A SEED OF GRATITUDE
IN the evening they departed from Charing Cross, and without
interruption their journey to France was accomplished. When a day had
come and gone the Alpine solitudes were behind them, and they beheld
once more the Arcadian valleys of Vaudois. Soon after that they moved
in the sunlight over stretches of Lombardian plain. Now the azure above
them resembled the sky color of pictures in old missals. How beautiful
it was to Hera’s eyes! She felt the irresistible charm of the prospect,
even as the barbarians did in ancient days. She wondered if it was any
different then. Through all time those plains seemed to have been under
the husbandman’s rule, ever fruitful, ever smiling in their bright
verdure.
Tarsis lowered a window and the breath of springtime fanned their
faces. It brought a delicious freshness from the little man-made
streamlets that, catching the heavens’ mood, wove a blue network over
the land, and sparkled in the sun-play like great strings of precious
stones. In their purpose of irrigation they crossed the white highroads
and the by-paths, coursed in sluices under the railway, and cut the
fields how and where they pleased, too well bent upon practical service
to care for symmetry of form. They drew near one another, they rambled
far apart, but in the end always meeting in the wide canal that bore
elsewhere their enriching flood; and so forever running, yet never
wasted. A few weeks, and this pampered soil would render its marvellous
account; the meadows would yield their many harvests; the rice stalks
would be crowded with ears; the clover would be like a blossoming
thicket, the cornfields like canebrakes; but the men and women who
toiled to produce this abundance would live on in their poverty. The
clod-breakers were there again to-day--as they had been with the
returning springtime for ages, about their work--boys digging trenches,
ploughmen at their shafts, women and girls planting seed.
Hera noticed that the villages along the way had not the neat and
cheerful look of the French and Swiss hamlets. Seen from afar, crowning
a hilltop, their tiled roofs brightly red in the sun-glare, and the
yellow walls gleaming like burnished gold, the pictorial expression
of them was full of beauty; but when the train halted in the heart of
one, and its wretchedness lay bare, her spirit was saddened by the grim
reality.
“I mean to do something to help the poor of Milan,” she said to Tarsis,
one of the gloomy pictures haunting her memory.
“You have chosen a wide field of good endeavour,” he returned, in a
slight tone of banter.
“And I wonder why the field is so wide,” she pursued. “Milan is called
our City Prosperous.”
“I think the reason is not difficult to find,” he said, with assurance.
“Do you mean that the poor are unworthy?”
“No; I should not give that as the first cause; it is a result. This
sentimental nonsense called the New Democracy has turned working
people’s heads. It gives them puffed-up notions of their value, and
they will not work for the wages that the masters offer--the wages
that it is possible for them to pay. They spend too much time talking
about the dignity of labour. If only they would work for what they can
get and not squander their wages in the wine-shops they would be well
enough off. They want too much; more than they will ever get. Their
warfare against capital only hurts themselves.”
“Do they want more than they need?” she asked.
“I am not familiar with their needs,” he answered, with a note of
petulance. “I do know, however, that they often demand more than it
is possible to pay. I am not a theorist. I happen to have gained my
knowledge in the school of practice, as you may be aware.”
“Still, suffering exists among them,” she reasoned, “and, while the
fault may be as you say, the families of these men--misguided though
they may be--are the victims rather than the culprits. I suppose it
would be only common humanity to give them help.”
“Oh, yes; that is true,” he acknowledged. “The women and children have
to play martyr while the men indulge in what our new economists delight
to call divine discontent. By the way,” he went on, “I am paying some
charitable concern five thousand liras a year.”
His manner told her that it was a benefice ungraced by a sense of
moral obligation; that he merely had followed the example of modern
rich men by returning a part of his tremendous revenue in benefactions
to the public.
“It is good to give heart to the disheartened, relief to the
suffering,” she said, holding up a journal they had obtained at Turin.
“Have you seen this account of disorders in the Porta Ticinese quarter?
I fear there is a hungry mouth in Milan that will show its teeth some
day.”
Tarsis could hear the voice of Mario Forza. He betrayed a twitching of
the lips, but tried to carry it off with a careless smile, as he said:
“I suppose the money is put to good use. Precisely how they disburse it
I do not know. The secretary sends printed reports, but I have not read
them.”
There was a quality of absence in his manner, accounted for by the fact
that his mind was busying itself with Hera’s remark about the hungry
mouth. While in Paris he had received by post from unknown senders
not one but many copies of the newspaper that contained the picture
of his punched nose and its plenteous flow of gold pieces. Then the
cartoon had seemed to him merely one more shaft of malice aimed at
a successful man. In his career of achievement he had steeled his
sensibility against criticism, rating it as the twin brother of envy,
and borrowing no disquiet on either score; but now, grace to the chance
observation of Hera, he saw the cartoon with a new and clearer eye. He
perceived the force at work behind it--the popular ill-will, which gave
such point to the product of the artist’s pencil; and he apprehended,
as he never had before, that herein smouldered an ember easily fanned
to flame.
He had accustomed himself to meeting difficulties promptly, and
turning apparent disadvantage to a factor of self-service. Now he
reflected--and the thought gleamed shrewdly in his half-closed
eyes--that this ember of peril might be smothered with a few handfuls
of those coins, which were his by right of conquest, though the growing
madness of the time found them so ignoble. Indeed, it was an excellent
idea--this one of his wife--to throw a bone to the snarling dogs. He
would give her charitable whim his countenance, even his unstinted
support. He would let his wife scatter largesse among the malcontents;
let her shine as the doer of good deeds, but the world would know--the
house of Barbiondi had no name for wealth--the workers would applaud
Antonio Tarsis, friend of the poor. Moreover, this co-operation would
place his wife under an obligation to him, give her one more proof of
his desire to gratify her every wish. So he said to her, at the moment
that the train entered the suburbs of Milan:
“I count it noble of you, Hera, to have a care for the unfortunate. A
little thought convinces me that you are right in your view. There are
times when we should not stop to reason why.”
“I am glad that we can see alike in this,” she said. “There is joy, I
know, in giving.”
“And I wish to be in accord with you. Believe me, you have my warmest
sympathy in whatever work you contemplate. As to funds, I need not tell
you that my fortune is at your disposal.”
“You are most generous; I thank you,” she said, and told him of the
plan conceived in London.
In the station they saw Don Riccardo and his sister coming down the
platform to welcome them.
“_Babbo!_” Hera cried out before her father caught sight of her, and
the next moment she was in his arms.
“Ah, truant!” he said, holding her hands and swinging them, while he
looked into her eyes as if to read their secret. “I have you again. And
you come to stay. Is it not so, my treasure?”
“You may be sure of that, _babbo_!” she laughed, and turned to receive
her aunt’s caresses. “Here I am and here I stay. Long live Italia is my
song, and I think Antonio will join in the chorus.”
“With all my heart!” Tarsis said genially, his hopes taking a sudden
bound. It was the first time she had addressed him by his Christian
name.
Never had anyone seen Hera in better spirits. It was good to be once
more in the land she loved, to hear again the familiar “minga” and
“lu” of her native patter; but the real inspiration of her gladness,
although the fact did not appear to her mind, was that she had come to
dwell in the city whose walls enclosed Mario Forza, and whose air he
breathed. Aunt Beatrice accepted her lightness of heart triumphantly as
a tribute to her own splendid work as a matchmaker. Tarsis’s automobile
awaited them, and they got in, all four. Hera noted that the crest of
her house was painted none too small on the olive green sides of the
car.
Through the spick and span wide, modern streets they rolled to the
Barbiondi palace. Milan was gayly picturesque in her springtime magic
of light and colour. An impress of the Gothic feeling met the eye
in buildings that recalled where they did not typify the pointed
architecture of the north. They passed a procession of priests and
acolytes following a crozier that flashed the sunlight. Here and there,
at a street corner, a public porter slept peacefully while awaiting a
call to work. For a minute or two they were in the busy movement of Via
Manzoni. Cavalry officers in bright uniforms lounged at the outdoor
tables of the cafés, or dragged their sabres lazily amid the throngs of
civilians.
Then they entered a quieter way, that yielded vistas of courtyards with
frescoed walls, arcades clad in climbing greenery, playing fountains;
and at the next turning they were in sight of Palazzo Barbiondi. For
two months artisans had been at work restoring the ancient family seat
to life and splendour. In point of splendour Tarsis had done somewhat
more than recall the past. As they approached the arched gateway Don
Riccardo exclaimed at sight of the newly-coloured iron palings tipped
with gilt. The fountain in the court was playing. Out of the pool rose
an Apollo Musagetes, and from his crown a sparkling shower shot down
in diverging lines to symbolise the sun’s rays, or--as the Greeks had
it--the arrows of Apollo. The side walls of the court were frescoed
with the Barbiondi crown and the “Lux in tenebras lucet” of the once
haughty and powerful house.
A corps of domestics in livery of white and olive were waiting, lined
on either side of the main entrance. The fountain statues and all the
marble ornamenture of the court had been despoiled of their yellow
_patina_, and showed once more in native white. The façade of the
palace--accounted one of the noblest in the North--had been spared by
the renovator, but its grand staircase, rising from one side of the
wide portico, and its carved balustrade, were as white as St. Bernard’s
peak. Everywhere that the artisans could turn back the clock they had
done so by dint of scouring and scraping, painting and stuccoing,
chiselling and carving, tearing out and building in.
Don Riccardo paused at the opening to the grand staircase and looked
up at the armorial bearings of his house done in stone.
“Bacco!” he exclaimed, “we are the first Barbiondi to set foot here for
more than a hundred years.”
It was in the Duke’s heart to denounce the fungous nobility and
shop-keeping snobs who had from time to time violated his ancestral
home with their occupancy; but in the presence of Tarsis he bridled his
tongue.
“Yes, it is indeed more than a hundred years,” remarked Donna Beatrice,
adjusting her lorgnette. “Our eighteenth Riccardo was the last of the
line to dwell here. With this day, Antonio,” she added, beaming upon
the bridegroom, “we may say with literal truth that the restoration
begins. Ah, that eighteenth Duke was an open-handed nobleman--a lord
of regal expenditure. Lombardy never had so liberal a patron of the
beautiful arts. These mural paintings, I believe, are the fruit of his
munificence.”
“Yes; our great grandfather,” mused the living Duke, casting his eye
about the stairway. “Still, I should be none the less proud of him had
he lavished less on his walls and more on his posterity.”
They ascended the broad steps, and Donna Beatrice, primed with the
lore of the place, began to radiate her knowledge. The staircase, with
its balustrade of richly carved Carrara, she announced was a product
of Vanitelli, and the solitary work Milan possessed of that great
architect. This acquisition, as well as many more to which she drew
his attention, proved a surprise to the new lord of the palace. The
idea of buying the mediæval pile came to Tarsis--so he believed--as
an inspiration, and he had lost not a second in giving it practical
form. Accompanied by the owner--a Genoese money-lender--he went there
one morning, and spent something less than half an hour looking about
the palace, the stables, and the grounds. Before the day was out he
had bound the bargain with his check. Within twenty-four hours the
contractor and his gang attacked the house, armed with authority to
renovate and restore.
It was with a newly-awakened interest, therefore--not unmixed with
an appreciation of its humorous side--that Tarsis listened to Donna
Beatrice’s running talk. In a manner that made him think of the guides
in the Brera Gallery she reeled off the history of this painting or
that medallion, explained the frescoes of the ceiling, and identified
the busts in the niches, with their age-old faces shining again like
newly scrubbed schoolboys.
A sculptured frieze that bordered the staircase pictured a battle
between the Lombards and the Barbiondi in the days of King Alboin.
Above it, following the long flight of steps, unfolded a panorama of
scenes from the life of Mary. At the top of the staircase, set in
the wall, was a trophy that had been sawed out of a church by some
conquering Barbiondi. It depicted St. Mark preaching at Alexandria. In
the banquet hall were some less pious conceptions of beauty. Here the
mural art found expression in a hunting scene and a mediæval dance with
the hills of the Brianza in the background.
The grand saloon--a gorgeous chamber in marble and gold--was worthy
of a royal abode. It had been known for centuries as the Atlantean
chamber. Engaging the eye before all else were two rows of Atlantes
supporting the ceiling on either side, all of heroic size. They were
equal in number to the windows, between which they rested on pedestals
of grained marble. A huge fist of each gripped a bronze candelabra of
many lights. Their torsos were undraped, but the rest of them was lost
in chiselled oak leaves. On the ceiling pink sea nymphs sported in
silvery foam and gods and angels revelled in rosy vapours. Through the
stained glass of a dome the sun flowed down upon the mellow fairness of
the tessellated pavement.
They all paused before a large painting. It was a vivid picture
of Italy’s chief industry during the era of her free cities--men
slaying one another in furious combat. Where the glory of war shone
brightest--where the blood flowed fastest--there could be seen a great
car, drawn by oxen, flying the standard of Milan, and bearing an altar
with the host. The leather-clad warriors of the time called it their
_caroccio_. Like the Israelites’ ark of the covenant, it was a rallying
point in battle, and reminded the artisans that they had a church as
well as a city to fight for.
“It is the car of Heribert,” said Hera, for the enlightenment of
Tarsis, “an Archbishop of Milan. He was of our race.”
“And the inventor of the _caroccio_,” added Donna Beatrice, proudly.
“And the first labour agitator. Isn’t that so?” put in Don Riccardo,
keeping a straight face.
“I don’t know what that is,” replied his sister.
“Signor Tarsis can tell you, perhaps,” the other suggested.
“A labour agitator?” Tarsis repeated. “Why, I should define him as a
breeder of discontent and a foe to the public peace.”
“If that definition be fair,” Hera rejoined earnestly, “Heribert
was indeed a labour agitator. Undeniably he sowed discontent, but
discontent against injustice.”
“And what was his particular method?” asked Tarsis, smiling as if to
make light of her remark and keeping his eyes on the mimic warfare.
“He gave tongue to a hitherto voiceless people,” she answered, “and
made them into an army, so that they were able not only to express
their wrongs but to fight for their rights.” The words seemed to have
a present-day meaning, and with her companions’ perception of the fact
the name of Mario Forza leaped into their minds. It stirred them, one
and all, to a fresh appreciation that the man she had made no secret
of loving was still a prevalent force in her life; her thoughts were in
sympathy with his, the colours he gave to the world were the colours in
which she beheld it.
To her father’s face the incident brought a look of pity; it caused
Donna Beatrice to screw up her little features into wrinkles of
disgust, and in the changing glances of Tarsis it was easy to read a
rising tide of resentment. When he spoke it was in the cold vein of
mockery whereof on occasion he could be master.
“The rights of labour,” he said, “are, of course, the only rights
that a nation should consider. We have a new wisdom in Italy--it
has come in with the New Democracy--the wisdom that is blind to the
rights of capital and laughs at the idea of its having any virtue; all
the prosperity our country enjoys to-day, understand, is due to the
champions of the horny-fisted--the dreamers of the Camera. Is not that
the fact, Don Riccardo?”
“To be precise,” the Duke answered, “I don’t know.”
“Surely you must be aware,” his son-in-law asserted, “that it is
not men like myself who are giving the country what she needed so
long--the breath of industrial life. Oh, no; it is our critics who are
doing this, the silver-tongued doctrinaires. They would give us a very
different sort of industry--the sort you see in that picture. Strife
and bloodshed were the business of that day, and will be in ours,
depend upon it, unless a stronger hand rules at Rome.”
“What do you think ought to be done?” asked Donna Beatrice, frightened
by the black forecast.
“Done? The thing is simple. The Government should take measures to
silence these mischief-makers, these plotters against industrial peace.
We build up the wealth of the nation, they would tear it down. They
delude themselves with the notion that they are the only patriots. How
delicious! They are Italy’s deadliest foes.”
“I tremble to think of the consequences,” said Donna Beatrice. “Why,
our heads would not be safe. See how those blacksmiths and clod-hoppers
lay about them with their pikes and terrible swords! I suppose the
heads they are cracking are the heads that wouldn’t take in their new
ideas! Ugh!”
“Still, the world is somewhat hard for many,” Don Riccardo observed,
for the sake of a word in support of Hera, who had moved away, resolved
not to join issue with her husband.
“I have always found the world what I made it,” Tarsis returned, and
they passed on toward the door of the library. The contractor had
stocked the massive oak shelves with volumes old and new, and supplied
the room with modern leather furniture.
“Oh, the Napoleonic relic!” exclaimed Donna Beatrice at sight of a
large oblong table of Florentine mosaic. Tarsis was all attention.
“Napoleonic relic?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
“Ah, you must know,” she told him, “that when the conqueror came to
Milan he made the palace his headquarters. This table was once in Villa
Barbiondi, and my great-grandfather gave it to Napoleon.”
Tarsis drew a chair to the table, and, with a nod of apology to the
others, seated himself; resting his arms on the polished surface, he
moved his right hand in simulation of the act of writing.
“It is of convenient height,” he said, “and I shall use it. I cannot
tell you how pleased I am to find this relic. Napoleon Bonaparte is the
man above all the world’s heroes whom I admire.”
“Truly a marvellous man, a matchless genius,” attested Donna Beatrice,
gravely contemplative.
“From childhood his life has been my guiding star,” Tarsis continued.
“And to possess, to use the table that he used, is a privilege I never
thought to enjoy. And the work itself,” he added, rising and drawing
back to admire it, with an interest which no other object of art in the
palace had been able to awaken in him, “is it not magnificent?”
“Quite a treasure,” acquiesced Don Riccardo, showing more concern
in the bookcases, which he was sweeping with his eyes; but for
Hera--explain it she could not--the thing inspired a strange
aversion--a feeling that came vividly to her mind in after days when
that table played its tragic part in the destiny of the man she called
husband.