Chapter II: “ay De Mi, Alhama!” (1)

Those who knew little or nothing of Mr. Vane usually fancied that they knew him perfectly, and were in the habit of describing him with epigrammatic brevity: A kind, honorable man, indolent of mind and body, very tolerant, has no strong convictions, and seems, not so much to live, as to be waiting to live, and waiting quite comfortably—as if a fish out of water should find itself for a few days in wine and water.

Those who knew him best hesitated to describe him; but all agreed that he was kind and honorable. We will not attempt any dissection of his character.

Twenty-three years before we find him in Rome he married a beautiful girl born in New Orleans of Spanish parents. He had long admired her, but had been kept at a distance by her coldness; and when, quite suddenly, she consented to be his wife, he could scarcely have told if his delight were greater than his surprise.

“I do not love you,” she said with gentle calmness, “but I esteem you, and am prepared to do my duty as a wife. I should have preferred not to marry; but my parents desire that I should, and, as I am their only child, I do not think it right to oppose their wishes.”

It was scarcely an explanation to satisfy even an accepted lover, and Mr. Vane could not help asking if there were any one whom she preferred to him.

The answer was not prompt in coming, and was given with great reserve, though the lady showed neither confusion nor unwillingness to give it. She thought gravely for a minute before speaking, her fair, quiet face all the time open to his study. “I have never had a lover,” she said then, “and I have never wished to marry any one. I have nothing to confess nor to repent of in this regard.”

With this he had been obliged to content himself. What unacknowledged maiden preference, untouched by passion, her words might have concealed, if any such had been, he could not ask and he never knew; but gentle, faithful, prompt in every duty, and sincerely desirous to render him happy as she was, he always felt that there was an inner chamber in her heart where he had never penetrated, and which she had even closed to her own eyes. There was no appearance of concealment or conscious reserve, no hidden pain, but only a something wanting, as if some delicate spring in her soul had been broken. He had hoped to make her forget whatever shadow of regret her life might have known, and to restore her to an elastic joyousness more suited to her age; and, in the earlier months of their married life, finding his efforts vain, he had broken out in some slight reproaches now and then. But the blush of pain and alarm, the anxious inquiries, “In what have I failed?” “What have I done to displease you?” and the gayety she strove to assume for his pleasure, made him regret his impatience. Tacitly he allowed her to renounce an affectation which was the first she had ever stooped to, and, as time passed on, they settled into a friendly and undemonstrative intercourse. Isabel seemed to have drawn her disposition from this lively surface of her mother’s briefly-troubled life; but the younger showed something of that quiet melancholy which had succeeded. Mrs. Vane died when Bianca was but six years old, and her husband had never manifested any disposition to marry again, seeming to be satisfied with the society of his children.

In religion the daughters followed their mother, who had been a Catholic. The father was still Protestant.

“Poor papa!” Isabel said when speaking to a friend on the subject, “he never will be persuaded to study theology. The only way to attract him to a religion would be by the excellence of its professors; and he protests that he sees no difference in people in general, that he has no doubt the Chinese have amiable qualities, and that, if he lived among the Turks, he should probably become very fond of them. What can one do with such a man? Bring out all your hard little arguments and lay them down before him, showing how perfectly they fit into the most beautiful mosaic for your side, and he listens with the greatest attention, then mixes them all up, and rearranges them into an entirely different pattern for the opposite side, and ends by declaring that both are true as far as they go. You see, he has spent his life with two excellent women, one Protestant and the other Catholic—his mother and our mamma—and that has spoiled him for conversion. I’ve often wished that dear grand-mamma had been the least bit of a vixen, or had even taken snuff in her old age; but she never did a thing to spoil the beautiful white halo about her, and died at last as she had lived. Mamma went as the moon goes, waning, growing dimmer every day, till you see it like a little silver cloud in the sky, and then it is gone. But grand-mamma seemed to look up suddenly, and smile, and disappear, as if some one she thought the world of, and hadn’t seen for a long time, had come and called her out of the room for a minute.”

“You ask what you are to do with such a man as your father,” her friend said. “I answer, you can let him alone, and I strongly advise you to do so. He is quite capable of thinking and observing without being teased. He leaves you free; do the same by him.”

“I suppose I must,” the girl sighed unwillingly.

Bianca, who remembered her mother only as the little silver cloud fading in the sky, had also her pretty tribute to pay to the grandmother, who had not been many years dead.

“Of course we wished her to be a Catholic,” she said; “but no one could know her and doubt that she was good. She did not believe our dogmas because she did not understand them, but she never spoke an uncharitable word of us. Indeed, I used to think that unconsciously she believed everything. Her religion was like a rose-bush on which only one rose bloomed out, and that rose was Christ. All the rest were just buds with the smallest pink tips showing. She was so dazzled and wondering over her wonderful one rose that she could not think of the others. What a blossoming out there will be when she reaches heaven, if she is not there already!”

While we have been giving this little history, _casa Ottant’-otto_ has been as tranquil as if it were mid-night instead of mid-day. The rooms were perfectly dark, except where a chink in the shutter or a loose hasp let in here and there a light too small to be called a ray, which made a pale glow in one spot, showing like a blotch on the darkness. Not a sound was heard within, and scarcely a sound from without; for, early as it was in the season, the street had its quiet hour, and the birds, the only noisy people on the garden side, would no more have thought of singing at noon than of remaining silent in the morning.

But, as the afternoon wore on, something stirred on a red cushion in a corner of the dining-room. It was a black cat, called, from its color, the _abate_. This member of the family rose, stretched himself slowly, first one side, then the other, opened his mouth in a portentous yawn, and seemed to utter an inquiring “Mew!” but, what with sleepiness, warmth, and languor, the sound was very nearly inaudible. Looking about, he saw Adriano, the man-servant, asleep in an arm-chair, his head, in a little scarlet cap with a tassel, dropped on one shoulder, his arms hanging down over the arms of the chair. Wakened, perhaps, by the glance, the man opened his eyes, gathered up his head and arms, and began, in turn, to stretch himself out of sleep, giving an audible yawn instead of a “Mew.” The _abate_ then exerted himself so far as to saunter to the threshold of the door looking into the kitchen. Annunciata, who had placed her chair in a corner of the room in such a manner that the walls supported her while she slept, was just stretching out one foot to pick up the sandal that had dropped off during her nap. All this the cat saw, doubtless. It was too dark for any one else to see.

Presently Adriano opened a half shutter in the dining-room, admitting a faint light; then, passing, with slip-shod feet, into the _sala_, threw the windows wide open. Instantly all the bright out-doors, which had been waiting to enter—sunshine, perfume, and west wind—rushed in together, lit the gilding in a new glitter, reddened the velvet again, whitened the curtains and set them blowing about, roused a hundred little winking mischiefs in the carvings, and almost brought a smile into the many pictured faces on the walls that had been waiting so long in the dark with their eyes wide open.

After a little interval, the Signora came out of her room; then Isabel’s bright face appeared.

“I didn’t believe I should sleep a wink on this first day,” she said; “but I have slept the whole time. One becomes accustomed to everything. But where can Bianca be? I’m not at all sure she did right to go out alone, and at this hour. That girl does the most extraordinary things sometimes, quiet as she seems. I sometimes think, Signora, that Bianca has great force of will.”

Uttering this last remark, the young woman looked at her friend as if she expected an astonished denial. The Signora, on the contrary, replied with a rather significant smile: “Only ‘sometimes,’ my dear? If your sister had a motive worthy, her will would be strong enough to oppose the whole world.”

“Bianca!” cried Isabel in astonishment. “Why, she is the softest creature alive.”

The Signora was arranging tea-cups on a table drawn up before one of the large sofas, and waited until her hands were free of them before replying, as she wished to speak with emphasis. “Do you think,” she said then, “that it is only the positive, opinionated women who have firmness of character? My experience is that your women who are constantly driving and directing people in small things can almost always be themselves driven in great things, while those who do not like to make a fuss about trifles will stand their ground when it comes to a matter of importance. If the truth could be known, I believe it would be found that the world’s heroines of action and of suffering have been those same soft creatures in ordinary circumstances. And here’s the child now.”

In fact, the entrance-door opened at that moment from without, and Bianca Vane came in with cheeks as red as roses. She had begged the Signora’s permission to go out instead of going to bed, promising to go no farther than _Santa Maria Maggiore_, which was but five minutes’ walk from the house.

Isabel looked at her sister very gravely while she stood pulling the great key out of the lock, smiling to herself, and tugging away with the softest, prettiest hands in the world. The elder sister had been accustomed to be called, and to consider herself, the stronger of the two, and she was not altogether certain now that the Signora had not been jesting.

The great Italian key, large enough for a prison, was got out of the lock, the door shut, half by the wind and half by the lady, with a force that made its three little bells and its two immense iron bolts rattle and ring, and Bianca went straight to the Signora and kissed her—a somewhat unusual demonstration. “I’ve been so happy!” she whispered close to the cheek her lips had touched. “How beautiful it is! You must let me have a ‘weakness’ for your church and its bells, and all that belongs to it.”

A nod and glance of intelligence were exchanged between the two, and the girl went to take off her bonnet.

Mr. Vane appeared at the same moment, looking as if he had enjoyed a most satisfying nap, and tea was prepared. The Signora and the two girls occupied the long red sofa, over which, on the wall, a stately Penelope, seated among her maidens, laid aside her often-ravelled web, and earnestly regarded the Ulysses whom she had not yet recognized, but could not remove her eyes from. At the other side of the table, opposite them, a high-backed, ample chair had been placed for the gentleman of the family, who seemed to feel himself very much at home.

“Has my little girl been asleep?” he asked, looking at his younger daughter.

“Well, no, papa,” was the reply, “but she has been dreaming.”

No more questions were asked then. Mr. Vane was looking at the picture opposite him, which had a very pleasant suggestion of perils and journeys over, and happy reunion after long separation. Suddenly his glance dropped to the lady beneath, went back to the picture, and a second time sought the Signora’s face.

“Why,” he said, “that Penelope looks as though you had sat for her to a not very good artist.”

The Signora gave him his tea. “I assure you,” she said, “that I never posed for that nor any other Penelope during the whole course of my life. The character doesn’t suit me.”

Mr. Vane took his cup, and studied over this little speech while he slowly stirred in his tea two cubes of sugar. He had been quite correct in his remark. The two faces were strikingly alike—fine in their oval shape, with dark-blue eyes, and a hint of yellow in the thick flaxen hair.

Presently he looked up. “I can’t guess,” he said.

The lady laughed. “When it is so plain? Well, in the first place, I am not so industrious; in the next place, I shouldn’t have let Ulysses go away without me; in the third place, I haven’t the suitors; and, in the fourth place, if I had had them, I should have kept them in better order. I think the places are all taken. And now, Bianca has for a long time had something on her mind to say. You have the floor, my dear.”

“Oh! it’s nothing,” Bianca said; “only if you are done talking about Penelope, I should like to give you all a piece of advice.”

The company were unanimously anxious to hear. Gentle suggestions they often heard from this young lady; but it was perhaps the first time they had ever heard her propose deliberately to give advice to any one, and still less to a company of elders.

“My advice is this,” she said: “whenever any of you take your first walk in a strange city, look at the house you live in before you go away from it, and see how it is made, and what number it is, and make sure of the name of the street; otherwise, though you may find every place you do not want, you may never find your own house again. That’s all I have to say.”

“Excellent advice!” Mr. Vane said. “But may I ask what made you think of it just now?”

“First let me tell you a little story,” said Bianca. “Once upon a time a young woman I know went to live in a strange city where they spoke a language she did not understand. The very first day, almost the first hour, she went out for a walk, and went alone; but her mind was so full of the place she was going to that she took no note of the place she was leaving. No matter what a nice time she had before she started to return; that doesn’t belong to the story, which is entirely tragical. Her troubles began when she thought that in two minutes she would be at her own door. Come to think about it, she had no idea where her own door was, in which of three or four radiating streets it was to be found, or what the number of it was, nor how it looked. So she wandered up and down, and to and fro, in the hot sun, and passed her home without recognizing it any more than the Signora’s portrait up there recognizes her husband; and at last, when she was just ready to cry, and to believe that the house and everybody in it had been bewitched and whisked off to some other continent, and that she had to go blowing about for ever in that lost way, what do you think happened?”

The story-teller had reason to be gratified by the expression of intense interest with which her audience waited for the catastrophe.

“Well,” she continued, “this poor wanderer happened to glance up a house-front as she was passing, and she saw out of a window a hand laid on the frame—just the hand of some one who stood inside. It was very handsome and white, and on one finger of it was a ring that she recognized. And then the tears of sorrow that she was about to shed changed to tears of joy, and she said: ‘O darling hand of my papa, with my own good-for-nothing cameo face on it—’”

And Bianca finished her story by flying up out of her chair, and rushing to hang on her father’s shoulder, and kiss the hand that had found her.

“You don’t mean to say that you have been out wandering about Rome all alone!” Mr. Vane exclaimed, reddening.

“I only went up to the Liberian basilica,” she said; “and it was an absurd thing in me, getting lost. You didn’t imagine I was going properly to sleep my first day in Rome, did you? You might as well have put a flame to bed, and told it to shut its eyes.”

As she spoke, a dash of clear crimson stained her cheeks, as if the juice of a ripe pomegranate had been flung over them, and her head was raised quickly and with an air that was almost defiant, though unconsciously so.

The Signora had seen this gesture and blush once or twice before, and thought she understood the meaning of them; how the impassioned and enthusiastic nature hidden under that pensive softness and silence resented now and then the languid indifference of the father and the superficial positiveness of the sister, and proudly asserted its own claim to an individual and untrammelled existence.

Mr. Vane dropped his eyes, and an expression of pain passed momentarily over his face. He also had seen the look before—seen it in his wife’s face as well as in his daughter’s. “I do not mean to shut you up, my dear,” he said gravely. “I only wish that you should come to no harm. If you like to go about freely, the Signora can, perhaps, recommend a good, trusty servant, who will protect you without being intrusive.”

She did not say a word, only leaned close to him, and laid her cheek, still glowing red, on his hair.

He smiled, and spoke more lightly. “But I should like to have you go with me sometimes, and kindle my fuel with your fires.”

She embraced him silently and went back to her seat.

The Signora smiled into her teacup over this little scene, in which nothing had pleased her more than the sweet readiness of the father to be reconciled, and his quick comprehension of the meaning of his daughter’s mute caress. “He has certainly great delicacy and sensitiveness,” she thought. “I wonder if Bianca and he may not be very much alike!”

“The chief danger in walking out in Rome,” she said, “is from the public carriages. The traditions are evidently all in favor of those who drive, not of those who walk, and pedestrians have no rights which quadrupeds and the bipeds who drive them are bound to respect. For the rest, I have gone about a good deal alone, and have had no more annoyance than I should have had in any other large city in the world. Of course young Italian women have not so much liberty as we take; but all sensible and honest people here understand that foreigners do not cross land and sea, and come to the most famous city in the world, in order to shut themselves up in houses; and, moreover, that it may well be inconvenient sometimes to find an escort. I told Bianca that she could go up to the church as well as not, but must go no further. It was stupid of me not to warn her of losing her way back. And,” she added, with a sudden change, “it was still more stupid of me not to recollect the difference between American and Italian bread. You poor child!” For she had caught sight of Isabel getting quite red in the face over a roll she was trying to break.

“They do bake their bread so hard here and in France,” the girl sighed, giving up the attempt in despair. “In Paris I could throw our rolls all about the room without injuring anything but the furniture. I didn’t make the smallest dent in the bread.”

The Signora promised them the most American of bread for the future, but added: “I have become so accustomed to this hard baking that I had forgotten all about the difference. In time you will come to prefer it, and to find that the lighter baking will taste raw to you. Indeed, you will adopt a good many Italian customs in regard to eating, which, so far as concerns health, I think they understand better than any other nation. Their prohibitions you must certainly attend to, however unreasonable they may seem to you; but you are not obliged to eat what they like. The first year I came here I broke a tooth trying to eat a piece of cake they brought me on Christmas Eve. They said it was their custom to eat it at that season, and I obeyed dutifully. It is dark, a caricature of our fruit-cake, and seems to be made of nuts and raisins, held together by a tough, dry paste. It was like a piece out of a badly-macadamized street. Fortunately, I broke only one tooth, and that saved my stomach; for I do not know what would have become of me if I had swallowed the stuff.”

Mr. Vane gave a significant “Ahem!” “I should have supposed,” he remarked, “that any one who had swallowed the Infalli—”

“Papa!” cried Isabel, making a peremptory gesture to silence him.

“—bility—” he pursued calmly.

“O papa!” said Bianca, with soft entreaty. He winced, but finished—“ought to be able to digest anything that Rome can offer.”

The two girls looked at the Signora. They knew her rather better than their father did. She was folding her napkin up very carefully, and considering. After a minute, still smoothing the damask folds, she spoke. “I have always thought it wrong to ridicule even a false religion. When I think that on the poor crumbling mythologies of the world the souls of men have tried to climb to such a heaven as they had glimpses of, or were capable of imagining, their mistakes become to me sad, or terrible—anything but laughable. One doesn’t laugh at sight of a rotten plank that broke in the hands of a drowning man. And if falsehood, when human prayers have been breathed on it, and human tears shed on it, and human hearts have clung to it, believing it to be truth, is something no longer to be ridiculed, how much more should we treat the truth seriously! The dogma of Infallibility was the anchor the church dropped when she saw the storm coming, and it is probable that before we shall have peace again we may hang for a time on that one rope. Nothing in revelation is more serious to me.”

She rose, without giving any opportunity for reply, and without looking at any one. “If you like, we will prepare for a drive,” she added, and left the room quietly.

But in spite of the calmness with which she spoke the Signora was much agitated, and scarcely refrained from tears when she was alone. To give such a reproof was only less difficult than to suffer an affront to the church to pass unreproved; and it was with a little nervousness that she went out to meet her guest again.

He was in the drawing-room alone, evidently waiting for her, and the first glance in his face entirely reassured her, so sweet and untroubled was his expression.

“I am like a great rough elephant who has stepped on the kind lady who was feeding him with sugarplums,” he said, and offered his hand to her with a confidence in her good-will which was almost more pleasing than her confidence in his.

And so ended their first and last quarrel.

The girls, who came presently, with a little timidity, beamed when they saw the two standing by a window and watching the work going on across the street. All the space there had once been a palace-garden, but now nearly every flowery thing had disappeared, and in their place the foundations of a large building were being laid in a superbly solid way. Wide walls of stone, on which three men could walk abreast, had in some places risen a few feet above the outer level, their bases sunk ten feet, perhaps, below the deep cellar bottom, and the trenches for founding the partition-walls were being dug in the same manner. They could see, too, the beginning of the grand stone arches which were to support the floors. An Italian would have passed all this without notice; but to one accustomed to the flimsy style of American architecture the sight was refreshing. In the centre of the space the building was to occupy still remained a fountain-basin from which the water had been drawn away, exposing a circle of beautiful round arches of gray stone. Under these arches the workmen were accustomed to take refuge when a shower came up, crouching there contentedly, and looking out at the bright drops as they fell, like swallows out of a row of nests under the barn-eaves.

“I have wondered whether there ever before was a house on this spot,” the Signora said. “If there were, a garden has bloomed over it for centuries, as, perhaps, at some future time, another garden will cover the ruins of this work of to-day. A few months ago some flowers still lingered here, but they were trampled or dug away, till at last only one red poppy was left at the edge of the cellar-wall. I watched it day after day, blazing there like a heart on fire. Every morning I looked out I feared to miss it; but there it clung among trampling feet of men and beasts, with stone-work being built almost over it, and every sort of destruction threatening, but never falling. When nearly a week had passed, I could bear it no longer. If at that time I had seen a foot set upon, or a rock crushing, the flower, I should have cried out as though I were myself being crushed. I sent Adriano out to get it for me, and pressed it carefully in the prettiest book I have—the brave little blossom! Here it is, see! The thin petals are like faded blood-stains, but the seed-vessel in the centre is firm, and precisely like a little marble urn with a mossy vine wreathing its base and running up one side. In that urn repose the dust and the hope of a long line of scarlet poppies.”

The gentleman listened indulgently to the Signora’s story, and watched her with interest as she put the relic carefully away.

And then they went down to the carriage that was waiting for them, and drove through the long street that stretches over hill and valley from the Esquiline to the Pincio, so that one looks, as through a telescope, from the sunny brow of the former to the _campanile_ where _Maria Assunta_ and her maidens

“Sprinkle with holy sounds the air, as the priest with the hyssop
Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them.”

Some one has said of this street that it is like a boa-constrictor after it has swallowed an ox and stretched itself out to digest him, and the Quirinal Hill is the ox.

All the world was out that evening, and even the most insensible promenader spared a glance for the sky. It was Roman form with Gothic colors, the round arch of the heavens a pale, pure gold, bright, yet tender as a flower, and against that background, less like a city than like an embossed picture, Rome, with its great cupola, its crowded beauties of architecture, its pines and its cypresses. Of the personages, more or less distinguished, in the circle of carriages behind them, the new-comers took but little note. The old papal picture, with its cardinals’ coaches and its prelates’ costumes, was effaced, and there was nothing in the human part of the scene more striking than the last Paris fashions—as if some tyro with his coarse brush should paint over a Titian. If one should seek for royalty in that crowd, he would not find the angelic old king, clothed in white, as if already among the blest, beaming on all the faces turned toward him, and giving benediction right and left as he went. In place of that might be seen to pass a brutal face, with the color of one half-strangled, with upturned nose and curled-up moustache, and with eyes whose glances no respectable woman would encounter. The Roman people used to say, “When the pope comes out, the sun comes out”; but no such shining proverb was suggested by this dark and forbidding face.

The Signora, looking with her friends, seemed herself to behold Rome for the first time, and to see in swift contrast both present and past. Was it past, indeed, and for ever, that dominion of centuries, around which had gathered a glory so _unique_? She stretched her hands out involuntarily, and sighed in the song of the vanquished Moors:

“Ay de mi, Alhama!”

Mr. Vane turned to her rather suddenly. “I have great confidence in your sincerity,” he said, “and I believe that you who know the truth need not fear. Now, setting aside the questions of the right of the church to possess Rome, and the need she has of it as a base of operations, and the fact that the great functions are no longer performed, tell me, do you really regret the old time?”

“You are setting aside a great deal,” she said smilingly; “but I answer you yes with all my heart. Rome has lost in every way. There seems no longer in the world a place for tired people to come to. All is hurry, and fret, and fuss; and comfort is gone. Has it ever occurred to you to think that many people, especially in progressive countries, inflict an immense deal of discomfort on themselves and others in striving for what they call the comforts of life, losing with one hand what they gain with the other? The contented spirit is gone, the quiet, the patience, the simplicity, the charity. Poverty was never before unpitied in Rome, and now the poor not only beg, they starve. They never starved in the old time. I would not undervalue the improvements of modern science—I am proud of them; but they are not all, nor the greatest, glories of life. Such of them as suited the place would have come in gently and gradually, without disturbing anything. They have been brought in at the point of the bayonet, and the bayonet-point has been left in them. We still feel it. I sometimes pity these progressionists, who are often, no doubt, sincere in their hopes and aspirations, as well as immensely conceited at the same time. They feel the pains of life for themselves and for others, and they fancy that they have found a new solution for the problem that the church solved centuries ago, and that they can have heaven let down to them, instead of having the trouble of climbing to it. It’s a pitiful thing to dedicate one’s life to a great mistake. Yes, Rome is spoilt, looking at it from a philanthropic as well as from an artistic and a religious point of view.”

“It was here Lucullus gave his famous supper,” Isabel said, glancing back at the gardens. “Was that what is called the most costly supper ever given? I forget.”

Bianca clasped the Signora’s arm and whispered against her shoulder: “We know a costlier one, don’t we?”

“Speak, darling!” was the answering whisper.

“Where the Host gave himself, and made the feast eternal.”

After a few minutes they looked round to find the drive almost deserted, and, entering their carriage, drove slowly homeward, making a few little turns in the neighborhood to familiarize the new-comers with the location of the house. The _Ave Maria_ was ringing from all the belfries, great and small, from storied _campanile_, and little arches set against the sky; workmen and workwomen were going homeward, and windows were everywhere being shut on the beautiful twilight, whose air the Italians so fear.

They went up to the _sala_, and, albeit with a sigh, shut out the west with its crescent now triumphant, and all the sweetness of orange and jasmine flowers, and all the twitter of subsiding birds.

“I think,” the Signora said, “that the Roman past wishes, to monopolize the Roman nights, and that the unhealthy air we fear is nothing but the breath of ghosts who do not desire our company out of doors. But it’s a pity, besides being very disagreeable of them.”

Annunciata brought in a lamp, and said “_Buona sera!_” in setting it down.

“They always wish you _buona sera_ when they bring the lamp, and _felice_ or _felicissima notte_ when they leave you for the night,” the Signora said. “Impatient as I am with them sometimes, they constantly conciliate me by some pretty custom. I followed one of these customs this morning—a beautiful one, too. It is this: When a priest says his first Mass, any one who will may follow him to the sacristy, and kiss his hand in the palm and at the back. Isn’t it beautiful? A young priest from one of the colleges said his first Mass in the Borghese chapel this morning. An elder priest, whom they call in such cases the _padrino_ or god-father, stood by him, and two young fellow-students served the Mass, one of them receiving Holy Communion. When it was over, I begged and received permission to kiss the sacred hand that had just consecrated and touched the Holy Eucharist for the first time.”

They were a little tired that evening, and separated very soon after supper. The father went to his room, Isabel to hers, and, after their doors had closed, the Signora stole to Bianca’s to give her one good-night kiss, and found her just kneeling by her bedside.

The girl gave a tearful smile over her shoulder, but did not rise.

“_Felicissima notte!_” said her friend, and, embracing, left her to the care of the angels.

TO BE CONTINUED.

THE IRISH HOME-RULE MOVEMENT.

II.

Whatever the ultimate fate and fortunes of the Irish Home-Rule movement may be, it must be conceded that the projectors of no other political endeavor witnessed in Ireland for a century past took greater pains than did its founders to constitute the undertaking as the work, not of a party or a section or a class, but of the whole nation.

For three years, from 1870 to 1873, the organization had existed in the precursory or preliminary character described in the last number of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. Signs which could not be misread had, with increasing frequency and force, proclaimed that even already it might well, without presumption, adopt a more authoritative tone; but to the men who guided its counsels, these things spoke only of the moment come at last for submitting their work to formal ratification or rejection by the country.

In what manner, or by what means, could the opinions of the Irish people best be collected or ascertained for such a purpose? By the formal and regular, open, public, and free election of parochial, baronial, or county delegates to a national convention, of course. But there is a law which forbids such a proceeding in Ireland. Delegates may be elected, and may sit, deliberate, vote, and act, in convention assembled, in England, Scotland, or Wales; but if such a proceeding were attempted in Ireland the parties would be liable to imprisonment.[161] A formal election of delegates to a national convention being therefore impracticable, what course would be deemed next best? Only by _indirect_ means could the results which such a convention would _directly_ supply be replaced. The votes of the parliamentary representatives would have been an excellent test of the public feeling, had those representatives been elected by such free choice as the present system of vote by ballot secures in Ireland. But in 1873 it was only at desperate cost the Irish constituencies could venture to exercise the franchise as conscience dictated. The votes of municipal representatives, and other popularly elected public bodies, would come next in importance, yet these were amenable to a similar objection; although, as a matter of fact, a vast proportion (probably a large majority) of those representatives, even in 1873, would vote a protest against the rule of the English Parliament. Summoning classes, as classes, to sit in Dublin as a national council was not to be listened to. For a long period these were the questions, the perplexing problems, which, adjourned from meeting to meeting, occupied the Home Government Council. At length they decided that there was nothing for it but to convene by a great National Requisition, which should be a sort of _plébiscite_ or declaration in itself, an aggregate conference of delegates or “deputations” from every county in Ireland. It was urged by some that the requisition should be an “open” one—merely calling upon the conference to discuss the Irish situation; but this view gave way before the advantage of making the requisition itself a more or less decisive pronouncement from the thousands of influential and patriotic Irishmen who could not, from one reason or another, be actually present in Dublin. The form of the document was, in fact, decided only after consultation with at least a few of the most prominent men in each of the various sections of national politicians: Repealers, Conservative Nationalists, “Forty-eight-men,” O’Connellites, Mitchelites, Fenians, Liberals, etc. The well-known veteran Repealer, O’Neill Daunt, proceeded to Tuam specially charged to seek the counsel and co-operation of the great man whose name alone it was felt would be equivalent to national approval—the illustrious Dr. McHale, “Archbishop of the West.” If any one living could be fairly assumed to speak as O’Connell himself would speak if now alive, “John McHale” was the man. He was the old Repeal cause personified.[162]

Mr. Daunt returned to Dublin bearing the news that not only did the archbishop approve, but that he would himself head the requisition. The announcement was hailed with cheers, like the tidings of some great victory. A few days later, accordingly, the following form of requisition was circulated for signature:

“We, the undersigned, feel bound to declare our conviction
that it is necessary to the peace and prosperity of Ireland,
and would be conducive to the strength and stability of the
United Kingdom, that the right of domestic legislation on
all Irish affairs should be restored to our country; and
that it is desirable that Irishmen should unite to obtain
that restoration upon the following principles:

“To obtain for our country the right and privilege of
managing our own affairs, by a Parliament assembled in
Ireland, composed of Her Majesty the Sovereign, and the
lords and commons of Ireland.

“To secure for that Parliament, under a federal arrangement,
the right of legislating for and regulating all matters
relating to the internal affairs of Ireland, and control
over Irish resources and revenues, subject to the obligation
of contributing our just proportion of the imperial
expenditure.

“To leave to an Imperial Parliament the power of dealing
with all questions affecting the imperial crown and
government, legislation regarding the colonies and other
dependencies of the crown, the relation of the united empire
with foreign states, and all matters appertaining to the
defence and the stability of the empire at large.

“To obtain such an adjustment of the relations between the
two countries without any interference with the prerogatives
of the crown, or any disturbance of the principles of the
constitution.

“And we hereby invite a conference, to be held at such time
and place as may be found generally most convenient, of all
those favorable to the above principles, to consider the
best and most expedient means of carrying them into
practical effect.”

It was expected that probably between five and ten thousand signatures might be obtained to this document among the influential political classes in Ireland, rendering it the largest and most notable array of the kind ever seen in the country. In a few weeks, however, nearly _twenty-five thousand_ names of what may truly be called “representative men” were appended to it! Only those who were in Ireland at the time can know what a sensation was created by the appearance of the leading Dublin newspapers one day with four or five pages of each devoted to what could be after all only a portion of this monster requisition. Not only was every county represented, nearly every barony had sent its best and worthiest men. Although most amazement was at the time created by the array of what was termed “men of position,” the promoters of the movement valued even more the names of certain men in middle and humble life, town traders, tenant-farmers, artisans, and others, who were well known to be the men in each locality most trusted by their own class. Of magistrates, members of Parliament, peers (a few), bishops, clergymen (Protestant as well as Catholic), mayors, sheriffs, municipal representatives, town-commissioners, poor-law guardians, there were altogether literally thousands. So general a mingling of classes and creeds and political sections had never before been known (on a scale of such magnitude) in Ireland. Yet no effort had been made to collect signatures after the fashion of petition-signing. The object was to seek a half-dozen names of really representative men from each district, and these were applied for through the post-office. In nearly every case the document, when returned signed by a score or two, was accompanied by a letter stating that as many thousands of signatures from that district would have been forwarded if necessary.

Tuesday, the 18th of November, 1873, was the date publicly fixed for the conference, which was convened “to meet from day to day until its proceedings are concluded.” As the day approached, the most intense interest and curiosity were excited by the event, not merely in Dublin and throughout Ireland, but all over Great Britain. The great circular hall of the Rotunda was transformed into the semblance of a legislative chamber, the attendant suite of apartments being converted into division lobbies,[163] dining-rooms, writing-rooms, etc., while the handsome gallery which sweeps around the hall was set apart for spectators.

The English newspapers seemed much troubled by all this. They did not like that Ireland should in any shape or form take to “playing at parliament,” as they sneeringly expressed it; and this conference affair was vividly, dangerously suggestive to the “too imaginative” Irish. There was, however, they declared, one consolation for them: out of evil would come good; this same conference would effectually cure the Irish of any desire for a native parliament, and show the world how unfit were Hibernians for a separate legislature. Because (so declared and prophesied the English papers from day to day) before the conference would be three hours in session, there would be a “Donnybrook row”; fists would be flourished and heads broken; Old Irelanders and Young Irelanders, Repealers and Federalists, Fenians and Home-Rulers, would, it was declared, “fly at one another’s throats.” At least a dozen English editors simultaneously hit upon the witty joke about “the Kilkenny cats.”

This sort of “prophesying” went on with such suspicious energy, as the day neared for the meeting of the conference, that it began to be surmised the government party was meditating an attempt to verify it. Signs were not wanting that wily and dexterous, as well as pecuniary, efforts were being made to incite dissent and disturbance. Admittance to the conference was obtainable by any one who had signed the requisition, on recording his name and address; and it was quite practicable for a few government emissaries, by pretending to be very “advanced” Nationalists, uncompromising Repealers or anti-tory Catholics, to get up flourishing disputations and “rows.” Indeed, anxiety, if not apprehension, on this score seemed to prevail to some degree on the eve of the 18th. Would there be “splits,” would there be discord and turbulence and impossibility of reconcilement, or would there be order and decorum, earnest debate, but harmonious spirit and action? All felt that the event at hand was one of critical importance to Ireland.

For four days—the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st of November, 1873—the conference continued in session, sitting each day at eleven o’clock in the morning, and adjourning at six o’clock in the afternoon. The number of “delegates” was 947;[164] and the daily attendance at each sitting averaged about six hundred. Fortunately, an authentic record was taken of the composition of the assembly; and it is only on glancing over the names and addresses of those nine hundred gentlemen that a full conception of its character can be formed. One of the most notable features in the scene, one that called forth much public comment as an indication of the deep public interest felt in the proceedings, was the crowded gallery of ladies and gentlemen who, having succeeded in obtaining admission-cards, day by day sat out the debates, listening with eager attention to all that went forward. The pressure for these admission-cards increased each day, and at the final sitting, on the 21st, it was found impossible to seat the hundreds of visitors who filled the avenues to the gallery.

There was much speculation as to who would be selected as chairman of the convention. The choice when made known called forth universal approbation. It was Mr. William Shaw, Member of Parliament for the borough of Bandon,[165] a Protestant gentleman of the highest position and reputation, a banker (president of the Munster Bank), a man of large wealth, of grave and undemonstrative manner, but of great depth and quiet force of character. He was one of the last men in Ireland who would answer the description of an “Irish agitator” as English artists draw the sketch. He was one who had everything to lose and nothing to gain by “revolution,” yet he had early joined the movement for Irish self-government, declaring that he did so as a business man having a large stake in the prosperity of the country, and because he saw that the present system was only the “pretence of a government” for Ireland.

Naturally the chief event of the first day’s sitting was Mr. Butt’s great speech or opening statement on the whole case. It was a masterly review of the question of Irish legislative independence, and a powerful vindication of the federal adjustment now under consideration. He went minutely and historically into every fact and circumstance and every element of consideration, making his address rather a great argument than an oratorical display. At the close, however, when he came to tell how he himself had been led into this movement—how it began, how it had grown, till now he surrendered it into their keeping—his voice trembled with emotion. “State trials were not new to me,” he exclaimed:

“Twenty years before I stood near Smith O’Brien when he
braved the sentence of death which the law pronounced upon
him. I saw Meagher meet the same, and I then asked myself
this: ‘Surely the state is out of joint, surely all our
social system is unhinged, when men like O’Brien and Meagher
are condemned to a traitor’s doom?’ Years passed away, and
once more I stood by men who had dared the desperate
enterprise of freeing their country by revolt.… I heard
their words of devotion to their country as with firm step
and unyielding heart they left the dock, and went down the
dark passage that led them to the place where all hope
closed upon them, and I asked myself again: ‘Is there no way
to arrest this? Are our best and bravest spirits ever to be
carried away under this system of constantly-resisted
oppression and constantly-defeated revolt? Can we find no
means by which the national quarrel that has led to all
these terrible results may be set right?’ I believe, in my
conscience, we have found it. I believe that England has now
the opportunity of adjusting the quarrel of centuries. Let
me say it—I do so proudly—that I was one of those who did
something in this cause. Over a torn and distracted
country—a country agitated by dissension, weakened by
distrust—we raised the banner on which we emblazoned the
magic words, ‘Home Rule.’ We raised it with feeble hand.
Tremblingly, with hesitation, almost stealthily, we unfurled
that banner to the breeze. But wherever the legend we had
emblazoned on its folds was seen the heart of the people
moved to its words, and the soul of the nation felt their
power and their spell. Those words were passed from man to
man along the valley and the hillside. Everywhere men, even
those who had been despairing, turned to that banner with
confidence and hope. Thus far we have borne it. It is for
you now to bear it on with more energy, with more strength,
and with renewed vigor. We hand it over to you in this
gathering of the nation. But, oh! let no unholy hands
approach it. Let no one come to the help of our country,

‘Or dare to lay his hand upon the ark
Of her magnificent and awful cause’

who is not prepared never, never to desert that banner till
it flies proudly over the portals of that ‘old house at
home’—that old house which is associated with memories of
great Irishmen, and has been the scene of many glorious
triumphs. Even while the blaze of those glories is at this
moment throwing its splendor over the memory of us all, I
believe in my soul that the parliament of regenerated
Ireland will achieve triumphs more glorious, more lasting,
more sanctified and holy, than any by which her old
parliament illumined the annals of our country and our race.

As his last words died away the assemblage, rising as one man, burst into cheers long protracted, and it was only after several minutes that order was restored.

Mr. Butt had spoken to a complete series of resolutions, which he now submitted to the conference; he concluded by formally moving the first of them:

“I. That, as the basis of the proceedings of this conference,
we declare our conviction that it is essentially necessary
to the peace and prosperity of Ireland that the right of
domestic legislation on all Irish affairs should be restored
to our country.”

It was seconded by Mr. Joseph P. Ronayne, M.P. for Cork City, a man as honest and as just as Aristides; an “advanced Nationalist,” one in whose honor, sincerity, and earnestness Fenians and non-Fenians alike implicitly confided. “I did not take part,” he said, “in public life for the last twenty years, and I hesitated a long time before joining the Home-Rule movement. I was a simple Repealer, when simple Repeal was the form in which Ireland demanded the restitution of her nationality. I was a rebel in ’48.” After this manly avowal of his position Mr. Ronayne closed a brief but forcible speech as follows:

“I have no quarrel with the English people; their sins
against Ireland are sins of ignorance, not of intention. Our
quarrel is with the government, and against the system which
has prevailed ever since England claimed possession of this
country. The measure of Mr. Butt will solve the difficulties
of the situation. I think we will maintain what is the
sentiment of the Irish people—what they contended for with
England when England and Ireland were Catholic, as well as
when England and Ireland were Protestant and Catholic—that
is, the nationality of Ireland. And I see no way but that
proposed by Mr. Butt by which this great end can be
obtained, consistently with the maintenance of friendly
relations between the two countries.”