Charles Lever

“ Wearisome as such superinspection had often seemed to me, I felt at last that there was a state of mind in which it might be pleasurable; and I own, I sympathised with the patient onlookers, seeing that, had I been a gentleman of Sarzana, I should have come to the like fate.
As night closed in, and the polisher moved away, I sallied forth to see what life might be had in the cafés. Blank disappointment again: of all the dreary abodes of stale tobacco-smoke, flat anise-seed, and dirty guests, there is nothing to compare with a low Italian café. ”

“ They hurried on, and reached the bridge; at first they saw nothing, but on peering over the crest of the arch, perceived the body of a man, on his face, in the dry torrent course beneath. It was Carlo Eisingarde, murdered: no less than eleven poignard wounds were found upon him.
From that day to this no clue has been found to his murderers. There was something awful in the cold and emotionless attitude of the people of Gariglano as the dead body was brought back and laid within the church. ”

“ A man in all the vices and dissipations of manhood before he was eighteen, Carlo had contracted heavy debts. Even village life has its share of corrupting influences, and there was a little café which had its billiard-table, and a bowling-green which had its swindlers, just as effective in their way as their higher brethren of the turf and Newmarket. No need to say how Carlo Eisingarde was welcomed at such haunts, nor what flatteries and seductions were thrown around him. ”

“ Just as the widow and her son gained the steps of the building, the clatter of horses was heard, advancing at speed, and an open calèche with four posters dashed into the piazza, and never slackening speed through the affrighted crowd, drew up at the tribunal.
An Austrian general in full uniform quickly descended, and then there followed a tall fine-looking man, well-grown and powerful, that all recognised as Carlo Eisingarde. ”

“ At last a movement was felt in the crowd, one of those strange impulses which seem to make masses vibrate with emotion like a single human heart; then the great massive gates of the old palace were seen to open, a sight not seen for many a year, and a very old woman, bent almost double, issued forth, leaning on the arm of her son. ”

“ Such was the abject influence of the terrorism that prevailed at the time, that though Sebastian was well liked and esteemed in the place, none had the courage to invite to their house a man who lay under proscription by the government. Whether adversity had taught him to expect hard usage in life, or that his pride would not stoop to resent such meanness, the young man never seemed to notice the coldness of his townsfolk, and so he frequented the café and appeared at the bowling-green with the rest, not displaying in any way a sense of the injury done him. ”

“ Though he should never have travelled the intended road in his life, he will assume to be familiar with all its obstacles and perils. The torrents, the mountains, the bad roads, the wretched villages, the lawless people who live in them, the vile accommodation to be paid for prezzo d’oro, and the atrocious forage, only procurable by bribery, are all themes for description, not the less ample and gloomy because untrammeled by truth. ”

“ The traveller often finds in Northern Italy, families of German name and origin, who, though long rooted in the soil, have never entirely abrogated the traces of a distinct race, but continue to preserve, for centuries even, some of those characteristics which indicate a nationality; in this way, the wider foreheads, yellow hair, and, blue eyes tell of a people not native to the land, long after their possessors have ceased to retain the language or the habits of the “Vaterland.”
There was such a one at Gariglano. ”

“ I was not entirely unacquainted with this feature of Italian travel, and bore up tolerably patiently for two days under the usual torrent of such eloquence, always ending with the same peroration. “But if his Excellency”, meaning myself, “insists and must actually go that road, he will surely not grudge to recompense handsomely a poor fellow, who may never bring his horses back to his village, if happily he should return there himself with life again.” ”

“ The summit is invariably crowned with villages, picturesque in tower, or campanile, and the whole clothed in richest colouring, from the ensanguined brown of the copper beech to the mellow green of the chestnut, or the more sombre depth of the olive. ”

“ Sarzana has few vetturini, and none of them at all disposed to travel out of the beaten tracks on one side to Pietra-Santa and Pisa, and on the other to Sestri; or, perhaps, to Chiavari.
To induce an Italian to do anything out of his ordinary routine, can only be done at a considerable sacrifice of money. All the difficulties, obstacles, even dangers of the newly suggested plan, will be set forth by him with an eloquence positively astounding. ”

“ Of Sebastian Spada no one ever heard more.
It is scarcely necessary to say that Carlo Eisingarde returned no more to Gariglano, where his name was not uttered without a curse; nor his memory recalled save with execration. It needed not Italian subtlety to read by what vile treachery to his companions, he achieved a vengeance on his enemy. Rumour ran that he had obtained a high place under the Imperial Government, and a title. Indeed, men read in the newspapers the name of Baron Eisingarde being entrusted with this, or sent about that, and none doubted whom it to referred. ”

“ The boys—who partly from an unruly disposition, and partly from the importance derived from their known fortune, assumed an unusual degree of liberty, going about how, and when, and where they liked—were easily entrapped into the league, which gratified their pride by at once classing them with grown-up men. The eldest was fifteen, and Francesco only thirteen when they took the oaths to uphold doctrines they had never heard of, and at the price of life itself be true to a bond of whose meaning they had not the vaguest conception. ”

“ I sat moodily at the window watching a man polishing a slab in a small archway opposite, a labour so curious and interesting, as to have attracted six spectators, who with loose coats hanging sleeveless on their backs, watched him also, the live-long day, never moving from the spot till the night closed in and ended his work. ”

“ They were in every city, in every town, almost in every village; men of the highest rank, of ancient lineage, and large fortune were members of the league, along with broken-down adventurers and outcasts. So artfully constructed was it, that there was a place and a sphere of action for each without any risk that the indiscretion of one should seriously compromise the others ”

“ The contract was soon made, though greatly to the vetturino’s disgust, not paid for in anticipation, for he was intently bent on despoiling the priest of every “soldo” of it ere they parted; a scheme which I read and thwarted with some pleasure; and it was settled that the Father, whose name was Don Lertora!—every priest is a Don!—should call for me at daybreak on the following morning.
Nothing could be humbler than my fellow-traveller, except his pony; indeed, until I saw the quadruped, I believed the man to have reached the climax of all humility, but the beast beat him hollow. ”

“ Had I been aware of it, I might have spared myself all fears on this score, for the Syndic had ordered that the gates should remain open during the night to permit the peasants to pass in and out freely to see the illuminations, Gariglano having that night illuminated for a great victory, no less a one than the battle of Magenta. Three of the townsfolk had fallen, but the patriotism of the place was above personal considerations, and their little town was ablaze with lights. ”

“ After many changes of domicile, each more pretentious than its predecessor, they had at length arrived at the dignity of the Piazza, having purchased the old palace of the Conte Grignolo—the last of a race who had once owned wide lands around the town. The Eisingardes were now, if not exactly, very nearly, “Signori:” not that in dress, mode of living, or in culture they were really above their neighbours, but they were richer. To them men came for loans or mortgages,—to them offered for sale this homestead or that farm ”