第 12 页

He brought us such a beautiful pilgrimage two years ago."

Passing the first through the doorway, she at last ushered the young

priest into the adjoining reception-room. It was a spacious square

apartment, hung with old yellow _brocatelle_ of a flowery Louis XIV

pattern. The lofty ceiling was adorned with a very fine panelling, carved

and coloured, with gilded roses in each compartment. The furniture,

however, was of all sorts. There were some high mirrors, a couple of

superb gilded pier tables, and a few handsome seventeenth-century

arm-chairs; but all the rest was wretched. A heavy round table of

first-empire style, which had come nobody knew whence, caught the eye

with a medley of anomalous articles picked up at some bazaar, and a

quantity of cheap photographs littered the costly marble tops of the pier

tables. No interesting article of _virtu_ was to be seen. The old

paintings on the walls were with two exceptions feebly executed. There

was a delightful example of an unknown primitive master, a

fourteenth-century Visitation, in which the Virgin had the stature and

pure delicacy of a child of ten, whilst the Archangel, huge and superb,

inundated her with a stream of dazzling, superhuman love; and in front of

this hung an antique family portrait, depicting a very beautiful young

girl in a turban, who was thought to be Cassia Boccanera, the _amorosa_

and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother

Ercole and the corpse of her lover, Flavio Corradini. Four lamps threw a

broad, peaceful glow over the faded room, and, like a melancholy sunset,

tinged it with yellow. It looked grave and bare, with not even a flower

in 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 felt

that every eye was fixed upon him as upon a promised and expected

curiosity. There were altogether some ten persons present, among them

being Dario, who stood talking with little Princess Celia Buongiovanni,

whilst the elderly relative who had brought the latter sat whispering to

a prelate, Monsignor Nani, in a dim corner. Pierre, however, had been

particularly struck by the name of Consistorial-Advocate Morano, of whose

position in the house Viscount de la Choue had thought proper to inform

him in order to avert any unpleasant blunder. For thirty years past

Morano had been Donna Serafina's _amico_. Their connection, formerly a

guilty one, for the advocate had wife and children of his own, had in

course of time, since he had been left a widower, become one of those

_liaisons_ which tolerant people excuse and except. Both parties were

extremely devout and had certainly assured themselves of all needful

"indulgences." And thus Morano was there in the seat which he had always

taken 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 Donna

Serafina had discharged her duties as mistress of the house, she returned

to 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, silent

and discreet, had already taken a chair, Dario resumed in a louder voice

the 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 and

carefully tended, and had the long face and pronounced nose of the

Boccaneras, but the impoverishment of the family blood over a course of

centuries had attenuated, softened as it were, any sharpness or undue

prominence 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 hanging

above her head, began to laugh. "Oh! Dario's speaking of a poor girl, a

work-girl whom he met to-day," she explained.

Thereupon Dario had to begin his narrative again. It appeared that while

passing along a narrow street near the Piazza Navona, he had perceived a

tall, shapely girl of twenty, who was weeping and sobbing violently,

prone upon a flight of steps. Touched particularly by her beauty, he had

approached her and learnt that she had been working in the house outside

which she was, a manufactory of wax beads, but that, slack times having

come, the workshops had closed and she did not dare to return home, so

fearful was the misery there. Amidst the downpour of her tears she raised

such beautiful eyes to his that he ended by drawing some money from his

pocket. But at this, crimson with confusion, she sprang to her feet,

hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt, and refusing to take

anything. She added, however, that he might follow her if it so pleased

him, and give the money to her mother. And then she hurried off towards

the Ponte St'. Angelo.*

* Bridge of St. Angelo.

"Yes, she was a beauty, a perfect beauty," repeated Dario with an air of

ecstasy. "Taller than I, and slim though sturdy, with the bosom of a

goddess. In fact, a real antique, a Venus of twenty, her chin rather

bold, her mouth and nose of perfect form, and her eyes wonderfully pure

and large! And she was bare-headed too, with nothing but a crown of heavy

black hair, and a dazzling face, gilded, so to say, by the sun."

They had all begun to listen to him, enraptured, full of that passionate

admiration for beauty which, in spite of every change, Rome still retains

in her heart.

"Those beautiful girls of the people are becoming very rare," remarked

Morano. "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 and

enraptured 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 of

discomfort and fear, like the face of a child on suddenly encountering

some ugly creature amidst its play.

"Oh! don't talk of it," said he. "I felt very sorry afterwards. I saw

such misery--enough to make one ill."

Yielding to his curiosity, it seemed, he had followed the girl across the

Ponte St'. Angelo into the new district which was being built over the

former castle meadows*; and there, on the first floor of an abandoned

house which was already falling into ruins, though the plaster was

scarcely dry, he had come upon a frightful spectacle which still stirred

his heart: a whole family, father and mother, children, and an infirm old

uncle, dying of hunger and rotting in filth! He selected the most

dignified words he could think of to describe the scene, waving his hand

the while with a gesture of fright, as if to ward off some horrible

vision.

* 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't

go back again."

A general wagging of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fell

upon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, in

which he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being the

sole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people even

talking of the approaching nomination of Deputy Sacco as Minister of

Finances--Sacco, that intriguer who had engaged in all sorts of underhand

practices? His appointment would be the climax of impudence; bankruptcy

would speedily and infallibly ensue.

Meantime Benedetta, who had fixed her eyes on Pierre, with his book in

her mind, alone murmured: "Poor people, how very sad! But why not go back

to 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. His

thoughts reverted to his apostolate amidst the misery of Paris, and his

heart was touched with compassion at being confronted by the story of

such fearful sufferings on the very day of his arrival in Rome.

Unwittingly, impulsively, he raised his voice, and said aloud: "Oh! we

will go to see them together, madame; you will take me. These questions

impassion 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 anxious

about his first impressions, his opinion of their city and of themselves.

He must not judge Rome by mere outward appearances, they said. What

effect had the city produced on him? How had he found it, and what did he

think of it? Thereupon he politely apologised for his inability to answer

them. He had not yet gone out, said he, and had seen nothing. But this

answer was of no avail; they pressed him all the more keenly, and he

fully understood that their object was to gain him over to admiration and

love. They advised him, adjured him not to yield to any fatal

disillusion, but to persist and wait until Rome should have revealed to

him her soul.

"How long do you expect to remain among us, Monsieur l'Abbe?" suddenly

inquired a courteous voice, with a clear but gentle ring.

It was Monsignor Nani, who, seated in the gloom, thus raised his voice

for the first time. On several occasions it had seemed to Pierre that the

prelate's keen blue eyes were steadily fixed upon him, though all the

while he pretended to be attentively listening to the drawling chatter of

Celia's aunt. And before replying Pierre glanced at him. In his

crimson-edged cassock, with a violet silk sash drawn tightly around his

waist, Nani still looked young, although he was over fifty. His hair had

remained blond, he had a straight refined nose, a mouth very firm yet

very 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 to

know Rome in three weeks! Why, six weeks, twelve months, ten years were

required! The first impression was always a disastrous one, and a long

sojourn was needed for a visitor to recover from it.

"Three weeks!" repeated Donna Serafina with her disdainful air. "Is it

possible for people to study one another and get fond of one another in

three weeks? Those who come back to us are those who have learned to know

us."

Instead of launching into exclamations like the others, Nani had at first

contented himself with smiling, and gently waving his shapely hand, which

bespoke his aristocratic origin. Then, as Pierre modestly explained

himself, saying that he had come to Rome to attend to certain matters and

would 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 shall

have the happiness of his presence here for a long time, I hope."

These words, though spoken with quiet cordiality, strangely disturbed the

young priest. What was known, what was meant? He leant towards Don

Vigilio, who had remained near him, still and ever silent, and in a

whisper inquired: "Who is Monsignor Nani?"

The secretary, however, did not at once reply. His feverish face became

yet more livid. Then his ardent eyes glanced round to make sure that

nobody was watching him, and in a breath he responded: "He is the

Assessor of the Holy Office."*

* Otherwise the Inquisition.

This information sufficed, for Pierre was not ignorant of the fact that

the assessor, who was present in silence at the meetings of the Holy

Office, waited upon his Holiness every Wednesday evening after the

sitting, to render him an account of the matters dealt with in the

afternoon. This weekly audience, this hour spent with the Pope in a

privacy which allowed of every subject being broached, gave the assessor

an exceptional position, one of considerable power. Moreover the office

led to the cardinalate; the only "rise" that could be given to the

assessor was his promotion to the Sacred College.

Monsignor Nani, who seemed so perfectly frank and amiable, continued to

look at the young priest with such an encouraging air that the latter

felt obliged to go and occupy the seat beside him, which Celia's old aunt

at 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 would

perhaps open every door to him? He therefore felt very touched when

Monsignor Nani, immediately after the first words, inquired in a tone of

deep interest, "And so, my dear child, you have published a book?"

After this, gradually mastered by his enthusiasm and forgetting where he

was, Pierre unbosomed himself, and recounted the birth and progress of

his burning love amidst the sick and the humble, gave voice to his dream

of a return to the olden Christian community, and triumphed with the

rejuvenescence of Catholicism, developing into the one religion of the

universal democracy. Little by little he again raised his voice, and

silence fell around him in the stern, antique reception-room, every one

lending ear to his words with increasing surprise, with a growing

coldness 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, my

dear child," he said, "it is very beautiful, oh! very beautiful, well

worthy of the pure and noble imagination of a Christian. But what do you

count on doing now?"

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

Pierre.

A light, restrained laugh went round, and Donna Serafina expressed the

general opinion by exclaiming: "The Holy Father isn't seen as easily as