The importance of the matters extracted from Luigi does not lie on the
surface; it will have to be seen through Barto Rizzo's mind. This man
regarded himself as the mainspring of the conspiracy; specially its
guardian, its wakeful Argus. He had conspired sleeplessly for thirty
years; so long, that having no ideal reserve in his nature, conspiracy
had become his professional occupation,--the wheel which it was his
business to roll. He was above jealousy; he was above vanity. No one
outstripping him cast a bad colour on him; nor did he object to bow to
another as his superior. But he was prepared to suspect every one of
insincerity and of faithlessness; and, being the master of the machinery
of the plots, he was ready, upon a whispered justification, to
despise the orders of his leader, and act by his own light in blunt
disobedience. For it was his belief that while others speculated he knew
all. He knew where the plots had failed; he knew the man who had bent
and doubled. In the patriotic cause, perfect arrangements are
crowned with perfect success, unless there is an imperfection of the
instruments; for the cause is blessed by all superior agencies. Such was
his governing idea. His arrangements had always been perfect; hence the
deduction was a denunciation of some one particular person. He pointed
out the traitor here, the traitor there; and in one or two cases he
did so with a mildness that made those fret at their beards vaguely
who understood his character. Barto Rizzo was, it was said, born in
a village near Forli, in the dominions of the Pope; according to the
rumour, he was the child of a veiled woman and a cowled paternity. If
not an offender against Government, he was at least a wanderer early in
life. None could accuse him of personal ambition. He boasted that he
had served as a common soldier with the Italian contingent furnished
by Eugene to the Moscow campaign; he showed scars of old wounds: brown
spots, and blue spots, and twisted twine of white skin, dotting the
wrist, the neck, the calf, the ankle, and looking up from them, he
slapped them proudly. Nor had he personal animosities of any kind. One
sharp scar, which he called his shoulder knot, he owed to the knife of
a friend, by name Sarpo, who had things ready to betray him, and struck
him, in anticipation of that tremendous moment of surprise and wrath
when the awakened victim frequently is nerved with devil's strength;
but, striking, like a novice, on the bone, the stilet stuck there; and
Barto coolly got him to point the outlet of escape, and walked off,
carrying the blade where the terrified assassin had planted it. This
Sarpo had become a tradesman in Milan--a bookseller and small printer;
and he was unmolested. Barto said of him, that he was as bad as a few
odd persons thought himself to be, and had in him the making of a great
traitor; but, that as Sarpo hated him and had sought to be rid of him
for private reasons only, it was a pity to waste on such a fellow steel
that should serve the Cause. “While I live,” said Barto, “my enemies
have a tolerably active conscience.”
The absence of personal animosity in him was not due to magnanimity. He
doubted the patriotism of all booksellers. He had been twice betrayed
by women. He never attempted to be revenged on them; but he doubted
the patriotism of all women. “Use them; keep eye on them,” he said.
In Venice he had conspired when he was living there as the clerk of
a notary; in Bologna subsequently while earning his bread as a petty
schoolmaster. His evasions, both of Papal sbirri and the Austrian
polizia, furnished instances of astonishing audacity that made his name
a byword for mastery in the hour of peril. His residence in Milan now,
after seven years of exile in England and Switzerland, was an act of
pointed defiance, incomprehensible to his own party, and only to be
explained by the prevalent belief that the authorities feared to provoke
a collision with the people by laying hands on him. They had only once
made a visitation to his house, and appeared to be satisfied at not
finding him. At that period Austria was simulating benevolence in her
Lombardic provinces, with the half degree of persuasive earnestness
which makes a Government lax in its vigilance, and leaves it simply
open to the charge of effeteness. There were contradictory rumours as
to whether his house had ever been visited by the polizia; but it was a
legible fact that his name was on the window, and it was understood that
he was not without elusive contrivances in the event of the authorities
declaring war against him.
Of the nature of these contrivances Luigi had just learnt something. He
had heard Barto Rizzo called 'The Miner' and 'The Great Cat,' and he now
comprehended a little of the quality of his employer. He had entered
a very different service from that of the Signor Antonio-Pericles, who
paid him for nothing more than to keep eye on Vittoria, and recount her
goings in and out; for what absolute object he was unaware, but that it
was not for a political one he was certain. “Cursed be the day when the
lust of gold made me open my hand to Barto Rizzo!” he thought; and could
only reflect that life is short and gold is sweet, and that he was in
the claws of the Great Cat. He had met Barto in a wine-shop. He cursed
the habit which led him to call at that shop; the thirst which tempted
him to drink: the ear which had been seduced to listen. Yet as all his
expenses had been paid in advance, and his reward at the instant of
his application for it; and as the signorina and Barto were both good
patriots, and he, Luigi, was a good patriot, what harm could be done to
her? Both she and Barto had stamped their different impressions on
his waxen nature. He reconciled his service to them separately by the
exclamation that they were both good patriots.
The plot for the rising in Milan city was two months old. It comprised
some of the nobles of the city, and enjoyed the good wishes of the
greater part of them, whose payment of fifty to sixty per cent to the
Government on the revenue of their estates was sufficient reason for
a desire to change masters, positively though they might detest
Republicanism, and dread the shadow of anarchy. These looked hopefully
to Charles Albert. Their motive was to rise, or to countenance a rising,
and summon the ambitious Sardinian monarch with such assurances of
devotion, that a Piedmontese army would be at the gates when the
banner of Austria was in the dust. Among the most active members of the
prospectively insurgent aristocracy of Milan was Count Medole, a young
nobleman of vast wealth and possessed of a reliance on his powers
of mind that induced him to take a prominent part in the opening
deliberations, and speedily necessitated his hire of the friendly
offices of one who could supply him with facts, with suggestions, with
counsel, with fortitude, with everything to strengthen his pretensions
to the leadership, excepting money. He discovered his man in Barto
Rizzo, who quitted the ranks of the republican section to serve him, and
wield a tool for his own party. By the help of Agostino Balderini, Carlo
Ammiani, and others, the aristocratic and the republican sections of
the conspiracy were brought near enough together to permit of a common
action between them, though the maintaining of such harmony demanded an
extreme and tireless delicacy of management. The presence of the Chief,
whom we have seen on the Motterone, was claimed by other cities of
Italy. Unto him solely did Barto Rizzo yield thorough adhesion. He being
absent from Milan, Barto undertook to represent him and carry out his
views. How far he was entitled to do so may be guessed when it is stated
that, on the ground of his general contempt for women, he objected to
the proposition that Vittoria should give the signal. The proposition
was Agostino's. Count Medole, Barto, and Agostino discussed it secretly:
Barto held resolutely against it, until Agostino thrust a sly-handed
letter into his fingers and let him know that previous to any
consultation on the subject he had gained the consent of his Chief.
Barto then fell silent. He despatched his new spy, Luigi, to the
Motterone, more for the purpose of giving him a schooling on the
expedition, and on his return from it, and so getting hand and brain
and soul service out of him. He expected no such a report of Vittoria's
indiscretion as Luigi had spiced with his one foolish lie. That she
should tell the relatives of an Austrian officer that Milan was soon to
be a dangerous place for them;--and that she should write it on paper
and leave it for the officer to read,--left her, according to Barto's
reading of her, open to the alternative charges of imbecility or of
treachery. Her letter to the English lady, the Austrian officer's
sister, was an exaggeration of the offence, but lent it more the look
of heedless folly. The point was to obtain sight of her letter to the
Austrian officer himself. Barto was baffled during a course of anxious
days that led closely up to the fifteenth. She had written no letter.
Lieutenant Pierson, the officer in question, had ridden into the city
once from Verona, and had called upon Antonio-Pericles to extract her
address from him; the Greek had denied that she was in Milan. Luigi
could tell no more. He described the officer's personal appearance,
by saying that he was a recognizable Englishman in Austrian dragoon
uniform;--white tunic, white helmet, brown moustache;--ay! and eh! and
oh! and ah! coming frequently from his mouth; that he stood square while
speaking, and seemed to like his own smile; an extraordinary touch of
portraiture, or else a scoff at insular self-satisfaction; at any rate,
it commended itself to the memory. Barto dismissed him, telling him to
be daily in attendance on the English lady.
Barto Rizzo's respect for the Chief was at war with his intense
conviction that a blow should be struck at Vittoria even upon the narrow
information which he possessed. Twice betrayed, his dreams and haunting
thoughts cried “Shall a woman betray you thrice?” In his imagination
he stood identified with Italy: the betrayal of one meant that of
both. Falling into a deep reflection, Barto counted over his hours of
conspiracy: he counted the Chief's; comparing the two sets of figures he
discovered, that as he had suspected, he was the elder in the patriotic
work therefore, if he bowed his head to the Chief, it was a voluntary
act, a form of respect, and not the surrendering of his judgement. He
was on the spot: the Chief was absent. Barto reasoned that the Chief
could have had no experience of women, seeing that he was ready to trust
in them. “Do I trust to my pigeon, my sling-stone?” he said jovially to
the thickbrowed, splendidly ruddy young woman, who was his wife; “do I
trust her? Not half a morsel of her!” This young woman, a peasant woman
of remarkable personal attractions, served him with the fidelity of a
fascinated animal, and the dumbness of a wooden vessel. She could have
hanged him, had it pleased her. She had all his secrets: but it was not
vain speaking on Barto Rizzo's part; he was master of her will; and on
the occasions when he showed that he did not trust her, he was careful
at the same time to shock and subdue her senses. Her report of Vittoria
was, that she went to the house of the Signora, Laura Piaveni, widow of
the latest heroic son of Milan, and to that of the maestro Rocco Ricci;
to no other. It was also Luigi's report.
“She's true enough,” the woman said, evidently permitting herself to
entertain an opinion; a sign that she required fresh schooling.
“So are you,” said Barto, and eyed her in a way that made her ask, “Now,
what's for me to do?”
He thought awhile.
“You will see the colonel. Tell him to come in corporal's uniform.
What's the little wretch twisting her body for? Shan't I embrace her
presently if she's obedient? Send to the polizia. You believe your
husband is in the city, and will visit you in disguise at the corporal's
hour. They seize him. They also examine the house up to the point where
we seal it. Your object is to learn whether the Austrians are moving
men upon Milan. If they are-I learn something. When the house has been
examined, our court here will have rest for a good month ahead; and
it suits me not to be disturbed. Do this, and we will have a red-wine
evening in the house, shut up alone, my snake! my pepper-flower!”
It happened that Luigi was entering the court to keep an appointment
with Barto when he saw a handful of the polizia burst into the house and
drag out a soldier, who was in the uniform, as he guessed it to be, of
the Prohaska regiment. The soldier struggled and offered money to
them. Luigi could not help shouting, “You fools! don't you see he's an
officer?” Two of them took their captive aside. The rest made a search
through the house. While they were doing so Luigi saw Barto Rizzo's
face at the windows of the house opposite. He clamoured at the door, but
Barto was denied to him there. When the polizia had gone from the court,
he was admitted and allowed to look into every room. Not finding him, he
said, “Barto Rizzo does not keep his appointments, then!” The same words
were repeated in his ear when he had left the court, and was in
the street running parallel with it. “Barto Rizzo does not keep his
appointments, then!” It was Barto who smacked him on the back, and spoke
out his own name with brown-faced laughter in the bustling street. Luigi
was so impressed by his cunning and his recklessness that he at once
told him more than he wished to tell:--The Austrian officer was with his
sister, and had written to the signorina, and Luigi had delivered the
letter; but the signorina was at the maestro's, Rocco Ricci's, and there
was no answer: the officer was leaving for Verona in the morning. After
telling so much, Luigi drew back, feeling that he had given Barto his
full measure and owed to the signorina what remained.
Barto probably read nothing of the mind of his spy, but understood that
it was a moment for distrust of him. Vittoria and her mother lodged at
the house of one Zotti, a confectioner, dwelling between the Duomo and
La Scala. Luigi, at Barto's bidding, left word with Zotti that he would
call for the signorina's answer to a certain letter about sunrise. “I
promised my Rosellina, my poppyheaded sipper, a red-wine evening, or I
would hold this fellow under my eye till the light comes,” thought Barto
misgivingly, and let him go. Luigi slouched about the English lady's
hotel. At nightfall her brother came forth. Luigi directed him to be
in the square of the Duomo by sunrise, and slipped from his hold; the
officer ran after him some distance. “She can't say I was false to her
now,” said Luigi, dancing with nervous ecstasy. At sunrise Barto Rizzo
was standing under the shadow of the Duomo. Luigi passed him and went
to Zotti's house, where the letter was placed in his hand, and the
door shut in his face. Barto rushed to him, but Luigi, with a vixenish
countenance, standing like a humped cat, hissed, “Would you destroy my
reputation and have it seen that I deliver up letters, under the noses
of the writers, to the wrong persons?--ha! pestilence!” He ran, Barto
following him. They were crossed by the officer on horseback, who
challenged Luigi to give up the letter, which was very plainly being
thrust from his hand into his breast. The officer found it no difficult
matter to catch him and pluck the letter from him; he opened it, reading
it on the jog of the saddle as he cantered off. Luigi turned in a terror
of expostulation to ward Barto's wrath. Barto looked at him hard, while
he noted the matter down on the tablet of an ivory book. All he
said was, “I have that letter!” stamping the assertion with an oath.
Half-an-hour later Luigi saw Barto in the saddle, tight-legged about a
rusty beast, evidently bound for the South-eastern gate, his brows set
like a black wind. “Blessings on his going!” thought Luigi, and sang one
of his street-songs:--“O lemons, lemons, what a taste you leave in the
mouth! I desire you, I love you, but when I suck you, I'm all caught
up in a bundle and turn to water, like a wry-faced fountain. Why not be
satisfied by a sniff at the blossoms? There's gratification. Why did you
grow up from the precious little sweet chuck that you were, Marietta?
Lemons, O lemons! such a thing as a decent appetite is not known after
sucking at you.”
His natural horror of a resolute man, more than fear (of which he had no
recollection in the sunny Piazza), made him shiver and gave his tongue
an acid taste at the prospect of ever meeting Barto Rizzo again. There
was the prospect also that he might never meet him again.