A FEW days later, the Gadfly, still rather pale and limping more than
usual, entered the reading room of the public library and asked for
Cardinal Montanelli's sermons. Riccardo, who was reading at a table near
him, looked up. He liked the Gadfly very much, but could not digest this
one trait in him--this curious personal maliciousness.
“Are you preparing another volley against that unlucky Cardinal?” he
asked half irritably.
“My dear fellow, why do you a-a-always attribute evil m-m-motives to
people? It's m-most unchristian. I am preparing an essay on contemporary
theology for the n-n-new paper.”
“What new paper?” Riccardo frowned. It was perhaps an open secret that
a new press-law was expected and that the Opposition was preparing to
astonish the town with a radical newspaper; but still it was, formally,
a secret.
“The Swindlers' Gazette, of course, or the Church Calendar.”
“Sh-sh! Rivarez, we are disturbing the other readers.”
“Well then, stick to your surgery, if that's your subject, and l-l-leave
me to th-theology--that's mine. I d-d-don't interfere with your
treatment of broken bones, though I know a p-p-precious lot more about
them than you do.”
He sat down to his volume of sermons with an intent and preoccupied
face. One of the librarians came up to him.
“Signor Rivarez! I think you were in the Duprez expedition, exploring
the tributaries of the Amazon? Perhaps you will kindly help us in a
difficulty. A lady has been inquiring for the records of the expedition,
and they are at the binder's.”
“What does she want to know?”
“Only in what year the expedition started and when it passed through
Ecuador.”
“It started from Paris in the autumn of 1837, and passed through Quito
in April, 1838. We were three years in Brazil; then went down to Rio and
got back to Paris in the summer of 1841. Does the lady want the dates of
the separate discoveries?”
“No, thank you; only these. I have written them down. Beppo, take this
paper to Signora Bolla, please. Many thanks, Signor Rivarez. I am sorry
to have troubled you.”
The Gadfly leaned back in his chair with a perplexed frown. What did she
want the dates for? When they passed through Ecuador----
Gemma went home with the slip of paper in her hand. April, 1838--and
Arthur had died in May, 1833. Five years--
She began pacing up and down her room. She had slept badly the last few
nights, and there were dark shadows under her eyes.
Five years;--and an “overluxurious home”--and “someone he had trusted
had deceived him”--had deceived him--and he had found it out----
She stopped and put up both hands to her head. Oh, this was utterly
mad--it was not possible--it was absurd----
And yet, how they had dragged that harbour!
Five years--and he was “not twenty-one” when the Lascar---- Then he must
have been nineteen when he ran away from home. Had he not said: “A year
and a half----” Where did he get those blue eyes from, and that
nervous restlessness of the fingers? And why was he so bitter against
Montanelli? Five years--five years------
If she could but know that he was drowned--if she could but have seen
the body; some day, surely, the old wound would have left off aching,
the old memory would have lost its terrors. Perhaps in another twenty
years she would have learned to look back without shrinking.
All her youth had been poisoned by the thought of what she had done.
Resolutely, day after day and year after year, she had fought against
the demon of remorse. Always she had remembered that her work lay in the
future; always had shut her eyes and ears to the haunting spectre of the
past. And day after day, year after year, the image of the drowned body
drifting out to sea had never left her, and the bitter cry that she
could not silence had risen in her heart: “I have killed Arthur! Arthur
is dead!” Sometimes it had seemed to her that her burden was too heavy
to be borne.
Now she would have given half her life to have that burden back again.
If she had killed him--that was a familiar grief; she had endured it too
long to sink under it now. But if she had driven him, not into the water
but into------ She sat down, covering her eyes with both hands. And her
life had been darkened for his sake, because he was dead! If she had
brought upon him nothing worse than death----
Steadily, pitilessly she went back, step by step, through the hell of
his past life. It was as vivid to her as though she had seen and felt
it all; the helpless shivering of the naked soul, the mockery that
was bitterer than death, the horror of loneliness, the slow, grinding,
relentless agony. It was as vivid as if she had sat beside him in the
filthy Indian hut; as if she had suffered with him in the silver-mines,
the coffee fields, the horrible variety show--
The variety show---- No, she must shut out that image, at least; it was
enough to drive one mad to sit and think of it.
She opened a little drawer in her writing-desk. It contained the few
personal relics which she could not bring herself to destroy. She
was not given to the hoarding up of sentimental trifles; and the
preservation of these keepsakes was a concession to that weaker side of
her nature which she kept under with so steady a hand. She very seldom
allowed herself to look at them.
Now she took them out, one after another: Giovanni's first letter to
her, and the flowers that had lain in his dead hand; a lock of her
baby's hair and a withered leaf from her father's grave. At the back of
the drawer was a miniature portrait of Arthur at ten years old--the only
existing likeness of him.
She sat down with it in her hands and looked at the beautiful childish
head, till the face of the real Arthur rose up afresh before her. How
clear it was in every detail! The sensitive lines of the mouth, the
wide, earnest eyes, the seraphic purity of expression--they were graven
in upon her memory, as though he had died yesterday. Slowly the blinding
tears welled up and hid the portrait.
Oh, how could she have thought such a thing! It was like sacrilege even
to dream of this bright, far-off spirit, bound to the sordid miseries of
life. Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let him die young!
Better a thousand times that he should pass into utter nothingness than
that he should live and be the Gadfly--the Gadfly, with his faultless
neckties and his doubtful witticisms, his bitter tongue and his ballet
girl! No, no! It was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had vexed
her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur was dead.
“May I come in?” asked a soft voice at the door.
She started so that the portrait fell from her hand, and the Gadfly,
limping across the room, picked it up and handed it to her.
“How you startled me!” she said.
“I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing you?”
“No. I was only turning over some old things.”
She hesitated for a moment; then handed him back the miniature.
“What do you think of that head?”
While he looked at it she watched his face as though her life depended
upon its expression; but it was merely negative and critical.
“You have set me a difficult task,” he said. “The portrait is faded,
and a child's face is always hard to read. But I should think that child
would grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing he could do would
be to abstain from growing into a man at all.”
“Why?”
“Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that is the sort of nature
that feels pain as pain and wrong as wrong; and the world has no
r-r-room for such people; it needs people who feel nothing but their
work.”
“Is it at all like anyone you know?”
He looked at the portrait more closely.
“Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it is; very like.”
“Like whom?”
“C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether his irreproachable Eminence
has any nephews, by the way? Who is it, if I may ask?”
“It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the friend I told you about
the other day----”
“Whom you killed?”
She winced in spite of herself. How lightly, how cruelly he used that
dreadful word!
“Yes, whom I killed--if he is really dead.”
“If?”
She kept her eyes on his face.
“I have sometimes doubted,” she said. “The body was never found. He may
have run away from home, like you, and gone to South America.”
“Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory to carry about with you. I
have d-d-done some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent m-more than
one man to Hades, perhaps; but if I had it on my conscience that I had
sent any l-living thing to South America, I should sleep badly----”
“Then do you believe,” she interrupted, coming nearer to him with
clasped hands, “that if he were not drowned,--if he had been through
your experience instead,--he would never come back and let the past
go? Do you believe he would NEVER forget? Remember, it has cost me
something, too. Look!”
She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from her forehead. Through the
black locks ran a broad white streak.
There was a long silence.
“I think,” the Gadfly said slowly, “that the dead are better dead.
Forgetting some things is a difficult matter. And if I were in the place
of your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The REVENANT is an ugly
spectre.”
She put the portrait back into its drawer and locked the desk.
“That is hard doctrine,” she said. “And now we will talk about something
else.”
“I came to have a little business talk with you, if I may--a private
one, about a plan that I have in my head.”
She drew a chair to the table and sat down. “What do you think of the
projected press-law?” he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.
“What I think of it? I think it will not be of much value, but half a
loaf is better than no bread.”
“Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work on one of the new papers these
good folk here are preparing to start?”
“I thought of doing so. There is always a great deal of practical work
to be done in starting any paper--printing and circulation arrangements
and----”
“How long are you going to waste your mental gifts in that fashion?”
“Why 'waste'?”
“Because it is waste. You know quite well that you have a far better
head than most of the men you are working with, and you let them make a
regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you. Intellectually you are as
far ahead of Grassini and Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit
correcting their proofs like a printer's devil.”
“In the first place, I don't spend all my time in correcting proofs; and
moreover it seems to me that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They
are by no means so brilliant as you think.”
“I don't think them brilliant at all,” he answered quietly; “but I do
think them sound and solid, which is of much more importance. At those
dreary committee meetings it is always you who put your finger on the
weak spot in everybody's logic.”
“You are not fair to the others. Martini, for instance, has a very
logical head, and there is no doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi
and Lega. Then Grassini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic
statistics than any official in the country, perhaps.”
“Well, that's not saying much; but let us lay them and their capacities
aside. The fact remains that you, with such gifts as you possess,
might do more important work and fill a more responsible post than at
present.”
“I am quite satisfied with my position. The work I am doing is not of
very much value, perhaps, but we all do what we can.”
“Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to play at compliments and
modest denials now. Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are
using up your brain on work which persons inferior to you could do as
well?”
“Since you press me for an answer--yes, to some extent.”
“Then why do you let that go on?”
No answer.
“Why do you let it go on?”
“Because--I can't help it.”
“Why?”
She looked up reproachfully. “That is unkind--it's not fair to press me
so.”
“But all the same you are going to tell me why.”
“If you must have it, then--because my life has been smashed into
pieces, and I have not the energy to start anything REAL, now. I
am about fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the party's
drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously, and it must be done by
somebody.”
“Certainly it must be done by somebody; but not always by the same
person.”
“It's about all I'm fit for.”
He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably. Presently she raised
her head.
“We are returning to the old subject; and this was to be a business
talk. It is quite useless, I assure you, to tell me I might have done
all sorts of things. I shall never do them now. But I may be able to
help you in thinking out your plan. What is it?”
“You begin by telling me that it is useless for me to suggest anything,
and then ask what I want to suggest. My plan requires your help in
action, not only in thinking out.”
“Let me hear it and then we will discuss.”
“Tell me first whether you have heard anything about schemes for a
rising in Venetia.”
“I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings and Sanfedist plots
ever since the amnesty, and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as
about the other.”
“So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of really serious
preparations for a rising of the whole province against the Austrians.
A good many young fellows in the Papal States--particularly in the
Four Legations--are secretly preparing to get across there and join as
volunteers. And I hear from my friends in the Romagna----”
“Tell me,” she interrupted, “are you quite sure that these friends of
yours can be trusted?”
“Quite sure. I know them personally, and have worked with them.”
“That is, they are members of the 'sect' to which you belong? Forgive
my scepticism, but I am always a little doubtful as to the accuracy
of information received from secret societies. It seems to me that the
habit----”
“Who told you I belonged to a 'sect'?” he interrupted sharply.
“No one; I guessed it.”
“Ah!” He leaned back in his chair and looked at her, frowning. “Do you
always guess people's private affairs?” he said after a moment.
“Very often. I am rather observant, and have a habit of putting things
together. I tell you that so that you may be careful when you don't want
me to know a thing.”
“I don't mind your knowing anything so long as it goes no further. I
suppose this has not----”
She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended surprise. “Surely
that is an unnecessary question!” she said.
“Of course I know you would not speak of anything to outsiders; but I
thought that perhaps, to the members of your party----”
“The party's business is with facts, not with my personal conjectures
and fancies. Of course I have never mentioned the subject to anyone.”
“Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed which sect I belong to?”
“I hope--you must not take offence at my frankness; it was you who
started this talk, you know---- I do hope it is not the 'Knifers.'”
“Why do you hope that?”
“Because you are fit for better things.”
“We are all fit for better things than we ever do. There is your own
answer back again. However, it is not the 'Knifers' that I belong to,
but the 'Red Girdles.' They are a steadier lot, and take their work more
seriously.”
“Do you mean the work of knifing?”
“That, among other things. Knives are very useful in their way; but only
when you have a good, organized propaganda behind them. That is what I
dislike in the other sect. They think a knife can settle all the world's
difficulties; and that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but not
all.”
“Do you honestly believe that it settles any?”
He looked at her in surprise.
“Of course,” she went on, “it eliminates, for the moment, the practical
difficulty caused by the presence of a clever spy or objectionable
official; but whether it does not create worse difficulties in place of
the one removed is another question. It seems to me like the parable of
the swept and garnished house and the seven devils. Every assassination
only makes the police more vicious and the people more accustomed to
violence and brutality, and the last state of the community may be worse
than the first.”
“What do you think will happen when the revolution comes? Do you suppose
the people won't have to get accustomed to violence then? War is war.”
“Yes, but open revolution is another matter. It is one moment in the
people's life, and it is the price we have to pay for all our progress.
No doubt fearful things will happen; they must in every revolution.
But they will be isolated facts--exceptional features of an exceptional
moment. The horrible thing about this promiscuous knifing is that
it becomes a habit. The people get to look upon it as an every-day
occurrence, and their sense of the sacredness of human life gets
blunted. I have not been much in the Romagna, but what little I have
seen of the people has given me the impression that they have got, or
are getting, into a mechanical habit of violence.”
“Surely even that is better than a mechanical habit of obedience and
submission.”
“I don't think so. All mechanical habits are bad and slavish, and this
one is ferocious as well. Of course, if you look upon the work of the
revolutionist as the mere wresting of certain definite concessions from
the government, then the secret sect and the knife must seem to you the
best weapons, for there is nothing else which all governments so dread.
But if you think, as I do, that to force the government's hand is not an
end in itself, but only a means to an end, and that what we really
need to reform is the relation between man and man, then you must go
differently to work. Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood
is not the way to raise the value they put on human life.”
“And the value they put on religion?”
“I don't understand.”
He smiled.
“I think we differ as to where the root of the mischief lies. You place
it in a lack of appreciation of the value of human life.”
“Rather of the sacredness of human personality.”
“Put it as you like. To me the great cause of our muddles and mistakes
seems to lie in the mental disease called religion.”
“Do you mean any religion in particular?”
“Oh, no! That is a mere question of external symptoms. The disease
itself is what is called a religious attitude of mind. It is the
morbid desire to set up a fetich and adore it, to fall down and worship
something. It makes little difference whether the something be Jesus or
Buddha or a tum-tum tree. You don't agree with me, of course. You may be
atheist or agnostic or anything you like, but I could feel the religious
temperament in you at five yards. However, it is of no use for us to
discuss that. But you are quite mistaken in thinking that I, for one,
look upon the knifing as merely a means of removing objectionable
officials--it is, above all, a means, and I think the best means, of
undermining the prestige of the Church and of accustoming people to look
upon clerical agents as upon any other vermin.”
“And when you have accomplished that; when you have roused the wild
beast that sleeps in the people and set it on the Church; then----”
“Then I shall have done the work that makes it worth my while to live.”
“Is THAT the work you spoke of the other day?”
“Yes, just that.”
She shivered and turned away.
“You are disappointed in me?” he said, looking up with a smile.
“No; not exactly that. I am--I think--a little afraid of you.”
She turned round after a moment and said in her ordinary business voice:
“This is an unprofitable discussion. Our standpoints are too different.
For my part, I believe in propaganda, propaganda, and propaganda; and
when you can get it, open insurrection.”
“Then let us come back to the question of my plan; it has something to
do with propaganda and more with insurrection.”
“Yes?”
“As I tell you, a good many volunteers are going from the Romagna to
join the Venetians. We do not know yet how soon the insurrection will
break out. It may not be till the autumn or winter; but the volunteers
in the Apennines must be armed and ready, so that they may be able to
start for the plains directly they are sent for. I have undertaken to
smuggle the firearms and ammunition on to Papal territory for them----”
“Wait a minute. How do you come to be working with that set? The
revolutionists in Lombardy and Venetia are all in favour of the new
Pope. They are going in for liberal reforms, hand in hand with
the progressive movement in the Church. How can a 'no-compromise'
anti-clerical like you get on with them?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What is it to me if they like to amuse
themselves with a rag-doll, so long as they do their work? Of course
they will take the Pope for a figurehead. What have I to do with that,
if only the insurrection gets under way somehow? Any stick will do
to beat a dog with, I suppose, and any cry to set the people on the
Austrians.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Chiefly to help me get the firearms across.”
“But how could I do that?”
“You are just the person who could do it best. I think of buying the
arms in England, and there is a good deal of difficulty about bringing
them over. It's impossible to get them through any of the Pontifical
sea-ports; they must come by Tuscany, and go across the Apennines.”
“That makes two frontiers to cross instead of one.”
“Yes; but the other way is hopeless; you can't smuggle a big transport
in at a harbour where there is no trade, and you know the whole shipping
of Civita Vecchia amounts to about three row-boats and a fishing
smack. If we once get the things across Tuscany, I can manage the Papal
frontier; my men know every path in the mountains, and we have plenty of
hiding-places. The transport must come by sea to Leghorn, and that is
my great difficulty; I am not in with the smugglers there, and I believe
you are.”
“Give me five minutes to think.”
She leaned forward, resting one elbow on her knee, and supporting the
chin on the raised hand. After a few moments' silence she looked up.
“It is possible that I might be of some use in that part of the work,”
she said; “but before we go any further, I want to ask you a question.
Can you give me your word that this business is not connected with any
stabbing or secret violence of any kind?”
“Certainly. It goes without saying that I should not have asked you to
join in a thing of which I know you disapprove.”
“When do you want a definite answer from me?”
“There is not much time to lose; but I can give you a few days to decide
in.”
“Are you free next Saturday evening?”
“Let me see--to-day is Thursday; yes.”
“Then come here. I will think the matter over and give you a final
answer.”
*****
On the following Sunday Gemma sent in to the committee of the Florentine
branch of the Mazzinian party a statement that she wished to undertake a
special work of a political nature, which would for a few months prevent
her from performing the functions for which she had up till now been
responsible to the party.
Some surprise was felt at this announcement, but the committee raised no
objection; she had been known in the party for several years as a person
whose judgment might be trusted; and the members agreed that if Signora
Bolla took an unexpected step, she probably had good reasons for it.
To Martini she said frankly that she had undertaken to help the Gadfly
with some “frontier work.” She had stipulated for the right to tell her
old friend this much, in order that there might be no misunderstanding
or painful sense of doubt and mystery between them. It seemed to her
that she owed him this proof of confidence. He made no comment when she
told him; but she saw, without knowing why, that the news had wounded
him deeply.
They were sitting on the terrace of her lodging, looking out over the
red roofs to Fiesole. After a long silence, Martini rose and began
tramping up and down with his hands in his pockets, whistling to
himself--a sure sign with him of mental agitation. She sat looking at
him for a little while.
“Cesare, you are worried about this affair,” she said at last. “I am
very sorry you feel so despondent over it; but I could decide only as
seemed right to me.”
“It is not the affair,” he answered, sullenly; “I know nothing about
it, and it probably is all right, once you have consented to go into it.
It's the MAN I distrust.”
“I think you misunderstand him; I did till I got to know him better. He
is far from perfect, but there is much more good in him than you think.”
“Very likely.” For a moment he tramped to and fro in silence, then
suddenly stopped beside her.
“Gemma, give it up! Give it up before it is too late! Don't let that man
drag you into things you will repent afterwards.”
“Cesare,” she said gently, “you are not thinking what you are saying.
No one is dragging me into anything. I have made this decision of my
own will, after thinking the matter well over alone. You have a personal
dislike to Rivarez, I know; but we are talking of politics now, not of
persons.”
“Madonna! Give it up! That man is dangerous; he is secret, and cruel,
and unscrupulous--and he is in love with you!”
She drew back.
“Cesare, how can you get such fancies into your head?”
“He is in love with you,” Martini repeated. “Keep clear of him,
Madonna!”
“Dear Cesare, I can't keep clear of him; and I can't explain to you why.
We are tied together--not by any wish or doing of our own.”
“If you are tied, there is nothing more to say,” Martini answered
wearily.
He went away, saying that he was busy, and tramped for hours up and down
the muddy streets. The world looked very black to him that evening. One
poor ewe-lamb--and this slippery creature had stepped in and stolen it
away.