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

George Meredith - "Vittoria, Complete"

Samuel Pepys - "Diary of Samuel Pepys, 1663 N.S. Complete"

Asa Gray - "Darwiniana"

David Hume - "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion"

Vittoria, Complete

G >> George Meredith >> Vittoria, Complete




The mountains and the valleys scarce had names for her understanding;
they were but a scene where the will of her Maker was at work. Rarely has
a soul been so subjected to its own force. She certainly had the image of
God in her mind.

Yet when her ayes lingered on any mountain gorge, the fate of her husband
sang within it a strange chant, ending in a key that rang sounding
through all her being, and seemed to question heaven. This music framed
itself; it was still when she looked at the shrouded mountain-tops. A
shadow meting sunlight on the long green slopes aroused it, and it hummed
above the tumbling hasty foam, and penetrated hanging depths of foliage,
sad-hued rock-clefts, dark green ravines; it became convulsed where the
mountain threw forward in a rushing upward line against the sky, there to
be severed at the head by cloud. It was silent among the vines.

Most painfully did human voices affect her when she had this music;
speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing, and touch distressed her:
an edge of purple flame would then unfold the vision of things to her
eyes. She had lost memory; and if by hazard unawares one idea was
projected by some sudden tumult of her enslaved emotions beyond known and
visible circumstances, her intelligence darkened with am oppressive dread
like that of zealots of the guilt of impiety.

Thus destitute, her eye took innumerable pictures sharp as on a
brass-plate: torrents, goat-tracks winding up red earth, rocks veiled
with water, cottage and children, strings of villagers mounting to the
church, one woman kneeling before a wayside cross, her basket at her
back, and her child gazing idly by; perched hamlets, rolling
pasture-fields, the vast mountain lines. She asked all that she saw,
"Does he live?" but the life was out of everything, and these shows told
of no life, neither of joy nor of grief. She could only distantly connect
the appearance of the white-coated soldiery with the source of her
trouble. They were no more than figures on a screen that hid the flashing
of the sword which renders dumb. She had charity for one who was footsore
and sat cherishing his ankle by a village spring, and she fed him, and
not until he was far behind, thought that he might have seen the white
face of her husband.

Accurate tidings could not be obtained, though the whole course of the
vale was full of stories of escapes, conflicts, and captures. Merthyr
learnt positively that some fugitives had passed the cordon. He came
across Wilfrid and Count Karl, who both verified it in the most sanguine
manner. They knew, however, that Major Nagen continued in the mountains.
Riding by a bend of the road, Merthyr beheld a man playing among
children, with one hand and his head down apparently for concealment at
his approach. It proved to be Beppo. The man believed that Count Ammiani
had fled to Switzerland. Barto Rizzo, he said, was in the mountains
still, and Beppo invoked damnation on him, as the author of those lying
proclamations which had ruined Brescia. He had got out of the city later
than the others and was seeking to evade the outposts, that he might join
his master--"that is, my captain, for I have only one master;" he
corrected the slip of his tongue appealingly to Merthyr. His left hand
was being continually plucked at by the children while he talked, and
after Merthyr had dispersed them with a shower of small coin, he showed
the hand, saying, glad of eye, that it had taken a sword-cut intended for
Count Ammiani. Merthyr sent him back to mount the carriage, enjoining him
severely not to speak.

When Carlo and his companions descended from the mountains, they entered
a village where there was an inn recognized by Angelo as the abode of
Jacopo Cruchi. He there revived Carlo's animosity toward Weisspriess by
telling the tale of the passage to Meran, and his good reasons for
determining to keep guard over the Countess Alessandra all the way.
Subsequently Angelo went to Jacopo for food. This he procured, but he was
compelled to leave the man behind, and unpaid. It was dark when he left
the inn; he had some difficulty in evading a flock of whitecoats, and his
retreat from the village was still on the Austrian side. Somewhat about
midnight Merthyr reached the inn, heralding the carriage. As Jacopo
caught sight of Vittoria's face, he fell with his shoulders straightened
against the wall, and cried out loudly that he had betrayed no one, and
mentioned Major Weisspriess by name as having held the point of his sword
at him and extracted nothing better than a wave of the hand and a lie; in
other words, that the fugitives had retired to the Tyrolese mountains,
and that he had shammed ignorance of who they were. Merthyr read at a
glance that Jacopo had the large swallow and calm digestion for bribes,
and getting the fellow alone he laid money in view, out of which, by
doubling the sum to make Jacopo correct his first statement, and then by
threatening to withdraw it altogether, he gained knowledge of the fact
that Angelo Guidascarpi had recently visited the inn, and had started
from it South-eastward, and that Major Weisspriess was following on his
track. He wrote a line of strong entreaty to Weisspriess, lest that
officer should perchance relapse into anger at the taunts of prisoners
abhorring him with the hatred of Carlo and Angelo. At the same time he
gave Beppo a considerable supply of money, and then sent him off, armed
as far as possible to speed Count Ammiani safe across the borders, if a
fugitive; or if a prisoner, to ensure the best which could be hoped for
him from an adversary become generous. That evening Vittoria lay with her
head on Laura's lap, and the pearly little crescent of her ear in
moonlight by the window. So fair and young and still she looked that
Merthyr feared for her, and thought of sending her back to Countess
Ammiani.

Her first question with the lifting of her eyelids was if he had ceased
to trust to her courage.

"No," said Merthyr; "there are bounds to human strength; that is all."

She answered: "There would be to mine--if I had not more than human
strength beside me. I bow my head, dearest; it is that. I feel that I
cannot break down as long as I know what is passing. Does my husband
live?"

"Yes, he lives," said Merthyr; and she gave him her hand, and went to her
bed.

He learnt from Laura that when Beppo mounted the carriage in silence, a
fit of ungovernable wild trembling had come on her, broken at intervals
by a cry that something was concealed. Laura could give no advice; she
looked on Merthyr and Vittoria as two that had an incomprehensible
knowledge of the power of one another's natures, and the fiery creature
remained passive in perplexity of minds as soft an attendant as a
suffering woman could have:

Merthyr did not sleep, and in the morning Vittoria said to him, "You want
to be active, my friend. Go, and we will wait for you here. I know that I
am never deceived by you, and when I see you I know that the truth speaks
and bids me be worthy of it Go up there," she pointed with shut eyes at
the mountains; "leave me to pray for greater strength. I am among
Italians at this inn; and shall spend money here; the poor people love
it." She smiled a little, showing a glimpse of her old charitable humour.

Merthyr counselled Laura that in case of evil tidings during his absence
she should reject her feminine ideas of expediency, and believe that she
was speaking to a brave soul firmly rooted in the wisdom of heaven.

"Tell her?--she will die," said Laura, shuddering.

"Get tears from her," Merthyr rejoined; "but hide nothing from her for a
single instant; keep her in daylight. For God's sake, keep her in
daylight."

"It's too sharp a task for me." She repeated that she was incapable of
it.

"Ah," said he, "look at your Italy, how she weeps! and she has cause. She
would die in her grief, if she had no faith for what is to come. I dare
say it is not, save in the hearts of one or two, a conscious faith, but
it's real divine strength; and Alessandra Ammiani has it. Do as I bid
you. I return in two days."

Without understanding him, Laura promised that she would do her utmost to
obey, and he left her muttering to herself as if she were schooling her
lips to speak reluctant words. He started for the mountains with
gladdened limbs, taking a guide, who gave his name as Lorenzo, and talked
of having been 'out' in the previous year. "I am a patriot, signore! and
not only in opposition to my beast of a wife, I assure you: a downright
patriot, I mean." Merthyr was tempted to discharge him at first, but
controlled his English antipathy to babblers, and discovered him to be a
serviceable fellow. Toward nightfall they heard shots up a rock-strewn
combe of the lower slopes; desultory shots indicating rifle-firing at
long range. Darkness made them seek shelter in a pine-hut; starting from
which at dawn, Lorenzo ran beating about like a dog over the place where
the shots had sounded on the foregoing day; he found a stone spotted with
blood. Not far from the stone lay a military glove that bore
brown-crimson finger-ends. They were striking off to a dairy-but for
fresh milk, when out of a crevice of rock overhung by shrubs a man's
voice called, and Merthyr climbing up from perch to perch, saw Marco Sana
lying at half length, shot through hand and leg. From him Merthyr learnt
that Carlo and Angelo had fled higher up; yesterday they had been
attacked by coming who tried to lure there to surrender by coming forward
at the head of his men and offering safety, and "other gabble," said
Marco. He offered a fair shot at his heart, too, while he stood below a
rock that Marco pointed at gloomily as a hope gone for ever; but Carlo
would not allow advantage to be taken of even the treacherous simulation
of chivalry, and only permitted firing after he had returned to his men.
"I was hit here and here," said Marco, touching his wounds, as men can
hardly avoid doing when speaking of the fresh wound. Merthyr got him on
his feet, put money in his pocket, and led him off the big stones
painfully. "They give no quarter," Marco assured him, and reasoned that
it must be so, for they had not taken him prisoner, though they saw him
fall, and ran by or in view of him in pursuit of Carlo. By this Merthyr
was convinced that Weisspriess meant well. He left his guide in charge of
Marco to help him into the Engadine. Greatly to his astonishment, Lorenzo
tossed the back of his hand at the offer of money. "There shall be this
difference between me and my wife," he remarked; "and besides, gracious
signore, serving my countrymen for nothing, that's for love, and the
Tedeschi can't punish me for it, so it's one way of cheating them, the
wolves!" Merthyr shook his hand and said, "Instead of my servant, be my
friend;" and Lorenzo made no feeble mouth, but answered, "Signore, it is
much to my honour," and so they went different ways.

Left to himself Merthyr set step vigorously upward. Information from
herdsmen told him that he was an hour off the foot of one of the passes.
He begged them to tell any hunted men who might come within hail that a
friend ran seeking them. Farther up, while thinking of the fine nature of
that Lorenzo, and the many men like him who could not by the very
existence of nobility in their bosoms suffer their country to go through
another generation of servitude, his heart bounded immensely, for he
heard a shout and his name, and he beheld two figures on a rock near the
gorge where the mountain opened to its heights. But they were not Carlo
and Angelo. They were Wilfrid and Count Karl, the latter of whom had
discerned him through a telescope. They had good news to revive him,
however: good at least in the main. Nagen had captured Carlo and Angelo,
they believed; but they had left Weisspriess near on Nagen's detachment,
and they furnished sound military reasons to show why, if Weisspriess
favoured the escape, they should not be present. They supposed that they
were not half-a-mile from the scene in the pass where Nagen was being
forcibly deposed from his authority: Merthyr borrowed Count Karl's glass,
and went as they directed him round a bluff of the descending hills, that
faced the vale, much like a blown and beaten sea-cliff. Wilfrid and Karl
were so certain of Count Ammiani's safety, that their only thought was to
get under good cover before nightfall, and haply into good quarters,
where the three proper requirements of the soldier-meat, wine, and
tobacco--might be furnished to them. After an imperative caution that
they should not present themselves before the Countess Alessandra,
Merthyr sped quickly over the broken ground. How gaily the two young men
cheered to him as he hurried on! He met a sort of pedlar turning the
bluntfaced mountain-spur, and this man said, "Yes, sure enough, prisoners
had been taken," and he was not aware of harm having been done to them;
he fancied there was a quarrel between two captains. His plan being
always to avoid the military, he had slunk round and away from them as
fast as might be. An Austrian common soldier, a good-humoured German,
distressed by a fall that had hurt his knee-cap, sat within the gorge,
which was very wide at the mouth. Merthyr questioned him, and he, while
mending one of his gathered cigar-ends, pointed to a meadow near the
beaten track, some distance up the rocks. Whitecoats stood thick on it.
Merthyr lifted his telescope and perceived an eager air about the men,
though they stood ranged in careless order. He began to mount forthwith,
but amazed by a sudden ringing of shot, he stopped, asking himself in
horror whether it could be an execution. The shots and the noise
increased, until the confusion of a positive mellay reigned above. The
fall of the meadow swept to a bold crag right over the pathway, and with
a projection that seen sideways made a vulture's head and beak of it.
There rolled a corpse down the precipitous wave of green grass on to the
crag, where it lodged, face to the sky; sword dangled from swordknot at
one wrist, heels and arms were in the air, and the body caught midway
hung poised and motionless. The firing deadened. Then Merthyr drawing
nearer beneath the crag, saw one who had life in him slipping down toward
the body, and knew the man for Beppo. Beppo knocked his hands together
and groaned miserably, but flung himself astride the beak of the crag,
and took the body in his arms, sprang down with it, and lay stunned at
Merthyr's feet. Merthyr looked on the face of Carlo Ammiani.




EPILOGUE

No uncontested version of the tragedy of Count Ammiani's death passed
current in Milan during many years. With time it became disconnected from
passion, and took form in a plain narrative. He and Angelo were captured
by Major Nagen, and were, as the soldiers of the force subsequently let
it be known, roughly threatened with what he termed I 'Brescian short
credit.' The appearance of Major Weisspriess and his claim to the command
created a violent discussion between the two officers. For Nagen, by all
military rules, could well contest it. But Weisspriess had any body of
the men of the army under his charm, and seeing the ascendency he gained
with them over an unpopular officer, he dared the stroke for the
charitable object he had in view. Having established his command, in
spite of Nagen's wrathful protests and menaces, he spoke to the
prisoners, telling Carlo that for his wife's sake he should be spared,
and Angelo that he must expect the fate of a murderer. His address to
them was deliberate, and quite courteous: he expressed himself sorry that
a gallant gentleman like Angelo Guidascarpi should merit a bloody grave,
but so it was. At the same time he entreated Count Ammiani to rely on his
determination to save him. Major Nagen did not stand far removed from
them. Carlo turned to him and repeated the words of Weisspriess; nor
could Angelo restrain his cousin's vehement renunciation of hope and life
in doing this. He accused Weisspriess of a long evasion of a brave man's
obligation to repair an injury, charged him with cowardice, and requested
Major Nagen, as a man of honour, to drag his brother officer to the duel.
Nagen then said that Major Weisspriess was his superior, adding that his
gallant brother officer had only of late objected to vindicate his
reputation with his sword. Stung finally beyond the control of an
irritable temper, Weisspriess walked out of sight of the soldiery with
Carlo, to whom, at a special formal request from Weisspriess, Nagen
handed his sword. Again he begged Count Ammiani to abstain from fighting;
yea, to strike him and disable him, and fly, rather--than provoke the
skill of his right hand. Carlo demanded his cousin's freedom. It was
denied to him, and Carlo claimed his privilege. The witnesses of the duel
were Jenna and another young subaltern: both declared it fair according
to the laws of honour, when their stupefaction on beholding the proud
swordsman of the army stretched lifeless on the brown leaves of the past
year left them with power to speak. Thus did Carlo slay his old enemy who
would have served as his friend. A shout of rescue was heard before Carlo
had yielded up his weapon. Four haggard and desperate men, headed by
Barto Rizzo, burst from an ambush on the guard encircling Angelo. There,
with one thought of saving his doomed cousin and comrade, Carlo rushed,
and not one Italian survived the fight.

An unarmed spectator upon the meadow-borders, Beppo, had but obscure
glimpses of scenes shifting like a sky in advance of hurricane winds.

Merthyr delivered the burden of death to Vittoria. Her soul had crossed
the darkness of the river of death in that quiet agony preceding the
revelation of her Maker's will, and she drew her dead husband to her
bosom and kissed him on the eyes and the forehead, not as one who had
quite gone away from her, but as one who lay upon another shore whither
she would come. The manful friend, ever by her side, saved her by his
absolute trust in her fortitude to bear the burden of the great sorrow
undeceived, and to walk with it to its last resting-place on earth
unobstructed. Clear knowledge of her, the issue of reverent love, enabled
him to read her unequalled strength of nature, and to rely on her
fidelity to her highest mortal duty in a conflict with extreme despair.
She lived through it as her Italy had lived through the hours which
brought her face to face with her dearest in death; and she also on the
day, ten years later, when an Emperor and a King stood beneath the vault
of the grand Duomo, and the organ and a peal of voices rendered thanks to
heaven for liberty, could show the fruit of her devotion in the dark-eyed
boy, Carlo Merthyr Ammiani, standing between Merthyr and her, with old
blind Agostino's hands upon his head. And then once more, and but for
once, her voice was heard in Milan.



ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE VITTORIA:

A common age once, when he married her; now she had grown old
A fortress face; strong and massive, and honourable in ruin
Agostino was enjoying the smoke of paper cigarettes
An angry woman will think the worst
Anguish to think of having bent the knee for nothing
Art of despising what he coveted
As the Lord decided, so it would end! "Oh, delicious creed!"
Be on your guard the next two minutes he gets you alone
But is there such a thing as happiness
By our manner of loving we are known
Compliment of being outwitted by their own offspring
Conduct is never a straight index where the heart's involved
Confess no more than is necessary, but do everything you can
Critical in their first glance at a prima donna
Deep as a mother's, pure as a virgin's, fiery as a saint's
Defiance of foes and (what was harder to brave) of friends
Do I serve my hand? or, Do I serve my heart?
English antipathy to babblers
Every church of the city lent its iron tongue to the peal
Fast growing to be an eccentric by profession
Foolish trick of thinking for herself
Forgetfulness is like a closing sea
Fortitude leaned so much upon the irony
Good nerve to face the scene which he is certain will be enacted
Government of brain; not sufficient Insurrection of heart
Grand air of pitying sadness
Had taken refuge in their opera-glasses
Hated tears, considering them a clog to all useful machinery
He is in the season of faults
He is inexorable, being the guilty one of the two
He postponed it to the next minute and the next
Her singing struck a note of grateful remembered delight
I always respected her; I never liked her
I hope I am not too hungry to discriminate
I know nothing of imagination
Impossible for us women to comprehend love without folly in man
In Italy, a husband away, ze friend takes title
Intentions are really rich possessions
Ironical fortitude
It rarely astonishes our ears It illumines our souls
Italians were like women, and wanted--a real beating
Longing for love and dependence
Love of men and women as a toy that I have played with
Madness that sane men enamoured can be struck by
Morales, madame, suit ze sun
Necessary for him to denounce somebody
Never, never love a married woman
No intoxication of hot blood to cheer those who sat at home
No word is more lightly spoken than shame
Not to be feared more than are the general race of bunglers
O heaven! of what avail is human effort?
Obedience oils necessity
Our life is but a little holding, lent To do a mighty labour
Pain is a cloak that wraps you about
Patience is the pestilence
People who can lose themselves in a ray of fancy at any season
Profound belief in her partiality for him
Question with some whether idiots should live
Rarely exacted obedience, and she was spontaneously obeyed
She thought that friendship was sweeter than love
She was sick of personal freedom
Simple obstinacy of will sustained her
Speech was a scourge to her sense of hearing
Taint of the hypocrisy which comes with shame
The devil trusts nobody
The divine afflatus of enthusiasm buoyed her no longer
They take fever for strength, and calmness for submission
Too weak to resist, to submit to an outrage quietly
Too well used to defeat to believe readily in victory
Was born on a hired bed
Watch, and wait
We are good friends till we quarrel again
We can bear to fall; we cannot afford to draw back
Went into endless invalid's laughter
Who shrinks from an hour that is suspended in doubt
Whole body of fanatics combined to precipitate the devotion
Why should these men take so much killing?
Will not admit the existence of a virtue in an opposite opinion
Women and men are in two hostile camps
You can master pain, but not doubt
Youth will not believe that stupidity and beauty can go together