The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich (latest novels to read .txt) 📖

poor artisan and

labourer to find out the meaning by the light of

the ignorance and stupidity that are in him! That

doesn’t sound very practicable.”

 

“Martini, what do you think?” asked the professor,

turning to a broad-shouldered man with

a great brown beard, who was sitting beside him.

 

“I think that I will reserve my opinion till I

have more facts to go upon. It’s a question of

trying experiments and seeing what comes of them.”

 

“And you, Sacconi?”

 

“I should like to hear what Signora Bolla has

to say. Her suggestions are always valuable.”

 

Everyone turned to the only woman in the

room, who had been sitting on the sofa, resting

her chin on one hand and listening in silence to

the discussion. She had deep, serious black eyes,

but as she raised them now there was an unmistakable

gleam of amusement in them.

 

“I am afraid,” she said; “that I disagree with

everybody.”

 

“You always do, and the worst of it is that you

are always right,” Riccardo put in.

 

“I think it is quite true that we must fight the

Jesuits somehow; and if we can’t do it with one

weapon we must with another. But mere defiance

is a feeble weapon and evasion a cumbersome

one. As for petitioning, that is a child’s toy.”

 

“I hope, signora,” Grassini interposed, with

a solemn face; “that you are not suggesting such

methods as—assassination?”

 

Martini tugged at his big moustache and Galli

sniggered outright. Even the grave young

woman could not repress a smile.

 

“Believe me,” she said, “that if I were ferocious

enough to think of such things I should not be

childish enough to talk about them. But the

deadliest weapon I know is ridicule. If you can

once succeed in rendering the Jesuits ludicrous,

in making people laugh at them and their claims,

you have conquered them without bloodshed.”

 

“I believe you are right, as far as that goes,”

Fabrizi said; “but I don’t see how you are going

to carry the thing through.”

 

“Why should we not be able to carry it

through?” asked Martini. “A satirical thing has

a better chance of getting over the censorship

difficulty than a serious one; and, if it must be

cloaked, the average reader is more likely to find

out the double meaning of an apparently silly joke

than of a scientific or economic treatise.”

 

“Then is your suggestion, signora, that we

should issue satirical pamphlets, or attempt to run

a comic paper? That last, I am sure, the censorship

would never allow.”

 

“I don’t mean exactly either. I believe a series

of small satirical leaflets, in verse or prose, to be

sold cheap or distributed free about the streets,

would be very useful. If we could find a clever

artist who would enter into the spirit of the thing,

we might have them illustrated.”

 

“It’s a capital idea, if only one could carry it

out; but if the thing is to be done at all it must

be well done. We should want a first-class satirist;

and where are we to get him?”

 

“You see,” added Lega, “most of us are

serious writers; and, with all respect to the company,

I am afraid that a general attempt to be

humorous would present the spectacle of an elephant

trying to dance the tarantella.”

 

“I never suggested that we should all rush into

work for which we are unfitted. My idea was

that we should try to find a really gifted satirist—

there must be one to be got somewhere in Italy,

surely—and offer to provide the necessary funds.

Of course we should have to know something of

the man and make sure that he would work on

lines with which we could agree.”

 

“But where are you going to find him? I can

count up the satirists of any real talent on the

fingers of one hand; and none of them are available.

Giusti wouldn’t accept; he is fully occupied

as it is. There are one or two good men in

Lombardy, but they write only in the Milanese

dialect–-”

 

“And moreover,” said Grassini, “the Tuscan

people can be influenced in better ways than this.

I am sure that it would be felt as, to say the least,

a want of political savoir faire if we were to treat

this solemn question of civil and religious liberty

as a subject for trifling. Florence is not a mere

wilderness of factories and money-getting like

London, nor a haunt of idle luxury like Paris. It

is a city with a great history––”

 

“So was Athens,” she interrupted, smiling;

“but it was ‘rather sluggish from its size and

needed a gadfly to rouse it’–-”

 

Riccardo struck his hand upon the table.

“Why, we never thought of the Gadfly! The very man!”

 

“Who is that?”

 

“The Gadfly—Felice Rivarez. Don’t you remember

him? One of Muratori’s band that came

down from the Apennines three years ago?”

 

“Oh, you knew that set, didn’t you? I remember

your travelling with them when they went on

to Paris.”

 

“Yes; I went as far as Leghorn to see Rivarez

off for Marseilles. He wouldn’t stop in Tuscany;

he said there was nothing left to do but laugh,

once the insurrection had failed, and so he had

better go to Paris. No doubt he agreed with

Signor Grassini that Tuscany is the wrong place

to laugh in. But I am nearly sure he would come

back if we asked him, now that there is a chance

of doing something in Italy.”

 

“What name did you say?”

 

“Rivarez. He’s a Brazilian, I think. At any

rate, I know he has lived out there. He is one of

the wittiest men I ever came across. Heaven

knows we had nothing to be merry over, that week

in Leghorn; it was enough to break one’s heart to

look at poor Lambertini; but there was no keeping

one’s countenance when Rivarez was in the

room; it was one perpetual fire of absurdities. He

had a nasty sabre-cut across the face, too; I

remember sewing it up. He’s an odd creature;

but I believe he and his nonsense kept some of

those poor lads from breaking down altogether.”

 

“Is that the man who writes political skits

in the French papers under the name of ‘Le Taon’?”

 

“Yes; short paragraphs mostly, and comic

feuilletons. The smugglers up in the Apennines

called him ‘the Gadfly’ because of his tongue;

and he took the nickname to sign his work

with.”

 

“I know something about this gentleman,”

said Grassini, breaking in upon the conversation

in his slow and stately manner; “and I cannot say

that what I have heard is much to his credit. He

undoubtedly possesses a certain showy, superficial

cleverness, though I think his abilities have been

exaggerated; and possibly he is not lacking in

physical courage; but his reputation in Paris and

Vienna is, I believe, very far from spotless. He

appears to be a gentleman of—a—a—many adventures

and unknown antecedents. It is said that he

was picked up out of charity by Duprez’s expedition

somewhere in the wilds of tropical South

America, in a state of inconceivable savagery and

degradation. I believe he has never satisfactorily

explained how he came to be in such a condition.

As for the rising in the Apennines, I fear it is no

 

101

 

secret that persons of all characters took part in

that unfortunate affair. The men who were executed

in Bologna are known to have been nothing

but common malefactors; and the character of

many who escaped will hardly bear description.

Without doubt, SOME of the participators were

men of high character–-”

 

“Some of them were the intimate friends of

several persons in this room!” Riccardo interrupted,

with an angry ring in his voice. “It’s all

very well to be particular and exclusive, Grassini;

but these ‘common malefactors’ died for their

belief, which is more than you or I have done as

yet.”

 

“And another time when people tell you the

stale gossip of Paris,” added Galli, “you can tell

them from me that they are mistaken about the

Duprez expedition. I know Duprez’s adjutant,

Martel, personally, and have heard the whole story

from him. It’s true that they found Rivarez

stranded out there. He had been taken prisoner

in the war, fighting for the Argentine Republic,

and had escaped. He was wandering about the

country in various disguises, trying to get back

to Buenos Ayres. But the story of their taking

him on out of charity is a pure fabrication. Their

interpreter had fallen ill and been obliged to turn

back; and not one of the Frenchmen could speak

the native languages; so they offered him the post,

and he spent the whole three years with them,

exploring the tributaries of the Amazon. Martel

told me he believed they never would have got

through the expedition at all if it had not been

for Rivarez.”

 

“Whatever he may be,” said Fabrizi; “there

must be something remarkable about a man who

could lay his ‘come hither’ on two old campaigners

like Martel and Duprez as he seems to have

done. What do you think, signora?”

 

“I know nothing about the matter; I was in

England when the fugitives passed through Tuscany.

But I should think that if the companions

who were with a man on a three years’ expedition

in savage countries, and the comrades who were

with him through an insurrection, think well of

him, that is recommendation enough to counterbalance

a good deal of boulevard gossip.”

 

“There is no question about the opinion his

comrades had of him,” said Riccardo. “From

Muratori and Zambeccari down to the roughest

mountaineers they were all devoted to him.

Moreover, he is a personal friend of Orsini. It’s

quite true, on the other hand, that there are endless

cock-and-bull stories of a not very pleasant

kind going about concerning him in Paris; but if

a man doesn’t want to make enemies he shouldn’t

become a political satirist.”

 

“I’m not quite sure,” interposed Lega; “but

it seems to me that I saw him once when

the refugees were here. Was he not hunchbacked,

or crooked, or something of that kind?”

 

The professor had opened a drawer in his writing-table

and was turning over a heap of papers.

“I think I have his police description somewhere

here,” he said. “You remember when they escaped

and hid in the mountain passes their personal

appearance was posted up everywhere, and

that Cardinal—what’s the scoundrel’s name?—

Spinola, offered a reward for their heads.”

 

“There was a splendid story about Rivarez and

that police paper, by the way. He put on a

soldier’s old uniform and tramped across country

as a carabineer wounded in the discharge of his

duty and trying to find his company. He actually

got Spinola’s search-party to give him a lift, and

rode the whole day in one of their waggons,

telling them harrowing stories of how he had been

taken captive by the rebels and dragged off into

their haunts in the mountains, and of the fearful

tortures that he had suffered at their hands. They

showed him the description paper, and he told

them all the rubbish he could think of about ‘the

fiend they call the Gadfly.’ Then at night, when

they were asleep, he poured a bucketful of water

into their powder and decamped, with his pockets

full of provisions and ammunition––”

 

“Ah, here’s the paper,” Fabrizi broke in: “‘Felice

Rivarez, called: The Gadfly. Age, about 30;

birthplace and parentage, unknown, probably

South American; profession, journalist. Short;

black hair; black beard; dark skin; eyes, blue;

forehead, broad and square; nose, mouth, chin––’

Yes, here it is: ‘Special marks: right foot lame;

left arm