第 45 页

there. We can go in the carriage and join these gentlemen. It will be a

very pleasant outing for us. It is such a long time since we went out

together."

It was certainly that idea of going out with Dario, of having a pretext

for a complete reconciliation with him, that enchanted her; he himself

realised it, and, unable to escape, he tried to treat the matter as a

joke. "Ah! cousin," he said, "it will be your fault; I shall have the

nightmare for a week. An excursion like that spoils all the enjoyment of

life for days and days."

The mere thought made him quiver with revolt. However, laughter again

rang out around him, and, in spite of Donna Serafina's mute disapproval,

the appointment was finally fixed for the following morning at ten

o'clock. Celia as she went off expressed deep regret that she could not

form one of the party; but, with the closed candour of a budding lily,

she really took interest in Pierina alone. As she reached the ante-room

she whispered in her friend's ear: "Take a good look at that beauty, my

dear, so as to tell me whether she is so very beautiful--beautiful beyond

compare."

When Pierre met Narcisse near the Castle of Sant' Angelo on the morrow,

at nine o'clock, he was surprised to find him again languid and

enraptured, plunged anew in artistic enthusiasm. At first not a word was

said of the excursion. Narcisse related that he had risen at sunrise in

order that he might spend an hour before Bernini's "Santa Teresa." It

seemed that when he did not see that statue for a week he suffered as

acutely as if he were parted from some cherished mistress. And his

adoration varied with the time of day, according to the light in which he

beheld the figure: in the morning, when the pale glow of dawn steeped it

in whiteness, he worshipped it with quite a mystical transport of the

soul, whilst in the afternoon, when the glow of the declining sun's

oblique rays seemed to permeate the marble, his passion became as fiery

red as the blood of martyrs. "Ah! my friend," said he with a weary air

whilst his dreamy eyes faded to mauve, "you have no idea how delightful

and perturbing her awakening was this morning--how languorously she

opened her eyes, like a pure, candid virgin, emerging from the embrace of

the Divinity. One could die of rapture at the sight!"

Then, growing calm again when he had taken a few steps, he resumed in the

voice of a practical man who does not lose his balance in the affairs of

life: "We'll walk slowly towards the castle-fields district--the

buildings yonder; and on our way I'll tell you what I know of the things

we shall see there. It was the maddest affair imaginable, one of those

delirious frenzies of speculation which have a splendour of their own,

just like the superb, monstrous masterpiece of a man of genius whose mind

is unhinged. I was told of it all by some relatives of mine, who took

part in the gambling, and, in point of fact, made a good deal of money by

it."

Thereupon, with the clearness and precision of a financier, employing

technical terms with perfect ease, he recounted the extraordinary

adventure. That all Italy, on the morrow of the occupation of Rome,

should have been delirious with enthusiasm at the thought of at last

possessing the ancient and glorious city, the eternal capital to which

the empire of the world had been promised, was but natural. It was, so to

say, a legitimate explosion of the delight and the hopes of a young

nation anxious to show its power. The question was to make Rome a modern

capital worthy of a great kingdom, and before aught else there were

sanitary requirements to be dealt with: the city needed to be cleansed of

all the filth which disgraced it. One cannot nowadays imagine in what

abominable putrescence the city of the popes, the _Roma sporca_ which

artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses lacked

even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares were used

for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for sewage, the

princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets were perfect

manure beds which fostered frequent epidemics. Thus vast municipal works

were absolutely necessary, the question was one of health and life

itself. And in much the same way it was only right to think of building

houses for the newcomers, who would assuredly flock into the city. There

had been a precedent at Berlin, whose population, after the establishment

of the German empire, had suddenly increased by some hundreds of

thousands. In the same way the population of Rome would certainly be

doubled, tripled, quadrupled, for as the new centre of national life the

city would necessarily attract all the _vis viva_ of the provinces. And

at this thought pride stepped in: the fallen government of the Vatican

must be shown what Italy was capable of achieving, what splendour she

would bestow on the new and third Rome, which, by the magnificence of its

thoroughfares and the multitude of its people, would far excel either the

imperial or the papal city.

True, during the early years some prudence was observed; wisely enough,

houses were only built in proportion as they were required. The

population had doubled at one bound, rising from two to four hundred

thousand souls, thanks to the arrival of the little world of employees

and officials of the public services--all those who live on the State or

hope to live on it, without mentioning the idlers and enjoyers of life

whom a Court always carries in its train. However, this influx of

newcomers was a first cause of intoxication, for every one imagined that

the increase would continue, and, in fact, become more and more rapid.

And so the city of the day before no longer seemed large enough; it was

necessary to make immediate preparations for the morrow's need by

enlarging Rome on all sides. Folks talked, too, of the Paris of the

second empire, which had been so extended and transformed into a city of

light and health. But unfortunately on the banks of the Tiber there was

neither any preconcerted general plan nor any clear-seeing man, master of

the situation, supported by powerful financial organisations. And the

work, begun by pride, prompted by the ambition of surpassing the Rome of

the Caesars and the Popes, the determination to make the eternal,

predestined city the queen and centre of the world once more, was

completed by speculation, one of those extraordinary gambling frenzies,

those tempests which arise, rage, destroy, and carry everything away

without premonitory warning or possibility of arresting their course. All

at once it was rumoured that land bought at five francs the metre had

been sold again for a hundred francs the metre; and thereupon the fever

arose--the fever of a nation which is passionately fond of gambling. A

flight of speculators descending from North Italy swooped down upon Rome,

the noblest and easiest of preys. Those needy, famished mountaineers

found spoils for every appetite in that voluptuous South where life is so

benign, and the very delights of the climate helped to corrupt and hasten

moral gangrene. At first, too; it was merely necessary to stoop; money

was to be found by the shovelful among the rubbish of the first districts

which were opened up. People who were clever enough to scent the course

which the new thoroughfares would take and purchase buildings threatened

with demolition increased their capital tenfold in a couple of years. And

after that the contagion spread, infecting all classes--the princes,

burgesses, petty proprietors, even the shop-keepers, bakers, grocers, and

boot-makers; the delirium rising to such a pitch that a mere baker

subsequently failed for forty-five millions.* Nothing, indeed, was left

but rageful gambling, in which the stakes were millions, whilst the lands

and the houses became mere fictions, mere pretexts for stock-exchange

operations. And thus the old hereditary pride, which had dreamt of

transforming Rome into the capital of the world, was heated to madness by

the high fever of speculation--folks buying, and building, and selling

without limit, without a pause, even as one might throw shares upon the

market as fast and as long as presses can be found to print them.

* 1,800,000 pounds. See _ante_ note.--Trans.

No other city in course of evolution has ever furnished such a spectacle.

Nowadays, when one strives to penetrate things one is confounded. The

population had increased to five hundred thousand, and then seemingly

remained stationary; nevertheless, new districts continued to sprout up

more thickly than ever. Yet what folly it was not to wait for a further

influx of inhabitants! Why continue piling up accommodation for thousands

of families whose advent was uncertain? The only excuse lay in having

beforehand propounded the proposition that the third Rome, the triumphant

capital of Italy, could not count less than a million souls, and in

regarding that proposition as indisputable fact. The people had not come,

but they surely would come: no patriot could doubt it without being

guilty of treason. And so houses were built and built without a pause,

for the half-million citizens who were coming. There was no anxiety as to

the date of their arrival; it was sufficient that they should be

expected. Inside Rome the companies which had been formed in connection

with the new thoroughfares passing through the old, demolished,

pestiferous districts, certainly sold or let their house property, and

thereby realised large profits. But, as the craze increased, other

companies were established for the purpose of erecting yet more and more

districts outside Rome--veritable little towns, of which there was no

need whatever. Beyond the Porta San Giovanni and the Porta San Lorenzo,

suburbs sprang up as by miracle. A town was sketched out over the vast

estate of the Villa Ludovisi, from the Porta Pia to the Porta Salaria and

even as far as Sant' Agnese. And then came an attempt to make quite a

little city, with church, school, and market, arise all at once on the

fields of the Castle of Sant' Angelo. And it was no question of small

dwellings for labourers, modest flats for employees, and others of

limited means; no, it was a question of colossal mansions three and four

storeys high, displaying uniform and endless facades which made these new

excentral quarters quite Babylonian, such districts, indeed, as only

capitals endowed with intense life, like Paris and London, could contrive

to populate. However, such were the monstrous products of pride and

gambling; and what a page of history, what a bitter lesson now that Rome,

financially ruined, is further disgraced by that hideous girdle of empty,

and, for the most part, uncompleted carcases, whose ruins already strew

the grassy streets!

The fatal collapse, the disaster proved a frightful one. Narcisse

explained its causes and recounted its phases so clearly that Pierre

fully understood. Naturally enough, numerous financial companies had

sprouted up: the Immobiliere, the Society d'Edilizia e Construzione, the

Fondaria, the Tiberiana, and the Esquilino. Nearly all of them built,

erected huge houses, entire streets of them, for purposes of sale; but

they also gambled in land, selling plots at large profit to petty

speculators, who also dreamt of making large profits amidst the

continuous, fictitious rise brought about by the growing fever of

agiotage. And the worst was that the petty speculators, the middle-class

people, the inexperienced shop-keepers without capital, were crazy enough

to build in their turn by borrowing of the banks or applying to the

companies which had sold them the land for sufficient cash to enable them

to complete their structures. As a general rule, to avoid the loss of

everything, the companies were one day compelled to take back both land

and buildings, incomplete though the latter might be, and from the

congestion which resulted they were bound to perish. If the expected

million of people had arrived to occupy the dwellings prepared for them

the gains would have been fabulous, and in ten years Rome might have

become one of the most flourishing capitals of the world. But the people

did not come, and the dwellings remained empty. Moreover, the buildings

erected by the companies were too large and costly for the average

investor inclined to put his money into house property. Heredity had

acted, the builders had planned things on too huge a scale, raising a

series of magnificent piles whose purpose was to dwarf those of all other

ages; but, as it happened, they were fated to remain lifeless and

deserted, testifying with wondrous eloquence to the impotence of pride.

So there was no private capital that dared or could take the place of

that of the companies. Elsewhere, in Paris for instance, new districts

have been erected and embellishments have been carried out with the

capital of the country--the money saved by dint of thrift. But in Rome

all was built on the credit system, either by means of bills of exchange

at ninety days, or--and this was chiefly the case--by borrowing money

abroad. The huge sum sunk in these enterprises is estimated at a

milliard, four-fifths of which was French money. The bankers did

everything; the French ones lent to the Italian bankers at 3 1-2 or 4 per

cent.; and the Italian bankers accommodated the speculators, the Roman

builders, at 6, 7, and even 8 per cent. And thus the disaster was great

indeed when France, learning of Italy's alliance with Germany, withdrew

her 800,000,000 francs in less than two years. The Italian banks were

drained of their specie, and the land and building companies, being

likewise compelled to reimburse their loans, were compelled to apply to

the banks of issue, those privileged to issue notes. At the same time

they intimidated the Government, threatening to stop all work and throw

40,000 artisans and labourers starving on the pavement of Rome if it did

not compel the banks of issue to lend them the five or six millions of