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scandal which it raised in the black world. A Boccanera, the last maiden

of that antique papal race, given to a Prada, to one of the despoilers of

the Church! Was it credible? In order that the wild project might prove

successful it had been necessary that it should be formed at a particular

brief moment--a moment when a supreme effort was being made to conciliate

the Vatican and the Quirinal. A report circulated that an agreement was

on the point of being arrived at, that the King consented to recognise

the Pope's absolute sovereignty over the Leonine City,* and a narrow band

of territory extending to the sea. And if such were the case would not

the marriage of Benedetta and Prada become, so to say, a symbol of union,

of national reconciliation? That lovely girl, the pure lily of the black

world, was she not the acquiescent sacrifice, the pledge granted to the

whites?

* 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 the

question, allowed their emotion rein, indulged in all sorts of hopes. The

girl, for her part, did not enter into the political reasons, but simply

listened to her heart, which she could not bestow since it was hers no

more. From morn till night, however, she had to encounter her mother's

prayers entreating her not to refuse the fortune, the life which offered.

And she was particularly exercised by the counsels of her confessor, good

Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic zeal now burst forth. He weighed upon her

with all his faith in the Christian destinies of Italy, and returned

heartfelt thanks to Providence for having chosen one of his penitents as

the instrument for hastening the reconciliation which would work God's

triumph throughout the world. And her confessor's influence was certainly

one of the decisive factors in shaping Benedetta's decision, for she was

very pious, very devout, especially with regard to a certain Madonna

whose image she went to adore every Sunday at the little church on the

Piazza Farnese. One circumstance in particular struck her: Abbe Pisoni

related that the flame of the lamp before the image in question whitened

each time that he himself knelt there to beg the Virgin to incline his

penitent to the all-redeeming marriage. And thus superior forces

intervened; and she yielded in obedience to her mother, whom the Cardinal

and Donna Serafina had at first opposed, but whom they left free to act

when the religious question arose.

Benedetta had grown up in such absolute purity and ignorance, knowing

nothing of herself, so shut off from existence, that marriage with

another than Dario was to her simply the rupture of a long-kept promise

of life in common. It was not the violent wrenching of heart and flesh

that it would have been in the case of a woman who knew the facts of

life. She wept a good deal, and then in a day of self-surrender she

married Prada, lacking the strength to continue resisting everybody, and

yielding 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 it

that Prada, the Piedmontese, the Italian of the North, the man of

conquest, displayed towards his bride the same brutality that he had

shown towards the city he had sacked? Or was it that the revelation of

married life filled Benedetta with repulsion since nothing in her own

heart responded to the passion of this man? On that point she never

clearly explained herself; but with violence she shut the door of her

room, locked it and bolted it, and refused to admit her husband. For a

month Prada was maddened by her scorn. He felt outraged; both his pride

and his passion bled; and he swore to master her, even as one masters a

colt, with the whip. But all his virile fury was impotent against the

indomitable determination which had sprung up one evening behind

Benedetta's small and lovely brow. The spirit of the Boccaneras had awoke

within her; nothing in the world, not even the fear of death, would have

induced her to become her husband's wife.* And then, love being at last

revealed to her, there came a return of her heart to Dario, a conviction

that she must reserve herself for him alone, since it was to him that she

had 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, the

young man had been travelling in France. She did not hide the truth from

him, but wrote to him, again vowing that she would never be another's.

And meantime her piety increased, her resolve to reserve herself for the

lover she had chosen mingled in her mind with constancy of religious

faith. The ardent heart of a great _amorosa_ had ignited within her, she

was ready for martyrdom for faith's sake. And when her despairing mother

with clasped hands entreated her to resign herself to her conjugal

duties, she replied that she owed no duties, since she had known nothing

when she married. Moreover, the times were changing; the attempts to

reconcile 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 that

triumphal marriage, to which every one had contributed as to a pledge of

peace, crumbled amid the general smash-up, became but a ruin the more

added to so many others.

Ernesta died of it. She had made a mistake. Her spoilt life--the life of

a joyless wife--had culminated in this supreme maternal error. And the

worst was that she alone had to bear all the responsibility of the

disaster, for both her brother, the Cardinal, and her sister, Donna

Serafina, overwhelmed her with reproaches. For consolation she had but

the despair of Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic hopes had been destroyed, and

who was consumed with grief at having contributed to such a catastrophe.

And one morning Ernesta was found, icy white and cold, in her bed. Folks

talked of the rupture of a blood-vessel, but grief had been sufficient,

for she had suffered frightfully, secretly, without a plaint, as indeed

she had suffered all her life long.

At this time Benedetta had been married about a twelvemonth: still strong

in her resistance to her husband, but remaining under the conjugal roof

in order to spare her mother the terrible blow of a public scandal.

However, her aunt Serafina had brought influence to bear on her, by

opening to her the hope of a possible nullification of her marriage,

should she throw herself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat his

intervention. And Serafina ended by persuading her of this, when,

deferring to certain advice, she removed her from the spiritual control

of Abbe Pisoni, and gave her the same confessor as herself. This was a

Jesuit father named Lorenza, a man scarce five and thirty, with bright

eyes, grave and amiable manners, and great persuasive powers. However, it

was only on the morrow of her mother's death that Benedetta made up her

mind, and returned to the Palazzo Boccanera, to occupy the apartments

where she had been born, and where her mother had just passed away.

Immediately afterwards proceedings for annulling the marriage were

instituted, in the first instance, for inquiry, before the Cardinal Vicar

charged with the diocese of Rome. It was related that the Contessina had

only taken this step after a secret audience with his Holiness, who had

shown her the most encouraging sympathy. Count Prada at first spoke of

applying to the law courts to compel his wife to return to the conjugal

domicile; but, yielding to the entreaties of his old father Orlando, whom

the affair greatly grieved, he eventually consented to accept the

ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was infuriated, however, to find that the

nullification of the marriage was solicited on the ground of its

non-consummation through _impotentia mariti_; this being one of the most

valid and decisive pleas on which the Church of Rome consents to part

those whom she has joined. And far more unhappy marriages than might be

imagined are severed on these grounds, though the world only gives

attention to those cases in which people of title or renown are

concerned, as it did, for instance, with the famous Martinez Campos suit.

In Benedetta's case, her counsel, Consistorial-Advocate Morano, one of

the leading authorities of the Roman bar, simply neglected to mention, in

his memoir, that if she was still merely a wife in name, this was

entirely due to herself. In addition to the evidence of friends and

servants, showing on what terms the husband and wife had lived since

their marriage, the advocate produced a certificate of a medical

character, showing that the non-consummation of the union was certain.

And the Cardinal Vicar, acting as Bishop of Rome, had thereupon remitted

the case to the Congregation of the Council. This was a first success for

Benedetta, and matters remained in this position. She was waiting for the

Congregation to deliver its final pronouncement, hoping that the

ecclesiastical dissolution of the marriage would prove an irresistible

argument in favour of the divorce which she meant to solicit of the civil

courts. And meantime, in the icy rooms where her mother Ernesta,

submissive and desolate, had lately died, the Contessina resumed her

girlish life, showing herself calm, yet very firm in her passion, having

vowed that she would belong to none but Dario, and that she would not

belong to him until the day when a priest should have joined them

together in God's holy name.

As it happened, some six months previously, Dario also had taken up his

abode at the Boccanera palace in consequence of the death of his father

and the catastrophe which had ruined him. Prince Onofrio, after adopting

Prada's advice and selling the Villa Montefiori to a financial company

for ten million _lire_,* had, instead of prudently keeping his money in

his pockets, succumbed to the fever of speculation which was consuming

Rome. He began to gamble, buying back his own land, and ending by losing

everything in the formidable _krach_ which was swallowing up the wealth

of the entire city. Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, the

Prince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome,

smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death through

falling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the ever

beautiful Flavia--who had managed to save a modern villa and a personal

income of forty thousand _lire_* from the disaster--was remarried to a

man of magnificent presence, her junior by some ten years. This was a

Swiss named Jules Laporte, originally a sergeant in the Papal Swiss

Guard, then a traveller for a shady business in "relics," and finally

Marchese Montefiore, having secured that title in securing his wife,

thanks to a special brief of the Holy Father. Thus the Princess Boccanera

had again become the Marchioness Montefiori.

* 400,000 pounds.

** 1,800 pounds.

It was then that Cardinal Boccanera, feeling greatly hurt, insisted on

his nephew Dario coming to live with him, in a small apartment on the

first floor of the palazzo. In the heart of that holy man, who seemed

dead to the world, there still lingered pride of name and lineage, with a

feeling of affection for his young, slightly built nephew, the last of

the race, the only one by whom the old stock might blossom anew.

Moreover, he was not opposed to Dario's marriage with Benedetta, whom he

also loved with a paternal affection; and so proud was he of the family

honour, and so convinced of the young people's pious rectitude that, in

taking them to live with him, he absolutely scorned the abominable

rumours which Count Prada's friends in the white world had begun to

circulate ever since the two cousins had resided under the same roof.

Donna Serafina guarded Benedetta, as he, the Cardinal, guarded Dario, and

in the silence and the gloom of the vast deserted mansion, ensanguined of

olden time by so many tragic deeds of violence, there now only remained

these four with their restrained, stilled passions, last survivors of a

crumbling world upon the threshold of a new one.

When Abbe Pierre Froment all at once awoke from sleep, his head heavy

with painful dreams, he was worried to find that the daylight was already

waning. 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 nearly

seven hours, overcome beyond power of resistance. And even on awaking he

remained on the bed, helpless, as though he were conquered before he had

fought. Why, he wondered, did he experience this prostration, this

unreasonable discouragement, this quiver of doubt which had come he knew

not whence during his sleep, and which was annihilating his youthful

enthusiasm of the morning? Had the Boccaneras any connection with this

sudden weakening of his powers? He had espied dim disquieting figures in

the black night of his dreams; and the anguish which they had brought him

continued, and he again evoked them, scared as he was at thus awaking in

a strange room, full of uneasiness in presence of the unknown. Things no

longer seemed natural to him. He could not understand why Benedetta

should have written to Viscount Philibert de la Choue to tell him that

his, 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 defend

himself; and with what object had she carried her amiability so far as to

desire that he should take up his quarters in the mansion? Pierre's

stupefaction indeed arose from his being there, on that bed in that