The Greatest Novels of Charles Reade. Charles Reade Reade

thread; and I am writing a book—heart and soul in it—'The Dream of Polifilo,' the man of many arts. So name not poison to me till that is finished and copied.”

      And now the great bells of St. John Lateran's were rung with a clash at short intervals, and the people hurried thither to see the heads of St. Peter and St. Paul.

      Gerard and the friar got a good place in the church, and there was a great curtain, and after long and breathless expectation of the people, this curtain was drawn by jerks, and at a height of about thirty feet were two human heads with bearded faces, that seemed alive. They were shown no longer than the time to say an Ave Maria, and then the curtain drawn. But they were shown in this fashion three times. St. Peter's complexion was pale, his face oval, his beard grey and forked; his head crowned with a papal mitre. St. Paul was dark skinned, with a thick, square beard; his face also and head were more square and massive, and full of resolution.

      Gerard was awe-struck. The friar approved after his fashion.

      “This exhibition of the 'imagines,' or waxen effigies of heroes and demigods, is a venerable custom, and inciteth the vulgar to virtue by great and invisible examples.

      “Waxen images? What, are they not the apostles themselves, embalmed, or the like?”

      The friar moaned.

      “They did not exist in the year 800. The great old Roman families always produced at their funerals a series of these 'imagines,' thereby tying past and present history together, and showing the populace the features of far-famed worthies. I can conceive nothing more thrilling or instructive. But then the effigies were portraits made during life or at the hour of death. These of St. Paul and St. Peter are moulded out of pure fancy.”

      “Ah! say not so, father.”

      “But the worst is, this humour of showing them up on a shelf, and half in the dark, and by snatches, and with the poor mountebank trick of a drawn curtain.

      'Quodcunque ostendis mihi sic incredulus odi.'

      Enough; the men of this day are not the men of old. Let us have done with these new-fangled mummeries, and go among the Pope's books; there we shall find the wisdom we shall vainly hunt in the streets of modern Rome.”

      And this idea having once taken root, the good friar plunged and tore through the crowd, and looked neither to the right hand nor to the left, till he had escaped the glories of the holy week, which had brought fifty thousand strangers to Rome; and had got nice and quiet among the dead in the library of the Vatican.

      Presently, going into Gerard's room, he found a hot dispute afoot between him and Jacques Bonaventura. That spark had come in, all steel from head to toe; doffed helmet, puffed, and railed most scornfully on a ridiculous ceremony, at which he and his soldiers had been compelled to attend the Pope; to wit the blessing of the beasts of burden.

      Gerard said it was not ridiculous; nothing a Pope did could be ridiculous.

      The argument grew warm, and the friar stood grimly neuter, waiting like the stork that ate the frog and the mouse at the close of their combat, to grind them both between the jaws of antiquity; when lo, the curtain was gently drawn, and there stood a venerable old man in a purple skull cap, with a beard like white floss silk, looking at them with a kind though feeble smile.

      “Happy youth,” said he, “that can heat itself over such matters.”

      They all fell on their knees. It was the Pope.

      “Nay, rise, my children,” said he, almost peevishly. “I came not into this corner to be in state. How goes Plutarch?”

      Gerard brought his work, and kneeling on one knee presented it to his holiness, who had seated himself, the others standing.

      His holiness inspected it with interest.

      “'Tis excellently writ,” said he.

      Gerard's heart beat with delight.

      “Ah! this Plutarch, he had a wondrous art, Francesco. How each character standeth out alive on his page: how full of nature each, yet how unlike his fellow!”

      Jacques Bonaventura. “Give me the Signor Boccaccio.”

      His Holiness. “An excellent narrator, capitano, and writeth exquisite Italian. But in spirit a thought too monotonous. Monks and nuns were never all unchaste: one or two such stories were right pleasant and diverting; but five score paint his time falsely, and sadden the heart of such as love mankind. Moreover, he hath no skill at characters. Now this Greek is supreme in that great art: he carveth them with pen; and turning his page, see into how real and great a world we enter of war, and policy, and business, and love in its own place: for with him, as in the great world, men are not all running after a wench. With this great open field compare me not the narrow garden of Boccaccio, and his little mill-round of dishonest pleasures.”

      “Your holiness, they say, hath not disdained to write a novel.”

      “My holiness hath done more foolish things than one, whereof it repents too late. When I wrote novels I little thought to be head of the Church.”

      “I search in vain for a copy of it to add to my poor library.”

      “It is well. Then the strict orders I gave four years ago to destroy every copy in Italy have been well discharged. However, for your comfort, on my being made Pope, some fool turned it into French: so that you may read it, at the price of exile.”

      “Reduced to this strait we throw ourselves on your holiness's generosity. Vouchsafe to give us your infallible judgment on it!”

      “Gently, gently, good Francesco. A Pope's novels are not matters of faith. I can but give you my sincere impression. Well then the work in question had, as far as I can remember, all the vices of Boccaccio, without his choice Italian.”

      Fra Colonna. “Your holiness is known for slighting Aeneas Silvius as other men never slighted him. I did him injustice to make you his judge. Perhaps your holiness will decide more justly between these two boys-about blessing the beasts.”

      The Pope demurred. In speaking of Plutarch he had brightened up for a moment, and his eye had even flashed; but his general manner was as unlike what youthful females expect in a Pope as you can conceive. I can only describe it in French. Le gentilhomme blase. A highbred, and highly cultivated gentleman, who had done, and said, and seen, and known everything, and whose body was nearly worn out. But double languor seemed to seize him at the father's proposal.

      “My poor Francesco,” said he, “bethink thee that I have had a life of controversy, and am sick on't; sick as death. Plutarch drew me to this calm retreat; not divinity.”

      “Nay, but, your holiness, for moderating of strife between two hot young bloods, {Makarioi oi eirinopioi}.”

      “And know you nature so ill, as to think either of these high-mettled youths will reck what a poor old Pope saith?”

      “Oh! your holiness,” broke in Gerard, blushing and gasping, “sure, here is one who will treasure your words all his life as words from Heaven.”

      “In that case,” said the Pope, “I am fairly caught. As Francesco here would say—

      {ouk estin ostis est' anyr eleutheos}.

      I came to taste that eloquent heathen, dear to me e'en as to thee, thou paynim monk; and I must talk divinity, or something next door to it. But the youth hath a good and a winning face, and writeth Greek like an angel. Well then, my children, to comprehend the ways of the Church, we should still rise a little above the earth, since the Church is between heaven and earth, and interprets betwixt them.

      “The question is then, not how vulgar men feel, but how the common Creator of man and beast doth feel, towards the lower animals. This, if we are too proud to search for it in the lessons of the Church, the next best thing is to go to the most ancient history of men and animals.”

      Colonna. “Herodotus.”

      “Nay, nay; in this matter Herodotus is but a mushroom.