“My friend,” said Muzio, “they are also sailors and engineers, and manufacturers and politicians—in a word, they are MEN. I would sooner my nephew had chosen another than the military profession: to some honourable employment I had always destined him; for I resolved at any cost to emancipate him from the life of caffès and theatres, which foreigners say is the sole aim of an Italian's existence, but that, more truly speaking, he is driven to by the peculiarities of his social position; and it would have suited better with our limited fortune had the boy made a different selection. But the bias was too strong: it would have been cruel to resist it.”
“If he had not had you for his uncle,” cried the marchesa, “he would have turned out a second Paolo Pagano with his toy-soldiers.”
“Who is he?” I asked. “Is not Pagano the name of the old gentleman who went away with the Marchese Testaferrata?”
“Per appunto,” she answered, “he is his father; but you do not hear so much of poor Paolo, though he is more than thirty years old, as of the blessing of having disposed of all his daughters. He wanted to be a soldier too, but it was not to be thought of; so his military tendencies, denied their natural vent, have displayed themselves in a ludicrous form. For years he has been employed in the construction of thousands of little pasteboard figures, which he paints and equips with the utmost care, according to the uniform of different nations. To place these in line of battle, to repeat manœuvres he sees the Austrians practise while out exercising, to go through the routine of drill, parade, and bivouac, constitutes the occupation and enjoyment of his life.”
“But you should see the order in which he keeps them,” said Checchino: “the last time I was here, I got a sight of the army, all equipped for the winter campaign. You must know, it is believed that, being perplexed as to the means of providing for so large a body, he once appropriated the ample cloak of his uncle, a canon, and cut it up into wrappings for his soldiers!”
“We laugh at this,” broke out the young doctor, rather fiercely; “but we have more need to weep at the reflections it calls up on the condition of our country, where it is impossible to gratify the yearning for military life so common to young men, unless by following the example of Conte Muzio, and, in addition to great personal sacrifice, incurring the suspicion and resentment of the Government—which there are few ready, like him, to brave. Here, in our States, to be a soldier is synonymous with disgrace! No career, except the church, is open to the patrician youth. And yet it is in presence of these abuses, this palsying idleness, that you find men of good faith, like Testaferrata and Pagano, whimpering after the good old times, which means, if possible, a greater state of slavery than the present, and anathematizing every prospect of reform!”
“Carissimo dottore,” said Checchino, taking up his hat, “one must be just after all. Trees of liberty bearing bullets and poniards, do not tend to enlarge the understanding, or give a taste for another season of such fruits and foliage. We laugh at Testaferrata, and those who think like him; but, upon my conscience, if you or I had been stabbed and shot at in the open daylight, as both he and Pagano were in Ancona in 1849, simply because it was known we did not coincide with the party which had got the uppermost (it was during the Pope's absence at Gaeta, and the short-lived republic at Rome, signorina), I don't imagine we should ever entertain very amiable sentiments towards the system whose advocates indulged in such questionable pleasantries.”
“Those were exceptions, not the rule,” cried the marchesa. “Who can be answerable for the excesses of a faction? It is not fair to bring up the assassinations of Ancona to the signorina.”
“I am just—I am just,” he answered, laughing; “it is but right to show the reverse of the medal. You were having it all your own way, if I had not put in a word on the other side. You have enough left to make out a very good case, my friends: console yourselves with that. As for me, I do not expect to see better times, whatever our excellent Muzio may say to the contrary; so I do not kill myself with care, and endeavour to make the best of what we have, laugh and amuse myself, and keep out of politics.—Signori miei, good night.”