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creature with soul of fire and indolent air, in whom he had pictured all

ancient Rome, and whom he would have liked to awaken and win over to the

Italy of to-morrow. He had dreamt of enlarging her brain and heart by

filling her with love for the lowly and the poor, with all present-day

compassion for things and beings. How he would now have smiled at such a

dream had not his tears been flowing! Yet how charming she had shown

herself in striving to content him despite the invincible obstacles of

race, education, and environment. She had been a docile pupil, but was

incapable of any real progress. One day she had certainly seemed to draw

nearer to him, as though her own sufferings had opened her soul to every

charity; but the illusion of happiness had come back, and then she had

lost all understanding of the woes of others, and had gone off in the

egotism of her own hope and joy. Did that mean then that this Roman race

must finish in that fashion, beautiful as it still often is, and fondly

adored but so closed to all love for others, to those laws of charity and

justice which, by regulating labour, can henceforth alone save this world

of ours?

Then there came another great sorrow to Pierre which left him stammering,

unable to speak any precise prayer. He thought of the overwhelming

reassertion of Nature's powers which had attended the death of those two

poor children. Was it not awful? To have taken that vow to the Virgin, to

have endured torment throughout life, and to end by plunging into death,

on the loved one's neck, distracted by vain regret and eager for

self-bestowal! The brutal fact of impending separation had sufficed for

Benedetta to realise how she had duped herself, and to revert to the

universal instinct of love. And therein, again once more, was the Church

vanquished; therein again appeared the great god Pan, mating the sexes

and scattering life around! If in the days of the Renascence the Church

did not fall beneath the assault of the Venuses and Hercules then exhumed

from the old soil of Rome, the struggle at all events continued as

bitterly as ever; and at each and every hour new nations, overflowing

with sap, hungering for life, and warring against a religion which was

nothing more than an appetite for death, threatened to sweep away that

old Holy Apostolic Roman and Catholic edifice whose walls were already

tottering on all sides.

And at that moment Pierre felt that the death of that adorable Benedetta

was for him the supreme disaster. He was still looking at her and tears

were scorching his eyes. She was carrying off his chimera. This time

'twas really the end. Rome the Catholic and the Princely was dead, lying

there like marble on that funeral bed. She had been unable to go to the

humble, the suffering ones of the world, and had just expired amidst the

impotent cry of her egotistical passion when it was too late either to

love or to create. Never more would children be born of her, the old

Roman house was henceforth empty, sterile, beyond possibility of

awakening. Pierre whose soul mourned such a splendid dream, was so

grieved at seeing her thus motionless and frigid, that he felt himself

fainting. He feared lest he might fall upon the step beside the bed, and

so struggled to his feet and drew aside.

Then, as he sought refuge in a window recess in order that he might try

to recover self-possession, he was astonished to perceive Victorine

seated there on a bench which the hangings half concealed. She had come

thither by Donna Serafina's orders, and sat watching her two dear

children as she called them, whilst keeping an eye upon all who came in

and went out. And, on seeing the young priest so pale and nearly

swooning, she at once made room for him to sit down beside her. "Ah!" he

murmured after drawing a long breath, "may they at least have the joy of

being together elsewhere, of living a new life in another world."

Victorine, however, shrugged her shoulders, and in an equally low voice

responded, "Oh! live again, Monsieur l'Abbe, why? When one's dead the

best is to remain so and to sleep. Those poor children had enough

torments on earth, one mustn't wish that they should begin again

elsewhere."

This naive yet deep remark on the part of an ignorant unbelieving woman

sent a shudder through Pierre's very bones. To think that his own teeth

had chattered with fear at night time at the sudden thought of

annihilation. He deemed her heroic at remaining so undisturbed by any

ideas of eternity and the infinite. And she, as she felt he was

quivering, went on: "What can you suppose there should be after death?

We've deserved a right to sleep, and nothing to my thinking can be more

desirable and consoling."

"But those two did not live," murmured Pierre, "so why not allow oneself

the joy of believing that they now live elsewhere, recompensed for all

their torments?"

Victorine, however, again shook her head; "No, no," she replied. "Ah! I

was quite right in saying that my poor Benedetta did wrong in torturing

herself with all those superstitious ideas of hers when she was really so

fond of her lover. Yes, happiness is rarely found, and how one regrets

having missed it when it's too late to turn back! That's the whole story

of those poor little ones. It's too late for them, they are dead." Then

in her turn she broke down and began to sob. "Poor little ones! poor

little ones! Look how white they are, and think what they will be when

only the bones of their heads lie side by side on the cushion, and only

the bones of their arms still clasp one another. Ah! may they sleep, may

they sleep; at least they know nothing and feel nothing now."

A long interval of silence followed. Pierre, amidst the quiver of his own

doubts, the anxious desire which in common with most men he felt for a

new life beyond the grave, gazed at this woman who did not find priests

to her fancy, and who retained all her Beauceronne frankness of speech,

with the tranquil, contented air of one who has ever done her duty in her

humble station as a servant, lost though she had been for five and twenty

years in a land of wolves, whose language she had not even been able to

learn. Ah! yes, tortured as the young man was by his doubts, he would

have liked to be as she was, a well-balanced, healthy, ignorant creature

who was quite content with what the world offered, and who, when she had

accomplished her daily task, went fully satisfied to bed, careless as to

whether she might never wake again!

However, as Pierre's eyes once more sought the state bed, he suddenly

recognised the old priest, who was kneeling on the step of the platform,

and whose features he had hitherto been unable to distinguish. "Isn't

that Abbe Pisoni, the priest of Santa Brigida, where I sometimes said

mass?" he inquired. "The poor old man, how he weeps!"

In her quiet yet desolate voice Victorine replied, "He has good reason to

weep. He did a fine thing when he took it into his head to marry my poor

Benedetta to Count Prada. All those abominations would never have

happened if the poor child had been given her Dario at once. But in this

idiotic city they are all mad with their politics; and that old priest,

who is none the less a very worthy man, thought he had accomplished a

real miracle and saved the world by marrying the Pope and the King as he

said with a soft laugh, poor old _savant_ that he is, who for his part

has never been in love with anything but old stones--you know, all that

antiquated rubbish of theirs of a hundred thousand years ago. And now,

you see, he can't keep from weeping. The other one too came not twenty

minutes ago, Father Lorenza, the Jesuit who became the Contessina's

confessor after Abbe Pisoni, and who undid what the other had done. Yes,

a handsome man he is, but a fine bungler all the same, a perfect killjoy

with all the crafty hindrances which he brought into that divorce affair.

I wish you had been here to see what a big sign of the cross he made

after he had knelt down. He didn't cry, he didn't: he seemed to be saying

that as things had ended so badly it was evident that God had withdrawn

from all share in the business. So much the worse for the dead!"

Victorine spoke gently and without a pause, as it relieved her, to empty

her heart after the terrible hours of bustle and suffocation which she

had spent since the previous day. "And that one yonder," she resumed in a

lower voice, "don't you recognise her?"

She glanced towards the poorly clad girl whom Pierre had taken for a

servant, and whom intensity of grief had prostrated beside the bed. With

a gesture of awful suffering this girl had just thrown back her head, a

head of extraordinary beauty, enveloped by superb black hair.

"La Pierina!" said Pierre. "Ah! poor girl."

Victorine made a gesture of compassion and tolerance.

"What would you have?" said she, "I let her come up. I don't know how she

heard of the trouble, but it's true that she is always prowling round the

house. She sent and asked me to come down to her, and you should have

heard her sob and entreat me to let her see her Prince once more! Well,

she does no harm to anybody there on the floor, looking at them both with

her beautiful loving eyes full of tears. She's been there for half an

hour already, and I had made up my mind to turn her out if she didn't

behave properly. But since she's so quiet and doesn't even move, she may

well stop and fill her heart with the sight of them for her whole life

long."

It was really sublime to see that ignorant, passionate, beautiful Pierina

thus overwhelmed below the nuptial couch on which the lovers slept for

all eternity. She had sunk down on her heels, her arms hanging heavily

beside her, and her hands open. And with raised face, motionless as in an

ecstasy of suffering, she did not take her eyes from that adorable and

tragic pair. Never had human face displayed such beauty, such a dazzling

splendour of suffering and love; never had there been such a portrayal of

ancient Grief, not however cold like marble but quivering with life. What

was she thinking of, what were her sufferings, as she thus fixedly gazed

at her Prince now and for ever locked in her rival's arms? Was it some

jealousy which could have no end that chilled the blood of her veins? Or

was it mere suffering at having lost him, at realising that she was

looking at him for the last time, without thought of hatred for that

other woman who vainly sought to warm him with her arms as icy cold as

his own? There was still a soft gleam in the poor girl's blurred eyes,

and her lips were still lips of love though curved in bitterness by

grief. She found the lovers so pure and beautiful as they lay there

amidst that profusion of flowers! And beautiful herself, beautiful like a

queen, ignorant of her own charms, she remained there breathless, a

humble servant, a loving slave as it were, whose heart had been wrenched

away and carried off by her dying master.

People were now constantly entering the room, slowly approaching with

mournful faces, then kneeling and praying for a few minutes, and

afterwards retiring with the same mute, desolate mien. A pang came to

Pierre's heart when he saw Dario's mother, the ever beautiful Flavia,

enter, accompanied by her husband, the handsome Jules Laporte, that

ex-sergeant of the Swiss Guard whom she had turned into a Marquis

Montefiori. Warned of the tragedy directly it had happened, she had

already come to the mansion on the previous evening; but now she returned

in grand ceremony and full mourning, looking superb in her black garments

which were well suited to her massive, Juno-like style of beauty. When

she had approached the bed with a queenly step, she remained for a moment

standing with two tears at the edges of her eyelids, tears which did not

fall. Then, at the moment of kneeling, she made sure that Jules was

beside her, and glanced at him as if to order him to kneel as well. They

both sank down beside the platform and remained in prayer for the proper

interval, she very dignified in her grief and he even surpassing her,

with the perfect sorrow-stricken bearing of a man who knew how to conduct

himself in every circumstance of life, even the gravest. And afterwards

they rose together, and slowly betook themselves to the entrance of the

private apartments where the Cardinal and Donna Serafina were receiving

their relatives and friends.

Five ladies then came in one after the other, while two Capuchins and the

Spanish ambassador to the Holy See went off. And Victorine, who for a few

minutes had remained silent, suddenly resumed. "Ah! there's the little

Princess, she's much afflicted too, and, no wonder, she was so fond of

our Benedetta."

Pierre himself had just noticed Celia coming in. She also had attired

herself in full mourning for this abominable visit of farewell. Behind

her was a maid, who carried on either arm a huge sheaf of white roses.

"The dear girl!" murmured Victorine, "she wanted her wedding with her

Attilio to take place on the same day as that of the poor lovers who lie

there. And they, alas! have forestalled her, their wedding's over; there

they sleep in their bridal bed."

Celia had at once crossed herself and knelt down beside the bed, but it

was evident that she was not praying. She was indeed looking at the

lovers with desolate stupefaction at finding them so white and cold with

a beauty as of marble. What! had a few hours sufficed, had life departed,

would those lips never more exchange a kiss! She could again see them at

the ball of that other night, so resplendent and triumphant with their

living love. And a feeling of furious protest rose from her young heart,

so open to life, so eager for joy and sunlight, so angry with the hateful

idiocy of death. And her anger and affright and grief, as she thus found