A FEW days later, the Gadfly, still rather pale and
limping more than usual, entered the reading
room of the public library and asked for Cardinal
Montanelli's sermons. Riccardo, who was reading
at a table near him, looked up. He liked the
Gadfly very much, but could not digest this one
trait in him--this curious personal maliciousness.
"Are you preparing another volley against that
unlucky Cardinal?" he asked half irritably.
"My dear fellow, why do you a-a-always attribute
evil m-m-motives to people? It's m-most
unchristian. I am preparing an essay on contemporary
theology for the n-n-new paper."
"What new paper?" Riccardo frowned. It
was perhaps an open secret that a new press-law
was expected and that the Opposition was preparing
to astonish the town with a radical newspaper;
but still it was, formally, a secret.
"The Swindlers' Gazette, of course, or the
Church Calendar."
"Sh-sh! Rivarez, we are disturbing the other
readers."
"Well then, stick to your surgery, if that's
your subject, and l-l-leave me to th-theology--
that's mine. I d-d-don't interfere with your
treatment of broken bones, though I know a
p-p-precious lot more about them than you do."
He sat down to his volume of sermons with an
intent and preoccupied face. One of the librarians
came up to him.
"Signor Rivarez! I think you were in the
Duprez expedition, exploring the tributaries of the
Amazon? Perhaps you will kindly help us in a
difficulty. A lady has been inquiring for the
records of the expedition, and they are at the
binder's."
"What does she want to know?"
"Only in what year the expedition started and
when it passed through Ecuador."
"It started from Paris in the autumn of 1837,
and passed through Quito in April, 1838. We
were three years in Brazil; then went down to Rio
and got back to Paris in the summer of 1841.
Does the lady want the dates of the separate
discoveries?"
"No, thank you; only these. I have written
them down. Beppo, take this paper to Signora
Bolla, please. Many thanks, Signor Rivarez. I
am sorry to have troubled you."
The Gadfly leaned back in his chair with a perplexed
frown. What did she want the dates for?
When they passed through Ecuador----
Gemma went home with the slip of paper in her
hand. April, 1838--and Arthur had died in May,
1833. Five years--
She began pacing up and down her room. She
had slept badly the last few nights, and there were
dark shadows under her eyes.
Five years;--and an "overluxurious home"--
and "someone he had trusted had deceived him"
--had deceived him--and he had found it out----
She stopped and put up both hands to her head.
Oh, this was utterly mad--it was not possible--it
was absurd----
And yet, how they had dragged that harbour!
Five years--and he was "not twenty-one"
when the Lascar---- Then he must have been
nineteen when he ran away from home. Had he
not said: "A year and a half----" Where did he
get those blue eyes from, and that nervous restlessness
of the fingers? And why was he so bitter
against Montanelli? Five years--five years------
If she could but know that he was drowned--if
she could but have seen the body; some day,
surely, the old wound would have left off aching,
the old memory would have lost its terrors. Perhaps
in another twenty years she would have
learned to look back without shrinking.
All her youth had been poisoned by the thought
of what she had done. Resolutely, day after day
and year after year, she had fought against the
demon of remorse. Always she had remembered
that her work lay in the future; always had shut
her eyes and ears to the haunting spectre of the
past. And day after day, year after year, the
image of the drowned body drifting out to sea had
never left her, and the bitter cry that she could not
silence had risen in her heart: "I have killed
Arthur! Arthur is dead!" Sometimes it had
seemed to her that her burden was too heavy to
be borne.
Now she would have given half her life to have
that burden back again. If she had killed him--
that was a familiar grief; she had endured it too
long to sink under it now. But if she had driven
him, not into the water but into------ She sat
down, covering her eyes with both hands. And
her life had been darkened for his sake, because he
was dead! If she had brought upon him nothing
worse than death----
Steadily, pitilessly she went back, step by step,
through the hell of his past life. It was as vivid
to her as though she had seen and felt it all; the
helpless shivering of the naked soul, the mockery
that was bitterer than death, the horror of
loneliness, the slow, grinding, relentless agony. It
was as vivid as if she had sat beside him in the
filthy Indian hut; as if she had suffered with him in
the silver-mines, the coffee fields, the horrible
variety show--
The variety show---- No, she must shut out
that image, at least; it was enough to drive one
mad to sit and think of it.
She opened a little drawer in her writing-desk.
It contained the few personal relics which she
could not bring herself to destroy. She was
not given to the hoarding up of sentimental
trifles; and the preservation of these keepsakes
was a concession to that weaker side of her
nature which she kept under with so steady a
hand. She very seldom allowed herself to look
at them.
Now she took them out, one after another:
Giovanni's first letter to her, and the flowers that
had lain in his dead hand; a lock of her baby's
hair and a withered leaf from her father's grave.
At the back of the drawer was a miniature portrait
of Arthur at ten years old--the only existing
likeness of him.
She sat down with it in her hands and looked
at the beautiful childish head, till the face of the
real Arthur rose up afresh before her. How clear
it was in every detail! The sensitive lines of the
mouth, the wide, earnest eyes, the seraphic purity
of expression--they were graven in upon her
memory, as though he had died yesterday.
Slowly the blinding tears welled up and hid the
portrait.
Oh, how could she have thought such a thing!
It was like sacrilege even to dream of this bright,
far-off spirit, bound to the sordid miseries of life.
Surely the gods had loved him a little, and had let
him die young! Better a thousand times that he
should pass into utter nothingness than that he
should live and be the Gadfly--the Gadfly, with
his faultless neckties and his doubtful witticisms,
his bitter tongue and his ballet girl! No, no! It
was all a horrible, senseless fancy; and she had
vexed her heart with vain imaginings. Arthur
was dead.
"May I come in?" asked a soft voice at the
door.
She started so that the portrait fell from her
hand, and the Gadfly, limping across the room,
picked it up and handed it to her.
"How you startled me!" she said.
"I am s-so sorry. Perhaps I am disturbing
you?"
"No. I was only turning over some old
things."
She hesitated for a moment; then handed him
back the miniature.
"What do you think of that head?"
While he looked at it she watched his face as
though her life depended upon its expression; but
it was merely negative and critical.
"You have set me a difficult task," he said.
"The portrait is faded, and a child's face is always
hard to read. But I should think that child would
grow into an unlucky man, and the wisest thing
he could do would be to abstain from growing into
a man at all."
"Why?"
"Look at the line of the under-lip. Th-th-that
is the sort of nature that feels pain as pain and
wrong as wrong; and the world has no r-r-room
for such people; it needs people who feel nothing
but their work."
"Is it at all like anyone you know?"
He looked at the portrait more closely.
"Yes. What a curious thing! Of course it
is; very like."
"Like whom?"
"C-c-cardinal Montan-nelli. I wonder whether
his irreproachable Eminence has any nephews, by
the way? Who is it, if I may ask?"
"It is a portrait, taken in childhood, of the
friend I told you about the other day----"
"Whom you killed?"
She winced in spite of herself. How lightly,
how cruelly he used that dreadful word!
"Yes, whom I killed--if he is really dead."
"If?"
She kept her eyes on his face.
"I have sometimes doubted," she said. "The
body was never found. He may have run away
from home, like you, and gone to South America."
"Let us hope not. That would be a bad memory
to carry about with you. I have d-d-done
some hard fighting in my t-time, and have sent
m-more than one man to Hades, perhaps; but if
I had it on my conscience that I had sent any l-living
thing to South America, I should sleep badly----"
"Then do you believe," she interrupted, coming
nearer to him with clasped hands, "that if he were
not drowned,--if he had been through your experience
instead,--he would never come back and
let the past go? Do you believe he would NEVER
forget? Remember, it has cost me something,
too. Look!"
She pushed back the heavy waves of hair from
her forehead. Through the black locks ran a
broad white streak.
There was a long silence.
"I think," the Gadfly said slowly, "that the
dead are better dead. Forgetting some things is
a difficult matter. And if I were in the place of
your dead friend, I would s-s-stay dead. The
REVENANT is an ugly spectre."
She put the portrait back into its drawer and
locked the desk.
"That is hard doctrine," she said. "And now
we will talk about something else."
"I came to have a little business talk with you,
if I may--a private one, about a plan that I have
in my head."
She drew a chair to the table and sat down.
"What do you think of the projected press-law?"
he began, without a trace of his usual stammer.
"What I think of it? I think it will not be of
much value, but half a loaf is better than no
bread."
"Undoubtedly. Then do you intend to work
on one of the new papers these good folk here are
preparing to start?"
"I thought of doing so. There is always a
great deal of practical work to be done in starting
any paper--printing and circulation arrangements
and----"
"How long are you going to waste your mental
gifts in that fashion?"
"Why 'waste'?"
"Because it is waste. You know quite well
that you have a far better head than most of the
men you are working with, and you let them make
a regular drudge and Johannes factotum of you.
Intellectually you are as far ahead of Grassini and
Galli as if they were schoolboys; yet you sit correcting
their proofs like a printer's devil."
"In the first place, I don't spend all my time
in correcting proofs; and moreover it seems to me
that you exaggerate my mental capacities. They
are by no means so brilliant as you think."
"I don't think them brilliant at all," he answered
quietly; "but I do think them sound and
solid, which is of much more importance. At
those dreary committee meetings it is always you
who put your finger on the weak spot in everybody's logic."
"You are not fair to the others. Martini, for
instance, has a very logical head, and there is no
doubt about the capacities of Fabrizi and Lega. Then
Grassini has a sounder knowledge of Italian economic
statistics than any official in the country, perhaps."
"Well, that's not saying much; but let us lay
them and their capacities aside. The fact remains
that you, with such gifts as you possess, might do
more important work and fill a more responsible
post than at present."
"I am quite satisfied with my position. The
work I am doing is not of very much value, perhaps,
but we all do what we can."
"Signora Bolla, you and I have gone too far to
play at compliments and modest denials now.
Tell me honestly, do you recognize that you are
using up your brain on work which persons inferior
to you could do as well?"
"Since you press me for an answer--yes, to
some extent."
"Then why do you let that go on?"
No answer.
"Why do you let it go on?"
"Because--I can't help it."
"Why?"
She looked up reproachfully. "That is unkind
--it's not fair to press me so."
"But all the same you are going to tell me why."
"If you must have it, then--because my life has
been smashed into pieces, and I have not the
energy to start anything REAL, now. I am about
fit to be a revolutionary cab-horse, and do the
party's drudge-work. At least I do it conscientiously,
and it must be done by somebody."
"Certainly it must be done by somebody; but
not always by the same person."
"It's about all I'm fit for."
He looked at her with half-shut eyes, inscrutably.
Presently she raised her head.
"We are returning to the old subject; and this
was to be a business talk. It is quite useless, I
assure you, to tell me I might have done all sorts
of things. I shall never do them now. But I may
be able to help you in thinking out your plan.
What is it?"
"You begin by telling me that it is useless for
me to suggest anything, and then ask what I want
to suggest. My plan requires your help in action,
not only in thinking out."
"Let me hear it and then we will discuss."
"Tell me first whether you have heard anything
about schemes for a rising in Venetia."
"I have heard of nothing but schemes for risings
and Sanfedist plots ever since the amnesty,
and I fear I am as sceptical about the one as about
the other."
"So am I, in most cases; but I am speaking of
really serious preparations for a rising of the whole
province against the Austrians. A good many
young fellows in the Papal States--particularly in
the Four Legations--are secretly preparing to get
across there and join as volunteers. And I hear
from my friends in the Romagna----"
"Tell me," she interrupted, "are you quite sure
that these friends of yours can be trusted?"
"Quite sure. I know them personally, and
have worked with them."
"That is, they are members of the 'sect' to
which you belong? Forgive my scepticism, but I
am always a little doubtful as to the accuracy of
information received from secret societies. It
seems to me that the habit----"
"Who told you I belonged to a 'sect'?" he interrupted sharply.
"No one; I guessed it."
"Ah!" He leaned back in his chair and looked
at her, frowning. "Do you always guess people's
private affairs?" he said after a moment.
"Very often. I am rather observant, and have
a habit of putting things together. I tell you that
so that you may be careful when you don't want
me to know a thing."
"I don't mind your knowing anything so long as it
goes no further. I suppose this has not----"
She lifted her head with a gesture of half-offended
surprise. "Surely that is an unnecessary question!" she said.
"Of course I know you would not speak of anything
to outsiders; but I thought that perhaps, to
the members of your party----"
"The party's business is with facts, not with
my personal conjectures and fancies. Of course
I have never mentioned the subject to anyone."
"Thank you. Do you happen to have guessed
which sect I belong to?"
"I hope--you must not take offence at my
frankness; it was you who started this talk, you
know---- I do hope it is not the 'Knifers.'"
"Why do you hope that?"
"Because you are fit for better things."
"We are all fit for better things than we ever
do. There is your own answer back again. However,
it is not the 'Knifers' that I belong to, but
the 'Red Girdles.' They are a steadier lot, and
take their work more seriously."
"Do you mean the work of knifing?"
"That, among other things. Knives are very
useful in their way; but only when you have a
good, organized propaganda behind them. That
is what I dislike in the other sect. They think a
knife can settle all the world's difficulties; and
that's a mistake. It can settle a good many, but
not all."
"Do you honestly believe that it settles any?"
He looked at her in surprise.
"Of course," she went on, "it eliminates, for
the moment, the practical difficulty caused by the
presence of a clever spy or objectionable official;
but whether it does not create worse difficulties in
place of the one removed is another question. It
seems to me like the parable of the swept and garnished
house and the seven devils. Every assassination only
makes the police more vicious and
the people more accustomed to violence and brutality,
and the last state of the community may be
worse than the first."
"What do you think will happen when the revolution
comes? Do you suppose the people won't
have to get accustomed to violence then? War
is war."
"Yes, but open revolution is another matter.
It is one moment in the people's life, and it is the
price we have to pay for all our progress. No
doubt fearful things will happen; they must in
every revolution. But they will be isolated
facts--exceptional features of an exceptional moment.
The horrible thing about this promiscuous
knifing is that it becomes a habit. The people get
to look upon it as an every-day occurrence, and
their sense of the sacredness of human life gets
blunted. I have not been much in the Romagna,
but what little I have seen of the people has given
me the impression that they have got, or are getting,
into a mechanical habit of violence."
"Surely even that is better than a mechanical
habit of obedience and submission."
"I don't think so. All mechanical habits are
bad and slavish, and this one is ferocious as well.
Of course, if you look upon the work of the revolutionist
as the mere wresting of certain definite
concessions from the government, then the secret
sect and the knife must seem to you the best weapons,
for there is nothing else which all governments
so dread. But if you think, as I do, that to
force the government's hand is not an end in itself,
but only a means to an end, and that what we
really need to reform is the relation between man
and man, then you must go differently to work.
Accustoming ignorant people to the sight of blood
is not the way to raise the value they put on human
life."
"And the value they put on religion?"
"I don't understand."
He smiled.
"I think we differ as to where the root of the
mischief lies. You place it in a lack of appreciation
of the value of human life."
"Rather of the sacredness of human personality."
"Put it as you like. To me the great cause of
our muddles and mistakes seems to lie in the
mental disease called religion."
"Do you mean any religion in particular?"
"Oh, no! That is a mere question of external
symptoms. The disease itself is what is called a
religious attitude of mind. It is the morbid
desire to set up a fetich and adore it, to fall down
and worship something. It makes little difference
whether the something be Jesus or Buddha or a
tum-tum tree. You don't agree with me, of
course. You may be atheist or agnostic or anything
you like, but I could feel the religious temperament
in you at five yards. However, it is of
no use for us to discuss that. But you are quite
mistaken in thinking that I, for one, look upon the
knifing as merely a means of removing objectionable
officials--it is, above all, a means, and I think
the best means, of undermining the prestige of the
Church and of accustoming people to look upon
clerical agents as upon any other vermin."
"And when you have accomplished that; when
you have roused the wild beast that sleeps in the
people and set it on the Church; then----"
"Then I shall have done the work that makes it
worth my while to live."
"Is THAT the work you spoke of the other day?"
"Yes, just that."
She shivered and turned away.
"You are disappointed in me?" he said, looking
up with a smile.
"No; not exactly that. I am--I think--a little
afraid of you."
She turned round after a moment and said in
her ordinary business voice:
"This is an unprofitable discussion. Our standpoints
are too different. For my part, I believe
in propaganda, propaganda, and propaganda; and
when you can get it, open insurrection."
"Then let us come back to the question of my
plan; it has something to do with propaganda and
more with insurrection."
"Yes?"
"As I tell you, a good many volunteers are going
from the Romagna to join the Venetians.
We do not know yet how soon the insurrection
will break out. It may not be till the autumn
or winter; but the volunteers in the Apennines
must be armed and ready, so that they may be
able to start for the plains directly they are
sent for. I have undertaken to smuggle the
firearms and ammunition on to Papal territory for
them----"
"Wait a minute. How do you come to be
working with that set? The revolutionists in
Lombardy and Venetia are all in favour of the new
Pope. They are going in for liberal reforms, hand
in hand with the progressive movement in the
Church. How can a 'no-compromise' anti-clerical
like you get on with them?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "What is it to me
if they like to amuse themselves with a rag-doll,
so long as they do their work? Of course they
will take the Pope for a figurehead. What have
I to do with that, if only the insurrection gets
under way somehow? Any stick will do to beat
a dog with, I suppose, and any cry to set the people
on the Austrians."
"What is it you want me to do?"
"Chiefly to help me get the firearms across."
"But how could I do that?"
"You are just the person who could do it best.
I think of buying the arms in England, and there
is a good deal of difficulty about bringing them
over. It's impossible to get them through any
of the Pontifical sea-ports; they must come by
Tuscany, and go across the Apennines."
"That makes two frontiers to cross instead of
one."
"Yes; but the other way is hopeless; you can't
smuggle a big transport in at a harbour where there
is no trade, and you know the whole shipping of
Civita Vecchia amounts to about three row-boats
and a fishing smack. If we once get the things
across Tuscany, I can manage the Papal frontier;
my men know every path in the mountains, and we
have plenty of hiding-places. The transport must
come by sea to Leghorn, and that is my great difficulty;
I am not in with the smugglers there, and
I believe you are."
"Give me five minutes to think."
She leaned forward, resting one elbow on her
knee, and supporting the chin on the raised hand.
After a few moments' silence she looked up.
"It is possible that I might be of some use in
that part of the work," she said; "but before we go
any further, I want to ask you a question. Can
you give me your word that this business is not
connected with any stabbing or secret violence of
any kind?"
"Certainly. It goes without saying that I
should not have asked you to join in a thing of
which I know you disapprove."
"When do you want a definite answer from
me?"
"There is not much time to lose; but I can give
you a few days to decide in."
"Are you free next Saturday evening?"
"Let me see--to-day is Thursday; yes."
"Then come here. I will think the matter over
and give you a final answer."
. . . . .
On the following Sunday Gemma sent in to the
committee of the Florentine branch of the Mazzinian
party a statement that she wished to undertake
a special work of a political nature, which
would for a few months prevent her from performing
the functions for which she had up till now
been responsible to the party.
Some surprise was felt at this announcement,
but the committee raised no objection; she had
been known in the party for several years as a person
whose judgment might be trusted; and the
members agreed that if Signora Bolla took an unexpected
step, she probably had good reasons for it.
To Martini she said frankly that she had undertaken
to help the Gadfly with some "frontier
work." She had stipulated for the right to tell her
old friend this much, in order that there might be
no misunderstanding or painful sense of doubt and
mystery between them. It seemed to her that she
owed him this proof of confidence. He made no
comment when she told him; but she saw, without
knowing why, that the news had wounded
him deeply.
They were sitting on the terrace of her lodging,
looking out over the red roofs to Fiesole. After
a long silence, Martini rose and began tramping
up and down with his hands in his pockets, whistling
to himself--a sure sign with him of mental agitation.
She sat looking at him for a little while.
"Cesare, you are worried about this affair," she
said at last. "I am very sorry you feel so despondent
over it; but I could decide only as seemed
right to me."
"It is not the affair," he answered, sullenly;
"I know nothing about it, and it probably is all
right, once you have consented to go into it. It's
the MAN I distrust."
"I think you misunderstand him; I did till I
got to know him better. He is far from perfect,
but there is much more good in him than you
think."
"Very likely." For a moment he tramped to
and fro in silence, then suddenly stopped beside
her.
"Gemma, give it up! Give it up before it is too
late! Don't let that man drag you into things
you will repent afterwards."
"Cesare," she said gently, "you are not thinking
what you are saying. No one is dragging me
into anything. I have made this decision of my
own will, after thinking the matter well over alone.
You have a personal dislike to Rivarez, I know;
but we are talking of politics now, not of persons."
"Madonna! Give it up! That man is dangerous;
he is secret, and cruel, and unscrupulous--
and he is in love with you!"
She drew back.
"Cesare, how can you get such fancies into your
head?"
"He is in love with you," Martini repeated.
"Keep clear of him, Madonna!"
"Dear Cesare, I can't keep clear of him; and I
can't explain to you why. We are tied together--
not by any wish or doing of our own."
"If you are tied, there is nothing more to say,"
Martini answered wearily.
He went away, saying that he was busy, and
tramped for hours up and down the muddy streets.
The world looked very black to him that evening.
One poor ewe-lamb--and this slippery creature
had stepped in and stolen it away.
