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Vittoria, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Vittoria, Complete




This uniform character of Ammiani's replies, and the smile of Agostino on
hearing them, had begun to strike the attention of the soldierly Marco
Sana. He ran his hand across his shorn head, and puffed his burnt red
mole-spotted cheeks, with a sidelong stare at the abstracted youth, "Said
yes!" he remarked. "He might say no, for a diversion. He has yeses enough
in his pay to earn a Cardinal's hat. 'Is Milan preparing to rise?'
'Yes.'--'Is she ready for the work?' 'Yes.'--'Is the garrison on its
guard?' 'Yes.'--'Have you seen Barto Rizzo?' 'Yes.'--'Have the people got
the last batch of arms?' 'Yes.'--And 'Yes,' the secret is well kept;
'Yes,' Barto Rizzo is steadily getting them together. We may rely on him:
Carlo is his intimate friend: Yes, Yes:--There's a regiment of them at
your service, and you may shuffle them as you will. This is the help we
get from Milan: a specimen of what we may expect!"

Sana had puffed himself hot, and now blew for coolness.

"You are,"--Agostino addressed him,--"philosophically totally wrong, my
Marco. Those affirmatives are fat worms for the catching of fish. They
are the real pretty fruit of the Hesperides. Personally, you or I may be
irritated by them: but I'm not sure they don't please us. Were Carlo a
woman, of course he should learn to say no;--as he will now if I ask him,
Is she in sight? I won't do it, you know; but as a man and a diplomatist,
it strikes me that he can't say yes too often."

"Answer me, Count Ammiani, and do me the favour to attend to these
trifles for the space of two minutes," said Corte. "Have you seen Barto
Rizzo? Is he acting for Medole?"

"As mole, as reindeer, and as bloody northern Raven!" ejaculated
Agostino: "perhaps to be jackal, by-and-by. But I do not care to abuse
our Barto Rizzo, who is a prodigy of nature, and has, luckily for
himself, embraced a good cause, for he is certain to be hanged if he is
not shot. He has the prophetic owl's face. I have always a fancy of his
hooting his own death-scrip. I wrong our Barto:--Medole would be the
jackal, if it lay between the two."

Carlo Ammiani had corrected Corte's manner to him by a complacent
readiness to give him distinct replies. He then turned and set off at
full speed down the mountain.

"She is sighted at last," Agostino murmured, and added rapidly some
spirited words under his breath to the Chief, whose chin was resting on
his doubled hand.

Corte, Marco, and Giulio were full of denunciations against Milan and the
Milanese, who had sent a boy to their councils. It was Brescia and
Bergamo speaking in their jealousy, but Carlo's behaviour was odd, and
called for reproof. He had come as the deputy of Milan to meet the Chief,
and he had not spoken a serious word on the great business of the hour,
though the plot had been unfolded, the numbers sworn to, and Brescia, and
Bergamo, and Cremona, and Venice had spoken upon all points through their
emissaries, the two latter cities being represented by Sana and Corte.

"We've had enough of this lad," said Corte. "His laundress is following
him with a change of linen, I suppose, or it's a scent-bottle. He's an
admirable representative of the Lombard metropolis!" Corte drawled out
the words in prodigious mimicry. "If Milan has nothing better to send
than such a fellow, we'll finish without her, and shame the beast that
she is. She has been always a treacherous beast!"

"Poor Milan!" sighed the Chief; "she lies under the beak of the vulture,
and has twice been devoured; but she has a soul: she proves it. Ammiani,
too, will prove his value. I have no doubt of him. As to boys, or even
girls, you know my faith is in the young. Through them Italy lives. What
power can teach devotion to the old?"

"I thank you, signore," Agostino gesticulated.

"But, tell me, when did you learn it, my friend?"

In answer, Agostino lifted his hand a little boy's height from the earth.

The old man then said: "I am afraid, my dear Corte, you must accept the
fellowship of a girl as well as of a boy upon this occasion. See! our
Carlo! You recognize that dancing speck below there?--he has joined
himself--the poor lad wishes he could, I dare swear!--to another bigger
speck, which is verily a lady: who has joined herself to a donkey--a
common habit of the sex, I am told; but I know them not. That lady,
signor Ugo, is the signorina Vittoria. You stare? But, I tell you, the
game cannot go on without her; and that is why I have permitted you to
knock the ball about at your own pleasure for these forty minutes."

Corte drew his under-lip on his reddish stubble moustache. "Are we to
have women in a conference?" he asked from eye to eye.

"Keep to the number, Ugo; and moreover, she is not a woman, but a noble
virgin. I discern a distinction, though you may not. The Vestal's fire
burns straight."

"Who is she?"

"It rejoices me that she should be so little known. All the greater the
illumination when her light shines out! The signorina Vittoria is a
cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards."

"Ah! that completes it." Corte rose to his feet with an air of
desperation. "We require to be refreshed with quavers and crescendos and
trillets! Who ever knew a singer that cared an inch of flesh for her
country? Money, flowers, flattery, vivas! but, money! money! and Austrian
as good as Italian. I've seen the accursed wenches bow gratefully for
Austrian bouquets:--bow? ay, and more; and when the Austrian came to them
red with our blood. I spit upon their polluted cheeks! They get us an ill
name wherever they go. These singers have no country. One--I knew
her--betrayed Filippo Mastalone, and sang the night of the day he was
shot. I heard the white demon myself. I could have taken her long neck
till she twisted like a serpent and hissed. May heaven forgive me for not
levelling a pistol at her head! If God, my friends, had put the thought
into my brain that night!"

A flush had deadened Corte's face to the hue of nightshade.

"You thunder in a clear atmosphere, my Ugo," returned the old man, as he
fell back calmly at full length.

"And who is this signorina Vittoria?" cried Corte.

"A cantatrice who is about to appear upon the boards, as I have already
remarked: of La Scala, let me add, if you hold it necessary."

"And what does she do here?"

"Her object in coming, my friend? Her object in coming is, first, to make
her reverence to one who happens to be among us this day; and secondly,
but principally, to submit a proposition to him and to us."

"What's her age?" Corte sneered.

"According to what calendar would you have it reckoned? Wisdom would say
sixty: Father Chronos might divide that by three, and would get scarce a
month in addition, hungry as he is for her, and all of us! But Minerva's
handmaiden has no age. And now, dear Ugo, you have your opportunity to
denounce her as a convicted screecher by night. Do so."

Corte turned his face to the Chief, and they spoke together for some
minutes: after which, having had names of noble devoted women, dead and
living, cited to him, in answer to brutal bellowings against that sex,
and hearing of the damsel under debate as one who was expected and was
welcome, he flung himself upon the ground again, inviting calamity by
premature resignation. Giulio Bandinelli stretched his hand for Carlo's
glass, and spied the approach of the signorina.

"Dark," he said.

"A jewel of that complexion," added Agostino, by way of comment.

"She has scorching eyes."

"She may do mischief; she may do mischief; let it be only on the right
Side!"

"She looks fat."

"She sits doubled up and forward, don't you see, to relieve the poor
donkey. You, my Giulio, would call a swan fat if the neck were not always
on the stretch."

"By Bacchus! what a throat she has!"

"And well interjected, Giulio! It runs down like wine, like wine, to the
little ebbing and flowing wave! Away with the glass, my boy! You must
trust to all that's best about you to spy what's within. She makes me
young--young!"

Agostino waved his hand in the form of a salute to her on the last short
ascent. She acknowledged it gracefully; and talking at intervals to Carlo
Ammiani, who footed briskly by her side, she drew by degrees among the
eyes fixed on her, some of which were not gentle; but hers were for the
Chief, at whose feet, when dismounted by Ammiani's solicitous aid, she
would have knelt, had he not seized her by her elbows, and put his lips
to her cheek.

"The signorina Vittoria, gentlemen," said Agostino.




CHAPTER III

The old man had introduced her with much of the pride of a father
displaying some noble child of his for the first time to admiring
friends.

"She is one of us," he pursued; "a daughter of Italy! My daughter also;
is it not so?"

He turned to her as for a confirmation. The signorina pressed his
fingers. She was a little intimidated, and for the moment seemed shy and
girlish. The shade of her broad straw hat partly concealed her vivid
features.

"Now, gentlemen, if you please, the number is complete, and we may
proceed to business," said Agostino, formally but as he conducted the
signorina to place her at the feet of the Chief, she beckoned to her
servant, who was holding the animal she had ridden. He came up to her,
and presented himself in something of a military posture of attention to
her commands. These were that he should take the poor brute to water, and
then lead him back to Baveno, and do duty in waiting upon her mother. The
first injunction was received in a decidedly acquiescent manner. On
hearing the second, which directed his abandonment of his post of
immediate watchfulness over her safety, the man flatly objected with a
"Signorina, no."

He was a handsome bright-eyed fellow, with a soldier's frame and a smile
as broad and beaming as laughter, indicating much of that mixture of
acuteness, and simplicity which is a characteristic of the South, and
means no more than that the extreme vivacity of the blood exceeds at
times that of the brain.

A curious frown of half-amused astonishment hung on the signorina's face.

"When I tell you to go, Beppo!"

At once the man threw out his fingers, accompanied by an amazingly
voluble delivery of his reasons for this revolt against her authority.
Among other things, he spoke of an oath sworn by him to a foreign
gentleman, his patron,--for whom, and for whomsoever he loved, he was
ready to pour forth his heart's blood,--to the effect that he would never
quit her side when she left the roof of her house.

"You see, Beppo," she remonstrated, "I am among friends."

Beppo gave a sweeping bow, but remained firm where he stood. Ammiani cast
a sharp hard look at the man.

"Do you hear the signorina's orders?"

"I hear them, signore."

"Will you obey them?"

She interposed. "He must not hear quick words. Beppo is only showing his
love for his master and for me. But you are wrong in this case, my Beppo.
You shall give me your protection when I require it; and now, you are
sensible, and must understand that it is not wanted. I tell you to go."

Beppo read the eyes of his young mistress.

"Signorina,"--he stooped forward mysteriously,--"signorina, that fellow
is in Baveno. I saw him this morning."

"Good, good. And now go, my friend."

"The signor Agostino," he remarked loudly, to attract the old man; "the
signor Agostino may think proper to advise you."

"The signor Agostino will laugh at nothing that you say to-day, Beppo.
You will obey me. Go at once," she repeated, seeing him on tiptoe to gain
Agostino's attention.

Beppo knew by her eyes that her ears were locked against him; and, though
she spoke softly, there was an imperiousness in her voice not to be
disregarded. He showed plainly by the lost rigidity of his attitude that
he was beaten and perplexed. Further expostulations being disregarded, he
turned his head to look at the poor panting beast under his charge, and
went slowly up to him: they walked off together, a crest-fallen pair.

"You have gained the victory, signorina," said Ugo Corte.

She replied, smiling, "My poor Beppo! it's not difficult to get the best
of those who love us."

"Ha!" cried Agostino; "here is one of their secrets, Carlo. Take heed of
it, my boy. We shall have queens when kings are fossils, mark me!"

Ammiani muttered a courtly phrase, whereat Corte yawned in very grim
fashion.

The signorina had dropped to the grass, at a short step from the Chief,
to whom her face was now seriously given. In Ammiani's sight she looked a
dark Madonna, with the sun shining bright gold through the edges of the
summer hat, thrown back from her head. The full and steady contemplative
eyes had taken their fixed expression, after a vanishing affectionate
gaze of an instant cast upon Agostino. Attentive as they were, light
played in them like water. The countenance was vivid in repose. She
leaned slightly forward, clasping the wrist of one hand about her knee,
and the sole of one little foot showed from under her dress.

Deliberately, but with no attempt at dramatic impressiveness, the Chief
began to speak. He touched upon the condition of Italy, and the new lilt
animating her young men and women. "I have heard many good men jeer," he
said, "at our taking women to our counsel, accepting their help, and
putting a great stake upon their devotion. You have read history, and you
know what women can accomplish. They may be trained, equally as we are,
to venerate the abstract idea of country, and be a sacrifice to it.
Without their aid, and the fire of a fresh life being kindled in their
bosoms, no country that has lain like ours in the death-trance can
revive. In the death-trance, I say, for Italy does not die!"

"True," said other voices.

"We have this belief in the eternal life of our country, and the belief
is the life itself. But let no strong man among us despise the help of
women. I have seen our cause lie desperate, and those who despaired of it
were not women. Women kept the flame alive. They worship in the temple of
the cause."

Ammiani's eyes dwelt fervidly upon the signorina. Her look, which was
fastened upon the Chief, expressed a mind that listened to strange matter
concerning her very little. But when the plans for the rising of the
Bergamascs and Brescians, the Venetians, the Bolognese, the Milanese, all
the principal Northern cities, were recited, with a practical emphasis
thrown upon numbers, upon the readiness of the organized bands, the
dispositions of the leaders, and the amount of resistance to be expected
at the various points indicated for the outbreak, her hands disjoined,
and she stretched her fingers to the grass, supporting herself so, while
her extended chin and animated features told how eagerly her spirit drank
at positive springs, and thirsted for assurance of the coming storm.

"It is decided that Milan gives the signal," said the Chief; and a light,
like the reflection of a beacon-fire upon the night, flashed over her.

He was pursuing, when Ugo Corte smote the air with his nervous fingers,
crying out passionately, "Bunglers! are we again to wait for them, and
hear that fifteen patriots have stabbed a Croat corporal, and wrestled
hotly with a lieutenant of the guard? I say they are bunglers. They never
mean the thing. Fifteen! There were just three Milanese among the last
lot--the pick of the city; and the rest were made up of Trentini, and our
lads from Bergamo and Brescia; and the order from the Council was, 'Go
and do the business!' which means, 'Go and earn your ounce of Austrian
lead.' They went, and we gave fifteen true men for one poor devil of a
curst tight blue-leg. They can play the game on if we give them odds like
that. Milan burns bad powder, and goes off like a drugged pistol. It's a
nest of bunglers, and may it be razed! We could do without it, and well!
If it were a family failing, should not I too be trusting them? My
brother was one of the fifteen who marched out as targets to try the
skill of those hell-plumed Tyrolese: and they did it thoroughly--shot him
straight here." Corte struck his chest. "He gave a jump and a cry. Was it
a viva for Milan? They swear that it was, and they can't translate from a
living mouth, much more from a dead one; but I know my Niccolo better. I
have kissed his lips a thousand times, and I know the poor boy meant,
'Scorn and eternal distrust of such peddling conspirators as these!' I
can deal with traitors, but these flash-in-the-pan plotters--these
shaking, jelly-bodied patriots!--trust to them again? Rather draw lots
for another fifteen to bare their breasts and bandage their eyes, and
march out in the grey morning, while the stupid Croat corporal goes on
smoking his lumpy pipe! We shall hear that Milan is moving; we shall
rise; we shall be hot at it; and the news will come that Milan has merely
yawned and turned over to sleep on the other side. Twice she has done
this trick, and the garrison there has sent five regiments to finish
us--teach us to sleep soundly likewise! I say, let it be Bergamo; or be
it Brescia, if you like; or Venice: she is ready. You trust to Milan, and
you are fore-doomed. I would swear it with this hand in the flames. She
give the signal? Shut your eyes, cross your hands flat on your breasts:
you are dead men if you move. She lead the way? Spin on your heels, and
you have followed her!"

Corte had spoken in a thick difficult voice, that seemed to require the
aid of his vehement gestures to pour out as it did like a water-pipe in a
hurricane of rain. He ceased, red almost to blackness, and knotted his
arms, that were big as the cable of a vessel. Not a murmur followed his
speech. The word was, given to the Chief, and he resumed:--"You have a
personal feeling in this case, Ugo. You have not heard me. I came through
Paris. A rocket will soon shoot up from Paris that will be a signal for
Christendom. The keen French wit is sick of its compromise-king. All
Europe is in convulsions in a few months: to-morrow it may be. The
elements are in the hearts of the people, and nothing will contain them.
We have sown them to reap them. The sowing asks for persistency; but the
reaping demands skill and absolute truthfulness. We have now one of those
occasions coming which are the flowers to be plucked by resolute and
worthy hands: they are the tests of our sincerity. This time now rapidly
approaching will try us all, and we must be ready for it. If we have
believed in it, we stand prepared. If we have conceived our plan of
action in purity of heart, we shall be guided to discern the means which
may serve us. You will know speedily what it is that has prompted you to
move. If passion blindfolds you, if you are foiled by a prejudice, I also
shall know. My friend, the nursing of a single antipathy is a presumption
that your motive force is personal--whether the thirst for vengeance or
some internal union of a hundred indistinct little fits of egoism. I have
seen brave and even noble men fail at the ordeal of such an hour: not
fail in courage, not fail in the strength of their desire; that was the
misery for them! They failed because midway they lost the vision to
select the right instruments put in our way by heaven. That vision
belongs solely to such as have clean and disciplined hearts. The hope in
the bosom of a man whose fixed star is Humanity becomes a part of his
blood, and is extinguished when his blood flows no more. To conquer him,
the principle of life must be conquered. And he, my friend, will use all,
because he serves all. I need not touch on Milan."

The signorina drew in her breath quickly, as if in this abrupt close she
had a revelation of the Chief's whole meaning, and was startled by the
sudden unveiling of his mastery. Her hands hung loose; her figure was
tremulous. A murmur from Corte jarred within her like a furious discord,
but he had not offended by refusing to disclaim his error, and had simply
said in a gruff acquiescent way, "Proceed." Her sensations of surprise at
the singular triumph of the Chief made her look curiously into the faces
of the other men; but the pronouncing of her name engaged her attention.

"Your first night is the night of the fifteenth of next month?"

"It is, signore," she replied, abashed to find herself speaking with him
who had so moved her.

"There is no likelihood of a postponement?"

"I am certain, signore, that I shall be ready."

"There are no squabbles of any serious kind among the singers?"

A soft dimple played for a moment on her lips. "I have heard something."

"Among the women?"

"Yes, and the men."

"But the men do not concern you?"

"No, signore. Except that the women twist them."

Agostino chuckled audibly. The Chief resumed:

"You believe, notwithstanding, that all will go well? The opera will be
acted; and you will appear in it?"

"Yes, signore. I know one who has determined on it, and can do it."

"Good. The opera is Camilla?"

She was answering with an affirmative, when Agostino broke in,--"Camilla!
And honour to whom honour is due! Let Caesar claim the writing of the
libretto, if it be Caesar's! It has passed the censorship, signed
Agostino Balderini--a disaffected person out of Piedmont, rendered tame
and fangless by a rigorous imprisonment. The sources of the tale, O ye
grave Signori Tedeschi? The sources are partly to be traced to a neat
little French vaudeville, very sparkling--Camille, or the Husband
Asserted; and again to a certain Chronicle that may be mediaeval, may be
modern, and is just, as the great Shakespeare would say, 'as you like
it.'"

Agostino recited some mock verses, burlesquing the ordinary libretti, and
provoked loud laughter from Carlo Ammiani, who was familiar enough with
the run of their nonsense.

"Camilla is the bride of Camillo. I give to her all the brains, which is
a modern idea, quite! He does all the mischief, which is possibly
mediaeval. They have both an enemy, which is mediaeval and modern. None
of them know exactly what they are about; so there you have the modern,
the mediaeval, and the antique, all in one. Finally, my friends, Camilla
is something for you to digest at leisure. The censorship swallowed it at
a gulp. Never was bait so handsomely taken! At present I have the joy of
playing my fish. On the night of the fifteenth I land him. Camilla has a
mother. Do you see? That mother is reported, is generally conceived, as
dead. Do you see further? Camilla's first song treats of a dream she has
had of that mother. Our signorina shall not be troubled to favour you
with a taste of it, or, by Bacchus and his Indian nymphs, I should
speedily behold you jumping like peas in a pan, like trout on a bank! The
earth would be hot under you, verily! As I was remarking, or meant to be,
Camilla and her husband disagree, having agreed to. 'Tis a plot to
deceive Count Orso--aha? You are acquainted with Count Orso! He is
Camilla's antenuptial guardian. Now you warm to it! In that condition I
leave you. Perhaps my child here will give you a taste of her voice. The
poetry does much upon reflection, but it has to ripen within you--a
matter of time. Wed this voice to the poetry, and it finds passage 'twixt
your ribs, as on the point of a driven blade. Do I cry the sweetness and
the coolness of my melons? Not I! Try them."

The signorina put her hand out for the scroll he was unfolding, and cast
her eyes along bars of music, while Agostino called a "Silenzio tutti!"
She sang one verse, and stopped for breath.

Between her dismayed breathings she said to the Chief:--"Believe me,
signore, I can be trusted to sing when the time comes."

"Sing on, my blackbird--my viola!" said Agostino. "We all trust you. Look
at Colonel Corte, and take him for Count Orso. Take me for pretty
Camillo. Take Marco for Michiela; Giulio for Leonardo; Carlo for Cupid.
Take the Chief for the audience. Take him for a frivolous public. Ah, my
Pippo!" (Agostino laughed aside to him). "Let us lead off with a lighter
piece; a trifle-tra-la-la! and then let the frisky piccolo be drowned in
deep organ notes, as on some occasions in history the people overrun
certain puling characters. But that, I confess, is an illustration
altogether out of place, and I'll simply jot it down in my notebook."

Agostino had talked on to let her gain confidence. When he was silent she
sang from memory. It was a song of flourishes: one of those be-flowered
arias in which the notes flicker and leap like young flames. Others might
have sung it; and though it spoke favourably of her aptitude and musical
education, and was of a quality to enrapture easy, merely critical
audiences, it won no applause from these men. The effect produced by it
was exhibited in the placid tolerance shown by the uplifting of Ugo
Corte's eyebrows, which said, "Well, here's a voice, certainly." His
subsequent look added, "Is this what we have come hither to hear?"

Vittoria saw the look. "Am I on my trial before you?" she thought; and
the thought nerved her throat. She sang in strong and grave contralto
tones, at first with shut eyes. The sense of hostility left her, and
left her soul free, and she raised them. The song was of Camilla dying.
She pardons the treacherous hand, commending her memory and the strength
of her faith to her husband:--