“Do you know we are in the company of five assassinati?”
“Assassinati!” I repeated, in astonishment.
“Oh, you do not understand,” he rejoined, laughing. “I did not mean assassinated outright; but merely those whose lives have been attempted. Look at that shrivelled yellow man, with a face like a vulture, and an eye like a stone, the Marchese.
“Well, his share came before our political movement, About ten years ago, towards dusk, he was standing in the street, on the very threshold of his house—next door to where your uncle lives—when he was stabbed; the assassin ran away. It was believed to have been an act of private vengeance; and being pretty well deserved, nobody troubled himself much about it. A similar motive, also, is supposed to have been the cause of my good friend, Count F——, being waylaid, as he was returning from the theatre, about a twelvemonth after, and very severely wounded—in fact, he was at first given over. Then there is that tall, white-haired man, the Cavaliere V——. Well, he was both stabbed and shot at, poor diavolo, during the Reign of Terror here, as he was taking a walk about three in the afternoon. The wounds he received were very serious; and in addition, the shock to his system was so great, that brain-fever came on. He was known to be a Codino—that was his only crime; but the hatred of the rossi[4] against him ran so high, that during his illness they used to come and shout, 'Death to V——! Death to V——!' under the very windows of his sick-room; and threatened the doctors who attended him with their vengeance if he recovered. Poor creature, his hair became blanched as you see it now from terror!”
The gay manner with which he commenced his narration had now quite subsided, and he looked distressed at witnessing the mingled horror and incredulity my face depicted.
“You scarcely can believe all this,” he said; “and then, if you are once penetrated with its truth, you will never be able to understand how any of us can yet hope for improvement in a people that so miserably abused their first dawn of freedom. All you English reason in this way now. But I must finish the account of the personages on our canvas. There stands the young Marchese D——; he was greeted with two bullets whizzing past his ears about the same period, as he was returning from a stroll in the public gardens—their Pincian Hill, their Villa Borghese here!” he added, contemptuously. “Ah, then, to make up the fifth; there is that little talkative man, who is conversing with the cavaliere whose misfortunes I have already narrated. He was stabbed, or shot at, or something of the sort, in our late troubles; and, per Bacco! it is a pity they did not make an end of him, for retrograde as he was before, he has become thoroughly Austrian since!”
At this moment, my companion fancied he could detect some scrutinizing glances cast upon him, and carelessly changing the low, earnest tone in which he had been speaking, to one of sportive badinage, said something very trifling and ludicrous, which, for a few moments, apparently gave a completely new current to our conversation. Then, as soon as he thought himself no longer observed, he resumed, “I am not half cautious enough, even with only these poor Rococos[5] to deal with, deaf and purblind as most of them are. Yet, one never can tell who is listening; and the very walls have ears, I think, sometimes. Amongst Codini, I endeavour never to mention the word politics and all its concomitant delights.”
I told him we had noticed this reserve in others besides himself; and that it was only at my uncle's house that one ever heard anything like the true expression of their feelings.
“Yes,” he said; “it is a compliment we pay you. We can trust strangers—not ourselves! What a miserable people we are! In this late revolution of ours, what opportunities have been lost—what errors committed—what fatuity and treachery displayed! How difficult will it be for future historians to unravel the tangled web of all the events of those memorable three years—from the accession of Pio Nono in '46, to the sieges of Bologna and Ancona, the capitulation of Rome, and the re-establishment of Papal authority. For instance, take as a detached episode the scenes enacted in this good city of Ancona, and you will tell me that a people who could commit such crimes on the one hand, or suffer them to be committed on the other, deserve no better fate than their present servitude. Basta! You have doubtless heard your cousins speak often enough on this subject?”
“Sufficiently so to make me wonder how they lived through such horrible anxiety.”