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From the Apennines to the Andes.
Many years ago a Genoese lad of 13, the son of aworking man, went from Genoa to America all aloneto seek his mother.
His mother had gone two years before to BuenosAires, a city, the capital of the ArgentineRepublic, to take service in a wealthy family, andto thus earn in a short time enough to place herfamily once more in easy circumstances, theyhaving fallen, through various misfortunes, intopoverty and death.
There are courageous women, not a few, who takethis long voyage with this object in view, andwho, thanks to the large wages which people inservice receive there, return home at the end of afew years with several thousand lira.
The poor mother had wept tears of blood at partingfrom her children, the one aged 18, the other, 11,but she had set out courageously and filled withhope.
The voyage was prosperous, she had no soonerarrived at Buenos Aires than she found, through aGenoese shopkeeper, a cousin of her husband, whohad been established there for a very long time, agood Argentine family, which gave high wages andtreated her well.
And for a short time she kept up a regularcorrespondence with her family.
As it had been settled between them, her husbandaddressed his letters to his cousin, whotransmitted them to the woman, and the latterhanded her replies to him, and he dispatched themto Genoa, adding a few lines of his own.
As she was earning 80 lira a month and spendingnothing for herself, she sent home a handsome sumevery three months, with which her husband, whowas a man of honour, gradually paid off their mosturgent debts, and thus regained his goodreputation.
And in the meantime, he worked away and wassatisfied with the state of his affairs, since healso cherished the hope that his wife wouldshortly return, for the house seemed empty withouther, and the younger son in particular, who wasextremely attached to his mother, was very muchdepressed, and could not resign himself to havingher so far away.
But a year had elapsed since they had parted,after a brief letter, in which she said that herhealth was not very good, they heard nothing more.
They wrote twice to the cousin, the cousin did notreply.
They wrote to the Argentine family where the womanwas at service, but it is possible that the letternever reached them, for they had distorted thename in addressing it, they received no answer.
Fearing a misfortune, they wrote to the Italianconsulate at Buenos Aires to have inquiries made,and after a lapse of three months they received aresponse from the consul, that in spite ofadvertisements in the newspapers no one hadpresented herself nor sent any word.
And it could not have happened otherwise, for thisreason if for no other, that with the idea ofsparing the good name of her family, which shefancied she was discrediting by becoming aservant, the good woman had not given her realname to the Argentine family.
Several months more passed by, no news.
03:00
The father and sons were in consternation, theyoungest was oppressed by a melancholy which hecould not conquer.
What was to be done?
To whom should they have recourse?
The father's first thought had been to set out, togo to America in search of his wife.
But his work?
Who would support his sons?
And neither could the eldest son go, for he hadjust then begun to earn something, and he wasnecessary to the family.
And in this anxiety they lived, repeating each daythe same sad speeches, or gazing at each other insilence, when, one evening, Marco, the youngest,declared with decision, I'm going to America tolook for my mother.
His father shook his head sadly and made no reply.
It was an affectionate thought, but an impossiblething.
To make a journey to America, which required amonth, alone, at the age of thirteen.
But the boy patiently insisted.
He persisted that day, the day after, every day,with great calmness, reasoning with the good senseof a man.
Others have gone thither, he said, and smallerboys than I, too.
Once on board the ship, I shall get there likeanybody else.
Once arrived there, I only have to hunt up ourcousin's shop.
There are plenty of Italians there who will showme the street.
After finding our cousin, my mother is found, andif I do not find him, I will go to the consul, Iwill search out that Argentine family.
Whatever happens, there is work for all there, Ishall find work also, sufficient, at least, toearn enough to get home.
And thus little by little he almost succeeded inpersuading his father.
His father esteemed him, he knew that he had goodjudgment and courage, that he was inured toprivations and to sacrifices,
and that all these good qualities had acquireddouble force in his heart and consequence of thesacred project of finding his mother, whom headored.
In addition to this, the captain of a steamer, thefriend of an acquaintance of his, having heard theplan mentioned,
undertook to procure a free third-class passagefor the Argentine Republic.
And then, after a little hesitation, the fathergave his consent.
The voyage was decided on.
They filled a sack with clothes for him, put a fewcrowns in his pocket, and gave him the address ofthe cousin,
and one fine evening in April they saw him onboard.
Marco, my son, his father said to him, as he gavehim his last kiss, with tears in his eyes, on thesteps of the steamer,
which was on the point of starting, take courage.
Thou hast set out on a holy undertaking, and Godwill aid thee.
For Marco.
His heart was strong and prepared for the hardesttrials of this voyage,
but when he beheld his beautiful Genoa disappearon the horizon,
and found himself on the open sea on that hugesteamer throng with emigrating peasants,
alone, unacquainted with any one, with that littlebag which held his entire fortune,
a sudden discouragement assailed him.
For two days he remained crouching like a dog onthe bows, hardly eating, and oppressed with agreat desire to weep.
Every description of sad thoughts passed throughhis mind, and the saddest, the most terrible,
was the one which was the most persistent in itsreturn, the thought that his mother was dead.
In his broken and painful slumbers he constantlybeheld a strange face,
which surveyed him with an air of compassion, andwhispered in his ear,
Your mother is dead.
06:01
And then he awoke, stifling a shriek.
Nevertheless, after passing the Straits ofGibraltar, at the first sight of the AtlanticOcean
he recovered his spirits a little, and his hope.
But it was only a brief respite.
That vast but always smooth sea, the increasingheat, the misery of all those poor people whosurrounded him,
the consciousness of his own solitude, overwhelmedhim once more.
The empty and monotonous days which succeeded eachother became confounded in his memory,
as is the case with sick people.
It seemed to him that he had been at sea a year.
And every morning, on waking, he felt surprisedafresh at finding himself there alone
on that vast watery expanse, on his way toAmerica.
The beautiful flying fish which fell on deck everynow and then,
the marvellous sunsets of the tropics, with theirenormous clouds coloured like flame and blood,
and those nocturnal phosphorescences which makethe ocean seem all on fire like a sea of lava,
did not produce on him the effect of real things,but of marvels beheld in a dream.
There were days of bad weather, during which heremained constantly in the dormitory,
where everything was rolling and crashing, in themidst of a terrible chorus of lamentations andimprecations,
and he thought that his last hour had come.
There were other days, when the sea was calm andyellowish, of insupportable heat,
of infinite tediousness, interminable and wretchedhours,
during which the enervated passengers, stretchedmotionless on the planks, seemed all dead.
And the voyage was endless, sea and sky, sky andsea, today the same as yesterday,
tomorrow like today, and so on, always, eternally.
And for long hours he stood leaning on thebulwarks, gazing at that interminable sea inamazement,
thinking vaguely of his mother, until his eyesclosed and his head was drooping with sleep,
and then again in he beheld that unknown facewhich gazed upon him with an air of compassion,
and repeated in his ear, your mother is dead.
And at the sound of that voice he awoke with astart, to resume his dreaming with wide-open eyes,
and to gaze at the unchanging horizon.
The voyage lasted twenty-seven days.
But the last days were the best.
The weather was fine, and the air cool.
He had made the acquaintance of a good old man, aLombard, who was going to America to find his son,
an agriculturist in the vicinity of the town ofRosario.
He had told him his whole story, and the old mankept repeating every little while,
as he tapped him on the nape of the neck with hishand,
Courage, my lad, you will find your mother welland happy.