Tuscan conscripts torn from their country by the first Napoleon, which is still remembered in the country districts of Tuscany. Nothing can be further from any pretence of enthusiasm or desire for French “glory.”
But Beppo had a far worse heartache than any of them,—a heartache which he could not discuss with any of them; and he had therefore come up from Bella Luce alone. He was standing at the further side of the piazza, opposite to the palazzo pubblico, leaning against the corner of a house, which makes the angle of a street there opening into the piazza, with his broad-leafed contadino hat drawn over his brows, moodily and almost absently watching the moving crowd in front of him, and the floating of the tri-coloured banner which adorned the front of the palazzo.
The drawing was appointed to commence at eleven. But nothing ever yet, in Italy, commenced at the hour named for the commencement of it. It was now past eleven, and the crowd were patiently waiting, in no wise displeased or surprised at being detained there. The gonfalonière was still taking his cup of coffee at some café; or the official who kept the key of the hall, in which the drawing was to take place, had mislaid, and could not find it; or the clerk who should have prepared the balloting urn, and who having had a month or more to do some ten minutes’ job, had not yet completed it; or everything was perfectly ready, everybody assembled, and there was no reason whatsoever for not proceeding to business directly,—except that it is always pleasanter to put off doing anything than to do it, and it was still possible to put off the beginning of the present business in hand a little longer. Any one of these, or fifty other such reasons, would have been quite sufficient. It was half-past eleven; there were no signs of any beginning being made yet, and nobody of any sort, neither of those who had to operate, nor of those who had to be operated on, was, in the least degree, either angry, or surprised, or impatient. The groups of peasants stood about the wide piazza as patiently as if they were ruminating like their own oxen; and now and then some official came to the balcony in front of the great central window of the palazzo pubblico, gazed out for awhile on the crowd below, and retired again.
At last, at about half-an-hour after noon, a bell was rung as a signal that the business of the day really was about to commence. There was a swaying movement amongst the crowd, and some pressed on to enter the building and ascend the great stairs into the principal hall of it, in which the drawing was to take place; and others hung back, as lacking courage to look their destiny in the face.
It is not absolutely necessary that any one of those liable to the conscription should come to the drawing. He comes therefor his own satisfaction and not for that of the government. He may, if he please, commission any relative or friend to draw for him, or, failing this, if the individual does not present himself, nor anybody on his behalf, the gonfalonière puts his own hand into the urn and draws a number for him.
The operation is performed in public. Any one may enter the hall who pleases; and there generally is a large concourse of the friends of those about to draw, or of merely curious loungers. On the occasion in question a great number of the townspeople, who had no especial interest in the proceedings, had gathered in the hall. For the Fano beau-monde have not many sources of amusement, and the conscription at all events offered them the means of getting rid of a day—an advantage not to be despised in one of those little Adriatic cities.
At the upper end of the huge hall, within a space railed off, is a long green baize-covered table, on the middle of which is the urn, containing a quantity of folded slips of paper, all scrupulously alike, equal in number to the number of men liable to serve. Each of these contains simply a number, from one up to the last of the series. The gonfalonière, who is equivalent to our mayor, sits on a somewhat raised chair immediately behind this apparatus. By his side are municipal councillors, and close behind him is the pubblicatore, the publisher or crier, whose duty it is to announce the names with their numbers, as they are drawn. The patient puts his hand into the urn, draws it forth, holding one slip of paper between his fingers; he unfolds it himself, reads himself first his fate, then hands it to the gonfalonière, who reads and passes it to the pubblicatore to be cried aloud; after which it is duly registered, and then sent to the printer.
The hall of the Fano palazzo pubblico was crowded, as has been said, in great part by townspeople who had no interest in the ceremony save one of simple curiosity. Towards the upper part of the large space—which had probably been used as a banqueting-hall in the old days, when there was more of feasting and less of fasting done in Italy than in these latter centuries—there was at a height of some feet from the floor of the hall a sort of tribune, or small gallery, enclosed by a light parapet of iron scroll-work, the elegance of which plainly declared it to be the work of the sixteenth century. In all probability the place thus contrived had been intended for the accommodation of musicians during the Fano feastings. Now it afforded a very convenient place for any one who wished to look on at the proceedings in the body of the hall, without being exposed to contact with the crowd which thronged the floor.
Of course the small privilege of occupying this sort of private box at the representation of the tragi-comedy about to come off was in the gift of the members of the municipality, of whom our friend Signor Alessandro Bartoldi, the attorney, was one of the most active and influential. It was of course also under these circumstances that the desirable place in question should be at the disposition of the fair Lisa. And there accordingly was Lisa, accompanied by her friend Giulia, between whom and the attorney’s daughter a considerable intimacy had sprung up out of the frequent visits of the latter to the house of la Dossi, to which she was drawn by—the reader knows what attraction.
La Dossi herself had declined to accompany the girls. She was very far from locomotive in her