"Our affairs must be managed with the utmost caution imaginable, since
my thought would be to keep the baby out of Rome for the sake of
greater secrecy, if only we can find a good nurse who will take care
of him like a mother." To which Margaret replies:--"He is always so
charming, how can I ever, ever leave him! I wake in the night,--I look
at him. I think: Ah, it is impossible! He is so beautiful and good, I
could die for him!" Once more:--"In seeking rooms, do not pledge me to
remain in Rome, for it seems to me, often, I cannot stay long without
seeing the boy. He is so dear, and life seems so uncertain. It is
necessary that I should be in Rome a month, at least, to write, and
also to be near you. But I must be free to return here, if I feel too
anxious and suffering for him. O, love! how difficult is life! But
thou art good! If it were only possible to make thee happy!" And,
finally, "Signora speaks very highly of ----, the nurse of Angelo,
and says that her aunt is an excellent woman, and that the brothers
are all good. Her conduct pleases me well. This consoles me a little,
in the prospect of leaving my child, if that is necessary."
So, early in November, Ossoli came for her, and they returned
together. In December, however, Margaret passed a week more with her
darling, making two fatiguing and perilous journeys, as snows had
fallen on the mountains, and the streams were much swollen by the
rains. And then, from the combined motives of being near her husband,
watching and taking part in the impending struggle of liberalism,
earning support by her pen, preparing her book, and avoiding
suspicion, she remained for three months in Rome. "How many nights I
have passed," she writes, "entirely in contriving possible means, by
which, through resolution and effort on my part, that one sacrifice
could be avoided. But it was impossible. I could not take the nurse
from her family; I could not remove Angelo, without immense difficulty
and risk. It is singular, how everything has worked to give me more
and more sorrow. Could I but have remained in peace, cherishing the
messenger dove, I should have asked no more, but should have felt
overpaid for all the pains and bafflings of my sad and broken life."
In March, she flies back to Rieti, and finds "our treasure in the best
of health, and plump, though small. When first I took him in my arms,
he made no sound, but leaned his head against my bosom, and kept it
there, as if he would say, How could you leave me? They told me, that
all the day of my departure he would not be comforted, always looking
toward the door. He has been a strangely precocious infant, I think,
through sympathy with me, for I worked very hard before his birth,
with the hope that all my spirit might be incarnated in him. In
that regard, it may have been good for him to be with these more
instinctively joyous natures. I see that he is more serene, is less
sensitive, than when with me, and sleeps better. The most solid
happiness I have known has been when he has gone to sleep in my arms.
What cruel sacrifices have I made to guard my secret for the present,
and to have the mode of disclosure at my own option! It will, indeed,
be just like all the rest, if these sacrifices are made in vain."
* * * * *
At Rieti, Margaret rested till the middle of April, when, returning
once more to Rome, she was, as we have seen, shut up within the
beleagured city.
The siege ended, the anxious mother was free to seek her child once
more, in his nest among the mountains. Her fears had been but too
prophetic. "Though the physician sent me reassuring letters," she
writes, "I yet often seemed to hear Angelino calling to me amid the
roar of the cannon, and always his tone was of crying. And when I
came, I found mine own fast waning to the tomb! His nurse, lovely and
innocent as she appeared, had betrayed him, for lack of a few _scudi_!
He was worn to a skeleton; his sweet, childish grace all gone!
Everything I had endured seemed light to what I felt when I saw him
too weak to smile, or lift his wasted little hand. Now, by incessant
care, we have brought him back,--who knows if that be a deed of
love?--into this hard world once more. But I could not let him go,
unless I went with him; and I do hope that the cruel law of my life
will, at least, not oblige us to be separated. When I saw his first
returning smile,--that poor, wan, feeble smile!--and more than four
weeks we watched him night and day, before we saw it,--new resolution
dawned in my heart. I resolved to live, day by day, hour by hour, for
his dear sake. So, if he is only treasure lent,--if he too must go, as
sweet Waldo, Pickie, Hermann, did,--as all _my_ children do!--I shall
at least have these days and hours with him."
How intolerable was this last blow to one stretched so long on the
rack, is plain from Margaret's letters. "I shall never again," she
writes, "be perfectly, be religiously generous, so terribly do I need
for myself the love I have given to other sufferers. When you read
this, I hope your heart will be happy; for I still like to know that
others are happy,--it consoles me." Again her agony wrung from
her these bitter words,--the bitterest she ever uttered,--words of
transient madness, yet most characteristic:--"Oh God! help me, is
all my cry. Yet I have little faith in the Paternal love I need, so
ruthless or so negligent seems the government of this earth. I feel
calm, yet sternly, towards Fate. This last plot against me has been
so cruelly, cunningly wrought, that I shall never acquiesce. I submit,
because useless resistance is degrading, but I demand an explanation.
I see that it is probable I shall never receive one, while I live
here, and suppose I can bear the rest of the suspense, since I have
comprehended all its difficulties in the first moments. Meanwhile,
I live day by day, though not on manna." But now comes a sweeter,
gentler strain:--"I have been the object of great love from the
noble and the humble; I have felt it towards both. Yet I am _tired
out_,--tired of thinking and hoping,--tired of seeing men err and
bleed. I take interest in some plans,--Socialism for instance,--but
the interest is shallow as the plans. These are needed, are even
good; but man will still blunder and weep, as he has done for so many
thousand years. Coward and footsore, gladly would I creep into some
green recess, where I might see a few not unfriendly faces, and where
not more wretches should come than I could relieve. Yes! I am weary,
and faith soars and sings no more. Nothing good of me is left except
at the bottom of the heart, a melting tenderness:--'She loves much.'"