Cuore (Heart) Part 20

"No; you are safe," said Ferruccio, in a weak voice. "You are safe, dear grandmother. They carried off the money. But daddy had taken nearly all of it with him."

His grandmother drew a deep breath.

"Grandmother," said Ferruccio, still kneeling, and pressing her close to him, "dear grandmother, you love me, don't you?"

"O Ferruccio! my poor little son!" she replied, placing her hands on his head; "what a fright you must have had!--O Lord G.o.d of mercy!--Light the lamp. No; let us still remain in the dark! I am still afraid."

"Grandmother," resumed the boy, "I have always caused you grief."

"No, Ferruccio, you must not say such things; I shall never think of that again; I have forgotten everything, I love you so dearly!"

"I have always caused you grief," pursued Ferruccio, with difficulty, and his voice quivered; "but I have always loved you. Do you forgive me?--Forgive me, grandmother."

"Yes, my son, I forgive you with all my heart. Think, how could I help forgiving you! Rise from your knees, my child. I will never scold you again. You are so good, so good! Let us light the lamp. Let us take courage a little. Rise, Ferruccio."

"Thanks, grandmother," said the boy, and his voice was still weaker.

"Now--I am content. You will remember me, grandmother--will you not? You will always remember me--your Ferruccio?"

"My Ferruccio!" exclaimed his grandmother, amazed and alarmed, as she laid her hands on his shoulders and bent her head, as though to look him in his face.

"Remember me," murmured the boy once more, in a voice that seemed like a breath. "Give a kiss to my mother--to my father--to Luigina.--Good by, grandmother."

"In the name of Heaven, what is the matter with you?" shrieked the old woman, feeling the boy's head anxiously, as it lay upon her knees; and then with all the power of voice of which her throat was capable, and in desperation: "Ferruccio! Ferruccio! Ferruccio! My child! My love! Angels of Paradise, come to my aid!"

But Ferruccio made no reply. The little hero, the saviour of the mother of his mother, stabbed by a blow from a knife in the back, had rendered up his beautiful and daring soul to G.o.d.

THE LITTLE MASON ON HIS SICK-BED.

Tuesday, 18th.

The poor little mason is seriously ill; the master told us to go and see him; and Garrone, Derossi, and I agreed to go together. Stardi would have come also, but as the teacher had a.s.signed us the description of _The Monument to Cavour_, he told us that he must go and see the monument, in order that his description might be more exact. So, by way of experiment, we invited that puffed-up fellow, n.o.bis, who replied "No," and nothing more. Votini also excused himself, perhaps because he was afraid of soiling his clothes with plaster.

We went there when we came out of school at four o'clock. It was raining in torrents. On the street Garrone halted, and said, with his mouth full of bread:--

"What shall I buy?" and he rattled a couple of soldi in his pocket. We each contributed two soldi, and purchased three huge oranges. We ascended to the garret. At the door Derossi removed his medal and put it in his pocket. I asked him why.

"I don't know," he answered; "in order not to have the air: it strikes me as more delicate to go in without my medal." We knocked; the father, that big man who looks like a giant, opened to us; his face was distorted so that he appeared terrified.

"Who are you?" he demanded. Garrone replied:--

"We are Antonio's schoolmates, and we have brought him three oranges."

"Ah, poor Tonino!" exclaimed the mason, shaking his head, "I fear that he will never eat your oranges!" and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He made us come in. We entered an attic room, where we saw "the little mason" asleep in a little iron bed; his mother hung dejectedly over the bed, with her face in her hands, and she hardly turned to look at us; on one side hung brushes, a trowel, and a plaster-sieve; over the feet of the sick boy was spread the mason's jacket, white with lime. The poor boy was emaciated; very, very white; his nose was pointed, and his breath was short. O dear Tonino, my little comrade! you who were so kind and merry, how it pains me! what would I not give to see you make the hare's face once more, poor little mason!

Garrone laid an orange on his pillow, close to his face; the odor waked him; he grasped it instantly; then let go of it, and gazed intently at Garrone.

"It is I," said the latter; "Garrone: do you know me?" He smiled almost imperceptibly, lifted his stubby hand with difficulty from the bed and held it out to Garrone, who took it between his, and laid it against his cheek, saying:--

"Courage, courage, little mason; you are going to get well soon and come back to school, and the master will put you next to me; will that please you?"

But the little mason made no reply. His mother burst into sobs: "Oh, my poor Tonino! My poor Tonino! He is so brave and good, and G.o.d is going to take him from us!"

"Silence!" cried the mason; "silence, for the love of G.o.d, or I shall lose my reason!"

Then he said to us, with anxiety: "Go, go, boys, thanks; go! what do you want to do here? Thanks; go home!" The boy had closed his eyes again, and appeared to be dead.

"Do you need any a.s.sistance?" asked Garrone.

"No, my good boy, thanks," the mason answered. And so saying, he pushed us out on the landing, and shut the door. But we were not half-way down the stairs, when we heard him calling, "Garrone! Garrone!"

We all three mounted the stairs once more in haste.

"Garrone!" shouted the mason, with a changed countenance, "he has called you by name; it is two days since he spoke; he has called you twice; he wants you; come quickly! Ah, holy G.o.d, if this is only a good sign!"

"Farewell for the present," said Garrone to us; "I shall remain," and he ran in with the father. Derossi's eyes were full of tears. I said to him:--

"Are you crying for the little mason? He has spoken; he will recover."

"I believe it," replied Derossi; "but I was not thinking of him. I was thinking how good Garrone is, and what a beautiful soul he has."

COUNT CAVOUR.

Wednesday, 29th.

You are to make a description of the monument to Count Cavour. You can do it. But who was Count Cavour? You cannot understand at present. For the present this is all you know: he was for many years the prime minister of Piemont. It was he who sent the Piemontese army to the Crimea to raise once more, with the victory of the Cernaia, our military glory, which had fallen with the defeat at Novara; it was he who made one hundred and fifty thousand Frenchmen descend from the Alps to chase the Austrians from Lombardy; it was he who governed Italy in the most solemn period of our revolution; who gave, during those years, the most potent impulse to the holy enterprise of the unification of our country,--he with his luminous mind, with his invincible perseverance, with his more than human industry. Many generals have pa.s.sed terrible hours on the field of battle; but he pa.s.sed more terrible ones in his cabinet, when his enormous work might suffer destruction at any moment, like a fragile edifice at the tremor of an earthquake. Hours, nights of struggle and anguish did he pa.s.s, sufficient to make him issue from it with reason distorted and death in his heart. And it was this gigantic and stormy work which shortened his life by twenty years. Nevertheless, devoured by the fever which was to cast him into his grave, he yet contended desperately with the malady in order to accomplish something for his country. "It is strange," he said sadly on his death-bed, "I no longer know how to read; I can no longer read."

While they were bleeding him, and the fever was increasing, he was thinking of his country, and he said imperiously: "Cure me; my mind is clouding over; I have need of all my faculties to manage important affairs." When he was already reduced to extremities, and the whole city was in a tumult, and the king stood at his bedside, he said anxiously, "I have many things to say to you, Sire, many things to show you; but I am ill; I cannot, I cannot;" and he was in despair.

And his feverish thoughts hovered ever round the State, round the new Italian provinces which had been united with us, round the many things which still remained to be done. When delirium seized him, "Educate the children!" he exclaimed, between his gasps for breath,--"educate the children and the young people--govern with liberty!"

His delirium increased; death hovered over him, and with burning words he invoked General Garibaldi, with whom he had had disagreements, and Venice and Rome, which were not yet free: he had vast visions of the future of Italy and of Europe; he dreamed of a foreign invasion; he inquired where the corps of the army were, and the generals; he still trembled for us, for his people. His great sorrow was not, you understand, that he felt that his life was going, but to see himself fleeing his country, which still had need of him, and for which he had, in a few years, worn out the measureless forces of his miraculous organism. He died with the battle-cry in his throat, and his death was as great as his life.

Now reflect a little, Enrico, what sort of a thing is our labor, which nevertheless so weighs us down; what are our griefs, our death itself, in the face of the toils, the terrible anxieties, the tremendous agonies of these men upon whose hearts rests a world!

Think of this, my son, when you pa.s.s before that marble image, and say to it, "Glory!" in your heart.

THY FATHER.

APRIL.

SPRING.

Sat.u.r.day, 1st.

THE first of April! Only three months more! This has been one of the most beautiful mornings of the year. I was happy in school because Coretti told me to come day after to-morrow to see the king make his entrance with his father, _who knows him_, and because my mother had promised to take me the same day to visit the Infant Asylum in the Corso Valdocco. I was pleased, too, because the little mason is better, and because the teacher said to my father yesterday evening as he was pa.s.sing, "He is doing well; he is doing well."