“What’s that you say?”
The other stopped and stared at him, answering mockingly:
“Get out! Just what I please!”
The big man struck him a blow, and then the other workmen fell upon the big man in defence of their comrade. Cries, oaths, the flashing of knives, the shrieks of women from the windows, people rushing up from the avenue, policemen and guards hurrying to the spot; in an instant the whole street was in a black ferment, while the surging, howling mob was pitching from right to left and from left to right, as if the street were a ship in an angry sea. Two yards from the spot where the guards and the workmen were struggling, it would have been difficult to ascertain what had happened. The crowd was blind in its fury against those who had insulted the Saint. Who these were they did not know; a hundred discordant voices called for the blood of the big man, of the workmen, of the guards, of one who had laughed, of one who had tried to make peace, and of one who was using his elbows to work his way forward, as well as of one who was trying to elbow his way out. The driver of a tram on the San Paolo line, passing Via Galvani, saw the tumult, and amused himself by calling out to a group of women, a hundred yards beyond, that the Saint of Jenne had been discovered in Via Galvani. The rumour ran along the avenues, full of chattering groups and isolated onlookers, as fire along a trail of powder. The groups broke up, the people rushed towards Via Galvani, questioning one another as they ran. The isolated onlookers followed more slowly, more cautiously, and presently saw many vexed faces returning. The Saint indeed! It was only one of the usual false alarms. Some one saw people coming down in haste from Sant’ Anselmo. Another report went round: they are from Villa Mayda, they are sure to know! And people come from right and left, all hastening towards the mouth of Via di Santa Sabina, as pigeons hasten towards a handful of corn. The isolated onlookers follow, more slowly, more cautiously. Che! Nonsense! At Villa Mayda nothing is known, and they will not even answer any more questions, for they are exasperated by the procession of people ringing the bell. A squad of carabinieri comes upon the scene, and charges down Via Galvani in serried ranks. Hisses are heard, and angry cries: “They know! They took him away!” “No” shouts a woman who sells fruit, and who was one of a group on the corner of Via Alessandro Volta. “It was a delegato! It was the police!” The members of that group are less enraged with the delegato and the policemen than with the stupid bystanders, who might easily have thrown delegato, policemen, cab, horse and driver into the river, and, instead, had allowed themselves to be dispersed by a few words and a few drops of water! The little old woman who had brought Benedetto to the unfrocked monk was there also. They stop her as she is coming out of the bakers’ shop, and now she is telling for the hundredth time the story of the arrest, and crying, also for the hundredth time, as she tells of the roses, of the pious words, and describes how very ill the Saint looked. Her audience is moved also, and mumbles praises of the Saint. One relates a miraculous cure he has effected, another tells of a second cure; one mentions his way of speaking, which goes to the heart; another praises his face, which is as good as a sermon; one speaks of his poverty, and another tells of his charities, which are many, in spite of his poverty. There they come from Via Galvani, carabinieri, policemen, prisoners, and the crowd. One of the solitary onlookers, moved by curiosity, approaches another spectator, and inquired what has occurred in the district. The other is in complete ignorance. The two join company, and question a citizen, who appears to have had enough of it; to be about to leave. The citizen replies that up there at a villa near Sant’ Anselmo lives a holy man, who is adored by the whole quarter, because he visits the sick, healing many, and talking of religion better than the priests themselves: so they call him “the Saint”; or rather, “the Saint of Jenne,” because he performed many miracles in a town in the hills, called Jenne. Why, even the newspapers talked of him! Last night, while he was ministering to a poor sick man, the police carried him off, no one knows why. It was reported that he had been set free again, and had returned to the villa, where he was gardener, but at the villa they deny that he is still there, and will give no explanation. The people are excited, they want——
A tram was approaching. Some of the passengers made signs to the people, who shouted and rushed towards the next stopping-place. The citizen forsook his two questioners and also ran towards the spot, where a crowd was rapidly gathering round the tram. The slow train of curious spectators moved forward in the wake of the crowd; the two learned that the tram had brought six citizens of the district, who—motu proprio—had been to see the Chief of Police. The six alighted among the crowd, which was impatient to hear, to know. They did not seem happy, and answered the storm of questions by recommending the people to be calm. They promised to speak presently, to tell all, but not there in the open street. Many were already protesting, insults trembled on many lips. He who appeared to be the leader of the six—a tobacconist—had himself raised on the shoulders of his colleagues, and briefly harangued the crowd.
“We have brought news,” he said. “We can assure you at once that the Saint is not in prison.”
Applause burst forth, and cries of viva and bravo.
“But we do not know exactly where he is,” the orator continued.
Howls and hisses! The orator was much dismayed, and, after a weak attempt to speak, bent before the storm, and slid down from his living rostrum. But another of the six, braver and more daring, climbed up and retorted with violence. Then the howls and invectives were redoubled, “They have fooled you!” the people shouted. “Idiots that you are! They have put him in prison! In prison!” The cry spread; those at a distance heard it, who had heard nothing else, and those who could hear neither the cry nor anything else felt the dark, magnetic waves of wrath pierce their breasts. Many howled “Abbasso! Down with him!” without knowing whose fall they desired. And here are the carabinieri’s big hats again, and the policemen. In vain the six protest, shouting themselves hoarse; the yells of “Down with him!” and “Death to him!” drown their voices. A delegato orders the bugler to sound the “disperse.” At the third blast there is a general stampede. The deputation, led by the tobacconist, flees also; but each member manages to drag after him in his flight one or other of the less violent citizens, promising further information, impossible to give in the open street, when they shall have reached a fitting place. They take refuge in a yard, where building material is stored, and which is surrounded by a wooden fence. Several people follow them, filtering, one by one, through the opening in the fence. Then the tobacconist, conscious that he hides in his breast things fit to cause the downfall of the world, speaks, in the presence of the pyramid of Caio Cestio, rising there indifferent, and waiting for silence, for ruin, for the coming of the wild forests, when the centuries shall have rolled away. The tobacconist speaks in measured tones, surrounded by some thirty eager faces. He says the Saint of Jenne Is certainly not in prison, that they do not know where he is, but that they do, alas! know other things! Then he relates the other things! If he had told them to the mob on leaving the tram, they would have torn him to pieces. At the police-station they laugh at the Saint, and at those who believe in him. They say he has a mistress, a very wealthy lady; that he was examined by the Director-General of Police during the night on some not over-pleasant matters, and that after the interview he drove away from the ministry with his mistress, who was waiting for him in a carriage.
“I would not believe this,” the tobacconist concluded, “but then—well, now let him tell Ms story!”