Amalia protested, refusing to go to Carlo Ammiani under that stigma, though a delightful haven of open arms and knees, and filliping fingers, invited her.
‘She is not a German girl, O Signor Giacomo,’ said Vittoria, in the theatrical manner.
‘She has a German name.’
‘It’s not a German name!’ the little girl shrieked.
Giacomo set Amalia to a miauling tune.
‘So, you hate the Duchess of Graatli!’ said Vittoria. ‘Very well. I shall remember.’
The boy declared that he did not hate his mother’s friend and sister’s godmother: he rather liked her, he really liked her, he loved her; but he loathed the name ‘Amalia,’ and could not understand why the duchess would be a German. He concluded by miauling ‘Amalia’ in the triumph of contempt.
‘Cat, begone!’ said Vittoria, promptly setting him down on his feet, and little Amalia at the same time perceiving that practical sympathy only required a ring at the bell for it to come out, straightway pulled the wires within herself, and emitted a doleful wail that gave her sole possession of Vittoria’s bosom, where she was allowed to bring her tears to an end very comfortingly. Giacomo meanwhile, his body bent in an arch, plucked at Carlo Ammiani’s wrists with savagely playful tugs, and took a stout boy’s lesson in the art of despising what he coveted. He had only to ask for pardon. Finding it necessary, he came shyly up to Vittoria, who put Amalia in his way, kissing whom, he was himself tenderly kissed.
‘But girls should not cry!’ Vittoria reproved the little woman.
‘Why do you cry?’ asked Amalia simply.
‘See! she has been crying.’ Giacomo appropriated the discovery, perforce of loudness, after the fashion of his sex.
‘Why does our Vittoria cry?’ both the children clamoured.
‘Because your mother is such a cruel sister to her,’ said Laura, passing up to them from the doorway. She drew Vittoria’s head against her breast, looked into her eyes, and sat down among them. Vittoria sang one low-toned soft song, like the voice of evening, before they were dismissed to their beds. She could not obey Giacomo’s demand for a martial air, and had to plead that she was tired.
When the children had gone, it was as if a truce had ended. The signora and Ammiani fell to a brisk counterchange of questions relating to the mysterious suspicion which had fallen upon Vittoria. Despite Laura’s love for her, she betrayed her invincible feeling that there must be some grounds for special or temporary distrust.
‘The lives that hang on it knock at me here,’ she said, touching under her throat with fingers set like falling arrows.
But Ammiani, who moved in the centre of conspiracies, met at their councils, and knew their heads, and frequently combated their schemes, was not possessed by the same profound idea of their potential command of hidden facts and sovereign wisdom. He said, ‘We trust too much to one man. We are compelled to trust him, but we trust too much to him. I mean this man, this devil, Barto Rizzo. Signora, signora, he must be spoken of. He has dislocated the plot. He is the fanatic of the revolution, and we are trusting him as if he had full sway of reason. What is the consequence? The Chief is absent he is now, as I believe, in Genoa. All the plan for the rising is accurate; the instruments are ready, and we are paralyzed. I have been to three houses to-night, and where, two hours previously, there was union and concert, all are irresolute and divided. I have hurried off a messenger to the Chief. Until we hear from him, nothing can be done. I left Ugo Corte storming against us Milanese, threatening, as usual, to work without us, and have a Bergamasc and Brescian Republic of his own. Count Medole is for a week’s postponement. Agostino smiles and chuckles, and talks his poetisms.’
‘Until you hear from the Chief, nothing is to be done?’ Laura said passionately. ‘Are we to remain in suspense? Impossible! I cannot bear it. We have plenty of arms in the city. Oh, that we had cannon! I worship cannon! They are the Gods of battle! But if we surprise the citadel;—one true shock of alarm makes a mob of an army. I have heard my husband say so. Let there be no delay. That is my word.’
‘But, signora, do you see that all concert about the signal is lost?’
‘My friend, I see something’; Laura nodded a significant half-meaning at him. ‘And perhaps it will be as well. Go at once. See that another signal is decided upon. Oh! because we are ready—ready. Inaction now is uttermost anguish—kills the heart. What number of the white butchers have we in the city to-night?’
‘They are marching in at every gate. I saw a regiment of Hungarians coming up the Borgo della Stella. Two fresh squadrons of Uhlans in the Corso Francesco. In the Piazza d’Armi artillery is encamped.’
‘The better for Brescia, for Bergamo, for Padua, for Venice!’ exclaimed Laura. ‘There is a limit to their power. We Milanese can match them. For days and days I have had a dream lying in my bosom that Milan was soon to breathe. Go, my brother; go to Barto Rizzo; gather him and Count Medole, Agostino, and Colonel Corte—to whom I kiss my fingers—gather them together, and squeeze their brains for the one spark of divine fire in this darkness which must exist where there are so many thorough men bent upon a sacred enterprise. And, Carlo,’—Laura checked her nervous voice, ‘don’t think I am declaiming to you from one of my “Midnight Lamps.”’ (She spoke of the title of her pamphlets to the Italian people.) ‘You feel among us women very much as Agostino and Colonel Corte feel when the boy Carlo airs his impetuosities in their presence. Yes, my fervour makes a philosopher of you. That is human nature. Pity me, pardon me, and do my bidding.’
The comparison of Ammiani’s present sentiments to those of the elders of the conspiracy, when his mouth was open in their midst, was severe and masterful, for the young man rose instantly without a thought in his head.
He remarked: ‘I will tell them that the signorina does not give the signal.’
‘Tell them that the name she has chosen shall be Vittoria still; but say, that she feels a shadow of suspicion to be an injunction upon her at such a crisis, and she will serve silently and humbly until she is rightly known, and her time comes. She is willing to appear before them, and submit to interrogation. She knows her innocence, and knowing that they work for the good of the country, she, if it is their will, is content to be blotted out of all participation:—all! She abjures all for the common welfare. Say that. And say, to-morrow night the rising must be. Oh! to-morrow night! It is my husband to me.’
Laura Piaveni crossed her arms upon her bosom.
Ammiani was moving from them with a downward face, when a bell-note of Vittoria’s voice arrested him.
‘Stay, Signor Carlo; I shall sing to-morrow night.’
The widow heard her through that thick emotion which had just closed her’ speech with its symbolical sensuous rapture. Divining opposition fiercely, like a creature thwarted when athirst for the wells, she gave her a terrible look, and then said cajolingly, as far as absence of sweetness could make the tones pleasant, ‘Yes, you will sing, but you will not sing that song.’
‘It is that song which I intend to sing, signora.’
‘When it is interdicted?’
‘There is only one whose interdict I can acknowledge.’
‘You will dare to sing in defiance of me?’
‘I dare nothing when I simply do my duty.’
Ammiani went
