ROME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5691, 9 October 1896, Page 1

ROME.

BY EMTLE ZOLA. I£TKANS:&ATEI> Bt ERNEST ALFRED I (All Bights Reserved.) i Chapter XIII. — (Continued.) And then Pierre and Victorine, still on i their knees, heheld a sublime deed of such i extraordinary grandeur that they re- j mained rooted to the floor, spell-bound as ■ in the presence of some supra- terrestriat spectacle in which human beings may nol intervene. Benedetta herself spoke and acted like one freed from all social and conventional ties, already beyond life, only • •seeing and addressing beings and things from a great distance, from the depths of the unknown in which she was about to disappear. i "Ah ! my Dario, so an attempt has been made to part us ! It was in order ; that I might never belong to you — that we might never be happy, that your death was resolved upon, and it was known that with your life my own must cease ! And ft is that man who is killing you ! Yes, he is your murderer, even if the actual blow has been dealt by another. He is the first cause — he who stole me from you when I was about to become yours, he who ravaged our lives, and who breathed around us the hateful poison which is killing us. Ah ! how I hate him, how I hate ! him; how I should like to crush him with ; my hate before I die with you !" j She did not raise hervoice,but spoke those "terrible words in a deep murmur, simply and ; passionately. Frada was not even named, j and she scarcely turned towards Pierre — ; who knelt paralysed behind her — to add '. "with a commanding air : ". You, who will see iis father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son! That kind-hearted hero Hoved me well — I love him even now, and the words you will carry to him from me will rend his heart. But I desire that he should know — he must know, for the sake of truth and justice." Distracted by terror, sobbing amidst a last convulsion, Dario again stretched forth his arms, feeling that she was no longer looking at him, that her clear eyes •were no longer fixed upon his own:" Benedetta, Benedetta !" "I am coming, I am coming, my Dario — I am here !" she responded, drawing yet nearer to the bedside, and almost touching him. "Ah!" she went on, "that vow ■which I made to the Madonna to belong to none, not even you, until God should allow it by the blessing of one of his priests! Ah! I set a noble, a divine pride in remaining immaculate for him who should be the one master of my soul and body. And that chastity which I was so proud of, I defended it against the other as one defends oneself against a wolf, and I defended it against you with .tears for fear of sacrilege. And if you •only knew what terrible struggles I was forced to -wage with myself, for I loved you :and longed to be yours, like a woman who accepts the whole of love, the love that makes a'wife and mother ! Ah ! my vow to the Madonna — with what difficulty did I keep it when the old blood of our race arose in me like a tempest ; and now what a disaster!" She drew yet nearer, and her low voice became more ardent : " You remember that evening when you came back with a knife thrust in your shoulder. I thought you dead, and cried aloud with rage at the idea of losing you like that. I insulted the Madonna and regretted that I had not damned myself with you that we might die together, so tightly clasped that we must needs be buried together also. And to think that snch a terrible warning was of no avail ! I was blind and foolish ; and now you are again stricken, again being taken from my love. * * * Ah! my wretched pride, my idiotic dream !" TjLat which now rang out in her stifled voice was the anger of the practical woman that she had ever been, all superstition notwithstanding. Could the Madonna, who was so maternal, desire the woe of lovers ? No, assuredly not. Nor did the angels make the mere absence of a priest a cause for weeping over the transports cf true and mutual love. Was not such love holy in itself, and did not the angels rather smile upon it and burst into gladsome song ! And ah ! how one cheated oneself by not loving to heart's content under the • sun, when the blood of life coursed, through one's veins! " Benedetta ! Benedetta !" repeated the dying man, full of child-like terror at thus going off all alone into the depths of the black and everlasting night. "Here I am, my Dario, I am coming !" Then, as she fancied that the servant, albeit motionless, had stirred, as if to rise and interfere, she added: '• Leave me, leave me, Yictorine, nothing in the world can henceforth prevent it. A moment ago, when I was on my knees, something roused me and urged me on. I know whither I am going. And besides, did I not swear on the night of the knife-thrust ? Did I not promise to belong to him alone, even in the earth if it were necessary ? I must embrace him, and he will carry me away ! We shall be dead, and we shall be wedded in spite of all, and for ever and for ever !"

She stepped back to the dying man, and touched him : " Here I am, my Dario, here I am?"

Then came the apogee. Amidst growing

exaltation, buoyed up by a blaze of love, careless 'of glances, candid like a lily, she I divested herself of her garments and stood j forth so white, that neither marble statue, nor dove, nor snow itself was ever whiter. "Here I am, my Dario, here lam I" # Recoiling almost to the ground as at I sight of an apparition, the glorious flash of j a holy vision, Pierre and Victorine gazed at her with dazzled eyes. The servant had not stirred to prevent this extraordinary action, seized as she was with that shrinkj ing reverential terror which comes upon : one in presence of the wild, mad deeds of I faith and passion. And the priest whose limbs were paralysed felt that something so sublime was passing that he could only quiver in distraction. And no thought of impurity came to him on beholding that lily, snowy whiteness. All candour and all nobility as she was, that virgin shocked him no more than some sculptured masterpiece of genius. i "Here I am, my Dario, here I am." : She had lain herself down beside the spouse whom she had chosen, she had clasped the dying man whose arms only had enough strength left to fold themselves around her. Death was stealing him from her, but she would go with him ; and again she mumured : "My Dario, here I am." And at that moment, against the wall at the head of the bed, Pierre perceived the escutcheon of the Boccaneras, embroidered in gold and coloured silks on a groundwork of violet velvet. There was the winged dragon belching flames, there was the fierce and glowing motto " Bocca nera, Alma rossa," black mouth, red soul, the mouth darkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. And behold ! all that old race of passion and violence with its tragic legends had reappeared, its blood bubbling up afresh to urge that last and adorable daughter of the line -to those terrifying and prodigious nuptials in death. And to Pierre that escutcheon recalled another memory, that of the portrait of Cassia Boccanera, the amoroso, and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother Ercole and the corpse of her lover Flavio. Was there not here even with Benedetta the same despairing clasp seeking to vanquish death, the same savagery in hurling oneself into the abyss with the corpse of the one's only- love ? Benedetta and Cassia were as sisters, Cassia, who lived anew in the old painting in the salon overhead, Benedetta, who was here, dying of her lover's death, as though she were but the other spirit. Both had the same delicate childish features, the same mouth of passion, the same large dreamy eyes set in the same round, practical and stubborn head. . " My Dario, here I am !" For a second, which seemed an eternity, they clasped one another, she neither repelled nor terrified by the disorder which made him so unrecognisable, but displaying I a cslirious passion, a holy frenzy as if to pass beyond life, to penetrate with him into the black Unknown. And beneath the shock of the felicity at last offered to him he expired, with his arms yet convulsively wound around her as though indeed to carry her off. Then, whether from grief or from bliss amidst that embrace of death, there came such a rush of blood to her heart that the organ burst: she died on her lover's neck, both tightly and for ever clasped in one another's arms. There was a faint sigh, Victorine under stood and drew near, while Pierre, also erect, remained quivering with the tearful admiration' of one who has beheld the sublime. "Look, look!" whispered the servant, " she no longer moves, she no longer breathes. Ah! my poor child, my poor child, she is dead !" Then the priest murmured : " Oh ! God, how beautiful they are." It was true, never had loftier and more resplendent beauty appeared on the faces of the dead. Dario's countenance, so lately aged and earthen, had assumed the pallor a"nd nobility of marble, its features lengthened and simplified as by a transport of ineffable joy. Benedetta remained very grave, her lips curved by ardent determination, whilst her whole face was expressive of dolorous, yet infinite beatitude in a setting of infinite whiteness. Their hair mingled, and their eyes which had remained open, continued gazingas into one another's souls with eternal, caressing sweetness. They were for ever linked, soaring into immortality amidst the enchantment of their union, vanquishers of death, radiant with the rapturous beauty of love, the conqueror, the immortal. But Victorine's sobs at last burst forth, mingled with such lamentations that great confusion followed. Pierre, now quite beside himself, in some measure failed to understand how it was that the room suddenly became invaded by : terrified people. The Cardinal and Don ! Vigilio, however, must have hastened in from the chapel ; and at the same moment, no doubt, Doctor Giordano must have returned v/ith Donna Serafina, for both were now there, she stupefied by the blows which had thus fallen on the house in her absence, whilst he, the doctor, displayed the perturbation and astonishment which comes upon the oldest practitioners when facts seem to give the lie to their experience. However, he sought an explanation of Benedetta's death, and hesitatingly ascribed to anjeurism, or possibly embolism.

Thereupon Yictorine, like a servant ■whose grief makes her the the equal of her employer, boldly interrupted him : "Ah ! sir/ said she, " they loved each other so

fondly ; did not that suffice for them to die together ?"

Meantime Donna Serafina, after kissing the poor children on the brow, desired to close their eyes,but she could not succeed in doing so, for the lida lifted directly she removed her finger and once mor^lie eyes began to smile at one another, toSxchange in all fixity their loving and eternal glance. And then as she spoke of parting the bodies, j Victorine again protested : " oh ! madame, oh !' madame," she said, " you would have to break their arms. Cannot you see that their fingers are almost dug- into one another's shoulders ? No, they can never be parted ! " Thereupon Cardinal Boccanera intervened. God had not granted the miracle ; and he, His minister, was livid,. tearless, and full of icy despair. But he waved his arm with a sovereign gesture of absolution and sanctification, as if, Prince of the Church that he was, disposing of the will of Heaven, he consented that the lovers should appear in that embrace before the supreme tribunal. In presence of such wondrous love, indeed, profoundly stirred by the sufferings of their lives and the beauty of their death, he showed a broad and lofty contempt for mundane proprieties. "Leave them, leave me, my sister, " said he, "do not disturb their slumber. Let their eyes remain open since they desire to gaze on one another till the end of time without ever wearying. And let them sleep in one another's arms since they did not sin, and only locked themselves in that embrace in order that they might be laid together in the ground." ■

And then, againbecominga Eoman Prince whose proud blood was y.et hot with old time deeds of battle and passion, he added :

" Two Bocceneras may well sleep like that ; all Eome will admire and weep for them. JLeave them, leave them together, my sister. God knows them and awaits them !"

All knelt, and the Cardinal himself repeated the prayers for the dead. Night was coming ; increasing gloom stole into the chamber, where two burning tapers soon shone out like stars.

And then, without knowing how, Pierre again found himself in the little deserted garden on the bank of the liber. Suffocating with fatigue and grief, he must have come thither for fresh air. Darkness shrouded the charming nook where the streamlet of water falling into the ancient sarcophagus from the tragic mask ever sang its shrill and flute-like song ; and the laurel bush which shaded it, and the bitter box-plants and the orange-trees skirting the paths now formed, but vague masses under the blue-black sky. Ah ! how gay and sweet had that melancholy garden been in the morning, and what a desolate echo it retained of Benedetta's winsome laughter, all that fine delight in coming, happiness which now lay prone upstairs, steeped in the nothingness of things and beings ! So dolorous was the pang which came to Pierre's heart that ,he burst into sobs, seated on the same broken column where she had sat, and encompassed by the same .atmosphere that she had breathed, in which still lingered the perfume of her presence. But all at once a distant clock struck six, and the young priest started on remembering that he was to be received by the Pope that very evening at nine. Yet three more hours ! He had not thought of that interview during the terrifying catastrophe, and it seemed to him now as if months and months had gone by, as if the appointment were some very old one which one is only able to keep after years of absence, when one has grown aged and had one's heart and brain mollified by innumerable experiences. However, he made an effort, and rose to his feet. In three hours' time he would go to tho Vatican and at last he would see # the Pope. (To be continued.)