CHAPTER LX. THE BURIAL
Foscolo has these lines--
A stone to mark my bones from the vaut crop That death soirs on the land or in the sea.
Admiring the mournful poems of this great singer, we are, like him,advocates for honoring the great dead, and truly we believe that doinghomage to departed virtue is an incentive to make the living follow inits path. When one thinks, however, of the gaudy pageants with which thepriesthood deck the last journey of the dead, one can not help deploringthe useless show and the expenditure.
Death that true type of the equality of human beings--death whicheffectually destroys all worldly superiority, and confounds in onedemocracy of decay the emperor and the beggar--death, the leveller, mustbe astonished at so much difference between the funerals of the richand the poor! He must wonder at so much preparation for the burial of acorpse, and laugh, if death can laugh, at so much mockery of woe, whichis frequently the cover for secret joy in the soul of the greedy heir,while in the largest number it is mere indifference. Then the hiredweepers--what a pitiful spectacle those are!
We have seen in Moldavia, and we believe the custom is adopted in othercountries, that at the funeral of a Bojar a number of women are hiredto weep, and what tears they shed! what shouts do those miserable beingsutter! As to the grief they must have felt, it was measured by theirpay.
These mourners have sometimes returned to our memory while readingparliamentary debates during which certain hired people, or those whohope for hire, burst out into a profusion of "_bravi" and "bravissimi_"at the insulting speeches, or often at the unprincipled projects, ofthis or that prime minister.
Prince T------'s funeral was largely attended, because it was knownthat he was a man of mark. Among the crowd of people who followed theremains, most of them with the greatest indifference, there could bedistinguished a few really sad faces. Those were the friends of the deadman, Attilio, Muzio, and Gasparo. The latter especially had eyes swollenby weeping.
The strong nature of the old Roman chief had been shaken by the loss ofhis friend and master to whom he had been sincerely attached--a proofat once of the kindly nature of the prince, and of the faithful heartof the exile. Was he weeping for the prince? No; for the friend andbenefactor.
Oh, how many true friends might the great of the world possess, if theywould but open their hearts to generosity--if they would soften theinjustice of fate towards those upon whom she lays an unequal hand!
Many there are among the higher classes, I know, who are beneficenceitself, and some of the women of the noblest houses are distinguishedfor their amiability and goodness. But these instances are notsufficient for the suffering multitude; and the majority of thefavorites of fortune are not only indifferent to the unfortunate--theyseem to add voluntarily to their trials.
The duty and the care of good government should be to ameliorate thepoor man's condition; but, unhappily, that duty is unfulfilled, thatcare is not undertaken. Government thinks only of its own preservation,and of strengthening its own position; to this end it exercisescorruption to obtain satellites and accomplices.
The mass of the prosperous might, to a great extent, correct the capitaldefect of administration by relieving misery and improving the conditionof the people. If the rich would thus only deprive themselves of buta small portion of their superfluities! While the poor want the verynecessaries of existence, the tables of the wealthy abound with endlessvarieties of food, and the rarest and most costly wines. Does therich man never feel the compunction of conscience which such shamelesscontrasts ought to bring?
"Why such grief for the loss of one of our enemies, capitano?"
These words were accompanied by a tap on Gasparo's shoulder, bothproceeding from an odd-looking man, who was following in the funeralprocession. Gasparo turned round, stood for a moment considering hisfamiliar interlocutor, then uttering an exclamation little suited to thesolemnity of the scene, and very surprising to those around him--"Evilbe to the seventy-two! (a Roman oath), and is it really thee, Marzio?"
"Who else should it be, if not your lieutenant, capitano mio?"
The acquaintance of Gasparo had the type of the regular Italian brigand.The old man, during the few months of his city life, had somewhatre-polished his appearance; but Marzio, on the contrary, presentedthe rude aspect of the Roman bandit pure and simple. Tall andsquarely-built, it was difficult to meet without a shudder the fiercelook darted from those densely black eyes. His hair, black and glossyas a raven, contrasted with his beard, once as dark, now sprinkled withgray. His costume, though somewhat cleaner, differed in other respectsvery little from that rustic masquerade worn when he had filled thewhole country with terror. The famous doublet of dark velvet was notwanting, and if there were not visible externally those indispensablebrigand accessories, pistols, dagger, or a two-edged knife, it was asign that those articles were carefully hidden within. Hats are wornin different fashions, even by brigands, and Marzio wore his a littleinclined towards the right side, like a workman's. Leathern gaitershad been abandoned by Marzio, and he wore his pantaloons, loose ones ofblue, with ample pockets.
The occasion did not offer the two men much opportunity of conversation;but it was evident that they met with mutual pleasure and sympathy.
In these times when Italian honor and glory are a mockery, the handfulof men called brigands, who have for seven years sustained themselvesagainst one large army, two other armies of carabiniers, a part ofanother army of national guards, and an entire hostile population--thathandful of men, call them what you will, is at least brave. If yourulers, instead of maintaining the disgraceful institution of thepriest, had occupied yourselves in securing the instruction of thepeople, these very brigands, instead of becoming the instruments ofpriestly reaction, would at this moment have been in our ranks, teachingus how one stout fellow can fight twenty.
This, my kind word for the "honest" brigands, is not for the assassins,be it understood. And one little piece of comment upon you who sit inhigh places. When you assaulted the Roman walls--for religious purposesof course--robbing and slaying the poor people who thought you came asMends, were you less brigands? No, you were worse than banditti--youwere traitors.
But you will tell me, "those were republicans and revolutionists, menwho trouble the world." And what were you but troublers of the world,and false traitors? This difference exists between your majesties andthe bandit: he robs, but seldom kills, while you have not only robbed,but stained your hands for plunder's sake in innocent blood!
Pardon, reader, that this digression has left you in the midst of afuneral, and that the writer has too passionately diverged from his pathto glance at brigandage on the large as well as the small scale.
When the funeral party reached the cemetery, the remains of the deadwere lowered into a grave, over which no voice spoke a word of eulogy.With all the will to effect good, the action of this young life hadbeen cut short by a premature and rash death. What could be said of theblossom of noble qualities to which time was denied to bring forth theirfruits?