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Title: The Eternal City

Author: Hall Caine

Release Date: November 7, 2006 [EBook #19732]

Language: English

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[Illustration: "WHAT YOU SAID SHALL BE SACRED."]

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                            THE ETERNAL CITY

                             By Hall Caine

                    Author of "The Christian," etc.

                    "He looked for a city which hath
                 foundations whose builder and maker is
                                 God."

                            GROSSET & DUNLAP

                         PUBLISHERS :: NEW YORK

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                          Copyright, 1901, 1902
                              By HALL CAINE
                             Popular Edition

                         Published October, 1902

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                         PREFACE TO THIS EDITION


Has a novelist a right to alter his novel after its publication, to
condense it, to add to it, to modify or to heighten its situations, and
otherwise so to change it that to all outward appearance it is
practically a new book? I leave this point in literary ethics to the
consideration of those whose business it is to discuss such questions,
and content myself with telling the reader the history of the present
story.

About ten years ago I went to Russia with some idea (afterwards
abandoned) of writing a book that should deal with the racial struggle
which culminated in the eviction of the Jews from the holy cities of
that country, and the scenes of tyrannical administration which I
witnessed there made a painful and lasting impression on my mind. The
sights of the day often followed me through the night, and after a more
than usually terrible revelation of official cruelty, I had a dream of a
Jewish woman who was induced to denounce her husband to the Russian
police under a promise that they would spare his life, which they said
he had forfeited as the leader of a revolutionary movement. The husband
came to know who his betrayer had been, and he cursed his wife as his
worst enemy. She pleaded on her knees that fear for his safety had been
the only motive for her conduct, and he cursed her again. His cause was
lost, his hopes were dead, his people were in despair, because the one
being whom heaven had given him for his support had delivered him up to
his enemies out of the weakness of her womanly love. I awoke in the
morning with a vivid memory of this new version of the old story of
Samson and Delilah, and on my return to England I wrote the draft of a
play with the incident of husband and wife as the central situation.

How from this germ came the novel which was published last year under
the title of "The Eternal City" would be a long story to tell, a story
of many personal experiences, of reading, of travel, of meetings in
various countries with statesmen, priests, diplomats, police
authorities, labour leaders, nihilists and anarchists, and of the
consequent growth of my own political and religious convictions; but it
will not be difficult to see where and in what way time and thought had
little by little overlaid the humanities of the early sketch with many
extra interests. That these interests were of the essence, clothing, and
not crushing the human motive, I trust I may continue to believe, and
certainly I have no reason to be dissatisfied with the reception of my
book at the hands of that wide circle of general readers who care less
for a contribution to a great social propaganda than for a simple tale
of love.

But when the time came to return to my first draft of a play, the tale
of love was the only thing to consider, and being now on the point of
producing the drama in England, America, and elsewhere, and requested to
prepare an edition of my story for the use of the audiences at the
theatre, I have thought myself justified in eliminating the politics and
religion from my book, leaving nothing but the human interests with
which alone the drama is allowed to deal. This has not been an easy
thing to do, and now that it is done I am by no means sure that I may
not have alienated the friends whom the abstract problems won for me
without conciliating the readers who called for the story only. But not
to turn my back on the work of three laborious years, or to discredit
that part of it which expressed, however imperfectly, my sympathy with
the struggles of the poor, and my participation in the social problems
with which the world is now astir, I have obtained the promise of my
publisher that the original version of "The Eternal City" shall be kept
in print as long as the public calls for it.

In this form of my book, the aim has been to rely solely on the
humanities and to go back to the simple story of the woman who denounced
her husband in order to save his life. That was the theme of the draft
which was the original basis of my novel, it is the central incident of
the drama which is about to be produced in New York, and the present
abbreviated version of the story is intended to follow the lines of the
play in all essential particulars down to the end of the last chapter
but one.                                                         H. C.

Isle of Man, Sept. 1902.

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                            THE ETERNAL CITY

                                PROLOGUE


                                   I

He was hardly fit to figure in the great review of life. A boy of ten or
twelve, in tattered clothes, with an accordion in a case swung over one
shoulder like a sack, and under the other arm a wooden cage containing a
grey squirrel. It was a December night in London, and the Southern lad
had nothing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his
short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He was going
home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious of something fantastic
in his appearance, and of doubtful legality in his calling, he was
dipping into side streets in order to escape the laughter of the London
boys and the attentions of policemen.

Coming to the Italian quarter in Soho, he stopped at the door of a shop
to see the time. It was eight o'clock. There was an hour to wait before
he would be allowed to go indoors. The shop was a baker's, and the
window was full of cakes and confectionery. From an iron grid on the
pavement there came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red
glow of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The boy
blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his pocket, and
brought out some copper coins and counted them. There was ninepence.
Ninepence was the sum he had to take home every night, and there was not
a halfpenny to spare. He knew that perfectly before he began to count,
but his appetite had tempted him to try again if his arithmetic was not
at fault.

The air grew warmer, and it began to snow. At first it was a fine
sprinkle that made a snow-mist, and adhered wherever it fell. The
traffic speedily became less, and things looked big in the thick air.
The boy was wandering aimlessly through the streets, waiting for nine
o'clock. When he thought the hour was near, he realised that he had lost
his way. He screwed up his eyes to see if he knew the houses and shops
and signs, but everything seemed strange.

The snow snowed on, and now it fell in large, corkscrew flakes. The boy
brushed them from his face, but at the next moment they blinded him
again. The few persons still in the streets loomed up on him out of the
darkness, and passed in a moment like gigantic shadows. He tried to ask
his way, but nobody would stand long enough to listen. One man who was
putting up his shutters shouted some answer that was lost in the
drumlike rumble of all voices in the falling snow.

The boy came up to a big porch with four pillars, and stepped in to rest
and reflect. The long tunnels of smoking lights which had receded down
the streets were not to be seen from there, and so he knew that he was
in a square. It would be Soho Square, but whether he was on the south or
east of it he could not tell, and consequently he was at a loss to know
which way to turn. A great silence had fallen over everything, and only
the sobbing nostrils of the cab-horses seemed to be audible in the
hollow air.

He was very cold. The snow had got into his shoes, and through the rents
in his cross-gartered stockings. His red waistcoat wanted buttons, and
he could feel that his shirt was wet. He tried to shake the snow off by
stamping, but it clung to his velveteens. His numbed fingers could
scarcely hold the cage, which was also full of snow. By the light coming
from a fanlight over the door in the porch he looked at his squirrel.
The little thing was trembling pitifully in its icy bed, and he took it
out and breathed on it to warm it, and then put it in his bosom. The
sound of a child's voice laughing and singing came to him from within
the house, muffled by the walls and the door. Across the white vapour
cast outward from the fanlight he could see nothing but the crystal
snowflakes falling wearily.

He grew dizzy, and sat down by one of the pillars. After a while a
shiver passed along his spine, and then he became warm and felt sleepy.
A church clock struck nine, and he started up with a guilty feeling, but
his limbs were stiff and he sank back again, blew two or three breaths
on to the squirrel inside his waistcoat, and fell into a doze. As he
dropped off into unconsciousness he seemed to see the big, cheerless
house, almost destitute of furniture, where he lived with thirty or
forty other boys. They trooped in with their organs and accordions,
counted out their coppers to a man with a clipped moustache, who was
blowing whiffs of smoke from a long, black cigar, with a straw through
it, and then sat down on forms to eat their plates of macaroni and
cheese. The man was not in good temper to-night, and he was shouting at
some who were coming in late and at others who were sharing their supper
with the squirrels that nestled in their bosoms, or the monkeys, in red
jacket and fez, that perched upon their shoulders. The boy was perfectly
unconscious by this time, and the child within the house was singing
away as if her little breast was a cage of song-birds.

As the church clock struck nine a class of Italian lads in an upper room
in Old Compton Street was breaking up for the night, and the teacher,
looking out of the window, said:

"While we have been telling the story of the great road to our country a
snowstorm has come, and we shall have enough to do to find our road
home."

The lads laughed by way of answer, and cried: "Good-night, doctor."

"Good-night, boys, and God bless you," said the teacher.

He was an elderly man, with a noble forehead and a long beard. His face,
a sad one, was lighted up by a feeble smile; his voice was soft, and his
manner gentle. When the boys were gone he swung over his shoulders a
black cloak with a red lining, and followed them into the street.

He had not gone far into the snowy haze before he began to realise that
his playful warning had not been amiss.

"Well, well," he thought, "only a few steps, and yet so difficult to
find."

He found the right turnings at last, and coming to the porch of his
house in Soho Square, he almost trod on a little black and white object
lying huddled at the base of one of the pillars.

"A boy," he thought, "sleeping out on a night like this! Come, come," he
said severely, "this is wrong," and he shook the little fellow to waken
him.

The boy did not answer, but he began to mutter in a sleepy monotone,
"Don't hit me, sir. It was snow. I'll not come home late again.
Ninepence, sir, and Jinny is so cold."

The man paused a moment, then turned to the door rang the bell sharply.


                                 II

Half-an-hour later the little musician was lying on a couch in the
doctor's surgery, a cheerful room with a fire and a soft lamp under a
shade. He was still unconscious, but his damp clothes had been taken off
and he was wrapped in blankets. The doctor sat at the boy's head and
moistened his lips with brandy, while a good woman, with the face of a
saint, knelt at the end of the couch and rubbed his little feet and
legs. After a little while there was a perceptible quivering of the
eyelids and twitching of the mouth.

"He is coming to, mother," said the doctor.

"At last," said his wife.

The boy moaned and opened his eyes, the big helpless eyes of childhood,
black as a sloe, and with long black lashes. He looked at the fire, the
lamp, the carpet, the blankets, the figures at either end of the couch,
and with a smothered cry he raised himself as though thinking to escape.

"Carino!" said the doctor, smoothing the boy's curly hair. "Lie still a
little longer."

The voice was like a caress, and the boy sank back. But presently he
raised himself again, and gazed around the room as if looking for
something. The good mother understood him perfectly, and from a chair on
which his clothes were lying she picked up his little grey squirrel. It
was frozen stiff with the cold and now quite dead, but he grasped it
tightly and kissed it passionately, while big teardrops rolled on to his
cheeks.

"Carino!" said the doctor again, taking the dead squirrel away, and
after a while the boy lay quiet and was comforted.

"Italiano--si?"

"Si, Signore."

"From which province?"

"Campagna Romana, Signore."

"Where does he say he comes from, doctor?"

"From the country district outside Rome. And now you are living at
Maccari's in Greek Street--isn't that so?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long have you been in England--one year, two years?"

"Two years and a half, sir."

"And what is your name, my son?"

"David Leone."

"A beautiful name, carino! David Le-o-ne," repeated the doctor,
smoothing the curly hair.

"A beautiful boy, too! What will you do with him, doctor?"

"Keep him here to-night at all events, and to-morrow we'll see if some
institution will not receive him. David Leone! Where have I heard that
name before, I wonder? Your father is a farmer?"

But the boy's face had clouded like a mirror that has been breathed
upon, and he made no answer.

"Isn't your father a farmer in the Campagna Romana, David?"

"I have no father," said the boy.

"Carino! But your mother is alive--yes?"

"I have no mother."

"Caro mio! Caro mio! You shall not go to the institution to-morrow, my
son," said the doctor, and then the mirror cleared in a moment as if the
sun had shone on it.

"Listen, father!"

Two little feet were drumming on the floor above.

"Baby hasn't gone to bed yet. She wouldn't sleep until she had seen the
boy, and I had to promise she might come down presently."

"Let her come down now," said the doctor.

The boy was supping a basin of broth when the door burst open with a
bang, and like a tiny cascade which leaps and bubbles in the sunlight, a
little maid of three, with violet eyes, golden complexion, and glossy
black hair, came bounding into the room. She was trailing behind her a
train of white nightdress, hobbling on the portion in front, and
carrying under her arm a cat, which, being held out by the neck, was
coiling its body and kicking its legs like a rabbit.

But having entered with so fearless a front, the little woman drew up
suddenly at sight of the boy, and, entrenching herself behind the
doctor, began to swing by his coat-tails, and to take furtive glances at
the stranger in silence and aloofness.

"Bless their hearts! what funny things they are, to be sure," said the
mother. "Somebody seems to have been telling her she might have a
brother some day, and when nurse said to Susanna, 'The doctor has
brought a boy home with him to-night,' nothing was so sure as that this
was the brother they had promised her, and yet now ... Roma, you silly
child, why don't you come and speak to the poor boy who was nearly
frozen to death in the snow?"

But Roma's privateering fingers were now deep in her father's pocket, in
search of a specimen of the sugar-stick which seemed to live and grow
there. She found two sugar-sticks this time, and sight of a second
suggested a bold adventure. Sidling up toward the couch, but still
holding on to the doctor's coat-tails, like a craft that swings to
anchor, she tossed one of the sugar-sticks on to the floor at the boy's
side. The boy smiled and picked it up, and this being taken for
sufficient masculine response, the little daughter of Eve proceeded to
proper overtures.

"Oo a boy?"

The boy smiled again and assented.

"Oo me brodder?"

The boy's smile paled perceptibly.

"Oo lub me?"

The tide in the boy's eyes was rising rapidly.

"Oo lub me eber and eber?"

The tears were gathering fast, when the doctor, smoothing the boy's dark
curls again, said:

"You have a little sister of your own far away in the Campagna
Romana--yes?"

"No, sir."

"Perhaps it's a brother?"

"I ... I have nobody," said the boy, and his voice broke on the last
word with a thud.

"You shall not go to the institution at all, David," said the doctor
softly.

"Doctor Roselli!" exclaimed his wife. But something in the doctor's face
smote her instantly and she said no more.

"Time for bed, baby."

But baby had many excuses. There were the sugar-sticks, and the pussy,
and the boy-brother, and finally her prayers to say.

"Say them here, then, sweetheart," said her mother, and with her cat
pinned up again under one arm and the sugar-stick held under the other,
kneeling face to the fire, but screwing her half-closed eyes at
intervals in the direction of the couch, the little maid put her little
waif-and-stray hands together and said:

"Our Fader oo art in Heben, alud be dy name. Dy kingum tum. Dy will be
done on eard as it is in Heben. Gib us dis day our dayey bread, and
forgib us our trelspasses as we forgib dem dat trelspass ayenst us. And
lee us not into temstashuns, but deliber us from ebil ... for eber and
eber. Amen."

The house in Soho Square was perfectly silent an hour afterward. In the
surgery the lamp was turned down, the cat was winking and yawning at the
fire, and the doctor sat in a chair in front of the fading glow and
listened to the measured breathing of the boy behind him. It dropped at
length, like a pendulum that is about to stop, into the noiseless beat
of innocent sleep, and then the good man got up and looked down at the
little head on the pillow.

Even with the eyes closed it was a beautiful face; one of the type which
great painters have loved to paint for their saints and angels--sweet,
soft, wise, and wistful. And where did it come from? From the Campagna
Romana, a scene of poverty, of squalor, of fever, and of death!

The doctor thought of his own little daughter, whose life had been a
long holiday, and then of the boy whose days had been an unbroken
bondage.

"Yet who knows but in the rough chance of life our little Roma may not
some day ... God forbid!"

The boy moved in his sleep and laughed the laugh of a dream that is like
the sound of a breeze in soft summer grass, and it broke the thread of
painful reverie.

"Poor little man! he has forgotten all his troubles."

Perhaps he was back in his sunny Italy by this time, among the vines and
the oranges and the flowers, running barefoot with other children on the
dazzling whiteness of the roads!... Perhaps his mother in heaven was
praying her heart out to the Blessed Virgin to watch over her fatherless
darling cast adrift upon the world!

The train of thought was interrupted by voices in the street, and the
doctor drew the curtain of the window aside and looked out. The snow had
ceased to fall, and the moon was shining; the leafless trees were
casting their delicate black shadows on the whitened ground, and the
yellow light of a lantern on the opposite angle of the square showed
where a group of lads were singing a Christmas carol.

"While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on the ground,
The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around."

Doctor Roselli closed the curtain, put out the lamp, touched with his
lips the forehead of the sleeping boy, and went to bed.

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                     PART ONE--THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

                           TWENTY YEARS LATER


                                   I

It was the last day of the century. In a Bull proclaiming a Jubilee the
Pope had called his faithful children to Rome, and they had come from
all quarters of the globe. To salute the coming century, and to dedicate
it, in pomp and solemn ceremony, to the return of the world to the Holy
Church, one and universal, the people had gathered in the great Piazza
of St. Peter.

Boys and women were climbing up every possible elevation, and a
bright-faced girl who had conquered a high place on the base of the
obelisk was chattering down at a group of her friends who were listening
to their cicerone.

"Yes, that is the Vatican," said the guide, pointing to a square
building at the back of the colonnade, "and the apartments of the Pope
are those on the third floor, just on the level of the Loggia of
Raphael. The Cardinal Secretary of State used to live in the rooms
below, opening on the grand staircase that leads from the Court of
Damasus. There's a private way up to the Pope's apartment, and a secret
passage to the Castle of St. Angelo."

"Say, has the Pope got that secret passage still?"

"No, sir. When the Castle went over to the King the connection with the
Vatican was cut off. Ah, everything is changed since those days! The
Pope used to go to St. Peter's surrounded by his Cardinals and Bishops,
to the roll of drums and the roar of cannon. All that is over now. The
present Pope is trying to revive the old condition seemingly, but what
can he do? Even the Bull proclaiming the Jubilee laments the loss of the
temporal power which would have permitted him to renew the enchantments
of the Holy City."

"Tell him it's just lovely as it is," said the girl on the obelisk, "and
when the illuminations begin...."

"Say, friend," said her parent again, "Rome belonged to the Pope--yes?
Then the Italians came in and took it and made it the capital of
Italy--so?"

"Just so, and ever since then the Holy Father has been a prisoner in the
Vatican, going into it as a cardinal and coming out of it as a corpse,
and to-day will be the first time a Pope has set foot in the streets of
Rome!"

"My! And shall we see him in his prison clothes?"

"Lilian Martha! Don't you know enough for that? Perhaps you expect to
see his chains and a straw of his bed in the cell? The Pope is a king
and has a court--that's the way I am figuring it."

"True, the Pope is a sovereign still, and he is surrounded by his
officers of state--Cardinal Secretary, Majordomo, Master of Ceremonies,
Steward, Chief of Police, Swiss Guards, Noble Guard and Palatine Guard,
as well as the Papal Guard who live in the garden and patrol the
precincts night and day."

"Then where the nation ... prisoner, you say?"

"Prisoner indeed! Not even able to look out of his windows on to this
piazza on the 20th of September without the risk of insult and
outrage--and Heaven knows what will happen when he ventures out to-day!"

"Well! this goes clear ahead of me!"

Beyond the outer cordon of troops many carriages were drawn up in
positions likely to be favourable for a view of the procession. In one
of these sat a Frenchman in a coat covered with medals, a florid,
fiery-eyed old soldier with bristling white hair. Standing by his
carriage door was a typical young Roman, fashionable, faultlessly
dressed, pallid, with strong lower jaw, dark watchful eyes, twirled-up
moustache and cropped black mane.

"Ah, yes," said the old Frenchman. "Much water has run under the bridge
since then, sir. Changed since I was here? Rome? You're right, sir.
'When Rome falls, falls the world;' but it can alter for all that, and
even this square has seen its transformations. Holy Office stands where
it did, the yellow building behind there, but this palace, for
instance--this one with the people in the balcony...."

The Frenchman pointed to the travertine walls of a prison-like house on
the farther side of the piazza.

"Do you know whose palace that is?"

"Baron Bonelli's, President of the Council and Minister of the
Interior."

"Precisely! But do you know whose palace it used to be?"

"Belonged to the English Wolsey, didn't it, in the days when he wanted
the Papacy?"

"Belonged in my time to the father of the Pope, sir--old Baron Leone!"

"Leone! That's the family name of the Pope, isn't it?"

"Yes, sir, and the old Baron was a banker and a cripple. One foot in the
grave, and all his hopes centred in his son. 'My son,' he used to say,
'will be the richest man in Rome some day--richer than all their Roman
princes, and it will be his own fault if he doesn't make himself Pope.'"

"He has, apparently."

"Not that way, though. When his father died, he sold up everything, and
having no relations looking to him, he gave away every penny to the
poor. That's how the old banker's palace fell into the hands of the
Prime Minister of Italy--an infidel, an Antichrist."

"So the Pope is a good man, is he?"

"Good man, sir? He's not a man at all, he's an angel! Only two aims in
life--the glory of the Church and the welfare of the rising generation.
Gave away half his inheritance founding homes all over the world for
poor boys. Boys--that's the Pope's tender point, sir! Tell him anything
tender about a boy and he breaks up like an old swordcut."

The eyes of the young Roman were straying away from the Frenchman to a
rather shabby single-horse hackney carriage which had just come into the
square and taken up its position in the shadow of the grim old palace.
It had one occupant only--a man in a soft black hat. He was quite
without a sign of a decoration, but his arrival had created a general
commotion, and all faces were turning toward him.

"Do you happen to know who that is?" said the gay Roman. "That man in
the cab under the balcony full of ladies? Can it be David Rossi?"

"David Rossi, the anarchist?"

"Some people call him so. Do you know him?"

"I know nothing about the man except that he is an enemy of his
Holiness."

"He intends to present a petition to the Pope this morning,
nevertheless."

"Impossible!"

"Haven't you heard of it? These are his followers with the banners and
badges."

He pointed to the line of working-men who had ranged themselves about
the cab, with banners inscribed variously, "Garibaldi Club," "Mazzini
Club," "Republican Federation," and "Republic of Man."

"Your friend Antichrist," tipping a finger over his shoulder in the
direction of the palace, "has been taxing bread to build more
battleships, and Rossi has risen against him. But failing in the press,
in Parliament and at the Quirinal, he is coming to the Pope to pray of
him to let the Church play its old part of intermediary between the poor
and the oppressed."

"Preposterous!"

"So?"

"To whom is the Pope to protest? To the King of Italy who robbed him of
his Holy City? Pretty thing to go down on your knees to the brigand who
has stripped you! And at whose bidding is he to protest? At the bidding
of his bitterest enemy? Pshaw!"

"You persist that David Rossi is an enemy of the Pope?"

"The deadliest enemy the Pope has in the world."


                                 II

The subject of the Frenchman's denunciation looked harmless enough as he
sat in his hackney carriage under the shadow of old Baron Leone's gloomy
palace. A first glance showed a man of thirty-odd years, tall, slightly
built, inclined to stoop, with a long, clean-shaven face, large dark
eyes, and dark hair which covered the head in short curls of almost
African profusion. But a second glance revealed all the characteristics
that give the hand-to-hand touch with the common people, without which
no man can hope to lead a great movement.

From the moment of David Rossi's arrival there was a tingling movement
in the air, and from time to time people approached and spoke to him,
when the tired smile struggled through the jaded face and then slowly
died away. After a while, as if to subdue the sense of personal
observation, he took a pen and oblong notepaper and began to write on
his knees.

Meantime the quick-eyed facile crowd around him beguiled the tedium of
waiting with good-humoured chaff. One great creature with a shaggy mane
and a sanguinary voice came up, bottle in hand, saluted the downcast
head with a mixture of deference and familiarity, then climbed to the
box-seat beside the driver, and in deepest bass began the rarest
mimicry. He was a true son of the people, and under an appearance of
ferocity he hid the heart of a child. To look at him you could hardly
help laughing, and the laughter of the crowd at his daring dashes showed
that he was the privileged pet of everybody. Only at intervals the
downcast head was raised from its writing, and a quiet voice of warning
said:

"Bruno!"

Then the shaggy head on the box-seat slewed round and bobbed downward
with an apologetic gesture, and ten seconds afterwards plunged into
wilder excesses.

"Pshaw!" mopping with one hand his forehead under his tipped-up
billicock, and holding the bottle with the other. "It's hot! Dog of a
Government, it's hot, I say! Never mind! here's to the exports of Italy,
brother; and may the Government be the first of them."

"Bruno!"

"Excuse me, sir; the tongue breaks no bones, sir! All Governments are
bad, and the worst Government is the best."

A feeble old man was at that moment crushing his way up to the cab.
Seeing him approach, David Rossi rose and held out his hand. The old man
took it, but did not speak.

"Did you wish to speak to me, father?"

"I can't yet," said the old man, and his voice shook and his eyes were
moist.

David Rossi stepped out of the cab, and with gentle force, against many
protests, put the old man in his place.

"I come from Carrara, sir, and when I go home and tell them I've seen
David Rossi, and spoken to him, they won't believe me. 'He sees the
future clear,' they say, 'as an almanack made by God.'"

Just then there was a commotion in the crowd, an imperious voice cried,
"Clear out," and the next instant David Rossi, who was standing by the
step of his cab, was all but run down by a magnificent equipage with two
high-stepping horses and a fat English coachman in livery of scarlet
and gold.

His face darkened for a moment with some powerful emotion, then resumed
its kindly aspect, and he turned back to the old man without looking at
the occupant of the carriage.

It was a lady. She was tall, with a bold sweep of fulness in figure,
which was on a large scale of beauty. Her hair, which was abundant and
worn full over the forehead, was raven black and glossy, and it threw
off the sunshine that fell on her face. Her complexion had a golden
tint, and her eyes, which were violet, had a slight recklessness of
expression. Her carriage drew up at the entrance of the palace, and the
porter, with the silver-headed staff, came running and bowing to receive
her. She rose to her feet with a consciousness of many eyes upon her,
and with an unabashed glance she looked around on the crowd.

There was a sulky silence among the people, almost a sense of
antagonism, and if anybody had cheered there might have been a counter
demonstration. At the same time, there was a certain daring in that
marked brow and steadfast smile which seemed to say that if anybody had
hissed she would have stood her ground.

She lifted from the blue silk cushions of the carriage a small
half-clipped black poodle with a bow of blue ribbon on its forehead,
tucked it under her arm, stepped down to the street, and passed into the
courtyard, leaving an odour of ottar of roses behind her.

Only then did the people speak.

"Donna Roma!"

The name seemed to pass over the crowd in a breathless whisper,
soundless, supernatural, like the flight of a bat in the dark.


                                III

The Baron Bonelli had invited certain of his friends to witness the
Pope's procession from the windows and balconies of his palace
overlooking the piazza, and they had begun to arrive as early as
half-past nine.

In the green courtyard they were received by the porter in the cocked
hat, on the dark stone staircase by lackeys in knee-breeches and yellow
stockings, in the outer hall, intended for coats and hats, by more
lackeys in powdered wigs, and in the first reception-room, gorgeously
decorated in the yellow and gold of the middle ages, by Felice, in a
dress coat, the Baron's solemn personal servant, who said, in sepulchral
tones:

"The Baron's excuses, Excellency! Engaged in the Council-room with some
of the Ministers, but expects to be out presently. Sit in the Loggia,
Excellency?"

"So our host is holding a Cabinet Council, General?" said the English
Ambassador.

"A sort of scratch council, seemingly. Something that concerns the day's
doings, I guess, and is urgent and important."

"A great man, General, if half one hears about him is true."

"Great?" said the American. "Yes, and no, Sir Evelyn, according as you
regard him. In the opinion of some of his followers the Baron Bonelli is
the greatest man in the country--greater than the King himself--and a
statesman too big for Italy. One of those commanding personages who
carry everything before them, so that when they speak even monarchs are
bound to obey. That's one view of his picture, Sir Evelyn."

"And the other view?"

General Potter glanced in the direction of a door hung with curtains,
from which there came at intervals the deadened drumming of voices, and
then he said:

"A man of implacable temper and imperious soul, an infidel of hard and
cynical spirit, a sceptic and a tyrant."

"Which view do the people take?"

"Can you ask? The people hate him for the heavy burden of taxation with
which he is destroying the nation in his attempt to build it up."

"And the clergy, and the Court, and the aristocracy?"

"The clergy fear him, the Court detests him, and the Roman aristocracy
are rancorously hostile."

"Yet he rules them all, nevertheless?"

"Yes, sir, with a rod of iron--people, Court, princes, Parliament, King
as well--and seems to have only one unsatisfied desire, to break up the
last remaining rights of the Vatican and rule the old Pope himself."

"And yet he invites us to sit in his Loggia and look at the Pope's
procession."

"Perhaps because he intends it shall be the last we may ever see of it."

"The Princess Bellini and Don Camillo Murelli," said Felice's sepulchral
voice from the door.

An elderly aristocratic beauty wearing nodding white plumes came in with
a pallid young Roman noble dressed in the English fashion.

"_You_ come to church, Don Camillo?"

"Heard it was a service which happened only once in a hundred years,
dear General, and thought it mightn't be convenient to come next time,"
said the young Roman.

"And you, Princess! Come now, confess, is it the perfume of the incense
which brings you to the Pope's procession, or the perfume of the
promenaders?"

"Nonsense, General!" said the little woman, tapping the American with
the tip of her lorgnette. "Who comes to a ceremony like this to say her
prayers? Nobody whatever, and if the Holy Father himself were to
say...."

"Oh! oh!"

"Which reminds me," said the little lady, "where is Donna Roma?"

"Yes, indeed, where is Donna Roma?" said the young Roman.

"_Who_ is Donna Roma?" said the Englishman.

"Santo Dio! the man doesn't know Donna Roma!"

The white plumes bobbed up, the powdered face fell back, the little
twinkling eyes closed, and the company laughed and seated themselves in
the Loggia.

"Donna Roma, dear sir," said the young Roman, "is a type of the fair
lady who has appeared in the history of every nation since the days of
Helen of Troy."

"Has a woman of this type, then, identified herself with the story of
Rome at a moment like the present?" said the Englishman.

The young Roman smiled.

"Why did the Prime Minister appoint so-and-so?--Donna Roma! Why did he
dismiss such-and-such?--Donna Roma! What feminine influence imposed upon
the nation this or that?--Donna Roma! Through whom come titles,
decorations, honours?--Donna Roma! Who pacifies intractable politicians
and makes them the devoted followers of the Ministers?--Donna Roma! Who
organises the great charitable committees, collects funds and
distributes them?--Donna Roma! Always, always Donna Roma!"

"So the day of the petticoat politician is not over in Italy yet?"

"Over? It will only end with the last trump. But dear Donna Roma is
hardly that. With her light play of grace and a whole artillery of love
in her lovely eyes, she only intoxicates a great capital and"--with a
glance towards the curtained door--"takes captive a great Minister."

"Just that," and the white plumes bobbed up and down.

"Hence she defies conventions, and no one dares to question her actions
on her scene of gallantry."

"Drives a pair of thoroughbreds in the Corso every afternoon, and
threatens to buy an automobile."

"Has debts enough to sink a ship, but floats through life as if she had
never known what it was to be poor."

"And has she?"

The voices from behind the curtained door were louder than usual at that
moment, and the young Roman drew his chair closer.

"Donna Roma, dear sir, was the only child of Prince Volonna. Nobody
mentions him now, so speak of him in a whisper. The Volonnas were an old
papal family, holding office in the Pope's household, but the young
Prince of the house was a Liberal, and his youth was cast in the stormy
days of the middle of the century. As a son of the revolution he was
expelled from Rome for conspiracy against the papal Government, and when
the Pope went out and the King came in, he was still a republican,
conspiring against the reigning sovereign, and, as such, a rebel.
Meanwhile he had wandered over Europe, going from Geneva to Berlin, from
Berlin to Paris. Finally he took refuge in London, the home of all the
homeless, and there he was lost and forgotten. Some say he practised as
a doctor, passing under another name; others say that he spent his life
as a poor man in your Italian quarter of Soho, nursing rebellion among
the exiles from his own country. Only one thing is certain: late in life
he came back to Italy as a conspirator--enticed back, his friends
say--was arrested on a charge of attempted regicide, and deported to the
island of Elba without a word of public report or trial."

"Domicilio Coatto--a devilish and insane device," said the American
Ambassador.

"Was that the fate of Prince Volonna?"

"Just so," said the Roman. "But ten or twelve years after he disappeared
from the scene a beautiful girl was brought to Rome and presented as his
daughter."

"Donna Roma?"

"Yes. It turned out that the Baron was a kinsman of the refugee, and
going to London he discovered that the Prince had married an English
wife during the period of his exile, and left a friendless daughter. Out
of pity for a great name he undertook the guardianship of the girl, sent
her to school in France, finally brought her to Rome, and established
her in an apartment on the Trinità de' Monti, under the care of an old
aunt, poor as herself, and once a great coquette, but now a faded rose
which has long since seen its June."

"And then?"

"Then? Ah, who shall say what then, dear friend? We can only judge by
what appears--Donna Roma's elegant figure, dressed in silk by the best
milliners Paris can provide, queening it over half the women of Rome."

"And now her aunt is conveniently bedridden," said the little Princess,
"and she goes about alone like an Englishwoman; and to account for her
extravagance, while everybody knows her father's estate was confiscated,
she is by way of being a sculptor, and has set up a gorgeous studio,
full of nymphs and cupids and limbs."

"And all by virtue of--what?" said the Englishman.

"By virtue of being--the good friend of the Baron Bonelli!"

"Meaning by that?"

"Nothing--and everything!" said the Princess with another trill of
laughter.

"In Rome, dear friend," said Don Camillo, "a woman can do anything she
likes as long as she can keep people from talking about her."

"Oh, you never do that apparently," said the Englishman. "But why
doesn't the Baron make her a Baroness and have done with the danger?"

"Because the Baron has a Baroness already."

"A wife living?"

"Living and yet dead--an imbecile, a maniac, twenty years a prisoner in
his castle in the Alban hills."


                                IV

The curtain parted over the inner doorway, and three gentlemen came out.
The first was a tall, spare man, about fifty years of age, with an
intellectual head, features cut clear and hard like granite, glittering
eyes under overhanging brows, black moustaches turned up at the ends,
and iron-grey hair cropped very short over a high forehead. It was the
Baron Bonelli.

One of the two men with him had a face which looked as if it had been
carved by a sword or an adze, good and honest but blunt and rugged; and
the other had a long, narrow head, like the head of a hen--a lanky
person with a certain mixture of arrogance and servility in his
expression.

The company rose from their places in the Loggia, and there were
greetings and introductions.

"Sir Evelyn Wise, gentlemen, the new British Ambassador--General Morra,
our Minister of War; Commendatore Angelelli, our Chief of Police. A
thousand apologies, ladies! A Minister of the Interior is one of the
human atoms that live from minute to minute and are always at the mercy
of events. You must excuse the Commendatore, gentlemen; he has urgent
duties outside."

The Prime Minister spoke with the lucidity and emphasis of a man
accustomed to command, and when Angelelli had bowed all round he crossed
with him to the door.

"If there is any suspicion of commotion, arrest the ringleaders at once.
Let there be no trifling with disorder, by whomsoever begun. The first
to offend must be the first to be arrested, whether he wears cap or
cassock."

"Good, your Excellency," and the Chief of Police went out.

"Commotion! Disorder! Madonna mia!" cried the little Princess.

"Calm yourselves, ladies. It's nothing! Only it came to the knowledge of
the Government that the Pope's procession this morning might be made the
excuse for a disorderly demonstration, and of course order must not be
disturbed even under the pretext of liberty and religion."

"So that was the public business which deprived us of your society?"
said the Princess.

"And left my womanless house the duty of receiving you in my absence,"
said the Baron.

The Baron bowed his guests to their seats, stood with his back to a wide
ingle, and began to sketch the Pope's career.

"His father was a Roman banker--lived in this house, indeed--and the
young Leone was brought up in the Jesuit schools and became a member of
the Noble Guard: handsome, accomplished, fond of society and social
admiration, a man of the world. This was a cause of disappointment to
his father, who has intended him for a great career in the Church. They
had their differences, and finally a mission was found for him and he
lived a year abroad. The death of the old banker brought him back to
Rome, and then, to the astonishment of society, he renounced the world
and took holy orders. Why he gave up his life of gallantry did not
appear...."

"Some affair of the heart, dear Baron," said the little Princess, with a
melting look.

"No, there was no talk of that kind, Princess, and not a whisper of
scandal. Some said the young soldier had married in England, and lost
his wife there, but nobody knew for certain. There was less doubt about
his religious vocation, and when by help of his princely inheritance he
turned his mind to the difficult task of reforming vice and ministering
to the lowest aspects of misery in the slums of Rome, society said he
had turned Socialist. His popularity with the people was unbounded, but
in the midst of it all he begged to be removed to London. There he set
up the same enterprises, and tramped the streets in search of his waifs
and outcasts, night and day, year in, year out, as if driven on by a
consuming passion of pity for the lost and fallen. In the interests of
his health he was called back to Rome--and returned here a white-haired
man of forty."

"Ah! what did I say, dear Baron? The apple falls near the tree, you
know!"

"By this time he had given away millions, and the Pope wished to make
him President of his Academy of Noble Ecclesiastics, but he begged to be
excused. Then Apostolic Delegate to the United States, and he prayed
off. Then Nuncio to Spain, and he went on his knees to remain in the
Campagna Romana, and do the work of a simple priest among a simple
people. At last, without consulting him they made him Bishop, and
afterwards Cardinal, and, on the death of the Pope, he was Scrutator to
the Conclave, and fainted when he read out his own name as that of
Sovereign Pontiff of the Church."

The little Princess was wiping her eyes.

"Then--all the world was changed. The priest of the future disappeared
in a Pope who was the incarnation of the past. Authority was now his
watchword. What was the highest authority on earth? The Holy See!
Therefore, the greatest thing for the world was the domination of the
Pope. If anybody should say that the power conferred by Christ on his
Vicar was only spiritual, let him be accursed! In Christ's name the Pope
was sovereign--supreme sovereign over the bodies and souls of
men--acknowledging no superior, holding the right to make and depose
kings, and claiming to be supreme judge over the consciences and crimes
of all--the peasant that tills the soil, and the prince that sits on the
throne!"

"Tre-men-jous!" said the American.

"But, dear Baron," said the little Princess, "don't you think there was
an affair of the heart after all?" and the little plumes bobbed
sideways.

The Baron laughed again. "The Pope seems to have half of humanity on his
side already--he has the women apparently."

All this time there had risen from the piazza into the room a humming
noise like the swarming of bees, but now a shrill voice came up from the
crowd with the sudden swish of a rocket.

"Look out!"

The young Roman, who had been looking over the balcony, turned his head
back and said:

"Donna Roma, Excellency."

But the Baron had gone from the room.

"He knew her carriage wheels apparently," said Don Camillo, and the lips
of the little Princess closed tight as if from sudden pain.


                                V

The return of the Baron was announced by the faint rustle of a silk
under-skirt and a light yet decided step keeping pace with his own. He
came back with Donna Roma on his arm, and over his coolness and calm
dignity he looked pleased and proud.

The lady herself was brilliantly animated and happy. A certain swing in
her graceful carriage gave an instant impression of perfect health, and
there was physical health also in the brightness of her eyes and the
gaiety of her expression. Her face was lighted up by a smile which
seemed to pervade her whole person and make it radiant with overflowing
joy. A vivacity which was at the same time dignified and spontaneous
appeared in every movement of her harmonious figure, and as she came
into the room there was a glow of health and happiness that filled the
air like the glow of sunlight through a veil of soft red gauze.

She saluted the Baron's guests with a smile that fascinated everybody.
There was a modified air of freedom about her, as of one who has a right
to make advances, a manner which captivates all women in a queen and all
men in a lovely woman.

"Ah, it is you, General Potter? And my dear General Morra? Camillo mio!"
(The Italian had rushed upon her and kissed her hand.) "Sir Evelyn Wise,
from England, isn't it? I'm half an Englishwoman myself, and I'm very
proud of it."

She had smiled frankly into Sir Evelyn's face, and he had smiled back
without knowing it. There was something contagious about her smile. The
rosy mouth with its pearly teeth seemed to smile of itself, and the
lovely eyes had their separate art of smiling. Her lips parted of
themselves, and then you felt your own lips parting.

"You were to have been busy with your fountain to-day...." began the
Baron.

"So I expected," she said in a voice that was soft yet full, "and I did
not think I should care to see any more spectacles in Rome, where the
people are going in procession all the year through--but what do you
think has brought me?"

"The artist's instinct, of course," said Don Camillo.

"No, just the woman's--to see a man!"

"Lucky fellow, whoever he is!" said the American. "He'll see something
better than you will, though," and then the golden complexion gleamed up
at him under a smile like sunshine.

"But who is he?" said the young Roman.

"I'll tell you. Bruno--you remember Bruno?"

"Bruno!" cried the Baron.

"Oh! Bruno is all right," she said, and, turning to the others, "Bruno
is my man in the studio--my marble pointer, you know. Bruno Rocco, and
nobody was ever so rightly named. A big, shaggy, good-natured bear,
always singing or growling or laughing, and as true as steel. A terrible
Liberal, though; a socialist, an anarchist, a nihilist, and everything
that's shocking."

"Well?"

"Well, ever since I began my fountain ... I'm making a fountain for the
Municipality--it is to be erected in the new part of the Piazza Colonna.
I expect to finish it in a fortnight. You would like to see it? Yes?
I'll send you cards--a little private view, you know."

"But Bruno?"

"Ah! yes, Bruno! Well, I've been at a loss for a model for one of my
figures ... figures all round the dish, you know. They represent the
Twelve Apostles, with Christ in the centre giving out the water of
life."

"But Bruno! Bruno! Bruno!"

She laughed, and the merry ring of her laughter set them all laughing.

"Well, Bruno has sung the praises of one of his friends until I'm
crazy ... crazy, that's English, isn't it? I told you I was half an
Englishwoman. American? Thanks, General! I'm 'just crazy' to get him
in."

"Simple enough--hire him to sit to you," said the Princess.

"Oh," with a mock solemnity, "he is far too grand a person for that! A
member of Parliament, a leader of the Left, a prophet, a person with a
mission, and I daren't even dream of it. But this morning, Bruno tells
me, his friend, his idol, is to stop the Pope's procession, and present
a petition, so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone--see my
man and see the spectacle--and here I am to see them!"

"And who is this paragon of yours, my dear?"

"The great David Rossi!"

"_That_ man!"

The white plumes were going like a fan.

"The man is a public nuisance and ought to be put down by the police,"
said the little Princess, beating her foot on the floor.

"He has a tongue like a sword and a pen like a dagger," said the young
Roman.

Donna Roma's eyes began to flash with a new expression.

"Ah, yes, he is a journalist, isn't he, and libels people in his paper?"

"The creature has ruined more reputations than anybody else in Europe,"
said the little Princess.

"I remember now. He made a terrible attack on our young old women and
our old young men. Declared they were meddling with everything--called
them a museum of mummies, and said they were symbolical of the ruin that
was coming on the country. Shameful, wasn't it? Nobody likes to be
talked about, especially in Rome, where it's the end of everything. But
what matter? The young man has perhaps learned freedom of speech in some
free country. We can afford to forgive him, can't we? And then he is so
interesting and so handsome!"

"An attempt to stop the Pope's procession might end in tumult," said the
American General to the Italian General. "Was that the danger the Baron
spoke about?"

"Yes," said General Morra. "The Government have been compelled to tax
bread, and of course that has been a signal for the enemies of the
national spirit to say that we are starving the people. This David Rossi
is the worst Roman in Rome. He opposed us in Parliament and lost.
Petitioned the King and lost again. Now he intends to petition the
Pope--with what hope, Heaven knows."

"With the hope of playing on public opinion, of course," said the Baron
cynically.

"Public opinion is a great force, your Excellency," said the Englishman.

"A great pestilence," said the Baron warmly.

"What is David Rossi?"

"An anarchist, a republican, a nihilist, anything as old as the hills,
dear friend, only everything in a new way," said the young Roman.

"David Rossi is the politician who proposes to govern the world by the
precepts of the Lord's Prayer," said the American.

"The Lord's Prayer!"

The Baron paraded on the hearthrug. "David Rossi," he said
compassionately, "is a creature of his age. A man of generous impulses
and wide sympathies, moved to indignation at the extremes of poverty and
wealth, and carried away by the promptings of the eternal religion in
the human soul. A dreamer, of course, a dreamer like the Holy Father
himself, only his dream is different, and neither could succeed without
destroying the other. In the millennium Rossi looks for, not only are
kings and princes to disappear, but popes and prelates as well."

"And where does this unpractical politician come from?" said the
Englishman.

"We must ask you to tell us that, Sir Evelyn, for though he is supposed
to be a Roman, he seems to have lived most of his life in your country.
As silent as an owl and as inscrutable as a sphinx. Nobody in Rome knows
certainly who his father was, nobody knows certainly who his mother was.
Some say his father was an Englishman, some say a Jew, and some say his
mother was a gipsy. A self-centred man, who never talks about himself,
and cannot be got to lift the veil which surrounds his birth and early
life. Came back to Rome eight years ago, and made a vast noise by
propounding his platonic scheme of politics--was called up for his term
of military service, refused to serve, got himself imprisoned for six
months and came out a mighty hero--was returned to Parliament for no
fewer than three constituencies, sat for Rome, took his place on the
Extreme Left, and attacked every Minister and every measure which
favoured the interest of the army--encouraged the workmen not to pay
their taxes and the farmers not to pay their rents--and thus became the
leader of a noisy faction, and is now surrounded by the degenerate class
throughout Italy which dreams of reconstructing society by burying it
under ruins."

"Lived in England, you say?"

"Apparently, and if his early life could be traced it would probably be
found that he was brought up in an atmosphere of conspiracy--perhaps
under the influence of some vile revolutionary living in London under
the protection of your too liberal laws."

Donna Roma sprang up with a movement full of grace and energy. "Anyhow,"
she said, "he is young and good-looking and romantic and mysterious, and
I'm head over ears in love with him already."

"Well, every man is a world," said the American.

"And what about woman?" said Roma.

He threw up his hands, she smiled full into his face, and they laughed
together.


                                VI

A fanfare of trumpets came from the piazza, and with a cry of delight
Roma ran into the balcony, followed by all the women and most of the
men.

"Only the signal that the cortège has started," said Don Camillo.
"They'll be some minutes still."

"Santo Dio!" cried Roma. "What a sight! It dazzles me; it makes me
dizzy!"

Her face beamed, her eyes danced, and she was all aglow from head to
foot. The American Ambassador stood behind her, and, as permitted by his
greater age, he tossed back the shuttlecock of her playful talk with
chaff and laughter.

"How patient the people are! See the little groups on camp-stools
munching biscuits and reading the journals. 'La Vera Roma!'" (mimicking
the cry of the newspaper sellers). "Look at that pretty girl--the fair
one with the young man in the Homburg hat! She has climbed up the
obelisk, and is inviting him to sit on an inch and a half of corbel
beside her."

"Ah, those who love take up little room!"

"Don't they? What a lovely world it is! I'll tell you what this makes me
think about--a wedding! Glorious morning, beautiful sunshine, flowers,
wreaths, bridesmaids ready; coachman all a posy, only waiting for the
bride!"

"A wedding is what you women are always dreaming about--you begin
dreaming about it in your cradles--it's in a woman's bones, I do
believe," said the American.

"Must be the ones she got from Adam, then," said Roma.

Meantime the Baron was still parading the hearthrug inside and listening
to the warnings of his Minister of War.

"You are resolved to arrest the man?"

"If he gives us an opportunity--yes."

"You do not forget that he is a Deputy?"

"It is because I remember it that my resolution is fixed. In Parliament
he is a privileged person; let him make half as much disorder outside
and you shall see where he will be."

"Anarchists!" said Roma. "That group below the balcony? Is David Rossi
among them? Yes? Which of them? Which? Which? Which? The tall man in the
black hat with his back to us? Oh! why doesn't he turn his face? Should
I shout?"

"Roma!" from the little Princess.

"I know; I'll faint, and you'll catch me, and the Princess will cry
'Madonna mia!' and then he'll turn round and look up."

"My child!"

"He'll see through you, though, and then where will you be?"

"See through me, indeed!" and she laughed the laugh a man loves to hear,
half-raillery, half-caress.

"Donna Roma Volonna, daughter of a line of princes, making love to a
nameless nobody!"

"Shows what a heavenly character she is, then! See how good I am at
throwing bouquets at myself?"

"Well, what is love, anyway? A certain boy and a certain girl agree to
go for a row in the same boat to the same place, and if they pull
together, what does it matter where they come from?"

"What, indeed?" she said, and a smile, partly serious, played about the
parted mouth.

"Could _you_ think like that?"

"I could! I could! I could!"

The clock struck eleven. Another fanfare of trumpets came from the
direction of the Vatican, and then the confused noises in the square
suddenly ceased and a broad "Ah!" passed over it, as of a vast living
creature taking breath.

"They're coming!" cried Roma. "Baron, the cortège is coming."

"Presently," the Baron answered from within.

Roma's dog, which had slept on a chair through the tumult, was awakened
by the lull and began to bark. She picked it up, tucked it under her arm
and ran back to the balcony, where she stood by the parapet, in full
view of the people below, with the young Roman on one side, the American
on the other, and the ladies seated around.

By this time the procession had begun to appear, issuing from a bronze
gate under the right arm of the colonnade, and passing down the channel
which had been kept open by the cordon of infantry.

Roma abandoned herself to the fascinations of the scene, and her gaiety
infected everybody.

"Camillo, you must tell me who they all are. There now--those men who
come first in black and red?"

"Laymen," said the young Roman. "They're called the Apostolic Cursori.
When a Cardinal is nominated they take him the news, and get two or
three thousand francs for their trouble."

"And these little fat folk in white lace pinafores?"

"Singers of the Sistine Chapel. That's the Director, old Maestro
Mustafa--used to be the greatest soprano of the century."

"And this dear old friar with the mittens and rosary and the comfortable
linsey-woolsey sort of face?"

"That's Father Pifferi of San Lorenzo, confessor to the Pope. He knows
all the Pope's sins."

"Oh!" said Roma.

At that moment her dog barked furiously, and the old friar looked up at
her, whereupon she smiled down on him, and then a half-smile played
about his good-natured face.

"He is a Capuchin, and those Frati in different colours coming behind
him...."

"I know them; see if I don't," she cried, as there passed under the
balcony a double file of friars and monks. "The brown ones--Capuchins
and Franciscans! Brown and white--Carmelites! Black--Augustinians and
Benedictines! Black with a white cross--Passionists! And the monks all
white are Trappists. I know the Trappists best, because I drive out to
Tre Fontane to buy eucalyptus and flirt with Father John."

"Shocking!" said the American.

"Why not? What are their vows of celibacy but conspiracies against us
poor women? Nearly every man a woman wants is either mated or has sworn
off in some way. Oh, how I should love to meet one of those anchorites
in real life and make him fly!"

"Well, I dare say the whisk of a petticoat would be more frightening
than all his doctors of divinity."

"Listen!"

From a part of the procession which had passed the balcony there came
the sound of harmonious voices.

"The singers of the Sistine Chapel! They're singing a hymn."

"I know it. '_Veni, Creator!_' How splendid! How glorious! I feel as if
I wanted to cry!"

All at once the singing stopped, the murmuring and speaking of the crowd
ceased too, and there was a breathless moment, such as comes before the
first blast of a storm. A nervous quiver, like the shudder that passes
over the earth at sundown, swept across the piazza, and the people stood
motionless, every neck stretched, and every eye turned in the direction
of the bronze gate, as if God were about to reveal Himself from the Holy
of Holies. Then in that grand silence there came the clear call of
silver trumpets, and at the next instant the Presence itself.

"The Pope! Baron, the Pope!"

The atmosphere was charged with electricity. A great roar of cheering
went up from below like the roaring of surf, and it was followed by a
clapping of hands like the running of the sea off a shingly beach after
the boom of a tremendous breaker.

An old man, dressed wholly in white, carried shoulder-high on a chair
glittering with purple and crimson, and having a canopy of silver and
gold above him. He wore a triple crown, which glistened in the sunlight,
and but for the delicate white hand which he upraised to bless the
people, he might have been mistaken for an image.

His face was beautiful, and had a ray of beatified light on it--a face
of marvellous sweetness and great spirituality.

It was a thrilling moment, and Roma's excitement was intense. "There he
is! All in white! He's on a gilded chair under the silken canopy! The
canopy is held up by prelates, and the chairmen are in knee-breeches and
red velvet. Look at the great waving plumes on either side!"

"Peacock's feathers!" said a voice behind her, but she paid no heed.

"Look at the acolytes swinging incense, and the golden cross coming
before! What thunders of applause--I can hardly hear myself speak. It's
like standing on a cliff while the sea below is running mountains high.
No, it's like no other sound on earth; it's human--fifty thousand
unloosed throats of men! That's the clapping of ladies--listen to the
weak applause of their white-gloved fingers. Now they're waving their
handkerchiefs. Look! Like the wings of ten thousand butterflies
fluttering up from a meadow."

Roma's abandonment was by this time complete; she was waving her
handkerchief and crying "_Viva il Papa Re!_"

"They're bearing him slowly along. He's coming this way. Look at the
Noble Guard in their helmets and jackboots. And there are the Swiss
Guard in Joseph's coat of many colours! We can see him plainly now. Do
you smell the incense? It's like the ribbon of Bruges. The pluviale?
That gold vestment? It's studded on his breast with precious stones. How
they blaze in the sunshine! He is blessing the people, and they are
falling on their knees before him."

"Like the grass before the scythe!"

"How tired he looks! How white his face is! No, not white--ivory! No,
marble--Carrara marble! He might be Lazarus who was dead and has come
back from the tomb! No humanity left in him! A saint! An angel!"

"The spiritual autocrat of the world!"

"_Viva il Papa Re!_ He's going by! _Viva il Papa Re!_ He has
gone.... Well!"

She was rising from her knees and wiping her eyes, trying to cover up
with laughter the confusion of her rapture.

"What is that?"

There was a sound of voices in the distance chanting dolorously.

"The cantors intoning _Tu es Petrus_," said Don Camillo.

"No, I mean the commotion down there. Somebody is pushing through the
Guard."

"It's David Rossi," said the American.

"Is that David Rossi? Oh, dear me! I had forgotten all about him." She
moved forward to see his face. "Why ... where have I ... I've seen him
before somewhere."

A strange physical sensation tingled all over her at that moment, and
she shuddered as if with sudden cold.

"What's amiss?"

"Nothing! But I like him. Do you know, I really like him."

"Women are funny things," said the American.

"They're nice, though, aren't they?" And two rows of pearly teeth
between parted lips gleamed up at him with gay raillery.

Again she craned forward. "He is on his knees to the Pope! Now he'll
present the petition. No ... yes ... the brutes! They're dragging him
away! The procession is going on! Disgraceful!"

"Long live the Workmen's Pope!" came up from the piazza, and under the
shrill shouts of the pilgrims were heard the monotonous voices of the
monks as they passed through the open doors of the Basilica intoning the
praises of God.

"They're lifting him on to a car," said the American.

"David Rossi?"

"Yes; he is going to speak."

"How delightful! Shall we hear him? Good! How glad I am that I came! He
is facing this way! Oh, yes; those are his own people with the banners!
Baron, the Holy Father has gone on to St. Peter's, and David Rossi is
going to speak."

"Hush!"

A quivering, vibrating voice came up from below, and in a moment there
was a dead silence.


                                VII

"Brothers, when Christ Himself was on the earth going up to Jerusalem,
He rode on the colt of an ass, and the blind and the lame and the sick
came to Him, and He healed them. Humanity is sick and blind and lame
to-day, brothers, but the Vicar of Christ goes on."

At the words an audible murmur came from the crowd, such as goes before
the clapping of hands in a Roman theatre, a great upheaval of the heart
of the audience to the actor who has touched and stirred it.

"Brothers, in a little Eastern village a long time ago, there arose
among the poor and lowly a great Teacher, and the only prayer He taught
His followers was the prayer 'Our Father who art in Heaven.' It was the
expression of man's utmost need, the expression of man's utmost hope.
And not only did the Teacher teach that prayer--He lived according to
the light of it. All men were His brothers, all women His sisters; He
was poor, He had no home, no purse, and no second coat; when He was
smitten He did not smite back, and when He was unjustly accused He did
not defend Himself. Nineteen hundred years have passed since then,
brothers, and the Teacher who arose among the poor and lowly is now a
great Prophet. All the world knows and honours Him, and civilised
nations have built themselves upon the religion He founded. A great
Church calls itself by His name, and a mighty kingdom, known as
Christendom, owes allegiance to His faith. But what of His teaching? He
said: 'Resist not evil,' yet all Christian nations maintain standing
armies. He said: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' yet
the wealthiest men are Christian men, and the richest organisation in
the world is the Christian Church. He said: 'Our Father who art in
Heaven,' yet men who ought to be brothers are divided into states, and
hate each other as enemies. He said: 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
on earth as it is done in Heaven,' yet he who believes it ever will come
is called a fanatic and a fool."

Some murmurs of dissent were drowned in cries of "Go on!" "Speak!"
"Silence!"

"Foremost and grandest of the teachings of Christ are two inseparable
truths--the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. But in Italy,
as elsewhere, the people are starved that king may contend with king,
and when we appeal to the Pope to protest in the name of the Prince of
Peace, he remembers his temporalities and passes on!"

At these words the emotion of the crowd broke into loud shouts of
approval, with which some groans were mingled.

Roma had turned her face aside from the speaker, and her profile was
changed--the gay, sprightly, airy, radiant look had given way to a
serious, almost a melancholy expression.

"We have two sovereigns in Rome, brothers, a great State and a great
Church, with a perishing people. We have soldiers enough to kill us,
priests enough to tell us how to die, but no one to show us how to
live."

"Corruption! Corruption!"

"Corruption indeed, brothers; and who is there among us to whom the
corruptions of our rulers are unknown? Who cannot point to the wars made
that should not have been made? to the banks broken that should not have
broken? And who in Rome cannot point to the Ministers who allow their
mistresses to meddle in public affairs and enrich themselves by the ruin
of all around?"

The little Princess on the balcony was twisting about.

"What! Are you deserting us, Roma?"

And Roma answered from within the house, in a voice that sounded strange
and muffled:

"It was cold on the balcony, I think."

The little Princess laughed a bitter laugh, and David Rossi heard it and
misunderstood it, and his nostrils quivered like the nostrils of a
horse, and when he spoke again his voice shook with passion.

"Who has not seen the splendid equipages of these privileged ones of
fortune--their gorgeous liveries of scarlet and gold--emblems of the
acid which is eating into the public organs? Has Providence raised this
country from the dead only to be dizzied in a whirlpool of scandal,
hypocrisy, and fraud--only to fall a prey to an infamous traffic without
a name between high officials of low desires and women whose reputations
are long since lost? It is men and women like these who destroy their
country for their own selfish ends. Very well, let them destroy her; but
before they do so, let them hear what one of her children says: The
Government you are building up on the whitened bones of the people shall
be overthrown--the King who countenances you, and the Pope who will not
condemn you, shall be overthrown, and then--and not till then--will the
nation be free."

At this there was a terrific clamour. The square resounded with confused
voices. "Bravo!" "Dog!" "Dog's murderer!" "Traitor!" "Long live David
Rossi!" "Down with the Vampire!"

The ladies had fled from the balcony back to the room with cries of
alarm. "There will be a riot." "The man is inciting the people to
rebellion!" "This house will be first to be attacked!"

"Calm yourselves, ladies. No harm shall come to you," said the Baron,
and he rang the bell.

There came from below a babel of shouts and screams.

"Madonna mia! What is that?" cried the Princess, wringing her hands; and
the American Ambassador, who had remained on the balcony, said:

"The Carabineers have charged the crowd and arrested David Rossi."

"Thank God!"

"They're going through the Borgo," said Don Camillo, "and kicking and
cuffing and jostling and hustling all the way."

"Don't be alarmed! There's the Hospital of Santo Spirito round the
corner, and stations of the Red Cross Society everywhere," said the
Baron, and then Felice answered the bell.

"See our friends out by the street at the back, Felice. Good-bye,
ladies! Have no fear! The Government does not mean to blunt the weapons
it uses against the malefactors who insult the doctrines of the State."

"Excellent Minister!" said the Princess. "Such canaglia are not fit to
have their liberty, and I would lock them all up in prison."

And then Don Camillo offered his arm to the little lady with the white
plumes, and they came almost face to face with Roma, who was standing by
the door hung with curtains, fanning herself with her handkerchief, and
parting from the English Ambassador.

"Donna Roma," he was saying, "if I can ever be of use to you, either now
or in the future, I beg of you to command me."

"Look at her!" whispered the Princess. "How agitated she is! A moment
ago she was finding it cold in the Loggia! I'm so happy!"

At the next instant she ran up to Roma and kissed her. "Poor child! How
sorry I am! You have my sympathy, my dear! But didn't I tell you the man
was a public nuisance, and ought to be put down by the police?"

"Shameful, isn't it?" said Don Camillo. "Calumny is a little wind, but
it raises such a terrible tempest."

"Nobody likes to be talked about," said the Princess, "especially in
Rome, where it is the end of everything."

"But what matter? Perhaps the young man has learned freedom of speech in
a free country!" said Don Camillo.

"And then he is so interesting and so handsome," said the Princess.

Roma made no answer. There was a slight drooping of the lovely eyes and
a trembling of the lips and nostrils. For a moment she stood absolutely
impassive, and then with a flash of disdain she flung round into the
inner room.


                                VIII

Roma had taken refuge in the council-room. There had been much business
that morning, and a copy of the constitutional statute lay open on a
large table, which had a plate-glass top with photographs under the
surface.

In this passionless atmosphere, so little accustomed to such scenes,
Roma sat in her wounded pride and humiliation, with her head down, and
her beautiful white hands over her face.

She heard measured footsteps approaching, and then a hand touched her on
the shoulder. She looked up and drew back as if the touch stung her. Her
lips closed sternly, and she got up and began to walk about the room,
and then she burst into a torrent of anger.

"Did you hear them? The cats! How they loved to claw me, and still purr
and purr! Before the sun is set the story will be all over Rome! It has
run off already on the hoofs of that woman's English horses. To-morrow
morning it will be in every newspaper in the kingdom. Olga and Lena and
every woman of them all who lives in a glass house will throw stones.
'The new Pompadour! Who is she?' Oh, I could die of vexation and shame!"

The Baron leaned against the table and listened, twisting the ends of
his moustache.

"The Court will turn its back on me now. They only wanted a good excuse
to put their humiliations upon me. It's horrible! I can't bear it. I
won't. I tell you, I won't!"

But the lips, compressed with scorn, began to quiver visibly, and she
threw herself into a chair, took out her handkerchief, and hid her face
on the table.

At that moment Felice came into the room to say that the Commendatore
Angelelli had returned and wished to speak with his Excellency.

"I will see him presently," said the Baron, with an impassive
expression, and Felice went out silently, as one who had seen nothing.

The Baron's calm dignity was wounded. "Be so good as to have some regard
for me in the presence of my servants," he said. "I understand your
feelings, but you are much too excited to see things in their proper
light. You have been publicly insulted and degraded, but you must not
talk to me as if it were my fault."

"Then whose is it? If it is not your fault, whose fault is it?" she
said, and the Baron thought her red eyes flashed up at him with an
expression of hate. He took the blow full in the face, but made no
reply, and his silence broke her answer.

"No, no, that was too bad," she said, and she reached over to him, and
he kissed her and then sat down beside her and took her hand and held
it. At the next moment her brilliant eyes had filled with tears and her
head was down and the hot drops were falling on to the back of his hand.

"I suppose it is all over," she said.

"Don't say that," he answered. "We don't know what a day may bring
forth. Before long I may have it in my power to silence every slander
and justify you in the eyes of all."

At that she raised her head with a smile and seemed to look beyond the
Baron at something in the vague distance, while the glass top of the
table, which had been clouded by her breath, cleared gradually, and
revealed a large house almost hidden among trees. It was a photograph of
the Baron's castle in the Alban hills.

"Only," continued the Baron, "you must get rid of that man Bruno."

"I will discharge him this very day--I will! I will! I will!"

There was an intense bitterness in the thought that what David Rossi had
said must have come of what her own servant told him--that Bruno had
watched her in her own house day by day, and that time after time the
two men had discussed her between them.

"I could kill him," she said.

"Bruno Rocco?"

"No, David Rossi."

"Have patience; he shall be punished," said the Baron.

"How?"

"He shall be put on his trial."

"What for?"

"Sedition. The law allows a man to say what he will about a Prime
Minister, but he must not foretell the overthrow of the King. The fellow
has gone too far at last. He shall go to Santo Stefano."

"What good will that do?"

"He will be silenced--and crushed."

She looked at the Baron with a sidelong smile, and something in her
heart, which she did not understand, made her laugh at him.

"Do you imagine you can crush a man like that by trying and condemning
him?" she said. "He has insulted and humiliated me, but I'm not silly
enough to deceive myself. Try him, condemn him, and he will be greater
in his prison than the King on his throne."

The Baron twisted the ends of his moustache again.

"Besides," she said, "what benefit will it be to me if you put him on
trial for inciting the people to rebellion against the King? The public
will say it was for insulting yourself, and everybody will think he was
punished for telling the truth."

The Baron continued to twist the ends of his moustache.

"Benefit!" She laughed ironically. "It will be a double injury. The
insult will be repeated in public again and again. First the advocate
for the crown will read it aloud, then the advocate for the defence will
quote it, and then it will be discussed and dissected and telegraphed
until everybody in court knows it by heart and all Europe has heard of
it."

The Baron made no answer, but watched the beautiful face, now very pale,
behind which conflicting thoughts seemed to wriggle like a knot of
vipers. Suddenly she leaped up with a spring.

"I know!" she cried. "I know! I know! I know!"

"Well?"

"Give the man to me, and I will show you how to escape from this
humiliating situation."

"Roma?" said the Baron, but he had read her thought already.

"If you punish him for this speech you will injure both of us and do no
good to the King."

"It's true."

"Take him in a serious conspiracy, and you will be doing us no harm and
the King some service."

"No doubt."

"You say there is a mystery about David Rossi, and you want to know who
he is, who his father was, and where he spent the years he was away from
Rome."

"I would certainly give a good deal to know."

"You want to know what vile refugee in London filled him with his
fancies, what conspiracies he is hatching, what secret societies he
belongs to, and, above all, what his plans and schemes are, and whether
he is in league with the Vatican."

She spoke so rapidly that the words sputtered out of her quivering lips.

"Well?"

"Well, I will find it all out for you."

"My dear Roma!"

"Leave him to me, and within a month you shall know"--she laughed, a
little ashamed--"the inmost secrets of his soul."

She was walking to and fro again, to prevent the Baron from looking into
her face, which was now red over its white, like a rose moon in a stormy
sky.

The Baron thought. "She is going to humble the man by her charms--to
draw him on and then fling him away, and thus pay him back for what he
has done to-day. So much the better for me if I may stand by and do
nothing. A strong Minister should be unmoved by personal attacks. He
should appear to regard them with contempt."

He looked at her, and the brilliancy of her eyes set his heart on fire.
The terrible attraction of her face at that moment stirred in him the
only love he had for her. At the same time it awakened the first spasm
of jealousy.

"I understand you, Roma," he said. "You are splendid! You are
irresistible! But remember--the man is one of the incorruptible."

She laughed.

"No woman who has yet crossed his path seems to have touched him, and it
is the pride of all such men that no woman ever can."

"I've seen him," she said.

"Take care! As you say, he is young and handsome."

She tossed her head and laughed again.

The Baron thought: "Certainly he has wounded her in a way no woman can
forgive."

"And what about Bruno?" he said.

"He shall stay," she answered. "Such men are easy enough to manage."

"You wish me to liberate David Rossi and leave you to deal with him?"

"I do! Oh, for the day when I can turn the laugh against him as he has
turned the laugh against me! At the top of his hopes, at the height of
his ambitions, at the moment when he says to himself, 'It is done'--he
shall fall."

The Baron touched the bell. "Very well!" he said. "One can sometimes
catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a hogshead of
vinegar. We shall see."

A moment later the Chief of Police entered the room. "The Honourable
Rossi is safely lodged in prison," he said.

"Commendatore," said the Baron, pointing to the book lying open on the
table, "I have been looking again at the statute, and now I am satisfied
that a Deputy can be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament alone."

"But, Excellency, if he is taken in the act, according to the
forty-fifth article, the parliamentary immunity ceases."

"Commendatore, I have given you my opinion, and now it is my wish that
the Honourable David Rossi should be set at liberty."

"Excellency!"

"Be so good as to liberate him instantly, and let your officers see him
safely through the streets to his home in the Piazza Navona."

The little head like a hen's went down like a hatchet, and Commendatore
Angelelli backed out of the room.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------




                        PART TWO--THE REPUBLIC OF MAN


                                    I

The Piazza Navona is the heart and soul of old Rome. In other quarters
of the living city you feel tempted to ask: "Is this London?" or, "Is
this Paris?" or, "Is this New York or Berlin?" but in the Piazza Navona
you can only tell yourself, "This is Rome!"

In an apartment-house of the Piazza Navona, David Rossi had lived during
the seven years since he became Member of Parliament for Rome. The
ground floor is a Trattoria, half eating-house and half wine-shop, with
rude frescoes on its distempered walls, representing the Bay of Naples
with Vesuvius in eruption. A passage running by the side of the
Trattoria leads to the apartments overhead, and at the foot of the
staircase there is a porter's lodge, a closet always lighted by a lamp,
which burns down the dark passage day and night, like a bloodshot eye.

In this lodge lived a veteran Garibaldian, in his red shirt and pork-pie
hat, with his old wife, wrinkled like a turkey, and wearing a red
handkerchief over her head, fastened by a silver pin. David Rossi's
apartments consisted of three rooms on the fourth floor, two to the
front, the third to the back, and a lead flat opening out of them on to
the roof.

In one of the front rooms on the afternoon of the Pope's Jubilee, a
young woman sat knitting with an open book on her lap, while a boy of
six knelt by her side, and pretended to learn his lesson. She was a
comely but timid creature, with liquid eyes and a soft voice, and he was
a shock-headed little giant, like the cub of a young lion.

"Go on, Joseph," said the woman, pointing with her knitting-needle to
the line on the page. "'And it came to pass....'"

But Joseph's little eyes were peering first at the clock on the
mantel-piece, and then out at the window and down the square.

"Didn't you say they were to be here at two, mamma?"

"Yes, dear. Mr. Rossi was to be set free immediately, and papa, who ran
home with the good news, has gone back to fetch him."

"Oh! 'And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the Valley
of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came
unto her, and said unto her, Entice him and see wherein his great
strength lieth....' But, mamma...."

"Go on with your lesson, Joseph. 'And she made him sleep....'"

"'And she made him sleep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and
she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head....'"

At that moment there came a knock at the door, whereupon the boy uttered
a cry of delight, and with a radiant face went plunging and shouting out
of the room.

"Uncle David! It's Uncle David!"

The tumultuous voice rolled like baby thunder through the apartment
until it reached the door, and then it dropped to a dead silence.

"Who is it, Joseph?"

"A gentleman," said the boy.


                                II

It was the fashionable young Roman with the watchful eyes and twirled-up
moustache, who had stood by the old Frenchman's carriage in the Piazza
of St. Peter.

"I wish to speak with Mr. Rossi. I bring him an important message from
abroad. He is coming along with the people, but to make sure of an
interview I hurried ahead. May I wait?"

"Certainly! Come in, sir! You say he is coming? Yes? Then he is free?"

The woman's liquid eyes were glistening visibly, and the man's watchful
ones seemed to notice everything.

"Yes, madam, he is free. I saw him arrested, and I also saw him set at
liberty."

"Really? Then you can tell me all about it? That's good! I have heard so
little of all that happened, and my boy and I have not been able to
think of anything else. Sit down, sir!"

"As the police were taking him to the station-house in the Borgo," said
the stranger, "the people made an attempt to rescue him, and it seemed
as if they must certainly have succeeded if it had not been for his own
intervention."

"He stopped them, didn't he? I'm sure he stopped them!"

"He did. The delegate had given his three warnings, and the Brigadier
was on the point of ordering his men to fire, when the prisoner threw up
his hands before the crowd."

"I knew it! Well?"

"'Brothers,' he said, 'let no blood be shed for my sake. We are in God's
hands. Go home!'"

"How like him! And then, sir?"

"Then the crowd broke up like a bubble, and the officer who was in
charge of him uncovered his head. 'Room for the Honourable Rossi!' he
cried, and the prisoner went into the prison."

The liquid eyes were running over by this time, and the soft voice was
trembling: "You say you saw him set at liberty?"

"Yes! I was in the public service myself until lately, so they allowed
me to enter the police station, and when the order for release came I
was present and heard all. 'Deputy,' said the officer, 'I have the
honour to inform you that you are free.' 'But before I go I must say
something,' said the Deputy. 'My only orders are that you are to be set
at liberty,' said the officer. 'Nevertheless, I must see the Minister,'
said Mr. Rossi. But the crowd had pressed in and surrounded him, and in
a moment the flood had carried him out into the street, with shouts and
the waving of hats and a whirlwind of enthusiasm. And now he is being
drawn by force through the city in a mad, glad, wild procession."

"But he deserves it all, and more--far, far more!"

The stranger looked at the woman's beaming eyes, and said, "You are not
his wife--no?"

"Oh, no! I'm only the wife of one of his friends," she answered.

"But you live here?"

"We live in the rooms on the roof."

"Perhaps you keep house for the Deputy?"

"Yes--that is to say--yes, we keep house for Mr. Rossi."

At that moment the room, which had been gloomy, was suddenly lighted by
a shaft of sunshine, and there came from some unseen place a musical
noise like the rippling of waters in a fountain.

"It's the birds," said the woman, and she threw open a window that was
also a door and led to a flat roof on which some twenty or thirty
canaries were piping and shrilling their little swollen throats in a
gigantic bird-cage.

"Mr. Rossi's?"

"Yes, and he is fond of animals also--dogs and cats and rabbits and
squirrels, especially squirrels."

"Squirrels?"

"He has a grey one in a cage on the roof now. But he is not like some
people who love animals--he loves children, too. He loves all children,
and as for Joseph...."

"The little boy who cried 'Uncle David' at the door?"

"Yes, sir. One day my husband said 'Uncle David' to Mr. Rossi, and he
has been Uncle David to my little Joseph ever since."

"This is the dining-room, no doubt," said the stranger.

"Unfortunately, yes, sir."

"Why unfortunately?"

"Because here is the hall, and here is the table, and there's not even a
curtain between, and the moment the door is opened he is exposed to
everybody. People know it, too, and they take advantage. He would give
the chicken off his plate if he hadn't anything else. I have to scold
him a little sometimes--I can't help it. And as for father, he says he
has doubled his days in purgatory by the lies he tells, turning people
away."

"That will be his bedroom, I suppose," said the stranger, indicating a
door which the boy had passed through.

"No, sir, his sitting-room. That is where he receives his colleagues in
Parliament, and his fellow-journalists, and his electors and printers
and so forth. Come in, sir."

The walls were covered with portraits of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth,
Lincoln, Washington, and Cromwell, and the room, which had been
furnished originally with chairs covered in chintz, was loaded with
incongruous furniture.

"Joseph, you've been naughty again! My little boy is all for being a
porter, sir. He has got the butt-end of his father's fishing-rod, you
see, and torn his handkerchief into shreds to make a tassel for his
mace." Then with a sweep of the arm, "All presents, sir. He gets
presents from all parts of the world. The piano is from England, but
nobody plays, so it is never opened; the books are from Germany, and the
bronze is from France, but the strangest thing of all, sir, is this."

"A phonograph?"

"It was most extraordinary. A week ago a cylinder came from the island
of Elba."

"Elba? From some prisoner, perhaps?"

"'A dying man's message,' Mr. Rossi called it. 'We must save up for an
instrument to reproduce it, Sister,' he said. But, look you, the very
next day the carriers brought the phonograph."

"And then he reproduced the message?"

"I don't know--I never asked. He often turns on a cylinder to amuse the
boy, but I never knew him try that one. This is the bedroom, sir; you
may come in."

It was a narrow room, very bright and lightsome, with its white
counterpane, white bed curtains, and white veil over the looking-glass
to keep it from the flies.

"How sweet!" said the stranger.

"It would be but for these," said the woman, and she pointed to the
other end of the room, where a desk stood between two windows, amid
heaps of unopened newspapers, which lay like fishes as they fall from
the herring net.

"I presume this is a present also?" said the stranger. He had taken from
the desk a dagger with a lapis-lazuli handle, and was trying its edge on
his finger-nail.

"Yes, sir, and he has turned it to account as a paper-knife. A
six-chamber revolver came yesterday, but he had no use for that, so he
threw it aside, and it lies under the newspapers."

"And who is this?" said the stranger. He was looking at a faded picture
in an ebony frame which hung by the side of the bed. It was the portrait
of an old man with a beautiful forehead and a patriarchal face.

"Some friend of Mr. Rossi's in England, I think."

"An English photograph, certainly, but the face seems to me Roman for
all that."

At that moment a thousand lusty voices burst on the air, as a great
crowd came pouring out of the narrow lanes into the broad piazza. At
the same instant the boy shouted from the adjoining room, and another
voice that made the walls vibrate came from the direction of the door.

"They're coming! It's my husband! Bruno!" said the woman, and the ripple
of her dress told the stranger she had gone.


                                III

Laughing, crying, cheering, chaffing, singing, David Rossi's people had
brought him home in triumph, and now they were crowding upon him to kiss
his hand, the big-hearted, baby-headed, beloved children of Italy.

The object of this aurora of worship stood with his back to the table in
the dining-room, looking down and a little ashamed, while Bruno Rocco,
six feet three in his stockings, hoisted the boy on to his shoulder, and
shouted as from a tower to everybody as they entered by the door:

"Come in, sonny, come in! Don't stand there like the Pope between the
devil and the deep sea. Come in among the people," and Bruno's laughter
rocked through the room to where the crowd stood thick on the staircase.

"The Baron has had a lesson," said a man with a sheet of white paper in
his hand. "He dreamed of getting the Collar of the Annunziata out of
this."

"The pig dreamed of acorns," said Bruno.

"It's a lesson to the Church as well," said the man with the paper. "She
wouldn't have anything to do with us. 'I alone strike the hour of the
march,' says the Church."

"And then she stands still!" said Bruno.

"The mountains stand still, but men are made to walk," said the man with
the paper, "and if the Pope doesn't advance with the people, the people
must advance without the Pope."

"The Pope's all right, sonny," said Bruno, "but what does he know about
the people? Only what his black-gowned beetles tell him!"

"The Pope has no wife and children," said the man with the paper.

"Old Vampire could find him a few," said Bruno, and then there was
general laughter.

"Brothers," said David Rossi, "let us be temperate. There's nothing to
be gained by playing battledore and shuttlecock with the name of an old
man who has never done harm to any one. The Pope hasn't listened to us
to-day, but he is a saint all the same, and his life has been a lesson
in well-doing."

"Anybody can sail with a fair wind, sir," said Bruno.

"Let us be prudent. There's no need for violence, whether of the hand or
of the tongue. You've found that out this morning. If you had rescued me
from the police, I should have been in prison again by this time, and
God knows what else might have happened. I'm proud of your patience and
forbearance; and now go home, boys, and God bless you."

"Stop a minute!" said the man with the paper. "Something to read before
we go. While the Carabineers kept Mr. Rossi in the Borgo, the Committee
of Direction met in a café and drew up a proclamation."

"Read it, Luigi," said David Rossi, and the man opened his paper and
read:

"Having appealed in vain to Parliament and to the King against the
tyrannical tax which the Government has imposed upon bread in order that
the army and navy may be increased, and having appealed in vain to the
Pope to intercede with the civil authorities, and call back Italy to its
duty, it now behoves us, as a suffering and perishing people, to act on
our own behalf. Unless annulled by royal decree, the tax will come into
operation on the 1st of February. On that day let every Roman remain
indoors until an hour after Ave Maria. Let nobody buy so much as one
loaf of bread, and let no bread be eaten, except such as you give to
your children. Then, at the first hour of night, let us meet in the
Coliseum, tens of thousands of fasting people, of one mind and heart, to
determine what it is our duty to do next, that our bread may be sure and
our water may not fail."

"Good!" "Beautiful!" "Splendid!"

"Only wants the signature of the president," said the reader, and Bruno
called for pen and ink.

"Before I sign it," said Rossi, "let it be understood that none come
armed. There is nothing our enemies would like better than to fix on us
the names of rioters and rebels. We must defeat them. We must show the
world that we alone are the people of law and order. Therefore I call on
you to promise that none come armed."

"We promise," cried several voices.

"And now go home, boys, and God bless you."

After a moment there was only one man left in the room. It was the
fashionable young Roman with the watchful eyes and twirled-up moustache.

"For you, sir!" said the young man, taking a letter from a pocket inside
his waistcoat.

David Rossi opened the letter and read: "The bearer of this, Charles
Minghelli, is one of ourselves. He has determined upon the
accomplishment of a great act, and wishes to see you with respect to
it."

"You come from London?"

"Yes, sir."

"You wish to speak to me?"

"I do."

"You may speak freely."

The young man glanced in the direction of Bruno and of Bruno's wife, who
stood beside him.

"It is a delicate matter, sir," he said.

"Come this way," said David Rossi, and he took the stranger into his
bedroom.


                                IV

David Rossi took his seat at the desk between the windows, and made a
sign to the man to take a chair that stood near.

"Your name is Charles Minghelli?" said David Rossi.

"Yes. I have come to propose a dangerous enterprise."

"What is it?"

"That somebody on behalf of the people should take the law into his own
hands."

The man had spoken with perfect calmness, and after a moment of silence
David Rossi replied as calmly:

"I will ask you to explain what you mean."

The man smiled, made a deferential gesture, and answered, "You will
permit me to speak plainly?"

"Certainly."

"Thanks! I have read your Creed and Charter. I have even signed my name
to it. It is beautiful as a theory--most beautiful! And the Republic of
Man is beautiful too. Beautiful!"

"Well?"

"But more beautiful than practical, dear sir, and the ideal thread that
runs through your plan will break the moment the rough world begins to
tug at it."

"I will ask you to be more precise," said David Rossi.

"With pleasure. You have called a meeting in the Coliseum to protest
against the bread-tax. What if the Government prohibits it? Your
principle of passive resistance will not permit you to rebel, and
without the right of public meeting your association is powerless. Then
where are you?"

David Rossi had taken up his paper-knife dagger and was drawing lines
with the point of it on the letter of introduction which now lay open on
the desk. The man saw the impression he had produced, and went on with
more vigour.

"If the Governments of the world deny you the right of meeting, where
are your weapons of warfare? On the one side armies on armies of men
marshalled and equipped with all the arts and engines of war; on the
other side a helpless multitude with their hands in their pockets, or
paying a penny a week subscription to the great association that is to
overcome by passive suffering the power of the combined treasuries of
the world!"

David Rossi had risen from his seat, and was walking backward and
forward with a step that was long and slow.

"Well, and what do _you_ say we ought to do?" he said.

A flash came from the man's eyes, and he said in a thick voice:

"Remove the one man in Rome whose hand crushes the nation."

"The Prime Minister?"

"Yes."

There was silence.

"You expect me to do that?"

"No! I will do it for you.... Why not? If violence is wrong, it is right
to resist violence."

David Rossi returned to his seat at the desk, touched the letter of
introduction, and said:

"That is the great act referred to in this letter from London?"

"Yes."

"Why do you come to me?" he said.

"Because you can help me to accomplish this act. You are a Member of
Parliament, and can give me cards to the Chamber. You can show me the
way to the Prime Minister's room in Monte Citorio, and tell me the
moment when he is to be found alone."

"I do not deny that the Prime Minister deserves death."

"A thousand deaths, sir, and everybody would hail them with delight."

"I do not deny that his death would be a relief to the people."

"On the day he dies, sir, the people will live."

"Or that crimes--great crimes--have been the means of bringing about
great reforms."

"You are right, sir--but it would be no crime."

The stranger's face flushed up, his eyes seemed to burn, and he leaned
over to the desk and took up the dagger.

"See! Give me this! It's exactly what I want. I'll put it in a bouquet
of flowers, and pretend to offer them. Only a way to do it, sir! Say the
word--may I take it?"

"But the man who assumes such a mission," said David Rossi, "must know
himself free from every thought of personal vengeance."

The dagger trembled in the stranger's hand.

"He must be prepared to realise the futility of what he has done--to
know that even when he succeeds he only changes the persons, not the
things; the actors, not the parts."

The man stood like one who had been stunned, with his mouth partly open,
and balancing the dagger on one hand.

"More than that," said David Rossi; "he must be prepared to be told by
every true friend of freedom that the man who uses force is not worthy
of liberty--that the conflict of intellects alone is human, and to fight
otherwise is to be on the level of the brute."

The man threw the dagger back on the desk and laughed.

"I knew you talked like that to the people--statesmen do
sometimes--that's all right--it's pretty, and it keeps the people
quiet--but _we_...."

David Rossi rose with a sovereign dignity, but he only said:

"Mr. Minghelli, our interview is at an end."

"So you dismiss me?"

"I do," said David Rossi. "It is such men as you who put back the
progress of the world and make it possible for the upholders of
authority to describe our efforts as devilish machinations for the
destruction of all order, human and divine. Besides that, you speak as
one who has not only a perverted political sentiment, but a personal
quarrel against an enemy."

The man faced round sharply, came back with a quick step, and said:

"You say I speak as one who has a personal quarrel with the Prime
Minister. Perhaps I have! I heard your speech this morning about his
mistress, with her livery of scarlet and gold. You meant the woman who
is known as Donna Roma Volonna. What if I tell you she is not a Volonna
at all, but a girl the Minister picked up in the streets of London, and
has palmed off on Rome as the daughter of a noble house, because he is a
liar and a cheat?"

David Rossi gave a start, as if an invisible hand had smitten him.

"Her name is Roma, certainly," said the man; "that was the first thing
that helped me to seize the mysterious thread."

David Rossi's face grew pale, and he scarcely breathed.

"Oh, I'm not talking without proof," said the man. "I was at the Embassy
in London ten years ago when the Ambassador was consulted by the police
authorities about an Italian girl who had been found at night in
Leicester Square. Mother dead, father gone back to Italy--she had been
living with some people her father gave her to as a child, but had
turned out badly and run away."

David Rossi had fixed his eyes on the stranger with a kind of glassy
stare.

"I went with the Ambassador to Bow Street, and saw the girl in the
magistrate's office. She pleaded that she had been ill-treated, but we
didn't believe her story, and gave her back to her guardians. A month
later we heard that she had run away once more and disappeared
entirely."

David Rossi was breathing audibly, and shrinking like an old man into
his shoulders.

"I never saw that girl again until a week ago, and where do you think I
saw her?"

David Rossi swallowed his saliva, and said:

"Where?"

"In Rome. I had trouble at the Embassy, and came back to appeal to the
Prime Minister. Everybody said I must reach him through Donna Roma, and
one of my relatives took me to her rooms. The moment I set eyes on her
I knew who she was. Donna Roma Volonna is the girl Roma Roselli, who was
lost in the streets of London."

David Rossi seemed suddenly to grow taller.

"You scoundrel!" he said, in a voice that was hollow and choked.

The man staggered back and stammered:

"Why ... what...."

"I knew that girl. Until she was seven years of age she was my constant
companion--she was the same as my sister--and her father was the same as
my father--and if you tell me she is the mistress.... You infamous
wretch! You calumniator! You villain! I could confound you with one
word, but I won't. Out of my house this moment! And if ever you cross my
path again I'll denounce you to the police as a cut-throat and an
assassin."

Stunned and stupefied, the man opened the door and fled.


                                V

David Rossi came out with his long slow step, looking pale but calm, and
tearing a letter into small pieces, which he threw into the fire.

"What was amiss, sir? They could hear you across the street," said
Bruno.

"A man whose room was better than his company, that's all."

"What's his name?" said Bruno.

"Charles Minghelli."

"Why, that must be the secretary who was suspected of forgery at the
Embassy in London, and got dismissed."

"I thought as much!" said David Rossi. "No doubt the man attributed his
dismissal to the Prime Minister, and wanted to use me for his private
revenge."

"That was his game, was it? Why didn't you let me know, sir? He would
have gone downstairs like a falling star. Now that I remember, he's the
nephew of old Polomba, the Mayor, and I've seen him at Donna Roma's."

A waiter in a white smock, with a large tin box on his head, entered the
hall, and behind him came the old woman from the porter's lodge, with
the wrinkled face and the red cotton handkerchief.

"Come in," cried Bruno. "I ordered the best dinner in the Trattoria,
sir, and thought we might perhaps dine together for once."

"Good," said David Rossi.

"Here it is, a whole basketful of the grace of God, sir! Out with it,
Riccardo," and while the women laid the table, Bruno took the dishes
smoking hot from their temporary oven with its charcoal fire.

"Artichokes--good. Chicken--good again. I must be a fox--I was dreaming
of chicken all last night! _Gnocchi!_ (potatoes and flour baked).
_Agradolce!_ (sour and sweet). _Fagioletti!_ (French beans boiled)
and--a half-flask of Chianti! Who said the son of my mother couldn't
order a dinner? All right, Riccardo; come back at Ave Maria."

The waiter went off, and the company sat down to their meal, Bruno and
his wife at either end of the table, and David Rossi on the sofa, with
the boy on his right, and the cat curled up into his side on the left,
while the old woman stood in front, serving the food and removing the
plates.

"Look at him!" said the old woman, who was deaf, pointing to David
Rossi, with his two neighbours. "Now, why doesn't the Blessed Virgin
give him a child of his own?"

"She has, mother, and here he is," said David Rossi.

"You'll let her give him a woman first, won't you?" said Bruno.

"Ah! that will never be," said David Rossi.

"What does he say?" said the old woman with her hand at her ear like a
shell.

"He says he won't have any of you," bawled Bruno.

"What an idea! But I've heard men say that before, and they've been
married sooner than you could say 'Hail Mary.'"

"It isn't an incident altogether unknown in the history of this planet,
is it, mother?" said Bruno.

"A heart to share your sorrows and joys is something, and the man is not
wise who wastes the chance of it," said the old woman. "Does he think
parliaments will make up for it when he grows old and wants something to
comfort him?"

"Hush, mother!" said Elena, but Bruno made mouths at her to let the old
woman go on.

"As for me, I'll want somebody of my own about me to close my eyes when
the time comes to put the sacred oil on them," said the old woman.

"If a man has dedicated his life to work for humanity," said David
Rossi, "he must give up many things--father, mother, wife, child."

The corner of Elena's apron crept up to the corner of her eye, but the
old woman, who thought the subject had changed, laughed and said:

"That's just what I say to Tommaso. 'Tommaso,' I say, 'if a man is going
to be a policeman he must have no father, or mother, or wife, or
child--no, nor bowels neither,' I say. And Tommaso says, 'Francesca,' he
says, 'the whole tribe of gentry they call statesmen are just policemen
in plain clothes, and I do believe they've only liberated Mr. Rossi as a
trap to catch him again when he has done something.'"

"They won't catch _you_ though, will they, mother?" shouted Bruno.

"That they won't! I'm deaf, praise the saints, and can't hear them."

A knock came to the door, and seizing his mace the boy ran and opened
it. An old man stood on the threshold. He was one of David Rossi's
pensioners. Ninety years of age, his children all dead, he lived with
his grandchildren, and was one of the poor human rats who stay indoors
all day and come out with a lantern at night to scour the gutters of the
city for the refuse of cigar-ends.

"Come another night, John," said Bruno.

But David Rossi would not send him away empty, and he was going off with
the sparkling eyes of a boy, when he said:

"I heard you in the piazza this morning, Excellency! Grand! Only sorry
for one thing."

"And what was that, sonny?" asked Bruno.

"What his Excellency said about Donna Roma. She gave me a half-franc
only yesterday--stopped the carriage to do it, sir."

"So that's your only reason...." began Bruno.

"Good reason, too. Good-night, John!" said David Rossi, and Joseph
closed the door.

"Oh, she has her virtues, like every other kind of spider," said Bruno.

"I'm sorry I spoke of her," said David Rossi.

"You needn't be, though. She deserved all she got. I haven't been two
years in her studio without knowing what she is."

"It was the man I was thinking of, and if I had remembered that the
woman must suffer...."

"Tut! She'll have to make her Easter confession a little earlier, that's
all."

"If she hadn't laughed when I was speaking...."

"You're on the wrong track now, sir. That wasn't Donna Roma. It was the
little Princess Bellini. She is always stretching her neck and
screeching like an old gandery goose."

Dinner was now over, and the boy called for the phonograph. David Rossi
went into the sitting-room to fetch it, and Elena went in at the same
time to light the fire. She was kneeling with her back to him, blowing
on to the wood, when she said in a trembling voice:

"I'm a little sorry myself, sir, if I may say so. I can't believe what
they say about the mistress, but even if it's true we don't know _her_
story, do we?"

Then the phonograph was turned on, and Joseph marched to the tune of
"Swannee River" and the strains of Sousa's band.

"Mr. Rossi," said Bruno, between a puff and a blow.

"Yes?"

"Have you tried the cylinder that came first?"

"Not yet."

"How's that, sir?"

"The man who brought it said the friend who had spoken into it was
dead." And then with a shiver, "It would be like a voice from the
grave--I doubt if I dare hear it."

"Like a ghost speaking to a man, certainly--especially if the friend was
a close one."

"He was the closest friend I ever had, Bruno--he was my father."

"Father?"

"Foster-father, anyway. For four years he clothed and fed and educated
me, and I was the same as his own son."

"Had he no children of his own?"

"One little daughter, no bigger than Joseph when I saw her last--Roma."

"Roma?"

"Yes, her father was a Liberal, and her name was Roma."

"What became of her?"

"When the doctor came to Italy on the errand which ended in his
imprisonment he gave her into the keeping of some Italian friends in
London. I was too young to take charge of her then. Besides, I left
England shortly afterward and went to America."

"Where is she now?" said Elena.

"When I returned to England ... she was dead."

"Well, there's nothing new under the sun of Rome--Donna Roma came from
London," said Bruno.

David Rossi felt the muscles of his face quiver.

"Her father was an exile in England, too, and when he came back on the
errand that ended in Elba, he gave her away to some people who treated
her badly--I've heard old Teapot, the Countess, say so when she's been
nagging her poor niece."

David Rossi breathed painfully.

"Strange if it should be the same," said Bruno.

"But Mr. Rossi's Roma is dead," said Elena.

"Ah, of course, certainly! What a fool I am!" said Bruno.

David Rossi had a sense of suffocation, and he went out on to the lead
flat.


                                VI

The Ave Maria was ringing from many church towers, and the golden day
was going down with the sun behind the dark outline of the dome of St.
Peter's, while the blue night was rising over the snow-capped Apennines
in a premature twilight with one twinkling star.

David Rossi's ears buzzed as with the sound of a mighty wind rushing
through trees at a distance. Bruno's last words on top of Charles
Minghelli's had struck him like an alarum bell heard through the mists
of sleep, and his head was stunned and his eyes were dizzy. He buttoned
his coat about him, and walked quickly to and fro on the lead flat by
the side of the cage, in which the birds were already bunched up and
silent.

Before he was aware of the passing of time, the church bells were
tolling the first hour of night. Presently he became aware of flares
burning in the Piazza of St. Peter, and of the shadows of giant heads
cast up on the walls of the vast Basilica. It was the crowd gathering
for the last ceremonial of the Pope's Jubilee, and at the sound of a
double rocket, which went up as with the crackle of musketry, little
Joseph came running on to the roof, followed by his mother and Bruno.

David Rossi took the boy into his arms and tried to dispel the gloom of
his own spirits in the child's joy at the illuminations.

"Ever see 'luminations before, Uncle David?" said Joseph.

"Once, dear, but that was long ago and far away. I was a boy myself in
those days, and there was a little girl with me then who was no bigger
than you are now. But it's growing cold, there's frost in the air,
besides it's late, and little boys must go to bed."

"Well, God is God, and the Pope is His Prophet," said Bruno, when Elena
and Joseph had gone indoors. "It was like day! You could see the
lightning conductor over the Pope's apartment! Pshew!" blowing puffs of
smoke from his twisted cigar. "Won't keep the lightning off, though."

"Bruno!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Donna Roma's father would be Prince Volonna?"

"Yes, the last prince of the old papal name. When the Volonna estates
were confiscated, the title really lapsed, but old Vampire got the
lands."

"Did you ever hear that he bore any other name during the time he was in
exile?"

"Sure to, but there was no trial and nothing was known. They all changed
their names, though."

"Why ... what...." said David Rossi in an unsteady voice.

"Why?" said Bruno. "Because they were all condemned in Italy, and the
foreign countries were told to turn them out. But what am I talking
about? You know all that better than I do, sir. Didn't your old friend
go under a false name?"

"Very likely--I don't know," said David Rossi, in a voice that testified
to jangled nerves.

"Did he ever tell you, sir?"

"I can't say that he ever.... Certainly the school of revolution has
always had villains enough, and perhaps to prevent treachery...."

"You may say so! The devil has the run of the world, even in England.
But I'm surprised your old friend, being like a father to you, didn't
tell you--at the end anyway...."

"Perhaps he intended to--and then perhaps...."

David Rossi put his hand to his brow as if in pain and perplexity, and
began again to walk backward and forward.

A screamer in the piazza below cried "_Trib-un-a!_" and Bruno said:

"That's early! What's up, I wonder? I'll go down and get a paper."

Darkness had by this time re-invaded the sky, and the stars looked down
from their broad dome, clear, sweet, white, and serene, putting to shame
by their immortal solemnity the poor little mimes, the paltry
puppet-shows of the human jackstraws who had just been worshipping at
their self-made shrine.

As David Rossi returned to the house, Elena, who was undressing the boy,
saw a haggard look in his eyes, but Bruno, who was reading his evening
journal, saw nothing, and cried out:

"Helloa! Listen to this, sir. It's Olga. She's got a pen, I can tell
you. 'Madame de Pompadour. Hitherto we have had the pleasure of having
Madame ----, whose pressure on the State and on Italy's wise counsellors
was only incidental, but now that the fates have given us a Madame
Pompadour....' Then there's a leading article on your speech in the
piazza. Praises you up to the skies. Look! 'Thank God we have men like
the Honourable Rossi, who at the risk of....'"

But with a clouded brow David Rossi turned away from him and passed into
the sitting-room, and Bruno looked around in blank bewilderment.

"Shall you want the lamp, sir?" said Elena.

"Not yet, thank you," he answered through the open door.

The wood fire was glowing on the hearth, and in the acute state of his
nerves he shuddered involuntarily as its reflection in the window
opposite looked back at him like a fiery eye. He opened the case of the
phonograph, which had been returned to its place on the piano, and then
from a drawer in the bureau he took a small cardboard box. The wood in
the fire flickered at that moment and started some ghastly shadows on
the ceiling, but he drew a cylinder from the box and slid it on to the
barrel of the phonograph. Then he stepped to the door, shut and locked
it.


                                VII

"Well!" said Bruno. "If that isn't enough to make a man feel as small as
a sardine!"

There was only one thing to do, but to conceal the nature of it Bruno
flourished the newspaper and said:

"Elena, I must go down to the lodge and read these articles to your
father. Poor Donna Roma, she'll have to fly, I'm afraid. Bye-bye,
Garibaldi-Mazzini! Early to bed, early to rise, and time enough to grow
old, you know!... As for Mr. Rossi, he might be a sinner and a criminal
instead of the hero of the hour! It licks me to little bits." And Bruno
carried his dark mystery down to the café to see if it might be
dispelled by a litre of autumnal light from sunny vineyards.

Meantime, Joseph, being very tired, was shooting out a pettish lip
because he had to go to bed without saying good-night to Uncle David; and
his mother, making terms with this pretence, consented to bring down his
nightdress, thinking Rossi might be out of the sitting-room by that
time, and the boy be pacified. But when she returned to the dining-room
the sitting-room door was still closed, and Joseph was pleading to be
allowed to lie on the sofa until Uncle David carried him to bed.

"I'm not asleep, mamma," came in a drowsy voice from the sofa, but
almost at the same moment the measured breath slowed down, the
watch-lights blinked themselves out, and the little soul slid away into
the darksome kingdom of unconsciousness.

Suddenly, in the silence of the room, Elena was startled by a voice. It
came from the sitting-room. Was it Mr. Rossi's voice? No! The voice was
older and feebler than Mr. Rossi's, and less clear and distinct. Could
it be possible that somebody was with him? If so, the visitor must have
arrived while she was in the bedroom above. But why had she not heard
the knock? How did it occur that Joseph had not told her? And then the
lamp was still on the dining-room table, and save for the firelight the
sitting-room must be dark.

A chill began to run through her blood, and she tried to hear what was
said, but the voice was muffled by its passage through the wall, and she
could only catch a word or two. Presently the strange voice, without
stopping, was broken in upon by a voice that was clear and familiar, but
now faltering with the note of pain: "I swear to God I will!"

That was Mr. Rossi's voice, and Elena's head began to go round. Whom was
he speaking to? Who was speaking to him? He went into the room alone, he
was sitting in the dark, and yet there were two voices.

A light dawned on Elena, and she could have laughed. What had terrified
her as a sort of supernatural thing was only the phonograph! But after a
moment a fresh tremor struck upon her in the agony of the exclamations
with which David Rossi broke in upon the voice that was being reproduced
by the machine. She could hear his words distinctly, and he was in great
trouble. Hardly knowing what she did, she crept up to the door and
listened. Even then, she could only follow the strange voice in
passages, which were broken and submerged by the whirring of the
phonograph, like the flight of a sea-bird which dips at intervals and
leaves nothing but the wash of the waves.

"David," said the voice, "when this shall come to your hands ... in my
great distress of mind ... do not trifle with my request ... but
whatever you decide to do ... be gentle with the child ... remember
that ... Adieu, my son ... the end is near ... if death does not
annihilate ... those who remain on earth ... a helper and advocate in
heaven ... Adieu!" And interrupting these broken words were half-smothered
cries and sobs from David Rossi, repeating again and again: "I will!
I swear to God I will!"

Elena could bear the pain no longer, and mustering up her courage she
tapped at the door. It was a gentle tap, and no answer was returned. She
knocked louder, and then an angry voice said:

"Who's there?"

"It's I--Elena," she answered timidly. "Is anything the matter? Aren't
you well, sir?"

"Ah, yes," came back in a calmer voice, and after a shuffling sound as
of the closing of drawers, David Rossi opened the door and came out.

As he crossed the threshold he cast a backward glance into the dark
room, as if he feared that some invisible hand would touch him on the
shoulder. His face was pale and beads of perspiration stood on his
forehead, but he smiled, and in a voice that was a little hoarse, yet
fairly under control, he said:

"I'm afraid I've frightened you, Elena."

"You're not well, sir. Sit down, and let me run for some cognac."

"No! It's nothing! Only...."

"Take this glass of water, sir."

"That's good! I'm better now, and I'm ashamed. Elena, you mustn't think
any more of this, and whatever I may do in the future that seems to you
to be strange, you must promise me never to mention it."

"I needn't _promise_ you that, sir," said Elena.

"Bruno is a brave, bright, loyal soul, Elena, but there are times...."

"I know--and I'll never mention it to anybody. But you've taken a chill
on the roof at sunset looking at the illuminations--that's all it is!
The nights are frosty now, and I was to blame that I didn't send out
your cloak."

Then she tried to be cheerful, and turning to the sleeping boy, said:

"Look! He was naughty again and wouldn't go to bed until you came out to
carry him."

"The dear little man!" said David Rossi. He stepped up to the couch, but
his pale face was preoccupied, and he looked at Elena again and said:

"Where does Donna Roma live?"

"Trinità de' Monti--eighteen," said Elena.

"Is it late?"

"It must be half-past eight at least, sir."

"We'll take Joseph to bed then."

He was putting his arms about the boy to lift him when a
slippery-sloppery step was heard on the stairs, followed by a hurried
knock at the door.

It was the old Garibaldian porter, breathless, bareheaded, and in his
slippers.

"Father!" cried Elena.

"It's she. She's coming up."

At the next moment a lady in evening dress was standing in the hall. It
was Donna Roma. She had unclasped her ermine cloak, and her bosom was
heaving with the exertion of the ascent.

"May I speak to Mr. Rossi?" she began, and then looking beyond Elena and
seeing him, where he stood above the sleeping child, a qualm of
faintness seemed to seize her, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

David Rossi's face flushed to the roots of his hair, but he stepped
forward, bowed deeply, led the way to the sitting-room, and, with a
certain incoherency in his speech, said:

"Come in! Elena will bring the lamp. I shall be back presently."

Then, lifting little Joseph in his arms, he carried him up to bed,
tucked him in his cot, smoothed his pillow, made the sign of the cross
over his forehead, and came back to the sitting-room with the air of a
man walking in a dream.


                                VIII

Being left alone, Roma looked around, and at a glance she took in
everything--the thin carpet, the plain chintz, the prints, the
incongruous furniture. She saw the photograph on the piano, still
standing open, with a cylinder exposed, and in the interval of waiting
she felt almost tempted to touch the spring. She saw herself, too, in
the mirror above the mantel-piece, with her glossy black hair rolled up
like a tower, from which one curly lock escaped on to her forehead, and
with the ermine cloak on her shoulders over the white silk muslin which
clung to her full figure.

Then she heard David Rossi's footsteps returning, and though she was now
completely self-possessed she was conscious of a certain shiver of fear,
such as an actress feels in her dressing-room at the tuning-up of the
orchestra. Her back was to the door and she heard the whirl of her skirt
as he entered, and then he was before her, and they were alone.

He was looking at her out of large, pensive eyes, and she saw him pass
his hand over them and then bow and motion her to a seat, and go to the
mantel-piece and lean on it. She was tingling all over, and a certain
glow was going up to her face, but when she spoke she was mistress of
herself, and her voice was soft and natural.

"I am doing a very unusual thing in coming to see you," she said, "but
you have forced me to it, and I am quite helpless."

A faint sound came from him, and she was aware that he was leaning
forward to see her face, so she dropped her eyes, partly to let him look
at her, and partly to avoid meeting his gaze.

"I heard your speech in the piazza this morning. It would be useless to
disguise the fact that some of its references were meant for me."

He did not speak, and she played with the glove in her lap, and
continued in the same soft voice:

"If I were a man, I suppose I should challenge you. Being a woman, I can
only come to you and tell you that you are wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Cruelly, terribly, shamefully wrong."

"You mean to tell me...."

He was stammering in a husky voice, and she said quite calmly:

"I mean to tell you that in substance and in fact what you implied was
false."

There was a dry gli