A	>>	B	>>	C	>>	D	>>	E
F	>>	G	>>	H	>>	I	>>	J
K	>>	L	>>	M	>>	N	>>	O
P	>>	R	>>		S	>>		T
U	>>		V			>>		W

Aneurin - "Y Gododin"

Charles H. Sylvester - "Journeys Through Bookland V3"

E. P. Roe - "Driven Back to Eden"

Unknown - "The Bible, King James version, Book 38: Zechariah"

Vittoria, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Vittoria, Complete




"Beloved, I am quickly out of sight:
I pray that you will love more than my dust.

Were death defeat, much weeping would be right;
'Tis victory when it leaves surviving trust.
You will not find me save when you forget
Earth's feebleness, and come to faith, my friend,
For all Humanity doth owe a debt
To all Humanity, until the end."

Agostino glanced at the Chief to see whether his ear had caught note of
his own language.

The melancholy severity of that song of death changed to a song of
prophetic triumph. The signorina stood up. Camilla has thrown off the
mask, and has sung the name "Italia!" At the recurrence of it the men
rose likewise.

"Italia, Italia, shall be free!"

Vittoria gave the inspiration of a dying voice: the conquest of death by
an eternal truth seemed to radiate from her. Voice and features were as
one expression of a rapture of belief built upon pathetic trustfulness.

"Italia, Italia shall be free!"

She seized the hearts of those hard and serious men as a wind takes the
strong oak-trees, and rocks them on their knotted roots, and leaves them
with the song of soaring among their branches. Italy shone about her; the
lake, the plains, the peaks, and the shouldering flushed snowridges.
Carlo Ammiani breathed as one who draws in fire. Grizzled Agostino
glittered with suppressed emotion, like a frosted thorn-bush in the
sunlight. Ugo Corte had his thick brows down, as a man who is reading
iron matter. The Chief alone showed no sign beyond a half lifting of the
hand, and a most luminous fixed observation of the fair young woman, from
whom power was an emanation, free of effort. The gaze was sad in its
thoughtfulness, such as our feelings translate of the light of evening.

She ceased, and he said, "You sing on the night of the fifteenth?"

"I do, signore."

"It is your first appearance?"

She bent her head.

"And you will be prepared on that night to sing this song?"

"Yes, signore."

"Save in the event of your being forbidden?"

"Unless you shall forbid me, I will sing it, signore."

"Should they imprison you?--"

"If they shoot me I shall be satisfied to know that I have sung a song
that cannot be forgotten."

The Chief took her hand in a gentle grasp.

"Such as you will help to give our Italy freedom. You hold the sacred
flame, and know you hold it in trust."

"Friends,"--he turned to his companions,--"you have heard what will be
the signal for Milan."




CHAPTER IV

It was a surprise to all of them, save to Agostino Balderini, who passed
his inspecting glance from face to face, marking the effect of the
announcement. Corte gazed at her heavily, but not altogether
disapprovingly. Giulio Bandinelli and Marco Sana, though evidently
astonished, and to some extent incredulous, listened like the perfectly
trusty lieutenants in an enterprise which they were. But Carlo Ammiani
stood horror-stricken. The blood had left his handsome young olive-hued
face, and his eyes were on the signorina, large with amazement, from
which they deepened to piteousness of entreaty.

"Signorina!--you! Can it be true? Do you know?--do you mean it?"

"What, signor Carlo?"

"This; will you venture to do such a thing?"

"Oh, will I venture? What can you think of me? It is my own request."

"But, signorina, in mercy, listen and consider."

Carlo turned impetuously to the Chief. "The signorina can't know the
danger she is running. She will be seized on the boards, and shut up
between four walls before a man of us will be ready,--or more than one,"
he added softly. "The house is sure to be packed for a first night; and
the Polizia have a suspicion of her. She has been off her guard in the
Conservatorio; she has talked of a country called Italy; she has been
indiscreet;--pardon, pardon, signorina! but it is true that she has
spoken out from her noble heart. And this opera! Are they fools?--they
must see through it. It will never,--it can't possibly be reckoned on to
appear. I knew that the signorina was heart and soul with us; but who
could guess that her object was to sacrifice herself in the front
rank,--to lead a forlorn hope! I tell you it's like a Pagan rite. You are
positively slaying a victim. I beg you all to look at the case calmly!"

A burst of laughter checked him; for his seniors by many years could not
hear such veteran's counsel from a hurried boy without being shrewdly
touched by the humour of it, while one or two threw a particular irony
into their tones.

"When we do slay a victim, we will come to you as our augur, my Carlo,"
said Agostino.

Corte was less gentle. As a Milanese and a mere youth Ammiani was
antipathetic to Corte, who closed his laughter with a windy rattle of his
lips, and a "pish!" of some emphasis.

Carlo was quick to give him a challenging frown.

"What is it?" Corte bent his head back, as if inquiringly.

"It's I who claim that question by right," said Carlo.

"You are a boy."

"I have studied war."

"In books."

"With brains, Colonel Corte."

"War is a matter of blows, my little lad."

"Let me inform you, signor Colonel, that war is not a game between bulls,
to be played with the horns of the head."

"You are prepared to instruct me?" The fiery Bergamasc lifted his
eyebrows.

"Nay, nay!" said Agostino. "Between us two first;" and he grasped Carlo's
arm, saying in an underbreath, "Your last retort was too long-winded. In
these conflicts you must be quick, sharp as a rifle-crack that hits echo
on the breast-bone and makes her cry out. I correct a student in the art
of war." Then aloud: "My opera, young man!--well, it's my libretto, and
you know we writers always say 'my opera' when we have put the pegs for
the voice; you are certainly aware that we do. How dare you to make
calumnious observations upon my opera? Is it not the ripe and admirable
fruit of five years of confinement? Are not the lines sharp, the stanzas
solid? and the stuff, is it not good? Is not the subject simple, pure
from offence to sensitive authority, constitutionally harmless? Reply!"

"It's transparent to any but asses," said Carlo.

"But if it has passed the censorship? You are guilty, my boy, of
bestowing upon those highly disciplined gentlemen who govern your famous
city--what title? I trust a prophetic one, since that it comes from an
animal whose custom is to turn its back before it delivers a blow, and
is, they remark, fonder of encountering dead lions than live ones. Still,
it is you who are indiscreet,--eminently so, I must add, if you will look
lofty. If my opera has passed the censorship! eh, what have you to say?"

Carlo endured this banter till the end of it came.

"And you--you encourage her!" he cried wrathfully. "You know what the
danger is for her, if they once lay hands on her. They will have her in
Verona in four-and-twenty hours; through the gates of the Adige in a
couple of days, and at Spielberg, or some other of their infernal dens of
groans, within a week. Where is the chance of a rescue then? They
torture, too, they torture! It's a woman; and insult will be one mode of
torturing her. They can use rods--"

The excited Southern youth was about to cover his face, but caught back
his hands, clenching them.

"All this," said Agostino, "is an evasion, manifestly, of the question
concerning my opera, on which you have thought proper to cast a slur. The
phrase, 'transparent to any but asses,' may not be absolutely
objectionable, for transparency is, as the critics rightly insist,
meritorious in a composition. And, according to the other view, if we
desire our clever opponents to see nothing in something, it is notably
skilful to let them see through it. You perceive, my Carlo. Transparency,
then, deserves favourable comment. So, I do not complain of your phrase,
but I had the unfortunate privilege of hearing it uttered. The method of
delivery scarcely conveyed a compliment. Will you apologize?"

Carlo burst from him with a vehement question to the Chief: "Is it
decided?"

"It is, my friend," was the reply.

"Decided! She is doomed! Signorina! what can you know of this frightful
risk? You are going to the slaughter. You will be seized before the first
verse is out of your lips, and once in their clutches, you will never
breathe free air again. It's madness!--ah, forgive me!--yes, madness! For
you shut your eyes; you rush into the trap blindfolded. And that is how
you serve our Italy! She sees you an instant, and you are caught
away;--and you who might serve her, if you would, do you think you can
move dungeon walls?"

"Perhaps, if I have been once seen, I shall not be forgotten," said the
signorina smoothly, and then cast her eyes down, as if she felt the
burden of a little possible accusation of vanity in this remark. She
raised them with fire.

"No; never!" exclaimed Carlo. "But, now you are ours. And--surely it is
not quite decided?"

He had spoken imploringly to the Chief. "Not irrevocably?" he added.

"Irrevocably!"

"Then she is lost!"

"For shame, Carlo Ammiani;" said old Agostino, casting his sententious
humours aside. "Do you not hear? It is decided! Do you wish to rob her of
her courage, and see her tremble? It's her scheme and mine: a case where
an old head approves a young one. The Chief says Yes! and you bellow
still! Is it a Milanese trick? Be silent."

"Be silent!" echoed Carlo. "Do you remember the beast Marschatska's bet?"
The allusion was to a black incident concerning a young Italian ballet
girl who had been carried off by an Austrian officer, under the pretext
of her complicity in one of the antecedent conspiracies.

"He rendered payment for it," said Agostino.

"He perished; yes! as we shake dust to the winds; but she!--it's
terrible! You place women in the front ranks--girls! What can defenceless
creatures do? Would you let the van-regiment in battle be the one without
weapons? It's slaughter. She's like a lamb to them. You hold up your
jewel to the enemy, and cry, 'Come and take it.' Think of the insults!
think of the rough hands, and foul mouths! She will be seized on the
boards--"

"Not if you keep your tongue from wagging," interposed Ugo Corte, fevered
by this unseasonable exhibition of what was to him manifestly a lover's
frenzied selfishness. He moved off, indifferent to Carlo's retort. Marco
Sana and Giulio Bandinelli were already talking aside with the Chief.

"Signor Carlo, not a hand shall touch me," said the signorina. "And I am
not a lamb, though it is good of you to think me one. I passed through
the streets of Milan in the last rising. I was unharmed. You must have
some confidence in me."

"Signorina, there's the danger," rejoined Carlo. "You trust to your good
angels once, twice--the third time they fail you! What are you among a
host of armed savages? You would be tossed like weed on the sea. In pity,
do not look so scornfully! No, there is no unjust meaning in it; but you
despise me for seeing danger. Can nothing persuade you? And, besides," he
addressed the Chief, who alone betrayed no signs of weariness; "listen, I
beg of you. Milan wants no more than a signal. She does not require to be
excited. I came charged with several proposals for giving the alarm.
Attend, you others! The night of the Fifteenth comes; it is passing like
an ordinary night. At twelve a fire-balloon is seen in the sky. Listen,
in the name of saints and devils!"

But even the Chief was observed to show signs of amusement, and the
gravity of the rest forsook them altogether at the display of this
profound and original conspiratorial notion.

"Excellent! excellent! my Carlo," said old Agostino, cheerfully. "You
have thought. You must have thought, or whence such a conception? But,
you really mistake. It is not the garrison whom we desire to put on their
guard. By no means. We are not in the Imperial pay. Probably your balloon
is to burst in due time, and, wind permitting, disperse printed papers
all over the city?"

"What if it is?" cried Carlo fiercely.

"Exactly. I have divined your idea. You have thought, or, to correct the
tense, are thinking, which is more hopeful, though it may chance not to
seem so meritorious. But, if yours are the ideas of full-blown jackets,
bear in mind that our enemies are coated and breeched. It may be
creditable to you that your cunning is not the cunning of the serpent; to
us it would be more valuable if it were. Continue."

"Oh! there are a thousand ways." Carlo controlled himself with a sharp
screw of all his muscles. "I simply wish to save the signorina from an
annoyance."

"Very mildly put," Agostino murmured assentingly.

"In our Journal," said Carlo, holding out the palm of one hand to dot the
forefinger of the other across it, by way of personal illustration--"in
our Journal we might arrange for certain letters to recur at distinct
intervals in Roman capitals, which might spell out, 'This Night AT
Twelve,' or 'At Once.'"

"Quite as ingenious, but on the present occasion erring on the side of
intricacy. Aha! you want to increase the sale of your Journal, do you, my
boy? The rogue!"

With which, and a light slap over Carlo's shoulder, Agostino left him.

The aspect of his own futile proposals stared the young man in the face
too forcibly for him to nurse the spark of resentment which was struck
out in the turmoil of his bosom. He veered, as if to follow Agostino, and
remained midway, his chest heaving, and his eyelids shut.

"Signor Carlo, I have not thanked you." He heard Vittoria speak. "I know
that a woman should never attempt to do men's work. The Chief will tell
you that we must all serve now, and all do our best. If we fail, and they
put me to great indignity, I promise you that I will not live. I would
give this up to be done by anyone else who could do it better. It is in
my hands, and my friends must encourage me."

"Ah, signorina!" the young man sighed bitterly. The knowledge that he had
already betrayed himself in the presence of others too far, and the sob
in his throat labouring to escape, kept him still.

A warning call from Ugo Corte drew their attention. Close by the chalet
where the first climbers of the mountain had refreshed themselves, Beppo
was seen struggling to secure the arms of a man in a high-crowned green
Swiss hat, who was apparently disposed to give the signorina's faithful
servant some trouble. After gazing a minute at this singular contention,
she cried--"It's the same who follows me everywhere!"

"And you will not believe you are suspected," murmured Carlo in her ear.

"A spy?" Sana queried, showing keen joy at the prospect of scotching such
a reptile on the lonely height. Corte went up to the Chief. They spoke
briefly together, making use of notes and tracings on paper. The Chief
then said "Adieu" to the signorina. It was explained to the rest by Corte
that he had a meeting to attend near Pella about noon, and must be in
Fobello before midnight. Thence his way would be to Genoa.

"So, you are resolved to give another trial to our crowned ex-Carbonaro,"
said Agostino.

"Without leaving him an initiative this time!" and the Chief embraced the
old man. "You know me upon that point. I cannot trust him. I do not. But,
if we make such a tide in Lombardy that his army must be drawn into it,
is such an army to be refused? First, the tide, my friend! See to that."

"The king is our instrument!" cried Carlo Ammiani, brightening.

"Yes, if we were particularly well skilled in the use of that kind of
instrument," Agostino muttered.

He stood apart while the Chief said a few words to Carlo, which made the
blood play vividly across the visage of the youth. Carlo tried humbly to
expostulate once or twice. In the end his head was bowed, and he
signified a dumb acquiescence.

"Once more, good-bye." The Chief addressed the signorina in English.

She replied in the same tongue, "Good-bye," tremulously; and passion
mounting on it, added--"Oh! when shall I see you again?"

"When Rome is purified to be a fit place for such as you."

In another minute he was hidden on the slope of the mountain lying toward
Orta.




CHAPTER V

Beppo had effected a firm capture of his man some way down the slope. But
it was a case of check that entirely precluded his own free movements.
They hung together intertwisted in the characters of specious pacificator
and appealing citizen, both breathless.

"There! you want to hand me up neatly; I know your vanity, my Beppo; and
you don't even know my name," said the prisoner.

"I know your ferret of a face well enough," said Beppo. "You dog the
signorina. Come up, and don't give trouble."

"Am I not a sheep? You worry me. Let me go."

"You're a wriggling eel."

"Catch me fast by the tail then, and don't hold me by the middle."

"You want frightening, my pretty fellow!"

"If that's true, my Beppo, somebody made a mistake in sending you to do
it. Stop a moment. You're blown. I think you gulp down your minestra too
hot; you drink beer."

"You dog the signorina! I swore to scotch you at last."

"I left Milan for the purpose--don't you see? Act fairly, my Beppo, and
let us go up to the signorina together decently."

"Ay, ay, my little reptile! You'll find no Austrians here. Cry out to
them to come to you from Baveno. If the Motterone grew just one tree!
Saints! one would serve."

"Why don't you--fool that you are, my Beppo!--pray to the saints earlier?
Trees don't grow from heaven."

"You'll be going there soon, and you'll know better about it."

"Thanks to the Virgin, then, we shall part at some time or other!"

The struggles between them continued sharply during this exchange of
intellectual shots; but hearing Ugo Corte's voice, the prisoner's
confident audacity forsook him, and he drew a long tight face like the
mask of an admonitory exclamation addressed to himself from within.

"Stand up straight!" the soldier's command was uttered.

Even Beppo was amazed to see that the man had lost the power to obey or
to speak.

Corte grasped him under the arm-pit. With the force of his huge fist he
swung him round and stretched him out at arm's length, all collar and
shanks. The man hung like a mole from the twig. Yet, while Beppo poured
out the tale of his iniquities, his eyes gave the turn of a twinkle,
showing that he could have answered one whom he did not fear. The charge
brought against him was, that for the last six months he had been
untiringly spying on the signorina.

Corte stamped his loose feet to earth, shook him and told him to walk
aloft. The flexible voluble fellow had evidently become miserably
disconcerted. He walked in trepidation, speechless, and when interrogated
on the height his eyes flew across the angry visages with dismal
uncertainty. Agostino perceived that he had undoubtedly not expected to
come among them, and forthwith began to excite Giulio and Marco to the
worst suspicions, in order to indulge his royal poetic soul with a study
of a timorous wretch pushed to anticipations of extremity.

"The execution of a spy," he preluded, "is the signal for the ringing of
joy-bells on this earth; not only because he is one of a pestiferous
excess, in point of numbers, but that he is no true son of earth. He
escaped out of hell's doors on a windy day, and all that we do is to puff
out a bad light, and send him back. Look at this fellow in whom
conscience is operating so that he appears like a corked volcano! You can
see that he takes Austrian money; his skin has got to be the exact colour
of Munz. He has the greenish-yellow eyes of those elective,
thrice-abhorred vampyres who feed on patriot-blood. He is condemned
without trial by his villainous countenance, like an ungrammatical preface
to a book. His tongue refuses to confess, but nature is
stronger:--observe his knees. Now this is guilt. It is execrable guilt.
He is a nasty object. Nature has in her wisdom shortened his stature to
indicate that it is left to us to shorten the growth of his offending
years. Now, you dangling soul! answer me:--what name hailed you when on
earth?"

The fan, with no clearly serviceable tongue, articulated, "Luigi."

"Luigi! the name Christian and distinctive. The name historic:-Luigi
Porco?"

"Luigi Saracco, signore."

"Saracco: Saracco: very possibly a strip of the posterity of cut-throat
Moors. To judge by your face, a Moor undoubtedly: glib, slippery! with a
body that slides and a soul that jumps. Taken altogether, more serpent
than eagle. I misdoubt that little quick cornering eye of yours. Do you
ever remember to have blushed?"

"No, signore," said Luigi.

"You spy upon the signorina, do you?"

"You have Beppo's word for that," interposed Marco Sana, growling.

"And you are found spying on the mountain this particular day! Luigi
Saracco, you are a fellow of a tremendous composition. A goose walking
into a den of foxes is alone to be compared to you,--if ever such goose
was! How many of us did you count, now, when you were, say, a quarter of
a mile below?"

Marco interposed again: "He has already seen enough up here to make a
rope of florins."

"The fellow's eye takes likenesses," said Giulio.

Agostino's question was repeated by Corte, and so sternly that Luigi,
beholding kindness upon no other face save Vittoria's, watched her, and
muttering "Six," blinked his keen black eyes piteously to get her sign of
assent to his hesitated naming of that number. Her mouth and the turn of
her head were expressive to him, and he cried "Seven."

"So; first six, and next seven," said Corte.

"Six, I meant, without the signorina," Luigi explained.

"You saw six of us without the signorina! You see we are six here,
including the signorina. Where is the seventh?"

Luigi tried to penetrate Vittoria's eyes for a proper response; but she
understood the grave necessity for getting the full extent of his
observations out of him, and she looked as remorseless as the men. He
feigned stupidity and sullenness, rage and cunning, in quick succession.

"Who was the seventh?" said Carlo.

"Was it the king?" Luigi asked.

This was by just a little too clever; and its cleverness, being seen,
magnified the intended evasion so as to make it appear to them that Luigi
knew well the name of the seventh.

Marco thumped a hand on his shoulder, shouting--"Here; speak out! You saw
seven of us. Where has the seventh one gone?"

Luigi's wits made a dash at honesty. "Down Orta, signore."

"And down Orta, I think, you will go; deeper down than you may like."

Corte now requested Vittoria to stand aside. He motioned to her with his
hand to stand farther, and still farther off; and finally told Carlo to
escort her to Baveno. She now began to think that the man Luigi was in
some perceptible danger, nor did Ammiani disperse the idea.

"If he is a spy, and if he has seen the Chief, we shall have to detain
him for at least four-and-twenty hours," he said, "or do worse."

"But, Signor Carlo,"--Vittoria made appeal to his humanity,--"do they
mean, if they decide that he is guilty, to hurt him?"

"Tell me, signorina, what punishment do you imagine a spy deserves?"

"To be called one!"

Carlo smiled at her lofty method of dealing with the animal.

"Then you presume him to have a conscience?"

"I am sure, Signor Carlo, that I could make him loathe to be called a
spy."

They were slowly pacing from the group, and were on the edge of the
descent, when the signorina's name was shrieked by Luigi. The man came
running to her for protection, Beppo and the rest at his heels. She
allowed him to grasp her hand.

"After all, he is my spy; he does belong to me," she said, still speaking
on to Carlo. "I must beg your permission, Colonel Corte and Signor Marco,
to try an experiment. The Signor Carlo will not believe that a spy can be
ashamed of his name.--Luigi!"

"Signorina!"--he shook his body over her hand with a most plaintive
utterance.

"You are my countryman, Luigi?"

"Yes, signorina."

"You are an Italian?"

"Certainly, signorina!"

"A spy!"

Vittoria had not always to lift her voice in music for it to sway the
hearts of men. She spoke the word very simply in a mellow soft tone.
Luigi's blood shot purple. He thrust his fists against his ears.

"See, Signor Carlo," she said; "I was right. Luigi, you will be a spy no
more?"

Carlo Ammiani happened to be rolling a cigarette-paper. She put out her
fingers for it, and then reached it to Luigi, who accepted it with
singular contortions of his frame, declaring that he would confess
everything to her. "Yes, signorina, it is true; I am a spy on you. I know
the houses you visit. I know you eat too much chocolate for your voice. I
know you are the friend of the Signora Laura, the widow of Giacomo
Piaveni, shot--shot on Annunciation Day. The Virgin bless him! I know the
turning of every street from your house near the Duomo to the signora's.
You go nowhere else, except to the maestro's. And it's something to spy
upon you. But think of your Beppo who spies upon me! And your little
mother, the lady most excellent, is down in Baveno, and she is always
near you when you make an expedition. Signorina, I know you would not pay
your Beppo for spying upon me. Why does he do it? I do not sing 'Italia,
Italia shall be free!' I have heard you when I was under the maestro's
windows; and once you sang it to the Signor Agostino Balderini.
Indeed, signorina, I am a sort of guardian of your voice. It is not gold
of the Tedeschi I get from the Signor Antonio Pericles."