Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General Part 5

"I'd unite her to Greece, sir. These people, with the exception of a small circle around Rome, are not Latins--they are Greeks. I'd bring them back to the parent stock, who are the only people in Europe with craft and subtlety to rule them. Take my word for it, sir, they'd not cheat the 'h.e.l.lenes' as they do the French and the English; and as the only true way to reform a nation is to make vice unprofitable, I'd unite them to a race that could outrogue and outwit them on every hand. What is it, I ask you, makes of the sluggish, indolent, careless Irishman, the prudent, hard-working, prosperous fellow you see him in the States?

Simply the fact, that the craft by which he outwitted John Bull no longer serves him. The Yankee is too shrewd to be jockeyed by it, and Paddy must use his hands instead of his head. The same would happen with the Italian. Give him a Greek master, and you'll see what he'll become."

"But the Greeks, after all," said I, "do not present such a splendid example of order and prosperity. They are little better than brigands."

"And don't you see why?" broke he in. "Have you ever looked into a gambling-house when the company had no 'pigeon,' and were obliged to play against each other. They have lost all decency--all the semblance of good manners and decorum. Whatever little politeness they had put on to impose upon the outsider was gone, and there they were in all the naked atrocity of their bad natures. It is thus you see the Greeks. You have dropped in upon them unfairly; you have invaded a privacy they had hoped might be respected. Give them a nation to cheat, however; let the pigeon be introduced, and you'll not see a better bred and a more courtly people in Europe."

That they had great social qualities he proceeded to show from a number of examples. They were, in fact, in the world of long ago what the French are to our own day, and there was no reason to suppose that the race had lost its old characteristics. According to my companion's theory, Force had only its brief interval of domination anywhere; the superior intelligence was sure to gain the upper hand at last; and we, in our opposition to this law, were supply r.e.t.a.r.ding an inevitable tendency of nature--protracting the fulfilment of what we could not prevent.

I got him back from these speculations to speak of himself, and he told me some experiences which will, perhaps, account for the displeasure with which he regards the changed fortunes of Spezia. I shall give his narrative as nearly as I can in his own words, and in a chapter to itself.

THE STRANGE MAN'S SORROW.

"When I first knew Spezia, it was a very charming spot to pa.s.s the summer in. The English had not found it out A bottle of Harvey sauce or a copy of 'Galignani' had never been seen here; and the morning meal, which now figures in my bill as 'Dejeuner complet--two francs.' was then called 'Coffee,' and priced twopence. I used to pa.s.s my day in a small sail-boat, and in my evenings I played halfpenny whist with the judge and the commander of the forces and a retired envoy, who, out of a polite attention to me as a stranger, agreed to play such high stakes during my sojourn at the Baths.

"They were excellent people, of unblemished character, and a politeness I have rarely seen equalled. n.o.body could sneeze without the whole company rising to wish him a long and prosperous life, or a male heir to his name; and as for turning the trump card without a smile and a bow all round to the party, it was a thing unheard of.

"I thought if I could only secure a spot to live in in such an Arcadia, it would be charming, but this was a great difficulty. No one had any accommodation more than he wanted for himself. The very isolation that gave the place its charm excluded all speculation, and not a house was to be had. In my voyagings, however, around the Gulf, I landed one day at a little inlet, surrounded with high lands, and too small to be called a bay, and there, to my intense astonishment, I discovered a small villa. It looked exactly like the houses one sees in a toy-shop, and where you take off the roof to peep in and see how neatly the stairs are made and the rooms divided; but there was a large garden at one side and an orangery at the other, and it all looked the neatest and prettiest little thing one ever saw off the boards of a minor theatre. I drew my boat on sh.o.r.e and strolled into the garden, but saw no one, not even a dog. There was a deep well with a draw-bucket, and I filled my gourd with ice-cold water; and then plucking a ripe orange that had just given me a bob in the eye, I sat down to eat it. While I was engaged, I heard a wicket open and shut, and saw an old man, very shabbily dressed, and with a mushroom straw hat, coming towards me. Before I could make excuses for my intrusion, he had welcomed me to Pertusola--'The Nook,'

in English--and invited me to step in and have a gla.s.s of wine.

"I took him for the steward or fattore, and acceded, not sorry to ask some questions about the villa and its owner. He showed me over the house, explaining with much pride how a certain kitchen-range came from England, though n.o.body ever knew the use of it, but it was all very comfortable. The silk-worms and dried figs and salt-fish occupied more s.p.a.ce, and contributed more odour, perhaps, than a correct taste would have approved of. Yet there were capabilities--great capabilities; and so, before I left, I took it from the old gentleman in the rusty costume, who turned out to be the proprietor, a marquis, the 'commendatore' of I don't know what order, and various other dignities beside, all recited and set forth in the lease.

"I suppose I have something of Robinson Crusoe in my nature, for I loved the isolation of this spot immensely. It wasn't an island, but it was all but an island. Towards the land, two jutting promontories of rock denied access to anything not a goat; the sea in front; an impenetrable pine wood to the rear: and there I lived so happily, so snugly, that even now, when I want a pleasant theme to doze over beside my wood-fire of an evening, I just call up Pertusola, and ramble once again through its olive groves, or watch the sunset tints as they glow over the Carara mountains.

"I smartened the place up wonderfully, within doors and without. I got flowers, roots, and annuals, and slips of geraniums, and made the little plateau under my drawing-room window a blaze of tulips and ranunculuses, so that the Queen--she was at Spezia for the bathing--came once to see my garden, as one of the show spots of the place. Her Majesty was as gracious as only royalty knows how to be, and so were all her suite in their several ways; but there was one short, fat, pale-faced man, with enormous spectacles, who, if less polite than the rest, was ten times as inquisitive. He asked about the soil, and the drainage, the water and its quality--was it a spring--did it ever fail--and when, and how? Then as to the bay itself, was it sheltered, and from what winds? What the anchorage was like--mud--and why mud? And when I said there was always a breeze even in summer, he eagerly pushed me to explain, why? and I did explain that there was a cleft or gully between the hills, which acted as a sort of conductor to the wind; and on this he went back to verify my statement, and spent some time poking about, examining everything, and stationing himself here and there on points of rock, to experience the currents of air. 'You are right,' said he, as he got into his boat, 'quite right; there is a glorious draught here for a smelting-furnace.'

"I thought it odd praise at the time, but before six months I received notice to quit.

"Pertusola had been sold to a lead company, one of the directors having strongly recommended the site as an admirable harbour, with good water, and a perpetual draught of wind, equal to a blast-furnace."

Looking at the dress-coat in which you once captivated dinner-parties, on a costeimonger--seeing the strong-boned hunter that has carried you over post and rail, in a cab,--are sore trials; but nothing, according to my companion's description, to the desecration of your house and home by its conversion into a factory. Such an air of the "Inferno," too, pervades the smelting-house, with its lurid glow, its roar, its flash, and its furious heat, that I could readily forgive him the pa.s.sionate warmth with which he described it.

"They had begun that chimney, sir," cried he, "before I got out of the house. I had to cross on a plank over a pit before my door, where they were riddling the ore. The morning I left, I covered my eyes, not to see the barbaric glee with which they destroyed all around, and I left the place for ever. I crossed over the Gulf, and I took that house you can see on the rocky point called Marola. It had no water; there was no depth to anchor in; and not a breath of air could come at it except in stillness. No more terrors of smelting-house here, thought I. Well, sir, I must be brief; the whole is too painful to dwell on. I hadn't been eight months there when a little steamer ran in one morning, and four persons in plain clothes landed from her, and pottered about the sh.o.r.e--I thought looking for anemones. At last they strolled up to my house, and asked permission to have a look at the Gulf from my terrace.

I acceded, and in they came. They were all strangers but one, and who do you think he was? The creature with the large spectacles! My blood ran cold when I saw him.

"'You used to live yonder, if I mistake not,' said he to me, coolly.

"'Yes, and I might have been living there still,' replied I, 'if it had not been for the prying intrusion of a stranger, to whom I was weak enough to be polite.'

"He never noticed my taunt in the least, but, calmly opening the window, pa.s.sed out upon the terrace. The others speedily gathered around him, and I saw that he knew the whole place as if it had been his bedroom; for not only did he describe the exact measurements between various points, but the depth of water, the character of the bottom, the currents, and the prevailing winds. He went on, besides, to show how, by running out a pier here, and a breakwater there--by filling up this, and deepening that--safe anchorage could be secured in all weathers; while the headlands could be easily fortified, and 'at a moderate cost,' I quote himself, 'of say twenty two or three millions of francs, while a fort erected on the island there would command the whole entrance.'

"'And who, in the name of all Utopia, wants to force it?' cried I; for, as they talked so openly, I thought I might interpose as frankly.

"He never seemed to resent my remark as obtrusive, but said quietly, 'Who knows? the French perhaps--perhaps your own people one of these days.'

"I'd like to have said, but I didn't, 'We could walk in and walk out here, with our iron-clads, as coolly as a man goes out in the rain with a mackintosh.'

"They remained fully an hour, talking as freely as if I was born deaf and dumb. At last they arose to leave, and the owl-faced man--he looked exactly like an owl--said, with a little grin, 'We're going to disturb you again.'

"'How so?' cried I; 'you can't smelt lead here.'

"'No, but we're going to make an a.r.s.enal. Where you stand now will be a receiving-dock, and that garden of yours a patent slip. You'll have to clear out before the New Year.'

"'Who is he? who is that with the spectacles?' asked I of one of the servants, who waited outside with cloaks and umbrellas.

"'That's the Conte di Cavour,' said the fellow, haughtily; and thus was the whole murder out at once. They turned me out, sir, in two months, and I never ventured to take a lease of a place till he died. After that event, I purchased a little spot on the island of Tino yonder, and built myself a cottage. They could neither smelt metal nor build a s.h.i.+p there, and I hugged myself at the thought of safety. But, would you believe it? last week--only last week--his successor, in rummaging over Cavour's papers in the Foreign Office, comes upon a packet labelled 'Spezia,' and discovers a memorandum in these words, 'The English Admiral, at dinner to-day, laughed at the idea of defending the mouth of the Gulf from the island. He said the entrance should be two-thirds closed by a breakwater, and a strong fort _a fleur d'eau_ built on Tino. I have thought of it all night; he is perfectly right, and I'll do it;' and here, sir," said my companion, drawing a paper from his pocket, "is a 'sommation' from the minister to surrender my holding on Tino, receiving a due compensation for the same, and once more betake myself, heaven knows where; for, though the great Count Cavour is dead and gone, his grand intentions are turning up every day, out of drawers and pigeonholes, and I shrewdly suspect that neither Pio Nono nor myself will live to see the last of them."

ITALIAN LAW AND JUSTICE.

My Garibaldian friend has returned, but only to bid me good-bye and be off again. The Government, it would seem, are rather uneasy as to the movements of the "Beds," and quietly intimated to my friend that they were sure he had something particular to do--some urgent private affairs--at Geneva; and, like the well-bred dog in the story, he does not wait for any further suggestions, but goes at once.

He revenged himself, however, all the time at breakfast, by talking very truculently before the waiters of what would happen when Garibaldi took the field again, and how miserably small Messrs Batazzi & Co. would look under the circ.u.mstances. Indeed, as he warmed with his subject, he went the length of declaring that, without a very ample apology for the events of Aspromonte, he did not believe Garibaldi would consent to take Venice, or drive the French out of Rome.

With a spirit of tantalising he prolonged this same breakfast for upwards of two hours, during which the officer of the gendarmerie came and went, and came again, very eager to see him depart, but evidently with instructions neither to molest nor interfere with him.

"Just look at that beggar," cried the Garibaldian; "if he has come in here once during the last hour, he has come a dozen times, and all on my account! And I mean to smoke three 'cavours' over my anisetto before I leave. Waiter, tell the vetturino he'll have plenty of time to throw a feed to his cattle before I start. You know," added he, "if I was disposed to be troublesome, I'd not budge: I'd write up to Turin to the Legation and claim British protection; and I'd have these fellows on the hip, for they stupidly gave me a reason for my expulsion. They said I was conspiring. Now I could say, Prove it; and if we only went to law, it would take ten or twelve years to decide it."

My companion now went on to show that, by a small expenditure of money and a very ordinary exercise of ingenuity, a lawsuit need never end in Italy. "First of all, you could ask the opposite party, Who was his advocate? and on his naming him, you could immediately set to work to show that this man was a creature so vile and degraded, no man with the commonest pretension to honesty would dream of employing him. The history of his father could be adduced, and any private little anecdotes of his mother would find a favourable opportunity for mention. Though a mere skirmish, if judiciously managed, this will occupy a week or two, and at the same time serve to indicate that you mean to show fight; for by this time the 'Legale's' blood will be up, and he is certain to make reprisals on _your_ man, so that for a month or so you and the other princ.i.p.al are in the position of men who, having come out to fight a duel, are first gratified with the spectacle of a row between the seconds. However, at last it is arranged that the lawyers are worthy of each other; and the next step is to demand the names of all the witnesses. This opens a campaign of unlimited duration, for, as n.o.body is rash enough to trust himself or his cause to real and _bona-fide_ testimony, witnesses are usually selected amongst the most astute and ready-witted persons of your acquaintance." "Oh," cried I, "this is a little too strong, isn't it?" "Let me give you an instance," said he, good-humouredly, and not in the least disposed to be displeased with my expression of distrust. "Some time back an American gentleman took up his abode for some weeks on the Chiaja at Naples, and in the same house there lived an Italian, with whom, from frequently meeting on the stairs and corridors, a sort of hat-touching acquaintance had grown up. At length one day, as the American was pa.s.sing hastily out, the Italian accosted him with a courteous bow and smile, and said, 'When will it be your perfect convenience, signor, to repay me that little loan of two hundred ducats it was my happy privilege to have lent you last month?'

"The American, astounded as he was, had yet patience to inquire whether he had not mistaken him for another.

"The other smiled somewhat reproachfully, as he said, 'I trust, signor, you are not disposed to ignore the obligation. You are the gentleman who lives, I believe, on the second floor left?'

"'Very true; I do live there, and I owe you nothing. I never borrowed a carlino from you--I never spoke to you before; and if you ever take the liberty to speak to me again, I'll knock you down.'

"The Italian smiled again, not so blandly, perhaps, but as significantly, and saying, 'We shall see,' bowed and retired.

"The American thought little more of the matter till, going to the Prefecture to obtain his vise for Borne, he discovered that his pa.s.sport had been stopped, and a detainer put upon him for this debt. He hastened at once to his Minister, who referred him to the law-adviser of the Legation for counsel. The man of law looked grave; he neither heeded the angry denunciations of the enraged Yankee, nor his reiterated a.s.surances that the whole was an infamous fraud. He simply said, 'The case is difficult, but I will do my best.' After the lapse of about a week, a message came from the Prefect to say that the stranger's pa.s.sport was at his service whenever he desired to have it.

"'I knew it would be so!' cried the American, as he came suddenly upon his lawyer in the street. 'I was certain that you were only exaggerating the difficulty of a matter that must have been so simple; for, as I never owed the money, there was no reason why I should pay it.'

"'It was a case for some address, notwithstanding,' said the other, shaking his head.

"'Address! fiddle-stick! It was a plain matter of fact, and needed neither skill nor cunning. You of course showed that this fellow was a stranger to me--that we had never interchanged a word till the day he made this rascally demand?'

"'I did nothing of the kind, sir. If I had put in so contemptible a plea, you would have lost your cause. What I did was this: I asked what testimony he could adduce as to the original loan, and he gave me the name of one witness, a certain Count well known in this city, who was at breakfast with him when you called to borrow this money, and who saw the pieces counted out and placed in your hand.'

"'You denounced this fellow as a perjurer?'

"'Far from it, sir. I respect the testimony of a man of station and family, and I would not insult the feelings of the Count by daring to impugn it; but as the plaintiff had called only one witness to the loan, I produced two just as respectable, just as distinguished, who saw you repay the debt! You are now free; and remember, sir, that wherever your wanderings lead you, never cease to remember that, whatever be our demerits at Naples, at least we can say with pride, The laws are administered with equal justice to all men!'"

The entrance of the gendarme at this moment cut short the question I was about to ask, whether I was to accept this story as a fact or as a parable.