VII
Summer came. Putrid fever of the Pontine marshes, the 'malaria,' began to rage in the city; at the end of July there were daily deaths among those about the Pope. He himself appeared troubled and sad; but it was less the fear of death which was oppressing him, than the absence of his idolised Lucrezia. He had before now had several attacks of fierce desire, blind and dumb, like madness, terrifying even to himself; he fancied that if he did not satisfy them at once they would suffocate him. He wrote begging her to come for a few days; she replied that her husband would not permit her to leave him. The aged Borgia would have shrunk from no crime to rid himself of this detested son-in-law as he had rid himself of Lucrezia's earlier husbands. But there was no jesting with the Duke of Ferrara, for he had the finest artillery in Italy.
At the beginning of August Alexander went to the villa of Cardinal Adrian of Corneto. At supper he ate more heartily than usual, and drank heavy Sicilian wines; afterwards he sat long on the terrace, enjoying the insidious freshness of the Roman night. Next morning he felt himself indisposed. It was told afterwards that having approached the window he saw two funerals, that of his favourite chamberlain, and that of Messer Guglielmo Raimondi, both men heavy in figure like himself.
'The season is dangerous for us fat folk,' he murmured forebodingly. The words were no sooner uttered than a dove flew in at the window, dashed itself against the wall, and fell stunned at the feet of His Holiness.
'Another omen,' he muttered, turning pale; and at once he went to his apartment and lay down. In the night he was seized with violent vomiting. The physicians had different opinions about his malady; some called it a tertian fever; others apoplexy, others inflammation of the gall bladder. In the town it was said that he was poisoned.
Every hour his strength declined. Ten days later they had recourse to their extreme measure, and gave him a decoction of precious stones reduced to powder. Still he grew worse.
One night, awaking from delirium, he fumbled anxiously in his breast for a small gold reliquary worn by him for many years and containing minute particles of the body and blood of the Lord. The astrologers had told him his life was safe so long as he carried it. But now, whether it had been lost or stolen, it could nowhere be found, and he closed his eyes in the calm of despair, saying—
'It means I am to go: all is ended.'
Next morning, feeling the weakness of death coming over him, he required all to leave him except his favourite physician, the Bishop of Venosa. Him he reminded of the remedy employed by a Hebrew doctor on his predecessor, Innocent VIII., namely, the injection into the veins of the dying Pope of the blood of three children newly slain.
'Does your Holiness know how it ended?' asked the bishop.
'I know! I know!' said Alexander faintly. 'But the children were seven years old and they should have been unweaned.'
The bishop made no reply; already the sick man's eyes were clouding, and he fell back into delirium.
'Yes; quite young: little white ones! They whose blood is pure and scarlet. I love children! Let them come to me. Sinite parvulos ad me venire! Suffer little children to come unto me!' ...
At these ravings, even the imperturbable bishop, long inured to the horrors of the court, could not repress a shudder. With monotonous convulsive movements, the Pope still fumbled and groped in his bosom for the vanished reliquary.
During his illness he had never once mentioned his children. They told him that Cæsar, like himself, lay at death's door, but he remained unmoved. Now they asked him if he desired any last message to his son or his daughter, but he turned away his head and said no word. It seemed as if those, whom in his lifetime he had so passionately loved, no longer had any existence for him.
On the 18th, Friday, he confessed to his chaplain, and made his communion. At the hour of vespers they read the prayers for the dying. Several times he made an effort to speak, and Cardinal Ilerda, bending down, at last caught the faint sounds coming from his cold lips:—
'Quick! quick! The Stabat Mater! the hymn to my Mediatress!' he whispered.
The hymn is not included in the office for the dying, but Ilerda repeated it:—
'Stabat Mater dolorosa
Juxta Crucem lacrimosa
Dum pendebat Filius....'
An ineffable comfort shone in the dying eyes, as if he saw heaven opened and his Mediatress waiting. He stretched out his hands, shuddered, raised himself, and murmured:—
'Cast me not away, O Holy Virgin!'
Then he fell back on his pillows. He was dead.