Journey by Moonlight

In most of the towns in this part of Italy (as in so many ancient cities elsewhere) the houses give an impression of dilapidation, of being within a few short years of total ruin. This is because where the Italians built with local stone it was not the practice to plaster the outer walls. Consequently an observer from Middle Europe concludes that the plaster has fallen off and the house, and indeed the entire city, been left to desolation and ruin. Gubbio was even more unplastered, even more tumble-down, than other towns in Italy. It was absolutely desolate. It was off the beaten tourist track. There was scarcely any industry or commerce. It was a mystery how the few thousand people hemmed within its walls could make a living.

Mihály came out of the cathedral and turned into the Via dei Consoli. “This is the street Ellesley talked about,” he thought. It was a street to make the imagination riot: medieval houses, blackened by age, with a bleak, penniless dignity, and, one suspected, inhabitants to match, people living off bread and water in the shadow of a glorious past that had vanished centuries before.

And straightaway, in the third house along, there actually was a door of the dead: next to the usual door, about a metre above the ground, a narrow gothic door-opening, bricked up. There was one in almost every house along the Via dei Consoli, but almost nowhere else in the town; and, strangely, there was no-one about.

He went down a narrow back-alley to the street running parallel behind. This was no less ancient, only a little more gloomily patrician, but it did seem that living beings might reside there. And also, it seemed, dead ones. For outside one particular house a group of people met his astonished eye. Had he not immediately realised what was happening he would have thought it was a vision. People were standing outside the house holding candles, their faces covered with hoods. A funeral was taking place, and here, still following the ancient Italian ritual, members of the family, a hooded fraternity, were taking out the dead.

Mihály removed his hat and edged closer for a better view of the ceremony. The door of the dead stood open. Through it he could see into the house, into a dark room containing the bier. Priests and their assistants stood around the coffin, chanting and swinging censers. After a few minutes they lifted it up and passed it through the door of the dead into the street, where the hooded relatives hoisted it on to their shoulders.

Then in the gothic doorway a priest appeared in flowing robes. His pale ivory face, with its sombre, all-unseeing eyes, glanced at the heavens. Then with bowed head he placed his hands together in an ancient gesture of inexpressible gentleness.

Mihály did not rush up to him. For he was now a priest, a pale, serious monk performing a religious duty … No, one couldn’t just run up to him, like a schoolboy, like a little boy …

The pallbearers set off with the coffin, followed closely by the priest and the procession of mourners. Mihály joined it at the rear, and trod slowly with hat in hand towards the camposanto, up on the hill side. His heart was beating so hard he had to keep pausing for rest. Would they have anything to say to each other, after so many years, journeying along such widely divergent paths?

He asked one of the people in the procession what the priest was called.

“That’s Father Severinus,” said the Italian. “A very holy man.”

They reached the burial ground. The coffin was lowered into the grave, the funeral came to an end, and people began to move away. Father Severinus set off for the town with a companion.

Mihály still could not make up his mind whether to approach him. He felt that Ervin, now that he had become such a holy person, would surely be ashamed of his worldly youth, and, like St Augustine, would look back upon it with lofty disdain. Surely he would see it all quite differently, and had doubtless dismissed him, not wanting even to think about him. Perhaps it would be better to leave straightaway, and be content with the miracle of simply having seen him.

Just then Father Severinus left his companions and turned back. He was coming straight towards him. Every adult response deserted Mihály, and he ran towards him.

“Mishy!” shouted Ervin, and embraced him. Then he offered the right and the left sides of his face to Mihály’s cheeks, with the kindliness of a priest.

“I saw you at the graveside,” he said quietly. “How did you get here, where no bird flies?”

But this was mere cordiality. It was clear from his tone that he was not in the least surprised. Rather, it was as if he had long anticipated this meeting.