If Baron Volterra did not choose to sell the Palazzo Conti to the first
comer, he doubtless knew his own business best, and he was not
answerable to every one for his opinion that the fine old building was
worth a good deal more than the highest offer he had yet received.
Everybody knew that the palace was for sale, and some of the attempts
made to buy it were openly discussed. A speculator had offered four
hundred thousand francs for it, a rich South American had offered half
a million; it was rumoured that the Vatican would give five hundred and
fifty thousand, provided that the timbers of the carved ceilings were
in good condition, but Volterra steadily refused to allow any of the
carvings to be disturbed in order to examine the beams. During several
days a snuffy little man with a clever face poked about with a light in
dark places between floors, trying to find out whether the wood were
sound or rotten, and asking all sorts of questions of the old porter,
and of two workmen who went with him, and who had been employed in
repairs in the palace, as their fathers had been before them, perhaps
for generations. But their answers were never quite satisfactory, and
the snuffy man disappeared to the mysterious regions beyond the Tiber,
and did not come back.
Some people, knowing the ways of the Romans, might have inferred that
the two workmen, a mason and a carpenter, had not been treated by Baron
Volterra in such a way as to make them give a favourable report; and as
he seemed perfectly indifferent about the result this is quite
possible. At all events the carpenter made out that he could not get at
the beams in question, without moving the decorations which covered
them, and the mason affirmed that it was quite impossible to get a view
of the foundations of the north-west corner of the palace, which were
said to be weak, without knocking a hole through a wall upon which
depended such solidity as there was. It was useless, he said. The
snuffy gentleman could ask the Baron, if he pleased, and the Baron
could do what he liked since the property now belonged to him: but he,
the mason, would not lay hand to pick or crowbar without the Baron's
express authorization. The Baron was a Senator of the Kingdom, said the
mason, and could therefore of course send him to penal servitude in the
galleys for life, if he pleased. That is the average Roman workman's
idea of justice. The snuffy expert, who looked very much like a poor
priest in plain clothes, though he evidently knew his business, made no
reply, nor any attempt to help the mason's conscience with money.
But he stood a little while by the wall, with his lantern in his hands,
and presently put his ear to the damp stones, and listened.
"There is running water somewhere not far off," he said, looking keenly
at the workman.
"It is certainly not wine," answered the man, with a rough laugh, for
he thought it a very good joke.
"Are there any 'lost waters' under the palace?" asked the expert.
"I do not know," replied the mason, looking away from the lantern
towards the gloom of the cellars.
"I believe," said the snuffy gentleman, setting down his lantern, and
taking a large pinch from a battered silver snuff-box, on which the
arms of Pius Ninth were still distinguishable, "I believe that the
nearest 'lost water' to this place is somewhere under the Vicolo del
Soldati."
"I do not know."
The expert skilfully inserted the brown dust into his nostrils with his
right thumb, scarcely wasting a grain in the operation.
"You do not seem to know much," he observed thoughtfully, and took up
his lantern again.
"I know what I have been taught," replied the mason without resentment.
The expert glanced at him quickly, but said nothing more. His
inspection was finished, and he led the way out of the intricate
cellars as if he knew them by heart, though he had only passed through
them once, and he left the palace on foot when he had brushed some of
the dust from his shabby clothes.
The porter looked enquiringly at the two men, as they filled little
clay pipes that had cane stems, standing under the deep entrance.
"Not even the price of half a litre of wine," said the mason in answer
to the mute question.
"Church stuff," observed the carpenter discontentedly.
The porter nodded gravely, and the men nodded to him as they went out
into the street. They had nothing more to do that day, and they turned
into the dark little wine shop, where the withered bush stuck out of
the blackened grating. They sat down opposite each other, with the end
of the grimy board of the table between them, and the carpenter made a
sign. The host brought a litre measure of thin red wine and set it down
between them with two tumblers. He was ghastly pale, flabby and sullen,
with a quarter of an inch of stubbly black beard on his unhealthy face.
The carpenter poured a few drops of wine into one of the tumblers,
shook it about, turned it into the other, shook it again, and finally
poured it on the unctuous stone floor beside him. Then he filled both
glasses to the brim, and both men drank in silence.
They repeated the operation, and after the second glass there was not
much left in the measure. The flabby host had retired to the gloomy
vaults within, where he played cards with a crony by the light of a
small smoking lamp with a cracked chimney.
"That was the very place, was it not?" asked the carpenter at last, in
a low tone, and almost without moving his lips.
The mason said nothing, but shrugged his shoulders, in a sort of
enigmatic assent. Both drank again, and after a long time the carpenter
smiled faintly.
"He was looking for the 'lost water,'" he said, in a tone of contempt.
The faint smile slowly reflected itself in the mason's face. The two
finished their wine, lit their pipes again, left the price of their
drink on the table without disturbing the host and went away.
So far as any outsider could have judged, the expert's curiosity and
the few words exchanged by the workmen referred to the so-called "lost
water," which might be somewhere under the north-west corner of the
Palazzo Conti, and no one unacquainted with subterranean Rome could
possibly have understood what any of the three meant.
The "lost waters" of Rome are very mysterious. Here and there, under
old streets and far down amongst the foundations of ancient palaces,
there are channels of running water which have no apparent connection
with any of the aqueducts now restored and in use. It is a water that
comes no one knows whence and finds its way to the Tiber, no one knows
how. It is generally clear and very cold, and in the days when the
aqueducts were all broken and most people drank of the river, the "lost
water" was highly prized. It appears in the most unexpected places,
sometimes in great quantities and seriously interfering with any
attempt to lay the foundations of a new building, sometimes black and
silent, under a huge flagstone in an old courtyard, sometimes running
with an audible rush through hidden passages deeper than the deepest
cellars. It has puzzled archaeologists, hydraulic engineers and
architects for generations, its presence has never been satisfactorily
explained, there seems not to be any plan of the city which shows its
whereabouts, and the modern improvements of the Tiber's banks do not
appear to have affected its occult courses. By tradition handed down
from father to son, certain workmen, chiefly masons and always genuine
Romans, claim to know more about it than other people; but that is as
much as can be said. It is known as the "lost water," and it rises and
falls, and seeks different levels in unaccountable ways, as water will
when it is confined under the earth but is here and there confronted by
the pressure of the air.
But though the old-fashioned Roman workman still looks upon all
traditional information about his trade as secret and never to be
revealed, that fact alone might seem insufficient to account for the
behaviour of Gigi the carpenter and of Toto the mason under the
particular circumstances here narrated, still less for the contempt
they showed for the snuffy expert who was apparently looking for the
"lost water." An invisible witness would have gathered that they had
something of more importance to conceal. To the expert, their conduct
and answers must have been thoroughly unsatisfactory, for the Vatican
was even said to have refused to pay the additional fifty thousand
francs, On the ground that the state of the foundations was doubtful
and that the timbers of the upper story were not sound.
Baron Volterra's equanimity was not in the least disturbed by this. On
the contrary, instead of setting the price lower, he frankly told all
applicants, through his agent, that he was in no hurry to sell, as he
had reason to believe that the land about the Palazzo Conti would soon
rise in value. He had settled with the representatives of the Conti
family, and it was said that he had behaved generously. The family had
nothing left after the crash, which might partially account for such an
exhibition of generosity; but it was hinted that Baron Volterra had
given them the option of buying back the palace and some other property
upon which he had foreclosed, if they should be able to pay for it in
ten years.
Soon after the visit of the snuffy expert, Volterra's agent informed
the porter that a gentleman had taken the small apartment on the
intermediate story, which had formerly been occupied by a chaplain but
had been disused for years. It had been part of the Conti's folly that
they had steadily refused to let any part of the vast building since
the old Prince's death.
On the following day, the new-comer moved in, with his belongings,
consisting of a small quantity of new furniture, barely sufficient for
himself and his one servant, and a number of very heavy cases, which
turned out to be full of books. Gigi, the carpenter, was at once sent
for to put up plain shelves for these, and he took stock of the lodger
while the latter was explaining what he wanted.
"He is a gentleman," said Gigi to Toto, that very evening, as they
stood filling their pipes at the corner of the Vicolo del Soldati. "His
name is Malipieri. He is as black as the horses at a funeral of the
first-class, and he is not a Roman."
"Who knows what race of animal this may be?" Toto was not in a good
humour.
"He is of the race of gentlemen," asserted Gigi confidently.
"Then he will end badly," observed Toto. "Let us go and drink. It is
better."
"Let us go and drink," repeated Gigi. "You have a sensible thought
sometimes. I think this man is an engineer, or an architect. He wants a
draughtsman's table."
"Evil befall his little dead ones, whatever he is," returned the other,
by way of welcome to the young man who had moved into the palace.
"He advanced me ten francs to buy wood for the shelves," said Gigi, who
was by far the more cheerful of the two.
"Come and drink," returned Toto, relevantly or irrelevantly. "That is
much better."
So they turned into the wine shop.