From this meeting on, CÆsar noticed that Marchmont paid court to Laura with much persistence. A light-hearted, coquettish woman, it pleased Laura to be pursued by a person like this Englishman, young, distinguished, and rich; but she was not prepared to yield. Her bringing-up, her class-feelings impelled her to consider adultery a heinous thing. Nor was divorce a solution for her, since accepting it would oblige her to cease being a Catholic and to quarrel irrevocably with the Cardinal. Marchmont showed no discretion in the way he paid court to Laura; he cared nothing about his wife, and talked of her with profound contempt....

Laura found herself besieged by the Englishman; she couldn’t decide to discourage him entirely, and at critical moments she would take the train, go off to Naples, and come back two or three days later, doubtless with more strength for withstanding the siege.

“As a matter of reciprocal justice, since he makes love to my sister, I ought to make love to his wife,” thought CÆsar, and he went several times to the Hotel Excelsior to call on Susanna.

The Yankee wife was full of complaints against her husband. Her father had advised her simply to get a divorce, but she didn’t want to. She found such a solution lacking in distinction, and no doubt she considered the advice of an author in her own country very true, who had given this triple injunction to the students of a woman’s college: “Do not drink, that is, do not drink too much; do not smoke, that is, do not smoke too much; and do not get married, that is, do not get married too much.”

It did not seem quite right to Susanna to get married too much. Besides she had a desire to become a Catholic. One day she questioned CÆsar about it:

“You want to change your religion!” exclaimed CÆsar, “What for? I don’t believe you are going to find your lost faith by becoming a Catholic.”

“And what do you think about it, Kennedy?” Susanna asked the young Englishman, who was there too.

“To me a Catholic woman seems doubly enchanting.”

“You would not marry a woman who wasn’t a Catholic?”

“No, indeed,” the Englishman proclaimed.

CÆsar and Kennedy disagreed about everything.

Susanna discussed her plans, and constantly referred to Paul Bourget’s novel Cosmopolis, which had obviously influenced her in her inclination for Catholicism.

“Are there many Jewish ladies who aspire to be baptized and become Catholics, as Bourget says?” asked Susanna.

“Bah!” exclaimed CÆsar.

“You do not believe that either?”

“No, it strikes me as a piece of naÏvety in this good soul of a novelist. To become a Catholic, I don’t believe requires more than some few pesetas.”

“You are detestable, as a Cardinal’s nephew.”

“I mean that I don’t perceive that there are any obstacles to prevent anybody from becoming a Catholic, as there are to prevent his becoming rich. What a high ambition, to aspire to be a Catholic! While nobody anywhere does anything but laugh at Catholics; and it has become an axiom: ‘A Catholic country is a country bound for certain ruin.’”

Kennedy burst out laughing.

Susanna said that she had no real faith, but that she did have a great enthusiasm for churches and for choirs, for the smell of incense and religious music.

“Spain is the place for all that,” said Kennedy. “Here in Italy the Church ceremonies are too gay. Not so in Spain; at Toledo, at Burgos, there is an austerity in the cathedrals, an unworldliness....”

“Yes,” said CÆsar; “unhappily we have nothing left there but ceremonies. At the same time, the people are dying of hunger.”

They discussed whether it is better to live in a decorative, esthetic sphere, or in a more humble and practical one; and Susanna and Kennedy stood up for the superiority of an esthetic life.

As they left the hotel CÆsar said to Kennedy:

“Allow me a question. Have you any intentions concerning Mrs. Marchmont?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Simply because I shouldn’t go to see her often, so as not to be in the way.”

“Thank you ever so much. But I have no intentions in relation to her. She is too beautiful and too rich a woman for a modest employee like me to fix his eyes on.”

“Bah! A modest diplomat! That is absurd. It is merely that you don’t take to her.”

“No. It’s because she is a queen. There ought to be some defect in her face to make her human.”

“Yes; that’s true. She is too much of a prize beauty.”

“That is the defect in the Yankee women; they have no character. The weight of tradition might be fatal to industry and modern life, but it is the one thing that creates the spirituality of the old countries. Beyond contradiction American women have intelligence, beauty, energy, attractive flashes, but they lack that particular thing created by centuries: character. At times they have very charming impulses. Have you heard the story about Prince Torlonia’s wife?”

“No.”

“Well, Torlonia’s present wife was an American girl worth millions, who came with letters to the prince. He took her about Rome, and at the end of some days he said to her, supposing that the beautiful American had the intention of marrying: ‘I will introduce some young noblemen to you’; and she answered: ‘Don’t introduce anybody to me; because you please me more than anybody’; and she married him.”

“It was a pretty impulse.”

“Yes, Americans do things like that on the spur of the moment. But if you saw a Spanish woman behave that way, it would seem wrong to you.”

Chattering amicably they came to the Piazza Esedra.

“Would you care to have lunch with me?” said Kennedy.

“Just what I was going to propose to you.”

“I eat alone.”

“I do not. I eat with my sister.”

“The Marchesa di Vaccarone?”

“Yes.”

“Then you must pardon me if I accept your invitation, for I am very anxious to meet her.”

“Then come along.”

RUSKIN AND THE PHILISTINES

They reached the hotel and CÆsar introduced his friend to Laura.

“He is an admirer of yours.”

“A respectful admirer... from a distance,” explained Kennedy.

“But are there admirers of that sort?” asked Laura, laughing.

“Here you have one,” said the Englishman. “I have known you by sight ever since I came to Rome, and have never had the pleasure of speaking to you until today.”

“And have you been here a long time?”

“Nearly two years.”

“And do you like Rome; eh?”

“I should say so! At first, I didn’t, I must admit. It was a disappointment to me. I had dreamed so much about Rome!” and Kennedy talked of the books and guides he had read about the Eternal City.

“I must admit that I had never dreamed about Rome,” said CÆsar. “And you boast of that?” asked Laura.

“No, I don’t boast of it, I merely state it. I understand how agreeable it is to know things. CÆsar died here! Cicero made speeches here! Saint Peter stumbled over this stone! It is fine! But not knowing things is also very comfortable. I am rather like a barbarian walking indifferently among monuments he knows nothing about.”

“Doesn’t such an idea make you ashamed?”

“No, why? It would be a bother to me to know a lot of things offhand. To pass by a mountain and know how it was thrown up, what it is composed of, what its flora and fauna are; to get to a town and know its history in detail.... What things to be interested in! It’s tiresome! I hate history too much. I far prefer to be ignorant of everything, and especially the past, and from time to time to offer myself a capricious, arbitrary explanation.”

“But I think that knowing things not only is not tiresome,” said Kennedy, “but is a great satisfaction.”

“You think even learning things is a satisfaction?”

“Thousands of years ago one could know things almost without learning them; nowadays in order to know, one has to learn. That is natural and logical.”

“Yes, certainly. And the effort to learn about useful things seems natural and logical to me too, but not to learn about merely agreeable things. To learn medicine and mechanics is logical; but to learn to look at a picture or to hear a symphony is an absurdity.”

“Why?”

“At any rate the neophytes that go to see a Rafael picture or to hear a Bach sonata and have an exclamation all ready, give me the sad impression of a flock of lambs. As for your sublime pedagogues of the Ruskin type, they seem to me to be the fine flower of priggishness, of pedantry, of the most objectionable bourgeoisie.”

“What things your brother is saying!” exclaimed Kennedy.

“You shouldn’t notice him,” said Laura.

“Those artistic pedagogues enrage me; they remind me of Protestant pastors and of the friars that go around dressed like peasants, and who I think are called Brothers of the Christian Doctrine. The pedagogues are Brothers of the Esthetic Doctrine, one of the stupidest inventions that ever occurred to the English. I don’t know which I find more ridiculous, the Salvation Army or Ruskin’s books.”

“Why have you this hatred for Ruskin?”

“I find him an idiot. I only skimmed through a book of his called The Seven Lamps of Architecture, and the first thing I read was a paragraph in which he said that to use an imitation diamond or any other imitation stone was a lie, an imposition, and a sin. I immediately said: ‘This man who thinks a diamond is the truth and paste a lie, is a stupid fool who doesn’t deserve to be read.’”

“Yes, all right: you take one point of view and he takes another. I understand why Ruskin wouldn’t please you. What I do not understand is why you find it absurd that if a person has a desire to penetrate into the beauties of a symphony or a picture, he should do so. What is there strange in that?”

“You are right,” said CÆsar; “whoever wants to learn, should. I have done so about financial questions.”

“Is it true that your brother knows all about questions of money?” Kennedy asked Laura.

“He says so.”

“I haven’t much belief in his financial knowledge.”

“No?”

“No, I have not. You are a sort of dilettante, half nihilist, half financier. You would like to pass for a tranquil, well-balanced man, for what is called a philistine, but you cannot compass it.”

“I will compass it. It is true that I want to be a philistine, but a philistine out in the real world. All those great artists you people admire, Goethe, Ruskin, were really philistines, who were in the business of being interested in poetry and statues and pictures.”

“Moncada, you are a sophist,” said Kennedy. “Possibly I am wrong in this discussion,” retorted CÆsar, “but the feeling I have is right. Artists irritate me; they seem to me like old ladies with a flatulency that prevents their breathing freely.”

Kennedy laughed at the definition.

CHIC AND THE REVOLUTION

“I understand hating bad kings and conquerors; but artists! What harm do they do?” said Laura.

“Artists are always doing harm to the whole of humanity. They have invented an esthetic system for the use of the rich, and they have killed the Revolution. The chic put an end to the Revolution. And now everything is coming back; enthusiasm for the aristocracy, for the Church; the cult of kings. People look backward and the Revolutionary movement is paralysed. The people that irritate me most are those esthetes of the Ruskin school, for whom everything is religious: having money, buying jewels, blowing one’s nose... everything is religious. Vulgar creatures, lackeys that they are!”

“My brother is a demagogue,” said Laura ironically.

“Yes,” added Kennedy; “he doesn’t like categories.”

“But each thing has its value whether he likes it or not.”

“I do not deny different values, or even categories. There are things of great value in life; some natural, like youth, beauty, strength; others more artificial, like money, social position; but this idea of distinction, of aristocratic fineness, is a farce. It is a literary legend in the same style as the one current in novels, which tells us that the aristocrats of old families close their doors to rich Americans, or like that other story Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of, about the Jewish ladies who were crazy to become Catholics.”

“I don’t see what you are trying to prove by all this,” said Laura.

“I am trying to prove that all there is underneath distinguished society is money, for which reason it doesn’t matter if it is destroyed. The cleverest and finest man, if he has no money, will die of hunger in a corner. Smart society, which thinks itself superior, will never receive him, because being really superior and intelligent is of no value on the market. On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich brute, he will succeed in being accepted and fÊted by the aristocrats, because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I’d better say, it is the only thing that has a quotable value.”

“What you are saying isn’t true. A man doesn’t go with the best people merely because he is rich.”

“No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory process. He begins by robbing people in some miserable little shop, and feels himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, and at that period he feels that he is a Liberal and begins to experience vaguely aristocratic ideas. If business goes splendidly, the aristocratic ideas get crystallized. Then he can come to Rome and go into ecstasies over all the humbugs of Catholicism; and after that, one is authorized to acknowledge that the religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion, and one finishes by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal Verry, so that they will make him Prince of the Ecumenical Council or Marquis of the Holy Crusade.”

“What very stupid and false ideas,” exclaimed Laura. “Really I appreciate having a brother who talks in such a vulgar way.”

“You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn’t please you. But such are the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of Papal titles. What fun he must have thinking up the most appropriate title for a magnate of Yankee tinned beef or for an illustrious Andean general! How magnificent it would be to gather all the Bishops in partibus infidelium and all the people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork king, or with the illustrious General PÉrez, the hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it would be!”

“You are a clown!” said Laura.

“He is a finished satirist,” added Kennedy.

CÆSAR’S PLAN

After lunch, Laura, Kennedy, and CÆsar went into the salon, and Laura introduced the Englishman to the San Martino girls and the Countess Brenda. They stayed there chatting until four o’clock, at which time the San Martinos got ready to go out in a motor car, and Laura, with the Countess and her daughter, in a carriage.

CÆsar and Kennedy went into the street together.

“You are awfully well fixed here,” said Kennedy, “with no Americans, no Germans, or any other barbarians.”

“Yes, this hotel is a hive of petty aristocrats.”

“Your sister was telling me that you might pick out a very rich wife here, among the girls.”

“Yes, my sister would like me to live here, in a foreign country, in cowlike tranquillity, looking at pictures and statues, and travelling pointlessly. That wouldn’t be living for me; I am not a society man. I require excitement, danger.... Though I warn you that I am not in the least courageous.”

“You’re not?”

“Not at all. Not now. At moments I believe I could control myself and take a trench without wavering.”

“But you have some fixed plan, haven’t you?”

“Yes, I expect to go back to Spain, and work there.”

“At what?”

“In politics.”

“Are you patriotic?”

“Yes, up to a certain point. I have no transcendental idea of patriotism at all. Patriotism, as I interpret it, is a matter of curiosity. I believe that there is strength in Spain. If this strength could be led in a given direction, where would it get to? That is my form of patriotism; as I say, it is an experimental form.”

Kennedy looked at CÆsar with curiosity.

“And how can it help you with your plans to stay here in Rome?” he asked.

“It can help me. In Spain nobody knows me. This is the only place where I have a certain position, through being the nephew of a Cardinal. I am trying to build on that. How am I going to arrange it? I don’t know. I am feeling out my future course, taking soundings.”

“But the support you could find here would be all of a clerical nature,” said Kennedy.

“Of course.”

“But you are not Clerical!”

“No; but it is necessary for me to climb. Afterwards there will be time to change.”

“You are not taking it into account, my dear CÆsar, that the Church is still powerful and that it doesn’t pardon people who impose upon it.”

“Bah! I am not afraid of it.”

“And you were just saying you are not courageous! You are courageous, my dear man.... After this, I don’t doubt of your success.”

“I need data.”

“If I can furnish you with any....”

“Wouldn’t it be disagreeable for you to help a man who is your enemy, so far as ideas go?”

“No; because I am beginning to have some curiosity too, as to whether you will succeed in doing something. If I can be of any use, let me know.”

“I will let you know.”

CÆsar and Kennedy took a walk about the streets, and at twilight they took leave of each other affectionately.