Part 47 (1/2)
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
The market-place was filled to over-br.i.m.m.i.n.g. Everybody discussed the near events in the Court of Justice. It promised to be a bad day for Signor Malipizzo. And yet people could not help admitting how clever he had been to lock up those Russians. It was the best thing he could have done under the circ.u.mstances. It proved his freedom from anti-Catholic prejudices. It made him look icily objective.
Torquemada, on hearing that the prisoner's gold coin corresponded with those others which had been in the possession of the murdered man, thought it deplorable. Here was plain evidence of his cousin's guilt!
Most deplorable. Still, the victim being not only a foreigner but a Protestant was a considerable mitigation of the offence from the moral and religious point of view, and possibly from the legal one as well.
Anyhow, what did legal aspects matter? Had he not engaged Don Giustino?
Innocent or guilty, the prisoner would be released. And, on second thoughts, he discovered him to be worthy of the great man's golden eloquence. He was not altogether a fool. There was a touch of manliness about him; he was decidedly a brighter lad than he looked. He deserved to be released.
Ten o'clock sounded.
The Court had never been so crowded. There was barely standing room.
Sunlight poured in through the windows which had not been cleaned for many long months; the atmosphere was already rather oppressive. It was a stuffy place at all times, reeking of old tobacco smoke and humanity.
Everybody was still save the old grey-headed clerk who fussed about with papers. Signor Malipizzo, after a deferential but dignified bow to the famous lawyer, had taken his seat on the raised platform facing the public whence he was wont to dispense justice. Nailed against the wall, directly over his head, was a large white paper bearing the printed words ”La Legge”: the law. It dominated the chamber. On one side of this could be seen a coloured portrait of the Sovereign in the bersagliere uniform; a fierce military glance shot out of his eyes from under that helmet whose plume of nodding feathers made it look three sizes too large for his head. On the other side hung a representation of the Madonna, simpering benignly in a blue tea-gown besprinkled with pearls and golden lace. The spittoon, which His Wors.h.i.+p required continually during the audiences, was wont to be placed immediately below this latter picture; it was the magistrate's polite freemasonish method of expressing his reverence for the Mother of G.o.d. Everybody noticed that on the present occasion this piece of furniture was located elsewhere. It stood below the Sovereign's portrait. A delicate compliment to the formidable lawyer-champion of Catholicism, sworn enemy to the House of Savoy. People commented favourably on this little detail. How artful of him! they said.
All eyes were fixed upon Don Giustino. He sat there quietly. If he was bored he certainly did not show it. Now that he was here he would give these good people a taste of his quality. He knew all about the gold coin; he was profoundly convinced of the prisoner's guilt. This was lucky for the young man. Had he thought otherwise he would probably have refused to take up the case. Don Giustino made a point of never defending innocent people. They were idiots who entangled themselves in the meshes of the law; they fully deserved their fate. Really to have murdered Muhlen was the one and only point in the prisoner's favour. It made him worthy of his rhetorical efforts. All his clients were guilty, and all of them got off scot free. ”I never defend people I can't respect,” he used to say.
He began his speech in a rambling, desultory sort of fas.h.i.+on and quite a low tone of voice, as if he were addressing a circle of friends.
A charming place, Nepenthe! He would carry away the pleasantest memories of its beauty and the kindliness of its inhabitants. It was like a terrestrial paradise, so verdant, so remote from all danger. And yet nothing on earth was secure. That volcanic eruption the other day--what a scare it must have given them! What a lucky escape they had, thanks to the Divine intervention of the Patron Saint! Hardly any damage done; no victims worth mentioning. The fertile fields were intact; mothers and fathers and children could once more go out to their daily tasks and return in the evening, tired but happy, to gather round the family board. Family life, the sacred hearth! It was the pride, the strength, the mainstay of the country; it was the source whence the rising generation drew their earliest notions of piety and right conduct. Nothing in the world could replace home influence, the parents' teaching and example--nothing! And this poor boy, now threatened with imprisonment, had a mother. He had a mother. Did the Court appreciate the import of those words? Did they realize what it meant to shatter that hallowed bond, to deprive the parent of her offspring's help and consolation--the child of its mother's fostering care? Let them consider the lives of all t hose great men of the past who were known to have had mothers--Themistocles, Dante, Virgil, Peter the Hermit and Madame de Maintenon--why had they achieved distinction in the world? What was the secret of their greatness? A mother's affectionate guidance in youth. They had not been torn, as children, from her loving arms.
A good many people were already sobbing. But the orator had noticed that something was wrong. He consulted a small sc.r.a.p of paper and then continued in the same conversational tones as before.
He had no mother. He was an orphan. An orphan! Did the Court realize what it meant? No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all that was implied in that bitter word. An orphan. n.o.body to instil those early lessons of piety ... to grow up wild, neglected, despised....
It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly unnatural conditions. Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct them; he alone was bereft of this blessing. It was cruel, it was illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate other ones. Let the Court call to mind the names of those who had deviated from the narrow path of duty; did they not all belong to this unhappy cla.s.s? It might safely be inferred that they had no mothers!
Such person were to be pitied and helped, rather than condemned for what was the fault not of their natures but of their anomalous situation in life. To rescue a motherless young soul from the brink of perdition was the n.o.blest task of a Christian. And this was still, thank Heaven, a Christian country, despite the ever-swelling invasion of that irreligious foreign element which threatened to break up the old faith in G.o.d. The Madonna was still wors.h.i.+pped; together with the Saints. Their precious relics and other holy amulets still proved their efficacy in the hour of danger.
Amulets--ah, that reminded him.
To kill a man with a view to possessing yourself of his substance was an unpardonable crime. Now what had this boy done? Let them take the so-called robbery first. Well, no robbery had been committed, in spite of the notorious fact that this Protestant, this foreigner was known to be loaded with money. His client had fought down the temptation, the almost irresistible temptation, of appropriating the gold. Let them remember that! The minutest investigation failed to reveal anything save a single coin which he had attached to a string and hung about his neck. Motives, not deeds! What were his motives for this strange act?
An unconscious application of the h.o.m.oeopathic principle. He had taken it as a safeguard, an amulet, in the childish belief that it might protect him on future occasions against insults such as those he had undergone.
Then, while the audience were still puzzling what the last words meant, he suddenly indulged in one of those abrupt transitions for which he was famous, and burst out:
”Down with foreigners! We Catholics know what foreigners are, how they work for evil in places high and low. One cannot take up a daily paper without seeing some exposure of their many-sided viciousness. They contaminate the land with their G.o.dless depravity. n.o.body can count on immunity. The highest officials in the land, the very Ministers of the Crown, are subjected to their vile disguised attempts at bribery and corruption, no humble peasant girl, no child, is safe from the befoulment of their filthy minds. We know them--our police records, the archives of our Courts of Justice, testify to their demoralizing agency. A pest, a contagion! Who can tell what proposals were made in this particular case--what degrading proposals, backed by the insidious offer of foreign gold? A weak character might have succ.u.mbed. But the victim was made of different stuff. He belonged to another type--the heroic type. Suffering anguish of soul, he yet preferred honour to baseness. In self-defence--”
At this point the great Deputy ceased to speak. Signor Malipizzo had swooned away. He had to be carried out of Court.
It mattered little, for the proceedings were at an end save for a few formalities. The case was won.
People were rather annoyed at being deprived of one of Don Giustino's far-famed perorations. It could not be helped. Better luck next time.
Then they asked themselves why the judge had fainted. Some thought it might be the heat, or a touch of his old complaint. The majority were agreed that the attack was due to the Deputy's eloquence. And it was true that he was greatly impressed by the speech, but not quite as much as all that. He had decided to faint at a critical moment, for the sake of appearances. It was clever of him. He did it beautifully too; he had been rehearsing half the night. Don Giustino, on his part, shared the common opinion and was charmed with this tribute to his genius.