Pius IX and Leo XIII had resolved to imprison themselves in the Vatican,
it was because necessity bound them to Rome. A pope is not free to leave
the city, to be the head of the Church elsewhere; and in the same way a
pope, however well he may understand the modern world, has not the right
to relinquish the temporal power. This is an inalienable inheritance
which he must defend, and it is moreover a question of life, peremptory,
above discussion. And thus Leo XIII has retained the title of Master of
the temporal dominions of the Church, and this he has done the more
readily since as a cardinal--like all the members of the Sacred College
when elected--he swore that he would maintain those dominions intact.
Italy may hold Rome as her capital for another century or more, but the
coming popes will never cease to protest and claim their kingdom. If ever
an understanding should be arrived at, it must be based on the gift of a
strip of territory. Formerly, when rumours of reconciliation were
current, was it not said that the papacy exacted, as a formal condition,
the possession of at least the Leonine City with the neutralisation of a
road leading to the sea? Nothing is not enough, one cannot start from
nothing to attain to everything, whereas that Civitas Leonina, that bit
of a city, would already be a little royal ground, and it would then only
be necessary to conquer the rest, first Rome, next Italy, then the
neighbouring states, and at last the whole world. Never has the Church
despaired, even when, beaten and despoiled, she seemed to be at the last
gasp. Never will she abdicate, never will she renounce the promises of
the Christ, for she believes in a boundless future and declares herself
to be both indestructible and eternal. Grant her but a pebble on which to
rest her head, and she will hope to possess, first the field in which
that pebble lies, and then the empire in which the field is situated. If
one pope cannot achieve the recovery of the inheritance, another pope,
ten, twenty other popes will continue the work. The centuries do not
count. And this explains why an old man of eighty-four has undertaken
colossal enterprises whose achievement requires several lives, certain as
he is that his successors will take his place, and that the work will
ever and ever be carried forward and completed.
As these thoughts coursed through his mind, Pierre, overlooking that
ancient city of glory and domination, so stubbornly clinging to its
purple, realised that he was an imbecile with his dream of a purely
spiritual pope. The notion seemed to him so different from the reality,
so out of place, that he experienced a sort of shame-fraught despair. The
new pope, consonant to the teachings of the Gospel, such as a purely
spiritual pope reigning over souls alone, would be, was virtually beyond
the ken of a Roman prelate. At thought of that papal court congealed in
ritual, pride, and authority, Pierre suddenly understood what horror and
repugnance such a pastor would inspire. How great must be the
astonishment and contempt of the papal prelates for that singular notion
of the northern mind, a pope without dominions or subjects, military
household or royal honours, a pope who would be, as it were, a spirit,
exercising purely moral authority, dwelling in the depths of God's
temple, and governing the world solely with gestures of benediction and
deeds of kindliness and love! All that was but a misty Gothic invention
for this Latin clergy, these priests of light and magnificence, who were
certainly pious and even superstitious, but who left the Deity well
sheltered within the tabernacle in order to govern in His name, according
to what they considered the interests of Heaven. Thence it arose that
they employed craft and artifice like mere politicians, and lived by dint
of expedients amidst the great battle of human appetites, marching with
the prudent, stealthy steps of diplomatists towards the final terrestrial
victory of the Christ, who, in the person of the Pope, was one day to
reign over all the nations. And how stupefied must a French prelate have
been--a prelate like Monseigneur Bergerot, that apostle of renunciation
and charity--when he lighted amidst that world of the Vatican! How
difficult must it have been for him to understand and focus things, and
afterwards how great his grief at finding himself unable to come to any
agreement with those men without country, without fatherland, those
"internationals," who were ever poring over the maps of both hemispheres,
ever absorbed in schemes which were to bring them empire. Days and days
were necessary, one needed to live in Rome, and he, Pierre himself, had
only seen things clearly after a month's sojourn, whilst labouring under
the violent shock of the royal pomp of St. Peter's, and standing face to
face with the ancient city as it slumbered heavily in the sunlight and
dreamt its dream of eternity.
But on lowering his eyes to the piazza in front of the Basilica he
perceived the multitude, the 40,000 believers streaming over the pavement
like insects. And then he thought that he could hear the cry again
rising: "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il Papa-Re/! Long live the
Pope-King!" Whilst ascending those endless staircases a moment previously
it had seemed to him as if the colossus of stone were quivering with the
frantic shout raised beneath its ceilings. And now that he had climbed
even into cloudland that shout apparently was traversing space. If the
colossal pile beneath him still vibrated with it, was it not as with a
last rise of sap within its ancient walls, a reinvigoration of that
Catholic blood which formerly had demanded that the pile should be a
stupendous one, the veritable king of temples, and which now was striving
to reanimate it with the powerful breath of life, and this at the very
hour when death was beginning to fall upon its over-vast, deserted nave
and aisles? The crowd was still streaming forth, filling the piazza, and
Pierre's heart was wrung by frightful anguish, for that throng with its
shout had just swept his last hope away. On the previous afternoon, after
the reception of the pilgrimage, he had yet been able to deceive himself
by overlooking the necessity for money which bound the Pope to earth in
order that he might see nought but the feeble old man, all spirituality,
resplendent like the symbol of moral authority. But his faith in such a
pastor of the Gospel, free from all considerations of earthly wealth, and
king of none other than a heavenly kingdom, had fled. Not only did the
Peter's Pence impose hard servitude upon Leo XIII but he was also the
prisoner of papal tradition--the eternal King of Rome, riveted to the
soil of Rome, unable either to quit the city or to renounce the temporal
power. The fatal end would be collapse on the spot, the dome of St.
Peter's falling even as the temple of Olympian Jupiter had fallen,
Catholicism strewing the grass with its ruins whilst elsewhere schism
burst forth: a new faith for the new nations. Of this Pierre had a
grandiose and tragical vision: he beheld his dream destroyed, his book
swept away amidst that cry which spread around him as if flying to the
four corners of the Catholic world "/Evviva il Papa-Re! evviva il
Papa-Re! Long live the Pope-King!" But even in that hour of the papacy's
passing triumph he already felt that the giant of gold and marble on
which he stood was oscillating, even as totter all old and rotten
societies.
At last he took his way down again, and a fresh shock of emotion came to
him as he reached the roofs, that sunlit expanse of lead and zinc, large
enough for the site of a town. Monsignor Nani was there, in company with
the two French ladies, the mother and the daughter, both looking very
happy and highly amused. No doubt the prelate had good-naturedly offered
to conduct them to the dome. However, as soon as he recognised the young
priest he went towards him: "Well, my dear son," he inquired, "are you
pleased? Have you been impressed, edified?" As he spoke, his searching
eyes dived into Pierre's soul, as if to ascertain the present result of
his experiments. Then, satisfied with what he detected, he began to laugh
softly: "Yes, yes, I see--come, you are a sensible fellow after all. I
begin to think that the unfortunate affair which brought you here will
have a happy ending."
VIII
WHEN Pierre remained in the morning at the Boccanera mansion he often
spent some hours in the little neglected garden which had formerly ended
with a sort of colonnaded /loggia/, whence two flights of steps descended
to the Tiber. This garden was a delightful, solitary nook, perfumed by
the ripe fruit of the centenarian orange-trees, whose symmetrical lines
were the only indication of the former pathways, now hidden beneath rank
weeds. And Pierre also found there the acrid scent of the large
box-shrubs growing in the old central fountain basin, which had been
filled up with loose earth and rubbish.
On those luminous October mornings, full of such tender and penetrating
charm, the spot was one where all the joy of living might well be
savoured, but Pierre brought thither his northern dreaminess, his concern
for suffering, his steadfast feeling of compassion, which rendered yet
sweeter the caress of the sunlight pervading that atmosphere of love. He
seated himself against the right-hand wall on a fragment of a fallen
column over which a huge laurel cast a deep-black shadow, fresh and
aromatic. In the antique greenish sarcophagus beside him, on which fauns
offered violence to nymphs, the streamlet of water trickling from the
mask incrusted in the wall, set the unchanging music of its crystal note,
whilst he read the newspapers and the letters which he received, all the
communications of good Abbe Rose, who kept him informed of his mission
among the wretched ones of gloomy Paris, now already steeped in fog and
mud.
One morning however, Pierre unexpectedly found Benedetta seated on the
fallen column which he usually made his chair. She raised a light cry of
surprise on seeing him, and for a moment remained embarrassed, for she
had with her his book "New Rome," which she had read once already, but
had then imperfectly understood. And overcoming her embarrassment she now
hastened to detain him, making him sit down beside her, and frankly
owning that she had come to the garden in order to be alone and apply
herself to an attentive study of the book, in the same way as some
ignorant school-girl. Then they began to chat like a pair of friends, and
the young priest spent a delightful hour. Although Benedetta did not
speak of herself, he realised that it was her grief alone which brought
her nearer to him, as if indeed her own sufferings enlarged her heart and
made her think of all who suffered in the world. Patrician as she was,
regarding social hierarchy as a divine law, she had never previously
thought of such things, and some pages of Pierre's book greatly
astonished her. What! one ought to take interest in the lowly, realise
that they had the same souls and the same griefs as oneself, and seek in
brotherly or sisterly fashion to make them happy? She certainly sought to
acquire such an interest, but with no great success, for she secretly
feared that it might lead her into sin, as it could not be right to alter
aught of the social system which had been established by God and
consecrated by the Church. Charitable she undoubtedly was, wont to bestow
small sums in alms, but she did not give her heart, she felt no true
sympathy for the humble, belonging as she did to such a different race,
which looked to a throne in heaven high above the seats of all the
plebeian elect.
She and Pierre, however, found themselves on other mornings side by side
in the shade of the laurels near the trickling, singing water; and he,
lacking occupation, weary of waiting for a solution which seemed to
recede day by day, fervently strove to animate this young and beautiful
woman with some of his own fraternal feelings. He was impassioned by the
idea that he was catechising Italy herself, the queen of beauty, who was
still slumbering in ignorance, but who would recover all her past glory
if she were to awake to the new times with soul enlarged, swelling with
pity for men and things. Reading good Abbe Rose's letters to Benedetta,
he made her shudder at the frightful wail of wretchedness which ascends
from all great cities. With such deep tenderness in her eyes, with the
happiness of love reciprocated emanating from her whole being, why should
she not recognise, even as he did, that the law of love was the sole
means of saving suffering humanity, which, through hatred, incurred the
danger of death? And to please him she did try to believe in democracy,
in the fraternal remodelling of society, but among other nations
only--not at Rome, for an involuntary, gentle laugh came to her lips
whenever his words evoked the idea of the poor still remaining in the
Trastevere district fraternising with those who yet dwelt in the old
princely palaces. No, no, things had been as they were so long; they
could not, must not, be altered! And so, after all, Pierre's pupil made
little progress: she was, in reality, simply touched by the wealth of
ardent love which the young priest had chastely transferred from one
alone to the whole of human kind. And between him and her, as those
sunlit October mornings went by, a tie of exquisite sweetness was formed;
they came to love one another with deep, pure, fraternal affection,
amidst the great glowing passion which consumed them both.
Then, one day, Benedetta, her elbow resting on the sarcophagus, spoke of
Dario, whose name she had hitherto refrained from mentioning. Ah! poor
/amico/, how circumspect and repentant he had shown himself since that
fit of brutal insanity! At first, to conceal his embarrassment, he had
gone to spend three days at Naples, and it was said that La Tonietta, the
sentimental /demi-mondaine/, had hastened to join him there, wildly in
love with him. Since his return to the mansion he had avoided all private
meetings with his cousin, and scarcely saw her except at the Monday
receptions, when he wore a submissive air, and with his eyes silently
entreated forgiveness.
"Yesterday, however," continued Benedetta, "I met him on the staircase
and gave him my hand. He understood that I was no longer angry with him
and was very happy. What else could I have done? One must not be severe
for ever. Besides, I do not want things to go too far between him and
that woman. I want him to remember that I still love him, and am still
waiting for him. Oh! he is mine, mine alone. But alas! I cannot say the
word: our affairs are in such sorry plight."
She paused, and two big tears welled into her eyes. The divorce
proceedings to which she alluded had now come to a standstill, fresh
obstacles ever arising to stay their course.
Pierre was much moved by her tears, for she seldom wept. She herself
sometimes confessed, with her calm smile, that she did not know how to
weep. But now her heart was melting, and for a moment she remained
overcome, leaning on the mossy, crumbling sarcophagus, whilst the clear
water falling from the gaping mouth of the tragic mask still sounded its
flutelike note. And a sudden thought of death came to the priest as he
saw her, so young and so radiant with beauty, half fainting beside that
marble resting-place where fauns were rushing upon nymphs in a frantic
bacchanal which proclaimed the omnipotence of love--that omnipotence
which the ancients were fond of symbolising on their tombs as a token of
life's eternity. And meantime a faint, warm breeze passed through the
sunlit, silent garden, wafting hither and thither the penetrating scent
of box and orange.
"One has so much strength when one loves," Pierre at last murmured.
"Yes, yes, you are right," she replied, already smiling again. "I am
childish. But it is the fault of your book. It is only when I suffer that
I properly understand it. But all the same I am making progress, am I
not? Since you desire it, let all the poor, all those who suffer, as I
do, be my brothers and sisters."
Then for a while they resumed their chat.
On these occasions Benedetta was usually the first to return to the
house, and Pierre would linger alone under the laurels, vaguely dreaming
of sweet, sad things. Often did he think how hard life proved for poor
creatures whose only thirst was for happiness!
One Monday evening, at a quarter-past ten, only the young folks remained
in Donna Serafina's reception-room. Monsignor Nani had merely put in an
appearance that night, and Cardinal Sarno had just gone off.
Even Donna Serafina, in her usual seat by the fireplace, seemed to have
withdrawn from the others, absorbed as she was in contemplation of the
chair which the absent Morano still stubbornly left unoccupied. Chatting
and laughing in front of the sofa on which sat Benedetta and Celia were
Dario, Pierre, and Narcisse Habert, the last of whom had begun to twit
the young Prince, having met him, so he asserted, a few days previously,
in the company of a very pretty girl.
"Oh! don't deny it, my dear fellow," continued Narcisse, "for she was
really superb. She was walking beside you, and you turned into a lane
together--the Borgo Angelico, I think."
Dario listened smiling, quite at his ease and incapable of denying his
passionate predilection for beauty. "No doubt, no doubt; it was I, I
don't deny it," he responded. "Only the inferences you draw are not
correct." And turning towards Benedetta, who, without a thought of
jealous anxiety, wore as gay a look as himself, as though delighted that
he should have enjoyed that passing pleasure of the eyes, he went on: "It
was the girl, you know, whom I found in tears six weeks ago. Yes, that
bead-worker who was sobbing because the workshop was shut up, and who
rushed along, all blushing, to conduct me to her parents when I offered
her a bit of silver. Pierina her name is, as you, perhaps, remember."
"Oh! yes, Pierina."
"Well, since then I've met her in the street on four or five occasions.
And, to tell the truth, she is so very beautiful that I've stopped and
spoken to her. The other day, for instance, I walked with her as far as a
manufacturer's. But she hasn't yet found any work, and she began to cry,
and so, to console her a little, I kissed her. She was quite taken aback
at it, but she seemed very well pleased."
At this all the others began to laugh. But suddenly Celia desisted and
said very gravely, "You know, Dario, she loves you; you must not be hard
on her."
Dario, no doubt, was of Celia's opinion, for he again looked at
Benedetta, but with a gay toss of the head, as if to say that, although
the girl might love him, he did not love her. A bead-worker indeed, a
girl of the lowest classes, pooh! She might be a Venus, but she could be
nothing to him. And he himself made merry over his romantic adventure,
which Narcisse sought to arrange in a kind of antique sonnet: A beautiful
bead-worker falling madly in love with a young prince, as fair as
sunlight, who, touched by her misfortune, hands her a silver crown; then
the beautiful bead-worker, quite overcome at finding him as charitable as
handsome, dreaming of him incessantly, and following him everywhere,
chained to his steps by a link of flame; and finally the beautiful
bead-worker, who has refused the silver crown, so entreating the handsome
prince with her soft, submissive eyes, that he at last deigns to grant
her the alms of his heart. This pastime greatly amused Benedetta; but
Celia, with her angelic face and the air of a little girl who ought to
have been ignorant of everything, remained very grave and repeated sadly,
"Dario, Dario, she loves you; you must not make her suffer."
Then the Contessina, in her turn, was moved to pity. "And those poor
folks are not happy!" said she.
"Oh!" exclaimed the Prince, "it's misery beyond belief. On the day she
took me to the Quartiere dei Prati* I was quite overcome; it was awful,
astonishingly awful!"
* The district of the castle meadows--see /ante/ note.--Trans.
"But I remember that we promised to go to see the poor people," resumed
Benedetta, "and we have done wrong in delaying our visit so long. For
your studies, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, you greatly desired to accompany
us and see the poor of Rome--was that not so?"
As she spoke she raised her eyes to Pierre, who for a moment had been
silent. He was much moved by her charitable thought, for he realised, by
the faint quiver of her voice, that she desired to appear a docile pupil,
progressing in affection for the lowly and the wretched. Moreover, his
passion for his apostolate had at once returned to him. "Oh!" said he, "I
shall not quit Rome without having seen those who suffer, those who lack
work and bread. Therein lies the malady which affects every nation;
salvation can only be attained by the healing of misery. When the roots
of the tree cannot find sustenance the tree dies."
"Well," resumed the Contessina, "we will fix an appointment at once; you
shall come with us to the Quartiere dei Prati--Dario will take us there."
At this the Prince, who had listened to the priest with an air of
stupefaction, unable to understand the simile of the tree and its roots,
began to protest distressfully, "No, no, cousin, take Monsieur l'Abbe for
a stroll there if it amuses you. But I've been, and don't want to go
back. Why, when I got home the last time I was so upset that I almost
took to my bed. No, no; such abominations are too awful--it isn't
possible."
At this moment a voice, bitter with displeasure, arose from the chimney
corner. Donna Serafina was emerging from her long silence. "Dario is
quite right! Send your alms, my dear, and I will gladly add mine. There
are other places where you might take Monsieur l'Abbe, and which it would
be far more useful for him to see. With that idea of yours you would send
him away with a nice recollection of our city."
Roman pride rang out amidst the old lady's bad temper. Why, indeed, show
one's sores to foreigners, whose visit is possibly prompted by hostile
curiosity? One always ought to look beautiful; Rome should not be shown
otherwise than in the garb of glory.
Narcisse, however, had taken possession of Pierre. "It's true, my dear
Abbe," said he; "I forgot to recommend that stroll to you. You really
must visit the new district built over the castle meadows. It's typical,
and sums up all the others. And you won't lose your time there, I'll
warrant you, for nowhere can you learn more about the Rome of the present
day. It's extraordinary, extraordinary!" Then, addressing Benedetta, he
added, "Is it decided? Shall we say to-morrow morning? You'll find the
Abbe and me over there, for I want to explain matters to him beforehand,
in order that he may understand them. What do you say to ten o'clock?"
Before answering him the Contessina turned towards her aunt and
respectfully opposed her views. "But Monsieur l'Abbe, aunt, has met
enough beggars in our streets already, so he may well see everything.
Besides, judging by his book, he won't see worse things than he has seen
in Paris. As he says in one passage, hunger is the same all the world
over." Then, with her sensible air, she gently laid siege to Dario. "You
know, Dario," said she, "you would please me very much by taking me
there. We can go in the carriage and join these gentlemen. It will be a
very pleasant outing for us. It is such a long time since we went out
together."
It was certainly that idea of going out with Dario, of having a pretext
for a complete reconciliation with him, that enchanted her; he himself
realised it, and, unable to escape, he tried to treat the matter as a
joke. "Ah! cousin," he said, "it will be your fault; I shall have the
nightmare for a week. An excursion like that spoils all the enjoyment of
life for days and days."
The mere thought made him quiver with revolt. However, laughter again
rang out around him, and, in spite of Donna Serafina's mute disapproval,
the appointment was finally fixed for the following morning at ten
o'clock. Celia as she went off expressed deep regret that she could not
form one of the party; but, with the closed candour of a budding lily,
she really took interest in Pierina alone. As she reached the ante-room
she whispered in her friend's ear: "Take a good look at that beauty, my
dear, so as to tell me whether she is so very beautiful--beautiful beyond
compare."
When Pierre met Narcisse near the Castle of Sant' Angelo on the morrow,
at nine o'clock, he was surprised to find him again languid and
enraptured, plunged anew in artistic enthusiasm. At first not a word was
said of the excursion. Narcisse related that he had risen at sunrise in
order that he might spend an hour before Bernini's "Santa Teresa." It
seemed that when he did not see that statue for a week he suffered as
acutely as if he were parted from some cherished mistress. And his
adoration varied with the time of day, according to the light in which he
beheld the figure: in the morning, when the pale glow of dawn steeped it
in whiteness, he worshipped it with quite a mystical transport of the
soul, whilst in the afternoon, when the glow of the declining sun's
oblique rays seemed to permeate the marble, his passion became as fiery
red as the blood of martyrs. "Ah! my friend," said he with a weary air
whilst his dreamy eyes faded to mauve, "you have no idea how delightful
and perturbing her awakening was this morning--how languorously she
opened her eyes, like a pure, candid virgin, emerging from the embrace of
the Divinity. One could die of rapture at the sight!"