FLIGHT
At half-past two that same night Franco, Lawyer V., and their friend
Pedraglio were sitting in the loggia in the dark, and in silence.
Suddenly Pedraglio started up exclaiming: "What can that fool be about?"
Going out to the terrace he listened a moment and then returned to the
room. "No sign of him," said he. "Oh, I say! Are we to sit here like
idiots and wait for them to come and take us, and all on account of that
silly ass, who has probably fallen asleep? Maironi, you are fairly well
acquainted with the road, and we all three have plenty of courage. If it
should be necessary to pitch into anybody we should be quite equal to
the occasion. Don't you think so, V.?"
The night before, between seven and eight o'clock, Pedraglio had
happened to be on the road between Loveno and Menaggio. At the spot that
goes by the name of "Bertin's Cove" a man had begged of him, had pressed
a note into his hand, and had then walked rapidly away. The note ran as
follows: "Why does Carlino Pedraglio not go to Oria at once, to see
Signor Maironi and the lawyer from Varenna, and take a nice little walk
with his dear friends over beyond the stake?"
Ever since the arrest of his friend the doctor at Pellio, Pedraglio had
been expecting some sign from the police, and this note was not the
first timely and ungrammatical warning which had reached a patriot. The
note spoke plainly; he must pass the stake that marked the frontier
without delay. Pedraglio knew nothing of Franco's misfortune and return,
nor was he aware of the lawyer's presence in Oria. He did not stop to
speculate, however, but hastened to Loveno, provided himself with money,
and started off on foot. He would not risk going to Porlezza, but took
the path that from a spot near Tavordo rises upwards through a lonely
ravine to the Passo Stretto. As nimble as a chamois, he reached Oria in
four hours, and found Franco and the lawyer preparing to start, another
mysterious warning having reached them through the curate of Castello,
who had been to Porlezza, and had there been charged with the message,
in the confessional. Ismaele was to guide them across the frontier. The
passes of Boglia were very carefully guarded, and Ismaele proposed
passing between Monte della Neve and Castello; then they would drop down
into the valley, making straight for the Alpe di Castello below the
Sasso Grande, and from there descend to Cadro, an hour above Lugano.
But Ismaele was to have been there at two o'clock, and at half-past two
he had not yet appeared.
Luisa was also up. She was in the alcove-room mending a pair of Maria's
stockings, which she intended to place on the little bed, where she had
arranged all of the child's little garments with the same care as when
the little one was alive. She had not wished to see either the lawyer or
Pedraglio. After her intense excitement at the funeral her grief had
once more assumed that gloomy aspect which caused Dr. Aliprandi still
greater anxiety. She was no longer excited; she did not even speak, and
she had never yet wept. Her manner towards Franco exhibited nothing but
pity for this man who loved her, and whose affection and presence were,
in spite of herself, perfectly indifferent to her. Franco, relying upon
obtaining the position his director had talked so much about, had
proposed taking the whole family back to Turin with him. Uncle Piero,
poor old man, was quite ready to make this new sacrifice, but Luisa had
stated explicitly that rather than leave her little daughter, she would
end her days in the lake.
* * * * *
Upon hearing the proposal to start without Ismaele, Franco rose and said
he would go and take leave of his wife. Just at that moment the lawyer
heard a step in the street below. "Silence!" said he. "Here he is."
Franco went out to the terrace. Some one was, indeed, coming from the
direction of Albogasio. Franco waited until the wayfarer had reached the
church-place, and then called out in a low voice:
"Ismaele?"
"It is I," a voice answered that was not Ismaele's. "It is the prefect.
I am coming up-stairs."
The prefect at that hour? What could have happened? Franco went to the
kitchen, lighted a candle, and then hastened downstairs.
Five minutes passed and he had not returned to his friends. But
meanwhile Ismaele's wife had appeared to say that her husband was
feeling very ill, and could not stir. She stood in the square, and spoke
to Pedraglio, who was on the terrace. He hastened to summon Franco, and
found him on the stairs, coming up with the prefect. "The guide is ill,"
said he, knowing the priest to be an honest man. "Let us start at once,
and not waste any more time." Franco replied that he could not start
immediately, and that they must go on ahead. How was this? Why could he
not start? No, he could not. He ushered the prefect into the hall,
called the lawyer, and tried to persuade both Pedraglio and him to start
at once. Something extraordinary had happened, about which he must
consult his wife, and he could not say what he might decide to do. His
friends protested that they would not forsake him. The jovial Pedraglio,
who was in the habit of spending more money than his father approved
of, observed that if the worst came to the worst, they would be able to
live more economically and more virtuously at Josephstadt or Kufstein
than in Turin, and that this would be a consolation to his "governor."
"No, no!" exclaimed Franco. "You must go! Prefect, you persuade them!"
And he went towards the alcove-room.
"Are you ready to start?" said Luisa, in that voice which seemed to come
from a far-away world. "Good-bye."
He came to her side, and stooped to kiss the little stocking she held.
"Luisa," he whispered, "the Prefect of Caravina is here." She did not
express the slightest astonishment. "Grandmother sent for him an hour or
two ago," Franco continued. "She told him she had seen our Maria,
shining like an angel."
"Oh, what a lie!" Luisa exclaimed, in a tone full of contempt, but not
angrily. "As if it were possible she would go to her and not come to
me!"
"Maria has touched her heart," Franco went on. "She begs us to pardon
her. She fears she is dying, and entreats me to come to her, to bring
her a word of peace from you also."
Franco himself did not believe in the apparition, being profoundly
sceptical of everything that was supernatural outside of religion, but
he did believe that Maria, in her higher state, had already been able to
work a miracle, and touch his grandmother's heart, and the thought
caused him indescribable emotion. Luisa remained like ice. She was not
even irritated, as Franco had feared she would be, by the proposal to
send a friendly message. "Your grandmother fears hell," she observed
with her mortal coldness. "Hell does not exist, and so all this amounts
to nothing more than a fright. The suffering is not great. Let her bear
it, and then die as we all must, and so, 'Amen.'" Franco saw it would be
useless to insist. "Then I will go," said he. She was silent.
"I don't think I shall be able to come back this way," Franco added. "I
shall have to take to the hills."
Still no answer.
"Luisa!" the young man said softly. Reproach, grief, passion, all these
were in his appeal. Luisa's hands, that had never once paused in their
work, now became still. She murmured:
"I no longer feel anything. I am like a stone."
Franco turned faint. He kissed his wife on her hair, said good-bye, and
then entered the alcove, where, kneeling beside the little bed, he threw
his arms across it, recalling his treasure's little voice: "One kiss
more, papa!" A paroxysm of weeping assailed him, but he controlled
himself, and hurriedly left the room.
In the hall his friends were impatiently awaiting his return. How could
they start? They did not know the way. The lawyer was, indeed,
acquainted with the Boglia road, but was that the best way to go if they
wished to avoid the guards? On hearing that Franco was going to
Cressogno they were filled with amazement, and Pedraglio gave vent to
his indignation, saying it was shameful to forsake his friends in this
fashion, when they were in trouble. When the prefect realised how
matters stood he took Pedraglio's part, and offered to explain Franco's
absence to his grandmother, and proposed that Franco should write a line
or two, which he himself would carry to Cressogno. But Franco was
convinced that his Maria wished him to take this step, and he would not
yield. He suddenly remembered that the prefect was as familiar as a hare
with all the mountain paths. "You go!" said he, addressing the priest.
"You accompany them!" The prefect was about to reply that perhaps the
Signora Marchesa might need him, when the lawyer exclaimed: "Hush! Look
there!"
Directly in front of the house, where the shadow of Monte Bisgnago lay
obliquely upon the rippling water, a boat had stopped. Franco recognised
the customs-guards' launch.
"I am willing to wager those hogs are watching for us," Pedraglio
murmured. "They are afraid we shall escape by boat. Anyway, they are on
the lookout."
"Hush!" the lawyer repeated, approaching the window that overlooked the
church-place.
All held their breath in silence.
"Children," said V., turning quickly from the window, "we are done for!"
Franco went to the window, and saw a solitary figure running towards
the house. He concluded the lawyer had given a false alarm, but the
man--it was he who went by the nickname of "the hunted hare," and who
knew and saw everything--flung two words upwards as he passed beneath
the window: "The police!" At the same moment they heard the noise of
many feet. "Come with me! You also, Prefect!" cried Franco, and the
others following, he made for the little courtyard between the house and
the hillside, and, passing through a woodshed, reached the short cut
that leads to Albogasio Superiore. It was so dark that no one noticed a
customs-guard, standing, carbine in hand, not two steps from the door of
the wood-shed. Fortunately this guard, a certain Filippini, from Busto,
was an honest fellow, who ate the bread of Austria unwillingly, and
simply because he could find no other. "Be quick!" said he in an
undertone. "Cut across the fields, and then take the Boglia road! The
path below the Madonnina on the left." Franco thanked the man, and, with
his companions, started up the steep path that comes out on the narrow
communal road of Albogasio Superiore. Half-way up they all jumped into a
field of maize on the right, and stopped to listen. They heard steps on
the stairs leading upwards from the church-place, and then on the path
where the guard was posted. Evidently the police wished to make sure
that all the exits were well guarded. The four crawled swiftly away
through the maize, and on reaching the spot below a great boulder
called "Lori's Rock," they stopped to hold a consultation. They might
take the path that comes out on the Albogasio road at the very door of
Pasotti's garden, and then climb up from field to field, as far as the
Boglia road. But the path would be hard to find at this hour, and
fearing to lose too much time, they determined to make for the stairway
that leads up from Albogasio Inferiore to Puttini's house, then, leaving
Casa Puttini on the right, they could reach the Boglia road in no time.
It was already less dark. In one way this was a disadvantage, but at
least it would enable them to find their way through that labyrinth of
small fields and low walls. All were silent. Only Pedraglio would utter
an oath in Milanese from time to time, as he stumbled over a stone or
scratched his hands on a hedge. Then the others would hush him. They
reached the narrow stairway preceded by the prefect, who jumped walls
and hedges like a squirrel. When they were all together on the stairs
Franco withdrew from the group. On the Boglia road they would not need
him; he was going to Cressogno. In vain Pedraglio seized him by the arm,
in vain the prefect implored him not to expose himself to certain
arrest, and probable imprisonment. He believed he was obeying Maria's
voice, and felt that he was acting according to the dictates of
conscience. He tore himself from Pedraglio, and disappeared up the
stairs, for he did not wish to go to Cressogno by way of S.
Mamette--that would be too dangerous.
"Follow me!" said the prefect. "The man is mad, and we have ourselves to
think of."
As they were about to turn the corner of Puttini's house, they heard
people approaching who were probably going down the stairs. The door of
Puttini's house was open. The friends slipped inside. The people passed,
talking. They were peasants, and one was saying: "Where the deuce can he
be going at this hour?" Alas, they had met and recognised Franco! If the
gendarmes and the guards should start out to hunt for the fugitives and
come across these people, they would discover a trace at once. Towards
dawn one is always sure of meeting people. This time they had been able
to avoid being seen, but a second time they might be less fortunate, and
a meeting might prove as fatal to Pedraglio and the lawyer as this one
would probably prove to Franco. "If you could only disguise yourselves
as peasants!" said the priest. A happy thought struck the lawyer, who
had something both of the poet and the artist, and who was well
acquainted with Puttini. He would take _Scior Zacomo's_ clothes for
Pedraglio, who was also short, and the big, fat servant's clothes for
himself; stuff their own things into a _gerla_,[Q] fasten it upon his
back, and start for Boglia. The "first political deputy" of Albogasio
might have a hundred reasons for visiting the forest belonging to the
commune. No sooner said than done! They proceeded upstairs, and the
prefect, who was familiar with the house, went straight to call
Marianna. She did not answer, and her room was empty. The prefect
guessed at once that the unfaithful servant had gone to S. Mamette for
some secret business transaction, like that of the oil. That was why
they had found the door open. They went to the kitchen and lighted two
candles. The lawyer took one and the prefect pointed out _Scior
Zacomo's_ room to him. Meanwhile Pedraglio explored the kitchen by
the light of the other candle, in search of "something wet, something to
brace him up."
_Scior Zacomo_ slept in a corner room beyond the hall which the lawyer
crossed on tiptoe, picking his way between piles of chestnuts, walnuts,
filberts, and pears. He approached the door--it was closed. He
listened--silence. Very slowly he turned the handle and pushed. The
beastly door squeaked--he heard a formidable snort, and _Scior Zacomo_
cried out angrily: "Go away! Let me alone! Go away!" The lawyer entered
without further parley. "Away with you, you accursed woman! Go away, I
tell you!" cried _Scior Zacomo_, the point of his white night-cap rising
out of the pillows. On catching sight of the lawyer he began to groan:
"Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! For pity's sake, forgive me! I
thought it was my servant. Most distinguished Advocate, for the love of
Heaven, tell me what has happened."
"Nothing, nothing, _Scior Zacomo_!" said the lawyer. "Only the
Commissary of Porlezza is here----"
"Oh, good Lord!" and _Scior Zacomo_ started to stick his legs out of
bed.
"It is nothing, nothing! Be calm, be calm! Cover yourself up; cover
yourself up again! We are going up to Boglia on account of that accursed
bull, you know."
"Oh, Lord! What are you talking about? There is no bull at Boglia at
this time of the year. Oh! I am all bathed in sweat!"
"Never mind. I tell you we are going to see the place, to see where he
used to be. But the Commissary has very good reasons for strictly
forbidding you to accompany us; he forbids you, moreover, to go out
until we return, and he has even ordered me to remove your clothes."
Then he began rapidly collecting Puttini's garments, commanding him in
the name of the Commissary to be silent. He took possession of the tall
hat, seized the bamboo walking-stick, ordered the wretched man to bolt
the door as soon as he should have left the room, and to open it to no
one, to speak to no one, until the Commissary's return; all this in the
name of that dreaded functionary. Then, leaving the poor man more dead
than alive, he once more joined his companions, who, by dint of much
searching, had found a filthy dress of Marianna's, a big, red kerchief
for the head, a _gerla_, and a bottle of _Anesone triduo_.[R] "The
deuce!" swore the lawyer, on examining the loathsome garments he must
don. His disguise was indeed most unsatisfactory. The skirt was too
short, and the kerchief did not hide his face sufficiently. However
there was no time to look for anything better. But Pedraglio, in the
tall hat, with the bamboo walking-stick in his hand, was a perfect
_Scior Zacomo_. The lawyer thrust an old manuscript pamphlet he found in
the kitchen under his friend's arm, and showed him how to walk and puff.
Finally he took the keys to the wine-cellar, two enormous keys, gave one
to Pedraglio and put the other in his own pocket. These would prove
valuable weapons in case of need; one, he said, would strike in the
treble key, the other in the bass. And so they went out, the prefect
first, followed by the false _Scior Zacomo_ puffing like a steam-engine,
and then the false Marianna and her _gerla_ bringing up the rear. Hardly
had they reached the street when the real Marianna appeared, returning
from S. Mamette with an empty flask. Catching sight of her master's tall
hat looming in the uncertain light, she faced about and made off as fast
as her legs would carry her.
"Miserable thief!" the prefect exclaimed. "Excellent! Your disguise is
splendid!" In five minutes they had reached the Boglia road. Then the
prefect turned homewards, and presently, hearing people coming up from
Albogasio Superiore talking of gendarmes and guards, he went to meet
them and inquired what had happened. Oh, nothing very important; only
the gendarmes and soldiers had been to Casa Ribera to arrest Don Franco
Maironi, and, it would appear, lawyer V. also, for they were sure he
must have been there, and they had been asking every one about him.
However, they had found neither one nor the other of the friends,
although the customs-guards had been watching the house since midnight.
Now the police were searching all the houses in Oria, in the belief that
the two men must have escaped by the roof. While the prefect was
listening to this news a boy came running towards them from the
direction of Albogasio Superiore. They stopped him. "The guards!" he
gasped; "the gendarmes!" He was as white as a sheet; why he was running
away he himself could not tell, and they found it impossible to gather
from him where the gendarmes were. A woman appeared on the scene who was
able to give them more information. Four customs-guards and four
gendarmes had just now crossed the square in Albogasio Superiore. It was
rumoured that Don Franco had been seen on the road to Castello, and two
gendarmes with two guards had started towards the Boglia. The priest
shuddered. "Of course," some one said, "they will cut him off on the
Boglia road." The prefect took some comfort in the thought that both
gendarmes and guards were now searching for Franco only. He was so tall,
so slender, that neither the false Puttini nor the false Marianna could
possibly be suspected of being him. Their fate was now beyond his
control, but for Franco he could still do much. He started for
Cressogno, confident that Franco would reach that place in safety, if
the gendarmes did not discover any fresh traces, for they would search
for him on all the paths leading from Castello to the frontier, but not
on the road to Cressogno.
Pedraglio and the lawyer accomplished the first part of the journey from
Albogasio to the stables of Pus, creeping up the precipitous slope like
cats, with long and cautious steps. The lawyer advanced in silence, but
the other was continually cursing his garments in an undertone. That
"beastly hat," that made his forehead slippery with grease, that
"infernal tail-coat," that smelt strong of the sweat of ages. They
reached Pus without having met a living being. At Pus an old woman came
out from between the stables just after they had passed, and exclaimed
in amazement: "You up here, _Scior Giacomo_? At this hour?" "Puff!"
murmured the lawyer, and Pedraglio began to blow, "Apff! Apff!" like a
pair of bellows. "Such paths as these take the breath away, my good
sir," said the old woman. They met no one else until they reached
Sostra.
Sostra, a stable about half-way up the mountain, with a barn, a shed,
and a cistern, lies some distance back from the path. That path is the
very worst in the whole of Valsolda. It would make even a wild goat hang
its tongue out. Pedraglio and the lawyer, panting and wet through with
perspiration, turned into the Sostra for a moment's rest. There all was
silence and solitude. At that height they already breathed a different
air. And how much lower the mountain-tops had become! And the lake down
there in the depths looked like a river! The lawyer cast anxious glances
upwards towards the first crest of the Boglia, where the great beech
forest begins. Only half an hour more of climbing! "Come along!" said
he. But Pedraglio, in whose legs there still lingered the memory of that
other long walk from Loveno to Oria by way of the Passo Stretto, wanted
to rest a little longer, and began calmly turning over the leaves of
Puttini's old manuscript. It was a monkish poem by some unknown
Cremonese of the seventeenth century. "Come along," his companion
repeated after a minute or two, and was already preparing to rise when
he heard some one approaching. He had barely time to whisper, "Look
out!" and turn his back that his face might not be seen. Pedraglio,
though he kept his manuscript close to his nose, saw first two
customs-guards and then two gendarmes appear upon the path. He warned
his friend of this in a low tone, and without turning his head. The two
guards halted. One of them saluted: "My respects, Signor Puttini."
Turning to the gendarmes, he said: "This gentleman is the first
political deputy of Albogasio." The gendarmes saluted also, and
Pedraglio raised his hat, and held the manuscript a little higher. The
guards wished to rest awhile, but one of the gendarmes ordered them to
move on, and when the rest of the company had started forward, he
himself approached the Sostra. He was from Ampezzo, and spoke Italian
very fluently. "You dog! I hope you don't know me!" thought Pedraglio,
vaguely conscious of his dual personality. "We are in for it, anyway!"
"_Signor Deputato Politico_," said the man, "did you happen to see
Signor Maironi at Oria this morning?"
"I? No, indeed. Signor Maironi is in bed and asleep at this hour."
"And you yourself----where are you going?"
"I am going up that mountain, up that accursed Boglia, to see about the
communal bull."
"Idiot!" groaned the lawyer inwardly. "He is making it communal now!"
But the "communal" was allowed to pass unchallenged. The gendarme, who
had a face like a bull-dog, stared hard at his interlocutor. "You are a
political deputy," said he insolently, "and you wear that thing on your
chin?" Instinctively Pedraglio's hand went to his thin, black, pointed
beard, the abhorred beard of the liberals. "I will cut it off," said he,
with mock seriousness. "Most certainly, my dear sir! Are you also going
up the Boglia!" Very stiffly the gendarme moved away, without answering,
and all unconscious of the shameful gibbet to which the political deputy
was consigning him.
The two friends congratulated themselves on their narrow escape, but
they recognised that the game had become very serious. Now they had the
guards to reckon with, who knew Puttini well, and they must find a means
of avoiding them. And what if that bull-dog of a gendarme should blab
about the beard? "Come on! Come on!" said the lawyer. "Let us follow
them, and if we see or hear them turn back we must take to our heels and
make off to the left, towards the frontier." This would have been a
desperate move, for they were unacquainted with the ground, with which
the guards were undoubtedly familiar.
But in order to catch up with his companions the bull-dog had to sweat
and pant so hard that when he reached them he had no desire left to
speak of beards. Pedraglio and the lawyer climbed slowly upwards, and
saw the enemy reach the crest of the hill at the Madonnina beech-tree.
There they halted for some time and then disappeared.
The venerable beech-tree, which had the honour of bearing upon its trunk
an image of the Madonna, which, on its death, it bequeathed to a small
chapel, stood like a sentinel before the great forest of Boglia, like a
soldier posted in this dip of the crest, to keep watch over the
precipitous hillside, the lake, and the sloping ground of Valsolda. The
venerable army of colossal beeches stood marshalled in another silent
hollow between the slope of Colmaregia, the easily climbed Dorsi della
Nave, the rocky base of the Denti di Vecchia or Canne d'Organo, and that
other saddle of the Pian Biscagno, between Colmaregia and the Sasso
Grande, and faced the depths of Val Colla from Lugano to Cadro. An open,
grass-grown strip of ground stretched along the edge of the crest,
between the Madonnina beech-tree and the forest. The two fugitives
stopped to consider their position. Which way should they go? Should
they look for the little path below the beech-tree, of which the guard
who had saved them had spoken, or should they enter the forest? No, it
would be unwise to take to the woods, in the wake of the game they had
just seen enter them. In the forest they were sure to find the dead
leaves lying ankle-deep, and it would be impossible to pass through
without attracting the attention of the blood-hounds that were roaming
there, and their disguise would not bear close inspection. The path?
There were more paths than one beneath the beech-tree. Which was the
right one? Pedraglio swore at the absent Franco for not having
accompanied them, but the lawyer was studying the Colmaregia, which
could be climbed without entering the forest. He had twice made the
ascent of the Colmaregia, that superb, slender, grass-grown peak of the
Boglia, which the line of the frontier cuts in halves. He knew that from
there they would be able to descend to the Swiss village of Bre, and he
resolved to try that route. No one was visible on the crest that rises
from the Madonnina beech towards the Colmaregia, and the summit was
enveloped in clouds.
Just below the beech-tree they were overtaken by a wave of mist which
had rolled up one side of the mountain and was rapidly pouring down the
other; a cold, thick mist, a mist "as bad as they make them," so V.
said. They could not see five steps ahead, and thus it happened that
near the beech-tree Pedraglio ran almost into the arms of a
customs-guard.
He was one of the four, and had been told off to guard the open space
between the brow of the hill and the forest. Catching sight of the
little man in the top-hat, he exclaimed: "On the Boglia, Sig----" The
lawyer quickly cast aside his _gerla_, and the guard did not finish his
sentence, but stared a moment, open-mouthed, and then exclaimed: "How is
this?"
The lawyer did not wait for further explanations.
"This is how it is," said he calmly, and drawing his fists into
position on his breast, he hit out suddenly, and dealt the guard a
tremendous blow in the stomach that sent him rolling on the grass, his
heels in the air. In a flash Pedraglio was upon him, and snatched his
carbine from him.
"If you yell, you dog, I shall do for you!" said he. But how could he
possibly yell? With a blow like that in the stomach, it was all he could
do to breathe for at least fifteen minutes. In fact the man lay like one
dead, and it was some time before they could even make him groan
faintly: "Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord!"
"It's nothing, nothing at all," V. told him with his usual, mocking
calm. "Shocks like that are good for the health. You will see. Now, my
friend, you are just going to pick yourself up and stand nice and firm
on your legs, and accompany us to Colmaregia. You will see how well you
will be able to walk. I was careful not to use this." And he showed him
the key.
"Oh, what a blow!" groaned the guard. "Oh, what a terrible blow!"
"It is indeed a rather stiff climb," the lawyer went on, taking the
carbine from Pedraglio, "but with your permission we will help you up
from behind with the point of this instrument. Thus climbing will become
a delight. Then you must bear us company down to Bre. We will carry your
carbine for you, but you, in return, must carry this little _gerla_. Is
my meaning quite clear to you? Now, march!"
But the wretched man could not get to his feet and they certainly could
not leave him there and run the risk of his calling out for help.
"Poor fellow!" said Pedraglio. "You hit him too hard."
V. replied that he had touched him with the gentleness of a woman, and
passing the carbine to Pedraglio, he seized the guard by the collar of
his uniform, pulled him to his feet, and made him run his arms through
the straps of the _gerla_.
"Go ahead, you fraud!" said he. "March, lazy-bones!"
Up, up, ever upwards they climbed through the thick mist. The hillside
was extremely steep, and it was all they could do to find foothold
between the clumps of soft grass. They slipped, they laboured with hands
and feet, but they heeded naught, struggling ever upwards for freedom's
sake. Up, up, ever upwards, through the thick mist, invisible as
spirits, first the false Marianna, then the guard puffing and groaning
under the heavy _gerla_, then the false _Scior Zacomo_ promising him a
fine view from the top, and from time to time encouraging him with the
point of the carbine. The carbine worked miracles. In half an hour the
three had reached the crest, from whence the hill slopes down towards
Bre, lying only a short distance below the summit. Then, sitting upon
the grass, they let themselves slide rapidly downwards. Presently it
began to rain, and the mist grew thinner, and below them, at their
feet, they could see the red of the woodlands. _Scior Zacomo's_
venerable top-hat was the first to reach the spot, hurled from above by
Pedraglio with a joyful "Hurrah for Italy!" as he himself slid onwards,
arm in arm with the guard. At Bre Pedraglio called the whole town
together by firing off the carbine in sign of exultation, and then he
distributed _anesone triduo_ among the men, and administered it in
smaller doses to the girls. He begged the curate to allow him to hang
the tail-coat in the church as a votive offering, sat down to eat with
the guard, got the priest to preach him a sermon on the duty of
pardoning blows in the stomach, and read a verse of the monkish poem to
him, which ended thus:
At this point the good priest did exclaim:
My views are no longer the same.
After this he had no difficulty in demonstrating to him that if this
Padre Lanternone had suddenly changed his opinions, he, the guard, would
be fully justified in changing his, and he finally persuaded him to
desert. The guard ended by casting aside his uniform and donning the
tail-coat, amidst the laughter and applause of all present. The only one
who did not join in the laughter was the lawyer. "What may not have
happened to poor Maironi?" said he.
* * * * *
Franco did not cross Castello. Upon reaching the little Rovaja chapel he
hastened downwards by the path that leads to the fountain at Caslano,
reached the narrow lane that goes to Casarico and followed it upwards as
far as the last turning just below Castello, where the church of Puria
becomes visible beneath its amphitheatre of crags; then he turned into
the valley on the right, hastening along a path fit for goats only,
climbed upwards once more below the church of Loggio, and reached Villa
Maironi without having met any one.
Carlo, the old servant who opened the door for him, nearly fainted with
emotion as he kissed Franco's hands. At that moment the doctor was in
the sick room. Franco decided to wait until he should come out, and
meanwhile took the faithful old man into his confidence, telling that
the gendarmes were at his heels. Dr. Aliprandi soon came out, and
Franco, who knew him to be a patriot, confided in him also, for he must
show himself, and make inquiries about his grandmother. Aliprandi had
been called in the night, after the prefect had left for Oria. He had
found the Marchesa in a state of nervous excitement, tormented by a
terrible fear of death, but exhibiting no symptoms of illness. At
present she seemed quite calm. Franco had her informed of his arrival,
and was ushered into the room by the maid, who looked at him with
obsequious curiosity, and then withdrew.
The half-open shutters of the room where the Marchesa lay, admitted only
two slanting streaks of grey light, which did not reach the face,
thrown back upon the pillow. On entering Franco could not see that
face, but he heard the familiar, sleepy voice saying:
"Is that you, Franco?"
"Yes, grandmother. Good-morning," and he stooped to kiss her. The waxen
mask was unruffled, but there was a vague and gloomy expression about
the eyes that seemed at once desire and terror. "I am dying, you know,
Franco," said the Marchesa. Franco protested, and repeated what the
doctor had said to him. His grandmother listened, gazing eagerly at him,
trying to read in his eyes if the doctor had really spoken thus. Then
she answered:
"It makes no difference. I am quite ready."
From the changed expression on her face and in her voice Franco
understood perfectly that she was quite ready to live twenty years
longer. "I am sorry for your bereavement," said she, "and I forgive
you."
Franco had not expected words of pardon from her. He had believed it was
for him to bring forgiveness, not to receive it. Comforted and
reassured, the Marchesa of every day was gradually reappearing beneath
the Marchesa of an hour. She was willing to purchase peace of mind, but
she was like the sordid miser who, having yielded to the temptation of
gratifying some desire, allowed the price of his enjoyment to escape
painfully from between his tightly-clasped fingers, trying the while to
keep back as much as possible behind his nails. At another time
Franco's wrath would have burst forth, he would have rejected that
forgiveness angrily, but now, with his sweet Maria in his heart, he
could not feel thus. He had however noticed that his grandmother had
proffered her forgiveness to him alone. This was too much; he could not
pass this over.
"My wife, my wife's uncle, and I myself have suffered much beside this
last bereavement," said he, "and now we have lost our only comfort.
Uncle Ribera I leave out of the question; you, I myself, all must bow
before him, but if my wife and I have sinned against you, let us make
forgiveness mutual."
This was a bitter pill, but the Marchesa swallowed it in silence.
Although she no longer saw death at her bedside, her heart still
trembled with the terror inspired by the apparition, and by certain
words the prefect had spoken on hearing her confession. "I shall make a
will," she said, "and I wish you to know that the whole Maironi property
will go to you."
Ah, Marchesa, Marchesa! Poor, icy creature! Did she believe she could
purchase peace at this price? In this the prefect also had blundered,
for it was he who had advised her to make this declaration to her
grandson, kind, honest man that he was, but entirely without tact, and
incapable of understanding Franco's lofty soul. The idea that she might
think he had been prompted by sordid motives to come to her, was
intolerable to Franco. "No, no!" he exclaimed, quivering, and fearing
his hot temper would get the better of him after all. "No, no! Don't
leave me anything. It will be quite enough if you will allow the
interest on my own money to be paid at Oria. Grandmother, you must leave
the Maironi property to the Ospitale Maggiore. I fear my ancestors did
very wrong to keep it."
His grandmother had not time to answer, for there came a knock at the
door. The prefect entered, and offering as an excuse that he would tire
the invalid, persuaded Franco to say good-bye. "You must make haste,"
said he, when they were outside. "You have done more than your duty
here. Too many people are now aware of your presence, and the gendarmes
may appear at any moment. I have arranged everything with Aliprandi. He
considers a consultation necessary for the Marchesa, and will take the
Villa Maironi gondola and go to Lugano for a doctor. The two boatmen
will be Carlo and yourself. There are those oil-cloth cloaks with hoods.
Put on one of those and remain in the stern. Now we must shave off that
pointed beard of yours, and then with the hood drawn over your head, no
one will possibly be able to recognise you. You will be perfectly safe.
Perhaps you may not even be obliged to put in at the customs-house. At
any rate, they will not recognise you. If there is any talking to be
done, Carlo can do it."
The idea was good. The Marchesa's gondola was always looked upon by the
agents of Austria with the greatest respect; as if it were carrying an
egg of the double-headed eagle. Even when returning from Lugano it was
made to stop at the customs-house simply _pro forma_.
It was past eight o'clock when the gondola left the boathouse. From the
lofty summits the mist had descended upon the lake, and it was raining.
Sad, sad day! Sad, sad journey! Neither Franco, the servant, nor
Aliprandi spoke a word. They passed S. Mamette and Casarico, and then,
amidst the mist beyond the olives of Maine, the white walls of Maria's
resting-place appeared. Franco's eyes filled with tears. "No, dear," he
thought; "no, love; no, my life, you are not there; and I thank my God,
who tells me not to believe this horrid thing!" A few strokes more and
there was the little house of happy days, of bitter hours, of
misfortune; there was the window of the room where Luisa was giving
herself up to black grief, the loggia where, henceforth, poor old Uncle
Piero would spend his days alone, that just man who was going down to
the grave in silence, in tribulation, in weariness. Franco longed to
know what had happened after his departure; if the police had worried
Uncle Piero and Luisa. In vain he strained his eyes: no living being was
to be seen either on the terrace, in the little garden, or at the
windows of the loggia. All was silent, all was calm. He stopped rowing,
searching for some sign of life. Dr. Aliprandi opened the door of the
_felze_[S] and begged him to resume his rowing, begged him not betray
himself. At that moment Leu came to the parapet of the little garden,
with a jug in her hand; she glanced at the gondola and then entered the
loggia. Uncle Piero must be in the loggia, and they were taking him the
customary glass of milk, so probably nothing had happened. Franco once
more began to row, and Dr. Aliprandi closed the door. They glided past
the little garden, past the other houses of Oria, and the gondola turned
towards the landing-stage of the customs-house.
Bianconi, sitting under an umbrella and fishing for tench, spied the
gondola, and, dropping his pole, came forward to pay his respects to the
Marchesa. But he found Dr. Aliprandi instead, who so upset him by his
alarming account of the lady that he felt called upon to summon his
Peppina and impart the news to her; and Peppina, poor woman, was obliged
to act a little comedy of affliction under her Carlascia's umbrella.
Both husband and wife exhorted Aliprandi to make haste, to return
quickly. The big mastiff gave him permission to cross directly from
Gandria to Cressogno on the way back. Then the doctor turned to Franco,
and gave the order to proceed. Franco had listened to the conversation
standing motionless, his hands clasping his oar, and hoping to hear
something about his friends or his family. But no word was breathed
concerning either police, arrests, or flights, and Casa Ribera might
have been in China. The gondola backed slowly away from the
landing-stage, turned its prow towards Gandria, gliding ever further and
further away until it had slipped across the frontier, and vanished in
the mist.
* * * * *
On reaching the Lugano shore, Dr. Aliprandi opened the door, and called
Franco into the little cabin. Their acquaintance was only slight, but
they embraced like brothers. "When the cannonading begins I shall be
there also," Aliprandi said.
They must say good-bye here, and Franco must go ashore first and alone,
for Lugano was full of spies and the doctor must also be cautious.
Besides, Aliprandi was in no hurry. He was more anxious to find a
boatman than a physician. Franco drew his hood over his eyes, stepped
ashore and went directly to the Albergo della Corona.
Some hours later, when the gondola had started homewards, he went out in
search of some one from Valsolda who might give him news, and directed
his steps towards the Fontana pharmacy. Under the arcades he met his two
friends, who had just left the pharmacy. They fell upon his neck, and
wept with emotion. They also had been in search of news, and at the
pharmacy they had heard that Franco had been arrested. What joy to find
him here, and to feel they were standing on free soil!
FOOTNOTES:
[Q] _Gerla_: a basket the peasants both in Switzerland and in North
Italy carry fastened upon their backs. [_Translator's note._]
[R] _Anesone triduo_: a sort of very coarse and very strong anisette.
[_Translator's note._]
[S] _Felze_: the cover which is placed upon gondolas in winter or in bad
weather. It forms a tiny cabin. [_Translator's note._]
Part III
CHAPTER I
THE SAGE SPEAKS
No less than three springs had come and gone since the autumn of 1855
without bringing to the banks of the Ticino that mustering of armies and
of banners that the Italians had expected. In February, 1859, all were
convinced that a fourth spring could not pass thus. Great events, duly
pre-announced by a splendid comet, were approaching. The old world was
quivering and creaking inwardly, as does a frozen river on the eve of a
thaw. That deadly cold and awful silence which had lasted ten years, was
about to disappear, to be swept away amidst the clamour of strife and
destruction, by new currents, warm and brilliant. Carlascia was playing
the braggart, and would talk to his guards (who made no comments) of an
impending military expedition to Turin. Signor Puttini had never
entirely recovered from the shock he had received on that memorable
morning; and the lawyer's treachery, the tragic end of the top-hat, the
comic end of the tail-coat, had deeply affected him, and he had lost
all respect for patriots. Dr. Aliprandi was already in Piedmont. A
veteran subaltern of the army of Napoleon, who lived in Puria, was
secretly furbishing up his old uniform, with the intention of presenting
himself before the French Emperor when he should enter Italy. Whenever
Intrioni, the curate of Castello, met Don Giuseppe Costabarbieri, he
would remind him of a certain rhyme of 1796 which he, Don Giuseppe, had
gone about repeating in 1848, but which he had soon hidden away again.
The mighty Ulans
Came here from Hungary,
But the Frenchman's arms
Made them all promptly flee!
Don Giuseppe, greatly alarmed, would cry: "Hush! Hush!"
Meanwhile the violets continued to grow as peacefully on the slopes of
Valsolda as if nothing were happening. On the evening of the twentieth
of February, Luisa carried a bunch to the cemetery. She was still in
mourning. Pallid and emaciated, her eyes had become larger, and there
were many silver threads in her hair. She seemed to have grown twenty
years older since her bereavement. Upon leaving the cemetery she turned
towards Albogasio, and joined some women from Oria, who were going to
recite the Rosary in the parish church. She no longer seemed the same
dark phantom that had laid the violets on Maria's grave. She talked
calmly, almost gaily, first with one, then with another of the women;
inquired after a sick animal, praised and caressed a little girl who was
going to the Rosary with her grandmother, and told her to sit very still
in church, as her Maria had always done. She said this and mentioned
Maria very quietly, but the women shuddered and were filled with
astonishment, for Luisa herself never went to church now. She asked one
of the girls if the young men were going to act a play as usual, and if
her brother was to take part. Upon receiving an answer in the
affirmative she offered to help with the costumes. She left the others
on the church-place of the Annunciata, and as she went down the
Calcinera alone her face once more resumed its spectral appearance.
She was on her way to Casarico to see the Gilardonis, who had been
married three years. The professor's happiness and his adoration of
Ester would deserve to be told in verse! Uncle Piero said of him that he
had grown feeble-minded. Ester feared he might become ridiculous, and
would not allow him to assume certain ecstatic poses before her when
there was anyone present. The only person in whose presence she did not
insist upon the observance of this rule was Luisa. But Gilardoni always
showed the greatest deference for Luisa; to him she was still a
superhuman being; to his respect for the woman herself had been added
his respect for her grief, and in her presence his behaviour was always
most circumspect. Luisa had been going to Casa Gilardoni almost every
evening for about two years now, and if anything could have troubled the
couple's happiness it would have been these visits.
Indeed, their motive was a strange one, and one repugnant to Ester, but
Ester's affection for her friend, and her pity for her bereavement, were
so great, while her heart was so full of remorse for not having looked
after Maria more carefully on that terrible day, that she did not dare
to resolutely oppose her wishes, or dissuade her husband from gratifying
them. She expressed her disapproval to Luisa, and begged her at least to
maintain secrecy concerning the nightly doings in the professor's study,
but she went no further. The professor, on the contrary, would have
enjoyed these seances had it not been for his wife's disapproval. It was
already dark when Luisa rang the bell at the little door of Casa
Gilardoni. Ester herself opened it. Luisa did not return her greeting,
which she felt was full of embarrassment. She simply looked at her, but
when they reached the little parlour on the ground-floor where Ester was
in the habit of spending her evenings, she embraced her so passionately
that Ester burst into tears. "Have patience with me!" Luisa said. "It is
all that is left me!" Ester tried to comfort her, telling her that
happier times were coming for her; that she and Franco would soon be
reunited. In a few months Lombardy would be free, and Franco would come
home. And then--and then--so many things might happen! Perhaps Maria
might return! Luisa started violently and caught her friend's hands.
"No!" she cried. "Do not say such things! Never! Never! I am all hers! I
belong to Maria alone!" Ester could not answer, for at that point the
smiling professor came bustling into the room.
He saw that his wife's eyes were wet with tears and that Luisa was
greatly excited. He greeted her very quietly and sat down in silence
beside Ester, in the belief that they had been discussing the usual
subject, which was so painful to his wife. She would have liked to send
him away and resume her conversation with Luisa, but did not venture to
do so. Luisa was shuddering at that spectre of future danger which would
sometimes stand vaguely outlined before her mind's eye, but which she
had always banished with horror, never pausing to examine it, and which
now, evoked by her friend's words, rose before her, naked and distinct.
After a long and painful silence Ester sighed, and said in a low voice:
"You may go if you like. Go, both of you."
Luisa, moved by an impulse of gratitude, fell on her knees before her
friend and buried her face in her lap. "You know," she said, "I no
longer believe in God. At first I thought there must be a cruel God, but
now I do not believe in the existence of any God. But if a loving God,
such as He in whom you believe, did really, surely exist, He would not
condemn a poor mother who has lost her only child, and who is
struggling to persuade herself that a part of that child still lives!"
Ester made no reply. Almost every night for two years Luisa and her
husband had evoked the spirit of the dead child. Professor Gilardoni, in
whom there was a strange mingling of the free-thinker and the mystic,
had read with great interest the marvellous tales that were told
concerning the Fox sisters--Americans--and the experiments of Eliphas
Levi, and had closely followed the spiritualistic movement which had
spread rapidly in Europe, in the form of a mania that upset both heads
and tables. He had spoken to Luisa about this movement, and Luisa,
possessed and blinded by the idea that she might ascertain if her child
did still exist, in which case she might in some way be able to
communicate with her, seeing nothing else in all the marvellous facts
and strange theories save this one luminous point, had besought him to
make some experiments with Ester and herself. Ester believed in nothing
supernatural outside the doctrines of Christianity, and did not,
therefore, take the matter seriously. She willingly consented to place
her hands on a small table, in the company of her friend and her
husband, who, on the contrary, exhibited great zeal, and had faith in
their chances of success. The first experiments were disappointing.
Ester, who found them tedious, would have liked to discontinue the
attempts, but one evening, after twenty minutes of waiting, the little
table tipped to one side, lifted a leg in the air, righted itself, and
then tipped again, to Ester's great chagrin, but to the great joy of
Luisa and the professor. The next night five minutes sufficed to make
the table move. The professor taught them the alphabet, and then tried
to summon a spirit. The table responded, knocking with its leg upon the
floor according to the alphabet that had been arranged. The spirit
evoked gave its name: Van Helmont. Ester was frightened and trembled
like a leaf; the professor was trembling also, but with excitement. He
wished to tell Van Helmont that he had his works in his library, but
Luisa besought him to inquire where Maria was. Van Helmont answered:
"Near!" Then Ester rose, as pale as a ghost, protesting that she would
not continue, and neither Luisa's tears nor entreaties could move her.
It was sinful, sinful! Ester's religious sense was not deep, but she had
a wholesome fear of hell and the devil. For some time it had been
impossible to resume the seances--she had a horror of them, and her
husband did not venture to oppose her wishes. It was Luisa who, by dint
of prayers and entreaties, at last obtained a compromise. The seances
were resumed, but Ester took no part in them.
She did not even wish to know what took place. Only, whenever her
husband seemed worried or preoccupied, she would throw out an uneasy
allusion to the secret dealings in the study. Then he would be troubled,
and offer to desist, but Ester had not the courage to face Luisa. For
she had discovered indirectly that Luisa really believed she held
communication with the child's spirit. Once she had said: "I shall not
come to-morrow night because Maria does not wish it." At another time
she had said: "I am going up to Looch because Maria wants a flower from
her grandmother's grave." To Ester it seemed incredible that a head so
clear and strong could be thus deluded. At the same time she realised
the extreme difficulty of convincing her by gentle means, and all the
cruelty of using harsh measures with her.
The professor lit a candle and went upstairs to the study, followed by
Luisa. We are acquainted with this study that was like a ship's cabin,
its shelves filled with books, its little fireplace, its windows
overlooking the lake and the armchair in which Maria had gone to sleep
one Christmas Eve. The room now contained something else. Between the
fireplace and the window stood a small round table, with one central leg
only, that branched out into three feet, about a hand's breadth from the
floor.
"I am very sorry to cause Ester so much pain," said the professor as
they entered the room. He placed the light on the writing-desk, but
instead of preparing the little table and the chairs as usual he went to
look out of the window at the pale light on the water and in the sky,
amidst the surrounding shadows of night. Luisa stood motionless, and
suddenly he faced about as if some magnetism had revealed her anguish to
him. He saw appalling anguish on her face, and understood that she
believed he had made up his mind to stop the seances, whereas he had
only been tempted to do so, and, greatly moved, he seized her hands,
telling her that Ester was good, that she loved her so much, that
neither he nor she would ever willingly cause her suffering. Luisa did
not answer, but the professor had all he could do to prevent her kissing
his hand. While he was arranging the little table and the two chairs in
the centre of the floor, she sank into the armchair, in a state of great
depression.
"There!" said the professor.
Drawing a letter from her pocket Luisa handed it to him.
"I need Maria and you so much to-night," said she. "Read that. It is
from Franco. You can begin with the fourth page." The professor did not
hear these last words, but going to the light, began to read aloud:
"Turin, _February 18, 1859_.
"My OWN LUISA,--
"Do you know you have not written to me for a fortnight!"
"You can skip that," said Luisa, but at once corrected herself.
"No, perhaps you had better read it." The professor continued.
"This is my third letter to you since yours of the sixth.
Perhaps I was too violent in my first letter, and wounded you.
What a temper is this of mine, that makes me speak, and
sometimes even write such harsh words when my blood is up! And
what blood is this of mine that at two-and-thirty is as quick
to boil as at two-and-twenty! Forgive me, Luisa, and permit me
to return to the subject, and take back those words that may
have offended you.
"At present there is no more talk here either of tables or of
spirits, but only of diplomacy and war; in former years,
however, spiritualism was very widely discussed, and several
persons I both respect and esteem believed in it. I knew
positively that many among them were simply deluded but I never
doubted their good faith when they told me of conversations
they had had with spirits. It would indeed seem that our
imagination, when inflamed, can make us see and hear things
that do not really exist. But I am willing to admit that in
your case you are not deceived by your imagination; that your
little table does really move and express itself exactly as you
say. I was wrong to doubt this--I confess it--in the first
place because you are so sure of not being mistaken, and
secondly, because I am well aware of Professor Gilardoni's
honesty. But to me this is a question of sentiment. I know that
my sweet Maria lives with God, and I cherish the hope that some
time I, with other souls dear to me, may go where she is. If
she should appear before me unbidden, if, without having
summoned her, I should hear the sound of her voice, clear and
distinct, perhaps I should not be able to bear such joy. But I
could never summon her, never force her to come to me. The
thought is repugnant to me; it is contrary to that sense of
veneration I feel for a Being who is so much nearer God than I
am. Dear Luisa, I also speak to our treasure every day, speak
to her of myself and of you as well; I am convinced that she
sees us, that she loves us, that she can still do much for us
even in this life. How I wish that your intercourse with her
might be of the same nature! If, in answering your letter in
which you allude to a communication from her I expressed myself
too harshly, forgive me, not only in consideration of my hasty
temper, but still more in consideration of my sentiments, which
are indeed a part of my nature.
"Forgive me also in consideration of the atmosphere of intense
excitement in which I am living here. My throat is perfectly
well. Since war has been talked of, I have cast aside both
camphor and sedative waters, but my nerves are in a state of
such extraordinary tension that it seems as if, were they
touched, sparks must fly from them. All this is partly due to
the amount of work to be accomplished at the Home Office, where
it is no longer a question of regular hours, but where even the
humblest secretary, if he be conscientious, must strain every
muscle. When I first obtained this position through the
kindness of Count Cavour, I felt I was not really earning the
bread the government gave me. This is no longer the case, but I
am about to withdraw from this field of strenuous labour; and
this brings me to another topic, to something I have long had
in my heart, and which I now impart to you with feelings of
indescribable emotion.
"In a week my friends and I are going to enlist in the army as
volunteers, for the duration of the coming campaign. We are
entering the ninth infantry regiment, stationed in Turin. Here
at the Home Office they would like to keep me some time longer,
but I intend to become familiar with my duties in the regiment
before the campaign opens, and I have therefore simply promised
not to leave the Office until the day before we enlist.
"Luisa, we have not seen each other for three years and almost
five months! It is true you are under police surveillance, and
that you may not go to Lugano, but I have several times
proposed means to you of meeting me, at least at the frontier,
or on the mountains, and you have never even answered. I
believed I knew why. It was because you could not tear yourself
away even for a short time, from a certain sacred spot. This
seemed too much, and I confess I had many bitter feelings. Then
I reproached myself, I felt I was selfish, and I forgave you.
Now, Luisa, circumstances have changed. I have no forebodings
of evil; indeed, it seems impossible that I should be destined
to end my days on a battlefield, nevertheless this is not
impossible. I am going to take part in a war that promises to
be one of the greatest, one of the longest and most desperate,
for if Austria is risking her Italian provinces, we, and
perhaps Emperor Napoleon as well, are risking everything. It is
said we shall spend next winter beneath the walls of Verona.
Luisa, I cannot run the risk of dying without seeing you once
more. I shall have only twenty-four hours, I cannot come to the
frontier or to Lugano, and I should not be satisfied to spend
ten minutes with you. Ask Ismaele to get you to Lugano in some
way on the morning of the twenty-fifth of this month. Leave
Lugano in time to reach Magadino at one o'clock, for you cannot
go by way of Luino. At Magadino you must take the boat that
leaves at about half-past one. At four or thereabouts you will
reach Isola Bella, where I shall arrive at about the same hour
from Arona. At this time of year Isola Bella is a desert. We
can spend the evening together, and in the morning you will
leave for Oria, I for Turin.
"I am writing to Uncle Piero to ask his forgiveness for
depriving him of your company for one day.
"I do not apprehend any danger. The Austrians are thinking only
of their arms, and their police are letting thousands of young
men escape them, young men who come here to take up arms. The
Austrians would be terrible the day after a victory, but, God
willing! that day shall never dawn for them.
"Luisa, can it be possible I shall not find you at Isola Bella,
that you may think you are pleasing Maria by not coming? But
don't you know that if some one had said to my Maria, to my
poor little darling--run and say good-bye to your papa, who is
perhaps going away to die--how fast----"
The reader's voice trembled, broke, and was lost in a sob. Luisa hid her
face in her hands. He placed the letter on her knees, saying with
difficulty: "Donna Luisa, can you hesitate?"
"I am wicked," Luisa murmured. "I am mad!"
"But do you not love him?"
"Sometimes I think I love him very much, at other times not at all."
"My God!" the professor exclaimed. "But now? Are you not moved by the
thought that you may never see him again?"
Luisa was silent, she seemed to be crying. Suddenly she started to her
feet, pressing her hands to her temples, and fixed her eyes on the
professor's face, eyes in which there were no tears, but in which there
shone a sinister and angry light. "You don't know," she cried, "what
there is here in my head! What a mass of contradictions, how many
opposite thoughts that are struggling together, and always changing
places with each other! When I received the letter I cried bitterly, and
said to myself. 'Yes, my poor Franco, this time I will go!'--And then
there came a voice that spoke here in my forehead, and said: 'No, you
must not go because--because--because----'"
She ceased speaking, and the professor, terrified by the flashes of
madness he saw in those eyes that were fixed on his, did not dare to ask
for an explanation. The eyes, which still stared into his, gradually
softened and became veiled with tears. Luisa took his hands, and said
gently, timidly: "Let us ask Maria."
They sat down at the table and placed their hands upon it. The professor
sat with his back to the light, which fell full upon Luisa's face. The
little table was in the shadow. After eleven minutes of profound
silence, the professor murmured:
"It is beginning to move."
In fact the table was gradually leaning over to one side. Presently it
righted itself, and knocked once, lightly. Luisa's face brightened.
"Who are you?" said the professor. "Answer with the usual alphabet."
There came seventeen, then fourteen, then eighteen knocks, and then one
alone. "Rosa," said the professor softly. Rosa was a little sister of
his wife's who had died in infancy, and the table had knocked out this
name on several previous occasions. "Go away," said Gilardoni. "Send
Maria to us."
The table soon began to move again, and knocked out the words:
"It is I, Maria!"
"Maria, Maria, my own Maria!" whispered Luisa, her face assuming an
expression of intense joy.
"Do you know the contents of the letter your father has written to your
mother?" Gilardoni inquired.
The table answered:
"Yes."
"What is your mother to do?"
Luisa was trembling from head to foot in anxious suspense. The table did
not move.
"Answer," said the professor.
This time the table moved, but knocked out only an incomprehensible
confusion of letters.
"We do not understand. Repeat."
The little table did not move again. "Repeat, I tell you!" said the
professor, rather sharply.
"No, no!" begged Luisa. "Don't insist. Maria does not wish to answer."
But the professor was bound to insist. "It is not admissible that a
spirit should not answer. You know very well we have often before been
unable to understand what they said."
Luisa rose, greatly agitated, saying that rather than force Maria she
should prefer to cut the seance short. The professor remained seated,
lost in thought. "Hush!" said he at last.
The table moved and once more began to knock.
"Yes!" exclaimed Gilardoni, his face radiant. "I inquired mentally if
you should go, and the table has answered 'yes.' Now you yourself must
ask aloud."
Five or six minutes passed before the table began to move. In answer to
Luisa's question: "Shall I go?" there came first thirteen, then fourteen
knocks. The answer was "no."
The professor turned pale, and Luisa questioned him with her eyes. He
was silent for some time, and then said with a sigh:
"Perhaps it was not Maria. Perhaps it was a lying spirit."
"And how can we find out?" Luisa inquired anxiously.
"We cannot find out. It is impossible."
"Then how about the other communications? Is there never any certainty?"
"Never."
She lapsed into terrified silence. Then presently she murmured: "It was
bound to end thus. This also was to be taken from me."
She rested her forehead upon the table. The candle light fell upon her
hair, upon her arms and hands. She was motionless, nothing moved in the
room save the little flickering flame of the candle. Another little
flame, the last light of hope and of comfort, was dying out in this poor
head which had gone down before the onslaught of a bitter and invincible
doubt. What could Gilardoni do or say? He saw that Ester's wish would
soon be gratified, but not by his means. Three or four minutes later
they heard Ester's voice, and steps on the floor below. Luisa rose
slowly.
"Let us go," said she.
"Perhaps we should pray," Gilardoni observed without rising. "Perhaps we
should ask the spirits if they confess Christ."
"No, no, no!" Luisa exclaimed in an undertone, at the same time
protesting with a hostile gesture. The professor silently took up the
candle.
* * * * *
On her way back to Oria Luisa went up to the gate of the cemetery.
Resting her forehead against it she sent a stifled good-bye towards
Maria's grave, then she went down the hill again. On reaching the
church-place she crossed over to the parapet and gazed down upon the
lake sleeping in the shadow. She stood there some time, letting her
thoughts roam at will. Placing her elbows on the parapet, she leaned
forward and rested her face upon her hands, still gazing at the water,
the water that had taken Maria. Her thoughts were beginning to take a
definite shape, not within her, but down there in the water. She
contemplated this shape. To die, to end it all! She was familiar with
the thought, she had seen it once before when gazing into the water
thus, long ago, before the experiments with the professor began. After
that it had disappeared. But now it had returned again. It was a sweet
and merciful thought, full of rest, of self-surrender, and of peace. It
was good to gaze upon it now that her faith in the spirits was gone
also. To die, to end it all! On that former occasion the image of her
old uncle had been strong in helping to dispel the fascination. Now it
was not so strong. Since Maria's death Uncle Piero had lapsed into a
state of almost complete silence which Luisa believed to be the
beginning of the apathy of old age. She did not understand that in the
old man's soul profound disapproval was mingled with grief, nor did she
understand how great was his aversion to these daily and repeated visits
to the cemetery, the flowers, the mysterious journeys to Casarico, and
above all, how he regretted her complete abandonment of the church. If
she had not been so engrossed in her dead child she might have
understood her uncle better, at least on this last point, the church,
for now the silent old man himself went to Mass oftener than before, his
heart returning to the religion of his father and mother, which,
heretofore, he had practised coldly, from habit, and out of respect for
family traditions. It seemed to Luisa that he had grown very dull, and
that if only his personal needs were attended to, he would be quite
content. Cia was there to attend to his comforts, and the means that had
sufficed for three would be more than sufficient for two. Luisa thought
she saw the water rise a hand's breadth. And Franco? Franco would be in
despair, would mourn for a few years, and then he would be happier than
ever. Franco knew the secret of speedy consolation. The water seemed to
rise another hand's breadth.
At the same moment in which she had approached the parapet, Franco,
passing the church of S. Francesco di Paolo in Via di Po, had seen
lights and heard the organ. He went in. Hardly had he said a short
prayer when the one dominant thought took possession of him once more;
the sound of the organ became the noise of trumpets and drums, the clash
of arms; and while a hymn of peace was rising from the altar, he, in
imagination, was furiously charging the enemy. Suddenly he saw before
his mind's eye the image of Luisa, pale, and dressed in mourning. He
began to think of her, to pray for her with intense fervour.
Then, standing there on the church-place of Oria, she turned cold and
was filled with dread, while the tempting thought gradually vanished.
She tried to recall it, but could not. The water subsided. An inward
voice said to her: "What if the professor be mistaken? What if it be not
true that the table answered first yes and then no? what if it be not
true about the lying spirits?" She drew back from the parapet, and with
slow steps, went up to her house.
She found her uncle in the kitchen sitting in the chimney-corner, the
tongs in his hand, and his glass of milk beside him. Cia and Leu were
sewing.
"Well," said Uncle Piero, "I have been to the Custom-House. The
Receiver is in bed with the jaundice, but I spoke with the
_Sedentario_."
"What about, uncle?"
"About Lugano. About your journey to Lugano on the twenty-fifth. He has
promised to close an eye and let you pass."
Luisa was silent, and stood thoughtfully watching the fire. Presently
she gave Leu some orders for the next day, and then begged her uncle to
come into the parlour with her.
"What for?" said he, with his habitual simplicity, "You can't have any
great secrets to tell. Let us stay here where the fire is."
Cia lit a candle. "We will go out," said she.
The uncle made his usual grimace, expressive of compassion for the
weaknesses of others, but remained silent. Draining his glass of milk,
he passed it to Luisa. She took the glass, and said softly: "I have not
decided yet."
"What?" the uncle exclaimed sharply. "What is it you have not decided?"
"Whether I shall go to Isola Bella."
"Now what the deuce----?"
Uncle Piero was utterly incapable of grasping such a thing as this.
"And why should you not go?"
She answered calmly, and as if stating a perfectly obvious fact:
"I am afraid I shall not be able to leave Maria."
"Oh, come now!" Uncle Piero exclaimed. "Sit down over there," and he
pointed to a bench in the chimney-corner opposite him. Then he said, in
that serious, honest voice of his, which seemed to come from his heart:
"My dear Luisa, you have lost your bearings!"
And raising his arms, he uttered a long "Ah!" and then let them fall
upon his knees once more.
"Lost your bearings completely!" he repeated. He sat silent for a time,
his head bent, while behind his pursed lips there was the rumbling of
words in course of formation, which presently burst forth.
"I would never have believed it! It does not seem possible! But when,"
and here he raised his head and looked Luisa straight in the face, "but
when we once begin to lose our bearings it is all up with us. And you,
my dear, began to lose yours a long time ago."
Luisa shuddered.
"Yes indeed!" Uncle Piero cried in a loud voice. "You began losing yours
a long time ago. And now this is what I wish to say to you. Listen. My
mother lost children, your mother lost children, I have seen many
mothers lose children, but not one of them acted as you act. What can
you expect? We are all mortal, and must adapt ourselves to our
circumstances. Other mothers become resigned, but you do not. And this
running two, three, and even four times a day to the cemetery! And the
flowers, and I know not what all besides! Oh, dear me! And all that
foolishness at Casarico with that other poor imbecile, which you think
is such a secret, while every one is talking of it, even Cia. Oh, dear
me!"
"No, uncle," said Luisa, sadly but calmly. "Don't talk of these things.
You cannot understand them."
"Exactly!" the uncle retorted with all the irony of which he was
capable. "I cannot understand! But there is something else. You no
longer go to church. I have never mentioned this to you because I have
always made it a rule to let people do as they like, but when I see you
losing your good sense, losing your common-sense even, the least I can
do is to remind you that this is all you do by turning your back on the
Almighty. And now this idea of not going to see your husband, under
similar circumstances! It is past belief. Well, well," he said after a
short pause, "I will go myself."
"You?" Luisa exclaimed.
"Why not? Yes, I. I had intended to accompany you, but if you will not
go I must take the journey alone. I will go and tell your husband that
you have lost your head, and that I hope I may soon be called to join
poor Maria."
No one had ever heard such bitter words from Uncle Piero's lips. Perhaps
it was for that reason, perhaps it was the authority of the man, perhaps
it was Maria's name pronounced in that way, but at any rate Luisa was
conquered.
"I will go," she said, "but you must stay here."
"Most certainly not!" cried Uncle Piero, greatly pleased. "It is forty
years since I saw the islands. I must avail myself of this opportunity.
And who knows but what I may enlist in the cavalry?"
* * * * *
"Well?" said Cia, when the uncle had gone to bed. "Does my master really
intend to go? For the love of Heaven, don't let him, my dear!" And she
told Luisa that two hours before he had rolled his eyes in a strange
manner, letting his head sink upon his breast, and when she had called
to him he had not answered. Presently he had recovered, and had been
provoked at her anxious questions, protesting that he had not been ill,
that he had simply felt rather sleepy. Luisa listened to her, standing
with her candle in her hand, her eyes glassy, and her attention divided
between the words she was hearing and another very different thought, a
thought very far removed from Uncle Piero, from the house, from
Valsolda.
CHAPTER II
THE SUMMONS TO ARMS
On the morning of the twenty-fifth of February, the day fixed for their
journey, Uncle Piero rose at half-past seven, and went to the window. A
heavy, white fog hung over the lake, hiding the mountains so that they
appeared only as short black streaks, one on the right, the other on the
left, between the lake and the fog. "Alas!" the uncle sighed. He had not
finished dressing when Luisa came in, and using the unpleasant weather
as a pretext, once more begged him to remain at home, and let her go
alone. Cia was greatly distressed, and had entreated her to urge him not
to go, for she knew he had had an attack of giddiness on the twentieth,
and that on the twenty-second he had gone to confession without
mentioning it to any one. Seeing that he was growing impatient, Luisa
decided it would be wiser to desist, and let him have his own way. Poor
Uncle Piero, he had always enjoyed the best of health, and now he was
extremely apprehensive, and the slightest disturbance alarmed him. But
he did not feel that Luisa should be allowed to set out alone in her
present state of mind, and so he was going to sacrifice himself for
her. He finished dressing and returning to the window called out
triumphantly to Luisa, who was in the little garden below.
"Look up!" said he. "Look up at the Boglia!"
High up above Oria through the smoking fog, the pale gold of the sun
shining on the mountain could be seen, and still higher up all was clear
and transparent.
"Fair weather!"
Luisa did not reply, and the old man came down to the loggia in a
cheerful frame of mind, and went out to the terrace to enjoy the
magnificent struggle between fog and sun.
The stretch of water towards the east between the Ca Rotta, the last
house of S. Mamette on the left, and the gulf of the Doi on the right,
was one immense white sea. The Ca Rotta could just be distinguished,
coming out of the fog like some spectre. At the gulf of the Doi, the
narrow black streak of the mountains began, making a gap between the
leaden lake and the fog, which, little by little, was assuming a bluish
hue. Vague lights broke in the sky towards Osteno; at the end of the
eastern sea a new brightness trembled, streaks and spots, dark with the
breeze, were forming; the eye of the sun appeared and disappeared among
the whirling clouds above Osteno, until at last, growing rapidly larger,
it shone forth triumphant. The fog fled in all directions in sheets and
puffs, of which many sped past Oria, large and swift, while others cast
themselves upon the shore; but the largest rolled away into the far
east, where, behind and above a heavy white curtain, the mountains of
the lake of Como rose, glorious in the blue.
Uncle Piero called Luisa to witness the spectacle, the last splendid
scene of the drama, the triumph of the sun, the flight of the mists, the
glory of the hills. He admired nature in a simple manner, without the
refinement of the artistic sense, but with youthful ardour, and with the
ring of sincerity in his voice; his admiration was that of an old man
who has lived a life of purity, who has not exhausted the freshness of
his spirit, who still retains a certain simplicity of imagination.
"Look, Luisa!" he exclaimed, "we must indeed cry out, 'Glory be to the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost!'" Luisa did not answer, but went
quickly indoors, that she might not see that white enclosure beyond the
kitchen-garden that was drawing her so strongly, with its tacit cry of
reproach and grief. She had gone there that morning at six o'clock, and
had remained an hour, seated on the wet grass.
The uncle remained on the terrace lost in contemplation until the moment
of departure arrived. Had he been a vain poet he might have imagined
that Valsolda was offering him this farewell spectacle to speed him on
his way; that she wished to show herself more beautiful than he had,
perhaps, ever seen her before. However, these poetic fancies did not
come to him, and, besides, his journey was to be so short. But the image
of Maria came to him instead; he saw her running round him, he took her
upon his knee, and repeated the old rhyme to her:
Proud shade of the river
Of Missipipi----
"Enough!" he sighed. "It was a terrible thing!" and in answer to a
summons from Cia he went slowly towards the little garden where Luisa
was awaiting him, ready to go down to the boat. "Here I am," said he.
"And you, Cia, be careful not to let the house tumble into the lake
while we are away!"
* * * * *
During the journey on Lake Maggiore on board the _San Bernardino_, Luisa
remained in the second-class cabin most of the time. She went on deck
once to try and persuade Uncle Piero to go below also, but, although the
wind was cold, Uncle Piero, wrapped in his heavy grey travelling cloak,
would not stir from the deck, where he sat calmly watching the hills and
villages, and chatting with a priest from Locarno, with a little old
woman from Belgirate, and with other second-class passengers. Luisa was
obliged to leave him there, while she herself went below again,
preferring to be alone with her own thoughts. As they approached Isola
Bella a sense of inward excitement and a vague foreboding of many
things took possession of her. How would the meeting with Franco take
place? How would he treat her? Would he repeat Uncle Piero's sermon to
her? His letters were indeed always compassionate and tender, but who
does not know that we write in one way and speak in another? How and
where would they spend the evening? And then that other question, that
question it so terrified her to think about----? All these anxious
thoughts were rising higher and higher, threatening to become dominant,
to place themselves in bold opposition to that image of the cemetery of
Oria, which from time to time would return with impetuous violence, as
if to snatch back its own. At the station of Cannero, Luisa heard the
noise of many steps and of loud talking above her head, and went
upstairs to look after her uncle. A party of soldiers, recalled to
service, had come out to the steamer in two large barges. Other small
boats bore women, children, and old men, who were crying and waving
good-bye. The soldiers, most of whom were _Bersaglieri_, fine jolly
young fellows, answered the greeting with shouts of "Hurrah for Italy!"
and made promises of presents from Milan. One old woman, all
dishevelled, but tearless, had three sons among those soldiers, and was
calling out to them to remember our Lord and the Madonna. "Yes, yes,"
grumbled an old sergeant who was escorting them, "Remember our Lord, and
the Madonna, and the Bishop, and don't forget the _prevosto_, the
parish priest!" The soldiers, who were well acquainted with the
_prevosto_, or military prison, laughed loudly at the joke, as the
steamer started forward. There were cries, and waving of handkerchiefs,
and then the men burst into song, a song shouted by fifty strong voices.
Addio, mia bella, addio,
L'armata se ne va.
The soldiers were all clustered together at the prow, among piles of
bags and barrels, some sitting, some lying down, others standing, and
all singing at the top of their voices to the dull accompaniment of the
paddles as the steamer glided straight towards that background of sky,
against which rose the pointed hills of Ispra, dividing the immense
expanse of water from the Ticino beyond. The young men would soon be
crossing the Ticino, probably to the cry of "Savoy for ever!" and amidst
the fury of cannonading. Death was awaiting many of them down there
under that clear sky, but all sang gaily, and only the dull noise of the
paddles seemed to be aware of their fate. The free hills of Piedmont,
past which the boat was gliding, although they stood in the shadow,
seemed to shine with pride and satisfaction at having given their sons
to the captive hills of Lombardy, which wore an air of tragedy, although
illumined by the sun. Luisa felt her blood begin to tingle, felt her
once ardent patriotism begin to stir. And those mothers who had seen
their sons depart thus? She foresaw whither her thoughts were tending,
and hastened to assure herself that she also would gladly have given a
son to Italy, that the grief of those mothers could not in any way be
compared to hers. But what a difference there was between reading a
letter in Valsolda, telling of the war, and feeling the very breath,
hearing the very noise of war all about her, feeling it in the air
itself! In the quiet of Valsolda, war was a shadow without substance;
here the shadow became incarnate. Here Luisa's personal grief, that
immense grief which filled the lifeless air surrounding her in Oria,
seemed to shrink before the emotion of many, and her consciousness of
this gave her an indefinable sense of discomfort and trouble. Was it the
dread of losing a part of her own grief, a part, as it were, of herself?
Was it the desire to escape from a comparison from which she shrank? At
the same time the idea that Franco was going to this war, the idea that
had affected her so slightly in Valsolda, was now assuming a new aspect
of reality in her mind, was making her heart quiver, and it also was
wrestling with the image of the cemetery of Oria. For the first time
this image of the past was no longer the one, all-powerful master of her
soul, and although her soul was indignant and regretful, new images,
images of the present and of the future, were assailing it.
Uncle Piero began to feel cold and came down to the cabin.
"In little more than an hour we shall be at Isola Bella," said he.
"Are you tired?"
"Not in the least. I feel wonderfully well."
"But nevertheless, you will go to bed early to-night?"
The uncle, whose thoughts were wandering, did not answer, but presently
he exclaimed: "Do you know what I was thinking? I was thinking that now
there ought to be another Maria."
Luisa, who was sitting beside him, sprang up shuddering, and went to the
little window opposite, standing with her back to Uncle Piero, who did
not understand in the least, and, concluding she was embarrassed, went
to sleep in his corner. The steamer touched at Intra. Now there was only
Pallanza before Isola. They were skirting the coast; through the little
oval window Luisa could see the banks, the houses, the trees slipping
by. How fast the boat was gliding, how fast!
Pallanza. The steamer stopped five minutes.
Luisa went on deck and inquired when they would reach Isola Bella. They
would not stop either at Suna or Baveno, so it was a question of only a
few minutes now. And when would the steamer from Arona arrive? The
steamer from Arona appeared to be late. She went below once more to
awaken Uncle Piero, who presently came on deck with her. The last part
of the journey was accomplished in silence. The uncle watched Pallanza,
which they were leaving behind, while Luisa had fixed her gaze on Isola
Bella, which they were rapidly approaching, and she saw nothing else.
The boat reached the landing-stage at Isola Bella at forty minutes past
three. There was no sign of the steamer from Arona. A porter told Luisa
that it was always late now because the train from Novara was never on
time, owing to the movement of troops. No one else went ashore at Isola,
no one was on the beach save the attendant at the landing-stage. When
the boat had left, he himself conducted the two travellers to the
_Albergo del Delfino_. He said it was a mere chance their finding the
hotel open at this season. A large family were spending the winter
there. They were English people. Indeed, it seemed the Island of
Silence. The lake lay about it, motionless and silent, the shore was
deserted, no living being was to be seen in the porches of the poor
little houses clustered together about the bay, between one of the round
bastions of the gardens and the hotel. The English people had gone out
in a boat; the hotel was as silent as the shore and the water. The new
arrivals were given two large rooms on the second floor, both of which
faced south, and overlooked the melancholy strait between the island and
the wooded strip of coast that runs from Stressa to Baveno. The first
room was on the western corner of the house, and its window looked out
on the little church of S. Vittore, which rises beside the hotel, and
upon the small Isola dei Pescatori in the distance. Uncle Piero planted
himself at the window contemplating the little island, the little pile
of houses rising out of the mirror of the lake and culminating in a
campanile; the great mountains of Val di Toce and Val di Gravellone,
half hidden in a thin mist through which the sun was shining. Luisa,
seeing that the room contained two beds, hastened to the other room,
where an alcove also held two beds. "There," said Uncle Piero, coming
in, a moment later, "this will do nicely for you two." Luisa asked the
proprietor, in an undertone, if they could not have three rooms instead
of two. No, it was impossible. "But this is all right," Uncle Piero
repeated. "This is a perfect arrangement. You take this room, and I will
have the other." Luisa was silent, and the proprietor withdrew. "Don't
you see you have an alcove, just as at home?" It never struck the simple
old man that the very sight of that alcove was a torment to Luisa. She
told him she preferred the other room, which was lighter and more
cheerful. "Amen!" said the uncle. "Do as you like. I am quite willing to
be alcoved."
This corner of the hotel soon lapsed into silence once more. Luisa
posted herself at the window. The boat from Arona must be very near now;
the man who had accompanied them to the hotel was walking slowly towards
the landing-stage, and in a few minutes she heard the noise of the
paddles in the distance. Uncle Piero told Luisa he was tired, and
remained in his room.
She went down towards the landing-stage and stopped behind a small house
that hid the boat from view, but she could hear it distinctly. Suddenly
the prow of the _San Gottardo_ glided slowly in front of her and
stopped. Luisa recognised her husband in the midst of a noisy group.
Franco saw her, and springing ashore, ran towards her, while she came
forward a few steps to meet him. They embraced, he speechless and blind
with emotion, laughing and crying, full of gratitude, but uncertain as
to her state of mind, as to how he should regulate his conduct; she more
composed, extremely pale, and serious. "God bless you! God bless you!"
he kept repeating, as they turned towards the hotel. Then Franco
overwhelmed her with questions, first about her journey and the passing
of the frontier, and then about Uncle Piero. When he mentioned the
uncle, Luisa raised her head and said: "Look!" The old man was at the
window waving his handkerchief and calling out his welcome in a ringing
voice. "Oh!" cried Franco in amazement, and he ran forward.
Uncle Piero was waiting for him on the landing, his face wearing an
expression of satisfaction that seemed to spread all over his peaceful
breast. "How are you, my boy?" said he, taking both his hands and
shaking them heartily, but, nevertheless, holding him at a distance. He
did not want kisses, feeling that at such a moment they would mean
thanks; but he could not hold out against Franco's impetuosity. "Did you
fancy a lady of the house of Maironi could travel without a courier?"
said he, when he had extricated himself from the young man's arms.
"Moreover, I came to enlist in the _Bersaglieri_!" And the man who had
said he was tired started downstairs, saying he was going to order
dinner.
There was no sofa in their room. Franco drew Luisa to a seat on the bed,
and sat down beside her, encircling her shoulders with his arm. He could
not talk to her, could only keep on repeating: "I thank you! I thank
you!" as he lavished eager caresses, eager kisses, and tender names upon
her. Luisa did not respond in any way, but trembled violently with bowed
head. Presently he checked himself, and, taking her head in his hands
like some sacred thing, fell to touching with his lips the white hairs
he saw here and there. She knew he was searching out the white hairs,
understood those timid kisses, and was moved. She felt her heart of ice
melting, and, seized with terror, struggled to defend herself more
against her own emotions than against Franco. "You don't know," she
said, "how cold my heart is. I did not even want to come, did not want
to leave Maria or give you the pain of finding me in this state. But I
came on Uncle Piero's account. He was determined to set out alone, and
that I could not allow."
When she had pronounced these cruel words she felt Franco's lips
withdrawn from her hair, felt his arm forsake her shoulders. Both were
silent for a time, then Franco murmured with great gentleness:
"Only thirteen hours more. Then perhaps I shall never trouble you
again." At that moment Uncle Piero entered and announced that dinner was
ready. Luisa took her husband's hand and pressed it in silence; it was
not a lover-like pressure, but it told him she shared his emotion.
At dinner neither Franco nor Luisa could eat. But the uncle had a good
appetite, and talked a great deal. He did not approve of Franco's
enlisting. "What sort of a soldier do you expect to become?" said he.
"What will you do without your camphor, your sedative water, and all the
rest?"
Franco replied that he had cast aside all remedies, that he felt as if
he were of steel, and that he should become the most robust soldier of
the whole ninth regiment. "Maybe," the uncle grumbled, "maybe. And you,
Luisa, what do you say about it?" Luisa believed it would be as her
husband had said. "Then that is enough!" the uncle cried. "And so,
hurrah!" He had a great opinion of the strength of Austria, and did not
view matters in the same rosy light as did Franco. According to Franco
there was not the slightest doubt that the Italians would be victorious.
He had seen one of Niel's adjutants, who had come to Turin on a secret
mission, and had heard him say to some staff officers: "_Nous allons
supprimer l'Autriche!_" Of course they fully expected to leave at least
fifty thousand Italians and Frenchmen between the Ticino and the Isonzo.
"Excuse me, Signori," said the waiter who was serving them, "but did the
gentlemen speak of enlisting in the ninth regiment?"
"Yes."
"The Queen's Brigade! A splendid brigade! I served in the tenth. We
covered ourselves with glory in 1848, as you may remember. Goito, Santo
Lucia, Governolo, and Volta. Now it will be your turn."
"We will do our best."
Luisa shuddered slightly. The English people, who were dining at a table
near them, heard this dialogue and looked at Franco. For some minutes no
one in the room spoke; there passed before them the vision of a column
of infantry charging with fixed bayonets, amidst a shower of grapeshot.
After dinner the uncle remained at the hotel for his usual nap, and
Franco went out with Luisa. They turned to the right towards the Palace.
It was rather dark and a few infrequent drops of rain were falling. The
steps leading from the shore to the courtyard of the villa were
slippery, and Franco offered his arm to his wife, who took it in
silence. They stopped between the deserted courtyard and the stairs that
lead to the landing-stage, to count the hours which the clock on the
Palace was ringing out. Six o'clock. Two hours had passed, and there now
remained only eleven before the separation, before the unknown! They
walked on slowly and silently, following the straight path between the
lake and the side of the Palace, as far as the corner which commands a
view of the Isola dei Pescatori, where some lights were already visible.
Two women came towards them, chattering, and walking arm in arm. Franco
allowed them to pass, and then asked his wife if she remembered the
Ranco.
Two years before their marriage they had made an excursion with a party
of friends to Drano and the Ranco, high pasture-lands of the Valsolda,
on the way to the Passo Stretto. They had had a lively dispute, and had
sulked and suffered for an hour. "Yes," Luisa replied, "I remember." At
the same moment both realised how different was the present hour, and
how painful it was to have to admit the difference. They did not speak
again until they reached the corner. Bells rang out on the Isola dei
Pescatori. Franco dropped his wife's arm, and leaned upon the parapet.
The misty lake was silent; nothing was to be seen save the lights on the
other island. The lake, the mist, those lights, those bells, which might
have belonged to a ship lost at sea, the silence of all things, even the
infrequent, tiny rain-drops, everything was so sad!
"And do you remember afterwards?" Franco murmured, without turning his
head. Luisa was also leaning against the parapet. She was silent for a
moment, and then answered in an undertone:
"Yes, dear."
And in her "dear," there was a slight and hidden beginning of warmth, of
affectionate emotion. Franco felt it, and thrilled with joy, but
controlled himself.
"I am thinking," he went on, "of the letter I wrote you as soon as I got
home, and of the three words you said to me next day, at Muzzaglio, when
the others were dancing under the chestnut-trees, and you passed close
to me on your way to get your shawl, which you had left on the grass. Do
you remember?"
"Yes."
He took her hand and raised it to his lips.
"And do you also remember that I slipped before we reached the bridge,
and that you said: 'My dear sir, it is your place to support me!'"
Luisa did not answer, but pressed his hands.
"I have been good for nothing," he added sadly. "I have not known how to
support you."
"You have done all you could."
Luisa's voice, as she spoke these words, was indeed faint, but very
different from when she had said: "My heart is so cold."
Once more her husband drew her arm through his, and they returned to the
landing-stage. The dear arm was less passive than before, and betrayed
agitation and a struggle. Franco stopped, and said softly:
"And if I am called to join Maria? What shall I say to her from you?"
She began to tremble, and resting her head on his shoulder, whispered:
"No, stay here!" Franco did not hear the words, and repeated: "What?"
There was no answer, and very slowly he bent his head towards her, saw
her lips seeking his, and pressed his own upon them. His heart was
beating fast, faster than when he had kissed Luisa for the first time as
her lover. He raised his head, but could not speak. At last he succeeded
in saying these words: "I will tell her you have promised----" "No,"
murmured Luisa, in great distress. "I cannot do that. You must not ask
it of me! It is no longer possible!"
"What is not possible?"
"Oh, you understand quite well! I also understood what you meant!"
She started forward as if to flee from the subject, but still clinging
to Franco's arm, and he held her back.
"Luisa," said he gravely, almost severely, "will you let me go away like
this? Do you realise what it means to me to go away like this?"
Then she slowly withdrew her arm from his, and turned towards the
parapet on the right, leaning upon it, and gazing into the water as she
had done that night at Oria. Franco stood quietly beside her; waited a
few moments, and then begged her to answer his question.
"It would be better for me to end it all in the lake," she said
bitterly. Her husband passed his arm round her waist, pulled her away
from the parapet, and then letting her go, threw up his arm with a
gesture of protest. "You!" said he indignantly. "You talk thus? You who
used to prate of looking upon life as a battle? And is this the way you
fight? Once I believed you were the stronger of us two. Now I know it is
I who am the stronger. Much the stronger! Can you not even imagine what
I have suffered during all these years? Can you not----" For a moment
his voice failed him, but he quickly controlled himself and went on.
"Can you not even understand what you are to me, and what I would give
to be able to spare you the slightest pain? While you, it would seem, do
not care how cruelly you rend my soul!" She flung herself into his arms.
In the silence that ensued, broken only by her spasmodic and suppressed
sobbing, Franco heard steps approaching, and with difficulty freed
himself from her embrace and induced her to turn with him towards the
hotel. "You naughty girl!" he whispered. "And it is you who don't want
me to be glad to die, when I can die so gloriously for my country!"
Luisa pressed his arm without speaking. They met two young lovers, who
looked curiously at them in passing. The girl smiled. When they reached
the short flight of steps that leads down to the little square in front
of S. Vittore, they heard voices of women and girls. Luisa paused a
moment on the first step, and said softly the three words she had spoken
at Muzzaglio.
"I love you!"
Franco did not answer, but pressed her arm. Very slowly they went down
the stairs, and entered the Albergo del Delfino.
* * * * *
Some young men who were drinking, smoking, and laughing, rose as Franco
and Luisa entered, and came towards them. "Signora," said the first to
present himself to Luisa, "your husband has probably announced to you
the visit of the Seven Wise Men." A great hubbub immediately ensued,
because Franco had forgotten to tell Luisa that his friends had
accompanied him from Turin, but, not wishing to intrude, had gone on to
Pallanza promising to come and pay their respects to the Signora in the
evening. They had come over from Pallanza in a row-boat, and had
intended returning immediately, but Franco ordered a couple of bottles
of wine and, soon, in spite of Luisa's presence, their hilarity became
such that the proprietor begged them, for love of his English family, to
make less noise.
After arranging with Franco to meet him in the morning on board the
first steamer, the Wise Men took themselves off. Franco accompanied
them to the boat and Luisa went to look after Uncle Piero. He had left
word for them with the proprietor that, feeling very sleepy, he had gone
to bed. In fact Luisa could hear him snoring noisily. She put the candle
down, and waited for Franco.
He came up almost immediately, and was surprised to hear that the uncle
was already asleep. He had wished to say good-bye to him before going to
bed, as his boat was leaving so early in the morning--at half-past five.
The door between the two rooms was closed, but nevertheless Luisa begged
her husband to step and speak softly. She told him what Cia had confided
to her. The uncle needed rest. She hoped he would remain in bed until
nine or ten o'clock, and she intended to start at one, and spend the
night at Magadino, in order not to tire him too much. She laid great
stress upon her apprehensions concerning Uncle Piero's health, and
talked incessantly, nervously, anxious to avoid other topics, seeking
thus to escape too tender caresses. At the same time she was continually
moving about the room, repeatedly taking up and putting down the same
objects, and this partly from nervousness, partly with the intention
that her husband should go to bed before her. He, for his part, was
intent upon a side-bag, which he was finding difficulty in opening. At
last he succeeded, and, calling his wife to him, gave her a roll
containing fifty twenty-franc pieces. "I know," said he, "that I shall
not be able to send you anything for some months. This money is not
mine, I have borrowed it." Then he drew a sealed letter from his pocket.
"And this," he added, "is my will. I have little to leave, but of course
I must dispose of that little. I have made only one legacy. My father's
scarf-pin, which you have, is to go to Uncle Piero. I have also set down
the name of the person who loaned me the thousand francs. Besides the
will the letter contains a few words for you alone. That is all." He
spoke with grave sweetness, and without agitation. Her hands trembled as
she took the letter. "Thank you," she said, and began to unbraid her
hair, but she immediately twisted it up again, hardly conscious of what
she was doing, in her struggle with the phantom of the dead child, and
with another vision of war and death. She said brokenly that, as she
must be up so early to accompany Franco to the boat, she thought she
would lie down with her clothes on, and not loosen her hair. Franco made
no comment, but having said a short prayer, began to undress. From his
neck he unclasped a little chain from which hung a small gold cross.
This had belonged to his mother. "I wish you to keep this," said he,
offering it to Luisa. "It will be safer. It might, perhaps, fall into
the hands of the Croatians." She was horrified, she shuddered, hesitated
a moment, then threw her arms about his neck, and pressed him to her in
a passionate embrace.
* * * * *
The waiter knocked at their door at about half-past four. At five Franco
took the candle and went into Uncle Piero's room. He was already awake.
Franco said good-bye to him, and then proposed to Luisa that they also
take leave of each other in the privacy of their own room. In her face
and voice there was an expression of grave and painful stupor. She
displayed no agitation, and did not weep, but embraced and kissed her
husband as one in a dream, and, still in a dazed state, followed him
downstairs. Did a flash from the thought that was filling her soul pass
into his? If so, it happened in the little hotel parlour, while he was
taking his coffee, his wife seated opposite him. He seemed suddenly to
discover something in that glance, in that expression, for he paused to
study her, cup in hand, while ineffable tenderness, anxiety and emotion
overspread his face. She evidently had no wish to speak, but he longed
to do so. A hidden word quivered in all the muscles of his face, and
shone in his eyes, but his mouth did not venture to utter it.
Hand in hand they went down to the landing-stage, and leaned against the
wall where Luisa had leaned the day before. When they heard the noise of
the paddles, they embraced for the last time and said good-bye without
tears, troubled rather by the hidden thought harboured by both than
afflicted by the separation. The steamer came in noisily, the ropes were
flung ashore and made fast. A bell rang. One kiss more! "God bless you!"
said Franco, and hurried on board.
She lingered as long as she could hear the noise of the paddles, as the
steamer glided towards Stressa. Then she returned to the hotel, sank
upon the bed, and sat there as one turned to stone, engrossed in the
idea, in the instinctive certainty, that maternity awaited her a second
time.
Although this was precisely what she had so greatly feared it cannot be
said that now she was grieved. All other sentiments were subdued by the
wonder of listening to a strong, inward voice, that was so clear and
still so inexplicable. She was dazed. Since Maria's death she had firmly
believed that the Book of Destiny could contain nothing new for her,
that certain secret fibres of her heart were dead. And now a mysterious
voice was speaking within that heart, saying: Know that one page in the
book of your destiny is finished, and the leaf has been turned. For you
there is still a future of intense living. The drama that you believed
had come to an end at the second act, is to continue, and if I Myself
announce it to you, it must indeed prove wonderful!
For three hours, until Uncle Piero called her, she sat there, absorbed
in this voice.
The uncle rose at half-past nine; he was feeling very well. The weather
was still damp, almost rainy, but he would not hear of remaining in the
house until it was time to start for Magadino, as Luisa wished him to
do. He knew, for he had inquired of the proprietor, that the gardens
could be visited after nine o'clock, so at ten he drank his milk and
then started out to visit them with Luisa. When they passed S. Vittore
he wished to go in and see the paintings. Mass was being sung, and at
that moment the officiating priest turned towards them and said
_Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus_. Uncle Piero crossed himself devoutly,
and lingered to hear the last gospel. He did not attempt to examine the
paintings, for there was little light in the church, but said with his
accustomed cheerfulness: "Now that I have received that blessing I feel
quite happy!"
It was not possible to hurry in his company. He stopped at every step,
examining everything that seemed artistic, everything that was in a
position to be examined. He studied the front of the church, the triple
stairway of the landing-stage of Villa Borromeo, all three sides of the
courtyard, and the great palm in the centre, which he was much
scandalised to learn Luisa had not even noticed when she had passed it
the night before with Franco. When the custodian ushered them into the
palace, it took the uncle at least ten minutes to climb and admire the
great stairway. As they reached the top a ray of sun glinted forth, and
the custodian proposed that they should take advantage of this and visit
the gardens. He turned to the left and led the visitors through a suite
of empty rooms to the iron gate, where he rang the bell. A gardener
appeared, a civil lad, to whom Uncle Piero took a great fancy, for he
explained everything willingly, and the uncle's questions were not few.
The camphor-tree near the entrance cost him five minutes. Luisa was
distressed, for she feared the uncle would tire himself too much, and
she herself was weary of looking at so many trees, of hearing so many
names, both Latin and Italian, and of having to watch the uncle, while
her thoughts called for silence and solitude. The gardener proposed
going up to the Castello di Nettuno. Uncle Piero would have liked to
inspect more closely the unicorn of the Borromei, which stood rampant up
there, but there were many stairs to climb, the air was heavy, and he
hesitated. Luisa took advantage of that moment of hesitation to ask the
gardener where she might find a seat. "Just below here," said he. "On
the left, where the _Strobus_ are." Uncle Piero finally consented to go
down and visit the clump of _Strobus_.
He was tired, but he continued to look at everything, to ask questions
about everything. As they walked towards the _Strobus_ they heard in the
distance, over towards Isola Madre, the rolling of the drums of the
National Guard of Pallanza, which was drilling on the shore. "Now it is
all play," said the young man. "Not exactly play, but.... Next month we
shall go to work in earnest. We have a lesson to give to a huge beast.
There it is, over there, the monster!" The monster was the Austrian war
steamer _Radetzky_, called by the inhabitants of the Piedmontese shore,
_el Radescon_. "The ship is just entering the bay of Laveno," said the
young fellow, "coming from Luino. Come this way if you wish to see her
plainly."
Uncle Piero knew his eyes were not strong enough to see the steamer, so
he sat down on the first bench he found under the _Strobus_, which stood
just in front of a group of bamboos, and was flanked by two groups of
large azaleas. Behind the bamboos, between the great twisted trunks of
the _Strobus_, he could see the mirror of white water trembling as far
as the black line of the hills of Ispra. The sky, dark towards the
north, was clear in that quarter. Luisa and the gardener went to the
gate which bears the coat of arms, and which faces the green Isola
Madre, Pallanza, and the upper lake. Luisa looked out over the immense
expanse of leaden water, crowned by misty giants from the Sasso di Ferro
group above Laveno to the mountains of Maccagno, and to the distant
snows of the Splugen. The smoke of the _Radetzky_ was more plainly
visible than its body, and the drums of Pallanza were still rolling.
Uncle Piero called the gardener and Luisa went to lean against the
parapet beside the gate, and near the yew-tree that rises from the
terrace below. The tree shut out the view on the east. She was glad to
be alone at last, to rest her eyes and her thoughts on the grey of the
great mountains and of the great waters. Presently the gardener came
back to point out to her the yellow acacias and the white heather that
were blossoming on the lower terrace. "The _bruyeres blanches_ bring
luck," said he. Seeing that Luisa was lost in thought, and did not heed
him, he started towards the hot-house containing the begonias. "An old
_Strobus_," said he, speaking in a loud voice that the visitors might
hear him, but without looking around, "An old _Strobus_ that has been
struck by lightning. If you wish to visit the private gardens----"
Luisa turned from the parapet and went to fetch the uncle, and give him
her arm if necessary. The gardener, who was waiting at the entrance of
the little grove of laurels, saw her start towards the old gentleman,
who was still sitting on the bench, saw her quicken her pace and then
rush to his side with a cry.
Like the innocent and aged tree Uncle Piero also had been struck down.
His body was resting against the back of the bench, his head had fallen
forward, and his chin touched his breast. His eyes were open, fixed and
expressionless. It had indeed been a farewell spectacle his beloved
Valsolda had offered him the day before. Uncle Piero, the dear,
venerable, old man, wise, upright, and fatherly, the benefactor of his
own people, Uncle Piero was gone, gone forever. He had come to enlist,
but God had called him to a higher service; the bugle had sounded, and
he had answered the call. The drums of Pallanza still rolled, rolled for
the end of the old world, and rolled for the advent of the new. In
Luisa's womb there lay a vital germ which was preparing to fight the
battles of a new era, preparing to taste other joys, other griefs than
those which the man of the old world was leaving thus peacefully,
blessed unconsciously, at the last moment, by that strange priest of
Isola Bella, who had, perhaps, never uttered the holy words to one more
worthy.
_A Selection from the
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G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
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"Signor Fogazzaro is at the present moment undoubtedly the greatest of
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The Trilogy of Rome
BY
ANTONIO FOGAZZARO
The Patriot
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"_A Remarkable Book_"
SAN CELESTINO
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swiftly and dramatically--the poor simple old man dragged weeping from
his hermit's cave and borne to the triumph from which he shrank in
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renunciation, and his last days passed quite happily as a captive in a
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ever been printed.
"A literary masterpiece."--_The Observer._
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THE SILVER BOX--JOY--STRIFE
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DROMINA By John Ayscough
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MAROTZ By John Ayscough
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The
Trilogy of Rome
By
ANTONIO FOGAZZARO
"_The Greatest of Italian Novelists_"
(Authorized American Editions)
1. The Patriot
(Piccolo Mondo Antico)
2. The Sinner
(Piccolo Mondo Moderno)
3. The Saint
(Il Santo)
The first of these romances is an impassioned
story of lovers struggling to break the barriers
of aristocratic prejudice that oppose their marriage.
It is also a story of patriotism--of the freeing of
Italy from the Austrian yoke.
In _The Sinner_, the second book of this Trilogy,
we read the dramatic story of Piero Maironi, the
son of the hero of _The Patriot_, and of his love for
the beautiful Jeanne Dessalle,--a story that presents
a vivid picture of the Italian world of rank
and fashion, and involves, too, a study of political
and ecclesiastical life.
In _The Saint_, the concluding novel in the series,
the hero of _The Sinner_ and the lover of Jeanne
Dessalle appears as a penitent full of religious
zeal that finds a double outlet--in asceticism
and works of mercy and in an attempt to reform
the Church of Rome from within.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
New York London
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
The table of contents corresponds to a different edition.
The footnotes have been moved to the end of the respective chapters.
Obvious punctuation errors have been corrected.
Archaic and inconsistent hyphenation was retained as printed.
Page 3 "once" replaces "one" (the voice groaned one more)
Page 40 "plena" replaces "piena" (Ave Maria, gratia piena)
Page 444 removed repeated word "the the" (Meanwhile Pedraglio
explored the the kitchen...)
Page 445 "he" replaces "be" (Then be began rapidly collecting ...)