The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-29

Oe Las AONNA ~
II have no business to lecture your reverence
on your duties, she added, tartly; ''but they do
say that so much anxiety for a guilty woman is
a manner of injustice to innocent souls"
Gesualdo struck his closed hand on the table,
with concentrated expression of passion.
H"Howidare you say that she is guiltyFhe cried.
WHO has proved her 500"
Candida looked at him with shrewd suspicious
eyes. as she sat down the bottle of vinegar.
II have met with nobody who doubts il" she
said cruelty, Except your reverence, and her
lover up yonder at the villa"
you are all far to ready to believe evil" said
Gesualdo, with nervous haste; and he arose and
pushed aside the untasted dish, and went out of
the house.
HE is beside himself for that jade's sake"
thought Candida, and after waiting a little while,
to see if he returned, she sat down and ate the
cabbage.
Whether there were as many crimes in the
world as flies ON the pavement in summer, she
saw no reason why that good food should be
wasted.
After her supper she took her distaff and went
and sat on the low wall which divided the
church ground from the road, and gossiped with
any one of the villagers who CHANGED to come by.
No one was ever too much occupied not to have
leisure to talk in Marca, and the church-wall
was a favorite gathering place for the sunburnt
women, with faces like leather under their broad
summer hats. or their woollen winter kerchiefs.
who came and went to and from the fields, or
the well, or the washing reservoir, with it's
broad stone tanks brimming with brown water
nnd6r a Vlnp.nQVQrod norCnla Whopo Tho hon1oSo
linen was wont to be beaten and banged as
though 1t were so many sheets of cast-iron. And
here. with her gossip and friends, Candida could
not help letting fall little words-stray SEN
tences-which revealed the trouble her mind
was in as to the change in her master. She was
devoted to him. but her devotion was not so
strong as her love of mystery and her impatience
OF anything which opposed a barrier to her curl
osity. She was not conscious that she said a
syllable which could have affected his reputation,
yet her neighbours all went away from her with
the idea that there was something wrong in the
presbytery. and that, if she had chosen, the
priests housekeeper could have told some very
strange tales.
Since the days of the miller's murder a vague
feeling against Don Gesualdo had been growing
up In Marca. A man who does not cackle, and
scream, and roar till he is hoarse at the slightest
thing which happens is always unnatural and
suspicious in the eyes of an Italian community.
The people Of Marca began to remember that he
had some foreign blood in him, and that he had
always been more friendly with the wife of Tas-
so Iassllo than has been meet in one of his call
ing.
Falko Melegari had been denied admittance to
her by the authorities. They were not sure that
ne as her lover, had not some completely in the
crime committed; and. moreover, his impetuous
ana lnconslderate language tothe judge of in
s%truction at the preliminary investigation had
been SO fierce and SO unwise that it had preju-
diced against him all officers OF the law. This
exclusion of him heightened the misery he felt.
ana mOVa6 him IL 4 n a
with the vicar of San Bartolo for being allowed
to see her.
Those black snakes slip and slide in any.
where" he thought, s~avagely. and his contemnt
for aud dislike of ecclesiastics, which the man
ner and character Of Gesualdo had held in abey-
ance, revived in its pristine force.
In Easter time Gesualdo was always greatly
fatlgued; and when Easter came round this year,
ana the sins OF Marca were poured into his ear;
little. sordld. mean sins of which the narration
wearied and sickened him, they seemed
more loathsome to him than they had ever
done. There was such likeness and such
repetition IN the confessions of all of them
greed, avarice, dishonesty, fornication: the scale
never varied, and the story told always kept at
the same low level of petty and coarse things.
Their confessor heard. with a tired mind and a
SICK heart, and, as he gave them dissolution,
shuddered at the doubts of the infallibility of
his church, which for the first time passed with
dread terror through his thoughts. The whole
world seemed to him changing. He felt as
though the solid earth itself were giving way be-
meath his feet. His large eyes had q startled
and frightened look in them, and his face grew
thinner every day.
1t was after the last office in this Easter week
when a man came through the evening shadows
toward the church. His name was Emilio Raj.
fagiolo, but he was always known as the G;rel-
lone, the rover. Such nick-names replace the
baptlsmal names of the country people till thu
latter are almost forgotten. whilst the family
name Is scarcely ever employed at all in rural
| COnmnnltl9S az. The (rlrollnno uCac a oarknu r-l1
had been in service at the water-mill for some
few months. He was q man of thirty or
thereabouts, with a dusky face and a
shock head of hair, and hazel eyes, dull and yet
cunning. de was dressed now in his festal at
tire, and he had a round hat set on one side of
his head; he dotted it as he entered the church
He could not read or write, and his ideas of his
creed were hazy and curious; the church repre-
sented to him a thing with virtue in it, like a
charm or a bunch of herbs; it was only neces-
sary, he thought, to observe certain formule of
1t to be safe within it; conduct outside it was of
no consequence. Nothing on earth can equal in
confusion and indistinc,ness the views of the
!tahan rustic as regards his religion. The priest
is to him AS the medicine man to the savage; but
he has ceased to respect his councils whilst re.
tanning a superstitious feeling about his Office.
This man, dofing his hat, entered the church
and approached the confessional. crossing him
self AS he did SO. Gesualdo, with a sign. nre-
| pared to receive his confession. althonph the
hour was unusual, and the many services OF the
day had fatigued him until his head
swan and his vision was clouded. But at no
time had he ever availed himself of any excuse
of time or physical weakness to avoid the duties
of his Office. Recognizing the carter, he YEARLY
awaited the usual tale of low vice and petty sins,
some drunkenness. or theft, or lust, gratifed in
some unholy way. and resigned himself YEARLY
to follow the confused repetitions with which the
rustic Of every country answers questions or mar
rates circumstances. His conscience smote him
FOR his apathy. Ought not the soul of this clum-
sy. wine soddened boor to be as dear to him as
that of ~lovelier creaturesl
The man answered the usual priestly inter
r~ogations sullenly and at random; he could not
help doing what he did, because superstition
drove him to it, and was stronger for the time
than any other thing; but he was angered at his
own conscience and afraid of what he did; his
swell and grow larger than his mouth, and re-
fuse to move as he said at length in a thick,
choked voice: