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

Look you. the night before the feast of Peter
and Paul he had received seven hundred francs
in the day for wheat, and saw him lock it up in
his bureau and say to his wife that he should
take it to the town next day. That was in the
forenoon. At eventids they had a worse quarrel
than usual. She tainted him and he threatened
her. In the dawn | was listening to hear him
astlr. lie was up before dawn, and he unoarred
and opened the miil-house himself and called to
the foreman, and he said he was going to town
and told US what we were to do. L shall be away
all day. he said. 1t was still dusky. stole out
after him without the men seeing. l said to my
self l would take this money from him as he
went along the crossroads to take the diligence
at SAINT 'Arteero. I did not say to myself l
would kill him, but l resolved to get the
money. It was enough to take one out
one A got out A there. A'e So one I made aSaH0 up "n mg
mind. Money is at the bottom of most things.
l followed him half a mile before l could get my
courage up. He did not see ne because of tine
trees are so thick, when 1 said to myself, Now
or never! Then l sprung on him and stabbed
him under the shoulder. He fell like a stone.
l searched him, but there was nothing in his
had only made a feint of going to the town,
thinking to come back and find the lovers to-
gether. l buried the knife under a poplar a few
yards off where he fell. l could have thrown it
in the river, but they say things which have
you dig for it under the big poplar tree that
they call the Grand Dukes, because they say
Pietro Leopoldo sat under it once on a time.
There was a little blood on the blade, but there
was none anywhere else, for he bled inwardly.
They do, if you strike right. 1 was a butchers
lad once, and 1 used to kill the oxen, and 1 know.
That is all. When I found the old rogue
had no money with him I could have
killed him a score of times over. l
cannot think how it was that he left home with
out it, unless it was, as l say, that he meant to
go back unknown, and unawares and surprise
his wife with Melegari. That must have been
it, think. For greedy as he was over his money.
he was greedier still over his wife. l turned
him over on his back, and left him lying there,
and went back to the mill and began my days
work, till the people came and wakened
her and told the tale; then l left off work and
came and looked on like the rest Of them. That
is ALL"
The man who made the confession was calm
and unmoved. the priest who heard it was sick
with horror, pale to the lips with agitation and
anguish.
"But his wife is accused! She may be con-
demned!" he cried in agony.
81 know that" said the man, stolidly. 'But
you cannot tell of me-. l have told you under the
seal of confession"
It was quite true; come what would, Gesualdo
could never reveal what he had heard. His
eyes swan, his head reeled, a deadly sickness
came upon him; all his short life simple and
harmless things had been around him: he had
been told of the crimes of men, but he had never
been touched by them; he had known of the sins
Of the world, but he had never realized them.
The sense that the murderer of Tasso Tassilo
was within a hands breadth of him, that these
eyes which stared at him, this voice which spoke
to him, were those of the actual assassin, that it
was possible and yet utterly impossible for
him to help justice md save innocence-all this
overcame him with its overwhelming burden of
horror and of divided duty. He lost all con-
seriousness as he knelt there and fell heavily
forward on the wood work of the confessional.
His teachers had said Alright in the days of his
r,nso chat hn rrnp1A ~4rn~1n ~ rtaw onAr-l
stuff to deal with the realities Of life.
When he recovered his senses, sight and sound
and sensibility all returning to him slowly and
with a strange, numb, %pricking pain in his limbs
and his body and his brain, the church was quite
dark, and the man vino had confessed his crime
to him was gone.
Gesualdo gathered himself up with effort and
sat down on the wooden seat and tried 10 think.
He was bitterly ashamed of his own weakness.
What was he worth, he, shepherd and leader of
men, if at the first word of horror which alright
ed him he tainted as women faint, and failed to
speak in answer the condemnation which should
have been spoken9 Was it for such cowardice as
this that they had Amounted him and received
him as a servitor Of the church9
His first impulse was to 60 and relate his
feebleness and failure to his bishop; the next he
that even SO much support as this
be must not seek; to no living being must he tell
this wretched blood secret.
The law which respects nothing would not re-
spect the secrets of the confessional; but he
O eH$ 1hiN ioN IL tDO IL COulu
not alter his own bondage to the duty he had
with his own will accepted.
1t was past midnight when, with trembling
limbs. he CROPPED his way out of the porch Of his
church and found the. entrance OF the presby-
terry. and climbed the stone stairs to his own
chamber.
Candida opened her door, and thrust her head
through the aperture, and cried to him:
where have you been incoming all this while,
and the lamp burning to waste, and your good
bed yawning for you? You are not a strong man
enough to keep these hours, and for a priest
they are not decent ones"
"Peace, woman" said Gesualdo, in a tone
which she had never heard from him. He went
within and closed the door. He longed for the
light of dawn, and yet he dreaded it.
When the dawn came it brought nothing to
him except the knowledge that the real murderer
was there, within a quarter of a mile of him,
and yet could not be denounced by him to JUS
tice, even to save the ~guiltless. The usual occu-
pations of a week claimed his time, and he went
through with them all with mechanical precis-
ion, but he spoke all his words as in a dream.
and the red, sanded bricks of his house, the deal
table, the black coffee and the round loaf set out
on it, the stone sink at which Candida was wash
ing endive and cutting lettuces. the old men and
women who came and went, telling their troubles
garrulously and begging for pence, the sunshine
which streamed in over the threshold. the
poultry which picked up the crumbs off the
floor, all these homely and familiar things
seemed unreal to him, and were seen as through
a mist.
This little narrow dwelling with the black
cypress shadows falling athwart it, which had
once seemed to him the abode of perfect peace,
now seemed to imprison him, till his heart failed
and died within him.
In the dead of night. at the end of the week,
moved by an unconquerable impulse, which had
haunted him the whole seven days, he rose and
lit a lantern and let himself out OF his own
door noiselessly, stealthily, as though he were
on some guilty errand, and took the sections
spade from the Toulouse and went across the
black shadows which stretched over the grass,
towards the place where the body of rasso Tas-
silo had lain dead. In the moonlight there stood
tall and straight a column of green leaves: it was
the stately Lombardy poplar, which vas spared
by the Ratchet. because Marca was, 50 far as it
understood anything. loyal in it's regret for the
days that were gone; Many birds which had been
for hours sound asleep in it's boushs flew out
with a great Whirc of wings. and with chirns of