Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands
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Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson >> Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands
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10 _THE NOVELS OF_
_BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON_
_Edited by EDMUND GOSSE_
_Fcap. 8vo, cloth, 3s. net_
_Synnoeve Solbakken_
_Arne_
_A Happy Boy_
_The Fisher Lass_
_The Bridal March, & One Day_
_Magnhild, & Dust_
_Captain Mansana, & Mother's Hands_
_Absalom's Hair, & A Painful Memory_
_LONDON_
_WILLIAM HEINEMANN_
_21 Bedford Street, W.C._
CAPTAIN MANSANA
&
MOTHER'S HANDS
BY
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON
_Translated from the Norwegian_
LONDON
WILLIAM HEINEMANN
1897
_All rights reserved_
_BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE._
[_The two somewhat anomalous stories which are here published together
have little in common except the difficulty of finding a place for them
in the category of Bjoernson's works._
"_Captain Mansana_," _under the title of_ "_Kaptejn Mansana, en
Fortaelling fra Italien_," _was originally printed, in 1875, in the
Norwegian periodical_ "_Fra Fjeld og Dal_." _It did not appear in book
form until August 1879, when it was published, in a paper cover with
a startling illustration, in Copenhagen._ "_Captain Mansana_" _was
written at Aulestad. It was almost immediately published in a Swedish,
and later in a German, translation._
_A Norwegian magazine, entitled_ "_Nyt Tidsskrift_," _was started in
Christiania in 1882, and continued to represent extreme liberal views
in Norway until 1887, when it ceased to appear. In 1892 an attempt was
made to resuscitate this periodical, under the general editorship of J.
E. Sars. The first number of this new series appeared in November of
that year, the opening article being the story of_ "_Mors haender_"
("_Mother's Hands_"). _It was reprinted in August 1894, in the
collection called_, "_Nye Fortaellinger_." _It is now for the first
time translated into English._
_E. G_.]
CAPTAIN MANSANA
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
The following note was prefixed by the author to the first edition of
"Captain Mansana: an Italian Tale":
This story was originally published, several years ago, in a Danish
Christmas Annual, "From Hill and Dale," which was edited by Mr. H.
J. Greensteen. "Captain Mansana" has already run through two
editions in German, and many friends have urged the author to
republish it, in a separate form, and in his own tongue.
The following remarks seem necessary in consequence of some
criticisms which have appeared in the Danish and Swedish press.
The narrative, in all essential particulars, is based on facts,
and those of its incidents which appear most extraordinary, are
absolutely historical, the minutest details being in some cases
reproduced. Mansana himself is drawn from life. The achievements
credited to him in these pages, are those he actually performed;
and his singular experiences are here correctly described, so far,
at least, as they bear upon his psychological development.
The causes which induced me to make him the subject of the
following sketch may be found in a few lines of Theresa Leaney's
letter, with which the story closes. The reader should compare
Theresa's observations on Mansana, with the account of Lassalle,
given contemporaneously with the original publication of this
story, by Dr. Georg Brandes in his work on the "Nineteenth
Century." Any one who studies the masterly portrait painted by
Brandes, will observe that the inner forces which shaped Lassalle's
destiny are precisely the same as those that swayed Mansana. No
doubt Lassalle, with his fertile intellect, his commanding
personality, and his inexhaustible energy, touches a far higher
level of interest. Still, the phase of character is similar in the
two cases, and it struck me at the time as curious, that both Dr.
Brandes and myself should have had our attention simultaneously
directed to it.
BJOeRNSTJERNE BJOeRNSON
CAPTAIN MANSANA
CHAPTER I
I was on my way to Rome, and as I entered the train at Bologna, I
bought some newspapers to read on my journey. An item of news from the
capital, published in one of the Florence journals, immediately
arrested my attention. It carried me back thirteen years, and brought
to mind a former visit I had paid to Rome, and certain friends with
whom I had lived in a little town in the vicinity, at the time when
Rome was still under the Papal rule.
The newspaper stated that the remains of the patriot Mansana had been
exhumed from the Cemetery of the Malefactors in Rome, at the petition
of the inhabitants of his native town, and that in the course of the
next few days, they were to be received by the town council and
escorted by deputations from various patriotic associations in Rome and
the neighbouring cities to A----, Mansana's birthplace. A monument had
been prepared there, and a ceremonial reception awaited the remains:
the deeds of the martyred hero were at length to receive tardy
acknowledgment.
It was in the house of this Mansana that I had lodged thirteen years
before; his wife and his younger brother's wife had been my hostesses.
Of the two brothers themselves, one was at that time in prison in Rome,
the other in exile in Genoa. The newspaper recapitulated the story of
the elder Mansana's career. With all, except the latter portion, I was
already pretty well acquainted, and for that reason I felt a special
desire to accompany the procession, which was to start from the
Barberini Palace in Rome the following Sunday, and finish its journey
at A----.
On the Sunday, at seven o'clock in the morning of a grey October day, I
was at the place of assembly. There was collected a large number of
banners, escorted by the delegates, who had been selected by the
various associations: six men, as a rule, from each. I took up my
position near a banner that bore the legend: "The Fight for the
Fatherland," and amongst the group which surrounded it. They were men
in red shirts, with a scarf round the body, a cloak over the shoulders,
trousers thrust into high boots, and broad-leaved plumed hats. But what
faces these were! How instinct with purpose and determination! Look at
the well-known portrait of Orsini, the man who threw bombs at Napoleon
III.; in him you have the typical Italian cast of countenance often
seen in the men who had risen against the tyranny in Church and State,
braving the dungeon and the scaffold, and had leagued themselves
together in those formidable organisations from which sprang the army
that liberated Italy. Louis Napoleon had himself been a member of one
of these associations, and he had sworn, like all his comrades, that
whatsoever position he might gain, he would use it to further Italy's
unity and happiness, or in default that he would forfeit his own life.
It was Orsini, his former comrade in the Carbonari, who reminded
Napoleon of his oath, after he had become Emperor of the French. And
Orsini did it in the manner best calculated to make the Emperor realise
the fate which awaited him if he failed to keep his pledge.
The first time I saw Orsini's portrait the idea flashed across my mind
that ten thousand such men might conquer the world. And now, as I stood
here, I had before me those whom the same feeling for their country's
wrongs had animated with the same intense passion. Over that passion
a kind of repose had fallen now, but the gloomy and lowering brows
showed that it was not the tranquillity of content. The medals on their
breasts proved that they had been present at Porta San Pancrazio in
1849 (when Garibaldi, though outnumbered by the French troops, twice
forced them to retreat), in 1858, at the Lake of Garda, in 1859 in
Sicily and Naples. And it was probable enough, though there were no
medals to testify to _that_ fact, that the history of their lives would
have revealed their share in the day of Mentana. This is one of those
battlefields which is not recognised by the Government, but which has
burnt itself most deeply into the hearts of the people, as Louis
Napoleon learnt to his cost. He had formally secured the help of Italy
against the Germans in 1870; the remembrance of Mentana made it
impossible for King and Government to carry out the agreement. It would
have been as much as Victor Emmanuel's throne was worth to have done
that.
The contrast between this dark and formidable determination of the
Italians, and their mocking gaiety and reckless levity, is just as
marked as that, between the resolute countenances of the Orsini type,
such as I noticed here, and the frivolous faces, which express nothing
but a contemptuous superiority or mere indifference. Faces of this type
were also to be seen among the spectators, or among the delegates who
accompanied the banners inscribed "The Press," "Freethought," "Freedom
for Labour," and so on. Involuntarily I thought, it is this element of
frivolity among one half of the population that brings out a sterner
element of resolution in the other half. The greater, the more general,
this frivolity, the stronger and fiercer must be the passionate energy
of those who would prevail against it. And through my brain there
coursed reminiscences of the past history of Italy, with its contrasts
of strange levity and dark purpose. Backward and forward my thoughts
swayed, from Brutus to Orsini, from Catiline to Caesar Borgia, from
Lucullus to Leo X., from Savonarola to Garibaldi. Meanwhile the company
got itself in motion, the banners streamed out, loud-voiced
street-vendors offered for sale leaflets and pamphlets containing
accounts of Mansana's career, and the procession passed into the Via
Felice. Silence greeted it as it moved on. The lofty houses showed few
spectators at this early hour, fewer still as the procession turned
into the Via Venti-Settembre, past the Quirinal; but the onlookers were
somewhat more numerous as the party came down into the Forum and passed
out of the city by the Colosseum to the Porta Giovanni. Outside the
gate the hearse, which had been provided by the Municipality and driven
by its servants, was in waiting. This hearse was immediately set in
motion. Close behind it walked two young men, one in civil costume, the
other in the uniform of an officer of the Bersaglieri. Both were tall,
spare, muscular, with small heads and low foreheads; resembling one
another in build and features, and yet infinitely different. They were
the sons of the dead Mansana.
I could recall them as boys of thirteen or fourteen, and the episode
round which my recollection of them gathered was curious enough: I
remembered their old grandmother throwing stones at these boys as they
stood laughing, beyond her reach. I had a sudden distinct vision of the
old woman's keen, angry eyes, of her sinewy, wrinkled hands, her grey
bristling hair round her coffee-coloured face; and now, as I looked at
the boys, I could almost have said that the stones she threw had not
missed their mark, and were deep in their hearts still.
How the grandmother had hated them! Had they given her no special cause
for this hatred? Assuredly they had, for hate breeds hate, and strife
strife. But how did it begin? I was not with them at the time, but it
was not difficult to understand the origin of it all.
She had been left a widow early in life, this old lady; and all the
interest and sympathy she gained by her comeliness and charm she tried
to turn into a source of profit for herself and her two sons, the elder
of whom was now lying here in his coffin. They were the only beings on
earth she loved, and love them she did with a passionate frenzy of
which the lads themselves eventually grew weary. Then, too, when they
understood the species of cunning that lay in the use she made of her
opportunities as a fascinating young widow, to gain material advantages
for her sons, they began to feel a certain contempt for her. And so
they turned from her, and threw all their energies into the ideas of
Italian freedom and Italian unity which they had acquired from young
and ardent companions. Their mother's narrow and frantic absorption in
her own personal interests and affections made them only the more
anxious to sacrifice everything for the common welfare.
In force of character, these boys not merely equalled their mother, but
excelled her. Thus there arose a bitter struggle, in which in the end
she succumbed; but not until the young men's connections with the
secret associations had procured for them a circle of acquaintance that
extended far beyond the town and the society to which her family
belonged. Each of them brought home a bride from a household of a
higher social standing than their mother's, with a trousseau better
than hers had been, and a dowry which, as she was bound to acknowledge,
was respectable. This silenced her for awhile; it was clear that the
business of playing the patriot had its advantages.
But the time came when both sons were forced to flee; when the elder
was taken and imprisoned; when the most atrocious public extortion was
practised; and when ruffianly officials regarded the defenceless widows
as their prey. Their house had to be mortgaged, and then first one and
then the other of their two vineyards; and finally one of their fields
was seized by the mortgagees. And thus it came about that these ladies
of gentle birth, friends from childhood, had to work like servants in
the fields, the vineyard, and the house; they had to take lodgers, and
wait on them; and worse than all this, to listen to words of insult and
contumely, and that from others besides the clergy, who, under the
Papal rule, were absolute masters in the town. For at that time few
paid any tribute of respect to the wives of the men who had made
sacrifices for their country, or, like them, looked forward to the
triumph of freedom, enlightenment, and justice. Now, indeed, in the end
the old woman had won! But what did victory mean? Tears for her
slighted affection, her rejected counsels, her ruined property; and she
would rise and curse the sons who had deceived and plundered her, till
a single glance from her elder daughter-in-law drove her back to the
chimney corner, where she used to sit and pass her time in silent
torpor, while this mood was upon her. Then she would sally out, and if
she met her grandsons, in whom she sorrowfully noticed the same keen
glance under the low brows, which she had first loved and afterwards
learned to fear in her own sons, she would draw them to her with a
torrent of angry words. She would warn them against their father's
example, and inveigh against the people, as a mere rabble, not worth
the sacrifice of a farthing, to say nothing of the loss of fortune,
family, and freedom; and she would rail at her sons, the fathers of
these boys, as the handsomest, but most ungrateful and impracticable
children whom any mother in the town had brought to manhood. And
pushing them angrily from her, the unhappy woman would address the boys
in accents of half-distracted appeal: "Do try and have more sense, you
good-for-nothing scoundrels, you, instead of standing there and
grinning at me. Don't be like those silly mothers of yours in there,
who are bewitched by my sons' madness. But, God knows, there are mad
folks on all sides of me." Then she would thrust the lads from her,
weeping, and bury herself in her retreat. As time went on, neither she
nor the boys stood on ceremony with one another. They laughed at her,
when she was in one of her fits of despondency, and she threw stones at
them; and at last it came to this, that if they merely saw her sitting
alone, they would call out, "Grandmamma, haven't you gone mad again?"
and then the expected volley of stones would follow.
But why did the old woman hardly dare to utter a syllable in the
presence of her daughter-in-law? For the same reason as that which had
impelled her to keep silence before her sons in former times. Her own
husband had been a man of delicate health, quite unequal to the strain
of managing his worldly affairs; he had married her in order that she
might supply his deficiencies. She had undoubtedly increased the value
of his property; but in the process she wore him down. This man with
his gentle smile, his varied intellectual interests, and his lofty
ideals, suffered in her society. She could not destroy his nobler
nature, but his peace of mind and content she did contrive to ruin. And
yet the beauty of his character, which she had ignored while he lived,
exercised its influence over her after he was dead; and when she saw it
reanimated in the sons, or looking, as if in reproachful reminiscence
of the past, through the pure eyes of her daughter-in-law, she felt
herself subdued and overawed.
I have said the stones thrown by the grandmother seemed to have struck
home in the grandsons and to have lodged deep in their hearts. Look at
the two men as they walk in the procession! The younger--the one in
civilian dress--had a smile round his somewhat thin lips, a smile in
his small eyes; but it seemed to me that it would hardly be safe to
presume on this. He had owed his advancement to his father's political
friends, and had learnt, early in life, to show himself subservient and
grateful, even when there was little enough gratitude in his heart.
But now turn to the elder of the two young men. The same small head,
the same low brow, but with more breadth in both. No smile _there_
on mouth or eyes; I could not conceive the wish to see him smile. Tall
and lean like his brother, he had more bone and muscle; and while both
young men had an appearance of athletic power, as if they could have
leaped over the hearse, the elder gave you the further impression
that he was actually longing to perform some such feat. The younger
brother's half languid gait, that told of bodily strength impaired by
disuse, had become in the elder an impatient elasticity as if he moved
on springs. His thoughts were clearly elsewhere; his eyes wandered
absently to and fro, and his pre-occupation was obvious enough to me
later on, when I offered him my card and reminded him of our previous
acquaintance.
Subsequently I got into conversation with several of the townsfolk, and
I inquired what had become of the old lady. The question was received
with a laugh, and the reply, volunteered eagerly by several voices at
once, that she had survived till the previous year, and had died at the
age of ninety-five. I could see that her character was pretty well
understood. With no less eagerness these gossips also informed me that
she had lived to see the house freed from the mortgage, one vineyard
bought back, and the whole property cleared of encumbrance. All this
was the result of the gratitude felt towards the martyred patriot whose
praises were now on every tongue, since he had become the great glory
of his native town; for his life and his brother's constituted
practically its only sacrifice to the cause of Italian liberation.
And the old woman had lived long enough to see all this!
I inquired after the wives of the two heroes. I was told that the
younger had succumbed to her troubles--in particular to the crowning
stroke of misfortune which had deprived her of her only child, a
daughter. But the elder, the mother of the two young Mansanas, was
still living. When the townsfolk spoke of her, their faces became
graver, their voices more solemn; the story was told by one of the
bystanders with occasional interpolations by the others, all however
with a kind of seriousness which testified to the influence this noble,
high-souled woman had obtained over them. I heard that she had found
means to communicate with her husband while still in prison. She had
been able to inform him that the Garibaldians had arranged for a rising
in the town and an attack upon it from without, and that they were
waiting for Mansana to escape in order that he might carry forward the
movement in Rome itself. Escape he did, thanks to his own strength of
will, and his wife's acuteness and devotion. By her advice he feigned
insanity; he screamed till his voice gave way, and indeed, till his
strength was exhausted, for he had refused to touch food or drink. At
the imminent risk of death he persevered in this pretence, till they
sent him to an asylum for lunatics. Here his wife was able to visit
him, and to arrange his flight. But when he had escaped from captivity,
he would not leave the town; the important preparations on foot
required his presence. His wife first nursed him back to health and
then took part in his hazardous enterprise. What other man in his
place, after this long imprisonment, would have resisted the temptation
to secure his freedom by crossing the frontier, which was scarcely more
than two or three miles distant? But one of those for whom he had
risked life, and all that made life worth living, betrayed him. He was
seized and imprisoned again; and with his loss the greater part of the
scheme, in which he had been concerned, came to nothing, or resulted
only in defeat on the frontier, and in the condemnation of thousands of
the patriots to captivity or the scaffold in the capital or the
provincial towns. Before the hour of deliverance came, Mansana was
beheaded and committed to his grave among the dead companions of his
imprisonment, the thieves and murderers, who lay buried in the great
Cemetery of the Malefactors, whence his bones had been removed this
day.
And now his widow was there to await all that was left of him. Shrouded
in her long dark mantle, she stood in front of the crowd that filled
the flag-bedecked churchyard of Mansana's native town. The monumental
tomb was finished, and that day, after the funeral ceremony was over,
it was to be unveiled amid the thunder of cannon, answered by the blaze
of bonfires from the mountains when darkness had set in.
Up towards the hill country, across the dusty yellow of the Campagna,
our procession threaded its way. We passed from one mountain town to
another; and everywhere, far as the eye could travel, it lighted on
bareheaded crowds of spectators. The populace from all the neighbouring
villages had gathered on the line of route. Bands of music filled the
narrow streets with sound, bunting and coloured cloths hung from the
windows, wreaths were thrown as the procession passed, flowers were
strewn before it, handkerchiefs waved, and not a few eyes gleamed
bright through tears. So we came at last to Mansana's native place,
where the enthusiasm with which we were received mounted to the highest
pitch, and where our numbers were now augmented by large crowds of
persons who had joined us on the march and accompanied us for a
considerable distance.
The throng was densest in and about the churchyard. But as a foreigner
I was courteously allowed to make my way through, and was enabled to
take up my position not far from the widowed lady. Many of the
bystanders were moved to tears to see her, standing there with that
still gaze of hers upon the coffin, the funeral wreaths, the silent
crowds. But she did not weep; for all this pomp and ceremony could not
give her back what she had lost, nor could it add one jot to the
honours her own heart had long since rendered to the dead. She looked
upon it all as upon something she had seen and known years ago. How
beautiful she still was, I thought; and that not merely because of the
noble curves that time had not yet wholly swept from brow and cheek,
nor because of the eyes, which once had been the loveliest in the town,
and indeed were so even when I knew her thirteen years before, in spite
of the many tears they had shed. But more than all this, was the halo
of truth and purity that surrounded her form, her movements, her face,
her expression. This was as visible to the beholder as light itself,
and like the light it transfigured what it touched. Treachery and
deceit felt its influence the moment they came beneath her glance, and
before she had had occasion to utter a syllable.
Never shall I forget the meeting between her and her sons. Both young
men embraced and kissed her. She held each of them clasped in her arms
for some moments as if she were praying over them. A deep hush fell on
the spectators, and several men mechanically bared their heads. The
younger Mansana, whom his mother had embraced first, drew back with his
handkerchief at his eyes. The elder brother stood rooted to the spot
when she had released him from her clasp. She looked long and intently
upon him. Following her eyes, the gaze of the whole multitude was
riveted upon him, while his cheek crimsoned under the ordeal. Her
expression was full of an unfathomable insight, a sorrow beyond the
reach of words. How often have I recalled it since! But the son, even
while he reddened, relaxed no whit the stern directness of his gaze at
her, and it was clear enough that she felt obliged to avert her own
eyes lest they should rouse him to defiant anger. Here, in sharp
antithesis to one another, the two divergent tendencies and contrasted
characteristics of their family stood revealed.
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