Miss Fuller

by April Bernard

  One more financial note from this time: When Mr Nathan departed for Europe, he entrusted to my keeping his enormous Newfoundland dog, Josy. She promptly killed two chickens belonging to the Greeleys’ neighbor (thereby interrupting my egg-supply & requiring my out-of-pocket replacement of the fowl), so I employed their boy to feed the dog. Her enormous appetite required such a quantity of horse-meat & grain-mast that the whole cost me nearly $2 a week! When at last my urgent query when Mr Nathan would return to reclaim his Josy was answered by him with the suggestion that I turn her loose because animals can fend for themselves, you may imagine that what little regard I had left for Mr Nathan’s heart was crumbled into dust.

  Happily Josy was soon placed with a prosperous family which boasted three romping little girls, at a country estate up the river.

  Another thing I learned at this time: Discretion can be expensive tho’ candor costs more. Discretion costs at most such trifles as the hire of a hansom & a slight sense of shame; candor costs the earth. The Greeleys knew nearly nothing of my friendship with Mr Nathan & moreover I felt it wise not to speak of my frequent dining with any friends, as the first such occasion resulted in a quizzing such as you cannot imagine, as to what exactly I had eaten — with such a hand-wringing about the duck, & the berry-sauce & the joint & the peppered turnips, the cakes & creams, & the claret —!

  My obligation of writing copy for the Tribune cost me some friendships in that time. Caroline, & Mr E, & a dozen or more of my dearest correspondents could not understand that I no longer had the leisure to pour forth my thoughts privately on the page, as all such thoughts were now claimed by the public sphere. Well I felt from Up North the cold mutterings that I had become a frivolous city scribbler & had succumbed to the vulgar blandishments of the market-place.

  Perhaps because I never felt any diminution of your regard, dear Sophie — perhaps because so much of what we felt for one another was wordless — & was simply, as the poet Herbert has written of an even deeper connexion, “something understood” — that I cherish our friendship through all that has happened in these years. I see your dear face, silently listening as Elizabeth & I talked into the early morning. I feel your hand in mine as I guided you along the river path when you were with child. & I remember how often, in those first months of your marriage, when Nathaniel would take me on one arm & you on the other, & we three would sally forth into the Concord evening — how I loved you both, & loved your love for one another!

  I must not be distracted by sentimental tears; my tale of dollars is nearly done. I had told everyone I knew that I wished to go to Europe. Mr Greeley, tho’ unable he said to pay my expenses, would be interested in commissioning me to write regularly for the Tribune. Marcus & Rebecca Spring proposed themselves as my saviors & companions, as they had a plan to bring their young son to be educated in England for a year while they visited the Continent. They would pay my passage to England if I would consent to tutor their boy on the voyage to prepare him for the rigors of an English school. With what I had saved & sums from a range of friends & a small advance from Mr Greeley with a promise to pay twice the rate he had paid me before — $10 a column! — I was able to amass my supply of $2,000 & so we embarked.

  Alas there has not been a moment in the last four years in which money was far from my mind. Mr Greeley paid me but not always quickly & once the Springs had left me on my own in Italy I was bereft of my accountant Marcus & his habit of advancing me funds until money from New York arrived. For the first time I needed to apply to Mother for help, & from time to time as well my brothers, Mr E, & other old friends sent a “donation” to the “cause” of my bed & board. For many weeks in Rome I kept an “economies” note-book in which I entered every purchase, as dear Henry Thoreau taught me once — & by eating only bread & fruit, & allowing friends to buy me coffee, I was able to live on less than one dollar a day, including rent. Fortunately I was often taken into the homes of people we met for dinner & during the siege itself most everyone shared what little was to be had. (Twice I used my payments from Mr Greeley just to buy hospital supplies.)

  My husband’s family had land & property once upon a time & while Giovanni’s father was still alive he had some small income. The Ossoli family are of the “Papal Aristocracy,” so his two elder brothers, following the family tradition of Vatican service, were soldiers of the Papal Guard. Giovanni, with his much older sister (more like a mama to him since his own mother’s early death), had stayed at home to care for their long-ill & lingering father. The anger in the family when Giovanni joined the Civil Guard & spoke with revolutionary fervor! I met him when he had just done so, & his father had for a time forbidden him his presence.

  Unlike many others in the Democratic, Unitary, Associationist, & Revolutionary movements (& these are only 4 of the many shades of the causes of the people & not always in accord amongst themselves), Giovanni was never fooled by the Pope’s words — he believed, as was shown to be right by later events, that the Pope would turn against our Revolution at last. But it is curious. He who has in his quiet way raged most persuasively against the betrayals of Pius IX cannot bear for others, such as Protestant Americans like myself, to criticize the Holy Father even now. I am grateful that he cannot read English because he would be angry at what I have written in my book.

  Now I am well & truly done with the sordid account of My Life in Economies.

  3 July

  Cruel irony! I write of my tea-drinking at the Greeleys & my supply of tea is stolen. My head aches & I cannot write today. I suspect a midshipman named Cole.

  Later, same day

  The men have pooled what tea they can spare & brought me more than I lost. Once I had restored my spirits with a strong brew, I gave a speech of thanks where many of the men were gathered & there was some laughter & some tears as for all the best speeches ever given in this world tho’ my eloquence was not the cause on this occasion but rather their generous & tender hearts.

  4 July

  Mr Bangs fires a salute in honor of Independence Day & we Americans on board (I believe there are five of us all told) sing “Yankee Doodle” as the colors are flown. Nino cheers along with the pip-pip-hurrah! I have made a small flag — from a square of white canvas, red ribbons & a scrap of blue flannel — & to Nino’s delight have sewn this badge onto the front of his jacket, over his heart.

  I have also promised the men a recitation this evening & am trying out several texts to see what I remember best. Mrs Hasty would appreciate a rouser such as “Once more unto the breach” but I cannot bring myself to celebrate even so noble a king on this day. Am trying to remember the third verse of Mr E’s “Concord Hymn.” On this green bank, by this soft stream / We set today a votive stone / That something something may redeem.…

  7 July

  Head-aches & small discouragements — Celesta has been weeping about her sailor & there are bruises on her arms where he has handled her roughly. Nino lost his spinning-top overboard & wept. I heard one of the sailors refer to me as the “Signora vecchia,” the “old lady,” so in preference to weeping I stared myself out of countenance in the looking-glass. It seems my hair is as much silver as it is golden, & lustreless. There are shadows beneath my eyes & the flesh of my jaw & neck in repose hangs like a curtain. I fear the return home, I fear old friends as well thinking me an old lady, my years of force spent by motherhood & the sufferings of the body & the pietàs that were our daily lot during the siege.

  Does not America chafe under the tyranny of her young? Well we might contrast the respect — nay more than that, the reverence — that is shown in Europe for the elders, male & female alike. Mme Sand is older than I nonetheless she is the axis round which an entire world spins. Grand-parents are the center of every social gathering they attend, not bundled off to a warm corner & ignored as they are in America. Is it because the country itself is so young, & so dependent on the energies & the new ideas of the young, that America begins to despise its old folks? & Even calls them “old folks
,” instead of “Madame,” or “Signor,” or “Sir”?

  Well since I am coming home, will-I-nill-I, I must prepare myself to feel & act young again & so keep pace with this American necessity. Heaven knows I wish to act.

  8 July

  Now the time has come, my dear, to tell of how I came to be the married lady you will meet in a few weeks.

  As I already explained, I had met Giovanni Angelo Ossoli in Rome in early April of 1847. He escorted me home when I lost my way after vespers in St. Peter’s, & took to calling on me at the rooms we had taken on the Corso. Later in Grenoble, I told Mish all about him — & then by letter Mish continued to urge me to take the step of marriage & said that he prayed I might experience the joy of motherhood at last. I was so grateful. I had lost my “beloved” but I had not lost the Poet himself; my beloved had become like my father, advising & urging me to do what would make me happy & fulfill my place in the world.

  It is no insult to the Poet to say that he like all men perforce under-estimated the cost to my physical self that becoming a mother would mean. No doubt he also imagined, as indeed I did, that having a husband would mean I would be protected & could continue in my work. But as I am now circumstanced, with a small child & a war-scarred husband to support, how am I to take “my place in the world”? This is a puzzle I am yet working out, one that I hope my friends in America will not refuse to help me solve. I hope that Mr E will not gloat that he was right, that solitude & chastity & barrenness were the requisite conditions for me to be the New Woman & raise my beacon of education & action aloft. Minerva & her chaste moon are all very well for school-girls to emulate. But what World worth its salt will deny women the creature necessities of love & motherhood as the price for participation in its decisions & its future? The Associationists, I believe, have many practical solutions to offer, with their plans for community nurseries & schools.…

  But there are times when I long only for this: That my husband & child would venture on an excursion for a few days & leave me to my solitude. Would I write a newspaper column? A chapter? No. A letter begging for money from an old friend who is feeling less friendly with every letter he receives? No! Would I mount a platform & urge the rights of slaves not to be slaves, the rights of a free Europe, the rights of women? Not I. I would sit with Goethe’s poems, & attempt a translation. I would take a walk, a long city walk in which I could day-dream amidst the throng, their dreams & mine twining into the thick rope that is humanity … I would stand on a dock & watch the boats, I would dream in color & music but not in words … & then I would return to my desk, make a pot of tea, & try to make the German words come alive in English before me. This I would do for several days until I felt like myself once again.

  Upon our reunion in Rome that autumn — October, 1847 — Giovanni pressed me to marry him. His father was ill, & we could marry as soon as his father was dead. (This sounds a harsh calculation — but think. I was not a suitable wife, an American & not a Catholic; his father was already furious that his youngest son was an impious revolutionary & the additional shock of marriage to such a one as I might end forever his family ties & his hopes of rightful inheritance.) Such was our case, & still his father lingered in this life, & the earthquake of the coming Revolution was beginning to rumble beneath our feet — bread riots in the countryside again in France — Vienna in an uproar for a constitution — the Austrian General Radetsky building new fortifications in Milan because the people had gone on strike, refusing to buy the tobacco & pay the taxes that fed the Austrian army, & rioting in the streets. Naples was in turmoil. Rome was shaking with energy & anger & we believed the Pope would take our part.

  Imagine my feelings, if you can. Giovanni, this dear man, whose presence was both a delight & a comfort to me, who showed me so many graceful yet manly courtesies — at any moment he would be fighting & he could die. We did what I believe any people of true feeling would have done: We stood, just we two, in the Lady Chapel of the Santa Maria Maggiore, before Giovanni’s favorite painting of the Virgin. (The “Virgin of the People,” as she is rightly called. Can I describe adequately the tenderness of her gaze, the archaic stained gold dappling over the surface of that ikon which reminds the petitioner before her of the centuries of hopes & fears she has met & allayed?) We joined our hands, & whispered to the assembled saints, the stone floors & the rafters of that church, our vows. We were truly married then, & so my own date of marriage is November the 8th of 1847.

  We found that I was with child in January. I was also so ill from my condition & from the dark Roman winter that we hardly knew if I would survive. Before any chance of reconcilement, Giovanni’s father died in February. Much as he had hoped that his sister would have say over the disposition of the estate (as their father had pledged she would) alas his eldest brother took all legal control & refused to listen to her pleas for the rights of Giovanni. The brother was if anything more angry than the father had been about Giovanni’s revolutionary ideals & immediately besought the magistrate for a writ to prevent my husband from claiming his inheritance. By April, we were confidently hopeful that the baby would live — & indeed my health began to improve with the coming of the spring, & with news of the Viennese “republic,” & then of Austria’s routing from Milan, & our spirits soared. This being the case, & anxious to secure our child’s future rights, we were officially married (before a priest, & filing a paper at the local registrar) on April 4, 1848. But for the time my husband felt that maintaining secrecy was still essential. Ever hopeful that all would come right with the estate, he was anxious not to add this news as fuel to the fire of his brother’s wrath. Thus our dilemma: desirous of being above-board & honest, but doomed to secrecy — temporary so we believed! — so as to protect our love & our child’s future.

  Public events soon overtook us all — tho’ as the horses of change plunged forward no progress was made on the estate’s disposition. Giovanni had always expected to inherit a small farm & modestly prosperous vine-yard his family owned in the Tuscan hills north of Rome — such he had always believed would be his maintenance & support! How he agonized in fear he would lose it! How painful it was for me to keep all this a secret from friends back home! With every week that went by without telling you & all my family & friends, the difficulty of telling & the fear of not being understood grew worse. Yet was I joyful. The gestation of a new Italy & my new Child became as one in my mind in those months.

  Mickiewicz was able to cross the border to come to Italy! Austria, internally in disarray & weakened at its northern Italian garrisons, could no longer enforce its standing arrest warrant against “dangerous” Polish nationals. First he gathered a group of Poles from various cities in Italy, received a blessing from the Pope, & then they marched as a battalion into Milan with a banner proclaiming the rights of all men, civil rights for Jews & for women! While his men stayed behind to hold the line against the Austrians, in May he came to Rome!

  I had heard that he was near, I sent a note by guardia courier to tell him where to find “La Signora Ossoli” & for three days & more I quivered listening for his step on the stair. Then on the fourth day: It was just before dusk; Giovanni was not due home for a time. The door to the street was not locked during the day, as many tenants came & went, & whenever that door was pushed open, the wind in the vestibule rushed up the stairs to the second floor where I lived, making a little “whooshing” sound at my door, like an unearthly knock. I heard it; it was he, I knew. As in the old days, awaiting his approach I felt as one suspended in air, my head & heart floating in those seconds as his heavy tread, slightly uneven like a heartbeat, came up the narrow steps. I opened the door so he could see me whole before he spoke — he placed his hands where my child was sleeping inside me & kissed me as the tears wet his face.

  “I am glad!” he said.

  Then Giovanni came home & as we had agreed asked Mish to be our child’s godfather.

  All right; I hear your objections: Reason dictates that we must take this scene in
hand. What? you exclaim: A woman with child, with her husband & her lover both at her side, & they all at supper? How can this be? Even in a French novel of the most scandalous & progressive sort, surely at the least the woman, & probably both the men as well, should fall a-wailing at this juncture, & threats of duel or suicide should be all that tongue can utter?

  Reason & dramatic decorum must topple together however, when I tell you that on the contrary we laughed & toasted our friendship & that Mish was all kindness & Giovanni all goodness & I the happiest of women. For the nonce at least. Did Giovanni guess at the past that Mish & I shared? I think he believed the Poet & I had a rare friendship & I know he was, & is, too great of soul himself to be jealous of that.

  So it is that the next generation forms our lives & we conform to theirs. Our sole duty, rejoicing in the lives to come, is to make the world better fit for them, on our hearthstones & in the broad world.

  My husband & the Poet also had their faith to share & next day we three went to hear the mass together, Mish for once tolerating the presence of the priests. Giovanni had decided in his quiet way that as I was in my heart & soul a Roman woman, so I was for all purposes a Catholic. I never quarrelled about this as we were I believe trusting in the same Divine being. When, much later, our marriage became known & friends in Italy wondered at the “mixed” nature of our alliance, Giovanni always silenced them with a simple, “No, Margherita is also of our faith” & I think he believed that he had converted me with his love & our original marriage vows before the Virgin.