The Seven Deadly Sins (Bowen)/Luxury
III ◊ Luxury
A Complete Short Story
IT was the middle of October; the chestnut trees in the valleys, the olive trees on the hill-side were heavy with fruit; on the sloping roofs of the cottages the figs were placed to dry; the gold and scarlet leaves of the vines hung shrivelled, and the grapes, purple, yellow, green and rose-coloured, were revealed clustering to the bare poles; the oranges and lemons hung green as jade amongst the fresh foliage; in the garden scarlet flowers bloomed and tall spears of tuberose; all day long the sun shone warmly, but at night there were heavy rains, and the winds were chilly in the shadows.
While the monks worked in the distillery the novices made the wine, and Father Aloysius directed their labours.
The big barns outside the convent were filled with vats into which the novices trod and pressed the grapes. The brown fingers and the brown feet of the novices were stained a dull red, red also were the butts, and rivulets of red ran in and out between the square paving-stones of the courtyard.
Hot and tired were the novices; the vintage was nearly over, and the wooden taps began to yield the bright liquid of the fresh wine, while the drained masses of bloodless grapes were thrown into the garden, where numbers of pale wasps devoured them.
The novices were discontented as well as tired; the Prior was entertaining a certain Prince, on his travels through the country, and all day long his knights and squires went to and fro the gardens and courtyards, holding their noses because of the smell of the fermenting wine, and raising their skirts and mantles out of reach of the trickling lees.
The novices marked them, marked their air of contempt, their scornful laughter, their sniffs and puckerings of brows and lips; marked also their garments, the nets of gold and silver on their heads, their hats with green and blue feathers, their mantles embroidered with silk and woollen, their curious boots, tasselled gloves and wonderful daggers; and because of all this, and because they were labouring in rough brown habits, they became vexed at their vocation and wishful that they, too, were in the world.
And they were still further discontented when two of the knights, seating themselves on a low pink stone wall over which the last roses poured their yellow blossoms, began discoursing lightly of holy things in a loud tone, so that the monks working at the vintage could not fail to hear.
And one knight told the other a story of a certain sinner who had gone to Rome to see the Pope.
His Holiness was in his palace of St. Giovanni in Saterno, and he received the penitent in the garden.
It was springtime (said the knight), and the square of garden between the white marble cloisters was planted with violets—nothing but violets—and in the centre was a small fountain of alabaster from which trickled water as clear and sparkling as a diamond. Near this fountain the Pope was walking, and so humble and pious was he that he wore the robe of an ordinary monk and was telling over a string of white beads, each carved from the bone of a saint.
Now when the penitent entered the garden he felt afraid and uneasy—he knew not why: afraid as if he were in the presence of something horrible—uneasy as if in the presence of something evil.
The penitent thought it must lie with the violets; there were so many of them, and the enclosed scent of them was so strong as to make the head giddy.
Albeit, he told his sin to the Pope and was absolved.
But even as he was leaving he turned him back and said: “There is one thing more, Holiness, I have often wondered at: how can one know a damned soul?”
“A damned soul?” repeated the Pope slowly.
“Even so—is there no sign by which one can tell it? I have asked many people, and they all have said, By a certain red light in the eyes, a reflection of hell fire. Is this true, Holiness?”
“How can I tell if it be true?” answered the Pope, and he stooped for his rosary, which he had dropped.
So the other made his reverence and was for leaving, but as he passed through the shade of the cloisters, he chanced to glance back.
The Pope was looking in his direction, and the eyes of his Holiness glowed red as a coal from the Pit—red, red and shining with flame.
Then the penitent turned and fled, and ran, and ran, and ran, because of the horror that was on him, until he came to the Tiber, and there he threw himself in and was drowned, for no one may see such a sight and live.
And when the knight had finished discussing this story, he and the rest moved away laughing.
Now at this moment up came Father Aloysius to taste the wine, and to him the novices recounted the tale they had heard told by the knight.
Make no account of that (replied the Father); now is his time, and he may levant and flourish in his impiety and wantonness: but the time will come when the Devil and his imps will snatch him away by the yellow hair of which he is so proud, and for all his cries and lamentations the saints and angels will take no heed of him.
I perceive (continued Father Aloysius, seating himself on the pink wall) that ye are discontented on beholding all the splendour of these knights.
But I tell you that Luxury—or Luxuria, in the classical tongue is the third of the deadly sins. I have already told you of Pride or Superbia, Greed or Gula, and what comes of them; and now I will tell you of Luxury or Luxuria, which is given under the form of a goat, a creature of unbridled desires, as deaf to the voice of man as the sinner is deaf to the voice of God, and one of the symbols of the Evil One himself—he who sees an ape riding on a goat has certainly seen the Devil riding his favourite steed.
There was once (said Father Aloysius) a young man whose father kept him very straitly: every day he went in frieze, a suit of four years’ wear patched and darned, and for the winter a collar of red fox from which all the hair had fallen.
No natural joyance or pleasure of youth was allowed him; when the other young men went out to the games, or to see the horse-racing, or the Morality in the public square, he had to remain at the window of his father’s great dark palace and watch them with longing eyes.
When the young maidens went out to the fields beyond the city to gather the first flowers of the spring, he was never among the cavaliers who escorted them; when they returned with round bunches of roses, red and white, and long boughs of hawthorn, it was never to him that they offered favours taken from their posies—no, for him there was nothing but the passing glance, the light laugh or the smile of pity.
There was poor food in the palace, though it was served on heavy silver; there was thin wine in the glasses, though they were cut crystal; there were worn coverlets on the beds, and the moth had eaten the damask hangings, and dust had tarnished the gold thread of the armorial bearings in. the tapestries.
For the father of Giulio (such being the name of this most unfortunate young man) was held body and soul by another deadly sin—that of avarice.
But when he was not very old he died, leaving behind him as much wealth as would have bought twice over the city in which he lived.
He left no heir but Giulio, and that youth now found himself, from a position of humiliating poverty, the most wealthy person in the land—which is to say, the most envied, the most admired, the most courted.
Everything was now changed in the old palace. Sculptors, painters and architects worked day and night to beautify it; the ceilings were soon covered with pictures like glimpses of Paradise; the walls were inlaid with precious marbles, yellow, black, white and grey; in all the dusty corners, hitherto known only to the spider, hung silken draperies of scarlet and crimson; the gardens, so long lifeless and parched, bloomed with the oleander, the palm, the orange, the camellia and the rose; the dried basins of the fountains were replenished with crystal water in which swam golden fish; the weeds were cleared from the lake, which now bore on its pellucid surface swans white as spring blossoms.
The worn, tattered furniture disappeared, and in place of it the palace was set out with chairs and tables of rare scented woods, inlaid with ivory and ebony; with couches covered with satin cushions; with sideboards bearing dishes and goblets of rock crystal, of agate, of sardonyx, painted lustre plates and tall glasses coloured like milk and rubies; with carpets of Persia, a thousand hues mingled in their silken woof; with tapestry from Arras, stiff with thread and gold.
And the stairs that had been so silent now echoed the sound of gilt shoes, the swish of trailing mantles, the clatter of swords, the rustle of silk; and the rooms which had been so long empty were filled with perfume and sighs and laughter and gentle breaths and the wind of fans.
Giulio was transformed; instead of a doleful youth shrinking in worn homespun, he was a splendid young man, robed like an Emperor’s son; he was gay, he was witty, he was generous—and, naturally, he was very much loved.
Never had the town known such gaiety. Every night there was a festival; every day there was a hunt, a tourney, races, games or some such diversion. It was as if a shower of gold had been poured over the place: the miser’s money was in everyone’s pocket, the praise of his son on everyone's lips.
Now this was a merry life for Giulio, and never did he pause to think of aught save this world, nor did he bestow a single penny on good works.
Nay, every holy monk who came to his door, begging the crumbs for the poor, was sent rudely away. “When I was in misery,” said Giulio, “no man came to my aid, and now will I help no one, nor will I have about me these miserable fellows, but rather those with bright looks who amuse me.”
So his life went for a year or so, and during this time he had not once entered a church, or given money to the poor, or even laid a bunch of flowers before a wayside shrine—costly lilies and roses he would throw beneath the feet of some foolish woman, jasmine and camellias he would twine in her hair; but he could not spare even a cluster of wild violets for the Mother of God.
One day in full summer-tide, when Giulio felt suddenly and strangely weary of all his joyous companions, he chanced to find himself alone on the road some miles from the city gates; he was separated by the chances of the chase from his fellows, and not sorry to be alone. Nevertheless, he felt both hungry and fatigued; and as he had lost his way to the meeting-place, it seemed as if he had no chance of sharing the sumptuous collation his servants had prepared.
A storm was coming up; the sun shed a strong gold light from beneath a mass of purple cloud; the russet chestnut trees that filled the valley were half in violet shadow; a little wind cast the white dust up from the long road.
Turning a corner, Giulio suddenly saw before him a little house which stood back from the road in a herb garden.
The road was familiar to Giulio, but he had no remembrance of this house; indeed, so astonished was he at the sight that he reined up his horse and rubbed his eyes. There it was, clear enough—a square white house standing full in the sunlight.
And in the garden a man in a dark-red robe was picking herbs. He carried on his arm a flat basket of withes full of lavender, basil, marjoram, saxifrage, vervain, citronella, clove, camomile and rue, the mingled odour of which made the air peculiarly heavy, fragrant yet sickly; and as Giulio looked, he wondered at the great size and beauty to which these herbs attained. There were no flowers in the garden, only these tall, blossomless green plants.
“Friend, who art thou?” asked Giulio; and the man in the red robe looked up from his work.
“Oh, I have all manner of names,” he answered pleasantly. “We are old acquaintances, Don Giulio, and presently shall know each other better still.”
The young man felt horribly afraid; he did not like the storm which was blowing up across the valley, nor the sunny white house, the long white road, the man who was working there; all seemed to him as strange as some bad dream from which he would be indeed glad to awake.
“Will you dismount and rest a little?” asked the herb-gatherer.
“Nay,” said Giulio hastily. “I must endeavour to find my companions.”
“Will you take some food and wine?” offered the other.
Giulio shook his head and made to ride on, but his horse would not advance.
The man in the dark red habit came and leant on the fence; the purple clouds had now overspread the whole sky. “You are very anxious to leave me,” he remarked. “Why in such a hurry to get away now? One day soon you will begin to spend eternity with me.”
Giulio’s heart knocked against his side, his face went white as paper, and his hair rose on his head. “You must,” he groaned, “be the Devil.”
“Certainly,” replied the personage, leaning on the fence; “and we shall meet again very soon, Don Giulio.”
“No!” shrieked the young man. “I defy you, I defy your arts! I am a Christ-born child. I defy you!”
“So they all say at first,” returned the Devil. “But it is not the least use. The next time you pass this little garden of mine I shall have to ask you for the pleasure of your company.”
With this he bowed very courteously and turned away, and the storm broke, blotting out the landscape with rain and darkness, and Giulio’s horse bolted with him along the white road, nor stopped until he reached home, covered with foam and shivering with terror.
Giulio was also frightened. He tried to forget what he had seen and heard, he tried to believe that it was all a dream or a delusion, and more eagerly than before he filled his days with riotous living and surrounded himself with noisy and extravagant companions; but, as indeed Diabolus himself had warned him, it was no use, and in his heart Giulio knew it was no use; in the middle of the feast he would suddenly see before him the sunny house and the herb garden, in the middle of the night he would wake up and see the figure of the personage in the red robe.
At length a day came when he could bear it no longer—he confessed to a priest and prayed for his advice; but the holy man shook his head and told him he could do nothing for him. Then a deeper terror possessed the young man; he became gloomy and thin, and careless of his former pleasures; and one day he mounted his horse and rode to Rome and threw himself at the feet of the Pope.
His Holiness was very, very old, and quite tired of life; he sat in a little black chair near a sunny wall, and the little lizards ran over his gilt shoes, so still he sat. His calm was like medicine to the distraught soul of Giulio, and there, kneeling among the daisies, he told his tale. When he had finished the Pope remained still a long while, thinking.
Then he said, “My son, there is only one way in which you can save your soul from the Father of Evil. You must build, to the Glory of God, a complete church. Complete. Not a brick must be lacking. Inside and out it must be inlaid with coloured marbles; every altar must have a painting above it; every image a lamp swinging before it. Adjoining must be a convent for the holy monks, a baptistery and a campanile. There must be a great garden for the comfort of the brothers, a fish-pond, an orchard, a vineyard.”
When the Holy Father had got thus far Giulio interrupted him. “All this,” he said dolefully, “cannot be accomplished in the life of one man.”
“But you, my son, have exceeding riches, and riches can do more than life.”
“But it would take all the riches I possess,” complained the young man.
The Pope smiled. “All the better for your soul, my son. You will no longer be able to dissipate your days with riotous companions, but must spend your time in contemplation of the Holy Edifice you are erecting; and when it is finished and the last stone is in place, and the lamps all lit and the incense burning before the altar, then, then alone, you will know that your soul is saved and that you can defy the Devil.”
Giulio considered. “Is there no other way? " he asked at length.
“No other way,” nodded the Pope. Giulio turned to go, and before he had left the garden His Holiness was asleep in the sun.
The young man returned to his native city; he called together artists, sculptors and architects; he bought a piece of land on a high hill outside the town walls, and the church began to be built, the gardens to be laid out, the orchards and vineyards planted, the convent walls to rise up, brick by brick.
“So I defy the Devil,” thought Giulio, and this prideful idea that he was setting himself against the Evil One so possessed him that he forsook his former extravagant ways and lived modestly, and thought only of the church and how it might be finished swiftly and worthily.
And whereas before he had been a mere object of wonder and amazement, and the beloved of vain fools, now he was praised by the good and the poor, for his church was becoming the wonder of the country, and the building of it gave employment to hundreds of artists and thousands of masons.
Ten years went by and the church was nearing completion, so lavishly had Giulio spent his fortune and so diligently had the workmen laboured.
One morning in spring Giulio rode out of the town to the sea-coast, and, sitting idly on a grey rock, watched the sea.
It was early morning, and the sea was a dim colour betwixt gold and silver, the misty blue of the heavens was veiled with faint pink clouds, and on the horizon gleamed a great golden argosy.
Now, while Giulio was idly gazing at this distant ship, which looked like a flower fallen from heaven, and idly wondered what port it had sailed from and to what port it was bound, he heard the sound of gentle but very desperate sobbing.
All amazed he sprang up and gazed about the long, pale sands; and presently, in the mouth of a cave of green marble, he saw a beautiful woman seated and weeping dismally.
She wore a white velvet gown embroidered with roses made of clustering rubies; her hair was unbound, and fell down either side of her face on to the sand, where it looked like virgin amber newly washed clear by the tide.
On her little feet were shoes that each seemed one red rose, so sewn were they with rubies, and all her raiment was marked with wet sand and stained by seaweed. When she heard Giulio’s footstep she looked up—and oh, but she was lovely! So beautiful was she that if she had been seated in the desert the unicorn would have come and put his head in her lap and the lion would have licked her hand.
Now while Giulio was building his church he had not thought at all of love and ladies; but when he saw this one as she sat before him, with her knots of amber hair falling about her shoulders, and the crystal tears shining in the violet eyes which lit the loveliest face ever beheld, it was as if a fierce flame broke out in his heart, consuming all thought of, and desire for, anything but this woman.
As he stood staring at her, all bewildered by this new passion, she rose up (just like a blossom she stood, straight, with a drooping head), and, blushing and sighing and weeping, with soft glances and sweet looks and sudden smiles, she told him her story.
She was a Princess, she said, and her name was Blanchefleur, and the golden argosy that Giulio had noticed was carrying her from one of her father’s kingdoms to another (for he was a mighty Emperor), when her stepmother had bribed some creatures of hers to throw her overboard; which they had done, first tying together her hands and feet; yet by the help of the Madonna she had been saved, for she remembered nothing after the blackness of the water until she found herself, with the ropes gone from her wrists and ankles, on this strange shore.
Such was the damsel’s story. Few beside Giulio believed it; rather was she accounted a witch or a fairy, or some such unholy creature. Yet say what they would, Giulio married her—yea, within three days of that meeting on the shore was she his wife.
Now before long he began to find that to keep this lady cost near as much as to build a church, there were so many things she needed—gems, rich garments, chariots, feasts, palaces and slaves; nor did she fail to remind him that she was an Emperor’s daughter, nor did he fail to give her all she asked for, for he loved her with a deathless love.
Little by little he began to neglect the church; it was so nearly finished, he was confident that he had defeated the Devil—and Blanchefleur cared naught for the building of the holy edifice, but rather she led him gradually back to his old life, so that soon he preferred to sit and hold her mirror while she combed her amber hair, rather than to watch the painters at work on the altar-pieces; and would sooner kneel on a cushion at her feet while she sang a love song than go and hear matins or vespers in the new church.
And at last his great fortune began to vanish; he spent less and less on the church, and more and more on Blanchefleur. He borrowed money, he sold land and palaces, he pledged the merchant ships he had at sea. The years went on, and still the church was not complete; the tower remained bare bricks, unfaced with marble, and the gilt angel with the sword which was to stand on the summit remained in the porch.
Again and again the Prior sent to him and humbly begged him to give orders to finish the tower, and the young man always replied, “To-morrow.”
Now when he had sold all he could sell, and pledged all he could pledge, the day came when his creditors gathered round him demanding payment, and Giulio found that of all his great possessions there was hardly one white piece remaining that he could call his own.
Then, like a man awakening from a deep dream of Eastern delight to the cold grey of a winter morning, he remembered his soul and he remembered the church; he ran to the tower where Blanchefleur sat, and took her in his arms and kissed her again and again.
“Blanchefleur,” he said, “I have lost everything, and am like to lose my soul too.” He began to weep. “Give me the locket I gave thee yesterday—for I have nothing left in the world.”
Blanchefleur said nothing; with a smile she took the diamond heart from the long chain by which it hung over her violet gown and gave it him, and he went swiftly out and sold it for five hundred ducats.
With the bag of gold in his hand he went sadly, sadly, humbly, humbly, up the hill to the church, and a great number of people ran after him, out from the city gates, cursing him and hooting him, for he owed more than he could ever pay.
But he hid the gold in his mantle and escaped them, and, pale and breathless, reached the convent and the Prior’s room.
The Prior was painting a Book of Flowers; he sat in a black chair at a black table which was covered with the little plants he was copying. “It is a long time since you have been here, Don Giulio,” was his greeting.
The young man bowed his head. “I wish to finish the church,” he said, “but this is all the money that I have.”
He untied the canvas bag and emptied the gold coins on to the black table among the little plants.
“Alas!” said the Prior, “that is not enough—the marble alone will cost two thousand ducats—and to raise the angel”
Giulio stayed to hear no more; he knew that nowhere could he get two thousand ducats ... with a shriek which made the Prior shiver to his heart he turned and fled.
Only one thing was left to him now, and this was Blanchefleur.
More than ever did he love her in this moment of his utter desolation; she was more to him than a mere woman, however dear—she was the symbol of all his loves and lusts and likings, and of that Deadly Sin for which he stood condemned to hell. She was lost, too, he thought, one with him; and as if with winged feet he ran to her through the hooting town.
She was still in her tower. The creditors were taking the tapestries, the mirrors, the pictures from the walls; all was howling confusion in the palace, the slaves had fled—but she sat still in the seat of the arched window looking out on the garden.
“Blanchefleur!” cried the wretched young man. “Blanchefleur!”
She turned and looked at him and began to laugh; she laughed and laughed—he sprang forward to seize her, and she broke and vanished in his hands; then he knew her for what she was—a doll, a puppet sent by the Evil One to lure him to his ruin.
Then did this most unfortunate young man run out of his ruined palace and aimlessly flee from the town back towards his church.
For even if it be unfinished, thought he, surely they will give me an asylum where by great prayer and penitence I may save my soul.
But he had not gone far on the long white road before he turned a corner and saw a sunny house standing in a herb garden. The personage in the dark red robe was leaning over the fence; he smiled and held out his hand and caught Giulio’s flying gown, and drew him in through the narrow, open gate.
Nor was he ever seen again on the earth—but long remained an example of the terrible end that comes to those who follow this sin of Luxury.