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

of silver tissue; and against

the veil and the decorations and the altar-lights

the Cardinal’s figure stood out in its trailing white

robes like a marble statue that had come to life.

 

As was customary on processional days, he was

only to preside at the Mass, not to celebrate, so

at the end of the Indulgentiam he turned from the

altar and walked slowly to the episcopal throne,

celebrant and ministers bowing low as he passed.

 

“I’m afraid His Eminence is not well,” one of

the canons whispered to his neighbour; “he seems

so strange.”

 

Montanelli bent his head to receive the jewelled

mitre. The priest who was acting as deacon of

honour put it on, looked at him for an instant,

then leaned forward and whispered softly:

 

“Your Eminence, are you ill?”

 

Montanelli turned slightly towards him. There

was no recognition in his eyes.

 

“Pardon, Your Eminence!” the priest whispered,

as he made a genuflexion and went back to

his place, reproaching himself for having interrupted

the Cardinal’s devotions.

 

The familiar ceremony went on; and Montanelli

sat erect and still, his glittering mitre and gold-brocaded

vestments flashing back the sunlight,

and the heavy folds of his white festival mantle

sweeping down over the red carpet. The light of a

hundred candles sparkled among the sapphires on

his breast, and shone into the deep, still eyes that

had no answering gleam; and when, at the words:

“Benedicite, pater eminentissime,” he stooped to

bless the incense, and the sunbeams played among

the diamonds, he might have recalled some splendid

and fearful ice-spirit of the mountains, crowned

with rainbows and robed in drifted snow, scattering,

with extended hands, a shower of blessings or

of curses.

 

At the elevation of the Host he descended from

his throne and knelt before the altar. There was

a strange, still evenness about all his movements;

and as he rose and went back to his place the major

of dragoons, who was sitting in gala uniform behind

the Governor, whispered to the wounded

captain: “The old Cardinal’s breaking, not a

doubt of it. He goes through his work like a

machine.”

 

“So much the better!” the captain whispered

back. “He’s been nothing but a mill-stone round

all our necks ever since that confounded amnesty.”

 

“He did give in, though, about the courtmartial.”

 

“Yes, at last; but he was a precious time making

up his mind to. Heavens, how close it is!

We shall all get sun-stroke in the procession. It’s

a pity we’re not Cardinals, to have a canopy held

over our heads all the way–- Sh-sh-sh!

There’s my uncle looking at us!”

 

Colonel Ferrari had turned round to glance

severely at the two younger officers. After the

solemn event of yesterday morning he was in a

devout and serious frame of mind, and inclined to

reproach them with a want of proper feeling about

what he regarded as “a painful necessity of state.”

 

The masters of the ceremonies began to

assemble and place in order those who were to

take part in the procession. Colonel Ferrari rose

from his place and moved up to the chancel-rail,

beckoning to the other officers to accompany him.

When the Mass was finished, and the Host had

been placed behind the crystal shield in the processional

sun, the celebrant and his ministers retired

to the sacristy to change their vestments, and a

little buzz of whispered conversation broke out

through the church. Montanelli remained seated

on his throne, looking straight before him, immovably.

All the sea of human life and motion

seemed to surge around and below him, and to die

away into stillness about his feet. A censer was

brought to him; and he raised his hand with the

action of an automaton, and put the incense into

the vessel, looking neither to the right nor to the left.

 

The clergy had come back from the sacristy,

and were waiting in the chancel for him to descend;

but he remained utterly motionless. The

deacon of honour, bending forward to take off the

mitre, whispered again, hesitatingly:

 

“Your Eminence!”

 

The Cardinal looked round.

 

“What did you say?”

 

“Are you quite sure the procession will not be

too much for you? The sun is very hot.”

 

“What does the sun matter?”

 

Montanelli spoke in a cold, measured voice,

and the priest again fancied that he must have

given offence.

 

“Forgive me, Your Eminence. I thought you

seemed unwell.”

 

Montanelli rose without answering. He paused

a moment on the upper step of the throne, and

asked in the same measured way:

 

“What is that?”

 

The long train of his mantle swept down over the

steps and lay spread out on the chancel-floor, and

he was pointing to a fiery stain on the white satin.

 

“It’s only the sunlight shining through a coloured

window, Your Eminence.”

 

“The sunlight? Is it so red?”

 

He descended the steps, and knelt before the

altar, swinging the censer slowly to and fro. As

he handed it back, the chequered sunlight fell on

his bared head and wide, uplifted eyes, and cast a

crimson glow across the white veil that his ministers

were folding round him.

 

He took from the deacon the sacred golden sun;

and stood up, as choir and organ burst into a peal

of triumphal melody.

 

“Pange, lingua, g]oriosi

Corporis mysterium,

Sanguinisque pretiosi

Quem in mundi pretium,

Fructus ventris generosi

Rex effudit gentium.”

 

The bearers came slowly forward, and raised the

silken canopy over his head, while the deacons of

honour stepped to their places at his right and left

and drew back the long folds of the mantle. As

the acolytes stooped to lift his robe from the

chancel-floor, the lay fraternities heading the procession

started to pace down the nave in stately

double file, with lighted candles held to left and right.

 

He stood above them, by the altar, motionless

under the white canopy, holding the Eucharist

aloft with steady hands, and watched them as they

passed. Two by two, with candles and banners

and torches, with crosses and images and flags,

they swept slowly down the chancel steps, along

the broad nave between the garlanded pillars, and

out under the lifted scarlet curtains into the blazing

sunlight of the street; and the sound of their

chanting died into a rolling murmur, drowned in

the pealing of new and newer voices, as the unending

stream flowed on, and yet new footsteps echoed down the nave.

 

The companies of the parishes passed, with their

white shrouds and veiled faces; then the brothers

of the Misericordia, black from head to foot,

their eyes faintly gleaming through the holes in

their masks. Next came the monks in solemn

row: the mendicant friars, with their dusky cowls

and bare, brown feet; the white-robed, grave Dominicans.

Then followed the lay officials of the

district; dragoons and carabineers and the local

police-officials; the Governor in gala uniform, with

his brother officers beside him. A deacon followed,

holding up a great cross between two

acolytes with gleaming candles; and as the curtains

were lifted high to let them pass out at the

doorway, Montanelli caught a momentary glimpse,

from where he stood under the canopy, of the sunlit

blaze of carpeted street and flag-hung walls and

white-robed children scattering roses. Ah, the

roses; how red they were!

 

On and on the procession paced in order; form

succeeding to form and colour to colour. Long

white surplices, grave and seemly, gave place to

gorgeous vestments and embroidered pluvials.

Now passed a tall and slender golden cross, borne

high above the lighted candles; now the cathedral

canons, stately in their dead white mantles. A

chaplain paced down the chancel, with the crozier

between two flaring torches; then the acolytes

moved forward in step, their censers swinging to

the rhythm of the music; the bearers raised the

canopy higher, counting their steps: “One, two;

one, two!” and Montanelli started upon the Way

of the Cross.

 

Down the chancel steps and all along the nave

he passed; under the gallery where the organ

pealed and thundered; under the lifted curtains

that were so red—so fearfully red; and out into

the glaring street, where the blood-red roses lay

and withered, crushed into the red carpet by the

passing of many feet. A moment’s pause at the

door, while the lay officials came forward to replace

the canopy-bearers; then the procession moved on

again, and he with it, his hands clasping the

Eucharistic sun, and the voices of the choristers

swelling and dying around him, with the rhythmical

swaying of censers and the rolling tramp of feet.

 

“Verbum caro, panem verum,

Verbo carnem efficit;

Sitque sanguis Christi merum–-”

 

Always blood and always blood! The carpet

stretched before him like a red river; the roses lay

like blood splashed on the stones–- Oh, God!

Is all Thine earth grown red, and all Thy heaven?

Ah, what is it to Thee, Thou mighty God–-

Thou, whose very lips are smeared with blood!

 

“Tantum ergo Sacramentum,

Veneremur cernui.”

 

He looked through the crystal shield at the

Eucharist. What was that oozing from the wafer—

dripping down between the points of the golden

sun—down on to his white robe? What had he seen

dripping down—dripping from a lifted hand?

 

The grass in the courtyard was trampled and

red,—all red,—there was so much blood. It was

trickling down the cheek, and dripping from the

pierced right hand, and gushing in a hot red torrent

from the wounded side. Even a lock of the

hair was dabbled in it,—the hair that lay all wet

and matted on the forehead—ah, that was the

death-sweat; it came from the horrible pain.

 

The voices of the choristers rose higher, triumphantly:

 

“Genitori, genitoque,

Laus et jubilatio,

Salus, honor, virtus quoque,

Sit et benedictio.”

 

Oh, that is more than any patience can endure!

God, Who sittest on the brazen heavens enthroned,

and smilest with bloody lips, looking

down upon agony and death, is it not enough? Is

it not enough, without this mockery of praise and

blessing? Body of Christ, Thou that wast broken

for the salvation of men; blood of Christ, Thou

that wast shed for the remission of sins; is it not

enough?

 

“Ah, call Him louder; perchance He sleepeth!

 

Dost Thou sleep indeed, dear love; and wilt

Thou never wake again? Is the grave so jealous

of its victory; and will the black pit under the tree

not loose Thee even for a little, heart’s delight?

 

Then the Thing behind the crystal shield made

answer, and the blood dripped down as It spoke:

 

“Hast thou chosen, and wilt repent of thy

choice? Is thy desire not fulfilled? Look upon

these men that walk in the light and are clad in

silk and in gold: for their sake was I laid in the

black pit. Look upon the children scattering

roses, and hearken to their singing if it be sweet:

for their sake is my mouth filled with dust, and the

roses are red from the well-springs of my heart.

See where the people kneel to drink the blood that

drips from thy garment-hem: for their sake was

it shed, to quench their ravening thirst. For it is

written: ‘Greater love hath no man than this, if

a man lay down his life for his friends.’”

 

“Oh, Arthur, Arthur; there is greater love than

this! If a man lay down the life of his best beloved,

is not that greater?”

 

And It answered again:

 

“Who is thy best beloved? In sooth, not I.”

 

And when he would have spoken the words

froze on his tongue, for the singing of the choristers

passed over them, as the north wind over icy

pools, and hushed them into