I asked for paper and wrote a letter to Guerzoni. I wrote it in all
the first flush of my annoyance and begged him to read _The Times_ to
Garibaldi; I wrote of the ugliness of this apotheosis of Garibaldi side
by side with the insults paid to Mazzini. ‘I am fifty-two,’ I wrote, ‘but
I must own that tears come into my eyes at the thought of this injustice.’
A few days before my visit to Garibaldi I had been to see Mazzini. The
man has endured much and can endure much; he is an old fighter who cannot
be cast down nor worn out; but this time I found him bitterly mortified
just because he had been chosen as the means by which his friend was
to be brought low. As I was writing the letter to Guerzoni the noble
emaciated figure of the old man with his flashing eyes rose before me.
When I had finished and the waiter had brought my dinner, I noticed
that I was not alone—a short, fair-haired young man with moustaches,
wearing the dark blue reefer-coat of a sailor, was sitting by the fire
_à l’Américain_, his legs skilfully raised to the level of his ears.
His rapid manner of speech and provincial accent, which made his words
incomprehensible to me, convinced me that this was some seaman carousing
on shore. I left off paying attention to him—he was not speaking to me
but to the waiter. Our acquaintance was limited to my passing him the
salt and his shaking his head in response.
Soon he was joined by a dark elderly gentleman all in black and buttoned
to the chin, with that peculiar air of insanity people acquire from a
close acquaintance with heaven and an affected religious exaltation which
has become natural from long perseverance.
It seemed that he was well acquainted with the sailor and had come to
see him. After three or four words he left off _speaking_ and began
_preaching_. ‘I have seen,’ he said, ‘Maccabeus ... Gideon ... the weapon
in the hands of Providence, His sword, His sling ... and the more I gazed
upon him the more deeply was I moved and with tears I repeated “The sword
of the Lord! the sword of the Lord!” He hath chosen the weak David to
vanquish Goliath. Wherefore the English people, the chosen people, go
forth to greet him as to the bride of Lebanon ... the heart of the people
is in the hands of the Lord, it tells them that this is the sword of the
Lord, the weapon of Providence—Gideon.’
The doors were flung wide open and there walked in not the bride
of Lebanon but a dozen important-looking Britons, among them Lord
Shaftesbury and Lord Lindsay. They all sat down to the table and asked
for something to eat, announcing that they were going on at once
to Brooke House. It was the official deputation from London with an
invitation to Garibaldi. The preacher subsided, but the sailor rose in my
esteem; he looked with such unmistakable aversion at the deputation that
it struck me, remembering his friend’s sermon, that he might be taking
these people, if not for the swords and bucklers of Satan, at least for
his pen-knives and lancets.
I asked him how I ought to address a letter to Brooke House, whether it
was sufficient to put the name of the house or whether I ought to add
that of the nearest town. He told me there was no need to add anything.
One of the deputation, a stout, grey-headed old gentleman, asked me to
whom I was sending a letter in Brooke House.
‘To Guerzoni.’
‘He is Garibaldi’s secretary, isn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘You need not trouble then. We are going there directly. I shall be
pleased to take the letter.’
I took out my card and handed it him with the letter. Could anything like
that have happened on the Continent? Imagine in France any one asking
you in a hotel to whom you were writing, and, on learning that it was to
Garibaldi’s secretary, undertaking to give him the letter!
The letter was delivered, and next morning I had an answer in London.
The editor of the foreign news column of the _Morning Star_ recognised
me; inquiries followed as to how I had found Garibaldi, how he was. After
talking to him for a few minutes I went off into the smoking-room. There
my fair-haired sailor and his swarthy theological friend were sitting
over pale ale and pipes.
‘Well,’ he said to me, ‘have you had a good stare at those people?...
That is jolly fine, Lord Shaftesbury and Lord Lindsay going as deputies
to invite Garibaldi. What a farce! As though they knew what Garibaldi is!’
‘The weapon of Providence, a sword in the hands of the Lord, His buckler
... to that end He hath raised him up and hath kept him in his holy
simplicity.’
‘That is all very fine, but what have these gentry come for? I’d like to
ask every one of them how much money they have in the _Alabama_[19] ...
let Garibaldi come to Newcastle-on-Tyne or Glasgow, there he will see the
people closer, there he won’t be hindered by lords and dukes.’
He was not a seaman, but a shipwright. He had lived for some years in
America, had a thorough knowledge of the relations of South and North,
and spoke of the hopelessness of the war there, to which the consolatory
theologian observed: ‘If the Lord hath divided that people and set
brother against brother, He hath His own designs, and if we comprehend
them not, we must submit to His Providence even when it chastises us.’
It was under these circumstances and in this form that I heard for the
last time a commentary on the celebrated Hegelian motto: ‘All that is
real is rational.’ Shaking hands in a friendly way with the sailor and
his chaplain, I departed for Southampton.
On the steamer I met the Radical journalist Holyoake; he had seen
Garibaldi a little later than I had. Garibaldi had sent through him an
invitation to Mazzini, and had already telegraphed to the latter to come
to Southampton, where Holyoake intended to wait for him with Menotti
Garibaldi and his brother. Holyoake very much wanted to get two letters
to London by that evening (they could not reach by post before the
morning). I offered my services.
I arrived in London at eleven o’clock in the evening, ordered a room at
the York Hotel near Waterloo Station, and drove off with the letters,
surprised to find that the rain had not yet managed to stop. At one
o’clock or a little later I reached the hotel again. It was locked
up. I knocked and knocked.... A drunken individual who was finishing
his festive evening near the railing of a tavern said: ‘Don’t knock
there, there is a night-bell round the corner.’ I went to look for the
night-bell, found it and set to ringing. A sleepy-looking head was poked
out of some basement and the porter asked me rudely without opening the
door: ‘What do you want?’
‘A room.’
‘There is not one.’
‘I engaged one myself at eleven o’clock.’
‘I tell you there is not one,’ and he slammed the door of the netherworld
without even waiting for me to swear at him, which I did indeed to no
purpose, since he could not hear me.
It was an unpleasant position; to find a room in London at two o’clock at
night, especially in that quarter of the town, is not easy. I remembered
a little French restaurant and made my way there.
‘Have you a room?’ I asked the man who kept it.
‘Yes, but not a very nice one.’
‘Show it me.’
He had told the truth indeed. The room was more than not very nice, it
was very nasty. But I had no choice. I opened the window and went down
to the bar for a minute. There were still Frenchmen drinking, shouting,
playing cards and dominoes there. A German of colossal height whom I had
seen before came up to me and asked whether I had time for a word with
him in private, as he had something of special importance to tell me.
‘Of course I have; let us go into the next room, there is no one there.’
The German sat down opposite me and began telling me tragically how his
_patron_, a Frenchman, had cheated him, how he had been exploiting him
for three years past, making him do the work of three and beguiling him
with the hope that he would take him into partnership, and now, all of a
sudden, without saying a disagreeable word, he had gone off to Paris and
there taken a partner. On the strength of this, the German had told him
that he should leave the place, but the _patron_ had not returned....
‘But why did you trust him without any agreement?’
‘_Weil ich ein dummer Deutscher bin._’
‘Well, that is another matter.’
‘I want to close the establishment and go away.’
‘You had better look out, he will bring an action against you; do you
know the law here?’
The German shook his head.
‘I should like to pay him out.... I suppose you have been to see
Garibaldi?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, how is he? _Ein famoser Kerl_—but you know, if he had not promised
it me for the last three years I should have been doing something else. I
could not expect it, I could not ... and how is his wound?’
‘I think it is all right.’
‘The beast, he kept it all quiet and the last day says “I have a partner
already.” I am afraid I am boring you?’
‘Not at all, only I am a little tired and sleepy. I got up at six and now
it is a little past two.’
‘But what am I to do? I was awfully pleased when you came in, _ich habe
so bei mir gedacht, der wird Rat schaffen_. So I am not to close the
establishment?’
‘No. But as he is so in love with Paris, you write to him to-morrow: “I
have shut up the place. When will you be pleased to come and take charge
of it?” You will see the effect; he will leave his wife and his gambling
on the Bourse, come here post-haste and see that it is not shut up.’
‘_Saperlot! das ist eine Idee—ausgezeichnet_, I will go and write the
letter.’
‘And I will go to bed. _Gute Nacht!_’
‘_Schlafen Sie wohl._’
I asked for a candle. The restaurant-keeper brought it with his own hand
and announced that he wanted a word with me. It was as though I had
turned father confessor.
‘What is it? It is a little late, but I am ready to hear.’
‘Only a word or two. I wanted to ask you: What do you think if I were
to put up a bust of Garibaldi to-morrow—you know, with flowers and a
laurel wreath; wouldn’t it be very nice? I have been wondering about an
inscription in letters of three colours: Garibaldi—_Libérateur_?’
‘To be sure you might! Only the French embassy will forbid the French to
come to your restaurant, and they are here from morning till night.’
‘That is so ... but you know one would rake in a lot of money exhibiting
the bust, and they will forget about it afterwards....’
‘Mind,’ I observed, resolutely getting up to go, ‘you don’t tell any one.
Some one will steal the original idea from you.’
‘Not a word, not a word to any one. What we have said will remain, I
hope, I beg, between us.’
‘Have no doubt about that,’ and I went off to his dirty bedroom.
Such was the sequel to my first interview with Garibaldi in 1864.
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