VI
On that same day the Anthimes arrived from Milan by the evening train. As they travelled third it was not till they reached Rome that they saw the Comtesse de Baraglioul and her daughter, who had come from Paris in a sleeping-car of the same train.
A few hours before the arrival of the telegram announcing Fleurissoire’s death, the Countess had received a letter from her husband; the Count had written eloquently of the immense pleasure his unexpected meeting with Lafcadio had caused him. Doubtless he had not breathed the faintest word of allusion to that semi-fraternity which, in Julius’s eyes, invested the young man with a perfidious charm (Julius, faithful to his father’s commands, had never had any open explanation with his wife, any more than with Lafcadio himself), but certain hints, certain reticences had been sufficient to enlighten the Countess; I am not quite sure even that Julius, who had very little to amuse him in the daily round of his bourgeois existence, did not find some pleasure in fluttering about the scandal and singeing the tips of his wings. I am not sure either that Lafcadio’s presence at Rome, the hope of meeting him again, had not something—had not a great deal—to do with Genevieve’s decision to accompany her mother.
Julius was there to meet them at the station. He hurried them back to the Grand Hotel, without speaking more than a word or two to the Anthimes, whom he was to meet next day at the funeral. The latter went to the hotel in the Via Bocca di Leone, where they had stayed for a day or two during their first visit to Rome.
Marguerite brought the author good news. Not a single hitch remained in the way of the Academy election; Cardinal André had semi-officially informed her the day before that there was no need even for the candidate to pay any further visits; the Academy was advancing to welcome him with open doors.
“You see!” said Marguerite. “What did I tell you in Paris? Tout vient à point.... One has nothing to do in this world but to wait.”
“And not to change,” added Julius, with an air of compunction, raising his wife’s hand to his lips, and not noticing his daughter’s eyes grow big with contempt as they dwelt on him. “Faithful to you, to my opinions, to my principles! Perseverance is the most indispensable of virtues.”
The recollection of his recent wild-goose chase had already faded from his mind, as well as every opinion that was other than orthodox, and every intention that was other than proper. Now that he knew the facts, he recovered his balance without an effort. He was filled with admiration for the subtle consistency which his mind had shown in its temporary deviation. It was not he who had changed—it was the Pope!
“On the contrary, my opinions have been extraordinarily consistent,” he said to himself, “extraordinarily logical. The difficulty is to know where to draw the line. Poor Fleurissoire perished from having gone behind the scenes. The simplest course for the simple-minded is to draw the line at the things they know. It was this hideous secret that killed him. Knowledge never strengthens any but the strong.... No matter! I am glad that Carola was able to warn the police. It allows me to meditate with greater freedom.... All the same, if Armand-Dubois knew that it was not the real Holy Father who was responsible for his losses and his exile, what a consolation it would be for him—what an encouragement in his faith—what a solace and relief! To-morrow, after the funeral, I must really speak to him.”
The funeral did not attract much of a concourse. Three carriages followed the hearse. It was raining. In the first carriage came Arnica, supported by the friendly presence of Blafaphas (as soon as she was out of mourning, he no doubt married her); they had left Pau together two days earlier (the thought of abandoning the widow in her grief, of allowing her to take the long journey all by herself, was intolerable to Blafaphas; and for what? Had he not gone into mourning like one of the family? Was any relation in the world equal to a friend like him?), but on account of their unfortunately missing one of their trains, they arrived in Rome only a few hours before the ceremony.
In the last carriage were Madame Armand-Dubois with the Countess and her daughter; in the second, the Count and Anthime Armand-Dubois.
No allusion was made over Fleurissoire’s grave to his unlucky adventure. But on the way back from the cemetery, as soon as Julius de Baraglioul was alone with Anthime, he began:
“I promised you I would intercede on your behalf with his Holiness.”
“God is my witness that I never asked you to.”
“True! But I was so outraged by the state of destitution in which the Church had abandoned you, that I listened only to my own heart.”
“God is my witness that I never complained.”
“I know ... I know ... I was irritated to death by your resignation! And even—since you insist—I must admit, my dear Anthime, that it seemed to me a proof of pride rather than sanctity, and the last time I saw you at Milan that exaggerated resignation of yours struck me really as savouring more of rebellion than of true piety, and was extremely distasteful to me as a Christian. God didn’t demand as much of you as all that! To speak frankly, I was shocked by your attitude.”
“And I, my dear brother—perhaps I too may be allowed to say so now—was grieved by yours. Wasn’t it you yourself who urged me to rebel and....”
Julius, who was getting heated, interrupted him:
“My own experience has sufficiently proved to myself—and to others—during the whole course of my career, that it is perfectly possible to be an excellent Christian, without disdaining the legitimate advantages of the state of life to which it pleases God to call us. The fault that I found with your attitude was precisely that its affectation seemed to give it an appearance of superiority over mine.”
“God is my witness that....”
“Oh, don’t go on calling God to witness!” interrupted Julius again. “God has nothing to do with it. I am merely explaining that when I say that your attitude was almost one of rebellion ... I mean what would be rebellion for me; and what I find fault with is precisely that while you get credit for submitting to injustice, you leave other people to rebel for you. As for me, I wouldn’t accept the Church’s being in the wrong; while you with your air of not letting butter melt in your mouth, really put her in the wrong. So I made up my mind to complain in your stead. You’ll see in a moment how right I was to be indignant.”
Julius, on whose forehead the beads of perspiration were beginning to gather, put his top-hat on his knee.
“Wouldn’t you like a little air?” asked Anthime, as he obligingly lowered the window on his side.
“So,” went on Julius, “as soon as I got to Rome, I solicited an audience. It was granted. This step of mine met with the most singular success....”
“Ah!” said Anthime indifferently.
“Yes, my dear Anthime, for though in reality I obtained nothing of what I came to ask, at any rate I brought away from my visit an assurance which ... effectually cleared our Holy Father from all the injurious suppositions we had been making about him.”
“God is my witness that I never made any injurious suppositions about our Holy Father.”
“I made them for you. I saw you wronged. I was indignant.”
“Come to the point, Julius. Did you see the Pope?”
“Well, no, then! I didn’t see the Pope,” burst out Julius at last, containing himself no longer, “but I became possessed of a secret—a secret which, though almost incredible at first, received sudden confirmation from our dear Amédée’s death—an appalling—a bewildering secret—but one from which your faith, dear Anthime, will be able to draw comfort. You must know, then, that the Pope is innocent of the injustice of which you were the victim....”
“Tut! I never for a moment doubted it.”
“Listen to me, Anthime—I didn’t see the Pope—because he is not to be seen. The person who is actually seated on the pontifical throne, who is obeyed by the Church, who promulgates—the person who spoke to me—the Pope who is to be seen at the Vatican—the Pope whom I saw—is not the real one.”
At these words Anthime began to shake all over with a fit of loud laughter.
“Laugh away! Laugh away!” went on Julius, nettled. “I laughed too, to begin with. If I had laughed a little less, Fleurissoire would not have been murdered. Ah! poor dear saint that he was! Poor lamb of a victim!...” His voice trailed off into sobs.
“What? What? Do you mean to say that this ridiculous story is really true? Dear me! Dear me!...” said Armand-Dubois, who was disturbed by Julius’s pathos. “All the same, this must be inquired into....”
“It was for inquiring into it that he met his death.”
“Because if after all I’ve sacrificed my fortune, my position, my science—if I’ve consented to be made a fool of ...” continued Anthime, who was gradually becoming excited in his turn.
“But I tell you the real one is in no way responsible for any of that. The person who made a fool of you is a mere man of straw put up by the Quirinal.”
“Am I really to believe what you say?”
“If you don’t believe me, you can at any rate believe our poor martyr here.”
They both remained silent for a few minutes. It had stopped raining; a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds. The carriage slowly jolted into Rome.
“In that case, I know what remains for me to do,” went on Anthime in his most decided voice. “I shall give the whole show away.”
Julius started with horror.
“My dear friend, you terrify me. You’ll get yourself excommunicated for a certainty.”
“By whom? If it’s by a sham Pope, I don’t care a damn!”
“And I, who thought I should help you to extract some consolatory virtue out of this secret,” went on Julius, in dismay.
“You’re joking!... And who knows but what Fleurissoire, when he gets to heaven, won’t find after all that his Almighty isn’t the real God either?”
“Come, come, my dear Anthime, you’re rambling! As if there could be two! As if there could be another!”
“It’s all very easy for you to talk—you, who have never in your life given up anything for Him—you, who profit by everything—true or false. Oh! I’ve had enough! I want some fresh air!”
He leant out of the window, touched the driver on the shoulder with his walking-stick and stopped the carriage. Julius prepared to get out with him.
“No! Let me be! I know all that’s necessary for my purpose. You can put the rest in a novel. As for me, I shall write to the Grand Master of the Order this very evening, and to-morrow I shall take up my scientific reviewing for the Dépêche. Fine fun it’ll be!”
“What!” said Julius, surprised to see that he was limping again. “You’re lame?”
“Yes, my rheumatism came back a few days ago.”
“Oh, I see! So that’s at the bottom of it!” said Julius, as he sank back into the corner of the carriage, without looking after him.