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By Aonghus Fallon
Copyright 2012 Aonghus Fallon
‘My dear Bonfigliotti, there is no point in discussing the matter further. You tell me the press is but a willing tool in the hands of the ruling elite and this article a case in point. There will be a lecture, during which I will wonder again why a man who professes so great a contempt for traditional government still refuses to subscribe to the French model or that of our American cousins, and is in fact – by his own admission – a monarchist.’
The above allegation was made in a half-humorous fashion by a large young man whose blond hair had long since receded to little more than a feathery tonsure, though he was just five-and-thirty. His was not the face of a philosopher or a great thinker but the blunt, practical countenance of a man used to dealing in more concrete matters.
As it so happened the individual in question, one Jasper Grieves, had originally been an engineer until a small bequest from a maiden aunt made it no longer necessary for him to seek employment. Alas, the transition to gentleman of leisure had not been entirely successful. Possessing the good work ethic so typical of his class, Grieves found the idleness resulting from an independent income not to his taste. Thus he had explored various ways of utilising his time more profitably. It was while dabbling in philosophy that he had attended a lecture sponsored by the Royal Dublin Society and so encountered his guest – the speaker on the night in question. This was none other than the noted Italian philosopher, Signore Bonfigliotti.
It is said that opposites attract and there must be some truth in this assertion, for how else had two such disparate characters – as disparate in appearance as they were in their beliefs – become friends?
Bonfigliotti had made the study of evil his life’s work. It was his thesis that evil could find its way into any man’s heart. Grieves vehemently disagreed. The Irishman reckoned the lowlier one’s station in life, the more one was inclined to vice – that evil was innate, and the social order a crude reflection of an individual’s moral probity. He had attended Bonfigliotti’s lecture expressly so he might make this point to the little Italian afterwards. Instead that first encounter had marked the beginning of their friendship, and Bonfigliotti now stayed with Grieves whenever he visited Dublin.
Grieves was a large man. Bonfigliotti tiny to the point of dwarfishness. Grieves was bald, but Bonfigliotti’s hair was thick and curly despite the fact he was some ten years older than his host. And whereas Grieves’ eyes were pale grey, Bonfigliotti’s were a shade of green close to black. Now they glittered with sly amusement at Grieves’ riposte and not for the first time Grieves reflected that his friend’s saturnine features might have been rather wicked if they had not always worn so humorous an expression.
The two were sprawled in their respective armchairs on either side of the great fireplace in Grieves’ large and draughty living room, situated on the second floor of his equally large and draughty house. The fire itself hissed and spat and produced great clouds of smoke but little in the way of heat, largely due to the rain that pattered relentlessly against the tall windows. The place was the city of Dublin and the year was 1847, midway through an extremely wet summer, and the weather could be said to have some bearing on their conversation, for the country was in the grip of a terrible famine due to the failure of the potato crop, brought on in turn by the excessive humidity, and the subject had been a constant source of friction between the two.
‘You will go then?’
‘Of course.’
It was his friend’s response to a letter from two ladies to whom Grieves was distantly related – or more specifically, the news article which they had enclosed – that had provoked a fresh variation on this by-now familiar argument. Bonfigliotti had already said on more than one occasion that he felt the authorities were not doing all they might to ameliorate the plight of the Irish peasantry. Grieves had responded with ever-growing asperity that the problems of the Irish peasantry were self-inflicted. An over-dependence on potatoes (which took very little in the way of cultivation) had brought them to their present pass, and God had finally decided to punish them for their indolence.
And now Bonfigliotti had expressed a certain scepticism as to the veracity of the article sent by the two ladies: it depicted the inhabitants of a town adjacent to them in the blackest possible fashion, seeming to revel in salacious detail while providing very little in the way of hard fact. Grieves had taken offence, largely because he felt the integrity of his two cousins was being impugned. Yet rather than argue with his friend, he had decided to silence Bonfigliotti by pointing out the disparity between the little Italian’s supposed convictions and his actual loyalties. Bonfigliotti was Milanese by birth, his family one of minor and impoverished nobility, and like any native of Lombardy he bitterly resented how his country had become a subordinate state of the Austrian empire. It was this which made him so sympathetic to the plight of the Irish peasantry. Yet – as Grieves had just pointed out – he supported the Sardinian Charles Albert’s bid to become king.
Thus did Grieves hope to make the little Italian realise they were not so very different, both being of essentially conservative bent, for all that Bonfigliotti might insist otherwise.
The article in question – which Bonfigliotti still clutched in one hand – had been cut out from the Connaught Tribune, and ran thus –
LAWLESS ELEMENT AT LARGE IN DRUMBOE.
Many will have heard of the recent death of Sir Cecil Hardshaw and the high esteem in which he was held by his tenants, so much so that a small monument has already been erected in the town of Drumboe in honour of his memory. An orientalist and astronomer of some standing, as a Resident Magistrate he was strict but fair while his good works during the present troubles are so well known as to make further elaboration unnecessary.
It was inevitable that with his passing the small but lawless element present in any parish might grow over-confident and so it has proved to be. Last Tuesday a funeral cortege to the local graveyard was horrified to discover a number of bodies disinterred and partially gnawed limbs littering the ground. Starvation and a contempt for all ordinary conventions had obviously resulted in a person or persons unknown attempting to devour the recently dead.
Sir Cecil’s two daughters were happy to provide the local constabulary with a pack of hounds owned by their deceased father in the hopes the culprits might be apprehended. Ironically the dogs tracked the scent back to the former peer’s estate. Here a maid informed the selfsame constabulary that she had been woken the previous night by hammering, coming from somewhere on the estate grounds. As her room is close to the great telescope which Sir Cecil had spent ten years building – and which was still incomplete at the time of his death – she had put this down to the work of ghosts (the instrument is popularly believed to be haunted by those who died during its construction). However, closer examination revealed some attempt had been made to vandalise it.
More than likely those responsible were on some drunken rampage, had once been employed by Sir Cecil to aid him in the construction of his telescope, and bore him some grudge for what they perceived to be their poor treatment at his hands. It is true a number fell to their deaths while working on this project and that as they were hired under the Famine Relief Scheme, they would have received no remuneration, other than whatever food Sir Cecil chose to provide. Yet it should be pointed out that in a country ravaged by famine, and where sloth and an unwise dependence on the humble potato has resulted in the native Irishman’s inevitable physical and – as evidenced by the business of the graveyard – moral decline, any sustenance should have been much appreciated. This was not the case. Sir Cecil’s kindness seems only to have evoked resentment.
Is it any wonder then that men capable of such base ingratitude sho
uld stoop to devouring the corpses of their fallen comrades?
The two women had been particularly alarmed by how somebody had successfully trespassed onto their estate, especially as it was already under heavy guard. Unsure as to whom they might trust and worried they might be burnt in their beds, they had decided to ask Grieves, a blood relative, to stay for a week or so.
‘You should accompany me,’ Grieves suggested, studying his friend with thoughtful grey eyes as he folded the letter and put it away. ‘A closer acquaintance with the very people you are so quick to defend might cause you to revise your opinion of them somewhat.’
Bonfigliotti produced a large brass snuffbox and delicately inserted a pinch up either nostril, before sneezing loudly. ‘Meaning I will see them for the brutes they truly are?’ he said mildly.
Grieves shrugged. He knew Bonfigliotti’s interest in humanity’s darker aspect had earned him a reputation in the most unexpected quarters. The little Italian was highly regarded by the Austrian secret police, so much so that they consulted him regularly. And for all his hatred of that organisation, Bonfigliotti had proved amenable, no doubt seeing each case as