The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (ebook reader android TXT) 📕

of a body the large

majority of which holds the opposite view, I cannot

insist upon my personal opinion; and I certainly

think that if things of that kind are to be

said at all, they should be said temperately and

quietly; not in the tone adopted in this pamphlet.”

 

“Will you wait a minute while I look through

the manuscript?”

 

He took it up and glanced down the pages. A

dissatisfied frown settled on his face.

 

“Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The

thing’s written like a cafe chantant skit, not a

political satire. But what’s a man to do? If I

write decently the public won’t understand it;

they will say it’s dull if it isn’t spiteful enough.”

 

“Don’t you think spitefulness manages to be

dull when we get too much of it?”

 

He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst

out laughing.

 

“Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful

category of people who are always right!

Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I

may come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini?

Heavens, what a fate! No, you needn’t

frown. I know you don’t like me, and I am going

to keep to business. What it comes to, then,

is practically this: if I cut out the personalities and

leave the essential part of the thing as it is, the

committee will very much regret that they can’t

take the responsibility of printing it. If I cut out

the political truth and make all the hard names

apply to no one but the party’s enemies, the committee

will praise the thing up to the skies, and

you and I will know it’s not worth printing.

Rather a nice point of metaphysics: Which is the

more desirable condition, to be printed and not be

worth it, or to be worth it and not be printed?

Well, signora?”

 

“I do not think you are tied to any such alternative.

I believe that if you were to cut out the

personalities the committee would consent to

print the pamphlet, though the majority would,

of course, not agree with it; and I am convinced

that it would be very useful. But you would have

to lay aside the spitefulness. If you are going to

say a thing the substance of which is a big pill for

your readers to swallow, there is no use in frightening

them at the beginning by the form.”

 

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders resignedly.

“I submit, signora; but on one condition.

If you rob me of my laugh now, I must have it

out next time. When His Eminence, the irreproachable

Cardinal, turns up in Florence, neither

you nor your committee must object to my being

as spiteful as I like. It’s my due!”

 

He spoke in his lightest, coldest manner, pulling

the chrysanthemums out of their vase and

holding them up to watch the light through the

translucent petals. “What an unsteady hand he

has,” she thought, seeing how the flowers shook

and quivered. “Surely he doesn’t drink!”

 

“You had better discuss the matter with the

other members of the committee,” she said, rising.

“I cannot form any opinion as to what they will

think about it.”

 

“And you?” He had risen too, and was leaning

against the table, pressing the flowers to his face

 

She hesitated. The question distressed her,

bringing up old and miserable associations. “I

—hardly know,” she said at last. “Many years

ago I used to know something about Monsignor

Montanelli. He was only a canon at that time,

and Director of the theological seminary in the

province where I lived as a girl. I heard a great

deal about him from—someone who knew him

very intimately; and I never heard anything of him

that was not good. I believe that, in those days

at least, he was really a most remarkable man.

But that was long ago, and he may have changed.

Irresponsible power corrupts so many people.”

 

The Gadfly raised his head from the flowers, and

looked at her with a steady face.

 

“At any rate,” he said, “if Monsignor Montanelli

is not himself a scoundrel, he is a tool in

scoundrelly hands. It is all one to me which he

is—and to my friends across the frontier. A stone

in the path may have the best intentions, but it

must be kicked out of the path, for all that.

Allow me, signora!” He rang the bell, and, limping

to the door, opened it for her to pass out.

 

“It was very kind of you to call, signora. May

I send for a vettura? No? Good-afternoon, then!

Bianca, open the hall-door, please.”

 

Gemma went out into the street, pondering

anxiously. “My friends across the frontier”—

who were they? And how was the stone to be

kicked out of the path? If with satire only, why

had he said it with such dangerous eyes?

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

MONSIGNOR MONTANELLI arrived in Florence

in the first week of October. His visit caused a

little flutter of excitement throughout the town.

He was a famous preacher and a representative of

the reformed Papacy; and people looked eagerly

to him for an exposition of the “new doctrine,”

the gospel of love and reconciliation which was to

cure the sorrows of Italy. The nomination of

Cardinal Gizzi to the Roman State Secretaryship

in place of the universally detested Lambruschini

had raised the public enthusiasm to its highest

pitch; and Montanelli was just the man who could

most easily sustain it. The irreproachable strictness

of his life was a phenomenon sufficiently rare

among the high dignitaries of the Roman Church

to attract the attention of people accustomed to

regard blackmailing, peculation, and disreputable

intrigues as almost invariable adjuncts to the

career of a prelate. Moreover, his talent as a

preacher was really great; and with his beautiful

voice and magnetic personality, he would in any

time and place have made his mark.

 

Grassini, as usual, strained every nerve to get

the newly arrived celebrity to his house; but

Montanelli was no easy game to catch. To all

invitations he replied with the same courteous but

positive refusal, saying that his health was bad and

his time fully occupied, and that he had neither

strength nor leisure for going into society.

 

“What omnivorous creatures those Grassinis

are!” Martini said contemptuously to Gemma as

they crossed the Signoria square one bright, cold

Sunday morning. “Did you notice the way

Grassini bowed when the Cardinal’s carriage drove

up? It’s all one to them who a man is, so long as

he’s talked about. I never saw such lion-hunters

in my life. Only last August it was the Gadfly;

now it’s Montanelli. I hope His Eminence feels

flattered at the attention; a precious lot of adventurers

have shared it with him.”

 

They had been hearing Montanelli preach in

the Cathedral; and the great building had been so

thronged with eager listeners that Martini, fearing

a return of Gemma’s troublesome headaches,

had persuaded her to come away before the Mass

was over. The sunny morning, the first after a

week of rain, offered him an excuse for suggesting

a walk among the garden slopes by San Niccolo.

 

“No,” she answered; “I should like a walk if

you have time; but not to the hills. Let us keep

along the Lung’Arno; Montanelli will pass on his

way back from church and I am like Grassini—

I want to see the notability.”

 

“But you have just seen him.”

 

“Not close. There was such a crush in the

Cathedral, and his back was turned to us when the

carriage passed. If we keep near to the bridge

we shall be sure to see him well—he is staying

on the Lung’Arno, you know.”

 

“But what has given you such a sudden fancy

to see Montanelli? You never used to care about

famous preachers.”

 

“It is not famous preachers; it is the man himself;

I want to see how much he has changed since I saw him last.”

 

“When was that?”

 

“Two days after Arthur’s death.”

 

Martini glanced at her anxiously. They had

come out on to the Lung’Arno, and she was staring

absently across the water, with a look on her

face that he hated to see.

 

“Gemma, dear,” he said after a moment; “are

you going to let that miserable business haunt

you all your life? We have all made mistakes

when we were seventeen.”

 

“We have not all killed our dearest friend when

we were seventeen,” she answered wearily; and,

leaning her arm on the stone balustrade of the

bridge, looked down into the river. Martini held

his tongue; he was almost afraid to speak to her

when this mood was on her.

 

“I never look down at water without remembering,”

she said, slowly raising her eyes to his;

then with a nervous little shiver: “Let us walk

on a bit, Cesare; it is chilly for standing.”

 

They crossed the bridge in silence and walked

on along the river-side. After a few minutes she

spoke again.

 

“What a beautiful voice that man has! There

is something about it that I have never heard in

any other human voice. I believe it is the secret

of half his influence.”

 

“It is a wonderful voice,” Martini assented,

catching at a subject of conversation which might

lead her away from the dreadful memory called up

by the river, “and he is, apart from his voice,

about the finest preacher I have ever heard. But

I believe the secret of his influence lies deeper than

that. It is the way his life stands out from that

of almost all the other prelates. I don’t know

whether you could lay your hand on one other

high dignitary in all the Italian Church—except

the Pope himself—whose reputation is so utterly

spotless. I remember, when I was in the Romagna

last year, passing through his diocese and

seeing those fierce mountaineers waiting in the

rain to get a glimpse of him or touch his dress.

He is venerated there almost as a saint; and that

means a good deal among the Romagnols, who

generally hate everything that wears a cassock. I

remarked to one of the old peasants,—as typical

a smuggler as ever I saw in my life,—that the

people seemed very much devoted to their bishop,

and he said: ‘We don’t love bishops, they are

liars; we love Monsignor Montanelli. Nobody has

ever known him to tell a lie or do an unjust thing.’”

 

“I wonder,” Gemma said, half to herself, “if he

knows the people think that about him.”

 

“Why shouldn’t he know it? Do you think it

is not true?”

 

“I know it is not true.”

 

“How do you know it?”

 

“Because he told me so.”

 

“HE told you? Montanelli? Gemma, what do you mean?”

 

She pushed the hair back from her forehead and

turned towards him. They were standing still

again, he leaning on the balustrade and she slowly

drawing lines on the pavement with the point of

her umbrella.

 

“Cesare, you and I have been friends for all

these years, and I have never told you what really

happened about Arthur.”

 

“There is no need to tell me, dear,” he broke

in hastily; “I know all about it already.”

 

“Giovanni told you?”

 

“Yes, when he was dying. He told me about

it one night when I was sitting up with him. He

said–- Gemma, dear, I had better tell you the

truth, now we have begun talking about it—he

said that you were always brooding over that

wretched story, and he begged me to be as good

a friend to you as I could and try to keep