The Three Cities Trilogy: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

II

THE Via Giulia, which runs in a straight line over a distance of five
hundred yards from the Farnese palace to the church of St. John of the
Florentines, was at that hour steeped in bright sunlight, the glow
streaming from end to end and whitening the small square paving stones.
The street had no footways, and the cab rolled along it almost to the
farther extremity, passing the old grey sleepy and deserted residences
whose large windows were barred with iron, while their deep porches
revealed sombre courts resembling wells. Laid out by Pope Julius II, who
had dreamt of lining it with magnificent palaces, the street, then the
most regular and handsome in Rome, had served as Corso* in the sixteenth
century. One could tell that one was in a former luxurious district,
which had lapsed into silence, solitude, and abandonment, instinct with a
kind of religious gentleness and discretion. The old house-fronts
followed one after another, their shutters closed and their gratings
occasionally decked with climbing plants. At some doors cats were seated,
and dim shops, appropriated to humble trades, were installed in certain
dependencies. But little traffic was apparent. Pierre only noticed some
bare-headed women dragging children behind them, a hay cart drawn by a
mule, a superb monk draped in drugget, and a bicyclist speeding along
noiselessly, his machine sparkling in the sun.

* The Corso was so called on account of the horse races held in
it at carnival time.--Trans.

At last the driver turned and pointed to a large square building at the
corner of a lane running towards the Tiber.

"Palazzo Boccanera."

Pierre raised his head and was pained by the severe aspect of the
structure, so bare and massive and blackened by age. Like its neighbours
the Farnese and Sacchetti palaces, it had been built by Antonio da
Sangallo in the early part of the sixteenth century, and, as with the
former of those residences, the tradition ran that in raising the pile
the architect had made use of stones pilfered from the Colosseum and the
Theatre of Marcellus. The vast, square-looking facade had three upper
stories, each with seven windows, and the first one very lofty and noble.
Down below, the only sign of decoration was that the high ground-floor
windows, barred with huge projecting gratings as though from fear of
siege, rested upon large consoles, and were crowned by attics which
smaller consoles supported. Above the monumental entrance, with folding
doors of bronze, there was a balcony in front of the central first-floor
window. And at the summit of the facade against the sky appeared a
sumptuous entablature, whose frieze displayed admirable grace and purity
of ornamentation. The frieze, the consoles, the attics, and the door-case
were of white marble, but marble whose surface had so crumbled and so
darkened that it now had the rough yellowish grain of stone. Right and
left of the entrance were two antique seats upheld by griffons also of
marble; and incrusted in the wall at one corner, a lovely Renascence
fountain, its source dried up, still lingered; and on it a cupid riding a
dolphin could with difficulty be distinguished, to such a degree had the
wear and tear of time eaten into the sculpture.

Pierre's eyes, however, had been more particularly attracted by an
escutcheon carved above one of the ground-floor windows, the escutcheon
of the Boccaneras, a winged dragon venting flames, and underneath it he
could plainly read the motto which had remained intact: "/Bocca nera,
Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul). Above another window, as a pendant
to the escutcheon, there was one of those little shrines which are still
common in Rome, a satin-robed statuette of the Blessed Virgin, before
which a lantern burnt in the full daylight.

The cabman was about to drive through the dim and gaping porch, according
to custom, when the young priest, overcome by timidity, stopped him. "No,
no," he said; "don't go in, it's useless."

Then he alighted from the vehicle, paid the man, and, valise in hand,
found himself first under the vaulted roof, and then in the central court
without having met a living soul.

It was a square and fairly spacious court, surrounded by a porticus like
a cloister. Some remnants of statuary, marbles discovered in excavating,
an armless Apollo, and the trunk of a Venus, were ranged against the
walls under the dismal arcades; and some fine grass had sprouted between
the pebbles which paved the soil as with a black and white mosaic. It
seemed as if the sun-rays could never reach that paving, mouldy with
damp. A dimness and a silence instinct with departed grandeur and
infinite mournfulness reigned there.

Surprised by the emptiness of this silent mansion, Pierre continued
seeking somebody, a porter, a servant; and, fancying that he saw a shadow
flit by, he decided to pass through another arch which led to a little
garden fringing the Tiber. On this side the facade of the building was
quite plain, displaying nothing beyond its three rows of symmetrically
disposed windows. However, the abandonment reigning in the garden brought
Pierre yet a keener pang. In the centre some large box-plants were
growing in the basin of a fountain which had been filled up; while among
the mass of weeds, some orange-trees with golden, ripening fruit alone
indicated the tracery of the paths which they had once bordered. Between
two huge laurel-bushes, against the right-hand wall, there was a
sarcophagus of the second century--with fauns offering violence to
nymphs, one of those wild /baccanali/, those scenes of eager passion
which Rome in its decline was wont to depict on the tombs of its dead;
and this marble sarcophagus, crumbling with age and green with moisture,
served as a tank into which a streamlet of water fell from a large tragic
mask incrusted in the wall. Facing the Tiber there had formerly been a
sort of colonnaded loggia, a terrace whence a double flight of steps
descended to the river. For the construction of the new quays, however,
the river bank was being raised, and the terrace was already lower than
the new ground level, and stood there crumbling and useless amidst piles
of rubbish and blocks of stone, all the wretched chalky confusion of the
improvements which were ripping up and overturning the district.

Pierre, however, was suddenly convinced that he could see somebody
crossing the court. So he returned thither and found a woman somewhat
short of stature, who must have been nearly fifty, though as yet she had
not a white hair, but looked very bright and active. At sight of the
priest, however, an expression of distrust passed over her round face and
clear eyes.

Employing the few words of broken Italian which he knew, Pierre at once
sought to explain matters: "I am Abbe Pierre Froment, madame--" he began.

However, she did not let him continue, but exclaimed in fluent French,
with the somewhat thick and lingering accent of the province of the
Ile-de-France: "Ah! yes, Monsieur l'Abbe, I know, I know--I was expecting
you, I received orders about you." And then, as he gazed at her in
amazement, she added: "Oh! I'm a Frenchwoman! I've been here for five and
twenty years, but I haven't yet been able to get used to their horrible
lingo!"

Pierre thereupon remembered that Viscount Philibert de la Choue had
spoken to him of this servant, one Victorine Bosquet, a native of Auneau
in La Beauce, who, when two and twenty, had gone to Rome with a
consumptive mistress. The latter's sudden death had left her in as much
terror and bewilderment as if she had been alone in some land of savages;
and so she had gratefully devoted herself to the Countess Ernesta
Brandini, a Boccanera by birth, who had, so to say, picked her up in the
streets. The Countess had at first employed her as a nurse to her
daughter Benedetta, hoping in this way to teach the child some French;
and Victorine--remaining for some five and twenty years with the same
family--had by degrees raised herself to the position of housekeeper,
whilst still remaining virtually illiterate, so destitute indeed of any
linguistic gift that she could only jabber a little broken Italian, just
sufficient for her needs in her intercourse with the other servants.

"And is Monsieur le Vicomte quite well?" she resumed with frank
familiarity. "He is so very pleasant, and we are always so pleased to see
him. He stays here, you know, each time he comes to Rome. I know that the
Princess and the Contessina received a letter from him yesterday
announcing you."

It was indeed Viscount Philibert de la Choue who had made all the
arrangements for Pierre's sojourn in Rome. Of the ancient and once
vigorous race of the Boccaneras, there now only remained Cardinal Pio
Boccanera, the Princess his sister, an old maid who from respect was
called "Donna" Serafina, their niece Benedetta--whose mother Ernesta had
followed her husband, Count Brandini, to the tomb--and finally their
nephew, Prince Dario Boccanera, whose father, Prince Onofrio, was
likewise dead, and whose mother, a Montefiori, had married again. It so
chanced that the Viscount de la Choue was connected with the family, his
younger brother having married a Brandini, sister to Benedetta's father;
and thus, with the courtesy rank of uncle, he had, in Count Brandini's
time, frequently sojourned at the mansion in the Via Giulia. He had also
become attached to Benedetta, especially since the advent of a private
family drama, consequent upon an unhappy marriage which the young woman
had contracted, and which she had petitioned the Holy Father to annul.
Since Benedetta had left her husband to live with her aunt Serafina and
her uncle the Cardinal, M. de la Choue had often written to her and sent
her parcels of French books. Among others he had forwarded her a copy of
Pierre's book, and the whole affair had originated in that wise. Several
letters on the subject had been exchanged when at last Benedetta sent
word that the work had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index,
and that it was advisable the author should at once repair to Rome, where
she graciously offered him the hospitality of the Boccanera mansion.

The Viscount was quite as much astonished as the young priest at these
tidings, and failed to understand why the book should be threatened at
all; however, he prevailed on Pierre to make the journey as a matter of
good policy, becoming himself impassioned for the achievement of a
victory which he counted in anticipation as his own. And so it was easy
to understand the bewildered condition of Pierre, on tumbling into this
unknown mansion, launched into an heroic adventure, the reasons and
circumstances of which were beyond him.

Victorine, however, suddenly resumed: "But I am leaving you here,
Monsieur l'Abbe. Let me conduct you to your rooms. Where is your
luggage?"

Then, when he had shown her his valise which he had placed on the ground
beside him, and explained that having no more than a fortnight's stay in
view he had contented himself with bringing a second cassock and some
linen, she seemed very much surprised.

"A fortnight! You only expect to remain here a fortnight? Well, well,
you'll see."

And then summoning a big devil of a lackey who had ended by making his
appearance, she said: "Take that up into the red room, Giacomo. Will you
kindly follow me, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

Pierre felt quite comforted and inspirited by thus unexpectedly meeting
such a lively, good-natured compatriot in this gloomy Roman "palace."
Whilst crossing the court he listened to her as she related that the
Princess had gone out, and that the Contessina--as Benedetta from motives
of affection was still called in the house, despite her marriage--had not
yet shown herself that morning, being rather poorly. However, added
Victorine, she had her orders.

The staircase was in one corner of the court, under the porticus. It was
a monumental staircase with broad, low steps, the incline being so gentle
that a horse might easily have climbed it. The stone walls, however, were
quite bare, the landings empty and solemn, and a death-like mournfulness
fell from the lofty vault above.

As they reached the first floor, noticing Pierre's emotion, Victorine
smiled. The mansion seemed to be uninhabited; not a sound came from its
closed chambers. Simply pointing to a large oaken door on the right-hand,
the housekeeper remarked: "The wing overlooking the court and the river
is occupied by his Eminence. But he doesn't use a quarter of the rooms.
All the reception-rooms on the side of the street have been shut. How
could one keep up such a big place, and what, too, would be the use of
it? We should need somebody to lodge."

With her lithe step she continued ascending the stairs. She had remained
essentially a foreigner, a Frenchwoman, too different from those among
whom she lived to be influenced by her environment. On reaching the
second floor she resumed: "There, on the left, are Donna Serafina's
rooms; those of the Contessina are on the right. This is the only part of
the house where there's a little warmth and life. Besides, it's Monday
to-day, the Princess will be receiving visitors this evening. You'll
see."

Then, opening a door, beyond which was a second and very narrow
staircase, she went on: "We others have our rooms on the third floor. I
must ask Monsieur l'Abbe to let me go up before him."

The grand staircase ceased at the second floor, and Victorine explained
that the third story was reached exclusively by this servants' staircase,
which led from the lane running down to the Tiber on one side of the
mansion. There was a small private entrance in this lane, which was very
convenient.

At last, reaching the third story, she hurried along a passage, again
calling Pierre's attention to various doors. "These are the apartments of
Don Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary. These are mine. And these will be
yours. Monsieur le Vicomte will never have any other rooms when he comes
to spend a few days in Rome. He says that he enjoys more liberty up here,
as he can come in and go out as he pleases. I gave him a key to the door
in the lane, and I'll give you one too. And, besides, you'll see what a
nice view there is from here!"

Whilst speaking she had gone in. The apartments comprised two rooms: a
somewhat spacious /salon/, with wall-paper of a large scroll pattern on a
red ground, and a bed-chamber, where the paper was of a flax grey,
studded with faded blue flowers. The sitting-room was in one corner of
the mansion overlooking the lane and the Tiber, and Victorine at once
went to the windows, one of which afforded a view over the distant lower
part of the river, while the other faced the Trastevere and the Janiculum
across the water.

"Ah! yes, it's very pleasant!" said Pierre, who had followed and stood
beside her.

Giaccomo, who did not hurry, came in behind them with the valise. It was
now past eleven o'clock; and seeing that the young priest looked tired,
and realising that he must be hungry after such a journey, Victorine
offered to have some breakfast served at once in the sitting-room. He
would then have the afternoon to rest or go out, and would only meet the
ladies in the evening at dinner. At the mere suggestion of resting,
however, Pierre began to protest, declaring that he should certainly go
out, not wishing to lose an entire afternoon. The breakfast he readily
accepted, for he was indeed dying of hunger.

However, he had to wait another full half hour. Giaccomo, who served him
under Victorine's orders, did everything in a most leisurely way. And
Victorine, lacking confidence in the man, remained with the young priest
to make sure that everything he might require was provided.

"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe," said she, "what people! What a country! You can't
have an idea of it. I should never get accustomed to it even if I were to
live here for a hundred years. Ah! if it were not for the Contessina, but
she's so good and beautiful."

Then, whilst placing a dish of figs on the table, she astonished Pierre
by adding that a city where nearly everybody was a priest could not
possibly be a good city. Thereupon the presence of this gay, active,
unbelieving servant in the queer old palace again scared him.

"What! you are not religious?" he exclaimed.

"No, no, Monsieur l'Abbe, the priests don't suit me," said Victorine; "I
knew one in France when I was very little, and since I've been here I've
seen too many of them. It's all over. Oh! I don't say that on account of
his Eminence, who is a holy man worthy of all possible respect. And
besides, everybody in the house knows that I've nothing to reproach
myself with. So why not leave me alone, since I'm fond of my employers
and attend properly to my duties?"

She burst into a frank laugh. "Ah!" she resumed, "when I was told that
another priest was coming, just as if we hadn't enough already, I
couldn't help growling to myself. But you look like a good young man,
Monsieur l'Abbe, and I feel sure we shall get on well together. . . . I
really don't know why I'm telling you all this--probably it's because
you've come from yonder, and because the Contessina takes an interest in
you. At all events, you'll excuse me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe? And
take my advice, stay here and rest to-day; don't be so foolish as to go
running about their tiring city. There's nothing very amusing to be seen
in it, whatever they may say to the contrary."

When Pierre found himself alone, he suddenly felt overwhelmed by all the
fatigue of his journey coupled with the fever of enthusiasm that had
consumed him during the morning. And as though dazed, intoxicated by the
hasty meal which he had just made--a couple of eggs and a cutlet--he
flung himself upon the bed with the idea of taking half an hour's rest.
He did not fall asleep immediately, but for a time thought of those
Boccaneras, with whose history he was partly acquainted, and of whose
life in that deserted and silent palace, instinct with such dilapidated
and melancholy grandeur, he began to dream. But at last his ideas grew
confused, and by degrees he sunk into sleep amidst a crowd of shadowy
forms, some tragic and some sweet, with vague faces which gazed at him
with enigmatical eyes as they whirled before him in the depths of
dreamland.

The Boccaneras had supplied two popes to Rome, one in the thirteenth, the
other in the fifteenth century, and from those two favoured ones, those
all-powerful masters, the family had formerly derived its vast
fortune--large estates in the vicinity of Viterbo, several palaces in
Rome, enough works of art to fill numerous spacious galleries, and a pile
of gold sufficient to cram a cellar. The family passed as being the most
pious of the Roman /patriziato/, a family of burning faith whose sword
had always been at the service of the Church; but if it were the most
believing family it was also the most violent, the most disputatious,
constantly at war, and so fiercely savage that the anger of the
Boccaneras had become proverbial. And thence came their arms, the winged
dragon spitting flames, and the fierce, glowing motto, with its play on
the name "/Bocca sera, Alma rossa/" (black mouth, red soul), the mouth
darkened by a roar, the soul flaming like a brazier of faith and love.

Legends of endless passion, of terrible deeds of justice and vengeance
still circulated. There was the duel fought by Onfredo, the Boccanera by
whom the present palazzo had been built in the sixteenth century on the
site of the demolished antique residence of the family. Onfredo, learning
that his wife had allowed herself to be kissed on the lips by young Count
Costamagna, had caused the Count to be kidnapped one evening and brought
to the palazzo bound with cords. And there in one of the large halls,
before freeing him, he compelled him to confess himself to a monk. Then
he severed the cords with a stiletto, threw the lamps over and
extinguished them, calling to the Count to keep the stiletto and defend
himself. During more than an hour, in complete obscurity, in this hall
full of furniture, the two men sought one another, fled from one another,
seized hold of one another, and pierced one another with their blades.
And when the doors were broken down and the servants rushed in they found
among the pools of blood, among the overturned tables and broken seats,
Costamagna with his nose sliced off and his hips pierced with two and
thirty wounds, whilst Onfredo had lost two fingers of his right hand, and
had both shoulders riddled with holes! The wonder was that neither died
of the encounter.

A century later, on that same bank of the Tiber, a daughter of the
Boccaneras, a girl barely sixteen years of age, the lovely and passionate
Cassia, filled all Rome with terror and admiration. She loved Flavio
Corradini, the scion of a rival and hated house, whose alliance her
father, Prince Boccanera, roughly rejected, and whom her elder brother,
Ercole, swore to slay should he ever surprise him with her. Nevertheless
the young man came to visit her in a boat, and she joined him by the
little staircase descending to the river. But one evening Ercole, who was
on the watch, sprang into the boat and planted his dagger full in
Flavio's heart. Later on the subsequent incidents were unravelled; it was
understood that Cassia, wrathful and frantic with despair, unwilling to
survive her love and bent on wreaking justice, had thrown herself upon
her brother, had seized both murderer and victim with the same grasp
whilst overturning the boat; for when the three bodies were recovered
Cassia still retained her hold upon the two men, pressing their faces one
against the other with her bare arms, which had remained as white as
snow.

But those were vanished times. Nowadays, if faith remained, blood
violence seemed to be departing from the Boccaneras. Their huge fortune
also had been lost in the slow decline which for a century past has been
ruining the Roman /patriziato/. It had been necessary to sell the
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
scandal which it raised in the black world. A Boccanera, the last maiden
of that antique papal race, given to a Prada, to one of the despoilers of
the Church! Was it credible? In order that the wild project might prove
successful it had been necessary that it should be formed at a particular
brief moment--a moment when a supreme effort was being made to conciliate
the Vatican and the Quirinal. A report circulated that an agreement was
on the point of being arrived at, that the King consented to recognise
the Pope's absolute sovereignty over the Leonine City,* and a narrow band
of territory extending to the sea. And if such were the case would not
the marriage of Benedetta and Prada become, so to say, a symbol of union,
of national reconciliation? That lovely girl, the pure lily of the black
world, was she not the acquiescent sacrifice, the pledge granted to the
whites?

* The Vatican suburb of Rome, called the /Civitas Leonina/,
because Leo IV, to protect it from the Saracens and Arabs,
enclosed it with walls in the ninth century.--Trans.

For a fortnight nothing else was talked of; people discussed the
question, allowed their emotion rein, indulged in all sorts of hopes. The
girl, for her part, did not enter into the political reasons, but simply
listened to her heart, which she could not bestow since it was hers no
more. From morn till night, however, she had to encounter her mother's
prayers entreating her not to refuse the fortune, the life which offered.
And she was particularly exercised by the counsels of her confessor, good
Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic zeal now burst forth. He weighed upon her
with all his faith in the Christian destinies of Italy, and returned
heartfelt thanks to Providence for having chosen one of his penitents as
the instrument for hastening the reconciliation which would work God's
triumph throughout the world. And her confessor's influence was certainly
one of the decisive factors in shaping Benedetta's decision, for she was
very pious, very devout, especially with regard to a certain Madonna
whose image she went to adore every Sunday at the little church on the
Piazza Farnese. One circumstance in particular struck her: Abbe Pisoni
related that the flame of the lamp before the image in question whitened
each time that he himself knelt there to beg the Virgin to incline his
penitent to the all-redeeming marriage. And thus superior forces
intervened; and she yielded in obedience to her mother, whom the Cardinal
and Donna Serafina had at first opposed, but whom they left free to act
when the religious question arose.

Benedetta had grown up in such absolute purity and ignorance, knowing
nothing of herself, so shut off from existence, that marriage with
another than Dario was to her simply the rupture of a long-kept promise
of life in common. It was not the violent wrenching of heart and flesh
that it would have been in the case of a woman who knew the facts of
life. She wept a good deal, and then in a day of self-surrender she
married Prada, lacking the strength to continue resisting everybody, and
yielding to a union which all Rome had conspired to bring about.

But the clap of thunder came on the very night of the nuptials. Was it
that Prada, the Piedmontese, the Italian of the North, the man of
conquest, displayed towards his bride the same brutality that he had
shown towards the city he had sacked? Or was it that the revelation of
married life filled Benedetta with repulsion since nothing in her own
heart responded to the passion of this man? On that point she never
clearly explained herself; but with violence she shut the door of her
room, locked it and bolted it, and refused to admit her husband. For a
month Prada was maddened by her scorn. He felt outraged; both his pride
and his passion bled; and he swore to master her, even as one masters a
colt, with the whip. But all his virile fury was impotent against the
indomitable determination which had sprung up one evening behind
Benedetta's small and lovely brow. The spirit of the Boccaneras had awoke
within her; nothing in the world, not even the fear of death, would have
induced her to become her husband's wife.* And then, love being at last
revealed to her, there came a return of her heart to Dario, a conviction
that she must reserve herself for him alone, since it was to him that she
had promised herself.

* Many readers will doubtless remember that the situation as
here described is somewhat akin to that of the earlier part
of M. George Ohnet's /Ironmaster/, which, in its form as a
novel, I translated into English many years ago. However,
all resemblance between /Rome/ and the /Ironmaster/ is confined
to this one point.--Trans.

Ever since that marriage, which he had borne like a bereavement, the
young man had been travelling in France. She did not hide the truth from
him, but wrote to him, again vowing that she would never be another's.
And meantime her piety increased, her resolve to reserve herself for the
lover she had chosen mingled in her mind with constancy of religious
faith. The ardent heart of a great /amorosa/ had ignited within her, she
was ready for martyrdom for faith's sake. And when her despairing mother
with clasped hands entreated her to resign herself to her conjugal
duties, she replied that she owed no duties, since she had known nothing
when she married. Moreover, the times were changing; the attempts to
reconcile the Quirinal and the Vatican had failed, so completely, indeed,
that the newspapers of the rival parties had, with renewed violence,
resumed their campaign of mutual insult and outrage; and thus that
triumphal marriage, to which every one had contributed as to a pledge of
peace, crumbled amid the general smash-up, became but a ruin the more
added to so many others.

Ernesta died of it. She had made a mistake. Her spoilt life--the life of
a joyless wife--had culminated in this supreme maternal error. And the
worst was that she alone had to bear all the responsibility of the
disaster, for both her brother, the Cardinal, and her sister, Donna
Serafina, overwhelmed her with reproaches. For consolation she had but
the despair of Abbe Pisoni, whose patriotic hopes had been destroyed, and
who was consumed with grief at having contributed to such a catastrophe.
And one morning Ernesta was found, icy white and cold, in her bed. Folks
talked of the rupture of a blood-vessel, but grief had been sufficient,
for she had suffered frightfully, secretly, without a plaint, as indeed
she had suffered all her life long.

At this time Benedetta had been married about a twelvemonth: still strong
in her resistance to her husband, but remaining under the conjugal roof
in order to spare her mother the terrible blow of a public scandal.
However, her aunt Serafina had brought influence to bear on her, by
opening to her the hope of a possible nullification of her marriage,
should she throw herself at the feet of the Holy Father and entreat his
intervention. And Serafina ended by persuading her of this, when,
deferring to certain advice, she removed her from the spiritual control
of Abbe Pisoni, and gave her the same confessor as herself. This was a
Jesuit father named Lorenza, a man scarce five and thirty, with bright
eyes, grave and amiable manners, and great persuasive powers. However, it
was only on the morrow of her mother's death that Benedetta made up her
mind, and returned to the Palazzo Boccanera, to occupy the apartments
where she had been born, and where her mother had just passed away.

Immediately afterwards proceedings for annulling the marriage were
instituted, in the first instance, for inquiry, before the Cardinal Vicar
charged with the diocese of Rome. It was related that the Contessina had
only taken this step after a secret audience with his Holiness, who had
shown her the most encouraging sympathy. Count Prada at first spoke of
applying to the law courts to compel his wife to return to the conjugal
domicile; but, yielding to the entreaties of his old father Orlando, whom
the affair greatly grieved, he eventually consented to accept the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He was infuriated, however, to find that the
nullification of the marriage was solicited on the ground of its
non-consummation through /impotentia mariti/; this being one of the most
valid and decisive pleas on which the Church of Rome consents to part
those whom she has joined. And far more unhappy marriages than might be
imagined are severed on these grounds, though the world only gives
attention to those cases in which people of title or renown are
concerned, as it did, for instance, with the famous Martinez Campos suit.

In Benedetta's case, her counsel, Consistorial-Advocate Morano, one of
the leading authorities of the Roman bar, simply neglected to mention, in
his memoir, that if she was still merely a wife in name, this was
entirely due to herself. In addition to the evidence of friends and
servants, showing on what terms the husband and wife had lived since
their marriage, the advocate produced a certificate of a medical
character, showing that the non-consummation of the union was certain.
And the Cardinal Vicar, acting as Bishop of Rome, had thereupon remitted
the case to the Congregation of the Council. This was a first success for
Benedetta, and matters remained in this position. She was waiting for the
Congregation to deliver its final pronouncement, hoping that the
ecclesiastical dissolution of the marriage would prove an irresistible
argument in favour of the divorce which she meant to solicit of the civil
courts. And meantime, in the icy rooms where her mother Ernesta,
submissive and desolate, had lately died, the Contessina resumed her
girlish life, showing herself calm, yet very firm in her passion, having
vowed that she would belong to none but Dario, and that she would not
belong to him until the day when a priest should have joined them
together in God's holy name.

As it happened, some six months previously, Dario also had taken up his
abode at the Boccanera palace in consequence of the death of his father
and the catastrophe which had ruined him. Prince Onofrio, after adopting
Prada's advice and selling the Villa Montefiori to a financial company
for ten million /lire/,* had, instead of prudently keeping his money in
his pockets, succumbed to the fever of speculation which was consuming
Rome. He began to gamble, buying back his own land, and ending by losing
everything in the formidable /krach/ which was swallowing up the wealth
of the entire city. Totally ruined, somewhat deeply in debt even, the
Prince nevertheless continued to promenade the Corso, like the handsome,
smiling, popular man he was, when he accidentally met his death through
falling from his horse; and four months later his widow, the ever
beautiful Flavia--who had managed to save a modern villa and a personal
income of forty thousand /lire/* from the disaster--was remarried to a
man of magnificent presence, her junior by some ten years. This was a
Swiss named Jules Laporte, originally a sergeant in the Papal Swiss
Guard, then a traveller for a shady business in "relics," and finally
Marchese Montefiore, having secured that title in securing his wife,
thanks to a special brief of the Holy Father. Thus the Princess Boccanera
had again become the Marchioness Montefiori.

* 400,000 pounds.
** 1,800 pounds.

It was then that Cardinal Boccanera, feeling greatly hurt, insisted on
his nephew Dario coming to live with him, in a small apartment on the
first floor of the palazzo. In the heart of that holy man, who seemed
dead to the world, there still lingered pride of name and lineage, with a
feeling of affection for his young, slightly built nephew, the last of
the race, the only one by whom the old stock might blossom anew.
Moreover, he was not opposed to Dario's marriage with Benedetta, whom he
also loved with a paternal affection; and so proud was he of the family
honour, and so convinced of the young people's pious rectitude that, in
taking them to live with him, he absolutely scorned the abominable
rumours which Count Prada's friends in the white world had begun to
circulate ever since the two cousins had resided under the same roof.
Donna Serafina guarded Benedetta, as he, the Cardinal, guarded Dario, and
in the silence and the gloom of the vast deserted mansion, ensanguined of
olden time by so many tragic deeds of violence, there now only remained
these four with their restrained, stilled passions, last survivors of a
crumbling world upon the threshold of a new one.

When Abbe Pierre Froment all at once awoke from sleep, his head heavy
with painful dreams, he was worried to find that the daylight was already
waning. His watch, which he hastened to consult, pointed to six o'clock.
Intending to rest for an hour at the utmost, he had slept on for nearly
seven hours, overcome beyond power of resistance. And even on awaking he
remained on the bed, helpless, as though he were conquered before he had
fought. Why, he wondered, did he experience this prostration, this
unreasonable discouragement, this quiver of doubt which had come he knew
not whence during his sleep, and which was annihilating his youthful
enthusiasm of the morning? Had the Boccaneras any connection with this
sudden weakening of his powers? He had espied dim disquieting figures in
the black night of his dreams; and the anguish which they had brought him
continued, and he again evoked them, scared as he was at thus awaking in
a strange room, full of uneasiness in presence of the unknown. Things no
longer seemed natural to him. He could not understand why Benedetta
should have written to Viscount Philibert de la Choue to tell him that
his, Pierre's, book had been denounced to the Congregation of the Index.
What interest too could she have had in his coming to Rome to defend
himself; and with what object had she carried her amiability so far as to
desire that he should take up his quarters in the mansion? Pierre's
stupefaction indeed arose from his being there, on that bed in that
strange room, in that palace whose deep, death-like silence encompassed
him. As he lay there, his limbs still overpowered and his brain seemingly
empty, a flash of light suddenly came to him, and he realised that there
must be certain circumstances that he knew nothing of that, simple though
things appeared, they must really hide some complicated intrigue.
However, it was only a fugitive gleam of enlightenment; his suspicions
faded; and he rose up shaking himself and accusing the gloomy twilight of
being the sole cause of the shivering and the despondency of which he
felt ashamed.

In order to bestir himself, Pierre began to examine the two rooms. They
were furnished simply, almost meagrely, in mahogany, there being scarcely
any two articles alike, though all dated from the beginning of the
century. Neither the bed nor the windows nor the doors had any hangings.
On the floor of bare tiles, coloured red and polished, there were merely
some little foot-mats in front of the various seats. And at sight of this
middle-class bareness and coldness Pierre ended by remembering a room
where he had slept in childhood--a room at Versailles, at the abode of
his grandmother, who had kept a little grocer's shop there in the days of
Louis Philippe. However, he became interested in an old painting which
hung in the bed-room, on the wall facing the bed, amidst some childish
and valueless engravings. But partially discernible in the waning light,
this painting represented a woman seated on some projecting stone-work,
on the threshold of a great stern building, whence she seemed to have
been driven forth. The folding doors of bronze had for ever closed behind
her, yet she remained there in a mere drapery of white linen; whilst
scattered articles of clothing, thrown forth chance-wise with a violent
hand, lay upon the massive granite steps. Her feet were bare, her arms
were bare, and her hands, distorted by bitter agony, were pressed to her
face--a face which one saw not, veiled as it was by the tawny gold of her
rippling, streaming hair. What nameless grief, what fearful shame, what
hateful abandonment was thus being hidden by that rejected one, that
lingering victim of love, of whose unknown story one might for ever dream
with tortured heart? It could be divined that she was adorably young and
beautiful in her wretchedness, in the shred of linen draped about her
shoulders; but a mystery enveloped everything else--her passion, possibly
her misfortune, perhaps even her transgression--unless, indeed, she were
there merely as a symbol of all that shivers and that weeps visageless
before the ever closed portals of the unknown. For a long time Pierre
looked at her, and so intently that he at last imagined he could
distinguish her profile, divine in its purity and expression of
suffering. But this was only an illusion; the painting had greatly
suffered, blackened by time and neglect; and he asked himself whose work
it might be that it should move him so intensely. On the adjoining wall a
picture of a Madonna, a bad copy of an eighteenth-century painting,
irritated him by the banality of its smile.

Night was falling faster and faster, and, opening the sitting-room
window, Pierre leant out. On the other bank of the Tiber facing him arose
the Janiculum, the height whence he had gazed upon Rome that morning. But
at this dim hour Rome was no longer the city of youth and dreamland
soaring into the early sunshine. The night was raining down, grey and
ashen; the horizon was becoming blurred, vague, and mournful. Yonder, to
the left, beyond the sea of roofs, Pierre could still divine the presence
of the Palatine; and yonder, to the right, there still arose the Dome of
St. Peter's, now grey like slate against the leaden sky; whilst behind
him the Quirinal, which he could not see, must also be fading away into
the misty night. A few minutes went by, and everything became yet more
blurred; he realised that Rome was fading, departing in its immensity of
which he knew nothing. Then his causeless doubt and disquietude again
came on him so painfully that he could no longer remain at the window. He
closed it and sat down, letting the darkness submerge him with its flood
of infinite sadness. And his despairing reverie only ceased when the door
gently opened and the glow of a lamp enlivened the room.

It was Victorine who came in quietly, bringing the light. "Ah! so you are
up, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she; "I came in at about four o'clock but I
let you sleep on. You have done quite right to take all the rest you
required."

Then, as he complained of pains and shivering, she became anxious. "Don't
go catching their nasty fevers," she said. "It isn't at all healthy near
their river, you know. Don Vigilio, his Eminence's secretary, is always
having the fever, and I assure you that it isn't pleasant."

She accordingly advised him to remain upstairs and lie down again. She
would excuse his absence to the Princess and the Contessina. And he ended
by letting her do as she desired, for he was in no state to have any will
of his own. By her advice he dined, partaking of some soup, a wing of a
chicken, and some preserves, which Giaccomo, the big lackey, brought up
to him. And the food did him a great deal of good; he felt so restored
that he refused to go to bed, desiring, said he, to thank the ladies that
very evening for their kindly hospitality. As Donna Serafina received on
Mondays he would present himself before her.

"Very good," said Victorine approvingly. "As you are all right again it
can do you no harm, it will even enliven you. The best thing will be for
Don Vigilio to come for you at nine o'clock and accompany you. Wait for
him here."

Pierre had just washed and put on the new cassock he had brought with
him, when, at nine o'clock precisely, he heard a discreet knock at his
door. A little priest came in, a man scarcely thirty years of age, but
thin and debile of build, with a long, seared, saffron-coloured face. For
two years past attacks of fever, coming on every day at the same hour,
had been consuming him. Nevertheless, whenever he forgot to control the
black eyes which lighted his yellow face, they shone out ardently with
the glow of his fiery soul. He bowed, and then in fluent French
introduced himself in this simple fashion: "Don Vigilio, Monsieur l'Abbe,
who is entirely at your service. If you are willing, we will go down."

Pierre immediately followed him, expressing his thanks, and Don Vigilio,
relapsing into silence, answered his remarks with a smile. Having
descended the small staircase, they found themselves on the second floor,
on the spacious landing of the grand staircase. And Pierre was surprised
and saddened by the scanty illumination, which, as in some dingy
lodging-house, was limited to a few gas-jets, placed far apart, their
yellow splotches but faintly relieving the deep gloom of the lofty,
endless corridors. All was gigantic and funereal. Even on the landing,
where was the entrance to Donna Serafina's apartments, facing those
occupied by her niece, nothing indicated that a reception was being held
that evening. The door remained closed, not a sound came from the rooms,
a death-like silence arose from the whole palace. And Don Vigilio did not
even ring, but, after a fresh bow, discreetly turned the door-handle.

A single petroleum lamp, placed on a table, lighted the ante-room, a
large apartment with bare fresco-painted walls, simulating hangings of
red and gold, draped regularly all around in the antique fashion. A few
men's overcoats and two ladies' mantles lay on the chairs, whilst a pier
table was littered with hats, and a servant sat there dozing, with his
back to the wall.

However, as Don Vigilio stepped aside to allow Pierre to enter a first
reception-room, hung with red /brocatelle/, a room but dimly lighted and
which he imagined to be empty, the young priest found himself face to
face with an apparition in black, a woman whose features he could not at
first distinguish. Fortunately he heard his companion say, with a low
bow, "Contessina, I have the honour to present to you Monsieur l'Abbe
Pierre Froment, who arrived from France this morning."

Then, for a moment, Pierre remained alone with Benedetta in that deserted
/salon/, in the sleepy glimmer of two lace-veiled lamps. At present,
however, a sound of voices came from a room beyond, a larger apartment
whose doorway, with folding doors thrown wide open, described a
parallelogram of brighter light.

The young woman at once showed herself very affable, with perfect
simplicity of manner: "Ah! I am happy to see you, Monsieur l'Abbe. I was
afraid that your indisposition might be serious. You are quite recovered
now, are you not?"

Pierre listened to her, fascinated by her slow and rather thick voice, in
which restrained passion seemed to mingle with much prudent good sense.
And at last he saw her, with her hair so heavy and so dark, her skin so
white, the whiteness of ivory. She had a round face, with somewhat full
lips, a small refined nose, features as delicate as a child's. But it was
especially her eyes that lived, immense eyes, whose infinite depths none
could fathom. Was she slumbering? Was she dreaming? Did her motionless
face conceal the ardent tension of a great saint and a great /amorosa/?
So white, so young, and so calm, her every movement was harmonious, her
appearance at once very staid, very noble, and very rhythmical. In her
ears she wore two large pearls of matchless purity, pearls which had come
from a famous necklace of her mother's, known throughout Rome.

Pierre apologised and thanked her. "You see me in confusion, madame,"
said he; "I should have liked to express to you this morning my gratitude
for your great kindness."

He had hesitated to call her madame, remembering the plea brought forward
in the suit for the dissolution of her marriage. But plainly enough
everybody must call her madame. Moreover, her face had retained its calm
and kindly expression.

"Consider yourself at home here, Monsieur l'Abbe," she responded, wishing
to put him at his ease. "It is sufficient that our relative, Monsieur de
la Choue, should be fond of you, and take interest in your work. I have,
you know, much affection for him." Then her voice faltered slightly, for
she realised that she ought to speak of the book, the one reason of
Pierre's journey and her proffered hospitality. "Yes," she added, "the
Viscount sent me your book. I read it and found it very beautiful. It
disturbed me. But I am only an ignoramus, and certainly failed to
understand everything in it. We must talk it over together; you will
explain your ideas to me, won't you, Monsieur l'Abbe?"

In her large clear eyes, which did not know how to lie, Pierre then read
the surprise and emotion of a child's soul when confronted by disquieting
and undreamt-of problems. So it was not she who had become impassioned
and had desired to have him near her that she might sustain him and
assist his victory. Once again, and this time very keenly, he suspected a
secret influence, a hidden hand which was directing everything towards
some unknown goal. However, he was charmed by so much simplicity and
frankness in so beautiful, young, and noble a creature; and he gave
himself to her after the exchange of those few words, and was about to
tell her that she might absolutely dispose of him, when he was
interrupted by the advent of another woman, whose tall, slight figure,
also clad in black, stood out strongly against the luminous background of
the further reception-room as seen through the open doorway.

"Well, Benedetta, have you sent Giaccomo up to see?" asked the newcomer.
"Don Vigilio has just come down and he is quite alone. It is improper."

"No, no, aunt. Monsieur l'Abbe is here," was the reply of Benedetta,
hastening to introduce the young priest. "Monsieur l'Abbe Pierre
Froment--The Princess Boccanera."

Ceremonious salutations were exchanged. The Princess must have been
nearly sixty, but she laced herself so tightly that from behind one might
have taken her for a young woman. This tight lacing, however, was her
last coquetry. Her hair, though still plentiful, was quite white, her
eyebrows alone remaining black in her long, wrinkled face, from which
projected the large obstinate nose of the family. She had never been
beautiful, and had remained a spinster, wounded to the heart by the
selection of Count Brandini, who had preferred her younger sister,
Ernesta. From that moment she had resolved to seek consolation and
satisfaction in family pride alone, the hereditary pride of the great
name which she bore. The Boccaneras had already supplied two Popes to the
Church, and she hoped that before she died her brother would become the
third. She had transformed herself into his housekeeper, as it were,
remaining with him, watching over him, and advising him, managing all the
household affairs herself, and accomplishing miracles in order to conceal
the slow ruin which was bringing the ceilings about their heads. If every
Monday for thirty years past she had continued receiving a few intimates,
all of them folks of the Vatican, it was from high political
considerations, so that her drawing-room might remain a meeting-place of
the black world, a power and a threat.

And Pierre divined by her greeting that she deemed him of little account,
petty foreign priest that he was, not even a prelate. This too again
surprised him, again brought the puzzling question to the fore: Why had
he been invited, what was expected of him in this society from which the
humble were usually excluded? Knowing the Princess to be austerely
devout, he at last fancied that she received him solely out of regard for
her kinsman, the Viscount, for in her turn she only found these words of
welcome: "We are so pleased to receive good news of Monsieur de la Choue!
He brought us such a beautiful pilgrimage two years ago."

Passing the first through the doorway, she at last ushered the young
priest into the adjoining reception-room. It was a spacious square
apartment, hung with old yellow /brocatelle/ of a flowery Louis XIV
pattern. The lofty ceiling was adorned with a very fine panelling, carved
and coloured, with gilded roses in each compartment. The furniture,
however, was of all sorts. There were some high mirrors, a couple of
superb gilded pier tables, and a few handsome seventeenth-century
arm-chairs; but all the rest was wretched. A heavy round table of
first-empire style, which had come nobody knew whence, caught the eye
with a medley of anomalous articles picked up at some bazaar, and a
quantity of cheap photographs littered the costly marble tops of the pier
tables. No interesting article of /virtu/ was to be seen. The old
paintings on the walls were with two exceptions feebly executed. There
was a delightful example of an unknown primitive master, a
fourteenth-century Visitation, in which the Virgin had the stature and
pure delicacy of a child of ten, whilst the Archangel, huge and superb,
inundated her with a stream of dazzling, superhuman love; and in front of
this hung an antique family portrait, depicting a very beautiful young
girl in a turban, who was thought to be Cassia Boccanera, the /amorosa/
and avengeress who had flung herself into the Tiber with her brother
Ercole and the corpse of her lover, Flavio Corradini. Four lamps threw a
broad, peaceful glow over the faded room, and, like a melancholy sunset,
tinged it with yellow. It looked grave and bare, with not even a flower
in a vase to brighten it.

In a few words Donna Serafina at once introduced Pierre to the company;
and in the silence, the pause which ensued in the conversation, he felt
that every eye was fixed upon him as upon a promised and expected
curiosity. There were altogether some ten persons present, among them
being Dario, who stood talking with little Princess Celia Buongiovanni,
whilst the elderly relative who had brought the latter sat whispering to
a prelate, Monsignor Nani, in a dim corner. Pierre, however, had been
particularly struck by the name of Consistorial-Advocate Morano, of whose
position in the house Viscount de la Choue had thought proper to inform
him in order to avert any unpleasant blunder. For thirty years past
Morano had been Donna Serafina's /amico/. Their connection, formerly a
guilty one, for the advocate had wife and children of his own, had in
course of time, since he had been left a widower, become one of those
/liaisons/ which tolerant people excuse and except. Both parties were
extremely devout and had certainly assured themselves of all needful
"indulgences." And thus Morano was there in the seat which he had always
taken for a quarter of a century past, a seat beside the chimney-piece,
though as yet the winter fire had not been lighted, and when Donna
Serafina had discharged her duties as mistress of the house, she returned
to her own place in front of him, on the other side of the chimney.

When Pierre in his turn had seated himself near Don Vigilio, who, silent
and discreet, had already taken a chair, Dario resumed in a louder voice
the story which he had been relating to Celia. Dario was a handsome man,
of average height, slim and elegant. He wore a full beard, dark and
carefully tended, and had the long face and pronounced nose of the
Boccaneras, but the impoverishment of the family blood over a course of
centuries had attenuated, softened as it were, any sharpness or undue
prominence of feature.

"Oh! a beauty, an astounding beauty!" he repeated emphatically.

"Whose beauty?" asked Benedetta, approaching him.

Celia, who resembled the little Virgin of the primitive master hanging
above her head, began to laugh. "Oh! Dario's speaking of a poor girl, a
work-girl whom he met to-day," she explained.

Thereupon Dario had to begin his narrative again. It appeared that while
passing along a narrow street near the Piazza Navona, he had perceived a
tall, shapely girl of twenty, who was weeping and sobbing violently,
prone upon a flight of steps. Touched particularly by her beauty, he had
approached her and learnt that she had been working in the house outside
which she was, a manufactory of wax beads, but that, slack times having
come, the workshops had closed and she did not dare to return home, so
fearful was the misery there. Amidst the downpour of her tears she raised
such beautiful eyes to his that he ended by drawing some money from his
pocket. But at this, crimson with confusion, she sprang to her feet,
hiding her hands in the folds of her skirt, and refusing to take
anything. She added, however, that he might follow her if it so pleased
him, and give the money to her mother. And then she hurried off towards
the Ponte St'. Angelo.*

* Bridge of St. Angelo.

"Yes, she was a beauty, a perfect beauty," repeated Dario with an air of
ecstasy. "Taller than I, and slim though sturdy, with the bosom of a
goddess. In fact, a real antique, a Venus of twenty, her chin rather
bold, her mouth and nose of perfect form, and her eyes wonderfully pure
and large! And she was bare-headed too, with nothing but a crown of heavy
black hair, and a dazzling face, gilded, so to say, by the sun."

They had all begun to listen to him, enraptured, full of that passionate
admiration for beauty which, in spite of every change, Rome still retains
in her heart.

"Those beautiful girls of the people are becoming very rare," remarked
Morano. "You might scour the Trastevere without finding any. However,
this proves that there is at least one of them left."

"And what was your goddess's name?" asked Benedetta, smiling, amused and
enraptured like the others.

"Pierina," replied Dario, also with a laugh.

"And what did you do with her?"

At this question the young man's excited face assumed an expression of
discomfort and fear, like the face of a child on suddenly encountering
some ugly creature amidst its play.

"Oh! don't talk of it," said he. "I felt very sorry afterwards. I saw
such misery--enough to make one ill."

Yielding to his curiosity, it seemed, he had followed the girl across the
Ponte St'. Angelo into the new district which was being built over the
former castle meadows*; and there, on the first floor of an abandoned
house which was already falling into ruins, though the plaster was
scarcely dry, he had come upon a frightful spectacle which still stirred
his heart: a whole family, father and mother, children, and an infirm old
uncle, dying of hunger and rotting in filth! He selected the most
dignified words he could think of to describe the scene, waving his hand
the while with a gesture of fright, as if to ward off some horrible
vision.

* The meadows around the Castle of St. Angelo. The district, now
covered with buildings, is quite flat and was formerly greatly
subject to floods. It is known as the Quartiere dei Prati.--Trans.

"At last," he concluded, "I ran away, and you may be sure that I shan't
go back again."

A general wagging of heads ensued in the cold, irksome silence which fell
upon the room. Then Morano summed up the matter in a few bitter words, in
which he accused the despoilers, the men of the Quirinal, of being the
sole cause of all the frightful misery of Rome. Were not people even
talking of the approaching nomination of Deputy Sacco as Minister of
Finances--Sacco, that intriguer who had engaged in all sorts of underhand
practices? His appointment would be the climax of impudence; bankruptcy
would speedily and infallibly ensue.

Meantime Benedetta, who had fixed her eyes on Pierre, with his book in
her mind, alone murmured: "Poor people, how very sad! But why not go back
to see them?"

Pierre, out of his element and absent-minded during the earlier moments,
had been deeply stirred by the latter part of Dario's narrative. His
thoughts reverted to his apostolate amidst the misery of Paris, and his
heart was touched with compassion at being confronted by the story of
such fearful sufferings on the very day of his arrival in Rome.
Unwittingly, impulsively, he raised his voice, and said aloud: "Oh! we
will go to see them together, madame; you will take me. These questions
impassion me so much."

The attention of everybody was then again turned upon the young priest.
The others questioned him, and he realised that they were all anxious
about his first impressions, his opinion of their city and of themselves.
He must not judge Rome by mere outward appearances, they said. What
effect had the city produced on him? How had he found it, and what did he
think of it? Thereupon he politely apologised for his inability to answer
them. He had not yet gone out, said he, and had seen nothing. But this
answer was of no avail; they pressed him all the more keenly, and he
fully understood that their object was to gain him over to admiration and
love. They advised him, adjured him not to yield to any fatal
disillusion, but to persist and wait until Rome should have revealed to
him her soul.

"How long do you expect to remain among us, Monsieur l'Abbe?" suddenly
inquired a courteous voice, with a clear but gentle ring.

It was Monsignor Nani, who, seated in the gloom, thus raised his voice
for the first time. On several occasions it had seemed to Pierre that the
prelate's keen blue eyes were steadily fixed upon him, though all the
while he pretended to be attentively listening to the drawling chatter of
Celia's aunt. And before replying Pierre glanced at him. In his
crimson-edged cassock, with a violet silk sash drawn tightly around his
waist, Nani still looked young, although he was over fifty. His hair had
remained blond, he had a straight refined nose, a mouth very firm yet
very delicate of contour, and beautifully white teeth.

"Why, a fortnight or perhaps three weeks, Monsignor," replied Pierre.

The whole /salon/ protested. What, three weeks! It was his pretension to
know Rome in three weeks! Why, six weeks, twelve months, ten years were
required! The first impression was always a disastrous one, and a long
sojourn was needed for a visitor to recover from it.

"Three weeks!" repeated Donna Serafina with her disdainful air. "Is it
possible for people to study one another and get fond of one another in
three weeks? Those who come back to us are those who have learned to know
us."

Instead of launching into exclamations like the others, Nani had at first
contented himself with smiling, and gently waving his shapely hand, which
bespoke his aristocratic origin. Then, as Pierre modestly explained
himself, saying that he had come to Rome to attend to certain matters and
would leave again as soon as those matters should have been concluded,
the prelate, still smiling, summed up the argument with the remark: "Oh!
Monsieur l'Abbe will stay with us for more than three weeks; we shall
have the happiness of his presence here for a long time, I hope."

These words, though spoken with quiet cordiality, strangely disturbed the
young priest. What was known, what was meant? He leant towards Don
Vigilio, who had remained near him, still and ever silent, and in a
whisper inquired: "Who is Monsignor Nani?"

The secretary, however, did not at once reply. His feverish face became
yet more livid. Then his ardent eyes glanced round to make sure that
nobody was watching him, and in a breath he responded: "He is the
Assessor of the Holy Office."*

* Otherwise the Inquisition.

This information sufficed, for Pierre was not ignorant of the fact that
the assessor, who was present in silence at the meetings of the Holy
Office, waited upon his Holiness every Wednesday evening after the
sitting, to render him an account of the matters dealt with in the
afternoon. This weekly audience, this hour spent with the Pope in a
privacy which allowed of every subject being broached, gave the assessor
an exceptional position, one of considerable power. Moreover the office
led to the cardinalate; the only "rise" that could be given to the
assessor was his promotion to the Sacred College.

Monsignor Nani, who seemed so perfectly frank and amiable, continued to
look at the young priest with such an encouraging air that the latter
felt obliged to go and occupy the seat beside him, which Celia's old aunt
at last vacated. After all, was there not an omen of victory in meeting,
on the very day of his arrival, a powerful prelate whose influence would
perhaps open every door to him? He therefore felt very touched when
Monsignor Nani, immediately after the first words, inquired in a tone of
deep interest, "And so, my dear child, you have published a book?"

After this, gradually mastered by his enthusiasm and forgetting where he
was, Pierre unbosomed himself, and recounted the birth and progress of
his burning love amidst the sick and the humble, gave voice to his dream
of a return to the olden Christian community, and triumphed with the
rejuvenescence of Catholicism, developing into the one religion of the
universal democracy. Little by little he again raised his voice, and
silence fell around him in the stern, antique reception-room, every one
lending ear to his words with increasing surprise, with a growing
coldness of which he remained unconscious.

At last Nani gently interrupted him, still wearing his perpetual smile,
the faint irony of which, however, had departed. "No doubt, no doubt, my
dear child," he said, "it is very beautiful, oh! very beautiful, well
worthy of the pure and noble imagination of a Christian. But what do you
count on doing now?"

"I shall go straight to the Holy Father to defend myself," answered
Pierre.

A light, restrained laugh went round, and Donna Serafina expressed the
general opinion by exclaiming: "The Holy Father isn't seen as easily as
that."

Pierre, however, was quite impassioned. "Well, for my part," he rejoined,
"I hope I shall see him. Have I not expressed his views? Have I not
defended his policy? Can he let my book be condemned when I believe that
I have taken inspiration from all that is best in him?"

"No doubt, no doubt," Nani again hastily replied, as if he feared that
the others might be too brusque with the young enthusiast. "The Holy
Father has such a lofty mind. And of course it would be necessary to see
him. Only, my dear child, you must not excite yourself so much; reflect a
little; take your time." And, turning to Benedetta, he added, "Of course
his Eminence has not seen Abbe Froment yet. It would be well, however,
that he should receive him to-morrow morning to guide him with his wise
counsel."

Cardinal Boccanera never attended his sister's Monday-evening receptions.
Still, he was always there in the spirit, like some absent sovereign
master.

"To tell the truth," replied the Contessina, hesitating, "I fear that my
uncle does not share Monsieur l'Abbe's views."

Nani again smiled. "Exactly; he will tell him things which it is good he
should hear."

Thereupon it was at once settled with Don Vigilio that the latter would
put down the young priest's name for an audience on the following morning
at ten o'clock.

However, at that moment a cardinal came in, clad in town costume--his
sash and his stockings red, but his simar black, with a red edging and
red buttons. It was Cardinal Sarno, a very old intimate of the
Boccaneras; and whilst he apologised for arriving so late, through press
of work, the company became silent and deferentially clustered round him.
This was the first cardinal Pierre had seen, and he felt greatly
disappointed, for the newcomer had none of the majesty, none of the fine
port and presence to which he had looked forward. On the contrary, he was
short and somewhat deformed, with the left shoulder higher than the
right, and a worn, ashen face with lifeless eyes. To Pierre he looked
like some old clerk of seventy, half stupefied by fifty years of office
work, dulled and bent by incessantly leaning over his writing desk ever
since his youth. And indeed that was Sarno's story. The puny child of a
petty middle-class family, he had been educated at the Seminario Romano.
Then later he had for ten years professed Canon Law at that same
seminary, afterwards becoming one of the secretaries of the Congregation
for the Propagation of the Faith. Finally, five and twenty years ago, he
had been created a cardinal, and the jubilee of his cardinalate had
recently been celebrated. Born in Rome, he had always lived there; he was
the perfect type of the prelate who, through growing up in the shade of
the Vatican, has become one of the masters of the world. Although he had
never occupied any diplomatic post, he had rendered such important
services to the Propaganda, by his methodical habits of work, that he had
become president of one of the two commissions which furthered the
interests of the Church in those vast countries of the west which are not
yet Catholic. And thus, in the depths of his dim eyes, behind his low,
dull-looking brow, the huge map of Christendom was stored away.

Nani himself had risen, full of covert respect for the unobtrusive but
terrible man whose hand was everywhere, even in the most distant corners
of the earth, although he had never left his office. As Nani knew,
despite his apparent nullity, Sarno, with his slow, methodical, ably
organised work of conquest, possessed sufficient power to set empires in
confusion.

"Has your Eminence recovered from that cold which distressed us so much?"
asked Nani.

"No, no, I still cough. There is a most malignant passage at the offices.
I feel as cold as ice as soon as I leave my room."

From that moment Pierre felt quite little, virtually lost. He was not
even introduced to the Cardinal. And yet he had to remain in the room for
nearly another hour, looking around and observing. That antiquated world
then seemed to him puerile, as though it had lapsed into a mournful
second childhood. Under all the apparent haughtiness and proud reserve he
could divine real timidity, unacknowledged distrust, born of great
ignorance. If the conversation did not become general, it was because
nobody dared to speak out frankly; and what he heard in the corners was
simply so much childish chatter, the petty gossip of the week, the
trivial echoes of sacristies and drawing-rooms. People saw but little of
one another, and the slightest incidents assumed huge proportions. At
last Pierre ended by feeling as though he were transported into some
/salon/ of the time of Charles X, in one of the episcopal cities of the
French provinces. No refreshments were served. Celia's old aunt secured
possession of Cardinal Sarno; but, instead of replying to her, he simply
wagged his head from time to time. Don Vigilio had not opened his mouth
the whole evening. However, a conversation in a very low tone was started
by Nani and Morano, to whom Donna Serafina listened, leaning forward and
expressing her approval by slowly nodding her head. They were doubtless
speaking of the dissolution of Benedetta's marriage, for they glanced at
the young woman gravely from time to time. And in the centre of the
spacious room, in the sleepy glow of the lamps, there was only the young
people, Benedetta, Dario, and Celia who seemed to be at all alive,
chattering in undertones and occasionally repressing a burst of laughter.

All at once Pierre was struck by the great resemblance between Benedetta
and the portrait of Cassia hanging on the wall. Each displayed the same
delicate youth, the same passionate mouth, the same large, unfathomable
eyes, set in the same round, sensible, healthy-looking face. In each
there was certainly the same upright soul, the same heart of flame. Then
a recollection came to Pierre, that of a painting by Guido Reni, the
adorable, candid head of Beatrice Cenci, which, at that moment and to his
thinking, the portrait of Cassia closely resembled. This resemblance
stirred him and he glanced at Benedetta with anxious sympathy, as if all
the fierce fatality of race and country were about to fall on her. But
no, it could not be; she looked so calm, so resolute, and so patient!
Besides, ever since he had entered that room he had noticed none other
than signs of gay fraternal tenderness between her and Dario, especially
on her side, for her face ever retained the bright serenity of a love
which may be openly confessed. At one moment, it is true, Dario in a
joking way had caught hold of her hands and pressed them; but while he
began to laugh rather nervously, with a brighter gleam darting from his
eyes, she on her side, all composure, slowly freed her hands, as though
theirs was but the play of old and affectionate friends. She loved him,
though, it was visible, with her whole being and for her whole life.

At last when Dario, after stifling a slight yawn and glancing at his
watch, had slipped off to join some friends who were playing cards at a
lady's house, Benedetta and Celia sat down together on a sofa near
Pierre; and the latter, without wishing to listen, overheard a few words
of their confidential chat. The little Princess was the eldest daughter
of Prince Matteo Buongiovanni, who was already the father of five
children by an English wife, a Mortimer, to whom he was indebted for a
dowry of two hundred thousand pounds. Indeed, the Buongiovannis were
known as one of the few patrician families of Rome that were still rich,
still erect among the ruins of the past, now crumbling on every side.
They also numbered two popes among their forerunners, yet this had not
prevented Prince Matteo from lending support to the Quirinal without
quarrelling with the Vatican. Son of an American woman, no longer having
the pure Roman blood in his veins, he was a more supple politician than
other aristocrats, and was also, folks said, extremely grasping,
struggling to be one of the last to retain the wealth and power of olden
times, which he realised were condemned to death. Yet it was in his
family, renowned for its superb pride and its continued magnificence,
that a love romance had lately taken birth, a romance which was the
subject of endless gossip: Celia had suddenly fallen in love with a young
lieutenant to whom she had never spoken; her love was reciprocated, and
the passionate attachment of the officer and the girl only found vent in
the glances they exchanged on meeting each day during the usual drive
through the Corso. Nevertheless Celia displayed a tenacious will, and
after declaring to her father that she would never take any other
husband, she was waiting, firm and resolute, in the certainty that she
would ultimately secure the man of her choice. The worst of the affair
was that the lieutenant, Attilio Sacco, happened to be the son of Deputy
Sacco, a parvenu whom the black world looked down upon, as upon one sold
to the Quirinal and ready to undertake the very dirtiest job.

"It was for me that Morano spoke just now," Celia murmured in Benedetta's
ear. "Yes, yes, when he spoke so harshly of Attilio's father and that
ministerial appointment which people are talking about. He wanted to give
me a lesson."

The two girls had sworn eternal affection in their school-days, and
Benedetta, the elder by five years, showed herself maternal. "And so,"
she said, "you've not become a whit more reasonable. You still think of
that young man?"

"What! are you going to grieve me too, dear?" replied Celia. "I love
Attilio and mean to have him. Yes, him and not another! I want him and
I'll have him, because I love him and he loves me. It's simple enough."

Pierre glanced at her, thunderstruck. With her gentle virgin face she was
like a candid, budding lily. A brow and a nose of blossom-like purity; a
mouth all innocence with its lips closing over pearly teeth, and eyes
like spring water, clear and fathomless. And not a quiver passed over her
cheeks of satiny freshness, no sign, however faint, of anxiety or
inquisitiveness appeared in her candid glance. Did she think? Did she
know? Who could have answered? She was virginity personified with all its
redoubtable mystery.

"Ah! my dear," resumed Benedetta, "don't begin my sad story over again.
One doesn't succeed in marrying the Pope and the King."

All tranquillity, Celia responded: "But you didn't love Prada, whereas I
love Attilio. Life lies in that: one must love."

These words, spoken so naturally by that ignorant child, disturbed Pierre
to such a point that he felt tears rising to his eyes. Love! yes, therein
lay the solution of every quarrel, the alliance between the nations, the
reign of peace and joy throughout the world! However, Donna Serafina had
now risen, shrewdly suspecting the nature of the conversation which was
impassioning the two girls. And she gave Don Vigilio a glance, which the
latter understood, for he came to tell Pierre in an undertone that it was
time to retire. Eleven o'clock was striking, and Celia went off with her
aunt. Advocate Morano, however, doubtless desired to retain Cardinal
Sarno and Nani for a few moments in order that they might privately
discuss some difficulty which had arisen in the divorce proceedings. On
reaching the outer reception-room, Benedetta, after kissing Celia on both
cheeks, took leave of Pierre with much good grace.

"In answering the Viscount to-morrow morning," said she, "I shall tell
him how happy we are to have you with us, and for longer than you think.
Don't forget to come down at ten o'clock to see my uncle, the Cardinal."

Having climbed to the third floor again, Pierre and Don Vigilio, each
carrying a candlestick which the servant had handed to them, were about
to part for the night, when the former could not refrain from asking the
secretary a question which had been worrying him for hours: "Is Monsignor
Nani a very influential personage?"

Don Vigilio again became quite scared, and simply replied by a gesture,
opening his arms as if to embrace the world. Then his eyes flashed, and
in his turn he seemed to yield to inquisitiveness. "You already knew him,
didn't you?" he inquired.

"I? not at all!"

"Really! Well, he knows you very well. Last Monday I heard him speak of
you in such precise terms that he seemed to be acquainted with the
slightest particulars of your career and your character."

"Why, I never even heard his name before."

"Then he must have procured information."

Thereupon Don Vigilio bowed and entered his room; whilst Pierre,
surprised to find his door open, saw Victorine come out with her calm
active air.

"Ah! Monsieur l'Abbe, I wanted to make sure that you had everything you
were likely to want. There are candles, water, sugar, and matches. And
what do you take in the morning, please? Coffee? No, a cup of milk with a
roll. Very good; at eight o'clock, eh? And now rest and sleep well. I was
awfully afraid of ghosts during the first nights I spent in this old
palace! But I never saw a trace of one. The fact is, when people are
dead, they are too well pleased, and don't want to break their rest!"

Then off she went, and Pierre at last found himself alone, glad to be
able to shake off the strain imposed on him, to free himself from the
discomfort which he had felt in that reception-room, among those people
who in his mind still mingled and vanished like shadows in the sleepy
glow of the lamps. Ghosts, thought he, are the old dead ones of long ago
whose distressed spirits return to love and suffer in the breasts of the
living of to-day. And, despite his long afternoon rest, he had never felt
so weary, so desirous of slumber, confused and foggy as was his mind,
full of the fear that he had hitherto not understood things aright. When
he began to undress, his astonishment at being in that room returned to
him with such intensity that he almost fancied himself another person.
What did all those people think of his book? Why had he been brought to
this cold dwelling whose hostility he could divine? Was it for the
purpose of helping him or conquering him? And again in the yellow
glimmer, the dismal sunset of the drawing-room, he perceived Donna
Serafina and Advocate Morano on either side of the chimney-piece, whilst
behind the calm yet passionate visage of Benedetta appeared the smiling
face of Monsignor Nani, with cunning eyes and lips bespeaking indomitable
energy.

He went to bed, but soon got up again, stifling, feeling such a need of
fresh, free air that he opened the window wide in order to lean out. But
the night was black as ink, the darkness had submerged the horizon. A
mist must have hidden the stars in the firmament; the vault above seemed
opaque and heavy like lead; and yonder in front the houses of the
Trastevere had long since been asleep. Not one of all their windows
glittered; there was but a single gaslight shining, all alone and far
away, like a lost spark. In vain did Pierre seek the Janiculum. In the
depths of that ocean of nihility all sunk and vanished, Rome's four and
twenty centuries, the ancient Palatine and the modern Quirinal, even the
giant dome of St. Peter's, blotted out from the sky by the flood of
gloom. And below him he could not see, he could not even hear the Tiber,
the dead river flowing past the dead city.

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