Stories by Foreign Authors: Italian. Gabriele D'Annunzio

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      One evening, early in September, one of the official newspapers announced that the Italian troops had actually entered the Papal States. The son was bursting with joy. The father read the article, sat thinking awhile, and then, shaking his head, muttered: "No!" and again: "No!" and a third time: "No!"

      "But I beg your pardon, father!" shouted the boy, all aflame.

      "Don't let us begin again," the mother gently interposed; and that evening nothing more was said. But the next night something serious happened. The lad, just before going to bed, announced, without preamble, as though he were saying the most natural thing in the world, that he meant to go to Rome with the army.

      There was a general outcry of surprise and indignation, followed by a storm of reproaches ​and threats. No decent person would willingly be present at such scenes as were about to be enacted; it was enough that, as Italians, they were all in a measure to blame for what had happened, without deliberately assuming the shame of being an eye-witness; there was nothing one could not forgive in a lad of good family, except (it was his mother who spoke) this craze to go and see a poor old man bombarded. A fine war! A glorious triumph, indeed!

      When they had ended the lad set his teeth, tore in bits the paper clutched between his fingers, and, lighting a candle, flung out of the room, stamping his feet like an Italian actor representing an angry king.

      Half an hour later he stole gently back to the dining-room. His father and mother sat there alone, sad and silent. He asked pardon of his father, who grumblingly shook hands; then he returned to his room, followed by his mother.

      "Then we shall hear no more of these ideas?" she tenderly suggested, laying her hands on his shoulders.

      He answered her with a kiss.

      The next day he crossed the borders of the Papal States.

      The discovery of his flight was received with tears, rage, and invectives. They would never consent to see him again; if he came back, they would not even rise from their seats to welcome ​him; they would not speak to him for a month; they would cut off his allowance; they had a hundred other plans for his discomfiture. With the mother it was only talk; but the father meant what he said. He was a good but hard man, averse to compromises, and violent in his anger; his son knew it and feared him. It was incomprehensible that the lad should have ventured upon such a step.

      The news of the 20th of September only increased the resentment of his parents.

      "He will see," they muttered. "Only let him try to come back!"

      Their words, their gestures, the manner in which they were to receive him, were all thought out and agreed upon: he was to receive a memorable lesson.

      On the morning of the 22d. they were all seated in the dining-room, reading, when there was a great knock at the door, and the boy, flushed, panting, sunburnt, stood erect and motionless on the threshold.

      No one moved.

      "What!" cried the boy, extending his arms in amazement, "you have n't heard the news?"

      No one answered.

      "Has n't any one told you? Has no one been out from Florence? Are you all in the dark still?"

      No one breathed.

      ​"We have heard," one of the girls at length faltered, after exchanging glances with her father, "that Rome was taken—"

      "What! Is that all?"

      "That is all."

      "But what a victory! What a victory!" cried the son, with a shout that set them trembling. "So I am the one to tell you of it!"

      They sprang up and surrounded him.

      "But how is it possible?" he went on, with excited gestures—"how is it possible that you have n't heard anything? Have there been no rumors about the neighborhood? Have n't the peasants held a meeting? What is the municipality about? Why, it's inconceivable! Just listen—here, come close to me, so—I'll tell you the whole story; my heart's going at such a rate that I can hardly speak . . ."

      "But what has happened?"

      "Wait! You sha'n't know yet. You must hear the whole story first, from beginning to end. I want to tell you the thing bit by bit, just as I saw it."

      "But what is it?—the Roman festival?"

      "The plébiscite?"

      "The King's arrival?"

      "No, no, no! Something much more tremendous!"

      "But tell us, tell us!"

      "Sit down, lad!"

      ​"But how is it that we have n't heard anything about it?"

      "How can I tell? All I know is that bringing you the first news of it is the most glorious thing that's ever happened to me. I reached Florence this morning—they knew all about it there, so I rushed straight out here. I fancied that perhaps you might n't have heard yet—I . . . I'm all out of breath . . ."

      "But tell us, tell us quickly!" the mother and daughters cried, drawing their chairs around him. The father remained at a distance.

      "You shall hear, mother—such things!" the boy began. "Here, come closer to me. Well, you know what happened on the morning of the twenty-first? The rest of the regiments entered; there were the same crowds, the same shouting and music as on the day before. But suddenly, about midday, the noise stopped as if by common consent, first in the Corso, then in the other principal streets, and so, little by little, all over the city. The troops of people began to break up into groups, talking to each other in low voices; then they scattered in all directions, taking leave of each other in a way that made one think they meant to meet again. It seemed as though the signal had been given to prepare for something tremendous. Men said a hasty word to each other in passing and then hurried on, each going his own way. The whole Corso was in ​movement; people were rushing in and out of the houses, calling out from the street and being answered from the windows; soldiers dashed about as though in answer to a summons; cavalry officers trotted by; men and boys passed with bundles of flags on their shoulders and in their arms, all breathless and hurried, as if the devil were after them. Not knowing a soul, and having no way of rinding out what it all meant, I tried to guess what was up from the expression of their faces. They all looked cheerful enough, but not as frantically glad as they had been; there was a shade of doubt, of anxiety. One could see they were planning something. From the Corso I wandered on through some of the narrower streets, stopping now and then to watch one of the groups. Everywhere I saw the same thing—crowds of people, all in a hurry, all coming and going, with the same air that I had already noticed in the Corso, of concealing from somebody what they were doing, although it was all being done in the open. Knots, bands, hundreds of men and women passed me in silence; they were all going in the same direction, as though to some appointed meeting-place."

      "Where were they going?" the father and mother interrupted.

      "Wait a minute. I went back to the Corso. As I approached it I heard a deep, continuous murmur of voices, growing louder and louder, ​like the noise of a great crowd. The Corso was full of people, all standing СКАЧАТЬ