Foscolo has these lines--
A stone to mark my bones from the vaut crop
That death soirs on the land or in the sea.
Admiring the mournful poems of this great singer, we are, like him,
advocates for honoring the great dead, and truly we believe that doing
homage to departed virtue is an incentive to make the living follow in
its path. When one thinks, however, of the gaudy pageants with which the
priesthood deck the last journey of the dead, one can not help deploring
the useless show and the expenditure.
Death that true type of the equality of human beings--death which
effectually destroys all worldly superiority, and confounds in one
democracy of decay the emperor and the beggar--death, the leveller, must
be astonished at so much difference between the funerals of the rich
and the poor! He must wonder at so much preparation for the burial of a
corpse, and laugh, if death can laugh, at so much mockery of woe, which
is frequently the cover for secret joy in the soul of the greedy heir,
while in the largest number it is mere indifference. Then the hired
weepers--what a pitiful spectacle those are!
We have seen in Moldavia, and we believe the custom is adopted in other
countries, that at the funeral of a Bojar a number of women are hired
to weep, and what tears they shed! what shouts do those miserable beings
utter! As to the grief they must have felt, it was measured by their
pay.
These mourners have sometimes returned to our memory while reading
parliamentary debates during which certain hired people, or those who
hope for hire, burst out into a profusion of "_bravi" and "bravissimi_"
at the insulting speeches, or often at the unprincipled projects, of
this or that prime minister.
Prince T------'s funeral was largely attended, because it was known
that he was a man of mark. Among the crowd of people who followed the
remains, most of them with the greatest indifference, there could be
distinguished a few really sad faces. Those were the friends of the dead
man, Attilio, Muzio, and Gasparo. The latter especially had eyes swollen
by weeping.
The strong nature of the old Roman chief had been shaken by the loss of
his friend and master to whom he had been sincerely attached--a proof
at once of the kindly nature of the prince, and of the faithful heart
of the exile. Was he weeping for the prince? No; for the friend and
benefactor.
Oh, how many true friends might the great of the world possess, if they
would but open their hearts to generosity--if they would soften the
injustice of fate towards those upon whom she lays an unequal hand!
Many there are among the higher classes, I know, who are beneficence
itself, and some of the women of the noblest houses are distinguished
for their amiability and goodness. But these instances are not
sufficient for the suffering multitude; and the majority of the
favorites of fortune are not only indifferent to the unfortunate--they
seem to add voluntarily to their trials.
The duty and the care of good government should be to ameliorate the
poor man's condition; but, unhappily, that duty is unfulfilled, that
care is not undertaken. Government thinks only of its own preservation,
and of strengthening its own position; to this end it exercises
corruption to obtain satellites and accomplices.
The mass of the prosperous might, to a great extent, correct the capital
defect of administration by relieving misery and improving the condition
of the people. If the rich would thus only deprive themselves of but
a small portion of their superfluities! While the poor want the very
necessaries of existence, the tables of the wealthy abound with endless
varieties of food, and the rarest and most costly wines. Does the
rich man never feel the compunction of conscience which such shameless
contrasts ought to bring?
"Why such grief for the loss of one of our enemies, capitano?"
These words were accompanied by a tap on Gasparo's shoulder, both
proceeding from an odd-looking man, who was following in the funeral
procession. Gasparo turned round, stood for a moment considering his
familiar interlocutor, then uttering an exclamation little suited to the
solemnity of the scene, and very surprising to those around him--"Evil
be to the seventy-two! (a Roman oath), and is it really thee, Marzio?"
"Who else should it be, if not your lieutenant, capitano mio?"
The acquaintance of Gasparo had the type of the regular Italian brigand.
The old man, during the few months of his city life, had somewhat
re-polished his appearance; but Marzio, on the contrary, presented
the rude aspect of the Roman bandit pure and simple. Tall and
squarely-built, it was difficult to meet without a shudder the fierce
look darted from those densely black eyes. His hair, black and glossy
as a raven, contrasted with his beard, once as dark, now sprinkled with
gray. His costume, though somewhat cleaner, differed in other respects
very little from that rustic masquerade worn when he had filled the
whole country with terror. The famous doublet of dark velvet was not
wanting, and if there were not visible externally those indispensable
brigand accessories, pistols, dagger, or a two-edged knife, it was a
sign that those articles were carefully hidden within. Hats are worn
in different fashions, even by brigands, and Marzio wore his a little
inclined towards the right side, like a workman's. Leathern gaiters
had been abandoned by Marzio, and he wore his pantaloons, loose ones of
blue, with ample pockets.
The occasion did not offer the two men much opportunity of conversation;
but it was evident that they met with mutual pleasure and sympathy.
In these times when Italian honor and glory are a mockery, the handful
of men called brigands, who have for seven years sustained themselves
against one large army, two other armies of carabiniers, a part of
another army of national guards, and an entire hostile population--that
handful of men, call them what you will, is at least brave. If you
rulers, instead of maintaining the disgraceful institution of the
priest, had occupied yourselves in securing the instruction of the
people, these very brigands, instead of becoming the instruments of
priestly reaction, would at this moment have been in our ranks, teaching
us how one stout fellow can fight twenty.
This, my kind word for the "honest" brigands, is not for the assassins,
be it understood. And one little piece of comment upon you who sit in
high places. When you assaulted the Roman walls--for religious purposes
of course--robbing and slaying the poor people who thought you came as
Mends, were you less brigands? No, you were worse than banditti--you
were traitors.
But you will tell me, "those were republicans and revolutionists, men
who trouble the world." And what were you but troublers of the world,
and false traitors? This difference exists between your majesties and
the bandit: he robs, but seldom kills, while you have not only robbed,
but stained your hands for plunder's sake in innocent blood!
Pardon, reader, that this digression has left you in the midst of a
funeral, and that the writer has too passionately diverged from his path
to glance at brigandage on the large as well as the small scale.
When the funeral party reached the cemetery, the remains of the dead
were lowered into a grave, over which no voice spoke a word of eulogy.
With all the will to effect good, the action of this young life had
been cut short by a premature and rash death. What could be said of the
blossom of noble qualities to which time was denied to bring forth their
fruits?