THIRTEEN YEARS LATER.
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 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 Bolla, allow me to introduce to you Mme. Zita Reni.”
The gipsy glanced round at Gemma with a half defiant air and bowed stiffly. She was certainly handsome enough, as Martini had said, with a vivid, animal, unintelligent beauty; and the perfect harmony and freedom of her movements were delightful to see; but her forehead was low and narrow, and the line of her delicate nostrils was unsympathetic, almost cruel. The sense of oppression which Gemma had felt in the Gadfly's society was intensified by the gypsy's presence; and when, a moment later, the host came up to beg Signora Bolla to help him entertain some tourists in the other room, she consented with an odd feeling of relief.
“Well, Madonna, and what do you think of the Gadfly?” Martini asked as they drove back to Florence late at night. “Did you ever see anything quite so shameless as the way he fooled that poor little Grassini woman?”
“About the ballet-girl, you mean?”
“Yes, he persuaded her the girl was going to be the lion of the season. Signora Grassini would do anything for a celebrity.”
“I thought it an unfair and unkind thing to do; it put the Grassinis into a false position; and it was nothing less than cruel to the girl herself. I am sure she felt ill at ease.”
“You had a talk with him, didn't you? What did you think of him?”
“Oh, Cesare, I didn't think anything except how glad I was to see the last of him. I never met anyone so fearfully tiring. He gave me a headache in ten minutes. He is like an incarnate demon of unrest.”
“I thought you wouldn't like him; and, to tell the truth, no more do I. The man's as slippery as an eel; I don't trust him.”