The Gadfly. E. L. Voynich
seem like an attempt to retain the old close relationship. Arthur's visits now caused him more distress than pleasure, so trying was the constant effort to appear at ease and to behave as if nothing were altered. Arthur, for his part, noticed, hardly understanding it, the subtle change in the Padre's manner; and, vaguely feeling that it had some connection with the vexed question of the “new ideas,” avoided all mention of the subject with which his thoughts were constantly filled. Yet he had never loved Montanelli so deeply as now. The dim, persistent sense of dissatisfaction, of spiritual emptiness, which he had tried so hard to stifle under a load of theology and ritual, had vanished into nothing at the touch of Young Italy. All the unhealthy fancies born of loneliness and sick-room watching had passed away, and the doubts against which he used to pray had gone without the need of exorcism. With the awakening of a new enthusiasm, a clearer, fresher religious ideal (for it was more in this light than in that of a political development that the students' movement had appeared to him), had come a sense of rest and completeness, of peace on earth and good will towards men; and in this mood of solemn and tender exaltation all the world seemed to him full of light. He found a new element of something lovable in the persons whom he had most disliked; and Montanelli, who for five years had been his ideal hero, was now in his eyes surrounded with an additional halo, as a potential prophet of the new faith. He listened with passionate eagerness to the Padre's sermons, trying to find in them some trace of inner kinship with the republican ideal; and pored over the Gospels, rejoicing in the democratic tendencies of Christianity at its origin.
One day in January he called at the seminary to return a book which he had borrowed. Hearing that the Father Director was out, he went up to Montanelli's private study, placed the volume on its shelf, and was about to leave the room when the title of a book lying on the table caught his eyes. It was Dante's “De Monarchia.” He began to read it and soon became so absorbed that when the door opened and shut he did not hear. He was aroused from his preoccupation by Montanelli's voice behind him.
“I did not expect you to-day,” said the Padre, glancing at the title of the book. “I was just going to send and ask if you could come to me this evening.”
“Is it anything important? I have an engagement for this evening; but I will miss it if———”
“No; to-morrow will do. I want to see you because I am going away on Tuesday. I have been sent for to Rome.”
“To Rome? For long?”
“The letter says, 'till after Easter.' It is from the Vatican. I would have let you know at once, but have been very busy settling up things about the seminary and making arrangements for the new Director.”
“But, Padre, surely you are not giving up the seminary?”
“It will have to be so; but I shall probably come back to Pisa, for some time at least.”
“But why are you giving it up?”
“Well, it is not yet officially announced; but I am offered a bishopric.”
“Padre! Where?”
“That is the point about which I have to go to Rome. It is not yet decided whether I am to take a see in the Apennines, or to remain here as Suffragan.”
“And is the new Director chosen yet?”
“Father Cardi has been nominated and arrives here to-morrow.”
“Is not that rather sudden?”
“Yes; but——The decisions of the Vatican are sometimes not communicated till the last moment.”
“Do you know the new Director?”
“Not personally; but he is very highly spoken of. Monsignor Belloni, who writes, says that he is a man of great erudition.”
“The seminary will miss you terribly.”
“I don't know about the seminary, but I am sure you will miss me, carino; perhaps almost as much as I shall miss you.”
“I shall indeed; but I am very glad, for all that.”
“Are you? I don't know that I am.” He sat down at the table with a weary look on his face; not the look of a man who is expecting high promotion.
“Are you busy this afternoon, Arthur?” he said after a moment. “If not, I wish you would stay with me for a while, as you can't come to-night. I am a little out of sorts, I think; and I want to see as much of you as possible before leaving.”
“Yes, I can stay a bit. I am due at six.”
“One of your meetings?”
Arthur nodded; and Montanelli changed the subject hastily.
“I want to speak to you about yourself,” he said. “You will need another confessor in my absence.”
“When you come back I may go on confessing to you, may I not?”
“My dear boy, how can you ask? Of course I am speaking only of the three or four months that I shall be away. Will you go to one of the Fathers of Santa Caterina?”
“Very well.”
They talked of other matters for a little while; then Arthur rose.
“I must go, Padre; the students will be waiting for me.”
The haggard look came back to Montanelli's face.
“Already? You had almost charmed away my black mood. Well, good-bye.”
“Good-bye. I will be sure to come to-morrow.”
“Try to come early, so that I may have time to see you alone. Father Cardi will be here. Arthur, my dear boy, be careful while I am gone; don't be led into doing anything rash, at least before I come back. You cannot think how anxious I feel about leaving you.”
“There is no need, Padre; everything is quite quiet. It will be a long time yet.”
“Good-bye,” Montanelli said abruptly, and sat down to his writing.
The first person upon whom Arthur's eyes fell, as he entered the room where the students' little gatherings were held, was his old playmate, Dr. Warren's daughter. She was sitting in a corner by the window, listening with an absorbed and earnest face to what one of the “initiators,” a tall young Lombard in a threadbare coat, was saying to her. During the last few months she had changed and developed greatly, and now looked a grown-up young woman, though the dense black plaits still hung down her back in school-girl fashion. She was dressed all in black, and had thrown a black scarf over her head, as the room was cold and draughty. At her breast was a spray of cypress, the emblem of Young Italy. The initiator was passionately describing to her the misery of the Calabrian peasantry; and she sat listening silently, her chin resting on one hand and her eyes on the ground. To Arthur she seemed a melancholy vision of Liberty mourning for the lost Republic. (Julia would have seen in her only an overgrown hoyden, with a sallow complexion, an irregular nose, and an old stuff frock that was too short for her.)
“You here, Jim!” he said, coming up to her when the initiator had been called to the other end of the room. “Jim” was a childish corruption of her curious baptismal name: Jennifer. Her Italian schoolmates called her “Gemma.”
She raised her head with a start.
“Arthur! Oh, I didn't know you—belonged here!”
“And I had no idea about you. Jim, since when have you——?”
“You don't understand!” she interposed quickly. “I am not a member. It is only that I have done one or two little things. You see, I met Bini—you know Carlo Bini?”
“Yes, of course.” Bini was the organizer of the Leghorn branch; and all Young Italy knew him.
“Well, he began talking to me about these things; and I asked him to let me go to a students' meeting. The other day he wrote to me to Florence———Didn't you know