Selva entered the vestibule, and reappeared a moment later with his wife. They went down the steps with di Leynì, and turned in the direction of the people, who seemed to be expecting them in the avenue of orange-trees. At that moment a volley of angry voices rang out at the gate. The road was full of people. They had been waiting for hours, ever since the rumour spread in the Testaccio quarter that the Saint of Jenne had returned to Villa Mayda, but was ill. So far they had asked only for news. Now they demanded that a deputation be allowed to enter, and to see him. The servants refused to take the message, and an exchange of angry words was the result, which, however, suddenly stopped as the tall, dark figure of Professor Mayda appeared, coming from the orange-grove. The men took off their hats. He ordered the gate to be opened, told the people that all should see Benedetto later, but not now. In the meantime they might come into the garden. “Of course, poor things!”
And the people entered, slowly, respectfully, some gathering around the Professor and asking, with tears in their eyes:
“Is it true, Signor Professore? Is it true he is dying? Tell us!”
And behind them others pressed, anxiously awaiting the answer. The answer was only:
“Alas! What can I say to you?”
But the sad, manly face said more than the words and the crowd moved away mournfully, along the green slopes, which had taken on a livid hue under the black sky streaked with white and formed a mystic symbol of death, of the dark passage from terrestrial shadows to the upper regions of infinite brightness.
II.
Benedetto loved Professor Mayda. When, at the Senator’s house, he heard that the Professor had decided to carry him away to Villa Mayda, he showed great pleasure, He loved this man, who was perhaps, as yet, incapable of faith, but was profoundly convinced that there are enigmas which science cannot solve; who was generous, haughty with the great, but gentle with the humble. He loved the garden also, the trees, the flowers, and the grass, whose friend and servant he had been, as he had been the friend and servant of the Professor. Everything in this garden was full of sweet, innocent souls, in whose company he had adored God in certain moments of spiritual ecstasy, placing his lips on the tiny beings, on a flower, on a leaf, on a stem, in a breath of green coolness. He was happy in the thought of dying amidst them. Sometimes, under one of those pine-trees, its canopy, full of wind and of sound, turned towards the Coelian Hill, he had thought of the last scene in his vision, and had imagined himself stretched there on the grass, in the Benedictine habit, pale and calm, and surrounded by mournful faces, while the pine-tree above him sang the mysterious song of Heaven. Each time he had stifled in his heart this sense of pleasure, which was not unmixed with selfish, human vanity, and not entirely controlled and suppressed in submission to the Divine Will. But he had not been able to tear out its roots. Therefore he stretched out his arms gratefully to the Professor. But immediately he was assailed by scruples. His intelligence and his Christian sentiment were in a state of contradiction. He was aware that he was not liked by the lady who had married the Professor’s son, a naval officer, now in the East; he saw that his return to Villa Mayda would be displeasing to her, and a source of discord between her father-in-law and herself. But how could he say so now, without implying a want of justice and of charity in a person whom, from the very fact that she was his enemy, he was especially bound to love? He entreated the Professor to let him go to Sant’ Onofrio. The change was so sudden that it surprised Mayda. He thought a moment, understood, and then said, knitting his brows: