That day was wonderfully successful and was one of the brightest,
loveliest and most cloudless days of the last fifteen years. There was
a wonderful serenity and fulness about it, an aesthetic proportion and
completeness such as very rarely comes. One day later, and our festive
day would not have had that character. One more—not an Italian—of our
party, and the tone would have been different; at any rate, there would
have been an uneasy fear that it would be spoilt. Such days stand out
like mountain-tops ... as with notes fully sung, as with flowers fully
opened; there is nothing further, nothing higher, nothing beyond.
From the moment when the steps of Stafford House with the Duke of
Sutherland’s lackeys, factotums and porter had vanished and the crowd
received Garibaldi with its ‘Hurrah,’ our hearts grew light, everything
was attuned to a free human key and so remained till the moment when
Garibaldi, pressed and crowded by the people again, kissed on his
shoulder and on the hem of his coat, got into the carriage and drove back
to London.
On the way we talked of different things. Garibaldi wondered that the
Germans did not understand that it was not their freedom, not their
unity, that was victorious in Denmark, but the two armies of two despotic
states which they would not be able to control later.[21] ‘If Denmark
had been supported in her struggle,’ he said, ‘the forces of Austria and
Prussia would have been diverted and a line of action on the opposite
coast would have been thrown open to us.’
I observed that the Germans were terrible nationalists, that they were
labelled as cosmopolitan because they were only known from books. They
were just as patriotic as the French, but the French were calmer in
their patriotism, knowing that they were feared. The Germans knew the
poor opinion in which they were held by other peoples and strained
themselves to the utmost to keep up their reputation. ‘Do you imagine,’
I added, ‘that there are Germans who want to give up Venice and the
Quadrilateral?[22] Perhaps Venice they would: that question is too
conspicuous, the injustice of that is obvious, the aristocratic name has
an effect on them; but you should just talk to them about Trieste, which
they need for trade, or Galicia or Posen, which they need in order to
civilise them.’
Among other things I repeated to Garibaldi my conversation with
Ledru-Rollin, and added that in my opinion Ledru-Rollin was right.
‘Undoubtedly,’ said Garibaldi, ‘perfectly right. I had not thought of it.
To-morrow I will go to him and to Louis Blanc. Couldn’t we go now?’ he
added.
We were in the Wandsworth Road and Ledru-Rollin was in St. John’s Wood,
that is eight miles away. I had _à l’imprésario_ to tell him that it was
utterly impossible.
And again at moments Garibaldi sank into thought and was silent, and
again his face expressed that great sadness of which I have spoken. He
looked away into the distance as though seeking something on the horizon.
I did not interrupt him, but gazed and thought: ‘Whether he is a sword
in the hands of Providence or not, he is certainly not a military leader
by profession, he is not a general. He told the holy truth when he said
he was not a soldier but simply a man who had taken up arms to defend
his outraged hearth, an apostle-warrior ready to preach a crusade and go
at the head of it, ready to lay down his soul and his children’s for his
people, to give and receive terrible blows, to shake the life out of his
enemy, to scatter his ashes to the winds ... and then, forgetting his
victory, to fling his blood-stained sword together with its sheath into
the depths of the sea....’
All that, and precisely that, was fully understood by the people, by
the masses, by the ignorant mob, with that clearness of vision, that
insight with which in other days the slaves of Rome understood the
incomprehensible mystery of the coming of Christ and crowds of the weary
and heavy-laden, women and old men, prayed at the cross of the crucified.
For them understanding meant believing, believing meant worship, prayer.
That was why all the poorer classes of Teddington had crowded round the
railings of our house waiting from early morning for Garibaldi. When we
drove up, the crowd rushed to greet him in a sort of ecstasy, pressed
his hands, shouted ‘God bless you, Garibaldi!’ Women caught at his hand
and kissed it, kissed the hem of his cloak—I saw with my own eyes—lifted
their children up to him, shed tears.... He, smiling as though among his
own family, shook their hands, bowed, and could scarcely make his way to
the door. When he had gone in the shouts were redoubled; Garibaldi came
out again, and laying both hands on his breast bowed in all directions.
The people grew quieter, but they remained standing there all the time
till Garibaldi went away.
It is hard for people who have seen nothing like it, men who have grown
up in offices, barracks and the anterooms of courts, to understand such
manifestations—‘a filibuster,’ the son of a sailor from Nice, a seaman,
a rebel ... and this royal reception! What had he done for the English
people?... And worthy men rack their brains for an explanation and look
for some secret wires by which it was worked: ‘It is wonderful with what
astuteness the _Government_ in England can get up demonstrations ...
you won’t take us in—_wir wissen was wir wissen_—we have read Gneist
ourselves!’
I daresay, and perhaps the Neapolitan boatman who used to declare that
the medallion of Garibaldi, like the medallion of the Madonna, was a
charm against ship-wreck had been bought by the party of Sicardi and the
ministry of Venosta!
Though it is doubtful whether the journalistic Vidocqs,[23] particularly
our Moscow ones, could detect the play of such masters as Palmerston,
Gladstone and Company so clearly, yet they would through the sympathy
of the tiny spider for the immense tarantula understand it more readily
than the secret of Garibaldi’s reception. And that is a good thing for
them—if they did understand _that_ secret there would be nothing left for
them but to hang themselves on the nearest aspen-tree. Bugs can only live
happily so long as they have no suspicion of their smell. Woe to the bug
who develops a human sense of smell!
Mazzini arrived immediately after Garibaldi; we all went out to meet him
at the gate. The crowd, hearing who it was, gave him a loud welcome;
the common people have nothing against him. The old-womanish terror of
a conspirator is only to be found at the level of shopkeepers, small
property-owners and so on.
The few words said by Mazzini and Garibaldi are familiar to readers of
the _Bell_, we do not think it necessary to repeat them.[24]
... All were so touched by Garibaldi’s words about Mazzini, by the
sincere voice in which they were uttered, the depth of feeling which
resounded in them, the impressiveness given them by the series of
preceding incidents, that no one answered, only Mazzini held out his
hand and twice repeated: ‘It is too much.’ I did not see one face, even
among the servants, which did not wear a _recueilli_ look and was not
stirred by the sense that grand words had just been uttered and that
the moment was passing into history.... I went up to Garibaldi with my
glass when he spoke of Russia and told him that his words would reach our
friends in the fortresses and mines, that I thanked him in their name.
We went into the other room. Various persons had gathered in the
corridor; all at once an old Italian, an exile of days long gone by, a
poor fellow who sold ice-cream, caught Garibaldi by the skirt of his
coat, stopped him, and bursting into tears said: ‘Well, now I can die. I
have seen him, I have seen him!’ Garibaldi embraced and kissed the old
man. Then in stumbling and halting phrases, with the terrible rapidity of
a peasant’s Italian, the old man began telling Garibaldi his adventures,
and wound up his speech with an amazing flower of Southern eloquence:
‘Now I shall die content, but you—God bless you—live long, live for our
country, live for us, live till I rise again from the dead!’ He clutched
his hand, covered it with kisses, and went out sobbing.
Accustomed as Garibaldi must have been to all this, he was obviously
agitated as he sat down on a little sofa. The ladies surrounded him; I
stood near the sofa. A cloud of painful thoughts seemed to swoop down
upon him—and this time he could not refrain from saying: ‘It sometimes
seems dreadful and so overwhelming that I am afraid of losing my head
... it is too much happiness. I remember when I came back an exile from
America to Nice—when I saw my father’s house again, found my family, my
relations, found the old familiar places, the people I knew—I was crushed
with happiness.... You know,’ he added, turning to me, ‘what happened
afterwards, what a succession of calamities it was. The welcome of the
English people has surpassed my expectation.... What is to come? What is
before us?’
I had not one word of comfort to give him. I inwardly shuddered at the
question, What is to come, what is before us?
It was time for him to go. Garibaldi got up, warmly embraced me, took
a friendly leave of us all—and again there were shouts, again hurrahs,
again two stout policemen together with us, smiling and pleading, made
our way through the crowd, again cries of ‘God bless you!’ ‘Garibaldi
for ever!’ and the carriage rolled away. We all remained in an exalted,
quietly solemn state of mind, as after a festival service, after a
christening or the departure of the bride; our hearts were full, and we
were inwardly going over every detail and brooding upon that sinister
unanswered ‘What is to come?’
Prince P. V. Dolgoruky was the first to take up a sheet of paper and
write down both the speeches. He wrote them down faithfully while others
supplied details. We showed the result to Mazzini and the rest, and so
made up the text (with slight and insignificant alterations) which flew
like an electric shock over Europe, evoking a shout of enthusiasm and
a howl of indignation. Then Mazzini went away; the other visitors went
too. We were left alone with two or three intimate friends, and twilight
slowly fell. How deeply and truly sorry I was, children, that you were
not with me on that day! It is good to remember such days for long years;
they refresh the soul and reconcile it to the seamy side of life. They
are very few....
4