THE BRONZE BUTTERFLY
The two women were facing one another in a painful silence when Carlo
Ammiani was announced to them. He entered with a rapid stride, and
struck his hands together gladly at sight of Vittoria.
Laura met his salutation by lifting the accusing butterfly attached to
Vittoria's dress.
'Yes; I expected it,' he said, breathing quick from recent exertion.
'They are kind--they give her a personal warning. Sometimes the dagger
heads the butterfly. I have seen the mark on the Play-bills affixed to
the signorina's name.'
'What does it mean?' said Laura, speaking huskily, with her head bent
over the bronze insect. 'What can it mean?' she asked again, and looked
up to meet a covert answer.
'Unpin it.' Vittoria raised her arms as if she felt the thing to be
enveloping her.
The signora loosened the pin from its hold; but dreading lest she
thereby sacrificed some possible clue to the mystery, she hesitated in
her action, and sent an intolerable shiver of spite through Vittoria's
frame, at whom she gazed in a cold and cruel way, saying, 'Don't
tremble.' And again, 'Is it the doing of that 'garritrice magrezza,'
whom you call 'la Lazzeruola?' Speak. Can you trace it to her hand? Who
put the plague-mark upon you?'
Vittoria looked steadily away from her.
'It means just this,' Carlo interposed; 'there! now it 's off; and,
signorina, I entreat you to think nothing of it,--it means that any one
who takes a chief part in the game we play, shall and must provoke
all fools, knaves, and idiots to think and do their worst. They can't
imagine a pure devotion. Yes, I see--“Sei sospetta.” They would write
their 'Sei sospetta' upon St. Catherine in the Wheel. Put it out of your
mind. Pass it.'
'But they suspect her; and why do they suspect her?' Laura questioned
vehemently. 'I ask, is it a Conservatorio rival, or the brand of one of
the Clubs? She has no answer.'
'Observe.' Carlo laid the paper under her eyes.
Three angles were clipped, the fourth was doubled under. He turned it
back and disclosed the initials B. R. 'This also is the work of our
man-devil, as I thought. I begin to think that we shall be eternally
thwarted, until we first clear our Italy of its vermin. Here is a
weazel, a snake, a tiger, in one. They call him the Great Cat. He
fancies himself a patriot,--he is only a conspirator. I denounce him,
but he gets the faith of people, our Agostino among them, I believe. The
energy of this wretch is terrific. He has the vigour of a fasting saint.
Myself--I declare it to you, signora, with shame, I know what it is to
fear this man. He has Satanic blood, and the worst is, that the Chief
trusts him.'
'Then, so do I,' said Laura.
'And I,' Vittoria echoed her.
A sudden squeeze beset her fingers. 'And I trust you,' Laura said to
her. 'But there has been some indiscretion. My child, wait: give no
heed to me, and have no feelings. Carlo, my friend--my husband's
boy--brother-in-arms! let her teach you to be generous. She must have
been indiscreet. Has she friends among the Austrians? I have one, and
it is known, and I am not suspected. But, has she? What have you said or
done that might cause them to suspect you? Speak, Sandra mia.'
It was difficult for Vittoria to speak upon the theme, which made her
appear as a criminal replying to a charge. At last she said, 'English:
I have no foreign friends but English. I remember nothing that I have
done.--Yes, I have said I thought I might tremble if I was led out to be
shot.'
'Pish! tush!' Laura checked her. 'They flog women, they do not shoot
them. They shoot men.'
'That is our better fortune,' said Ammiani.
'But, Sandra, my sister,' Laura persisted now, in melodious coaxing
tones. 'Can you not help us to guess? I am troubled: I am stung. It is
for your sake I feel it so. Can't you imagine who did it, for instance?'
'No, signora, I cannot,' Vittoria replied.
'You can't guess?'
I cannot help you.'
'You will not!' said the irritable woman. 'Have you noticed no one
passing near you?'
'A woman brushed by me as I entered this street. I remember no one else.
And my Beppo seized a man who was spying on me, as he said. That is all
I can remember.'
Vittoria turned her face to Ammiani.
'Barto Rizzo has lived in England,' he remarked, half to himself. 'Did
you come across a man called Barto Rizzo there, signorina? I suspect him
to be the author of this.'
At the name of Barto Rizzo, Laura's eyes widened, awakening a memory in
Ammiani; and her face had a spectral wanness.
'I must go to my chamber,' she said. 'Talk of it together. I will be
with you soon.'
She left them.
Ammiani bent over to Vittoria's ear. 'It was this man who sent the
warning to Giacomo, the signora's husband, which he despised, and which
would have saved him.
It is the only good thing I know of Barto Rizzo. Pardon her.'
'I do,' said the girl, now weeping.
'She has evidently a rooted superstitious faith in these revolutionary
sign-marks. They are contagious to her. She loves you, and believes in
you, and will kneel to you for forgiveness by-and-by. Her misery is a
disease. She thinks now, “If my husband had given heed to the warning!”
'Yes, I see how her heart works,' said Vittoria. 'You knew her husband,
Signor Carlo?'
'I knew him. I served under him. He was the brother of my love. I shall
have no other.'
Vittoria placed her hand for Ammiani to take it. He joined his own to
the fevered touch. The heart of the young man swelled most ungovernably,
but the perils of the morrow were imaged by him, circling her as with a
tragic flame, and he had no word for his passion.
The door opened, when a noble little boy bounded into the room; followed
by a little girl in pink and white, like a streamer in the steps of
her brother. With shouts, and with arms thrown forward, they flung
themselves upon Vittoria, the boy claiming all her lap, and the girl
struggling for a share of the kingdom. Vittoria kissed them, crying,
'No, no, no, Messer Jack, this is a republic, and not an empire, and you
are to have no rights of “first come”; and Amalia sits on one knee, and
you on one knee, and you sit face to face, and take hands, and swear to
be satisfied.'
'Then I desire not to be called an English Christian name, and you will
call me Giacomo,' said the boy.
Vittoria sang, in mountain-notes, 'Giacomo!--Giacomo--Giac-giac-giac..
como!'
The children listened, glistening up at her, and in conjunction jumped
and shouted for more.
'More?' said Vittoria; 'but is the Signor Carlo no friend of ours? and
does he wear a magic ring that makes him invisible?'
'Let the German girl go to him,' said Giacomo, and strained his throat
to reach at kisses.
'I am not a German girl,' little Amalia protested, refusing to go to
Carlo Ammiani under that stigma, though a delightful haven of open arms
and knees, and filliping fingers, invited her.
'She is not a German girl, O Signor Giacomo,' said Vittoria, in the
theatrical manner.
'She has a German name.'
'It's not a German name!' the little girl shrieked.
Giacomo set Amalia to a miauling tune.
'So, you hate the Duchess of Graatli!' said Vittoria. 'Very well. I
shall remember.'
The boy declared that he did not hate his mother's friend and sister's
godmother: he rather liked her, he really liked her, he loved her; but
he loathed the name 'Amalia,' and could not understand why the duchess
would be a German. He concluded by miauling 'Amalia' in the triumph of
contempt.
'Cat, begone!' said Vittoria, promptly setting him down on his feet, and
little Amalia at the same time perceiving that practical sympathy only
required a ring at the bell for it to come out, straightway pulled the
wires within herself, and emitted a doleful wail that gave her sole
possession of Vittoria's bosom, where she was allowed to bring her tears
to an end very comfortingly. Giacomo meanwhile, his body bent in an
arch, plucked at Carlo Ammiani's wrists with savagely playful tugs, and
took a stout boy's lesson in the art of despising what he coveted. He
had only to ask for pardon. Finding it necessary, he came shyly up
to Vittoria, who put Amalia in his way, kissing whom, he was himself
tenderly kissed.
'But girls should not cry!' Vittoria reproved the little woman.
'Why do you cry?' asked Amalia simply.
'See! she has been crying.' Giacomo appropriated the discovery, perforce
of loudness, after the fashion of his sex.
'Why does our Vittoria cry?' both the children clamoured.
'Because your mother is such a cruel sister to her,' said Laura, passing
up to them from the doorway. She drew Vittoria's head against her
breast, looked into her eyes, and sat down among them. Vittoria sang
one low-toned soft song, like the voice of evening, before they were
dismissed to their beds. She could not obey Giacomo's demand for a
martial air, and had to plead that she was tired.
When the children had gone, it was as if a truce had ended. The signora
and Ammiani fell to a brisk counterchange of questions relating to the
mysterious suspicion which had fallen upon Vittoria. Despite Laura's
love for her, she betrayed her invincible feeling that there must be
some grounds for special or temporary distrust.
'The lives that hang on it knock at me here,' she said, touching under
her throat with fingers set like falling arrows.
But Ammiani, who moved in the centre of conspiracies, met at their
councils, and knew their heads, and frequently combated their schemes,
was not possessed by the same profound idea of their potential command
of hidden facts and sovereign wisdom. He said, 'We trust too much to one
man. We are compelled to trust him, but we trust too much to him. I mean
this man, this devil, Barto Rizzo. Signora, signora, he must be spoken
of. He has dislocated the plot. He is the fanatic of the revolution,
and we are trusting him as if he had full sway of reason. What is the
consequence? The Chief is absent he is now, as I believe, in Genoa. All
the plan for the rising is accurate; the instruments are ready, and
we are paralyzed. I have been to three houses to-night, and where, two
hours previously, there was union and concert, all are irresolute and
divided. I have hurried off a messenger to the Chief. Until we hear from
him, nothing can be done. I left Ugo Corte storming against us Milanese,
threatening, as usual, to work without us, and have a Bergamasc and
Brescian Republic of his own. Count Medole is for a week's postponement.
Agostino smiles and chuckles, and talks his poetisms.'
'Until you hear from the Chief, nothing is to be done?' Laura said
passionately. 'Are we to remain in suspense? Impossible! I cannot
bear it. We have plenty of arms in the city. Oh, that we had cannon!
I worship cannon! They are the Gods of battle! But if we surprise the
citadel;--one true shock of alarm makes a mob of an army. I have heard
my husband say so. Let there be no delay. That is my word.'
'But, signora, do you see that all concert about the signal is lost?'
'My friend, I see something'; Laura nodded a significant half-meaning
at him. 'And perhaps it will be as well. Go at once. See that another
signal is decided upon. Oh! because we are ready--ready. Inaction now
is uttermost anguish--kills the heart. What number of the white butchers
have we in the city to-night?'
'They are marching in at every gate. I saw a regiment of Hungarians
coming up the Borgo della Stella. Two fresh squadrons of Uhlans in the
Corso Francesco. In the Piazza d'Armi artillery is encamped.'
'The better for Brescia, for Bergamo, for Padua, for Venice!' exclaimed
Laura. 'There is a limit to their power. We Milanese can match them. For
days and days I have had a dream lying in my bosom that Milan was soon
to breathe. Go, my brother; go to Barto Rizzo; gather him and Count
Medole, Agostino, and Colonel Corte--to whom I kiss my fingers--gather
them together, and squeeze their brains for the one spark of divine fire
in this darkness which must exist where there are so many thorough men
bent upon a sacred enterprise. And, Carlo,'--Laura checked her nervous
voice, 'don't think I am declaiming to you from one of my “Midnight
Lamps.”' (She spoke of the title of her pamphlets to the Italian
people.) 'You feel among us women very much as Agostino and Colonel
Corte feel when the boy Carlo airs his impetuosities in their presence.
Yes, my fervour makes a philosopher of you. That is human nature. Pity
me, pardon me, and do my bidding.'
The comparison of Ammiani's present sentiments to those of the elders of
the conspiracy, when his mouth was open in their midst, was severe and
masterful, for the young man rose instantly without a thought in his
head.
He remarked: 'I will tell them that the signorina does not give the
signal.'
'Tell them that the name she has chosen shall be Vittoria still; but
say, that she feels a shadow of suspicion to be an injunction upon her
at such a crisis, and she will serve silently and humbly until she is
rightly known, and her time comes. She is willing to appear before them,
and submit to interrogation. She knows her innocence, and knowing that
they work for the good of the country, she, if it is their will, is
content to be blotted out of all participation:--all! She abjures all
for the common welfare. Say that. And say, to-morrow night the rising
must be. Oh! to-morrow night! It is my husband to me.'
Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom.
Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, when a bell-note of
Vittoria's voice arrested him.
'Stay, Signor Carlo; I shall sing to-morrow night.'
The widow heard her through that thick emotion which had just closed
her' speech with its symbolical sensuous rapture. Divining opposition
fiercely, like a creature thwarted when athirst for the wells, she gave
her a terrible look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of
sweetness could make the tones pleasant, 'Yes, you will sing, but you
will not sing that song.'
'It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.'
'When it is interdicted?'
'There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.'
'You will dare to sing in defiance of me?'
'I dare nothing when I simply do my duty.'
Ammiani went up to the window, and leaned there, eyeing the lights
leading down to the crowding Piazza. He wished that he were among the
crowd, and might not hear those sharp stinging utterances coming from
Laura, and Vittoria's unwavering replies, less frequent, but firmer, and
gravely solid. Laura spent her energy in taunts, but Vittoria spoke
only of her resolve, and to the point. It was, as his military instincts
framed the simile, like the venomous crackling of skirmishing rifles
before a fortress, that answered slowly with its volume of sound and
sweeping shot. He had the vision of himself pleading to secure her
safety, and in her hearing, on the Motterone, where she had seemed so
simple a damsel, albeit nobly enthusiastic: too fair, too gentle to be
stationed in any corner of the conflict at hand. Partly abased by the
remembrance of his brainless intercessions then, and of the laughter
which had greeted them, and which the signora had recently recalled, it
was nevertheless not all in self-abasement (as the momentary recognition
of a splendid character is commonly with men) that he perceived the
stature of Vittoria's soul. Remembering also what the Chief had spoken
of women, Ammiani thought 'Perhaps he has known one such as she.' The
passion of the young man's heart magnified her image. He did not wonder
to see the signora acknowledge herself worsted in the conflict.
'She talks like the edge of a sword,' cried Laura, desperately, and
dropped into a chair. 'Take her home, and convince her, if you can,
on the way, Carlo. I go to the Duchess of Graatli to-night. She has a
reception. Take this girl home. She says she will sing: she obeys the
Chief, and none but the Chief. We will not suppose that it is her desire
to shine. She is suspected; she is accused; she is branded; there is no
general faith in her; yet she will hold the torch to-morrow night:--and
what ensues? Some will move, some turn back, some run headlong over to
treachery, some hang irresolute all are for the shambles! The blood is
on her head.'
'I will excuse myself to you another time,' said Vittoria. 'I love you,
Signora Laura.'
'You do, you do, or you would not think of excusing yourself to me,'
said Laura. 'But now, go. You have cut me in two. Carlo Ammiani may
succeed where I have failed, and I have used every weapon; enough to
make a mean creature hate me for life and kiss me with transports. Do
your best, Carlo, and let it be your utmost.'
It remained for Ammiani to assure her that their views were different.
'The signorina persists in her determination to carry out the programme
indicated by the Chief, and refuses to be diverted from her path by the
false suspicions of subordinates.' He employed a sententious phraseology
instinctively, as men do when they are nervous, as well as when they
justify the cynic's definition of the uses of speech. 'The signorina is,
in my opinion, right. If she draws back, she publicly accepts the blot
upon her name. I speak against my own feelings and my wishes.'
'Sandra, do you hear?' exclaimed Laura. 'This is a friend's
interpretation of your inconsiderate wilfulness.'
Vittoria was content to reply, 'The Signor Carlo judges of me
differently.'
'Go, then, and be fortified by him in this headstrong folly.' Laura
motioned her hand, and laid it on her face.
Vittoria knelt and enclosed her with her arms, kissing her knees.
'Beppo waits for me at the house-door,' she said; but Carlo chose not to
hear of this shadow-like Beppo.
'You have nothing to say for her save that she clears her name by giving
the signal,' Laura burst out on his temperate 'Addio,' and started to
her feet. 'Well, let it be so. Fruitless blood again! A 'rivederla' to
you both. To-night I am in the enemy's camp. They play with open
cards. Amalia tells me all she knows by what she disguises. I may learn
something. Come to me to-morrow. My Sandra, I will kiss you. These
shudderings of mine have no meaning.'
The signora embraced her, and took Ammiani's salute upon her fingers.
'Sour fingers!' he said. She leaned her cheek to him, whispering, 'I
could easily be persuaded to betray you.'
He answered, 'I must have some merit in not betraying myself.'
'At each elbow!' she laughed. 'You show the thumps of an electric
battery at each elbow, and expect your Goddess of lightnings not to see
that she moves you. Go. You have not sided with me, and I am right, and
I am a woman. By the way, Sandra mia, I would beg the loan of your Beppo
for two hours or less.'
Vittoria placed Beppo at her disposal.
'And you run home to bed,' continued Laura. 'Reason comes to you
obstinate people when you are left alone for a time in the dark.'
She hardly listened to Vittoria's statement that the chief singers in
the new opera were engaged to attend a meeting at eleven at night at the
house of the maestro Rocco Ricci.