hell. And I have remembered that. I

forgot just now when you touched me; I—have

been ill, and I used to love you once. But there

can be nothing between us but war, and war,

and war. What do you want to hold my hand for?

Can’t you see that while you believe in your Jesus

we can’t be anything but enemies?”

 

Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.

 

“Arthur, how can I help believing in Him? If

I have kept my faith through all these frightful

years, how can I ever doubt Him any more, now

that He has given you back to me? Remember,

I thought I had killed you.”

 

“You have that still to do.”

 

“Arthur!” It was a cry of actual terror; but

the Gadfly went on, unheeding:

 

“Let us be honest, whatever we do, and not

shilly-shally. You and I stand on two sides of a

pit, and it’s hopeless trying to join hands across

it. If you have decided that you can’t, or won’t,

give up that thing”—he glanced again at the

crucifix on the wall—“you must consent to what

the colonel–-”

 

“Consent! My God—consent—Arthur, but I

love you!”

 

The Gadfly’s face contracted fearfully.

 

“Which do you love best, me or that thing?”

 

Montanelli slowly rose. The very soul in him

withered with dread, and he seemed to shrivel up

bodily, and to grow feeble, and old, and wilted,

like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had

awaked out of his dream, and the outer darkness

was staring in upon an empty place.

 

“Arthur, have just a little mercy on me–-”

 

“How much had you for me when your lies

drove me out to be slave to the blacks on the

sugar-plantations? You shudder at that—ah,

these tender-hearted saints! This is the man

after God’s own heart—the man that repents of

his sin and lives. No one dies but his son. You

say you love me,—your love has cost me dear

enough! Do you think I can blot out everything,

and turn back into Arthur at a few soft

words—I, that have been dish-washer in filthy

half-caste brothels and stable-boy to Creole farmers

that were worse brutes than their own cattle?

I, that have been zany in cap and bells for

a strolling variety show—drudge and Jack-of-all-trades

to the matadors in the bull-fighting

ring; I, that have been slave to every black

beast who cared to set his foot on my neck;

I, that have been starved and spat upon and

trampled under foot; I, that have begged for

mouldy scraps and been refused because the dogs

had the first right? Oh, what is the use of all this!

How can I TELL you what you have brought on me?

And now—you love me! How much do you love

me? Enough to give up your God for me? Oh,

what has He done for you, this everlasting Jesus,

—what has He suffered for you, that you should

love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced

hands He is so dear to you? Look at mine!

Look here, and here, and here–-”

 

He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.

 

“Padre, this God of yours is an impostor, His

wounds are sham wounds, His pain is all a farce!

It is I that have the right to your heart! Padre,

there is no torture you have not put me to; if

you could only know what my life has been! And

yet I would not die! I have endured it all, and

have possessed my soul in patience, because I

would come back and fight this God of yours. I

have held this purpose as a shield against my

heart, and it has saved me from madness, and from

the second death. And now, when I come back,

I find Him still in my place—this sham victim that

was crucified for six hours, forsooth, and rose

again from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified

for five years, and I, too, have risen from the

dead. What are you going to do with me?

What are you going to do with me?”

 

He broke down. Montanelli sat like some

stone image, or like a dead man set upright. At

first, under the fiery torrent of the Gadfly’s despair,

he had quivered a little, with the automatic

shrinking of the flesh, as under the lash

of a whip; but now he was quite still. After a

long silence he looked up and spoke, lifelessly,

patiently:

 

“Arthur, will you explain to me more clearly?

You confuse and terrify me so, I can’t understand.

What is it you demand of me?”

 

The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.

 

“I demand nothing. Who shall compel love?

You are free to choose between us two the one

who is most dear to you. If you love Him best,

choose Him.”

 

“I can’t understand,” Montanelli repeated

wearily. “What is there I can choose? I cannot

undo the past.”

 

“You have to choose between us. If you love

me, take that cross off your neck and come away

with me. My friends are arranging another

attempt, and with your help they could manage

it easily. Then, when we are safe over the frontier,

acknowledge me publicly. But if you don’t

love me enough for that,—if this wooden idol is

more to you than I,—then go to the colonel and

tell him you consent. And if you go, then go at

once, and spare me the misery of seeing you. I

have enough without that.”

 

Montanelli looked up, trembling faintly. He

was beginning to understand.

 

“I will communicate with your friends, of

course. But—to go with you—it is impossible—

I am a priest.”

 

“And I accept no favours from priests. I will

have no more compromises, Padre; I have had

enough of them, and of their consequences. You

must give up your priesthood, or you must give

up me.”

 

“How can I give you up? Arthur, how can I

give you up?”

 

“Then give up Him. You have to choose between

us. Would you offer me a share of your

love—half for me, half for your fiend of a God?

I will not take His leavings. If you are His, you

are not mine.”

 

“Would you have me tear my heart in two?

Arthur! Arthur! Do you want to drive me

mad?”

 

The Gadfly struck his hand against the wall.

 

“You have to choose between us,” he repeated

once more.

 

Montanelli drew from his breast a little case

containing a bit of soiled and crumpled paper.

 

“Look!” he said.

 

“I believed in you, as I believed in God. God is

a thing made of clay, that I can smash with a hammer;

and you have fooled me with a lie.”

 

The Gadfly laughed and handed it back. “How

d-d-delightfully young one is at nineteen! To

take a hammer and smash things seems so easy.

It’s that now—only it’s I that am under the hammer.

As for