"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 him in Paris; but
if a man doesn't want to make enemies he shouldn't become a political
satirist."
"I'm not quite sure," interposed Lega; "but it seems to me that I saw
him once when the refugees were here. Was he not hunchbacked, or crooked, or
something of that kind?"
The professor had opened a drawer in his writing-table and was turning
over a heap of papers. "I think I have his police description somewhere
here," he said. "You remember when they escaped and hid in the mountain
passes their personal appearance was posted up everywhere, and that
Cardinal--what's the scoundrel's name?-- Spinola, offered a reward for their
heads."
"There was a splendid story about Rivarez and that police paper, by the
way. He put on a soldier's old uniform and tramped across country as a
carabineer wounded in the discharge of his duty and trying to find his
company. He actually got Spinola's search-party to give him a lift, and rode
the whole day in one of their waggons, telling them harrowing stories of how
he had been taken captive by the rebels and dragged off into their haunts in
the mountains, and of the fearful tortures that he had suffered at their
hands. They showed him the description paper, and he told them all the
rubbish he could think of about 'the fiend they call the Gadfly.' Then at
night, when they were asleep, he poured a bucketful of water into their
powder and decamped, with his pockets full of provisions and
ammunition------"
"Ah, here's the paper," Fabrizi broke in: "'Felice Rivarez, called: The
Gadfly. Age, about 30; birthplace and parentage, unknown, probably South
American; profession, journalist. Short; black hair; black beard; dark skin;
eyes, blue; forehead, broad and square; nose, mouth, chin------' Yes, here
it is: 'Special marks: right foot lame; left arm twisted; two ringers
missing on left hand; recent sabre-cut across face; stammers.' Then there's
a note put: 'Very expert shot; care should be taken in arresting.'"
"It's an extraordinary thing that he can have managed to deceive the
search-party with such a formidable list of identification marks."
"It was nothing but sheer audacity that carried him through, of course.
If it had once occurred to them to suspect him he would have been lost. But
the air of confiding innocence that he can put on when he chooses would
bring a man through anything. Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the
proposal? Rivarez seems to be pretty well known to several of the company.
Shall we suggest to him that we should be glad of his help here or not?"
"I think," said Fabrizi, "that he might be sounded upon the subject,
just to find out whether he would be inclined to think of the plan."
"Oh, he'll be inclined, you may be sure, once it's a case of fighting
the Jesuits; he is the most savage anti-clerical I ever met; in fact, he's
rather rabid on the point."
"Then will you write, Riccardo?"
"Certainly. Let me see, where is he now? In Switzerland, I think. He's
the most restless being; always flitting about. But as for the pamphlet
question----"
They plunged into a long and animated discussion. When at last the
company began to disperse Martini went up to the quiet young woman.
"I will see you home, Gemma."
"Thanks; I want to have a business talk with you."
"Anything wrong with the addresses?" he asked softly.
"Nothing serious; but I think it is time to make a few alterations. Two
letters have been stopped in the post this week. They were both quite
unimportant, and it may have been accidental; but we cannot afford to have
any risks. If once the police have begun to suspect any of our addresses,
they must be changed immediately."
"I will come in about that to-morrow. I am not going to talk business
with you to-night; you look tired."
"I am not tired."
"Then you are depressed again."
"Oh, no; not particularly."
"Is the mistress in, Katie?"
"Yes, sir; she is dressing. If you'll just step into the parlour she
will be down in a few minutes."
Katie ushered the visitor in with the cheerful friendliness of a true
Devonshire girl. Martini was a special favourite of hers. He spoke English,
like a foreigner, of course, but still quite respectably; and he never sat
discussing politics at the top of his voice till one in the morning, when
the mistress was tired, as some visitors had a way of doing. Moreover, he
had come to Devonshire to help the mistress in her trouble, when her baby
was dead and her husband dying there; and ever since that time the big,
awkward, silent man had been to Katie as much "one of the family" as was the
lazy black cat which now ensconced itself upon his knee. Pasht, for his
part, regarded Martini as a useful piece of household furniture. This
visitor never trod upon his tail, or puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or
in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality.
He behaved as a mere man should: provided a comfortable knee to lie upon and
purr, and at table never forgot that to look on while human beings eat fish
is not interesting for a cat. The friendship between them was of old date.
Once, when Pasht was a kitten and his mistress too ill to think about him,
he had come from England under Martini's care, tucked away in a basket.
Since then, long experience had convinced him that this clumsy human bear
was no fair-weather friend.
"How snug you look, you two!" said Gemma, coming into the room. "One
would think you had settled yourselves for the evening."
Martini carefully lifted the cat off his knee. "I came early," he said,
"in the hope that you will give me some tea before we start. There will
probably be a frightful crush, and Grassini won't give us any sensible
supper--they never do in those fashionable houses."
"Come now!" she said, laughing; "that's as bad as Galli! Poor Grassini
has quite enough sins of his own to answer for without having his wife's
imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for the tea, it will be
ready in a minute. Katie has been making some Devonshire cakes specially for
you."
"Katie is a good soul, isn't she, Pasht? By the way, so are you to have
put on that pretty dress. I was afraid you would forget."
"I promised you I would wear it, though it is rather warm for a hot
evening like this."
"It will be much cooler up at Fiesole; and nothing else ever suits you
so well as white cashmere. I have brought you some flowers to wear with it."
"Oh, those lovely cluster roses; I am so fond of them! But they had
much better go into water. I hate to wear flowers."
"Now that's one of your superstitious fancies."
"No, it isn't; only I think they must get so bored, spending all the
evening pinned to such a dull companion."
"I am afraid we shall all be bored to-night. The conversazione will be
dull beyond endurance."
"Why?"
"Partly because everything Grassini touches becomes as dull as
himself."
"Now don't be spiteful. It is not fair when we are going to be a man's
guests."
"You are always right, Madonna. Well then, it will be dull because half
the interesting people are not coming."
"How is that?"
"I don't know. Out of town, or ill, or something. Anyway, there will be
two or three ambassadors and some learned Germans, and the usual nondescript
crowd of tourists and Russian princes and literary club people, and a few
French officers; nobody else that I know of--except, of course, the new
satirist, who is to be the attraction of the evening."
"The new satirist? What, Rivarez? But I thought Grassini disapproved of
him so strongly."
"Yes; but once the man is here and is sure to be talked about, of
course Grassini wants his house to be the first place where the new lion
will be on show. You may be sure Rivarez has heard nothing of Grassini's
disapproval. He may have guessed it, though; he's sharp enough."
"I did not even know he had come."
"He only arrived yesterday. Here comes the tea. No, don't get up; let
me fetch the kettle."
He was never so happy as in this little study. Gemma's friendship, her
grave unconsciousness of the charm she exercised over him, her frank and
simple comradeship were the brightest things for him in a life that was none
too bright; and whenever he began to feel more than usually depressed he
would come in here after business hours and sit with her, generally in
silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or poured out tea. She
never questioned him about his troubles or expressed any sympathy in words;
but he always went away stronger and calmer, feeling, as he put it to
himself, that he could "trudge through another fortnight quite respectably."
She possessed, without knowing it, the rare gift of consolation; and when,
two years ago, his dearest friends had been betrayed in Calabria and shot
down like wolves, her steady faith had been perhaps the thing which had
saved him from despair.
On Sunday mornings he sometimes came in to "talk business," that
expression standing for anything connected with the practical work of the
Mazzinian party, of which they both were active and devoted members. She was
quite a different creature then; keen, cool, and logical, perfectly accurate
and perfectly neutral. Those who saw her only at her political work regarded
her as a trained and disciplined conspirator, trustworthy, courageous, in
every way a valuable member of the party, but somehow lacking in life and
individuality. "She's a born conspirator, worth any dozen of us; and she is
nothing more," Galli had said of her. The "Madonna Gemma" whom Martini knew
was very difficult to get at.
"Well, and what is your 'new satirist' like?" she asked, glancing back
over her shoulder as she opened the sideboard. "There, Cesare, there are
barley-sugar and candied angelica for you. I wonder, by the way, why
revolutionary men are always so fond of sweets."
"Other men are, too, only they think it beneath their dignity to
confess it. The new satirist? Oh, the kind of man that ordinary women will
rave over and you will dislike. A sort of professional dealer in sharp
speeches, that goes about the world with a lackadaisical manner and a
handsome ballet-girl dangling on to his coat-tails."
"Do you mean that there is really a ballet-girl, or simply that you
feel cross and want to imitate the sharp speeches?"
"The Lord defend me! No; the ballet-girl is real enough and handsome
enough, too, for those who like shrewish beauty. Personally, I don't. She's
a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says; from some
provincial theatre in Galicia. He seems to be rather a cool hand; he has
been introducing the girl to people just as if she were his maiden aunt."
"Well, that's only fair if he has taken her away from her home."
"You may look at things that way, dear Madonna, but society won't. I
think most people will very much resent being introduced to a woman whom
they know to be his mistress."
"How can they know it unless he tells them so?"
"It's plain enough; you'll see if you meet her. But I should think even
he would not have the audacity to bring her to the Grassinis'."
"They wouldn't receive her. Signora Grassini is not the woman to do
unconventional things of that kind. But I wanted to hear about Signor
Rivarez as a satirist, not as a man. Fabrizi told me he had been written to
and had consented to come and take up the campaign against the Jesuits; and
that is the last I have heard. There has been such a rush of work this
week."
"I don't know that I can tell you much more. There doesn't seem to have
been any difficulty over the money question, as we feared there would be.
He's well off, it appears, and willing to work for nothing."
"Has he a private fortune, then?" "Apparently he has; though it seems
rather odd--you heard that night at Fabrizi's about the state the Duprez
expedition found him in. But he has got shares in mines somewhere out in
Brazil; and then he has been immensely successful as a feuilleton writer in
Paris and Vienna and London. He seems to have half a dozen languages at his
finger-tips; and there's nothing to prevent his keeping up his newspaper
connections from here. Slanging the Jesuits won't take all his time."
"That's true, of course. It's time to start, Cesare. Yes, I will wear
the roses. Wait just a minute."
She ran upstairs, and came back with the roses in the bosom of her
dress, and a long scarf of black Spanish lace thrown over her head. Martini
surveyed her with artistic approval.
"You look like a queen, Madonna mia; like the great and wise Queen of
Sheba."
"What an unkind speech!" she retorted, laughing; "when you know how
hard I've been trying to mould myself into the image of the typical society
lady! Who wants a conspirator to look like the Queen of Sheba? That's not
the way to keep clear of spies."
"You'll never be able to personate the stupid society woman if you try
for ever. But it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon for
spies to guess your opinions, even though you can't simper and hide behind
your fan like Signora Grassini."
"Now Cesare, let that poor woman alone! There, take some more
barley-sugar to sweeten your temper. Are you ready? Then we had better
start."
Martini had been quite right in saying that the conversazione would be
both crowded and dull. The literary men talked polite small-talk and looked
hopelessly bored, while the "nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian
princes" fluttered up and down the rooms, asking each other who were the
various celebrities and trying to carry on intellectual conversation.
Grassini was receiving his guests with a manner as carefully polished as his
boots; but his cold face lighted up at the sight of Gemma. He did not really
like her and indeed was secretly a little afraid of her; but he realized
that without her his drawing room would lack a great attraction. He had
risen high in his profession, and now that he was rich and well known his
chief ambition was to make of his house a centre of liberal and intellectual
society. He was painfully conscious that the insignificant, overdressed
little woman whom in his youth he had made the mistake of marrying was not
fit, with her vapid talk and faded prettiness, to be the mistress of a great
literary salon. When he could prevail upon Gemma to come he always felt that
the evening would be a success. Her quiet graciousness of manner set the
guests at their ease, and her very presence seemed to lay the spectre of
vulgarity which always, in his imagination, haunted the house.
Signora Grassini greeted Gemma affectionately, exclaiming in a loud
whisper: "How charming you look to-night!" and examining the white cashmere
with viciously critical eyes. She hated her visitor rancourously, for the
very things for which Martini loved her; for her quiet strength of
character; for her grave, sincere directness; for the steady balance of her
mind; for the very expression of her face. And when Signora Grassini hated a
woman, she showed it by effusive tenderness. Gemma took the compliments and
endearments for what they were worth, and troubled her head no more about
them. What is called "going into society" was in her eyes one of the
wearisome and rather unpleasant tasks which a conspirator who wishes not to
attract the notice of spies must conscientiously fulfil. She classed it
together with the laborious work of writing in cipher; and, knowing how
valuable a practical safeguard against suspicion is the reputation of being
a well-dressed woman, studied the fashion-plates as carefully as she did the
keys of her ciphers.
The bored and melancholy literary lions brightened up a little at the
sound of Gemma's name; she was very popular among them; and the radical
journalists, especially, gravitated at once to her end of the long room. But
she was far too practised a conspirator to let them monopolize her. Radicals
could be had any day; and now, when they came crowding round her, she gently
sent them about their business, reminding them with a smile that they need
not waste their time on converting her when there were so many tourists in
need of instruction. For her part, she devoted herself to an English M. P.
whose sympathies the republican party was anxious to gain; and, knowing him
to be a specialist on finance, she first won his attention by asking his
opinion on a technical point concerning the Austrian currency, and then
deftly turned the conversation to the condition of the Lombardo-Venetian
revenue. The Englishman, who had expected to be bored with small-talk,
looked askance at her, evidently fearing that he had fallen into the
clutches of a blue-stocking; but finding that she was both pleasant to look
at and interesting to talk to, surrendered completely and plunged into as
grave a discussion of Italian finance as if she had been Metternich. When
Grassini brought up a Frenchman "who wishes to ask Signora Bolla something
about the history of Young Italy," the M. P. rose with a bewildered sense
that perhaps there was more ground for Italian discontent than he had
supposed.
Later in the evening Gemma slipped out on to the terrace under the
drawing-room windows to sit alone for a few moments among the great
camellias and oleanders. The close air and continually shifting crowd in the
rooms were beginning to give her a headache. At the further end of the
terrace stood a row of palms and tree-ferns, planted in large tubs which
were hidden by a bank of lilies and other flowering plants. The whole formed
a complete screen, behind which was a little nook commanding a beautiful
view out across the valley. The branches of a pomegranate tree, clustered
with late blossoms, hung beside the narrow opening between the plants.
In this nook Gemma took refuge, hoping that no one would guess her
whereabouts until she had secured herself against the threatening headache
by a little rest and silence. The night was warm and beautifully still; but
coming out from the hot, close rooms she felt it cool, and drew her lace
scarf about her head.
Presently the sounds of voices and footsteps approaching along the
terrace roused her from the dreamy state into which she had fallen. She drew
back into the shadow, hoping to escape notice and get a few more precious
minutes of silence before again having to rack her tired brain for
conversation. To her great annoyance the footsteps paused near to the
screen; then Signora Grassini's thin, piping little voice broke off for a
moment in its stream of chatter.
The other voice, a man's, was remarkably soft and musical; but its
sweetness of tone was marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere
affectation, more probably the result of a habitual effort to conquer some
impediment of speech, but in any case very unpleasant.
"English, did you say?" it asked. "But surely the name is quite
Italian. What was it-- Bolla?"
"Yes; she is the widow of poor Giovanni Bolla, who died in England
about four years ago,-- don't you remember? Ah, I forgot--you lead such a
wandering life; we can't expect you to know of all our unhappy country's
martyrs--they are so many!"
Signora Grassini sighed. She always talked in this style to strangers;
the role of a patriotic mourner for the sorrows of Italy formed an effective
combination with her boarding-school manner and pretty infantine pout.
"Died in England!" repeated the other voice. "Was he a refugee, then? I
seem to recognize the name, somehow; was he not connected with Young Italy
in its early days?"
"Yes; he was one of the unfortunate young men who were arrested in
'33--you remember that sad affair? He was released in a few months; then,
two or three years later, when there was a warrant out against him again, he
escaped to England. The next we heard was that he was married there. It was
a most romantic affair altogether, but poor Bolla always was romantic."
"And then he died in England, you say?"
"Yes, of consumption; he could not stand that terrible English climate.
And she lost her only child just before his death; it caught scarlet fever.
Very sad, is it not? And we are all so fond of dear Gemma! She is a little
stiff, poor thing; the English always are, you know; but I think her
troubles have made her melancholy, and----"
Gemma stood up and pushed back the boughs of the pomegranate tree. This
retailing of her private sorrows for purposes of small-talk was almost
unbearable to her, and there was visible annoyance in her face as she
stepped into the light.
"Ah! here she is!" exclaimed the hostess, with admirable coolness.
"Gemma, dear, I was wondering where you could have disappeared to. Signor
Felice Rivarez wishes to make your acquaintance."
"So it's the Gadfly," thought Gemma, looking at him with some
curiosity. He bowed to her decorously enough, but his eyes glanced over her
face and figure with a look which seemed to her insolently keen and
inquisitorial.
"You have found a d-d-delightful little nook here," he remarked,
looking at the thick screen; "and w-w-what a charming view!"
"Yes; it's a pretty corner. I came out here to get some air."
"It seems almost ungrateful to the good God to stay indoors on such a
lovely night," said the hostess, raising her eyes to the stars. (She had
good eyelashes and liked to show them.) "Look, signore! Would not our sweet
Italy be heaven on earth if only she were free? To think that she should be
a bond-slave, with such flowers and such skies!"
"And such patriotic women!" the Gadfly murmured in his soft, languid
drawl.
Gemma glanced round at him in some trepidation; his impudence was too
glaring, surely, to deceive anyone. But she had underrated Signora
Grassini's appetite for compliments; the poor woman cast down her lashes
with a sigh.
"Ah, signore, it is so little that a woman can do! Perhaps some day I
may prove my right to the name of an Italian--who knows? And now I must go
back to my social duties; the French ambassador has begged me to introduce
his ward to all the notabilities; you must come in presently and see her.
She is a most charming girl. Gemma, dear, I brought Signor Rivarez out to
show him our beautiful view; I must leave him under your care. I know you
will look after him and introduce him to everyone. Ah! there is that
delightful Russian prince! Have you met him? They say he is a great
favourite of the Emperor Nicholas. He is military commander of some Polish
town with a name that nobody can pronounce. Quelle nuit magnifique!
N'est-ce-pas, mon prince?"
She fluttered away, chattering volubly to a bull-necked man with a
heavy jaw and a coat glittering with orders; and her plaintive dirges for
"notre malheureuse patrie," interpolated with "charmant" and "mon prince,"
died away along the terrace.
Gemma stood quite still beside the pomegranate tree. She was sorry for
the poor, silly little woman, and annoyed at the Gadfly's languid insolence.
He was watching the retreating figures with an expression of face that
angered her; it seemed ungenerous to mock at such pitiable creatures.
"There go Italian and--Russian patriotism," he said, turning to her
with a smile; "arm in arm and mightily pleased with each other's company.
Which do you prefer?"
She frowned slightly and made no answer.
"Of c-course," he went on; "it's all a question of p-personal taste;
but I think, of the two, I like the Russian variety best--it's so thorough.
If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her supremacy instead of on
powder and shot, how long do you think 'mon prince' would k-keep that Polish
fortress?"
"I think," she answered coldly, "that we can hold our personal opinions
without ridiculing a woman whose guests we are."
"Ah, yes! I f-forgot the obligations of hospitality here in Italy; they
are a wonderfully hospitable people, these Italians. I'm sure the Austrians
find them so. Won't you sit down?"
He limped across the terrace to fetch a chair for her, and placed
himself opposite to her, leaning against the balustrade. The light from a
window was shining full on his face; and she was able to study it at her
leisure.
She was disappointed. She had expected to see a striking and powerful,
if not pleasant face; but the most salient points of his appearance were a
tendency to foppishness in dress and rather more than a tendency to a
certain veiled insolence of expression and manner. For the rest, he was as
swarthy as a mulatto, and, notwithstanding his lameness, as agile as a cat.
His whole personality was oddly suggestive of a black jaguar. The forehead
and left cheek were terribly disfigured by the long crooked scar of the old
sabre-cut; and she had already noticed that, when he began to stammer in
speaking, that side of his face was affected with a nervous twitch. But for
these defects he would have been, in a certain restless and uncomfortable
way, rather handsome; but it was not an attractive face.
Presently he began again in his soft, murmuring purr ("Just the voice a
jaguar would talk in, if it could speak and were in a good humour," Gemma
said to herself with rising irritation).
"I hear," he said, "that you are interested in the radical press, and
write for the papers."
"I write a little; I have not time to do much."
"Ah, of course! I understood from Signora Grassini that you undertake
other important work as well."
Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly. Signora Grassini, like the silly
little woman she was, had evidently been chattering imprudently to this
slippery creature, whom Gemma, for her part, was beginning actually to
dislike.
"My time is a good deal taken up," she said rather stiffly; "but
Signora Grassini overrates the importance of my occupations. They are mostly
of a very trivial character."
"Well, the world would be in a bad way if we ALL of us spent our time
in chanting dirges for Italy. I should think the neighbourhood of our host
of this evening and his wife would make anybody frivolous, in self-defence.
Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say; you are perfectly right, but they
are both so deliciously funny with their patriotism.--Are you going in
already? It is so nice out here!"
"I think I will go in now. Is that my scarf? Thank you."
He had picked it up, and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as
blue and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook.
"I know you are offended with me," he said penitently, "for fooling
that painted-up wax doll; but what can a fellow do?"
"Since you ask me, I do think it an ungenerous and--well--cowardly
thing to hold one's intellectual inferiors up to ridicule in that way; it is
like laughing at a cripple, or------"
He caught his breath suddenly, painfully; and shrank back, glancing at
his lame foot and mutilated hand. In another instant he recovered his
self-possession and burst out laughing.
"That's hardly a fair comparison, signora; we cripples don't flaunt our
deformities in people's faces as she does her stupidity. At least give us
credit for recognizing that crooked backs are no pleasanter than crooked
ways. There is a step here; will you take my arm?"
She re-entered the house in embarrassed silence; his unexpected
sensitiveness had completely disconcerted her.
Directly he opened the door of the great reception room she realized
that something unusual had happened in her absence. Most of the gentlemen
looked both angry and uncomfortable; the ladies, with hot cheeks and
carefully feigned unconsciousness, were all collected at one end of the
room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed but
unmistakable fury, and a little group of tourists stood in a corner casting
amused glances at the further end of the room. Evidently something was going
on there which appeared to them in the light of a joke, and to most of the
guests in that of an insult. Signora Grassini alone did not appear to have
noticed anything; she was fluttering her fan coquettishly and chattering to
the secretary of the Dutch embassy, who listened with a broad grin on his
face.
Gemma paused an instant in the doorway, turning to see if the Gadfly,
too, had noticed the disturbed appearance of the company. There was no
mistaking the malicious triumph in his eyes as he glanced from the face of
the blissfully unconscious hostess to a sofa at the end of the room. She
understood at once; he had brought his mistress here under some false
colour, which had deceived no one but Signora Grassini.
The gipsy-girl was leaning back on the sofa, surrounded by a group of
simpering dandies and blandly ironical cavalry officers. She was gorgeously
dressed in amber and scarlet, with an Oriental brilliancy of tint and
profusion of ornament as startling in a Florentine literary salon as if she
had been some tropical bird among sparrows and starlings. She herself seemed
to feel out of place, and looked at the offended ladies with a fiercely
contemptuous scowl. Catching sight of the Gadfly as he crossed the room with
Gemma, she sprang up and came towards him, with a voluble flood of painfully
incorrect French.
"M. Rivarez, I have been looking for you everywhere! Count Saltykov
wants to know whether you can go to his villa to-morrow night. There will be
dancing."
"I am sorry I can't go; but then I couldn't dance if I did. Signora
"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 him in Paris; but
if a man doesn't want to make enemies he shouldn't become a political
satirist."
"I'm not quite sure," interposed Lega; "but it seems to me that I saw
him once when the refugees were here. Was he not hunchbacked, or crooked, or
something of that kind?"
The professor had opened a drawer in his writing-table and was turning
over a heap of papers. "I think I have his police description somewhere
here," he said. "You remember when they escaped and hid in the mountain
passes their personal appearance was posted up everywhere, and that
Cardinal--what's the scoundrel's name?-- Spinola, offered a reward for their
heads."
"There was a splendid story about Rivarez and that police paper, by the
way. He put on a soldier's old uniform and tramped across country as a
carabineer wounded in the discharge of his duty and trying to find his
company. He actually got Spinola's search-party to give him a lift, and rode
the whole day in one of their waggons, telling them harrowing stories of how
he had been taken captive by the rebels and dragged off into their haunts in
the mountains, and of the fearful tortures that he had suffered at their
hands. They showed him the description paper, and he told them all the
rubbish he could think of about 'the fiend they call the Gadfly.' Then at
night, when they were asleep, he poured a bucketful of water into their
powder and decamped, with his pockets full of provisions and
ammunition------"
"Ah, here's the paper," Fabrizi broke in: "'Felice Rivarez, called: The
Gadfly. Age, about 30; birthplace and parentage, unknown, probably South
American; profession, journalist. Short; black hair; black beard; dark skin;
eyes, blue; forehead, broad and square; nose, mouth, chin------' Yes, here
it is: 'Special marks: right foot lame; left arm twisted; two ringers
missing on left hand; recent sabre-cut across face; stammers.' Then there's
a note put: 'Very expert shot; care should be taken in arresting.'"
"It's an extraordinary thing that he can have managed to deceive the
search-party with such a formidable list of identification marks."
"It was nothing but sheer audacity that carried him through, of course.
If it had once occurred to them to suspect him he would have been lost. But
the air of confiding innocence that he can put on when he chooses would
bring a man through anything. Well, gentlemen, what do you think of the
proposal? Rivarez seems to be pretty well known to several of the company.
Shall we suggest to him that we should be glad of his help here or not?"
"I think," said Fabrizi, "that he might be sounded upon the subject,
just to find out whether he would be inclined to think of the plan."
"Oh, he'll be inclined, you may be sure, once it's a case of fighting
the Jesuits; he is the most savage anti-clerical I ever met; in fact, he's
rather rabid on the point."
"Then will you write, Riccardo?"
"Certainly. Let me see, where is he now? In Switzerland, I think. He's
the most restless being; always flitting about. But as for the pamphlet
question----"
They plunged into a long and animated discussion. When at last the
company began to disperse Martini went up to the quiet young woman.
"I will see you home, Gemma."
"Thanks; I want to have a business talk with you."
"Anything wrong with the addresses?" he asked softly.
"Nothing serious; but I think it is time to make a few alterations. Two
letters have been stopped in the post this week. They were both quite
unimportant, and it may have been accidental; but we cannot afford to have
any risks. If once the police have begun to suspect any of our addresses,
they must be changed immediately."
"I will come in about that to-morrow. I am not going to talk business
with you to-night; you look tired."
"I am not tired."
"Then you are depressed again."
"Oh, no; not particularly."
"Is the mistress in, Katie?"
"Yes, sir; she is dressing. If you'll just step into the parlour she
will be down in a few minutes."
Katie ushered the visitor in with the cheerful friendliness of a true
Devonshire girl. Martini was a special favourite of hers. He spoke English,
like a foreigner, of course, but still quite respectably; and he never sat
discussing politics at the top of his voice till one in the morning, when
the mistress was tired, as some visitors had a way of doing. Moreover, he
had come to Devonshire to help the mistress in her trouble, when her baby
was dead and her husband dying there; and ever since that time the big,
awkward, silent man had been to Katie as much "one of the family" as was the
lazy black cat which now ensconced itself upon his knee. Pasht, for his
part, regarded Martini as a useful piece of household furniture. This
visitor never trod upon his tail, or puffed tobacco smoke into his eyes, or
in any way obtruded upon his consciousness an aggressive biped personality.
He behaved as a mere man should: provided a comfortable knee to lie upon and
purr, and at table never forgot that to look on while human beings eat fish
is not interesting for a cat. The friendship between them was of old date.
Once, when Pasht was a kitten and his mistress too ill to think about him,
he had come from England under Martini's care, tucked away in a basket.
Since then, long experience had convinced him that this clumsy human bear
was no fair-weather friend.
"How snug you look, you two!" said Gemma, coming into the room. "One
would think you had settled yourselves for the evening."
Martini carefully lifted the cat off his knee. "I came early," he said,
"in the hope that you will give me some tea before we start. There will
probably be a frightful crush, and Grassini won't give us any sensible
supper--they never do in those fashionable houses."
"Come now!" she said, laughing; "that's as bad as Galli! Poor Grassini
has quite enough sins of his own to answer for without having his wife's
imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for the tea, it will be
ready in a minute. Katie has been making some Devonshire cakes specially for
you."
"Katie is a good soul, isn't she, Pasht? By the way, so are you to have
put on that pretty dress. I was afraid you would forget."
"I promised you I would wear it, though it is rather warm for a hot
evening like this."
"It will be much cooler up at Fiesole; and nothing else ever suits you
so well as white cashmere. I have brought you some flowers to wear with it."
"Oh, those lovely cluster roses; I am so fond of them! But they had
much better go into water. I hate to wear flowers."
"Now that's one of your superstitious fancies."
"No, it isn't; only I think they must get so bored, spending all the
evening pinned to such a dull companion."
"I am afraid we shall all be bored to-night. The conversazione will be
dull beyond endurance."
"Why?"
"Partly because everything Grassini touches becomes as dull as
himself."
"Now don't be spiteful. It is not fair when we are going to be a man's
guests."
"You are always right, Madonna. Well then, it will be dull because half
the interesting people are not coming."
"How is that?"
"I don't know. Out of town, or ill, or something. Anyway, there will be
two or three ambassadors and some learned Germans, and the usual nondescript
crowd of tourists and Russian princes and literary club people, and a few
French officers; nobody else that I know of--except, of course, the new
satirist, who is to be the attraction of the evening."
"The new satirist? What, Rivarez? But I thought Grassini disapproved of
him so strongly."
"Yes; but once the man is here and is sure to be talked about, of
course Grassini wants his house to be the first place where the new lion
will be on show. You may be sure Rivarez has heard nothing of Grassini's
disapproval. He may have guessed it, though; he's sharp enough."
"I did not even know he had come."
"He only arrived yesterday. Here comes the tea. No, don't get up; let
me fetch the kettle."
He was never so happy as in this little study. Gemma's friendship, her
grave unconsciousness of the charm she exercised over him, her frank and
simple comradeship were the brightest things for him in a life that was none
too bright; and whenever he began to feel more than usually depressed he
would come in here after business hours and sit with her, generally in
silence, watching her as she bent over her needlework or poured out tea. She
never questioned him about his troubles or expressed any sympathy in words;
but he always went away stronger and calmer, feeling, as he put it to
himself, that he could "trudge through another fortnight quite respectably."
She possessed, without knowing it, the rare gift of consolation; and when,
two years ago, his dearest friends had been betrayed in Calabria and shot
down like wolves, her steady faith had been perhaps the thing which had
saved him from despair.
On Sunday mornings he sometimes came in to "talk business," that
expression standing for anything connected with the practical work of the
Mazzinian party, of which they both were active and devoted members. She was
quite a different creature then; keen, cool, and logical, perfectly accurate
and perfectly neutral. Those who saw her only at her political work regarded
her as a trained and disciplined conspirator, trustworthy, courageous, in
every way a valuable member of the party, but somehow lacking in life and
individuality. "She's a born conspirator, worth any dozen of us; and she is
nothing more," Galli had said of her. The "Madonna Gemma" whom Martini knew
was very difficult to get at.
"Well, and what is your 'new satirist' like?" she asked, glancing back
over her shoulder as she opened the sideboard. "There, Cesare, there are
barley-sugar and candied angelica for you. I wonder, by the way, why
revolutionary men are always so fond of sweets."
"Other men are, too, only they think it beneath their dignity to
confess it. The new satirist? Oh, the kind of man that ordinary women will
rave over and you will dislike. A sort of professional dealer in sharp
speeches, that goes about the world with a lackadaisical manner and a
handsome ballet-girl dangling on to his coat-tails."
"Do you mean that there is really a ballet-girl, or simply that you
feel cross and want to imitate the sharp speeches?"
"The Lord defend me! No; the ballet-girl is real enough and handsome
enough, too, for those who like shrewish beauty. Personally, I don't. She's
a Hungarian gipsy, or something of that kind, so Riccardo says; from some
provincial theatre in Galicia. He seems to be rather a cool hand; he has
been introducing the girl to people just as if she were his maiden aunt."
"Well, that's only fair if he has taken her away from her home."
"You may look at things that way, dear Madonna, but society won't. I
think most people will very much resent being introduced to a woman whom
they know to be his mistress."
"How can they know it unless he tells them so?"
"It's plain enough; you'll see if you meet her. But I should think even
he would not have the audacity to bring her to the Grassinis'."
"They wouldn't receive her. Signora Grassini is not the woman to do
unconventional things of that kind. But I wanted to hear about Signor
Rivarez as a satirist, not as a man. Fabrizi told me he had been written to
and had consented to come and take up the campaign against the Jesuits; and
that is the last I have heard. There has been such a rush of work this
week."
"I don't know that I can tell you much more. There doesn't seem to have
been any difficulty over the money question, as we feared there would be.
He's well off, it appears, and willing to work for nothing."
"Has he a private fortune, then?" "Apparently he has; though it seems
rather odd--you heard that night at Fabrizi's about the state the Duprez
expedition found him in. But he has got shares in mines somewhere out in
Brazil; and then he has been immensely successful as a feuilleton writer in
Paris and Vienna and London. He seems to have half a dozen languages at his
finger-tips; and there's nothing to prevent his keeping up his newspaper
connections from here. Slanging the Jesuits won't take all his time."
"That's true, of course. It's time to start, Cesare. Yes, I will wear
the roses. Wait just a minute."
She ran upstairs, and came back with the roses in the bosom of her
dress, and a long scarf of black Spanish lace thrown over her head. Martini
surveyed her with artistic approval.
"You look like a queen, Madonna mia; like the great and wise Queen of
Sheba."
"What an unkind speech!" she retorted, laughing; "when you know how
hard I've been trying to mould myself into the image of the typical society
lady! Who wants a conspirator to look like the Queen of Sheba? That's not
the way to keep clear of spies."
"You'll never be able to personate the stupid society woman if you try
for ever. But it doesn't matter, after all; you're too fair to look upon for
spies to guess your opinions, even though you can't simper and hide behind
your fan like Signora Grassini."
"Now Cesare, let that poor woman alone! There, take some more
barley-sugar to sweeten your temper. Are you ready? Then we had better
start."
Martini had been quite right in saying that the conversazione would be
both crowded and dull. The literary men talked polite small-talk and looked
hopelessly bored, while the "nondescript crowd of tourists and Russian
princes" fluttered up and down the rooms, asking each other who were the
various celebrities and trying to carry on intellectual conversation.
Grassini was receiving his guests with a manner as carefully polished as his
boots; but his cold face lighted up at the sight of Gemma. He did not really
like her and indeed was secretly a little afraid of her; but he realized
that without her his drawing room would lack a great attraction. He had
risen high in his profession, and now that he was rich and well known his
chief ambition was to make of his house a centre of liberal and intellectual
society. He was painfully conscious that the insignificant, overdressed
little woman whom in his youth he had made the mistake of marrying was not
fit, with her vapid talk and faded prettiness, to be the mistress of a great
literary salon. When he could prevail upon Gemma to come he always felt that
the evening would be a success. Her quiet graciousness of manner set the
guests at their ease, and her very presence seemed to lay the spectre of
vulgarity which always, in his imagination, haunted the house.
Signora Grassini greeted Gemma affectionately, exclaiming in a loud
whisper: "How charming you look to-night!" and examining the white cashmere
with viciously critical eyes. She hated her visitor rancourously, for the
very things for which Martini loved her; for her quiet strength of
character; for her grave, sincere directness; for the steady balance of her
mind; for the very expression of her face. And when Signora Grassini hated a
woman, she showed it by effusive tenderness. Gemma took the compliments and
endearments for what they were worth, and troubled her head no more about
them. What is called "going into society" was in her eyes one of the
wearisome and rather unpleasant tasks which a conspirator who wishes not to
attract the notice of spies must conscientiously fulfil. She classed it
together with the laborious work of writing in cipher; and, knowing how
valuable a practical safeguard against suspicion is the reputation of being
a well-dressed woman, studied the fashion-plates as carefully as she did the
keys of her ciphers.
The bored and melancholy literary lions brightened up a little at the
sound of Gemma's name; she was very popular among them; and the radical
journalists, especially, gravitated at once to her end of the long room. But
she was far too practised a conspirator to let them monopolize her. Radicals
could be had any day; and now, when they came crowding round her, she gently
sent them about their business, reminding them with a smile that they need
not waste their time on converting her when there were so many tourists in
need of instruction. For her part, she devoted herself to an English M. P.
whose sympathies the republican party was anxious to gain; and, knowing him
to be a specialist on finance, she first won his attention by asking his
opinion on a technical point concerning the Austrian currency, and then
deftly turned the conversation to the condition of the Lombardo-Venetian
revenue. The Englishman, who had expected to be bored with small-talk,
looked askance at her, evidently fearing that he had fallen into the
clutches of a blue-stocking; but finding that she was both pleasant to look
at and interesting to talk to, surrendered completely and plunged into as
grave a discussion of Italian finance as if she had been Metternich. When
Grassini brought up a Frenchman "who wishes to ask Signora Bolla something
about the history of Young Italy," the M. P. rose with a bewildered sense
that perhaps there was more ground for Italian discontent than he had
supposed.
Later in the evening Gemma slipped out on to the terrace under the
drawing-room windows to sit alone for a few moments among the great
camellias and oleanders. The close air and continually shifting crowd in the
rooms were beginning to give her a headache. At the further end of the
terrace stood a row of palms and tree-ferns, planted in large tubs which
were hidden by a bank of lilies and other flowering plants. The whole formed
a complete screen, behind which was a little nook commanding a beautiful
view out across the valley. The branches of a pomegranate tree, clustered
with late blossoms, hung beside the narrow opening between the plants.
In this nook Gemma took refuge, hoping that no one would guess her
whereabouts until she had secured herself against the threatening headache
by a little rest and silence. The night was warm and beautifully still; but
coming out from the hot, close rooms she felt it cool, and drew her lace
scarf about her head.
Presently the sounds of voices and footsteps approaching along the
terrace roused her from the dreamy state into which she had fallen. She drew
back into the shadow, hoping to escape notice and get a few more precious
minutes of silence before again having to rack her tired brain for
conversation. To her great annoyance the footsteps paused near to the
screen; then Signora Grassini's thin, piping little voice broke off for a
moment in its stream of chatter.
The other voice, a man's, was remarkably soft and musical; but its
sweetness of tone was marred by a peculiar, purring drawl, perhaps mere
affectation, more probably the result of a habitual effort to conquer some
impediment of speech, but in any case very unpleasant.
"English, did you say?" it asked. "But surely the name is quite
Italian. What was it-- Bolla?"
"Yes; she is the widow of poor Giovanni Bolla, who died in England
about four years ago,-- don't you remember? Ah, I forgot--you lead such a
wandering life; we can't expect you to know of all our unhappy country's
martyrs--they are so many!"
Signora Grassini sighed. She always talked in this style to strangers;
the role of a patriotic mourner for the sorrows of Italy formed an effective
combination with her boarding-school manner and pretty infantine pout.
"Died in England!" repeated the other voice. "Was he a refugee, then? I
seem to recognize the name, somehow; was he not connected with Young Italy
in its early days?"
"Yes; he was one of the unfortunate young men who were arrested in
'33--you remember that sad affair? He was released in a few months; then,
two or three years later, when there was a warrant out against him again, he
escaped to England. The next we heard was that he was married there. It was
a most romantic affair altogether, but poor Bolla always was romantic."
"And then he died in England, you say?"
"Yes, of consumption; he could not stand that terrible English climate.
And she lost her only child just before his death; it caught scarlet fever.
Very sad, is it not? And we are all so fond of dear Gemma! She is a little
stiff, poor thing; the English always are, you know; but I think her
troubles have made her melancholy, and----"
Gemma stood up and pushed back the boughs of the pomegranate tree. This
retailing of her private sorrows for purposes of small-talk was almost
unbearable to her, and there was visible annoyance in her face as she
stepped into the light.
"Ah! here she is!" exclaimed the hostess, with admirable coolness.
"Gemma, dear, I was wondering where you could have disappeared to. Signor
Felice Rivarez wishes to make your acquaintance."
"So it's the Gadfly," thought Gemma, looking at him with some
curiosity. He bowed to her decorously enough, but his eyes glanced over her
face and figure with a look which seemed to her insolently keen and
inquisitorial.
"You have found a d-d-delightful little nook here," he remarked,
looking at the thick screen; "and w-w-what a charming view!"
"Yes; it's a pretty corner. I came out here to get some air."
"It seems almost ungrateful to the good God to stay indoors on such a
lovely night," said the hostess, raising her eyes to the stars. (She had
good eyelashes and liked to show them.) "Look, signore! Would not our sweet
Italy be heaven on earth if only she were free? To think that she should be
a bond-slave, with such flowers and such skies!"
"And such patriotic women!" the Gadfly murmured in his soft, languid
drawl.
Gemma glanced round at him in some trepidation; his impudence was too
glaring, surely, to deceive anyone. But she had underrated Signora
Grassini's appetite for compliments; the poor woman cast down her lashes
with a sigh.
"Ah, signore, it is so little that a woman can do! Perhaps some day I
may prove my right to the name of an Italian--who knows? And now I must go
back to my social duties; the French ambassador has begged me to introduce
his ward to all the notabilities; you must come in presently and see her.
She is a most charming girl. Gemma, dear, I brought Signor Rivarez out to
show him our beautiful view; I must leave him under your care. I know you
will look after him and introduce him to everyone. Ah! there is that
delightful Russian prince! Have you met him? They say he is a great
favourite of the Emperor Nicholas. He is military commander of some Polish
town with a name that nobody can pronounce. Quelle nuit magnifique!
N'est-ce-pas, mon prince?"
She fluttered away, chattering volubly to a bull-necked man with a
heavy jaw and a coat glittering with orders; and her plaintive dirges for
"notre malheureuse patrie," interpolated with "charmant" and "mon prince,"
died away along the terrace.
Gemma stood quite still beside the pomegranate tree. She was sorry for
the poor, silly little woman, and annoyed at the Gadfly's languid insolence.
He was watching the retreating figures with an expression of face that
angered her; it seemed ungenerous to mock at such pitiable creatures.
"There go Italian and--Russian patriotism," he said, turning to her
with a smile; "arm in arm and mightily pleased with each other's company.
Which do you prefer?"
She frowned slightly and made no answer.
"Of c-course," he went on; "it's all a question of p-personal taste;
but I think, of the two, I like the Russian variety best--it's so thorough.
If Russia had to depend on flowers and skies for her supremacy instead of on
powder and shot, how long do you think 'mon prince' would k-keep that Polish
fortress?"
"I think," she answered coldly, "that we can hold our personal opinions
without ridiculing a woman whose guests we are."
"Ah, yes! I f-forgot the obligations of hospitality here in Italy; they
are a wonderfully hospitable people, these Italians. I'm sure the Austrians
find them so. Won't you sit down?"
He limped across the terrace to fetch a chair for her, and placed
himself opposite to her, leaning against the balustrade. The light from a
window was shining full on his face; and she was able to study it at her
leisure.
She was disappointed. She had expected to see a striking and powerful,
if not pleasant face; but the most salient points of his appearance were a
tendency to foppishness in dress and rather more than a tendency to a
certain veiled insolence of expression and manner. For the rest, he was as
swarthy as a mulatto, and, notwithstanding his lameness, as agile as a cat.
His whole personality was oddly suggestive of a black jaguar. The forehead
and left cheek were terribly disfigured by the long crooked scar of the old
sabre-cut; and she had already noticed that, when he began to stammer in
speaking, that side of his face was affected with a nervous twitch. But for
these defects he would have been, in a certain restless and uncomfortable
way, rather handsome; but it was not an attractive face.
Presently he began again in his soft, murmuring purr ("Just the voice a
jaguar would talk in, if it could speak and were in a good humour," Gemma
said to herself with rising irritation).
"I hear," he said, "that you are interested in the radical press, and
write for the papers."
"I write a little; I have not time to do much."
"Ah, of course! I understood from Signora Grassini that you undertake
other important work as well."
Gemma raised her eyebrows slightly. Signora Grassini, like the silly
little woman she was, had evidently been chattering imprudently to this
slippery creature, whom Gemma, for her part, was beginning actually to
dislike.
"My time is a good deal taken up," she said rather stiffly; "but
Signora Grassini overrates the importance of my occupations. They are mostly
of a very trivial character."
"Well, the world would be in a bad way if we ALL of us spent our time
in chanting dirges for Italy. I should think the neighbourhood of our host
of this evening and his wife would make anybody frivolous, in self-defence.
Oh, yes, I know what you're going to say; you are perfectly right, but they
are both so deliciously funny with their patriotism.--Are you going in
already? It is so nice out here!"
"I think I will go in now. Is that my scarf? Thank you."
He had picked it up, and now stood looking at her with wide eyes as
blue and innocent as forget-me-nots in a brook.
"I know you are offended with me," he said penitently, "for fooling
that painted-up wax doll; but what can a fellow do?"
"Since you ask me, I do think it an ungenerous and--well--cowardly
thing to hold one's intellectual inferiors up to ridicule in that way; it is
like laughing at a cripple, or------"
He caught his breath suddenly, painfully; and shrank back, glancing at
his lame foot and mutilated hand. In another instant he recovered his
self-possession and burst out laughing.
"That's hardly a fair comparison, signora; we cripples don't flaunt our
deformities in people's faces as she does her stupidity. At least give us
credit for recognizing that crooked backs are no pleasanter than crooked
ways. There is a step here; will you take my arm?"
She re-entered the house in embarrassed silence; his unexpected
sensitiveness had completely disconcerted her.
Directly he opened the door of the great reception room she realized
that something unusual had happened in her absence. Most of the gentlemen
looked both angry and uncomfortable; the ladies, with hot cheeks and
carefully feigned unconsciousness, were all collected at one end of the
room; the host was fingering his eye-glasses with suppressed but
unmistakable fury, and a little group of tourists stood in a corner casting
amused glances at the further end of the room. Evidently something was going
on there which appeared to them in the light of a joke, and to most of the
guests in that of an insult. Signora Grassini alone did not appear to have
noticed anything; she was fluttering her fan coquettishly and chattering to
the secretary of the Dutch embassy, who listened with a broad grin on his
face.
Gemma paused an instant in the doorway, turning to see if the Gadfly,
too, had noticed the disturbed appearance of the company. There was no
mistaking the malicious triumph in his eyes as he glanced from the face of
the blissfully unconscious hostess to a sofa at the end of the room. She
understood at once; he had brought his mistress here under some false
colour, which had deceived no one but Signora Grassini.
The gipsy-girl was leaning back on the sofa, surrounded by a group of
simpering dandies and blandly ironical cavalry officers. She was gorgeously
dressed in amber and scarlet, with an Oriental brilliancy of tint and
profusion of ornament as startling in a Florentine literary salon as if she
had been some tropical bird among sparrows and starlings. She herself seemed
to feel out of place, and looked at the offended ladies with a fiercely
contemptuous scowl. Catching sight of the Gadfly as he crossed the room with
Gemma, she sprang up and came towards him, with a voluble flood of painfully
incorrect French.
"M. Rivarez, I have been looking for you everywhere! Count Saltykov
wants to know whether you can go to his villa to-morrow night. There will be
dancing."
"I am sorry I can't go; but then I couldn't dance if I did. Signora