THE Gadfly certainly knew how to make personal
enemies. He had arrived in Florence in
August, and by the end of October three-fourths
of the committee which had invited him shared
Martini's opinion. His savage attacks upon Montanelli
had annoyed even his admirers; and Galli
himself, who at first had been inclined to uphold
everything the witty satirist said or did, began to
acknowledge with an aggrieved air that Montanelli
had better have been left in peace. "Decent
cardinals are none so plenty. One might treat
them politely when they do turn up."
The only person who, apparently, remained
quite indifferent to the storm of caricatures and
pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed,
as Martini said, hardly worth while to expend
one's energy in ridiculing a man who took it so
good-humouredly. It was said in the town that
Montanelli, one day when the Archbishop of Florence
was dining with him, had found in the room
one of the Gadfly's bitter personal lampoons
against himself, had read it through and handed
the paper to the Archbishop, remarking: "That
is rather cleverly put, is it not?"
One day there appeared in the town a leaflet,
headed: "The Mystery of the Annunciation."
Even had the author omitted his now familiar
signature, a sketch of a gadfly with spread wings,
the bitter, trenchant style would have left in the
minds of most readers no doubt as to his identity.
The skit was in the form of a dialogue between
Tuscany as the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli as the
angel who, bearing the lilies of purity and crowned
with the olive branch of peace, was announcing
the advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing was
full of offensive personal allusions and hints of the
most risky nature, and all Florence felt the satire
to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet all
Florence laughed. There was something so irresistible
in the Gadfly's grave absurdities that those
who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed
as immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest
partisans. Repulsive in tone as the leaflet was,
it left its trace upon the popular feeling of the
town. Montanelli's personal reputation stood too
high for any lampoon, however witty, seriously to
injure it, but for a moment the tide almost turned
against him. The Gadfly had known where to
sting; and, though eager crowds still collected
before the Cardinal's house to see him enter or
leave his carriage, ominous cries of "Jesuit!" and
"Sanfedist spy!" often mingled with the cheers
and benedictions.
But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two
days after the publication of the skit, the Churchman,
a leading clerical paper, brought out a
brilliant article, called: "An Answer to 'The
Mystery of the Annunciation,'" and signed: "A
Son of the Church." It was an impassioned defence
of Montanelli against the Gadfly's slanderous
imputations. The anonymous writer, after
expounding, with great eloquence and fervour, the
doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards
men, of which the new Pontiff was the evangelist,
concluded by challenging the Gadfly to prove a
single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing
to the public not to believe a contemptible
slanderer. Both the cogency of the article as a
bit of special pleading and its merit as a literary
composition were sufficiently far above the average
to attract much attention in the town, especially
as not even the editor of the newspaper could
guess the author's identity. The article was soon
reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and the
"anonymous defender" was discussed in every
coffee-shop in Florence.
The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on
the new Pontificate and all its supporters, especially
on Montanelli, who, he cautiously hinted, had
probably consented to the panegyric on himself.
To this the anonymous defender again replied in
the Churchman with an indignant denial. During
the rest of Montanelli's stay the controversy raging
between the two writers occupied more of the
public attention than did even the famous preacher
himself.
Some members of the liberal party ventured to
remonstrate with the Gadfly about the unnecessary
malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but
they did not get much satisfaction out of him.
He only smiled affably and answered with a languid
little stammer: "R-really, gentlemen, you are
rather unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave
in to Signora Bolla, that I should be allowed a
l-l-little chuckle all to myself now. It is so nominated
in the bond!"
At the end of October Montanelli returned to
his see in the Romagna, and, before leaving Florence,
preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke
of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence
of both writers and begging his unknown
defender to set an example of tolerance by closing
a useless and unseemly war of words. On the
following day the Churchman contained a notice
that, at Monsignor Montanelli's publicly expressed
desire, "A Son of the Church" would withdraw
from the controversy.
The last word remained with the Gadfly. He
issued a little leaflet, in which he declared himself
disarmed and converted by Montanelli's Christian
meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation
upon the neck of the first Sanfedist he met. "I
am even willing," he concluded; "to embrace my
anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers
knew, as his Eminence and I know, what that
implies and why he remains anonymous, they
would believe in the sincerity of my conversion."
In the latter part of November he announced to
the literary committee that he was going for a
fortnight's holiday to the seaside. He went, apparently,
to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going
there soon after and wishing to speak to him,
searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th of
December a political demonstration of the most
extreme character burst out in the States of the
Church, along the whole chain of the Apennines;
and people began to guess the reason of the Gadfly's
sudden fancy to take his holidays in the depth
of winter. He came back to Florence when the
riots had been quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in
the street, remarked affably:
"I hear you were inquiring for me in Leghorn;
I was staying in Pisa. What a pretty old town
it is! There's something quite Arcadian about it."
In Christmas week he attended an afternoon
meeting of the literary committee which was held
in Dr. Riccardo's lodgings near the Porta alla
Croce. The meeting was a full one, and when he
came in, a little late, with an apologetic bow and
smile, there seemed to be no seat empty. Riccardo
rose to fetch a chair from the next room,
but the Gadfly stopped him. "Don't trouble
about it," he said; "I shall be quite comfortable
here"; and crossing the room to a window beside
which Gemma had placed her chair, he sat down
on the sill, leaning his head indolently back
against the shutter.
As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with
half-shut eyes, in the subtle, sphinx-like way that
gave him the look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait,
the instinctive distrust with which he inspired her
deepened into a sense of unreasoning fear.
The proposal under discussion was that a pamphlet
be issued setting forth the committee's views
on the dearth with which Tuscany was threatened
and the measures which should be taken to meet
it. The matter was a somewhat difficult one to
decide, because, as usual, the committee's views
upon the subject were much divided. The more
advanced section, to which Gemma, Martini, and
Riccardo belonged, was in favour of an energetic
appeal to both government and public to take adequate
measures at once for the relief of the peasantry.
The moderate division--including, of
course, Grassini--feared that an over-emphatic
tone might irritate rather than convince the
ministry.
"It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the
people helped at once," he said, looking round
upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying
air. "We most of us want a good many things
that we are not likely to get; but if we start with
the tone you propose to adopt, the government
is very likely not to begin any relief measures
at all till there is actual famine. If we could
only induce the ministry to make an inquiry
into the state of the crops it would be a step in
advance."
Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to
answer his enemy.
"A step in advance--yes, my dear sir; but if
there's going to be a famine, it won't wait for us
to advance at that pace. The people might all
starve before we got to any actual relief."
"It would be interesting to know----" Sacconi
began; but several voices interrupted him.
"Speak up; we can't hear!"
"I should think not, with such an infernal row
in the street," said Galli, irritably. "Is that window
shut, Riccardo? One can't hear one's self speak!"
Gemma looked round. "Yes," she said, "the
window is quite shut. I think there is a variety
show, or some such thing, passing."
The sounds of shouting and laughter, of the
tinkling of bells and trampling of feet, resounded
from the street below, mixed with the braying of
a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging
of a drum.
"It can't be helped these few days," said Riccardo;
"we must expect noise at Christmas time. What were you
saying, Sacconi?"
"I said it would be interesting to hear what is
thought about the matter in Pisa and Leghorn.
Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he
has just come from there."
The Gadfly did not answer. He was staring out
of the window and appeared not to have heard
what had been said.
"Signor Rivarez!" said Gemma. She was the
only person sitting near to him, and as he remained
silent she bent forward and touched him on the
arm. He slowly turned his face to her, and she
started as she saw its fixed and awful immobility.
For a moment it was like the face of a corpse; then
the lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.
"Yes," he whispered; "a variety show."
Her first instinct was to shield him from the
curiosity of the others. Without understanding
what was the matter with him, she realized that
some frightful fancy or hallucination had seized
upon him, and that, for the moment, he was at
its mercy, body and soul. She rose quickly and,
standing between him and the company, threw
the window open as if to look out. No one but
herself had seen his face.
In the street a travelling circus was passing,
with mountebanks on donkeys and harlequins in
parti-coloured dresses. The crowd of holiday
masqueraders, laughing and shoving, was exchanging
jests and showers of paper ribbon with the
clowns and flinging little bags of sugar-plums to
the columbine, who sat in her car, tricked out in
tinsel and feathers, with artificial curls on her
forehead and an artificial smile on her painted lips.
Behind the car came a motley string of figures--
street Arabs, beggars, clowns turning somersaults,
and costermongers hawking their wares. They
were jostling, pelting, and applauding a figure
which at first Gemma could not see for the pushing
and swaying of the crowd. The next moment,
however, she saw plainly what it was--a
hunchback, dwarfish and ugly, grotesquely attired
in a fool's dress, with paper cap and bells. He
evidently belonged to the strolling company, and
was amusing the crowd with hideous grimaces and
contortions.
"What is going on out there?" asked Riccardo,
approaching the window. "You seem very much
interested."
He was a little surprised at their keeping the
whole committee waiting to look at a strolling
company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.
"It is nothing interesting," she said; "only a
variety show; but they made such a noise that I
thought it must be something else."
She was standing with one hand upon the
window-sill, and suddenly felt the Gadfly's cold
fingers press the hand with a passionate clasp.
"Thank you!" he whispered softly; and then,
closing the window, sat down again upon the sill.
"I'm afraid," he said in his airy manner, "that
I have interrupted you, gentlemen. I was l-looking
at the variety show; it is s-such a p-pretty sight."
"Sacconi was asking you a question," said Martini
gruffly. The Gadfly's behaviour seemed to
him an absurd piece of affectation, and he was
annoyed that Gemma should have been tactless
enough to follow his example. It was not like her.
The Gadfly disclaimed all knowledge of the state
of feeling in Pisa, explaining that he had been
there "only on a holiday." He then plunged at
once into an animated discussion, first of agricultural
prospects, then of the pamphlet question;
and continued pouring out a flood of stammering
talk till the others were quite tired. He seemed
to find some feverish delight in the sound of his
own voice.
When the meeting ended and the members of
the committee rose to go, Riccardo came up to
Martini.
"Will you stop to dinner with me? Fabrizi
and Sacconi have promised to stay."
"Thanks; but I was going to see Signora Bolla
home."
"Are you really afraid I can't get home by
myself?" she asked, rising and putting on her
wrap. "Of course he will stay with you, Dr. Riccardo;
it's good for him to get a change. He doesn't go out
half enough."
"If you will allow me, I will see you home," the
Gadfly interposed; "I am going in that direction."
"If you really are going that way----"
"I suppose you won't have time to drop in here
in the course of the evening, will you, Rivarez?"
asked Riccardo, as he opened the door for them.
The Gadfly looked back over his shoulder,
laughing. "I, my dear fellow? I'm going to see
the variety show!"
"What a strange creature that is; and what an
odd affection for mountebanks!" said Riccardo,
coming back to his visitors.
"Case of a fellow-feeling, I should think," said
Martini; "the man's a mountebank himself, if ever
I saw one."
"I wish I could think he was only that," Fabrizi
interposed, with a grave face. "If he is a mountebank
I am afraid he's a very dangerous one."
"Dangerous in what way?"
"Well, I don't like those mysterious little pleasure
trips that he is so fond of taking. This is the
third time, you know; and I don't believe he has
been in Pisa at all."
"I suppose it is almost an open secret that it's
into the mountains he goes," said Sacconi. "He
has hardly taken the trouble to deny that he is
still in relations with the smugglers he got to
know in the Savigno affair, and it's quite natural
he should take advantage of their friendship to
get his leaflets across the Papal frontier."
"For my part," said Riccardo; "what I wanted
to talk to you about is this very question. It
occurred to me that we could hardly do better than
ask Rivarez to undertake the management of our
own smuggling. That press at Pistoja is very
inefficiently managed, to my thinking; and the
way the leaflets are taken across, always rolled in
those everlasting cigars, is more than primitive."
"It has answered pretty well up till now," said
Martini contumaciously. He was getting wearied
of hearing Galli and Riccardo always put the Gadfly
forward as a model to copy, and inclined to
think that the world had gone well enough before
this "lackadaisical buccaneer" turned up to set
everyone to rights.
"It has answered so far well that we have been
satisfied with it for want of anything better;
but you know there have been plenty of arrests and
confiscations. Now I believe that if Rivarez undertook
the business for us, there would be less of that."
"Why do you think so?"
"In the first place, the smugglers look upon
us as strangers to do business with, or as sheep to
fleece, whereas Rivarez is their personal friend,
very likely their leader, whom they look up to and
trust. You may be sure every smuggler in the
Apennines will do for a man who was in the Savigno
revolt what he will not do for us. In the
next place, there's hardly a man among us that
knows the mountains as Rivarez does. Remember,
he has been a fugitive among them, and knows
the smugglers' paths by heart. No smuggler
would dare to cheat him, even if he wished to, and
no smuggler could cheat him if he dared to try."
"Then is your proposal that we should ask him
to take over the whole management of our literature
on the other side of the frontier--distribution,
addresses, hiding-places, everything--or simply
that we should ask him to put the things across
for us?"
"Well, as for addresses and hiding-places, he
probably knows already all the ones that we have
and a good many more that we have not. I don't
suppose we should be able to teach him much in
that line. As for distribution, it's as the others
prefer, of course. The important question, to my
mind, is the actual smuggling itself. Once the
books are safe in Bologna, it's a comparatively
simple matter to circulate them."
"For my part," said Martini, "I am against the
plan. In the first place, all this about his skilfulness
is mere conjecture; we have not actually seen
him engaged in frontier work and do not know
whether he keeps his head in critical moments."
"Oh, you needn't have any doubt of that!"
Riccardo put in. "The history of the Savigno
affair proves that he keeps his head."
"And then," Martini went on; "I do not feel
at all inclined, from what little I know of Rivarez,
to intrust him with all the party's secrets. He
seems to me feather-brained and theatrical. To
give the whole management of a party's contraband
work into a man's hands is a serious matter.
Fabrizi, what do you think?"
"If I had only such objections as yours, Martini,"
replied the professor, "I should certainly
waive them in the case of a man really possessing,
as Rivarez undoubtedly does, all the qualifications
Riccardo speaks of. For my part, I have not the
slightest doubt as to either his courage, his honesty,
or his presence of mind; and that he knows
both mountains and mountaineers we have had
ample proof. But there is another objection. I
do not feel sure that it is only for the smuggling
of pamphlets he goes into the mountains. I have
begun to doubt whether he has not another purpose.
This is, of course, entirely between ourselves.
It is a mere suspicion. It seems to me
just possible that he is in connexion with some
one of the 'sects,' and perhaps with the most dangerous
of them."
"Which one do you mean--the 'Red Girdles'?"
"No; the 'Occoltellatori.'"
"The 'Knifers'! But that is a little body of
outlaws--peasants, most of them, with neither
education nor political experience."
"So were the insurgents of Savigno; but they
had a few educated men as leaders, and this little
society may have the same. And remember, it's
pretty well known that most of the members of
those more violent sects in the Romagna are survivors
of the Savigno affair, who found themselves
too weak to fight the Churchmen in open insurrection,
and so have fallen back on assassination.
Their hands are not strong enough for guns, and
they take to knives instead."
"But what makes you suppose Rivarez to be
connected with them?"
"I don't suppose, I merely suspect. In any
case, I think we had better find out for certain
before we intrust our smuggling to him. If he
attempted to do both kinds of work at once he
would injure our party most terribly; he would
simply destroy its reputation and accomplish
nothing. However, we will talk of that another
time. I wanted to speak to you about the news
from Rome. It is said that a commission is to
be appointed to draw up a project for a municipal
constitution."
