'_Sa signore_,' said the Giuseppino to me, quiet, almost invisible or
inaudible, as it seemed, like a spirit addressing me, '_l'uomo non ha
patria_--a man has no country. What has the Italian Government to do
with us. What does a Government mean? It makes us work, it takes part of
our wages away from us, it makes us soldiers--and what for? What is
government for?'
'Have you been a soldier?' I interrupted him.
He had not, none of them had: that was why they could not really go back
to Italy. Now this was out; this explained partly their curious
reservation in speaking about their beloved country. They had forfeited
parents as well as homeland.
'What does the Government do? It takes taxes; it has an army and police,
and it makes roads. But we could do without an army, and we could be our
own police, and we could make our own roads. What is this Government?
Who wants it? Only those who are unjust, and want to have advantage over
somebody else. It is an instrument of injustice and of wrong.
'Why should we have a Government? Here, in this village, there are
thirty families of Italians. There is no government for them, no Italian
Government. And we live together better than in Italy. We are richer and
freer, we have no policemen, no poor laws. We help each other, and there
are no poor.
'Why are these Governments always doing what we don't want them to do?
We should not be fighting in the Cirenaica if we were all Italians. It
is the Government that does it. They talk and talk and do things with
us: but we don't want them.'
The others, tipsy, sat round the table with the terrified gravity of
children who are somehow responsible for things they do not understand.
They stirred in their seats, turning aside, with gestures almost of
pain, of imprisonment. Only Alfredo, laying his hand on mine, was
laughing, loosely, floridly. He would upset all the Government with a
jerk of his well-built shoulder, and then he would have a spree--such a
spree. He laughed wetly to me.
The Giuseppino waited patiently during this tipsy confidence, but his
pale clarity and beauty was something constant star-like in comparison
with the flushed, soft handsomeness of the other. He waited patiently,
looking at me.
But I did not want him to go on: I did not want to answer. I could feel
a new spirit in him, something strange and pure and slightly
frightening. He wanted something which was beyond me. And my soul was
somewhere in tears, crying helplessly like an infant in the night. I
could not respond: I could not answer. He seemed to look at me, me, an
Englishman, an educated man, for corroboration. But I could not
corroborate him. I knew the purity and new struggling towards birth of a
true star-like spirit. But I could not confirm him in his utterance: my
soul could not respond. I did not believe in the perfectibility of man.
I did not believe in infinite harmony among men. And this was his star,
this belief.
It was nearly midnight. A Swiss came in and asked for beer. The Italians
gathered round them a curious darkness of reserve. And then I must go.
They shook hands with me warmly, truthfully, putting a sort of implicit
belief in me, as representative of some further knowledge. But there was
a fixed, calm resolve over the face of the Giuseppino, a sort of steady
faith, even in disappointment. He gave me a copy of a little Anarchist
paper published in Geneva. _L'Anarchista_, I believe it was called. I
glanced at it. It was in Italian, naïve, simple, rather rhetorical. So
they were all Anarchists, these Italians.
I ran down the hill in the thick Swiss darkness to the little bridge,
and along the uneven cobbled street. I did not want to think, I did not
want to know. I wanted to arrest my activity, to keep it confined to the
moment, to the adventure.
When I came to the flight of stone steps which led up to the door of the
inn, at the side I saw in the darkness two figures. They said a low good
night and parted; the girl began to knock at the door, the man
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