________________________________________________
_ SCENE IV. NIGHT
[SCENE.--Inside the Palace by the Duomo. MONSIGNOR, dismissing his Attendants.]
Monsignor.
Thanks, friends, many thanks! I chiefly
desire life now, that I may recompense every one of you.
Most I know something of already. What, a repast prepared?
_Benedicto benedicatur_--ugh, ugh! Where was
I? Oh, as you were remarking, Ugo, the weather is 5
mild, very unlike winter weather; but I am a Sicilian, you
know, and shiver in your Julys here. To be sure, when
'twas full summer at Messina, as we priests used to cross
in procession the great square on Assumption Day, you
might see our thickest yellow tapers twist suddenly in 10
two, each like a falling star, or sink down on themselves
in a gore of wax. But go, my friends, but go! [_To the_
Intendant.] Not you, Ugo! [_The others leave the apartment._]
I have long wanted to converse with you, Ugo. Intendant.
Uguccio-- 15
Monsignor.
... 'guccio Stefani, man! of Ascoli,
Fermo and Fossombruno--what I do need instructing
about are these accounts of your administration of my
poor brother's affairs. Ugh! I shall never get through a
third part of your accounts; take some of these dainties 20
before we attempt it, however. Are you bashful to that
degree? For me, a crust and water suffice.
Intendant.
Do you choose this especial night to question me?
Monsignor.
This night, Ugo. You have managed my 25
late brother's affairs since the death of our elder brother
--fourteen years and a month, all but three days. On
the Third of December, I find him--
Intendant.
If you have so intimate an acquaintance
with your brother's affairs, you will be tender of turning 30
so far back: they will hardly bear looking into, so far back.
Monsignor.
Aye, aye, ugh, ugh--nothing but disappointments
here below! I remark a considerable payment
made to yourself on this Third of December. Talk
of disappointments! There was a young fellow here, 35
Jules, a foreign sculptor I did my utmost to advance, that
the Church might be a gainer by us both; he was going
on hopefully enough, and of a sudden he notifies to me
some marvelous change that has happened in his notions
of Art. Here's his letter: "He never had a clearly conceived 40
Ideal within his brain till today. Yet since his hand
could manage a chisel, he has practiced expressing other
men's Ideals; and, in the very perfection he has attained
to, he foresees an ultimate failure: his unconscious hand
will pursue its prescribed course of old years, and will reproduce
with a fatal expertness the ancient types, let the
novel one appear never so palpably to his spirit. There
is but one method of escape: confiding the virgin type to
as chaste a hand, he will turn painter instead of sculptor,
and paint, not carve, its characteristics"--strike out, I 50
dare say, a school like Correggio: how think you, Ugo?
Intendant.
Is Correggio a painter?
Monsignor.
Foolish Jules! and yet, after all, why
foolish? He may--probably will--fail egregiously; but
if there should arise a new painter, will it not be in some 55
such way, by a poet now, or a musician (spirits who have
conceived and perfected an Ideal through some other
channel), transferring it to this, and escaping our conventional
roads by pure ignorance of them; eh, Ugo? If
you have no appetite, talk at least, Ugo! 60
Intendant. Sir, I can submit no longer to this course
of yours. First, you select the group of which I formed
one--next you thin it gradually--always retaining me
with your smile--and so do you proceed till you have
fairly got me alone with you between four stone walls. 65
And now then? Let this farce, this chatter, end now;
what is it you want with me?
Monsignor. Ugo!
Intendant. From the instant you arrived, I felt your
smile on me as you questioned me about this and the 70
other article in those papers--why your brother should
have given me this villa, that _podere_--and your nod at
the end meant--what?
Monsignor. Possibly that I wished for no loud talk
here. If once you set me coughing, Ugo!-- 75
Intendant. I have your brother's hand and seal to all I
possess: now ask me what for! what service I did him--ask me!
Monsignor. I would better not: I should rip up old
disgraces, let out my poor brother's weaknesses. By the 80
way, Maffeo of Forli (which, I forgot to observe, is
your true name), was the interdict ever taken off you,
for robbing that church at Cesena?
Intendant. No, nor needs be; for when I murdered
your brother's friend, Pasquale, for him-- 85
Monsignor. Ah, he employed you in that business,
did he? Well, I must let you keep, as you say, this villa
and that _podere_, for fear the world should find out my
relations were of so indifferent a stamp? Maffeo, my family
is the oldest in Messina, and century after century 90
have my progenitors gone on polluting themselves with
every wickedness under heaven: my own father--rest his
soul!--I have, I know, a chapel to support that it may
rest; my dear two dead brothers were--what you know
tolerably well; I, the youngest, might have rivaled them 95
in vice, if not in wealth: but from my boyhood I came
out from among them, and so am not partaker of their
plagues. My glory springs from another source; or if
from this, by contrast only--for I, the bishop, am the
brother of your employers, Ugo. I hope to repair some 100
of their wrong, however; so far as my brother's ill-gotten
treasure reverts to me, I can stop the consequences
of his crime--and not one _soldo_ shall escape me. Maffeo,
the sword we quiet men spurn away, you shrewd knaves
pick up and commit murders with; what opportunities 105
the virtuous forego, the villainous seize. Because, to
pleasure myself, apart from other considerations, my
food would be millet-cake, my dress sackcloth, and my
couch straw--am I therefore to let you, the offscouring
of the earth, seduce the poor and ignorant by appropriating 110
a pomp these will be sure to think lessens the abominations
so unaccountably and exclusively associated with
it? Must I let villas and _poderi_ go to you, a murderer
and thief, that you may beget by means of them other
murderers and thieves? No--if my cough would but 115
allow me to speak!
Intendant.
What am I to expect? You are going to punish me?
Monsignor. Must punish you, Maffeo. I cannot
afford to cast away a chance. I have whole centuries of
sin to redeem, and only a month or two of life to do it in. 120
How should I dare to say--
Intendant.
"Forgive us our trespasses"?
Monsignor.
My friend, it is because I avow myself a
very worm, sinful beyond measure, that I reject a line of
conduct you would applaud perhaps. Shall I proceed, 125
as it were, a-pardoning?--I?--who have no symptom
of reason to assume that aught less than my strenuousest
efforts will keep myself out of mortal sin, much less
keep others out. No: I do trespass, but will not double
that by allowing you to trespass. 130
Intendant. And suppose the villas are not your
brother's to give, nor yours to take? Oh, you are hasty
enough just now!
Monsignor.
1, 2--No. 3!--aye, can you read the substance
of a letter, No. 3, I have received from Rome? It 135
is precisely on the ground there mentioned, of the suspicion
I have that a certain child of my late elder brother, who
would have succeeded to his estates, was murdered in
infancy by you, Maffeo, at the instigation of my late
younger brother--that the Pontiff enjoins on me not 140
merely the bringing that Maffeo to condign punishment,
but the taking all pains, as guardian of the infant's heritage
for the Church, to recover it parcel by parcel, howsoever,
whensoever, and wheresoever. While you are now
gnawing those fingers, the police are engaged in sealing 145
up your papers, Maffeo, and the mere raising my voice
brings my people from the next room to dispose of yourself.
But I want you to confess quietly, and save me raising
my voice. Why, man, do I not know the old story?
The heir between the succeeding heir, and this heir's 150
ruffianly instrument, and their complot's effect, and the
life of fear and bribes and ominous smiling silence? Did
you throttle or stab my brother's infant? Come now!
Intendant.
So old a story, and tell it no better?
When did such an instrument ever produce such an 155
effect? Either the child smiles in his face, or, most likely,
he is not fool enough to put himself in the employer's
power so thoroughly; the child is always ready to produce--as
you say--howsoever, wheresoever, and whensoever.
Monsignor.
Liar! 160
Intendant.
Strike me? Ah, so might a father chastise!
I shall sleep soundly tonight at least, though the gallows
await me tomorrow; for what a life did I lead! Carlo of
Cesena reminds me of his connivance, every time I pay
his annuity; which happens commonly thrice a year. If I 165
remonstrate, he will confess all to the good bishop--you!
Monsignor.
I see through the trick, caitiff! I would
you spoke truth for once. All shall be sifted, however--seven
times sifted.
Intendant.
And how my absurd riches encumbered 170
me! I dared not lay claim to above half my possessions.
Let me but once unbosom myself, glorify Heaven, and die!
Sir, you are no brutal, dastardly idiot like your brother
I frightened to death: let us understand one another. Sir,
I will make away with her for you--the girl--here close 175
at hand; not the stupid obvious kind of killing; do not
speak--know nothing of her nor of me! I see her every
day--saw her this morning. Of course there is to be no
killing; but at Rome the courtesans perish off every three
years, and I can entice her thither--have indeed begun 180
operations already. There's a certain lusty, blue-eyed,
florid-complexioned English knave I and the Police employ
occasionally. You assent, I perceive--no, that's not
it--assent I do not say--but you will let me convert my
present havings and holdings into cash, and give me time 185
to cross the Alps? Tis but a little black-eyed, pretty
singing Felippa, gay, silk-winding girl. I have kept her
out of harm's way up to this present; for I always intended
to make your life a plague to you with her. 'Tis
as well settled once and forever. Some women I have 190
procured will pass Bluphocks, my handsome scoundrel,
off for somebody; and once Pippa entangled!--you
conceive? Through her singing? Is it a bargain?
[_From without is heard the voice of_ PIPPA, _singing._
_Overhead the tree-tops meet,_
_Flowers and grass spring 'neath one's feet;_ 195
_There was naught above me, naught below,_
_My childhood had not learned to know:_
_For, what are the voices of birds_
_--Aye, and of beasts--but words, our words,_
_Only so much more sweet?_ 200
_The knowledge of that with my life begun._
_But I had so near made out the sun,_
_And counted your stars, the seven and one;_
_Like the fingers of my hand:_
_Nay, I could all but understand_ 205
_Wherefore through heaven the white moon ranges;_
_And just when out of her soft fifty changes_
_No unfamiliar face might overlook me--_
_Suddenly God took me._
[PIPPA _passes.]
Monsignor
[_springing up_]. My people--one and 210
all--all-within there! Gag this villain--tie him hand and
foot! He dares--I know not half he dares--but
remove him--quick! _Miserere mei, Domine!_ Quick, I say!
FOOTNOTES:
LINES:
1. _Monsignor._ The Bishop has come from Messina in Sicily to take possession of his dead brother's estate. The "Ugo" to whom he speaks is the Intendant mentioned at the beginning of _Interlude II_.
4. _Benedicto benedicatur._ A form of blessing for the repast. "Let it be consecrated with a good saying."
9. _Assumption Day._ The festival of the Assumption of the Virgin into Heaven comes August 25.
36. _Jules._ This is the Jules of _Noon_. His history is thus carried on beyond the point where we left him at the close of his interview with Phene.
51. _Correggio._ An Italian artist (1494-1534).
72. _Podere._ (Plural, _poderi_.) A small farm or manor.
83. _Cesena._ An Episcopal city about twelve miles from Forli.
108. _Millet-cake._ A cake made of an Italian grain and eaten only by the poorest classes.
135. _Letter No. 3._ The information from Rome is based on a wrong assumption. The elder brother had an infant heir whom the second brother endeavored to put out of the way in order that he might himself inherit the estate. He hired Maffeo to destroy the child, and, according to the information from Rome, Maffeo did so. On this assumption Maffeo is to be arrested and the money and land given him by the second brother to keep the deed a secret are now to revert to the church.
154. _So old a story._ In reality Maffeo has been more astute than they thought. He did not kill the child but kept it ready to produce as the heir to the estates if the second brother at any time proved delinquent in the required payments.
174. _Let us understand one another._ He believes that when the Bishop sees himself about to lose the estate, he too will show himself ready for a bargain. The Bishop is simply to keep still and Maffeo will see that the heir--who is Pippa--shall be finally brought to shame and death. The Bishop is to have the estates, and Maffeo is to keep his ill-gotten gains and be given a chance to escape. The Bishop is apparently listening to the tempter when he hears Pippa's song. Its fresh lilting sweetness, and especially, perhaps, the wording of the last line, touch his heart and his conscience, and he suddenly orders Maffeo's arrest, at the same time uttering the prayer, "Have mercy upon me, O God." _
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