第 79 页

the windows to admit the warm air which, as he had noticed on the day of

his arrival, had a savour of fruit and flowers, a blending, as it were,

of the perfume of rose and orange. Could this possibly be December? What

a delightful land, that the spring should seem to flower on the very

threshold of winter! Then, having dressed, he was leaning out of the

window to glance across the golden Tiber at the evergreen slopes of the

Janiculum, when he espied Benedetta seated in the abandoned garden of the

mansion. And thereupon, unable to keep still, full of a desire for life,

gaiety, and beauty, he went down to join her.

With radiant visage and outstretched hands, she at once vented the cry he

had expected: "Ah! my dear Abbe, how happy I am!"

They had often spent their mornings in that quiet, forsaken nook; but

what sad mornings those had been, hopeless as they both were! To-day,

however, the weed-grown paths, the box-plants growing in the old basin,

the orange-trees which alone marked the outline of the beds--all seemed

full of charm, instinct with a sweet and dreamy cosiness in which it was

very pleasant to lull one's joy. And it was so warm, too, beside the big

laurel-bush, in the corner where the streamlet of water ever fell with

flute-like music from the gaping, tragic mask.

"Ah!" repeated Benedetta, "how happy I am! I was stifling upstairs, and

my heart felt such a need of space, and air, and sunlight, that I came

down here!"

She was seated on the fallen column beside the old marble sarcophagus,

and desired the priest to place himself beside her. Never had he seen her

looking so beautiful, with her black hair encompassing her pure face,

which in the sunshine appeared pinky and delicate as a flower. Her large,

fathomless eyes showed in the light like braziers rolling gold, and her

childish mouth, all candour and good sense, laughed the laugh of one who

was at last free to love as her heart listed, without offending either

God or man. And, dreaming aloud, she built up plans for the future. "It's

all simple enough," said she; "I have already obtained a separation, and

shall easily get that changed into civil divorce now that the Church has

annulled my marriage. And I shall marry Dario next spring, perhaps

sooner, if the formalities can be hastened. He is going to Naples this

evening about the sale of some property which we still possess there, but

which must now be sold, for all this business has cost us a lot of money.

Still, that doesn't matter since we now belong to one another. And when

he comes back in a few days, what a happy time we shall have! I could not

sleep when I got back from that splendid ball last night, for my head was

so full of plans--oh! splendid plans, as you shall see, for I mean to

keep you in Rome until our marriage."

Like herself, Pierre began to laugh, so gained upon by this explosion of

youth and happiness that he had to make a great effort to refrain from

speaking of his own delight, his hopefulness at the thought of his coming

interview with the Pope. Of that, however, he had sworn to speak to

nobody.

Every now and again, amidst the quivering silence of the sunlit garden,

the cry of a bird persistently rang out; and Benedetta, raising her head

and looking at a cage hanging beside one of the first-floor windows,

jestingly exclaimed: "Yes, yes, Tata, make a good noise, show that you

are pleased, my dear. Everybody in the house must be pleased now." Then,

turning towards Pierre, she added gaily: "You know Tata, don't you? What!

No? Why, Tata is my uncle's parrot. I gave her to him last spring; he's

very fond of her, and lets her help herself out of his plate. And he

himself attends to her, puts her out and takes her in, and keeps her in

his dining-room, for fear lest she should take cold, as that is the only

room of his which is at all warm."

Pierre in his turn looked up and saw the bird, one of those pretty little

parrots with soft, silky, dull-green plumage. It was hanging by the beak

from a bar of its cage, swinging itself and flapping its wings, all mirth

in the bright sunshine.

"Does the bird talk?" he asked.

"No, she only screams," replied Benedetta, laughing. "Still my uncle

pretends that he understands her." And then the young woman abruptly

darted to another subject, as if this mention of her uncle the Cardinal

had made her think of the uncle by marriage whom she had in Paris. "I

suppose you have heard from Viscount de la Choue," said she. "I had a

letter from him yesterday, in which he said how grieved he was that you

were unable to see the Holy Father, as he had counted on you for the

triumph of his ideas."

Pierre indeed frequently heard from the Viscount, who was greatly

distressed by the importance which his adversary, Baron de Fouras, had

acquired since his success with the International Pilgrimage of the

Peter's Pence. The old, uncompromising Catholic party would awaken, said

the Viscount, and all the conquests of Neo-Catholicism would be

threatened, if one could not obtain the Holy Father's formal adhesion to

the proposed system of free guilds, in order to overcome the demand for

closed guilds which was brought forward by the Conservatives. And the

Viscount overwhelmed Pierre with injunctions, and sent him all sorts of

complicated plans in his eagerness to see him received at the Vatican.

"Yes, yes," muttered the young priest in reply to Benedetta. "I had a

letter on Sunday, and found another waiting for me on my return from

Frascati yesterday. Ah! it would make me very happy to be able to send

the Viscount some good news." Then again Pierre's joy overflowed at the

thought that he would that evening see the Pope, and, on opening his

loving heart to the Pontiff, receive the supreme encouragement which

would strengthen him in his mission to work social salvation in the name

of the lowly and the poor. And he could not restrain himself any longer,

but let his secret escape him: "It's settled, you know," said he. "My

audience is for this evening."

Benedetta did not understand at first. "What audience?" she asked.

"Oh! Monsignor Nani was good enough to tell me at the ball this morning,

that the Holy Father has read my book and desires to see me. I shall be

received this evening at nine o'clock."

At this the Contessina flushed with pleasure, participating in the

delight of the young priest to whom she had grown much attached. And this

success of his, coming in the midst of her own felicity, acquired

extraordinary importance in her eyes as if it were an augury of complete

success for one and all. Superstitious as she was, she raised a cry of

rapture and excitement: "Ah! _Dio_, that will bring us good luck. How

happy I am, my friend, to see happiness coming to you at the same time as

to me! You cannot think how pleased I am! And all will go well now, it's

certain, for a house where there is any one whom the Pope welcomes is

blessed, the thunder of Heaven falls on it no more!"

She laughed yet more loudly as she spoke, and clapped her hands with such

exuberant gaiety that Pierre became anxious. "Hush! hush!" said he, "it's

a secret. Pray don't mention it to any one, either your aunt or even his

Eminence. Monsignor Nani would be much annoyed."

She thereupon promised to say nothing, and in a kindly voice spoke of

Nani as a benefactor, for was she not indebted to him for the dissolution

of her marriage? Then, with a fresh explosion of gaiety, she went on:

"But come, my friend, is not happiness the only good thing? You don't ask

me to weep over the suffering poor to-day! Ah! the happiness of life,

that's everything. People don't suffer or feel cold or hungry when they

are happy."

He looked at her in stupefaction at the idea of that strange solution of

the terrible question of human misery. And suddenly he realised that,

with that daughter of the sun who had inherited so many centuries of

sovereign aristocracy, all his endeavours at conversion were vain. He had

wished to bring her to a Christian love for the lowly and the wretched,

win her over to the new, enlightened, and compassionate Italy that he had

dreamt of; but if she had been moved by the sufferings of the multitude

at the time when she herself had suffered, when grievous wounds had made

her own heart bleed, she was no sooner healed than she proclaimed the

doctrine of universal felicity like a true daughter of a clime of burning

summers, and winters as mild as spring. "But everybody is not happy!"

said he.

"Yes, yes, they are!" she exclaimed. "You don't know the poor! Give a

girl of the Trastevere the lad she loves, and she becomes as radiant as a

queen, and finds her dry bread quite sweet. The mothers who save a child

from sickness, the men who conquer in a battle, or who win at the

lottery, one and all in fact are like that, people only ask for good

fortune and pleasure. And despite all your striving to be just and to

arrive at a more even distribution of fortune, the only satisfied ones

will be those whose hearts sing--often without their knowing the

cause--on a fine sunny day like this."

Pierre made a gesture of surrender, not wishing to sadden her by again

pleading the cause of all the poor ones who at that very moment were

somewhere agonising with physical or mental pain. But, all at once,

through the luminous mild atmosphere a shadow seemed to fall, tingeing

joy with sadness, the sunshine with despair. And the sight of the old

sarcophagus, with its bacchanal of satyrs and nymphs, brought back the

memory that death lurks even amidst the bliss of passion, the unsatiated

kisses of love. For a moment the clear song of the water sounded in

Pierre's ears like a long-drawn sob, and all seemed to crumble in the

terrible shadow which had fallen from the invisible.

Benedetta, however, caught hold of his hands and roused him once more to

the delight of being there beside her. "Your pupil is rebellious, is she

not, my friend?" said she. "But what would you have? There are ideas

which can't enter into our heads. No, you will never get those things

into the head of a Roman girl. So be content with loving us as we are,

beautiful with all our strength, as beautiful as we can be."

She herself, in her resplendent happiness, looked at that moment so

beautiful that he trembled as in presence of a divinity whose

all-powerfulness swayed the world. "Yes, yes," he stammered, "beauty,

beauty, still and ever sovereign. Ah! why can it not suffice to satisfy

the eternal longings of poor suffering men?"

"Never mind!" she gaily responded. "Do not distress yourself; it is

pleasant to live. And now let us go upstairs, my aunt must be waiting."

The midday meal was served at one o'clock, and on the few occasions when

Pierre did not eat at one or another restaurant a cover was laid for him

at the ladies' table in the little dining-room of the second floor,

overlooking the courtyard. At the same hour, in the sunlit dining-room of

the first floor, whose windows faced the Tiber, the Cardinal likewise sat

down to table, happy in the society of his nephew Dario, for his

secretary, Don Vigilio, who also was usually present, never opened his

mouth unless to reply to some question. And the two services were quite

distinct, each having its own kitchen and servants, the only thing at all

common to them both being a large room downstairs which served as a

pantry and store-place.

Although the second-floor dining-room was so gloomy, saddened by the

greeny half-light of the courtyard, the meal shared that day by the two

ladies and the young priest proved a very gay one. Even Donna Serafina,

usually so rigid, seemed to relax under the influence of great internal

felicity. She was no doubt still enjoying her triumph of the previous

evening, and it was she who first spoke of the ball and sung its praises,

though the presence of the King and Queen had much embarrassed her, said

she. According to her account, she had only avoided presentation by

skilful strategy; however she hoped that her well-known affection for

Celia, whose god-mother she was, would explain her presence in that

neutral mansion where Vatican and Quirinal had met. At the same time she

must have retained certain scruples, for she declared that directly after

dinner she was going to the Vatican to see the Cardinal Secretary, to

whom she desired to speak about an enterprise of which she was

lady-patroness. This visit would compensate for her attendance at the

Buongiovanni entertainment. And on the other hand never had Donna

Serafina seemed so zealous and hopeful of her brother's speedy accession

to the throne of St. Peter: therein lay a supreme triumph, an elevation

of her race, which her pride deemed both needful and inevitable; and

indeed during Leo XIII's last indisposition she had actually concerned

herself about the trousseau which would be needed and which would require

to be marked with the new Pontiff's arms.

On her side, Benedetta was all gaiety during the repast, laughing at

everything, and speaking of Celia and Attilio with the passionate

affection of a woman whose own happiness delights in that of her friends.

Then, just as the dessert had been served, she turned to the servant with

an air of surprise: "Well, and the figs, Giacomo?" she asked.

Giacomo, slow and sleepy of notion, looked at her without understanding.

However, Victorine was crossing the room, and Benedetta's next question

was for her: "Why are the figs not served, Victorine?" she inquired.

"What figs, Contessina?"

"Why the figs I saw in the pantry as I passed through it this morning on

my way to the garden. They were in a little basket and looked superb. I

was even astonished to see that there were still some fresh figs left at