'It looks asleep,' rejoined Sangiorgio, also in a whisper, as though he were talking in a church.
'Asleep? Do not believe that. She is not asleep; she is only keeping silent, and watching, and thinking. Look down there, far in the distance, at that large, light dome against the sky. It is St. Peter's. Have you ever seen it? Very well—it is a huge, empty, useless church, is it not? About St. Peter's is a large cluster of buildings standing out from the green of the gardens. They seem small from here do those buildings, and wrapped in deep slumber. All that is the Vatican, and inside is the Pope. He is seventy years old, frail, an invalid. Death is at his pillow, but what does that matter? He is strong. How many believe in him, stretch out their hands to him, bow down before him, pray in his name, die in his name! We triumphantly count our array of atheists and sceptics. Who can count the believers? Are you a believer, Honourable?'
'No.'
'Nor I. But the Pope is strong. He has on his side the unfortunate, the weak, the humble, the young people, the women—the women who from mother to daughter transmit, not religion, but its forms. You think all is asleep down there by the river-bank, in the great palace painted by Michel Angelo? That is the Vatican; it is a vast idea, in whose service and under whose authority is a population of Cardinals, Bishops, parish-priests, curates, monks, friars, seminarists, and clericals who do not confine themselves to praying, holding services, and singing: they may be found in the houses, they reach the families, they teach in the schools—yes, and they love, hate, enjoy, live, for themselves and their own interests, for the Church and for the Pope. Who can measure their strength, their influence, their potency?'
'Rome does not believe,' interposed Sangiorgio.
'I am not talking of faith. Am I a glorifier of religion? The old fables are exploded, but the human interest survives and multiplies. We live near all this great ferment, and do not see it. We have our being in the presence of a gigantic mystery working in darkness, yet we do not suspect its existence.'
Giustini ceased, again casting his eyes over the vast panorama of the city, which seemed drowned in the nebulous atmosphere of the sirocco. Sangiorgio listened in excitement, with a thrill of anxiety at his heart, as one might at the approach of danger, while Giustini continued:
'There is the Quirinal—the King, the Queen, the Court. Yes, down there, under that rosy light. Four balls, eight official receptions, forty gala dinners, twenty evenings at thetheatre, four concerts, thirty inaugurations, four hundred presentations, diamonds at the throat, medals on the chest, plumes in the hat, naked shoulders,pâté de foie gras, quadrilles of honour—whoever thought it was anything else? But this beautiful Queen, who receives friend and foe, monarchist and republican, with the same cordiality, is also a woman who thinks, who feels, who knows, who listens. And this King, harassed by such a heavy burden, dutifully bound to perpetual obedience, is he not a man, has not he, too, a conscience, a mind, a will? And all these Court people, officers and secretaries, ladies-in-waiting and diplomats, major-domos and servants, do you think they do not worry, and struggle, and live? Do you suppose they do nothing but make bows? That they only know how to walk in front of the King in a room? Who can assert that? Do they not love and hate, and have furious passions and ambitions? Has not every one of those women a desire, some envy, bitter regrets?'
The ruthless man was running his fingers nervously along the top of the parapet, where he found a large piece of dried lime. He broke off little pieces, and flipped them over the green bank. Francesco Sangiorgio followed with utmost attention the action of those thin, brown hands, with their heavy, swelled veins.
'You cannot see that cauldron of Montecitorio,' resumed the Tuscan in a harder tone of voice; 'it is lost among the houses; we are lost in it—a furnace of waste-paper, in which one is gradually burnt up by a desiccating heat—the temperature of an incubator, which lulls to sleep all audacities and quickens all timidities, which ends in scorching terribly all the waverers,and which awakens a few pseudo-ideas in the cranium of idiots. All the inmates of that cardboard drum excite themselves to shrieking, or remain utterly dumb, because of a law, or a regulation, or a railway, or a bridge; they clamour for more laws, weighty and trivial, more railways of all kinds, more bridges everywhere; they want to become Ministers, wear uniforms, be deafened by the national anthem wherever they arrive in the country, have as natural enemies their early friends, be branded thieves in the newspapers, know their private letters are opened by a too officious secretary—and other delights of the same kind. Some poor wretches want to be Secretary-General! I was one of them. Oh, the frightful furnace, that shrivels men like dry beans, men inflamed by furious desires and consumed in the emptiness of those desires!'
The heavens, all white at their zenith, now assumed a delicate tint of gray on the circular hem of the horizon; like an ethereal veil the spirit of evening rose in the air above the city. Francesco Sangiorgio experienced a strange uneasiness; Tullio Giustini at that moment seemed to him more hideous than ever; as he laughed he displayed two rows of ugly yellow teeth.
'How quiet the city is!' he went on. 'It seems to be asleep, enjoying the Christmas festival. It seems to be, but is not. Up there, in the verdure of the Pincio and the Villa Medici, which extends down to the Via Babuino, the painters sing, laugh, discuss heresies as if they were theories of art, and produce pictures that seem great absurdities. But what do they care? To console themselves for their failure they have invented the wordPhilistine, which expresses their contemptfor the public. In the whiteness over there, on the other side, are thenew quarters. Have you ever been there? Seventy thousand people, in all sorts of employment, with their families, servants, dogs, and cats: a concourse of savages—unarmed, hungry savages—squatting up there, looking at Rome and hating it because they cannot understand it, and they find it exacting while their women make children and cook, women with pale faces, with flat breasts, and red hands. They have been celebrating Christmas in their prisons, venting their spleen against the Government, their servants, Rome, and the butcher, like real, miserable, stupid savages. And the Romans—the true Romans—of the Regola and the Popolo, of the Monti district and the Trevi district, who add the adjectiveRomanto their name like a title of nobility, who eat dumplings on Thursdays, tripe on Sundays, and lamb at all times, who like white wine and the fireworks at Sant' Angelo, who are proud of their March water, and calmly allow the beetles to swarm in their old houses, the sceptical, clever, impassive, and industrious Romans, who are good husbands and kind lovers, they certainly are not asleep. And the women, Roman or Neapolitan, Italian or foreign, who go for walks, stand at the window, argue, laugh, kiss when they love, and are kissed when loved, they are not asleep—no, the women never sleep, not even at night. Oh, Rome is so alert, though it seems stagnant; it is so great, so complicated, so delicate in its mechanism, so powerful on its steel springs, that when I bend over to look at it, from up here, it frightens me, like an infernal machine.'
In the spreading twilight Francesco Sangiorgio, deadly pale,bent down to look also, as though to discover the mysterious machinery of Rome.
'And what is the dream of those who come here?' continued Tullio Giustini, with a short, sardonic laugh. 'You believe that you are awaited with the amorous serenity of a great city, because you are young, and you have talents, and you wish to work, and not be unworthy of the noble city. I, too, came thus, and I thought the first Roman citizen must needs embrace me. Instead, after three or four years of fretting, of internal torments, and of huge delusions, I learned a few things: that I was too frank to succeed in politics, that I was too rough to please the women, that I was too sickly to do scientific work, that I was too brittle to succeed in diplomacy. This I learned, and from this, a fact as glaring as the sun, as terrible as truth itself—Rome gives herself up to no one!'
'And what must one do?' asked Francesco Sangiorgio, half trembling.
'Conquer her!'
Tullio Giustini made a sweeping gesture towards the city with his skinny hand.
'Conquer her! Woe to the commonplace, woe to the cowards, woe to the weak, like myself! This city does not expect you, and does not fear you; it gives you no welcome, does not reject you; it does not oppose you, and disdains to accept a challenge. Its strength, its power, its loftiness, is lodged in an almost divine attribute—indifference. You may make a stir—howl, rave, set fire to your house and your books, and dance on the ruins—Rome will take no note of it. It isthe city to which all have come, and where all have fallen: why should it be concerned with you, an infinitesimal atom, passing across the scene so quickly? It is indifferent; it is the great cosmopolitan city which has this universal character, which knows everything because it has seen everything. Indifference is the equivalent of the unchangeably serene, the deaf soul,the woman who knows not how to love. Indifference is the moral mid-winter sirocco, the tepid, uniform temperature which debilitates the nervous system, and saps the will-power, and causes tremendous internal revolutions and tremendous dejections. Yet someone must come to disturb that serenity, to vanquish that indifference. Someone must conquer Rome, whether for ten years, for one year, for one month; but he must conquer it, must capture it, must avenge all the dead, all the fallen, all the feeble who have touched its walls without being able to overcome it. But, ah! such a one must have a heart of brass, an inflexible, rigid will; he must be young, healthy, robust, and bold, without ties and without weaknesses; he must apply himself profoundly, intensely to that one idea of victory. But who is to conquer her, this proud Rome?'
'I will!' said Francesco Sangiorgio.
The Minister had been speaking for an hour. He was no orator: he lacked fire and polish. Rather was he a modest speaker, one who did not strive after effects in political eloquence, and who said things concisely, in the logical, mathematical order in which they presented themselves to a square, solid brain. The discourse, as was natural, bristled with figures, was an interminable procession of numbers. He uttered them with a certain deliberation, as if he wanted them weighed by friends and foes. His voice was too gentle, too familiar, perhaps, but was plainly audible in the silence. He might have been taking part in a Cabinet Council; the Parliamentary pitch of voice was altogether absent. The Minister stopped occasionally to wipe his nose on a large silk handkerchief, checked in red and black. As a matter of fact, in that short, stout little person plainly dressed in black, in that placid face, shaved on the lips and chin, but flanked with whiskers at the side in English fashion, in those plump, white hands, in the whole atmosphere of repose and thoughtfulness which he exhaled, one might divine the indefatigable workman of the study, the man who spent twelve hours a day at the Ministerialoffices, behind a desk covered with documents—writing, reading, verifying registers, advising with heads of departments, with general directors. Thus, the Minister, the man of meditation, seemed out of place in debate with the members; and in announcing the most important facts, in rendering matters exact and profound, he spoke with the easy simplicity of a scientist setting forth his vast learning in popular language.
The Chamber sat still out of respect, but as a fact the members were inattentive. They were so sure of him and his adherents! He was strong, he was such an iron, massive, luminous tower of strength that the anger of political slander or debate left him unmoved. His very adversaries admitted his power, and thus contributed to render his triumphs all the more sweeping. By listening to him intently one might succeed in understanding how he stood outside the political passion, and was all absorbed in his love of finance.
The atmosphere of the hall conduced to a certain vague, inactive contemplativeness. While out of doors—it being the middle of January—a dry, whistling, cutting north wind was blowing, as was wont to happen on one of the three cold days of a Roman winter, inside the hall the stoves sent out a perpetual stream of heat. Tightly closed, without windows, with gallery doors rarely opening—doors that shut quickly, noiselessly, as though hinged on velvet—with the matting that deadened every footstep, the hall suggested physical comfort. Nevertheless, the Speaker, a fine man of fifty, with swarthy face and hair still black as jet, had his legs covered with a blue velvet wrap lined with fur; and as he listened to the Minister, he would cast an occasional glance at the galleries, possibly seekingout someone. The secretaries sat motionless to his right and left. Falucci, the Abruzzan, tall and muscular, with a curly, slightly grizzled mane, was whispering frequent sentences to handsome Sangarzia, who nodded without answering, accustomed as he was to protracted, patient silence; Varrini, the agreeable and intelligent Calabrian, with the muzzle of a sagacious mouse, with the refinement of a young lady covering the power of a champion, was writing letters; and Bulgaro, the Neapolitan, was making the seat creak which bore his enormous frame, his embrowned visage showing traces of an almost childish fretfulness. There was not, as on other days of minor debates, a string of deputies coming to chat with the Speaker on his bench, exchanging jokes with the secretaries, and going down on the other side, after which there might be a stroll outside, a moment's prattle at intervals in the room of the Lost Footsteps, in which fashion the sitting went by. For to-day the Minister was expounding a very serious question; both Ministerialists and Opposition must listen.
The Right, nearly all of them old members of eight Parliaments, heard without paying attention, knowing their opponent to be invincible, and thus they bore the air of veterans, faithful at their posts, neither suffering nor enjoying. The Extreme Left paid no heed whatever, but did not disturb the speech; that party disdained questions of the economic-administrative order, having made no study of finance, and now awaited some political argument, which would be an opportunity to stir up a little excitement. One of the small phalanx of Hubertists was asleep, his face politely covered by his hands; another deputy, Gagliardi, was sleeping without attempt atconcealment. Only on one of the Centrist benches was any sincere attention paid, like that of eager scholars to their master's explanations. Of these deputies there were four—young, clever, and aspiring. Seymour, of English descent, dark, myopic, and well-mannered, was taking notes on paper; beside him was Marchetti, with the Nazarene beard; Gerini, a taciturn Florentine, with long, fair, flowing beard, was passing memoranda to Joanna, the Southerner of the handsome, thoughtful, studious head. But the whole Chamber, Speaker, secretaries, committee-men, members, were under the soft influence of that warm air, that closed place, that silence broken only by the tranquil voice of the Minister.
The galleries were crowded—a strange circumstance on a day given up to financial discussion. But no doubt the cold had driven in from the streets those ladies sitting upstairs with their capes open, their hands stuffed into their muffs, their faces pink from the warmth of the hall. They were quite happy to remain there, though they understood not a word; the voice of the speaker fell on their ears like a hum, while they shivered at the thought of returning out of doors, where the north wind was blowing, making one's eyes water and one's nose turn red. The public gallery, too, was full of people: pale, jaded faces of do-nothings, wretched figures of petitioners who had spent the day in looking for a cousin of a deputy's friend, and who at last, demoralized and trembling with cold, had come to finish in the Chamber, in the public gallery, where they listened without a wink. The long press gallery was also more crowded than usual, and the occupants of the first row were pretending to write a summary of theproceedings. But one was inditing a letter, another a theatrical article, another was sketching a fantastic profile of Depretis, and another still was practising the art of calligraphy, writing his own name with large flourishes. The Opposition journalists had already prepared a mild, platonic attack, the Government writers having extolled the Minister's financial report for the last ten days; all of them were quite unruffled. Only Gennaro Casale, in the Government's employ, a violent Neapolitan journalist, and an enemy of all Governments whatsoever, grew excited, and exclaimed from the rear of the gallery:
'Gentlemen, this balancing is a Ministerial shuffle!'
Up in the diplomatic gallery, leaning against the blue velvet balustrade, was to be seen the slender figure of the Countess Beatrice di Santaninfa, with the large, deep, soft eyes, who was not listening, but was absorbed in thought.
When, at half-past four, the Minister had ended his speech, members old and young nodded their heads in a general rustle of approval and admiration. He restored his papers to his big portfolio without a tremor in his fingers, without a shade of colour changing in his countenance. Then a group of friends, ardent and lukewarm, gathered about him to shake hands with him and congratulate him. Even an ex-Minister of Finance came down from the benches of the Right to compliment the fat little Minister with the hard head. Some disorder occurred, and a little noise. Then the voice of the Speaker was heard, sonorous and distinct:
'Honourable colleagues, I beg for silence. The Honourable Sangiorgio has the floor.'
'Who? Who?' was the universal inquiry.
And again the Speaker was heard:
'I beg for silence. The Honourable Sangiorgio has the privilege of speaking.'
Hereupon the curious eyes of the members sought out that colleague of theirs, whom scarcely anyone knew. He was up there, on the last bench of a section, with the Right Centre. He was standing erect and calm, waiting for his turn to speak. And he stepped out halfway upon the stair so as to be seen better. He was not tall, but up there he looked tall, since his carriage was upright and he had a robust figure. Nor was he handsome, but his head bore all the characteristics of strength; his hair was planted rudely on a low brow, his nose was aquiline, his moustache was dark and dense, his chin was set hard and full of power. No one thought him insignificant. And then divers speculations grew rife in the Chamber. Would this new deputy speak for or against the Minister? Was he one of those flatterers who, scarcely arrived, hastened to make a show of loyalty to the Government? Or was he some little impudent nobody who would stammer through a feeble attack before the House, and be suppressed by the ironical murmurs of the assembly? He was a Southerner and a lawyer—only that was known about him. Therefore he would deliver an oration, the usual rhetoric which the Piedmontese detested, the Milanese derided, and the Tuscans despised.
Instead, the Honourable Sangiorgio began to talk deliberately, but with such a resonant, commanding voice that it filled the hall and made the audience give a sigh of relief. The ladies, whom the warmth had half lulled to sleep, revived, and thepress gallery, empty since the conclusion of the Minister's discourse, began to refill with reporters, returning to their places.
The Honourable Sangiorgio opened with an exordium proclaiming respect for the illustrious person at the head of Italy's finances, and his eulogy nowise partook of vulgar adulation, but was tendered in a sober and restrained manner. The speaker alluded in passing to his own youth, to the obscurity of one who, tied down to provincial life, ever had his eyes turned towards Rome, where the noble war of politics was constantly being waged. He extolled politics, declaring them greater than the arts, greater than science: they embraced the whole history of human activity, and to him the statesman was the highest type of man, apostle and labourer, arm and head.
A loudGood!burst forth from the Right.
The Honourable Sangiorgio paused for a short minute, but only for a short minute. His appeal to the sublimity of politics as a kind of high ideal, which was vulgarized in the hands of men, had evoked general approval, and had given several nonentities a sense of elation. The Minister, who from the beginning had raised his head, fixing his pale blue eyes firmly on the speaker, had now dropped it again upon overhearing remarks behind him from men who embarrassed and annoyed him.
Sangiorgio went on to say that those youthful years in the provinces were, however, not without value to anyone who sought to know modern life in all its sufferings and in all its needs. The great cities were all-invading, all-devouring; they fed upon the existence of others; they exhausted vigour, and stifled complaint, and threw the man who lived there into sucha fever that he forgot all other human interests. Who knew of the distress of the provinces? Who ever heard the echo of those dolorous, humble sighs, which never could reach Rome? True, that a few stout and good and brave men on occasion informed the Chamber of the grievances of all those fellow-Italians; but such voices were isolated, grew faint, and then were silent. Yet there must not be silence; the truth must be known.
The House was now listening attentively in a less ironical, a kinder attitude of mind. It was a natural reaction from the strain, from the difficulty of comprehension which the preceding speech by the Minister had offered. After a painful tension of two hours and a half in following a fantastic whirl of figures, this easy eloquence relieved the oppressed spirits. And now, in that hour of dusk, so cold and dark outside, so gratefully warm and bright in the hall, the members yielded to a sentimental mood, to a feeling of sympathy and benevolence—what were these wrongs of the provinces, then?
Sangiorgio continued, saying that all the sad experience of his youth among the peasants had rebelled at a seemingly innocent proposal of the Minister's. The Minister had stated that, being obliged to give his colleague of the War Department several millions, there was necessity for further economizing. Very good; economy was the strength of young nations. But instead the Minister had asked for a slight increase of the salt tax. Sangiorgio fully appreciated, he declared, the reasons of State which compelled the Minister to ask for that rise in taxation, but those few centesimi represented a promise of woe made worse, an aggravation of conditions oflife already unendurable. And then he drew a vivid picture of peasant poverty, which was so much more distressingly and variously terrible than poverty in the towns, relating, with veridical details, with short, pathetic anecdotes, where the peasants lived, what they ate—that is to say, how hungry they always were—and how the tax-collector appeared in their eyes as the fearful spectre of starvation and death. He described the nakedness of that great Basilicata country, the landslides which rolled down bare mountains to bury meagre pastures, and he spoke of the distance of those wretched villages from the railway, whence the impossibility of paying industries, and he mentioned the unhealthy plains, where engineers, road-makers, and stationmasters contracted malarial fevers.
While talking of his own country, so desolate and so unhappy, his voice had lowered, as though veiled with emotion. But he quickly recovered himself and came to the point. The duty on salt fell heavily on the lower classes—more so in the rural districts than in the urban. They already ate their broth with very little salt; now they would eat it entirely without salt. And the latest hygienic researches, unsparing but reliable, had established that to the insufficiency of salt were to be traced the dreadful diseases prevailing among the peasantry of Lombardy and Piedmont.
A murmur of approval ran along some of the benches. The closest attention of all was paid where the four vigorous young Centrists were sitting, Seymour, Gerini, Joanna, and Marchetti, who nevertheless made no demonstrations, with that British impassiveness of the young economist deputies.
'In the small towns and boroughs and villages of the Southof Italy,' Sangiorgio went on, 'the bakers always make two kinds of bread—tasteless and cheap for the poor people, and salted for the well-to-do. And to this second kind the bakers often give its flavour, not with salt, because it is too dear, but by passing a cloth steeped in sea-water over the fresh dough. In the houses of the poor a coarse, dark, heavy-grained salt is used, which ought only to be sold for cattle, but which human beings are obliged to buy for themselves. By increasing the duty the Government would condemn a whole class of taxpayers to intolerable privations, whose consequence would be ravage by sickness and yet deeper destitution. The millions spent on national defence, on the fortifications of the country, on the army, are wisely allotted, but is it necessary to be powerful when one is so poor? When the Minister of War calls the young men of the Basilicata to arms, and hopes to find a body of stalwart and valiant mountaineers, he will be disappointed at seeing a herd of creatures pale and emaciated from illness, weakness, and dejection. Or, rather, not even that, for the barren and unfruitful provinces are becoming more and more depopulated; the peasant, desperate over the sterility of the soil, harried by the fisc, abandoned by Nature, persecuted by man, prefers to turn his back upon the land of his birth and leave it for the remote shores of America. The peasant prefers a foreign people, a foreign clime, whence there is no return. When the war-trumpet shall call the Italian sons of the Basilicata there will be no answer. Driven by hunger and despair, they will have gone away to die in regions far from home!'
The Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio stepped back to hisbench and resumed his seat. Cheers and applause sounded upon his ears, but only vaguely. He was conscious of the buzz of discussion which follows upon every important speech. Immediately in front of him had collected a group of deputies who were arguing somewhat loudly, referring now and then to their honourable colleague, Sangiorgio, and half turning towards him, as if seeking endorsement from him. Remaining stolidly in his place, with eyes downcast, and without anyone coming to shake hands with him because he was unknown, Sangiorgio nevertheless felt the approbation of the whole House rise to him where he sat on the topmost bench. He had given satisfaction to the old party of the Right, whose political pride was flattered; to the Extreme Left, who thought to have discovered a Socialist in a deputy belonging to the Centre; to all the egoistic and sentimental members, ready to cry misfortune at all times without seeking for remedies; to all deputies with economist leanings and shadowy notions of agrarian Socialism. This speech, which on another occasion would have passed for some literary effusion, to-day bore a character of great importance.
* * * * *
Once a minute the glass door of the room on the ground-floor at No. 9, Via della Missione, opened to admit a newcomer. Those already in the room, seated on the little divans or standing about, would turn and eye such a one angrily; a cold blast of wind would come in with him. Whoever entered, shaking and shivering, made straight for the long desk dividing the room, took a small blank, and wrote on it his own name, as well as the deputy's he wished to see; and, like him,there were always five or six others writing on small blanks. On the other side of the desk the ushers, in uniform, with medals on their chest, with a tricoloured band on their arm, gray or bald-headed, were moving to and fro, taking away those blanks, half a dozen at a time, disappearing through a door opening upon corridors giving access to the hall. Satisfied with having despatched his request, its sender would begin to walk up and down, or, if he happened to have been standing, would take a seat, without impatience, even with a somewhat presumptuous air of certainty.
The sacred door opened, and an usher reappeared with several blanks in hand; everybody looked up and lent ear.
'Who asked for the Honourable Parodi?' shouted the usher.
'I,' answered a voice from among the number of people waiting.
'He is not there.'
'Did you look carefully?' urgently asked the voice, belonging to an old man with a florid, red nose, with heavy, purple lips.
'The Honourable Parodi is not there,' repeated the usher civilly.
'Well, he ought to be,' muttered the other.
'Who wanted the Honourable Sambucetto?'
'I!' exclaimed a young fellow with a pale face and a threadbare overcoat, whose collar was turned up.
'He is there, but he is unable to come.'
'Why can he not come?' demanded the youngster in an insolent tone, his face now livid.
'He said nothing more. He cannot come.'
The young man mingled with the people who filled the room, but he did not depart; he remained, angry, sullen, his cap pulled down over his eyes, in an altogether unpromising frame of mind. Moreover, all the faces of the people who hurried in and out of that room, or sat against the wall on the divans, all those faces wore an imprint of sadness, of weariness, of repressed suffering. It might have been the anteroom of a celebrated physician, where invalids came, one after another, waiting their turn, looking about with the indifferent gaze of people who have lost all interest in everything else, their thoughts for ever occupied with their malady. And as in such a lugubrious anteroom, which he who has once been there on his own behalf or for one dear to him can never forget, as in such a room are assembled people with all the infirmities that torment our poor, mortal body—the consumptive, with narrow, stooping shoulders, with lean neck, his eyes swimming with a noxious fluid; the victim of heart disease, with pallid face, large veins, yellowish, swollen hands; the anæmic, with violet lips and white gums; the neurotically affected, with protuberant jaws, bulging cheekbones, emaciated frame; and the sufferers from all other diseases, hideous or pitiful, which draw the lines of the face tight, which make the mouth twitch, and impart an unwelcome glow to the hand, that glow that terrifies the healthy—thus, in such a room, did the possessors of all the moral ills unite, oblivious of all complaints but their own.
There was the youth who had taught in a school without a license, who has come to Rome to take any sort of employment, however mean, and who, after a month's half-hearted,vain search, has at last begged for a servant's place, which is denied him because he is not servile; the ex-clerk of the Bank of Naples or the Bank of Sicily, who was turned out for dishonesty twelve years ago, when the Left was in power, and wants to be reinstated by the Progressists, whom he has always served faithfully; the uncertain industrial speculator, who must pay a heavy fine into the Treasury Department because he has neglected to register a contract, and who hopes the Minister will graciously remit the penalty; the widow of a pensioner, accompanied by a child crying with the cold, who for ten months has been applying for a lottery office, and is willing to surrender the pension; the loafer, who knows how to do everything and is of no use for anything, who positively must have a place, of whatever description, on the ground that, since there are so many fools in the Chamber and the Government offices, he, too, is entitled to share in their paradise.
The variety of their wishes and needs is infinite. Every one of those people has a grievance in his soul, an unfulfilled desire, an active, torturing delusion, a secret sorrow, a fierce ambition, a discontent. And in their faces may be seen a corresponding spasmodic twitching, a contraction of angry lips, a dilation of nostrils trembling with nervousness, a knitting of the brows which clouds the whole countenance, hands convulsively doubled in overcoat pockets, a melancholy furrow in the women's smile, which deepens with every new disillusion. But all of them are completely self-centred, entirely oblivious of foreign interests, indulging in a single thought, a fixed idea, because of which they watch, meet, and conflictwith one another, although seeming neither to hear nor to see each other. The floor of the room is filthy, muddied by feet that have splashed through the puddles in the lanes, and spotted all over with the thick expectorations of people afflicted with a cold.
'Who asked for the Honourable Moraldi?' shouts the usher.
'I,' answers, with loud, imposing voice, a large, stout, red-throated man.
'Be kind enough to wait a little; the Minister is speaking.'
The large man puffs himself out in his warm topcoat, which protuberates sensibly at the paunch. Someone looks at him enviously, becausehisdeputy has at least asked him to wait, while others allege absence or simply send word that they cannot come. Perhaps he is also envied his warm overcoat, since there are so many thin suits under a wretched threadbare overcoat, worn through autumn and winter with pretended resignation, so many pepper-and-salt trousers under a green overcoat, so many trousers of a dirty yellow under a cinnamon-coloured, ancient, worn-out overcoat.
The coming and going continued. Those who had received a definite refusal remained rather undecided, a sullen look on their faces, glancing at the door as if they lacked courage to go out into the cold, and then they made up their minds to go, which they did with bowed shoulders, at a slow pace, without looking back. For one who went away, two or three came in: the room was as full as ever; the ushers came and went through the door, which suggested that of a sanctuary. It rained refusals.
'Who was wishing to see the Honourable Nicotera?'
'I,' answered a very tall, very thin man, with scrawny neck and the face of a skeleton, on which sprouted a few colourless hairs.
'He is there, but begs to be excused; he is not able to come.'
The fantastically lean individual bent double, like a caterpillar, on a bench, filled out another blank, and consigned it to another usher, who returned exclaiming:
'Who asked for the Honourable Zanardelli?'
'I,' whispered a sibilant voice.
'He is there, but the Minister is speaking; he cannot come.'
The spectre persistently went on writing.
One deputy, however, more obliging, had come out upon the request of the person who wanted him, accosting him with a certain degree of nimble zeal, leading him into the next room, where the deputies interviewed their constituents. In this room were three or four ladies, sitting down, waiting, with their hands in their muffs. The deputy and his constituent walked up and down; the constituent spoke vivaciously, with gesticulations; the deputy listened attentively, with eyes downcast, now and then nodding his head in approval.
In the waiting-room all the people were grown weary; a physical and moral lassitude weighed upon them: the new disillusion, that evenfall, sapped their strength; one of them was leaning against the wall; the child had gone to sleep on the widow's knee; total silence reigned. Real or fictitious misfortunes, desires of idle brains or worthy, fervent desires of persevering souls, necessities brought about by indulgence in vice or unmerited mishaps, extravagant ambitions, modest little ambitions, crazes due to overwrought nerves, the thirstfor justice of obstinate monomaniacs—all this human suffering, endured in silence, was mixed with a sense of oppression, of sadness, of having been abandoned, a feeling of woeful disconsolateness at having once more come to knock at that door which would not open. The gas-jets were burning brightly, but their light fell on the mortified faces of people paralyzed and listless, as though they were dead.
Three ushers came in through the door, one after the other.
'Who asked for the Honourable Sella?'
'Who asked for the Honourable Bomba?'
'Who asked for the Honourable Crispi?'
'I—I—I,' answered the thin little voice of the man-skeleton.
'The Honourable Sella cannot leave the hall.'
'The Honourable Bomba is busy in the hall.'
'The Honourable Crispi is with the Budget Committee.'
Quietly the skeleton wrote on another blank, and handed it to an usher.
'Excuse me,' observed the usher, 'we are not allowed to call the Ministers, and especially the President of the Council.'
'And why?' asked the spectre in surprise.
'It is the rule.'
But with unabated patience he wrote another name, and then began to walk to and fro, overtowering all the rest. One concluded to leave; his footstep dragged as he took away with him the humiliation of that long, useless wait; others, making a desperate resolve, went away to post themselves, in the chill of the evening, at the door of Montecitorio, to wait for the deputies coming out. Others, less venturesome, stilllingered behind: the gas afforded a little warmth, and at the end of the sitting some deputy might appear. A brougham stopped before the door, remained closed, a footman jumped from the box, came in, gave a note to an usher, and stood waiting, with the impassive air of people used to receive orders. An usher shouted:
'Who wanted the Honourable Barbarulo?
'I,' said the ghost.
'He is not there.'
'Is he away for a holiday?'
'He has been dead four months.'
This remark settled the living corpse. He reflected for an instant, but probably could think of no other names, and slowly took his departure. A moment after Francesco Sangiorgio crossed the room, spoke to the footman—only two words—and accompanied by him went out of doors and got into the carriage, all excitement still with his success.
'My sincere congratulations,' said Donna Elena Fiammanti, pressing his hand.
The brougham drove off. In the waiting-room the going and coming had ceased; the child was crying, after being awakened by its mother; the tired ushers sat down for a minute; two deputies, one with three acquaintances and the other with two, were gossiping in the other room.
* * * * *
The flames were flickering in the fireplace; three logs forming a triangle were burning at their ends. Donna Elena gently stirred the hot ashes and the glowing embers; they gave forth a few sparks, and the three logs blazed up. Then shesat back in her chair and mechanically smoothed down her clinging, black silk skirt at the hips.
'Do you like a fire, Sangiorgio? It must be cold down there in the Basilicata.'
'Very cold,' said he, taking a seat in an easy-chair. 'We have no handsome fireplaces; there are large high stoves under whose arch a wooden bench is placed. The head of the family sits there in winter, with his children and relatives about him.'
'I am very fond of an open fire,' she said, with eyes half closed, as if they were heavy from fatigue, 'but only when someone is with me. I get melancholy alone.'
She spoke with her two arms lying upon the arms of the chair, her head leaning against the back. The lamplight made the gold necklace sparkle on the high collar of her silk dress, and drew a flash from the gilt buckle on her black slipper. Her foot was forward; it was rather plump, although arched.
'You are never alone, I suppose?'
'No, never,' she replied frankly. 'I hate being alone.'
'No doubt,' he vaguely assented.
'No, no, do not agree with me from politeness! I know that you men, especially when you have a great ambition or are deeply in love, wish for solitude. But we women never do. We must have company. If a woman tells you she prefers solitude, do not believe her, Sangiorgio. She is deceiving you deliberately, or else wishes to avoid a discussion. They are all like myself, or, rather, I am a woman like the rest. Visitors amuse me. Fools interest me, too. To-day, in the Chamber, for instance——'
'For instance?' he asked with a faint smile.
'There was one behind me in the Speaker's gallery; he was talking nonsense to me for an hour.'
'And did he not bore you?'
'No, he prevented me from hearing the Minister's speech. Do you smoke?'
'Thank you.'
She handed him the tobacco-box. Her hands were plump, with pink, polished nails.
'You made a remarkably fine speech to-day,' she resumed, lighting a yellow cigarette.
Sangiorgio raised his eyes without answering.
'If you care to, buy the newspapers to-morrow; they will be full of you.'
'I think not; the Minister is a great favourite.'
'Nonsense! He is like Aristides: his fellow-citizens have become tired of hearing him called "The Just." Do not let the quotation alarm you, Sangiorgio; I know neither Greek nor Latin. It was merely a reminiscence of my youth, when I used to read.'
'You do not read now?'
'No; I am tired of books.'
'They are no use.'
The man-servant came in with a small bamboo tray and the coffee; the cups, too, were Japanese, of a most delicate, blue porcelain.
'How many lumps?' she asked, holding up the silver sugar-tongs.
'Two.'
While they were drinking the coffee Sangiorgio looked about the room. He had been there for a moment, before dinner, while the Countess had gone to change her dress. It was a little parlour, without brackets, without tables, without upholstered furniture, full of large and small easy-chairs, small divans, and stools; it was a little room without corners. The piano was also draped with a quantity of Turkish and Persian stuffs. On the wall hung a piece of an ecclesiastical vestment, red and embroidered with gold.
'You will see that to-morrow a number of deputies will ask to be presented to you. You will enjoy all the sweets of success.'
'Am I to believe in the admiration of my colleagues?'
'No, my dear friend, but you may take pleasure in it. Many beautiful and good things in life are false in their essence. It is wisdom to profit by them, to take them as they are, without asking any more.'
And she cast at him a fugitive, rapid glance. He understood at once. In that little room the same perspicacity came to his aid which during the day had assisted him in his boldness before the Chamber.
'Love is like that, too,' he murmured.
'Particularly love,' remarked the Countess Elena Fiammanti, opening wide her large gray eyes, which that evening were tinted with blue. 'Have you ever been very much in love, Sangiorgio?'
'Never much, and besides——'
'Very well. When you do fall in love, remember what I say. Love is a great thing, but not the best. One must notask more of it than it can give. But a man is exacting, a man is selfish, a man insists on being the object of a passion, and then—the woman lies. The sentiment of love is really an ordinary one; there are some stronger; love is an ephemeral thing, and often accomplishes nothing.'
And while she uttered her romantic paradoxes with a slight touch of pedantry, her crimson lips gleamed in their humidity, her hand ruffled the natural curls over her forehead, she swung her plump little foot backward and forward, whose skin was visible through the black silk, perforated stocking. Sangiorgio, feeling very much at home, looked at her with a rather fatuous smile, which, being absorbed in her paradoxes, she probably did not notice.
Throwing her cigarette into the fire, Elena continued:
'Women also want to be deluded. "Those traitors of men do not know how to love!" you hear them cry; and then they weep and wail. They must have faithfulness—a pretty story, good enough to be palmed off on children! As if they could be faithful! As if they had no fibres, blood, imagination—destructive, all of these, to constancy! A hundred thousand lire reward to anyone who will bring me a man and a woman who are truly faithful, absolutely faithful!'
Francesco Sangiorgio had taken her uplifted hand in his. He toyed lightly with her fingers, with her diamond rings. He more than once playfully bent his head over the hand, and finally kissed it on the vein in the wrist. Donna Elena was no longer in the least formidable to him; he seemed to be quite intimate with her already; vulgar ideas began surging into his mind. What intoxication remained from the events of theday, aided by this feminine atmosphere all redolent with corylopsis, by this alluring woman, by her language become common by force of paradox, turned his head. To assert his new intimacy with Donna Elena, he would have liked to stretch himself out on a sofa, or fling himself on the carpet, or throw matches into the fire—in fact, to conduct himself as impertinently as an ill-bred boy. He resisted these temptations through an exertion of will; nevertheless, he was incited by the ironical smile which gave Donna Elena's nether lip a disdainful curve, the light tremor of the nostrils of that prominent aquiline nose, the combined refinement and coarseness of that face. Quite gently he took the rings off her left hand and dandled them in his own; and in the state of inebriation which had seized upon him his strongest wish was to slip off one of her shoes, to see her little foot bend bashfully in her stocking.
'To be sure, there are virtuous women,' she went on; 'who denies that? But with them the case is totally different. There are cold women; there are women who do not love. I know a few—not many, only a few. Under those circumstances it needs little strength to remain true. Donna Angelica, His Excellency's wife—there you have a virtuous woman! Do you know Donna Angelica, Sangiorgio?'
'H'm—yes—by sight,' he stammered.
And then he became utterly embarrassed, with the rings in his hands, having not a notion what to do with them. At last he put them on a stool, not venturing to place them back upon the hand whence he had stripped them. Suddenly the cloud which had shadowed his mind was dissipated, and hefelt ashamed of the childish tricks he had contemplated. He was very near to begging Donna Elena's pardon, but she, most likely, was unconcerned. All nervousness, with his hand he stroked and stroked the folds of his black cloth waistcoat, as though he wanted to make it immutably rigid.
'What do you think of my sermon?'
'I am an enthusiastic disciple. I do not grasp all your teachings, but I bow to them,' answered the deputy, having recovered enough presence of mind to be jocose.
'I will give you some music; you will understand that,' she said, getting up. 'You may smoke, read, or go to sleep. If you do not listen I shall not mind. I shall be playing as much for myself as for you.'
In a moment a soft and sympathetic voice was singing the first notes of Tosti's 'Ave Maria.' Francesco started at those unexpected, unaccountable tones. Indeed, Donna Elena's voice was unlike herself, or, rather, it was hers in one respect, and by its other qualities it completed her. In singing she met with her own character. She sounded the key of the deep contralto which lacks in smoothness, and yet is rich and warm, and stirs the soul; which is full-toned and amorous; which conveys impassioned avowals and storms of jealousy. That side of Elena's voice resembled her. But there was also infinite sweetness; there was the purity of notes sung without a quaver; there was the liquid tenderness and innocence of an almost childish voice. And there was—which is a rare feature in singing—a sort of ideal sensuality, a harmonious transfiguration of it, a supremely poetical interpretation of it. In this way did her voice complete her.
She had forgotten her hearer, and was singing with her head thrown back, and with such languorous eyes that the lashes cast a shadow on her cheeks. Her lips were lightly parted, and they scarcely moved. Her white throat was swelling under the black collar and the necklace on her dress, while her hands ran nimbly over the keys, fingering them as delicately as a caress. A serener, sweeter atmosphere seemed to be diffused in the little room, which until then had suggested hardness and effrontery. A suave light settled on the surroundings, on the furniture, and on all things inanimate, tempering their sharp, brazen expression. Donna Elena was singing a melancholy romance by Schumann, whose refrain seemed rather to add affliction than to console, so extremely mournful was the music: 'Va, prends courage, cœur souffrant.' And Sangiorgio, at the end of his day of triumph, listened pensively, invaded by an unfamiliar sensation of sadness.
It was the last public ball on the last Tuesday of the carnival, at the Costanzi Theatre. The small people whose only amusement during the whole carnival was one public ball; students who still had ten lire in their pocket; Government clerks who had a taste for mild debauches; shop assistants whose establishments would be closed the following day; fledgelings in law and beginners in medicine—all these and many more from ten o'clock forward filed in through the four red doors, which remained open all night. On the ground-floor the attendants in the cloakrooms lost their heads a little with the numbering of overcoats and capes, gathering up of sashes and veils, and putting together of walking-sticks and wraps. Crowds of people streamed continuously into the huge parterre, which never seemed to fill, in spite of the tremendous concourse of people, clad in bright colours that stood out against the sober background. They were indulging in the everlasting circular promenade which is a characteristic feature at a Roman public ball. Four-and-twenty pulcinellos—a merry company of young fellows holding on to one another's white blouses, one behind the other—careered across the floor laughing and shrieking, like a rushing avalanche. In the middle of the place a number of feminine masks had collectedin a large circle. They wore short white jackets, very much like babies' shirts, tied under the chin with large red and blue bows, and had infants' curls on their heads and tinkling rattles in their hands—the inexpensive, pretty, and saucy costume of Donna Juanita in the act laid in Jamaica. Having come in good company, these fair masqueraders scarcely quitted their escorts. Hardly did the orchestra, in the stand erected on the proscenium near the great purling fountain, strike up a polka, when the couples began to turn in a curiously sedate manner, with steps carefully regular, avoiding collisions, dancing conscientiously. When the music ceased they halted abruptly, as if in surprise, the men offered their partners an arm, and without exchanging a word they began the circular promenade. At a fresh summons they once more went into the middle and danced again, with almost laborious persistency, while all round them stood admiring spectators three deep.
Three girls dressed in black, with white aprons and enormous white muslin caps, were going about arm-in-arm, speaking in a high, piping voice, and making gestures with their hands gloved in black, puzzling half the assembly. In a box of the second tier a red satin, female domino, with a hood like a cock's comb, sat quite alone, her arm, which was red to the very gloves, lying on the edge of the box. Here and there other stylish and mysterious dominos were to be seen—one tall and slender, all in blue, with a big hat shaped like a closed conch; another in black satin, with face concealed behind black Venetian lace; an opulent mask exhibiting under an open domino of red and gold brocade a suit of cream-colouredbrocade; and many more besides, all followed by young men trying to guess at their faces. But in the main the gathering was composed of plain, middle-class families—father and mother, sons and daughters, who had come to this ball as to an evening outdoor performance, in dark cloth dress, white neckerchief, and hat with black feathers; and as they met they stopped to exchange compliments and tittle-tattle, taking jokes from each other with the equanimity of the Roman middle class that is never upset. The throng was densest about the two barges (the small stage boxes), in one of which the members of the Hunt Club, in evening dress, with black necktie and gardenia at buttonhole, and in the other the cavalry officers, were leaning over to talk and laugh with their friends in the parterre.
When Francesco Sangiorgio entered the vestibule and bought a ticket of admission, it was half-past eleven. A feminine shape, dressed in an embroidered Turkish costume, her head covered over, and her face concealed behind a white veil, came up to him, and said in a flutelike voice:
'Good-evening, dear Sangiorgio! Why so melancholy?'
'Because I have not yet found out who you are, sweetheart!'
'You do not know me, you must not know me, you never will know me! I can tell why you are melancholy, Sangiorgio. I will whisper it in your ear: you are in love!'
'Yes, with you, my dear!'
'How amusing you are! You are much too gallant. That's not the custom here. Be rude, I beg of you—your reputation is at stake! But listen—Ferrante is no longer a candidatefor membership on the Budget Committee. You are being talked of; I warn you, be careful.'
He stood dumfounded. The mask edged away into the crowd, and vanished.
The news had greatly astonished him: he had not expected it. What had been the outcome of his great speech? A flattering interview with the leader of the Right, Don Mario Tasca, the cool speaker, moderate and accomplished, the mild Socialist, the politician who had lost his own party through the nebulosity of his views. And then there had been bows and introductions and handshakings. The Minister, in response, had rendered honour to his adversary, but had insisted on his motion, and the Chamber had voted the Budget by a large majority. Who was thinking of his speech any more? The Honourable Dalma had once said to him, with his poetical Parliamentary cynicism: 'In politics everything is forgotten.'
In the vestibule, the couples were walking and talking, arm-in-arm; here groups of young bloods were discussing the financial situation, with a view to supper; here solitary dominos were wandering back and forth in expectation of someone who came not. Here Sangiorgio met the Honourable Gulli-Pausania. The Sicilian deputy was leaning against the wall, waiting like some of the others, stylish and handsome in evening costume, gallant Southerner that he was, with his pointed, chestnut beard, his greenish eyes travelling over the crowd, and his silk hat covering a premature baldness, because of which several women were in love with him.
'Oh, my dear Sangiorgio!' said Gulli, with a strong Sicilian accent, 'alone, all alone, at the ball?'
'Yes, alone. I expect nobody; nobody expects me, and I am sure my honourable colleague, Gulli-Pausania, is not following my example.'
'Well, what is to be done?' replied Gulli, smiling. 'We spend our lives waiting——'
'Not always for the same person, fortunately.'
'Oh no! that would be too desperate. Any political news?'
'None, my dear colleague. Hope you will enjoy yourself!'
'Thanks!' replied Gulli-Pausania, with his distinguished, sensual smile.
Sangiorgio went into the auditorium. His lashes quivered over his down-looking eyes. The theatre, with its three rows of boxes, its galleries, and its stage, was brilliantly lighted, and the white background of the decorations enhanced the brightness. On the stage the stream of the tall fountain was tinted red by a ray of electric light. The place was full; people were still arriving from other entertainments, from cafés, from receptions, from balls; neither standing still nor fast walking was now any longer permitted. At first Sangiorgio saw nothing but the shoulders of a stalwart gentleman in front of him, at his right the red ear of acocotte, whose mask was certainly fastened on too tight, to his left the sharp profile of a thin, elongated damsel, with melancholy eyes. The tall gentleman looked here, there, and everywhere among the boxes, jerking a head with a light mane, precisely parted in the middle. Once, when he stopped to look at a box in the first tier, full of black dominos, making neither sound nor motion, Sangiorgio found himself beside him. It was the Honourable Prince diSirmio, who bore the title of Most Serene Highness, and was the richest nobleman in Rome.
'Good-evening, honourable colleague,' said the Prince in his slow, liquid tone, with the note of cold fatigue which was one of his personal peculiarities. 'I believe this is your first visit to one of these places of corruption, where everyone assumes strict virtue. Strict virtue, do you not think? You have no doubt been told that we people in the capital lead a wild life; instead of that, as you see, we walk very slowly round and round,pour le bon motif, looking for our wife, who must be in one of the boxes with her sister. Meanwhile, we mingle with the crowd, as you perceive, to listen and learn. They all tell me I am democratic—and I behave accordingly. Are you doing anything in politics, honourable colleague?Ce n'est pas le bonheur—however, I have had nothing to do with politics for an everlasting age. The head of my party is Don Emilio Castelar: I am a Spanish Republican. Are you surprised?'
Francesco Sangiorgio smiled, but made no answer, which pleased the Prince, since he liked neither to be talked to nor interrupted. He had a smooth, flowing tongue, and interruption annoyed him.
'Ah, there is my wife,' continued Sirmio. 'Who is that in the box next to hers? I see—it is the Minister of Foreign Affairs with his two daughters, Grace and the other, whose name ought to be Justice, but who is called Eleonora. The quip is not mine; it is from a newspaper. Good-night, honourable colleague.'
'Good-night, Prince.'
Sangiorgio, in lieu of walking the smaller circle on the floor, took the larger, and went up towards the stage, where along the wings were disposed tables and chairs, about which sat whole families of the middle classes, drinking aerated waters, or inseparable couples, tired of one another, but not daring to split, quaffing mugs of beer. He passed close to the fountain now tinged violet by the electric light—a most delicate shade—and he went by the basin and the great mirror at the back over to the musicians' stand. Over his head, they suddenly burst into the opening notes of the postilion mazurka from the ballet 'Excelsior,' which was highly popular that winter. A momentary movement took place from the stage to the parterre, a general undulation of heads in time with the lively measure, as it were; people crowded towards the parterre to see the dancing. At a table near the left wing, the Honourable Schuffer sat alone, drinking beer, reviewing the assembly through a pair of bright eyes behind spectacles, occasionally raising his pointed nose and sharp chin.
'Come, my dear colleague, and take a mug of beer with me,' said Schuffer, in his soft, Venetian accent. 'But being a Neapolitan, perhaps you do not like beer.'
'No, thank you, Honourable—no, thank you, I will not take any; I have just come in.'
'I came an hour ago, and in that hour goodness knows how many elbows have been dug into me, how many times I have been shoved, and how many feet have trodden on mine. I took refuge here to avoid it; you know I am unlucky in some things.'
Sangiorgio smiled. The Honourable Schuffer, lookingtousled and mischievous like a boy, with his curly head of hair, had already had four suits for defamation. The deputy, unfortunately, had seen fit to get at odds with a guard, a porter, a station-master, and a waiter in a café, and while the same thing happened to a hundred other deputies without serious consequences, as if on purpose the guard, the porter, the station-master, and the waiter, had severally brought action against him, so that every now and then the Chamber was called upon to authorize legal proceedings.
'I learnt to drink beer on my travels to Japan,' went on Schuffer. 'Great country that, honourable colleague! I never had a lawsuit there with anyone, I assure you. Honourable, you are Ministerial—shall you vote those millions for the Minister of War?' he added, as if struck by a sudden idea.
'What about yourself, Honourable Schuffer?' quickly threw in Sangiorgio.
'I? I?' said the other, nonplussed; 'I must think about it. We might discuss it, do you not think—and come to some understanding? It is a serious question; war swallows up every farthing in the country.'
'I ask for nothing better; certainly we will talk about it again. Good-night, Honourable Schuffer.'
The postilion mazurka was now greatly enlivening the ball. There were three circles of dancers: near the entrance to the parterre, in the centre of the floor, and on the stage. A woman masquerader dressed as a Bersagliere officer, with plumed hat over one ear, bare arms coming out from beneath the gold fringes of her epaulets, and breeches fitting closely at the knee, was dancing with a girl disguised as a Satanic imp.Both were as serious as could be, repulsing everyone who wanted to separate them. The boxes, too, were now filled with ladies and gentlemen come from receptions and balls. The first and second tiers were entirely taken up. In the box next to the 'barge,' in the first tier, were to be seen the delicate and graceful Florentine beauty of Elsa Bellini, married to Novelli, and the blond opulence of Lalla Terziani. Both ladies had come from the Valle. With them were Rosolino Scalia, the Sicilian deputy of military carriage; the little Prince of Nerola, the new deputy from the Abruzzi; a young man of distinguished mien, with a small black moustache; Novelli and Terziani, the two husbands.
'Honourable Sangiorgio,' said the little Prince, leaning over the side of the box.
'Well, honourable colleague?' said the other, raising his head.
'If you see Sangarzia, will you be good enough to tell him I am here? Do you know who will be elected, the day after to-morrow, for the Budget Committee?'
'The Honourable Ferrante, of course.'
'I think not—I think not,' replied the Prince, smiling maliciously.
As Sangiorgio went away he heard remarks from the box like 'Clever fellow!' and 'Gifted Southerner!'
He looked at various boxes in search of Sangarzia. In one, of the first tier, were the two Neapolitan sisters Acquaviva, one of them married to the deputy Marquis di Santa Marta, the other to the deputy Count Lapucci. The Countess, dark and vivacious, with a thick-lipped, deep-hued mouth, with twoflashing eyes, was the very opposite of her husband, a dark, slender, very taciturn, very pensive young man, said to be haughty, although he was a Socialist deputy. The Santa Marta pair was different. The wife, fair and curly-haired, had a childish face and a frank expression, and was very simply gowned; the husband was fair, with languid eyes and an indolent manner. The Countess Lapucci was laughing loudly; the Marchioness di Santa Marta was smiling. Count Lapucci was watching the crowd silently, his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat pockets; the Marquis di Santa Marta was chatting affably with the Honourable Melillo, the strong financial man from the Basilicata, with a heart too open to women, a confirmed celibate, which made him interesting in the eyes of unmarried girls, whom he did not care about. The Honourable Melillo answered Francesco Sangiorgio's bow with an elaborate salute and a patronizing wave of the hand, and Sangiorgio drew near the box while his name was being mentioned. The Honourable Melillo was no doubt speaking of the bright promise his fellow-countryman gave.
The wife of the Secretary-General of Finance had arrived in the box near the door, after an evening party at the Quirinal. This graceful, slight Piedmontese, with the pale, interesting face of an invalid, wore a low-cut dress, was loaded with jewels, frequently coughed, continually carried her pocket-handkerchief to her rather bright lips, nervously pulled her chamois gloves up to her elbows. The Honourable Pasta, the Subalpine lawyer, with shaven chin and fair, grizzled whiskers, was saying something very witty to her, that made her laugh. The Honourable Cimbro, the Piedmontesejournalist-deputy, staring through his glasses, his necktie having slipped up under his ears, was a man apparently embarrassed by his own presence, whereas the Secretary-General, rather bald, with a thick, stout moustache, sat in solemn silence, looking at the stage as if he did not notice it. When Sangiorgio passed, he made him a low bow, full of meaning, almost sentimental, the appreciative bow of a Secretary-General showing his gratitude to the man who has afforded him the pleasure of attacking his Minister.
'Where may Sangarzia be?' thought Francesco to himself, threading his way with difficulty through the ever-increasing crowd.
The Baroness Noir was in her box, her serpentine form clad in a strange, close-fitting garment of shot silk, on which tulips and peacocks' feathers were embroidered, and she had gathered about her a little sub-Ministerial staff of foreign affairs. Her husband had, in fact, been Secretary-General. He was holding aloof, at the back of the box, like a diplomat awaiting appointment, but the Honourable di San Demetrio, a self-possessed Abruzzan, with an already whitening black beard, who had strong aspirations towards the Cabinet, was well in front, under the full light. Besides, there was the Honourable di Campofranco, a frigid Sicilian, the son of Italy's most prominent female politician, the Princess di Campofranco. The Honourable di San Demetrio was talking, explaining, mayhap, some section of the Budget Report, and the little Baroness was listening attentively, slapping her fingers with her fan. Hustled by the crowd, Sangiorgio stopped for a moment under her box; he felt fatigued fromhead to foot, the lights dazzled him, and the atmosphere, pregnant with acrid odours, stifled him.
'Sangiorgio!' exclaimed San Demetrio.
He started, as if from a dream.
'Do you know if the Honourable Mascari has registered to speak on the other side in the debate on the Foreign Budget?'
'No, he has not registered.'
'Positively?'
'Positively.'
'Thank you; excuse the question.'
And he went back to his place, happy in the knowledge that there was to be one opponent less. Sangiorgio stood straight and motionless against the wall, feeling at ease in that position and shutting his eyes against the light. Seymour and Marchetti came up to him, arm-in-arm. They presented a marked contrast, these two apostles of social science: Seymour, dark and severe, with the upward curving chin of a man of energy and a brush of black hair beginning to streak with white; Marchetti, with a frank, fresh face, a long chestnut beard, and the sparkling blue eyes of an enthusiast. They were both strolling about in morning coats, and therefore did not venture to speak to any of the ladies.