"Precisely; every one for himself, I tell you!" replied Fra Angelo, resuming his melancholy gravity. "If that is the spirit of the age which you have been studying at Rome, if that is the new philosophy upon which the young men in other lands are fed, we have not seen the end of our misfortunes, and we can continue to tell our beads in silence. Alas! alas! here is a fine state of affairs! the children of our people will not stir for fear of saving their former masters with them, and the patricians will not dare to lift a finger for fear of being devoured by their former slaves! God save the mark! Meanwhile, the foreign tyranny laughs and grows fat upon our spoils; our mothers and sisters ask alms or prostitute themselves; our brothers and our friends die on dung-heaps or on the gallows! It is a noble spectacle, and I am amazed, Michelangelo, that you came from Rome, where you had before your eyes naught but the splendors of the Holy See and the masterpieces of art, to contemplate our poor Sicily, with her population of beggars, her ruined nobles, her lazy or brutalized monks! Why did you not take a pleasure trip to Naples? you would have seen wealthier nobles there and a more opulent government, made so by the taxes which are causing us to die of starvation; a more tranquil people, who worry but little over the fate of their neighbors. 'What do we care for Sicily? it is a conquered country and its people are not our brothers.'—That is what they say at Naples. Go to Palermo, where they will tell you that Catania is not to be pitied and can save itself unassisted, with its silk worms. Go to Messina, where they will tell you that Messina is no part of Sicily, and that they have no use for its bad counsels and its evil spirit. Go to France; the newspapers there say every day that pious, cowardly peoples like us deserve their fate. Go to Ireland; they will tell you that they want no help from the heretics of France. Go everywhere, and everywhere you will find yourself well abreast of the ideas of your time; for people will say to you everywhere what you just said: 'Everyone for himself!'"
Fra Angelo's words, his tone and his countenance made a deep impression upon Michel, and he was honest enough to confess it to himself at once. The artistic chord was struck, and what would have seemed to him in any other man mere sophistry and declamation, seemed simple and mighty in the mouth of that monk.
"My father," he said with ingenuous candor, "it may be that you are right to scold me as you do. I have no idea at all; and yet I might offer, in defence of my scepticism, many arguments which come and go in my mind as I listen to you. It does not seem to me that I am as wicked and as contemptible as you think. But with you I am much more eager to improve myself than to defend myself. Please go on."
"Yes, yes, I understand," rejoined Fra Angelo, proudly. "You are a painter, and you are studying me; that is all. This language seems strange to you in the mouth of a monk, and you are thinking of nothing but the picture you will paint of St. John preaching in the wilderness!"
"Do not laugh at me, I entreat you, uncle; you do not need to do it to show me that you have more wit and learning than I. You chose to question me; I told you my thought honestly. I hate oppression, whether it appears in the shape of the past or the present. I should not like to be the mere instrument of another man's passions and to sacrifice my future as an artist to the reconstruction of the fortunes and honors of a few great families who are naturally ungrateful and instinctively despotic. I believe that a revolution in such a country as ours would have no other result. I feel that I am man enough to take a gun to defend my father's life and my sister's honor. But, when it comes to joining some mysterious society, whose members act with their eyes closed, and see neither the hand that guides them nor the goal toward which they are proceeding—unless you can prove to me forcibly and convincingly that it is my duty—I will not do it, though you were to curse me, my dear uncle, or to make sport of me, which is much worse."
"What makes you think that I want you to join anything of that sort?" said Fra Angelo, with a shrug. "I admire your distrustful nature. I like to see that your first feeling with regard to your father's brother is the fear of being tricked by him. I wanted to know you, young man, and I am very much cast down by what I know of you."
"What do you know of me, pray?" cried Michel, testily. "Come, try me in proper form, and let me know what my crimes are."
"Your whole crime consists in not being the man you should be," replied Fra Angelo; "and that is very unfortunate for us."
"I understand no better."
"I know that you cannot understand what I am thinking at this moment! otherwise you would not have spoken so before me."