CHAPTER II

________________________________________________

When I was in Milan in 'forty-seven an unlucky thing happened to me.

I had been sent there to look over the ground by some of my Italian
friends in England. As an English officer I had no difficulty in
getting into Milanese society, for England had for years been the
refuge of the Italian fugitives, and I was known to be working in
their interests. It was just the kind of job I liked, and I never
enjoyed life more than I did in those days. There was a great deal
going on--good music, balls and theatres. Milan kept up her gayety
to the last. The English were shocked by the _insouciance_ of a race
who could dance under the very nose of the usurper; but those who
understood the situation knew that Milan was playing Brutus, and
playing it uncommonly well.

I was in the thick of it all--it was just the atmosphere to suit a
young fellow of nine-and-twenty, with a healthy passion for waltzing
and fighting. But, as I said, an unlucky thing happened to me. I was
fool enough to fall in love with Donna Candida Falco. You have heard
of her, of course: you know the share she had in the great work. In
a different way she was what the terrible Princess Belgioioso had
been to an earlier generation. But Donna Candida was not terrible.
She was quiet, discreet and charming. When I knew her she was a
widow of thirty, her husband, Andrea Falco, having died ten years
previously, soon after their marriage. The marriage had been
notoriously unhappy, and his death was a release to Donna Candida.
Her family were of Modena, but they had come to live in Milan soon
after the execution of Ciro Menotti and his companions. You remember
the details of that business? The Duke of Modena, one of the most
adroit villains in Europe, had been bitten with the hope of uniting
the Italian states under his rule. It was a vision of Italian
liberation--of a sort. A few madmen were dazzled by it, and Ciro
Menotti was one of them. You know the end. The Duke of Modena, who
had counted on Louis Philippe's backing, found that that astute
sovereign had betrayed him to Austria. Instantly, he saw that his
first business was to get rid of the conspirators he had created.
There was nothing easier than for a Hapsburg Este to turn on a
friend. Ciro Menotti had staked his life for the Duke--and the Duke
took it. You may remember that, on the night when seven hundred men
and a cannon attacked Menotti's house, the Duke was seen looking on
at the slaughter from an arcade across the square.

Well, among the lesser fry taken that night was a lad of eighteen,
Emilio Verna, who was the only brother of Donna Candida. The Verna
family was one of the most respected in Modena. It consisted, at
that time, of the mother, Countess Verna, of young Emilio and his
sister. Count Verna had been in Spielberg in the twenties. He had
never recovered from his sufferings there, and died in exile,
without seeing his wife and children again. Countess Verna had been
an ardent patriot in her youth, but the failure of the first
attempts against Austria had discouraged her. She thought that in
losing her husband she had sacrificed enough for her country, and
her one idea was to keep Emilio on good terms with the government.
But the Verna blood was not tractable, and his father's death was
not likely to make Emilio a good subject of the Estes. Not that he
had as yet taken any active share in the work of the conspirators:
he simply hadn't had time. At his trial there was nothing to show
that he had been in Menotti's confidence; but he had been seen once
or twice coming out of what the ducal police called "suspicious"
houses, and in his desk were found some verses to Italy. That was
enough to hang a man in Modena, and Emilio Verna was hanged.

The Countess never recovered from the blow. The circumstances of her
son's death were too abominable, to unendurable. If he had risked
his life in the conspiracy, she might have been reconciled to his
losing it. But he was a mere child, who had sat at home, chafing but
powerless, while his seniors plotted and fought. He had been
sacrificed to the Duke's insane fear, to his savage greed for
victims, and the Countess Verna was not to be consoled.

As soon as possible, the mother and daughter left Modena for Milan.
There they lived in seclusion till Candida's marriage. During her
girlhood she had had to accept her mother's view of life: to shut
herself up in the tomb in which the poor woman brooded over her
martyrs. But that was not the girl's way of honoring the dead. At
the moment when the first shot was fired on Menotti's house she had
been reading Petrarch's Ode to the Lords of Italy, and the lines
_l'antico valor Ne Vitalici cor non e ancor morto_ had lodged like a
bullet in her brain. From the day of her marriage she began to take
a share in the silent work which was going on throughout Italy.
Milan was at that time the centre of the movement, and Candida Falco
threw herself into it with all the passion which her unhappy
marriage left unsatisfied. At first she had to act with great
reserve, for her husband was a prudent man, who did not care to have
his habits disturbed by political complications; but after his death
there was nothing to restrain her, except the exquisite tact which
enabled her to work night and day in the Italian cause without
giving the Austrian authorities a pretext for interference.

When I first knew Donna Candida, her mother was still living: a
tragic woman, prematurely bowed, like an image of death in the
background of the daughter's brilliant life. The Countess, since her
son's death, had become a patriot again, though in a narrower sense
than Candida. The mother's first thought was that her dead must be
avenged, the daughter's that Italy must be saved; but from different
motives they worked for the same end. Candida felt for the Countess
that protecting tenderness with which Italian children so often
regard their parents, a feeling heightened by the reverence which
the mother's sufferings inspired. Countess Verna, as the wife and
mother of martyrs, had done what Candida longed to do: she had given
her utmost to Italy. There must have been moments when the
self-absorption of her grief chilled her daughter's ardent spirit;
but Candida revered in her mother the image of their afflicted
country.

"It was too terrible," she said, speaking of what the Countess had
suffered after Emilio's death. "All the circumstances were too
unmerciful. It seemed as if God had turned His face from my mother;
as if she had been singled out to suffer more than any of the
others. All the other families received some message or token of
farewell from the prisoners. One of them bribed the gaoler to carry
a letter--another sent a lock of hair by the chaplain. But Emilio
made no sign, sent no word. My mother felt as though he had turned
his back on us. She used to sit for hours, saying again and again,
'Why was he the only one to forget his mother?' I tried to comfort
her, but it was useless: she had suffered too much. Now I never
reason with her; I listen, and let her ease her poor heart. Do you
know, she still asks me sometimes if I think he may have left a
letter--if there is no way of finding out if he left one? She
forgets that I have tried again and again: that I have sent bribes
and messages to the gaoler, the chaplain, to every one who came near
him. The answer is always the same--no one has ever heard of a
letter. I suppose the poor boy was stunned, and did not think of
writing. Who knows what was passing through his poor bewildered
brain? But it would have been a great help to my mother to have a
word from him. If I had known how to imitate his writing I should
have forged a letter."

I knew enough of the Italians to understand how her boy's silence
must have aggravated the Countess's grief. Precious as a message
from a dying son would be to any mother, such signs of tenderness
have to the Italians a peculiar significance. The Latin race is
rhetorical: it possesses the gift of death-bed eloquence, the knack
of saying the effective thing on momentous occasions. The letters
which the Italian patriots sent home from their prisons or from the
scaffold are not the halting farewells that anguish would have wrung
from a less expressive race: they are veritable "compositions,"
saved from affectation only by the fact that fluency and sonority
are a part of the Latin inheritance. Such letters, passed from hand
to hand among the bereaved families, were not only a comfort to the
survivors but an incentive to fresh sacrifices. They were the "seed
of the martyrs" with which Italy was being sown; and I knew what it
meant to the Countess Verna to have no such treasure in her bosom,
to sit silent while other mothers quoted their sons' last words.

I said just now that it was an unlucky day for me when I fell in
love with Donna Candida; and no doubt you have guessed the reason.
She was in love with some one else. It was the old situation of
Heine's song. That other loved another--loved Italy, and with an
undivided passion. His name was Fernando Briga, and at that time he
was one of the foremost liberals in Italy. He came of a middle-class
Modenese family. His father was a doctor, a prudent man, engrossed
in his profession and unwilling to compromise it by meddling in
politics. His irreproachable attitude won the confidence of the
government, and the Duke conferred on him the sinister office of
physician to the prisons of Modena. It was this Briga who attended
Emilio Falco, and several of the other prisoners who were executed
at the same time.

Under shelter of his father's loyalty young Fernando conspired in
safety. He was studying medicine, and every one supposed him to be
absorbed in his work; but as a matter of fact he was fast ripening
into one of Mazzini's ablest lieutenants. His career belongs to
history, so I need not enlarge on it here. In 1847 he was in Milan,
and had become one of the leading figures in the liberal group which
was working for a coalition with Piedmont. Like all the ablest men
of his day, he had cast off Mazziniism and pinned his faith to the
house of Savoy. The Austrian government had an eye on him, but he
had inherited his father's prudence, though he used it for nobler
ends, and his discretion enabled him to do far more for the cause
than a dozen enthusiasts could have accomplished. No one understood
this better than Donna Candida. She had a share of his caution, and
he trusted her with secrets which he would not have confided to many
men. Her drawing-room was the centre of the Piedmontese party, yet
so clever was she in averting suspicion that more than one hunted
conspirator hid in her house, and was helped across the Alps by her
agents.

Briga relied on her as he did on no one else; but he did not love
her, and she knew it. Still, she was young, she was handsome, and he
loved no one else: how could she give up hoping? From her intimate
friends she made no secret of her feelings: Italian women are not
reticent in such matters, and Donna Candida was proud of loving a
hero. You will see at once that I had no chance; but if she could
not give up hope, neither could I. Perhaps in her desire to secure
my services for the cause she may have shown herself overkind; or
perhaps I was still young enough to set down to my own charms a
success due to quite different causes. At any rate, I persuaded
myself that if I could manage to do something conspicuous for Italy
I might yet make her care for me. With such an incentive you will
not wonder that I worked hard; but though Donna Candida was full of
gratitude she continued to adore my rival.

One day we had a hot scene. I began, I believe, by reproaching her
with having led me on; and when she defended herself, I retaliated
by taunting her with Briga's indifference. She grew pale at that,
and said it was enough to love a hero, even without hope of return;
and as she said it she herself looked so heroic, so radiant, so
unattainably the woman I wanted, that a sneer may have escaped
me:--was she so sure then that Briga was a hero? I remember her
proud silence and our wretched parting. I went away feeling that at
last I had really lost her; and the thought made me savage and
vindictive.

Soon after, as it happened, came the _Five Days_, and Milan was
free. I caught a distant glimpse of Donna Candida in the hospital to
which I was carried after the fight; but my wound was a slight one
and in twenty-four hours I was about again on crutches. I hoped she
might send for me, but she did not, and I was too sulky to make the
first advance. A day or two later I heard there had been a commotion
in Modena, and not being in fighting trim I got leave to go over
there with one or two men whom the Modenese liberals had called in
to help them. When we arrived the precious Duke had been swept out
and a provisional government set up. One of my companions, who was a
Modenese, was made a member, and knowing that I wanted something to
do, he commissioned me to look up some papers in the ducal archives.
It was fascinating work, for in the pursuit of my documents I
uncovered the hidden springs of his late Highness's paternal
administration. The principal papers relative to the civil and
criminal administration of Modena have since been published, and the
world knows how that estimable sovereign cared for the material and
spiritual welfare of his subjects.

Well--in the course of my search, I came across a file of old papers
marked: "Taken from political prisoners. A.D. 1831." It was the year
of Menotti's conspiracy, and everything connected with that date was
thrilling. I loosened the band and ran over the letters. Suddenly I
came across one which was docketed: "Given by Doctor Briga's son to
the warder of His Highness's prisons." _Doctor Briga's son?_ That
could be no other than Fernando: I knew he was an only child. But
how came such a paper into his hands, and how had it passed from
them into those of the Duke's warder? My own hands shook as I opened
the letter--I felt the man suddenly in my power.

Then I began to read. "My adored mother, even in this lowest circle
of hell all hearts are not closed to pity, and I have been given the
hope that these last words of farewell may reach you...." My eyes
ran on over pages of plaintive rhetoric. "Embrace for me my adored
Candida...let her never forget the cause for which her father
and brother perished...let her keep alive in her breast the
thought of Spielberg and Reggio. Do not grieve that I die so young...
though not with those heroes in deed I was with them in spirit,
and am worthy to be enrolled in the sacred phalanx..." and so on.
Before I reached the signature I knew the letter was from Emilio
Verna.

I put it in my pocket, finished my work and started immediately for
Milan. I didn't quite know what I meant to do--my head was in a
whirl. I saw at once what must have happened. Fernando Briga, then a
lad of fifteen or sixteen, had attended his father in prison during
Emilio Verna's last hours, and the latter, perhaps aware of the
lad's liberal sympathies, had found an opportunity of giving him the
letter. But why had Briga given it up to the warder? That was the
puzzling question. The docket said: "_ Given by_ Doctor Briga's
son"--but it might mean "taken from." Fernando might have been seen
to receive the letter and might have been searched on leaving the
prison. But that would not account for his silence afterward. How
was it that, if he knew of the letter, he had never told Emilio's
family of it? There was only one explanation. If the letter had been
taken from him by force he would have had no reason for concealing
its existence; and his silence was clear proof that he had given it
up voluntarily, no doubt in the hope of standing well with the
authorities. But then he was a traitor and a coward; the patriot of
'forty-eight had begun life as an informer! But does innate
character ever change so radically that the lad who has committed a
base act at fifteen may grow up into an honorable man? A good man
may be corrupted by life, but can the years turn a born sneak into a
hero?

You may fancy how I answered my own questions....If Briga had
been false and cowardly then, was he not sure to be false and
cowardly still? In those days there were traitors under every coat,
and more than one brave fellow had been sold to the police by his
best friend....You will say that Briga's record was unblemished,
that he had exposed himself to danger too frequently, had stood by
his friends too steadfastly, to permit of a rational doubt of his
good faith. So reason might have told me in a calmer moment, but she
was not allowed to make herself heard just then. I was young, I was
angry, I chose to think I had been unfairly treated, and perhaps at
my rival's instigation. It was not unlikely that Briga knew of my
love for Donna Candida, and had encouraged her to use it in the good
cause. Was she not always at his bidding? My blood boiled at the
thought, and reaching Milan in a rage I went straight to Donna
Candida.

I had measured the exact force of the blow I was going to deal. The
triumph of the liberals in Modena had revived public interest in the
unsuccessful struggle of their predecessors, the men who, sixteen
years earlier, had paid for the same attempt with their lives. The
victors of 'forty-eight wished to honor the vanquished of
'thirty-two. All the families exiled by the ducal government were
hastening back to recover possession of their confiscated property
and of the graves of their dead. Already it had been decided to
raise a monument to Menotti and his companions. There were to be
speeches, garlands, a public holiday: the thrill of the
commemoration would run through Europe. You see what it would have
meant to the poor Countess to appear on the scene with her boy's
letter in her hand; and you see also what the memorandum on the back
of the letter would have meant to Donna Candida. Poor Emilio's
farewell would be published in all the journals of Europe: the
finding of the letter would be on every one's lips. And how conceal
those fatal words on the back? At the moment, it seemed to me that
fortune could not have given me a handsomer chance of destroying my
rival than in letting me find the letter which he stood convicted of
having suppressed.

My sentiment was perhaps not a strictly honorable one; yet what
could I do but give the letter to Donna Candida? To keep it back was
out of the question; and with the best will in the world I could not
have erased Briga's name from the back. The mistake I made was in
thinking it lucky that the paper had fallen into my hands.

Donna Candida was alone when I entered. We had parted in anger, but
she held out her hand with a smile of pardon, and asked what news I
brought from Modena. The smile exasperated me: I felt as though she
were trying to get me into her power again.

"I bring you a letter from your brother," I said, and handed it to
her. I had purposely turned the superscription downward, so that she
should not see it.

She uttered an incredulous cry and tore the letter open. A light
struck up from it into her face as she read--a radiance that smote
me to the soul. For a moment I longed to snatch the paper from her
and efface the name on the back. It hurt me to think how short-lived
her happiness must be.

Then she did a fatal thing. She came up to me, caught my two hands
and kissed them. "Oh, thank you--bless you a thousand times! He died
thinking of us--he died loving Italy!"

I put her from me gently: it was not the kiss I wanted, and the
touch of her lips hardened me.

She shone on me through her happy tears. "What happiness--what
consolation you have brought my poor mother! This will take the
bitterness from her grief. And that it should come to her now! Do
you know, she had a presentiment of it? When we heard of the Duke's
flight her first word was: 'Now we may find Emilio's letter.' At
heart she was always sure that he had written--I suppose some
blessed instinct told her so." She dropped her face on her hands,
and I saw her tears fall on the wretched letter.

In a moment she looked up again, with eyes that blessed and trusted
me. "Tell me where you found it," she said.

I told her.

"Oh, the savages! They took it from him--"

My opportunity had come. "No," I said, "it appears they did _not_
take it from him."

"Then how--"

I waited a moment. "The letter," I said, looking full at her, "was
given up to the warder of the prison by the son of Doctor Briga."

She stared, repeating the words slowly. "The son of Doctor Briga?
But that is--Fernando," she said.

"I have always understood," I replied, "that your friend was an only
son."

I had expected an outcry of horror; if she had uttered it I could
have forgiven her anything. But I heard, instead, an incredulous
exclamation: my statement was really too preposterous! I saw that
her mind had flashed back to our last talk, and that she charged me
with something too nearly true to be endurable.

"My brother's letter? Given to the prison warder by Fernando Briga?
My dear Captain Alingdon--on what authority do you expect me to
believe such a tale?"

Her incredulity had in it an evident implication of bad faith, and I
was stung to a quick reply.

"If you will turn over the letter you will see."

She continued to gaze at me a moment: then she obeyed. I don't think
I ever admired her more than I did then. As she read the name a
tremor crossed her face; and that was all. Her mind must have
reached out instantly to the farthest consequences of the discovery,
but the long habit of self-command enabled her to steady her muscles
at once. If I had not been on the alert I should have seen no hint
of emotion.

For a while she looked fixedly at the back of the letter; then she
raised her eyes to mine.

"Can you tell me who wrote this?" she asked.

Her composure irritated me. She had rallied all her forces to
Briga's defence, and I felt as though my triumph were slipping from
me.

"Probably one of the clerks of the archives," I answered. "It is
written in the same hand as all the other memoranda relating to the
political prisoners of that year."

"But it is a lie!" she exclaimed. "He was never admitted to the
prisons."

"Are you sure?"

"How should he have been?"

"He might have gone as his father's assistant."

"But if he had seen my poor brother he would have told me long ago."

"Not if he had really given up this letter," I retorted.

I supposed her quick intelligence had seized this from the first;
but I saw now that it came to her as a shock. She stood motionless,
clenching the letter in her hands, and I could guess the rapid
travel of her thoughts.

Suddenly she came up to me. "Colonel Alingdon," she said, "you have
been a good friend of mine, though I think you have not liked me
lately. But whether you like me or not, I know you will not deceive
me. On your honor, do you think this memorandum may have been
written later than the letter?"

I hesitated. If she had cried out once against Briga I should have
wished myself out of the business; but she was too sure of him.

"On my honor," I said, "I think it hardly possible. The ink has
faded to the same degree."

She made a rapid comparison and folded the letter with a gesture of
assent.

"It may have been written by an enemy," I went on, wishing to clear
myself of any appearance of malice.

She shook her head. "He was barely fifteen--and his father was on
the side of the government. Besides, this would have served him with
the government, and the liberals would never have known of it."

This was unanswerable--and still not a word of revolt against the
man whose condemnation she was pronouncing!

"Then--" I said with a vague gesture.

She caught me up. "Then--?"

"You have answered my objections," I returned.

"Your objections?"

"To thinking that Signor Briga could have begun his career as a
patriot by betraying a friend."

I had brought her to the test at last, but my eyes shrank from her
face as I spoke. There was a dead silence, which I broke by adding
lamely: "But no doubt Signor Briga could explain."

She lifted her head, and I saw that my triumph was to be short. She
stood erect, a few paces from me, resting her hand on a table, but
not for support.

"Of course he can explain," she said; "do you suppose I ever doubted
it? But--" she paused a moment, fronting me nobly--"he need not, for
I understand it all now."

"Ah," I murmured with a last flicker of irony.

"I understand," she repeated. It was she, now, who sought my eyes
and held them. "It is quite simple--he could not have done
otherwise."

This was a little too oracular to be received with equanimity. I
suppose I smiled.

"He could not have done otherwise," she repeated with tranquil
emphasis. "He merely did what is every Italian's duty--he put Italy
before himself and his friends." She waited a moment, and then went
on with growing passion: "Surely you must see what I mean? He was
evidently in the prison with his father at the time of my poor
brother's death. Emilio perhaps guessed that he was a friend--or
perhaps appealed to him because he was young and looked kind. But
don't you see how dangerous it would have been for Briga to bring
this letter to us, or even to hide it in his father's house? It is
true that he was not yet suspected of liberalism, but he was already
connected with Young Italy, and it is just because he managed to
keep himself so free of suspicion that he was able to do such good
work for the cause." She paused, and then went on with a firmer
voice. "You don't know the danger we all lived in. The government
spies were everywhere. The laws were set aside as the Duke
pleased--was not Emilio hanged for having an ode to Italy in his
desk? After Menotti's conspiracy the Duke grew mad with fear--he was
haunted by the dread of assassination. The police, to prove their
zeal, had to trump up false charges and arrest innocent persons--you
remember the case of poor Ricci? Incriminating papers were smuggled
into people's houses--they were condemned to death on the paid
evidence of brigands and galley-slaves. The families of the
revolutionists were under the closest observation and were shunned
by all who wished to stand well with the government. If Briga had
been seen going into our house he would at once have been suspected.
If he had hidden Emilio's letter at home, its discovery might have
ruined his family as well as himself. It was his duty to consider
all these things. In those days no man could serve two masters, and
he had to choose between endangering the cause and failing to serve
a friend. He chose the latter--and he was right."

I stood listening, fascinated by the rapidity and skill with which
she had built up the hypothesis of Briga's defence. But before she
ended a strange thing happened--her argument had convinced me. It
seemed to me quite likely that Briga had in fact been actuated by
the motives she suggested.

I suppose she read the admission in my face, for hers lit up
victoriously.

"You see?" she exclaimed. "Ah, it takes one brave man to understand
another."

Perhaps I winced a little at being thus coupled with her hero; at
any rate, some last impulse of resistance made me say: "I should be
quite convinced, if Briga had only spoken of the letter afterward.
If brave people understand each other, I cannot see why he should
have been afraid of telling you the truth."

She colored deeply, and perhaps not quite resentfully.

"You are right," she said; "he need not have been afraid. But he
does not know me as I know him. I was useful to Italy, and he may
have feared to risk my friendship."

"You are the most generous woman I ever knew!" I exclaimed.

She looked at me intently. "You also are generous," she said.

I stiffened instantly, suspecting a purpose behind her praise. "I
have given you small proof of it!" I said.

She seemed surprised. "In bringing me this letter? What else could
you do?" She sighed deeply. "You can give me proof enough now."

She had dropped into a chair, and I saw that we had reached the most
difficult point in our interview.

"Captain Alingdon," she said, "does any one else know of this
letter?"

"No. I was alone in the archives when I found it."

"And you spoke of it to no one?"

"To no one."

"Then no one must know."

I bowed. "It is for you to decide."

She paused. "Not even my mother," she continued, with a painful
blush.

I looked at her in amazement. "Not even--?"

She shook her head sadly. "You think me a cruel daughter? Well--_he_
was a cruel friend. What he did was done for Italy: shall I allow
myself to be surpassed?"

I felt a pang of commiseration for the mother. "But you will at
least tell the Countess--"

Her eyes filled with tears. "My poor mother--don't make it more
difficult for me!"

"But I don't understand--"

"Don't you see that she might find it impossible to forgive him? She
has suffered so much! And I can't risk that--for in her anger she
might speak. And even if she forgave him, she might be tempted to
show the letter. Don't you see that, even now, a word of this might
ruin him? I will trust his fate to no one. If Italy needed him then
she needs him far more to-day."

She stood before me magnificently, in the splendor of her great
refusal; then she turned to the writing-table at which she had been
seated when I came in. Her sealing-taper was still alight, and she
held her brother's letter to the flame.

I watched her in silence while it burned; but one more question rose
to my lips.

"You will tell _him_, then, what you have done for him?" I cried.

And at that the heroine turned woman, melted and pressed unhappy
hands in mine.

"Don't you see that I can never tell him what I do for him? That is
my gift to Italy," she said.

THE END.
The Letter, by Edith Wharton.

Read previous: CHAPTER I

Table of content of Letter


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book