“I was with a sick man,” he said, “who needed my illegal medicine. It would have been better to leave me at my post. You and the Government are my worst enemies if you offer me the means to fly from justice. Perform your duty by sending the carabinieri to arrest me for not serving on the jury. I will prove that it was impossible for me to have received the summons. Let the Public Prosecutor do his duty by proceeding against me on the strength of the affair at Jenne; you will always find me at Villa Mayda. Tell your superiors this: tell them that I shall not stir from Rome, that I fear only one Judge, and let them fear Him also in their false hearts, for He will be more terrible against falseness of heart than against honest violence!”
The Commendatore, who had not been prepared for this blow, grew livid with impotent rage, and was about to burst into a torrent of angry words when the dull rumble of a carriage was heard entering the courtyard. He looked away from Benedetto and listened. Benedetto grasped the back of his chair that he might not be tempted to turn his back on him. The other man roused himself; the angry light, which for a moment had died down, blazed forth again in his eyes. He threw aside the newspaper which he had held in his hand all the time, and bringing his fist down heavily upon the table, he exclaimed:
“What are you doing? Do not dare to move!”
The two men looked at each other fixedly for a few seconds in silence, one with a look of majestic authority, the other stern and forbidding. The official continued violently:
“Shall I have you arrested here?”
Benedetto was still looking at him in silence; at length he answered:
“I am waiting. Do as you please.”
An usher, who had knocked several times in vain, now appeared on the threshold and bowed to the Commendatore without speaking. The Commendatore answered at once: “I am coming,” and, rising hastily, left the room with a strange expression on his face, where anger was disappearing, and obsequiousness was dawning.
The usher returned immediately, and told Benedetto to wait.
A quarter of an hour passed. Benedetto, shivering, his heart in a tumult, his head on fire, excited and exhausted by fever, had once more sunk upon his chair, while the most disconnected thoughts whirled through his brain. May God forgive this man! Forgive them all! What joy if the Pontiff should forbid the condemnation of Selva! How does the person who may not write to me know? And now, why are they keeping me waiting? What more can they want with me? Oh! what if with this fever I should no longer be master of my thoughts or of my words? How terrible! My God, my God, do not permit that! But what horrible baseness there is in the world, what shameful, hidden fornication between these people of the Church and of the State, who hate each other, who despise each other! Why, why dost Thou permit it, Lord? Still no one comes! This fever! My God, my God! let me remain master of my thoughts, of my words. God of Truth! Thy servant is in the hands of his conspiring enemies: give him strength to glorify Thee, even in the burning fire! Those two persons are thinking of me now. I must not think of them! They are not sleeping, but thinking of me! I am not ungrateful, not ungrateful; but I must not think of them! I will think of thee, venerable Saint of the Vatican, who sleepest and knowest not! Ah! those narrow stairs which I shall never more ascend! That sweet face, full of the Holy Spirit, I shall never see again! Still—God be praised!—I did not behold it in vain! What am I doing here? Why do I not go away? But could I go away? Oh! this fever!