“Every church in the place was thronged with worshippers, praying and offering their communions for the salvation of the poor soul so soon to be wrenched from sweet life, and sent to its everlasting doom. The public square was also filled with spectators—a silent, awe-struck throng, while occasionally a prayer would seem to quiver on the air from the suppressed voice of a hundred people.
“At length the count appeared, supported by the guards; for by that time he was in a very exhausted state. His last act was to press my hand in silence. It was the signal for me to give him the last absolution. I had just turned aside, hardly conscious myself from excess of feeling, when the fatal knife fell. A cry of horror ran through the crowd; and then immediately they dispersed, many of them repeating aloud the De profundis, as they retired to their homes.
“I always remember poor Falcone in my daily Mass; though I cannot say I think he is in any further need of prayers, but is, I hope, long since in a position to benefit me by his.”
“What is your opinion, father,” asked Mary, “of public executions?”
“In the present state of feeling in Italy they are beneficial rather than otherwise. I attended the execution of two soldiers a few years ago at Terracina. The whole town was crowding to the church the evening before, and at an early hour on the day itself, to pray for the poor men. It was like the general communion at the close of a mission; and those who actually witnessed the execution seemed to do so with no other object than to assist the poor criminals by their prayers. Many of the women were on their knees in the public place. And I do not believe but that such a fervor of devotion had a beneficial effect upon all. It is, or at least it was, the same thing in Rome. But where, as in London and Paris, that idea of intercessory prayer has died out with the faith of which it forms a part, and the vilest rabble collects from a brutal curiosity to see a man hung or guillotined, then I am convinced that public executions are demoralizing, and tend to increase the crimes they are meant to repress.”
“All I know is,” said Frank, suddenly starting up, “if a fellow could only have the good-luck to be hung in the presence of a large [pg 633] Italian crowd, I think he would have a better chance of going straight to heaven than by any other death. I think I should like to go in for that sort of thing myself.”
“O Frank! what do you mean?”
“Why, this is what I mean: If you have a long illness, you get weak in mind and in the power of volition, as well as weak in body. I know, if I have only a headache, how difficult it is to say my prayers. Fancy, then, what it must be through a long, painful illness. Whereas, if you are going to be hung, you have all your faculties about you; you are in no doubt of when you are going to die; the time is fixed to the minute. You have made your last confession; and I can imagine being able then to make such an act of perfect contrition, with all the forces of one's mind and soul, that would land one safe past the realms of purgatory. I often feel as if it would be my only chance, and not a bad one, either.”
Padre Cataldo looked amused. Elizabeth did not appear quite to like it, and I overheard her say to him: “I think you might manage to end an honorable life in a more honorable way, and secure heaven all the same.” I thought I heard something in reply about “with your help and your example”; but I did not listen, as I wanted to induce Padre Cataldo to tell us about his wonderful escape during the revolution of 1860. I said something to him about it; but he turned it off, and Mary whispered to me that he never liked to talk about it, but that Don Emidio knew all about it, and we could ask him to tell us the next time we met. Padre Cataldo now took leave, Frank accompanying him back, and promising to return for the Vernons later.
As soon as they had left, Ida told us that all their troubles and anxieties in reference to the Casinelli and the chapel bell had been renewed. There had been an interregnum of comparative peace, and we had entertained the hope that all was likely to go on quietly. But it turned out that one of the sisters some days previously had called on Mrs. Vernon and her daughters to explain that the bell ringing for Mass was such a cause of annoyance to the other lodgers that she really must request that it should be entirely given up. Of course Mrs. Vernon refused. The chapel had been conceded to them; Mass was said there daily by the express permission of the cardinal archbishop, and was of the greatest benefit to the neighborhood; and she and her daughters absolutely declined to sanction such an insult to religion. Signorina Casinelli proposed that the bell should be hung somewhere in the garden at a considerable distance. But this also was refused. It was not rung at an early hour. It was not a large bell, and it was absurd to have the chapel in one place, and the chapel bell an eighth of a mile away, to say nothing of the trouble of sending some one to ring it. Signorina Casinelli left the house in high dudgeon; and the next day she waylaid Padre Cataldo, as he was returning through the garden from visiting the sick. She flew into a violent rage the moment she saw him, and told him that, rather than offend their other tenants, they would, the house being their property, shut up the chapel entirely.