I
David Rossi was in his bedroom writing his leader for next morning's
paper. A lamp with a dark shade burned on the desk, and the rest of the
room was in shadow. It was late, and the house was quiet.
The door opened softly, and Bruno, in shirt-sleeves and slippered feet,
came on tiptoe into the room. He brought a letter in a large violet
envelope with a monogram on the front of it, and put it down on the desk
by Rossi's side. It was from Roma.
"DEAR DAVID ROSSI,--Without rhyme or reason I have been expecting
to see you here to-day, having something to say which it is
important that you should hear. May I expect you in the morning?
Knowing how busy you are, I dare not bid you come, yet the matter
is of great consequence and admits of no delay. It is not a
subject on which it is safe or proper to write, and how to speak
of it I am at a loss to decide. But you shall help me. Therefore
come without delay! There! I have bidden you come in spite of
myself. Judge from that how eager is my expectation.--In haste,
"ROMA V.
"P.S.--I open my envelope, to wonder if you can ever forgive me
the humiliations you have suffered for my sake. To think that _I_
threw you into the way of them! And merely to wipe out an offence
that is not worth considering! I am ashamed of myself. I am also
ashamed of the people about me. You will remember that I told you
they were pitiless and cruel. They are worse--they are heartless
and without mercy. But how bravely you bore their insults and
innuendoes! I almost cry to think of it, and if I were a good
Catholic I should confess and do penance. See? I do confess, and
if you want me to do penance you will come yourself and impose it."
It was the first letter that David Rossi had received from Roma, and as
he read it the air seemed to him to be filled with the sweet girlish
voice. He could see the play of her large, bright, violet eyes. The
delicate fragrance of the scented paper rose to his nostrils, and
without being conscious of what he was doing he raised the letter to his
lips.
Then he became aware that Bruno was still in the room. The good fellow
was in the shadow behind him, pushing things about under some pretext
and trying to make a noise.
"Don't let me keep you up, Bruno."
"Sure you don't want anything, sir?" said Bruno with confusion.
David Rossi rose and walked about the room with his slow step.
"You have something to say to me?"
"Well, yes, sir--yes, I have."
"What is it?"
Bruno scratched his shock head and looked about as if for help. His eyes
fell on the letter lying open in the light on the desk.
"It's about that, sir. I knew where it came from by the colour and the
monogram."
"Well?"
Bruno began to look frightened, and then in a louder voice, that bubbled
out of his mouth like water from the neck of a bottle, he said:
"Tell you the truth, sir, people are talking about you."
"What are they saying, Bruno?"
"Saying?... Ever heard the proverb, 'Sun in the eyes, the battle lost'?
Sun in the eyes--that's what they're saying, sir."
"So they're saying that, are they?"
"They are. And doesn't it look like it, sir? You'll allow it looks like
it, anyway. When you started the Republic, sir, the people had hopes of
you. But a month is gone and you haven't done a thing."
David Rossi, with head down, continued to pace to and fro.
"'Patience,' I'm saying. 'Go slow and sure,' says I. That's all right,
sir, but the Government is going fast enough. Forty thousand men called
out to keep the people quiet, and when the bread-tax begins on the first
of the month the blessed saints know what will happen. Next week we
hold our meeting in the Coliseum. You called it yourself, sir, yet
they're laying odds you won't be there. Where will you be? In the house
of a bad woman?"
"Bruno!" cried Rossi in a stern voice, "what right have you to talk to
me like this?"
Bruno was frightened at what he had said, but he tried to carry it off
with a look of passion.
"Right? The right of a friend, sir, who can't stand by and see you
betrayed. Yes, betrayed, that's the word for it. Betrayed! Betrayed!
It's a plot to ruin the people through the weakness of their leader. A
woman drawn across a man's trail. The trick is as old as the ages. Never
heard what we say in Rome?--'The man is fire, the woman is tow; then
comes the devil and puts them together.'"
David Rossi was standing face to face with Bruno, who was growing hot
and trying to laugh bitterly.
"Oh, I know what I'm saying, sir. The Prime Minister is at the bottom of
everything. David Rossi never goes to Donna Roma's house but the Baron
Bonelli knows all about it. They write to each other every day, and I've
posted her letters myself. _Her_ house is _his_ house. Carriages,
horses, servants, liveries--how else could she support it? By her art,
her sculpture?"
Bruno was frightened to the bottom of his soul, but he continued to talk
and to laugh bitterly.
"She's deceiving you, sir. Isn't it as plain as daylight? You hit her
hard, and old Vampire too, in your speech on the morning of the Pope's
Jubilee, and she's paying you out for both of them."
"That's enough, Bruno."
"All Rome knows it, and everybody will be laughing at you soon."
"You've said enough, I tell you. Go to bed."
"Oh, I know! The heart has its reasons, but it listens to none."
"Go to bed, I tell you! Isn't it sufficient that by your tittle-tattle
you caused me to wrong the lady?"
"_I_ did?"
"_You_ did."
"I did not."
"You did, and if it hadn't been for the tales you told me before I knew
her, or had ever seen her, I should never have spoken of her as I did."
"She deserved all you said of her."
"She didn't deserve one word of it, and it was your lies that made me
slander her."
Bruno's eyes flinched as if a blow had fallen on them. Then he tried to
laugh.
"Hit me again. The skin of the ass is used to blows. Only don't go too
far with me, David Rossi."
"Then don't _you_ go too far with your falsehoods and suspicion."
"Suspicion! Holy Virgin! Is it suspicion that she has had you at her
studio to make a Roman holiday for her friends and cronies? By the
saints! Suspicion!"
"Go on, if it becomes you."
"If what becomes me?"
"To eat her bread and talk against her."
"That's a lie, David Rossi, and you know it. It's my own bread I'm
eating. My labour belongs to me, and I sell it to my employer. But my
conscience belongs to God, and she cannot buy it."
David Rossi's white and angry face broke up like a snow-flake in the
sun.
"I was wrong when I said that, Bruno, and I ask your pardon."
"Do you say that, sir? And after I've insulted you?"
David Rossi held out his hand, and Bruno clasped it.
"I had no right to be angry with you, Bruno, but you are wrong about
Donna Roma. Believe me, dear friend, cruelly, awfully, terribly wrong."
"You think she is a good woman."
"I know she is, and if I said otherwise, I take it back and am ashamed."
"Beautiful! If I could only believe in her as you do, sir. But I've
known her for two years."
"And I've known her for twenty."
"_You_ have?"
"I have. Shall I tell you who she is? She is the daughter of my old
friend in England."
"The one who died in Elba?"
"Yes."
"The good man who found you and fed you, and educated you when you were
a boy in London?"
"That was the father of Donna Roma."
"Then he was Prince Volonna, after all?"
"Yes, and they lied to me when they told me she was dead and buried."
Bruno was silent for a moment, and then in a choking voice he said:
"Why didn't you strike me dead when I said she was deceiving you?
Forgive me, sir!"
"I do forgive you, Bruno, but not for myself--for her."
Bruno turned away with a dazed expression.
"Forget what I said about going to Donna Roma's, sir."
Rossi sat down and took up his pen.
"No, I cannot forget it," he said. "I _will not_ forget it. I will go to
her house no more."
Bruno was silent for a moment, and then he said in a thick voice:
"I understand! God help you, David Rossi. It's a lonely road you mean to
travel."
Rossi drew a long breath and made ready to write.
"Good-night, Bruno."
"Good-night," said Bruno, and the good fellow went out with wet eyes.