his arm away, and looking up into the German’s face.
“Simply that she has consented and your mother. Are you willing that I
should be your brother?”
“This is madness,” said Carlo Pepé.
“On their part, you mean?”
“Yes, and on yours. Were there nothing else to prevent it, how could
there be marriage between us when this war is coming?”
“I do not believe in the war; that is, I do not believe in war between
us and Italy. No war can affect you here in Venice. If there is to be a
war in which I shall be concerned, I’m quite willing to wait till it be
over.”
“You understand nothing about it,” said Carlo, after a pause; “nothing!
You are in the dark altogether. How should it not be so, when those who
are over you never tell you anything? No, I will not consent. It is a
thing out of the question.”
“Do you think that I am personally unfit to be your sister’s husband?”
“Not personally, but politically and nationally. You are not one of us;
and now, at this moment, any attempt at close union between an Austrian
and a Venetian must be ruinous. Von Vincke, I am heartily sorry for
this. I blame the women, and not you.”
Then Carlo Pepé went home, and there was a rough scene between him and
his mother, and a scene still rougher between him and his sister.
And in these interviews he told something, though not the whole of the
truth as to the engagements into which he had entered. That he was to be
the officer second in command in a regiment of Venetian volunteers, of
those volunteers whom it was hoped that Garibaldi would lead to victory
in the coming war, he did not tell them; but he did make them understand
that when the struggle came he would be away from Venice, and would take
a part in it.
“And how am I to do this,” he said, “if you here are joined hand and
heart to an Austrian? A house divided against itself must fall.”
Let the reader understand that Nina Pepé, in spite of her love and of
her lover, was as good an Italian as her brother, and that their mother
was equally firm in her political desires and national antipathies.
Where would you have found the Venetian, man or woman, who did not
detest Austrian rule, and look forward to the good day coming when
Venice should be a city of Italia?
The Signora and Nina had indeed, some six months before this, been much
stronger in their hatred of all things German, than had the son and
brother. It had been his liberal feeling, his declaration that even a
German might be good, which had induced them to allow this Austrian to
come among them.
Then the man and the soldier had been two; and Von Vincke had himself
shown tendencies so strongly at variance with those of his comrades that
he had disarmed their fears. He had read Italian, and condescended to
speak it; he knew the old history of their once great city, and would
listen to them when they talked of their old doges. He loved their
churches, and their palaces, and their pictures. Gradually he had come
to love Nina Pepé with all his heart, and Nina loved him too with all
her heart.
But when her brother spoke to her and to her mother with more than his
customary vehemence of what was due from them to their country, of the
debt which certainly should be paid by him, of obligations to him from
which they could not free themselves; and told them also, that by that
time six months not an Austrian would be found in Venice, they trembled
and believed him, and Nina felt that her love would not run smooth.
“You must be with us or against us,” said Carlo.
“Why then did you bring him here?” Nina replied.
“Am I to suppose that you cannot see a man without falling in love with
him?”
“Carlo, that is unkind, almost unbrotherly. Was he not your friend, and
were not you the first to tell us how good he is? And he is good; no man
can be better.”
“He is an honest young man,” said the Signora.
“He is Austrian to the backbone,” said Carlo.
“Of course he is,” said Nina. “What should he be?”
“And will you be Austrian?” her brother asked.
“Not if I must be an enemy of Italy,” Nina said. “If an Austrian may be
a friend to Italy, then I will be an Austrian. I wish to be Hubert’s
wife. Of course I shall be an Austrian if he is my husband.”
“Then I trust that you may never be his wife,” said Carlo.
By the middle of May Carlo Pepé and Captain von Vincke had absolutely
quarrelled. They did not speak, and Von Vincke had been ordered by the
brother not to show himself at the house in the Campo San Luca.
Every German in Venice had now become more Austrian than before, and
every Venetian more Italian. Even our friend the captain had come to
believe in the war.
Not only Venice but Italy was in earnest, and Captain von Vincke
foresaw, or thought that he foresaw, that a time of wretched misery was
coming upon that devoted town. He would never give up Nina, but perhaps
it might be well that he should cease to press his suit till he might be
enabled to do so with something of the éclat of Austrian success.
And now at last it became necessary that the two women should be told of
Carlo’s plans, for Carlo was going to leave Venice till the war should
be over and he could re-enter the city as an Italian should enter a city
of his own.
“Oh! my son, my son,” said the mother; “why should it be you?”
“Many must go, mother. Why not I as well as another?”
“In other houses there are fathers; and in other families more sons than
one.”
“The time has come, mother, in which no woman should grudge either
husband or son to the cause. But the thing is settled. I am already
second colonel in a regiment which will serve with Garibaldi. You would
not ask me to desert my colours?”
There was nothing further to be said. The Signora threw herself on her
son’s neck and wept, and both mother and sister felt that their Carlo
was already a second Garibaldi. When a man is a hero to women, they will
always obey him. What could Nina do at such a time, but promise that she
would not see Hubert von Vincke during his absence. Then there was a
compact made between the brother and sister.
During three weeks past, that is, since the breakfast at Bauer’s, Nina
had seen Hubert von Vincke but once, and had then seen him in the
presence of her mother and brother. He had come in one evening in the
old way, before the quarrel, to take his coffee, and had been received,
as heretofore, as a friend, Nina sitting very silent during the evening,
but with a gracious silence; and after that the mother had signified to
the lover that he had better come no more for the present. He therefore
came no more.
I think it is the fact that love, though no doubt it may run as strong
with an Italian or with an Austrian as it does with us English, is not
allowed to run with so uncontrollable a stream. Young lovers, and
especially young women, are more subject to control, and are less
inclined to imagine that all things should go as they would have them.
Nina, when she was made to understand that the war was come, that her
brother was leaving her and her mother and Venice, that he might fight
for them, that an Austrian must for the time be regarded as an enemy in
that house, resolved with a slow, melancholy firmness that she would
accept the circumstances of her destiny.
“If I fall,” said Carlo, “you must then manage for yourself. I would not
wish to bind you after my death.”
“Do not talk like that, Carlo.”
“Nay, my child, but I must talk like that; and it is at least well that
we should understand each other. I know that you will keep your promise
to me.”
“Yes,” said Nina; “I will keep my promise.”
“Till I come back, or till I be dead, you will not again see Captain von
Vincke; or till the cause be gained.”
“I will not see him, Carlo, till you come back, or till the cause be
gained.”
“Or till I be dead. Say it after me.”
“Or till you be dead, if I must say it.”
But there was a clause in the contract that she was to see her lover
once before her brother left them. She had acknowledged the propriety of
her brother’s behests, backed as they came to be at last by their
mother; but she declared through it all that she had done no wrong, and
that she would not be treated as though she were an offender. She would
see her lover and tell him what she pleased. She would obey her brother,
but she would see her lover first. Indeed, she would make no promise of
obedience at all, would promise disobedience instead, unless she were
allowed to see him. She would herself write to him and bid him come.
This privilege was at last acceded to her, and Captain von Vincke was
summoned to the Campo San Luca. The morning sitting-room of the Signora
Pepé was up two pairs of stairs, and the stairs were not paved as are
the stairs of the palaces in Venice. But the room was large and lofty,
and seemed to be larger than its size from the very small amount of
furniture which it contained. The floor was of hard, polished cement,
which looked like variegated marble, and the amount of carpet upon it
was about four yards long, and was extended simply beneath the two
chairs in which sat habitually the Signora and her daughter. There were
two large mirrors and a large gold clock, and a large table and a small
table, a small sofa and six chairs, and that was all. In England the
room would have received ten times as much furniture, or it would not
have been furnished at all. And there were in it no more than two small
books, belonging both to Nina, for the Signora read but little. In
England, in such a sitting-room, tables, various tables, would have been
strewed with books; but then, perhaps, Nina Pepé’s eye required the
comfort of no other volumes than those she was actually using.
Nina was alone in the room when her lover came to her. There had been a
question whether her mother should or should not be present; but Nina
had been imperative, and she received him alone.
“It is to bid you good-bye, Hubert,” she said, as she got up and touched
his hand,--just touched his hand.
“Not for long, my Nina.”
“Who can say for how long, now that the war is upon us? As far as I can
see, it will be for very long. It is better that you should know it all.
For myself, I think, I fear that it will be for ever.”
“For ever! why for ever?”
“Because I cannot marry an enemy of Italy. I do not think that we can
ever succeed.”
“You can never succeed.”
“Then I can never be your wife. It is so, Hubert; I see that it must be
so. The loss is to me, not to you.”
“No, no--no. The loss is to me,--to me.”
“You have your profession, You are a soldier. I am nothing.”
“You are all in all to me.”
“I can be nothing, I shall be nothing, unless I am your wife. Think how
I must long for that which you say is so impossible. I do long for it; I
shall long for it. Oh, Hubert! go and lose your cause: let our men have
their Venice. Then come to me, and your country shall be my country, and
your people my people.”
As she said this she gently laid her hand upon his arm, and the touch of
her fingers thrilled through his whole frame. He put out his arms as
though to grasp her in his embrace.
“No, Hubert--no; that must not be till Venice is our own.”
“I wish it were,” he said; “but it will never be so. You may make me a
traitor in heart, but that will not drive out fifty thousand troops from
the fortresses.”
“I do not understand these things, Hubert, and I have felt your
country’s power to be so strong, that I cannot now doubt it.”
“It is absurd to doubt it.”
“But yet they say that we shall succeed.”
“It is impossible. Even though Prussia should be able to stand against
us, we should not leave Venetia. We shall never leave the fortresses.”
“Then, my love, we may say farewell for ever. I will not forget you. I
will never be false to you. But we must part.”
He stood there arguing with her, and she argued with him, but they
always came round to the same point. There was to be the war, and she
would not become the wife of her brother’s enemy. She had sworn, she
said, and she would keep her word. When his arguments became stronger
than hers, she threw herself back upon her plighted word.
“I have said it, and I must not depart from it. I have told him that my
love for you should be eternal, and I tell you the same. I told him that
I would see you no more, and I can only tell you so also.”
He could ask her no questions as to the cause of her resolution, because
he could not make enquiries as to her brother’s purpose. He knew that
Carlo was at work for the Venetian cause; or, at least, he thought that
he knew it. But it was essential for his comfort that he should really
know as little of this as might be possible. That Carlo Pepé was coming
and going in the service of the cause he could not but surmise; but
should authenticated information reach him as to whither Carlo went, and
how he came, it might become his duty to put a stop to Carlo’s comings
and Carlo’s goings. On this matter, therefore, he said nothing, but
merely shook his head, and smiled with a melancholy smile when she spoke
of the future struggle. “And now, Hubert, you must go. I was determined
that I would see you, that I might tell you that I would be true to
you.”
“What good will be such truth?”
“Nay: it is for you to say that. I ask you for no pledge.”
“I shall love no other woman. I would if I could. I would if I
could--to-morrow.”
“Let us have our own, and then come and love me. Or you need not come. I
will go to you, though it be to the furthest end of Galicia. Do not look
like that at me. You should be proud when I tell you that I love you.
No, you shall not kiss me. No man shall ever kiss me till Venice is our
own. There, I have sworn it. Should that time come, and should a certain
Austrian gentleman care for Italian kisses then, he will know where to
seek for them. God bless you now, and go.”
She made her way to the door and opened it, and there was nothing for
him but that he must go. He touched her hand once more as he went, but
there was no other word spoken between them.
“Mother,” she said, when she found herself again with the Signora, “my
little dream of life is over. It has been very short.”
“Nay, my child, life is long for you yet. There will be many dreams, and
much of reality.”
“I do not complain of Carlo,” Nina continued. “He is sacrificing much,
perhaps everything, for Venice. And why should his sacrifice be greater
than mine? But I feel it to be severe,--very severe. Why did he bring
him here if he felt thus?”
June came, that month of June that was to be so fatal to Italian glory,
and so fraught with success for the Italian cause, and Carlo Pepé was
again away.
Those who knew nothing of his doings, knew only that he had gone to
Verona--on matters of law. Those who were really acquainted with the
circumstances of his present life were aware that he had made his way
out of Verona, and that he was already with his volunteers near the
lakes, waiting for Garibaldi, who was then expected from Caprera. For
some weeks to come, for some months probably, during the war, perhaps,
the two women in the Campo San Luca would know nothing of the
whereabouts or of the fate of him whom they loved. He had gone to risk
all for the cause, and they too must be content to risk all in remaining
desolate at home without the comfort of his presence;--and she also,
without the sweeter comfort of that other presence.
It is thus that women fight their battles. In these days men by hundreds
were making their way out of Venice, and by thousands out of the
province of Venetia, and the Austrians were endeavouring in vain to stop
the emigration. Some few were caught, and kept in prison; and many
Austrian threats were uttered against those who should prove themselves
to be insubordinate. But it is difficult for a garrison to watch a whole
people, and very difficult indeed when there is a war on hand.
It at last became a fact, that any man from the province could go and
become a volunteer under Garibaldi if he pleased, and very many did go.
History will say that they were successful,--but their success certainly
was not glorious.
It was in the month of June that all the battles of that short war were
fought. Nothing will ever be said or sung in story to the honour of the
volunteers who served in that campaign with Garibaldi, amidst the
mountains of the Southern Tyrol; but nowhere, probably, during the war,
was there so much continued fighting, or an equal amount endured of the
hardships of military life.
The task they had before them, of driving the Austrians from the
fortresses amidst their own mountains, was an impossible one, impossible
even had Garibaldi been supplied with ordinary military equipments,--but
ridiculously impossible for him in all the nakedness in which he was
sent. Nothing was done to enable him to succeed. That he should be
successful was neither intended nor desired. He was, in fact, then, as
he has been always, since the days in which he gave Naples to
Italy,--simply a stumbling-block in the way of the king, of the king’s
ministers, and of the king’s generals. “There is that Garibaldi
again,--with volunteers flocking to him by thousands:--what shall we do
to rid ourselves of Garibaldi and his volunteers? How shall we dispose
of them?” That has been the feeling of those in power in Italy,--and not
unnaturally their feeling,--with regard to Garibaldi. A man so honest,
so brave, so patriotic, so popular, and so impracticable, cannot but
have been a trouble to them. And here he was with twenty-five thousand
volunteers, all armed after a fashion, all supplied, at least, with a
red shirt. What should be done with Garibaldi and his army? So they
sent him away up into the mountains, where his game of play might at any
rate detain him for some weeks; and in the meantime everything might get
itself arranged by the benevolent and omnipotent interference of the
emperor.
Things did get themselves arranged while Garibaldi was up among the
mountains, kicking with unarmed toes against Austrian pricks--with sad
detriment to his feet. Things did get themselves arranged very much to
the advantage of Venetia, but not exactly by the interference of the
emperor.
The facts of the war became known more slowly in Venice than they did in
Florence, in Paris, or in London. That the battle of Custozza had been
fought and lost by the Italian troops was known. And then it was known
that the battle of Lissa also had been fought and lost by Italian ships.
But it was not known, till the autumn was near at hand, that Venetia
had, in fact, been surrendered. There were rumours, but men in Venice
doubted these rumours; and women, who knew that their husbands had been
beaten, could not believe that success was to be the result of such
calamities.
There were weeks in which came no news from Carlo Pepé to the women in
the Campo San Luca, and then came simply tidings that he had been
wounded.
“I shall see my son never again,” said the widow in her ecstasy of
misery.
And Nina was able to talk to her mother only of Carlo. Of Hubert von
Vincke she spoke not then a word. But she repeated to herself over and
over again the last promise she had given him. She had sent him away
from her, and now she knew nothing of his whereabouts. That he would be
fighting she presumed. She had heard that most of the soldiers from
Venice had gone to the fortresses. He, too, might be wounded,--might be
dead. If alive at the end of the war, he would hardly return to her
after what had passed between them. But if he did not come back no lover
should ever take a kiss from her lips.
Then there was the long truce, and a letter from Carlo reached Venice.
His wound had been slight, but he had been very hungry. He wrote in
great anger, abusing, not the Austrians, but the Italians. There had
been treachery, and the Italian general-in-chief had been the head of
the traitors. The king was a traitor! The emperor was a traitor! All
concerned were traitors, but yet Venetia was to be surrendered to Italy.
I think that the two ladies in the Campo San Luca never really believed
that this would be so until they received that angry letter from Carlo.
“When I may get home, I cannot tell,” he said. “I hardly care to return,
and I shall remain with the General as long as he may wish to have
anyone remaining with him. But you may be sure that I shall never go
soldiering again. Venetia, may, perhaps, prosper, and become a part of
Italy; but there will be no glory for us. Italy has been allowed to do
nothing for herself.” The mother and sister endeavoured to feel some
sympathy for the young soldier who spoke so sadly of his own career, but
they could hardly be unhappy because his fighting was over and the cause
was won.
The cause was won. Gradually there came to be no doubt about that.
It was now September, and as yet it had not come to pass that
shop-windows were filled with wonderful portraits of Victor Emmanuel and
Garibaldi, cheek by jowl--they being the two men who at that moment were
perhaps, in all Italy, the most antagonistic to each other; nor were
there as yet fifty different new journals cried day and night under the
arcades of the Grand Piazza, all advocating the cause of Italy, one and
indivisible, as there came to be a month afterwards; but still it was
known that Austria was to cede Venetia, and that Venice would henceforth
be a city of Italy. This was known; and it was also known in the Campo
San Luca that Carlo Pepé, though very hungry up among the mountains,
was still safe.
Then Nina thought that the time had come in which it would become her to
speak of her lover. “Mother,” she said, “I must know something of
Hubert.”
“But how, Nina? how will you learn? Will you not wait till Carlo comes
back?”
“No,” she said. “I cannot wait longer. I have kept my promise. Venice is
no longer Austrian, and I will seek him. I have kept my word to Carlo,
and now I will keep my word to Hubert.”
But how to seek him? The widow, urged by her daughter, went out and
asked at barrack doors; but new regiments had come and gone, and
everything was in confusion. It was supposed that any officer of
artillery who had been in Venice and had left it during the war must be
in one of the four fortresses.
“Mother,” she said, “I shall go to Verona.”
And to Verona she went, all alone, in search of her lover. At that time
the Austrians still maintained a sort of rule in the province; and there
were still current orders against private travelling, orders that
passports should be investigated, orders that the communication with the
four fortresses should be specially guarded; but there was an intense
desire on the part of the Austrians themselves that the orders should
be regarded as little as possible. They had to go, and the more quietly
they went the better. Why should they care now who passed hither and
thither? It must be confessed on their behalf that in their surrender of
Venetia they gave as little trouble as it was possible in them to cause.
The chief obstruction to Nina’s journey she experienced in the Campo San
Luca itself. But in spite of her mother, in spite of the not yet defunct
Austrian mandates, she did make her way to Verona. “As I was true in
giving him up,” she said to herself, “so will I be true in clinging to
him.”
Even in Verona her task was not easy, but she did at last find all that
she sought. Captain von Vincke had been in command of a battery at
Custozza, and was now lying wounded in an Austrian hospital. Nina
contrived to see an old gray-haired surgeon before she saw Hubert
himself. Captain von Vincke had been terribly mauled; so the surgeon
told her; his left arm had been amputated, and--and--and----
It seemed as though wounds had been showered on him. The surgeon did not
think that his patient would die; but he did think that he must be left
in Verona when the Austrians were marched out of the fortress. “Can he
not be taken to Venice?” said Nina Pepé.
At last she found herself by her lover’s bedside; but with her there
were two hospital attendants, both of them worn-out Austrian
soldiers,--and there was also there the gray-haired surgeon. How was she
to tell her love, all that she had in her heart, before such witnesses?
The surgeon was the first to speak. “Here is your friend, captain,” he
said; but as he spoke in German Nina did not understand him.
“Is it really you, Nina?” said her lover. “I could hardly believe that
you should be in Verona.”
“Of course it is I. Who could have so much business to be in Verona as I
have? Of course I am here.”
“But,--but--what has brought you here, Nina?”
“If you do not know I cannot tell you.”
“And Carlo?”
“Carlo is still with the general; but he is well.”
“And the Signora?”
“She also is well; well, but not easy in mind while I am here.”
“And when do you return?”