Part 11

“If the request should be made by your sister, it would be granted.” answered the other bruskly, and again he turned his back so that he should not see the prisoner’s emotion, and the latter should not see the Direttore’s confusion.

This time the conversation was really over, and Cassio was reconducted to his office. But he was really another man; the presence of his three unhappy companions aroused his compassion, but no longer his hatred. Around his thin fingers still lingered the fragrance of the tirtillo, and, raising them to his mouth, he inhaled the fresh sweetness of his distant meadows.

And probably for the first time, the Direttore was sincerely loved by one of his prisoners.

Cassio wrote to Paola begging her to ask the Queen for a pardon.

“You can make the request for yourself, without having recourse to the formal process of the law. Explain things as they are. I hope and bless him who has counseled it.”

And so the winter passed. In the limpid dawn of a February day, Cassio was standing before his grated window; his face was pale and bloodless, but his eyes were shining with hope. From the Apennines, which raised their lofty, white crests into the crystal azure of the sky, there came a delicious odor of snow; long strips of vivid green were scattered over the valley, and already in the garden the apricot trees were displaying their rosy blossoms.

Cassio felt his blood dance through his veins with the mysterious expectation of coming happiness; all the glories of the opening spring seemed reflected in his soul.

Another man, free, in his cold and melancholy rooms, felt the same tumultuous, though sweet sensation; his green eyes reflected the tender splendor of the budding season, his heart enclosed a precious shrine.

There came a day when the inquiry of the Ministry into the conduct of the prisoner, Cassio Longino de Isidoro, reached him. The Direttore’s reply was of the best. He did not know why No. 245 had been guilty of forgery, but he believed him to be an honest young man, of fine morals and excellent education. By the same mail he also sent to an intimate in the Bureau a letter that, coming from such a person as Signore Longino, could not fail to effect.

Whether it was instrumental in bringing about the result or not, the decree of pardon and order for freedom arrived very soon after--when Cassio had been there just a year.

Once more he was summoned to the Direttore’s office. Outside, the air was balmy and fragrant, and the sky of deepest blue. Inside, the shadows of distant branches trembled in the sunshine that poured in through the barred window. The Direttore was seated at his table, but this time he rose as Cassio entered. The youth noticed it, but did not dare to give words to the wild hope that sprung up within him, but he felt his heart beat with a violence that well-nigh choked him.

“The decree has arrived,” said the Direttore, and he was holding something in his hand.

“The decree?”

“The decree of pardon.”

“For whom?” asked Cassio eagerly.

The Direttore began to lose patience.

“For whom but for you?” And he rejoiced in the deep emotion shown by the young man. So much the better; if the thing was so great as to seem impossible, so much the greater would be his gratitude. But then he thought sadly: Suppose his efforts should result in failure! If in the excess of his gratitude Cassio should give him false hopes!

“For me! for me!” stammered the poor youth. “For me! For how long?”

“For all the rest of your sentence. You are free--that is, not at once, but after a few formalities, in a week at most.”

Gradually Cassio pulled himself together. At first he had gazed at the Direttore without seeing him. Now he began to look at him. He observed his pale face was flushed, that the air of physical suffering had disappeared, that the small, green eyes were shining.

He, on the other hand, was trembling violently, his face was ashy, his hands cold, and a mist floated before his eyes.

“This man is fine, when he is rejoicing in the happiness of another. How I have misjudged him,” he thought. Then he asked himself: “But why did he do it?”

He was to know very soon.

The Direttore begged him to be seated; he showed him the decree, and profited by the moment in which Cassio was looking at the King’s signature to begin:

“Now, I have something else to tell you. Listen and do not judge hastily. I have long been awaiting this moment, and the thing seemed easy, but now I see I need great courage and you great indulgence if we are to understand each other.”

He smiled sadly, and the old expression of suffering returned once more.

Cassio looked at him stupidly, still confused with the weight of his happiness, but beginning to gain his self-control. The other understood that his opportunity was slipping away and hastened to speak, though, in spite of every effort, his voice trembled.

“I scarcely know how to express myself so you may understand everything; but I have confidence in your intelligence. Listen. I have done everything in my power to obtain that piece of paper there”--and he pointed to the decree, and Cassio, following his gesture, sat gazing at the sheet--“and, above all, I did so because I felt you deserved it.” (“Does he know my story?” Cassio asked himself, feeling that his deserts in prison had been very few.) “I do not ask for gratitude, indeed I will be thankful if you will not allow that sentiment to influence you at all. I wish to speak to you as one gentleman to another.” (“Heavens! does he think me a grand Signore and wish to ask me for money?” thought Cassio. “I am not ungrateful, but what _can_ he want of me?”) “Now you are free and are at liberty to act as seems good to you.”

“Speak,” returned the other, with a sad impatience, “whatever lies in my power--”

“I do not know if it lies in your power.”

“Speak! Speak!”

“Listen, but do not ill-judge me, nor think me insane. While reading your sister’s letters, I have learned to appreciate so good and noble a soul, and--” (“Oh, Dio mio! he has fallen in love with her!” cried Cassio to himself, and the world grew suddenly dark.) “I have learned to love her. Do not laugh at me. I am still young!”

But Cassio felt small inclination to laugh.

“Have you written to her?” he asked bruskly.

“No, certainly not. Pray do not be offended. I have not allowed myself so great a privilege. Only to you--”

“But it is impossible, not to be thought of--impossible!” interrupted Cassio, striking as he spoke the paper which was lying on his knees, till it rustled.

“It seems impossible, but it is true; and though it may be strange, it is not the first time it has happened. My demand is serious, Signore Longino. Can your sister accept it?”

“What demand?”

The other thought a moment. “This young man is laboring under too much excitement; I was wrong to speak to him so suddenly. He is not in a state to hear it.”

“My proposal of marriage.”

Cassio did not reply at once. By a terrible effort he controlled himself. When the mist cleared from his eyes he turned and looked at the Direttore, and beheld him as in the past, pale, suffering, and ugly and into his terrible pain there fell one drop of comfort--she would not accept him, he felt sure.

“But,” he asked, “have you reflected what you are doing? Have you written to my country and obtained information? In such cases--”

“I have not written. What would be the good? I know your sister, that she is good and noble, I desire nothing more. I, too, am all alone.”

“You are too good. I do not know how to properly express my gratitude. Do not fear you are not understood. I both understand and admire you. I feel myself greatly honored by your offer, and if it remained with me--but let me assure you I will do all in my power. Do not despair.”

He rose and rolled up the pardon, looking at it with ill-concealed bitterness as he towered over the small person of the Direttore, who approached with extended hand to express his thanks. He asked permission to return to his cell and unroll his bed. Everything was granted him. As he threw himself on his comfortless cot he groaned in agony. Paola was not his sister, but his fiancée. For her he had soiled his honor, compromised his future, and broken with his family. She alone remained to him. She had feigned to be his sister in order that she might write to him. And must he lose her now? That other possessed a splendid position, was good and noble. Had he a right to snatch such a brilliant future from Paola? He had sacrificed to her his honor and well-nigh two years of liberty, but she had not asked the sacrifice of him, and was it right that in exchange he should ask for her whole life? In any case she must decide for herself, and at the bottom of his heart he felt secure of her--but it made him wretched to think he had deceived and was still deceiving so noble and excellent a man.

“I will tell him everything, come what may,” he decided after an hour of anxious thought, then uncertainty took possession of him once more. “No, I will say nothing. After all he has no right to know, and I will write when I reach home. After all he did it only because he wanted to on his own account. His cat-like eyes fill me with distrust; perhaps he would do me some harm.”

Later he grew ashamed of his distrust, and cried out loud in his lonely cell, “Am I indeed vile?”

Approaching the grating, he stood gazing at the white, diaphanous clouds piled up on the horizon; they had assumed the shape and coloring of an alabaster staircase whose luminous steps disappeared into the unsealed heights. Cassio, as he looked, was overwhelmed with an intense homesickness, and suddenly he felt good and pure, as if he had indeed mounted to the last step of those silver stairs and caught from that height a glimpse of his beloved native land. He murmured:

“Had it not been for him I should have languished here for yet a weary time. I might have died or committed some madness. I will tell everything, let the result be what it may.”

He waited anxiously the hour when it would be possible for him to see the Direttore, then addressed him in clear tones:

“See, Signore Direttore, I have been thinking of what you were very good enough to tell me this morning.”

“Very well,” answered the other, though he feared for the result.

“Before entering upon the subject, please allow me to tell you in a few words of the strange circumstances of my condemnation for,” he added, smiling sadly, “I am bold enough to believe you do not think me guilty.”

The other man said never a word.

“Listen. For ten years I have loved a maiden of my own country. She was rich, but an orphan living with her guardian. I was sent away to college and was absent many years. On my return I learned that the poor girl, although she had attained her majority, was kept in subjection and badly treated by her guardian, who had possessed himself of all her property. He gave her nothing, but kept her shut up and frightened with terrible threats. I succeeded in communicating with her, and, finding that she loved me, I vowed to free her and restore her property. ‘Let us be married,’ she said, ‘and I will fly with you.’ But as my intentions might involve me in many difficulties, I would not accept her offer. I assisted her to take refuge with friends, and when she was in safety I began my operations.

“And can you guess what I did? I almost think so. I forged the name of her guardian, and since he was very rich and well known at home and abroad, and his credit was illimitable, I obtained a good deal of money. I placed all in the name of the young girl and waited. When the notes fell due, all became known. I had foolishly hoped I should be considered a hero. Instead I was seized, vilified, condemned. My little property was taken, my family disowned me. She, alone of all the world, remains to me, and she, Signore Direttore, is Paola.”

The Signore Direttore remained absolutely silent. What, indeed could he say? He only felt that Cassio’s story and his own seemed impossible, though he knew but too well it was but too true. Cassio understood him perfectly.

“It is strange, impossible, is it not? Had I been told it, I would not have believed it.”

“Life is strange,” said the other at last, and he clenched his hands till the nails penetrated the flesh. “The ways of destiny are indeed mysterious.”

“He is resigned,” thought Cassio, and he hazarded another remark.

“Life is often a terrible romance.” But looking the Direttore in the face he saw an expression of such agony imprinted as caused him to retract his thought of a moment before.

“But see,” he continued, “in spite of everything I will do all in my power to prove my gratitude.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me speak. It was my duty to let you know the exact truth, but you have been so good to me that I give you my word of honor, as a gentleman, that I will do everything--”

“What are you saying? What are you saying?” repeated the other in a strange tone, as if he were listening to distant voices, and not to Cassio’s words.

“After all, Paola alone can decide. I will tell her everything, as if I were indeed her brother and nothing more.”

“Oh, no! No! What are you saying?”

“Nay, if you will allow it I will write this very day, and we will await her reply. Perhaps when it comes I will not need to return to my own country.”

“What are you saying?” repeated the Direttore; but now his voice had regained its strength, and, raising his eyes, he looked Cassio full in the face. “You must not write, but return at once to your home, where, I prophesy, every happiness awaits you. From the bottom of my heart I hope so. And yet, who would ever have imagined it! You are right. Life _is_ a terrible romance.”

“But,” Cassio persisted, “let me write. I beg it of you as a personal favor. You will see the debt I owe you can never be canceled, and duty should be stronger than love. Paola will be much more fortunate with the Direttore than with me, and above all things I desire her happiness and well-being.”

The other listened patiently; once his eyes flashed with a vivid light, but he remained immovable.

“See,” he concluded, after having expressed his appreciation of Cassio’s generosity, “if your duty is to prove yourself grateful and generous toward the signorina, her duty is no less to make you happy and recompense you for all you have suffered.”

“But--” interrupted Cassio.

“One moment--let me finish, please. If the signorina were to act otherwise, she would not be the noble, lofty being I have imagined her, and then my offer would no longer exist. Do you understand? Am I not right?”

But Cassio answered never a word, and the Direttore turned toward the window. And the soul of each was full to overflowing. Cassio thought but of his happiness, and the Direttore reminded himself with bitterness that in any case his dream was lost to him forever.

RAILROAD AND CHURCHYARD BY BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

[Illustration]

_Björnson, said to be the first great figure in Norway to teach the bourgeoisie to rise by their own efforts, was born in 1832. In 1860 appeared his epoch-making story of peasant life, “Arne,” and the trilogy, “Sigurd Slembe,” and other plays. Declaring for the separation of Norway and Sweden, he became chief of the Republican Party. The critic Brandes says: “The mention of his name among his countrymen is like running up the national flag.”_

_Two sharply marked periods appear in Björnson’s literary career--the first, romantic, religious, in which he wrote, among other things, Norway’s national hymn; the second, from 1874 on, being realistic, critical, aggressive. His vigorous imagination, love of truth, excessive yet sincere enthusiasm, are in a style so compressed as to be at times almost obscure. Björnson has been called the “Creator of the National Drama in Norway,” the “Great Rival of Ibsen,” the “Victor Hugo of Norway.”_

[Illustration]

RAILROAD AND CHURCHYARD BY BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON

Translated by Rasmus B. Anderson. Copyright, 1882, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. All rights reserved.

I

Knud Aakre belonged to an old family in the parish, where it had always been renowned for its intelligence and its devotion to the public welfare. His father had worked his way up to the priesthood, but had died early, and as the widow came from a peasant stock the children were brought up as peasants. Knud had, therefore, received only the education afforded by the public schools of his day; but his father’s library had early inspired him with a love of knowledge. This was further stimulated by his friend Henrik Wergeland, who frequently visited him, sent him books, seeds, and much valuable counsel. Following some of the latter, Knud early founded a club, which in the beginning had a very miscellaneous object, for instance: “to give the members practise in debating and to study the constitution,” but which later was turned into a practical agricultural society for the entire bailiwick. According to Wergeland’s advice, he also founded a parish library, giving his father’s books as its first endowment. A suggestion from the same quarter led him to start a Sunday-school on his gard, for those who might wish to learn writing, arithmetic, and history. All this drew attention to him, so that he was elected member of the parish board of supervisors, of which he soon became chairman. In this capacity he took a deep interest in the schools, which he brought into a remarkably good condition.

Knud Aakre was a short man, brisk in his movements, with small, restless eyes and very disorderly hair. He had large lips, which were in constant motion, and a row of splendid teeth which always seemed to be working with them, for they glistened while his words were snapped out, crisp and clear, crackling like sparks from a great fire.

Foremost among the many he had helped to gain an education was his neighbor Lars Högstad. Lars was not much younger than Knud, but he had developed more slowly. Knud liked to talk about what he read and thought, and he found in Lars, whose manner was quiet and grave, a good listener, who by degrees grew to be a man of excellent judgment. The relations between them soon became such that Knud was never willing to take any important step without first consulting Lars Högstad, and the matter on hand was thus likely to gain some practical amendment. So Knud drew his neighbor into the board of supervisors, and gradually into everything in which he himself took part. They always drove together to the meetings of the board, where Lars never spoke; but on the way back and forth Knud learned his opinions. The two were looked upon as inseparable.

* * * * *

One fine autumn day the board of supervisors convened to consider, among other things, a proposal from the bailiff to sell the parish grain magazine and with the proceeds establish a small savings-bank. Knud Aakre, the chairman, would undoubtedly have approved this measure had he relied on his unbiased judgment. But he was prejudiced, partly because the proposal came from the bailiff, whom Wergeland did not like, and who was consequently no favorite of Knud’s either, and partly because the grain magazine had been built by his influential paternal grandfather and by him presented to the parish. Indeed, Knud was rather inclined to view the proposition as a personal insult, therefore he had not spoken of it to any one, not even to Lars, and the latter never entered on a topic that had not first been set afloat by some one else.

As chairman, Knud Aakre read the proposal without adding any comments; but, as was his wont, his eyes sought Lars, who usually sat or stood a little aside, holding a straw between his teeth--he always had one when he took part in a conversation; he either used it as a toothpick or he let it hang loosely in one corner of his mouth, turning it more rapidly or more slowly, according to the mood he was in. To his surprise Knud saw that the straw was moving very fast.

“Do you think we should agree to this?” he asked.

Lars answered dryly:

“Yes, I do.”

The whole board, feeling that Knud held quite a different opinion, looked in astonishment at Lars, but the latter said no more, nor was he further questioned. Knud turned to another matter, as though nothing had transpired. Not until the close of the meeting did he resume the subject, and then asked, with apparent indifference, if it would not be well to send the proposal back to the bailiff for further consideration, as it certainly did not meet the views of the people, for the parish valued the grain magazine. No one replied. Knud asked whether he should enter the resolution in the register, the measure did not seem to be a wise one.

“Against one vote,” added Lars. “Against two,” cried another, promptly. “Against three,” came from a third; and before the chairman could realize what was taking place, a majority had voted in favor of the proposal.

Knud was so surprised that he forgot to offer any opposition. He recorded the proceedings, and read, in a low voice: “The measure is recommended--adjourned.”

His face was fiery red as he rose and put up the minute-book; but he determined to bring forward the question once more at the meeting of the representatives. Out in the yard, he put his horse to the wagon, and Lars came and took his seat at his side. They discussed various topics on their way home, but not the one they had nearest at heart.