IX

When, in the commotion of the household caused by the near approach of

the crowd which brought Rossi home from the Coliseum, little Joseph

slipped down the stairs and made a dash for the street, he chuckled to

himself as he thought how cleverly he had eluded his mother, who had

been looking out of the bedroom window, and those two old watch-dogs,

his grandfather and grandmother, who were nearly always at the door.

It was not until he was fairly plunged into the great sea of the city,

and had begun to be a little dazed by more lights than he ever saw when

he closed his eyes in bed, that he remembered that he had disobeyed

orders and broken his promise not to go out. But even then, he told

himself, he was not responsible. He was Donna Roma's porter now.

Therefore, he couldn't be Joseph, could he?

So, with his magic mace in hand, the serious man of seven marched on,

and reconciled himself to his disobedience by thinking nothing more

about it. People looked at him and smiled as he passed through the

Piazza Madama, where the Senate House stands, and that made him lift his

head and walk on proudly, but as he went through the Piazza of the

Pantheon a boy who was coming out of a cookshop with a tray on his head

cried, "Helloa, kiddy! playing Pulcinello?" and that dashed his

worshipful dignity for several minutes.

It began to snow, and the white flakes on his gold braid clouded his

soul at first, but when he remembered that porters had to work in all

weathers, he wagged his sturdy head and strode on. He was going to Donna

Roma's according to her invitation, and he found his way by his

recollection of what he had seen when he made the same journey on

Sunday--here a tramcar coming round a corner, there a line of posts

across a narrow thoroughfare, and there a fat man with a gruff voice

shouting something at the door of a trattoria.

At the corner of a lane there was a shop window full of knives and

revolvers. He didn't care for knives--they cut people's fingers--but he

liked guns, and when he grew up to be a man he would buy one and kill

somebody.

Coming to the Piazza Monte Citorio, he remembered the soldiers at the

door of the House of Parliament, and the cellar full of long guns with

knives (bayonets) stuck on the ends of their muzzles. One of the

soldiers laughed, called him "Uncle," and asked him something about

enlisting, but he only struck his mace firmly on the flags and marched

on.

At the corner of the Piazza Colonna he had to wait some time before he

could cross the Corso, for the crowds were coming both ways and the

traffic frightened him. He had made various little sorties and had been

driven back, when a soft hand was slipped into his fat palm and he was

piloted across in safety. Then he looked up at his helper. It was a girl

with big white feathers in her hat, and her face painted pink and white

like the face of the little Jesus in the cradle in church at Christmas.

She asked him what his name was, and he told her; also where he was

going, and he told her that too. It was dark by this time, and the great

little man was beginning to be glad of company.

"Aren't you tired of carrying that heavy stick?" she said.

It wasn't a stick, and he wasn't a bit tired of carrying it.

"But aren't you tired _yourself_?" she said, and he admitted that

perhaps it was so.

So she picked him up, and carried him in her arms, while he carried the

mace, and for some minutes both were satisfied. But presently some one

in the Via Tritone cried out, "Helloa! here comes the Blessed Bambino,"

whereupon his worshipful dignity was again wounded, and he wriggled to

the ground.

It began to thunder and there were some flashes of lightning, whereupon

Joseph shuddered and crept closer to the girl's side.

"Are you afraid of lightning, Joseph?" she asked.

He wasn't. He often saw it at home when he went to bed. His mother held

his hand and he covered up his head in the clothes, and then he liked

it.

The girl took the wee, fat hand again, and the little feet toddled on.

After vain efforts to snatch a kiss, which were defeated by a proper

withdrawal of the manly head in the cocked hat, the girl with the

feathers and the doll's face left him in the Via due Macelli under a

bright electric lamp that hung over the door of a café-chantant.

Joseph knew then that he was not far from Donna Roma's, and he began to

think of what he would do when he got there. If the big porter at the

door tried to stop him he would say, "I'm a little Roman boy," and the

man would _have_ to let him go up. Then he would take charge of the

hall, and when he had not to open the door he would play with the dog,

and sometimes with Donna Roma.

With sound practical sense he thought of his wages. Would it be a penny

a week or twopence? He thought it would be twopence. Men didn't work for

nothing nowadays. He had heard his father say so.

Then he remembered his mother, and his lip began to drop. But it rose

again when he told himself that of course she would come every night to

put him to bed as usual. "Good-night, mamma! See you in the morning," he

would say, and when he opened his eyes it would be to-morrow.

He was feeling sleepy now, and do what he would he could hardly keep his

eyes from closing. But he was in the Piazza di Spagna by this time, and

his little feet in their top-boots began to patter up the snowy steps.

There are three principal landings to the Spanish Steps, and the great

little man of seven had reached the second of them when a noise in the

streets below made him stop and turn his head.

A great crowd, carrying hundreds of torches, was marching into the

piazza. They were singing, shouting, and blowing whistles and trumpets.

It was like _Befana_ in the Piazza Navona, and when Joseph blinked his

eyes he almost thought he was at home in bed.

All at once silence--then soldiers--then a jump all over his body like

that which came to him when he was falling asleep--then a sense of

something warm--then a buzzing noise--then a boom like that of the gun

of St. Angelo at dinner-time ... then a deep, familiar voice calling and

calling to him, and his eyes opened for a moment and saw his father's

face.

"Good-night, papa! So sleepy! See you in the morning!"

And then nothing more.

* * * * *

While Elena waited for Bruno's return with little Joseph, she went up

and downstairs between David Rossi's apartment and her own on all manner

of invented errands. Meantime she tried to keep down her anxiety by

keeping up her anger. Joseph was so worrisome. When he came home he

would have to be whipped and sent to bed without his supper. It was true

his _verdura_ was already on the stove, but he must not be allowed to

touch it. You really must be strict with children. They would like you

all the better for it when they grew up to be men and women.

But every moment broke down this brave severity, until the desire to

punish Joseph for his disobedience was all gone. She stood at the head

of the stairs and listened for his voice and his little pattering feet.

If she had heard them, her anxious expression would have given way to a

cross look and she would have scolded both father and son all the way up

to bed. But they did not come, and she turned to the dining-room with a

downcast face.

"Where can the boy be? If I could only have him back! I will never let

him out of my sight again. Never!"

David Rossi, who was walking in the sitting-room to calm his nerves

after a trying time, tried to comfort her. It would be all right. Depend

upon it, Joseph had gone up to Donna Roma's. She was to remember what

Bruno told them on Sunday. "The little Roman boy." Joseph had thought of

nothing else for three days, and this being his birthday....

"You think so? You really think...."

"I'm sure of it. Bruno will be back presently, carrying Joseph on his

back. Or perhaps Donna Roma will send the boy home in the carriage, and

the great little man will come upstairs like the Mayor. Meantime she has

kept him to play with, and...."

"Yes, that must be it," said Elena, with shining eyes. "The Signorina

must have kept him to play with! He must be playing now with the

Signorina!"

At that moment through the open door there came the sound of a heavy

tread on the stairs, mingled with various voices. Elena's shining face

suddenly clouded, and Rossi, who read her thought, went out on to the

landing. Bruno was coming up the staircase with something in his arms,

and behind him were the Garibaldian and his old wife and a line of

strangers.

Rossi ran down two flights of stairs and met them. He saw everything as

by a flash of lightning. The boy lay in his father's arms. He was white

and cold, with his head fallen back, and his hair matted with flakes of

snow. His gay coat was open, and his little stained shirt was torn out

at the breast. A stranger behind was carrying the cocked hat and mace.

Elena, who was at the head of the stairs by this time, was screaming.

"Keep her away, sir," said Bruno. The poor fellow was trying to be brave

and strong, but his voice was like a voice from the other side of an

abyss.

They took the boy into the dining-room, and laid him on a sofa. There

was no keeping the mother back. She forced her way through and laid hold

of the child.

"Get away, he's mine," she cried fiercely.

And then she dropped on her knees before the boy, threw her arms about

him and called on him by his name.

"Joseph! Speak to me! Open your eyes and speak!... What have you been

doing with my child? He is ill. Why don't you send for a doctor? Don't

stand there like fools. Go for a doctor, I tell you ... Joseph! Only a

word!... Have you carried him home without his hat on? And it's snowing

too! He'll get his death of cold ... what's this? Blood on his shirt?

And a wound? Look at this red spot. Have they shot him? No, no, it's

impossible! A child! Joseph! Joseph! Speak to me!... Yes, his heart is

beating." She was pressing her ear to the boy's breast. "Or is it only

the beating in my head? Oh, where is the doctor? Why don't you send for

him?"

They could not tell her that it was useless, that a doctor had seen the

child already, and that all was over. All they could do was to stand

round her with awe in their faces. She understood them without words.

Her hair fell from its knot, and her eyes began to blaze like the eyes

of a maniac.

"They've killed my child!" she cried. "He's dead! My little boy is dead!

Only seven, and it was his birthday! O God! My child! What had he done

that they should kill him?"

And then Bruno, who was standing by with a wild lustre in his eyes, said

between his teeth, "Done? Done nothing but live under a Government of

murderers and assassins."

The room filled with people. Neighbours who had never before set foot in

the rooms came in without fear, for death was among them. They stood

silent for the most part, only handing round the table the little cocked

hat and the mace, with sighs and deep breathing. But some one speaking

to Rossi told him what had happened. It was at the Spanish Steps. The

delegate gave the word, and the Carabineers fired over the people's

heads. But they hit the child and made him cold. His little heart had

burst.

"And I was going to whip him," said Elena. "Not a minute before I was

talking about the rod, and not giving him his supper. O God! I can never

forgive myself."

And then the blessed tears came and she wept bitterly.

David Rossi put his arms about her, and her head fell on his breast. All

barriers were broken down, and she clung to him and cried.

Just then cries came from the piazza--"Hurrah for the Revolution!" and

"Down with the destroyers of the people!"--the woolly tones of voices

shouting in the snow. Somebody on the stairs explained that a young man

was going about waving a bloody handkerchief, and that the sight of it

was exasperating the people to frenzy. Women were marching through the

streets, and the entire city was on the point of insurrection.

In the dining-room the stricken ones still stood around the couch.

Presently there was a sound of singing outside. A great crowd was coming

into the piazza, singing the Garibaldi Hymn. Bruno heard it, and the

wild lustre in his eyes gave place to a look of savage joy. An awful

oath burst from his lips, and he ran out of the house. At the next

moment he was heard in the street, singing in a thundering voice:

"The tombs are uncovered,

The dead arise,

The martyrs are rising

Before our eyes."

The old Garibaldian threw up his head like a warhorse at the call of

battle, and his rickety limbs were going towards the door.

"Stay here, father," said Rossi, and the old man obeyed him.

Elena was quieter by this time. She was sitting by the child and

stroking his little icy hand.

David Rossi, who had hardly spoken, went into his bedroom. His lips were

tightly pressed together, his eyes were bloodshot, and his breath was

labouring hard in his heaving breast.

He took up his dagger paper-knife, tried its point on his palm with two

or three reckless thrusts and threw it back on the desk. Then he went

down on his hands and knees and rummaged among the newspapers lying in

heaps under the window. At last he found what he looked for. It was the

six-chambered revolver which had been sent to him as a present. "I'll

kill the man like a dog," he thought.

He loaded the revolver, put it in his breast-pocket, went back to the

sitting-room, and made ready to go out.

X

Ten was striking on the different clocks of the city. Felice had lit the

stove in the boudoir and the wood was burning in fitful blue and red

flames. There was no other light in the room, and Roma lay with her body

on the floor, and her face buried in the couch.

The world outside was full of fearful and unusual noises. Snow was still

falling, and the voices heard through it had a peculiar sound of

sobbing. The soft rolling of thunder came from a long way off, like the

boom of a slow wave on a distant beach. At intervals there was the

crackle of musketry, like the noise of rockets sent up in the night, and

sometimes there were pitiful cries, smothered by the unreverberating

snow, like the cries of a drowning man on a foundering ship at sea.

Roma, face downward, heard these sounds in the lapses of a terrible

memory. She was seeing, as in a nightmare, the incidents of a night that

was hardly six weeks past. One by one the facts flashed back upon her

with a burning sense of shame, and she felt herself to be a sinner and a

criminal.

It was the night of the royal ball at the Quirinal. The blaze of lights,

the glitter of jewels, the brilliant throng of handsome men and lovely

women, the clash of music, the whirl of dancing, and finally the smiles

and compliments of the King. Then going home in the carriage in the

early morning, swathed in furs over her thin white silk, with the

Baron, in his decorations worn diagonally over his white breast, and

through the glass the waning moon, the silent stars, the empty streets.

Then this room, this couch, sinking down on it, very tired, with eyes

smiling and half closed, and nearly gone already into the mists of

sleep. And then the Baron at her feet, pressing his lips to her wrist

where the pulse was beating, kissing her arms and shoulders.... "Oh,

dear! You are mad! I must not listen to you." And then burning words of

love and passion: "My wife! My wife that is to be!" And then the call of

her aunt from the adjoining chamber, "Roma!"

The sobbing sounds from outside broke in on Roma's nightmare, and when

the chain of memory linked on again it was morning in her vision, and

the Countess was comforting her in a whimpering voice:

"After all, God is merciful, and things that happen to everybody can be

atoned for by prayer and penance. Besides, the Baron is a man of honour,

and the poor maniac cannot last much longer."

The sobbing sounds in the snow, the cries far away, the crackle of the

rifle-shots, the rumble of the thunder broke in again, and the elements

outside seemed to whirl round her in the tempest of her trouble. For a

moment she lifted her head and heard voices in the next room.

The Baron was still there, and from time to time, as he wrote his

despatches, messengers came to take them away, to bring replies, and to

deliver the latest news of the night. The populace had risen in all

parts of the city, and the soldiers had charged them. There had been

several misadventures and many arrests. The large house of detention by

St. Andrea delle Frate was already full, but the people continued to

hold out. They had disconnected the gas at the gasometer and cut the

electric wires, and the city was plunged in darkness.

"Tell the electric light company to turn on the flashlight from Monte

Mario," said the Baron.

And when the voices ceased in the drawing-room there came the deadened

sound of the Countess's frightened treble behind the wall.

"O Holy Virgin, full of grace, save me! It would be a sin to let me die

to-night! Holy Virgin, see! I have given thee two more candles. Art

thou not satisfied? Save me from murder, Mother of God."

Roma saw another phase of her vision. It was filled with a new face,

which made her at once happy and unhappy, proud and ashamed. Hitherto

the only condition on which she had been able to live with the secret of

her life was that she should think nothing about it. Now she was

compelled to think, and she was asking herself if it was her duty to

confess.

Before she married David Rossi she must tell him everything. She saw

herself trying to do so. He was looking vacantly before him with the

deep furrow that came to his forehead when he was strongly moved. She

had sobbed out her story, telling all, excusing nothing, and now she was

waiting for him to speak. He would take her side, he would tell her she

had been more sinned against than sinning, that she had been young and

alone at the mercy of an evil man, and that her will had not consented.

"No, no! It is impossible!" she cried aloud, and, startled by the sound

of her voice, the Baron came into the room.

"My dear child!" he said, and he picked her up from the floor. "I shall

never be able to forgive myself if you take things like this. Every tear

you shed will burn my flesh like fire. Come now, dry these beautiful

eyes and be calm."

She did not listen to him, but leaning on the stove and fingering with

one hand the frame of her father's picture which hung above it, she

said:

"I see now that happiness was not for me. There must be some punishment

for every sin, however little one has been guilty of it, and perhaps

this is God's way of asking for an expiation. It is very, very hard ...

it seems more than I deserve ... and heavier than I can bear ... but

there is no help for it."

The tears she brushed from her eyes seemed to be gathering in her

throat.

"The bitterest part of it is that I must make others suffer for it also.

He must suffer who has loved and trusted me. His love for me, my love

for him, this has been dragging him down since the first day I knew him.

Perhaps he is in prison by this time."

Sobs interrupted her for a moment, and in a caressing tone the Baron

tried to comfort her. It was natural that she should feel troubled, very

natural and very womanly. But time was the great remedy for human ills.

It would heal everything.

"Roma, you have wounded and humiliated and insulted me, but you are the

only woman in the world I would give one straw to have. I will make you

the wife of the Dictator of Italy, and when all these troubles are over

and you are great, and have forgotten what has taken place...."

"I can never forget and I don't want to be great. I only want to be

good. Leave me!"

"You _are_ good. You have always been good. What happened was my fault

alone, and you have nothing to reproach yourself with. I found you

growing up to be a great woman, and passing out of my legal control,

while I was bound down to a poor, helpless, living corpse. Some day you

would meet a younger, freer man, and you would be lost to me for good.

Wasn't it human to try to hold you to me until the time came when I

could claim you altogether? And if meanwhile this man has

interposed...."

He pointed to the bust on the pedestal. She looked up at it, and then

dropped her head.

"Put the man out of your mind, my dear, and all will be well. Probably

he is in the hands of the authorities already. God grant it may be so!

No trouble about his arrest this time! It cannot be complicated by the

danger of scandal. Nobody else's name and character will be concerned in

it. And if it serves to dispose of a dangerous man and a subversive

politician, I am willing to let everything else sleep."

He paused a moment, and then added in his most incisive accents: "But if

not, the law must take its course, and Roma Roselli must complete what

Roma Volonna has begun."

At that moment Felice's dark form stood against the light in the open

door.

"Commendatore Angelelli and Charles Minghelli, Excellency."

As the Baron went back to the drawing-room Roma returned to the window.

Scales of snow adhered to the glass, and it was difficult to see

anything outside. But the masses of shadow and sheets of light were

gone, and the city lay in utter darkness. The sobbing sounds, the

crackle of musketry and the rumble of thunder were all gone, and the air

was empty and void.

At one moment there was a soft patter as of a flock of sheep passing

under the window in the darkness. It was a company of riflemen going at

a quick march over the snow, with torches and lanterns.

Voices came from the next room, and Roma found herself listening.

"Apparently the insurrection is suppressed, your Excellency."

"I congratulate you."

"The soldiers are patrolling the streets, and all is quiet."

"Good!"

"We have some hundreds of rioters in the house of detention, and the

military courts will begin to sit to-morrow morning."

"Excellent!"

"The misadventures have been few and unimportant, the child I spoke of

being the only one killed."

"You have discovered whose child it was?"

"Yes. Unluckily...."

Roma felt dizzy. A thought had flashed upon her.

"It is the child of Donna Roma's man, Bruno Rocco, and apparently...."

A choking cry rang through the room. Was it herself who made it?

"Go on, Commendatore. Apparently...."

"The child was dressed in some carnival costume, and apparently he was

on his way to this house."

Roma's dizziness increased, and to save herself from falling she caught

at a side-table that stood under the bust.

On this table were some sculptor's tools--a chisel and a small mallet,

with which she had been working.

There was an interval in which the voices were deadened and confused.

Then they became clear and sharp as before.

"But the most important fact you have not yet given me. I trust you are

only saving it up for the last. The Deputy Rossi is arrested?"

"Unfortunately ... Excellency...."

"No?"

"He left home immediately after the outbreak and has not been seen

since. Presently the flashlight will be turned on by a separate battery

from Monte Mario, and every corner of the city shall be searched. But we

fear he is gone."

"Gone?"

"Perhaps by the train that left just before the signal."

Roma felt a cry rising to her throat again, but she put up her hand to

keep it down.

"No matter! Commendatore, send telegrams after the train to all stations

up to the frontier, with orders that nobody is to alight until every

carriage has been overhauled. Minghelli, go to the Consulta immediately,

and ask the Minister of Foreign Affairs to despatch a portrait of Rossi

to every foreign Government."

"But no portrait exists, Excellency. It was a difficulty I found in

England."

"Yes, there is a portrait. Come this way."

Roma felt the room going round as the Baron came into it and switched on

the light.

"_There_ is the only portrait of the illustrious Deputy, and our hostess

will lend it to be photographed."

"Never!" said Roma, and taking up the mallet she struck the bust a heavy

blow, and it fell in fragments to the floor.

Half-an-hour afterwards Roma was sitting amid the wreck of her work when

the Baron, wearing his fur-lined overcoat and pulling on his gloves,

came into the boudoir.

"I am compelled," he said, "to inflict my presence upon you for a moment

longer in order to tell you what my attitude in the future is to be, and

what feelings are to guide you. I shall continue to think of you as my

wife according to the law of nature, and of the man who has come between

us as your lover. I will not give you up to him, whatever happens; and

if he tries to take you away, or if you try to go to him, you must be

prepared to find that I offer every resistance. Two passions are now

engaged against the man, and I will not shrink from any course that

seems necessary to subdue either him or you, or both."

A moment afterwards she heard the patrol challenging him on the piazza.

Then "Pardon, Excellency," and the soft swish of carriage wheels in the

snow.