At eight o'clock the next morning Roma was going into the courtyard of
the Castle of St. Angelo when she met the carriage of the Prime Minister
coming out. The coachman was stopped from inside, and the Baron himself
alighted.
"You look tired, my child," he said.
"I _am_ tired," she answered.
"Hardly more than a month, yet so many things have happened!"
"Oh, that! That's nothing--nothing whatever."
"Why should you pass through these privations? Roma, if I allowed these
misfortunes to befall you it was only to let you feel what others could
do for you. But I am the same as ever, and you have only to stretch out
your hand and I am here to lighten your lot."
"All that is over now. It is no use speaking as you spoke before. You
are talking to another woman."
"Strange mystery of a woman's love! That she who set out to destroy her
slanderer should become his slave! If he were only worthy of it!"
"He is worthy of it."
"If you should hear that he is not worthy--that he has even been untrue
to you?"
"I should think it is a falsehood, a contemptible falsehood."
"But if you had proof, substantial proof, the proof of his own pen?"
"Good-morning! I must go."
"My child, what have I always told you? You will give the man up at last
and carry out your first intention."
With a deep bow and a scarcely perceptible smile the Baron turned to the
open door of his carriage. Roma flushed up angrily and went on, but the
poisoned arrow had gone home.
The military tribunal had begun its session. A ticket which Roma
presented at the door admitted her to the well of the court where the
advocates were sitting. The advocate Fuselli made a place for her by his
side. It was a quiet moment and her entrance attracted attention. The
judges in their red armchairs at the green-covered horse-shoe table
looked up from their portfolios, and there was some whispering beyond
the wooden bar where the public were huddled together. One other face
had followed her, but at first she dared not look at that. It was the
face of the prisoner in his prison clothes sitting between two
Carabineers.
The secretary read the indictment. Bruno was charged not only with
participation in the riot of the 1st of February, but also with being a
promoter of associations designed to change violently the constitution
of the state. It was a long document, and the secretary read it slowly
and not very distinctly.
When the indictment came to an end the Public Prosecutor rose to expound
the accusation, and to mention the clauses of the Code under which the
prisoner's crime had to be considered. He was a young captain of
cavalry, with restless eyes and a twirled-up moustache. His long cloak
hung over his chair, his light gloves lay on the table by his side, and
his sword clanked as he made graceful gestures. He was an elegant
speaker, much preoccupied about beautiful phrases, and obviously anxious
to conciliate the judges.
"Illustrious gentlemen of the tribunal," he began, and then went on
with a compliment to the King, a flourish to the name of the Prime
Minister, a word of praise to the army, and finally a scathing satire on
the subversive schemes which it was desired to set up in place of
existing institutions. The most crushing denunciation of the delirious
idea which had led to the unhappy insurrection was the crude explanation
of its aims. A universal republic founded on the principles enunciated
in the Lord's Prayer! Thrones, armies, navies, frontiers, national
barriers, all to be abolished! So simple! So easy! So childlike! But
alas, so absurd! So entirely oblivious of the great principles of
political economy and international law, and of impulses and instincts
profoundly sculptured in the heart of man!
After various little sallies which made his fellow-officers laugh and
the judges smile, the showy person wiped his big moustache with a silk
handkerchief, and came to Bruno. This unhappy man was not one of the
greater delinquents who, by their intelligence, had urged on the
ignorant crowd. He was merely a silly and perhaps drunken person, who if
taken away from the wine-shop and put into uniform would make a valiant
soldier. The creature was one of the human dogs of our curious species.
His political faith was inscribed with one word only--Rossi. He would
not ask for severe punishment on such a deluded being, but he would
request the court to consider the case as a means of obtaining proof
against the dark if foolish minds (fit subjects for Lombroso) which are
always putting the people into opposition with their King, their
constitution, and the great heads of government.
The sword clanked again as the young soldier sat down. Then for the
first time Roma looked over at Bruno. His big rugged face was twisted
into an expression of contempt, and somehow the "human dog of our
curious species," sitting in his prison clothes between the soldiers,
made the elegant officer look like a pet pug.
"Bruno Rocco, stand up," said the president. "You are a Roman, aren't
you?"
"Yes, I am--I'm a Roman of Rome," said Bruno.
The witnesses were called. First a Carabineer to prove Bruno's violence.
Then another Carabineer, and another, and another, with the same object.
After each of the Carabineers had given his evidence the president asked
the prisoner if he had any questions to ask the witnesses.
"None whatever. What they say is true. I admit it," he said.
At last he grew impatient and cried out, "I admit it, I tell you. What's
the good of going on?"
The next witness was the Chief of Police. Commendatore Angelelli was
called to prove that the cause of the revolt was not the dearness of
bread but the formation of subversive associations, of which the
"Republic of Man" was undoubtedly the strongest and most virulent. The
prisoner, however, was not one of the directing set, and the police knew
him only as a sort of watch-dog for the Honourable Rossi.
"The man's a fool. Why don't you go on with the trial?" cried Bruno.
"Silence," cried the usher of the court, but the prisoner only laughed
out loud.
Roma looked at Bruno again. There was something about the man which she
had never seen before, something more than the mere spirit of defiance,
something terrible and tremendous.
"Francesca Maria Mariotti," cried the usher, and the old deaf mother of
Bruno's wife was brought into court. She wore a coloured handkerchief on
her head as usual, and two shawls over her shoulders. Being a relative
of the prisoner, she was not sworn.
"Your name and your father's name?" said the president.
"Francesca Maria Mariotti," she answered.
"I said your father's name."
"Seventy-five, your Excellency."
"I asked you for your father's name."
"None at all, your Excellency."
A Carabineer explained that the woman was nearly stone deaf, whereupon
the president, who was irritated by the laughter his questions had
provoked, ordered the woman to be removed.
"Tommaso Mariotti," said the president, after the preliminary
interrogations, "you are porter at the Piazza Navona, and will be able
to say if meetings of political associations were held there, if the
prisoner took part in them, and who were the organising authorities. Now
answer me, were meetings ever held in your house?"
The old man turned his pork-pie hat in his hand, and made no answer.
"Answer me. We cannot sit here all day doing nothing."
"It's the Eternal City, Excellency--we can take our time," said the old
man.
"Answer the president instantly," said the usher. "Don't you know he can
punish you if you don't?"
At that the Garibaldian's eyes became moist, and he looked at the
judges. "Generals," he said, "I am only an old man, not much good to
anybody, but I was a soldier myself once. I was one of the 'Thousand,'
the 'Brave Thousand' they called us, and I shed my blood for my country.
Now I am more than threescore years and ten, and the rest of my days are
numbered. Do you want me for the sake of what is left of them to betray
my comrades?"
"Next witness," said the president, and at the same moment a thick,
half-stifled voice came from the bench of the accused.
"Why the ---- don't you go on with the trial?"
"Prisoner," said the president, "if you continue to make these
interruptions I shall stop the trial and order you to be flogged."
Bruno answered with a peal of laughter. The president--he was a
bald-headed man with the heavy jaw of a bloodhound--looked at him
attentively for a moment, and then said to the men below:
"Go on."
The next witness was the Director of Regina C[oe]li. He deposed that the
prisoner had made a statement to him which he had taken down in writing.
This statement amounted to a denunciation of the Deputy David Rossi as
the real author of the crime of which he with others was charged.
After the denunciation had been read the president asked the prisoner if
he had any questions to put to the witness, and thereupon Bruno cried in
a loud voice:
"Of course I have. It is exactly what I've been waiting for."
He had risen to his feet, kicked over a chair which stood in front of
him, and folded his arms across his breast.
"Ask him," said Bruno, "if he sent for me late at night and promised my
pardon if I would denounce David Rossi."
"It was not so," said the Director. "All I did was to advise him not to
observe a useless silence which could only condemn him to further
imprisonment if by speaking the truth he could save himself and serve
the interests of justice."
"Ask him," said Bruno, "if the denunciation he speaks of was not
dictated by himself."
"The prisoner," said the Director, "made the denunciation voluntarily,
and I rose from my bed to receive it at his urgent request."
"Ask him if I said one word to denounce David Rossi."
"The prisoner had made statements to a fellow-prisoner, and these were
embodied in the document he signed."
The advocate Fuselli interposed. "Then the Court is to understand that
the Director who dictated this denunciation knew nothing from the
prisoner himself?"
The Director hesitated, stammered, and finally admitted that it was so.
"I was inspired by a sentiment of justice," he said. "I acted from
duty."
"This man fed me on bread and water," cried Bruno. "He put me in the
punishment cells and tortured me in the strait-waistcoat with pains and
sufferings like Jesus Christ's, and when he had reduced my body and
destroyed my soul he dictated a denunciation of my dearest friend and my
unconscious fingers signed it."
"Don't shout so loud," said the president.
"I'll shout as loud as I like," said Bruno, and everybody turned to look
at him. It was useless to protest. Something seemed to say that no power
on earth could touch a man in a mood like that.
The next witness was the chief warder. He deposed that he was present at
the denunciation, that it was made voluntarily, and that no pressure
whatever was put upon the prisoner.
"Ask him," cried Bruno, "if on Sunday afternoon, when I went into his
cabinet to withdraw the denunciation, he refused to let me."
"It is not true," said the witness.
"You liar," cried Bruno, "you know it is true; and when I told you that
you were making me drag an innocent man to the galleys I struck you, and
the mark of my fist is on your forehead still. There it is, as red as a
Cardinal, while the rest of your face is as white as a Pope."
The president no longer tried to restrain Bruno. There was something in
the man's face that was beyond reproof. It was the outraged spirit of
Justice.
The chief warder went on to say that at various times he had received
reports that Rocco was communicating important facts to a
fellow-prisoner.
"Where is this fellow-prisoner? Is he at the disposition of the court?"
said the president.
"I'm afraid he has since been set at liberty," said the witness,
whereupon Bruno laughed uproariously, and pointing to some one in the
well, he shouted:
"There he is--there! The dandy in cuffs and collar. His name is
Minghelli."
"Call him," said the president, and Minghelli was sworn and examined.
"Until recently you were a prisoner in Regina C[oe]li, and have just
been pardoned for public services?"
"That is true, your Excellency."
"It's a lie," cried Bruno.
Minghelli leaned on the witness's chair, caressed his small moustache,
and told his story. He had occupied the next cell to the prisoner, and
talked with him in the usual language of prisoners. The prisoner had
spoken of a certain great man and then of a certain great act, and that
the great man had gone to England to prepare for it. He understood the
great man to be the Deputy Rossi, and the great act to be the overthrow
of the constitution and the assassination of the King.
"You son of a priest," cried Bruno, "you lie!"
"Bruno Rocco," said the president, "do not agitate yourself. You are
under the protection of the law. Be calm and tell us your own story."