Vittorio

“ It really would be too discouraging, if after having organized and planned every detail we should be taken prisoners at once. No, I believed that it was absolutely necessary for the landing place to be near Vittorio, but in a zone less frequented by the enemy. The zone which I believed more suitable to my purpose was the hilly, wooded section of the near Alps which surround Vittorio. For the little city of Vittorio lies at the foot of the Venetian Alps. It consists of two villages, Ceneda and Serravalle and is all surrounded by hills. ”

“ Not one of your own daughters has a heart so white. If Vittorio is so great a coward as to listen to their talk I'll keep her for his betters."
All this snapped out of Luigi's eyes and rolled from under his crisp mustache as he repeated the outbreak to me. What the end might be neither the Giudecca nor San Giuseppe could decide. The Borodinis were proud; Vittorio's father was one of the gondoliers belonging to the palace and always rowed the good Queen Margherita when she came incognito to Venice,—a post which greatly enhanced his social station. ”

“ They knew that the eldest boy was named for one of his grandfathers, and the second for the other; that the third boy, Vittorio, wanted to be a soldier, and that the piccolo Giovanni was going to be the best gondolier of them all. They knew why a light was always burning, day and night, before the little image of the Madonna on the stairs, and why the whole family had made a pious pilgrimage to the church of San Antonio at Padua the previous year. They knew how severe the father of Vittorio and Nanni had been to his boys ”

“ Once again Lucio stopped, as if speaking to himself; Vittorio stopped beside him, patiently, affectionately, pitifully.
"Oh, these Englishwomen, these Englishwomen," he said, passing his hand over his forehead. "Even if they are very young, even if they are twenty, as my poor love, as my poor Lilian, they have an interior life of singular intensity, whilst an absolute calm reigns in their faces and actions. They hide sentiments within their souls with a force, power, and ardour which would stupefy and frighten us if we could see within them for an instant. ”

“ Hence he could answer, with perfect sincerity: "Si, Signore; I understand. But you may trust me. And you will go out with me this evening?"
"Why, yes; I suppose we had better," said the Colonel, somewhat reassured.
"And to-morrow, if Vittorio is not able to row? Of course that is as the Signore wishes. Another gondolier can be had to-morrow for the asking; but to-night, the prices are appalling. They have no consciences, these men." ”

“ She desires, dreams of, and invokes millions and millions for her Vittorio, for the house of Lante della Scala, to restore the great palace at Terni, so as not to sell the park where they want to found a factory."
"St. Moritz is not lacking in youths who are on the look-out for a large dowry," said Lucio, thoughtfully and doubtfully.
"I know that," exclaimed Vittorio mournfully. "I know quite well that St. Moritz is a meeting-place of big and little dowry-hunters, from him who seeks two hundred thousand francs to him who seeks ten million. ”

“ You would feel yourself despised. Then the life is so different, in an atmosphere of distrust the life would seem to you eccentric, grotesque, unbearable; and if I forced you to stay there you would end by hating me."
"But with us? In this beautiful land?"
"Here I should suffer, dear Vittorio. To all you Italian men and women I should always be the American woman who had made a bargain, who had given her dollars and bought a title. Principessa di Santalena! Donna Mabel Lante della Scala! ”

“ When the Colonel and his Pollys appeared at the steps of the Venezia, Vittorio greeted them with a radiant "bellissimo!" The moon was all but full and not a breath of air stirred the wide reaches of the lagoon, visible beyond San Giorgio. One of the musicians' barges was drawn up in front of the hotel; the first song was in progress, and gondolas from the upper canal were approaching, with soft dip of oar, and gleaming tiny lights.
The singer was a woman. She was standing in the middle of the boat, one hand clinging, as if for support, to the shoulder of a violinist. ”

“ Luigi and Vittorio and little stumpy Appo, who can carry a sack of salt as easily as a pail of water, now fall into line, offering their broad backs for other passengers, Vittorio taking up a collection in his hat, the others wading about, pouncing down upon derelict oars, barrels, bits of plank, and the débris of the wrecked bridge. When no more soldi for ferry-tolls are forthcoming, and no more Venetians, male or female, can be found reckless or hurried enough to intrust their precious bodies to Luigi’s shoulders, the gang falls to work on a fresh bridge. ”

“ He was madly in love with her, he moaned, and had spread the report hoping that Vittorio would cast her off, and, having no other place to go, Loretta would come back to him. At this Vittorio broke into a rage and would have strangled the dying man had not the attendant interfered. All this I learned from Luigi as we waited for the official.
"This is a frightful ending to a happy life—" I began when the officer appeared. "Let them talk to each other for just a few moments. It can do no harm."
The official shook his head. "It is against orders, Signore, I cannot. ”

“ Worn down, he again made a vague gesture of excuse.
"On the contrary, Vittorio, I believe you will marry Livia Lante, much sooner than I shall marry an American."
He shrugged his shoulders.
"We are very poor, Livia and I. One can endure poverty when one is in love. I do not love Livia."
"Later solitude and boredom will oppress you. She is sweet and gracious. She will beautify your life." ”

“ A great gust of icy wind caught them, causing them to shudder and tremble with the cold. The great wall was passed, still a few minutes more and they would find themselves at the hill of the Maloja. The sky was quite white with little white clouds on one side, because the moon was passing behind them, while about the Margna—the great mountain with twin peaks nearly always covered with snow—the clouds had become black and threatening with rain and storm.
"Vittorio, Vittorio," exclaimed Lucio Sabini, in an altered voice; "adultery is a land of madness, of slavery and death. ”

“ There lay Luca della Robbia, Lorenzo di Credi, Mariotto Albertinelli, Piero di Cosimo: where is their dust to-day? As we look at their work in the galleries and churches, who cares what has happened to them, or whether such graves as theirs are rifled or no? Yet not one of them but has done more for Italy than Vittorio Emmanuele ”

“ He has been talking to the fish-people,—to everybody on the side street, saying that Loretta was his old shoes that he left at his door, and the fool Vittorio found them and put them on—that sort of talk."
"And Vittorio believes it?"
"He did not at first,—but twice Francesco came to see Loretta with messages from her mother, and went sneaking off when Vittorio came up in his boat, and then that night some one would tell him—'that fellow meets Loretta every day;' that he was her old lover. These people on the Giudecca do not like the San Giuseppe people, and there is always jealousy. ”

“ The childhood and early youth of Vittorio Alfieri had been strangely vacant, dreary, one might almost say intellectually and morally sordid; and the strangest, the dreariest circumstance about them was exactly that this vacuity, this dreariness, this total want of all that can make the life of a boy and of a young man pleasant to our fancy or attractive to our sympathy, did not in the least depend upon any harshness or stinginess of fate. Indeed, perhaps, no man had ever prepared for him an easier existence ”

“ Now they were alone on the terrace, on which the evening was descending. Everyone had left to take the little steamer back to Venice from the other side of the Lido. The terrace was quite deserted, and all the Lido shore, whose yellow sand remained bright beneath the evening shadows; and deserted the ample Adriatic, now of the deepest green in the evening gloom.
"She was twenty," said a weak, feeble voice, which Vittorio hardly recognised as Lucio's.
"It is very early to die." ”

“ The mouth of the Tagliamento is more than sixty miles distant from Vittorio, which was the place I had selected as the base from which to begin my work of observation. Sixty miles, which are trifling under normal conditions, become an enormous distance when in enemy territory. For it becomes 81 necessary in traversing so long a tract to enlist the services of too many people ”

“ But Vittorio Alfieri was nevertheless one of the least happy of little boys, and one of the least happy of young men. He was born with an uncomfortable and awkward and unwieldy character, as some men are born lame, or scrofulous, or dyspeptic. ”

“ One could never get confidential with him; one would never ask him about his wife and children, and think how delighted Vittorio was to tell us about each individual bambino!"
"It would not be of much use to ask him," Uncle Dan interposed hastily. "For he hasn't any."
"I have an idea he is poor," said Pauline. [89] "Even poorer than the rest of them. I wonder what is the reason."
"So do I," said May. "Nanni, is your gondola a very old one?"
"Si, Signorina; very old."
"What a pity! It must be very bad for you. Which is your ferry?" ”

“ Nor during those years of youthful wanderings, does he ever seem, except upon one memorable occasion, to have been made to suffer from the unconscientiousness, the harshness, the infidelity, the indifference of the men and women whom he met, any more than in his boyhood he had suffered from the severity of his masters, the brutality of his tutor-servants, or the ill-nature of his fellow pupils. Fate and the world were extremely kind to Vittorio Alfieri: giving him every advantage and comfort, and teaching him no cruel lessons. ”

“ They went to the Belle Arti that morning, Pauline and May and Uncle Dan, their faithful squire. Vittorio took them there in the hooded [305] gondola, himself radiant in a new "impermeable" hat and coat, which gave him the appearance of a gigantic wet seal, swaying genially on its supple tail.
As they looked out from the shelter of the felze, more impermeable than many rubber coats, May observed that it was a terrible waste of opportunities to go about in a felze with a mere uncle and sister.
"What do you take it that a felze is for?" asked Uncle Dan, enchanted with her disparaging tone. ”

“ The mother is silly and vain. Poor Vittorio, what a father and mother-in-law!"
In a dance that became ever more lively, the first and [200] second parts of that theatrical spectacle passed—the "Palace" cotillon. A more precipitous movement led the couples amidst gauze, tulle, ribbons, paper caps, streamers of fresh flowers, and Swiss bells of silver paper. ”

“ On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride—a very magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, Francesco. Throughout the nozze he took the lead in a grand imperious fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have got the nickname of Tacchin, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons and daughters call their parent briefly Vecchio. ”

“ Italy being so old and Vittorio Emmanuele so new, it follows in most cases that the square or street named after him supplants an older one, and if the Italians had any memory or imaginative interest in history they would see to it that the old name was not wholly obliterated. ”

“ A look of comical deprecation crossed the face of the passenger, and he said, rather abruptly: "I hope Nanni is good to the rest of you."
"Si, Signore; Nanni is a good brother; but we are many and he is not rich. Ecco! The gondola [19] of the Signora Daymond. Will the Signore speak with her?"
"Not to-day," the Colonel answered, hastily; and in another instant, before the occupants of the other boat had looked in their direction, Vittorio had stepped back to his post at the stern, and had given a twist of the oar that sent the gondola straight across the prow of a steamboat coming down stream. ”

“ Already the old soldier quailed miserably before the enemy.
"They are not a rough company," Polly declared. "I asked Vittorio all about it. He knows nearly all the men, and he says they are galant' uomini. Signor Canti will be there, and he will take beautiful care of me. Signora Canti is to have all the proceeds beyond a certain sum that the others will agree upon."
"The thing seems pretty well settled between you and your gallant hominies," growled Uncle Dan, trying to be severe. ”

“ George, "if you only knew how much they can eat."
Vittorio smiled and said that if the party would pay nine francs apiece all round, he should be satisfied, without asking for any thing extra on account of the boys.
The third item of expense in an Italian journey consists of the buono manos. In Italy, and indeed generally in Europe, though especially in Italy, nobody, in rendering you a service, is satisfied with receiving merely what you agreed to pay for the service. Every one expects something over at the end, as a token of your satisfaction with him. ”

“ Greville quietly. "You'd find it a rowdy place, and not at all to your liking. The wine shops will have been very busy all day."
"And the people aren't over gentle with strangers when their blood's up," added Vittore. "They've no use for a nice young Englishman down in Targia Vecchia! Best stay safe at home."
Vittore, who had waited till his uncle was out of earshot, spoke tauntingly. Everard colored crimson.
"I'm not afraid of a few Sicilian peasants!" ”