The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (ebook reader android TXT) 📕

and Galli

himself, who at first had been inclined to uphold

everything the witty satirist said or did, began to

acknowledge with an aggrieved air that Montanelli

had better have been left in peace. “Decent

cardinals are none so plenty. One might treat

them politely when they do turn up.”

 

The only person who, apparently, remained

quite indifferent to the storm of caricatures and

pasquinades was Montanelli himself. It seemed,

as Martini said, hardly worth while to expend

one’s energy in ridiculing a man who took it so

good-humouredly. It was said in the town that

Montanelli, one day when the Archbishop of Florence

was dining with him, had found in the room

one of the Gadfly’s bitter personal lampoons

against himself, had read it through and handed

the paper to the Archbishop, remarking: “That

is rather cleverly put, is it not?”

 

One day there appeared in the town a leaflet,

headed: “The Mystery of the Annunciation.”

Even had the author omitted his now familiar

signature, a sketch of a gadfly with spread wings,

the bitter, trenchant style would have left in the

minds of most readers no doubt as to his identity.

The skit was in the form of a dialogue between

Tuscany as the Virgin Mary, and Montanelli as the

angel who, bearing the lilies of purity and crowned

with the olive branch of peace, was announcing

the advent of the Jesuits. The whole thing was

full of offensive personal allusions and hints of the

most risky nature, and all Florence felt the satire

to be both ungenerous and unfair. And yet all

Florence laughed. There was something so irresistible

in the Gadfly’s grave absurdities that those

who most disapproved of and disliked him laughed

as immoderately at all his squibs as did his warmest

partisans. Repulsive in tone as the leaflet was,

it left its trace upon the popular feeling of the

town. Montanelli’s personal reputation stood too

high for any lampoon, however witty, seriously to

injure it, but for a moment the tide almost turned

against him. The Gadfly had known where to

sting; and, though eager crowds still collected

before the Cardinal’s house to see him enter or

leave his carriage, ominous cries of “Jesuit!” and

“Sanfedist spy!” often mingled with the cheers

and benedictions.

 

But Montanelli had no lack of supporters. Two

days after the publication of the skit, the Churchman,

a leading clerical paper, brought out a

brilliant article, called: “An Answer to ‘The

Mystery of the Annunciation,’” and signed: “A

Son of the Church.” It was an impassioned defence

of Montanelli against the Gadfly’s slanderous

imputations. The anonymous writer, after

expounding, with great eloquence and fervour, the

doctrine of peace on earth and good will towards

men, of which the new Pontiff was the evangelist,

concluded by challenging the Gadfly to prove a

single one of his assertions, and solemnly appealing

to the public not to believe a contemptible

slanderer. Both the cogency of the article as a

bit of special pleading and its merit as a literary

composition were sufficiently far above the average

to attract much attention in the town, especially

as not even the editor of the newspaper could

guess the author’s identity. The article was soon

reprinted separately in pamphlet form; and the

“anonymous defender” was discussed in every

coffee-shop in Florence.

 

The Gadfly responded with a violent attack on

the new Pontificate and all its supporters, especially

on Montanelli, who, he cautiously hinted, had

probably consented to the panegyric on himself.

To this the anonymous defender again replied in

the Churchman with an indignant denial. During

the rest of Montanelli’s stay the controversy raging

between the two writers occupied more of the

public attention than did even the famous preacher

himself.

 

Some members of the liberal party ventured to

remonstrate with the Gadfly about the unnecessary

malice of his tone towards Montanelli; but

they did not get much satisfaction out of him.

He only smiled affably and answered with a languid

little stammer: “R-really, gentlemen, you are

rather unfair. I expressly stipulated, when I gave

in to Signora Bolla, that I should be allowed a

l-l-little chuckle all to myself now. It is so nominated

in the bond!”

 

At the end of October Montanelli returned to

his see in the Romagna, and, before leaving Florence,

preached a farewell sermon in which he spoke

of the controversy, gently deprecating the vehemence

of both writers and begging his unknown

defender to set an example of tolerance by closing

a useless and unseemly war of words. On the

following day the Churchman contained a notice

that, at Monsignor Montanelli’s publicly expressed

desire, “A Son of the Church” would withdraw

from the controversy.

 

The last word remained with the Gadfly. He

issued a little leaflet, in which he declared himself

disarmed and converted by Montanelli’s Christian

meekness and ready to weep tears of reconciliation

upon the neck of the first Sanfedist he met. “I

am even willing,” he concluded; “to embrace my

anonymous challenger himself; and if my readers

knew, as his Eminence and I know, what that

implies and why he remains anonymous, they

would believe in the sincerity of my conversion.”

 

In the latter part of November he announced to

the literary committee that he was going for a

fortnight’s holiday to the seaside. He went, apparently,

to Leghorn; but Dr. Riccardo, going

there soon after and wishing to speak to him,

searched the town for him in vain. On the 5th of

December a political demonstration of the most

extreme character burst out in the States of the

Church, along the whole chain of the Apennines;

and people began to guess the reason of the Gadfly’s

sudden fancy to take his holidays in the depth

of winter. He came back to Florence when the

riots had been quelled, and, meeting Riccardo in

the street, remarked affably:

 

“I hear you were inquiring for me in Leghorn;

I was staying in Pisa. What a pretty old town

it is! There’s something quite Arcadian about it.”

 

In Christmas week he attended an afternoon

meeting of the literary committee which was held

in Dr. Riccardo’s lodgings near the Porta alla

Croce. The meeting was a full one, and when he

came in, a little late, with an apologetic bow and

smile, there seemed to be no seat empty. Riccardo

rose to fetch a chair from the next room,

but the Gadfly stopped him. “Don’t trouble

about it,” he said; “I shall be quite comfortable

here”; and crossing the room to a window beside

which Gemma had placed her chair, he sat down

on the sill, leaning his head indolently back

against the shutter.

 

As he looked down at Gemma, smiling with

half-shut eyes, in the subtle, sphinx-like way that

gave him the look of a Leonardo da Vinci portrait,

the instinctive distrust with which he inspired her

deepened into a sense of unreasoning fear.

 

The proposal under discussion was that a pamphlet

be issued setting forth the committee’s views

on the dearth with which Tuscany was threatened

and the measures which should be taken to meet

it. The matter was a somewhat difficult one to

decide, because, as usual, the committee’s views

upon the subject were much divided. The more

advanced section, to which Gemma, Martini, and

Riccardo belonged, was in favour of an energetic

appeal to both government and public to take adequate

measures at once for the relief of the peasantry.

The moderate division—including, of

course, Grassini—feared that an over-emphatic

tone might irritate rather than convince the

ministry.

 

“It is all very well, gentlemen, to want the

people helped at once,” he said, looking round

upon the red-hot radicals with his calm and pitying

air. “We most of us want a good many things

that we are not likely to get; but if we start with

the tone you propose to adopt, the government

is very likely not to begin any relief measures

at all till there is actual famine. If we could

only induce the ministry to make an inquiry

into the state of the crops it would be a step in

advance.”

 

Galli, in his corner by the stove, jumped up to

answer his enemy.

 

“A step in advance—yes, my dear sir; but if

there’s going to be a famine, it won’t wait for us

to advance at that pace. The people might all

starve before we got to any actual relief.”

 

“It would be interesting to know–-” Sacconi

began; but several voices interrupted him.

 

“Speak up; we can’t hear!”

 

“I should think not, with such an infernal row

in the street,” said Galli, irritably. “Is that window

shut, Riccardo? One can’t hear one’s self speak!”

 

Gemma looked round. “Yes,” she said, “the

window is quite shut. I think there is a variety

show, or some such thing, passing.”

 

The sounds of shouting and laughter, of the

tinkling of bells and trampling of feet, resounded

from the street below, mixed with the braying of

a villainous brass band and the unmerciful banging

of a drum.

 

“It can’t be helped these few days,” said Riccardo;

“we must expect noise at Christmas time. What were you

saying, Sacconi?”

 

“I said it would be interesting to hear what is

thought about the matter in Pisa and Leghorn.

Perhaps Signor Rivarez can tell us something; he

has just come from there.”

 

The Gadfly did not answer. He was staring out

of the window and appeared not to have heard

what had been said.

 

“Signor Rivarez!” said Gemma. She was the

only person sitting near to him, and as he remained

silent she bent forward and touched him on the

arm. He slowly turned his face to her, and she

started as she saw its fixed and awful immobility.

For a moment it was like the face of a corpse; then

the lips moved in a strange, lifeless way.

 

“Yes,” he whispered; “a variety show.”

 

Her first instinct was to shield him from the

curiosity of the others. Without understanding

what was the matter with him, she realized that

some frightful fancy or hallucination had seized

upon him, and that, for the moment, he was at

its mercy, body and soul. She rose quickly and,

standing between him and the company, threw

the window open as if to look out. No one but

herself had seen his face.

 

In the street a travelling circus was passing,

with mountebanks on donkeys and harlequins in

parti-coloured dresses. The crowd of holiday

masqueraders, laughing and shoving, was exchanging

jests and showers of paper ribbon with the

clowns and flinging little bags of sugar-plums to

the columbine, who sat in her car, tricked out in

tinsel and feathers, with artificial curls on her

forehead and an artificial smile on her painted lips.

Behind the car came a motley string of figures—

street Arabs, beggars, clowns turning somersaults,

and costermongers hawking their wares. They

were jostling, pelting, and applauding a figure

which at first Gemma could not see for the pushing

and swaying of the crowd. The next moment,

however, she saw plainly what it was—a

hunchback, dwarfish and ugly, grotesquely attired

in a fool’s dress, with paper cap and bells. He

evidently belonged to the strolling company, and

was amusing the crowd with hideous grimaces and

contortions.

 

“What is going on out there?” asked Riccardo,

approaching the window. “You seem very much

interested.”

 

He was a little surprised at their keeping the

whole committee waiting to look at a strolling

company of mountebanks. Gemma turned round.

 

“It is nothing interesting,” she said; “only a

variety show; but they made such a noise that I

thought it must be something else.”

 

She was standing with one hand upon the

window-sill, and suddenly felt the Gadfly’s cold

fingers press the hand with a passionate clasp.

“Thank you!” he