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

if the Governor doesn’t succeed in getting me shot, I shall be sent to the galleys, and for me that c-c-comes to the same thing. I have not got the health to live through it.”

Montanelli rested his arm on the table and pondered silently. The Gadfly did not disturb him. He was leaning back with half-shut eyes, lazily enjoying the delicious physical sensation of relief from the chains.

“Supposing,” Montanelli began again, “that you were to succeed in escaping; what should you do with your life?”

“I have already told Your Eminence; I should k-k-kill rats.”

“You would kill rats. That is to say, that if I were to let you escape from here now⁠—supposing I had the power to do so⁠—you would use your freedom to foster violence and bloodshed instead of preventing them?”

The Gadfly raised his eyes to the crucifix on the wall. “ ‘Not peace, but a sword’;⁠—at l-least I should be in good company. For my own part, though, I prefer pistols.”

“Signor Rivarez,” said the Cardinal with unruffled composure, “I have not insulted you as yet, or spoken slightingly of your beliefs or friends. May I not expect the same courtesy from you, or do you wish me to suppose that an atheist cannot be a gentleman?”

“Ah, I q-quite forgot. Your Eminence places courtesy high among the Christian virtues. I remember your sermon in Florence, on the occasion of my c-controversy with your anonymous defender.”

“That is one of the subjects about which I wished to speak to you. Would you mind explaining to me the reason of the peculiar bitterness you seem to feel against me? If you have simply picked me out as a convenient target, that is another matter. Your methods of political controversy are your own affair, and we are not discussing politics now. But I fancied at the time that there was some personal animosity towards me; and if so, I should be glad to know whether I have ever done you wrong or in any way given you cause for such a feeling.”

Ever done him wrong! The Gadfly put up the bandaged hand to his throat. “I must refer Your Eminence to Shakespeare,” he said with a little laugh. “It’s as with the man who can’t endure a harmless, necessary cat. My antipathy is a priest. The sight of the cassock makes my t-t-teeth ache.”

“Oh, if it is only that⁠—” Montanelli dismissed the subject with an indifferent gesture.

“Still,” he added, “abuse is one thing and perversion of fact is another. When you stated, in answer to my sermon, that I knew the identity of the anonymous writer, you made a mistake⁠—I do not accuse you of wilful falsehood⁠—and stated what was untrue. I am to this day quite ignorant of his name.”

The Gadfly put his head on one side, like an intelligent robin, looked at him for a moment gravely, then suddenly threw himself back and burst into a peal of laughter.

“S-s-sancta simplicitas! Oh, you, sweet, innocent, Arcadian people⁠—and you never guessed! You n-never saw the cloven hoof?”

Montanelli stood up. “Am I to understand, Signor Rivarez, that you wrote both sides of the controversy yourself?”

“It was a shame, I know,” the Gadfly answered, looking up with wide, innocent blue eyes. “And you s-s-swallowed everything whole; just as if it had been an oyster. It was very wrong; but oh, it w-w-was so funny!”

Montanelli bit his lip and sat down again. He had realized from the first that the Gadfly was trying to make him lose his temper, and had resolved to keep it whatever happened; but he was beginning to find excuses for the Governor’s exasperation. A man who had been spending two hours a day for the last three weeks in interrogating the Gadfly might be pardoned an occasional swearword.

“We will drop that subject,” he said quietly. “What I wanted to see you for particularly is this: My position here as Cardinal gives me some voice, if I choose to claim my privilege, in the question of what is to be done with you. The only use to which I should ever put such a privilege would be to interfere in case of any violence to you which was not necessary to prevent you from doing violence to others. I sent for you, therefore, partly in order to ask whether you have anything to complain of⁠—I will see about the irons; but perhaps there is something else⁠—and partly because I felt it right, before giving my opinion, to see for myself what sort of man you are.”

“I have nothing to complain of, Your Eminence. ‘A la guerre comme à la guerre.’ I am not a schoolboy, to expect any government to pat me on the head for s-s-smuggling firearms onto its territory. It’s only natural that they should hit as hard as they can. As for what sort of man I am, you have had a romantic confession of my sins once. Is not that enough; or w-w-would you like me to begin again?”

“I don’t understand you,” Montanelli said coldly, taking up a pencil and twisting it between his fingers.

“Surely Your Eminence has not forgotten old Diego, the pilgrim?” He suddenly changed his voice and began to speak as Diego: “I am a miserable sinner⁠—”

The pencil snapped in Montanelli’s hand. “That is too much!” he said.

The Gadfly leaned his head back with a soft little laugh, and sat watching while the Cardinal paced silently up and down the room.

“Signor Rivarez,” said Montanelli, stopping at last in front of him, “you have done a thing to me that a man who was born of a woman should hesitate to do to his worst enemy. You have stolen in upon my private grief and have made for yourself a mock and a jest out of the sorrow of a fellow-man. I once more beg you to tell me: Have I ever done you wrong? And if not, why have you played this heartless trick on me?”

The Gadfly, leaning back against the chair-cushions, looked up