The train stopped.

'Capua! Capua!' three or four voices cried monotonously into the night.

A clanking of swords dragged on the ground was heard, and some lively muttering that passed between a Lombard and a Piedmontese. It came from a group of subaltern officers, who were ending their evening's amusement in coming to see the night train from Naples to Rome pass through. While the conductor chatted respectfully with the station-master, who gave him a commission for Caianello, and while the postman handed up a mail-sack full of letters to the clerk in the postal van, the officers, talking to each other and making their spurs ring (from habit), looked to see if anyone got in or out of the train, peeping through the doors which were open for the sight of a fair feminine face or that of a friend. But many of the doors were closed. Blue blinds were stretched over the panes, through which glimmered a faint lamplight, as if coming from a place where lay travellers overpowered by sleep. Bodies curled up in a dark tangle of coats, shawls, and sundry coverings, were dimly discernible.

'They are all asleep,' said one of the officers; 'let us go to bed.'

'This is probably a newly-married couple,' suggested another, reading over a door the word 'Reserved.' And since the blind was not drawn, the officer, aflame with youthful curiosity, jumped on the step and flattened his face against the window. But he came down at once, disappointed and shrugging his shoulders.

'It is a man, alone,' he said—'a deputy, no doubt; he is asleep, too.'

But the solitary man was not asleep. He was stretched out at full length on the seat, an arm under his neck, and one hand in his hair; the other hand was lost in the bosom of his coat. His eyes were closed, but his face bore not the soft expression of repose, not the deep peace of human lineaments in sleep. Instead, the effort of thought was to be read in those contracted features.

When the train had passed the bridge over the Volturno, and ran into the dark, deserted, open country, the man reopened his eyes, and tried another position more favourable to repose. But the monotonous, everlasting grind, grind of the train racked his head. Now and then a farmhouse, a little villa, a rural cottage, stood out darkly from a dark background; a thin streak of light would ooze out through a crack; a lantern would throw a glimmering, dancing circle in the path of the speeding train. The cold prevented him from sleeping. Accustomed to the mild Southern nights, and not in the habit of travelling, he had set out with a simple light overcoat and neither rug nor shawl; he had a small handbag, and other luggage was following him on the train. Of importance to him were neither clothes, nor maps, nor books, nor linen—nothing but that little gold medal, that precious amulet suspended from his watch-chain. From the day it was his—it had been obtained for him by special request through the quÆstor of the Chamber—his fingers were perpetually running over it with light touch, as if in a mechanical caress. At such times as he was alone he crushed it into the palm of his hand so hard that a red mark would remain on the skin. In order to have the compartment reserved, he had shown this to the station-master, lowering his eyes and compressing his lips to fight down a look of triumph and a smile of complacency. And since the beginning of the journey he held it in his hand, as though afraid to lose it, so infusing it with the warmth of the epiderm it was scorching. And so acute was the sensation of pleasure derived from the contact of that possession that he faintly felt every protuberance and every hollow in the face of the metal—felt under his fingers the number and the words:

'XIV. Legislature.'

On the reverse were a Christian name and a surname, indicative of the ownership:

'Francesco Sangiorgio.'

His hands were hot, yet he shook with the cold. He rose and went to the door. The train was now running through open country, but its noise was subdued. It seemed as though the wheels were anointed with oil as they rolled noiselessly along the rails, accompanying the travellers' sleep without disturbing it. The luminous windows stamped themselves as they fled by on a high, black embankment. Not a shadow behind the panes. The great house of slumbers coursed through the night, driven, as it were, by an iron, fervent will, whirling away with it those wills inert in repose.

'Let us try to sleep,' thought the Honourable Sangiorgio.

Stretching out once more, he attempted to do so. But the name of Sparanise, called out softly two or three times at a stoppage, reminded him of a small and obscure place in the Basilicata, whence he hailed, and which, together with twenty other wretched villages, had given all their votes to make him a deputy. The little spot, three or four hours distant from an unknown station on the Eboli-Reggio line, seemed very far oft to the Honourable Sangiorgio—far off in a swampy vale, among the noxious mists which in autumn emanate from the streams, whose dried-up beds are stony, arid, and yellow in summertime. On the way to the railway-station from that little lonely place in the dreary tracts of the Basilicata he had passed close to the cemetery—a large, square piece of ground, with black crosses standing up, and two tall, graceful pines. There lay, under the ground, under a single block of marble, his erstwhile opponent, the old deputy who had always been re-elected because of patriotic tradition, and whom he had always fought with the enthusiasm of an ambitious young man ignoring the existence of obstacles. Not once had he defeated him, had this presumptuous young fellow, who was born too late, as the other said, to do anything for his country. But Death, as a considerate ally, had secured him a sweeping and easy victory. His triumph was an act of homage to the old, departed patriot. But as he had passed the burial-ground he had felt in his heart neither reverence nor envy in respect to the tired old soldier who had gone down to the great, serene indolence of the tomb. All of this recurred to his mind, as well as the long, odious ten years of his life as a provincial advocate, with the mean, daily task common in the courts, and rare appearance at assizes. Perhaps a land litigation over an inheritance of three hundred lire, a mere spadeful of ground; a whole miniature world of sordid, paltry affairs, of peasants' rascalities, of complicated lies for a low object, in which the client would suspect his lawyer and try to cheat him, while the lawyer would look upon the client as an unarmed enemy. Amid such surroundings the young advocate had felt every instinct of ardour die in his soul; speech, too, had died in his throat. And since the cause he must defend was barren and trivial, and the men he must address listened with indifference, he at last took refuge in hastening through the defence in a few dry words; therefore his reputation as an advocate was not great. Now he was entirely bereft of the capacity to regret leaving his home and his old parents, who at seeing him go had wept like all old persons of advanced years when someone departs through that great selfishness which is a trait of old age. Many secret, furious tempests, smothered eruptions that could find no vent, had exhausted the well-springs of tenderness in his heart. Now, during this journey, he remembered it all quite clearly, but without emotion, like an impartial observer. He shut his eyes and attempted to sleep, but could not.

In the train, however, everyone else appeared to be wrapped in deep slumber. Through the noise and the increased rocking the Honourable Sangiorgio seemed to hear a long, even respiration; he seemed almost to see a gigantic chest slowly rising and falling in the happy, mechanical process of breathing.

At Cassino, where there was a stop of five minutes at one in the morning, no one got out. The waiter in the cafÉ was asleep under the petroleum lamp, motionless, his arms on the marble table and his head on his arms. The station men, huddled up in black capes, with hoods over their eyes and lantern in hand, went by, testing the journals, which gave forth the sound of a metal bell, clear, crystalline in tone. The whistle of the engine, as the train started, was gently shrill; the loud, strident voice was lowered as if by courtesy. Resuming the journey, the movement of the train became a soft rocking, without shocks, without grating, without unevenness, a rapid motion as on velvet, but with a dull rumble like the snoring of a giant in the heavy plenitude of his somnolence. Francesco Sangiorgio thought of all those people who were travelling with him: people in sorrow over their recent parting, or glad at nearing their new bourn; people loving without hope, loving tragically, or loving happily; people taken up with work, with business, with anxieties, with idleness; people oppressed by age, by illness, by youth, by felicity; people who knew they were journeying towards a dramatic destiny, and those who were going that way unconsciously. But they all, within half an hour, had one by one yielded to sleep, in full forgetfulness of body and soul. The gentle, pacific, healing balm of rest had come to still the unquiet spirits, had soothed them, had spread over those perturbed mortals, whether too happy or too unhappy, and they were all at ease in their sleep. Irritated nerves, anger, disdain, desires, sickness, cowardice, incurable grief—all the bestiality and grandeur of human nature travelling in that nocturnal train was lost in the great, calm embrace of sleep. The train was hastening to their fate—sad, lucky, or commonplace—those dreaming spirits and those prostrate shapes of beings who were tasting the profound delight of painless annihilation, leaving it to a power outside of themselves to bear them along.

'But why cannot I sleep also?' thought Francesco Sangiorgio.

For a moment, as he stood in his solitary compartment under the wavering light of the oil-lamp, with the pitch-black earth scudding by past the windows, with the light vapour that clouded the glass, with the cold of the night that was growing more intense—for a moment he felt alone, irremediably lost and abandoned in the feebleness of his situation. He repented having so proudly asked for a reserved compartment, wished for the company of a human being, of anyone whomsoever, of anyone of his kind, even the very humblest. He was dismayed and terrified like a child, imprisoned in that cage out of which there was no escape, drawn along by a machine which he was powerless to stop in its course. Seized with unreasoning horror, with parched throat he dropped helplessly on the seat, from which, pricked by a latent reflection, he suddenly jumped up; he began to walk nervously back and forth.

'It is Rome, it is Rome,' he murmured.

Yes, it was Rome. Those four letters, round, clear, and resonant as the bugles of a marching army, now rang through his imagination with the persistency of a fixed idea. The name was short and sweet, like one of those flexible, musical names of women which are one of the secrets of their seductions, and he twisted it about in his mind in queer patterns, in contorted curves. He was unable, he did not know how, to shape a notion of what those four letters, cut as it were in granite, actually represented. The fact that it was the name of a city, of a large agglomeration of houses and people, eluded him. He did not know what Rome was. Through want of the leisure and the money to go there, he, the obscure little advocate, the utterly insignificant, had never been to Rome. And never having seen it, he was unable to form any but an abstract conception of it: as a huge, strange vision, as a great fluctuating thing, as a fine thought, as an ideal apparition, as a vast shape with shadowy outlines. Thus all his thoughts about Rome were grand, but indefinite and vague—wild comparisons, fictions that developed into ideas, a tumult of fantasies, a crowded jumble of imaginations and conceits. Beneath the cold mask worn by the pensive son of the South burned an active imagination habituated to selfish and solitary meditations. And Rome threw that mind into furious commotion!

Oh, he felt Rome—he felt it! He saw it, like a colossal human shade, stretching out immense maternal arms to clasp him in a strenuous embrace, as the earth did AntÆus, who was thereby rejuvenated. He seemed to hear, through the night, a woman's voice uttering his name with irresistible tenderness, and a voluptuous shudder ran over him. The city was expecting him like a well-beloved son far from home, and magnetized him with the mother's desire for her child. How often, from the little overarched, embowered terrace in front of his house, in his Basilicata, had he stared out upon the horizon beyond the hill, thinking how, over there, over there under the bend of the sky, Rome was waiting for him! Like faithful, reverent lovers who have an adored one afar, and who are consumed with the desire to be at her side, he sorrowfully thought of the great distance separating him from Rome; and as in cases of crossed love, men, things, and events interposed between him and his adored. With what deep, self-avowed hatred, all asurge in his heart, did he detest those who put themselves in the way of himself and the city that was calling him! Like lovers, in their inmost thoughts, nothing was present to him but the rapturous vision of the being he loved and was loved by: all those black shadows eclipsing the brightness of his dream enraged him. Bitterness invaded him; rancour, anger, scorn, and desires accumulated in his mind—as with lovers.

With Rome ever in his heart, the ten years' strife had changed him. A secret distrust of all others and a sovereign esteem of himself; continued and oft harmful introspection; the steady assumption of outward calm while his heart rioted within; a profound contempt for all human endeavours foreign to ambition; growing experience of the discrepancy between wish and fulfilment; the consequent delusions, kept private, but no less bitter for that; the love of success, success only, nothing else than success—all this had been born in his innermost soul. Yet sometimes, in the dark hours of despair, he was prostrated with unspeakable debility; humiliation drove out pride; he felt himself a poor, miserable, futile creature. Like lovers, when bad fortune overtakes them, he felt unworthy of Rome. Ah! he must possess himself in patience, fortify himself with persistence, temper his strength in adversity, purify his spirit in the cleansing fire, like a saint of old, in order to be worthy of Rome. Sacred as a priestess, mother, bride, Rome must have expiations and sacrifices, must have a heart unalloyed and a will of iron!

'Ceprano! Ceprano! Fifteen minutes' stop!' was being shouted outside.

The Honourable Sangiorgio looked about him, listened as one dazed. He had been raving.

* * * * *

First a bar of pallid green; then a cold, livid lightness, creeping slowly upward until it reached the top of the heavens. In that chillness of expiring night opened the vast Roman Campagna. It was an ample plain, whose colour was as yet indistinct, but which here and there undulated like the dunes of the seashore. This Sangiorgio observed as he stood erect by the window. The dense shadows as yet unconquered by the encroaching whiteness gave the Campagna the aspect of a desert. Not a tree in sight. Only, from time to time, a tall thick hedge, that seemed to make a circular bow and run away.

The stations now began to look gray, all wet still with the nocturnal dews, their windows barred and their green shutters closed, these taking on a reddish tint; the mean little oleanders, with their branches hanging down and their blossoms dropping on the ground, looked as though they were weeping; and there was the clock with large, white disc, splashed with moisture, the dark hands and the fat body likening it to a two-legged spider. The station-master, huddled up in his cloak, with a scarf wound about the lower part of his face, marched with lowered cape up and down among the porters. In the cold morning air an insidious, acrid smell of damp earth pierced to the brain. A large place high up on a hill, fortified by a surrounding wall and two towers, stood forth gray and ancient, with a medieval air: it was Velletri.

The train seemed to be waking up. In the next compartment there was a scraping on the floor, and two people were talking. Out of a first-class window protruded the head of a Spanish priest, with hard, shaven cheeks of a bluish hue, who was lustily puffing at a cigar. And as the white, frosty dawn irradiated the whole sky, the nakedness of the Campagna appeared in all its grandeur. On those fields, stretching beyond sight and dimly lighted, grew a sparse, short grass of a soft, marshy green; here and there were yellowish stains, blotched with brown, of coarse, rude earth, stony, muddy, uncultivable. It was an imperial desert ungraced by any tree, undarkened by any shadow of man, untraversed by any flight of bird; it was desolation, enormous and solemn.

In the contemplation of this landscape, which resembled nothing else whatever, Sangiorgio was seized by a growing surprise that absorbed all his individual dreams. He stood looking out, mute and motionless, from the corner of the coach trembling with cold, conscious that the beating of his temples was abating. Then by degrees his eyelids became heavy, a sensation of lassitude came over his whole body; he felt the full fatigue of his wakeful night. He would have liked to stretch himself out in the railway-carriage with a comfortable ray of sunshine streaming in through an open window, and to get an hour's sleep before reaching Rome; he was envious of the people who had spent the long hours of the night in getting renewed strength from sleep.

The journey was now seeming intolerably long to Sangiorgio, and the spectacle of the Campagna in its majestic poverty was oppressive to him. Would it never end? Would he never be in Rome? He was worn out: a sensation of torpor was spreading from his neck through all his limbs, his mouth was pasty and sour, as if he were convalescing from an illness, and his impatience became painful, a sort of small torture; he began to pity himself, as though an injustice had been done him. The ordinary passenger trains were too slow; he had done wrong to come in this one, expecting to sleep during the night; this last hour had been unendurable. The reality of his dreams was upon him, close as close could be, and the proximity caused him a shock of gladness. He felt he was hastening towards Rome, like a lover to his lady; he strove to be calm, inwardly ashamed of himself. But the last twenty minutes were a veritable spasm. With his head out of the window, receiving the damp smoke of the engine in his face, without a further look at the Campagna, without a glance at the fine aqueducts running over the plain, he stared into the distance, believing and fearing that at every moment Rome would appear, and was depressed by a vague feeling of terror. The Campagna vanished behind him as if it were drowning, going down with the moist fields, the yellow aqueducts, and the little white road-labourers' houses. The locomotive seemed to be increasing its speed, and from time to time gave vent to a long, long, piercing whistle twice and thrice repeated. At nearly all the windows heads were peering out.

Where was Rome, then? It was nowhere to be seen. So strong was his trepidation that when the train commenced to slacken the Honourable Sangiorgio sank down on the seat; his heart beat under his throat as though it filled up his whole chest. As he stepped down upon the platform from the footboard, the violent throbbing within him was answered by as many imaginary hammer-like blows upon the head. Yet all that the railway officials said was 'Rome.' But he was seized with a slight trembling in the legs; the crowd surrounded him, pushed him, jostled him, without paying any attention to him. He was between two currents of passengers, arrived simultaneously by two trains, from Naples and Florence. The Honourable Sangiorgio was bewildered among so many people; he leaned against the wall, his handbag at his feet, and his eyes wandered through the crowd as if in search of someone. The station was still quite damp and rather dark, smelling horribly, as usual, of coal, of oil, of wet steel, and was full of black waggons and high piles of accumulated luggage. All faces were tired, sleepy, ill-humoured, expanding into a yawn about the mouth; their sole expression was one of indifference, not hostile, but invincible.

No one noticed the deputy, who had unfastened his overcoat with the childish motive of displaying his medal. Twice he called to a porter, who went off without listening to him. Instead, the employÉs of the railroad were gathering round a group of gentlemen in tall hats, with pale, bureaucratic countenances, who had on black tailcoats and white cravats under buttoned-up overcoats, their collars up, and their faces sallow from short sleep. They bore the aspect of persons of position accomplishing a high social formality. When from a coach in the Florence train a tall, slender, fashionable lady alighted they all uncovered. Then a thin old gentleman got out. The group closed in; the lean gentleman bowed, while the lady smilingly bent her head over a proffered bunch of flowers. From the now open coats shone an array of white shirtfronts; smiles flitted over the visages, which had quickly coloured. On some of the watchchains hung four or five medals.

'His Excellency!' was murmured roundabout.

Then the whole group began to move, the fine lady giving her arm to the thin old man, the deputies and other high functionaries following. The Honourable Sangiorgio stayed behind mechanically, having remained alone. On the Piazza Margherita he saw the whole procession get into carriages between the rows of friends, who were lined up bowing. The lady put her head out at the door and smiled. He saw them all drive off after her, and was alone in the great square. On the ground lay moisture, as though it had been raining. All the windows of the Albergo Continentale were shut. To the left lay the Corso Margherita still building, heaped up with stones, beams, and rubbish. The hotel omnibuses turned, about to start. Three or four hackney-coaches remained behind through the laziness of the coachmen, who sat smoking and waiting. At the right was an empty tavern, closed up, and on a high stone wall a screeching advertisement of the Popolo Romano. Over all hung a thick, soggy atmosphere, an enveloping mist, a somewhat disagreeable odour. The nauseous sight was there of a city scarce awake in the limp heaviness of an autumn morning, with that fever-tainted breath which seems to be emitted by the houses.

The Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio was exceedingly pale, and he was cold—in his heart.

CHAPTER II

That day he must resist and not go to Montecitorio. The rain had ceased, as if weary of a week's downpour; a suggestion of dampness still floated in the atmosphere, the streets were muddy, the sky was all white with clouds. Pale-faced people encased in overcoats, with trousers turned up at the ankle and with countenances distrustful of the weather, were walking the thoroughfares.

From a window of the Albergo Milano the Honourable Sangiorgio was contemplating the Parliament House, painted light yellow, on which the autumnal rains had left large marks of a darker colour, and he was trying to strengthen himself in his resolve not to go in there that day. All through that rainy week he had stood there—morning, noon, and night. When he opened his window of a morning, through the steaming veil would he peer at the large pot-bellied structure, which appeared to like standing out in the wet. He dressed mechanically, his eyes fixed in its direction, while he made plans to go about Rome, to see the town, to look for furnished lodgings, since this life in an inn could not last. But as he opened his umbrella in the doorway of the hotel a sudden fit of indolence overcame him; the street which sloped to the Piazza Colonna looked slippery and dangerous; he gave his shoulders a shrug, and went straightway before the pursuing rain into the Montecitorio. He left again only for the purpose of taking breakfast at his inn, in the corner ground-floor room, with glass doors and mirrors; and while eating a veal stew, done in Roman style, he every now and then turned to see who entered the Parliament House. He ate rapidly, like one whose brain has no consideration for the benefit of his stomach. Everyone who went in there interested him. Now, he thought, this must be Sella, with his stout figure, rather square, as though carved with a hatchet, and his shaggy beard, of an opaque black, which was gradually speckling. Again, it looked as if this must be Crispi, with his large, white moustache and red face, more like a growling old general than a fiery debater. The Honourable Sangiorgio finished his meal hastily, inwardly gnawed with impatience to get a close view of these statesmen, these party leaders, and then once more made for Montecitorio. But there new delusions awaited him.

He went about everywhere, looking for Sella and Crispi. But the hall was void and chill under the skylight, with the benches still in their summer linen covers, with the dust-coloured carpets bordered in blue, resembling a deep, dark well, with a light pouring in from on high, as if filtered through a net of water. Abstractedly he ascended the five steps leading to the Speaker's chair, where he stopped for a moment and looked at the benches, which, narrow below, widened as they rose towards the galleries. An infantile desire came over him to try the white buttons of the electric bells; in order not to yield, he walked down quickly on the other side, and quitted the hall, carrying away some of the oppression of that great inverted cone, pale and melancholy in its forsakenness. Neither Sella nor Crispi was anywhere to be found. They were not in the dark circular corridor of columns, which lend it the semblance of a porticoed crypt, nor in the other passage, long and straight, where the deputies have their lockers for bills and reports. Nor did he discover a politician in the refreshment-room, nor in the great room called the Lost Footsteps, nor in the office chambers facing the square. Silence and solitude everywhere; no one but a few ushers lolling about in uniform, without their badges, and bearing the listless air of people with nothing to do. Now and then Sangiorgio met the quÆstor of the chamber, who had come to exchange with the other quÆstor, a patrician who, during October, revelled in the luxury of his seigneurial villa on Lago Maggiore; and this other one, a Baron from the Abruzzi, with calm, aristocratic air, with a flowing, fair beard, with the mild, unsevere propriety of a gentleman attentive to his duties, went about vigilant yet apparently unconcerned. Whenever the baronial quÆstor met the Honourable Sangiorgio, he gave him a little nod and murmured 'Honourable'; and, passing on, he said nothing more. The Honourable Sangiorgio felt embarrassed and shy in consequence of this continued politeness and this continued reserve; he would have preferred to be unsaluted, like a stranger, or spoken to, like a colleague. This correctness, polite though cold, disconcerted Sangiorgio to such a degree that after a week of this repeated bowing and no word passed, he blushed when he encountered the quÆstor, as though caught in a mistake. Hereupon, doubting whether he would find what he was in search of, he took refuge in the reading-room, on the large oval table of which lay scattered the daily newspapers. There, at least, he found a pair of deputies—one a Socialist from Romagna, of light chestnut whiskers and mobile eyes behind glasses, writing letter after letter, at a tiny table—flaming addresses, perhaps; the other, an old Parliamentarian, with white beard and ruddy countenance, who was peacefully asleep in an armchair, his feet on another chair, his hands in his lap, and a newspaper overspreading his body.

Francesco Sangiorgio, succumbing to the stillness of the place, to the warm air, to the softness of the great dark-blue easy-chair, leant his head upon one of his hands, though still holding up the number of the Diritto or the Opinione he was reading. A lethargy stole over all his being, which seemed to have relaxed in the warm and silent atmosphere; but in that lethargy, behind the hand covering his eyes, he was still alert. If the Socialist deputy turned over a page, if the old man made a spring in his chair creak, Sangiorgio started: the fear of being discovered asleep haunted him—unlike that aged deputy, who was not ashamed to exhibit his worn-out, useless senility in the reading-room, sleeping soundly, with the croaking respiration of a catarrhal old man. He then got up, and went across the room on tiptoe.

The Socialist deputy raised his head, and scrutinized Sangiorgio with his cunning eyes, those of an overrascally apostle. Possibly he was seeking to discern the stuff of a disciple in that young novice of a deputy; but the cold glance, the low forehead, where the stiff hairs were planted as on a brush, the whole energetic physiognomy of Francesco pointed to a character already formed, unsusceptible to the sway of influences—one on whom social mysticism would have taken no hold. So that the Socialist, Lamarca, bent his head again to his writing.

The Honourable Sangiorgio climbed to the third floor, to the library. In the bright corridor, which has its own windows beneath the skylight of the legislatorial hall, two or three clerks were at the high wooden desks, entering in large books the general catalogue of the works kept in the library; their occupation was continuous, unceasing; they wrote without stirring, without speaking. A short deputy, bald and red-nosed, was posted in front of a desk and turning over, always turning over, the leaves of one of those large books, as though hunting for some undiscoverable volume. Very small, standing on a footstool so as to reach the level of the desk, with a pair of short-sighted eyes that compelled him to put his nose down to the paper, he seemed to disappear behind the volume, and remained in concealment like a bookmark. In the series of rooms, all full of books, Sangiorgio found no one; the tables, covered with papers, with pens, with inkstands, with pencils, for the studious, were deserted.

In a corner of one of the rooms, before a half-filled shelf, standing on a ladder, the learned librarian-deputy, the persevering Dantophile of the black eyebrows, looking as though they were put on with two heavy strokes of charcoal, was rummaging furiously among the books, with that passion for his library which he had derived from the chaos he had found it in. Nevertheless, he turned round, the honourable librarian-deputy, at Sangiorgio's cautious footstep; catching sight of him, he turned and scrutinized him with a pair of blackest, most vivacious eyes, all pregnant with the literary researches he had been making.

Francesco Sangiorgio, embarrassed anew, as if he were an intruder admonished by the silence and the librarian's staring gaze, walked more softly, and in the last room of the library set to reading the titles of the new books, one by one, dizzy at all the lore relating to government, economics, and politics collected on those shelves, and for pretence he took down a volume of Buckle's 'History of Civilization'—the second—and began to read.

Like lovers unable to tire of the lady of their heart, enchained by the sweet fascination, seeking the smallest pretext for remaining by her, so also did he linger in the corridors, looking at the maps on the walls; in the hall, studying the allotment of the seats; in the reading-room, perusing the newspapers; in the library, reading some books he cared little or nothing about. With the natural rusticity of his mind and his provincial shyness, he feared, in his heart, lest that quÆstor who bowed to him so properly, but without ever speaking to him; lest those ushers who so indifferently saw him pass by; lest that librarian, so much in love with his library, might judge him for what he really was: a provincial, a novice, stunned with his first political success, who was afraid to take his comfort in the Parliamentary armchairs, and who could not tear himself away from the place. It seemed to him, as it does to lovers, that everyone must read his sole passion in his face.

* * * * *

That day he would not set foot there, at Montecitorio; he would not on any account think of the Parliamentary world; he must see Rome, must find a lodging. He looked out of the window, intending to start after breakfast. He had been awakened early by a hubbub of voices and laughter in the adjoining room. A sonorous, virile, resounding voice, with a very pronounced Neapolitan accent, and speaking in pure Neapolitan dialect, broken by rude laughter, was loudly arguing and declaiming. Two visitors came, who were then followed by two others; then there was a string of friends, of petitioners, who implored, boasted their claims, repeated their requests over and over again in Neapolitan dialect and with an obstinate rhetorical verbosity, to all of which the Honourable Bulgaro, Deputy for Chiaia, the second Naples district, replied with vigorous objections. He could be heard through the dividing doors, and the Honourable Sangiorgio involuntarily listened.

No, he could not, he really could not, said the Honourable Bulgaro. Was he, perchance, the Eternal Father, that he could grant everything to everybody? Let them leave him in peace, once and for all! And he walked up and down the room with the cumbrous stride of a large man, grown loutish in civil life after losing the agility of the handsome young officer, who, in his palmy days, had won many a fair creature's heart. But those who came with a purpose insisted, begged, explained their family history, related their troubles, everlastingly repeating it all, so that the Honourable Bulgaro, with his easy Neapolitan good-nature, yielded after being worn out, and said:

'Very well! Very well! We'll see if something cannot be done!'

They went away as well pleased as though they already had their desires, and the Honourable Bulgaro, left alone for a minute, puffed and swore:

'Lord! Lord! what jabbering!'

The Honourable Sangiorgio was ashamed of having overheard so much, and went down to breakfast in a very pensive mood. He armed himself with courage to resist the seductions of Montecitorio. He reflected that perhaps many deputies had arrived, since but three weeks were wanting before the opening of the forty-fourth legislature. And he was already giving way to curiosity, as a pretext for his weakness, when a carriage, which chanced to be slowly passing by on the flooded paving-stones, obstructed his view of the main porch. With a decided gesture he hailed the carriage and jumped in.

'Where may it be your pleasure to go?' asked the coachman of his absent-minded patron, who had given him no directions.

'To—St. Peter's—yes, take me to St. Peter's!' answered Francesco Sangiorgio.

The drive was long. The three consecutive streets—Fontanella di Borghese, Monte Brianzo, Tordinona—were choked with vehicles and foot-passengers; they were narrow and tortuous, with those dingy stationery and second-hand iron shops, all dirty and dusty, with those narrow front-doors, with those squalid blind alleys. At Castel Sant' Angelo there was breathing-space, but along the turbid and almost stagnant yellow stream was a succession of brown hovels, of gray tenements, with thousands of tiny windows, with damp stains of green on them, as though a loathsome disease had discoloured them, with filthy mildewed foundations disclosed by low-water: that angle of the river, near Trastevere, was vile. In the Via Borgo the deep ecclesiastical quiet began, with the silent, grayish palaces, with the shops for sacred articles, statuettes, images, oleographs, rosaries, crucifixes, where the pompous legend stood forth: 'Objects of Art.'

In the great deserted square before the church two fountains which were playing looked like white plumes, and the obelisk in the middle like a walking-stick, and round about the ground was lightly bedewed with spray from the fountains standing there in the silence of an untenanted place. The carriage turned the obelisk, and stopped at the grand stairway. The Honourable Sangiorgio surveyed the front of St. Peter's, and it seemed to him very small and squat.

'Will you go into the church?' asked the coachman.

'Yes,' said the deputy, shaking himself out of his fit of abstraction.

When he arrived at the threshold, he veered round and took a mechanical glance at the square. He had read that at that distance a man looked like an ant; but nobody appeared, and the huge, empty space, besprent with water under the gray sky, to his mind resembled the vast, naked Campagna. Inside the church he experienced no mysterious emotions: he was an indifferent as to religion, never speaking of it, discussing the Pope like an important political question, leaving religious faith and practice to women. The architecture of St. Peter's did not stir him. As he advanced he perceived that the church grew in size, but to him that deceptive harmony seemed purposeless, reprehensible. A few Germans were circulating, looking about with rather severe mien, as if their rigid Lutheranism disdained such Christian pomp. Not a chair, not a bench, not a priest, not a sacristan—the familiar spirit who extinguished the candles and replenished the holy water at the great pillars. The brown confessionals, on which might be read in gilt characters,'Pro Hispanica Lingua,' 'Pro Gallica Lingua,' 'Pro Germanica Lingua,' were empty. There was nothing to kneel on but the steps of the pulpit or of the main altar; else there was the cold pavement.

Francesco Sangiorgio had no understanding for the monuments of the Popes: he examined them without appreciating either their beauty or their ugliness. His notions of art were vague and narrow. Canova's, with the sleeping lions, he thought mediocre; Rovere's Pope, all in bronze, he considered superb and handsome; Bernini's, with the figure of Death in gold, the drapery of red, veined marble, the Pope of white marble—this gave him no sensations, but was simply queer. He did not know whether the paintings over the altars were by great artists or not, whether they were copies or originals. He wandered about, killing time, as though performing a duty, abstracted and thinking of something else, not at all interested in that gigantic pile of stones, freezing and forsaken, where only a few shadows flitted. Finally, on the way out, the monument to the two last Stuarts impressed him as a poor thing.

'Drive to the Coliseum,' he said resolutely to the coachman, throwing himself back into the cushions.

The coachman, in order to prolong the drive, since he was engaged by the hour, and so as to avoid the streets by which they had come, and which were ugly enough, went through the old, dark streets of the Borgo Santo Spirito and the Governo Vecchio, where the real Roman population lives, loath to abandon the ancient quarters and the small houses crawling with beetles. The coachman made his horse go at the slow gait of a tired animal, having cleverly secured a stranger with no ideas. At the Foro Traiano he still further slackened the horse's pace, and Sangiorgio pretended to admire that broad expanse below the level of the ground, where the mutilated pillars serve for tree-trunks, that great burial-place for dead cats, that great dwelling-place for stray cats, whom the charitable servants of the Via Magnanapoli and Macel de' Corvi bring the remains of their dinner. He could not see the Campidoglio, nor the Arch of Septimius Severus, nor the Grecostasi, nor the Temple of Peace, nor the whole great Roman Forum; because of the perpetual demolitions he could not pass by there, nor could he go on the Palatine Hill. This the coachman explained as he followed the Via Tor de' Conti.

And soon the carriage was under the Coliseum, without the visitor having seen it from afar on the road which he had to take thither. The Honourable Sangiorgio felt obliged to alight, and went in under the arched entrance, sinking into the muddy soil. A large pool of rain-water, bordered by verdant vegetation, lay near the doorway of the Flavian Amphitheatre. In the hollows of the white stones scattered here and there, in the fluting of the stairs, and even in the hand of a broken statue, there was rain-water. Francesco, marvelling at the immensity of the walls, looked for points of identification; where, then, was the imperial box, the gallery for the vestals, and that for the priests? He stood in the centre, but did not realize the nature of that subterraneous structure. Yes, the Coliseum was grand, but the dirty light of a rainy day partially dimmed its majesty, and showed its decay and all the wear and tear of time. The country outside was green with the rich growth of moist fields; but there was not the song of a bird, not the voice of a beast, not the voice of a man.

Under an archway a municipal guard appeared; he was leisurely and apathetic, taking no notice of the visitor. The Honourable Sangiorgio conscientiously went the round of the circular corridor, which was rather dark. He thought perhaps this Coliseum might be finer at night, under the moonlight, which gives ruins a romantic aspect, making them look larger and more mysterious. He had done wrong to come in the daytime to get his first impression. The Coliseum, he thought, was a great, useless thing, built by vain, foolish people. A gentleman and a lady—she being young and frail, he tall and robust—were also walking through the circular corridor, where the air is soft and cool, as in a cellar; they were walking slowly, without looking at one another, speaking in undertones, their fingers interlocked. She cast down her eyes at meeting Sangiorgio's, and the man gave him a surprised, resentful glance.

'Let us imagine what it looks like at night, with the moon,' said the Honourable Sangiorgio to himself. 'The old Romans built the Coliseum for modern lovers to walk in.' And he shrugged his shoulders, in expression of his secret contempt for love—the scorn of the provincial who has lacked time, opportunity, and inclination to love; the scorn of a man profoundly absorbed by another desire, which was not love.

'Shall we go to the Church of San Giovanni?' inquired the coachman, assuming the initiative.

'Very well, let us go.'

And he conveyed him first to San Giovanni and then to Santa Maria Maggiore, depositing him conscientiously at the door. But these churches were smaller than St. Peter's. They failed to astonish him by their size; they were, perhaps, more inviting to worship, but his soul was closed to the sweet mysteries of religious belief; he walked to and fro aimlessly, like a somnambulist. Upon his coming out the coachman, without asking him anything, with a short trot of his nag, took him by the way traversed before, passing under the Titus Arch, to the stupendous Baths of Caracalla. The deputy, Sangiorgio, did not stop to inspect the photographs at the door; he entered quickly, as if seized with impatience.

The walls stood up enormously high, covered with tufts of grass and prickly weeds, and had the solidity that is bestowed by centuries. In the midst of the huge compartments the flooring had given way, becoming concave, like a basin, and filling with a puddle of inky water. At the end of the hall for games and recreation was a sitting statue, headless, the statue of a woman decently attired—Hygeia, probably. Against the sad November sky was outlined a lofty reach of ragged wall, a hideous toothed cliff, that seemed to mount up and up into the region of the clouds. Down below in the plain stood a round temple, tiny and graceful—to Venus, perhaps.

The Honourable Sangiorgio was ill at ease in that wide edifice; felt a chill in his marrow; was conscious of his smallness and insignificance. And anything that mortified or humiliated him made him suffer.

'No!' he said decisively to the coachman, who offered to show him the old Appian Way, 'we will go back to town!'

As they returned to Rome he began to shiver. The mild autumn day was drawing to an end, and he seemed to be actually clothed in all its penetrating dampness, all the dirty white splotches, all the thin layers of mud. And he also seemed to bear within him all the gloom, all the solitude, all the melancholy, of those ruins, large or small, mean or splendid, all the void, the insensibility of those useless churches, of those great stone saints, that were hieratic figures without entrails, of those cold altars of precious marble.

What did all those memories of the past matter to him, all those tiresome records? Who cared aught for the past? He belonged to the present, was a modern of moderns, in love with his age, in love with the life he was to lead and not with the days gone by, fit for the daily strife, fit for the stiffest endeavours to conquer the future. He was not a weakling who repined; he did not believe that things had once gone better; he loved his own day, and saw that it was great—richer in thought, in activity, in individuality. But in the twilight that darkened the cloud-covered heavens he felt belittled, tainted by the dangerous, enervating contemplation of the past; a heavy oppression sank down upon his breast, upon his soul: he must have taken a fever in the bogs of the Coliseum and the Baths, in the tepid humidity of the churches.

The gas-jets on the Piazza Sciarra, however, brought him to. A newsboy was calling out the Fanfulla and the Bersagliere for sale. People were standing in groups on the pavement. The bustle of life once more stimulated his blood. A man talking in front of Ronzi and Singer's stated loudly that the opening of Parliament was fixed for November 20. The Fagiano and Colonne eating-houses, under the Veian Portico, were ablaze with light. Through the window of the Colonne the Honourable Sangiorgio thought to descry the Honourable Zanardelli, whose portrait he knew. He went in there instead of going on to the Albergo Milano, and took a seat at a table alone, near the honourable member from Brescia. And while he ate Sangiorgio examined that elongated, disjointed frame, that little nervous head, so full of indomitable will-power, those convulsive gestures, that essentially Southern pugnacity. The deputy from Brescia was dining with three other guests. In another corner dined more deputies, and the waiters busied themselves about those familiar customers, forgetting the solitary, unknown Sangiorgio. In that surcharged atmosphere he felt himself revive; he breathed anew; he took courage for the conflict. And when at an advanced hour he returned to the Piazza Montecitorio, in the presence of the Parliament House—mighty in the gloom—he felt shaken to the very foundations of his being. His heart was over there.

CHAPTER III

In the glove-shop of the Via di Pietra there was a great bustle. The handsome proprietress, fair and tall, a cheerful Milanese, and two lean girls with weary eyes, did nothing but perpetually turn round with outstretched arms to take down glove-boxes from the shelves. They bowed their heads while they felt for the required pair with long, nimble fingers. All customers who came in wearing a top-coat, under which it could be assumed was a dress-coat, whose collars were upturned, and who had shiny silk hats, asked for light gloves. A fine gentleman in a high hat, with a red and white ribbon at his throat—a commander, in fact—asked specifically for the colour he wanted, selecting pigeon gray. A lady from the provinces, attired in wine-coloured satin and a white hood, in which she was suffocating, was a long time choosing a pair of gloves, arguing and trying the patience of three or four customers waiting in a corner. She desired a tight glove that would not wrinkle, and then she complained of buttons loosely sewn on with a single thread, which came off immediately. When told the price, six lire, she became scandalized, put on an injured air, said that the material was very poor at such a high price, and went away gloveless, with pursed-up lips, carrying in her hand her invitation-card to one of the galleries in the Parliament.

An honourable, a stout, dark young Southerner, with black moustache, was relating to a credulous constituent how at the last moment he had discovered he had no gloves, how those landlords threw away everything with the rubbish. And the poor constituent listened with a faint, confiding smile, having no gloves, not he, and probably no money to buy any.

In the meantime another lady had come in who had stepped from a carriage. She was tall, with a fine face all painted crimson and white, with ruby lips, eyebrows so black that they looked blue, and exceedingly yellow hair. She was dressed entirely in white satin, had on a hat bedecked with white feathers, and carried a parasol bordered with cream lace. She asked for a pair of eighteen-buttoned black gloves; her bracelets tinkled as they slid up and down her bare arms; she exhaled a penetrating odour of white rose.

A small deputy, short and fat, almost round, with a fringe of black beard and a pair of sparkling, tiny, bead-like eyes, scanned her up and down. He was pouring out his grievances to a colleague, a tall, handsome man, with flaxen moustache and the important demeanour of a ceremonious blockhead. He, a democratic deputy of the Extreme Left, always drew one of the lots conferring the duty of receiving the King and the Queen at the door of the Parliament. Yes, he, a democratic deputy, was obliged to bow and give his arm to a lady of the Court whom he did not know, who did not speak to one, to whom one had nothing to say.

'I like fashionable women,' murmured the other, with his stupid, self-satisfied expression.

'May be. But when one considers that their dresses are made with the money of one's constituents——' retorted the fat republican honourable.

And then they left, eyeing the handsome painted female as she got into her carriage. Between the indentations of her lace wrap was visible a pink card; she was to sit in another gallery, was she, in a distinguished gallery.

'The revenge of the proletariat,' remarked the democratic deputy quite complacently.

By this time people were treading on one another's heels in the glove-shop. There were faces of Government clerks, with freshly-shaven beard, white necktie ironed at home, pepper-and-salt overcoat, or cannon-smoke-coloured, or coal-dust-coloured, under which the black broadcloth trousers shone in perfect preservation; there were sallow faces of high officials, to which the green ribbon of St. Maurice and St. Lazarus imparted a still more cadaverous hue; there were all sorts of antiquated beaver hats, rejuvenated for the nonce by a hot iron.

The fair, smiling proprietress never flagged, never lost her head, bowed amiably to everyone, always answered with the politeness of a well-bred Northern saleswoman. She had disposed of the whole supply of white cravats, and when the Honourable Di Santamarta arrived, a fair-haired Sicilian of Mephistophelian mien, and asked for a necktie, she expressed profound regrets, the Marquis being an all-the-year-round customer. That very moment the last of those white neckties had been sold, but Salvi, in the Piazza di Sciarra yonder, he surely would have some. The blond Marquis listened apathetically, with his feminine blue eyes turned down and his sceptical smile.

'Is the Signora Marchesa in Rome? Of course she is going to the opening of Parliament?'

'Yes, I believe so,' answered the Honourable Marquis. 'I think she will be going with her sister. I left my house in a hurry to buy this necktie. What a nuisance these performances are!' He went out wearily as if he had undergone some great fatigue, another just as onerous remaining. 'At Salvi's, you say?' he asked from the door in a drooping voice.

'Salvi, in the Piazza Sciarra.'

For a moment the shop was empty. The two girls took a respite standing up; their faces were very pale. Before them on the counter lay open boxes and piles of gloves. Even the proprietress was seized with momentary lassitude, and also stood still, her hands leaning on the counter. She was reminded of one of those hot carnival nights, one of the last, when there are three fashionable balls in Rome, four public balls, and eight or nine receptions, and when there would be a concourse of young gallants in her shop, and milliners, servants, ladies' maids, desperate husbands, fretsome lovers. But now a family from Salerno came in, father, mother, and daughter—the father employed in the Interior Department—and wanted a pair of gloves for the girl. They explained at once that they were bound for the Chamber, that they had their tickets from several people. One was from Baron Nicotera, their deputy—the Baron, as the mother simply called him; another had been given them by Filippo Leale—the Honourable Leale, the gentleman with the black beard, who had been Secretary-General; the third ticket had been procured by an usher of Parliament from their own district, a good fellow with five medals. Oh, it was not so easy to get cards! They were in very great demand. A lady of their acquaintance, who was the aunt of a deputy, had been unable to get one. They were rather disturbed on account of the different colours of their cards, which meant three separate galleries; but—well, they would not lose their way in the Parliament.

'I think you will have to go in by three different ways,' placidly observed the proprietress in the midst of this flood of words, while she was battling to fit a glove on the girl's fat, red hand. The father of the family looked at his wife in dismay.

The shop was filling with fidgety, nervous people, who could not wait, who stamped with impatience, who tore the gloves in trying them on too hurriedly. Before the counter was a double row of customers, treading on each other's heels; on the counter was a tangle of open boxes, a confused agglomeration of miscellaneous gloves; and there was an all-pervading odour of skin—that pungent, essentially feminine odour which intoxicates.

* * * * *

The gay autumn sun, on that most merry morning, sparkled on the housetops of the Via della Colonna, on the roofs of the Via degli Orfanelli, and threw its beams athwart the Piazza Colonna. The Antonine Column looked black and worn in the surrounding shaft of bright light, and stood out all wrinkled and hunchbacked against the red surface of the Piombino Palace. In the limpid air was a scintillation as of gilded atoms. Not a breath of wind stirred; streets and houses were steeped in a silent delight, in the joyful atmosphere of sunshine. Tricoloured banners were hung out; at the corner of the Palazzo Chigi, on the balcony of the Austrian Embassy, the two flags fraternally entwined. In the brilliant light, under which everything seemed to vibrate in the utmost precision and clearness of outline, the three vivid colours gave out a sharp, glad note. On the terrace of the Circolo Nazionale was a fluttering of parasols—red, white, blue—glistening in the sun. From both sides of the Corso, from the Via Cacciabove, from the Via della Missione, from the Via Bergamaschi, came a continual rush of people, in crowds and in groups, a flashing of black silk hats, a coruscation of gold epaulets, an undulating wave of white and pink feathers on the women's hats.

By half-past nine the military cordon had stopped all issues, and, ascending towards Montecitorio, rounded the obelisk, and stretched to the Uffici del Vicario. At every break in the line there was perpetual haranguing between the officers and the people who tried to pass without tickets, each one of them looking for a deputy. Ah, there he was, under the Parliament porch! Now for making signs to him! But, heavens! he would not turn the right way! Behind the string of troops the multitudes of spectators formed a deep, dense hedge, iridescent in the morning sunlight; here and there a red gown, or a white one, made the effect of a blur. Between this line and the porch intervened a large empty space, strewn with gravel. Now and then some gentleman with overcoat unbuttoned, and some lady in fashionable morning attire, made their way across on foot, walking slowly so as to be seen better, and while conversing together enjoying the envy of those who had no cards. Near the four steps in the porch a group of three ladies halted for a moment. One, habited in black, sparkled all over in the sunlight by reason of the lustrous cuirass of black beads imprisoning the upper part of her body; the other, dressed in a delicate gray, had a white veil over her face; the third was dressed in the iron blue, called electric, then in fashion; and the three had all met in the doorway, and bowed to each other, showered compliments on one another, laughed, swayed to and fro on their tinsel-slippered feet, conscious of being stared at by the crowd, of being admired and envied. After prolonging this delightful moment, they disappeared, one by one, into Montecitorio. As the hour drew near, the crowd increased on every side, and, like the waves of the sea, ebbed from and flowed against the wall of the military cordon. All the windows of the Albergo Milano were crammed with heads; from the attics peered out the curly heads of men-servants and the white caps of maid-servants; the large bay-windows of the Pensione dell' Unione, the little squat windows of the Fanfulla, the windows of the Wedekind Palace, all had three or four rows of spectators, closely crowded; and in all the adjacent thoroughfares, in the Orfanelli square, the Guglia Lane, the Uffici del Vicario, the two branches of the Via della Missione, there was a host of people on balconies and doorsteps, and at windows. At Aragno's, the liquor-seller's, women had climbed upon the chairs and tables.

Then, as the hour of the ceremonial opening drew near, a file of people—those invited—crossed the open space. Occasionally a row of medals gleamed under a buttonhole. The carriages left the Corso at a trot, without noise from the wheels, turned the obelisk in a graceful curve, and halted at the porch. They were carriages belonging to Cabinet Ministers, to senators, to members of the corps diplomatique; old men got out of them, supported by a servant or a secretary, a white or red uniform was visible for an instant, and then disappeared beneath the porch.

On the small platform two journalists in dress-coats and soft hats were jotting down the names of the notabilities who passed by. One was short, with a pointed, light beard, mottled with gray; he wore gold eyeglasses and an impassive look. The other, too, was short, but of sturdy figure and deadly white complexion, with a schoolboy moustache and a smile denoting a fondness for satire. They were the managers of the two largest Roman newspapers, who were contributing in person to the columns of those important journals, and between themselves were amicably jesting about the queer specimens who passed.

The sun spread over the corner of the Pensione dell' Unione, thus beginning the invasion of the Montecitorio square, and to this gradual encroachment corresponded a movement of the crowd, as if a feeling of contentment were stealing over them; here and there the smooth, round head of a parasol was raised. The procession of the ticket-holders continued across the open space, and they were now beginning to grow uneasy and impatient, and slightly excited, thinking they were too late to secure good places. The crowds in the streets, the alleys, the balconies, the windows, seemed at moments to have been suddenly stricken lifeless, as if petrified by magic, as if a huge, invisible photographic machine were photographing them; and one might have observed blank faces with staring eyes, children whom their nurses held by the collar, or a dozen people who had scaled a hackney-coach. Then the spell seemed to loosen; the crowds again showed some of the restlessness of people moving about and gaining no ground—a motion resembling the expansion and contraction of the rings of a worm. A little boy had climbed upon the pedestal of the obelisk, where, clinging to the great stone pillar, he amused himself with gymnastic feats.

At length the sun reached the line of soldiers, falling obliquely upon them. First the white gaiters were illumined, then the blue capotes, then the black leather hats, and finally a bright streak ran along the barrels of the rifles. And from the distance came a low, brief rumble, the echo of a cannonade, upon which there passed from one to another of the whole mass of spectators, from balcony to window, from street to alley, a flutter and a sigh of immense relief:

'The procession! The Procession! THE PROCESSION!' exclaimed the crowd in an undertone, which grew to a clamour.

In the hall, too, the rumble of the cannon was heard; for an instant absolute silence reigned there. Then a murmuring of voices began and grew loud, fans were once more set in motion, the insidious, penetrating female chatter, the footsteps of persons turning about in the aisles in vain search of seats, the rustle of silk gowns, fused and were confused. The hall was metamorphosed. Round about it the sections had been raised to the level of the galleries by means of scaffolding, a large supplementary gallery being thus created, containing four rows of spectators close upon the shoulders of the deputies on the last bench. On the two side-stairways, which the ushers know so well from a hundred ascents and descents every day of every session, were two tightly-packed files of people, two thick, solid stripes extending from the top of the galleries down to the bottom, the ladies sitting on the steps, the men who had gallantly surrendered their places leaning against the wall.

All around the galleries were all filled to their utmost capacity. The press gallery, too—the best for hearing the speeches—had been given up to the public, the reporters being distributed over the best seats below. The ladies' gallery was quite full, but this seemed a piece of irony, and everyone laughed at there being a special little gallery for ladies when they had already invaded everything, were present everywhere, at the elbows of the deputies and almost on the floor of the House, all aglow with their imperishable women's curiosity. The officers' gallery was an effulgence of epaulettes and gold-braid; in the Speaker's gallery there was much craning of necks and great lamentation from disappointed and deluded people: both were situated over the royal canopy, which would conceal the King from view. And the two large galleries at the corners—the diplomats' and the senators'—were empty, deeply shaded by the dark-blue velvet draping their wooden walls.

In the hemicycle the committee benches had disappeared; they had run parallel to the sections on the arc of a circle. Gone, too, was the long Ministerial bench, called by the most virulent among the Opposition the prisoners' bench. The small desk in the middle, where the stenographers wrote, and relieved one another at five-minute intervals, had been taken away. The whole Speaker's box had been removed. In its place a broad platform, accessible by four steps and covered with red carpeting, had been erected, and over it had been stretched an enormous red velvet canopy, fringed with gold and divided into three compartments. All this red looked very sombre under the expansive dome, and in the claustral dimness the gold on the royal armchair shone forth like a holy shrine. Somewhat lower down, outside the canopy, to the right and left, were two other armchairs for members of the Royal Family. The members were scattered about, standing on the steps of the sections and talking with the women. Some had gone up to the last row and turned their backs to the House, gossiping glibly with the women in the large wooden gallery, bowing to an acquaintance, smiling at a friend, familiarly nodding to a constituent for whom they had procured a ticket. Airy, frivolous conversations were spun between the women, who were surprised at everything and laughed at everything, and the deputies who tried to help them at it.

A dark, well-dressed lady, wearing a hat cross-laced with gold, was having the deputies pointed out to her by the Honourable Rosolino Scalia, a grave Sicilian in correctly cut clothes, presenting the appearance of an officer in civilian garb, his buttonhole containing a minute daisy, and at the leisurely explanations of Scalia the lady bent forward, peered through her eyeglasses, and pointed her lips to a malicious smile. Ah, indeed, was that the Honourable Cavalieri, the Calabrian, the member who was so ingenuously Calabrian? A patriot, did he say? Yes, she understood that, and admitted he was famous, but he wore too many medals! That lean, fair man, with the gray eyes and the mop of hair brushed back, was that the Honourable Dalma, the literary deputy who talked about Ophelia in the House and about real estate assessment to the women? Why did they not make the Honourable Dalma a Minister? Did many of them want to be Minister? And was this really a serious thing with them, this passion for politics? So the Honourable Scalia, a trifle disgusted with her empty rattle, tried to prove to the lady that, although politics might seem a jest to those not taking them seriously, they nevertheless were a noble passion. But she shook her head, unconvinced, laughing again with her pretty, frivolous laugh, and the Honourable Scalia's face showed his increasing abstraction; he sought relief from her cackle in looking about the hall, politely pretending to be amused.

The public was not impatient of the delay. The women were glad to be seated, to see and to be seen; they would have stayed there till evening, playing their fans, tossing their heads to make the jewels in their hats sparkle, levelling their opera-glasses. The men were inwardly congratulating themselves on the early toilet which had been necessary, and which lent them an air of gravity and elegance; some pretended it was all a great bother. But invitations to lunch were being passed about, and meetings were being arranged at cafÉs to discuss the ceremony.

The crowd which peopled the hall and the galleries and the corridors, and every inch of space where a man might stand, was touched with nervous excitement, with a dash of intoxication. Many of these individuals had never visited Parliament, and feigned to take no interest in their surroundings, though in reality the atmosphere went to their heads. Meanwhile there was nothing gay about the Chamber itself, which kept its wonted appearance. The skylight windows had been washed, to be sure, but the light of that fair morning filtered through sadly, thinned like the cold, whitish, damp light that passes through an aquarium, and the wooden-coloured walls, with their streaks of dark blue, were well adapted to reflect no brightness whatever, to quench any cheerful gleam. That ugly colour absorbed and annulled all the others, condemned all the colours to a pale monotone. Such was the effect, from any gallery, of the optical phenomenon which is the first disillusionment of whoever visits the Italian Parliament: all faces were the same colour, melted into one another; no individuals could be distinguished; it was a monotonous whole, without design, without variety, from which one turned away disappointed.

But this place, which equalized so many faces, so many sorts and conditions, so many kinds of clothes, this levelling to which the most rebellious must submit, this universal imprint which no one who came into the hall might escape—this produced a tremendous result. The hall seemed to be a huge sanctuary which swallowed up the individual, a holy precinct that subdued mind, will, and character, and where to stand up and be one the possession was needed of a profound, burning, mystic faith, or of the sacrilegious audacity that will overturn an altar. And the great royal canopy, all dark red, with the rigid, straight folds in the velvet, with the heavy gold fringe, and the golden eagle gathering up the folds under its claws, with the spacious armchair in the mysterious shadow, had an ecclesiastical aspect like a tabernacle—a shrine where an almighty power was abiding.

Of a sudden all the deputies were in their places standing up, and a deep silence fell on the galleries, while outside the ringing bugles of the infantry sounded a flourish. Then a long round of applause burst forth—a dull, persistent applause from gloved hands. The ladies, who had risen, were applauding too, leaning on the shoulders of the deputies in order to see better. Standing in the diplomatic gallery and surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting, the Queen bowed in every direction, and the pearly whiteness of her face eclipsed the wooden background. She looked fresh and young and all serene under the brim of her yellow straw hat, adorned with a strawberry-coloured plume. And when the acclaim seemed at an end, and the Queen sat down rather above her ladies, the whole assembly was carried off by a wave of admiration for that poetic figure, and new applause, universal and deafening, again greeted the Queen. Excitement reigned everywhere. On the right aisle there were ladies distracted because they were under the diplomatic gallery and could not see the Queen. Those in the Speaker's gallery were happy; they could not see the King very well, to be sure, but they were within two paces of Her Majesty. To some of the spectators on the left aisle half of the performance was lost—the whole corps diplomatique in full uniform in the senators' gallery, with the wives of the Ambassadors and of the Italian Cabinet Ministers. From the central, the press, public, officers', and Government clerks' galleries, though far off, everything could be seen. There was a perpetual aiming of opera-glasses. The crowd, seized with nervousness, swayed and bent to right and left. Dialogues between reporters were overheard: Where was the German Ambassador? Ah, there he was, with his good-humoured face, his white moustache, and his soft eyes! That lady dressed in violet, with the large black eyes, behind Donna Vittoria Colonna, who could she be? Donna Lavinia Taverna, a Piombino. And all the women were in feverish agitation, names were whispered, scraps of comment on the gowns flew to and fro, whoever was most in evidence tried to be recognised by the Ministers' wives, by the Ambassadresses, by the Ladies-in-Waiting. An increasing murmur of questions and answers and subdued discussions rose in the air of the hall like the buzzing of a million flies.

The King entered unexpectedly without the royal anthem being intoned. He appeared at the right-hand door in the midst of his household, of the Ministers, and of the ten deputies who had received him, and in three strides he was under the canopy. Two or three times he turned to the right and the left with the nervous abruptness of his quick, self-repressed nature. The members and the public hailed him, and he answered by motions of his gilded helmet, with its tall, waving white feather, while in his right hand he held a paper scroll. On the General's tunic which he wore were only his foreign military medals and the medal for bravery in the field. And in his close-fitting uniform, white collar, and tightest of trousers, as he stood under the overshadowing red dome with his helmet on his wrist in the attitude of a soldier at attention, he bore an unusually martial aspect, thin, brown, and strong, ever in readiness to mount on horseback, ever willing to sleep under a tent. He resembled one of those old pictures of a Commander-in-Chief, with proud, piercing eye and pale visage, clasping in one hand a rolled parchment on which the plan of a fortress is drawn. The old Prince of Savoia-Carignano, the King's uncle, fat and bald, placed himself at the right of the chair, on the arm of which he leant his flaccid and fatigued person, but he did not sit down from respect. The young Duke of Genoa, brother to the Queen and cousin to the King, took up his position at the Sovereign's left, while on the floor to the right was the group of Ministers and to the left the royal household.

Out of the general silence rose the rather harsh voice of the King; and certainly the hearts of many of those politicians must have leapt at the recollection in that very assembly of another voice, slightly veiled, somewhat strident, a voice made for giving commands in battle, and that spoke the loyal words with which he sealed the national compact. And all the faces of the members had at once grown thoughtful; they remained motionless, with eyes fastened upon the King's. All of the women took to silence, as though struck by a sudden sense of reverence. In the deep quiet, in that stillness of a whole multitude, the respiration of the King was audible between one sentence and the next of the royal message. And the voice in which he spoke sounded like that paternal one; it had a certain explosiveness, certain peculiar accentuations, in its tone. The Queen listened intently without a smile from the diplomats' gallery, her handsome face bent downward and absorbed; the ladies were listening without the quiver of an eyelash; the whole Ambassadors' gallery had the smile that knows what is coming; the public galleries all round listened without losing a word; the deputies, standing up, listened, and every now and then something like a thrill of approval ran through the assembly. Twice the speech was interrupted by applause. At times a louder word seemed to wing its way, to soar up to the skylight: peace—the administration of justice—financial retrenchment. But suddenly the voice was lowered, as if the King disdained the final applause crowning his remarks, and he stopped short as if fatigued. The last words were muttered rather than spoken. He quickly took his helmet from the armchair where he had deposited it, while the audience shouted, 'Long live the King!' That rapt attention, however, had strained people's minds and imparted a sense of awe to them. The event of the day, which at first had seemed but a strange spectacle, now assumed larger proportions; the royal speech, on that sole occasion on which the constitutional Sovereign spoke in public declaring his will and intentions, became a solemn promise. A few of the most sensitive women had a little cold perspiration at the temples; others slapped their hands lightly with their fans, and with wandering eyes murmured, 'Beautiful, beautiful!' and the most romantic gazed fixedly at the Queen to observe her emotion.

Then the swearing-in began. Old Depretis had advanced a few steps, and had read out the formula for the senators and deputies, scanning the words as if he wanted to imprint them on the minds of the listeners.

The assembly of members and senators stood out in black and white from the bottom to the top of the sections, an assembly of energetic heads and puny heads, of scintillating eyes and eyes of dead fish, of bald, shining skulls, and of heavy, leonine manes. Narrow on the first bench, the gathering spread out to a wide semicircle on the last, and it seemed as though the space was all too small for the eruptive force of those wills and those brains.

The King measured the nation's representatives with a glance. The first senator, the Duke of Genoa, took the oath in naval fashion in a vibrant tone, with a vigorous gesture; he was applauded. Then came eight new senators; there was a stir at the swearing of allegiance by the great Piedmontese Latinist, who was a clerical. What interested the audience most was the swearing-in of the deputies. Depretis said their name and surname and waited a brief moment, and from a bench a weak voice or a strong one would respond: 'I swear!' In that moment of expectation breathing was suspended; the King's eyes sought out him who was to swear and watched him take the oath.

The patriot veterans swore in military style, laying their bare hand on their breast: their faith was proved. The lawyers took the oath in the high voice of persons wishing to attract attention. When he came to his own name, Depretis drew his right hand from his Ministerial uniform coat, and extended it as he took the oath; the assembly laughed at the astute old man who was its leader. The Minister continued to tell off the names, and agitated as well as tranquil answers were given, now as if issuing from the bowels of the earth, now as if descending from the skylight. The old Parliamentarians took the oath simply putting out a hand and repeating the words in an undertone; the radical deputies, who had long been preparing for the ordeal, swore in extreme haste, as if to get rid of a load. And the women listened, all excitement, all seized with unconquerable emotion, they, the inventors of all sorts of false vows, overcome with feeling in presence of those solemn promises made by five hundred men to one man and to the whole nation.

But the most perturbed were the new members: this royal and Parliamentary pomp, this male and female public, this message of the King, the swearing-in of the other deputies—all this had shaken their nerves. And those who had come with the intention of behaving with spirit, of swearing as if it were nothing at all to them, trembled with impatience while waiting for their name, and then piped in a thin little note which made their neighbours smile, and which was inaudible to the crowd. Some played furiously with their watch-chain, and when they were called started up as if from a dream, ejaculated a choked and hurried I swear! and fell back into their seat.

Between the Honourable Salviati—a Florentine Duke—and the deputy Santini, the oath was taken, in a strangled voice that nobody heard, by the Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio.

CHAPTER IV

The door marked No. 50 in the Via Angelo Custode was situated two doors from a large, gray, dismal mansion, which was closed up. Francesco Sangiorgio hesitated a moment: there was no one to ask for information. One of the wings of the door was shut, the other ajar. The deputy entered a dingy passage-way, and advanced six or seven paces before reaching the stairs. He perceived that they were winding stairs, and in order not to risk breaking his neck he lit a match. But at the first floor there was rather more light, and at the second one might almost see. Upon the landing were three doors, and to that in the middle was attached by two bent pins a dirty visiting card bearing a forename and a surname: 'Alessandro Bertocchini.' Sangiorgio consulted the piece of paper given him by the house-agent. This was the name. He knocked.

For some time no one came; he knocked again, timidly. Then was heard a great rattling of keys and chains, of bolts pushed and drawn, and at last the middle door was cautiously opened a few inches. A tall man with a red nose and two fair curls plastered against his temples appeared. The Honourable touched his hat, and asked if Signor Alessandro Bertocchini lived here. It was himself—the man of the ruddy nose and washed-out complexion. Was there not an apartment to let? Signor Alessandro examined Sangiorgio, ogled the gold medal all over, and said:

'Certainly, there is a furnished apartment to let; I will go for the keys.' And plunging his frosty fingers into his pockets, he left the deputy to wait on the landing. Through the open doorway a small anteroom was visible, with a table, a chair, and a lamp, and a breath of staleness, of ancient dust, assailed the lungs.

'Here it is,' twittered Signor Alessandro in his thin, high voice.

He opened the door at the left. There was a dingy room with a chair, and then a long narrow room, looking out upon a balcony. Along one of the walls stood a sofa of crimson cloth, with the back and arms of painted and tarnished wood. At each end of the sofa was an easy-chair, upon which were pieces of lace crochet-work; in front was a threadbare carpet. Along the opposite wall ran a white marble mantelpiece, upon which stood two tall petroleum lamps, a clock that had stopped, and three photographs in their frames. On the wall hung a long, narrow mirror, somewhat greenish, in whose corners were stuck, for ornament, little red, yellow, and blue oleographs of the King, Queen, and heir to the throne. Near the mantle were two wooden chairs cushioned with crimson cloth. Close to the balcony was a writing-table, also with cloth cover, of crochet-work, with green, violet, scarlet, orange, and indigo stars, and in the centre stood a carved matchstand. Before the balcony hung two shabby lace curtains beneath a piece of red woollen drapery. Two more chairs of black wood completed the furniture.

'This is the parlour,' said Signor Alessandro, in his weak, drawling voice, looking into the air, his shivering hands stuck into the pockets of his jacket.

Francesco Sangiorgio stepped to the balcony; it faced an inside courtyard, on which fronted many other windows, balconies, doors, and loggias. Above a housetop, the barren branch of a tree protruded. From the bottom of the yard rose a strong smell of kitchen, of slops, and dishwater. The landlord said nothing, and kept his air of indifference, allowing the deputy to investigate the apartment. The bedchamber adjoined the parlour, and was likewise long and narrow. The bed stood lengthwise, and beside it were a chair and the nightstand; before it lay a carpet like that in the parlour, and at the back was a blue cloth easy-chair, with a spot that had eaten into the colour. Against the other wall stood a chest of drawers whose wooden top was somewhat stained, with circles on it, as if wet glasses had been there; the two brass candlesticks were without candles. The toilet-table stood in a recess; here, too, lace curtains appeared beneath a piece of print, with dark background and large red and yellow roses. The splendours of this room consisted in a tobacco-coloured feather quilt on the bed, with many-hued woollen arabesques. Jug and basin were hidden in a corner, where stood the washstand, without towels and without water.

'The price?' inquired the Honourable Sangiorgio.

'Eighty lire a month—in advance,' whistled Signor Alessandro's plaintive organ.

'And what about the service?'

'There is a servant who makes the bed, sweeps, brushes the clothes and polishes the boots. Eighty lire a month—in advance.' And he sighed deeply, running his hand through his hair, which bore the aspect of varnished mahogany.

'Rather dear—eighty lire.'

The Signor Alessandro preserved silence, since he perhaps could not muster enough breath for a discussion, and did not want to waste any. As they were about to leave the apartment, he added simply, with his nose in the air, like a donkey taking an anxious sniff:

'You are permitted free entrance.'

The Honourable Sangiorgio went away, shrugging his shoulders. Perhaps he would come back. In the street, near the offices of the Minister of Agriculture, he met His Excellency's wife, the lady he had seen at the station. Tall, slender, habited in black, wearing a velvet cloak, she was quite fresh and young behind her black veil. She walked with rhythmical step, her gloved hands hidden in her muff, her eyes downcast, as though she were immersed in thought. And there was such dignity and sweetness in that female form that the Honourable Sangiorgio involuntarily bowed to her. But His Excellency's wife did not acknowledge his bow, and passed on, proceeding towards the Via Angelo Custode along the pavement. And in Francesco Sangiorgio arose a profound feeling of resentment, because of the rejected salute.

He next walked to the Piazza del Pantheon, to the second address given him by the house-agent, and he passed along the streets with that everlasting symptom of moral oppression, a weight on his chest, on his shoulders, on his head, which he had been unable to shake off from the day of his arrival in Rome, and in the thoroughfares he met people who also wore the same expression of dejection.

The house was midway between the Pantheon and the Piazza della Minerva, and next door to a bakery. From below were to be seen two windows, with white blinds stretched tight. It was on the first floor: three doors, all three bearing the names of women, one of them written in violet ink, and in a feminine hand, on a tiny bit of pink pasteboard. The right-hand door, marked 'Virginia Magnani,' was opened by an untidy maid-servant, who stared Sangiorgio in the face without speaking. But after a moment the landlady arrived, in a blue cashmere gown trimmed with white lace, her front locks in curl-papers.

'Has the gentleman come about the apartment? Run away, Nanna! Step in, step in—I am quite at your service! Pray excuse me for receiving you like this, but one never manages to finish dressing in the morning. I go to the theatre sometimes, with Toto, to hear Marini; it gets late, and then, of course, one is too tired to get up in the morning.'

Sangiorgio listened, taken aback by the loquacity of this little woman with the powdered cheeks.

'Did Pochalsky send you here?'

'Yes, madam.'

'I thought so. Pochalsky knows that this house is for deputies. I take no others. But allow me: this is the waiting-room, and here is a table with writing materials for the voters who do not find their deputy at home. I had the Honourable Santinelli here. He was besieged from morning till night, never a minute's rest, so he always used to tell me when we chatted together a little—he was so civil, the Honourable Santinelli. "My dear Signora Virginia," he would say, "I can endure this life no longer!" This, as you see, is the parlour, neat and elegant. All these hangings are my own work; I made them when I was younger and had no troubles on my mind. No matter—we will not speak of that. Here is everything—carpet, cushions. The Deputy Gagliardi would never have gone away, he was so comfortable here, if the voters had not played him the trick of not re-electing him. But political life is full of these disappointments——'

And the little woman put on a serious look, her lips pinched and her head down on one shoulder. This parlour was really not very different from that of the Via Angelo Custode: there was more faded drapery, a larger number of photographs, and an American rocking-chair. The gilded frame of the mirror had a green net covering, to preserve it from the flies.

'This,' continued the Signora Virginia in a strong Roman accent, 'is the bedroom. There is a little library, for books, as I have always had studious deputies. The Honourable Gotti was reading novels the whole time. Do you read novels?'

'No, madam, never.'

'That's a pity, because you might have lent me some. A clothes cupboard is wanting here, but I am waiting for a sale in the Via Viminale, where Muccioli, the auctioneer, has promised to keep a good wardrobe for me. However, you can let me take care of your clothes—your dress-suit, your overcoat, your pelisse—I will keep them in my own wardrobe, and they will be quite safe. Here is everything—basin, jug, slop-jar, bed with two good curtains, etcetera. Look at it—look at it all, and satisfy yourself. I am not boasting, but night and morning Toto gives thanks to God for having blessed him with a wife like Virginia. All this, Honourable——'

'Sangiorgio—Francesco Sangiorgio.'

'Deputy for——'

'Tito, Basilicata.'

'Honourable Sangiorgio, all this is to be had for a hundred and thirty lire a month, not a centesimo less, for I make nothing by it. If I had to live by letting rooms, I should be left out in the cold. In the anteroom there is a door communicating with my apartment; when it is locked you have your own apartment, with free entrance. You require free entrance, do you?' And she looked at him searchingly out of her light cat's eyes.

Sangiorgio did not quite understand.

'I do not know—I do not know,' he said at haphazard.

'Because, if you wanted free entrance, of course you would pay twenty lire more per month—a hundred and fifty lire. But if you are married, and want other rooms for your lady, there is my sister, Restituta Coppi, on the same landing, who has rooms to dispose of. My sister's-in-law, on the second floor, I cannot recommend; she is not cleanly, poor creature! She belongs to the lower classes, like all of them in this region. It was a fatal mistake that poor George—my brother—made. Are you married, Honourable?'

'No, madam.'

'Very well, then. You had better enjoy your youth, too, because it's a horrible thing to marry too soon. I, praise God! cannot complain, for Tito is a flower of a man; but, still, liberty is best. I always said so to the Deputy Gotti, who was a bachelor, like yourself, Honourable Sangiorgio, and he would answer amiably—as, indeed, was his habit—"I should have to find another Signora Virginia before I married, but there are no more of them." Well, we were saying a hundred and thirty lire a month, which is really a low price, and ten lire a month for service to Nanna; and then there is the gas on the stairs until eleven o'clock—five lire. By-the-by, I can also have your washing attended to. I have an excellent laundress; she washes with March water and soap and no potash. In fact, there is everything you want, and if some day the Honourable should wish to dine at home, being sick of the pastry one eats at the cook-shops, there is Toto, my husband, who amuses himself with making and cooking dumplings. They are a joy! I never set foot in the kitchen myself; my health is too delicate——'

They had gone back to the waiting-room, and Sangiorgio maintained the cold reserve of the taciturn towards the talkative.

'And—you will excuse me, sir,' suddenly said the Signora Virginia in a voice become hard because of Sangiorgio's long silence, 'but what do you propose to do? I have many inquiries, you will understand; an apartment like this is an opportunity not to be neglected.'

'Do not let me hinder your business, madam,' said the deputy, in whom the natural diffidence of the provincial asserted itself. 'In case I want the rooms I will let you know.'

'I may expect a letter, then? Am I to call and ask for it at the Parliament?' she asked in tones once more mellifluous.

'No, do not trouble; I will send word.'

The Signora Virginia bowed and held out her hand like a great lady. As soon as he was on the stairs, he felt tired of all the jabber and quite bewildered, and it seemed to him as if he had already been to ten houses. He had two more addresses on his piece of paper, and his inclination to pursue the choice had greatly diminished. It was only by a revulsion that he was able to give orders to be driven to the Via del Gambero, No. 37, since he did not yet know the streets. The Via del Gambero had the atmosphere of mystery of the streets parallel to the Corso, affected by hurrying men and busy women. From the great Palazzo Raggi, with its courtyard like a square, with one entrance on the Corso and the other on the Via Gambero, every now and then someone would issue forth who was avoiding the crowd or in fear of dangerous encounters, and who hastened away without looking back. In the porch of No. 37, a decent-looking place, there was a wooden porter's box with a window-pane, deriving its light from the house. A little woman came out to meet the deputy.

'Have you not an apartment to let here on the third floor?'

'Yes, sir. Will you look at it?'

'I should like to see it.'

The little woman went back into her box, picked out a key from a bunch, and set forth, blinking the red eyelids which belonged to a pair of gray eyes. She was evidently the porteress. She was dressed in green cloth, faded and worn out, and rather showily trimmed; she wore a chestnut wig, with a false plait at the neck and a fluffy fringe on the forehead. As she went upstairs her dirty, red silk stockings showed. As for the flaccid, wan cheeks, white and dotted with freckles, and the pale-violet, youthful mouth, one might guess that once this face had been round, rosy, and that it had collapsed suddenly like a doll's from which the sawdust has escaped through a little hole. The staircase was spacious, and had wide turnings, a rare circumstance in Roman houses; on every landing were three doors, uniformly situated. On the first floor, to the right, the Honourable Sangiorgio read: 'Barone di Sangarzia, Deputy to Parliament'; there was nothing on the middle door, and to the left was: 'Anna Scartozzi, Tailoress.' On the second floor, to the right, the door was marked: 'Marchese di Tuttavilla, Deputy to Parliament'; no name was on the door in the centre, and that on the left bore the inscription: 'Commission and General Agency.'

'Have these two deputies also furnished rooms?'

'No, sir, they furnish their own, but the apartment is the same,' replied the woman, inserting the key in the lock of the right-hand door of the third floor, where no name was on the middle door, and on the left: 'Paolo Galasso, Dentist.'

The apartment facing the street was very light, and the furniture, which was almost new, had pretensions to elegance. A majolica flower-vase stood on a table, and there was a fireplace—a real fireplace—an extreme luxury in a Roman middle-class house.

'You can light a fire here, and after dinner, in winter, that is a pleasure,' observed the woman. 'There are fireplaces on each floor. The deputy on the first floor has his lighted in the morning; he has a blazing fire all day.'

'But does he not go to the Chamber?' asked Sangiorgio, yielding to inquisitiveness.

'Not always—not always,' answered the woman, with a malicious smile that spread all over her face.

'And what does one pay here?' Sangiorgio interrupted dryly.

'One hundred and eighty lire a month.'

'It seems dear.'

'No, sir; if you will inquire about prices, as you are a stranger, you will see it is not too high, in the middle of Rome, two steps from the Corso. I am not boasting, but the apartment is arranged in the best taste; I have always understood how to——'

And the porteress brushed down the fringe of the wig over her forehead. The deputy shrugged his shoulders.

'It is dear,' he insisted.

'You are not obliged to take it, you know, but if you want a large apartment with a door on the landing, furnished and comfortable, with a fireplace, and everybody minding their own business, that is convenience you will find nowhere else, and if you want all this in the Via del Gambero for less than a hundred and eighty lire, my dear sir, I assure you the thing is impossible. The deputy on the first floor came here four years ago, and was so well suited that he has remained ever since; the deputy on the second story came on the recommendation of a friend, and has already stayed two years. No one ever leaves. The dressmaker on the first floor has ladies of the aristocracy for her customers; there is always a carriage before our door.'

'Yes, I understand, but these things do not interest me.'

'Quite so, sir! But you will come back, you will come back, for you will find nothing as good as this, I am sure; the place was positively made for you!'

And as they went downstairs there ascended a lady wrapped in a fur cape, with a brown veil that went round her hat, head, neck, and chin, under which it was tied in a showy knot. She walked up slowly.

'There is one of the dressmaker's customers,' murmured the porteress. 'She is no doubt going to have a gown fitted.'

But the bell of the dressmaking establishment was not heard to ring, and the Honourable Sangiorgio, casting his eyes upward, perceived that the disguised woman was quietly mounting to the second floor.

In haste to have done with it, he ordered the coachman—for he was still driving—to go to the top of the Capo le Case, a bright, lively, sunny street cutting midway across the Via Due Macelli. An atmosphere of refinement, of aristocratic self-possession wafted thither from the neighbouring Piazza di Spagna, Via Sistina, Via Propaganda, and Via Condotti, the most fashionable part of Rome. No. 128 was situated opposite a shop where English biscuits were sold, and preserves, and liquors, and soaps, a grocery, as the English call it, whence streamed a strong and almost warm smell of spices. Next to it was a florist's shop, full of vases with bulrushes, of reeds, of tree-trunks, with winter roses in the window, a bunch of lilies of the valley in a jar, tender, early flowers. The stairs were marble, clean, and lit from above by a window in the roof. Three doors fronted on each landing; they were of light wood, of varnished maple, with shining brass knobs for knockers. A servant in undress livery opened the door immediately, and ushered the Honourable Sangiorgio into a dim parlour, saying that the lady of the house would join him in a moment. The Honourable felt a soft carpet under foot, and sat down, fingering the low, pliant lounge. In the half-darkness he distinguished a table covered with a gold plush cloth, on it a Japanese ash-tray and a vase of Venetian glass. But a light footfall was heard, and the woman of the house entered. She was tall, not stout, but with a full figure; with a head of chestnut hair neatly dressed, frizzed by curling-irons, and adorned by tortoiseshell combs; with a plain, black gown of a soft material, and a high, white linen collar buttoned by a gold horseshoe stud.

'Will you oblige me?' she said.

They went out together upon the landing, and now he observed the opaque pallor of the ivory face of a woman in the thirties, and her fathomless, turbid, coal-black eyes, with something claustral in their depths. Her fair, plump hand closed caressingly on the key. The apartment was small, but bright and cheerful, as if it were in the sunlight of the open country. The parlour furniture was a gray and pink chintz, very agreeable to the eye; the mirror was oval, with a ledge of carved wood; a long, low sofa stood near the bay-window, hung with close, embroidered muslin curtains, which, draped in heavy folds and without cords, dragged on the floor. A great array of photographs were queerly disposed on the wall, as if they had been thrown at it at haphazard; on a tiny writing-desk stood a red plush photograph frame without a picture. The bedroom had pale-blue, satin-plush furniture, with a similar counterpane on the bed, which was spread with a wide lace coverlet; the toilet-table was fitted out in white fancy muslin, embellished with bows of blue ribbon; the wardrobe had a mirror door, and at the windows, besides the soft curtains dragging on the floor, were little screens behind the panes, of light-blue, wavy silk.

'There is a dressing-room, too,' murmured the lady, without smiling.

'No, I will not trouble you,' interposed the other.

'No, no, I want you to see it; it is important; it has a door opening on the stairs.'

The mistress, with her rather fleshy, rather pasty face, resembling some of the old Roman heads, opened another door, which fronted on the landing; this was the third door, so that this apartment of two rooms and a half had two free entrances.

'It is a very convenient house,' she suggested demurely, inspecting a hand, and smoothing it to make it whiter. In her black dress, with its statuesque folds, and with the pale, calm Roman matron's countenance, she imposed respect. The Honourable Sangiorgio spoke to her as to a lady of high station.

'The apartment is rather too luxurious for me,' he said. 'I like it very much, but my requirements are very plain.'

'Indeed!' she remarked, as if she did not quite believe him, in a lightly courteous tone.

'Yes, I assure you I am something of a savage,' continued Sangiorgio frankly. 'I want a quiet place for my work, and nothing more. I spend much time at the Parliament. Here—it is a little feminine, it seems to me,' he added smilingly.

'Yes, there was a Russian lady here last year; she was called away, and had to leave.' And she stopped, without vouchsafing further explanations.

'And—the price?' asked the deputy, after a moment's hesitation.

'Two hundred and fifty lire a month,' replied the lady placidly, straightening the horseshoe collar-stud.

'Ah! And service and gas included?' the Honourable Sangiorgio inquired, with genteel curiosity.

'You would have to come to an understanding with Teresa, my maid.'

'To be sure—to be sure,' murmured the other, as if in apology.

The pale-faced woman with the deep black eyes, which were so full of liquid, nun-like melancholy, accompanied the deputy back to the door, without even asking him whether he intended to engage the apartment, took leave of him with a smile—her first—and did not shake hands with him.

He now felt exhausted, overcome with a deadly lassitude; the November sun stung him like the burning rays of August, and the air weighed heavily upon him. Surely there must have been some faint but effective perfume in that Capo le Case house, of the kind which first excites the nerves and then brings a state of languor. Perhaps the perfume had been worn by the lady who was so pallid, so severe, with the imposing claustral mien of a high-born Abbess, in her black gown and white collar. While idly walking along the Via Mercede, he drew a picture in his mind of the pink and gray parlour, so sweet in its simplicity, of the blue room all veiled with white, of the double curtains floating and billowy, with their suggestion of privacy, of the retreat ensconced high up, away from the world. All that furniture—the lounge upon which the Russian lady must have reposed, to dream the dreams of a whimsical foreigner; that minute table, on which she had written her letters; that dressing-table, before which she had bedecked herself—that whole female domain presented itself to him. But most of all was he interested in that red frame containing no portrait, as though it had been carried off in haste by a bustling traveller. He was unable to imagine this Russian lady's face, and in the empty place which his fancy failed to fill up he always would find the white oval, like an ivory carnation, of the other woman, with the gentle waves of chestnut hair surrounding her face.

Unconsciously he had entered the Aragno cafÉ, and in the last, small, solitary room he had bespoken a glass of cognac, to relieve him of his depression. The Capo le Case lady again appeared to him, but in less precise shape; all the more clearly, on the other hand, did he picture the woman in the fur cloak whom he had met on the staircase in the Via del Gambero. He had observed her arched, alert foot, daintily poised on a step close to the iron railing, and he wanted to know where she had intended to go, because, startled at meeting him, she had pretended to knock at the tailoress's door, and had then proceeded further up, her head down, and the lower part of her face immersed in the heavy, brown veil. The porteress, certainly, must know her; yes, she must know her quite well, that porteress with the flaccid countenance and the hideous eyes; there was cunning in her insinuating language. Who knows? She must have been handsome, the porteress with the horrible wig—perhaps also genteel; she must have a curious history, and he had not given her time to talk, as she had desired to. Signora Virginia, however, had told him a considerable portion of her history, but what sort of wife was she who read novels while her husband cooked dumplings in the kitchen? And from his depression he gradually revived, harbouring a growing interest for all those feminine puzzles: the vision of the Russian lady, that mysterious person of the Via Capo le Case; the visitor of the Via del Gambero and her secret; the porteress's behaviour; the singular confusion manifested in Signora Virginia's verbosity. He would have liked to know, understand, appreciate all this furtive femininity, that eluded him, that was hid from his curiosity; and from this his detailed consideration, from this analytical review of women seen and women fancied, a desire arose which had up till then been latent: a certain figure displaced all the rest, excluded them, and appeared before him, tall, lithe, black-gowned, placid and pink behind a black veil, walking slowly, with measured step and steady gaze—the wife of His Excellency. Where might she have been going at that hour—where was His Excellency's wife going?

Just then, outside in the street, the large, full-bodied Duke di Bonito was passing by, the popular Neapolitan deputy, his face slashed across with a sabre-cut; rolling upon his legs as he walked, he resembled a clumsy merchant vessel, one of those black, flat ships that run into the little ports of Torregreco and Granatello, and into Portici, to unload coal and take in cargoes of macaroni. Beside him was his faithful friend, the deputy Pietraroia, with a calm face and a violent disposition—a man of quiet voice and impassioned language, who for months and months would sit silent in the Chamber, and then, one day, would break out with Southern ardour, astonishing everybody. The Honourable Sangiorgio looked after them for a minute; they were returning from breakfast, and on the pavement they met the third of the Neapolitan trinity, the Honourable Piccirillo, with a fair, flowing beard, with small blue eyes, the lord of the turbulent popular district of Naples. And then a lively conversation ensued on the pavement. The Honourable Piccirillo narrated something important and authentic, gesticulating, making signs with his hand injured in a duel with the Honourable Dalma, tugging at an overcoat button of the Duke of Bonito, who giggled and sniggered incredulously, ironically, with the cold scepticism of a man who has seen life; and meanwhile the Honourable Pietraroia was listening composedly, as he daintily twisted his moustache. Opposite Sangiorgio, huddled up behind a small table, with his shrunken legs and his wizened baby-face, the Honourable Scabzi, the working-man delegate, the only one in Parliament, whom Milan had elected, was modestly breakfasting on a cup of coffee and a roll.

Francesco Sangiorgio, once more in his usual sphere, and his thoughts running in a more serious channel of reflection, felt suddenly reinvigorate, as if free from the burden of indolence which had been weighing upon him that morning. All those women whom he had seen, with whom he had spoken, had infused a sort of debility into his veins, had debased his spirit to an inclination for triviality, and had upset his mind with absurd and futile dreams. By a natural reaction he recovered his balance, and with his normal sense came clear reasoning, discerning logic, which penetrated and explained what had been obscure before. He now understood what all these furnished houses were, these furnished apartments, these furnished rooms, which have their being and flourish all over Rome, vegetating almost abundantly enough to stifle it; and the meaning dawned upon him of all this strange mixture of middle-class females, of tailoresses, porteresses, servants, and shopkeepers, who find the letting of rooms the easiest and surest profit; and he saw 'twixt the seeker for rooms and all these women the compulsory association, the communication of doors open or closed, the half-cohabitation, the meetings in the morning, at night, at dangerous hours of the daytime—a female control beginning in the house, extending to the laundry, then to the clothes, then to the books, then to the letters of the tenants, and at length by devious ways reaching himself. He felt how much there was of the dramatic, of the comical, of passion, and of vice, in all this system of 'free entrance,' of apartments with two doors, of courtyards with two openings, of locks with double springs, in all this doubling, in this phantasmagoria of closed doors, of clashing bolts, of bells that did not ring, of female shoes that did not creak, of close women's veils and hermetically-sealed cloaks. And the great equivocacy of Roman life, so decorous and impassive in appearance, so restless, passionate, burning in reality, was now manifest to him—in one of its aspects.

And in his vague, instinctive dread of this female omnipresence and omniprevalence, in his fierce thirst for solitude and independence, he took the lodgings in the Via Angelo Custode, where there were no women.

CHAPTER V

Another walk from the corner of the Piazza Sciarra to the Piazza San Carlo, all the way by the Corso—the Corso on a festal day, with all the shops shut and the street empty between the unfrequented hours of two and three, on a winter's afternoon. In the Piazza Colonna, Ronzi and Singer, pastrycooks, were open, but not a soul was in the shop. In the window but a few boxes of sweetmeats were left, and the glass showcases on the marble counter were depleted of pastry. The newspaper kiosk by the fountain was closed. From Montecitorio a broad ray of pale sunlight fell on the front of the Chigi Palace; an occasional hackney coach turned in from the Via Berghmaschi, grazed the dark Antonine Column, and slowly wandered into the Via di Cacciabove. Through its closed glass doors one might look into the Parliament cafÉ, low-vaulted and dingy, like a dark, shadowy crypt; there was no one inside. Opposite Morteo's, the liquor-seller's, two very young journalists were gossiping, their hands in their pockets, yawning, and bearing the expression of persons mortally bored. Four or five other youths were drinking vermouth behind the spacious windows of the Aragno cafÉ, and were reading a sheaf of pink papers—an obscure literary journal. And then there was the whole length of the Corso, with a few rare pedestrians and a few gentlemen, who, after issuing from their houses, immediately entered their closed carriages, which shot off like arrows. A mild winter sirocco tempered and enlanguored the air; on that Friday, on that Christmas Day, at that afternoon hour, the life of Rome seemed suddenly suspended. The whole of that central district of the city, that stretch of the Corso which is always feverishly astir, with its four squares, the Sciarra, the Montecitorio, the Colonna, and the San Carlo, with its overflowing cafÉs, its handsome shops, its crowded pavements—it all seemed plunged into a sudden stupor on that happy, holy day, in that balmy weather. In his contact with the feverish, workaday world, Sangiorgio felt the strange excitement of it without participating in its activity. And now this emptiness, this drowsiness, this peaceful Christmas—which in the smallest provincial village is celebrated with gleeful shouts and discharges of gunpowder—had filled him with amazement, as many things had in this wonderful Rome, always so new, always so surprising. He had been walking back and forth for an hour after his mid-day meal, subsequent to perusing the three or four newspapers published in the morning, which chiefly contained sentimental Christmas rhapsodies; he had met no one, not even a familiar face—for friends he had none—not even any of the faces he was wont to meet. Everyone who had been able to go away to celebrate Christmas in his part of the country, with his own family, had departed—deputies, senators, students, clerks, and officials. And all who had remained apathetically shut themselves up at home in their plebeian or aristocratic way, since the Roman neither seeks nor expects chances. Francesco Sangiorgio had foreseen that he would be very lonely, isolated, lost in the midst of a merry-making, giddy throng; instead, Rome, to his surprise, had the great solemn silence of a dead city.

Turning about for the fourth time, as he was bitterly regretting that he had not gone to spend Christmas with his old parents in that poor, humble, and respectable Basilicata, he saw issuing from the Via Convertite, into the Corso, a body of forty or fifty men marching in procession, with a tricoloured banner at their head. In front went four or five men in overcoats and low-crowned hats; they walked along very gravely, and looked as though they were measuring their steps. The standard-bearer wore a leather belt over his outside coat, with a metal ring near the buckle to steady the flag, while a shining, tall silk hat was set rakishly over his ear. Then came a number of old men in soft felt hats and shaggy, worn overcoats quite out of date. Some had three medals, others four; a few stooped; one was lame, and dragged himself along laboriously with the aid of a stick. They were veterans who had survived the battles of 1848 and 1849. A few young men, much under thirty, had joined them. At the tail of the procession came two mock guards, of doubtful physiognomy, brown, shining skin, mottled moustaches, wearing jackets and low hats set on the side of the head, and walking in military style, with bamboo canes under their armpits. The waiters in the Aragno cafÉ paid no heed whatever to the procession, being accustomed to such sights; on the pavement a few people were standing still, in an absent-minded manner. The two journalists talked for a moment in front of Morteo's, and then one came to a decision, separated from the other, shrugged his shoulders, and went with the veterans and the rest, with the disdainful air of an idler.

Francesco Sangiorgio did not fall in behind them, but followed the procession along the pavement, and kept pace with it. Some people joined it on the line of march, at the Orfanelli and the Pastini. At the Piazza Rotonda, opposite the Pantheon, where the great King lay at rest, the banner was lowered, the veterans baring their heads. The procession then wended its way through some of the obscure, narrow streets of old Rome, stringing, winding along those lanes where only four can walk abreast. And everywhere reigned the deep silence of closed shops, closed windows, deserted alleys, a great festal peace which left the streets empty, which kept all the Christmas rejoicings within the walls of the houses. Now and then the standard would waver, but quickly its bearer would adjust it in the ring with an energetic jerk.

A brief halt was made at the Sistine Bridge. Here there was some slight stir; on both the broad pavements a number of people were standing, looking at the river, which was flaxen fair under the wan, wintry sky; carriages went by at a trot, drawing up sharply at the abrupt curve of the bridge. All about, at the beginning of the Via Giulia, towards the Piazza Farnese, and down below towards the Politeama, extensive building renovations were in progress—piles of stones, bricks, and masonry, walls of houses in course of demolition, little white lakes of hardened lime, masons' barrows handles up, high wooden scaffoldings on which advertisements were affixed; high and low, right and left, more demolition; and then there was part of a street already paved, and some of the work begun upon the embanking of the Tiber. The sirocco was driving the clouds in the direction of the Via Farnesina, and the yellow floods shimmered gaily. An immense black raft split the river in two; it was stationary, for the purpose of the work being done, and it looked like some engine of war. Here, too, peace prevailed, like a cessation of life, like a sleep in the mild winter afternoon.

Sangiorgio went on with toilsome step, and, raising himself on his toes, saw the banner of the company emerge into Trastevere. Again began the silent threading of the lanes in that remote suburb; a few of the populace, in holiday clothes, swelled the procession, which now consisted of about a hundred persons. At the corner of a little street, suddenly, under an unforeseen burst of light, they found themselves in a broad avenue. At one hand, beyond a low parapet, lay Rome; on the other rose a green ridge—the Janiculum; halfway between the Academy of Spain was visible, about which wound the rising avenue. Three or four times the company was obliged to divide, to let a carriage pass that was trotting swiftly up the slope, noiselessly, on the sand; a female face would appear and vanish behind the panes. At a certain point in the bend of the road, near the Villa Sciarra, between two aristocratic lines of flourishing century plants and young poplars, a gentleman who was standing still called out: 'Honourable Sangiorgio!'

Sangiorgio started, turned round, and perceived the Honourable Giustini, a Tuscan deputy, with whom he had spoken three or four times, as they were neighbours on the last bench of their section, in the Right Centre. He went up to him.

'Are you following the procession, colleague?' asked Giustini in a voice tinged with irony and weariness.

'Merely as an idler. And you?'

'I am watching it march, as a spectator. It is much the same thing.'

The Tuscan pronounced the letter c very hard, and spoke without looking his interlocutor in the face. He tossed his head once or twice, as if in contempt. They walked together by tacit accord.

The Honourable Giustini was neither lame, nor hip-shot, nor deformed, but his legs draggled, one of his shoulders was higher than the other, his neck was shrunk, like a turtle's, his arms and hands dangled at his side as if he did not know what to do with them. He had an earthy face, a pair of light, pale eyes, and a thin, tawny beard, cleft at the chin. His make-up was that of a man completely worn out—one afflicted with physical and moral rickets.

'These processions,' said he, 'these promenades with flags, these wreaths laid down on stones—they are all the same. I have seen a thousand of them, and have taken part in some. When one has been young and has been a law student, how can one help having taken part in processions?'

'I did, too, at the University,' replied Sangiorgio.

'Who believes in such rubbish?' resumed the Honourable Giustini, with an energetic shrug of the shoulders. 'One must be twenty or sixty—the ages at which one is silly.'

'Do not speak against youth,' answered Sangiorgio, exhibiting a faint smile.

'Yes, yes—youth, love, death—the three things sung by Leopardi. He really only sang of two, but the other stands behind them. All Southerners are Leopardists, are they not? Well, and what a famous bore that Leopardi is! He had a hump, and he made it an excuse to write verses and tire people. I am half humpbacked, too, but I write no verses, by God! And neither do I bore my colleagues in the Chamber by making speeches.'

'True, you have not made a speech since the opening of the session.'

'And my colleagues have not the good grace to pay me back in the same coin. What a collection of hopeless babblers, what a lot of superfluous verbiage, what an amount of wasted breath!'

His respiration came slowly; his dull glance filtered through half-closed lids. Sangiorgio listened and looked at him, allowing him to talk without arguing, continuing the silent study of men and things he had been pursuing in Rome for two months, which was to constitute so much of his strength. Walking leisurely, they had reached another corner of the avenue. At the square a great panorama was now offered—another view of Rome from a semicircular terrace. They were up near the Academy of Spain. Opposite the great gate several carriages were waiting, one of them a Cardinal's; the beardless groom, without a hair on his face, like a priest, dressed in black, was walking up and down. The procession went on upward towards the Acqua Paola—a noisy, singing fountain. The foot-passengers stopped to watch it pass. A tall, lean gentleman, with a fair, grizzled beard, standing by the hedge, exchanged greetings with the veterans as they marched by.

'That man would like to believe in the modern spirit, and cannot,' again began Giustini's ill-natured voice. 'He is a fine man, yes, he is, that man over there in the tall hat, Giorgio Serra. A handsome type, too—an apostle, a poet—but secretly, no doubt, he is full of disillusionment. He is a man of good faith, he is—one of the few democrats I like. Otherwise, in his artistic tastes he is an aristocrat; he loves the people because he has a good, affectionate heart, and cannot help loving somebody, although vulgarity he hates. You will see him go up to the Janiculum for the commemoration, but he will not give an address; he is as delicate as a woman in some things. We shall pass him in a moment; he will give me a cool bow, since he hates the Centre in the Chamber. And he is right: nothing is more hateful than the Centre, to which we have the honour of belonging, honourable colleague.'

'And why do you belong to it, Honourable Giustini?'

'Oh, I!' exclaimed the other, with a gesture denoting callous indifference.

The water was falling noisily into the ample basin from three spouts; two maid-servants were sitting on the edge and talking; a German priest was looking at Castel Sant' Angelo from a terrace, and at the river, and at the straight Via Longara, down below in Trastevere, under the Villa Corsini. The procession was moving into the Via Garibaldi; at the rear went Giorgio Serra, surveying the Roman Campagna and landscape with amorous glances. The two deputies had hastened their gait, but were occasionally obliged to stand still because of the fashionable carriages.

'Are all these ladies going to the commemoration?' asked Sangiorgio.

'Yes, they are,' sneered Giustini. 'But they are not aware there is to be a commemoration. They are bound for the Villa Pamphily for a drive; it is Friday and the weather is fine, and then, one might add, there is the great Roman sirocco, which takes away the appetite, creates a desire for sleep, weakens the fibres, and undermines the will. And, by the way, the women know what to do then, they do.'

'Bah!' said Sangiorgio, with a gesture of contempt for the female sex. Giustini gave him a long look, as if to appraise him mentally, but asked him no questions. They passed the Porta San Pancrazio. The Via della Mura ran down, narrow and crooked, towards the Valle dell' Inferno and the Vatican on the right, and the Villa Pamphily on the left. Before a tavern stood erect and impassive two carabineers; then came a road with a hedge separating it, on the left, from the open country; at the right was a high, gray, crusty wall. At a salient spot was a little, worm-eaten, wooden gate, on which was inscribed the name of the farm and house behind the wall—'Il Vascello.' That glorious name was enough—superfluous was the monument on the wall, superfluous were the dry wreaths rotted by the rain—the name was enough.

The procession had formed a group under the memorial-stone, leaving a free space for the carriages rolling towards the Villa Pamphily; the carabineers had drawn near. The old veterans were all gathered about the flag, and stood silent and thoughtful; the deputies held somewhat aloof, Giustini with a hideous grimace of boredom, Sangiorgio in an observing mood prompted by curiosity. A workman climbed up a ladder leaning against the wall, took the old wreaths, threw them away, brushed off the monument with his elbow, and hung the fresh wreath upon it: he was applauded from beneath. From the top of the wall a peasant, the guardian of the place, with one of the sallow, melancholy faces of the Roman peasantry, looked on indifferently. Then a man got up, for the purpose of making a speech, on the seat of a single-horsed hackney coach standing by the wall. The students greeted him with a cheer.

He was a very fair, stout young man, with little, languid blue eyes, with a little, pointed moustache, with hands white and plump like a woman's, with long, pink nails and a diamond ring on his fourth finger. He was dressed in the dandified fashion of a hairdresser, had an open, fresh face, full of the joy of living, while his eyes rolled about with sheer happiness. He waited for the cheering to subside before he began to speak, and made a sign with his hand for it to cease. They all crowded about him to listen—veterans, students, workmen, carabineers, and guards.

The young man, in a thin but well-modulated drawing-room tenor voice, with well-calculated pauses, turning about his head with the deliberation of a coquettish girl, explained with dignity why and wherefore, after the commemoration in April, another was taking place in December. And then he at once launched into a description of the siege of Rome, as though he had been present; the veterans bowed their heads before this elegant youth—they, who had been there. He had an easy but slow delivery; at one time he seemed to warm, and took a fling at the priesthood, at the Vatican, of which, as he leant against the wall to his left, he spoke with ambiguity, and in the manner of a young actor, rolling his r's. The few veterans, abstracted and preoccupied, were paying attention no longer, wrapped as they were in memories of the sacred hill where they had fought for their country's redemption, where their companions-in-arms had fallen with contorted faces and breasts pierced by the bullets of the Vincennes Sharpshooters. Now and then one of them would mumble a few words, as he called to mind some episode, his brow bent, his hands pressing on the pommel of his cane.

'During the night they heard the Frenchmen merrily chatting in their tents——'

'Do you remember Garibaldi's negro, who died after his shoulder was broken by a splinter from a French bomb?'

'How magnificent Colonel Manara was——'

'Handsome and brave——'

The young man concluded by apostrophizing the Seven Hills of Rome, with Roman history interlarded. His friends, the students, crowded still more closely round the hackney carriage, shaking hands with him, applauding him with acclaim. And he bowed to them, all affability, all smiles, lavishing handshakes, intermittently applying to his white forehead a tiny cambric handkerchief, bordered with black, scented with hay. The working men and the common people remained unconvinced and unmoved, with that sarcastic Roman smile which few things can dislodge. A voice was heard:

'Serra! Serra! Where is Serra? Let Giorgio Serra speak!'

But Serra did not answer. Mayhap he was hiding modestly in the crowd. And the crowd began to look about, as if making a choice.

'Serra! Serra!' was repeated, the name evoking the picture of that fine head of a poet and an artist.

But Serra was not there. Possibly the gentle dreamer, whom all realities repelled, had made his way back to that Rome he loved so well, or, more likely, skirting the big hedge abloom with hawthorn and wild roses, had betaken himself to the broad, silent avenues of the Villa Pamphily, to resume his dear illusions amid the rural green, to quaff them again from the inspiring loveliness of Nature.

'I knew it,' whispered Giustini to Sangiorgio. 'I knew Serra would disappear. He hates oratory.'

'He is wrong; oratory is power,' replied Sangiorgio.

A second time the Tuscan deputy scrutinized the deputy from the South, with slight surprise betokened in his face. These two were not mutually attracted by esteem, sympathy, or any other interest; there was nothing but the curiosity, the desire to know each other mixed with a sense of diffidence, of two adepts at fencing who place themselves in guard and are unwilling to hazard an open assault. All round them the crowd was slowly dispersing; the standard-bearer had departed, the veterans had disbanded, and were wending their downward way in groups of two and three, with stooping backs in rough overcoats, and legs somewhat uncertain. Occasionally one of them would stop to give a last look at the Vascello.

The youthful orator had descended from the carriage with a jump, and had joined his student friends; he had picked a rose from the hedge, and put it in his buttonhole; starting towards Rome with four or five others in a row, he held his black whalebone stick under his arm, while he daintily drew on a glove. A number of the workmen had repaired to the tavern, and, seated about a rude table on a platform, were drinking that light, yellow wine which savours of sulphur. Ten minutes had elapsed, and not a soul remained under the monument to the victims of 1848; in its solitariness the Vascello preserved its appearance of a house dismantled with only its walls left standing. On the high wall enclosing the farm the peasant was left alone: with his head leaning on his closed fist he was impassively looking down.

The two deputies had come down to the little open space near the great fountain of Paul III., and were progressing slowly. A suspicion of crepuscular dampness was filtering through the breeze, or rather the tepid breeze of daytime was changing into the moist breeze which invades the city at nightfall. The fashionable carriages were descending from the Villa Pamphily, and driving towards Rome. Leaning on the parapet of the terrace which overlooks the town, the two members of Parliament glanced at the passing carriages. Two or three times Giustini bowed abruptly and curtly, like a man little given to gallantry, and soon after said as if soliloquizing:

'The Baldassarri, a Bolognese Countess—handsome woman—wife of an old senator. She is a lunatic I no longer visit—has a mania for poets. She always has a varied collection of them, one a barbarian, another a sentimentalist, another a naturalist. Those who write sonnets for weddings are received with a certain degree of favour. She is the woman about whom the most verses and the most insinuations are made. Over there is the Gagliarda, a Baroness, stupid, commonplace, underhanded, and bad. She is always secretly planning to upset the Ministry. After it has fallen, through some other agency, she wears a triumphant look. She is so cruel that she visits the Ministers' wives the day their husbands have been defeated. Otherwise she pushes young deputies forward, or thinks she does. Deluded unfortunates pay court to her; she is an important woman. In her drawing-room the tea is insipid, but the gossip is spicy.'

'Do you go there?'

'No, not now. Do I look like a young deputy?—Ah, there is His Excellency's wife!'

Both men bowed profoundly. The lady responded serenely and gently by an inclination of the head behind the carriage window. Sangiorgio said nothing, but with slight inward trepidation awaited and feared a sarcastic remark from Tullio Giustini.

'Fine woman, His Excellency's wife,' muttered the Tuscan deputy—'too beautiful and too young for him! Nevertheless, she is faithful to him; nobody knows why. Her women friends hate her cordially, but it is the fashion to be her admirer.'

'Do you go there?' asked Sangiorgio.

'No, I am too Ministerial.'

'What does that matter?'

'What should I be doing there? I am a convert, and none but the doubtful are noticed. And then I should join the Opposition if I frequented that house. It rouses my ire too much to see a lean, withered husband, cross-grained and irritable through his political life, appropriate a young wife; and then—and then—Donna Angelica is too kind: she would spoil me.'

'Donna Angelica?' repeated Sangiorgio beneath his breath.

But Giustini did not hear him. He had taken his hat off again to a brougham that passed. This time the carriage stopped; a slender hand gloved in black let down the window, and beckoned to the Tuscan deputy. Sangiorgio remained alone in contemplation of his companion, who, with his body leaning against the door and his head inside the carriage, seemed to be indulging in a chat. In a little while Giustini came back to Sangiorgio, and said to him:

'Come, I will present you to the Countess Fiammanti.'

Sangiorgio had no time to demur or even to reply; he at once found himself beside the carriage.

'Countess, the Honourable Sangiorgio, member for Tito, a Southerner and a newcomer.'

The Countess's fine gray eyes lit up mischievously; her mobile mouth stretched to a smile.

'I asked Giustini to present you, after hearing you were from the South. How unpleasant Rome must seem to you, Honourable! Oh, Naples is so lovely, I adore it! My husband was a Neapolitan. From him I learned to love Naples and everything there. How smooth the speech is, and how agreeable compared to the ugly Tuscan accent, Giustini!'

'Is that the reason, Countess, that you never let me speak when I begin to——'

'Make love to me? No, my dear Giustini, I like you too well to let you. Love is an old, played-out farce, which nobody any longer laughs at. Honourable Sangiorgio, you must think we are very frivolous, do you not? We know how to be serious, for example, when Giustini tells me about politics. I am greatly interested in politics; they amuse me. And you?'

'They are the only thing that interest me,' said Sangiorgio rather rudely.

'Oh, they amuse me so much!' exclaimed the lady, without showing that she had noticed his discourtesy.

'To get amusement from a thing, one must not be too much in love with it,' murmured Sangiorgio, but with so much expression that the handsome Countess, who emitted a strong odour of violets, rested her eyes upon him for a moment.

'Well then, Giustini, in a few hours—is it agreed? Honourable Sangiorgio, I am at home every odd evening, the third, the fifth, the seventh, and so on. I will not force you to drink tea. I allow smoking. I sing passably. No other women come. Au revoir, gentlemen!' and hardly had they moved on when the carriage was speeding in the direction of Rome.

'Who is that lady?' Sangiorgio inquired.

'Why does that concern you? Do you not like her?'

'Yes, I like her.'

'Well—go there this evening; you will enjoy yourself. She is fascinating, not beautiful. Some evenings she is irresistible. She sings excellently. At times, though not often, she is witty. She talks too much. But she is a good girl.'

'What sort of woman is she?' persisted Sangiorgio.

'How can I tell?' And Giustini shrugged his shoulders. 'I have not succeeded in becoming her lover. Perhaps that might depend on one's accent.'

'And her name is——'

'Donna Elena Fiammanti.'

They had arrived at the square in front of the Academy of Spain, deserted in the rapidly darkening winter's evening.

'Look at Rome!' said Giustini, now at the parapet of the terrace. 'Have you ever seen it all at once, like this?'

'No, never.'

'Rome is great, very great,' whispered the Tuscan deputy, with a strain of melancholy in his voice.

'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 the theatre, 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 word Philistine, which expresses their contempt for the public. In the whiteness over there, on the other side, are the new 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 adjective Roman to 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 is the 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.