FAMOUS VAGABOND

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 64, 27 December 1935, Page 8

FAMOUS VAGABOND

THE RISE OF MUSSOLINI. A VILLAGE BAD BOY. In the tiny living-room of an Italian village home at Dovia, an austere woman, very evidently the local schoolmistress, looks up wonderingly, writes Cyril James in the “Yorkshire Weekly Post.” From a bedroom above she hears a shrill voice, piping inaudible words. She goes upstairs and opens a door. A round-faced boy of eleven is standing on a chair, haranguing an invisible audience. “What is it?” “Hush, mother. I am making a speech.” She leaves him. After a. while the hoy gets tired of his game. He goes into the streets and whoops with joy as he sees other hoys fighting iii the square. He runs to join them, and collides with two elderly men. They curse him, but he rushes on unheedingly. “A young devil that Benito Mussolini! A bad lot!” “Son of a bad father! Oh, that Alessandro.” “A rebel who should be in prison. Did I tell you how that accursed Benito stole my quinces?” Along a lonely road near Lausanne a young man trudges. Ho is ragged. His torn clothes flutter in the night wind. Fierce eyes burn in an unshaven face. He stops near a quiet farm and looks through a window at the farmer and his family eating supper. He pushes open the door and enters fiercely. They look up timidly. “Bread,” he says hoarsely. “I am starving.” ’They throw him half a loaf. He clutches it avidly. “Thank you.” Next moment he has gone. Darkness and mystery swallow up Benito Mussolini, the expelled boy, the bad lot who must wander far from home. In Switzerland. A Swiss policeman, peering through the dawn into a printer’s shed, sees a man asleep near a hand-press. “Vagabond, wake up! Your name?” “Mussolini, Benito Mussolini.” The policeman grunts as he studies the young man’s face. He sees that a great sorrow, perhaps the sorrow of a mother’s death, has stamped a permanent furrow above two large brilliant eyes. The vagabond arises and clicks his heels, a gesture he learned with the Bersaglieri. “Oh,” says the policeman, “so you have done your service! Well, conscript—march! To the lock-up, bad one.” Mussolini marches. ... • Amid' the chattering crowd of artists in the town of F'orli, Italy, a strange figure moves. The figure of a thickset man wearing a romantic cloak, a threadbare suit, a dark hat that shades the brooding face, and rigid mouth softened by a full, black beard. A few cafe idlers call after him. “Benito . . . Mussolini!” He strides on. They laugh. He has the blue fit again. The man ill the cloak sits at a table and glances at a pale, thin-faced stranger who is already there. “You are. hungry?” : “Yes,” says the stranger, “I am.” “Eat, then, I will pay.” They talk for a* while. The stranger does most of it while the big man listens. “Como with me,” declares the big man. “I will give you shelter in my father’s tavern.” They walk together to a tavern near the town gates. In an upper room, the burly man discards his cloak and picks lip a violin. He plays passionately. Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart. His bulldog face is suddenly , transfigured. “But, signor,” says the stranger, “you are an artist.” “You think so?”—he laughs harshly. “Mussolini—Socialist, vagabond, prisoner, violinist. And what else, eh ? As a Journalist. The editor of “Avanti” stands bef o ,. e an accusing audience of his fellowSocialists. Europe is aflame. The Allies and the Central Powers grapple in a death struggle. Socialists in Italy are screaming that Italy must keep out. And here, before their eyes this Judas of a Mussolini, their official /oice, curses the German Socialists who nave joined the war. And says that all true Italians must fight for Italy ! “Throw out the traitor! Expel Mussolini!” The editor’s face is dark with rage. One great arm is held aloft. Then he brings down his fist and splinters the water jug which was before him. He shakes Ids fist at his comrades. Blood and .water drip to the floor. The Socialist is a Socialist no more. The editor of “II Popolo d’ltalia” is hard at work in his Milan office of three rooms. The staff, an erratic, brilliant collection of zealots and journalists, keep their voices low. “H Direttore” has an explosive temper when disturbed. The editor writes the burning sentences that will send Italy into the World War. Night comes. He jumps into a car and drives madly to Bologna. Police chase him and check his frenzied speed. He turns oil them furiously. “I am Benito Musolini. Do not delay me. This night I -have ai duel to fight. With sabres.” The car roars toward Bologna. During the War. In a field hospital at Ronchi, a burly sergeant is lying, his face drawn and haggard with pain. The mud of the trenches still stains his Bersaglieri uniform as they bring him before the surgeons. “Trench mortar wounds. A had case.” They probe and count. . . Wounds have ravaged bis body, but no sound of pain escapes his tightlycompressed lips. High officers and politicians visit this strange sergeant, whose beard grows day by day, whose moustache droops over his firm mouth. One morning a private soldier stands by his bed. “Sergeant Mussolini. . .” “Well?” “I am a Socialist. My comrades back home have asked me to shoot

you in the hack. Instead, I tell you here.” The sergeant smiles grimly. “They do not understand, these stay-at-homes.” Italy groans through the months of 1919. Red revolution drags the flag in the mud. Soldiers who wear their medals are assaulted in the streets. The sergeant stands in a room at Milan. His heard has gone. The contour of his face is firmer as he begins to address 150 of his old comrades. They form the “Fascio di Combattimento” to stamp out Bolshevism in Italy. But Italy just laughs. . . The Nation Trembles. And then the whole nation trembles before a. coming storm. The voice of “11 Popolo d’ltalia” has aroused young men in city and hamlet, town and village. They have copied the black uniform of the army shock troops. They greet one another with the ancient salute of classic Rome. They march in units and formations which hear the names of the ancient Roman legions In some towns they have seized, power. In others Socialist revolvers rule. At length the word goes out from Rome. Mussolini leaves Milan and stands before his King. Victor Emanuel of Italy studies this burly man in a black shirt, revolver slung over shoulder. Mussolini speaks. “I bring back to your Majesty the Italy of Vittorio Veneto I am your Majesty’s devoted servant. . . .” They are marching on Rome. Wave upon wave of black-shirted men, led by army generals whose war medals glitter on the plain black uniforms, sweep through the gates. Flowers fall from windows. Bullets from other windows. In a mighty wave of sound the chant rises above the marching feet. “Roma . . . Roma Duce . . . Duce ... a Roma ... a Roma . . .” Benito Mussolini is Premier of Italy. And to-day, in a gi'eat room at the Palazza Venezia, he sits with the eyes of the world upon him, this man who has been in turn vagabond, artist, soldier, exile, Socialist, editor, tramp, labourer. He sits in a vast apartment of marble. No furniture relieves its impressive emptiness except a huge desk in a far corner and a tall readingstand near it. Alone bo sits, studying his papers. He listens a faint sound, an echo, it might be, of guns in the African wastes. The noise comes nearer. Voices resolve themselves into the concerted shout: “Viva! Duce . . . Duce . . . viva, viva!” Italy hails its idol. He walks to the balcony and the voices crash in a crescendo. Before he speaks he flings up liis arm, a strong arm, ending in a clenched fist. The mailed fist that shakes to-day in the face of all the world.