ROME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5687, 5 October 1896, Page 1

ROME.

BT EMILE ZOLA. [Translated Bt Erkest Alfred VIZETEIiLT.] (All Rights Reserved.) Chapter Xni.— (Continued.) . When the doors had been closed, the most mournful and oppressive silence; reigned in that dining-room, which the bright sun of winter filled with such, delightful warmth and radiance. The table was still laid, its cloth strewn here •and there with bread-crumbs ; and a coffee cup had remained half full. In the centre stood the basket of figs, whose covering of leaves had been removed. However, only two or three of the figs were missing. And in front of the window was Tata, the female parrot, who had flown outof her . 'cage and perched -herself on her stand,; where she remained, ; dazzled 7 ttricl'-eii'-: amidst the\ dancing dust of a broad yellow sunray. In her astonishment however, at seeing so many people enter, she had ceased to scream "and smooth her feathers, and had turned her head the better to examine the new comers with her round and scrutinising eye. The minutes went by slowly amidst all the feverish anxiety as to what might be occurring in the neighbouring room. Don . Vigilio had taken a corner seat in silence, whilst Benedetta and Pierre, who had •i_m_i___d standing, preserved similar muteness and immobility. But the Cardinal had reverted to that instinctive, lulling tramp by which he apparently. hoped to quiet his impatience and arrive the sooner at the explanation for which he was groping through a tumultuous maze of ideas. And whilst his rhythmical footsteps resounded with mechanical regularity, dark fury was taking possession Of his mind, exasperation at being unablo to understand the why and wherefore of that sickness. As he passed the table he had twice glanced at the things lying on it in confusion, as if seeking some explanation from them. Perhaps the harm had been done by that unfinished coffee, or by that, bread whose crumbs lay here and there, or by those cutlets, a bone of which remained ?. Then, as for the third time he passed by, again glancing, his eyes fell upon the basket of figs, and at once he stopped, as if beneath the shock of a revelation. An idea seized upon him, and mastered him, without any plan, however, occurring to bim by which he might change his sudden suspicion into certainty. for a moment he remained puzzled with his eyes fixed upon the basket. Then he took a fig and examined, it, but, noticing nothing strange, was about to put it back when Tata, the parrot, who was very fond' of. figs, r^sed a. indent. cry." - And this was like a rajr- of light;- the '.means of changing suspicion into certainty was found. Slowly, with grave air and gloomy, vieage, the Cardinal carried the fig to the parrot and gave it to her without hesitation or regret. She was a very pretty bird, the only being of the lower order of creation to which he had ever really been attached. ' Stretching out her supple, delicate form, whoso silken feathers of dull green. here and there assumed a pinky tinge in the sunlight, she took hold of the fig with her claws, then ripped it open with her beak. But when she had raked it she ate but little, and let all the rest fall upon the floor. Still grave and impassible, the Cardinal lookedat her and waited. Quite three minutes went by, and then feeling reassured, he began to scratch the bird's poll, whilst she, taking pleasure in the , caress, turned her neck and fixed her bright ruby eye upon her master. Bnt all at once she sank back without even a flap of the •wings, and fell like a bullet. She was dead, killed as by a thunderbolt. Boccanera made but a gesture, raising both hands to heaven as if in horror at •what he now knew. Great God ! such a terrible. crime, and such a fearful mistake, such an abominable trick of Destiny. No cry of grief camo from him, but the gloom upon his ih.ee grew black and fierce. - Tet there was a.cry, a piercing cry from Benedetta, who like Pierre and Don Vigilio had watched tho Cardinal with an astonishment which had changed into terror;: ■' Poison ! poison ! ■ Ah ! Dario.. my heart, my soul !" Bnt the • Cardinal violently caught his niece by the wrist, whilst darting a suspicious glance at the two petty priests, the secretary and the foreigner, who were present : "Be quiet, be quiet !" said he. She shook herself free, rebelling, frantic with rage and hatred : " Why should Ibe quiet !" she cried. "It is Prada's work, I shall denounce him, he shall die as well. ,"_L tell you it is Prada, I know it, for yesterday Abbe Froment came back.with him from Frascati in his carriage with that', priest Santobono and that basket of figs ! Yes, yes, T have witnesses; it is Prada, Prada!" "No, no, you are mad, be quiet !" said the Cardinal, who had again taken hold of the young woman's hands ahd sought to master her with all his sovereign authority. He, who knew the influence which Cardinal Sanguinetti exercised over Santobono's excitable mind, had just understood the whole affair; no direct complicity but covert propulsion, the animal excited and then let loose upon the troublesome rival at the moment when the pontifical throne seemed likely to be vacant. The prob-

ability, the certainty of all this flashed upon Bdccanera, who, though some points remained obscure, did not seek to penetrate them. It was necessary, indeed, that he should know every particular : the thing was as he said, since it was bound to be so. " No, no, it was not Prada," he exclaimed, addressing Benedetta. "That man can toear me no personal grudge, and I alone was aimed at, it was to me that those figs were given. Come, think it out ! Only an unforeseen indisposition prevented me from eating the greater part of the fruit, for it is. known that I am very iond of figs, and while mypoor Daiio was tasting them, I jested and told him to leave the finer ones if or me to-morrow. Yes, the abominable blow was meant for me, and it is on him that it has fallen by the most atrocious of chances, the most monstrous of the follies of fate. Ah ! Lord God,. Lord God, have you then forsaken us !" •Tears came into the old man's eyes,: whilst she still quivered and seemed unconvinced : "But. V.ypu have no. enemies, toborio try to take your: lite ?'"■' For a moment ho found no fitting reply. With supreme grandeur he had already resolved to keep the truth secret. Then a recollection came to him, and he resigned himself to the telling of a lie : " Santobono's mind has always been somewhat unhinged," said he, "and I know that. he has hated me ever since I refused to ' help him to get a brother of his, one of our former gardeners, out of prison. Deadly spite often has no more serious cause. He must have thought that he had reason to be revenged, on me." . I . . Thel'6Up6n Benedetta, exhausted, unable to argue any further, sank upon a chair with a despairing gesture : " Ah ! God, God, I no longer know — and what matters it now that my Dario is in such danger. There's only one thing to be done, he must be saved. How long .they are over what they are doing in that room — why does not Victorine come for us!" The silence again fell, full of terror. Without speaking the Cardinal took the basket of figs from the table and carried it to a cupboard in which he locked it. Then he put the key in his pocket. No doubt, when night had fallen, he himself would throw the proofs of the crime into the Tiber. However, on coming back from the cupboard he noticed the two priests, who naturally had watched him ; ' and with mingled grandeur and simplicity he said to them: "Gentlemen^ I need not ask you to be discreet. There are scandals which we must spare the Church, which is not, cannot be, guilty. To deliver one of ourselves, even when he is a criminal, to the civil tribunals, often means a blow for the whole Church, for men of evil mind may lay hold of the affair and seek' to impute the responsibility of the ..crime eyentothe Church itself." We therefore have /but to commit ..murderer, to the 'hands of God, who .will .know more surely how to punish him. Ah! for my part, whether I be struck in my own person or whether the blow be directed against my family, my dearest affections, I declare in the name of the Christ who died upon the cross, that I feel neither .anger nor desire for vengeance, that I efface the murderer's name from my memory and bury his abominable act in the eternal silence, of thf grave." '•' Tall as he was, he seemed of yet loftier stature whilst with hand upraised he took that oath to leave his enemies to the justice of God alone j for he did not refer merely to Santobono; but to Cardinal Sanguinetti, whose evil influence he had divined. And amidst all the heroism of his pride, he was rent by tragic doloiir at thought of the dark battle which was waged around the tiara, all the evil hatred and voracious appetite which stirred in the depths of the gloom. Then, as Pierre and Don Vigilio bowed to him as a sign that they would preserve silence, he almost choked with invincible emotion, a sob of loving grief which he strove to keepi down rising to his throat, whilst ' he stammered : " Ah ! my poor child, my poor child, the only scion of our race, the only love and hope of my heart ! Ah ! to die, to die like this !" But Benedetta, again all violence, sprang up : " Die ! Who, Dario ? I won't have it ! We'll nurse him, we'll go back to him. We will take him in our arms and save him. Come, uncle, come at once? I won't, I won't, I won't have him die !" She was going towards the door, and nothing would have prevented her from reentering the bed-room, -when, as it happened .Victorine appeared with a wild look on her face, for, despite her wonted serenity, all her courage was now exhausted. "The doctor begs Madame and His Eminence tojcome at once,, at once," said she. Stupefifld by all these things, Pierre did not follow the others, but lingered for a moment in the sunlit dining-room with Don Vigilio. What ! poison ? Poison as in the time of the Borgias, elegantly hidden away* served up with luscious fruit by a crafty ' traitor, whom one dared not even denounce ! And he recalled the conversation on his. Tvuy back from Frascati, and his" Parisian scepticism with respect to those legendary drugs, which :to his mind had no place save in the fifth-acts of melodramas. Yet those abominable stories were true, those tales of poisoned knives and flowers j of prelates and even dilatory popes being suppressed by a drop of something administered to them in their morning chocolate. That passionate i tragical Santabono was really a poisoner, : Pierre could no longer doubt it, for a lurid i light now illumined the whole of the i previous day : there were the words of am- • bition and menace which had f been spoken

by Cardinal Sanguinetti, the eagerness to act irr presence of the probable death of the reigning Pope, the suggestion of a crime for the sake of the Church's salvation ; then that priest with his little basket of figs encountered on the road; then that basket carried for hours so carefully, so devoutly, on the priest's knees ; that basket which now haunted Pierre lifco a nightmare, and whose colour, and odour, and shape he would ever recall with a aliudder. Aye, poison, poison, there was truth, in it ; it existed and still circulated in the depths of the black world, amidst all the ravenous, rival longings for, conquest and sovereignty. And all at once the figure of Prada likewise arose in Pierre's mind. A little while previously, when Benedetta had so violently accused the Count, he, Pierre, had stepped forward to defend him and cry aloud what he knew, whence the poison had come, and. what hand had offered it. But a sudden thought had made him shiver: though Prada had not devised the crime, he had. allowed it,:to,ibe "perpetrated. Another, memory darted keen like steel through 'the young priest's mind— that of the little black hen lying lifeless beside the shed, amidst the dismal surroundings of the osteria, with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak. And here again, Tata, the parrot, lay still soft and warm at the foot of her stand, with her beak stained by oozing blood. Why had Prada told that lie about a battle between two fowls ? All the dim intricacy of passion and contention bewildered Pierre, he could not thread his way through it ; nor was he better able to follow the frightful combat which must have been waged in that man's mind during the night of the ball. At the same time he could not again picture him by his side during their nocturnal walk towards the Bcccanera mansion without • shuddering, dimly divining what a f rightfnl decision had been taken before that mansion's door. Moreover, whatever the obscurities, whether Prada had expected that the Cardinal alone would be killed, or had hoped that some chance stroke of fate might- avenge him on others, the terrible fact remained— he had known, ho had been able to stay Destiny on the march, but had allowed it to go onward and blindly accomplish its work of "death. Turning his head Pierre perceived Don Vigilio still seated on the corner chair whence he had not stirred, and looking so pale and haggard that perhaps he also had swallowed some of the poison. "Do you feel unwell ?" the young priest asked. At first the secretary could not reply, for terror had gripped him at the throat. Then in a low voice he said : " No, no, I didn't eat any. Ah, Heaven, when I think that I so nmeh wanted to taste them, and that merely deferGnee^"kept*-meback"on' seeing that his -Eminence did Jiiot take jray-J?'. D_o.n Yigilio's: whoie bbd^ shivered £,Jrl;lie. thought- that his humility", alonehattsavedjhim.; and on !bis face and 'his hands there remained the icy chill of death which had fallen so near and grazed him as it passed. . Then, twice he heaved a sigh, and'fwith a gesture of affright sought to. brush the horrid thing away while murmuring : " Ah ! Paparelli, Paparelli ! " Pierre, deeply stirred, and knowing what he thought of the train-bearer, tried to extract some information from him : "What do you mean?" he asked. "Do, you accuse him too ? Do yon think they urged him on, and that it was they at bottom ?" The word Jesuits was not even spoken, but a big black shadow passed athwart the gay sunlight of the dining-room, and for a moment seemed to fill it with darkness. " They ! ah, yes !" exclaimed Don Vigilio, " they are everywhere ; it is always they! As soon as one weeps, as soon as one dies, . they are mixed up in it. And this was intended for me, too ; I am quite surprised that I haven't been carried off." Then, again, he raised a dulimoan of fear, hatred and anger: "Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!" And he refused to reply any further, but darted scared glances at the walis as if from one or another of them he expected to see the train-bearer exnergfi, with his wrinkled flabby face* like that of an old maid, his furtive mouse-like trot, and his mysterious, invading hands which had gone expressly to bring the forgotten figs from the pantry and deposit them on the table. (To be continued.)