CHAPTER VII_The conquest of Rome

Sangiorgio was idling under the porch at Montecitorio, while inside the

ushers were nimbly extinguishing the gas in the library, reading and

writing rooms, and offices. He was gazing at the starry summer sky and

the square, being unable to make up his mind to go home. A tall, lean

man, appearing from the Via Orfanelli, came up to him, cigar in mouth,

with shoulders slightly bent.

'Good-evening, Sangiorgio,' he said. 'Are you at liberty?'

'Good-evening, Don Silvio. I am.'

'I have something to say to you.'

'Shall we go to your office, then?'

'No, no, not there.'

'To your house?'

'No, not to my house, either. I prefer to go to yours, Sangiorgio.'

dryly answered the Minister, raising his head.

'As you please,' answered the deputy in the same tone, having understood

what was coming. 'Come.'

They went across the Piazza Colonna in silence, smoking their cigars,

looking at their shadows against the ground in the moonlit night. At the

corner of the Via Cacciabove Sangiorgio made motion to turn off.

'That way?' asked Vargas doubtfully.

'Certainly.'

'Do you not live at 62, Piazza di Spagna, Sangiorgio?'

'I admit it,' rejoined Sangiorgio frigidly.

They continued along the Corso, both maintaining silence, meeting people

who were coming out of the summer theatres, the Quirino, the Corea, the

Alhambra, and who, recognising the Minister's tall figure in spite of

the darkness, pointed him out to one another, and turned round to look

at him, taking Sangiorgio for a secretary or clerk. The two walked very

slowly. At the Via Condotti no more people were in sight; there was no

one in the Piazza di Spagna. The front-door of No. 62 was closed, but

Sangiorgio had a key, though he had never been there at night. He lit a

match on the dark staircase, Don Silvio following, still smoking. In the

anteroom the oil lamp, which was always burning, threw sombre shadows on

the carved, wooden bridal coffer, on the high-backed chairs. In the

sitting-room, where no lights had ever been used, Sangiorgio turned

about in embarrassment, match in hand, at a loss how to obtain a light.

At last he found a slender, bronze, Pompeian candlestick, with three

pink candles, which he lit. He sat down opposite Don Silvio, who had

already taken a seat. The Minister had thrown his cigar away on the

landing, and left his hat in the anteroom; his head was lowered on his

chest, and his eyeglass hanging down on his coat. Don Silvio was in one

of his reflective moods.

'I am waiting, Don Silvio,' said Sangiorgio, with difficulty restraining

himself from speaking impatiently.

'I was thinking, Sangiorgio,' quietly began the Minister, 'what a very

strong desire you must have to kill me.'

'Very strong.'

'To-day, no doubt, it is irresistible.'

'Irresistible.'

'You are wrong, Sangiorgio,' Don Silvio went on, very gently. 'Why

should you wish to kill me? I am old, quite old; what you do not do,

death will soon do in its natural course.'

'Don Silvio!' cried the other, suddenly prostrated.

'It is true; I am seventy-two years old, but I have lived the lives of

three men. I am, in reality, more exhausted and much weaker than anyone

knows of. Some day I shall collapse in a single moment. You might be my

son, Sangiorgio. You would surely not kill your father for the sake of

the inheritance.'

'Don Silvio, Don Silvio, do not say such things!'

'Yes, let me speak. We will not fight about this, however strong my

right to do so, and however great your desire. Besides, it would be

ridiculous. I, so near the grave, assuming the heat and passion of

youth; you, so young, confessing you could not wait. We must not make

ourselves ridiculous. I understand such affairs, when they are a

question of love and youth, as being tragical, not comical. Better

dishonour than a farce, Sangiorgio.'

'True, quite true.'

'And then there is Angelica,' added her aged husband, pronouncing the

name with infinite tenderness.

A prolonged silence occurred in the little temple where the absent

divinity still invisibly reigned.

'Angelica is good; she must not suffer. When she threw herself into my

arms to-day, trembling with terror, beseeching me to save her--do not be

jealous, Sangiorgio; she is a daughter to me--although I knew her

secret, I let her speak, because her tears, her sobs, her despair, were

the proof of her virtue: they showed her conscience rebelling against

evil.'

'You knew her whole secret?'

'Yes, from the very first. She did not exactly remember whether she came

here for the first time on the second or the third of May; but I knew

very well it was on a Sunday, the first of May. She confessed to having

been here about fifteen times, but I knew better--that she had come

eighteen times. I am Minister of Home Affairs. But I do not reproach

her, and I am not reproaching you; you are right to love each other.'

Sangiorgio humbly raised his head to look the grief-smitten old husband

in the eyes.

'Of course,' he resumed, 'Angelica being handsome and young and clever,

she required some young person like herself, entirely devoted to her,

who would appreciate all her good, lovely qualities, who would live the

life of the spirit and the heart together with her. Instead, she has a

withered, disbelieving, ruined old man, who has an old and greedy

passion to feed--ambition, the exacting, absorbing, furious passion of

men over forty.

'It is natural that Angelica should prefer you to me. As for you, who

know how to love, and still want to, who have no ambition, who do not

yet know that fever of the soul which never can be stilled, who have a

heart full of trust and an imagination full of enthusiasm, you prefer

the sweet intoxication of love to everything else. Who could possibly

find fault with you? It is you who are the wiser; we are the fools. We

deserve to be tricked and deceived; we are striving for a vulgar sham,

you for a divine reality! I cannot blame you.'

Sangiorgio listened, with his face buried in his hands, without

proffering a word.

'Further than that,' Don Silvio went on, as if soliloquizing, 'that

great thing called man, that power, that force, that combination of

forces, is governed by a certain law which imposes a restriction upon

his achievements. Do this, and nothing else, says this law, if you do

not want to be feeble and insufficient in both. One single, strong,

intense, profound passion you may entertain; one single, high, distant,

unattainable ideal you may cherish; and your soul must be completely

devoted to this sole passion, from which nothing must make you swerve,

and your soul must be wholly bent upon that one ideal if you want to

reach it. Love, art, politics, science, these great human activities,

these highest forms of passion, and the ideal, all go their own separate

roads; and so stupendous are they that the miserable mind of a man can

scarcely get his grasp on one of them. A man cannot be a scientist and

an artist, nor a politician and a lover, without failing in both the

things he wants to do. We must take our choice; the great human

interests of mind and heart are selfish, and demand heavy sacrifices.'

'What is Donna Angelica's wish?' asked Sangiorgio briefly, rousing

himself from the long spell of meditation in which he had been immersed.

'That you leave Rome, Sangiorgio,' answered Don Silvio.

'I shall leave. For how long?'

'As long as possible.'

'I shall hand in my resignation. May I see her once more? I have not the

shadow of an evil thought in making this request now.'

'She wishes not to see you.'

'Very well. May I at least write to her?'

'She begs that you will spare her. You will understand her reserve.'

'I understand. Now, tell me, Don Silvio, in this bitterest hour of my

life, tell me before God, is it you who are compelling her to do all

this, or is she doing it of her own free will?'

'I swear to you, my son,' said the old man gently, 'that it is all by

her own free will, without any compulsion from me. You may see her if

you like; I shall offer no opposition. But it will be better for you not

to see her,' he added significantly.

'Is she suffering?'

'She has suffered.'

'What does she say about me?'

'She counts upon your love.'

'Very well. Tell her I am going away never to return. Good-bye, Don

Silvio.'

'Good-bye, Sangiorgio.'

And they took leave of one another at the street door, under the sky of

night.

'Another word, Don Silvio. You knew I loved Donna Angelica, and that she

came to see me. Had you no fears?'

'I know Donna Angelica,' answered Don Silvio, with an accent of

profound conviction, and went away.

Francesco Sangiorgio understood. Like Don Silvio, he now also saw what

Donna Angelica was--the woman who knew not how to love.

* * * * *

He stole to the Speaker's rooms while the House was sitting, since he

did not wish to be seen. From there he wrote a note, in which he asked

to resign for reasons of health--a curt note, without any other

particulars whatever. Upon handing the letter to the usher, his nerves

underwent a violent shock; he seemed to be suffocated by a rush of

blood. After seeing the man disappear through the door, he fell back

into the yellow satin armchair, aged and weak, as if he were coming out

of a ten years' sickness. He waited and waited, not daring to stir, not

daring to go into the Chamber, whence that day he was voluntarily

banishing himself. He was afraid to show himself, like a criminal; was

afraid to give way to his feelings; was afraid to throw himself on the

ground and weep over everything that was dying in him that day.

The usher came back with a note from the Speaker. The Chamber, as was

customary, granted him, on the request of the Honourable Melillo, a

three months' leave of absence. Did they not understand, then, that he

wanted to go? Was the agony to begin over again? He was obliged to write

the Speaker another note; positively, he was ill, and could not act as

deputy any more. Then he walked up and down in the Speaker's

sitting-room, like a caged lion; and each time he was near the bedroom

he became seized with a sense of envy.

In there, on a bed to which he had been carried after taking a sudden

fit during a speech he was making in the Chamber, a young and bold

athlete of finance had breathed his last. He had known the supreme

blessing of being able to die like a soldier on the battlefield, and

Sangiorgio envied him his death. The usher came back. The House accepted

the resignation, in view of the urgency of the case, the Speaker

conveying besides a short message of regret, with wishes for his

recovery. That was all, and it was the end of all. Sangiorgio

mechanically felt for his medal, his pride, his amulet, and between his

fingers it seemed eroded, thinned, as if it had been through fire. And

slowly he went thence, resisting his strong desire to look once more at

the lobbies, the corridors, the waiting-rooms, the library, the

refreshment-rooms, the offices. But he went away without seeing them,

since he was afraid of meeting too many deputies, to be obliged to give

too many explanations, and shake too many hands; and he knew--yes, he

knew that before anyone who should happen to be the first to bid him

good-bye he would burst into tears, without shame, like a boy whose

father has shut the door of his house against him. Better had he leave

as though he cared not, like an unfaithful servant, who goes unthanked

and without being bidden farewell; who wants to say no thanks, and

offers no farewells.

Suddenly, in the Montecitorio Square, he felt a great void within and

all about him. He seemed to have nothing more to do, to have nowhere

else to go to, to be excluded from seeing anyone; all things, people,

and events became discoloured all at once. He wanted neither to walk,

eat, talk, nor think; it all seemed useless--all. Instinctively he made

for the Via Angelo Custode, to his old lodgings, where so much dust had

accumulated in the summer, and where the disgusting smell of bugs was

mixed with other horrible smells that came from the courtyard. There he

threw himself on the bed, face downwards, buried in the cushions, hands

lifeless, in mortal inanition. He had made no attempt to see Donna

Angelica again; what use would it have been? Would there have been any

change in her, or in his love, if he had seen her?

It was all useless, all of it. He owed a large sum to an upholsterer,

and another to a bank, the natural penalty of every honest but forbidden

love. But what did it matter? He would pay, perhaps, when he was able,

at some uncertain date; otherwise, if it meant ruin--well, so much the

worse. Nothing could hurt him now; everything was useless, everything.

He did not even want to see the apartment in the Piazza di Spagna again,

all fragrant still, and warm with Angelica's late presence; he did not

want to kiss the place where she had sat. These memories must be buried

in the past; the evidence of the past must perish. Nor did he desire to

take another walk through Rome, the city of his choice, the city of his

dreams, which he was to quit in two hours.

He was fit for nothing more, and all was useless--all.

Now that all was over, better remain out of sight on that wretched bed

in the furnished lodgings, with the filth and the vile smells, better

see and hear nothing.

Surely this was a sleep-walker, this man who was going to and fro in the

waiting-room at the station, after taking a second-class ticket for an

unheard-of little place in the Basilicata, since he had not enough money

to buy a first-class ticket. He must be walking in his sleep, this man,

who saw none of the passengers, but stumbled up against them, while

waiting for the departure of the Naples train; who paid no attention

either to his traps, or to the itinerant newsvendor offering him papers,

or to the summer breeze that blew the gas about. This was a

sleep-walker, surely, who was looking for a seat as he vacantly followed

the voice of the guard.

Ah, the long dream! With the first puffs of the departing train a severe

shock at his heart awakens the pale sleep-walker. He moves to the window

of the coach and sees Rome, black, towering, stupendous, on the seven

hills flooded with light. And he draws back, and falls upon the seat as

one dead, for in very truth Rome has conquered him.

THE END

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