Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian Part 16

Our souls have emerged fortified from the sorrow of the lost war.

One day, surely, Italy will re-echo from end to end with the great cry, "Come!"--and we shall spring to our feet, pale and proud, with the answering shout, "We are ready!"

Then, in the streets of our cities, thronged with people, with soldiers, horses, and wagons, amidst the clas.h.i.+ng of arms and the blare of trumpets, we cla.s.smates shall meet again. I shall see them once more, many of them, perhaps, only for that short hour, some only for a moment. At night, in the torchlit glare of a railway-station, we shall meet again, and greet each other in silence, hand in hand and eye to eye. No shouting, no songs, no joyous clamor, no vision of triumphal marches, no veiling of death's image in the light hopefulness of reunion; we shall say but one word to each other--good-bye--and that good-bye will be a promise, a vow; that good-bye will mean, "This time, there will be no descending from the mountains; you and I, lad, will be left lying on the summit."

And often, traversing a long expanse of time, I evoke the vision of distant battle-fields on which the lot of Italy is decided. My fancy hastens from valley to valley, from hill to hill; and at all the most difficult pa.s.sages, at all the posts of danger, I see one of my old cla.s.smates, a gray-haired colonel or general, at the head of his regiment or of his brigade; and I love to picture him at the moment when, attacked by a heavy force of the enemy, he directs the defence.

The two sides have joined battle, and from a neighboring height, he observes the fighting below. Poor friend! At that moment, perhaps, life and honor hang in the balance; thirty years of study, of hopes, of sacrifices, are about to be crowned with glory or scattered like a handful of dust down that green slope at his feet--it all hangs on a thread. Pale and motionless he stands there watching, the sabre trembling in his convulsive grasp. I am near him, my eye is upon his face, I feel and see and tremble with him, I live his life.

Courage, friend! Your spirit has pa.s.sed into your men, the fight is theirs, never fear! That uncertain movement over there towards the right wing is but the momentary confusion caused by some inequality of the ground; they are not falling back, man. Listen, the shouts are louder, the firing grows heavier, the last battalion has been thrown into action, all your men are fighting. Ah! how his gaze hurries from one end of the line to the other, how pale he has grown; life seems suspended. What are those distant voices? What flame rushes to his face? What is this smile, this upward glance? Victory!--but, by G.o.d, man, rein in your horse, look at me--here I am, your old cla.s.smate who holds out his arms to you--and now off, down to the battlefield among your soldiers--and G.o.d be with you!

He has put his charger to the gallop and disappeared.

And who knows how many of my friends may find themselves some day, at some hour of their lives, face to face with such an ordeal? Who knows how many an act of patriotism will make their names ill.u.s.trious, how dear to the people some of these names may become? What if some day I were to see the youth who sat next to me in the cla.s.s-room or at table, or slept beside me in the dormitory, riding through the streets on a white horse, in a general's uniform, covered with flowers and surrounded by rejoicing crowds? And who knows--may I not knock at the door of some other, and throw my arms about the pale, sad figure, grown ten years older in a few months; telling him that the popular verdict is unjust, that there are many who know that he is not to blame for the disaster, that sooner or later the excitement will subside, and the victims of the first rash judgment be restored to honor; that his name is still dear and respected, that he must not despond, that he must take heart and keep on hoping?

Ah, when I think of the fierce trials that life has in store for many of my cla.s.smates, of all that they may do to benefit their country, of all that their glory will cost them; when I, who have left the army, think of all this, I feel that, not to be outdone by my old school-fellows in paying the debt of grat.i.tude that I owe my country, I ought to toil without ceasing, to spend my nights in study, to treasure my youth and strength as a means of sustaining my intellectual effort; that, in order to preach the beauty of goodness, I ought to lead a blameless life; that I ought to keep alive that glowing affection, a spark of which I may sometimes communicate to others; to study children, the people, and the poor, and to write for their benefit; to let no ign.o.ble word fall from my pen, to sacrifice all my inclinations to the common welfare, never to lose heart, never to strive for approval, to hope for nothing and long for nothing but the day on which I may at last say to myself: I have done what I could, my life has not been useless, I am satisfied.

X.

And this is the thought that comes to me in closing: I should like to have before me a lad of seventeen, well-bred and kindly, but ignorant of the human heart, as we all are at that age; and putting a friendly hand on his shoulder, I should like to say to him:

"Do you want to make sure of a peaceful and untroubled future? Treat your friends as considerately as you would a woman, for, believe me, every harsh word or ill-mannered act (however excusable, however long-forgotten) will return some day to pain and trouble you. Recalling my friends after all these years, I remember a quarrel that I had with one of them, a sharp word exchanged with another, the resolve, maintained for many months, not to speak to a third. Puerilities, if you like, and yet how glad I should be not to have to reproach myself with them! And, though I feel sure that they have made no more impression upon others than upon myself, how much I wish for an opportunity of convincing myself of the fact, of dissipating any slight shadow that may have lingered in the minds of my friends!

"When one's youth is almost past, and one thinks of the years that have flown so quickly and of those that will fly faster yet, of the little good one has done and the little there is still time to accomplish, the pride that set one against one's friends seems so petty, ridiculous and contemptible a sentiment, that one longs for the power of returning to the past, of renewing the old discussions in a friendly tone, of extending a conciliatory hand in place of every angry shrug, of seeking out the friends one has offended, looking them in the face and saying, 'Shall bygones be bygones, old man?'"

XI.

Dear friends! If only because it was in your company that I first wandered over my country, how could my thoughts cease to seek you out, my heart to desire you?

When, from the s.h.i.+p's deck, I saw the gulf of Naples whiten in the distance, and clasping my hands, laughing and thinking of my mother, I cried out, It is a dream!--when, from the summit of the Noviziate pa.s.s my gaze for the first time embraced Messina, the straits, the Appennines and the cape of Spartivento, and I said to myself, half-sadly, Here Italy ends;--when, from the top of Monte Croce, beyond the vast plain swarming with German regiments, I first beheld the towers of Verona, and stretching out my arms, as though fearful of their vanis.h.i.+ng, cried out to them, Wait!--when, from the dike of Fusina, I saw Venice, far-off, azure, fantastic, and cried with wet eyes, Heavenly!--when Rome, surrounded by the smoke of our batteries, first burst upon me from the height of Monterondo, and I shouted, She is ours!--always, everywhere, one of you was beside me, to seize my arm and cry out: How beautiful is Italy!--always one of you to mingle your tears, your laughter and your poetry with mine!

There is not a spot of Italy, not a joyful occurrence, nor profound emotion, which is not a.s.sociated in my mind with the clank of a sword saying, 'I am here!'--and the hand-clasp of one of you, making me pause and wonder what has become of such an one, what he is doing and thinking, and whether he too remembers the good days we spent together.

It may fall to my lot to meet, in the future, many faithful, dear and generous friends, whose smiling images I already picture to myself; but beyond their throng I shall always see your plumes waving and the numbers glittering on your caps; I shall always hurry towards you, crying out: Let us talk of our college days, of our travels, of war, of soldiers, and of Italy!

XII.

We old cla.s.smates will many of us doubtless live to see the twentieth century. Strange thought! I know, of course, that the transition from nineteen hundred to nineteen hundred and one will seem as natural as that from ninety-nine to a hundred, or from this year to next. And yet it seems to me that to see the first dawn of the new century will be like reaching the summit of some high mountain, and looking out over new countries and new horizons. I feel as though, that morning, something unexpected and marvellous would be revealed to us; as though there would be a sense almost of terror in finding one's self face to face with it; a sense of having been hurled, by some unseen power, from brink to brink of a measureless abyss.

Idle fancies! I know well enough what we shall be like when that time comes. I see a sitting-room with a fireplace in the corner, or rather many sitting-rooms with many fireplaces, and many old men seated, chin in hand, in arm-chairs near the hearth. Near by stands a table with a lamp on it, surrounded by a circle of children, or of nephews and nieces, who nudge each other and point to their father or uncle, whispering, "Hush--he's asleep;"--and laughing at the grotesque expression that sleep has given to our wrinkled faces.

And then perhaps we shall wake, and the children will surround us, begging, as usual, for stories of "a long time ago," and asking with eager curiosity, "Uncle, did you ever see General Garibaldi?"--"Father, were you ever close to King Victor Emmanuel?"--"Grandpapa, did you ever hear Count Cavour speak?"

"Why, yes, child, many and many a time!"

"Oh, do tell us, what were they like? Did they look like their portraits? How did they talk?"

And we shall tell them everything, and gradually, as we talk, our voices will regain their old vigor, our cheeks will glow, and we shall watch with delight the brightening of those eager eyes, the proud uplifting of those innocent brows, and the impatient movement of the little hands, signing to us, at each pause, to go on with the story.

And what will have befallen the world by that time? Will a Victor Emmanuel III. rule over Italy? Will the Bersaglieri be at Trent? Will one of our old friends, attached to the Ministry of the Interior, have been made Governor of Tunis? Will France have pa.s.sed through another series of empires, republics, communes, and monarchies? Will the threatened invasion of northern barbarians have taken place? Will England also have received her coup-de-grace? Shall we have experimented with a Commune? Will our great poet have been born? The Church have been reformed? Rome rebuilt? Will there be any armies in those days? And we--what standing shall we have in our village or town?

What shall we have done? How shall we have lived?

Ah, whatever has happened, whatever fate awaits us, if we have worked, and loved, and believed--then, when we sit at sunset in the big arm-chair on the terrace, and think of our families, of our friends, of the mountains, of the carnivals, of the Tyrrhenian islands that we dreamed of in our college days, we shall be sad, indeed, at the thought of parting before long from such dear souls and from so beautiful a country; but our faces will brighten with a smile serene and quiet as the dawn of a new youth, and tempering the bitterness of farewell with the tacit pledge of reunion.