XV

To neglect no possible chance, he resolved to see the Prefect, if the

Prefect consented to see him. This great official dwelt in a seaport

city, whence he ruled the province, for such a period at least as his

star should be in the ascendant, that is, whilt his political group

should be in power. It was scarcely likely that a government official

would be accessible to any arguments which a poor country priest

could bring forward against a government project. Still, he resolved

to make the effort, for at the Prefect's name apprehension, keen and

quaking, had leapt into Count Corradini's faded eyes.

From San Beda to the seaport city there stretched some forty miles of

distance; the first part a descent down the spurs of the Apennines,

the latter half through level sandy country, with pine woods here and

there. The first half he covered on foot, the second by the

parliamentary train, which drew its long black line snake-like and

slow, through the dunes and the stagnant waters. He had but a few

francs in his waistband, and could ill afford to expend those.

When he reached his destination it was evening; too late for him to

present himself at the Prefecture with any chance of admittance. The

Prior at San Beda had given him a letter to the vicar of the church

of Sant Anselmo in the city, and by this gentleman he was received

and willingly lodged for the night.

"A government project -- a project approved by ministers and

deputies?" said his host on hearing what was the errand on which he

came there. "As well, my brother, might you assail the Gran Sasse

d'Italia! There must be money in it, much money, for our Conscript

Fathers."

"I suppose so," said Don Silverio, "but I cannot see where it is to

come from."

"From the pockets of the taxpayers, my friend!" replied the incumbent

of Sant Anselmo, with a smile as of a man who knows the world he

lives in. "The country is honeycombed by enterprises undertaken

solely to this end -- to pass the money which rusts in the pockets of

fools into those of wise men who know how to make it run about and

multiply. In what other scope are all our betterments, our hygiene,

our useless railway lines, our monstrous new streets, all our

modernisation, put in the cauldron and kept boiling like a witch's

supper?"

"I know, I know," said Don Silverio wearily. "The whole land is

overrun by _affaristi_, like red ants."

"Do not slander the ants!" replied his host; "I would not offend the

name of any honest, hard-working little insect by giving it to the

men through whom this country is eaten up by selfish avarice and

unscrupulous speculation! But tell me, what do you hope for from our

revered Prefect?"

"I hope nothing, but I wish to leave no stone unturned. Tell me of

him."

"Of his Excellency, Giovacchino Gallo, senator, Grand Cross, and

whatnot? There is much to tell, though there is nothing which could

not be also told of many another gentleman in high place. It is the

usual story: the supple spine, the sharp eye, the greased foot. He

was a young lawyer, useful to deputies. He married a lovely woman

whom a prince had admired beyond him. He asked no questions; her

dower was large. To do him justice, he has always behaved very well

to her. He entered Parliament early, and there was useful also, to

existing institutions. He was instrumental in carrying many railway

and canal bills through the chamber. He has been always successful in

his undertakings, and he knows that nothing succeeds like success. I

am told that he and his wife are _persone gratissime_ at the

Quirinale, and that her jewels are extremely fine. When he was named

Senator two years ago the Press, especially the Press of the Right,

saluted his nomination as strengthening the Senate by the accession

to it of a person of impeccable virtue, of enlightened intellect, and

of a character cast in antique moulds of noble simplicity and Spartan

courage. You think, my brother, that this favourite of fortune is

likely to favour your plea for your parishioners?"

"Dear and revered brother," replied Don Silverio, "I came hither

with no such illusions. If I had done, your biography of this

functionary would have dispelled them."

Nevertheless, although without hope, at two o'clock of that day he

went to the audience which was granted him at the intervention of the

bishop of the city, obtained by means of the vicar of Sant Anselmo.

The Prefecture was situated in a palace of sixteenth century

architecture, a noble and stately place of immense size, greatly

injured by telegraph and telephone wires stretching all round it, the

post-office and the tax offices being situated on the ground floor,

and the great central court daubed over with fresh paint and

whitewash. Some little soldiers in dingy uniforms, ill-cut and

ill-fitting, stood about gates and doors. On the first floor were the

apartments occupied by his Excellency. Don Silverio was kept waiting

for some time in a vestibule of fine proportions painted by

Diotisalvi, with a colossal marble group in its centre of the death

of Caesar.

He looked at it wistfully.

"Ah, Guilio!" he murmured, "what use were your conquests, what use

was your genius, the greatest perchance the world has ever seen? What

use? You were struck in the throat like a felled ox, and the land you

ruled lies bleeding at every pore!"

In a quarter of an hour he was ushered through other large rooms into

one of great architectural beauty, where the Prefect was standing by

a writing-table.

Giovacchino Gallo was a short, stout person with a large stomach, a

bald head, bright restless eyes, and a high, narrow forehead; his

face was florid, like the face of one to whom the pleasures of the

table are not alien. His address was courteous but distant, stiff,

and a little pompous; he evidently believed in himself as a great

person and only unbent to other greater persons, when he unbent so

vastly that he crawled.

"What can I do for your Reverence?" he asked, as he seated himself

behind the writing-table and pointed to a chair.

The words were polite but the tone was curt; it was officialism

crystallised.

Don Silverio explained the purpose of his visit, and urged the

prayers of his people.

"I am but the vicar of Ruscino," he said in explanation, "but in this

matter I plead for all the natives of the Valdedera. Your Excellency

is Governor of this province, in which the Edera takes its rise and

has its course. My people, and all those others who are not under my

ministry, but whose desires and supplications I represent, venture to

look to you for support in their greatest distress, and intercession

for them against this calamity."

The face of the Prefect grew colder and sterner, his eyes got an

angry sparkle, his plump, rosy hands closed on a malachite

paper-knife; he wished the knife were of steel, and the people of the

Valdedera had but one head.

"Are you aware, sir," he said impatiently, "that the matter of which

you speak has had the ratification of Parliament?"

"But it has not had the ratification of the persons whom it most

concerns."

"Do you supposed, then, when a great public work is to be

accomplished the promoters are to go hat in hand for permission to

every peasant resident on the area?"

"A great public work seems to me a large expression: too large for

this case. The railway is not needed. The acetylene works are a

private speculation. I venture to recall to your Excellency that

these people, whom you would ignore, own the land, or, where they do

not own it, have many interests both in the land and the water."

"Pardon me, your Excellency, but that is a phrase: it is not a fact.

You could not, if you gave them millions, compensate them for the

seizure of their river and their lands. These belong to them and to

their descendants by natural right. They cannot be deprived of these

by Act of Parliament without gross injury and injustice."

"There must be suffering for the individual in all benefit of the

general!"

"And doubtless, sir, when one is not the individual the suffering

appears immaterial!"

"What an insolent priest!" thought Giovacchino Gallo, and struck the

paper-knife with anger on the table.

"Take my own parishioners alone," pursued Don Silverio. "Their small

earnings depend entirely upon the Edera water; it gives them their

food, their bed, their occupation; it gives them health and strength;

it irrigates their little holdings, _extra murus_, on which they and

their families depend for grain and maize and rice. If you change

their river-bed into dry land they will starve. Are not your own

countrymen dearer to you than the members of a foreign syndicate?"

"There will be work for them at the acetylene factory."

"Are they not free men? Are they to be driven like slaves to a work

which would be hateful to them? These people are country born and

country bred. They labour in the open air, and have done so for

generations. Pardon me, your Excellency, but every year the King's

Government forces into exile thousands, tens of thousands, of our

hard working peasants with their families. The taxation of the land

and of all its products lays waste thousands of square miles in this

country. The country is being depleted and depopulated, and the best

of its manhood is being sent out of it by droves to Brazil, to La

Plata, to the Argentines, to anywhere and everywhere, where labour is

cheap and climate homicidal. The poor are packed on emigrant ships

and sent with less care than crated of fruit receive. They consent to

go because they are famished here. Is it well for a country to lose

its labouring classes, its frugal, willing, and hard-working manhood?

to pack them off across the oceans by contract with other states? The

Government has made a contract with a Pacific island for five

thousand Italians? Are they free men or are they slaves? Can your

Excellency call my people free who are allowed no voice against the

seizure of their own river, and to whom you offer an unwholesome and

indoor labour as compensation for the ruin of their lives? Now, they

are poor indeed, but they are contented; they keep body and soul

together, they live on their natal soil, they live as their fathers

lived. Is it just, is it right, is it wise to turn these people into

disaffection and despair by an act of tyranny and spoilation through

which the only gainers will be foreign speculators abroad and at home

the gamblers of the Bourses? Sir, I do not believe that the world

holds people more patient, more long-suffering, more pacific under

dire provocation, or more willing to subsist on the poorest and

hardest conditions than Italians are; is it right or just or wise to

take advantage of that national resignation to take from half a

province the natural aid and the natural beauty with which God

Himself has dowered it in the gift of the mountainborn stream? You

are powerful, sir, you have the ear of the Government; you will not

try to stop this infamous theft of the Edera water whilst there is

still time?"

Don Silverio spoke with that eloquence and with that melody of voice

which few could bear unmoved; and even the dull ear and the hard

heart of the official who heard him were for one brief moment moved

as by the pathos of a song sung by some great tenor.

But that moment was very brief. Over the face of Giovacchino Gallo a

look passed at once brutal and suspicious. "Curse this priest!" he

thought; "he will give us trouble."

He rose, stiff, cold, pompous, with a frigid smile on his red, full,

_bon viveur's_ lips.

"If you imagine that I should venture to attack, or even presume to

criticise, a matter which the Most Honourable the Minister of

Agriculture has in his wisdom approved and ratified, you must have a

strange conception of my fitness for my functions. As regards

yourself, Reverend Sir, I regret that you appear to forget that the

chief duty of your sacred office is to inculcate to your flock

unquestioning submission to Governmental decrees."

"Is that your Excellency's last word?"

"It is my first, and my last, word."

Don Silverio bowed low.

"You may regret it, sir," he said simply, and left the writing-table

and crossed the room. But as he approached the door the Prefect,

still standing, said, "Wait!"

Gallo opened two or three drawers in his table, searched for some

papers, looked over them, leaving the priest always standing between

him and the door. Don Silverio was erect; his tall frail form had a

great majesty in it; his pallid features were stern.

"Return a moment," said Gallo.

"I can hear your Excellency where I am," replied Don Silverio, and

did not stir.

"I have here reports from certain of my agents," said Gallo,

fingering his various papers, "that there is and has been for some

time a subversive movement amongst the sparse population of the

Valdedera."

Don Silverio did not speak or stir.

"It is an agrarian agitation," continued Gallo, "limited to its area,

with little probability of spreading, but it exists; there are

meetings by night, both open-air and secret meetings; the latter take

place now in one farmhouse, now in another. The leader of this

noxious and unlawful movement is one Adone Alba. He is of your

parish."

He lifted his eyelids and flashed a quick, searching glance at the

priest.

"He is of my parish," repeated Don Silverio, with no visible emotion.

"You know of this agitation?"

"If I did, sir, I should not say so. But I am not in the confidence

of Adone Alba."

"Of course I do not ask you to reveal the secrets of the

confessional, but --"

"Neither in the confessional nor out of it have I heard anything

whatever from him concerning any such matter as that of which you

speak."

"He is a young man?"

"Yes."

"And the owner of the land known as the Terra Vergine?"

"Yes."

"And his land is comprised in that which will be taken by the

projected works?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure that he has not sent you here?"

"My parishoners are not in the habit of 'sending' me anywhere. You

reverse our respective positions."

"Humility is not one of your ecclesiastical virtues, Most Reverend."

"It may be so."

Gallo thrust his papers back into their drawer and locked it with a

sharp click.

"You saw the Syndic of San Beda?"

"I did."

"Much what you say. Official language is always limited and learned

by rote."

Gallo would willingly have thrown his bronze inkstand at the insolent

ecclesiastic; his temper was naturally choleric, though years of

sycophancy and State service had taught him to control it.

"Well, Reverend Sir!" he said, with ill-concealed irritation, "this

conversation is, I see, useless. You protect and screen your people.

Perhaps I cannot blame you for that, but you will allow me to remind

you that it is my duty to see that the order and peace of this

district are not in any manner disturbed; and that any parish priest

if he fomented dissatisfaction or countenanced agitation in his

district, would be much more severely dealt with by me than any

civilian would be in the same circumstances. We tolerate and respect

the Church so long as she remains strictly within her own sphere, but

so long only."

"We are all perfectly well aware of the conditions attached to the

_placet_ and the _exequatur_ at all times, and we are all conscious

that even the limited privileges of civilians are denied to us!"

replied Don Silverio. "I have the honour to wish your Excellency good

morning."

He closed the door behind him.

"Damnation!" said Giovacchino Gallo; "that is a strong man! Is Mother

Church blind that she lets such an one rust and rot in the miserable

parish of Ruscino?"

When Don Silverio rejoined the Vicar of Sant Anselmo the latter asked

him anxiously how his errand had sped.

"It was a waste of breath and words," he answered. "I might have

known that it would be so with any Government official."

"But you might have put a spoke in Count Corradini's wheel. If you

had told Gallo that the other is trafficking --"

"Why should I betray a man who received me in all good faith? And

what good would it have accomplished if I had done so?"

And more weary than ever in mind and body he returned to Ruscino.

As he had left the Prefect's presence that eminent person had rung

for his secretary.

"Brandone, send me Sarelli."

In a few moments Sarelli had appeared; he was the usher of the

Prefecture by appointment; by taste and in addition he was its chief

spy. He was a native of the city, and a person of considerable acumen

and excellent memory; he never needed to make memoranda -- there is

nothing so dangerous to an official as written notes.

"Sarelli, what are the reports concerning the vicar of Ruscino?"

Sarelli stood respectfully at attention; he had been a

non-commissioned officer of artillery; and answered in rapid but

clear tones --

"Great ability -- great eloquence -- disliked by superiors; formerly

great preacher in Rome; supposed to be at Ruscino as castigation;

learned -- benevolent -- correct."

"Humph!" said Gallo, disappointed. "Not likely then to cause trouble

or disorder? -- to necessitate painful measures?"

Sarelli rapidly took his cue.

"Hitherto, your Excellency, uniformly correct; except in one instance

--"

"That instance?"

"Your Excellency will have heard of Ulisse Ferrero, a great robber of

the lower Abruzzo Citeriore Primo?"

"I have: continue."

"Ulisse Ferrero was outlawed; his band had been killed or captured,

every one; he had lost his right arm; he hid for many years in the

lower woods of Abruzzo; he came down at night to the farmhouses, the

people gave him food and drink, and aided him --"

"Their criminal habit always: continue."

"Sometimes in one district, sometimes in another, he was often in the

_macchia_ of the Valdedera. The people of the district, and

especially of Ruscino, protected him. They thought him a saint,

because once when at the head of his band, which was then very

strong, he had come into Ruscino and done them no harm, but only

eaten and drunk, and left a handful of silver pieces to pay for what

he and his men had taken. So they protected him now, and oftentimes

for more than a year he came out of the _macchia_, and the villagers

gave him all they could, and he went up and down Ruscino as if he

were a king; and this lasted for several seasons, and, as we learned

afterwards, Don Silverio Frascara had cognisance of this fact, but

did nothing. When Ulisse Ferrero was at last captured (it is nine

years ago come November, and it was not in Ruscino but in the woods

above), and brought to trial, many witnesses were summoned, and

amongst them this Don Silverio; and the judge said to him, 'You had

knowledge that this man came oftentimes into you parish?' and Don

Silverio answered, 'I had.' 'You knew that he was an outlaw, in

rupture with justice?' 'I did,' he answered. Then the judge struck

his fist with anger on his desk. 'And you a priest, a guardian of

order, did not denounce him to the authorities?' Then Don Silverio,

your Excellency, quite quietly, but with a smile (I was there close

to him), had the audacity to answer the judge. 'I am a priest,' he

said 'and I study my breviary, but do not find in it any command

which authorises me to betray my fellow creatures.' That made a

terrible stir in the tribunal, you Excellency. They talked of

committing him to gaol for contempt of court and for collusion with

the outlaw. But it took place at San Beda, where they are all

_papalini_, as your Excellency knows, and nothing was done, sir."

"That reply is verily like this priest!" thought Giovacchino Gallo.

"A man of ability, of intellect, of incorruptible temper, but a man

as like as not to encourage and excuse sedition."