第 25 页

that the man of birth who missed the Corso was like one out of his

element, destitute of newspapers, living like a savage. And withal the

atmosphere was delightfully balmy, and the narrow strip of sky between

the heavy, rusty mansions displayed an infinite azure purity.

Dario never ceased smiling, and slightly inclining his head while he

repeated to Pierre the names of princes and princesses, dukes and

duchesses--high-sounding names whose flourish had filled history, whose

sonorous syllables conjured up the shock of armour on the battlefield and

the splendour of papal pomp with robes of purple, tiaras of gold, and

sacred vestments sparkling with precious stones. And as Pierre listened

and looked he was pained to see merely some corpulent ladies or

undersized gentlemen, bloated or shrunken beings, whose ill-looks seemed

to be increased by their modern attire. However, a few pretty women went

by, particularly some young, silent girls with large, clear eyes. And

just as Dario had pointed out the Palazzo Buongiovanni, a huge

seventeenth-century facade, with windows encompassed by foliaged

ornamentation deplorably heavy in style, he added gaily:

"Ah! look--that's Attilio there on the footway. Young Lieutenant

Sacco--you know, don't you?"

Pierre signed that he understood. Standing there in uniform, Attilio, so

young, so energetic and brave of appearance, with a frank countenance

softly illumined by blue eyes like his mother's, at once pleased the

priest. He seemed indeed the very personification of youth and love, with

all their enthusiastic, disinterested hope in the future.

"You'll see by and by, when we pass the palace again," said Dario. "He'll

still be there and I'll show you something."

Then he began to talk gaily of the girls of Rome, the little princesses,

the little duchesses, so discreetly educated at the convent of the Sacred

Heart, quitting it for the most part so ignorant and then completing

their education beside their mothers, never going out but to accompany

the latter on the obligatory drive to the Corso, and living through

endless days, cloistered, imprisoned in the depths of sombre mansions.

Nevertheless what tempests raged in those mute souls to which none had

ever penetrated! what stealthy growth of will suddenly appeared from

under passive obedience, apparent unconsciousness of surroundings! How

many there were who stubbornly set their minds on carving out their lives

for themselves, on choosing the man who might please them, and securing

him despite the opposition of the entire world! And the lover was chosen

there from among the stream of young men promenading the Corso, the lover

hooked with a glance during the daily drive, those candid eyes speaking

aloud and sufficing for confession and the gift of all, whilst not a

breath was wafted from the lips so chastely closed. And afterwards there

came love letters, furtively exchanged in church, and the winning-over of

maids to facilitate stolen meetings, at first so innocent. In the end, a

marriage often resulted.

Celia, for her part, had determined to win Attilio on the very first day

when their eyes had met. And it was from a window of the Palazzo

Buongiovanni that she had perceived him one afternoon of mortal

weariness. He had just raised his head, and she had taken him for ever

and given herself to him with those large, pure eyes of hers as they

rested on his own. She was but an _amorosa_--nothing more; he pleased

her; she had set her heart on him--him and none other. She would have

waited twenty years for him, but she relied on winning him at once by

quiet stubbornness of will. People declared that the terrible fury of the

Prince, her father, had proved impotent against her respectful, obstinate

silence. He, man of mixed blood as he was, son of an American woman, and

husband of an English woman, laboured but to retain his own name and

fortune intact amidst the downfall of others; and it was rumoured that as

the result of a quarrel which he had picked with his wife, whom he

accused of not sufficiently watching over their daughter, the Princess

had revolted, full not only of the pride of a foreigner who had brought a

huge dowry in marriage, but also of such plain, frank egotism that she

had declared she no longer found time enough to attend to herself, let

alone another. Had she not already done enough in bearing him five

children? She thought so; and now she spent her time in worshipping

herself, letting Celia do as she listed, and taking no further interest

in the household through which swept stormy gusts.

However, the carriage was again about to pass the Buongiovanni mansion,

and Dario forewarned Pierre. "You see," said he, "Attilio has come back.

And now look up at the third window on the first floor."

It was at once rapid and charming. Pierre saw the curtain slightly drawn

aside and Celia's gentle face appear. Closed, candid lily, she did not

smile, she did not move. Nothing could be read on those pure lips, or in

those clear but fathomless eyes of hers. Yet she was taking Attilio to

herself, and giving herself to him without reserve. And soon the curtain

fell once more.

"Ah, the little mask!" muttered Dario. "Can one ever tell what there is

behind so much innocence?"

As Pierre turned round he perceived Attilio, whose head was still raised,

and whose face was also motionless and pale, with closed mouth, and

widely opened eyes. And the young priest was deeply touched, for this was

love, absolute love in its sudden omnipotence, true love, eternal and

juvenescent, in which ambition and calculation played no part.

Then Dario ordered the coachman to drive up to the Pincio; for, before or

after the Corso, the round of the Pincio is obligatory on fine, clear

afternoons. First came the Piazza del Popolo, the most airy and regular

square of Rome, with its conjunction of thoroughfares, its churches and

fountains, its central obelisk, and its two clumps of trees facing one

another at either end of the small white paving-stones, betwixt the

severe and sun-gilt buildings. Then, turning to the right, the carriage

began to climb the inclined way to the Pincio--a magnificent winding

ascent, decorated with bas-reliefs, statues, and fountains--a kind of

apotheosis of marble, a commemoration of ancient Rome, rising amidst

greenery. Up above, however, Pierre found the garden small, little better

than a large square, with just the four necessary roadways to enable the

carriages to drive round and round as long as they pleased. An

uninterrupted line of busts of the great men of ancient and modern Italy

fringed these roadways. But what Pierre most admired was the trees--trees

of the most rare and varied kinds, chosen and tended with infinite care,

and nearly always evergreens, so that in winter and summer alike the spot

was adorned with lovely foliage of every imaginable shade of verdure. And

beside these trees, along the fine, breezy roadways, Dario's victoria

began to turn, following the continuous, unwearying stream of the other

carriages.

Pierre remarked one young woman of modest demeanour and attractive

simplicity who sat alone in a dark-blue victoria, drawn by a

well-groomed, elegantly harnessed horse. She was very pretty, short, with

chestnut hair, a creamy complexion, and large gentle eyes. Quietly robed

in dead-leaf silk, she wore a large hat, which alone looked somewhat

extravagant. And seeing that Dario was staring at her, the priest

inquired her name, whereat the young Prince smiled. Oh! she was nobody,

La Tonietta was the name that people gave her; she was one of the few

_demi-mondaines_ that Roman society talked of. Then, with the freeness

and frankness which his race displays in such matters, Dario added some

particulars. La Tonietta's origin was obscure; some said that she was the

daughter of an innkeeper of Tivoli, and others that of a Neapolitan

banker. At all events, she was very intelligent, had educated herself,

and knew thoroughly well how to receive and entertain people at the

little palazzo in the Via dei Mille, which had been given to her by old

Marquis Manfredi now deceased. She made no scandalous show, had but one

protector at a time, and the princesses and duchesses who paid attention

to her at the Corso every afternoon, considered her nice-looking. One

peculiarity had made her somewhat notorious. There was some one whom she

loved and from whom she never accepted aught but a bouquet of white

roses; and folks would smile indulgently when at times for weeks together

she was seen driving round the Pincio with those pure, white bridal

flowers on the carriage seat.

Dario, however, suddenly paused in his explanations to address a

ceremonious bow to a lady who, accompanied by a gentleman, drove by in a

large landau. Then he simply said to the priest: "My mother."

Pierre already knew of her. Viscount de la Choue had told him her story,

how, after Prince Onofrio Boccanera's death, she had married again,

although she was already fifty; how at the Corso, just like some young

girl, she had hooked with her eyes a handsome man to her liking--one,

too, who was fifteen years her junior. And Pierre also knew who that man

was, a certain Jules Laporte, an ex-sergeant of the papal Swiss Guard, an

ex-traveller in relics, compromised in an extraordinary "false relic"

fraud; and he was further aware that Laporte's wife had made a

fine-looking Marquis Montefiori of him, the last of the fortunate

adventurers of romance, triumphing as in the legendary lands where

shepherds are wedded to queens.

At the next turn, as the large landau again went by, Pierre looked at the

couple. The Marchioness was really wonderful, blooming with all the

classical Roman beauty, tall, opulent, and very dark, with the head of a

goddess and regular if somewhat massive features, nothing as yet

betraying her age except the down upon her upper lip. And the Marquis,

the Romanised Swiss of Geneva, really had a proud bearing, with his solid

soldierly figure and long wavy moustaches. People said that he was in no

wise a fool but, on the contrary, very gay and very supple, just the man

to please women. His wife so gloried in him that she dragged him about

and displayed him everywhere, having begun life afresh with him as if she

were still but twenty, spending on him the little fortune which she had

saved from the Villa Montefiori disaster, and so completely forgetting

her son that she only saw the latter now and again at the promenade and

acknowledged his bow like that of some chance acquaintance.

"Let us go to see the sun set behind St. Peter's," all at once said

Dario, conscientiously playing his part as a showman of curiosities.

The victoria thereupon returned to the terrace, where a military band was

now playing with a terrific blare of brass instruments. In order that

their occupants might hear the music, a large number of carriages had

already drawn up, and a growing crowd of loungers on foot had assembled

there. And from that beautiful terrace, so broad and lofty, one of the

most wonderful views of Rome was offered to the gaze. Beyond the Tiber,

beyond the pale chaos of the new district of the castle meadows,* and

between the greenery of Monte Mario and the Janiculum arose St. Peter's.

Then on the left came all the olden city, an endless stretch of roofs, a

rolling sea of edifices as far as the eye could reach. But one's glances

always came back to St. Peter's, towering into the azure with pure and

sovereign grandeur. And, seen from the terrace, the slow sunsets in the

depths of the vast sky behind the colossus were sublime.

* See _ante_ note on castle meadows.

Sometimes there are topplings of sanguineous clouds, battles of giants

hurling mountains at one another and succumbing beneath the monstrous

ruins of flaming cities. Sometimes only red streaks or fissures appear on

the surface of a sombre lake, as if a net of light has been flung to fish

the submerged orb from amidst the seaweed. Sometimes, too, there is a

rosy mist, a kind of delicate dust which falls, streaked with pearls by a

distant shower, whose curtain is drawn across the mystery of the horizon.

And sometimes there is a triumph, a _cortege_ of gold and purple chariots

of cloud rolling along a highway of fire, galleys floating upon an azure

sea, fantastic and extravagant pomps slowly sinking into the less and

less fathomable abyss of the twilight.

But that night the sublime spectacle presented itself to Pierre with a

calm, blinding, desperate grandeur. At first, just above the dome of St.

Peter's, the sun, descending in a spotless, deeply limpid sky, proved yet

so resplendent that one's eyes could not face its brightness. And in this

resplendency the dome seemed to be incandescent, you would have said a

dome of liquid silver; whilst the surrounding districts, the house-roofs

of the Borgo, were as though changed into a lake of live embers. Then, as

the sun was by degrees inclined, it lost some of its blaze, and one could

look; and soon afterwards sinking with majestic slowness it disappeared

behind the dome, which showed forth darkly blue, while the orb, now

entirely hidden, set an aureola around it, a glory like a crown of

flaming rays. And then began the dream, the dazzling symbol, the singular

illumination of the row of windows beneath the cupola which were

transpierced by the light and looked like the ruddy mouths of furnaces,

in such wise that one might have imagined the dome to be poised upon a

brazier, isolated, in the air, as though raised and upheld by the

violence of the fire. It all lasted barely three minutes. Down below the

jumbled roofs of the Borgo became steeped in violet vapour, sank into

increasing gloom, whilst from the Janiculum to Monte Mario the horizon

showed its firm black line. And it was the sky then which became all

purple and gold, displaying the infinite placidity of a supernatural

radiance above the earth which faded into nihility. Finally the last

window reflections were extinguished, the glow of the heavens departed,