Passage Illustrated: A Dubious Blessing Narrated in a Flashback

“'Scusi, padre mio,' said a whining voice, and a great black-bearded rascal touched his cap to me with one hand, while with the other he held the dagger close to my side, a comrade all the time covering me with a blunderbuss on the opposite side of the cart, —'scusi, padre mio, but we want your pursel' 'Maladetto sia —' 'Don't curse,' said he, beggingly, — 'don't curse, padre, we shall only have to spend more money in masses; but be quick, out with the “quattrini.”'

“'I have nothing but the Church fund for the poor.' said I, angrily.

“'We are the poor, holy father,' whined the rogue.

“'I mean the poor who hate to do evil,' said I.

“'It grieves us to the soul when we are driven to it!' sighed the scoundrel; and he gave me a gentle touch with the point of the stiletto. Dark as it was, I could see the wretch grin as I screamed out.

“'Be quick,' growled out the other, roughly, as he brought the wide mouth of the trombone close to my face. There was no help for it I had to give up my little leathern pouch with all my quarter's gatherings. Many a warning did I give the villains of the ill-luck that followed sacrilege,—how palsies and blindness and lameness came upon the limbs of those who robbed the Church. They went on counting the coins without so much as minding me. At last, when they had fairly divided the booty, the first fellow said, 'One favour more, holy father, before we part.'

“'Would you take my coat or my cassock?' said I, indignantly.

“'Heaven forbid it!' said he, piously; 'we want only your blessing, Padre mio.'

“'My blessing on thieves and robbers!'

“'Who need it more, holy father?' said he, with another stick of the point, —— 'who need it more?'

“I screamed aloud, and the wretches this time laughed outright at my misery. Meanwhile they both uncovered and knelt down in the road before me. Oimè! oimè! There was no help for it I had to descend from the calessino!”

“And did you bless them, father?” asked Jekyl.

“That did I! for when I tried in the middle of the benediction to slip in a muttering of 'Confundite ipsos qui quaerunt animam meam,' the whining rogue popped out his accursed weapon, and cried, 'Take care, holy father! We only bargain for the blessing.'” [Chapter LIV, "A Villa and its Company," 477]

Commentary: A Humorous Scene to balance that for "The Skirmish"

Abbé D'Esmonde, Lady Hester, and Lord Norwood, it turns out, are the present residents of the Villa Rocca on the shores of Lake Como at which Frank and his wounded cadet, Ravitzky, have just landed. Fearing reprisals if they assist the Austrian Hussars, Lady Hester and her arranger, Albert Jekyl, refuse to accommodate the visitors in the villa proper, and consign them to the beautifully appointed boat-house. Norwood is avoiding creditors from Florence, but is hoping that D'Esmonde, a ringleader in the Milan revolt, can advance his fortunes if a Milanese state results from the rebellion: “A new kingdom of Upper Italy, with Milan for the capital, and Viscount Norwood the resident  minister plenipotentiary, there was the whole episode, in three volumes, with its 'plot,' 'catastrophe,' and 'virtue rewarded,' in appropriate fashion; and as times were bad, neither racing nor cards profitable, patriotism was the only unexplored resource he could think of" (II: 113). However, the Abbé in the present illustration is not the devious, politically connected D'Esmonde, but the priest from the Duomo in Florence who is serving as Lady Hester's spiritual advisor in her conversion to Catholicism.

The company at the villa are expecting the return of D'Esmonde from Milan, only twenty-four miles away, but Norwood begins to worry about the fate of his confidant as the evening wears on. Norwood is alarmed when the padre notes that the road from Milan to Como is "infested with banditti.” He recalls an incident when he was curé of Bergamo, and a brace of armed bandits accosted him one night on the Lecco road. No sooner has the fat canon narrated the story of his loss of his fish for dinner than the sound of a horse on the road announces the probable arrival of D'Esmonde, who nowgallops up and dismounts at the door of the villa.

The banditti and the Canon form a curious trinity, like Christ and the two thieves upon their crosses. The stiletto indicates that the pair are quite prepared to take the life of the priest if he does not bless them. Their cut-throat appearance and motives in the Canon's anecdote contrast the nationalism of the patriots who have ambushed Frank's party of hussars in the previous chapter.

A Bibliographical Note to the 1859 Cheap Edition

This is one of only eight 1852 engravings of the original forty-eight. The other seven are as follows:

• the fine vertical frontispiece, A Journey (ii),
• Frank Visits his Uncle (facing 18),
• A Discovery (facing 52),
• Teaching the Old Idea how to shoot (Chapter 51),
• Abel Narrowly escapes Caning (facing 161),
• Norwood's Exit (facing 267),
• Retribution (facing 332).

Bibliography

Browne, John Buchanan. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1978.

Downey, Edmund. Charles Lever: His Life in Letters. 2 vols. London: William Blackwood, 1906.

Fitzpatrick, W. J. The Life of Charles Lever. London: Downey, 1901.

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Illustrated by "Phiz" (Hablot Knight Browne). London: Chapman and Hall, 1852, rpt. 1859, and 1872. [Two volumes as one, with separate page numbers in the 1859 volume, after I: 362.]

_______. The Daltons and A Day's Ride. Illustrated by Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz'). Vol VI of Lever's Works. New York: P. F. Collier, 1882. [This large-format American edition reproduces only six of the original forthy-eight Phiz illustrations.]

Lever, Charles James. The Daltons, or, Three Roads in Life. Vol. 1. http://www.gutenberg.org//files/32061/32061-h/32061-h.htm

Skinner, Anne Maria. Charles Lever and Ireland. University of Liverpool. PhD dissertation. May 2019.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell & Russell, 1939, rpt. 1969.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Last modified 23 May 2022