Edith Wharton

“ 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 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 confiseated property and of the graves of their dead. ”

“ 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 they hadn't forgotten how to suffer and hold their tongues; how to die and take their secrets with them. The Italian war of independence was really carried on underground: it was one of those awful silent struggles which are so much more terrible than the roar of a battle. It's a deuced sight easier to charge with your regiment than to lie rotting in an Austrian prison and know that if you give up the name of a friend or two you can go back scot-free to your wife and children. And thousands and thousands of Italians had the choice given them—and hardly one went back. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 vet 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? ”

“ 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 l’italici cor non è ancor morto ”

“ It seemed to me quite likely that Briga had im 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.” ”