VI
Protos welcomed him with a finger on his lips.
“As long as the servants are there, nothing must be said to arouse suspicion. They all speak French. Not a word—not a sign to betray us! Don’t go plastering him with ‘Cardinals,’ whatever you do. Your host is Ciro Bardolotti, the chaplain. As for me, I’m not ‘Father Cave’ but plain Cave. Understand?” And abruptly changing his tone and smacking him on the shoulder, he explained in a loud voice: “Here he is, by Jove! It’s Amédée! Well, old man, you’ve been a fine time over your shave! In another moment or two, per Baccho, we should have sat down without you. The turkey that turneth on the spit beginneth to glow like the setting sun!” Then, in a whisper: “Ah, my dear sir, how painful it is to play a part! My heart is wrung....” Then in a loud voice: “What do I see? A cut? Thou bleedest, my lad. Run, Dorino, to the barn and fetch a cobweb—a sovereign remedy for wounds....”
Thus clowning it, he pushed Fleurissoire across the lobby, towards a terrace garden, where a table lay spread under a trellis of vine.
“My dear Bardolotti, allow me to introduce my cousin, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire. He’s a devil of a fellow, as I told you.”
“I bid you welcome, sir guest,” said Bardolotti with a flourish, but without rising from the arm-chair in which he was sitting; then, pointing to his bare feet, which were plunged in a tub of clear water:
“These pedal ablutions improve my appetite and draw the blood from my head.”
He was a funny little roundabout man, whose smooth face gave no indication of age or sex. He was dressed in alpaca; there was nothing about him to denote a high dignitary; one would have had to be exceedingly perspicacious, or else in the secret—like Fleurissoire—to have discovered a discreet touch of cardinalesque unction beneath the joviality of his manners. He was leaning sideways on the table, fanning himself languidly with a kind of cocked hat made out of a sheet of newspaper.
“Er ... er ... highly flattered ... er ... er ... what a charming garden!” stuttered Fleurissoire, finding speech and silence equally embarrassing.
“Soaked enough!” cried the Cardinal. “Hullo, someone! Take away this tub! Assunta!”
A young maidservant came running up, plump and debonair; she took up the tub and emptied it over a flower-bed; her breasts were bursting out of her stays and all a-quiver beneath the muslin of her bodice; she stayed laughing and lingering beside Protos, and the gleam of her bare arms made Fleurissoire uncomfortable. Dorino put the fiaschi down on the table, which had no cloth on it; and the sun, streaming joyously through the wreaths of vine, set its frolic touch of light and shade on the dishes.
“We don’t stand upon ceremony here,” said Bardolotti, and he put on the paper hat. “You take my meaning, my dear sir?”
In a commanding tone, emphasising the syllables and beating with his fist on the table, Father Cave repeated in his turn:
“We don’t stand upon ceremony here!”
Fleurissoire gave a knowing wink. Did he take their meaning? Yes, indeed, and there was no need for reiteration; but he racked his brains in vain for a pregnant sentence that would say nothing and convey everything.
“Speak! Speak!” prompted Protos. “Make a pun or two. They understand French perfectly.”
“Come, come, sit down!” said Ciro. “My dear Cave, stick your knife into this pastecca and slice it up into Turkish crescents. Are you one of those persons, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire, who prefer the pretentious melons of the north—prescots—cantaloups—whatnots—to our streaming Italian watermelons?”
“Nothing, I’m sure, could come up to this—but please allow me to refrain; I’m feeling a bit squeamish,” said Amédée, who was still heaving with repugnance at the recollection of the druggist.
“Well, then, some figs at any rate! Dorino has just picked them.”
“No, not any either. Excuse me.”
“That’s bad! That’s bad! Make a pun or two,” whispered Protos in his ear. Then aloud: “We must dose that squeamish stomach of yours with a little wine and get it ready for the turkey. Assunta, fill our worthy guest’s glass!”
Amédée was obliged to pledge his hosts and drink more than he was accustomed to; this, added to the heat and fatigue of the day, soon fuddled him. He joked with less effort. Protos made him sing; his voice was shrill but it enraptured his audience. Assunta wanted to kiss him. And yet from the depths of his poor battered faith there rose a sickening and undefinable distress; he laughed so as not to cry. He admired Cave’s easy naturalness.... Who but Fleurissoire and the Cardinal could ever have imagined that he was playing a part? Bardolotti’s dissimulation and self-possession were for that matter, no whit inferior to the abbé’s, and he laughed and applauded and lewdly jostled Dorino, when Cave, upsetting Assunta in his arms, nuzzled her with his face; and then, as Fleurissoire, with a bursting heart, bent towards Cave and murmured: “How you must be suffering!” Cave seized his hand behind Assunta’s back and pressed it silently, his head turned aside and his eyes cast up to Heaven.
Then, rising abruptly, Cave clapped his hands:
“Now then, you must leave us! No, you can clear away later. Be off with you! Via! Via!”
He went to make certain that Dorino and Assunta were not eavesdropping, and came back with a face turned suddenly long and grave, while the Cardinal, passing his hand over his countenance, effaced in an instant all its profane and factitious gaiety.
“You see, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire, you see, my son, to what we are reduced! Oh, this acting! this shameful acting!”
“It makes me turn in loathing,” added Protos, “from even the most innocent joys—from the purest gaiety.”
“God will count it to your credit, my poor dear Father Cave,” went on the Cardinal, turning towards Protos; “God will reward you for helping me to drain this cup,” and, by way of symbol, he tossed off the wine which remained in his half-emptied glass, while the most agonised disgust was painted on his features.
“What!” cried Fleurissoire, bending forward, “is it possible that even in this retreat and under this borrowed habit, your Eminence....”
“My son, call me plain Monsieur.”
“Forgive me! I thought in private....”
“Even when I am alone I tremble.”
“Can you not choose your servants?”
“They are chosen for me; and those two you have seen....”
“Ah! if I were to tell him,” said Protos, “that they have gone straight off to report our most trifling words to....”
“Is it possible that in the palace....”
“Hush! No big words! You’ll get us hanged. Don’t forget that it’s to the chaplain Ciro Bardolotti that you’re speaking.”
“I am at their mercy,” wailed Ciro.
And Protos, who was sitting with his arms crossed on the table, leant across it towards Ciro.
“And if I were to tell him,” said he, “that you are never left alone, night or day, for a single hour!”
“Yes, whatever disguise I put on,” continued the bogus Cardinal, “I can never be sure that some of the secret police aren’t at my heels.”
“What! Do these people here know who you are?”
“You misunderstand him,” said Protos. “You are one of the few persons—and I say it before God—who can pride themselves on establishing any resemblance between Cardinal San-Felice and the modest Bardolotti. But try to understand this—their enemies are not the same! While the Cardinal in his palace has to defend himself against the freemasons, chaplain Bardolotti is threatened by the....”
“Jesuits!” interrupted the chaplain wildly.
“That has not yet been explained to him,” said Protos.
“Ah! If we’ve got the Jesuits against us too!” sobbed Fleurissoire. “But who would have thought it? Are you sure?”
“Reflect a little; you will see it is quite natural. You must understand that the Holy See’s recent policy, all made up as it is of conciliation and compromise, is just the thing to please them and that the last encyclicals are exactly to their taste. Perhaps they are not aware that the Pope who promulgated them is not the real one; but they would be heart-broken if he were changed.”
“If I understand you rightly,” Fleurissoire took him up, “the Jesuits are allied with the freemasons in this affair.”
“How do you make that out?”
“But Monsieur Bardolotti has just revealed....”
“Don’t make him say absurdities.”
“I’m sorry. I know so little about politics.”
“That is why you must believe just what you are told and no more: two great parties are facing each other—the Lodge and the Company of Jesus; and as we who are in the secret cannot get support from either of them without discovering ourselves, we have them both against us.”
“What do you think of that? Eh?” asked the Cardinal.
Fleurissoire had given up thinking; he was utterly bewildered.
“Yes, they are all against us,” went on Protos; “such is always the way when one has truth on one’s side.”
“Ah! how happy I was when I knew nothing!” wailed Fleurissoire. “Alas! never, never more shall I be able to know nothing!” ...
“He has not yet told you all,” continued Protos, touching him gently on the shoulder. “Prepare for something more terrible still....” Then, leaning forward, he whispered: “In spite of every precaution, the secret has leaked out; a certain number of sharpers are using it to make a house-to-house collection in the departments which have a reputation for piety; they act in the name of the Crusade and rake in money which in reality ought to come to us.”
“How frightful!”
“Added to which,” said Bardolotti, “they throw discredit and suspicion on us and oblige us more than ever to make use of the greatest cunning and caution.”
“Look here! Read this!” said Protos, holding out a copy of the Croix to Fleurissoire; “it’s the day before yesterday’s paper. This short paragraph tells its own story!”
“‘We cannot too earnestly warn devout souls against certain individuals who are going about the country disguised as ecclesiastics, and in particular against a certain pseudo-canon who, under pretext of being entrusted with a secret mission, shamefully abuses the credulity of the public and actually extorts money from them for a so-called CRUSADE FOR THE DELIVERANCE OF THE POPE. The name alone sufficiently proclaims the absurdity of the business.’”
Fleurissoire felt the ground give way beneath his feet.
“Whom can one trust then? Shall I tell you in my turn, gentlemen, that it is perhaps due to this very swindler—this false canon, I mean—that I am with you to-day?”
Father Cave looked gravely at the Cardinal, then, striking his fist on the table:
“I suspected as much!” he cried.
“Everything contributed to make me fear,” continued Fleurissoire, “that the person who informed me of the affair was herself a victim of this rogue’s blandishments.”
“It would not surprise me,” said Protos.
“You see now,” went on Bardolotti, “how difficult our position is, between these sharpers on the one hand, who have stepped into our shoes, and the police on the other, who, when they mean to catch them, may very well lay hold upon us instead.”
“What is one to do?” wailed Fleurissoire. “I see danger everywhere.”
“Are you surprised now at our excessive prudence?” asked Bardolotti.
“And can you fail to understand that at moments we do not hesitate to clothe ourselves in the livery of sin and feign indulgence towards the most culpable of pleasures?”
“Alas!” stammered Fleurissoire, “you at any rate do no more than feign, and you only simulate sin to hide your virtues. But I....” And as the fumes of wine and the vapours of melancholy, drunken retchings and hiccuping sobs all beset him at once, he began—bent double in Protos’s direction—by bringing up his lunch and then went on to tell a muddled story of his evening with Carola and the lamented loss of his virginity. Bardolotti and Father Cave had a hard job to prevent themselves from bursting into laughter.
“But have you been to confession, my son?” asked the Cardinal, full of solicitude.
“I went next morning.”
“Did the priest give you absolution?”
“Far too readily. That’s why I’m so uneasy. But how could I confide to him that I was no ordinary pilgrim ... reveal what it was that brought me here?... No, no! It’s all over now. It was a chosen mission that demanded the service of a blameless life. I was the very man. And now it’s all over! I have fallen!” Again he was shaken by sobs and as he struck little blows on his breast, he repeated: “I’m no longer worthy! I’m no longer worthy!...” Then he went on in a kind of chant: “Ah! you who hear me, you who see my anguish, judge me, condemn me, punish me.... Tell me what extraordinary penance will wash away my extraordinary guilt. What chastisement?”
Protos and Bardolotti looked at one another. The latter rose at last and began to pat Amédée on the shoulder:
“Come, come, my son! You mustn’t let yourself go like that. Well, yes! you have sinned, but, hang it all, you are still needed. (You’ve dirtied yourself; here, take this napkin; rub it off.) But of course I understand your anguish, and since you appeal to us, we will give you the means of redeeming yourself. (You’re not doing it properly. Let me help you.)”
“Oh, don’t trouble! Thank you! Thank you!” said Fleurissoire as Bardolotti, scrubbing the while, went on:
“At the same time, I understand your scruples; out of respect to them, I will begin by setting you a little task; there’s nothing conspicuous about it, but it will give you the opportunity of atoning and be a test of your devotion.”
“I ask nothing more.”
“Dear Father Cave, have you that little cheque about you?”
Protos pulled a paper out of the inner pocket of his shirt.
“Surrounded on all sides by enemies as we are,” went on the Cardinal, “we sometimes find it difficult to cash the offerings which a few generous souls send us in response to our secret solicitations. Watched at the same time by the freemasons and the Jesuits, by the police and by the swindlers, it would not be suitable for us to be seen presenting cheques or money orders at the banks and post offices, where our person might be recognised. The sharpers Father Cave was telling you about just now have thrown such discredit on our collections!” (Protos, in the meantime, was thrumming impatiently on the table.) “In short, here is a modest little cheque for six thousand francs which I beg you, my son, to cash in our stead; it is drawn on the Credito Commerciale of Rome by the Duchess of Ponte Cavallo; though it was addressed to the archbishop, the name of the payee has purposely been left a blank, so that it may be cashed by the bearer. Do not scruple to sign it with your own name, which will arouse no suspicions. Take care not to let yourself be robbed of it or of.... What is the matter, my dear Father Cave? You seem agitated.”
“Go on! Go on!”
“...or of the money which you will bring back to me ... let me see ... you return to Rome to-night; you can take the six o’clock express to-morrow evening; you will be at Naples again at ten and you will find me waiting for you at the station. After that we will think of employing you on some worthier errand.... No, no, my son, do not kiss my hand. Can you not see there is no ring on it?”
Amédée had half prostrated himself at his feet. The Cardinal touched his forehead, and Protos, taking him by the arm, shook him gently:
“Come, come! another glass before you start. I am very sorry I can’t go back to Rome with you; but I’m kept here by all sorts of business—besides, it’s better we shouldn’t be seen together. Good-bye! Let me embrace you, my dear Fleurissoire. May God keep you! I thank Him for having permitted me to know you.”
He accompanied Fleurissoire to the door, and as he was leaving:
“Ah! sir,” he said, “what do you think of the Cardinal? Is it not distressing to see the state to which persecution has reduced such a noble intelligence?”
Then, as he went back to the bogus Cardinal:
“You fathead! That was a bright idea of yours, wasn’t it, to get your cheque endorsed by a silly ass who hasn’t even got a passport, and whom I shall have to shadow?”
But Bardolotti, heavy with sleep, let his head roll upon the table, murmuring:
“We must keep the old ’uns busy.”
Protos went indoors to take off his wig and his peasant’s costume; he appeared a little later, looking thirty years younger and dressed like a bank clerk or a shop assistant of inferior grade. He had very little time to catch the train he knew Fleurissoire was going to take, and he went off without taking leave of the slumbering Bardolotti.