Two o’clock was striking when Monsignore Catanzara escorted Vanina to the private gate of his garden.
The day after next, when the minister appeared before the Pope, not a little anxious about the course that he had to pursue, His Holiness said to him:
“Before we go any further, I have a favour to ask you. There is one of those carbonari from Forli, who is still under sentence of death; the thought keeps me from sleeping: the man must be saved.”
The minister, seeing that the Pope had made up his mind, made many objections, and ended by writing a decree, or motu proprio, which the Pope signed, contrary to custom.
It had occurred to Vanina that she might perhaps obtain her lover’s pardon, but that they would try to poison him. The previous evening, Missirilli had received some small parcels of ship-biscuit from Abbate Cari, her confessor, with a warning not to touch the food provided by the State.
Vanina, having afterwards learned that the Forli carbonari were to be transferred to the castle of San Leo, wished to try to see Missirilli at Città-Castellana on his way; she arrived in that town twenty-four hours in advance of the prisoners; there she found Abbate Cari, who had preceded her by some days. He had got the jailor’s leave for Missirilli to hear Mass at midnight in the prison chapel. He had obtained even more: if Missirilli would allow his arms and legs to be fastened with a chain, the jailor would withdraw to the door of the chapel, so that he could always see the prisoner, for whom he was responsible, but could not hear what he said.
The day which was to decide Vanina’s destiny dawned at last. Early in the morning she shut herself up in the prison chapel. Who could tell the thoughts which agitated her during that long day? Did Missirilli love her sufficiently to pardon her? She had denounced his lodge, but she had saved his life. When reason regained command of that tortured soul, Vanina hoped that he would consent to leave Italy in her company; if she had sinned, it was through excess of love. As four o’clock struck, she heard the tread of the carabineers’ horses on the pavement in the distance. Each tread seemed to ring in her heart. Soon she made out the rumbling of the carts which conveyed the prisoners. They halted in the little square in front of the prison; she saw two carabineers lift out Missirilli, who was alone on a cart and so heavily loaded with irons that he could not move. “At least he is alive,” she said to herself with tears in her eyes; “they have not poisoned him.” The evening was cruel; the altar-lamp, which was hung high up, and which the jailor stinted of oil, was the only light in the gloomy chapel. Vanina’s eyes wandered over the tombs of some great lords of the Middle Ages who had died in the neighbouring prison. Their statues looked ferocious.
All sounds had long ago ceased; Vanina was absorbed in her black thoughts. Shortly after midnight struck, she thought she heard a slight noise like the flutter of a bat. She tried to walk, and fell half-fainting on the altar-rail. At the same instant, two phantoms stood beside her, without her having heard them come. They were the jailor and Missirilli, so loaded with chains that he was almost swathed in them. The jailor opened a lantern, which he placed on the altar-rail, beside Vanina, in such a position that he could see his prisoner clearly. Then he withdrew into the background, near the door. Scarcely had the jailor removed, when Vanina flung herself on Missirilli’s neck. As she clasped him in her arms, she felt nothing but his cold, sharp chains. “Who put these chains on him?” she thought. She felt no pleasure in embracing her lover. To this pain succeeded another more piercing: she believed, for a moment, that Missirilli knew of her crime, his reception of her was so chilly.
“Dear friend,” he said to her at last, “I regret the love which you have conceived for me; though I search, I cannot discover the merit that might have inspired it. Let us return, I entreat you, to more Christian feelings, let us forget the illusions which once led us astray; I cannot be yours. The continual misfortune that has dogged my enterprises proceeds, perhaps, from the state of mortal sin in which I have always lived. Even listening to the counsels of human prudence, why was I not arrested with my friends on that fatal night at Forli? Why was I not found at my post at the moment of danger? Why was it that my absence could authorize the most cruel suspicions?—Because I had another passion than the liberation of Italy.”
Vanina could not recover from the surprise that she felt at the change in Missirilli. Though he did not appear to have grown thinner, he looked like thirty. Vanina attributed this change to the bad treatment that he had suffered in prison; she burst into tears.