Part 2

"'Yes, perhaps you are right,' said Ida at last. 'If the Holy Mother helps you and me now when we live apart, it will be much easier for her to help us when we live together.'

"We decided upon it and went to the priest.

"'This is madness!' said the priest. 'Aren't there beggars enough in Liguria? Unhappy people, playthings of the devil, you must struggle against his snares or you will pay dearly for your weakness.'

"All the youths in the commune jeered at us, and all the old people shook their heads, I can tell you. But youth is obstinate and will have its way! The wedding day drew near; we were no better off than we had been before; we really did not know where we should sleep on our wedding night.

"'Let us go into the fields,' said Ida. 'Why won't that do? The Mother of God is equally kind to all, and love is everywhere equally passionate when people are young.'

"That is what we decided upon: that the earth should be our bed and the sky our coverlet!

"At this point another story begins, signors; please pay attention; this is the best story of my long life. Early in the morning of the day before our wedding the old man Giovanni, for whom I worked, said to me like this, his pipe between his teeth, as if he were speaking about trifles:

"'Ugo, you had better go and clean out the old sheep-shed and put some straw in it. Although it is dry there, and no sheep have been in it for over a year, it ought to be cleaned out properly if you want to live in it with Ida.'

"Thus we had a house!

"As I worked and sang, the carpenter Constanzio stood in the door and asked:

"'Are you going to live here with Ida? Where is your bed? You must come to me when you have finished and get one from me--I have one to spare.'

"As I went to his house Mary, the bad-tempered shopkeeper, shouted:

"'The wretched sillies get married and don't possess a sheet, or pillow, or anything else! You are quite crazy, you one-eyed fellow! Send your sweetheart to me.'

"And Ettore Viano, tortured by rheumatism and fever, shouted from the threshold of his house:

"'Ask him whether he has saved up much wine for the guests! Oh, good people, who could be more light-headed than these two?'"

In a deep wrinkle on the old man's cheek glistened a tear of happiness; he threw back his head and laughed noiselessly, pawing his old throat and the flabby skin of his face; his arms were as restless as a child's.

"Oh, signors, signors!" said he, laughing and catching his breath. "On our wedding morn we had everything that was wanted for a home--a statue of the Madonna, crockery, linen, furniture--everything, I swear! Ida wept and laughed, and so did I, and everybody laughed--it is not the thing to weep on one's wedding day, and they all laughed at us!

"Signors, words cannot tell how sweet it is to be able to say 'our' people. It is better still _to feel_ that they are 'yours,' near and dear to you, your kindred, for whom your life is no joking matter, your happiness no plaything! And the wedding took place! It was a great day. The whole commune turned out to see us, and everybody came to our shed, which had become a rich house, as in a fairy-tale. We had everything: wine and fruit, meat and bread, and all ate and were merry. There is no greater happiness, signors, than to do good to others; believe me, there is nothing more beautiful or more joyful.

"And we had a priest. 'These people,' he said gravely, and in a manner suited to the occasion, 'have worked for you all, and now you have provided for them so that they may be happy on this the best day of their life. That is exactly what you should have done, for they have worked for you, and work is of more account than copper and silver coins; work is always greater than the payment that is given for it! Money disappears, but work remains. These people are happy and humble; their life has been hard but they have not grumbled; it may be harder yet and they will not murmur--and you will help them in an hour of need. Their hands are willing and their hearts as good as gold.' He said a lot of flattering things to me, to Ida and to the whole commune!"

The old man looked triumphantly, with his one eye, at his fellow-travellers, and there was something youthful and vigorous in his glance as he said:

"There you have something about people, signors. Curious, isn't it?"

HEARTS AND CREEDS

It is spring-time, the sun shines brightly, and everyone is gay. Even the window-panes of the old stone houses seem to wear a cheerful smile.

Along the street of the little town streams a crowd in bright holiday attire. The whole population of the town is there: workers, soldiers, tradespeople, priests, officials, fishermen; all are intoxicated with the spirit of spring-time, talking, laughing, singing in joyous confusion, as if they were a single body overflowing with the zest of life.

The hats and parasols of the women make a medley of bright colours; red and blue balloons, like wonderful flowers, float from the hands of the children; and children, merry lords of the earth, laughing and rejoicing, are everywhere, like gems on the gorgeous cloak of a fairy prince.

The tender green leaves of the trees have not yet unfolded; they are sheathed in gorgeous buds, greedily drinking in the warm rays of the sun. Far off the sun smiles gently and seems to beckon us.

The impression seems to prevail that people have outlived their misfortunes, that yesterday was the last day of the hard shameful life that wearied them to death. To-day they have all awakened in high spirits, like schoolboys, with a strong, clear faith in themselves, in the invincibility of their will to overcome all obstacles, and now, all together, they march boldly into the future.

It was strange--strange and sad and suddenly depressing--to notice a sorrowful face in this lively crowd: it was that of a tall, strongly built man, not yet over thirty but already grey, who passed arm-in-arm with a young woman. He carried his hat in his hand, the hair on his shapely head glistened like silver, his thin but healthy face was calm and destined to remain for ever sad. The eyes, large and dark, and shaded by long lashes, were those of a man who cannot forget--who will never forget--the acute suffering through which he has passed.

"Notice that couple," said my companion to me, "especially the man: he has lived through one of those dramas which are enacted more and more frequently amongst the workers of Northern Italy."

And my companion went on:

That man is a socialist, the editor of a local Labour paper, a workman himself, a painter. He is one of those characters for whom science becomes a religion, and a religion that still more incites the thirst for knowledge. A keen and clever Anti-Clerical he was--just note what fierce looks the black priests send after him.

About five years ago he, a propagandist, met in one of his circles a girl who at once attracted his attention. Here women have learnt to believe silently and steadfastly; the priests have cultivated this ability in them for many centuries, and have achieved what they wished. Somebody rightly said that the Catholic Church has been built up on the breast of womankind. The cult of the Madonna is not only beautiful, as such heathen practices go, it is first of all a clever cult. The Madonna is simpler than Christ, she is nearer to one's heart, there are no contradictions in her, she does not threaten with Gehenna--she only loves, pities, forgives--it is easy for her to make a captive of a woman's heart for life.

But there he sees a girl who can speak, can inquire; and in all her questions he perceives, side by side with her naïve wonderment at his ideas, an undisguised lack of belief in him, and sometimes even fear and repulsion. The Italian propagandist has to speak a great deal about religion, to say incisive things about the Pope and the clergy; every time he spoke on that subject he saw contempt and hate for him in the eyes of the girl; if she asked about anything her words sounded unfriendly and her soft voice breathed poison. It was evident that she was acquainted with Catholic literature directed against socialism, and that in this circle her word had as much weight as his own.

Until latterly the attitude here towards women was far more vulgar and much coarser than in Russia, and the Italian women were themselves to blame for this; taking no interest in anything except the Church, they were for the most part strangers to the work of social advancement carried on by men and did not understand its meaning.

The man's self-love was wounded, the clever propagandist's fame suffered in the collisions with the girl; he got angry; lost his temper; occasionally he ridiculed her successfully, but she paid him back in his own coin, evoking his involuntary admiration, forcing him carefully to prepare the lectures he had to give to the circle she attended.

In addition to all this he noticed that every time he came to speak about the present shameful state of things, how man was being oppressed, his body and his soul mutilated--whenever he drew pictures of the life of the future when all will be both outwardly and inwardly free--he noticed that she was quite another being: she listened to his speeches, stifling the anger of a strong and clever woman who knows the weight of life's chains; listened to them with the rapt eagerness of a child that is told a fairy tale which is in harmony with its own magically complex soul.

This excited in him the anticipation of victory over a strong foe--a foe who could be a fine comrade, a valiant champion in the cause of a better future.

The rivalry between them lasted nearly a year, without calling forth any desire in them to join issue and fight their battle out; at length he made the first advance.

"Signorina is my constant opponent," he said, "does she not think that in the interests of the cause it would be better if we were to become more closely acquainted?"

She willingly fell in with his suggestion, and almost from the first word they entered upon a spirited contest: the girl fiercely defended the Church as the only place where the souls of the weary find rest, where before the face of the Madonna all are equal and equally pitiable, notwithstanding the differences in worldly seeming. He replied that it was not rest that people needed but struggle, that civic equality is impossible without equality in material things, and that behind the cloak of the Madonna is concealed a man to whom it is advantageous that people should remain miserable and unenlightened.

Thereafter these discussions filled their whole life, every meeting was a continuation of the one same endless, passionate theme, and every day the stubborn strength of their beliefs became more and more evident.

For him life was a struggle for the widening of knowledge, for the conquest of the forces of Nature, a struggle for the subjugation of mysterious energies to the will of man. It was meet that everybody should be equally armed for this struggle, which was to issue in Freedom and the triumph of Reason--the most powerful of all forces, and the only force in the world which acts consciously. For her life was a slow and painful sacrifice of man to the Unknown, the subjugation of Reason to that will the laws and aims of which are known to the priest only.

Nonplussed by this, he inquired:

"Why do you attend my lectures and what do you expect from socialism?"

"Yes, I know that I sin and contradict myself!" she confessed sorrowfully.

"But it is pleasant to listen to you and to dream about the possibility of happiness for all!"

Though not specially pretty she was slim and graceful, with an intelligent face, and large eyes, whose glance could be mild or angry, gentle or severe. She worked in a silk factory, lived with her old mother, her one-legged father and a younger sister who was attending a technical school. Sometimes she was happy, not boisterously, but quietly happy; she was fond of museums and old churches, grew enthusiastic over pictures and the beauty of which they were the token, and looking at them would say:

"How strange it is to think that these things have been hidden in private houses and that but one person had the right to enjoy them! Everybody must see the beautiful, for only then does it live!"

She often spoke in so strange a manner that it seemed to him that her words came from some dark crevice in her soul; they reminded him of the groans of a wounded man. He felt that this girl loved life and mankind with that deep mother love which is full of anxiety and compassion; he waited patiently till his faith should kindle her heart and this quiet love change to passion. The girl appeared to him to listen more attentively to his speeches and, in her heart, to be in agreement with him. And he spoke more passionately of the need for an incessant, active struggle for the emancipation of man, of the nation, of humanity as a whole, from the old chains, the rust of which had eaten into their souls, and was blighting and poisoning them.

Once, while accompanying her home, he told her that he loved her, and that he wanted her to be his wife. He was startled at the effect his words had on her: she reeled as though she had been struck, stared with wide-open eyes and turned pale; she leaned against the wall, and said, clasping her hands and looking, almost terrified, into his face:

"I was beginning to fear that that might be so; almost I felt it, because I loved you long ago. But, O God! what is going to happen now?"

"Days of your happiness and mine will begin, days of mutual work," he exclaimed.

"No," said the girl, her head drooping. "No; we should not have talked about love."

"Why?'

"Will you be married according to the laws of the Church?" she asked quietly.

"No!"

"Then, good-bye!"

And she walked quickly away from him.

He overtook her, tried to persuade her; she heard him out in silence and then said:

"I, my mother and my father are all believers, and will die believers. Marriage at the registrar's is no marriage for me; if children are born of such a marriage I know they will be unhappy. Love is consecrated only by marriage in a church, which alone can give happiness and peace."

It seemed to him that soon she would yield; he, of course, could not give in. They parted. As she bade him good-bye the girl said:

"Let us not torment each other, don't seek meetings with me. Oh, if only you would go away from here! I cannot, I am so poor."

"I will make no promises," he replied.

The struggle between two strong natures began: they met, of course, and even more often than before; they met because they loved each other, sought meetings in the hope that one or other of them would be unable to stand the torments of an ungratified longing which was becoming more and more intense. Their meetings were full of anguish and despair; after each one he felt quite worn out and exhausted; she, all in tears, went to confess to a priest. He knew this and it seemed to him that the black wall of people in tonsures became stronger, higher and more insurmountable every day, that it grew and parted them till death.

Once, on a holiday, while walking with her through a field outside the town, he said, not threateningly, but more as if to himself:

"Do you know, it seems to me sometimes that I could kill you."

She remained silent.

"Did you hear what I said?"

Looking at him affectionately she answered:

"Yes."

And he understood that she would rather die than give in to him. Before this "yes" he had embraced and kissed her sometimes; she struggled with him, but her resistance was becoming feebler, and he cherished the hope that some day she would yield, and that then her woman's instinct would help him to conquer. But now he understood that that would not be victory, but enslavement, and from that day on he ceased to appeal to the woman in her.

So he wandered with her in the dark circle of her life's horizon, lit all the beacons before her that he could; but she listened to him with the dreamy smile of the blind, saw nothing, believed him not.

Once she said:

"I understand sometimes that all you say is possible, but I think that is because I love you! I understand, but I do not believe, I cannot believe! As soon as you go away all that is of you goes away too."

This drama lasted nearly two years, and then the girl's health broke down: she became seriously ill. He gave up his employment, ceased to attend to the work of his organisation, got into debt. Avoiding his comrades, he spent his time wandering round her lodgings; or sat at her bedside, watching her wasting from disease and becoming more transparent every day, noting how the fire of fever glowed more and more brightly in her eyes.

"Speak to me of life, of the future," she asked him.

But he spoke of the present, enumerating vindictively everything that crushes us, all those things against which he was vowed to a lifelong struggle; he spoke of things that ought to be cast out of mens lives, as one discards soiled and worn-out rags.

She listened until the pain it gave her became unbearable; then touched his hand, and stopped him with an imploring look.

"I, am I dying?" she asked him once, many days after the doctor had told him that she was in a galloping consumption and that her condition was hopeless.

He bowed his head but did not answer.

"I know that I shall die soon," she said. "Give me your hand."

And, taking his outstretched hand, she pressed it to her burning lips and said:

"Forgive me, I have done you wrong. It was all a mistake--and I have worn you out. Now when I am struck down I see that my faith was only fear before what I could not understand, notwithstanding my desire and my efforts. It was fear, but it was in my blood, I was born with it. I have my own mind--or yours--but somebody else's heart; you are right, I understand it now, but my heart could not agree with you."

A few days later she died; he turned grey during her agony; he was only twenty-seven.

Not long ago he married the only friend of that girl, his pupil. It is they who go to the cemetery, to her--they go there every Sunday and place flowers on her grave.

He does not believe in his victory, he is convinced that when she said to him: "You are right," she lied to him in order to console him. His wife thinks the same; they both lovingly revere her memory. This sad episode of a good woman who perished gives them strength by filling them with a desire to avenge her; it gives their mutual work a strangely fascinating character, and renders them untiring in their efforts.

*

The river of gaily dressed people streams on in the sunshine; a merry noise accompanies its flow: children shout and laugh. Not everyone is gay and joyful; there are many hearts, no doubt, oppressed by dark sorrow, many minds tormented by contradictions; but we all go steadily forward. And "Freedom, Freedom is our goal!"

And the more vigour we put into it the faster we shall advance!

THE TRAITOR'S MOTHER

Many are the tales that may be told about mothers.

For several weeks now the town had been surrounded by a close ring of armed foes. Of nights bonfires were lit and a multitude of fiery red eyes looked out from the darkness upon the walls. They glowed ominously, these fires, as if warning the inhabitants of the town. And the thoughts they conjured up were of a gloomy kind.

From the walls it was apparent that the noose of foes was being drawn tighter and tighter. Black shadows could be seen moving this way and that about the fires. The neighing of well-fed horses could be heard, and the clatter of arms and the loud laughter and merry songs of men confident of victory--and what is more painful to listen to than the laughter and songs of the foe?

The enemy had filled with corpses the streams which supplied the town with water; they had burned down the vineyards around the town, trampled down the fields, and cut down the trees of the neighbourhood, leaving the town exposed on all sides; and almost every day missiles of iron and lead were poured into it by the guns and rifles of the foe.

Detachments of half-starved soldiers, tired out by skirmishes, passed along the narrow streets of the town; from the windows of the houses come the groans of wounded, the raving of men in delirium, the prayers of women and the crying of children. Everybody spoke quietly, in subdued tones, interrupting one another's speech in the middle of a word to listen intently to detect whether the foe was not commencing to storm the town.

Life became especially unbearable in the evening, when the groans and cries became louder and more noticeable in the stillness, when blue-black shadows crept from the far-off mountain gorges, hiding the enemy's camp and moving towards the half-shattered walls, and, over the black summits of the mountains, the moon appeared, like a lost shield battered by the blows of heavy swords.

Expecting no assistance from without, spent with toil and hunger, and losing hope more and more every day, the people looked fearfully at the moon, at the sharp crests and the black gorges of the mountains, at the noisy camp of the enemy--everything spoke to them of death and no single star twinkled solace to them.

They were afraid to light lamps in the houses; a thick fog enveloped the streets, and in this fog, like a fish at the bottom of a river, a woman flitted silently to and fro, wrapped from head to foot in a black mantle.

People, noticing her, asked one another:

"Is it she?"

"Yes!"

And they drew back into the recesses of the doorways or, lowering their heads, ran past her silently. The men in charge of the patrols warned her sternly:

"You are in the street again, Monna Marianna? Have a care! They may kill you and no one will trouble to search for the culprit."

She stood erect and waited, but the patrol passed her by, either hesitating or not wishing to harm her. Armed men walked round her as if she had been a corpse. Yet she lingered on in the darkness, moving slowly from street to street, solitary, silent and black, seeming the personification of the town's misfortunes. And around her, mournfully pursuing her, surged depressing sounds: groans, sobs, prayers, and the grim talk of soldiers who had lost all hope of victory.

She was a citizen and a mother, and her thoughts were of her son and of the town of her birth. And her son, a handsome but gay and heartless youth, was at the head of the men who were destroying the town. Not long ago she had looked at him with pride, as upon her precious gift to the fatherland, as upon a beneficent force created by her for the welfare of the town, her birthplace, and the place also where she had borne and brought up her son. Hundreds of indissoluble ties bound her heart to the ancient stones, out of which her ancestors had built the houses and the city walls; to the soil in which lay the bones of her kindred; to the legends, songs and hopes of her native people. And this heart now had lost him whom it had loved most and it was rent in twain; it was like a balance in which her love for her son was being weighed against her love for the town. And it was not possible yet to decide which love outweighed the other.

In this state of mind she walked the streets at night, and many, not recognising her, were frightened, thinking that the dark figure was the personification of Death which was so near to them all; those that recognised her stepped hurriedly out of her way to avoid the traitor's mother.

Once, in a deserted corner of the city wall, she came across another woman: she was kneeling by the side of a corpse, and praying with face uplifted to the stars; on the wall, above her head, sentinels were talking quietly; their guns clattered as they knocked against the projecting stones of the wall.

The traitor's mother inquired:

"Your husband?"

"No."

"Brother?"