CHAPTER II
THE PASSING OF CONRADINO
Days and weeks in the cloisters of Monte Cassino sufficed to convince
Francesco that he was not destined to find any friendships there. The
elder Villani had not seen fit, in an age of implied indulgence, to
keep secret the nature of his transgression, and the curious and
unfriendly glances that met him on every turn had soon proclaimed this
fact to the newcomer, who writhed inwardly, but endured in silence.
The changeless, endless rounds endured by many thousands of human
souls for all years of their lives, added new torture; he felt like
the stray leaf blown from its stem on the sheltering branch; would his
ever be the prayerless peace for evermore?
Thus month passed after month,--in dire, changeless monotony.--
It was a stifling afternoon late in summer.
Few of the monks felt energy enough to go about their usual
half-hearted pastimes, and nearly all had retired to their cells in
comatose languor. Francesco had gone up with the rest; but the sun
streamed brilliantly into his little cell through the western window
and from without there came to his ears the myriad droning of
ephemeral insect life. His mind was weighted with many thoughts that
clamored for analysis.
Gradually he felt immersed in a morbid train of reflections concerning
as ever, the utter emptiness of his own existence, now really more
exiled in loneliness than ever before. For months now he had been in
the cloisters, and not one single word from the outer world concerning
his future had come to him. The time was fast approaching when he must
take the final vows. Had the Pontiff forgotten him? Had his emissary
deceived his father on his death-bed? Or--it was unthinkable--had his
father deceived him, to make him pliable to his wishes? Was he
doomed to remain here till the end of time, severed from the
world,--forgotten?
The very thought was unendurable. These conjectures were worse than
immediate annihilation. No matter which it was to be,--he, the monk,
was utterly powerless. It were far better not to yield himself to
these unwise fears. The Prior had been invisible to him for days. He
alone might, by word or hint, have alleviated his fears; but he had
not spoken.
After brooding over these matters till he thought his brain would
burst, Francesco determined to shake off the oppression of his cell
and to seek solace under the azure vault of Heaven.
Suiting the action to the impulse, he opened the door noiselessly and
stepped into the corridor without.
About him there was absolute silence. He stood at the farthest corner
of the western wing. Nearly all the cells immediately about him were
untenanted. For a moment or two he tarried, undecided. Then, following
an irresistible impulse, he stepped on to the trellised walk without
and decided to ascend the top of the mountain.
Escaping from the court and the cloisters, all hushed in dream-like
stillness, he climbed a green knoll which several ancient pines marked
strangely with their shadows. There, leaning against one of the
trunks, he raised his eyes to the barrier of encircling mountains,
discovered by the quivering sunlight falling directly on the forests
which fringed their acclivities.
The vast woods, the steep descents, the precipices and torrents all
lay extended beneath, softened by a pale-blue haze that alleviated in
a measure the stern prospects of the rocky promontories above. The sky
was of the deepest azure. The hoarse roar of torrents, throwing
themselves from distant wildernesses into the gloomy vales below,
mingled with the chant from remote convents.
How long he had stood there, endeavoring to fix some purpose in his
life, something that would fill out the emptiness of his existence and
give him the strength to bear up under the burden of his destiny,
Francesco could not have told, when a vague glittering movement on the
opposite mountain slopes attracted his gaze, a glitter that told of an
armed array marching and riding among the hills. Even the woods seemed
peopled with shadowy forms, slowly emerging into the bright light of
high-noon, while out of the stillness there leaped the cry of a horn,
hawberks glimmered and armor shone. Beyond the armed array the
mountains towered solemn and stupendous, fringed as with aureoles of
lambent flame. The horsemen came from the North; there was a swirl of
thought in Francesco's brain, then his hand went to his heart:
Conradino and his iron hosts were marching on Rome!
And he, who had dreamed of espousing at some day the cause of the last
of the Hohenstauffen, who had hoped, by some great effort, to win the
crown of life and Ilaria's love, stood here on the summit of Monte
Cassino, separated by mountains, chasms and torrents from the
glistening throng, which wound in one long, sinuous line towards the
ravines of Camaldoli, separated by a whole world from the realization
of the hopes nurtured in his childhood. He was the bondsman of the
Church,--the bondsman of the Pope.
It was an indisputable fact; he was being caught in constantly ever
narrowing circles.
Many questions would hourly assail him, questions like the hill-towns
of Umbria, built on the brink of precipices, walled round with
barriers of unhewn rock, seeming so near from the ravine below, where
the wanderer sees every roof, every cypress tree, every pillared
balcony, but which he cannot approach by scaling the unscalable, sheer
precipice, but must slowly wind round from below, circling up and down
endless undulations of vineyard and oakwood, coming forever upon a
tantalizing glimpse of towers and walls, forever seemingly close to
the heights above him, yet forever equally distant, till, at last, by
a sharp unexpected turn of the gradually winding road, he stands
before the gates.
Thus was it with his own isolated soul, a soul unaffected by any
other, unlinked in any work, or feeling, or suffering with any any
other soul,--nay even with any physical thing.
Thus it stood between himself and Ilaria. Thus they would forever
remain alone, never move, never change, never cease absorbing through
all eternity that which the eye cannot see.
A soul purged perchance, of every human desire or will, isolated from
all human affection, raised above the limits of time and space,
hovering in a limbo of endless desire, twisting mystical half
reasoning away from the peace-hungry soul!
What a fate was his! What a vortex of passions he had been thrust
into!
In the streets of Rome, Guelphs and Ghibellines were fighting. To
southward the Provencals ravaged the land. All over Italy the
free-lance companies lay waste and burned. The coarse religion of the
cloister had no uplifting tendency. It was rather a perpetual smart.
The first fervor of the great Franciscan and Dominican movements had
long been spent. Nothing, save the ill-regulated enthusiasm of
heretical sects, had arisen to take its place. In monasteries and
convents scandals were almost the order of the day. It was true, the
torch of Franciscan faith still passed privately from hand to hand.
Some of the ablest men of the Church were discussing the daring tenets
of direct Franciscan inspiration. Representatives of all phases of
mediaeval thought mingled with the adherents of a mystic Oriental
trend.
Nevertheless, Francesco, in the dead of night, found himself waking to
the sense of a dreadful loss and loneliness. He had entered a hushed
world, where human and earthly values alike were ignored or forgotten,
and the drama of the soul was all in all. The demon of disillusionment
which had beset him ever since he had ascended the heights of Monte
Cassino began to unfold his gloomy wings over the far horizon of his
soul.
No one knew, save himself and perhaps he not fully, how deep a
yearning for guidance underlay his sensitive distaste for the control
of men. His was a nature that craved to follow, as others craved to
lead, but which submitted itself reluctantly, and never at the call of
convention.
Devastated Italy rose before his eyes,--nay, the whole world opened to
the inner vision, one great battle-field. Unconsciously his eyes
followed the direction of the horsemen. Their vanguard had long
disappeared in the dusk of distant forest-aisles; still Swabia's
iron-serried ranks were pouring from the sheltering boughs of the oaks
above San Geminiano.--
Evening drew on apace.
A procession, with its gay dresses and colored tapers gleaming like a
rainbow against the verdant hills along the curving, climbing road
from San Vitale, attracted Francesco's gaze, and with it a sudden dull
pain contracted his heart as he strained his eyes towards the valley.
It seemed like a bridal procession in its pomp, its splendor. A woman
bestriding a palfrey rode gaily by the side of a man conspicuous in
dark velvet. Directly beneath where he stood, she suddenly raised her
head, as if she had divined his presence and desired a witness to her
glory.
With a low cry of pain Francesco drew back.
At that moment, notwithstanding the height, he had recognized the
magically fair features of Ilaria Caselli.
Like an animal hunted to death, that wishes to die in its lair, he was
about to withdraw, when he faced what appeared to be a peasant who had
come with provisions to the cloister.
As he saw the young monk he paused with a salutation, then,
approaching him, he whispered:
"Have you heard the news? Messer Raniero Frangipani and Madonna Ilaria
Caselli are passing on their bridal journey to Rome!"
Francesco's face was so pale that no earthly tint seemed to have
remained in it. Only the large eyes gave evidence of life.
"You come to me from her?" he questioned to the peasant.
"She bade me tell you that from no motive of coercion,--but of her own
free will and choice, the Frangipani's proposal had been accepted!"
Francesco gave a sudden cry like one who leaps over a precipice, and,
falling on his knees, buried his face in his hands.
When he roused himself from the stupor which benumbed his limbs the
peasant had disappeared, with him the bridal procession and the
Swabian contingents of Conradino.
The full moon gazed down upon him through the great silence of the
mountain-world, and a thousand pines thrust up their midnight spears
towards the stars.