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build it up again; that's fortunate!" he said.

"I would build it up again," the young man replied, in the trembling

voice of an inspired prophet. "I would build it up again oh, so vast, so

beautiful, and so noble! Will not the universal democracy of to-morrow,

humanity when it is at last freed, need an unique city, which shall be

the ark of alliance, the very centre of the world? And is not Rome

designated, Rome which the prophecies have marked as eternal and

immortal, where the destinies of the nations are to be accomplished? But

in order that it may become the final definitive sanctuary, the capital

of the destroyed kingdoms, where the wise men of all countries shall meet

once every year, one must first of all purify it by fire, leave nothing

of its old stains remaining. Then, when the sun shall have absorbed all

the pestilence of the old soil, we will rebuild the city ten times more

beautiful and ten times larger than it has ever been. And what a city of

truth and justice it will at last be, the Rome that has been announced

and awaited for three thousand years, all in gold and all in marble,

filling the Campagna from the sea to the Sabine and the Alban mountains,

and so prosperous and so sensible that its twenty millions of inhabitants

after regulating the law of labour will live with the unique joy of

being. Yes, yes, Rome the Mother, Rome the Queen, alone on the face of

the earth and for all eternity!"

Pierre listened to him, aghast. What! did the blood of Augustus go to

such a point as this? The popes had not become masters of Rome without

feeling impelled to rebuild it in their passion to rule over the world;

young Italy, likewise yielding to the hereditary madness of universal

domination, had in its turn sought to make the city larger than any

other, erecting whole districts for people who had never come, and now

even the Anarchists were possessed by the same stubborn dream of the

race, a dream beyond all measure this time, a fourth and monstrous Rome,

whose suburbs would invade continents in order that liberated humanity,

united in one family, might find sufficient lodging! This was the climax.

Never could more extravagant proof be given of the blood of pride and

sovereignty which had scorched the veins of that race ever since Augustus

had bequeathed it the inheritance of his absolute empire, with the

furious instinct that the world legally belonged to it, and that its

mission was to conquer it again. This idea had intoxicated all the

children of that historic soil, impelling all of them to make their city

The City, the one which had reigned and which would reign again in

splendour when the days predicted by the oracles should arrive. And

Pierre remembered the four fatidical letters, the S.P.Q.R. of old and

glorious Rome, which like an order of final triumph given to Destiny he

had everywhere found in present-day Rome, on all the walls, on all the

insignia, even on the municipal dust-carts! And he understood the

prodigious vanity of these people, haunted by the glory of their

ancestors, spellbound by the past of their city, declaring that she

contains everything, that they themselves cannot know her thoroughly,

that she is the sphinx who will some day explain the riddle of the

universe, that she is so great and noble that all within her acquires

increase of greatness and nobility, in such wise that they demand for her

the idolatrous respect of the entire world, so vivacious in their minds

is the illusive legend which clings to her, so incapable are they of

realising that what was once great may be so no longer.

"But I know your fourth Rome," resumed Orlando, again enlivened. "It's

the Rome of the people, the capital of the Universal Republic, which

Mazzini dreamt of. Only he left the pope in it. Do you know, my lad, that

if we old Republicans rallied to the monarchy, it was because we feared

that in the event of revolution the country might fall into the hands of

dangerous madmen such as those who have upset your brain? Yes, that was

why we resigned ourselves to our monarchy, which is not much different

from a parliamentary republic. And now, goodbye and be sensible, remember

that your poor mother would die of it if any misfortune should befall

you. Come, let me embrace you all the same."

On receiving the hero's affectionate kiss Angiolo coloured like a girl.

Then he went off with his gentle, dreamy air, never adding a word but

politely inclining his head to the priest. Silence continued till

Orlando's eyes encountered the newspapers scattered on the table, when he

once more spoke of the terrible bereavement of the Boccaneras. He had

loved Benedetta like a dear daughter during the sad days when she had

dwelt near him; and finding the newspaper accounts of her death somewhat

singular, worried in fact by the obscure points which he could divine in

the tragedy, he was asking Pierre for particulars, when his son Luigi

suddenly entered the room, breathless from having climbed the stairs so

quickly and with his face full of anxious fear. He had just dismissed his

contractors with impatient roughness, giving no thought to his serious

financial position, the jeopardy in which his fortune was now placed, so

anxious was he to be up above beside his father. And when he was there

his first uneasy glance was for the old man, to make sure whether the

priest by some imprudent word had not dealt him his death blow.

He shuddered on noticing how Orlando quivered, moved to tears by the

terrible affair of which he was speaking; and for a moment he thought he

had arrived too late, that the harm was done. "Good heavens, father!" he

exclaimed, "what is the matter with you, why are you crying?" And as he

spoke he knelt at the old man's feet, taking hold of his hands and giving

him such a passionate, loving glance that he seemed to be offering all

the blood of his heart to spare him the slightest grief.

"It is about the death of that poor woman," Orlando sadly answered. "I

was telling Monsieur Froment how it grieved me, and I added that I could

not yet understand it all. The papers talk of a sudden death which is

always so extraordinary."

The young Count rose again looking very pale. The priest had not yet

spoken. But what a frightful moment was this! What if he should reply,

what if he should speak out?

"You were present, were you not?" continued the old man addressing

Pierre. "You saw everything. Tell me then how the thing happened."

Luigi Prada looked at Pierre. Their eyes met fixedly, plunging into one

another's souls. All began afresh in their minds, Destiny on the march,

Santobono encountered with his little basket, the drive across the

melancholy Campagna, the conversation about poison while the little

basket was gently rocked on the priest's knees; then, in particular, the

sleepy _osteria_, and the little black hen, so suddenly killed, lying on

the ground with a tiny streamlet of violet blood trickling from her beak.

And next there was that splendid ball at the Buongiovanni mansion, with

all its _odore di femina_ and its triumph of love: and finally, before

the Palazzo Boccanera, so black under the silvery moon, there was the man

who lighted a cigar and went off without once turning his head, allowing

dim Destiny to accomplish its work of death. Both of them, Pierre and

Prada, knew that story and lived it over again, having no need to recall

it aloud in order to make certain that they had fully penetrated one

another's soul.

Pierre did not immediately answer the old man. "Oh!" he murmured at last,

"there were frightful things, yes, frightful things."

"No doubt--that is what I suspected," resumed Orlando. "You can tell us

all. In presence of death my son has freely forgiven."

The young Count's gaze again sought that of Pierre with such weight, such

ardent entreaty that the priest felt deeply stirred. He had just

remembered that man's anguish during the ball, the atrocious torture of

jealousy which he had undergone before allowing Destiny to avenge him.

And he pictured also what must have been his feelings after the terrible

outcome of it all: at first stupefaction at Destiny's harshness, at this

full vengeance which he had never desired so ferocious; then icy calmness

like that of the cool gambler who awaits events, reading the newspapers,

and feeling no other remorse than that of the general whose victory has

cost him too many men. He must have immediately realised that the

Cardinal would stifle the affair for the sake of the Church's honour; and

only retained one weight on his heart, regret possibly for that woman

whom he had never won, with perhaps a last horrible jealousy which he did

not confess to himself but from which he would always suffer, jealousy at

knowing that she lay in another's arms in the grave, for all eternity.

But behold, after that victorious effort to remain calm, after that cold

and remorseless waiting, Punishment arose, the fear that Destiny,

travelling on with its poisoned figs, might have not yet ceased its

march, and might by a rebound strike down his own father. Yet another

thunderbolt, yet another victim, the most unexpected, the being he most

adored! At that thought all his strength of resistance had in one moment

collapsed, and he was there, in terror of Destiny, more at a loss, more

trembling than a child.

"The newspapers, however," slowly said Pierre as if he were seeking his

words, "the newspapers must have told you that the Prince succumbed

first, and that the Contessina died of grief whilst embracing him for the

last time.... As for the cause of death, _mon Dieu_, you know that

doctors themselves in sudden cases scarcely dare to pronounce an exact

opinion--"

He stopped short, for within him he had suddenly heard the voice of

Benedetta giving him just before she died that terrible order: "You, who

will see his father, I charge you to tell him that I cursed his son. I

wish that he should know, it is necessary that he should know, for the

sake of truth and justice." And was he, oh! Lord, about to obey that

order, was it one of those divine commands which must be executed even if

the result be a torrent of blood and tears? For a few seconds Pierre

suffered from a heart-rending combat within him, hesitating between the

act of truth and justice which the dead woman had called for and his own

personal desire for forgiveness, and the horror he would feel should he

kill that poor old man by fulfilling his implacable mission which could

benefit nobody. And certainly the other one, the son, must have

understood what a supreme struggle was going on in the priest's mind, a

struggle which would decide his own father's fate, for his glance became

yet more suppliant than ever.

"One first thought that it was merely indigestion," continued Pierre,

"but the Prince became so much worse, that one was alarmed, and the

doctor was sent for--"

Ah! Prada's eyes, they had become so despairing, so full of the most

touching and weightiest things, that the priest could read in them all

the decisive reasons which were about to stay his tongue. No, no, he

would not strike an innocent old man, he had promised nothing, and to

obey the last expression of the dead woman's hatred would have seemed to

him like charging her memory with a crime. The young Count, too, during

those few minutes of anguish, had suffered a whole life of such

abominable torture, that after all some little justice was done.

"And then," Pierre concluded, "when the doctor arrived he at once

recognised that it was a case of infectious fever. There can be no doubt

of it. This morning I attended the funeral, it was very splendid and very

touching."

Orlando did not insist, but contented himself with saying that he also

had felt much emotion all the morning on thinking of that funeral. Then,

as he turned to set the papers on the table in order with his trembling

hands, his son, icy cold with perspiration, staggering and clinging to

the back of a chair in order that he might not fall, again gave Pierre a

long glance, but a very soft one, full of distracted gratitude.

"I am leaving this evening," resumed Pierre, who felt exhausted and

wished to break off the conversation, "and I must now bid you farewell.

Have you any commission to give me for Paris?"

"No, none," replied Orlando; and then, with sudden recollection, he

added, "Yes, I have, though! You remember that book written by my old

comrade in arms, Theophile Morin, one of Garibaldi's Thousand, that

manual for the bachelor's degree which he desired to see translated and

adopted here. Well, I am pleased to say that I have a promise that it

shall be used in our schools, but on condition that he makes some

alterations in it. Luigi, give me the book, it is there on that shelf."

Then, when his son had handed him the volume, he showed Pierre some notes

which he had pencilled on the margins, and explained to him the

modifications which were desired in the general scheme of the work. "Will

you be kind enough," he continued, "to take this copy to Morin himself?

His address is written inside the cover. If you can do so you will spare

me the trouble of writing him a very long letter; in ten minutes you can

explain matters to him more clearly and completely than I could do in ten

pages.... And you must embrace Morin for me, and tell him that I still

love him, oh! with all my heart of the bygone days, when I could still

use my legs and we two fought like devils side by side under a hail of

bullets."

A short silence followed, that pause, that embarrassment tinged with

emotion which precedes the moment of farewell. "Come, good-bye," said

Orlando, "embrace me for him and for yourself, embrace me affectionately

like that lad did just now. I am so old and so near my end, my dear

Monsieur Froment, that you will allow me to call you my child and to kiss