CHAPTER VII
A week following the day of meetings on the Motterone, Luigi the spy wasin Milan, making his way across the Piazza de' Mercanti. He entered anarrow court, one of those which were anciently built upon the Orientalprinciple of giving shade at the small cost of excluding common air. Itwas dusky noon there through the hours of light, and thrice night whendarkness fell. The atmosphere, during the sun's short passage overhead,hung with a glittering heaviness, like the twinkling iron-dust in asubterranean smithy. On the lower window of one of the houses therewas a board, telling men that Barto Rizzo made and mended shoes, andrequesting people who wished to see him to make much noise at the door,for he was hard of hearing. It speedily became known in the court that avisitor desired to see Barto Rizzo. The noise produced by Luigi waslike that of a fanatical beater of the tomtom; he knocked and bangedand danced against the door, crying out for his passing amusement anadaptation of a popular ballad:--"Oh, Barto, Barto! my boot is sadlyworn: The toe is seen that should be veiled from sight. The toe thatshould be veiled like an Eastern maid: like a sultan's daughter:Shocking! shocking! One of a company of ten that were living a secludedlife in chaste privacy! Oh, Barto, Barto! must I charge it to thydespicable leather or to my incessant pilgrimages? One fair toe! I fearpresently the corruption of the remaining nine: Then, alas! what do I goon? How shall I come to a perfumed end, who walk on ten indecent toes?Well may the delicate gentlemen sneer at me and scorn me: As for theangelic Lady who deigns to look so low, I may say of her that hergraciousness clothes what she looks at: To her the foot, the leg, theback: To her the very soul is bared: But she is a rarity upon earth. Oh,Barto, Barto, she is rarest in Milan! I might run a day's length and notfind her. If, O Barto, as my boot hints to me, I am about to be strippedof my last covering, I must hurry to the inconvenient little chamberof my mother, who cannot refuse to acknowledge me as of this pattern:Barto, O shoemaker! thou son of artifice and right-hand-man ofnecessity, preserve me in the fashion of the time: Cobble me neatly: Adozen wax threads and I am remade:--Excellent! I thank you! Now I canplant my foot bravely: Oh, Barto, my shoemaker! between ourselves, itis unpleasant in these refined days to be likened at all to thatpreposterous Adam!"
The omission of the apostrophes to Barto left it one of the ironical,veiled Republican, semi-socialistic ballads of the time, which were sungabout the streets for the sharpness and pith of the couplets, and notfrom a perception of the double edge down the length of them.
As Luigi was coming to the terminating line, the door opened. A veryhandsome sullen young woman, of the dark, thick-browed Lombard type,asked what was wanted; at the same time the deep voice of a man;conjecturally rising from a lower floor, called, and a lock was rattled.The woman told Luigi to enter. He sent a glance behind him; he hadevidently been drained of his sprightliness in a second; he moved inwith the slackness of limb of a gibbeted figure. The door shut; thewoman led him downstairs. He could not have danced or sung a song nowfor great pay. The smell of mouldiness became so depressing to him thatthe smell of leather struck his nostrils refreshingly. He thought: "Oh,Virgin! it's dark enough to make one believe in every single thing theytell us about the saints." Up in the light of day Luigi had a turn forcareless thinking on these holy subjects.
Barto Rizzo stood before him in a square of cellarage that was furnishedwith implements of his craft, too dark for a clear discernment offeatures.
"So, here you are!" was the greeting Luigi received.
It was a tremendous voice, that seemed to issue from a vast cavity."Lead the gentleman to my sitting-room," said Barto. Luigi felt the windof a handkerchief, and guessed that his eyes were about to be bandagedby the woman behind him. He petitioned to be spared it, on the plea,firstly, that it expressed want of confidence; secondly, that it tookhim in the stomach. The handkerchief was tight across his eyes whilehe was speaking. His hand was touched by the woman, and he commencedtimidly an ascent of stairs. It continued so that he would have swornhe was a shorter time going up the Motterone; then down, and along apassage; lower down, deep into corpse-climate; up again, up anotherenormous mountain; and once more down, as among rats and beetles, anddown, as among faceless horrors, and down, where all things seemedprostrate and with a taste of brass. It was the poor fellow's nervousimagination, preternaturally excited. When the handkerchief was caughtaway, his jaw was shuddering, his eyes were sickly; he looked as ifimpaled on the prongs of fright. It required just half a minute toreanimate this mercurial creature, when he found himself under thelight of two lamps, and Barto Rizzo fronting him, in a place so like thesquare of cellarage which he had been led to with unbandaged eyes, thatit relieved his dread by touching his humour. He cried, "Have I made thejourney of the Signor Capofinale, who visited the other end of the worldby standing on his head?"
Barto Rizzo rolled out a burly laugh.
"Sit," he said. "You're a poor sweating body, and must needs have a drytongue. Will you drink?"
"Dry!" quoth Luigi. "Holy San Carlo is a mash in a wine-press comparedwith me."
Barto Rizzo handed him a liquor, which he drank, and after gave thanksto Providence. Barto raised his hand.
"We're too low down here for that kind of machinery," he said. "They saythat Providence is on the side of the Austrians. Now then, what have youto communicate to me? This time I let you come to my house trust at all,trust entirely. I think that's the proverb. You are admitted: speak likea guest."
Luigi's preference happened to be for categorical interrogations. Neverhaving an idea of spontaneously telling the whole truth, the sense thathe was undertaking a narrative gave him such emotions as a bad swimmerupon deep seas may have; while, on the other hand, his being subjectedto a series of questions seemed at least to leave him with one legon shore, for then he could lie discreetly, and according to thefinger-posts, and only when necessary, and he could recover himself ifhe made a false step. His ingenious mind reasoned these images out tohis own satisfaction. He requested, therefore, that his host would lethim hear what he desired to know.
Barto Rizzo's forefinger was pressed from an angle into one temple. Hishead inclined to meet it: so that it was like the support to a broadblunt pillar. The cropped head was flat as an owl's; the chest ofimmense breadth; the bulgy knees and big hands were those of a dwarfathlete. Strong colour, lying full on him from the neck to the forehead,made the big veins purple and the eyes fierier than the movements of hismind would have indicated. He was simply studying the character of hisman. Luigi feared him; he was troubled chiefly because he was unaware ofwhat Barto Rizzo wanted to know, and could not consequently tell whatto bring to the market. The simplicity of the questions put to him wasbewildering: he fell into the trap. Barto's eyes began to get terriblyoblique. Jingling money in his pocket, he said:--"You saw Colonel Corteon the Motterone: you saw the Signor Agostino Balderini: good men, both!Also young Count Ammiani: I served his father, the General, and joggedthe lad on my knee. You saw the Signorina Vittoria. The English peoplecame, and you heard them talk, but did not understand. You came home andtold all this to the Signor Antonio, your employer number one. You havetold the same to me, your employer number two. There's your pay."
Barto summed up thus the information he had received, and handed Luigisix gold pieces. The latter, springing with boyish thankfulness andpride at the easy earning of them, threw in a few additional facts, as,that he had been taken for a spy by the conspirators, and had heard oneof the Englishmen mention the Signorina Vittoria's English name.Barto Rizzo lifted his eyebrows queerly. "We'll go through anotherinterrogatory in an hour," he said; "stop here till I return."
Luigi was always too full of his own cunning to suspect the same inanother, until he was left alone to reflect on a scene; when it becameoverwhelmingly transparent. "But, what could I say more than I did say?"he asked himself, as he stared at the one lamp Barto had left. Findingthe door unfastened, he took the lamp and lighted himself out, and alonga cavernous passage ending in a blank wall, against which his heartknocked and fell,
for his sensation was immediately the terror ofimprisonment and helplessness. Mad with alarm, he tried every spot foran aperture. Then he sat down on his haunches; he remembered hearingword of Barto Rizzo's rack:--certain methods peculiar to Barto Rizzo,by which he screwed matters out of his agents, and terrified them intofidelity. His personal dealings with Barto were of recent date; butLuigi knew him by repute: he knew that the shoemaking business wasa mask. Barto had been a soldier, a schoolmaster: twice an exile; aconspirator since the day when the Austrians had the two fine Applesof Pomona, Lombardy and Venice, given them as fruits of peace. Luigiremembered how he had snapped his fingers at the name of Barto Rizzo.There was no despising him now. He could only arrive at a peacefulcontemplation of Barto Rizzo's character by determining to tell all,and (since that seemed little) more than he knew. He got back tothe leather-smelling chamber, which was either the same or purposelyrendered exactly similar to the one he had first been led to.
At the end of a leaden hour Barto Rizzo returned.
"Now, to recommence," he said. "Drink before you speak, if your tongueis dry."
Luigi thrust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to him that by doingso he propitiated that ill-conceived divinity called Virtue, who livedin the open air, and desired men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidentlyunderstood the kind of man he was schooling to his service.
"Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman, acquainted with theSignor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, his sister, on the Motterone?"
Luigi answered promptly, "Yes."
"Did the Signorina Vittoria speak to the lady?"
"No."
"Not a word?"
"No."
"Not one communication to her?"
"No: she sat under her straw hat."
"She concealed her face?"
"She sat like a naughty angry girl."
"Did she speak to the officer?"
"Not she!"
"Did she see him?"
"Of course she did! As if a woman's eyes couldn't see throughstraw-plait!"
Barto paused, calculatingly, eye on victim.
"The Signorina Vittoria," he resumed, "has engaged to sing on the nightof the Fifteenth; has she?"
A twitching of Luigi's muscles showed that he apprehended a necessarystraining of his invention on another tack.
"On the night of the Fifteenth, Signor Barto Rizzo? That's the night ofher first appearance. Oh, yes!"
"To sing a particular song?"
"Lots of them! ay-aie!"
Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his seat till hehowled, saying, "Now, there's a slate and a pencil. Expect me at theend of two hours, this time. Next time it will be four: then eight,then sixteen. Find out how many hours that will be at the sixteenthexamination."
Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his straightenedarm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen to the explanation of Barto'ssystem; which was that, in cases where every fresh examination taughthim more, they were continued, after regularly-lengthening intervals,that might extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain."When all's delivered," said Barto, "then we begin to correctdiscrepancies. I expect," he added, "you and I will have done before aweek's out."
"A week!" Luigi shouted. "Here's my stomach already leaping like a fishat the smell of this hole. You brute bear! it's a smell of bones.It turns my inside with a spoon. May the devil seize you when you'resleeping! You shan't go: I'll tell you everything--everything. Ican't tell you anything more than I have told you. She gave me acigarette--there! Now you know:--gave me a cigarette; a cigarette. Ismoked it--there! Your faithful servant!"
"She gave you a cigarette, and you smoked it; ha!" said Barto Rizzo, whoappeared to see something to weigh even in that small fact. "The Englishlady gave you the cigarette?"
Luigi nodded: "Yes;" pertinacious in deception. "Yes," he repeated; "theEnglish lady. That was the person. What's the use of your skewering mewith your eyes!"
"I perceive that you have never travelled, my Luigi," said Barto. "I amafraid we shall not part so early as I had supposed. I double the dose,and return to you in four hours' time."
Luigi threw himself flat on the ground, shrieking that he was readyto tell everything--anything. Not even the apparent desperation of hiscircumstances could teach him that a promise to tell the truth was amore direct way of speaking. Indeed, the hitting of the truth wouldhave seemed to him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which shoulddevolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the relation of"everything and anything."
All through a night Luigi's lesson continued. In the morning he wasstill breaking out in small and purposeless lies; but Barto Rizzohad accomplished his two objects: that of squeezing him, and thatof subjecting his imagination. Luigi confessed (owing to a singularrecovery of his memory) the gift of the cigarette as coming from theSignorina Vittoria. What did it matter if she did give him a cigarette?
"You adore her for it?" said Barto.
"May the Virgin sweep the floor of heaven into her lap!" interjectedLuigi. "She is a good patriot."
"Are you one?" Barto asked.
"Certainly I am."
"Then I shall have to suspect you, for the good of your country."
Luigi could not see the deduction. He was incapable of guessing that itmight apply forcibly to Vittoria, who had undertaken a grave, perilous,and imminent work. Nothing but the spontaneous desire to elude thepursuit of a questioner had at first instigated his baffling of BartoRizzo, until, fearing the dark square man himself, he feared him dimlyfor Vittoria's sake; he could not have said why. She was a good patriot:wherefore the reason for wishing to know more of her? Barto Rizzo hadcompelled him at last to furnish a narrative of the events of that dayon the Motterone, and, finding himself at sea, Luigi struck out boldlyand swam as well as he could. Barto disentangled one succinct thread ofincidents: Vittoria had been commissioned by the Chief to sing on thenight of the Fifteenth; she had subsequently, without speaking to any ofthe English party, or revealing her features "keeping them beautifullyhidden," Luigi said, with unaccountable enthusiasm--written a warning tothem that they were to avoid Milan. The paper on which the warning hadbeen written was found by the English when he was the only Italian onthe height, lying thereto observe and note things in the service ofBarto Rizzo. The writing was English, but when one of the Englishladies--"who wore her hair like a planed shred of wood; like a tornvine; like a kite with two tails; like Luxury at the Banquet, readyto tumble over marble shoulders" (an illustration drawn probably fromLuigi's study of some allegorical picture,--he was at a loss to describethe foreign female head-dress)--when this lady had read the writing,she exclaimed that it was the hand of "her Emilia!" and soon after sheaddressed Luigi in English, then in French, then in "barricade Italian"(by which phrase Luigi meant that the Italian words were there, butdid not present their proper smooth footing for his understanding), andstrove to obtain information from him concerning the signorina, andalso concerning the chances that Milan would be an agitated city. Luigiassured her that Milan was the peacefullest of cities--a pure babe. Headmitted his acquaintance with the Signorina Vittoria Campa, and deniedher being "any longer" the Emilia Alessandra Belloni of the Englishlady. The latter had partly retained him in her service, havinggiven him directions to call at her hotel in Milan, and help her tocommunicate with her old friend. "I present myself to her to-morrow,Friday," said Luigi.
"That's to-day," said Barto.
Luigi clapped his hand to his cheek, crying wofully, "You've drawn,beastly gaoler! a night out of my life like an old jaw-tooth."
"There's day two or three fathoms above us," said Barto; "and hot coffeeis coming down."
"I believe I've been stewing in a pot while the moon looked so cool."Luigi groaned, and touched up along the sleeves of his arms: that whichhe fancied he instantaneously felt.
The coffee was brought by the heavy-browed young woman. Before shequitted the place Barto desired her to cast her eyes on Luigi, and sa
ywhether she thought she should know him again. She scarcely glanced, andgave answer with a shrug of the shoulders as she retired. Luigi at thetime was drinking. He rose; he was about to speak, but yawned instead.The woman's carelessly-dropped upper eyelids seemed to him to be readinghim through a dozen of his contortions and disguises, and checked theidea of liberty which he associated with getting to the daylight.
"But it is worth the money!" shouted Barto Rizzo, with a splendiddivination of his thought. "You skulker! are you not paid and fattenedto do business which you've only to remember, and it'll honey your legsin purgatory? You're the shooting-dog of that Greek, and you noseabout the bushes for his birds, and who cares if any fellow, just forexercise, shoots a dagger a yard from his wrist and sticks you in theback? You serve me, and there's pay for you; brothers, doctors, nurses,friends,--a tight blanket if you fall from a housetop! and masses foryour soul when your hour strikes. The treacherous cur lies rotting in aditch! Do you conceive that when I employ you I am in your power? Yourintelligence will open gradually. Do you know that here in this houseI can conceal fifty men, and leave the door open to the Croats to findthem? I tell you now--you are free; go forth. You go alone; no onetouches you; ten years hence a skeleton is found with an English letteron its ribs--"
"Oh, stop! signor Barto, and be a blessed man," interposed Luigi,doubling and wriggling in a posture that appeared as if he were shakingnegatives from the elbows of his crossed arms. "Stop. How did you knowof a letter? I forgot--I have seen the English lady at her hotel. I wascarrying the signorina's answer, when I thought 'Barto Rizzo calls me,'and I came like a lamb. And what does it matter? She is a good patriot;you are a good patriot; here it is. Consider my reputation, do; and becareful with the wax."
Barto drew a long breath. The mention of the English letter had been ashot in the dark. The result corroborated his devotional belief in theunerringness of his own powerful intuition. He had guessed the case, orhardly even guessed it--merely stated it, to horrify Luigi. The letterwas placed in his hands, and he sat as strongly thrilled by emotion,under the mask of his hard face, as a lover hearing music. "I readEnglish," he remarked.
After he had drawn the seal three or four times slowly over the lamp,the green wax bubbled and unsnapped. Vittoria had written the followinglines in reply to her old English friend:--
"Forgive me, and do not ask to see me until we have passed the fifteenth of the month. You will see me that night at La Scala. I wish to embrace you, but I am miserable to think of your being in Milan. I cannot yet tell you where my residence is. I have not met your brother. If he writes to me it will make me happy, but I refuse to see him. I will explain to him why. Let him not try to see me. Let him send by this messenger. I hope he will contrive to be out of Milan all this month. Pray let me influence you to go for a time. I write coldly; I am tired, and forget my English. I do not forget my friends. I have you close against my heart. If it were prudent, and it involved me alone, I would come to you without a moment's loss of time. Do know that I am not changed, and am your affectionate
"Emilia."
When Barto Rizzo had finished reading, he went from the chamber and blewhis voice into what Luigi supposed to be a hollow tube.
"This letter," he said, coming back, "is a repetition of the SignorinaVittoria's warning to her friends on the Motterone. The English lady'sbrother, who is in the Austrian service, was there, you say?"
Luigi considered that, having lately been believed in, he could notafford to look untruthful, and replied with a sprightly "Assuredly."
"He was there, and he read the writing on the paper?"
"Assuredly: right out loud, between puff-puff of his cigar."
"His name is Lieutenant Pierson. Did not Antonio-Pericles tell you hisname? He will write to her: you will be the bearer of his letter to thesignorina. I must see her reply. She is a good patriot; so am I; so areyou. Good patriots must be prudent. I tell you, I must see her replyto this Lieutenant Pierson." Barto stuck his thumb and finger astrideLuigi's shoulder and began rocking him gently, with a horriblemeditative expression. "You will have to accomplish this, my Luigi. Allfair excuses will be made, if you fail generally. This you must do. Keepupright while I am speaking to you! The excuses will be made; but I, notyou, must make them: bear that in mind. Is there any person whom you, myLuigi, like best in the world?"
It was a winning question, and though Luigi was not the dupe of itsinsinuating gentleness, he answered, "The little girl who carriesflowers every morning to the caffe La Scala."
"Ah! the little girl who carries flowers every morning to the caffeLa Scala. Now, my Luigi, you may fail me, and I may pardon you. Listenattentively: if you are false; if you are guilty of one piece oftreachery:--do you see? You can't help slipping, but you can helpjumping. Restrain yourself from jumping, that's all. If you are guiltyof treachery, hurry at once, straight off, to the little girl whocarries flowers every morning to the caffe La Scala. Go to her, takeher by the two cheeks, kiss her, say to her 'addio, addio,' for, by thethunder of heaven! you will never see her more."
Luigi was rocked forward and back, while Barto spoke in level tones,till the voice dropped into its vast hollow, when Barto held him fast amoment, and hurled him away by the simple lifting of his hand.
The woman appeared and bound Luigi's eyes. Barto did not utter anotherword. On his journey back to daylight, Luigi comforted himself bymuttering oaths that he would never again enter into this trap. Assoon as his eyes were unbandaged, he laughed, and sang, and tossed acompliment from his finger-tips to the savage-browed beauty; pretendedthat he had got an armful, and that his heart was touched by theecstasy; and sang again: "Oh, Barto, Barto! my boot is sadly worn. Thetoe is seen," etc., half-way down the stanzas. Without his knowing it,and before he had quitted the court, he had sunk into songless gloom,brooding on the scenes of the night. However free he might be in body,his imagination was captive to Barto Rizzo. He was no luckier than abird, for whom the cage is open that it may feel the more keenly withits little taste of liberty that it is tied by the leg.