IN THE PIAZZA D'ARMI
Carlo and Luciano followed the regiments to the Piazza d'Armi, drawn
after them by that irresistible attraction to youths who have as yet
had no shroud of grief woven for them--desire to observe the aspect of a
brilliant foe.
The Piazza d'Armi was the field of Mars of Milan, and an Austrian review
of arms there used to be a tropical pageant. The place was too narrow
for broad manoeuvres, or for much more than to furnish an inspection
of all arms to the General, and a display (with its meaning) to the
populace. An unusually large concourse of spectators lined the square,
like a black border to a vast bed of flowers, nodding now this way,
now that. Carlo and Luciano passed among the groups, presenting the
perfectly smooth faces of young men of fashion, according to the
universal aristocratic pattern handed down to querulous mortals from
Olympus--the secret of which is to show a triumphant inaction of
the heart and the brain, that are rendered positively subservient to
elegance of limb. They knew the chances were in favour of their being
arrested at any instant. None of the higher members of the Milanese
aristocracy were visible; the people looked sullen. Carlo was attracted
by the tall figure of the Signor Antonio-Pericles, whom he beheld in
converse with the commandant of the citadel, out in the square, among
chatting and laughing General officers. At Carlo's elbow there came a
burst of English tongues; he heard Vittoria's English name spoken with
animation. 'Admire those faces,' he said to Luciano, but the latter was
interchanging quiet recognitions among various heads of the crowd; a
language of the eyelids and the eyebrows. When he did look round he
admired the fair island faces with an Italian's ardour: 'Their women are
splendid!' and he no longer pushed upon Carlo's arm to make way ahead.
In the English group were two sunny-haired girls and a blue-eyed lady
with the famous English curls, full, and rounding richly. This lady
talked of her brother, and pointed him out as he rode down the line in
the Marshal's staff. The young officer indicated presently broke away
and galloped up to her, bending over his horse's neck to join the
conversation. Emilia Belloni's name was mentioned. He stared, and
appeared to insist upon a contrary statement.
Carlo scrutinized his features. While doing so he was accosted, and
beheld his former adversary of the Motter--one, with whom he had
yesterday shaken hands in the Piazza of La Scala. The ceremony was
cordially renewed. Luciano unlinked his arm from Carlo and left him.
'It appears that you are mistaken with reference to Mademoiselle
Belloni,' said Captain Gambier. 'We hear on positive authority that she
will not appear at La Scala to-night. It's a disappointment; though,
from what you did me the honour to hint to me, I cannot allow myself to
regret it.'
Carlo had a passionate inward prompting to trust this Englishman with
the secret. It was a weakness that he checked. When one really takes to
foreigners, there is a peculiar impulse (I speak of the people who are
accessible to impulse) to make brothers of them. He bowed, and said,
'She does not appear?'
'She has in fact quitted Milan. Not willingly. I would have stopped the
business if I had known anything of it; but she is better out of the
way, and will be carefully looked after, where she is. By this time she
is in the Tyrol.'
'And where?' asked Carlo, with friendly interest.
'At a schloss near Meran. Or she will be there in a very few hours. I
feared--I may inform you that we were very good friends in England--I
feared that when she once came to Italy she would get into political
scrapes. I dare say you agree with me that women have nothing to do
with politics. Observe: you see the lady who is speaking to the Austrian
officer?--he is her brother. Like Mademoiselle Belloni he has adopted
a fresh name; it's the name of his uncle, a General Pierson in the
Austrian service. I knew him in England: he has been in our service.
Mademoiselle Belloni lived with his sisters for some years two or three.
As you may suppose, they are all anxious to see her. Shall I introduce
you? They will be glad to know one of her Italian friends.'
Carlo hesitated; he longed to hear those ladies talk of Vittoria. 'Do
they speak French?'
'Oh, dear, yes. That is, as we luckless English people speak it. Perhaps
you will more easily pardon their seminary Italian. See there,' Captain
Gambier pointed at some trotting squadrons; 'these Austrians have
certainly a matchless cavalry. The artillery seems good. The infantry
are fine men--very fine men. They have a “woodeny” movement; but that's
in the nature of the case: tremendous discipline alone gives homogeneity
to all those nationalities. Somehow they get beaten. I doubt whether
anything will beat their cavalry.'
'They are useless in street-fighting,' said Carlo.
'Oh, street-fighting!' Captain Gambier vented a soldier's disgust at the
notion. 'They're not in Paris. Will you step forward?'
Just then the tall Greek approached the party of English. The
introduction was delayed.
He was addressed by the fair lady, in the island tongue, as 'Mr.
Pericles.' She thanked him for his extreme condescension in deigning to
notice them. But whatever his condescension had been, it did not extend
to an admitted acquaintance with the poor speech of the land of fogs. An
exhibition of aching deafness was presented to her so resolutely, that
at last she faltered, 'What! have you forgotten English, Mr. Pericles?
You spoke it the other day.'
'It is ze language of necessity--of commerce,' he replied.
'But, surely, Mr. Pericles, you dare not presume to tell me you choose
to be ignorant of it whenever you please?'
'I do not take grits into ze teeth, madame; no more.' 'But you speak it
perfectly.'
'Perfect it may be, for ze transactions of commerce. I wish to keep my
teez.'
'Alas!' said the lady, compelled, 'I must endeavour to swim in French.'
'At your service, madame,' quoth the Greek, with an immediate doubling
of the length of his body.
Carlo heard little more than he knew; but the confirmation of what
we know will sometimes instigate us like fresh intelligence, and the
lover's heart was quick to apprehend far more than he knew in one
direction. He divined instantaneously that the English-Austrian
spoken of by Barto Rizzo was the officer sitting on horseback within
half-a-dozen yards of him. The certainty of the thought cramped his
muscles. For the rest, it became clear to him that the attempt of the
millionaire connoisseur to carry off Vittoria had received the tacit
sanction of the Austrian authorities; for reasons quite explicable, Mr.
Pericles, as the English lady called him, distinctly hinted it, while
affirming with vehement self-laudation that his scheme had succeeded for
the vindication of Art.
'The opera you will hear zis night,' he said, 'will be hissed. You will
hear a chorus of screech-owls to each song of that poor Irma, whom the
Italian people call “crabapple.” Well; she pleases German ears, and if
they can support her, it is well. But la Vittoria--your Belloni--you
will not hear; and why? She has been false to her Art, false! She has
become a little devil in politics. It is a Guy Fawkes femelle! She has
been guilty of the immense crime of ingratitude. She is dismissed to
study, to penitence, and to the society of her old friends, if they will
visit her.'
'Of course we will,' said the English lady; 'either before or after our
visit to Venice--delicious Venice!'
'Which you have not seen--hein?' Mr. Pericles snarled; 'and have not
smelt. There is no music in Venice! But you have nothing but street
tinkle-tinkle! A place to live in! mon Dieu!'
The lady smiled. 'My husband insists upon trying the baths of Bormio,
and then we are to go over a pass for him to try the grape-cure at
Meran. If I can get him to promise me one whole year in Italy, our visit
to Venice may be deferred. Our doctor, monsieur, indicates our route. If
my brother can get leave of absence, we shall go to Bormio and to Meran
with him. He is naturally astonished that Emilia refused to see him;
and she refused to see us too! She wrote a letter, dated from the
Conservatorio to him, he had it in his saddlebag, and was robbed of it
and other precious documents, when the wretched, odious people set upon
him in Verona-poor boy! She said in the letter that she would see him in
a few days after the fifteenth, which is to-day!
'Ah! a few days after the fifteenth, which is to-day,' Mr. Pericles
repeated. 'I saw you but the day before yesterday, madame, or I could
have brought you together.
She is now away-off--out of sight--the perfule! Ah false that she is;
speak not of her. You remember her in England. There it was trouble,
trouble; but here, we are a pot on a fire with her; speak not of her.
She has used me ill, madame. I am sick.'
His violent gesticulation drooped. In a temporary abandonment to
chagrin, he wiped the moisture from his forehead, unwilling or heedless
of the mild ironical mouthing of the ladies, and looked about; for Carlo
had made a movement to retire,--he had heard enough for discomfort.
'Ah! my dear Ammiani, the youngest editor in Europe! how goes it with
you?' the Greek called out with revived affability.
Captain Gambier perceived that it was time to present his Italian
acquaintance to the ladies by name, as a friend of Mademoiselle Belloni.
'My most dear Ammiani,' Antonio-Pericles resumed; he barely attempted
to conceal his acrid delight in casting a mysterious shadow of coming
vexation over the youth; 'I am afraid you will not like the opera
Camilla, or perhaps it is the Camilla you will not like. But, shoulder
arms, march!' (a foot regiment in motion suggested the form of the
recommendation) 'what is not for to-day may be for to-morrow. Let us
wait. I think, my Ammiani, you are to have a lemon and not an orange.
Never mind. Let us wait.'
Carlo got his forehead into a show of smoothness, and said, 'Suppose, my
dear Signor Antonio, the prophet of dark things were to say to himself,
“Let us wait?”'
'Hein-it is deep.' Antonio-Pericles affected to sound the sentence,
eye upon earth, as a sparrow spies worm or crumb. 'Permit me,' he
added rapidly; an idea had struck him from his malicious reserve
stores,--'Here is Lieutenant Pierson, of the staff of the Field-Marshal
of Austria, unattached, an old friend of Mademoiselle Emilia
Belloni,--permit me,--here is Count Ammiani, of the Lombardia Milanese
journal, a new friend of the Signorina Vittoria Campa-Mademoiselle
Belloni the Signorina Campa--it is the same person, messieurs; permit me
to introduce you.'
Antonio-Pericles waved his arm between the two young men.
Their plain perplexity caused him to dash his fingers down each side of
his moustachios in tugs of enjoyment.
For Lieutenant Pierson, who displayed a certain readiness to bow, had
caught a sight of the repellent stare on Ammiani's face; a still and
flat look, not aggressive, yet anything but inviting; like a shield.
Nevertheless, the lieutenant's head produced a stiff nod. Carlo's did
not respond; but he lifted his hat and bowed humbly in retirement to the
ladies.
Captain Gambier stepped aside with him.
'Inform Lieutenant Pierson, I beg you,' said Ammiani, 'that I am at his
orders, if he should consider that I have insulted him.'
'By all means,' said Gambier; 'only, you know, it's impossible for me to
guess what is the matter; and I don't think he knows.'
Luciano happened to be coming near. Carlo went up to him, and stood
talking for half a minute. He then returned to Captain Gambier, and
said, 'I put myself in the hands of a man of honour. You are aware that
Italian gentlemen are not on terms with Austrian officers. If I am seen
exchanging salutes with any one of them, I offend my countrymen; and
they have enough to bear already.'
Perceiving that there was more in the background, Gambier simply bowed.
He had heard of Italian gentlemen incurring the suspicion of their
fellows by merely being seen in proximity to an Austrian officer.
As they were parting, Carlo said to him, with a very direct meaning in
his eyes, 'Go to the opera tonight.'
'Yes, I suppose so,' the Englishman answered, and digested the look and
the recommendation subsequently.
Lieutenant Pierson had ridden off. The war-machine was in motion from
end to end: the field of flowers was a streaming flood; regiment by
regiment, the crash of bands went by. Outwardly the Italians conducted
themselves with the air of ordinary heedless citizens, in whose bosoms
the music set no hell-broth boiling. Patrician and plebeian, they were
chiefly boys; though here and there a middle-aged workman cast a look
of intelligence upon Carlo and Luciano, when these two passed along the
crowd. A gloom of hoarded hatred was visible in the mass of faces, ready
to spring fierily.
Arms were in the city. With hatred to prompt the blow, with arms to
strike, so much dishonour to avenge, we need not wonder that these
youths beheld the bit of liberty in prospect magnified by their mighty
obfuscating ardour, like a lantern in a fog. Reason did not act. They
were in such a state when just to say 'Italia! Italia!' gave them nerve
to match an athlete. So, the parading of Austria, the towering athlete,
failed of its complete lesson of intimidation, and only ruffled the
surface of insurgent hearts. It seemed, and it was, an insult to the
trodden people, who read it as a lesson for cravens: their instinct
commonly hits the bell. They felt that a secure supremacy would not have
paraded itself: so they divined indistinctly that there was weakness
somewhere in the councils of the enemy. When the show had vanished,
their spirits hung pausing, like the hollow air emptied of big sound,
and reacted. Austria had gained little more by her display than the
conscientious satisfaction of the pedagogue who lifts the rod to advise
intending juvenile culprits how richly it can be merited and how poor
will be their future grounds of complaint.
But before Austria herself had been taught a lesson she conceived that
she had but one man and his feeble instruments, and occasional frenzies,
opposed to her, him whom we saw on the Motterone, which was ceasing to
be true; though it was true that the whole popular movement flowed from
that one man. She observed travelling sparks in the embers of Italy, and
crushed them under her heel, without reflecting that a vital heat must
be gathering where the spots of fire run with such a swiftness. It
was her belief that if she could seize that one man, whom many of the
younger nobles and all the people acknowledged as their Chief--for
he stood then without a rival in his task--she would have the neck of
conspiracy in her angry grasp. Had she caught him, the conspiracy for
Italian freedom would not have crowed for many long seasons; the torch
would have been ready, but not the magazine. He prepared it; it was he
who preached to the Italians that opportunity is a mocking devil when we
look for it to be revealed; or, in other words, wait for chance; as it
is God's angel when it is created within us, the ripe fruit of virtue
and devotion. He cried out to Italians to wait for no inspiration but
their own; that they should never subdue their minds to follow any alien
example; nor let a foreign city of fire be their beacon. Watching over
his Italy; her wrist in his meditative clasp year by year; he stood like
a mystic leech by the couch of a fair and hopeless frame, pledged to
revive it by the inspired assurance, shared by none, that life had not
forsaken it. A body given over to death and vultures-he stood by it in
the desert. Is it a marvel to you that when the carrion-wings swooped
low, and the claws fixed, and the beak plucked and savoured its morsel,
he raised his arm, and urged the half-resuscitated frame to some
vindicating show of existence? Arise! he said, even in what appeared
most fatal hours of darkness. The slack limbs moved; the body rose and
fell. The cost of the effort was the breaking out of innumerable wounds,
old and new; the gain was the display of the miracle that Italy lived.
She tasted her own blood, and herself knew that she lived.
Then she felt her chains. The time was coming for her to prove, by the
virtues within her, that she was worthy to live, when others of her
sons, subtle and adept, intricate as serpents, bold, unquestioning as
well-bestridden steeds, should grapple and play deep for her in the game
of worldly strife. Now--at this hour of which I speak--when Austrians
marched like a merry flame down Milan streets, and Italians stood like
the burnt-out cinders of the fire-grate, Italy's faint wrist was still
in the clutch of her grave leech, who counted the beating of her pulse
between long pauses, that would have made another think life to be
heaving its last, not beginning.
The Piazza d'Armi was empty of its glittering show.