 | XI. A foregone conclusion |  |
11. XI.
The next morning Don Ippolito did not come,
but in the afternoon the postman brought a letter
for Mrs. Vervain, couched in the priest's English,
begging her indulgence until after the day of Corpus
Christi, up to which time, he said, he should be
too occupied for his visits of ordinary.
This letter reminded Mrs. Vervain that they had
not seen Mr. Ferris for three days, and she sent to
ask him to dinner. But he returned an excuse, and
he was not to be had to breakfast the next morning
for the asking. He was in open rebellion. Mrs.
Vervain had herself rowed to the consular landing,
and sent up her gondolier with another invitation to
dinner.
The painter appeared on the balcony in the linen
blouse which he wore at his work, and looked down
with a frown on the smiling face of Mrs. Vervain
for a moment without speaking. Then, “I 'll
come,” he said gloomily.
“Come with me, then,” returned Mrs. Vervain.
“I shall have to keep you waiting.”
“I don't mind that. You 'll be ready in five
minutes.”
Florida met the painter with such gentleness that
he felt his resentment to have been a stupid caprice,
tried to recall his fading sense of outrage, but he
found nothing in his mind but penitence. The sort
of distraught humility with which she behaved gave
her a novel fascination.
The dinner was good, as Mrs. Vervain's dinners
always were, and there was a compliment to the
painter in the presence of a favorite dish. When
he saw this, “Well, Mrs. Vervain, what is it?” he
asked. “You need n't pretend that you 're treating
me so well for nothing. You want something.”
“We want nothing but that you should not neglect
your friends. We have been utterly deserted
for three or four days. Don Ippolito has not been
here, either; but he has some excuse; he has to get
ready for Corpus Christi. He 's going to be in the
procession.”
“Is he to appear with his flying machine, or his
portable dining-table, or his automatic camera?”
“For shame!” cried Mrs. Vervain, beaming reproach.
Florida's face clouded, and Ferris made
haste to say that he did not know these inventions
were sacred, and that he had no wish to blaspheme
them.
“You know well enough what I meant,” answered
Mrs. Vervain. “And now, we want you to
get us a window to look out on the procession.”
“Oh, that 's what you want, is it? I thought
you merely wanted me not to neglect my friends.”
“Well, do you call that neglecting them?”
“Mrs. Vervain, Mrs. Vervain! What a mind you
have! Is there anything else you want? Me to go
with you, for example?”
“We don't insist. You can take us to the window
and leave us, if you like.”
“This clemency is indeed unexpected,” replied
Ferris. “I 'm really quite unworthy of it.”
He was going on with the badinage customary
between Mrs. Vervain and himself, when Florida
protested, —
“Mother, I think we abuse Mr. Ferris's kindness.”
“I know it, my dear — I know it,” cheerfully
assented Mrs. Vervain. “It 's perfectly shocking.
But what are we to do? We must abuse somebody's
kindness.”
“We had better stay at home. I 'd much rather
not go,” said the girl, tremulously.
“Why, Miss Vervain,” said Ferris gravely, “I'm
very sorry if you 've misunderstood my joking.
I 've never yet seen the procession to advantage,
and I 'd like very much to look on with you.”
He could not tell whether she was grateful for
his words, or annoyed. She resolutely said no more,
but her mother took up the strain and discoursed
long upon it, arranging all the particulars of their
meeting and going together. Ferris was a little
piqued, and began to wonder why Miss Vervain
did not stay at home if she did not want to go.
To be sure, she went everywhere with her mother;
that she should have said anything in
opposition to her mother's wish or purpose.
After dinner, Mrs. Vervain frankly withdrew
for her nap, and Florida seemed to make a little
haste to take some sewing in her hand, and sat
down with the air of a woman willing to detain her
visitor. Ferris was not such a stoic as not to be
dimly flattered by this, but he was too much of a
man to be fully aware how great an advance it
might seem.
“I suppose we shall see most of the priests of
Venice, and what they are like, in the procession
to-morrow,” she said. “Do you remember speaking
to me about priests, the other day, Mr. Ferris?”
“Yes, I remember it very well. I think I overdid
it; and I could n't perceive afterwards that I
had shown any motive but a desire to make trouble
for Don Ippolito.”
“I never thought that,” answered Florida, seriously.
“What you said was true, was n't it?”
“Yes, it was and it was n't, and I don't know
that it differed from anything else in the world, in
that respect. It is true that there is a great distrust
of the priests amongst the Italians. The young
men hate them — or think they do — or say they
do. Most educated men in middle life are materialists,
and of course unfriendly to the priests.
There are even women who are skeptical about religion.
those who talk loudest against the priests are really
subject to them. You must consider how very intimately
they are bound up with every family in the
most solemn relations of life.”
“Do you think the priests are generally bad
men?” asked the young girl shyly.
“I don't, indeed. I don't see how things could
hang together if it were so. There must be a great
basis of sincerity and goodness in them, when all is
said and done. It seems to me that at the worst
they 're merely professional people — poor fellows
who have gone into the church for a living. You
know it is n't often now that the sons of noble families
take orders; the priests are mostly of humble
origin; not that they 're necessarily the worse for
that; the patricians used to be just as bad in another
way.”
“I wonder,” said Florida, with her head on one
side, considering her seam, “why there is always
something so dreadful to us in the idea of a priest.”
“They do seem a kind of alien creature to us
Protestants. I can't make out whether they seem
so to Catholics, or not. But we have a repugnance
to all doomed people, have n't we? And a priest
is a man under sentence of death to the natural ties
between himself and the human race. He is dead
to us. That makes him dreadful. The spectre of
our dearest friend, father or mother, would be terrible.
And yet,” added Ferris, musingly, “a nun
is n't terrible.”
“No,” answered the girl, “that's because a woman's
life even in the world seems to be a constant
giving up. No, a nun is n't unnatural, but a priest
is.”
She was silent for a time, in which she sewed
swiftly; then she suddenly dropped her work into
her lap, and pressing it down with both hands, she
asked, “Do you believe that priests themselves
are ever skeptical about religion?”
“I suppose it must happen now and then. In
the best days of the church it was a fashion to
doubt, you know. I 've often wanted to ask our
friend Don Ippolito something about these matters,
but I did n't see how it could be managed.” Ferris
did not note the change that passed over Florida's
face, and he continued. “Our acquaintance
has n't become so intimate as I hoped it might.
But you only get to a certain point with Italians.
They like to meet you on the street; maybe they
have n't any indoors.”
“Yes, it must sometimes happen, as you say,”
replied Florida, with a quick sigh, reverting to the
beginning of Ferris's answer. “But is it any
worse for a false priest than for a hypocritical minister?”
“It 's bad enough for either, but it 's worse for
the priest. You see, Miss Vervain, a minister
does n't set up for so much. He does n't pretend
to forgive us our sins, and he does n't ask us to confess
them; he does n't offer us the veritable body
allegiance to the visible and tangible vicegerent of
Christ upon earth. A hypocritical parson may be
absurd; but a skeptical priest is tragical.”
“Yes, oh yes, I see,” murmured the girl, with a
grieving face. “Are they always to blame for it?
They must be induced, sometimes, to enter the
church before they 've seriously thought about it,
and then don't know how to escape from the path
that has been marked out for them from their childhood.
Should you think such a priest as that was
to blame for being a skeptic?” she asked very
earnestly.
“No,” said Ferris, with a smile at her seriousness,
“I should think such a skeptic as that was to
blame for being a priest.”
“Should n't you be very sorry for him?” pursued
Florida still more solemnly.
“I should, indeed, if I liked him. If I did n't,
I 'm afraid I should n't,” said Ferris; but he saw
that his levity jarred upon her. “Come, Miss Vervain,
you 're not going to look at those fat monks
and sleek priests in the procession to-morrow as so
many incorporate tragedies, are you? You 'll spoil
my pleasure if you do. I dare say they 'll be all of
them devout believers, accepting everything, down
to the animalcula in the holy water.”
“If you were that kind of a priest,” persisted
the girl, without heeding his jests, “what should
you do?”
“Upon my word, I don't know. I can't imagine
it. Why,” he continued, “think what a helpless
creature a priest is in everything but his priesthood
— more helpless than a woman, even. The only
thing he could do would be to leave the church, and
how could he do that? He 's in the world, but he
is n't of it, and I don't see what he could do with it,
or it with him. If an Italian priest were to leave
the church, even the liberals, who distrust him now,
would despise him still more. Do you know that
they have a pleasant fashion of calling the Protestant
converts apostates? The first thing for such
a priest would be exile. But I 'm not supposably
the kind of priest you mean, and I don't think just
such a priest supposable. I dare say if a priest
found himself drifting into doubt, he 'd try to avoid
the disagreeable subject, and, if he could n't, he 'd
philosophize it some way, and would n't let his
skepticism worry him.”
“Then you mean that they have n't consciences
like us?”
“They have consciences, but not like us. The
Italians are kinder people than we are, but they 're
not so just, and I should say that they don't think
truth the chief good of life. They believe there are
pleasanter and better things. Perhaps they 're
right.”
“No, no; you don't believe that, you know you
don't,” said Florida, anxiously. “And you have n't
answered my question.”
“Oh yes, I have. I 've told you it was n't a supposable
case.”
“But suppose it was.”
“Well, if I must,” answered Ferris with a laugh.
“With my unfortunate bringing up, I could n't say
less than that such a man ought to get out of his
priesthood at any hazard. He should cease to be a
priest, if it cost him kindred, friends, good fame,
country, everything. I don't see how there can be
any living in such a lie, though I know there is. In
all reason, it ought to eat the soul out of a man,
and leave him helpless to do or be any sort of good.
But there seems to be something, I don't know
what it is, that is above all reason of ours, something
that saves each of us for good in spite of the
bad that 's in us. It 's very good practice, for a
man who wants to be modest, to come and live in a
Latin country. He learns to suspect his own topping
virtues, and to be lenient to the novel combinations
of right and wrong that he sees. But as
for our insupposable priest — yes, I should say decidedly
he ought to get out of it by all means.”
Florida fell back in her chair with an aspect of
such relief as comes to one from confirmation on an
important point. She passed her hand over the
sewing in her lap, but did not speak.
Ferris went on, with a doubting look at her, for
he had been shy of introducing Don Ippolito's
name since the day on the Brenta, and he did not
know what effect a recurrence to him in this talk
clerical friend were not a little shaky in his faith.
I don't think nature meant him for a priest. He
always strikes me as an extremely secular-minded
person. I doubt if he 's ever put the question
whether he is what he professes to be, squarely to
himself — he 's such a mere dreamer.”
Florida changed her posture slightly, and looked
down at her sewing. She asked, “But should n't
you abhor him if he were a skeptical priest?”
Ferris shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, I don't
find it such an easy matter to abhor people. It
would be interesting,” he continued musingly, “to
have such a dreamer waked up, once, and suddenly
confronted with what he recognized as perfect truthfulness,
and could n't help contrasting himself with.
But it would be a little cruel.”
“Would you rather have him left as he was?”
asked Florida, lifting her eyes to his.
“As a moralist, no; as a humanitarian, yes, Miss
Vervain. He 'd be much happier as he was.”
“What time ought we to be ready for you to-morrow?”
demanded the girl in a tone of decision.
“We ought to be in the Piazza by nine o'clock,”
said Ferris, carelessly accepting the change of subject;
and he told her of his plan for seeing the procession
from a window of the Old Procuratie.
When he rose to go, he said lightly, “Perhaps,
after all, we may see the type of tragical priest
his nose will be red.”
“Perhaps,” answered Florida, with unheeding
gravity.
| XI. A foregone conclusion | |