There are women living who know what that is, and are brave for honour’s sake; but none are braver than Maria was on that day. She would not leave him for a moment, after that, until it was past seven o’clock. Little by little, as she talked and soothed him, she brought him back to himself, with the patience that angels have, and never need where all is peace.
She had a respite then, and Giuliana Parenzo and Monsignor Saracinesca came to dinner, which made it easier. Afterwards, too, Montalto and his friend talked as usual and argued about Church and State, and no one would have suspected that the grave and courteous host, with his old-time formalities of manner and his rather solemn face, had raved and wept and dragged himself at his wife’s feet that very afternoon.
The Marchesa was still inclined to show Maria a little cool disapproval when she came. The younger woman felt it in the almost indifferent touch of her hand, and in the distinctly airy kiss that did not come near the cheek it was meant for. The two had not seen each other since they had gone to the Capuchin church together; but Giuliana, who was just and sensible, had made several reflections in the meantime, and had come to the conclusion that, after all, Maria and Castiglione might have met by chance, though why in the world a man who believed in nothing should happen to be in a church, and in that particular one precisely at that hour, was more than she could explain. It was very odd, but perhaps Baldassare was converted; and the good Marchesa said a little prayer, quite in earnest, asking that he might be. Possibly, she thought immediately afterwards, Maria had converted him, and she hoped this might be the case, as it would explain so many things. Giuliana herself had once attempted to influence him, out of sheer goodness of heart, long ago, and had talked religion to him in a corner after a dinner party for a whole evening, a proceeding which might have started a little gossip about any other woman. She had tried to expound the Nicene Creed to him, article by article, but just as she reached the ‘Life of the World to come’ he fell sound asleep before her eyes, after one of the most puzzling and painful experiences in his recollection, for he had been in the saddle all day at a review, and the room was so warm that it made him understand the Descent into Hell in the only sense the words had ever conveyed to him.
Confidence was presently restored between the friends and Giuliana began to talk about the news of the hour; about strikes, as regarded from the ministerial point of view; about the probability that the Ministry would fall before Lent, merely on general principles, because that seems to be the critical time of year in politics, as it is for gouty patients; and, lastly, about Teresa Crescenzi.
‘I am not given to prying into other people’s affairs,’ Giuliana said, ‘but I should really like to know the truth about her and de Maurienne.’
‘I fancy she will marry him in the end,’ observed Maria, rather indifferently, for she was still thinking of the strikes and the disturbances in the streets, and wondering whether there was any risk in sending Leone all the way to school at the Istituto Massimo every morning, though his tutor took him there and brought him home.
‘De Maurienne has left Rome very suddenly,’ said Giuliana, ‘and I am inclined to think that Teresa is to be an “unprotected widow” a little longer.’
‘She must be growing used to it!’ Maria laughed a little.
‘The French Ambassador told Sigismondo that de Maurienne had asked for leave very suddenly, and that, as he seems to think that diplomacy consists in the study of etchings, no objection had been made. Teresa is evidently furious. She says he told her that he was going to Paris in order to be present at an art sale, but that she believes he has run away from a duel. Have you not heard that?’
Giuliana looked at Maria quietly, but saw no change in the warm pallor of her friend’s face, nor the least quivering of the eyelids.
‘No,’ Maria answered, unsuspectingly. ‘I have heard nothing. Does Teresa say who it was that wanted to fight with him?’
‘Yes, but I don’t believe a word of it. She says it was Balduccio.’
‘Why in the world should he quarrel with Monsieur de Maurienne?’ Maria turned innocent eyes to meet Giuliana’s.
‘Teresa does not explain that,’ laughed the Marchesa, ‘but she darkly hints that the affair which did not come off concerned herself!’
‘How silly she is!’
Indeed, the absurdity of the story was so apparent, that Maria would not ask any more questions. She was continually doing her best to keep Castiglione out of her thoughts, and the painful scene with her husband during the afternoon made it all the harder for her. She changed the subject.
‘Giuliana,’ she asked, ‘shall you let your boys walk to school or even go in the tram while the strike lasts?’
‘Oh, yes!’ answered the Marchesa. ‘But the trams have stopped this afternoon. Have you not been out? The boys walk in the morning, for there is never any disturbance till much later. All good anarchists dine comfortably, and often too well, before they go out to howl in the streets.’
She laughed carelessly.
‘I daresay you are right,’ Maria answered. ‘I never let Leone be out in the city on foot or in trams after luncheon. Three or four times a week he rides with Diego in the Campagna, and they generally go as far as one of the city gates in a cab, but I always send Diego’s little brougham to fetch them. I’m afraid they may both catch cold in a cab after riding.’
‘Your husband is very fond of it, is he not?’
‘Yes, and he rides well, and looks well on a horse — particularly on that lovely little Andalusian mare he brought from Spain.’
‘The one the Duca di Casalmaggiore is so anxious to buy?’ inquired Giuliana.
‘The Colonel of the Piedmont Lancers?’ Maria wondered whether her friend was trying to lead the conversation back to Castiglione again. ‘I did not know he wanted her.’
‘My dear! He thinks of nothing else! He would like to make it an affair of State. The other day he came to see Sigismondo and talked about the mare for three-quarters of an hour, trying to induce him to use his influence with me, to use my influence with you, to use your influence with your husband, to induce him to sell the Andalusian for twenty thousand francs! I think he must be quite mad! It is an enormous price for a saddle-horse, and he has offered it through half a dozen people. I wonder that Diego should not have spoken of it to you.’
‘He never tells me anything,’ Maria replied. ‘But I can guess what he must have answered. He probably said that the Count of Montalto buys horses but does not sell them!’
Giuliana laughed.
‘I did not know you could be so malicious, Maria! That is precisely what he did say.’
‘I did not mean to say anything disagreeable, I’m sure,’ returned Maria. ‘That is Diego’s way; he is old-fashioned. The idea that a Count of the Holy Roman Empire could possibly sell anything never occurred to him.’
‘My father is just like him in that,’ observed Giuliana.
‘So was mine! It is the reason why he left me only just enough to live comfortably, instead of several millions. If I had not been his only child we should have starved!’
‘We were ten, and nine of us are alive.’ Giuliana laughed. ‘When my father and mother were sixty — you know they are just the same age — there were thirty-two at table, between us and our children!’
‘Look at the Saracinesca family,’ said Maria. ‘Old Prince Giovanni was an only son, I believe, and now they are like the sands by the sea! As far as numbers go, there is no fear of the old Roman families dying out!’
‘Your husband was an only son, was he not?’ Giuliana asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And you have only — —’ The Marchesa checked herself— ‘yes,’ she concluded with that extreme vagueness that comes over us all when we have half said something quite tactless.
But Maria chose to complete the thought.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly, but not at all vaguely. ‘Do you wonder that I am anxious about letting my only child go about on foo
t when there are strikes?’
‘No, dear, I don’t wonder at all, though I do not think there is any real danger.’
‘I suppose presentiments are very foolish,’ Maria observed thoughtfully. ‘Do they ever trouble you, Giuliana?’
‘Not often. But I remember once being oppressed with the certainty that Sigismondo was going to die in the course of the winter. It haunted me day and night for weeks and weeks. I used to dream that he was lying dead on the dining-room table. It was always the dining-room table, and at last I got nervous about sitting down at it.’
‘Well? Did anything happen?’ Maria seemed interested.
‘Oh, yes! The children had the mumps.’ She spoke thoughtfully.
Very sensible people who are by no means stupid sometimes say things that would disgrace an idiot child. But Maria did not laugh.
‘The other night, after I had left you,’ she said, ‘there was some sort of demonstration in the Piazza di Venezia, and the carriage stopped a moment before turning another way. A man looked through the window, trying to see me in the dark. I could see him plainly under the electric light. It was a horrible face, flattened against the pane, and though I did not pay much attention to it at the time, it comes back to me and frightens me when I know that Leone is out in the streets with his tutor. Perhaps he is only going to have the mumps!’
She tried to laugh now.
‘A tutor is generally supposed to be a sufficient protection for a boy,’ observed Giuliana, not much impressed. ‘Yours is a good-sized man too, and Sigismondo always says that keeping order in a city depends on the delusion that big men are more dangerous than short men. At all events most people think they are, and your tutor looks like an ex-carabineer.’
‘I’m sure he is a coward,’ said Maria nervously. ‘He would think only of saving himself if there were any danger! I’m sure of it.’
‘It’s all imagination, my dear,’ said the practical Marchesa. ‘Your love for the boy makes you fancy that all sorts of impossible things are going to happen to him.’
‘Giuliana — perhaps I’m very foolish to be made wretched by a presentiment, but if any harm came to Leone — —’
She stopped short. The conventional phrase ‘I should die’ was on her lips, but before it was spoken she realised that it meant nothing to her, and checked herself.
‘Of course, of course!’ answered Giuliana in a motherly tone. ‘I quite understand that. I’m fond of my children, too; I know just what you feel.’
‘It’s not the same for you, Giuliana,’ said Maria in a low tone. ‘I’ve only Leone, you know.’
‘Leone and your husband,’ corrected Unassailable Virtue.
‘Yes, Leone and my husband.’
Maria did not resent the correction. Even Giuliana did not suspect that she was desperately unhappy in more ways than one, and it was better so; but she silently thought of what her life would be if Leone were taken and her husband were left.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE STRIKE WAS an obstinate one, and lasted longer than had been expected. This story is not concerned with the theories or the practices of the so-called Chamber of Labour in Italy. It is enough to say that the organisation has neither the importance nor the intelligence of similar bodies in other great countries, and that instead of tending to the scientific socialism of Bebel, its leaders, or its tyrants, are distinctly of the anarchist class, and all they know about the French Revolution is that it had a Reign of Terror which they hanker to restore. There are true socialists in Italy, as there are many true republicans, but they must not be classed with the raving rowdies who force honest workmen to leave their work and who howl and throw stones in the streets. Beyond this, nothing need be said about the general strike during which the Countess of Montalto was haunted by a tormenting presentiment that something dreadful was going to happen to her son.
The facts, so far as they affected her, were simple enough. During some days the instigators of disturbance appeared at more or less regular hours, chiefly in the neighbourhood of the Piazza di Venezia, where they made wild and foolish speeches that stirred up a row which occasionally led to the throwing of a few stones. The city police and the foot carabineers then appeared to disperse the crowd, and generally succeeded in doing so without trouble when it was ready for its supper, or tired of its amusement, or had any sufficient reason for going home. There was not much more spirit in the whole thing than there used to be in the last days of town-and-gown rows in Oxford and Cambridge. But such as the disturbances were, they had become a great nuisance, and the strike itself was extremely irritating to all the better classes, to whom it was a source of great inconvenience.
The city authorities asked Headquarters for troops, Headquarters asked the War Office, the War Office asked the Ministry, and the Ministry, being rather shaky just then, did nothing in particular. Nevertheless, the orders usual at such times were quietly issued, the troops in garrison were in readiness if needed, and no more leave was granted to officers or men.
Meanwhile the Romans grew tired of the whole senseless affair, by which everybody was losing money and nobody was gaining anything, and the more respectable citizens felt that it was time that law and order should be restored. The simplest plan, since no troops were forthcoming, seemed to be to help the police in arresting rioters who objected to being handcuffed; for the policemen did their best, and on the whole did well, with a good deal of forbearance, but the result was not always satisfactory, and many of the force were more or less badly hurt; very few were hit by bullets, for a revolver is one of the safest playthings in the world except when everybody is quite sure that it is not loaded, and then it usually kills some one on the spot; but a good many men were badly wounded by stones, some were severely beaten, and several were stabbed.
On the day when Giuliana dined with her friend it had happened that two policemen were trying to secure a big rioter who defended himself vigorously with a stout blackthorn stick, and they were getting the worst of it. The hour was just after twelve o’clock, when a number of Government clerks had left a neighbouring public office together, to get their mid-day meal at an eating-house; and they stopped in a body and watched the fight.
One of the policemen received a blow that almost broke his arm, but the other almost immediately caught the striker’s heavy stick and tried to wrench it away; and still the knot of Government clerks watched the struggle. In sheer exasperation the man who had been hurt spoke to the bystanders.
‘You might help us, instead of standing there looking on!’ he cried.
The little body of respectable men, who had supposed that they had no right to interfere, did not need any further invitation. They sprang forward, threw the man down, and proceeded to administer a sound thrashing with their sticks, after which they held him while the astonished and delighted policeman slipped on the handcuffs. Not feeling that their duty ended there, the clerks followed quietly in a body till they saw the prisoner passed into the nearest police station; after which they went to lunch.
The matter did not end there. The news of what they had done spread from mouth to mouth in a few hours, and their example was followed by other citizens. The policemen went about in pairs, and before night each couple of them was under the protection of a dozen or fifteen sober, respectable citizens, who walked behind at some distance, chatting and smoking, but armed with serviceable sticks. The police scored no more failures in effecting arrests during the afternoon, and there was no crowd in the Piazza di Venezia at sunset.
But the matter did not end there either. If the citizens protected the police, the Chamber of Labour, as it calls itself, would protect the rowdies. They needed it too, for on the next morning the citizens went about in considerable force, and when they came upon a suspicious-looking individual they asked him civilly if he were a striker. If he answered in the affirmative they gave him a good drubbing and left him to his meditations. In most cases the man denied the imputation indignantly and made off at a round pace. The
decent working men stayed at home, as they had done from the beginning, and mourned the hour when they had joined the Chamber of Labour.
The rowdies showed fight, in accordance with the resolutions passed on the previous evening, and began to parade the streets in bands, many of them carrying revolvers in their pockets, and a good many armed with the much more dangerous knife, which Alphonse Karr used to call the ‘weapon of precision.’ The citizens had only their sticks, but they made good use of them. They meant to represent law and order, and knives and pistols are forbidden weapons. Excepting the places where the two parties were actually in collision, the city was silent. The shops opening directly on the pavement were shut; the cabmen, who belonged to the Chamber of Labour, were also on strike, but most of them, as it afterwards turned out, were having a quiet holiday in the country. The trams were not running, for drivers and conductors belonged to the organisation, and the Municipality or the Government was afraid to man the cars with soldiers. A few private carriages were to be seen, but the occupants as well as the coachmen were in considerable danger.
Nevertheless, a good many people walked about as if nothing were happening. It was not a revolution; the Government offices and schools were open, the strikers had no reason for interfering with the postal telegraph offices, and the railway-men could no longer strike because a recent law had decreed that they were not working men but Government servants. The trains therefore ran regularly; almost all the banks were open and were protected by policemen in plain clothes; the Pincio and the Villa Borghese were almost as full of nurses and children as usual on a fine winter’s day, and officers and civilians exercised their horses on the small course and in the meadow within the ring. Altogether, the state of things would have looked rather contradictory anywhere but in Rome, where it seems as if nothing can ever happen in the ordinary way. If any truthful and industrious person like Villani, or Sanudo of Venice, is quietly keeping a chronicle of daily events in Rome at the present day, and if his manuscript comes to light fifty years hence, he will not be believed. It is true that all industrious persons are not truthful, but since Aristotle admits that even a woman or a slave may possibly be good, some good-natured people will perhaps allow that a novelist may sometimes write the truth.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 1158