Bricklayer's Autograph

Soul-weary with bricklaying, a swart, muscle-knotted Italian sought rest, detachment, beauty at the Hospice of St. Bernard, perched on a sheer crag above the green loveliness of Swiss Lugano.

A jug of cool Italian wine was brought to him by an aged, cheerful monk who refused payment. The bricklayer, refreshed, at peace, opened the portly Hospice Register before journeying on, inscribed his bold autograph: Benito Mussolini . . . Aug. 5, 1903. Last week an itinerant newsgatherer unearthed this autograph, sent news of it humming over the cables. Signor Mussolini's intimates, not displeased, reminded his detractors that even as a bricklayer and before that as a hod-carrier, the young Benito revealed the titanic spiritual vigor which later made him master of Italy. Few are possessed of so little "hindsight" that they cannot detect the hand of the present Dictator in a letter which the hodman wrote to a fellow laborer on Sept. 3, 1902. "Dear Friend, "On Saturday, together with a painter out of employment, I went to Orbe--to get taken on as a manual laborer. I found work and on Monday, the 14th, I began: eleven hours' work in the day at 32 centesimi the hour. I made 121 journeys with a handbarrow full of stones up to the second floor of a building in process of construction. In the evening the muscles of my arms were swollen. I ate some potatoes roasted upon cinders and threw myself in all my clothes on to my bed: a pile of straw. At five on the Tuesday I woke and returned to work. I chafed with the terrible rage of the powerless. The padrone made me mad. The third day he said to me: 'You are too well dressed! . . .' That phrase was meant to convey an insinuation. I should have liked to rebel and to crack the skull of this upstart who was accusing me of laziness while my limbs were giving beneath the weight of the stones--I wanted to shout out in his face: 'You coward, you coward!' And then? The man who pays you is always in the right. Saturday evening came. I said to the padrone I intended to leave and therefore wished to be paid. He went into his office. I remained in the lobby. Presently he came out. With ill-disguised rage he threw into my hands 20 lire and some centesimi, saying: 'Here is your money and it is stolen.' I remained as though made of stone. What was I to do to him? Kill him? What did I do to him? Nothing. Why? Because I was hungry and had no shoes. I had worn a pair of light boots to pieces on the building stones which had lacerated both my hands and the soles of my feet. Almost barefooted I went to an Italian's shop and bought myself a pair of shoes, hobnailed in mountaineer's style. I packed off, and on the next morning--Sunday, July 20--I took the train at Chavornay for Lausanne. "In Lausanne I lived carefully the first week on the money I had earned at Orbe. Then I was again hard up. On the Monday the only piece of metal I had in my pocket was a nickel medallion of Karl Marx. I had eaten a bit of bread in the morning and I did not know where to go to sleep that evening. I wandered about in desperation, and presently--cramp in the stomach preventing me from walking any longer--I sat down on the pedestal of the statue of William Tell, which stands in the Pare de Montbenon. My appearance must have been terrible during those terrible moments, for the people who came to inspect the monument scrutinized me with suspicion, almost with alarm. Oh! if De Dominicis had come to preach his moral lessons tome there how gladly I would have laid him out! . . . "I have received your postcard.... "Your friend, (Signed) Mussolini Benito."