EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR
VITTORIA DISOBEYS HER LOVER
Countess d'Isorella's peculiar mission to Milan was over with the victory
of the city. She undertook personally to deliver Carlo's injunction to
Vittoria on her way to the king. Countess Ammiani deemed it sufficient
that her son's wishes should be repeated verbally; and as there appeared
to be no better messenger than one who was bound for Turin and knew
Vittoria's place of residence, she entrusted the duty to Violetta.
The much which hangs on little was then set in motion:
Violetta was crossing the Ticino when she met a Milanese nobleman who had
received cold greeting from the king, and was returning to Milan with
word that the Piedmontese declaration of war against Austria had been
signed. She went back to Milan, saw and heard, and gathered a burden for
the royal ears. This was a woman, tender only to the recollection of
past days, who used her beauty and her arts as weapons for influence.
She liked kings because she saw neither master nor dupe in a republic;
she liked her early lover because she could see nothing but a victim in
any new one. She was fond of Carlo, as greatly occupied minds may be
attached to an old garden where they have aforetime sown fair seed.
Jealousy of a rival in love that was disconnected with political business
and her large expenditure, had never yet disturbed the lady's nerves.
At Turin she found Vittoria singing at the opera, and winning marked
applause from the royal box. She thought sincerely that to tear a prima
donna from her glory would be very much like dismissing a successful
General to his home and gabbling family. A most eminent personage agreed
with her. Vittoria was carelessly informed that Count Ammiani had gone
to Brescia, and having regard for her safety, desired her to go to Milan
to be under the protection of his mother, and that Countess Ammiani was
willing to receive her.
Now, with her mother, and her maid Giacinta, and Beppo gathered about
her, for three weeks Vittoria had been in full operatic career, working,
winning fame, believing that she was winning influence, and establishing
a treasury. The presence of her lover in Milan would have called her to
the noble city; but he being at Brescia, she asked herself why she should
abstain from labours which contributed materially to the strength of the
revolution and made her helpful. It was doubtful whether Countess
Ammiani would permit her to sing at La Scala; or whether the city could
support an opera in the throes of war. And Vittoria was sending money to
Milan. The stipend paid to her by the impresario, the jewels, the big
bouquets--all flowed into the treasury of the insurrection. Antonio-
Pericles advanced her a large sum on the day when the news of the
Milanese uprising reached Turin: the conditions of the loan had simply
been that she should continue her engagement to sing in Turin. He was
perfectly slavish to her, and might be trusted to advance more. Since
the great night at La Scala, she had been often depressed by a secret
feeling that there was divorce between her love of her country and
devotion to her Art. Now that both passions were in union, both active,
each aiding the fire of the other, she lived a consummate life. She
could not have abandoned her path instantly though Carlo had spoken his
command to her in person. Such were her first spontaneous seasonings,
and Laura Piaveni seconded them; saying, "Money, money! we must be Jews
for money. We women are not allowed to fight, but we can manage to
contribute our lire and soldi; we can forge the sinews of war."
Vittoria wrote respectfully to Countess Ammiani stating why she declined
to leave Turin. The letter was poorly worded. While writing it she had
been taken by a sentiment of guilt and of isolation in presuming to
disobey her lover. "I am glad he will not see it," she remarked to
Laura, who looked rapidly across the lines, and said nothing. Praise of
the king was in the last sentence. Laura's eyes lingered on it half-a-
minute.
"Has he not drawn his sword? He is going to march," said Vittoria.
"Oh, yes," Laura replied coolly; "but you put that to please Countess
Ammiani."
Vittoria confessed she had not written it purposely to defend the king.
"What harm?" she asked.
"None. Only this playing with shades allows men to call us hypocrites."
The observation angered Vittoria. She had seen the king of late; she had
breathed Turin incense and its atmosphere; much that could be pleaded on
the king's behalf she had listened to with the sympathetic pity which can
be woman's best judgement, and is the sentiment of reason. She had also
brooded over the king's character, and had thought that if the Chief
could have her opportunities for studying this little impressible, yet
strangely impulsive royal nature, his severe condemnation of him would be
tempered. In fact, she was doing what makes a woman excessively tender
and opinionated; she was petting her idea of the misunderstood one: she
was thinking that she divined the king's character by mystical intuition;
I will dare to say, maternally apprehended it. And it was a character
strangely open to feminine perceptions, while to masculine comprehension
it remained a dead blank, done either in black or in white.
Vittoria insisted on praising the king to Laura.
"With all my heart," Laura said, "so long as he is true to Italy."
"How, then, am I hypocritical?"
"My Sandra, you are certainly perverse. You admitted that you did
something for the sake of pleasing Countess Ammiani."
"I did. But to be hypocritical one must be false."
"Oh!" went Laura.
"And I write to Carlo. He does not care for the king; therefore it is
needless for me to name the king to him; and I shall not."
Laura said, "Very well." She saw a little deeper than the perversity,
though she did not see the springs. In Vittoria's letter to her lover,
she made no allusion to the Sword of Italy.
Countess Ammiani forwarded both letters on to Brescia.
When Carlo had finished reading them, he heard all Brescia clamouring
indignantly at the king for having disarmed volunteers on Lago Maggiore
and elsewhere in his dominions. Milan was sending word by every post of
the overbearing arrogance of the Piedmontese officers and officials, who
claimed a prostrate submission from a city fresh with the ardour of the
glory it had won for itself, and that would fain have welcomed them as
brothers. Romara and others wrote of downright visible betrayal. It was
a time of passions;--great readiness for generosity, equal promptitude
for undiscriminating hatred. Carlo read Vittoria's praise of the king
with insufferable anguish. "You--you part of me, can write like this!"
he struck the paper vehemently. The fury of action transformed the
gentle youth. Countess Ammiani would not have forwarded the letter
addressed to herself had she dreamed the mischief it might do. Carlo
saw double-dealing in the absence of any mention of the king in his own
letter.
"Quit Turin at once," he dashed hasty lines to Vittoria; "and no
'Viva il Re' till we know what he may merit. Old delusions are
pardonable; but you must now look abroad with your eyes. Your words
should be the echoes of my soul. Your acts are mine. For the sake
of the country, do nothing to fill me with shame. The king is a
traitor. I remember things said of him by Agostino; I subscribe to
them every one. Were you like any other Italian girl, you might cry
for him--who would care! But you are Vittoria. Fly to my mother's
arms, and there rest. The king betrays us. Is a stronger word
necessary? I am writing too harshly to you;--and here are the lines
of your beloved letter throbbing round me while I write; but till
the last shot is fired I try to be iron, and would hold your hand
and not kiss it--not be mad to fall between your arms--not wish for
you--not think of you as a woman, as my beloved, as my Vittoria; I
hope and pray not, if I thought there was an ace of work left to do
for the country. Or if one could say that you cherished a shred of
loyalty for him who betrays it. Great heaven! am I to imagine that
royal flatteries----- My hand is not my own! You shall see all that
it writes. I will seem to you no better than I am. I do not tell
you to be a Republican, but an Italian. If I had room for myself in
my prayers--oh! one half-instant to look on you, though with chains
on my limbs. The sky and the solid ground break up when I think of
you. I fancy I am still in prison. Angelo was music to me for two
whole days (without a morning to the first and a night to the
second). He will be here to-morrow and talk of you again. I long
for him more than for battle--almost long for you more than for
victory for our Italy.
"This is Brescia, which my father said he loved better than his
wife.
"General Paolo Ammiani is buried here. I was at his tombstone this
morning. I wish you had known him.
"You remember, we talked of his fencing with me daily. 'I love the
fathers who do that.' You said it. He will love you. Death is the
shadow--not life. I went to his tomb. It was more to think of
Brescia than of him. Ashes are only ashes; tombs are poor places.
My soul is the power.
"If I saw the Monte Viso this morning, I saw right over your head
when you were sleeping.
"Farewell to journalism--I hope, for ever. I jump at shaking off
the journalistic phraseology Agostino laughs at. Yet I was right in
printing my 'young nonsense.' I did, hold the truth, and that was
felt, though my vehicle for delivering it was rubbish.
"In two days Corte promises to sing his song, 'Avanti.' I am at his
left hand. Venice, the passes of the Adige, the Adda, the Oglio are
ours. The room is locked; we have only to exterminate the reptiles
inside it. Romara, D'Arci, Carnischi march to hold the doors.
Corte will push lower; and if I can get him to enter the plains and
join the main army I shall rejoice."
The letter concluded with a postscript that half an Italian regiment,
with white coats swinging on their bayonet-points, had just come in.
It reached Vittoria at a critical moment.
Two days previously, she and Laura Piaveni had talked with the king.
It was an unexpected honour. Countess, d'Isorella conducted them to the
palace. The lean-headed sovereign sat booted and spurred, his sword
across his knees; he spoke with a peculiar sad hopefulness of the
prospects of the campaign, making it clear that he was risking more than
anyone risked, for his stake was a crown. The few words he uttered of
Italy had a golden ring in them; Vittoria knew not why they had it. He
condemned the Republican spirit of Milan more regretfully than severely.
The Republicans were, he said, impracticable. Beyond the desire for
change, they knew not what they wanted. He did not state that he should
avoid Milan in his march. On the contrary, he seemed to indicate that he
was about to present himself to the people of Milan. "To act against the
enemy successfully, we must act as one, under one head, with one aim."
He said this, adding that no heart in Italy had yearned more than his own
for the signal to march for the Mincio and the Adige.
Vittoria determined to put him to one test. She summoned her boldness to
crave grace for Agostino Balderini to return to Piedmont. The petition
was immediately granted. Alluding to the libretto of Camilla, the king
complimented Vittoria for her high courage on the night of the Fifteenth
of the foregoing year. "We in Turin were prepared, though we had only
then the pleasure of hearing of you," he said.
"I strove to do my best to help. I wish to serve our cause now," she
replied, feeling an inexplicable new sweetness running in her blood.
He asked her if she did not know that she had the power to move
multitudes.
"Sire, singing appears so poor a thing in time of war."
He remarked that wine was good for soldiers, singing better, such a voice
as hers best of all.
For hours after the interview, Vittoria struggled with her deep blushes.
She heard the drums of the regiments, the clatter of horses, the bugle-
call of assembly, as so many confirmatory notes that it was a royal hero
who was going forth.
"He stakes a crown," she said to Laura.
"Tusk! it tumbles off his head if he refuses to venture something," was
Laura's response.
Vittoria reproached her for injustice.
"No," Laura said; "he is like a young man for whom his mother has made a
match. And he would be very much in love with his bride if he were quite
certain of winning her, or rather, if she would come a little more than
halfway to meet him. Some young men are so composed. Genoa and Turin
say, 'Go and try.' Milan and Venice say, 'Come and have faith in us.' My
opinion is that he is quite as much propelled as attracted."
"This is shameful," said Vittoria.
"No; for I am quite willing to suspend my judgement. I pray that fortune
may bless his arms. I do think that the stir of a campaign, and a
certain amount of success will make him in earnest."
"Can you look on his face and not see pure enthusiasm?"
"I see every feminine quality in it, my dear."
"What can it be that he is wanting in?"
"Masculine ambition."
"I am not defending him," said Vittoria hastily.
"Not at all; and I am not attacking him. I can excuse his dread of
Republicanism. I can fancy that there is reason for him just now to fear
Republicanism worse than Austria. Paris and Milan are two grisly
phantoms before him. These red spectres are born of earthquake, and are
more given to shaking thrones than are hostile cannonshot. Earthquakes
are dreadfuller than common maladies to all of us. Fortune may help him,
but he has not the look of one who commands her. The face is not
aquiline. There's a light over him like the ray of a sickly star."
"For that reason!" Vittoria burst out.
"Oh, for that reason we pity men, assuredly, my Sandra, but not kings.
Luckless kings are not generous men, and ungenerous men are mischievous
kings."
"But if you find him chivalrous and devoted; if he proves his noble
intentions, why not support him?"
"Dandle a puppet, by all means," said Laura.
Her intellect, not her heart, was harsh to the king; and her heart was
not mistress of her intellect in this respect, because she beheld riding
forth at the head of Italy one whose spirit was too much after the
pattern of her supple, springing, cowering, impressionable sex,
alternately ardent and abject, chivalrous and treacherous, and not to be
confided in firmly when standing at the head of a great cause.
Aware that she was reading him very strictly by the letters of his past
deeds, which were not plain history to Vittoria, she declared that she
did not countenance suspicion in dealing with the king, and that it would
be a delight to her to hear of his gallant bearing on the battle-field.
"Or to witness it, my Sandra, if that were possible;--we two! For,
should he prove to be no General, he has the courage of his family."
Vittoria took fire at this. "What hinders our following the army?"
"The less baggage the better, my dear."
"But the king said that my singing--I have no right to think it myself."
Vittoria concluded her sentence with a comical intention of humility.
"It was a pretty compliment," said Laura. "You replied that singing is a
poor thing in time of war, and I agree with you. We might serve as
hospital nurses."
"Why do we not determine?"
"We are only considering possibilities."
"Consider the impossibility of our remaining quiet."
"Fire that goes to flame is a waste of heat, my Sandra."
The signora, however, was not so discreet as her speech. On all sides
there was uproar and movement. High-born Italian ladies were offering
their hands for any serviceable work. Laura and Vittoria were not alone
in the desire which was growing to be resolution to share the hardships
of the soldiers, to cherish and encourage them, and by seeing, to have
the supreme joy of feeling the blows struck at the common enemy.
The opera closed when the king marched. Carlo Ammiani's letter was
handed to Vittoria at the fall of the curtain on the last night.
Three paths were open to her: either that she should obey her lover,
or earn an immense sum of money from Antonio-Pericles by accepting an
immediate engagement in London, or go to the war. To sit in submissive
obedience seemed unreasonable; to fly from Italy impossible. Yet the
latter alternative appealed strongly to her sense of duty, and as it
thereby threw her lover's commands into the background, she left it to
her heart to struggle with Carlo, and thought over the two final
propositions. The idea of being apart from Italy while the living
country streamed forth to battle struck her inflamed spirit like the
shock of a pause in martial music. Laura pretended to take no part
in Vittoria's decision, but when it was reached, she showed her a
travelling-carriage stocked with lint and linen, wine in jars, chocolate,
cases of brandy, tea, coffee, needles, thread, twine, scissors, knives;
saying, as she displayed them, "there, my dear, all my money has gone in
that equipment, so you must pay on the road."
"This doesn't leave me a choice, then," said Victoria, joining her
humour.
"Ah, but think over it," Laura suggested.
"No! not think at all," cried Vittoria.
"You do not fear Carlo's anger?"
"If I think, I am weak as water. Let us go."
Countess d'Isorella wrote to Carlo: "Your Vittoria is away after the king
to Pavia. They tell me she stood up in her carriage on the Ponte del Po
-'Viva il Re d'Italia!' waving the cross of Savoy. As I have previously
assured you, no woman is Republican. The demonstration was a mistake.
Public characters should not let their personal preferences betrumpeted:
a diplomatic truism:--but I must add, least of all a cantatrice for a
king. The famous Greek amateur--the prop of failing finances--is after
her to arrest her for breach of engagement. You wished to discover an
independent mind in a woman, my Carlo; did you not? One would suppose
her your wife--or widow. She looked a superb thing the last night she
sang. She is not, in my opinion, wanting in height. If, behind all that
innocence and candour, she has any trained artfulness, she will beat us
all. Heaven bless your arms!"
The demonstration mentioned by the countess had not occurred.
Vittoria's letter to her lover missed him. She wrote from Pavia, after
she had taken her decisive step.
Carlo Ammiani went into the business of the war with the belief that his
betrothed had despised his prayer to her.
He was under Colonel Corte, operating on the sub-Alpine range of hills
along the line of the Chiese South-eastward. Here the volunteers, formed
of the best blood of Milan, the gay and brave young men, after marching
in the pride of their strength to hold the Alpine passes and bar Austria
from Italy while the fight went on below, were struck by a sudden
paralysis. They hung aloft there like an arm cleft from the body.
Weapons, clothes, provisions, money, the implements of war, were
withheld from them. The Piedmontese officers despatched to watch their
proceedings laughed at them like exasperating senior scholars examining
the accomplishments of a lower form. It was manifest that Count Medole
and the Government of Milan worked everywhere to conquer the people for
the king before the king had done a stroke to conquer the Austrians for
the people; while, in order to reduce them to the condition of
Piedmontese soldiery, the flame of their patriotic enthusiasm was
systematically damped, and instead of apprentices in war, who possessed
at any rate the elementary stuff of soldiers, miserable dummies were
drafted into the royal service. The Tuscans and the Romans had good
reason to complain on behalf of their princes, as had the Venetians and
the Lombards for the cause of their Republic. Neither Tuscans, Romans,
Venetians, nor Lombards were offering up their lives simply to obtain a
change of rulers; though all Italy was ready to bow in allegiance to a
king of proved kingly quality. Early in the campaign the cry of treason
was muttered, and on all sides such became the temper of the Alpine
volunteers, that Angelo and Rinaldo Guidascarpi were forced to join their
cousin under Corte, by the dispersion of their band, amounting to
something more than eighteen hundred fighting lads, whom a Piedmontese
superior officer summoned peremptorily to shout for the king. They
thundered as one voice for the Italian Republic, and instantly broke up
and disbanded. This was the folly of the young: Carlo Ammiani confessed
that it was no better; but he knew that a breath of generous confidence
from the self-appointed champion of the national cause would have subdued
his impatience at royalty and given heart and cheer to his sickening
comrades. He began to frown angrily when he thought of Vittoria. "Where
is she now?--where now?" he asked himself in the season of his most
violent wrath at the king. Her conduct grew inseparable in his mind from
the king's deeds. The sufferings, the fierce irony, the very deaths of
the men surrounding him in aims, rose up in accusation against the woman
he loved.
CHAPTER XXXI
EPISODES OF THE REVOLT AND THE WAR
THE TREACHERY OF PERICLES--THE WHITE UMBRELLA--THE DEATH OF RINALDO
GUIDASCARPI
The king crossed the Mincio. The Marshal, threatened on his left flank,
drew in his line from the farther Veronese heights upon a narrowed battle
front before Verona. Here they manoeuvred, and the opening successes
fell to the king. Holding Peschiera begirt, with one sharp passage of
arms he cleared the right bank of the Adige and stood on the semicircle
of hills, master of the main artery into Tyrol.
The village of Pastrengo has given its name to the day. It was a day of
intense heat coming after heavy rains. The arid soil steamed; the white
powder-smoke curled in long horizontal columns across the hazy ring of
the fight. Seen from a distance it was like a huge downy ball, kicked
this way and that between the cypresses by invisible giants. A pair of
eager-eyed women gazing on a battle-field for the first time could but
ask themselves in bewilderment whether the fate of countries were verily
settled in such a fashion. Far in the rear, Vittoria and Laura heard the
cannon-shots; a sullen dull sound, as of a mallet striking upon rotten
timber. They drove at speed. The great thumps became varied by musketry
volleys, that were like blocks of rockboulder tumbled in the roll of a
mountain torrent. These, then, were the voices of Italy and Austria
speaking the devilish tongue of the final alternative. Cannon, rockets,
musketry, and now the run of drums, now the ring of bugles, now the tramp
of horses, and the field was like a landslip. A joyful bright black
death-wine seemed to pour from the bugles all about. The women strained
their senses to hear and see; they could realize nothing of a reality so
absolute; their feelings were shattered, and crowded over them in
patches;--horror, glory, panic, hope, shifted lights within their bosoms.
The fascination and repulsion of the image of Force divided them. They
feared; they were prostrate; they sprang in praise. The image of Force
was god and devil to their souls. They strove to understand why the
field was marked with blocks of men who made a plume of vapour here, and
hurried thither. The action of their intellects resolved to a blank
marvel at seeing an imminent thing--an interrogation to almighty heaven
treated with method, not with fury streaming forward. Cleave the
opposing ranks! Cry to God for fire? Cut them through! They had come
to see the Song of Deborah performed before their eyes, and they
witnessed only a battle. Blocks of infantry gathered densely, thinned to
a line, wheeled in column, marched: blocks of cavalry changed posts:
artillery bellowed from one spot and quickly selected another. Infantry
advanced in the wake of tiny smokepuffs, halted, advanced again, rattled
files of shots, became struck into knots, faced half about as from a blow
of the back of a hand, retired orderly. Cavalry curved like a flickering
scimetar in their rear; artillery plodded to its further station.
Innumerable tiny smoke-puffs then preceded a fresh advance of infantry.
The enemy were on the hills and looked mightier, for they were revealed
among red flashes of their guns, and stood partly visible above clouds of
hostile smoke and through clouds of their own, which grasped viscously by
the skirts of the hills. Yet it seemed a strife of insects, until, one
by one, soldiers who had gone into yonder white pit for the bloody kiss
of death, and had got it on their faces, were borne by Vittoria and Laura
knelt in this horrid stream of mortal anguish to give succour from their
stores in the carriage. Their natural emotions were distraught. They
welcomed the sight of suffering thankfully, for the poor blotted faces
were so glad at sight of them. Torture was their key to the reading of
the battle. They gazed on the field no longer, but let the roaring wave
of combat wash up to them what it would.
The hill behind Pastrengo was twice stormed. When the bluecoats first
fell back, a fine charge of Piedmontese horse cleared the slopes for a
second effort, and they went up and on, driving the enemy from hill to
hill. The Adige was crossed by the Austrians under cover of Tyrolese
rifleshots.
Then, with Beppo at their heels, bearing water, wine, and brandy, the
women walked in the paths of carnage, and saw the many faces of death.
Laura whispered strangely, "How light-hearted they look!" The wounded
called their comforters sweet names. Some smoked and some sang, some
groaned; all were quick to drink. Their jokes at the dead were
universal. They twisted their bodies painfully to stick a cigar between
dead lips, and besprinkle them with the last drops of liquor in their
cups, laughing a benediction. These scenes put grievous chains on
Vittoria's spirit, but Laura evidently was not the heavier for them.
Glorious Verona shone under the sunset as their own to come; Peschiera,
on the blue lake, was in the hollow of their hands. "Prizes worth any
quantity of blood," said Laura. Vittoria confessed that she had seen
enough of blood, and her aspect provoked Laura to utter, "For God's sake,
think of something miserable;--cry, if you can!"
Vittoria's underlip dropped sickly with the question, "Why?"
Laura stated the physical necessity with Italian naivete.
"If I can," said Vittoria, and blinked to get a tear; but laughter helped
as well to relieve her, and it came on their return to the carriage.
They found the spy Luigi sitting beside the driver. He informed them
that Antonio-Pericles had been in the track of the army ever since their
flight from Turin; daily hurrying off with whip of horses at the sound of
cannon-shot, and gradually stealing back to the extreme rear. This day
he had flown from Oliosi to Cavriani, and was, perhaps, retracing his way
already as before, on fearful toe-tips. Luigi acted the caution of one
who stepped blindfolded across hot iron plates. Vittoria, without a
spark of interest, asked why the Signor Antonio should be following the
army.
"Why, it's to find you, signorina."
Luigi's comical emphasis conjured up in a jumbled picture the devotion,
the fury, the zeal, the terror of Antonio-Pericles--a mixture of
demoniacal energy and ludicrous trepidation. She imagined his long
figure, fantastical as a shadow, off at huge strides, and back, with eyes
sliding swiftly to the temples, and his odd serpent's head raised to peer
across the plains and occasionally to exclaim to the reasonable heavens
in anger at men and loathing of her. She laughed ungovernably. Luigi
exclaimed that, albeit in disgrace with the signor Antonio, he had been
sent for to serve him afresh, and had now been sent forward to entreat
the gracious signorina to grant her sincerest friend and adorer an
interview. She laughed at Pericles, but in truth she almost loved the
man for his worship of her Art, and representation of her dear peaceful
practice of it.
The interview between them took place at Oliosi. There, also, she met
Georgiana Ford, the half-sister of Merthyr Powys, who told her that
Merthyr and Augustus Gambier were in the ranks of a volunteer contingent
in the king's army, and might have been present at Pastrengo. Georgiana
held aloof from battle-fields, her business being simply to serve as
Merthyr's nurse in case of wounds, or to see the last of him in case of
death. She appeared to have no enthusiasm. She seconded strongly the
vehement persuasions addressed by Pericles to Vittoria. Her disapproval
of the presence of her sex on fields of battle was precise. Pericles had
followed the army to give Vittoria one last chance, he said, and drag her
away from this sick country, as he called it, pointing at the dusty land
from the windows of the inn. On first seeing her he gasped like one who
has recovered a lost thing. To Laura he was a fool; but Vittoria enjoyed
his wildest outbursts, and her half-sincere humility encouraged him to
think that he had captured her at last. He enlarged on the perils
surrounding her voice in dusty bellowing Lombardy, and on the ardour of
his friendship in exposing himself to perils as tremendous, that he might
rescue her. While speaking he pricked a lively ear for the noise of
guns, hearing a gun in everything, and jumping to the window with horrid
imprecations. His carriage was horsed at the doors below. Let the
horses die, he said, let the coachman have sun-stroke. Let hundreds
perish, if Vittoria would only start in an hour-in two--to-night--to-
morrow.
"Because, do you see,"--he turned to Laura and Georgiana, submitting to
the vexatious necessity of seeming reasonable to these creatures,--"she
is a casket for one pearl. It is only one, but it is ONE, mon Dieu! and
inscrutable heaven, mesdames, has made the holder of it mad. Her voice
has but a sole skin; it is not like a body; it bleeds to death at a
scratch. A spot on the pearl, and it is perished--pfoof! Ah, cruel
thing! impious, I say. I have watched, I have reared her. Speak to me
of mothers! I have cherished her for her splendid destiny--to see it go
down, heels up, among quarrels of boobies! Yes; we have war in Italy.
Fight! Fight in this beautiful climate that you may be dominated by a
blue coat, not by a white coat. We are an intelligent race; we are a
civilized people; we will fight for that. What has a voice of the very
heavens to do with your fighting? I heard it first in England, in a
firwood, in a month of Spring, at night-time, fifteen miles and a quarter
from the city of London--oh, city of peace! Sandra you will come there.
I give you thousands additional to the sum stipulated. You have no
rival. Sandra Belloni! no rival, I say"--he invoked her in English,
"and you hear--you, to be a draggle-tail vivandiere wiz a brandy-bottle
at your hips and a reputation going like ze brandy. Ah! pardon,
mesdames; but did mankind ever see a frenzy like this girl's? Speak,
Sandra. I could cry it like Michiella to Camilla--Speak!"
Vittoria compelled him to despatch his horses to stables. He had relays
of horses at war-prices between Castiglione and Pavia, and a retinue of
servants; nor did he hesitate to inform the ladies that, before
entrusting his person to the hazards of war, he had taken care to be
provided with safe-conduct passes for both armies, as befitted a prudent
man of peace--"or sense; it is one, mesdames."
Notwithstanding his terror at the guns, and disgust at the soldiery and
the bad fare at the inn, Vittoria's presence kept him lingering in this
wretched place, though he cried continually, "I shall have heart-
disease." He believed at first that he should subdue her; then it became
his intention to carry her off.
It was to see Merthyr that she remained. Merthyr came there the day
after the engagement at Santa Lucia. They had not met since the days at
Meran. He was bronzed, and keen with strife, and looked young, but spoke
not over-hopefully. He scolded her for wishing to taste battle, and
compared her to a bad swimmer on deep shores. Pericles bounded with
delight to hear him, and said he had not supposed there was so much sense
in Powys. Merthyr confessed that the Austrians had as good as beaten
them at Santa Lucia. The tactical combinations of the Piedmontese were
wretched. He was enamoured of the gallantly of the Duke of Savoy, who
had saved the right wing of the army from rout while covering the
backward movement. Why there had been any fight at all at Santa Lucia,
where nothing was to be gained, much to be lost, he was incapable of
telling; but attributed it to an antique chivalry on the part of the
king, that had prompted the hero to a trial of strength, a bout of blood-
letting.
"You do think he is a hero?" said Vittoria.
"He is; and he will march to Venice."
"And open the opera at Venice," Pericles sneered. "Powys, mon cher, cure
her of this beastly dream. It is a scandal to you to want a woman's
help. You were defeated at Santa Lucia. I say bravo to anything that
brings you to reason. Bravo! You hear me."
The engagement at Santa Lucia was designed by the king to serve as an
instigating signal for the Veronese to rise in revolt; and this was the
secret of Charles Albert's stultifying manoeuvres between Peschiera and
Mantua. Instead of matching his military skill against the wary old
Marshal's, he was offering incentives to conspiracy. Distrusting the
revolution, which was a force behind him, he placed such reliance on its
efforts in his front as to make it the pivot of his actions.
"The volunteers North-east of Vicenza are doing the real work for us, I
believe," said Merthyr; and it seemed so then, as it might have been
indeed, had they not been left almost entirely to themselves to do it.
These tidings of a fight lost set Laura and Vittoria quivering with
nervous irritation. They had been on the field of Pastrengo, and it was
won. They had been absent from Santa Lucia. What was the deduction?
Not such as reason would have made for them; but they were at the mercy
of the currents of the blood. "Let us go on," said Laura. Merthyr
refused to convoy them. Pericles drove with him an hour on the road, and
returned in glee, to find Vittoria and Laura seated in their carriage,
and Luigi scuffling with Beppo.
"Padrone, see how I assist you," cried Luigi.
Upon this Beppo instantly made a swan's neck of his body and trumpeted:
"A sally from the fortress for forage."
"Whip! whip!" Pericles shouted to his coachman, and the two carriages
parted company at the top of their speed.
Pericles fell a victim to a regiment of bersaglieri that wanted horses,
and unceremoniously stopped his pair and took possession of them on the
route for Peschiera. He was left in a stranded carriage between a dusty
ditch and a mulberry bough. Vittoria and Laura were not much luckier.
They were met by a band of deserters, who made no claim upon the horses,
but stood for drink, and having therewith fortified their fine opinion of
themselves, petitioned for money. A kiss was their next demand. Money
and good humour saved the women from indignity. The band of rascals went
off with a 'Viva l'Italia.' Such scum is upon every popular rising, as
Vittoria had to learn. Days of rain and an incomprehensible inactivity
of the royal army kept her at a miserable inn, where the walls were bare,
the cock had crowed his last. The guns of Peschiera seemed to roam over
the plain like an echo unwillingly aroused that seeks a hollow for its
further sleep. Laura sat pondering for hours, harsh in manner, as if she
hated her. "I think," she said once, "that women are those persons who
have done evil in another world: "The "why?" from Vittoria was uttered
simply to awaken friendly talk, but Laura relapsed into her gloom. A
village priest, a sleek gentle creature, who shook his head to earth when
he hoped, and filled his nostrils with snuff when he desponded, gave them
occasional companionship under the title of consolation. He wished the
Austrians to be beaten, remarking, however, that they were good
Catholics, most fervent Catholics. As the Lord decided, so it would end!
"Oh, delicious creed!" Laura broke out: "Oh, dear and sweet doctrine!
that results and developments in a world where there is more evil than
good are approved by heaven." She twisted the mild man in supple steel
of her irony so tenderly that Vittoria marvelled to hear her speak of him
in abhorrence when they quitted the village. "Not to be born a woman,
and voluntarily to be a woman!" ejaculated Laura. "How many, how many
are we to deduct from the male population of Italy? Cross in hand, he
should be at the head of our arms, not whimpering in a corner for white
bread. Wretch! he makes the marrow in my bones rage at him. He
chronicled pig that squeaked."
"Why had she been so gentle with him?"
"Because, my dear, when I loathe a thing I never care to exhaust my
detestation before I can strike it," said the true Italian.
They were on the field of Goito; it was won. It was won against odds.
At Pastrengo they witnessed an encounter; this was a battle. Vittoria
perceived that there was the difference between a symphony and a lyric
song. The blessedness of the sensation that death can be light and easy
dispossessed her of the meaner compassion, half made up of cowardice,
which she had been nearly borne down by on the field of Pastrengo. At an
angle on a height off the left wing of the royal army the face of the
battle was plain to her: the movements of the troops were clear as
strokes on a slate. Laura flung her life into her eyes, and knelt and
watched, without summing one sole thing from what her senses received.
Vittoria said, "We are too far away to understand it."
"No," said Laura, "we are too far away to feel it."
The savage soul of the woman was robbed of its share of tragic emotion by
having to hold so far aloof. Flashes of guns were but flashes of guns up
there where she knelt. She thirsted to read the things written by them;
thirsted for their mystic terrors, somewhat as souls of great prophets
have craved for the full revelation of those fitful underlights which
inspired their mouths.
Charles Albert's star was at its highest when the Piedmontese drums beat
for an advance of the whole line at Goito.
Laura stood up, white as furnace-fire. "Women can do some good by
praying," she said. She believed that she had been praying. That was
her part in the victory.
Rain fell as from the forehead of thunder. From black eve to black dawn
the women were among dead and dying men, where the lanterns trailed a
slow flame across faces that took the light and let it go. They returned
to their carriage exhausted. The ways were almost impassable for
carriage-wheels. While they were toiling on and exchanging their
drenched clothes, Vittoria heard Merthyr's voice speaking to Beppo on the
box. He was saying that Captain Gambier lay badly wounded; brandy was
wanted for him. She flung a cloak over Laura, and handed out the flask
with a naked arm. It was not till she saw him again that she remembered
or even felt that he had kissed the arm. A spot of sweet fire burned on
it just where the soft fulness of a woman's arm slopes to the bend. He
chid her for being on the field and rejoiced in a breath, for the
carriage and its contents helped to rescue his wounded brother in arms
from probable death. Gambier, wounded in thigh and ankle by rifle-shot,
was placed in the carriage. His clothes were saturated with the soil of
Goito; but wounded and wet, he smiled gaily, and talked sweet boyish
English. Merthyr gave the driver directions to wind along up the Mincio.
"Georgiana will be at the nearest village--she has an instinct for
battle-fields, or keeps spies in her pay," he said.
"Tell her I am safe. We march to cut them (the enemy) off from Verona,
and I can't leave. The game is in our hands. We shall give you Venice."
Georgiana was found at the nearest village. Gambier's wounds had been
dressed by an army-surgeon. She looked at the dressing, and said that it
would do for six hours. This singular person had fully qualified herself
to attend on a soldier-brother. She had studied medicine for that
purpose, and she had served as nurse in a London hospital. Her nerves
were completely under control. She could sit in attendance by a sick-bed
for hours, hearing distant cannon, and the brawl of soldiery and
vagabonds in the street, without a change of countenance. Her dress was
plain black from throat to heel, with a skull cap of white, like a
Moravian sister. Vittoria reverenced her; but Georgiana's manner in
return was cold aversion, so much more scornful than disdain that it
offended Laura, who promptly put her finger on the blot in the fair
character with the word 'Jealousy;' but a single word is too broad a mark
to be exactly true. "She is a perfect example of your English," Laura
said. "Brave, good, devoted, admirable--ice at the heart. The judge of
others, of course. I always respected her; I never liked her; and I
should be afraid of a comparison with her. Her management of the
household of this inn is extraordinary."
Georgiana condescended to advise Vittoria once more not to dangle after
armies.
"I wish to wait here to assist you in nursing our friend," said Vittoria.
Georgiana replied that her strength was unlikely to fail.
After two days of incessant rain, sunshine blazed over 'the watery
Mantuan flats. Laura drove with Beppo to see whether the army was in
motion, for they were distracted by rumours. Vittoria clung to her
wounded friend, whose pleasure was the hearing her speak. She expected
Laura's return by set of sun. After dark a messenger came to her, saying
that the signora had sent a carriage to fetch her to Valeggio. Her
immediate supposition was that Merthyr might have fallen. She found
Luigi at the carriage-door, and listened to his mysterious directions and
remarks that not a minute must be lost, without suspicion. He said that
the signora was in great trouble, very anxious to see the signorina
instantly; there was but a distance of five miles to traverse.
She thought it strange that the carriage should be so luxuriously fitted
with lights and silken pillows, but her ideas were all of Merthyr, until
she by chance discovered a packet marked I chocolate, which told her at
once that she was entrapped by Antonio-Pericles. Luigi would not answer
her cry to him. After some fruitless tremblings of wrath, she lay back
relieved by the feeling that Merthyr was safe, come what might come to
herself. Things could lend to nothing but an altercation with Pericles,
and for this scene she prepared her mind. The carriage stopped while she
was dozing. Too proud to supplicate in the darkness, she left it to the
horses to bear her on, reserving her energies for the morning's
interview, and saying, "The farther he takes me the angrier I shall be."
She dreamed of her anger while asleep, but awakened so frequently during
the night that morning was at her eyelids before they divided. To her
amazement, she saw the carriage surrounded by Austrian troopers.
Pericles was spreading cigars among them, and addressing them affably.
The carriage was on a good road, between irrigated flats, that flashed
a lively green and bright steel blue for miles away. She drew down the
blinds to cry at leisure; her wings were clipped, and she lost heart.
Pericles came round to her when the carriage had drawn up at an inn.
He was egregiously polite, but modestly kept back any expressions of
triumph. A body of Austrians, cavalry and infantry, were breaking camp.
Pericles accorded her an hour of rest. She perceived that he was
anticipating an outbreak of the anger she had nursed overnight, and
baffled him so far by keeping dumb. Luigi was sent up to her to announce
the expiration of her hour of grace.
"Ah, Luigi!" she said. "Signorina, only wait, and see how Luigi can
serve two," he whispered, writhing under the reproachfulness of her eyes.
At the carriage-door she asked Pericles whither he was taking her. "Not
to Turin, not to London, Sandra Belloni!" he replied; "not to a place
where you are wet all night long, to wheeze for ever after it. Go in."
She entered the carriage quickly, to escape from staring officers, whose
laughter rang in her ears and humbled her bitterly; she felt herself
bringing dishonour on her lover. The carriage continued in the track of
the Austrians. Pericles was audibly careful to avoid the border
regiments. He showered cigars as he passed; now and then he exhibited a
paper; and on one occasion he brought a General officer to the carriage-
door, opened it and pointed in. A white-helmeted dragoon rode on each
side of the carriage for the remainder of the day. The delight of the
supposition that these Austrians were retreating before the invincible
arms of King Carlo Alberto kept her cheerful; but she heard no guns in
the rear. A blocking of artillery and waggons compelled a halt, and then
Pericles came and faced her. He looked profoundly ashamed of himself,
ready as he was for an animated defence of his proceedings.
"Where are you taking me, sir?" she said in English.
"Sandra, will you be a good child? It is anywhere you please, if you
will promise--"
"I will promise nothing."
"Zen, I lock you up in Verona." In Verona!"
"Sandra, will you promise to me?"
"I will promise nothing."
"Zen I lock you up in Verona. It is settled. No more of it. I come to
say, we shall not reach a village. I am sorry. We have soldiers for a
guard. You draw out a board and lodge in your carriage as in a bed.
Biscuits, potted meats, prunes, bon-bona, chocolate, wine--you shall find
all at your right hand and your left. I am desolate in offending you.
Sandra, if you will promise--"
"I will promise--this is what I will promise," said Vittoria.
Pericles thrust his ear forward, and withdrew it as if it had been
slapped.
She promised to run from him at the first opportunity, to despise him
ever after, and never to sing again in his hearing. With the darkness
Luigi appeared to light her lamp; he mouthed perpetually, "To-morrow, to-
morrow." The watch-fires of Austrians encamped in the fields encircled
her; and moving up and down, the cigar of Antonio-Pericles was visible.
He had not eaten or drunk, and he was out there sleepless; he walked
conquering his fears in the thick of war troubles: all for her sake.
She watched critically to see whether the cigar-light was puffed in
fretfulness. It burned steadily; and the thought of Pericles supporting
patience quite overcame her. In a fit of humour that was almost tears,
she called to him and begged him to take a place in the carriage and have
food. "If it is your pleasure," he said; and threw off his cloak. The
wine comforted him. Thereupon he commenced a series of strange
gesticulations, and ended by blinking at the window, saying, "No, no; it
is impossible to explain. I have no voice; I am not, gifted. It is," he
tapped at his chest, "it is here. It is, imprisoned in me."
"What?" said Vittoria, to encourage him.
"It can never be explained, my child. Am I not respectful to you? Am I
not worshipful to you? But, no! it can never be explained. Some do
call me mad. I know it; I am laughed at. Oh! do I not know zat?
Perfectly well. My ancestors adored Goddesses. I discover ze voice of a
Goddess: I adore it. So you call me mad; it is to me what you call me--
juste ze same. I am possessed wiz passion for her voice. So it will be
till I go to ashes. It is to me ze one zsing divine in a pig, a porpoise
world. It is to me--I talk! It is unutterable--impossible to tell."
"But I understand it; I know you must feel it," said Vittoria.
"But you hate me, Sandra. You hate your Pericles."
"No, I do not; you are my good friend, my good Pericles."
"I am your good Pericles? So you obey me?"
"In what?"
"You come to London?"
"I shall not."
"You come to Turin?"
"I cannot promise."
"To Milan?"
"No; not yet."
Ungrateful little beast! minx! temptress! You seduce me into your
carriage to feed me, to fill me, for to coax me," cried Pericles.
"Am I the person to have abuse poured on me?" Vittoria rejoined, and she
frowned. "Might I not have called you a wretched whimsical money-
machine, without the comprehension of a human feeling? You are doing me
a great wrong--to win my submission, as I see, and it half amuses me; but
the pretence of an attempt to carry me off from my friends is an offence
that I should take certain care to punish in another. I do not give you
any promise, because the first promise of all--the promise to keep one--
is not in my power. Shut your eyes and sleep where you are, and in the
morning think better of your conduct!"
"Of my conduct, mademoiselle! "Pericles retained this sentence in his
head till the conclusion of her animated speech,--"of my conduct I judge
better zan to accept of such a privilege as you graciously offer to me;"
and he retired with a sour grin, very much subdued by her unexpected
capacity for expression. The bugles of the Austrians were soon ringing.
There was a trifle of a romantic flavour in the notes which Vittoria
tried not to feel; the smart iteration of them all about her rubbed it
off, but she was reduced to repeat them, and take them in various keys.
This was her theme for the day.
They were in the midst of mulberries, out of sight of the army; green
mulberries, and the green and the bronze young vine-leaf. It was a
delicious day, but she began to fear that she was approaching Verona, and
that Pericles was acting seriously. The bronze young vine-leaf seemed to
her like some warrior's face, as it would look when beaten by weather,
burned by the sun. They came now to inns which had been visited by both
armies. Luigi established communication with the innkeepers before the
latter had stated the names of villages to Pericles, who stood map in
hand, believing himself at last to be no more conscious of his position
than an atom in a whirl of dust. Vittoria still refused to give him any
promise, and finally, on a solitary stretch of the road, he appealed to
her mercy. She was the mistress of the carriage, he said; he had never
meant to imprison her in Verona; his behaviour was simply dictated by his
adoration--alas! This was true or not true, but it was certain that the
ways were confounded to them. Luigi, despatched to reconnoitre from a
neighbouring eminence, reported a Piedmontese encampment far ahead, and a
walking tent that was coming on their route. The walking tent was an
enormous white umbrella. Pericles advanced to meet it; after an
interchange of opening formalities, he turned about and clapped hands.
The umbrella was folded. Vittoria recognized the last man she would then
have thought of meeting; he seemed to have jumped out of an ambush from
Meran in Tyrol:--it was Wilfrid. Their greeting was disturbed by the
rushing up of half-a-dozen troopers. The men claimed him as an Austrian
spy. With difficulty Vittoria obtained leave to drive him on to their
commanding officer. It appeared that the white umbrella was notorious
for having been seen on previous occasions threading the Piedmontese
lines into and out of Peschiera. These very troopers swore to it; but
they could not swear to Wilfrid, and white umbrellas were not absolutely
uncommon. Vittoria declared that Wilfrid was an old English friend;
Pericles vowed that Wilfrid was one of their party. The prisoner was
clearly an Englishman. As it chanced, the officer before whom Wilfrid
was taken had heard Vittoria sing on the great night at La Scala.
"Signorina, your word should pass the Austrian Field-Marshal himself," he
said, and merely requested Wilfrid to state on his word of honour that he
was not in the Austrian service, to which Wilfrid unhesitatingly replied,
"I am not."
Permission was then accorded to him to proceed in the carriage.
Vittoria held her hand to Wilfrid. He took the fingers and bowed over
them.
He was perfectly self-possessed, and cool even under her eyes. Like a
pedlar he carried a pack on his back, which was his life; for his
business was a combination of scout and spy.
"You have saved me from a ditch to-day," he said; "every fellow has some
sort of love for his life, and I must thank you for the odd luck of your
coming by. I knew you were on this ground somewhere. If the rascals had
searched me, I should not have come off so well. I did not speak falsely
to that officer; I am not in the Austrian service. I am a volunteer spy.
I am an unpaid soldier. I am the dog of the army--fetching and carrying
for a smile and a pat on the head. I am ruined, and I am working my way
up as best I can. My uncle disowns me. It is to General Schoneck that I
owe this chance of re-establishing myself. I followed the army out of
Milan. I was at Melegnano, at Pastrengo, at Santa Lucia. If I get
nothing for it, the Lenkensteins at least shall not say that I abandoned
the flag in adversity. I am bound for Rivoli. The fortress (Peschiera)
has just surrendered. The Marshal is stealing round to make a dash on
Vicenza." So far he spoke like one apart from her, but a flush crossed
his forehead. "I have not followed you. I have obeyed your brief
directions. I saw this carriage yesterday in the ranks of our troops.
I saw Pericles. I guessed who might be inside it. I let it pass me.
Could I do more?"
"Not if you wanted to punish me," said Vittoria.
She was afflicted by his refraining from reproaches in his sunken state.
Their talk bordered the old life which they had known, like a rivulet,
coming to falls where it threatens to be e, torrent and a flood; like
flame bubbling the wax of a seal. She was surprised to find herself
expecting tenderness from him: and, startled by the languor in her veins,
she conceived a contempt for her sex and her own weak nature. To mask
that, an excessive outward coldness was assumed. "You can serve as a
spy, Wilfrid!"
The answer was ready: "Having twice served as a traitor, I need not be
particular. It is what my uncle and the Lenkensteins call me. I do my
best to work my way up again. Despise me for it, if you please."
On the contrary, she had never respected him so much. She got herself
into opposition to him by provoking him to speak with pride of his army;
but the opposition was artificial, and she called to Carlo Ammiani in
heart. "I will leave these places, cover up my head, and crouch till the
struggle is decided."
The difficulty was now to be happily rid of Wilfrid by leaving him in
safety. Piedmontese horse scoured the neighbourhood, and any mischance
that might befall him she traced to her hand. She dreaded at every
instant to hear him speak of his love for her; yet how sweet it would
have been to hear it,--to hear him speak of passionate love; to shape it
in deep music; to hear one crave for what she gave to another! "I am
sinking: I am growing degraded," she thought. But there was no other way
for her to quicken her imagination of her distant and offended lover.
The sights on the plains were strange contrasts to these conflicting
inner emotions: she seemed to be living in two divided worlds.
Pericles declared anew that she was mistress of the carriage. She issued
orders: "The nearest point to Rivoli, and then to Brescia."
Pericles broke into shouts. "She has arrived at her reason! Hurrah for
Brescia! I beheld you," he confessed to Wilfrid,--"it was on ze right of
Mincio, my friend. I did not know you were so true for Art, or what a
hand I would have reached to you! Excuse me now. Let us whip on. I am
your banker. I shall desire you not to be shot or sabred. You are
deserving of an effigy on a theatral grand stair-case!" His gratitude
could no further express itself. In joy he whipped the horses on. Fools
might be fighting--he was the conqueror. From Brescia, one leap took him
in fancy to London. He composed mentally a letter to be forwarded
immediately to a London manager, directing him to cause the appearance of
articles in the journals on the grand new prima donna, whose singing had
awakened the people of Italy.
Another day brought them in view of the Lago di Garda. The flag of
Sardinia hung from the walls of Peschiera. And now Vittoria saw the
Pastrengo hills--dear hills, that drove her wretched languor out of her,
and made her soul and body one again. The horses were going at a gallop.
Shots were heard. To the left of them, somewhat in the rear, on higher
ground, there was an encounter of a body of Austrians and Italians:
Tyrolese riflemen and the volunteers. Pericles was raving. He refused
to draw the reins till they had reached the village, where one of the
horses dropped. From the windows of the inn, fronting a clear space,
Vittoria beheld a guard of Austrians surrounding two or more prisoners.
A woman sat near them with her head buried in her lap. Presently an
officer left the door of the inn and spoke to the soldiers. "That is
Count Karl von Lenkenstein," Wilfrid said in a whisper. Pericles had
been speaking with Count Karl and came up to the room, saying, "We are to
observe something; but we are safe; it is only fortune of war." Wilfrid
immediately went out to report himself. He was seen giving his papers,
after which Count Karl waved his finger back to the inn, and he returned.
Vittoria sprang to her feet at the words he uttered. Rinaldo Guidascarpi
was one of the prisoners. The others Wilfrid professed not to know. The
woman was the wife of Barto Rizzo.
In the great red of sunset the Tyrolese riflemen and a body of Italians
in Austrian fatigue uniform marched into the village. These formed in
the space before the inn. It seemed as if Count Karl were declaiming an
indictment. A voice answered, "I am the man." It was clear and straight
as a voice that goes up in the night. Then a procession walked some
paces on. The woman followed. She fell prostrate at the feet of Count
Karl. He listened to her and nodded. Rinaldo Guidascarpi stood alone
with bandaged eyes. The woman advanced to him; she put her mouth on his
ear; there she hung.
Vittoria heard a single shot. Rinaldo Guidascarpi lay stretched upon the
ground. and the woman stood over him.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
As the Lord decided, so it would end! "Oh, delicious creed!"
By our manner of loving we are known
Every church of the city lent its iron tongue to the peal
Fast growing to be an eccentric by profession
I always respected her; I never liked her
Too well used to defeat to believe readily in victory
Will not admit the existence of a virtue in an opposite opinion