The Gadfly was staring absently out of the window. He looked round and answered in a weary voice:
“Yes, I am listening.”
“Perhaps you are really not well enough to stand this conversation tonight. Shall I come back in the morning? It is a very serious matter, and I want your whole attention.”
“I would rather get it over now,” the Gadfly answered in the same tone. “I follow everything you say.”
“Now, if it be true,” Montanelli went on, “that there is any real danger of riots and bloodshed on account of you, I am taking upon myself a tremendous responsibility in opposing the colonel; and I believe there is at least some truth in what he says. On the other hand, I am inclined to think that his judgment is warped, to a certain extent, by his personal animosity against you, and that he probably exaggerates the danger. That seems to me the more likely since I have seen this shameful brutality.” He glanced at the straps and chains lying on the floor, and went on:
“If I consent, I kill you; if I refuse, I run the risk of killing innocent persons. I have considered the matter earnestly, and have sought with all my heart for a way out of this dreadful alternative. And now at last I have made up my mind.”
“To kill me and s-save the innocent persons, of course—the only decision a Christian man could possibly come to. ‘If thy r-right hand offend thee,’ etc. I have n-not the honour to be the right hand of Your Eminence, and I have offended you; the c-c-conclusion is plain. Couldn’t you tell me that without so much preamble?”
The Gadfly spoke with languid indifference and contempt, like a man weary of the whole subject.
“Well?” he added after a little pause. “Was that the decision, Your Eminence?”
“No.”
The Gadfly shifted his position, putting both hands behind his head, and looked at Montanelli with half-shut eyes. The Cardinal, with his head sunk down as in deep thought, was softly beating one hand on the arm of his chair. Ah, that old, familiar gesture!
“I have decided,” he said, raising his head at last, “to do, I suppose, an utterly unprecedented thing. When I heard that you had asked to see me, I resolved to come here and tell you everything, as I have done, and to place the matter in your own hands.”
“In—my hands?”
“Signor Rivarez, I have not come to you as cardinal, or as bishop, or as judge; I have come to you as one man to another. I do not ask you to tell me whether you know of any such scheme as the colonel apprehends. I understand quite well that, if you do, it is your secret and you will not tell it. But I do ask you to put yourself in my place. I am old, and, no doubt, have not much longer to live. I would go down to my grave without blood on my hands.”
“Is there none on them as yet, Your Eminence?”
Montanelli grew a shade paler, but went on quietly:
“All my life I have opposed repressive measures and cruelty wherever I have met with them. I have always disapproved of capital punishment in all its forms; I have protested earnestly and repeatedly against the military commissions in the last reign, and have been out of favour on account of doing so. Up till now such influence and power as I have possessed have always been employed on the side of mercy. I ask you to believe me, at least, that I am speaking the truth. Now, I am placed in this dilemma. By refusing, I am exposing the town to the danger of riots and all their consequences; and this to save the life of a man who blasphemes against my religion, who has slandered and wronged and insulted me personally (though that is comparatively a trifle), and who, as I firmly believe, will put that life to a bad use when it is given to him. But—it is to save a man’s life.”
He paused a moment, and went on again:
“Signor Rivarez, everything that I know of your career seems to me bad and mischievous; and I have long believed you to be reckless and violent and unscrupulous. To some extent I hold that opinion of you still. But during this last fortnight you have shown me that you are a brave man and that you can be faithful to your friends. You have made the soldiers love and admire you, too; and not every man could have done that. I think that perhaps I have misjudged you, and that there is in you something better than what you show outside. To that better self in you I appeal, and solemnly entreat you, on your conscience, to tell me truthfully—in my place, what would you do?”
A long silence followed; then the Gadfly looked up.
“At least, I would decide my own actions for myself, and take the consequences of them. I would not come sneaking to other people, in the cowardly Christian way, asking them to solve my problems for me!”
The onslaught was so sudden, and its extraordinary vehemence and passion were in such startling contrast to the languid affectation of a moment before, that it was as though he had thrown off a mask.
“We atheists,” he went on fiercely, “understand that if a man has a thing to bear, he must bear it as best he can; and if he sinks under it—why, so much the worse for him. But a Christian comes whining to his God, or his saints; or, if they won’t help him, to his enemies—he can always find a back to shift his burdens on to. Isn’t there a rule to go by in your Bible, or your Missal, or any of your canting theology books, that you must come to me to tell you what to do?
