The Gadfly by Ethel Voynich (top fiction books of all time .txt) 📕

skit on the wild enthusiasm over the new Pope with which Italy was still ringing. Like all the Gadfly’s writing, it was bitter and vindictive; but, notwithstanding her irritation at the style, Gemma could not help recognizing in her heart the justice of the criticism.

“I quite agree with you that it is detestably malicious,” she said, laying down the manuscript. “But the worst thing about it is that it’s all true.”

“Gemma!”

“Yes, but it is. The man’s a cold-blooded eel, if you like; but he’s got the truth on his side. There is no use in our trying to persuade ourselves that this doesn’t hit the mark⁠—it does!”

“Then do you suggest that we should print it?”

“Ah! that’s quite another matter. I certainly don’t think we ought to print it as it stands; it would hurt and alienate everybody and do no good. But if he would rewrite it and cut out the personal attacks, I think it might be made into a really valuable piece of work. As political criticism it is very fine. I had no idea he could write so well. He says things which need saying and which none of us have had the courage to say. This passage, where he compares Italy to a tipsy man weeping with tenderness on the neck of the thief who is picking his pocket, is splendidly written.”

“Gemma! The very worst bit in the whole thing! I hate that ill-natured yelping at everything and everybody!”

“So do I; but that’s not the point. Rivarez has a very disagreeable style, and as a human being he is not attractive; but when he says that we have made ourselves drunk with processions and embracing and shouting about love and reconciliation, and that the Jesuits and Sanfedists are the people who will profit by it all, he’s right a thousand times. I wish I could have been at the committee yesterday. What decision did you finally arrive at?”

“What I have come here about: to ask you to go and talk it over with him and persuade him to soften the thing.”

“Me? But I hardly know the man; and besides that, he detests me. Why should I go, of all people?”

“Simply because there’s no one else to do it today. Besides, you are more reasonable than the rest of us, and won’t get into useless arguments and quarrel with him, as we should.”

“I shan’t do that, certainly. Well, I will go if you like, though I have not much hope of success.”

“I am sure you will be able to manage him if you try. Yes, and tell him that the committee all admired the thing from a literary point of view. That will put him into a good humour, and it’s perfectly true, too.”

The Gadfly was sitting beside a table covered with flowers and ferns, staring absently at the floor, with an open letter on his knee. A shaggy collie dog, lying on a rug at his feet, raised its head and growled as Gemma knocked at the open door, and the Gadfly rose hastily and bowed in a stiff, ceremonious way. His face had suddenly grown hard and expressionless.

“You are too kind,” he said in his most chilling manner. “If you had let me know that you wanted to speak to me I would have called on you.”

Seeing that he evidently wished her at the end of the earth, Gemma hastened to state her business. He bowed again and placed a chair for her.

“The committee wished me to call upon you,” she began, “because there has been a certain difference of opinion about your pamphlet.”

“So I expected.” He smiled and sat down opposite to her, drawing a large vase of chrysanthemums between his face and the light.

“Most of the members agreed that, however much they may admire the pamphlet as a literary composition, they do not think that in its present form it is quite suitable for publication. They fear that the vehemence of its tone may give offence, and alienate persons whose help and support are valuable to the party.”

He pulled a chrysanthemum from the vase and began slowly plucking off one white petal after another. As her eyes happened to catch the movement of the slim right hand dropping the petals, one by one, an uncomfortable sensation came over Gemma, as though she had somewhere seen that gesture before.

“As a literary composition,” he remarked in his soft, cold voice, “it is utterly worthless, and could be admired only by persons who know nothing about literature. As for its giving offence, that is the very thing I intended it to do.”

“That I quite understand. The question is whether you may not succeed in giving offence to the wrong people.”

He shrugged his shoulders and put a torn-off petal between his teeth. “I think you are mistaken,” he said. “The question is: For what purpose did your committee invite me to come here? I understood, to expose and ridicule the Jesuits. I fulfil my obligation to the best of my ability.”

“And I can assure you that no one has any doubt as to either the ability or the goodwill. What the committee fears is that the liberal party may take offence, and also that the town workmen may withdraw their moral support. You may have meant the pamphlet for an attack upon the Sanfedists: but many readers will construe it as an attack upon the Church and the new Pope; and this, as a matter of political tactics, the committee does not consider desirable.”

“I begin to understand. So long as I keep to the particular set of clerical gentlemen with whom the party is just now on bad terms, I may speak sooth if the fancy takes me; but directly I touch upon the committee’s own pet priests⁠—‘truth’s a dog must to kennel; he must be whipped out, when the⁠—Holy Father may stand by the fire and⁠—’ Yes, the fool was right; I’d rather be any kind of a thing than a fool. Of course I must