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

bow to the committee’s decision, but I continue to think that it has pared its wit o’ both sides and left⁠—M-mon-signor M-m-montan-n-nelli in the middle.”

“Montanelli?” Gemma repeated. “I don’t understand you. Do you mean the Bishop of Brisighella?”

“Yes; the new Pope has just created him a Cardinal, you know. I have a letter about him here. Would you care to hear it? The writer is a friend of mine on the other side of the frontier.”

“The Papal frontier?”

“Yes. This is what he writes⁠—” He took up the letter which had been in his hand when she entered, and read aloud, suddenly beginning to stammer violently:

“ ‘Y-o-you will s-s-s-soon have the p-pleasure of m-m-meeting one of our w-w-worst enemies, C-cardinal Lorenzo M-montan-n-nelli, the B-b-bishop of Brisig-g-hella. He int-t⁠—’ ”

He broke off, paused a moment, and began again, very slowly and drawling insufferably, but no longer stammering:

“ ‘He intends to visit Tuscany during the coming month on a mission of reconciliation. He will preach first in Florence, where he will stay for about three weeks; then will go on to Siena and Pisa, and return to the Romagna by Pistoja. He ostensibly belongs to the liberal party in the Church, and is a personal friend of the Pope and Cardinal Feretti. Under Gregory he was out of favour, and was kept out of sight in a little hole in the Apennines. Now he has come suddenly to the front. Really, of course, he is as much pulled by Jesuit wires as any Sanfedist in the country. This mission was suggested by some of the Jesuit fathers. He is one of the most brilliant preachers in the Church, and as mischievous in his way as Lambruschini himself. His business is to keep the popular enthusiasm over the Pope from subsiding, and to occupy the public attention until the Grand Duke has signed a project which the agents of the Jesuits are preparing to lay before him. What this project is I have been unable to discover.’ Then, further on, it says: ‘Whether Montanelli understands for what purpose he is being sent to Tuscany, or whether the Jesuits are playing on him, I cannot make out. He is either an uncommonly clever knave, or the biggest ass that was ever foaled. The odd thing is that, so far as I can discover, he neither takes bribes nor keeps mistresses⁠—the first time I ever came across such a thing.’ ”

He laid down the letter and sat looking at her with half-shut eyes, waiting, apparently, for her to speak.

“Are you satisfied that your informant is correct in his facts?” she asked after a moment.

“As to the irreproachable character of Monsignor M-mon-t-tan-nelli’s private life? No; but neither is he. As you will observe, he puts in the s-s-saving clause: ‘So far as I c-can discover⁠—’ ”

“I was not speaking of that,” she interposed coldly, “but of the part about this mission.”

“I can fully trust the writer. He is an old friend of mine⁠—one of my comrades of ’43, and he is in a position which gives him exceptional opportunities for finding out things of that kind.”

“Some official at the Vatican,” thought Gemma quickly. “So that’s the kind of connections you have? I guessed there was something of that sort.”

“This letter is, of course, a private one,” the Gadfly went on; “and you understand that the information is to be kept strictly to the members of your committee.”

“That hardly needs saying. Then about the pamphlet: may I tell the committee that you consent to make a few alterations and soften it a little, or that⁠—”

“Don’t you think the alterations may succeed in spoiling the beauty of the ‘literary composition,’ signora, as well as in reducing the vehemence of the tone?”

“You are asking my personal opinion. What I have come here to express is that of the committee as a whole.”

“Does that imply that y-y-you disagree with the committee as a whole?” He had put the letter into his pocket and was now leaning forward and looking at her with an eager, concentrated expression which quite changed the character of his face. “You think⁠—”

“If you care to know what I personally think⁠—I disagree with the majority on both points. I do not at all admire the pamphlet from a literary point of view, and I do think it true as a presentation of facts and wise as a matter of tactics.”

“That is⁠—”

“I quite agree with you that Italy is being led away by a will-o’-the-wisp and that all this enthusiasm and rejoicing will probably land her in a terrible bog; and I should be most heartily glad to have that openly and boldly said, even at the cost of offending or alienating some of our present supporters. But as a member of a body the large majority of which holds the opposite view, I cannot insist upon my personal opinion; and I certainly think that if things of that kind are to be said at all, they should be said temperately and quietly; not in the tone adopted in this pamphlet.”

“Will you wait a minute while I look through the manuscript?”

He took it up and glanced down the pages. A dissatisfied frown settled on his face.

“Yes, of course, you are perfectly right. The thing’s written like a café chantant skit, not a political satire. But what’s a man to do? If I write decently the public won’t understand it; they will say it’s dull if it isn’t spiteful enough.”

“Don’t you think spitefulness manages to be dull when we get too much of it?”

He threw a keen, rapid glance at her, and burst out laughing.

“Apparently the signora belongs to the dreadful category of people who are always right! Then if I yield to the temptation to be spiteful, I may come in time to be as dull as Signora Grassini? Heavens, what a fate! No, you needn’t frown. I know you don’t like me, and I am going to keep to business. What it comes to, then, is practically this: if I cut out the