第 24 页

"Oh! it's a fact, father," continued Luigi. "Why did she flee from here

if it wasn't to go and live with her lover? And indeed, in my opinion,

it's scandalous that a Cardinal's palace should shelter such goings-on!"

This was the report which he spread abroad, the accusation which he

everywhere levelled against his wife, of publicly carrying on a shameless

_liaison_. In reality, however, he did not believe a word of it, being

too well acquainted with Benedetta's firm rectitude, and her

determination to belong to none but the man she loved, and to him only in

marriage. However, in Prada's eyes such accusations were not only fair

play but also very efficacious.

And now, although he turned pale with covert exasperation, and laughed a

hard, vindictive, cruel laugh, he went on to speak in a bantering tone of

the proceedings for annulling the marriage, and in particular of the plea

put forward by Benedetta's advocate Morano. And at last his language

became so free that Orlando, with a glance towards the priest, gently

interposed: "Luigi! Luigi!"

"Yes, you are right, father, I'll say no more," thereupon added the young

Count. "But it's really abominable and ridiculous. Lisbeth, you know, is

highly amused at it."

Orlando again looked displeased, for when visitors were present he did

not like his son to refer to the person whom he had just named. Lisbeth

Kauffmann, very blonde and pink and merry, was barely thirty years of

age, and belonged to the Roman foreign colony. For two years past she had

been a widow, her husband having died at Rome whither he had come to

nurse a complaint of the lungs. Thenceforward free, and sufficiently well

off, she had remained in the city by taste, having a marked predilection

for art, and painting a little, herself. In the Via Principe Amadeo, in

the new Viminal district, she had purchased a little palazzo, and

transformed a large apartment on its second floor into a studio hung with

old stuffs, and balmy in every season with the scent of flowers. The

place was well known to tolerant and intellectual society. Lisbeth was

there found in perpetual jubilation, clad in a long blouse, somewhat of a

_gamine_ in her ways, trenchant too and often bold of speech, but

nevertheless capital company, and as yet compromised with nobody but

Prada. Their _liaison_ had begun some four months after his wife had left

him, and now Lisbeth was near the time of becoming a mother. This she in

no wise concealed, but displayed such candid tranquillity and happiness

that her numerous acquaintances continued to visit her as if there were

nothing in question, so facile and free indeed is the life of the great

cosmopolitan continental cities. Under the circumstances which his wife's

suit had created, Prada himself was not displeased at the turn which

events had taken with regard to Lisbeth, but none the less his incurable

wound still bled.

There could be no compensation for the bitterness of Benedetta's disdain,

it was she for whom his heart burned, and he dreamt of one day wreaking

on her a tragic punishment.

Pierre, knowing nothing of Lisbeth, failed to understand the allusions of

Orlando and his son. But realising that there was some embarrassment

between them, he sought to take countenance by picking from off the

littered table a thick book which, to his surprise, he found to be a

French educational work, one of those manuals for the _baccalaureat_,*

containing a digest of the knowledge which the official programmes

require. It was but a humble, practical, elementary work, yet it

necessarily dealt with all the mathematical, physical, chemical, and

natural sciences, thus broadly outlining the intellectual conquests of

the century, the present phase of human knowledge.

* The examination for the degree of bachelor, which degree is

the necessary passport to all the liberal professions in France.

M. Zola, by the way, failed to secure it, being ploughed for

"insufficiency in literature"!--Trans.

"Ah!" exclaimed Orlando, well pleased with the diversion, "you are

looking at the book of my old friend Theophile Morin. He was one of the

thousand of Marsala, you know, and helped us to conquer Sicily and

Naples. A hero! But for more than thirty years now he has been living in

France again, absorbed in the duties of his petty professorship, which

hasn't made him at all rich. And so he lately published that book, which

sells very well in France it seems; and it occurred to him that he might

increase his modest profits on it by issuing translations, an Italian one

among others. He and I have remained brothers, and thinking that my

influence would prove decisive, he wishes to utilise it. But he is

mistaken; I fear, alas! that I shall be unable to get anybody to take up

his book."

At this Luigi Prada, who had again become very composed and amiable,

shrugged his shoulders slightly, full as he was of the scepticism of his

generation which desired to maintain things in their actual state so as

to derive the greatest profit from them. "What would be the good of it?"

he murmured; "there are too many books already!"

"No, no!" the old man passionately retorted, "there can never be too many

books! We still and ever require fresh ones! It's by literature, not by

the sword, that mankind will overcome falsehood and injustice and attain

to the final peace of fraternity among the nations--Oh! you may smile; I

know that you call these ideas my fancies of '48, the fancies of a

greybeard, as people say in France. But it is none the less true that

Italy is doomed, if the problem be not attacked from down below, if the

people be not properly fashioned. And there is only one way to make a

nation, to create men, and that is to educate them, to develop by

educational means the immense lost force which now stagnates in ignorance

and idleness. Yes, yes, Italy is made, but let us make an Italian nation.

And give us more and more books, and let us ever go more and more forward

into science and into light, if we wish to live and to be healthy, good,

and strong!"

With his torso erect, with his powerful leonine muzzle flaming with the

white brightness of his beard and hair, old Orlando looked superb. And in

that simple, candid chamber, so touching with its intentional poverty, he

raised his cry of hope with such intensity of feverish faith, that before

the young priest's eyes there arose another figure--that of Cardinal

Boccanera, erect and black save for his snow-white hair, and likewise

glowing with heroic beauty in his crumbling palace whose gilded ceilings

threatened to fall about his head! Ah! the magnificent stubborn men of

the past, the believers, the old men who still show themselves more

virile, more ardent than the young! Those two represented the opposite

poles of belief; they had not an idea, an affection in common, and in

that ancient city of Rome, where all was being blown away in dust, they

alone seemed to protest, indestructible, face to face like two parted

brothers, standing motionless on either horizon. And to have seen them

thus, one after the other, so great and grand, so lonely, so detached

from ordinary life, was to fill one's day with a dream of eternity.

Luigi, however, had taken hold of the old man's hands to calm him by an

affectionate filial clasp. "Yes, yes, you are right, father, always

right, and I'm a fool to contradict you. Now, pray don't move about like

that, for you are uncovering yourself, and your legs will get cold

again."

So saying, he knelt down and very carefully arranged the wrapper; and

then remaining on the floor like a child, albeit he was two and forty, he

raised his moist eyes, full of mute, entreating worship towards the old

man who, calmed and deeply moved, caressed his hair with a trembling

touch.

Pierre had been there for nearly two hours, when he at last took leave,

greatly struck and affected by all that he had seen and heard. And again

he had to promise that he would return and have a long chat with Orlando.

Once out of doors he walked along at random. It was barely four o'clock,

and it was his idea to ramble in this wise, without any predetermined

programme, through Rome at that delightful hour when the sun sinks in the

refreshed and far blue atmosphere. Almost immediately, however, he found

himself in the Via Nazionale, along which he had driven on arriving the

previous day. And he recognised the huge livid Banca d'Italia, the green

gardens climbing to the Quirinal, and the heaven-soaring pines of the

Villa Aldobrandini. Then, at the turn of the street, as he stopped short

in order that he might again contemplate the column of Trajan which now

rose up darkly from its low piazza, already full of twilight, he was

surprised to see a victoria suddenly pull up, and a young man courteously

beckon to him.

"Monsieur l'Abbe Froment! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment!"

It was young Prince Dario Boccanera, on his way to his daily drive along

the Corso. He now virtually subsisted on the liberality of his uncle the

Cardinal, and was almost always short of money. But, like all the Romans,

he would, if necessary, have rather lived on bread and water than have

forgone his carriage, horse, and coachman. An equipage, indeed, is the

one indispensable luxury of Rome.

"If you will come with me, Monsieur l'Abbe Froment," said the young

Prince, "I will show you the most interesting part of our city."

He doubtless desired to please Benedetta, by behaving amiably towards her

protege. Idle as he was, too, it seemed to him a pleasant occupation to

initiate that young priest, who was said to be so intelligent, into what

he deemed the inimitable side, the true florescence of Roman life.

Pierre was compelled to accept, although he would have preferred a

solitary stroll. Yet he was interested in this young man, the last born

of an exhausted race, who, while seemingly incapable of either thought or

action, was none the less very seductive with his high-born pride and

indolence. Far more a Roman than a patriot, Dario had never had the

faintest inclination to rally to the new order of things, being well

content to live apart and do nothing; and passionate though he was, he

indulged in no follies, being very practical and sensible at heart, as

are all his fellow-citizens, despite their apparent impetuosity. As soon

as his carriage, after crossing the Piazza di Venezia, entered the Corso,

he gave rein to his childish vanity, his desire to shine, his passion for

gay, happy life in the open under the lovely sky. All this, indeed, was

clearly expressed in the simple gesture which he made whilst exclaiming:

"The Corso!"

As on the previous day, Pierre was filled with astonishment. The long

narrow street again stretched before him as far as the white dazzling

Piazza del Popolo, the only difference being that the right-hand houses

were now steeped in sunshine, whilst those on the left were black with

shadow. What! was that the Corso then, that semi-obscure trench, close

pressed by high and heavy house-fronts, that mean roadway where three

vehicles could scarcely pass abreast, and which serried shops lined with

gaudy displays? There was neither space, nor far horizon, nor refreshing

greenery such as the fashionable drives of Paris could boast! Nothing but

jostling, crowding, and stifling on the little footways under the narrow

strip of sky. And although Dario named the pompous and historical

palaces, Bonaparte, Doria, Odescalchi, Sciarra, and Chigi; although he

pointed out the column of Marcus Aurelius on the Piazza Colonna, the most

lively square of the whole city with its everlasting throng of lounging,

gazing, chattering people; although, all the way to the Piazza del

Popolo, he never ceased calling attention to churches, houses, and

side-streets, notably the Via dei Condotti, at the far end of which the

Trinity de' Monti, all golden in the glory of the sinking sun, appeared

above that famous flight of steps, the triumphal Scala di Spagna--Pierre

still and ever retained the impression of disillusion which the narrow,

airless thoroughfare had conveyed to him: the "palaces" looked to him

like mournful hospitals or barracks, the Piazza Colonna suffered terribly

from a lack of trees, and the Trinity de' Monti alone took his fancy by

its distant radiance of fairyland.

But it was necessary to come back from the Piazza del Popolo to the

Piazza di Venezia, then return to the former square, and come back yet

again, following the entire Corso three and four times without wearying.

The delighted Dario showed himself and looked about him, exchanging

salutations. On either footway was a compact crowd of promenaders whose

eyes roamed over the equipages and whose hands could have shaken those of

the carriage folks. So great at last became the number of vehicles that

both lines were absolutely unbroken, crowded to such a point that the

coachmen could do no more than walk their horses. Perpetually going up

and coming down the Corso, people scrutinised and jostled one another. It

was open-air promiscuity, all Rome gathered together in the smallest

possible space, the folks who knew one another and who met here as in a

friendly drawing-room, and the folks belonging to adverse parties who did

not speak together but who elbowed each other, and whose glances

penetrated to each other's soul. Then a revelation came to Pierre, and he

suddenly understood the Corso, the ancient custom, the passion and glory

of the city. Its pleasure lay precisely in the very narrowness of the

street, in that forced elbowing which facilitated not only desired

meetings but the satisfaction of curiosity, the display of vanity, and

the garnering of endless tittle-tattle. All Roman society met here each

day, displayed itself, spied on itself, offering itself in spectacle to

its own eyes, with such an indispensable need of thus beholding itself