‘And Hungary too—you do not believe it?’
‘No, it is not that. I simply do not know.’
‘Well, may we expect any movement in Russia?’
‘None whatever. Nothing has changed since I wrote to you in November. The
Government, conscious of public support for all their crimes in Poland,
goes its headlong way, caring not a straw for Europe, while the educated
class sinks lower and lower. The people are dumb. The Polish question
is not their question; we have one common enemy, but the question is
differently presented. Besides, we have plenty of time before us while
they have none.’
So the conversation continued for a few minutes longer, when typically
English countenances began to appear at the door, there was a rustle of
ladies’ dresses. I stood up.
‘Why are you in such a hurry?’ said Garibaldi.
‘I won’t steal you longer from England.’
‘We shall meet in London, shan’t we?’
‘I will certainly come to see you. Is it true that you are staying at the
Duke of Sutherland’s?’
‘Yes,’ said Garibaldi, and added as though apologising, ‘I could not get
out of it.’
‘Then I shall come to see you with my head powdered so that the flunkeys
at Stafford House may think you have a powdered servant.’
At that moment the poet-laureate, Tennyson, appeared with his wife. This
was too many laurels for me, and through the same unceasing downpour I
returned to Cowes.
The scene was changed, but the same play continued. The steamer from
Cowes to Southampton had just left, but another set off three hours
later, so I went to a restaurant hard by, ordered dinner and took up _The
Times_. At the first sentence I was dumbfoundered. The seventy-year-old
Abraham who had two months before been condemned for intrigues with a
new Hagar had finally sacrificed his Isaac from Halifax. Stansfeld’s
resignation had been accepted. And this at the very minute when Garibaldi
was beginning his triumphal progress through England! I had no idea of
this when speaking with Garibaldi.
That Stansfeld should for a second time have sent in his resignation,
seeing that the attacks upon him persisted, was perfectly natural. He
ought from the very first to have taken his own stand and to have flung
up his post in the Admiralty. Stansfeld had done what he ought, but
what were Palmerston and his colleagues doing? And what was Palmerston
babbling in his speech afterwards?... With what cringing flattery he
spoke of their magnanimous ally, of their fervent desire for his long
life and continual blessings upon him. As though any one took _au
sérieux_ this police farce of Greco Trabucco and Company.