Lilian Voinich. The Gadfly
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... Arthur turned away in silence. On the wall hung a large woodencrucifix; and his eyes wandered slowly to its face; but with no appeal in
them, only a dim wonder at this supine and patient God that had no
thunderbolt for a priest who betrayed the confessional.
"Will you kindly sign this receipt for your papers?" said the colonel
blandly; "and then I need not keep you any longer. I am sure you must be in
a hurry to get home; and my time is very much taken up just now with the
affairs of that foolish young man, Bolla, who tried your Christian
forbearance so hard. I am afraid he will get a rather heavy sentence.
Good-afternoon!"
Arthur signed the receipt, took his papers, and went out in dead
silence. He followed Enrico to the massive gate; and, without a word of
farewell, descended to the water's edge, where a ferryman was waiting to
take him across the moat. As he mounted the stone steps leading to the
street, a girl in a cotton dress and straw hat ran up to him with
outstretched hands.
"Arthur! Oh, I'm so glad--I'm so glad!"
He drew his hands away, shivering.
"Jim!" he said at last, in a voice that did not seem to belong to him.
"Jim!"
"I've been waiting here for half an hour. They said you would come out
at four. Arthur, why do you look at me like that? Something has happened!
Arthur, what has come to you? Stop!"
He had turned away, and was walking slowly down the street, as if he
had forgotten her presence. Thoroughly frightened at his manner, she ran
after him and caught him by the arm.
"Arthur!"
He stopped and looked up with bewildered eyes. She slipped her arm
through his, and they walked on again for a moment in silence.
"Listen, dear," she began softly; "you mustn't get so upset over this
wretched business. I know it's dreadfully hard on you, but everybody
understands."
"What business?" he asked in the same dull voice.
"I mean, about Bolla's letter."
Arthur's face contracted painfully at the name.
"I thought you wouldn't have heard of it," Gemma went on; "but I
suppose they've told you. Bolla must be perfectly mad to have imagined such
a thing."
"Such a thing----?"
"You don't know about it, then? He has written a horrible letter,
saying that you have told about the steamers, and got him arrested. It's
perfectly absurd, of course; everyone that knows you sees that; it's only
the people who don't know you that have been upset by it. Really, that's
what I came here for--to tell you that no one in our group believes a word
of it."
"Gemma! But it's--it's true!"
She shrank slowly away from him, and stood quite still, her eyes wide
and dark with horror, her face as white as the kerchief at her neck. A great
icy wave of silence seemed to have swept round them both, shutting them out,
in a world apart, from the life and movement of the street.
"Yes," he whispered at last; "the steamers-- I spoke of that; and I
said his name--oh, my God! my God! What shall I do?"
He came to himself suddenly, realizing her presence and the mortal
terror in her face. Yes, of course, she must think------
"Gemma, you don't understand!" he burst out, moving nearer; but she
recoiled with a sharp cry:
"Don't touch me!"
Arthur seized her right hand with sudden violence.
"Listen, for God's sake! It was not my fault; I----"
"Let go; let my hand go! Let go!"
The next instant she wrenched her fingers away from his, and struck him
across the cheek with her open hand.
A kind of mist came over his eyes. For a little while he was conscious
of nothing but Gemma's white and desperate face, and the right hand which
she had fiercely rubbed on the skirt of her cotton dress. Then the daylight
crept back again, and he looked round and saw that he was alone.
PART I: CHAPTER VII.
IT had long been dark when Arthur rang at the front door of the great
house in the Via Borra. He remembered that he had been wandering about the
streets; but where, or why, or for how long, he had no idea. Julia's page
opened the door, yawning, and grinned significantly at the haggard, stony
face. It seemed to him a prodigious joke to have the young master come home
from jail like a "drunk and disorderly" beggar. Arthur went upstairs. On the
first floor he met Gibbons coming down with an air of lofty and solemn
disapproval. He tried to pass with a muttered "Good evening"; but Gibbons
was no easy person to get past against his will.
"The gentlemen are out, sir," he said, looking critically at Arthur's
rather neglected dress and hair. "They have gone with the mistress to an
evening party, and will not be back till nearly twelve."
Arthur looked at his watch; it was nine o'clock. Oh, yes! he would have
time--plenty of time------
"My mistress desired me to ask whether you would like any supper, sir;
and to say that she hopes you will sit up for her, as she particularly
wishes to speak to you this evening."
"I don't want anything, thank you; you can tell her I have not gone to
bed."
He went up to his room. Nothing in it had been changed since his
arrest; Montanelli's portrait was on the table where he had placed it, and
the crucifix stood in the alcove as before. He paused a moment on the
threshold, listening; but the house was quite still; evidently no one was
coming to disturb him. He stepped softly into the room and locked the door.
And so he had come to the end. There was nothing to think or trouble
about; an importunate and useless consciousness to get rid of--and nothing
more. It seemed a stupid, aimless kind of thing, somehow.
He had not formed any resolve to commit suicide, nor indeed had he
thought much about it; the thing was quite obvious and inevitable. He had
even no definite idea as to what manner of death to choose; all that
mattered was to be done with it quickly--to have it over and forget. He had
no weapon in the room, not even a pocketknife; but that was of no
consequence--a towel would do, or a sheet torn into strips.
There was a large nail just over the window. That would do; but it must
be firm to bear his weight. He got up on a chair to feel the nail; it was
not quite firm, and he stepped down again and took a hammer from a drawer.
He knocked in the nail, and was about to pull a sheet off his bed, when he
suddenly remembered that he had not said his prayers. Of course, one must
pray before dying; every Christian does that. There are even special prayers
for a departing soul.
He went into the alcove and knelt down before the crucifix. "Almighty
and merciful God----" he began aloud; and with that broke off and said no
more. Indeed, the world was grown so dull that there was nothing left to
pray for--or against. And then, what did Christ know about a trouble of this
kind--Christ, who had never suffered it? He had only been betrayed, like
Bolla; He had never been tricked into betraying.
Arthur rose, crossing himself from old habit. Approaching the table, he
saw lying upon it a letter addressed to him, in Montanelli's handwriting. It
was in pencil:
"My Dear Boy: It is a great disappointment to me that I cannot see you
on the day of your release; but I have been sent for to visit a dying man. I
shall not get back till late at night. Come to me early to-morrow morning.
In great haste,
"L. M."
He put down the letter with a sigh; it did seem hard on the Padre.
How the people had laughed and gossiped in the streets! Nothing was
altered since the days when he had been alive. Not the least little one of
all the daily trifles round him was changed because a human soul, a living
human soul, had been struck down dead. It was all just the same as before.
The water had plashed in the fountains; the sparrows had twittered under the
eaves; just as they had done yesterday, just as they would do to-morrow. And
as for him, he was dead--quite dead.
He sat down on the edge of the bed, crossed his arms along the
foot-rail, and rested his forehead upon them. There was plenty of time; and
his head ached so--the very middle of the brain seemed to ache; it was all
so dull and stupid--so utterly meaningless----
. . . . .
The front-door bell rang sharply, and he started up in a breathless
agony of terror, with both hands at his throat. They had come back--he had
sat there dreaming, and let the precious time slip away--and now he must see
their faces and hear their cruel tongues--their sneers and comments-- If
only he had a knife------
He looked desperately round the room. His mother's work-basket stood in
a little cupboard; surely there would be scissors; he might sever an artery.
No; the sheet and nail were safer, if he had timeHe dragged the counterpane
from his bed, and with frantic haste began tearing off a strip. The sound of
footsteps came up the stairs. No; the strip was too wide; it would not tie
firmly; and there must be a noose. He worked faster as the footsteps drew
nearer; and the blood throbbed in his temples and roared in his ears.
Quicker-- quicker! Oh, God! five minutes more!
There was a knock at the door. The strip of torn stuff dropped from his
hands, and he sat quite still, holding his breath to listen. The handle of
the door was tried; then Julia's voice called:
"Arthur!"
He stood up, panting.
"Arthur, open the door, please; we are waiting."
He gathered up the torn counterpane, threw it into a drawer, and
hastily smoothed down the bed.
"Arthur!" This time it was James who called, and the door-handle was
shaken impatiently. "Are you asleep?"
Arthur looked round the room, saw that everything was hidden, and
unlocked the door.
"I should think you might at least have obeyed my express request that
you should sit up for us, Arthur," said Julia, sweeping into the room in a
towering passion. "You appear to think it the proper thing for us to dance
attendance for half an hour at your door----"
"Four minutes, my dear," James mildly corrected, stepping into the room
at the end of his wife's pink satin train. "I certainly think, Arthur, that
it would have been more--becoming if----"
"What do you want?" Arthur interrupted. He was standing with his hand
upon the door, glancing furtively from one to the other like a trapped
animal. But James was too obtuse and Julia too angry to notice the look.
Mr. Burton placed a chair for his wife and sat down, carefully pulling
up his new trousers at the knees. "Julia and I," he began, "feel it to be
our duty to speak to you seriously about----"
"I can't listen to-night; I--I'm not well. My head aches--you must
wait."
Arthur spoke in a strange, indistinct voice, with a confused and
rambling manner. James looked round in surprise.
"Is there anything the matter with you?" he asked anxiously, suddenly
remembering that Arthur had come from a very hotbed of infection. "I hope
you're not sickening for anything. You look quite feverish."
"Nonsense!" Julia interrupted sharply. "It's only the usual
theatricals, because he's ashamed to face us. Come here and sit down,
Arthur." Arthur slowly crossed the room and sat down on the bed. "Yes?" he
said wearily.
Mr. Burton coughed, cleared his throat, smoothed his already immaculate
beard, and began the carefully prepared speech over again:
"I feel it to be my duty--my painful duty--to speak very seriously to
you about your extraordinary behaviour in connecting yourself with--a--
law-breakers and incendiaries and--a--persons of disreputable character. I
believe you to have been, perhaps, more foolish than depraved--a----"
He paused.
"Yes?" Arthur said again.
"Now, I do not wish to be hard on you," James went on, softening a
little in spite of himself before the weary hopelessness of Arthur's manner.
"I am quite willing to believe that you have been led away by bad
companions, and to take into account your youth and inexperience and
the--a-- a--imprudent and--a--impulsive character which you have, I fear,
inherited from your mother."
Arthur's eyes wandered slowly to his mother's portrait and back again,
but he did not speak.
"But you will, I feel sure, understand," James continued, "that it is
quite impossible for me to keep any longer in my house a person who has
brought public disgrace upon a name so highly respected as ours."
"Yes?" Arthur repeated once more.
"Well?" said Julia sharply, closing her fan with a snap and laying it
across her knee. "Are you going to have the goodness to say anything but
'Yes,' Arthur?"
"You will do as you think best, of course," he answered slowly, without
moving. "It doesn't matter much either way."
"Doesn't--matter?" James repeated, aghast; and his wife rose with a
laugh.
"Oh, it doesn't matter, doesn't it? Well, James, I hope you understand
now how much gratitude you may expect in that quarter. I told you what would
come of showing charity to Papist adventuresses and their----"
"Hush, hush! Never mind that, my dear!"
"It's all nonsense, James; we've had more than enough of this
sentimentality! A love-child setting himself up as a member of the
family--it's quite time he did know what his mother was! Why should we be
saddled with the child of a Popish priest's amourettes? There, then-- look!"
She pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of her pocket and tossed it
across the table to Arthur. He opened it; the writing was in his mother's
hand, and was dated four months before his birth. It was a confession,
addressed to her husband, and with two signatures.
Arthur's eyes travelled slowly down the page, past the unsteady letters
in which her name was written, to the strong, familiar signature: "Lorenzo
Montanelli." For a moment he stared at the writing; then, without a word,
refolded the paper and laid it down. James rose and took his wife by the
arm.
"There, Julia, that will do. Just go downstairs now; it's late, and I
want to talk a little business with Arthur. It won't interest you."
She glanced up at her husband; then back at Arthur, who was silently
staring at the floor.
"He seems half stupid," she whispered.
When she had gathered up her train and left the room, James carefully
shut the door and went back to his chair beside the table. Arthur sat as
before, perfectly motionless and silent.
"Arthur," James began in a milder tone, now Julia was not there to
hear, "I am very sorry that this has come out. You might just as well not
have known it. However, all that's over; and I am pleased to see that you
can behave with such self-control. Julia is a--a little excited; ladies
often--anyhow, I don't want to be too hard on you."
He stopped to see what effect the kindly words had produced; but Arthur
was quite motionless.
"Of course, my dear boy," James went on after a moment, "this is a
distressing story altogether, and the best thing we can do is to hold our
tongues about it. My father was generous enough not to divorce your mother
when she confessed her fall to him; he only demanded that the man who had
led her astray should leave the country at once; and, as you know, he went
to China as a missionary. For my part, I was very much against your having
anything to do with him when he came back; but my father, just at the last,
consented to let him teach you, on condition that he never attempted to see
your mother. I must, in justice, acknowledge that I believe they both
observed that condition faithfully to the end. It is a very deplorable
business; but----"
Arthur looked up. All the life and expression had gone out of his face;
it was like a waxen mask.
"D-don't you think," he said softly, with a curious stammering
hesitation on the words, "th-that--all this--is--v-very--funny?"
"FUNNY?" James pushed his chair away from the table, and sat staring at
him, too much petrified for anger. "Funny! Arthur, are you mad?"
Arthur suddenly threw back his head, and burst into a frantic fit of
laughing.
"Arthur!" exclaimed the shipowner, rising with dignity, "I am amazed at
your levity!"
There was no answer but peal after peal of laughter, so loud and
boisterous that even James began to doubt whether there was not something
more the matter here than levity.
"Just like a hysterical woman," he muttered, turning, with a
contemptuous shrug of his shoulders, to tramp impatiently up and down the
room. "Really, Arthur, you're worse than Julia; there, stop laughing! I
can't wait about here all night."
He might as well have asked the crucifix to come down from its
pedestal. Arthur was past caring for remonstrances or exhortations; he only
laughed, and laughed, and laughed without end.
"This is absurd!" said James, stopping at last in his irritated pacing
to and fro. "You are evidently too much excited to be reasonable to-night. I
can't talk business with you if you're going on that way. Come to me
to-morrow morning after breakfast. And now you had better go to bed.
Good-night."
He went out, slamming the door. "Now for the hysterics downstairs," he
muttered as he tramped noisily away. "I suppose it'll be tears there!"
. . . . .
The frenzied laughter died on Arthur's lips. He snatched up the hammer
from the table and flung himself upon the crucifix.
With the crash that followed he came suddenly to his senses, standing
before the empty pedestal, the hammer still in his hand, and the fragments
of the broken image scattered on the floor about his feet.
He threw down the hammer. "So easy!" he said, and turned away. "And
what an idiot I am!"
He sat down by the table, panting heavily for breath, and rested his
forehead on both hands. Presently he rose, and, going to the wash-stand,
poured a jugful of cold water over his head and face. He came back quite
composed, and sat down to think.
And it was for such things as these--for these false and slavish
people, these dumb and soulless gods--that he had suffered all these
tortures of shame and passion and despair; had made a rope to hang himself,
forsooth, because one priest was a liar. As if they were not all liars!
Well, all that was done with; he was wiser now. He need only shake off these
vermin and begin life afresh.
There were plenty of goods vessels in the docks; it would be an easy
matter to stow himself away in one of them, and get across to Canada,
Australia, Cape Colony--anywhere. It was no matter for the country, if only
it was far enough; and, as for the life out there, he could see, and if it
did not suit him he could try some other place.
He took out his purse. Only thirty-three paoli; but his watch was a
good one. That would help him along a bit; and in any case it was of no
consequence--he should pull through somehow. But they would search for him,
all these people; they would be sure to make inquiries at the docks. No; he
must put them on a false scent--make them believe him dead; then he should
be quite free-- quite free. He laughed softly to himself at the thought of
the Burtons searching for his corpse. What a farce the whole thing was!
Taking a sheet of paper, he wrote the first words that occurred to him:
"I believed in you as I believed in God. God is a thing made of clay,
that I can smash with a hammer; and you have fooled me with a lie."
He folded up the paper, directed it to Montanelli, and, taking another
sheet, wrote across it: "Look for my body in Darsena." Then he put on his
hat and went out of the room. Passing his mother's portrait, he looked up
with a laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. She, too, had lied to him.
He crept softly along the corridor, and, slipping back the door-bolts,
went out on to the great, dark, echoing marble staircase. It seemed to yawn
beneath him like a black pit as he descended.
He crossed the courtyard, treading cautiously for fear of waking Gian
Battista, who slept on the ground floor. In the wood-cellar at the back was
a little grated window, opening on the canal and not more than four feet
from the ground. He remembered that the rusty grating had broken away on one
side; by pushing a little he could make an aperture wide enough to climb out
by.
The grating was strong, and he grazed his hands badly and tore the
sleeve of his coat; but that was no matter. He looked up and down the
street; there was no one in sight, and the canal lay black and silent, an
ugly trench between two straight and slimy walls. The untried universe might
prove a dismal hole, but it could hardly be more flat and sordid than the
corner which he was leaving behind him. There was nothing to regret; nothing
to look back upon. It had been a pestilent little stagnant world, full of
squalid lies and clumsy cheats and foul-smelling ditches that were not even
deep enough to drown a man.
He walked along the canal bank, and came out upon the tiny square by
the Medici palace. It was here that Gemma had run up to him with her vivid
face, her outstretched hands. Here was the little flight of wet stone steps
leading down to the moat; and there the fortress scowling across the strip
of dirty water. He had never noticed before how squat and mean it looked.
Passing through the narrow streets he reached the Darsena
shipping-basin, where he took off his hat and flung it into the water. It
would be found, of course, when they dragged for his body. Then he walked on
along the water's edge, considering perplexedly what to do next. He must
contrive to hide on some ship; but it was a difficult thing to do. His only
chance would be to get on to the huge old Medici breakwater and walk along
to the further end of it. There was a low-class tavern on the point;
probably he should find some sailor there who could be bribed.
But the dock gates were closed. How should he get past them, and past
the customs officials? His stock of money would not furnish the high bribe
that they would demand for letting him through at night and without a
passport. Besides they might recognize him.
As he passed the bronze statue of the "Four Moors," a man's figure
emerged from an old house on the opposite side of the shipping basin and
approached the bridge. Arthur slipped at once into the deep shadow behind
the group of statuary and crouched down in the darkness, peeping cautiously
round the corner of the pedestal.
It was a soft spring night, warm and starlit. The water lapped against
the stone walls of the basin and swirled in gentle eddies round the steps
with a sound as of low laughter. Somewhere near a chain creaked, swinging
slowly to and fro. A huge iron crane towered up, tall and melancholy in the
dimness. Black on a shimmering expanse of starry sky and pearly
cloud-wreaths, the figures of the fettered, struggling slaves stood out in
vain and vehement protest against a merciless doom.
The man approached unsteadily along the water side, shouting an English
street song. He was evidently a sailor returning from a carouse at some
tavern. No one else was within sight. As he drew near, Arthur stood up and
stepped into the middle of the roadway. The sailor broke off in his song
with an oath, and stopped short.
"I want to speak to you," Arthur said in Italian. "Do you understand
me?"
The man shook his head. "It's no use talking that patter to me," he
said; then, plunging into bad French, asked sullenly: "What do you want? Why
can't you let me pass?"
"Just come out of the light here a minute; I want to speak to you."
"Ah! wouldn't you like it? Out of the light! Got a knife anywhere about
you?"
"No, no, man! Can't you see I only want your help? I'll pay you for
it?" "Eh? What? And dressed like a swell, too------" The sailor had relapsed
into English. He now moved into the shadow and leaned against the railing of
the pedestal.
"Well," he said, returning to his atrocious French; "and what is it you
want?"
"I want to get away from here----"
"Aha! Stowaway! Want me to hide you? Been up to something, I suppose.
Stuck a knife into somebody, eh? Just like these foreigners! And where might
you be wanting to go? Not to the police station, I fancy?"
He laughed in his tipsy way, and winked one eye.
"What vessel do you belong to?"
"Carlotta--Leghorn to Buenos Ayres; shipping oil one way and hides the
other. She's over there"--pointing in the direction of the breakwater --
"beastly old hulk!"
"Buenos Ayres--yes! Can you hide me anywhere on board?"
"How much can you give?"
"Not very much; I have only a few paoli."
"No. Can't do it under fifty--and cheap at that, too--a swell like
you."
"What do you mean by a swell? If you like my clothes you may change
with me, but I can't give you more money than I have got."
"You have a watch there. Hand it over."
Arthur took out a lady's gold watch, delicately chased and enamelled,
with the initials "G. B." on the back. It had been his mother's--but what
did that matter now?
"Ah!" remarked the sailor with a quick glance at it. "Stolen, of
course! Let me look!"
Arthur drew his hand away. "No," he said. "I will give you the watch
when we are on board; not before."
"You're not such a fool as you look, after all! I'll bet it's your
first scrape, though, eh?"
"That is my business. Ah! there comes the watchman."
They crouched down behind the group of statuary and waited till the
watchman had passed. Then the sailor rose, and, telling Arthur to follow
him, walked on, laughing foolishly to himself. Arthur followed in silence.
The sailor led him back to the little irregular square by the Medici
palace; and, stopping in a dark corner, mumbled in what was intended for a
cautious whisper:
"Wait here; those soldier fellows will see you if you come further."
"What are you going to do?"
"Get you some clothes. I'm not going to take you on board with that
bloody coatsleeve."
Arthur glanced down at the sleeve which had been torn by the window
grating. A little blood from the grazed hand had fallen upon it. Evidently
the man thought him a murderer. Well, it was of no consequence what people
thought.
After some time the sailor came back, triumphant, with a bundle under
his arm.
"Change," he whispered; "and make haste about it. I must get back, and
that old Jew has kept me bargaining and haggling for half an hour."
Arthur obeyed, shrinking with instinctive disgust at the first touch of
second-hand clothes. Fortunately these, though rough and coarse, were fairly
clean. When he stepped into the light in his new attire, the sailor looked
at him with tipsy solemnity and gravely nodded his approval.
"You'll do," he said. "This way, and don't make a noise." Arthur,
carrying his discarded clothes, followed him through a labyrinth of winding
canals and dark narrow alleys; the mediaeval slum quarter which the people
of Leghorn call "New Venice." Here and there a gloomy old palace, solitary
among the squalid houses and filthy courts, stood between two noisome
ditches, with a forlorn air of trying to preserve its ancient dignity and
yet of knowing the effort to be a hopeless one. Some of the alleys, he knew,
were notorious dens of thieves, cut-throats, and smugglers; others were
merely wretched and poverty-stricken.
Beside one of the little bridges the sailor stopped, and, looking round
to see that they were not observed, descended a flight of stone steps to a
narrow landing stage. Under the bridge was a dirty, crazy old boat. Sharply
ordering Arthur to jump in and lie down, he seated himself in the boat and
began rowing towards the harbour's mouth. Arthur lay still on the wet and
leaky planks, hidden by the clothes which the man had thrown over him, and
peeping out from under them at the familiar streets and houses.
Presently they passed under a bridge and entered that part of the canal
which forms a moat for the fortress. The massive walls rose out of the
water, broad at the base and narrowing upward to the frowning turrets. How
strong, how threatening they had seemed to him a few hours ago! And now----
He laughed softly as he lay in the bottom of the boat.
"Hold your noise," the sailor whispered, "and keep your head covered!
We're close to the custom house."
Arthur drew the clothes over his head. A few yards further on the boat
stopped before a row of masts chained together, which lay across the surface
of the canal, blocking the narrow waterway between the custom house and the
fortress wall. A sleepy official came out yawning and bent over the water's
edge with a lantern in his hand.
"Passports, please."
The sailor handed up his official papers. Arthur, half stifled under
the clothes, held his breath, listening.
"A nice time of night to come back to your ship!" grumbled the customs
official. "Been out on the spree, I suppose. What's in your boat?"
"Old clothes. Got them cheap." He held up the waistcoat for inspection.
The official, lowering his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.
"It's all right, I suppose. You can pass."
He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly out into the dark,
heaving water. At a little distance Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.
"Here she is," the sailor whispered, after rowing for some time in
silence. "Keep close behind me and hold your tongue."
He clambered up the side of a huge black monster, swearing under his
breath at the clumsiness of the landsman, though Arthur's natural agility
rendered him less awkward than most people would have been in his place.
Once safely on board, they crept cautiously between dark masses of rigging
and machinery, and came at last to a hatchway, which the sailor softly
raised.
"Down here!" he whispered. "I'll be back in a minute."
The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably foul. At first
Arthur instinctively drew back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and
rancid oil. Then he remembered the "punishment cell," and descended the
ladder, shrugging his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same everywhere, it
seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with vermin, full of shameful secrets and
dark corners. Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.
In a few minutes the sailor came back with something in his hands which
Arthur could not distinctly see for the darkness.
"Now, give me the watch and money. Make haste!"
Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded in keeping back a
few coins.
"You must get me something to eat," he said; "I am half starved."
"I've brought it. Here you are." The sailor handed him a pitcher, some
hard biscuit, and a piece of salt pork. "Now mind, you must hide in this
empty barrel, here, when the customs officers come to examine to-morrow
morning. Keep as still as a mouse till we're right out at sea. I'll let you
know when to come out. And won't you just catch it when the captain sees
you--that's all! Got the drink safe? Good-night!"
The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the precious "drink" in a safe
place, climbed on to an oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he
curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the first time since his
babyhood, settled himself to sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round
him in the darkness; but neither their persistent noise nor the swaying of
the ship, nor the nauseating stench of oil, nor the prospect of to-morrow's
sea-sickness, could keep him awake. He cared no more for them all than for
the broken and dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been the gods of
his adoration.
PART II: CHAPTER I.
ONE evening in July, 1846, a few acquaintances met at Professor
Fabrizi's house in Florence to discuss plans for future political work.
Several of them belonged to the Mazzinian party and would have been
satisfied with nothing less than a democratic Republic and a United Italy.
Others were Constitutional Monarchists and Liberals of various shades. On
one point, however, they were all agreed; that of dissatisfaction with the
Tuscan censorship; and the popular professor had called the meeting in the
hope that, on this one subject at least, the representatives of the
dissentient parties would be able to get through an hour's discussion
without quarrelling.
Only a fortnight had elapsed since the famous amnesty which Pius IX.
had granted, on his accession, to political offenders in the Papal States;
but the wave of liberal enthusiasm caused by it was already spreading over
Italy. In Tuscany even the government appeared to have been affected by the
astounding event. It had occurred to Fabrizi and a few other leading
Florentines that this was a propitious moment for a bold effort to reform
the press-laws.
"Of course," the dramatist Lega had said, when the subject was first
broached to him; "it would be impossible to start a newspaper till we can
get the press-law changed; we should not bring out the first number. But we
may be able to run some pamphlets through the censorship already; and the
sooner we begin the sooner we shall get the law changed."
He was now explaining in Fabrizi's library his theory of the line which
should be taken by liberal writers at the moment.
"There is no doubt," interposed one of the company, a gray-haired
barrister with a rather drawling manner of speech, "that in some way we must
take advantage of the moment. We shall not see such a favourable one again
for bringing forward serious reforms. But I doubt the pamphlets doing any
good. They will only irritate and frighten the government instead of winning
it over to our side, which is what we really want to do. If once the
authorities begin to think of us as dangerous agitators our chance of
getting their help is gone."
"Then what would you have us do?"
"Petition."
"To the Grand Duke?"
"Yes; for an augmentation of the liberty of the press."
A keen-looking, dark man sitting by the window turned his head round
with a laugh.
"You'll get a lot out of petitioning!" he said. "I should have thought
the result of the Renzi case was enough to cure anybody of going to work
that way."
"My dear sir, I am as much grieved as you are that we did not succeed
in preventing the extradition of Renzi. But really--I do not wish to hurt
the sensibilities of anyone, but I cannot help thinking that our failure in
that case was largely due to the impatience and vehemence of some persons
among our number. I should certainly hesitate----"
"As every Piedmontese always does," the dark man interrupted sharply.
"I don't know where the vehemence and impatience lay, unless you found them
in the strings of meek petitions we sent in. That may be vehemence for
Tuscany or Piedmont, but we should not call it particularly vehement in
Naples."
"Fortunately," remarked the Piedmontese, "Neapolitan vehemence is
peculiar to Naples."
"There, there, gentlemen, that will do!" the professor put in.
"Neapolitan customs are very good things in their way and Piedmontese
customs in theirs; but just now we are in Tuscany, and the Tuscan custom is
to stick to the matter in hand. Grassini votes for petitions and Galli
against them. What do you think, Dr. Riccardo?"
"I see no harm in petitions, and if Grassini gets one up I'll sign it
with all the pleasure in life. But I don't think mere petitioning and
nothing else will accomplish much. Why can't we have both petitions and
pamphlets?"
"Simply because the pamphlets will put the government into a state of
mind in which it won't grant the petitions," said Grassini.
"It won't do that anyhow." The Neapolitan rose and came across to the
table. "Gentlemen, you're on the wrong tack. Conciliating the government
will do no good. What we must do is to rouse the people."
"That's easier said than done; how are you going to start?"
"Fancy asking Galli that! Of course he'd start by knocking the censor
on the head."
"No, indeed, I shouldn't," said Galli stoutly. "You always think if a
man comes from down south he must believe in no argument but cold steel."
"Well, what do you propose, then? Sh! Attention, gentlemen! Galli has a
proposal to make."
The whole company, which had broken up into little knots of twos and
threes, carrying on separate discussions, collected round the table to
listen. Galli raised his hands in expostulation.
"No, gentlemen, it is not a proposal; it is merely a suggestion. It
appears to me that there is a great practical danger in all this rejoicing
over the new Pope. People seem to think that, because he has struck out a
new line and granted this amnesty, we have only to throw ourselves-- all of
us, the whole of Italy--into his arms and he will carry us to the promised
land. Now, I am second to no one in admiration of the Pope's behaviour; the
amnesty was a splendid action."
"I am sure His Holiness ought to feel flattered----" Grassini began
contemptuously.
"There, Grassini, do let the man speak!" Riccardo interrupted in his
turn. "It's a most extraordinary thing that you two never can keep from
sparring like a cat and dog. Get on, Galli!"
"What I wanted to say is this," continued the Neapolitan. "The Holy
Father, undoubtedly, is acting with the best intentions; but how far he will
succeed in carrying his reforms is another question. Just now it's smooth
enough and, of course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet for a
month or two till the excitement about the amnesty blows over; but they are
not likely to let the power be taken out of their hands without a fight, and
my own belief is that before the winter is half over we shall have Jesuits
and Gregorians and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about our ears,
plotting and intriguing, and poisoning off everybody they can't bribe."
"That's likely enough."
"Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly sending in petitions, till
Lambruschini and his pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us bodily
under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian hussars to patrol the streets
and keep us in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage of their
momentary discomfiture to strike the first blow?"
"Tell us first what blow you propose?"
"I would suggest that we start an organized propaganda and agitation
against the Jesuits."
"A pamphleteering declaration of war, in fact?"
"Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out their secrets, and
calling upon the people to make common cause against them."
"But there are no Jesuits here to expose."
"Aren't there? Wait three months and see how many we shall have. It'll
be too late to keep them out then."
"But really to rouse the town against the Jesuits one must speak
plainly; and if you do that how will you evade the censorship?"
"I wouldn't evade it; I would defy it."
"You would print the pamphlets anonymously? That's all very well, but
the fact is, we have all seen enough of the clandestine press to know----"
"I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets openly, with our
names and addresses, and let them prosecute us if they dare."
"The project is a perfectly mad one," Grassini exclaimed. "It is simply
putting one's head into the lion's mouth out of sheer wantonness."
"Oh, you needn't be afraid!" Galli cut in sharply; "we shouldn't ask
you to go to prison for our pamphlets."
"Hold your tongue, Galli!" said Riccardo. "It's not a question of being
afraid; we're all as ready as you are to go to prison if there's any good to
be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger for nothing. For my
part, I have an amendment to the proposal to suggest."
"Well, what is it?"
"I think we might contrive, with care, to fight the Jesuits without
coming into collision with the censorship."
"I don't see how you are going to manage it."
"I think that it is possible to clothe what one has to say in so
roundabout a form that----"
"That the censorship won't understand it? And then you'll expect every
poor artisan and labourer to find out the meaning by the light of the
ignorance and stupidity that are in him! That doesn't sound very
practicable."
"Martini, what do you think?" asked the professor, turning to a
broad-shouldered man with a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.
"I think that I will reserve my opinion till I have more facts to go
upon. It's a question of trying experiments and seeing what comes of them."
"And you, Sacconi?"
"I should like to hear what Signora Bolla has to say. Her suggestions
are always valuable."
Everyone turned to the only woman in the room, who had been sitting on
the sofa, resting her chin on one hand and listening in silence to the
discussion. She had deep, serious black eyes, but as she raised them now
there was an unmistakable gleam of amusement in them.
"I am afraid," she said; "that I disagree with everybody."
"You always do, and the worst of it is that you are always right,"
Riccardo put in.
"I think it is quite true that we must fight the Jesuits somehow; and
if we can't do it with one weapon we must with another. But mere defiance is
a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome one. As for petitioning, that is a
child's toy."
"I hope, signora," Grassini interposed, with a solemn face; "that you
are not suggesting such methods as--assassination?"
Martini tugged at his big moustache and Galli sniggered outright. Even
the grave young woman could not repress a smile.
"Believe me," she said, "that if I were ferocious enough to think of
such things I should not be childish enough to talk about them. But the
deadliest weapon I know is ridicule. If you can once succeed in rendering
the Jesuits ludicrous, in making people laugh at them and their claims, you
have conquered them without bloodshed."
"I believe you are right, as far as that goes," Fabrizi said; "but I
don't see how you are going to carry the thing through."
"Why should we not be able to carry it through?" asked Martini. "A
satirical thing has a better chance of getting over the censorship
difficulty than a serious one; and, if it must be cloaked, the average
reader is more likely to find out the double meaning of an apparently silly
joke than of a scientific or economic treatise."
"Then is your suggestion, signora, that we should issue satirical
pamphlets, or attempt to run a comic paper? That last, I am sure, the
censorship would never allow."
"I don't mean exactly either. I believe a series of small satirical
leaflets, in verse or prose, to be sold cheap or distributed free about the
streets, would be very useful. If we could find a clever artist who would
enter into the spirit of the thing, we might have them illustrated."
"It's a capital idea, if only one could carry it out; but if the thing
is to be done at all it must be well done. We should want a first-class
satirist; and where are we to get him?"
"You see," added Lega, "most of us are serious writers; and, with all
respect to the company, I am afraid that a general attempt to be humorous
would present the spectacle of an elephant trying to dance the tarantella."
"I never suggested that we should all rush into work for which we are
unfitted. My idea was that we should try to find a really gifted satirist--
there must be one to be got somewhere in Italy, surely--and offer to provide
the necessary funds. Of course we should have to know something of the man
and make sure that he would work on lines with which we could agree."
"But where are you going to find him? I can count up the satirists of
any real talent on the fingers of one hand; and none of them are available.
Giusti wouldn't accept; he is fully occupied as it is. There are one or two
good men in Lombardy, but they write only in the Milanese dialect----"
"And moreover," said Grassini, "the Tuscan people can be influenced in
better ways than this. I am sure that it would be felt as, to say the least,
a want of political savoir faire if we were to treat this solemn question of
civil and religious liberty as a subject for trifling. Florence is not a
mere wilderness of factories and money-getting like London, nor a haunt of
idle luxury like Paris. It is a city with a great history------"
"So was Athens," she interrupted, smiling; "but it was 'rather sluggish
from its size and needed a gadfly to rouse it'----"
Riccardo struck his hand upon the table. "Why, we never thought of the
Gadfly! The very man!"
"Who is that?"
"The Gadfly--Felice Rivarez. Don't you remember him? One of Muratori's
band that came down from the Apennines three years ago?"
"Oh, you knew that set, didn't you? I remember your travelling with
them when they went on to Paris."
"Yes; I went as far as Leghorn to see Rivarez off for Marseilles. He
wouldn't stop in Tuscany; he said there was nothing left to do but laugh,
once the insurrection had failed, and so he had better go to Paris. No doubt
he agreed with Signor Grassini that Tuscany is the wrong place to laugh in.
But I am nearly sure he would come back if we asked him, now that there is a
chance of doing something in Italy."
"What name did you say?"
"Rivarez. He's a Brazilian, I think. At any rate, I know he has lived
out there. He is one of the wittiest men I ever came across. Heaven knows we
had nothing to be merry over, that week in Leghorn; it was enough to break
one's heart to look at poor Lambertini; but there was no keeping one's
countenance when Rivarez was in the room; it was one perpetual fire of
absurdities. He had a nasty sabre-cut across the face, too; I remember
sewing it up. He's an odd creature; but I believe he and his nonsense kept
some of those poor lads from breaking down altogether."
"Is that the man who writes political skits in the French papers under
the name of 'Le Taon'?"
"Yes; short paragraphs mostly, and comic feuilletons. The smugglers up
in the Apennines called him 'the Gadfly' because of his tongue; and he took
the nickname to sign his work with."
"I know something about this gentleman," said Grassini, breaking in
upon the conversation in his slow and stately manner; "and I cannot say that
what I have heard is much to his credit. He undoubtedly possesses a certain
showy, superficial cleverness, though I think his abilities have been
exaggerated; and possibly he is not lacking in physical courage; but his
reputation in Paris and Vienna is, I believe, very far from spotless. He
appears to be a gentleman of--a--a--many adventures and unknown antecedents.
It is said that he was picked up out of charity by Duprez's expedition
somewhere in the wilds of tropical South America, in a state of
inconceivable savagery and degradation. I believe he has never
satisfactorily explained how he came to be in such a condition. As for the
rising in the Apennines, I fear it is no
secret that persons of all characters took part in that unfortunate
affair. The men who were executed in Bologna are known to have been nothing
but common malefactors; and the character of many who escaped will hardly
bear description. Without doubt, SOME of the participators were men of high
character----"
"Some of them were the intimate friends of several persons in this
room!" Riccardo interrupted, with an angry ring in his voice. "It's all very
well to be particular and exclusive, Grassini; but these 'common
malefactors' died for their belief, which is more than you or I have done as
yet."
"And another time when people tell you the stale gossip of Paris,"
added Galli, "you can tell them from me that they are mistaken about the
Duprez expedition. I know Duprez's adjutant, Martel, personally, and have
heard the whole story from him. It's true that they found Rivarez stranded
out there. He had been taken prisoner in the war, fighting for the Argentine
Republic, and had escaped. He was wandering about the country in various
disguises, trying to get back to Buenos Ayres. But the story of their taking
him on out of charity is a pure fabrication. Their interpreter had fallen
ill and been obliged to turn back; and not one of the Frenchmen could speak
the native languages; so they offered him the post, and he spent the whole
three years with them, exploring the tributaries of the Amazon. Martel told
me he believed they never would have got through the expedition at all if it
had not been for Rivarez."
"Whatever he may be," said Fabrizi; "there must be something remarkable
about a man who could lay his 'come hither' on two old campaigners like
Martel and Duprez as he seems to have done. What do you think, signora?"
"I know nothing about the matter; I was in England when the fugitives
passed through Tuscany. But I should think that if the companions who were
with a man on a three years' expedition in savage countries, and the
comrades who were with him through an insurrection, think well of him, that
is recommendation enough to counterbalance a good deal of boulevard gossip."
"There is no question about the opinion his comrades had of him," said
Riccardo. "From Muratori and Zambeccari down to the roughest mountaineers
they were all devoted to him. Moreover, he is a personal friend of Orsini.
It's quite true, on the other hand, that there are endless cock-and-bull
stories of a not very pleasant kind going about concerning...
