“You saw his Holiness last night,” he said; and as Pierre gazed at him in

stupefaction he added: “Oh! everything gets known, I told you so before.

Well, and you purely and simply withdrew your book, did you not?” The

young priest’s increasing stupor was sufficient answer, and without

leaving him time to reply, Don Vigilio went on: “I suspected it, but I

wished to make certain. Ah! that’s just the way they work! Do you believe

me now, have you realised that they stifle those whom they don’t poison?”

He was no doubt referring to the Jesuits. However, after glancing into

the adjoining room to make sure that Abbé Paparelli had not returned

thither, he resumed: “And what has Monsignor Nani just told you?”

“But I have not yet seen Monsignor Nani,” was Pierre’s reply.

“Oh! I thought you had. He passed through before you arrived. If you did

not see him in the throne-room he must have gone to pay his respects to

Donna Serafina and his Eminence. However, he will certainly pass this way

again; you will see him by and by.” Then with the bitterness of one who

was weak, ever terror-smitten and vanquished, Don Vigilio added: “I told

you that you would end by doing what Monsignor Nani desired.”

With these words, fancying that he heard the light footfall of Abbé

Paparelli, he hastily returned to his place and bowed to two old ladies

who just then walked in. And Pierre, still seated, overcome, his eyes

wearily closing, at last saw the figure of Nani arise before him in all

its reality so typical of sovereign intelligence and address. He

remembered what Don Vigilio, on the famous night of his revelations, had

told him of this man who was far too shrewd to have labelled himself, so

to say, with an unpopular robe, and who, withal, was a charming prelate

with thorough knowledge of the world, acquired by long experience at

different nunciatures and at the Holy Office, mixed up in everything,

informed with regard to everything, one of the heads, one of the chief

minds in fact of that modern black army, which by dint of Opportunism

hopes to bring this century back to the Church. And all at once, full

enlightenment fell on Pierre, he realised by what supple, clever strategy

that man had led him to the act which he desired of him, the pure and

simple withdrawal of his book, accomplished with every appearance of free

will. First there had been great annoyance on Nani’s part on learning

that the book was being prosecuted, for he feared lest its excitable

author might be prompted to some dangerous revolt; then plans had at once

been formed, information had been collected concerning this young priest

who seemed so capable of schism, he had been urged to come to Rome,

invited to stay in an ancient mansion whose very walls would chill and

enlighten him. And afterwards had come the ever recurring obstacles, the

system of prolonging his sojourn in Rome by preventing him from seeing

the Pope, but promising him the much-desired interview when the proper

time should come, that is after he had been sent hither and thither and

brought into collision with one and all. And finally, when every one and

everything had shaken, wearied, and disgusted him, and he was restored

once more to his old doubts, there had come the audience for which he had

undergone all this preparation, that visit to the Pope which was destined

to shatter whatever remained to him of his dream. Pierre could picture

Nani smiling at him and speaking to him, declaring that the repeated

delays were a favour of Providence, which would enable him to visit Rome,

study and understand things, reflect, and avoid blunders. How delicate

and how profound had been the prelate’s diplomacy in thus crushing his

feelings beneath his reason, appealing to his intelligence to suppress

his work without any scandalous struggle as soon as his knowledge of the

real Rome should have shown him how supremely ridiculous it was to dream

of a new one!

At that moment Pierre perceived Nani in person just coming from the

throne-room, and did not feel the irritation and rancour which he had

anticipated. On the contrary he was glad when the prelate, in his turn

seeing him, drew near and held out his hand. Nani, however, did not wear

his wonted smile, but looked very grave, quite grief-stricken. “Ah! my

dear son,” he said, “what a frightful catastrophe! I have just left his

Eminence, he is in tears. It is horrible, horrible!”

He seated himself on one of the chairs, inviting the young priest, who

had risen, to do the same; and for a moment he remained silent, weary

with emotion no doubt, and needing a brief rest to free himself of the

weight of thoughts which visibly darkened his usually bright face. Then,

with a gesture, he strove to dismiss that gloom, and recover his amiable

cordiality. “Well, my dear son,” he began, “you saw his Holiness?”

“Yes, Monseigneur, yesterday evening; and I thank you for your great

kindness in satisfying my desire.”

Nani looked at him fixedly, and his invincible smile again returned to

his lips. “You thank me.... I can well see that you behaved sensibly

and laid your full submission at his Holiness’s feet. I was certain of

it, I did not expect less of your fine intelligence. But, all the same,

you render me very happy, for I am delighted to find that I was not

mistaken concerning you.” And then, setting aside his reserve, the

prelate went on: “I never discussed things with you. What would have been

the good of it, since facts were there to convince you? And now that you

have withdrawn your book a discussion would be still more futile.

However, just reflect that if it were possible for you to bring the

Church back to her early period, to that Christian community which you

have sketched so delightfully, she could only again follow the same

evolutions as those in which God the first time guided her; so that, at

the end of a similar number of centuries, she would find herself exactly

in the position which she occupies to-day. No, what God has done has been

well done, the Church such as she is must govern the world, such as it

is; it is for her alone to know how she will end by firmly establishing

her reign here below. And this is why your attack upon the temporal power

was an unpardonable fault, a crime even, for by dispossessing the papacy

of her domains you hand her over to the mercy of the nations. Your new

religion is but the final downfall of all religion, moral anarchy, the

liberty of schism, in a word, the destruction of the divine edifice, that

ancient Catholicism which has shown such prodigious wisdom and solidity,

which has sufficed for the salvation of mankind till now, and will alone

be able to save it to-morrow and always.”

Pierre felt that Nani was sincere, pious even, and really unshakable in

his faith, loving the Church like a grateful son, and convinced that she

was the only social organisation which could render mankind happy. And if

he were bent on governing the world, it was doubtless for the pleasure of

governing, but also in the conviction that no one could do so better than

himself.

“Oh! certainly,” said he, “methods are open to discussion. I desire them

to be as affable and humane as possible, as conciliatory as can be with

this present century, which seems to be escaping us, precisely because

there is a misunderstanding between us. But we shall bring it back, I am

sure of it. And that is why, my dear son, I am so pleased to see you

return to the fold, thinking as we think, and ready to battle on our

side, is that not so?”

In Nani’s words the young priest once more found the arguments of Leo

XIII. Desiring to avoid a direct reply, for although he now felt no anger

the wrenching away of his dream had left him a smarting wound, he bowed,

and replied slowly in order to conceal the bitter tremble of his voice:

“I repeat, Monseigneur, that I deeply thank you for having amputated my

vain illusions with the skill of an accomplished surgeon. A little later,

when I shall have ceased to suffer, I shall think of you with eternal

gratitude.”

Monsignor Nani still looked at him with a smile. He fully understood that

this young priest would remain on one side, that as an element of

strength he was lost to the Church. What would he do now? Something

foolish no doubt. However, the prelate had to content himself with having

helped him to repair his first folly; he could not foresee the future.

And he gracefully waved his hand as if to say that sufficient unto the

day was the evil thereof.

“Will you allow me to conclude, my dear son?” he at last exclaimed. “Be

sensible, your happiness as a priest and a man lies in humility. You will

be terribly unhappy if you use the great intelligence which God has given

you against Him.”

Then with another gesture he dismissed this affair, which was all over,

and with which he need busy himself no more. And thereupon the other

affair came back to make him gloomy, that other affair which also was

drawing to a close, but so tragically, with those two poor children

slumbering in the adjoining room. “Ah!” he resumed, “that poor Princess

and that poor Cardinal quite upset my heart! Never did catastrophe fall

so cruelly on a house. No, no, it is indeed too much, misfortune goes too

far--it revolts one’s soul!”

Just as he finished a sound of voices came from the second ante-room, and

Pierre was thunderstruck to see Cardinal Sanguinetti go by, escorted with

the greatest obsequiousness by Abbé Paparelli.

“If your most Reverend Eminence will have the extreme kindness to follow

me,” the train-bearer was saying, “I will conduct your most Reverend

Eminence myself.”

“Yes,” replied Sanguinetti, “I arrived yesterday evening from Frascati,

and when I heard the sad news, I at once desired to express my sorrow and

offer consolation.”

“Your Eminence will perhaps condescend to remain for a moment near the

bodies. I will afterwards escort your Eminence to the private

apartments.”

“Yes, by all means. I desire every one to know how greatly I participate

in the sorrow which has fallen on this illustrious house.”

Then Sanguinetti entered the throne-room, leaving Pierre quite aghast at

his quiet audacity. The young priest certainly did not accuse him of

direct complicity with Santobono, he did not even dare to measure how far

his moral complicity might go. But on seeing him pass by like that, his

brow so lofty, his speech so clear, he had suddenly felt convinced that

he knew the truth. How or through whom, he could not have told; but

doubtless crimes become known in those shady spheres by those whose

interest it is to know of them. And Pierre remained quite chilled by the

haughty fashion in which that man presented himself, perhaps to stifle

suspicion and certainly to accomplish an act of good policy by giving his

rival a public mark of esteem and affection.

“The Cardinal! Here!” Pierre murmured despite himself.

Nani, who followed the young man’s thoughts in his childish eyes, in

which all could be read, pretended to mistake the sense of his

exclamation. “Yes,” said he, “I learnt that the Cardinal returned to Rome

yesterday evening. He did not wish to remain away any longer; the Holy

Father being so much better that he might perhaps have need of him.”

Although these words were spoken with an air of perfect innocence, Pierre

was not for a moment deceived by them. And having in his turn glanced at

the prelate, he was convinced that the latter also knew the truth. Then,

all at once, the whole affair appeared to him in its intricacy, in the

ferocity which fate had imparted to it. Nani, an old intimate of the

Palazzo Boccanera, was not heartless, he had surely loved Benedetta with

affection, charmed by so much grace and beauty. One could thus explain

the victorious manner in which he had at last caused her marriage to be

annulled. But if Don Vigilio were to be believed, that divorce, obtained

by pecuniary outlay, and under pressure of the most notorious influences,

was simply a scandal which he, Nani, had in the first instance spun out,

and then precipitated towards a resounding finish with the sole object of

discrediting the Cardinal and destroying his chances of the tiara on the

eve of the Conclave which everybody thought imminent. It seemed certain,

too, that the Cardinal, uncompromising as he was, could not be the

candidate of Nani, who was so desirous of universal agreement, and so the

latter’s long labour in that house, whilst conducing to the happiness of

the Contessina, had been designed to frustrate Donna Serafina and

Cardinal Pio in their burning ambition, that third triumphant elevation

to the papacy which they sought to secure for their ancient family.

However, if Nani had always desired to baulk this ambition, and had even

at one moment placed his hopes in Sanguinetti and fought for him, he had

never imagined that Boccanera’s foes would go to the point of crime, to

such an abomination as poison which missed its mark and killed the

innocent. No, no, as he himself said, that was too much, and made one’s

soul rebel. He employed more gentle weapons; such brutality filled him

with indignation; and his face, so pinky and carefully tended, still wore

the grave expression of his revolt in presence of the tearful Cardinal

and those poor lovers stricken in his stead.

Believing that Sanguinetti was still the prelate’s secret candidate,

Pierre was worried to know how far their moral complicity in this baleful

affair might go. So he resumed the conversation by saying: “It is

asserted that his Holiness is on bad terms with his Eminence Cardinal

Sanguinetti. Of course the reigning pope cannot look on the future pope

with a very kindly eye.”

At this, Nani for a moment became quite gay in all frankness. “Oh,” said

he, “the Cardinal has quarrelled and made things up with the Vatican

three or four times already. And, in any event, the Holy Father has no

motive for posthumous jealousy; he knows very well that he can give his

Eminence a good greeting.” Then, regretting that he had thus expressed a

certainty, he added: “I am joking, his Eminence is altogether worthy of

the high fortune which perhaps awaits him.”

Pierre knew what to think however; Sanguinetti was certainly Nani’s

candidate no longer. It was doubtless considered that he had used himself

up too much by his impatient ambition, and was too dangerous by reason of

the equivocal alliances which in his feverishness he had concluded with

every party, even that of patriotic young Italy. And thus the situation

became clearer. Cardinals Sanguinetti and Boccanera devoured and

suppressed one another; the first, ever intriguing, accepting every

compromise, dreaming of winning Rome back by electoral methods; and the

other, erect and motionless in his stern maintenance of the past,

excommunicating the century, and awaiting from God alone the miracle

which would save the Church. And, indeed, why not leave the two theories,

thus placed face to face, to destroy one another, including all the

extreme, disquieting views which they respectively embodied? If Boccanera

had escaped the poison, he had none the less become an impossible

candidate, killed by all the stories which had set Rome buzzing; while if

Sanguinetti could say that he was rid of a rival, he had at the same time

dealt a mortal blow to his own candidature, by displaying such passion

for power, and such unscrupulousness with regard to the methods he

employed, as to be a danger for every one. Monsignor Nani was visibly

delighted with this result; neither candidate was left, it was like the

legendary story of the two wolves who fought and devoured one another so

completely that nothing of either of them was found left, not even their

tails! And in the depths of the prelate’s pale eyes, in the whole of his

discreet person, there remained nothing but redoubtable mystery: the

mystery of the yet unknown, but definitively selected candidate who would

be patronised by the all-powerful army of which he was one of the most

skilful leaders. A man like him always had a solution ready. Who, then,

who would be the next pope?

However, he now rose and cordially took leave of the young priest. “I

doubt if I shall see you again, my dear son,” he said; “I wish you a good

journey.”

Still he did not go off, but continued to look at Pierre with his

penetrating eyes, and finally made him sit down again and did the same

himself. “I feel sure,” he said, “that you will go to pay your respects

to Cardinal Bergerot as soon as you have returned to France. Kindly tell

him that I respectfully desired to be reminded to him. I knew him a

little at the time when he came here for his hat. He is one of the great

luminaries of the French clergy. Ah! a man of such intelligence would

only work for a good understanding in our holy Church. Unfortunately I

fear that race and environment have instilled prejudices into him, for he

does not always help us.”

Pierre, who was surprised to hear Nani speak of the Cardinal for the

first time at this moment of farewell, listened with curiosity. Then in

all frankness he replied: “Yes, his Eminence has very decided ideas about

our old Church of France. For instance, he professes perfect horror of

the Jesuits.”

With a light exclamation Nani stopped the young man. And he wore the most

sincerely, frankly astonished air that could be imagined. “What! horror

of the Jesuits! In what way can the Jesuits disquiet him? The Jesuits,

there are none, that’s all over! Have you seen any in Rome? Have they

troubled you in any way, those poor Jesuits who haven’t even a stone of

their own left here on which to lay their heads? No, no, that bogey

mustn’t be brought up again, it’s childish.”

Pierre in his turn looked at him, marvelling at his perfect ease, his

quiet courage in dealing with this burning subject. He did not avert his

eyes, but displayed an open face like a book of truth. “Ah!” he

continued, “if by Jesuits you mean the sensible priests who, instead of

entering into sterile and dangerous struggles with modern society, seek

by human methods to bring it back to the Church, why, then of course we

are all of us more or less Jesuits, for it would be madness not to take

into account the times in which one lives. And besides, I won’t haggle

over words; they are of no consequence! Jesuits, well, yes, if you like,

Jesuits!” He was again smiling with that shrewd smile of his in which

there was so much raillery and so much intelligence. “Well, when you see

Cardinal Bergerot tell him that it is unreasonable to track the Jesuits

and treat them as enemies of the nation. The contrary is the truth. The

Jesuits are for France, because they are for wealth, strength, and

courage. France is the only great Catholic country which has yet remained

erect and sovereign, the only one on which the papacy can some day lean.

Thus the Holy Father, after momentarily dreaming of obtaining support

from victorious Germany, has allied himself with France, the vanquished,

because he has understood that apart from France there can be no

salvation for the Church. And in this he has only followed the policy of

the Jesuits, those frightful Jesuits, whom your Parisians execrate. And

tell Cardinal Bergerot also that it would be grand of him to work for

pacification by making people understand how wrong it is for your

Republic to help the Holy Father so little in his conciliatory efforts.

It pretends to regard him as an element in the world’s affairs that may

be neglected; and that is dangerous, for although he may seem to have no

political means of action he remains an immense moral force, and can at

any moment raise consciences in rebellion and provoke a religious

agitation of the most far-reaching consequences. It is still he who

disposes of the nations, since he disposes of their souls, and the

Republic acts most inconsiderately, from the standpoint of its own

interests, in showing that it no longer even suspects it. And tell the

Cardinal too, that it is really pitiful to see in what a wretched way

your Republic selects its bishops, as though it intentionally desired to

weaken its episcopacy. Leaving out a few fortunate exceptions, your

bishops are men of small brains, and as a result your cardinals, likewise

mere mediocrities, have no influence, play no part here in Rome. Ah! what

a sorry figure you Frenchmen will cut at the next Conclave! And so why do

you show such blind and foolish hatred of those Jesuits, who,

politically, are your friends? Why don’t you employ their intelligent

zeal, which is ready to serve you, so that you may assure yourselves the

help of the next, the coming pope? It is necessary for you that he should

be on your side, that he should continue the work of Leo XIII, which is

so badly judged and so much opposed, but which cares little for the petty

results of to-day, since its purpose lies in the future, in the union of

all the nations under their holy mother the Church. Tell Cardinal

Bergerot, tell him plainly that he ought to be with us, that he ought to

work for his country by working for us. The coming pope, why the whole

question lies in that, and woe to France if in him she does not find a

continuator of Leo XIII!”

Nani had again risen, and this time he was going off. Never before had he

unbosomed himself at such length. But most assuredly he had only said

what he desired to say, for a purpose that he alone knew of, and in a

firm, gentle, and deliberate voice by which one could tell that each word

had been weighed and determined beforehand. “Farewell, my dear son,” he

said, “and once again think over all you have seen and heard in Rome. Be

as sensible as you can, and do not spoil your life.”

Pierre bowed, and pressed the small, plump, supple hand which the prelate

offered him. “Monseigneur,” he replied, “I again thank you for all your

kindness; you may be sure that I shall forget nothing of my journey.”

Then he watched Nani as he went off, with a light and conquering step as

if marching to all the victories of the future. No, no, he, Pierre, would

forget nothing of his journey! He well knew that union of all the nations

under their holy mother the Church, that temporal bondage in which the

law of Christ would become the dictatorship of Augustus, master of the

world! And as for those Jesuits, he had no doubt that they did love

France, the eldest daughter of the Church, and the only daughter that

could yet help her mother to reconquer universal sovereignty, but they

loved her even as the black swarms of locusts love the harvests which

they swoop upon and devour. Infinite sadness had returned to the young

man’s heart as he dimly realised that in that sorely-stricken mansion, in

all that mourning and downfall, it was they, they again, who must have

been the artisans of grief and disaster.

As this thought came to him he turned round and perceived Don Vigilio

leaning against the credence in front of the large portrait of the

Cardinal. Holding his hands to his face as if he desired to annihilate

himself, the secretary was shivering in every limb as much with fear as

with fever. At a moment when no fresh visitors were arriving he had

succumbed to an attack of terrified despair.

“_Mon Dieu_! What is the matter with you?” asked Pierre stepping forward,

“are you ill, can I help you?”

But Don Vigilio, suffocating and still hiding his face, could only gasp

between his close-pressed hands “Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!”

“What is it? What has he done to you?” asked the other astonished.

Then the secretary disclosed his face, and again yielded to his quivering

desire to confide in some one. “Eh? what he has done to me? Can’t you

feel anything, can’t you see anything then? Didn’t you notice the manner

in which he took possession of Cardinal Sanguinetti so as to conduct him

to his Eminence? To impose that suspected, hateful rival on his Eminence

at such a moment as this, what insolent audacity! And a few minutes

previously did you notice with what wicked cunning he bowed out an old

lady, a very old family friend, who only desired to kiss his Eminence’s

hand and show a little real affection which would have made his Eminence

so happy! Ah! I tell you that he’s the master here, he opens or closes

the door as he pleases, and holds us all between his fingers like a pinch

of dust which one throws to the wind!”

Pierre became anxious, seeing how yellow and feverish Don Vigilio was:

“Come, come, my dear fellow,” he said, “you are exaggerating!”

“Exaggerating? Do you know what happened last night, what I myself

unwillingly witnessed? No, you don’t know it; well, I will tell you.”

Thereupon he related that Donna Serafina, on returning home on the

previous day to face the terrible catastrophe awaiting her, had already

been overcome by the bad news which she had learnt when calling on the

Cardinal Secretary and various prelates of her acquaintance. She had then

acquired a certainty that her brother’s position was becoming extremely

bad, for he had made so many fresh enemies among his colleagues of the

Sacred College, that his election to the pontifical throne, which a year

previously had seemed probable, now appeared an impossibility. Thus, all

at once, the dream of her life collapsed, the ambition which she had so

long nourished lay in dust at her feet. On despairingly seeking the why

and wherefore of this change, she had been told of all sorts of blunders

committed by the Cardinal, acts of rough sternness, unseasonable

manifestations of opinion, inconsiderate words or actions which had

sufficed to wound people, in fact such provoking demeanour that one might

have thought it adopted with the express intention of spoiling

everything. And the worst was that in each of the blunders she had

recognised errors of judgment which she herself had blamed, but which her

brother had obstinately insisted on perpetrating under the unacknowledged

influence of Abbé Paparelli, that humble and insignificant train-bearer,

in whom she detected a baneful and powerful adviser who destroyed her own

vigilant and devoted influence. And so, in spite of the mourning in which

the house was plunged, she did not wish to delay the punishment of the

traitor, particularly as his old friendship with that terrible Santobono,

and the story of that basket of figs which had passed from the hands of

the one to those of the other, chilled her blood with a suspicion which

she even recoiled from elucidating. However, at the first words she

spoke, directly she made a formal request that the traitor should be

immediately turned out of the house, she was confronted by invincible

resistance on her brother’s part. He would not listen to her, but flew

into one of those hurricane-like passions which swept everything away,

reproaching her for laying blame on so modest, pious, and saintly a man,

and accusing her of playing into the hands of his enemies, who, after

killing Monsignor Gallo, were seeking to poison his sole remaining

affection for that poor, insignificant priest. He treated all the stories

he was told as abominable inventions, and swore that he would keep the

train-bearer in his service if only to show his disdain for calumny. And

she was thereupon obliged to hold her peace.

However, Don Vigilio’s shuddering fit had again come back; he carried his

hands to his face stammering: “Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli!” And muttered

invectives followed: the train-bearer was an artful hypocrite who feigned

modesty and humility, a vile spy appointed to pry into everything, listen

to everything, and pervert everything that went on in the palace; he was

a loathsome, destructive insect, feeding on the most noble prey,

devouring the lion’s mane, a Jesuit--the Jesuit who is at once lackey and

tyrant, in all his base horror as he accomplishes the work of vermin.

“Calm yourself, calm yourself,” repeated Pierre, who whilst allowing for

foolish exaggeration on the secretary’s part could not help shivering at

thought of all the threatening things which he himself could divine astir

in the gloom.

However, since Don Vigilio had so narrowly escaped eating those horrible

figs, his fright was such that nothing could calm it. Even when he was

alone at night, in bed, with his door locked and bolted, sudden terror

fell on him and made him hide his head under the sheet and vent stifled

cries as if he thought that men were coming through the wall to strangle

him. In a faint, breathless voice, as if just emerging from a struggle,

he now resumed: “I told you what would happen on the evening when we had

a talk together in your room. Although all the doors were securely shut,

I did wrong to speak of them to you, I did wrong to ease my heart by

telling you all that they were capable of. I was sure they would learn

it, and you see they did learn it, since they tried to kill me.... Why

it’s even wrong of me to tell you this, for it will reach their ears and

they won’t miss me the next time. Ah! it’s all over, I’m as good as dead;

this house which I thought so safe will be my tomb.”

Pierre began to feel deep compassion for this ailing man, whose feverish

brain was haunted by nightmares, and whose life was being finally wrecked

by the anguish of persecution mania. “But you must run away in that

case!” he said. “Don’t stop here; come to France.”

Don Vigilio looked at him, momentarily calmed by surprise. “Run away,

why? Go to France? Why, they are there! No matter where I might go, they

would be there. They are everywhere, I should always be surrounded by

them! No, no, I prefer to stay here and would rather die at once if his

Eminence can no longer defend me.” With an expression of ardent entreaty

in which a last gleam of hope tried to assert itself, he raised his eyes

to the large painting in which the Cardinal stood forth resplendent in

his cassock of red moire; but his attack came back again and overwhelmed

him with increased intensity of fever. “Leave me, I beg you, leave me,”

he gasped. “Don’t make me talk any more. Ah! Paparelli, Paparelli! If he

should come back and see us and hear me speak.... Oh! I’ll never say

anything again. I’ll tie up my tongue, I’ll cut it off. Leave me, you are

killing me, I tell you, he’ll be coming back and that will mean my death.

Go away, oh! for mercy’s sake, go away!”

Thereupon Don Vigilio turned towards the wall as if to flatten his face

against it, and immure his lips in tomb-like silence; and Pierre resolved

to leave him to himself, fearing lest he should provoke a yet more

serious attack if he went on endeavouring to succour him.

On returning to the throne-room the young priest again found himself

amidst all the frightful mourning. Mass was following mass; without

cessation murmured prayers entreated the divine mercy to receive the two

dear departed souls with loving kindness. And amidst the dying perfume of

the fading roses, in front of the pale stars of the lighted candles,

Pierre thought of that supreme downfall of the Boccaneras. Dario was the

last of the name, and one could well understand that the Cardinal, whose

only sin was family pride, should have loved that one remaining scion by

whom alone the old stock might yet blossom afresh. And indeed, if he and

Donna Serafina had desired the divorce, and then the marriage of the

cousins, it had been less with the view of putting an end to scandal than

with the hope of seeing a new line of Boccaneras spring up. But the

lovers were dead, and the last remains of a long series of dazzling

princes of sword and of gown lay there on that bed, soon to rot in the

grave. It was all over; that old maid and that aged Cardinal could leave

no posterity. They remained face to face like two withered oaks, sole

remnants of a vanished forest, and their fall would soon leave the plain

quite clear. And how terrible the grief of surviving in impotence, what

anguish to have to tell oneself that one is the end of everything, that

with oneself all life, all hope for the morrow will depart! Amidst the

murmur of the prayers, the dying perfume of the roses, the pale gleams of

the two candies, Pierre realised what a downfall was that bereavement,

how heavy was the gravestone which fell for ever on an extinct house, a

vanished world.

He well understood that as one of the familiars of the mansion he must

pay his respects to Donna Serafina and the Cardinal, and he at once

sought admission to the neighbouring room where the Princess was

receiving her friends. He found her robed in black, very slim and very

erect in her arm-chair, whence she rose with slow dignity to respond to

the bow of each person that entered. She listened to the condolences but

answered never a word, overcoming her physical pain by rigidity of

bearing. Pierre, who had learnt to know her, could divine, however, by

the hollowness of her cheeks, the emptiness of her eyes, and the bitter

twinge of her mouth, how frightful was the collapse within her. Not only

was her race ended, but her brother would never be pope, never secure the

elevation which she had so long fancied she was winning for him by dint

of devotion, dint of feminine renunciation, giving brain and heart, care

and money, foregoing even wifehood and motherhood, spoiling her whole

life, in order to realise that dream. And amidst all the ruin of hope, it

was perhaps the nonfulfilment of that ambition which most made her heart

bleed. She rose for the young priest, her guest, as she rose for the

other persons who presented themselves; but she contrived to introduce

shades of meaning into the manner in which she quitted her chair, and

Pierre fully realised that he had remained in her eyes a mere petty

French priest, an insignificant domestic of the Divinity who had not

known how to acquire even the title of prelate. When she had again seated

herself after acknowledging his compliment with a slight inclination of

the head, he remained for a moment standing, out of politeness. Not a

word, not a sound disturbed the mournful quiescence of the room, for

although there were four or five lady visitors seated there they remained

motionless and silent as with grief. Pierre was most struck, however, by

the sight of Cardinal Sarno, who was lying back in an arm-chair with his

eyes closed. The poor puny lopsided old man had lingered there

forgetfully after expressing his condolences, and, overcome by the heavy

silence and close atmosphere, had just fallen asleep. And everybody

respected his slumber. Was he dreaming as he dozed of that map of

Christendom which he carried behind his low obtuse-looking brow? Was he

continuing in dreamland his terrible work of conquest, that task of

subjecting and governing the earth which he directed from his dark room

at the Propaganda? The ladies glanced at him affectionately and

deferentially; he was gently scolded at times for over-working himself,

the sleepiness which nowadays frequently overtook him in all sorts of

places being attributed to excess of genius and zeal. And of this

all-powerful Eminence Pierre was destined to carry off only this last

impression: an exhausted old man, resting amidst the emotion of a

mourning-gathering, sleeping there like a candid child, without any one

knowing whether this were due to the approach of senile imbecility, or to

the fatigues of a night spent in organising the reign of God over some

distant continent.

Two ladies went off and three more arrived. Donna Serafina rose, bowed,

and then reseated herself, reverting to her rigid attitude, her bust

erect, her face stern and full of despair. Cardinal Sarno was still

asleep. Then Pierre felt as if he would stifle, a kind of vertigo came on

him, and his heart beat violently. So he bowed and withdrew: and on

passing through the dining-room on his way to the little study where

Cardinal Boccanera received his visitors, he found himself in the

presence of Paparelli who was jealously guarding the door. When the

train-bearer had sniffed at the young man, he seemed to realise that he

could not refuse him admittance. Moreover, as this intruder was going

away the very next day, defeated and covered with shame, there was

nothing to be feared from him.

“You wish to see his Eminence?” said Paparelli. “Good, good. By and by,

wait.” And opining that Pierre was too near the door, he pushed him back

to the other end of the room, for fear no doubt lest he should overhear

anything. “His Eminence is still engaged with his Eminence Cardinal

Sanguinetti. Wait, wait there!”

Sanguinetti indeed had made a point of kneeling for a long time in front

of the bodies in the throne-room, and had then spun out his visit to

Donna Serafina in order to mark how largely he shared the family sorrow.

And for more than ten minutes now he had been closeted with Cardinal

Boccanera, nothing but an occasional murmur of their voices being heard

through the closed door.

Pierre, however, on finding Paparelli there, was again haunted by all

that Don Vigilio had told him. He looked at the train-bearer, so fat and

short, puffed out with bad fat in his dirty cassock, his face flabby and

wrinkled, and his whole person at forty years of age suggestive of that

of a very old maid: and he felt astonished. How was it that Cardinal

Boccanera, that superb prince who carried his head so high, and who was

so supremely proud of his name, had allowed himself to be captured and

swayed by such a frightful creature reeking of baseness and abomination?

Was it not the man’s very physical degradation and profound humility that

had struck him, disturbed him, and finally fascinated him, as wondrous

gifts conducing to salvation, which he himself lacked? Paparelli’s person

and disposition were like blows dealt to his own handsome presence and

his own pride. He, who could not be so deformed, he who could not

vanquish his passion for glory, must, by an effort of faith, have grown

jealous of that man who was so extremely ugly and so extremely

insignificant, he must have come to admire him as a superior force of

penitence and human abasement which threw the portals of heaven wide

open. Who can ever tell what ascendency is exercised by the monster over

the hero; by the horrid-looking saint covered with vermin over the

powerful of this world in their terror at having to endure everlasting

flames in payment of their terrestrial joys? And ’twas indeed the lion

devoured by the insect, vast strength and splendour destroyed by the

invisible. Ah! to have that fine soul which was so certain of paradise,

which for its welfare was enclosed in such a disgusting body, to possess

the happy humility of that wide intelligence, that remarkable theologian,

who scourged himself with rods each morning on rising, and was content to

be the lowest of servants.

Standing there a heap of livid fat, Paparelli on his side watched Pierre

with his little grey eyes blinking amidst the myriad wrinkles of his

face. And the young priest began to feel uneasy, wondering what their

Eminences could be saying to one another, shut up together like that for

so long a time. And what an interview it must be if Boccanera suspected

Sanguinetti of counting Santobono among his clients. What serene audacity

it was on Sanguinetti’s part to have dared to present himself in that

house, and what strength of soul there must be on Boccanera’s part, what

empire over himself, to prevent all scandal by remaining silent and

accepting the visit as a simple mark of esteem and affection! What could

they be saying to one another, however? How interesting it would have

been to have seen them face to face, and have heard them exchange the

diplomatic phrases suited to such an interview, whilst their souls were

raging with furious hatred!

All at once the door opened and Cardinal Sanguinetti appeared with calm

face, no ruddier than usual, indeed a trifle paler, and retaining the

fitting measure of sorrow which he had thought it right to assume. His

restless eyes alone revealed his delight at being rid of a difficult

task. And he was going off, all hope, in the conviction that he was the

only eligible candidate to the papacy that remained.

Abbé Paparelli had darted forward: “If your Eminence will kindly follow

me--I will escort your Eminence to the door.” Then, turning towards

Pierre, he added: “You may go in now.”

Pierre watched them walk away, the one so humble behind the other, who

was so triumphant. Then he entered the little work-room, furnished simply

with a table and three chairs, and in the centre of it he at once

perceived Cardinal Boccanera still standing in the lofty, noble attitude

which he had assumed to take leave of Sanguinetti, his hated rival to the

pontifical throne. And, visibly, Boccanera also believed himself the only

possible pope, the one whom the coming Conclave would elect.

However, when the door had been closed, and the Cardinal beheld that

young priest, his guest, who had witnessed the death of those two dear

children lying in the adjoining room, he was again mastered by emotion,

an unexpected attack of weakness in which all his energy collapsed. His

human feelings were taking their revenge now that his rival was no longer

there to see him. He staggered like an old tree smitten with the axe, and

sank upon a chair, stifling with sobs.

And as Pierre, according to usage, was about to stoop and kiss his ring,

he raised him and at once made him sit down, stammering in a halting

voice: “No, no, my dear son! Seat yourself there, wait--Excuse me, leave

me to myself for a moment, my heart is bursting.”

He sobbed with his hands to his face, unable to master himself, unable to

drive back his grief with those yet vigorous fingers which were pressed

to his cheeks and temples.

Tears came into Pierre’s eyes, for he also lived through all that woe

afresh, and was much upset by the weeping of that tall old man, that

saint and prince, usually so haughty, so fully master of himself, but now

only a poor, suffering, agonising man, as weak and as lost as a child.

However, although the young priest was likewise stifling with grief, he

desired to present his condolences, and sought for kindly words by which

he might soothe the other’s despair. “I beg your Eminence to believe in

my profound grief,” he said. “I have been overwhelmed with kindness here,

and desired at once to tell your Eminence how much that irreparable

loss--”

But with a brave gesture the Cardinal silenced him. “No, no, say nothing,

for mercy’s sake say nothing!”

And silence reigned while he continued weeping, shaken by the struggle he

was waging, his efforts to regain sufficient strength to overcome

himself. At last he mastered his quiver and slowly uncovered his face,

which had again become calm, like that of a believer strong in his faith,

and submissive to the will of God. In refusing a miracle, in dealing so

hard a blow to that house, God had doubtless had His reasons, and he, the

Cardinal, one of God’s ministers, one of the high dignitaries of His

terrestrial court, was in duty bound to bow to it. The silence lasted for

another moment, and then, in a voice which he managed to render natural

and cordial, Boccanera said: “You are leaving us, you are going back to

France to-morrow, are you not, my dear son?”

“Yes, I shall have the honour to take leave of your Eminence to-morrow,

again thanking your Eminence for your inexhaustible kindness.”

“And you have learnt that the Congregation of the Index has condemned

your book, as was inevitable?”

“Yes, I obtained the signal favour of being received by his Holiness, and

in his presence made my submission and reprobated my book.”

The Cardinal’s moist eyes again began to sparkle. “Ah! you did that, ah!

you did well, my dear son,” he said. “It was only your strict duty as a

priest, but there are so many nowadays who do not even do their duty! As

a member of the Congregation I kept the promise I gave you to read your

book, particularly the incriminated pages. And if I afterwards remained

neutral, to such a point even as to miss the sitting in which judgment

was pronounced, it was only to please my poor, dear niece, who was so

fond of you, and who pleaded your cause to me.”

Tears were coming into his eyes again, and he paused, feeling that he

would once more be overcome if he evoked the memory of that adored and

lamented Benedetta. And so it was with a pugnacious bitterness that he

resumed: “But what an execrable book it was, my dear son, allow me to

tell you so. You told me that you had shown respect for dogma, and I

still wonder what aberration can have come over you that you should have

been so blind to all consciousness of your offences. Respect for

dogma--good Lord! when the entire work is the negation of our holy

religion! Did you not realise that by asking for a new religion you

absolutely condemned the old one, the only true one, the only good one,

the only one that can be eternal? And that sufficed to make your book the

most deadly of poisons, one of those infamous books which in former times

were burnt by the hangman, and which one is nowadays compelled to leave

in circulation after interdicting them and thereby designating them to

evil curiosity, which explains the contagious rottenness of the century.

Ah! I well recognised there some of the ideas of our distinguished and

poetical relative, that dear Viscount Philibert de la Choue. A man of

letters, yes! a man of letters! Literature, mere literature! I beg God to

forgive him, for he most surely does not know what he is doing, or

whither he is going with his elegiac Christianity for talkative working

men and young persons of either sex, to whom scientific notions have

given vagueness of soul. And I only feel angry with his Eminence Cardinal

Bergerot, for he at any rate knows what he does, and does as he pleases.

No, say nothing, do not defend him. He personifies Revolution in the

Church, and is against God.”

Although Pierre had resolved that he would not reply or argue, he had

allowed a gesture of protest to escape him on hearing this furious attack

upon the man whom he most respected in the whole world. However, he

yielded to Cardinal Boccanera’s injunction and again bowed.

“I cannot sufficiently express my horror,” the Cardinal roughly

continued; “yes, my horror for all that hollow dream of a new religion!

That appeal to the most hideous passions which stir up the poor against

the rich, by promising them I know not what division of wealth, what

community of possession which is nowadays impossible! That base flattery

shown to the lower orders to whom equality and justice are promised but

never given, for these can come from God alone, it is only He who can

finally make them reign on the day appointed by His almighty power! And

there is even that interested charity which people abuse of to rail

against Heaven itself and accuse it of iniquity and indifference, that

lackadaisical weakening charity and compassion, unworthy of strong firm

hearts, for it is as if human suffering were not necessary for salvation,

as if we did not become more pure, greater and nearer to the supreme

happiness, the more and more we suffer!”

He was growing excited, full of anguish, and superb. It was his

bereavement, his heart wound, which thus exasperated him, the great blow

which had felled him for a moment, but against which he again rose erect,

defying grief, and stubborn in his stoic belief in an omnipotent God, who

was the master of mankind, and reserved felicity to those whom He

selected. Again, however, he made an effort to calm himself, and resumed

in a more gentle voice: “At all events the fold is always open, my dear

son, and here you are back in it since you have repented. You cannot

imagine how happy it makes me.”

In his turn Pierre strove to show himself conciliatory in order that he

might not further ulcerate that violent, grief-stricken soul: “Your

Eminence,” said he, “may be sure that I shall endeavour to remember every

one of the kind words which your Eminence has spoken to me, in the same

way as I shall remember the fatherly greeting of his Holiness Leo XIII.”

This sentence seemed to throw Boccanera into agitation again. At first

only murmured, restrained words came from him, as if he were struggling

against a desire to question the young priest. “Ah yes! you saw his

Holiness, you spoke to him, and he told you I suppose, as he tells all

the foreigners who go to pay their respects to him, that he desires

conciliation and peace. For my part I now only see him when it is

absolutely necessary; for more than a year I have not been received in

private audience.”

This proof of disfavour, of the covert struggle which as in the days of

Pius IX kept the Holy Father and the _Camerlingo_ at variance, filled the

latter with bitterness. He was unable to restrain himself and spoke out,

reflecting no doubt that he had a familiar before him, one whose

discretion was certain, and who moreover was leaving Rome on the morrow.

“One may go a long way,” said he, “with those fine words, peace and

conciliation, which are so often void of real wisdom and courage. The

terrible truth is that Leo XIII’s eighteen years of concessions have

shaken everything in the Church, and should he long continue to reign

Catholicism would topple over and crumble into dust like a building whose

pillars have been undermined.”

Interested by this remark, Pierre in his desire for knowledge began to

raise objections. “But hasn’t his Holiness shown himself very prudent?”

he asked; “has he not placed dogma on one side in an impregnable

fortress? If he seems to have made concessions on many points, have they

not always been concessions in mere matters of form?”

“Matters of form; ah, yes!” the Cardinal resumed with increasing passion.

“He told you, no doubt, as he tells others, that whilst in substance he

will make no surrender, he will readily yield in matters of form! It’s a

deplorable axiom, an equivocal form of diplomacy even when it isn’t so

much low hypocrisy! My soul revolts at the thought of that Opportunism,

that Jesuitism which makes artifice its weapon, and only serves to cast

doubt among true believers, the confusion of a _sauve-qui-peut_, which by

and by must lead to inevitable defeat. It is cowardice, the worst form of

cowardice, abandonment of one’s weapons in order that one may retreat the

more speedily, shame of oneself, assumption of a mask in the hope of

deceiving the enemy, penetrating into his camp, and overcoming him by

treachery! No, no, form is everything in a traditional and immutable

religion, which for eighteen hundred years has been, is now, and till the

end of time will be the very law of God!”

The Cardinal’s feelings so stirred him that he was unable to remain

seated, and began to walk about the little room. And it was the whole

reign, the whole policy of Leo XIII which he discussed and condemned.

“Unity too,” he continued, “that famous unity of the Christian Church

which his Holiness talks of bringing about, and his desire for which

people turn to his great glory, why, it is only the blind ambition of a

conqueror enlarging his empire without asking himself if the new nations

that he subjects may not disorganise, adulterate, and impregnate his old

and hitherto faithful people with every error. What if all the

schismatical nations on returning to the Catholic Church should so

transform it as to kill it and make it a new Church? There is only one

wise course, which is to be what one is, and that firmly. Again, isn’t

there both shame and danger in that pretended alliance with the democracy

which in itself gives the lie to the ancient spirit of the papacy? The

right of kings is divine, and to abandon the monarchical principle is to

set oneself against God, to compound with revolution, and harbour a

monstrous scheme of utilising the madness of men the better to establish

one’s power over them. All republics are forms of anarchy, and there can

be no more criminal act, one which must for ever shake the principle of

authority, order, and religion itself, than that of recognising a

republic as legitimate for the sole purpose of indulging a dream of

impossible conciliation. And observe how this bears on the question of

the temporal power. He continues to claim it, he makes a point of no

surrender on that question of the restoration of Rome; but in reality,

has he not made the loss irreparable, has he not definitively renounced

Rome, by admitting that nations have the right to drive away their kings

and live like wild beasts in the depths of the forest?”

All at once the Cardinal stopped short and raised his arms to Heaven in a

burst of holy anger. “Ah! that man, ah! that man who by his vanity and

craving for success will have proved the ruin of the Church, that man who

has never ceased corrupting everything, dissolving everything, crumbling

everything in order to reign over the world which he fancies he will

reconquer by those means, why, Almighty God, why hast Thou not already

called him to Thee?”

So sincere was the accent in which that appeal to Death was raised, to

such a point was hatred magnified by a real desire to save the Deity

imperilled here below, that a great shudder swept through Pierre also. He

now understood that Cardinal Boccanera who religiously and passionately

hated Leo XIII; he saw him in the depths of his black palace, waiting and

watching for the Pope’s death, that death which as _Camerlingo_ he must

officially certify. How feverishly he must wait, how impatiently he must

desire the advent of the hour, when with his little silver hammer he

would deal the three symbolic taps on the skull of Leo XIII, while the

latter lay cold and rigid on his bed surrounded by his pontifical Court.

Ah! to strike that wall of the brain, to make sure that nothing more

would answer from within, that nothing beyond night and silence was left

there. And the three calls would ring out: “Gioachino! Gioachino!

Gioachino!” And, the corpse making no answer, the _Camerlingo_ after

waiting for a few seconds would turn and say: “The Pope is dead!”

“Conciliation, however, is the weapon of the times,” remarked Pierre,

wishing to bring the Cardinal back to the present, “and it is in order to

make sure of conquering that the Holy Father yields in matters of form.”

“He will not conquer, he will be conquered,” cried Boccanera. “Never has

the Church been victorious save in stubbornly clinging to its

integrality, the immutable eternity of its divine essence. And it would

for a certainty fall on the day when it should allow a single stone of

its edifice to be touched. Remember the terrible period through which it

passed at the time of the Council of Trent. The Reformation had just

deeply shaken it, laxity of discipline and morals was everywhere

increasing, there was a rising tide of novelties, ideas suggested by the

spirit of evil, unhealthy projects born of the pride of man, running riot

in full license. And at the Council itself many members were disturbed,

poisoned, ready to vote for the wildest changes, a fresh schism added to

all the others. Well, if Catholicism was saved at that critical period,

under the threat of such great danger, it was because the majority,

enlightened by God, maintained the old edifice intact, it was because

with divinely inspired obstinacy it kept itself within the narrow limits

of dogma, it was because it made no concession, none, whether in

substance or in form! Nowadays the situation is certainly not worse than

it was at the time of the Council of Trent. Let us suppose it to be much

the same, and tell me if it is not nobler, braver, and safer for the

Church to show the courage which she showed before and declare aloud what

she is, what she has been, and what she will be. There is no salvation

for her otherwise than in her complete, indisputable sovereignty; and

since she has always conquered by non-surrender, all attempts to

conciliate her with the century are tantamount to killing her!”

The Cardinal had again begun to walk to and fro with thoughtful step.

“No, no,” said he, “no compounding, no surrender, no weakness! Rather the

wall of steel which bars the road, the block of granite which marks the

limit of a world! As I told you, my dear son, on the day of your arrival,

to try to accommodate Catholicism to the new times is to hasten its end,

if really it be threatened, as atheists pretend. And in that way it would

die basely and shamefully instead of dying erect, proud, and dignified in

its old glorious royalty! Ah! to die standing, denying nought of the

past, braving the future and confessing one’s whole faith!”

That old man of seventy seemed to grow yet loftier as he spoke, free from

all dread of final annihilation, and making the gesture of a hero who

defies futurity. Faith had given him serenity of peace; he believed, he

knew, he had neither doubt nor fear of the morrow of death. Still his

voice was tinged with haughty sadness as he resumed, “God can do all,

even destroy His own work should it seem evil in His eyes. But though all

should crumble to-morrow, though the Holy Church should disappear among

the ruins, though the most venerated sanctuaries should be crushed by the

falling stars, it would still be necessary for us to bow and adore God,

who after creating the world might thus annihilate it for His own glory.

And I wait, submissive to His will, for nothing happens unless He wills

it. If really the temples be shaken, if Catholicism be fated to fall

to-morrow into dust, I shall be here to act as the minister of death,

even as I have been the minister of life! It is certain, I confess it,

that there are hours when terrible signs appear to me. Perhaps, indeed,

the end of time is nigh, and we shall witness that fall of the old world

with which others threaten us. The worthiest, the loftiest are struck

down as if Heaven erred, and in them punished the crimes of the world.

Have I not myself felt the blast from the abyss into which all must sink,

since my house, for transgressions that I am ignorant of, has been

stricken with that frightful bereavement which precipitates it into the

gulf which casts it back into night everlasting!”

He again evoked those two dear dead ones who were always present in his

mind. Sobs were once more rising in his throat, his hands trembled, his

lofty figure quivered with the last revolt of grief. Yes, if God had

stricken him so severely by suppressing his race, if the greatest and

most faithful were thus punished, it must be that the world was

definitively condemned. Did not the end of his house mean the approaching

end of all? And in his sovereign pride as priest and as prince, he found

a cry of supreme resignation, once more raising his hands on high:

“Almighty God, Thy will be done! May all die, all fall, all return to the

night of chaos! I shall remain standing in this ruined palace, waiting to

be buried beneath its fragments. And if Thy will should summon me to bury

Thy holy religion, be without fear, I shall do nothing unworthy to

prolong its life for a few days! I will maintain it erect, like myself,

as proud, as uncompromising as in the days of all its power. I will yield

nothing, whether in discipline, or in rite, or in dogma. And when the day

shall come I will bury it with myself, carrying it whole into the grave

rather than yielding aught of it, encompassing it with my cold arms to

restore it to Thee, even as Thou didst commit it to the keeping of Thy

Church. O mighty God and sovereign Master, dispose of me, make me if such

be Thy good pleasure the pontiff of destruction, the pontiff of the death

of the world.”

Pierre, who was thunderstruck, quivered with fear and admiration at the

extraordinary vision this evoked: the last of the popes interring

Catholicism. He understood that Boccanera must at times have made that

dream; he could see him in the Vatican, in St. Peter’s which the

thunderbolts had riven asunder, he could see him erect and alone in the

spacious halls whence his terrified, cowardly pontifical Court had fled.

Clad in his white cassock, thus wearing white mourning for the Church, he

once more descended to the sanctuary, there to wait for heaven to fall on

the evening of Time’s accomplishment and annihilate the earth. Thrice he

raised the large crucifix, overthrown by the supreme convulsions of the

soil. Then, when the final crack rent the steps apart, he caught it in

his arms and was annihilated with it beneath the falling vaults. And

nothing could be more instinct with fierce and kingly grandeur.

Voiceless, but without weakness, his lofty stature invincible and erect

in spite of all, Cardinal Boccanera made a gesture dismissing Pierre, who

yielding to his passion for truth and beauty found that he alone was

great and right, and respectfully kissed his hand.

It was in the throne-room, with closed doors, at nightfall, after the

visits had ceased, that the two bodies were laid in their coffin. The

religious services had come to an end, and in the close silent atmosphere

there only lingered the dying perfume of the roses and the warm odour of

the candles. As the latter’s pale stars scarcely lighted the spacious

room, some lamps had been brought, and servants held them in their hands

like torches. According to custom, all the servants of the house were

present to bid a last farewell to the departed.

There was a little delay. Morano, who had been giving himself no end of

trouble ever since morning, was forced to run off again as the triple

coffin did not arrive. At last it came, some servants brought it up, and

then they were able to begin. The Cardinal and Donna Serafina stood side

by side near the bed. Pierre also was present, as well as Don Vigilio. It

was Victorine who sewed the lovers up in the white silk shroud, which

seemed like a bridal robe, the gay pure robe of their union. Then two

servants came forward and helped Pierre and Don Vigilio to lay the bodies

in the first coffin, of pine wood lined with pink satin. It was scarcely

broader than an ordinary coffin, so young and slim were the lovers and so

tightly were they clasped in their last embrace. When they were stretched

inside they there continued their eternal slumber, their heads half

hidden by their odorous, mingling hair. And when this first coffin had

been placed in the second one, a leaden shell, and the second had been

enclosed in the third, of stout oak, and when the three lids had been

soldered and screwed down, the lovers’ faces could still be seen through

the circular opening, covered with thick glass, which in accordance with

the Roman custom had been left in each of the coffins. And then, for ever

parted from the living, alone together, they still gazed at one another

with their eyes obstinately open, having all eternity before them wherein

to exhaust their infinite love.

XVI.

ON the following day, on his return from the funeral Pierre lunched alone

in his room, having decided to take leave of the Cardinal and Donna

Serafina during the afternoon. He was quitting Rome that evening by the

train which started at seventeen minutes past ten. There was nothing to

detain him any longer; there was only one visit which he desired to make,

a visit to old Orlando, with whom he had promised to have a long chat

prior to his departure. And so a little before two o’clock he sent for a

cab which took him to the Via Venti Settembre. A fine rain had fallen all

night, its moisture steeping the city in grey vapour; and though this

rain had now ceased the sky remained very dark, and the huge new mansions

of the Via Venti Settembre were quite livid, interminably mournful with

their balconies ever of the same pattern and their regular and endless

rows of windows. The Ministry of Finances, that colossal pile of masonry

and sculpture, looked in particular like a dead town, a huge bloodless

body whence all life had withdrawn. On the other hand, although all was

so gloomy the rain had made the atmosphere milder, in fact it was almost

warm, damply and feverishly warm.

In the hall of Prada’s little palazzo Pierre was surprised to find four

or five gentlemen taking off their overcoats; however he learnt from a

servant that Count Luigi had a meeting that day with some contractors. As

he, Pierre, wished to see the Count’s father he had only to ascend to the

third floor, added the servant. He must knock at the little door on the

right-hand side of the landing there.

On the very first landing, however, the priest found himself face to face

with the young Count who was there receiving the contractors, and who on

recognising him became frightfully pale. They had not met since the

tragedy at the Boccanera mansion, and Pierre well realised how greatly

his glance disturbed that man, what a troublesome recollection of moral

complicity it evoked, and what mortal dread lest he should have guessed

the truth.

“Have you come to see me, have you something to tell me?” the Count

inquired.

“No, I am leaving Rome, I have come to wish your father good-bye.”

Prada’s pallor increased at this, and his whole face quivered: “Ah! it is

to see my father. He is not very well, be gentle with him,” he replied,

and as he spoke, his look of anguish clearly proclaimed what he feared

from Pierre, some imprudent word, perhaps even a final mission, the

malediction of that man and woman whom he had killed. And surely if his

father knew, he would die as well. “Ah! how annoying it is,” he resumed,

“I can’t go up with you! There are gentlemen waiting for me. Yes, how

annoyed I am. As soon as possible, however, I will join you, yes, as soon

as possible.”

He knew not how to stop the young priest, whom he must evidently allow to

remain with his father, whilst he himself stayed down below, kept there

by his pecuniary worries. But how distressful were the eyes with which he

watched Pierre climb the stairs, how he seemed to supplicate him with his

whole quivering form. His father, good Lord, the only true love, the one

great, pure, faithful passion of his life!

“Don’t make him talk too much, brighten him, won’t you?” were his parting

words.

Up above it was not Batista, the devoted ex-soldier, who opened the door,

but a very young fellow to whom Pierre did not at first pay any

attention. The little room was bare and light as on previous occasions,

and from the broad curtainless window there was the superb view of Rome,

Rome crushed that day beneath a leaden sky and steeped in shade of

infinite mournfulness. Old Orlando, however, had in no wise changed, but

still displayed the superb head of an old blanched lion, a powerful

muzzle and youthful eyes, which yet sparkled with the passions which had

growled in a soul of fire. Pierre found the stricken hero in the same

arm-chair as previously, near the same table littered with newspapers,

and with his legs buried in the same black wrapper, as if he were there

immobilised in a sheath of stone, to such a point that after months and

years one was sure to perceive him quite unchanged, with living bust, and

face glowing with strength and intelligence.

That grey day, however, he seemed gloomy, low in spirits. “Ah! so here

you are, my dear Monsieur Froment,” he exclaimed, “I have been thinking

of you these three days past, living the awful days which you must have

lived in that tragic Palazzo Boccanera. Ah, God! What a frightful

bereavement! My heart is quite overwhelmed, these newspapers have again

just upset me with the fresh details they give!” He pointed as he spoke

to the papers scattered over the table. Then with a gesture he strove to

brush aside the gloomy story, and banish that vision of Benedetta dead,

which had been haunting him. “Well, and yourself?” he inquired.

“I am leaving this evening,” replied Pierre, “but I did not wish to quit

Rome without pressing your brave hands.”

“You are leaving? But your book?”

“My book--I have been received by the Holy Father, I have made my

submission and reprobated my book.”

Orlando looked fixedly at the priest. There was a short interval of

silence, during which their eyes told one another all that they had to

tell respecting the affair. Neither felt the necessity of any longer

explanation. The old man merely spoke these concluding words: “You have

done well, your book was a chimera.”

“Yes, a chimera, a piece of childishness, and I have condemned it myself

in the name of truth and reason.”

A smile appeared on the dolorous lips of the impotent hero. “Then you

have seen things, you understand and know them now?”

“Yes, I know them; and that is why I did not wish to go off without

having that frank conversation with you which we agreed upon.”

Orlando was delighted, but all at once he seemed to remember the young

fellow who had opened the door to Pierre, and who had afterwards modestly

resumed his seat on a chair near the window. This young fellow was a

youth of twenty, still beardless, of a blonde handsomeness such as

occasionally flowers at Naples, with long curly hair, a lily-like

complexion, a rosy mouth, and soft eyes full of a dreamy languor. The old

man presented him in fatherly fashion, Angiolo Mascara his name was, and

he was the grandson of an old comrade in arms, the epic Mascara of the

Thousand, who had died like a hero, his body pierced by a hundred wounds.

“I sent for him to scold him,” continued Orlando with a smile. “Do you

know that this fine fellow with his girlish airs goes in for the new

ideas? He is an Anarchist, one of the three or four dozen Anarchists that

we have in Italy. He’s a good little lad at bottom, he has only his

mother left him, and supports her, thanks to the little berth which he

holds, but which he’ll lose one of these fine days if he is not careful.

Come, come, my child, you must promise me to be reasonable.”

Thereupon Angiolo, whose clean but well-worn garments bespoke decent

poverty, made answer in a grave and musical voice: “I am reasonable, it

is the others, all the others who are not. When all men are reasonable

and desire truth and justice, the world will be happy.”

“Ah! if you fancy that he’ll give way!” cried Orlando. “But, my poor

child, just ask Monsieur l’Abbé if one ever knows where truth and justice

are. Well, well, one must leave you the time to live, and see, and

understand things.”

Then, paying no more attention to the young man, he returned to Pierre,

while Angiolo, remaining very quiet in his corner, kept his eyes ardently

fixed on them, and with open, quivering ears lost not a word they said.

“I told you, my dear Monsieur Froment,” resumed Orlando, “that your ideas

would change, and that acquaintance with Rome would bring you to accurate

views far more readily than any fine speeches I could make to you. So I

never doubted but what you would of your own free will withdraw your book

as soon as men and things should have enlightened you respecting the

Vatican at the present day. But let us leave the Vatican on one side,

there is nothing to be done but to let it continue falling slowly and

inevitably into ruin. What interests me is our Italian Rome, which you

treated as an element to be neglected, but which you have now seen and

studied, so that we can both speak of it with the necessary knowledge!”

He thereupon at once granted a great many things, acknowledged that

blunders had been committed, that the finances were in a deplorable

state, and that there were serious difficulties of all kinds. They, the

Italians, had sinned by excess of legitimate pride, they had proceeded

too hastily with their attempt to improvise a great nation, to change

ancient Rome into a great modern capital as by the mere touch of a wand.

And thence had come that mania for erecting new districts, that mad

speculation in land and shares, which had brought the country within a

hair’s breadth of bankruptcy.

At this Pierre gently interrupted him to tell him of the view which he

himself had arrived at after his peregrinations and studies through Rome.

“That fever of the first hour, that financial _debâcle_,” said he, “is

after all nothing. All pecuniary sores can be healed. But the grave point

is that your Italy still remains to be created. There is no aristocracy

left, and as yet there is no people, nothing but a devouring middle

class, dating from yesterday, which preys on the rich harvest of the

future before it is ripe.”

Silence fell. Orlando sadly wagged his old leonine head. The cutting

harshness of Pierre’s formula struck him in the heart. “Yes, yes,” he

said at last, “that is so, you have seen things plainly; and why say no

when facts are there, patent to everybody? I myself had already spoken to

you of that middle class which hungers so ravenously for place and

office, distinctions and plumes, and which at the same time is so

avaricious, so suspicious with regard to its money which it invests in

banks, never risking it in agriculture or manufactures or commerce,

having indeed the one desire to enjoy life without doing anything, and so

unintelligent that it cannot see it is killing its country by its

loathing for labour, its contempt for the poor, its one ambition to live

in a petty way with the barren glory of belonging to some official

administration. And, as you say, the aristocracy is dying, discrowned,

ruined, sunk into the degeneracy which overtakes races towards their

close, most of its members reduced to beggary, the others, the few who

have clung to their money, crushed by heavy imposts, possessing nought

but dead fortunes which constant sharing diminishes and which must soon

disappear with the princes themselves. And then there is the people,

which has suffered so much and suffers still, but is so used to suffering

that it can seemingly conceive no idea of emerging from it, blind and

deaf as it is, almost regretting its ancient bondage, and so ignorant, so

abominably ignorant, which is the one cause of its hopeless, morrowless

misery, for it has not even the consolation of understanding that if we

have conquered and are trying to resuscitate Rome and Italy in their

ancient glory, it is for itself, the people, alone. Yes, yes, no

aristocracy left, no people as yet, and a middle class which really

alarms one. How can one therefore help yielding at times to the terrors

of the pessimists, who pretend that our misfortunes are as yet nothing,

that we are going forward to yet more awful catastrophes, as though,

indeed, what we now behold were but the first symptoms of our race’s end,

the premonitory signs of final annihilation!”

As he spoke he raised his long quivering arms towards the window, towards

the light, and Pierre, deeply moved, remembered how Cardinal Boccanera on

the previous day had made a similar gesture of supplicant distress when

appealing to the divine power. And both men, Cardinal and patriot, so

hostile in their beliefs, were instinct with the same fierce and

despairing grandeur.

“As I told you, however, on the first day,” continued Orlando, “we only

sought to accomplish logical and inevitable things. As for Rome, with her

past history of splendour and domination which weighs so heavily upon us,

we could not do otherwise than take her for capital, for she alone was

the bond, the living symbol of our unity at the same time as the promise

of eternity, the renewal offered to our great dream of resurrection and

glory.”

He went on, recognising the disastrous conditions under which Rome

laboured as a capital. She was a purely decorative city with exhausted

soil, she had remained apart from modern life, she was unhealthy, she

offered no possibility of commerce or industry, she was invincibly preyed

upon by death, standing as she did amidst that sterile desert of the

Campagna. Then he compared her with the other cities which are jealous of

her; first Florence, which, however, has become so indifferent and so

sceptical, impregnated with a happy heedlessness which seems inexplicable

when one remembers the frantic passions, and the torrents of blood

rolling through her history; next Naples, which yet remains content with

her bright sun, and whose childish people enjoy their ignorance and

wretchedness so indolently that one knows not whether one ought to pity

them; next Venice, which has resigned herself to remaining a marvel of

ancient art, which one ought to put under glass so as to preserve her

intact, slumbering amid the sovereign pomp of her annals; next Genoa,

which is absorbed in trade, still active and bustling, one of the last

queens of that Mediterranean, that insignificant lake which was once the

opulent central sea, whose waters carried the wealth of the world; and

then particularly Turin and Milan, those industrial and commercial

centres, which are so full of life and so modernised that tourists

disdain them as not being “Italian” cities, both of them having saved

themselves from ruin by entering into that Western evolution which is

preparing the next century. Ah! that old land of Italy, ought one to

leave it all as a dusty museum for the pleasure of artistic souls, leave

it to crumble away, even as its little towns of Magna Graecia, Umbria,

and Tuscany are already crumbling, like exquisite _bibelots_ which one

dares not repair for fear that one might spoil their character. At all

events, there must either be death, death soon and inevitable, or else

the pick of the demolisher, the tottering walls thrown to the ground, and

cities of labour, science, and health created on all sides; in one word,

a new Italy really rising from the ashes of the old one, and adapted to

the new civilisation into which humanity is entering.

“However, why despair?” Orlando continued energetically. “Rome may weigh

heavily on our shoulders, but she is none the less the summit we coveted.

We are here, and we shall stay here awaiting events. Even if the

population does not increase it at least remains stationary at a figure

of some 400,000 souls, and the movement of increase may set in again when

the causes which stopped it shall have ceased. Our blunder was to think

that Rome would become a Paris or Berlin; but, so far, all sorts of

social, historical, even ethnical considerations seem opposed to it; yet

who can tell what may be the surprises of to-morrow? Are we forbidden to

hope, to put faith in the blood which courses in our veins, the blood of

the old conquerors of the world? I, who no longer stir from this room,

impotent as I am, even I at times feel my madness come back, believe in

the invincibility and immortality of Rome, and wait for the two millions

of people who must come to populate those dolorous new districts which

you have seen so empty and already falling into ruins! And certainly they

will come! Why not? You will see, you will see, everything will be

populated, and even more houses will have to be built. Moreover, can you

call a nation poor, when it possesses Lombardy? Is there not also

inexhaustible wealth in our southern provinces? Let peace settle down,

let the South and the North mingle together, and a new generation of

workers grow up. Since we have the soil, such a fertile soil, the great

harvest which is awaited will surely some day sprout and ripen under the

burning sun!”

Enthusiasm was upbuoying him, all the _furia_ of youth inflamed his eyes.

Pierre smiled, won over; and as soon as he was able to speak, he said:

“The problem must be tackled down below, among the people. You must make

men!”

“Exactly!” cried Orlando. “I don’t cease repeating it, one must make

Italy. It is as if a wind from the East had blown the seed of humanity,

the seed which makes vigorous and powerful nations, elsewhere. Our people

is not like yours in France, a reservoir of men and money from which one

can draw as plentifully as one pleases. It is such another inexhaustible

reservoir that I wish to see created among us. And one must begin at the

bottom. There must be schools everywhere, ignorance must be stamped out,

brutishness and idleness must be fought with books, intellectual and

moral instruction must give us the industrious people which we need if we

are not to disappear from among the great nations. And once again for

whom, if not for the democracy of to-morrow, have we worked in taking

possession of Rome? And how easily one can understand that all should

collapse here, and nothing grow up vigorously since such a democracy is

absolutely absent. Yes, yes, the solution of the problem does not lie

elsewhere; we must make a people, make an Italian democracy.”

Pierre had grown calm again, feeling somewhat anxious yet not daring to

say that it is by no means easy to modify a nation, that Italy is such as

soil, history, and race have made her, and that to seek to transform her

so radically and all at once might be a dangerous enterprise. Do not

nations like beings have an active youth, a resplendent prime, and a more

or less prolonged old age ending in death? A modern democratic Rome, good

heavens! The modern Romes are named Paris, London, Chicago. So he

contented himself with saying: “But pending this great renovation of the

people, don’t you think that you ought to be prudent? Your finances are

in such a bad condition, you are passing through such great social and

economic difficulties, that you run the risk of the worst catastrophes

before you secure either men or money. Ah! how prudent would that

minister be who should say in your Chamber: ‘Our pride has made a

mistake, it was wrong of us to try to make ourselves a great nation in

one day; more time, labour, and patience are needed; and we consent to

remain for the present a young nation, which will quietly reflect and

labour at self-formation, without, for a long time yet, seeking to play a

dominant part. So we intend to disarm, to strike out the war and naval

estimates, all the estimates intended for display abroad, in order to

devote ourselves to our internal prosperity, and to build up by

education, physically and morally, the great nation which we swear we

will be fifty years hence!’ Yes, yes, strike out all needless

expenditure, your salvation lies in that!”

But Orlando, while listening, had become gloomy again, and with a vague,

weary gesture he replied in an undertone: “No, no, the minister who

should use such language would be hooted. It would be too hard a

confession, such as one cannot ask a nation to make. Every heart would

bound, leap forth at the idea. And, besides, would not the danger perhaps

be even greater if all that has been done were allowed to crumble? How

many wrecked hopes, how much discarded, useless material there would be!

No, we can now only save ourselves by patience and courage--and forward,

ever forward! We are a very young nation, and in fifty years we desired

to effect the unity which others have required two hundred years to

arrive at. Well, we must pay for our haste, we must wait for the harvest

to ripen, and fill our barns.” Then, with another and more sweeping wave

of the arm, he stubbornly strengthened himself in his hopes. “You know,”

said he, “that I was always against the alliance with Germany. As I

predicted, it has ruined us. We were not big enough to march side by side

with such a wealthy and powerful person, and it is in view of a war,

always near at hand and inevitable, that we now suffer so cruelly from

having to support the budgets of a great nation. Ah! that war which has

never come, it is that which has exhausted the best part of our blood and

sap and money without the slightest profit. To-day we have nothing before

us but the necessity of breaking with our ally, who speculated on our

pride, who has never helped us in any way, who has never given us

anything but bad advice, and treated us otherwise than with suspicion.

But it was all inevitable, and that’s what people won’t admit in France.

I can speak freely of it all, for I am a declared friend of France, and

people even feel some spite against me on that account. However, explain

to your compatriots, that on the morrow of our conquest of Rome, in our

frantic desire to resume our ancient rank, it was absolutely necessary

that we should play our part in Europe and show that we were a power with

whom the others must henceforth count. And hesitation was not allowable,

all our interests impelled us toward Germany, the evidence was so binding

as to impose itself. The stern law of the struggle for life weighs as

heavily on nations as on individuals, and this it is which explains and

justifies the rupture between the two sisters, France and Italy, the

forgetting of so many ties, race, commercial intercourse, and, if you

like, services also. The two sisters, ah! they now pursue each other with

so much hatred that all common sense even seems at an end. My poor old

heart bleeds when I read the articles which your newspapers and ours

exchange like poisoned darts. When will this fratricidal massacre cease,

which of the two will first realise the necessity of peace, the necessity

of the alliance of the Latin races, if they are to remain alive amidst

those torrents of other races which more and more invade the world?” Then

gaily, with the _bonhomie_ of a hero disarmed by old age, and seeking a

refuge in his dreams, Orlando added: “Come, you must promise to help me

as soon as you are in Paris. However small your field of action may be,

promise me you will do all you can to promote peace between France and

Italy; there can be no more holy task. Relate all you have seen here, all

you have heard, oh! as frankly as possible. If we have faults, you

certainly have faults as well. And, come, family quarrels can’t last for

ever!”

“No doubt,” Pierre answered in some embarrassment. “Unfortunately they

are the most tenacious. In families, when blood becomes exasperated with

blood, hate goes as far as poison and the knife. And pardon becomes

impossible.”

He dared not fully express his thoughts. Since he had been in Rome,

listening, and considering things, the quarrel between Italy and France

had resumed itself in his mind in a fine tragic story. Once upon a time

there were two princesses, daughters of a powerful queen, the mistress of

the world. The elder one, who had inherited her mother’s kingdom, was

secretly grieved to see her sister, who had established herself in a

neighbouring land, gradually increase in wealth, strength, and

brilliancy, whilst she herself declined as if weakened by age,

dismembered, so exhausted, and so sore, that she already felt defeated on

the day when she attempted a supreme effort to regain universal power.

And so how bitter were her feelings, how hurt she always felt on seeing

her sister recover from the most frightful shocks, resume her dazzling

_gala_, and continue to reign over the world by dint of strength and

grace and wit. Never would she forgive it, however well that envied and

detested sister might act towards her. Therein lay an incurable wound,

the life of one poisoned by that of the other, the hatred of old blood

for young blood, which could only be quieted by death. And even if peace,

as was possible, should soon be restored between them in presence of the

younger sister’s evident triumph, the other would always harbour deep

within her heart an endless grief at being the elder yet the vassal.

“However, you may rely on me,” Pierre affectionately resumed. “This

quarrel between the two countries is certainly a great source of grief

and a great peril. And assuredly I will only say what I think to be the

truth about you. At the same time I fear that you hardly like the truth,

for temperament and custom have hardly prepared you for it. The poets of

every nation who at various times have written on Rome have intoxicated

you with so much praise that you are scarcely fitted to hear the real

truth about your Rome of to-day. No matter how superb a share of praise

one may accord you, one must all the same look at the reality of things,

and this reality is just what you won’t admit, lovers of the beautiful as

you ever are, susceptible too like women, whom the slightest hint of a

wrinkle sends into despair.”

Orlando began to laugh. “Well, certainly, one must always beautify things

a little,” said he. “Why speak of ugly faces at all? We in our theatres

only care for pretty music, pretty dancing, pretty pieces which please

one. As for the rest, whatever is disagreeable let us hide it, for

mercy’s sake!”

“On the other hand,” the priest continued, “I will cheerfully confess the

great error of my book. The Italian Rome which I neglected and sacrificed

to papal Rome not only exists but is already so powerful and triumphant

that it is surely the other one which is bound to disappear in course of

time. However much the Pope may strive to remain immutable within his

Vatican, a steady evolution goes on around him, and the black world, by

mingling with the white, has already become a grey world. I never

realised that more acutely than at the _fête_ given by Prince

Buongiovanni for the betrothal of his daughter to your grand-nephew. I

came away quite enchanted, won over to the cause of your resurrection.”

The old man’s eyes sparkled. “Ah! you were present?” said he, “and you

witnessed a never-to-be-forgotten scene, did you not, and you no longer

doubt our vitality, our growth into a great people when the difficulties

of to-day are overcome? What does a quarter of a century, what does even

a century matter! Italy will again rise to her old glory, as soon as the

great people of to-morrow shall have sprung from the soil. And if I

detest that man Sacco it is because to my mind he is the incarnation of

all the enjoyers and intriguers whose appetite for the spoils of our

conquest has retarded everything. But I live again in my dear

grand-nephew Attilio, who represents the future, the generation of brave

and worthy men who will purify and educate the country. Ah! may some of

the great ones of to-morrow spring from him and that adorable little

Princess Celia, whom my niece Stefana, a sensible woman at bottom,

brought to see me the other day. If you had seen that child fling her

arms about me, call me endearing names, and tell me that I should be

godfather to her first son, so that he might bear my name and once again

save Italy! Yes, yes, may peace be concluded around that coming cradle;

may the union of those dear children be the indissoluble marriage of Rome

and the whole nation, and may all be repaired, and all blossom anew in

their love!”

Tears came to his eyes, and Pierre, touched by his inextinguishable

patriotism, sought to please him. “I myself,” said he, “expressed to your

son much the same wish on the evening of the betrothal _fête_, when I

told him I trusted that their nuptials might be definitive and fruitful,

and that from them and all the others there might arise the great nation

which, now that I begin to know you, I hope you will soon become!”

“You said that!” exclaimed Orlando. “Well, I forgive your book, for you

have understood at last; and new Rome, there she is, the Rome which is

ours, which we wish to make worthy of her glorious past, and for the

third time the queen of the world.”

With one of those broad gestures into which he put all his remaining

life, he pointed to the curtainless window where Rome spread out in

solemn majesty from one horizon to the other. But, suddenly he turned his

head and in a fit of paternal indignation began to apostrophise young

Angiolo Mascara. “You young rascal!” said he, “it’s our Rome which you

dream of destroying with your bombs, which you talk of razing like a

rotten, tottering house, so as to rid the world of it for ever!”

Angiolo had hitherto remained silent, passionately listening to the

others. His pretty, girlish, beardless face reflected the slightest

emotion in sudden flashes; and his big blue eyes also had glowed on

hearing what had been said of the people, the new people which it was

necessary to create. “Yes!” he slowly replied in his pure and musical

voice, “we mean to raze it and not leave a stone of it, but raze it in

order to build it up again.”

Orlando interrupted him with a soft, bantering laugh: “Oh! you would

build it up again; that’s fortunate!” he said.

“I would build it up again,” the young man replied, in the trembling

voice of an inspired prophet. “I would build it up again oh, so vast, so

beautiful, and so noble! Will not the universal democracy of to-morrow,

humanity when it is at last freed, need an unique city, which shall be

the ark of alliance, the very centre of the world? And is not Rome

designated, Rome which the prophecies have marked as eternal and

immortal, where the destinies of the nations are to be accomplished? But

in order that it may become the final definitive sanctuary, the capital

of the destroyed kingdoms, where the wise men of all countries shall meet

once every year, one must first of all purify it by fire, leave nothing

of its old stains remaining. Then, when the sun shall have absorbed all

the pestilence of the old soil, we will rebuild the city ten times more

beautiful and ten times larger than it has ever been. And what a city of

truth and justice it will at last be, the Rome that has been announced

and awaited for three thousand years, all in gold and all in marble,

filling the Campagna from the sea to the Sabine and the Alban mountains,

and so prosperous and so sensible that its twenty millions of inhabitants

after regulating the law of labour will live with the unique joy of

being. Yes, yes, Rome the Mother, Rome the Queen, alone on the face of

the earth and for all eternity!”

Pierre listened to him, aghast. What! did the blood of Augustus go to

such a point as this? The popes had not become masters of Rome without

feeling impelled to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world;

young Italy, likewise yielding to the hereditary madness of universal

domination, had in its turn sought to make the city larger than any

other, erecting whole districts for people who had never come, and now

even the Anarchists were possessed by the same stubborn dream of the

race, a dream beyond all measure this time, a fourth and monstrous Rome,

whose suburbs would invade continents in order that liberated humanity,

united in one family, might find sufficient lodging! This was the climax.

Never could more extravagant proof be given of the blood of pride and

sovereignty which had scorched the veins of that race ever since Augustus

had bequeathed it the inheritance of his absolute empire, with the

furious instinct that the world legally belonged to it, and that its

mission was to conquer it again. This idea had intoxicated all the

children of that historic soil, impelling all of them to make their city

The City, the one which had reigned and which would reign again in

splendour when the days predicted by the oracles should arrive. And

Pierre remembered the four fatidical letters, the S.P.Q.R. of old and

glorious Rome, which like an order of final triumph given to Destiny he

had everywhere found in present-day Rome, on all the walls, on all the

insignia, even on the municipal dust-carts! And he understood the

prodigious vanity of these people, haunted by the glory of their

ancestors, spellbound by the past of their city, declaring that she

contains everything, that they themselves cannot know her thoroughly,

that she is the sphinx who will some day explain the riddle of the

universe, that she is so great and noble that all within her acquires

increase of greatness and nobility, in such wise that they demand for her

the idolatrous respect of the entire world, so vivacious in their minds

is the illusive legend which clings to her, so incapable are they of

realising that what was once great may be so no longer.

“But I know your fourth Rome,” resumed Orlando, again enlivened. “It’s

the Rome of the people, the capital of the Universal Republic, which

Mazzini dreamt of. Only he left the pope in it. Do you know, my lad, that

if we old Republicans rallied to the monarchy, it was because we feared

that in the event of revolution the country might fall into the hands of

dangerous madmen such as those who have upset your brain? Yes, that was

why we resigned ourselves to our monarchy, which is not much different

from a parliamentary republic. And now, goodbye and be sensible, remember

that your poor mother would die of it if any misfortune should befall

you. Come, let me embrace you all the same.”

On receiving the hero’s affectionate kiss Angiolo coloured like a girl.

Then he went off with his gentle, dreamy air, never adding a word but

politely inclining his head to the priest. Silence continued till

Orlando’s eyes encountered the newspapers scattered on the table, when he

once more spoke of the terrible bereavement of the Boccaneras. He had

loved Benedetta like a dear daughter during the sad days when she had

dwelt near him; and finding the newspaper accounts of her death somewhat

singular, worried in fact by the obscure points which he could divine in

the tragedy, he was asking Pierre for particulars, when his son Luigi

suddenly entered the room, breathless from having climbed the stairs so

quickly and with his face full of anxious fear. He had just dismissed his

contractors with impatient roughness, giving no thought to his serious

financial position, the jeopardy in which his fortune was now placed, so

anxious was he to be up above beside his father. And when he was there

his first uneasy glance was for the old man, to make sure whether the

priest by some imprudent word had not dealt him his death blow.

He shuddered on noticing how Orlando quivered, moved to tears by the

terrible affair of which he was speaking; and for a moment he thought he

had arrived too late, that the harm was done. “Good heavens, father!” he

exclaimed, “what is the matter with you, why are you crying?” And as he

spoke he knelt at the old man’s feet, taking hold of his hands and giving

him such a passionate, loving glance that he seemed to be offering all

the blood of his heart to spare him the slightest grief.

“It is about the death of that poor woman,” Orlando sadly answered. “I

was telling Monsieur Froment how it grieved me, and I added that I could

not yet understand it all. The papers talk of a sudden death which is

always so extraordinary.”

The young Count rose again looking very pale. The priest had not yet

spoken. But what a frightful moment was this! What if he should reply,

what if he should speak out?

“You were present, were you not?” continued the old man addressing

Pierre. “You saw everything. Tell me then how the thing happened.”

Luigi Prada looked at Pierre. Their eyes met fixedly, plunging into one

another’s souls. All began afresh in their minds, Destiny on the march,

Santobono encountered with his little basket, the drive across the

melancholy Campagna, the conversation about poison while the little

basket was gently rocked on the priest’s knees; then, in particular, the

sleepy _osteria_, and the little black hen, so suddenly killed, lying on

the ground with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak.

And next there was that splendid ball at the Buongiovanni mansion, with

all its _odore di femina_ and its triumph of love: and finally, before

the Palazzo Boccanera, so black under the silvery moon, there was the man

who lighted a cigar and went off without once turning his head, allowing

dim Destiny to accomplish its work of death. Both of them, Pierre and

Prada, knew that story and lived it over again, having no need to recall

it aloud in order to make certain that they had fully penetrated one

another’s soul.

Pierre did not immediately answer the old man. “Oh!” he murmured at last,

“there were frightful things, yes, frightful things.”

“No doubt--that is what I suspected,” resumed Orlando. “You can tell us

all. In presence of death my son has freely forgiven.”

The young Count’s gaze again sought that of Pierre with such weight, such

ardent entreaty that the priest felt deeply stirred. He had just

remembered that man’s anguish during the ball, the atrocious torture of

jealousy which he had undergone before allowing Destiny to avenge him.

And he pictured also what must have been his feelings after the terrible

outcome of it all: at first stupefaction at Destiny’s harshness, at this

full vengeance which he had never desired so ferocious; then icy calmness

like that of the cool gambler who awaits events, reading the newspapers,

and feeling no other remorse than that of the general whose victory has

cost him too many men. He must have immediately realised that the

Cardinal would stifle the affair for the sake of the Church’s honour; and

only retained one weight on his heart, regret possibly for that woman

whom he had never won, with perhaps a last horrible jealousy which he did

not confess to himself but from which he would always suffer, jealousy at

knowing that she lay in another’s arms in the grave, for all eternity.

But behold, after that victorious effort to remain calm, after that cold

and remorseless waiting, Punishment arose, the fear that Destiny,

travelling on with its poisoned figs, might have not yet ceased its

march, and might by a rebound strike down his own father. Yet another

thunderbolt, yet another victim, the most unexpected, the being he most

adored! At that thought all his strength of resistance had in one moment

collapsed, and he was there, in terror of Destiny, more at a loss, more

trembling than a child.

“The newspapers, however,” slowly said Pierre as if he were seeking his

words, “the newspapers must have told you that the Prince succumbed

first, and that the Contessina died of grief whilst embracing him for the

last time.... As for the cause of death, _mon Dieu_, you know that

doctors themselves in sudden cases scarcely dare to pronounce an exact

opinion--”

He stopped short, for within him he had suddenly heard the voice of

Benedetta giving him just before she died that terrible order: “You, who

will see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son. I

wish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for the

sake of truth and justice.” And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey that

order, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even if

the result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierre

suffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between the

act of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his own

personal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would feel should he

kill that poor old man by fulfilling his implacable mission which could

benefit nobody. And certainly the other one, the son, must have

understood what a supreme struggle was going on in the priest’s mind, a

struggle which would decide his own father’s fate, for his glance became

yet more suppliant than ever.

“One first thought that it was merely indigestion,” continued Pierre,

“but the Prince became so much worse, that one was alarmed, and the

doctor was sent for--”

Ah! Prada’s eyes, they had become so despairing, so full of the most

touching and weightiest things, that the priest could read in them all

the decisive reasons which were about to stay his tongue. No, no, he

would not strike an innocent old man, he had promised nothing, and to

obey the last expression of the dead woman’s hatred would have seemed to

him like charging her memory with a crime. The young Count, too, during

those few minutes of anguish, had suffered a whole life of such

abominable torture, that after all some little justice was done.

“And then,” Pierre concluded, “when the doctor arrived he at once

recognised that it was a case of infectious fever. There can be no doubt

of it. This morning I attended the funeral, it was very splendid and very

touching.”

Orlando did not insist, but contented himself with saying that he also

had felt much emotion all the morning on thinking of that funeral. Then,

as he turned to set the papers on the table in order with his trembling

hands, his son, icy cold with perspiration, staggering and clinging to

the back of a chair in order that he might not fall, again gave Pierre a

long glance, but a very soft one, full of distracted gratitude.

“I am leaving this evening,” resumed Pierre, who felt exhausted and

wished to break off the conversation, “and I must now bid you farewell.

Have you any commission to give me for Paris?”

“No, none,” replied Orlando; and then, with sudden recollection, he

added, “Yes, I have, though! You remember that book written by my old

comrade in arms, Théophile Morin, one of Garibaldi’s Thousand, that

manual for the bachelor’s degree which he desired to see translated and

adopted here. Well, I am pleased to say that I have a promise that it

shall be used in our schools, but on condition that he makes some

alterations in it. Luigi, give me the book, it is there on that shelf.”

Then, when his son had handed him the volume, he showed Pierre some notes

which he had pencilled on the margins, and explained to him the

modifications which were desired in the general scheme of the work. “Will

you be kind enough,” he continued, “to take this copy to Morin himself?

His address is written inside the cover. If you can do so you will spare

me the trouble of writing him a very long letter; in ten minutes you can

explain matters to him more clearly and completely than I could do in ten

pages.... And you must embrace Morin for me, and tell him that I still

love him, oh! with all my heart of the bygone days, when I could still

use my legs and we two fought like devils side by side under a hail of

bullets.”

A short silence followed, that pause, that embarrassment tinged with

emotion which precedes the moment of farewell. “Come, good-bye,” said

Orlando, “embrace me for him and for yourself, embrace me affectionately

like that lad did just now. I am so old and so near my end, my dear

Monsieur Froment, that you will allow me to call you my child and to kiss

you like a grandfather, wishing you all courage and peace, and that faith

in life which alone helps one to live.”

Pierre was so touched that tears rose to his eyes, and when with all his

soul he kissed the stricken hero on either cheek, he felt that he

likewise was weeping. With a hand yet as vigorous as a vice, Orlando

detained him for a moment beside his arm-chair, whilst with his other

hand waving in a supreme gesture, he for the last time showed him Rome,

so immense and mournful under the ashen sky. And his voice came low,

quivering and suppliant. “For mercy’s sake swear to me that you will love

her all the same, in spite of all, for she is the cradle, the mother!

Love her for all that she no longer is, love her for all that she desires

to be! Do not say that her end has come, love her, love her so that she

may live again, that she may live for ever!”

Pierre again embraced him, unable to find any other response, upset as he

was by all the passion displayed by that old warrior, who spoke of his

city as a man of thirty might speak of the woman he adores. And he found

him so handsome and so lofty with his old blanched, leonine mane and his

stubborn belief in approaching resurrection, that once more the other old

Roman, Cardinal Boccanera, arose before him, equally stubborn in his

faith and relinquishing nought of his dream, even though he might be

crushed on the spot by the fall of the heavens. These twain ever stood

face to face, at either end of their city, alone rearing their lofty

figures above the horizon, whilst awaiting the future.

Then, when Pierre had bowed to Count Luigi, and found himself outside

again in the Via Venti Settembre he was all eagerness to get back to the

Boccanera mansion so as to pack up his things and depart. His farewell

visits were made, and he now only had to take leave of Donna Serafina and

the Cardinal, and to thank them for all their kind hospitality. For him

alone did their doors open, for they had shut themselves up on returning

from the funeral, resolved to see nobody. At twilight, therefore, Pierre

had no one but Victorine to keep him company in the vast, black mansion,

for when he expressed a desire to take supper with Don Vigilio she told

him that the latter had also shut himself in his room. Desirous as he was

of at least shaking hands with the secretary for the last time, Pierre

went to knock at the door, which was so near his own, but could obtain no

reply, and divined that the poor fellow, overcome by a fresh attack of

fever and suspicion, desired not to see him again, in terror at the idea

that he might compromise himself yet more than he had done already.

Thereupon, it was settled that as the train only started at seventeen

minutes past ten Victorine should serve Pierre his supper on the little

table in his sitting-room at eight o’clock. She brought him a lamp and

spoke of putting his linen in order, but he absolutely declined her help,

and she had to leave him to pack up quietly by himself.

He had purchased a little box, since his valise could not possibly hold

all the linen and winter clothing which had been sent to him from Paris

as his stay in Rome became more and more protracted. However, the packing

was soon accomplished; the wardrobe was emptied, the drawers were

visited, the box and valise filled and securely locked by seven o’clock.

An hour remained to him before supper and he sat there resting, when his

eyes whilst travelling round the walls to make sure that he had forgotten

nothing, encountered that old painting by some unknown master, which had

so often filled him with emotion. The lamplight now shone full upon it;

and this time again as he gazed at it he felt a blow in the heart, a blow

which was all the deeper, as now, at his parting hour, he found a symbol

of his defeat at Rome in that dolent, tragic, half-naked woman, draped in

a shred of linen, and weeping between her clasped hands whilst seated on

the threshold of the palace whence she had been driven. Did not that

rejected one, that stubborn victim of love, who sobbed so bitterly, and

of whom one knew nothing, neither what her face was like, nor whence she

had come, nor what her fault had been--did she not personify all man’s

useless efforts to force the doors of truth, and all the frightful

abandonment into which he falls as soon as he collides with the wall

which shuts the unknown off from him? For a long while did Pierre look at

her, again worried at being obliged to depart without having seen her

face behind her streaming golden hair, that face of dolorous beauty which

he pictured radiant with youth and delicious in its mystery. And as he

gazed he was just fancying that he could see it, that it was becoming his

at last, when there was a knock at the door and Narcisse Habert entered.

Pierre was surprised to see the young _attaché_, for three days

previously he had started for Florence, impelled thither by one of the

sudden whims of his artistic fancy. However, he at once apologised for

his unceremonious intrusion. “Ah! there is your luggage!” he said; “I

heard that you were going away this evening, and I was unwilling to let

you leave Rome without coming to shake hands with you. But what frightful

things have happened since we met! I only returned this afternoon, so

that I could not attend the funeral. However, you may well imagine how

thunderstruck I was by the news of those frightful deaths.”

Then, suspecting some unacknowledged tragedy, like a man well acquainted

with the legendary dark side of Rome, he put some questions to Pierre but

did not insist on them, being at bottom far too prudent to burden himself

uselessly with redoubtable secrets. And after Pierre had given him such

particulars as he thought fit, the conversation changed and they spoke at

length of Italy, Rome, Naples, and Florence. “Ah! Florence, Florence!”

Narcisse repeated languorously. He had lighted a cigarette and his words

fell more slowly, as he glanced round the room. “You were very well

lodged here,” he said, “it is very quiet. I had never come up to this

floor before.”

His eyes continued wandering over the walls until they were at last

arrested by the old painting which the lamp illumined, and thereupon he

remained for a moment blinking as if surprised. And all at once he rose

and approached the picture. “Dear me, dear me,” said he, “but that’s very

good, that’s very fine.”

“Isn’t it?” rejoined Pierre. “I know nothing about painting but I was

stirred by that picture on the very day of my arrival, and over and over

again it has kept me here with my heart beating and full of indescribable

feelings.”

Narcisse no longer spoke but examined the painting with the care of a

connoisseur, an expert, whose keen glance decides the question of

authenticity, and appraises commercial value. And the most extraordinary

delight appeared upon the young man’s fair, rapturous face, whilst his

fingers began to quiver. “But it’s a Botticelli, it’s a Botticelli! There

can be no doubt about it,” he exclaimed. “Just look at the hands, and

look at the folds of the drapery! And the colour of the hair, and the

technique, the flow of the whole composition. A Botticelli, ah! _mon

Dieu_, a Botticelli.”

He became quite faint, overflowing with increasing admiration as he

penetrated more and more deeply into the subject, at once so simple and

so poignant. Was it not acutely modern? The artist had foreseen our

pain-fraught century, our anxiety in presence of the invisible, our

distress at being unable to cross the portal of mystery which was for

ever closed. And what an eternal symbol of the world’s wretchedness was

that woman, whose face one could not see, and who sobbed so distractedly

without it being possible for one to wipe away her tears. Yes, a

Botticelli, unknown, uncatalogued, what a discovery! Then he paused to

inquire of Pierre: “Did you know it was a Botticelli?”

“Oh no! I spoke to Don Vigilio about it one day, but he seemed to think

it of no account. And Victorine, when I spoke to her, replied that all

those old things only served to harbour dust.”

Narcisse protested, quite stupefied: “What! they have a Botticelli here

and don’t know it! Ah! how well I recognise in that the Roman princes

who, unless their masterpieces have been labelled, are for the most part

utterly at sea among them! No doubt this one has suffered a little, but a

simple cleaning would make a marvel, a famous picture of it, for which a

museum would at least give--”

He abruptly stopped, completing his sentence with a wave of the hand and

not mentioning the figure which was on his lips. And then, as Victorine

came in followed by Giacomo to lay the little table for Pierre’s supper,

he turned his back upon the Botticelli and said no more about it. The

young priest’s attention was aroused, however, and he could well divine

what was passing in the other’s mind. Under that make-believe Florentine,

all angelicalness, there was an experienced business man, who well knew

how to look after his pecuniary interests and was even reported to be

somewhat avaricious. Pierre, who was aware of it, could not help smiling

therefore when he saw him take his stand before another picture--a

frightful Virgin, badly copied from some eighteenth-century canvas--and

exclaim: “Dear me! that’s not at all bad! I’ve a friend, I remember, who

asked me to buy him some old paintings. I say, Victorine, now that Donna

Serafina and the Cardinal are left alone do you think they would like to

rid themselves of a few valueless pictures?”

The servant raised her arms as if to say that if it depended on her,

everything might be carried away. Then she replied: “Not to a dealer,

sir, on account of the nasty rumours which would at once spread about,

but I’m sure they would be happy to please a friend. The house costs a

lot to keep up, and money would be welcome.”

Pierre then vainly endeavoured to persuade Narcisse to stay and sup with

him, but the young man gave his word of honour that he was expected

elsewhere and was even late. And thereupon he ran off, after pressing the

priest’s hands and affectionately wishing him a good journey.

Eight o’clock was striking, and Pierre seated himself at the little

table, Victorine remaining to serve him after dismissing Giacomo, who had

brought the supper things upstairs in a basket. “The people here make me

wild,” said the worthy woman after the other had gone, “they are so slow.

And besides, it’s a pleasure for me to serve you your last meal, Monsieur

l’Abbé. I’ve had a little French dinner cooked for you, a _sole au

gratin_ and a roast fowl.”

Pierre was touched by this attention, and pleased to have the company of

a compatriot whilst he partook of his final meal amidst the deep silence

of the old, black, deserted mansion. The buxom figure of Victorine was

still instinct with mourning, with grief for the loss of her dear

Contessina, but her daily toil was already setting her erect again,

restoring her quick activity; and she spoke almost cheerfully whilst

passing plates and dishes to Pierre. “And to think Monsieur l’Abbé,” said

she, “that you’ll be in Paris on the morning of the day after to-morrow!

As for me, you know, it seems as if I only left Auneau yesterday. Ah!

what fine soil there is there; rich soil yellow like gold, not like their

poor stuff here which smells of sulphur! And the pretty fresh willows

beside our stream, too, and the little wood so full of moss! They’ve no

moss here, their trees look like tin under that stupid sun of theirs

which burns up the grass. _Mon Dieu_! in the early times I would have

given I don’t know what for a good fall of rain to soak me and wash away

all the dust. Ah! I shall never get used to their awful Rome. What a

country and what people!”

Pierre was quite enlivened by her stubborn fidelity to her own nook,

which after five and twenty years of absence still left her horrified

with that city of crude light and black vegetation, true daughter as she

was of a smiling and temperate clime which of a morning was steeped in

rosy mist. “But now that your young mistress is dead,” said he, “what

keeps you here? Why don’t you take the train with me?”

She looked at him in surprise: “Go off with you, go back to Auneau! Oh!

it’s impossible, Monsieur l’Abbé. It would be too ungrateful to begin

with, for Donna Serafina is accustomed to me, and it would be bad on my

part to forsake her and his Eminence now that they are in trouble. And

besides, what could I do elsewhere? No, my little hole is here now.”

“So you will never see Auneau again?”

“No, never, that’s certain.”

“And you don’t mind being buried here, in their ground which smells of

sulphur?”

She burst into a frank laugh. “Oh!” she said, “I don’t mind where I am

when I’m dead. One sleeps well everywhere. And it’s funny that you should

be so anxious as to what there may be when one’s dead. There’s nothing,

I’m sure. That’s what tranquillises me, to feel that it will be all over

and that I shall have a rest. The good God owes us that after we’ve

worked so hard. You know that I’m not devout, oh! dear no. Still that

doesn’t prevent me from behaving properly, and, true as I stand here,

I’ve never had a lover. It seems foolish to say such a thing at my age,

still I say it because it’s the sober truth.”

She continued laughing like the worthy woman she was, having no belief in

priests and yet without a sin upon her conscience. And Pierre once more

marvelled at the simple courage and great practical common sense of this

laborious and devoted creature, who for him personified the whole

unbelieving lowly class of France, those who no longer believe and will

believe never more. Ah! to be as she was, to do one’s work and lie down

for the eternal sleep without any revolt of pride, satisfied with the one

joy of having accomplished one’s share of toil!

When Pierre had finished his supper Victorine summoned Giacomo to clear

the things away. And as it was only half-past eight she advised the

priest to spend another quiet hour in his room. Why go and catch a chill

by waiting at the station? She could send for a cab at half-past nine,

and as soon as it arrived she would send word to him and have his luggage

carried down. He might be easy as to that, and need trouble himself about

nothing.

When she had gone off Pierre soon sank into a deep reverie. It seemed to

him, indeed, as if he had already quitted Rome, as if the city were far

away and he could look back on it, and his experiences within it. His

book, “New Rome,” arose in his mind; and he remembered his first morning

on the Janiculum, his view of Rome from the terrace of San Pietro in

Montorio, a Rome such as he had dreamt of, so young and ethereal under

the pure sky. It was then that he had asked himself the decisive

question: Could Catholicism be renewed? Could it revert to the spirit of

primitive Christianity, become the religion of the democracy, the faith

which the distracted modern world, in danger of death, awaits in order

that it may be pacified and live? His heart had then beaten with hope and

enthusiasm. After his disaster at Lourdes from which he had scarcely

recovered, he had come to attempt another and supreme experiment by

asking Rome what her reply to his question would be. And now the

experiment had failed, he knew what answer Rome had returned him through

her ruins, her monuments, her very soil, her people, her prelates, her

cardinals, her pope! No, Catholicism could not be renewed: no, it could

not revert to the spirit of primitive Christianity; no, it could not

become the religion of the democracy, the new faith which might save the

old toppling societies in danger of death. Though it seemed to be of

democratic origin, it was henceforth riveted to that Roman soil, it

remained kingly in spite of everything, forced to cling to the principle

of temporal power under penalty of suicide, bound by tradition, enchained

by dogma, its evolutions mere simulations whilst in reality it was

reduced to such immobility that, behind the bronze doors of the Vatican,

the papacy was the prisoner, the ghost of eighteen centuries of atavism,

indulging the ceaseless dream of universal dominion. There, where with

priestly faith exalted by love of the suffering and the poor, he had come

to seek life and a resurrection of the Christian communion, he had found

death, the dust of a destroyed world in which nothing more could

germinate, an exhausted soil whence now there could never grow aught but

that despotic papacy, the master of bodies as it was of souls. To his

distracted cry asking for a new religion, Rome had been content to reply

by condemning his book as a work tainted with heresy, and he himself had

withdrawn it amidst the bitter grief of his disillusions. He had seen, he

had understood, and all had collapsed. And it was himself, his soul and

his brain, which lay among the ruins.

Pierre was stifling. He rose, threw the window overlooking the Tiber wide

open, and leant out. The rain had begun to fall again at the approach of

evening, but now it had once more ceased. The atmosphere was very mild,

moist, even oppressive. The moon must have arisen in the ashen grey sky,

for her presence could be divined behind the clouds which she illumined

with a vague, yellow, mournful light. And under that slumberous glimmer

the vast horizon showed blackly and phantom-like: the Janiculum in front

with the close-packed houses of the Trastevere; the river flowing away

yonder on the left towards the dim height of the Palatine; whilst on the

right the dome of St. Peter’s showed forth, round and domineering in the

pale atmosphere. Pierre could not see the Quirinal but divined it to be

behind him, and could picture its long façade shutting off part of the

sky. And what a collapsing Rome, half-devoured by the gloom, was this, so

different from the Rome all youth and dreamland which he had beheld and

passionately loved on the day of his arrival! He remembered the three

symbolic summits which had then summed up for him the whole long history

of Rome, the ancient, the papal, and the Italian city. But if the

Palatine had remained the same discrowned mount on which there only rose

the phantom of the ancestor, Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of the

world, he now pictured St. Peter’s and the Quirinal as strangely altered.

To that royal palace which he had so neglected, and which had seemed to

him like a flat, low barrack, to that new Government which had brought

him the impression of some attempt at sacrilegious modernity, he now

accorded the large, increasing space that they occupied in the panorama,

the whole of which they would apparently soon fill; whilst, on the

contrary, St. Peter’s, that dome which he had found so triumphal, all

azure, reigning over the city like a gigantic and unshakable monarch, at

present seemed to him full of cracks and already shrinking, as if it were

one of those huge old piles, which, through the secret, unsuspected decay

of their timbers, at times fall to the ground in one mass.