Page:Once a Week June to Dec 1863.pdf/715

19, 1863.] “No; but I can see, I suppose.”

“A corporal of Bersaglieri ought to know that one always sights a mark less above one’s eye than it is. I’d wager she is taller than you.”

“Stuff and nonsense! Look, he is going to draw now!”

Beppo, in passing up the hall, had caught sight of Giulia in her tribune, and no doubt she had marked him as he walked up, a head taller than his companions. But no mark of recognition had taken place between them, and the only effect that the knowledge of her presence had produced upon him was to make him feel as if he were walking in a dream, and as if all the scene around him were hazy and unintelligible. His eyes swam, and there was a buzzing in his ears, and he seemed to himself to have a difficulty in bringing his mind to bear upon the business in hand sufficiently to go through with his share in it. As for any care about the result, or any care about anything save the fact that Giulia sat there looking on at the ceremony he was called to take part in, and that though a few yards of space only separated them, there was an impassable gulf between them which must part them for ever—he was wholly dead to it!

He felt as if he was staggering as he stepped up to the table, and the last among the Santa Lucia men (for they drew alphabetically) put his hand into the urn. The evident trouble he was in was of course attributed by the spectators to his dread of the chance which the urn was about to award him. Others had in different ways showed as much emotion, and had excited the pity of the crowd. And now there was a little hush of anxiety and sympathy, especially among the female part of the assembly, with the magnificently handsome contadino.

He put his hand into the urn, and drawing forth a cartel, handed it in a dreamy sort of manner, without opening it, as he should have done, to the presiding magistrate.

“Read your number,” said the gonfalonière.

Beppo opened and read, “!”

The announcement did not seem to produce any visible effect upon him. He continued in the same sort of stunned dreamy condition as before. He passed the paper to the gonfalonière, who, after casting his eye on it, handed it to the pubblicatore, who held it up before the people, crying out at the same time,

“; !”

Of course this was a certain condemnation to the ranks.

There was a perceptible and momentary stir among the audience, which seemed in some degree to recall Beppo to himself. He cast his eyes, despite himself, towards the place where Giulia had been sitting, and perceived that her conspicuously noble head and bust were no longer in the spot which they had filled, and that there was a little movement among the women who crowded the tribune.

His look however was but momentary, and he turned from the table, together with the others from his commune, one only of whom besides himself had drawn a bad number, and slowly made his way to the bottom of the hall, and out of the palazzo pubblico.

“Per Bacco! We have caught our sergeant-major,” said Corporal Tenda to Captain Brill, “and to judge by the look of him I should say that he knows his father don’t mean to fork out to save him.”

“He didn’t seem to like it, poor devil!” returned the captain; “but I say, corporal, while you, like a zealous officer, were looking after the recruits, I was looking somewhere else, and I’ll tell you what I saw. I saw the future mistress of the little freehold farm at Cuneo turn as pale as death when her cousin drew his bad number, and then she and la Lisa left the tribune all in a hurry. I tell you again I should not like Sergeant-Major Beppo Vanni for a rival with his superb cousin, if I was Corporal Tenda.”

“Ah! bah! I have seen them together. She can’t endure him, I tell you. Turned pale! I dare say—the room is infernally hot!”

Beppo purposed, as far as he could be said in the condition in which he was to purpose anything, to find his way to the inn, get his horse, and start at once on his return to Bella Luce. He had not been near Signor Sandro’s house, and had with much difficulty forced himself to abstain from the temptation of passing down the street in which la Dossi’s house was situated. It would be only pain to him to look on that fine big house again; yet he was sorely tempted to do so.

As he was passing out from the door of the palazzo pubblico, he encountered the little attorney himself, full of business and in a great bustle.

“Oh, Signor Beppo, so you are hit! Never mind it, man. Signor Paolo can afford it, and never know the difference. It is a very different matter with some of these poor fellows. What! cheer up, man! Why have you not been in to see us? Lisa is up in the hall there. Ah, I know one that had a lump in her throat when you drew the bad number. You’ll come home with us?”

“If you will excuse me, Signor Sandro, I think I must go home. They will be anxious to hear the upshot of the drawing, you know.”

“Well, as you will. But cheer up, man! I shall see you soon, no doubt; for you will be coming in about the finding of a substitute. By-the-bye, have you seen your cousin, Giulia? From all I hear, I did better for her than I thought, in bringing her into the city. I am told she and a certain Signor Tenda, a corporal in the Bersaglieri, are likely to make a match of it! A very decent man, I hear, though he is but a corporal, and likely one day to have a pretty little property of his own.”

“I have seen nothing of her,” replied Beppo, in a tone of profound dejection. “Good evening, Signor Sandro.”

“Well, if you won’t stay, I must say good evening, I suppose. A pleasant ride home!”

Beppo went plodding heavily through the streets, with his eyes fixed to the pavement, till just at the corner of the lane in which his inn was situated, he was roused by hearing himself suddenly called by his name, and looking up found himself face to face with Lisa and Giulia.

It was Lisa who had called to him. She had