"Camillo, you must tell me who they all are. There now—those men who come first in black and red?"
"Laymen," said the young Roman. "They're called theApostolic Cursori. When a Cardinal is nominated they take him the news, and get two or three thousand francs for their trouble."
"And these little fat folk in white lace pinafores?"
"Singers of the Sistine Chapel. That's the Director, old Maestro Mustafa—used to be the greatest soprano of the century."
"And this dear old friar with the mittens and rosary and the comfortable linsey-woolsey sort of face?"
"That's Father Pifferi of San Lorenzo, confessor to the Pope. He knows all the Pope's sins."
"Oh!" said Roma.
At that moment her dog barked furiously, and the old friar looked up at her, whereupon she smiled down on him, and then a half-smile played about his good-natured face.
"He is a Capuchin, and those Frati in different colours coming behind him...."
"I know them; see if I don't," she cried, as there passed under the balcony a double file of friars and monks. "The brown ones—Capuchins and Franciscans! Brown and white—Carmelites! Black—Augustinians and Benedictines! Black with a white cross—Passionists! And the monks all white are Trappists. I know the Trappists best, because I drive out to Tre Fontane to buy eucalyptus and flirt with Father John."
"Shocking!" said the American.
"Why not? What are their vows of celibacy but conspiracies against us poor women? Nearly every man a woman wants is either mated or has sworn off in some way. Oh, how I should love to meet one of those anchorites in real life and make him fly!"
"Well, I dare say the whisk of a petticoat would be more frightening than all his doctors of divinity."
"Listen!"
From a part of the procession which had passed the balcony there came the sound of harmonious voices.
"The singers of the Sistine Chapel! They're singing a hymn."
"I know it. 'Veni, Creator!' How splendid! How glorious! I feel as if I wanted to cry!"
All at once the singing stopped, the murmuring and speaking of the crowd ceased too, and there was a breathless moment, such as comes before the first blast of a storm. A nervousquiver, like the shudder that passes over the earth at sundown, swept across the piazza, and the people stood motionless, every neck stretched, and every eye turned in the direction of the bronze gate, as if God were about to reveal Himself from the Holy of Holies. Then in that grand silence there came the clear call of silver trumpets, and at the next instant the Presence itself.
"The Pope! Baron, the Pope!"
The atmosphere was charged with electricity. A great roar of cheering went up from below like the roaring of surf, and it was followed by a clapping of hands like the running of the sea off a shingly beach after the boom of a tremendous breaker.
An old man, dressed wholly in white, carried shoulder-high on a chair glittering with purple and crimson, and having a canopy of silver and gold above him. He wore a triple crown, which glistened in the sunlight, and but for the delicate white hand which he upraised to bless the people, he might have been mistaken for an image.
His face was beautiful, and had a ray of beatified light on it—a face of marvellous sweetness and great spirituality.
It was a thrilling moment, and Roma's excitement was intense. "There he is! All in white! He's on a gilded chair under the silken canopy! The canopy is held up by prelates, and the chairmen are in knee-breeches and red velvet. Look at the great waving plumes on either side!"
"Peacock's feathers!" said a voice behind her, but she paid no heed.
"Look at the acolytes swinging incense, and the golden cross coming before! What thunders of applause—I can hardly hear myself speak. It's like standing on a cliff while the sea below is running mountains high. No, it's like no other sound on earth; it's human—fifty thousand unloosed throats of men! That's the clapping of ladies—listen to the weak applause of their white-gloved fingers. Now they're waving their handkerchiefs. Look! Like the wings of ten thousand butterflies fluttering up from a meadow."
Roma's abandonment was by this time complete; she was waving her handkerchief and crying "Viva il Papa Re!"
"They're bearing him slowly along. He's coming this way. Look at the Noble Guard in their helmets and jackboots. And there are the Swiss Guard in Joseph's coat of many colours! We can see him plainly now. Do you smellthe incense? It's like the ribbon of Bruges. The pluviale? That gold vestment? It's studded on his breast with precious stones. How they blaze in the sunshine! He is blessing the people, and they are falling on their knees before him."
"Like the grass before the scythe!"
"How tired he looks! How white his face is! No, not white—ivory! No, marble—Carrara marble! He might be Lazarus who was dead and has come back from the tomb! No humanity left in him! A saint! An angel!"
"The spiritual autocrat of the world!"
"Viva il Papa Re!He's going by!Viva il Papa Re!He has gone.... Well!"
She was rising from her knees and wiping her eyes, trying to cover up with laughter the confusion of her rapture.
"What is that?"
There was a sound of voices in the distance chanting dolorously.
"The cantors intoningTu es Petrus," said Don Camillo.
"No, I mean the commotion down there. Somebody is pushing through the Guard."
"It's David Rossi," said the American.
"Is that David Rossi? Oh, dear me! I had forgotten all about him." She moved forward to see his face. "Why ... where have I ... I've seen him before somewhere."
A strange physical sensation tingled all over her at that moment, and she shuddered as if with sudden cold.
"What's amiss?"
"Nothing! But I like him. Do you know, I really like him."
"Women are funny things," said the American.
"They're nice, though, aren't they?" And two rows of pearly teeth between parted lips gleamed up at him with gay raillery.
Again she craned forward. "He is on his knees to the Pope! Now he'll present the petition. No ... yes ... the brutes! They're dragging him away! The procession is going on! Disgraceful!"
"Long live the Workmen's Pope!" came up from the piazza, and under the shrill shouts of the pilgrims were heard the monotonous voices of the monks as they passed through the open doors of the Basilica intoning the praises of God.
"They're lifting him on to a car," said the American.
"David Rossi?"
"Yes; he is going to speak."
"How delightful! Shall we hear him? Good! How glad I am that I came! He is facing this way! Oh, yes; those are his own people with the banners! Baron, the Holy Father has gone on to St. Peter's, and David Rossi is going to speak."
"Hush!"
A quivering, vibrating voice came up from below, and in a moment there was a dead silence.
"Brothers, when Christ Himself was on the earth going up to Jerusalem, He rode on the colt of an ass, and the blind and the lame and the sick came to Him, and He healed them. Humanity is sick and blind and lame to-day, brothers, but the Vicar of Christ goes on."
At the words an audible murmur came from the crowd, such as goes before the clapping of hands in a Roman theatre, a great upheaval of the heart of the audience to the actor who has touched and stirred it.
"Brothers, in a little Eastern village a long time ago, there arose among the poor and lowly a great Teacher, and the only prayer He taught His followers was the prayer 'Our Father who art in Heaven.' It was the expression of man's utmost need, the expression of man's utmost hope. And not only did the Teacher teach that prayer—He lived according to the light of it. All men were His brothers, all women His sisters; He was poor, He had no home, no purse, and no second coat; when He was smitten He did not smite back, and when He was unjustly accused He did not defend Himself. Nineteen hundred years have passed since then, brothers, and the Teacher who arose among the poor and lowly is now a great Prophet. All the world knows and honours Him, and civilised nations have built themselves upon the religion He founded. A great Church calls itself by His name, and a mighty kingdom, known as Christendom, owes allegiance to His faith. But what of His teaching? He said: 'Resist not evil,' yet all Christian nations maintain standing armies. He said: 'Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' yet the wealthiest men are Christian men, and the richestorganisation in the world is the Christian Church. He said: 'Our Father who art in Heaven,' yet men who ought to be brothers are divided into states, and hate each other as enemies. He said: 'Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in Heaven,' yet he who believes it ever will come is called a fanatic and a fool."
Some murmurs of dissent were drowned in cries of "Go on!" "Speak!" "Silence!"
"Foremost and grandest of the teachings of Christ are two inseparable truths—the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. But in Italy, as elsewhere, the people are starved that king may contend with king, and when we appeal to the Pope to protest in the name of the Prince of Peace, he remembers his temporalities and passes on!"
At these words the emotion of the crowd broke into loud shouts of approval, with which some groans were mingled.
Roma had turned her face aside from the speaker, and her profile was changed—the gay, sprightly, airy, radiant look had given way to a serious, almost a melancholy expression.
"We have two sovereigns in Rome, brothers, a great State and a great Church, with a perishing people. We have soldiers enough to kill us, priests enough to tell us how to die, but no one to show us how to live."
"Corruption! Corruption!"
"Corruption indeed, brothers; and who is there among us to whom the corruptions of our rulers are unknown? Who cannot point to the wars made that should not have been made? to the banks broken that should not have broken? And who in Rome cannot point to the Ministers who allow their mistresses to meddle in public affairs and enrich themselves by the ruin of all around?"
The little Princess on the balcony was twisting about.
"What! Are you deserting us, Roma?"
And Roma answered from within the house, in a voice that sounded strange and muffled:
"It was cold on the balcony, I think."
The little Princess laughed a bitter laugh, and David Rossi heard it and misunderstood it, and his nostrils quivered like the nostrils of a horse, and when he spoke again his voice shook with passion.
"Who has not seen the splendid equipages of these privileged ones of fortune—their gorgeous liveries of scarlet and gold—emblems of the acid which is eating into the publicorgans? Has Providence raised this country from the dead only to be dizzied in a whirlpool of scandal, hypocrisy, and fraud—only to fall a prey to an infamous traffic without a name between high officials of low desires and women whose reputations are long since lost? It is men and women like these who destroy their country for their own selfish ends. Very well, let them destroy her; but before they do so, let them hear what one of her children says: The Government you are building up on the whitened bones of the people shall be overthrown—the King who countenances you, and the Pope who will not condemn you, shall be overthrown, and then—and not till then—will the nation be free."
At this there was a terrific clamour. The square resounded with confused voices. "Bravo!" "Dog!" "Dog's murderer!" "Traitor!" "Long live David Rossi!" "Down with the Vampire!"
The ladies had fled from the balcony back to the room with cries of alarm. "There will be a riot." "The man is inciting the people to rebellion!" "This house will be first to be attacked!"
"Calm yourselves, ladies. No harm shall come to you," said the Baron, and he rang the bell.
There came from below a babel of shouts and screams.
"Madonna mia! What is that?" cried the Princess, wringing her hands; and the American Ambassador, who had remained on the balcony, said:
"The Carabineers have charged the crowd and arrested David Rossi."
"Thank God!"
"They're going through the Borgo," said Don Camillo, "and kicking and cuffing and jostling and hustling all the way."
"Don't be alarmed! There's the Hospital of Santo Spirito round the corner, and stations of the Red Cross Society everywhere," said the Baron, and then Felice answered the bell.
"See our friends out by the street at the back, Felice. Good-bye, ladies! Have no fear! The Government does not mean to blunt the weapons it uses against the malefactors who insult the doctrines of the State."
"Excellent Minister!" said the Princess. "Such canaglia are not fit to have their liberty, and I would lock them all up in prison."
And then Don Camillo offered his arm to the little lady with the white plumes, and they came almost face to face with Roma, who was standing by the door hung with curtains, fanning herself with her handkerchief, and parting from the English Ambassador.
"Donna Roma," he was saying, "if I can ever be of use to you, either now or in the future, I beg of you to command me."
"Look at her!" whispered the Princess. "How agitated she is! A moment ago she was finding it cold in the Loggia! I'm so happy!"
At the next instant she ran up to Roma and kissed her. "Poor child! How sorry I am! You have my sympathy, my dear! But didn't I tell you the man was a public nuisance, and ought to be put down by the police?"
"Shameful, isn't it?" said Don Camillo. "Calumny is a little wind, but it raises such a terrible tempest."
"Nobody likes to be talked about," said the Princess, "especially in Rome, where it is the end of everything."
"But what matter? Perhaps the young man has learned freedom of speech in a free country!" said Don Camillo.
"And then he is so interesting and so handsome," said the Princess.
Roma made no answer. There was a slight drooping of the lovely eyes and a trembling of the lips and nostrils. For a moment she stood absolutely impassive, and then with a flash of disdain she flung round into the inner room.
Roma had taken refuge in the council-room. There had been much business that morning, and a copy of the constitutional statute lay open on a large table, which had a plate-glass top with photographs under the surface.
In this passionless atmosphere, so little accustomed to such scenes, Roma sat in her wounded pride and humiliation, with her head down, and her beautiful white hands over her face.
She heard measured footsteps approaching, and then a hand touched her on the shoulder. She looked up and drew back as if the touch stung her. Her lips closed sternly, and she got up and began to walk about the room, and then she burst into a torrent of anger.
"Did you hear them? The cats! How they loved to claw me, and still purr and purr! Before the sun is set the story will be all over Rome! It has run off already on the hoofs of that woman's English horses. To-morrow morning it will be in every newspaper in the kingdom. Olga and Lena and every woman of them all who lives in a glass house will throw stones. 'The new Pompadour! Who is she?' Oh, I could die of vexation and shame!"
The Baron leaned against the table and listened, twisting the ends of his moustache.
"The Court will turn its back on me now. They only wanted a good excuse to put their humiliations upon me. It's horrible! I can't bear it. I won't. I tell you, I won't!"
But the lips, compressed with scorn, began to quiver visibly, and she threw herself into a chair, took out her handkerchief, and hid her face on the table.
At that moment Felice came into the room to say that the Commendatore Angelelli had returned and wished to speak with his Excellency.
"I will see him presently," said the Baron, with an impassive expression, and Felice went out silently, as one who had seen nothing.
The Baron's calm dignity was wounded. "Be so good as to have some regard for me in the presence of my servants," he said. "I understand your feelings, but you are much too excited to see things in their proper light. You have been publicly insulted and degraded, but you must not talk to me as if it were my fault."
"Then whose is it? If it is not your fault, whose fault is it?" she said, and the Baron thought her red eyes flashed up at him with an expression of hate. He took the blow full in the face, but made no reply, and his silence broke her answer.
"No, no, that was too bad," she said, and she reached over to him, and he kissed her and then sat down beside her and took her hand and held it. At the next moment her brilliant eyes had filled with tears and her head was down and the hot drops were falling on to the back of his hand.
"I suppose it is all over," she said.
"Don't say that," he answered. "We don't know what a day may bring forth. Before long I may have it in my power to silence every slander and justify you in the eyes of all."
At that she raised her head with a smile and seemed tolook beyond the Baron at something in the vague distance, while the glass top of the table, which had been clouded by her breath, cleared gradually, and revealed a large house almost hidden among trees. It was a photograph of the Baron's castle in the Alban hills.
"Only," continued the Baron, "you must get rid of that man Bruno."
"I will discharge him this very day—I will! I will! I will!"
There was an intense bitterness in the thought that what David Rossi had said must have come of what her own servant told him—that Bruno had watched her in her own house day by day, and that time after time the two men had discussed her between them.
"I could kill him," she said.
"Bruno Rocco?"
"No, David Rossi."
"Have patience; he shall be punished," said the Baron.
"How?"
"He shall be put on his trial."
"What for?"
"Sedition. The law allows a man to say what he will about a Prime Minister, but he must not foretell the overthrow of the King. The fellow has gone too far at last. He shall go to Santo Stefano."
"What good will that do?"
"He will be silenced—and crushed."
She looked at the Baron with a sidelong smile, and something in her heart, which she did not understand, made her laugh at him.
"Do you imagine you can crush a man like that by trying and condemning him?" she said. "He has insulted and humiliated me, but I'm not silly enough to deceive myself. Try him, condemn him, and he will be greater in his prison than the King on his throne."
The Baron twisted the ends of his moustache again.
"Besides," she said, "what benefit will it be to me if you put him on trial for inciting the people to rebellion against the King? The public will say it was for insulting yourself, and everybody will think he was punished for telling the truth."
The Baron continued to twist the ends of his moustache.
"Benefit!" She laughed ironically. "It will be adouble injury. The insult will be repeated in public again and again. First the advocate for the crown will read it aloud, then the advocate for the defence will quote it, and then it will be discussed and dissected and telegraphed until everybody in court knows it by heart and all Europe has heard of it."
The Baron made no answer, but watched the beautiful face, now very pale, behind which conflicting thoughts seemed to wriggle like a knot of vipers. Suddenly she leaped up with a spring.
"I know!" she cried. "I know! I know! I know!"
"Well?"
"Give the man to me, and I will show you how to escape from this humiliating situation."
"Roma?" said the Baron, but he had read her thought already.
"If you punish him for this speech you will injure both of us and do no good to the King."
"It's true."
"Take him in a serious conspiracy, and you will be doing us no harm and the King some service."
"No doubt."
"You say there is a mystery about David Rossi, and you want to know who he is, who his father was, and where he spent the years he was away from Rome."
"I would certainly give a good deal to know."
"You want to know what vile refugee in London filled him with his fancies, what conspiracies he is hatching, what secret societies he belongs to, and, above all, what his plans and schemes are, and whether he is in league with the Vatican."
She spoke so rapidly that the words sputtered out of her quivering lips.
"Well?"
"Well, I will find it all out for you."
"My dear Roma!"
"Leave him to me, and within a month you shall know"—she laughed, a little ashamed—"the inmost secrets of his soul."
She was walking to and fro again, to prevent the Baron from looking into her face, which was now red over its white, like a rose moon in a stormy sky.
The Baron thought. "She is going to humble the man by her charms—to draw him on and then fling him away,and thus pay him back for what he has done to-day. So much the better for me if I may stand by and do nothing. A strong Minister should be unmoved by personal attacks. He should appear to regard them with contempt."
He looked at her, and the brilliancy of her eyes set his heart on fire. The terrible attraction of her face at that moment stirred in him the only love he had for her. At the same time it awakened the first spasm of jealousy.
"I understand you, Roma," he said. "You are splendid! You are irresistible! But remember—the man is one of the incorruptible."
She laughed.
"No woman who has yet crossed his path seems to have touched him, and it is the pride of all such men that no woman ever can."
"I've seen him," she said.
"Take care! As you say, he is young and handsome."
She tossed her head and laughed again.
The Baron thought: "Certainly he has wounded her in a way no woman can forgive."
"And what about Bruno?" he said.
"He shall stay," she answered. "Such men are easy enough to manage."
"You wish me to liberate David Rossi and leave you to deal with him?"
"I do! Oh, for the day when I can turn the laugh against him as he has turned the laugh against me! At the top of his hopes, at the height of his ambitions, at the moment when he says to himself, 'It is done'—he shall fall."
The Baron touched the bell. "Very well!" he said. "One can sometimes catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a hogshead of vinegar. We shall see."
A moment later the Chief of Police entered the room. "The Honourable Rossi is safely lodged in prison," he said.
"Commendatore," said the Baron, pointing to the book lying open on the table, "I have been looking again at the statute, and now I am satisfied that a Deputy can be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament alone."
"But, Excellency, if he is taken in the act, according to the forty-fifth article, the parliamentary immunity ceases."
"Commendatore, I have given you my opinion, and now it is my wish that the Honourable David Rossi should be set at liberty."
"Excellency!"
"Be so good as to liberate him instantly, and let your officers see him safely through the streets to his home in the Piazza Navona."
The little head like a hen's went down like a hatchet, and Commendatore Angelelli backed out of the room.
PART TWO—THE REPUBLIC OF MAN
The Piazza Navona is the heart and soul of old Rome. In other quarters of the living city you feel tempted to ask: "Is this London?" or, "Is this Paris?" or, "Is this New York or Berlin?" but in the Piazza Navona you can only tell yourself, "This is Rome!"
In an apartment-house of the Piazza Navona, David Rossi had lived during the seven years since he became Member of Parliament for Rome. The ground floor is a Trattoria, half eating-house and half wine-shop, with rude frescoes on its distempered walls, representing the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius in eruption. A passage running by the side of the Trattoria leads to the apartments overhead, and at the foot of the staircase there is a porter's lodge, a closet always lighted by a lamp, which burns down the dark passage day and night, like a bloodshot eye.
In this lodge lived a veteran Garibaldian, in his red shirt and pork-pie hat, with his old wife, wrinkled like a turkey, and wearing a red handkerchief over her head, fastened by a silver pin. David Rossi's apartments consisted of three rooms on the fourth floor, two to the front, the third to the back, and a lead flat opening out of them on to the roof.
In one of the front rooms on the afternoon of the Pope's Jubilee, a young woman sat knitting with an open book on her lap, while a boy of six knelt by her side, and pretended to learn his lesson. She was a comely but timid creature, with liquid eyes and a soft voice, and he was a shock-headed little giant, like the cub of a young lion.
"Go on, Joseph," said the woman, pointing with her knitting-needle to the line on the page. "'And it came to pass....'"
But Joseph's little eyes were peering first at the clock on the mantel-piece, and then out at the window and down the square.
"Didn't you say they were to be here at two, mamma?"
"Yes, dear. Mr. Rossi was to be set free immediately, and papa, who ran home with the good news, has gone back to fetch him."
"Oh! 'And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came unto her, and said unto her, Entice him and see wherein his great strength lieth....' But, mamma...."
"Go on with your lesson, Joseph. 'And she made him sleep....'"
"'And she made him sleep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head....'"
At that moment there came a knock at the door, whereupon the boy uttered a cry of delight, and with a radiant face went plunging and shouting out of the room.
"Uncle David! It's Uncle David!"
The tumultuous voice rolled like baby thunder through the apartment until it reached the door, and then it dropped to a dead silence.
"Who is it, Joseph?"
"A gentleman," said the boy.
It was the fashionable young Roman with the watchful eyes and twirled-up moustache, who had stood by the old Frenchman's carriage in the Piazza of St. Peter.
"I wish to speak with Mr. Rossi. I bring him an important message from abroad. He is coming along with the people, but to make sure of an interview I hurried ahead. May I wait?"
"Certainly! Come in, sir! You say he is coming? Yes? Then he is free?"
The woman's liquid eyes were glistening visibly, and the man's watchful ones seemed to notice everything.
"Yes, madam, he is free. I saw him arrested, and I also saw him set at liberty."
"Really? Then you can tell me all about it? That's good! I have heard so little of all that happened, and myboy and I have not been able to think of anything else. Sit down, sir!"
"As the police were taking him to the station-house in the Borgo," said the stranger, "the people made an attempt to rescue him, and it seemed as if they must certainly have succeeded if it had not been for his own intervention."
"He stopped them, didn't he? I'm sure he stopped them!"
"He did. The delegate had given his three warnings, and the Brigadier was on the point of ordering his men to fire, when the prisoner threw up his hands before the crowd."
"I knew it! Well?"
"'Brothers,' he said, 'let no blood be shed for my sake. We are in God's hands. Go home!'"
"How like him! And then, sir?"
"Then the crowd broke up like a bubble, and the officer who was in charge of him uncovered his head. 'Room for the Honourable Rossi!' he cried, and the prisoner went into the prison."
The liquid eyes were running over by this time, and the soft voice was trembling: "You say you saw him set at liberty?"
"Yes! I was in the public service myself until lately, so they allowed me to enter the police station, and when the order for release came I was present and heard all. 'Deputy,' said the officer, 'I have the honour to inform you that you are free.' 'But before I go I must say something,' said the Deputy. 'My only orders are that you are to be set at liberty,' said the officer. 'Nevertheless, I must see the Minister,' said Mr. Rossi. But the crowd had pressed in and surrounded him, and in a moment the flood had carried him out into the street, with shouts and the waving of hats and a whirlwind of enthusiasm. And now he is being drawn by force through the city in a mad, glad, wild procession."
"But he deserves it all, and more—far, far more!"
The stranger looked at the woman's beaming eyes, and said, "You are not his wife—no?"
"Oh, no! I'm only the wife of one of his friends," she answered.
"But you live here?"
"We live in the rooms on the roof."
"Perhaps you keep house for the Deputy?"
"Yes—that is to say—yes, we keep house for Mr. Rossi."
At that moment the room, which had been gloomy, was suddenly lighted by a shaft of sunshine, and there came from some unseen place a musical noise like the rippling of waters in a fountain.
"It's the birds," said the woman, and she threw open a window that was also a door and led to a flat roof on which some twenty or thirty canaries were piping and shrilling their little swollen throats in a gigantic bird-cage.
"Mr. Rossi's?"
"Yes, and he is fond of animals also—dogs and cats and rabbits and squirrels, especially squirrels."
"Squirrels?"
"He has a grey one in a cage on the roof now. But he is not like some people who love animals—he loves children, too. He loves all children, and as for Joseph...."
"The little boy who cried 'Uncle David' at the door?"
"Yes, sir. One day my husband said 'Uncle David' to Mr. Rossi, and he has been Uncle David to my little Joseph ever since."
"This is the dining-room, no doubt," said the stranger.
"Unfortunately, yes, sir."
"Why unfortunately?"
"Because here is the hall, and here is the table, and there's not even a curtain between, and the moment the door is opened he is exposed to everybody. People know it, too, and they take advantage. He would give the chicken off his plate if he hadn't anything else. I have to scold him a little sometimes—I can't help it. And as for father, he says he has doubled his days in purgatory by the lies he tells, turning people away."
"That will be his bedroom, I suppose," said the stranger, indicating a door which the boy had passed through.
"No, sir, his sitting-room. That is where he receives his colleagues in Parliament, and his fellow-journalists, and his electors and printers and so forth. Come in, sir."
The walls were covered with portraits of Mazzini, Garibaldi, Kossuth, Lincoln, Washington, and Cromwell, and the room, which had been furnished originally with chairs covered in chintz, was loaded with incongruous furniture.
"Joseph, you've been naughty again! My little boy is all for being a porter, sir. He has got the butt-end of hisfather's fishing-rod, you see, and torn his handkerchief into shreds to make a tassel for his mace." Then with a sweep of the arm, "All presents, sir. He gets presents from all parts of the world. The piano is from England, but nobody plays, so it is never opened; the books are from Germany, and the bronze is from France, but the strangest thing of all, sir, is this."
"A phonograph?"
"It was most extraordinary. A week ago a cylinder came from the island of Elba."
"Elba? From some prisoner, perhaps?"
"'A dying man's message,' Mr. Rossi called it. 'We must save up for an instrument to reproduce it, Sister,' he said. But, look you, the very next day the carriers brought the phonograph."
"And then he reproduced the message?"
"I don't know—I never asked. He often turns on a cylinder to amuse the boy, but I never knew him try that one. This is the bedroom, sir; you may come in."
It was a narrow room, very bright and lightsome, with its white counterpane, white bed curtains, and white veil over the looking-glass to keep it from the flies.
"How sweet!" said the stranger.
"It would be but for these," said the woman, and she pointed to the other end of the room, where a desk stood between two windows, amid heaps of unopened newspapers, which lay like fishes as they fall from the herring net.
"I presume this is a present also?" said the stranger. He had taken from the desk a dagger with a lapis-lazuli handle, and was trying its edge on his finger-nail.
"Yes, sir, and he has turned it to account as a paper-knife. A six-chamber revolver came yesterday, but he had no use for that, so he threw it aside, and it lies under the newspapers."
"And who is this?" said the stranger. He was looking at a faded picture in an ebony frame which hung by the side of the bed. It was the portrait of an old man with a beautiful forehead and a patriarchal face.
"Some friend of Mr. Rossi's in England, I think."
"An English photograph, certainly, but the face seems to me Roman for all that."
At that moment a thousand lusty voices burst on the air, as a great crowd came pouring out of the narrow lanes intothe broad piazza. At the same instant the boy shouted from the adjoining room, and another voice that made the walls vibrate came from the direction of the door.
"They're coming! It's my husband! Bruno!" said the woman, and the ripple of her dress told the stranger she had gone.
Laughing, crying, cheering, chaffing, singing, David Rossi's people had brought him home in triumph, and now they were crowding upon him to kiss his hand, the big-hearted, baby-headed, beloved children of Italy.
The object of this aurora of worship stood with his back to the table in the dining-room, looking down and a little ashamed, while Bruno Rocco, six feet three in his stockings, hoisted the boy on to his shoulder, and shouted as from a tower to everybody as they entered by the door:
"Come in, sonny, come in! Don't stand there like the Pope between the devil and the deep sea. Come in among the people," and Bruno's laughter rocked through the room to where the crowd stood thick on the staircase.
"The Baron has had a lesson," said a man with a sheet of white paper in his hand. "He dreamed of getting the Collar of the Annunziata out of this."
"The pig dreamed of acorns," said Bruno.
"It's a lesson to the Church as well," said the man with the paper. "She wouldn't have anything to do with us. 'I alone strike the hour of the march,' says the Church."
"And then she stands still!" said Bruno.
"The mountains stand still, but men are made to walk," said the man with the paper, "and if the Pope doesn't advance with the people, the people must advance without the Pope."
"The Pope's all right, sonny," said Bruno, "but what does he know about the people? Only what his black-gowned beetles tell him!"
"The Pope has no wife and children," said the man with the paper.
"Old Vampire could find him a few," said Bruno, and then there was general laughter.
"Brothers," said David Rossi, "let us be temperate. There's nothing to be gained by playing battledore and shuttlecockwith the name of an old man who has never done harm to any one. The Pope hasn't listened to us to-day, but he is a saint all the same, and his life has been a lesson in well-doing."
"Anybody can sail with a fair wind, sir," said Bruno.
"Let us be prudent. There's no need for violence, whether of the hand or of the tongue. You've found that out this morning. If you had rescued me from the police, I should have been in prison again by this time, and God knows what else might have happened. I'm proud of your patience and forbearance; and now go home, boys, and God bless you."
"Stop a minute!" said the man with the paper. "Something to read before we go. While the Carabineers kept Mr. Rossi in the Borgo, the Committee of Direction met in a café and drew up a proclamation."
"Read it, Luigi," said David Rossi, and the man opened his paper and read:
"Having appealed in vain to Parliament and to the King against the tyrannical tax which the Government has imposed upon bread in order that the army and navy may be increased, and having appealed in vain to the Pope to intercede with the civil authorities, and call back Italy to its duty, it now behoves us, as a suffering and perishing people, to act on our own behalf. Unless annulled by royal decree, the tax will come into operation on the 1st of February. On that day let every Roman remain indoors until an hour after Ave Maria. Let nobody buy so much as one loaf of bread, and let no bread be eaten, except such as you give to your children. Then, at the first hour of night, let us meet in the Coliseum, tens of thousands of fasting people, of one mind and heart, to determine what it is our duty to do next, that our bread may be sure and our water may not fail."
"Good!" "Beautiful!" "Splendid!"
"Only wants the signature of the president," said the reader, and Bruno called for pen and ink.
"Before I sign it," said Rossi, "let it be understood that none come armed. There is nothing our enemies would like better than to fix on us the names of rioters and rebels. We must defeat them. We must show the world that we alone are the people of law and order. Therefore I call on you to promise that none come armed."
"We promise," cried several voices.
"And now go home, boys, and God bless you."
After a moment there was only one man left in the room. It was the fashionable young Roman with the watchful eyes and twirled-up moustache.
"For you, sir!" said the young man, taking a letter from a pocket inside his waistcoat.
David Rossi opened the letter and read: "The bearer of this, Charles Minghelli, is one of ourselves. He has determined upon the accomplishment of a great act, and wishes to see you with respect to it."
"You come from London?"
"Yes, sir."
"You wish to speak to me?"
"I do."
"You may speak freely."
The young man glanced in the direction of Bruno and of Bruno's wife, who stood beside him.
"It is a delicate matter, sir," he said.
"Come this way," said David Rossi, and he took the stranger into his bedroom.
David Rossi took his seat at the desk between the windows, and made a sign to the man to take a chair that stood near.
"Your name is Charles Minghelli?" said David Rossi.
"Yes. I have come to propose a dangerous enterprise."
"What is it?"
"That somebody on behalf of the people should take the law into his own hands."
The man had spoken with perfect calmness, and after a moment of silence David Rossi replied as calmly:
"I will ask you to explain what you mean."
The man smiled, made a deferential gesture, and answered, "You will permit me to speak plainly?"
"Certainly."
"Thanks! I have read your Creed and Charter. I have even signed my name to it. It is beautiful as a theory—most beautiful! And the Republic of Man is beautiful too. Beautiful!"
"Well?"
"But more beautiful than practical, dear sir, and theideal thread that runs through your plan will break the moment the rough world begins to tug at it."
"I will ask you to be more precise," said David Rossi.
"With pleasure. You have called a meeting in the Coliseum to protest against the bread-tax. What if the Government prohibits it? Your principle of passive resistance will not permit you to rebel, and without the right of public meeting your association is powerless. Then where are you?"
David Rossi had taken up his paper-knife dagger and was drawing lines with the point of it on the letter of introduction which now lay open on the desk. The man saw the impression he had produced, and went on with more vigour.
"If the Governments of the world deny you the right of meeting, where are your weapons of warfare? On the one side armies on armies of men marshalled and equipped with all the arts and engines of war; on the other side a helpless multitude with their hands in their pockets, or paying a penny a week subscription to the great association that is to overcome by passive suffering the power of the combined treasuries of the world!"
David Rossi had risen from his seat, and was walking backward and forward with a step that was long and slow.
"Well, and what doyousay we ought to do?" he said.
A flash came from the man's eyes, and he said in a thick voice:
"Remove the one man in Rome whose hand crushes the nation."
"The Prime Minister?"
"Yes."
There was silence.
"You expect me to do that?"
"No! I will do it for you.... Why not? If violence is wrong, it is right to resist violence."
David Rossi returned to his seat at the desk, touched the letter of introduction, and said:
"That is the great act referred to in this letter from London?"
"Yes."
"Why do you come to me?" he said.
"Because you can help me to accomplish this act. You are a Member of Parliament, and can give me cards to theChamber. You can show me the way to the Prime Minister's room in Monte Citorio, and tell me the moment when he is to be found alone."
"I do not deny that the Prime Minister deserves death."
"A thousand deaths, sir, and everybody would hail them with delight."
"I do not deny that his death would be a relief to the people."
"On the day he dies, sir, the people will live."
"Or that crimes—great crimes—have been the means of bringing about great reforms."
"You are right, sir—but it would be no crime."
The stranger's face flushed up, his eyes seemed to burn, and he leaned over to the desk and took up the dagger.
"See! Give me this! It's exactly what I want. I'll put it in a bouquet of flowers, and pretend to offer them. Only a way to do it, sir! Say the word—may I take it?"
"But the man who assumes such a mission," said David Rossi, "must know himself free from every thought of personal vengeance."
The dagger trembled in the stranger's hand.
"He must be prepared to realise the futility of what he has done—to know that even when he succeeds he only changes the persons, not the things; the actors, not the parts."
The man stood like one who had been stunned, with his mouth partly open, and balancing the dagger on one hand.
"More than that," said David Rossi; "he must be prepared to be told by every true friend of freedom that the man who uses force is not worthy of liberty—that the conflict of intellects alone is human, and to fight otherwise is to be on the level of the brute."
The man threw the dagger back on the desk and laughed.
"I knew you talked like that to the people—statesmen do sometimes—that's all right—it's pretty, and it keeps the people quiet—butwe...."
David Rossi rose with a sovereign dignity, but he only said:
"Mr. Minghelli, our interview is at an end."
"So you dismiss me?"
"I do," said David Rossi. "It is such men as you who put back the progress of the world and make it possible for the upholders of authority to describe our efforts as devilishmachinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Besides that, you speak as one who has not only a perverted political sentiment, but a personal quarrel against an enemy."
The man faced round sharply, came back with a quick step, and said:
"You say I speak as one who has a personal quarrel with the Prime Minister. Perhaps I have! I heard your speech this morning about his mistress, with her livery of scarlet and gold. You meant the woman who is known as Donna Roma Volonna. What if I tell you she is not a Volonna at all, but a girl the Minister picked up in the streets of London, and has palmed off on Rome as the daughter of a noble house, because he is a liar and a cheat?"
David Rossi gave a start, as if an invisible hand had smitten him.
"Her name is Roma, certainly," said the man; "that was the first thing that helped me to seize the mysterious thread."
David Rossi's face grew pale, and he scarcely breathed.
"Oh, I'm not talking without proof," said the man. "I was at the Embassy in London ten years ago when the Ambassador was consulted by the police authorities about an Italian girl who had been found at night in Leicester Square. Mother dead, father gone back to Italy—she had been living with some people her father gave her to as a child, but had turned out badly and run away."
David Rossi had fixed his eyes on the stranger with a kind of glassy stare.
"I went with the Ambassador to Bow Street, and saw the girl in the magistrate's office. She pleaded that she had been ill-treated, but we didn't believe her story, and gave her back to her guardians. A month later we heard that she had run away once more and disappeared entirely."
David Rossi was breathing audibly, and shrinking like an old man into his shoulders.
"I never saw that girl again until a week ago, and where do you think I saw her?"
David Rossi swallowed his saliva, and said:
"Where?"
"In Rome. I had trouble at the Embassy, and came back to appeal to the Prime Minister. Everybody said I must reach him through Donna Roma, and one of my relativestook me to her rooms. The moment I set eyes on her I knew who she was. Donna Roma Volonna is the girl Roma Roselli, who was lost in the streets of London."
David Rossi seemed suddenly to grow taller.
"You scoundrel!" he said, in a voice that was hollow and choked.
The man staggered back and stammered:
"Why ... what...."
"I knew that girl. Until she was seven years of age she was my constant companion—she was the same as my sister—and her father was the same as my father—and if you tell me she is the mistress.... You infamous wretch! You calumniator! You villain! I could confound you with one word, but I won't. Out of my house this moment! And if ever you cross my path again I'll denounce you to the police as a cut-throat and an assassin."
Stunned and stupefied, the man opened the door and fled.
David Rossi came out with his long slow step, looking pale but calm, and tearing a letter into small pieces, which he threw into the fire.
"What was amiss, sir? They could hear you across the street," said Bruno.
"A man whose room was better than his company, that's all."
"What's his name?" said Bruno.
"Charles Minghelli."
"Why, that must be the secretary who was suspected of forgery at the Embassy in London, and got dismissed."
"I thought as much!" said David Rossi. "No doubt the man attributed his dismissal to the Prime Minister, and wanted to use me for his private revenge."
"That was his game, was it? Why didn't you let me know, sir? He would have gone downstairs like a falling star. Now that I remember, he's the nephew of old Polomba, the Mayor, and I've seen him at Donna Roma's."
A waiter in a white smock, with a large tin box on his head, entered the hall, and behind him came the old woman from the porter's lodge, with the wrinkled face and the red cotton handkerchief.
"Come in," cried Bruno. "I ordered the best dinner in the Trattoria, sir, and thought we might perhaps dine together for once."
"Good," said David Rossi.
"Here it is, a whole basketful of the grace of God, sir! Out with it, Riccardo," and while the women laid the table, Bruno took the dishes smoking hot from their temporary oven with its charcoal fire.
"Artichokes—good. Chicken—good again. I must be a fox—I was dreaming of chicken all last night!Gnocchi!(potatoes and flour baked).Agradolce! (sour and sweet).Fagioletti! (French beans boiled) and—a half-flask of Chianti! Who said the son of my mother couldn't order a dinner? All right, Riccardo; come back at Ave Maria."
The waiter went off, and the company sat down to their meal, Bruno and his wife at either end of the table, and David Rossi on the sofa, with the boy on his right, and the cat curled up into his side on the left, while the old woman stood in front, serving the food and removing the plates.
"Look at him!" said the old woman, who was deaf, pointing to David Rossi, with his two neighbours. "Now, why doesn't the Blessed Virgin give him a child of his own?"
"She has, mother, and here he is," said David Rossi.
"You'll let her give him a woman first, won't you?" said Bruno.
"Ah! that will never be," said David Rossi.
"What does he say?" said the old woman with her hand at her ear like a shell.
"He says he won't have any of you," bawled Bruno.
"What an idea! But I've heard men say that before, and they've been married sooner than you could say 'Hail Mary.'"
"It isn't an incident altogether unknown in the history of this planet, is it, mother?" said Bruno.
"A heart to share your sorrows and joys is something, and the man is not wise who wastes the chance of it," said the old woman. "Does he think parliaments will make up for it when he grows old and wants something to comfort him?"
"Hush, mother!" said Elena, but Bruno made mouths at her to let the old woman go on.
"As for me, I'll want somebody of my own about meto close my eyes when the time comes to put the sacred oil on them," said the old woman.
"If a man has dedicated his life to work for humanity," said David Rossi, "he must give up many things—father, mother, wife, child."
The corner of Elena's apron crept up to the corner of her eye, but the old woman, who thought the subject had changed, laughed and said:
"That's just what I say to Tommaso. 'Tommaso,' I say, 'if a man is going to be a policeman he must have no father, or mother, or wife, or child—no, nor bowels neither,' I say. And Tommaso says, 'Francesca,' he says, 'the whole tribe of gentry they call statesmen are just policemen in plain clothes, and I do believe they've only liberated Mr. Rossi as a trap to catch him again when he has done something.'"
"They won't catchyouthough, will they, mother?" shouted Bruno.
"That they won't! I'm deaf, praise the saints, and can't hear them."
A knock came to the door, and seizing his mace the boy ran and opened it. An old man stood on the threshold. He was one of David Rossi's pensioners. Ninety years of age, his children all dead, he lived with his grandchildren, and was one of the poor human rats who stay indoors all day and come out with a lantern at night to scour the gutters of the city for the refuse of cigar-ends.
"Come another night, John," said Bruno.
But David Rossi would not send him away empty, and he was going off with the sparkling eyes of a boy, when he said:
"I heard you in the piazza this morning, Excellency! Grand! Only sorry for one thing."
"And what was that, sonny?" asked Bruno.
"What his Excellency said about Donna Roma. She gave me a half-franc only yesterday—stopped the carriage to do it, sir."
"So that's your only reason...." began Bruno.
"Good reason, too. Good-night, John!" said David Rossi, and Joseph closed the door.
"Oh, she has her virtues, like every other kind of spider," said Bruno.
"I'm sorry I spoke of her," said David Rossi.
"You needn't be, though. She deserved all she got. Ihaven't been two years in her studio without knowing what she is."
"It was the man I was thinking of, and if I had remembered that the woman must suffer...."
"Tut! She'll have to make her Easter confession a little earlier, that's all."
"If she hadn't laughed when I was speaking...."
"You're on the wrong track now, sir. That wasn't Donna Roma. It was the little Princess Bellini. She is always stretching her neck and screeching like an old gandery goose."
Dinner was now over, and the boy called for the phonograph. David Rossi went into the sitting-room to fetch it, and Elena went in at the same time to light the fire. She was kneeling with her back to him, blowing on to the wood, when she said in a trembling voice:
"I'm a little sorry myself, sir, if I may say so. I can't believe what they say about the mistress, but even if it's true we don't knowherstory, do we?"
Then the phonograph was turned on, and Joseph marched to the tune of "Swannee River" and the strains of Sousa's band.
"Mr. Rossi," said Bruno, between a puff and a blow.
"Yes?"
"Have you tried the cylinder that came first?"
"Not yet."
"How's that, sir?"
"The man who brought it said the friend who had spoken into it was dead." And then with a shiver, "It would be like a voice from the grave—I doubt if I dare hear it."
"Like a ghost speaking to a man, certainly—especially if the friend was a close one."
"He was the closest friend I ever had, Bruno—he was my father."
"Father?"
"Foster-father, anyway. For four years he clothed and fed and educated me, and I was the same as his own son."
"Had he no children of his own?"
"One little daughter, no bigger than Joseph when I saw her last—Roma."
"Roma?"
"Yes, her father was a Liberal, and her name was Roma."
"What became of her?"
"When the doctor came to Italy on the errand which ended in his imprisonment he gave her into the keeping of some Italian friends in London. I was too young to take charge of her then. Besides, I left England shortly afterward and went to America."
"Where is she now?" said Elena.
"When I returned to England ... she was dead."
"Well, there's nothing new under the sun of Rome—Donna Roma came from London," said Bruno.
David Rossi felt the muscles of his face quiver.
"Her father was an exile in England, too, and when he came back on the errand that ended in Elba, he gave her away to some people who treated her badly—I've heard old Teapot, the Countess, say so when she's been nagging her poor niece."
David Rossi breathed painfully.
"Strange if it should be the same," said Bruno.
"But Mr. Rossi's Roma is dead," said Elena.
"Ah, of course, certainly! What a fool I am!" said Bruno.
David Rossi had a sense of suffocation, and he went out on to the lead flat.
The Ave Maria was ringing from many church towers, and the golden day was going down with the sun behind the dark outline of the dome of St. Peter's, while the blue night was rising over the snow-capped Apennines in a premature twilight with one twinkling star.
David Rossi's ears buzzed as with the sound of a mighty wind rushing through trees at a distance. Bruno's last words on top of Charles Minghelli's had struck him like an alarum bell heard through the mists of sleep, and his head was stunned and his eyes were dizzy. He buttoned his coat about him, and walked quickly to and fro on the lead flat by the side of the cage, in which the birds were already bunched up and silent.
Before he was aware of the passing of time, the church bells were tolling the first hour of night. Presently he became aware of flares burning in the Piazza of St. Peter, and of the shadows of giant heads cast up on the walls of the vast Basilica. It was the crowd gathering for the last ceremonialof the Pope's Jubilee, and at the sound of a double rocket, which went up as with the crackle of musketry, little Joseph came running on to the roof, followed by his mother and Bruno.
David Rossi took the boy into his arms and tried to dispel the gloom of his own spirits in the child's joy at the illuminations.
"Ever see 'luminations before, Uncle David?" said Joseph.
"Once, dear, but that was long ago and far away. I was a boy myself in those days, and there was a little girl with me then who was no bigger than you are now. But it's growing cold, there's frost in the air, besides it's late, and little boys must go to bed."
"Well, God is God, and the Pope is His Prophet," said Bruno, when Elena and Joseph had gone indoors. "It was like day! You could see the lightning conductor over the Pope's apartment! Pshew!" blowing puffs of smoke from his twisted cigar. "Won't keep the lightning off, though."
"Bruno!"
"Yes, sir?"
"Donna Roma's father would be Prince Volonna?"
"Yes, the last prince of the old papal name. When the Volonna estates were confiscated, the title really lapsed, but old Vampire got the lands."
"Did you ever hear that he bore any other name during the time he was in exile?"
"Sure to, but there was no trial and nothing was known. They all changed their names, though."
"Why ... what...." said David Rossi in an unsteady voice.
"Why?" said Bruno. "Because they were all condemned in Italy, and the foreign countries were told to turn them out. But what am I talking about? You know all that better than I do, sir. Didn't your old friend go under a false name?"
"Very likely—I don't know," said David Rossi, in a voice that testified to jangled nerves.
"Did he ever tell you, sir?"
"I can't say that he ever.... Certainly the school of revolution has always had villains enough, and perhaps to prevent treachery...."
"You may say so! The devil has the run of the world,even in England. But I'm surprised your old friend, being like a father to you, didn't tell you—at the end anyway...."
"Perhaps he intended to—and then perhaps...."
David Rossi put his hand to his brow as if in pain and perplexity, and began again to walk backward and forward.
A screamer in the piazza below cried "Trib-un-a!" and Bruno said:
"That's early! What's up, I wonder? I'll go down and get a paper."
Darkness had by this time re-invaded the sky, and the stars looked down from their broad dome, clear, sweet, white, and serene, putting to shame by their immortal solemnity the poor little mimes, the paltry puppet-shows of the human jackstraws who had just been worshipping at their self-made shrine.
As David Rossi returned to the house, Elena, who was undressing the boy, saw a haggard look in his eyes, but Bruno, who was reading his evening journal, saw nothing, and cried out:
"Helloa! Listen to this, sir. It's Olga. She's got a pen, I can tell you. 'Madame de Pompadour. Hitherto we have had the pleasure of having Madame ——, whose pressure on the State and on Italy's wise counsellors was only incidental, but now that the fates have given us a Madame Pompadour....' Then there's a leading article on your speech in the piazza. Praises you up to the skies. Look! 'Thank God we have men like the Honourable Rossi, who at the risk of....'"
But with a clouded brow David Rossi turned away from him and passed into the sitting-room, and Bruno looked around in blank bewilderment.
"Shall you want the lamp, sir?" said Elena.
"Not yet, thank you," he answered through the open door.
The wood fire was glowing on the hearth, and in the acute state of his nerves he shuddered involuntarily as its reflection in the window opposite looked back at him like a fiery eye. He opened the case of the phonograph, which had been returned to its place on the piano, and then from a drawer in the bureau he took a small cardboard box. The wood in the fire flickered at that moment and started some ghastly shadows on the ceiling, but he drew a cylinder from the boxand slid it on to the barrel of the phonograph. Then he stepped to the door, shut and locked it.