diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4435.txt | 3042 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 4435.zip | bin | 0 -> 63135 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 |
5 files changed, 3058 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/4435.txt b/4435.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b9cb5d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/4435.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3042 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Vittoria by George Meredith, v1 +#41 in our series by George Meredith + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before distributing this or any other +Project Gutenberg file. + +We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your +own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future +readers. Please do not remove this. + +This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to +view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. +The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the +information they need to understand what they may and may not +do with the etext. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These Etexts Are Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and +further information, is included below. We need your donations. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) +organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 + + + +Title: Vittoria, v1 + +Author: George Meredith + +Release Date: September, 2003 [Etext #4435] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 24, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +The Project Gutenberg Etext of Vittoria by George Meredith, v1 +*****This file should be named 4435.txt or 4435.zip***** + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + +Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not +keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +We are now trying to release all our etexts one year in advance +of the official release dates, leaving time for better editing. +Please be encouraged to tell us about any error or corrections, +even years after the official publication date. + +Please note neither this listing nor its contents are final til +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. + +Most people start at our sites at: +https://gutenberg.org or +http://promo.net/pg + +These Web sites include award-winning information about Project +Gutenberg, including how to donate, how to help produce our new +etexts, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter (free!). + + +Those of you who want to download any Etext before announcement +can get to them as follows, and just download by date. This is +also a good way to get them instantly upon announcement, as the +indexes our cataloguers produce obviously take a while after an +announcement goes out in the Project Gutenberg Newsletter. + +http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/etext03 or +ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/docs/books/gutenberg/etext03 + +Or /etext02, 01, 00, 99, 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90 + +Just search by the first five letters of the filename you want, +as it appears in our Newsletters. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +time it takes us, a rather conservative estimate, is fifty hours +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. Our +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If the value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2 +million dollars per hour in 2001 as we release over 50 new Etext +files per month, or 500 more Etexts in 2000 for a total of 4000+ +If they reach just 1-2% of the world's population then the total +should reach over 300 billion Etexts given away by year's end. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000 = 1 Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is only about 4% of the present number of computer users. + +At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third +of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 4,000 Etexts. We need +funding, as well as continued efforts by volunteers, to maintain +or increase our production and reach our goals. + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been created +to secure a future for Project Gutenberg into the next millennium. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +As of November, 2001, contributions are being solicited from people +and organizations in: Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, +Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, +Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New +Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, +Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, +Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, +Wisconsin, and Wyoming. + +We have filed in about 45 states now, but these are the only ones +that have responded. + +As the requirements for other states are met, additions to this list +will be made and fund raising will begin in the additional states. +Please feel free to ask to check the status of your state. + +In answer to various questions we have received on this: + +We are constantly working on finishing the paperwork to legally +request donations in all 50 states. If your state is not listed and +you would like to know if we have added it since the list you have, +just ask. + +While we cannot solicit donations from people in states where we are +not yet registered, we know of no prohibition against accepting +donations from donors in these states who approach us with an offer to +donate. + +International donations are accepted, but we don't know ANYTHING about +how to make them tax-deductible, or even if they CAN be made +deductible, and don't have the staff to handle it even if there are +ways. + +All donations should be made to: + +Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +PMB 113 +1739 University Ave. +Oxford, MS 38655-4109 + +Contact us if you want to arrange for a wire transfer or payment +method other than by check or money order. + + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation has been approved by +the US Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN +[Employee Identification Number] 64-622154. Donations are +tax-deductible to the maximum extent permitted by law. As fundraising +requirements for other states are met, additions to this list will be +made and fundraising will begin in the additional states. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +You can get up to date donation information at: + +https://www.gutenberg.org/donation.html + + +*** + +If you can't reach Project Gutenberg, +you can always email directly to: + +Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com> + +Prof. Hart will answer or forward your message. + +We would prefer to send you information by email. + + +**The Legal Small Print** + + +(Three Pages) + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you may distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etexts, +is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor Michael S. Hart +through the Project Gutenberg Association (the "Project"). +Among other things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +Please do not use the "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark to market +any commercial products without permission. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] Michael Hart and the Foundation (and any other party you may +receive this etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims +all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold Michael Hart, the Foundation, +and its trustees and agents, and any volunteers associated +with the production and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm +texts harmless, from all liability, cost and expense, including +legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the +following that you do or cause: [1] distribution of this etext, +[2] alteration, modification, or addition to the etext, +or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Foundation of 20% of the + gross profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation" + the 60 days following each date you prepare (or were + legally required to prepare) your annual (or equivalent + periodic) tax return. Please contact us beforehand to + let us know your plans and to work out the details. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +Project Gutenberg is dedicated to increasing the number of +public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed +in machine readable form. + +The Project gratefully accepts contributions of money, time, +public domain materials, or royalty free copyright licenses. +Money should be paid to the: +"Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +If you are interested in contributing scanning equipment or +software or other items, please contact Michael Hart at: +hart@pobox.com + +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + +*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.10/04/01*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced by Pat Castevans <patcat@ctnet.net> +and David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> + + + + + +VITTORIA + +By George Meredith + + + +CONTENTS: + +BOOK 1. +I. UP MONTE MOTTERONE +II. ON THE HEIGHTS +III. SIGNORINA VITTORIA +IV. AMMIANI'S INTERCESSION +V. THE SPY +VI. THE WARNING +VII. BARTO RIZZO +VIII. THE LETTER + +BOOK 2. +IX. IN VERONA +X. THE POPE'S MOUTH +XI. LAURA PIAVENI +XII. THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY +XIII. THE PLOT OF THE SIGNOR ANTONIO + +BOOK 3. +XIV. AT THE MAESTRO'S DOOR +XV. AMMIANI THROUGH THE MIDNIGHT +XVI. COUNTESS AMMIANI +XVII. IN THE PIAZZA D'ARMI +XVIII. THE NIGHT OF THE FIFTEENTH +XIX. THE PRIMA DONNA + +BOOK 4. +XX. THE OPERA OF CAMILLA +XXI. THE THIRD ACT +XXII. WILFRID COMES FORWARD +XXIII. FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT +XXIV. ADVENTURES OF VITTORIA AND ANGELO +XXV. ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS + +BOOK 5. +XXVI. THE DUEL IN THE PASS +XXVII. A NEW ORDEAL +XXVIII. THE ESCAPE OF ANGELO + +BOOK 6. +XXIX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE TOBACCO RIOTS + --RINALDO GUIDASCARPI +XXX. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE FIVE DAYS OF +MILAN +XXXI. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER +XXXII. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE TREACHERY OF + PERICLES-THE WRITE UMBRELLA--THE DEATH OF RINALDO GUIDASCARPI + +BOOK 7. +XXXIII. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--COUNT KARL LENKENSTEIN-- + THE STORY OF THE GUIDASCARPI--THE VICTORY OF THE VOLUNTEERS +XXXIV. EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR--THE DEEDS OF BARTO RIZZO-- + THE MEETING AT ROVEREDO +XXXV. CLOSE OF THE LOMBARD CAMPAIGN--VITTORIA'S PERPLEXITY +XXXVI. A FRESH ENTANGLEMENT +XXXVII. ON LAGO MAGGIORE +XXXVIII. VIOLETTA D'ISORELLA +XXXIX. ANNA OF LENKENSTEIN + +BOOK 8. +XL. THROUGH THE WINTER +XLI. THE INTERVIEW +XLII. THE SHADOW OF CONSPIRACY +XLIII. THE LAST MEETING IN MILAN +XLIV. THE WIFE AND THE HUSBAND +XLV. SHOWS MANY PATHS CONVERGING TO THE END +XLVI. THE LAST + EPILOGUE + + + + + + + +VITTORIA + + +BOOK 1. +I. UP MONTE MOTTERONE +II. ON THE HEIGHTS +III. SIGNORINA VITTORIA +IV. AMMIANI'S INTERCESSION +V. THE SPY +VI. THE WARNING +VII. BARTO RIZZO +VIII. THE LETTER + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +From Monte Motterone you survey the Lombard plain. It is a towering dome +of green among a hundred pinnacles of grey and rust-red crags. At dawn +the summit of the mountain has an eagle eye for the far Venetian boundary +and the barrier of the Apennines; but with sunrise come the mists. The +vast brown level is seen narrowing in; the Ticino and the Sesia waters, +nearest, quiver on the air like sleepy lakes; the plain is engulphed up +to the high ridges of the distant Southern mountain range, which lie +stretched to a faint cloud-like line, in shape like a solitary monster of +old seas crossing the Deluge. Long arms of vapour stretch across the +urn-like valleys, and gradually thickening and swelling upward, enwrap +the scored bodies of the ashen-faced peaks and the pastures of the green +mountain, till the heights become islands over a forgotten earth. Bells +of herds down the hidden run of the sweet grasses, and a continuous +leaping of its rivulets, give the Motterone a voice of youth and +homeliness amid that stern company of Titan-heads, for whom the hawk and +the vulture cry. The storm has beaten at them until they have got the +aspect of the storm. They take colour from sunlight, and are joyless in +colour as in shade. When the lower world is under pushing steam, they +wear the look of the revolted sons of Time, fast chained before scornful +heaven in an iron peace. Day at last brings vigorous fire; arrows of +light pierce the mist-wreaths, the dancing draperies, the floors of +vapour; and the mountain of piled pasturages is seen with its foot on the +shore of Lago Maggiore. Down an extreme gulf the full sunlight, as if +darting on a jewel in the deeps, seizes the blue-green lake with its +isles. The villages along the darkly-wooded borders of the lake show +white as clustered swans; here and there a tented boat is visible, +shooting from terraces of vines, or hanging on its shadow. Monte Boscero +is unveiled; the semicircle of the Piedmontese and the Swiss peaks, +covering Lake Orta, behind, on along the Ticinese and the Grisons, +leftward toward and beyond the Lugano hills, stand bare in black and grey +and rust-red and purple. You behold a burnished realm of mountain and +plain beneath the royal sun of Italy. In the foreground it shines hard +as the lines of an irradiated Cellini shield. Farther away, over middle +ranges that are soft and clear, it melts, confusing the waters with hot +rays, and the forests with darkness, to where, wavering in and out of +view like flying wings, and shadowed like wings of archangels with rose +and with orange and with violet, silverwhite Alps are seen. You might +take them for mystical streaming torches on the border-ground between +vision and fancy. They lean as in a great flight forward upon Lombardy. + +The curtain of an early autumnal morning was everywhere lifted around the +Motterone, save for one milky strip of cloud that lay lizard-like across +the throat of Monte Boscero facing it, when a party of five footfarers, +who had met from different points of ascent some way below, and were +climbing the mountain together, stood upon the cropped herbage of the +second plateau, and stopped to eye the landscape; possibly also to get +their breath. They were Italians. Two were fair-haired muscular men, +bronzed by the sun and roughly bearded, bearing the stamp of breed of one +or other of the hill-cities under the Alps. A third looked a sturdy +soldier, squareset and hard of feature, for whom beauties of scenery had +few awakening charms. The remaining couple were an old man and a youth, +upon whose shoulder the veteran leaned, and with a whimsical turn of head +and eye, indicative of some playful cast of mind, poured out his remarks +upon the objects in sight, and chuckled to himself, like one who has +learnt the necessity to appreciate his own humour if he is disposed to +indulge it. He was carelessly wrapped about in long loose woollen stuff, +but the youth was dressed like a Milanese cavalier of the first quality, +and was evidently one who would have been at home in the fashionable +Corso. His face was of the sweetest virile Italian beauty. The head was +long, like a hawk's, not too lean, and not sharply ridged from a +rapacious beak, but enough to show characteristics of eagerness and +promptitude. His eyes were darkest blue, the eyebrows and long +disjoining eyelashes being very dark over them, which made their colour +precious. The nose was straight and forward from the brows; a fluent +black moustache ran with the curve of the upper lip, and lost its line +upon a smooth olive cheek. The upper lip was firmly supported by the +under, and the chin stood freely out from a fine neck and throat. + +After a space an Austrian war-steamer was discerned puffing out of the +harbour of Laveno. + +"That will do," said the old man. "Carlo, thou son of Paolo, we will +stump upward once more. Tell me, hulloa, sir! are the best peaches +doomed to entertain vile, domiciliary, parasitical insects? I ask you, +does nature exhibit motherly regard, or none, for the regions of the +picturesque? None, I say. It is an arbitrary distinction of our day. +To complain of the intrusion of that black-yellow flag and foul smoke- +line on the lake underneath us is preposterous, since, as you behold, the +heavens make no protestation. Let us up. There is comfort in exercise, +even for an ancient creature such as I am. This mountain is my brother, +and flatters me not--I am old." + +"Take my arm, dear Agostino," said the youth. + +"Never, my lad, until I need it. On, ahead of me, goat! chamois! and +teach me how the thing used to be done in my time. Old legs must be the +pupils of young ones mark that piece of humility, and listen with +respectfulness to an old head by-and-by." + +It was the autumn antecedent to that memorable Spring of the great +Italian uprising, when, though for a tragic issue, the people of Italy +first felt and acted as a nation, and Charles Albert, called the Sword of +Italy, aspired, without comprehension of the passion of patriotism by +which it was animated, to lead it quietly into the fold of his +Piedmontese kingship. + +There is not an easier or a pleasanter height to climb than the +Motterone, if, in Italian heat, you can endure the disappointment of +seeing the summit, as you ascend, constantly flit away to a farther +station. It seems to throw its head back, like a laughing senior when +children struggle up for kissings. The party of five had come through +the vines from Stresa and from Baveno. The mountain was strange to them, +and they had already reckoned twice on having the topmost eminence in +view, when reaching it they found themselves on a fresh plateau, +traversed by wild water-courses, and browsed by Alpine herds; and again +the green dome was distant. They came to the highest chalet, where a +hearty wiry young fellow, busily employed in making cheese, invited them +to the enjoyment of shade and fresh milk. "For the sake of these +adolescents, who lose much and require much, let it be so," said Agostino +gravely, and not without some belief that he consented to rest on behalf +of his companions. They allowed the young mountaineer to close the door, +and sat about his fire like sagacious men. When cooled and refreshed, +Agostino gave the signal for departure, and returned thanks for +hospitality. Money was not offered and not expected. As they were going +forth the mountaineer accompanied them to the step on the threshold, and +with a mysterious eagerness in his eyes, addressed Agostino. + +"Signore, is it true?--the king marches?" + +"Who is the king, my friend?" returned Agostino. "If he marches out of +his dominions, the king confers a blessing on his people perchance." + +"Our king, signore!" The mountaineer waved his finger as from Novara +toward Milan. + +Agostino seemed to awaken swiftly from his disguise of an absolute +gravity. A red light stood in his eyeballs, as if upon a fiery answer. +The intemperate fit subsided. Smoothing dawn his mottled grey beard with +quieting hands, he took refuge in his habitual sententious irony. + +"My friend, I am not a hare in front of the king, nor am I a ram in the +rear of him: I fly him not, neither do I propel him. So, therefore, I +cannot predict the movements of the king. Will the wind blow from the +north to-morrow, think you?" + +The mountaineer sent a quick gaze up the air, as to descry signs. + +"Who knows?" Agostino continued, though not playing into the smiles of +his companions; "the wind will blow straight thither where there is a +vacuum; and all that we can state of the king is, that there is a +positive vacuum here. It would be difficult to predict the king's +movements save by such weighty indications." + +He laid two fingers hard against the rib which shields the heart. It had +become apparently necessary for the speaker to relieve a mind surcharged +with bile at the mention of the king; for, having done, he rebuked with +an amazed frown the indiscretion of Carlo, who had shouted, "The +Carbonaro king!" + +"Carlo, my son, I will lean on your arm. On your mouth were better," +Agostino added, under his voice, as they moved on. + +"Oh, but," Carlo remonstrated, "let us trust somebody. Milan has made me +sick of late. I like the look of that fellow." + +"You allow yourself, my Carlo, an immense indulgence in permitting +yourself to like the look of anything. Now, listen--Viva Carlo Alberto!" + +The old man rang out the loyal salutation spiritedly, and awoke a prompt +response from the mountaineer, who sounded his voice wide in the keen +upper air. + +"There's the heart of that fellow!" said Agostino. "He has but one idea +--his king! If you confound it, he takes you for an enemy. These free +mountain breezes intoxicate you. You would embrace the king himself if +you met him here." + +"I swear I would never be guilty of the bad joke of crying a 'Viva' to +him anywhere upon earth," Carlo replied. "I offend you," he said +quickly. + +The old man was smiling. + +"Agostino Balderini is too notoriously a bad joker to be offended by the +comments of the perfectly sensible, boy of mine! My limbs were stiff, +and the first three steps from a place of rest reminded me acutely of the +king's five years of hospitality. He has saved me from all fatigue so +long, that the necessity to exercise these old joints of mine touched me +with a grateful sense of his royal bounty. I had from him a chair, a +bed, and a table: shelter from sun and from all silly chatter. Now I +want a chair or a bed. I should like to sit at a table; the sun burns +me; my ears are afflicted. I cry "Viva!" to him that I may be in harmony +with the coming chorus of Italy, which I prophetically hear. That young +fellow, in whom you confide so much, speaks for his country. We poor +units must not be discordant. No! Individual opinion, my Carlo, is +discord when there is a general delirium. The tide arriving, let us make +the best of the tide. My voice is wisdom. We shall have to follow this +king!" + +"Shall we!" uttered one behind them gruffly. "When I see this king +swallow one ounce of Austrian lead, I shall not be sorry to follow him!" + +"Right, my dear Ugo," said Agostino, turning round to him; "and I will +then compose his hymn of praise. He has swallowed enough of Austrian +bread. He took an Austrian wife to his bed. Who knows? he may some day +declare a preference for Austrian lead. But we shall have to follow him, +or stay at home drivelling." + +Agostino raised his eyes, that were glazed with the great heat of his +frame. + +"Oh, that, like our Dante, I had lived in the days when souls were +damned! Then would I uplift another shout, believe me! As things go +now, we must allow the traitor to hope for his own future, and we simply +shrug. We cannot plant him neck-deep for everlasting in a burning marl, +and hear him howling. We have no weapons in these times--none! Our +curses come back to roost. This is one of the serious facts of the +century, and controls violent language. What! are you all gathered about +me? Oracles must be moving, too. There's no rest even for them, when +they have got a mountain to scale." + +A cry, "He is there!" and "Do you see him?" burst from the throats of men +surrounding Agostino. + +Looking up to the mountain's top, they had perceived the figure of one +who stood with folded arms, sufficiently near for the person of an +expected friend to be descried. They waved their hats, and Carlo shot +ahead. The others trod after him more deliberately, but in glad +excitement, speculating on the time which this sixth member of the party, +who were engaged to assemble at a certain hour of the morning upon yonder +height, had taken to reach the spot from Omegna, or Orta, or Pella, and +rejoicing that his health should be so stout in despite of his wasting +labours under city smoke. + +"Yes, health!" said Agostino. "Is it health, do you think? It's the +heart of the man! and a heart with a mill-stone about it--a heart to +breed a country from! There stands the man who has faith in Italy, +though she has been lying like a corpse for centuries. God bless him! +He has no other comfort. Viva l'Italia!" + +The exclamation went up, and was acknowledged by him on the eminence +overhanging them; but at a repetition of it his hand smote the air +sideways. They understood the motion, and were silent; while he, until +Carlo breathed his name in his hearing, eyed the great scene stedfastly, +with the absorbing simple passion of one who has endured long exile, and +finds his clustered visions of it confronting the strange, beloved, +visible life:--the lake in the arms of giant mountains: the far-spreading +hazy plain; the hanging forests; the pointed crags; the gleam of the +distant rose-shadowed snows that stretch for ever like an airy host, +mystically clad, and baffling the eye as with the motions of a flight +toward the underlying purple land. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +He was a man of middle stature, thin, and even frail, as he stood defined +against the sky; with the complexion of the student, and the student's +aspect. The attentive droop of his shoulders and head, the straining of +the buttoned coat across his chest, the air as of one who waited and +listened, which distinguished his figure, detracted from the promise of +other than contemplative energy, until his eyes were fairly seen and +felt. That is, until the observer became aware that those soft and large +dark meditative eyes had taken hold of him. In them lay no abstracted +student's languor, no reflex burning of a solitary lamp; but a quiet +grappling force engaged the penetrating look. Gazing upon them, you were +drawn in suddenly among the thousand whirring wheels of a capacious and a +vigorous mind, that was both reasoning and prompt, keen of intellect, +acting throughout all its machinery, and having all under full command: +an orbed mind, supplying its own philosophy, and arriving at the sword- +stroke by logical steps,--a mind much less supple than a soldier's; +anything but the mind of a Hamlet. The eyes were dark as the forest's +border is dark; not as night is dark. Under favourable lights their +colour was seen to be a deep rich brown, like the chestnut, or more like +the hazeledged sunset brown which lies upon our western rivers in the +winter floods, when night begins to shadow them. + +The side-view of his face was an expression of classic beauty rarely now +to be beheld, either in classic lands or elsewhere. It was severe; the +tender serenity of the full bow of the eyes relieved it. In profile they +showed little of their intellectual quality, but what some might have +thought a playful luminousness, and some a quick pulse of feeling. The +chin was firm; on it, and on the upper lip, there was a clipped growth of +black hair. The whole visage widened upward from the chin, though not +very markedly before it reached the broad-lying brows. The temples were +strongly indented by the swelling of the forehead above them: and on both +sides of the head there ran a pregnant ridge, such as will sometimes lift +men a deplorable half inch above the earth we tread. If this man was a +problem to others, he was none to himself; and when others called him an +idealist, he accepted the title, reading himself, notwithstanding, as one +who was less flighty than many philosophers and professedly practical +teachers of his generation. He saw far, and he grasped ends beyond +obstacles: he was nourished by sovereign principles; he despised material +present interests; and, as I have said, he was less supple than a +soldier. If the title of idealist belonged to him, we will not +immediately decide that it was opprobrious. The idealized conception of +stern truths played about his head certainly for those who knew and who +loved it. Such a man, perceiving a devout end to be reached, might prove +less scrupulous in his course, possibly, and less remorseful, than +revolutionary Generals. His smile was quite unclouded, and came softly +as a curve in water. It seemed to flow with, and to pass in and out of, +his thoughts, to be a part of his emotion and his meaning when it shone +transiently full. For as he had an orbed mind, so had he an orbed +nature. The passions were absolutely in harmony with the intelligence. +He had the English manner; a remarkable simplicity contrasting with the +demonstrative outcries and gesticulations of his friends when they joined +him on the height. Calling them each by name, he received their caresses +and took their hands; after which he touched the old man's shoulder. + +"Agostino, this has breathed you?" + +"It has; it has, my dear and best one!" Agostino replied. "But here is a +good market-place for air. Down below we have to scramble for it in the +mire. The spies are stifling down below. I don't know my own shadow. I +begin to think that I am important. Footing up a mountain corrects the +notion somewhat. Yonder, I believe, I see the Grisons, where Freedom +sits. And there's the Monte della Disgrazia. Carlo Alberto should be on +the top of it, but he is invisible. I do not see that Unfortunate." + +"No," said Carlo Ammiani, who chimed to his humour more readily than the +rest, and affected to inspect the Grisons' peak through a diminutive +opera-glass. "No, he is not there." + +"Perhaps, my son, he is like a squirrel, and is careful to run up t'other +side of the stem. For he is on that mountain; no doubt of it can exist +even in the Boeotian mind of one of his subjects; myself, for example. +It will be an effulgent fact when he gains the summit." + +The others meantime had thrown themselves on the grass at the feet of +their manifestly acknowledged leader, and looked up for Agostino to +explode the last of his train of conceits. He became aware that the +moment for serious talk had arrived, and bent his body, groaning loudly, +and uttering imprecations against him whom he accused of being the +promoter of its excruciating stiffness, until the ground relieved him of +its weight. Carlo continued standing, while his eyes examined restlessly +the slopes just surmounted by them, and occasionally the deep descent +over the green-glowing Orta Lake. It was still early morning. The heat +was tempered by a cool breeze that came with scents of thyme. They had +no sight of human creature anywhere, but companionship of Alps and birds +of upper air; and though not one of them seasoned the converse with an +exclamation of joy and of blessings upon a place of free speech and +safety, the thought was in their hunted bosoms, delicious as a woodland +rivulet that sings only to the leaves overshadowing it. + +They were men who had sworn to set a nation free,--free from the +foreigner, to begin with. + +(He who tells this tale is not a partisan; he would deal equally toward +all. Of strong devotion, of stout nobility, of unswerving faith and +self-sacrifice, he must approve; and when these qualities are displayed +in a contest of forces, the wisdom of means employed, or of ultimate +views entertained, may be questioned and condemned; but the men +themselves may not be.) + +These men had sworn their oath, knowing the meaning of it, and the nature +of the Fury against whom men who stand voluntarily pledged to any great +resolve must thenceforward match themselves. Many of the original +brotherhood had fallen, on the battle-field, on the glacis, or in the +dungeon. All present, save the youthfuller Carlo, had suffered. +Imprisonment and exile marked the Chief. Ugo Corte, of Bergamo, had seen +his family swept away by the executioner and pecuniary penalties. Thick +scars of wounds covered the body and disfigured the face of Giulio +Bandinelli. Agostino had crawled but half-a-year previously out of his +Piedmontese cell, and Marco Sana, the Brescian, had in such a place +tasted of veritable torture. But if the calamity of a great oath was +upon them, they had now in their faithful prosecution of it the support +which it gives. They were unwearied; they had one object; the mortal +anguish they had gone through had left them no sense for regrets. Life +had become the field of an endless engagement to them; and as in battle +one sees beloved comrades struck down, and casts but a glance at their +prostrate forms, they heard the mention of a name, perchance, and with a +word or a sign told what was to be said of a passionate glorious heart at +rest, thanks to Austrian or vassal-Sardinian mercy. + +So they lay there and discussed their plans. + +"From what quarter do you apprehend the surprise?" Ugo Corte glanced up +from the maps and papers spread along the grass to question Carlo +ironically, while the latter appeared to be keeping rigid watch over the +safety of the position. Carlo puffed the smoke of a cigarette rapidly, +and Agostino replied for him:-- + +"From the quarter where the best donkeys are to be had." + +It was supposed that Agostino had resumed the habit usually laid aside by +him for the discussion of serious matters, and had condescended to father +a coarse joke; but his eyes showed no spark of their well-known twinkling +solicitation for laughter, and Carlo spoke in answer gravely:-- + +"From Baveno it will be." + +"From Baveno! They might as well think to surprise hawks from Baveno. +Keep watch, dear Ammiani; a good start in a race is a kick from the +Gods." + +With that, Corte turned to the point of his finger on the map. He +conceived it possible that Carlo Ammiani, a Milanese, had reason to +anticipate the approach of people by whom he, or they, might not wish to +be seen. Had he studied Carlo's face he would have been reassured. The +brows of the youth were open, and his eyes eager with expectation, that +showed the flying forward of the mind, and nothing of knotted distrust or +wary watchfulness. Now and then he would move to the other side of the +mountain, and look over upon Orta; or with the opera-glass clasped in one +hand beneath an arm, he stopped in his sentinel-march, frowning +reflectively at a word put to him, as if debating within upon all the +bearings of it; but the only answer that came was a sharp assent, given +after the manner of one who dealt conscientiously in definite +affirmatives; and again the glass was in requisition. Marco Sana was a +fighting soldier, who stated what he knew, listened, and took his orders. +Giulio Bandinelli was also little better than the lieutenant in an +enterprise. Corte, on the other hand, had the conspirator's head,--a +head like a walnut, bulging above the ears,--and the man was of a +sallying temper. He lay there putting bit by bit of his plot before the +Chief for his approval, with a careful construction, that upon the +expression of any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of Milan, +caused him to shout a defensive, "But Carlo says yes!" + +This uniform character of Ammiani's replies, and the smile of Agostino on +hearing them, had begun to strike the attention of the soldierly Marco +Sana. He ran his hand across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red +mole-spotted cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, "Said +yes!" he remarked. "He might say no, for a diversion. He has yeses +enough in his pay to earn a Cardinal's hat. 'Is Milan preparing to +rise?' 'Yes.'--'Is she ready for the work?' 'Yes.'--'Is the garrison on +its guard?' 'Yes.'--'Have you seen Barto Rizzo?' 'Yes.'--'Have the +people got the last batch of arms?' 'Yes.'--And 'Yes,' the secret is +well kept; 'Yes,' Barto Rizzo is steadily getting them together. We may +rely on him: Carlo is his intimate friend: Yes, Yes:--There's a regiment +of them at your service, and you may shuffle them as you will. This is +the help we get from Milan: a specimen of what we may expect!" + +Sana had puffed himself hot, and now blew for coolness. + +"You are,"--Agostino addressed him,--"philosophically totally wrong, my +Marco. Those affirmatives are fat worms for the catching of fish. They +are the real pretty fruit of the Hesperides. Personally, you or I may be +irritated by them: but I'm not sure they don't please us. Were Carlo a +woman, of course he should learn to say no;--as he will now if I ask him, +Is she in sight? I won't do it, you know; but as a man and a +diplomatist, it strikes me that he can't say yes too often." + +"Answer me, Count Ammiani, and do me the favour to attend to these +trifles for the space of two minutes," said Corte. "Have you seen Barto +Rizzo? Is he acting for Medole?" + +"As mole, as reindeer, and as bloody northern Raven!" ejaculated +Agostino: "perhaps to be jackal, by-and-by. But I do not care to abuse +our Barto Rizzo, who is a prodigy of nature, and has, luckily for +himself, embraced a good cause, for he is certain to be hanged if he is +not shot. He has the prophetic owl's face. I have always a fancy of his +hooting his own death-scrip. I wrong our Barto:--Medole would be the +jackal, if it lay between the two." + +Carlo Ammiani had corrected Corte's manner to him by a complacent +readiness to give him distinct replies. He then turned and set off at +full speed down the mountain. + +"She is sighted at last," Agostino murmured, and added rapidly some +spirited words under his breath to the Chief, whose chin was resting on +his doubled hand. + +Corte, Marco, and Giulio were full of denunciations against Milan and the +Milanese, who had sent a boy to their councils. It was Brescia and +Bergamo speaking in their jealousy, but Carlo's behaviour was odd, and +called for reproof. He had come as the deputy of Milan to meet the +Chief, and he had not spoken a serious word on the great business of the +hour, though the plot had been unfolded, the numbers sworn to, and +Brescia, and Bergamo, and Cremona, and Venice had spoken upon all points +through their emissaries, the two latter cities being represented by Sana +and Corte. + +"We've had enough of this lad," said Corte. "His laundress is following +him with a change of linen, I suppose, or it's a scent-bottle. He's an +admirable representative of the Lombard metropolis!" Corte drawled out +the words in prodigious mimicry. "If Milan has nothing better to send +than such a fellow, we'll finish without her, and shame the beast that +she is. She has been always a treacherous beast!" + +"Poor Milan!" sighed the Chief; "she lies under the beak of the vulture, +and has twice been devoured; but she has a soul: she proves it. Ammiani, +too, will prove his value. I have no doubt of him. As to boys, or even +girls, you know my faith is in the young. Through them Italy lives. +What power can teach devotion to the old?" + +"I thank you, signore," Agostino gesticulated. + +"But, tell me, when did you learn it, my friend?" + +In answer, Agostino lifted his hand a little boy's height from the earth. + +The old man then said: "I am afraid, my dear Corte, you must accept the +fellowship of a girl as well as of a boy upon this occasion. See! our +Carlo! You recognize that dancing speck below there?--he has joined +himself--the poor lad wishes he could, I dare swear!--to another bigger +speck, which is verily a lady: who has joined herself to a donkey--a +common habit of the sex, I am told; but I know them not. That lady, +signor Ugo, is the signorina Vittoria. You stare? But, I tell you, the +game cannot go on without her; and that is why I have permitted you to +knock the ball about at your own pleasure for these forty minutes." + +Corte drew his under-lip on his reddish stubble moustache. "Are we to +have women in a conference?" he asked from eye to eye. + +"Keep to the number, Ugo; and moreover, she is not a woman, but a noble +virgin. I discern a distinction, though you may not. The Vestal's fire +burns straight." + +"Who is she?" + +"It rejoices me that she should be so little known. All the greater the +illumination when her light shines out! The signorina Vittoria is a +cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards." + +"Ah! that completes it." Corte rose to his feet with an air of +desperation. "We require to be refreshed with quavers and crescendos and +trillets! Who ever knew a singer that cared an inch of flesh for her +country? Money, flowers, flattery, vivas! but, money! money! and +Austrian as good as Italian. I've seen the accursed wenches bow +gratefully for Austrian bouquets:--bow? ay, and more; and when the +Austrian came to them red with our blood. I spit upon their polluted +cheeks! They get us an ill name wherever they go. These singers have no +country. One--I knew her--betrayed Filippo Mastalone, and sang the night +of the day he was shot. I heard the white demon myself. I could have +taken her long neck till she twisted like a serpent and hissed. May +heaven forgive me for not levelling a pistol at her head! +If God, my friends, had put the thought into my brain that night!" + +A flush had deadened Corte's face to the hue of nightshade. + +"You thunder in a clear atmosphere, my Ugo," returned the old man, as he +fell back calmly at full length. + +"And who is this signorina Vittoria?" cried Corte. + +"A cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards, as I have already +remarked: of La Scala, let me add, if you hold it necessary." + +"And what does she do here?" + +"Her object in coming, my friend? Her object in coming is, first, to +make her reverence to one who happens to be among us this day; and +secondly, but principally, to submit a proposition to him and to us." + +"What's her age?" Corte sneered. + +"According to what calendar would you have it reckoned? Wisdom would say +sixty: Father Chronos might divide that by three, and would get scarce a +month in addition, hungry as he is for her, and all of us! But Minerva's +handmaiden has no age. And now, dear Ugo, you have your opportunity to +denounce her as a convicted screecher by night. Do so." + +Corte turned his face to the Chief, and they spoke together for some +minutes: after which, having had names of noble devoted women, dead and +living, cited to him, in answer to brutal bellowings against that sex, +and hearing of the damsel under debate as one who was expected and was +welcome, he flung himself upon the ground again, inviting calamity by +premature resignation. Giulio Bandinelli stretched his hand for Carlo's +glass, and spied the approach of the signorina. + +"Dark," he said. + +"A jewel of that complexion," added Agostino, by way of comment. + +"She has scorching eyes." + +"She may do mischief; she may do mischief; let it be only on the right +Side!" + +"She looks fat." + +"She sits doubled up and forward, don't you see, to relieve the poor +donkey. You, my Giulio, would call a swan fat if the neck were not +always on the stretch." + +"By Bacchus! what a throat she has!" + +"And well interjected, Giulio! It runs down like wine, like wine, to the +little ebbing and flowing wave! Away with the glass, my boy! You must +trust to all that's best about you to spy what's within. She makes me +young--young!" + +Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her on the last short +ascent. She acknowledged it gracefully; and talking at intervals to +Carlo Ammiani, who footed briskly by her side, she drew by degrees among +the eyes fixed on her, some of which were not gentle; but hers were for +the Chief, at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani's solicitous aid, +she would have knelt, had he not seized her by her elbows, and put his +lips to her cheek. + +"The signorina Vittoria, gentlemen," said Agostino. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father +displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring +friends. + +"She is one of us," he pursued; "a daughter of Italy! My daughter also; +is it not so?" + +He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina pressed his +fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for the moment seemed shy and +girlish. The shade of her broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid +features. + +"Now, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, and we may +proceed to business," said Agostino, formally but as he conducted the +signorina to place her at the feet of the Chief, she beckoned to her +servant, who was holding the animal she had ridden. He came up to her, +and presented himself in something of a military posture of attention to +her commands. These were that he should take the poor brute to water, +and then lead him back to Baveno, and do duty in waiting upon her mother. +The first injunction was received in a decidedly acquiescent manner. On +hearing the second, which directed his abandonment of his post of +immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected with a +"Signorina, no." + +He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier's frame and a smile +as broad and beaming as laughter, indicating much of that mixture of +acuteness, and simplicity which is a characteristic of the South, and +means no more than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at +times that of the brain. + +A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the signorina's face. + +"When I tell you to go, Beppo!" + +At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by an amazingly +voluble delivery of his reasons for this revolt against her authority. +Among other things, he spoke of an oath sworn by him to a foreign +gentleman, his patron,--for whom, and for whomsoever he loved, he was +ready to pour forth his heart's blood,--to the effect that he would never +quit her side when she left the roof of her house. + +"You see, Beppo," she remonstrated, "I am among friends." + +Beppo gave a sweeping bow, but remained firm where he stood. Ammiani +cast a sharp hard look at the man. + +"Do you hear the signorina's orders?" + +"I hear them, signore." + +"Will you obey them?" + +She interposed. "He must not hear quick words. Beppo is only showing +his love for his master and for me. But you are wrong in this case, my +Beppo. You shall give me your protection when I require it; and now, you +are sensible, and must understand that it is not wanted. I tell you to +go." + +Beppo read the eyes of his young mistress. + +"Signorina,"--he stooped forward mysteriously,--"signorina, that fellow +is in Baveno. I saw him this morning." + +"Good, good. And now go, my friend." + +"The signor Agostino," he remarked loudly, to attract the old man; "the +signor Agostino may think proper to advise you." + +"The signor Agostino will laugh at nothing that you say to-day, Beppo. +You will obey me. Go at once," she repeated, seeing him on tiptoe to +gain Agostino's attention. + +Beppo knew by her eyes that her ears were locked against him; and, though +she spoke softly, there was an imperiousness in her voice not to be +disregarded. He showed plainly by the lost rigidity of his attitude that +he was beaten and perplexed. Further expostulations being disregarded, +he turned his head to look at the poor panting beast under his charge, +and went slowly up to him: they walked off together, a crest-fallen pair. + +"You have gained the victory, signorina," said Ugo Corte. + +She replied, smiling, "My poor Beppo! it's not difficult to get the best +of those who love us." + +"Ha!" cried Agostino; "here is one of their secrets, Carlo. Take heed of +it, my boy. We shall have queens when kings are fossils, mark me!" + +Ammiani muttered a courtly phrase, whereat Corte yawned in very grim +fashion. + +The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a short step from the Chief, +to whom her face was now seriously given. In Ammiani's sight she looked +a dark Madonna, with the sun shining bright gold through the edges of the +summer hat, thrown back from her head. The full and steady contemplative +eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a vanishing affectionate +gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino. Attentive as they were, light +played in them like water. The countenance was vivid in repose. She +leaned slightly forward, clasping the wrist of one hand about her knee, +and the sole of one little foot showed from under her dress. + +Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressiveness, the Chief +began to speak. He touched upon the condition of Italy, and the new lilt +animating her young men and women. "I have heard many good men jeer," he +said, "at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, and +putting a great stake upon their devotion. You have read history, and +you know what women can accomplish. They may be trained, equally as we +are, to venerate the abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it. +Without their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their +bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death-trance can +revive. In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does not die!" + +"True," said other voices. + +"We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, and the belief +is the life itself. But let no strong man among us despise the help of +women. I have seen our cause lie desperate, and those who despaired of +it were not women. Women kept the flame alive. They worship in the +temple of the cause." + +Ammiani's eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina. Her look, which was +fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind that listened to strange matter +concerning her very little. But when the plans for the rising of the +Bergamascs and Brescians, the Venetians, the Bolognese, the Milanese, all +the principal Northern cities, were recited, with a practical emphasis +thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the organized bands, the +dispositions of the leaders, and the amount of resistance to be expected +at the various points indicated for the outbreak, her hands disjoined, +and she stretched her fingers to the grass, supporting herself so, while +her extended chin and animated features told how eagerly her spirit drank +at positive springs, and thirsted for assurance of the coming storm. + +"It is decided that Milan gives the signal," said the Chief; and a light, +like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon the night, flashed over her. + +He was pursuing, when Ugo Corte smote the air with his nervous fingers, +crying out passionately, "Bunglers! are we again to wait for them, and +hear that fifteen patriots have stabbed a Croat corporal, and wrestled +hotly with a lieutenant of the guard? I say they are bunglers. They +never mean the thing. Fifteen! There were just three Milanese among the +last lot--the pick of the city; and the rest were made up of Trentini, +and our lads from Bergamo and Brescia; and the order from the Council +was, 'Go and do the business!' which means, 'Go and earn your ounce of +Austrian lead.' They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor +devil of a curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on if we give +them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, and goes off like a drugged +pistol. It's a nest of bunglers, and may it be razed! We could do +without it, and well! If it were a family failing, should not I too be +trusting them? My brother was one of the fifteen who marched out as +targets to try the skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: and they did it +thoroughly--shot him straight here." Corte struck his chest. "He gave a +jump and a cry. Was it a viva for Milan? They swear that it was, and +they can't translate from a living mouth, much more from a dead one; but +I know my Niccolo better. I have kissed his lips a thousand times, and I +know the poor boy meant, 'Scorn and eternal distrust of such peddling +conspirators as these!' I can deal with traitors, but these flash-in- +the-pan plotters--these shaking, jelly-bodied patriots!--trust to them +again? Rather draw lots for another fifteen to bare their breasts and +bandage their eyes, and march out in the grey morning, while the stupid +Croat corporal goes on smoking his lumpy pipe! We shall hear that Milan +is moving; we shall rise; we shall be hot at it; and the news will come +that Milan has merely yawned and turned over to sleep on the other side. +Twice she has done this trick, and the garrison there has sent five +regiments to finish us--teach us to sleep soundly likewise! I say, let +it be Bergamo; or be it Brescia, if you like; or Venice: she is ready. +You trust to Milan, and you are fore-doomed. I would swear it with this +hand in the flames. She give the signal? Shut your eyes, cross your +hands flat on your breasts: you are dead men if you move. She lead the +way? Spin on your heels, and you have followed her!" + +Corte had spoken in a thick difficult voice, that seemed to require the +aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it did like a water-pipe in a +hurricane of rain. He ceased, red almost to blackness, and knotted his +arms, that were big as the cable of a vessel. Not a murmur followed his +speech. The word was, given to the Chief, and he resumed:-- + +"You have a personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You have not heard me. +I came through Paris. A rocket will soon shoot up from Paris that will +be a signal for Christendom. The keen French wit is sick of its +compromise-king. All Europe is in convulsions in a few months: to-morrow +it may be. The elements are in the hearts of the people, and nothing +will contain them. We have sown them to reap them. The sowing asks for +persistency; but the reaping demands skill and absolute truthfulness. We +have now one of those occasions coming which are the flowers to be +plucked by resolute and worthy hands: they are the tests of our +sincerity. This time now rapidly approaching will try us all, and we +must be ready for it. If we have believed in it, we stand prepared. If +we have conceived our plan of action in purity of heart, we shall be +guided to discern the means which may serve us. You will know speedily +what it is that has prompted you to move. If passion blindfolds you, if +you are foiled by a prejudice, I also shall know. My friend, the nursing +of a single antipathy is a presumption that your motive force is +personal--whether the thirst for vengeance or some internal union of a +hundred indistinct little fits of egoism. I have seen brave and even +noble men fail at the ordeal of such an hour: not fail in courage, not +fail in the strength of their desire; that was the misery for them! They +failed because midway they lost the vision to select the right +instruments put in our way by heaven. That vision belongs solely to such +as have clean and disciplined hearts. The hope in the bosom of a man +whose fixed star is Humanity becomes a part of his blood, and is +extinguished when his blood flows no more. To conquer him, the principle +of life must be conquered. And he, my friend, will use all, because he +serves all. I need not touch on Milan." + +The signorina drew in her breath quickly, as if in this abrupt close she +had a revelation of the Chief's whole meaning, and was startled by the +sudden unveiling of his mastery. Her hands hung loose; her figure was +tremulous. A murmur from Corte jarred within her like a furious discord, +but he had not offended by refusing to disclaim his error, and had simply +said in a gruff acquiescent way, "Proceed." Her sensations of surprise at +the singular triumph of the Chief made her look curiously into the faces +of the other men; but the pronouncing of her name engaged her attention. + +"Your first night is the night of the fifteenth of next month?" + +"It is, signore," she replied, abashed to find herself speaking with him +who had so moved her. + +"There is no likelihood of a postponement?" + +"I am certain, signore, that I shall be ready." + +"There are no squabbles of any serious kind among the singers?" + +A soft dimple played for a moment on her lips. "I have heard something." + +"Among the women?" + +"Yes, and the men." + +"But the men do not concern you?" + +"No, signore. Except that the women twist them." + +Agostino chuckled audibly. The Chief resumed: + +"You believe, notwithstanding, that all will go well? The opera will be +acted; and you will appear in it?" + +"Yes, signore. I know one who has determined on it, and can do it." + +"Good. The opera is Camilla?" + +She was answering with an affirmative, when Agostino broke in,-- + +"Camilla! And honour to whom honour is due! Let Caesar claim the +writing of the libretto, if it be Caesar's! It has passed the +censorship, signed Agostino Balderini--a disaffected person out of +Piedmont, rendered tame and fangless by a rigorous imprisonment. The +sources of the tale, O ye grave Signori Tedeschi? The sources are partly +to be traced to a neat little French vaudeville, very sparkling--Camille, +or the Husband Asserted; and again to a certain Chronicle that may be +mediaeval, may be modern, and is just, as the great Shakespeare would +say, 'as you like it.'" + +Agostino recited some mock verses, burlesquing the ordinary libretti, and +provoked loud laughter from Carlo Ammiani, who was familiar enough with +the run of their nonsense. + +"Camilla is the bride of Camillo. I give to her all the brains, which is +a modern idea, quite! He does all the mischief, which is possibly +mediaeval. They have both an enemy, which is mediaeval and modern. None +of them know exactly what they are about; so there you have the modern, +the mediaeval, and the antique, all in one. Finally, my friends, Camilla +is something for you to digest at leisure. The censorship swallowed it +at a gulp. Never was bait so handsomely taken! At present I have the +joy of playing my fish. On the night of the fifteenth I land him. +Camilla has a mother. Do you see? That mother is reported, is generally +conceived, as dead. Do you see further? Camilla's first song treats of +a dream she has had of that mother. Our signorina shall not be troubled +to favour you with a taste of it, or, by Bacchus and his Indian nymphs, I +should speedily behold you jumping like peas in a pan, like trout on a +bank! The earth would be hot under you, verily! As I was remarking, or +meant to be, Camilla and her husband disagree, having agreed to. 'Tis a +plot to deceive Count Orso--aha? You are acquainted with Count Orso! He +is Camilla's antenuptial guardian. Now you warm to it! In that +condition I leave you. Perhaps my child here will give you a taste of +her voice. The poetry does much upon reflection, but it has to ripen +within you--a matter of time. Wed this voice to the poetry, and it finds +passage 'twixt your ribs, as on the point of a driven blade. Do I cry +the sweetness and the coolness of my melons? Not I! Try them." + +The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was unfolding, and cast +her eyes along bars of music, while Agostino called a "Silenzio tutti!" +She sang one verse, and stopped for breath. + +Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief:-- + +"Believe me, signore, I can be trusted to sing when the time comes." + +"Sing on, my blackbird--my viola!" said Agostino. "We all trust you. +Look at Colonel Corte, and take him for Count Orso. Take me for pretty +Camillo. Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid. +Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. Ah, +my Pippo!" (Agostino laughed aside to him). "Let us lead off with a +lighter piece; a trifle-tra-la-la! and then let the frisky piccolo be +drowned in deep organ notes, as on some occasions in history the people +overrun certain puling characters. But that, I confess, is an +illustration altogether out of place, and I'll simply jot it down in my +notebook." + +Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When he was silent +she sang from memory. It was a song of flourishes: one of those be- +flowered arias in which the notes flicker and leap like young flames. +Others might have sung it; and though it spoke favourably of her aptitude +and musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy, merely +critical audiences, it won no applause from these men. The effect +produced by it was exhibited in the placid tolerance shown by the +uplifting of Ugo Corte's eyebrows, which said, "Well, here's a voice, +certainly." His subsequent look added, "Is this what we have come hither +to hear?" + +Vittoria saw the look. "Am I on my trial before you?" she thought; and +the thought nerved her throat. She sang in strong and grave contralto +tones, at first with shut eyes. The sense of hostility left her, and +left her soul free, and she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying. +She pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and the strength +of her faith to her husband:-- + + "Beloved, I am quickly out of sight: + I pray that you will love more than my dust. + + Were death defeat, much weeping would be right; + 'Tis victory when it leaves surviving trust. + You will not find me save when you forget + Earth's feebleness, and come to faith, my friend, + For all Humanity doth owe a debt + To all Humanity, until the end." + +Agostino glanced at the Chief to see whether his ear had caught note of +his own language. + +The melancholy severity of that song of death changed to a song of +prophetic triumph. The signorina stood up. Camilla has thrown off the +mask, and has sung the name "Italia!" At the recurrence of it the men +rose likewise. + + "Italia, Italia, shall be free!" + +Vittoria gave the inspiration of a dying voice: the conquest of death by +an eternal truth seemed to radiate from her. Voice and features were as +one expression of a rapture of belief built upon pathetic trustfulness. + + "Italia, Italia shall be free!" + +She seized the hearts of those hard and serious men as a wind takes the +strong oak-trees, and rocks them on their knotted roots, and leaves them +with the song of soaring among their branches. Italy shone about her; +the lake, the plains, the peaks, and the shouldering flushed snowridges. +Carlo Ammiani breathed as one who draws in fire. Grizzled Agostino +glittered with suppressed emotion, like a frosted thorn-bush in the +sunlight. Ugo Corte had his thick brows down, as a man who is reading +iron matter. The Chief alone showed no sign beyond a half lifting of the +hand, and a most luminous fixed observation of the fair young woman, from +whom power was an emanation, free of effort. The gaze was sad in its +thoughtfulness, such as our feelings translate of the light of evening. + +She ceased, and he said, "You sing on the night of the fifteenth?" + +"I do, signore." + +"It is your first appearance?" + +She bent her head. + +"And you will be prepared on that night to sing this song?" + +"Yes, signore." + +"Save in the event of your being forbidden?" + +"Unless you shall forbid me, I will sing it, signore." + +"Should they imprison you?--" + +"If they shoot me I shall be satisfied to know that I have sung a song +that cannot be forgotten." + +The Chief took her hand in a gentle grasp. + +"Such as you will help to give our Italy freedom. You hold the sacred +flame, and know you hold it in trust." + +"Friends,"--he turned to his companions,--"you have heard what will be +the signal for Milan." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a surprise to all of them, save to Agostino Balderini, who passed +his inspecting glance from face to face, marking the effect of the +announcement. Corte gazed at her heavily, but not altogether +disapprovingly. Giulio Bandinelli and Marco Sana, though evidently +astonished, and to some extent incredulous, listened like the perfectly +trusty lieutenants in an enterprise which they were. But Carlo Ammiani +stood horror-stricken. The blood had left his handsome young olive-hued +face, and his eyes were on the signorina, large with amazement, from +which they deepened to piteousness of entreaty. + +"Signorina!--you! Can it be true? Do you know?--do you mean it?" + +"What, signor Carlo?" + +"This; will you venture to do such a thing?" + +"Oh, will I venture? What can you think of me? It is my own request." + +"But, signorina, in mercy, listen and consider." + +Carlo turned impetuously to the Chief. "The signorina can't know the +danger she is running. She will be seized on the boards, and shut up +between four walls before a man of us will be ready,--or more than one," +he added softly. "The house is sure to be packed for a first night; and +the Polizia have a suspicion of her. She has been off her guard in the +Conservatorio; she has talked of a country called Italy; she has been +indiscreet;--pardon, pardon, signorina! but it is true that she has +spoken out from her noble heart. And this opera! Are they fools?--they +must see through it. It will never,--it can't possibly be reckoned on to +appear. I knew that the signorina was heart and soul with us; but who +could guess that her object was to sacrifice herself in the front rank,-- +to lead a forlorn hope! I tell you it's like a Pagan rite. You are +positively slaying a victim. I beg you all to look at the case calmly!" + +A burst of laughter checked him; for his seniors by many years could not +hear such veteran's counsel from a hurried boy without being shrewdly +touched by the humour of it, while one or two threw a particular irony +into their tones. + +"When we do slay a victim, we will come to you as our augur, my Carlo," +said Agostino. + +Corte was less gentle. As a Milanese and a mere youth Ammiani was +antipathetic to Corte, who closed his laughter with a windy rattle of his +lips, and a "pish!" of some emphasis. + +Carlo was quick to give him a challenging frown. + +"What is it?" Corte bent his head back, as if inquiringly. + +"It's I who claim that question by right," said Carlo. + +"You are a boy." + +"I have studied war." + +"In books." + +"With brains, Colonel Corte." + +"War is a matter of blows, my little lad." + +"Let me inform you, signor Colonel, that war is not a game between bulls, +to be played with the horns of the head." + +"You are prepared to instruct me?" The fiery Bergamasc lifted his +eyebrows. + +"Nay, nay!" said Agostino. "Between us two first;" and he grasped +Carlo's arm, saying in an underbreath, "Your last retort was too long- +winded. In these conflicts you must be quick, sharp as a rifle-crack +that hits echo on the breast-bone and makes her cry out. I correct a +student in the art of war." Then aloud: "My opera, young man!--well, +it's my libretto, and you know we writers always say 'my opera' when we +have put the pegs for the voice; you are certainly aware that we do. How +dare you to make calumnious observations upon my opera? Is it not the +ripe and admirable fruit of five years of confinement? Are not the lines +sharp, the stanzas solid? and the stuff, is it not good? Is not the +subject simple, pure from offence to sensitive authority, +constitutionally harmless? Reply!" + +"It's transparent to any but asses," said Carlo. + +"But if it has passed the censorship? You are guilty, my boy, of +bestowing upon those highly disciplined gentlemen who govern your famous +city--what title? I trust a prophetic one, since that it comes from an +animal whose custom is to turn its back before it delivers a blow, and +is, they remark, fonder of encountering dead lions than live ones. +Still, it is you who are indiscreet,--eminently so, I must add, if you +will look lofty. If my opera has passed the censorship! eh, what have +you to say?" + +Carlo endured this banter till the end of it came. + +"And you--you encourage her!" he cried wrathfully. "You know what the +danger is for her, if they once lay hands on her. They will have her in +Verona in four-and-twenty hours; through the gates of the Adige in a +couple of days, and at Spielberg, or some other of their infernal dens of +groans, within a week. Where is the chance of a rescue then? They +torture, too, they torture! It's a woman; and insult will be one mode of +torturing her. They can use rods--" + +The excited Southern youth was about to cover his face, but caught back +his hands, clenching them. + +"All this," said Agostino, "is an evasion, manifestly, of the question +concerning my opera, on which you have thought proper to cast a slur. +The phrase, 'transparent to any but asses,' may not be absolutely +objectionable, for transparency is, as the critics rightly insist, +meritorious in a composition. And, according to the other view, if we +desire our clever opponents to see nothing in something, it is notably +skilful to let them see through it. You perceive, my Carlo. +Transparency, then, deserves favourable comment. So, I do not complain +of your phrase, but I had the unfortunate privilege of hearing it +uttered. The method of delivery scarcely conveyed a compliment. Will +you apologize?" + +Carlo burst from him with a vehement question to the Chief: "Is it +decided?" + +"It is, my friend," was the reply. + +"Decided! She is doomed! Signorina! what can you know of this frightful +risk? You are going to the slaughter. You will be seized before the +first verse is out of your lips, and once in their clutches, you will +never breathe free air again. It's madness!--ah, forgive me!--yes, +madness! For you shut your eyes; you rush into the trap blindfolded. And +that is how you serve our Italy! She sees you an instant, and you are +caught away;--and you who might serve her, if you would, do you think you +can move dungeon walls?" + +"Perhaps, if I have been once seen, I shall not be forgotten," said the +signorina smoothly, and then cast her eyes down, as if she felt the +burden of a little possible accusation of vanity in this remark. She +raised them with fire. + +"No; never!" exclaimed Carlo. "But, now you are ours. And--surely it is +not quite decided?" + +He had spoken imploringly to the Chief. "Not irrevocably?" he added. + +"Irrevocably!" + +"Then she is lost!" + +"For shame, Carlo Ammiani;" said old Agostino, casting his sententious +humours aside. "Do you not hear? It is decided! Do you wish to rob her +of her courage, and see her tremble? It's her scheme and mine: a case +where an old head approves a young one. The Chief says Yes! and you +bellow still! Is it a Milanese trick? Be silent." + +"Be silent!" echoed Carlo. "Do you remember the beast Marschatska's +bet?" The allusion was to a black incident concerning a young Italian +ballet girl who had been carried off by an Austrian officer, under the +pretext of her complicity in one of the antecedent conspiracies. + +"He rendered payment for it," said Agostino. + +"He perished; yes! as we shake dust to the winds; but she!--it's +terrible! You place women in the front ranks--girls! What can +defenceless creatures do? Would you let the van-regiment in battle be +the one without weapons? It's slaughter. She's like a lamb to them. +You hold up your jewel to the enemy, and cry, 'Come and take it.' Think +of the insults! think of the rough hands, and foul mouths! She will be +seized on the boards--" + +"Not if you keep your tongue from wagging," interposed Ugo Corte, fevered +by this unseasonable exhibition of what was to him manifestly a lover's +frenzied selfishness. He moved off, indifferent to Carlo's retort. +Marco Sana and Giulio Bandinelli were already talking aside with the +Chief. + +"Signor Carlo, not a hand shall touch me," said the signorina. "And I am +not a lamb, though it is good of you to think me one. I passed through +the streets of Milan in the last rising. I was unharmed. You must have +some confidence in me." + +"Signorina, there's the danger," rejoined Carlo. "You trust to your good +angels once, twice--the third time they fail you! What are you among a +host of armed savages? You would be tossed like weed on the sea. In +pity, do not look so scornfully! No, there is no unjust meaning in it; +but you despise me for seeing danger. Can nothing persuade you? And, +besides," he addressed the Chief, who alone betrayed no signs of +weariness; "listen, I beg of you. Milan wants no more than a signal. +She does not require to be excited. I came charged with several +proposals for giving the alarm. Attend, you others! The night of the +Fifteenth comes; it is passing like an ordinary night. At twelve a fire- +balloon is seen in the sky. Listen, in the name of saints and devils!" + +But even the Chief was observed to show signs of amusement, and the +gravity of the rest forsook them altogether at the display of this +profound and original conspiratorial notion. + +"Excellent! excellent! my Carlo," said old Agostino, cheerfully. "You +have thought. You must have thought, or whence such a conception? But, +you really mistake. It is not the garrison whom we desire to put on +their guard. By no means. We are not in the Imperial pay. Probably +your balloon is to burst in due time, and, wind permitting, disperse +printed papers all over the city?" + +"What if it is?" cried Carlo fiercely. + +"Exactly. I have divined your idea. You have thought, or, to correct +the tense, are thinking, which is more hopeful, though it may chance not +to seem so meritorious. But, if yours are the ideas of full-blown +jackets, bear in mind that our enemies are coated and breeched. It may +be creditable to you that your cunning is not the cunning of the serpent; +to us it would be more valuable if it were. Continue." + +"Oh! there are a thousand ways." Carlo controlled himself with a sharp +screw of all his muscles. "I simply wish to save the signorina from an +annoyance." + +"Very mildly put," Agostino murmured assentingly. + +"In our Journal," said Carlo, holding out the palm of one hand to dot the +forefinger of the other across it, by way of personal illustration--"in +our Journal we might arrange for certain letters to recur at distinct +intervals in Roman capitals, which might spell out, 'This Night AT +Twelve,' or 'At Once.'" + +"Quite as ingenious, but on the present occasion erring on the side of +intricacy. Aha! you want to increase the sale of your Journal, do you, +my boy? The rogue!" + +With which, and a light slap over Carlo's shoulder, Agostino left him. + +The aspect of his own futile proposals stared the young man in the face +too forcibly for him to nurse the spark of resentment which was struck +out in the turmoil of his bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, +and remained midway, his chest heaving, and his eyelids shut. + +"Signor Carlo, I have not thanked you." He heard Vittoria speak. "I +know that a woman should never attempt to do men's work. The Chief will +tell you that we must all serve now, and all do our best. If we fail, +and they put me to great indignity, I promise you that I will not live. +I would give this up to be done by anyone else who could do it better. +It is in my hands, and my friends must encourage me." + +"Ah, signorina!" the young man sighed bitterly. The knowledge that he +had already betrayed himself in the presence of others too far, and the +sob in his throat labouring to escape, kept him still. + +A warning call from Ugo Corte drew their attention. Close by the chalet +where the first climbers of the mountain had refreshed themselves, Beppo +was seen struggling to secure the arms of a man in a high-crowned green +Swiss hat, who was apparently disposed to give the signorina's faithful +servant some trouble. After gazing a minute at this singular contention, +she cried-- + +"It's the same who follows me everywhere!" + +"And you will not believe you are suspected," murmured Carlo in her ear. + +"A spy?" Sana queried, showing keen joy at the prospect of scotching such +a reptile on the lonely height. Corte went up to the Chief. They spoke +briefly together, making use of notes and tracings on paper. The Chief +then said "Adieu" to the signorina. It was explained to the rest by +Corte that he had a meeting to attend near Pella about noon, and must be +in Fobello before midnight. Thence his way would be to Genoa. + +"So, you are resolved to give another trial to our crowned ex-Carbonaro," +said Agostino. + +"Without leaving him an initiative this time!" and the Chief embraced the +old man. "You know me upon that point. I cannot trust him. I do not. +But, if we make such a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into +it, is such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my friend! See to +that." + +"The king is our instrument!" cried Carlo Ammiani, brightening. + +"Yes, if we were particularly well skilled in the use of that kind of +instrument," Agostino muttered. + +He stood apart while the Chief said a few words to Carlo, which made the +blood play vividly across the visage of the youth. Carlo tried humbly to +expostulate once or twice. In the end his head was bowed, and he +signified a dumb acquiescence. + +"Once more, good-bye." The Chief addressed the signorina in English. + +She replied in the same tongue, "Good-bye," tremulously; and passion +mounting on it, added--"Oh! when shall I see you again?" + +"When Rome is purified to be a fit place for such as you." + +In another minute he was hidden on the slope of the mountain lying toward +Orta. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope. +But it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free +movements. They hung together intertwisted in the characters of specious +pacificator and appealing citizen, both breathless. + +"There! you want to hand me up neatly; I know your vanity, my Beppo; and +you don't even know my name," said the prisoner. + +"I know your ferret of a face well enough," said Beppo. "You dog the +signorina. Come up, and don't give trouble." + +"Am I not a sheep? You worry me. Let me go." + +"You're a wriggling eel." + +"Catch me fast by the tail then, and don't hold me by the middle." + +"You want frightening, my pretty fellow!" + +"If that's true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in sending you to do +it. Stop a moment. You're blown. I think you gulp down your minestra +too hot; you drink beer." + +"You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last." + +"I left Milan for the purpose--don't you see? Act fairly, my Beppo, and +let us go up to the signorina together decently." + +"Ay, ay, my little reptile! You'll find no Austrians here. Cry out to +them to come to you from Baveno. If the Motterone grew just one tree! +Saints! one would serve." + +"Why don't you--fool that you are, my Beppo!--pray to the saints earlier? +Trees don't grow from heaven." + +"You'll be going there soon, and you'll know better about it." + +"Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time or other!" + +The struggles between them continued sharply during this exchange of +intellectual shots; but hearing Ugo Corte's voice, the prisoner's +confident audacity forsook him, and he drew a long tight face like the +mask of an admonitory exclamation addressed to himself from within. + +"Stand up straight!" the soldier's command was uttered. + +Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the power to obey or +to speak. + +Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force of his huge fist he +swung him round and stretched him out at arm's length, all collar and +shanks. The man hung like a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured +out the tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle, +showing that he could have answered one whom he did not fear. The charge +brought against him was, that for the last six months he had been +untiringly spying on the signorina. + +Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told him to walk +aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evidently become miserably +disconcerted. He walked in trepidation, speechless, and when +interrogated on the height his eyes flew across the angry visages with +dismal uncertainty. Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not +expected to come among them, and forthwith began to excite Giulio and +Marco to the worst suspicions, in order to indulge his royal poetic soul +with a study of a timorous wretch pushed to anticipations of extremity. + +"The execution of a spy," he preluded, "is the signal for the ringing of +joy-bells on this earth; not only because he is one of a pestiferous +excess, in point of numbers, but that he is no true son of earth. He +escaped out of hell's doors on a windy day, and all that we do is to puff +out a bad light, and send him back. Look at this fellow in whom +conscience is operating so that he appears like a corked volcano! You +can see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact +colour of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective, +thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned +without trial by his villanous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface +to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is stronger:-- +observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt. He is a +nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to indicate +that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending years. Now, +you dangling soul! answer me:--what name hailed you when on earth?" + +The fan, with no clearly serviceable tongue, articulated, "Luigi." + +"Luigi! the name Christian and distinctive. The name historic:-Luigi +Porco?" + +"Luigi Saracco, signore." + +"Saracco: Saracco: very possibly a strip of the posterity of cut-throat +Moors. To judge by your face, a Moor undoubtedly: glib, slippery! with a +body that slides and a soul that jumps. Taken altogether, more serpent +than eagle. I misdoubt that little quick cornering eye of yours. Do you +ever remember to have blushed?" + +"No, signore," said Luigi. + +"You spy upon the signorina, do you?" + +"You have Beppo's word for that," interposed Marco Sana, growling. + +"And you are found spying on the mountain this particular day! Luigi +Saracco, you are a fellow of a tremendous composition. A goose walking +into a den of foxes is alone to be compared to you,--if ever such goose +was! How many of us did you count, now, when you were, say, a quarter of +a mile below?" + +Marco interposed again: "He has already seen enough up here to make a +rope of florins." + +"The fellow's eye takes likenesses," said Giulio. + +Agostino's question was repeated by Corte, and so sternly that Luigi, +beholding kindness upon no other face save Vittoria's, watched her, and +muttering "Six," blinked his keen black eyes piteously to get her sign of +assent to his hesitated naming of that number. Her mouth and the turn of +her head were expressive to him, and he cried "Seven." + +"So; first six, and next seven," said Corte. + +"Six, I meant, without the signorina," Luigi explained. + +"You saw six of us without the signorina! You see we are six here, +including the signorina. Where is the seventh?" + +Luigi tried to penetrate Vittoria's eyes for a proper response; but she +understood the grave necessity for getting the full extent of his +observations out of him, and she looked as remorseless as the men. He +feigned stupidity and sullenness, rage and cunning, in quick succession. + +"Who was the seventh?" said Carlo. + +"Was it the king?" Luigi asked. + +This was by just a little too clever; and its cleverness, being seen, +magnified the intended evasion so as to make it appear to them that Luigi +knew well the name of the seventh. + +Marco thumped a hand on his shoulder, shouting-- + +"Here; speak out! You saw seven of us. Where has the seventh one gone?" + +Luigi's wits made a dash at honesty. "Down Orta, signore." + +"And down Orta, I think, you will go; deeper down than you may like." + +Corte now requested Vittoria to stand aside. He motioned to her with his +hand to stand farther, and still farther off; and finally told Carlo to +escort her to Baveno. She now began to think that the man Luigi was in +some perceptible danger, nor did Ammiani disperse the idea. + +"If he is a spy, and if he has seen the Chief, we shall have to detain +him for at least four-and-twenty hours," he said, "or do worse." + +"But, Signor Carlo,"--Vittoria made appeal to his humanity,--"do they +mean, if they decide that he is guilty, to hurt him?" + +"Tell me, signorina, what punishment do you imagine a spy deserves?" + +"To be called one!" + +Carlo smiled at her lofty method of dealing with the animal. + +"Then you presume him to have a conscience?" + +"I am sure, Signor Carlo, that I could make him loathe to be called a +spy." + +They were slowly pacing from the group, and were on the edge of the +descent, when the signorina's name was shrieked by Luigi. The man came +running to her for protection, Beppo and the rest at his heels. She +allowed him to grasp her hand. + +"After all, he is my spy; he does belong to me," she said, still speaking +on to Carlo. "I must beg your permission, Colonel Corte and Signor +Marco, to try an experiment. The Signor Carlo will not believe that a +spy can be ashamed of his name.--Luigi!" + +"Signorina!"--he shook his body over her hand with a most plaintive +utterance. + +"You are my countryman, Luigi?" + +"Yes, signorina." + +"You are an Italian?" + +"Certainly, signorina!" + +"A spy!" + +Vittoria had not always to lift her voice in music for it to sway the +hearts of men. She spoke the word very simply in a mellow soft tone. +Luigi's blood shot purple. He thrust his fists against his ears. + +"See, Signor Carlo," she said; "I was right. Luigi, you will be a spy no +more?" + +Carlo Ammiani happened to be rolling a cigarette-paper. She put out her +fingers for it, and then reached it to Luigi, who accepted it with +singular contortions of his frame, declaring that he would confess +everything to her. "Yes, signorina, it is true; I am a spy on you. I +know the houses you visit. I know you eat too much chocolate for your +voice. I know you are the friend of the Signora Laura, the widow of +Giacomo Piaveni, shot--shot on Annunciation Day. The Virgin bless him! +I know the turning of every street from your house near the Duomo to the +signora's. You go nowhere else, except to the maestro's. And it's +something to spy upon you. But think of your Beppo who spies upon me! +And your little mother, the lady most excellent, is down in Baveno, and +she is always near you when you make an expedition. Signorina, I know +you would not pay your Beppo for spying upon me. Why does he do it? I +do not sing 'Italia, Italia shall be free!' I have heard you when I was +under the maestro's windows; and once you sang it to the Signor Agostino +Balderini. + +"Indeed, signorina, I am a sort of guardian of your voice. It is not gold +of the Tedeschi I get from the Signor Antonio Pericles." + +At the mention of this name, Agostino and Vittoria laughed out. + +"You are in the pay of the Signor Antonio-Pericles," said Agostino. + +"Without being in our pay, you have done us the service to come up here +among us! Bravo! In return for your disinterestedness, we kick you +down, either upon Baveno or upon Stresa, or across the lake, if you +prefer it.--The man is harmless. He is hired by a particular worshipper +of the signorina's voice, who affects to have first discovered it when +she was in England, and is a connoisseur, a millionaire, a Greek, a rich +scoundrel, with one indubitable passion, for which I praise him. We will +let his paid eavesdropper depart, I think. He is harmless." + +Neither Ugo nor Marco was disposed to allow any description of spy to +escape unscotched. Vittoria saw that Luigi's looks were against him, and +whispered: "Why do you show such cunning eyes, Luigi?" + +He replied: "Signorina, take me out of their hearing, and I will tell you +everything." + +She walked aside. He seemed immediately to be inspired with confidence, +and stretched his fingers in the form of a grasshopper, at which sight +they cried: "He knows Barto Rizzo--this rascal!" They plied him with +signs and countersigns, and speedily let him go. There ensued a sharp +snapping of altercation between Luigi and Beppo. Vittoria had to order +Beppo to stand back. + +"It is a poor dog, not of a good breed, signorina," Luigi said, casting a +tolerant glance over his shoulder. "Faithful, but a poor nose. Ah! you +gave me this cigarette. Not the Virgin could have touched my marrow as +you did. That's to be remembered by-and-by. Now, you are going to sing +on the night of the fifteenth of September. Change that night. The +Signor Antonio-Pericles watches you, and he is a friend of the +Government, and the Government is snoring for you to think it asleep. +The Signor Antonio-Pericles pacifies the Tedeschi, but he will know all +that you are doing, and how easy it will be, and how simple, for you to +let me know what you think he ought to know, and just enough to keep him +comfortable! So we work like a machine, signorina. Only, not through +that Beppo, for he is vain of his legs, and his looks, and his service, +and because he has carried a gun and heard it go off. Yes; I am a spy. +But I am honest. I, too, have visited England. One can be honest and a +spy. Signorina, I have two arms, but only one heart. If you will be +gracious and consider! Say, here are two hands. One hand does this +thing, one hand does that thing, and that thing wipes out this thing. It +amounts to clear reasoning! Here are two eyes. Were they meant to see +nothing but one side! Here is a tongue with a line down the middle +almost to the tip of it--which is for service. That Beppo couldn't deal +double, if he would; for he is imperfectly designed--a mere dog's +pattern! But, only one heart, signorina--mind that. I will never forget +the cigarette. I shall smoke it before I leave the mountain, and think-- +oh!" + +Having illustrated the philosophy of his system, Luigi continued: "I am +going to tell you everything. Pray, do not look on Beppo! This is +important. The Signor Antonio-Pericles sent me to spy on you, because he +expects some people to come up the mountain, and you know them; and one +is an Austrian officer, and he is an Englishman by birth, and he is +coming to meet some English friends who enter Italy from Switzerland over +the Moro, and easily up here on mules or donkeys from Pella. The Signor +Antonio-Pericles has gold ears for everything that concerns the +signorina. "A patriot is she!" he says; and he is jealous of your +English friends. He thinks they will distract you from your studies; and +perhaps"--Luigi nodded sagaciously before he permitted himself to say-- +"perhaps he is jealous in another way. I have heard him speak like a +sonnet of the signorina's beauty. The Signor Antonio-Pericles thinks +that you have come here to-day to meet them. When he heard that you were +going to leave Milan for Baveno, he was mad, and with two fists up, +against all English persons. The Englishman who is an Austrian officer +is quartered at Verona, and the Signor Antonio-Pericles said that the +Englishman should not meet you yet, if he could help it." + +Victoria stood brooding. "Who can it be,--who is an Englishman, and an +Austrian officer, and knows me?" + +"Signorina, I don't know names. Behold, that Beppo is approaching like +the snow! What I entreat is, that the signorina will wait a little for +the English party, if they come, so that I may have something to tell my +patron. To invent upon nothing is most unpleasant, and the Signor +Antonio can soon perceive whether one swims with corks. Signorina, I can +dance on one rope--I am a man. I am not a midge--I cannot dance upon +nothing." + +The days of Vittoria's youth had been passed in England. It was not +unknown to her that old English friends were on the way to Italy; the +recollection of a quiet and a buried time put a veil across her features. +She was perplexed by the mention of the Austrian officer by Luigi, as one +may be who divines the truth too surely, but will not accept it for its +loathsomeness. There were Englishmen in the army of Austria. Could one +of them be this one whom she had cared for when she was a girl? It +seemed hatefully cruel to him to believe it. She spoke to Agostino, +begging him to remain with her on the height awhile to see whether the +Signor Antonio-Pericles was right; to see whether Luigi was a truth- +teller; to see whether these English persons were really coming. +"Because," she said, "if they do come, it will at once dissolve any +suspicions you may have of this Luigi. And I always long so much to know +if the Signor Antonio is correct. I have never yet known him to be +wrong." + +"And you want to see these English," said Agostino. He frowned. + +"Only to hear them. They shall not recognize me. I have now another +name; and I am changed. My hat is enough to hide me. Let me hear them +talk a little. You and the Signor Carlo will stay with me, and when they +come, if they do come, I will remain no longer than just sufficient to +make sure. I would refuse to know any of them before the night of the +fifteenth; I want my strength too much. I shall have to hear a misery +from them; I know it, I feel it; it turns my blood. But let me hear +their voices! England is half my country, though I am so willing to +forget her and give all my life to Italy. Stay with me, dear friend, my +best father! humour me, for you know that I am always charming when I am +humoured." + +Agostino pressed his finger on a dimple in her cheeks. "You can afford +to make such a confession as that to a greybeard. The day is your own. +Bear in mind that you are so situated that it will be prudent for you to +have no fresh relations, either with foreigners or others, until your +work is done,--in which, my dear child, may God bless you!" + +"I pray to him with all my might," Vittoria said in reply. + +After a consultation with Agostino, Ugo Corte and Marco and Giulio bade +their adieux to her. The task of keeping Luigi from their clutches was +difficult; but Agostino helped her in that also. To assure them, after +his fashion, of the harmlessness of Luigi, he seconded him in a contest +of wit against Beppo, and the little fellow, now that he had shaken off +his fears, displayed a quickness of retort and a liveliness "unknown to +professional spies and impossible to the race," said Agostino; "so +absolutely is the mind of man blunted by Austrian gold. We know that for +a fact. Beppo is no match for him. Beppo is sententious; ponderously +illustrative; he can't turn; he is long-winded; he, I am afraid, my +Carlo, studies the journals. He has got your journalistic style, wherein +words of six syllables form the relief to words of eight, and hardly one +dares to stand by itself. They are like huge boulders across a brook. +The meaning, do you, see, would run of itself, but you give us these +impedimenting big stones to help us over it, while we profess to +understand you by implication. For my part, I own, that to me, your +parliamentary, illegitimate academic, modern crocodile phraseology, which +is formidable in the jaws, impenetrable on the back, can't circumvent a +corner, and is enabled to enter a common understanding solely by having a +special highway prepared for it,--in short, the writing in your journals +is too much for me. Beppo here is an example that the style is useless +for controversy. This Luigi baffles him at every step." + +"Some," rejoined Carlo, "say that Beppo has had the virtue to make you +his study." + +Agostino threw himself on his back and closed his eyes. "That, then, is +more than you have done, signor Tuquoque. Look on the Bernina yonder, +and fancy you behold a rout of phantom Goths; a sleepy rout, new risen, +with the blood of old battles on their shroud-shirts, and a North-east +wind blowing them upon our fat land. Or take a turn at the other side +toward Orta, and look out for another invasion, by no means so +picturesque, but preferable. Tourists! Do you hear them?" + +Carlo Ammiani had descried the advanced troop of a procession of gravely- +heated climbers ladies upon donkeys, and pedestrian guards stalking +beside them, with courier, and lacqueys, and baskets of provisions, all +bearing the stamp of pilgrims from the great Western Island. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A mountain ascended by these children of the forcible Isle, is a mountain +to be captured, and colonized, and absolutely occupied for a term; so +that Vittoria soon found herself and her small body of adherents +observed, and even exclaimed against, as a sort of intruding aborigines, +whose presence entirely dispelled the sense of romantic dominion which a +mighty eminence should give, and which Britons expect when they have +expended a portion of their energies. The exclamations were not +complimentary; nevertheless, Vittoria listened with pleased ears, as one +listens by a brookside near an old home, hearing a music of memory rather +than common words. They talked of heat, of appetite, of chill, of +thirst, of the splendour of the prospect, of the anticipations of good +hotel accommodation below, of the sadness superinduced by the reflection +that in these days people were found everywhere, and poetry was thwarted; +again of heat, again of thirst, of beauty, and of chill. There was the +enunciation of matronly advice; there was the outcry of girlish +insubordination; there were sighings for English ale, and namings of the +visible ranges of peaks, and indicatings of geographical fingers to show +where Switzerland and Piedmont met, and Austria held her grasp on +Lombardy; and "to this point we go to-night; yonder to-morrow; farther +the next day," was uttered, soberly or with excitement, as befitted the +age of the speaker. + +Among these tourists there was one very fair English lady, with long +auburn curls of the traditionally English pattern, and the science of +Paris displayed in her bonnet and dress; which, if not as graceful as +severe admirers of the antique in statuary or of the mediaeval in drapery +demand, pleads prettily to be thought so, and commonly succeeds in its +object, when assisted by an artistic feminine manner. Vittoria heard her +answer to the name of Mrs. Sedley. She had once known her as a Miss +Adela Pole. Amidst the cluster of assiduous gentlemen surrounding this +lady it was difficult for Vittoria's stolen glances to discern her +husband; and the moment she did discern him she became as indifferent to +him as was his young wife, by every manifestation of her sentiments. +Mrs. Sedley informed her lord that it was not expected of him to care, or +to pretend to care, for such scenes as the Motterone exhibited; and +having dismissed him to the shade of an umbrella near the provision +baskets, she took her station within a few steps of Vittoria, and allowed +her attendant gentlemen to talk while she remained plunged in a +meditative rapture at the prospect. The talk indicated a settled scheme +for certain members of the party to reach Milan from the Como road. Mrs. +Sedley was asked if she expected her brother to join her here or in +Milan. + +"Here, if a man's promises mean anything," she replied languidly. + +She was told that some one waved a handkerchief to them from below. + +"Is he alone?" she said; and directing an operaglass upon the slope of +the mountain, pursued, as in a dreamy disregard of circumstances: "That +is Captain Gambier. My brother Wilfrid has not kept his appointment. +Perhaps he could not get leave from the General; perhaps he is married; +he is engaged to an Austrian Countess, I have heard. Captain Gambier did +me the favour to go round to a place called Stresa to meet him. He has +undertaken the journey for nothing. It is the way with all journeys +though this" (the lady had softly reverted to her rapture) "this is too +exquisite! Nature at least does not deceive." + +Vittoria listened to a bubbling of meaningless chatter, until Captain +Gambier had joined Mrs. Sedley; and at him, for she had known him +likewise, she could not forbear looking up. He was speaking to Mrs. +Sedley, but caught the look, and bent his head for a clearer view of the +features under the broad straw hat. Mrs. Sedley commanded him +imperiously to say on. + +"Have you no letter from Wilfrid? Has the mountain tired you? Has +Wilfrid failed to send his sister one word? Surely Mr. Pericles will +have made known our exact route to him? And his uncle, General Pierson, +could--I am certain he did--exert his influence to procure him leave for +a single week to meet the dearest member of his family." + +Captain Gambier gathered his wits to give serviceable response to the +kindled lady, and letting his eyes fall from time to time on the broad +straw hat, made answer-- + +"Lieutenant Pierson, or, in other words, Wilfrid Pole--" + +The lady stamped her foot and flushed. + +"You know, Augustus, I detest that name." + +"Pardon me a thousandfold. I had forgotten." + +"What has happened to you?" + +Captain Gambier accused the heat. + +"I found a letter from Wilfrid at the hotel. He is apparently kept on +constant service between Milan, and Verona, and Venice. His quarters are +at Verona. He informs me that he is to be married in the Spring; that +is, if all continues quiet; married in the Spring. He seems to fancy +that there may be disturbances; not of a serious kind, of course. He +will meet you in Milan. He has never been permitted to remain at Milan +longer than a couple of days at a stretch. Pericles has told him that +she is in Florence. Pericles has told me that Miss Belloni has removed +to Florence." + +"Say it a third time," the lady indulgently remarked. + +"I do not believe that she has gone." + +"I dare say not." + +"She has changed her name, you know." + +"Oh, dear, yes; she has done something fantastic, naturally! For my +part, I should have thought her own good enough." + +"Emilia Alessandra Belloni is good enough, certainly," said Captain +Gambier. + +The shading straw rim had shaken once during the colloquy. It was now a +fixed defence. + +"What is her new name?" Mrs. Sedley inquired. + +"That I cannot tell. Wilfrid merely mentions that he has not seen her." + +"I," said Mrs. Sedley, "when I reach Milan, shall not trust to Mr. +Pericles, but shall write to the Conservatorio; for if she is going to be +a great cantatrice, really, it will be agreeable to renew acquaintance +with her. Nor will it do any mischief to Wilfrid, now that he is +engaged. Are you very deeply attached to straw hats? They are sweet in +a landscape." + +Mrs. Sedley threw him a challenge from her blue eyes; but his reply to it +was that of an unskilled youth, who reads a lady by the letters of her +speech:--"One minute. I will be with you instantly. I want to have a +look down on the lake. I suppose this is one of the most splendid views +in Italy. Half a minute!" + +Captain Gambier smiled brilliantly; and the lady, perceiving that +polished shield, checked the shot of indignation on her astonished +features, and laid it by. But the astonishment lingered there, like the +lines of a slackened bow. She beheld her ideal of an English gentleman +place himself before these recumbent foreign people, and turn to talk +across them, with a pertinacious pursuit of the face under the bent straw +hat. Nor was it singular to her that one of them at last should rise and +protest against the continuation of the impertinence. + +Carlo Ammiani, in fact, had opened matters with a scrupulously-courteous +bow. + +"Monsieur is perhaps unaware that he obscures the outlook?" + +"Totally, monsieur," said Captain Gambier, and stood fast. + +"Will monsieur do me the favour to take three steps either to the right +or to the left?" + +"Pardon, monsieur, but the request is put almost in the form of an +order." + +"Simply if it should prove inefficacious in the form of a request." + +"What, may I ask, monsieur, is your immediate object?" + +"To entreat you to behave with civility." + +"I am at a loss, monsieur, to perceive any offence." + +"Permit me to say, it is lamentable you do not know when you insult a +lady." + +"I have insulted a lady?" Captain Gambier looked profoundly incredulous. +"Oh! then you will not take exception to my assuming the privilege to +apologize to her in person?" + +Ammiani arrested him as he was about to pass. + +"Stay, monsieur; you determine to be impudent, I perceive; you shall not +be obtrusive." + +Vittoria had tremblingly taken old Agostino's hand, and had risen to her +feet. Still keeping her face hidden, she walked down the slope, followed +at an interval by her servant, and curiously watched by the English +officer, who said to himself, "Well, I suppose I was mistaken," and +consequently discovered that he was in a hobble. + +A short duologue in their best stilted French ensued between him and +Ammiani. It was pitched too high in a foreign tongue for Captain Gambier +to descend from it, as he would fain have done, to ask the lady's name. +They exchanged cards and formal salutes, and parted. + +The dignified altercation had been witnessed by the main body of the +tourists. Captain Gambier told them that he had merely interchanged +amicable commonplaces with the Frenchman,--"or Italian," he added +carelessly, reading the card in his hand. "I thought she might be +somebody whom we knew," he said to Mrs. Sedley. + +"Not the shadow of a likeness to her," the lady returned. + +She had another opinion when later a scrap of paper bearing one pencilled +line on it was handed round. A damsel of the party had picked it up near +the spot where, as she remarked, "the foreigners had been sitting." It +said:-- + + "Let none who look for safety go to Milan." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +A week following the day of meetings on the Motterone, Luigi the spy was +in Milan, making his way across the Piazza de' Mercanti. He entered a +narrow court, one of those which were anciently built upon the Oriental +principle of giving shade at the small cost of excluding common air. It +was dusky noon there through the hours of light, and thrice night when +darkness fell. The atmosphere, during the sun's short passage overhead, +hung with a glittering heaviness, like the twinkling iron-dust in a +subterranean smithy. On the lower window of one of the houses there was +a board, telling men that Barto Rizzo made and mended shoes, and +requesting people who wished to see him to make much noise at the door, +for he was hard of hearing. It speedily became known in the court that +a visitor desired to see Barto Rizzo. The noise produced by Luigi was +like that of a fanatical beater of the tomtom; he knocked and banged and +danced against the door, crying out for his passing amusement an +adaptation of a popular ballad:-- + +"Oh, Barto, Barto! my boot is sadly worn: The toe is seen that should be +veiled from sight. The toe that should be veiled like an Eastern maid: +like a sultan's daughter: Shocking! shocking! One of a company of ten +that were living a secluded life in chaste privacy! Oh, Barto, Barto! +must I charge it to thy despicable leather or to my incessant +pilgrimages? One fair toe! I fear presently the corruption of the +remaining nine: Then, alas! what do I go on? How shall I come to a +perfumed end, who walk on ten indecent toes? Well may the delicate +gentlemen sneer at me and scorn me: As for the angelic Lady who deigns to +look so low, I may say of her that her graciousness clothes what she +looks at: To her the foot, the leg, the back: To her the very soul is +bared: But she is a rarity upon earth. Oh, Barto, Barto, she is rarest +in Milan! I might run a day's length and not find her. If, O Barto, as +my boot hints to me, I am about to be stripped of my last covering, I +must hurry to the inconvenient little chamber of my mother, who cannot +refuse to acknowledge me as of this pattern: Barto, O shoemaker! thou +son of artifice and right-hand-man of necessity, preserve me in the +fashion of the time: Cobble me neatly: A dozen wax threads and I am +remade:--Excellent! I thank you! Now I can plant my foot bravely: Oh, +Barto, my shoemaker! between ourselves, it is unpleasant in these refined +days to be likened at all to that preposterous Adam!" + +The omission of the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the ironical, +veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the time, which were sung +about the streets for the sharpness and pith of the couplets, and not +from a perception of the double edge down the length of them. + +As Luigi was coming to the terminating line, the door opened. A very +handsome sullen young woman, of the dark, thick-browed Lombard type, +asked what was wanted; at the same time the deep voice of a man; +conjecturally rising from a lower floor, called, and a lock was rattled. +The woman told Luigi to enter. He sent a glance behind him; he had +evidently been drained of his sprightliness in a second; he moved in with +the slackness of limb of a gibbeted figure. The door shut; the woman led +him downstairs. He could not have danced or sung a song now for great +pay. The smell of mouldiness became so depressing to him that the smell +of leather struck his nostrils refreshingly. He thought: "Oh, Virgin! +it's dark enough to make one believe in every single thing they tell us +about the saints." Up in the light of day Luigi had a turn for careless +thinking on these holy subjects. + +Barto Rizzo stood before him in a square of cellarage that was furnished +with implements of his craft, too dark for a clear discernment of +features. + +"So, here you are!" was the greeting Luigi received. + +It was a tremendous voice, that seemed to issue from a vast cavity. +"Lead the gentleman to my sitting-room," said Barto. Luigi felt the wind +of a handkerchief, and guessed that his eyes were about to be bandaged by +the woman behind him. He petitioned to be spared it, on the plea, +firstly, that it expressed want of confidence; secondly, that it took him +in the stomach. The handkerchief was tight across his eyes while he was +speaking. His hand was touched by the woman, and he commenced timidly an +ascent of stairs. It continued so that he would have sworn he was a +shorter time going up the Motterone; then down, and along a passage; +lower down, deep into corpse-climate; up again, up another enormous +mountain; and once more down, as among rats and beetles, and down, as +among faceless horrors, and down, where all things seemed prostrate and +with a taste of brass. It was the poor fellow's nervous imagination, +preternaturally excited. When the handkerchief was caught away, his jaw +was shuddering, his eyes were sickly; he looked as if impaled on the +prongs of fright. It required just half a minute to reanimate this +mercurial creature, when he found himself under the light of two lamps, +and Barto Rizzo fronting him, in a place so like the square of cellarage +which he had been led to with unbandaged eyes, that it relieved his dread +by touching his humour. He cried, "Have I made the journey of the Signor +Capofinale, who visited the other end of the world by standing on his +head?" + +Barto Rizzo rolled out a burly laugh. + +"Sit," he said. "You're a poor sweating body, and must needs have a dry +tongue. Will you drink?" + +"Dry!" quoth Luigi. "Holy San Carlo is a mash in a wine-press compared +with me." + +Barto Rizzo handed him a liquor, which he drank, and after gave thanks to +Providence. Barto raised his hand. + +"We're too low down here for that kind of machinery," he said. "They say +that Providence is on the side of the Austrians. Now then, what have you +to communicate to me? This time I let you come to my house trust at all, +trust entirely. I think that's the proverb. You are admitted: speak +like a guest." + +Luigi's preference happened to be for categorical interrogations. Never +having an idea of spontaneously telling the whole truth, the sense that +he was undertaking a narrative gave him such emotions as a bad swimmer +upon deep seas may have; while, on the other hand, his being subjected to +a series of questions seemed at least to leave him with one leg on shore, +for then he could lie discreetly, and according to the finger-posts, and +only when necessary, and he could recover himself if he made a false +step. His ingenious mind reasoned these images out to his own +satisfaction. He requested, therefore, that his host would let him hear +what he desired to know. + +Barto Rizzo's forefinger was pressed from an angle into one temple. His +head inclined to meet it: so that it was like the support to a broad +blunt pillar. The cropped head was flat as an owl's; the chest of +immense breadth; the bulgy knees and big hands were those of a dwarf +athlete. Strong colour, lying full on him from the neck to the forehead, +made the big veins purple and the eyes fierier than the movements of his +mind would have indicated. He was simply studying the character of his +man. Luigi feared him; he was troubled chiefly because he was unaware of +what Barto Rizzo wanted to know, and could not consequently tell what to +bring to the market. The simplicity of the questions put to him was +bewildering: he fell into the trap. Barto's eyes began to get terribly +oblique. Jingling money in his pocket, he said:-- + +"You saw Colonel Corte on the Motterone: you saw the Signor Agostino +Balderini: good men, both! Also young Count Ammiani: I served his +father, the General, and jogged the lad on my knee. You saw the +Signorina Vittoria. The English people came, and you heard them talk, +but did not understand. You came home and told all this to the Signor +Antonio, your employer number one. You have told the same to me, your +employer number two. There's your pay." + +Barto summed up thus the information he had received, and handed Luigi +six gold pieces. The latter, springing with boyish thankfulness and +pride at the easy earning of them, threw in a few additional facts, as, +that he had been taken for a spy by the conspirators, and had heard one +of the Englishmen mention the Signorina Vittoria's English name. Barto +Rizzo lifted his eyebrows queerly. "We'll go through another +interrogatory in an hour," he said; "stop here till I return." + +Luigi was always too full of his own cunning to suspect the same in +another, until he was left alone to reflect on a scene; when it became +overwhelmingly transparent. "But, what could I say more than I did say?" +he asked himself, as he stared at the one lamp Barto had left. Finding +the door unfastened, he took the lamp and lighted himself out, and along +a cavernous passage ending in a blank wall, against which his heart +knocked and fell, for his sensation was immediately the terror of +imprisonment and helplessness. Mad with alarm, he tried every spot for +an aperture. Then he sat down on his haunches; he remembered hearing +word of Barto Rizzo's rack:--certain methods peculiar to Barto Rizzo, by +which he screwed matters out of his agents, and terrified them into +fidelity. His personal dealings with Barto were of recent date; but +Luigi knew him by repute: he knew that the shoemaking business was a +mask. Barto had been a soldier, a schoolmaster: twice an exile; a +conspirator since the day when the Austrians had the two fine Apples of +Pomona, Lombardy and Venice, given them as fruits of peace. Luigi +remembered how he had snapped his fingers at the name of Barto Rizzo. +There was no despising him now. He could only arrive at a peaceful +contemplation of Barto Rizzo's character by determining to tell all, and +(since that seemed little) more than he knew. He got back to the +leather-smelling chamber, which was either the same or purposely rendered +exactly similar to the one he had first been led to. + +At the end of a leaden hour Barto Rizzo returned. + +"Now, to recommence," he said. "Drink before you speak, if your tongue +is dry." + +Luigi thrust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to him that by doing +so he propitiated that ill-conceived divinity called Virtue, who lived in +the open air, and desired men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidently +understood the kind of man he was schooling to his service. + +"Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman, acquainted with the +Signor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, his sister, on the Motterone?" + +Luigi answered promptly, "Yes." + +"Did the Signorina Vittoria speak to the lady?" + +"No." + +"Not a word?" + +"No." + +"Not one communication to her?" + +"No: she sat under her straw hat." + +"She concealed her face?" + +"She sat like a naughty angry girl." + +"Did she speak to the officer?" + +"Not she!" + +"Did she see him?" + +"Of course she did! As if a woman's eyes couldn't see through straw- +plait!" + +Barto paused, calculatingly, eye on victim. + +"The Signorina Vittoria," he resumed, "has engaged to sing on the night +of the Fifteenth; has she?" + +A twitching of Luigi's muscles showed that he apprehended a necessary +straining of his invention on another tack. + +"On the night of the Fifteenth, Signor Barto Rizzo? That's the night of +her first appearance. Oh, yes!" + +"To sing a particular song?" + +"Lots of them! ay-ay!" + +Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his seat till he +howled, saying, "Now, there's a slate and a pencil. Expect me at the end +of two hours, this time. Next time it will be four: then eight, then +sixteen. Find out how many hours that will be at the sixteenth +examination." + +Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his straightened +arm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen to the explanation of Barto's +system; which was that, in cases where every fresh examination taught him +more, they were continued, after regularly-lengthening intervals, that +might extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain. "When +all's delivered," said Barto, "then we begin to correct discrepancies. I +expect," he added, "you and I will have done before a week's out." + +"A week!" Luigi shouted. "Here's my stomach already leaping like a fish +at the smell of this hole. You brute bear! it's a smell of bones. It +turns my inside with a spoon. May the devil seize you when you're +sleeping! You shan't go: I'll tell you everything--everything. I can't +tell you anything more than I have told you. She gave me a cigarette-- +there! Now you know:--gave me a cigarette; a cigarette. I smoked it-- +there! Your faithful servant!" + +"She gave you a cigarette, and you smoked it; ha!" said Barto Rizzo, who +appeared to see something to weigh even in that small fact. "The English +lady gave you the cigarette?" + +Luigi nodded: "Yes;" pertinacious in deception. "Yes," he repeated; "the +English lady. That was the person. What's the use of your skewering me +with your eyes!" + +"I perceive that you have never travelled, my Luigi," said Barto. "I am +afraid we shall not part so early as I had supposed. I double the dose, +and return to you in four hours' time." + +Luigi threw himself flat on the ground, shrieking that he was ready to +tell everything--anything. Not even the apparent desperation of his +circumstances could teach him that a promise to tell the truth was a more +direct way of speaking. Indeed, the hitting of the truth would have +seemed to him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which should +devolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the relation of +"everything and anything." + +All through a night Luigi's lesson continued. In the morning he was +still breaking out in small and purposeless lies; but Barto Rizzo had +accomplished his two objects: that of squeezing him, and that of +subjecting his imagination. Luigi confessed (owing to a singular +recovery of his memory) the gift of the cigarette as coming from the +Signorina Vittoria. What did it matter if she did give him a cigarette? + +"You adore her for it?" said Barto. + +"May the Virgin sweep the floor of heaven into her lap!" interjected +Luigi. "She is a good patriot." + +"Are you one?" Barto asked. + +"Certainly I am." + +"Then I shall have to suspect you, for the good of your country." + +Luigi could not see the deduction. He was incapable of guessing that it +might apply forcibly to Vittoria, who had undertaken a grave, perilous, +and imminent work. Nothing but the spontaneous desire to elude the +pursuit of a questioner had at first instigated his baffling of Barto +Rizzo, until, fearing the dark square man himself, he feared him dimly +for Vittoria's sake; he could not have said why. She was a good patriot: +wherefore the reason for wishing to know more of her? Barto Rizzo had +compelled him at last to furnish a narrative of the events of that day on +the Motterone, and, finding himself at sea, Luigi struck out boldly and +swam as well as he could. Barto disentangled one succinct thread of +incidents: Vittoria had been commissioned by the Chief to sing on the +night of the Fifteenth; she had subsequently, without speaking to any of +the English party, or revealing her features "keeping them beautifully +hidden," Luigi said, with unaccountable enthusiasm--written a warning to +them that they were to avoid Milan. The paper on which the warning had +been written was found by the English when he was the only Italian on the +height, lying thereto observe and note things in the service of Barto +Rizzo. The writing was English, but when one of the English ladies--"who +wore her hair like a planed shred of wood; like a torn vine; like a kite +with two tails; like Luxury at the Banquet, ready to tumble over marble +shoulders" (an illustration drawn probably from Luigi's study of some +allegorical picture,--he was at a loss to describe the foreign female +head-dress)--when this lady had read the writing, she exclaimed that it +was the hand of "her Emilia!" and soon after she addressed Luigi in +English, then in French, then in "barricade Italian" (by which phrase +Luigi meant that the Italian words were there, but did not present their +proper smooth footing for his understanding), and strove to obtain +information from him concerning the signorina, and also concerning the +chances that Milan would be an agitated city. Luigi assured her that +Milan was the peacefullest of cities--a pure babe. He admitted his +acquaintance with the Signorina Vittoria Campa, and denied her being "any +longer" the Emilia Alessandra Belloni of the English lady. The latter +had partly retained him in her service, having given him directions to +call at her hotel in Milan, and help her to communicate with her old +friend. "I present myself to her to-morrow, Friday," said Luigi. + +"That's to-day," said Barto. + +Luigi clapped his hand to his cheek, crying wofully, "You've drawn, +beastly gaoler! a night out of my life like an old jaw-tooth." + +"There's day two or three fathoms above us," said Barto; "and hot coffee +is coming down." + +"I believe I've been stewing in a pot while the moon looked so cool." +Luigi groaned, and touched up along the sleeves of his arms: that which +he fancied he instantaneously felt. + +The coffee was brought by the heavy-browed young woman. Before she +quitted the place Barto desired her to cast her eyes on Luigi, and say +whether she thought she should know him again. She scarcely glanced, and +gave answer with a shrug of the shoulders as she retired. Luigi at the +time was drinking. He rose; he was about to speak, but yawned instead. +The woman's carelessly-dropped upper eyelids seemed to him to be reading +him through a dozen of his contortions and disguises, and checked the +idea of liberty which he associated with getting to the daylight. + +"But it is worth the money!" shouted Barto Rizzo, with a splendid +divination of his thought. "You skulker! are you not paid and fattened +to do business which you've only to remember, and it'll honey your legs +in purgatory? You're the shooting-dog of that Greek, and you nose about +the bushes for his birds, and who cares if any fellow, just for exercise, +shoots a dagger a yard from his wrist and sticks you in the back? You +serve me, and there's pay for you; brothers, doctors, nurses, friends,--a +tight blanket if you fall from a housetop! and masses for your soul when +your hour strikes. The treacherous cur lies rotting in a ditch! Do you +conceive that when I employ you I am in your power? Your intelligence +will open gradually. Do you know that here in this house I can conceal +fifty men, and leave the door open to the Croats to find them? I tell +you now--you are free; go forth. You go alone; no one touches you; ten +years hence a skeleton is found with an English letter on its ribs--" + +"Oh, stop! signor Barto, and be a blessed man," interposed Luigi, +doubling and wriggling in a posture that appeared as if he were shaking +negatives from the elbows of his crossed arms. "Stop. How did you know +of a letter? I forgot--I have seen the English lady at her hotel. I was +carrying the signorina's answer, when I thought "Barto Rizzo calls me," +and I came like a lamb. And what does it matter? She is a good patriot; +you are a good patriot; here it is. Consider my reputation, do; and be +careful with the wax." + +Barto drew a long breath. The mention of the English letter had been a +shot in the dark. The result corroborated his devotional belief in the +unerringness of his own powerful intuition. He had guessed the case, or +hardly even guessed it--merely stated it, to horrify Luigi. The letter +was placed in his hands, and he sat as strongly thrilled by emotion, +under the mask of his hard face, as a lover hearing music. "I read +English," he remarked. + +After he had drawn the seal three or four times slowly over the lamp, the +green wax bubbled and unsnapped. Vittoria had written the following +lines in reply to her old English friend:-- + + "Forgive me, and do not ask to see me until we have passed the + fifteenth of the month. You will see me that night at La Scala. I + wish to embrace you, but I am miserable to think of your being in + Milan. I cannot yet tell you where my residence is. I have not met + your brother. If he writes to me it will make me happy, but I + refuse to see him. I will explain to him why. Let him not try to + see me. Let him send by this messenger. I hope he will contrive to + be out of Milan all this month. Pray let me influence you to go for + a time. I write coldly; I am tired, and forget my English. I do + not forget my friends. I have you close against my heart. If it + were prudent, and it involved me alone, I would come to you without + a moment's loss of time. Do know that I am not changed, and am your + affectionate + + "Emilia." + +When Barto Rizzo had finished reading, he went from the chamber and blew +his voice into what Luigi supposed to be a hollow tube. + +"This letter," he said, coming back, "is a repetition of the Signorina +Vittoria's warning to her friends on the Motterone. The English lady's +brother, who is in the Austrian service, was there, you say?" + +Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he could not +afford to look untruthful, and replied with a sprightly "Assuredly." + +"He was there, and he read the writing on the paper?" + +"Assuredly: right out loud, between puff-puff of his cigar." + +"His name is Lieutenant Pierson. Did not Antonio-Pericles tell you his +name? He will write to her: you will be the bearer of his letter to the +signorina. I must see her reply. She is a good patriot; so am I; so are +you. Good patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her reply to +this Lieutenant Pierson." Barto stuck his thumb and finger astride +Luigi's shoulder and began rocking him gently, with a horrible meditative +expression. "You will have to accomplish this, my Luigi. All fair +excuses will be made, if you fail generally. This you must do. Keep +upright while I am speaking to you! The excuses will be made; but I, not +you, must make them: bear that in mind. Is there any person whom you, my +Luigi, like best in the world?" + +It was a winning question, and though Luigi was not the dupe of its +insinuating gentleness, he answered, "The little girl who carries flowers +every morning to the caffe La Scala." + +"Ah! the little girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffe La +Scala. Now, my Luigi, you may fail me, and I may pardon you. Listen +attentively: if you are false; if you are guilty of one piece of +treachery:--do you see? You can't help slipping, but you can help +jumping. Restrain yourself from jumping, that's all. If you are guilty +of treachery, hurry at once, straight off, to the little girl who carries +flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala. Go to her, take her by the +two cheeks, kiss her, say to her 'addio, addio,' for, by the thunder of +heaven! you will never see her more." + +Luigi was rocked forward and back, while Barto spoke in level tones, till +the voice dropped into its vast hollow, when Barto held him fast a +moment, and hurled him away by the simple lifting of his hand. + +The woman appeared and bound Luigi's eyes. Barto did not utter another +word. On his journey back to daylight, Luigi comforted himself by +muttering oaths that he would never again enter into this trap. As soon +as his eyes were unbandaged, he laughed, and sang, and tossed a +compliment from his finger-tips to the savage-browed beauty; pretended +that he had got an armful, and that his heart was touched by the ecstasy; +and sang again: "Oh, Barto, Barto! my boot is sadly worn. The toe is +seen," etc., half-way down the stanzas. Without his knowing it, and +before he had quitted the court, he had sunk into songless gloom, +brooding on the scenes of the night. However free he might be in body, +his imagination was captive to Barto Rizzo. He was no luckier than a +bird, for whom the cage is open that it may feel the more keenly with its +little taste of liberty that it is tied by the leg. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The importance of the matters extracted from Luigi does not lie on the +surface; it will have to be seen through Barto Rizzo's mind. This man +regarded himself as the mainspring of the conspiracy; specially its +guardian, its wakeful Argus. He had conspired sleeplessly for thirty +years; so long, that having no ideal reserve in his nature, conspiracy +had become his professional occupation,--the wheel which it was his +business to roll. He was above jealousy; he was above vanity. No one +outstripping him cast a bad colour on him; nor did he object to bow to +another as his superior. But he was prepared to suspect every one of +insincerity and of faithlessness; and, being the master of the machinery +of the plots, he was ready, upon a whispered justification, to despise +the orders of his leader, and act by his own light in blunt disobedience. +For it was his belief that while others speculated he knew all. He knew +where the plots had failed; he knew the man who had bent and doubled. In +the patriotic cause, perfect arrangements are crowned with perfect +success, unless there is an imperfection of the instruments; for the +cause is blessed by all superior agencies. Such was his governing idea. +His arrangements had always been perfect; hence the deduction was a +denunciation of some one particular person. He pointed out the traitor +here, the traitor there; and in one or two cases he did so with a +mildness that made those fret at their beards vaguely who understood his +character. Barto Rizzo was, it was said, born in a village near Forli, +in the dominions of the Pope; according to the rumour, he was the child +of a veiled woman and a cowled paternity. If not an offender against +Government, he was at least a wanderer early in life. None could accuse +him of personal ambition. He boasted that he had served as a common +soldier with the Italian contingent furnished by Eugene to the Moscow +campaign; he showed scars of old wounds: brown spots, and blue spots, and +twisted twine of white skin, dotting the wrist, the neck, the calf, the +ankle, and looking up from them, he slapped them proudly. Nor had he +personal animosities of any kind. One sharp scar, which he called his +shoulder knot, he owed to the knife of a friend, by name Sarpo, who had +things ready to betray him, and struck him, in anticipation of that +tremendous moment of surprise and wrath when the awakened victim +frequently is nerved with devil's strength; but, striking, like a novice, +on the bone, the stilet stuck there; and Barto coolly got him to point +the outlet of escape, and walked off, carrying the blade where the +terrified assassin had planted it. This Sarpo had become a tradesman in +Milan--a bookseller and small printer; and he was unmolested. Barto said +of him, that he was as bad as a few odd persons thought himself to be, +and had in him the making of a great traitor; but, that as Sarpo hated +him and had sought to be rid of him for private reasons only, it was a +pity to waste on such a fellow steel that should serve the Cause. "While +I live," said Barto, "my enemies have a tolerably active conscience." + +The absence of personal animosity in him was not due to magnanimity. He +doubted the patriotism of all booksellers. He had been twice betrayed by +women. He never attempted to be revenged on them; but he doubted the +patriotism of all women. "Use them; keep eye on them," he said. In +Venice he had conspired when he was living there as the clerk of a +notary; in Bologna subsequently while earning his bread as a petty +schoolmaster. His evasions, both of Papal sbirri and the Austrian +polizia, furnished instances of astonishing audacity that made his name a +byword for mastery in the hour of peril. His residence in Milan now, +after seven years of exile in England and Switzerland, was an act of +pointed defiance, incomprehensible to his own party, and only to be +explained by the prevalent belief that the authorities feared to provoke +a collision with the people by laying hands on him. They had only once +made a visitation to his house, and appeared to be satisfied at not +finding him. At that period Austria was simulating benevolence in her +Lombardic provinces, with the half degree of persuasive earnestness which +makes a Government lax in its vigilance, and leaves it simply open to the +charge of effeteness. There were contradictory rumours as to whether his +house had ever been visited by the polizia; but it was a legible fact +that his name was on the window, and it was understood that he was not +without elusive contrivances in the event of the authorities declaring +war against him. + +Of the nature of these contrivances Luigi had just learnt something. He +had heard Barto Rizzo called 'The Miner' and 'The Great Cat,' and he now +comprehended a little of the quality of his employer. He had entered a +very different service from that of the Signor Antonio-Pericles, who paid +him for nothing more than to keep eye on Vittoria, and recount her goings +in and out; for what absolute object he was unaware, but that it was not +for a political one he was certain. "Cursed be the day when the lust of +gold made me open my hand to Barto Rizzo!" he thought; and could only +reflect that life is short and gold is sweet, and that he was in the +claws of the Great Cat. He had met Barto in a wine-shop. He cursed the +habit which led him to call at that shop; the thirst which tempted him to +drink: the ear which had been seduced to listen. Yet as all his expenses +had been paid in advance, and his reward at the instant of his +application for it; and as the signorina and Barto were both good +patriots, and he, Luigi, was a good patriot, what harm could be done to +her? Both she and Barto had stamped their different impressions on his +waxen nature. He reconciled his service to them separately by the +exclamation that they were both good patriots. + +The plot for the rising in Milan city was two months old. It comprised +some of the nobles of the city, and enjoyed the good wishes of the +greater part of them, whose payment of fifty to sixty per cent to the +Government on the revenue of their estates was sufficient reason for a +desire to change masters, positively though they might detest +Republicanism, and dread the shadow of anarchy. These looked hopefully +to Charles Albert. Their motive was to rise, or to countenance a rising, +and summon the ambitious Sardinian monarch with such assurances of +devotion, that a Piedmontese army would be at the gates when the banner +of Austria was in the dust. Among the most active members of the +prospectively insurgent aristocracy of Milan was Count Medole, a young +nobleman of vast wealth and possessed of a reliance on his powers of mind +that induced him to take a prominent part in the opening deliberations, +and speedily necessitated his hire of the friendly offices of one who +could supply him with facts, with suggestions, with counsel, with +fortitude, with everything to strengthen his pretensions to the +leadership, excepting money. He discovered his man in Barto Rizzo, who +quitted the ranks of the republican section to serve him, and wield a +tool for his own party. By the help of Agostino Balderini, Carlo +Ammiani, and others, the aristocratic and the republican sections of the +conspiracy were brought near enough together to permit of a common action +between them, though the maintaining of such harmony demanded an extreme +and tireless delicacy of management. The presence of the Chief, whom we +have seen on the Motterone, was claimed by other cities of Italy. Unto +him solely did Barto Rizzo yield thorough adhesion. He being absent from +Milan, Barto undertook to represent him and carry out his views. How far +he was entitled to do so may be guessed when it is stated that, on the +ground of his general contempt for women, he objected to the proposition +that Vittoria should give the signal. The proposition was Agostino's. +Count Medole, Barto, and Agostino discussed it secretly: Barto held +resolutely against it, until Agostino thrust a sly-handed letter into his +fingers and let him know that previous to any consultation on the subject +he had gained the consent of his Chief. Barto then fell silent. He +despatched his new spy, Luigi, to the Motterone, more for the purpose of +giving him a schooling on the expedition, and on his return from it, and +so getting hand and brain and soul service out of him. He expected no +such a report of Vittoria's indiscretion as Luigi had spiced with his one +foolish lie. That she should tell the relatives of an Austrian officer +that Milan was soon to be a dangerous place for them;--and that she +should write it on paper and leave it for the officer to read,--left her, +according to Barto's reading of her, open to the alternative charges of +imbecility or of treachery. Her letter to the English lady, the Austrian +officer's sister, was an exaggeration of the offence, but lent it more +the look of heedless folly. The point was to obtain sight of her letter +to the Austrian officer himself. Barto was baffled during a course of +anxious days that led closely up to the fifteenth. She had written no +letter. Lieutenant Pierson, the officer in question, had ridden into the +city once from Verona, and had called upon Antonio-Pericles to extract +her address from him; the Greek had denied that she was in Milan. Luigi +could tell no more. He described the officer's personal appearance, by +saying that he was a recognizable Englishman in Austrian dragoon +uniform;--white tunic, white helmet, brown moustache;--ay! and eh! and +oh! and ah! coming frequently from his mouth; that he stood square while +speaking, and seemed to like his own smile; an extraordinary touch of +portraiture, or else a scoff at insular self-satisfaction; at any rate, +it commended itself to the memory. Barto dismissed him, telling him to +be daily in attendance on the English lady. + +Barto Rizzo's respect for the Chief was at war with his intense +conviction that a blow should be struck at Vittoria even upon the narrow +information which he possessed. Twice betrayed, his dreams and haunting +thoughts cried "Shall a woman betray you thrice?" In his imagination he +stood identified with Italy: the betrayal of one meant that of both. +Falling into a deep reflection, Barto counted over his hours of +conspiracy: he counted the Chief's; comparing the two sets of figures he +discovered, that as he had suspected, he was the elder in the patriotic +work therefore, if he bowed his head to the Chief, it was a voluntary +act, a form of respect, and not the surrendering of his judgement. He +was on the spot: the Chief was absent. Barto reasoned that the Chief +could have had no experience of women, seeing that he was ready to trust +in them. "Do I trust to my pigeon, my sling-stone?" he said jovially to +the thickbrowed, splendidly ruddy young woman, who was his wife; "do I +trust her? Not half a morsel of her!" This young woman, a peasant woman +of remarkable personal attractions, served him with the fidelity of a +fascinated animal, and the dumbness of a wooden vessel. She could have +hanged him, had it pleased her. She had all his secrets: but it was not +vain speaking on Barto Rizzo's part; he was master of her will; and on +the occasions when he showed that he did not trust her, he was careful at +the same time to shock and subdue her senses. Her report of Vittoria +was, that she went to the house of the Signora, Laura Piaveni, widow of +the latest heroic son of Milan, and to that of the maestro Rocco Ricci; +to no other. It was also Luigi's report. + +"She's true enough," the woman said, evidently permitting herself to +entertain an opinion; a sign that she required fresh schooling. + +"So are you," said Barto, and eyed her in a way that made her ask, "Now, +what's for me to do?" + +He thought awhile. + +"You will see the colonel. Tell him to come in corporal's uniform. +What's the little wretch twisting her body for? Shan't I embrace her +presently if she's obedient? Send to the polizia. You believe your +husband is in the city, and will visit you in disguise at the corporal's +hour. They seize him. They also examine the house up to the point where +we seal it. Your object is to learn whether the Austrians are moving men +upon Milan. If they are-I learn something. When the house has been +examined, our court here will have rest for a good month ahead; and it +suits me not to be disturbed. Do this, and we will have a red-wine +evening in the house, shut up alone, my snake! my pepper-flower!" + +It happened that Luigi was entering the court to keep an appointment with +Barto when he saw a handful of the polizia burst into the house and drag +out a soldier, who was in the uniform, as he guessed it to be, of the +Prohaska regiment. The soldier struggled and offered money to them. +Luigi could not help shouting, "You fools! don't you see he's an +officer?" Two of them took their captive aside. The rest made a search +through the house. While they were doing so Luigi saw Barto Rizzo's face +at the windows of the house opposite. He clamoured at the door, but +Barto was denied to him there. When the polizia had gone from the court, +he was admitted and allowed to look into every room. Not finding him, he +said, "Barto Rizzo does not keep his appointments, then!" The same words +were repeated in his ear when he had left the court, and was in the +street running parallel with it. "Barto Rizzo does not keep his +appointments, then!" It was Barto who smacked him on the back, and spoke +out his own name with brown-faced laughter in the bustling street. Luigi +was so impressed by his cunning and his recklessness that he at once told +him more than he wished to tell:--The Austrian officer was with his +sister, and had written to the signorina, and Luigi had delivered the +letter; but the signorina was at the maestro's, Rocco Ricci's, and there +was no answer: the officer was leaving for Verona in the morning. After +telling so much, Luigi drew back, feeling that he had given Barto his +full measure and owed to the signorina what remained. + +Barto probably read nothing of the mind of his spy, but understood that +it was a moment for distrust of him. Vittoria and her mother lodged at +the house of one Zotti, a confectioner, dwelling between the Duomo and La +Scala. Luigi, at Barto's bidding, left word with Zotti that he would +call for the signorina's answer to a certain letter about sunrise. "I +promised my Rosellina, my poppyheaded sipper, a red-wine evening, or I +would hold this fellow under my eye till the light comes," thought Barto +misgivingly, and let him go. Luigi slouched about the English lady's +hotel. At nightfall her brother came forth. Luigi directed him to be in +the square of the Duomo by sunrise, and slipped from his hold; the +officer ran after him some distance. "She can't say I was false to her +now," said Luigi, dancing with nervous ecstasy. At sunrise Barto Rizzo +was standing under the shadow of the Duomo. Luigi passed him and went to +Zotti's house, where the letter was placed in his hand, and the door shut +in his face. Barto rushed to him, but Luigi, with a vixenish +countenance, standing like a humped cat, hissed, "Would you destroy my +reputation and have it seen that I deliver up letters, under the noses of +the writers, to the wrong persons?--ha! pestilence!" He ran, Barto +following him. They were crossed by the officer on horseback, who +challenged Luigi to give up the letter, which was very plainly being +thrust from his hand into his breast. The officer found it no difficult +matter to catch him and pluck the letter from him; he opened it, reading +it on the jog of the saddle as he cantered off. Luigi turned in a terror +of expostulation to ward Barto's wrath. Barto looked at him hard, while +he noted the matter down on the tablet of an ivory book. All he said +was, "I have that letter!" stamping the assertion with an oath. Half-an- +hour later Luigi saw Barto in the saddle, tight-legged about a rusty +beast, evidently bound for the South-eastern gate, his brows set like a +black wind. "Blessings on his going!" thought Luigi, and sang one of his +street-songs:-- + +"O lemons, lemons, what a taste you leave in the mouth! I desire you, I +love you, but when I suck you, I'm all caught up in a bundle and turn to +water, like a wry-faced fountain. Why not be satisfied by a sniff at the +blossoms? There's gratification. Why did you grow up from the precious +little sweet chuck that you were, Marietta? Lemons, O lemons! such a +thing as a decent appetite is not known after sucking at you." + +His natural horror of a resolute man, more than fear (of which he had no +recollection in the sunny Piazza), made him shiver and gave his tongue an +acid taste at the prospect of ever meeting Barto Rizzo again. There was +the prospect also that he might never meet him again. + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +Footing up a mountain corrects the notion (that I am important) +He saw far, and he grasped ends beyond obstacles +Poetry does much upon reflection, but it has to ripen within you +There is comfort in exercise, even for an ancient creature such as I am + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Vittoria, v1 +by George Meredith + diff --git a/4435.zip b/4435.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29c25a7 --- /dev/null +++ b/4435.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8bd5519 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #4435 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4435) |