Some Annals of an Italian Village

Chapter I. Its Patrician Family

Sor Tito had gone to bed at his usual hour — four o'clock in the afternoon. Not that he was an invalid, by no means, but by four o'clock all his occupations were exhausted. The enormous four-post bedstead pro vided ample sitting accommodation for his visitors, and he was more comfortable in his peaked nightcap and sleeping gown than in any other garb. Also, he looked more imposing when only the upper part of him was visible, for he had a splendid head and shoulders set on a pair of short, bandy legs. Now, if there B was a thing on earth that Sor Tito loved, and for which he had a talent, it was producing an effect. His wife sat in her elbow chair by the window embroidering a petticoat for her daughter's trousseau, not that her daughter had yet been suited with a betrothed, but that was a detail.

The trousseau had been going on since the daughter's birth. The daughter herself, a brilliantly pretty girl of seventeen, was looking out of the window. Her face was all sparkle, her eyes, like Juliet's, doing duty for two stars ; and her name, most appropriately, was Stella. There was a lovely view through the arch way in the mediæval wall which surrounded the village, and just inside of which, filling up nearly all the principal street, the "palazzo" stood, but Stella was not looking at the view. She was looking at a priest now riding through the archway on his donkey. As he approached he doffed the broad straw hat which contrasted somewhat strangely with his clerical gown, and, taking the pipe from his mouth, " Is the Count within, ladies ? " he enquired. Then came a voice from the bed, a voice of singular power and force : " No priests wanted here !

And does not Don Orazio yet know that ? " " But as a friend — as a friend. Conte mio. Explain to him ! Explain, ladies. I have something important and not at all unpleasant to communicate," said the old priest, kicking his unwilling steed up to the window ledge. " You are welcome, welcome, padre" said the Countess, nodding an emphatic accom paniment to her words, "and your blessing, too." " What ? blessings ? " roared the stentorian voice. " If you are thirsty and want a glass of wine Signor priest you shall have it. I would not turn a dog from my door, but — Per Bacco ! whoever dares to cringe to you for your blessing in this house shall have a crack on the head." B With that Sor Tito seized a stick which lay on the bed to be handy, and began brandishing it, but nobody took any notice. The priest went up to the door, which stood wide open, and consigning his donkey to a casual passer to take round to the stables (for everybody's business was everybody else's at Monteforte), he walked in through the dining-room to the bedroom beyond, where Sor Tito received his friends after four o'clock in the afternoon.

He said a blessing as he entered. The countess crossed herself. Her husband again seized the stick, which the priest good-humouredly took out of his hand and put up against the wall just out of his reach. The padre then seated himself at the foot of the bed and mopped his rubicund face with a blue cotton handkerchief. " I have a thirst of the devil," he said. Sor Tito grunted. " Now you put off the priest, and begin to talk of someone you know something about ; we will have a drink together," said he. " Stella, take the keys, find that stupid lazy lout of a fattore, and tell him to fill two bottles from last year's cask." Stella went off on her errand, having accomplished which, she did not immediately return to the party in the bedroom, but ran up to the loggia, or vine-covered terrace on the top of the wall against which the house leant at the back.

She got at it through the window of her own bedroom, a gymnastic feat to which she had been for many years accustomed. One of the municipal guards was patrolling round the wall singing a popular refrain : Quanne ti vede alla sinistra stare, Un angela mi sembra di vedere."* Then he looked up with a smile on his handsome, dark face. Stella smiled too, and blushed. As if in absence of mind, she * When I behold thee standing at the window an angel I seem to see. detached a cluster of grapes from the vine. They fell at the man's feet. Stella then darted in at the open window whilst the song proceeded : " Subitamente ti vede reentiare. Bellina, chi fe fatta dispiacere ? "* " Torna bella, alia finestra stare Non mi fa venir tanto dispiacere. "+ But the bellina did not return, and the song finally died away in the distance.

The grapes, however, did not remain on the ground. " The papa is getting impatient. Make haste, Signorina," said old Nanna, the ser vant, who now came hastening in. "What! another clean jacket! Who's to wash them fast enough ? " for Stella was very busy putting on a fresh white linen jacket, such as she always wore in the house. ' If that stupid Pepe will spill the wine * " Suddenly I see thee enter. Beautiful one, who has displeased thee ? t " Return, beautiful one, to stay at the window. Do not make me so unhappy." over me, how can I help it ? And you need not trouble, for I've washed it myself, and hung it out on the terrace. That's what made me so long. Go down, and say I am coming." " Well, there's a sposo being talked of, if I mistake not. I heard something as I went in with the wine.

That's what it is," said old Nanna, as she retired. " A sposo. Oh, Madonna ! " Stella stopped in the adjustment of her jacket, and clutched at the post of her bed. But she quickly recovered herself, and, answering "Fccomi" to the impatient call, ran downstairs. But papa, though impatient, was in a high good humour. " Here we are drinking to your health, Stellina. Don Orazio and I are drinking to the health of the future Baronessa, and, as he has found the sposo, he shall be allowed to pronounce the nuptial blessing, although I prefer marriages made only at the municipality. Still, we must concede something — and there is ' la mamma ' crying, instead of going on with the ' corredo,' you see." " Oh, papa ! what do you mean ? who do you mean ? " cried the girl, putting her hand to her heart and sinking into a seat.

"Who? That you shan't know just yet. All in good time. Young girls should not be forward in wanting to know the name of their sposi, indeed ! Why your mother never knew mine till the day she married me, and she did not know that she was going to be married till the day before. I took her straight from the convent. No idle curiosity, no rebellion, permitted her." So spake the arch-radical, all for liberty and progress — Count Tito Giordani. He looked at the stick again, but the priest put it a little further away, saying : " But you must remember, Conte mio, that you would never send the Signorina to a convent. She has been left as free as air, and has possibly imbibed some of your own theories about liberty and all that, you know." ' " Why, do you mean to insinuate that she has been neglected ?

" roared Sor Tito, " when I have scarcely allowed her to put her nose beyond the house door except when I have accompanied her myself." " Oh, she has had every care, we know," said the padre, apologetically. Meantime the Contessa was soothing the now sobbing girl, and presently accompanied her to her bedroom. Once there, Stella seized her mother's arm with no gentle grasp. " Who is it?" she demanded. " Why, everything we could wish ! Barone Onorato, San Marco of Maragnano. He saw you that day at the fair and was so struck — and Don Orazio is his confidant and was charged with a message to your father, not quite to decide the affair, but just to broach it, you know. Don Orazio has known him all his life, and says he has quite made up his mind, really, although, perhaps, there will be a little opposition from his mother.

It is sure to be all right. I wish we had time to double your trousseau now that you are to make such a great marriage. Madonna ! how shall I get through all the work ? My sister must come and help. She has married four girls — she ought to know — and he is more charming than anybody ever was, they all say so. Why you must have seen him that day ? He must have been pointed out to you surely ? Everybody knows him. He possesses all Maragnano, and they always spend the winter in Rome. Oh, but he will carry you off and I shall not see you any more, my consolation, and your father so tiresome ! roaring and ranting away. If anybody should take him seriously, it might be quite dangerous." It was now the mother's turn to weep, partly with pleasure and partly with pain, but chiefly with a very great over-excitement, and it was Stella's turn to soothe.

" Well, you know, if he hadn't got that to amuse himself with, he would perhaps be scolding us," she remarked, philosophically, "and nobody does take him seriously except little Gigio ; but oh, mamma, mamma mia, was it he?" — she suddenly stopped, and her breath came and went — "that man with the golden beard, beautiful like a saint, who came riding up just as we were going away, and talked to papa. Yes ; he did look at me, and took off his hat with such a sweep ; but babbo never told me who he was." " Well, you know now, and what a lucky girl you are. Oh, won't Bebella and Tetella be envious ? They have no choice but between the ugly old doctor and the muni cipal secretary without a penny; but then, to be sure, poor girls, they are not patrician, and only wear the veil. Living here in this retirement we are apt to forget who and what we are ; but we must remember it now, and not be so intimate with these good folks.

We have been too much so." " Yes, mamma mia, we have," Stella said, more submissively than was her wont ; then suddenly put her hands before her face and burst into a fresh passion of tears. She besought her mother to leave her, and the Countess, murmuring " It is joy ! " returned unwillingly enough to her seat by the window downstairs and her embroidery. The bedroom reception was becoming quite brilliant. The doctor dropped in, and the schoolmaster and ragged old Count Coriolani, whose pedigree was believed to mount up to the days of Ancient Rome, and whose patrician descent had always enabled him to live on the charity of others, for he had absolutely nothing of his own, and had never done a stroke of work in his life. Lastly came that important personage, the Sindaco, with his secretary.

Seats on the bed became scarce. Nanna had to bring in chairs, and Pepe had to decant more wine. Now it was quite impossible for Sor Tito not to hint significantly, if mysteriously, at the important mission of Don Orazio ; and it was so his habit to exaggerate the importance and enhance the grandeur of any good thing happening to himself that his insinua tions might have led to the supposition that a prince of the blood had proposed for Stella. " Yes ; you see me entertaining a priest — actually a priest — my friends ! And now that we have got him let us make him as drunk as we can. Ha, ha ! But why do I entertain this priest, you will ask ? Well .... I do so in his quality of nunzio, or ambassador, as I may say. The representatives of royalty, you know, are bound to be respected. It is somewhat in this capacity that our friend has come."

Here Sor Tito made an impressive pause, and the priest, taking up the parable, said : " Yes — well — certainly an important mission." He united the wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove, and had a wonderful talent for keeping everybody in good humour. " On such an important mission, pursued the host, that even to the ears of my discreet friend, the Sindaco, I would scarcely venture to confide it." Sor Tito, sitting bolt upright in his bed, with his peaked nightcap nodding a little, and rolling his little black beady eyes around on his guests, looked so imposing that the company was duly impressed. To all but the Sindaco, who had not lived in the village all his life, the idea that he might have been entrusted with the affairs of nations did not seem at all impossible. They all held their breath, and those who had seats on the bed got a little further towards the edge of it.

Only the Sindaco, who was favoured with a chair as near the bed as the vicinity of the table with the wine bottles would permit, ventured on saying : " You have excited our curiosity very much, Conte mio." But Sor Tito wished to enjoy himself to the full. Before replying, therefore, he slowly poured each of his guests out another glass of wine, not forgetting himself. He put down the glass empty — yet, with the air of having only swallowed the contents from a severe sense of duty ; and then he sought under his pillow for his pocket handkerchief. This manœuvre, inasmuch as the said handkerchief was applied to the eyes and not the nose of Sor Tito, caused surprise and some alarm. Were the affairs of the nation in so terrible a condition ? But patriotic fears were shortly allayed. " My faithful friends," said the host, in a voice which he would himself have described as commosso, " I would ask you to drink to the health of my daughter, who will soon perhaps be ravished from my arms — that is if I can bear to part with her.

Drink her health, and hope for her that she may do her duty in a — a very exalted sphere." The awed silence was at an end, tongues were let loose, and Stella's health and happiness, solicited with so much enthusiasm, and so many flattering speeches, that at least one actual genuine tear fell on Sor Tito's pocket-handkerchief. As for the Countess, she became a perfect Niobe, and the doctor in his professional capacity felt impelled to take her a glass of wine. " Coraggio ! " he cried, " one understands the heart of a mother." The wine was circulated freely, and Sor Tito began to endow his future son-in-law with such fabulous wealth, and to hint at such lofty titles, that Don Orazio could keep up the farce no longer. He rose to depart, saying simply : "Then I may say that you give your consent, Count Giordani?"

" My respectful salutations, and you may say that I will think of it — but the heart of a father — si capisce." "Of course; one understands. Good evening, Count. Signori, all — 1 salute you. Contessa, I will no longer incommode you." He bowed over the hand of the still weeping lady, and went to seek his donkey. " It must be a prince at least," said the doctor to the schoolmaster, as they walked out into the street together, whilst the Sindaco shrugged his shoulders. t:

Chapter II. Its Genius

Sor Tito, or to give him his proper style and title, Count Tito Giordani di Castelmoro, represented the aristocracy of our Apennine village. He represented also its culture, its political views, its distinction, its refinements, its ideals, in short. Our poets and philosophers tell us ideals are all that matter ; and this is so true that even the semblance of them can do a great deal. That Sor Tito never had done a stroke of work in his life, and was not prepared to put his theories into practice (how few of us are !) need not have prevented him from using a great influence amongst his surroundings, had his views, or his culture, or his sentiments been genuine ; but there was ■9 nothing genuine about him. He was alto gether a false product. He had but a smattering of knowledge, his ideas were con fused, his refinement but occasionally put on ; even the sentiments he professed were not really his own.

But the halo which sur rounded his really ancient name, his excellent opinion of himself, and his extraordinary powers of brag, gave him an illusory influence over the very few abstract ideas possessed by the villagers. The streets and alleys of Monteforte had been given revolutionary names at his instigation, and the village painter and house decorator had, with no difficulty, been persuaded to inscribe the corner house of each row within the fortified walls with such names as "Liberta" "Pro gresso.," "Morte ai tiranni 1 '" There had been even a street called " Anarchia," but this the Sindaco thought a little too strong, and quietly substituted "mo" for the "a." " There are very few indeed here who know C the difference between two words so much alike as ' Monarchia' and ' Anarchia,' " he explained, " but it might make all the difference to you and me, Sir Conti, if the prefect were to come round this way."

And Sor Tito, at mention of the prefect, acquiesced quite kindly in the alteration. It has been said that Sor Tito did nothing. This statement was, however, not quite exact, for in the morning he talked a little bit to his steward, and in the matter of getting his dues from his coloni (the peasants who were part proprietors with himself, and bound to halve their produce with him), he displayed a certain amount of energy. He not unfre quently made the round of his possessions outside the walls, and woe to the peasant whose pigs were too thin, or whose vines needed pruning. After these exertions, Nature was so exhausted that he had to betake himself to the "farmacie," where Dominico Monti dispensed drugs and cooling drinks, and all the world's news, for he lent the paper. His shop was besides a rendezvous for the ereme de la creme of society.

The drugs were, in fact, but a pretence. Illness was scarce at Monteforte, though lint and bandages for broken heads were sometimes required, more especially at harvest time, when the love-making and fighting coincident therewith went on. Here Sor Tito would harangue a select audience composed of those worthies who, like himself, got through their day's work early, a*nd it was surprising how many there were in a country where agri culture is almost the only occupation. Every man above the class of a peasant possessed his vine and his fig-tree, and had a peasant to cultivate it. The Sindaco, the doctor, and the Curato, to be sure, had other occupations, but these occupations appeared to leave them a good deal of leisure, and the chemist reckoned them all amongst his customers. Sor Tito did one more thing.

He educated the village genius, little Gigio Muzzi, who read all the books that he could get hold of, and from the time that he was six years old had written verses. This apt little pupil and adoring worshipper, who listened to Sor Tito's big words with rapt attention, had perhaps all the love and liking that the old man was capable of bestowing, and certainly all the learning — not much for a man of sixty-five, but a great deal for a peasant boy of twelve. Gigio lived alone with his mother, who belonged to the poorest class. They dwelt in a mud cottage just outside the walls, and the mother took in washing. Concerning his father he could not learn much. His mother shook her head when she spoke of him and said: " Poveretto! there are many worse, in spite of everything." The neighbours would hope that Gigio would be his mother's consolation, and not follow in his father's footsteps.

Gigio would ask : " But why not ?" And then the neighbours would say : "Well, poveretto, why should he know? And after all there are many worse in the bagni." One reason why Gigio loved Sor Tito so very much, was because Sor Tito said that his father was a brav' uomo, who had resisted tyranny; but when the boy asked if he would not come back to mother, Sor Tito changed colour, and said hastily : " Oh, it isn't the time yet ; and on the whole he would perhaps be better somewhere else. The recollections would be so painful." Gigio longed to ask more about his father, but something told him that he had better not ; yet it remained impressed on the boy's mind that he was the son of a patriot, a hero, and a martyr, and dreams of rescuing, or at least avenging this injured father of his, occupied all his leisure moments.

As Don Orazio rode back through the archway on that lovely September evening, he passed little Gigio, who was eating his polenta outside the mud cottage. " Good evening, Signor Professore," said the jolly priest, bantering, for the boy kept his eyes fixed on a book open beside him even whilst he ate. " Ah, he will be a gentleman, and despise his poor mother," said Violante, who was baking bread in the oven outside. Most business went on outside ; there was so little room inside, and that little room was much taken up by the hens and chickens also. " I am not going to be a gentleman," said Gigio, with a strange light in his dark eyes ; " I am going to be an avenger." " But what ! what! what! my boy," cried the priest, alarmed. " Vengeance belongs to God. You have got hold of the wrong word.

A reformer you mean. There is room in the world for reform, and that I do not deny; but begin by blessing, and not cursing, figlio mio." "Ah, Dio! Dio!" cried the mother, wringing her hands. " It's in the blood. Pray Heaven that he may not end where his father is." " I will pray," said the priest gravely, as he went on his way. The woman ran after him to thank him and to ask his blessing, and returning hastily, for it was a critical moment with the bread, she began soundly to rate her son, who only declared the more sturdily : " I mean to preach that all men are equal like Sor Tito." "Like Sor Tito!" exclaimed his mother with a shrug of her shoulders. "All very fine talk, figlio, but just you go and say to Sor Tito you're his equal, and see what a nice box on the ears you'll get. Gentlefolk may talk what nonsense they please, but contadini must not.

That's what ruined your poor father, Gigio. When gentlemen amuse themselves with this fin:; talk, we must remember that they mean just the contrary." With this she cast a shrewd and anxious glance at her son. " Learning is all very fine, but we must not let it addle our brains," she added. " Oh mother, you don't understand ! Sor Tito talks to me quite like an equal, and he says he expects me to continue his work. He has named the streets to remind the inhabitants of their duty ; and I am to set an example. I will!" The boy's cheeks burned. His eyes blazed with enthusiasm. " What is that book you are reading?" asked his mother sharply. "It is the life of Garibaldi." " Why it's the name just painted up, where they rebuilt the house, there behind the church. I should like to burn that book, if it put such notions into your head ; and I know the Curato does not like these new names, nor Don Orazio either."

Gigio made an impatient gesture. The Curato was very old and slightly imbecile, and for the opinion of Don Orazio, who certainly was not an imbecile, he had imbibed a great contempt ; but dared not sav so to his mother. She, like a wise woman, generallv avoided discussion. For one reason because she always got the worst of it with her clever little son, and for another because her mind was of a practical order, and seldom troubled her with abstract thoughts. Don Orazio wended his way back to his home on the neighbouring hill meditating much on many things. First, he thought upon the errand which had brought him to Monteforte. He loved the young baron whose earliest preceptor he had been ; but in undertaking to aid him in his love suit he knew that he risked the anger of the young man's mother, his rich and influential patro ness.

At Monteforte he had only been an occasional visitor, and had a certain liking for the family. He felt a respectful admiration towards the countess and her lovely daughter, and Sor Tito he had looked upon as a kindly natured man with some crochets in his rather addled head. He had seen no objection to a union betwen the two families, although there could be no doubt of the superiority at least in refinement of the San Marco family. They may not have been an older family than the Giordanis, but they were richer, and had not buried themselves in their native village. The Baroness was the daughter of a Roman prince, and looked down somewhat super ciliously on her more rustic neighbours, however far back they might trace their pedigree ; but this the priest thought un reasonable pride ; and besides, the young man was quite of an age to judge for himself.

He had a particular talent for knowing his own mind, and for acting according to its dictates. Therefore, when he told Don Orazio that he meant to marry Stella if he could, the priest felt quite sure that he would do so, and had very few scruples of conscience about acting as mediator ; but a few qualms began now to assail him. Were Sor Tito's views really so harmless ? Not if they influenced the rising generation. Here was a promising boy being led astray — his mind filled with ideas not of reform, not of socialism, but of pure and simple destruction — the worst result of free thought. Don Orazio began to dive in the archives of his memory for all that he could collect of Monteforte and of Sor Tito. He called to mind how, ten years before, the village had possessed an evil reputation. Its sindaco was then a man of bad character, its curato was infamous, and as evil breeds evil, the whole community became demoralised ; so much so, that Sor Tito's extreme views were said to have dated from that time.

Sor Tito had complained much of the scandals that went on. He had threatened to have the council dissolved, the accounts audited, to make a thorough exposure ; but somehow or another he did not do it, and in spite of all his blustering, things went on rather worse than before. It was left for a poor carpenter to avenge an insult offered to his wife, by the national means of a knife thrust straight to the wretched sindaco's heart. The murder of a public official was of course a most serious matter, but the sindaco's reputation was so bad, and Muzzi's provocation so great, that in consequence of a petition signed by all the villagers, and headed by Sor Tito, his punishment was com muted to a term of years — Don Orazio could not quite remember how many — at the bagni. The sindaco being dead, the curato found public opinion too much for him, and disappeared.

The succes sors were working men, and the village became in time quite flourishing. Sor Tito had gained a good deal of credit in the neighbourhood for this happy result, but Don Orazio could not at that moment call to mind in what particular way he had contributed to it. But then Don Orazio was not intimately acquainted with the affairs of any village but his own. One thing, however, was certain, Sor Tito had himself educated little Gigio Muzzi. That was surely a kind deed, and Don Orazio honoured him for it. All the same, he began to doubt whether it might not turn out a mistaken kindness. Don Orazio was no bigot, and, although he deplored the scepticism of the age, it was borne in upon him that much might be due to those who had disgraced his own sacred profession, and he resolved to combat the spirit of irreligion, " not with his lips, but in his life," and so set an example which others of his profession would have done well to imitate.