The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father
displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring
friends.
“She is one of us,” he pursued; “a daughter of Italy! My daughter also;
is it not so?”
He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina pressed his
fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for the moment seemed shy
and girlish. The shade of her broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid
features.
“Now, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, and we may
proceed to business,” said Agostino, formally but as he conducted the
signorina to place her at the feet of the Chief, she beckoned to her
servant, who was holding the animal she had ridden. He came up to her,
and presented himself in something of a military posture of attention
to her commands. These were that he should take the poor brute to
water, and then lead him back to Baveno, and do duty in waiting upon
her mother. The first injunction was received in a decidedly acquiescent
manner. On hearing the second, which directed his abandonment of his
post of immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected
with a “Signorina, no.”
He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier's frame and a smile
as broad and beaming as laughter, indicating much of that mixture of
acuteness, and simplicity which is a characteristic of the South, and
means no more than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at
times that of the brain.
A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the signorina's
face.
“When I tell you to go, Beppo!”
At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by an amazingly
voluble delivery of his reasons for this revolt against her authority.
Among other things, he spoke of an oath sworn by him to a foreign
gentleman, his patron,--for whom, and for whomsoever he loved, he was
ready to pour forth his heart's blood,--to the effect that he would
never quit her side when she left the roof of her house.
“You see, Beppo,” she remonstrated, “I am among friends.”
Beppo gave a sweeping bow, but remained firm where he stood. Ammiani
cast a sharp hard look at the man.
“Do you hear the signorina's orders?”
“I hear them, signore.”
“Will you obey them?”
She interposed. “He must not hear quick words. Beppo is only showing
his love for his master and for me. But you are wrong in this case, my
Beppo. You shall give me your protection when I require it; and now, you
are sensible, and must understand that it is not wanted. I tell you to
go.”
Beppo read the eyes of his young mistress.
“Signorina,”--he stooped forward mysteriously,--“signorina, that fellow
is in Baveno. I saw him this morning.”
“Good, good. And now go, my friend.”
“The signor Agostino,” he remarked loudly, to attract the old man; “the
signor Agostino may think proper to advise you.”
“The signor Agostino will laugh at nothing that you say to-day, Beppo.
You will obey me. Go at once,” she repeated, seeing him on tiptoe to
gain Agostino's attention.
Beppo knew by her eyes that her ears were locked against him; and,
though she spoke softly, there was an imperiousness in her voice not to
be disregarded. He showed plainly by the lost rigidity of his attitude
that he was beaten and perplexed. Further expostulations being
disregarded, he turned his head to look at the poor panting beast under
his charge, and went slowly up to him: they walked off together, a
crest-fallen pair.
“You have gained the victory, signorina,” said Ugo Corte.
She replied, smiling, “My poor Beppo! it's not difficult to get the best
of those who love us.”
“Ha!” cried Agostino; “here is one of their secrets, Carlo. Take heed of
it, my boy. We shall have queens when kings are fossils, mark me!”
Ammiani muttered a courtly phrase, whereat Corte yawned in very grim
fashion.
The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a short step from the Chief,
to whom her face was now seriously given. In Ammiani's sight she looked
a dark Madonna, with the sun shining bright gold through the edges
of the summer hat, thrown back from her head. The full and steady
contemplative eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a vanishing
affectionate gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino. Attentive as they
were, light played in them like water. The countenance was vivid in
repose. She leaned slightly forward, clasping the wrist of one hand
about her knee, and the sole of one little foot showed from under her
dress.
Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressiveness, the Chief
began to speak. He touched upon the condition of Italy, and the new lilt
animating her young men and women. “I have heard many good men jeer,”
he said, “at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, and
putting a great stake upon their devotion. You have read history, and
you know what women can accomplish. They may be trained, equally as we
are, to venerate the abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it.
Without their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their
bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death-trance can
revive. In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does not die!”
“True,” said other voices.
“We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, and the belief
is the life itself. But let no strong man among us despise the help of
women. I have seen our cause lie desperate, and those who despaired
of it were not women. Women kept the flame alive. They worship in the
temple of the cause.”
Ammiani's eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina. Her look, which was
fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind that listened to strange
matter concerning her very little. But when the plans for the rising
of the Bergamascs and Brescians, the Venetians, the Bolognese, the
Milanese, all the principal Northern cities, were recited, with a
practical emphasis thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the
organized bands, the dispositions of the leaders, and the amount of
resistance to be expected at the various points indicated for the
outbreak, her hands disjoined, and she stretched her fingers to the
grass, supporting herself so, while her extended chin and animated
features told how eagerly her spirit drank at positive springs, and
thirsted for assurance of the coming storm.
“It is decided that Milan gives the signal,” said the Chief; and a
light, like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon the night, flashed over
her.
He was pursuing, when Ugo Corte smote the air with his nervous fingers,
crying out passionately, “Bunglers! are we again to wait for them, and
hear that fifteen patriots have stabbed a Croat corporal, and wrestled
hotly with a lieutenant of the guard? I say they are bunglers. They
never mean the thing. Fifteen! There were just three Milanese among the
last lot--the pick of the city; and the rest were made up of Trentini,
and our lads from Bergamo and Brescia; and the order from the Council
was, 'Go and do the business!' which means, 'Go and earn your ounce of
Austrian lead.' They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor
devil of a curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on if we give
them odds like that. Milan burns bad powder, and goes off like a drugged
pistol. It's a nest of bunglers, and may it be razed! We could do
without it, and well! If it were a family failing, should not I too
be trusting them? My brother was one of the fifteen who marched out as
targets to try the skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: and they did it
thoroughly--shot him straight here.” Corte struck his chest. “He gave
a jump and a cry. Was it a viva for Milan? They swear that it was, and
they can't translate from a living mouth, much more from a dead one; but
I know my Niccolo better. I have kissed his lips a thousand times, and
I know the poor boy meant, 'Scorn and eternal distrust of such
peddling conspirators as these!' I can deal with traitors, but these
flash-in-the-pan plotters--these shaking, jelly-bodied patriots!--trust
to them again? Rather draw lots for another fifteen to bare their
breasts and bandage their eyes, and march out in the grey morning, while
the stupid Croat corporal goes on smoking his lumpy pipe! We shall hear
that Milan is moving; we shall rise; we shall be hot at it; and the news
will come that Milan has merely yawned and turned over to sleep on the
other side. Twice she has done this trick, and the garrison there has
sent five regiments to finish us--teach us to sleep soundly likewise! I
say, let it be Bergamo; or be it Brescia, if you like; or Venice: she
is ready. You trust to Milan, and you are fore-doomed. I would swear it
with this hand in the flames. She give the signal? Shut your eyes, cross
your hands flat on your breasts: you are dead men if you move. She lead
the way? Spin on your heels, and you have followed her!”
Corte had spoken in a thick difficult voice, that seemed to require the
aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it did like a water-pipe in
a hurricane of rain. He ceased, red almost to blackness, and knotted his
arms, that were big as the cable of a vessel. Not a murmur followed his
speech. The word was, given to the Chief, and he resumed:--“You have
a personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You have not heard me. I came
through Paris. A rocket will soon shoot up from Paris that will be
a signal for Christendom. The keen French wit is sick of its
compromise-king. All Europe is in convulsions in a few months: to-morrow
it may be. The elements are in the hearts of the people, and nothing
will contain them. We have sown them to reap them. The sowing asks for
persistency; but the reaping demands skill and absolute truthfulness.
We have now one of those occasions coming which are the flowers to
be plucked by resolute and worthy hands: they are the tests of our
sincerity. This time now rapidly approaching will try us all, and we
must be ready for it. If we have believed in it, we stand prepared. If
we have conceived our plan of action in purity of heart, we shall be
guided to discern the means which may serve us. You will know speedily
what it is that has prompted you to move. If passion blindfolds you, if
you are foiled by a prejudice, I also shall know. My friend, the
nursing of a single antipathy is a presumption that your motive force is
personal--whether the thirst for vengeance or some internal union of
a hundred indistinct little fits of egoism. I have seen brave and even
noble men fail at the ordeal of such an hour: not fail in courage, not
fail in the strength of their desire; that was the misery for them!
They failed because midway they lost the vision to select the right
instruments put in our way by heaven. That vision belongs solely to such
as have clean and disciplined hearts. The hope in the bosom of a
man whose fixed star is Humanity becomes a part of his blood, and is
extinguished when his blood flows no more. To conquer him, the principle
of life must be conquered. And he, my friend, will use all, because he
serves all. I need not touch on Milan.”
The signorina drew in her breath quickly, as if in this abrupt close she
had a revelation of the Chief's whole meaning, and was startled by the
sudden unveiling of his mastery. Her hands hung loose; her figure was
tremulous. A murmur from Corte jarred within her like a furious discord,
but he had not offended by refusing to disclaim his error, and had
simply said in a gruff acquiescent way, “Proceed.” Her sensations of
surprise at the singular triumph of the Chief made her look curiously
into the faces of the other men; but the pronouncing of her name engaged
her attention.
“Your first night is the night of the fifteenth of next month?”
“It is, signore,” she replied, abashed to find herself speaking with him
who had so moved her.
“There is no likelihood of a postponement?”
“I am certain, signore, that I shall be ready.”
“There are no squabbles of any serious kind among the singers?”
A soft dimple played for a moment on her lips. “I have heard something.”
“Among the women?”
“Yes, and the men.”
“But the men do not concern you?”
“No, signore. Except that the women twist them.”
Agostino chuckled audibly. The Chief resumed:
“You believe, notwithstanding, that all will go well? The opera will be
acted; and you will appear in it?”
“Yes, signore. I know one who has determined on it, and can do it.”
“Good. The opera is Camilla?”
She was answering with an affirmative, when Agostino broke
in,--“Camilla! And honour to whom honour is due! Let Caesar claim
the writing of the libretto, if it be Caesar's! It has passed the
censorship, signed Agostino Balderini--a disaffected person out of
Piedmont, rendered tame and fangless by a rigorous imprisonment. The
sources of the tale, O ye grave Signori Tedeschi? The sources are
partly to be traced to a neat little French vaudeville, very
sparkling--Camille, or the Husband Asserted; and again to a certain
Chronicle that may be mediaeval, may be modern, and is just, as the
great Shakespeare would say, 'as you like it.'”
Agostino recited some mock verses, burlesquing the ordinary libretti,
and provoked loud laughter from Carlo Ammiani, who was familiar enough
with the run of their nonsense.
“Camilla is the bride of Camillo. I give to her all the brains, which
is a modern idea, quite! He does all the mischief, which is possibly
mediaeval. They have both an enemy, which is mediaeval and modern. None
of them know exactly what they are about; so there you have the modern,
the mediaeval, and the antique, all in one. Finally, my friends, Camilla
is something for you to digest at leisure. The censorship swallowed it
at a gulp. Never was bait so handsomely taken! At present I have the joy
of playing my fish. On the night of the fifteenth I land him. Camilla
has a mother. Do you see? That mother is reported, is generally
conceived, as dead. Do you see further? Camilla's first song treats of a
dream she has had of that mother. Our signorina shall not be troubled to
favour you with a taste of it, or, by Bacchus and his Indian nymphs, I
should speedily behold you jumping like peas in a pan, like trout on a
bank! The earth would be hot under you, verily! As I was remarking, or
meant to be, Camilla and her husband disagree, having agreed to. 'Tis a
plot to deceive Count Orso--aha? You are acquainted with Count Orso! He
is Camilla's antenuptial guardian. Now you warm to it! In that condition
I leave you. Perhaps my child here will give you a taste of her voice.
The poetry does much upon reflection, but it has to ripen within you--a
matter of time. Wed this voice to the poetry, and it finds passage
'twixt your ribs, as on the point of a driven blade. Do I cry the
sweetness and the coolness of my melons? Not I! Try them.”
The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was unfolding, and cast
her eyes along bars of music, while Agostino called a “Silenzio tutti!”
She sang one verse, and stopped for breath.
Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief:--“Believe me,
signore, I can be trusted to sing when the time comes.”
“Sing on, my blackbird--my viola!” said Agostino. “We all trust you.
Look at Colonel Corte, and take him for Count Orso. Take me for pretty
Camillo. Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid.
Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. Ah, my
Pippo!” (Agostino laughed aside to him). “Let us lead off with a lighter
piece; a trifle-tra-la-la! and then let the frisky piccolo be drowned
in deep organ notes, as on some occasions in history the people overrun
certain puling characters. But that, I confess, is an illustration
altogether out of place, and I'll simply jot it down in my notebook.”
Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When he was silent
she sang from memory. It was a song of flourishes: one of those
be-flowered arias in which the notes flicker and leap like young
flames. Others might have sung it; and though it spoke favourably of her
aptitude and musical education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy,
merely critical audiences, it won no applause from these men. The
effect produced by it was exhibited in the placid tolerance shown by the
uplifting of Ugo Corte's eyebrows, which said, “Well, here's a voice,
certainly.” His subsequent look added, “Is this what we have come hither
to hear?”
Vittoria saw the look. “Am I on my trial before you?” she thought; and
the thought nerved her throat. She sang in strong and grave contralto
tones, at first with shut eyes. The sense of hostility left her, and
left her soul free, and she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying.
She pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and the strength
of her faith to her husband:--
“Beloved, I am quickly out of sight:
I pray that you will love more than my dust.
Were death defeat, much weeping would be right;
'Tis victory when it leaves surviving trust.
You will not find me save when you forget
Earth's feebleness, and come to faith, my friend,
For all Humanity doth owe a debt
To all Humanity, until the end.”
Agostino glanced at the Chief to see whether his ear had caught note of
his own language.
The melancholy severity of that song of death changed to a song of
prophetic triumph. The signorina stood up. Camilla has thrown off the
mask, and has sung the name “Italia!” At the recurrence of it the men
rose likewise.
“Italia, Italia, shall be free!”
Vittoria gave the inspiration of a dying voice: the conquest of death by
an eternal truth seemed to radiate from her. Voice and features were as
one expression of a rapture of belief built upon pathetic trustfulness.
“Italia, Italia shall be free!”
She seized the hearts of those hard and serious men as a wind takes the
strong oak-trees, and rocks them on their knotted roots, and leaves them
with the song of soaring among their branches. Italy shone about her;
the lake, the plains, the peaks, and the shouldering flushed snowridges.
Carlo Ammiani breathed as one who draws in fire. Grizzled Agostino
glittered with suppressed emotion, like a frosted thorn-bush in the
sunlight. Ugo Corte had his thick brows down, as a man who is reading
iron matter. The Chief alone showed no sign beyond a half lifting of
the hand, and a most luminous fixed observation of the fair young woman,
from whom power was an emanation, free of effort. The gaze was sad
in its thoughtfulness, such as our feelings translate of the light of
evening.
She ceased, and he said, “You sing on the night of the fifteenth?”
“I do, signore.”
“It is your first appearance?”
She bent her head.
“And you will be prepared on that night to sing this song?”
“Yes, signore.”
“Save in the event of your being forbidden?”
“Unless you shall forbid me, I will sing it, signore.”
“Should they imprison you?--”
“If they shoot me I shall be satisfied to know that I have sung a song
that cannot be forgotten.”
The Chief took her hand in a gentle grasp.
“Such as you will help to give our Italy freedom. You hold the sacred
flame, and know you hold it in trust.”
“Friends,”--he turned to his companions,--“you have heard what will be
the signal for Milan.”