The Patriot Part 32

This was humiliating. "Listen, listen!" he answered, and began reciting a ballad by Carrer, always going back to the beginning after the first four lines, which were all he knew of it, his expression becoming ever more mysterious, his voice ever fainter, until it was only an inarticulate murmur, and thus at last Signorina Missipip, lulled by the rhythm of the lines, pa.s.sed with them into the world of dreams. When he heard her sleeping peacefully it seemed to him he was so cruel to leave her, he felt himself such a traitor, that he wavered in his resolve. He at once controlled himself, however.

The sweet dialogue with the child had greatly soothed him and raised his spirits. He began to be conscious of an imperative duty towards his wife which would henceforth be inc.u.mbent upon him. He must show himself a man, both in will and in deed, and this at the cost of any sacrifice. He must defend his faith against her by his works, by leaving home, by labour and suffering; and then--and then--if Almighty G.o.d should see fit to allow the cannon to roar for Italy, he must push ever to the front; and let the Austrian ball come, if it but teach her to weep and pray at last!

He remembered that he had not said his evening prayers. Poor Franco, he had never been able to say them in bed without dropping off to sleep before they were half finished. Feeling comparatively calm, and reflecting that it might perhaps be some time before Luisa came to bed, he feared he should go to sleep, and what would she say if she found him sleeping? He rose very softly and said his prayers; then he lighted the candle and sat down at the writing-desk, intending to read, but presently he fell asleep in his chair.

He was aroused by the beat of Veronica's wooden shoes on the stairs.

Luisa was not yet come. Soon, however, she entered the room, and expressed no surprise at seeing Franco already up.

"It is four o'clock," she said. "If you intend to start, you have only half an hour's time." He must leave home at half-past four, to be sure of reaching Menaggio in time for the first boat coming from Colico.

Instead of going to Como and thence to Milan as had been officially announced, Franco was to leave the steamer at Argegno and go up to S.

Fedele, coming down into Switzerland by Val Mara or by Orimento and Monte Generoso.

Franco signed to his wife to be quiet, that she might not disturb Maria.

Then with another silent gesture he called her to him.

"I am going," he said. "Last night I was harsh with you. I beg you to forgive me. I should have answered you differently, even though I was in the right. You know my temperament. Forgive me! At least, do not let us part in anger."

"For my part I feel none," Luisa answered gently, as one who finds it easy to condescend, because he feels himself superior.

The final preparations were made in silence; breakfast was eaten in silence. Franco went to embrace the uncle to whom he had not said good-bye the night before; then he returned to the alcove-room alone, and kneeling beside the little bed, touched with his lips a tiny hand that was hanging over the edge. Upon returning to the parlour he found Luisa in shawl and hat, and asked if she were going to Porlezza also.

Yes, she was going. Everything was ready. Luisa had the handbag, the valise was in the boat, and Ismaele was waiting on the stairs of the boathouse, one foot on the step, the other on the prow of the boat.

Veronica accompanied the travellers with a light, and wished her master a pleasant journey, with a crestfallen expression, for she had an inkling of the quarrel.

Two minutes later and the heavy boat, pushed forward by Ismaele's slow and steady "travelling strokes," was pa.s.sing beneath the wall of the kitchen-garden. Franco put his head out of the little window. The rose-bushes, the caper-bushes, and the aloes hanging from the wall, pa.s.sed slowly in the pale light of this starry but moonless night; then the orange-trees, the medlar, and the pine slipped by. Good-bye!

Good-bye! They pa.s.sed the cemetery, the _Zocca di Maine_, the narrow lane where he had so often walked with Maria, the Tavorell. Franco no longer watched. The light that usually burned in the little cabin was not there to-night, and he could not see his wife, who was silent.

"Are you going to Porlezza about those papers of the notary's, or simply to accompany me?" he said.

"This too!" Luisa murmured sadly. "I tried to be strictly honest with you, and you took offence. You ask my forgiveness, and now you say such things as this to me. I see that one cannot be faithful to truth without great, great suffering. But patience! I have chosen that path now. You will know soon whether I really came on your account or not. Do not humble me by making me say so now."

"_Do not humble me!_" Franco exclaimed. "I do not understand. We are indeed different in so many ways. My G.o.d, how different we are! You are always so completely mistress of yourself, you can always express your thoughts so exactly, they are always so clear, so cool."

Luisa murmured: "Yes, we are different."

Neither spoke again until they reached Cressogno. When they were near the Marchesa's villa Luisa began to talk, and tried to keep the conversation alive until they should have left the villa behind. She asked him to repeat to her the itinerary that had been arranged for his journey, and suggested that he take only his handbag with him, for the valise would be a burden from Argegno on. She had already spoken to Ismaele about it, and he had promised to carry it to Lugano and send it on to Turin from that place. Meanwhile they had pa.s.sed his grandmother's villa.

Now the sanctuary of Caravina came in sight. Twice during their courts.h.i.+p Franco and Luisa had met under those olive-trees, at the _festa_ of Caravina, on the eighth of September. And now the dear little church in its grove of olives, beneath the awful rocks of the peak of Cressogno, was left behind also. Farewell, little church. Farewell to the past!

"Remember," Franco said, almost harshly, "that Maria is to say her prayers every morning and evening. It is an order I give you."

"I should have made her do so without this order," Luisa answered. "I know Maria does not belong to me alone."

Then they were silent all the way to Porlezza. Coming forth from the tranquil bay of Valsolda, seeing other valleys, other horizons, the lake just rippled by the first breath of dawn, the two travellers were drawn towards other thoughts, were led to think, without knowing why, of the uncertain future, which must bring great events, of which prophetic whisperings already circulated mysteriously through the heavy Austrian silence. Some one called out from the sh.o.r.e at Porlezza, and Ismaele began to row rapidly. It was the driver, Toni Pollin, who was shouting to them to make haste if they wished to catch the steamer at Menaggio.

The last moments had come. Franco let down the window in the little door, and looked at the man as if he were most anxious not to lose a word.

When they touched the sh.o.r.e he turned to his wife. "Are you going to get out also?" "If you wish it," she said. They alighted. A cabriolet stood ready on the sh.o.r.e. "By the way," said Luisa, "you will find some lunch in your bag." They embraced, exchanging a cold and rapid kiss in the presence of three or four curious bystanders "Try and make Maria forgive me for leaving her thus," said Franco, and they were his last words, for Toni Pollin was hurrying them: "Quick, quick!" The horse started off at a brisk trot, and the cabriolet rattled noisily, with a great snapping of the whip, through the dark and narrow street of Porlezza.

Franco was on board the _Falcon_ between Campo and Argegno when he thought of his lunch. He opened the bag, and his heart gave a bound as he perceived a letter bearing as an address the words "For You" in his wife's hand. He tore it open eagerly, and read as follows--

"If you only knew what I am experiencing in my soul, how I am suffering, how sorely I am tempted to lay aside the little shoes--in the making of which I am far less skilful than you think--and to go to you, taking back all I have said, you would not be so harsh with me. I must have sinned deeply against truth, that the first steps I now take in following her are so difficult, so bitter.

"You think me proud, and I believed myself very sensitive, but now I feel that your humiliating words alone could not have kept me from hastening to you. What holds me back is a Voice within me, a Voice stronger than I am, which commands me to sacrifice everything save my consciousness of truth.

"Ah! I hope this sacrifice may bring its reward! I hope that one day there may be a perfect union between our two souls.

"I am going into the garden to gather for you that brave little rose we admired together the other day, the little rose that has challenged and conquered January. Do you remember how many obstacles lay between us the first time I received a flower from your hand? I was not yet in love with you, but you already dreamt of winning me. Now it is I who hope to win you!"

Franco came near letting the steamer pa.s.s Argegno without moving from his seat.

CHAPTER IX

FOR BREAD, FOR ITALY, FOR G.o.d

Eight months later, in September, 1855, Franco was occupying a miserable attic in Via Barbaroux, Turin. In February he had obtained the post of translator for the _Opinione_, with a monthly salary of eighty-five lire. Later he began to write the parliamentary reports, and his salary was raised to a hundred lire. Dina, the manager of the paper, was fond of him, and procured him extra work outside the office, thus adding twenty-five or thirty lire to his earnings. Franco lived on sixty lire a month. The rest went to Lugano to be carried thence to Oria by the faithful hands of Ismaele. To live a month on sixty lire took more courage than Franco himself had believed he possessed. The hours at the office, the translating--a laborious task for one full of scruples and literary timidity--weighed more heavily upon him than the privations; moreover he felt even sixty lire was too large a sum, and reproached himself for not being able to do with less.

He had attached himself to six other refugees, some of whom were Lombards, others Venetians. They ate together, walked together, conversed together. With the exception of Franco and a young man from Udine, all the others were between thirty and forty years of age. All were extremely poor, and not one of them had ever consented to accept a penny from the Piedmontese Government as a subsidy. The young man from Udine came of a rich family, of Austrian tendencies, and received not a penny from home. He was a good flutist, gave four or five lessons a week, and played in the small orchestras of second-rate theatres. A notary from Padua was copyist in Boggio's office. A lawyer from Caprino, Bergamasco, who had seen service at Rome in 1849, was book-keeper at a large establishment in Via Nuovo, where umbrellas and walking-sticks were sold, and for this reason his friends had dubbed him "the knave of clubs." A fourth, a Milanese, had been through the campaign of 1848 as one of Carlo Alberto's scouts. His present occupation was to quarrel continually with "the knave of clubs," for reasons of provincial rivalry, to teach fencing in a couple of boarding schools, and in winter to play the piano behind a mysterious curtain in halls where polkas were danced at a penny each. The others lived on insufficient allowances from their families. All except Franco were unmarried, and all were gay. They called themselves, and were called by others, the "seven wise men," and in their wisdom they dominated Turin from the elevated positions of seven attics, scattered all over the city from Borgo San Dalmazzo to Piazza Milano.

Franco's was the most wretched of these attics, the rent being only seven lire a month. No member of this band had any services whatsoever performed for them, save the notary from Padua, for whom the doorkeeper's sister carried water to his attic, and had he not been the calm philosopher he was, the merciless teasings of his friends would have made him regret Marga's devotion. They all cleaned their own boots.

The most skilful with his hands was Franco, and it was his lot to sew on his friends' b.u.t.tons when they did not wish to humble themselves by applying to the lawyer and his Marga, who, nevertheless, often had her hands full, "poor, overworked woman that I am!" The young man from Udine had a sweetheart, a little _tota_[N] from the first booth in Piazza Castello on the corner of Po, but he was jealous, and would not allow her to sew on b.u.t.tons for any one. The friends took their revenge by calling her "the puppet," because she sold puppets and dolls. However, thanks to "the puppet," he was the only member of the band whose clothes were always in order, and whose cravat was always tied in a graceful knot. They took their meals at a restaurant in Vanchiglia, which they had christened "Stomach-ache Tavern," and where they had lunch and dinner for thirty lire a month.

Their only extravagance was the _bicierin_, a mixture of coffee, milk, and chocolate, costing only fifteen centimes. They drank this in the morning, the Venetians at the Cafe Alfieri, the others at Cafe Florio.

All except Franco, however. He went without the _bicierin_ and the _torcett_, a cake costing a penny that went with it, in order that he might lay by enough for a little trip to Lugano, and a trifling present for Maria. In the winter they walked under the porticoes of Po, the "wise ones" in the vicinity of the University, while the more light-minded frequented the porticoes on the San Francesco side. After their walk they would go to a coffee-house, where the one whose turn it was would sip a cup of coffee, while the others read the newspapers and looted the sugar basin. Once a week, to satisfy the "knave of clubs,"

they would betake themselves to a den in Via Bertola, where the purest and most exquisite Giambava wine was to be had.

The flutist from Udine of course went to the theatres, and by his means some of the others went _gratis_ from time to time, but always to the play, and usually either to the Rossini or Gerbino theatres. For Franco to be obliged to pa.s.s the posters at the Regio and the other opera houses was a far greater trial than to be obliged to clean his own boots and lunch off two square inches of omelet that was so thin it would have served admirably to observe the spots on the sun through. He had had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a certain C., a Venetian, who was secretary at the department of Public Works, and who presented him to the family of a most distinguished major in the sanitary corps, also Venetian, and who owned a piano and was in the habit of receiving a few friends of an evening, on which occasions he would regale them with a cup of most excellent coffee of a quality almost unique in the Turin of those days. When, for one reason or another, the "seven wise men" did not spend the evening together, Franco would go to this gentleman's house in Piazza Milano, to make music, to converse on art with the daughters, or to discuss politics with his hostess, a fierce Venetian patriot, a woman of great talents, and possessed of a strenuous soul, who had not only borne heroically all the hards.h.i.+ps and the bitterness of exile, but had sustained the courage of her husband, whose first steps had been most painful and difficult; for those precious, honest old numskulls of the inflexible Piedmontese administration had actually obliged this already famous professor of the University of Padua to submit to an examination, before they would admit him into the army as surgeon.[O]

The correspondence between Turin and Oria did not indeed reflect the true state of mind of Franco and Luisa; it ran on smoothly and affectionately enough, but with great caution and reserve on either side. Luisa had expected that Franco would answer her note, and resume the great discussion. As he never mentioned either the note or what had pa.s.sed between them that last night, she risked an allusion. It was allowed to pa.s.s unheeded. As a matter of fact Franco had several times started to write with the intention of confuting his wife's opinions.

Before beginning he always felt himself strong, and was convinced that with a little thought he could easily discover crus.h.i.+ng arguments, and, indeed, arguments he believed to be such would rush to his pen, but when they were set down in writing, he would at once be forced to recognise their inadequacy. Though surprised and grieved he would make another attempt, but always with the same result. Nevertheless his wife was certainly in error; this he never for a moment doubted, and there must be a way of demonstrating it to her. He must study. But what, and how?

He consulted a priest to whom he had been to confession soon after his arrival in Turin. This priest, a little misshapen old man, who was fiery and very learned, invited him to his house in Piazza Paisana, and began to help him enthusiastically, suggesting a number of books, some for his own perusal, and others to be sent to his wife. He was a learned Orientalist, and an enthusiastic Thomist, and had taken a great fancy to Franco, of whose genius and culture he had formed an opinion which was perhaps exaggeratedly favourable. At one time he was on the point of proposing to him the study of Hebrew, and indeed insisted upon his reading St. Thomas. He went so far as to sketch for Franco the outlines of a letter to his wife, with a list of the arguments he must expound.

Franco had at once fallen in love with the enthusiastic little old man, who, moreover, had the pure expression of a saint. He began to study St.

Thomas with great ardour, but did not persevere long. He felt he was embarking upon a sea without beginning and without end, across which he was unable to steer a straight course. The scholastic scheme of treatment, that sameness in the form of argument for and against, that icy Latin, dense with profound thought, and colourless on the surface, had successfully routed all his good intentions at the end of three days. Of the arguments contained in the sketch for the letter he understood only a small part. He got the priest to explain them to him, understood somewhat better, and prepared to open a campaign with them, but found himself as much enc.u.mbered by them as was David by the armour of Saul. They weighed upon him, he could not handle them, he felt they were not his own and never would be. No, he could not present himself before his wife with Professor G.'s priestly hat and tunic, a theological lance in his hand, and entrenched behind a s.h.i.+eld of metaphysics. He recognised that he was not born to philosophise in any way; he was dest.i.tute of the very power of strictly logical reasoning, for indeed his glowing heart, rich in tenderness and indignation, would too often interfere, speaking for or against, according to its own pa.s.sions. One evening at Casa C. he was playing the _andante_ of Beethoven's twenty-eighth sonata, when, with quivering nerves and flas.h.i.+ng eyes, he said in a low tone: "Ah! This, this, this!" He was reflecting that no theologian, no doctor, could communicate the religious sentiment as Beethoven does. As he played on he put his whole soul into the music, and longed for Luisa's presence that he might play this divine _andante_ to her, that he might unite himself to her, praying thus in an ineffable spasm of the spirit. But he did not reflect that Luisa who, moreover, was far less sensitive to music than he was, would probably have attributed another meaning to the _andante_, that of the painful conflict between our affections and our convictions.

He went to G., returned the works of St. Thomas and confessed his utter incapacity in such humble and feeling language, that after a few moments of frowning and uneasy silence, the old priest forgave him. "There, there, there!" said he, resignedly taking back the first volume of the _Somma_. "Commend yourself to our Lord, and let us hope He Himself will act." Thus ended Franco's theological studies.

All this pondering of his wife's opinions and his own, and above all the Professor's advice: "Commend yourself to our Lord," were not fruitless. He began to see that on some points Luisa was not mistaken.

When she had reproached him for not leading a life in conformity with his faith, he had been more offended by this than by anything else. Now a generous impulse carried him to the other extreme; he judged himself severely, exaggerated his faults of idleness, of anger, even of greed, and held himself responsible for Luisa's intellectual aberrations. He felt a desire to tell her this, to humble himself before her, to separate his own cause from the cause of G.o.d. When he obtained his position on the _Opinione_, and regulated his own expenses in such a manner as to be able to make an allowance to his family, his wife wrote that this allowance was entirely too large in proportion to his earnings, and that the thought of him, living in Turin on sixty lire a month, gave her own food a bitter taste. He answered--and this was not strictly true--that in the first place, he never went hungry, but that he would, indeed, be glad to fast, because he felt an intense desire to change his way of life, to expiate his past idleness, including the hours he had wasted on his flowers and music, to expiate all past softness, all past weaknesses, including the weakness for dainty dishes and fine wines. He added that he had asked G.o.d's forgiveness for this past life, and that he felt he must ask her forgiveness also. In fact the Paduan, with whom Franco had become very intimate, and to whom he read this pa.s.sage in his letter as a sort of confirmation of previous confessions, exclaimed: "That bit sounds for all the world like the oration of Mana.s.seh, king of Judaea!"

Luisa wrote most affectionately, but with less effusion. Franco's silence on the painful subject displeased her, and she felt it would be unwise on her part to allude to it in the face of a silence so obstinate.