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

round and whispered: ‘I am very sorry for you, Arthur; but I daren’t show it; He would be angry.’ And I looked at Him, and the wooden image was laughing.

“Then, when I came to my senses, and saw the barrack and the coolies with their leprosy, I understood. I saw that you care more to curry favour with that devilish God of yours than to save me from any hell. And I have remembered that. I forgot just now when you touched me; I⁠—have been ill, and I used to love you once. But there can be nothing between us but war, and war, and war. What do you want to hold my hand for? Can’t you see that while you believe in your Jesus we can’t be anything but enemies?”

Montanelli bent his head and kissed the mutilated hand.

“Arthur, how can I help believing in Him? If I have kept my faith through all these frightful years, how can I ever doubt Him any more, now that He has given you back to me? Remember, I thought I had killed you.”

“You have that still to do.”

“Arthur!” It was a cry of actual terror; but the Gadfly went on, unheeding:

“Let us be honest, whatever we do, and not shilly-shally. You and I stand on two sides of a pit, and it’s hopeless trying to join hands across it. If you have decided that you can’t, or won’t, give up that thing”⁠—he glanced again at the crucifix on the wall⁠—“you must consent to what the colonel⁠—”

“Consent! My God⁠—consent⁠—Arthur, but I love you!”

The Gadfly’s face contracted fearfully.

“Which do you love best, me or that thing?”

Montanelli slowly rose. The very soul in him withered with dread, and he seemed to shrivel up bodily, and to grow feeble, and old, and wilted, like a leaf that the frost has touched. He had awaked out of his dream, and the outer darkness was staring in upon an empty place.

“Arthur, have just a little mercy on me⁠—”

“How much had you for me when your lies drove me out to be slave to the blacks on the sugar-plantations? You shudder at that⁠—ah, these tenderhearted saints! This is the man after God’s own heart⁠—the man that repents of his sin and lives. No one dies but his son. You say you love me⁠—your love has cost me dear enough! Do you think I can blot out everything, and turn back into Arthur at a few soft words⁠—I, that have been dishwasher in filthy half-caste brothels and stable-boy to Creole farmers that were worse brutes than their own cattle? I, that have been zany in cap and bells for a strolling variety show⁠—drudge and jack-of-all-trades to the matadors in the bullfighting ring; I, that have been slave to every black beast who cared to set his foot on my neck; I, that have been starved and spat upon and trampled under foot; I, that have begged for mouldy scraps and been refused because the dogs had the first right? Oh, what is the use of all this! How can I tell you what you have brought on me? And now⁠—you love me! How much do you love me? Enough to give up your God for me? Oh, what has He done for you, this everlasting Jesus⁠—what has He suffered for you, that you should love Him more than me? Is it for the pierced hands He is so dear to you? Look at mine! Look here, and here, and here⁠—”

He tore open his shirt and showed the ghastly scars.

“Padre, this God of yours is an impostor, His wounds are sham wounds, His pain is all a farce! It is I that have the right to your heart! Padre, there is no torture you have not put me to; if you could only know what my life has been! And yet I would not die! I have endured it all, and have possessed my soul in patience, because I would come back and fight this God of yours. I have held this purpose as a shield against my heart, and it has saved me from madness, and from the second death. And now, when I come back, I find Him still in my place⁠—this sham victim that was crucified for six hours, forsooth, and rose again from the dead! Padre, I have been crucified for five years, and I, too, have risen from the dead. What are you going to do with me? What are you going to do with me?”

He broke down. Montanelli sat like some stone image, or like a dead man set upright. At first, under the fiery torrent of the Gadfly’s despair, he had quivered a little, with the automatic shrinking of the flesh, as under the lash of a whip; but now he was quite still. After a long silence he looked up and spoke, lifelessly, patiently:

“Arthur, will you explain to me more clearly? You confuse and terrify me so, I can’t understand. What is it you demand of me?”

The Gadfly turned to him a spectral face.

“I demand nothing. Who shall compel love? You are free to choose between us two the one who is most dear to you. If you love Him best, choose Him.”

“I can’t understand,” Montanelli repeated wearily. “What is there I can choose? I cannot undo the past.”

“You have to choose between us. If you love me, take that cross off your neck and come away with me. My friends are arranging another attempt, and with your help they could manage it easily. Then, when we are safe over the frontier, acknowledge me publicly. But if you don’t love me enough for that⁠—if this wooden idol is more to you than I⁠—then go to the colonel and tell him you consent. And if you go, then go at once, and spare me the misery of seeing you. I have enough without that.”

Montanelli looked up, trembling faintly. He was beginning to understand.

“I will communicate with your friends, of course. But⁠—to go with you⁠—it