THE VIGIL OF SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA

ON the summit of a conical hill, rising above the great amphitheatre of forests that skirt the sunny Apulian plains, upon the ruins of a temple to Apollo and in a grove sacred to Venus here, in the sixth century had arisen the model of western monasticism, the cloisters of Monte Cassino.

From its sun-kissed heights the view extended on one side towards Arpinum where the Prince of Roman orators was born, on the other, towards Aquinum, already famous as the birth-place of Juvenal. Scarcely a pope or emperor of note there was who had not been personally connected with its history. From its mountain crags it had seen Goths, Lombards, Saracens and Normans devastate the land, had witnessed the death struggle between Guelph and Ghibelline, the discomfiture of Rome, and the extinction of imperial dynasties.

Up to the chapter house of the great Order of Benedict of Nursia, enthroned upon that predestined height, Francesco slowly and wearily made his way. After a night, even more restless than the preceding one, he had journeyed all day, wishing, yet dreading, to behold his ultimate goal. And as he slowly rode up the hill his heart sank with the sheer weight of his misery.

It was evening.

An immense silence, full of sadness, had fallen upon the world. The distant mountains were lost in a dome of roseate fire, which reached almost to the horizon, bordered by a line of pallid gold. Only in the west, like the very Host, the sun, shrouded in golden mists, hung in the heavens over the mystery of the sea. Slowly the light was changing. It was the moment of Benediction. Great tongues of flame stole into the firmament; the hills took fire from the splendor of the skies. Across the world lay the shadow of the Mountain. The earth seemed as a smoking censer.

As one wrapped in a dream, Francesco gazed across the land. Far and away in the Umbrian plains a fire shone like a star fallen to earth; then another and another. Castellazzara flamed on the mountain; Proceno, Aquapendente, Elciola and Paladino in the plains. Torre Alfina high in the mountains lighted her beacon; San Lorenzo in the valley answered it. Every hamlet chanted "Magnificat" and the hills answered: "Salve Regina!"

It was the Vigil of Santa Maria Assunta.

From the cloisters above came the sound of many droning voices. They seemed to intensify the stillness, rather than to disturb it.

At last he paused before the great southern entrance to the cloisters. He pulled rein, but did not dismount. He was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling strong enough to bow his head and to call from his lips a deep, heartbroken groan. After three days of freedom unspeakably blessed he was now to enter the gates which would shut him in away from the world of life, away from the world of men, perhaps for all his remaining existence. Three brief days! That short time had dispelled from his spirit the dull crust of insensibility, with which he had striven to clothe it. He was once more to be laid bare to the lash of inward rebellion from which he shrank in horror. A pardoned prisoner recondemned to death,—it was easily compared to the life to which he must voluntarily resign himself; that endless existence of religious slavery from whose soul-crushing monotony there was no escape, but death.

Why no escape? Francesco stood there alone in the falling darkness. None in the cloisters had been advised of his coming. He might yet—With a tightening of the lips he leaped from his horse and gave the customary signal.

After a wait of brief duration a lay-brother appeared, opened the gates and Francesco Villani entered the precincts of Monte Cassino.

Without stating the reasons of his presence, he requested to be forthwith conducted into the presence of the Prior, and the monk, after having cared for Francesco's steed, and attended to his behest, returned after a short time and bade him follow. Arrived at the Prior's apartment, his guide knocked for admission. The door swung inward and Francesco entered alone.

The Prior had just finished a special devotion in a small oratory adjoining his chamber and was now seated before a massive oaken table, on which there lay a curiously illuminated parchment, from whose azure and golden initials Francesco's eyes turned shudderingly to the form of Romuald, Prior of Monte Cassino.

His great and powerful frame was so worn with vigils and fasts that it seemed like that of a huge skeleton. He regarded the youth, whose courtly garb and manners would not have remained unremarked even in the most brilliant assembly, with an air of austerity mingled with apathy, which age and long solitude might well have engendered and, after a few brief words of welcome such as took little from Francesco's sense of forlornness, he bade the youth be seated.

Without attempt at delay or circumlocution the son of the Grand Master placed his father's letter in the Prior's hands, while he turned his face from this living Memento Mori in the garb which henceforth must be evermore his own.

Francesco seated himself upon a settle, while the Prior weighed the letter absently in his hand as one undecided whether or not to acquaint himself with its contents. At last he broke the seal and, with the aid of a torch whose flickering light drew Francesco's attention towards the open door of an oratory, Romuald slowly began to read. While thus engrossed, Francesco's gaze wandered down the dim vistas of corridors revealed beyond Romuald's chamber, which in the half-light presented an exceedingly gloomy aspect, reposing in the uncertain glimmer of stone lamps fixed in niches upon the walls. These corridors were at intervals crossed by archways, marking the termination of many flights of stairs leading by galleries to the upper chambers of the cloisters. A pulpit, supported on a pillar fixed in the wall, was revealed by the light of five or six stone lamps, which seemed to intensify rather than to dispel the gloom beyond.

During the reading of Gregorio Villani's letter a sudden change had come over the Prior's face. Francesco noted it not, engrossed as he was in scanning his surroundings, silently wondering if he would be able to strip off the gladness of earth, the joy of youth, the yearning of the flesh, to become the image of that spiritualized abnegation which the Prior represented; if his strength would support his resolve.

Suddenly a scowl darkened Romuald's brow, and from the letter in his trembling hands his dimmed eyes flashed upon the youth. Francesco wondered. It was not long before he learned.

Romuald, supporting his right arm on the table, turned to the youth.

"You then are the son of Gregorio Villani! And you think to live here amongst us, to enjoy the peace and the solitude of these cloisters, whose life-long enemy your father has been!"

At the Prior's words Francesco had started.

"I know nothing of my father's quarrels, nothing of the quarrels of the monks," he said.

The Prior nodded absently.

"You were raised at the Court of Avellino?"

"Such was my father's will!"

Romuald looked up at him curiously.

"And now, his will is to make of you a monk, to do penance for his own transgressions!"

Francesco's head sank.

"The burden is mine to bear!"

A strange light shone in the Prior's eyes.

"Then it is not your own desire?"

Every vestige of color had left Francesco's face.

"It is my wish!"—

There was a brief pause.

"You are loyal to the memory of him who gave you life but to destroy it," nodded the Prior, as unconsciously he picked up the letter from the table. Signs of deeper inward emotion were revealed upon his face as, after regarding the youth with a gloomy interest, he said at last:

"For one raised at court you will find the life of the cloister arduous enough."

A flood of memories rushed with these words over Francesco.

They left his countenance paler than before,

"I shall learn to bear it."

A sudden gleam of pity seemed to beam from Romuald's passionless eyes.

"It is a brave beginning of the new life,—for I doubt not you must stay. The word of His Holiness is law. To-night, since collation is over in the refectory, you will sup with me. To-morrow you shall exchange this garb for the simpler one."

Sick at heart, Francesco nodded silent acquiescence.

At this moment a monk entered, carrying a platter which he placed upon a table and, after arranging it according to the Prior's direction, left the latter alone with his guest.

The collation was by no means traditionally meagre. In truth, it seemed to Francesco far above what his fancy about monastic life had led him to expect.

At last when everything upon the trenchers, together with the last flagon of wine, had been done ample justice to, Francesco, after due thanksgiving, arose.

Romuald's gaze had never relinquished the youth during the repast.

"Now to St. Benedict's chapel, wherein already the bell is calling," he said, rising slowly. "After compline you shall be conducted to your cell,—one for yourself within the dormitory overhead. This is the way."

A small door at one side of the Prior's room opened upon a narrow passage, along which they walked side by side in semi-darkness, till the light from the chapter house met their eyes. Through this large room they passed, entering from it the great Church itself, the further end of which opened into a beautiful chapel consecrated many years ago to the founder of the cloister, St. Benedict of Nursia.

When the Prior and his companion entered here, the monks were already assembled. There was many a curious glance cast towards Francesco as he strode along the kneeling company by the side of the Prior.

So occupied was the newcomer with the novelty of the scene, that the old and familiar worship, witnessed among different surroundings, did not pall upon him here.

Mechanically his lips moved, while his eyes wandered over the white carven screen before the altar and the pillar that rose above it out of the range of candle-light, to mingle with the shadows above.

Then, by a slight turn of the head, he could see the black, well-like entrance to the large church, where one or two distant lamps, lighted by penitent monks before special shrines, flashed like infinitesimal stars through the gloom. As for the long rows of kneeling monks about him, they seemed to Francesco to differ not at all from those he had known and met in the monasteries of Apulia, or those he had seen in the Augustinian monastery of San Cataldo. They were the same unsympathetic forms, the same shorn pates, the same dull faces, for whom the world outside the gates of the cloister was but a country unredeemed. These were part of the hosts that formed the great army of the Church, with the aid of which she had slowly but surely obtained her hold on the heritage of Emperor Frederick the Second; these were the sentinels of the crusading host of Anjou. They knew no will, save that of an irate, fanatical pontiff who looked about in vain for means to rid himself of his dearly beloved son and his rapacious hordes. Of these he was henceforth to be a part, their loves his loves, their hates his hates. In vain did he look about for a face idealized by the life of the cloister, and, as he looked and wondered, the last prayer was concluded.

In irregular groups, amid a low murmur of conversation, the monks left their devotions, now ended for another day. Francesco followed them as they moved down the corridor.

Suddenly a hand was laid upon his shoulder. He turned about and gazed into the face of the Prior.

"Fra Ambrogio will conduct you to your cell," said Romuald, beckoning to a long, lean monk who stared awkwardly at the newcomer. "The last—in the western wing," was the Prior's laconic order, and Francesco bowed in silence and followed his spectral guide.

He was too weary to care to talk; even to inquire about his horse.

In a short while the son of the Grand Master was alone in his dimly lighted cell. It was larger than he had anticipated and far more worthily furnished.

Upon a table had been placed the bundle which held his belongings. This he unrolled carelessly, intending to take from it only his tunic for the night. With the movement something from the bundle fell out upon the stone floor. He stooped to pick it up. It was the little steel dagger which his hand had gripped on the fatal night of his return from San Cataldo. Thinking nothing of the omen, he slipped the forbidden weapon between the leaves of a Missal which he placed on the table, and there it remained for many a long day.

Then he sat down upon his bed, covering his face with his hands.

Ilaria's name rang in his ears; Ilaria's image filled every atom of his soul. In the paroxysm of grief which convulsed his frame, he shook like a storm-swept reed; it was in vain he tried to compose his mind to the proper attitude for prayer.

The crucifix above his bed swam in a misty cloud before his eyes. It was only after a long litany, mechanically repeated, that Francesco succeeded in recalling his wandering imagination to the mystery of the atonement. At last sheer physical weariness conquered the feverish agitation of his nerves and he lay down.

The long night passed in unbroken blackness and silence. In the utter void and absence of all external impressions Francesco gradually lost consciousness of time. The blackness of night seemed an illimitable thing with no beginning and no ending; but, when at early dawn he waked, there were tears in his eyes and the name of Ilaria on his lips.