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 /fete/, 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, Theophile 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 /attache/, 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."