"It seems to me, Marchese, that you are very enthusiastic," said Batiscombe to Marcantonio.
"Mon Dieu!" exclaimed the other, shrugging his shoulders, "one cheers these things as one would cheer fireworks, or a race. It signifies nothing."
"Oh, of course," said Leonora; "and besides, it is so pretty."
"I think it is horrible," said Batiscombe, suddenly.
"To see a nation squandering money in this way, when the taxes on land are at sixty per cent. and more, and the people emigrating by the shipload because they cannot live in their own homes."
"Oh, for that matter, you are right," said Marcantonio, turning grave in a moment. "I could tell you a story about taxes."
"What is it?" asked Leonora. "Those things are so interesting."
"Last autumn I was in the Sabines; I have a place up there, altogether ancient and dilapidated--a mere ruin. I own some of the land, and the peasants own little vineyards. One day I saw by the roadside a poor old man, a sort of village crétin, whom every one knew quite well. We used to call him Cupido; he was half idiotic and quite old. He was weeping bitterly, poor wretch, and I asked him what was the matter. He pointed to a little plot of land by the road, inclosed by a stone wall, and said the tax-gatherer had taken it from him. And then he cried again, and I could not get anything more out of him."
"Poor creature!" exclaimed Leonora, sympathetically.
"Well," continued Marcantonio, "I made inquiries, and I found that he had owned the little plot, and that the tax-gatherer had first seized the wretched crop of maize--perhaps a bushel basket full--to pay the tax; and then, as that did not cover his demands, he seized the land itself and sold it or offered it for sale."
"Infamous!" cried Leonora, and the tears were in her eyes.
"A cheerful state of things," remarked Batiscombe, "when the whole crop does not suffice to pay the taxes on the soil!"
"N'est-ce pas?" said Marcantonio. "Well, I provided for the poor old man, but he died in the winter. It broke his heart."[1]
[Footnote 1: The author witnessed the facts here described in 1880.]
"I love the Italians," said Batiscombe; "but their ideas of economy are peculiar. I suppose that without much metaphor or exaggeration one might say that the poor crétin's bushel of corn is gone into that ridiculous ironclad over there."