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Monsignor Nani? No! Well, go to see him, go to see him. I repeat that you

have nothing else to do!"

Pierre yielded. And indeed why should he have resisted? Apart from the

motives of ardent charity which had brought him to Rome to defend his

book, was he not there for a self-educating, experimental purpose? It was

necessary that he should carry his attempts to the very end.

On the morrow, when he reached the colonnade of St. Peter's, the hour was

so early that he had to wait there awhile. He had never better realised

the enormity of those four curving rows of columns, forming a forest of

gigantic stone trunks among which nobody ever promenades. In fact, the

spot is a grandiose and dreary desert, and one asks oneself the why and

wherefore of such a majestic porticus. Doubtless, however, it was for its

sole majesty, for the mere pomp of decoration, that this colonnade was

reared; and therein, again, one finds the whole Roman spirit. However,

Pierre at last turned into the Via di Sant' Offizio, and passing the

sacristy of St. Peter's, found himself before the Palace of the Holy

Office in a solitary silent district, which the footfall of pedestrians

or the rumble of wheels but seldom disturbs. The sun alone lives there,

in sheets of light which spread slowly over the small, white paving. You

divine the vicinity of the Basilica, for there is a smell as of incense,

a cloisteral quiescence as of the slumber of centuries. And at one corner

the Palace of the Holy Office rises up with heavy, disquieting bareness,

only a single row of windows piercing its lofty, yellow front. The wall

which skirts a side street looks yet more suspicious with its row of even

smaller casements, mere peep-holes with glaucous panes. In the bright

sunlight this huge cube of mud-coloured masonry ever seems asleep,

mysterious, and closed like a prison, with scarcely an aperture for

communication with the outer world.

Pierre shivered, but then smiled as at an act of childishness, for he

reflected that the Holy Roman and Universal Inquisition, nowadays the

Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, was no longer the institution it

had been, the purveyor of heretics for the stake, the occult tribunal

beyond appeal which had right of life and death over all mankind. True,

it still laboured in secrecy, meeting every Wednesday, and judging and

condemning without a sound issuing from within its walls. But on the

other hand if it still continued to strike at the crime of heresy, if it

smote men as well as their works, it no longer possessed either weapons

or dungeons, steel or fire to do its bidding, but was reduced to a mere

_role_ of protest, unable to inflict aught but disciplinary penalties

even upon the ecclesiastics of its own Church.

When Pierre on entering was ushered into the reception-room of Monsignor

Nani who, as assessor, lived in the palace, he experienced an agreeable

surprise. The apartment faced the south, and was spacious and flooded

with sunshine. And stiff as was the furniture, dark as were the hangings,

an exquisite sweetness pervaded the room, as though a woman had lived in

it and accomplished the prodigy of imparting some of her own grace to all

those stern-looking things. There were no flowers, yet there was a

pleasant smell. A charm expanded and conquered every heart from the very

threshold.

Monsignor Nani at once came forward, with a smile on his rosy face, his

blue eyes keenly glittering, and his fine light hair powdered by age.

With hands outstretched, he exclaimed: "Ah! how kind of you to have come

to see me, my dear son! Come, sit down, let us have a friendly chat."

Then with an extraordinary display of affection, he began to question

Pierre: "How are you getting on? Tell me all about it, exactly what you

have done."

Touched in spite of Don Vigilio's revelations, won over by the sympathy

which he fancied he could detect, Pierre thereupon confessed himself,

relating his visits to Cardinal Sarno, Monsignor Fornaro and Father

Dangelis, his applications to all the influential cardinals, those of the

Index, the Grand Penitentiary, the Cardinal Vicar, and the Cardinal

Secretary; and dwelling on his endless journeys from door to door through

all the Congregations and all the clergy, that huge, active, silent

bee-hive amidst which he had wearied his feet, exhausted his limbs, and

bewildered his poor brain. And at each successive Station of this Calvary

of entreaty, Monsignor Nani, who seemed to listen with an air of rapture,

exclaimed: "But that's very good, that's capital! Oh! your affair is

progressing. Yes, yes, it's progressing marvellously well."

He was exultant, though he allowed no unseemly irony to appear, while his

pleasant, penetrating eyes fathomed the young priest, to ascertain if he

had been brought to the requisite degree of obedience. Had he been

sufficiently wearied, disillusioned and instructed in the reality of

things, for one to finish with him? Had three months' sojourn in Rome

sufficed to turn the somewhat mad enthusiast of the first days into an

unimpassioned or at least resigned being?

However, all at once Monsignor Nani remarked: "But, my dear son, you tell

me nothing of his Eminence Cardinal Sanguinetti."

"The fact is, Monseigneur, that his Eminence is at Frascati, so I have

been unable to see him."

Thereupon the prelate, as if once more postponing the _denouement_ with

the secret enjoyment of an artistic _diplomate_, began to protest,

raising his little plump hands with the anxious air of a man who

considers everything lost: "Oh! but you must see his Eminence; it is

absolutely necessary! Think of it! The Prefect of the Index! We can only

act after your visit to him, for as you have not seen _him_ it is as if

you had seen nobody. Go, go to Frascati, my dear son."

And thereupon Pierre could only bow and reply: "I will go, Monseigneur."

XI.

ALTHOUGH Pierre knew that he would be unable to see Cardinal Sanguinetti

before eleven o'clock, he nevertheless availed himself of an early train,

so that it was barely nine when he alighted at the little station of

Frascati. He had already visited the place during his enforced idleness,

when he had made the classical excursion to the Roman castles which

extend from Frascati to Rocco di Papa, and from Rocco di Papa to Monte

Cavo, and he was now delighted with the prospect of strolling for a

couple of hours along those first slopes of the Alban hills, where,

amidst rushes, olives, and vines, Frascati, like a promontory, overlooks

the immense ruddy sea of the Campagna even as far as Rome, which, six

full leagues away, wears the whitish aspect of a marble isle.

Ah! that charming Frascati, on its greeny knoll at the foot of the wooded

Tusculan heights, with its famous terrace whence one enjoys the finest

view in the world, its old patrician villas with proud and elegant

Renascence facades and magnificent parks, which, planted with cypress,

pine, and ilex, are for ever green! There was a sweetness, a delight, a

fascination about the spot, of which Pierre would have never wearied. And

for more than an hour he had wandered blissfully along roads edged with

ancient, knotty olive-trees, along dingle ways shaded by the spreading

foliage of neighbouring estates, and along perfumed paths, at each turn

of which the Campagna was seen stretching far away, when all at once he

was accosted by a person whom he was both surprised and annoyed to meet.

He had strolled down to some low ground near the railway station, some

old vineyards where a number of new houses had been built of recent

years, and suddenly saw a stylish pair-horse victoria, coming from the

direction of Rome, draw up close by, whilst its occupant called to him:

"What! Monsieur l'Abbe Froment, are you taking a walk here, at this early

hour?"

Thereupon Pierre recognised Count Luigi Prada, who alighted, shook hands

with him and began to walk beside him, whilst the empty carriage went on

in advance. And forthwith the Count explained his tastes: "I seldom take

the train," he said, "I drive over. It gives my horses an outing. I have

interests over here as you may know, a big building enterprise which is

unfortunately not progressing very well. And so, although the season is

advanced, I'm obliged to come rather more frequently than I care to do."

As Prada suggested, Pierre was acquainted with the story. The Boccaneras

had been obliged to sell a sumptuous villa which a cardinal of their

family had built at Frascati in accordance with the plans of Giacomo

della Porta, during the latter part of the sixteenth century: a regal

summer-residence it had been, finely wooded, with groves and basins and

cascades, and in particular a famous terrace projecting like a cape above

the Roman Campagna whose expanse stretches from the Sabine mountains to

the Mediterranean sands. Through the division of the property, Benedetta

had inherited from her mother some very extensive vineyards below

Frascati, and these she had brought as dowry to Prada at the very moment

when the building mania was extending from Rome into the provinces. And

thereupon Prada had conceived the idea of erecting on the spot a number

of middle-class villas like those which litter the suburbs of Paris. Few

purchasers, however, had come forward, the financial crash had

supervened, and he was now with difficulty liquidating this unlucky

business, having indemnified his wife at the time of their separation.

"And then," he continued, addressing Pierre, "one can come and go as one

likes with a carriage, whereas, on taking the train, one is at the mercy

of the time table. This morning, for instance, I have appointments with

contractors, experts, and lawyers, and I have no notion how long they

will keep me. It's a wonderful country, isn't it? And we are quite right

to be proud of it in Rome. Although I may have some worries just now, I

can never set foot here without my heart beating with delight."

A circumstance which he did not mention, was that his _amica_, Lisbeth

Kauffmann, had spent the summer in one of the newly erected villas, where

she had installed her studio and had been visited by all the foreign

colony, which tolerated her irregular position on account of her gay

spirits and artistic talent. Indeed, people had even ended by accepting

the outcome of her connection with Prada, and a fortnight previously she

had returned to Rome, and there given birth to a son--an event which had

again revived all the scandalous tittle-tattle respecting Benedetta's

divorce suit. And Prada's attachment to Frascati doubtless sprang from

the recollection of the happy hours he had spent there, and the joyful

pride with which the birth of the boy inspired him.

Pierre, for his part, felt ill at ease in the young Count's presence, for

he had an instinctive hatred of money-mongers and men of prey.

Nevertheless, he desired to respond to his amiability, and so inquired

after his father, old Orlando, the hero of the Liberation.

"Oh!" replied Prada, "excepting for his legs he's in wonderfully good

health. He'll live a hundred years. Poor father! I should so much have

liked to install him in one of these little houses, last summer. But I

could not get him to consent; he's determined not to leave Rome; he's

afraid, perhaps, that it might be taken away from him during his

absence." Then the young Count burst into a laugh, quite merry at the

thought of jeering at the heroic but no longer fashionable age of

independence. And afterwards he said, "My father was speaking of you

again only yesterday, Monsieur l'Abbe. He is astonished that he has not

seen you lately."

This distressed Pierre, for he had begun to regard Orlando with

respectful affection. Since his first visit, he had twice called on the

old hero, but the latter had refused to broach the subject of Rome so

long as his young friend should not have seen, felt, and understood

everything. There would be time for a talk later on, said he, when they

were both in a position to formulate their conclusions.

"Pray tell Count Orlando," responded Pierre, "that I have not forgotten

him, and that, if I have deferred a fresh visit, it is because I desire

to satisfy him. However, I certainly will not leave Rome without going to

tell him how deeply his kind greeting has touched me."

Whilst talking, the two men slowly followed the ascending road past the

newly erected villas, several of which were not yet finished. And when

Prada learned that the priest had come to call on Cardinal Sanguinetti,

he again laughed, with the laugh of a good-natured wolf, showing his

white fangs. "True," he exclaimed, "the Cardinal has been here since the

Pope has been laid up. Ah! you'll find him in a pretty fever."

"Why?"

"Why, because there's bad news about the Holy Father this morning. When I

left Rome it was rumoured that he had spent a fearful night."

So speaking, Prada halted at a bend of the road, not far from an antique

chapel, a little church of solitary, mournful grace of aspect, on the

verge of an olive grove. Beside it stood a ruinous building, the old

parsonage, no doubt, whence there suddenly emerged a tall, knotty priest

with coarse and earthy face, who, after roughly locking the door, went

off in the direction of the town.

"Ah!" resumed the Count in a tone of raillery, "that fellow's heart also

must be beating violently; he's surely gone to your Cardinal in search of

news."

Pierre had looked at the priest. "I know him," he replied; "I saw him, I

remember, on the day after my arrival at Cardinal Boccanera's. He brought

the Cardinal a basket of figs and asked him for a certificate in favour

of his young brother, who had been sent to prison for some deed of

violence--a knife thrust if I recollect rightly. However, the Cardinal

absolutely refused him the certificate."