Captain Mansana and Mothers Hands | Page 8

contradicted
he had worked himself up to the assertion that one Hungarian would be
a match for three Italians. The officers, listening to this tale of brag, all
laughed with the exception of Giuseppe Mansana, who at once inquired
where the Hungarian could be found? He asked the question in a tone
of perfect unconcern, without even raising his eyes or taking his
cigarette from his lips. He was told that the Hungarian had just been
conducted home. Mansana rose to leave.
"Are you going?" they asked.

"Yes, of course," he replied.
"But you are surely not going to the Hungarian?" asked one of the
officers good-humouredly.
But there was not much good-humour in Giuseppe Mansana.
"Where else should I be going?" he replied curtly, as he left the café.
His friends followed him in the vain hope of persuading him that a
drunken man could not reasonably be called to account for everything
he might say. But Mansana's only answer was: "Have no fear, I know
how to take all that into consideration."
The Hungarian lived, as the Italians say, primo piano--that is, on the
second floor, in a large house in Fratina. The first-floor windows of
Italian town houses, are, as a rule, protected by iron bars. Swinging
himself up by these, Mansana, in less than a minute, was standing on
the balcony outside the Hungarian's room. Smashing one of the panes
of glass, he opened the window and disappeared within. The striking of
a light was the next thing visible to his companions below. What
happened next they were never able to discover; they heard no further
sound, and Mansana kept his own secret. All they knew was that after a
few minutes, Mansana and the Hungarian--the latter in his
shirt-sleeves--appeared upon the balcony; and the Hungarian, in
excellent French, acknowledged that he had taken more wine than was
good for him that evening, and apologised for what he had said;
undoubtedly, an Italian was as good as a Hungarian any day. Mansana
then descended the balcony in the same way as that by which he had
gone up.
Anecdotes of every possible variety were showered upon us--anecdotes
from the battlefield, the garrison, and society, including stories of
athletic feats testifying to powers of endurance in running such as I
have never heard equalled; but I think that those I have already selected
present a sufficiently vivid picture of a man in whom the combination
of presence of mind, courage, and high sense of honour, with bodily
strength, energy and general dexterity, was likely to excite among his

friends high expectations as to his future, even whilst giving them some
cause for grave anxiety.
How it came about that, during the following winter and spring,
Giuseppe Mansana engaged the attention of thousands of persons,
including that of the present writer, will appear in the course of our
story.
CHAPTER III
As Giuseppe Mansana followed his father's bones to their last
resting-place, looking, even on that sad and solemn occasion, as though
he would fain leap over the funeral-car, it was plain enough that he was
under the spell of his first burning dream of love. Later on, in the
course of that same evening, he took the train to Ancona, where his
regiment was quartered. There lived the woman he loved, and nothing
but the sight of her could assuage the fire of passion that flamed in his
heart.
Giuseppe Mansana was in love with a woman whose temperament was
not dissimilar to his own: a woman who must be conquered, and who
had captivated hundreds without herself yielding to the spell of any
lover. Of her a local poet at Ancona, in a wild burst of passion, had
written some verses to the following effect:
"The spirit of all evil things, The light that comes from Hell, In your
dark beauty, burns and stings, And holds me with its spell.
"In your deep eyes I see it shine, It dances in your veins like wine,
Throbs in your smile, your glance of fire, Your siren laugh, that wakes
desire.
"I know it! yet 'tis better far, My empress, at your feet to lie, Than be as
other lovers are, And happy live, and peaceful die.
"Yea, better have loved thee and perished, Sphinx-woman, in darkness
and tears, Than be loved by another and cherished, Through the long,
uneventful, dull years."

She was the daughter of an Austrian general and of a lady who had
belonged to one of the noblest families in Ancona. That a woman in
this position should marry the chief of the hated foreign garrison
caused at the time a good deal of resentment. And the indignation was,
if possible, increased by the fact that the husband was quite an elderly
man, while the bride was