Vittoria — Complete. George Meredith

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      “Now, to recommence,” he said. “Drink before you speak, if your tongue is dry.”

      Luigi thrust aside the mention of liquor. It seemed to him that by doing so he propitiated that ill-conceived divinity called Virtue, who lived in the open air, and desired men to drink water. Barto Rizzo evidently understood the kind of man he was schooling to his service.

      “Did that Austrian officer, who is an Englishman, acquainted with the Signor Antonio-Pericles, meet the lady, his sister, on the Motterone?”

      Luigi answered promptly, “Yes.”

      “Did the Signorina Vittoria speak to the lady?”

      “No.”

      “Not a word?”

      “No.”

      “Not one communication to her?”

      “No: she sat under her straw hat.”

      “She concealed her face?”

      “She sat like a naughty angry girl.”

      “Did she speak to the officer?”

      “Not she!”

      “Did she see him?”

      “Of course she did! As if a woman's eyes couldn't see through straw-plait!”

      Barto paused, calculatingly, eye on victim.

      “The Signorina Vittoria,” he resumed, “has engaged to sing on the night of the Fifteenth; has she?”

      A twitching of Luigi's muscles showed that he apprehended a necessary straining of his invention on another tack.

      “On the night of the Fifteenth, Signor Barto Rizzo? That's the night of her first appearance. Oh, yes!”

      “To sing a particular song?”

      “Lots of them! ay-aie!”

      Barto took him by the shoulder and pressed him into his seat till he howled, saying, “Now, there's a slate and a pencil. Expect me at the end of two hours, this time. Next time it will be four: then eight, then sixteen. Find out how many hours that will be at the sixteenth examination.”

      Luigi flew at the torturer and stuck at the length of his straightened arm, where he wriggled, refusing to listen to the explanation of Barto's system; which was that, in cases where every fresh examination taught him more, they were continued, after regularly-lengthening intervals, that might extend from the sowing of seed to the ripening of grain. “When all's delivered,” said Barto, “then we begin to correct discrepancies. I expect,” he added, “you and I will have done before a week's out.”

      “A week!” Luigi shouted. “Here's my stomach already leaping like a fish at the smell of this hole. You brute bear! it's a smell of bones. It turns my inside with a spoon. May the devil seize you when you're sleeping! You shan't go: I'll tell you everything—everything. I can't tell you anything more than I have told you. She gave me a cigarette—there! Now you know:—gave me a cigarette; a cigarette. I smoked it—there! Your faithful servant!”

      “She gave you a cigarette, and you smoked it; ha!” said Barto Rizzo, who appeared to see something to weigh even in that small fact. “The English lady gave you the cigarette?”

      Luigi nodded: “Yes;” pertinacious in deception. “Yes,” he repeated; “the English lady. That was the person. What's the use of your skewering me with your eyes!”

      “I perceive that you have never travelled, my Luigi,” said Barto. “I am afraid we shall not part so early as I had supposed. I double the dose, and return to you in four hours' time.”

      Luigi threw himself flat on the ground, shrieking that he was ready to tell everything—anything. Not even the apparent desperation of his circumstances could teach him that a promise to tell the truth was a more direct way of speaking. Indeed, the hitting of the truth would have seemed to him a sort of artful archery, the burden of which should devolve upon the questioner, whom he supplied with the relation of “everything and anything.”

      All through a night Luigi's lesson continued. In the morning he was still breaking out in small and purposeless lies; but Barto Rizzo had accomplished his two objects: that of squeezing him, and that of subjecting his imagination. Luigi confessed (owing to a singular recovery of his memory) the gift of the cigarette as coming from the Signorina Vittoria. What did it matter if she did give him a cigarette?

      “You adore her for it?” said Barto.

      “May the Virgin sweep the floor of heaven into her lap!” interjected Luigi. “She is a good patriot.”

      “Are you one?” Barto asked.

      “Certainly I am.”

      “Then I shall have to suspect you, for the good of your country.”

      Luigi could not see the deduction. He was incapable of guessing that it might apply forcibly to Vittoria, who had undertaken a grave, perilous, and imminent work. Nothing but the spontaneous desire to elude the pursuit of a questioner had at first instigated his baffling of Barto Rizzo, until, fearing the dark square man himself, he feared him dimly for Vittoria's sake; he could not have said why. She was a good patriot: wherefore the reason for wishing to know more of her? Barto Rizzo had compelled him at last to furnish a narrative of the events of that day on the Motterone, and, finding himself at sea, Luigi struck out boldly and swam as well as he could. Barto disentangled one succinct thread of incidents: Vittoria had been commissioned by the Chief to sing on the night of the Fifteenth; she had subsequently, without speaking to any of the English party, or revealing her features “keeping them beautifully hidden,” Luigi said, with unaccountable enthusiasm—written a warning to them that they were to avoid Milan. The paper on which the warning had been written was found by the English when he was the only Italian on the height, lying thereto observe and note things in the service of Barto Rizzo. The writing was English, but when one of the English ladies—“who wore her hair like a planed shred of wood; like a torn vine; like a kite with two tails; like Luxury at the Banquet, ready to tumble over marble shoulders” (an illustration drawn probably from Luigi's study of some allegorical picture—he was at a loss to describe the foreign female head-dress)—when this lady had read the writing, she exclaimed that it was the hand of “her Emilia!” and soon after she addressed Luigi in English, then in French, then in “barricade Italian” (by which phrase Luigi meant that the Italian words were there, but did not present their proper smooth footing for his understanding), and strove to obtain information from him concerning the signorina, and also concerning the chances that Milan would be an agitated city. Luigi assured her that Milan was the peacefullest of cities—a pure babe. He admitted his acquaintance with the Signorina Vittoria Campa, and denied her being “any longer” the Emilia Alessandra Belloni of the English lady. The latter had partly retained him in her service, having given him directions to call at her hotel in Milan, and help her to communicate with her old friend. “I present myself to her to-morrow, Friday,” said Luigi.

      “That's to-day,” said Barto.

      Luigi clapped his hand to his cheek, crying wofully, “You've drawn, beastly gaoler! a night out of my life like an old jaw-tooth.”

      “There's СКАЧАТЬ