"Lady, you are like all women who talk politics, however capable they
may be of acting them. You immediately beg the question. We are
speaking of patriotism, not of partisanship."
"You it was who forsook the subject. You know nothing about it; you
confess that it is with you merely a blind instinct; you cannot tell me
even what patriotism is."
"Stay!" I replied. "All love is instinct in the germ. Can you define the
yearnings that the mother feels toward her child, the tie that binds son
to father? Then you can define the sentiment that attaches me to the
land from whose breast I have drawn life. The love of country is more
invisible, more imponderable, more inappreciable than the electricity
that fills the air and flows with perpetual variation from pole to pole
of the earth. It is as deep, as unsearchable, as ineffable as the power
which sways me to you. It is the sublimation of other affection. A
portion of you has always gone out into the material spot where you have
been, a portion of that has entered you, your past life is entwined with
river and shore. You become the country, and the country becomes a part
of God. Those who love their country, love the vast abstraction, can
almost afford not to love God. She is a beneficence, she is a shield,
something for which to do and die, something for worship, ideal, grand;
and though the sky is their only roof, the earth their only bed,
affluent are they who have a land! Passion rooted deeply as the
foundations of the hills: a man may adore one woman, but in adoring his
land the aggregation of all men's love for all other women overwhelms
him and accentuates to a fuller emotion. It is unselfish, impersonal,
sheer sentiment clarified at its white heat from all interest and
deceit, the noblest joy, the noblest sorrow. Bold should they be, and
pure as the priests who bore the ark, that dare to call themselves
patriots. And those, Lenore, who live to see their country's hopeless
ruin, plunge into a sadness at heart that no other loss can equal, no
remaining blessing mitigate,--neither the devotion of a wife nor the
perfection of a child. You have seen exiles from a lost land? Pride is
dead in them, hope is dead, ambition is dead, joy is dead. Tell me,
would you choose me to suffer the personal loss of love and you, a loss
I could hide in my aching soul, or to bear those black marks of gall and
melancholy which forever overshadow them in widest grief and gloom?"
She had sunk upon a seat, and was looking up at me with a pained
unwavering glance, as if in my words she foresaw my fate.
"You are too intense!" she cried. "Your tones, your eyes, your gestures,
make it an individual thing with you."
"And so it is!" I exclaimed. "I cannot sleep in peace, nor walk upon the
ways, while these Austrian bayonets take my sunshine, these threatening
approaching French banners hide the fair light of heaven!"
"Come," she said, rising. "Speak no more. I am tired of the burden of
the ditty, dear; and it may do you such injury yet that already I hate
it. Come out again into our garden with me. Dismiss these cares, these
burning pains and rankling wounds. Be soothed by the cool evening air,
taste the gorgeous quiet of sunset, gather peace with the dew."
So we went. I trusted her the more that she differed from me, that then
she promised to love Italy only because _I_ loved it. I told her my
secret schemes, I took her advice on points of my own responsibility, I
learned the joy of help and confidence in one whom you deem devotedly
true. Finally we remained without speech, stood long heart to heart
while the night fell around us like a curtain; her eyes deepened from
their azure noon-splendor and took the violet glooms of the hour, a
great planet rose and painted itself within them; again and again I
printed my soul on her lips ere I left her.
At first, when I was sure that I was once more alone in the streets,
I could not shake from myself the sense of her presence. I could not
escape from my happiness, I was able to bring my thought to no other
consideration. I reached home mechanically, slept an hour, performed the
routine of bath and refreshment, and sought my former duties. But how
changed seemed all the world to me! what air I breathed! in what light I
worked! Still I felt the thrilling pressure of those kisses on my lips,
still those dear embraces!
So days passed on. I worked faithfully for the purpose to which I was
so utterly committed that let that be lost and I was lost! We were
victorious; after the banner fell in Lombardy to soar again in Venice
and to sink, the Republic struggled to life; Rome rose once more on her
seven hills, free and grand, child and mother of an idea, the idea of
national unity, of independence and liberty from Tyrol to Sicily. My
God! think of those dear people who for the first time said, "We have a
country!"
Yet how could we have hoped then to continue? Such brief success dazzled
us to the past. Piedmont had long since struck the key-note of Italy's
fortunes. As Charles Albert forsook Milan and suffered Austria once more
to mouth the betrayed land and drip its blood from her heavy jaws, till
in a baptism of redder dye he absolved himself from the sin,--so woe
heaped on woe, all came to crisis, ruin, and loss,--the Republic fell,
Rome fell, the French entered.
Our names had become too famous, our heroic defence too familiar, for us
to escape unknown: the Vascello had not been the only place where youth
fought as the lioness fights for her whelps. Many of us died. Some fled.
Others, and I among them, remained impenetrably concealed in the midst
of our enemies. Weeks then dragged away, and months. New schemes chipped
their shell. Again the central glory of the land might rise revealed to
the nations. We never lost courage; after each downfall we rose like
Antaeus with redoubled strength from contact with the beloved soil, for
each fall plunged us farther into the masses of the people, into closer
knowledge of them and kinder depths of their affection, and so, learning
their capabilities and the warmth of their hearts and the strength of
their endurance, we became convinced that freedom was yet to be theirs.
Meanwhile, you know, our operations were shrouded in inscrutable
secrecy; the French held Rome in frowning terror and subjection; the
Pope trembled on his chair, and clutched it more franticly with his weak
fingers: it was not even known that we, the leaders, were now in the
city; all supposed us to be awaiting quietly the turn of events, in some
other land. As if we ourselves were not events, and Italy did not hang
on our motions! But, as I said, all this time we were at work; our
emissaries gave us enough to do: we knew what spoil the robbers in the
March had made, the decree issued in Vienna, the order of the day in
Paris, the last word exchanged between the Cardinals, what whispers were
sibilant in the Vatican; we mined deeper every day, and longed for the
electric stroke which should kindle the spark and send princes and
principalities shivered widely into atoms. But, friend, this was not
to be. We knew one thing more, too: we knew at last that we also were
watched,--when men sang our songs in the echoing streets at night, and
when each of us, and I, chief of all, renewed our ancient fame, and
became the word in every one's mouth, so that old men blessed us in the
way as we passed, wrapt, we had thought, in safe disguise, and crowds
applauded. Thus again we changed our habits, our rendezvous, our
quarters, and again we eluded suspicion.
There came breathing-space. I went to her to enjoy it, as I would have
gone with some intoxicating blossom to share with her its perfume,--with
any band of wandering harpers, that together our ears might be
delighted. I went as when, utterly weary, I had always gone and rested
awhile with her I loved in the sweet old palace-garden: I had my ways,
undreamed of by army or police or populace. There had I lingered,
soothed at noon by the hum of the bee, at night by that spirit that
scatters the dew, by the tranquillity and charm of the place, ever
rested by her presence, the repose of her manner, the curve of her
dropping eyelid, so that looking on her face alone gave me pleasant
dreams.
Now, as I entered, she threw down her work,--some handkerchief for her
shoulders, perhaps, or yet a banner for those unrisen men of Rome,
I said,--a white silk square on which she had wrought a hand with a
gleaming sickle, reversed by tall wheat whose barbed grains bent full
and ripe to the reaper, and round the margin, half-pictured, wound the
wild hedge-roses of Paestum. She threw it down and came toward me in
haste, and drew me through an inner apartment.
"He has returned, they say," she said presently,--mentioning the
Neapolitan,--"and it would be unfortunate, if you met."
"Unfortunate for _him_, if we met here!"
"How fearless! Yet he is subtler than the snake in Eden. I fear him as I
detest him."
"Why fear him?"
"That I cannot tell. Some secret sign, some unspeakable intuition,
assures me of injury through him."
"Dearest, put it by. The strength of all these surrounding leagues with
their swarm does not flow through his wrist, as it does through mine. He
is more powerless than the mote in the air."
"You are so confident!" she said.
"How can I be anything else than confident? The very signs in the sky
speak for us, and half the priests are ours, and the land itself is an
oath. Look out, Lenore! Look down on these purple fields that so sweetly
are taking nightfall; look on these rills that braid the landscape and
sing toward the sea; see yonder the row of columns that have watched
above the ruins of their temple for centuries, to wait this hour; behold
the heaven, that, lucid as one dome of amethyst, darkens over us and
blooms in star on star;--was ever such beauty? Ah, take this wandering
wind,--was ever such sweetness? And since every inch of earth
is historic,--since here rose glory to fill the world with wide
renown,--since here the heroes walked, the gods came down,--since Oreads
haunt the hill, and Nereïds seek the shore"--
"Whereabout do Nereïds seek the shore?" she archly asked.
"Why, if you must have data," I answered, laughing, "let us say Naples."
"What is that you have to say of Naples?" demanded a voice in the
door-way,--and turning, I confronted the Neapolitan.
She had started back at the abrupt apparition, and before she could
recover, stung by rage and surprise I had replied,--
"What have I to say of Naples? That its tyrant walks in blood to his
knees!"
A man, I, with my hot furies, to be intrusted with the commonwealth!
"I will trouble you to repeat that sentence at some day," he said.
"Here and now, if you will!" I uttered, my hand on my hilt.
"Thanks. Not here and now. It will answer, if you remember it _then_.--I
hope I see Her Highness well. Pardon this little _brusquerie_, I pray.
The southern air is kind to loveliness: I regret to bring with me Her
Highness's recall."
She replied in the same courteous air, inquired concerning her
acquaintance, and ordered lights,--took the letter he brought, and held
it, still sealed, in the taper's flame till it fell in ashes.
"Signor," she said, lifting the white atoms of dust and sifting them
through her fingers, "you may carry back these as my reply."
"Nay, I do not return," he answered. "And, Signorina, many things are
pardoned to one in--your condition. Recover your senses, and you will
find this so among others."
Then, as coolly as if nothing had happened, he spoke of the affairs
of the day, the tendency of measures, the feeling of the people, and
finally rose, kissed her hand, and departed. He was joined without by
the little Viennois, and the accursed couple sauntered down the street
together. I should have gone then,--the place was no longer safe for
me,--but something, the old spell, yet detained me.
Lenore did not speak, but threw open all the windows and doors that were
closed.
"Let us be purified of his presence, at least!" she cried, when this was
done.
"And you have ceased to fear this man whom you have dared so offend?" I
asked.
"He is not offended," said Lenore. "Austria is not Naples. He will not
transmit my reply till he is utterly past hope."
"Hope of what?"
"Of my hand."
"Lenore! Then put him beyond hope now! Become my wife!"
"Ah,--if it were less unwise"--
"If you loved me, Lenore, you would not think of that."
"And you doubt it? Why should I, then, say again that I love you,--I
love you?"
Ah, friend, how can I repeat those words? Never have I given her
endearments again to the air: sacred were they then, sacred now, however
false. Ah, passionate words! oh, sweet _issimos!_ tender intonations!
how deeply, how deeply ye lie in my soul! Let me repeat but one
sentence: it was the, key to my destiny.
"Yes, yes," she said, rising from my arms, "already I do you injury. You
think oftener of me than of Italy."
It was true. I sprang to my feet and began pacing the floor, as I sought
to recall any instance in which I had done less than I might for my
country. The cool evening-breeze, and the bell-notes sinking through
the air from distant old campaniles, soothed my tumult, and, turning, I
said,--
"My devotion to you sanctifies my devotion to her. And not only for her
own sake do I work, but that you, you, Lenore, may have a land where no
one is your master, and where your soul may develop and become perfect."
"And those who have not such object, why do they work?"
Then first I felt that I had fallen from the heights where my companions
stood. This ardent patriotism of mine was sullied, a stain of
selfishness rose and blotted out my glory, others should wear the
conquering crowns of this grand civic game. Oh, friend! that was sad
enough, but it was inevitable. Here is where the crime came in,--that,
knowing this, I still continued as their leader, suffered them to call
me Master and Saviour, and walked upon the palms they spread.
Lenore mistook my silence.
"You cannot tell me why they work?" she said. "From habit, from fear,
because committed? It cannot be, then, that they are in earnest, that
they are sincere, that they care a rush for this cause so holy to you.
They have entered into it, as all this common people do, for the love
of a new excitement, for the pleasurable mystery of conspiracy, for the
self-importance and gratulation. They will scatter at the signal of
danger, like mischievous boys when a gendarme comes round the corner.
They will betray you at the lifting of an Austrian finger. Leave them!"
This was too much to hear in silence,--to hear of these faithful
comrades, who had endured everything, and were yet to overcome because
they possessed their souls in patience, each of whom stood higher before
God than I in unspotted public purity, and whose praise and love led me
constantly to larger effort. At least I would make them the reparation
of vindication.
"You mistrust them?" I exclaimed. "They whose souls have been tried in
the furnace, who have the temper of fine steel, pliant as gold, but
incorruptible as adamant,--heroes and saints, they stand so low in your
favor? Come, then, come with me now,--for the bells have struck the
hour, and shadows clothe the earth,--come to their conclave where
discovery is death, and judge if they be idle prattlers, or men who
carry their lives in their hands!"
Fool! Fool! Fool! Every sound in the air cries out that word to me:
the bee that wings across the tower hums it in my ear; the booming
alarm-bell rings it forth; my heart, my failing heart, beats it while
I speak. I would have carried a snake to the sacred ibis-nest, and
thenceforth hope was hollow as an egg-shell!