Captain Mansana and Mothers Hands | Page 4

the triumph of
freedom, enlightenment, and justice. Now, indeed, in the end the old
woman had won! But what did victory mean? Tears for her slighted
affection, her rejected counsels, her ruined property; and she would rise

and curse the sons who had deceived and plundered her, till a single
glance from her elder daughter-in-law drove her back to the chimney
corner, where she used to sit and pass her time in silent torpor, while
this mood was upon her. Then she would sally out, and if she met her
grandsons, in whom she sorrowfully noticed the same keen glance
under the low brows, which she had first loved and afterwards learned
to fear in her own sons, she would draw them to her with a torrent of
angry words. She would warn them against their father's example, and
inveigh against the people, as a mere rabble, not worth the sacrifice of a
farthing, to say nothing of the loss of fortune, family, and freedom; and
she would rail at her sons, the fathers of these boys, as the handsomest,
but most ungrateful and impracticable children whom any mother in the
town had brought to manhood. And pushing them angrily from her, the
unhappy woman would address the boys in accents of half-distracted
appeal: "Do try and have more sense, you good-for-nothing scoundrels,
you, instead of standing there and grinning at me. Don't be like those
silly mothers of yours in there, who are bewitched by my sons' madness.
But, God knows, there are mad folks on all sides of me." Then she
would thrust the lads from her, weeping, and bury herself in her retreat.
As time went on, neither she nor the boys stood on ceremony with one
another. They laughed at her, when she was in one of her fits of
despondency, and she threw stones at them; and at last it came to this,
that if they merely saw her sitting alone, they would call out,
"Grandmamma, haven't you gone mad again?" and then the expected
volley of stones would follow.
But why did the old woman hardly dare to utter a syllable in the
presence of her daughter-in-law? For the same reason as that which had
impelled her to keep silence before her sons in former times. Her own
husband had been a man of delicate health, quite unequal to the strain
of managing his worldly affairs; he had married her in order that she
might supply his deficiencies. She had undoubtedly increased the value
of his property; but in the process she wore him down. This man with
his gentle smile, his varied intellectual interests, and his lofty ideals,
suffered in her society. She could not destroy his nobler nature, but his
peace of mind and content she did contrive to ruin. And yet the beauty
of his character, which she had ignored while he lived, exercised its

influence over her after he was dead; and when she saw it reanimated in
the sons, or looking, as if in reproachful reminiscence of the past,
through the pure eyes of her daughter-in-law, she felt herself subdued
and overawed.
I have said the stones thrown by the grandmother seemed to have
struck home in the grandsons and to have lodged deep in their hearts.
Look at the two men as they walk in the procession! The younger--the
one in civilian dress--had a smile round his somewhat thin lips, a smile
in his small eyes; but it seemed to me that it would hardly be safe to
presume on this. He had owed his advancement to his father's political
friends, and had learnt, early in life, to show himself subservient and
grateful, even when there was little enough gratitude in his heart.
But now turn to the elder of the two young men. The same small head,
the same low brow, but with more breadth in both. No smile there on
mouth or eyes; I could not conceive the wish to see him smile. Tall and
lean like his brother, he had more bone and muscle; and while both
young men had an appearance of athletic power, as if they could have
leaped over the hearse, the elder gave you the further impression that he
was actually longing to perform some such feat. The younger brother's
half languid gait, that told of bodily strength impaired by disuse, had
become in the elder an impatient elasticity as if he moved on springs.
His thoughts were clearly elsewhere; his eyes wandered absently to and
fro, and his pre-occupation was obvious enough to me later on, when I
offered him my card and reminded him of our previous acquaintance.
Subsequently I got into conversation with several of the townsfolk, and
I inquired what had become of the old lady. The question was