ROME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5689, 7 October 1896, Page 1

ROME.

BY EMILE ZOLA. [Translated By Ernest Alfred VIZETELLT.] (All Rights Reserved.) Chapter Xlll.— (Continued.) At last the two priests decided to return to the bedroom, where perhaps they might be required ; and Pierre, on entering, was overcome by the heart-rending scene which the chamber now presented. Doctor Giodano, suspecting poison, had for half an hour been trying the usual remedies, an emetic, and then magnesia. He had even j just made Victorine whip some whites of j eggs in water. ■■ But the disorder was pro- ! grassing with such lightning-like rapidity that all succour was becoming futile. Undressed, and lying on his back, his bust propped up By pillows^' and his arms lying ■ outstretched over the sheets, Dario looked quite frightful in the sort of painful intoxication which characterised, that redoubtable and mysterious disorder to which already Monsignor Gallo and others had succumbed. The young man seemed 'to be stricken with a sort of dizzy stupor, his eyes receded farther and farther into the depths of their dark sockets, whilst his whole face became withered, aged, as it were, and covered with an earthy pallor. A moment previously he had closed his eyes, and the only sign that he still lived was the heaving of his chest induced by painful respiration. And leaning over his poor dying face stood Benedetta, sharing his sufferings, and mastered by such impotent grief that she also was unrecognisable, so white, so distracted by anguish, that it seemed as if death were' gradually taking her at the same time ns it was taking him. In the recess by the window whither Cardinal Boecanera had led Doctor Giordano, a few words were exchanged in low tones. "He is lost, is he not ?" The doctor made the despairing gesture of one who is vanquished : " Alas ! yes. I must warn your Eminence that that in an hour all will be over," A short interval of silence followed. " And the same malady as Gallo, is not ?" asked the Cardinal; and as the doctor trembling and averting his eye 3 did not answer be added: "At all events, of an infectious fever!" Giordana well understood what the Cardinal thus asked of him ; silen3e, the crime for ever hidden away for sake of the good renown of his mother, the Church. And there could be no loftier, no more tragical grandeur than' that of this old man of seventy, still so erect arid sovereign, who would neither suffer a slur to be mist upon his spiritual family, nor consent to his human'family being dragged into the inevitable mire of a sensational murder trial. No, no, there must be none of that, there must be silence, the eternal silence in which all becomes forgotten. At last the doctor bowed with his gentle air of discretion. "Evidently of an infectious fever, as your Eminence so well says," he replied. Two big tears then again appeared in Boccanera's eyes. Now that he had screened the Deity from ; attack in the person of the Church, his heart as a man again bled. He begged the doctor to make a supreme effort; to attempt the impossible ; but, pointing to the dying man with trembling hands, Giordano shook his head. For his own father, his own mother, he could have done nothing. Death was there. So why weary, why torture a dying man, whose sufferings he would only have increased ? And then, as the Cardinal, finding the end so near at hand, thought, of his sister Serafina, and lamented that she would not. be able to Mss her nephew for the last time if she lingered atthe Vatican, the doctor offered to fetch her in his carriage which was waiting below. Itwouldnottakehim more than twenty, minutes, said he> and he : would be back in time for the end, should he then be needed. Left to himself in the window recess the Cardinal remained there motionless for another moment. With eyes blurred by tears he gazer", towards Heaven. And his quivering arms were suddenly raised in a gesture of ardent entreaty. " O God, since the science of man was so limited and vain, since ; that doctor had gone off happy to escape the embarassment of his impotence, O God, why not a vmiracle which should proclaim the splendour of Thy Almighty Power!" A miracle, a miracle ! that was what the Cardinal askedfrom the depths of his believing soul, with the insistance, the imperious entreaty of a Prince of the Earth, who deemed that he had rendered considerable services to Heaven by dedicating his whole • life to the Church. And he asked for that. miracle in order that his race might be perpetuated, in order that its last male scion might not thus miserably perish, but be able to marry that fondly-loved cousin, who now stood there all woe and tears.. A miracle, a miracle, for the sake of those two dear children ! A miracle which would endow the family with fresh life ; a miracle which would eternise the glorious name of Boecanera by enabling an innumerable posterity of valiant ones and faithful ones to spring from that young couple. When the Cardinal returned to the centre of the room he seemed transfigured. Faith had dried his eyes, his soul had become strong and submissive, exempt from all human weakness. He had placed himself in the hands of God, and had. resolved that

he himself would administer extreme unction to Dario. "With a gesture he summoned Don Yigilio and led him into a little room which served as a chapel, and the key of which he always carried. A cupboard had been contrived behind the altar of painted wood, and the Cardinal" went to it, to take both stole and surplice. The coffer containing the Holy Oils was likewise there, a Tery ancient silver coffer bearing the Boecanera arms. And on Don Vigilio following the Cardinal back into the bedroom they in turn pronounced the Latin words^: ■- " Pax lime domui." " Et omnibns habitantibus in ea."t Death was coming so fast and threatening that all the usual preparations were perforce dispensed with. Neither the two lighted tapers, nor the little table covered with white cloth had been provided. And, in the same way, Don Vigilio, the assistant, having failed : to bring the Holy Water basin.and sprinkler; the Cardinal, as officiating priest,- could merely make the gesture of blessing the room and the dying 'man, whilst pronouncing the words of the ritual : •" Asperges me, Bornine, hyssopo, et mundabor ; lavabis me, et super nivem dcalhabor."* Benedetta on seeing the Cardinal appear carrying the Holy Oils, had with a long quiver fallen on her knees at the foot of the bed, whilst, somewhat farther away, Pierre and Victorine like wise knelt, overcome by the dolorous grandeur of the scene. And the dilated eyes of the Contessina, whose face was. pale as snow, never quitted her Dario, whom she no longer recognised, so earthy was his face, its skin tanned and wrinkled like th«at of aii old man. And it was' not for their marriage which he so much desired that their xmcle, the all-powerful Prince of the Church, was bringing the Sacrament, but for the supreme rupture, the end of all pride, Death which finishes off the haughtiest races, and sweeps them away, even as the wind sweeps the dust of the roads. It was needful that there should be no delay, so the Cardinal promptly repeated the Credo in an undertone, " Credo in unum Deum " "Amen" responded Don Vigilio,. who, after the prayers of the ritual, stammered the Litaniesin order that Heaven might take pity on the wretched man who was about to appear before God, if God by a prodigy did not spare him. Then, without taking time to wash his fingers, the Cardinal opened the case containing the Holy Oils, and limiting himself to one anointment, as is permissible in pressing cases, he deposited a single drop of the oil on Dario's parched mouth which was already withered by death. And in doing so he repeated the words of the formula, his heart all aglow with faith as he asked that the Divine mercy might efface each and every sin,that the young man had committed by either of his five senses, those five mortals by which everlasting temptation assails the soul. And the Cardinal's fervour was also instinct with the 'hope that if God^had smitten the poor sufferer for his offences, perhaps he would make His indulgence entire and even restore him to life as soon as He shordd have forgiven his sins. Life, O Lord, life in 'order that the ancient line of the Boccaneras might yet multiply, and continue, to serve Thee in battle and at the altai? -until the end of time! For a, moment the Cardinal remained with quivering hands, gazing at the mute face, the closed eyes of the dying man, and waiting for the miracle. But no sign appeared, not the faintest glimmer brightened* that haggard countenance, nor did a sigh of relief come froni the withered lips as Don Vigilio wiped them with a little cotton wool. And the last prayer was said, and whilst the frightful silence fell once more, the Cardinal, followed by his assistant, returned to the chapel. There they both knelt, the Cardinal plunging into ardent prayer upon the bare tiles. With his eyes raised to the brass crucifix Upon the altar he saw nothing, heard nothing, but gave himself wiiolly to his entreaties, supplicating God to take 'him in place of his nephew, if a sacrifice were necessary, and yet clinging to the hope that so long as Dario retained a breath of life and he himself thus remained on his knees addressing the Deity, he might succeed in pacifying the wrath of Heaven. He was both so humble and so great. Would not s accord surely be established between God and a Boecanera ? The old palace might have fallen to the ground, he himself would not even have felt the toppling of its beams. In the bedroom, however, nothing had yet stirred beneath the weight of tragic majesty which th« ceremony had left.there. It was now only that Dario raised his eyelids, and when on looking at his hands he saw them so aged and wasted, the depths of his eyes kindled with an expres- | sion of immense regretfulness that life should be departing. Doubtless it was at this moment. of lucidity amidst the kind of intoxication with which the poison overwhelmed him, that he for the first time realised his perilous condition. Ah! to die, amidst such pain, such physical degradation^.what a revolting horror for.>th"at ! frivolous arid egotistical man, that lover of S beauty, joy, and light, who knew not how Ito suffer ! In him ferocious fate chastised j racial degeneracy with too heavy a hand. He became horrified with himself, seized with childish despair and terror, which lent him strength enough to sit up and I gaze wildly about the room, in order to see

if everyone had not abandoned him. And when his eyes lighted on ' Benedetta still kneeling at the foot of the bed, a supreme impulse carried him towards her, he stretched forth both arms as passionately as his strength allowed and stammered her name : " 0 Benedetta, Benedetta I" She, motionless in the stupor of her anxiety, had not taken her eyes from his' face. The horrible disorder which was carrying off her lover seemed also to possess I and annihilate her more and more, even as he himself grew weaker and weaker. Her featiu-es were assuming an immaterial whiteness ; and through the void of her clear eyeballs one began to espy her soul. However, . when she perceived him thus resuscitating ancl calling her with arms outstretched, she in her turn arose, and standing beside the bed, made answer : "I am coming, my Dari.i, here I am." ' (To be continued.)