… “Alors que Vesper vient embrunir nos yeux
Tout épris de l’avenir, je contemple les cieux,
En qui Dieu nous escrit, par notes non obscures
Les sorts et les destins de toutes créatures.
Car lui, du fond des cieux regardant un humain,
Parfois, mû de pitié, lui montre le chemin;
Par les astres du ciel, qui sont ses caractères,
Les choses nous prèdit, et bonnes et contraires;
Mais les hommes, chargés de terre et de trépas,
Méprisent tel écrit, et ne le lisent pas.”—_Ronsard._
The marchese professed a hearty hatred of knowledge. “Ideas,” he said,
“have been the ruin of Italy.” He was somewhat puzzled to reconcile this
holy horror of information with his desire that Fabrizio should perfect
the education so brilliantly begun under the auspices of the Jesuits.
To minimize the risk as far as possible, he commissioned the worthy
priest of Grianta, Father Blanès, to carry on the boy’s Latin studies.
To this end the priest should himself have been acquainted with the
language. But he thoroughly despised it. His knowledge of it was
restricted to the prayers in his missal, which he knew by rote, and
the sense of which, or something near it, he was capable of imparting
to his flock. None the less was the father respected, and even feared,
all over the canton. He had always averred that the famous prophecy
of San Giovità, patron saint of Brescia, would not be accomplished
either in thirteen weeks or thirteen months. He would confide to his
trusted friends that if he dared speak openly he could give the proper
interpretation of the number _thirteen_, and that it would cause general
astonishment (1813).
The fact is that Father Blanès—a man of primitive virtue and honesty, and
a clever one into the bargain—spent most of his nights on the top of his
church tower. He had a mania for astrology, and, after calculating the
positions and conjunctions of the stars all day, would pass the greater
part of his nights in tracing them in the sky. So poor was he that his
only instrument was a telescope with a long cardboard tube. My reader
will conceive the scorn for linguistic study nursed by a man who spent
his life in discovering the precise moment at which empires were to fall,
and revolutions, destined to change the face of the whole world, were to
begin. “What more do I know about a horse,” he would say to Fabrizio,
“because somebody tells me its Latin name is _Equus_?”
The peasants dreaded the priest as a mighty magician, and he, through
the fear inspired by his tarryings on the top of his tower, prevented
them from thieving. His brother priests of the neighbouring parishes
envied him his influence, and hated him accordingly. The marchese frankly
despised him, because he reasoned too much for a person in so humble a
position. Fabrizio worshipped him. To please him he would sometimes spend
whole evenings over huge sums in addition or multiplication. And then he
would climb up into the tower. This was a great favour—one the priest had
never bestowed on any other person. But he loved the boy for the sake of
his simplicity. “If you don’t become a hypocrite,” he would say, “you may
turn into a man!”
Twice or thrice in every year, Fabrizio, who was bold and passionate in
the pursuit of his pleasures, ran serious risks of drowning in the lake.
He was the head and front of all the great expeditions of the peasant
boys of Grianta and Cadenabbia. These urchins had provided themselves
with a collection of small keys, and when the very dark nights came, they
did their best to open the padlocks on the chains by which the fishermen
moored their boats to some big stone or tree close to the shore. It must
be explained that on the Lake of Como the fisherman puts down his lines
at a considerable distance from the edge of the lake. The upper end of
each line is fastened to a lath lined with cork, to which is fixed a very
flexible hazel rod bearing a little bell, which tinkles as soon as the
fish takes the bait and shakes the float.
The great object of the nocturnal raids, in which Fabrizio acted as
commander in chief, was to get to these lines before the fishermen heard
the tinkling of their little bells. The boys chose stormy seasons, and
embarked on their risky enterprises early in the morning, an hour before
dawn. They felt convinced, when they got into their boats, that they were
rushing into terrible danger—this constituted the splendid aspect of
their undertaking—and, like their fathers, they always devoutly recited
an _Ave Maria_. Now, it frequently would happen that at the very moment
of the start, and the instant after the recital of the _Ave Maria_,
Fabrizio would be struck by an omen. This was the fruit, as affecting
him, of his friend the priest’s astrology, in the actual predictions of
which he had no belief at all. To his juvenile imagination these omens
were a certain indication of success or failure, and as he was more
resolute than any of his comrades, the whole band gradually grew so
accustomed to accept such signs that if, just as the boat was shoving
off, a priest was seen on the coast line, or a raven flew away on the
left, the padlock was hastily put back upon the chain and every boy went
home to bed. Thus, though Father Blanès had not imparted his somewhat
recondite science to Fabrizio, he had imbued him, all unconsciously, with
an unlimited confidence in those signs and portents which may unveil the
future.
The marchese was conscious that an accident to his secret correspondence
might place him at his sister’s mercy. Every year, therefore, when the
St. Angela (the Countess Pietranera’s feast day) came around, Fabrizio
was allowed to spend a week at Milan. All through the year he lived on
the hope, or the regretful memory, of those seven days. On so great
an occasion, and to defray the expenses of this politic journey, the
marchese would give his son four crowns. To his wife, who went with the
boy, he gave, as usual, nothing at all. But a cook, six lackeys, and
a coachman and pair of horses started for Como the night before the
travellers, and while the marchesa was at Milan her carriage was at her
disposal, and dinner for twelve persons was served every day.
The sullen retirement in which the Marchese del Dongo elected to
live was certainly not an amusing form of existence. But it had one
advantage, that of permanently enriching the coffers of the families
who chose to adopt it. The marchese owned a revenue of more than two
hundred thousand francs; he did not spend a quarter of it. He lived on
hope. During the years between 1800 and 1813 he remained in the firm
and unceasing expectation that Napoleon would be overthrown before the
next six months were out. His joy when he received the news of the
catastrophe of the Beresina, in the spring of 1813, may consequently be
imagined. The capture of Paris and the fall of Napoleon almost drove
him wild with joy, and he ventured on behaviour of the most insulting
nature, both to his wife and his sister. At last, after fourteen years
of waiting, he tasted the inexpressible delight of seeing the Austrian
troops re-enter Milan. The general in command, obeying orders sent from
Vienna, received the Marchese del Dongo with a courtesy which almost
amounted to respect. One of the highest offices connected with the
Government was at once offered him, and he accepted it as the discharge
of a just debt. His eldest son was made a lieutenant in one of the finest
of the imperial regiments, but Fabrizio would never have anything to do
with the cadet’s commission which was offered for his acceptance. The
marchese’s triumph, which he enjoyed with peculiar insolence, lasted but
a few months, and was followed by a most humiliating reverse. He had
never possessed any business aptitude, and his fourteen years of country
life, surrounded by his servants, his notary, and his doctor, coupled
with the ill humour which had crept upon him with advancing years, had
developed his incapacity to the extremest point. In Austria no important
post can be held for long by any person lacking that particular talent
demanded by the slow and complicated, but essentially logical, system
of administration peculiar to that ancient monarchy. The marchese’s
blunders scandalized the clerks of his department, and even hampered the
progress of business, while his ultra-monarchical vapourings irritated
a populace which it was important to lull back into its former state
of slumbrous indifference. So, one fine day, he was informed that
his Majesty was graciously pleased to accept his resignation of his
office, and simultaneously appointed him second grand major-domo of the
Lombardo-Venetian Kingdom. The marchese was furious at the abominable
injustice of which he was the victim. In spite of his horror of the free
press, he printed a Letter to a Friend. Then he wrote to the Emperor,
assuring his Majesty that his ministers were playing him false, and were
no better than Jacobins. This done, he betook himself sadly back to his
home at Grianta. One consolation he possessed. After the downfall of
Napoleon certain powerful individuals at Milan had organized a brutal
attack on Count Prina, a man of first-class worth, who had acted as
minister in the service of the King of Italy. Pietranera risked his own
life to save that of the unhappy man, who was thrashed to death with
umbrellas, and lingered in agony for five hours. If a certain priest,
the Marchese del Dongo’s own confessor, had chosen to open the iron gate
of the Church of San Giovanni, in front of which Prina had been dragged
(and, indeed, he had at one moment been left lying in the gutter running
along the middle of the street), the victim might have been saved. But
the cleric scornfully refused to unlock the gate, and within six months
his patron enjoyed the happiness of securing him a handsome piece of
preferment.
The marchese detested his brother-in-law, Count Pietranera, who, though
his yearly income did not amount to fifty louis, dared to be fairly
merry, ventured to cling faithfully to that which he had loved all his
life, and was so insolent as to proclaim that spirit of impersonal
justice which Del Dongo was pleased to define as vile Jacobinism. The
count had refused to enter the Austrian service. The attention of the
authorities was drawn to this refusal on his part, and a few months
after the death of Prina the same men who had paid for his assassination
procured an order for the imprisonment of General Pietranera. Upon this,
his wife sent for a passport and ordered post horses to take her to
Vienna, so that she might tell the Emperor the truth. Prina’s assassins
took fright, and at midnight, just one hour before the countess was to
have started for Vienna, one of them, a cousin of her own, brought her
the order for her husband’s release. The following morning the Austrian
general sent for Count Pietranera, received him with every possible
respect, and assured him that his retiring pension would shortly be paid
on the most satisfactory scale. The worthy General Bubna, who was both
a clever and a kind-hearted man, looked thoroughly ashamed of Prina’s
murder and the count’s imprisonment.
After this angry squall had blown over, calmed by Countess Pietranera’s
firmness, the couple lived in tolerable comfort on the retiring pension,
which, thanks to General Bubna’s influence, was shortly granted them.
It was a fortunate circumstance that for five or six years previously
the countess had lived on terms of great friendship with an exceedingly
wealthy young man, who was also her husband’s intimate friend, and who
placed the finest pair of English horses then to be seen at Milan,
his box at the Scala Theatre, and his country house entirely at their
service. But the count was conscious of his own valour; he had a generous
soul, he was easily moved to anger, and on such occasions indulged in
somewhat unusual behaviour. He was out hunting one day with some young
men, when one of them, who had served under a different flag, ventured
on some joke concerning the courage of the soldiers of the Cisalpine
Republic. The count boxed his ears, there was a fracas then and there,
and Pietranera, whose opinion found no support among the company present,
was killed. This duel, if so it could be called, made a great stir; the
persons concerned in it found it more prudent to journey into Switzerland.
That ridiculous kind of courage which men entitle resignation—the
courage of the fool, who allows himself to be hanged without opening
his lips—was not a quality possessed by the countess. In her rage at
her husband’s death she would have had Limercati, the wealthy young man
who was her faithful adorer, instantly take his way to Switzerland, and
there punish Pietranera’s murderer either with a rifle bullet or with a
hearty cuffing. But Limercati regarded the plan as simply ridiculous, and
forthwith the countess realized that, in her case, love had been killed
by scorn.
She grew kinder than ever to Limercati. Her aim was to rekindle his
love, and that done, to forsake him and leave him in despair. To explain
this plan of vengeance to the French mind, I should say that in Milan, a
country far distant from our own, love does still drive men to despair.
The countess, whose beauty, heightened by her mourning robes, eclipsed
that of all her rivals, set herself to coquette with the best-born young
men of the city, and one of them, Count N⸺, who had always said that
Limercati’s qualities struck him as being too heavy and stiff to attract
so brilliant a woman, fell desperately in love with her. Then she wrote
to Limercati:
“Would you like to behave, for once, like a clever man? Imagine
that you have never known me. I am, with a touch of scorn,
perhaps,
“Your very humble servant,
“GINA PIETRANERA.”
When Limercati received this note he departed to one of his country
houses; his passion blazed, he lost his head, and talked of shooting
himself—an unusual course in countries which acknowledge the existence of
a hell.
The very morning after his arrival in the country he wrote to the
countess to offer her his hand and his two hundred thousand francs a
year. She sent him back his letter, with the seal unbroken, by Count
N⸺’s groom; whereupon Limercati spent three years on his estates, coming
back to Milan every two months, but never finding courage to stay there,
and boring all his friends with the story of his passionate adoration of
the lady and the circumstantial recital of the favour she had formerly
shown him. In the earlier months of this period he added that Count N⸺
would ruin her, and that she dishonoured herself by contracting such an
intimacy.
As a matter of fact, the countess had no love of any kind for N⸺, and
of this fact she apprised him as soon as she was quite certain of
Limercati’s despair. The count, who knew the world, only begged her not
to divulge the sad truth she had confided to him. “If,” he added, “you
will have the extreme kindness to continue receiving me with all the
external distinctions generally granted to the reigning lover, I may,
perhaps, attain a suitable position.”
After this heroic declaration the countess would make no further use
of Count N⸺’s horses and opera box. But for fifteen years she had been
accustomed to a life of the greatest ease. She was now driven to solve
the difficult, or rather impossible, problem of living at Milan on a
yearly pension of fifteen hundred francs. She quitted her palace, hired
two fifth-floor rooms, and dismissed all her servants, even to her maid,
whom she replaced by a poor old char-woman. The sacrifice was really
less heroic and less painful than it appears. No ridicule attaches to
poverty in Milan, and therefore people do not shrink from it in terror,
as the worst of all possible evils. After some months spent in this
proud penury, bombarded by perpetual letters from Limercati, and even
from Count N⸺, who also desired to marry her, it came to pass that the
Marchese del Dongo, whose stinginess was usually abominable, was struck
by the notion that his own enemies might perhaps be rejoicing over his
sister’s sufferings. What! Was a Del Dongo to be reduced to existing on
the pension granted by the Viennese court, against which he had so great
a grievance, to its generals’ widows?
He wrote that an apartment and an income worthy of his sister awaited
her at Grianta. The versatile-minded countess welcomed the idea of this
new life with enthusiasm. It was twenty years since she had lived in the
venerable pile which rose so proudly among the old chestnut trees planted
in the days of the Sforzas. “There,” she reflected, “I shall find peace;
and at my age, is that not happiness?” (As she had arrived at the age of
one-and-thirty, she believed that the hour of her retirement had struck.)
“I shall find a happy and peaceful life at last, on the shores of the
noble lake beside which I was born.”
Whether she was mistaken I know not, but it is certain that this
eager-hearted creature, who had just so unhesitatingly refused two huge
fortunes, carried happiness with her into the Castle of Grianta. Her
two nieces were beside themselves with delight. “You have brought the
beautiful days of my youth back to me!” said the marchesa as she kissed
her. “The night before you arrived I felt a hundred years old.”
In Fabrizio’s company the countess went about revisiting all those
enchanting spots near Grianta which travellers have made so famous:
the Villa Melzi, on the other side of the lake, opposite the castle,
and one of the chief objects in the view therefrom; the sacred wood
of the Sfondrata; and the bold promontory which divides the branches
of the lake, that of Como, so rich in its beauty, and that which runs
toward Lecco, of aspect far more severe—a sublime and graceful prospect,
equalled, perhaps, but not surpassed, by the most famous view in all the
world, that of the Bay of Naples. The countess found the most exquisite
delight in calling up memories of her early days, and comparing them with
her present sensations. “The Lake of Como,” she said to herself, “is not
hemmed in, like the Lake of Geneva, by great tracts of land, carefully
hedged and cultivated on the best system, reminding one of money and
speculation. Here, on every side, I see hills of unequal height, covered
with clumps of trees, growing as chance has scattered them, and which
have not yet been ruined, and forced to bring in an income, by the hand
of man. Amid these hills, with their beautiful shapes and their curious
slopes that drop toward the lake, I can carry on all the illusions of
the descriptions of Tasso and Ariosto. It is all noble and tender, it
all speaks of love; nothing recalls the hideousness of civilization. The
villages set half-way up the hills are sheltered by great trees, and
above the tree tops rise the charming outlines of their pretty church
spires. Where some little field, fifty paces wide, shows itself here and
there among the chestnuts and wild-cherry trees my pleased eye notes
plants of more vigorous and willing growth than can be seen elsewhere.
Beyond the hills, on whose deserted crests a happy hermit existence
might be spent, the wondering eye rests on the Alpine peaks, covered
with eternal snows, and their stern severity reminds one sufficiently
of life’s misfortunes, to increase one’s sense of present delight. The
imagination is stirred by the distant sound of the church bells of some
little village hidden among the trees. Their tone softens as it floats
over the water, with a touch of gentle melancholy and resignation,
which seems to say, ‘Life slips by. Do not, then, look so coldly on the
happiness that comes to you. Make haste to enjoy.’”
The influence of these enchanting spots, unequalled on earth for
loveliness, made the countess feel a girl once more. She could not
conceive how she had been able to spend so many years without returning
to the lake. “Can it be,” she wondered, “that true happiness belongs to
the beginning of old age?” She purchased a boat, and adorned it with
her own hands, assisted by Fabrizio and the marchesa, for no money was
to be had, though the household was kept up with the utmost splendour.
Since his fall the Marchese del Dongo had doubled his magnificence. For
instance, to gain ten paces of ground on the shore of the lake, close
to the famous avenue of plane trees leading toward Cadenabbia, he was
building an embankment which was to cost eighty thousand francs. At the
end of this embankment was rising a chapel, constructed entirely of
enormous blocks of granite, after drawings by the celebrated Cagnola,
and within the chapel, Marchesi, the fashionable Milanese sculptor, was
erecting a tomb on which the noble deeds of the marchese’s ancestors were
to be represented in numerous bas-reliefs.
Fabrizio’s elder brother, the Marchesino Ascanio, tried to join the
ladies in their expeditions, but his aunt splashed water over his
powdered head, and was forever playing some fresh prank on his solemnity.
At last he relieved the merry party of the sight of his heavy sallow
countenance. They dared not laugh when he was present, feeling that he
was the spy of the marchese, his father, and that it was wise to keep on
terms with the stern despot, who had never recovered his temper since his
forced resignation.
Ascanio swore to be avenged on Fabrizio.
One day there was a storm, and the boat was in some danger. Though money
was scarce enough, the two boatmen were liberally bribed to prevent their
saying anything to the marchese, who was very angry already because his
daughters had been taken out. Then came a second hurricane. On this
beautiful lake storms are both terrible and unexpected. Violent squalls
sweep suddenly down the mountain gorges on opposite sides of the shore,
and battle over the water. This time, in the midst of the whirlwind and
the thunderclaps, the countess insisted on landing; she declared that
if she could stand on a lonely rock, as large as a small room, which
lay in the middle of the lake, she would enjoy a strange spectacle, and
see her stronghold lashed on every side by the furious waves. But, as
she sprang from the boat, she fell into the water. Fabrizio plunged in
after her, and they were both carried a considerable distance. Drowning
is certainly not an attractive death, but boredom, at all events, fled
astonished from the feudal castle. The countess had fallen in love with
Father Blanès’s primitive qualities, and astrological studies. The little
money remaining to her after the purchase of her boat had been spent on
a small second-hand telescope, and almost every night she mounted, with
Fabrizio and her nieces, to the top of one of the Gothic towers of the
castle. Fabrizio was the learned member of the party, which would thus
spend several very cheerful hours, far from prying eyes.
It must be acknowledged that there were days during which the countess
never spoke to anybody, and might be seen walking up and down under the
great chestnut trees, plunged in gloomy reverie. She was too clever a
woman not to suffer, now and then, from the weariness of never being able
to exchange an idea. But the next day she would be laughing again, as she
had laughed the day before. It was the lamentations of her sister-in-law
which occasionally cast a gloom over her naturally elastic nature. “Are
we doomed to spend all the youth left to us in this dreary house?” the
marchesa would cry. Before the arrival of the countess she had not even
had courage to feel such repinings.
Thus the winter of 1814 to 1815 wore on. Twice, in spite of her
poverty, did the countess spend a few days in Milan. She went to see a
magnificent ballet by Vigano, produced at the Scala, and the marchese
did not forbid his wife to accompany her sister-in-law. The quarterly
payments of the little pension were drawn, and it was the poor widow of
the Cisalpine general who lent a few sequins to the wealthy Marchesa del
Dongo. These expeditions were delightful; the ladies invited their old
friends to dinner, and consoled themselves by laughing at everything,
like real children. Their light-hearted Italian gaiety helped them to
forget the melancholy gloom which the marchese and his elder son shed
over everything at Grianta. Fabrizio, then hardly sixteen years old,
represented the head of the family in a very satisfactory manner.
On the 17th of March, 1815, the ladies, very lately returned from a
delightful little trip to Milan, were walking up and down under the fine
avenue of plane trees which had lately been extended down to the very
edge of the lake. A boat appeared, coming from the direction of Como, and
made some peculiar signals. One of the marchese’s agents sprang ashore.
Napoleon had just landed in the Gulf of Juan! Europe in general was
simple enough to be surprised at this event, which did not astonish the
Marchese del Dongo. He wrote his sovereign a letter full of heartfelt
expressions of devotion, placed his talents and several millions of money
at his service, and reaffirmed that his ministers were all Jacobins, and
in league with the Parisian leaders.
On the 8th of March, at six o’clock in the morning, the marchese,
adorned with all his insignia, was writing the rough draft of a third
political despatch from his son’s dictation. Solemnly he transcribed it
in his large, careful handwriting, on paper the watermark of which bore
his sovereign’s effigy. At that very moment Fabrizio was entering the
presence of his aunt, the Countess Pietranera.
“I am off!” he cried. “I am going to join the Emperor! He is King of
Italy as well! How he loved your husband! I shall go through Switzerland.
Last night my friend Vasi, the barometer dealer at Menagio, gave me his
passport. Now do you give me a few napoleons, for I have only two of my
own. But if it comes to that, I’ll walk!”
The countess was weeping with terror and delight. “Good God!” she cried,
as she seized Fabrizio’s hands, “how did such an idea come into your
head?”
She rose from her seat, and from the linen chest, where it had been
carefully concealed, took a little bead-embroidered purse, containing all
her earthly wealth.
“Take it,” she said to her nephew, “but in God’s name do not get yourself
killed! What would be left to your unhappy mother and to me if you
were taken from us? As for Napoleon’s success, that, my poor child, is
impossible. Did not you hear the story, a week ago, when we were at
Milan, of the three-and-twenty well-laid plots for his assassination
which he only escaped by a miracle? And in those days he was all
powerful! And you have seen it is not the will to destroy him which our
enemies lack. France has been nothing since he left her!”
The voice of the countess trembled with the liveliest emotion as she
spoke to Fabrizio of Napoleon’s future fate. “When I consent to your
going to join them,” she said, “I sacrifice, for his sake, what I hold
dearest in this world!” Fabrizio’s eyes grew moist, and his tears fell
as he embraced his aunt. But not for an instant did he waver in his
determination to depart. He eagerly explained to this beloved friend
the reasons which had decided him—reasons which we take the liberty of
thinking somewhat comical.
“Yesterday evening, at seven minutes to six o’clock, we were walking,
as you know, on the shores of the lake, under the plane trees, below
the Casa Sommariva, and our faces were turned southward. Then, for the
first time, I noticed, in the far distance, the boat from Como which was
bearing the great news to us. As I watched it, without a thought of the
Emperor, and simply envying the fate of those who had an opportunity of
travelling, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a feeling of deep emotion. The
boat had touched the shore, and the agent, after whispering something
to my father, who had changed colour, had taken us aside to inform us
of the _terrible news_. I turned toward the lake with the simple object
of hiding the tears of joy with which my eyes were swimming. Suddenly,
on my right, and at an immense height, I perceived an eagle, Napoleon’s
own bird; it was winging its majestic way toward Switzerland, and
consequently toward Paris. ‘And I, too,’ said I to myself instantly,
‘will cross Switzerland, swiftly as an eagle, and will offer that great
man a very little thing indeed—but still all that I have to offer—the
help of my feeble arm! He would fain have given us a fatherland, and he
loved my uncle!’ That instant, while I yet watched the eagle, by some
strange charm, my tears were dried, and the proof that my idea came from
above is that at that very moment, and without hesitation, my resolve
was taken, and the method of carrying out the journey became clear to
me. In a flash all the melancholy which, as you know, poisons my life,
especially on Sundays, was swept away as by some divine breath. I saw the
great figure of Italy rising out of the mire into which the Germans have
cast her, and stretching out her wounded arms, on which the chains still
hung, towards her king and liberator. ‘And I too,’ I murmured, ‘the son,
as yet unknown, of that unhappy mother, I will depart, and I will die or
win victory beside that Man of Fate, who would have cleansed us from the
scorn cast on us by the vilest and most enslaved of the inhabitants of
Europe!’
“You know,” he added in a lower voice, drawing closer to the countess,
and as he spoke he fixed great flashing eyes upon her, “you know the
young chestnut tree which my mother planted with her own hands the winter
I was born, beside the deep pool in our forest, two leagues off? Before
I would do anything I went to see it. ‘The spring is not far advanced,’
said I to myself; ‘well, if there are leaves on my tree, that will be a
sign for me, and I too must cast off the torpor in which I languish in
this cold and dreary house. Are not these old blackened walls—the symbols
now, and once the strongholds, of despotism—a true picture of winter and
its dreariness? To me they are what winter is to my tree.’
“Would you believe it, Gina? At half-past seven yesterday evening I had
reached my chestnut tree. There were leaves upon it—pretty little leaves
of a fair size already! I kissed them, without hurting them, carefully
turned the soil round the beloved tree, and then, in a fresh transport,
crossed the mountain and reached Menagio. A passport was indispensable,
if I was to get into Switzerland. The hours had flown, and it was one
o’clock in the morning when I reached Vasi’s door. I expected to have to
knock for long before I could rouse him; but he was sitting up with three
of his friends. At my very first word, ‘You are going to Napoleon!’ he
cried, and fell upon my neck; the others, too, embraced me joyfully. ‘Why
am I married?’ cried one.”
The countess had grown pensive; she thought it her duty to put forward
some objections. If he had possessed the smallest experience Fabrizio
would have perceived that she herself had no faith in the excellent
reasons she hastened to lay before him. But though experience was
lacking, he had plenty of resolution, and would not even condescend to
listen to her expostulations. Before long the countess confined herself
to obtaining a promise that at all events his mother should be informed
of his plan.
“She will tell my sisters, and those women will betray me unconsciously!”
cried Fabrizio, with a sort of heroic arrogance.
“Speak more respectfully,” said the countess, smiling through her tears,
“of the sex which will make your fortune. For men will never like you—you
are too impulsive to please prosaic beings!”
When the marchesa was made acquainted with her son’s strange project
she burst into tears. His heroism did not appeal to her, and she did
everything in her power to dissuade him. But she was soon convinced that
nothing but prison walls would prevent him from starting, and gave him
what little money she had of her own. Then she recollected that she had
in her possession eight or ten small diamonds, worth about ten thousand
francs, given her the night before by the marchese, so that she might
have them reset the next time she went to Milan. Fabrizio returned the
poor ladies the contents of their slender purses, and his sisters entered
their mother’s room while the countess was sewing the diamonds into our
hero’s travelling coat. They were so enthusiastic over his plan, and
embraced him with such noisy delight, that he snatched up a few diamonds,
which had not yet been hidden in his clothes, and insisted on starting
off at once.
“You will betray me without knowing it!” he said to his sisters, “and as
I have all this money I need not take clothes—I shall find them wherever
I go.” He kissed his loved ones, and departed that instant, without
even going back to his room. So rapidly did he walk, in his terror of
being pursued by mounted men, that he reached Lugano that very evening.
He was safe, by God’s mercy, in a Swiss town, and no longer feared
that gendarmes in his father’s pay might lay violent hands on him in
the lonely road. From Lugano he wrote a fine letter to the marchese,
a childish performance which increased that gentleman’s fury. Then he
took horse, crossed the St. Gothard, travelled rapidly, and entered
France by Pontarlier. The Emperor was in Paris, and in Paris Fabrizio’s
misfortunes began. He had started with the firm intention of getting
speech with the Emperor, the idea that this might be difficult never
entering his head. At Milan he had seen Prince Eugène a dozen times a
day, and could have spoken to him each time if he would. In Paris he
went every day of his life to watch the Emperor review his troops in the
court of the Tuileries, but never could get near him. Our hero believed
every Frenchman must be as deeply moved as he was himself by the extreme
danger in which the country stood. At the table of the hotel in which he
lived, he made no secret of his plans or his devotion. He found himself
surrounded by young men of agreeable manners, and still more enthusiastic
than himself, who succeeded, before many days were passed, in relieving
him of every penny he possessed. Fortunately, and out of sheer modesty,
he had not mentioned the diamonds given him by his mother. One morning,
when, after a night’s orgie, it became quite clear to him that he had
been robbed, he bought himself two fine horses, engaged an old soldier,
one of the horse dealer’s grooms, as his servant, and, overflowing with
scorn for the young Parisians who talked so fine, started to join the
army. He had no information save that it was concentrating near Maubeuge.
Hardly had he reached the frontier, when it struck him as absurd that
he should stay indoors and warm himself at a good fire while soldiers
were bivouacking in the open air. In spite of the remonstrances of his
servant, who was a sensible fellow, he insisted, in the most imprudent
manner, on joining the military bivouac on the farthest edge of the
frontier toward Belgium. He had hardly reached the first battalion,
lying beside the road, when the soldiers began to stare at the young
civilian, whose dress had not a touch of uniform about it. Night was
falling, and the wind was very cold. Fabrizio drew near to a fire, and
offered to pay for leave to sit by it. The soldiers looked at each other
in astonishment, especially at this offer of pay, but made room for him
good-naturedly, and his servant extemporized a shelter for him. But an
hour later, when the adjutant of the regiment passed within hail of the
bivouac, the soldiers reported the arrival of the stranger who talked bad
French. The adjutant questioned Fabrizio, who told him of his worship for
the Emperor in an accent of the most doubtful description, whereupon the
officer requested that he would accompany him to the colonel, who was
quartered in a neighbouring farm. Fabrizio’s servant at once brought up
the two horses. The sight of them seemed to produce such an effect upon
the non-commissioned officer that he immediately changed his mind, and
began to question the servant as well. The man, an old soldier, suspected
his interlocutor’s plan of campaign, and spoke of his master’s influence
in high quarters, adding that his fine horses could not easily be taken
from him. Instantly, at a sign from the adjutant, one soldier seized
him by the collar, another took charge of the horses, and Fabrizio was
sternly ordered to follow his captor and hold his tongue.
After making him march a good league through darkness that seemed all
the blacker by contrast with the bivouac fires, which lighted up the
horizon on every side, the adjutant handed Fabrizio over to an officer
of gendarmerie, who gravely demanded his papers. Fabrizio produced his
passport, which described him as a “dealer in barometers, travelling with
his merchandise.”
“What fools they are!” cried the officer; “this really is too much!”
He questioned our hero, who talked about the Emperor and liberty in terms
of the most ardent and enthusiastic description; whereupon the officer
fell into fits of laughter. “Upon my soul!” he cried, “they are anything
but clever; to send us greenhorns such as you is a little too much,
really!” And in spite of everything Fabrizio could say, and his desperate
assurances that he really was not a dealer in barometers, he was ordered
to the prison of B⸺, a small town in the neighbourhood, where he arrived
at three o’clock in the morning, bursting with anger, and half dead with
fatigue.
Here he remained, astonished, first of all, and then furious, and utterly
unable to understand what had happened, for thirty-three long days. He
wrote letter after letter to the commandant of the fortress, the jailer’s
wife, a handsome Flemish woman of six-and-thirty, undertaking to deliver
them; but as she had no desire whatever to see so good-looking a young
fellow shot, and as, moreover, he paid her well, she invariably put his
letters in the fire. Very late at night she would condescend to come to
listen to his complaints—she had informed her husband that the simpleton
had money, whereupon that prudent functionary had given her _carte
blanche_. She availed herself of his permission, and gleaned several
gold pieces; for the adjutant had only taken the horses, and the police
officer had confiscated nothing at all. One fine afternoon Fabrizio
caught the sound of a heavy though distant cannonade. Fighting had begun
at last! His heart thumped with impatience. He heard a great deal of
noise, too, in the streets. An important military movement was, in fact,
in course of execution. Three divisions were marching through the town.
When the jailer’s wife came to share his sorrows, at about eleven o’clock
that night, Fabrizio made himself even more agreeable than usual. Then,
taking her hands in his, he said: “Help me to get out! I swear on my
honour I’ll come back to prison as soon as the fighting is over.”
“That’s all gammon!” she replied. “Have you any _quibus_ (cash)?” He
looked anxious, not understanding what the word _quibus_ meant. The
woman, seeing his expression, concluded his funds were running low,
and, instead of talking about gold napoleons, as she had intended, only
mentioned francs.
“Listen!” she said. “If you can raise a hundred francs, I will blind both
eyes of the corporal who will relieve the guard to-night, with a double
napoleon. Then he will not see you get out of prison, and if his regiment
is to be off during the day, he will make no difficulties.” The bargain
was soon struck; the woman even agreed to hide Fabrizio in her own room,
out of which it would be easier for him to slip in the early morning.
The next day, before dawn, she said to our hero, and there was real
feeling in her tone: “My dear boy, you are very young to ply this
horrible trade of yours. Believe me, don’t begin it again!”
“What!” repeated Fabrizio. “Is it wicked, then, to want to fight for
one’s own country?”
“Enough! But always remember I have saved your life. Your case was a
clear one. You would certainly have been shot. But never tell anybody,
for we should lose our place, my husband and I. And, above all, never
repeat your silly tale about being a Milanese gentleman disguised as a
dealer in barometers; it is too foolish! Now, listen carefully. I am
going to give you the clothes of a hussar who died in the prison the
day before yesterday. Never open your lips unless you are obliged to.
If a sergeant or an officer questions you so that you have to reply,
say you have been lying ill in the house of a peasant, who found you
shaking with fever in a ditch, and sheltered you out of charity. If this
answer does not satisfy them, say you are working your way back to your
regiment. You may be arrested because of your accent. Then say you were
born in Piedmont, that you are a conscript, and were left behind in
France last year, etc.”
For the first time, after his three-and-thirty days of rage and fury,
Fabrizio understood the meaning of what had befallen him. He had been
taken for a spy! He reasoned with the jailer’s wife, who felt very
tenderly toward him that morning, and at last, while she, armed with a
needle, was taking in the hussar’s garments for him, frankly told her
his story. For a moment she believed it—he looked so simple and was so
handsome in his hussar uniform!
“As you had set your heart on fighting,” she said, half convinced at
last, “you should have enlisted in some regiment as soon as you got
to Paris. That job would have been done at once if you had taken any
sergeant to a tavern and paid his score there.” She added a great deal of
good advice for his future, and at last, just as day was breaking, let
him out of the house, after making him swear again and again, a hundred
times over, that, whatever happened to him, her name should never pass
his lips. As soon as Fabrizio had got clear of the little town and began
stepping out boldly along the high-road, with his sabre tucked under his
arm, a shadow fell upon his soul. “Here I am,” he reflected, “with the
clothes and the route papers of a hussar who died in prison, where he was
put, I understand, for stealing a cow and some silver spoons and forks!
I have inherited, so to speak, his existence, and that without any wish
or intention of my own. Look out for prisons! The omen is clear—I shall
suffer many things from prisons!”
Hardly an hour after he had bidden farewell to his benefactress the rain
began to fall with such violence that the newly fledged hussar, hampered
by the heavy boots which had never been made for his feet, could hardly
contrive to walk. He came across a peasant riding a sorry nag, and bought
the horse, bargaining by signs, for the jailer’s wife had advised him to
speak as little as possible, on account of his foreign accent.
That day the army, which had just won the battle of Ligny, was in full
march on Brussels. It was the eve of the battle of Waterloo. Toward noon,
while the rain still poured down, Fabrizio heard artillery firing. In his
happiness he forgot all the terrible moments of despair he had endured in
his undeserved prison. He travelled on, far into the night, and, as he
was beginning to learn a little sense, he sought shelter in a peasant’s
hut, quite off the main road. The peasant was crying, and saying that he
had been stripped of everything he had. Fabrizio gave him a crown, and
discovered some oats. “My horse is no beauty,” the young man reflected,
“but still some adjutant fellow might take a fancy to him,” and he lay
down in the stable beside his mount. An hour before daylight next morning
he was on the road again. By dint of much coaxing he wheedled his horse
into a trot. Toward five o’clock he heard heavy firing. It was the
beginning of Waterloo.