Mary Heaton Vorse

“ As noon struck, the silence of San Moglio was broken by the clanking of Mazzaleone's men as they went forth into the great piazza, and there they built a scaffold for the morrow. The noise of their hammerings echoed through the silent town through the hot hours of the afternoon, but none stopped to watch them, and few there were in the piazza save those who came and went, walking as on some urgent business. For all knew that silent above the town in the Piazza Ogni Santi Brother Agnello sat with God. ”

“ There were few in Moglio who might not profit by the death of some one.
Changed was the temper of the town. They had been wallowing in life. Now from one day to another they were wallowing in the thought of death. Eye met eye questioningly, for each man hugged to his bosom the thought of old scores long due. In this temper they continued their rejoicing, and that pallid specter, assassination, rejoiced with them; and with assassination and revenge smirked along the love of gain, asking:
"If you must kill your man, why not kill him whose death will be most to your advantage?" ”

“ Even among the houses of Da Sala and Degli Oddi had the voice of Brother Agnello penetrated.
"I had thought that this hate was made of harder stuff," said Mazzaleone to me. "Love is a terrible force, Matteo; so strong a solvent of the fierce and strong things of life that we should all beware of it. Few men have used it as a tool, for the reason that love in its pureness is rarer than the rarest jewels."
"But many have used hate," I told him, "as you have done. And what of us whose hearts must die on the battle-field of love and hate?" ”

“ As I told these things to Mazzaleone I felt as ashamed as one who sees his mother indecorous in some public place. "Give them life," said he; "they snap at it and gulp it down like a hungry dog; and since they wish amusement they shall have what they wish. Everything they wish they shall have—I could envy them their gusto," he added.
And so he set about giving a festa of great magnificence, and asked all the nobles within the town of San Moglio; and he judged them rightly, for even the nobles, in their zest for life, had no mind to show spite to Mazzaleone. ”

“ It is a strange thing to see a town having to fight life and death within itself. The company of pity which never wavered were happy, and those who sought death always were happier in their own way than those who wavered and swayed, as must I. Many a man I saw, and woman, who were athirst for blood as a hungry man for meat at one moment, and at the next moment put from them all thought of revenge and all thought of death, and then must go a-licking their chops again at the sweet thought of death. ”

“ There is no peace for that old hate this side of death, and I know others more relentless than this. I have put a sure and sharp weapon in their hands and the sight of it has made them all come yapping for blood. What does he offer them, this poor Brother Agnello—poor Brother Lamb that shall so slake their ancient thirst for blood? Thirst for blood, Matteo, is sated by one thing—red blood sates it. Are Messer Gubbio di Grollo and his friends moved with pity, think you, as they sit even now, seeing what men they may summon to do their merciful work ”

“ Death was still the thought of San Moglio, but each man now feared his own. The red desire of killing and of revenge turned pale, and by each man's hearthstone sat a cold little shadow of fear. I thanked God I had made no man my enemy. There were those who had tried to leave the city, but had been turned back with stern menace by Mazzaleone's men, and we knew that those who were caught in attempted flight would be incontinently killed. ”

“ CHAPTER IV AND I will wager that in all its life San Moglio had never seen gathered in the palace of the Podestà such a company; for there faction met faction as friends; old hate smiled at old hate; sworn enemies met for the first time without the drawing of swords.
Nor could Mazzaleone's, own eyes distinguish where a feud lay; one would have supposed that each felt a dear joy in thus seeing close at hand his own enemy. ”

“ Among them all there were those who walked insolently as though to dare Death, but there were none who remained unconscious of his shadow. As my lady bade me look, I saw one who walked outside the circle of this walking fear like a happy child in a field of lilies. This young man belonged, it seemed by his habit, to some religious order. To us, at the window above this restless moving people, driven hither and thither in their cold suspense, he seemed like a dweller from some other world who walked outside the circle of our concern. ”

“ As he spoke I saw that a great mirth had been lighted in Mazzaleone, and that the so reasonable speech of Messer Gubbio filled him with silent laughter. Messer Gubbio went on to counting out each contrada of the city that lists might be made of those who have the ballot, and how each great house and each man of importance in each contrada should possess himself of the people's confidence.
"But," says some one, "what then of the ballots of the poor and the maimed and the unworthy and the weaklings themselves whose pruning shall help our town? What of their ballots? Shall weak kill weak?" ”

“ I led him down the long, deep flights of stairs and along the corridors to his own room, wondering into what hell I had now stepped, and frightened that life in my own house, where I served those whom I loved, should turn so ghastly a face upon me, I had often talked in the garden with Simonetta, my lady's tiring-girl, concerning my lord and my lady. We knew that my lady gave to my lord a cold, unvarying, grave courtesy. We called her among ourselves the most arrogant lady in the land, for we had both seen that she had the highest of arrogance, that which gives to all and asks from none. ”

“ The devils run and I fear them. Stay with me, Matteo." Many there were who said afterward that there were dark shapes among us who were no men of San Moglio; dark shapes herding us back for ever and for ever to the scaffold in the piazza. As the lad shook with fear I sat down beside him, and as I comforted him a wan peace came over me, and I sat there as San Moglio whispered to itself unceasing while it waited sleepless for dawn, as though all San Moglio were but one person, waiting to know if its soul were given to God or the devil. ”

“ I looked where Father Giorgio pointed, and shivered, for our town is built on a hill, scrambling to its summit no one knows how. A mountain stream cleaves the town in two, cold as ice in midsummer. The garden of the Contis sits with its feet in the water, while that door leads to a narrow corridor and the corridor to a bridge, and thence is a narrow stretch to the town. Far below the bridge runs the silent stream, and many have gone through that door who have never returned. ”

“ Thus he drowned me with the pent-up venom of years, And I had gone to him assured that morning, and having found that I had a sweetheart instead of a friend in Simonetta, and feeling no little pride in myself, therefore, I now slunk away, having received a death-sentence from a mad and relentless judge.
I went to my own home, and I had hardly got within the doors when Simon the usurer's wife came crying and shrieking to us. My mother and I ran with her, not making head nor tail of her lamentations. She kept repeating over and over, "He was so afraid of death he has killed himself!" ”

“ As the stick stirred and the broth boiled and bubbled over the blue fire of his insolence, many a strange thing was cast to the top—things good and things bad—that none had guessed were simmering and cooking at the bottom of the broth, flavoring the whole of it.
I shall go on to tell you of the wry faces that the town of San Moglio made as it cooked slowly over the insolence of Egidio Mazzaleone. I have found out that it is always so in this world. ”

“ Bands of men and boys—and women, too—went through the streets, terrible and revolting in their rejoicings. The business of living and dying and of buying and selling for a moment sank to unimportance.
"We are to live," San Moglio shouted, "therefore, let us live." And they lived at their hardest. The savage rejoicing of the piazza would not spend itself, and finally it was the sight of three fat women teetering and shrieking, crying and dancing, as though they were girls, around a May-pole, that sickened me. ”

“ Mazzaleone raised his hand and the men set down their pikes which had formed a bar, and the congregation swarmed forth, each man carrying with him his burden of fear and hate, and the little company of mercy was swallowed up.
Says Mazzaleone, "It is easy to lead a company to victory with the voice alone, but it is only with a sword one may stop the rout of panic or an army when it loots a town." ”

“ They brought thee word, Matteo. Now it is my turn to love life, for it is better to have crooked legs and live ones than straight legs and dead ones. Be proud of your straight legs while you may, Matteo. ”

“ When such battles fight themselves out in the silence of a man's soul it is bad enough for him, but when he feels his fellows fighting it, when the air is full of it and the town heavy with it; when the sweet faces of girls show its conflicts and the desire to kill comes into the placid eyes of mothers of children, then is one's own torment made tenfold. ”

“ How much pity would they have, do you think, if they were offered riches, as they may be, any one of them, by to-morrow? They are the weak and the poor who form your Army of Pity—a little band that to-day sings hallelujah to God, and to-morrow will sell his brother's life for less than twenty pieces of copper. Where your town breeds one Ludovico Casamatto it spawns twenty of the breed of Sala. A knowledge of the hearts of men has been my business these many years. ”

“ Silence followed in their wake, and all stared at them in amazement.
Then says Brother Agnello in his deep voice like a sweet bell, "In the name of Christ, my Master—Messer Gubbio."
"What do you wish?" says the Podestà. ”

“ The pot-houses were overrun and there was much quiet talking among the nobles. And, although we came and went unmolested, the people were not allowed to congregate in the streets or the piazza. He kept moving those who would stop to prattle, did Egidio Mazzaleone; and while we moved about we pondered upon the meaning of his edict until the hide of each one of us felt an uncomfortable itching, as though it already felt the prick of the sharpened sword.
The third day we had ceased to prattle so much; each man stayed more at home. The women wept and the men sat with their heads in their hands. ”

“ CHAPTER X AS I have shown, each man within our gates brooded on death; but there were larger doings afoot than such small killings as glut one man's hate or satisfy one man's desire of profit. Higher hates than these there were, and greater discomforts than an older brother sitting in the place that a younger coveted; greater riches to be snatched than that of a relative too slow in dying. ”

“ As a vigorous tree acquires vigor by pruning, let us prune the town of San Moglio, and let us see that the ninth that are to die shall be those who are not beneficial to a strong state: the weaklings, the feeble-minded, the paupers, and such few as are bitten with the madness of a too overweening ambition. ”

“ A hard man he is and a strong man, but before God I swear he is not bad. It was to him only as if he had killed a whining dog. The black night's work it was. The black night's sowing! But not this harvest! ”

“ None of this, nor tenderness, was for my lord. This change, so Simonetta said, had come from one day to another.
All these things came tumbling through my mind as I traversed the corridors with Father Giorgio, he shaking as with the ague. As he got in his room he turned to me and said: "She has drunken too deeply of the loathing horror of life. This loathing has shaped her into a frightful, tortured thing, and there is no forgetting for her. ”

“ It was as if this sight had been some unseen torch and had set to flaming the smoldering hates and feuds, the smothered hatreds of years; and now, without a word being spoken, without the outward suavity of the scene being changed, this fire crackled round through the assembly as fire might catch a light festooning of drapery. ”

“ You may call any handful, if you will, a city, for among them you will have in little the picture of the state: they love and die, bear children, buy and sell, and strive for power, and the days will go by one like the other and you may think that you know each of your fellows as a book ”

“ It is true," says she, "that I have been nursing to myself the thought of escape, and you yourself, Egidio, had given me it. And I thought of that escape in my own death, and for a while, as one dying may wish to drink of a cool cup of water, I have taken pleasure in the friend of my childhood. ”

“ CHAPTER VIII FOR a time it seemed as though the lust for revenge held sway in San Moglio. None thought of aught but killing, from our beautiful and arrogant lady, who sat brooding while she held death in her hand, to the very children who prattled in the street concerning whom they would kill. ”

“ With that a light as from heaven streamed over his face, and the little maid clapped her hands, crying:
"That I will do! That I will do!" and glad enough that she need not kill herself. But he did not hear her. ”