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

a moment and then continued more slowly: “If you feel that you can still trust me as you used to do, I want you to tell me more definitely than that night in the seminary garden, how far you have gone.”

Arthur looked out across the water, listened quietly, and said nothing.

“I want to know, if you will tell me,” Montanelli went on; “whether you have bound yourself by a vow, or⁠—in any way.”

“There is nothing to tell, dear Padre; I have not bound myself, but I am bound.”

“I don’t understand⁠—”

“What is the use of vows? They are not what binds people. If you feel in a certain way about a thing, that binds you to it; if you don’t feel that way, nothing else can bind you.”

“Do you mean, then, that this thing⁠—this⁠—feeling is quite irrevocable? Arthur, have you thought what you are saying?”

Arthur turned round and looked straight into Montanelli’s eyes.

“Padre, you asked me if I could trust you. Can you not trust me, too? Indeed, if there were anything to tell, I would tell it to you; but there is no use in talking about these things. I have not forgotten what you said to me that night; I shall never forget it. But I must go my way and follow the light that I see.”

Montanelli picked a rose from the bush, pulled off the petals one by one, and tossed them into the water.

“You are right, carino. Yes, we will say no more about these things; it seems there is indeed no help in many words⁠—Well, well, let us go in.”

III

The autumn and winter passed uneventfully. Arthur was reading hard and had little spare time. He contrived to get a glimpse of Montanelli once or oftener in every week, if only for a few minutes. From time to time he would come in to ask for help with some difficult book; but on these occasions the subject of study was strictly adhered to. Montanelli, feeling, rather than observing, the slight, impalpable barrier that had come between them, shrank from everything which might seem like an attempt to retain the old close relationship. Arthur’s visits now caused him more distress than pleasure, so trying was the constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as if nothing were altered. Arthur, for his part, noticed, hardly understanding it, the subtle change in the Padre’s manner; and, vaguely feeling that it had some connection with the vexed question of the “new ideas,” avoided all mention of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly filled. Yet he had never loved Montanelli so deeply as now. The dim, persistent sense of dissatisfaction, of spiritual emptiness, which he had tried so hard to stifle under a load of theology and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the touch of Young Italy. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sickroom watching had passed away, and the doubts against which he used to pray had gone without the need of exorcism. With the awakening of a new enthusiasm, a clearer, fresher religious ideal (for it was more in this light than in that of a political development that the students’ movement had appeared to him), had come a sense of rest and completeness, of peace on earth and good will towards men; and in this mood of solemn and tender exaltation all the world seemed to him full of light. He found a new element of something lovable in the persons whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli, who for five years had been his ideal hero, was now in his eyes surrounded with an additional halo, as a potential prophet of the new faith. He listened with passionate eagerness to the Padre’s sermons, trying to find in them some trace of inner kinship with the republican ideal; and pored over the Gospels, rejoicing in the democratic tendencies of Christianity at its origin.

One day in January he called at the seminary to return a book which he had borrowed. Hearing that the Father Director was out, he went up to Montanelli’s private study, placed the volume on its shelf, and was about to leave the room when the title of a book lying on the table caught his eyes. It was Dante’s De Monarchia. He began to read it and soon became so absorbed that when the door opened and shut he did not hear. He was aroused from his preoccupation by Montanelli’s voice behind him.

“I did not expect you today,” said the Padre, glancing at the title of the book. “I was just going to send and ask if you could come to me this evening.”

“Is it anything important? I have an engagement for this evening; but I will miss it if⁠—”

“No; tomorrow will do. I want to see you because I am going away on Tuesday. I have been sent for to Rome.”

“To Rome? For long?”

“The letter says, ‘till after Easter.’ It is from the Vatican. I would have let you know at once, but have been very busy settling up things about the seminary and making arrangements for the new Director.”

“But, Padre, surely you are not giving up the seminary?”

“It will have to be so; but I shall probably come back to Pisa, for some time at least.”

“But why are you giving it up?”

“Well, it is not yet officially announced; but I am offered a bishopric.”

“Padre! Where?”

“That is the point about which I have to go to Rome. It is not yet decided whether I am to take a see in the Apennines, or to remain here as Suffragan.”

“And is the new Director chosen yet?”

“Father Cardi has been nominated and arrives here tomorrow.”

“Is not that rather sudden?”

“Yes; but⁠—The decisions of the Vatican are sometimes not communicated till the last moment.”

“Do you know the new Director?”

“Not personally; but he is very highly spoken of. Monsignor Belloni, who writes, says that he is a man of great erudition.”

“The seminary will miss you terribly.”

“I don’t