when pierre remained in the morning at the boccanera mansion he often spent some hours in the little neglected garden which had formerly ended with a sort of colonnaded /loggia/, whence two flights of steps descended to the tiber. this garden was a delightful, solitary nook, perfumed by the ripe fruit of the centenarian orange-trees, whose symmetrical lines were the only indication of the former pathways, now hidden beneath rank weeds. and pierre also found there the acrid scent of the large box-shrubs growing in the old central fountain basin, which had been filled up with loose earth and rubbish.

on those luminous october mornings, full of such tender and penetrating charm, the spot was one where all the joy of living might well be savoured, but pierre brought thither his northern dreaminess, his concern for suffering, his steadfast feeling of compassion, which rendered yet sweeter the caress of the sunlight pervading that atmosphere of love. he seated himself against the right-hand wall on a fragment of a fallen column over which a huge laurel cast a deep-black shadow, fresh and aromatic. in the antique greenish sarcophagus beside him, on which fauns offered violence to nymphs, the streamlet of water trickling from the mask incrusted in the wall, set the unchanging music of its crystal note, whilst he read the newspapers and the letters which he received, all the communications of good abbe rose, who kept him informed of his mission among the wretched ones of gloomy paris, now already steeped in fog and mud.

one morning however, pierre unexpectedly found benedetta seated on the fallen column which he usually made his chair. she raised a light cry of surprise on seeing him, and for a moment remained embarrassed, for she had with her his book "new rome," which she had read once already, but had then imperfectly understood. and overcoming her embarrassment she now hastened to detain him, making him sit down beside her, and frankly owning that she had come to the garden in order to be alone and apply herself to an attentive study of the book, in the same way as some ignorant school-girl. then they began to chat like a pair of friends, and the young priest spent a delightful hour. although benedetta did not speak of herself, he realised that it was her grief alone which brought her nearer to him, as if indeed her own sufferings enlarged her heart and made her think of all who suffered in the world. patrician as she was, regarding social hierarchy as a divine law, she had never previously thought of such things, and some pages of pierre's book greatly astonished her. what! one ought to take interest in the lowly, realise that they had the same souls and the same griefs as oneself, and seek in brotherly or sisterly fashion to make them happy? she certainly sought to acquire such an interest, but with no great success, for she secretly feared that it might lead her into sin, as it could not be right to alter aught of the social system which had been established by god and consecrated by the church. charitable she undoubtedly was, wont to bestow small sums in alms, but she did not give her heart, she felt no true sympathy for the humble, belonging as she did to such a different race, which looked to a throne in heaven high above the seats of all the plebeian elect.

she and pierre, however, found themselves on other mornings side by side in the shade of the laurels near the trickling, singing water; and he, lacking occupation, weary of waiting for a solution which seemed to recede day by day, fervently strove to animate this young and beautiful woman with some of his own fraternal feelings. he was impassioned by the idea that he was catechising italy herself, the queen of beauty, who was still slumbering in ignorance, but who would recover all her past glory if she were to awake to the new times with soul enlarged, swelling with pity for men and things. reading good abbe rose's letters to benedetta, he made her shudder at the frightful wail of wretchedness which ascends from all great cities. with such deep tenderness in her eyes, with the happiness of love reciprocated emanating from her whole being, why should she not recognise, even as he did, that the law of love was the sole means of saving suffering humanity, which, through hatred, incurred the danger of death? and to please him she did try to believe in democracy, in the fraternal remodelling of society, but among other nations only--not at rome, for an involuntary, gentle laugh came to her lips whenever his words evoked the idea of the poor still remaining in the trastevere district fraternising with those who yet dwelt in the old princely palaces. no, no, things had been as they were so long; they could not, must not, be altered! and so, after all, pierre's pupil made little progress: she was, in reality, simply touched by the wealth of ardent love which the young priest had chastely transferred from one alone to the whole of human kind. and between him and her, as those sunlit october mornings went by, a tie of exquisite sweetness was formed; they came to love one another with deep, pure, fraternal affection, amidst the great glowing passion which consumed them both.

then, one day, benedetta, her elbow resting on the sarcophagus, spoke of dario, whose name she had hitherto refrained from mentioning. ah! poor /amico/, how circumspect and repentant he had shown himself since that fit of brutal insanity! at first, to conceal his embarrassment, he had gone to spend three days at naples, and it was said that la tonietta, the sentimental /demi-mondaine/, had hastened to join him there, wildly in love with him. since his return to the mansion he had avoided all private meetings with his cousin, and scarcely saw her except at the monday receptions, when he wore a submissive air, and with his eyes silently entreated forgiveness.

"yesterday, however," continued benedetta, "i met him on the staircase and gave him my hand. he understood that i was no longer angry with him and was very happy. what else could i have done? one must not be severe for ever. besides, i do not want things to go too far between him and that woman. i want him to remember that i still love him, and am still waiting for him. oh! he is mine, mine alone. but alas! i cannot say the word: our affairs are in such sorry plight."

she paused, and two big tears welled into her eyes. the divorce proceedings to which she alluded had now come to a standstill, fresh obstacles ever arising to stay their course.

pierre was much moved by her tears, for she seldom wept. she herself sometimes confessed, with her calm smile, that she did not know how to weep. but now her heart was melting, and for a moment she remained overcome, leaning on the mossy, crumbling sarcophagus, whilst the clear water falling from the gaping mouth of the tragic mask still sounded its flutelike note. and a sudden thought of death came to the priest as he saw her, so young and so radiant with beauty, half fainting beside that marble resting-place where fauns were rushing upon nymphs in a frantic bacchanal which proclaimed the omnipotence of love--that omnipotence which the ancients were fond of symbolising on their tombs as a token of life's eternity. and meantime a faint, warm breeze passed through the sunlit, silent garden, wafting hither and thither the penetrating scent of box and orange.

"one has so much strength when one loves," pierre at last murmured.

"yes, yes, you are right," she replied, already smiling again. "i am childish. but it is the fault of your book. it is only when i suffer that i properly understand it. but all the same i am making progress, am i not? since you desire it, let all the poor, all those who suffer, as i do, be my brothers and sisters."

then for a while they resumed their chat.

on these occasions benedetta was usually the first to return to the house, and pierre would linger alone under the laurels, vaguely dreaming of sweet, sad things. often did he think how hard life proved for poor creatures whose only thirst was for happiness!

one monday evening, at a quarter-past ten, only the young folks remained in donna serafina's reception-room. monsignor nani had merely put in an appearance that night, and cardinal sarno had just gone off.

even donna serafina, in her usual seat by the fireplace, seemed to have withdrawn from the others, absorbed as she was in contemplation of the chair which the absent morano still stubbornly left unoccupied. chatting and laughing in front of the sofa on which sat benedetta and celia were dario, pierre, and narcisse habert, the last of whom had begun to twit the young prince, having met him, so he asserted, a few days previously, in the company of a very pretty girl.

"oh! don't deny it, my dear fellow," continued narcisse, "for she was really superb. she was walking beside you, and you turned into a lane together--the borgo angelico, i think."

dario listened smiling, quite at his ease and incapable of denying his passionate predilection for beauty. "no doubt, no doubt; it was i, i don't deny it," he responded. "only the inferences you draw are not correct." and turning towards benedetta, who, without a thought of jealous anxiety, wore as gay a look as himself, as though delighted that he should have enjoyed that passing pleasure of the eyes, he went on: "it was the girl, you know, whom i found in tears six weeks ago. yes, that bead-worker who was sobbing because the workshop was shut up, and who rushed along, all blushing, to conduct me to her parents when i offered her a bit of silver. pierina her name is, as you, perhaps, remember."

"oh! yes, pierina."

"well, since then i've met her in the street on four or five occasions. and, to tell the truth, she is so very beautiful that i've stopped and spoken to her. the other day, for instance, i walked with her as far as a manufacturer's. but she hasn't yet found any work, and she began to cry, and so, to console her a little, i kissed her. she was quite taken aback at it, but she seemed very well pleased."

at this all the others began to laugh. but suddenly celia desisted and said very gravely, "you know, dario, she loves you; you must not be hard on her."

dario, no doubt, was of celia's opinion, for he again looked at benedetta, but with a gay toss of the head, as if to say that, although the girl might love him, he did not love her. a bead-worker indeed, a girl of the lowest classes, pooh! she might be a venus, but she could be nothing to him. and he himself made merry over his romantic adventure, which narcisse sought to arrange in a kind of antique sonnet: a beautiful bead-worker falling madly in love with a young prince, as fair as sunlight, who, touched by her misfortune, hands her a silver crown; then the beautiful bead-worker, quite overcome at finding him as charitable as handsome, dreaming of him incessantly, and following him everywhere, chained to his steps by a link of flame; and finally the beautiful bead-worker, who has refused the silver crown, so entreating the handsome prince with her soft, submissive eyes, that he at last deigns to grant her the alms of his heart. this pastime greatly amused benedetta; but celia, with her angelic face and the air of a little girl who ought to have been ignorant of everything, remained very grave and repeated sadly, "dario, dario, she loves you; you must not make her suffer."

then the contessina, in her turn, was moved to pity. "and those poor folks are not happy!" said she.

"oh!" exclaimed the prince, "it's misery beyond belief. on the day she took me to the quartiere dei prati* i was quite overcome; it was awful, astonishingly awful!"

* the district of the castle meadows--see /ante/ note.--trans.

"but i remember that we promised to go to see the poor people," resumed benedetta, "and we have done wrong in delaying our visit so long. for your studies, monsieur l'abbe froment, you greatly desired to accompany us and see the poor of rome--was that not so?"

as she spoke she raised her eyes to pierre, who for a moment had been silent. he was much moved by her charitable thought, for he realised, by the faint quiver of her voice, that she desired to appear a docile pupil, progressing in affection for the lowly and the wretched. moreover, his passion for his apostolate had at once returned to him. "oh!" said he, "i shall not quit rome without having seen those who suffer, those who lack work and bread. therein lies the malady which affects every nation; salvation can only be attained by the healing of misery. when the roots of the tree cannot find sustenance the tree dies."

"well," resumed the contessina, "we will fix an appointment at once; you shall come with us to the quartiere dei prati--dario will take us there."

at this the prince, who had listened to the priest with an air of stupefaction, unable to understand the simile of the tree and its roots, began to protest distressfully, "no, no, cousin, take monsieur l'abbe for a stroll there if it amuses you. but i've been, and don't want to go back. why, when i got home the last time i was so upset that i almost took to my bed. no, no; such abominations are too awful--it isn't possible."

at this moment a voice, bitter with displeasure, arose from the chimney corner. donna serafina was emerging from her long silence. "dario is quite right! send your alms, my dear, and i will gladly add mine. there are other places where you might take monsieur l'abbe, and which it would be far more useful for him to see. with that idea of yours you would send him away with a nice recollection of our city."

roman pride rang out amidst the old lady's bad temper. why, indeed, show one's sores to foreigners, whose visit is possibly prompted by hostile curiosity? one always ought to look beautiful; rome should not be shown otherwise than in the garb of glory.

narcisse, however, had taken possession of pierre. "it's true, my dear abbe," said he; "i forgot to recommend that stroll to you. you really must visit the new district built over the castle meadows. it's typical, and sums up all the others. and you won't lose your time there, i'll warrant you, for nowhere can you learn more about the rome of the present day. it's extraordinary, extraordinary!" then, addressing benedetta, he added, "is it decided? shall we say to-morrow morning? you'll find the abbe and me over there, for i want to explain matters to him beforehand, in order that he may understand them. what do you say to ten o'clock?"

before answering him the contessina turned towards her aunt and respectfully opposed her views. "but monsieur l'abbe, aunt, has met enough beggars in our streets already, so he may well see everything. besides, judging by his book, he won't see worse things than he has seen in paris. as he says in one passage, hunger is the same all the world over." then, with her sensible air, she gently laid siege to dario. "you know, dario," said she, "you would please me very much by taking me there. we can go in the carriage and join these gentlemen. it will be a very pleasant outing for us. it is such a long time since we went out together."

it was certainly that idea of going out with dario, of having a pretext for a complete reconciliation with him, that enchanted her; he himself realised it, and, unable to escape, he tried to treat the matter as a joke. "ah! cousin," he said, "it will be your fault; i shall have the nightmare for a week. an excursion like that spoils all the enjoyment of life for days and days."

the mere thought made him quiver with revolt. however, laughter again rang out around him, and, in spite of donna serafina's mute disapproval, the appointment was finally fixed for the following morning at ten o'clock. celia as she went off expressed deep regret that she could not form one of the party; but, with the closed candour of a budding lily, she really took interest in pierina alone. as she reached the ante-room she whispered in her friend's ear: "take a good look at that beauty, my dear, so as to tell me whether she is so very beautiful--beautiful beyond compare."

when pierre met narcisse near the castle of sant' angelo on the morrow, at nine o'clock, he was surprised to find him again languid and enraptured, plunged anew in artistic enthusiasm. at first not a word was said of the excursion. narcisse related that he had risen at sunrise in order that he might spend an hour before bernini's "santa teresa." it seemed that when he did not see that statue for a week he suffered as acutely as if he were parted from some cherished mistress. and his adoration varied with the time of day, according to the light in which he beheld the figure: in the morning, when the pale glow of dawn steeped it in whiteness, he worshipped it with quite a mystical transport of the soul, whilst in the afternoon, when the glow of the declining sun's oblique rays seemed to permeate the marble, his passion became as fiery red as the blood of martyrs. "ah! my friend," said he with a weary air whilst his dreamy eyes faded to mauve, "you have no idea how delightful and perturbing her awakening was this morning--how languorously she opened her eyes, like a pure, candid virgin, emerging from the embrace of the divinity. one could die of rapture at the sight!"

then, growing calm again when he had taken a few steps, he resumed in the voice of a practical man who does not lose his balance in the affairs of life: "we'll walk slowly towards the castle-fields district--the buildings yonder; and on our way i'll tell you what i know of the things we shall see there. it was the maddest affair imaginable, one of those delirious frenzies of speculation which have a splendour of their own, just like the superb, monstrous masterpiece of a man of genius whose mind is unhinged. i was told of it all by some relatives of mine, who took part in the gambling, and, in point of fact, made a good deal of money by it."

thereupon, with the clearness and precision of a financier, employing technical terms with perfect ease, he recounted the extraordinary adventure. that all italy, on the morrow of the occupation of rome, should have been delirious with enthusiasm at the thought of at last possessing the ancient and glorious city, the eternal capital to which the empire of the world had been promised, was but natural. it was, so to say, a legitimate explosion of the delight and the hopes of a young nation anxious to show its power. the question was to make rome a modern capital worthy of a great kingdom, and before aught else there were sanitary requirements to be dealt with: the city needed to be cleansed of all the filth which disgraced it. one cannot nowadays imagine in what abominable putrescence the city of the popes, the /roma sporca/ which artists regret, was then steeped: the vast majority of the houses lacked even the most primitive arrangements, the public thoroughfares were used for all purposes, noble ruins served as store-places for sewage, the princely palaces were surrounded by filth, and the streets were perfect manure beds which fostered frequent epidemics. thus vast municipal works were absolutely necessary, the question was one of health and life itself. and in much the same way it was only right to think of building houses for the newcomers, who would assuredly flock into the city. there had been a precedent at berlin, whose population, after the establishment of the german empire, had suddenly increased by some hundreds of thousands. in the same way the population of rome would certainly be doubled, tripled, quadrupled, for as the new centre of national life the city would necessarily attract all the /vis viva/ of the provinces. and at this thought pride stepped in: the fallen government of the vatican must be shown what italy was capable of achieving, what splendour she would bestow on the new and third rome, which, by the magnificence of its thoroughfares and the multitude of its people, would far excel either the imperial or the papal city.

true, during the early years some prudence was observed; wisely enough, houses were only built in proportion as they were required. the population had doubled at one bound, rising from two to four hundred thousand souls, thanks to the arrival of the little world of employees and officials of the public services--all those who live on the state or hope to live on it, without mentioning the idlers and enjoyers of life whom a court always carries in its train. however, this influx of newcomers was a first cause of intoxication, for every one imagined that the increase would continue, and, in fact, become more and more rapid. and so the city of the day before no longer seemed large enough; it was necessary to make immediate preparations for the morrow's need by enlarging rome on all sides. folks talked, too, of the paris of the second empire, which had been so extended and transformed into a city of light and health. but unfortunately on the banks of the tiber there was neither any preconcerted general plan nor any clear-seeing man, master of the situation, supported by powerful financial organisations. and the work, begun by pride, prompted by the ambition of surpassing the rome of the caesars and the popes, the determination to make the eternal, predestined city the queen and centre of the world once more, was completed by speculation, one of those extraordinary gambling frenzies, those tempests which arise, rage, destroy, and carry everything away without premonitory warning or possibility of arresting their course. all at once it was rumoured that land bought at five francs the metre had been sold again for a hundred francs the metre; and thereupon the fever arose--the fever of a nation which is passionately fond of gambling. a flight of speculators descending from north italy swooped down upon rome, the noblest and easiest of preys. those needy, famished mountaineers found spoils for every appetite in that voluptuous south where life is so benign, and the very delights of the climate helped to corrupt and hasten moral gangrene. at first, too; it was merely necessary to stoop; money was to be found by the shovelful among the rubbish of the first districts which were opened up. people who were clever enough to scent the course which the new thoroughfares would take and purchase buildings threatened with demolition increased their capital tenfold in a couple of years. and after that the contagion spread, infecting all classes--the princes, burgesses, petty proprietors, even the shop-keepers, bakers, grocers, and boot-makers; the delirium rising to such a pitch that a mere baker subsequently failed for forty-five millions.* nothing, indeed, was left but rageful gambling, in which the stakes were millions, whilst the lands and the houses became mere fictions, mere pretexts for stock-exchange operations. and thus the old hereditary pride, which had dreamt of transforming rome into the capital of the world, was heated to madness by the high fever of speculation--folks buying, and building, and selling without limit, without a pause, even as one might throw shares upon the market as fast and as long as presses can be found to print them.

* 1,800,000 pounds. see /ante/ note.--trans.

no other city in course of evolution has ever furnished such a spectacle. nowadays, when one strives to penetrate things one is confounded. the population had increased to five hundred thousand, and then seemingly remained stationary; nevertheless, new districts continued to sprout up more thickly than ever. yet what folly it was not to wait for a further influx of inhabitants! why continue piling up accommodation for thousands of families whose advent was uncertain? the only excuse lay in having beforehand propounded the proposition that the third rome, the triumphant capital of italy, could not count less than a million souls, and in regarding that proposition as indisputable fact. the people had not come, but they surely would come: no patriot could doubt it without being guilty of treason. and so houses were built and built without a pause, for the half-million citizens who were coming. there was no anxiety as to the date of their arrival; it was sufficient that they should be expected. inside rome the companies which had been formed in connection with the new thoroughfares passing through the old, demolished, pestiferous districts, certainly sold or let their house property, and thereby realised large profits. but, as the craze increased, other companies were established for the purpose of erecting yet more and more districts outside rome--veritable little towns, of which there was no need whatever. beyond the porta san giovanni and the porta san lorenzo, suburbs sprang up as by miracle. a town was sketched out over the vast estate of the villa ludovisi, from the porta pia to the porta salaria and even as far as sant' agnese. and then came an attempt to make quite a little city, with church, school, and market, arise all at once on the fields of the castle of sant' angelo. and it was no question of small dwellings for labourers, modest flats for employees, and others of limited means; no, it was a question of colossal mansions three and four storeys high, displaying uniform and endless facades which made these new excentral quarters quite babylonian, such districts, indeed, as only capitals endowed with intense life, like paris and london, could contrive to populate. however, such were the monstrous products of pride and gambling; and what a page of history, what a bitter lesson now that rome, financially ruined, is further disgraced by that hideous girdle of empty, and, for the most part, uncompleted carcases, whose ruins already strew the grassy streets!

the fatal collapse, the disaster proved a frightful one. narcisse explained its causes and recounted its phases so clearly that pierre fully understood. naturally enough, numerous financial companies had sprouted up: the immobiliere, the society d'edilizia e construzione, the fondaria, the tiberiana, and the esquilino. nearly all of them built, erected huge houses, entire streets of them, for purposes of sale; but they also gambled in land, selling plots at large profit to petty speculators, who also dreamt of making large profits amidst the continuous, fictitious rise brought about by the growing fever of agiotage. and the worst was that the petty speculators, the middle-class people, the inexperienced shop-keepers without capital, were crazy enough to build in their turn by borrowing of the banks or applying to the companies which had sold them the land for sufficient cash to enable them to complete their structures. as a general rule, to avoid the loss of everything, the companies were one day compelled to take back both land and buildings, incomplete though the latter might be, and from the congestion which resulted they were bound to perish. if the expected million of people had arrived to occupy the dwellings prepared for them the gains would have been fabulous, and in ten years rome might have become one of the most flourishing capitals of the world. but the people did not come, and the dwellings remained empty. moreover, the buildings erected by the companies were too large and costly for the average investor inclined to put his money into house property. heredity had acted, the builders had planned things on too huge a scale, raising a series of magnificent piles whose purpose was to dwarf those of all other ages; but, as it happened, they were fated to remain lifeless and deserted, testifying with wondrous eloquence to the impotence of pride.

so there was no private capital that dared or could take the place of that of the companies. elsewhere, in paris for instance, new districts have been erected and embellishments have been carried out with the capital of the country--the money saved by dint of thrift. but in rome all was built on the credit system, either by means of bills of exchange at ninety days, or--and this was chiefly the case--by borrowing money abroad. the huge sum sunk in these enterprises is estimated at a milliard, four-fifths of which was french money. the bankers did everything; the french ones lent to the italian bankers at 3 1/2 or 4 per cent.; and the italian bankers accommodated the speculators, the roman builders, at 6, 7, and even 8 per cent. and thus the disaster was great indeed when france, learning of italy's alliance with germany, withdrew her 800,000,000 francs in less than two years. the italian banks were drained of their specie, and the land and building companies, being likewise compelled to reimburse their loans, were compelled to apply to the banks of issue, those privileged to issue notes. at the same time they intimidated the government, threatening to stop all work and throw 40,000 artisans and labourers starving on the pavement of rome if it did not compel the banks of issue to lend them the five or six millions of paper which they needed. and this the government at last did, appalled by the possibility of universal bankruptcy. naturally, however, the five or six millions could not be paid back at maturity, as the newly built houses found neither purchasers nor tenants; and so the great fall began, and continued with a rush, heaping ruin upon ruin. the petty speculators fell on the builders, the builders on the land companies, the land companies on the banks of issue, and the latter on the public credit, ruining the nation. and that was how a mere municipal crisis became a frightful disaster: a whole milliard sunk to no purpose, rome disfigured, littered with the ruins of the gaping and empty dwellings which had been prepared for the five or six hundred thousand inhabitants for whom the city yet waits in vain!

moreover, in the breeze of glory which swept by, the state itself took a colossal view of things. it was a question of at once making italy triumphant and perfect, of accomplishing in five and twenty years what other nations have required centuries to effect. so there was feverish activity and a prodigious outlay on canals, ports, roads, railway lines, and improvements in all the great cities. directly after the alliance with germany, moreover, the military and naval estimates began to devour millions to no purpose. and the ever growing financial requirements were simply met by the issue of paper, by a fresh loan each succeeding year. in rome alone, too, the building of the ministry of war cost ten millions, that of the ministry of finances fifteen, whilst a hundred was spent on the yet unfinished quays, and two hundred and fifty were sunk on works of defence around the city. and all this was a flare of the old hereditary pride, springing from that soil whose sap can only blossom in extravagant projects; the determination to dazzle and conquer the world which comes as soon as one has climbed to the capitol, even though one's feet rest amidst the accumulated dust of all the forms of human power which have there crumbled one above the other.

"and, my dear friend," continued narcisse, "if i could go into all the stories that are current, that are whispered here and there, you would be stupefied at the insanity which overcame the whole city amidst the terrible fever to which the gambling passion gave rise. folks of small account, and fools and ignorant people were not the only ones to be ruined; nearly all the roman nobles lost their ancient fortunes, their gold and their palaces and their galleries of masterpieces, which they owed to the munificence of the popes. the colossal wealth which it had taken centuries of nepotism to pile up in the hands of a few melted away like wax, in less than ten years, in the levelling fire of modern speculation." then, forgetting that he was speaking to a priest, he went on to relate one of the whispered stories to which he had alluded: "there's our good friend dario, prince boccanera, the last of the name, reduced to live on the crumbs which fall to him from his uncle the cardinal, who has little beyond his stipend left him. well, dario would be a rich man had it not been for that extraordinary affair of the villa montefiori. you have heard of it, no doubt; how prince onofrio, dario's father, speculated, sold the villa grounds for ten millions, then bought them back and built on them, and how, at last, not only the ten millions were lost, but also all that remained of the once colossal fortune of the boccaneras. what you haven't been told, however, is the secret part which count prada--our contessina's husband--played in the affair. he was the lover of princess boccanera, the beautiful flavia montefiori, who had brought the villa as dowry to the old prince. she was a very fine woman, much younger than her husband, and it is positively said that it was through her that prada mastered the prince--for she held her old doting husband at arm's length whenever he hesitated to give a signature or go farther into the affair of which he scented the danger. and in all this prada gained the millions which he now spends, while as for the beautiful flavia, you are aware, no doubt, that she saved a little fortune from the wreck and bought herself a second and much younger husband, whom she turned into a marquis montefiori. in the whole affair the only victim is our good friend dario, who is absolutely ruined, and wishes to marry his cousin, who is as poor as himself. it's true that she's determined to have him, and that it's impossible for him not to reciprocate her love. but for that he would have already married some american girl with a dowry of millions, like so many of the ruined princes, on the verge of starvation, have done; that is, unless the cardinal and donna serafina had opposed such a match, which would not have been surprising, proud and stubborn as they are, anxious to preserve the purity of their old roman blood. however, let us hope that dario and the exquisite benedetta will some day be happy together."

narcisse paused; but, after taking a few steps in silence, he added in a lower tone: "i've a relative who picked up nearly three millions in that villa montefiori affair. ah! i regret that i wasn't here in those heroic days of speculation. it must have been very amusing; and what strokes there were for a man of self-possession to make!"

however, all at once, as he raised his head, he saw before him the quartiere dei prati--the new district of the castle fields; and his face thereupon changed: he again became an artist, indignant with the modern abominations with which old rome had been disfigured. his eyes paled, and a curl of his lips expressed the bitter disdain of a dreamer whose passion for the vanished centuries was sorely hurt: "look, look at it all!" he exclaimed. "to think of it, in the city of augustus, the city of leo x, the city of eternal power and eternal beauty!"

pierre himself was thunderstruck. the meadows of the castle of sant' angelo, dotted with a few poplar trees, had here formerly stretched alongside the tiber as far as the first slopes of monte mario, thus supplying, to the satisfaction of artists, a foreground or greenery to the borgo and the dome of st. peter's. but now, amidst the white, leprous, overturned plain, there stood a town of huge, massive houses, cubes of stone-work, invariably the same, with broad streets intersecting one another at right angles. from end to end similar facades appeared, suggesting series of convents, barracks, or hospitals. extraordinary and painful was the impression produced by this town so suddenly immobilised whilst in course of erection. it was as if on some accursed morning a wicked magician had with one touch of his wand stopped the works and emptied the noisy stone-yards, leaving the buildings in mournful abandonment. here on one side the soil had been banked up; there deep pits dug for foundations had remained gaping, overrun with weeds. there were houses whose halls scarcely rose above the level of the soil; others which had been raised to a second or third floor; others, again, which had been carried as high as was intended, and even roofed in, suggesting skeletons or empty cages. then there were houses finished excepting that their walls had not been plastered, others which had been left without window frames, shutters, or doors; others, again, which had their doors and shutters, but were nailed up like coffins with not a soul inside them; and yet others which were partly, and in a few cases fully, inhabited--animated by the most unexpected of populations. and no words could describe the fearful mournfulness of that city of the sleeping beauty, hushed into mortal slumber before it had even lived, lying annihilated beneath the heavy sun pending an awakening which, likely enough, would never come.

following his companion, pierre walked along the broad, deserted streets, where all was still as in a cemetery. not a vehicle nor a pedestrian passed by. some streets had no foot ways; weeds were covering the unpaved roads, turning them once more into fields; and yet there were temporary gas lamps, mere leaden pipes bound to poles, which had been there for years. to avoid payment of the door and window tax, the house owners had generally closed all apertures with planks; while some houses, of which little had been built, were surrounded by high palings for fear lest their cellars should become the dens of all the bandits of the district. but the most painful sight of all was that of the young ruins, the proud, lofty structures, which, although unfinished, were already cracking on all sides, and required the support of an intricate arrangement of timbers to prevent them from falling in dust upon the ground. a pang came to one's heart as though one was in a city which some scourge had depopulated--pestilence, war, or bombardment, of which these gaping carcases seem to retain the mark. then at the thought that this was abortment, not death--that destruction would complete its work before the dreamt-of, vainly awaited denizens would bring life to the still-born houses, one's melancholy deepened to hopeless discouragement. and at each corner, moreover, there was the frightful irony of the magnificent marble slabs which bore the names of the streets, illustrious historical names, gracchus, scipio, pliny, pompey, julius caesar, blazing forth on those unfinished, crumbling walls like a buffet dealt by the past to modern incompetency.

then pierre was once more struck by this truth--that whosoever possesses rome is consumed by the building frenzy, the passion for marble, the boastful desire to build and leave his monument of glory to future generations. after the caesars and the popes had come the italian government, which was no sooner master of the city than it wished to reconstruct it, make it more splendid, more huge than it had ever been before. it was the fatal suggestion of the soil itself--the blood of augustus rushing to the brain of these last-comers and urging them to a mad desire to make the third rome the queen of the earth. thence had come all the vast schemes such as the cyclopean quays and the mere ministries struggling to outvie the colosseum; and thence had come all the new districts of gigantic houses which had sprouted like towns around the ancient city. it was not only on the castle fields, but at the porta san giovanni, the porta san lorenzo, the villa ludovisi, and on the heights of the viminal and the esquiline that unfinished, empty districts were already crumbling amidst the weeds of their deserted streets. after two thousand years of prodigious fertility the soil really seemed to be exhausted. even as in very old fruit gardens newly planted plum and cherry trees wither and die, so the new walls, no doubt, found no life in that old dust of rome, impoverished by the immemorial growth of so many temples, circuses, arches, basilicas, and churches. and thus the modern houses, which men had sought to render fruitful, the useless, over-huge houses, swollen with hereditary ambition, had been unable to attain maturity, and remained there sterile like dry bushes on a plot of land exhausted by over-cultivation. and the frightful sadness that one felt arose from the fact that so creative and great a past had culminated in such present-day impotency--rome, who had covered the world with indestructible monuments, now so reduced that she could only generate ruins.

"oh, they'll be finished some day!" said pierre.

narcisse gazed at him in astonishment: "for whom?"

that was the cruel question! only by dint of patriotic enthusiasm on the morrow of the conquest had one been able to indulge in the hope of a mighty influx of population, and now singular blindness was needed for the belief that such an influx would ever take place. the past experiments seemed decisive; moreover, there was no reason why the population should double: rome offered neither the attraction of pleasure nor that of gain to be amassed in commerce and industry for those she had not, nor of intensity of social and intellectual life, since of this she seemed no longer capable. in any case, years and years would be requisite. and, meantime, how could one people those houses which were finished; and for whom was one to finish those which had remained mere skeletons, falling to pieces under sun and rain? must they all remain there indefinitely, some gaunt and open to every blast and others closed and silent like tombs, in the wretched hideousness of their inutility and abandonment? what a terrible proof of error they offered under the radiant sky! the new masters of rome had made a bad start, and even if they now knew what they ought to have done would they have the courage to undo what they had done? since the milliard sunk there seemed to be definitely lost and wasted, one actually hoped for the advent of a nero, endowed with mighty, sovereign will, who would take torch and pick and burn and raze everything in the avenging name of reason and beauty.

"ah!" resumed narcisse, "here are the contessina and the prince."

benedetta had told the coachman to pull up in one of the open spaces intersecting the deserted streets, and now along the broad, quiet, grassy road--well fitted for a lovers' stroll--she was approaching on dario's arm, both of them delighted with their outing, and no longer thinking of the sad things which they had come to see. "what a nice day it is!" the contessina gaily exclaimed as she reached pierre and narcisse. "how pleasant the sunshine is! it's quite a treat to be able to walk about a little as if one were in the country!"

dario was the first to cease smiling at the blue sky, all the delight of his stroll with his cousin on his arm suddenly departing. "my dear," said he, "we must go to see those people, since you are bent on it, though it will certainly spoil our day. but first i must take my bearings. i'm not particularly clever, you know, in finding my way in places where i don't care to go. besides, this district is idiotic with all its dead streets and dead houses, and never a face or a shop to serve as a reminder. still i think the place is over yonder. follow me; at all events, we shall see."

the four friends then wended their way towards the central part of the district, the part facing the tiber, where a small nucleus of a population had collected. the landlords turned the few completed houses to the best advantage they could, letting the rooms at very low rentals, and waiting patiently enough for payment. some needy employees, some poverty-stricken families--had thus installed themselves there, and in the long run contrived to pay a trifle for their accommodation. in consequence, however, of the demolition of the ancient ghetto and the opening of the new streets by which air had been let into the trastevere district, perfect hordes of tatterdemalions, famished and homeless, and almost without garments, had swooped upon the unfinished houses, filling them with wretchedness and vermin; and it had been necessary to tolerate this lawless occupation lest all the frightful misery should remain displayed in the public thoroughfares. and so it was to those frightful tenants that had fallen the huge four and five storeyed palaces, entered by monumental doorways flanked by lofty statues and having carved balconies upheld by caryatides all along their fronts. each family had made its choice, often closing the frameless windows with boards and the gaping doorways with rags, and occupying now an entire princely flat and now a few small rooms, according to its taste. horrid-looking linen hung drying from the carved balconies, foul stains already degraded the white walls, and from the magnificent porches, intended for sumptuous equipages, there poured a stream of filth which rotted in stagnant pools in the roads, where there was neither pavement nor footpath.

on two occasions already dario had caused his companions to retrace their steps. he was losing his way and becoming more and more gloomy. "i ought to have taken to the left," said he, "but how is one to know amidst such a set as that!"

parties of verminous children were now to be seen rolling in the dust; they were wondrously dirty, almost naked, with black skins and tangled locks as coarse as horsehair. there were also women in sordid skirts and with their loose jackets unhooked. many stood talking together in yelping voices, whilst others, seated on old chairs with their hands on their knees, remained like that idle for hours. not many men were met; but a few lay on the scorched grass, sleeping heavily in the sunlight. however, the stench was becoming unbearable--a stench of misery as when the human animal eschews all cleanliness to wallow in filth. and matters were made worse by the smell from a small, improvised market--the emanations of the rotting fruit, cooked and sour vegetables, and stale fried fish which a few poor women had set out on the ground amidst a throng of famished, covetous children.

"ah! well, my dear, i really don't know where it is," all at once exclaimed the prince, addressing his cousin. "be reasonable; we've surely seen enough; let's go back to the carriage."

he was really suffering, and, as benedetta had said, he did not know how to suffer. it seemed to him monstrous that one should sadden one's life by such an excursion as this. life ought to be buoyant and benign under the clear sky, brightened by pleasant sights, by dance and song. and he, with his naive egotism, had a positive horror of ugliness, poverty, and suffering, the sight of which caused him both mental and physical pain.

benedetta shuddered even as he did, but in presence of pierre she desired to be brave. glancing at him, and seeing how deeply interested and compassionate he looked, she desired to persevere in her effort to sympathise with the humble and the wretched. "no, no, dario, we must stay. these gentlemen wish to see everything--is it not so?"

"oh, the rome of to-day is here," exclaimed pierre; "this tells one more about it than all the promenades among the ruins and the monuments."

"you exaggerate, my dear abbe," declared narcisse. "still, i will admit that it is very interesting. some of the old women are particularly expressive."

at this moment benedetta, seeing a superbly beautiful girl in front of her, could not restrain a cry of enraptured admiration: "/o che bellezza!"

and then dario, having recognised the girl, exclaimed with the same delight: "why, it's la pierina; she'll show us the way."

the girl had been following the party for a moment already without daring to approach. her eyes, glittering with the joy of a loving slave, had at first darted towards the prince, and then had hastily scrutinised the contessina--not, however, with any show of jealous anger, but with an expression of affectionate submission and resigned happiness at seeing that she also was very beautiful. and the girl fully answered to the prince's description of her--tall, sturdy, with the bust of a goddess, a real antique, a juno of twenty, her chin somewhat prominent, her mouth and nose perfect in contour, her eyes large and full like a heifer's, and her whole face quite dazzling--gilded, so to say, by a sunflash--beneath her casque of heavy jet-black hair.

"so you will show us the way?" said benedetta, familiar and smiling, already consoled for all the surrounding ugliness by the thought that there should be such beautiful creatures in the world.

"oh yes, signora, yes, at once!" and thereupon pierina ran off before them, her feet in shoes which at any rate had no holes, whilst the old brown woollen dress which she wore appeared to have been recently washed and mended. one seemed to divine in her a certain coquettish care, a desire for cleanliness, which none of the others displayed; unless, indeed, it were simply that her great beauty lent radiance to her humble garments and made her appear a goddess.

"/che bellezza! the bellezza!/" the contessina repeated without wearying. "that girl, dario /mio/, is a real feast for the eyes!"

"i knew she would please you," he quietly replied, flattered at having discovered such a beauty, and no longer talking of departure, since he could at last rest his eyes on something pleasant.

behind them came pierre, likewise full of admiration, whilst narcisse spoke to him of the scrupulosity of his own tastes, which were for the rare and the subtle. "she's beautiful, no doubt," said he; "but at bottom nothing can be more gross than the roman style of beauty; there's no soul, none of the infinite in it. these girls simply have blood under their skins without ever a glimpse of heaven."

meantime pierina had stopped, and with a wave of the hand directed attention to her mother, who sat on a broken box beside the lofty doorway of an unfinished mansion. she also must have once been very beautiful, but at forty she was already a wreck, with dim eyes, drawn mouth, black teeth, broadly wrinkled countenance, and huge fallen bosom. and she was also fearfully dirty, her grey wavy hair dishevelled and her skirt and jacket soiled and slit, revealing glimpses of grimy flesh. on her knees she held a sleeping infant, her last-born, at whom she gazed like one overwhelmed and courageless, like a beast of burden resigned to her fate.

"/bene, bene,/" said she, raising her head, "it's the gentleman who came to give me a crown because he saw you crying. and he's come back to see us with some friends. well, well, there are some good hearts in the world after all."

then she related their story, but in a spiritless way, without seeking to move her visitors. she was called giacinta, it appeared, and had married a mason, one tomaso gozzo, by whom she had had seven children, pierina, then tito, a big fellow of eighteen, then four more girls, each at an interval of two years, and finally the infant, a boy, whom she now had on her lap. they had long lived in the trastevere district, in an old house which had lately been pulled down; and their existence seemed to have then been shattered, for since they had taken refuge in the quartiere dei prati the crisis in the building trade had reduced tomaso and tito to absolute idleness, and the bead factory where pierina had earned as much as tenpence a day--just enough to prevent them from dying of hunger--had closed its doors. at present not one of them had any work; they lived purely by chance.

"if you like to go up," the woman added, "you'll find tomaso there with his brother ambrogio, whom we've taken to live with us. they'll know better than i what to say to you. tomaso is resting; but what else can he do? it's like tito--he's dozing over there."

so saying she pointed towards the dry grass amidst which lay a tall young fellow with a pronounced nose, hard mouth, and eyes as admirable as pierina's. he had raised his head to glance suspiciously at the visitors, a fierce frown gathering on his forehead when he remarked how rapturously his sister contemplated the prince. then he let his head fall again, but kept his eyes open, watching the pair stealthily.

"take the lady and gentlemen upstairs, pierina, since they would like to see the place," said the mother.

other women had now drawn near, shuffling along with bare feet in old shoes; bands of children, too, were swarming around; little girls but half clad, amongst whom, no doubt, were giacinta's four. however, with their black eyes under their tangled mops they were all so much alike that only their mothers could identify them. and the whole resembled a teeming camp of misery pitched on that spot of majestic disaster, that street of palaces, unfinished yet already in ruins.

with a soft, loving smile, benedetta turned to her cousin. "don't you come up," she gently said; "i don't desire your death, dario /mio/. it was very good of you to come so far. wait for me here in the pleasant sunshine: monsieur l'abbe and monsieur habert will go up with me."

dario began to laugh, and willingly acquiesced. then lighting a cigarette, he walked slowly up and down, well pleased with the mildness of the atmosphere.

la pierina had already darted into the spacious porch whose lofty, vaulted ceiling was adorned with coffers displaying a rosaceous pattern. however, a veritable manure heap covered such marble slabs as had already been laid in the vestibule, whilst the steps of the monumental stone staircase with sculptured balustrade were already cracked and so grimy that they seemed almost black. on all sides appeared the greasy stains of hands; the walls, whilst awaiting the painter and gilder, had been smeared with repulsive filth.

on reaching the spacious first-floor landing pierina paused, and contented herself with calling through a gaping portal which lacked both door and framework: "father, here's a lady and two gentlemen to see you." then to the contessina she added: "it's the third room at the end." and forthwith she herself rapidly descended the stairs, hastening back to her passion.

benedetta and her companions passed through two large rooms, bossy with plaster under foot and having frameless windows wide open upon space; and at last they reached a third room, where the whole gozzo family had installed itself with the remnants it used as furniture. on the floor, where the bare iron girders showed, no boards having been laid down, were five or six leprous-looking palliasses. a long table, which was still strong, occupied the centre of the room, and here and there were a few old, damaged, straw-seated chairs mended with bits of rope. the great business had been to close two of the three windows with boards, whilst the third one and the door were screened with some old mattress ticking studded with stains and holes.

tomaso's face expressed the surprise of a man who is unaccustomed to visits of charity. seated at the table, with his elbows resting on it and his chin supported by his hands, he was taking repose, as his wife giacinta had said. he was a sturdy fellow of five and forty, bearded and long-haired; and, in spite of all his misery and idleness, his large face had remained as serene as that of a roman senator. however, the sight of the two foreigners--for such he at once judged pierre and narcisse to be, made him rise to his feet with sudden distrust. but he smiled on recognising benedetta, and as she began to speak of dario, and to explain the charitable purpose of their visit, he interrupted her: "yes, yes, i know, contessina. oh! i well know who you are, for in my father's time i once walled up a window at the palazzo boccanera."

then he complaisantly allowed himself to be questioned, telling pierre, who was surprised, that although they were certainly not happy they would have found life tolerable had they been able to work two days a week. and one could divine that he was, at heart, fairly well content to go on short commons, provided that he could live as he listed without fatigue. his narrative and his manner suggested the familiar locksmith who, on being summoned by a traveller to open his trunk, the key of which was lost, sent word that he could not possibly disturb himself during the hour of the siesta. in short, there was no rent to pay, as there were plenty of empty mansions open to the poor, and a few coppers would have sufficed for food, easily contented and sober as one was.

"but oh, sir," tomaso continued, "things were ever so much better under the pope. my father, a mason like myself, worked at the vatican all his life, and even now, when i myself get a job or two, it's always there. we were spoilt, you see, by those ten years of busy work, when we never left our ladders and earned as much as we pleased. of course, we fed ourselves better, and bought ourselves clothes, and took such pleasure as we cared for; so that it's all the harder nowadays to have to stint ourselves. but if you'd only come to see us in the pope's time! no taxes, everything to be had for nothing, so to say--why, one merely had to let oneself live."

at this moment a growl arose from one of the palliasses lying in the shade of the boarded windows, and the mason, in his slow, quiet way, resumed: "it's my brother ambrogio, who isn't of my opinion.

"he was with the republicans in '49, when he was fourteen. but it doesn't matter; we took him with us when we heard that he was dying of hunger and sickness in a cellar."

the visitors could not help quivering with pity. ambrogio was the elder by some fifteen years; and now, though scarcely sixty, he was already a ruin, consumed by fever, his legs so wasted that he spent his days on his palliasse without ever going out. shorter and slighter, but more turbulent than his brother, he had been a carpenter by trade. and, despite his physical decay, he retained an extraordinary head--the head of an apostle and martyr, at once noble and tragic in its expression, and encompassed by bristling snowy hair and beard.

"the pope," he growled; "i've never spoken badly of the pope. yet it's his fault if tyranny continues. he alone in '49 could have given us the republic, and then we shouldn't have been as we are now."

ambrogio had known mazzini, whose vague religiosity remained in him--the dream of a republican pope at last establishing the reign of liberty and fraternity. but later on his passion for garibaldi had disturbed these views, and led him to regard the papacy as worthless, incapable of achieving human freedom. and so, between the dream of his youth and the stern experience of his life, he now hardly knew in which direction the truth lay. moreover, he had never acted save under the impulse of violent emotion, but contented himself with fine words--vague, indeterminate wishes.

"brother ambrogio," replied tomaso, all tranquillity, "the pope is the pope, and wisdom lies in putting oneself on his side, because he will always be the pope--that is to say, the stronger. for my part, if we had to vote to-morrow i'd vote for him."

calmed by the shrewd prudence characteristic of his race, the old carpenter made no haste to reply. at last he said, "well, as for me, brother tomaso, i should vote against him--always against him. and you know very well that we should have the majority. the pope-king indeed! that's all over. the very borgo would revolt. still, i won't say that we oughtn't to come to an understanding with him, so that everybody's religion may be respected."

pierre listened, deeply interested, and at last ventured to ask: "are there many socialists among the roman working classes?"

this time the answer came after a yet longer pause. "socialists? yes, there are some, no doubt, but much fewer than in other places. all those things are novelties which impatient fellows go in for without understanding much about them. we old men, we were for liberty; we don't believe in fire and massacre."

then, fearing to say too much in presence of that lady and those gentlemen, ambrogio began to moan on his pallet, whilst the contessina, somewhat upset by the smell of the place, took her departure, after telling the young priest that it would be best for them to leave their alms with the wife downstairs. meantime tomaso resumed his seat at the table, again letting his chin rest on his hands as he nodded to his visitors, no more impressed by their departure than he had been by their arrival: "to the pleasure of seeing you again, and am happy to have been able to oblige you."

on the threshold, however, narcisse's enthusiasm burst forth; he turned to cast a final admiring glance at old ambrogio's head, "a perfect masterpiece," which he continued praising whilst he descended the stairs.

down below giacinta was still sitting on the broken box with her infant across her lap, and a few steps away pierina stood in front of dario, watching him with an enchanted air whilst he finished his cigarette. tito, lying low in the grass like an animal on the watch for prey, did not for a moment cease to gaze at them.

"ah, signora!" resumed the woman, in her resigned, doleful voice, "the place is hardly inhabitable, as you must have seen. the only good thing is that one gets plenty of room. but there are draughts enough to kill me, and i'm always so afraid of the children falling down some of the holes."

thereupon she related a story of a woman who had lost her life through mistaking a window for a door one evening and falling headlong into the street. then, too, a little girl had broken both arms by tumbling from a staircase which had no banisters. and you could die there without anybody knowing how bad you were and coming to help you. only the previous day the corpse of an old man had been found lying on the plaster in a lonely room. starvation must have killed him quite a week previously, yet he would still have been stretched there if the odour of his remains had not attracted the attention of neighbours.

"if one only had something to eat things wouldn't be so bad!" continued giacinta. "but it's dreadful when there's a baby to suckle and one gets no food, for after a while one has no milk. this little fellow wants his titty and gets angry with me because i can't give him any. but it isn't my fault. he has sucked me till the blood came, and all i can do is to cry."

as she spoke tears welled into her poor dim eyes. but all at once she flew into a tantrum with tito, who was still wallowing in the grass like an animal instead of rising by way of civility towards those fine people, who would surely leave her some alms. "eh! tito, you lazy fellow, can't you get up when people come to see you?" she called.

after some pretence of not hearing, the young fellow at last rose with an air of great ill-humour; and pierre, feeling interested in him, tried to draw him out as he had done with the father and uncle upstairs. but tito only returned curt answers, as if both bored and suspicious. since there was no work to be had, said he, the only thing was to sleep. it was of no use to get angry; that wouldn't alter matters. so the best was to live as one could without increasing one's worry. as for socialists--well, yes, perhaps there were a few, but he didn't know any. and his weary, indifferent manner made it quite clear that, if his father was for the pope and his uncle for the republic, he himself was for nothing at all. in this pierre divined the end of a nation, or rather the slumber of a nation in which democracy has not yet awakened. however, as the priest continued, asking tito his age, what school he had attended, and in what district he had been born, the young man suddenly cut the questions short by pointing with one finger to his breast and saying gravely, "/io son' romano di roma/."

and, indeed, did not that answer everything? "i am a roman of rome." pierre smiled sadly and spoke no further. never had he more fully realised the pride of that race, the long-descending inheritance of glory which was so heavy to bear. the sovereign vanity of the caesars lived anew in that degenerate young fellow who was scarcely able to read and write. starveling though he was, he knew his city, and could instinctively have recounted the grand pages of its history. the names of the great emperors and great popes were familiar to him. and why should men toil and moil when they had been the masters of the world? why not live nobly and idly in the most beautiful of cities, under the most beautiful of skies? "/io son' romano di roma/!"

benedetta had slipped her alms into the mother's hand, and pierre and narcisse were following her example when dario, who had already done so, thought of pierina. he did not like to offer her money, but a pretty, fanciful idea occurred to him. lightly touching his lips with his finger-tips, he said, with a faint laugh, "for beauty!"

there was something really pretty and pleasing in the kiss thus wafted with a slightly mocking laugh by that familiar, good-natured young prince who, as in some love story of the olden time, was touched by the beautiful bead-worker's mute adoration. pierina flushed with pleasure, and, losing her head, darted upon dario's hand and pressed her warm lips to it with unthinking impulsiveness, in which there was as much divine gratitude as tender passion. but tito's eyes flashed with anger at the sight, and, brutally seizing his sister by the skirt, he threw her back, growling between his teeth, "none of that, you know, or i'll kill you, and him too!"

it was high time for the visitors to depart, for other women, scenting the presence of money, were now coming forward with outstretched hands, or despatching tearful children in their stead. the whole wretched, abandoned district was in a flutter, a distressful wail ascended from those lifeless streets with high resounding names. but what was to be done? one could not give to all. so the only course lay in flight--amidst deep sadness as one realised how powerless was charity in presence of such appalling want.

when benedetta and dario had reached their carriage they hastened to take their seats and nestle side by side, glad to escape from all such horrors. still the contessina was well pleased with her bravery in the presence of pierre, whose hand she pressed with the emotion of a pupil touched by the master's lesson, after narcisse had told her that he meant to take the young priest to lunch at the little restaurant on the piazza of st. peter's whence one obtained such an interesting view of the vatican.

"try some of the light white wine of genzano," said dario, who had become quite gay again. "there's nothing better to drive away the blues."

however, pierre's curiosity was insatiable, and on the way he again questioned narcisse about the people of modern rome, their life, habits, and manners. there was little or no education, he learnt; no large manufactures and no export trade existed. the men carried on the few trades that were current, all consumption being virtually limited to the city itself. among the women there were bead-workers and embroiderers; and the manufacture of religious articles, such as medals and chaplets, and of certain popular jewellery had always occupied a fair number of hands. but after marriage the women, invariably burdened with numerous offspring, attempted little beyond household work. briefly, the population took life as it came, working just sufficiently to secure food, contenting itself with vegetables, pastes, and scraggy mutton, without thought of rebellion or ambition. the only vices were gambling and a partiality for the red and white wines of the roman province--wines which excited to quarrel and murder, and on the evenings of feast days, when the taverns emptied, strewed the streets with groaning men, slashed and stabbed with knives. the girls, however, but seldom went wrong; one could count those who allowed themselves to be seduced; and this arose from the great union prevailing in each family, every member of which bowed submissively to the father's absolute authority. moreover, the brothers watched over their sisters even as tito did over pierina, guarding them fiercely for the sake of the family honour. and amidst all this there was no real religion, but simply a childish idolatry, all hearts going forth to madonna and the saints, who alone were entreated and regarded as having being: for it never occurred to anybody to think of god.

thus the stagnation of the lower orders could easily be understood. behind them were the many centuries during which idleness had been encouraged, vanity flattered, and nerveless life willingly accepted. when they were neither masons, nor carpenters, nor bakers, they were servants serving the priests, and more or less directly in the pay of the vatican. thence sprang the two antagonistic parties, on the one hand the more numerous party composed of the old carbonari, mazzinians, and garibaldians, the /elite/ of the trastevere; and on the other the "clients" of the vatican, all who lived on or by the church and regretted the pope-king. but, after all, the antagonism was confined to opinions; there was no thought of making an effort or incurring a risk. for that, some sudden flare of passion, strong enough to overcome the sturdy calmness of the race, would have been needed. but what would have been the use of it? the wretchedness had lasted for so many centuries, the sky was so blue, the siesta preferable to aught else during the hot hours! and only one thing seemed positive--that the majority was certainly in favour of rome remaining the capital of italy. indeed, rebellion had almost broken out in the leonine city when the cession of the latter to the holy see was rumoured. as for the increase of want and poverty, this was largely due to the circumstance that the roman workman had really gained nothing by the many works carried on in his city during fifteen years. first of all, over 40,000 provincials, mostly from the north, more spirited and resistant than himself, and working at cheaper rates, had invaded rome; and when he, the roman, had secured his share of the labour, he had lived in better style, without thought of economy; so that after the crisis, when the 40,000 men from the provinces were sent home again, he had found himself once more in a dead city where trade was always slack. and thus he had relapsed into his antique indolence, at heart well pleased at no longer being hustled by press of work, and again accommodating himself as best he could to his old mistress, want, empty in pocket yet always a /grand seigneur/.

however, pierre was struck by the great difference between the want and wretchedness of rome and paris. in rome the destitution was certainly more complete, the food more loathsome, the dirt more repulsive. yet at the same time the roman poor retained more ease of manner and more real gaiety. the young priest thought of the fireless, breadless poor of paris, shivering in their hovels at winter time; and suddenly he understood. the destitution of rome did not know cold. what a sweet and eternal consolation; a sun for ever bright, a sky for ever blue and benign out of charity to the wretched! and what mattered the vileness of the dwelling if one could sleep under the sky, fanned by the warm breeze! what mattered even hunger if the family could await the windfall of chance in sunlit streets or on the scorched grass! the climate induced sobriety; there was no need of alcohol or red meat to enable one to face treacherous fogs. blissful idleness smiled on the golden evenings, poverty became like the enjoyment of liberty in that delightful atmosphere where the happiness of living seemed to be all sufficient. narcisse told pierre that at naples, in the narrow odoriferous streets of the port and santa lucia districts, the people spent virtually their whole lives out-of-doors, gay, childish, and ignorant, seeking nothing beyond the few pence that were needed to buy food. and it was certainly the climate which fostered the prolonged infancy of the nation, which explained why such a democracy did not awaken to social ambition and consciousness of itself. no doubt the poor of naples and rome suffered from want; but they did not know the rancour which cruel winter implants in men's hearts, the dark rancour which one feels on shivering with cold while rich people are warming themselves before blazing fires. they did not know the infuriated reveries in snow-swept hovels, when the guttering dip burns low, the passionate need which then comes upon one to wreak justice, to revolt, as from a sense of duty, in order that one may save wife and children from consumption, in order that they also may have a warm nest where life shall be a possibility! ah! the want that shivers with the bitter cold--therein lies the excess of social injustice, the most terrible of schools, where the poor learn to realise their sufferings, where they are roused to indignation, and swear to make those sufferings cease, even if in doing so they annihilate all olden society!

and in that same clemency of the southern heavens pierre also found an explanation of the life of st. francis,* that divine mendicant of love who roamed the high roads extolling the charms of poverty. doubtless he was an unconscious revolutionary, protesting against the overflowing luxury of the roman court by his return to the love of the humble, the simplicity of the primitive church. but such a revival of innocence and sobriety would never have been possible in a northern land. the enchantment of nature, the frugality of a people whom the sunlight nourished, the benignity of mendicancy on roads for ever warm, were needed to effect it. and yet how was it possible that a st. francis, glowing with brotherly love, could have appeared in a land which nowadays so seldom practises charity, which treats the lowly so harshly and contemptuously, and cannot even bestow alms on its own pope? is it because ancient pride ends by hardening all hearts, or because the experience of very old races leads finally to egotism, that one now beholds italy seemingly benumbed amidst dogmatic and pompous catholicism, whilst the return to the ideals of the gospel, the passionate interest in the poor and the suffering comes from the woeful plains of the north, from the nations whose sunlight is so limited? yes, doubtless all that has much to do with the change, and the success of st. francis was in particular due to the circumstance that, after so gaily espousing his lady, poverty, he was able to lead her, bare-footed and scarcely clad, during endless and delightful spring-tides, among communities whom an ardent need of love and compassion then consumed.

* st. francis of assisi, the founder of the famous order of mendicant friars.--trans.

while conversing, pierre and narcisse had reached the piazza of st. peter's, and they sat down at one of the little tables skirting the pavement outside the restaurant where they had lunched once before. the linen was none too clean, but the view was splendid. the basilica rose up in front of them, and the vatican on the right, above the majestic curve of the colonnade. just as the waiter was bringing the /hors-d'oeuvre/, some /finocchio/* and anchovies, the young priest, who had fixed his eyes on the vatican, raised an exclamation to attract narcisse's attention: "look, my friend, at that window, which i am told is the holy father's. can't you distinguish a pale figure standing there, quite motionless?"

* fennel-root, eaten raw, a favourite "appetiser" in rome during the spring and autumn.--trans.

the young man began to laugh. "oh! well," said he, "it must be the holy father in person. you are so anxious to see him that your very anxiety conjures him into your presence."

"but i assure you," repeated pierre, "that he is over there behind the window-pane. there is a white figure looking this way."

narcisse, who was very hungry, began to eat whilst still indulging in banter. all at once, however, he exclaimed: "well, my dear abbe, as the pope is looking at us, this is the moment to speak of him. i promised to tell you how he sunk several millions of st. peter's patrimony in the frightful financial crisis of which you have just seen the ruins; and, indeed, your visit to the new district of the castle fields would not be complete without this story by way of appendix."

thereupon, without losing a mouthful, narcisse spoke at considerable length. at the death of pius ix the patrimony of st. peter, it seemed, had exceeded twenty millions of francs. cardinal antonelli, who speculated, and whose ventures were usually successful, had for a long time left a part of this money with the rothschilds and a part in the hands of different nuncios, who turned it to profit abroad. after antonelli's death, however, his successor, cardinal simeoni, withdrew the money from the nuncios to invest it at rome; and leo xiii on his accession entrusted the administration of the patrimony to a commission of cardinals, of which monsignor folchi was appointed secretary. this prelate, who for twelve years played such an important /role/, was the son of an employee of the dataria, who, thanks to skilful financial operations, had left a fortune of a million francs. monsignor folchi inherited his father's cleverness, and revealed himself to be a financier of the first rank in such wise that the commission gradually relinquished its powers to him, letting him act exactly as he pleased and contenting itself with approving the reports which he laid before it at each meeting. the patrimony, however, yielded scarcely more than a million francs per annum, and, as the expenditure amounted to seven millions, six had to be found. accordingly, from that other source of income, the peter's pence, the pope annually gave three million francs to monsignor folchi, who, by skilful speculations and investments, was able to double them every year, and thus provide for all disbursements without ever breaking into the capital of the patrimony. in the earlier times he realised considerable profit by gambling in land in and about rome. he took shares also in many new enterprises, speculated in mills, omnibuses, and water-services, without mentioning all the gambling in which he participated with the banca di roma, a catholic institution. wonderstruck by his skill, the pope, who, on his own side, had hitherto speculated through the medium of a confidential employee named sterbini, dismissed the latter, and entrusted monsignor folchi with the duty of turning his money to profit in the same way as he turned that of the holy see. this was the climax of the prelate's favour, the apogee of his power. bad days were dawning, things were tottering already, and the great collapse was soon to come, sudden and swift like lightning. one of leo xiii's practices was to lend large sums to the roman princes who, seized with the gambling frenzy, and mixed up in land and building speculations, were at a loss for money. to guarantee the pope's advances they deposited shares with him, and thus, when the downfall came, he was left with heaps of worthless paper on his hands. then another disastrous affair was an attempt to found a house of credit in paris in view of working off the shares which could not be disposed of in italy among the french aristocracy and religious people. to egg these on it was said that the pope was interested in the venture; and the worst was that he dropped three millions of francs in it.* the situation then became the more critical as he had gradually risked all the money he disposed of in the terrible agiotage going on in rome, tempted thereto by the prospect of huge profits and perhaps indulging in the hope that he might win back by money the city which had been torn from him by force. his own responsibility remained complete, for monsignor folchi never made an important venture without consulting him; and he must have been therefore the real artisan of the disaster, mastered by his passion for gain, his desire to endow the church with a huge capital, that great source of power in modern times. as always happens, however, the prelate was the only victim. he had become imperious and difficult to deal with; and was no longer liked by the cardinals of the commission, who were merely called together to approve such transactions as he chose to entrust to them. so, when the crisis came, a plot was laid; the cardinals terrified the pope by telling him of all the evil rumours which were current, and then forced monsignor folchi to render a full account of his speculations. the situation proved to be very bad; it was no longer possible to avoid heavy losses. and so monsignor folchi was disgraced, and since then has vainly solicited an audience of leo xiii, who has always refused to receive him, as if determined to punish him for their common fault--that passion for lucre which blinded them both. very pious and submissive, however, monsignor folchi has never complained, but has kept his secrets and bowed to fate. nobody can say exactly how many millions the patrimony of st. peter lost when rome was changed into a gambling-hell, but if some prelates only admit ten, others go as far as thirty. the probability is that the loss was about fifteen millions.**

* the allusion is evidently to the famous union generale, on which the pope bestowed his apostolic benediction, and with which m. zola deals at length in his novel /money/. certainly a very brilliant idea was embodied in the union generale, that of establishing a great international catholic bank which would destroy the jewish financial autocracy throughout europe, and provide both the papacy and the legitimist cause in several countries with the sinews of war. but in the battle which ensued the great jew financial houses proved the stronger, and the disaster which overtook the catholic speculators was a terrible one.--trans.

** that is 600,000 pounds.

whilst narcisse was giving this account he and pierre had despatched their cutlets and tomatoes, and the waiter was now serving them some fried chicken. "at the present time," said narcisse by way of conclusion, "the gap has been filled up; i told you of the large sums yielded by the peter's pence fund, the amount of which is only known by the pope, who alone fixes its employment. and, by the way, he isn't cured of speculating: i know from a good source that he still gambles, though with more prudence. moreover, his confidential assistant is still a prelate. and, when all is said, my dear abbe, he's in the right: a man must belong to his times--dash it all!"

pierre had listened with growing surprise, in which terror and sadness mingled. doubtless such things were natural, even legitimate; yet he, in his dream of a pastor of souls free from all terrestrial cares, had never imagined that they existed. what! the pope--the spiritual father of the lowly and the suffering--had speculated in land and in stocks and shares! he had gambled, placed funds in the hands of jew bankers, practised usury, extracted hard interest from money--he, the successor of the apostle, the pontiff of christ, the representative of jesus, of the gospel, that divine friend of the poor! and, besides, what a painful contrast: so many millions stored away in those rooms of the vatican, and so many millions working and fructifying, constantly being diverted from one speculation to another in order that they might yield the more gain; and then down below, near at hand, so much want and misery in those abominable unfinished buildings of the new districts, so many poor folks dying of hunger amidst filth, mothers without milk for their babes, men reduced to idleness by lack of work, old ones at the last gasp like beasts of burden who are pole-axed when they are of no more use! ah! god of charity, god of love, was it possible! the church doubtless had material wants; she could not live without money; prudence and policy had dictated the thought of gaining for her such a treasure as would enable her to fight her adversaries victoriously. but how grievously this wounded one's feelings, how it soiled the church, how she descended from her divine throne to become nothing but a party, a vast international association organised for the purpose of conquering and possessing the world!

and the more pierre thought of the extraordinary adventure the greater was his astonishment. could a more unexpected, startling drama be imagined? that pope shutting himself up in his palace--a prison, no doubt, but one whose hundred windows overlooked immensity; that pope who, at all hours of the day and night, in every season, could from his window see his capital, the city which had been stolen from him, and the restitution of which he never ceased to demand; that pope who, day by day, beheld the changes effected in the city--the opening of new streets, the demolition of ancient districts, the sale of land, and the gradual erection of new buildings which ended by forming a white girdle around the old ruddy roofs; that pope who, in presence of this daily spectacle, this building frenzy, which he could follow from morn till eve, was himself finally overcome by the gambling passion, and, secluded in his closed chamber, began to speculate on the embellishments of his old capital, seeking wealth in the spurt of work and trade brought about by that very italian government which he reproached with spoliation; and finally that pope losing millions in a catastrophe which he ought to have desired, but had been unable to foresee! no, never had dethroned monarch yielded to a stranger idea, compromised himself in a more tragical venture, the result of which fell upon him like divine punishment. and it was no mere king who had done this, but the delegate of god, the man who, in the eyes of idolatrous christendom, was the living manifestation of the deity!

dessert had now been served--a goat's cheese and some fruit--and narcisse was just finishing some grapes when, on raising his eyes, he in turn exclaimed: "well, you are quite right, my dear abbe, i myself can see a pale figure at the window of the holy father's room."

pierre, who scarcely took his eyes from the window, answered slowly: "yes, yes, it went away, but has just come back, and stands there white and motionless."

"well, after all, what would you have the pope do?" resumed narcisse with his languid air. "he's like everybody else; he looks out of the window when he wants a little distraction, and certainly there's plenty for him to look at."

the same idea had occurred to pierre, and was filling him with emotion. people talked of the vatican being closed, and pictured a dark, gloomy palace, encompassed by high walls, whereas this palace overlooked all rome, and the pope from his window could see the world. pierre himself had viewed the panorama from the summit of the janiculum, the /loggie/ of raffaelle, and the dome of st. peter's, and so he well knew what it was that leo xiii was able to behold. in the centre of the vast desert of the campagna, bounded by the sabine and alban mountains, the seven illustrious hills appeared to him with their trees and edifices. his eyes ranged also over all the basilicas, santa maria maggiore, san giovanni in laterano, the cradle of the papacy, san paolo-fuori-le-mura, santa croce in gerusalemme, sant' agnese, and the others; they beheld, too, the domes of the gesu of sant' andrea della valle, san carlo and san giovanni dei fiorentini, and indeed all those four hundred churches of rome which make the city like a /campo santo/ studded with crosses. and leo xiii could moreover see the famous monuments testifying to the pride of successive centuries--the castle of sant' angelo, that imperial mausoleum which was transformed into a papal fortress, the distant white line of the tombs of the appian way, the scattered ruins of the baths of caracalla and the abode of septimius severus; and then, after the innumerable columns, porticoes, and triumphal arches, there were the palaces and villas of the sumptuous cardinals of the renascence, the palazzo farnese, the palazzo borghese, the villa medici, and others, amidst a swarming of facades and roofs. but, in particular, just under his window, on the left, the pope was able to see the abominations of the unfinished district of the castle fields. in the afternoon, when he strolled through his gardens, bastioned by the wall of the fourth leo like the plateau of a citadel, his view stretched over the ravaged valley at the foot of monte mario, where so many brick-works were established during the building frenzy. the green slopes are still ripped up, yellow trenches intersect them in all directions, and the closed works and factories have become wretched ruins with lofty, black, and smokeless chimneys. and at any other hour of the day leo xiii could not approach his window without beholding the abandoned houses for which all those brick-fields had worked, those houses which had died before they even lived, and where there was now nought but the swarming misery of rome, rotting there like some decomposition of olden society.

however, pierre more particularly thought of leo xiii, forgetting the rest of the city to let his thoughts dwell on the palatine, now bereft of its crown of palaces and rearing only its black cypresses towards the blue heavens. doubtless in his mind he rebuilt the palaces of the caesars, whilst before him rose great shadowy forms arrayed in purple, visions of his real ancestors, those emperors and supreme pontiffs who alone could tell him how one might reign over every nation and be the absolute master of the world. then, however, his glances strayed to the quirinal, and there he could contemplate the new and neighbouring royalty. how strange the meeting of those two palaces, the quirinal and the vatican, which rise up and gaze at one another across the rome of the middle ages and the renascence, whose roofs, baked and gilded by the burning sun, are jumbled in confusion alongside the tiber. when the pope and the king go to their windows they can with a mere opera-glass see each other quite distinctly. true, they are but specks in the boundless immensity, and what a gulf there is between them--how many centuries of history, how many generations that battled and suffered, how much departed greatness, and how much new seed for the mysterious future! still, they can see one another, and they are yet waging the eternal fight, the fight as to which of them--the pontiff and shepherd of the soul or the monarch and master of the body--shall possess the people whose stream rolls beneath them, and in the result remain the absolute sovereign. and pierre wondered also what might be the thoughts and dreams of leo xiii behind those window-panes where he still fancied he could distinguish his pale, ghostly figure. on surveying new rome, the ravaged olden districts and the new ones laid waste by the blast of disaster, the pope must certainly rejoice at the colossal failure of the italian government. his city had been stolen from him; the newcomers had virtually declared that they would show him how a great capital was created, and their boast had ended in that catastrophe--a multitude of hideous and useless buildings which they did not even know how to finish! he, the pope, could moreover only be delighted with the terrible worries into which the usurping /regime/ had fallen, the political crisis, and the financial crisis, the whole growing national unrest amidst which that /regime/ seemed likely to sink some day; and yet did not he himself possess a patriotic soul? was he not a loving son of that italy whose genius and ancient ambition coursed in the blood of his veins? ah! no, nothing against italy; rather everything that would enable her to become once more the mistress of the world. and so, even amidst the joy of hope, he must have been grieved to see her thus ruined, threatened with bankruptcy, displaying like a sore that overturned, unfinished rome which was a confession of her impotency. but, on the other hand, if the house of savoy were to be swept away, would he not be there to take its place, and at last resume possession of his capital, which, from his window, for fifteen years past, he had beheld in the grip of masons and demolishers? and then he would again be the master and reign over the world, enthroned in the predestined city to which prophecy has ensured eternity and universal dominion.

but the horizon spread out, and pierre wondered what leo xiii beheld beyond rome, beyond the campagna and the sabine and alban mountains. what had he seen for eighteen years past from that window whence he obtained his only view of the world? what echoes of modern society, its truths and certainties, had reached his ears? from the heights of the viminal, where the railway terminus stands, the prolonged whistling of engines must have occasionally been carried towards him, suggesting our scientific civilisation, the nations brought nearer together, free humanity marching on towards the future. did he himself ever dream of liberty when, on turning to the right, he pictured the sea over yonder, past the tombs of the appian way? had he ever desired to go off, quit rome and her traditions, and found the papacy of the new democracies elsewhere? as he was said to possess so clear and penetrating a mind he ought to have understood and trembled at the far-away stir and noise that came from certain lands of battle, from those united states of america, for instance, where revolutionary bishops were conquering, winning over the people. were they working for him or for themselves? if he could not follow them, if he remained stubborn within his vatican, bound on every side by dogma and tradition, might not rupture some day become unavoidable? and, indeed, the fear of a blast of schism, coming from afar, must have filled him with growing anguish. it was assuredly on that account that he had practised the diplomacy of conciliation, seeking to unite in his hands all the scattered forces of the church, overlooking the audacious proceedings of certain bishops as far as possible, and himself striving to gain the support of the people by putting himself on its side against the fallen monarchies. but would he ever go any farther? shut up in that vatican, behind that bronze portal, was he not bound to the strict formulas of catholicism, chained to them by the force of centuries? there obstinacy was fated; it was impossible for him to resign himself to that which was his real and surpassing power, the purely spiritual power, the moral authority which brought mankind to his feet, made thousands of pilgrims kneel and women swoon. departure from rome and the renunciation of the temporal power would not displace the centre of the catholic world, but would transform him, the head of the catholic church, into the head of something else. and how anxious must have been his thoughts if the evening breeze ever brought him a vague presentiment of that something else, a fear of the new religion which was yet dimly, confusedly dawning amidst the tramp of the nations on the march, and the sound of which must have reached him at one and the same time from every point of the compass.

at this precise moment, however, pierre felt that the white and motionless shadow behind those windowpanes was held erect by pride, by the ever present conviction of victory. if man could not achieve it, a miracle would intervene. he, the pope, was absolutely convinced that he or some successor would recover possession of rome. had not the church all eternity before it? and, moreover, why should not the victor be himself? could not god accomplish the impossible? why, if it so pleased god, on the very morrow his city would be restored to him, in spite of all the objections of human reason, all the apparent logic of facts. ah! how he would welcome the return of that prodigal daughter whose equivocal adventures he had ever watched with tears bedewing his paternal eyes! he would soon forget the excesses which he had beheld during eighteen years at all hours and in all seasons. perhaps he dreamt of what he would do with those new districts with which the city had been soiled. should they be razed, or left as evidence of the insanity of the usurpers? at all events, rome would again become the august and lifeless city, disdainful of such vain matters as material cleanliness and comfort, and shining forth upon the world like a pure soul encompassed by the traditional glory of the centuries. and his dream continued, picturing the course which events would take on the very morrow, no doubt. anything, even a republic was preferable to that house of savoy. why not a federal republic, reviving the old political divisions of italy, restoring rome to the church, and choosing him, the pope, as the natural protector of the country thus reorganised? but his eyes travelled beyond rome and italy, and his dream expanded, embracing republican france, spain which might become republican again, austria which would some day be won, and indeed all the catholic nations welded into the united states of europe, and fraternising in peace under his high presidency as sovereign pontiff. and then would follow the supreme triumph, all the other churches at last vanishing, and all the dissident communities coming to him as to the one and only pastor, who would reign in the name of jesus over the universal democracy.

however, whilst pierre was immersed in this dream which he attributed to leo xiii, he was all at once interrupted by narcisse, who exclaimed: "oh! my dear abbe, just look at those statues on the colonnade." the young fellow had ordered a cup of coffee and was languidly smoking a cigar, deep once more in the subtle aesthetics which were his only preoccupation. "they are rosy, are they not?" he continued; "rosy, with a touch of mauve, as if the blue blood of angels circulated in their stone veins. it is the sun of rome which gives them that supra-terrestrial life; for they live, my friend; i have seen them smile and hold out their arms to me during certain fine sunsets. ah! rome, marvellous, delicious rome! one could live here as poor as job, content with the very atmosphere, and in everlasting delight at breathing it!"

this time pierre could not help feeling surprised at narcisse's language, for he remembered his incisive voice and clear, precise, financial acumen when speaking of money matters. and, at this recollection, the young priest's mind reverted to the castle fields, and intense sadness filled his heart as for the last time all the want and suffering rose before him. again he beheld the horrible filth which was tainting so many human beings, that shocking proof of the abominable social injustice which condemns the greater number to lead the joyless, breadless lives of accursed beasts. and as his glance returned yet once more to the window of the vatican, and he fancied he could see a pale hand uplifted behind the glass panes, he thought of that papal benediction which leo xiii gave from that height, over rome, and over the plain and the hills, to the faithful of all christendom. and that papal benediction suddenly seemed to him a mockery, destitute of all power, since throughout such a multitude of centuries it had not once been able to stay a single one of the sufferings of mankind, and could not even bring a little justice for those poor wretches who were agonising yonder beneath the very window.