第 9 页

estates; the palace had emptied, gradually sinking to the mediocrity and

bourgeois life of the new times. For their part the Boccaneras

obstinately declined to contract any alien alliances, proud as they were

of the purity of their Roman blood. And poverty was as nothing to them;

they found contentment in their immense pride, and without a plaint

sequestered themselves amidst the silence and gloom in which their race

was dwindling away.

Prince Ascanio, dead since 1848, had left four children by his wife, a

Corvisieri; first Pio, the Cardinal; then Serafina, who, in order to

remain with her brother, had not married; and finally Ernesta and

Onofrio, both of whom were deceased. As Ernesta had merely left a

daughter, Benedetta, behind her, it followed that the only male heir, the

only possible continuator of the family name was Onofrio's son, young

Prince Dario, now some thirty years of age. Should he die without

posterity, the Boccaneras, once so full of life and whose deeds had

filled Roman history in papal times, must fatally disappear.

Dario and his cousin Benedetta had been drawn together by a deep,

smiling, natural passion ever since childhood. They seemed born one for

the other; they could not imagine that they had been brought into the

world for any other purpose than that of becoming husband and wife as

soon as they should be old enough to marry. When Prince Onofrio--an

amiable man of forty, very popular in Rome, where he spent his modest

fortune as his heart listed--espoused La Montefiori's daughter, the

little Marchesa Flavia, whose superb beauty, suggestive of a youthful

Juno, had maddened him, he went to reside at the Villa Montefiori, the

only property, indeed the only belonging, that remained to the two

ladies. It was in the direction of St'. Agnese-fuori-le-Mura,* and there

were vast grounds, a perfect park in fact, planted with centenarian

trees, among which the villa, a somewhat sorry building of the

seventeenth century, was falling into ruins.

* St. Agnes-without-the-walls, N.E. of Rome.

Unfavourable reports were circulated about the ladies, the mother having

almost lost caste since she had become a widow, and the girl having too

bold a beauty, too conquering an air. Thus the marriage had not met with

the approval of Serafina, who was very rigid, or of Onofrio's elder

brother Pio, at that time merely a _Cameriere segreto_ of the Holy Father

and a Canon of the Vatican basilica. Only Ernesta kept up a regular

intercourse with Onofrio, fond of him as she was by reason of his gaiety

of disposition; and thus, later on, her favourite diversion was to go

each week to the Villa Montefiori with her daughter Benedetta, there to

spend the day. And what a delightful day it always proved to Benedetta

and Dario, she ten years old and he fifteen, what a fraternal loving day

in that vast and almost abandoned garden with its parasol pines, its

giant box-plants, and its clumps of evergreen oaks, amidst which one lost

oneself as in a virgin forest.

The poor stifled soul of Ernesta was a soul of pain and passion. Born

with a mighty longing for life, she thirsted for the sun--for a free,

happy, active existence in the full daylight. She was noted for her large

limpid eyes and the charming oval of her gentle face. Extremely ignorant,

like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the little

she knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in the

black Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by those

daily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied her

mother. Eventually, when she was five and twenty, and was already weary

and desolate, she contracted the customary marriage of her caste,

espousing Count Brandini, the last-born of a very noble, very numerous

and poor family, who had to come and live in the Via Giulia mansion,

where an entire wing of the second floor was got ready for the young

couple. And nothing changed, Ernesta continued to live in the same cold

gloom, in the midst of the same dead past, the weight of which, like that

of a tombstone, she felt pressing more and more heavily upon her.

The marriage was, on either side, a very honourable one. Count Brandini

soon passed as being the most foolish and haughty man in Rome. A strict,

intolerant formalist in religious matters, he became quite triumphant

when, after innumerable intrigues, secret plottings which lasted ten long

years, he at last secured the appointment of grand equerry to the Holy

Father. With this appointment it seemed as if all the dismal majesty of

the Vatican entered his household. However, Ernesta found life still

bearable in the time of Pius IX--that is until the latter part of

1870--for she might still venture to open the windows overlooking the

street, receive a few lady friends otherwise than in secrecy, and accept

invitations to festivities. But when the Italians had conquered Rome and

the Pope declared himself a prisoner, the mansion in the Via Giulia

became a sepulchre. The great doors were closed and bolted, even nailed

together in token of mourning; and during ten years the inmates only went

out and came in by the little staircase communicating with the lane. It

was also forbidden to open the window shutters of the facade. This was

the sulking, the protest of the black world, the mansion sinking into

death-like immobility, complete seclusion; no more receptions, barely a

few shadows, the intimates of Donna Serafina who on Monday evenings

slipped in by the little door in the lane which was scarcely set ajar.

And during those ten lugubrious years, overcome by secret despair, the

young woman wept every night, suffered untold agony at thus being buried

alive.

Ernesta had given birth to her daughter Benedetta rather late in life,

when three and thirty years of age. At first the little one helped to

divert her mind. But afterwards her wonted existence, like a grinding

millstone, again seized hold of her, and she had to place the child in

the charge of the French nuns, by whom she herself had been educated, at

the convent of the Sacred Heart of La Trinita de' Monti. When Benedetta

left the convent, grown up, nineteen years of age, she was able to speak

and write French, knew a little arithmetic and her catechism, and

possessed a few hazy notions of history. Then the life of the two women

was resumed, the life of a _gynoeceum_, suggestive of the Orient; never

an excursion with husband or father, but day after day spent in closed,

secluded rooms, with nought to cheer one but the sole, everlasting,

obligatory promenade, the daily drive to the Corso and the Pincio.

At home, absolute obedience was the rule; the tie of relationship

possessed an authority, a strength, which made both women bow to the will

of the Count, without possible thought of rebellion; and to the Count's

will was added that of Donna Serafina and that of Cardinal Pio, both of

whom were stern defenders of the old-time customs. Since the Pope had

ceased to show himself in Rome, the post of grand equerry had left the

Count considerable leisure, for the number of equipages in the pontifical

stables had been very largely reduced; nevertheless, he was constant in

his attendance at the Vatican, where his duties were now a mere matter of

parade, and ever increased his devout zeal as a mark of protest against

the usurping monarchy installed at the Quirinal. However, Benedetta had

just attained her twentieth year, when one evening her father returned

coughing and shivering from some ceremony at St. Peter's. A week later he

died, carried off by inflammation of the lungs. And despite their

mourning, the loss was secretly considered a deliverance by both women,

who now felt that they were free.

Thenceforward Ernesta had but one thought, that of saving her daughter

from that awful life of immurement and entombment. She herself had

sorrowed too deeply: it was no longer possible for her to remount the

current of existence; but she was unwilling that Benedetta should in her

turn lead a life contrary to nature, in a voluntary grave. Moreover,

similar lassitude and rebellion were showing themselves among other

patrician families, which, after the sulking of the first years, were

beginning to draw nearer to the Quirinal. Why indeed should the children,

eager for action, liberty, and sunlight, perpetually keep up the quarrel

of the fathers? And so, though no reconciliation could take place between

the black world and the white world,* intermediate tints were already

appearing, and some unexpected matrimonial alliances were contracted.

* The "blacks" are the supporters of the papacy, the "whites"

those of the King of Italy.--Trans.

Ernesta for her part was indifferent to the political question; she knew

next to nothing about it; but that which she passionately desired was

that her race might at last emerge from that hateful sepulchre, that

black, silent Boccanera mansion, where her woman's joys had been frozen

by so long a death. She had suffered very grievously in her heart, as

girl, as lover, and as wife, and yielded to anger at the thought that her

life should have been so spoiled, so lost through idiotic resignation.

Then, too, her mind was greatly influenced by the choice of a new

confessor at this period; for she had remained very religious, practising

all the rites of the Church, and ever docile to the advice of her

spiritual director. To free herself the more, however, she now quitted

the Jesuit father whom her husband had chosen for her, and in his stead

took Abbe Pisoni, the rector of the little church of Sta. Brigida, on the

Piazza Farnese, close by. He was a man of fifty, very gentle, and very

good-hearted, of a benevolence seldom found in the Roman world; and

archaeology, a passion for the old stones of the past, had made him an

ardent patriot. Humble though his position was, folks whispered that he

had on several occasions served as an intermediary in delicate matters

between the Vatican and the Quirinal. And, becoming confessor not only of

Ernesta but of Benedetta also, he was fond of discoursing to them about

the grandeur of Italian unity, the triumphant sway that Italy would

exercise when the Pope and the King should agree together.

Meantime Benedetta and Dario loved as on the first day, patiently, with

the strong tranquil love of those who know that they belong to one

another. But it happened that Ernesta threw herself between them and

stubbornly opposed their marriage. No, no! her daughter must not espouse

that Dario, that cousin, the last of the name, who in his turn would

immure his wife in the black sepulchre of the Boccanera palace! Their

union would be a prolongation of entombment, an aggravation of ruin, a

repetition of the haughty wretchedness of the past, of the everlasting

peevish sulking which depressed and benumbed one! She was well acquainted

with the young man's character; she knew that he was egotistical and

weak, incapable of thinking and acting, predestined to bury his race with

a smile on his lips, to let the last remnant of the house crumble about

his head without attempting the slightest effort to found a new family.

And that which she desired was fortune in another guise, a new birth for

her daughter with wealth and the florescence of life amid the victors and

powerful ones of to-morrow.

From that moment the mother did not cease her stubborn efforts to ensure

her daughter's happiness despite herself. She told her of her tears,

entreated her not to renew her own deplorable career. Yet she would have

failed, such was the calm determination of the girl who had for ever

given her heart, if certain circumstances had not brought her into

connection with such a son-in-law as she dreamt of. At that very Villa

Montefiori where Benedetta and Dario had plighted their troth, she met

Count Prada, son of Orlando, one of the heroes of the reunion of Italy.

Arriving in Rome from Milan, with his father, when eighteen years of age,

at the time of the occupation of the city by the Italian Government,

Prada had first entered the Ministry of Finances as a mere clerk, whilst

the old warrior, his sire, created a senator, lived scantily on a petty

income, the last remnant of a fortune spent in his country's service. The

fine war-like madness of the former comrade of Garibaldi had, however, in

the son turned into a fierce appetite for booty, so that the young man

became one of the real conquerors of Rome, one of those birds of prey

that dismembered and devoured the city. Engaged in vast speculations on

land, already wealthy according to popular report, he had--at the time of

meeting Ernesta--just become intimate with Prince Onofrio, whose head he

had turned by suggesting to him the idea of selling the far-spreading

grounds of the Villa Montefiori for the erection of a new suburban

district on the site. Others averred that he was the lover of the

princess, the beautiful Flavia, who, although nine years his senior, was

still superb. And, truth to tell, he was certainly a man of violent

desires, with an eagerness to rush on the spoils of conquest which

rendered him utterly unscrupulous with regard either to the wealth or to

the wives of others.

From the first day that he beheld Benedetta he desired her. But she, at

any rate, could only become his by marriage. And he did not for a moment

hesitate, but broke off all connection with Flavia, eager as he was for

the pure virgin beauty, the patrician youth of the other. When he

realised that Ernesta, the mother, favoured him, he asked her daughter's

hand, feeling certain of success. And the surprise was great, for he was

some fifteen years older than the girl. However, he was a count, he bore

a name which was already historical, he was piling up millions, he was

regarded with favour at the Quirinal, and none could tell to what heights

he might not attain. All Rome became impassioned.

Never afterwards was Benedetta able to explain to herself how it happened

that she had eventually consented. Six months sooner, six months later,

such a marriage would certainly have been impossible, given the fearful