Part III
CHAPTER I
THE SAGE SPEAKS
No less than three springs had come and gone since the autumn of 1855 without bringing to the banks of the Ticino that mustering of armies and of banners that the Italians had expected. In February, 1859, all were convinced that a fourth spring could not pass thus. Great events, duly pre-announced by a splendid comet, were approaching. The old world was quivering and creaking inwardly, as does a frozen river on the eve of a thaw. That deadly cold and awful silence which had lasted ten years, was about to disappear, to be swept away amidst the clamour of strife and destruction, by new currents, warm and brilliant. Carlascia was playing the braggart, and would talk to his guards (who made no comments) of an impending military expedition to Turin. Signor Puttini had never entirely recovered from the shock he had received on that memorable morning; and the lawyer's treachery, the tragic end of the top-hat, the comic end of the tail-coat, had deeply affected him, and he had lost all respect for patriots. Dr. Aliprandi was already in Piedmont. A veteran subaltern of the army of Napoleon, who lived in Puria, was secretly furbishing up his old uniform, with the intention of presenting himself before the French Emperor when he should enter Italy. Whenever Intrioni, the curate of Castello, met Don Giuseppe Costabarbieri, he would remind him of a certain rhyme of 1796 which he, Don Giuseppe, had gone about repeating in 1848, but which he had soon hidden away again.
The mighty Ulans
Came here from Hungary,
But the Frenchman's arms
Made them all promptly flee!
Don Giuseppe, greatly alarmed, would cry: "Hush! Hush!"
Meanwhile the violets continued to grow as peacefully on the slopes of Valsolda as if nothing were happening. On the evening of the twentieth of February, Luisa carried a bunch to the cemetery. She was still in mourning. Pallid and emaciated, her eyes had become larger, and there were many silver threads in her hair. She seemed to have grown twenty years older since her bereavement. Upon leaving the cemetery she turned towards Albogasio, and joined some women from Oria, who were going to recite the Rosary in the parish church. She no longer seemed the same dark phantom that had laid the violets on Maria's grave. She talked calmly, almost gaily, first with one, then with another of the women; inquired after a sick animal, praised and caressed a little girl who was going to the Rosary with her grandmother, and told her to sit very still in church, as her Maria had always done. She said this and mentioned Maria very quietly, but the women shuddered and were filled with astonishment, for Luisa herself never went to church now. She asked one of the girls if the young men were going to act a play as usual, and if her brother was to take part. Upon receiving an answer in the affirmative she offered to help with the costumes. She left the others on the church-place of the Annunciata, and as she went down the Calcinera alone her face once more resumed its spectral appearance.
She was on her way to Casarico to see the Gilardonis, who had been married three years. The professor's happiness and his adoration of Ester would deserve to be told in verse! Uncle Piero said of him that he had grown feeble-minded. Ester feared he might become ridiculous, and would not allow him to assume certain ecstatic poses before her when there was anyone present. The only person in whose presence she did not insist upon the observance of this rule was Luisa. But Gilardoni always showed the greatest deference for Luisa; to him she was still a superhuman being; to his respect for the woman herself had been added his respect for her grief, and in her presence his behaviour was always most circumspect. Luisa had been going to Casa Gilardoni almost every evening for about two years now, and if anything could have troubled the couple's happiness it would have been these visits.