II

When I was in Milan in 'forty-seven an unlucky thing happened to me.

I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian

friends in England. As an English officer I had no difficulty in

getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the

refuge of the Italian fugitives, and I was known to be working in their

interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never enjoyed

life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal going

on--good music, balls and theatres. Milan kept up her gayety to the

last. The English were shocked by the _insouciance_ of a race who could

dance under the very nose of the usurper; but those who understood the

situation knew that Milan was playing Brutus, and playing it uncommonly

well.

I was in the thick of it all--it was just the atmosphere to suit a

young fellow of nine-and-twenty, with a healthy passion for waltzing

and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was

fool enough to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard of

her, of course: you know the share she had in the great work. In a

different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had been to

an earlier generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible. She was

quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she was a widow of

thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years previously,

soon after their marriage. The marriage had been notoriously unhappy,

and his death was a release to Donna Candida. Her family were of

Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon after the execution of

Ciro Menotti and his companions. You remember the details of that

business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most adroit villains in

Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting the Italian states

under his rule. It was a vision of Italian liberation--of a sort. A few

madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro Menotti was one of them. You know

the end. The Duke of Modena, who had counted on Louis Philippe's

backing, found that that astute sovereign had betrayed him to Austria.

Instantly, he saw that his first business was to get rid of the

conspirators he had created. There was nothing easier than for a

Hapsburg Este to turn on a friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his life for

the Duke--and the Duke took it. You may remember that, on the night

when seven hundred men and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke

was seen looking on at the slaughter from an arcade across the square.

Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen,

Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of Donna Candida. The Verna

family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at that

time, of the mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his sister.

Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties. He had never

recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile, without seeing

his wife and children again. Countess Verna had been an ardent patriot

in her youth, but the failure of the first attempts against Austria had

discouraged her. She thought that in losing her husband she had

sacrificed enough for her country, and her one idea was to keep Emilio

on good terms with the government. But the Verna blood was not

tractable, and his father's death was not likely to make Emilio a good

subject of the Estes. Not that he had as yet taken any active share in

the work of the conspirators: he simply hadn't had time. At his trial

there was nothing to show that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but

he had been seen once or twice coming out of what the ducal police

called "suspicious" houses, and in his desk were found some verses to

Italy. That was enough to hang a man in Modena, and Emilio Verna was

hanged.

The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her

son's death were too abominable, to unendurable. If he had risked his

life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his losing

it. But he was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but

powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had been sacrificed

to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for victims, and the

Countess Verna was not to be consoled.

As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan.

There they lived in seclusion till Candida's marriage. During her

girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut

herself up in the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her

martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the dead. At the

moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had been

reading Petrarch's Ode to the Lords of Italy, and the lines _l'antico

valor nell'italici cor non e ancor morto_ had lodged like a bullet in

her brain. From the day of her marriage she began to take a share in

the silent work which was going on throughout Italy. Milan was at that

time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco threw herself into

it with all the passion which her unhappy marriage left unsatisfied. At

first she had to act with great reserve, for her husband was a prudent

man, who did not care to have his habits disturbed by political

complications; but after his death there was nothing to restrain her,

except the exquisite tact which enabled her to work night and day in

the Italian cause without giving the Austrian authorities a pretext for

interference.

When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a tragic

woman, prematurely bowed, like an image of death in the background of

the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her son's death, had

become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense than Candida. The

mother's first thought was that her dead must be avenged, the

daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different motives they

worked for the same end. Candida felt for the Countess that protecting

tenderness with which Italian children so often regard their parents, a

feeling heightened by the reverence which the mother's sufferings

inspired. Countess Verna, as the wife and mother of martyrs, had done

what Candida longed to do: she had given her utmost to Italy. There

must have been moments when the self-absorption of her grief chilled

her daughter's ardent spirit; but Candida revered in her mother the

image of their afflicted country.

"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had

suffered after Emilio's death. "All the circumstances were too

unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother; as

if she had been singled out to suffer more than any of the others. All

the other families received some message or token of farewell from the

prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry a letter--another

sent a lock of hair by the chaplain. But Emilio made no sign, sent no

word. My mother felt as though he had turned his back on us. She used

to sit for hours, saying again and again, 'Why was he the only one to

forget his mother?' I tried to comfort her, but it was useless: she had

suffered too much. Now I never reason with her; I listen, and let her

ease her poor heart. Do you know, she still asks me sometimes if I

think he may have left a letter--if there is no way of finding out if

he left one? She forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have

sent bribes and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who

came near him. The answer is always the same--no one has ever heard of

a letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of

writing. Who knows what was passing through his poor bewildered brain?

But it would have been a great help to my mother to have a word from

him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should have forged a

letter."

I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence must

have aggravated the Countess's grief. Precious as a message from a

dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness have to the

Italians a peculiar significance. The Latin race is rhetorical: it

possesses the gift of death-bed eloquence, the knack of saying the

effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters which the Italian

patriots sent home from their prisons or from the scaffold are not the

halting farewells that anguish would have wrung from a less expressive

race: they are veritable "compositions," saved from affectation only by

the fact that fluency and sonority are a part of the Latin inheritance.

Such letters, passed from hand to hand among the bereaved families,

were not only a comfort to the survivors but an incentive to fresh

sacrifices. They were the "seed of the martyrs" with which Italy was

being sown; and I knew what it meant to the Countess Verna to have no

such treasure in her bosom, to sit silent while other mothers quoted

their sons' last words.

I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in love

with Donna Candida; and no doubt you have guessed the reason. She was

in love with some one else. It was the old situation of Heine's song.

That other loved another--loved Italy, and with an undivided passion.

His name was Fernando Briga, and at that time he was one of the

foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middle-class Modenese family.

His father was a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed in his profession and

unwilling to compromise it by meddling in politics. His irreproachable

attitude won the confidence of the government, and the Duke conferred

on him the sinister office of physician to the prisons of Modena. It

was this Briga who attended Emilio Falco, and several of the other

prisoners who were executed at the same time.

Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in

safety. He was studying medicine, and every one supposed him to be

absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening into

one of Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to history, so

I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in Milan, and had become

one of the leading figures in the liberal group which was working for a

coalition with Piedmont. Like all the ablest men of his day, he had

cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the house of Savoy. The

Austrian government had an eye on him, but he had inherited his

father's prudence, though he used it for nobler ends, and his

discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause than a dozen

enthusiasts could have accomplished. No one understood this better than

Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution, and he trusted her with

secrets which he would not have confided to many men. Her drawing-room

was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet so clever was she in

averting suspicion that more than one hunted conspirator hid in her

house, and was helped across the Alps by her agents.

Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love her,

and she knew it. Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he loved

no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate friends

she made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not reticent in

such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a hero. You will

see at once that I had no chance; but if she could not give up hope,

neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure my services for the

cause she may have shown herself overkind; or perhaps I was still young

enough to set down to my own charms a success due to quite different

causes. At any rate, I persuaded myself that if I could manage to do

something conspicuous for Italy I might yet make her care for me. With

such an incentive you will not wonder that I worked hard; but though

Donna Candida was full of gratitude she continued to adore my rival.

One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her with

having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated by

taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that, and said

it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return; and as she

said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so unattainably the

woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped me:--was she so sure then

that Briga was a hero? I remember her proud silence and our wretched

parting. I went away feeling that at last I had really lost her; and

the thought made me savage and vindictive.

Soon after, as it happened, came the _Five Days_, and Milan was free. I

caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to which I

was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one and in

twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she might send

for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the first advance.

A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion in Modena, and

not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over there with one or two

men whom the Modenese liberals had called in to help them. When we

arrived the precious Duke had been swept out and a provisional

government set up. One of my companions, who was a Modenese, was made a

member, and knowing that I wanted something to do, he commissioned me

to look up some papers in the ducal archives. It was fascinating work,

for in the pursuit of my documents I uncovered the hidden springs of

his late Highness's paternal administration. The principal papers

relative to the civil and criminal administration of Modena have since

been published, and the world knows how that estimable sovereign cared

for the material and spiritual welfare of his subjects.

Well--in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers

marked: "Taken from political prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year of

Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was

thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I

came across one which was docketed: "Given by Doctor Briga's son to the

warder of His Highness's prisons." _Doctor Briga's son?_ That could be

no other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But how came such

a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from them into those of

the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened the letter--I felt

the man suddenly in my power.

Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle of

hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the hope

that these last words of farewell may reach you...." My eyes ran on

over pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored

Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father and

brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the thought of

Spielberg and Reggio. Do not grieve that I die so young... though not

with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit, and am worthy to

be enrolled in the sacred phalanx..." and so on. Before I reached the

signature I knew the letter was from Emilio Verna.

I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for

Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant to do--my head was in a whirl.

I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a lad of

fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during Emilio

Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the lad's liberal

sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the letter. But why

had Briga given it up to the warder? That was the puzzling question.

The docket said: "_Given by_ Doctor Briga's son"--but it might mean

"taken from." Fernando might have been seen to receive the letter and

might have been searched on leaving the prison. But that would not

account for his silence afterward. How was it that, if he knew of the

letter, he had never told Emilio's family of it? There was only one

explanation. If the letter had been taken from him by force he would

have had no reason for concealing its existence; and his silence was

clear proof that he had given it up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope

of standing well with the authorities. But then he was a traitor and a

coward; the patriot of 'forty-eight had begun life as an informer! But

does innate character ever change so radically that the lad who has

committed a base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man? A

good man may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak

into a hero?

You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had been

false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and cowardly

still? In those days there were traitors under every coat, and more

than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his best

friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished, that he had

exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by his friends too

steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of his good faith. So reason

might have told me in a calmer moment, but she was not allowed to make

herself heard just then. I was young, I was angry, I chose to think I

had been unfairly treated, and perhaps at my rival's instigation. It

was not unlikely that Briga knew of my love for Donna Candida, and had

encouraged her to use it in the good cause. Was she not always at his

bidding? My blood boiled at the thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I

went straight to Donna Candida.

I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The

triumph of the liberals in Modena had revived public interest in the

unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen years

earlier, had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The victors of

'forty-eight wished to honor the vanquished of 'thirty-two. All the

families exiled by the ducal government were hastening back to recover

possession of their confiscated property and of the graves of their

dead. Already it had been decided to raise a monument to Menotti and

his companions. There were to be speeches, garlands, a public holiday:

the thrill of the commemoration would run through Europe. You see what

it would have meant to the poor Countess to appear on the scene with

her boy's letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on

the back of the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's

farewell would be published in all the journals of Europe: the finding

of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal those fatal

words on the back? At the moment, it seemed to me that fortune could

not have given me a handsomer chance of destroying my rival than in

letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of having

suppressed.

My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what could I

do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was out of the

question; and with the best will in the world I could not have erased

Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in thinking it lucky

that the paper had fallen into my hands.

Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but she

held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I brought

from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she were trying

to get me into her power again.

"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to her.

I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she should

not see it.

She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light struck

up from it into her face as she read--a radiance that smote me to the

soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her and efface the

name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived her happiness

must be.

Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands and

kissed them. "Oh, thank you--bless you a thousand times! He died

thinking of us--he died loving Italy!"

I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the touch

of her lips hardened me.

She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness--what

consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the

bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do you

know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's flight

her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At heart she was

always sure that he had written--I suppose some blessed instinct told

her so." She dropped her face on her hands, and I saw her tears fall on

the wretched letter.

In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted me.

"Tell me where you found it," she said.