The Gadfly - E. L. Voynich (phonics readers .txt) 📗
- Author: E. L. Voynich
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explanation, you had better apply in person to the
chief of police.”
Julia snatched the paper from her husband,
glanced over it, and flew at Arthur like nothing
else in the world but a fashionable lady in a
rage.
“So it’s you that have disgraced the family!”
she screamed; “setting all the rabble in the town
gaping and staring as if the thing were a show?
So you have turned jail-bird, now, with all your
piety! It’s what we might have expected from
that Popish woman’s child–-”
“You must not speak to a prisoner in a foreign
language, madam,” the officer interrupted; but
his remonstrance was hardly audible under the torrent
of Julia’s vociferous English.
“Just what we might have expected! Fasting
and prayer and saintly meditation; and this is what
was underneath it all! I thought that would be
the end of it.”
Dr. Warren had once compared Julia to a salad
into which the cook had upset the vinegar cruet.
The sound of her thin, hard voice set Arthur’s
teeth on edge, and the simile suddenly popped up
in his memory.
“There’s no use in this kind of talk,” he said.
“You need not be afraid of any unpleasantness;
everyone will understand that you are all quite
innocent. I suppose, gentlemen, you want to
search my things. I have nothing to hide.”
While the gendarmes ransacked the room, reading
his letters, examining his college papers, and
turning out drawers and boxes, he sat waiting on
the edge of the bed, a little flushed with excitement,
but in no way distressed. The search did
not disquiet him. He had always burned letters
which could possibly compromise anyone, and beyond
a few manuscript verses, half revolutionary,
half mystical, and two or three numbers of Young
Italy, the gendarmes found nothing to repay them
for their trouble. Julia, after a long resistance,
yielded to the entreaties of her brother-in-law and
went back to bed, sweeping past Arthur with
magnificent disdain, James meekly following.
When they had left the room, Thomas, who all
this while had been tramping up and down, trying
to look indifferent, approached the officer and
asked permission to speak to the prisoner.
Receiving a nod in answer, he went up to Arthur
and muttered in a rather husky voice:
“I say; this is an infernally awkward business.
I’m very sorry about it.”
Arthur looked up with a face as serene as a summer
morning. “You have always been good to
me,” he said. “There’s nothing to be sorry
about. I shall be safe enough.”
“Look here, Arthur!” Thomas gave his moustache
a hard pull and plunged head first into the
awkward question. “Is—all this anything to do
with—money? Because, if it is, I–-”
“With money! Why, no! What could it have
to do–-”
“Then it’s some political tomfoolery? I
thought so. Well, don’t you get down in the
mouth—and never mind all the stuff Julia talks.
It’s only her spiteful tongue; and if you want
help,—cash, or anything,—let me know, will
you?”
Arthur held out his hand in silence, and Thomas
left the room with a carefully made-up expression
of unconcern that rendered his face more stolid
than ever.
The gendarmes, meanwhile, had finished their
search, and the officer in charge requested Arthur
to put on his outdoor clothes. He obeyed at once
and turned to leave the room; then stopped with
sudden hesitation. It seemed hard to take leave
of his mother’s oratory in the presence of these
officials.
“Have you any objection to leaving the room
for a moment?” he asked. “You see that I cannot
escape and that there is nothing to conceal.”
“I am sorry, but it is forbidden to leave a
prisoner alone.”
“Very well, it doesn’t matter.”
He went into the alcove, and, kneeling down,
kissed the feet and pedestal of the crucifix, whispering
softly: “Lord, keep me faithful unto death.”
When he rose, the officer was standing by the
table, examining Montanelli’s portrait. “Is this
a relative of yours?” he asked.
“No; it is my confessor, the new Bishop of
Brisighella.”
On the staircase the Italian servants were waiting,
anxious and sorrowful. They all loved Arthur
for his own sake and his mother’s, and crowded
round him, kissing his hands and dress with
passionate grief. Gian Battista stood by, the
tears dripping down his gray moustache. None
of the Burtons came out to take leave of him.
Their coldness accentuated the tenderness and
sympathy of the servants, and Arthur was near to
breaking down as he pressed the hands held out
to him.
“Good-bye, Gian Battista. Kiss the little ones
for me. Good-bye, Teresa. Pray for me, all of
you; and God keep you! Good-bye, good-bye!”
He ran hastily downstairs to the front door. A
moment later only a little group of silent men and
sobbing women stood on the doorstep watching
the carriage as it drove away.
CHAPTER VI.
ARTHUR was taken to the huge mediaeval fortress
at the harbour’s mouth. He found prison life
fairly endurable. His cell was unpleasantly damp
and dark; but he had been brought up in a palace
in the Via Borra, and neither close air, rats, nor
foul smells were novelties to him. The food, also,
was both bad and insufficient; but James soon obtained
permission to send him all the necessaries of
life from home. He was kept in solitary confinement,
and, though the vigilance of the warders
was less strict than he had expected, he failed to
obtain any explanation of the cause of his arrest.
Nevertheless, the tranquil frame of mind in which
he had entered the fortress did not change. Not
being allowed books, he spent his time in prayer
and devout meditation, and waited without impatience
or anxiety for the further course of events.
One day a soldier unlocked the door of his cell
and called to him: “This way, please!” After two
or three questions, to which he got no answer but,
“Talking is forbidden,” Arthur resigned himself
to the inevitable and followed the soldier through
a labyrinth of courtyards, corridors, and stairs, all
more or less musty-smelling, into a large, light
room in which three persons in military uniform
sat at a long table covered with green baize and littered
with papers, chatting in a languid, desultory
way. They put on a stiff, business air as he came
in, and the oldest of them, a foppish-looking man
with gray whiskers and a colonel’s uniform,
pointed to a chair on the other side of the table
and began the preliminary interrogation.
Arthur had expected to be threatened, abused,
and sworn at, and had prepared himself to
answer with dignity and patience; but he was pleasantly
disappointed. The colonel was stiff, cold
and formal, but perfectly courteous. The usual
questions as to his name, age, nationality, and
social position were put and answered, and the
replies written down in monotonous succession.
He was beginning to feel bored and impatient,
when the colonel asked:
“And now, Mr. Burton, what do you know
about Young Italy?”
“I know that it is a society which publishes a
newspaper in Marseilles and circulates it in Italy,
with the object of inducing people to revolt and
drive the Austrian army out of the country.”
“You have read this paper, I think?”
“Yes; I am interested in the subject.”
“When you read it you realized that you were
committing an illegal action?”
“Certainly.”
“Where did you get the copies which were
found in your room?”
“That I cannot tell you.”
“Mr. Burton, you must not say ‘I cannot tell’
here; you are bound to answer my questions.”
“I will not, then, if you object to ‘cannot.’”
“You will regret it if you permit yourself to
use such expressions,” remarked the colonel. As
Arthur made no reply, he went on:
“I may as well tell you that evidence has come
into our hands proving your connection with this
society to be much more intimate than is implied
by the mere reading of forbidden literature. It
will be to your advantage to confess frankly. In
any case the truth will be sure to come out, and
you will find it useless to screen yourself behind
evasion and denials.”
“I have no desire to screen myself. What is it
you want to know?”
“Firstly, how did you, a foreigner, come to be
implicated in matters of this kind?”
“I thought about the subject and read everything
I could get hold of, and formed my own
conclusions.”
“Who persuaded you to join this society?”
“No one; I wished to join it.”
“You are shilly-shallying with me,” said the
colonel, sharply; his patience was evidently beginning
to give out. “No one can join a society by
himself. To whom did you communicate your wish
to join it?”
Silence.
“Will you have the kindness to answer me?”
“Not when you ask questions of that kind.”
Arthur spoke sullenly; a curious, nervous irritability
was taking possession of him. He knew by
this time that many arrests had been made in both
Leghorn and Pisa; and, though still ignorant of
the extent of the calamity, he had already heard
enough to put him into a fever of anxiety for the
safety of Gemma and his other friends. The
studied politeness of the officers, the dull game of
fencing and parrying, of insidious questions and
evasive answers, worried and annoyed him, and the
clumsy tramping backward and forward of the
sentinel outside the door jarred detestably upon
his ear.
“Oh, by the bye, when did you last meet Giovanni
Bolla?” asked the colonel, after a little more
bandying of words. “Just before you left Pisa,
was it?”
“I know no one of that name.”
“What! Giovanni Bolla? Surely you know him
—a tall young fellow, closely shaven. Why, he
is one of your fellow-students.”
“There are many students in the university
whom I don’t know.”
“Oh, but you must know Bolla, surely! Look,
this is his handwriting. You see, he knows you
well enough.”
The colonel carelessly handed him a paper
headed: “Protocol,” and signed: “Giovanni
Bolla.” Glancing down it Arthur came upon his
own name. He looked up in surprise. “Am I to
read it?”
“Yes, you may as well; it concerns you.”
He began to read, while the officers sat silently
watching his face. The document appeared to
consist of depositions in answer to a long string of
questions. Evidently Bolla, too, must have been
arrested. The first depositions were of the usual
stereotyped character; then followed a short account
of Bolla’s connection with the society, of the
dissemination of prohibited literature in Leghorn,
and of the students’ meetings. Next came
“Among those who joined us was a young Englishman,
Arthur Burton, who belongs to one of
the rich shipowning families.”
The blood rushed into Arthur’s face. Bolla had
betrayed him! Bolla, who had taken upon himself
the solemn duties of an initiator—Bolla, who had
converted Gemma—who was in love with her!
He laid down the paper and stared at the floor.
“I hope that little document has refreshed
your memory?” hinted the colonel politely.
Arthur shook his head. “I know no one of that
name,” he repeated in a dull, hard voice. “There
must be some mistake.”
“Mistake? Oh, nonsense! Come, Mr. Burton,
chivalry and quixotism are very fine things in
their way; but there’s no use in overdoing them.
It’s an error all you young people fall into at first.
Come, think! What good is it for you to compromise
yourself and spoil your prospects in life over
a simple formality about
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