Captain Mansana and Mothers Hands | Page 8

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 caf��.
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 a lovely girl of eighteen. Possibly she had been tempted by the general's fortune, which was very large, especially as she had lived in her ancestral palace in a condition of absolute poverty. It is a state of affairs common enough in Italy, where the family palace is often held as mere trust-property by the occupant, who has no sufficient revenue provided out of the estate to keep it in proper order. This was the