He was the Mazzini of his nation.
A Garibaldi, when the crisis comes, may possibly emerge from that
tumultuous horde.
Where is the Cavour?
XXV
SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO
A driving road to connect San Demetrio with Acri whither I was now bound
was begun, they say, about twenty years ago; one can follow it for a
considerable distance beyond the Albanian College. Then, suddenly, it
ends. Walking to Acri, however, by the old track, one picks up, here and
there, conscientiously-engineered little stretches of it, already
overgrown with weeds; these, too, break off as abruptly as they began,
in the wild waste. For purposes of wheeled traffic these picturesque but
disconnected fragments are quite useless.
Perhaps the whole undertaking will be completed some day - speriamo! as
the natives say, when speaking of something rather beyond reasonable
expectation. But possibly not; and in that case - pazienza! meaning,
that all hope may now be abandoned. There is seldom any great hurry,
with non-governmental works of this kind.
It would be interesting if one could learn the inner history of these
abortive transactions. I have often tried, in vain. It is impossible for
an outsider to pierce the jungle of sordid mystery and intrigue which
surrounds them. So much I gathered: that the original contract was based
on the wages then current and that, the price of labour having more than
doubled in consequence of the "discovery" of America, no one will
undertake the job on the old terms. That is sufficiently intelligible.
But why operations proceeded so slowly at first, and why a new contract
cannot now be drawn up - who can tell! The persons interested blame the
contractor, who blames the engineer, who blames the dilatory and corrupt
administration of Cosenza. My private opinion is, that the last three
parties have agreed to share the swag between them. Meanwhile everybody
has just grounds of complaint against everybody else; the six or seven
inevitable lawsuits have sprung up and promise to last any length of
time, seeing that important documents have been lost or stolen and that
half the original contracting parties have died in the interval: nobody
knows what is going to happen in the end. It all depends upon whether
some patriotic person will step forward and grease the wheels in the
proper quarter.
And even then, if he hails from Acri, they of San Demetrio will probably
work against the project, and vice versa. For no love is lost between
neighbouring communities - wonderful, with what venomous feudal animosity
they regard each other! United Italy means nothing to these people,
whose conceptions of national and public life are those of the cock on
his dung-hill.
