The strike was an obstinate one, and lasted longer than had been
expected. This story is not concerned with the theories or the
practices of the so-called Chamber of Labour in Italy. It is
enough to say that the organisation has neither the importance nor
the intelligence of similar bodies in other great countries, and
that instead of tending to the scientific socialism of Bebel, its
leaders, or its tyrants, are distinctly of the anarchist class, and
all they know about the French Revolution is that it had a Reign
of Terror which they hanker to restore. There are true socialists
in Italy, as there are many true republicans, but they must not be
classed with the raving rowdies who force honest workmen to leave
their work and who howl and throw stones in the streets. Beyond
this, nothing need be said about the general strike during which
the Countess of Montalto was haunted by a tormenting presentiment
that something dreadful was going to happen to her son.
The facts, so far as they affected her, were simple enough. During
some days the instigators of disturbance appeared at more or less
regular hours, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Piazza di
Venezia, where they made wild and foolish speeches that stirred
up a row which occasionally led to the throwing of a few stones.
The city police and the foot carabineers then appeared to disperse
the crowd, and generally succeeded in doing so without trouble
when it was ready for its supper, or tired of its amusement, or
had any sufficient reason for going home. There was not much more
spirit in the whole thing than there used to be in the last days
of town-and-gown rows in Oxford and Cambridge. But such as the
disturbances were, they had become a great nuisance, and the strike
itself was extremely irritating to all the better classes, to whom
it was a source of great inconvenience.
The city authorities asked Headquarters for troops, Headquarters
asked the War Office, the War Office asked the Ministry, and the
Ministry, being rather shaky just then, did nothing in particular.
Nevertheless, the orders usual at such times were quietly issued,
the troops in garrison were in readiness if needed, and no more
leave was granted to officers or men.
Meanwhile the Romans grew tired of the whole senseless affair, by
which everybody was losing money and nobody was gaining anything,
and the more respectable citizens felt that it was time that law
and order should be restored. The simplest plan, since no troops
were forthcoming, seemed to be to help the police in arresting
rioters who objected to being handcuffed; for the policemen
did their best, and on the whole did well, with a good deal of
forbearance, but the result was not always satisfactory, and many
of the force were more or less badly hurt; very few were hit by
bullets, for a revolver is one of the safest playthings in the
world except when everybody is quite sure that it is not loaded,
and then it usually kills some one on the spot; but a good many
men were badly wounded by stones, some were severely beaten, and
several were stabbed.
On the day when Giuliana dined with her friend it had happened
that two policemen were trying to secure a big rioter who defended
himself vigorously with a stout blackthorn stick, and they were
getting the worst of it. The hour was just after twelve o’clock,
when a number of Government clerks had left a neighbouring public
office together, to get their mid-day meal at an eating-house; and
they stopped in a body and watched the fight.
One of the policemen received a blow that almost broke his arm, but
the other almost immediately caught the striker’s heavy stick and
tried to wrench it away; and still the knot of Government clerks
watched the struggle. In sheer exasperation the man who had been
hurt spoke to the bystanders.
‘You might help us, instead of standing there looking on!’ he cried.
The little body of respectable men, who had supposed that they had
no right to interfere, did not need any further invitation. They
sprang forward, threw the man down, and proceeded to administer a
sound thrashing with their sticks, after which they held him while
the astonished and delighted policeman slipped on the handcuffs.
Not feeling that their duty ended there, the clerks followed
quietly in a body till they saw the prisoner passed into the
nearest police station; after which they went to lunch.
The matter did not end there. The news of what they had done spread
from mouth to mouth in a few hours, and their example was followed
by other citizens. The policemen went about in pairs, and before
night each couple of them was under the protection of a dozen or
fifteen sober, respectable citizens, who walked behind at some
distance, chatting and smoking, but armed with serviceable sticks.
The police scored no more failures in effecting arrests during
the afternoon, and there was no crowd in the Piazza di Venezia at
sunset.
But the matter did not end there either. If the citizens protected
the police, the Chamber of Labour, as it calls itself, would
protect the rowdies. They needed it too, for on the next morning
the citizens went about in considerable force, and when they came
upon a suspicious-looking individual they asked him civilly if he
were a striker. If he answered in the affirmative they gave him a
good drubbing and left him to his meditations. In most cases the
man denied the imputation indignantly and made off at a round pace.
The decent working men stayed at home, as they had done from the
beginning, and mourned the hour when they had joined the Chamber of
Labour.
The rowdies showed fight, in accordance with the resolutions
passed on the previous evening, and began to parade the streets
in bands, many of them carrying revolvers in their pockets, and a
good many armed with the much more dangerous knife, which Alphonse
Karr used to call the ‘weapon of precision.’ The citizens had
only their sticks, but they made good use of them. They meant
to represent law and order, and knives and pistols are forbidden
weapons. Excepting the places where the two parties were actually
in collision, the city was silent. The shops opening directly on
the pavement were shut; the cabmen, who belonged to the Chamber of
Labour, were also on strike, but most of them, as it afterwards
turned out, were having a quiet holiday in the country. The trams
were not running, for drivers and conductors belonged to the
organisation, and the Municipality or the Government was afraid
to man the cars with soldiers. A few private carriages were
to be seen, but the occupants as well as the coachmen were in
considerable danger.
Nevertheless, a good many people walked about as if nothing were
happening. It was not a revolution; the Government offices and
schools were open, the strikers had no reason for interfering with
the postal telegraph offices, and the railway-men could no longer
strike because a recent law had decreed that they were not working
men but Government servants. The trains therefore ran regularly;
almost all the banks were open and were protected by policemen in
plain clothes; the Pincio and the Villa Borghese were almost as
full of nurses and children as usual on a fine winter’s day, and
officers and civilians exercised their horses on the small course
and in the meadow within the ring. Altogether, the state of things
would have looked rather contradictory anywhere but in Rome, where
it seems as if nothing can ever happen in the ordinary way. If
any truthful and industrious person like Villani, or Sanudo of
Venice, is quietly keeping a chronicle of daily events in Rome at
the present day, and if his manuscript comes to light fifty years
hence, he will not be believed. It is true that all industrious
persons are not truthful, but since Aristotle admits that even a
woman or a slave may possibly be good, some good-natured people
will perhaps allow that a novelist may sometimes write the truth.
Maria had passed a wretched night. After the two guests had gone
Montalto had come to her room and had poured out all his remorse
for his mad conduct, entreating her over and over again to forgive
him, not breaking down in tears, but overwhelming her with every
assurance and proof of his almost insane love. It was late when he
left her at last, but she could not sleep then. Every nerve in her
body was quivering from the effort of self-control, her teeth were
on edge, and when she closed her weary eyes she saw wheels of fire.
She had gone to the chapel in her nightdress to say her prayers,
heedless of the cold air and the icy marble pavement, and she had
knelt there more than half an hour, trying to recover herself; not
that she could think much of the words her lips silently formed,
but because the solemn stillness helped her, and the restful
certainty that nothing of what she had left behind could touch her
there.
She went back to her room, and after three o’clock she fell asleep
from utter exhaustion, because she was really a very sound and
normal woman, and the human machine had run down, like a clock. Men
have slept in battle.
Yet her natural elasticity was so great that in the morning, when
she glanced at her face in the looking-glass, she saw that it
hardly looked tired. There was only a slightly deeper shadow under
her eyes to show that she had not slept enough, and that would soon
go away, and she would be quite herself again.
She had not dreamt that anything had happened to Leone, for she had
been too worn out to dream at all, and she was a little ashamed
of her presentiments and fears. The weather never affected her
very much, but the sun was streaming into her room with the crisp
morning air, and she had opened both windows wide to let out the
stale odour of a cigarette her husband had smoked before he left
her. The smell of his Havana cigarettes had always been intensely
disagreeable to her, though she would not let him guess it, and
this morning it seemed positively nauseous. There was the nasty
little end of one of them, with some ashes, in a little silver
dish which she emptied into the fireplace; then she blew into it,
and poured some lavender water into it, and dried it out with a
handkerchief before she rang for her maid.
That was instinctive. She always did it when he had smoked in her
room at night, and she was unconscious that it meant anything more
than she had intended it to mean when she had done it for the first
time, many months ago, on the morning after his return to Rome. But
somehow the process had become symbolical, though she did not know
that it had; it signified getting rid of the recollection of his
presence.
She asked her maid if Leone had gone to school yet, and was told
that he and his tutor had left the house at the usual hour. The
maid had heard the tutor ask a footman whether the Count was awake,
and on learning that he had not rung for his valet, the tutor
inquired whether any orders had been left about taking Leone to
school. The Count had left none, the footman said, and went on with
his work.
Maria asked if the maid had heard any noises in the street or the
square, or anything like rioting. The maid smiled. At that hour in
the morning! How could her mistress think of such a thing?
As if, because Rome is an old-fashioned city, street-fights could
only take place decently, and at regular hours! But Maria felt
reassured by the woman’s tone, and remembered how confidently her
friend had spoken in the evening. One of her reasons for liking
Giuliana so much was that she was so solidly sensible, and so
sensibly good. Teresa Crescenzi had once said before a gay party
in the old days that it was of no use to have Giuliana’s face and
figure if you were going to be a monster of virtue, and when Maria
had made a half-laughing retort Teresa had said that Maria did
not look upon Giuliana as a necessity, nor as a luxury, but as a
comfort; which was to some extent true; and Teresa had gone on to
say it was a pure waste of good material that anybody who was so
impeccably virtuous as the Marchesa should know how to dress so
well; and every one had laughed.
Maria had her tiny breakfast in her boudoir, tea and a slice of
toast with an infinitesimal layer of butter, after the way of most
southern people, and she felt better able to face the day than had
seemed possible when she had fallen asleep after three o’clock. She
had brought with her from Via San Martino the little service she
had used during so many years, and the sight of it in the morning
always revived the momentary illusion of freedom. Memory loves to
play with toys--perhaps because it knows how to use the knife so
well.
The small meal occupied her longer than usual; she filled her cup
a second time and took another little bit of toast. The hour had
come when she usually went to say good morning to her husband in
his study, but she had risen late, according to her own ideas,
and the time had come too soon. But if she did not go to him, he
would presently come to her to ask in a petulantly affectionate way
whether she had forgotten him. To-day he would perhaps think that
she had not quite forgiven him for yesterday’s scene, and there
would be another. The thought chilled her, and she touched the
button of the bell--a pretty button Giuliana had given her, made of
a cat’s-eye set in a small block of Chinese jade that lay on the
corner of the table. The maid came to take away the things.
‘Is the Count in his study?’ inquired Maria. ‘Please ask.’
But the maid knew that he had not rung for his man, and was
probably still asleep; for a person who had applied for the vacant
place of steward was waiting in the ante-chamber, though he had
come at ten o’clock, by appointment, to be interviewed by the
Count. In fact, the valet had suggested to the maid that she
might ask her mistress whether it would not be better to wake his
Excellency, as it was so late, and he did not like to oversleep
himself.
‘Not yet,’ answered the Countess. ‘Let him sleep half an hour
longer.’
But she was surprised to learn how late it was, and glanced at
her old travelling clock; Montalto now and then stayed in bed
till nearly eleven, however, and she was glad to be alone some
time longer. As he had given an appointment to a man of business,
whom he would certainly see as soon as he was ready, it was quite
possible that she might be left to herself till luncheon time.
There were a number of little things she wished to do, and she
began to occupy herself with them. Though it was the fourteenth of
January she had not yet changed the calendar cards for the year in
the shabby little silver stand she had used so long. The new ones
needed clipping, in order to fit the old-fashioned frame that had
been made for a sort no longer to be had. The note-paper in the
upright case on the writing-table was almost finished too, and she
replenished it from a closet in her dressing-room. She was used
to doing all such things for herself, and kept her own stock of
writing materials in neat order.
These and other small matters occupied her for some time. She
was fitting a new piece of pencil into her sliding pencil-case
when loud shouts from the square made her turn her head towards
the window. Then two pistol shots followed, and there was a
moment’s silence. She dropped the pencil and ran to the window,
and as she reached it the savage shouting rang again through the
square. She saw fifty or sixty men fighting each other, their
sticks flourishing, their hats flying in all directions, their
arms and legs struggling confusedly. Instantly she thought of
Leone. Giuliana had said there were never any disturbances till
late in the afternoon, and her maid had smiled at the mere idea
that anything of the kind could happen before noon; yet there was
fighting going on already, under her window. She strained her
eyes to find her boy and his tall tutor in the crowd, and opened
the window to see more clearly. They were not in sight--of course
not! Leone was at school, and the tutor was at the public library,
where he spent his mornings in study. But they must come home for
luncheon, all the way from the Istituto Massimo, near the station,
down to the heart of Rome; and they might be caught in a fight
anywhere. She was certain that the tutor was a coward.
Something must be done at once to get the boy home in safety. She
would telephone to the school that he was to wait there, and she
would go for him herself. She was quite sure she could protect
him much better than any man could. Who would attack a lady in
her carriage? Leone should sit at her feet in the bottom of the
brougham, in case a stone should break one of the windows. She
could trust old Telemaco, her own coachman, for she had seen him
in trouble with vicious horses, and he was cool and resolute; a
man who is not afraid of a horse is generally fairly courageous in
other ways.
She would tell her husband what she was going to do. No--he was
still asleep. Yet it might be better to wake him--it was so late.
Probably he would insist on fetching Leone himself, but she would
go with him; perhaps he would be angry if she went alone. The first
thing was to telephone.
The instrument was in the broad passage upon which the doors of
Montalto’s bedroom and dressing-room opened. They were double
doors, practically soundproof, and it was not likely that her
voice at the telephone should wake him. She rang, and asked for
the Istituto Massimo, and after waiting some time she was in
communication with the porter of the school. He told her that it
was closed, owing to the disturbances.
Her heart stopped, and then beat quickly. With difficulty she
asked if Leone and his tutor had been seen. Yes, they had come at
the usual time, like many other boys whose parents had not seen
the notice in the papers. The notice had been inserted in all the
principal evening ones yesterday. The ‘little Count,’ as the porter
called the boy, had gone away again with the tutor. That was at
half-past eight. There had been very little disturbance in that
quarter of the city as yet. The porter could tell her nothing more.
Half-past eight, and it was now nearly eleven! Maria felt dizzy,
and held her hand upon the telephone after she had rung off the
communication. Her husband’s bedroom door was just opposite her,
and she knew that she must call him now. He would not forgive her
if she did not, and he would be right.
She tapped upon the panel rather sharply. No answer. She knocked
much louder, but no sound came, though she felt a little pain in
her knuckles. The double door was well made. Rather timidly she
tried it, and found it locked. She had never entered Montalto’s
room since he had come back, and she wondered whether there were
any means of waking him, but his valet must know this, and there
was no time to be lost. The man always waited in a little room
further down the passage, where he cleaned his master’s things,
and where the bedroom bell rang. It was there that the maid always
found him when Maria wished her husband to receive any message
from her immediately on waking. She went forward a few steps, not
remembering which was the door, and she called the servant. He came
out directly, in evident surprise.
‘We must wake my husband,’ she said. ‘I must speak to him at once;
but I have knocked and tried the door, and he does not answer. Is
there any way of reaching him?’
The servant produced a key from his pocket.
‘His Excellency fastens the bedroom door inside, and I lock the
dressing-room. The door between the rooms is never locked.’
‘Go in and wake your master gently--he may be nervous and tired.
Tell him I wish to speak to him.’
The man obeyed, and Maria waited on the threshold of the
dressing-room. The smell of stale Havana cigarettes which she so
much detested had met her as the door opened. The sun was shining
in, for the valet had already opened the blinds, lighted the fire,
prepared the tub, and laid out the clothes. He pushed the bedroom
door on its hinges without noise and entered in the dark to open
the window. Maria waited, and her eyes fell upon a faded photograph
of herself, taken soon after she had been married. It stood in a
gilt frame on the dressing-table on one side of the mirror. On
the other was one of Montalto’s mother, in court dress, with her
coronet. The frame was black and there was a white cross upon the
lower edge.
While Maria was looking at these things she unconsciously listened
as the valet softly called his master, softly at first, then
louder--then a third time, with a kind of frightened cry. But there
was no answer, and Maria pressed her hand to her heart in sudden
terror. The man appeared at the door with white face and starting
eyes, but he could not speak, and an instant later Maria rushed
past him into the bedroom. The servant’s terrified cry, his livid
face, his speechless horror, all told her that her husband must be
dead.
She was at the bedside now, bending down and calling him, softly at
first, then louder, for he was breathing heavily; but he did not
hear, he did not even stir. Maria did not cry out, for she was not
frightened now; only she did not understand. The valet was beside
her, pale and scared.
‘He sleeps very heavily,’ she said, lowering her voice
instinctively, but without the least tremor. ‘Have you ever seen
him sleep like this?’
The servant looked at her strangely, and his words broke out, loud
and sudden.
‘Excellency--don’t you see? It is an apoplexy! I’ve seen it before.’
‘An apoplexy!’
She repeated the word slowly with a wondering horror, and drew back
from the bedside, gazing at the dark, unconscious, upturned face,
the dreadful, half-opened eyes, the knotted arteries and veins at
the temple that was towards her.
‘It came in his sleep,’ the servant said, in an awed tone.
‘Yes.’ Maria was recovering her senses. Telephone for the doctor at
once. Tell him what has happened. I will stay here.’
The man went out, still much more frightened than she was, for
there is nothing, not death itself, which the Italians of the lower
classes dread so much as apoplexy.
Maria smoothed the unconscious and paralysed man’s pillow, and
drew the bed-clothes up under his pointed grey beard, for the room
was cold. That was all she could do, and when she had done it she
stood upright, with folded hands, looking steadily at the dark and
congested face.
Little as she knew of such things, she had heard that apoplexy was
often brought on by violent fits of anger and other great emotions,
and the long habit of self-accusation made her ask her conscience
whether the terrible catastrophe had not come through her fault. In
some way it must be so, she was sure, with all that was to follow.
People often recovered, even from a bad stroke, far enough to drag
on a wretched existence for years, half paralysed, half speechless,
or altogether both, but fully conscious. She would take care of
him faithfully; better that than--she checked the mere thought. It
was worse to be freed thus, by the suffering he was to bear, than
to fear the sound of his step, to dread his touch, to feel her
flesh creep at his caress. It must be worse. She must make herself
understand that it was. What was all her expiation worth if she
was so inhumanly cruel as to think of her own bodily freedom now?
She had prayed for strength to bear, not for liberation from the
terrible bond of wifehood. Was this God’s answer? Never! This was
fate, sudden, awful, leaping into her life to make her think evil
against her will, to cut short the punishment she should have borne
patiently for many years to come. She had not suffered enough yet,
not half enough!
With some confused thought of imposing a duty on herself, she bent
down and kissed her husband’s forehead. At the same moment the
servant came back, and when she stood up again he was beside her.
The doctor would come at once, he said, but he would have to walk,
as no carriage was safe in the streets.
For a few moments she had forgotten Leone, out in the city,
somewhere, with his tutor, and at the thought, with her eyes fixed
on her husband’s senseless form, she felt that she might go mad.
Could she leave him now, without a doctor, without a nurse? Might
he not wake, suddenly conscious for an instant, to die calling for
her? She knew nothing definite about such things, but she vaguely
remembered hearing that dying people sometimes revived for a few
moments before the end.
Yet, if she did not leave him, who would find Leone? For she was
sure she could find her boy, and she only, somewhere in Rome, and
protect him and bring him home. Of all she had suffered in her
suffering life those moments were the worst. She spoke to the
servant in sheer desperation, to hear her own voice.
‘Can we do nothing till the doctor comes?’ she asked. ‘Do you know
of anything that ought to be done?’
But the man was at a loss. He spoke confusedly of leeches, ice, and
mustard plasters. Then he remembered that there was a chemist’s
shop at the corner of the square; there might be a doctor there,
or some one who knew what to do. When people were hurt or had a
sunstroke in the street they were always carried to the chemist’s,
unless there were a regular ambulance-station near.
Maria grasped at the idea and sent him instantly, and she was again
alone by the bedside. But she could not think now; since fear for
the child had taken possession of her, there was not room for
anything else. She stood motionless for more than five minutes, not
even noticing the sound of low voices at the outer door of the next
room; for the servant had told the footman in the hall what had
happened as he hurried out on his errand, and the whole household
had soon gathered in the passage.
Then Maria felt that some one was beside her, and she looked up
and saw a young man with a grave, fair face, who bent over the bed
without so much as speaking.
‘It is a severe stroke of apoplexy,’ he said, standing upright
again and looking at her. ‘You must send for ice at once.’
‘There is an ice-box in the house,’ said the valet, who had entered
the room with the young doctor, and he went away quickly to procure
what was needed.
‘Will he be conscious again?’ Maria asked in a low voice.
‘Perhaps, but probably not for two or three days.’
‘Can I be of any use? Do you need me here? We have telephoned for
our doctor.’
The young man looked at her in some surprise.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I will do what can be done, if you prefer to leave
the room.’
‘I am afraid my little boy is lost in the streets,’ Maria answered.
‘I am in great anxiety. I must go out and find him.’
The young man understood the look in her face now.
‘I will stay here till the doctor comes,’ he said in a different
tone. ‘Will you kindly send one of your servants to help me? It
will be better to move the patient. His head is much too low.’
‘I can help you to do that,’ Maria answered. ‘I would rather help
you myself. I am quite strong enough.’
Between them they raised the unconscious man, and propped him with
pillows and cushions till he was almost in a sitting posture.
‘That is all,’ said the doctor. ‘You can do nothing more. I will
see to the rest.’
She thanked him and went out quickly, and the servants made way
for her with sorrowful respect, for they all loved her.
‘Go in and help,’ she said to old Agostino, and passed on.
She hastened to her own room and put on a hat and a coat, the first
she could find, and she took money and went through the endless
rooms to the hall. It was deserted. Even the footman on duty was
with the rest. But she went straight to the door. Her feet moved
mechanically and swiftly, and she felt that she was guided by a
mysterious power which would lead her to her child without fail by
the shortest way.
She ran down the first flight of stairs to the wide landing, and as
she turned the corner of the great wall that divided the staircase
she almost fell against Leone’s tutor, who was running up, two
steps at a time.
‘Alone?’ she cried in utmost horror.
‘Leone is safe.’ He was almost breathless.
‘Safe? Where?’
She did not believe him, and she saw that his right arm was in a
sling made of coarse black cotton.
‘He is in the barracks of the Piedmont Lancers. I came as quickly
as I could, for I thought you and the Count might have heard----’
‘Yes, yes! But why there? What happened? Tell me quickly! Is he
hurt?’
‘Not a hair of his head.’
Maria breathed again, and leant against the wall, closing her eyes
for a moment. When she opened them again she looked at the sling
and saw the end of a splint and a bit of white bandage.
‘But you are hurt?’
‘My arm is broken. I stopped at an ambulance-station and got it
more or less set, because I could not run with it hanging down. The
pain was too great. It took some time, I’m sorry to say.’
Maria remembered that she had believed the tutor to be a coward.
‘I am very grateful to you,’ she said earnestly. ‘Only tell me
what I am to do about getting Leone home. How did he get to the
barracks? Are you in great pain?’
‘Oh, no,’ answered the tutor courageously, and he told his story in
few words.
On finding the school shut because riots were feared, he had
thought it dangerous to bring Leone home through the city on foot,
as they had come. The boy was now nine years old, and a good walker
for his age, and the tutor had thought that by following the walls
of the city from the station, round to the further side of the
Palatine, they would be sure to keep out of any disturbances that
might be going on. Leone had been delighted at the prospect, and
they had started at once and encountered no rioters till they came
to Porta Maggiore, when they suddenly found themselves caught
between an angry crowd of labouring men, many of whom live in
that quarter, and a band of citizens who came in sight just then,
armed with their sticks. The rioters charged upon the latter as
soon as they appeared. The tutor told Leone to run behind the
citizens for safety, while he himself stood his ground to cover
the boy’s retreat. Fortunately Leone obeyed, but the tutor soon
found himself in the thick of the most serious fight that took
place while the strike lasted. It was interrupted by the unexpected
arrival on the scene of half a troop of the Piedmont Lancers,
whose quarters were then in that region. The troopers charged upon
the rioters, and belaboured them with the flat of their sabres
till they took to flight. To the tutor’s surprise, the officer in
command recognised Leone, and seemed much concerned that he should
have been so near danger. He said he would take charge of him,
and keep him at the barracks all day, as the city was not safe
anywhere; he added that he knew the lad’s father and mother, and
he gave his own name. The tutor did not remember to have heard it
before except in history and hoped that he had done right.
‘Quite right,’ Maria answered. ‘I have known the Conte del
Castiglione a long time.’
She turned back and went up the stairs with the tutor and told him
of what had happened. Then she went to her husband’s bedside again,
calm and collected.