been asked to give you some important advice, my friend,” she said. “It
seems that the news of your presence in Rome is spreading, and that bad
reports of you are circulated. Your book is said to be a fierce appeal to
schism, and you are spoken of as a mere ambitious, turbulent schismatic.
After publishing your book in Paris you have come to Rome, it is said, to
raise a fearful scandal over it in order to make it sell. Now, if you
still desire to see his Holiness, so as to plead your cause before him,
you are advised to make people forget you, to disappear altogether for a
fortnight or three weeks.”
Pierre was stupefied. Why, they would end by maddening him with all the
obstacles they raised to exhaust his patience; they would actually
implant in him an idea of schism, of an avenging, liberating scandal! He
wished to protest and refuse the advice, but all at once he made a
gesture of weariness. What would be the good of it, especially with that
young woman, who was certainly sincere and affectionate. “Who asked you
to give me this advice?” he inquired. She did not answer, but smiled, and
with sudden intuition he resumed: “It was Monsignor Nani, was it not?”
Thereupon, still unwilling to give a direct reply, she began to praise
the prelate. He had at last consented to guide her in her divorce affair;
and Donna Serafina had gone to the Palace of the Inquisition that very
afternoon in order to acquaint him with the result of certain steps she
had taken. Father Lorenza, the confessor of both the Boccanera ladies,
was to be present at the interview, for the idea of the divorce was in
reality his own. He had urged the two women to it in his eagerness to
sever the bond which the patriotic priest Pisoni had tied full of such
fine illusions. Benedetta became quite animated as she explained the
reasons of her hopefulness. “Monsignor Nani can do everything,” she said,
“and I am very happy that my affair should be in his hands. You must be
reasonable also, my friend; do as you are requested. I’m sure you will
some day be well pleased at having taken this advice.”
Pierre had bowed his head and remained thoughtful. There was nothing
unpleasant in the idea of remaining for a few more weeks in Rome, where
day by day his curiosity found so much fresh food. Of course, all these
delays were calculated to discourage him and bend his will. Yet what did
he fear, since he was still determined to relinquish nothing of his book,
and to see the Holy Father for the sole purpose of proclaiming his new
faith? Once more, in silence, he took that oath, then yielded to
Benedetta’s entreaties. And as he apologised for being a source of
embarrassment in the house she exclaimed: “No, no, I am delighted to have
you here. I fancy that your presence will bring us good fortune now that
luck seems to be changing in our favour.”
It was then agreed that he would no longer prowl around St. Peter’s and
the Vatican, where his constant presence must have attracted attention.
He even promised that he would virtually spend a week indoors, desirous
as he was of reperusing certain books, certain pages of Rome’s history.
Then he went on chatting for a moment, lulled by the peacefulness which
reigned around him, since the lamp had illumined the _salon_ with its
sleepy radiance. Six o’clock had just struck, and outside all was dark.
“Wasn’t his Eminence indisposed to-day?” the young man asked.
“Yes,” replied the Contessina. “But we are not anxious: it is only a
little fatigue. He sent Don Vigilio to tell me that he intended to shut
himself up in his room and dictate some letters. So there can be nothing
much the matter, you see.”
Silence fell again. For a while not a sound came from the deserted street
or the old empty mansion, mute and dreamy like a tomb. But all at once
the soft somnolence, instinct with all the sweetness of a dream of hope,
was disturbed by a tempestuous entry, a whirl of skirts, a gasp of
terror. It was Victorine, who had gone off after bringing the lamp, but
now returned, scared and breathless: “Contessina! Contessina!”
Benedetta had risen, suddenly quite white and cold, as at the advent of a
blast of misfortune. “What, what is it? Why do you run and tremble?” she
asked.
“Dario, Monsieur Dario--down below. I went down to see if the lantern in
the porch were alight, as it is so often forgotten. And in the dark, in
the porch, I stumbled against Monsieur Dario. He is on the ground; he has
a knife-thrust somewhere.”
A cry leapt from the _amorosa’s_ heart: “Dead!”
“No, no, wounded.”
But Benedetta did not hear; in a louder and louder voice she cried:
“Dead! dead!”
“No, no, I tell you, he spoke to me. And for Heaven’s sake, be quiet. He
silenced me because he did not want any one to know; he told me to come
and fetch you--only you. However, as Monsieur l’Abbe is here, he had
better help us. We shall be none too many.”
Pierre listened, also quite aghast. And when Victorine wished to take the
lamp her trembling hand, with which she had no doubt felt the prostrate
body, was seen to be quite bloody. The sight filled Benedetta with so
much horror that she again began to moan wildly.
“Be quiet, be quiet!” repeated Victorine. “We ought not to make any noise
in going down. I shall take the lamp, because we must at all events be
able to see. Now, quick, quick!”
Across the porch, just at the entrance of the vestibule, Dario lay prone
upon the slabs, as if, after being stabbed in the street, he had only had
sufficient strength to take a few steps before falling. And he had just
fainted, and lay there with his face very pale, his lips compressed, and
his eyes closed. Benedetta, recovering the energy of her race amidst her
excessive grief, no longer lamented or cried out, but gazed at him with
wild, tearless, dilated eyes, as though unable to understand. The horror
of it all was the suddenness and mysteriousness of the catastrophe, the
why and wherefore of this murderous attempt amidst the silence of the old
deserted palace, black with the shades of night. The wound had as yet
bled but little, for only the Prince’s clothes were stained.
“Quick, quick!” repeated Victorine in an undertone after lowering the
lamp and moving it around. “The porter isn’t there--he’s always at the
carpenter’s next door--and you see that he hasn’t yet lighted the
lantern. Still he may come back at any moment. So the Abbe and I will
carry the Prince into his room at once.” She alone retained her head,
like a woman of well-balanced mind and quiet activity. The two others,
whose stupor continued, listened to her and obeyed her with the docility
of children. “Contessina,” she continued, “you must light us. Here, take
the lamp and lower it a little so that we may see the steps. You, Abbe,
take the feet; I’ll take hold of him under the armpits. And don’t be
alarmed, the poor dear fellow isn’t heavy.”
Ah! that ascent of the monumental staircase with its low steps and its
landings as spacious as guardrooms. They facilitated the cruel journey,
but how lugubrious looked the little _cortege_ under the flickering
glimmer of the lamp which Benedetta held with arm outstretched, stiffened
by determination! And still not a sound came from the old lifeless
dwelling, nothing but the silent crumbling of the walls, the slow decay
which was making the ceilings crack. Victorine continued to whisper words
of advice whilst Pierre, afraid of slipping on the shiny slabs, put forth
an excess of strength which made his breath come short. Huge, wild
shadows danced over the big expanse of bare wall up to the very vaults
decorated with sunken panels. So endless seemed the ascent that at last a
halt became necessary; but the slow march was soon resumed. Fortunately
Dario’s apartments--bed-chamber, dressing-room, and sitting-room--were on
the first floor adjoining those of the Cardinal in the wing facing the
Tiber; so, on reaching the landing, they only had to walk softly along
the corridor, and at last, to their great relief, laid the wounded man
upon his bed.
Victorine vented her satisfaction in a light laugh. “That’s done,” said
she; “put the lamp on that table, Contessina. I’m sure nobody heard us.
It’s lucky that Donna Serafina should have gone out, and that his
Eminence should have shut himself up with Don Vigilio. I wrapped my skirt
round Monsieur Dario’s shoulders, you know, so I don’t think any blood
fell on the stairs. By and by, too, I’ll go down with a sponge and wipe
the slabs in the porch--” She stopped short, looked at Dario, and then
quickly added: “He’s breathing--now I’ll leave you both to watch over him
while I go for good Doctor Giordano, who saw you come into the world,
Contessina. He’s a man to be trusted.”
Alone with the unconscious sufferer in that dim chamber, which seemed to
quiver with the frightful horror that filled their hearts, Benedetta and
Pierre remained on either side of the bed, as yet unable to exchange a
word. The young woman first opened her arms and wrung her hands whilst
giving vent to a hollow moan, as if to relieve and exhale her grief; and
then, leaning forward, she watched for some sign of life on that pale
face whose eyes were closed. Dario was certainly breathing, but his
respiration was slow and very faint, and some time went by before a touch
of colour returned to his cheeks. At last, however, he opened his eyes,
and then she at once took hold of his hand and pressed it, instilling
into the pressure all the anguish of her heart. Great was her happiness
on feeling that he feebly returned the clasp.
“Tell me,” she said, “you can see me and hear me, can’t you? What has
happened, good God?”
He did not at first answer, being worried by the presence of Pierre. On
recognising the young priest, however, he seemed content that he should
be there, and then glanced apprehensively round the room to see if there
were anybody else. And at last he murmured: “No one saw me, no one
knows?”
“No, no; be easy. We carried you up with Victorine without meeting a
soul. Aunt has just gone out, uncle is shut up in his rooms.”
At this Dario seemed relieved, and he even smiled. “I don’t want anybody
to know, it is so stupid,” he murmured.
“But in God’s name what has happened?” she again asked him.
“Ah! I don’t know, I don’t know,” was his response, as he lowered his
eyelids with a weary air as if to escape the question. But he must have
realised that it was best for him to confess some portion of the truth at
once, for he resumed: “A man was hidden in the shadow of the porch--he
must have been waiting for me. And so, when I came in, he dug his knife
into my shoulder, there.”
Forthwith she again leant over him, quivering, and gazing into the depths
of his eyes: “But who was the man, who was he?” she asked. Then, as he,
in a yet more weary way, began to stammer that he didn’t know, that the
man had fled into the darkness before he could recognise him, she raised
a terrible cry: “It was Prada! it was Prada, confess it, I know it
already!” And, quite delirious, she went on: “I tell you that I know it!
Ah! I would not be his, and he is determined that we shall never belong
to one another. Rather than have that he will kill you on the day when I
am free to be your wife! Oh! I know him well; I shall never, never be
happy. Yes, I know it well, it was Prada, Prada!”
But sudden energy upbuoyed the wounded man, and he loyally protested:
“No, no, it was not Prada, nor was it any one working for him. That I
swear to you. I did not recognise the man, but it wasn’t Prada--no, no!”
There was such a ring of truth in Dario’s words that Benedetta must have
been convinced by them. But terror once more overpowered her, for the
hand she held was suddenly growing soft, moist, and powerless. Exhausted
by his effort, Dario had fallen back, again fainting, his face quite
white and his eyes closed. And it seemed to her that he was dying.
Distracted by her anguish, she felt him with trembling, groping hands:
“Look, look, Monsieur l’Abbe!” she exclaimed. “But he is dying, he is
dying; he is already quite cold. Ah! God of heaven, he is dying!”
Pierre, terribly upset by her cries, sought to reassure her, saying: “He
spoke too much; he has lost consciousness, as he did before. But I assure
you that I can feel his heart beating. Here, put your hand here,
Contessina. For mercy’s sake don’t distress yourself like that; the
doctor will soon be here, and everything will be all right.”
But she did not listen to him, and all at once he was lost in amazement,
for she flung herself upon the body of the man she adored, caught it in a
frantic embrace, bathed it with tears and covered it with kisses whilst
stammering words of fire: “Ah! if I were to lose you, if I were to lose
you! And to think that I repulsed you, that I would not accept happiness
when it was yet possible! Yes, that idea of mine, that vow I made to the
Madonna! Yet how could she be offended by our happiness? And then, and
then, if she has deceived me, if she takes you from me, ah! then I can
have but one regret--that I did not damn myself with you--yes, yes,
damnation rather than that we should never, never be each other’s!”
Was this the woman who had shown herself so calm, so sensible, so patient
the better to ensure her happiness? Pierre was terrified, and no longer
recognised her. He had hitherto seen her so reserved, so modest, with a
childish charm that seemed to come from her very nature! But under the
threatening blow she feared, the terrible blood of the Boccaneras had
awoke within her with a long heredity of violence, pride, frantic and
exasperated longings. She wished for her share of life, her share of
love! And she moaned and she clamoured, as if death, in taking her lover
from her, were tearing away some of her own flesh.
“Calm yourself, I entreat you, madame,” repeated the priest. “He is
alive, his heart beats. You are doing yourself great harm.”
But she wished to die with her lover: “O my darling! if you must go, take
me, take me with you. I will lay myself on your heart, I will clasp you
so tightly with my arms that they shall be joined to yours, and then we
must needs be buried together. Yes, yes, we shall be dead, and we shall
be wedded all the same--wedded in death! I promised that I would belong
to none but you, and I will be yours in spite of everything, even in the
grave. O my darling, open your eyes, open your mouth, kiss me if you
don’t want me to die as soon as you are dead!”
A blaze of wild passion, full of blood and fire, had passed through that
mournful chamber with old, sleepy walls. But tears were now overcoming
Benedetta, and big gasping sobs at last threw her, blinded and
strengthless, on the edge of the bed. And fortunately an end was put to
the terrible scene by the arrival of the doctor whom Victorine had
fetched.
Doctor Giordano was a little old man of over sixty, with white curly
hair, and fresh-looking, clean-shaven countenance. By long practice among
Churchmen he had acquired the paternal appearance and manner of an
amiable prelate. And he was said to be a very worthy man, tending the
poor for nothing, and displaying ecclesiastical reserve and discretion in
all delicate cases. For thirty years past the whole Boccanera family,
children, women, and even the most eminent Cardinal himself, had in all
cases of sickness been placed in the hands of this prudent practitioner.
Lighted by Victorine and helped by Pierre, he undressed Dario, who was
roused from his swoon by pain; and after examining the wound he declared
with a smile that it was not at all dangerous. The young Prince would at
the utmost have to spend three weeks in bed, and no complications were to
be feared. Then, like all the doctors of Rome, enamoured of the fine
thrusts and cuts which day by day they have to dress among chance
patients of the lower classes, he complacently lingered over the wound,
doubtless regarding it as a clever piece of work, for he ended by saying
to the Prince in an undertone: “That’s what we call a warning. The man
didn’t want to kill, the blow was dealt downwards so that the knife might
slip through the flesh without touching the bone. Ah! a man really needs
to be skilful to deal such a stab; it was very neatly done.”
“Yes, yes,” murmured Dario, “he spared me; had he chosen he could have
pierced me through.”
Benedetta did not hear. Since the doctor had declared the case to be free
from danger, and had explained that the fainting fits were due to nervous
shock, she had fallen in a chair, quite prostrated. Gradually, however,
some gentle tears coursed from her eyes, bringing relief after her
frightful despair, and then, rising to her feet, she came and kissed
Dario with mute and passionate delight.
“I say, my dear doctor,” resumed the Prince, “it’s useless for people to
know of this. It’s so ridiculous. Nobody has seen anything, it seems,
excepting Monsieur l’Abbe, whom I ask to keep the matter secret. And in
particular I don’t want anybody to alarm the Cardinal or my aunt, or
indeed any of our friends.”
Doctor Giordano indulged in one of his placid smiles. “_Bene, bene_,”
said he, “that’s natural; don’t worry yourself. We will say that you have
had a fall on the stairs and have dislocated your shoulder. And now that
the wound is dressed you must try to sleep, and don’t get feverish. I
will come back to-morrow morning.”
That evening of excitement was followed by some very tranquil days, and a
new life began for Pierre, who at first remained indoors, reading and
writing, with no other recreation than that of spending his afternoons in
Dario’s room, where he was certain to find Benedetta. After a somewhat
intense fever lasting for eight and forty hours, cure took its usual
course, and the story of the dislocated shoulder was so generally
believed, that the Cardinal insisted on Donna Serafina departing from her
habits of strict economy, to have a second lantern lighted on the landing
in order that no such accident might occur again. And then the monotonous
peacefulness was only disturbed by a final incident, a threat of trouble,
as it were, with which Pierre found himself mixed up one evening when he
was lingering beside the convalescent patient.
Benedetta had absented herself for a few minutes, and as Victorine, who
had brought up some broth, was leaning towards the Prince to take the
empty cup from him, she said in a low voice: “There’s a girl, Monsieur,
La Pierina, who comes here every day, crying and asking for news of you.
I can’t get rid of her, she’s always prowling about the place, so I
thought it best to tell you of it.”
Unintentionally, Pierre heard her and understood everything. Dario, who
was looking at him, at once guessed his thoughts, and without answering
Victorine exclaimed: “Yes, Abbe, it was that brute Tito! How idiotic,
eh?” At the same time, although the young man protested that he had done
nothing whatever for the girl’s brother to give him such a “warning,” he
smiled in an embarrassed way, as if vexed and even somewhat ashamed of
being mixed up in an affair of the kind. And he was evidently relieved
when the priest promised that he would see the girl, should she come
back, and make her understand that she ought to remain at home.
“It was such a stupid affair!” the Prince repeated, with an exaggerated
show of anger. “Such things are not of our times.”
But all at once he ceased speaking, for Benedetta entered the room. She
sat down again beside her dear patient, and the sweet, peaceful evening
then took its course in the old sleepy chamber, the old, lifeless palace,
whence never a sound arose.
When Pierre began to go out again he at first merely took a brief airing
in the district. The Via Giulia interested him, for he knew how splendid
it had been in the time of Julius II, who had dreamt of lining it with
sumptuous palaces. Horse and foot races then took place there during the
carnival, the Palazzo Farnese being the starting-point, and the Piazza of
St. Peter’s the goal. Pierre had also lately read that a French
ambassador, D’Estree, Marquis de Coure, had resided at the Palazzo
Sacchetti, and in 1638 had given some magnificent entertainments in
honour of the birth of the Dauphin,* when on three successive days there
had been racing from the Ponte Sisto to San Giovanni dei Fiorentini
amidst an extraordinary display of sumptuosity: the street being strewn
with flowers, and rich hangings adorning every window. On the second
evening there had been fireworks on the Tiber, with a machine
representing the ship Argo carrying Jason and his companions to the
recovery of the Golden Fleece; and, on another occasion, the Farnese
fountain, the Mascherone, had flowed with wine. Nowadays, however, all
was changed. The street, bright with sunshine or steeped in shadow
according to the hour, was ever silent and deserted. The heavy, ancient
palatial houses, their old doors studded with plates and nails, their
windows barred with huge iron gratings, always seemed to be asleep, whole
storeys showing nothing but closed shutters as if to keep out the
daylight for evermore. Now and again, when a door was open, you espied
deep vaults, damp, cold courts, green with mildew, and encompassed by
colonnades like cloisters. Then, in the outbuildings of the mansions, the
low structures which had collected more particularly on the side of the
Tiber, various small silent shops had installed themselves. There was a
baker’s, a tailor’s, and a bookbinder’s, some fruiterers’ shops with a
few tomatoes and salad plants set out on boards, and some wine-shops
which claimed to sell the vintages of Frascati and Genzano, but whose
customers seemed to be dead. Midway along the street was a modern prison,
whose horrid yellow wall in no wise enlivened the scene, whilst,
overhead, a flight of telegraph wires stretched from the arcades of the
Farnese palace to the distant vista of trees beyond the river. With its
infrequent traffic the street, even in the daytime, was like some
sepulchral corridor where the past was crumbling into dust, and when
night fell its desolation quite appalled Pierre. You did not meet a soul,
you did not see a light in any window, and the glimmering gas lamps, few
and far between, seemed powerless to pierce the gloom. On either hand the
doors were barred and bolted, and not a sound, not a breath came from
within. Even when, after a long interval, you passed a lighted wine-shop,
behind whose panes of frosted glass a lamp gleamed dim and motionless,
not an exclamation, not a suspicion of a laugh ever reached your ear.
There was nothing alive save the two sentries placed outside the prison,
one before the entrance and the other at the corner of the right-hand
lane, and they remained erect and still, coagulated, as it were, in that
dead street.
* Afterwards Louis XIV.--Trans.
Pierre’s interest, however, was not merely confined to the Via Giulia; it
extended to the whole district, once so fine and fashionable, but now
fallen into sad decay, far removed from modern life, and exhaling a faint
musty odour of monasticism. Towards San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, where
the new Corso Vittorio Emanuele has ripped up every olden district, the
lofty five-storeyed houses with their dazzling sculptured fronts
contrasted violently with the black sunken dwellings of the neighbouring
lanes. In the evening the globes of the electric lamps on the Corso shone
out with such dazzling whiteness that the gas lamps of the Via Giulia and
other streets looked like smoky lanterns. There were several old and
famous thoroughfares, the Via Banchi Vecchi, the Via del Pellegrino, the
Via di Monserrato, and an infinity of cross-streets which intersected and
connected the others, all going towards the Tiber, and for the most part
so narrow that vehicles scarcely had room to pass. And each street had
its church, a multitude of churches all more or less alike, highly
decorated, gilded, and painted, and open only at service time when they
were full of sunlight and incense. In the Via Giulia, in addition to San
Giovanni dei Fiorentini, San Biagio della Pagnotta, San Eligio degli
Orefici, and three or four others, there was the so-called Church of the
Dead, Santa Maria dell’ Orazione; and this church, which is at the lower
end behind the Farnese palace, was often visited by Pierre, who liked to
dream there of the wild life of Rome, and of the pious brothers of the
Confraternita della Morte, who officiate there, and whose mission is to
search for and bury such poor outcasts as die in the Campagna. One
evening he was present at the funeral of two unknown men, whose bodies,
after remaining unburied for quite a fortnight, had been discovered in a
field near the Appian Way.
However, Pierre’s favourite promenade soon became the new quay of the
Tiber beyond the Palazzo Boccanera. He had merely to take the narrow lane
skirting the mansion to reach a spot where he found much food for
reflection. Although the quay was not yet finished, the work seemed to be
quite abandoned. There were heaps of rubbish, blocks of stone, broken
fences, and dilapidated tool-sheds all around. To such a height had it
been necessary to carry the quay walls--designed to protect the city from
floods, for the river bed has been rising for centuries past--that the
old terrace of the Boccanera gardens, with its double flight of steps to
which pleasure boats had once been moored, now lay in a hollow,
threatened with annihilation whenever the works should be finished. But
nothing had yet been levelled; the soil, brought thither for making up
the bank, lay as it had fallen from the carts, and on all sides were pits
and mounds interspersed with the abandoned building materials. Wretched
urchins came to play there, workmen without work slept in the sunshine,
and women after washing ragged linen spread it out to dry upon the
stones. Nevertheless the spot proved a happy, peaceful refuge for Pierre,
one fruitful in inexhaustible reveries when for hours at a time he
lingered gazing at the river, the quays, and the city, stretching in
front of him and on either hand.
At eight in the morning the sun already gilded the vast opening. On
turning to the left he perceived the roofs of the Trastevere, of a misty,
bluish grey against the dazzling sky. Then, just beyond the apse of San
Giovanni, on the right, the river curved, and on its other bank the
poplars of the Ospedale di Santo Spirito formed a green curtain, while
the castle of Sant’ Angelo showed brightly in the distance. But Pierre’s
eyes dwelt more particularly on the bank just in front of him, for there
he found some lingering vestiges of old Rome. On that side indeed between
the Ponte Sisto and the Ponte Sant’ Angelo, the quays, which were to
imprison the river within high, white, fortress-like walls, had not yet
been raised, and the bank with its remnants of the old papal city
conjured up an extraordinary vision of the middle ages. The houses,
descending to the river brink, were cracked, scorched, rusted by
innumerable burning summers, like so many antique bronzes. Down below
there were black vaults into which the water flowed, piles upholding
walls, and fragments of Roman stone-work plunging into the river bed;
then, rising from the shore, came steep, broken stairways, green with
moisture, tiers of terraces, storeys with tiny windows pierced here and
their in hap-hazard fashion, houses perched atop of other houses, and the
whole jumbled together with a fantastic commingling of balconies and
wooden galleries, footbridges spanning courtyards, clumps of trees
growing apparently on the very roofs, and attics rising from amidst pinky
tiles. The contents of a drain fell noisily into the river from a worn
and soiled gorge of stone; and wherever the houses stood back and the
bank appeared, it was covered with wild vegetation, weeds, shrubs, and
mantling ivy, which trailed like a kingly robe of state. And in the glory
of the sun the wretchedness and dirt vanished, the crooked, jumbled
houses seemed to be of gold, draped with the purple of the red petticoats
and the dazzling white of the shifts which hung drying from their
windows; while higher still, above the district, the Janiculum rose into
all the luminary’s dazzlement, uprearing the slender profile of Sant’
Onofrio amidst cypresses and pines.
Leaning on the parapet of the quay wall, Pierre sadly gazed at the Tiber
for hours at a time. Nothing could convey an idea of the weariness of
those old waters, the mournful slowness of their flow along that
Babylonian trench where they were confined within huge, bare, livid
prison-like walls. In the sunlight their yellowness was gilded, and the
faint quiver of the current brought ripples of green and blue; but as
soon as the shade spread over it the stream became opaque like mud, so
turbid in its venerable old age that it no longer even gave back a
reflection of the houses lining it. And how desolate was its abandonment,
what a stream of silence and solitude it was! After the winter rains it
might roll furiously and threateningly, but during the long months of
bright weather it traversed Rome without a sound, and Pierre could remain
there all day long without seeing either a skiff or a sail. The two or
three little steam-boats which arrived from the coast, the few tartanes
which brought wine from Sicily, never came higher than the Aventine,
beyond which there was only a watery desert in which here and there, at
long intervals, a motionless angler let his line dangle. All that Pierre
ever saw in the way of shipping was a sort of ancient, covered pinnace, a
rotting Noah’s ark, moored on the right beside the old bank, and he
fancied that it might be used as a washhouse, though on no occasion did
he see any one in it. And on a neck of mud there also lay a stranded boat
with one side broken in, a lamentable symbol of the impossibility and the
relinquishment of navigation. Ah! that decay of the river, that decay of
father Tiber, as dead as the famous ruins whose dust he is weary of
laving! And what an evocation! all the centuries of history, so many
things, so many men, that those yellow waters have reflected till, full
of lassitude and disgust, they have grown heavy, silent and deserted,
longing only for annihilation.
One morning on the river bank Pierre found La Pierina standing behind an
abandoned tool-shed. With her neck extended, she was looking fixedly at
the window of Dario’s room, at the corner of the quay and the lane.
Doubtless she had been frightened by Victorine’s severe reception, and
had not dared to return to the mansion; but some servant, possibly, had
told her which was the young Prince’s window, and so she now came to this
spot, where without wearying she waited for a glimpse of the man she
loved, for some sign of life and salvation, the mere hope of which made
her heart leap. Deeply touched by the way in which she hid herself, all
humility and quivering with adoration, the priest approached her, and
instead of scolding her and driving her away as he had been asked to do,
spoke to her in a gentle, cheerful manner, asking her for news of her
people as though nothing had happened, and at last contriving to mention
Dario’s name in order that she might understand that he would be up and
about again within a fortnight. On perceiving Pierre, La Pierina had
started with timidity and distrust as if anxious to flee; but when she
understood him, tears of happiness gushed from her eyes, and with a
bright smile she kissed her hand to him, calling: “_Grazie, grazie_,
thanks, thanks!” And thereupon she darted away, and he never saw her
again.
On another morning at an early hour, as Pierre was going to say mass at
Santa Brigida on the Piazza Farnese, he was surprised to meet Benedetta
coming out of the church and carrying a small phial of oil. She evinced
no embarrassment, but frankly told him that every two or three days she
went thither to obtain from the beadle a few drops of the oil used for
the lamp that burnt before an antique wooden statue of the Madonna, in
which she had perfect confidence. She even confessed that she had never
had confidence in any other Madonna, having never obtained anything from
any other, though she had prayed to several of high repute, Madonnas of
marble and even of silver. And so her heart was full of ardent devotion
for the holy image which refused her nothing. And she declared in all
simplicity, as though the matter were quite natural and above discussion,
that the few drops of oil which she applied, morning and evening, to
Dario’s wound, were alone working his cure, so speedy a cure as to be
quite miraculous. Pierre, fairly aghast, distressed indeed to find such
childish, superstitious notions in one so full of sense and grace and
passion, did not even venture to smile.
In the evenings, when he came back from his strolls and spent an hour or
so in Dario’s room, he would for a time divert the patient by relating
what he had done and seen and thought of during the day. And when he
again ventured to stray beyond the district, and became enamoured of the
lovely gardens of Rome, which he visited as soon as they opened in the
morning in order that he might be virtually alone, he delighted the young
prince and Benedetta with his enthusiasm, his rapturous passion for the
splendid trees, the plashing water, and the spreading terraces whence the
views were so sublime. It was not the most extensive of these gardens
which the more deeply impressed his heart. In the grounds of the Villa
Borghese, the little Roman Bois de Boulogne, there were certainly some
majestic clumps of greenery, some regal avenues where carriages took a
turn in the afternoon before the obligatory drive to the Pincio; but
Pierre was more touched by the reserved garden of the villa--that villa
dazzling with marble and now containing one of the finest museums in the
world. There was a simple lawn of fine grass with a vast central basin
surmounted by a figure of Venus, nude and white; and antique fragments,
vases, statues, columns, and _sarcophagi_ were ranged symmetrically all
around the deserted, sunlit yet melancholy, sward. On returning on one
occasion to the Pincio Pierre spent a delightful morning there,
penetrated by the charm of this little nook with its scanty evergreens,
and its admirable vista of all Rome and St. Peter’s rising up afar off in
the soft limpid radiance. At the Villa Albani and the Villa Pamphili he
again came upon superb parasol pines, tall, stately, and graceful, and
powerful elm-trees with twisted limbs and dusky foliage. In the Pamphili
grounds, the elm-trees steeped the paths in a delicious half-light, the
lake with its weeping willows and tufts of reeds had a dreamy aspect,
while down below the _parterre_ displayed a fantastic floral mosaic
bright with the various hues of flowers and foliage. That which most
particularly struck Pierre, however, in this, the noblest, most spacious,
and most carefully tended garden of Rome, was the novel and unexpected
view that he suddenly obtained of St. Peter’s, whilst skirting a low
wall: a view whose symbolism for ever clung to him. Rome had completely
vanished, and between the slopes of Monte Mario and another wooded height
which hid the city, there only appeared the colossal dome which seemed to
be poised on an infinity of scattered blocks, now white, now red. These
were the houses of the Borgo, the jumbled piles of the Vatican and the
Basilica which the huge dome surmounted and annihilated, showing greyly
blue in the light blue of the heavens, whilst far away stretched a
delicate, boundless vista of the Campagna, likewise of a bluish tint.
It was, however, more particularly in the less sumptuous gardens, those
of a more homely grace, that Pierre realised that even things have souls.
Ah! that Villa Mattei on one side of the Coelius with its terraced
grounds, its sloping alleys edged with laurel, aloe, and spindle tree,
its box-plants forming arbours, its oranges, its roses, and its
fountains! Pierre spent some delicious hours there, and only found a
similar charm on visiting the Aventine, where three churches are
embowered in verdure. The little garden of Santa Sabina, the birthplace
of the Dominican order, is closed on all sides and affords no view: it
slumbers in quiescence, warm and perfumed by its orange-trees, amongst
which that planted by St. Dominic stands huge and gnarled but still laden
with ripe fruit. At the adjoining Priorato, however, the garden, perched
high above the Tiber, overlooks a vast expanse, with the river and the
buildings on either bank as far as the summit of the Janiculum. And in
these gardens of Rome Pierre ever found the same clipped box-shrubs, the
same eucalypti with white trunks and pale leaves long like hair, the same
ilex-trees squat and dusky, the same giant pines, the same black
cypresses, the same marbles whitening amidst tufts of roses, and the same
fountains gurgling under mantling ivy. Never did he enjoy more gentle,
sorrow-tinged delight than at the Villa of Pope Julius, where all the
life of a gay and sensual period is suggested by the semi-circular
porticus opening on the gardens, a porticus decorated with paintings,
golden trellis-work laden with flowers, amidst which flutter flights of
smiling Cupids. Then, on the evening when he returned from the Farnesina,
he declared that he had brought all the dead soul of ancient Rome away
with him, and it was not the paintings executed after Raffaelle’s designs
that had touched him, it was rather the pretty hall on the river side
decorated in soft blue and pink and lilac, with an art devoid of genius
yet so charming and so Roman; and in particular it was the abandoned
garden once stretching down to the Tiber, and now shut off from it by the
new quay, and presenting an aspect of woeful desolation, ravaged, bossy
and weedy like a cemetery, albeit the golden fruit of orange and citron
tree still ripened there.
And for the last time a shock came to Pierre’s heart on the lovely
evening when he visited the Villa Medici. There he was on French soil.*
And again what a marvellous garden he found with box-plants, and pines,
and avenues full of magnificence and charm! What a refuge for antique
reverie was that wood of ilex-trees, so old and so sombre, where the sun
in declining cast fiery gleams of red gold amidst the sheeny bronze of
the foliage. You ascend by endless steps, and from the crowning belvedere
on high you embrace all Rome at a glance as though by opening your arms
you could seize it in its entirety. From the villa’s dining-room,
decorated with portraits of all the artists who have successfully
sojourned there, and from the spacious peaceful library one beholds the
same splendid, broad, all-conquering panorama, a panorama of unlimited
ambition, whose infinite ought to set in the hearts of the young men
dwelling there a determination to subjugate the world. Pierre, who came
thither opposed to the principle of the “Prix de Rome,” that traditional,
uniform education so dangerous for originality, was for a moment charmed
by the warm peacefulness, the limpid solitude of the garden, and the
sublime horizon where the wings of genius seemed to flutter. Ah! how
delightful, to be only twenty and to live for three years amidst such
infinite sweetness, encompassed by the finest works of man; to say to
oneself that one is as yet too young to produce, and to reflect, and
seek, and learn how to enjoy, suffer, and love! But Pierre afterwards
reflected that this was not a fit task for youth, and that to appreciate
the divine enjoyment of such a retreat, all art and blue sky, ripe age
was needed, age with victories already gained and weariness following
upon the accomplishment of work. He chatted with some of the young
pensioners, and remarked that if those who were inclined to dreaminess
and contemplation, like those who could merely claim mediocrity,
accommodated themselves to this life cloistered in the art of the past,
on the other hand artists of active bent and personal temperament pined
with impatience, their eyes ever turned towards Paris, their souls eager
to plunge into the furnace of battle and production.
* Here is the French Academy, where winners of the “Prix de
Rome” in painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving, and
music are maintained by the French Government for three
years. The creation dates from Louis XIV.--Trans.
All those gardens of which Pierre spoke to Dario and Benedetta with so
much rapture, awoke within them the memory of the garden of the Villa
Montefiori, now a waste, but once so green, planted with the finest
orange-trees of Rome, a grove of centenarian orange-trees where they had
learnt to love one another. And the memory of their early love brought
thoughts of their present situation and their future prospects. To these
the conversation always reverted, and evening after evening Pierre
witnessed their delight, and heard them talk of coming happiness like
lovers transported to the seventh heaven. The suit for the dissolution of
Benedetta’s marriage was now assuming a more and more favourable aspect.
Guided by a powerful hand, Donna Serafina was apparently acting very
vigorously, for almost every day she had some further good news to
report. She was indeed anxious to finish the affair both for the
continuity and for the honour of the name, for on the one hand Dario
refused to marry any one but his cousin, and on the other this marriage
would explain everything and put an end to an intolerable situation. The
scandalous rumours which circulated both in the white and the black world
quite incensed her, and a victory was the more necessary as Leo XIII,
already so aged, might be snatched away at any moment, and in the
Conclave which would follow she desired that her brother’s name should
shine forth with untarnished, sovereign radiance. Never had the secret
ambition of her life, the hope that her race might give a third pope to
the Church, filled her with so much passion. It was as if she therein
sought a consolation for the harsh abandonment of Advocate Morano.
Invariably clad in sombre garb, ever active and slim, so tightly laced
that from behind one might have taken her for a young girl, she was so to
say the black soul of that old palace; and Pierre, who met her
everywhere, prowling and inspecting like a careful house-keeper, and
jealously watching over her brother the Cardinal, bowed to her in
silence, chilled to the heart by the stern look of her withered wrinkled
face in which was set the large, opiniative nose of her family. However
she barely returned his bows, for she still disdained that paltry foreign
priest, and only tolerated him in order to please Monsignor Nani and
Viscount Philibert de la Choue.
A witness every evening of the anxious delight and impatience of
Benedetta and Dario, Pierre by degrees became almost as impassioned as
themselves, as desirous for an early solution. Benedetta’s suit was about
to come before the Congregation of the Council once more. Monsignor
Palma, the defender of the marriage, had demanded a supplementary inquiry
after the favourable decision arrived at in the first instance by a bare
majority of one vote--a majority which the Pope would certainly not have
thought sufficient had he been asked for his ratification. So the
question now was to gain votes among the ten cardinals who formed the
Congregation, to persuade and convince them, and if possible ensure an
almost unanimous pronouncement. The task was arduous, for, instead of
facilitating matters, Benedetta’s relationship to Cardinal Boccanera
raised many difficulties, owing to the intriguing spirit rife at the
Vatican, the spite of rivals who, by perpetuating the scandal, hoped to
destroy Boccanera’s chance of ever attaining to the papacy. Every
afternoon, however, Donna Serafina devoted herself to the task of winning
votes under the direction of her confessor, Father Lorenza, whom she saw
daily at the Collegio Germanico, now the last refuge of the Jesuits in
Rome, for they have ceased to be masters of the Gesu. The chief hope of
success lay in Prada’s formal declaration that he would not put in an
appearance. The whole affair wearied and irritated him; the imputations
levelled against him as a man, seemed to him supremely odious and
ridiculous; and he no longer even took the trouble to reply to the
assignations which were sent to him. He acted indeed as if he had never
been married, though deep in his heart the wound dealt to his passion and
his pride still lingered, bleeding afresh whenever one or another of the
scandalous rumours in circulation reached his ears. However, as their
adversary desisted from all action, one can understand that the hopes of
Benedetta and Dario increased, the more so as hardly an evening passed
without Donna Serafina telling them that she believed she had gained the
support of another cardinal.
But the man who terrified them all was Monsignor Palma, whom the
Congregation had appointed to defend the sacred ties of matrimony. His
rights and privileges were almost unlimited, he could appeal yet again,
and in any case would make the affair drag on as long as it pleased him.
His first report, in reply to Morano’s memoir, had been a terrible blow,
and it was now said that a second one which he was preparing would prove
yet more pitiless, establishing as a fundamental principle of the Church
that it could not annul a marriage whose nonconsummation was purely and
simply due to the action of the wife in refusing obedience to her
husband. In presence of such energy and logic, it was unlikely that the
cardinals, even if sympathetic, would dare to advise the Holy Father to
dissolve the marriage. And so discouragement was once more overcoming
Benedetta when Donna Serafina, on returning from a visit to Monsignor
Nani, calmed her somewhat by telling her that a mutual friend had
undertaken to deal with Monsignor Palma. However, said she, even if they
succeeded, it would doubtless cost them a large sum.
Monsignor Palma, a theologist expert in all canonical affairs, and a
perfectly honest man in pecuniary matters, had met with a great
misfortune in his life. He had a niece, a poor and lovely girl, for whom,
unhappily, in his declining years he conceived an insensate passion, with
the result that to avoid a scandal he was compelled to marry her to a
rascal who now preyed upon her and even beat her. And the prelate was now
passing through a fearful crisis, weary of reducing himself to beggary,
and indeed no longer having the money necessary to extricate his nephew
by marriage from a very nasty predicament, the result of cheating at
cards. So the idea was to save the young man by a considerable pecuniary
payment, and then to procure him employment without asking aught of his
uncle, who, as if offering complicity, came in tears one evening, when
night had fallen, to thank Donna Serafina for her exceeding goodness.
Pierre was with Dario that evening when Benedetta entered the room,
laughing and joyfully clapping her bands. “It’s done, it’s done!” she
said, “he has just left aunt, and vowed eternal gratitude to her. He will
now be obliged to show himself amiable.”
However Dario distrustfully inquired: “But was he made to sign anything,
did he enter into a formal engagement?”
“Oh! no; how could one do that? It’s such a delicate matter,” replied
Benedetta. “But people say that he is a very honest man.” Nevertheless,
in spite of these words, she herself became uneasy. What if Monsignor
Palma should remain incorruptible in spite of the great service which had
been rendered him? Thenceforth this idea haunted them, and their suspense
began once more.
Dario, eager to divert his mind, was imprudent enough to get up before he
was perfectly cured, and, his wound reopening, he was obliged to take to
his bed again for a few days. Every evening, as previously, Pierre strove
to enliven him with an account of his strolls. The young priest was now
getting bolder, rambling in turn through all the districts of Rome, and
discovering the many “classical” curiosities catalogued in the
guide-books. One evening he spoke with a kind of affection of the
principal squares of the city which he had first thought commonplace, but
which now seemed to him very varied, each with original features of its
own. There was the noble Piazza del Popolo of such monumental symmetry
and so full of sunlight; there was the Piazza di Spagna, the lively
meeting-place of foreigners, with its double flight of a hundred and
thirty steps gilded by the sun; there was the vast Piazza Colonna, always
swarming with people, and the most Italian of all the Roman squares from
the presence of the idle, careless crowd which ever lounged round the
column of Marcus Aurelius as if waiting for fortune to fall from heaven;
there was also the long and regular Piazza Navona, deserted since the
market was no longer held there, and retaining a melancholy recollection
of its former bustling life; and there was the Campo dei Fiori, which was
invaded each morning by the tumultuous fruit and vegetable markets, quite
a plantation of huge umbrellas sheltering heaps of tomatoes, pimentoes,
and grapes amidst a noisy stream of dealers and housewives. Pierre’s
great surprise, however, was the Piazza del Campidoglio--the “Square of
the Capitol”--which to him suggested a summit, an open spot overlooking
the city and the world, but which he found to be small and square, and on
three sides enclosed by palaces, whilst on the fourth side the view was
of little extent.* There are no passers-by there; visitors usually come
up by a flight of steps bordered by a few palm-trees, only foreigners
making use of the winding carriage-ascent. The vehicles wait, and the
tourists loiter for a while with their eyes raised to the admirable
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, in antique bronze, which occupies
the centre of the piazza. Towards four o’clock, when the sun gilds the
left-hand palace, and the slender statues of its entablature show vividly
against the blue sky, you might think yourself in some warm cosy square
of a little provincial town, what with the women of the neighbourhood who
sit knitting under the arcade, and the bands of ragged urchins who
disport themselves on all sides like school-boys in a playground.
* The Piazza del Campidoglio is really a depression between the
Capitolium proper and the northern height called the Arx. It is
supposed to have been the exact site of Romulus’s traditional
Asylum.--Trans.
Then, on another evening Pierre told Benedetta and Dario of his
admiration for the Roman fountains, for in no other city of the world
does water flow so abundantly and magnificently in fountains of bronze
and marble, from the boat-shaped Fontana della Barcaccia on the Piazza di
Spagna, the Triton on the Piazza Barberini, and the Tortoises which give
their name to the Piazza delle Tartarughe, to the three fountains of the
Piazza Navona where Bernini’s vast central composition of rock and
river-gods rises so triumphantly, and to the colossal and pompous
fountain of Trevi, where King Neptune stands on high attended by lofty
figures of Health and Fruitfulness. And on yet another evening Pierre
came home quite pleased, relating that he had at last discovered why it
was that the old streets around the Capitol and along the Tiber seemed to
him so strange: it was because they had no footways, and pedestrians,
instead of skirting the walls, invariably took the middle of the road,
leisurely wending their way among the vehicles. Pierre was very fond of
those old districts with their winding lanes, their tiny squares so
irregular in shape, and their huge square mansions swamped by a
multitudinous jumble of little houses. He found a charm, too, in the
district of the Esquiline, where, besides innumerable flights of
ascending steps, each of grey pebbles edged with white stone, there were
sudden sinuous slopes, tiers of terraces, seminaries and convents,
lifeless, with their windows ever closed, and lofty, blank walls above
which a superb palm-tree would now and again soar into the spotless blue
of the sky. And on yet another evening, having strolled into the Campagna
beside the Tiber and above the Ponte Molle, he came back full of
enthusiasm for a form of classical art which hitherto he had scarcely
appreciated. Along the river bank, however, he had found the very scenery
that Poussin so faithfully depicted: the sluggish, yellow stream fringed
with reeds; low riven cliffs, whose chalky whiteness showed against the
ruddy background of a far-stretching, undulating plain, bounded by blue
hills; a few spare trees with a ruined porticus opening on to space atop
of the bank, and a line of pale-hued sheep descending to drink, whilst
the shepherd, with an elbow resting on the trunk of an ilex-tree, stood
looking on. It was a special kind of beauty, broad and ruddy, made up of
nothing, sometimes simplified into a series of low, horizontal lines, but
ever ennobled by the great memories it evoked: the Roman legions marching
along the paved highways across the bare Campagna; the long slumber of
the middle ages; and then the awakening of antique nature in the midst of
Catholicism, whereby, for the second time, Rome became ruler of the
world.
One day when Pierre came back from seeing the great modern cemetery, the
Campo Verano, he found Celia, as well as Benedetta, by the side of
Dario’s bed. “What, Monsieur l’Abbe!” exclaimed the little Princess when
she learnt where he had been; “it amuses you to visit the dead?”
“Oh those Frenchmen,” remarked Dario, to whom the mere idea of a cemetery
was repulsive; “those Frenchmen seem to take a pleasure in making their
lives wretched with their partiality for gloomy scenes.”
“But there is no escaping the reality of death,” gently replied Pierre;
“the best course is to look it in the face.”
This made the Prince quite angry. “Reality, reality,” said he, “when
reality isn’t pleasant I don’t look at it; I try never to think of it
even.”
In spite of this rejoinder, Pierre, with his smiling, placid air, went on
enumerating the things which had struck him: first, the admirable manner
in which the cemetery was kept, then the festive appearance which it
derived from the bright autumn sun, and the wonderful profusion in which
marble was lavished in slabs, statues, and chapels. The ancient atavism
had surely been at work, the sumptuous mausoleums of the Appian Way had
here sprung up afresh, making death a pretext for the display of pomp and
pride. In the upper part of the cemetery the Roman nobility had a
district of its own, crowded with veritable temples, colossal statues,
groups of several figures; and if at times the taste shown in these
monuments was deplorable, it was none the less certain that millions had
been expended on them. One charming feature of the place, said Pierre,
was that the marbles, standing among yews and cypresses were remarkably
well preserved, white and spotless; for, if the summer sun slowly gilded
them, there were none of those stains of moss and rain which impart an
aspect of melancholy decay to the statues of northern climes.
Touched by the discomfort of Dario, Benedetta, hitherto silent, ended by
interrupting Pierre. “And was the hunt interesting?” she asked, turning
to Celia.
The little Princess had been taken by her mother to see a fox-hunt, and
had been speaking of it when the priest entered the room.
“Yes, it was very interesting, my dear,” she replied; “the meet was at
noon near the tomb of Caecilia Metella, where a buffet had been arranged
under a tent. And there was such a number of people--the foreign colony,
the young men of the embassies, and some officers, not to mention
ourselves--all the men in scarlet and a great many ladies in habits. The
‘throw-off’ was at one o’clock, and the gallop lasted more than two hours
and a half, so that the fox had a very long run. I wasn’t able to follow,
but all the same I saw some extraordinary things--a great wall which the
whole hunt had to leap, and then ditches and hedges--a mad race indeed in
the rear of the hounds. There were two accidents, but nothing serious;
one gentleman, who was unseated, sprained his wrist badly, and another
broke his leg.” *
* The Roman Hunt, which counts about one hundred subscribers,
has flourished since 1840. There is a kennel of English
hounds, an English huntsman and whip, and a stable of
English hunters.--Trans.
Dario had listened to Celia with passionate interest, for fox-hunting is
one of the great pleasures of Rome, and the Campagna, flat and yet
bristling with obstacles, is certainly well adapted to the sport. “Ah!”
said the young Prince in a despairing tone, “how idiotic it is to be
riveted to this room! I shall end by dying of _ennui_!”
Benedetta contented herself with smiling; neither reproach nor expression
of sadness came from her at this candid display of egotism. Her own
happiness at having him all to herself in the room where she nursed him
was great indeed; still her love, at once full of youth and good sense,
included a maternal element, and she well understood that he hardly
amused himself, deprived as he was of his customary pleasures and severed
from his friends, few of whom he was willing to receive, for he feared
that they might think the story of the dislocated shoulder suspicious. Of
course there were no more _fetes_, no more evenings at the theatre, no
more flirtations. But above everything else Dario missed the Corso, and
suffered despairingly at no longer seeing or learning anything by
watching the procession of Roman society from four to five each
afternoon. Accordingly, as soon as an intimate called, there were endless
questions: Had the visitor seen so and so? Had such a one reappeared? How
had a certain friend’s love affair ended? Was any new adventure setting
the city agog? And so forth; all the petty frivolities, nine days’
wonders, and puerile intrigues in which the young Prince had hitherto
expended his manly energy.
After a pause Celia, who was fond of coming to him with innocent gossip,
fixed her candid eyes on him--the fathomless eyes of an enigmatical
virgin, and resumed: “How long it takes to set a shoulder right!”
Had she, child as she was, with love her only business, divined the
truth? Dario in his embarrassment glanced at Benedetta, who still smiled.
However, the little Princess was already darting to another subject: “Ah!
you know, Dario, at the Corso yesterday I saw a lady--” Then she stopped
short, surprised and embarrassed that these words should have escaped
her. However, in all bravery she resumed like one who had been a friend
since childhood, sharing many a little love secret: “Yes, a very pretty
person whom you know. Well, she had a bouquet of white roses with her all
the same.”
At this Benedetta indulged in a burst of frank merriment, and Dario,
still looking at her, also laughed. She had twitted him during the early
days because no young woman ever sent to make inquiries about him. For
his part, he was not displeased with the rupture, for the continuance of
the connection might have proved embarrassing; and so, although his
vanity may have been slightly hurt, the news that he was already replaced
in La Tonietta’s affections was welcome rather than otherwise. “Ah!” he
contented himself with saying, “the absent are always in the wrong.”
“The man one loves is never absent,” declared Celia with her grave,
candid air.
However, Benedetta had stepped up to the bed to raise the young man’s
pillows: “Never mind, Dario _mio_,” said she, “all those things are over;
I mean to keep you, and you will only have me to love.”
He gave her a passionate glance and kissed her hair. She spoke the truth:
he had never loved any one but her, and she was not mistaken in her
anticipation of keeping him always to herself alone, as soon as they
should be wedded. To her great delight, since she had been nursing him he
had become quite childish again, such as he had been when she had learnt
to love him under the orange-trees of the Villa Montefiori. He retained a
sort of puerility, doubtless the outcome of impoverished blood, that
return to childhood which one remarks amongst very ancient races; and he
toyed on his bed with pictures, gazed for hours at photographs, which
made him laugh. Moreover, his inability to endure suffering had yet
increased; he wished Benedetta to be gay and sing, and amused her with
his petty egotism which led him to dream of a life of continual joy with
her. Ah! how pleasant it would be to live together and for ever in the
sunlight, to do nothing and care for nothing, and even if the world
should crumble somewhere to heed it not!
“One thing which greatly pleases me,” suddenly said the young Prince, “is
that Monsieur l’Abbe has ended by falling in love with Rome.”
Pierre admitted it with a good grace.
“We told you so,” remarked Benedetta. “A great deal of time is needed for
one to understand and love Rome. If you had only stayed here for a
fortnight you would have gone off with a deplorable idea of us, but now
that you have been here for two full months we are quite at ease, for you
will never think of us without affection.”
She looked exceedingly charming as she spoke these words, and Pierre
again bowed. However, he had already given thought to the phenomenon, and
fancied he could explain it. When a stranger comes to Rome he brings with
him a Rome of his own, a Rome such as he dreams of, so ennobled by
imagination that the real Rome proves a terrible disenchantment. And so
it is necessary to wait for habituation, for the mediocrity of the
reality to soften, and for the imagination to have time to kindle again,
and only behold things such as they are athwart the prodigious splendour
of the past.
However, Celia had risen and was taking leave. “Good-bye, dear,” she
said; “I hope the wedding will soon take place. You know, Dario, that I
mean to be betrothed before the end of the month. Oh yes, I intend to
make my father give a grand entertainment. And how nice it would be if
the two weddings could take place at the same time!”
Two days later, after a long ramble through the Trastevere district,
followed by a visit to the Palazzo Farnese, Pierre felt that he could at
last understand the terrible, melancholy truth about Rome. He had several
times already strolled through the Trastevere, attracted towards its
wretched denizens by his compassion for all who suffered. Ah! that
quagmire of wretchedness and ignorance! He knew of abominable nooks in
the faubourgs of Paris, frightful “rents” and “courts” where people
rotted in heaps, but there was nothing in France to equal the listless,
filthy stagnation of the Trastevere. On the brightest days a dank gloom
chilled the sinuous, cellar-like lanes, and the smell of rotting
vegetables, rank oil, and human animality brought on fits of nausea.
Jumbled together in a confusion which artists of romantic turn would
admire, the antique, irregular houses had black, gaping entrances diving
below ground, outdoor stairways conducting to upper floors, and wooden
balconies which only a miracle upheld. There were crumbling fronts,
shored up with beams; sordid lodgings whose filth and bareness could be
seen through shattered windows; and numerous petty shops, all the
open-air cook-stalls of a lazy race which never lighted a fire at home:
you saw frying-shops with heaps of polenta, and fish swimming in stinking
oil, and dealers in cooked vegetables displaying huge turnips, celery,
cauliflowers, and spinach, all cold and sticky. The butcher’s meat was
black and clumsily cut up; the necks of the animals bristled with bloody
clots, as though the heads had simply been torn away. The baker’s loaves,
piled on planks, looked like little round paving stones; at the beggarly
greengrocers’ merely a few pimentoes and fir-apples were shown under the
strings of dry tomatoes which festooned the doorways; and the only shops
which were at all attractive were those of the pork butchers with their
salted provisions and their cheese, whose pungent smell slightly
attenuated the pestilential reek of the gutters. Lottery offices,
displaying lists of winning numbers, alternated with wine-shops, of which
latter there was a fresh one every thirty yards with large inscriptions
setting forth that the best wines of Genzano, Marino, and Frascati were
to be found within. And the whole district teemed with ragged, grimy
denizens, children half naked and devoured by vermin, bare-headed,
gesticulating and shouting women, whose skirts were stiff with grease,
old men who remained motionless on benches amidst swarms of hungry flies;
idleness and agitation appearing on all sides, whilst cobblers sat on the
sidewalks quietly plying their trade, and little donkeys pulled carts
hither and thither, and men drove turkeys along, whip in hand, and hands
of beggars rushed upon the few anxious tourists who had timorously
ventured into the district. At the door of a little tailor’s shop an old
house-pail dangled full of earth, in which a succulent plant was
flowering. And from every window and balcony, as from the many cords
which stretched across the street from house to house, all the household
washing hung like bunting, nameless drooping rags, the symbolical banners
of abominable misery.
Pierre’s fraternal, soul filled with pity at the sight. Ah! yes, it was
necessary to demolish all those pestilential districts where the populace
had wallowed for centuries as in a poisonous gaol! He was for demolition
and sanitary improvement, even if old Rome were killed and artists
scandalised. Doubtless the Trastevere was already greatly changed,
pierced with several new thoroughfares which let the sun stream in. And
amidst the _abattis_ of rubbish and the spacious clearings, where nothing
new had yet been erected, the remaining portions of the old district
seemed even blacker and more loathsome. Some day, no doubt, it would all
be rebuilt, but how interesting was this phase of the city’s evolution:
old Rome expiring and new Rome just dawning amidst countless
difficulties! To appreciate the change it was necessary to have known the
filthy Rome of the past, swamped by sewage in every form. The recently
levelled Ghetto had, over a course of centuries, so rotted the soil on
which it stood that an awful pestilential odour yet arose from its bare
site. It was only fitting that it should long remain waste, so that it
might dry and become purified in the sun. In all the districts on either
side of the Tiber where extensive improvements have been undertaken you
find the same scenes. You follow some narrow, damp, evil-smelling street
with black house-fronts and overhanging roofs, and suddenly come upon a
clearing as in a forest of ancient leprous hovels. There are squares,
broad footways; lofty white carved buildings yet in the rough, littered
with rubbish and fenced off. On every side you find as it were a huge
building yard, which the financial crisis perpetuates; the city of
to-morrow arrested in its growth, stranded there in its monstrous,
precocious, surprising infancy. Nevertheless, therein lies good and
healthful work, such as was and is absolutely necessary if Rome is to
become a great modern city, instead of being left to rot, to dwindle into
a mere ancient curiosity, a museum show-piece.
That day, as Pierre went from the Trastevere to the Palazzo Farnese,
where he was expected, he chose a roundabout route, following the Via di
Pettinari and the Via dei Giubbonari, the former so dark and narrow with
a great hospital wall on one side and a row of wretched houses on the
other, and the latter animated by a constant stream of people and
enlivened by the jewellers’ windows, full of big gold chains, and the
displays of the drapers’ shops, where stuffs hung in bright red, blue,
green, and yellow lengths. And the popular district through which he had
roamed and the trading district which he was now crossing reminded him of
the castle fields with their mass of workpeople reduced to mendicity by
lack of employment and forced to camp in the superb, unfinished,
abandoned mansions. Ah! the poor, sad people, who were yet so childish,
kept in the ignorance and credulity of a savage race by centuries of
theocracy, so habituated to mental night and bodily suffering that even
to-day they remained apart from the social awakening, simply desirous of
enjoying their pride, indolence, and sunlight in peace! They seemed both
blind and deaf in their decadence, and whilst Rome was being overturned
they continued to lead the stagnant life of former times, realising
nought but the worries of the improvements, the demolition of the old
favourite districts, the consequent change in habits, and the rise in the
cost of food, as if indeed they would rather have gone without light,
cleanliness, and health, since these could only be secured by a great
financial and labour crisis. And yet, at bottom, it was solely for the
people, the populace, that Rome was being cleansed and rebuilt with the
idea of making it a great modern capital, for democracy lies at the end
of these present day transformations; it is the people who will inherit
the cities whence dirt and disease are being expelled, and where the law
of labour will end by prevailing and killing want. And so, though one may
curse the dusting and repairing of the ruins and the stripping of all the
wild flora from the Colosseum, though one may wax indignant at sight of
the hideous fortress like ramparts which imprison the Tiber, and bewail
the old romantic banks with their greenery and their antique dwellings
dipping into the stream, one must at the same time acknowledge that life
springs from death, and that to-morrow must perforce blossom in the dust
of the past.
While thinking of all these things Pierre had reached the deserted,
stern-looking Piazza Farnese, and for a moment he looked up at the bare
monumental facade of the heavy square Palazzo, its lofty entrance where
hung the tricolour, its rows of windows and its famous cornice sculptured
with such marvellous art. Then he went in. A friend of Narcisse Habert,
one of the _attaches_ of the embassy to the King of Italy, was waiting
for him, having offered to show him over the huge pile, the finest palace
in Rome, which France had leased as a lodging for her ambassador.* Ah!
that colossal, sumptuous, deadly dwelling, with its vast court whose
porticus is so dark and damp, its giant staircase with low steps, its
endless corridors, its immense galleries and halls. All was sovereign
pomp blended with death. An icy, penetrating chill fell from the walls.
With a discreet smile the _attache_ owned that the embassy was frozen in
winter and baked in summer. The only part of the building which was at
all lively and pleasant was the first storey, overlooking the Tiber,
which the ambassador himself occupied. From the gallery there, containing
the famous frescoes of Annibale Caracci, one can see the Janiculum, the
Corsini gardens, and the Acqua Paola above San Pietro in Montorio. Then,
after a vast drawing-room comes the study, peaceful and pleasant, and
enlivened by sunshine. But the dining-room, the bed-chambers, and other
apartments occupied by the _personnel_ look out on to the mournful gloom
of a side street. All these vast rooms, twenty and four-and-twenty feet
high, have admirable carved or painted ceilings, bare walls, a few of
them decorated with frescoes, and incongruous furniture, superb pier
tables mingling with modern _bric-a-brac_. And things become abominable
when you enter the gala reception-rooms overlooking the piazza, for there
you no longer find an article of furniture, no longer a hanging, nothing
but disaster, a series of magnificent deserted halls given over to rats
and spiders. The embassy occupies but one of them, where it heaps up its
dusty archives. Near by is a huge hall occupying the height of two
floors, and thus sixty feet in elevation. Reserved by the owner of the
palace, the ex-King of Naples, it has become a mere lumber-room where
_maquettes_, unfinished statues, and a very fine sarcophagus are stowed
away amidst all kinds of remnants. And this is but a part of the palace.
The ground floor is altogether uninhabited; the French “Ecole de Rome”
occupies a corner of the second floor; while the embassy huddles in
chilly fashion in the most habitable corner of the first floor, compelled
to abandon everything else and lock the doors to spare itself the useless
trouble of sweeping. No doubt it is grand to live in the Palazzo Farnese,
built by Pope Paul III and for more than a century inhabited by
cardinals; but how cruel the discomfort and how frightful the melancholy
of this huge ruin, three-fourths of whose rooms are dead, useless,
impossible, cut off from life. And the evenings, oh! the evenings, when
porch, court, stairs, and corridors are invaded by dense gloom, against
which a few smoky gas lamps struggle in vain, when a long, long journey
lies before one through the lugubrious desert of stone, before one
reaches the ambassador’s warm and cheerful drawing-room!
* The French have two embassies at Rome: one at the Palazzo
Farnese, to the Italian Court, and the other at the Palazzo
Rospigliosi, to the Vatican.--Trans.
Pierre came away quite aghast. And, as he walked along, the many other
grand palaces which he had seen during his strolls rose before him, one
and all of them stripped of their splendour, shorn of their princely
establishments, let out in uncomfortable flats! What could be done with
those grandiose galleries and halls now that no fortune could defray the
cost of the pompous life for which they had been built, or even feed the
retinue needed to keep them up? Few indeed were the nobles who, like
Prince Aldobrandini, with his numerous progeny, still occupied their
entire mansions. Almost all of them let the antique dwellings of their
forefathers to companies or individual tenants, reserving only a storey,
and at times a mere lodging in some dark corner, for themselves. The
Palazzo Chigi was let: the ground floor to bankers and the first floor to
the Austrian ambassador, while the Prince and his family divided the
second floor with a cardinal. The Palazzo Sciarra was let: the first
floor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the second to a senator,
while the Prince and his mother merely occupied the ground floor. The
Palazzo Barberini was let: its ground floor, first floor, and second
floor to various families, whilst the Prince found a refuge on the third
floor in the rooms which had been occupied by his ancestors’ lackeys. The
Palazzo Borghese was let: the ground floor to a dealer in antiquities,
the first floor to a Lodge of Freemasons, and the rest to various
households, whilst the Prince only retained the use of a small suite of
apartments. And the Palazzo Odescalchi, the Palazzo Colonna, the Palazzo
Doria were let: their Princes reduced to the position of needy landlords
eager to derive as much profit as possible from their property in order
to make both ends meet. A blast of ruin was sweeping over the Roman
patriziato, the greatest fortunes had crumbled in the financial crisis,
very few remained wealthy, and what a wealth it was, stagnant and dead,
which neither commerce nor industry could renew. The numerous princes who
had tried speculation were stripped of their fortunes. The others,
terrified, called upon to pay enormous taxes, amounting to nearly
one-third of their incomes, could henceforth only wait and behold their
last stagnant millions dwindle away till they were exhausted or
distributed according to the succession laws. Such wealth as remained to
these nobles must perish, for, like everything else, wealth perishes when
it lacks a soil in which it may fructify. In all this there was solely a
question of time: eventual ruin was a foregone and irremediable
conclusion, of absolute, historical certainty. Those who resigned
themselves to the course of letting their deserted mansions still
struggled for life, seeking to accommodate themselves to present-day
exigencies; whilst death already dwelt among the others, those stubborn,
proud ones who immured themselves in the tombs of their race, like that
appalling Palazzo Boccanera, which was falling into dust amidst such
chilly gloom and silence, the latter only broken at long intervals when
the Cardinal’s old coach rumbled over the grassy court.
The point which most struck Pierre, however, was that his visits to the
Trastevere and the Palazzo Farnese shed light one on the other, and led
him to a conclusion which had never previously seemed so manifest. As yet
no “people,” and soon no aristocracy. He had found the people so
wretched, ignorant, and resigned in its long infancy induced by historic
and climatic causes that many years of instruction and culture were
necessary for it to become a strong, healthy, and laborious democracy,
conscious of both its rights and its duties. As for the aristocracy, it
was dwindling to death in its crumbling palaces, no longer aught than a
finished, degenerate race, with such an admixture also of American,
Austrian, Polish, and Spanish blood that pure Roman blood became a rare
exception; and, moreover, it had ceased to belong either to sword or
gown, unwilling to serve constitutional Italy and forsaking the Sacred
College, where only _parvenus_ now donned the purple. And between the
lowly and the aristocracy there was as yet no firmly seated middle class,
with the vigour of fresh sap and sufficient knowledge, and good sense to
act as the transitional educator of the nation. The middle class was made
up in part of the old servants and clients of the princes, the farmers
who rented their lands, the stewards, notaries, and solicitors who
managed their fortunes; in part, too, of all the employees, the
functionaries of every rank and class, the deputies and senators, whom
the new Government had brought from the provinces; and, in particular, of
the voracious hawks who had swooped down upon Rome, the Pradas, the men
of prey from all parts of the kingdom, who with beak and talon devoured
both people and aristocracy. For whom, then, had one laboured? For whom
had those gigantic works of new Rome been undertaken? A shudder of fear
sped by, a crack as of doom was heard, arousing pitiful disquietude in
every fraternal heart. Yes, a threat of doom and annihilation: as yet no
people, soon no aristocracy, and only a ravenous middle class, quarrying,
vulture-like, among the ruins.
On the evening of that day, when all was dark, Pierre went to spend an
hour on the river quay beyond the Boccanera mansion. He was very fond of
meditating on that deserted spot in spite of the warnings of Victorine,
who asserted that it was not safe. And, indeed, on such inky nights as
that one, no cutthroat place ever presented a more tragic aspect. Not a
soul, not a passer-by; a dense gloom, a void in front and on either hand.
At a corner of the mansion, now steeped in darkness, there was a gas lamp
which stood in a hollow since the river margin had been banked up, and
this lamp cast an uncertain glimmer upon the quay, level with the
latter’s bossy soil. Thus long vague shadows stretched from the various
materials, piles of bricks and piles of stone, which were strewn around.
On the right a few lights shone upon the bridge near San Giovanni and in
the windows of the hospital of the Santo Spirito. On the left, amidst the
dim recession of the river, the distant districts were blotted out. Then
yonder, across the stream, was the Trastevere, the houses on the bank
looking like vague, pale phantoms, with infrequent window-panes showing a
blurred yellow glimmer, whilst on high only a dark band shadowed the
Janiculum, near whose summit the lamps of some promenade scintillated
like a triangle of stars. But it was the Tiber which impassioned Pierre;
such was its melancholy majesty during those nocturnal hours. Leaning
over the parapet, he watched it gliding between the new walls, which
looked like those of some black and monstrous prison built for a giant.
So long as lights gleamed in the windows of the houses opposite he saw
the sluggish water flow by, showing slow, moire-like ripples there where
the quivering reflections endowed it with a mysterious life. And he often
mused on the river’s famous past and evoked the legends which assert that
fabulous wealth lies buried in its muddy bed. At each fresh invasion of
the barbarians, and particularly when Rome was sacked, the treasures of
palaces and temples are said to have been cast into the water to prevent
them from falling into the hands of the conquerors. Might not those
golden bars trembling yonder in the glaucous stream be the branches of
the famous candelabrum which Titus brought from Jerusalem? Might not
those pale patches whose shape remained uncertain amidst the frequent
eddies indicate the white marble of statues and columns? And those deep
moires glittering with little flamelets, were they not promiscuous heaps
of precious metal, cups, vases, ornaments enriched with gems? What a
dream was that of the swarming riches espied athwart the old river’s
bosom, of the hidden life of the treasures which were said to have
slumbered there for centuries; and what a hope for the nation’s pride and
enrichment centred in the miraculous finds which might be made in the
Tiber if one could some day dry it up and search its bed, as had already
been suggested! Therein, perchance, lay Rome’s new fortune.
However, on that black night, whilst Pierre leant over the parapet, it
was stern reality alone which occupied his mind. He was still pursuing
the train of thought suggested by his visits to the Trastevere and the
Farnese palace, and in presence of that lifeless water was coming to the
conclusion that the selection of Rome for transformation into a modern
capital was the great misfortune to which the sufferings of young Italy
were due. He knew right well that the selection had been inevitable: Rome
being the queen of glory, the antique ruler of the world to whom eternity
had been promised, and without whom the national unity had always seemed
an impossibility. And so the problem was a terrible one, since without
Rome Italy could not exist, and with Rome it seemed difficult for it to
exist. Ah! that dead river, how it symbolised disaster! Not a boat upon
its surface, not a quiver of the commercial and industrial activity of
those waters which bear life to the very hearts of great modern cities!
There had been fine schemes, no doubt--Rome a seaport, gigantic works,
canalisation to enable vessels of heavy tonnage to come up to the
Aventine; but these were mere delusions; the authorities would scarcely
be able to clear the river mouth, which deposits were continually
choking. And there was that other cause of mortal languishment, the
Campagna--the desert of death which the dead river crossed and which
girdled Rome with sterility. There was talk of draining and planting it;
much futile discussion on the question whether it had been fertile in the
days of the old Romans; and even a few experiments were made; but, all
the same, Rome remained in the midst of a vast cemetery like a city of
other times, for ever separated from the modern world by that _lande_ or
moor where the dust of centuries had accumulated. The geographical
considerations which once gave the city the empire of the world no longer
exist. The centre of civilisation has been displaced. The basin of the
Mediterranean has been divided among powerful nations. In Italy all roads
now lead to Milan, the city of industry and commerce, and Rome is but a
town of passage. And so the most valiant efforts have failed to rouse it
from its invincible slumber. The capital which the newcomers sought to
improvise with such extreme haste has remained unfinished, and has almost
ruined the nation. The Government, legislators, and functionaries only
camp there, fleeing directly the warm weather sets in so as to escape the
pernicious climate. The hotels and shops even put up their shutters, and
the streets and promenades become deserts, the city having failed to
acquire any life of its own, and relapsing into death as soon as the
artificial life instilled into it is withdrawn. So all remains in
suspense in this purely decorative capital, where only a fresh growth of
men and money can finish and people the huge useless piles of the new
districts. If it be true that to-morrow always blooms in the dust of the
past, one ought to force oneself to hope; but Pierre asked himself if the
soil were not exhausted, and since mere buildings could no longer grow on
it, if it were not for ever drained of the sap which makes a race
healthy, a nation powerful.
As the night advanced the lights in the houses of the Trastevere went out
one by one: yet Pierre for a long time lingered on the quay, leaning over
the blackened river and yielding to hopelessness. There was now no
distance to the gloom; all had become dense; no longer did any
reflections set a moire-like, golden quiver in the water, or reveal
beneath its mystery-concealing current a fantastic, dancing vision of
fabulous wealth. Gone was the legend, gone the seven-branched golden
candelabrum, gone the golden vases, gone the golden jewellery, the whole
dream of antique treasure that had vanished into night, even like the
antique glory of Rome. Not a glimmer, nothing but slumber, disturbed
solely by the heavy fall of sewage from the drain on the right-hand,
which could not be seen. The very water had disappeared, and Pierre no
longer espied its leaden flow through the darkness, no longer had any
perception of the sluggish senility, the long-dating weariness, the
intense sadness of that ancient and glorious Tiber, whose waters now
rolled nought but death. Only the vast, opulent sky, the eternal, pompous
sky displayed the dazzling life of its milliards of planets above that
river of darkness, bearing away the ruins of wellnigh three thousand
years.
Before returning to his own chamber that evening Pierre entered Dario’s
room, and found Victorine there preparing things for the night. And as
soon as she heard where he had been she raised her voice in protest:
“What! you have again been to the quay at this time of night, Monsieur
l’Abbe? You want to get a good knife thrust yourself, it seems. Well, for
my part, I certainly wouldn’t take the air at such a late hour in this
dangerous city.” Then, with her wonted familiarity, she turned and spoke
to the Prince, who was lying back in an arm-chair and smiling: “That
girl, La Pierina,” she said, “hasn’t been back here, but all the same
I’ve lately seen her prowling about among the building materials.”
Dario raised his hand to silence her, and, addressing Pierre, exclaimed:
“But you spoke to her, didn’t you? It’s becoming idiotic! Just fancy that
brute Tito coming back to dig his knife into my other shoulder--”
All at once he paused, for he had just perceived Benedetta standing there
and listening to him; she had slipped into the room a moment previously
in order to wish him good-night. At sight of her his embarrassment was
great indeed; he wished to speak, explain his words, and swear that he
was wholly innocent in the affair. But she, with a smiling face,
contented herself with saying, “I knew all about it, Dario _mio_. I am
not so foolish as not to have thought it all over and understood the
truth. If I ceased questioning you it was because I knew, and loved you
all the same.”
The young woman looked very happy as she spoke, and for this she had good
cause, for that very evening she had learnt that Monsignor Palma had
shown himself grateful for the service rendered to his nephew by laying a
fresh and favourable memoir on the marriage affair before the
Congregation of the Council. He had been unwilling to recall his previous
opinions so far as to range himself completely on the Contessina’s side,
but the certificates of two doctors whom she had recently seen had
enabled him to conclude that her own declarations were accurate. And
gliding over the question of wifely obedience, on which he had previously
laid stress, he had skilfully set forth the reasons which made a
dissolution of the marriage desirable. No hope of reconciliation could be
entertained, so it was certain that both parties were constantly exposed
to temptation and sin. He discreetly alluded to the fact that the husband
had already succumbed to this danger, and praised the wife’s lofty
morality and piety, all the virtues which she displayed, and which
guaranteed her veracity. Then, without formulating any conclusion of his
own, he left the decision to the wisdom of the Congregation. And as he
virtually repeated Advocate Morano’s arguments, and Prada stubbornly
refused to enter an appearance, it now seemed certain that the
Congregation would by a great majority pronounce itself in favour of
dissolution, a result which would enable the Holy Father to act
benevolently.
“Ah! Dario _mio_!” said Benedetta, “we are at the end of our worries. But
what a lot of money, what a lot of money it all costs! Aunt says that
they will scarcely leave us water to drink.”
So speaking she laughed with the happy heedlessness of an impassioned
_amorosa_. It was not that the jurisdiction of the Congregations was in
itself ruinous; indeed, in principle, it was gratuitous. Still there were
a multitude of petty expenses, payments to subaltern employees, payments
for medical consultations and certificates, copies of documents, and the
memoirs and addresses of counsel. And although the votes of the cardinals
were certainly not bought direct, some of them ended by costing
considerable sums, for it often became necessary to win over dependants,
to induce quite a little world to bring influence to bear upon their
Eminences; without mentioning that large pecuniary gifts, when made with
tact, have a decisive effect in clearing away the greatest difficulties
in that sphere of the Vatican. And, briefly, Monsignor Palma’s nephew by
marriage had cost the Boccaneras a large sum.
“But it doesn’t matter, does it, Dario _mio_?” continued Benedetta.
“Since you are now cured, they must make haste to give us permission to
marry. That’s all we ask of them. And if they want more, well, I’ll give
them my pearls, which will be all I shall have left me.”
He also laughed, for money had never held any place in his life. He had
never had it at his pleasure, and simply hoped that he would always live
with his uncle the cardinal, who would certainly not leave him and his
young wife in the streets. Ruined as the family was, one or two hundred
thousand francs represented nothing to his mind, and he had heard that
certain dissolutions of marriage had cost as much as half a million. So,
by way of response, he could only find a jest: “Give them my ring as
well,” said he; “give them everything, my dear, and we shall still be
happy in this old palace even if we have to sell the furniture!”
His words filled her with enthusiasm; she took his head between both
hands and kissed him madly on the eyes in an extraordinary transport of
passion. Then, suddenly turning to Pierre, she said: “Oh! excuse me,
Monsieur l’Abbe. I was forgetting that I have a commission for you. Yes,
Monsignor Nani, who brought us that good news, bade me tell you that you
are making people forget you too much, and that you ought to set to work
to defend your book.”
The priest listened in astonishment; then replied: “But it was he who
advised me to disappear.”
“No doubt--only it seems that the time has now come for you to see people
and plead your cause. And Monsignor Nani has been able to learn that the
reporter appointed to examine your book is Monsignor Fornaro, who lives
on the Piazza Navona.”
Pierre’s stupefaction was increasing, for a reporter’s name is never
divulged, but kept quite secret, in order to ensure a free exercise of
judgment. Was a new phase of his sojourn in Rome about to begin then? His
mind was all wonderment. However, he simply answered: “Very good, I will
set to work and see everybody.”