Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

yourself in such matters?”

      “I am well-advised in seeking to serve a friend!” Odo somewhat hotly returned; and de Crucis, with a faint smile of approval, replied quietly: “In that case I will obtain permission for you to visit your friend in the morning.”

      He was true to his word; and the next forenoon Odo, accompanied by an officer of police, was taken to the prison of the Inquisition. Here he found his old acquaintance seated in a clean commodious room and reading Aristotle’s History of Animals, the only volume of his library that he had been permitted to carry with him. He welcomed Odo heartily, and on the latter’s enquiring what had brought him to this plight, replied with some dignity that he had been led there in the fulfilment of his duty.

      “Some months ago,” he continued, “I was summoned hither to profess the natural sciences in the University; a summons I readily accepted, since I hoped, by the study of a volcanic soil, to enlarge my knowledge of the globe’s formation. Such in fact was the case, but to my surprise my researches led me to adopt the views I had formerly combated, and I now find myself in the ranks of the Vulcanists, or believers in the secondary origin of the earth: a view you may remember I once opposed with all the zeal of inexperience. Having firmly established every point in my argument according to the Baconian method of investigation, I felt it my duty to enlighten my scholars; and in the course of my last lecture I announced the result of my investigations. I was of course aware of the inevitable result; but the servants of Truth have no choice but to follow where she calls, and many have joyfully traversed stonier places than any I am likely to travel.”

      Nothing could exceed the respect with which Odo heard this simple confession of faith. It was as though the speaker had unconsciously convicted him of remissness, of cowardice even; so vain and windy his theorizing seemed, judged by the other’s deliberate act! Yet placed as he was, what could he do, how advance their common end, but by passively waiting on events? At least, he reflected, he could perform the trivial service of trying to better his friend’s case; and this he eagerly offered to attempt. The doctor thanked him, but without any great appearance of emotion: Odo was struck by the change which had transformed a heady and intemperate speaker into a model of philosophic calm. The doctor, indeed, seemed far more concerned for the safety of his library and his cabinet of minerals, than for his own. “Happily,” said he, “I am not a man of family, and can therefore sacrifice my liberty with a clear conscience: a fact I am the more thankful for when I recall the moral distress of our poor friend Vivaldi, when compelled to desert his post rather than be separated from his daughter.”

      The name brought the color to Odo’s brow, and with an embarrassed air he asked what news the doctor had of their friend.

      “Alas,” said the other, “the last was of his death, which happened two years since in Pavia. The Sardinian Government had, as you probably know, confiscated his small property on his leaving the state, and I am told he died in great poverty, and in sore anxiety for his daughter’s future.” He added that these events had taken place before his own departure from Turin, and that since then he had learned nothing of Fulvia’s fate, save that she was said to have made her home with an aunt who lived in a town of the Veneto.

      Odo listened in silence. The lapse of time, and the absence of any links of association, had dimmed the girl’s image in his breast; but at the mere sound of her name it lived again, and he felt her interwoven with his deepest fibres. The picture of her father’s death and of her own need filled him with an ineffectual pity, and for a moment he thought of seeking her out; but the other could recall neither the name of the town she had removed to nor that of the relative who had given her a home. To aid the good doctor was a simpler business. The intervention of de Crucis and Odo’s own influence sufficed to effect his release, and on the payment of a heavy fine (in which Odo privately assisted him) he was reinstated in his chair. The only promise exacted by the Holy Office was that he should in future avoid propounding his own views on questions already decided by Scripture, and to this he readily agreed, since, as he shrewdly remarked to Odo, his opinions were now well known, and any who wished farther instruction had only to apply to him privately.

      —————

      The old Duke having invited Odo to return to Monte Alloro with such treasures as he had collected for the ducal galleries, the young man resolved to visit Rome on his way to the north. His acquaintance with de Crucis had grown into something like friendship since their joint effort in behalf of the imprisoned sage, and the abate preparing to set out about the same time, the two agreed to travel together. The road leading from Naples to Rome was at that time one of the worst in Italy, and was besides so ill-provided with inns that there was no inducement to linger on the way. De Crucis, however, succeeded in enlivening even this tedious journey. He was a good linguist and a sound classical scholar, besides having, as he had told Odo, a pronounced taste for antiquarian research. In addition to this, he performed agreeably on the violin, and was well-acquainted with the history of music. His chief distinction, however, lay in the ease with which he wore his accomplishments, and in a breadth of view that made it possible to discuss with him many subjects distasteful to most men of his cloth. The sceptical or licentious ecclesiastic was common enough; but Odo had never before met a priest who united serious piety with this indulgent temper, or who had learning enough to do justice to the arguments of his opponents.

      On his venturing one evening to compliment de Crucis on these qualities, the latter replied with a smile: “Whatever has been lately advanced against the Jesuits, it can hardly be denied that they were good school-masters; and it is to them I owe the talents you have been pleased to admire. Indeed,” he continued, quietly fingering his violin, “I was myself bred in the order: a fact I do not often make known in the present heated state of public opinion; but which I never conceal when commended for any quality that I owe to the Society rather than to my own merit.”

      Surprise for the moment silenced Odo; for though it was known that Italy was full of former Jesuits who had been permitted to remain in the country as secular priests, and even to act as tutors or professors in private families, he had never thought of de Crucis in this connection. The latter, seeing his surprise, went on: “Once a Jesuit, always a Jesuit, I suppose. I at least owe the Society too much not to own my debt when the occasion offers. Nor could I ever see the force of the charge so often brought against us: that we sacrifice everything to the glory of the order. For what is the glory of the order? Our own motto has declared it: Ad majorem Dei gloriam —who works for the Society works for its Master. If our zeal has been sometimes misdirected, our blood has a thousand times witnessed to its sincerity. In the Indies, in America, in England during the great persecution, and lately on our own unnatural coasts, the Jesuits have died for Christ as joyfully as His first disciples died for Him. Yet these are but a small number in comparison with the countless servants of the order who, laboring in far countries among savage peoples, or surrounded by the heretical enemies of our faith, have died the far bitterer death of moral isolation: setting themselves to their task with the knowledge that their lives were but so much indistinguishable dust to be added to the sum of human effort. What association founded on human interests has ever commanded such devotion? And what merely human authority could count on such unquestioning obedience, not in a mob of poor illiterate monks, but in men chosen for their capacity and trained to the exercise of their highest faculties? Yet there have never lacked such men to serve the order; and as one of our enemies has said—our noblest enemy, the great Pascal—’Je crois volontiers aux histoires dont les témoins se font égorger.’”

      He did not again revert to his connection with the Jesuits; but in the farther course of their acquaintance Odo was often struck by the firmness with which he testified to the faith that was in him, without using the jargon of piety, or seeming, by his own attitude, to cast a reflection on that of others. He was indeed master of that worldly science which the Jesuits excelled in imparting, and which, though it might sink to hypocrisy in smaller natures, became, in a finely-tempered spirit, the very flower of Christian courtesy.

      Odo had often spoken to de Crucis of the luxurious lives led by many of the monastic orders in Naples. It might be true enough that the monks themselves, and even their abbots, fared on fish and vegetables, and gave their time to charitable and educational work; but it was impossible to visit the famous