The Conscript Mother

by Robert Herrick

“Perhaps not,” I remarked, as the signora paused to swallow another cup of coffee. “It was all a matter of chance, and if you had started the day before you would have missed your lieutenant.”

“Well, there was nothing for it but to spend the night at X——. For no trains went on to Palma Nova, where the lieutenant was going in the morning. So I walked into the town to look for a place to sleep, but every bed was taken by the officers, not a place to sleep in the whole town. It was then after nine o’clock; I returned to the station, thinking I could stay there until the train started for Palma Nova. But they won’t even let you stay in railroad stations any longer! So I walked out to the garden in the square and sat down on a bench to spend the night there. Luckily it was still warm. Who should come by with an old lady on his arm but the gentleman I had talked with on the train, Count—yes, he was a count—and his mother. They had a villa near the town, it seems. ‘Why, signora!’ he said, when he saw me sitting there all alone, ‘why are you out here at this time?’ And I told him about there not being a bed free in the town. Then he said: ‘You must stay with us. We have made our villa ready for the wounded, but, thank God, they have not begun to come in yet, so there are many empty rooms at your disposal.’ That was how I escaped spending the night on a bench in the public garden! It was a beautiful villa, with grounds all about it—quite large. They gave me a comfortable room with a bath, and that was the last I saw of the count and his mother—whatever were their names. Early the next morning a maid came with my coffee and woke me so that I might get the train for Palma Nova.

“That day was too long to tell about. I found my young lieutenant, and as soon as we reached Palma Nova he went off to hunt for the granatieri. But the regiment had been sent on ahead! Again I was just too late. It had left for the frontier, which is only a few miles east of the town. I could hear the big cannon from there. (Oh, yes, they had begun! I can tell you that made me all the more anxious to hold my boy once more in my arms.) Palma Nova was jammed with everything, soldiers, motor-trucks, cannon—such confusion as you never saw. Everything had to pass through an old gate—you know, it was once a Roman town and there are walls and gates still standing. About that gate toward the Austrian frontier there was such a crush to get through as I never saw anywhere!

“They let no one through that gate without a special pass. You see, it was close to the lines, and they were afraid of spies. I tried and tried to slip through, but it was no use. And the time was going by, and Enrico marching away from me always toward battle. I just prayed to the Virgin to get me through that gate—yes, I tell you, I prayed hard as I never prayed before in my life.... The young lieutenant came to tell me he had to go on to reach his regiment and offered to take anything I had for Enrico. So I gave him almost all the money I had with me, and the little watch you gave me for him, and told him to say I should get to him somehow if it could be done. The young man promised he would find ’Rico and give him the things at the first opportunity. How I hated to see him disappear through that gate into the crowd beyond! But there was no use trying: there were soldiers with drawn bayonets all about it. My prayers to the Virgin seemed to do no good at all....

“So at the end, after trying everywhere to get that special pass, I was sitting before a café drinking some milk—everything is so frightfully dear, you have no idea!—and was thinking that after coming so far I was not to see my boy. For the first time I felt discouraged, and I must have shown it, too, with my eyes always on that gate. An officer who was waiting in front of the café, walking to and fro, presently came up to me and said: ‘Signora, I see that sorrow in your eyes which compels me to address you. Is there anything a stranger might do to comfort you?’ So I told him the whole story, and he said very gently: ‘I do not know whether I can obtain the permission for you, but I know the officer who is in command here. Come with me and we will tell him your desire to see your son before the battle, which cannot be far off, and perhaps he will grant your request.’

“Think of such fortune! The Virgin had listened. I shall always pray with better faith after this! Just when I was at the end, too! The kind officer was also a count, Count Foscari, from here in Venice. He has a brother in the garrison here, and there’s a lady to whom he wishes me to give some letters.... I wonder if I still have them!”

The signora stopped to investigate the recesses of her little bag.

“First, let me know what the Count Foscari did for you,” I exclaimed, tantalized by the signora’s discursive narrative. “Then we can look after his correspondence at our leisure.”

“There they are!... He took me with him to the office of the military commander of the town—a very busy place it was. But the count just walked past all the sentinels, and I followed him without being stopped. But when he asked for the pass the commander was very cross and answered, ‘Impossible!’—short like that. Even while we were there, another, stronger order came over the telegraph from the staff forbidding any civilian to pass through the town. I thought again it was all over—I should never see ’Rico. But Count Foscari did not give up. He just waited until the commander had said everything, then spoke very gently to him in a low tone (but I could hear). ‘The signora is an Italian mother. I will give my word for that! She wants to see her son, who was sick when he left Rome.’ Then he stopped, but the other officer just frowned, and the count tried again. ‘It is not much good that any of us can do now in this life. We are all so near death that it seems we should do whatever kindness we can to one another.’ He looked at me more gently, but said nothing. The commandant’s secretary was there with the pass already made out in his hand—he had been preparing it while the others were talking—and he put it down on the table before the officer for his signature. That one turned his head, then the count gave a nod to the secretary, and the kind young man took the seal and stamped it and handed it to me with a little smile. And the commandant just shrugged his shoulders and pretended not to see. The count said to him: ‘Thanks! For a mother.’

“So there I was with my pass. I thanked Count Foscari and hurried through that gate as fast as my legs would carry me, afraid that some one might take the paper away from me. What an awful jam there was! I thought my legs would not hold out long on that hard road, but I was determined to walk until I fell before giving up now.... I must have passed forty sentinels; some of them stopped me. They said I would be shot, but what did I care for that! I could hear the roaring of the guns ahead, louder all the time, and the smoke. It was really battle. I began to run. I was so anxious lest I might not have time.”