CHAPTER XIV. THE EGYPTIAN
Our reader is already fully aware of the reasons which influenced thePere Massoni to adopt the cause of young Fitzgerald. It was not anyromantic attachment to an ancient and illustrious house; as little wasit any conviction of a right. It was simply an expedient which seemed topromise largely for the one cause which the Jesuit father deemed worthyof a man's life-long devotion--the Church. To impart to the terriblestruggle which in turn ravaged every country in Europe a royalistfeature, seemed, to his thoughtful mind, the one sole issue of presentcalamity. His theory was: after the homage to the throne will come backreverence to the altar.
For a while the Pere suffered himself to indulge in the most sanguinehopes of success. Throughout Europe generally men were wearied ofthat chaotic condition which the French Revolution had introduced, andalready longed for the reconstruction of society in some shape or other.By the influence of able agents, the Church had contrived to make herinterest in the cause of order perceptible, and artfully suggested thepleasant contrast of a society based on peace and harmony, with theviolence and excess of a revolutionary struggle.
Had the personal character of young Gerald been equal, in Massoni'sestimation, to the emergency, the enterprise might have been deemedmost hopeful. If the youth had been daring, venturous, and enthusiastic,heedless of consequences and an implicit follower of the Church, muchmight have been made of him; out of his sentiment of religious devotionwould have sprung a deference and a trustfulness which would haverendered him manageable. But, though he was all these, at times, he wasfifty other things as well.
There was not a mood of the human mind that did not visit him inturns, and while one day would see him grave, earnest, and thoughtful,dignified in manner, and graceful in address, on the next he wouldappear reckless and indifferent, a scoffer, and a sceptic. The oldpoisons of his life at the Tana still lingered in his system andcorrupted his blood; and if, for a moment, some high-hearted ambitionwould move him--some chivalrous desire for great things--so surely wouldcome back the terrible lesson of Mirabeau to his mind, and distrustdarken, with its ill-omened frown, all that had seemed bright andglorious.
After the first burst of proud elation on discovering his birth andlineage, he became thoughtful and serious, and at times sad. He dweltfrequently and painfully upon the injustice with which his earlyyouth was treated, and seemed fully to feel that, if some politicalnecessity--of what kind he could not guess--had not rendered theacknowledgment convenient, his claims might still have slept on,unrecognised and unknown. Among his first lessons in life Mirabeau hadinstilled into him a haughty defiance of all who would endeavour to usehim as a tool.
'Remember,' he would say, 'that the men who achieve success in life theoftenest, are they who trade upon the faculties of others. Beware ofthese men; for their friendship is nothing less than a servitude.'
'To what end, for what object, am I now withdrawn from obscurity?' werehis constant questions to himself. The priest and his craft were objectsof his greatest suspicion, and the thought of being a mere instrument totheir ends was a downright outrage. In this way, Massoni was regardedby him with intense distrust; nor could even his gratitude surmount thedread he felt for the Jesuit father. These sentiments deepened, as helay, hours long, awake at night till, at length, a low fever seized him,and long intervals of dreary incoherency would break the tenor of hissounder thoughts. It had been deemed expedient by the Cardinal York andhis other friends that young Gerald should continue to reside at theJesuit College till some definite steps were taken to declare his rankto the world, and the very delay in this announcement was another reasonof suspicion.
'If I be the prince you call me, why am I detained in this imprisonment?Why am I not among my equals; why not confronted with some future thatI can look boldly in the face? Would they make a priest of me, as theyhave done with my uncle? Where are the noble-hearted followers whorallied around my father? Where the brave adherents who never desertedeven his exile? Are they all gone, or have they died, and, if so, is notthe cause itself dead?'
These and suchlike were the harassing doubts that troubled him, untileventually his mind balanced between a morbid irritability and anintense apathy. The most learned physicians of Rome had been called tosee him, but, though in a great measure agreeing in the nature of hiscase, none succeeded in suggesting any remedy for it. Some advisedsociety, travelling, amusement, and so on. Others were disposed torecommend rest and quietude; others, again, deemed that he should beengaged in some scheme or enterprise likely to awaken his ambition;but all these plans had soon to give place to immediate cares for hiscondition, for his strength was perceived to be daily declining, andhis energy of body as well as of mind giving way. For some days backthe Pere had debated with himself whether he would not unfold to him thegrand enterprise which he meditated; point out to the youth the gloriousopportunity of future distinction, and the splendid prize which shouldreward success. He would have revealed the whole plot long before hadhe not been under a pledge to the Cardinal Caraffa not to divulge itwithout his sanction, and in his presence; and now came the questionof Gerald's life, and whether he would survive till the return of hisEminence from Paris, whither he had gone to fetch back his niece. Suchwas the state of things when Doctor Danizetti declared that medicine hadexhausted its resources in the youth's behalf, and suggested, as a lastresource, that a certain Egyptian lady, whose marvellous powers hadattracted all the attention of Rome, should be called in to see him, anddeclare what she thought of his case.
This Egyptian Princess, as report called her, had taken up her abodeat a small deserted convent near Albano, living a life of strictretirement, and known only to the peasants of the neighbourhood by theextraordinary cures she had performed, and the wonderful recoverieswhich her instrumentality had effected. The secrecy of her mode of life,and the impossibility of learning any details of her history, added tothe fact that no one had yet seen her unveiled, gave a romantic interestto her which soon spread into a sort of fame. Besides these, the mostastonishing tales were told of epileptic cases cured, deaf and dumb menrestored to hearing and speech, even instances of insanity successfullytreated, so that, at length, the little shrines of patron saints, onceso devoutly sought after by worshipping believers, praying that St.Agatha or St. Nasala might intercede on their behalf, were nowforsaken, and crowds gathered in the little court of the convent eagerlyentreating the Princess to look favourably on their sufferings. Thesefacts--at first only whispered--at length gained the ears of Rome, andpriests and cardinals began to feel that out of this trifling incidentgrave consequences might arise, and counsel was held among them whetherthis dangerous foreigner should not be summarily sent out of the State.
The decision would, doubtless, have been quickly come to had it not beenthat at the very moment an infant child of the Prince Altieri owed itslife to a suggestion made by the Egyptian, to whom a mere lock of thechild's hair was given. Sorcery or not, here was a service that couldnot be overlooked; and, as the Prince Altieri was one whose influencespread widely, the thought of banishment was abandoned.
The Pere Massoni, who paid at first but little attention to the storiesof her wondrous powers, was at length astonished on hearing from theProfessor Danizetti some striking instances of her skill, which seemed,however, less that of a consummate physician than of one who had studiedthe mysterious influences of the moral oyer the material part of ournature. It was in estimating how far the mind swayed and controlled thenervous system, whether they acted in harmony or discordance, seemedher great gift; and to such a degree of perfection had she brought herpowers in this respect, that the tones of a voice, the expression of aneye, and the texture of the hair, appeared often sufficient to intimatethe fate of the sick man. Danizetti confessed, that, though long asceptic as to her powers, he could no longer resist the force of what hewitnessed, and owned that in her art were secrets unrevealed to science.
He had made great efforts to see and to know her, but in vain; indeedshe did not scruple
to confess, that for medicine and its regularfollowers, she had slight respect. She deemed them as walkers in thedark, and utterly lost to the only lights which could elucidate disease.Through the Prince Altieri's intervention, for he had met her in theEast, she consented to visit the Jesuit College, somewhat proud, it mustbe owned, to storm, as it were, the very stronghold of that incredulitywhich priestcraft professed for her abilities. For this reason was itshe insisted that her visit should be paid in open day--at noon. 'I willsee none but the sick man.' said she, 'and yet all shall mark my coming,and perceive that even these great and learned fathers have condescendedto ask for my presence and my aid. I would that the world should see howeven these holy men can worship an unknown God!'
Nor did the Pere Massoni resent this pride; on the contrary, he feltdisposed to respect it. It was a bold assumption that well pleased him.
As the hour of her visit drew nigh, Massoni having given all thedirections necessary to ensure secrecy, repaired himself to the littletower from which a view extended over the vast campagna. A solitarycarriage traversed it on the road from Albano, and this he watched withunbroken anxiety, till he saw it enter the gate of Rome, and graduallyascend the Pincian hill.
'The Egyptian has come to her time,' said he to Giacomo: 'yonder is hercarriage at the gate; and the youth, is he still sleeping?'
'Yes, he has not stirred for hours; he breathes so lightly that hescarcely seems alive, and his cheeks are colourless as death.'
'There, yonder she comes; she walks like one in the prime of life. Sheis evidently not old, Giacomo.'
From the window where they stood, they could mark a tall, commandingfigure moving slowly along the garden walk, and stopping at moments togather flowers. A thick black veil concealed in some degree her form,but could not altogether hide the graceful motion with which sheadvanced.