The Gadfly, E. L. Voynich [best books to read for self development .txt] 📗
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ship!” grumbled the customs official. “Been out
on the spree, I suppose. What’s in your boat?”
“Old clothes. Got them cheap.” He held up
the waistcoat for inspection. The official, lowering
his lantern, bent over, straining his eyes to see.
“It’s all right, I suppose. You can pass.”
He lifted the barrier and the boat moved slowly
out into the dark, heaving water. At a little distance
Arthur sat up and threw off the clothes.
“Here she is,” the sailor whispered, after rowing
for some time in silence. “Keep close behind me
and hold your tongue.”
He clambered up the side of a huge black monster,
swearing under his breath at the clumsiness
of the landsman, though Arthur’s natural agility
rendered him less awkward than most people
would have been in his place. Once safely on
board, they crept cautiously between dark masses
of rigging and machinery, and came at last to a
hatchway, which the sailor softly raised.
“Down here!” he whispered. “I’ll be back in
a minute.”
The hold was not only damp and dark, but intolerably
foul. At first Arthur instinctively drew
back, half choked by the stench of raw hides and
rancid oil. Then he remembered the “punishment
cell,” and descended the ladder, shrugging
his shoulders. Life is pretty much the same
everywhere, it seemed; ugly, putrid, infested with
vermin, full of shameful secrets and dark corners.
Still, life is life, and he must make the best of it.
In a few minutes the sailor came back with
something in his hands which Arthur could not
distinctly see for the darkness.
“Now, give me the watch and money. Make
haste!”
Taking advantage of the darkness, Arthur succeeded
in keeping back a few coins.
“You must get me something to eat,” he said;
“I am half starved.”
“I’ve brought it. Here you are.” The sailor
handed him a pitcher, some hard biscuit, and a
piece of salt pork. “Now mind, you must hide
in this empty barrel, here, when the customs officers
come to examine to-morrow morning. Keep
as still as a mouse till we’re right out at sea. I’ll
let you know when to come out. And won’t you
just catch it when the captain sees you—that’s
all! Got the drink safe? Good-night!”
The hatchway closed, and Arthur, setting the
precious “drink” in a safe place, climbed on to an
oil barrel to eat his pork and biscuit. Then he
curled himself up on the dirty floor; and, for the
first time since his babyhood, settled himself to
sleep without a prayer. The rats scurried round
him in the darkness; but neither their persistent
noise nor the swaying of the ship, nor the nauseating
stench of oil, nor the prospect of to-morrow’s
sea-sickness, could keep him awake. He
cared no more for them all than for the broken and
dishonoured idols that only yesterday had been
the gods of his adoration.
PART II.
–––-
THIRTEEN YEARS LATER.
–––-
CHAPTER I.
ONE evening in July, 1846, a few acquaintances
met at Professor Fabrizi’s house in Florence to
discuss plans for future political work.
Several of them belonged to the Mazzinian
party and would have been satisfied with nothing
less than a democratic Republic and a United
Italy. Others were Constitutional Monarchists
and Liberals of various shades. On one point,
however, they were all agreed; that of dissatisfaction
with the Tuscan censorship; and the popular
professor had called the meeting in the hope that,
on this one subject at least, the representatives
of the dissentient parties would be able to get
through an hour’s discussion without quarrelling.
Only a fortnight had elapsed since the famous
amnesty which Pius IX. had granted, on his accession,
to political offenders in the Papal States; but
the wave of liberal enthusiasm caused by it was
already spreading over Italy. In Tuscany even
the government appeared to have been affected
by the astounding event. It had occurred to
Fabrizi and a few other leading Florentines that
this was a propitious moment for a bold effort to
reform the press-laws.
“Of course,” the dramatist Lega had said, when
the subject was first broached to him; “it would
be impossible to start a newspaper till we can
get the press-law changed; we should not bring
out the first number. But we may be able to run
some pamphlets through the censorship already;
and the sooner we begin the sooner we shall get
the law changed.”
He was now explaining in Fabrizi’s library his
theory of the line which should be taken by liberal
writers at the moment.
“There is no doubt,” interposed one of the
company, a gray-haired barrister with a rather
drawling manner of speech, “that in some way
we must take advantage of the moment. We
shall not see such a favourable one again for bringing
forward serious reforms. But I doubt the
pamphlets doing any good. They will only irritate
and frighten the government instead of winning
it over to our side, which is what we really
want to do. If once the authorities begin to think
of us as dangerous agitators our chance of getting
their help is gone.”
“Then what would you have us do?”
“Petition.”
“To the Grand Duke?”
“Yes; for an augmentation of the liberty of the
press.”
A keen-looking, dark man sitting by the window
turned his head round with a laugh.
“You’ll get a lot out of petitioning!” he said.
“I should have thought the result of the Renzi
case was enough to cure anybody of going to work
that way.”
“My dear sir, I am as much grieved as you are
that we did not succeed in preventing the extradition
of Renzi. But really—I do not wish to
hurt the sensibilities of anyone, but I cannot help
thinking that our failure in that case was largely
due to the impatience and vehemence of some
persons among our number. I should certainly
hesitate–-”
“As every Piedmontese always does,” the dark
man interrupted sharply. “I don’t know where
the vehemence and impatience lay, unless you
found them in the strings of meek petitions we
sent in. That may be vehemence for Tuscany or
Piedmont, but we should not call it particularly
vehement in Naples.”
“Fortunately,” remarked the Piedmontese,
“Neapolitan vehemence is peculiar to Naples.”
“There, there, gentlemen, that will do!” the
professor put in. “Neapolitan customs are very
good things in their way and Piedmontese customs
in theirs; but just now we are in Tuscany,
and the Tuscan custom is to stick to the
matter in hand. Grassini votes for petitions and
Galli against them. What do you think, Dr.
Riccardo?”
“I see no harm in petitions, and if Grassini gets
one up I’ll sign it with all the pleasure in life.
But I don’t think mere petitioning and nothing
else will accomplish much. Why can’t we have
both petitions and pamphlets?”
“Simply because the pamphlets will put the
government into a state of mind in which it won’t
grant the petitions,” said Grassini.
“It won’t do that anyhow.” The Neapolitan
rose and came across to the table. “Gentlemen,
you’re on the wrong tack. Conciliating the government
will do no good. What we must do is to
rouse the people.”
“That’s easier said than done; how are you
going to start?”
“Fancy asking Galli that! Of course he’d start
by knocking the censor on the head.”
“No, indeed, I shouldn’t,” said Galli stoutly.
“You always think if a man comes from down
south he must believe in no argument but cold
steel.”
“Well, what do you propose, then? Sh! Attention,
gentlemen! Galli has a proposal to make.”
The whole company, which had broken up into
little knots of twos and threes, carrying on separate
discussions, collected round the table to
listen. Galli raised his hands in expostulation.
“No, gentlemen, it is not a proposal; it is merely
a suggestion. It appears to me that there is a
great practical danger in all this rejoicing over
the new Pope. People seem to think that, because
he has struck out a new line and granted
this amnesty, we have only to throw ourselves—
all of us, the whole of Italy—into his arms and he
will carry us to the promised land. Now, I am
second to no one in admiration of the Pope’s
behaviour; the amnesty was a splendid action.”
“I am sure His Holiness ought to feel flattered–-”
Grassini began contemptuously.
“There, Grassini, do let the man speak!”
Riccardo interrupted in his turn. “It’s a most
extraordinary thing that you two never can
keep from sparring like a cat and dog. Get on,
Galli!”
“What I wanted to say is this,” continued the
Neapolitan. “The Holy Father, undoubtedly, is
acting with the best intentions; but how far he
will succeed in carrying his reforms is another
question. Just now it’s smooth enough and, of
course, the reactionists all over Italy will lie quiet
for a month or two till the excitement about the
amnesty blows over; but they are not likely to
let the power be taken out of their hands without
a fight, and my own belief is that before the winter
is half over we shall have Jesuits and Gregorians
and Sanfedists and all the rest of the crew about
our ears, plotting and intriguing, and poisoning
off everybody they can’t bribe.”
“That’s likely enough.”
“Very well, then; shall we wait here, meekly
sending in petitions, till Lambruschini and his
pack have persuaded the Grand Duke to put us
bodily under Jesuit rule, with perhaps a few Austrian
hussars to patrol the streets and keep us
in order; or shall we forestall them and take advantage
of their momentary discomfiture to strike
the first blow?”
“Tell us first what blow you propose?”
“I would suggest that we start an organized
propaganda and agitation against the Jesuits.”
“A pamphleteering declaration of war, in
fact?”
“Yes; exposing their intrigues, ferreting out
their secrets, and calling upon the people to make
common cause against them.”
“But there are no Jesuits here to expose.”
“Aren’t there? Wait three months and see
how many we shall have. It’ll be too late to keep
them out then.”
“But really to rouse the town against the
Jesuits one must speak plainly; and if you do that
how will you evade the censorship?”
“I wouldn’t evade it; I would defy it.”
“You would print the pamphlets anonymously?
That’s all very well, but the fact is, we have all
seen enough of the clandestine press to know–-”
“I did not mean that. I would print the pamphlets
openly, with our names and addresses, and
let them prosecute us if they dare.”
“The project is a perfectly mad one,” Grassini
exclaimed. “It is simply putting one’s head into
the lion’s mouth out of sheer wantonness.”
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid!” Galli cut in
sharply; “we shouldn’t ask you to go to prison
for our pamphlets.”
“Hold your tongue, Galli!” said Riccardo.
“It’s not a question of being afraid; we’re all as
ready as you are to go to prison if there’s any good
to be got by it, but it is childish to run into danger
for nothing. For my part, I have an amendment
to the proposal to suggest.”
“Well, what is it?”
“I think we might contrive, with care, to fight
the Jesuits without coming into collision with the
censorship.”
“I don’t see how you are going to manage it.”
“I think that it is possible to clothe what one
has to say in so roundabout a form that–-”
“That the censorship won’t understand it?
And then you’ll expect every
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