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THE CONSCRIPT MOTHER

IN SIMILAR FORM

The Perfect Tribute The Lifted Bandage The Courage of the Commonplace The Counsel Assigned

The Success of Defeat

The Messenger

The Consul The Boy Scout

Looking Westward

The Master of the Inn The Conscript Mother

The Angel of Lonesome Hill

A Day with Father

Things

The Stranger's Pew

A Christmas Sermon Prayers Written at Vailima AEs Triplex Father Damien

Robert Louis Stevenson

School of Life The Spirit of Christmas The Sad Shepherd The First Christmas Tree

THE

CONSCRIPT MOTHER

NEW YORK

Charles Scribner's Sons 1916

THE CONSCRIPT MOTHER

WHEN I met the signora at the tram station that May morning she was evidently troubled about something which was only partly explained by her murmured excuse, "a sleepless night." We were to cross the Campagna to one of the little towns in the Albanian hills, where young Maironi was temporarily stationed with his regiment. If we had good luck and happened upon an indulgent officer, the mother might get sight of her boy for a few minutes. All the way over the flowering Campagna, with the blue hills swimming on the horizon before us, the signora was unusually taciturn, seemingly indifferent to the beauty of the day, and the wonderful charm of the Italian spring, to which she was always so lyrically responsive on our excursions. When a great dirigible rose into the blue air above our heads, like a huge silver fish, my companion gave a slight start, and I divined what was in her mind--the imminence of war, which had been threatening to engulf Italy for many months. It was that fear which had destroyed her customary gayety, the indomitable cheerfulness of the true Latin mother that she was.

"It is coming," she sighed, glancing up at the dirigible. "It will not be long now before we shall know--only a few days."

And to the ignorant optimism of my protest she smiled sadly, with the fatalism that women acquire in countries of conscription. It was futile to combat with mere theory and logic this conviction of a mother's heart. Probably the signora had overheard some significant word which to her sensitive intelligence was more real, more positive than all the subtle reasonings at the Consulta. The sphinx-like silence of ministers and diplomats had not been broken: there was nothing new in the "situation." The newspapers were as wordily empty of fact as ever. And yet this morning for the first time Signora Maironi seemed convinced against her will that war was inevitable.

These last days there had been a similar change in the mood of the Italian public, not to be fully explained by any of the rumors flying about Rome, by the sudden exodus of Germans and Austrians, by anything other than that mysterious sixth sense which enables humanity, like wild animals, to apprehend unknown dangers. Those whose lives and happiness are at stake seem to divine before the blow falls what is about to happen.... For the first time I began to believe that Italy might really plunge into the deep gulf at which her people had so long gazed in fascinated suspense. There are secret signs in a country like Italy, where much is hidden from the stranger. Signora Maironi knew. She pointed to some soldiers waiting at a station and observed: "They have their marching-kit, and they are going north!"

Then Enrico came running out of the great gate, as nice a looking lad of nineteen as one could find anywhere, even in his soiled and mussed uniform, and Enrico had no false shame about embracing his mother in the presence of his officer and of the comrades who were looking down on us enviously from the windows of the old monastery. The lieutenant gave the boy three hours' liberty to spend with us and, saluting politely, went back to the post.

With Enrico between us we wandered up the hill toward the green lake in the bowl of the ancient crater. Signora Maironi kept tight hold of her lad, purring over him in French and Italian--the more intimate things in Italian--turning as mothers will from endearment to gentle scolding. Why did he not keep himself tidier? Surely he had the needles and thread his sister Bianca had given him the last time he was at home. And how was the ear? Had he carried out the doctor's directions? Which it is needless to say Enrico had not. The signora explained to me that the boy was in danger of losing the hearing of one ear because of the careless treatment the regimental doctor had given him when he had a cold. She did not like to complain of the military authorities: of course they could not bother with every little trouble a soldier had in a time like this, but the loss of his hearing would be a serious handicap to the boy in earning his living....

After our breakfast Enrico took me into the garden of the old monastery where other youthful grenadiers were loafing on the grass under the trees or writing letters on the rough table among the remains of food. Some of the squad had gone to the lake for a swim; I could hear their shouts and laughter far below. Presently the signora, who had been barred at the gate by the old Franciscan, hurried down the shady path.

"I told him," she explained, "that he could just look the other way and avoid sin. Then I slipped through the door!"

So with her hand on her recaptured boy we strolled through the old gardens as far as the stable where the soldiers slept. The floor was littered with straw, which, with an overcoat, Enrico assured me, made a capital bed. The food was good enough. They got four cents a day, which did not go far to buy cigarettes and postage-stamps, but they would be paid ten cents a day when they were at war!...

At last we turned into the highroad arched with old trees that led down to the tramway. Enrico's leave was nearly over. All the glory of the spring day poured forth from the flowering hedges, where bees hummed and birds sang. Enrico gathered a great bunch of yellow heather, which his mother wanted to take home. "Little Bianca will like it so much when she hears her brother picked it," she explained. "Bianca thinks he is a hero already, the dear!"

When we reached the car-tracks we sat on a mossy wall and chatted. In a field across the road an old gray mare stood looking steadfastly at her small foal, which was asleep in the high grass at her feet. The old mare stood patiently for many minutes without once cropping a bit of grass, lowering her head occasionally to sniff at the little colt. Her attitude of absorbed contemplation, of perfect satisfaction in her ungainly offspring made me laugh--it was so exactly like the signora's. At last the little fellow woke, got somehow on his long legs, and shaking a scrubby tail went gambolling off down the pasture, enjoying his coltish world. The old mare followed close behind with eyes only for him.

"Look at him!" the signora exclaimed pointing to the ridiculous foal. "How nice he is! Oh, how beautiful youth always is!"

She looked up admiringly at her tall, handsome Enrico, who had just brought her another bunch of heather. The birds were singing like mad in the fields; some peasants passed with their laden donkeys; I smoked contemplatively, while mother and son talked family gossip and the signora went all over her boy again for the fourth time.... Yes, youth is beautiful, surely, but there seemed something horribly pathetic about it all in spite of the loveliness of the May morning.

When the signora joined me farther down the road she was clear-eyed but sombre.

"Can you understand," she said softly, "how when I have him in my arms and think of all I have done for him, his education, his long sickness, all, all--and what he means to me and his father and little Bianca--and then I think how in one moment it may all be over for always, all that precious life--O God what are women made for!... We shall have to hurry, my friend, to get to the station."

I glanced back once more at the slim figure just going around the bend of the road at a run, so as not to exceed his leave--a mere boy and such a nice boy, with his brilliant, eager eyes, so healthy and clean and joyous, so affectionate, so completely what any mother would adore. And he might be going "up north" any day now to fight the Austrians.

"Signora," I asked, "do you believe in war?"

"They all say this war has to be," she said dully. "Oh, I don't know!... It is a hard world to understand!... I try to remember that I am only one of hundreds of thousands of Italian women.... I hope I shall see him once more before they take him away. My God!"

That afternoon the expert who had been sent to Rome by a foreign newspaper to watch the critical situation carefully put down his empty teacup and pronounced his verdict:

"Yes, this time it looks to me really like war. They have gone too far to draw back. Some of them think they are likely to get a good deal out of the war with a small sacrifice--everybody likes a bargain, you know!... Then General Cadorna, they say, is a very ambitious man, and this is his chance. A successful campaign would make him.... But I don't know. It would be quite a risk, quite a risk."

Yes, I thought, quite a risk for the conscript mothers!

The politician came to Rome and delivered his prudent advice, and the quiescent people began to growl. The ministers resigned: the public growled more loudly.... During the turbulent week that followed, while Italy still hesitated, I saw Enrico Maironi a number of times. Indeed, his frank young face with the sparkling black eyes is mingled with all my memories of those tense days when the streets of Rome were vocal with passionate crowds, when soldiers barred the thoroughfares, and no one knew whether there would be war with Austria or revolution.

One night, having been turned out of the Caf? Nazionale when the troops cleared the Corso of the mob that threatened the Austrian embassy, I wandered through the agitated city until I found myself in the quarter where the Maironis lived, and called at their little home to hear if they had had news of the boy. There was light in the dining-room, though it was long past the hour when even the irresponsible Maironis took their irregular dinner. As I entered I could see in the light of the single candle three faces intently focused on a fourth--Enrico's, with a preoccupation that my arrival scarcely disturbed. They made me sit down and hospitably opened a fresh bottle of wine. The boy had just arrived unexpectedly, his regiment having been recalled to Rome that afternoon. He was travel-stained, with a button off his military coat which his sister was sewing on while he ate. He looked tired but excited, and his brilliant eyes lighted with welcome as he accepted one of my Turkish cigarettes with the air of a young worldling and observed:

There was a note of boyish triumph in his voice as he went on to explain again for my benefit how his captain--a really good fellow though a bit severe in little things--had let him off for the evening to see his family. He spoke of his officer exactly as my own boy might speak of some approved schoolmaster. Signor Maironi, who in his post at the war office heard things before they got into the street, looked very grave and said little.

"You are glad to have him back in Rome, at any rate!" I said to the signora.

She shrugged her shoulders expressively.

"Rome is the first step on a long journey," she replied sombrely.

The silent tensity of the father's gaze, fastened on his boy, became unbearable. I followed the signora, who had strolled through the open door to the little terrace and stood looking blankly into the night. Far away, somewhere in the city, rose a clamor of shouting people, and swift footsteps hurried past in the street.

"It will kill his father, if anything happens to him!" she said slowly, as if she knew herself to be the stronger. "You see he chose the grenadiers for Enrico because that regiment almost never leaves Rome: it stays with the King. And now the King is going to the front, they say--it will be the first of all!"

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