THE THREE CITIES

 ROME

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 PREFACE

IN submitting to the English-speaking public this second volume of M. Zola's trilogy "Lourdes, Rome, Paris, " I have no prefatory remarks tooffer on behalf of the author, whose views on Rome, its past, present, and future, will be found fully expounded in the following pages. That abook of this character will, like its forerunner "Lourdes, " provokeconsiderable controversy is certain, but comment or rejoinder may well bepostponed until that controversy has arisen. At present then I onlydesire to say, that in spite of the great labour which I have bestowed onthis translation, I am sensible of its shortcomings, and in a work ofsuch length, such intricacy, and such a wide range of subject, it willnot be surprising if some slips are discovered. Any errors which may bepointed out to me, however, shall be rectified in subsequent editions. Ihave given, I think, the whole essence of M. Zola's text; but he himselfhas admitted to me that he has now and again allowed his pen to run awaywith him, and thus whilst sacrificing nothing of his sense I have attimes abbreviated his phraseology so as slightly to condense the book. Imay add that there are no chapter headings in the original, and that thecircumstances under which the translation was made did not permit me tosupply any whilst it was passing through the press; however, as someindication of the contents of the book--which treats of many more thingsthan are usually found in novels--may be a convenience to the reader, Ihave prepared a table briefly epitomising the chief features of eachsuccessive chapter. 

 E. A. V. 

 MERTON, SURREY, ENGLAND, April, 1896. 

CONTENTS TO PART I

I"NEW ROME"--Abbe Froment in the Eternal City--His First Impressions--HisBook and the Rejuvenation of Christianity

II"BLACK MOUTH, RED SOUL"--The Boccaneras, their Mansion, Ancestors, History, and Friends

IIIROMANS OF THE CHURCH--Cardinals Boccanera and Sanguinetti--AbbesPaparelli and Santobono--Don Vigilio--Monsignor Nani

CONTENTS TO PART II

IVROMANS OF NEW ITALY--The Pradas and the Saccos--The Corso and the Pincio

VTHE BLOOD OF AUGUSTUS--The Palaces of the Caesars--The Capitol--TheForum--The Appian Way--The Campagna--The Catacombs--St. Peter's. 

VIVENUS AND HERCULES--The Vatican--The Sixtine Chapel--Michael Angelo andRaffaelle--Botticelli and Bernini--Gods and Goddesses--The Gardens--LeoXIII--The Revolt of Passion

CONTENTS TO PART III

VIIPRINCE AND PONTIFF--The International Pilgrimage--The Papal Revenue--AFunction at St. Peter's--The Pope-King--The Temporal Power

VIIITHE POOR AND THE POPE--The Building Mania--The Financial Crash--TheHorrors of the Castle Fields--The Roman Workman--May Christ's VicarGamble?--Hopes and Fears of the Papacy

IXTITO's WARNING--Aspects of Rome--The Via Giulia--The Tiber by Day--TheGardens--The Villa Medici---The Squares--The Fountains--Poussin and theCampagna--The Campo Verano--The Trastevere--The "Palaces"--Aristocracy, Middle Class, Democracy--The Tiber by Night

CONTENTS TO PART IV

XFROM PILLAR TO POST--The Propaganda--The Index--Dominicans, Jesuits, Franciscans--The Secular Clergy--Roman Worship--Freemasonry--CardinalVicar and Cardinal Secretary--The Inquisition. 

XIPOISON!--Frascati--A Cardinal and his Creature--Albano, Castel Gandolfo, Nemi--Across the Campagna--An Osteria--Destiny on the March

XIITHE AGONY OF PASSION--A Roman Gala--The Buongiovannis--The GreyWorld--The Triumph of Benedetta--King Humbert and Queen Margherita--TheFig-tree of Judas

XIIIDESTINY!--A Happy Morning--The Mid-day Meal--Dario and the Figs--ExtremeUnction--Benedetta's Curse--The Lovers' Death

CONTENTS TO PART V

XIVSUBMISSION--The Vatican by Night--The Papal Anterooms--Some GreatPopes--His Holiness's Bed-room--Pierre's Reception--Papal Wrath--Pierre'sAppeal--The Pope's Policy--Dogma and Lourdes--Pierre Reprobates his Book

XVA HOUSE OF MOURNING--Lying in State--Mother and Son--Princess andWork-girl--Nani the Jesuit--Rival Cardinals--The Pontiff of Destruction

XVIJUDGMENT--Pierre and Orlando--Italian Rome--Wanted, a Democracy--Italyand France--The Rome of the Anarchists--The Agony of Guilt--ABotticelli--The Papacy Condemned--The Coming Schism--The March ofScience--The Destruction of Rome--The Victory of Reason--Justice notCharity--Departure--The March of Civilisation--One Fatherland for AllMankind

 ROME

 PART I

I

THE train had been greatly delayed during the night between Pisa andCivita Vecchia, and it was close upon nine o'clock in the morning when, after a fatiguing journey of twenty-five hours' duration, Abbe PierreFroment at last reached Rome. He had brought only a valise with him, and, springing hastily out of the railway carriage amidst the scramble of thearrival, he brushed the eager porters aside, intent on carrying histrifling luggage himself, so anxious was he to reach his destination, tobe alone, and look around him. And almost immediately, on the Piazza deiCinquecento, in front of the railway station, he climbed into one of thesmall open cabs ranged alongside the footwalk, and placed the valise nearhim after giving the driver this address:

"Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera. "*

 * Boccanera mansion, Julia Street. 

It was a Monday, the 3rd of September, a beautifully bright and mildmorning, with a clear sky overhead. The cabby, a plump little man withsparkling eyes and white teeth, smiled on realising by Pierre's accentthat he had to deal with a French priest. Then he whipped up his leanhorse, and the vehicle started off at the rapid pace customary to theclean and cheerful cabs of Rome. However, on reaching the Piazza delleTerme, after skirting the greenery of a little public garden, the manturned round, still smiling, and pointing to some ruins with his whip, "The baths of Diocletian, " said he in broken French, like an obligingdriver who is anxious to court favour with foreigners in order to securetheir custom. 

Then, at a fast trot, the vehicle descended the rapid slope of the ViaNazionale, which dips down from the summit of the Viminalis, * where therailway station is situated. And from that moment the driver scarcelyceased turning round and pointing at the monuments with his whip. In thisbroad new thoroughfare there were only buildings of recent erection. Still, the wave of the cabman's whip became more pronounced and his voicerose to a higher key, with a somewhat ironical inflection, when he gavethe name of a huge and still chalky pile on his left, a gigantic erectionof stone, overladen with sculptured work-pediments and statues. 

 * One of the seven hills on which Rome is built. The other six are the Capitoline, Aventine, Quirinal, Esquiline, Coelian, and Palatine. These names will perforce frequently occur in the present narrative. 

"The National Bank!" he said. 

Pierre, however, during the week which had followed his resolve to makethe journey, had spent wellnigh every day in studying Roman topography inmaps and books. Thus he could have directed his steps to any given spotwithout inquiring his way, and he anticipated most of the driver'sexplanations. At the same time he was disconcerted by the sudden slopes, the perpetually recurring hills, on which certain districts rose, houseabove house, in terrace fashion. On his right-hand clumps of greenerywere now climbing a height, and above them stretched a long bare yellowbuilding of barrack or convent-like aspect. 

"The Quirinal, the King's palace, " said the driver. 

Lower down, as the cab turned across a triangular square, Pierre, onraising his eyes, was delighted to perceive a sort of aerial garden highabove him--a garden which was upheld by a lofty smooth wall, and whencethe elegant and vigorous silhouette of a parasol pine, many centuriesold, rose aloft into the limpid heavens. At this sight he realised allthe pride and grace of Rome. 

"The Villa Aldobrandini, " the cabman called. 

Then, yet lower down, there came a fleeting vision which decisivelyimpassioned Pierre. The street again made a sudden bend, and in onecorner, beyond a short dim alley, there was a blazing gap of light. On alower level appeared a white square, a well of sunshine, filled with ablinding golden dust; and amidst all that morning glory there arose agigantic marble column, gilt from base to summit on the side which thesun in rising had laved with its beams for wellnigh eighteen hundredyears. And Pierre was surprised when the cabman told him the name of thecolumn, for in his mind he had never pictured it soaring aloft in such adazzling cavity with shadows all around. It was the column of Trajan. 

The Via Nazionale turned for the last time at the foot of the slope. Andthen other names fell hastily from the driver's lips as his horse went onat a fast trot. There was the Palazzo Colonna, with its garden edged bymeagre cypresses; the Palazzo Torlonia, almost ripped open by recent"improvements"; the Palazzo di Venezia, bare and fearsome, with itscrenelated walls, its stern and tragic appearance, that of some fortressof the middle ages, forgotten there amidst the commonplace life ofnowadays. Pierre's surprise increased at the unexpected aspect whichcertain buildings and streets presented; and the keenest blow of all wasdealt him when the cabman with his whip triumphantly called his attentionto the Corso, a long narrow thoroughfare, about as broad as FleetStreet, * white with sunshine on the left, and black with shadows on theright, whilst at the far end the Piazza del Popolo (the Square of thePeople) showed like a bright star. Was this, then, the heart of the city, the vaunted promenade, the street brimful of life, whither flowed all theblood of Rome?

 * M. Zola likens the Corso to the Rue St. Honore in Paris, but I have thought that an English comparison would be preferable in the present version. --Trans. 

However, the cab was already entering the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, whichfollows the Via Nazionale, these being the two piercings effected rightacross the olden city from the railway station to the bridge of St. Angelo. On the left-hand the rounded apsis of the Gesu church lookedquite golden in the morning brightness. Then, between the church and theheavy Altieri palace which the "improvers" had not dared to demolish, thestreet became narrower, and one entered into cold, damp shade. But amoment afterwards, before the facade of the Gesu, when the square wasreached, the sun again appeared, dazzling, throwing golden sheets oflight around; whilst afar off at the end of the Via di Ara Coeli, steepedin shadow, a glimpse could be caught of some sunlit palm-trees. 

"That's the Capitol yonder, " said the cabman. 

The priest hastily leant to the left, but only espied the patch ofgreenery at the end of the dim corridor-like street. The suddenalternations of warm light and cold shade made him shiver. In front ofthe Palazzo di Venezia, and in front of the Gesu, it had seemed to him asif all the night of ancient times were falling icily upon his shoulders;but at each fresh square, each broadening of the new thoroughfares, therecame a return to light, to the pleasant warmth and gaiety of life. Theyellow sunflashes, in falling from the house fronts, sharply outlined theviolescent shadows. Strips of sky, very blue and very benign, could beperceived between the roofs. And it seemed to Pierre that the air hebreathed had a particular savour, which he could not yet quite define, but it was like that of fruit, and increased the feverishness which hadpossessed him ever since his arrival. 

The Corso Vittorio Emanuele is, in spite of its irregularity, a very finemodern thoroughfare; and for a time Pierre might have fancied himself inany great city full of huge houses let out in flats. But when he passedbefore the Cancelleria, * Bramante's masterpiece, the typical monument ofthe Roman Renascence, his astonishment came back to him and his mindreturned to the mansions which he had previously espied, those bare, huge, heavy edifices, those vast cubes of stone-work resembling hospitalsor prisons. Never would he have imagined that the famous Roman "palaces"were like that, destitute of all grace and fancy and externalmagnificence. However, they were considered very fine and must be so; hewould doubtless end by understanding things, but for that he wouldrequire reflection. **

 * Formerly the residence of the Papal Vice-Chancellors. 

 ** It is as well to point out at once that a palazzo is not a palace as we understand the term, but rather a mansion. --Trans. 

All at once the cab turned out of the populous Corso Vittorio Emanueleinto a succession of winding alleys, through which it had difficulty inmaking its way. Quietude and solitude now came back again; the oldencity, cold and somniferous, followed the new city with its brightsunshine and its crowds. Pierre remembered the maps which he hadconsulted, and realised that he was drawing near to the Via Giulia, andthereupon his curiosity, which had been steadily increasing, augmented tosuch a point that he suffered from it, full of despair at not seeing moreand learning more at once. In the feverish state in which he had foundhimself ever since leaving the station, his astonishment at not findingthings such as he had expected, the many shocks that his imagination hadreceived, aggravated his passion beyond endurance, and brought him anacute desire to satisfy himself immediately. Nine o'clock had struck buta few minutes previously, he had the whole morning before him to repairto the Boccanera palace, so why should he not at once drive to theclassic spot, the summit whence one perceives the whole of Rome spreadout upon her seven hills? And when once this thought had entered into hismind it tortured him until he was at last compelled to yield to it. 

The driver no longer turned his head, so that Pierre rose up to give himthis new address: "To San Pietro in Montorio!"

On hearing him the man at first looked astonished, unable to understand. He indicated with his whip that San Pietro was yonder, far away. However, as the priest insisted, he again smiled complacently, with a friendly nodof his head. All right! For his own part he was quite willing. 

The horse then went on at a more rapid pace through the maze of narrowstreets. One of these was pent between high walls, and the daylightdescended into it as into a deep trench. But at the end came a suddenreturn to light, and the Tiber was crossed by the antique bridge ofSixtus IV, right and left of which stretched the new quays, amidst theravages and fresh plaster-work of recent erections. On the other side ofthe river the Trastevere district also was ripped open, and the vehicleascended the slope of the Janiculum by a broad thoroughfare where largeslabs bore the name of Garibaldi. For the last time the driver made agesture of good-natured pride as he named this triumphal route. 

"Via Garibaldi!"

The horse had been obliged to slacken its pace, and Pierre, mastered bychildish impatience, turned round to look at the city as by degrees itspread out and revealed itself behind him. The ascent was a long one;fresh districts were ever rising up, even to the most distant hills. Then, in the increasing emotion which made his heart beat, the youngpriest felt that he was spoiling the contentment of his desire by thusgradually satisfying it, slowly and but partially effecting his conquestof the horizon. He wished to receive the shock full in the face, tobehold all Rome at one glance, to gather the holy city together, andembrace the whole of it at one grasp. And thereupon he musteredsufficient strength of mind to refrain from turning round any more, inspite of the impulses of his whole being. 

There is a spacious terrace on the summit of the incline. The church ofSan Pietro in Montorio stands there, on the spot where, as some say, St. Peter was crucified. The square is bare and brown, baked by the hotsummer suns; but a little further away in the rear, the clear and noisywaters of the Acqua Paola fall bubbling from the three basins of amonumental fountain amidst sempiternal freshness. And alongside theterrace parapet, on the very crown of the Trastevere, there are alwaysrows of tourists, slim Englishmen and square-built Germans, agape withtraditional admiration, or consulting their guide-books in order toidentify the monuments. 

Pierre sprang lightly from the cab, leaving his valise on the seat, andmaking a sign to the driver, who went to join the row of waiting cabs, and remained philosophically seated on his box in the full sunlight, hishead drooping like that of his horse, both resigning themselves to thecustomary long stoppage. 

Meantime Pierre, erect against the parapet, in his tight black cassock, and with his bare feverish hands nervously clenched, was gazing beforehim with all his eyes, with all his soul. Rome! Rome! the city of theCaesars, the city of the Popes, the Eternal City which has twiceconquered the world, the predestined city of the glowing dream in whichhe had indulged for months! At last it was before him, at last his eyesbeheld it! During the previous days some rainstorms had abated theintense August heat, and on that lovely September morning the air hadfreshened under the pale blue of the spotless far-spreading heavens. Andthe Rome that Pierre beheld was a Rome steeped in mildness, a visionaryRome which seemed to evaporate in the clear sunshine. A fine bluey haze, scarcely perceptible, as delicate as gauze, hovered over the roofs of thelow-lying districts; whilst the vast Campagna, the distant hills, diedaway in a pale pink flush. At first Pierre distinguished nothing, soughtno particular edifice or spot, but gave sight and soul alike to the wholeof Rome, to the living colossus spread out below him, on a soilcompounded of the dust of generations. Each century had renewed thecity's glory as with the sap of immortal youth. And that which struckPierre, that which made his heart leap within him, was that he found Romesuch as he had desired to find her, fresh and youthful, with a volatile, almost incorporeal, gaiety of aspect, smiling as at the hope of a newlife in the pure dawn of a lovely day. 

And standing motionless before the sublime vista, with his hands stillclenched and burning, Pierre in a few minutes again lived the last threeyears of his life. Ah! what a terrible year had the first been, spent inhis little house at Neuilly, with doors and windows ever closed, burrowing there like some wounded animal suffering unto death. He hadcome back from Lourdes with his soul desolate, his heart bleeding, withnought but ashes within him. Silence and darkness fell upon the ruins ofhis love and his faith. Days and days went by, without a pulsation of hisveins, without the faintest gleam arising to brighten the gloom of hisabandonment. His life was a mechanical one; he awaited the necessarycourage to resume the tenor of existence in the name of sovereign reason, which had imposed upon him the sacrifice of everything. Why was he notstronger, more resistant, why did he not quietly adapt his life to hisnew opinions? As he was unwilling to cast off his cassock, throughfidelity to the love of one and disgust of backsliding, why did he notseek occupation in some science suited to a priest, such as astronomy orarchaeology? The truth was that something, doubtless his mother's spirit, wept within him, an infinite, distracted love which nothing had yetsatisfied and which ever despaired of attaining contentment. Therein laythe perpetual suffering of his solitude: beneath the lofty dignity ofreason regained, the wound still lingered, raw and bleeding. 

One autumn evening, however, under a dismal rainy sky, chance brought himinto relations with an old priest, Abbe Rose, who was curate at thechurch of Ste. Marguerite, in the Faubourg St. Antoine. He went to seeAbbe Rose in the Rue de Charonne, where in the depths of a damp groundfloor he had transformed three rooms into an asylum for abandonedchildren, whom he picked up in the neighbouring streets. And from thatmoment Pierre's life changed, a fresh and all-powerful source of interesthad entered into it, and by degrees he became the old priest's passionatehelper. It was a long way from Neuilly to the Rue de Charonne, and atfirst he only made the journey twice a week. But afterwards he bestirredhimself every day, leaving home in the morning and not returning untilnight. As the three rooms no longer sufficed for the asylum, he rentedthe first floor of the house, reserving for himself a chamber in whichultimately he often slept. And all his modest income was expended there, in the prompt succouring of poor children; and the old priest, delighted, touched to tears by the young devoted help which had come to him fromheaven, would often embrace Pierre, weeping, and call him a child of God. 

It was then that Pierre knew want and wretchedness--wicked, abominablewretchedness; then that he lived amidst it for two long years. Theacquaintance began with the poor little beings whom he picked up on thepavements, or whom kind-hearted neighbours brought to him now that theasylum was known in the district--little boys, little girls, tiny mitesstranded on the streets whilst their fathers and mothers were toiling, drinking, or dying. The father had often disappeared, the mother had gonewrong, drunkenness and debauchery had followed slack times into the home;and then the brood was swept into the gutter, and the younger ones halfperished of cold and hunger on the footways, whilst their elders betookthemselves to courses of vice and crime. One evening Pierre rescued fromthe wheels of a stone-dray two little nippers, brothers, who could noteven give him an address, tell him whence they had come. On anotherevening he returned to the asylum with a little girl in his arms, afair-haired little angel, barely three years old, whom he had found on abench, and who sobbed, saying that her mother had left her there. And bya logical chain of circumstances, after dealing with the fleshless, pitiful fledglings ousted from their nests, he came to deal with theparents, to enter their hovels, penetrating each day further and furtherinto a hellish sphere, and ultimately acquiring knowledge of all itsfrightful horror, his heart meantime bleeding, rent by terrified anguishand impotent charity. 

Oh! the grievous City of Misery, the bottomless abyss of human sufferingand degradation--how frightful were his journeys through it during thosetwo years which distracted his whole being! In that Ste. Margueritedistrict of Paris, in the very heart of that Faubourg St. Antoine, soactive and so brave for work, however hard, he discovered no end ofsordid dwellings, whole lanes and alleys of hovels without light or air, cellar-like in their dampness, and where a multitude of wretches wallowedand suffered as from poison. All the way up the shaky staircases one'sfeet slipped upon filth. On every story there was the same destitution, dirt, and promiscuity. Many windows were paneless, and in swept the windhowling, and the rain pouring torrentially. Many of the inmates slept onthe bare tiled floors, never unclothing themselves. There was neitherfurniture nor linen, the life led there was essentially an animal life, acommingling of either sex and of every age--humanity lapsing intoanimality through lack of even indispensable things, through indigence ofso complete a character that men, women, and children fought even withtooth and nail for the very crumbs swept from the tables of the rich. Andthe worst of it all was the degradation of the human being; this was nocase of the free naked savage, hunting and devouring his prey in theprimeval forests; here civilised man was found, sunk into brutishness, with all the stigmas of his fall, debased, disfigured, and enfeebled, amidst the luxury and refinement of that city of Paris which is one ofthe queens of the world. 

In every household Pierre heard the same story. There had been youth andgaiety at the outset, brave acceptance of the law that one must work. Then weariness had come; what was the use of always toiling if one werenever to get rich? And so, by way of snatching a share of happiness, thehusband turned to drink; the wife neglected her home, also drinking attimes, and letting the children grow up as they might. Sordidsurroundings, ignorance, and overcrowding did the rest. In the greatmajority of cases, prolonged lack of work was mostly to blame; for thisnot only empties the drawers of the savings hidden away in them, butexhausts human courage, and tends to confirmed habits of idleness. Duringlong weeks the workshops empty, and the arms of the toilers losestrength. In all Paris, so feverishly inclined to action, it isimpossible to find the slightest thing to do. And then the husband comeshome in the evening with tearful eyes, having vainly offered his armseverywhere, having failed even to get a job at street-sweeping, for thatemployment is much sought after, and to secure it one needs influence andprotectors. Is it not monstrous to see a man seeking work that he mayeat, and finding no work and therefore no food in this great cityresplendent and resonant with wealth? The wife does not eat, the childrendo not eat. And then comes black famine, brutishness, and finally revoltand the snapping of all social ties under the frightful injustice metedout to poor beings who by their weakness are condemned to death. And theold workman, he whose limbs have been worn out by half a century of hardtoil, without possibility of saving a copper, on what pallet of agony, inwhat dark hole must he not sink to die? Should he then be finished offwith a mallet, like a crippled beast of burden, on the day when ceasingto work he also ceases to eat? Almost all pass away in the hospitals, others disappear, unknown, swept off by the muddy flow of the streets. One morning, on some rotten straw in a loathsome hovel, Pierre found apoor devil who had died of hunger and had been forgotten there for aweek. The rats had devoured his face. 

But it was particularly on an evening of the last winter that Pierre'sheart had overflowed with pity. Awful in winter time are the sufferingsof the poor in their fireless hovels, where the snow penetrates by everychink. The Seine rolls blocks of ice, the soil is frost-bound, in allsorts of callings there is an enforced cessation of work. Bands ofurchins, barefooted, scarcely clad, hungry and racked by coughing, wanderabout the ragpickers' "rents" and are carried off by sudden hurricanes ofconsumption. Pierre found families, women with five and six children, whohad not eaten for three days, and who huddled together in heaps to try tokeep themselves warm. And on that terrible evening, before anybody else, he went down a dark passage and entered a room of terror, where he foundthat a mother had just committed suicide with her five littleones--driven to it by despair and hunger--a tragedy of misery which for afew hours would make all Paris shudder! There was not an article offurniture or linen left in the place; it had been necessary to selleverything bit by bit to a neighbouring dealer. There was nothing but thestove where the charcoal was still smoking and a half-emptied palliasseon which the mother had fallen, suckling her last-born, a babe but threemonths old. And a drop of blood had trickled from the nipple of herbreast, towards which the dead infant still protruded its eager lips. Twolittle girls, three and five years old, two pretty little blondes, werealso lying there, sleeping the eternal sleep side by side; whilst of thetwo boys, who were older, one had succumbed crouching against the wallwith his head between his hands, and the other had passed through thelast throes on the floor, struggling as though he had sought to crawl onhis knees to the window in order to open it. Some neighbours, hurryingin, told Pierre the fearful commonplace story; slow ruin, the fatherunable to find work, perchance taking to drink, the landlord weary ofwaiting, threatening the family with expulsion, and the mother losing herhead, thirsting for death, and prevailing on her little ones to die withher, while her husband, who had been out since the morning, was vainlyscouring the streets. Just as the Commissary of Police arrived to verifywhat had happened, the poor devil returned, and when he had seen andunderstood things, he fell to the ground like a stunned ox, and raised aprolonged, plaintive howl, such a poignant cry of death that the wholeterrified street wept at it. 

Both in his ears and in his heart Pierre carried away with him thathorrible cry, the plaint of a condemned race expiring amidst abandonmentand hunger; and that night he could neither eat nor sleep. Was itpossible that such abomination, such absolute destitution, such blackmisery leading straight to death should exist in the heart of that greatcity of Paris, brimful of wealth, intoxicated with enjoyment, flingingmillions out of the windows for mere pleasure? What! there should on oneside be such colossal fortunes, so many foolish fancies gratified, withlives endowed with every happiness, whilst on the other was foundinveterate poverty, lack even of bread, absence of every hope, andmothers killing themselves with their babes, to whom they had nought tooffer but the blood of their milkless breast! And a feeling of revoltstirred Pierre; he was for a moment conscious of the derisive futility ofcharity. What indeed was the use of doing that which he did--picking upthe little ones, succouring the parents, prolonging the sufferings of theaged? The very foundations of the social edifice were rotten; all wouldsoon collapse amid mire and blood. A great act of justice alone couldsweep the old world away in order that the new world might be built. Andat that moment he realised so keenly how irreparable was the breach, howirremediable the evil, how deathly the cancer of misery, that heunderstood the actions of the violent, and was himself ready to acceptthe devastating and purifying whirlwind, the regeneration of the world byflame and steel, even as when in the dim ages Jehovah in His wrath sentfire from heaven to cleanse the accursed cities of the plains. 

However, on hearing him sob that evening, Abbe Rose came up toremonstrate in fatherly fashion. The old priest was a saint, endowed withinfinite gentleness and infinite hope. Why despair indeed when one hadthe Gospel? Did not the divine commandment, "Love one another, " sufficefor the salvation of the world? He, Abbe Rose, held violence in horrorand was wont to say that, however great the evil, it would soon beovercome if humanity would but turn backward to the age of humility, simplicity, and purity, when Christians lived together in innocentbrotherhood. What a delightful picture he drew of evangelical society, ofwhose second coming he spoke with quiet gaiety as though it were to takeplace on the very morrow! And Pierre, anxious to escape from hisfrightful recollections, ended by smiling, by taking pleasure in AbbeRose's bright consoling tale. They chatted until a late hour, and on thefollowing days reverted to the same subject of conversation, one whichthe old priest was very fond of, ever supplying new particulars, andspeaking of the approaching reign of love and justice with the touchingconfidence of a good if simple man, who is convinced that he will not dietill he shall have seen the Deity descend upon earth. 

And now a fresh evolution took place in Pierre's mind. The practice ofbenevolence in that poor district had developed infinite compassion inhis breast, his heart failed him, distracted, rent by contemplation ofthe misery which he despaired of healing. And in this awakening of hisfeelings he often thought that his reason was giving way, he seemed to beretracing his steps towards childhood, to that need of universal lovewhich his mother had implanted in him, and dreamt of chimericalsolutions, awaiting help from the unknown powers. Then his fears, hishatred of the brutality of facts at last brought him an increasing desireto work salvation by love. No time should be lost in seeking to avert thefrightful catastrophe which seemed inevitable, the fratricidal war ofclasses which would sweep the old world away beneath the accumulation ofits crimes. Convinced that injustice had attained its apogee, that butlittle time remained before the vengeful hour when the poor would compelthe rich to part with their possessions, he took pleasure in dreaming ofa peaceful solution, a kiss of peace exchanged by all men, a return tothe pure morals of the Gospel as it had been preached by Jesus. 

Doubts tortured him at the outset. Could olden Catholicism berejuvenated, brought back to the youth and candour of primitiveChristianity? He set himself to study things, reading and questioning, and taking a more and more passionate interest in that great problem ofCatholic socialism which had made no little noise for some years past. And quivering with pity for the wretched, ready as he was for the miracleof fraternisation, he gradually lost such scruples as intelligence mighthave prompted, and persuaded himself that once again Christ would workthe redemption of suffering humanity. At last a precise idea tookpossession of him, a conviction that Catholicism purified, brought backto its original state, would prove the one pact, the supreme law thatmight save society by averting the sanguinary crisis which threatened it. 

When he had quitted Lourdes two years previously, revolted by all itsgross idolatry, his faith for ever dead, but his mind worried by theeverlasting need of the divine which tortures human creatures, a cry hadarisen within him from the deepest recesses of his being: "A newreligion! a new religion!" And it was this new religion, or rather thisrevived religion which he now fancied he had discovered in his desire towork social salvation--ensuring human happiness by means of the onlymoral authority that was erect, the distant outcome of the most admirableimplement ever devised for the government of nations. 

During the period of slow development through which Pierre passed, twomen, apart from Abbe Rose, exercised great influence on him. A benevolentaction brought him into intercourse with Monseigneur Bergerot, a bishopwhom the Pope had recently created a cardinal, in reward for a whole lifeof charity, and this in spite of the covert opposition of the papal/curia/ which suspected the French prelate to be a man of open mind, governing his diocese in paternal fashion. Pierre became more impassionedby his intercourse with this apostle, this shepherd of souls, in whom hedetected one of the good simple leaders that he desired for the futurecommunity. However, his apostolate was influenced even more decisively bymeeting Viscount Philibert de la Choue at the gatherings of certainworkingmen's Catholic associations. A handsome man, with militarymanners, and a long noble-looking face, spoilt by a small and broken nosewhich seemed to presage the ultimate defeat of a badly balanced mind, theViscount was one of the most active agitators of Catholic socialism inFrance. He was the possessor of vast estates, a vast fortune, though itwas said that some unsuccessful agricultural enterprises had alreadyreduced his wealth by nearly one-half. In the department where hisproperty was situated he had been at great pains to establish modelfarms, at which he had put his ideas on Christian socialism intopractice, but success did not seem to follow him. However, it had allhelped to secure his election as a deputy, and he spoke in the Chamber, unfolding the programme of his party in long and stirring speeches. 

Unwearying in his ardour, he also led pilgrimages to Rome, presided overmeetings, and delivered lectures, devoting himself particularly to thepeople, the conquest of whom, so he privately remarked, could aloneensure the triumph of the Church. And thus he exercised considerableinfluence over Pierre, who in him admired qualities which himself did notpossess--an organising spirit and a militant if somewhat blundering will, entirely applied to the revival of Christian society in France. However, though the young priest learnt a good deal by associating with him, henevertheless remained a sentimental dreamer, whose imagination, disdainful of political requirements, straightway winged its flight tothe future abode of universal happiness; whereas the Viscount aspired tocomplete the downfall of the liberal ideas of 1789 by utilising thedisillusion and anger of the democracy to work a return towards the past. 

Pierre spent some delightful months. Never before had neophyte lived soentirely for the happiness of others. He was all love, consumed by thepassion of his apostolate. The sight of the poor wretches whom hevisited, the men without work, the women, the children without bread, filled him with a keener and keener conviction that a new religion mustarise to put an end to all the injustice which otherwise would bring therebellious world to a violent death. And he was resolved to employ allhis strength in effecting and hastening the intervention of the divine, the resuscitation of primitive Christianity. His Catholic faith remaineddead; he still had no belief in dogmas, mysteries, and miracles; but ahope sufficed him, the hope that the Church might still work good, byconnecting itself with the irresistible modern democratic movement, so asto save the nations from the social catastrophe which impended. His soulhad grown calm since he had taken on himself the mission of replantingthe Gospel in the hearts of the hungry and growling people of theFaubourgs. He was now leading an active life, and suffered less from thefrightful void which he had brought back from Lourdes; and as he nolonger questioned himself, the anguish of uncertainty no longer torturedhim. It was with the serenity which attends the simple accomplishment ofduty that he continued to say his mass. He even finished by thinking thatthe mystery which he thus celebrated--indeed, that all the mysteries andall the dogmas were but symbols--rites requisite for humanity in itschildhood, which would be got rid of later on, when enlarged, purified, and instructed humanity should be able to support the brightness of nakedtruth. 

And in his zealous desire to be useful, his passion to proclaim hisbelief aloud, Pierre one morning found himself at his table writing abook. This had come about quite naturally; the book proceeded from himlike a heart-cry, without any literary idea having crossed his mind. Onenight, whilst he lay awake, its title suddenly flashed before his eyes inthe darkness: "NEW ROME. " That expressed everything, for must not the newredemption of the nations originate in eternal and holy Rome? The onlyexisting authority was found there; rejuvenescence could only spring fromthe sacred soil where the old Catholic oak had grown. He wrote his bookin a couple of months, having unconsciously prepared himself for the workby his studies in contemporary socialism during a year past. There was abubbling flow in his brain as in a poet's; it seemed to him sometimes asif he dreamt those pages, as if an internal distant voice dictated themto him. 

When he read passages written on the previous day to Viscount Philibertde la Choue, the latter often expressed keen approval of them from apractical point of view, saying that one must touch the people in orderto lead them, and that it would also be a good plan to compose pious andyet amusing songs for singing in the workshops. As for MonseigneurBergerot, without examining the book from the dogmatic standpoint, he wasdeeply touched by the glowing breath of charity which every page exhaled, and was even guilty of the imprudence of writing an approving letter tothe author, which letter he authorised him to insert in his work by wayof preface. And yet now the Congregation of the Index Expurgatorius wasabout to place this book, issued in the previous June, under interdict;and it was to defend it that the young priest had hastened to Rome, inflamed by the desire to make his ideas prevail, and resolved to pleadhis cause in person before the Holy Father, having, he was convinced ofit, simply given expression to the pontiff's views. 

Pierre had not stirred whilst thus living his three last years afresh: hestill stood erect before the parapet, before Rome, which he had so oftendreamt of and had so keenly desired to see. There was a constantsuccession of arriving and departing vehicles behind him; the slimEnglishmen and the heavy Germans passed away after bestowing on theclassic view the five minutes prescribed by their guidebooks; whilst thedriver and the horse of Pierre's cab remained waiting complacently, eachwith his head drooping under the bright sun, which was heating the valiseon the seat of the vehicle. And Pierre, in his black cassock, seemed tohave grown slimmer and elongated, very slight of build, as he stood theremotionless, absorbed in the sublime spectacle. He had lost flesh afterhis journey to Lourdes, his features too had become less pronounced. Since his mother's part in his nature had regained ascendency, the broad, straight forehead, the intellectual air which he owed to his fatherseemed to have grown less conspicuous, while his kind and somewhat largemouth, and his delicate chin, bespeaking infinite affection, dominated, revealing his soul, which also glowed in the kindly sparkle of his eyes. 

Ah! how tender and glowing were the eyes with which he gazed upon theRome of his book, the new Rome that he had dreamt of! If, first of all, the /ensemble/ had claimed his attention in the soft and somewhat veiledlight of that lovely morning, at present he could distinguish details, and let his glance rest upon particular edifices. And it was withchildish delight that he identified them, having long studied them inmaps and collections of photographs. Beneath his feet, at the bottom ofthe Janiculum, stretched the Trastevere district with its chaos of oldruddy houses, whose sunburnt tiles hid the course of the Tiber. He wassomewhat surprised by the flattish aspect of everything as seen from theterraced summit. It was as though a bird's-eye view levelled the city, the famous hills merely showing like bosses, swellings scarcelyperceptible amidst the spreading sea of house-fronts. Yonder, on theright, distinct against the distant blue of the Alban mountains, wascertainly the Aventine with its three churches half-hidden by foliage;there, too, was the discrowned Palatine, edged as with black fringe by aline of cypresses. In the rear, the Coelian hill faded away, showing onlythe trees of the Villa Mattei paling in the golden sunshine. The slenderspire and two little domes of Sta. Maria Maggiore alone indicated thesummit of the Esquiline, right in front and far away at the other end ofthe city; whilst on the heights of the neighbouring Viminal, Pierre onlyperceived a confused mass of whitish blocks, steeped in light andstreaked with fine brown lines--recent erections, no doubt, which at thatdistance suggested an abandoned stone quarry. He long sought the Capitolwithout being able to discover it; he had to take his bearings, and endedby convincing himself that the square tower, modestly lost amongsurrounding house-roofs, which he saw in front of Sta. Maria Maggiore wasits campanile. Next, on the left, came the Quirinal, recognisable by thelong facade of the royal palace, a barrack or hospital-like facade, flat, crudely yellow in hue, and pierced by an infinite number of regularlydisposed windows. However, as Pierre was completing the circuit, a suddenvision made him stop short. Without the city, above the trees of theBotanical Garden, the dome of St. Peter's appeared to him. It seemed tobe poised upon the greenery, and rose up into the pure blue sky, sky-blueitself and so ethereal that it mingled with the azure of the infinite. The stone lantern which surmounts it, white and dazzling, looked asthough it were suspended on high. 

Pierre did not weary, and his glances incessantly travelled from one endof the horizon to the other. They lingered on the noble outlines, theproud gracefulness of the town-sprinkled Sabine and Alban mountains, whose girdle limited the expanse. The Roman Campagna spread out in farstretches, bare and majestic, like a desert of death, with the glaucousgreen of a stagnant sea; and he ended by distinguishing "the stern roundtower" of the tomb of Cecilia Metella, behind which a thin pale lineindicated the ancient Appian Way. Remnants of aqueducts strewed the shortherbage amidst the dust of the fallen worlds. And, bringing his glancenearer in, the city again appeared with its jumble of edifices, on whichhis eyes lighted at random. Close at hand, by its loggia turned towardsthe river, he recognised the huge tawny cube of the Palazzo Farnese. Thelow cupola, farther away and scarcely visible, was probably that of thePantheon. Then by sudden leaps came the freshly whitened walls of SanPaolo-fuori-le-Mura, * similar to those of some huge barn, and the statuescrowning San Giovanni in Laterano, delicate, scarcely as big as insects. Next the swarming of domes, that of the Gesu, that of San Carlo, that ofSt'. Andrea della Valle, that of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini; then anumber of other sites and edifices, all quivering with memories, thecastle of St'. Angelo with its glittering statue of the Destroying Angel, the Villa Medici dominating the entire city, the terrace of the Pinciowith its marbles showing whitely among its scanty verdure; and thethick-foliaged trees of the Villa Borghese, whose green crests boundedthe horizon. Vainly however did Pierre seek the Colosseum. 

 * St. Paul-beyond-the-walls. 

The north wind, which was blowing very mildly, had now begun to dissipatethe morning haze. Whole districts vigorously disentangled themselves, andshowed against the vaporous distance like promontories in a sunlit sea. Here and there, in the indistinct swarming of houses, a strip of whitewall glittered, a row of window panes flared, or a garden supplied ablack splotch, of wondrous intensity of hue. And all the rest, the medleyof streets and squares, the endless blocks of buildings, scattered abouton either hand, mingled and grew indistinct in the living glory of thesun, whilst long coils of white smoke, which had ascended from the roofs, slowly traversed the pure sky. 

Guided by a secret influence, however, Pierre soon ceased to takeinterest in all but three points of the mighty panorama. That line ofslender cypresses which set a black fringe on the height of the Palatineyonder filled him with emotion: beyond it he saw only a void: the palacesof the Caesars had disappeared, had fallen, had been razed by time; andhe evoked their memory, he fancied he could see them rise like vague, trembling phantoms of gold amidst the purple of that splendid morning. Then his glances reverted to St. Peter's, and there the dome yet soaredaloft, screening the Vatican which he knew was beside the colossus, clinging to its flanks. And that dome, of the same colour as the heavens, appeared so triumphant, so full of strength, so vast, that it seemed tohim like a giant king, dominating the whole city and seen from every spotthroughout eternity. Then he fixed his eyes on the height in front ofhim, on the Quirinal, and there the King's palace no longer appearedaught but a flat low barracks bedaubed with yellow paint. 

And for him all the secular history of Rome, with its constantconvulsions and successive resurrections, found embodiment in thatsymbolical triangle, in those three summits gazing at one another acrossthe Tiber. Ancient Rome blossoming forth in a piling up of palaces andtemples, the monstrous florescence of imperial power and splendour; PapalRome, victorious in the middle ages, mistress of the world, bringing thatcolossal church, symbolical of beauty regained, to weigh upon allChristendom; and the Rome of to-day, which he knew nothing of, which hehad neglected, and whose royal palace, so bare and so cold, brought himdisparaging ideas--the idea of some out-of-place, bureaucratic effort, some sacrilegious attempt at modernity in an exceptional city whichshould have been left entirely to the dreams of the future. However, heshook off the almost painful feelings which the importunate presentbrought to him, and would not let his eyes rest on a pale new district, quite a little town, in course of erection, no doubt, which he coulddistinctly see near St. Peter's on the margin of the river. He had dreamtof his own new Rome, and still dreamt of it, even in front of thePalatine whose edifices had crumbled in the dust of centuries, of thedome of St. Peter's whose huge shadow lulled the Vatican to sleep, of thePalace of the Quirinal repaired and repainted, reigning in homely fashionover the new districts which swarmed on every side, while with its ruddyroofs the olden city, ripped up by improvements, coruscated beneath thebright morning sun. 

Again did the title of his book, "NEW ROME, " flare before Pierre's eyes, and another reverie carried him off; he lived his book afresh even as hehad just lived his life. He had written it amid a flow of enthusiasm, utilising the /data/ which he had accumulated at random; and its divisioninto three parts, past, present, and future, had at once forced itselfupon him. 

The PAST was the extraordinary story of primitive Christianity, of theslow evolution which had turned this Christianity into present-dayCatholicism. He showed that an economical question is invariably hiddenbeneath each religious evolution, and that, upon the whole, theeverlasting evil, the everlasting struggle, has never been aught but onebetween the rich and the poor. Among the Jews, when their nomadic lifewas over, and they had conquered the land of Canaan, and ownership andproperty came into being, a class warfare at once broke out. There wererich, and there were poor; thence arose the social question. Thetransition had been sudden, and the new state of things so rapidly wentfrom bad to worse that the poor suffered keenly, and protested with thegreater violence as they still remembered the golden age of the nomadiclife. Until the time of Jesus the prophets are but rebels who surge fromout the misery of the people, proclaim its sufferings, and vent theirwrath upon the rich, to whom they prophesy every evil in punishment fortheir injustice and their harshness. Jesus Himself appears as theclaimant of the rights of the poor. The prophets, whether socialists oranarchists, had preached social equality, and called for the destructionof the world if it were unjust. Jesus likewise brings to the wretchedhatred of the rich. All His teaching threatens wealth and property; andif by the Kingdom of Heaven which He promised one were to understandpeace and fraternity upon this earth, there would only be a question ofreturning to a life of pastoral simplicity, to the dream of the Christiancommunity, such as after Him it would seem to have been realised by Hisdisciples. During the first three centuries each Church was an experimentin communism, a real association whose members possessed all incommon--wives excepted. This is shown to us by the apologists and earlyfathers of the Church. Christianity was then but the religion of thehumble and the poor, a form of democracy, of socialism struggling againstRoman society. And when the latter toppled over, rotted by money, itsuccumbed far more beneath the results of frantic speculation, swindlingbanks, and financial disasters, than beneath the onslaught of barbarianhordes and the stealthy, termite-like working of the Christians. 

The money question will always be found at the bottom of everything. Anda new proof of this was supplied when Christianity, at last triumphing byvirtue of historical, social, and human causes, was proclaimed a Statereligion. To ensure itself complete victory it was forced to range itselfon the side of the rich and the powerful; and one should see by means ofwhat artfulness and sophistry the fathers of the Church succeeded indiscovering a defence of property and wealth in the Gospel of Jesus. Allthis, however, was a vital political necessity for Christianity; it wasonly at this price that it became Catholicism, the universal religion. From that time forth the powerful machine, the weapon of conquest andrule, was reared aloft: up above were the powerful and the wealthy, thosewhose duty it was to share with the poor, but who did not do so; whiledown below were the poor, the toilers, who were taught resignation andobedience, and promised the kingdom of futurity, the divine and eternalreward--an admirable monument which has lasted for ages, and which isentirely based on the promise of life beyond life, on theinextinguishable thirst for immortality and justice that consumesmankind. 

Pierre had completed this first part of his book, this history of thepast, by a broad sketch of Catholicism until the present time. Firstappeared St. Peter, ignorant and anxious, coming to Rome by aninspiration of genius, there to fulfil the ancient oracles which hadpredicted the eternity of the Capitol. Then came the first popes, mereheads of burial associations, the slow rise of the all-powerful papacyever struggling to conquer the world, unremittingly seeking to realiseits dream of universal domination. At the time of the great popes of themiddle ages it thought for a moment that it had attained its goal, thatit was the sovereign master of the nations. Would not absolute truth andright consist in the pope being both pontiff and ruler of the world, reigning over both the souls and the bodies of all men, even like theDeity whose vicar he is? This, the highest and mightiest of allambitions, one, too, that is perfectly logical, was attained by Augustus, emperor and pontiff, master of all the known world; and it is theglorious figure of Augustus, ever rising anew from among the ruins ofancient Rome, which has always haunted the popes; it is his blood whichhas pulsated in their veins. 

But power had become divided into two parts amidst the crumbling of theRoman empire; it was necessary to content oneself with a share, and leavetemporal government to the emperor, retaining over him, however, theright of coronation by divine grant. The people belonged to God, and inGod's name the pope gave the people to the emperor, and could take itfrom him; an unlimited power whose most terrible weapon wasexcommunication, a superior sovereignty, which carried the papacy towardsreal and final possession of the empire. Looking at things broadly, theeverlasting quarrel between the pope and the emperor was a quarrel forthe people, the inert mass of humble and suffering ones, the great silentmultitude whose irremediable wretchedness was only revealed by occasionalcovert growls. It was disposed of, for its good, as one might dispose ofa child. Yet the Church really contributed to civilisation, renderedconstant services to humanity, diffused abundant alms. In the convents, at any rate, the old dream of the Christian community was ever comingback: one-third of the wealth accumulated for the purposes of worship, the adornment and glorification of the shrine, one-third for the priests, and one-third for the poor. Was not this a simplification of life, ameans of rendering existence possible to the faithful who had no earthlydesires, pending the marvellous contentment of heavenly life? Give us, then, the whole earth, and we will divide terrestrial wealth into threesuch parts, and you shall see what a golden age will reign amidst theresignation and the obedience of all!

However, Pierre went on to show how the papacy was assailed by thegreatest dangers on emerging from its all-powerfulness of the middleages. It was almost swept away amidst the luxury and excesses of theRenascence, the bubbling of living sap which then gushed from eternalnature, downtrodden and regarded as dead for ages past. More threateningstill were the stealthy awakenings of the people, of the great silentmultitude whose tongue seemed to be loosening. The Reformation burstforth like the protest of reason and justice, like a recall to thedisregarded truths of the Gospel; and to escape total annihilation Romeneeded the stern defence of the Inquisition, the slow stubborn labour ofthe Council of Trent, which strengthened the dogmas and ensured thetemporal power. And then the papacy entered into two centuries of peaceand effacement, for the strong absolute monarchies which had dividedEurope among themselves could do without it, and had ceased to tremble atthe harmless thunderbolts of excommunication or to look on the pope asaught but a master of ceremonies, controlling certain rites. Thepossession of the people was no longer subject to the same rules. Allowing that the kings still held the people from God, it was the pope'sduty to register the donation once for all, without ever intervening, whatever the circumstances, in the government of states. Never was Romefarther away from the realisation of its ancient dream of universaldominion. And when the French Revolution burst forth, it may well havebeen imagined that the proclamation of the rights of man would kill thatpapacy to which the exercise of divine right over the nations had beencommitted. And so how great at first was the anxiety, the anger, thedesperate resistance with which the Vatican opposed the idea of freedom, the new /credo/ of liberated reason, of humanity regainingself-possession and control. It was the apparent /denouement/ of the longstruggle between the pope and the emperor for possession of the people:the emperor vanished, and the people, henceforward free to dispose ofitself, claimed to escape from the pope--an unforeseen solution, in whichit seemed as though all the ancient scaffolding of the Catholic worldmust fall to the very ground. 

At this point Pierre concluded the first part of his book by contrastingprimitive Christianity with present-day Catholicism, which is the triumphof the rich and the powerful. That Roman society which Jesus had come todestroy in the name of the poor and humble, had not Catholic Romesteadily continued rebuilding it through all the centuries, by its policyof cupidity and pride? And what bitter irony it was to find, aftereighteen hundred years of the Gospel, that the world was again collapsingthrough frantic speculation, rotten banks, financial disasters, and thefrightful injustice of a few men gorged with wealth whilst thousands oftheir brothers were dying of hunger! The whole redemption of the wretchedhad to be worked afresh. However, Pierre gave expression to all theseterrible things in words so softened by charity, so steeped in hope, thatthey lost their revolutionary danger. Moreover, he nowhere attacked thedogmas. His book, in its sentimental, somewhat poetic form, was but thecry of an apostle glowing with love for his fellow-men. 

Then came the second part of the work, the PRESENT, a study of Catholicsociety as it now exists. Here Pierre had painted a frightful picture ofthe misery of the poor, the misery of a great city, which he knew so welland bled for, through having laid his hands upon its poisonous wounds. The present-day injustice could no longer be tolerated, charity wasbecoming powerless, and so frightful was the suffering that all hope wasdying away from the hearts of the people. And was it not the monstrousspectacle presented by Christendom, whose abominations corrupted thepeople, and maddened it with hatred and vengeance, that had largelydestroyed its faith? However, after this picture of rotting and crumblingsociety, Pierre returned to history, to the period of the FrenchRevolution, to the mighty hope with which the idea of freedom had filledthe world. The middle classes, the great Liberal party, on attainingpower had undertaken to bring happiness to one and all. But after acentury's experience it really seemed that liberty had failed to bringany happiness whatever to the outcasts. In the political sphere illusionswere departing. At all events, if the reigning third estate declaresitself satisfied, the fourth estate, that of the toilers, * still suffersand continues to demand its share of fortune. The working classes havebeen proclaimed free; political equality has been granted them, but thegift has been valueless, for economically they are still bound toservitude, and only enjoy, as they did formerly, the liberty of dying ofhunger. All the socialist revendications have come from that; betweenlabour and capital rests the terrifying problem, the solution of whichthreatens to sweep away society. When slavery disappeared from the oldenworld to be succeeded by salaried employment the revolution was immense, and certainly the Christian principle was one of the great factors in thedestruction of slavery. Nowadays, therefore, when the question is toreplace salaried employment by something else, possibly by theparticipation of the workman in the profits of his work, why should notChristianity again seek a new principle of action? The fatal andproximate accession of the democracy means the beginning of another phasein human history, the creation of the society of to-morrow. And Romecannot keep away from the arena; the papacy must take part in the quarrelif it does not desire to disappear from the world like a piece ofmechanism that has become altogether useless. 

 * In England we call the press the fourth estate, but in France and elsewhere the term is applied to the working classes, and in that sense must be taken here. --Trans. 

Hence it followed that Catholic socialism was legitimate. On every sidethe socialist sects were battling with their various solutions for theprivilege of ensuring the happiness of the people, and the Church alsomust offer her solution of the problem. Here it was that New Romeappeared, that the evolution spread into a renewal of boundless hope. Most certainly there was nothing contrary to democracy in the principlesof the Roman Catholic Church. Indeed she had only to return to theevangelical traditions, to become once more the Church of the humble andthe poor, to re-establish the universal Christian community. She isundoubtedly of democratic essence, and if she sided with the rich andthe powerful when Christianity became Catholicism, she only did soperforce, that she might live by sacrificing some portion of heroriginal purity; so that if to-day she should abandon the condemnedgoverning classes in order to make common cause with the multitude ofthe wretched, she would simply be drawing nearer to Christ, therebysecuring a new lease of youth and purifying herself of all the politicalcompromises which she formerly was compelled to accept. Withoutrenouncing aught of her absolutism the Church has at all times known howto bow to circumstances; but she reserves her perfect sovereignty, simply tolerating that which she cannot prevent, and patiently waiting, even through long centuries, for the time when she shall again becomethe mistress of the world. 

Might not that time come in the crisis which was now at hand? Once more, all the powers are battling for possession of the people. Since thepeople, thanks to liberty and education, has become strong, since it hasdeveloped consciousness and will, and claimed its share of fortune, allrulers have been seeking to attach it to themselves, to reign by it, andeven with it, should that be necessary. Socialism, therein lies thefuture, the new instrument of government; and the kings tottering ontheir thrones, the middle-class presidents of anxious republics, theambitious plotters who dream of power, all dabble in socialism! They allagree that the capitalist organisation of the State is a return to pagantimes, to the olden slave-market; and they all talk of breaking for everthe iron law by which the labour of human beings has become so muchmerchandise, subject to supply and demand, with wages calculated on anestimate of what is strictly necessary to keep a workman from dying ofhunger. And, down in the sphere below, the evil increases, the workmenagonise with hunger and exasperation, while above them discussion stillgoes on, systems are bandied about, and well-meaning persons exhaustthemselves in attempting to apply ridiculously inadequate remedies. There is much stir without any progress, all the wild bewilderment whichprecedes great catastrophes. And among the many, Catholic socialism, quite as ardent as Revolutionary socialism, enters the lists and strivesto conquer. 

After these explanations Pierre gave an account of the long efforts madeby Catholic socialism throughout the Christian world. That whichparticularly struck one in this connection was that the warfare becamekeener and more victorious whenever it was waged in some land ofpropaganda, as yet not completely conquered by Roman Catholicism. Forinstance, in the countries where Protestantism confronted the latter, thepriests fought with wondrous passion, as for dear life itself, contendingwith the schismatical clergy for possession of the people by dint ofdaring, by unfolding the most audacious democratic theories. In Germany, the classic land of socialism, Mgr. Ketteler was one of the first tospeak of adequately taxing the rich; and later he fomented a wide-spreadagitation which the clergy now directs by means of numerous associationsand newspapers. In Switzerland Mgr. Mermillod pleaded the cause of thepoor so loudly that the bishops there now almost make common cause withthe democratic socialists, whom they doubtless hope to convert when theday for sharing arrives. In England, where socialism penetrates so veryslowly, Cardinal Manning achieved considerable success, stood by theworking classes on the occasion of a famous strike, and helped on apopular movement, which was signalised by numerous conversions. But itwas particularly in the United States of America that Catholic socialismproved triumphant, in a sphere of democracy where the bishops, like Mgr. Ireland, were forced to set themselves at the head of the working-classagitation. And there across the Atlantic a new Church seems to begerminating, still in confusion but overflowing with sap, and upheld byintense hope, as at the aurora of the rejuvenated Christianity ofto-morrow. 

Passing thence to Austria and Belgium, both Catholic countries, one foundCatholic socialism mingling in the first instance with anti-semitism, while in the second it had no precise sense. And all movement ceased anddisappeared when one came to Spain and Italy, those old lands of faith. The former with its intractable bishops who contented themselves withhurling excommunication at unbelievers as in the days of the Inquisition, seemed to be abandoned to the violent theories of revolutionaries, whilstItaly, immobilised in the traditional courses, remained withoutpossibility of initiative, reduced to silence and respect by the presenceof the Holy See. In France, however, the struggle remained keen, but itwas more particularly a struggle of ideas. On the whole, the war wasthere being waged against the revolution, and to some it seemed as thoughit would suffice to re-establish the old organisation of monarchicaltimes in order to revert to the golden age. It was thus that the questionof working-class corporations had become the one problem, the panacea forall the ills of the toilers. But people were far from agreeing; some, those Catholics who rejected State interference and favoured purely moralaction, desired that the corporations should be free; whilst others, theyoung and impatient ones, bent on action, demanded that they should beobligatory, each with capital of its own, and recognised and protected bythe State. 

Viscount Philibert de la Choue had by pen and speech carried on avigorous campaign in favour of the obligatory corporations; and his greatgrief was that he had so far failed to prevail on the Pope to say whetherin his opinion these corporations should be closed or open. According tothe Viscount, herein lay the fate of society, a peaceful solution of thesocial question or the frightful catastrophe which must sweep everythingaway. In reality, though he refused to own it, the Viscount had ended byadopting State socialism. And, despite the lack of agreement, theagitation remained very great; attempts, scarcely happy in their results, were made; co-operative associations, companies for erecting workmen'sdwellings, popular savings' banks were started; many more or lessdisguised efforts to revert to the old Christian community organisationwere tried; while day by day, amidst the prevailing confusion, in themental perturbation and political difficulties through which the countrypassed, the militant Catholic party felt its hopes increasing, even tothe blind conviction of soon resuming sway over the whole world. 

The second part of Pierre's book concluded by a picture of the moral andintellectual uneasiness amidst which the end of the century isstruggling. While the toiling multitude suffers from its hard lot anddemands that in any fresh division of wealth it shall be ensured at leastits daily bread, the /elite/ is no better satisfied, but complains of thevoid induced by the freeing of its reason and the enlargement of itsintelligence. It is the famous bankruptcy of rationalism, of positivism, of science itself which is in question. Minds consumed by need of theabsolute grow weary of groping, weary of the delays of science whichrecognises only proven truths; doubt tortures them, they need a completeand immediate synthesis in order to sleep in peace; and they fall ontheir knees, overcome by the roadside, distracted by the thought thatscience will never tell them all, and preferring the Deity, the mysteryrevealed and affirmed by faith. Even to-day, it must be admitted, sciencecalms neither our thirst for justice, our desire for safety, nor oureverlasting idea of happiness after life in an eternity of enjoyment. Toone and all it only brings the austere duty to live, to be a merecontributor in the universal toil; and how well one can understand thathearts should revolt and sigh for the Christian heaven, peopled withlovely angels, full of light and music and perfumes! Ah! to embrace one'sdead, to tell oneself that one will meet them again, that one will livewith them once more in glorious immortality! And to possess the certaintyof sovereign equity to enable one to support the abominations ofterrestrial life! And in this wise to trample on the frightful thought ofannihilation, to escape the horror of the disappearance of the /ego/, andto tranquillise oneself with that unshakable faith which postpones untilthe portal of death be crossed the solution of all the problems ofdestiny! This dream will be dreamt by the nations for ages yet. And thisit is which explains why, in these last days of the century, excessivemental labour and the deep unrest of humanity, pregnant with a new world, have awakened religious feeling, anxious, tormented by thoughts of theideal and the infinite, demanding a moral law and an assurance ofsuperior justice. Religions may disappear, but religious feelings willalways create new ones, even with the help of science. A new religion! anew religion! Was it not the ancient Catholicism, which in the soil ofthe present day, where all seemed conducive to a miracle, was about tospring up afresh, throw out green branches and blossom in a young yetmighty florescence?

At last, in the third part of his book and in the glowing language of anapostle, Pierre depicted the FUTURE: Catholicism rejuvenated, andbringing health and peace, the forgotten golden age of primitiveChristianity, back to expiring society. He began with an emotional andsparkling portrait of Leo XIII, the ideal Pope, the Man of Destinyentrusted with the salvation of the nations. He had conjured up apresentment of him and beheld him thus in his feverish longing for theadvent of a pastor who should put an end to human misery. It was perhapsnot a close likeness, but it was a portrait of the needed saviour, withopen heart and mind, and inexhaustible benevolence, such as he haddreamed. At the same time he had certainly searched documents, studiedencyclical letters, based his sketch upon facts: first Leo's religiouseducation at Rome, then his brief nunciature at Brussels, and afterwardshis long episcopate at Perugia. And as soon as Leo became pope in thedifficult situation bequeathed by Pius IX, the duality of his natureappeared: on one hand was the firm guardian of dogmas, on the other thesupple politician resolved to carry conciliation to its utmost limits. Wesee him flatly severing all connection with modern philosophy, steppingbackward beyond the Renascence to the middle ages and reviving Christianphilosophy, as expounded by "the angelic doctor, " St. Thomas Aquinas, inCatholic schools. Then the dogmas being in this wise sheltered, headroitly maintains himself in equilibrium by giving securities to everypower, striving to utilise every opportunity. He displays extraordinaryactivity, reconciles the Holy See with Germany, draws nearer to Russia, contents Switzerland, asks the friendship of Great Britain, and writes tothe Emperor of China begging him to protect the missionaries andChristians in his dominions. Later on, too, he intervenes in France andacknowledges the legitimacy of the Republic. 

From the very outset an idea becomes apparent in all his actions, an ideawhich will place him among the great papal politicians. It is moreoverthe ancient idea of the papacy--the conquest of every soul, Rome capitaland mistress of the world. Thus Leo XIII has but one desire, one object, that of unifying the Church, of drawing all the dissident communities toit in order that it may be invincible in the coming social struggle. Heseeks to obtain recognition of the moral authority of the Vatican inRussia; he dreams of disarming the Anglican Church and of drawing it intoa sort of fraternal truce; and he particularly seeks to come to anunderstanding with the Schismatical Churches of the East, which heregards as sisters, simply living apart, whose return his paternal heartentreats. Would not Rome indeed dispose of victorious strength if sheexercised uncontested sway over all the Christians of the earth?

And here the social ideas of Leo XIII come in. Whilst yet Bishop ofPerugia he wrote a pastoral letter in which a vague humanitariansocialism appeared. As soon, however, as he had assumed the triple crownhis opinions changed and he anathematised the revolutionaries whoseaudacity was terrifying Italy. But almost at once he corrected himself, warned by events and realising the great danger of leaving socialism inthe hands of the enemies of the Church. Then he listened to the bishopsof the lands of propaganda, ceased to intervene in the Irish quarrel, withdrew the excommunications which he had launched against the American"knights of labour, " and would not allow the bold works of Catholicsocialist writers to be placed in the Index. This evolution towardsdemocracy may be traced through his most famous encyclical letters:/Immortale Dei/, on the constitution of States; /Libertas/, on humanliberty; /Sapientoe/, on the duties of Christian citizens; /Rerumnovarum/, on the condition of the working classes; and it is particularlythis last which would seem to have rejuvenated the Church. The Popeherein chronicles the undeserved misery of the toilers, the undue lengthof the hours of labour, the insufficiency of salaries. All men have theright to live, and all contracts extorted by threats of starvation areunjust. Elsewhere he declares that the workman must not be leftdefenceless in presence of a system which converts the misery of themajority into the wealth of a few. Compelled to deal vaguely withquestions of organisation, he contents himself with encouraging thecorporative movement, placing it under State patronage; and after thuscontributing to restore the secular power, he reinstates the Deity on thethrone of sovereignty, and discerns the path to salvation moreparticularly in moral measures, in the ancient respect due to family tiesand ownership. Nevertheless, was not the helpful hand which the augustVicar of Christ thus publicly tendered to the poor and the humble, thecertain token of a new alliance, the announcement of a new reign of Jesusupon earth? Thenceforward the people knew that it was not abandoned. Andfrom that moment too how glorious became Leo XIII, whose sacerdotaljubilee and episcopal jubilee were celebrated by all Christendom amidstthe coming of a vast multitude, of endless offerings, and of flatteringletters from every sovereign!

Pierre next dealt with the question of the temporal power, and this hethought he might treat freely. Naturally, he was not ignorant of the factthat the Pope in his quarrel with Italy upheld the rights of the Churchover Rome as stubbornly as his predecessor; but he imagined that this wasmerely a necessary conventional attitude, imposed by politicalconsiderations, and destined to be abandoned when the times were ripe. For his own part he was convinced that if the Pope had never appearedgreater than he did now, it was to the loss of the temporal power that heowed it; for thence had come the great increase of his authority, thepure splendour of moral omnipotence which he diffused. 

What a long history of blunders and conflicts had been that of thepossession of the little kingdom of Rome during fifteen centuries!Constantine quits Rome in the fourth century, only a few forgottenfunctionaries remaining on the deserted Palatine, and the Pope naturallyrises to power, and the life of the city passes to the Lateran. However, it is only four centuries later that Charlemagne recognises accomplishedfacts and formally bestows the States of the Church upon the papacy. Fromthat time warfare between the spiritual power and the temporal powers hasnever ceased; though often latent it has at times become acute, breakingforth with blood and fire. And to-day, in the midst of Europe in arms, isit not unreasonable to dream of the papacy ruling a strip of territorywhere it would be exposed to every vexation, and where it could onlymaintain itself by the help of a foreign army? What would become of it inthe general massacre which is apprehended? Is it not far more sheltered, far more dignified, far more lofty when disentangled from all terrestrialcares, reigning over the world of souls?

In the early times of the Church the papacy from being merely local, merely Roman, gradually became catholicised, universalised, slowlyacquiring dominion over all Christendom. In the same way the SacredCollege, at first a continuation of the Roman Senate, acquired aninternational character, and in our time has ended by becoming the mostcosmopolitan of assemblies, in which representatives of all the nationshave seats. And is it not evident that the Pope, thus leaning on thecardinals, has become the one great international power which exercisesthe greater authority since it is free from all monarchical interests, and can speak not merely in the name of country but in that of humanityitself? The solution so often sought amidst such long wars surely lies inthis: Either give the Pope the temporal sovereignty of the world, orleave him only the spiritual sovereignty. Vicar of the Deity, absoluteand infallible sovereign by divine delegation, he can but remain in thesanctuary if, ruler already of the human soul, he is not recognised byevery nation as the one master of the body also--the king of kings. 

But what a strange affair was this new incursion of the papacy into thefield sown by the French Revolution, an incursion conducting it perhapstowards the domination, which it has striven for with a will that hasupheld it for centuries! For now it stands alone before the people. Thekings are down. And as the people is henceforth free to give itself towhomsoever it pleases, why should it not give itself to the Church? Thedepreciation which the idea of liberty has certainly undergone rendersevery hope permissible. The liberal party appears to be vanquished in thesphere of economics. The toilers, dissatisfied with 1789 complain of theaggravation of their misery, bestir themselves, seek happinessdespairingly. On the other hand the new /regimes/ have increased theinternational power of the Church; Catholic members are numerous in theparliaments of the republics and the constitutional monarchies. Allcircumstances seem therefore to favour this extraordinary return offortune, Catholicism reverting to the vigour of youth in its old age. Even science, remember, is accused of bankruptcy, a charge which savesthe /Syllabus/ from ridicule, troubles the minds of men, and throws thelimitless sphere of mystery and impossibility open once more. And then aprophecy is recalled, a prediction that the papacy shall be mistress ofthe world on the day when she marches at the head of the democracy afterreuniting the Schismatical Churches of the East to the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman Church. And, in Pierre's opinion, assuredly thetimes had come since Pope Leo XIII, dismissing the great and the wealthyof the world, left the kings driven from their thrones in exile to placehimself like Jesus on the side of the foodless toilers and the beggars ofthe high roads. Yet a few more years, perhaps, of frightful misery, alarming confusion, fearful social danger, and the people, the greatsilent multitude which others have so far disposed of, will return to thecradle, to the unified Church of Rome, in order to escape the destructionwhich threatens human society. 

Pierre concluded his book with a passionate evocation of New Rome, thespiritual Rome which would soon reign over the nations, reconciled andfraternising as in another golden age. Herein he even saw the end ofsuperstitions. Without making a direct attack on dogma, he allowedhimself to dream of an enlargement of religious feeling, freed fromrites, and absorbed in the one satisfaction of human charity. And stillsmarting from his journey to Lourdes, he felt the need of contenting hisheart. Was not that gross superstition of Lourdes the hateful symptom ofthe excessive suffering of the times? On the day when the Gospel shouldbe universally diffused and practised, suffering ones would cease seekingan illusory relief so far away, assured as they would be of findingassistance, consolation, and cure in their homes amidst their brothers. At Lourdes there was an iniquitous displacement of wealth, a spectacle sofrightful as to make one doubt of God, a perpetual conflict which woulddisappear in the truly Christian society of to-morrow. Ah! that society, that Christian community, all Pierre's work ended in an ardent longingfor its speedy advent: Christianity becoming once more the religion oftruth and justice which it had been before it allowed itself to beconquered by the rich and the powerful! The little ones and the poor onesreigning, sharing the wealth of earth, and owing obedience to nought butthe levelling law of work! The Pope alone erect at the head of thefederation of nations, prince of peace, with the simple mission ofsupplying the moral rule, the link of charity and love which was to uniteall men! And would not this be the speedy realisation of the promises ofChrist? The times were near accomplishment, secular and religious societywould mingle so closely that they would form but one; and it would be theage of triumph and happiness predicted by all the prophets, no morestruggles possible, no more antagonism between the mind and the body, buta marvellous equilibrium which would kill evil and set the kingdom ofheaven upon earth. New Rome, the centre of the world, bestowing on theworld the new religion!

Pierre felt that tears were coming to his eyes, and with an unconsciousmovement, never noticing how much he astonished the slim Englishmen andthick-set Germans passing along the terrace, he opened his arms andextended them towards the /real/ Rome, steeped in such lovely sunshineand stretched out at his feet. Would she prove responsive to his dream?Would he, as he had written, find within her the remedy for ourimpatience and our alarms? Could Catholicism be renewed, could it returnto the spirit of primitive Christianity, become the religion of thedemocracy, the faith which the modern world, overturned and in danger ofperishing, awaits in order to be pacified and to live?

Pierre was full of generous passion, full of faith. He again beheld goodAbbe Rose weeping with emotion as he read his book. He heard ViscountPhilibert de la Choue telling him that such a book was worth an army. Andhe particularly felt strong in the approval of Cardinal Bergerot, thatapostle of inexhaustible charity. Why should the Congregation of theIndex threaten his work with interdiction? Since he had been officiouslyadvised to go to Rome if he desired to defend himself, he had beenturning this question over in his mind without being able to discoverwhich of his pages were attacked. To him indeed they all seemed to glowwith the purest Christianity. However, he had arrived quivering withenthusiasm and courage: he was all eagerness to kneel before the Pope, and place himself under his august protection, assuring him that he hadnot written a line without taking inspiration from his ideas, withoutdesiring the triumph of his policy. Was it possible that condemnationshould be passed on a book in which he imagined in all sincerity that hehad exalted Leo XIII by striving to help him in his work of Christianreunion and universal peace?

For a moment longer Pierre remained standing before the parapet. He hadbeen there for nearly an hour, unable to drink in enough of the grandeurof Rome, which, given all the unknown things she hid from him, he wouldhave liked to possess at once. Oh! to seize hold of her, know her, ascertain at once the true word which he had come to seek from her! Thisagain, like Lourdes, was an experiment, but a graver one, a decisive one, whence he would emerge either strengthened or overcome for evermore. Heno longer sought the simple, perfect faith of the little child, but thesuperior faith of the intellectual man, raising himself above rites andsymbols, working for the greatest happiness of humanity as based on itsneed of certainty. His temples throbbed responsive to his heart. Whatwould be the answer of Rome?

The sunlight had increased and the higher districts now stood out morevigorously against the fiery background. Far away the hills became gildedand empurpled, whilst the nearer house-fronts grew very distinct andbright with their thousands of windows sharply outlined. However, somemorning haze still hovered around; light veils seemed to rise from thelower streets, blurring the summits for a moment, and then evaporating inthe ardent heavens where all was blue. For a moment Pierre fancied thatthe Palatine had vanished, for he could scarcely see the dark fringe ofcypresses; it was as though the dust of its ruins concealed the hill. Butthe Quirinal was even more obscured; the royal palace seemed to havefaded away in a fog, so paltry did it look with its low flat front, sovague in the distance that he no longer distinguished it; whereas abovethe trees on his left the dome of St. Peter's had grown yet larger in thelimpid gold of the sunshine, and appeared to occupy the whole sky anddominate the whole city!

Ah! the Rome of that first meeting, the Rome of early morning, whose newdistricts he had not even noticed in the burning fever of hisarrival--with what boundless hopes did she not inspirit him, this Romewhich he believed he should find alive, such indeed as he had dreamed!And whilst he stood there in his thin black cassock, thus gazing on herthat lovely day, what a shout of coming redemption seemed to arise fromher house-roofs, what a promise of universal peace seemed to issue fromthat sacred soil, twice already Queen of the world! It was the thirdRome, it was New Rome whose maternal love was travelling across thefrontiers to all the nations to console them and reunite them in a commonembrace. In the passionate candour of his dream he beheld her, he heardher, rejuvenated, full of the gentleness of childhood, soaring, as itwere, amidst the morning freshness into the vast pure heavens. 

But at last Pierre tore himself away from the sublime spectacle. Thedriver and the horse, their heads drooping under the broad sunlight, hadnot stirred. On the seat the valise was almost burning, hot with rays ofthe sun which was already heavy. And once more Pierre got into thevehicle and gave this address:

"Via Giulia, Palazzo Boccanera. "

II

THE Via Giulia, which runs in a straight line over a distance of fivehundred yards from the Farnese palace to the church of St. John of theFlorentines, was at that hour steeped in bright sunlight, the glowstreaming from end to end and whitening the small square paving stones. The street had no footways, and the cab rolled along it almost to thefarther extremity, passing the old grey sleepy and deserted residenceswhose large windows were barred with iron, while their deep porchesrevealed sombre courts resembling wells. Laid out by Pope Julius II, whohad dreamt of lining it with magnificent palaces, the street, then themost regular and handsome in Rome, had served as Corso* in the sixteenthcentury. One could tell that one was in a former luxurious district, which had lapsed into silence, solitude, and abandonment, instinct with akind of religious gentleness and discretion. The old house-frontsfollowed one after another, their shutters closed and their gratingsoccasionally decked with climbing plants. At some doors cats were seated, and dim shops, appropriated to humble trades, were installed in certaindependencies. But little traffic was apparent. Pierre only noticed somebare-headed women dragging children behind them, a hay cart drawn by amule, a superb monk draped in drugget, and a bicyclist speeding alongnoiselessly, his machine sparkling in the sun. 

 * The Corso was so called on account of the horse races held in it at carnival time. --Trans. 

At last the driver turned and pointed to a large square building at thecorner of a lane running towards the Tiber. 

"Palazzo Boccanera. "

Pierre raised his head and was pained by the severe aspect of thestructure, so bare and massive and blackened by age. Like its neighboursthe Farnese and Sacchetti palaces, it had been built by Antonio daSangallo in the early part of the sixteenth century, and, as with theformer of those residences, the tradition ran that in raising the pilethe architect had made use of stones pilfered from the Colosseum and theTheatre of Marcellus. The vast, square-looking facade had three upperstories, each with seven windows, and the first one very lofty and noble. Down below, the only sign of decoration was that the high ground-floorwindows, barred with huge projecting gratings as though from fear ofsiege, rested upon large consoles, and were crowned by attics whichsmaller consoles supported. Above the monumental entrance, with foldingdoors of bronze, there was a balcony in front of the central first-floorwindow. And at the summit of the facade against the sky appeared asumptuous entablature, whose frieze displayed admirable grace and purityof ornamentation. The frieze, the consoles, the attics, and the door-casewere of white marble, but marble whose surface had so crumbled and sodarkened that it now had the rough yellowish grain of stone. Right andleft of the entrance were two antique seats upheld by griffons also ofmarble; and incrusted in the wall at one corner, a lovely Renascencefountain, its source dried up, still lingered; and on it a cupid riding adolphin could with difficulty be distinguished, to such a degree had thewear and tear of time eaten into the sculpture. 

Pierre's eyes, however, had been more particularly attracted by anescutcheon carved above one of the ground-floor windows, the escutcheonof the Boccaneras, a winged dragon venting flames, and underneath it hecould plainly read the motto which had remained intact: "/Bocca nera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul). Above another window, as a pendantto the escutcheon, there was one of those little shrines which are stillcommon in Rome, a satin-robed statuette of the Blessed Virgin, beforewhich a lantern burnt in the full daylight. 

The cabman was about to drive through the dim and gaping porch, accordingto custom, when the young priest, overcome by timidity, stopped him. "No, no, " he said; "don't go in, it's useless. "

Then he alighted from the vehicle, paid the man, and, valise in hand, found himself first under the vaulted roof, and then in the central courtwithout having met a living soul. 

It was a square and fairly spacious court, surrounded by a porticus likea cloister. Some remnants of statuary, marbles discovered in excavating, an armless Apollo, and the trunk of a Venus, were ranged against thewalls under the dismal arcades; and some fine grass had sprouted betweenthe pebbles which paved the soil as with a black and white mosaic. Itseemed as if the sun-rays could never reach that paving, mouldy withdamp. A dimness and a silence instinct with departed grandeur andinfinite mournfulness reigned there. 

Surprised by the emptiness of this silent mansion, Pierre continuedseeking somebody, a porter, a servant; and, fancying that he saw a shadowflit by, he decided to pass through another arch which led to a littlegarden fringing the Tiber. On this side the facade of the building wasquite plain, displaying nothing beyond its three rows of symmetricallydisposed windows. However, the abandonment reigning in the garden broughtPierre yet a keener pang. In the centre some large box-plants weregrowing in the basin of a fountain which had been filled up; while amongthe mass of weeds, some orange-trees with golden, ripening fruit aloneindicated the tracery of the paths which they had once bordered. Betweentwo huge laurel-bushes, against the right-hand wall, there was asarcophagus of the second century--with fauns offering violence tonymphs, one of those wild /baccanali/, those scenes of eager passionwhich Rome in its decline was wont to depict on the tombs of its dead;and this marble sarcophagus, crumbling with age and green with moisture, served as a tank into which a streamlet of water fell from a large tragicmask incrusted in the wall. Facing the Tiber there had formerly been asort of colonnaded loggia, a terrace whence a double flight of stepsdescended to the river. For the construction of the new quays, however, the river bank was being raised, and the terrace was already lower thanthe new ground level, and stood there crumbling and useless amidst pilesof rubbish and blocks of stone, all the wretched chalky confusion of theimprovements which were ripping up and overturning the district. 

Pierre, however, was suddenly convinced that he could see somebodycrossing the court. So he returned thither and found a woman somewhatshort of stature, who must have been nearly fifty, though as yet she hadnot a white hair, but looked very bright and active. At sight of thepriest, however, an expression of distrust passed over her round face andclear eyes. 

Employing the few words of broken Italian which he knew, Pierre at oncesought to explain matters: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment, madame--" he began. 

However, she did not let him continue, but exclaimed in fluent French, with the somewhat thick and lingering accent of the province of theIle-de-France: "Ah! yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, I know, I know--I was expectingyou, I received orders about you. " And then, as he gazed at her inamazement, she added: "Oh! I'm a Frenchwoman! I've been here for five andtwenty years, but I haven't yet been able to get used to their horriblelingo!"

Pierre thereupon remembered that Viscount Philibert de la Choue hadspoken to him of this servant, one Victorine Bosquet, a native of Auneauin La Beauce, who, when two and twenty, had gone to Rome with aconsumptive mistress. The latter's sudden death had left her in as muchterror and bewilderment as if she had been alone in some land of savages;and so she had gratefully devoted herself to the Countess ErnestaBrandini, a Boccanera by birth, who had, so to say, picked her up in thestreets. The Countess had at first employed her as a nurse to herdaughter Benedetta, hoping in this way to teach the child some French;and Victorine--remaining for some five and twenty years with the samefamily--had by degrees raised herself to the position of housekeeper, whilst still remaining virtually illiterate, so destitute indeed of anylinguistic gift that she could only jabber a little broken Italian, justsufficient for her needs in her intercourse with the other servants. 

"And is Monsieur le Vicomte quite well?" she resumed with frankfamiliarity. "He is so very pleasant, and we are always so pleased to seehim. He stays here, you know, each time he comes to Rome. I know that thePrincess and the Contessina received a letter from him yesterdayannouncing you. "

It was indeed Viscount Philibert de la Choue who had made all thearrangements for Pierre's sojourn in Rome. Of the ancient and oncevigorous race of the Boccaneras, there now only remained Cardinal PioBoccanera, the Princess his sister, an old maid who from respect wascalled "Donna" Serafina, their niece Benedetta--whose mother Ernesta hadfollowed her husband, Count Brandini, to the tomb--and finally theirnephew, Prince Dario Boccanera, whose father, Prince Onofrio, waslikewise dead, and whose mother, a Montefiori, had married again. It sochanced that the Viscount de la Choue was connected with the family, hisyounger brother having married a Brandini, sister to Benedetta's father;and thus, with the courtesy rank of uncle, he had, in Count Brandini'stime, frequently sojourned at the mansion in the Via Giulia. He had alsobecome attached to Benedetta, especially since the advent of a privatefamily drama, consequent upon an unhappy marriage which the young womanhad contracted, and which she had petitioned the Holy Father to annul. Since Benedetta had left her husband to live with her aunt Serafina andher uncle the Cardinal, M. De la Choue had often written to her and senther parcels of French books. Among others he had forwarded her a copy ofPierre's book, and the whole affair had originated in that wise. Severalletters on the subject had been exchanged when at last Benedetta sentword that the work had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index, and that it was advisable the author should at once repair to Rome, whereshe graciously offered him the hospitality of the Boccanera mansion. 

The Viscount was quite as much astonished as the young priest at thesetidings, and failed to understand why the book should be threatened atall; however, he prevailed on Pierre to make the journey as a matter ofgood policy, becoming himself impassioned for the achievement of avictory which he counted in anticipation as his own. And so it was easyto understand the bewildered condition of Pierre, on tumbling into thisunknown mansion, launched into an heroic adventure, the reasons andcircumstances of which were beyond him. 

Victorine, however, suddenly resumed: "But I am leaving you here, Monsieur l'Abbe. Let me conduct you to your rooms. Where is yourluggage?"

Then, when he had shown her his valise which he had placed on the groundbeside him, and explained that having no more than a fortnight's stay inview he had contented himself with bringing a second cassock and somelinen, she seemed very much surprised. 

"A fortnight! You only expect to remain here a fortnight? Well, well, you'll see. "

And then summoning a big devil of a lackey who had ended by making hisappearance, she said: "Take that up into the red room, Giacomo. Will youkindly follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

Pierre felt quite comforted and inspirited by thus unexpectedly meetingsuch a lively, good-natured compatriot in this gloomy Roman "palace. "Whilst crossing the court he listened to her as she related that thePrincess had gone out, and that the Contessina--as Benedetta from motivesof affection was still called in the house, despite her marriage--had notyet shown herself that morning, being rather poorly. However, addedVictorine, she had her orders. 

The staircase was in one corner of the court, under the porticus. It wasa monumental staircase with broad, low steps, the incline being so gentlethat a horse might easily have climbed it. The stone walls, however, werequite bare, the landings empty and solemn, and a death-like mournfulnessfell from the lofty vault above. 

As they reached the first floor, noticing Pierre's emotion, Victorinesmiled. The mansion seemed to be uninhabited; not a sound came from itsclosed chambers. Simply pointing to a large oaken door on the right-hand, the housekeeper remarked: "The wing overlooking the court and the riveris occupied by his Eminence. But he doesn't use a quarter of the rooms. All the reception-rooms on the side of the street have been shut. Howcould one keep up such a big place, and what, too, would be the use ofit? We should need somebody to lodge. "

With her lithe step she continued ascending the stairs. She had remainedessentially a foreigner, a Frenchwoman, too different from those amongwhom she lived to be influenced by her environment. On reaching thesecond floor she resumed: "There, on the left, are Donna Serafina'srooms; those of the Contessina are on the right. This is the only part ofthe house where there's a little warmth and life. Besides, it's Mondayto-day, the Princess will be receiving visitors this evening. You'llsee. "

Then, opening a door, beyond which was a second and very narrowstaircase, she went on: "We others have our rooms on the third floor. Imust ask Monsieur l'Abbe to let me go up before him. "

The grand staircase ceased at the second floor, and Victorine explainedthat the third story was reached exclusively by this servants' staircase, which led from the lane running down to the Tiber on one side of themansion. There was a small private entrance in this lane, which was veryconvenient. 

At last, reaching the third story, she hurried along a passage, againcalling Pierre's attention to various doors. "These are the apartments ofDon Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary. These are mine. And these will beyours. Monsieur le Vicomte will never have any other rooms when he comesto spend a few days in Rome. He says that he enjoys more liberty up here, as he can come in and go out as he pleases. I gave him a key to the doorin the lane, and I'll give you one too. And, besides, you'll see what anice view there is from here!"

Whilst speaking she had gone in. The apartments comprised two rooms: asomewhat spacious /salon/, with wall-paper of a large scroll pattern on ared ground, and a bed-chamber, where the paper was of a flax grey, studded with faded blue flowers. The sitting-room was in one corner ofthe mansion overlooking the lane and the Tiber, and Victorine at oncewent to the windows, one of which afforded a view over the distant lowerpart of the river, while the other faced the Trastevere and the Janiculumacross the water. 

"Ah! yes, it's very pleasant!" said Pierre, who had followed and stoodbeside her. 

Giaccomo, who did not hurry, came in behind them with the valise. It wasnow past eleven o'clock; and seeing that the young priest looked tired, and realising that he must be hungry after such a journey, Victorineoffered to have some breakfast served at once in the sitting-room. Hewould then have the afternoon to rest or go out, and would only meet theladies in the evening at dinner. At the mere suggestion of resting, however, Pierre began to protest, declaring that he should certainly goout, not wishing to lose an entire afternoon. The breakfast he readilyaccepted, for he was indeed dying of hunger. 

However, he had to wait another full half hour. Giaccomo, who served himunder Victorine's orders, did everything in a most leisurely way. AndVictorine, lacking confidence in the man, remained with the young priestto make sure that everything he might require was provided. 

"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, " said she, "what people! What a country! You can'thave an idea of it. I should never get accustomed to it even if I were tolive here for a hundred years. Ah! if it were not for the Contessina, butshe's so good and beautiful. "

Then, whilst placing a dish of figs on the table, she astonished Pierreby adding that a city where nearly everybody was a priest could notpossibly be a good city. Thereupon the presence of this gay, active, unbelieving servant in the queer old palace again scared him. 

"What! you are not religious?" he exclaimed. 

"No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, the priests don't suit me, " said Victorine; "Iknew one in France when I was very little, and since I've been here I'veseen too many of them. It's all over. Oh! I don't say that on account ofhis Eminence, who is a holy man worthy of all possible respect. Andbesides, everybody in the house knows that I've nothing to reproachmyself with. So why not leave me alone, since I'm fond of my employersand attend properly to my duties?"

She burst into a frank laugh. "Ah!" she resumed, "when I was told thatanother priest was coming, just as if we hadn't enough already, Icouldn't help growling to myself. But you look like a good young man, Monsieur l'Abbe, and I feel sure we shall get on well together. . . . Ireally don't know why I'm telling you all this--probably it's becauseyou've come from yonder, and because the Contessina takes an interest inyou. At all events, you'll excuse me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe? Andtake my advice, stay here and rest to-day; don't be so foolish as to gorunning about their tiring city. There's nothing very amusing to be seenin it, whatever they may say to the contrary. "

When Pierre found himself alone, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by all thefatigue of his journey coupled with the fever of enthusiasm that hadconsumed him during the morning. And as though dazed, intoxicated by thehasty meal which he had just made--a couple of eggs and a cutlet--heflung himself upon the bed with the idea of taking half an hour's rest. He did not fall asleep immediately, but for a time thought of thoseBoccaneras, with whose history he was partly acquainted, and of whoselife in that deserted and silent palace, instinct with such dilapidatedand melancholy grandeur, he began to dream. But at last his ideas grewconfused, and by degrees he sunk into sleep amidst a crowd of shadowyforms, some tragic and some sweet, with vague faces which gazed at himwith enigmatical eyes as they whirled before him in the depths ofdreamland. 

The Boccaneras had supplied two popes to Rome, one in the thirteenth, theother in the fifteenth century, and from those two favoured ones, thoseall-powerful masters, the family had formerly derived its vastfortune--large estates in the vicinity of Viterbo, several palaces inRome, enough works of art to fill numerous spacious galleries, and a pileof gold sufficient to cram a cellar. The family passed as being the mostpious of the Roman /patriziato/, a family of burning faith whose swordhad always been at the service of the Church; but if it were the mostbelieving family it was also the most violent, the most disputatious, constantly at war, and so fiercely savage that the anger of theBoccaneras had become proverbial. And thence came their arms, the wingeddragon spitting flames, and the fierce, glowing motto, with its play onthe name "/Bocca sera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul), the mouthdarkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love. 

Legends of endless passion, of terrible deeds of justice and vengeancestill circulated. There was the duel fought by Onfredo, the Boccanera bywhom the present palazzo had been built in the sixteenth century on thesite of the demolished antique residence of the family. Onfredo, learningthat his wife had allowed herself to be kissed on the lips by young CountCostamagna, had caused the Count to be kidnapped one evening and broughtto the palazzo bound with cords. And there in one of the large halls, before freeing him, he compelled him to confess himself to a monk. Thenhe severed the cords with a stiletto, threw the lamps over andextinguished them, calling to the Count to keep the stiletto and defendhimself. During more than an hour, in complete obscurity, in this hallfull of furniture, the two men sought one another, fled from one another, seized hold of one another, and pierced one another with their blades. And when the doors were broken down and the servants rushed in they foundamong the pools of blood, among the overturned tables and broken seats, Costamagna with his nose sliced off and his hips pierced with two andthirty wounds, whilst Onfredo had lost two fingers of his right hand, andhad both shoulders riddled with holes! The wonder was that neither diedof the encounter. 

A century later, on that same bank of the Tiber, a daughter of theBoccaneras, a girl barely sixteen years of age, the lovely and passionateCassia, filled all Rome with terror and admiration. She loved FlavioCorradini, the scion of a rival and hated house, whose alliance herfather, Prince Boccanera, roughly rejected, and whom her elder brother, Ercole, swore to slay should he ever surprise him with her. Neverthelessthe young man came to visit her in a boat, and she joined him by thelittle staircase descending to the river. But one evening Ercole, who wason the watch, sprang into the boat and planted his dagger full inFlavio's heart. Later on the subsequent incidents were unravelled; it wasunderstood that Cassia, wrathful and frantic with despair, unwilling tosurvive her love and bent on wreaking justice, had thrown herself uponher brother, had seized both murderer and victim with the same graspwhilst overturning the boat; for when the three bodies were recoveredCassia still retained her hold upon the two men, pressing their faces oneagainst the other with her bare arms, which had remained as white assnow. 

But those were vanished times. Nowadays, if faith remained, bloodviolence seemed to be departing from the Boccaneras. Their huge fortunealso had been lost in the slow decline which for a century past has beenruining the Roman /patriziato/. It had been necessary to sell theestates; the palace had emptied, gradually sinking to the mediocrity andbourgeois life of the new times. For their part the Boccanerasobstinately declined to contract any alien alliances, proud as they wereof the purity of their Roman blood. And poverty was as nothing to them;they found contentment in their immense pride, and without a plaintsequestered themselves amidst the silence and gloom in which their racewas dwindling away. 

Prince Ascanio, dead since 1848, had left four children by his wife, aCorvisieri; first Pio, the Cardinal; then Serafina, who, in order toremain with her brother, had not married; and finally Ernesta andOnofrio, both of whom were deceased. As Ernesta had merely left adaughter, Benedetta, behind her, it followed that the only male heir, theonly possible continuator of the family name was Onofrio's son, youngPrince Dario, now some thirty years of age. Should he die withoutposterity, the Boccaneras, once so full of life and whose deeds hadfilled Roman history in papal times, must fatally disappear. 

Dario and his cousin Benedetta had been drawn together by a deep, smiling, natural passion ever since childhood. They seemed born one forthe other; they could not imagine that they had been brought into theworld for any other purpose than that of becoming husband and wife assoon as they should be old enough to marry. When Prince Onofrio--anamiable man of forty, very popular in Rome, where he spent his modestfortune as his heart listed--espoused La Montefiori's daughter, thelittle Marchesa Flavia, whose superb beauty, suggestive of a youthfulJuno, had maddened him, he went to reside at the Villa Montefiori, theonly property, indeed the only belonging, that remained to the twoladies. It was in the direction of St'. Agnese-fuori-le-Mura, * and therewere vast grounds, a perfect park in fact, planted with centenariantrees, among which the villa, a somewhat sorry building of theseventeenth century, was falling into ruins. 

 * St. Agnes-without-the-walls, N. E. Of Rome. 

Unfavourable reports were circulated about the ladies, the mother havingalmost lost caste since she had become a widow, and the girl having toobold a beauty, too conquering an air. Thus the marriage had not met withthe approval of Serafina, who was very rigid, or of Onofrio's elderbrother Pio, at that time merely a /Cameriere segreto/ of the Holy Fatherand a Canon of the Vatican basilica. Only Ernesta kept up a regularintercourse with Onofrio, fond of him as she was by reason of his gaietyof disposition; and thus, later on, her favourite diversion was to goeach week to the Villa Montefiori with her daughter Benedetta, there tospend the day. And what a delightful day it always proved to Benedettaand Dario, she ten years old and he fifteen, what a fraternal loving dayin that vast and almost abandoned garden with its parasol pines, itsgiant box-plants, and its clumps of evergreen oaks, amidst which one lostoneself as in a virgin forest. 

The poor stifled soul of Ernesta was a soul of pain and passion. Bornwith a mighty longing for life, she thirsted for the sun--for a free, happy, active existence in the full daylight. She was noted for her largelimpid eyes and the charming oval of her gentle face. Extremely ignorant, like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the littleshe knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in theblack Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by thosedaily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied hermother. Eventually, when she was five and twenty, and was already wearyand desolate, she contracted the customary marriage of her caste, espousing Count Brandini, the last-born of a very noble, very numerousand poor family, who had to come and live in the Via Giulia mansion, where an entire wing of the second floor was got ready for the youngcouple. And nothing changed, Ernesta continued to live in the same coldgloom, in the midst of the same dead past, the weight of which, like thatof a tombstone, she felt pressing more and more heavily upon her. 

The marriage was, on either side, a very honourable one. Count Brandinisoon passed as being the most foolish and haughty man in Rome. A strict, intolerant formalist in religious matters, he became quite triumphantwhen, after innumerable intrigues, secret plottings which lasted ten longyears, he at last secured the appointment of grand equerry to the HolyFather. With this appointment it seemed as if all the dismal majesty ofthe Vatican entered his household. However, Ernesta found life stillbearable in the time of Pius IX--that is until the latter part of1870--for she might still venture to open the windows overlooking thestreet, receive a few lady friends otherwise than in secrecy, and acceptinvitations to festivities. But when the Italians had conquered Rome andthe Pope declared himself a prisoner, the mansion in the Via Giuliabecame a sepulchre. The great doors were closed and bolted, even nailedtogether in token of mourning; and during ten years the inmates only wentout and came in by the little staircase communicating with the lane. Itwas also forbidden to open the window shutters of the facade. This wasthe sulking, the protest of the black world, the mansion sinking intodeath-like immobility, complete seclusion; no more receptions, barely afew shadows, the intimates of Donna Serafina who on Monday eveningsslipped in by the little door in the lane which was scarcely set ajar. And during those ten lugubrious years, overcome by secret despair, theyoung woman wept every night, suffered untold agony at thus being buriedalive. 

Ernesta had given birth to her daughter Benedetta rather late in life, when three and thirty years of age. At first the little one helped todivert her mind. But afterwards her wonted existence, like a grindingmillstone, again seized hold of her, and she had to place the child inthe charge of the French nuns, by whom she herself had been educated, atthe convent of the Sacred Heart of La Trinita de' Monti. When Benedettaleft the convent, grown up, nineteen years of age, she was able to speakand write French, knew a little arithmetic and her catechism, andpossessed a few hazy notions of history. Then the life of the two womenwas resumed, the life of a /gynoeceum/, suggestive of the Orient; neveran excursion with husband or father, but day after day spent in closed, secluded rooms, with nought to cheer one but the sole, everlasting, obligatory promenade, the daily drive to the Corso and the Pincio. 

At home, absolute obedience was the rule; the tie of relationshippossessed an authority, a strength, which made both women bow to the willof the Count, without possible thought of rebellion; and to the Count'swill was added that of Donna Serafina and that of Cardinal Pio, both ofwhom were stern defenders of the old-time customs. Since the Pope hadceased to show himself in Rome, the post of grand equerry had left theCount considerable leisure, for the number of equipages in the pontificalstables had been very largely reduced; nevertheless, he was constant inhis attendance at the Vatican, where his duties were now a mere matter ofparade, and ever increased his devout zeal as a mark of protest againstthe usurping monarchy installed at the Quirinal. However, Benedetta hadjust attained her twentieth year, when one evening her father returnedcoughing and shivering from some ceremony at St. Peter's. A week later hedied, carried off by inflammation of the lungs. And despite theirmourning, the loss was secretly considered a deliverance by both women, who now felt that they were free. 

Thenceforward Ernesta had but one thought, that of saving her daughterfrom that awful life of immurement and entombment. She herself hadsorrowed too deeply: it was no longer possible for her to remount thecurrent of existence; but she was unwilling that Benedetta should in herturn lead a life contrary to nature, in a voluntary grave. Moreover, similar lassitude and rebellion were showing themselves among otherpatrician families, which, after the sulking of the first years, werebeginning to draw nearer to the Quirinal. Why indeed should the children, eager for action, liberty, and sunlight, perpetually keep up the quarrelof the fathers? And so, though no reconciliation could take place betweenthe black world and the white world, * intermediate tints were alreadyappearing, and some unexpected matrimonial alliances were contracted. 

 * The "blacks" are the supporters of the papacy, the "whites" those of the King of Italy. --Trans. 

Ernesta for her part was indifferent to the political question; she knewnext to nothing about it; but that which she passionately desired wasthat her race might at last emerge from that hateful sepulchre, thatblack, silent Boccanera mansion, where her woman's joys had been frozenby so long a death. She had suffered very grievously in her heart, asgirl, as lover, and as wife, and yielded to anger at the thought that herlife should have been so spoiled, so lost through idiotic resignation. Then, too, her mind was greatly influenced by the choice of a newconfessor at this period; for she had remained very religious, practisingall the rites of the Church, and ever docile to the advice of herspiritual director. To free herself the more, however, she now quittedthe Jesuit father whom her husband had chosen for her, and in his steadtook Abbe Pisoni, the rector of the little church of Sta. Brigida, on thePiazza Farnese, close by. He was a man of fifty, very gentle, and verygood-hearted, of a benevolence seldom found in the Roman world; andarchaeology, a passion for the old stones of the past, had made him anardent patriot. Humble though his position was, folks whispered that hehad on several occasions served as an intermediary in delicate mattersbetween the Vatican and the Quirinal. And, becoming confessor not only ofErnesta but of Benedetta also, he was fond of discoursing to them aboutthe grandeur of Italian unity, the triumphant sway that Italy wouldexercise when the Pope and the King should agree together. 

Meantime Benedetta and Dario loved as on the first day, patiently, withthe strong tranquil love of those who know that they belong to oneanother. But it happened that Ernesta threw herself between them andstubbornly opposed their marriage. No, no! her daughter must not espousethat Dario, that cousin, the last of the name, who in his turn wouldimmure his wife in the black sepulchre of the Boccanera palace! Theirunion would be a prolongation of entombment, an aggravation of ruin, arepetition of the haughty wretchedness of the past, of the everlastingpeevish sulking which depressed and benumbed one! She was well acquaintedwith the young man's character; she knew that he was egotistical andweak, incapable of thinking and acting, predestined to bury his race witha smile on his lips, to let the last remnant of the house crumble abouthis head without attempting the slightest effort to found a new family. And that which she desired was fortune in another guise, a new birth forher daughter with wealth and the florescence of life amid the victors andpowerful ones of to-morrow. 

From that moment the mother did not cease her stubborn efforts to ensureher daughter's happiness despite herself. She told her of her tears, entreated her not to renew her own deplorable career. Yet she would havefailed, such was the calm determination of the girl who had for evergiven her heart, if certain circumstances had not brought her intoconnection with such a son-in-law as she dreamt of. At that very VillaMontefiori where Benedetta and Dario had plighted their troth, she metCount Prada, son of Orlando, one of the heroes of the reunion of Italy. Arriving in Rome from Milan, with his father, when eighteen years of age, at the time of the occupation of the city by the Italian Government, Prada had first entered the Ministry of Finances as a mere clerk, whilstthe old warrior, his sire, created a senator, lived scantily on a pettyincome, the last remnant of a fortune spent in his country's service. Thefine war-like madness of the former comrade of Garibaldi had, however, inthe son turned into a fierce appetite for booty, so that the young manbecame one of the real conquerors of Rome, one of those birds of preythat dismembered and devoured the city. Engaged in vast speculations onland, already wealthy according to popular report, he had--at the time ofmeeting Ernesta--just become intimate with Prince Onofrio, whose head hehad turned by suggesting to him the idea of selling the far-spreadinggrounds of the Villa Montefiori for the erection of a new suburbandistrict on the site. Others averred that he was the lover of theprincess, the beautiful Flavia, who, although nine years his senior, wasstill superb. And, truth to tell, he was certainly a man of violentdesires, with an eagerness to rush on the spoils of conquest whichrendered him utterly unscrupulous with regard either to the wealth or tothe wives of others. 

From the first day that he beheld Benedetta he desired her. But she, atany rate, could only become his by marriage. And he did not for a momenthesitate, but broke off all connection with Flavia, eager as he was forthe pure virgin beauty, the patrician youth of the other. When herealised that Ernesta, the mother, favoured him, he asked her daughter'shand, feeling certain of success. And the surprise was great, for he wassome fifteen years older than the girl. However, he was a count, he borea name which was already historical, he was piling up millions, he wasregarded with favour at the Quirinal, and none could tell to what heightshe might not attain. All Rome became impassioned. 

Never afterwards was Benedetta able to explain to herself how it happenedthat she had eventually consented. Six months sooner, six months later, such a marriage would certainly have been impossible, given the fearfulscandal which it raised in the black world. A Boccanera, the last maidenof that antique papal race, given to a Prada, to one of the despoilers ofthe Church! Was it credible? In order that the wild project might provesuccessful it had been necessary that it should be formed at a particularbrief moment--a moment when a supreme effort was being made to conciliatethe Vatican and the Quirinal. A report circulated that an agreement wason the point of being arrived at, that the King consented to recognisethe Pope's absolute sovereignty over the Leonine City, * and a narrow bandof territory extending to the sea. And if such were the case would notthe marriage of Benedetta and Prada become, so to say, a symbol of union, of national reconciliation? That lovely girl, the pure lily of the blackworld, was she not the acquiescent sacrifice, the pledge granted to thewhites?

 * The Vatican suburb of Rome, called the /Civitas Leonina/, because Leo IV, to protect it from the Saracens and Arabs, enclosed it with walls in the ninth century. --Trans. 

For a fortnight nothing else was talked of; people discussed thequestion, allowed their emotion rein, indulged in all sorts of hopes. Thegirl, for her part, did not enter into the political reasons, but simplylistened to her heart, which she could not bestow since it was hers nomore. From morn till night, however, she had to encounter her mother'sprayers entreating her not to refuse the fortune, the life which offered. And she was particularly exercised by the counsels of her confessor, goodAbbe Pisoni, whose patriotic zeal now burst forth. He weighed upon herwith all his faith in the Christian destinies of Italy, and returnedheartfelt thanks to Providence for having chosen one of his penitents asthe instrument for hastening the reconciliation which would work God'striumph throughout the world. And her confessor's influence was certainlyone of the decisive factors in shaping Benedetta's decision, for she wasvery pious, very devout, especially with regard to a certain Madonnawhose image she went to adore every Sunday at the little church on thePiazza Farnese. One circumstance in particular struck her: Abbe Pisonirelated that the flame of the lamp before the image in question whitenedeach time that he himself knelt there to beg the Virgin to incline hispenitent to the all-redeeming marriage. And thus superior forcesintervened; and she yielded in obedience to her mother, whom the Cardinaland Donna Serafina had at first opposed, but whom they left free to actwhen the religious question arose. 

Benedetta had grown up in such absolute purity and ignorance, knowingnothing of herself, so shut off from existence, that marriage withanother than Dario was to her simply the rupture of a long-kept promiseof life in common. It was not the violent wrenching of heart and fleshthat it would have been in the case of a woman who knew the facts oflife. She wept a good deal, and then in a day of self-surrender shemarried Prada, lacking the strength to continue resisting everybody, andyielding to a union which all Rome had conspired to bring about. 

But the clap of thunder came on the very night of the nuptials. Was itthat Prada, the Piedmontese, the Italian of the North, the man ofconquest, displayed towards his bride the same brutality that he hadshown towards the city he had sacked? Or was it that the revelation ofmarried life filled Benedetta with repulsion since nothing in her ownheart responded to the passion of this man? On that point she neverclearly explained herself; but with violence she shut the door of herroom, locked it and bolted it, and refused to admit her husband. For amonth Prada was maddened by her scorn. He felt outraged; both his prideand his passion bled; and he swore to master her, even as one masters acolt, with the whip. But all his virile fury was impotent against theindomitable determination which had sprung up one evening behindBenedetta's small and lovely brow. The spirit of the Boccaneras had awokewithin her; nothing in the world, not even the fear of death, would haveinduced her to become her husband's wife. * And then, love being at lastrevealed to her, there came a return of her heart to Dario, a convictionthat she must reserve herself for him alone, since it was to him that shehad promised herself. 

 * Many readers will doubtless remember that the situation as here described is somewhat akin to that of the earlier part of M. George Ohnet's /Ironmaster/, which, in its form as a novel, I translated into English many years ago. However, all resemblance between /Rome/ and the /Ironmaster/ is confined to this one point. --Trans. 

Ever since that marriage, which he had borne like a bereavement, theyoung man had been travelling in France. She did not hide the truth fromhim, but wrote to him, again vowing that she would never be another's. And meantime her piety increased, her resolve to reserve herself for thelover she had chosen mingled in her mind with constancy of religiousfaith. The ardent heart of a great /amorosa/ had ignited within her, shewas ready for martyrdom for faith's sake. And when her despairing motherwith clasped hands entreated her to resign herself to her conjugalduties, she replied that she owed no duties, since she had known nothingwhen she married. Moreover, the times were changing; the attempts toreconcile the Quirinal and the Vatican had failed, so completely, indeed, that the newspapers of the rival parties had, with renewed violence, resumed their campaign of mutual insult and outrage; and thus thattriumphal marriage, to which every one had contributed as to a pledge ofpeace, crumbled amid the general smash-up, became but a ruin the moreadded to so many others. 

Ernesta died of it. She had made a mistake. Her spoilt life--the life ofa joyless wife--had culminated in this supreme maternal error. And theworst was that she alone had to bear all the responsibility of thedisaster, for both her brother, the Cardinal, and her sister, DonnaSerafina, overwhelmed her with reproaches. For consolation she had butthe despair of Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic hopes had been destroyed, andwho was consumed with grief at having contributed to such a catastrophe. And one morning Ernesta was found, icy white and cold, in her bed. Folkstalked of the rupture of a blood-vessel, but grief had been sufficient, for she had suffered frightfully, secretly, without a plaint, as indeedshe had suffered all her life long. 

At this time Benedetta had been married about a twelvemonth: still strongin her resistance to her husband, but remaining under the conjugal roofin order to spare her mother the terrible blow of a public scandal. However, her aunt Serafina had brought influence to bear on her, byopening to her the hope of a possible nullification of her marriage, should she throw herself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat hisintervention. And Serafina ended by persuading her of this, when, deferring to certain advice, she removed her from the spiritual controlof Abbe Pisoni, and gave her the same confessor as herself. This was aJesuit father named Lorenza, a man scarce five and thirty, with brighteyes, grave and amiable manners, and great persuasive powers. However, itwas only on the morrow of her mother's death that Benedetta made up hermind, and returned to the Palazzo Boccanera, to occupy the apartmentswhere she had been born, and where her mother had just passed away. 

Immediately afterwards proceedings for annulling the marriage wereinstituted, in the first instance, for inquiry, before the Cardinal Vicarcharged with the diocese of Rome. It was related that the Contessina hadonly taken this step after a secret audience with his Holiness, who hadshown her the most encouraging sympathy. Count Prada at first spoke ofapplying to the law courts to compel his wife to return to the conjugaldomicile; but, yielding to the entreaties of his old father Orlando, whomthe affair greatly grieved, he eventually consented to accept theecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was infuriated, however, to find that thenullification of the marriage was solicited on the ground of itsnon-consummation through /impotentia mariti/; this being one of the mostvalid and decisive pleas on which the Church of Rome consents to partthose whom she has joined. And far more unhappy marriages than might beimagined are severed on these grounds, though the world only givesattention to those cases in which people of title or renown areconcerned, as it did, for instance, with the famous Martinez Campos suit. 

In Benedetta's case, her counsel, Consistorial-Advocate Morano, one ofthe leading authorities of the Roman bar, simply neglected to mention, inhis memoir, that if she was still merely a wife in name, this wasentirely due to herself. In addition to the evidence of friends andservants, showing on what terms the husband and wife had lived sincetheir marriage, the advocate produced a certificate of a medicalcharacter, showing that the non-consummation of the union was certain. And the Cardinal Vicar, acting as Bishop of Rome, had thereupon remittedthe case to the Congregation of the Council. This was a first success forBenedetta, and matters remained in this position. She was waiting for theCongregation to deliver its final pronouncement, hoping that theecclesiastical dissolution of the marriage would prove an irresistibleargument in favour of the divorce which she meant to solicit of the civilcourts. And meantime, in the icy rooms where her mother Ernesta, submissive and desolate, had lately died, the Contessina resumed hergirlish life, showing herself calm, yet very firm in her passion, havingvowed that she would belong to none but Dario, and that she would notbelong to him until the day when a priest should have joined themtogether in God's holy name. 

As it happened, some six months previously, Dario also had taken up hisabode at the Boccanera palace in consequence of the death of his fatherand the catastrophe which had ruined him. Prince Onofrio, after adoptingPrada's advice and selling the Villa Montefiori to a financial companyfor ten million /lire/, * had, instead of prudently keeping his money inhis pockets, succumbed to the fever of speculation which was consumingRome. He began to gamble, buying back his own land, and ending by losingeverything in the formidable /krach/ which was swallowing up the wealthof the entire city. Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, thePrince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome, smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death throughfalling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the everbeautiful Flavia--who had managed to save a modern villa and a personalincome of forty thousand /lire/* from the disaster--was remarried to aman of magnificent presence, her junior by some ten years. This was aSwiss named Jules Laporte, originally a sergeant in the Papal SwissGuard, then a traveller for a shady business in "relics, " and finallyMarchese Montefiore, having secured that title in securing his wife, thanks to a special brief of the Holy Father. Thus the Princess Boccanerahad again become the Marchioness Montefiori. 

 * 400, 000 pounds. ** 1, 800 pounds. 

It was then that Cardinal Boccanera, feeling greatly hurt, insisted onhis nephew Dario coming to live with him, in a small apartment on thefirst floor of the palazzo. In the heart of that holy man, who seemeddead to the world, there still lingered pride of name and lineage, with afeeling of affection for his young, slightly built nephew, the last ofthe race, the only one by whom the old stock might blossom anew. Moreover, he was not opposed to Dario's marriage with Benedetta, whom healso loved with a paternal affection; and so proud was he of the familyhonour, and so convinced of the young people's pious rectitude that, intaking them to live with him, he absolutely scorned the abominablerumours which Count Prada's friends in the white world had begun tocirculate ever since the two cousins had resided under the same roof. Donna Serafina guarded Benedetta, as he, the Cardinal, guarded Dario, andin the silence and the gloom of the vast deserted mansion, ensanguined ofolden time by so many tragic deeds of violence, there now only remainedthese four with their restrained, stilled passions, last survivors of acrumbling world upon the threshold of a new one. 

When Abbe Pierre Froment all at once awoke from sleep, his head heavywith painful dreams, he was worried to find that the daylight was alreadywaning. His watch, which he hastened to consult, pointed to six o'clock. Intending to rest for an hour at the utmost, he had slept on for nearlyseven hours, overcome beyond power of resistance. And even on awaking heremained on the bed, helpless, as though he were conquered before he hadfought. Why, he wondered, did he experience this prostration, thisunreasonable discouragement, this quiver of doubt which had come he knewnot whence during his sleep, and which was annihilating his youthfulenthusiasm of the morning? Had the Boccaneras any connection with thissudden weakening of his powers? He had espied dim disquieting figures inthe black night of his dreams; and the anguish which they had brought himcontinued, and he again evoked them, scared as he was at thus awaking ina strange room, full of uneasiness in presence of the unknown. Things nolonger seemed natural to him. He could not understand why Benedettashould have written to Viscount Philibert de la Choue to tell him thathis, Pierre's, book had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index. What interest too could she have had in his coming to Rome to defendhimself; and with what object had she carried her amiability so far as todesire that he should take up his quarters in the mansion? Pierre'sstupefaction indeed arose from his being there, on that bed in thatstrange room, in that palace whose deep, death-like silence encompassedhim. As he lay there, his limbs still overpowered and his brain seeminglyempty, a flash of light suddenly came to him, and he realised that theremust be certain circumstances that he knew nothing of that, simple thoughthings appeared, they must really hide some complicated intrigue. However, it was only a fugitive gleam of enlightenment; his suspicionsfaded; and he rose up shaking himself and accusing the gloomy twilight ofbeing the sole cause of the shivering and the despondency of which hefelt ashamed. 

In order to bestir himself, Pierre began to examine the two rooms. Theywere furnished simply, almost meagrely, in mahogany, there being scarcelyany two articles alike, though all dated from the beginning of thecentury. Neither the bed nor the windows nor the doors had any hangings. On the floor of bare tiles, coloured red and polished, there were merelysome little foot-mats in front of the various seats. And at sight of thismiddle-class bareness and coldness Pierre ended by remembering a roomwhere he had slept in childhood--a room at Versailles, at the abode ofhis grandmother, who had kept a little grocer's shop there in the days ofLouis Philippe. However, he became interested in an old painting whichhung in the bed-room, on the wall facing the bed, amidst some childishand valueless engravings. But partially discernible in the waning light, this painting represented a woman seated on some projecting stone-work, on the threshold of a great stern building, whence she seemed to havebeen driven forth. The folding doors of bronze had for ever closed behindher, yet she remained there in a mere drapery of white linen; whilstscattered articles of clothing, thrown forth chance-wise with a violenthand, lay upon the massive granite steps. Her feet were bare, her armswere bare, and her hands, distorted by bitter agony, were pressed to herface--a face which one saw not, veiled as it was by the tawny gold of herrippling, streaming hair. What nameless grief, what fearful shame, whathateful abandonment was thus being hidden by that rejected one, thatlingering victim of love, of whose unknown story one might for ever dreamwith tortured heart? It could be divined that she was adorably young andbeautiful in her wretchedness, in the shred of linen draped about hershoulders; but a mystery enveloped everything else--her passion, possiblyher misfortune, perhaps even her transgression--unless, indeed, she werethere merely as a symbol of all that shivers and that weeps visagelessbefore the ever closed portals of the unknown. For a long time Pierrelooked at her, and so intently that he at last imagined he coulddistinguish her profile, divine in its purity and expression ofsuffering. But this was only an illusion; the painting had greatlysuffered, blackened by time and neglect; and he asked himself whose workit might be that it should move him so intensely. On the adjoining wall apicture of a Madonna, a bad copy of an eighteenth-century painting, irritated him by the banality of its smile. 

Night was falling faster and faster, and, opening the sitting-roomwindow, Pierre leant out. On the other bank of the Tiber facing him arosethe Janiculum, the height whence he had gazed upon Rome that morning. Butat this dim hour Rome was no longer the city of youth and dreamlandsoaring into the early sunshine. The night was raining down, grey andashen; the horizon was becoming blurred, vague, and mournful. Yonder, tothe left, beyond the sea of roofs, Pierre could still divine the presenceof the Palatine; and yonder, to the right, there still arose the Dome ofSt. Peter's, now grey like slate against the leaden sky; whilst behindhim the Quirinal, which he could not see, must also be fading away intothe misty night. A few minutes went by, and everything became yet moreblurred; he realised that Rome was fading, departing in its immensity ofwhich he knew nothing. Then his causeless doubt and disquietude againcame on him so painfully that he could no longer remain at the window. Heclosed it and sat down, letting the darkness submerge him with its floodof infinite sadness. And his despairing reverie only ceased when the doorgently opened and the glow of a lamp enlivened the room. 

It was Victorine who came in quietly, bringing the light. "Ah! so you areup, Monsieur l'Abbe, " said she; "I came in at about four o'clock but Ilet you sleep on. You have done quite right to take all the rest yourequired. "

Then, as he complained of pains and shivering, she became anxious. "Don'tgo catching their nasty fevers, " she said. "It isn't at all healthy neartheir river, you know. Don Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary, is alwayshaving the fever, and I assure you that it isn't pleasant. "

She accordingly advised him to remain upstairs and lie down again. Shewould excuse his absence to the Princess and the Contessina. And he endedby letting her do as she desired, for he was in no state to have any willof his own. By her advice he dined, partaking of some soup, a wing of achicken, and some preserves, which Giaccomo, the big lackey, brought upto him. And the food did him a great deal of good; he felt so restoredthat he refused to go to bed, desiring, said he, to thank the ladies thatvery evening for their kindly hospitality. As Donna Serafina received onMondays he would present himself before her. 

"Very good, " said Victorine approvingly. "As you are all right again itcan do you no harm, it will even enliven you. The best thing will be forDon Vigilio to come for you at nine o'clock and accompany you. Wait forhim here. "

Pierre had just washed and put on the new cassock he had brought withhim, when, at nine o'clock precisely, he heard a discreet knock at hisdoor. A little priest came in, a man scarcely thirty years of age, butthin and debile of build, with a long, seared, saffron-coloured face. Fortwo years past attacks of fever, coming on every day at the same hour, had been consuming him. Nevertheless, whenever he forgot to control theblack eyes which lighted his yellow face, they shone out ardently withthe glow of his fiery soul. He bowed, and then in fluent Frenchintroduced himself in this simple fashion: "Don Vigilio, Monsieur l'Abbe, who is entirely at your service. If you are willing, we will go down. "

Pierre immediately followed him, expressing his thanks, and Don Vigilio, relapsing into silence, answered his remarks with a smile. Havingdescended the small staircase, they found themselves on the second floor, on the spacious landing of the grand staircase. And Pierre was surprisedand saddened by the scanty illumination, which, as in some dingylodging-house, was limited to a few gas-jets, placed far apart, theiryellow splotches but faintly relieving the deep gloom of the lofty, endless corridors. All was gigantic and funereal. Even on the landing, where was the entrance to Donna Serafina's apartments, facing thoseoccupied by her niece, nothing indicated that a reception was being heldthat evening. The door remained closed, not a sound came from the rooms, a death-like silence arose from the whole palace. And Don Vigilio did noteven ring, but, after a fresh bow, discreetly turned the door-handle. 

A single petroleum lamp, placed on a table, lighted the ante-room, alarge apartment with bare fresco-painted walls, simulating hangings ofred and gold, draped regularly all around in the antique fashion. A fewmen's overcoats and two ladies' mantles lay on the chairs, whilst a piertable was littered with hats, and a servant sat there dozing, with hisback to the wall. 

However, as Don Vigilio stepped aside to allow Pierre to enter a firstreception-room, hung with red /brocatelle/, a room but dimly lighted andwhich he imagined to be empty, the young priest found himself face toface with an apparition in black, a woman whose features he could not atfirst distinguish. Fortunately he heard his companion say, with a lowbow, "Contessina, I have the honour to present to you Monsieur l'AbbePierre Froment, who arrived from France this morning. "

Then, for a moment, Pierre remained alone with Benedetta in that deserted/salon/, in the sleepy glimmer of two lace-veiled lamps. At present, however, a sound of voices came from a room beyond, a larger apartmentwhose doorway, with folding doors thrown wide open, described aparallelogram of brighter light. 

The young woman at once showed herself very affable, with perfectsimplicity of manner: "Ah! I am happy to see you, Monsieur l'Abbe. I wasafraid that your indisposition might be serious. You are quite recoverednow, are you not?"

Pierre listened to her, fascinated by her slow and rather thick voice, inwhich restrained passion seemed to mingle with much prudent good sense. And at last he saw her, with her hair so heavy and so dark, her skin sowhite, the whiteness of ivory. She had a round face, with somewhat fulllips, a small refined nose, features as delicate as a child's. But it wasespecially her eyes that lived, immense eyes, whose infinite depths nonecould fathom. Was she slumbering? Was she dreaming? Did her motionlessface conceal the ardent tension of a great saint and a great /amorosa/?So white, so young, and so calm, her every movement was harmonious, herappearance at once very staid, very noble, and very rhythmical. In herears she wore two large pearls of matchless purity, pearls which had comefrom a famous necklace of her mother's, known throughout Rome. 

Pierre apologised and thanked her. "You see me in confusion, madame, "said he; "I should have liked to express to you this morning my gratitudefor your great kindness. "

He had hesitated to call her madame, remembering the plea brought forwardin the suit for the dissolution of her marriage. But plainly enougheverybody must call her madame. Moreover, her face had retained its calmand kindly expression. 

"Consider yourself at home here, Monsieur l'Abbe, " she responded, wishingto put him at his ease. "It is sufficient that our relative, Monsieur dela Choue, should be fond of you, and take interest in your work. I have, you know, much affection for him. " Then her voice faltered slightly, forshe realised that she ought to speak of the book, the one reason ofPierre's journey and her proffered hospitality. "Yes, " she added, "theViscount sent me your book. I read it and found it very beautiful. Itdisturbed me. But I am only an ignoramus, and certainly failed tounderstand everything in it. We must talk it over together; you willexplain your ideas to me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

In her large clear eyes, which did not know how to lie, Pierre then readthe surprise and emotion of a child's soul when confronted by disquietingand undreamt-of problems. So it was not she who had become impassionedand had desired to have him near her that she might sustain him andassist his victory. Once again, and this time very keenly, he suspected asecret influence, a hidden hand which was directing everything towardssome unknown goal. However, he was charmed by so much simplicity andfrankness in so beautiful, young, and noble a creature; and he gavehimself to her after the exchange of those few words, and was about totell her that she might absolutely dispose of him, when he wasinterrupted by the advent of another woman, whose tall, slight figure, also clad in black, stood out strongly against the luminous background ofthe further reception-room as seen through the open doorway. 

"Well, Benedetta, have you sent Giaccomo up to see?" asked the newcomer. "Don Vigilio has just come down and he is quite alone. It is improper. "

"No, no, aunt. Monsieur l'Abbe is here, " was the reply of Benedetta, hastening to introduce the young priest. "Monsieur l'Abbe PierreFroment--The Princess Boccanera. "

Ceremonious salutations were exchanged. The Princess must have beennearly sixty, but she laced herself so tightly that from behind one mighthave taken her for a young woman. This tight lacing, however, was herlast coquetry. Her hair, though still plentiful, was quite white, hereyebrows alone remaining black in her long, wrinkled face, from whichprojected the large obstinate nose of the family. She had never beenbeautiful, and had remained a spinster, wounded to the heart by theselection of Count Brandini, who had preferred her younger sister, Ernesta. From that moment she had resolved to seek consolation andsatisfaction in family pride alone, the hereditary pride of the greatname which she bore. The Boccaneras had already supplied two Popes to theChurch, and she hoped that before she died her brother would become thethird. She had transformed herself into his housekeeper, as it were, remaining with him, watching over him, and advising him, managing all thehousehold affairs herself, and accomplishing miracles in order to concealthe slow ruin which was bringing the ceilings about their heads. If everyMonday for thirty years past she had continued receiving a few intimates, all of them folks of the Vatican, it was from high politicalconsiderations, so that her drawing-room might remain a meeting-place ofthe black world, a power and a threat. 

And Pierre divined by her greeting that she deemed him of little account, petty foreign priest that he was, not even a prelate. This too againsurprised him, again brought the puzzling question to the fore: Why hadhe been invited, what was expected of him in this society from which thehumble were usually excluded? Knowing the Princess to be austerelydevout, he at last fancied that she received him solely out of regard forher kinsman, the Viscount, for in her turn she only found these words ofwelcome: "We are so pleased to receive good news of Monsieur de la Choue!He brought us such a beautiful pilgrimage two years ago. "

Passing the first through the doorway, she at last ushered the youngpriest into the adjoining reception-room. It was a spacious squareapartment, hung with old yellow /brocatelle/ of a flowery Louis XIVpattern. The lofty ceiling was adorned with a very fine panelling, carvedand coloured, with gilded roses in each compartment. The furniture, however, was of all sorts. There were some high mirrors, a couple ofsuperb gilded pier tables, and a few handsome seventeenth-centuryarm-chairs; but all the rest was wretched. A heavy round table offirst-empire style, which had come nobody knew whence, caught the eyewith a medley of anomalous articles picked up at some bazaar, and aquantity of cheap photographs littered the costly marble tops of the piertables. No interesting article of /virtu/ was to be seen. The oldpaintings on the walls were with two exceptions feebly executed. Therewas a delightful example of an unknown primitive master, afourteenth-century Visitation, in which the Virgin had the stature andpure delicacy of a child of ten, whilst the Archangel, huge and superb, inundated her with a stream of dazzling, superhuman love; and in front ofthis hung an antique family portrait, depicting a very beautiful younggirl in a turban, who was thought to be Cassia Boccanera, the /amorosa/and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brotherErcole and the corpse of her lover, Flavio Corradini. Four lamps threw abroad, peaceful glow over the faded room, and, like a melancholy sunset, tinged it with yellow. It looked grave and bare, with not even a flowerin a vase to brighten it. 

In a few words Donna Serafina at once introduced Pierre to the company;and in the silence, the pause which ensued in the conversation, he feltthat every eye was fixed upon him as upon a promised and expectedcuriosity. There were altogether some ten persons present, among thembeing Dario, who stood talking with little Princess Celia Buongiovanni, whilst the elderly relative who had brought the latter sat whispering toa prelate, Monsignor Nani, in a dim corner. Pierre, however, had beenparticularly struck by the name of Consistorial-Advocate Morano, of whoseposition in the house Viscount de la Choue had thought proper to informhim in order to avert any unpleasant blunder. For thirty years pastMorano had been Donna Serafina's /amico/. Their connection, formerly aguilty one, for the advocate had wife and children of his own, had incourse of time, since he had been left a widower, become one of those/liaisons/ which tolerant people excuse and except. Both parties wereextremely devout and had certainly assured themselves of all needful"indulgences. " And thus Morano was there in the seat which he had alwaystaken for a quarter of a century past, a seat beside the chimney-piece, though as yet the winter fire had not been lighted, and when DonnaSerafina had discharged her duties as mistress of the house, she returnedto her own place in front of him, on the other side of the chimney. 

When Pierre in his turn had seated himself near Don Vigilio, who, silentand discreet, had already taken a chair, Dario resumed in a louder voicethe story which he had been relating to Celia. Dario was a handsome man, of average height, slim and elegant. He wore a full beard, dark andcarefully tended, and had the long face and pronounced nose of theBoccaneras, but the impoverishment of the family blood over a course ofcenturies had attenuated, softened as it were, any sharpness or undueprominence of feature. 

"Oh! a beauty, an astounding beauty!" he repeated emphatically. 

"Whose beauty?" asked Benedetta, approaching him. 

Celia, who resembled the little Virgin of the primitive master hangingabove her head, began to laugh. "Oh! Dario's speaking of a poor girl, awork-girl whom he met to-day, " she explained. 

Thereupon Dario had to begin his narrative again. It appeared that whilepassing along a narrow street near the Piazza Navona, he had perceived atall, shapely girl of twenty, who was weeping and sobbing violently, prone upon a flight of steps. Touched particularly by her beauty, he hadapproached her and learnt that she had been working in the house outsidewhich she was, a manufactory of wax beads, but that, slack times havingcome, the workshops had closed and she did not dare to return home, sofearful was the misery there. Amidst the downpour of her tears she raisedsuch beautiful eyes to his that he ended by drawing some money from hispocket. But at this, crimson with confusion, she sprang to her feet, hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt, and refusing to takeanything. She added, however, that he might follow her if it so pleasedhim, and give the money to her mother. And then she hurried off towardsthe Ponte St'. Angelo. *

 * Bridge of St. Angelo. 

"Yes, she was a beauty, a perfect beauty, " repeated Dario with an air ofecstasy. "Taller than I, and slim though sturdy, with the bosom of agoddess. In fact, a real antique, a Venus of twenty, her chin ratherbold, her mouth and nose of perfect form, and her eyes wonderfully pureand large! And she was bare-headed too, with nothing but a crown of heavyblack hair, and a dazzling face, gilded, so to say, by the sun. "

They had all begun to listen to him, enraptured, full of that passionateadmiration for beauty which, in spite of every change, Rome still retainsin her heart. 

"Those beautiful girls of the people are becoming very rare, " remarkedMorano. "You might scour the Trastevere without finding any. However, this proves that there is at least one of them left. "

"And what was your goddess's name?" asked Benedetta, smiling, amused andenraptured like the others. 

"Pierina, " replied Dario, also with a laugh. 

"And what did you do with her?"

At this question the young man's excited face assumed an expression ofdiscomfort and fear, like the face of a child on suddenly encounteringsome ugly creature amidst its play. 

"Oh! don't talk of it, " said he. "I felt very sorry afterwards. I sawsuch misery--enough to make one ill. "

Yielding to his curiosity, it seemed, he had followed the girl across thePonte St'. Angelo into the new district which was being built over theformer castle meadows*; and there, on the first floor of an abandonedhouse which was already falling into ruins, though the plaster wasscarcely dry, he had come upon a frightful spectacle which still stirredhis heart: a whole family, father and mother, children, and an infirm olduncle, dying of hunger and rotting in filth! He selected the mostdignified words he could think of to describe the scene, waving his handthe while with a gesture of fright, as if to ward off some horriblevision. 

 * The meadows around the Castle of St. Angelo. The district, now covered with buildings, is quite flat and was formerly greatly subject to floods. It is known as the Quartiere dei Prati. --Trans. 

"At last, " he concluded, "I ran away, and you may be sure that I shan'tgo back again. "

A general wagging of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fellupon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, inwhich he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being thesole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people eventalking of the approaching nomination of Deputy Sacco as Minister ofFinances--Sacco, that intriguer who had engaged in all sorts of underhandpractices? His appointment would be the climax of impudence; bankruptcywould speedily and infallibly ensue. 

Meantime Benedetta, who had fixed her eyes on Pierre, with his book inher mind, alone murmured: "Poor people, how very sad! But why not go backto see them?"

Pierre, out of his element and absent-minded during the earlier moments, had been deeply stirred by the latter part of Dario's narrative. Histhoughts reverted to his apostolate amidst the misery of Paris, and hisheart was touched with compassion at being confronted by the story ofsuch fearful sufferings on the very day of his arrival in Rome. Unwittingly, impulsively, he raised his voice, and said aloud: "Oh! wewill go to see them together, madame; you will take me. These questionsimpassion me so much. "

The attention of everybody was then again turned upon the young priest. The others questioned him, and he realised that they were all anxiousabout his first impressions, his opinion of their city and of themselves. He must not judge Rome by mere outward appearances, they said. Whateffect had the city produced on him? How had he found it, and what did hethink of it? Thereupon he politely apologised for his inability to answerthem. He had not yet gone out, said he, and had seen nothing. But thisanswer was of no avail; they pressed him all the more keenly, and hefully understood that their object was to gain him over to admiration andlove. They advised him, adjured him not to yield to any fataldisillusion, but to persist and wait until Rome should have revealed tohim her soul. 

"How long do you expect to remain among us, Monsieur l'Abbe?" suddenlyinquired a courteous voice, with a clear but gentle ring. 

It was Monsignor Nani, who, seated in the gloom, thus raised his voicefor the first time. On several occasions it had seemed to Pierre that theprelate's keen blue eyes were steadily fixed upon him, though all thewhile he pretended to be attentively listening to the drawling chatter ofCelia's aunt. And before replying Pierre glanced at him. In hiscrimson-edged cassock, with a violet silk sash drawn tightly around hiswaist, Nani still looked young, although he was over fifty. His hair hadremained blond, he had a straight refined nose, a mouth very firm yetvery delicate of contour, and beautifully white teeth. 

"Why, a fortnight or perhaps three weeks, Monsignor, " replied Pierre. 

The whole /salon/ protested. What, three weeks! It was his pretension toknow Rome in three weeks! Why, six weeks, twelve months, ten years wererequired! The first impression was always a disastrous one, and a longsojourn was needed for a visitor to recover from it. 

"Three weeks!" repeated Donna Serafina with her disdainful air. "Is itpossible for people to study one another and get fond of one another inthree weeks? Those who come back to us are those who have learned to knowus. "

Instead of launching into exclamations like the others, Nani had at firstcontented himself with smiling, and gently waving his shapely hand, whichbespoke his aristocratic origin. Then, as Pierre modestly explainedhimself, saying that he had come to Rome to attend to certain matters andwould leave again as soon as those matters should have been concluded, the prelate, still smiling, summed up the argument with the remark: "Oh!Monsieur l'Abbe will stay with us for more than three weeks; we shallhave the happiness of his presence here for a long time, I hope. "

These words, though spoken with quiet cordiality, strangely disturbed theyoung priest. What was known, what was meant? He leant towards DonVigilio, who had remained near him, still and ever silent, and in awhisper inquired: "Who is Monsignor Nani?"

The secretary, however, did not at once reply. His feverish face becameyet more livid. Then his ardent eyes glanced round to make sure thatnobody was watching him, and in a breath he responded: "He is theAssessor of the Holy Office. "*

 * Otherwise the Inquisition. 

This information sufficed, for Pierre was not ignorant of the fact thatthe assessor, who was present in silence at the meetings of the HolyOffice, waited upon his Holiness every Wednesday evening after thesitting, to render him an account of the matters dealt with in theafternoon. This weekly audience, this hour spent with the Pope in aprivacy which allowed of every subject being broached, gave the assessoran exceptional position, one of considerable power. Moreover the officeled to the cardinalate; the only "rise" that could be given to theassessor was his promotion to the Sacred College. 

Monsignor Nani, who seemed so perfectly frank and amiable, continued tolook at the young priest with such an encouraging air that the latterfelt obliged to go and occupy the seat beside him, which Celia's old auntat last vacated. After all, was there not an omen of victory in meeting, on the very day of his arrival, a powerful prelate whose influence wouldperhaps open every door to him? He therefore felt very touched whenMonsignor Nani, immediately after the first words, inquired in a tone ofdeep interest, "And so, my dear child, you have published a book?"

After this, gradually mastered by his enthusiasm and forgetting where hewas, Pierre unbosomed himself, and recounted the birth and progress ofhis burning love amidst the sick and the humble, gave voice to his dreamof a return to the olden Christian community, and triumphed with therejuvenescence of Catholicism, developing into the one religion of theuniversal democracy. Little by little he again raised his voice, andsilence fell around him in the stern, antique reception-room, every onelending ear to his words with increasing surprise, with a growingcoldness of which he remained unconscious. 

At last Nani gently interrupted him, still wearing his perpetual smile, the faint irony of which, however, had departed. "No doubt, no doubt, mydear child, " he said, "it is very beautiful, oh! very beautiful, wellworthy of the pure and noble imagination of a Christian. But what do youcount on doing now?"

"I shall go straight to the Holy Father to defend myself, " answeredPierre. 

A light, restrained laugh went round, and Donna Serafina expressed thegeneral opinion by exclaiming: "The Holy Father isn't seen as easily asthat. "

Pierre, however, was quite impassioned. "Well, for my part, " he rejoined, "I hope I shall see him. Have I not expressed his views? Have I notdefended his policy? Can he let my book be condemned when I believe thatI have taken inspiration from all that is best in him?"

"No doubt, no doubt, " Nani again hastily replied, as if he feared thatthe others might be too brusque with the young enthusiast. "The HolyFather has such a lofty mind. And of course it would be necessary to seehim. Only, my dear child, you must not excite yourself so much; reflect alittle; take your time. " And, turning to Benedetta, he added, "Of coursehis Eminence has not seen Abbe Froment yet. It would be well, however, that he should receive him to-morrow morning to guide him with his wisecounsel. "

Cardinal Boccanera never attended his sister's Monday-evening receptions. Still, he was always there in the spirit, like some absent sovereignmaster. 

"To tell the truth, " replied the Contessina, hesitating, "I fear that myuncle does not share Monsieur l'Abbe's views. "

Nani again smiled. "Exactly; he will tell him things which it is good heshould hear. "

Thereupon it was at once settled with Don Vigilio that the latter wouldput down the young priest's name for an audience on the following morningat ten o'clock. 

However, at that moment a cardinal came in, clad in town costume--hissash and his stockings red, but his simar black, with a red edging andred buttons. It was Cardinal Sarno, a very old intimate of theBoccaneras; and whilst he apologised for arriving so late, through pressof work, the company became silent and deferentially clustered round him. This was the first cardinal Pierre had seen, and he felt greatlydisappointed, for the newcomer had none of the majesty, none of the fineport and presence to which he had looked forward. On the contrary, he wasshort and somewhat deformed, with the left shoulder higher than theright, and a worn, ashen face with lifeless eyes. To Pierre he lookedlike some old clerk of seventy, half stupefied by fifty years of officework, dulled and bent by incessantly leaning over his writing desk eversince his youth. And indeed that was Sarno's story. The puny child of apetty middle-class family, he had been educated at the Seminario Romano. Then later he had for ten years professed Canon Law at that sameseminary, afterwards becoming one of the secretaries of the Congregationfor the Propagation of the Faith. Finally, five and twenty years ago, hehad been created a cardinal, and the jubilee of his cardinalate hadrecently been celebrated. Born in Rome, he had always lived there; he wasthe perfect type of the prelate who, through growing up in the shade ofthe Vatican, has become one of the masters of the world. Although he hadnever occupied any diplomatic post, he had rendered such importantservices to the Propaganda, by his methodical habits of work, that he hadbecome president of one of the two commissions which furthered theinterests of the Church in those vast countries of the west which are notyet Catholic. And thus, in the depths of his dim eyes, behind his low, dull-looking brow, the huge map of Christendom was stored away. 

Nani himself had risen, full of covert respect for the unobtrusive butterrible man whose hand was everywhere, even in the most distant cornersof the earth, although he had never left his office. As Nani knew, despite his apparent nullity, Sarno, with his slow, methodical, ablyorganised work of conquest, possessed sufficient power to set empires inconfusion. 

"Has your Eminence recovered from that cold which distressed us so much?"asked Nani. 

"No, no, I still cough. There is a most malignant passage at the offices. I feel as cold as ice as soon as I leave my room. "

From that moment Pierre felt quite little, virtually lost. He was noteven introduced to the Cardinal. And yet he had to remain in the room fornearly another hour, looking around and observing. That antiquated worldthen seemed to him puerile, as though it had lapsed into a mournfulsecond childhood. Under all the apparent haughtiness and proud reserve hecould divine real timidity, unacknowledged distrust, born of greatignorance. If the conversation did not become general, it was becausenobody dared to speak out frankly; and what he heard in the corners wassimply so much childish chatter, the petty gossip of the week, thetrivial echoes of sacristies and drawing-rooms. People saw but little ofone another, and the slightest incidents assumed huge proportions. Atlast Pierre ended by feeling as though he were transported into some/salon/ of the time of Charles X, in one of the episcopal cities of theFrench provinces. No refreshments were served. Celia's old aunt securedpossession of Cardinal Sarno; but, instead of replying to her, he simplywagged his head from time to time. Don Vigilio had not opened his mouththe whole evening. However, a conversation in a very low tone was startedby Nani and Morano, to whom Donna Serafina listened, leaning forward andexpressing her approval by slowly nodding her head. They were doubtlessspeaking of the dissolution of Benedetta's marriage, for they glanced atthe young woman gravely from time to time. And in the centre of thespacious room, in the sleepy glow of the lamps, there was only the youngpeople, Benedetta, Dario, and Celia who seemed to be at all alive, chattering in undertones and occasionally repressing a burst of laughter. 

All at once Pierre was struck by the great resemblance between Benedettaand the portrait of Cassia hanging on the wall. Each displayed the samedelicate youth, the same passionate mouth, the same large, unfathomableeyes, set in the same round, sensible, healthy-looking face. In eachthere was certainly the same upright soul, the same heart of flame. Thena recollection came to Pierre, that of a painting by Guido Reni, theadorable, candid head of Beatrice Cenci, which, at that moment and to histhinking, the portrait of Cassia closely resembled. This resemblancestirred him and he glanced at Benedetta with anxious sympathy, as if allthe fierce fatality of race and country were about to fall on her. Butno, it could not be; she looked so calm, so resolute, and so patient!Besides, ever since he had entered that room he had noticed none otherthan signs of gay fraternal tenderness between her and Dario, especiallyon her side, for her face ever retained the bright serenity of a lovewhich may be openly confessed. At one moment, it is true, Dario in ajoking way had caught hold of her hands and pressed them; but while hebegan to laugh rather nervously, with a brighter gleam darting from hiseyes, she on her side, all composure, slowly freed her hands, as thoughtheirs was but the play of old and affectionate friends. She loved him, though, it was visible, with her whole being and for her whole life. 

At last when Dario, after stifling a slight yawn and glancing at hiswatch, had slipped off to join some friends who were playing cards at alady's house, Benedetta and Celia sat down together on a sofa nearPierre; and the latter, without wishing to listen, overheard a few wordsof their confidential chat. The little Princess was the eldest daughterof Prince Matteo Buongiovanni, who was already the father of fivechildren by an English wife, a Mortimer, to whom he was indebted for adowry of two hundred thousand pounds. Indeed, the Buongiovannis wereknown as one of the few patrician families of Rome that were still rich, still erect among the ruins of the past, now crumbling on every side. They also numbered two popes among their forerunners, yet this had notprevented Prince Matteo from lending support to the Quirinal withoutquarrelling with the Vatican. Son of an American woman, no longer havingthe pure Roman blood in his veins, he was a more supple politician thanother aristocrats, and was also, folks said, extremely grasping, struggling to be one of the last to retain the wealth and power of oldentimes, which he realised were condemned to death. Yet it was in hisfamily, renowned for its superb pride and its continued magnificence, that a love romance had lately taken birth, a romance which was thesubject of endless gossip: Celia had suddenly fallen in love with a younglieutenant to whom she had never spoken; her love was reciprocated, andthe passionate attachment of the officer and the girl only found vent inthe glances they exchanged on meeting each day during the usual drivethrough the Corso. Nevertheless Celia displayed a tenacious will, andafter declaring to her father that she would never take any otherhusband, she was waiting, firm and resolute, in the certainty that shewould ultimately secure the man of her choice. The worst of the affairwas that the lieutenant, Attilio Sacco, happened to be the son of DeputySacco, a parvenu whom the black world looked down upon, as upon one soldto the Quirinal and ready to undertake the very dirtiest job. 

"It was for me that Morano spoke just now, " Celia murmured in Benedetta'sear. "Yes, yes, when he spoke so harshly of Attilio's father and thatministerial appointment which people are talking about. He wanted to giveme a lesson. "

The two girls had sworn eternal affection in their school-days, andBenedetta, the elder by five years, showed herself maternal. "And so, "she said, "you've not become a whit more reasonable. You still think ofthat young man?"

"What! are you going to grieve me too, dear?" replied Celia. "I loveAttilio and mean to have him. Yes, him and not another! I want him andI'll have him, because I love him and he loves me. It's simple enough. "

Pierre glanced at her, thunderstruck. With her gentle virgin face she waslike a candid, budding lily. A brow and a nose of blossom-like purity; amouth all innocence with its lips closing over pearly teeth, and eyeslike spring water, clear and fathomless. And not a quiver passed over hercheeks of satiny freshness, no sign, however faint, of anxiety orinquisitiveness appeared in her candid glance. Did she think? Did sheknow? Who could have answered? She was virginity personified with all itsredoubtable mystery. 

"Ah! my dear, " resumed Benedetta, "don't begin my sad story over again. One doesn't succeed in marrying the Pope and the King. "

All tranquillity, Celia responded: "But you didn't love Prada, whereas Ilove Attilio. Life lies in that: one must love. "

These words, spoken so naturally by that ignorant child, disturbed Pierreto such a point that he felt tears rising to his eyes. Love! yes, thereinlay the solution of every quarrel, the alliance between the nations, thereign of peace and joy throughout the world! However, Donna Serafina hadnow risen, shrewdly suspecting the nature of the conversation which wasimpassioning the two girls. And she gave Don Vigilio a glance, which thelatter understood, for he came to tell Pierre in an undertone that it wastime to retire. Eleven o'clock was striking, and Celia went off with heraunt. Advocate Morano, however, doubtless desired to retain CardinalSarno and Nani for a few moments in order that they might privatelydiscuss some difficulty which had arisen in the divorce proceedings. Onreaching the outer reception-room, Benedetta, after kissing Celia on bothcheeks, took leave of Pierre with much good grace. 

"In answering the Viscount to-morrow morning, " said she, "I shall tellhim how happy we are to have you with us, and for longer than you think. Don't forget to come down at ten o'clock to see my uncle, the Cardinal. "

Having climbed to the third floor again, Pierre and Don Vigilio, eachcarrying a candlestick which the servant had handed to them, were aboutto part for the night, when the former could not refrain from asking thesecretary a question which had been worrying him for hours: "Is MonsignorNani a very influential personage?"

Don Vigilio again became quite scared, and simply replied by a gesture, opening his arms as if to embrace the world. Then his eyes flashed, andin his turn he seemed to yield to inquisitiveness. "You already knew him, didn't you?" he inquired. 

"I? not at all!"

"Really! Well, he knows you very well. Last Monday I heard him speak ofyou in such precise terms that he seemed to be acquainted with theslightest particulars of your career and your character. "

"Why, I never even heard his name before. "

"Then he must have procured information. "

Thereupon Don Vigilio bowed and entered his room; whilst Pierre, surprised to find his door open, saw Victorine come out with her calmactive air. 

"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, I wanted to make sure that you had everything youwere likely to want. There are candles, water, sugar, and matches. Andwhat do you take in the morning, please? Coffee? No, a cup of milk with aroll. Very good; at eight o'clock, eh? And now rest and sleep well. I wasawfully afraid of ghosts during the first nights I spent in this oldpalace! But I never saw a trace of one. The fact is, when people aredead, they are too well pleased, and don't want to break their rest!"

Then off she went, and Pierre at last found himself alone, glad to beable to shake off the strain imposed on him, to free himself from thediscomfort which he had felt in that reception-room, among those peoplewho in his mind still mingled and vanished like shadows in the sleepyglow of the lamps. Ghosts, thought he, are the old dead ones of long agowhose distressed spirits return to love and suffer in the breasts of theliving of to-day. And, despite his long afternoon rest, he had never feltso weary, so desirous of slumber, confused and foggy as was his mind, full of the fear that he had hitherto not understood things aright. Whenhe began to undress, his astonishment at being in that room returned tohim with such intensity that he almost fancied himself another person. What did all those people think of his book? Why had he been brought tothis cold dwelling whose hostility he could divine? Was it for thepurpose of helping him or conquering him? And again in the yellowglimmer, the dismal sunset of the drawing-room, he perceived DonnaSerafina and Advocate Morano on either side of the chimney-piece, whilstbehind the calm yet passionate visage of Benedetta appeared the smilingface of Monsignor Nani, with cunning eyes and lips bespeaking indomitableenergy. 

He went to bed, but soon got up again, stifling, feeling such a need offresh, free air that he opened the window wide in order to lean out. Butthe night was black as ink, the darkness had submerged the horizon. Amist must have hidden the stars in the firmament; the vault above seemedopaque and heavy like lead; and yonder in front the houses of theTrastevere had long since been asleep. Not one of all their windowsglittered; there was but a single gaslight shining, all alone and faraway, like a lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In thedepths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome's four andtwenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and the modern Quirinal, even thegiant dome of St. Peter's, blotted out from the sky by the flood ofgloom. And below him he could not see, he could not even hear the Tiber, the dead river flowing past the dead city. 

III

AT a quarter to ten o'clock on the following morning Pierre came down tothe first floor of the mansion for his audience with Cardinal Boccanera. He had awoke free of all fatigue and again full of courage and candidenthusiasm; nothing remaining of his strange despondency of the previousnight, the doubts and suspicions which had then come over him. Themorning was so fine, the sky so pure and so bright, that his heart oncemore palpitated with hope. 

On the landing he found the folding doors of the first ante-room wideopen. While closing the gala saloons which overlooked the street, andwhich were rotting with old age and neglect, the Cardinal still used thereception-rooms of one of his grand-uncles, who in the eighteenth centuryhad risen to the same ecclesiastical dignity as himself. There was asuite of four immense rooms, each sixteen feet high, with windows facingthe lane which sloped down towards the Tiber; and the sun never enteredthem, shut off as it was by the black houses across the lane. Thus theinstallation, in point of space, was in keeping with the display and pompof the old-time princely dignitaries of the Church. But no repairs wereever made, no care was taken of anything, the hangings were frayed andragged, and dust preyed on the furniture, amidst an unconcern whichseemed to betoken some proud resolve to stay the course of time. 

Pierre experienced a slight shock as he entered the first room, theservants' ante-chamber. Formerly two pontifical /gente d'armi/ in fulluniform had always stood there amidst a stream of lackeys; and the singleservant now on duty seemed by his phantom-like appearance to increase themelancholiness of the vast and gloomy hall. One was particularly struckby an altar facing the windows, an altar with red drapery surmounted by a/baldacchino/ with red hangings, on which appeared the escutcheon of theBoccaneras, the winged dragon spitting flames with the device, /Boccanera, Alma rossa/. And the grand-uncle's red hat, the old huge ceremonialhat, was also there, with the two cushions of red silk, and the twoantique parasols which were taken in the coach each time his Eminencewent out. And in the deep silence it seemed as if one could almost hearthe faint noise of the moths preying for a century past upon all thisdead splendour, which would have fallen into dust at the slightest touchof a feather broom. 

The second ante-room, that was formerly occupied by the secretary, wasalso empty, and it was only in the third one, the /anticamera nobile/, that Pierre found Don Vigilio. With his retinue reduced to what wasstrictly necessary, the Cardinal had preferred to have his secretary nearhim--at the door, so to say, of the old throne-room, where he gaveaudience. And Don Vigilio, so thin and yellow, and quivering with fever, sat there like one lost, at a small, common, black table covered withpapers. Raising his head from among a batch of documents, he recognisedPierre, and in a low voice, a faint murmur amidst the silence, he said, "His Eminence is engaged. Please wait. "

Then he again turned to his reading, doubtless to escape all attempts atconversation. 

Not daring to sit down, Pierre examined the apartment. It looked perhapsyet more dilapidated than the others, with its hangings of green damaskworn by age and resembling the faded moss on ancient trees. The ceiling, however, had remained superb. Within a frieze of gilded and colouredornaments was a fresco representing the Triumph of Amphitrite, the workof one of Raffaelle's pupils. And, according to antique usage, it washere that the /berretta/, the red cap, was placed, on a credence, below alarge crucifix of ivory and ebony. 

As Pierre grew used to the half-light, however, his attention was moreparticularly attracted by a recently painted full-length portrait of theCardinal in ceremonial costume--cassock of red moire, rochet of lace, and/cappa/ thrown like a royal mantle over his shoulders. In these vestmentsof the Church the tall old man of seventy retained the proud bearing of aprince, clean shaven, but still boasting an abundance of white hair whichstreamed in curls over his shoulders. He had the commanding visage of theBoccaneras, a large nose and a large thin-lipped mouth in a long faceintersected by broad lines; and the eyes which lighted his palecountenance were indeed the eyes of his race, very dark, yet sparklingwith ardent life under bushy brows which had remained quite black. Withlaurels about his head he would have resembled a Roman emperor, veryhandsome and master of the world, as though indeed the blood of Augustuspulsated in his veins. 

Pierre knew his story which this portrait recalled. Educated at theCollege of the Nobles, Pio Boccanera had but once absented himself fromRome, and that when very young, hardly a deacon, but neverthelessappointed oblegate to convey a /berretta/ to Paris. On his return hisecclesiastical career had continued in sovereign fashion. Honours hadfallen on him naturally, as by right of birth. Ordained by Pius IXhimself, afterwards becoming a Canon of the Vatican Basilica, and/Cameriere segreto/, he had risen to the post of Majordomo about the timeof the Italian occupation, and in 1874 had been created a Cardinal. Forthe last four years, moreover, he had been Papal Chamberlain(/Camerlingo/), and folks whispered that Leo XIII had appointed him tothat post, even as he himself had been appointed to it by Pius IX, inorder to lessen his chance of succeeding to the pontifical throne; foralthough the conclave in choosing Leo had set aside the old traditionthat the Camerlingo was ineligible for the papacy, it was not probablethat it would again dare to infringe that rule. Moreover, people assertedthat, even as had been the case in the reign of Pius, there was a secretwarfare between the Pope and his Camerlingo, the latter remaining on oneside, condemning the policy of the Holy See, holding radically differentopinions on all things, and silently waiting for the death of Leo, whichwould place power in his hands with the duty of summoning the conclave, and provisionally watching over the affairs and interests of the Churchuntil a new Pope should be elected. Behind Cardinal Pio's broad, sternbrow, however, in the glow of his dark eyes, might there not also be theambition of actually rising to the papacy, of repeating the career ofGioachino Pecci, Camerlingo and then Pope, all tradition notwithstanding?With the pride of a Roman prince Pio knew but Rome; he almost gloried inbeing totally ignorant of the modern world; and verily he showed himselfvery pious, austerely religious, with a full firm faith into which thefaintest doubt could never enter. 

But a whisper drew Pierre from his reflections. Don Vigilio, in hisprudent way, invited him to sit down: "You may have to wait some time:take a stool. "

Then he began to cover a large sheet of yellowish paper with finewriting, while Pierre seated himself on one of the stools rangedalongside the wall in front of the portrait. And again the young man fellinto a reverie, picturing in his mind a renewal of all the princely pompof the old-time cardinals in that antique room. To begin with, as soon asnominated, a cardinal gave public festivities, which were sometimes verysplendid. During three days the reception-rooms remained wide open, allcould enter, and from room to room ushers repeated the names of those whocame--patricians, people of the middle class, poor folks, all Romeindeed, whom the new cardinal received with sovereign kindliness, as aking might receive his subjects. Then there was quite a princely retinue;some cardinals carried five hundred people about with them, had no fewerthan sixteen distinct offices in their households, lived, in fact, amidsta perfect court. Even when life subsequently became simplified, acardinal, if he were a prince, still had a right to a gala train of fourcoaches drawn by black horses. Four servants preceded him in liveries, emblazoned with his arms, and carried his hat, cushion, and parasols. Hewas also attended by a secretary in a mantle of violet silk, atrain-bearer in a gown of violet woollen stuff, and a gentleman inwaiting, wearing an Elizabethan style of costume, and bearing the/berretta/ with gloved hands. Although the household had then becomesmaller, it still comprised an /auditore/ specially charged with thecongregational work, a secretary employed exclusively for correspondence, a chief usher who introduced visitors, a gentleman in attendance for thecarrying of the /berretta/, a train-bearer, a chaplain, a majordomo and a/valet-de-chambre/, to say nothing of a flock of underlings, lackeys, cooks, coachmen, grooms, quite a population, which filled the vastmansions with bustle. And with these attendants Pierre mentally sought tofill the three spacious ante-rooms now so deserted; the stream of lackeysin blue liveries broidered with emblazonry, the world of abbes andprelates in silk mantles appeared before him, again setting magnificentand passionate life under the lofty ceilings, illumining all thesemi-gloom with resuscitated splendour. 

But nowadays--particularly since the Italian occupation of Rome--nearlyall the great fortunes of the Roman princes have been exhausted, and thepomp of the great dignitaries of the Church has disappeared. The ruinedpatricians have kept aloof from badly remunerated ecclesiastical officesto which little renown attaches, and have left them to the ambition ofthe petty /bourgeoisie/. Cardinal Boccanera, the last prince of ancientnobility invested with the purple, received scarcely more than 30, 000/lire/* a year to enable him to sustain his rank, that is 22, 000/lire/, ** the salary of his post as Camerlingo, and various small sumsderived from other functions. And he would never have made both ends meethad not Donna Serafina helped him with the remnants of the former familyfortune which he had long previously surrendered to his sisters and hisbrother. Donna Serafina and Benedetta lived apart, in their own rooms, having their own table, servants, and personal expenses. The Cardinalonly had his nephew Dario with him, and he never gave a dinner or held apublic reception. His greatest source of expense was his carriage, theheavy pair-horse coach, which ceremonial usage compelled him to retain, for a cardinal cannot go on foot through the streets of Rome. However, his coachman, an old family servant, spared him the necessity of keepinga groom by insisting on taking entire charge of the carriage and the twoblack horses, which, like himself, had grown old in the service of theBoccaneras. There were two footmen, father and son, the latter born inthe house. And the cook's wife assisted in the kitchen. However, yetgreater reductions had been made in the ante-rooms, where the staff, onceso brilliant and numerous, was now simply composed of two petty priests, Don Vigilio, who was at once secretary, auditore, and majordomo, and AbbePaparelli, who acted as train-bearer, chaplain, and chief usher. There, where a crowd of salaried people of all ranks had once moved to and fro, filling the vast halls with bustle and colour, one now only beheld twolittle black cassocks gliding noiselessly along, two unobtrusive shadowsflitting about amidst the deep gloom of the lifeless rooms. 

 * 1, 200 pounds. 

 ** 880 pounds. 

And Pierre now fully understood the haughty unconcern of the Cardinal, who suffered time to complete its work of destruction in that ancestralmansion, to which he was powerless to restore the glorious life of formertimes! Built for that shining life, for the sovereign display of asixteenth-century prince, it was now deserted and empty, crumbling aboutthe head of its last master, who had no servants left him to fill it, andwould not have known how to pay for the materials which repairs wouldhave necessitated. And so, since the modern world was hostile, sincereligion was no longer sovereign, since men had changed, and one wasdrifting into the unknown, amidst the hatred and indifference of newgenerations, why not allow the old world to collapse in the stubborn, motionless pride born of its ancient glory? Heroes alone died standing, without relinquishing aught of their past, preserving the same faithuntil their final gasp, beholding, with pain-fraught bravery and infinitesadness, the slow last agony of their divinity. And the Cardinal's tallfigure, his pale, proud face, so full of sovereign despair and courage, expressed that stubborn determination to perish beneath the ruins of theold social edifice rather than change a single one of its stones. 

Pierre was roused by a rustling of furtive steps, a little mouse-liketrot, which made him raise his head. A door in the wall had just opened, and to his surprise there stood before him an abbe of some forty years, fat and short, looking like an old maid in a black skirt, a very old maidin fact, so numerous were the wrinkles on his flabby face. It was AbbePaparelli, the train-bearer and usher, and on seeing Pierre he was aboutto question him, when Don Vigilio explained matters. 

"Ah! very good, very good, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment. His Eminence willcondescend to receive you, but you must wait, you must wait. "

Then, with his silent rolling walk, he returned to the second ante-room, where he usually stationed himself. 

Pierre did not like his face--the face of an old female devotee, whitenedby celibacy, and ravaged by stern observance of the rites; and so, as DonVigilio--his head weary and his hands burning with fever--had not resumedhis work, the young man ventured to question him. Oh! Abbe Paparelli, hewas a man of the liveliest faith, who from simple humility remained in amodest post in his Eminence's service. On the other hand, his Eminencewas pleased to reward him for his devotion by occasionally condescendingto listen to his advice. 

As Don Vigilio spoke, a faint gleam of irony, a kind of veiled angerappeared in his ardent eyes. However, he continued to examine Pierre, andgradually seemed reassured, appreciating the evident frankness of thisforeigner who could hardly belong to any clique. And so he ended bydeparting somewhat from his continual sickly distrust, and even engagedin a brief chat. 

"Yes, yes, " he said, "there is a deal of work sometimes, and rather hardwork too. His Eminence belongs to several Congregations, theConsistorial, the Holy Office, the Index, the Rites. And all thedocuments concerning the business which falls to him come into my hands. I have to study each affair, prepare a report on it, clear the way, so tosay. Besides which all the correspondence is carried on through me. Fortunately his Eminence is a holy man, and intrigues neither for himselfnor for others, and this enables us to taste a little peace. "

Pierre took a keen interest in these particulars of the life led by aprince of the Church. He learnt that the Cardinal rose at six o'clock, summer and winter alike. He said his mass in his chapel, a little roomwhich simply contained an altar of painted wood, and which nobody buthimself ever entered. His private apartments were limited to threerooms--a bed-room, dining-room, and study--all very modest and small, contrived indeed by partitioning off portions of one large hall. And heled a very retired life, exempt from all luxury, like one who is frugaland poor. At eight in the morning he drank a cup of cold milk for hisbreakfast. Then, when there were sittings of the Congregations to whichhe belonged, he attended them; otherwise he remained at home and gaveaudience. Dinner was served at one o'clock, and afterwards came thesiesta, lasting until five in summer and until four at other seasons--asacred moment when a servant would not have dared even to knock at thedoor. On awaking, if it were fine, his Eminence drove out towards theancient Appian Way, returning at sunset when the /Ave Maria/ began toring. And finally, after again giving audience between seven and nine, hesupped and retired into his room, where he worked all alone or went tobed. The cardinals wait upon the Pope on fixed days, two or three timeseach month, for purposes connected with their functions. For nearly ayear, however, the Camerlingo had not been received in private audienceby his Holiness, and this was a sign of disgrace, a proof of secretwarfare, of which the entire black world spoke in prudent whispers. 

"His Eminence is sometimes a little rough, " continued Don Vigilio in asoft voice. "But you should see him smile when his niece the Contessina, of whom he is very fond, comes down to kiss him. If you have a goodreception, you know, you will owe it to the Contessina. "

At this moment the secretary was interrupted. A sound of voices came fromthe second ante-room, and forthwith he rose to his feet, and bent verylow at sight of a stout man in a black cassock, red sash, and black hat, with twisted cord of red and gold, whom Abbe Paparelli was ushering inwith a great display of deferential genuflections. Pierre also had risenat a sign from Don Vigilio, who found time to whisper to him, "CardinalSanguinetti, Prefect of the Congregation of the Index. "

Meantime Abbe Paparelli was lavishing attentions on the prelate, repeating with an expression of blissful satisfaction: "Your mostreverend Eminence was expected. I have orders to admit your most reverendEminence at once. His Eminence the Grand Penitentiary is already here. "

Sanguinetti, loud of voice and sonorous of tread, spoke out with suddenfamiliarity, "Yes, yes, I know. A number of importunate people detainedme! One can never do as one desires. But I am here at last. "

He was a man of sixty, squat and fat, with a round and highly colouredface distinguished by a huge nose, thick lips, and bright eyes which werealways on the move. But he more particularly struck one by his active, almost turbulent, youthful vivacity, scarcely a white hair as yet showingamong his brown and carefully tended locks, which fell in curls about histemples. Born at Viterbo, he had studied at the seminary there beforecompleting his education at the Universita Gregoriana in Rome. Hisecclesiastical appointments showed how rapidly he had made his way, howsupple was his mind: first of all secretary to the nunciature at Lisbon;then created titular Bishop of Thebes, and entrusted with a delicatemission in Brazil; on his return appointed nuncio first at Brussels andnext at Vienna; and finally raised to the cardinalate, to say nothing ofthe fact that he had lately secured the suburban episcopal see ofFrascati. * Trained to business, having dealt with every nation in Europe, he had nothing against him but his ambition, of which he made too open adisplay, and his spirit of intrigue, which was ever restless. It was saidthat he was now one of the irreconcilables who demanded that Italy shouldsurrender Rome, though formerly he had made advances to the Quirinal. Inhis wild passion to become the next Pope he rushed from one opinion tothe other, giving himself no end of trouble to gain people from whom heafterwards parted. He had twice already fallen out with Leo XIII, but haddeemed it politic to make his submission. In point of fact, given that hewas an almost openly declared candidate to the papacy, he was wearinghimself out by his perpetual efforts, dabbling in too many things, andsetting too many people agog. 

 * Cardinals York and Howard were Bishops of Frascati. --Trans. 

Pierre, however, had only seen in him the Prefect of the Congregation ofthe Index; and the one idea which struck him was that this man woulddecide the fate of his book. And so, when the Cardinal had disappearedand Abbe Paparelli had returned to the second ante-room, he could notrefrain from asking Don Vigilio, "Are their Eminences CardinalSanguinetti and Cardinal Boccanera very intimate, then?"

An irrepressible smile contracted the secretary's lips, while his eyesgleamed with an irony which he could no longer subdue: "Veryintimate--oh! no, no--they see one another when they can't do otherwise. "

Then he explained that considerable deference was shown to CardinalBoccanera's high birth, and that his colleagues often met at hisresidence, when, as happened to be the case that morning, any graveaffair presented itself, requiring an interview apart from the usualofficial meetings. Cardinal Sanguinetti, he added, was the son of a pettymedical man of Viterbo. "No, no, " he concluded, "their Eminences are notat all intimate. It is difficult for men to agree when they have neitherthe same ideas nor the same character, especially too when they are ineach other's way. "

Don Vigilio spoke these last words in a lower tone, as if talking tohimself and still retaining his sharp smile. But Pierre scarcelylistened, absorbed as he was in his own worries. "Perhaps they have metto discuss some affair connected with the Index?" said he. 

Don Vigilio must have known the object of the meeting. However, he merelyreplied that, if the Index had been in question, the meeting would havetaken place at the residence of the Prefect of that Congregation. Thereupon Pierre, yielding to his impatience, was obliged to put astraight question. "You know of my affair--the affair of my book, " hesaid. "Well, as his Eminence is a member of the Congregation, and all thedocuments pass through your hands, you might be able to give me someuseful information. I know nothing as yet and am so anxious to know!"

At this Don Vigilio relapsed into scared disquietude. He stammered, saying that he had not seen any documents, which was true. "Nothing hasyet reached us, " he added; "I assure you I know nothing. "

Then, as the other persisted, he signed to him to keep quiet, and againturned to his writing, glancing furtively towards the second ante-room asif he believed that Abbe Paparelli was listening. He had certainly saidtoo much, he thought, and he made himself very small, crouching over thetable, and melting, fading away in his dim corner. 

Pierre again fell into a reverie, a prey to all the mystery whichenveloped him--the sleepy, antique sadness of his surroundings. Longminutes went by; it was nearly eleven when the sound of a door openingand a buzz of voices roused him. Then he bowed respectfully to CardinalSanguinetti, who went off accompanied by another cardinal, a very thinand tall man, with a grey, bony, ascetic face. Neither of them, however, seemed even to see the petty foreign priest who bent low as they went by. They were chatting aloud in familiar fashion. 

"Yes! the wind is falling; it is warmer than yesterday. "

"We shall certainly have the sirocco to-morrow. "

Then solemn silence again fell on the large, dim room. Don Vigilio wasstill writing, but his pen made no noise as it travelled over the stiffyellow paper. However, the faint tinkle of a cracked bell was suddenlyheard, and Abbe Paparelli, after hastening into the throne-room for amoment, returned to summon Pierre, whom he announced in a restrainedvoice: "Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre Froment. "

The spacious throne-room was like the other apartments, a virtual ruin. Under the fine ceiling of carved and gilded wood-work, the redwall-hangings of /brocatelle/, with a large palm pattern, were fallinginto tatters. A few holes had been patched, but long wear had streakedthe dark purple of the silk--once of dazzling magnificence--with palehues. The curiosity of the room was its old throne, an arm-chairupholstered in red silk, on which the Holy Father had sat when visitingCardinal Pio's grand-uncle. This chair was surmounted by a canopy, likewise of red silk, under which hung the portrait of the reigning Pope. And, according to custom, the chair was turned towards the wall, to showthat none might sit on it. The other furniture of the apartment was madeup of sofas, arm-chairs, and chairs, with a marvellous Louis Quatorzetable of gilded wood, having a top of mosaic-work representing the rapeof Europa. 

But at first Pierre only saw Cardinal Boccanera standing by the tablewhich he used for writing. In his simple black cassock, with red edgingand red buttons, the Cardinal seemed to him yet taller and prouder thanin the portrait which showed him in ceremonial costume. There was thesame curly white hair, the same long, strongly marked face, with largenose and thin lips, and the same ardent eyes, illumining the palecountenance from under bushy brows which had remained black. But theportrait did not express the lofty tranquil faith which shone in thishandsome face, a complete certainty of what truth was, and an absolutedetermination to abide by it for ever. 

Boccanera had not stirred, but with black, fixed glance remained watchinghis visitor's approach; and the young priest, acquainted with the usualceremonial, knelt and kissed the large ruby which the prelate wore on hishand. However, the Cardinal immediately raised him. 

"You are welcome here, my dear son. My niece spoke to me about you withso much sympathy that I am happy to receive you. " With these words Pioseated himself near the table, as yet not telling Pierre to take a chair, but still examining him whilst speaking slowly and with studiedpoliteness: "You arrived yesterday morning, did you not, and were verytired?"

"Your Eminence is too kind--yes, I was worn out, as much through emotionas fatigue. This journey is one of such gravity for me. "

The Cardinal seemed indisposed to speak of serious matters so soon. "Nodoubt; it is a long way from Paris to Rome, " he replied. "Nowadays thejourney may be accomplished with fair rapidity, but formerly howinterminable it was!" Then speaking yet more slowly: "I went to Parisonce--oh! a long time ago, nearly fifty years ago--and then for barely aweek. A large and handsome city; yes, yes, a great many people in thestreets, extremely well-bred people, a nation which has accomplishedgreat and admirable things. Even in these sad times one cannot forgetthat France was the eldest daughter of the Church. But since that onejourney I have not left Rome--"

Then he made a gesture of quiet disdain, expressive of all he leftunsaid. What was the use of journeying to a land of doubt and rebellion?Did not Rome suffice--Rome, which governed the world--the Eternal Citywhich, when the times should be accomplished, would become the capital ofthe world once more?

Silently glancing at the Cardinal's lofty stature, the stature of one ofthe violent war-like princes of long ago, now reduced to wearing thatsimple cassock, Pierre deemed him superb with his proud conviction thatRome sufficed unto herself. But that stubborn resolve to remain inignorance, that determination to take no account of other nationsexcepting to treat them as vassals, disquieted him when he reflected onthe motives that had brought him there. And as silence had again fallenhe thought it politic to approach the subject he had at heart by words ofhomage. 

"Before taking any other steps, " said he, "I desired to express myprofound respect for your Eminence; for in your Eminence I place my onlyhope; and I beg your Eminence to be good enough to advise and guide me. "

With a wave of the hand Boccanera thereupon invited Pierre to take achair in front of him. "I certainly do not refuse you my counsel, my dearson, " he replied. "I owe my counsel to every Christian who desires to dowell. But it would be wrong for you to rely on my influence. I have none. I live entirely apart from others; I cannot and will not ask foranything. However, this will not prevent us from chatting. " Then, approaching the question in all frankness, without the slightestartifice, like one of brave and absolute mind who fears no responsibilityhowever great, he continued: "You have written a book, have younot?--'New Rome, ' I believe--and you have come to defend this book whichhas been denounced to the Congregation of the Index. For my own part Ihave not yet read it. You will understand that I cannot read everything. I only see the works that are sent to me by the Congregation which I havebelonged to since last year; and, besides, I often content myself withthe reports which my secretary draws up for me. However, my nieceBenedetta has read your book, and has told me that it is not lacking ininterest. It first astonished her somewhat, and then greatly moved her. So I promise you that I will go through it and study the incriminatedpassages with the greatest care. "

Pierre profited by the opportunity to begin pleading his cause. And itoccurred to him that it would be best to give his references at once. "Your Eminence will realise how stupefied I was when I learnt thatproceedings were being taken against my book, " he said. "Monsieur leVicomte Philibert de la Choue, who is good enough to show me somefriendship, does not cease repeating that such a book is worth the bestof armies to the Holy See. "

"Oh! De la Choue, De la Choue!" repeated the Cardinal with a pout ofgood-natured disdain. "I know that De la Choue considers himself a goodCatholic. He is in a slight degree our relative, as you know. And when hecomes to Rome and stays here, I willingly see him, on condition howeverthat no mention is made of certain subjects on which it would beimpossible for us to agree. To tell the truth, the Catholicism preachedby De la Choue--worthy, clever man though he is--his Catholicism, I say, with his corporations, his working-class clubs, his cleansed democracyand his vague socialism, is after all merely so much literature!"

This pronouncement struck Pierre, for he realised all the disdainfulirony contained in it--an irony which touched himself. And so he hastenedto name his other reference, whose authority he imagined to be abovediscussion: "His Eminence Cardinal Bergerot has been kind enough tosignify his full approval of my book. "

At this Boccanera's face suddenly changed. It no longer wore anexpression of derisive blame, tinged with the pity that is prompted by achild's ill-considered action fated to certain failure. A flash of angernow lighted up the Cardinal's dark eyes, and a pugnacious impulsehardened his entire countenance. "In France, " he slowly resumed, "Cardinal Bergerot no doubt has a reputation for great piety. We knowlittle of him in Rome. Personally, I have only seen him once, when hecame to receive his hat. And I would not therefore allow myself to judgehim if his writings and actions had not recently saddened my believingsoul. Unhappily, I am not the only one; you will find nobody here, of theSacred College, who approves of his doings. " Boccanera paused, then in afirm voice concluded: "Cardinal Bergerot is a Revolutionary!"

This time Pierre's surprise for a moment forced him to silence. ARevolutionary--good heavens! a Revolutionary--that gentle pastor ofsouls, whose charity was inexhaustible, whose one dream was that Jesusmight return to earth to ensure at last the reign of peace and justice!So words did not have the same signification in all places; into whatreligion had he now tumbled that the faith of the poor and the humbleshould be looked upon as a mere insurrectional, condemnable passion? Asyet unable to understand things aright, Pierre nevertheless realised thatdiscussion would be both discourteous and futile, and his only remainingdesire was to give an account of his book, explain and vindicate it. Butat his first words the Cardinal interposed. 

"No, no, my dear son. It would take us too long and I wish to read thepassages. Besides, there is an absolute rule. All books which meddle withthe faith are condemnable and pernicious. Does your book show perfectrespect for dogma?"

"I believe so, and I assure your Eminence that I have had no intention ofwriting a work of negation. "

"Good: I may be on your side if that is true. Only, in the contrary case, I have but one course to advise you, which is to withdraw your work, condemn it, and destroy it without waiting until a decision of the Indexcompels you to do so. Whosoever has given birth to scandal must stifle itand expiate it, even if he have to cut into his own flesh. The onlyduties of a priest are humility and obedience, the complete annihilationof self before the sovereign will of the Church. And, besides, why writeat all? For there is already rebellion in expressing an opinion of one'sown. It is always the temptation of the devil which puts a pen in anauthor's hand. Why, then, incur the risk of being for ever damned byyielding to the pride of intelligence and domination? Your book again, mydear son--your book is literature, literature!"

This expression again repeated was instinct with so much contempt thatPierre realised all the wretchedness that would fall upon the poor pagesof his apostolate on meeting the eyes of this prince who had become asaintly man. With increasing fear and admiration he listened to him, andbeheld him growing greater and greater. 

"Ah! faith, my dear son, everything is in faith--perfect, disinterestedfaith--which believes for the sole happiness of believing! How restful itis to bow down before the mysteries without seeking to penetrate them, full of the tranquil conviction that, in accepting them, one possessesboth the certain and the final! Is not the highest intellectualsatisfaction that which is derived from the victory of the divine overthe mind, which it disciplines, and contents so completely that it knowsdesire no more? And apart from that perfect equilibrium, that explanationof the unknown by the divine, no durable peace is possible for man. Ifone desires that truth and justice should reign upon earth, it is in Godthat one must place them. He that does not believe is like a battlefield, the scene of every disaster. Faith alone can tranquillise and deliver. "

For an instant Pierre remained silent before the great figure rising upin front of him. At Lourdes he had only seen suffering humanity rushingthither for health of the body and consolation of the soul; but here wasthe intellectual believer, the mind that needs certainty, findingsatisfaction, tasting the supreme enjoyment of doubting no more. He hadnever previously heard such a cry of joy at living in obedience withoutanxiety as to the morrow of death. He knew that Boccanera's youth hadbeen somewhat stormy, traversed by acute attacks of sensuality, a flaringof the red blood of his ancestors; and he marvelled at the calm majestywhich faith had at last implanted in this descendant of so violent arace, who had no passion remaining in him but that of pride. 

"And yet, " Pierre at last ventured to say in a timid, gentle voice, "iffaith remains essential and immutable, forms change. From hour to hourevolution goes on in all things--the world changes. "

"That is not true!" exclaimed the Cardinal, "the world does not change. It continually tramps over the same ground, loses itself, strays into themost abominable courses, and it continually has to be brought back intothe right path. That is the truth. In order that the promises of Christmay be fulfilled, is it not necessary that the world should return to itsstarting point, its original innocence? Is not the end of time fixed forthe day when men shall be in possession of the full truth of the Gospel?Yes, truth is in the past, and it is always to the past that one mustcling if one would avoid the pitfalls which evil imaginations create. Allthose fine novelties, those mirages of that famous so-called progress, are simply traps and snares of the eternal tempter, causes of perditionand death. Why seek any further, why constantly incur the risk of error, when for eighteen hundred years the truth has been known? Truth! why itis in Apostolic and Roman Catholicism as created by a long succession ofgenerations! What madness to desire to change it when so many loftyminds, so many pious souls have made of it the most admirable ofmonuments, the one instrument of order in this world, and of salvation inthe next!"

Pierre, whose heart had contracted, refrained from further protest, forhe could no longer doubt that he had before him an implacable adversaryof his most cherished ideas. Chilled by a covert fear, as though he felta faint breath, as of a distant wind from a land of ruins, pass over hisface, bringing with it the mortal cold of a sepulchre, he bowedrespectfully whilst the Cardinal, rising to his full height, continued inhis obstinate voice, resonant with proud courage: "And if Catholicism, asits enemies pretend, be really stricken unto death, it must die standingand in all its glorious integrality. You hear me, Monsieur l'Abbe--notone concession, not one surrender, not a single act of cowardice!Catholicism is such as it is, and cannot be otherwise. No modification ofthe divine certainty, the entire truth, is possible. The removal of thesmallest stone from the edifice could only prove a cause of instability. Is this not evident? You cannot save old houses by attacking them withthe pickaxe under pretence of decorating them. You only enlarge thefissures. Even if it were true that Rome were on the eve of falling intodust, the only result of all the repairing and patching would be tohasten the catastrophe. And instead of a noble death, met unflinchingly, we should then behold the basest of agonies, the death throes of a cowardwho struggles and begs for mercy! For my part I wait. I am convinced thatall that people say is but so much horrible falsehood, that Catholicismhas never been firmer, that it imbibes eternity from the one and onlysource of life. But should the heavens indeed fall, on that day I shouldbe here, amidst these old and crumbling walls, under these old ceilingswhose beams are being devoured by the worms, and it is here, erect, amongthe ruins, that I should meet my end, repeating my /credo/ for the lasttime. "

His final words fell more slowly, full of haughty sadness, whilst with asweeping gesture he waved his arms towards the old, silent, desertedpalace around him, whence life was withdrawing day by day. Had aninvoluntary presentiment come to him, did the faint cold breath from theruins also fan his own cheeks? All the neglect into which the vast roomshad fallen was explained by his words; and a superb, despondent grandeurenveloped this prince and cardinal, this uncompromising Catholic who, withdrawing into the dim half-light of the past, braved with a soldier'sheart the inevitable downfall of the olden world. 

Deeply impressed, Pierre was about to take his leave when, to hissurprise, a little door opened in the hangings. "What is it? Can't I beleft in peace for a moment?" exclaimed Boccanera with sudden impatience. 

Nevertheless, Abbe Paparelli, fat and sleek, glided into the room withoutthe faintest sign of emotion. And he whispered a few words in the ear ofthe Cardinal, who, on seeing him, had become calm again. "What curate?"asked Boccanera. "Oh! yes, Santobono, the curate of Frascati. Iknow--tell him I cannot see him just now. "

Paparelli, however, again began whispering in his soft voice, though notin so low a key as previously, for some of his words could be overheard. The affair was urgent, the curate was compelled to return home, and hadonly a word or two to say. And then, without awaiting consent, thetrain-bearer ushered in the visitor, a /protege/ of his, whom he had leftjust outside the little door. And for his own part he withdrew with thetranquillity of a retainer who, whatever the modesty of his office, knowshimself to be all powerful. 

Pierre, who was momentarily forgotten, looked at the visitor--a bigfellow of a priest, the son of a peasant evidently, and still near to thesoil. He had an ungainly, bony figure, huge feet and knotted hands, witha seamy tanned face lighted by extremely keen black eyes. Five and fortyand still robust, his chin and cheeks bristling, and his cassock, overlarge, hanging loosely about his big projecting bones, he suggested abandit in disguise. Still there was nothing base about him; theexpression of his face was proud. And in one hand he carried a smallwicker basket carefully covered over with fig-leaves. 

Santobono at once bent his knees and kissed the Cardinal's ring, but withhasty unconcern, as though only some ordinary piece of civility were inquestion. Then, with that commingling of respect and familiarity whichthe little ones of the world often evince towards the great, he said, "Ibeg your most reverend Eminence's forgiveness for having insisted. Butthere were people waiting, and I should not have been received if my oldfriend Paparelli had not brought me by way of that door. Oh! I have avery great service to ask of your Eminence, a real service of the heart. But first of all may I be allowed to offer your Eminence a littlepresent?"

The Cardinal listened with a grave expression. He had been wellacquainted with Santobono in the years when he had spent the summer atFrascati, at a princely residence which the Boccaneras had possessedthere--a villa rebuilt in the seventeenth century, surrounded by awonderful park, whose famous terrace overlooked the Campagna, stretchingfar and bare like the sea. This villa, however, had since been sold, andon some vineyards, which had fallen to Benedetta's share, Count Prada, prior to the divorce proceedings, had begun to erect quite a district oflittle pleasure houses. In former times, when walking out, the Cardinalhad condescended to enter and rest in the dwelling of Santobono, whoofficiated at an antique chapel dedicated to St. Mary of the Fields, without the town. The priest had his home in a half-ruined buildingadjoining this chapel, and the charm of the place was a walled gardenwhich he cultivated himself with the passion of a true peasant. 

"As is my rule every year, " said he, placing his basket on the table, "Iwished that your Eminence might taste my figs. They are the first of theseason. I gathered them expressly this morning. You used to be so fond ofthem, your Eminence, when you condescended to gather them from the treeitself. You were good enough to tell me that there wasn't another tree inthe world that produced such fine figs. "

The Cardinal could not help smiling. He was indeed very fond of figs, andSantobono spoke truly: his fig-tree was renowned throughout the district. "Thank you, my dear Abbe, " said Boccanera, "you remember my littlefailings. Well, and what can I do for you?"

Again he became grave, for, in former times, there had been unpleasantdiscussions between him and the curate, a lack of agreement which hadangered him. Born at Nemi, in the core of a fierce district, Santobonobelonged to a violent family, and his eldest brother had died of a stab. He himself had always professed ardently patriotic opinions. It was saidthat he had all but taken up arms for Garibaldi; and, on the day when theItalians had entered Rome, force had been needed to prevent him fromraising the flag of Italian unity above his roof. His passionate dreamwas to behold Rome mistress of the world, when the Pope and the Kingshould have embraced and made cause together. Thus the Cardinal looked onhim as a dangerous revolutionary, a renegade who imperilled Catholicism. 

"Oh! what your Eminence can do for me, what your Eminence can do if onlycondescending and willing!" repeated Santobono in an ardent voice, clasping his big knotty hands. And then, breaking off, he inquired, "Didnot his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti explain my affair to your mostreverend Eminence?"

"No, the Cardinal simply advised me of your visit, saying that you hadsomething to ask of me. "

Whilst speaking Boccanera's face had clouded over, and it was withincreased sternness of manner that he again waited. He was aware that thepriest had become Sanguinetti's "client" since the latter had been in thehabit of spending weeks together at his suburban see of Frascati. Walkingin the shadow of every cardinal who is a candidate to the papacy, thereare familiars of low degree who stake the ambition of their life on thepossibility of that cardinal's election. If he becomes Pope some day, ifthey themselves help him to the throne, they enter the great pontificalfamily in his train. It was related that Sanguinetti had once alreadyextricated Santobono from a nasty difficulty: the priest having one daycaught a marauding urchin in the act of climbing his wall, had beaten thelittle fellow with such severity that he had ultimately died of it. However, to Santobono's credit it must be added that his fanaticaldevotion to the Cardinal was largely based upon the hope that he wouldprove the Pope whom men awaited, the Pope who would make Italy thesovereign nation of the world. 

"Well, this is my misfortune, " he said. "Your Eminence knows my brotherAgostino, who was gardener at the villa for two years in your Eminence'stime. He is certainly a very pleasant and gentle young fellow, of whomnobody has ever complained. And so it is hard to understand how such anaccident can have happened to him, but it seems that he has killed a manwith a knife at Genzano, while walking in the street in the evening. I amdreadfully distressed about it, and would willingly give two fingers ofmy right hand to extricate him from prison. However, it occurred to methat your Eminence would not refuse me a certificate stating thatAgostino was formerly in your Eminence's service, and that your Eminencewas always well pleased with his quiet disposition. "

But the Cardinal flatly protested: "I was not at all pleased withAgostino. He was wildly violent, and I had to dismiss him preciselybecause he was always quarrelling with the other servants. "

"Oh! how grieved I am to hear your Eminence say that! So it is true, then, my poor little Agostino's disposition has really changed! Stillthere is always a way out of a difficulty, is there not? You can stillgive me a certificate, first arranging the wording of it. A certificatefrom your Eminence would have such a favourable effect upon the lawofficers. "

"No doubt, " replied Boccanera; "I can understand that, but I will give nocertificate. "

"What! does your most reverend Eminence refuse my prayer?"

"Absolutely! I know that you are a priest of perfect morality, that youdischarge the duties of your ministry with strict punctuality, and thatyou would be deserving of high commendation were it not for yourpolitical fancies. Only your fraternal affection is now leading youastray. I cannot tell a lie to please you. "

Santobono gazed at him in real stupefaction, unable to understand that aprince, an all-powerful cardinal, should be influenced by such pettyscruples, when the entire question was a mere knife thrust, the mostcommonplace and frequent of incidents in the yet wild land of the oldRoman castles. 

"A lie! a lie!" he muttered; "but surely it isn't lying just to say whatis good of a man, leaving out all the rest, especially when a man hasgood points as Agostino certainly has. In a certificate, too, everythingdepends on the words one uses. "

He stubbornly clung to that idea; he could not conceive that a personshould refuse to soften the rigour of justice by an ingeniouspresentation of the facts. However, on acquiring a certainty that hewould obtain nothing, he made a gesture of despair, his livid faceassuming an expression of violent rancour, whilst his black eyes flamedwith restrained passion. 

"Well, well! each looks on truth in his own way, " he said. "I shall goback to tell his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti. And I beg your Eminencenot to be displeased with me for having disturbed your Eminence to nopurpose. By the way, perhaps the figs are not yet quite ripe; but I willtake the liberty to bring another basketful towards the end of theseason, when they will be quite nice and sweet. A thousand thanks and athousand felicities to your most reverend Eminence. "

Santobono went off backwards, his big bony figure bending double withrepeated genuflections. Pierre, whom the scene had greatly interested, inhim beheld a specimen of the petty clergy of Rome and its environs, ofwhom people had told him before his departure from Paris. This was notthe /scagnozzo/, the wretched famished priest whom some nasty affairbrings from the provinces, who seeks his daily bread on the pavements ofRome; one of the herd of begowned beggars searching for a livelihoodamong the crumbs of Church life, voraciously fighting for chance masses, and mingling with the lowest orders in taverns of the worst repute. Norwas this the country priest of distant parts, a man of crass ignoranceand superstition, a peasant among the peasants, treated as an equal byhis pious flock, which is careful not to mistake him for the Divinity, and which, whilst kneeling in all humility before the parish saint, doesnot bend before the man who from that saint derives his livelihood. AtFrascati the officiating minister of a little church may receive astipend of some nine hundred /lire/ a year, * and he has only bread andmeat to buy if his garden yields him wine and fruit and vegetables. Thisone, Santobono, was not without education; he knew a little theology anda little history, especially the history of the past grandeur of Rome, which had inflamed his patriotic heart with the mad dream that universaldomination would soon fall to the portion of renascent Rome, the capitalof united Italy. But what an insuperable distance still remained betweenthis petty Roman clergy, often very worthy and intelligent, and the highclergy, the high dignitaries of the Vatican! Nobody that was not at leasta prelate seemed to count. 

 * About 36 pounds. One is reminded of Goldsmith's line: "And passing rich with forty pounds a year. "--Trans. 

"A thousand thanks to your most reverend Eminence, and may success attendall your Eminence's desires. "

With these words Santobono finally disappeared, and the Cardinal returnedto Pierre, who also bowed preparatory to taking his leave. 

"To sum up the matter, Monsieur l'Abbe, " said Boccanera, "the affair ofyour book presents certain difficulties. As I have told you, I have noprecise information, I have seen no documents. But knowing that my niecetook an interest in you, I said a few words on the subject to CardinalSanguinetti, the Prefect of the Index, who was here just now. And heknows little more than I do, for nothing has yet left the Secretary'shands. Still he told me that the denunciation emanated from personages ofrank and influence, and applied to numerous pages of your work, in whichit was said there were passages of the most deplorable character asregards both discipline and dogma. "

Greatly moved by the idea that he had hidden foes, secret adversaries whopursued him in the dark, the young priest responded: "Oh! denounced, denounced! If your Eminence only knew how that word pains my heart! Anddenounced, too, for offences which were certainly involuntary, since myone ardent desire was the triumph of the Church! All I can do, then, isto fling myself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat him to hear mydefence. "

Boccanera suddenly became very grave again. A stern look rested on hislofty brow as he drew his haughty figure to its full height. "HisHoliness, " said he, "can do everything, even receive you, if such be hisgood pleasure, and absolve you also. But listen to me. I again advise youto withdraw your book yourself, to destroy it, simply and courageously, before embarking in a struggle in which you will reap the shame of beingoverwhelmed. Reflect on that. "

Pierre, however, had no sooner spoken of the Pope than he had regrettedit, for he realised that an appeal to the sovereign authority wascalculated to wound the Cardinal's feelings. Moreover, there was nofurther room for doubt. Boccanera would be against his book, and theutmost that he could hope for was to gain his neutrality by bringingpressure to bear on him through those about him. At the same time he hadfound the Cardinal very plain spoken, very frank, far removed from allthe secret intriguing in which the affair of his book was involved, as henow began to realise; and so it was with deep respect and genuineadmiration for the prelate's strong and lofty character that he tookleave of him. 

"I am infinitely obliged to your Eminence, " he said, "and I promise thatI will carefully reflect upon all that your Eminence has been kind enoughto say to me. "

On returning to the ante-room, Pierre there found five or six persons whohad arrived during his audience, and were now waiting. There was abishop, a domestic prelate, and two old ladies, and as he drew near toDon Vigilio before retiring, he was surprised to find him conversing witha tall, fair young fellow, a Frenchman, who, also in astonishment, exclaimed, "What! are you here in Rome, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

For a moment Pierre had hesitated. "Ah! I must ask your pardon, MonsieurNarcisse Habert, " he replied, "I did not at first recognise you! It wasthe less excusable as I knew that you had been an /attache/ at ourembassy here ever since last year. "

Tall, slim, and elegant of appearance, Narcisse Habert had a clearcomplexion, with eyes of a bluish, almost mauvish, hue, a fair frizzybeard, and long curling fair hair cut short over the forehead in theFlorentine fashion. Of a wealthy family of militant Catholics, chieflymembers of the bar or bench, he had an uncle in the diplomaticprofession, and this had decided his own career. Moreover, a place atRome was marked out for him, for he there had powerful connections. Hewas a nephew by marriage of Cardinal Sarno, whose sister had marriedanother of his uncles, a Paris notary; and he was also cousin german ofMonsignor Gamba del Zoppo, a /Cameriere segreto/, and son of one of hisaunts, who had married an Italian colonel. And in some measure for thesereasons he had been attached to the embassy to the Holy See, hissuperiors tolerating his somewhat fantastic ways, his everlasting passionfor art which sent him wandering hither and thither through Rome. He wasmoreover very amiable and extremely well-bred; and it occasionallyhappened, as was the case that morning, that with his weary and somewhatmysterious air he came to speak to one or another of the cardinals onsome real matter of business in the ambassador's name. 

So as to converse with Pierre at his ease, he drew him into the deepembrasure of one of the windows. "Ah! my dear Abbe, how pleased I am tosee you!" said he. "You must remember what pleasant chats we had when wemet at Cardinal Bergerot's! I told you about some paintings which youwere to see for your book, some miniatures of the fourteenth andfifteenth centuries. And now, you know, I mean to take possession of you. I'll show you Rome as nobody else could show it to you. I've seen andexplored everything. Ah! there are treasures, such treasures! But intruth there is only one supreme work; one always comes back to one'sparticular passion. The Botticelli in the Sixtine Chapel--ah, theBotticelli!"

His voice died away, and he made a faint gesture as if overcome byadmiration. Then Pierre had to promise that he would place himself in hishands and accompany him to the Sixtine Chapel. "You know why I am here, "at last said the young priest. "Proceedings have been taken against mybook; it has been denounced to the Congregation of the Index. "

"Your book! is it possible?" exclaimed Narcisse: "a book like that withpages recalling the delightful St. Francis of Assisi!" And thereupon heobligingly placed himself at Pierre's disposal. "But our ambassador willbe very useful to you, " he said. "He is the best man in the world, ofcharming affability, and full of the old French spirit. I will presentyou to him this afternoon or to-morrow morning at the latest; and sinceyou desire an immediate audience with the Pope, he will endeavour toobtain one for you. His position naturally designates him as yourintermediary. Still, I must confess that things are not always easilymanaged. Although the Holy Father is very fond of him, there are timeswhen his Excellency fails, for the approaches are so extremelyintricate. "

Pierre had not thought of employing the ambassador's good offices, for hehad naively imagined that an accused priest who came to defend himselfwould find every door open. However, he was delighted with Narcisse'soffer, and thanked him as warmly as if the audience were alreadyobtained. 

"Besides, " the young man continued, "if we encounter any difficulties Ihave relatives at the Vatican, as you know. I don't mean my uncle theCardinal, who would be of no use to us, for he never stirs out of hisoffice at the Propaganda, and will never apply for anything. But mycousin, Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo, is very obliging, and he lives inintimacy with the Pope, his duties requiring his constant attendance onhim. So, if necessary, I will take you to see him, and he will no doubtfind a means of procuring you an interview, though his extreme prudencekeeps him perpetually afraid of compromising himself. However, it'sunderstood, you may rely on me in every respect. "

"Ah! my dear sir, " exclaimed Pierre, relieved and happy, "I heartilyaccept your offer. You don't know what balm your words have brought me;for ever since my arrival everybody has been discouraging me, and you arethe first to restore my strength by looking at things in the true Frenchway. "

Then, lowering his voice, he told the /attache/ of his interview withCardinal Boccanera, of his conviction that the latter would not help him, of the unfavourable information which had been given by CardinalSanguinetti, and of the rivalry which he had divined between the twoprelates. Narcisse listened, smiling, and in his turn began to gossipconfidentially. The rivalry which Pierre had mentioned, the prematurecontest for the tiara which Sanguinetti and Boccanera were waging, impelled to it by a furious desire to become the next Pope, had for along time been revolutionising the black world. There was incredibleintricacy in the depths of the affair; none could exactly tell who waspulling the strings, conducting the vast intrigue. As regardsgeneralities it was simply known that Boccanera representedabsolutism--the Church freed from all compromises with modern society, and waiting in immobility for the Deity to triumph over Satan, for Rometo be restored to the Holy Father, and for repentant Italy to performpenance for its sacrilege; whereas Sanguinetti, extremely politic andsupple, was reported to harbour bold and novel ideas: permission to voteto be granted to all true Catholics, * a majority to be gained by thismeans in the Legislature; then, as a fatal corollary, the downfall of theHouse of Savoy, and the proclamation of a kind of republican federationof all the former petty States of Italy under the august protectorate ofthe Pope. On the whole, the struggle was between these two antagonisticelements--the first bent on upholding the Church by a rigorousmaintenance of the old traditions, and the other predicting the fall ofthe Church if it did not follow the bent of the coming century. But allwas steeped in so much mystery that people ended by thinking that, if thepresent Pope should live a few years longer, his successor wouldcertainly be neither Boccanera nor Sanguinetti. 

 * Since the occupation of Rome by the Italian authorities, the supporters of the Church, obedient to the prohibition of the Vatican, have abstained from taking part in the political elections, this being their protest against the new order of things which they do not recognise. Various attempts have been made, however, to induce the Pope to give them permission to vote, many members of the Roman aristocracy considering the present course impolitic and even harmful to the interests of the Church. --Trans. 

All at once Pierre interrupted Narcisse: "And Monsignor Nani, do you knowhim? I spoke with him yesterday evening. And there he is coming in now!"

Nani was indeed just entering the ante-room with his usual smile on hisamiable pink face. His cassock of fine texture, and his sash of violetsilk shone with discreet soft luxury. And he showed himself very amiableto Abbe Paparelli, who, accompanying him in all humility, begged him tobe kind enough to wait until his Eminence should be able to receive him. 

"Oh! Monsignor Nani, " muttered Narcisse, becoming serious, "he is a manwhom it is advisable to have for a friend. "

Then, knowing Nani's history, he related it in an undertone. Born atVenice, of a noble but ruined family which had produced heroes, Nani, after first studying under the Jesuits, had come to Rome to perfecthimself in philosophy and theology at the Collegio Romano, which was thenalso under Jesuit management. Ordained when three and twenty, he had atonce followed a nuncio to Bavaria as private secretary; and then had goneas /auditore/ to the nunciatures of Brussels and Paris, in which lattercity he had lived for five years. Everything seemed to predestine him todiplomacy, his brilliant beginnings and his keen and encyclopaedicalintelligence; but all at once he had been recalled to Rome, where he wassoon afterwards appointed Assessor to the Holy Office. It was asserted atthe time that this was done by the Pope himself, who, being wellacquainted with Nani, and desirous of having a person he could dependupon at the Holy Office, had given instructions for his recall, sayingthat he could render far more services at Rome than abroad. Already adomestic prelate, Nani had also lately become a Canon of St. Peter's andan apostolic prothonotary, with the prospect of obtaining a cardinal'shat whenever the Pope should find some other favourite who would pleasehim better as assessor. 

"Oh, Monsignor Nani!" continued Narcisse. "He's a superior man, thoroughly well acquainted with modern Europe, and at the same time avery saintly priest, a sincere believer, absolutely devoted to theChurch, with the substantial faith of an intelligent politician--a beliefdifferent, it is true, from the narrow gloomy theological faith which weknow so well in France. And this is one of the reasons why you willhardly understand things here at first. The Roman prelates leave theDeity in the sanctuary and reign in His name, convinced that Catholicismis the human expression of the government of God, the only perfect andeternal government, beyond the pales of which nothing but falsehood andsocial danger can be found. While we in our country lag behind, furiouslyarguing whether there be a God or not, they do not admit that God'sexistence can be doubted, since they themselves are his delegatedministers; and they entirely devote themselves to playing their parts asministers whom none can dispossess, exercising their power for thegreatest good of humanity, and devoting all their intelligence, all theirenergy to maintaining themselves as the accepted masters of the nations. As for Monsignor Nani, after being mixed up in the politics of the wholeworld, he has for ten years been discharging the most delicate functionsin Rome, taking part in the most varied and most important affairs. Hesees all the foreigners who come to Rome, knows everything, has a hand ineverything. Add to this that he is extremely discreet and amiable, with amodesty which seems perfect, though none can tell whether, with his lightsilent footstep, he is not really marching towards the highest ambition, the purple of sovereignty. "

"Another candidate for the tiara, " thought Pierre, who had listenedpassionately; for this man Nani interested him, caused him an instinctivedisquietude, as though behind his pink and smiling face he could divinean infinity of obscure things. At the same time, however, the youngpriest but ill understood his friend, for he again felt bewildered by allthis strange Roman world, so different from what he had expected. 

Nani had perceived the two young men and came towards them with his handcordially outstretched "Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, I am happy to meetyou again. I won't ask you if you have slept well, for people alwayssleep well at Rome. Good-day, Monsieur Habert; your health has kept goodI hope, since I met you in front of Bernini's Santa Teresa, which youadmire so much. * I see that you know one another. That is very nice. Imust tell you, Monsieur l'Abbe, that Monsieur Habert is a passionatelover of our city; he will be able to show you all its finest sights. "

 * The allusion is to a statue representing St. Theresa in ecstasy, with the Angel of Death descending to transfix her with his dart. It stands in a transept of Sta. Maria della Vittoria. --Trans. 

Then, in his affectionate way, he at once asked for informationrespecting Pierre's interview with the Cardinal. He listened attentivelyto the young man's narrative, nodding his head at certain passages, andoccasionally restraining his sharp smile. The Cardinal's severity andPierre's conviction that he would accord him no support did not at allastonish Nani. It seemed as if he had expected that result. However, onhearing that Cardinal Sanguinetti had been there that morning, and hadpronounced the affair of the book to be very serious, he appeared to losehis self-control for a moment, for he spoke out with sudden vivacity:

"It can't be helped, my dear child, my intervention came too late. Directly I heard of the proceedings I went to his Eminence CardinalSanguinetti to tell him that the result would be an immense advertisementfor your book. Was it sensible? What was the use of it? We know that youare inclined to be carried away by your ideas, that you are anenthusiast, and are prompt to do battle. So what advantage should we gainby embarrassing ourselves with the revolt of a young priest who mightwage war against us with a book of which some thousands of copies havebeen sold already? For my part I desired that nothing should be done. AndI must say that the Cardinal, who is a man of sense, was of the samemind. He raised his arms to heaven, went into a passion, and exclaimedthat he was never consulted, that the blunder was already committedbeyond recall, and that it was impossible to prevent process from takingits course since the matter had already been brought before theCongregation, in consequence of denunciations from authoritative sources, based on the gravest motives. Briefly, as he said, the blunder wascommitted, and I had to think of something else. "

All at once Nani paused. He had just noticed that Pierre's ardent eyeswere fixed upon his own, striving to penetrate his meaning. A faint flushthen heightened the pinkiness of his complexion, whilst in an easy way hecontinued, unwilling to reveal how annoyed he was at having said toomuch: "Yes, I thought of helping you with all the little influence Ipossess, in order to extricate you from the worries in which this affairwill certainly land you. "

An impulse of revolt was stirring Pierre, who vaguely felt that he wasperhaps being made game of. Why should he not be free to declare hisfaith, which was so pure, so free from personal considerations, so fullof glowing Christian charity? "Never, " said he, "will I withdraw; neverwill I myself suppress my book, as I am advised to do. It would be an actof cowardice and falsehood, for I regret nothing, I disown nothing. If Ibelieve that my book brings a little truth to light I cannot destroy itwithout acting criminally both towards myself and towards others. No, never! You hear me--never!"

Silence fell. But almost immediately he resumed: "It is at the knees ofthe Holy Father that I desire to make that declaration. He willunderstand me, he will approve me. "

Nani no longer smiled; henceforth his face remained as it were closed. Heseemed to be studying the sudden violence of the young priest withcuriosity; then sought to calm him with his own tranquil kindliness. "Nodoubt, no doubt, " said he. "There is certainly great sweetness inobedience and humility. Still I can understand that, before anythingelse, you should desire to speak to his Holiness. And afterwards you willsee--is that not so?--you will see--"

Then he evinced a lively interest in the suggested application for anaudience. He expressed keen regret that Pierre had not forwarded thatapplication from Paris, before even coming to Rome: in that course wouldhave rested the best chance of a favourable reply. Bother of any kind wasnot liked at the Vatican, and if the news of the young priest's presencein Rome should only spread abroad, and the motives of his journey bediscussed, all would be lost. Then, on learning that Narcisse had offeredto present Pierre to the French ambassador, Nani seemed full of anxiety, and deprecated any such proceeding: "No, no! don't do that--it would bemost imprudent. In the first place you would run the risk of embarrassingthe ambassador, whose position is always delicate in affairs of thiskind. And then, too, if he failed--and my fear is that he mightfail--yes, if he failed it would be all over; you would no longer havethe slightest chance of obtaining an audience by any other means. For theVatican would not like to hurt the ambassador's feelings by yielding toother influence after resisting his. "

Pierre anxiously glanced at Narcisse, who wagged his head, embarrassedand hesitating. "The fact is, " the /attache/ at last murmured, "we latelysolicited an audience for a high French personage and it was refused, which was very unpleasant for us. Monsignor is right. We must keep ourambassador in reserve, and only utilise him when we have exhausted allother means. " Then, noticing Pierre's disappointment, he addedobligingly: "Our first visit therefore shall be for my cousin at theVatican. "

Nani, his attention again roused, looked at the young man inastonishment. "At the Vatican? You have a cousin there?"

"Why, yes--Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo. "

"Gamba! Gamba! Yes, yes, excuse me, I remember now. Ah! so you thought ofGamba to bring influence to bear on his Holiness? That's an idea, nodoubt; one must see--one must see. "

He repeated these words again and again as if to secure time to see intothe matter himself, to weigh the pros and cons of the suggestion. Monsignor Gamba del Zoppo was a worthy man who played no part at thePapal Court, whose nullity indeed had become a byword at the Vatican. Hischildish stories, however, amused the Pope, whom he greatly flattered, and who was fond of leaning on his arm while walking in the gardens. Itwas during these strolls that Gamba easily secured all sorts of littlefavours. However, he was a remarkable poltroon, and had such an intensefear of losing his influence that he never risked a request withouthaving convinced himself by long meditation that no possible harm couldcome to him through it. 

"Well, do you know, the idea is not a bad one, " Nani at last declared. "Yes, yes, Gamba can secure the audience for you, if he is willing. Iwill see him myself and explain the matter. "

At the same time Nani did not cease advising extreme caution. He evenventured to say that it was necessary to be on one's guard with the papal/entourage/, for, alas! it was a fact his Holiness was so good, and hadsuch a blind faith in the goodness of others, that he had not alwayschosen his familiars with the critical care which he ought to havedisplayed. Thus one never knew to what sort of man one might be applying, or in what trap one might be setting one's foot. Nani even allowed it tobe understood that on no account ought any direct application to be madeto his Eminence the Secretary of State, for even his Eminence was not afree agent, but found himself encompassed by intrigues of such intricacythat his best intentions were paralysed. And as Nani went on discoursingin this fashion, in a very gentle, extremely unctuous manner, the Vaticanappeared like some enchanted castle, guarded by jealous and treacherousdragons--a castle where one must not take a step, pass through a doorway, risk a limb, without having carefully assured oneself that one would notleave one's whole body there to be devoured. 

Pierre continued listening, feeling colder and colder at heart, and againsinking into uncertainty. "/Mon Dieu/!" he exclaimed, "I shall never knowhow to act. You discourage me, Monsignor. "

At this Nani's cordial smile reappeared. "I, my dear child? I should besorry to do so. I only want to repeat to you that you must wait and donothing. Avoid all feverishness especially. There is no hurry, I assureyou, for it was only yesterday that a /consultore/ was chosen to reportupon your book, so you have a good full month before you. Avoideverybody, live in such a way that people shall be virtually ignorant ofyour existence, visit Rome in peace and quietness--that is the bestcourse you can adopt to forward your interests. " Then, taking one of thepriest's hands between both his own, so aristocratic, soft, and plump, headded: "You will understand that I have my reasons for speaking to youlike this. I should have offered my own services; I should have made it apoint of honour to take you straight to his Holiness, had I thought itadvisable. But I do not wish to mix myself up in the matter at thisstage; I realise only too well that at the present moment we shouldsimply make sad work of it. Later on--you hear me--later on, in the eventof nobody else succeeding, I myself will obtain you an audience; Iformally promise it. But meanwhile, I entreat you, refrain from usingthose words 'a new religion, ' which, unfortunately, occur in your book, and which I heard you repeat again only last night. There can be no newreligion, my dear child; there is but one eternal religion, which isbeyond all surrender and compromise--the Catholic, Apostolic, and Romanreligion. And at the same time leave your Paris friends to themselves. Don't rely too much on Cardinal Bergerot, whose lofty piety is notsufficiently appreciated in Rome. I assure you that I am speaking to youas a friend. "

Then, seeing how disabled Pierre appeared to be, half overcome already, no longer knowing in what direction to begin his campaign, he againstrove to comfort him: "Come, come, things will right themselves;everything will end for the best, both for the welfare of the Church andyour own. And now you must excuse me, I must leave you; I shall not beable to see his Eminence to-day, for it is impossible for me to wait anylonger. "

Abbe Paparelli, whom Pierre had noticed prowling around with his earscocked, now hastened forward and declared to Monsignor Nani that therewere only two persons to be received before him. But the prelate verygraciously replied that he would come back again at another time, for theaffair which he wished to lay before his Eminence was in no wisepressing. Then he withdrew, courteously bowing to everybody. 

Narcisse Habert's turn came almost immediately afterwards. However, before entering the throne-room he pressed Pierre's hand, repeating, "Soit is understood. I will go to see my cousin at the Vatican to-morrow, and directly I get a reply I will let you know. We shall meet again soonI hope. "

It was now past twelve o'clock, and the only remaining visitor was one ofthe two old ladies who seemed to have fallen asleep. At his littlesecretarial table Don Vigilio still sat covering huge sheets of yellowpaper with fine handwriting, from which he only lifted his eyes atintervals to glance about him distrustfully, and make sure that nothingthreatened him. 

In the mournful silence which fell around, Pierre lingered for yetanother moment in the deep embrasure of the window. Ah! what anxietyconsumed his poor, tender, enthusiastic heart! On leaving Paris thingshad seemed so simple, so natural to him! He was unjustly accused, and hestarted off to defend himself, arrived and flung himself at the feet ofthe Holy Father, who listened to him indulgently. Did not the Popepersonify living religion, intelligence to understand, justice based upontruth? And was he not, before aught else, the Father, the delegate ofdivine forgiveness and mercy, with arms outstretched towards all thechildren of the Church, even the guilty ones? Was it not meet, then, thathe should leave his door wide open so that the humblest of his sons mightfreely enter to relate their troubles, confess their transgressions, explain their conduct, imbibe comfort from the source of eternal lovingkindness? And yet on the very first day of his, Pierre's, arrival, thedoors closed upon him with a bang; he felt himself sinking into a hostilesphere, full of traps and pitfalls. One and all cried out to him"Beware!" as if he were incurring the greatest dangers in setting onefoot before the other. His desire to see the Pope became an extraordinarypretension, so difficult of achievement that it set the interests andpassions and influences of the whole Vatican agog. And there was endlessconflicting advice, long-discussed manoeuvring, all the strategy ofgenerals leading an army to victory, and fresh complications ever arisingin the midst of a dim stealthy swarming of intrigues. Ah! good Lord! howdifferent all this was from the charitable reception that Pierre hadanticipated: the pastor's house standing open beside the high road forthe admission of all the sheep of the flock, both those that were docileand those that had gone astray. 

That which began to frighten Pierre, however, was the evil, thewickedness, which he could divine vaguely stirring in the gloom: CardinalBergerot suspected, dubbed a Revolutionary, deemed so compromising thathe, Pierre, was advised not to mention his name again! The young priestonce more saw Cardinal Boccanera's pout of disdain while speaking of hiscolleague. And then Monsignor Nani had warned him not to repeat thosewords "a new religion, " as if it were not clear to everybody that theysimply signified the return of Catholicism to the primitive purity ofChristianity! Was that one of the crimes denounced to the Congregation ofthe Index? He had begun to suspect who his accusers were, and feltalarmed, for he was now conscious of secret subterranean plotting, agreat stealthy effort to strike him down and suppress his work. All thatsurrounded him became suspicious. If he listened to advice andtemporised, it was solely to follow the same politic course as hisadversaries, to learn to know them before acting. He would spend a fewdays in meditation, in surveying and studying that black world of Romewhich to him had proved so unexpected. But, at the same time, in therevolt of his apostle-like faith, he swore, even as he had said to Nani, that he would never yield, never change either a page or a line of hisbook, but maintain it in its integrity in the broad daylight as theunshakable testimony of his belief. Even were the book condemned by theIndex, he would not tender submission, withdraw aught of it. And shouldit become necessary he would quit the Church, he would go even as far asschism, continuing to preach the new religion and writing a new book, /Real Rome/, such as he now vaguely began to espy. 

However, Don Vigilio had ceased writing, and gazed so fixedly at Pierrethat the latter at last stepped up to him politely in order to takeleave. And then the secretary, yielding, despite his fears, to a desireto confide in him, murmured, "He came simply on your account, you know;he wanted to ascertain the result of your interview with his Eminence. "

It was not necessary for Don Vigilio to mention Nani by name; Pierreunderstood. "Really, do you think so?" he asked. 

"Oh! there is no doubt of it. And if you take my advice you will do whathe desires with a good grace, for it is absolutely certain that you willdo it later on. "

These words brought Pierre's disquietude and exasperation to a climax. Hewent off with a gesture of defiance. They would see if he would everyield. 

The three ante-rooms which he again crossed appeared to him blacker, emptier, more lifeless than ever. In the second one Abbe Paparellisaluted him with a little silent bow; in the first the sleepy lackey didnot even seem to see him. A spider was weaving its web between thetassels of the great red hat under the /baldacchino/. Would not thebetter course have been to set the pick at work amongst all that rottingpast, now crumbling into dust, so that the sunlight might stream infreely and restore to the purified soil the fruitfulness of youth?