THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal enemies. He had arrived
in Florence in August, and by the end of October three-fourths of the
committee which had invited him shared Martini's opinion. His savage
attacks upon Montanelli had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli
himself, who at first had been inclined to uphold everything the witty
satirist said or did, began to acknowledge with an aggrieved air that
Montanelli had better have been left in peace. “Decent cardinals are
none so plenty. One might treat them politely when they do turn up.”
The only person who, apparently, remained quite indifferent to the storm
of caricatures and pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed, as
Martini said, hardly worth while to expend one's energy in ridiculing
a man who took it so good-humouredly. It was said in the town that
Montanelli, one day when the Archbishop of Florence was dining with
him, had found in the room one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons
against himself, had read it through and handed the paper to the
Archbishop, remarking: “That is rather cleverly put, is it not?”
One day there appeared in the town a leaflet, headed: “The Mystery
of the Annunciation.” Even had the author omitted his now familiar
signature, a sketch of a gadfly with spread wings, the bitter, trenchant
style would have left in the minds of most readers no doubt as to his
identity. The skit was in the form of a dialogue between Tuscany as
the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli as the angel who, bearing the lilies of
purity and crowned with the olive branch of peace, was announcing the
advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing was full of offensive personal
allusions and hints of the most risky nature, and all Florence felt the
satire to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet all Florence laughed.
There was something so irresistible in the Gadfly's grave absurdities
that those who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed as
immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest partisans. Repulsive
in tone as the leaflet was, it left its trace upon the popular feeling
of the town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too high for any
lampoon, however witty, seriously to injure it, but for a moment the
tide almost turned against him. The Gadfly had known where to sting;
and, though eager crowds still collected before the Cardinal's house
to see him enter or leave his carriage, ominous cries of “Jesuit!” and
“Sanfedist spy!” often mingled with the cheers and benedictions.
But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two days after the publication
of the skit, the Churchman, a leading clerical paper, brought out
a brilliant article, called: “An Answer to 'The Mystery of the
Annunciation,'” and signed: “A Son of the Church.” It was an impassioned
defence of Montanelli against the Gadfly's slanderous imputations. The
anonymous writer, after expounding, with great eloquence and fervour,
the doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards men, of which the
new Pontiff was the evangelist, concluded by challenging the Gadfly
to prove a single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing to the
public not to believe a contemptible slanderer. Both the cogency of
the article as a bit of special pleading and its merit as a literary
composition were sufficiently far above the average to attract much
attention in the town, especially as not even the editor of the
newspaper could guess the author's identity. The article was soon
reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and the “anonymous defender” was
discussed in every coffee-shop in Florence.
The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on the new Pontificate and
all its supporters, especially on Montanelli, who, he cautiously
hinted, had probably consented to the panegyric on himself. To this
the anonymous defender again replied in the Churchman with an indignant
denial. During the rest of Montanelli's stay the controversy raging
between the two writers occupied more of the public attention than did
even the famous preacher himself.
Some members of the liberal party ventured to remonstrate with the
Gadfly about the unnecessary malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but
they did not get much satisfaction out of him. He only smiled affably
and answered with a languid little stammer: “R-really, gentlemen, you
are rather unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave in to Signora
Bolla, that I should be allowed a l-l-little chuckle all to myself now.
It is so nominated in the bond!”
At the end of October Montanelli returned to his see in the Romagna,
and, before leaving Florence, preached a farewell sermon in which he
spoke of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence of both
writers and begging his unknown defender to set an example of tolerance
by closing a useless and unseemly war of words. On the following day the
Churchman contained a notice that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly
expressed desire, “A Son of the Church” would withdraw from the
controversy.
The last word remained with the Gadfly. He issued a little leaflet,
in which he declared himself disarmed and converted by Montanelli's
Christian meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation upon the
neck of the first Sanfedist he met. “I am even willing,” he concluded;
“to embrace my anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers knew, as
his Eminence and I know, what that implies and why he remains anonymous,
they would believe in the sincerity of my conversion.”
In the latter part of November he announced to the literary committee
that he was going for a fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went,
apparently, to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going there soon after and
wishing to speak to him, searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th
of December a political demonstration of the most extreme character
burst out in the States of the Church, along the whole chain of the
Apennines; and people began to guess the reason of the Gadfly's sudden
fancy to take his holidays in the depth of winter. He came back to
Florence when the riots had been quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in the
street, remarked affably:
“I hear you were inquiring for me in Leghorn; I was staying in Pisa.
What a pretty old town it is! There's something quite Arcadian about
it.”
In Christmas week he attended an afternoon meeting of the literary
committee which was held in Dr. Riccardo's lodgings near the Porta alla
Croce. The meeting was a full one, and when he came in, a little late,
with an apologetic bow and smile, there seemed to be no seat empty.
Riccardo rose to fetch a chair from the next room, but the Gadfly
stopped him. “Don't trouble about it,” he said; “I shall be quite
comfortable here”; and crossing the room to a window beside which
Gemma had placed her chair, he sat down on the sill, leaning his head
indolently back against the shutter.
As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with half-shut eyes, in the subtle,
sphinx-like way that gave him the look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait,
the instinctive distrust with which he inspired her deepened into a
sense of unreasoning fear.
The proposal under discussion was that a pamphlet be issued setting
forth the committee's views on the dearth with which Tuscany was
threatened and the measures which should be taken to meet it. The
matter was a somewhat difficult one to decide, because, as usual, the
committee's views upon the subject were much divided. The more advanced
section, to which Gemma, Martini, and Riccardo belonged, was in favour
of an energetic appeal to both government and public to take adequate
measures at once for the relief of the peasantry. The moderate
division--including, of course, Grassini--feared that an over-emphatic
tone might irritate rather than convince the ministry.
“It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the people helped at once,” he
said, looking round upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying
air. “We most of us want a good many things that we are not likely to
get; but if we start with the tone you propose to adopt, the government
is very likely not to begin any relief measures at all till there is
actual famine. If we could only induce the ministry to make an inquiry
into the state of the crops it would be a step in advance.”
Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to answer his enemy.
“A step in advance--yes, my dear sir; but if there's going to be a
famine, it won't wait for us to advance at that pace. The people might
all starve before we got to any actual relief.”
“It would be interesting to know----” Sacconi began; but several voices
interrupted him.
“Speak up; we can't hear!”
“I should think not, with such an infernal row in the street,” said
Galli, irritably. “Is that window shut, Riccardo? One can't hear one's
self speak!”
Gemma looked round. “Yes,” she said, “the window is quite shut. I think
there is a variety show, or some such thing, passing.”
The sounds of shouting and laughter, of the tinkling of bells and
trampling of feet, resounded from the street below, mixed with the
braying of a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging of a drum.
“It can't be helped these few days,” said Riccardo; “we must expect
noise at Christmas time. What were you saying, Sacconi?”
“I said it would be interesting to hear what is thought about the matter
in Pisa and Leghorn. Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he
has just come from there.”
The Gadfly did not answer. He was staring out of the window and appeared
not to have heard what had been said.
“Signor Rivarez!” said Gemma. She was the only person sitting near to
him, and as he remained silent she bent forward and touched him on the
arm. He slowly turned his face to her, and she started as she saw its
fixed and awful immobility. For a moment it was like the face of a
corpse; then the lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.
“Yes,” he whispered; “a variety show.”
Her first instinct was to shield him from the curiosity of the others.
Without understanding what was the matter with him, she realized that
some frightful fancy or hallucination had seized upon him, and that, for
the moment, he was at its mercy, body and soul. She rose quickly and,
standing between him and the company, threw the window open as if to
look out. No one but herself had seen his face.
In the street a travelling circus was passing, with mountebanks on
donkeys and harlequins in parti-coloured dresses. The crowd of holiday
masqueraders, laughing and shoving, was exchanging jests and showers of
paper ribbon with the clowns and flinging little bags of sugar-plums to
the columbine, who sat in her car, tricked out in tinsel and feathers,
with artificial curls on her forehead and an artificial smile on her
painted lips. Behind the car came a motley string of figures--street
Arabs, beggars, clowns turning somersaults, and costermongers hawking
their wares. They were jostling, pelting, and applauding a figure which
at first Gemma could not see for the pushing and swaying of the crowd.
The next moment, however, she saw plainly what it was--a hunchback,
dwarfish and ugly, grotesquely attired in a fool's dress, with paper
cap and bells. He evidently belonged to the strolling company, and was
amusing the crowd with hideous grimaces and contortions.
“What is going on out there?” asked Riccardo, approaching the window.
“You seem very much interested.”
He was a little surprised at their keeping the whole committee waiting
to look at a strolling company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.
“It is nothing interesting,” she said; “only a variety show; but they
made such a noise that I thought it must be something else.”
She was standing with one hand upon the window-sill, and suddenly felt
the Gadfly's cold fingers press the hand with a passionate clasp. “Thank
you!” he whispered softly; and then, closing the window, sat down again
upon the sill.
“I'm afraid,” he said in his airy manner, “that I have interrupted you,
gentlemen. I was l-looking at the variety show; it is s-such a p-pretty
sight.”
“Sacconi was asking you a question,” said Martini gruffly. The Gadfly's
behaviour seemed to him an absurd piece of affectation, and he was
annoyed that Gemma should have been tactless enough to follow his
example. It was not like her.
The Gadfly disclaimed all knowledge of the state of feeling in Pisa,
explaining that he had been there “only on a holiday.” He then plunged
at once into an animated discussion, first of agricultural prospects,
then of the pamphlet question; and continued pouring out a flood of
stammering talk till the others were quite tired. He seemed to find some
feverish delight in the sound of his own voice.
When the meeting ended and the members of the committee rose to go,
Riccardo came up to Martini.
“Will you stop to dinner with me? Fabrizi and Sacconi have promised to
stay.”
“Thanks; but I was going to see Signora Bolla home.”
“Are you really afraid I can't get home by myself?” she asked, rising
and putting on her wrap. “Of course he will stay with you, Dr. Riccardo;
it's good for him to get a change. He doesn't go out half enough.”
“If you will allow me, I will see you home,” the Gadfly interposed; “I
am going in that direction.”
“If you really are going that way----”
“I suppose you won't have time to drop in here in the course of the
evening, will you, Rivarez?” asked Riccardo, as he opened the door for
them.
The Gadfly looked back over his shoulder, laughing. “I, my dear fellow?
I'm going to see the variety show!”
“What a strange creature that is; and what an odd affection for
mountebanks!” said Riccardo, coming back to his visitors.
“Case of a fellow-feeling, I should think,” said Martini; “the man's a
mountebank himself, if ever I saw one.”
“I wish I could think he was only that,” Fabrizi interposed, with a
grave face. “If he is a mountebank I am afraid he's a very dangerous
one.”
“Dangerous in what way?”
“Well, I don't like those mysterious little pleasure trips that he is so
fond of taking. This is the third time, you know; and I don't believe he
has been in Pisa at all.”
“I suppose it is almost an open secret that it's into the mountains he
goes,” said Sacconi. “He has hardly taken the trouble to deny that he
is still in relations with the smugglers he got to know in the Savigno
affair, and it's quite natural he should take advantage of their
friendship to get his leaflets across the Papal frontier.”
“For my part,” said Riccardo; “what I wanted to talk to you about is
this very question. It occurred to me that we could hardly do better
than ask Rivarez to undertake the management of our own smuggling. That
press at Pistoja is very inefficiently managed, to my thinking; and the
way the leaflets are taken across, always rolled in those everlasting
cigars, is more than primitive.”
“It has answered pretty well up till now,” said Martini contumaciously.
He was getting wearied of hearing Galli and Riccardo always put the
Gadfly forward as a model to copy, and inclined to think that the world
had gone well enough before this “lackadaisical buccaneer” turned up to
set everyone to rights.
“It has answered so far well that we have been satisfied with it for
want of anything better; but you know there have been plenty of arrests
and confiscations. Now I believe that if Rivarez undertook the business
for us, there would be less of that.”
“Why do you think so?”
“In the first place, the smugglers look upon us as strangers to do
business with, or as sheep to fleece, whereas Rivarez is their personal
friend, very likely their leader, whom they look up to and trust. You
may be sure every smuggler in the Apennines will do for a man who was
in the Savigno revolt what he will not do for us. In the next place,
there's hardly a man among us that knows the mountains as Rivarez does.
Remember, he has been a fugitive among them, and knows the smugglers'
paths by heart. No smuggler would dare to cheat him, even if he wished
to, and no smuggler could cheat him if he dared to try.”
“Then is your proposal that we should ask him to take over the
whole management of our literature on the other side of the
frontier--distribution, addresses, hiding-places, everything--or simply
that we should ask him to put the things across for us?”
“Well, as for addresses and hiding-places, he probably knows already
all the ones that we have and a good many more that we have not. I
don't suppose we should be able to teach him much in that line. As
for distribution, it's as the others prefer, of course. The important
question, to my mind, is the actual smuggling itself. Once the books are
safe in Bologna, it's a comparatively simple matter to circulate them.”
“For my part,” said Martini, “I am against the plan. In the first place,
all this about his skilfulness is mere conjecture; we have not actually
seen him engaged in frontier work and do not know whether he keeps his
head in critical moments.”
“Oh, you needn't have any doubt of that!” Riccardo put in. “The history
of the Savigno affair proves that he keeps his head.”
“And then,” Martini went on; “I do not feel at all inclined, from what
little I know of Rivarez, to intrust him with all the party's secrets.
He seems to me feather-brained and theatrical. To give the whole
management of a party's contraband work into a man's hands is a serious
matter. Fabrizi, what do you think?”
“If I had only such objections as yours, Martini,” replied the
professor, “I should certainly waive them in the case of a man really
possessing, as Rivarez undoubtedly does, all the qualifications Riccardo
speaks of. For my part, I have not the slightest doubt as to either his
courage, his honesty, or his presence of mind; and that he knows both
mountains and mountaineers we have had ample proof. But there is another
objection. I do not feel sure that it is only for the smuggling of
pamphlets he goes into the mountains. I have begun to doubt whether he
has not another purpose. This is, of course, entirely between ourselves.
It is a mere suspicion. It seems to me just possible that he is in
connexion with some one of the 'sects,' and perhaps with the most
dangerous of them.”
“Which one do you mean--the 'Red Girdles'?”
“No; the 'Occoltellatori.'”
“The 'Knifers'! But that is a little body of outlaws--peasants, most of
them, with neither education nor political experience.”
“So were the insurgents of Savigno; but they had a few educated men as
leaders, and this little society may have the same. And remember, it's
pretty well known that most of the members of those more violent sects
in the Romagna are survivors of the Savigno affair, who found themselves
too weak to fight the Churchmen in open insurrection, and so have fallen
back on assassination. Their hands are not strong enough for guns, and
they take to knives instead.”
“But what makes you suppose Rivarez to be connected with them?”
“I don't suppose, I merely suspect. In any case, I think we had better
find out for certain before we intrust our smuggling to him. If he
attempted to do both kinds of work at once he would injure our party
most terribly; he would simply destroy its reputation and accomplish
nothing. However, we will talk of that another time. I wanted to speak
to you about the news from Rome. It is said that a commission is to be
appointed to draw up a project for a municipal constitution.”