第 104 页

of Charity. And all at once he became conscious that the long-awaited

word, the word which was at last springing from the great silent

multitude, the crushed and gagged people was _Justice_! Aye, Justice not

Charity! Charity had only served to perpetuate misery, Justice perhaps

would cure it. It was for Justice that the wretched hungered; an act of

Justice alone could sweep away the olden world so that the new one might

be reared. After all, the great silent multitude would belong neither to

Vatican nor to Quirinal, neither to pope nor to king. If it had covertly

growled through the ages in its long, sometimes mysterious, and sometimes

open contest; if it had struggled betwixt pontiff and emperor who each

had wished to retain it for himself alone, it had only done so in order

that it might free itself, proclaim its resolve to belong to none on the

day when it should cry Justice! Would to-morrow then at last prove that

day of Justice and Truth? For his part, Pierre amidst his anguish--having

on one hand that need of the divine which tortures man, and on the other

sovereignty of reason which enables man to remain erect--was only sure of

one thing, that he would keep his vows, continue a priest, watching over

the belief of others though he could not himself believe, and would thus

chastely and honestly follow his profession, amidst haughty sadness at

having been unable to renounce his intelligence in the same way as he had

renounced his flesh and his dream of saving the nations. And again, as

after Lourdes, he would wait.

So deeply was he plunged in reflection at that window, face to face with

the mist which seemed to be destroying the dark edifices of Rome, that he

did not hear himself called. At last, however, he felt a tap on the

shoulder: "Monsieur l'Abbe!" And then as he turned he saw Victorine, who

said to him: "It is half-past nine; the cab is there. Giacomo has already

taken your luggage down. You must come away, Monsieur l'Abbe."

Then seeing him blink, still dazed as it were, she smiled and added: "You

were bidding Rome goodbye. What a frightful sky there is."

"Yes, frightful," was his reply.

Then they descended the stairs. He had handed her a hundred-franc note to

be shared between herself and the other servants. And she apologised for

going down before him with the lamp, explaining that the old palace was

so dark that evening one could scarcely see.

Ah! that departure, that last descent through the black and empty

mansion, it quite upset Pierre's heart. He gave his room that glance of

farewell which always saddened him, even when he was leaving a spot where

he had suffered. Then, on passing Don Vigilio's chamber, whence there

only came a quivering silence, he pictured the secretary with his head

buried in his pillows, holding his breath for fear lest he should speak

and attract vengeance. But it was in particular on the second and first

floor landings, on passing the closed doors of Donna Serafina and the

Cardinal, that Pierre quivered with apprehension at hearing nothing but

the silence of the grave. And as he followed Victorine, who, lamp in

hand, was still descending, he thought of the brother and sister who were

left alone in the ruined palace, last relics of a world which had half

passed away. All hope of life had departed with Benedetta and Dario, no

resurrection could come from that old maid and that priest who was bound

to chastity. Ah! those interminable and lugubrious passages, that frigid

and gigantic staircase which seemed to descend into nihility, those huge

halls with cracking walls where all was wretchedness and abandonment! And

that inner court, looking like a cemetery with its weeds and its damp

porticus, where remnants of Apollos and Venuses were rotting! And the

little deserted garden, fragrant with ripe oranges, whither nobody now

would ever stray, where none would ever meet that adorable Contessina

under the laurels near the sarcophagus! All was now annihilated in

abominable mourning, in a death-like silence, amidst which the two last

Boccaneras must wait, in savage grandeur, till their palace should fall

about their heads. Pierre could only just detect a faint sound, the

gnawing of a mouse perhaps, unless it were caused by Abbe Paparelli

attacking the walls of some out-of-the-way rooms, preying on the old

edifice down below, so as to hasten its fall.

The cab stood at the door, already laden with the luggage, the box beside

the driver, the valise on the seat; and the priest at once got in.

"Oh! You have plenty of time," said Victorine, who had remained on the

foot-pavement. "Nothing has been forgotten. I'm glad to see you go off

comfortably."

And indeed at that last moment Pierre was comforted by the presence of

that worthy woman, his compatriot, who had greeted him on his arrival and

now attended his departure. "I won't say 'till we meet again,' Monsieur

l'Abbe," she exclaimed, "for I don't fancy that you'll soon be back in

this horrid city. Good-bye, Monsieur l'Abbe."

"Good-bye, Victorine, and thank you with all my heart."

The cab was already going off at a fast trot, turning into the narrow

sinuous street which leads to the Corso Vittoria Emanuele. It was not

raining and so the hood had not been raised, but although the damp

atmosphere was comparatively mild, Pierre at once felt a chill. However,

he was unwilling to stop the driver, a silent fellow whose only desire

seemingly was to get rid of his fare as soon as possible. When the cab

came out into the Corso Vittoria Emanuele, the young man was astonished

to find it already quite deserted, the houses shut, the footways bare,

and the electric lamps burning all alone in melancholy solitude. In

truth, however, the temperature was far from warm and the fog seemed to

be increasing, hiding the house-fronts more and more. When Pierre passed

the Cancelleria, that stern colossal pile seemed to him to be receding,

fading away; and farther on, upon the right, at the end of the Via di Ara

Coeli, starred by a few smoky gas lamps, the Capitol had quite vanished

in the gloom. Then the thoroughfare narrowed, and the cab went on between

the dark heavy masses of the Gesu and the Altieri palace; and there in

that contracted passage, where even on fine sunny days one found all the

dampness of old times, the quivering priest yielded to a fresh train of

thought. It was an idea which had sometimes made him feel anxious, the

idea that mankind, starting from over yonder in Asia, had always marched

onward with the sun. An east wind had always carried the human seed for

future harvest towards the west. And for a long while now the cradle of

humanity had been stricken with destruction and death, as if indeed the

nations could only advance by stages, leaving exhausted soil, ruined

cities, and degenerate populations behind, as they marched from orient to

occident, towards their unknown goal. Nineveh and Babylon on the banks of

the Euphrates, Thebes and Memphis on the banks of the Nile, had been

reduced to dust, sinking from old age and weariness into a deadly

numbness beyond possibility of awakening. Then decrepitude had spread to

the shores of the great Mediterranean lake, burying both Tyre and Sidon

with dust, and afterwards striking Carthage with senility whilst it yet

seemed in full splendour. In this wise as mankind marched on, carried by

the hidden forces of civilisation from east to west, it marked each day's

journey with ruins; and how frightful was the sterility nowadays

displayed by the cradle of History, that Asia and that Egypt, which had

once more lapsed into childhood, immobilised in ignorance and degeneracy

amidst the ruins of ancient cities that once had been queens of the

world!

It was thus Pierre reflected as the cab rolled on. Still he was not

unconscious of his surroundings. As he passed the Palazzo di Venezia it

seemed to him to be crumbling beneath some assault of the invisible, for

the mist had already swept away its battlements, and the lofty, bare,

fearsome walls looked as if they were staggering from the onslaught of

the growing darkness. And after passing the deep gap of the Corso, which

was also deserted amidst the pallid radiance of its electric lights, the

Palazzo Torlonia appeared on the right-hand, with one wing ripped open by

the picks of demolishers, whilst on the left, farther up, the Palazzo

Colonna showed its long, mournful facade and closed windows, as if, now

that it was deserted by its masters and void of its ancient pomp, it

awaited the demolishers in its turn.

Then, as the cab at a slower pace began to climb the ascent of the Via

Nazionale, Pierre's reverie continued. Was not Rome also stricken, had

not the hour come for her to disappear amidst that destruction which the

nations on the march invariably left behind them? Greece, Athens, and

Sparta slumbered beneath their glorious memories, and were of no account

in the world of to-day. Moreover, the growing paralysis had already

invaded the lower portion of the Italic peninsula; and after Naples

certainly came the turn of Rome. She was on the very margin of the death

spot which ever extends over the old continent, that margin where agony

begins, where the impoverished soil will no longer nourish and support

cities, where men themselves seem stricken with old age as soon as they

are born. For two centuries Rome had been declining, withdrawing little

by little from modern life, having neither manufactures nor trade, and

being incapable even of science, literature, or art. And in Pierre's

thoughts it was no longer St. Peter's only that fell, but all

Rome--basilicas, palaces, and entire districts--which collapsed amidst a

supreme rending, and covered the seven hills with a chaos of ruins. Like

Nineveh and Babylon, and like Thebes and Memphis, Rome became but a

plain, bossy with remnants, amidst which one vainly sought to identify

the sites of ancient edifices, whilst its sole denizens were coiling

serpents and bands of rats.

The cab turned, and on the right, in a huge gap of darkness Pierre

recognised Trajan's column, but it was no longer gilded by the sun as

when he had first seen it; it now rose up blackly like the dead trunk of

a giant tree whose branches have fallen from old age. And farther on,

when he raised his eyes while crossing the little triangular piazza, and

perceived a real tree against the leaden sky, that parasol pine of the

Villa Aldobrandini which rises there like a symbol of Rome's grace and

pride, it seemed to him but a smear, a little cloud of soot ascending

from the downfall of the whole city.

With the anxious, fraternal turn of his feelings, fear was coming over

him as he reached the end of his tragic dream. When the numbness which

spreads across the aged world should have passed Rome, when Lombardy

should have yielded to it, and Genoa, Turin, and Milan should have fallen

asleep as Venice has fallen already, then would come the turn of France.

The Alps would be crossed, Marseilles, like Tyre and Sidon, would see its

port choked up by sand, Lyons would sink into desolation and slumber, and

at last Paris, invaded by the invincible torpor, and transformed into a

sterile waste of stones bristling with nettles, would join Rome and

Nineveh and Babylon in death, whilst the nations continued their march

from orient to occident following the sun. A great cry sped through the

gloom, the death cry of the Latin races! History, which seemed to have

been born in the basin of the Mediterranean, was being transported

elsewhere, and the ocean had now become the centre of the world. How many

hours of the human day had gone by? Had mankind, starting from its cradle

over yonder at daybreak, strewing its road with ruins from stage to

stage, now accomplished one-half of its day and reached the dazzling hour

of noon? If so, then the other half of the day allotted to it was

beginning, the new world was following the old one, the new world of

those American cities where democracy was forming and the religion of

to-morrow was sprouting, those sovereign queens of the coming century,

with yonder, across another ocean, on the other side of the globe, that

motionless Far East, mysterious China and Japan, and all the threatening

swarm of the yellow races.

However, while the cab climbed higher and higher up the Via Nazionale,

Pierre felt his nightmare dissipating. There was here a lighter

atmosphere, and he came back into a renewal of hope and courage. Yet the

Banca d'Italia, with its brand-new ugliness, its chalky hugeness, looked

to him like a phantom in a shroud; whilst above a dim expanse of gardens

the Quirinal formed but a black streak barring the heavens. However, the

street ever ascended and broadened, and on the summit of the Viminal, on

the Piazza delle Terme, when he passed the ruins of Diocletian's baths,

he could breathe as his lungs listed. No, no, the human day could not

finish, it was eternal, and the stages of civilisation would follow and

follow without end! What mattered that eastern wind which carried the

nations towards the west, as if borne on by the power of the sun! If

necessary, they would return across the other side of the globe, they

would again and again make the circuit of the earth, until the day should

come when they could establish themselves in peace, truth, and justice.

After the next civilisation on the shores of the Atlantic, which would

become the world's centre, skirted by queenly cities, there would spring

up yet another civilisation, having the Pacific for its centre, with

seaport capitals that could not be yet foreseen, whose germs yet

slumbered on unknown shores. And in like way there would be still other

civilisations and still others! And at that last moment, the inspiriting

thought came to Pierre that the great movement of the nations was the

instinct, the need which impelled them to return to unity. Originating in

one sole family, afterwards parted and dispersed in tribes, thrown into

collision by fratricidal hatred, their tendency was none the less to