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The enormous, slanting mass of rock before them seemed to Don Clemente at that moment the symbol of a demoniacal power standing in Benedetto's way; so, too, the gathering darkness seemed to him symbolically threatening, and threatening also the ever-increasing, ever-deepening roar of the lonely river.
Benedetto burned Assunta, my sister-in-law and his foster mother, so as to get her money; he only lived from robbery and murder." "He is a man, he must be saved." Ali came now with the rum. The count poured a few drops into Benedetto's throat, Haydee rubbed his temples, and in a few minutes the wretch uttered a deep sigh and his lips moved, though his eyes still remained closed.
He disliked going alone; he could have wished to appear before the Senator with some one of Benedetto's friends whose presence would intimidate him a little, for his conduct was inexplicable. Giovanni muttered something about the vice-presidency of the Senate, to which that old man aspired, and which he would not obtain.
An artist who claims a third place beside Mino and his friend, "il bravo Desider si dolce e bello," is Benedetto da Majano. In Benedetto's bas-reliefs at San Gemignano, carved for the altars of those unlovely Tuscan worthies, S. Fina and S. Bartolo, we find a pictorial treatment of legendary subjects, proving that he had studied Ghirlandajo's frescoes.
Quick as thought the count seized the weapon, and placing it against Benedetto's forehead, said in a loud, clear voice: "All you people who are with this villain whom you call Count San Pietro ought, at least, to know whom your ally is. Listen attentively, gentlemen. The man to whom you bend the knee is an escaped galley slave he murdered his mother!"
One of the young men motioned to her to pass on in front, but she would not, and he did not insist. It was neither the place nor the hour for ceremony. Maria felt that these men were called before her, to continue Benedetto's work, after his death. They walked in silence, and with bare heads, although it was raining; Selva as the others. Mayda received them on the threshold.
Now I must ask you a few questions, and I exhort you to answer with perfect truth." The Pontiff looked with serious eyes into Benedetto's eyes; Benedetto bowed his head slightly. "You have written here," the Pontiff began, "that when you were in that little church in the Veneto, you had a vision of yourself in the Vatican, conversing with the Pope.
In the meantime, the reasons for practical prudence which pressed upon Don Clemente at this time of distress, and the reasons for ideal holiness which in calmer moments he had taught his beloved disciple, were contending for supremacy over Benedetto's will, no longer so steadfast as in the beginning; the first striving at close quarters, and with imperious violence; the second, from a distance and by means only of their stern and sad beauty.
Meanwhile the advancing shadows had engulfed the white figure and the black one. His Holiness placed his hand on Benedetto's shoulder and asked him softly, almost hesitatingly: "Do you remember the end of your vision?" Benedetto, bowing his head, answered, also in a low tone: "Nescio diem, neque horam." "The words are not in the manuscript," His Holiness continued; "but do you remember?"
The sagacious politicians of the Vatican, inheritors of the accumulated craft of a thousand years, know too much to break a butterfly on a wheel, to make a martyr of an inconvenient person whom they can be rid of quietly. Therein lies the tragedy of Benedetto's experience, so far at least as we regard him, or as he thought himself, an instrument for the regeneration of the Church.
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