Crucial Instances by Edith Wharton

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At the villa, we waited breathless. News came to us hour by hour: the very
wind seemed to carry it, and it was swept to us on the incessant rush of
the rain. On the twenty-third Radetsky had fled from Milan, to face Venice
rising in his path. On the twenty-fourth the first Piedmontese had crossed
the Ticino, and Charles Albert himself was in Pavia on the twenty-ninth.
The bells of Milan had carried the word from Turin to Naples, from Genoa to
Ancona, and the whole country was pouring like a flood-tide into Lombardy.
Heroes sprang up from the bloody soil as thick as wheat after rain, and
every day carried some new name to us; but never the one for which we
prayed and waited. Weeks passed. We heard of Pastrengo, Goito, Rivoli; of
Radetsky hemmed into the Quadrilateral, and our troops closing in on him
from Rome, Tuscany and Venetia. Months passed--and we heard of Custozza. We
saw Charles Albert's broken forces flung back from the Mincio to the Oglio,
from the Oglio to the Adda. We followed the dreadful retreat from Milan,
and saw our rescuers dispersed like dust before the wind. But all the while
no word came to us of Roberto.

These were dark days in Lombardy; and nowhere darker than in the old villa
on Iseo. In September Donna Marianna and the young Countess put on black,
and Count Andrea and his wife followed their example. In October the
Countess gave birth to a daughter. Count Andrea then took possession of the
palazzo Siviano, and the two women remained at the villa. I have no heart
to tell you of the days that followed. Donna Marianna wept and prayed
incessantly, and it was long before the baby could snatch a smile from her.
As for the Countess Faustina, she went among us like one of the statues in
the garden. The child had a wet-nurse from the village, and it was small
wonder there was no milk for it in that marble breast. I spent much of
my time at the villa, comforting Donna Marianna as best I could; but
sometimes, in the long winter evenings, when we three sat in the dimly-lit
_salone_, with the old Count's portrait overhead, and I looked up and
saw the Countess Faustina in the tall carved seat beside her husband's
empty chair, my spine grew chill and I felt a cold wind in my hair.

The end of it was that in the spring I went to see my bishop and laid my
sin before him. He was a saintly and merciful old man, and gave me a
patient hearing.

"You believed the lady innocent?" he asked when I had ended.

"Monsignore, on my soul!"

"You thought to avert a great calamity from the house to which you owed
more than your life?"

"It was my only thought."

He laid his hand on my shoulder.

"Go home, my son. You shall learn my decision."

Three months later I was ordered to resign my living and go to America,
where a priest was needed for the Italian mission church in New York. I
packed my possessions and set sail from Genoa. I knew no more of America
than any peasant up in the hills. I fully expected to be speared by naked
savages on landing; and for the first few months after my arrival I wished
at least once a day that such a blessed fate had befallen me. But it is
no part of my story to tell you what I suffered in those early days. The
Church had dealt with me mercifully, as is her wont, and her punishment
fell far below my deserts....

I had been some four years in New York, and no longer thought of looking
back from the plough, when one day word was brought me that an Italian
professor lay ill and had asked for a priest. There were many Italian
refugees in New York at that time, and the greater number, being
well-educated men, earned a living by teaching their language, which was
then included among the accomplishments of fashionable New York. The
messenger led me to a poor boarding-house and up to a small bare room on
the top floor. On the visiting-card nailed to the door I read the name "De
Roberti, Professor of Italian." Inside, a gray-haired haggard man tossed on
the narrow bed. He turned a glazed eye on me as I entered, and I recognized
Roberto Siviano.

I steadied myself against the door-post and stood staring at him without a
word.

"What's the matter?" asked the doctor who was bending over the bed. I
stammered that the sick man was an old friend.

"He wouldn't know his oldest friend just now," said the doctor. "The
fever's on him; but it will go down toward sunset."

I sat down at the head of the bed and took Roberto's hand in mine.

"Is he going to die?" I asked.

"I don't believe so; but he wants nursing."

"I will nurse him."

The doctor nodded and went out. I sat in the little room, with Roberto's
burning hand in mine. Gradually his skin cooled, the fingers grew quiet,
and the flush faded from his sallow cheek-bones. Toward dusk he looked up
at me and smiled.

"Egidio," he said quietly.

I administered the sacrament, which he received with the most fervent
devotion; then he fell into a deep sleep.

During the weeks that followed I had no time to ask myself the meaning of
it all. My one business was to keep him alive if I could. I fought the
fever day and night, and at length it yielded. For the most part he raved
or lay unconscious; but now and then he knew me for a moment, and whispered
"Egidio" with a look of peace.

I had stolen many hours from my duties to nurse him; and as soon as the
danger was past I had to go back to my parish work. Then it was that I
began to ask myself what had brought him to America; but I dared not face
the answer.

On the fourth day I snatched a moment from my work and climbed to his
room. I found him sitting propped against his pillows, weak as a child but
clear-eyed and quiet. I ran forward, but his look stopped me.

"_Signor parocco_," he said, "the doctor tells me that I owe my life
to your nursing, and I have to thank you for the kindness you have shown to
a friendless stranger."

"A stranger?" I gasped.

He looked at me steadily. "I am not aware that we have met before," he
said.

For a moment I thought the fever was on him; but a second glance convinced
me that he was master of himself.

"Roberto!" I cried, trembling.

"You have the advantage of me," he said civilly. "But my name is Roberti,
not Roberto."

The floor swam under me and I had to lean against the wall.

"You are not Count Roberto Siviano of Milan?"

"I am Tommaso de Roberti, professor of Italian, from Modena."

"And you have never seen me before?"

"Never that I know of."

"Were you never at Siviano, on the lake of Iseo?" I faltered.

He said calmly: "I am unacquainted with that part of Italy."

My heart grew cold and I was silent.

"You mistook me for a friend, I suppose?" he added.

"Yes," I cried, "I mistook you for a friend;" and with that I fell on my
knees by his bed and cried like a child.

Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. "Egidio," said he in a broken
voice, "look up."

I raised my eyes, and there was his old smile above me, and we clung to
each other without a word. Presently, however, he drew back, and put me
quietly aside.

"Sit over there, Egidio. My bones are like water and I am not good for much
talking yet."

"Let us wait, Roberto. Sleep now--we can talk tomorrow."

"No. What I have to say must be said at once." He examined me thoughtfully.
"You have a parish here in New York?"

I assented.

"And my work keeps me here. I have pupils. It is too late to make a
change."

"A change?"

He continued to look at me calmly. "It would be difficult for me," he
explained, "to find employment in a new place."

"But why should you leave here?"

"I shall have to," he returned deliberately, "if you persist in recognizing
in me your former friend Count Siviano."

"Roberto!"

He lifted his hand. "Egidio," he said, "I am alone here, and without
friends. The companionship, the sympathy of my parish priest would be a
consolation in this strange city; but it must not be the companionship of
the _parocco_ of Siviano. You understand?"

"Roberto," I cried, "it is too dreadful to understand!"

"Be a man, Egidio," said he with a touch of impatience. "The choice lies
with you, and you must make it now. If you are willing to ask no questions,
to name no names, to make no allusions to the past, let us live as friends
together, in God's name! If not, as soon as my legs can carry me I must be
off again. The world is wide, luckily--but why should we be parted?"

I was on my knees at his side in an instant. "We must never be parted!" I
cried. "Do as you will with me. Give me your orders and I obey--have I not
always obeyed you?"

I felt his hand close sharply on mine. "Egidio!" he admonished me.

"No--no--I shall remember. I shall say nothing--"

"Think nothing?"

"Think nothing," I said with a last effort.

"God bless you!" he answered.

My son, for eight years I kept my word to him. We met daily almost, we ate
and walked and talked together, we lived like David and Jonathan--but
without so much as a glance at the past. How he had escaped from Milan--how
he had reached New York--I never knew. We talked often of Italy's
liberation--as what Italians would not?--but never touched on his share in
the work. Once only a word slipped from him; and that was when one day he
asked me how it was that I had been sent to America. The blood rushed to my
face, and before I could answer he had raised a silencing hand.

"I see," he said; "it was _your_ penance too."

During the first years he had plenty of work to do, but he lived so
frugally that I guessed he had some secret use for his earnings. It was
easy to conjecture what it was. All over the world Italian exiles were
toiling and saving to further the great cause. He had political friends in
New York, and sometimes he went to other cities to attend meetings and make
addresses. His zeal never slackened; and but for me he would often have
gone hungry that some shivering patriot might dine. I was with him heart
and soul, but I had the parish on my shoulders, and perhaps my long
experience of men had made me a little less credulous than Christian
charity requires; for I could have sworn that some of the heroes who hung
on him had never had a whiff of Austrian blood, and would have fed out of
the same trough with the white-coats if there had been polenta enough to go
round. Happily my friend had no such doubts. He believed in the patriots as
devoutly as in the cause; and if some of his hard-earned dollars travelled
no farther than the nearest wine-cellar or cigar-shop, he never suspected
the course they took.

His health was never the same after the fever; and by and by he began to
lose his pupils, and the patriots cooled off as his pockets fell in. Toward
the end I took him to live in my shabby attic. He had grown weak and had a
troublesome cough, and he spent the greater part of his days indoors. Cruel
days they must have been to him, but he made no sign, and always welcomed
me with a cheerful word. When his pupils dropped off, and his health made
it difficult for him to pick up work outside, he set up a letter-writer's
sign, and used to earn a few pennies by serving as amanuensis to my poor
parishioners; but it went against him to take their money, and half the
time he did the work for nothing. I knew it was hard for him to live on
charity, as he called it, and I used to find what jobs I could for him
among my friends the _negozianti_, who would send him letters to copy,
accounts to make up and what not; but we were all poor together, and the
master had licked the platter before the dog got it.

So lived that just man, my son; and so, after eight years of exile, he died
one day in my arms. God had let him live long enough to see Solferino and
Villa-franca; and was perhaps never more merciful than in sparing him Monte
Rotondo and Mentana. But these are things of which it does not become me to
speak. The new Italy does not wear the face of our visions; but it is
written that God shall know His own, and it cannot be that He shall misread
the hearts of those who dreamed of fashioning her in His image.

As for my friend, he is at peace, I doubt not; and his just life and holy
death intercede for me, who sinned for his sake alone.

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