BROWNING'S ITALY (15 page)

autocratic System. "Austria," says Sedgwick, "offered him easier terms in this event, but he had been brought up with the old ideas of the royal position, still he was statesman enough to perceive that if Piedmont and the house of Savoy were to lead in the movement of Italian Independence, they must win the confidence of the liberals; and he had sworn to maintain the Constitution. He was always a man of his word, whatever policy might advise, and answered that he should be loyal to the Constitution."

In the final struggle in the North, Piedmont was the center around which the liberals rallied, but though many states wished to join themselves to Piedmont, some wanted to preserve their old historic boundaries and local government.

It was finally, upon the motion of Cavour, settled by an appeal to the will of the people, who were asked to vote not upon fusion or annexation, but upon the union of the Italian people under the constitutional government of Victor Emmanuel II. France would not give her consent unless Savoy and Nice were ceded. The King did not enjoy having to cede Savoy, the "cradle of his race," but he sunk his personal feeling, and Parma, Modena, Tuscany and the Romagna were

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uiiited with the Kingdom of Sardinia under the name of the Kingdom of Italy, April 15, 1860.

There is a significant glimpse in "Pippa Passes" into this agonizing chapter of Italian History in the scene between Luigi and his mother, led up to in a striking manner by the talk of the police preceding the scene.

What Italy suffered under the Austrian yoke, and the brave struggles she made to throw it off, finally winning her freedom in 1860, as we have already seen, is history within the memory of many to-day, but how important a part the Carbonari took in the earlier phases of this struggle for freedom is sometimes overlooked and sometimes for-gotten.

The secret society of the Carbonari or Charcoal-makers was organized about 1808 and first attracted attention in Naples, where the strength of the Austrians was most feit.

It will be remembered that Austrian domi-nation preceded and followed the Napoleonic regime. At the departure of Napoleon, all the little kinglets came back to their petty thrones. The Congress of Vienna gave Venice to Austria, Genoa to Piedmont, and

Parma to Marie Louise, the Austrian wife of Napoleon, for her life. Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies restored the old regime, swept away the autonomy of Sicily which had had a separate parliament for hundreds of years, and since 1812 a Constitution also, and humbly followed every hint from Austria. The will of Austria was supreme from Naples to Venice.

Spain was responsible for setting ablaze the hidden discontent in Italy. The rebellion there had ended in their obtaining a Constitution. A Company of soldiers bent upon obtaining a similar Constitution for Italy rebelled. They were led by two young lieu-tenants. Many more joined them and a general of the same mind took command. The army, refusing to fight the rebels, the King was frightened into promising to grant them all their demands, namely, a Constitution, a parliament, a free press, trials according to law. But the Austrians sent an overwhelming army which made short work of these lovers of liberty. The Constitution, parliament, free press, became as nought. But the Carbonari were not to be suppressed. They grew and flourished in spite of the fact that a vigilant government was always on the lookout for conspirators

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whom they, without ceremony, clapped into prison. Prince Canossa, head of the Naples police, founded a counter secret society which was called the "Tinkers," and which also had its secret rites and signs.

The duties of the individual Carbonaro were such that the Citizens of any state might do well to cultivate their tenets. "To render to the Almighty the worship due to him; to serve the fatherland with zeal; to reverence religion and laws; to fulfil the obligations of nature and friendship; to be faithful to promises; to observe silence, discretion and charity; to cause harmony and good morals to prevail; to conquer the passions and submit the will; and to abhor the seven deadly sins. The society further was to disseminate instruction; to unite the different classes of society under the bond of love; to impress a national character on the people and to in-terest them in the preservation and defense of the fatherland and of religion; to destroy, by moral culture, the source of crimes, due to the general depravity of mankind; to pro-tect the weak and to raise up the unfortu-nate."

It is needless to say they did not accom-plish the complete regeneration of society that such tenets would lead one to expect.

Their aim was above all political and the striking down of tyrants in cold blood became a necessary part of the practice of a society that was subjected to constant and most cruel persecution. Silvio Pellico, whom Luigi's mother calls a "writer for effect," teils many grewsome stories in his book "Le Mie Prigioni" (My Prisons). He and his friend Maronelli were aijested and put in prison for ten years. Pellico teils how his confrere Maronelli was suffering with a most painful tumor on his leg. "Sometimes to make the slightest shift from one position to another cost a quarter of an hour of agony. In that deplorable condition Maronelli com-posed poetry, he sang and talked and did everything to deceive me, and hide from me a part of his pain. He could not digest or sleep; he grew alarmingly thin, and often went out of his head; and yet, in a few minutes gathered himself together and cheered me up. What he suffered for nine months is inde-scribable. Amputation was necessary; but first the surgeon had to get permission from Vienna. MaronelH uttered no cry at the Operation and only said, 'You have liberated me from an enemy and I have no way to thank you/ By the window stood a tumbler with a rose in it. 'Please give me that rose,'

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he said to me. I handed it to him and he gave it to the old surgeon saying, 'I have nothing eise to give you in testimony of my gratitude.' The surgeon took the rose and burst into tears. Such was the character of the men who plotted for the freedom of Italy."

Carbonarism was really a tentative Repub-lic amid an autocracy which it intended to abolish, and the forms of its government were Republican, but there was also mixed up with their Organization an immense deal of sym-bolism, much after the manner of the order of Free Masons, from whom they indeed borrowed some of their rites. Mythical stories arose of its origin. Black, red, and blue were their colors, to each of which were attached symbolic meanings. Black signified first charcoal, and then faith; red was fire and charity; blue was smoke and hope.

In the scene from "Pippa Passes," which we give, is brought vividly before the reader the intense and reckless patriotism of the young Carbonaro, Luigi, and, in Luigi's Mother, the conservative element, fearful of the dangers of a revolution — an element which kept back the progress of liberty for many weary years.

HI. EVENING

Inside the Turrä on the Hill dbove Asolo. Luiqi and his

Mother entering.

Molher. If there blew wind, you'd hear a long sigh, easing The utmost heaviness of music's heart.

Luigi. Here in the archway ?

Mother. Oh no, no — in farther,

Where the echo is made, on the ridge.

Luigi. Here surely, then.

How piain the tap of my heel as I leaped up! Hark — "Lucius Junius!" The very ghost of a voice Whose body is caught and kept by . . . what are those ? Mere withered wallflowers, waving overhead ? They seem an elvish group with thin bleached hair That lean out of their topmost fortress — look And listen, mountain men, to what we say, Hand under chin of each grave earthy face. Up and show faces all of you! — "All of you!" That's the king dwarf with the scarlet comb; old Franz, Come down and meet your fate ? Hark —" Meet your fate!"

Mother. Let him not meet it, my Luigi — do not Go to his City! Putting crime aside, Half of these ills of Italy are feigned: Your Pellicos and writers for effect, Write for effect.

Luigi. Hush! Say A writes, and B.

Mother. These A's and B's write for effect, I say. Then, evil is in its nature loud, while good Is silent; you hear each petty injury, None of his virtues; he is old beside, Quiet and kind, and densely stupid. Why Dp A and B not kill him themselves ?

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Luigi. They teach

Others to kill him — me — and, if I fail, Others to succeed; now, if A tried and failed, I could not teach that: mine's the lesser task. Mother, they visit night by night . . .

Mother. — You, Luigi ?

Ah, will you let me teil you what you are ?

Luigi. Why not ? Oh, the one thing you fear to hint, You may assure yourself I say and say Ever to myself! At times — nay, even as now We sit — I think my mind is touched, suspect All is not sound: but is not knowing that, What constitutes one sane or otherwise ? I know I am thus — so, all is right again. I laugh at myself as through the town I walk, And see men merry as if no Italy Were suffering; then I ponder — "I am rieh, Young, healthy; why should this fact trouble me, More than it troubles these ? " But it does trouble. No, trouble's a bad word: for as I walk There's springing and melody and giddiness, And old quaint turns and passages of my youth, Dreams long forgotten, little in themselves, Return to me — whatever may amuse me: And earth seems in a truce with me, and heaven Accords with me, all things suspend their strife, The very cicala laughs "There goes he, and there! Feast him, the time is short; he is on his way For the world's sake: feast him this once, our friend!" And in return for all this, I can trip Cheerfully up the scaffold-steps. I go This evening, mother!

Mother. But mistrust yourself —

Mistrust the judgment you pronounce on him!

Luigi. Oh, there I feel — am sure that I am right!

Mother. Mistrust your judgment then, of the mere meana To this wild enterprise: say, you are right, — How should one in your state e'er bring to pass What would require a cool head, a cool heart, And a calm hand ? You never will escape.

Luigi. Escape ? To even wish that, would spoil all. The dying is best part of it. Too much Have I enjoyed these fifteen years of mine, To leave myself excuse for longer life: Was not life pressed down, running o'er with joy, That I might finish with it ere my fellows Who, sparelier feasted, make a longer stay ? I was put at the board-head, helped to all At first; I rise up happy and content. God must be glad one loves his world so much. I can give news of earth to all the dead Who ask me: — last year's sunsets, and great stars Which had a right to come first and see ebb The crimson wave that drifts the sun away — Those crescent moons with notched and burning rims That strengthened into sharp fire, and there stood, Impatient of the azure — and that day In March, a double rainbow stopped the storm — May's warm slow yellow moonlit summer nights — Grone are they, but I have them in my soul!

Mother. (He will not go!)

Luigi. You smile at me? Tis true,—

Voluptuousness, grotesqueness, ghastliness, Environ my devotedness as quaintly As round about some antique altar wreathe The rose festoons, goats' horns, and oxen's skulls.

Mother. See now: you reach the city, you must cross His threshold — how ?

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Luigi. Oh, that's if we conspired!

Then would come pains in plenty, as you guess — But guess not how the qualities most fit For such an office, qualities I have, Would little stead me, otherwise employed, Yet prove of rarest merit only here. Every one knows for what his excellence Will serve, but no one ever will consider For what his worst defect might serve: and yet Have you not seen me ränge our coppice yonder In search of a distorted ash ? — I find The wry spoilt branch a natural perfect bow. Fancy the thrice-sage, thrice-precautioned man Arriving at the palace on my errand! No, no! I have a handsome dress packed up — White satin here, to set off my black hair; In I shall march — for you may watch your life out Behind thick walls, make friends there to betray you; More than one man spoils everything. March straight — Only, no clumsy knife to fumble for. Take the great gate, and walk (not saunter) on Through guards and guards — I have rehearsed it all Inside the turret here a hundred times. Don't ask the way of whom you meet, observe! But where they düster thickliest is the door Of doors; they 11 let you pass — they'U never blab Each to the other, he knows not the favorite, Whence he is bound and what's his business now. Walk in — straight up to him; you have no knife: Be prompt, how should he scream ? Then, out with you! Italy, Italy, my Italy!

You're free, you're free! Oh mother, I could dream They got about me — Andrea from his exile, Pier from his dungeon, Gualtier from his grave!

Mether. Well, you shall go. Yet seems this patriotism The easiest virtue for a selfish man To acquire: he loves himself — and next, the world — If he must love beyond, — but naught between: As a short-sighted man sees naught midway His body and the sun above. But you Are my adored Luigi, ever obedient To my least wish, and running o'er with love: I could not call you cruel or unkind. Once more, your ground for killing him! — then go!

Luigi. Now do you try me, or make sport of me ? How first the Austrians got these provinces . . • (If that is all, 1*11 satisfy you soon) — Never by conquest but by cunning, for That treaty whereby . . .

Molher. Well?

Luigi. (Sure, he's arrived,

The tell-tale euckoo: spring's his confidant, And he lets out her April purposes!) Or . . . better go at once to modern time. He has . . . they have ... in fact, I understand But can't restate the matter; that's my boast: Others could reason it out to you, and prove Things they have made me f eel.

Molher. Why go to-night?

Morn's for adventure. Jupiter is now A morning-star. I cannot hear you, Luigi!

Luigi. "I am the bright and morning-star/ 9 saith God — And, "to such an one I give the morning-star." The gift of the morning-star! Have I God's gift Of the morning-star ?