_THE ADVICE OF TWO ABBÉS_
The Abbé Preciozi several times advised Cæsar to make a new attempt at
a reconciliation with the Cardinal; but Cæsar always refused.
“He is a man incapable of understanding me,” he would insist with naïve
arrogance.
Preciozi felt a great liking for his new friend, who invited him to
meals at good hotels and treated him very frequently. Almost every
morning he went to call on Cæsar on one pretext or another, and they
would go for a walk and chat about various things.
Preciozi was beginning to believe that his friend was a man with a
future. Some explanations that Cæsar gave him about the mechanism of
the stock-exchange convinced the abbé that he was in the presence of a
great financier.
Preciozi talked to all his friends and acquaintances about Cardinal
Fort’s nephew, picturing him as an extraordinary man; some took these
praises as a joke; others thought that it was really very possible that
the Spaniard had great talent; only one abbé, who was a teacher in a
college, felt a desire to meet the Cardinal’s nephew, and Preciozi
introduced him to Cæsar.
This abbé was named Cittadella, and he was fat, rosy, and blond; he
looked more like a singer than a priest.
Cæsar invited the two abbés to dine at a restaurant and requested
Preciozi to do the ordering.
“So you are a nephew of Cardinal Fort’s?” asked Cittadella. “Yes.”
“His own nephew?”
“His own nephew; son of his sister.”
“And he hasn’t done anything for you?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s a pity. He is a man of great influence, of great talent.”
“Influence, I believe; talent, I doubt,” said Cæsar.
“Oh, no, no! He is an intelligent man.”
“But I have heard that his _Theological Commentaries_ is absolutely
absurd.”
“No, no.”
“A crude, banal book, full of stupidities....”
“_Macché_!” exclaimed the indignant Preciozi, neglecting the culinary
conflict he was engaged in.
“All right. It makes no difference,” replied Cæsar, smiling. “Whether
he is a famous man, as you two say, or a blockhead, as I think, the fact
remains that my uncle doesn’t wish to have anything to do with me.”
“You must have done something to him,” said Cittadella.
“No; the only thing is that when I was small they told me the Cardinal
wished me to be a priest, and I answered that I didn’t care to be.”
“And why so?”
“It seems to me a poor job. It’s evident that one doesn’t make much at
it.”
Cittadella sighed.
“Yes, and what’s more,” Preciozi put in, “this gentleman says to anybody
who cares to listen, that religion is a farce, that Catholicism is like
a dish of Jewish meat with Roman sauce. Is it possible that a Cardinal
should bother about a nephew that talks like that?”
The Abbé Cittadella looked very serious and remarked that it is
necessary to believe, or at least to seem to believe, in the truths of
religion.
“Is the Cardinal supposed to have money?” asked Cæsar.
“Yes, I should say he is,” replied Preciozi. “Your sister and you will
be the only heirs,” said Cittadella.
“Of course,” agreed Preciozi.
“Has he made a will?” asked Cæsar.
“All the better if he hasn’t,” said one of the abbés.
“If we could only poison him,” sighed Cæsar, with melancholy.
“Don’t talk of such things just as we are going to eat,” said Preciozi.
The dinner was brought, and the two abbés did it the honour it deserved.
Preciozi deserved congratulations for his excellent selection. They
ordered good wines and drank merry toasts.
“What an admirable secretary Preciozi would be, if I got to be a
personage!” exclaimed Cæsar. “Twenty thousand francs or so salary, his
board, and the duty of choosing the dinner for the next day. That’s my
proposal.”
The abbé blushed with pleasure, emptied his glass of wine, and murmured:
“If it depended on me!”
“The fact is that the way things are arranged today is no good,” said
Cæsar. “A hundred years ago, by the mere fact of being a Cardinal’s
nephew, I should have been somebody.”
“That’s true,” exclaimed Preciozi.
“And as I should have no scruples, and neither would you two, we would
have plunged into life strenuously, and sacked Rome, and the whole world
would be ours.”
“You talk like a Cæsar Borgia,” said Preciozi, aroused. “You are a true
Spaniard.”
“Today one must have something to stand on,” said Cittadella, coldly.
“Friend Cittadella,” retorted Cæsar, “I, as you see me here, am the man
who knows the most about financial matters in all Spain, and I believe I
shall soon get to where I can say, in all Europe. I put my knowledge at
the service of whoever pays me. I am like one of your old _condottieri_,
a mercenary general. I am ready to win battles for the Jewish bank, or
against the Jewish bank, for the Church or against the Church.”
“For the Church is better. Against the Church we cannot assist you,”
said Preciozi.
“I will try first, for the Church. To whom can you recommend me first?”
The two abbés said nothing, and drank in silence.
“Perhaps Verry would see him,” said Cittadella.
“Hm!...” replied Preciozi. “I rather doubt it.”
“What sort of a party is he?” asked Cæsar.
“He is one of those _prelati_ that come out of the College of Nobles,”
said Cittadella, “and who get on, even if they are no good. Here they
consider him a haughty Spaniard; they blame him for wearing his robes,
and for always taking an automobile when he goes to Castel Gandolfo. The
priests hate him because he is a Jesuit and a Spaniard.”
“And wherein does his strength lie?”
“In the Society, and in his knowing several languages. He was educated
in England.”
“From what you two tell me of him, he gives me the impression of a
fatuous person.”
A bottle of champagne was brought in and the three of them drank,
toasting and touching glasses.
“If I were in your place,” said Cittadella, after thinking a long while,
“I shouldn’t try to get at people in high places, but people who are
inconspicuous and yet have influence in your country.”
“For instance....”
“For instance, Father Herreros, at the convent in Trastevere.”
“And Father Miró too,” added Preciozi, “and if you could talk to Father
Ferrer, of the Gregorian University, it wouldn’t be a bad idea.”
“That will be more difficult,” said Cittadella.
“You could tell them,” Preciozi suggested, “that your uncle the Cardinal
sent you, and hint that he doesn’t want anybody to know that he is
backing you.” “And if somebody should write to my uncle?”
“You mustn’t say anything definite. You must speak ambiguously. Besides,
in case they did write, we would fix it up in the office.”
Cæsar began to laugh naïvely. Afterwards, the two abbés, a little
excited by the food and the good wine, started in to have a violent
discussion, speaking Italian. Cæsar paid the bill, and pretending that
he had an urgent engagement, took leave of them and went out.
_A SPANISH MONK_
The next day Cæsar went to look up Father Herreros. He had not yet
succeeded in forming a plan. His only idea was to see if he could take
advantage of some chance: to follow a scent and be on the alert, in case
something new should start up on one side or the other.
Father Herreros lived in a convent in Trastevere. Cæsar took the tram
in the Piazza Venezia, and got out after crossing the Tiber, near the
Via delle Fratte.
He soon found the convent; it had a yellow portal with a Latin
inscription which sang the gymnastic glories of Saint Pascual Bailón.
Above the inscription there was a picture, in which a monk, no doubt
Bailón, was dancing among the clouds.
On the lintel of the gate were the arms of Spain, and at the sides, two
medallions bearing hands wounded in the palm.
The convent door was old and quartered. Cæsar knocked.
A lay-brother, with a suspicious glance, came out to admit him, told him
to wait, and left him alone. After some while, he came back and asked
him to follow him.
They went down a small passage and up a staircase, which was at the
end, and then along a corridor on the main floor. On one side of this
corridor, in his cell, they found Father Herreros.
Cæsar, after bowing and introducing himself, sat down, as the monk
asked him to do, in a chair with its back to the light. Cæsar began to
explain why he had come, and as he had prepared what he was going to
say, he employed his attention, while speaking, on the cage and the kind
of big bird which were before his eyes.
Father Herreros had a big rough head, black heavy eyebrows, a short
nose, an enormous mouth, yellow teeth, and grey hair. He wore a
chocolate-coloured robe, open enough to show his whole neck down to his
chest. The movement of the good monk’s lips was that of a man who wished
to pass for keen and insinuating. His robe was dirty and he doubtless
had the habit of leaving cigarette stubs on the table.
The cell had one window, and in front of it a bookcase. Cæsar made an
effort to read the titles. They were almost all Latin books, the kind
that nobody reads.
Father Herreros began to ask Cæsar questions. In his brain, he was
doubtless wondering why Cardinal Fort’s nephew should come to him.
After many useless words they got to the concrete point that Cæsar
wanted to take up, Father Herreros’s acquaintance in Spain, and the monk
said that he knew a very rich widow who had property in Toledo. When
Cæsar went to Madrid, he would give him a letter of recommendation to
her.
“I cannot keep you any longer now, because a Mexican lady is waiting for
me,” said Father Herreros.
Cæsar arose, and after shaking the monk’s fat hand, he left the
convent. He returned to Rome on foot, crossing the river again, and
looking at the Tiberine island; and arrived without hurrying at the
hotel. He wrote to his friend Azugaray, requesting him to discover, by
the indications he gave him, who the rich widow that had property in
Toledo could be.
_THE LICENTIATE MIRÓ_
The next day Cæsar decided to pursue his investigations, and went to
see Father Miró.
Father Miró lived in a college in the Via Monserrato. Cæsar inspected
the map of Rome, looking for that street, and found that it is located
in the vicinity of the Campo de’ Fiori, and took his way thither.
The spring day was magnificent; the sky was blue, without a cloud; the
tiled roofs of some of the palaces were decorated with borders of
plants and flowers; in the street, dry and flooded with sunshine, a
water-carrier in a cart full of fat, green bottles, passed by, singing
and cracking his whip.
Cæsar crossed the Campo de’ Fiori, a very lively, plebeian square, full
of canvas awnings with open stalls of fruit under them. In the middle
stood the statue of Giordano Bruno, with a crown of flowers around its
neck.
Then he took the Via de’ Cappellari, a narrow lane and dirty enough.
From one side to the other clothes were hung out to dry.
He came to the college and entered the church contiguous to it. He asked
for Father Miró; a sacristan with a long moustache and a worn blue
overcoat, took him to another entrance, made him mount an old wooden
staircase, and conducted him to the office of the man he was looking
for.
Father Miró was a tiny little man, dark and filthy, with a worn-out
cassock, covered with dandruff, and a large dirty square cap with a big
rosette.
“Will you tell me what you want?” said the little priest in a sullen
tone.
Cæsar introduced himself, and explained in a few words who he was and
what he proposed.
Father Miró, without asking him to sit down, answered rapidly, saying
that he had no acquaintance with matters of finance or speculation.
Cæsar felt a shudder of anger at the rudeness with which he was treated
by this draggled little priest, and felt a vehement desire to take him
by the neck and twist it, like a chicken’s.
Despite his anger, he did not change expression, and he asked the priest
smilingly if he knew who could give him advice about those questions.
“You can see Father Ferrer at the Gregorian University, or Father
Mendia. He is an encyclopedist. It was he who wrote the theological
portion of the encyclical _Pascendi_, the one about Modernism. He is a
man of very great learning.”
“He will do. Many thanks,” and Cæsar turned toward the door.
“Excuse me for not having asked you to sit down, but...”
“No matter,” Cæsar replied, rapidly, and he went out to the stairs.
In view of the poor result of his efforts, he decided to go to the
Gregorian University. He was told it was in the Via del Seminario, and
supposed it must be the large edifice with little windowed bridges over
two streets.
That edifice was the Collegio Romano; the Gregorian University was in
the same street, but further on, opposite the Post Office Department.
Father Ferrer could not receive him, because he was holding a class; and
after they had gone up and come down and taken Cæsar’s card for Father
Mendia, they told him he was out.
Cæsar concluded that it was not so easy to find a crack through which
one could get information of what was going on in the clerical world.
“I see that the Church gives them all a defensive instinct which they
make good use of. They are really only poor devils, but they have a
great organization, and it cannot be easy to get one’s fingers through
the meshes of their net.”