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 BEPPO THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 % SofuL 
 
 BY 
 
 T. ADOLPHUS TROLLOPE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "LA BEAT A." ETC. 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1864. 
 [The right of Translation is reserved.]
 
 London : 
 bradbury and evans, printers, "whitefriars.
 
 ?Z3 
 
 rnu b 
 in 
 
 v. / 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 -•*- 
 
 BOOK I. 
 AT BELLA LUCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BELLA LUCE 12 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS 26 
 
 CHAPTER IT. 
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI 75 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT 91 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS Ill
 
 1V CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 THE CYPKESS IN THE PATH 133 
 
 BOOK II 
 AT FANO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LA SIGXORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI . , , , .. 151 
 
 CHAPTER II, 
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI 165 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GREAT FEAR 189 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERYAXTIXES .... 206 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORPORAL TEXLA 222 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DON EVAUDRO AT WORK 249 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BAD NUMBER 274
 
 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 AT BELLA LUCE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTOKY. 
 
 NCE upon a time the narrow strip of 
 territory shut in between the Apennine 
 and the Adriatic to the south of Bologna 
 
 and to the north of Ancona, was, as Byron has 
 
 written of Venice, 
 
 The pleasant place of all festivity, 
 
 The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy. 
 
 That small district, so niggardly squeezed in 
 between the encroaching mountains and the sea, 
 was once one of the high places not only of Italian 
 but of European civilisation. It was there that 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 the brilliant dynasties of Rovere and Montefeltro 
 held courts at Pesaro, at Urbino, or a little further 
 inland among the hills, at Gubbio, which gathered 
 around them all that was most distinguished in 
 poesy, in scholarship, in art, and in chivalry. It 
 was there that Tasso wandered among the green 
 valleys and by streams made classical for the 
 second time in their existence, by his genius — 
 wandered now a brilliant courtier, and now an 
 outcast mendicant, as the breeze of court favour, 
 or more surely his own love-sick fancies and 
 morbid imagination impelled him. There flows 
 from its ice-cold cradle in the higher Apennine 
 to its glowing death-bed in the genial Adriatic, 
 that storied Metauro, whose second golden age, 
 thanks to the imperishable names and memories 
 attached to the halcyon days of the Ducal House 
 of Urbino, has well-nigh eclipsed the glories of 
 its first. There, mostly on the sea-board of the 
 Adriatic, are a constellation of cities, once the 
 chosen abode of the arts, of prosperity, and civilised 
 culture in every kind ; the rescued fragments of 
 whose wealth have furnished forth the museums 
 of every country in Europe, and the story of whose 
 prime is one with that of the morning-tide vigour 
 of every liberal art.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 3 
 
 It is a different region now ! And a very 
 different spectacle, and other ideas and associa- 
 tions, are impressed on the mind of the wanderer 
 among those Adriatic cities ! The Church stretched 
 over them its leaden hand, and numbed them ! 
 Priestly power came, and literature ceased ; edu- 
 cation was no more ; commerce pined and died ; 
 wealth made itself wings and flew away ; all 
 energy departed from them ; the national cha- 
 racter became deteriorated ; the cities decayed ; 
 palaces fell to ruin ; even churches were defaced 
 and their beauty destroyed by the base greed and 
 tasteless vandalism of a clergy, whose scope was 
 to use religion as a begging impostors swindle. 
 Ever increasing poverty, and the spreading canker 
 of mendicity, invaded fields and cities. Lazy 
 squalor, brutifying superstition, and the degrading 
 and unmanly vices fostered by the morality of 
 the confessional, marked the fallen region as their 
 own ! 
 
 It was not to be wondered at that a population 
 which had stagnated and languished under priestly 
 government, while the rest of the world had been 
 more or less rapidly and unmistakeably progress- 
 ing and improving itself, and which had long been 
 hopelessly and fruitlessly beating its maimed and
 
 4 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 broken wings against the bars of its prison-house, 
 should have seized with boundless enthusiasm the 
 first really promising chance of escape ! Nobody 
 was, and only few pretended to be, surprised, 
 when the all but entire population of Romagna 
 rose to welcome their deliverers from the worse 
 than Egyptian bondage under which they had 
 been suffering, and to assist in the not very 
 arduous effort needed for driving their oppressors 
 from the country. 
 
 But neither should it have been surprising, 
 though many more persons were surprised at it, 
 that a population, which had grown up under 
 such circumstances, moral and political, should 
 have shown itself, as soon as the first enthusiastic 
 impulse, by which it had achieved its deliverance, 
 was spent, little fitted for the duties and disci- 
 pline of well-policied political and social life, and 
 above all indisposed for further regularised efforts 
 and sacrifices, the necessity for which was not 
 apparent to them, or at all events did not recom- 
 mend itself to them as requisite for their own 
 escape from present suffering. There was nothing, 
 I say, in this that might not have been antici- 
 pated. As usual, the emancipated slaves thought 
 that every kind of prosperity, happiness, and
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 5 
 
 well-being was to be the immediate result of their 
 emancipation ; — that no further self-sacrifice was 
 needed ; that a millennium of universal cakes and 
 ale had arrived ; — and all troubles, at all events 
 all troubles connected with the governing of the 
 country, had been got rid of for ever. 
 
 Of course the disappointment that awaited on 
 the waking from this dream was great. Of course 
 a certain measure of discontent with the new 
 order of things supervened. Of course this was 
 increased to the utmost, and in every way made 
 the most of, by those whose interests or prejudices 
 placed them among the " laudatores temporis 
 acti." The class which might be so designated in 
 the Romagna was a very small one. But it was 
 one that wielded a special and peculiar power; 
 for it embraced the very great majority of the 
 clergy. The clerical government, and its myr- 
 midons, whether lay or clerical, might be driven 
 out. But it was impossible to drive out all the 
 clergy in the country. It was impossible to deprive 
 parishes of their parish priests. The deposed 
 government thus left behind it a special and very 
 effective army, vowed unalterably to its interests. 
 And this army was composed of a class of men to 
 whose consciences all means were lawful for the
 
 6 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 destruction, if possible — for the embarrassment, 
 if more than that were not possible, of the new 
 rulers. And it is difficult to exaggerate the power 
 which such a mass and such a class of irre- 
 claimable malcontents exercised, when a special 
 point of attack was offered to them, by any par- 
 ticular subject of discontent felt by the bulk of 
 the population against any particular part of the 
 conduct of the new government. 
 
 Such a point of attack was offered to them by 
 the conscription laws. 
 
 Military service was in the highest degree re- 
 pugnant to the feelings of the Romagnole peasant. 
 He had been used to suffer almost every evil that 
 could result from bad and oppressive government, 
 but he had not been used to this. It presented 
 itself to his mind as a new and unheard-of form of 
 calamity — a burthen the more intolerable in that 
 the back had never been trained to bear it. It 
 was not that the Romagnole peasant is especially 
 averse from the business of fighting. By no 
 means so ! Call on him to fight for any cause he 
 approves, there and then, on his own plains and 
 hillsides, and put his wonted weapon, the knife, 
 into his hand, and there could be no reason to 
 complain of his unwillingness to fight. But to
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 7 
 
 submit to strict discipline, to move at word of 
 command, and above all to go away from family, 
 friends, neighbours, from the well-known and well- 
 loved localities and names into a strange land, 
 this was what was intolerable to the imagination 
 of these people. 
 
 But was there any prospect of probability that 
 the Romagnole conscript would be sent forth on 
 foreign service ? Was it not for the defence of his 
 native land, for service on Italian ground, that he 
 was needed ? Such considerations were urged on 
 the young men of Komagna in vain. Native 
 land ! Their native land was Romagna, — the 
 flank of the Apennine, the banks of the Metauro, 
 the shore of the Adriatic, the fat soil and fertile 
 fields which make their district the granary of 
 Italy. To their imagination Piedmont was as 
 much a foreign country as France, or as China ! 
 A country the ways and manners, and, above all, 
 the language of which, were utterly and distaste- 
 fully different from their own. 
 
 To be seized and forcibly sent away from his 
 home, from his interests, from his loves, from his 
 habitudes, into an unknown and distant land, 
 where the people were hard and unfriendly by 
 nature (the constant prejudice of Italian provin-
 
 8 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 cialism against the inhabitants of other districts), 
 where they talked an unintelligible and disgusting 
 gibberish, where they made bad bread, and grew 
 intolerable wine, and the girls were all ugly, and 
 not kind like the dear ones of their own genial 
 land, this was what the Komagnole youths, espe- 
 cially those of the rural districts, could not make 
 up their minds to endure. 
 
 Great, accordingly, was the amount of discon- 
 tent and trouble occasioned by the inevitable 
 enforcement of the conscription in these districts, 
 and very numerous were the refrattarj or run- 
 aways, who "took to the hills" rather than submit 
 to the fate which an unlucky number at the 
 drawing of the dreaded conscription had awarded 
 them. 
 
 And the natural peculiarities and conformation 
 of their country afforded especial facilities for such 
 means of escape. The fertile low-lands of Romagna 
 are but a narrow strip shut in between the sea 
 and the mountains. The latter are nowhere far 
 off — nowhere beyond the reach of one day's 
 journey on foot. And these mountains represent 
 not only a physical but a political barrier ; a fron- 
 tier which, in the case of the late ill-regulated and 
 ill-agreeing governments of Italy, always involved
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 9 
 
 an extra degree of lawlessness in the habits of 
 the people. The Apennine frontier line between 
 Tuscany and the Papal provinces of the Bolognese 
 and Romagna was always, especially on the Papal 
 side, a district notorious for evil deeds and lawless 
 violence of all kinds. And although the great 
 majority of the Eomagnole conscripts, who took 
 to the hills to escape from military service, were 
 for the most part very honest, and in some cases 
 well-to-do country bumpkins, who contemplated 
 no other breach of the law than simple escape 
 from the conscription, yet resistance to the law, 
 and the manner of life to which it necessarily 
 leads, are not good training-schools for the civic 
 virtues. Between breakers of the law, whatever 
 may be the nature of the difference which puts 
 them at odds with it, there is a fellowship and a 
 community of interests which is apt fatally to 
 widen the breach between the law and those 
 whose quarrel with it is of the lesser gravity. 
 
 All which, of course, made the disorders arising 
 from the dread of the conscription, prevailing 
 specially among the rustic populations of Romagna, 
 so much the more mischievous and deplorable, 
 and ought to have prevented the ministers of 
 religion, who understood the nature of the case
 
 10 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 perfectly in all its bearings, from manifesting their 
 j)olitical hostility to the Italian government by 
 contributing to place the young men of their 
 parishes in positions of so much moral danger. 
 
 Yet the clergy were everywhere the agents of 
 and inciters to desertion. 
 
 Did a Romish clergy ever yet hesitate to sacri- 
 fice morality to a political object ? Their own 
 reply would be, that they never do so because the 
 political objects which they have at heart are, in 
 fact, essential to the good morality of generations 
 yet unborn, and that whatever sacrifice may be 
 made of the moral good of present units is justified 
 and compensated by the advantage gained for 
 future thousands ; — not to mention that the moral 
 harm done in the meantime can all be put right 
 by a stroke of their own art ! 
 
 Throughout the Romagna, accordingly, during 
 those first years that followed the incorporation 
 of that province with the new Italian kingdom, 
 wherever a conscript wished to abscond instead of 
 joining the depot, his parish priest was ready to 
 aid and abet his flight ; and wherever his courage 
 failed to take that step, or his good feeling towards 
 the new order of things struggled against the 
 temptation to take it, the priest was at hand
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 11 
 
 to suggest, to counsel, to persuade, to urge it. 
 Had it not been for the clergy, the evil would 
 have been easily eradicated ; and the state of 
 things in the Romagna, which gave rise to the 
 events related in the following pages, would not 
 have existed.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BELLA LUCE. 
 
 HE flat strip of rich alluvial soil at the 
 foot of the hills, and on the sea-shore, 
 which makes the wealth and pro- 
 sperity of the province of Romagna, is not spe- 
 cially interesting in other than agricultural eyes, 
 save for its numerous and storied cities. The 
 higher Apennine range, which hedges in this 
 district from the rest of the peninsula, is a 
 bleak and barren region for the most part, from 
 which its clothing of forest has, to the great 
 injury of the country in many respects, been 
 stripped in the course of many greedily con- 
 suming and improvidently unproducing genera- 
 tions. This rugged backbone of Italy is not devoid 
 in many parts of points of interest and beauty 
 of the wilder and sterner kind : but it cannot be
 
 BELLA LUCE. 13 
 
 compared, at least in this section of it, with the 
 mountain scenery of either the Alps, the Pyrenees, 
 or even the Jura. But between these two regions 
 there is a third, which teems with beauty and 
 interest of no mean order. 
 
 The great massive flanks of the mountains are 
 there broken by an innumerable multitude of 
 small streams into a labyrinth of little valleys, — 
 a world of bosky greenery, of sunny meadows on 
 the uplands, of rich fat pastures in the watered 
 bottoms, of woodlands on the swelling hill-sides. 
 Less valuable as a grain-producing country than 
 the alluvial district along the shore, it is hardly 
 less smiling to the eye of the husbandman ; it is 
 far more varied in the nature of its products, and 
 infinitely more beautiful. From many a snug 
 homestead deep-niched in the hollow of some 
 dark -green valley, a peep of the restless Adriatic, 
 tumbling itself into white-crested breakers flashing 
 in the southern sun, is seen across the sea side 
 plains, through the valley's mouth, like the section 
 of a landscape through a telescope. Many a 
 time the storm-wind is sweeping down from the 
 wilderness of the upper Apennine, and teasing the 
 Hadrian sea into meriting its Horatian epithet, 
 "iracundus," while the sheltered nooks anions
 
 14 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 the lower hills, though they can hear the distant 
 tempests far above them, and can see the working 
 of it on the face of the sea far beneath them, 
 feel nothing of it. 
 
 It is not wonderful, that the inhabitants and 
 tillers of this favoured region should love it, and 
 be loth to quit it ; for it is in truth a lovely 
 home, — a smiling, grateful, genial, and beautiful 
 country. 
 
 In one of the most beautiful parts of this 
 beautiful region, a little to the south-west of the 
 small sea-side town of Fano, and a little to the 
 north-west of Ancona, there is among the hills a 
 farm and farmhouse called Bella Luce. " Beautiful 
 light" is the translation of the name ; and whether 
 a stranger visited it when the first rays of the 
 sun, rising out of the Adriatic, were smiling 
 their morning greeting to it, laughingly peering 
 round the wood-clothed shoulder of the hill, which 
 shuts in the entrance to the valley on the southern 
 side of it ; or whether he saw it at the Ave Maria 
 hour, when from the cool obscurity of its green 
 nook it looked out on the last reflected beams 
 playing with a fitful and fading smile on the 
 darkening waters, the perfect propriety of the 
 appellation would hardly be questioned by him.
 
 BELLA LUCE. 15 
 
 The little stream, which in the course of ages 
 had hollowed out for itself from the friable side 
 of the Apennine the narrow valley, in which the 
 house and a great part of the farm of Bella Luce 
 are situated, runs into the river Metauro from the 
 north. It falls into the river, that is to say, on 
 its northern side. But as the large valley of the 
 Metauro runs towards the Adriatic not in an 
 easterly, but in a north-easterly direction, and 
 as the small valley opens into the larger one not 
 at right angles, but sloping in a direction from 
 the west, it commanded the peep that has been 
 described of the distant sea. 
 
 The farm-house was situated about half-way up 
 the sloping side of the valley, the declivity of 
 which was so shaped that the part above the 
 dwelling was very much less steep than that 
 below it. Immediately in front of the house, 
 which was so placed as to look down the valley, 
 the ground fell away in a descent as steep as it 
 well could be without depriving the soil of its 
 character of pasturage. Had it been steeper, the 
 sod must have been broken by the rains, which 
 are often very violent in this region, and the 
 valley-side would have assumed the character of a 
 precipice. As it was, it was a rich, deeply green,
 
 16 BEPPO, THE CONSCEIPT. 
 
 buttercup-mottled pasture. Above and behind 
 the house, where the declivity was, as has been 
 said, very much less rapid, there was a small 
 quantity of arable land and a wider extent of 
 wood. Along the sides of the valley below the 
 farm residence — towards the opening of it, that is 
 to say — there were several fields mainly of root- 
 crops ; but the upper part of the valley, beyond 
 the house, was almost entirely occupied by pasture- 
 land. 
 
 All this constituted a large farm, as the farms 
 run in that part of the world, and a rich and 
 valuable one. And Paolo Yanni, the farmer, was 
 a rich and prosperous man — not so rich and 
 prosperous as an Englishman might have imagined, 
 if the long frontage of the farm-house had been 
 pointed out to him from the opposite side of the 
 valley, but richer and more prosperous than the 
 same stranger would have supposed if he had 
 formed his estimate from a near examination of 
 the dwelling. In the first case, the imposing 
 length of the frontage, and the quantity of the 
 masses of building attached to it, would have led 
 the Englishman to imagine that none save a man 
 living in a house with considerable pretensions to 
 something more than mere comfort, and carrying
 
 BELLA LUCE. 17 
 
 on his agricultural operations with a luxe of ap- 
 purtenances and out-buildings of all sorts, could 
 be in the occupation of premises making so great 
 a show. In the second case, he would liave 
 marvelled at the quantity of brick and mortar 
 apparently wasted, and would have concluded that 
 only a man whose affairs were going to the bad 
 could be the master of so unrepaired, so untidy, 
 so ramshackle, so poorly-furnished a residence. 
 
 Neither conjecture would have hit the truth. 
 Paolo Yanni was of the race of well-to-do peasants 
 — a very common race in the rich and fertile 
 province of Komagna. He was neither better 
 instructed, nor more industrious, nor more en- 
 lightened, than any of the peasant farmers of the 
 district, nor differing in his manners and ideas 
 from them. But he held a very good farm — his 
 father and grandfather had held it before him — 
 and he was very fond of saving his money. 
 
 The strikingly long front of the building, which 
 makes so magnificent a show from the further 
 side of the valley, resolves itself into elements 
 which have very little of the magnificent about 
 them when seen close at hand. One very large 
 portion of the frontage consisted of an open 
 loggia. The loggia at Bella Luce occupied one
 
 18 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 end of the facade of the building, and con- 
 sisted of a space enclosed by three solid brick 
 walls, and in front by a range of five arches 
 resting on red-brick pilasters. In that one of the 
 three walls which formed the partition between 
 the loggia and the rest of the house there was a 
 door of communication, which, by the aid of two 
 stone steps projecting into the space enclosed, gave 
 access from the latter to the kitchen of the house. 
 Most of the case coloniche, or farm-houses, in 
 this part of the country have an open loggia of 
 this sort, half cart-shed, half stable, partly poultry- 
 house, and partly family sitting-room. And much 
 pleasanter and wholesomer sitting-rooms such 
 loggie are in the fine weather, despite the hetero- 
 geneous uses which they are required to serve, 
 than the almost always dark, close, and blackened 
 kitchens. There, in the summer evenings, the 
 cradle is brought out, and the wife plies her dis- 
 taff, while the father of the family, and the son, 
 or the grandfather, or a brother, or a wife's brother 
 — for these rural families are generally composite, 
 and consist of more members than a single couple 
 and their children — are husking a heap of maize, 
 shot down in a corner, or busy in some other such 
 task of rural economy. Or, quite as probably,
 
 BELLA LUCE. 19 
 
 the male members of the family are smoking their 
 cigars, and enjoying the dear delights of chat and 
 dolce far niente. 
 
 In contradistinction to the ways of some other 
 districts, the rural habitations of this hill country 
 seem almost always to have been selected with 
 some regard to prospect. Perhaps other more 
 material considerations than the pleasure of the 
 eye may have presided over the selection ; but the 
 fact is, that most of these hill farm-houses are so 
 placed that the front commands — as was eminently 
 the case at Bella Luce — a view of more or less 
 extent and beauty. And to a stranger, if possibly 
 not consciously to the inhabitants themselves, a 
 charm is added, which makes some of these pic- 
 turesquely arched loggie, — especially when, as is 
 often the case, a vine is trained around the columns 
 and over the arches, — most agreeable and enticing 
 tempters to an hour of farniente. 
 
 A large kitchen ; a huge room next to it, that 
 served in part as a sleeping-room for a portion of 
 the male inhabitants of the farm, and in part for 
 a store-room for grain ; another still larger build- 
 ing used principally as a wood-house, and beyond 
 that a stable for those important members of an 
 Italian contadind's family, the oxen, made up the 
 
 o 2
 
 20 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 rest of the long facade. But in order to appreciate 
 justly the entire extent of this frontage, it must 
 be borne in mind that each one of all these rooms 
 and buildings was at least twice as large as any 
 Englishman would deem requisite for their respec- 
 tive purposes. 
 
 Over the loggia there were three good-sized 
 sleeping chambers, two of them, however, acces- 
 sible only by passing through that nearest to the 
 rest of the house, and the furthest only by passing 
 through both of those which preceded it. It would 
 have been perfectly easy to arrange the two latter 
 in such sort as to have rendered them both acces- 
 sible from the first. But no such modification 
 had struck the architect, or any of those who had 
 had to use his handiwork, as either necessary or 
 desirable. 
 
 Over the huge kitchen was an equally large 
 room, intended apparently, as far as might be 
 judged from the nature of its furniture, as the 
 eating-room of the family. And it was used as 
 such on high days and holidays, and other great 
 occasions, whether the farmer's family had guests 
 on such occasions or not. It was to the solemnity 
 of the occasion, and not to the guests, that the 
 respect manifested by the use of this state chamber
 
 BELLA LUCE. 21 
 
 was paid. When no such great occasion was to 
 the fore, the great room over the kitchen remained 
 empty of all save its long table and massive 
 benches, and vile French coloured lithographs 
 around the bare yellow washed walls. Above this 
 room was a garret, which served the purpose of a 
 dove-cote. It was the only part of the building 
 that had a second story ; and the difference in 
 height thus occasioned broke the outline of the 
 building, as seen from the outside, in a manner 
 very favourable to the picturesqueness of its 
 appearance. 
 
 Over the large nondescript room on the other 
 side of the kitchen was a huge chamber, the two 
 windows of which were unglazed, and closable 
 only by heavy, massive, brown-red shutters, open- 
 ing on the outside. It was unceiled also, and the 
 bare rafters were inhabited and draped by a family 
 of spiders of very ancient lineage. The principal 
 use for which it served was that of a deposit for 
 grain, and at certain periods of the year for various 
 fruits, which were spread out on its wide floor to 
 dry. But there was a bed in one corner, which in 
 very bad weather might appear to some persons a 
 more desirable place of repose than the green hill- 
 side, on which the windows looked.
 
 22 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 The other two component parts of the long 
 facade, the wood-house, that is to say, and the 
 stable for the draught-oxen, had no buildings 
 over them ; and the few chambers, which have 
 been mentioned, together with a staircase, which 
 seemed to have been constructed with a view of 
 ascertaining how much space a staircase could be 
 made to occupy, constituted the entirety of the 
 large house, with the exception of certain annexes 
 at the back, which were devoted to divers purposes 
 varying in dignity from that of a back kitchen to 
 that of a pigstye. 
 
 It will be understood from the foregoing account, 
 that, notwithstanding the imposing appearance 
 made by Bella Luce when seen from a distance, 
 any tolerably comfortable English farmer lives 
 with a much greater degree of house comfort and 
 convenience than Paolo Vanni. With the one 
 exception of space, every point of comparison 
 would be very much in favour of the Englishman. 
 But ample space is an important element in a 
 dwelling, especially in a southern climate. 
 
 But of all the appurtenances and appendages 
 which the English farmer possesses, and the 
 Italian farmer does not possess, that of which the 
 Englishman would least tolerate the absence, and
 
 BELLA LUCE. 23 
 
 the presence of which would be least cared for by 
 the Italian, would be a garden. On that charm- 
 ingly sheltered hill-side in front of the house, on 
 that magnificent terrace on either side of it, situa- 
 tions that seem calculated to inspire the idea of 
 creating a little paradise, if it had never occurred 
 to any man before, no inhabitant of Bella Luce 
 has ever dreamed of creating anything of the 
 kind. Profit has been neglected, as well as plea- 
 sure, in this direction. There are no more onions 
 than roses. Strawberries have been as little 
 thought of as gilly-flowers ! There is an old fig- 
 tree near one corner of the house ; and there is a 
 grape-vine trained over the pilasters and walls of 
 the loggia. There may be also a patch of potatoes 
 among other farm crops, and certainly there will 
 be a crop of some kind of beans, which will con- 
 tribute to the sustenance of the Bella Luce family. 
 But that is all. Nothing is more a matter of sur- 
 prise to an Englishman in Italy, than to find 
 houses and townlets in the country unable to pro- 
 duce a morsel of fruit or vegetable, — sometimes 
 not even a potato. 
 
 Another large department of rural comforts and 
 luxuries was almost as much neglected at Bella 
 Luce as the horticultural. Cheese was the only
 
 24 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 form of dairy produce used or cared for by the 
 inmates. They made no butter, and drank no 
 milk, giving to the pigs all that was not converted 
 into cheese. 
 
 The Scriptural and classical catalogue, in short, 
 of the oriental cultivator's needs and desires, 
 pretty nearly completed those of Paolo Vanni and 
 his family. Corn, wine, and oil were the main 
 articles on which they subsisted. Meat in no 
 very large proportion, and eggs in somewhat 
 greater abundance, may be added, it is true. And 
 certain moderate supplies of coffee and sugar were 
 brought from neighbouring Fano, — sufficient to 
 give the male heads of the family a little cup of 
 muddy black coffee after their dinner on high days 
 and holidays. The women took none ; and the 
 men took it rather as a symbol of feasting and 
 luxury, than because they cared anything about it. 
 
 For all that, Paolo Vanni was a warm man, — 
 quite warm enough to have bought up many an 
 English small farmer, who would have most 
 amazingly turned up his nose at the Romagnole 
 farmer's mode of life. 
 
 As for the question, however, which of the two, 
 — the English farmer, or the Romagnole agricul- 
 turist, — lived the happier life, and got the greatest
 
 BELLA LUCE. 25 
 
 amount of satisfaction out of it, — why, that would 
 probably have little to do with the absence or the 
 presence of all that the Englishman could so ill 
 do without ; but rather upon matters of a more 
 intimately personal nature ; — with some of which, 
 as regards Paolo Yanni, it is time that the reader 
 should be made acquainted.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 
 
 AOLO VANNI, to tell the plain truth 
 at once, was not a happy man, very far 
 from it. And the real cause of his dis- 
 comfort was in fact that "warmness" which has 
 been spoken of. Yet old Paolo was continually 
 laying up treasure where neither moth nor 
 rust doth corrupt. The carefully kept account of 
 the amounts that he had from time to time in- 
 vested in this way, all duly paid over to heaven's 
 appointed stewards here below, and regularly 
 acknowledged, showed really very considerable 
 investments in that absolutely safe stock. Yet 
 somehow or other the promised satisfaction of 
 mind did not follow from the operation. Perhaps 
 it was that he laid up still larger treasures in the 
 storehouses where moth and rust do corrupt, and
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 27 
 
 where thieves do break in and steal. But neither 
 the moth nor the rust could much damage old 
 Paolo Vanni's treasure, for it consisted in hard 
 silver dollars ; and no thief had ever broken in or 
 stolen from him as yet. It is true, however, that 
 he did strive very pertinaciously to serve two 
 masters. His spiritual guide assured him that this 
 was not only possible, but very easy to be done ; 
 easy at least for him, who had the means to do it. 
 For curiously enough, according to the teaching of 
 Don Evandro Baluffi, the curato of Santa Lucia, 
 the more successfully you served Mammon, the 
 more satisfactorily you were enabled thereby to 
 serve God. How was a man to found a perpetual 
 mass, with music and tapers of the larger size — or 
 even without these luxuries, for that matter — if 
 he had not paid sufficient court to Mammon to 
 secure the means of paying for it ? 
 
 Perhaps, however, it is all a matter of propor- 
 tion. Perhaps Paolo Yanni did not insure highly 
 enough, for he looked on the treasure laid up in 
 purchasing masses and such like, in the light of 
 money paid for insurance ; not exactly against the 
 moth, and the rust, or against thieves, but against 
 certain other contingencies that he had somehow 
 or other learned — assuredly not from Don Evan-
 
 28 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 clro ! — to fancy might attend the possession of 
 wealth. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the kind and con- 
 stant encouragement of that judicious spiritual 
 guide, philosopher, and friend, and the undeviating 
 payment of this insurance money in many forms, 
 poor old Paolo Vanni, despite his wealth, despite 
 his thriving and prosperous farm, despite his hale 
 and vigorous old age, was not contented or happy. 
 I take it there must have been some importunate 
 voice, though no one of those about him ever 
 overheard it, which must have been constantly 
 earwigging him with doubts and disagreeable 
 suggestions, of a kind quite opposed to the con- 
 solatory assurances of the good Don Evandro. But 
 surely this "voice," whatever it was, could not 
 have incarnated itself, or rather investmented it- 
 self, in a triangular beaver, snuffy black waistcoat, 
 long-tailed surtout coat, shiny black camlet shorts, 
 black worsted stockings, and thick, low-cut shoes, 
 with big plated buckles on them ! Surely it did 
 not come out of any tonsured head on which the 
 episcopal hand had ever rested in ordination ? 
 Surely it was not the voice of any teacher duly 
 appointed, authorised, and guaranteed by the 
 Church; and therefore ought not to have been
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 29 
 
 listened to for a moment in opposition to Don 
 Evandro, who spoke with all the authority that 
 these things could impart? Nevertheless so it 
 was, that old Paolo Yanni, though his sixty odd 
 years sate as lightly on him as sixty years could 
 well sit, though his six feet of height was still a 
 good six feet, undiminished by droop or stoop ; 
 and though he could not be said to have been 
 what is usually phrased " unhappy in his family," 
 was a discontented and querulous old man. 
 
 There were, however, other causes besides the 
 presence of that importunate voice which I have 
 conjectured might have annoyed him, causes con- 
 nected with the Bella Luce family politics, which 
 no doubt contributed to this result. 
 
 With Assunta Vanni, his old wife, he certainly 
 had no cause to be discontented. Assunta, the 
 sister of a farmer holding a much poorer farm 
 than that of Bella Luce, higher up and further 
 back among the hills, had been a beauty, very tall 
 like her husband, who had also been a remarkably 
 handsome man. This, however, is of less account 
 in a country where beauty, especially of figure 
 and person, is the rule rather than the exception, 
 than it might be considered elsewhere. Sunta 
 had been a good wife, an excellent helpmeet, a
 
 30 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 thrifty housewife, and had borne her husband two 
 children, both boys. What could a wife do more 
 to merit the admiration of a Komagnole farmer 
 husband ? Moreover Sunta had the highest pos- 
 sible reverence for her lord and master, and 
 looked on his will as law beyond appeal. If ever 
 they had any difference of opinion, it was that 
 whereas Paolo always wished to retain the savings 
 of the year in the shape of hard cash — scudi 
 sonanti* as the expressive popular Italian phrase 
 has it, — Sunta would fain have hoarded them in 
 the shape of additions to her already uselessly 
 abundant store of house-linen. The difference 
 had years ago been arranged on the understanding 
 that all that could be made or saved by the 
 assiduous labour of the females of the family in 
 turning flax into yarn, should go to increase the 
 store in Signora Vanni's presses ; always on the 
 understanding — a point which had given rise to a 
 slight contest, in which Paolo had been easily 
 victorious, — that Sunta should herself pay for the 
 weaving of her yarn in the neighbouring town out 
 of the proceeds of it. 
 
 The labour of the females of the family, I have 
 said ; and have nevertheless mentioned that Sunta 
 * Sounding crowns.
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 31 
 
 Vanni was the mother of two sons only. And 
 doubtless the English reader pictures to himself 
 Dame Vanni in the similitude of Dame Durden, 
 who, as the rustic old stave says, " kept five 
 serving maids." But this would be an error. 
 Italian farmers, with the exception of a few in a 
 larger way of business than Paolo Vanni of Bella 
 Luce, do not in that part of Italy use any labour 
 on their farms save that of the members of their 
 family. A large family is held to be a sign and 
 means of thriving. But it must be a family in 
 the strict sense of the word, connected by blood, 
 and not merely by the tie between the employer 
 and the employed. Whose, then, were the other 
 fingers besides Dame Vanni's own which assisted 
 in twirling these ceaseless Bella Luce spindles, 
 and contributed to the accumulation of sheeting 
 and table-cloths as little intended to be ever used 
 as such, as the ravissimi of a bibliomaniac's 
 library to be read ? Whose were those active 
 fingers ? 
 
 They belonged to Giulia Vanni; and were 
 among the very few things that Giulia Vanni could 
 call her own. Giulia was the orphan child of a 
 distant cousin of Paolo, who was nevertheless his 
 nearest relative. Paolo was, I think, hardly the
 
 32 BEPPO, THE COXSCKIPT. 
 
 man, at any period of his life, to charge himself 
 willingly with the support and care of other 
 people's children. But in the first place it must 
 be understood that public opinion, and even the 
 exigencies of the law, are much more stringent 
 upon such points in Italy, than they are with us. 
 A nephew, who is capable of doing so, may be 
 compelled by law to support his uncle by the 
 father's side — (not so his mother's brother) — and 
 public opinion would extend the claims of kinship 
 very much further. To a mediaeval Italian, it was 
 quite a matter of coarse that a brother, a son, a 
 father, or even a cousin, should suffer death for his 
 relative's political or other crime ; and this strong 
 solidarity of all the members of one house has left 
 deep traces in the manners and sentiments of the 
 people to the present day. Paolo Vanni may 
 have therefore felt, that he could not, without 
 risking a degree of opprobrium that he was not 
 prepared to face, refuse to take this little orphan 
 cousin, far away cousin though she was, to his 
 home. 
 
 But in the next place there are strong grounds 
 for thinking that Giulio Vanni, the father of little 
 Giulia, though a poor man, was not altogether a 
 destitute one. He must, people thought, have
 
 3 
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 33 
 
 left some little property behind him. But Paolo 
 Vanni, who was with him during his last illness 
 and at the time of his death, and who naturally 
 had the management of whatever small matters 
 there were to manage, showed that, when all was 
 paid, there was nothing left ; that Giulia was 
 wholly unprovided for ; that there was nothing 
 for it but for him to show his charity by support- 
 ing and bringing her up. I believe that if all 
 the yarn those rosy taper fingers had twiddled 
 off that eternal distaff had been fairly sold in 
 Ancona, the proceeds would have paid the cost of 
 Giulia's keep. I have a strong idea, too, — to speak 
 out plainly, and shame that old thief against 
 whose machinations Paolo Vanni was always pay- 
 ing insurance money, — that if that troublesome 
 voice, which has been mentioned as bothering the 
 wealthy farmer, could have been overheard, one 
 might have learnt some curious particulars about 
 the executorship accounts of Giulio Vanni. Don 
 Evandro, at all events, must have known all about 
 it ... . sub sigillo confessionis .... for Paolo 
 was a very religious man. 
 
 All these matters, however, were bygones, and 
 altogether beside the present purpose. Whether 
 Giulia Vanni had ever been entitled to any 
 
 VOL. I. d
 
 34 
 
 modicum of this world's goods or not, she clearly- 
 possessed none now, — at the time, that is, to 
 which the singular events to be related in the 
 following pages refer, — some year or so before the 
 present time of writing. It will be more to the 
 purpose to tell the reader what Giulia at that 
 time had. 
 
 She had eighteen years ; and all the know- 
 ledge, experience, wisdom, health, and talents 
 that could be gathered in that space of time on 
 the slope of an Apennine valley ; and not alto- 
 gether such a bad dower either, as some of the 
 more tocher'd lasses of the cities either on the 
 northern or the southern side of the Alps may 
 perhaps be disposed to imagine. Imprimis, there 
 was a figure five feet seven inches in height ; 
 lithe, springy, light, agile as that of a mountain 
 goat ; a step like a fawn's, and a carriage of the 
 pretty small head to match ; a fair broad brow, 
 not very lofty, but giving unmistakable promise 
 of energy of character and good practical working 
 intelligence • above it a wonderful profusion of 
 raven black hair, not very fine, but glossy as the 
 raven's wing, and falling on either side from the 
 parting at the top of the head in natural ripples, 
 on which the sunbeams played in a thousand
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 35 
 
 hide-and-seek effects of light and shade ; well- 
 opened large black eyes, frank and courageous, 
 with a whole legion of wicked laughing imps 
 dancing and flashing about like fire-flies in the 
 depths of them ; a little delicately formed nez 
 retrousse, which very plainly said " beware " to 
 such as had the gift of interpreting nature's code 
 of signals ; a large but exquisitely formed mouth, 
 the favourite trysting-place of smiles and innocent 
 waggeries, the home of irresistible sweetness, — a 
 mouth that bade him, or even her, who looked 
 on it pay no heed to the warning conveyed by 
 neighbour nose, but, on the contrary, place bound- 
 less trust and confidence in the proprietress of it, 
 — a mouth whose signals every human thing with 
 eyes in its head could read, whereas only cyni- 
 cally philosophic physiognomists, who had burned 
 their fingers, or at least their hearts, by former 
 investigations of similar phenomena, could under- 
 stand what that queer little nose said. It cannot 
 perhaps be fairly asserted that all these good 
 things were wholly the gift of old Apennine ; but 
 the splendid colouring, — a study for Giorgione ! — 
 the rich, clear brown cheek, with a hue of the 
 sun's own painting, like that which he puts, when 
 he most delicately touches it, on an October 
 
 D 2
 
 36 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 peach ! — that was Apeimine's own present to his 
 daughter ! For the rest, the mountain women 
 said that Giulia Yanni was too slight to be good 
 for anything — a mere wisp ! The mountain men 
 said that she was as beautifully made as any 
 lady of the cities. The town women said that 
 her waist was thick and clumsy. The town men, 
 when they saw her, thought slender waists a 
 mistake. Phidias would have said that she was 
 the incarnation of his beau ideal. 
 
 In short, no lovelier nut-brown maid ever stepped 
 a hillside than Giulia Yanni, as she was at eighteen 
 years of age ! That warning nose might hang out 
 what signals it pleased, and that host of laughing 
 devils in her eyes might mockingly bid you take 
 care, every time your glance met hers ; — it was all 
 in vain! The male creature under thirty that 
 Rooked on Giulia Yanni fell in love with her! 
 And how well she knew her power ! And how 
 she enjoyed her royalty ! And what pleasant fun 
 she found it to scatter her fire-darts around, her- 
 self scatheless and invulnerable the while, the 
 cruel Diana that she was ! 
 
 But if it was impossible to look on the brilliant, 
 flashing, dangerous creature for an instant without 
 receiving a wound from her eyes, what must have
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 37 
 
 been the lot of poor Beppo Yanni, the eldest of 
 Sunta's two sons ! Poor Beppo, who had to live in 
 the same house with her, to grow up with her, to 
 share his work with her, to play with her, and 
 laugh with her, to have little household secrets 
 with her, to be her slave and work for wages in 
 smiles not unpunctually paid — what could become 
 of him ? What, but to worship the very ground 
 she trod on, and look to the hope of winning her 
 as the lode-star of his life ! 
 
 Winning her, quotha! — a pretty winning, old 
 Paolo and old Sunta considered it ! Winning a 
 wife without so much as a pearl necklace to begin 
 the world with ! And he, Beppo Vanni, heir to 
 the lease of Bella Luce and — nobody knew, not 
 even dame Sunta — how many thousands of scudi 
 besides. Not if they knew it ! The sly puss 
 might see what she could win for herself; but it 
 would not be Beppo Vanni — no, nor even Carlo 
 Vanni, his younger brother. 
 
 And thus it appears what else there was, 
 besides those suspected small-voiced importunities 
 which have been hinted at, to make old Paolo 
 Vanni querulous and discontented. Besides, it was 
 not only that his son and heir was bent on making 
 a fool of himself by marrying a girl without a
 
 38 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 bajocco ; but lie would not make a match which 
 his father was very anxious to secure for him. 
 Don Evandro, like a true friend of the family, had 
 proposed the thing in the first instance, and would 
 doubtless have managed the whole affair with that 
 tact and success which the Italian clergy are so 
 remarkable for in such matters, if only Beppo 
 would have been reasonable. But to his father's 
 intense annoyance, he would not ; having been 
 bewitched and rendered wholly unreasonable 
 by the " laughing devils " in Giulia's eyes. Don 
 Evandro had tried to exorcise them once, sum- 
 moning Giulia to an interview in the sacristy for 
 that purpose. But it was clear from the result 
 that he did not succeed; and he never tried a 
 second time ! 
 
 To Beppo himself it was really a question — 
 could he win her \ And a very dubious question 
 too. It was not that he was not perfectly well 
 aware of the advantages of his social position. He 
 knew all that was due to the presumed future 
 tenant of Bella Luce. He knew that his father 
 was the richest man in the parish of Santa Lucia, 
 and in the neighbouring parishes around it 
 (putting the owners of the soil who lived in the 
 cities, and of whom the cultivators of the soil saw
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 39 
 
 little, out of the question ; as of course they were 
 out of the question) ; he knew that he was pre- 
 sumably his father's heir; and he was quite as 
 well aware as any Romagnole peasant of the value 
 of money and the social position it commands — 
 which is equivalent to saying, he was as well aware 
 as anybody in the world. But for all that it was 
 an anxious question with him — could he hope to 
 win her? He knew that she had absolutely 
 nothing ; that she was maintained by his father's 
 charity ; and for all that it was with him a very 
 anxious question, whether he could win Giulia 
 Vanni for his wife or no. 
 
 And Giulia herself ? What was her view of the 
 matter ? Her public conduct in the little world 
 of Bella Luce, and her private feeling ? Well, the 
 last perhaps is hardly a fair question. Perhaps 
 Giulia would herself scarcely have been able to 
 answer it consistently and entirely, even if her 
 own heart were the asker. I suspect that her 
 own heart never had categorically asked of her 
 that question up to the time in question. Of 
 course the writer has a means of forming some 
 notion as to the real state of her feelings at that 
 period — a clearer one perhaps than she could 
 have formed herself — because he has the know-
 
 40 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 ledge of her subsequent conduct to guide him to 
 an appreciation of them. And it will probably be 
 best to let the reader arrive at a knowledge of 
 the secrets of her inmost heart in the same 
 manner. As to her visible behaviour in the little 
 Bella Luce world, little, it must be admitted, can 
 be said in defence of it, beyond what Beppo 
 always said, appearing to consider that it was 
 an abundantly ample answer to all possible fault- 
 finding. 
 
 " But she is so beautiful ! " he would say ; 
 " she is so beautiful ! " 
 
 So she was ! But that did not justify her in 
 wearing an honest man's heart to fiddle-strings ! 
 spoiling his rest, destroying his appetite for 
 supper, and keeping him awake o' nights. And 
 really, if it had been the settled purpose of her 
 life to do all these cruel things, she could not 
 have set about it in a more workwoman-like 
 manner. Did you ever observe a kitten rub its 
 nose and cheek against a person's hand, purring 
 in the most insinuatingly flattering manner all 
 the while, and then start away with a sudden 
 bound, rush under a neighbouring chair, and then 
 put up its little back and spit ? Well, this was 
 exactly the type of Giulia's manner to Beppo t
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 41 
 
 There was never anything of tenderness, — no 
 symptom of love, — such love as Beppo wanted, — 
 to be detected in her manner, in her looks, in 
 the tone of her voice. But she would be so 
 good, so kind, so frankly affectionate, that he 
 would be tempted either by eye or voice to 
 some manifestation of the passion that was con- 
 suming him. No sooner had he done so than 
 she was off like a startled fawn, and either avoided 
 him, or was cross to him for the rest of the day. 
 
 There was one sign only that might perhaps 
 have led an intelligent looker-on at the game to 
 hope that there might be something better in 
 store for poor Beppo, though it altogether failed 
 to assure or comfort him. This was the way in 
 which Giulia would behave when others attacked, 
 or slighted, or belittled Beppo ; especially when 
 his brother, who was about two years his junior, 
 and just Giulia' s own age, did so, as was not 
 unfrequently the case. Then, indeed, it was 
 clear enough that Beppo had a friend, if no- 
 thing else, in his beautiful cousin ! And surely 
 it ought to have led him to see a thing or two ! 
 Only Beppo was not the man to see anything 
 that anybody tried to hide from him. Besides, 
 it was more generally in his absence that Giulia
 
 42 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 would make a sortie, like a tigress from a jungle 
 in defence of her young, in Beppo's behalf. And 
 Carlo would get a scratch from the claw that he 
 did not forget as soon as he ought to have done. 
 And then old Paolo or dame Sunta would sneer 
 and say something disagreeable if they were pre- 
 sent ; and Giulia would be as cross and scratchy 
 as possible to Beppo afterwards. 
 
 This younger brother Carlo was by no means 
 a lad of whose allegiance most pretty girls would 
 have been otherwise than proud. He was, though 
 not so tall as his brother, who was slightly taller 
 than his father, — and he was over six feet in his 
 stockings, — nevertheless, like most of the Romag- 
 nole peasantry, a very fine young man. He was 
 of a lighter build altogether than his brother, 
 somewhat darker in hair and eyes, and of a less 
 jovially ruddy brown complexion. Beppo would 
 have been deemed probably the handsomer speci- 
 men of manhood by a jury of girls — (delivering a 
 secret verdict to a female judge) — taken from the 
 fields and hill-sides. Carlo might perhaps have 
 had the verdict from a similar jury chosen from 
 a city population. Then he was cleverer than 
 Beppo, or at least was held to be so by all the 
 world in which they both lived, including Don
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 43 
 
 Evandro, and both Beppo and Carlo themselves. 
 Beppo considered Carlo as a quite unprecedented 
 (at least in those parts) prodigy of genius. And 
 Carlo, if not quite persuaded of the justice of 
 that opinion, was thoroughly convinced that his 
 brother was a brainless lout, while he himself 
 was a very clever fellow. 
 
 He was the cleverer of the two certainly. His 
 intelligence was the readier and nimbler. He 
 was the better scholar, wrote a better hand, and 
 was infinitely quicker at accounts, or calculations. 
 But Beppo, though slow, was no fool ; and there 
 are many subjects — and those not amongst the 
 least important that human hearts and heads are 
 called upon to decide for themselves — respecting 
 which — give him time to bring his mind to bear 
 upon the point — I would far rather have bound 
 myself to be ruled by Beppo's than by Carlo's 
 judgment. And then one was always sure to 
 know what Beppo really did think and feel. 
 And I am not so clear of that in the case of 
 master Carlo. 
 
 Perhaps old Paolo and Sunta might have made 
 up their minds to allow young Carlo and Giulia to 
 come together if only she would have kept her 
 hands off the sacred person of Beppo their first-
 
 44 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 born. It is too bad to use such language ! As if 
 Giulia showed any sign of wanting to . . . .1 
 think I can see how her eye would flash, and all 
 those laughing devils in it we talked of would 
 turn to fire-darting furies, if the phrase were used 
 in her presence. But that was the thought of 
 the old couple upon the subject. And though 
 I don't think either of them would have dared 
 to say as much in crude words in Giulia's hear- 
 ing, I have little doubt that she had to brook 
 many a sneer and insinuation of the sort from 
 them, — to be rebutted by cruel treatment from 
 her towards poor Beppo, and, I strongly suspect, 
 to be followed by midnight hours of weeping, 
 and bursts of passionate agony, of which laugh- 
 ing, flashing, proud, scornful Giulia's pillow was 
 the only witness. 
 
 I think, as has been said, that Giulia might 
 have had Carlo Vanni if she would. But though 
 there were symptoms enough that he would have 
 been well pleased to settle all the family disagree- 
 ments in that manner, it was very clear that 
 Giulia would have nothing to say to any such 
 arrangement. 
 
 Clever, sharp Carlo, with his handsome dark 
 eye, his locks as black as her own, his fine long
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 45 
 
 Grecian nose, and light svelte figure, did not suit 
 her taste. Was it really true that she liked heavy, 
 good-natured Beppo, with his honest dark-blue 
 eyes, and curly dark-brown hair, and Herculean 
 shoulders, at all better? Old Paolo would have 
 sneered bitterly in reply, that Giulia knew which 
 side of the bread the butter was, none better ! 
 Young Beppo would have almost as bitterly 
 answered, that she cared as much about him as 
 she did about the oxen in the stable ! 
 
 In fact, he often did say so ; for it was a 
 favourite comparison of himself in poor Beppo's 
 mouth. 
 
 " I don't remember ever to have seen cousin 
 Giulia steal away into the fields to help the oxen 
 at their work, the way she went off t'other night 
 to help you, Beppo, with shucking that lot of 
 gran-turco* in the loft," said Carlo once, viciously, 
 for his father and mother were present. 
 
 "Because the gran-turco would never have 
 been finished that night, if I hadn't given a hand ; 
 for Beppo was so sleepy he could not hold his 
 stupid head up ! " replied Giulia, colouring up and 
 tossing her head. 
 
 * The common country name for maize in Italy — "Turkish 
 grain."
 
 46 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 "And wouldn't she do as much or more for 
 you, or for Babbo* or for old Cecco, the blind beg- 
 garman, or for the oxen either, for that matter? 
 Would not she do anything on earth she could for 
 any living creature?" demanded Beppo, with im- 
 mense energy. " But for me more than another," 
 he added, with bitterness, " no ! You know better 
 than that, Carlo ! " 
 
 But what would most have tended to make all 
 straight and comfortable at Bella Luce, would 
 have been that Beppo should have made up his 
 mind to the match which his father and his parish 
 priest had picked out for him. And there was 
 really very little reason why he should not do so ; 
 — very little reason, that is to say, except those 
 mischief-making eyes of cousin Giulia ; — and the 
 natural and notorious perversity of Dan Cupid, 
 who really can only be led or driven by parents 
 and guardians on the same principle on which 
 Paddy is said to have succeeded in driving his 
 pig from Cork to Dublin, — " by making the cratur 
 think it's from Dublin to Cork that I'm wanting 
 him to go ! " 
 
 If cousin Giulia had been out of the question, 
 really Beppo might have done worse than make 
 
 * Daddy, the common phrase with Italians of all classes.
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 47 
 
 up to Lisa Bartoldi, the rich Fano attorney's only 
 daughter ; as his father, and Don Evandro, and 
 Lisa's father, old Sandro Bartoldi, wished him 
 to do. 
 
 Ay, if cousin Giulia were out of the question ! 
 as she would have been if Paolo Yanni had never 
 taken her to live at Bella Luce. 
 
 " See what comes of doing a charitable action, 
 and sacrificing one's own interest to one's good- 
 ness of heart ! It's always the way ! " said old 
 Paolo Yanni one day, in talking the grievance 
 over with his guide, philosopher, and friend, Don 
 Evandro. 
 
 The priest did not answer him save by a steady 
 and meaning look right into the old man's eyes ; 
 the full translation and meaning of which I take 
 to have been, that that able divine and confessor 
 wished to intimate that his view of the circum- 
 stances in question placed that bringing home of 
 the orphan cousin on the debtor, and not at all on 
 the creditor, side of that double-entry account 
 between his parishioner and the Recording Angel, 
 which it was his duty to keep properly posted up. 
 
 And, after all, it was not so clear that all would 
 have gone upon wheels — as the Italian phrase has 
 it — even if cousin Giulia had never come to Bella
 
 48 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Luce. Beppo might possibly have looked kindly 
 on Lisa. But the attorney's daughter was not a 
 bit more disposed to accept Beppo Yanni for a 
 husband than he was to take her to wife. And 
 that, at all events, was not cousin Giulia's fault ! 
 And though old Sanclro Bartoldi was very desirous 
 that his daughter should marry all Paolo Vanni's 
 hoarded scudi, he was far too doting a father to 
 his motherless girl to have attempted com- 
 pulsion. 
 
 And really Lisa Bartoldi was a very nice girl, — 
 pretty, delicate-featured, golden-haired, blue-eyed, 
 very fragile-looking, and slender. Worse wrong 
 could not have been done her than to place her 
 side by side with Giulia VannL It was to make 
 her appear a poor, washed-out, faded, half-alive 
 wisp of a creature by contrast with that richly 
 developed and magnificent organisation ! Her 
 hair was really golden when the sun lent a little 
 real golden light to tinge it. Her complexion 
 was really charmingly delicate, with the faintest 
 possible tint of the blush-rose in the cheek. But 
 by the side of Giulia she seemed to fade into a 
 general whity-brown atony of colour, like wood- 
 ashes that still glow feebly in the gloom, but fade 
 into lightless grey when the sun's beam touches
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 49 
 
 them. " Che vuole!"* as the gossips said. Poor 
 Lisa had been born and had grown up in a very- 
 dull house, in a very dull street, in the very dull 
 town of Fano, while Giulia had been drinking, 
 from morning to night, the free, fresh air of the 
 breezy Apennine. What chance had Lisa in 
 sleepy, stuffy Fano, from which even the sea- 
 breeze is shut out by its walls, and by a range of 
 sand-hills still higher than they, with a creep to 
 mass in a neighbouring church for her whole dis- 
 sipation, and a crawl on the passeggiatccf under 
 the lime-trees on festa days for her sole exercise % 
 
 Lisa knew, however, a great many things that 
 Giulia did not ; — necessarily so. Not that, to the 
 best of my judgment, she was in any degree the 
 cleverer girl, or had the more powerful intellect of 
 the two. In the first place, I have a great notion 
 of the truth of the Tnens sana in corpore sano ; 
 and, in the next place, there was always a sort of 
 feeble, sickly sentimentalism — a great deal more 
 common on the northern than on the southern 
 side of the Alps — about Lisa, which did not give 
 me the idea of a strongly-constituted mind. But, 
 of course, she was by far the more cultivated, had 
 
 * " What would you have ?" or, " What cau you expect ?'* 
 t Parade, town-walk.
 
 50 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 far more pretention to lady -like manners — 
 (though it must be understood that there is infi- 
 nitely less difference in this respect between one 
 woman and another in Italy than among ourselves, 
 the manners of the lower classes being better, and 
 those of the upper strata of society worse, or at 
 least less refined, less educated, and less con- 
 ventional, than those of the corresponding classes 
 at home) — and to refinement. Though, as to 
 lady-like feeling, my own impression is, that 
 Giulia's sentiments, if one could have got at her 
 heart and seen them there in situ, instead of 
 coming at them through the medium of her own 
 exposition of them, would be found to be such as 
 might have done honour to any crusader-descended 
 duchess, and set a very useful example to not a 
 few such. 
 
 And Lisa Bartoldi was a good girl in her way, 
 too. But dull, Herculean Beppo, with the frank, 
 deep blue, steadfast eyes, and the honest, sun- 
 burnt, open face, would have nothing to say to 
 her, preferring his nature-created duchess. Not 
 that it ever had entered into his head to compare 
 the two. Compare our Giulia to Lisa Bartoldi ! 
 or, indeed, to any other of mortal mould ! ! 
 
 No ; he could have nothing to say to Lisa —
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 51 
 
 nothing to say to her, that is, in the way of love, 
 for they were very good friends, perfectly under- 
 stood one another, and sympathised upon the sub- 
 ject, and would speak very freely upon it when 
 they met, as was often the case, on occasion of the 
 young farmer of Bella Luce coming into Fano on 
 market-days. 
 
 And indeed they found much to say to each 
 other upon such occasions. For Lisa had a secret 
 of her own — a secret the joint property of herself 
 and a certain captain of Bersaglieri,* one Giacopo 
 Brilli — which she had no objection to trust to 
 great, honest Beppo, in return for his bewailments 
 of his hapless passion. The exchange was hardly 
 a fair one ; for Lisa was happy in her love, and, 
 with a little perseverance, had not much to fear 
 from the rigour of a doting father, who, however, 
 for the present, declared that it was altogether 
 impossible to bestow his heiress daughter on a 
 man who proposed " no consideration, positively 
 none ! " in return. It would be a one-sided and 
 altogether unformal contract. Besides, it was no 
 secret that simple Beppo gave in return for Lisa's 
 confidences. All the world knew his pains ! He 
 would bellow out his soft complainings to any one 
 
 * The Rifle Corps. 
 
 e 2 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 mVERSiTY Of iLUNOfc
 
 52 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 who would listen to him, pouring out all his great, 
 big, earnest, simple, deeply-smitten heart. 
 
 Carlo said once that Beppo reminded him, when 
 the elegiac fit was on him, of one of his own oxen, 
 breathing with outstretched head its melancholy 
 bellowings to the breeze as it went a-field. And 
 if Giulia's eyes could have wielded daggers as well 
 as look them, when he so spoke, methinks Carlo 
 would never have jibed at his brother or any one 
 else any more. 
 
 Farmer Paolo Yanni, and his counsellor Don 
 Evandro, supposing it finally admitted that it was 
 beyond their united power to bring Beppo and 
 Lisa together, would have been glad to secure the 
 Fano attorney's crowns on behalf of his younger 
 brother, Carlo. And Carlo, despite a certain de- 
 gree of inclination to make love to his beautiful 
 cousin, half due to real admiration of her beauty, 
 and half to a feeling that it would be very plea- 
 sant to carry her off from under his brother's nose, 
 would have had no difficulty in acceding to such 
 an arrangement. But neither in this way did it 
 seem likely, for the reasons that the reader is in 
 possession of, that Sandro Bartoldi's money could 
 be made available for increasing the greatness of 
 the Bella Luce family.
 
 DOMESTIC POLITICS. 53 
 
 And it is now intelligible, also, why old Paolo 
 Vanni, despite all his worldly prosperity, was not 
 altogether a happy man, and why the Bella Luce 
 household was not an abode of that unbroken 
 felicity, contentment, and peace of mind, which 
 are usually supposed to be the characteristics of 
 dwellings placed in romantic situations, and ten 
 miles from the nearest post-office.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 
 
 HE seniors of the party, whose comfort- 
 able and reasonable arrangements were 
 all thus disturbed and traversed by Dan 
 Cupid's tricksy perversities and self-willed rebel- 
 liousness, were not, however disposed to give up 
 the game without some further attempt at winning 
 it. And matters stood at Bella Luce as has been 
 indicated in the preceding chapter, when shrewd 
 old Sandro Bartoldi, the rich Fano attorney, made 
 a move with a view of weakening the enemy by a 
 diversion. Intent on a scheme he had concocted 
 with this purpose, the attorney ordered his stout, 
 well-fed cob, one fine March morning, for a ride 
 up to Bella Luce. Neither Sandro nor his beast 
 were so well inclined to active movement as they 
 once had been. They took the uphill work easily,
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 55 
 
 therefore, among the lanes that crept up the green 
 valleys ; and, though they left Fano betimes in 
 the morning, only reached their destination some 
 half an hour before noon. 
 
 That, indeed, was the hour at which the 
 attorney had wished to time his arrival. For his 
 errand required that he should hold a conference 
 with the head of the Bella Luce family ; and he 
 knew very well that on this precious bright 
 March morning all the males of the place would 
 be at their avocations in the fields. But at noon 
 came the hour of repose, and of the mid-day 
 meal — the hours, rather, for few labourers, either 
 in city or in country, of whatever class, allow 
 themselves or are allowed by their employers less 
 than two hours — from twelve till two. 
 
 March is a busy month in the country in Italy. 
 It is the time for pruning and dressing the vines. 
 And it was on this work that old Paolo Vanni and 
 his two sons were engaged when Sandro Bartoldi 
 rode up the last steep bit of the hollow lane that 
 climbed from the bottom of the valley to the level 
 of the house. 
 
 A French vineyard is one of the ugliest agri- 
 cultural sights in nature. Nothing can be more 
 unsightly than little low bushes, not much bigger
 
 56 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 than uggly brown cabbages, set in rows along the 
 fields. But France produces good wine, and de- 
 clares that this is the only way to do so. For the 
 present, however, Italy is content to drink her 
 somewhat harsher and coarser, but more generous, 
 wines, and to hold to the picturesque old method 
 of cultivation that Yirgil has described. Paolo, 
 Beppo, and Carlo Vanni were tending their vines 
 exactly as any Corydon, or Tityrus, or Thyrsis did 
 two thousand years ago on the same hill-sides — 
 marrying them with wedding-knots of withy, not 
 exactly to elms, but to the white mulberry trees. 
 These also had been previously pruned, and the 
 wood and the leaves carefully gathered, till little 
 remained save the trunks, whose office was to 
 support the vines, and a few leading branches 
 cut into a cup-shaped form at the top of the 
 trunk, destined to produce a fresh crop of shoots 
 and leaves from the old, much-scarred, pollard 
 head. 
 
 The rich, red tilled land of the large field in 
 which they were all three at work, was now nearly 
 covered with the bright green of the young crop. 
 For the Italian agriculturist, unlike the French, 
 does not think that his field has done enough when 
 it has given him wine ; the same land must give
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 57 
 
 its corn, too ; and, generally, to make up the 
 Scriptural trio, its oil also. 
 
 The father and the two sons were in different 
 parts of the field, at some distance from each 
 other, each engaged on a separate tree. They 
 were all mounted on broad double ladders, some 
 five feet wide at the base, tapering as they rose to 
 a height of about twelve feet or so from the 
 ground, to a width of six or eight inches, and 
 ending in a little platform of those dimensions. 
 The old man was in his shirt-sleeves, and wore 
 short fustian knee-breeches, and bright blue 
 worsted stockings. The two young men wore 
 trousers of cloth ; for Bella Luce was not utterly 
 beyond the limits of fashion's jurisdiction ; though 
 her writs were made returnable thence a consi- 
 derable time after they were issued. Beppo and 
 Carlo Yanni also had retained their jackets, either 
 in consequence of a falling off from the hardiness 
 of the previous generation, or from a sentiment 
 of respect for the presence of the lovely Giulia. 
 Each of the three had a peculiarly shaped small 
 hatchet suspended, save at the moments when 
 it was in use, by a hook at the end of its handle, 
 from a strap around his loins, and a bundle of 
 slender osier twigs tied in front of his shoulders ;
 
 58 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 — the first to do the pruning ; the second for the 
 tying of that Virgilian marriage-knot which was 
 to unite the drooping vine firmly to its support 
 till after the vintage. 
 
 Giulia was in the field, as has been intimated, 
 and was busy in gathering and binding into 
 bundles the primings, to be carefully carried to 
 the homestead as precious food for the sheep and 
 goats. This duty required her presence under the 
 different trees on which the three men were en- 
 gaged, one after the other ; and Giulia was very 
 careful to linger no longer over her work under 
 the one tree than under the other. What ! give 
 old Paolo an opportunity of grumbling, or Carlo a 
 chance of sneering, that she sought to make time 
 for saying a few tete-d-tete words to poor Beppo ! 
 Not if she were never to have the chance of saying 
 another ! 
 
 Perhaps ball-room belles fancy that only their 
 lot subjects them to the delicate embarrassments 
 of similar considerations, and that the "hapjDy 
 simplicity of the peasant's life " frees them from 
 all such little troubles. Ah! Giulia Yanni in 
 the upland farm of Bella Luce could have told 
 them a different story ! 
 
 However, be scrupulous as she might to gather
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 59 
 
 the vine cuttings under each plant as quickly as 
 she could, and to linger no longer over one part 
 of her work than another, it was impossible to 
 avoid giving each of the three men, in turn, an 
 opportunity of saying a few words to her from the 
 top of his ladder, which was out of earshot of the 
 others. 
 
 The field in which the party was at work com- 
 manded the hollow lane by which the Fano 
 attorney was approaching Bella Luce ; and it so 
 happened that Giulia, who was at that moment 
 gathering up Beppo' s cuttings, was the first to 
 catch sight of the guest. 
 
 " Bej3po ! there is a man on horseback coming 
 up the lane ! I declare I think .... yes, it cer- 
 tainly is," she added, shading her eyes with her 
 hand, " old Sandro, the attorney at Fano ! " 
 
 " What can he be coming here for ? .... no 
 good, you may swear ! " said Beppo, who considered 
 the attorney only in the light of one of a con- 
 spiracy to deprive him of Giulia. 
 
 " Fie, Beppo ! I am sure you ought not to say 
 
 that of him, of all people in the world ! As if you 
 
 did not know that he was coming here to propose 
 
 his daughter for your excellency's acceptance ! " 
 
 "The apoplexy catch him and his daughter,
 
 60 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 too ! No, poor Lisa ! I don't mean that ! But 
 I wish he would let Lisa go her way, and me 
 mine ! " 
 
 "What a fine thing it must be to be a rich 
 signore, and to have the girls, pretty ones, too, 
 like Lisa, coming to beg for the honour of your 
 alliance ! But it's cruel to be hard upon her, 
 Beppo ! I would not refuse her, for we poor girls, 
 you know, are apt to break our silly hearts for 
 you ungrateful men." 
 
 " Giulia ! how can you go on so ? As if you 
 did not know ! Ah ! it's only the girls who 
 break their hearts, I sujDpose. Well ! if you don't 
 know — " 
 
 "All I know is, that I must run and tell the 
 padrone " — it was so that Giulia always spoke of 
 the master of the family ; — " that Ser Sandro is 
 coming up the hill ! Good-bye, Beppo ! Don't be 
 cruel to poor Lisa ! " 
 
 And off she tripped to the part of the field 
 where Paolo was at work, and from which that 
 part of the hollow lane in which the attorney was 
 riding was not visible. 
 
 " 'Gnor padrone ! There is Ser Sandro, from 
 Fano, coming up the hill ! Had I not better run 
 and tell the padvona ? "
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 61 
 
 " Ser Sandro coming ? where ? " 
 
 " He is in the hollow of the lane there ; I saw 
 him just now." 
 
 " Whatever is in the wind to bring him out to 
 Bella Luce to-day of all clays in the year ! " ex- 
 claimed old Paolo. " Yes, run, my girl, run, and 
 tell la sposa that Ser Sandro will take a mouthful 
 of dinner with us ! " 
 
 Giulia waited for no second bidding, but ran off 
 to the house, to prepare the mistress for the great 
 and unusual event which was impending over 
 Bella Luce, while old Paolo came down from his 
 ladder, and, with his pruning-hatchet still hanging 
 at his loins behind, and his bundle of withy twigs 
 still stuck in front of him, hastened to the edge 
 of the field where it overlooked the hollow way, to 
 greet his visitor as he came up. 
 
 " Why, Signor Sandro ! " he said from the top 
 of the bank, as the attorney passed below him, 
 "who would have thought of seeing you out at 
 Bella Luce this morning! What news from town? 
 How is the Signora Lisa? Come up, come up! 
 there'll be a mouthful of something or another to 
 eat in the house." 
 
 " Eat ! Ah ; you may talk about eating up 
 here ! What a beautiful air you have on the
 
 62 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 hill-side here. Per bacco, life must be worth fifty 
 per cent, longer purchase here than down in the 
 city there ! " 
 
 " What time did you start this morning, Signor 
 Sandro ? " 
 
 " Oh, we've taken it easy, Moro and I ! I 
 knew there was no use in getting here before 
 the angelus, if I wanted to speak with you, Signor 
 Paolo ! How are the vines looking ? " 
 
 " There is not much to boast of ! If we have a 
 olass of wine to drink, it is as much as we shall 
 have ! " 
 
 " Why, they tell me that there are no signs of 
 the disease yet, none even down in the plains ; 
 and you are sure to be better off here ! " 
 
 " Wait a bit ! It's too soon yet ! You'll see 
 in another couple of months ! I never cry till 
 I'm out of the wood. The disease will come quite 
 time enough, never you fear ! What else can you 
 expect ? " 
 
 " Expect ! why should I expect it ? There was 
 much less of it last year than the year before ! I 
 expect to have none this year ! " 
 
 "And do you think that is likely, Signor 
 Sandro, with such maledictions as we have in 
 these blessed times ! With the beastly smoking,
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 63 
 
 spluttering railway, that's going to be finished 
 they say this year, is it likely that the air would 
 not be poisoned ? There'll be no more crops such 
 as there used to be, — you mark my words ! — as 
 long as those things are in the country. Why, it 
 stands to reason, they are against nature ! " 
 
 " I know there are many that consider the vine 
 disease to be caused by the railroad," replied 
 Signor Sandro ; " very good judges and competent 
 persons too, ay, and 'sponsible men like yourself, 
 Signor Paolo. So I'm sure it's not for me to say 
 it is not so. Only they do say that the disease 
 is just the same, where there are no railroads." 
 
 Chatting thus, the attorney and the farmer 
 approached the house and each other together— 
 the former coming up the road which reached the 
 level of the house and of the field, along the edge 
 of which the latter was walking a few yards only 
 from the door. 
 
 Beppo and Carlo had come down from their 
 pruning ladders, and were following their father 
 at some distance towards the house. 
 
 Giulia meanwhile, after communicating her 
 tidings to Signora Sunta, slipped away to her 
 own chamber to make some little preparation for 
 appearing before the eyes of the townsman. She
 
 64 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 would not have dreamed of doing anything of the 
 sort for any visitors from any of the neighbouring 
 farms or villages, young or old, male or female. 
 But the Italian peasant has, without much — at all 
 events acknowledged — respect or liking for the 
 city or its inhabitants, a very great awe and 
 admiration for the townsfolk. The peasant con- 
 siders them to be less honest, less kind, less 
 hearty and healthy, less instructed in all matters 
 really worth knowing, than he himself is. At all 
 events he professes so to consider. But he looks 
 upon the luxury, the faste, the pomp, the magni- 
 ficence, and the finery of the neighbouring city, 
 as something wonderful and stupendous ; — affects 
 to reprobate and despise it all, and probably, if 
 an old man, would in reality not change his own 
 life for a city one ; but nevertheless looks up to 
 his town-bred neighbours with a very considerable 
 sense of their superior position. 
 
 This same feeling, which had sent Giulia off in 
 a hurry to her chamber, manifested itself in la 
 sposa in care for the reputation of her kitchen. 
 It was supremely displeasing to her that a stranger 
 from the city should arrive thus unannounced a 
 few minutes only before the dinner hour. If she 
 could have got warning in time, she would have
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 65 
 
 sent into Fano for delicacies of all sorts. If there 
 was no time for that, she would have ransacked 
 the neighbouring villages. But here she was left 
 to make the best figure she could entirely on her 
 own resources. And she had no doubt that the 
 townsman thus managed that his visit should be 
 wholly unannounced, for the express purpose of 
 triumphing over her unprovidedness. That he 
 might himself be hungry and like a good dinner, 
 and be pleased at getting one at Bella Luce, never 
 occurred to her as a possible phase of the matter. 
 It shaped itself to her mind as a contest between 
 town and country, in which the townsman's ob- 
 ject would be attained, and his vanity gratified at 
 the expense of hers, in proportion to the poor- 
 ness of the fare set before him. For to an 
 Italian the gratification of an appetite is a small 
 matter in comparison with the gratification of a 
 vanity. 
 
 So la sposa, much and deeply grumbling between 
 her teeth, set herself to do all that could be done 
 at so short a notice. 
 
 " Carlo," she said to her second son, as he came 
 in from the field, " run quick to his reverence, and 
 tell him to come and take a bit of dinner with us, 
 and ask la Nunziata (the priest's housekeeper) to 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 send me a pot of her quince preserve, and some 
 biscuits, — quick." 
 
 It must not be supposed that the priest was 
 invited for the sake of the quince sweetmeats and 
 the biscuits. He and they were equally benefac- 
 tions to her board, and the priest himself by far 
 the most important of the two. It was respectable 
 and in good style, and perhaps even what Signor 
 Sandro himself could not have accomplished at so 
 short a notice, to have the parish priest at the 
 board. His reverence, on his part, it may be 
 observed, hastened to put on his very best coat 
 and a clean collar, not so much from any personal 
 care about, or vanity in such matters, but in 
 order to do honour to Signor Vanni's board, and 
 to support the country in its contest with the city. 
 That was the feeling of the priest, as it would also 
 have been of any of the neighbours. They were 
 all in one boat, so far as the necessity for hiding 
 the nakedness of their land, and making the best 
 possible appearance in the eyes of the townsman 
 went. 
 
 Meanwhile Sunta did her utmost within the 
 cruelly short space of time which the cunning of 
 the citizen had allowed her. Eggs in abundance 
 were brought in from the poultry-house and
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 67 
 
 stables, and la sposa proceeded to concoct a 
 frittata with slices of ham cunningly introduced 
 into a stratified formation of egg and flour, fried 
 in abundance of oil, and flavoured with some herbs, 
 according to a special receipt in the possession of 
 Signora Sunta, and which were supposed to be 
 Apennine products unobtainable in the towns. 
 Beppo was sent to catch and kill a fowl in all 
 haste, and prepare it for instant spitch-cocking. 
 This, with a sweet confection, in which more eggs 
 were the principal ingredient, and the minestra — 
 the pottage — which would have constituted the 
 entire dinner for the family, if Signor Sandro had 
 stayed at home, made out a tolerably presentable 
 repast, especially when accompanied by an un- 
 stinted supply of Signor Vanni's choicest wine, 
 which they all knew was really such as the 
 attorney did not drink every day of his life. 
 
 But for all this, be it observed, the Bella Luce 
 family, however anxious to shine in the eyes of 
 their guest, did not dream of changing the venue 
 of their repast to the great eating-room up-stairs. 
 That would have been too serious and solemn an 
 affair to be thought of for such a mere extemporary 
 matter as the present. The dinners eaten in that 
 state-room were dinners indeed ! To have placed 
 
 F 2
 
 68 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 the hurriedly prepared modest meal of to-day 
 before their guest in that huge, bare-looking 
 guest-chamber, would have been to render it and 
 themselves ridiculous. So the little party sat 
 clown as usual at the table in the kitchen, which 
 was the common living-room of the family. 
 
 Giulia stole down from her room, the young 
 men washed their hands and faces, the anxious 
 and hard-working Sunta seized a moment to give 
 one re-ordering touch to her hair and kerchief 
 after her culinary labours, and then announced 
 to her husband, and Don Evandro and Signor 
 Sandro Bartoldi, that " their lordships were, served," 
 i. e., in base plebeian terms, that the dinner was 
 ready. 
 
 " It's not to be expected," said Signora Sunta, 
 as they sate down, with an aigre doux manner, 
 half mock-modest hospitality, and half self-assert- 
 ing" defiance, " that the like of us can set before a 
 gentleman from the city anything fit for him to 
 eat, and that too at a moment's notice ! I am afraid 
 the soup is not what you can eat, Signor Sandro ! " 
 " On the contrary, my dear madam, I positively 
 must take the liberty of asking for another ladle - 
 ful. I was just thinking that I had never tasted 
 a better minestra in my life ! "
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 69 
 
 " Ay ! that's our Bella Luce air ! We can grow 
 appetites up here, if our soil is too poor to grow 
 anything else !" said farmer Paolo. 
 
 The farm of Bella Luce was anything but poor 
 land ; but an Italian farmer always calls his land 
 poor, and a landowner as invariably deems it rich. 
 
 " Any way," said the priest, " I find that, let me 
 bring what appetite I may to Bella Luce, I never 
 take any away with me, and I dare say Signor 
 Sandro will experience the same thing." 
 
 " That I'll be sworn I shall ! " said the attorney. 
 
 "There's no dinner, to say dinner !" replied la 
 sposa. " You are sadly out of luck to-day, Signor 
 Sandro ! This is such a place out here in the 
 mountains. There's never a bit of meat to be 
 got at Santa Lucia except Saturdays. There's 
 nothing for your dinner except a grilled fowl of 
 my own fattening, and a Bella Luce frittata, and 
 some rashers of our own curing, and a bit of 
 salad" — the lettuce had been brought by Don 
 Evandro in his handkerchief from his own little 
 bit of garden, and given privately to the padrona 
 with many precautions against the detection of 
 the transaction by the guest, — and a dolce, and 
 some preserve, and a few biscuits ! 
 
 "Oh! oh! oh! What a dinner! What a
 
 70 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 feast ! " exclaimed the attorney. " How you 
 country people do live ! Ah, one must come into 
 the country to know what living means." 
 
 " But you are not to think, Signor Sandro, that 
 all my parishioners live as they do at Bella Luce," 
 said the priest. " Tuffl altvo, lo joosso dir io I * 
 There's not such another farm as Bella Luce, and 
 not such another manager as la Signora Sunta, in 
 all the country-side." 
 
 " I believe you. Look at this cloth and these 
 napkins," rejoined the courtier-like attorney. "I 
 think I know whose hands spun the yarn ; and I 
 think I could tell, if anybody in Fano asked me, 
 where to find enough of the same make to turn 
 all yonder cornfield as white as this table. Aha ! 
 la sposa ! Am I in the secret, eh ? I think I 
 was honoured by a peep into the great press up- 
 stairs once upon a time ; and / never saw such a 
 show, let the other be where it would ! " 
 
 This touched the corde sensible in la Signora 
 Sunta's heart, and she was much flattered by 
 the compliment. She smirked and purred, and 
 admitted that, thank God ! they were not badly 
 off for linen at Bella Luce ; they had enough for 
 the needs of the house, and mayhap a trifle to 
 * Very much otherwise, I can assure you.
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 71 
 
 furnish forth a son's house at need — or maybe a 
 couple of them for the matter of that ! 
 
 And thereupon Beppo suddenly suspended half- 
 way between the table and his open mouth the 
 huge fragment of bread, with which he had been 
 scouring his plate round and round, in order to 
 mop up the last viscous particles of the frittata, 
 and looked hard across the table at Giulia, blush- 
 ing crimson the while all over his great frank 
 face, as if the most excruciatingly delicate and 
 suggestive thing had been uttered. Giulia, on 
 her part, kept her eyes fixed on her plate, and 
 would have been supposed by anybody, who had 
 never had any daughter of Eve under his obser- 
 vation before, to have been wholly unaware of 
 Beppo's demonstration. 
 
 " You don't drink, Signor Sandro ! Yet the 
 wine is not so bad as it might be, though I say it 
 that should not," observed old Paolo. 
 
 " Per Bacco ! I've drunk enough to find out 
 that we town's-folk must not drink it without 
 counting our glasses. E un gran' vino, davvero ! 
 Che colore! Che squisito sapore! E fior di 
 roba!"* said the attorney, holding his glass up 
 
 * It's a grand wine, truly ! What a colour ! What exquisite 
 flavour ! It's a very choice article j— literally "flower of goods."
 
 72 BEPPO, THE CONSCPJPT. 
 
 to the light. "We don't drink such wine down 
 in Fano, I can tell yon, Signor Paolo ! " 
 
 "And we don't make such at Bella Luce, 
 now-a-days ; — more's the pity ! And never shall 
 again till these cursed railroads are cleared out 
 of the country .... and something else has 
 happened, that need not be more particularly 
 mentioned," said the old farmer. 
 
 Every one present knew very well that this 
 something else meant the restoration of the papal 
 government. And Signor Sandro Bartoldi thought 
 to himself, that if no more good wine was to 
 be made till that happened, it would be wise to 
 make the most of the old while it lasted. But 
 of course nobody was so un-Italianly imprudent 
 as to take any notice of the farmer's manifesta- 
 tion of his political faith. Don Evandro turned 
 up his eyes towards heaven, and took advantage 
 of the action to drain his glass ; but no word 
 was said. 
 
 The railroad, however, was not a tabooed sub- 
 ject, and Beppo ventured, after mature considera- 
 tion, to say that, if it was true, as he was told, 
 that the vine disease had visited countries where 
 there were no railroads, it did seem to him as if 
 they could not be the cause of it ! "
 
 A GUEST FROM THE CITY. 73 
 
 " What has that to do with it, figliuolo mio ? " 
 cried the priest, firing up. " Do you think that 
 the Almighty did not know that those countries 
 were going to make those abominable things 
 against nature, upsetting all society, and sent 
 his curses for their punishment accordingly? 
 Why, there is not one of those countries that 
 you allude to that has not now, as I am informed, 
 fallen into the iniquity. And are not the works 
 of Providence thus justified, and is not the 
 abomination of these nuisances proved past all 
 denial ? " 
 
 Beppo was too well brought up to dream of 
 arguing with his parish priest. He made no 
 reply ; but set himself to consider the question, 
 and soon arrived at the conclusion that he should 
 like to ask Giulia what she thought about it ? 
 
 Signor Sandro, protesting that he did not pre- 
 sume to judge the matter under its theological 
 aspect, yet ventured to say that, in a wholly 
 worldly point of view, he thought the railway 
 was adding, and would add, to the riches of the 
 country. 
 
 The priest answered him that all such wealth 
 would be found to be of the nature of devil's 
 money, and would turn to dust and ashes in the
 
 74 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 pockets of those who flattered themselves that 
 they were enriched by it. 
 
 To this exposition of doctrine the attorney 
 bowed meekly ; but thought to himself that, for 
 all that, he should not part with a single one of 
 the shares which were locked up in his strong 
 box at home. 
 
 And so the dinner and the conversation went 
 on till la Signora Sunta rose and left the table to 
 prepare coffee for the three seniors of the party. 
 
 The two young men put cigars in their mouths 
 and strolled out of the kitchen-door, Beppo giving 
 a beseechingly inviting glance to Giulia to follow 
 him as he went. 
 
 Giulia, however, was as blind to this appeal as 
 she had been to the look across the dinner-table, 
 and stealing out of the opposite door of the 
 kitchen, which opened on the huge staircase, 
 tripped up to the privacy of her own room.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BAETOLDI. 
 
 S SOON as the three seniors had been 
 'MV?I tnus ^ e ft *° themselves, sitting over the 
 table, at which they had been dining, 
 and which continued covered with the cloth that 
 had excited Ser Sandro's admiration, the attorney 
 prepared to enter at once on the subject of his 
 visit. The glasses and flasks were still upon the 
 table ; and the farmer and the priest replenished 
 theirs yet once again ; but the more abstemious 
 townsman, less accustomed to deep potations, and 
 who had been really in earnest when he said that 
 Farmer Vanni's wine was of a quality that made 
 it necessary to count the glasses, declined to drink 
 any more, though strongly urged to do so by his 
 two companions. 
 
 Signor Alessandro Bartoldi, the well-known
 
 76 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 attorney of Fano, was a good sort of man enough 
 in his way. He had long been a widower, and 
 lived only for his one daughter. But he had very 
 little comprehension of living for her, or doing 
 anything for her, in any other way than by 
 increasing the handsome fortune which he had 
 already accumulated for her. Though too much 
 disposed to be all things to all men, — to be called 
 a perfectly honest man in the largest sense of the 
 word, — he was thoroughly such in the more 
 restricted and ordinarily understood signification 
 of the term. He was strictly honest in his pro- 
 fessional avocation, and in his pursuit of wealth ; 
 being genuinely persuaded that for that purpose, 
 at least in his department of the world's affairs, 
 honesty was the best policy. A veritable Vicar 
 of Bray in politics, he had quite sense enough 
 to understand that the recent changes were cal- 
 culated to increase the material prosperity of 
 the country ; and was, therefore, well disposed 
 towards the new government. But, not being at 
 all of the stuff of which martyrs are made, he 
 had felt no disposition to risk getting himself 
 into trouble by taking any part in the extrusion 
 of the old order of things. He never talked poli- 
 tics, nor got into the way of hearing them talked
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI. 77 
 
 if he could help it. He always obeyed the law ; 
 and was one of those men who may take oaths 
 of allegiance to a dozen different governments in 
 succession, without being justly chargeable with 
 any false swearing; for his allegiance was sin- 
 cerely rendered to every ruler as long as he was 
 in power ; and he most assuredly never contem- 
 plated promising it for an hour longer. Besides, 
 and after his daughter, the only thing he cared 
 for in the world was his collection of ancient 
 documents, charters,- grants, contracts, and such 
 like, which was noted as the most important 
 collection of the kind in that part of Italy, and 
 by means of which he purposed some day illus- 
 trating a work on the history of Romagna and 
 the March of Ancona. 
 
 He was a little, alert, brisk old gentleman, with 
 a small, round, closely and always cleanly shaven 
 face, a florid complexion, a shrewd twinkling eye, 
 a benevolent expression of features, an almost 
 entirely bald head, and a forehead deeply marked 
 with a whole series of horizontal furrows, the 
 result probably of a life-long habit of raising his 
 eyebrows and assuming an expression intended to 
 suggest that there was a great deal to be said on 
 both sides, which he always resorted to whenever
 
 78 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 any difference of opinion or difficulty of any sort was 
 mooted before him. If that little pantomime was 
 found insufficient to set the matter at rest, as far as 
 he was concerned, he would, if sitting down, nurse 
 one leg laid over the knee of the other, handling 
 it with the greatest tenderness, as if it represented 
 the question in hand ; or, if standing up, stick his 
 thumbs into the arm-holes of his waistcoat, throw 
 his head back, and enunciate the ejaculation, 
 " Per — r — r Bac — co ! " or, sometimes, if the case 
 were a grave one, " Per — r — din — ci Bac — co ! ' 
 uttering the words very slowly and with a long- 
 drawn breath, and following it up with three or 
 four raisings and depressions of his chin, executed 
 with a slow uniform motion like the working of a 
 steam-engine piston. 
 
 Signor Alessandro Bartoldi was no fool withal ; 
 but these little peculiarities constituted the arms, 
 offensive and defensive, which he had found most 
 available for making his way and holding his own 
 in a somewhat disjointed world, and in difficult 
 times. 
 
 " I wanted to speak to you to-day, my esteemed 
 friend," said the attorney, addressing the farmer, 
 " on a little matter, in which it has seemed to me 
 that I might be able to be of use to you. I know
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDL 79 
 
 I may speak freely before his reverence ; for I am 
 aware of the friendship that unites him to your 
 family. Indeed, I am fortunate in having an 
 opportunity of profiting by his valuable counsel in 
 the matter; — though it is a bit of good fortune 
 that I did not anticipate." 
 
 The priest gave a little bow, but said nothing. 
 Signor Alessandro Bartoldi was no favourite of 
 his ; for Don Evandro was a politician of the 
 class, whose members consider every one against 
 them who is not with them ; and he knew what 
 to expect from Sandro in that matter. Although 
 the project of a marriage between Beppo Vanni 
 and Lisa Bartoldi had been first set on foot by 
 him, the idea had not arisen out of any personal 
 intimacy between him and the attorney, but had 
 first been suggested to him by a brother priest of 
 Fano, who was anxious to secure the attorney's 
 wealth to the good cause ; which Don Evandro 
 had thought effectually to do by conferring it, 
 with Lisa's hand, on the submissive son of his 
 eminently right-minded parishioner and intimate 
 friend, old Farmer Vanni. 
 
 Honest little Sandro, on the other hand, did 
 not much like the priest, who had now and then 
 a way of looking at him which he did not fancy.
 
 80 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 He always felt in his company as if he were in 
 the presence of a sharp detective officer prepared 
 to make use against him of any word that might 
 fall from his lips should a time ever come when 
 the priest might find it desirable to do so. How- 
 ever, in obedience to his unfailing maxim and 
 practice to hold the best candle he could lay his 
 hands on to every devil or devil's emissary whom 
 he might be doomed to meet in his way through 
 life, he spoke as above in opening his business 
 with the farmer. 
 
 "Everybody knows," resumed the little man, 
 "the admirable and truly Christian manner in 
 • which you have received, educated, and supported 
 your orphan relative, the Signorina Giulia. All 
 Fano has rung with your praises on this score, 
 my valued friend, and you have well deserved 
 them!" 
 
 Don Evandro here looked at the farmer with 
 a fixed and peculiar look that caused the hard- 
 featured old man to drop his eyes before it. The 
 priest had no special reason for thus reminding 
 his parishioner of any circumstances that might 
 be in both their hearts at that moment. But it 
 was part of his system, so long practised as to 
 have become quite habitual to him, never to lose
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDL 81 
 
 any opportunity of acquiring or consolidating 
 power over others, be they who they might, or 
 let the means be what they might. That was all 
 the object of the look — and the object was gained. 
 The old man's eyes fell, and his heart recognised 
 his master. 
 
 " But," resumed the attorney, " for a girl such 
 as the Signorina Giulia, who has her bread to 
 earn, and her way to make in the world, it would 
 be a great thing to obtain some knowledge of 
 many things which she would perhaps be more 
 likely to pick up in the city than in your own 
 undoubtedly more agreeable home. I put it to 
 you, your reverence, since we are happy enough 
 to have the benefit of your presence, whether it 
 does not strike you in that like ? " 
 
 " Most unquestionably ! " replied the priest. 
 "There can be no doubt about the matter. It 
 would be extremely advantageous to la Giulia to 
 sojourn for awhile in the city, if we only knew 
 any means of placing her there with propriety. 
 But that is the difficulty." 
 
 " Just so ! that was the difficulty ! Now that 
 difficulty I think I have been fortunate enough to 
 find the means of removing ! " 
 
 " Indeed, Signor Sandro ! " said Vanni, begin- 
 
 VOL. I. g
 
 82 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 ning to see that the removal in question might be 
 desirable for more reasons than that assigned 
 by the cautious little attorney. " Truly we shall 
 have reason to be very much obliged to you. 
 What is it you are good enough to think of 
 proposing for la Giulia poverina ? " 
 
 "Why, this it is," replied Signor Sandro, 
 addressing himself to the farmer, but looking 
 at Don Evandro, and evidently considering him 
 as the more important personage to be consulted ; 
 " a friend and very good client of mine, an elderly 
 widow lady, whose — a — companion has lately left 
 her, wants to meet with — what shall I say ? Not 
 exactly a servant, and perhaps not altogether a 
 companion ; somebody, in short, who for a mode- 
 rate recompense — moderate, for my friend is not 
 rich — would live "with her, and take care of her 
 and her house, and be taught all of housekeeping 
 that my friend could teach- — not a small matter, 
 allow me to say, for la Signora Clementina Dossi 
 is a capital housekeeper, I can telj you — and — do 
 what there is to be done in the house." 
 
 " Be a servant-of-all-work, in short ! " said 
 Farmer Vanni. 
 
 " Che ! che ! che ! Servant-of-all-work ! " cried 
 the attorney, who had been particularly labouring
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLM. 83 
 
 to prevent his proposition from assuming any such 
 appearance ; for he well knew and understood the 
 contadino pride, which would be likely to rise 
 in arms against such a proposal. It was not, as 
 the attorney knew perfectly well, any tenderness 
 on the part of the old farmer for his adopted 
 child that made the notion of accepting a place 
 as maid-of-all-work distasteful to him, but that 
 he shrank from having it said that an inmate 
 of Bella Luce, one of his family, and bearing 
 his name, had been obliged to accept such a 
 position. 
 
 " Nothing like a servant-of-all-work ! scarcely a 
 servant at all, I tell you." 
 
 "I should not like Giulia to take a place of 
 maid-of-all-work. None of the Vannis have ever 
 been in service ! " said the old farmer, rather 
 grimly. 
 
 " Of course not, my dear friend ! Can you 
 imagine such a thing ? I should not like to stand 
 in the shoes of the man who should come up 
 to Bella Luce to propose to the head of the Vanni 
 family to send one of its members to menial 
 service. But this is quite a different matter. 
 We are upon quite other ground. I appeal to 
 his reverence here, whose opinion we should both 
 
 g 2
 
 84 BEPPO, THE COXSCRIPT. 
 
 of us bow to implicitly, whether there is any 
 similitude between the two cases." 
 
 And Signor Sandro ventured a speaking look at 
 the priest as he spoke. 
 
 " Certainly it does seem to me/' said the priest, 
 " since you ask my opinion, that this is a proposi- 
 tion which any man might freely accept without 
 in any degree compromising the credit of his 
 family. Judging, my dear Signor Vanni, from 
 the details Signor Sandro has been good enough 
 to lay before us, I should say that there was 
 nothing in common between the position he has 
 in view for the Signorina Giulia and that of a 
 menial servant." 
 
 " Clearly not ! I was sure his reverence's 
 admirable judgment would see the thing in its 
 true light at once. You see, my dear friend, 
 there is no question of any wages as such ; — 
 merely a gratuitous douceur, — ' gratitudinis 
 causa' I may say, — our friend Don Evandro will 
 appreciate the appropriateness of the expression ; 
 — for service willingly rendered on the one hand, 
 and thankfully received, rather than exacted, on 
 the other. You will perceive, my esteemed Signor 
 Vanni, all the essential differences of the position 
 from that of one holding a menial capacity."
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI. 85 
 
 The farmer would have been very much puzzled 
 to explain in what the difference consisted, that 
 Signor Sandro had been setting forth so elo- 
 quently. But he understood that his priest 
 approved the measure. So he said : — 
 
 " I am sure, Signor Sandro, that we are very 
 much obliged to you, on poor Giulia's account ; 
 and, since il Signor Curato thinks well of it, it 
 can't be other than right. I should not have 
 liked the girl to go to service, because it's 
 well known that none of the Vannis ever 
 did go to service," repeated the farmer once 
 again. 
 
 "And then, you know, my much esteemed 
 Signor Vanni, I will not attempt to conceal from 
 you, that to a certain degree, I had an eye to 
 other considerations, — to a certain degree, I say, — 
 and hoped in this matter, as I may say, to kill 
 two birds with one stone." 
 
 " Which was th' other bird, then ? " asked the 
 farmer, bluntly. 
 
 " Well, now, I would bet a wager that his 
 reverence the Curato has already guessed my 
 thought upon the subject ! Is it not so, your 
 reverence ? " asked the little man, putting his 
 head on one side, and looking at the priest in
 
 86 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 a way that seemed to claim the fellowship of a 
 kindred high intelligence. 
 
 " You have been thinking, Signor Sandro, that 
 it might be just as well to remove la Giulia for 
 awhile from the companionship of our young 
 friend Beppo, if we are to hope to bring those 
 arrangements to bear which I had the honour of 
 proposing to my friend Yanni. That was your 
 worship's thought, I take it ; and I agree with 
 you." 
 
 " ' Rem acu tetigisti' which means, as your 
 reverence knows better than I can tell you, that 
 you have exactly hit the nail on the head ! 
 Dont you see it, Signor Yanni ? " 
 
 " I see that I don't mean to allow our Beppo 
 to have anything to say to Giulia, — not in the 
 way of marrying ; — it isn't likely." 
 
 "Well, then, my dear sir, since we have our 
 eyes on a young lady, who may perhaps with 
 better reason pretend to the honour of an alliance 
 with Signor Beppo, and since youth is sometimes 
 apt to be blind and self-willed in these matters, 
 does it not appear to you a judicious measure to 
 remove the source of danger ? " 
 
 " Surely, surely ! And I do hope that, when 
 she is gone, the lad will come round, and not
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI. 87 
 
 break my heart any more ! " said the old 
 farmer. 
 
 " Ha ! the best way to exorcise the charm, is 
 to pack off the charmer, in these cases. Is it not 
 so, your reverence ? " laughed the attorney. 
 
 " I think, as I have said, that your proposal is 
 a sound and judicious one, Signor Sandro," replied 
 the priest, " both with a view to our young friend 
 Beppo's advantage, and as likely to be exceedingly 
 useful to la loovera Giulia," 
 
 u Then we may consider the matter as settled. 
 I am sure I shall have killed three birds with one 
 stone, and rendered a service to my old friend 
 and client la Signora Clementina into the bargain. 
 I have no doubt she and la Signorina Giulia will 
 get on capitally together ! " 
 
 " And we are all very much obliged to you, I 
 am sure ! " said the old farmer, a little more 
 graciously than he had spoken hitherto. " When 
 do you think that la Giulia had better go to her 
 new home ? " 
 
 "Well! of course I would not say a. word to 
 Signora Dossi till I had consulted you, I am 
 quite sure she will be only too glad to get such a 
 prize as the Signorina Giulia. I must see her, and 
 settle about it. I should suppose it would be a
 
 88 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 case of the sooner the better! — perhaps next 
 Sunday. You would then be at leisure to bring 
 her into town yourself, Signor Yanni ; and see 
 my good friend Signora Dossi, which will be 
 satisfactory to you. Would that suit you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I could bring Giulia in on Sunday very 
 well ! Yes, that would suit very well ! " replied 
 the farmer. 
 
 "And then you should come and eat a bit 
 of dinner with me, you know, before returning 
 home," added Signor Sandro, rubbing his hands 
 cheerily. 
 
 " "Well ! thankye ! You are very good ! That 
 would all suit very well ! On condition, however, 
 that you will come up and dine at Bella Luce 
 on Lady-day," put in the contadino pride. 
 " Is it a bargain ? " 
 
 "With pleasure, my dear sir! There is my 
 hand upon it. I would ask my friend Beppo to 
 come with you on Sunday, only ; you under- 
 stand. There would be no use in long leave- 
 takings, and chattering, and nonsense ; you com- 
 prehend me ! And it would be better, perhaps, 
 if he and Lisa were to meet not so immediately, 
 but after a little while." 
 
 These considerations were quite beyond the
 
 SIGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI. 89 
 
 reach of Farmer Vanni's mental powers. He said, 
 however, that "certainly that would be best ;" and 
 the priest gave the little attorney an intelligent 
 nod, which the latter returned with half a dozen, 
 accompanied by winks to match. 
 
 " It is understood, then, my dear Signor Yanni, 
 that, unless you hear anything from me to the 
 contrary, you bring in la Signorina Giulia on 
 Sunday. Come direct to my house, and I will 
 go with you to Signora Dossi. You will find 
 her, and la Giulia will find her, an excellent, 
 worthy creature — a heart of gold ! At what hour 
 can you be in the city ? " 
 
 " Oh ! early : so as to be back at Bella Luce 
 before the Ave Maria ! " 
 
 " Then I'll tell you ! You must be early 
 enough to go to la Clementina, before high mass 
 — say before eleven o'clock. We will dine at 
 mid-day, which will give you plenty of time." 
 
 "Thank you. That will do very well. "Will 
 you come and have a look at the vines ? " 
 
 Signor Sandro knew the contadino nature too 
 well, and was too desirous of standing well with 
 the wealthy farmer to refuse this invitation. So 
 they strolled out together into the field where 
 Yanni had been at work, and to which his two
 
 90 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 sons had already returned. The priest, remarking 
 that he had a few words to say to la Signora 
 Sunt a, remained behind ; and he and Signor 
 Sandro exchanged an adieu with somewhat more 
 cordiality than they usually adopted towards 
 each other. 
 
 And thus poor Giulia's destiny was settled for 
 her, as women's destinies mostly are settled, with- 
 out their knowledge or co-operation in any way ; 
 — and the old gentlemen made up their minds 
 that, when the dangerous charmer should have 
 been removed, the charm would cease to operate 
 on the refractory Beppo.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 
 
 S SOON as the attorney had started on 
 his way homewards, carefully leading 
 his old horse Moro by the bridle down 
 the first steep bit from the house of Bella Luce 
 to the bottom of the valley, Farmer Yanni 
 pulled off his jacket and returned to his work 
 of dressing the vines in the home vineyard, 
 without saying a word to any one of the family 
 of the important business that had been deter- 
 mined on. He knew, however, that his wife 
 would hear it all from the priest ; but was pretty 
 sure that it would not be mentioned by either 
 of them to Giulia before he should himself com- 
 municate the tidings to her. He pondered a 
 little on the question, how and when he should 
 break the news to his son ; and eventually de-
 
 92 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 termined to say nothing at all to him specially 
 on the subject ; — to mention it to Giulia in his 
 presence, treating the matter as if it was one 
 which very little concerned Beppo in any 
 way. 
 
 Don Evandro, when the farmer and the attorney 
 went out together, passed from the kitchen into 
 the loggia, where he found la sjoosa, as he thought 
 he should, quietly plying her distaff and spindle, 
 seated on the squared trunk of a chestnut-tree, 
 which had done duty for a bench in the loggia 
 for more than one generation. 
 
 " Signor Sandro came up here to make a pro- 
 posal which seems to me to have much good 
 sense in it," said the priest, sitting down by the 
 side of Dame Assunta, and offering her a pinch of 
 snuff as he spoke. 
 
 " A proposal, your reverence ? And what was 
 that ? " 
 
 " Why, that this troublesome, headstrong girl, 
 Giulia, should be sent to service in Fano, to a 
 place he has found for her. Of course he has 
 his own object to serve." 
 
 " To service ! Will Vanni consent to that ? 
 None of the Vannis ever did go to service ! " 
 
 "He has consented. The lawyer made it out
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 93 
 
 that it was not altogether a regular servant's 
 place ; and in speaking to Yanni, you must not 
 call it so, mind." 
 
 " He has consented ? " 
 
 " Yes ! of course he did ! It is a very good 
 thing. What is the use of letting those two go 
 on in the house together ? The only way is to 
 part them ! Don't you see ? " 
 
 "I don't think she gives him any encourage- 
 ment ! " 
 
 " Bah — h ! " cried the priest, shrugging his 
 shoulders, and drawing out the expletive into 
 an expression of the most utterly contemptuous 
 unbelief. " She has got eyes in her head ! I 
 tell you, the only way is to separate them." 
 
 " Well, I am sure, if your reverence thinks 
 
 so But I am afraid he won't forget her a 
 
 bit the more ! He isn't of the sort that forgets. 
 The Yannis are all terrible holders-on to anything 
 they once lay hold of, — terrible ! " 
 
 " Forget ! Well, perhaps his remembering may 
 serve our purpose equally well ! Is there no way 
 of falling out with a lover, Signora Yanni, besides 
 forgetting him 1 Don't you see ? " 
 
 "I don't see what is to serve, unless we can 
 get him to put the girl clean out of his head.
 
 94 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 I wish to heaven she had never darkened these 
 doors ; I do with all my heart ! " 
 
 " Ah ! It's too late in the day to wish that 
 now ! But, don't you see what will happen ? 
 Look at that girl ! You don't see such a girl 
 every day. Do you think the men won t come 
 round her down in the city, there, like the flies 
 come to the sugar ? And she with her spirit 
 and giddy laughing ways, and eighteen years ! 
 You don't think she is going to mope and pine, 
 and think of nothing but Beppo ! And he need 
 not fancy anything of the kind." 
 
 " I am quite sure the hussy will see nobody so 
 well worth thinking of ! " said the mother. 
 
 "That's very likely. But she will think of 
 what's under her eyes ! The fellows will come 
 round her ! She can't help herself if she would ! 
 Then, what follows ? Beppo will be jealous — angry 
 — furious ! He will hear all her goings-on. Of 
 course he will ; it will be our own fault if he 
 does not ! And it's odd to me if we can't bring 
 him to the point of marrying the first girl ready 
 to have him ! " 
 
 "But is Lisa Bartoldi ready to have him?" 
 asked Signora Anunta. 
 
 " That will be Signor Sandro's business to see
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 95 
 
 to. A girl is always more easy to manage than 
 a boy, in these cases. And such a girl as Lisa 
 Bartoldi ! I have seen her. There will be no 
 difficulty with her. Signor Sandro has only got 
 to say that it is what he chooses ! " 
 
 "You think so!" 
 
 "Altvo ! no doubt of it. So you see, signora 
 ram, this plan of sending la Giulia to the city 
 may serve our turn, even if we don't persuade 
 Signor Beppo to forget all about her," said the 
 priest, looking at her with a smile that was half 
 a sneer. 
 
 " I hope it may ; and I've no manner of doubt 
 that your reverence knows what is best and 
 wisest," said the farmer's wife, submissively. 
 " Had I better tell Giulia that she is to go ?" 
 
 "I think not. No doubt Signor Vanni will 
 speak of it this evening. Perhaps you had better 
 leave it to him to mention it." 
 
 " Yes, I think I should like that best. Giulia 
 is a good girl, poor thing, and submissive enough, 
 mostly ; but now and then she will break out, 
 and then there is no speaking to her. I declare 
 I have shaken in my shoes as I stood up to 
 her, before now, though you would not think 
 it."
 
 96 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 The priest smiled a peculiar smile, and took a 
 pinch of snuff. 
 
 " It comes like a flash of lightning with her/' 
 continued Signora Vanni, busily twirling away at 
 her spindle as she talked, " and it's all over in a 
 minute ; and then she runs away and shuts her- 
 self into her room. Yes, I should like best that 
 Vanni should tell her himself. Is it fixed when 
 she is to go to Fano ? " 
 
 " Signor Vanni has promised the attorney to 
 take her himself next Sunday, if he hears nothing 
 from him to the contrary," replied the priest, 
 quietly. 
 
 " Next Sunday ! And this is Thursday ! Mercy 
 upon us ! that's very sudden ! And her things ! 
 The poor girl should be sent decent, you know. 
 She is a Vanni, after all ! " remonstrated the 
 padrona, no little startled by the abruptness of 
 the proposed measure, though her surprise did 
 not avail to arrest the habitual plying of the 
 spindle. 
 
 " The only question is, whether the time be- 
 tween the telling her and the sending her off is 
 not too long, as it is," said the priest. " I should 
 have preferred letting her know nothing about it 
 till Vanni called her to start with him for Fano !'
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 97 
 
 " But her things ! " exclaimed the mistress of 
 the house, whose housewifely notions of propriety 
 were painfully shocked by the idea of having only 
 forty-eight hours allowed her for preparation in 
 that exclusively female department. 
 
 "Anything that is not ready can be sent 
 after her. Do you not perceive/' continued the 
 spiritual adviser, "that it is by no means de- 
 sirable that there should be much opportunity 
 for leave-taking and exchanging of promises, and 
 vows, and tears, and all that sort of thing 1 " 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I don't think that Giulia would 
 give in to anything of the kind. I don't, indeed, 
 your reverence I Bless your heart, if we had seen 
 anything of that sort, we should have made short 
 work of it before now, you may depend on it ! 
 Oh, no ! Giulia is a sensible girl, and knows 
 her place ; though she does go off into a fit of 
 tantrums now and again. Though I am his 
 mother, I must say that the foolery has all been 
 on Beppo's part. But, there ! we know what 
 young men are ! It was so in my time ! And, 
 though they do talk so much about the world 
 being changed, I suppose it's much as it was, in 
 that matter." 
 
 " Well ! if you will take my advice, you will 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 just keep an eye on them, as much as you can, 
 for these two days, and don't let them be together 
 a bit more than you can possibly help." 
 
 " I'll take care, your reverence !" 
 
 "And, look here!" said the priest, as he rose 
 from his seat on the chestnut log beside her, and 
 turned to leave the loggia, you can send her up 
 to the cura to lend Nunziata a helping-hand. 
 I'll tell la Nunziata to detain her all day ; and 
 that will help to keep her out of his way one 
 day, at all events." 
 
 " Yes, your reverence." 
 
 " Good afternoon, Signora Vanni." 
 
 "Good afternoon, and many thanks, your 
 reverence." 
 
 Breakfast, as a meal, is not known to Italian 
 peasants, and is not a matter of much moment 
 to the inhabitants of Italian cities. In the farm- 
 houses, the usual practice is to eat at mid-day, 
 and again when the day's work is over in the 
 evening. And there is very little difference, if 
 any, between the two meals. La zuppa is the 
 standing dish, generally the most important ; 
 and, in the poorer families^, often the only dish 
 at either meal. There is far less difference, 
 however, between the more easily circumstanced
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 99 
 
 and the poorer families of the contadino class, 
 than is the case among our own rural population. 
 The poorer are less hard pushed than are our own 
 very poor ; and the richer are more thrifty, — 
 more niggardly, if the reader please, — and more 
 given to saving, than our own people when in 
 easy circumstances. A rich Italian countryman 
 likes to make a show of his wealth ; but it is 
 only done on special and rare occasions and 
 solemnities. The general staple of his life is 
 fashioned on very much the same plan as that 
 of his poorer neighbours. 
 
 The whole of the feast spread before the un- 
 expected visitor at Bella Luce, the wienu of 
 which had been rehearsed by the mistress of 
 the house with almost as much ostentation as 
 that which struts in the written cartes of more 
 aristocratic houses, had been, with the excep 
 tion of the minestva, and probably the rasheis, 
 an improvised addition to the family repast. 
 And at supper-time, the remnant of the frittata, 
 and a fragment of the fowl, furnished an un- 
 usually luxurious second course after the never- 
 failing zwppa or minestva ; the difference be- 
 tween the two being, that the first is made 
 with bread sopped (inzuppato) in broth, and 
 
 n 2
 
 100 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 the second always with some form of what is 
 known in England as maccaroni, but which is 
 more commonly called in all parts of Italy, save 
 Naples, pasta. The latter is often, especially 
 in the north of Italy, eaten with so large a 
 proportion of the solid material, to so small a 
 quantity of the liquid, as no longer to corre- 
 spond with our idea of soup at all. 
 
 Giulia did not make her appearance again in 
 the kitchen, till she came out from her hiding- 
 place to prepare the evening meal. On any 
 other occasion la Signora Vanni would probably 
 have been after her before that time, to see that 
 the spindle was duly twirling, and the ball of 
 yarn on it duly swelling ; though, to tell the 
 truth, Giulia was not an idle girl, and generally 
 got through the hank of flax on her distaff in 
 as short a time as la sposa herself. But upon 
 the present occasion, the mistress was not anxious 
 for a meeting with Giulia; and the latter at- 
 tributed the unusual prolongation of the privacy 
 permitted to her to the dish of chat with the 
 priest, which she knew Sunta was enjoying, and 
 which she supposed was being prolonged during 
 the whole afternoon. 
 
 When she came into the kitchen to perform
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 101 
 
 her evening duty, la sposa was not there ; and 
 Giulia prepared the supper by herself. 
 
 The usual hour came ; the sun was dipping 
 his red disk behind exactly that bit of the crest 
 of the Apennine, which he always touched every 
 evening at the time when the vines were being 
 pruned, and was flinging a great glowing patch 
 on just that section of the far-off Adriatic, which 
 was visible from the mouth of the Bella Luce 
 valley ; and Giulia, having completed her pre- 
 parations for the evening meal, was standing at 
 the door dreamily looking out at the slowly 
 fading glory, when the farmer and his two sons 
 came strolling slowly up from their light day's 
 work. 
 
 Reverie is generally accompanied by a graceful 
 position and arrangement of the body and limbs. 
 It is not advisable to practise reverie with a view 
 to attaining this result, inasmuch as the intention 
 would suffice to prevent the desired effect ; — the 
 cause of the fact being simply this, that reverie 
 presupposes an absence of self-consciousness, and, 
 therefore, ministers to grace exactly as an excess 
 of self-consciousness mars it and insures awk- 
 wardness and affectation. 
 
 Giulia's attitude, as she stood at the kitchen-
 
 102 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 door, is chargeable with this little excursus. It 
 was singularly graceful; and her figure as she 
 stood, so that a slanting ray just caught and 
 lent a glory to her head, while the rest of her 
 person was in shadow, if only it could have been 
 transferred to canvas by some artist, who would 
 have been contented to add nothing to what he 
 saw, would have made the painter's fortune. 
 
 She was dressed in that mixture of colours so 
 much affected by the Italian peasantry — red and 
 blue. She had a blue skirt, a scarlet body, and 
 white linen sleeves. The skirt was short enough, 
 and the shoe cut low enough, and the white 
 stocking well drawn enough to show to proper 
 advantage a specially trim ankle and well -formed 
 foot. The scarlet body fitted well enough to set 
 off admirably all the contours of a bust such as 
 is rarely seen in cities — rarely among the over- 
 luxurious rich ; more rarely still among the im- 
 perfectly nourished poor. A little frilled collar, 
 scrupulously clean, circled the matchless column 
 of a throat, that, sunburnt as it was, carried the 
 head so exquisitely poised upon it, in a manner, 
 and with a proud expression of unconscious dig- 
 nity, which would have become a maiden queen. 
 The rare abundance of raven hair was neatly,
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 103 
 
 and, indeed, artistically arranged in masses on 
 the sides and at the back of her head. A long 
 silver bodkin, with a large round head of filagree 
 work, was passed through the knot of it at the 
 back. She was standing with her left shoulder 
 slightly leaning against the door-post ; the elbow 
 of her right arm was resting on the palm of her 
 left hand ; and her chin, somewhat drooping, was 
 supported by her right hand. 
 
 If it be asked whether all the girls in the 
 farm-houses of the Romagna have their collars 
 as scrupulously clean, and their whole costume 
 as neat and attractive as that of Giulia Vanni 
 undoubtedly was, I can only say that I have 
 every reason to believe that the Romagna girls 
 have the peculiarity of always appearing so when 
 they live in the same house with such a young 
 man as Beppo, whom they consider it to be their 
 duty to keep at a distance. 
 
 The beauty of Giulia's figure and attitude had 
 not been lost on Beppo, as he approached the 
 house. His eye had eagerly sought the door- 
 way ; for it often happened that she stood there 
 a few minutes at that hour to look out on the 
 sunset sea and landscape. But as soon as she 
 saw him — was it quite as soon ? — she flashed
 
 104 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 away like one of those pretty bright lizards of 
 her country, which may be watched basking on 
 a stone as long as they are unconscious of the 
 watcher's presence, but which flash out of sight 
 with the speed of lightning as soon as they be- 
 come aware that they are looked at. 
 
 Giulia vanished, and did not show herself in 
 the kitchen till the men and the mistress of the 
 family had taken their places at the supper- 
 table. Then she slipped in and quietly took 
 her usual place on the bench next the wall, by the 
 side of the Signora Sunta. The farmer occupied 
 one end of the long narrow table, and the two 
 young men sat on the outer bench, opposite to 
 their mother and cousin. 
 
 The meal proceeded in silence till the soup had 
 been eaten, and then the farmer said, " There ! a 
 man can talk better when he has got something 
 in the inside of him, especially when he has been 
 in the fields all day ; and I have got something to 
 tell you. There is a benedizione del cielo* for 
 you, Giulia, What should you say to going to 
 live a spell at Fano, to learn — all manner of 
 things that city-folks know, and that you might 
 live up here everlasting without ever knowing ?" 
 * A popular phrase for a great and unexpected benefit:
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 105 
 
 " Me, Signor Paolo ! " said Giulia, looking up 
 in amazement. 
 
 " Yes, you ! — who else \ And, to make it 
 short, it don't much signify what you think of 
 it, for it's all settled. There's a place found 
 for you ! " 
 
 " A place ! Go away from Bella Luce ! " gasped 
 Giulia, while the open scarlet bodice began to 
 rise and fall very perceptibly. 
 
 Beppo had remained fixed, as if suddenly 
 turned to stone, with his mouth open, one hand 
 with his fork in it raised in air, and the other 
 grasping his knife, held bolt upright on the table, 
 staring at his father, and making but slow pro- 
 gress as yet towards realising the full import of 
 the announcement. 
 
 "Yes, a place; and a very good one too!" 
 resumed the farmer. 
 
 " Oh ! Si' or Paolo ! please don't send me away ! 
 I'll work harder and spin more ! Don't send me 
 to service ! I'd far rather live always at Bella 
 Luce !" said poor Giulia, wholly unconscious of 
 the possible construction that might be put on 
 her last words. 
 
 "Always live at Bella Luce ! Ah! that Til 
 be sworn you would ! " sneered the old man,
 
 ]06 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 bitterly and grimly; "but that is just what I 
 don't mean you to do, my girl ! " 
 
 The blood rushed in an impetuous torrent all 
 over Giulia's brown cheek, and over her forehead 
 and neck. Her ears tingled, her hands burned, 
 and she felt as if she should have choked. It 
 was some relief to her to know that no one of 
 the party save the old man was looking at her. 
 Beppo was still staring in speechless dismay at 
 his father ; and Carlo was watching his brother 
 with a malicious smile. The eyes of la sposa 
 were fixed upon her plate. With a mighty effort 
 of will, Giulia prevented herself from sobbing or 
 giving any other outward sign of her distress. 
 Presently all the tingling blood flowed back 
 again, and she sat as pale and motionless as a 
 corpse, with her eyes fixed on the table. 
 
 "And what do you mean by talking about 
 service?" continued the farmer, angrily. "Who 
 said anything about service ? You are not going 
 to service ; and you are never to speak of your 
 position as such. None of the Vannis ever did 
 go to service ; and you are a Yanni, worse luck ! 
 You are never to speak to any one of going to 
 service, do you hear ?" 
 
 " But, father, everybody will know it ! You
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 107 
 
 can't think to keep it a secret ! " said his son 
 Beppo, at last, flattering himself that he had 
 found an unanswerable argument against the 
 measure. 
 
 " You hold your tongue, booby ! " said his 
 father, roughly, yet with a very different sort 
 of manner from that in which he had spoken 
 to the stranger within his gates. "Believe me, 
 you know nothing about it. What I mean is, 
 that the place Giulia is going to is not the place 
 of a menial servant. Do you hear, Giulia ? " 
 
 "Yes, Signor Paolo!" said Giulia, now able to 
 speak calmly, in a low, submissive voice. 
 
 "And you understand that you are never to 
 speak to any one of being in service?" 
 
 "Yes, Si'or Paolo !" repeated Giulia, still keep- 
 ing her eyes fixed on the table. 
 
 " And his reverence quite approves of it ; and 
 thinks you ought to be very thankful for your 
 good fortune ! Do you hear ? " 
 
 "Yes, Si'or Paolo!" 
 
 "And Signor Sandro, who was good enough to 
 think of you, and to find this fine opportunity, 
 and to ride up here to-day on purpose to bring the 
 offer of it, says that it's a very advantageous 
 thing!"
 
 108 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 "Was it Signor Sandro's kindness to think of 
 this scheme?" asked Giulia, looking up at the 
 farmer for a moment. 
 
 " Yes, it was ! and very kind of him, I take it !" 
 replied the old man. 
 
 " Very ! " said Giulia, while a very legible sneer 
 curved her lip into a form of beauty that was not 
 habitual to it, and flashed in one brief gleam out 
 of her eyes, before she again dropped them on the 
 table. 
 
 "Do you think it necessary, Si'or Paolo," she 
 asked in a hard, constrained sort of tone, after 
 there had been a minute or two of silence, " to 
 send me away from Bella Luce, for — for — your 
 own views, as well as for my advantage ?" She 
 knew that the old man would understand her, and 
 that the others, at all events Beppo, would not. 
 
 He looked hard at her, as he answered, " Yes, 
 I do think it is necessary." 
 
 Giulia set her teeth hard together, and clenched 
 her hands under the table till the nails nearly cut 
 the skin, while a little shiver passed over her, 
 leaving her as rigid, as pale, and as hard-looking 
 as marble. And she said nothing more. 
 
 "But you have said nothing about the time, 
 Paolo ! " said la Signora Sunt a, who, with the diffi-
 
 THE ANNOUNCEMENT. 109 
 
 culty about "the things" heavy on her mind, felt 
 that the worse part of the farmer's communication 
 still remained untold. 
 
 " The time ! why, as his reverence said, and 
 Signor Sandro said too, the sooner the better ! 
 You can't be too much in a hurry to make sure of 
 a good thing ! I shall be able to go into Fano 
 with her on Sunday ; and that will be the best 
 day. It was all settled so with Signor Sandro !" 
 
 " It '11 be very difficult to get anything ready at 
 all decent by that time ! Do you hear, Giulia, my 
 girl ! You are to go on Sunday ! " repeated la 
 Sunta; for Giulia gave no sign of having heard 
 a word more since the last answer the farmer had 
 given to her question. 
 
 " Yes, Si'ora Sunta ; I hear ! " 
 
 " Well ! how ever we are to get your things 
 ready by that time, I don't know ! " 
 
 " It won't signify much about the things ! " said 
 poor Giulia, making a very narrow escape from 
 letting a sob escape her (and she would rather 
 have knocked her head against the wall than have 
 done so !) as she spoke. 
 
 " Nonsense ! don't signify ! Why, you must go 
 decent, child ! You are a Vanni, after all ! " re- 
 monstrated Signora Sunta.
 
 110 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 " Worse luck ! " said Giulia, re-echoing the far- 
 mer's previous words. 
 
 The old man scowled at her, but said nothing. 
 
 " Come upstairs with me, child, and help me to 
 see what there is to be done. And thank God 
 that you are a Yanni, and have got decent people 
 to think for you and care for you ! " 
 
 So Giulia got up and followed the padrona out 
 of the kitchen, venturing as she passed to cast 
 one furtive sidelong look at Beppo from under 
 her eyelashes. It was by no means intended to 
 meet any look of his. It was merely a look of 
 observation. 
 
 It found him still in a state of collapse from the 
 extremity of his astonishment and dismay.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 
 
 HEN Giulia at last escaped from la 
 Signora Sunta, and the inspection and 
 consideration of " things," and was able 
 to get away to her own little chamber for the 
 night, she felt as if she had been stunned during 
 the last two or three hours, and was only now 
 for the first time able to bring her mind really 
 to bear, with anything that could be called 
 thought, on the communication that had been 
 made to her. She drew the rough bolt which 
 supplied the place of lock and handle on the 
 door of her room through its two rusty staples 
 by its hanging handle, and having thus made 
 sure of privacy, she sat down on the side of her 
 bed to think. 
 
 And the thoughts that came were very bitter.
 
 112 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 It was not that she was being separated from 
 Beppo. Che ! What was Beppo to her ? What 
 could Beppo ever be to her % She had known all 
 that before ; not now for the first time. She knew 
 very well that he loved her. What was the good 
 of pretending not to be aware of it % But was 
 that her fault 1 And she herself — did she care for 
 him % What business had anybody to ask that ? 
 What right had anybody to think it ? She was 
 quite sure that Beppo must fancy she hated him. 
 Had not she always behaved as if she had an 
 aversion to him \ Had she ever sought his love ? 
 Had she not abstained from even raising her eyes 
 to look on the sacred heir-apparent of the house ? 
 Had she not striven loyally 1 She knew his posi- 
 tion ; she knew her own ; she knew his father's 
 hopes and wishes. Had she not been loyal % And 
 now she was turned out of the house for fear 
 Beppo should make love to her ! And others were 
 to be consulted ! She was to be talked over with 
 strangers ! This smooth-spoken attorney from 
 Fano — his kindness to her ! Oh bella ! as if she 
 did not see through his kindness, and understand 
 it all ! Had she tried to stand in the way of his 
 daughter? Let the whity-brown thing have 
 Beppo, if she could catch him. She had a cer-
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 113 
 
 tain amount of doubt about her success in that 
 respect; even though she, the poor cousin, were 
 turned into the streets to secure it ! 
 
 It was hard to bear ; very, very hard ! How 
 cautious she had been! how proudly determined 
 never to allow room for a suspicion that she had 
 abused the charity of which she was the object, 
 to the securing of a rich marriage ! Cautious ! — 
 she had been cruel in her proud humility, yes, 
 cruel to poor Beppo — honest, frank, simple, loving- 
 hearted Beppo. Love her ! That he did. At 
 all events, she would never be guilty of the 
 hypocrisy to herself of pretending not to know 
 how truly, deeply, devotedly, untiringly he had 
 loved her ! And how proudly cold she had always 
 been to him! How she had denied him every 
 opportunity of being alone with her ! How she 
 had affected not to understand his simple, honest 
 love-making, to despise his bluff, awkward com- 
 pliments; to turn away from the frank, loving 
 glance of his great blue eyes ! And all for this ! 
 And as these thoughts passed through her mind 
 the hard, proud mood gradually faded out of it, 
 the Up began to quiver, her breath came short, 
 the tears gathered slowly in her eyes ; and pre- 
 sently, as a special recollection crossed her mind 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114} BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 of poor Beppo's look, when at his last ceppo he 
 had walked into Fano, and bought a neck ribband 
 of a colour she had praised, and she had told him 
 at his return that he had better give it to Nina 
 Sganci, at Santa Lucia, for that she had changed 
 her mind, and should never wear that colour 
 again. A passionate agony of weeping seized her. 
 Oh ! how she saw before her his look of pain and 
 disappointment, as he flung the despised gift 
 behind the kitchen fire ! And she threw herself 
 down on the pillow, sobbing at the thought as 
 though her heart would break. 
 
 But when the paroxysm of uncontrollable weep- 
 ing had in some degree subsided, she began to 
 question herself about her future conduct, espe- 
 cially on the immediate occasion of her departure. 
 Beppo would endeavour to speak with her; — to 
 bid her farewell, at least. Was she to take care 
 that he got no opportunity of doing so \ Was it 
 likely that he would confine himself to a simple 
 farewell ? Would not so fair, so plausible an 
 opportunity, be seized for saying something else 
 as well ? And how was that something else to be 
 answered ? Must her answer — her final answer 
 to him — be of a piece with all her past conduct ? 
 Had his father deserved of her that it should be
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 115- 
 
 so ? Was she bound in honour and in gratitude 
 for the charity, that was now about to be with- 
 drawn from her, to continue to sacrifice his happi- 
 ness, and — her own ? Yes ! the hot blush came 
 with the thought, though no human eye was there 
 to see it. It was the sacrifice of her own happi- 
 ness. Yes ! Conscience had spoken the truth ! 
 Let it stand. She would affect or attempt to 
 deny it no more. Was she bound to continue 
 this self sacrifice ? Had she not done enough ? 
 Might she not consider all accounts to be squared 
 between herself and Paolo Vanni ? In that case, 
 with how different a heart should she go away 
 from Bella Luce, and face the world ! In that 
 case — ah ! would not the little attorney's inter- 
 ference turn out to have been a blessing ? In that 
 case — at the delicious moment when those dear, 
 honest blue eyes should look once again so wist- 
 fully into hers, and she should be able with one 
 glance and half a word to let him know that all 
 the past had been a delusion and a falsehood ; — 
 that the cruel duty, which had coerced her every 
 word and look, was a duty no longer ! And 
 Beppo would know at last that she was not cold, 
 nor proud, nor capricious, nor insensible. Ah ! the 
 happiness of giving this happiness ! 
 
 i 2
 
 116 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 But hold a moment ! Was it solely duty and 
 gratitude towards Paolo Vanni, and respect for his 
 wishes, that had governed her conduct towards 
 Beppo ? "Why had she felt at supper time, when 
 he had misunderstood, or affected to misunder- 
 stand, her unlucky speech about her wish always 
 to live at Bella Luce, — why had she then felt as 
 if she wished the earth to gape and swallow her 
 up ? Surely that was not all because the old 
 farmer seemed to suspect her of ungratefully 
 opposing herself to his will ! If he had accused 
 her of any other form of ingratitude, would she 
 have felt the same ? No ! assuredly she would 
 not. There was some other feeling then at work, 
 to stir her heart so powerfully and painfully ? 
 
 She honestly then set to work to discover the 
 nature of this other feeling. 
 
 Like to live at Bella Luce ! She, the poor, 
 portionless, destitute orphan ! No doubt ! — said 
 old Paolo Yanni. And oh, what agony it had 
 been to hear and see his sneer, as he spoke the 
 words ! Would nobody else say and think the 
 same ? If she were to suffer dear, honest Beppo 
 to love her, would not the world also sneer, and 
 say, that she liked to live at Bella Luce, — espe- 
 cially as its mistress ? And could she endure
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 117 
 
 that ? Would not men tell each other, that the 
 worst day's work old Paolo Vanni ever did, was 
 when he brought the orphan girl home to be 
 received into his family % Would it be tolerable 
 that such things should be said ? Would not the 
 women say, that she laid herself out for poor 
 simple Beppo's admiration, — had baited the hook 
 with smiles, and who knows what else, and 
 cleverly caught her fish ? Could, oh ! could she 
 bear that ? And for all the family, and the 
 friends and relatives to look on her as an unwel- 
 come intruder, who had pushed her way among 
 
 them by . Oh, it made her turn sick, and a 
 
 cold shiver pass over her, to think of the filling 
 up that would be supplied to that blank ! 
 
 Like to live at Bella Luce, would she ? I dare 
 say ! And poor Beppo too ! Loid bless you, he 
 never suspected anything ! 
 
 No ! no ! no ! she could not bear it ! Death 
 rather, a thousand times rather than such agony ! 
 
 Bless you, sir, she snared him like a bird in a 
 springe ! He had no chance with her — there in 
 the same house with him ! And he so simple and 
 honest too ! Ah, she was a cunning one ! Love ! 
 don't tell me ! Yes, I dare say, she was in love 
 with the broad acres of Bella Luce. Ah, it was
 
 118 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 a bad day for the Vannis when that sly baggage 
 came into the house ; — and she without a smock 
 to her back. Why, if it had not been for her 
 wiles and lures, Beppo might have had old Sandro 
 Bartoldi's daughter ; and what a match that would 
 have been ! 
 
 And then the women would smile, and cast 
 their eyes down, and say that a woman could 
 always bring a man to her lure — if she chose to 
 do so ! Only it is not every woman, nor many 
 women, thank Heaven ! who would do it. 
 
 No ! These things should never, never be said 
 of her. No ! Though her heart broke in the 
 struggle. No ! Though she should be obliged 
 to keep a smiling face to-morrow, while her heart 
 was dropping tears of blood. Ay, to-morrow ! it 
 would be a hard task that morrow, — and the day 
 after ! A hard and difficult task. 
 
 Poor Beppo, too ! How he would be pained ! 
 How she must torture him ! Avoid all possible 
 meeting ! That was the only way ! No good- 
 byes ! No leave-takings I That would never do ! 
 She would not answer for herself, if on the eve of 
 parting, those honest, loving eyes got a chance 
 of looking full into hers, while Beppo asked her 
 if she had no word for him, — if all his many
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 119 
 
 years' faithful love must go for nothing? How 
 could she trust herself to answer that ? No, no ! 
 no leave-takings ! — no last words ! 
 
 "Good-bye, Beppo!" with a nod and a saucy 
 smile, while turning on her heel to go. 
 
 She acted the scene as the thoughts passed 
 through her mind, and burst afresh into passionate 
 and bitter tears in the midst of it. 
 
 Sudden as a flash of lightning the thought 
 dashed through her brain, " Could Beppo have 
 understood these horrid words, at dinner, as his 
 father understood them ? Did he, too, think that 
 
 living at Bella Luce might mean " She 
 
 started to an upright position, and put her hands 
 to her forehead, as if to help her mind to answer 
 this question. And the answer came from the 
 depth of her own heart, with assurance of its 
 truth. No ! No such thought would have found 
 entrance into Beppo's heart. He was too good, 
 too frank, too honest, — and — and — and loved her 
 far too well ! 
 
 And to leave him with the pain in his great 
 loving heart without a word ! 
 
 But no doubt he would soon console himself! 
 There were plenty who would like to live always 
 at Bella Luce. Was there not Lisa Bartoldi, a
 
 120 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 city lady, as fair and dainty as snow, and as rich 
 as a Jew, ready to give him all the love of her 
 heart ? Oh ! no fear of his pining ! 
 
 And then she told herself that it was a lie — 
 a wicked lie to say so! She knew that Beppo 
 would never love Lisa Bartoldi. She knew that 
 he would not console himself. She knew that 
 none other than she could console him. She 
 knew that he could love no other ! And yet she 
 must be mute, and say no word. She must be 
 hard — hard as marble ! cold, indifferent, gay as 
 ever ! 
 
 Oh! would to Heaven that these next two 
 days were over ! Would to Heaven that it were 
 all over ! 
 
 And then she cried herself to sleep. 
 
 The next morning la padrona would have 
 availed herself of the priest's hint, and sent Giulia 
 to the parsonage to be out of the wa}', had it 
 not been that the question of "the things" was 
 still pressing too heavily on her. So she kept 
 that resource in reserve for the next day, the 
 Saturday, before the Sunday fixed for Giulia's 
 departure ; and determined to keep her under her 
 own eye all that day, assisting in the work of 
 getting ready. Giulia acquiesced more than wil-
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 121 
 
 lingly in the commands of Sunta, to this effect. 
 She was very glad to escape any meeting with 
 Beppo that morning. As it was, she never went 
 down-stairs till after the men had gone out to 
 their work in the field. 
 
 The great room over the kitchen was turned 
 into a laundry for the nonce, for the making 
 ready of Giulia's modest wardrobe ; and there 
 she and la sposa worked together till it was time 
 to prepare the mid-day meal. That Giulia had 
 no objection to venture down to do, for she knew 
 that the men were away in the field. But when 
 the time for dinner came, she had a strong incli- 
 nation to say that she was not hungry, and 
 would continue their work up-stairs while Sunta 
 went down to dinner. But she was afraid of 
 letting the old lady suspect that she feared 
 meeting Beppo. She was afraid of the remarks 
 that would be made, and the questionings. And 
 especially she was afraid that the inevitable 
 meeting, which must come, would be worse and 
 more significative if it were deferred, and if it 
 followed so unusual an event as her absence from 
 the family mid-day meaL 
 
 So she made up her mind to go down to 
 dinner. Only when the sunlight streaming in
 
 122 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 under the eaves of the farm-house touched that 
 particular beam, which indicated that it was 
 nearly noon, she said to la sjposa, "Will you 
 go and take the soup up, Si'ora Sunta, while I 
 finish plaiting this collar? I will come down 
 directly it is done." 
 
 But as soon as ever the old farmer's wife was 
 out of the room, Giulia ran to the window, which 
 was over the kitchen-door, and looked out on 
 the path by which the men would come home 
 from the field ; and carefully hiding herself 
 behind the great heavy persiane, so as to be 
 invisible from below, kept watch for their coming. 
 
 No chronometer can be more accurately true 
 to time than the Italian peasant is in knocking- 
 off his work at mid-day ! They carry no watches, 
 but they never miss the time ! It was not many 
 minutes therefore that Giulia had to watch 
 before the men came towards the house. Yes ! 
 there was Beppo, with his pruning-hatchet hang- 
 ing from his loins behind, and his broad, shallow 
 white hat on the top of his curly brown hair, just 
 as usual ! 
 
 Was he just as usual? Generally the men 
 would come in talking to each other. There 
 was something to be said about the morning's
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 123 
 
 work between the father and his eldest son ; 
 but this morning the old man and Carlo were 
 walking in advance, and Beppo was lagging 
 behind. Giulia could not help fancying too that 
 there was not the usual springy elasticity in his 
 step. He was looking down on the ground as he 
 walked, and she could not see his face, therefore, 
 as he entered the kitchen-door below her post 
 of observation. 
 
 Giulia allowed a few minutes to elapse, to give 
 them time to seat themselves at the table, and 
 then slipping quietly down the stairs, she noise- 
 lessly entered the kitchen, and gliding to her 
 usual place, sate down without raising her eyes 
 or speaking. The meal passed in silence. Such 
 a circumstance was not so strange at the table 
 of a family of peasants, as it would have been at 
 any other. The peasantry are less given to talk- 
 ing than the people of the towns, especially at 
 table, unless indeed on the occasion of some 
 festival. But that is a totally different thing — 
 not differing in degree, so to speak, from the 
 ordinary every-day dinner, but altogether in kind. 
 
 No remark, therefore, was elicited from any 
 one of the party around the family table at 
 Bella Luce, by the silence which prevailed among
 
 124 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 them. Nevertheless, every one of them knew 
 what the cause of it was. Beppo tried hard to 
 get an answering look from Giulia, as she sate 
 opposite to him at the table, but in vain. She 
 held her eyes obstinately glued to the table. He 
 tried to get between her and the door, by which 
 she had to leave the room when they got up from 
 table ; but she perceived or guessed his purpose, 
 and was too quick for him, slipping through the 
 door and bounding up the stair to the upper 
 room, before he could get clear of the bench on 
 which he had been sitting. 
 
 And so the dinner was got over ! The slow 
 hours of the afternoon wore away in completing 
 the work of the morning by the two women up- 
 stairs in the great room. La Sunta tried two 
 or three times to enter on a little talk about 
 Giulia's prospects, about Signor Sandro's kind- 
 ness, about the place Giulia was going to ; but 
 she found her unwilling to talk. She answered 
 in half-whispered submissive monosyllables, and 
 seemed utterly indifferent alike to all the little 
 information Sunta could give her, and her many 
 speculations concerning la Signora Dossi, and the 
 duties that she, Giulia, would be expected to per- 
 form in her new sphere.
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 125 
 
 But when la padrona ventured on a few 
 observations on the expediency of prudence as 
 to her general conduct amid the dangers and 
 temptations of the great world into which she 
 was about to be launched — on the difficulties 
 apt to arise from the combination of good looks 
 such as hers, with poverty and a dependent posi- 
 tion such as hers — and on the necessity of remem- 
 bering always that she was a Vanni, Giulia's eyes 
 gleamed in a manner which admonished Sunta 
 that there were signs of " tantrums " in the air ! 
 She raised herself up from the work over which 
 she was stooping, as she stood at the long table, 
 and flashing through the tears that rose to her 
 eyes, at the mistress, who was on the other side 
 of the table, opposite to her, she said, 
 
 f< Would to God that I could forget it ! Would 
 to God everybody could forget it ! Would to 
 God a pestilence might blotch my face, and leave 
 me as ugly as " 
 
 "Lisa Bartoldi" was on her tongue. But a 
 sudden thought of all the revelation there was 
 in such a display of temper dashed through her 
 brain just in time to save her from uttering it. 
 The sudden pull-up brought with it too a change 
 of feeling.
 
 126 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 "Not that I am ungrateful, Signora Sunta," 
 she added, in a submissive tone, "for all your 
 kindness to me. I hope you will never think so. 
 I know how much I owe to you ! " 
 
 " Va bene ! Va bene ! " said the old woman, 
 glad that the threatened storm had dissipated 
 itself after one lightning flash and thunderbolt ; 
 " there, let us get on with these sleeves and the 
 collar, and then there will be nothing more to be 
 done but to put a new hem to the petticoat ; and 
 everything will be ready." 
 
 So they bent in silence over their work again. 
 Sunta, considering that it was perhaps natural 
 that the girl should be a little out of sorts at the 
 change before her, and having been sufficiently 
 admonished by the little outbreak that had taken 
 place, did not torment her further by any attempt 
 at talking. Nothing further was uttered by 
 either of them, except such brief words as the 
 work in hand rendered necessary; and before 
 the Ave Maria, Giulia's little trousseau was 
 completed. 
 
 And then came the supper, which was an 
 exact repetition of the noontide meaL Again 
 Giulia contrived to slip into her place after the 
 others had taken their seats. And again she
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 127 
 
 baffled Beppo in an attempt to gain one word, or 
 at least one look, from her, by cutting off her 
 retreat as they rose from the table. 
 
 And then there was another night of tears and 
 passionate outbursts, succeeded by sad musings, 
 which only confirmed her in the determination 
 she had reached on the previous night, that no 
 other course was open to her than an absolute 
 avoidance of any private interview or last words 
 of any kind with Beppo, and at every cost a con- 
 tinuation, for the few more hours that remained 
 to her at Bella Luce, of the repelling conduct 
 she had hitherto observed towards him. 
 
 And then, da capo ! — tears, followed by the 
 sleep that at eighteen years rarely fails to visit 
 pillows so wetted. 
 
 In the morning of the Saturday she was still 
 making something to do about the work that had 
 been finished over night, in order to avoid going 
 down-stairs, till the men should have left the 
 house, when la padrona came into the room, and 
 told her that she had promised his reverence the 
 Curato that Giulia should go up that morning to 
 the Cura to lend la Nunziata a hand at some work. 
 Possibly, too, his reverence might wish to say a few 
 words to her, before parting with his parishioner.
 
 128 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Giulia perfectly well understood the meaning 
 of this arrangement, and was not at all disposed 
 to quarrel with it. She was well pleased to spend 
 the day at the Cura ; and only hoped that his 
 reverence's few words might be as few as pos- 
 sible. So she dallied yet a few minutes in the 
 room over the kitchen, till she saw from the 
 window of it the old farmer and his second son 
 go forth to their work in the vineyard ! Could it 
 be that Beppo intended to absent himself from 
 his day's work, and keep guard in the kitchen 
 till she should come down ! Surely under the 
 present circumstances he would not venture upon 
 such a step as that ! What should she do \ Could 
 she tell la padrona that Beppo was alone in the 
 kitchen, and that she could not pass through it 
 except under her escort ? She would jump out 
 of the window rather I 
 
 She was not left long, however, in her difficulty. 
 She was still standing at the window, not so care- 
 fully concealed as when she had been watching 
 for the men to come home, when Beppo came 
 slowly out of the door. He had only been linger- 
 ing behind a few minutes in the hope that she 
 would come down ! When he had stepped two 
 or three paces from the door, while Giulia was
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 129 
 
 sadly marking his drooping head and dejected 
 mien, he turned and looked up at the window. 
 He evidently saw her, for his head was instantly 
 raised and stretched upwards in an imploring 
 attitude. He dared not raise his hands, for his 
 father and brother were yet within sight of him. 
 Yes ! he evidently had seen her ; but it could 
 only have been for half an instant. For with a 
 backward bound, as if she had put her foot on 
 red-hot iron, she placed herself out of sight 
 behind the shutter; yet so that she could still 
 see him standing in the same attitude in anxious 
 hope for awhile. Then he turned ; his head 
 dropped again on his chest, and he dragged his 
 limbs heavily to his work. 
 
 Then Giulia hurried down, and flitting like a 
 frightened thing round to the back of the house 
 from the kitchen door, — for the village of Santa 
 Lucia was a little way up the valley, whereas 
 the vineyard on which the men were at work 
 was to the front of the house, looking down the 
 valley, — set off for the priest's house. 
 
 His reverence, the Curato, was from home 
 when she reached the Cum ; but his housekeeper, 
 Ice Nunziata, was evidently prepared to receive 
 her. She had rather dreaded to encounter the 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 130 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 preachment which she expected from the priest, 
 and had still more shrunk from all the question- 
 ing and gossiping which she anticipated from la 
 Nunziata. But she was agreeably disappointed 
 in this respect. La Nunziata had evidently 
 received her cue. She just said that she was 
 sorry they were going to lose Giulia from Santa 
 Lucia ; — that it was very good of her to give her 
 one more day's help, as she had so often done, 
 before she went ; and then plunged into all the 
 variety of little household matters, which she had, 
 or had made a necessity for attending to. 
 
 The priest came home to his dinner at mid- 
 day, but went out again, after his siesta, without 
 Giulia having seen him. She began to natter 
 herself that the preachment part of the business 
 would be spared her. The day passed better and 
 more quickly than she had hoped; the evening 
 came, and she told la Nunziata that it was time 
 for her to go home. But the housekeeper said 
 that she must not in any case go without having 
 spoken to his reverence ; — that he would soon be 
 in ; — and that her orders were to keep Giulia till 
 he came. 
 
 The preachment then was to be administered. 
 
 It was about half an hour after sundown when
 
 MAIDEN MEDITATIONS. 131 
 
 Don Evandro returned home, — -just about the 
 time they would be finishing supper, and going 
 to their rooms to bed, at Bella Luce. As soon 
 as ever he came in Giulia was called into his 
 little sanctum, evidently for the preachment. 
 She ventured, however, on entering, to say — 
 perhaps with a view of shortening the infliction 
 as much as might be, — that she was afraid they 
 would all be gone to bed at Bella Luce, and 
 would think she was very late. 
 
 " Yes ! they are all gone to bed by this time, 
 except la Signora Sunta. I have just returned 
 from the farm. You need be in no uneasiness 
 about the time. I told la Sunta to wait for you 
 a little while, as I had not had time to speak to 
 you during the day." 
 
 And then came the expected few words. But 
 to Giulia's great surprise, they were not all of 
 the same sort with la padrona's little attempt at 
 preaching. Don Evandro spoke very kindly ; — 
 said not a word about any dangers of the town, 
 or anything of the sort ; — seemed quite uncon- 
 scious of the existence of any such dangers. 
 On the contrary, he spoke of his hopes that the 
 amusements of the city, which were natural and 
 proper for her age, would make her forget the 
 
 k 2
 
 132 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 regret which it was natural she would feel at 
 first leaving her home of so many years ; — spoke 
 of the indulgence of la Signora Dossi ; — she was 
 an old woman now, but had been young herself ; 
 and would understand that a girl, such as Giulia, 
 was not to be expected to lead the life of a 
 woman of sixty. He had no doubt that she 
 would find friends at Fano. Girls such as Giulia 
 — (a priest's smile here, half fatherly, half gal- 
 lant) — rarely failed to find them ! Let her culti- 
 vate any such — prudently and innocently of 
 course ; but by no means let her imagine that 
 it was her duty to shut herself up like a nun. 
 
 And therewith the priest kindly dismissed her, 
 telling her that she would find la padrona sitting 
 up for her ; and that she must make haste to go 
 to bed, as she was to start before daybreak the 
 next morning with Signor Paolo. 
 
 Giulia understood it all ; and smiled to herself, 
 somewhat bitterly, as she thought how much 
 trouble they were all taking to secure the object, 
 which was her own as much as theirs.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 
 
 i| 
 
 w 
 
 T WAS a walk of about two miles from 
 the village of Santa Lucia to the farm- 
 house of Bella Luce — a charming walk 
 down the valley by a little path through the 
 fields, which took its way just above the steep 
 part of the declivity. What has already been 
 said with regard to the position of the farm- 
 house was equally true of the path in question. 
 The upper ground above it rose in a gentle 
 slope, but the side of the valley below it was 
 much steeper ; not so steep as to become a 
 precipice, for it was all pasture land, but as 
 steep as it could well be compatibly with such 
 a purpose. The land on the upper side was 
 mostly tillage and vineyard. Almost all the way,
 
 134 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 after the little village was cleared, was through 
 fields belonging to Bella Luce. 
 
 Giulia exchanged two or three " good nights " 
 with the cottagers standing at their own open 
 door, or returning homewards in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the village ; but after she had 
 cleared it, the solitude was as perfect as if she 
 had had all the world to herself. It was a 
 lovely moonlight night. She knew every step 
 of the way, and every tree she passed, as well 
 as the furniture of her own chamber ; and her 
 sense of security was as complete, and would 
 have been so at any hour of the day or night, 
 as if she had been there. So she walked along, 
 in no wise hurrying, despite the priest's last 
 admonition, and not insensible to the beauty of 
 the scene and the hour, and to the sense of 
 liberty and freedom arising from the entirety of 
 the solitude. 
 
 It was the last time she thought, probably 
 enough the last time for ever, that she should 
 walk that path I She had loved Bella Luce well. 
 Though all had not been happiness there, she 
 was sad to leave it — to leave it most likely never 
 to return. Who knew what might come of this 
 new, strange life, so different, so vague, so full
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 135 
 
 of unknown elements and imperfectly-conceived 
 chances and changes ? How anxious she had 
 been for these two days to be over. They were 
 over now. The dreaded danger was past. Yes, 
 they had taken good care not to expose her to 
 that. To make all sure, she was to start before 
 daybreak. They need not have given themselves 
 so much trouble. Beppo must have been in bed 
 an hour or more. Fast asleep at that moment, 
 doubtless. Was he sleeping ? Did she honestly 
 in her heart believe that he was tranquilly sleep- 
 ing, knowing that he had seen her for the last 
 time ? No, she would have no affectation. She 
 would be honest with herself, — honest as Beppo 
 was. She knew that he was not sleeping ; more 
 likely would not sleep that night. 
 
 Poor Beppo ! She knew that he was thinking 
 of her that minute, restless in his bed, and count- 
 ing the hours till she was to start, and go away 
 for ever. Well ! It was all over now. She 
 might think as tenderly of him as she would, 
 now. She had fought her fight, and had con- 
 quered Yes. Thank heaven, she had conquered. 
 She was glad — oh ! so glad — that it was over. 
 She might own to herself now, how dearly — 
 dearly she had loved him I — loved him most
 
 136 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 when most she had seemed to drive him from 
 her. She marvelled how she had ever found 
 strength and courage to fight and conquer as 
 she had done. And if — 
 
 She started suddenly, and stopped in her 
 sauntering walk, bending her ear to listen. 
 There was a very large old cypress of great age, 
 which the Bella Luce people called the half-way 
 tree, because it was just about at an equal 
 distance from them and the village. It stood 
 right in the middle of the little path which 
 swerved on either side to pass round it. The 
 main, most used, and larger branch of the path 
 passed on the upper side, where the slope of 
 the valley was not steep. A smaller and very 
 narrow passage crept round the huge old trunk 
 on the other side, where the grassy slope fell 
 away not more than, six or eight inches from 
 the root of the tree. No doubt, had there been 
 no boys or goats at Santa Lucia, there would 
 have been no trace of a path on this side. 
 
 It was as she neared this tree that Giulia was 
 startled by a sound, it seemed to her as of some- 
 body hidden on the other side of the trunk of it. 
 She paused a moment ; but reflecting in the next, 
 that probaoly some villager had fallen asleep
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 137 
 
 there while resting on his way home, and that at 
 all events there could be nothing that she need 
 fear, she continued her walk. When suddenly, 
 as she came within a pace of the spot, and was 
 about to pass on the main part of the path, Beppo 
 stepped out from behind the trunk, and placed 
 himself full in the centre of the broad division 
 of the path. 
 
 Giulia, whose instant and sole impulse was to 
 escape, made a dash at the narrow strip of un- 
 certain path that passed on the other side of 
 the tree, intending to run for it to the farm, 
 and having very little doubt that she could out- 
 run Beppo after his day's work. 
 
 But the grass was wet with dew, and more- 
 over slippery with the dried pin-like leaves that 
 fell from the cypress. Her foot slipped, and she 
 would have rolled down the grassy slope, had not 
 Beppo with a sudden bound to that side of the 
 path, caught her with his arm round the waist, 
 and placed her again on the path ; but so as to 
 be himself between her and Bella Luce. Having 
 done so, he took his arm from her, as hastily as if 
 the touch of her had given him an electric shock. 
 
 The whole thing had been so instantaneous, 
 that no word had till then passed between
 
 138 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 them. For a moment they stood looking at each 
 other. 
 
 "Stand out of the path," said Giulia then, 
 with the tone and attitude and gesture that a 
 Semiramis might have used to a slave rash enough 
 to bar her way. 
 
 Beppo moved a hair's-breadth on one side, as if 
 constrained against his will to obey her behest. 
 But it was only a hair's-breadth ; he still, in fact, 
 barred the way, not only with his person, but 
 with his hands as he raised them, and said in a 
 piteous voice : 
 
 " Giulia ! oh, Giulia ! will you leave me in 
 this way ? " 
 
 And Giulia saw in the moonlight that the 
 whole of his great stalwart frame was shaking 
 with the intensity of his emotion as he spoke. 
 
 The fight was not, then, fought out yet ; the 
 victory not yet won : and if Giulia would win it, 
 it behoved her to fight again, to fight now, and 
 that well 1 
 
 "What right have you to waylay me in this 
 way?" she said; but her voice, now shook, and 
 was that of distress and sorrow, rather than of 
 anger. " What right have you to come here to 
 stop me ? " she continued, with great difficulty
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 139 
 
 preventing herself from bursting into tears. " It 
 is not good of you. It is not kind. You must 
 have known that if I had wished to speak to you, 
 I should not have kept out of your way." 
 
 " It was your wish, then, to go from Bella Luce 
 without saying one word of adieu, — one word of 
 kindness ! Oh, Giulia ! Giulia ! is it possible ? 
 Can it be that you wished and intended this ! " 
 and his strong, manly voice seemed nearer to 
 sobbing than even her own, as he spoke. 
 
 "Of course I intended it! What did your 
 father intend when he fixed to start before day- 
 break % What did your mother intend when she 
 sent me up to the Cura to-day ? What did the 
 priest intend when he kept me there till all at 
 home were in bed, or ought to be ? What did 
 they all intend ? " 
 
 " What do I care what they all intended ? I 
 thought only of you, Giulia; and I did think 
 notwithstanding — notwithstanding all, that you 
 would not have refused to speak to me, — to part 
 in kindness this last night. Oh, Giulia ! what 
 have I ever done, that you should hate me 
 so?" 
 
 And as he said the words he clasped his hands 
 together, and held them out towards her, and
 
 140 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 looked at her in a way that made the fight a 
 very hard fight indeed to poor Giulia. 
 
 Nevertheless, she was still fully purposed to 
 conquer. She made a mighty effort to crush down 
 the rising tide of sobs, to still the tumultuous 
 beating of the heart, that terribly threatened to 
 become convulsive — (and if it had, the battle 
 would have been as good as lost) — and to assume 
 the old tone in which she had so often answered 
 him, and by which she had given him — and 
 herself — so many a heartache. 
 
 " Hate you ! What nonsense it is talking in 
 that way, Beppo ! You know as well as I do that 
 I do not hate you. Why should I ? We have 
 always been very good friends ; and should be so 
 still, if you would not — persist so stupidly in 
 wanting to be something else." 
 
 " Something else % Yes ; I do want something 
 else, and something more. You know what I 
 want, cousin Giulia." 
 
 " Yes ; you want, like other big babies, just 
 what you can't have. So now let me pass, and 
 make haste home, or la padrona will be wonder- 
 ing what has become of me. I am really very- 
 angry with you for coming here to waylay me 
 in this way. And pray what on earth shall you
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 141 
 
 say to them at home ? " — (a little cold spasm shot 
 through Giulia's heart as she said the last word) 
 — " I suppose, as usual, I shall get the credit of 
 this piece of foolery." 
 
 "None of them know that I am out of the 
 house, except Carlo. They think I am in bed 
 and asleep," said Beppo, hanging his head. 
 
 " Except Carlo ! As if all the village would 
 not know it to-morrow ! Carlo, indeed, for a 
 confidant ! " 
 
 " I could not help it ; I hoped he would go 
 to sleep, and that I could get out of the window 
 without his being any the wiser. But he would 
 not go to sleep." 
 
 " And a pretty story he will make to-morrow." 
 
 " I think not, Giulia. He wanted to stop my 
 coming — said he would call up my father ; but I 
 said a few words to him," continued Beppo, as a 
 look came over him which Giulia had never seen 
 on his good-humoured face before ; " and he did 
 not say any more to prevent my coming ; and 
 I do not think he will speak of it to anyone." 
 
 " It will be very unlike him, then. And what 
 were the words you said to him, that produced so 
 mighty an effect, pray ? " 
 
 " I told him," said Beppo, with the stern look
 
 142 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 that seemed to change all the character of his face, 
 and speaking with a concentrated sort of calmness 
 unnatural to him, " I told him that if he stirred 
 from his bed I would knock his brains out against 
 the wall ; and that if he ever breathed to any- 
 human soul that I had left the house, I would 
 shoot him like a polecat." 
 
 " Beppo ! " cried Giulia, in unfeigned astonish- 
 ment and dismay, "you terrify me, and make 
 me really hate you" — (she loved him at that 
 moment better than she ever loved him before). 
 "I did not suppose it was in you to think such 
 wicked, horrid thoughts." 
 
 " Giulia, I am desperate ! You make me des- 
 perate ; you make me feel as if neither my own 
 life nor any other man's life were worth a straw. 
 Giulia, say a word to me, look kindly on me, and 
 I will be good and kind and gentle to all the 
 world. Oh, Giulia, don't leave me in my despair 
 and misery ! Give me some hope, Giulia ; some 
 little hope, and it will save me ! " 
 
 Certainly the fight was a very, very hard one. 
 It was almost going against her ; and if Beppo 
 could only have known how nearly it was going 
 in his favour, he would have conquered. As it 
 was, it was wholly impossible to her to keep up
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 143 
 
 the light and would-be easy tone she had at- 
 tempted at first. 
 
 " Hope, Beppo," she said, sadly ; " what hope 
 can I give you ? Even supposing that I felt for 
 you all that you would have me feel, what hope 
 could I give you ? Do you not know that there 
 can be nothing between your father's son and 
 the outcast pauper who has lived upon his 
 charity?" 
 
 " Spare me, spare me, Giulia ! Don't say words 
 which make me feel towards my father as I would 
 not feel. He is old ; and when men get old they 
 think more of money. But I would be patient ; 
 I would never contradict him, if I only knew that 
 you loved me." 
 
 " But it is not only your father, Beppo. What 
 would all the family say ? What would the world 
 say ? Would they not say that the orphan who 
 was taken in for charity had schemed to entrap the 
 heir \ Oh ! I could not bear it. You could not 
 bear it for me if you loved me, Beppo." 
 
 " If I loved you ! If I loved you ! Giulia, 
 Giulia, it makes me mad to hear you. And to 
 talk of what the people may say, when it is to me 
 a question of life and death. Say ; why they 
 would say that Beppo Vanni's good luck was
 
 144 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 greater than he deserved — that there was not a 
 man in all Romagna who might not envy him. 
 Only give me the right to do it, only give me a 
 hope that you may be brought to look on me, and 
 trust me to drive the malignant sneers of any 
 who dare sneer down their accursed throats. If 
 you fear the world, Giulia, only let me stand 
 between you and the world." 
 
 " It cannot be, Beppo," she said, shaking her 
 head, sadly. "It can never be. Let me go 
 home." 
 
 " And leave me thus ! Oh, Giulia, you cannot 
 be so cruel ! Think of my wretchedness when you 
 are gone." 
 
 "And I am going to such happiness," said 
 Giulia ; and the tears began to flow from her eyes 
 and betray themselves in her voice. 
 
 " Why should you not be happy ? You will 
 find plenty to love you, and some one among 
 them you can love," said Beppo, bitterly. 
 
 "Their love would be loathsome to me. I'll 
 have no love," said Giulia, now sobbing beyond 
 her power to conceal it. "No love — no love — " 
 she said amid her sobs, while a little nervous 
 movement of her foot on the grass, and the con- 
 vulsive wreathing together of her fingers, as she
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 145 
 
 held them in front of her bosom, showed the 
 extremity of her agitation ; " no love — " she 
 repeated, — "save yours," was upon her tongue. 
 She had all but said it. She felt as if she would 
 have given worlds to say it ; but she choked it 
 down, and said instead, " Oh, Beppo, how can you 
 make me so miserable ? " 
 
 "III make you miserable ! " said poor Beppo, 
 in utter amazement. 
 
 "Yes; you do. You do make me — miserable 
 — by — by — by talking about other — other men 
 making love to me. I hate them, all — all, I do ! " 
 
 Oh, poor, honest, dull, simple-minded Beppo, he 
 did not see the truth. 
 
 "I thought it was talking about loving you 
 myself that made you angry," said he, in the 
 extremity of perplexity. 
 
 " I hate that too," pouted Giulia, as she shot at 
 him a glance from the corner of her eye that had 
 almost the gleam of a smile in it, struggling out 
 half-drowned in tears. 
 
 "But you said you did not hate me, Giulia," 
 remonstrated he. 
 
 " No ; I don't hate you, Beppo. But now I 
 must go home directly." 
 
 " And you do hate all other men," said Beppo, 
 
 VOL. I. l
 
 146 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 pondering deeply, and more to himself than to 
 Giulia. 
 
 " Do stand out of the way, Beppo, and let me 
 go home. I must go directly, now this minute. 
 Beppo, do you hear me ? " she added, for Beppo 
 appeared to be perfectly absorbed in the attempt 
 to draw a conclusion from the different premises 
 which had been afforded him. 
 
 " If you hate all other men, and don't hate me, 
 I am the only man you don't hate," said Beppo, 
 proceeding cautiously to the construction of his 
 syllogism, but with a strictly vigorous induction 
 which would have done honour to an Aristotelian. 
 
 " I didn't say that," retorted Giulia, with her 
 sex's instinctive rebellion against a logical neces- 
 sity. " Come, let me pass. I won't stay talking 
 with you here any longer." 
 
 " It's a great thing to know that you don't hate 
 me," said Beppo, still meditatively, but looking 
 into Giulia's face with wistful eyes. 
 
 " Well, be content with it, then, and let me go 
 home at once. The priest mil tell la Si'ora Sunta 
 what time I left the village, and then she will 
 know that I must have stopped somewhere on my 
 way. Let me go." 
 
 " Don't you think we ought to shake hands at
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 147 
 
 parting, Giulia ? " said Beppo, hanging his head, 
 and timidly stretching out his hand a little 
 towards her. 
 
 " Perhaps we ought — at parting," said Giulia ; 
 and her hand stole out from her side to meet his, 
 while she turned her face away as coyly as if the 
 threatened kiss of palm on palm had been the 
 sacredest of love's mysteries. 
 
 Nor was the mountain nymph's instinct so far 
 wrong. For as those two hands touched, an elec- 
 tric thrill shot through both frames, that made 
 their breath come short, making Giulia feel as 
 though she should faint. 
 
 "It could not be wrong, cousin Giulia," con- 
 tinued Beppo, very gently drawing her hand 
 towards him ; " it could not be wrong, since we 
 are cousins, and since — you don't hate me, just at 
 parting to give each other a cousinly kiss." He 
 advanced his face a little, a very little, towards 
 hers as he spoke. 
 
 She remained perfectly still, leaving her face in 
 the most wholly open and defenceless position. 
 But she said very decisively : 
 
 " No man shall ever kiss me, Beppo, except one 
 that I love with all my heart and all my souL" 
 
 She seemed to speak determinedly enough ; but 
 
 L 2
 
 148 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 yet, Beppo observed she did not take any steps 
 whatever for withdrawing her face from the very 
 dangerous and exposed position in which it was. 
 Her eyes were fixed on the ground, her head was 
 bent a little on one side, so that the rich brown 
 and pink cheek was held up to the full incidence 
 of the moonbeam ; one hand was hanging list- 
 lessly by her side, the other was still imprisoned 
 within his. 
 
 "But if I am the only man you don't hate, 
 Giulia ! " pleaded Beppo. 
 
 She made no answer, but the play of the moon- 
 light on the rounded contour of her cheek showed 
 that it was turned up just the least in the world 
 more towards him ; and still her eyes were fixed 
 on the ground, so entirely off guard as to be of no 
 use whatever in giving her notice of any menacing 
 movement on his part. The opportunity was 
 irresistible. 
 
 " I think as cousins at parting we ought ! " said 
 Beppo, suddenly catching her round the waist, 
 and meaning merely to have his share of that 
 inviting cheek which the moonbeam was kissing. 
 But somehow or other, from some little movement 
 which she made to avoid the attack, his lij)s came 
 down, not on the cheek, but full on hers. "Ah,
 
 THE CYPRESS IN THE PATH. 149 
 
 Giulia ! if you would be my own ! " he whispered, 
 as not till after a second or two she drew away her 
 face from his. 
 
 "That can never, never be," she said, with a 
 deep sigh and a wistful look into his face ; . . . . 
 "and this," she added, hastily, "must never be 
 again ! And now farewell, Beppo ! God bless you ! " 
 
 " Let me walk with you to the house." 
 
 " No ! we part here. If we never meet again, 
 I shall never, never, never forget the spot ! " she 
 said, with a little tremor in her voice. " Let me 
 go ! Good night, Beppo ! " 
 
 And with a sudden movement she stepped past 
 him, and saying again, " Good night ! God bless 
 you, Beppo ! " she set off running along the path 
 as fast as she could run. 
 
 Beppo flung himself down at the foot of the 
 cypress-tree, and remained there for some hours, 
 immersed in attempts at working out the logical 
 problem which had been submitted to him. He 
 did not succeed at all to his satisfaction in obtain- 
 ing any clear and distinct conclusion ; but he 
 nevertheless remained with a very strong convic- 
 tion that his cousin spoke the truth in saying that 
 she did not hate him. 
 
 Giulia arrived at the kitchen-door at Bella Luce
 
 150 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 quite out of breath with running. She saw that 
 there was a light within it, and a little tap brought 
 la sposa, who, as the priest had said, was patiently 
 waiting for her, to open the door. 
 
 " His reverence has kept you late, child. It is 
 time you were in bed ! " said the mistress, letting 
 her in. 
 
 " He had not time to speak to me all day. It 
 was only just before I came away that he called 
 me into his study," said Giulia. 
 
 " And I hope you will be a good girl, and abide 
 by all the good advice he gave you." 
 
 " I hope so, Si'ora Sunta." 
 
 " And now, child, you must make haste to bed. 
 Vanni will call you in the morning. Good night, 
 and good-bye, and I wish you good luck and 
 happiness." 
 
 " Good-bye, Si'ora Sunta ! " 
 
 The next morning, before the sun had heaved 
 his great disc clear of the Adriatic, Giulia was 
 seated by the side of the farmer in his calessino, 
 and Beppo, concealed by a corner of the house, 
 was watching her departure with a full and heavy 
 heart, though surely with a less heavy one than 
 it had been before the meeting under the cypress- 
 tree.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 AT FANO. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LA SIGNORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 
 
 HE small episcopal and maritime city 
 of Fano is situated on the flat sandy 
 shore of the Adriatic, a little to the 
 north of the equally episcopal and maritime city 
 of Sinigaglia, and a little to the south of the 
 equally episcopal and maritime cities of Pesaro 
 and Rimini. The new railroad running in a 
 direct line from Bologna to Ancona, a distance 
 of about a hundred and twenty-five miles, passes 
 through no less than ten episcopal cities, most of 
 them situated on the coast. Notwithstanding, 
 however, the original profession of St. Peter, and 
 the honoured memory of that profession, which
 
 152 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 has always been preserved by the Church, it would 
 seem as if episcopacy and maritime enterprise did 
 not go hand in hand together. For these Adriatic 
 cities, as the episcopal element in them has be- 
 come more and more preponderating, have become 
 less and less maritime. 
 
 A strong family likeness prevails in this group 
 of neighbouring cities ; but they have also their 
 special characteristics. Fano is one of the least 
 unprepossessing among them to a stranger. It is 
 not so dirty as Pesaro or Rimini, but it is still 
 more sleepy. There are fewer mendicants in the 
 streets, but then there are fewer living creatures 
 altogether. The ecclesiastical establishments of 
 Fano, comprising a wonderful assortment of con- 
 vents and monasteries of both sexes, and of all 
 sorts and colours, would seem to intimate that 
 their spiritual interests were those uppermost in 
 the minds of the inhabitants. And certainly the 
 little town seems to have retired altogether from 
 any active interest in any other matters. 
 
 Cities were placed by their founders on sea 
 coasts with a view to the various valuable advan- 
 tages afforded them by the " water privilege," as 
 the Americans say, of such a location. Yet Fano 
 has not only wholly declined to avail itself of any
 
 LA SIGNOKA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 153 
 
 such, but has taken care to make it manifest to 
 the most cursory observation, that she owns no con- 
 nection, or even acquaintanceship with the ocean, 
 her near neighbour. I take it that the notorious 
 restlessness of the Adriatic was too much at 
 variance with the habits of sleepy tranquillity 
 cultivated by the men of Fano. 
 
 The little town is entirely surrounded by a lofty 
 wall, in which one jealously small gate opens 
 towards the coast. But even that does not afford 
 the Fanesi any glimpse of the restless and sleep- 
 less monster which is so near them. The look-out 
 from it is bounded at the distance of a few yards 
 by a lofty ridge of sandhills, arid, parched, pale 
 brown mounds, solitary and desolate-looking. And 
 the stranger who, having learnt that the Adriatic 
 was somewhere in the neighbourhood, should sur- 
 mount these and make his way to the shore, at 
 the distance of perhaps half a furlong from the 
 city gates, would find himself in a solitude as com- 
 plete as that of any mourner who ever went 
 
 clkccdv irapa diva iroXvcpkoicrfioio Oakacro-qs. 
 
 Fano and the Adriatic are forcedly neighbours ; 
 but they have agreed to see as little of each other 
 as possible.
 
 154 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 It seems absurd to anybody who has ever visited 
 this very episcopal little city, to speak of a dull 
 street in Fano : they are all so wonderfully dull. 
 But still there are degrees. During the morning 
 hours there are four or five old women sitting 
 behind little vegetable stalls in the spacious grand 
 piazza. (Fish ? Che vi pare 1 when we are not 
 on speaking terms with the sea ! We eat salt fish 
 brought from — Heaven knows where, and try to 
 fancy ourselves an inland town.) And even during 
 the hour of the sacred siesta, there is a dog or two 
 sleeping, or perhaps even mooning lazily about in 
 that heart and centre of the city. There are a 
 few shops, too, in the streets nearest to this centre, 
 the owners of which will consent to part with an 
 article or two from their small store, if you will 
 put them in a good humour by dawdling and gos- 
 siping for half-an-hour first, and not attempt to 
 obtrude commerce upon them too crudely and 
 abruptly. And all this is life. 
 
 But there are streets in Fano — aristocratic 
 streets of enormous palaces, where no such 
 symptoms of life are ever met with. These are 
 the dull streets. A stray dog in those streets 
 would howl himself into a decline because of 
 the intensity of the solitude ! Long stretches
 
 LA SIGNORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 155 
 
 of blank windowless wall of enormous height, 
 shutting in convent gardens ; other still loftier 
 walls, with little windows high up in them, 
 fitted with troughs in front of them, to prevent 
 the inmates from distracting their minds by- 
 gazing into the too tempting world with all its 
 pomps and vanities in the street below ; im- 
 mense palaces, so hugely large as to puzzle all 
 conjecture at the motive which could have led 
 to their construction, with handsome heavy stone 
 mouldings and cornices around the windows, whole 
 ranges of which may be seen boarded up with 
 rough planks : these things make up the quiet 
 and aristocratic streets of Fano. 
 
 And it was in one of the most quiet and most 
 aristocratic of these that the Signora Clementina 
 Dossi lived. 
 
 Not that la Clementina Dossi, properly speak- 
 ing, belonged to the aristocratic classes of society, 
 though the position she now occupied was so emi- 
 nently respectable as to entitle her to admittance 
 among the easy-going aristocracy, which mostly 
 confined its exclusiveness and its prerogative to 
 occasions of high state and public solemnities, 
 and the matrimonial alliances of its sons and 
 daughters.
 
 156 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Forty years or so before the date of Giulia 
 Varmi's arrival in Fano, Tina Tratti, as she was 
 then called, had been well and favourably known 
 through a tolerably large circuit of the cities of 
 Italy as an actress of no little talent. She had 
 been a beauty in her day, specially celebrated for 
 her sylph-like figure ; and had for several years 
 of her spring-tide flitted from city to city, the 
 favourite of garrisons and universities, and the 
 queen of a whole galaxy of green-rooms. 
 
 Tina Tratti, however, amid her Sittings and 
 her flirtings, and her triumphs on and behind 
 the scenes, had kept a sufficiently shrewd eye 
 to the main chance, and had been a sufficiently 
 valuable component part of the successive com- 
 panies to which she had belonged, to have laid 
 by a very snug little competence by the time her 
 spring-tide was over. The period had arrived by 
 that time, however, when the same shrewd ap- 
 preciation of the world and its ways, which, amid 
 all the " bohemianism " of her early days, had 
 caused one record at least of that pleasant time 
 — her banker's book — to be such as could be after- 
 wards perused with satisfaction, led her to the 
 decision that it was time to "regularise" her 
 position in the world. She did so by marrying
 
 LA SIGNOKA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 157 
 
 Signor Amadeo Dossi, the well-known impre- 
 sario, who was not above ten years her senior, 
 who had also laid by a snug little fortune, and 
 who, in finding a wife, and retiring from work, 
 was well pleased to meet with so charming a per- 
 son as La Tina, whose good sense led him to think 
 that she would be duly aware of all that ought to 
 accompany " regularising her position," and whose 
 little fortune was a very pleasant and convenient 
 addition to his own. 
 
 So they quitted the theatre together, and came 
 to settle at Fano. And Signor Dossi had never 
 had reason to repent the step he had taken. The 
 ex-sylph Tina Tratti had made him a very good 
 wife during the remainder of his days ; which 
 had come to a conclusion some fifteen years before 
 the time at which her history touches that to be 
 narrated in these pages. 
 
 In taking a husband, the actress had looked to 
 the regularising of her worldly position, as has 
 been said; and had successfully achieved that 
 object. When she became a widow, however, it 
 appeared to her that the time had come for a 
 further regularising process. She now inclined 
 to regularise her spiritual position, as regarded 
 the stage to which the next shifting of the scene
 
 158 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 would introduce her. And she set about doing 
 so with the same practical purpose-like good 
 sense which had presided over her previous meta- 
 morphosis. She made selection of a well recom- 
 mended "director," became a member of one or 
 two sisterhoods, made certain little changes in 
 her style of dress, was not niggard in " bene- 
 factions," was constant at morning mass in all 
 weathers, and invited more priests and rather 
 fewer officers to her house than had been the 
 case during the lifetime of her husband. With 
 regard to more intimately personal changes, there 
 really was not very much to be done. She took 
 up a copy of the " Confessor's Manual," and ran 
 over the authorised list of sins, with their weights 
 and degrees of blackness. And she could find 
 but one which seemed to stand in her way at 
 all. La gola ! * La Signora Clementina did like 
 a good dinner ; and was specially fond of a bit of 
 something nice for supper ! But after all ! The 
 first glance showed that " la gola" was in the list 
 of venial and not in that of mortal sins. And 
 a consultation upon the subject with her new 
 " director" showed her that, properly managed, 
 it was so very, very venial a sin, that really there 
 * The technical theological term for "gluttony."
 
 LA SIGNORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 159 
 
 were some virtues which seemed more dangerous. 
 There were the ordinances of the Church respect- 
 ing certain days and certain meats, it is true. 
 But then the Church knew that fasting was not 
 adapted to all constitutions. There were dispen- 
 sations ; and really on the whole very cheap ! 
 The Church had no wish to injure anybody's 
 health. It would be a sin to do so ! And if, 
 after all was said and done, the tender conscience 
 of so exemplary a member of the flock as la 
 Signora Dossi, should still give her the slightest 
 uneasiness — why, there was the confessional ! — 
 what for, save for the ease and comfort of tender 
 consciences ? Yes ! but about repenting % " If 
 one knows that one is looking forward to one's 
 little partridge d la Milanaise at night?" sug- 
 gested la Clementina, doubtfully. Then it was 
 that the director was put on his mettle, and 
 showed that he was worth his hire. He plunged 
 at once with the utmost intrepidity into a turbid 
 ocean of metaphysics, splashing about long Latin 
 words that sounded to the patient as if he were 
 exorcising a whole legion of devils ; distinguish- 
 ing; dividing mental acts with a dexterity of 
 scalpel equal to the highest feats of moral sur- 
 gery ; striking the boundary line between fore-
 
 160 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 knowledge and intention with masterly precision ; 
 taking human volition in his teeth, and shaking 
 it to that degree that it was a mere tangle of 
 rags when he had done with it ; and, finally, con- 
 vincing his much edified though utterly puzzled 
 hearer, that she might look forward to her par- 
 tridge d la Milanaise as fondly as she pleased, 
 with the safest possible conscience. 
 
 The Signora Clementina Dossi, when she thus 
 regularised for the second time, was no longer the 
 sylph-like creature that she had been some twenty- 
 five or thirty years before. On the contrary, she 
 had become remarkably stout. And what was 
 odd was that she seemed now to be as fond of 
 calling attention to this latter peculiarity, as she 
 had once been proud of her as remarkably slender 
 figure. She had preserved a girdle which she 
 had formerly worn, and hung it up in her drawing- 
 room by the side of one which showed the circum- 
 ference of her present portly person. The former, 
 which had girdled the unregularised Tina Tratti> 
 measured some twenty inches ; the latter, show- 
 ing the extent to which worthy Clementina Dossi 
 had prospered under her twofold process of regu- 
 larising, exhibited a length of some sixty. La 
 Dossi was very fond of pointing to these two
 
 LA SIGNORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 161 
 
 records, especially if any slim young girls came 
 into her room. She would make them try on the 
 ex-sylph's girdle, and then say, " That is what I 
 was when I was your age, my dear ! but t'other 
 is the girth of me now ! The Lord has been 
 graciously pleased to increase me threefold ! " 
 
 And the opportunities for such experiments 
 and warnings were not rare, for young people 
 liked la Dossi. She was goodnature itself. She 
 had still pretty, gentle, dove-like eyes, and the 
 complexion of her large fat face was almost as 
 delicately pink and white and as smooth as it had 
 ever been. She had not a wrinkle in it — as, 
 indeed, it would have been difficult for her skin 
 to find the means of making one, so entirely filled 
 out was it by fat. Her small mouth, too, and 
 still perfect teeth, had suffered but little from 
 the effects of time. But underneath the sweet- 
 tempered looking mouth there was a double chin 
 of the most tremendous proportions. 
 
 All the young people liked her; and though, 
 as has been said, the complexion of the society 
 which she was wont to gather around her was in 
 some degree modified after her husband's death, 
 the more mundane element was not altogether 
 excluded. (It had been at her house, for example, 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 now I think of it, that Lisa Bartoldi had first 
 met Captain Giacopo Brilli). There was nothing 
 ascetic about her temper or her devotion. She 
 had no sort of notion that because she was 
 virtuous there were to be no more cakes and 
 ale in the world. She thought, on the contrary, 
 that youth was the proper period of enjoyment, 
 and was desirous, to the utmost of her power, to 
 contribute to enabling them to make the most 
 of it. 
 
 La Signora Clementina Dossi inhabited at the 
 time of which we are speaking a portion of the 
 first floor of an enormous palace, the rest of which 
 was untenanted. The residence was one capable 
 of surrounding with legions of blue-devils any 
 tenant capable of harbouring such imps. But 
 Italians are little troubled with blue devils ; and 
 to la Clementina such devils, unrecognised by her 
 spiritual advisers, were entirely unknown. She 
 had for a small rent as many vast lofty rooms as 
 she chose to occupy. There was no noise in the 
 street to disturb her daily siesta, or mar the com- 
 fortable process of her digestion, and the palace 
 was next door to the church she attended, and to 
 which her " director" belonged. 
 
 La Signora had lost her one servant, who had
 
 LA SIGNORA CLEMENTINA DOSSI. 163 
 
 married, and she was in want of another. That was 
 the simple statement of the case, and all Signor 
 Sandro's euphemisms about a companion, and a 
 douceur, and such like, were all mere bosh, 
 intended to make the proposal acceptable to 
 the farmer's family pride — a sentiment which 
 many an Italian peasant nourishes in as high a 
 degree as any long-descended noble. 
 
 Nevertheless, the character and kindly nature 
 of Signora Dossi made much of what he had said 
 as good as true. The distance between employers 
 and their servants is much less in Italy than 
 among ourselves, especially between a mistress 
 and her female servants ; and both the position 
 and the temper of Signora Dossi were calculated 
 to make the connection in her case really more 
 like one of companionship than anything else. 
 She did most of her own cooking herself — did it 
 con amove, and with as much skill as pleasure. 
 It was, after the religious duties of the morning 
 had been attended to, the great occupation of her 
 day ; and Giulia, if she profited in no other way 
 by the engagement the attorney had made for 
 her, was sure to carry away with her from la 
 Dossi, whenever she might leave her, a very 
 useful knowledge of the mysteries of the kitchen. 
 
 m 2
 
 164 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 La Dossi had no greater pleasure than teaching 
 the young idea to shoot in this direction — unless, 
 indeed, it were in discussing the results of their 
 united labours ; — a part of the business in which 
 she very commonly invited the partner of her 
 toils to share, the more especially as she loved to 
 discuss also at the same time all the rationale, of 
 the process of preparation. 
 
 Such was the mistress, and such the house, to 
 which Giulia was coming, by the recommendation 
 of Signora Dossi's old friend, Signor Sandro 
 Bartoldi.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 
 
 ARMER VANNI, when lie arrived with 
 Giulia at the attorney's house in Fano, 
 did not seem much inclined to accompany 
 her to that of her new mistress. He did not see 
 that he could do any good, he said. The fact was 
 partly that he was shy, as the peasantry always 
 are with respect to the people of the city — even 
 those of a social rank corresponding to their own 
 — although they are at the same time most 
 thoroughly convinced that they (the countrymen) 
 are the superiors in every really good quality, and 
 partly that he did not care to see how far Signor 
 Sandro's representations as to the exceptionally 
 dignified character of the situation were strictly in 
 accordance with the fact. He had a certain 
 amount pf doubt upon the subject, and preferred
 
 166 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 to remain in such a state of ignorance upon it as 
 should justify him in boasting now and hereafter 
 on all fitting occasions that no Yanni had ever 
 been in service. 
 
 So he and Signor Sandro, and his daughter 
 Lisa, and Giulia, dined together at the attorney's 
 house ; the farmer started on his way back to 
 Bella Luce, and then Signor Sandro took Giulia 
 with him to her new home. He had never ceased 
 during dinner time eulogising Signora Dossi, and 
 speaking in the most glowing terms of Giulia's 
 good fortune in having obtained a position in 
 every way so desirable. 
 
 Giulia, however, drew more consolation from a 
 few minutes' conversation which she had found an 
 opportunity for with the gentle Lisa. Of course 
 Lisa was in the first instance an object of no little 
 interest to her. She was perfectly well aware of 
 the wishes and hopes of her father and of Beppo's 
 father with regard to them both. She saw her 
 now for the first time ; and every daughter of Eve 
 will perfectly well understand the quick, sharp 
 glance with which Giulia scanned, measured, sur- 
 veyed, and reckoned her up. Giulia was not 
 strongly impressed with any high idea of her own 
 personal perfections. The village lads had smiled
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 167 
 
 at her. But Italian peasants do not much pay 
 compliments, except by falling in love with the 
 object that appears to them to merit them. She 
 knew that Beppo had paid her this compliment, 
 but then that might be because they were so much 
 thrown into the way of each other. Nevertheless, 
 her survey of poor pale little Lisa was satisfactory 
 to her. It seemed to her quite as conceivable that 
 a man should fall desperately in love with a little 
 white mouse as with Lisa Bartoldi. 
 
 Lisa looked also at Giulia with no little curiosity. 
 The feeling was a different one on her side. She 
 had heard much, as we know, from Beppo about 
 her, and she had every reason to wish that he 
 might be constant to his passion for her. As far 
 as that went, the result of her inspection was 
 satisfactory also. But it was not in the nature of 
 womankind that it should be wholly so. Poor 
 Lisa felt too unmistakeably the total eclipse into 
 which this magnificent Diana of the mountains — 
 magnificent in stature, in colour, in development, 
 in vigour — threw her faded and modest attrac- 
 tions. And then Brilli would see her — of course 
 he would in the house of la Dossi ; who could tell 
 with what result ? Heaven grant, at least, that 
 Giulia might be sternly faithful to Beppo. Faith-
 
 168 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 ful to liim ! But Beppo had declared that Giulia 
 cared nothing for him. She understood very well 
 what his father's purpose had been in bringing 
 this superb creature away from Bella Luce. Alas ! 
 might it not turn out that his object might be 
 served by it in yet another manner, if she should 
 appear as lovely in Giacopo Brilli's eyes as she did 
 in hers ? 
 
 Nevertheless, the two girls made friends ; for 
 Lisa's nature was a gentle one, and Giulia was in 
 a frame of mind in which any proffered kindness 
 was very acceptable to her. They made friends ; 
 and Giulia was in a great degree reassured as to 
 the lot that was awaiting her, by Lisa's account of 
 Signora Dossi and her household. She fully con- 
 firmed all that her father had said about la 
 Clementina's kindness and indulgence. She ex- 
 plained to her her new mistress's mode of life ; 
 told her the leading facts of her former history, 
 and seemed to consider her on the whole as rather 
 a butt for fun and quizzing, though the best and 
 kindest old soul in the world. 
 
 "You'll have to try her girdle on, Signorina 
 Giulia, before you have been in her house half-an- 
 hour. You won't be able to put it on. I can ; 
 but then I am such a mite compared to you ! *
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 169 
 
 " Put her girdle on ! " said Giulia, in great 
 amazement ; " what on earth do you mean 1 " 
 
 " Oh ! not the girdle she wears now. That 
 would be a very different thing. You will see. 
 It is a girdle she keeps, that she wore once when 
 she was a favourite on the stage. She had a very 
 beautiful figure, it seems, — very slender ; and this 
 girdle shows what she was then. She always 
 makes all the girls try it on. Very few can wear 
 it ; I can," repeated poor Lisa for the second 
 time ; " but then I am such a little bit of a thing ! 
 Though I don't think la Dossi can ever have been 
 much taller than me. They used to call her the 
 ' Sylph/ And you'll see what she is now. So ! " 
 said Lisa, stretching her arms to their full extent. 
 " And she keeps a girdle, such as she wears now, by 
 the side of the other, to show the difference. Oh, she 
 is such a queer old creature ! but as good as gold !" 
 
 " Is she a little — ? " and Giulia tapped her 
 forehead with her fore-finger significantly. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! " answered Lisa, laughing ; 
 " only funny. I know," she added, mysteriously, 
 and in a lower voice, " why it is that my father 
 and Signor Vanni have settled for you to go and 
 live there. Don't you know 1 " 
 
 Giulia was for a moment inclined to be angry at
 
 170 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 this unceremonious allusion to matters that to her 
 were sacred, and wrapped in the secresy of her 
 inmost heart. But a moment's reflection showed 
 her both the uselessness and the injustice of being 
 offended at poor little Lisa's friendly-intended 
 confidences. 
 
 " Yes, Signorina Lisa," she said, sadly, " I know 
 what I am sent away from Bella Luce for." 
 
 " But you don't mind it much, do you ? I don't 
 think I should, if I were you. And you know, I 
 suppose, why my father wanted it % " 
 
 " I suppose so," said Giulia, while a feeling of 
 startled surprise at the suddenness and unreserve 
 of her new acquaintance's mode of treating sub- 
 jects which she only approached shyly and timor- 
 ously, even in her communings with her own 
 heart, mingled with her sadness. 
 
 " To make a match of it between me and Beppo, 
 you know. But that will never be ! Don't you be 
 afraid of that ! Beppo is for you, and for nobody 
 else. He and I quite understand one another ! " 
 
 " But — but, excuse me, Signorina Lisa," stam- 
 mered Giulia, almost speechless from the extre- 
 mity of her astonishment; "may I ask if you 
 understood from Bejypo that — that — I had ever 
 accepted his addresses \ "
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 171 
 
 "He, he, he!" giggled Lisa. "No. He said 
 that you would have nothing to say to him. Poor 
 Beppo ! — he, he, he ! But, between ourselves, we 
 know what that means. Surely you have played 
 the cruel long enough, Signorina Giulia ! And 
 poor Beppo absolutely adores you ! He is des- 
 perate ; he is indeed. And, hark ! in your ear," 
 dropping her voice to a whisper as she spoke, 
 "you may see him as often as you like at la 
 Dossi's house. Lord bless you ! she is not the one 
 to keep young people asunder. It is there that 
 I see — somebody ! " 
 
 " But suppose I don't want to see — anybody ? " 
 returned Giulia, half sadly and half satirically. 
 
 " Oh ! come now, Signorina Giulia, let us be 
 friends ! I am sure I wish to. And we can help 
 one another," said Lisa, in a voice of remonstrance. 
 
 "I am very much obliged to you, Signorina 
 Lisa, for wishing to be friends with me. It is 
 very kind of you. If I can be of any use to you, 
 I shall be very happy; — you have only to com- 
 mand me ! But — but — but I was quite in earnest 
 in — in — what I said about myself." 
 
 The two girls found great difficulty in under- 
 standing each other, in consequence of the vast 
 distance from each other at which they were
 
 172 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 placed, not so much by the intrinsic and original 
 difference in their two natures, as by that of 
 their social position, and the mental training 
 derived thence. The contrasted manner in which 
 they felt and spoke on the great subject, which 
 is more important and interesting than any other 
 that can occupy a young girl's mind at their time 
 of life, was exhibiting the different tendencies of 
 the town and country nature. It is true that 
 Giulia's was the deeper, richer and more earnest 
 nature; but that was only in the second place 
 the cause of the notable difference between them. 
 It is the denizen of the town who runs out in 
 fluent, abundant and ready talk. The peasant 
 nature is more reserved, more inarticulate. Less 
 accustomed to constant contact and companion- 
 ship with others, the contadino, and, perhaps, 
 in a still greater degree, the contadina, is unready 
 with the tongue, reserved in temper, shy, modest 
 in thought as well as in word, unable to get 
 readily spoken even that which she would desire 
 to speak. It is the town girl who pins her heart 
 upon her sleeve, makes gossip matter of the most 
 delicate secrets, and is ready at a moment's notice 
 to discuss them with any street corner or door- 
 step female friend.
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 173 
 
 To Giulia, Lisa's mode of speaking was shocking 
 and painful, as well as extraordinary. She could 
 not understand her. The manner in which she 
 plunged into the sacred places — the innermost 
 holy of holies of Giulia's guarded heart, seemed 
 to her an impertinence ; and the way in which 
 she dealt with her own secrets almost an inde- 
 cency. She was at a loss whether to think her 
 worthless or half-witted. 
 
 " How do you mean in earnest about what you 
 said of yourself ? What did you say 1 " replied 
 Lisa, quite unconscious of the slightest indis- 
 cretion. 
 
 " I said that I had no particular wish to — to — 
 to see — a — anybody at the house of la Signora 
 Dossi," returned Giulia, casting down her eyes. 
 
 " Oh, don't talk in that way ! There's nobody 
 to hear but ourselves. You don't really mean 
 that you don't care for poor Beppo. I can hardly 
 believe that. I should be very sorry. And even 
 if you did not, it would be reason the more why 
 you should wish to see somebody else ; " said Lisa, 
 reflectively. "You are not — ?" she said sud- 
 denly, completing her phrase by pantomimically 
 taking an invisible rosary from the side of her 
 dress, where it would have hung from her girdle,
 
 174 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 if she had worn one, and moving her fingers and 
 lips as if she were going through the exercise of 
 " telling her beads." 
 
 " Oh, no ! " said Giulia, laughing in spite of 
 herself; "not that at all." 
 
 It was the only conceivable theory on which 
 Lisa could explain the case of a girl, who neither 
 had a lover, nor yet was anxious to take the 
 ordinary means towards having one. There was, 
 however, one other means of explaining Giulia's 
 conduct ; — it might be fear, and over-caution. 
 
 "Well, then," she returned, "we ought to 
 understand each other. You don't suppose that 
 I should say a word to my father ! And what's 
 more, let me whisper in your ear, la Dossi won't 
 say a word either. She never tells tales, — had 
 too many secrets of her own to keep once upon a 
 time, I suppose. And she's too good a creature. 
 Lord bless you ! Papa thinks she tells him every- 
 thing. So she does, about her money and pro- 
 perty, and such things. But — not matters which 
 don't concern him. Tell me, Giulia dear," she 
 added, sliding coaxingly up to her, putting her 
 arm round her waist, and looking up with a 
 roguish smile into her face, "you do care for 
 Beppo, don't you ? "
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 175 
 
 "But what does it signify, Signorina Lisa, 
 whether I care for him or not ? " said poor Giulia, 
 thus forced against her will into a half-confidence ; 
 " you know, even if I did, and he loved me ever 
 so well, there could never be anything between 
 us." 
 
 " What ! because of the old ones f Bah ! — whish 
 — sh — sh ! " said Lisa, prolonging her hissing ex- 
 pletive, and vibrating the fingers of one extended 
 hand, in a manner expressing to Italian percep- 
 tions the most intense derision and contempt. 
 u Lord bless you ! — now-a-days they can't shut us 
 up in prisons — no — nor make nuns of us either," 
 continued the well-instructed city-maiden ; " you 
 have nothing to do but stick to it." 
 
 Giulia felt an irresistible repugnance to attempt- 
 ing to make Lisa understand what were the feelings 
 that really did place, to her mind, an insuperable 
 bar between her and Beppo. It would have been 
 better for her peace of mind, perhaps, if she had 
 done so ; for the light worldly wisdom and town- 
 bred ridicule with which Lisa would have treated 
 her scruples, might have to a certain degree been 
 a useful corrective of Giulia's highminded but 
 exaggerated pride. She felt it impossible for her, 
 however, to do so. She turned the conversation,
 
 176 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 therefore, by reverting to the very natural sub- 
 ject of the life which awaited herwith Signora 
 Dossi. 
 
 "She does not keep any other servant, does 
 she ?" asked Giulia. 
 
 "No, only one; but you won't find that you 
 have any very hard work to do. I should think 
 you would find it best not to have any one else 
 in the house to interfere with you." 
 
 " But, you say, she has people at her house ? " 
 
 "Oh, yes, very often! — not regular parties, 
 you know. But there are always people running 
 in and out. La Dossi likes it. I think the poor 
 old soul would annoiare herself to death if she 
 had not people about the house. She can't go 
 about herself much, you know." 
 
 " Why not ?" asked Giulia, 
 
 "Why not! Wait till you see, and then you 
 will know why not. Lord bless you ! it's as much 
 as she can do to walk to the church next door 
 every day. 
 
 " Is she very religious % " asked Giulia. 
 
 "Yes, very — in a quiet way. But she don't 
 bother other people with it. She thinks it will 
 come to their turn soon enough." 
 
 "But with so many people about the house,
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 177 
 
 and one servant to do everything, how shall I 
 ever be able to get through ? " 
 
 " Oh ! you will do very welL She is not like 
 a gran Signora delV alto ceto* la Dossi. She does 
 much of the work herself. She lives half in the 
 kitchen ; and you'll live half in the drawing-room. 
 She would not have any common servant girl, 
 look you ! So that was how babbo came to think 
 of you, you see." 
 
 To a certain extent, then, what the lawyer had 
 said about the exceptional nature of the position 
 he was proposing to " a Yanni " was founded in 
 truth. 
 
 And then Signor Sandro himself came in from 
 seeing his guest off on his return to Bella Luce ; 
 and announced that he was ready to accompany 
 la Signorina Giulia to the house of his friend la 
 Signora Dossi, and that it was time to be going. 
 
 So Giulia and the attorney set off together, 
 Lisa having promised to see her again before long 
 in her new home, and proceeded to the house of 
 la Dossi, while Signor Sandro administered a 
 lecture on the manner in which she was to behave 
 towards her mistress, and on her own good for- 
 tune in being received into such a house. 
 
 * A grandee— great lady of the highest class. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 It cannot be expected that our poor mountain 
 nymph, fresh from the Apennine, should enter 
 her new abode without much misgiving. Giulia 
 felt not a little at the unexpected magnificence 
 of the palace at which Signor Sandro stopped. 
 
 " Does la Signora Dossi live here ? " she asked, 
 with considerable awe. 
 
 " Yes ; here we are ! This is the Palazzo 
 Bollandini. The Marchese lives at Rome. La 
 Dossi lives on the first floor. There are very 
 few other tenants in the house." 
 
 So saying, he led the way up the enormous 
 staircase; and Giulia was more astonished than 
 ever at the magnificence of her mistress's lodging. 
 It was a huge wide staircase, built of yellow 
 Travertina stone, with the steps so easy and 
 shallow that it would have been no difficult feat 
 to ride up it on horseback. The immense panelled 
 walnut-wood folding doors, with chased gilt 
 bronze handles in the middle of each of them, 
 were on a scale of magnificence to match, and 
 Giulia opened her simple eyes wider and wider 
 as these splendours revealed themselves to her. 
 
 A small bit of greasy twine, passed through a 
 gimlet-hole in one of these grand doors, by way 
 of a bell-pull, however, struck the first note of
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. ] 79 
 
 the descending scale, which connected the ances- 
 tral magnificence of the Bollandini of former 
 generations with the habits and style of modern 
 life at Fano. Signer Sandro and his companion 
 had to wait a long time before the application 
 of the former to the bit of twine — performed, as 
 Italians invariably do, with a whole succession 
 of pulls, as if he were intent on ringing a peal — 
 produced any result. 
 
 Signor Sandro was neither surprised nor im- 
 patient. He knew that there was probably no 
 one inside, save la Clementina herself, — that she 
 travelled slowly, and that she had a long way to 
 travel. 
 
 At last, however, the door was opened; and 
 wide as its aperture was, it disclosed a portion 
 only of the still ampler person of the lady of the 
 mansion. There stood la Signora Dossi, the ex- 
 sylph, firmly planted on both feet, so as to assign 
 to each of them its fair share of the work of 
 supporting her person, in the attitude generally 
 adopted by persons of her inches — of circum- 
 ference. There she stood, rather out of breath, 
 but beaming with good-nature and good-humour. 
 
 " Signora Clementina," said the little attorney, 
 bowing still outside the door, for it did not seem 
 
 n 2
 
 180 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 to occur to the ex-sylph that the door-way was 
 still as effectually closed by her own person as if 
 she had not opened it, " here is the young person 
 of whom I spoke to you. She came from Bella 
 Luce this morning; and so I brought her off to 
 you myself at once." 
 
 " Come in ! come in ! Signor Sandro ; and bring 
 in your young friend, who is to be my friend 
 too ! " said la Dossi, in a small piping voice that 
 contrasted ludicrously with her appearance, turn- 
 ing round as she spoke by means of three separate 
 steps, and then waddling back into the vast hall 
 into which the magnificent doors opened. 
 
 It was a really grand apartment, loftier than 
 the rest of the suite of rooms that opened off it, 
 of great size and admirable proportions, with a 
 carved coffered ceiling showing remains of gild- 
 ing, and a half-obliterated painting of gods and 
 goddesses in the centre. It was lighted by three 
 large windows looking on to the street, and paved 
 with square slabs of the same yellow Travertina 
 stone of which the staircase was built. On the 
 wall opposite to the entrance there hung an 
 enormous escutcheon, on which the Bollandini 
 arms were emblazoned ; in one far corner of the 
 huge hall there stood an old sedan-chair, with the
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 181 
 
 scroll ornaments about the top, and the carved 
 mouldings around its panels, which showed it to 
 be the production of the last century ; and there 
 were four high-backed, square-built, leathern arm- 
 chairs, with plain flat wooden arms, and orna- 
 ments of gilt carving surmounted by coronets on 
 either side of the high straight backs, which as 
 clearly belonged to a yet earlier period. These 
 were placed, two against the opposite wall under 
 the huge escutcheon, and two against the wall in 
 which the door of entrance was, on the left-hand 
 of it. For the door was nearly in the corner, 
 near the street, with the three windows to the 
 right of one coming in. There was another door 
 to match in the other corner on the same side ; 
 but that was only a mock door, for uniformity's 
 sake. There were other two similar doors on 
 the opposite side, — that, namely, on which the 
 escutcheon hung ; but these led to parts of the 
 palace not in the occupation of Signora Dossi, 
 and were locked up. In the middle of the fourth 
 side, opposite to the windows, was another similar 
 door, which led to the apartment inhabited by 
 the ex-sylph. 
 
 And the huge escutcheon, which belonged to 
 the sixteenth century, and the eighteenth century
 
 182 EEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 sedan-chair, and the four seventeenth century 
 arm-chairs, were the only bits of furniture of any 
 kind in the room. 
 
 Nevertheless it was there that la Dossi chose 
 to receive her visitors ; for she waddled no further 
 than to the nearest of the arm-chairs in question, 
 and there sat down, leaving her guest to occupy 
 the one opposite to her, some forty feet distant, 
 or to remain standing in front of her, at his 
 pleasure. He selected the latter alternative. 
 
 " So this is la Giulia ! Per Dio ! what a crea- 
 ture ! God forgive me for swearing ! Ave Maria, 
 gratia plena, Bominus lay coo — o — m / " (The 
 compensatory formula was uttered with the 
 utmost rapidity — all except the last word, which 
 was prolonged in a sort of penitential whine. La 
 Dossi was repentant for having been surprised 
 into swearing; but she had a feeling that the 
 good deed she had performed as per contra, left 
 on the whole a balance in her favour on the trans- 
 action.) "Why this is a Juno, not a parlour- 
 maid, let alone kitchen ! My dear, I shall be 
 afraid of you ! I shall have to wash all the dishes 
 myself! How she would bring the house clown 
 as Semiramide ! You should be on the stage, my 
 dear ; you should indeed I "
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 183 
 
 " I trust you will find la Giulia quite as well 
 fitted for mere every-day work, my dear madam. 
 I have no doubt that you will soon get used to 
 one another. Giulia, my good girl, you will find 
 la Signora Dossi a kind and considerate mistress. 
 Make her your friend, and you will find her a 
 valuable one. You must remember, Signora, that 
 Giulia has lived all her life in the country; and 
 you will have to teach her many things. But 
 you will make allowances; and I am sure that 
 you will find her anxious to please. And now 
 I must run away, for I have people from the 
 country to see me about this troublesome con- 
 scription business at four. All the country is 
 going mad about it, it seems to me; and the 
 people are thinking of nothing but exemptions 
 and substitutes. Good-bye, Signora. Good-bye, 
 Giulia." 
 
 " Shut the door after him, Giulia. There ; now 
 we can talk, and make acquaintance. How fond 
 the men are of preaching ! They are all alike 
 in that. Have not you found them so, eh ? Ah ! 
 but it is not preaching they give you, I'll be 
 bound. That will come by-and-by. Did you 
 leave many broken hearts up at Bella Luce when 
 you came away, eh ? "
 
 184 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 "Signora!— " 
 
 " Did you, now ? Half the village, I should 
 think. You are monstrously handsome, Giulia ! 
 But I suppose you don't want an old woman to 
 tell you that. There's plenty of a different sort 
 to whisper that in your ear. And small blame 
 to them. And what about cousin Beppo ? " 
 
 " Signora ! " exclaimed Giulia, in a voice made 
 up of two parts indignation to four parts of 
 supplication, and twenty parts of astonishment. 
 
 " Well ! and ought not I to know all about it ? 
 Am not I to be your mistress, and your protector, 
 and counsellor and friend? Hey! do you think 
 I have not heard all about Beppo and you ? Do 
 you think I don't know what old Sandro has 
 put you here for? But don't you be afraid. 
 And don't stand there looking as if you were 
 struck speechless. Did not Lisa tell you I knew 
 it all?" 
 
 "Lisa said that you were very kind," faltered 
 Giulia. 
 
 " Well then, don't you be afraid of me. Why, 
 I've been in love, girl, before you were ever born 
 or thought of. And Tina Dossi is not the one to 
 put a spoke in a true lover's wheel. Never was, 
 and never will be, per Ave Maria, gratia
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 185 
 
 2>hn a, Dominus taycoo — oo — oo — m ! " (La 
 
 Dossi, it will be observed, conscientiously and 
 honourably paid the fine for the intention, even 
 though the sin was not consummated. But she 
 put down a proportionably large balance on the 
 creditor side of the account.) " Now come along 
 in and see what there is for dinner. Give me 
 a hand to help me up. Pull away ! — that's it," 
 said la Dossi, slowly rising to her feet, in obedi- 
 ence to a vigorous pull of Giulia's stalwart 
 arm. 
 
 " Well done ! You're a capital one at that, 
 any way. Yo^l would not think, Giulia, that I 
 was once as active and lissome and slenderer than 
 you ! Yes — a good bit slenderer. But then I 
 was smaller altogether. They used to call me 
 the Sylph. I look like it, don't I ?" 
 
 And so chattering, she waddled across the wide 
 stone floor of the hall to the door in the middle of 
 the further wall, and led Giulia into the inner 
 rooms of her habitation. From the hall they 
 passed through a very small ante-room, very im- 
 perfectly lighted only by a borrowed light, where 
 there were two other doors, one fronting the 
 great hall, leading into a sitting-room, and one 
 on the left hand, leading into a snug little room,
 
 186 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 once a store-room for linen, but fitted up as a 
 kitchen for la Dossi's special convenience. 
 
 "There's my sitting-room," she said, throwing 
 open the door of it, and showing a tolerably well- 
 furnished but rather bare-looking room, totally 
 devoid of any sign of any sort of occupation or 
 employment ; but garnished with sundry prints 
 of the ex-sylph, representing her in the various 
 characters and costumes which had made her 
 fame and fortune in the days of her sylph-hood ; 
 among which, suspended on the wall in a place 
 of honour, Giulia's quick eye caught sight of the 
 two contrasted belts hanging sio\e by side, like 
 the geographical representations of the shortest 
 and longest rivers in the world ; " and there," 
 she continued, pointing to a door at one side of 
 the further wall, " is my bed-room ; and there," 
 indicating a similar door on the other side of the 
 same wall, " is yours. There we are, cheek by 
 jowl, my clear. So you are in safe keeping, you 
 see. Only the worst is," and she winked at 
 Giulia, who thereupon coloured up, though she 
 could not have told why, — "the worst of it is, 
 that I sleep like a stone two hours every day, 
 from two to four, let alone all night, and should 
 not hear if there were a dozen men in the great
 
 THE PALAZZO BOLLANDINI. 187 
 
 hall out there. But you are a good girl, and would 
 not do anything wrong, I know. And this is the 
 kitchen," she continued, in a tone which seemed 
 to indicate that she considered that to be by far 
 the most important part of her habitation ; " I 
 generally eat here, unless I have anybody par- 
 ticular with me. It is very comfortable : and the 
 things are hotter, you know. My hour is one 
 o'clock every day, except Sundays. On Sunday I 
 dine at three ; so that the girl may always go to 
 mass with me, and have time to make the soup 
 afterwards. And then we have a mouthful of 
 supper at eight. I do like a bit of supper. 
 Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus taycoo — 
 oo — oo — m / " (The extra oo — oo showed that this 
 was the weak point in la Signora Dossi's con- 
 science.) " And now come, and let us look after 
 the dinner. I would not ask Don Cirillo to come 
 in and have a bit to-day, because I had no maid 
 to help me. I suppose you don't know much 
 about cooking yet ? " 
 
 Giulia rehearsed her small list of capabilities 
 in this department, but la Dossi shook her head, 
 saying, " Well, you will soon learn. Where there 
 is a will there is a way. And it is a pleasure to 
 teach a willing scholar. Now look here "
 
 188 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 So Giulia received there and then her first 
 lesson in city cookery ; and was thus installed 
 into her new mode of life. 
 
 And then the mistress and the maid proceeded 
 together to demolish the work of their own hands, 
 amid the critical remarks and dissertations of the 
 elder lady, who sat the while in a huge arm- 
 chair provided specially ad hoc, while the younger, 
 besides eating her own dinner, did the locomotive 
 part of the business of the table. 
 
 And before the meal was over Giulia felt quite 
 at home, and intimate with her mistress, and la 
 Dossi had coaxed out of her the entire truth as to 
 all her feelings and perplexities in the matter of 
 cousin Beppo.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 
 
 IGNOR SANDRO BARTOLDI, after 
 leaving Giulia at the Palazzo Bollan- 
 dini, had returned home to see people 
 from the country about the conscription, he said. 
 The whole country, he declared, seemed to be 
 going out of its senses about it, and everybody, 
 especially the country-people, were wanting in- 
 formation on the subject, the communal authori- 
 ties respecting the duties which the law required 
 of them, and the young men and their families 
 respecting all the possible grounds of exemption, 
 and the chances and cost of finding substitutes. 
 Subsequently the government took this matter 
 of rinding substitutes into its own hands, naming 
 a fixed sum at which the conscript might buy 
 himself off. But at the time in question sub-
 
 190 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 stitutes could only be had by private arrange- 
 ment and bargain, and the trade of procuring 
 them gave rise to a great many frauds and 
 abuses. 
 
 This dreaded measure had been threatened and 
 looked forward to with the utmost aversion ; had 
 been discussed and grumbled over for many 
 months past ; and now at last it was come. The 
 law had been duly passed ; proclamation through- 
 out the country had been made, and all the 
 requisite notices served on the authorities of the 
 different communes. The mode of carrying out 
 the measure was as follows : — 
 
 The number of men which the province is 
 required to furnish, in due proportion to its 
 population, having been fixed, and this amount 
 having been notified to the authorities of the 
 provincial capital, the mayor and syndics of the 
 different communes received orders to return a 
 full and complete list of all the male population 
 of their jurisdictions within the legal age. The 
 lists are to include all, without reference to any 
 claims for exemption. These are afterwards pre- 
 ferred, examined, and allowed, if clearly good, by 
 the authorities of the provincial capital. No 
 exemptions, however, on the ground of ph} r sical
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 191 
 
 unfitness are admitted on this first scrutiny, ex- 
 cept such as are absolutely notorious, palpable, 
 and unmistakeable ; as, for instance, in the case 
 of a hunchback, or a man with one leg. 
 
 When the communal lists have been thus sent 
 in, — and of course the interest of all concerned, 
 and the mutual jealousies of those liable to be 
 drawn, are a guarantee for their completeness, — a 
 day is appointed for the drawing, in the presence 
 of the magistrates, with every provision to ensure 
 fairness, and with all publicity, in the capital of 
 the province. But, as the whole mass of the 
 population (within the prescribed ages) has been 
 submitted to this drawing, and as it is certain 
 that a very considerable proportion of those drawn 
 will be rejected as unfit for military service, this 
 ceremony is by no means decisive of the lot of 
 many of those who are anxiously awaiting the 
 award of their destiny. Thus, if five hundred 
 men are required, he who has drawn No. 501 
 is, if he be medically unexceptionable, as sure of 
 having to serve as if he had drawn No. 1. 
 
 It will easily be understood, therefore, how 
 sharp and anxious an interest is prolonged during 
 the time that elapses between the drawing and 
 the medical visit ; what inquiries, what specu-
 
 192 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 lations, what anxious investigations into the 
 previous health of this or that individual, what 
 hunting-up of evidence, what canvassing of 
 medical men. 
 
 The proportion of men rejected is considerable 
 in every province of Italy ; but it is much larger 
 in some than in others ; larger also, as might be 
 expected, in the towns than in the rural districts. 
 Romagna is not one of the provinces in which the 
 rejection is heaviest. But there is another circum- 
 stance which may diminish the number of those 
 who have drawn bad numbers,—^, e., numbers 
 within that of the quota of men required, and 
 which may then affect the fate of those who come 
 next on the roll — desertion ! That is the time for 
 desertion ; that anxious fortnight or so, between 
 the drawing and the inspection. And of course 
 it is the able-bodied men who desert. And this 
 source of failure cannot be calculated on like that 
 arising from medical objections. And in this 
 respect, also, there is a considerable difference 
 between one province and another. And if the 
 rich and healthy Romagnole hills and plains gave 
 a light rate of medical rejections, the desertion 
 rate was specially heavy there, for the reasons 
 which were assigned in the first part of this story.
 
 THE GEEAT FEAK 193 
 
 And the whole interest attaching to that ter- 
 rible day of the inspection and final making up 
 of the roll, immediately after which the conscripts 
 have to join the depots, is not confined to the 
 simple ascertaining that this or that man is clearly 
 unfit for military duty, as perhaps ought to be 
 the case. Another element enters to increase the 
 incertitude and complicate the interest. 
 
 The medical commission which examines the 
 proposed conscripts, is composed of the medical 
 officers attached to the military administration, 
 and the medical men employed by the respective 
 communes. Now these two component parts of 
 the medical board are swayed by diametrically 
 opposed objects and interests. The object of the 
 colonel or other officer, who is always present, and 
 of his medical men, is to obtain the flower and 
 pick .of the whole population. He wants, not 
 only men capable of serving, but the finest and 
 best men. Hence the object of him and his 
 medical supporters is to reject on the smallest 
 possible grounds. The desire of the communal 
 authorities on the other hand, of their medical 
 men, and of the population generally, is to pro- 
 tect those who have drawn the better or higher 
 numbers, to limit the suffering and the discontent 
 
 VOL. i. o
 
 194 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 within as narrow a circle as may be, and not to 
 extend them to those who have had reasonable 
 ground to think that they had escaped. Hence 
 arise sharp conflicts between the two authorities, 
 ending of course very variously, according to the 
 weight, or courage, or energy, or skill of the con- 
 tending parties. And thus another element of 
 great uncertainty is imported into the lottery. 
 
 And now the day had been fixed for the draw- 
 ing up of the communal lists. Little else was 
 talked about in the country districts, and even in 
 the cities the conscription became the leading 
 topic of interest to all men, and certainly not less 
 so to all women. 
 
 At Bella Luce the anxiety was certainly as 
 keenly felt as in any homestead of all the district. 
 There were two sons there, but the conscription 
 could not take them both. The monster, ruthless 
 as it was, had some bowels of compassion. It did 
 not deprive parents of an only son ! Carlo Vanni 
 therefore was safe ! His name would be returned 
 in the communal list, but merely for the formal 
 fulfilment of the law. His claim to exemption 
 would be immediately allowed as a matter of 
 course. But Beppo was of course liable. There 
 was no chance of any objection being made to
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 195 
 
 him. On the contrary, if his number should be 
 at all within reach, it was very certain that the 
 military officers would make every effort to lay 
 their hands on the finest young fellow in all the 
 country side. 
 
 But of course it was supposed in the world of 
 Santa Lucia that Beppo Vanni would never have 
 to serve. What ! the son of old Paolo Vanni 
 of Bella Luce : Why he could buy a dozen sub- 
 stitutes if needed ! The old fellows who knew 
 Paolo Vanni well, had some doubt upon this sub- 
 ject. Don Evandro, who knew him thoroughly 
 well, had no doubt at all about it. It might have 
 been in his power to induce his old parishioner 
 and friend to come down with a part of his 
 hoarded scudi to buy his son's freedom. But 
 Don Evandro had no intention to do anything of 
 the sort. He had more than one reason for not 
 wishing that any part of old Paolo Vanni's money 
 should be spent in such a manner. In the first 
 place it would be lending aid and support to the 
 heretical and accursed Italian government. Don 
 Evandro, as has been said, was a keen politician. 
 He was a priest of that class, which, while 
 entirely giving up the world, in so far as making 
 themselves before all things churchmen, and 
 
 o 2
 
 3 96 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 having no interest, or ambition, or affection for 
 anything save the Church can be called giving 
 up the world, yet remain, to all spiritual interests 
 and purposes, intensely worldly. He was a sworn, 
 true, and loyal churchman, ready to sacrifice 
 much, to dare all things, and to deem all things 
 permissible for the service of the Church. But 
 of any other meaning of the term, save the 
 visible and bodily constitution of the great cor- 
 poration to which he belonged, he had about as 
 much idea as a Red Indian. 
 
 The curate of Santa Lucia intended, therefore, 
 that his parish should furnish as few men to Victor- 
 Emmanuel as might be. There were the hills near 
 at hand. There was no contending influence on 
 the spot to thwart his — no resident land-owners, 
 no gentry. He had always possessed a very 
 powerful influence over his — not all very poor, but 
 all very ignorant — parishioners; and now he 
 meant to use it. It was necessary to be careful, 
 however. The government was on the watch ; it 
 knew very well that the priests were almost to a 
 man its enemies. Its suspicions were fully aroused ; 
 and the game to be played was not one altogether 
 without danger. 
 
 But the curato had in the special case of Beppo
 
 THE GREAT FEAR 197 
 
 Vanni a second reason for not choosing that he 
 should either serve his time in the army, or be 
 bought off by his father. He had thoroughly 
 espoused his old friend's cause in the matter of 
 Beppo's marriage. It was all in the line of his 
 own duty and scheme of conduct to secure Sandro 
 Bartoldi's money to the right side, instead of 
 allowing it to go entirely to swell the means of the 
 enemy, as would be the case if Lisa married Cap- 
 tain Brilli : not to mention that a match between 
 Giulia and Beppo might, as the priest shrewdly 
 guessed from all he had ever seen of Giulia, go far 
 to endanger the subserviency of the Vanni money 
 also to the good cause. It was therefore on all 
 accounts necessary that Beppo should marry Lisa, 
 and should not marry Giulia. 
 
 Those who live in a state of society in which 
 priestly influence has comparatively little power 
 over the secular affairs of private life, and which 
 is not divided into two utterly opposed parties by 
 any such broad line of demarcation as that which 
 separates Italian society into irreconcileably hos- 
 tile camps, can hardly appreciate at its real 
 importance the effects of such a system of 
 tactics, as that above indicated, carried out by so 
 powerfully an organised body as the Italian
 
 198 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 clergy consistently, perseveringly, and unfail- 
 ingly. 
 
 Now, if Beppo went to serve his time, lie would 
 come back with an additional prestige in Giulia's 
 eyes, utterly emancipated from priestly control, 
 and very probably in a great degree emancipated 
 from parental control also. His return might be 
 looked for at a fixed and known time, and there 
 was everything to encourage Giulia to wait for 
 him. 
 
 If, on the other hand, his father were induced 
 to conquer his avarice so far as to pay the sum 
 necessary to procure a su bstitute, he would remain 
 in the country free to continue his pursuit of 
 Giulia, and it would be very difficult to keep them 
 apart. 
 
 But if, on the contrary, old Paolo were coun- 
 selled to refuse to pay for a substitute, — counsel 
 which he would be only too ready to follow, — and 
 if Beppo should get a bad number, and could be 
 persuaded to go off to the hills, Victor-Emmanuel 
 would lose a first-rate soldier ; a contribution to 
 the general lawlessness, discontent, and ungovern- 
 ableness of the country would be achieved, and 
 Beppo would be effectually separated from Giulia ; 
 his return uncertain ; his entire future precarious
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 199 
 
 and full of difficulty; and possibly — who could 
 tell ? — old Paolo's succession secured to the much 
 promising and well-disposed Carlo. 
 
 And what were the views of honest Beppo him- 
 self respecting this dreaded conscription ? Unfor- 
 tunately they were such as to render him but too 
 easy a victim to the priest's designs, should he 
 have the misfortune to be drawn to serve. Beppo 
 was a thorough contadino, with all the feelings, 
 all the prejudices, and all the ignorance of his 
 class. The thought of being carried away from 
 his native hills to some unknown and strange 
 country, was intolerable to him. He had but very 
 hazy and vague notions as to the nature of a sol- 
 dier's life and duties. It was something, he knew, 
 which men maimed and mutilated themselves to 
 avoid — which men had before now killed them- 
 selves to avoid. For such stories of the desperation 
 of the populations subjected to the remorseless 
 conscription of Austria had reached those hills. 
 He knew, or supposed he knew, that it involved 
 monk-like self-abnegation, and entire subjection to 
 the will of another in all things. None had ever, 
 in the experience of these Komagnole rustics, left 
 their country in compliance with the horrible 
 conscription, and returned to their homes. None
 
 200 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 could have done so, for the conscription was now 
 applied to that country for the first time. But in 
 the absence of any such experience, all possibility 
 of return was disbelieved. To be taken by the 
 conscription was to bid a long adieu to all that 
 made life precious, and to go forth into some un- 
 known but terribly imagined state of misery and 
 torment, never more to see the beloved hills, and 
 yet more beloved faces of Romagna ! 
 
 And even if he were to believe in the possibility 
 of a return at some distant period, how could 
 Beppo bear to tear himself away from Giulia, as 
 matters stood with him ? If she loved him, if she 
 would only admit that he was dear to her, and he 
 could think of her, while he was undergoing his 
 terrible fate in some distant land, as safe at home, 
 thinking of him, waiting for his return, and un- 
 exposed to the pursuit of others, the -misery might 
 be more tolerable. But, as it was, to leave her 
 unwon, to leave her a mark for the admiration 
 and pursuit and wooing of all the young men in 
 Fano, and he far away the while, not knowing 
 anything, but dreading all things respecting what 
 was going on at home — this was absolutely into- 
 lerable to him. He could not face it. 
 
 So there was but a lottery chance between poor
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 201 
 
 Beppo and frantic desperation ! If the chance 
 were to go against him, the priest's suggestions 
 would find him but too well prepared to listen to 
 them. 
 
 As to the hope that his father would, if the bad 
 chance hit him, sacrifice such a sum as would 
 liberate him from it, he had little or no hope of 
 that. He knew his father too well ! And a 
 Romagnole peasant has too great a veneration for 
 money, and too vivid a sense of the difficulty of 
 obtaining it, and of the amount of toil, patience, 
 self-denial, and time which hoarded money repre- 
 sents, to blame his father in his heart for his 
 avarice as severely as another might have done. 
 In truth Beppo could have given the money to 
 save himself, or to save one he loved ; but he con- 
 sidered that in so doing he should have been re- 
 prehensible rather than otherwise, on the score of 
 profusion and reckless extravagance. No ! He 
 had no expectation that his father would sacrifice 
 money to buy him off his fate. 
 
 Little was known yet among the rural com- 
 munes on the subject that was engrossing all their 
 thoughts, except that the orders for making out 
 the lists of those liable to serve had come, and 
 that the lists were about to be made forthwith.
 
 202 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 But this first step in the business involved no 
 action on the part of the victims, and no outward 
 and visible sign of the action of others. It was 
 completed silently in the bureaux of the autho- 
 rities. It was like the first driving together of 
 a herd of wild cattle, destined to be afterwards 
 forced through some narrow pass, where the 
 hunters will pick them off as they rush. by. 
 There was a vague knowledge among the herd 
 that they were being driven together, and that 
 was all as yet. 
 
 All was ignorance and doubt, and terror made 
 worse by these. A thousand different reports were 
 spread about the country. Some said it was only 
 a precautionary preparation, in case there should 
 be war with Austria, and might therefore never 
 come to anything. Some said that the drawing 
 was fixed for the following year ; some, that it all 
 depended on the king's pleasure; some, that it 
 was all a chance ; some few, that it was a dreadful 
 certainty, and that the drawing was to be pro- 
 ceeded with directly. 
 
 Tormented by all this doubt and uncertainty, 
 Beppo determined to make it partly the real 
 motive, and partly the excuse, for a journey to 
 Fano. He fancied that his father had been less
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 203 
 
 willing than used to be the case, to allow him to 
 go to the city. He nsed to go frequently on 
 market days ; but lately his father for two or 
 three weeks past made excuses for keeping him 
 at home ; and upon one occasion during that time, 
 when the business of the farm had required that 
 somebody should go to Fano, the old man had 
 chosen to go himself. Beppo understood very well 
 that the purpose of all this was to keep him from 
 seeing Giulia — very likely to make her think that 
 he did not care to see her. But now his father 
 could hardly object to his going to the city in a 
 matter of such vital importance to himself. Poor 
 Beppo was in truth very anxious to obtain some 
 certainty upon the subject; but he was yet more 
 anxious if possible to see Giulia, and ascertain 
 how she was going on — whether she had already 
 gathered a circle of admirers about her ; whether 
 she had made any acquaintances of any kind ; 
 whether she was turning into a fine town lady. 
 
 So, one evening as they were returning from 
 the field, he broached the subject to his father, 
 saying that he ought to make himself acquainted 
 with the truth about the conscription. 
 
 Old Paolo admitted that, and said that he would 
 consider what day he could best be spared from
 
 204 BEPPO, THE CONSCEIPT. 
 
 the farm ; but his real object was to consult his 
 spiritual adviser upon the point. 
 
 So, instead of lounging in the " loggia " — as he 
 smoked his cigar, after supper, before going to 
 bed — he strolled up to Santa Lucia, and saw the 
 priest. 
 
 "Beppo has been telling me, your reverence, 
 that he wants to go to Fano to learn about the 
 conscription. I doubt me, he wants something 
 else more !" 
 
 " No doubt, no doubt ! I wonder you have been 
 able to keep him quiet so long ! Yes ! let him go 
 to Fano. It is right that he should learn all the 
 particulars of the new law, since they touch him so 
 nearly." 
 
 " He talks of going on Saturday." 
 
 Saturday was the Fano market-day, on which 
 large numbers of the countrymen of the neigh- 
 bouring districts (more of those from the sur- 
 rounding plains, however, than of the hill people) 
 were wont to assemble in the great piazza of the 
 city. 
 
 " I am going in myself, on Saturday," replied 
 the priest. "Suppose — or — no," he added, after 
 a little meditation ; " tell him that there is some- 
 thing to be done, — that you cannot well spare
 
 THE GREAT FEAR. 205 
 
 him on Saturday ; but that he may go on the 
 following day. I may just as well see Signor 
 Sandro myself, and perhaps la Giulia, too, before 
 he goes in." 
 
 Old farmer Vanni, who, in fact, scarcely ven- 
 tured on an action, in any direction, without the 
 advice and approbation of his friend Don Evandro, 
 was, as is generally the case with hen-pecked 
 husbands and priest-ridden laymen, specially un- 
 willing to be thought to be guided by the curato's 
 advice. So he said nothing that night in reply to 
 his son's proposal ; but while they were at their 
 work the next morning, which was the Friday, he 
 told him that he was loath that the hoeing of the 
 bean-crop should be left till it was finished ; rain 
 might come — most likely would come — and then, 
 where should they be? If he would stay to- 
 morrow, and get the job finished, he should go 
 to Fano on Sunday. 
 
 So it was settled that Beppo was to go into the 
 city on the Sunday.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERYANTINES. 
 
 N THE Sunday morning, accordingly, 
 Beppo started on his way to Fano. 
 The priest had made his intended visit 
 to the city on the Saturday, and had come home 
 at night. But none of the Bella Luce family 
 had seen him since his return. Beppo's heart 
 beat fast as he found himself nearing the city; 
 and, in his nervous impatience, he could not 
 forbear from pushing on his horse to a speed 
 that brought him to the end of his journey a 
 good half -hour earlier than he had calculated on 
 arriving. In the deadest and sleepiest of Italian 
 cities there always is a little more stir and life 
 on a Sunday than on other days. And this 
 extra movement is not wholly ecclesiastical in its 
 character. Sunday is the great day for recreation
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVAXTINES. 207 
 
 and amusement of all kinds, not despite the 
 efforts of the clergy to make it otherwise, but 
 with their approval and sanction. But there are 
 various sorts of secular business, not partaking 
 in any degree of the nature of diversion, which 
 are apt to fall into the course of the Sunday's 
 occupations. It is naturally the day on which 
 the countrymen can most easily come into town. 
 Such shops as they may be likely to need are 
 apt to be open ; and such business as may involve 
 interviews between them and the denizens of the 
 city are wont to be transacted. 
 
 Beppo, having put up his horse at the osteria 
 used by the contadini from his part of the country, 
 hurried to the house of Signor Sandro. From 
 him he could learn all he wanted to know about 
 the conscription, and from Lisa he doubted not 
 that he should be able to find out the where- 
 abouts of the house in which his treasure was 
 lodged ; — a circumstance of which he had as yet 
 been able to ascertain nothing; — for, of course, 
 neither his father nor Don Evandro were likely 
 to afford him any information upon this subject. 
 Indeed, Signor Paolo did not himself know where 
 the house of Giulia's mistress was situated. 
 
 It was about eleven o'clock when Beppo reached
 
 208 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 the attorney's house. The little man was in his 
 office ; and Beppo was told that he must wait in 
 a passage, where three or four other countrymen, 
 in their best Sunday attire, were already waiting, 
 seated on a long bench against the wall, till their 
 turn should come to be admitted to the attorney's 
 presence. 
 
 Had they been townsmen, they would all, how- 
 ever much previously strangers to each other, 
 have been in full conversation together. But 
 being contadini they sate in silence, with care- 
 worn anxious faces, but with meek-eyed patience, 
 till the great authority sitting in that awful sanc- 
 tum on the other side of the partition-wall should 
 be ready to receive them, and give them the fatal 
 answers of the oracle. But Beppo, in his anxiety, 
 had raised his voice in speaking with the servant- 
 girl, who had opened the door to him ; and the at- 
 torney, having overheard and recognised it, came 
 hurrying out of his den with his pen in his hand. 
 
 " What, Signor Beppo ! Is it you ? What good 
 chance is it brings you to Fano ? Delighted to 
 see you, as we always are ! " 
 
 "There were two or three things, Signor 
 Sandro — " began Beppo, slowly and timidly ; but 
 the brisk little man cut him short.
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 209 
 
 " Look here, Signor Beppo ! " lie said, taking 
 him by the button, and drawing him a little down 
 the passage away from the men who were sitting 
 there, and dropping his voice to a whisper ; " you 
 see how it is — all these people waiting to see me ! 
 Never was so busy ! All through this troublesome 
 conscription ! Have not a minute to spare ! But, 
 look here; come back at one, and eat a bit of 
 dinner with us. Poor Lisa will be so delighted to 
 see you; and I know your visit is more to her 
 than to me. Ah, you young fellows! Well, I 
 was young myself once ! And then we shall have 
 leisure for a little talk. A riveder — la ! At one, 
 mind ! And Beppo," added the little man, stand- 
 ing on tiptoe to whisper in his ear, " Lisa is gone 
 to mass at the Church of the Servites. If you 
 should happen to fall in with her there, don't 
 tell her that I told you so." 
 
 And so saying he opened the door for his visitor, 
 and hurried back to the discussion of exemptions 
 and substitutes with his clients. 
 
 Beppo, with thus nearly two hours on his hands, 
 did not, despite his being utterly at a loss how to 
 get rid of them, feel much inclined to go to the 
 Servite Church. He wanted to have some conver- 
 sation with Lisa, too. But the very evident hints
 
 210 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 of Signor Sandro, to tlie effect that it was expected 
 of him that he should make love to her, had the 
 effect of making him feel shy. It takes so much 
 to make an Italian of the cities feel shy and so 
 little to produce that effect on one of the conta- 
 dino class ! 
 
 Beppo felt more inclined to spend his two hours 
 in wandering through the city, to try if he could 
 divine from the outward appearance of the houses 
 which of them held his,Giulia. It seemed to his 
 imagination an absurd and incredible thing that 
 she should be behind any one of those walls or 
 windows, and that no recognisable difference 
 should exist in that wall or window — that there 
 should be no schekinah, no outward and visible 
 glory betokening the presence of such an inmate. 
 He went mooning through the streets at hazard, 
 gazing at the houses and windows wistfully, but 
 without being able to obtain the slightest satis- 
 faction from the investigation. 
 
 At length, having wandered into a part of the 
 city far away from the attorney's house, he found 
 himself in a quiet, utterly-deserted street, partly 
 made up of dead walls. But on the opposite side 
 to that on which he was standing, and a little in 
 advance of him, there was a small church, and
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 211 
 
 beyond that a very large and handsome palace. 
 There was not a soul besides himself in the street ; 
 but as he stood gazing down it, and doubting 
 whether he should go any farther in that direction, 
 which seemed to lead to the outskirts of the town 
 among a wilderness of garden-walls and open 
 spaces, he saw a party of people coming out of 
 the little church, and beginning very slowly to 
 descend the steps that led to the street. 
 
 They moved very slowly ; for the lady who 
 came first was enormously fat : and though she 
 had the arm of a young man to assist her — an 
 officer of Bersaglieri, Beppo saw by his uniform, 
 which, from a regiment of that branch of the 
 service having been for some months stationed at 
 Fano, was known to him — she came down the 
 steps with some difficulty. But in the next 
 moment all the blood in his body seemed to make 
 a sudden rush to his heart, and there remain in 
 a great frozen lump. Behind that enormous fat 
 woman came — la Giidia ! And — heavens and 
 earth ! — she had another of the same corps in 
 attendance on her ; not an officer, but a corporal ! 
 Yes, there was his stripe — a corporal of Bersa- 
 glieri ! Was it possible ? Could he believe his 
 eyes ? He must be mistaken ! The beautiful 
 
 p 2
 
 212 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 creature he was looking at, as if she had been a 
 Medusa, seemed more beautiful to his eyes than 
 ever. Was it Giulia \ She was no longer dressed 
 altogether as a contadina ; and though still wear- 
 ing only a kerchief on her head, it was far more 
 coquettishly arranged than it used ever to be at 
 Bella Luce ; and there were sundry other little 
 town-bred changes in her costume that seemed — 
 to the eyes which had the Bella Luce Giulia so 
 indefaceably photographed on their retina — to 
 make the present avatar very different from the 
 old one, though the worshipper could not deny 
 that it was one of enhanced glory. But was it 
 Giulia, or was he dreaming \ 
 
 How exquisitely lovely, but yet how detestable 
 — how horrible was the vision ! Who and what 
 was that horrid corporal — brisk, smart, tight 
 little man — who wore his round plumed hat in 
 the most jaunty manner? Corporals of Bersa- 
 glieri are all brisk, smart, tight little men, who 
 wear their hats in a jaunty manner. And he 
 danced and skipped by Giulia's side, chattering 
 and gesticulating, and looking up into her face ; 
 and she was laughing, and looking as happy as a 
 queen. She had never laughed when lie, had 
 looked into her face. And now that disgusting
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 213 
 
 corporal ! evidently a very witty and agreeable 
 corporal; — she was listening to all he said, and 
 evidently amused by it. She could have bounded 
 down the church-steps like one of the Bella Luce 
 goats, and so could the corporal of Bersaglieri too, 
 for that matter. But slow as the fat woman in 
 front of them was, they seemed to be in no hurry ; 
 but stopped, and laughed, and sauntered on again, 
 clearly well pleased to linger over the matter as 
 long as might be. 
 
 Beppo, at the first moment of catching sight of 
 her, had thrown himself precipitately behind a 
 pillar by the side of a palace-door, on the side of 
 the street on which he was standing ; and had 
 watched all the above dreadful spectacle, cau- 
 tiously looking out from behind it. But, as he 
 bitterly said to himself, there was no danger of 
 her seeing him : she was far too much .occupied 
 by listening to that odious corporal ! 
 
 But, once again, could it be Giulia % Or was it 
 possible that his eyes, even at the distance at 
 which he was, could see Giulia and doubt whether 
 it were really she, or not ? 
 
 While he was still gazing out from behind his 
 shelter, with fixed stony eyes and open mouth, 
 the fat lady achieved the descent of the steps, and,
 
 214 BEPPO, THE CONSCKIPT. 
 
 waddling along the pavement with the assist- 
 ance of the captain's arm, turned in at the grand 
 door of the palace next the church. Giulia — 
 if it was Giulia — and the corporal followed her ; 
 and Beppo was left staring after them, among the 
 people, who had by that time begun to leave the 
 church. 
 
 Surely it could not be that Giulia lived in such 
 a grand house as that ! Signor Sandro had spoken 
 of the lady, in whose service she was to live, as 
 by no means a rich person ; — a widow-lady, living 
 quite in a modest manner. It could riot be that 
 that was her residence : he must have been mis- 
 taken ! Now the glorious yet hateful vision was 
 no longer before his eyes, he began to persuade 
 himself that it must have been a mistake — an 
 hallucination ! Yet, again — his head swam round ! 
 — he was determined to know the worst. He had 
 already made a step or two across the street with 
 the intention of entering the alarmingly magni- 
 ficent porch, in which the party he had seen had 
 vanished (captain, corporal, and all), when he was 
 arrested by the thought of how he was to accom- 
 plish his purpose. He must ring at the great 
 door ; when the servant came what was he to say ? 
 —ask if one Giulia Vanni lived there? And if
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 215 
 
 the reply were in the affirmative, what then ? 
 His contadino timidity and shyness dared not 
 thus beard the city magnificences. Besides, he 
 should soon know all ! There was another way. 
 He would go at once to the Church of the Servites, 
 and see if he could meet Lisa ; if not, he should 
 probably find her at home. From her he should 
 be able to learn the truth. 
 
 So he asked one of the people who were coming 
 from the church, from which the fat lady and her 
 attendants had issued, and obtained a direction 
 to the Servite church. The high mass was just 
 over there also, by the time he reached it ; and 
 he had not watched at the door long before little 
 Lisa, accompanied by her maid, came out. She 
 looked so smart in her Sunday dress, that poor 
 Beppo felt shy of accosting her there, in the 
 street, amid all the people thronging out of the 
 church. But the emergency was too pressing to 
 admit of hesitation. So he stepped up to her, 
 and instantly disobeyed her father's injunction by 
 saying : 
 
 " Signorina, your father told me that I should 
 most likely find you here. I came in from Bella 
 Luce this morning." 
 
 " Oh, Signor Beppo ! I am so glad to see you !
 
 216 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 I have been thinking that you were never coming 
 to Fano any more ! And yet — one would have 
 thought that you would have found more to do in 
 the city than ever ! What on earth has become 
 of you ? You have not come a bit too soon, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 "What do you mean, Signora Lisa?" replied 
 Beppo, while a cold sweat came over him. " Is 
 there — anything new ? " 
 
 " Altro ! You should not have stayed away so 
 long. Out of sight out of mind, you know ! " 
 
 " May I walk home with you, Signorina ? Your 
 father has kindly asked me to dine there. But I 
 came here because I was so anxious ; and — I 
 knew that you would — tell me — tell me — all!" 
 faltered Beppo, whose words seemed to stick in 
 his throat as he uttered them. 
 
 " But first tell me why you have been so long 
 without coming to Fano ? I thought, of course, 
 that you would have come in to see Giulia at least 
 every market-day. And I am sure she expected 
 it, too, though she has never said a word. And 
 in all this time you have never been near her 
 once." 
 
 " Because I could not ! They would not let me 
 leave the farm. Oh, Signora Lisa ! can you doubt
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 217 
 
 that I was anxious to come? But, now that I 
 have come, what am I the better? What can 
 I do? But do you know, Lisa/' he continued, 
 dropping his voice to a shuddering whisper, "I 
 think I have seen her — I think I saw her in the 
 street this morning." 
 
 " Think you saw Giulia ! Why, Signor Beppo, 
 what do you mean?" said Lisa, looking up at 
 him in amazement. " Don't you know whether 
 you saw her or not ? Did you not speak to her if 
 you saw her ?" 
 
 " No ! I did not speak to her. I — I — I did 
 not feel certain — she seemed so changed. But 
 tell me first of all where she lives ? Is it a very 
 large house ? " 
 
 " Yes. The Pallazzo Bollandini ; one of the 
 largest palaces in Fano ! " 
 
 " Very grand ? " 
 
 " Yes ; a very fine house." 
 
 "And is it next door to a church?" asked 
 Beppo, in increasing agony, while his great 
 stalwart legs seemed to tremble under him. 
 
 "Yes, it is next door to the Church of the 
 Observantines. Why, what of it ? " 
 
 "And is — the lady she is living with a very 
 stout woman?" asked he, still hoping against
 
 218 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Hope, and longing to hear that Giulia's mistress 
 was by no means particularly stout. 
 
 But Lisa ruthlessly destroyed the last gleam 
 of hope. 
 
 " Yes, la Signora Dossi is a very stout woman," 
 she said. 
 
 " Then it is all over with me ! " said Beppo, in 
 a voice of the deepest despair ; " there can never 
 be anything again between me and Giulia ! " 
 
 " What do you mean, Signor Beppo ? All over 
 between you and Giulia, because Signora Dossi is 
 very fat ! What can you mean ? I do not under- 
 stand you this morning ! If it was after dining 
 with papa, instead of before " 
 
 (The Romagnoles are not marked to the same 
 degree by that exemplary sobriety which distin- 
 guishes the Tuscans.) 
 
 " I am sober enough, pur troppo ! " returned 
 Beppo, with intense sadness in his voice. " Then 
 I did see Giulia, just now. She was coming out 
 of a church with a monstrously fat woman, and 
 they went into an enormous palace next door." 
 
 " Well ! and why did you not speak to her ? " 
 
 " Lisa," said Beppo, in a low voice of the deepest 
 tragedy, " Lisa, there was a corporal with her ! " 
 
 " Ah, the corporal ! " said Lisa, in a voice which
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 219 
 
 indicated that the corporal was no new pheno- 
 menon to her. 
 
 " Lisa ! " 
 
 " And who was with the fat lady ? " asked Lisa, 
 rather hurriedly. 
 
 " The fat lady had hold of the arm of a captain 
 of Bersaglieri." 
 
 " Dear me ! I wonder what o'clock it is ! " said 
 Lisa. "I wonder whether there could be time. 
 We don't dine till one, and cook is always a 
 quarter of an hour behindhand." 
 
 "Time for what, Signorina Lisa? It is strik- 
 ing the quarter to one, now, by the clock in the 
 piazza. Oh, Lisa ! I am very miserable ! " said 
 poor Beppo, in a tone which seemed to convey a 
 little reproach for the manner in which she had 
 received his communication of the misfortune of 
 the corporal. 
 
 "Time to go and see — Giulia before dinner. 
 I was thinking we could go together, and pay a 
 visit to Signora Dossi ; but I am afraid we have 
 not time," she added, with a voice of much dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 " Me ! I could not think of doing such a 
 thing ! " said Beppo, with terror and horror in his 
 voice.
 
 220 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 " What ! not go and see Giulia ! " 
 
 " With that corporal there ! " shuddered Beppo. 
 
 " Oh ! the corporal is only with Captain Brilli. 
 That was Captain Brilli that you saw with la 
 Signora Dossi," said Lisa, blushing a little, and 
 laughing a little more. 
 
 " Oh— h— h ! Ah— h— h ! " rejoined Beppo, with 
 a varying intonation that marked the progressive 
 development of enlightenment in his mind ; " that 
 is why you would go there. But, Signora Lisa, I 
 can't go there to see that corporal and Giulia 
 together. It would make me mad ! " 
 
 "But that is just the reason you should go 
 there, Signor Beppo," reasoned little Lisa. " Per- 
 haps, if you had not stayed away from Fano so 
 long, the corporal would not have had so good a 
 chance. But take my word for it, Giulia don't 
 care a fig for him. He does go on with her, to be 
 sure. And he is a very amusing man, the cor- 
 poral. And what is a poor girl to do ? — and such 
 a girl as Giulia is, too ! How can you think that 
 she is to live in a town like Fano, — specially when 
 the place is full of officers and soldiers, — and not 
 be admired and run after ? " 
 
 Poor Beppo groaned deeply. "How long has 
 she known the man ? " he asked, despondingiy.
 
 THE CHURCH OF THE OBSERVANTINES. 221 
 
 " Oh ! Captain Brilli goes very often to la Dossi. 
 I hardly ever can see him anywhere else to speak 
 to him. And Corporal Tenda is very much with 
 him. I believe the corporal * at home in Pied- 
 mont is rather above his position in the army. 
 He is a very respectable sort of man, I fancy. 
 And so he made acquaintance with Giulia, you 
 see. And how could she help it ? But I don't 
 believe she cares a bit about him, — not to say, 
 really care," pleaded Lisa. 
 
 But Beppo had seen the corporal's manner and 
 his look, as he seemed, to Beppo's imagination, to 
 surround her on all sides at once with his accursed 
 agile assiduity ; he had seen the attention Giulia 
 was according to him, and had observed the merry 
 laughing intelligence in her eye. He had con- 
 trasted with this his own physical and mental atti- 
 tude when near her, and her manner towards him ; 
 and the iron had entered into his soul ! 
 
 * It may be observed, also, that the social distance between 
 an officer and a non-commissioned officer is very much less in 
 the Italian Army than in our own.
 
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 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 
 
 T WAS with a very bad appetite that 
 Beppo sat down to the attorney's table. 
 Nor was the information that Signor 
 Sandro had to communicate to him respecting 
 the other great object of his visit to the city at 
 all more consoling to him than that which had 
 already made life seem not worth having to 
 him since that morning. If the conscription had 
 simply involved getting knocked on the head 
 and put out of his pain at once, he felt as if he 
 could have been quite contented to draw Number 
 One! 
 
 The news which the attorney had to give him, 
 indeed, confirmed all the worst fears of the poor 
 fellows whom he left at Santa Luce, anxiously 
 awaiting the tidings that he would bring back
 
 COKPORAL TEND A. 223 
 
 from the city. The conscription was not merely- 
 threatened ; it was certain. It was not for next 
 year, but for this. The day for the drawing had 
 not been appointed for Fano yet ; but it would 
 be very shortly known, and would certainly be 
 not longer than a fortnight after the completion 
 of the communal lists. His brother Carlo was 
 exempt; but he, Beppo, was as surely liable as 
 any man in the district; — "and it is not very 
 easily that they will let a fellow of your inches 
 out of their clutches, my friend, if you once get 
 into them," added the attorney. 
 
 " One can but take one's chance ! " said Beppo, 
 striving to put the best face on the matter that 
 he could. "After all, the chance is in one's 
 favour." 
 
 " Well, yes, as far as equal chances go, it's in 
 your favour, of course ; but the devil of it is that 
 these signori uffiziali are bent upon getting 
 the likeliest men. And if the draft were for a 
 hundred, say, and you drew number two hundred, 
 I should be sorry to insure you ! " 
 
 " Why, how can that be, Signor Sandro ? If 
 a man is not fairly drawn, he cannot be taken, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 " Aha ! fairly drawn ! That's all very well !
 
 224 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 But it is not every man who is fit to serve ! 
 There is the medical examination ! Ever so many 
 are sure to be rejected ! Then, as I tell you, they 
 make all sorts of excuses to reject the smaller 
 and weaker men, in order to get a chance of 
 laying hold of a fellow like you. I suppose you 
 can't make out that you have got anything the 
 matter with you?" said the attorney, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Oh, yes, he has ! " put in little Lisa ; " he has 
 got a sore heart ; and I am sure that is a very bad 
 complaint. He has a very sore heart ever since I 
 have been telling him all about la Giulia ! " 
 
 " Oh, if that's his complaint, it's likely enough 
 to get worse instead of getting better," said the 
 attorney, affecting to give a low whistle, and turn 
 his eyes up to the ceiling, as if that was a dull 
 matter, about which the less was said the better. 
 
 "Why, what is there to be said against la 
 Giulia ? " said Beppo, almost fiercely. 
 
 " Against her \ Oh, nothing ! nothing at all ! I 
 never say anything against anybody. But it may 
 be that all the world is not equally prudent or 
 equally indulgent." 
 
 " Come now, papa," said Lisa, K you know there 
 is nothing to be said against poor Giulia, at all.
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 225 
 
 Of course it cannot be expected that such a girl 
 as Giulia should not be admired ! " 
 
 " Well, it may be so, of course. And some men 
 may have no objection to take up with a girl who 
 has been flirted with by half the town, and talked 
 of by the whole of it. Others may not like it. 
 It's a matter of taste. If I was a young fellow 
 in a respectable and good position, the head of my 
 family — to be so one day, at least — and looked 
 up to by all the country, I should not like to 
 make a girl my wife who had gone through that 
 sort of thing. Girls are easily spoilt ; — and the 
 handsomest perhaps the quickest." 
 
 " Tell me the truth, now, as an old friend, 
 Signor Sandro ! " said Beppo, piteously, while the 
 big drops of perspiration gathered on his brow ; 
 " do you mean that la Giulia has got herself 
 talked about in a way — that — that a good girl 
 should not?" 
 
 " Well, my dear friend, it is a difficult question 
 to answer! It is hard to say what a good girl 
 may do, and what she may not. I don't wish to 
 be severe. I dare say la Giulia is a very good 
 girl, as girls in her position are, — a very good 
 girl. But she has been very much — admired, we 
 will say. She has been a good deal spoken of. 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Men will speak of such things in a tone like this. 
 No doubt la Giulia has had her head turned a 
 little ! Che vuole t No doubt it would have 
 been better if she had kept this Corpoal Tenda — 
 I think they call him — more at a distance. Still 
 there is no great harm in it all ! Only that if I, 
 as a man who has some knowledge of the world, 
 and as an old friend of the family, were asked 
 for my advice in the matter of choosing a wife 
 for your father's son, — why, I should not pitch 
 upon Giulia Yanni. Girls of her sort make the 
 most charming sweethearts in the world. But a 
 good wife is another sort of article ! " 
 
 Beppo knew perfectly well that the attorney 
 had a motive for saying all this. He knew per- 
 fectly well what that motive was. Nevertheless 
 it gave him exquisite pain to hear it. Did not 
 what had fallen from Lisa, who had no such 
 motive, but quite the contrary, confirm it ? Worse 
 than all, did not the evidence of his own eyes 
 vouch for the truth of a good deal of it? He 
 dreaded, yet longed for, an interview with her. If 
 only he could have heard her disculpate herself ! 
 He would believe every word she said. That he 
 was quite determined on. Did Giulia ever lie ? 
 He would believe her in preference to all the
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. . 227 
 
 calumnious tittle-tattle tongues in the city. If 
 only she would say that — that — that — she loved 
 him, Beppo Yanni, in short ; that was, in point 
 of fact, the exculpation that he thirsted to hear 
 from her own lips ! 
 
 Signor Sandro, if he had effected nothing else 
 by his insinuations, had effectually destroyed the 
 convivial capabilities of his guest Beppo sat 
 moody and silent, and could not be induced to 
 drink, when the cheese and fruit were placed 
 upon the table. The attorney made one or two 
 hospitably-meant attempts to induce him to do 
 so, but finding it of no avail, he said : 
 
 " Well, Signor Beppo, if you will not drink any 
 more wine, I shall take my siesta. If you like 
 to do the same, make yourself at home. And if 
 you like to take Lisa to the passeggiata after- 
 wards, I have no doubt she will be well pleased. 
 You will find me in my study when you come 
 back ; and if you will look in for a moment before 
 you mount, I will give you a line to take to your 
 good father from me. A riveder la ! " 
 
 As soon as ever Lisa and Beppo were left alone 
 together, Lisa said : 
 
 " Now, Beppo, you must not mind a word of all 
 papa was saying. It is all stuff and nonsense. 
 
 Q 2
 
 228 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 You know what he has got in his head, — more 
 stuff and nonsense still. Don't you believe a word 
 of it ! " 
 
 ■ ■ But when I saw that corporal with my own 
 eyes, Lisa ! " 
 
 " Saw the corporal ! What of that \ Do you 
 think Giulia is going to shut herself up as if she 
 was a nun, for you ; and you never to come near 
 her for weeks and weeks? But, I tell you she 
 don't care a fig's end for the corporal I Just you 
 see her, and it will all come right ! " 
 
 " How am I to see her, Lisa 1 " asked Beppo, in 
 a very piteous tone. 
 
 "How? Why come to la Dossi's house, now 
 directly^ with me, to be sure I " 
 
 " Oh, Lisa ! and if that corporal is still there 1 " 
 
 " That is just what you must go for, Signor 
 Beppo. You must go and see for yourself that 
 there is nothing at all serious between Giulia 
 and Corporal Tenda. And, besides that, you 
 must go, to let Giulia know that you are thinking 
 of her. You have stayed away too long. What 
 do you suppose Giulia would feel if she heard 
 that you had been to Fano, and gone away with- 
 out so much as making any attempt to see her ! 
 I know what I should feel if Captain Brilli treated
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 229 
 
 me in such a way. Why, she would "be justified 
 in taking up with the corporal or anybody else 
 out of sheer despair, she would. Most likely," 
 continued Lisa, improving upon the idea which 
 had only that instant come into her head for the 
 first time, "most likely it's merely that which 
 has led her to encourage the corporal at all, — if 
 she has encouraged him, which I, for one, don't 
 believe. But you must not think that if you 
 don't do your duty by poor Giulia, the corporal 
 won't make the most of it to her. Of course he 
 will. And small blame to him ! If he should 
 hear — as of course he will hear — that you have 
 been to Fano, and never been near her, he will 
 make a pretty story of it to her ; — and then — 
 there's no saying what a girl may do in such a 
 case as that ! " 
 
 We know that little Lisa had her own reasons 
 for being determined to pay a visit that afternoon, 
 while her father was enjoying his siesta, to her 
 friend, Signora Dossi. Nevertheless, it cannot be 
 denied that her arguments were sound; unless, 
 indeed, Beppo were minded to give up the matter 
 altogether ; and once or twice the vision of that 
 corporal at Giulia's side, on the church-steps, and 
 of her manner, as she listened to him, as it re-
 
 230 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 curred to his mind, almost made him wish to do 
 so. The words of Signor Sandro, too, had not 
 been without their effect, even though he knew 
 that the counsel given was interested. For the 
 well-to-do contadino is very sensitive to the voice 
 of his public in matters of the sort. It would not 
 be well for Vanni of Bella Luce to take home a 
 wife who had been the town-talk of all Fano ! 
 That was true, let what would be the attorney's 
 motive for saying it. It was true ! and he was 
 mad, and miserable, and infatuated ! He could 
 not give up Giulia, however much his reason 
 might be convinced that it were better that he 
 should do so. He could not do it. Give her up ! 
 He knew at the bottom of his heart, all the time 
 that he was irresolutely hesitating whether he 
 should consent to go with Lisa or not, that 
 he would rather give up his life than give her 
 up. And then he thought over all the incidents 
 — the things spoken and the things done — under 
 the cypress-tree, in the path between Bella Luce 
 and Santa Lucia ; and his anger was forgotten, 
 and his heart yearned towards her ; and he would 
 forgive her everything — if only she would be for- 
 given ! 
 
 " Come, Signor Beppo ! — come along ! You
 
 CORPORAL TEXDA. 231 
 
 can, at all events, come with me as far as the 
 door of Palazzo Bollandini. We can talk of 
 your going in or not by the way. Any way, it's 
 as well to be walking as sitting here. Come 
 along ! " 
 
 So — merely out of civility to la Lisa, and be- 
 cause he could not help himself, he put on his 
 hat and accompanied her. 
 
 It had seemed to Beppo in the morning that 
 the Palazzo Bollandini was a long way off from 
 Signor Sandro Bartoldi's house — very much further 
 than it now appeared ! Perhaps he had not come 
 the shortest way in the morning. Perhaps the 
 difference was due to the different attitude of 
 his own mind. He had made very small progress 
 towards determining what he would do when he 
 got there, when he found himself with Lisa be- 
 fore the huge portal of the palace ; and he 
 recognised, with a shudder, the church front and 
 the steps where that horrid vision of Giulia and 
 the Bersagiieri corporal had blasted his eyes. 
 
 Lisa entered the great gateway, and tripped up 
 the huge staircase without pausing a second to 
 give Beppo time to think what he should do. 
 She skipped up the stairs to the primo piano, 
 and he had nothing for it but to run up after
 
 232 BEPPO, THE CONSCEIPT. 
 
 her. She seized the little bit of scarcely visible 
 twine — knowing right well exactly where to look 
 for it — while he was lost in awe and wonderment 
 at the grandeur of the place he had entered, 
 and rang as vigorous a peal as the little bell- 
 pull would execute. 
 
 "But, Signora Lisa," remonstrated Beppo; "I 
 think " 
 
 But they had not to wait for the opening of the 
 door so long this time as when Giulia and Signor 
 Sandro had stood before it, for they were lighter 
 feet which went across the huge hall to admit 
 them. 
 
 While Beppo's hesitating remonstrances were 
 yet on his lips, the door was opened by Giulia 
 herself. 
 
 It was of course the most natural thing in the 
 world that it should be so ; but the possibility of 
 it had never entered into Beppo's head for an 
 instant. Probably the truth was, that he hardly 
 realised the fact that that huge and magnificent 
 door was absolutely the private entrance to the 
 dwelling in which Giulia resided, but rather had 
 an idea that a whole nest of homes would be 
 found within it, in the furthermost penetralia of 
 some one of which she would be at length reached.
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 233 
 
 And when the tall door opened, there, framed 
 in the marble door-case, stood before him the 
 figure of his enchantress, more beautiful than ever, 
 set off with a hundred little town coquetries, 
 — transmuted, glorified, but still unruistakeably 
 the Giulia whose eyes had made the Bella Luce 
 light deserve its name, and whose absence made 
 all dark there. He was as much taken aback and 
 rooted to the spot with speechless amazement as if 
 he had suddenly met her at the antipodes. 
 
 He certainly had never seen her look so beau- 
 tiful as she looked at that moment ; and all — his 
 own bitter agony, and the stinging insinuations 
 of the attorney — would have been forgotten and 
 forgiven on the spot, but for a withering sight 
 that met his eyes as they looked beyond her into 
 the space of the huge hall. There, immediately 
 behind her, stood the odious, the intolerable 
 corporal. He had evidently either been alone 
 with her in the hall, or stuck to her so inse- 
 parably that he had accompanied her across it to 
 open the door. 
 
 Beppo's eyes glared with rage and indignation-; 
 and assuredly his whole appearance was very little 
 like that of one meeting an old friend, to say 
 nothing of an old love, with pleasure.
 
 234 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Giulia, too, was to a certain degree moved, and 
 to a certain degree embarrassed by the presence 
 of the corporal at her skirts. But when was ever 
 a woman embarrassed under circumstances of the 
 kind, let their difficulty be what it may, as a man 
 is embarrassed 
 
 Giulia's blood rushed to her face and neck, but 
 she did not lose for an instant either her faculty 
 of speech, or her presence of mind ; nor did her 
 voice shake, as she said : 
 
 "Ah, Signora Lisa! Boon giorno ! buona 
 festa ! We have been expecting you S " 
 
 (Lisa stood nearest to the door, and Beppo's 
 tall figure was seen over and behind her ; there- 
 fore it was natural to address her first.) 
 
 " Buon giorno, Signor Beppo ! Are they all 
 well at Bella Luce ? We did not expect to see 
 you to-day." 
 
 Lisa had at once stepped into the hall ; and 
 was greeting the corporal in the style of an old 
 acquaintance, leaving Giulia face to face witli 
 Beppo, who was still standing gaping, and almost 
 gasping, on the landing-place outside the door- 
 way. 
 
 "Signor Caporale," said she, turning to the 
 corporal, after she had paused half-a-minute with
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 235 
 
 the door in her hand, waiting for Beppo to enter, 
 " will you have the kindness to await my cousin 
 Beppo Vanni's decision whether he will come in 
 or not. I must go and take la Signorina Lisa 
 to la padrona" 
 
 And so saying she turned away to cross the 
 hall, leaving Beppo and the corporal face to face. 
 Lisa tried to throw an encouraging and inviting 
 glance to poor Beppo, over her shoulder; but 
 was obliged to hurry off with Giulia across the 
 hall. 
 
 Beppo had a very good mind to turn on his 
 heel without saying a word, shake the dust off 
 his feet as a testimony against the abominable 
 house he was in, and turn his back on it and 
 Giulia for ever ! Forgive her ? No ! he never, 
 never could forgive her ! It was monstrous ! It 
 was loathsome ! 
 
 He had a very good mind to turn his back and 
 walk away, — but he did not do it. For it was 
 beyond his power. 
 
 " So you are Signor Beppo Yanni, are you ? 
 Come in, comrade, come in ! the more the 
 merrier ! " said Corporal Tenda, after the two 
 men had remained staring at each other for a 
 minute without speaking ; — Beppo looking scared
 
 236 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 and savage, and the corporal perfectly self-possessed 
 and perfectly good-humoured. 
 
 Corporal Tenda was a model corporal of Ber- 
 saglieri, small, light-made, wiry, active, with a 
 shrewd, good-tempered, bright, sunburnt face, a 
 frank, bold blue eye, and a bush of short, crisp, 
 curly brown hair ; — a dangerous man for a rival 
 in the good graces of a high-mettled girl, though 
 not comparable either in face or in person to the 
 handsome, stalwart, classical-featured Romagnole. 
 But if his limbs were nimbler than those of the 
 Herculean-proportioned Beppo, his wit was far 
 more so. A ready wit is not generally the distin- 
 guishing characteristic of the Piedmontese ; and 
 Corporal Tenda was a native of that province ; 
 doubtless of a stock deriving its origin as well as 
 its name from the little mountain village which 
 gives its well-known appellation to the picturesque 
 Alpine pass between Nice and Turin. The cor- 
 poral was, as Lisa had said, — and as has been 
 by no means an uncommon case since Italy has 
 needed all her stoutest arms and hearts in the 
 ranks of her defenders — of a social position in his 
 own countiy somewhat higher than that which he 
 held (only provisionally, the corporal trusted) in 
 the army. He was a man of some little educa-
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 237 
 
 tion, of far more than poor BejDpo could boast ; 
 and was, though a Piedmontese, a sharp, clever 
 fellow. He was, moreover, a thoroughly good, 
 honest-hearted little man ; and though he had 
 abundance of the military tendency to look down 
 on the entire race of bumpkins, and quite a suffi- 
 ciency of the provincial Piedmontese assumption 
 of superiority to the inhabitants of the other 
 provinces of Italy, yet any man who came into 
 relationship of any kind with Corporal Tenda, 
 and showed himself in that relationship to be a 
 man of honour and character, was sure to be 
 treated by him as he deserved. 
 
 " You know my name, then ? " said Beppo, 
 who had so far obeyed the corporal's invitation as 
 to come just sufficiently far across the door-sill as 
 to make it possible for the latter to close the door 
 behind him. He had done so because he did not 
 know what else to do. And now he stood moodily 
 measuring his smart little enemy from head to 
 foot, thinking how easy it would be to pitch him 
 out of one of those great windows into the street, 
 and how much he should like to do it. It no 
 more came into his head to be personally afraid 
 of the corporal, than he would have been of a 
 little terrier who barked at his heels. But he was
 
 238 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 much afraid of his uniform. The contadino mind 
 stands in great and habitual awe of the military. 
 For all that, Beppo would have been very glad to 
 pick a quarrel with him ; though he had a vague 
 idea that to strike or resist such an embodiment 
 of the forza pubblica would ipso facto subject 
 him to be shot kneeling on his own coffin. But 
 he felt as if he should rather like to be kneeling 
 on his coffin than not, especially if Giulia could be 
 compelled to witness his fate, and to know that 
 he had incurred it by fighting to defend her from 
 all snares, corporals, and other emissaries of the 
 evil one. But Corporal Tenda did not seem to 
 intend to give him any opportunity of entering 
 on such a desperate course of conduct. 
 
 " Know your name, Signor Vanni ! " said he 
 " Altro ! I should think so, per Baccol Who 
 does not know the name of Vanni ? Your lord- 
 ship shares it with the divinest girl in all Romagna 
 — in all Italy, I should say ! " 
 
 "My business here was to see my cousin 
 Giulia," said Beppo, scowling more blackly than 
 ever. " My father is in some sort responsible for 
 — for her safety — and— and the decency of her 
 conduct." 
 
 " Ha ! You come armed with parental autho-
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 239 
 
 rity, eh ? " and the corporal winked in the most 
 provokingly intelligent manner and the most 
 perfect good humour as he spoke. "Pray walk 
 in, and permit the Signorina Giulia to crave 
 your blessing. It will be, I doubt not, supremely 
 satisfactory to her ! Allow me to do the honours 
 of this poor mansion ! " continued the corporal, 
 waving his hand, as he spoke, with the mock 
 airs of a host, and bowing low to Beppo as he 
 motioned him to precede him. 
 
 " My cousin is but a poor servant in this house," 
 growled Beppo, while his mind was distracted 
 from what he was saying by a desire rapidly 
 becoming uncontrollable to spring on the accursed 
 corporal, and strangle him then and there. "If 
 she is disengaged, I might speak a few words to 
 her before I leave the city ; if not, it does not 
 matter, — not the least in the world. Perhaps I 
 had better not disturb her ! " 
 
 " Come ! vi pare ! Can you dream of it ? A 
 nice kind of guardian and protector you are for 
 a young girL Oh — 4, Signora Giulia ! " he cried 
 out, raising his voice till it echoed again in the 
 large empty hall ; " here's Signor Beppo yearning 
 to give you his fatherly blessing ; but he is in 
 such a hurry just now to be off, that, if you do
 
 240 EEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 not come out for it directly, he will cany it off 
 straight back to the hills with him. Oh — d, 
 Signora Giulia ! " 
 
 " Hush — h — h ! " cried Giulia, running out from 
 the inner rooms, and holding up her hand with a 
 warning gesture ; " are you mad, Signor Caporale, 
 to make such a noise as that ? Don't you know 
 that la paclrona is taking her siesta ? " 
 
 La padrona was taking her siesta ! And Giulia 
 had been alone, then, with this animal of a pro- 
 fligate corporal ! thought Beppo to himself. It 
 was too bad — too barefaced ! Thank God he had 
 come into the city, and made himself acquainted 
 with the truth! Thank God he had escaped 
 wrecking his heart on a worthless girl ! Escaped ? 
 Poor Beppo groaned inwardly as the word returned 
 to his mind in the guise of a question. 
 
 They had not been absolutely tete-a-tete, how- 
 ever, he thought. For he supposed that Captain 
 Brilli must be in the house somewhere. Lisa had 
 vanished into the inner penetralia, and no doubt 
 knew of the captain's whereabouts. 
 
 The fact was, that the attorney's daughter and 
 her lover were at that instant discussing all the 
 chapter of their hopes and fears in a delicious 
 tete-a-tete in la Dossi's vacant sitting-room.
 
 CORPORAL TENDA. 24<1 
 
 " How could I think about siestas or anything 
 else, when your estimable guardian here was 
 talking of leaving the house without seeing you, 
 gentilissima Signora Giulia?" said the corporal, 
 adding action with both hands, as he stood a few 
 yards from Beppo on the paved floor of the vast 
 hall, and affecting to speak in a voice of urgent 
 remonstrance. 
 
 " My guardian ! " said Giulia, tossing her head. 
 
 ■ I made no such claim," said Beppo, sulkily ; 
 " I should be very sorry to assume such an office." 
 
 11 Come to see that the young lady conducted 
 herself decently, on behalf of her family, if I 
 understand your worship aright," said the cor- 
 poral, skipping into a new rhetorical attitude as 
 he spoke. 
 
 " I said," replied Beppo, stammering and turn- 
 ing very red, "that — my father — and mother — 
 would — would be glad to hear that my cousin 
 Giulia was — was — was going on well. I leave it 
 to her to judge how far they will be satisfied with 
 my report ! " 
 
 Giulia's eyes flashed at this, and the lightning 
 was instantaneously followed by the thunderbolt. 
 
 " There is nobody at Bella Luce," she said, " to 
 whom my conduct is of the slightest importance. 
 
 VOL. I. R
 
 242 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 There is one way only in which I could grieve 
 the heart of Signor Paolo Vanni, and in that 
 way he may rest very sure I shall never afflict 
 him!" 
 
 Corporal Tenda saw with undisguised admira- 
 tion, and Beppo with an agony made up of a sense 
 of self-blame conflicting with burning indignation 
 and ardent love for his cousin, how much scorn 
 could look beautiful in Giulia's eyes as she spoke 
 those last words — words which Beppo but too well 
 understood. 
 
 " Diavolo ! If family matters of delicacy have 
 to be discussed — if the lady has confidences to 
 make to her father confessor, allow me to suggest 
 the privacy of a confessional ! " said the corporal, 
 waving his hand towards the old sedan-chair in a 
 distant corner of the hall ! " it would be impossible 
 to desire better accommodation for the purpose." 
 
 " Don't be a fool, Signor Caporale," said Giulia, 
 as gravely as she could, but darting a laughing 
 glance out of the corner of her eye at the corporal, 
 as she spoke, which Beppo caught in transitu, 
 and which formed perhaps the heaviest item in all 
 the long bill against her scored up in his much- 
 lacerated heart. "If you choose to walk in, 
 Signor Beppo," she continued, in a milder tone,
 
 CORPORAL TEND A. 24^3 
 
 though still very haughty — for she had been 
 grievously offended by that ill-judged slip of the 
 tongue which poor Beppo had been guilty of in 
 the excess of his embarrassment and ill-humour 
 in speaking to the corporal, and which the latter 
 had so remorselessly turned to the utmost account 
 — " if you choose to walk in I shall be happy to 
 present you to la Signora Dossi, as soon as she 
 wakes." 
 
 She spoke coldly and haughtily ; but there was 
 a feeling at her heart, due perhaps in some degree 
 to the intensity of the misery which was legible in 
 Beppo's handsome face, which prompted her to 
 accompany her words with a look — not precisely 
 of tenderness, and still less of pleading ; but cer- 
 tainly of reconciliation and invitation. It was but 
 momentary, however, and Beppo was either too 
 slow to see it or too angry to heed it. 
 
 " I do not see that I could be of any use in 
 coming in," said he, gloomily; "I should only 
 interfere with the pleasant party assembled here. 
 Besides, I must be starting for Bella Luce, and I 
 can easily understand that you are in no hurry for 
 la Signora Dossi to wake ! " 
 
 The last words were accompanied by a look of 
 indignant and bitter reproach at Giulia. 
 
 e 2
 
 244 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 " As you please, Signor Beppo ! " said she, at 
 once turning on her heel, and going towards the 
 door of the inner rooms ; " Signor Caporale," 
 she added, as she crossed the hall, "will you 
 kindly open the door for my cousin ? I wish you 
 a pleasant ride home, Signor Beppo !" 
 
 And with those words she vanished ; and in- 
 stantly an immense and poignant repentance of 
 his refusal of her invitation fell upon Beppo. 
 He felt as if he would have given worlds to recall 
 it, if only for the gratification of his burning 
 curiosity to know what would pass between her and 
 the corporal during the remainder of la Dossi's 
 siesta, — if only to protect her, ungrateful as she 
 was, against that base and unprincipled wretch. 
 Protect her ! How could he protect her % He 
 away at Bella Luce, and she with evidently all 
 sorts of opportunities of meeting him as often as 
 she pleased. And was he not already on terms of 
 intimacy with her such as Beppo had never been 
 able to attain, and that in a few weeks ? and he 
 had worshipped her, and lived under the same 
 roof with her for years. 
 
 He turned slowly towards the door, with a hell 
 of contending passions seething in his heart, 
 — rage, bitter self-contempt, indignation, hatred,
 
 CORPORAL TEND A. 245 
 
 horrible jealousy, and desperate and unquenchable 
 love. 
 
 Yes, love, after all, through all, and above all. 
 He told his heart that he despised her, and cast 
 her off, and hated her ; and his heart knew that 
 he lied, and loved her at the very moment as 
 desperately as ever. 
 
 " Well, don't look so black about it, friend 
 Beppo," said the corporal as he opened the door 
 for him. " It seems that the young lady does 
 not value the paternal blessing so much as I had 
 supposed. Try her another way, next time." 
 
 " I want no next time," said Beppo. " It is 
 not likely that I shall trouble your fun here 
 another time." 
 
 " Well, we must try not to break our hearts. 
 I won't answer for mine, for it's a veiy tender 
 one," said the corporal, placing his hand on the 
 organ in question, and bowing low as Beppo 
 passed the door. "I dare say we shall meet again, 
 though, for all that," he added, looking with a 
 soldier's eye after Beppo as he went slowly down 
 the great staircase ; " meantime, buon viaggio, a 
 rwederlo" 
 
 And Corporal Tenda shut the door after him 
 with undiminished good humour.
 
 246 BEPPO, THE CONSCPJPT. 
 
 It is so easy for a man to keep his good temper 
 under such circumstances. 
 
 Beppo walked away through the streets, now 
 filling with people in their holiday trim, for it was 
 just the hour of the passeggiata, feeling as if he 
 had been stunned and was reeling. He never 
 thought of returning to Signor Sandro's house for 
 the letter the attorney had asked him to carry to 
 his father ; but found his way somehow or other 
 unconsciously to the osteria at which he had left 
 his horse, and ordered it to be brought out to him 
 with a manner and voice that made the lame 
 ostler, whose lameness had recently become so 
 valuable a possession, say to a bystander, as he 
 rode off: "There's another that's been baulked 
 in his hopes of getting a substitute. Wait 
 awhile, and you'll see plenty more faces like that 
 in Fano ! " 
 
 Beppo let his nag choose his own pace, and find 
 his own way back to Bella Luce. The old horse 
 had no doubt on either point. He quietly saun- 
 tered along the well-known road, and never dis- 
 turbed his master's deep reverie till he came to 
 a full stop at his own stable-door. 
 
 The lights seemed to be all out in the farm- 
 house ; for it was much beyond the usual bed-
 
 CORPORAL TEND A. 247 
 
 time of the inmates. Beppo, still moving as if 
 in a dream, put his horse into the stable, took off 
 his saddle ; and then, after standing awhile gazing 
 sadly into the distant moonlight far down the 
 valley, heaved a deep sobbing sigh, and turning 
 away from the house towards the path leading to 
 the village, walked straight to the great half-way 
 cypress in the middle of the path. 
 
 There he flung himself on the turf at his length, 
 and burst, great strong man as he was, into a 
 passionate fit of tears. 
 
 When these had in some degree calmed the 
 storm that was raging in his heart and brain, he 
 set himself to think over every word, every accent, 
 every gesture of the last meeting on that spot 
 between him and Giulia. He would fain have 
 found some motive of excuse, some possibility of 
 explanation, from the comparison of her words 
 and conduct then with what he had seen and 
 heard that day. But each well-remembered look 
 and phrase seemed to him only to make her 
 present conduct appear the more odious, the more 
 hideously inconsistent. False, false, false, as hell ! 
 " No love, no love ! " she had cried in the bitter- 
 ness of her heart. "I hate them! I hate all
 
 248 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 Oh, what a wreath of bitter, bitter scorn sate 
 on Beppo's usually inexpressive lips, as he recalled 
 the words ! 
 
 All thought of the conscription seemed to have 
 gone far, far away into the background, as if it 
 appertained to some distant matter ; but still his 
 mind would go over and over again the scene of 
 that last night ; and still the tender feelings 
 which, despite his reason, would fill his eyes with 
 tears at the thoughts of it, were alternated with 
 the hot fit of burning rage and shame, and scath- 
 ing jealousy, as he recalled those other memories 
 of the morning. 
 
 And so passed the hours, till the morning 
 Ave Maria from the tower of the neighbouring 
 church of Santa Lucia recalled him to the neces- 
 sity of reporting himself at home, and com- 
 mencing with his father and brother the morning's 
 task.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 
 
 ERY little passed that day between 
 Beppo and his father and brother. 
 Had they been townsmen instead of 
 peasants, and, specially, had they been Tuscan 
 townsmen, the tidings which Beppo brought 
 home would have formed subject for endless 
 talk at every spare minute during the day ; — 
 (the tidings respecting the conscription, that is 
 to say ; of course the other load at his heart 
 had to lie there, and be borne in silence as 
 best it might ;) — but Paolo Yanni and his sons 
 were contadini and Romagnoles ; and but few 
 words were said. Beppo briefly told them, as 
 they went to their work, that the worst fears of 
 the country were to be realised ; that the con- 
 scription was certainly to take place that year,
 
 250 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 and that a day for the drawing would be named 
 shortly after the completion of the communal 
 lists. 
 
 At dinner-time the same information was given 
 in similarly concise words to the poor mother, who 
 manifested but little more emotion outwardly 
 than the male members of the family had done ; 
 but she rose early next morning, and privately 
 taking from the secret hoard of the produce of 
 her yarn, the price of two fair wax tapers of 
 half-a-pound each, she stole off to the village, 
 and, having bought what she needed, set them 
 up alight before the altar of the Blessed Virgin 
 of the Seven Sorrows, with an earnestly breathed 
 prayer that the holy Mother would deign, in 
 consideration of that humble offering, to preserve 
 a mother's son to her. True, all the other 
 mothers in the parish would, in all probability, 
 do the like. But it was not probable that any 
 one of them would go to the expense of tapers 
 of half-a-pound each. It was to be presumed, 
 therefore, that the prayer so backed would be 
 effectual. Nevertheless, poor Sunta, in her 
 anxiety, turned back when she had gone a few 
 steps from the church, and again kneeling before 
 the figure with the seven daggers, stuck in
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 251 
 
 artistic grouping through the satin of her stiffly 
 brocaded, pyramidal-shaped robe, she promised 
 two more tapers of equal size in case of a favour- 
 able result. 
 
 Poor mother ! If earnestness could avail to 
 make her prayer heard, it must have had its 
 effect. 
 
 And so the day passed sombrely enough among 
 the inhabitants of Bella Luce. The days had 
 passed more sombrely there, even to old Paolo 
 himself, since Giulia had left the farm. But 
 that Black Monday, after Beppo's return from 
 the city, was more so than ordinary. 
 
 In the evening, a little before supper-time, came 
 Don Evandro. The priest was always a welcome 
 guest at Bella Luce, for he knew how to make 
 himself agreeable, with the tact so specially the 
 gift of the Roman Catholic clergy, both to the 
 farmer and to his wife. And the frequent presence 
 of the priest at their table conferred a tone and 
 style in the estimation of the Santa Lucia beau- 
 monde that nothing else could have compensated 
 for. Many of the parish clergy in the poorer and 
 remoter districts of Italy are glad enough to give 
 the consideration bestowed by their presence in 
 return for the hospitality afforded them. But
 
 252 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 this was not Don Evandro's object. He was too 
 well off, though far from being a rich man, to 
 need a meal; and he had always some ulterior 
 object in view. Power was what he wanted, 
 and the means of leading his parish whitherso- 
 ever he chose that it should go. 
 
 He was perfectly aware of Beppo's journey to 
 Fano, — had in some degree prepared for it before- 
 hand ; and the object of his present visit to Bella 
 Luce was to shape and confirm the impressions 
 which he pretty shrewdly guessed the young man 
 had brought back with him. 
 
 " I suppose, Signor Beppo, you brought home 
 with you full information respecting this detest- 
 able and abominable conscription ? " 
 
 "Yes, your reverence. It seems that it is 
 all determined on," said Beppo, in a weary and 
 dispirited manner. 
 
 "And that is what the godless, usurping go- 
 vernment and the infidel revolutionists call 
 liberty ! Liberty ! — the forcible tearing of the 
 flower of the population from their homes and 
 their families ! Man-stealers ! My heart bleeds 
 for the unfortunates who are thus sent off to 
 destruction, temporal and eternal. Ay, eternal ! 
 For what are they when they come back to their
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 253 
 
 native soil, — if ever they do come back ? Repro- 
 bates ! They leave their paternal roofs well-dis- 
 posed, God-fearing youths ; and the few who ever 
 return are lost reprobates, fearing neither God 
 nor devil, filled with false notions and heresies, 
 perverted in heart and in mind alike. Were I 
 a father, I would rather see my son in his coffin 
 than see him taken by the accursed conscription." 
 
 The father and mother and the two sons 
 listened to this outburst with awe and terror. 
 And the old farmer began to fear that he should 
 certainly be expected to turn out his hoards, in 
 order to buy his son off destruction, temporal and 
 eternal. 
 
 " It is a very bad business," said the old man, 
 scratching his head ; " I don't see what is to be 
 done in it — not I ! Suppose our Beppo should be 
 drawn, your reverence ; what can a poor man like 
 me do?" 
 
 " But there is good hope he may not be drawn ; 
 surely there is good hope," said Signora Sunta, 
 clasping her hands. " The Holy Virgin is very 
 good. We have always done our best both at 
 Nativity and Conception, besides a candle at the 
 Annunciation — and always the best wax. Your 
 reverence well knows we have never failed," said
 
 254 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 poor Sunta, appealingly; "surely we may hope 
 that the Virgin will send us a good number." 
 
 "You have every reason, my dear friend, to 
 expect a blessing on you and yours. I know 
 nobody in whose case I should look forward to 
 one with greater confidence," replied the priest ; 
 "but the worst of the misfortune is, that a 
 good number cannot be trusted to as an escape." 
 
 " Signor Sandro told me something of that," 
 said Beppo ; " but I did not rightly understand 
 him. He seemed to say, as far as I could make 
 out, that after they had drawn the men by lot, if 
 they did not like what the lot gave them, they 
 picked out others." 
 
 "Well, it comes to nearly that," returned the 
 priest ; " for these sons of Belial are not honest 
 even in the carrying out of their own infamous 
 laws. If there is a man they fancy anywhere near 
 on the list, they will make all kinds of lying ex- 
 cuses to get rid of the others, till they can put 
 their hand on him. Such a lad as you, my poor 
 Beppo, is just the sort they want to make a 
 soldier of; and you may depend on it, if they have 
 half a chance, they will leave no stone unturned 
 to get hold of you." 
 
 " I don't think that seems fan," said Beppo ; " a
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 255 
 
 fair lot is in the hands of the blessed Virgin and 
 the saints; but when you come to picking and 
 choosing, that is another matter." 
 
 The theory which thus limited the sphere of the 
 influence of the spiritual powers was a curious one. 
 But the Bella Luce theology was about contem- 
 poraneous with the Bella Luce system of vine- 
 dressing, which, as we have seen, dated from before 
 the Georgics. 
 
 The priest, however, only said in reply to 
 Beppo's remonstrance : — 
 
 " Fair ! no : as if anything done by a robber 
 government was likely to be fair ! It is alfca mass 
 of fraud, and violence, and tyranny, and iniquity, 
 and godless impiety together." 
 
 It will be observed that the priest was very 
 much more outspoken in his disaffection to the 
 new government than he had been on the former 
 occasion, when we had last the pleasure of meet- 
 ing him. But Signor Sandro Bartoldi, the attor- 
 ney, was present upon that occasion ; a man from 
 the town, not one who could be counted on as a 
 stanch adherent of the good cause — in short, not 
 a safe man at all. Noiv, the parish priest was 
 speaking before none but members of his own 
 mountain congregation, and he spoke out accord-
 
 256 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 ingly. He was not aware, however, how far the 
 minds of the younger generation of his audience 
 had slipped away from the old moorings, and 
 drawn (who can say how ? Who can say how 
 minds do draw nutriment from the surrounding 
 atmosphere of thought, as silently as trees do 
 from the air ?) somehow or other the material for 
 the formation of new judgments and views of 
 the world around them. The slowness of the 
 peasant's mind, the submissive reverence which 
 prevents him from ever "giving his priest an 
 answer," as the vulgar phrase goes, and the unex- 
 pansive silence in which his intellect works, com- 
 bine to prevent the parish clergy from being 
 fully aware of the degree to which the minds of 
 the rising generation of their flocks have emanci- 
 pated themselves from their leading-strings. Not 
 that there was the slightest danger that any one 
 of the Bella Luce family would have made any 
 use of the disaffected words uttered by their priest 
 in a manner to be injurious to him. Besides that, 
 this unhappy conscription question had, to a cer- 
 tain extent, thrown their minds into unison of 
 sentiment with his once more. Otherwise Beppo 
 had begun to form a shrewd opinion of his own, 
 that the papal government was about as bad a
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 257 
 
 one as it could be ; and that the new one, at all 
 events, promised to be much better. But this 
 conscription — it could not be denied that it was 
 a bitter pill, and a staggering difficulty for the 
 adherents of the new order of things. 
 
 " They do say," remarked old Paolo, in reply to 
 the priest's last words, " that money may buy a 
 man off if he is drawn. I should not wonder : 
 there's few things that money can't do. But how 
 can I find the means of buying Beppo off? — a 
 poor working man like me. How can I do it, 
 your reverence ? — not to be able to keep a decent 
 house over my head and pay my way, church dues 
 and offerings and alms and masses as well. How 
 can it be done ? It stands to reason it can't." 
 
 This was a desperate attempt on the part of 
 the old farmer to know the worst, and ascertain 
 whether he was expected to ransom his son at the 
 cost of his hardly-saved and dearly-loved dollars. 
 He knew very well that, if the priest said he must 
 do so, he should have to do it. And he had 
 thrown out a few topics for consideration to the 
 curato — with the greatest tact and delicacy, as he 
 flattered himself — which he thought might have 
 the effect of influencing his decision upon the 
 point in question. 
 
 VOL. I. S
 
 258 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 The oracle spoke, and comforted him inex- 
 pressibly. 
 
 " There are few things, as you remark, Signor 
 Vanni, which money judiciously employed may 
 not do. Certainly it may bribe the wretches, who 
 have usurped the territory and the power of the 
 Holy Father, to disgorge the prey which they 
 have seized in their infamous man-stealing. But 
 I have very grave doubts of the lawfulness of thus 
 expending money. I may say, indeed, that I am 
 tolerably sure that it cannot be done without sin. 
 And I have the means of knowing that such is the 
 opinion of those in high places, and of the best 
 authorities. To contribute money wilfully, not 
 by compulsion, to the support of the excommu- 
 nicated government is to give aid, countenance, 
 and comfort to the enemies of our Holy Father, 
 and persons under sentence of excommunication, 
 which is very palpably damnable and mortal sin. 
 But assuredly those who give their money for the 
 purpose in question are guilty of doing this. My 
 mind is quite clear upon the subject. I do not 
 see how I should be able to give absolution, per- 
 haps not even in articulo mortis, to a person 
 lying under the guilt of this sin ! " 
 
 "But," Beppo ventured to say timidly, — "but,
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 259 
 
 your reverence, if you go to fight for the new 
 government yourself, is not it as bad as paying 
 another to do it for you ? Must it not be equally 
 sinful to go yourself? And yet one or other of 
 the two you must do." 
 
 " Must you % " said the priest, drily. 
 
 " Well, your reverence, it seems that if you are 
 drawn you must," said Beppo, simply. 
 
 "My notion is," said the priest, "that there 
 will be a pretty considerable number of young 
 men — God-fearing, well-educated young men — 
 drawn for the conscription in this province who 
 will do neither the one nor the other : who will 
 neither suffer themselves to be torn away from 
 their country to fight against their Holy Father 
 and lawful sovereign, nor yet give money to his 
 enemies to hire somebody else to do so." And as 
 he spoke he rubbed his hands slowly together, 
 and looked hard at Beppo. 
 
 The old father and mother looked from one 
 to the other with watchful interest ; the former 
 much relieved in his mind, and feeling more than 
 ever that Don Evandro was a second Daniel come 
 to judgment. 
 
 "But it's no use for a man to say he won't 
 go," rejoined Beppo. "Willy nilly, he must go. 
 
 s 2
 
 260 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 If lie won't go by his own will, he will be taken 
 by force." 
 
 " Oh, no ! certainly ; it is of no use for a man 
 to say he won't go — of no use at all. It is not by 
 saying that a man can do his duty to his God, 
 and his Church, and his country. Duty mostly 
 needs something more than saying!' returned the 
 priest, with a very marked emphasis, and still 
 looking hard at Beppo. 
 
 "I don't see it, your reverence," said Beppo, 
 looking puzzled. " What is a man to do, then 1 " 
 
 " And yet it seems pretty clear, too," rejoined 
 the curate. " You say, if a man won't go, he will 
 be taken by force ? " 
 
 " So I am told," said Beppo. 
 
 " Who will take him ? " asked the priest, 
 Socratically. 
 
 " Why, the soldiers, I suppose I " said Beppo, 
 with very widely opened eyes. 
 
 " And where will they take him from ? Where 
 would they take you from, for instance, if you 
 did not go to them 1 " continued the priest, push- 
 ing on his catechism to its conclusion. 
 
 " If I were drawn, and did not go to give 
 myself up at Fano, they would come here after 
 me, and take me by force," said Beppo, begin-
 
 DON EYANDEO AT WORK. 261 
 
 ning to think that the priest was really unin- 
 formed upon the subject. 
 
 " Very true ; they would come here — here to 
 Bella Luce ! But suppose they did not find you 
 here?" 
 
 "Then they would take me wherever they 
 could find me. Why, bless your reverence's 
 heart, they aren't put off in that way." 
 
 "They would take you wherever they could 
 find you, no doubt. But suppose that they could 
 not find you at all ? " 
 
 " What ! If I were to put an end to myself," 
 said poor Beppo, not appearing to be very much 
 startled by the suggestion ; " but I thought, your 
 reverence, that that was not lawful to do in any 
 case?" 
 
 " Put an end to yourself ? I am shocked at you, 
 Beppo ! Unlawful ? — of course it is. How could 
 you imagine I had such a thing in my thoughts ? " 
 
 " Then I am sure I don't know, and it is not 
 for such as I am to guess, what is in your reve- 
 rence's thoughts ! " said Beppo, utterly puzzled. 
 
 " Why, my good friend, Beppo, you are not so 
 quick as I thought you. If you are drawn for 
 the conscription, — say, you don't go. The soldiers 
 come here to look for you ; — don't find you. —
 
 262 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 ' We want Beppo Yanni/ say they ; ' where is 
 he ? ' — ( Really can't say/ says my friend, Signor 
 Paolo. — ' Sure he is not in the house ? ' says the 
 officer. — ' Quite sure,' says Signor Paolo. ' You 
 can search it if you like.' They do search it, but 
 they don't find Beppo Yanni. Then they come 
 away to Santa Lucia to see the curato, and try 
 what they can make out of him. ' We are come 
 to look for one Beppo Yanni, a parishioner of 
 yours, your reverence. Can you tell us where 
 we can find him ? ' — ' He lives at Bella Luce, 
 when he is at home/ says his reverence ; ' is he 
 not there now?' — 'No, he is not there. But I 
 suppose your reverence knows where to find 
 him ? ' says the officer. — ' If he is not there, he 
 must be out in the hills. There are many wolves 
 and wild boars, and such like, in our mountains, 
 but they are mostly very hard to catch/ says his 
 reverence ; ' Beppo Yanni is very fond of hunting. 
 If you keep on the wolfs track, I dare say you 
 will find him ; and I wish you a pleasant job of 
 it/ says his reverence. 
 
 " Now do you see it, friend Beppo 1 " asked the 
 priest, when he had concluded his little exposi- 
 tion, of which the latter part was delivered with 
 considerable dramatic effect.
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 263 
 
 " What, take to the hills per bene 1 " said 
 Beppo, with a grim smile ; — " for good and all," 
 as an Englishman might have said. 
 
 " Ay, for good, assuredly ! " said the priest. 
 " But it would only be for a short time, just till 
 the secret was blown over, and the soldiers out of 
 the country. That is what all the best men in the 
 country will do. The excommunicated king will 
 find that he will get very few men in Romagna, 
 except the scum of the towns, to fight for him 
 against the Holy Father." 
 
 " It looks like skulking, as if one had done 
 something to be ashamed of, keeping out of the 
 way in the hills in that fashion," said BejDpo, 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " You will find, my friend, that all the shame 
 mil lie on the other side," returned the priest. 
 " I tell you that all the best men in the country 
 — those of them, at least, who have the misfor- 
 tune to be drawn — will take to the hills." 
 
 " Your reverence spoke of the wolves and the 
 wild boars," said Beppo, with a sigh ; " every man's 
 hand is against them, and # they are hunted down." 
 
 " Yes," returned the priest, quickly ; " they are 
 hunted down because every man's hand is against 
 them. But there is just the difference. Those
 
 264 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT 
 
 who take to the hills in this sacred cause will 
 have every good man for their friend. We priests," 
 continued Don Evandro, with a grim smile of 
 conscious power, " are everywhere ; and, do what 
 they will, they will never root us out. Wherever 
 there is a parish — what do I say ? — wherever 
 there is Catholic soil, there is a Catholic priest. 
 And wherever there is a priest, those who are 
 homeless for the good cause will have a friend. 
 We shall have our eyes on those who are out in 
 the hills on account of this business. They will 
 not be let to want, neither for food nor for shelter; ' 
 no, nor for communication with their friends at 
 home," he added, looking hard at Beppo, with so 
 meaning a glance that it was all but a wink. 
 
 " And your reverence thinks that it would not 
 be for a very long time — that those who go out 
 into the hills will be able to return to their homes 
 after awhile ? " asked Beppo, musingly. 
 
 " Of course. It stands to reason. Specially 
 those who live not in the towns, but in out-of- 
 the-way places like this. Why, we are almost 
 among the hills, as you may say, here. As soon 
 as this conscription business is over, the troops 
 will quit the country, — go to be shot down by 
 the Austrian cannon, or to cut the throats of
 
 DON EVANDKO AT WORK. 265 
 
 their brothers in Naples, or to be led to sacrilege 
 against Rome, and be struck dead, perhaps, in 
 the horrible act : what do I know ? They will be 
 marched away; and then the country will be 
 quiet, till God sees fit in His mercy to restore the 
 lawful and rightful government ; and when that 
 day comes, as come it surely will before long, 
 those who have refused at any cost to bear arms 
 against their Holy Father will have cause to bless 
 themselves, and thank their good fortune." 
 
 "And your reverence thinks there would be 
 means of holding communication with — with one's 
 friends at home, or — or in the towns ? " 
 
 '•No doubt about that," said the priest, again 
 looking, with peculiar intelligence, hard at Beppo. 
 " We shall take care about that. There would be 
 no lack of means of communication. Any man 
 in the hills for this cause might know, day by 
 day, if he cared about it — which is hardly likely 
 — what was the news in the towns." 
 
 " That would be a great thing, certainly," said 
 Beppo, meditating, and seeming to speak more to 
 himself than to the priest. 
 
 " What ! I suppose your visit to Signor 
 Sandro's house yesterday has made you wish to 
 hear from him again, eh ? "
 
 266 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 "Yes! — no! That is, your reverence, not 
 from him particularly/' replied Beppo, far too 
 simple to tell a lie, even when it was put into 
 his mouth for him by the person to whom it was 
 to be told. 
 
 " Ah ! I see ! " said the priest, pretending to 
 misunderstand him ; " not from him, perhaps. 
 I am told that Lisa Bartoldi is becoming one 
 of the most charming girls in Fano — immensely 
 improved of late, and greatly sought after. No 
 wonder, with her expectations. It is a pity her 
 father should have let some of those scamps of 
 officers come round her. But that will be all over 
 as soon as they are out of the country — pests as 
 they are ! But Lisa is a prudent girl, and is very 
 safe not to commit herself." (The priest did not 
 guess that Lisa had been perfectly confidential 
 with Beppo on the subject of her loves with the 
 captain of Bersaglieri.) " Would to Heaven," he 
 continued, " that as much could be said for that 
 unfortunate Giulia ! I have almost reproached 
 myself for having advised that the proposal of 
 Signor Sandro to send her to Fano should be 
 accepted for her. But God knows I acted for the 
 best, and to the best of my judgment. Who could 
 have thought that a girl so brought up would
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 267 
 
 have gone to the bad so shamefully, and that in 
 so short a time ? " And the priest lifted his hands 
 and eyes to heaven, or, at least, to the ceiling 
 of the farmhouse kitchen, as he spoke. "But 
 the fact is," he added, dropping his eyes with a 
 meek, resigned sigh, "that when a girl is thoroughly 
 bad nothing can save her. A heartless, false 
 girl is, and must be, lost, whether in town or 
 country." 
 
 The supper, of which Don Evandro had par- 
 taken with the family, had been finished long 
 ago. It had consisted merely of the minestra, 
 a bit of cheese afterwards, and a flask of the 
 farmer's Bella Luce wine. But Signora Sunta 
 had been assailed by no false shame, and had 
 made no efforts to increase her bill of fare, and no 
 boasting excuses to the priest any more than to 
 one of the family. For he was not a guest from 
 the city, but a fellow-villager, who was one of 
 themselves. The supper therefore had not taken 
 long. And as soon as it was over, la Sunta had 
 without apology taken up the one lumino, or 
 tall brass Roman lamp, which had stood on the 
 supper-table, and had gone with it about her 
 household affairs, leaving her husband and sons 
 and their guest to smoke their cigars and have
 
 268 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 their talk by the light of the May moon which 
 streamed in through the open kitchen-door. Old 
 Paolo had fallen asleep soon after the conversa- 
 tion had reached the point at which it had been 
 authoritatively decided that it would be wicked of 
 him to pay out money. Since that, the talk had 
 been entirely between Beppo and the priest, and 
 Carlo had been an attentive listener. It was for- 
 tunate for Beppo that they were sitting so nearly 
 in the dark, for he felt that it would have been 
 impossible otherwise for him to have concealed 
 from the ever-watchful eye of the priest the 
 agitation and misery which the last words of the 
 latter were causing him. They did but confirm 
 his own impressions of the day before. But then 
 those impressions had been the result of indig- 
 nation — of the things which he had seen with his 
 eyes ! His eyes no longer saw them ! His indig- 
 nation had begun to wane ! The impressions had 
 become less forcible and distinct. It was growing 
 more possible for him to persuade himself that he 
 exaggerated matters — that he himself had been to 
 blame — that there might still be a possibility of 
 hope for him, in short. But now the words of 
 Don Evandro rudely threw down again all the 
 fabric he was once more striving to raise, and cut
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK 269 
 
 off like a blighting March wind the new green 
 shoots that his love, which would not be killed, 
 was again putting forth. The pain was very 
 agonising to him, and it was a relief to him that 
 it was too dark for the priest to see his features. 
 
 In truth, the darkness concealed little or 
 nothing from the priest's knowledge, if it did from 
 his eyes. He knew perfectly well the effect of 
 what he was saying, as well as the surgeon knows 
 the sensations of the patient under his knife. 
 
 But the operation was not over — Beppo had 
 more to suffer yet. 
 
 " What mischief, then, has Giulia been getting 
 into in the city, your reverence ? " asked Carlo. 
 " I am not surprised, for one, for I always thought 
 her a bad one. I never knew her to stay for the 
 litanies after vespers, not once last year; and I 
 must know, for I never missed them all the 
 winter ! " 
 
 Don Evandro knew and understood all the low 
 hypocrisy of this speech quite as perfectly as any 
 man could ; nevertheless he approved of it ; 
 thought it the desirable kind of tone for a young 
 man, and considered that it showed Carlo to be 
 the sort of man that was needed for a good sub- 
 ject and a good churchman. So a woman who
 
 270 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 receives a compliment which she knows to be 
 insincere may yet be pleased with it, as indicating 
 the desire on the part of the payer of it to please 
 her. 
 
 " Ah ! it is a bad business — a very bad business 
 — I am afraid ! Part of my object in going into 
 the city on Saturday was to make inquiries and 
 ascertain if there might be any hope of saving 
 her. I fear me ! — I fear that there is nothing to 
 be done ! " 
 
 The priest, not calculating on the chivalrous 
 generosity of heart of the man he was speaking to, 
 or rather at — (as how should he calculate on 
 what he could not conceive T) — was overshooting 
 his mark a little in the excess of his calumnious 
 statements. For the idea of Giulia in danger and 
 in trouble at once began to make love assume the 
 mask of pity, and an evident desire to save and 
 protect her began to override and overpower, for 
 the moment, his own infinite misery. 
 
 " What has she been up to ? " asked Carlo again. 
 
 " Oh, up to ! " said the priest, hesitating as if 
 unwilling to speak out. " What mischief do un- 
 principled girls get into when they get the oppor- 
 tunity ? It is the old story. There is the town, 
 too, full of soldiers, reprobate profligates, without
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 271 
 
 religion or principle of any kind ! It is destruc- 
 tion to the character of any decent girl to be 
 known to have any communication with them, or 
 be seen in their company, and this abandoned 
 girl has formed an intimacy with one of the most 
 notorious blackguards in the whole lot of them ! " 
 
 Beppo groaned audibly, as he acknowledged to 
 himself that his first impressions with regard to 
 Corporal Tenda had been but too just. 
 
 " What ! you don't mean," said Carlo, eagerly, 
 "that she has — taken up with any one in par- 
 ticular you know — so as to lose her character, you 
 know ? " 
 
 " Character ! It will be well for her if that is 
 all she has lost ! Character ! She will never be 
 able to hold her head up in this country any 
 more ! The best thing that could happen to her 
 would be to follow the blackguard for good and 
 all, and let the disgrace she has brought upon 
 her name be forgotten. But he is no doubt too 
 knowing a rascal for that." 
 
 " But he may be made to answer for his conduct 
 — to do what is right by her ! " said Beppo, 
 breathing hard and clenching his fists. 
 
 The priest could not see the action; but he 
 knew from Beppo's voice all that was passing in
 
 272 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 his mind. And he considered for a moment or 
 two, during which he took a rapid survey of all 
 the circumstances of the case with masterly com- 
 prehensiveness, whether it might be good policy 
 to bring these men face to face with a result that 
 might probably in one way or other make Carlo 
 the heir to the Bella Luce homestead and savings. 
 But he gave up the idea as involving too many 
 possibilities of miscarriage. So he replied : — 
 
 " How make him answer for his conduct ? His 
 officers are as bad as he. There is no law to touch 
 him. And to resort to unchristian violence would 
 bring destruction upon your own soul, in all pro- 
 bability without injuring him." 
 
 " Who is the man ? " asked Carlo. 
 
 " One Tenda, a corporal ; a low Piedmontese 
 blackguard — one of the worst characters in the 
 army, I am told." 
 
 " A Piedmontese too ! " exclaimed Carlo, with 
 unaffected disgust ; " to think of Giulia taking up 
 with a Piedmontese, of all the men in the world ! 
 Why, it is against nature ! " 
 
 " I must say that I think Signor Sandro has 
 been very much to blame," continued the priest, 
 " in not making himself better acquainted with 
 the character of the woman with whom he placed
 
 DON EVANDRO AT WORK. 273 
 
 Giulia — a retired actress, I learn ! It is true that, 
 as far as I can hear, there is nothing to be said 
 against the woman now. She has become recon- 
 ciled to the Church, and there is no more to be 
 said about it. But Signor Sandro might have 
 known that such a woman was not likely to be a 
 safe protectress for such a girl as Giulia." 
 
 " But, then, who would have guessed that our 
 Giulia would need so much protecting?" said 
 Carlo. 
 
 " That is true, too, figliuolo mio" said the 
 priest. "Well, I must be thinking of walking 
 homewards. It is getting late. Good night, Sig- 
 nor Paolo. I need not wish it you, for you have 
 been taking a slice of it already — a calm con- 
 science makes an easy pillow. Good night, Signor 
 Beppo. We shall have some further conversation 
 as soon as the result of this detestable drawing is 
 known. Good-night." 
 
 So the priest set out on his moonlight walk to 
 Santa Lucia, satisfactorily reflecting that he had 
 — he could hardly doubt — deprived Victor Em- 
 manuel of one of the likeliest soldiers in Romagna; 
 and had, in all probability, put an end to all 
 inconveniences arising from love-passages between 
 Beppo and Giulia.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 
 
 HE communal lists were all made out. 
 There was very little interest attached 
 : to that part of the business. It was a 
 matter of course that all except the few names of 
 those who were utterly out of the question should 
 appear in them. Nor did they, when completed, 
 afford to the inhabitants of each commune any 
 even approximative indication of the amount of 
 chances for and against them. For this de- 
 pended upon the proportion of the number of 
 men required to the number of those liable, — 
 not in each commune, but in the entire military 
 district ; and though a tolerably fair estimate of 
 this might be known to the authorities in the 
 provincial capital, the contadino inhabitants of 
 each rustic commune were wholly ignorant upon 
 the subject.
 
 THE BAD NUMBER 275 
 
 So the lists were made out and sent to the 
 town, and the population hardly yet realised the 
 nature and nearness of the misfortune which was 
 about to fall on them. 
 
 Then came news that the day for the drawing 
 was fixed. It was a day very near at hand — a 
 day towards the end of May. 
 
 Early on the fateful morning the men began to 
 arrive from all sides in the city. They came up 
 in droves from the different communes, and the 
 comparison of them to cattle driven to the 
 slaughter-house was too obvious to escape many 
 of the men themselves, and was with malicious 
 bitterness suggested to them by many a parish 
 priest, as his parishioners were starting from their 
 obscure little villages in the hills, on their un- 
 welcome errand. The appearance of the poor 
 fellows when they arrived in the city was also 
 suggestive enough of the comparison. They 
 came with heavy steps and reluctant limbs, not 
 knowing what was going to happen, or what 
 they were to do first, stupidly jostling each 
 other in the crowded streets, and vacantly staring 
 with great wide eyes at the preparations that 
 had been made for the drawing. 
 
 Some few parties were accompanied by their 
 
 T 2
 
 276 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 priests ; but for the most part those gentlemen did 
 not choose to take any overt share in the matter, 
 or to sanction it by their presence. They pre- 
 ferred to do their part respecting it in the back- 
 ground. A greater number of the rustic parties 
 were accompanied by the older men, and some 
 had women with them. 
 
 If the population had looked forward to the day 
 with terror and vague misgiving", the authorities 
 had not been altogether free from apprehension 
 with regard to it. It was well known how very 
 repugnant the measure was to the almost entire 
 population. The Government were well aware 
 that this feeling was stimulated and worked on to 
 the utmost of their power by the clergy, and it 
 was feared that disturbances might take place. 
 A considerable force of military, therefore, were 
 under arms at different points of the little city ; 
 and as the rustics, decked out for the sacrifice in 
 their best holiday trim, arrived in the town, they 
 saw bodies of soldiers drawn up, as if to show 
 them specimens of what they were about to 
 become. 
 
 In the large open piazza of the city — and at 
 Fano the principal piazza is a remarkably large 
 and fine one — the crowd was chiefly assembled
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 277 
 
 in front of the palazzo pubblico — the town-hall, 
 as we should say. For there the drawing, which 
 was to award despair or the rejoicing of escape 
 to many a homestead, was to take place, in the 
 largest hall of the building. The operation was 
 to be conducted in the presence of the civic 
 authorities. The military powers took no part 
 in the matter at its present stage, seeing that 
 they were interested only in the due forthcoming 
 of the prescribed number of men. Who those 
 men were to be was of interest to the population 
 and to their communal and municipal authorities, 
 but of no interest to the military authorities. 
 They demanded their pound of flesh ; but left 
 the cutting of it to the discretion and convenience 
 of the patient. 
 
 It was a curious and interesting thing to thread 
 that anxious crowd, and mark the varying expres- 
 sion of the different groups ! There were reckless 
 faces of men, on whom, if the lot should fall, the 
 service would gain little, and the country lose 
 as little. There were stolid-looking boors, who 
 seemed scarcely more capable of appreciating the 
 nature of the change which threatened them than 
 the great meek-eyed, dove-coloured oxen which 
 were their most habitual companions. There
 
 278 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT, 
 
 were spruce-looking well-to-do youths, the hope 
 and stay of well-regulated households, anxiously 
 talking over the chances of the fateful urn with 
 downcast elders. There were yet more interesting 
 groups, in which an aged mother, a sister, or one 
 holding a yet tenderer relationship to the youth 
 menaced with what to her was almost equivalent 
 to death, were the principal figures. 
 
 Beppo was there alone. The other young men 
 from his commune had come up together; but he 
 had felt too miserable and down-hearted to come 
 with them. Yet there was little in their comrade- 
 ship, that would have jarred upon his melancholy 
 mood. The lads of the French rural district, 
 though abhorring the conscription to the full as 
 much as these Romagnoles could do, will go to the 
 fatal urn singing and laughing, hiding the death in 
 their hearts from every eye, and from their own 
 consciousness as far as noise and bluster, and 
 " Dutch courage," will enable them to do so. But 
 the simpler, more genuine, less vain, and less self- 
 conscious Italian nature makes no such attempt. 
 They go to the drawing miserable and dejected, 
 and they make no attempt to conceal the fact. 
 One of the most touchingly melancholy of all the 
 popular melodies I ever heard, is the song of the
 
 THE BAD NUMBEE. . 279 
 
 Tuscan conscripts torn from their country by the 
 first Napoleon, which is still remembered in the 
 country districts of Tuscany. Nothing can be 
 further from any pretence of enthusiasm or desire 
 for French " glory." 
 
 But Beppo had a far worse heartache than any 
 of them, — a heartache which he could not discuss 
 with any of them ; and he had therefore come up 
 from Bella Luce alone. He was standing at the 
 further side of the piazza, opposite to the palazzo 
 imbblico, leaning against the corner of a house, 
 which makes the angle of a street there opening 
 into the piazza, with his broad-leafed contadino 
 hat drawn over his brows, moodily and almost 
 absently watching the moving crowd in front of 
 him, and the floating of the tri-coloured banner 
 which adorned the front of the palazzo. 
 
 The drawing was appointed to commence at 
 eleven. But nothing ever yet, in Italy, com- 
 menced at the hour named for the commence- 
 ment of it. It was now past eleven, and the 
 crowd were patiently waiting, in no wise dis- 
 pleased or surprised at being detained there. The 
 gonfaloniere was still taking his cup of coffee at 
 some cafe' ; or the official who kept the key of the 
 hall, in which the drawing was to take place, had
 
 280 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 mislaid, and could not find it ; or the clerk who 
 should have prepared the balloting urn, and 
 who had had a month or more to do some ten 
 minutes' job, had not yet completed it ; or every- 
 thing was perfectly ready, everybody assembled, 
 and there was no reason whatsoever for not pro- 
 ceeding to business directly, — except that it is 
 always pleasanter to put off doing anything than 
 to do it, and it was still possible to put off the 
 beginning of the present business in hand a little 
 longer. Any one of these, or fifty other such 
 reasons, would have been quite sufficient. It was 
 half-past eleven ; there were no signs of any 
 beginning being made yet, and nobody of any 
 .sort, neither of those who had to operate, nor of 
 those who had to be operated on, was, in the least 
 degree, either angry, or surprised, or impatient. 
 The groups of peasants stood about the wide 
 piazza as patiently as if they were ruminating 
 like their own oxen ; and now and then some 
 official came to the balcony in front of the great 
 central window of the palazzo pubblico, gazed 
 out for awhile on the crowd below, and retired 
 again. 
 
 At last, at about half-an-hour after noon, a bell 
 was rung as a signal that the business of the day
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 281 
 
 really was about to commence. There was a 
 swaying movement amongst the crowd, and some 
 pressed on to enter the building and ascend the 
 great stairs into the principal hall of it, in which 
 the drawing was to take place ; and others hung 
 back, as lacking courage to look their destiny in 
 the face. 
 
 It is not absolutely necessary that any one of 
 those liable to the conscription should come to the 
 drawing. He comes there for his own satisfaction 
 and not for that of the government. He may, if 
 he please, commission any relative or friend to 
 draw for him, or failing this, if the individual 
 does not present himself, nor anybody on his 
 behalf, the gonfaloniere puts his own hand into 
 the urn and draws a number for him. 
 
 The operation is performed in public. Any one 
 may enter the hall who pleases ; and there gene- 
 rally is a large concourse of the friends of those 
 about to draw, or of merely curious loungers. On 
 the occasion in question a great number of the 
 townspeople, who had no especial interest in the 
 proceedings, had gathered in the hall. For the 
 Fano beau-monde have not many sources of 
 amusement, and the conscription at all events 
 offered them the means of getting rid of a day —
 
 282 BEPPO, THE CONSCKIPT. 
 
 an advantage not to be despised in one of those 
 little Adriatic cities. 
 
 At the upper end of the huge hall, within a 
 space railed off, is a long green baize-covered 
 table, on the middle of which is the urn, con- 
 taining a quantity of folded slips of paper, all 
 scrupulously alike, equal in number to the number 
 of men liable to serve. Each of these contains 
 simply a number, from one up to the last of the 
 series. The gonfaloniers, who is equivalent to 
 our mayor, sits on a somewhat raised chair imme- 
 diately behind this apparatus. By his side are 
 municipal councillors, and close behind him is the 
 piibblicatore, the publisher or crier, whose duty 
 it is to announce the names with their numbers, 
 as they are drawn. The patient puts his hand 
 into the urn, draws it forth, holding one slip of 
 paper between his fingers ; he unfolds it himself, 
 reads himself first his fate, then hands it to the 
 rjonfaloniere, who reads and passes it to the 
 pubblicatore to be cried aloud ; after which it is 
 duly registered, and then sent to the printer. 
 
 The hall of the Fano palazzo pubblieo was 
 crowded, as has been said, in great part by towns- 
 people who had no interest in the ceremony save 
 one of simple curiosity. Towards the uj^per part
 
 THE BAD NUMBER 283 
 
 of the large space — which had probably been used 
 as a banqueting-hall in the old days, when there 
 was more of feasting and less of fasting done in 
 Italy than in these latter centuries — there was at 
 a height of some feet from the floor of the hall a 
 sort of tribune, or small gallery, enclosed by a 
 light parapet of iron scroll-work, the elegance of 
 which plainly declared it to be the work of the 
 sixteenth century. In all probability the place 
 thus contrived had been intended for the accom- 
 modation of musicians during the Fano feastings. 
 Now it afforded a very convenient place for any 
 one who wished to look on at the proceedings in 
 the body of the hall, without being exposed to 
 contact with the crowd which thronged the floor. 
 
 Of course the small privilege of occupying this 
 sort of private box at the representation of the 
 tragi-comedy about to come off, was in the gift of 
 the members of the municipality, of whom our 
 friend Signor Alessandro Bartoldi, the attorney, 
 was one of the most active and influential. It 
 was of course also, under these circumstances, that 
 the desirable place in question should be at the 
 disposition of the fair Lisa. And there accord- 
 ingly was Lisa, accompanied by her friend Giulia, 
 between whom and the attorney's daughter a
 
 284 BEPPO, THE COXSCFJPT. 
 
 considerable intimacy had sprung up out of the 
 frequent visits of the latter to the house of la 
 Dossi, to which she was drawn by — the reader 
 knows what attraction. 
 
 La Dossi herself had declined to accompany the 
 girls. She was very far from locomotive in her 
 habits, and had much preferred, when allowing 
 Giulia to accompany her friend to the drawing, 
 to undertake herself, in a spirit of thoughtful and 
 experimental investigation, the preparation of the 
 day's dinner. So there, amid some other lady 
 connections of the municipal magnates, was the 
 superb Giulia, by far the most noticeable person 
 in the little pulpit, or gallery, or whatever it may 
 be called, with the pale and delicate little Lisa by 
 her side, each admirably serving the office of a 
 foil to the beauty of the other : for though poor 
 little Lisa was terribly eclipsed by the magni- 
 ficently-developed and brilliantly-coloured beauty 
 of the daughter of the Apennine, the pale little 
 town-bred girl was not without her beauty too, 
 of a kind more attractive to some men, perhaps, 
 than the sun-steeped gorgeousness of the other. 
 
 What Giulia's feelings may have been, when 
 after her unpleasant interview with Beppo he 
 refused to enter la Signora Dossi's dwelling, and
 
 THE BAD NUMBER 285 
 
 she told him to please himself in the matter ; 
 whether the somewhat boisterous gaiety with 
 which she and Corporal Tencla laughed and talked, 
 while Lisa and Captain Brilli were more quietly 
 engaged in their flirtation in the sitting-room, was 
 as completely and genuinely enjoyed by her as by 
 the corporal ; whether, when she found herself 
 alone in her room that night, there may have been 
 a little of what in medical phrase is termed " re- 
 action;" and, finally, whether this day of the 
 drawing may have been looked forward to by her 
 with something more of interest than attaches to 
 a mere spectacle of the interests of others, need 
 not at present be too curiously inquired into. 
 This much, at least, is certain, that if anybody 
 had thought to spy any, the smallest sign or 
 symptom of willow-wearing, or down-heartedness 
 of any sort, in Giulia's face or bearing, as she sate 
 by the side of her little friend on the occasion of 
 the drawing, they would have been, agreeably or 
 disagreeably as the case may have been, but very 
 certainly, disappointed. She sat there radiant in 
 beauty, chattering with Lisa and others around 
 her — the contadina shyness and taciturnity having 
 been already got rid of under the discipline and 
 forcing process of her town life.
 
 286 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 The process of drawing began. The city of 
 Fano stands in the midst of a rich and populous 
 region ; and the number to be drawn was large. 
 The number of men to be furnished to the army 
 of Italy from that district was not far short of a 
 hundred. But to ensure the certainty of obtain- 
 ing that number of efficient and unobjectionable 
 soldiers, at least three times that number would 
 be required by the military authorities to present 
 themselves on the day fixed for the medical ex- 
 amination. The probability would be that the 
 last sixty or seventy of these, — that is to say, those 
 holding the highest numbers — would be tolerably 
 safe. Those ranging from a hundred to a hundred 
 and fifty or so, would be pretty sure to be called 
 on to supply the place of those rejected (or those 
 who might have made themselves scarce) among 
 the first hundred. The fate of those holding the 
 numbers between, say, a hundred and fifty and 
 two hundred and twenty or thirty, would be very 
 doubtful, the chances of escape becoming greater, 
 of course, as the higher numbers were reached. 
 Though all those liable draw their numbers from 
 the same urn, and when drawn fomi part of 
 one and the same numerically-arranged roll, the 
 operation is performed commune by commune.
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 287 
 
 The young men from each commune come up 
 in a body and draw in alphabetical order. 
 
 Santa Lucia was not among the communes that 
 came first to the urn. 
 
 The business went ou regularly, and the spec- 
 tators had plenty of occupation and amusement 
 watching the look and bearing of the men as 
 they drew, and as they read their fate. The most 
 remarkable feature of the scene was the absence 
 of bravado. The young fellows who came up to 
 the urn for the decision whether they were to be 
 enrolled among the heroes and defenders of their 
 country, or were to return to the plough, made 
 no attempt whatever to conceal their strong pre- 
 ference for the latter destiny. The presence of 
 female relatives and friends, and the "galaxy of 
 beauty in the gallery " produced no effect of this 
 kind whatever. The old jousting herald's re- 
 minder to the brave knights, that "bright eyes 
 behold your deeds," would have been quite thrown 
 away on the occasion. 
 
 The naive acceptance, admission, and avowal 
 of feelings and affections of all kinds is a very 
 noticeable and curious trait in the Italian cha- 
 racter. Sometimes this striking peculiarity seems 
 to our more reserved and secretive northern nature
 
 288 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 to approach to cynicism; and sometimes to be 
 evidence of an open unaffected simplicity of cha- 
 racter worthy of the golden age. The fact is, 
 that in all respects the Italian nature does par- 
 take far more than any other of the characteristics 
 of the golden age of childhood. 
 
 The majority accordingly of those who drew the 
 lower numbers made no effort to conceal their 
 chagrin — in one or two instances rising to really 
 tragic manifestations of despair. More than one 
 stout hulking fellow retired from the table sob- 
 bing ; nor was he felt by any one present to dis- 
 grace himself or forfeit their sympathy by such 
 a display of his emotions. On the contrary, those 
 who displayed the most striking and visible signs 
 of grief were deemed to grieve most deeply, and 
 were accordingly most pitied. In a few cases, 
 when it was well known that the drawer would 
 serve by proxy, and that his interest in the matter 
 was only one of money, his disgust at drawing a 
 number which put him to the expense of pro- 
 viding a substitute was a matter rather of merri- 
 ment than of sympathy to the bystanders. In 
 several cases doltish stupidity seemed to prevent 
 all manifestation of feeling and even of interest 
 in the matter. They came up to the urn, did as
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 289 
 
 they were bid absolutely with the slow, lumber- 
 ing, impassible docility of their cattle, without 
 seeming to comprehend the nature of the con- 
 sequences which had been decided for them. 
 
 To those meanwhile who had already drawn 
 numbers ranging from about a hundred and fifty 
 or so to some two hundred and twenty or thirty, 
 the remainder of the drawing was still a matter 
 of anxious interest. For of course their own 
 chances very materially depended on the sort of 
 men who drew the numbers below them. And 
 every time a low number was drawn by some 
 man who it was pretty clear would be rejected by 
 the medical examiners, a murmur of disappoint- 
 ment might be heard among the crowd. And 
 now and then the proclamation of some name 
 with a number that manifestly condemned the 
 drawer of it to serve, was received with significant 
 interchange of glances among such of the doubt- 
 ful ones as knew him, which might very easily 
 be interpreted to express their shrewd doubts 
 whether the individual in question would be of 
 any avail to stand between them and the danger. 
 
 " He is no good ! " one of these anxious watchers 
 would whisper to another, while a glance and an 
 expressive gesture, performed by some scarcely
 
 290 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 visible movement of finger, eyebrow or shoulder, 
 said clearly enough to the friend addressed that 
 Victor Emmanuel would have to look very sharp 
 if he meant his army to be increased by that 
 drawing. 
 
 And many were even then at work with all 
 their mental faculties deciding the momentous 
 question whether they should " take to the hills " 
 or not. For if such a step were to be adopted, 
 it must be done in the interval between the draw- 
 ing and the medical examination. After the final 
 making up of the roll in accordance with the 
 decisions then arrived at on each separate case, 
 the men whose names are on it are no more lost 
 sight of by the military authorities. Between the 
 first drawing and the examination they return to 
 their villages, though they are bound not to quit 
 them. And it is in the course of those days, 
 generally from about fourteen to twenty in num- 
 ber, that the desertions take place. Those who 
 had drawn low numbers, had before this made up 
 their minds what they would do in case of their 
 drawing such. But with those who were in the 
 category of the doubtful, it was a matter of 
 anxious question, and mature consideration of 
 the chances as affected by the nature and cha-
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 291 
 
 racter of the men below them, whether they 
 should stay and abide the chances of the exa- 
 mination or not. 
 
 Never was medical insight into the constitution 
 and temperament of one's neighbours so valuable. 
 
 At last it came to the turn of the Santa Lucia 
 lads to march up to the table. 
 
 They came up the hall, some eight or ten in 
 number, fine looking fellows all of them. The 
 hill populations give but a small percentage of 
 the medical rejections. They are the sort of 
 men the military authorities want; and to get 
 at whom they would willingly reject the towns- 
 men wholesale, if they could find any excuse for 
 doing so. All that little company from the 
 Apennine village of Santa Lucia were fine men, 
 but Beppo Vanni was conspicuous among them 
 both by his superior stature and by the comeli- 
 ness of his features. 
 
 fl There's a fellow for a sergeant-major ! " said 
 Captain Brilli to Corporal Tenda, who was in the 
 hall with him, amid the crowd of lookers on, as 
 the little Santa Lucia squad marched up the 
 floor. " I hope we shall nab him ! " 
 
 "Why, that's my old acquaintance, Signor 
 Beppo Vanni. I little thought, when I told him 
 
 v 2
 
 292 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 that we should meet again, how soon there would 
 be a chance of our making so much closer an 
 acquaintance with him. But I am afraid there 
 is not much prospect of making a soldier of him, 
 captain. His father is a rich man, I am told." 
 
 "Why, how do you know anything about it? 
 And how upon earth came he to be an acquaint- 
 ance of yours 1 " 
 
 "Don't you remember, Signor Capitano, my 
 telling you of the visit we had that Sunday, at 
 the house of la Signora Dossi ? That is the 
 angry gentleman who was as jealous as a Turk 
 because he found me in company with the superb 
 Giulia. He is a cousin of hers, it seems ; and 
 from what I saw then, he would very much like 
 to be nearer related to her ; but I saw no signs 
 of any similar intention on the part of la bella 
 Giulia. She did not appear inclined to have any- 
 thing to say to him." 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember all about it now," said 
 the captain, scanning Beppo with his eye as he 
 spoke. And yet," he added, " he is not the sort 
 of fellow a pretty girl would turn away from. I 
 should not much fancy having Signor Beppo 
 Vanni for a rival myself, corporal ! " 
 
 " Oh, as for that," said the little corporal, draw-
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 293 
 
 ing himself up, " it's not always the big hulking- 
 fellows that the girls like best — not at all ! And 
 besides, Master Beppo did not go the right way to 
 make any girl fancy him. He was as savage as 
 a bear, and seemed more inclined to blow her up, 
 the poor little darling ! by way of making love, 
 than anything else. Now Giulia is not the girl 
 to stand that sort of thing. She is as good as 
 gold. But she wont stand preaching from her 
 cousin Beppo, if I know her." 
 
 " And she will stand a different sort of talk 
 from a smart corporal of Bersaglieri, eh ? " 
 
 " Not in the way of anything free and easy, you 
 understand, captain. Lord bless you ! She is a 
 real good girl, I tell you. I should as soon think 
 of saying anything that one does not say to an 
 honest woman, to la Giulia, as I should to the 
 colonel's wife. She will laugh as much as you 
 please ; birt all right and proper, mind you ! " 
 
 " Well, yes ; I suppose so. La Lisa says that she 
 is a good girl. But I don't feel so sure about her 
 caring nothing for that strapping cousin of hers." 
 
 " That for her cousin ! " said the little corporal, 
 snapping his fingers. "We shall see, Signor 
 Capitano, some of these fine days." 
 
 " One of these fine days, I suppose, when the
 
 294 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 old uncle at Cuneo has hopped the twig, and the 
 corporal has turned his sword into a ploughshare, 
 eh ? " said the captain, laughing. 
 
 "Well, don't you think I might do worse, 
 Signor Capitano? Did you ever see a better 
 mistress for the little farm at Cuneo ? " 
 
 " Have you proposed that enviable position to 
 Giulia, la magnified, yet, corporal ? " 
 
 " No, not yet ; but I have serious thoughts of 
 doing so — freehold land, every foot of it ! Why 
 should I not ? There's plenty would jump at it." 
 
 " No doubt. But you would have to jump at 
 la Giulia. I swear she is a head taller than you 
 are, corporal ! " 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! Parcel of nonsense ! We are 
 exactly of a height, she and I," said the little 
 man, holding up his head. 
 
 " Have you measured % " 
 
 " No ; but I can see, I suppose." 
 
 " A corporal of Bersaglieri ought to know that 
 one always sights a mark less above one's eye than 
 it is. I'd wager she is taller than you." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! Look, he is going to 
 draw now ! " 
 
 Beppo, in passing up the hall, had caught sight 
 of Giulia in her tribune, and no doubt she had
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 295 
 
 marked him as lie walked up, a head taller than 
 his companions. But no mark of recognition had 
 taken place between them, and the only effect that 
 the knowledge of her presence had produced upon 
 him was to make him feel as if he were walking 
 in a dream, and as if all the scene around him 
 were hazy and unintelligible. His eyes swam, and 
 there was a buzzing in his ears, and he seemed to 
 himself to have a difficulty in bringing his mind 
 to bear upon the business in hand sufficiently to 
 go through with his share in it. As for any care 
 about the result, or any care about anything save 
 the fact that Giulia sat there looking on at the 
 ceremony he was called to take part in, and that 
 though a few yards of space only separated them, 
 there was an impassable gulf between them which 
 must part them for ever — he was wholly dead 
 to it! 
 
 He felt as if he were staggering as he stepped 
 up to the table, and the last among the Santa 
 Lucia men (for they drew alphabetically) put his 
 hand into the urn. The evident trouble he was in 
 was of course attributed by the spectators to his 
 dread of the chance which the urn was about to 
 award him. Others had in different ways showed 
 as much emotion, and had excited the pity of the
 
 296 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 crowd. And now there was a little hush of anxiety 
 and sympathy, especially among the female part of 
 the assembly, with the magnificently handsome 
 contadino. 
 
 He put his hand into the urn, and drawing 
 forth a cartel, handed it in a dreamy sort of man- 
 ner, without opening it, as he should have done, to 
 the presiding magistrate. 
 
 " Read your number," said the gonfaloniere. 
 
 Beppo opened and read, " One Hundred and 
 One!" 
 
 The announcement did not seem to produce any 
 visible effect upon him. He continued in the 
 same sort of stunned dreamy condition as before. 
 He passed the paper to the gonfaloniere, who, 
 after casting his eye on it, handed it to the pubbli- 
 catore, who held it up before the people, crying- 
 out at the same time, 
 
 " Giuseppe Vanni ; One Hundred and One !" 
 
 Of course this was a certain condemnation to 
 the ranks. 
 
 There was a perceptible and momentary stir 
 among the audience which seemed in some degree 
 to recall Beppo to himself. He cast his eyes, 
 despite himself, towards the place where Giulia 
 had been sitting, and perceived that her conspicu-
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 297 
 
 ously noble head and bust were no longer in the 
 spot which they had filled, and that there was a 
 little movement among the women who crowded 
 the tribune. 
 
 His look however was but momentary, and he 
 turned from the table, together with the others 
 from his commune, one only of whom besides him- 
 self had drawn a bad number, and slowly made 
 his way to the bottom of the hall, and out of the 
 palazzo pubblico. 
 
 "Per Bacco! we have caught our sergeant- 
 major," said Corporal Tenda to Captain Brilli, 
 " and to judge by the look of him, I should say 
 that he knows his father don't mean to fork out to 
 save him ! " 
 
 " He didn't seem to like it, poor devil ! " re- 
 turned the captain ; " but I say, corporal, while 
 you, like a zealous officer, were looking after the 
 recruits, I was looking somewhere else, and I'll 
 tell you what I saw. I saw the future mistress of 
 the little freehold farm at Cuneo turn as pale as 
 death when her cousin drew his bad number, and 
 then she and la Lisa left the tribune all in a 
 hurry. I tell you again, I should not like Ser- 
 geant-Major Beppo Vanni for a rival with his 
 superb cousin, if I was Corporal Tenda."
 
 298 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 " Ah ! bah ! I have seen them together. She 
 can't endure him, I tell you. Turned pale ! I 
 dare say — the room is infernally hot ! " 
 
 Beppo purposed, as far as he could be said in 
 the condition in which he was to purpose any- 
 thing, to find his way to the inn, get his horse, 
 and start at once on his return to Bella Luce. He 
 had not been near Signor Sandro's house, and had 
 with much difficulty forced himself to abstain 
 from the temptation of passing down the street in 
 which la Dossi's house was situated. It would be 
 only pain to him to look on that fine big house 
 again ; yet he was sorely tempted to do so. 
 
 As he was passing out from the door of the 
 palazzo pubblico he encountered the little attorney 
 himself, full of business and in a great bustle. 
 
 "Oh, Signor Beppo, so you are hit! Never 
 mind it, man. Signor Paolo can afford it, and 
 never know the difference. It is a very different 
 matter with some of these poor fellows. What ! 
 cheer up, man ! Why have you not been in. to see 
 us? Lisa is up in the hall there. Ah, I know 
 one that had a lump in her throat when you 
 drew the bad number. You'll come home with 
 us?" 
 
 " If vou will excuse me, Signor Sandro, I think I
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 299 
 
 must go home. They will be anxious to hear the 
 upshot of the drawing, you know." 
 
 " Well, as you will. But cheer up, man ! I 
 shall see you soon, no doubt ; for you will be 
 coming in about the finding of a substitute. By- 
 the-bye, have you seen your cousin, Giulia ? 
 From all I hear, I did better for her than I 
 thought, in bringing her into the city. I am told 
 she and a certain Signor Tenda, a corporal in the 
 Bersaglieri, are likely to make a match of it ! A 
 very decent man, I hear, though he is but a cor- 
 poral, and likely one day to have a pretty little 
 property of his own." 
 
 " I have seen nothing of her," replied Beppo, in 
 a tone of profound dejection. " Good evening, 
 Signor Sandro." 
 
 " Well, if you won't stay, I must say good even- 
 ing, I suppose. A pleasant ride home ! " 
 
 Beppo went plodding heavily through the 
 streets, with his eyes fixed to the pavement, till 
 just at the corner of the lane in which his inn 
 was situated, he was roused by hearing himself 
 suddenly called by his name, and looking up found 
 himself face to face with Lisa and Giulia. 
 
 It was Lisa who had called to him. She had 
 done so in spite of Giulia's earnest remonstrances
 
 300 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 and entreaties to her, by look and gesture, not to 
 speak. 
 
 " Oh, Signor Vanni ! I declare I believe you 
 were going to pass us without speaking to 
 us. Ah ! you little think what a pain it was 
 to us when we saw the horrid number. Not 
 but what Signor Paolo will get a substitute, of 
 course ! " 
 
 " It is not his intention to do so. Addio ! 
 Signora Lisa ! I am in haste to return home." 
 
 And he was turning to leave them, without 
 further speech. 
 
 "But, Signor Beppo," said Lisa, in a tone of 
 petulant remonstrance, " are you going away with- 
 out saying a word to your cousin ! " 
 
 " I said too many the last time I had the — the 
 pain of seeing her ! " 
 
 Giulia had continued all this time with her eyes 
 fixed to the ground, and gave no sign of having 
 heard anything that had been said. But at these 
 last words she looked up suddenly for half an 
 instant, and seemed as if she was going to speak. 
 But she changed her purpose, and said nothing, 
 again casting down her eyes to the pavement. 
 
 "Ah! Signor Beppo!" rejoined Lisa, "I wish 
 you could have seen her when you drew that
 
 THE BAD NUMBER. 301 
 
 odious number ! I could hardly get her from the 
 hall." 
 
 " Lisa, what nonsense are you talking ! " said 
 Giulia, indignantly. " Are you mad ? You know 
 yourself that I was fainting from the heat." 
 
 "I am not the least likely to suppose that it 
 was from any other cause ! " said Beppo, with icy 
 sternness. 
 
 " But, Signor Beppo," said poor Lisa, beseech- 
 ingly, and beginning to fear that she had done 
 more harm than good by stopping him in his walk, 
 "you don't really mean that Signor Paolo will 
 suffer you to join the army ? " 
 
 "I neither know nor care, Signora Lisa, what 
 may become of me. My life is a weary burthen 
 to me. I would as soon be rid of it by an Austrian 
 bullet as in any other way. I am a lost and 
 ruined man. My heart has been broken by a 
 cruel, a faithless, false, and worthless woman ! " 
 
 Lisa, whose arm was within Giulia's, felt her 
 tremble all over, as these words passed Beppo's 
 lips. She again raised her face, which was as pale 
 as death, as if to speak ; but again she checked 
 herself, and remained silent. 
 
 "I 'despise myself," continued Beppo, raising 
 his hand as if in denunciation, and inspired by
 
 302 BEPPO, THE CONSCRIPT. 
 
 strong passion with an eloquence that no one who 
 knew him would have believed him capable of; 
 " I despise myself for still caring for one so mon- 
 strously false and so vile ! I despise myself ; yet 
 I know that I can cease to do so only by ceasing 
 to live ; and I pray to God that he will soon give 
 me that release ! " 
 
 He turned from them and rushed down the 
 little lane, at the corner of which Lisa had stopped 
 him. 
 
 Giulia stood for a minute, rigid yet tottering, 
 like some tall column mined at its base and sway- 
 ing to its fall, and then, without word or sound, 
 fell heavily on the pavement. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
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