any one.... But why have you brought that—that fellow with you?”
“Oh! just for company, like, sir!”
“Very good—now let us see.”
“There are twenty-five new _berlinghe_, sir—those with Saint Ambrose on
horseback on them,” said Tonio, drawing a folded paper from his pocket.
“Let us see,” returned Abbondio, and taking the paper, he put on his
spectacles, unfolded it, took out the silver pieces, turned them over
and over, counted them, and found them correct.
“Now, your Reverence, will you kindly give me my Tecla’s necklace?”
“Quite right,” replied Don Abbondio; and going to a cupboard, he
unlocked it, and having first looked round, as if to keep away any
spectators, opened one side, stood in front of the open door, so that no
one could see in, put in his head to look for the pledge, and his arm to
take it out, and, having extracted it, locked the cupboard, unwrapped
the paper, said interrogatively, “All right?” wrapped it up again, and
handed it over to Tonio.
“Now,” said the latter, “would you please let me have a little black and
white, sir?”
“This, too!” exclaimed Don Abbondio; “they are up to every trick! Eh!
how suspicious the world has grown! Can’t you trust me?”
“How, your Reverence, not trust you? You do me wrong! But as my name is
down on your book, on the debtor side, ... and you have already had the
trouble of writing it once, so ... in case anything were to happen, you
know...”
[Illustration]
“All right, all right,” interrupted Don Abbondio, and, grumbling to
himself, he opened the table drawer, took out pen, paper, and inkstand,
and began to write, repeating the words out loud as he set them down.
Meanwhile, Tonio, and, at a sign from him, Gervaso, placed themselves in
front of the table, so as to prevent the writer from seeing the door,
and, as if in mere idleness, began to move their feet about noisily on
the floor, in order to serve as a signal to those outside, and, at the
same time, to deaden the sound of their footsteps. Don Abbondio, intent
on his work, noticed nothing. Renzo and Lucia hearing the signal,
entered on tiptoe, holding their breath, and stood close behind the two
brothers. Meanwhile, Don Abbondio, who had finished writing, read over
the document attentively, without raising his eyes from the paper,
folded it, and saying, “Will you be satisfied now?” took off his
spectacles with one hand, and held out the sheet to Tonio with the
other. Tonio, while stretching out his hand to take it, stepped back on
one side, and Gervaso, at a sign from him, on the other, and between the
two appeared Renzo and Lucia. Don Abbondio saw them, started, was
dumfoundered, became furious, thought it over, and came to a resolution,
all in the time that Renzo took in uttering these words: “Your
Reverence, in the presence of these witnesses, this is my wife!” His
lips had not yet ceased moving when Don Abbondio let fall the receipt,
which he was holding in his left hand, raised the lamp, and seizing the
table-cloth with his right hand, dragged it violently towards him,
throwing book, papers, and inkstand to the ground, and, springing
between the chair and table, approached Lucia. The poor girl, with her
sweet voice all trembling, had only just been able to say “This is ...”
when Don Abbondio rudely flung the table-cloth over her head, and
immediately dropping the lamp which he held in his other hand, used the
latter to wrap it tightly round her face, nearly suffocating her, while
he roared at the top of his voice, like a wounded bull, “Perpetua!
Perpetua! treason! help!” When the light was out the priest let go his
hold of the girl, went groping about for the door leading into an inner
room, and, having found it, entered and locked himself in, still
shouting, “Perpetua! treason! help! get out of this house! get out of
this house!” In the other room all was confusion; Renzo, trying to catch
the priest, and waving his hands about as though he had been playing at
blindman’s buff, had reached the door, and kept knocking, crying out,
“Open! open! don’t make a noise!” Lucia called Renzo in a feeble voice,
and said supplicatingly, “Let us go! do let us go!” Tonio was down on
his hands and knees, feeling about the floor to find his receipt, while
Gervaso jumped about and yelled like one possessed, trying to get out by
the door leading to the stairs.
In the midst of this confusion we cannot refrain from a momentary
reflection. Renzo, raising a noise by night in another man’s house,
which he had surreptitiously entered, and keeping its owner besieged in
an inner room, has every appearance of being an oppressor,—yet, after
all, when you come to look at it, he was the oppressed. Don Abbondio,
surprised, put to flight, frightened out of his wits while quietly
attending to his own business, would seem to be the victim; and yet in
reality, it was he who did the wrong. So goes the world, as it often
happens; at least, so it used to go in the seventeenth century.
_A. Manzoni._
_OUR CHILDREN._
[Illustration]
Nowadays, things are not what they were.
There are no children,—no boys; instead, we have a swarm of little
politicians as yet unchristened—a crowd of Machiavellis seen through the
wrong end of an opera-glass, who, if they do go to school every day,
only do so for the sake of teaching their masters something—the latter
being sorely in need of instruction.
What is it that has exterminated our boys from off the face of the
earth?
The reading of political papers!
This is a warning to fathers and mothers.
Fathers of families, of course, are perfectly at liberty to buy a daily
paper—or two, or five, or ten. For newspapers, even if taken to excess,
are like tamarind jelly—if they do no good, they cannot do much harm.
They are quite safe, if you know how to read them—the right way of the
stuff, like English broadcloth.
But the mischief is this: fathers of families, when they have glanced
over the paper, usually leave it on the table, or the sofa, or the
mantelpiece—in short, in one of many places that are within sight and
reach of small boys. This is great imprudence; because we must remember
that our boys are victims to a gluttonous, eager, devouring passion for
the reading of political papers. Perhaps this is an outcome of that
inborn instinct which shows itself at a very early age in the love for
fables and fairy tales.
Then begin the troubles in the family.
A small boy comes with the newspaper in his hand and asks, his mother—
“Do tell me, mamma, what is the difference between ‘Authentic News’ and
‘Various News’?”
“‘Authentic,’” replies the mother at random, “is what really happens,
and ‘Various’ is what the journalists invent to fill up the paper.”
“Oh! what story-tellers!”
“Well, then, you should be very careful always to tell the truth; if you
don’t, you will go to Purgatory for seventy years, and in this world
every one will take you for a journalist!”
Amid the infinitely varied ranks of youth there are many who, through
innate depravity, and a fatally precocious hankering after political
life, carry their reckless temerity so far as to read all the
Parliamentary reports, from the first line to the last!
Let us say it once for all. When a boy gives himself up without
restraint, and without shame, to the reading of the Parliamentary
debates, it is all up with him! Good-bye to candour; good-bye to
innocence, and the simple language of the age of infancy.
One day Cecco receives a maternal reprimand, because, with his customary
negligence, he has omitted to wash his hands.
“I repudiate the malignant insinuation,” replies the culprit,
immediately hiding the two inconvenient “documents” in the pockets of
his knickerbockers.
Another day Gigino refuses to go to school unless his mother will give
him the money to buy a cardboard Punch.
“Yes, dear,” says his mother; “go away to school, and I will buy you the
Punch when you come home.”
[Illustration]
“No, no, no; I want it now! And if I don’t get it, I will make it a
Cabinet question!”
The poor mother, at this speech, finds her understanding failing her,
and remains open-mouthed. Then enters Raffaello, the elder brother, who
says to the younger—
“Instead of thinking about Punches, you would do better to study your
grammar. Remember how yesterday the master, after having three times
called you a donkey, ‘passed on to the order of the day, pure and
simple.’”
Gigino was about to reply with an impertinence, but, unwilling to fail
in respect towards his elder brother, he contented himself with making
faces at him.
Mamma (who has meanwhile recovered): “Is that the way you treat your
brother? He is older than you, and you ought to respect him.”
Gigino (raising his voice): “I have all possible esteem and respect for
the honourable member who has just preceded me”—(the Debates again!);
“but, on the other hand, as far as I am concerned, he will always be a
liar and a spy....”
Beppino is made of quicksilver. While carrying out one trick he is
already thinking of a new one, so that neither in school nor at home is
there any peace to be had for him.
At last his father, unable to stand it any longer, called him into the
study for a parental lecture.
During the first division of the lecture Beppino was surreptitiously
gnawing a dried plum. At the opening of the second division he removed
the stone, and shot it at the nose of a plaster Dante on the
writing-desk. At the third head Beppino lost all patience, and began to
yell—
“Enough! enough! The closure!”
“Closure or no closure!” cried his infuriated parent; “if you interrupt
me again with your impudence—rascal, street-boy, chatterbox——”
“Order! order!” cried Beppino, pulling at the bell-rope.
“I’ll order you——”
But, just as his father was about to rise, Beppino snatched the
smoking-cap from his head, and, putting it on himself, remarked, in a
nasal voice—
“Gentlemen, the President has put on his hat, and the discussion is
adjourned.”
The violent ringing of the bell summons the mother, two aunts, the
housemaid, and the lady’s little dog. These having heard the narrative
of Beppino’s unparalleled insolence, are seized with such indignation
that they begin to laugh like mad.
The little dog, being unable to laugh like the rest, barks, and
evidences his share in the family joys and sorrows by beginning to gnaw
his dear master’s embroidered slippers.
_Collodi._
_STRAY THOUGHTS OF AN IDLER._
“He who sleeps catches no fish,”—but he who keeps awake catches crabs
every moment of his life.
All professions can yield a man enough to live on,—except professions of
faith.
When attending the performance of some modern operas, it has struck me
that the conductor was only beating time because he could not beat the
composer.
If in the sight of the law all men are equal, Heaven save us from
getting into its sight.
When you want to get rid of a dog, you take off his collar;—when the
king wants to get rid of a minister, he gives him the collar—of the
Order of the Annunziata.
The place where they ruin people’s voices, and throw aside all the
canons of art, is called the _Conservatoire_; and a hospital full of
sick people is called a “house of health” (_Casa di Salute_).
Among the many motives which induce me to stay away from the theatre is
the utter absence of all motive in modern operas.
How many old phrases are required to make a new electoral programme!
All musical notes may express cheerful ideas; it is only the notes of
creditors which arouse none but melancholy reflections.
I entered the shop of a pork-butcher at the moment when his son, aged
eight, was returning from school. The poor boy was weeping bitterly.
“The old story!” exclaimed his parent; “I suppose you did not learn your
lessons, and the master called you an ass, as you deserved!”
“Yes!” replied the child, sobbing, “he _did_ call me an ass,—and then——”
“Well,—and then—what else?”
“He said, ‘Well, after all, it is no wonder—_like father, like son_!’”
“Did he, indeed? the animal!” exclaimed the pork-butcher. “And to think
that perhaps he has not yet eaten the whole of those two sausages I sent
him at Christmas!”
_Antonio Ghislanzoni._
_MEN AND INSTRUMENTS._
We have been told over and over again that “the style is the man.”
I would substitute for this “The instrument is the man.”
And whereas the proverb runs, “Tell me who your friends are, and I will
tell you who you are,” I would amend it thus, “Tell me what you blow
into or scrape upon, and I will tell your fortune.”
After this, I must request professional gentlemen, employed in
orchestras and otherwise, not to suspect any malicious intent in my
remarks, which are principally aimed at amateurs—those who murder some
instrument or other out of pure conviction,—all who began to twang the
guitar when they were studying medicine, or to practise on the cornet
after a year’s experience of matrimony.
THE CLARIONET.
This instrument consists of a severe cold in the head, contained in a
tube of yellow wood.
The clarionet was not invented by the Conservatoire, but by Fate.
A chiropodist may be produced by study and hard work; but the clarionet
player is born, not made.
The citizen predestined to the clarionet has an intelligence which is
almost obtuse up to the age of eighteen—an epoch of incubation, when he
begins to feel in his nose the first thrills of his fatal vocation.
Then his intellect—limited even then—ceases its development altogether;
but his nasal organ, in revenge, assumes colossal dimensions.
At twenty he buys his first clarionet for fourteen francs; and three
months later his landlord gives him notice. At twenty-five he is
admitted into the band of the National Guard.
He dies of a broken heart on finding that not one of his three sons
shows the slightest inclination for the instrument with which he has
blown all his wits.
THE TROMBONE.
The man who plays on this instrument is always one who seeks oblivion in
its society—oblivion of domestic troubles, or consolation for love
betrayed.
The man who has held a metal tube in his mouth for six months finds
himself proof against every disillusion.
At the age of fifty he finds that, of all human passions and feelings,
nothing is left him but an insatiable thirst.
Later on, if he wants to obtain the position of porter in a gentleman’s
house, or aspires to the hand of a woman with a delicate ear, he tries
to lay aside his instrument, but the taste for loud notes and strong
liquors only leaves him with life. Finally, after a harmonious career of
seventy-eight years, he is apt to die of grief because the public-house
keeper will not let him have a glass of wine on credit.
THE ACCORDEON.
This is the first instrument of youth and innocent hearts.
The individual in question begins playing it in the back room of his
father’s shop—the latter, as a rule, is a chemist by profession—and
continues it up to the age of fifteen. At this period, if he does not
die, he deserts the accordeon for the
HARMONIFLUTE.
This instrument, on account of the nature of its monotonous sounds and
its tremendous plaintiveness, acts on the nerves of those who hear, and
predisposes to melancholy those who play it.
The harmoniflautist is usually tender and lymphatic of constitution,
with blue eyes, and eats only white meats and farinaceous food.
If a man, he is called Oscar; those of the other sex are named Adelaide.
At home, he or she is in the habit of bringing out the instrument at
dessert, and dinner being over, and the spirits of the family,
therefore, more or less cheerfully disposed, will entertain the company
with the _Miserere_ in _Il Trovatore_, or some similar melody.
The harmoniflautist weeps easily. After practising on the instrument for
fifteen years or so, he or she dissolves altogether, and is converted
into a brook.
THE ORGAN.
This complicated and majestic instrument is of a clerical character, and
destined, by its great volume of sound, to drown the flat singing of
clergy and congregation in church.
The organist is usually a person sent into the world with the vocation
of making a great noise without undue expenditure of strength; one who
wants to blow harder than others without wearing out his own bellows.
He becomes at forty the intimate friend of the parish priest, and the
most influential person connected with the church. By dint of repeating
the same refrains every day at matins and vespers, he acquires a
knowledge of Latin, and gets all the anthems, hymns, and masses by
heart. At fifty he marries a devout spinster recommended by the parish
priest.
He makes a kind and good-tempered husband; his only defect in that
capacity being his habit of dreaming out loud on the eve of every
ecclesiastical solemnity. On Easter Eve, for instance, he nearly always
awakens his wife by intoning, with the full force of his lungs,
“_Resurrexit_.” The good woman, thus abruptly aroused, never fails to
answer him with the orthodox “_Alleluia!_”
At the age of sixty he becomes deaf, and then begins to think his own
playing perfection. At seventy he usually dies of a broken heart,
because the new priest, who knows not Joseph, instead of asking him to
dine at the principal table with the ecclesiastics and other church
authorities, has relegated him to an inferior place, and the society of
the sacristan and the grave-digger.
THE FLUTE.
The unhappy man who succumbs to the fascinations of this instrument is
never one who has attained the full development of his intellectual
faculties. He always has a pointed nose, marries a short-sighted woman,
and dies run over by an omnibus.
The flute is the most fatal of all instruments. It requires a peculiar
conformation and special culture of the thumb-nail, with a view to those
holes which have to be only half closed.
The man who plays the flute frequently adds to his other infirmities a
mania for keeping tame weasels, turtle-doves, or guinea-pigs.
THE VIOLONCELLO.
To play the ’cello you require to have long, thin fingers; but it is
still more indispensable to have very long hair falling over a greasy
coat-collar.
In case of fire, the ’cellist who sees his wife and his ’cello in danger
will save the latter first.
His greatest satisfaction, as a general thing, is that of “making the
strings weep.” Sometimes, indeed, he succeeds in making his wife and
family do the same thing in consequence of a regimen of excessive
frugality. Sometimes, too, it happens to him to make people laugh and
yawn, but this, according to him, is the result of atmospheric
influences.
He can express, through his loftily-attuned strings, all possible griefs
and sorrows, except those of his audience and his creditors.
THE DRUM.
An immense apparatus of wood and sheepskin, full of air and of sinister
presages. In melodrama the roll of the drum serves to announce the
arrival of a fatal personage, an agent of Destiny; in most cases, an
ill-used husband. Sometimes this funereal rumbling serves to describe
silence—sometimes to indicate the depths of the _prima donna’s_ despair.
The drummer is a serious man, possessed with the sense of his high
dramatic mission. He is able, however, to conceal his conscious pride,
and sleep on his instrument when the rest of the orchestra is making all
the noise it can. In such cases he commissions the nearest of his
colleagues to awaken him at the proper moment.
On awaking, he seizes the two drum-sticks and begins to beat; but,
should his neighbour forget to rouse him, he prolongs his slumbers till
the fall of the curtain. Then he shakes himself, perceives that the
opera is over, and rubs his eyes; and if it happens that the conductor
reprimands him for his remissness at the _attack_, he shrugs his
shoulders and replies, “Never mind, the tenor died all the same. A roll
of the drum more or less, what does it signify?”
THE BIG DRUM.
Of this it is quite unnecessary to speak. It is the instrument of the
age; and ministers, deputies, men of science, poets, hairdressers, and
dentists have all learned to perform on it to perfection.... The
multitude will always answer the summons of its “_boom! boom!_”—and he
will always be in the right who thumps it hardest.
_A. Ghislanzoni._
_THE DELIGHTS OF JOURNALISM._
“My dear boy,” said Giuntini, almost seriously, “I lost all my illusions
at eighteen. At that epoch I believed that I possessed a sweetheart; I
was also guilty of the audacity of writing verses to her. I lived on
blue sky, diluted with milk and honey. Afterwards I found out that my
verses were based on a false supposition, and that the girl I loved had
married a custom house officer. This contributed in great part to the
catastrophe which took place in my sentiments. At the present moment I
have been writing in the papers for seventeen years. I get 250 francs a
month here, on the _Progressist_; eighty francs from a paper at Udine,
whose politics I do not even know; another sixty from the _Courier of
Fashion_; and beside that, I send leading articles, at five francs
apiece, to the Radical _Phrygian Cap_, of Rimini, and others to the
_Catholic Banner_, of Genoa, which pays me eight francs for each. Add to
this a sermon written now and then for the parish priest of our village
at home—a conceited old fanatic who wants to be thought eloquent. Then I
have to compile the _Young Wife’s Almanac_ every year, and the
_Sportsman’s and Angler’s Calendar_ for the publisher, Corretti; so
that, taking one month with another, I can reckon on about 500 francs. I
say nothing of contriving to advertise various tradesmen and
contractors, in the course of my daily paragraphs, which brings me in
nice little sums now and then. Very well; every month I manage not to
spend more than 200 francs, the rest I put aside. I don’t go to the
theatre; I am not to be seen at _cafés_; as for lending money to my
friends, you have perceived——”
“I have, alas!”
“There you have the explanation of my easy life. My dear fellow, the
world is for him who knows how to take it.”
“It may be,” said Lauri; “the fault is mine. I don’t deny it. Sometimes,
do you know, I think of the little village at the foot of the Alps, all
white with snow in winter.... What a fuss they used to make over me when
I came home for the holidays!... How my father used to rest his great
rough hand on my head, and say, “There’s plenty inside here!” ... Well,
and then came Sixty-six. Venice! Venice for ever! Garibaldi! Italy!
Liberty!... In those days, as you know, we believed in all that—and I
went to the Tyrol after Garibaldi. There was no holding me after that. I
thought I had the whole world at my feet. I never even thought of the
University Entrance Examination. To think of it! A warrior who has smelt
powder to go back to a schoolboy’s tasks!... I could not even dream of
such a thing—and of returning to the village even less. I should have
had to talk politics with the chemist and the police-sergeant, when I
had in my own person contributed to the unity of Italy. I do not know
myself what grand dreams were shaping themselves in this stupid brain of
mine. I went to Florence, and passed some months in wearing out the
pavement of Via Tornabuoni and Via Calzaioli, and my father, poor dear
old man! used to send me postal orders.... But I was going to make a
career at Florence! I was always in company with some of my old comrades
of the Tyrol, all of them fervent patriots, who passed most of their
time in speaking ill of their neighbours on the sofas of the
_Bottegone_. I began to make the acquaintance of deputies and
journalists, lounged about the editorial offices of the _Diritto_ and
the _Riforma_, and talked glibly about the crisis, Reconstruction, and
the fusion of parties. In short, I was well on the way to imbecility;
and from thence to journalism is, as you know, but a step. And now, as
I’ve made my bed, I’ve got to lie upon it, or throw myself out of the
window.... There’s no father to send me postal orders now....”
Giuntini suddenly interrupted the flow of his reflections.
“I say, Manfredo, do you know it’s ten o’clock, and you have not written
a line of the daily ‘summary’ yet?”
Lauri shook himself, re-lit his cigar, which had gone out, and once more
began turning over the papers. Giuntini, too, had gone back to work; but
he, like all journalists, could cut all Europe to pieces, though his
thoughts were wandering in the sphere of the moon.