A House-Party, Don Gesualdo, and A Rainy June

by Ouida

The trial began. Everything was the same as it had been in the preliminary examination which had preceded her committal on the charge of murder. The same depositions were made now that had then been made. In the interval, the people of Marca had forgotten a good deal, so added somewhat of their own invention to make up for the deficiency; but, on the whole, the testimony was the same, given with that large looseness of statement and absolute indifference to fact so characteristic of the Italian mind, the judge, from habit, sifting the chaff from the wheat in the evidence with unerring skill, and following with admirable patience the tortuous windings and the hazy imagination of the peasants he examined.

The examination of Gesualdo did not come on until the third day. These seventy or eighty hours of suspense were terrible to him. He scarcely broke his fast, or was conscious of what he did. The whole of the time was passed by him listening in the court of justice or praying in the churches. When at last he was summoned, a cold sweat bathed his face and hair; his hands trembled; he answered the interrogations of the judge and of the advocates almost at random; his replies seemed scarcely to be those of a rational being; he passionately affirmed her innocence with delirious repetition and emphasis, which produced on the minds of the examiners the contrary effect to that which he endeavored to create.

"This priest knows that she is guilty," thought the president. "He knows it. Perhaps he knows even more: perhaps he was her accomplice."

His evidence, his aspect, his wild and contradictory words, did as much harm to her cause as he ignorantly strove to do good. From other witnesses of Marca the judge had learned that a great friendship had always been seen to exist between the vicar of San Bartolo and Generosa Fè, and that on the morning when the murder was discovered the priest had removed the body of the dead man to the sacristy, forestalling the officers of justice, and disturbing the scene of the murder. A strong impression against him was created beforehand in the audience and on the bench; and his pallid, agitated countenance, his incoherent words, his wild eyes, which incessantly sought the face of the prisoner, all gave him the appearance of a man conscious of some guilt himself, and driven out of his mind by fear. The president cross-examined him without mercy, censured him, railed at him, and did his uttermost to extract the truth which he believed that Gesualdo concealed; but to no avail: incoherent and half insane as he seemed, he said no syllable which could betray that which he really knew. Only when his eyes rested on Generosa there was such an agony in them that she herself was startled by it.

"Who would ever have dreamt that he would care so much?" she thought. "But he was always a tender soul; he always pitied the birds in the traps, and the oxen that went to the slaughter."

Reproved and censured without stint, for the president knew that to insult a priest was to merit promotion in high quarters, Gesualdo was at last permitted to escape from his place of torture. Blind and sick he got away through the crowd, past the officials, down the stairs, and out into the hot air. The piazza was thronged with people who could not find standing-room in the court-house. The murmur of their rapid and loud voices was like the noise of a sea on his ears; they had all the same burden. They all repeated like one man the same words, "They will condemn her," and then wondered what sentence she would receive,—whether a score of years of seclusion, or a lifetime.

Gesualdo went through the chattering, curious, cruel throng, barbarous with that barbarity of the populace which in all countries sees with glee a bull die, a wrestler drop, a malefactor ascend the scaffold, or a rat scour the streets soaked in petroleum and burning alive. The dead man had been nothing to them, and his wife had done none of them any harm, yet there was not a man or a woman, a youth or a girl, in the crowd, who would not have felt that he or she was defrauded of his entertainment if she were acquitted by her judges, although yet there was a general sense among them that she had done no more than had been natural, and no more than had been her right.

The dark, slender, emaciated figure of the priest glided through their excited and boisterous groups; the air had the heat of summer, the sky above was blue and cloudless, the brown brick walls of the church and palace seemed baking in the light of the sun. In the corner of the square was a fountain, relic of the old times when the town had been a place of pageantry and power,—beautiful pale-green water, cold and fresh, leaping and flowing around marble dolphins. Gesualdo stooped and drank thirstily, as though he would never cease to drink, then went on his way and pushed aside the leathern curtain of the church door and entered into the coolness and solitude of that place of refuge.

There he stretched himself before the cross in prayer, and wept bitter, burning, unavailing tears for the burden which he bore of another's sin, and for his own helplessness beneath it, which seemed to him like a greater crime.

But even at the very altar of his God peace was denied him. Hurried, loud, impetuous steps from heavy boots fell on the old, worn, marble floor of the church, and Falko Melegari strode up behind him and laid a heavy hand upon his shoulders. The young man's face was deeply flushed, his eyes were savage, his breath was quick and uneven: he had no heed for the sanctity of the place or of his companion.