1872
GARIBALDI
Is it possible that I, a child of the nineteenth century, grown old
in the twentieth, ever paid a visit to Ulysses in the Island of
Ithaca? Sometimes it seems to me that I did once long ago achieve this
impossibility—or was it such a dream as fairies in their wanton play send
forth from the ivory gate to mock the children of men?
It happened in this wise. In the winter of 1872 the Duke of Sutherland,
Billy Russell[33] and I were at Genoa on our way to Egypt. The Duke was
a devoted friend and admirer of Garibaldi and longing to go and take the
old hero by surprise in his island home. We heard that a small coasting
steamer, a “tramp,” was about to sail for Caprera with provisions, mails
and what-not; so we arranged to go with her, the skipper undertaking
to stop for a while at Caprera and then take us on to Naples, where we
could join our ship for Alexandria. Our tiny Genoese tramp was a wicked
little craft, dirty and foul beyond belief, and with her wheezings and
snortings, her groanings and creakings, her paddles and engines, quite
out of the Homeric poem. We ought at least to have started on our Odyssey
in a felucca with a lateen sail; but we needs must be content to tempt
the rather treacherous sea prosaically, but in comparative certainty of
reaching our destination.
It was a lovely February morning which, after a night of poisonous
smells, some oily, some pungent, all unutterable, revealed the strip of
yellow beach which fringes the storm-beaten island rocks. It did not
take long to get out a gig, and nothing loth to be quit of our rather
pestilential surroundings, we hurried ashore. The Duke, eager to shake
his friend by the hand, almost ran up the few hundred yards of rock and
scrub which led to the house. Billy and I, who did not know the General,
and who were more or less in the position of the two gentlemen at the
feast of Nasidienus “quas Mæcenas adduxerat umbras,” were discreet and
more leisurely.
When we reached the house we found the two friends radiantly happy in one
another’s company, surrounded by a motley crew of secretaries, followers
and nondescripts who had attached themselves to the great man’s service,
and apparently lived with him and upon him. They seemed to be a ragged,
happy, devil-may-care crowd, with very simple wants—a blanket or cloak on
the floor; a little polenta; a goblet of wine hardly better than coloured
water; one of those long, thin, curly cigars with a straw in it, made all
the more rank and malodorous by being let out, stuffed into a pocket or
hat-band, and lighted again as desire might prompt. These were sufficient
to make happiness so far as lodging and creature comforts were concerned;
of washing, the less said the better. Full of fun, good humour, high
spirits they were, and of a truly Italian wealth of gesticulation. The
house was humble enough. Little better than a farmhouse, with no attempt
at ornament, no vestige of luxury—the unpretentious home of a gentleman
farmer. I could not help thinking of the contrast which must have struck
Garibaldi when, after his royal progress through London, he was received
by Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, that most regal of dames, standing in
all her glory on the staircase at Stafford House.
But his soul was utterly simple and devoid of any love of show or
ostentation; the presence of anything of the nature of pomp or
glorification excited no emotion in him, while the absence of it raised
no regret. Italy would have given him anything. He might have lived
luxuriously in a palace in Rome, Genoa or Naples. He preferred his rock,
the humble homestead which he shared with those who loved him, satisfied
with little beyond the scanty fare which his island could yield.
[Illustration: GIUSEPPE GARIBALDI.]
Garibaldi received Billy and me with the gentlest courtesy; indeed
gentleness seemed to be the keynote of his character; this wonderful man,
whom those who knew him not were wont to look upon as a revolutionary
firebrand, had all the sweet tenderness of a woman, and yet there was
nothing effeminate about him, nothing weak or puny; when you spoke
with Garibaldi you felt that you were talking with a man. It was the
combination of this sympathetic kindness with the stern determination of
the born fighter that made him so irresistible as a leader, such a king
among men. As for me, when he turned those clear, honest eyes of his upon
me, I was under the spell, like everybody else. But when I listened to
the liquid music of his voice I was his slave.
How handsome he was! I have a coloured engraved portrait of him, a cheap
thing, but very precious to me, because of the inscription signed by him,
“Al signor Mitford la mia amicizia se vuol gradirla”—a cheap thing, but
so like. Long, fair hair, with a curling wave in it, just turning grey;
the fine complexion which none of his campaigns, none of his seafaring
had been able to spoil; the clearly-cut features and the soft, almost
womanly eyes. A cheap thing, but a Velasquez could not have given a more
living picture of the man. When I saw him he was dressed in the familiar
garb—the scarlet shirt, the grey flannel trousers; a lanyard round his
neck and a black silk kerchief tied in a sailor’s knot. No star, no
decoration; nothing to mark him as something above the humble folk by
whom he was surrounded, save that inborn distinction which, had he been
in rags, would not have forsaken him.
For a while we loitered about the outside of the house, while a
copious and most hospitable breakfast was being prepared. The famous
Francesca—the Penelope of Caprera—Garibaldi’s third wife, a peasant woman
who had been nurse to his grandchild—must have been taken aback by the
advent of three hungry Englishmen, for whom the possibilities of the
tramp had meant something very like starvation for many hours; but she
rose to the occasion and no guests were ever made more welcome. Meanwhile
we took notice of the surroundings; no pleasure garden, nothing of what
are called by dealers in houses “the amenities.”
One thing I did mark—a huge dog-kennel; what would Ulysses, what would
Ithaca be, without a dog? And on the dog-kennel some wicked wag had
expressed his anti-papal convictions by painting upon it in huge white
letters “CASA DI PIO NONO.” This jest, cruel if it had not been so
babyish, was none of Garibaldi’s doing—indeed, he probably never saw it,
for, crippled as he was with rheumatism, a confirmed invalid, and very
lame from the old wound in the foot which was shot through at Aspromonte,
he moved about very little; but the fanatic hatred which his unruly
followers showed to the Pope and the whole ecclesiastical body of the
Neri was quite irrepressible. He, if the truth must be told, shared their
views, witness his book “Clelia, ovvero il Regno del Monaco,” but he
laughed at their childish ways of expressing their hatred.
After luncheon—or breakfast—we found that such luggage as we had need of
was piled up outside the house, and on the top of it lay Billy Russell’s
rifle-case. When Garibaldi saw it, he asked Billy whether he would like
to go off for an afternoon’s sport. He would find the island overrun with
wild goats, from which indeed it took its name, and if he was in luck
might get a shot at a wild donkey. Years ago some donkeys had been turned
loose and had bred and multiplied, so that ass-stalking had now become a
chief sport of the island. Billy was delighted, unpacked the case and put
together the rifle, which became the object of the most eager curiosity
on the part of the secretary and the other retainers. They petted it and
patted it and stroked it as lovers, with the unctuous pleasure that a
company of fiddlers might feel in caressing the back and belly of a rare
Cremona violin. They prayed that before he started its owner would allow
them to try it. Of course he consented, a target of some sort was quickly
rigged up, and the secretary had the first shot. He made a bull’s eye.
“Un prete!” he shouted with lusty joy—a priest! The others caught up the
cry, and when they took their turn with the rifle, each successful shot
was hailed with the same exultant applause, “Un prete! un prete! ancora
un prete!” Garibaldi, who was standing by, shrugged his shoulders, and,
turning to me with a smile, said, “Sont-ils assez enfants?” They really
were like children, rather naughty children, whose naughtiness is often
so amusing that their elders cannot help laughing with, not at, them.
So Billy went off shouldering his rifle, as keen as a boy, burning to
stalk a jackass or bring down a goat. I wonder whether anywhere else in
Europe there exists such a sport; in Caprera itself, since the Italian
Government has purchased the island, it is probably by this time a thing
of the past.
[Illustration: GARIBALDI’S INSCRIPTION FOR THE PRINT OF HIS PORTRAIT
WHICH HE PRESENTED TO THE AUTHOR]
When our sportsman had gone, Garibaldi took me by the arm and hobbled up
and down with me on the path which made a sort of quarterdeck in front of
the house. He talked a great deal about England, for which he entertained
a sincere admiration and affection. He asked many questions about the
various people whom he had known there—questions which he felt that he
could put to me more discreetly than to the Duke, for many of his friends
had been among the Duke’s nearest relations—his mother, his brothers and
sisters. Suddenly he turned round and said: “Is it true—is it possible
that it can be true—that there are actually in England people who are
desirous of abolishing the existing order of things and setting up a
republic in the place of your monarchy?” I said that there certainly were
a few people who seemed to think that to do away with the monarchy and
the aristocracy and to set up a republic was the panacea for all human
ills. “They must be fools!” he said, and then went on very earnestly:
“Why, in England you have the finest form of government in the world—a
republic of which the President rules by the will of the people, and
being hereditary depends upon no political cry of the moment. With you
by virtue of this hereditary principle there is not the continual danger
of someone saying ‘Ôte-toi de là que je m’y mette’—and so no perpetual
risk of upheavals. I only wish that I could see Italy blessed with such a
republic; then I should be quite content.”
I thought this speech, coming from the man who was pointed at as the
incarnation of rebellion and anarchy, not a little remarkable. I can
hear him uttering it now, and can see the eager, beautiful eyes looking
through and through me as he spoke. Whatever Garibaldi said struck home,
he was so obviously and entirely sincere; his voice was the voice of
truth. We were talking in this way for a couple of hours or more, and
after the lapse of more than forty years, some of his very words are yet
ringing in my ears. England and Italy were the subjects upon which he
so fondly dwelt. He spoke much of the unification of Italy, of Italia
irredenta, and very modestly, very reticently, of the part which he had
played. He said: “There are many people who will tell you that Italy as
she now is was the work of Victor Emmanuel and Cavour, others give the
credit to Louis Napoléon, some even ascribe it to me. The truth is that
no one man, no two men, can claim the merit. We all of us had a hand in
it, we did our best and we succeeded.”
Garibaldi evidently had much sympathy with and admiration for Victor
Emmanuel, the Re Galantuomo whose bluff, soldierlike, sportsman’s nature
could not but appeal to him; with the wily, albeit successful, diplomacy
of Cavour he would naturally be less in accord, nor indeed did Cavour
behave generously to him or to his devoted soldiers, whom he refused to
incorporate in the army; but against Rattazzi his case was even stronger;
led on and encouraged by that statesman’s Machiavellian wiles he was
finally betrayed and the result was Aspromonte, when to their everlasting
shame the soldiers of Italy fired upon their liberator.
Still, in speaking even of these men he uttered no complaint, gave
no sign of bearing a grudge. He was far too noble for that. That
he would fight all men knew, if there should be good cause, but to
rail at an enemy, even at that worst form of enemy, the enemy in the
camp, was not in his nature. I am often asked what it was that most
impressed me in Garibaldi. The keynote of his character seemed to be
simplicity—simplicity combined with great dignity. There was about him
nothing of the _condottiere_, none of the swagger of the free-lance.
A spice and no more of Don Quixote; but we must remember that the Don
himself was a great gentleman, brave and tender and generous as a
gentleman should be.
At dusk our sportsman came home; very tired after a long clamber over
granite rock and fell, through scrub and brush of myrtle, juniper and
sweet-smelling bushes, without having seen the horn of a goat or the ear
of a jackass. He brought back a very unseductive account of the little
island. Garibaldi’s kingdom was a Lilliput about six miles long by two
broad; the highest Alp about seven hundred feet above the sea level; not
a river or even a brook to be seen. Had there not been delicious springs
and a few puddles, life would have been impossible for man or beast. Just
a barren rocky waste, a most inhospitable wilderness. Scanty cultivation
and few hands to work, had there been work for them; a dreary home
enough; but bare as it was, Garibaldi loved it, and it said more to his
heart than the Garden of the Hesperides with its golden fruit.
As the day waned our surroundings became more and more Homeric. When the
evening meal came, supper or dinner, we were really in Ithaca—Ulysses,
we three Englishmen, the secretary and a chosen retainer or two were
gathered together in a long, narrow room, with dark wooden wainscot and a
whitewashed ceiling, much besmoked.
At one end of the room and on one side of it were wooden benches; the
table was shaped like the room, and we sat round it in chairs. Presently
a huge, smoking dish was brought in; a roasted kid, with vegetables, and
very good it was. As we sat, curious, wild-looking beings, hinds fresh
from their labours, whatever they might be, with faces so brown that
they were hardly distinguishable from the woodwork, came in one by one
and sat down in silence upon the benches against the walls to watch the
chieftain and his guests eat. There they remained, smoking and scratching
themselves, till the end of the evening, by which time the room was so
befogged that it was difficult to see anything. Penelope, who was busy
with her hospitable duties and the preparation of an excellent _risotto_,
and other cates, did not sup with us, but came in afterwards, and sat
down at the table caressingly near to her great husband. Dressed like a
simple villager, she was not beautiful, but a good, honest woman of the
peasant class, evidently worshipping the hero to the comforting of whose
fading years she had devoted her humble life.
It was a strange sensation to sit there supping under the wondering
eyes of those mute peasants, much as the Kings of France used to eat,
watched by their subjects. The interest to these good men must have been
but meagre, for the conversation was in French, of which they had not
the gift. From time to time one or another of them would march out as
silently as he had come in, unnoticing and unnoticed, but some of them
remained with us to the end, when there must have been about half a
dozen left. We sat on and on, later than we should have done had not the
skipper of the tramp sent up word to say that he begged us to leave early
in the morning, otherwise he could not guarantee landing us at Naples in
time to catch our steamer for Alexandria.
So we stayed, luring our host on to talk of old times, of his many
moving accidents by flood and field, of his ambitions—not for himself,
but for his country—of the hopes realized and the hopes wrecked. Here
again I was struck by his generosity. His dislike of Louis Napoléon was a
matter of common knowledge, but when we talked of France and her recent
misfortunes, for “greatness once fallen out with fortune” he had nothing
but sympathy; in that very unlike some of the Emperor’s own men, whose
talk was apt to press with heavy ingratitude upon the stricken Lion.
Our symposium was so agreeable that it seemed a pity to break it up; it
was good to listen to Billy Russell and Garibaldi, the former one of
the best of talkers, the latter evidently delighted once more to have a
glimpse into a larger world than that of his tiny domain. The Duke and I
were content to sit and hear, until at last we felt that the grand old
General, an invalid at best, must not be allowed to keep from his rest.
The room which I was to occupy was a long, low, narrow sort of
store-room, at one end of which was a basin and a ewer of water, and
the invalid arm-chair of green leather framed in iron, now grown rather
rickety, the present for which the ladies of England subscribed when
their idol was wounded at Aspromonte. That was to be my bed. The floor
and all the various odds and ends in the room were covered with a rich
coat of dust. It was plain that Penelope and her handmaidens, if she
had any, had been too busy in the kitchen to pay any attention to such
details as the sweeping of a makeshift bedroom. I could have written my
name in large letters anywhere upon any scrap of furniture. But when I
put out my candle, hoping to sleep, then I realized I was not alone.
The dust was literally full of fleas; they attacked me in battalions; I
slew them by the score, but their widows and orphans and brothers came
on undismayed, undefeated, to avenge their deaths. Never save once, in
the cave of the Seven Sleepers at Ephesus, where I had taken refuge from
a storm, did I see such an army of hungry cohorts. I tried to comfort
myself by thinking of Eothen’s famous chapter and Thackeray’s “White
Squall,” when,
“All the fleas in Jewry
Began to bite like fury”—
but it was all in vain. I prayed for the morning, which was long in
coming. When at last I did arise and once more gripped Garibaldi’s
hand, the miseries of the night were forgotten in the thought, that to
me, humble as I was, it had been given for a few short hours to be in
sympathetic touch with one of those rare beings whom God, for His own
purposes, had anointed to be above his fellows. But it was sad to think
that this all too short visit, this happy experience, must fade into the
mist of memory like a dream, but not a dream sent out of those ivory
gates of which I spoke a while ago, but a dream from out of the horn
gates, a dream true and real, a very precious dream to be treasured for
all time.