Then they went to see the Abbé Tardieu. The abbé lived in the Piazza.
Navona. His office, furnished in modern style, produced the effect of a
violent contrast with Cardinal Spada’s sumptuous study, and yet brought
it to mind. The Abbé Tardieu’s work-room was small, worldly, full of
books and photographs.
The abbé, a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a
mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person,
and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified.
When they entered his office he was writing and smoking.
Cæsar explained about his financial knowledge, and how he had gone on
acquiring it, until he got to the point where he could discern a law, a
system, in things where others saw nothing more than chance. The Abbé
Tardieu promised that if he knew a way to utilize Cæsar’s knowledge, he
would send him word. In respect to giving him letters of introduction to
influential persons in Spain, he had no objection.
They took leave of the abbé.
“All this has to go slowly,” said Kennedy.
“Of course. One cannot insist that it should happen all at once.”
_BERNINI_
“If you have nothing to do, let’s take a walk,” said the Englishman.
“If you like.”
“Have you noticed the fountains in this square?”
“No.”
“They are worth looking at.”
Cæsar contemplated the central obelisk. It is set on top of a rock
hollowed out like a cavern, in the mouth of which a lion is seen.
Afterwards they looked at the fountains at the ends of the square.
“The sculptures are by Bernini,” explained Kennedy. “Bernini belonged to
an epoch that has been very much abused by the critics, but nowadays he
is much praised. He enchants me.”
“It is rather a mixed style, don’t you think?”
“Yes.”
“The artist is not living?”
“For heaven’s sake, man! No.”
“Well, if he were alive today they would employ him to make those
gewgaws some people present to leading ladies and to the deputies of
their district. He would be the king of the manufacturers of ornate
barometers.”
“It is undeniable that Bernini had a baroque taste.”
“He gives the impression of a rather pretentious and affected person.”
“Yes, he does. He was an exuberant, luxuriant Neapolitan; but when he
chose he could produce marvels. Haven’t you seen his Saint Teresa?”
“No.”
“Then you must see it. Let’s take a carriage.”
They drove to the Piazza San Bernardo, a little square containing three
churches and a fountain, and went into Santa Maria della Vittoria.
Kennedy went straight toward the high altar, and stopped to the left of
it.
In an altar of the transept is to be seen a group carved in marble,
representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Cæsar gazed at it absorbed.
The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual
spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit
dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who
smilingly threatens her with an arrow.
“Well, what do you think of it?” said Kennedy.
“It is wonderful,” exclaimed Cæsar. “But it is a bedroom scene, only
the lover has slipped away.”
“Yes, that is true.”
“It really is pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the saint’s face,
the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all her muscles. Then the
angel is a little joker who stands there smiling at the ecstasy of the
saint.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Kennedy; “it is all the more admirable for the
very reason that it is tender, sensual, and charming, all at once.”
“However, this sort of thing is not healthy,” murmured Cæsar, “this
kind of vision depletes your life-force. One wants to find the same
things represented in works of art that one ought to look for in life,
even if they are not to be found in life.”
“Good! Here enters the moralist. You talk like an Englishman,” exclaimed
Kennedy. “Let us go along.”
“Where?”
“I have to stop in at the French Embassy a moment; then we can go where
you like.”
_CORNERS OF ROME_
They went back to the carriage, and having crossed through the centre of
Rome, got out in front of the Farnese Palace.
“I will be out inside of ten minutes,” said Kennedy.
The Farnese Palace aroused great admiration in Cæsar; he had never
passed it before. By one of the fountains in the _piazza,_ he stood
gazing at the huge square edifice, which seemed to him like a die cut
from an immense block of stone.
“This really gives me an impression of grandeur and force,” he said to
himself. “What a splendid palace! It looks like an ancient knight in
full armour, looking indifferently at everything, sure of his own
worth.”
Cæsar walked from one end of the _piazza_ to the other, absorbed in the
majestic pile of stone.
Kennedy surprised him in his contemplation.
“Now will you say that you are a good philistine?”
“Ah, well, this palace is magnificent. Here are grandeur, strength,
overwhelming force.”
“Yes, it is magnificent; but very uncomfortable, my French colleagues
tell me.”
Kennedy related the history of the Farnese Palace to Cæsar. They went
through the Via del Mascherone and came out into the Via Giulia.
“This Via Giulia is a street in a provincial capital,” said Kennedy;
“always sad and deserted; a Cardinal or two who like isolation are still
living here.”
At the entrance to the Via dei Farnesi, Cæsar stopped to look at two
marble tablets set into the wall at the two sides of a chapel door.
Cut on the tablets were skeletons painted black; on one, the words:
“Alms for the poor dead bodies found in the fields,” and on the other:
“Alms for the perpetual lamp in the cemetery.”
“What does this mean?” said Cæsar.
“That is the Church of the Orison of the Confraternity of Death. The
tablets are modern.”
They passed by the “Mascherone” again, and went rambling on until they
reached the Synagogue and the Theatre of Marcellus.
They went through narrow streets without sidewalks; they passed across
tiny squares; and it seemed like a dead city, or like the outskirts of a
village. In certain streets towered high dark palaces of blackish stone.
These mysterious palaces looked uninhabited; the gratings were eaten
with rust, all sorts of weeds grew on the roofs, and the balconies were
covered with climbing plants. At corners, set into the wall, one saw
niches with glass fronts. A painted madonna, black now, with silver
jewels and a crown, could be guessed at inside, and in front a little
lantern swung on a cord.
Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets without
sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the women and children
seated by the gutter.
In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes loaded with
torn washing; there were wretched black shops from which an odour of
grease exhaled; there were narrow streets with mounds of garbage in the
middle. In the very palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared
the same decoration of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of
Marcellus one’s gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where smiths
stood out against flames.
This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and ugliness, was
reflected in the people; young and most beautiful women were side by
side with fat, filthy old ones covered with rags, their eyes gloomy, and
of a type that recalled old African Jewesses.
_WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS_
Cæsar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta and followed the
river bank until the Tiber Embankment ended.
Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more poetic. To the
left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the harbour two or three tugs
were tied up; and here and there along the pier stood a crane. Evening
was falling and the sky was filling with pink clouds.
They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Cæsar entertained
himself deciphering the inscriptions written in charcoal on a mud-wall.
“Do you go in for modern epigraphy?” asked Kennedy.
“Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, in the towns
I go to; the advertisements in the newspapers and the writings on the
wall.”
“It’s a good kind of curiosity.”
“Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town from such
inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books.”
“That’s possible. And what conclusions have you drawn from your
observations?”
“They are not of much value. I haven’t constructed a science of
wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have done.”
“But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted on the
underlying system.”
“You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as my financial
science. What a mistake!”
“All right. But tell me what you have discovered about different towns.”
“London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its inscriptions and
somewhat clownish. When some sentimental foolishness doesn’t occur to a
Londoner of the people, some brutality or rough joke occurs to him.”
“You are very kind,” said Kennedy, laughing.
“Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the people you
find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There the dominant note on
the walls is the patriotic note, insults to politicians, calling them
assassins and thieves, and also sentiments of revenge expressed by
an _‘A mort Dupin!’_ or _‘A mort Duval!’_ Moreover, there is a great
enthusiasm for the guillotine.”
“And Madrid?”
“Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagination, and
the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive.”
“And in Rome what do you find?”
“Here one finds a mixture of pornography, romanticism, and politics.
A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alternate with some
enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs for Anarchy or for the
_‘Papa-re.’_”
“Well done!” said Kennedy; “I can see that the branch of epigraphy you
practise amounts to something. It should be systematized and given a
name.”
“What do you think we should name it? Wallography?”
“Very good.”
“And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now we might go and
get dinner.”
They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul’s beyond the Walls,
and returned to the heart of the city.
_THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE_
The next day Cæsar was finishing dressing when the servant told him
that a gentleman was waiting for him.
“Who is it?” asked Cæsar.
“It’s a monk.”
Cæsar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with an evil face,
a red nose, and a worn habit.
Cæsar recalled having seen him, but didn’t know where.
“What can I do for you?” asked Cæsar.
“I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak with you.”
“Let’s go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there.”
“It would be better to talk in your room.”
“No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat breakfast. Will you
join me?”
“No, thanks,” said the monk.
Cæsar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps palace. He was
doubtless one of the domestic monks who had been with the Abbé Preciozi.
The waiter came bringing Cæsar’s breakfast. “Will you tell me what it
is?” said Cæsar to the ecclesiastic, while he filled his cup.
The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said in a hard
voice:
“His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to present yourself
anywhere again, giving his name.”
“What? What does this mean?” asked Cæsar, calmly.
“It means that His Eminence has found out about your intrigues and
machinations.”
“Intrigues? What intrigues were those?”
“You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you to continue in
that direction.”
“His Eminence forbids me to pay calls? And for what reason?”
“Because you have used his name to introduce yourself into certain
places.”
“It is not true.”
“You have told people you went to that you are Cardinal Fort’s nephew.”
“And I am not?” asked Cæsar, after taking a swallow of coffee.
“You are trying to make use of the relationship, we don’t know with what
end in view.”
“I am trying to make use of my relationship to Cardinal Fort? Why
shouldn’t I?”
“You admit it?”
“Yes, I admit it. People are such imbeciles that they think it is an
honour to have a Cardinal in the family; I take advantage of this stupid
idea, although I do not share it, because for me a Cardinal is merely an
object of curiosity, an object for an archeological museum....”
Cæsar paused, because the monk’s countenance was growing dark. In the
twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like a comet portending
some public calamity.
“Poor wretch!” murmured the monk. “You do not know what you are saying.
You are blaspheming. You are offending God.” “Do you really believe that
God has any relation to my uncle?” asked Cæsar, paying more attention
to his toast than to his visitor.
And then he added:
“The truth is that it would be extravagant behaviour on the part of
God.”
The monk looked at Cæsar with terrible eyes. Those grey eyes of his,
under their long, black, thick brows, shot lightning.
“Poor wretch!” repeated the monk. “You ought to have more respect for
things above you.”
Cæsar arose.
“You are bothering me and preventing me from drinking my coffee,” he
said, with exquisite politeness, and touched the bell.
“Be careful!” exclaimed the monk, seizing Cæsar’s arm with violence.
“Don’t you touch me again,” said Cæsar, pulling away violently, his
face pale and his eyes flashing. “If you do, I have a revolver here with
five chambers, and I shall take pleasure in emptying them one by one,
taking that lighthouse you carry about for a nose, as my target.”
“Fire it if you dare.”
Fortunately the waiter had come in on hearing the bell.
“Do you wish anything, sir?” he asked.
“Yes, please escort this clerical gentleman to the door, and tell him on
the way not to come back here.”
Days later Cæsar found out that there had been a great disturbance at
the Altemps palace in consequence of the calls he had made. Preciozi
had been punished and sent away from Rome, and the various Spanish
monasteries and colleges warned not to receive Cæsar.