The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

him better than you love anyone else in the world. Look me in the face and say that is not true, if you can!”

He turned away, and looked out into the garden. She watched him furtively, half-scared at what she had done; there was something terrifying in his silence. At last she stole up to him, like a frightened child, and timidly pulled his sleeve. He turned round.

“It is true,” he said.

XI

“But c-c-can’t I meet him somewhere in the hills? Brisighella is a risky place for me.”

“Every inch of ground in the Romagna is risky for you; but just at this moment Brisighella is safer for you than any other place.”

“Why?”

“I’ll tell you in a minute. Don’t let that man with the blue jacket see your face; he’s dangerous. Yes; it was a terrible storm; I don’t remember to have seen the vines so bad for a long time.”

The Gadfly spread his arms on the table, and laid his face upon them, like a man overcome with fatigue or wine; and the dangerous newcomer in the blue jacket, glancing swiftly round, saw only two farmers discussing their crops over a flask of wine and a sleepy mountaineer with his head on the table. It was the usual sort of thing to see in little places like Marradi; and the owner of the blue jacket apparently made up his mind that nothing could be gained by listening; for he drank his wine at a gulp and sauntered into the outer room. There he stood leaning on the counter and gossiping lazily with the landlord, glancing every now and then out of the corner of one eye through the open door, beyond which sat the three figures at the table. The two farmers went on sipping their wine and discussing the weather in the local dialect, and the Gadfly snored like a man whose conscience is sound.

At last the spy seemed to make up his mind that there was nothing in the wine-shop worth further waste of his time. He paid his reckoning, and, lounging out of the house, sauntered away down the narrow street. The Gadfly, yawning and stretching, lifted himself up and sleepily rubbed the sleeve of his linen blouse across his eyes.

“Pretty sharp practice that,” he said, pulling a clasp-knife out of his pocket and cutting off a chunk from the rye-loaf on the table. “Have they been worrying you much lately, Michele?”

“They’ve been worse than mosquitos in August. There’s no getting a minute’s peace; wherever one goes, there’s always a spy hanging about. Even right up in the hills, where they used to be so shy about venturing, they have taken to coming in bands of three or four⁠—haven’t they, Gino? That’s why we arranged for you to meet Domenichino in the town.”

“Yes; but why Brisighella? A frontier town is always full of spies.”

“Brisighella just now is a capital place. It’s swarming with pilgrims from all parts of the country.”

“But it’s not on the way to anywhere.”

“It’s not far out of the way to Rome, and many of the Easter Pilgrims are going round to hear Mass there.”

“I d-d-didn’t know there was anything special in Brisighella.”

“There’s the Cardinal. Don’t you remember his going to Florence to preach last December? It’s that same Cardinal Montanelli. They say he made a great sensation.”

“I dare say; I don’t go to hear sermons.”

“Well, he has the reputation of being a saint, you see.”

“How does he manage that?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it’s because he gives away all his income, and lives like a parish priest with four or five hundred scudi a year.”

“Ah!” interposed the man called Gino; “but it’s more than that. He doesn’t only give away money; he spends his whole life in looking after the poor, and seeing the sick are properly treated, and hearing complaints and grievances from morning till night. I’m no fonder of priests than you are, Michele, but Monsignor Montanelli is not like other Cardinals.”

“Oh, I dare say he’s more fool than knave!” said Michele. “Anyhow, the people are mad after him, and the last new freak is for the pilgrims to go round that way to ask his blessing. Domenichino thought of going as a pedlar, with a basket of cheap crosses and rosaries. The people like to buy those things and ask the Cardinal to touch them; then they put them round their babies’ necks to keep off the evil eye.”

“Wait a minute. How am I to go⁠—as a pilgrim? This makeup suits me p-pretty well, I think; but it w-won’t do for me to show myself in Brisighella in the same character that I had here; it would be ev-v-vidence against you if I get taken.”

“You won’t get taken; we have a splendid disguise for you, with a passport and all complete.”

“What is it?”

“An old Spanish pilgrim⁠—a repentant brigand from the Sierras. He fell ill in Ancona last year, and one of our friends took him on board a trading-vessel out of charity, and set him down in Venice, where he had friends, and he left his papers with us to show his gratitude. They will just do for you.”

“A repentant b-b-brigand? But w-what about the police?”

“Oh, that’s all right! He finished his term of the galleys some years ago, and has been going about to Jerusalem and all sorts of places saving his soul ever since. He killed his son by mistake for somebody else, and gave himself up to the police in a fit of remorse.”

“Was he quite old?”

“Yes; but a white beard and wig will set that right, and the description suits you to perfection in every other respect. He was an old soldier, with a lame foot and a sabre-cut across the face like yours; and then his being a Spaniard, too⁠—you see, if you meet any Spanish pilgrims, you can talk to them all right.”

“Where am I to meet Domenichino?”

“You join the pilgrims at the crossroad that we will show you on the