by Ouida
Count Corradini, still leaning back in his large leathern chair, listened as if he were hypnotised; he was astounded, offended, enraged, but he was fascinated by the low, rich, harmonious modulations of the voice which addressed him, and by the sense of mastery which the priest conveyed without by a single word asserting it.
“You would threaten me with public disorder?” he said feebly, and with consciousness of feebleness.
“No sir; I would adjure you, in God’s name, not to provoke it.”
“It does not rest with me.”
He raised himself in his chair: his slender aristocratic hands played nervously with the strings of the portfolio, his eyelids flickered, and his eyes avoided those of his visitor.
“I have no voice in this matter. You mistake.”
“Surely your Excellency speaks with the voice of all you electors?”
“Of my administrative council, then? But they are all in favour of the project; so is his Excellency the Prefect, so is the Deputy, so is the Government. Can I take upon myself in my own slender personality to oppose these?”
“Yes, sir, because you are the mouthpiece of those who cannot speak for themselves.”
“Euh! Euh! That may be true in a sense. But you mistake; my authority is most limited. I have but two votes in Council. I am as wholly convinced as you can be that some will suffer for the general good. The individual is crushed by the crowd in these days. We are in a period of immense and febrile development; of wholly unforeseen expansion; we are surrounded by the miracles of science; we are witnesses of an increase of intelligence which will lead to results whereof no living man can dream; civilisation in its vast and ineffable benevolence sometimes wounds, even as the light and heat of the blessed sun—”
“Pardon me, sir,” said Don Soverio, “at any other moment it would be my dearest privilege to listen to your eloquence. But time passes. I came here on a practical errand. I desire to take back some definite answer to Adone and Clelia Alba. Am I to understand from you that the municipality, on behalf of these foreign companies, desires to purchase his land, and even insists upon its right to do so?”
The Syndic, accustomed to seek shelter from all plain speaking in the cover of flowery periods such as those in which he had been arrested, was driven from his usual refuge. He could not resume the noble and enlightened discourse which had been thus recklessly cut in two. He tied the strings of the portfolio into a bow, and undid them, and tied them again.
“I have received you, sir, ex officio,” he replied after a long silence. “You address me as if I possessed some special individual power. I have none. I am but the mouthpiece, the representative of my administrative council. You, a learned ecclesiastic, cannot want to be taught what are the functions of a Syndic.”
“I am to understand then that I must address myself on behalf of my people to the Prefect?”
Corradini was silent. The last thing he desired was for this importunate priest to see the Prefect.
“I must go into council at once,” he said, again looking at his watch. “Could you return? Are you remaining here?”
“Some hours, sir.”
“Will you dine with me at my house at three? You will give me much pleasure, and the Countess Corradini will be charmed.”
“I am grateful for so much offered honour, but I have promised to make my noonday meal with an old friend, the superior of the Cistercians.”
“An excellent, a holy person,” said Corradini, with a bend of his head. “Be at my house, reverend sir, at five of the clock. I shall then have spoken with the assessors of your errand, and it will be dealt with probably in council.”
Don Silverio made a low bow, and left him free to go to his awaiting councillors, who were already gathered round a long table covered by green cloth, in a vaulted and stately chamber, stories from Greek mythology carved on its oaken doors and stone cornices.
“Pray excuse me, gentleman,” said the courtly mayor to his assessors, taking his seat on an old walnut-wood throne at the head of the table. “I have been detained by this matter of the Valdedera. I fear the people of that valley will show an ungrateful and refractory temper. How hard it is to persuade the ignorant where their true interests lie! But let us to business.”
“It will be a hard matter,” said the Prior to Don Silverio as they walked together in the little burial-ground of the monastery between its lines of rose-trees and its lines of crosses, after the frugal noonday meal had been eaten in the refrectory. “It will be a hard matter. You will fail, I fear. The municipalities here smell money. That is enough to make them welcome the invasion. What can you do against the force of gold?”
“Would it avail anything to see the Prefect?”
“Nothing. He is cousin to the Minister of Agriculture, whose brother is chairman of the Teramo-Fermo Company. We are governed solely by what the French call tripotage.”
“What character does this Syndic bear?”
“A good one. He is blameless in his domestic relation, an indulgent landlord, a gentleman, respectful of religion, assiduous in his duties; but he is in debt; his large estates produce little; he has no other means. I would not take upon me to say that he would be above a bribe.”
At five of the clock, as the Syndic had told him to do, Don Silverio presented himself at the Palazzo Corradini. He was shown with much deference by an old liveried servant into a fine apartment with marble busts in niches in the walls, and antique bookcases of oak, and doorhangings of Tuscan tapestry. The air of the place was cold, and had the scent of a tomb. It was barely luminated by two bronze lamps in which unshaded oil wicks burned. Corradini joined him there in five minutes’ time, and welcomed him to the house with grace and warmth of courtesy.
“What does he want of me?” thought Don Silverio, who had not been often met in life by such sweet phrases. “Does he want me to be blind?”
“Dear and reverend sir,” said the mayor, placing himself with his back to the brass lamps, “tell me fully about this youth whom you protect, who will not sell the Terra Vergine. Here we can speak at our ease; yonder at the municipality, there may be always some eavesdropper.”
“Most worshipful, what I said is matter well known to the whole countryside; all the valley can bear witness to its truth,” replied Don Silverio, and he proceeded to set forth all that he knew of Adone and Clelia Alba, and of their great love for their lands; he only did not mention what he believed to be Adone’s descent, because he feared that it might sound fantastical or presumptuous. Nearly three hundred years of peasant ownership and residence were surely titles enough for consideration.
“If land owned thus, and tilled thus by one family, can be taken away from that family by Act of Parliament to please the greedy schemes of strangers, why preserve the eighth commandment in the Decalogue? It becomes absurd. There cannot be a more absolute ownership than this of the Alba to the farm they live on and cultivate. So long as there is any distinction at all between meum et tuum, how can its violent seizure be by any possibility defended?”
“There will be no violent seizure,” said Corradini. “The young man will be offered a good price; even, since you are interested in him, a high price.”
“But he will take no price — no price, if he were paid million; they would not compensate for his loss.”
“He must be a very singular young man.”
“His character is singular, no doubt, in an age in which money is esteemed the sole goal of existence, and discontent constitutes philosophy. Adone Alba wants nothing but what he has; he only asks to be left alone.”
“It is difficult to be left alone in a world full of other people! If your hero wants a Thebaid, he can go and buy one in La Plata, or the Argentine, with the price we shall give for his land.”
“We?” repeated Don Silverio with significant emphasis.
Corradini reddened a little. “I only use the word because I am greatly interested in the success of this enterprise, being convinced of its general utility
to the province. Being cognisant as I am of the neighbourhood, I hoped I could prevent some friction.”
“The shares are, I believe, already on the market?”
It was a harmless remark, yet it was a disagreeable one to the Syndic of San Beda.
“What would be the selling price of the Terra Vergine?” he said abruptly. “It is valued at twelve thousand francs.”
“It is useless to discuss its price,” replied Don Silverio, “and the question is much wider than the limits of the Terra Vergine. In one word, is the whole of the Valdedera to be ruined because a Minister has a relation who desires to create an unnecessary railway?”
“Ruined is a large word. These constructions appear to all, except primitive and ignorant people, to be improvements, acquisitions, benefits. In our province we are so aloof from all movement, so remote in our seclusion, so moss-grown in our antiquity, so wedded to the past, to old customs, old habits, old ways of act and thought, that the modern world shocks us as impious, odious, and intolerable.”
“Sir,” said Don Silverio with his most caustic smile, “if you are here to sing the praises of modernity, allow me to withdraw from the duet. I venture to ask you, as I asked you this morning, one plain question. To whom is Adone Alba, to whom are my people of Ruscino, to appeal against the sequestration?”
“To no one. The Prefect approves; the Minister approves; the local deputies approve; I and my municipal and provincial councils approve; Parliament has approved and authorised. Who remain opposed? A few small landowners and a mob of poor persons living in your village of Ruscino and in similar places.”
“Who can create grave disorders and will do so.”
“Disorders, even insurrections, do not greatly alarm authority nowadays; they are easily pressed since the invention of the quick-firing guns. The army is always on the side of order.”
Don Silverio rose.
“Most honourable Corradini! your views and mine are so far asunder that no amount of discussion can assimilate them. Allow me to salute you.”
“Wait one instant, reverence,” said the Syndic. “May I ask how it is that an ecclesiastic of your appearance and your intellect can have been buried so long in such an owls’ nest as Ruscino?”
“Sir,” replied Don Silverio very coldly, “ask my superiors: I am but one of the least of the servants of the Church.”
“You might be one of her greatest servants, if influence—”
“I abhor the word influence. It means a bribe too subtle to be punished, too gilded to alarm.”
“Nay, sometimes it is but a word in season, a pressure in the right place.”
“It means that which cannot serve the poor man without degrading him.”
“But — but — if as a reward for duty, advancement cane to you?”
“I fail to understand.”
“Let me speak frankly. With your superiority to them you must easily rule the embryo rioters of the Valdedera. If, to your efforts it should be owing that the population remain quiet, and that this Adone Alba and others in a similar position come to me in an orderly manner and a pliant spirit, I will engage that this service to us on your part shall not be forgotten.”
He paused; but Don Silverio did not reply.
“It is lamentable and unjust,” continued the mayor, “that any one of your evident mental powers and capacity for higher place should be wasting your years and wasting your mind in a miserable solitude like Ruscino. If you will aid us to a pacific cession of the Valdedera I will take upon myself to promise that your translation to a higher office shall be favoured by the Government-”
He paused again, for he did not see upon Don Silverio’s countenance that flattered and rejoiced expression which he expected; there was even upon it a look of scorn. He regretted that he had said so much.
“I thank your Excellency for so benevolent an interest in my poor personality,” said Don Silverio. “But with the King’s government I have nothing to do. I am content in the place whereto I have been called, and have no disposition to assist the speculations of foreign companies. I have the honour to bid your Excellency good evening.”
He bowed low, and backed out of the apartment this time. Count Corradini did not endeavour to detain him.
When he got out into the air the strong mountain wind was blowing roughly down the steep and narrow street. He felt it with pleasure smite his cheeks and brows.
“Truly only from nature can we find strength and health,” he murmured. “In the houses of men there are but fever and corruption, and uncleanliness.”
XV
To neglect no possible chance, he resolved to see the Prefect, if the Prefect consented to see him. This great official dwelt in a seaport city, whence he ruled the province, for such a period at least as his star should be in the ascendant, that is, whilt his political group should be in power. It was scarcely likely that a government official would be accessible to any arguments which a poor country priest could bring forward against a government project. Still, he resolved to make the effort, for at the Prefect’s name apprehension, keen and quaking, had leapt into Count Corradini’s faded eyes.
From San Beda to the seaport city there stretched some forty miles of distance; the first part a descent down the spurs of the Apennines, the latter half through level sandy country, with pine woods here and there. The first half he covered on foot, the second by the parliamentary train, which drew its long black line snake-like and slow, through the dunes and the stagnant waters. He had but a few francs in his waistband, and could ill afford to expend those.
When he reached his destination it was evening; too late for him to present himself at the Prefecture with any chance of admittance. The Prior at San Beda had given him a letter to the vicar of the church of Sant Anselmo in the city, and by this gentleman he was received and willingly lodged for the night.
“A government project — a project approved by ministers and deputies?” said his host on hearing what was the errand on which he came there. “As well, my brother, might you assail the Gran Sasse d’Italia! There must be money in it, much money, for our Conscript Fathers.”
“I suppose so,” said Don Silverio, “but I cannot see where it is to come from.”
“From the pockets of the taxpayers, my friend!” replied the incumbent of Sant Anselmo, with a smile as of a man who knows the world he lives in. “The country is honeycombed by enterprises undertaken solely to this end — to pass the money which rusts in the pockets of fools into those of wise men who know how to make it run about and multiply. In what other scope are all our betterments, our hygiene, our useless railway lines, our monstrous new streets, all our modernisation, put in the cauldron and kept boiling like a witch’s supper?”
“I know, I know,” said Don Silverio wearily. “The whole land is overrun by affaristi, like red ants.”
“Do not slander the ants!” replied his host; “I would not offend the name of any honest, hard-working little insect by giving it to the men through whom this country is eaten up by selfish avarice and unscrupulous speculation! But tell me, what do you hope for from our revered Prefect?”
“I hope nothing, but I wish to leave no stone unturned. Tell me of him.”
“Of his Excellency, Giovacchino Gallo, senator, Grand Cross, and whatnot? There is much to tell, though there is nothing which could not be also told of many another gentleman in high place. It is the usual story: the supple spine, the sharp eye, the greased foot. He was a young lawyer, useful to deputies. He married a lovely woman whom a prince had admired beyond him. He asked no questions; her dower was large. To do him justice, he has always behaved very well to her. He entered Parliament early, and there was useful also, to existing institutions. He was instrumental in carrying many railway and canal bills through the chamber. He has been always successful in his undertakings, and he knows that nothing succeeds like success. I am told that he and his wife are persone gratissime at the Quirinale, and that her jewels are extremely fine. When he was named S
enator two years ago the Press, especially the Press of the Right, saluted his nomination as strengthening the Senate by the accession to it of a person of impeccable virtue, of enlightened intellect, and of a character cast in antique moulds of noble simplicity and Spartan courage. You think, my brother, that this favourite of fortune is likely to favour your plea for your parishioners?”
“Dear and revered brother,” replied Don Silverio, “I came hither with no such illusions. If I had done, your biography of this functionary would have dispelled them.”
Nevertheless, although without hope, at two o’clock of that day he went to the audience which was granted him at the intervention of the bishop of the city, obtained by means of the vicar of Sant Anselmo.
The Prefecture was situated in a palace of sixteenth century architecture, a noble and stately place of immense size, greatly injured by telegraph and telephone wires stretching all round it, the post-office and the tax offices being situated on the ground floor, and the great central court daubed over with fresh paint and whitewash. Some little soldiers in dingy uniforms, ill-cut and ill-fitting, stood about gates and doors. On the first floor were the apartments occupied by his Excellency. Don Silverio was kept waiting for some time in a vestibule of fine proportions painted by Diotisalvi, with a colossal marble group in its centre of the death of Caesar.