The Minister had been speaking for an hour. He was no orator: he lacked fire and polish. Rather was he a modest speaker, one who did not strive after effects in political eloquence, and who said things concisely, in the logical, mathematical order in which they presented themselves to a square, solid brain. The discourse, as was natural, bristled with figures, was an interminable procession of numbers. He uttered them with a certain deliberation, as if he wanted them weighed by friends and foes. His voice was too gentle, too familiar, perhaps, but was plainly audible in the silence. He might have been taking part in a Cabinet Council; the Parliamentary pitch of voice was altogether absent. The Minister stopped occasionally to wipe his nose on a large silk handkerchief, checked in red and black. As a matter of fact, in that short, stout little person plainly dressed in black, in that placid face, shaved on the lips and chin, but flanked with whiskers at the side in English fashion, in those plump, white hands, in the whole atmosphere of repose and thoughtfulness which he exhaled, one might divine the indefatigable workman of the study, the man who spent twelve hours a day at the Ministerial offices, behind a desk covered with documents—writing, reading, verifying registers, advising with heads of departments, with general directors. Thus, the Minister, the man of meditation, seemed out of place in debate with the members; and in announcing the most important facts, in rendering matters exact and profound, he spoke with the easy simplicity of a scientist setting forth his vast learning in popular language.

The Chamber sat still out of respect, but as a fact the members were inattentive. They were so sure of him and his adherents! He was strong, he was such an iron, massive, luminous tower of strength that the anger of political slander or debate left him unmoved. His very adversaries admitted his power, and thus contributed to render his triumphs all the more sweeping. By listening to him intently one might succeed in understanding how he stood outside the political passion, and was all absorbed in his love of finance.

The atmosphere of the hall conduced to a certain vague, inactive contemplativeness. While out of doors—it being the middle of January—a dry, whistling, cutting north wind was blowing, as was wont to happen on one of the three cold days of a Roman winter, inside the hall the stoves sent out a perpetual stream of heat. Tightly closed, without windows, with gallery doors rarely opening—doors that shut quickly, noiselessly, as though hinged on velvet—with the matting that deadened every footstep, the hall suggested physical comfort. Nevertheless, the Speaker, a fine man of fifty, with swarthy face and hair still black as jet, had his legs covered with a blue velvet wrap lined with fur; and as he listened to the Minister, he would cast an occasional glance at the galleries, possibly seeking out someone. The secretaries sat motionless to his right and left. Falucci, the Abruzzan, tall and muscular, with a curly, slightly grizzled mane, was whispering frequent sentences to handsome Sangarzia, who nodded without answering, accustomed as he was to protracted, patient silence; Varrini, the agreeable and intelligent Calabrian, with the muzzle of a sagacious mouse, with the refinement of a young lady covering the power of a champion, was writing letters; and Bulgaro, the Neapolitan, was making the seat creak which bore his enormous frame, his embrowned visage showing traces of an almost childish fretfulness. There was not, as on other days of minor debates, a string of deputies coming to chat with the Speaker on his bench, exchanging jokes with the secretaries, and going down on the other side, after which there might be a stroll outside, a moment's prattle at intervals in the room of the Lost Footsteps, in which fashion the sitting went by. For to-day the Minister was expounding a very serious question; both Ministerialists and Opposition must listen.

The Right, nearly all of them old members of eight Parliaments, heard without paying attention, knowing their opponent to be invincible, and thus they bore the air of veterans, faithful at their posts, neither suffering nor enjoying. The Extreme Left paid no heed whatever, but did not disturb the speech; that party disdained questions of the economic-administrative order, having made no study of finance, and now awaited some political argument, which would be an opportunity to stir up a little excitement. One of the small phalanx of Hubertists was asleep, his face politely covered by his hands; another deputy, Gagliardi, was sleeping without attempt at concealment. Only on one of the Centrist benches was any sincere attention paid, like that of eager scholars to their master's explanations. Of these deputies there were four—young, clever, and aspiring. Seymour, of English descent, dark, myopic, and well-mannered, was taking notes on paper; beside him was Marchetti, with the Nazarene beard; Gerini, a taciturn Florentine, with long, fair, flowing beard, was passing memoranda to Joanna, the Southerner of the handsome, thoughtful, studious head. But the whole Chamber, Speaker, secretaries, committee-men, members, were under the soft influence of that warm air, that closed place, that silence broken only by the tranquil voice of the Minister.

The galleries were crowded—a strange circumstance on a day given up to financial discussion. But no doubt the cold had driven in from the streets those ladies sitting upstairs with their capes open, their hands stuffed into their muffs, their faces pink from the warmth of the hall. They were quite happy to remain there, though they understood not a word; the voice of the speaker fell on their ears like a hum, while they shivered at the thought of returning out of doors, where the north wind was blowing, making one's eyes water and one's nose turn red. The public gallery, too, was full of people: pale, jaded faces of do-nothings, wretched figures of petitioners who had spent the day in looking for a cousin of a deputy's friend, and who at last, demoralized and trembling with cold, had come to finish in the Chamber, in the public gallery, where they listened without a wink. The long press gallery was also more crowded than usual, and the occupants of the first row were pretending to write a summary of the proceedings. But one was inditing a letter, another a theatrical article, another was sketching a fantastic profile of Depretis, and another still was practising the art of calligraphy, writing his own name with large flourishes. The Opposition journalists had already prepared a mild, platonic attack, the Government writers having extolled the Minister's financial report for the last ten days; all of them were quite unruffled. Only Gennaro Casale, in the Government's employ, a violent Neapolitan journalist, and an enemy of all Governments whatsoever, grew excited, and exclaimed from the rear of the gallery:

'Gentlemen, this balancing is a Ministerial shuffle!'

Up in the diplomatic gallery, leaning against the blue velvet balustrade, was to be seen the slender figure of the Countess Beatrice di Santaninfa, with the large, deep, soft eyes, who was not listening, but was absorbed in thought.

When, at half-past four, the Minister had ended his speech, members old and young nodded their heads in a general rustle of approval and admiration. He restored his papers to his big portfolio without a tremor in his fingers, without a shade of colour changing in his countenance. Then a group of friends, ardent and lukewarm, gathered about him to shake hands with him and congratulate him. Even an ex-Minister of Finance came down from the benches of the Right to compliment the fat little Minister with the hard head. Some disorder occurred, and a little noise. Then the voice of the Speaker was heard, sonorous and distinct:

'Honourable colleagues, I beg for silence. The Honourable Sangiorgio has the floor.'

'Who? Who?' was the universal inquiry.

And again the Speaker was heard:

'I beg for silence. The Honourable Sangiorgio has the privilege of speaking.'

Hereupon the curious eyes of the members sought out that colleague of theirs, whom scarcely anyone knew. He was up there, on the last bench of a section, with the Right Centre. He was standing erect and calm, waiting for his turn to speak. And he stepped out halfway upon the stair so as to be seen better. He was not tall, but up there he looked tall, since his carriage was upright and he had a robust figure. Nor was he handsome, but his head bore all the characteristics of strength; his hair was planted rudely on a low brow, his nose was aquiline, his moustache was dark and dense, his chin was set hard and full of power. No one thought him insignificant. And then divers speculations grew rife in the Chamber. Would this new deputy speak for or against the Minister? Was he one of those flatterers who, scarcely arrived, hastened to make a show of loyalty to the Government? Or was he some little impudent nobody who would stammer through a feeble attack before the House, and be suppressed by the ironical murmurs of the assembly? He was a Southerner and a lawyer—only that was known about him. Therefore he would deliver an oration, the usual rhetoric which the Piedmontese detested, the Milanese derided, and the Tuscans despised.

Instead, the Honourable Sangiorgio began to talk deliberately, but with such a resonant, commanding voice that it filled the hall and made the audience give a sigh of relief. The ladies, whom the warmth had half lulled to sleep, revived, and the press gallery, empty since the conclusion of the Minister's discourse, began to refill with reporters, returning to their places.

The Honourable Sangiorgio opened with an exordium proclaiming respect for the illustrious person at the head of Italy's finances, and his eulogy nowise partook of vulgar adulation, but was tendered in a sober and restrained manner. The speaker alluded in passing to his own youth, to the obscurity of one who, tied down to provincial life, ever had his eyes turned towards Rome, where the noble war of politics was constantly being waged. He extolled politics, declaring them greater than the arts, greater than science: they embraced the whole history of human activity, and to him the statesman was the highest type of man, apostle and labourer, arm and head.

A loud Good! burst forth from the Right.

The Honourable Sangiorgio paused for a short minute, but only for a short minute. His appeal to the sublimity of politics as a kind of high ideal, which was vulgarized in the hands of men, had evoked general approval, and had given several nonentities a sense of elation. The Minister, who from the beginning had raised his head, fixing his pale blue eyes firmly on the speaker, had now dropped it again upon overhearing remarks behind him from men who embarrassed and annoyed him.

Sangiorgio went on to say that those youthful years in the provinces were, however, not without value to anyone who sought to know modern life in all its sufferings and in all its needs. The great cities were all-invading, all-devouring; they fed upon the existence of others; they exhausted vigour, and stifled complaint, and threw the man who lived there into such a fever that he forgot all other human interests. Who knew of the distress of the provinces? Who ever heard the echo of those dolorous, humble sighs, which never could reach Rome? True, that a few stout and good and brave men on occasion informed the Chamber of the grievances of all those fellow-Italians; but such voices were isolated, grew faint, and then were silent. Yet there must not be silence; the truth must be known.

The House was now listening attentively in a less ironical, a kinder attitude of mind. It was a natural reaction from the strain, from the difficulty of comprehension which the preceding speech by the Minister had offered. After a painful tension of two hours and a half in following a fantastic whirl of figures, this easy eloquence relieved the oppressed spirits. And now, in that hour of dusk, so cold and dark outside, so gratefully warm and bright in the hall, the members yielded to a sentimental mood, to a feeling of sympathy and benevolence—what were these wrongs of the provinces, then?

Sangiorgio continued, saying that all the sad experience of his youth among the peasants had rebelled at a seemingly innocent proposal of the Minister's. The Minister had stated that, being obliged to give his colleague of the War Department several millions, there was necessity for further economizing. Very good; economy was the strength of young nations. But instead the Minister had asked for a slight increase of the salt tax. Sangiorgio fully appreciated, he declared, the reasons of State which compelled the Minister to ask for that rise in taxation, but those few centesimi represented a promise of woe made worse, an aggravation of conditions of life already unendurable. And then he drew a vivid picture of peasant poverty, which was so much more distressingly and variously terrible than poverty in the towns, relating, with veridical details, with short, pathetic anecdotes, where the peasants lived, what they ate—that is to say, how hungry they always were—and how the tax-collector appeared in their eyes as the fearful spectre of starvation and death. He described the nakedness of that great Basilicata country, the landslides which rolled down bare mountains to bury meagre pastures, and he spoke of the distance of those wretched villages from the railway, whence the impossibility of paying industries, and he mentioned the unhealthy plains, where engineers, road-makers, and stationmasters contracted malarial fevers.

While talking of his own country, so desolate and so unhappy, his voice had lowered, as though veiled with emotion. But he quickly recovered himself and came to the point. The duty on salt fell heavily on the lower classes—more so in the rural districts than in the urban. They already ate their broth with very little salt; now they would eat it entirely without salt. And the latest hygienic researches, unsparing but reliable, had established that to the insufficiency of salt were to be traced the dreadful diseases prevailing among the peasantry of Lombardy and Piedmont.

A murmur of approval ran along some of the benches. The closest attention of all was paid where the four vigorous young Centrists were sitting, Seymour, Gerini, Joanna, and Marchetti, who nevertheless made no demonstrations, with that British impassiveness of the young economist deputies.

'In the small towns and boroughs and villages of the South of Italy,' Sangiorgio went on, 'the bakers always make two kinds of bread—tasteless and cheap for the poor people, and salted for the well-to-do. And to this second kind the bakers often give its flavour, not with salt, because it is too dear, but by passing a cloth steeped in sea-water over the fresh dough. In the houses of the poor a coarse, dark, heavy-grained salt is used, which ought only to be sold for cattle, but which human beings are obliged to buy for themselves. By increasing the duty the Government would condemn a whole class of taxpayers to intolerable privations, whose consequence would be ravage by sickness and yet deeper destitution. The millions spent on national defence, on the fortifications of the country, on the army, are wisely allotted, but is it necessary to be powerful when one is so poor? When the Minister of War calls the young men of the Basilicata to arms, and hopes to find a body of stalwart and valiant mountaineers, he will be disappointed at seeing a herd of creatures pale and emaciated from illness, weakness, and dejection. Or, rather, not even that, for the barren and unfruitful provinces are becoming more and more depopulated; the peasant, desperate over the sterility of the soil, harried by the fisc, abandoned by Nature, persecuted by man, prefers to turn his back upon the land of his birth and leave it for the remote shores of America. The peasant prefers a foreign people, a foreign clime, whence there is no return. When the war-trumpet shall call the Italian sons of the Basilicata there will be no answer. Driven by hunger and despair, they will have gone away to die in regions far from home!'

The Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio stepped back to his bench and resumed his seat. Cheers and applause sounded upon his ears, but only vaguely. He was conscious of the buzz of discussion which follows upon every important speech. Immediately in front of him had collected a group of deputies who were arguing somewhat loudly, referring now and then to their honourable colleague, Sangiorgio, and half turning towards him, as if seeking endorsement from him. Remaining stolidly in his place, with eyes downcast, and without anyone coming to shake hands with him because he was unknown, Sangiorgio nevertheless felt the approbation of the whole House rise to him where he sat on the topmost bench. He had given satisfaction to the old party of the Right, whose political pride was flattered; to the Extreme Left, who thought to have discovered a Socialist in a deputy belonging to the Centre; to all the egoistic and sentimental members, ready to cry misfortune at all times without seeking for remedies; to all deputies with economist leanings and shadowy notions of agrarian Socialism. This speech, which on another occasion would have passed for some literary effusion, to-day bore a character of great importance.

* * * * *

Once a minute the glass door of the room on the ground-floor at No. 9, Via della Missione, opened to admit a newcomer. Those already in the room, seated on the little divans or standing about, would turn and eye such a one angrily; a cold blast of wind would come in with him. Whoever entered, shaking and shivering, made straight for the long desk dividing the room, took a small blank, and wrote on it his own name, as well as the deputy's he wished to see; and, like him, there were always five or six others writing on small blanks. On the other side of the desk the ushers, in uniform, with medals on their chest, with a tricoloured band on their arm, gray or bald-headed, were moving to and fro, taking away those blanks, half a dozen at a time, disappearing through a door opening upon corridors giving access to the hall. Satisfied with having despatched his request, its sender would begin to walk up and down, or, if he happened to have been standing, would take a seat, without impatience, even with a somewhat presumptuous air of certainty.

The sacred door opened, and an usher reappeared with several blanks in hand; everybody looked up and lent ear.

'Who asked for the Honourable Parodi?' shouted the usher.

'I,' answered a voice from among the number of people waiting.

'He is not there.'

'Did you look carefully?' urgently asked the voice, belonging to an old man with a florid, red nose, with heavy, purple lips.

'The Honourable Parodi is not there,' repeated the usher civilly.

'Well, he ought to be,' muttered the other.

'Who wanted the Honourable Sambucetto?'

'I!' exclaimed a young fellow with a pale face and a threadbare overcoat, whose collar was turned up.

'He is there, but he is unable to come.'

'Why can he not come?' demanded the youngster in an insolent tone, his face now livid.

'He said nothing more. He cannot come.'

The young man mingled with the people who filled the room, but he did not depart; he remained, angry, sullen, his cap pulled down over his eyes, in an altogether unpromising frame of mind. Moreover, all the faces of the people who hurried in and out of that room, or sat against the wall on the divans, all those faces wore an imprint of sadness, of weariness, of repressed suffering. It might have been the anteroom of a celebrated physician, where invalids came, one after another, waiting their turn, looking about with the indifferent gaze of people who have lost all interest in everything else, their thoughts for ever occupied with their malady. And as in such a lugubrious anteroom, which he who has once been there on his own behalf or for one dear to him can never forget, as in such a room are assembled people with all the infirmities that torment our poor, mortal body—the consumptive, with narrow, stooping shoulders, with lean neck, his eyes swimming with a noxious fluid; the victim of heart disease, with pallid face, large veins, yellowish, swollen hands; the anÆmic, with violet lips and white gums; the neurotically affected, with protuberant jaws, bulging cheekbones, emaciated frame; and the sufferers from all other diseases, hideous or pitiful, which draw the lines of the face tight, which make the mouth twitch, and impart an unwelcome glow to the hand, that glow that terrifies the healthy—thus, in such a room, did the possessors of all the moral ills unite, oblivious of all complaints but their own.

There was the youth who had taught in a school without a license, who has come to Rome to take any sort of employment, however mean, and who, after a month's half-hearted, vain search, has at last begged for a servant's place, which is denied him because he is not servile; the ex-clerk of the Bank of Naples or the Bank of Sicily, who was turned out for dishonesty twelve years ago, when the Left was in power, and wants to be reinstated by the Progressists, whom he has always served faithfully; the uncertain industrial speculator, who must pay a heavy fine into the Treasury Department because he has neglected to register a contract, and who hopes the Minister will graciously remit the penalty; the widow of a pensioner, accompanied by a child crying with the cold, who for ten months has been applying for a lottery office, and is willing to surrender the pension; the loafer, who knows how to do everything and is of no use for anything, who positively must have a place, of whatever description, on the ground that, since there are so many fools in the Chamber and the Government offices, he, too, is entitled to share in their paradise.

The variety of their wishes and needs is infinite. Every one of those people has a grievance in his soul, an unfulfilled desire, an active, torturing delusion, a secret sorrow, a fierce ambition, a discontent. And in their faces may be seen a corresponding spasmodic twitching, a contraction of angry lips, a dilation of nostrils trembling with nervousness, a knitting of the brows which clouds the whole countenance, hands convulsively doubled in overcoat pockets, a melancholy furrow in the women's smile, which deepens with every new disillusion. But all of them are completely self-centred, entirely oblivious of foreign interests, indulging in a single thought, a fixed idea, because of which they watch, meet, and conflict with one another, although seeming neither to hear nor to see each other. The floor of the room is filthy, muddied by feet that have splashed through the puddles in the lanes, and spotted all over with the thick expectorations of people afflicted with a cold.

'Who asked for the Honourable Moraldi?' shouts the usher.

'I,' answers, with loud, imposing voice, a large, stout, red-throated man.

'Be kind enough to wait a little; the Minister is speaking.'

The large man puffs himself out in his warm topcoat, which protuberates sensibly at the paunch. Someone looks at him enviously, because his deputy has at least asked him to wait, while others allege absence or simply send word that they cannot come. Perhaps he is also envied his warm overcoat, since there are so many thin suits under a wretched threadbare overcoat, worn through autumn and winter with pretended resignation, so many pepper-and-salt trousers under a green overcoat, so many trousers of a dirty yellow under a cinnamon-coloured, ancient, worn-out overcoat.

The coming and going continued. Those who had received a definite refusal remained rather undecided, a sullen look on their faces, glancing at the door as if they lacked courage to go out into the cold, and then they made up their minds to go, which they did with bowed shoulders, at a slow pace, without looking back. For one who went away, two or three came in: the room was as full as ever; the ushers came and went through the door, which suggested that of a sanctuary. It rained refusals.

'Who was wishing to see the Honourable Nicotera?'

'I,' answered a very tall, very thin man, with scrawny neck and the face of a skeleton, on which sprouted a few colourless hairs.

'He is there, but begs to be excused; he is not able to come.'

The fantastically lean individual bent double, like a caterpillar, on a bench, filled out another blank, and consigned it to another usher, who returned exclaiming:

'Who asked for the Honourable Zanardelli?'

'I,' whispered a sibilant voice.

'He is there, but the Minister is speaking; he cannot come.'

The spectre persistently went on writing.

One deputy, however, more obliging, had come out upon the request of the person who wanted him, accosting him with a certain degree of nimble zeal, leading him into the next room, where the deputies interviewed their constituents. In this room were three or four ladies, sitting down, waiting, with their hands in their muffs. The deputy and his constituent walked up and down; the constituent spoke vivaciously, with gesticulations; the deputy listened attentively, with eyes downcast, now and then nodding his head in approval.

In the waiting-room all the people were grown weary; a physical and moral lassitude weighed upon them: the new disillusion, that evenfall, sapped their strength; one of them was leaning against the wall; the child had gone to sleep on the widow's knee; total silence reigned. Real or fictitious misfortunes, desires of idle brains or worthy, fervent desires of persevering souls, necessities brought about by indulgence in vice or unmerited mishaps, extravagant ambitions, modest little ambitions, crazes due to overwrought nerves, the thirst for justice of obstinate monomaniacs—all this human suffering, endured in silence, was mixed with a sense of oppression, of sadness, of having been abandoned, a feeling of woeful disconsolateness at having once more come to knock at that door which would not open. The gas-jets were burning brightly, but their light fell on the mortified faces of people paralyzed and listless, as though they were dead.

Three ushers came in through the door, one after the other.

'Who asked for the Honourable Sella?'

'Who asked for the Honourable Bomba?'

'Who asked for the Honourable Crispi?'

'I—I—I,' answered the thin little voice of the man-skeleton.

'The Honourable Sella cannot leave the hall.'

'The Honourable Bomba is busy in the hall.'

'The Honourable Crispi is with the Budget Committee.'

Quietly the skeleton wrote on another blank, and handed it to an usher.

'Excuse me,' observed the usher, 'we are not allowed to call the Ministers, and especially the President of the Council.'

'And why?' asked the spectre in surprise.

'It is the rule.'

But with unabated patience he wrote another name, and then began to walk to and fro, overtowering all the rest. One concluded to leave; his footstep dragged as he took away with him the humiliation of that long, useless wait; others, making a desperate resolve, went away to post themselves, in the chill of the evening, at the door of Montecitorio, to wait for the deputies coming out. Others, less venturesome, still lingered behind: the gas afforded a little warmth, and at the end of the sitting some deputy might appear. A brougham stopped before the door, remained closed, a footman jumped from the box, came in, gave a note to an usher, and stood waiting, with the impassive air of people used to receive orders. An usher shouted:

'Who wanted the Honourable Barbarulo?

'I,' said the ghost.

'He is not there.'

'Is he away for a holiday?'

'He has been dead four months.'

This remark settled the living corpse. He reflected for an instant, but probably could think of no other names, and slowly took his departure. A moment after Francesco Sangiorgio crossed the room, spoke to the footman—only two words—and accompanied by him went out of doors and got into the carriage, all excitement still with his success.

'My sincere congratulations,' said Donna Elena Fiammanti, pressing his hand.

The brougham drove off. In the waiting-room the going and coming had ceased; the child was crying, after being awakened by its mother; the tired ushers sat down for a minute; two deputies, one with three acquaintances and the other with two, were gossiping in the other room.

* * * * *

The flames were flickering in the fireplace; three logs forming a triangle were burning at their ends. Donna Elena gently stirred the hot ashes and the glowing embers; they gave forth a few sparks, and the three logs blazed up. Then she sat back in her chair and mechanically smoothed down her clinging, black silk skirt at the hips.

'Do you like a fire, Sangiorgio? It must be cold down there in the Basilicata.'

'Very cold,' said he, taking a seat in an easy-chair. 'We have no handsome fireplaces; there are large high stoves under whose arch a wooden bench is placed. The head of the family sits there in winter, with his children and relatives about him.'

'I am very fond of an open fire,' she said, with eyes half closed, as if they were heavy from fatigue, 'but only when someone is with me. I get melancholy alone.'

She spoke with her two arms lying upon the arms of the chair, her head leaning against the back. The lamplight made the gold necklace sparkle on the high collar of her silk dress, and drew a flash from the gilt buckle on her black slipper. Her foot was forward; it was rather plump, although arched.

'You are never alone, I suppose?'

'No, never,' she replied frankly. 'I hate being alone.'

'No doubt,' he vaguely assented.

'No, no, do not agree with me from politeness! I know that you men, especially when you have a great ambition or are deeply in love, wish for solitude. But we women never do. We must have company. If a woman tells you she prefers solitude, do not believe her, Sangiorgio. She is deceiving you deliberately, or else wishes to avoid a discussion. They are all like myself, or, rather, I am a woman like the rest. Visitors amuse me. Fools interest me, too. To-day, in the Chamber, for instance——'

'For instance?' he asked with a faint smile.

'There was one behind me in the Speaker's gallery; he was talking nonsense to me for an hour.'

'And did he not bore you?'

'No, he prevented me from hearing the Minister's speech. Do you smoke?'

'Thank you.'

She handed him the tobacco-box. Her hands were plump, with pink, polished nails.

'You made a remarkably fine speech to-day,' she resumed, lighting a yellow cigarette.

Sangiorgio raised his eyes without answering.

'If you care to, buy the newspapers to-morrow; they will be full of you.'

'I think not; the Minister is a great favourite.'

'Nonsense! He is like Aristides: his fellow-citizens have become tired of hearing him called "The Just." Do not let the quotation alarm you, Sangiorgio; I know neither Greek nor Latin. It was merely a reminiscence of my youth, when I used to read.'

'You do not read now?'

'No; I am tired of books.'

'They are no use.'

The man-servant came in with a small bamboo tray and the coffee; the cups, too, were Japanese, of a most delicate, blue porcelain.

'How many lumps?' she asked, holding up the silver sugar-tongs.

'Two.'

While they were drinking the coffee Sangiorgio looked about the room. He had been there for a moment, before dinner, while the Countess had gone to change her dress. It was a little parlour, without brackets, without tables, without upholstered furniture, full of large and small easy-chairs, small divans, and stools; it was a little room without corners. The piano was also draped with a quantity of Turkish and Persian stuffs. On the wall hung a piece of an ecclesiastical vestment, red and embroidered with gold.

'You will see that to-morrow a number of deputies will ask to be presented to you. You will enjoy all the sweets of success.'

'Am I to believe in the admiration of my colleagues?'

'No, my dear friend, but you may take pleasure in it. Many beautiful and good things in life are false in their essence. It is wisdom to profit by them, to take them as they are, without asking any more.'

And she cast at him a fugitive, rapid glance. He understood at once. In that little room the same perspicacity came to his aid which during the day had assisted him in his boldness before the Chamber.

'Love is like that, too,' he murmured.

'Particularly love,' remarked the Countess Elena Fiammanti, opening wide her large gray eyes, which that evening were tinted with blue. 'Have you ever been very much in love, Sangiorgio?'

'Never much, and besides——'

'Very well. When you do fall in love, remember what I say. Love is a great thing, but not the best. One must not ask more of it than it can give. But a man is exacting, a man is selfish, a man insists on being the object of a passion, and then—the woman lies. The sentiment of love is really an ordinary one; there are some stronger; love is an ephemeral thing, and often accomplishes nothing.'

And while she uttered her romantic paradoxes with a slight touch of pedantry, her crimson lips gleamed in their humidity, her hand ruffled the natural curls over her forehead, she swung her plump little foot backward and forward, whose skin was visible through the black silk, perforated stocking. Sangiorgio, feeling very much at home, looked at her with a rather fatuous smile, which, being absorbed in her paradoxes, she probably did not notice.

Throwing her cigarette into the fire, Elena continued:

'Women also want to be deluded. "Those traitors of men do not know how to love!" you hear them cry; and then they weep and wail. They must have faithfulness—a pretty story, good enough to be palmed off on children! As if they could be faithful! As if they had no fibres, blood, imagination—destructive, all of these, to constancy! A hundred thousand lire reward to anyone who will bring me a man and a woman who are truly faithful, absolutely faithful!'

Francesco Sangiorgio had taken her uplifted hand in his. He toyed lightly with her fingers, with her diamond rings. He more than once playfully bent his head over the hand, and finally kissed it on the vein in the wrist. Donna Elena was no longer in the least formidable to him; he seemed to be quite intimate with her already; vulgar ideas began surging into his mind. What intoxication remained from the events of the day, aided by this feminine atmosphere all redolent with corylopsis, by this alluring woman, by her language become common by force of paradox, turned his head. To assert his new intimacy with Donna Elena, he would have liked to stretch himself out on a sofa, or fling himself on the carpet, or throw matches into the fire—in fact, to conduct himself as impertinently as an ill-bred boy. He resisted these temptations through an exertion of will; nevertheless, he was incited by the ironical smile which gave Donna Elena's nether lip a disdainful curve, the light tremor of the nostrils of that prominent aquiline nose, the combined refinement and coarseness of that face. Quite gently he took the rings off her left hand and dandled them in his own; and in the state of inebriation which had seized upon him his strongest wish was to slip off one of her shoes, to see her little foot bend bashfully in her stocking.

'To be sure, there are virtuous women,' she went on; 'who denies that? But with them the case is totally different. There are cold women; there are women who do not love. I know a few—not many, only a few. Under those circumstances it needs little strength to remain true. Donna Angelica, His Excellency's wife—there you have a virtuous woman! Do you know Donna Angelica, Sangiorgio?'

'H'm—yes—by sight,' he stammered.

And then he became utterly embarrassed, with the rings in his hands, having not a notion what to do with them. At last he put them on a stool, not venturing to place them back upon the hand whence he had stripped them. Suddenly the cloud which had shadowed his mind was dissipated, and he felt ashamed of the childish tricks he had contemplated. He was very near to begging Donna Elena's pardon, but she, most likely, was unconcerned. All nervousness, with his hand he stroked and stroked the folds of his black cloth waistcoat, as though he wanted to make it immutably rigid.

'What do you think of my sermon?'

'I am an enthusiastic disciple. I do not grasp all your teachings, but I bow to them,' answered the deputy, having recovered enough presence of mind to be jocose.

'I will give you some music; you will understand that,' she said, getting up. 'You may smoke, read, or go to sleep. If you do not listen I shall not mind. I shall be playing as much for myself as for you.'

In a moment a soft and sympathetic voice was singing the first notes of Tosti's 'Ave Maria.' Francesco started at those unexpected, unaccountable tones. Indeed, Donna Elena's voice was unlike herself, or, rather, it was hers in one respect, and by its other qualities it completed her. In singing she met with her own character. She sounded the key of the deep contralto which lacks in smoothness, and yet is rich and warm, and stirs the soul; which is full-toned and amorous; which conveys impassioned avowals and storms of jealousy. That side of Elena's voice resembled her. But there was also infinite sweetness; there was the purity of notes sung without a quaver; there was the liquid tenderness and innocence of an almost childish voice. And there was—which is a rare feature in singing—a sort of ideal sensuality, a harmonious transfiguration of it, a supremely poetical interpretation of it. In this way did her voice complete her.

She had forgotten her hearer, and was singing with her head thrown back, and with such languorous eyes that the lashes cast a shadow on her cheeks. Her lips were lightly parted, and they scarcely moved. Her white throat was swelling under the black collar and the necklace on her dress, while her hands ran nimbly over the keys, fingering them as delicately as a caress. A serener, sweeter atmosphere seemed to be diffused in the little room, which until then had suggested hardness and effrontery. A suave light settled on the surroundings, on the furniture, and on all things inanimate, tempering their sharp, brazen expression. Donna Elena was singing a melancholy romance by Schumann, whose refrain seemed rather to add affliction than to console, so extremely mournful was the music: 'Va, prends courage, coeur souffrant.' And Sangiorgio, at the end of his day of triumph, listened pensively, invaded by an unfamiliar sensation of sadness.

CHAPTER II

It was the last public ball on the last Tuesday of the carnival, at the Costanzi Theatre. The small people whose only amusement during the whole carnival was one public ball; students who still had ten lire in their pocket; Government clerks who had a taste for mild debauches; shop assistants whose establishments would be closed the following day; fledgelings in law and beginners in medicine—all these and many more from ten o'clock forward filed in through the four red doors, which remained open all night. On the ground-floor the attendants in the cloakrooms lost their heads a little with the numbering of overcoats and capes, gathering up of sashes and veils, and putting together of walking-sticks and wraps. Crowds of people streamed continuously into the huge parterre, which never seemed to fill, in spite of the tremendous concourse of people, clad in bright colours that stood out against the sober background. They were indulging in the everlasting circular promenade which is a characteristic feature at a Roman public ball. Four-and-twenty pulcinellos—a merry company of young fellows holding on to one another's white blouses, one behind the other—careered across the floor laughing and shrieking, like a rushing avalanche. In the middle of the place a number of feminine masks had collected in a large circle. They wore short white jackets, very much like babies' shirts, tied under the chin with large red and blue bows, and had infants' curls on their heads and tinkling rattles in their hands—the inexpensive, pretty, and saucy costume of Donna Juanita in the act laid in Jamaica. Having come in good company, these fair masqueraders scarcely quitted their escorts. Hardly did the orchestra, in the stand erected on the proscenium near the great purling fountain, strike up a polka, when the couples began to turn in a curiously sedate manner, with steps carefully regular, avoiding collisions, dancing conscientiously. When the music ceased they halted abruptly, as if in surprise, the men offered their partners an arm, and without exchanging a word they began the circular promenade. At a fresh summons they once more went into the middle and danced again, with almost laborious persistency, while all round them stood admiring spectators three deep.

Three girls dressed in black, with white aprons and enormous white muslin caps, were going about arm-in-arm, speaking in a high, piping voice, and making gestures with their hands gloved in black, puzzling half the assembly. In a box of the second tier a red satin, female domino, with a hood like a cock's comb, sat quite alone, her arm, which was red to the very gloves, lying on the edge of the box. Here and there other stylish and mysterious dominos were to be seen—one tall and slender, all in blue, with a big hat shaped like a closed conch; another in black satin, with face concealed behind black Venetian lace; an opulent mask exhibiting under an open domino of red and gold brocade a suit of cream-coloured brocade; and many more besides, all followed by young men trying to guess at their faces. But in the main the gathering was composed of plain, middle-class families—father and mother, sons and daughters, who had come to this ball as to an evening outdoor performance, in dark cloth dress, white neckerchief, and hat with black feathers; and as they met they stopped to exchange compliments and tittle-tattle, taking jokes from each other with the equanimity of the Roman middle class that is never upset. The throng was densest about the two barges (the small stage boxes), in one of which the members of the Hunt Club, in evening dress, with black necktie and gardenia at buttonhole, and in the other the cavalry officers, were leaning over to talk and laugh with their friends in the parterre.

When Francesco Sangiorgio entered the vestibule and bought a ticket of admission, it was half-past eleven. A feminine shape, dressed in an embroidered Turkish costume, her head covered over, and her face concealed behind a white veil, came up to him, and said in a flutelike voice:

'Good-evening, dear Sangiorgio! Why so melancholy?'

'Because I have not yet found out who you are, sweetheart!'

'You do not know me, you must not know me, you never will know me! I can tell why you are melancholy, Sangiorgio. I will whisper it in your ear: you are in love!'

'Yes, with you, my dear!'

'How amusing you are! You are much too gallant. That's not the custom here. Be rude, I beg of you—your reputation is at stake! But listen—Ferrante is no longer a candidate for membership on the Budget Committee. You are being talked of; I warn you, be careful.'

He stood dumfounded. The mask edged away into the crowd, and vanished.

The news had greatly astonished him: he had not expected it. What had been the outcome of his great speech? A flattering interview with the leader of the Right, Don Mario Tasca, the cool speaker, moderate and accomplished, the mild Socialist, the politician who had lost his own party through the nebulosity of his views. And then there had been bows and introductions and handshakings. The Minister, in response, had rendered honour to his adversary, but had insisted on his motion, and the Chamber had voted the Budget by a large majority. Who was thinking of his speech any more? The Honourable Dalma had once said to him, with his poetical Parliamentary cynicism: 'In politics everything is forgotten.'

In the vestibule, the couples were walking and talking, arm-in-arm; here groups of young bloods were discussing the financial situation, with a view to supper; here solitary dominos were wandering back and forth in expectation of someone who came not. Here Sangiorgio met the Honourable Gulli-Pausania. The Sicilian deputy was leaning against the wall, waiting like some of the others, stylish and handsome in evening costume, gallant Southerner that he was, with his pointed, chestnut beard, his greenish eyes travelling over the crowd, and his silk hat covering a premature baldness, because of which several women were in love with him.

'Oh, my dear Sangiorgio!' said Gulli, with a strong Sicilian accent, 'alone, all alone, at the ball?'

'Yes, alone. I expect nobody; nobody expects me, and I am sure my honourable colleague, Gulli-Pausania, is not following my example.'

'Well, what is to be done?' replied Gulli, smiling. 'We spend our lives waiting——'

'Not always for the same person, fortunately.'

'Oh no! that would be too desperate. Any political news?'

'None, my dear colleague. Hope you will enjoy yourself!'

'Thanks!' replied Gulli-Pausania, with his distinguished, sensual smile.

Sangiorgio went into the auditorium. His lashes quivered over his down-looking eyes. The theatre, with its three rows of boxes, its galleries, and its stage, was brilliantly lighted, and the white background of the decorations enhanced the brightness. On the stage the stream of the tall fountain was tinted red by a ray of electric light. The place was full; people were still arriving from other entertainments, from cafÉs, from receptions, from balls; neither standing still nor fast walking was now any longer permitted. At first Sangiorgio saw nothing but the shoulders of a stalwart gentleman in front of him, at his right the red ear of a cocotte, whose mask was certainly fastened on too tight, to his left the sharp profile of a thin, elongated damsel, with melancholy eyes. The tall gentleman looked here, there, and everywhere among the boxes, jerking a head with a light mane, precisely parted in the middle. Once, when he stopped to look at a box in the first tier, full of black dominos, making neither sound nor motion, Sangiorgio found himself beside him. It was the Honourable Prince di Sirmio, who bore the title of Most Serene Highness, and was the richest nobleman in Rome.

'Good-evening, honourable colleague,' said the Prince in his slow, liquid tone, with the note of cold fatigue which was one of his personal peculiarities. 'I believe this is your first visit to one of these places of corruption, where everyone assumes strict virtue. Strict virtue, do you not think? You have no doubt been told that we people in the capital lead a wild life; instead of that, as you see, we walk very slowly round and round, pour le bon motif, looking for our wife, who must be in one of the boxes with her sister. Meanwhile, we mingle with the crowd, as you perceive, to listen and learn. They all tell me I am democratic—and I behave accordingly. Are you doing anything in politics, honourable colleague? Ce n'est pas le bonheur—however, I have had nothing to do with politics for an everlasting age. The head of my party is Don Emilio Castelar: I am a Spanish Republican. Are you surprised?'

Francesco Sangiorgio smiled, but made no answer, which pleased the Prince, since he liked neither to be talked to nor interrupted. He had a smooth, flowing tongue, and interruption annoyed him.

'Ah, there is my wife,' continued Sirmio. 'Who is that in the box next to hers? I see—it is the Minister of Foreign Affairs with his two daughters, Grace and the other, whose name ought to be Justice, but who is called Eleonora. The quip is not mine; it is from a newspaper. Good-night, honourable colleague.'

'Good-night, Prince.'

Sangiorgio, in lieu of walking the smaller circle on the floor, took the larger, and went up towards the stage, where along the wings were disposed tables and chairs, about which sat whole families of the middle classes, drinking aerated waters, or inseparable couples, tired of one another, but not daring to split, quaffing mugs of beer. He passed close to the fountain now tinged violet by the electric light—a most delicate shade—and he went by the basin and the great mirror at the back over to the musicians' stand. Over his head, they suddenly burst into the opening notes of the postilion mazurka from the ballet 'Excelsior,' which was highly popular that winter. A momentary movement took place from the stage to the parterre, a general undulation of heads in time with the lively measure, as it were; people crowded towards the parterre to see the dancing. At a table near the left wing, the Honourable Schuffer sat alone, drinking beer, reviewing the assembly through a pair of bright eyes behind spectacles, occasionally raising his pointed nose and sharp chin.

'Come, my dear colleague, and take a mug of beer with me,' said Schuffer, in his soft, Venetian accent. 'But being a Neapolitan, perhaps you do not like beer.'

'No, thank you, Honourable—no, thank you, I will not take any; I have just come in.'

'I came an hour ago, and in that hour goodness knows how many elbows have been dug into me, how many times I have been shoved, and how many feet have trodden on mine. I took refuge here to avoid it; you know I am unlucky in some things.'

Sangiorgio smiled. The Honourable Schuffer, looking tousled and mischievous like a boy, with his curly head of hair, had already had four suits for defamation. The deputy, unfortunately, had seen fit to get at odds with a guard, a porter, a station-master, and a waiter in a cafÉ, and while the same thing happened to a hundred other deputies without serious consequences, as if on purpose the guard, the porter, the station-master, and the waiter, had severally brought action against him, so that every now and then the Chamber was called upon to authorize legal proceedings.

'I learnt to drink beer on my travels to Japan,' went on Schuffer. 'Great country that, honourable colleague! I never had a lawsuit there with anyone, I assure you. Honourable, you are Ministerial—shall you vote those millions for the Minister of War?' he added, as if struck by a sudden idea.

'What about yourself, Honourable Schuffer?' quickly threw in Sangiorgio.

'I? I?' said the other, nonplussed; 'I must think about it. We might discuss it, do you not think—and come to some understanding? It is a serious question; war swallows up every farthing in the country.'

'I ask for nothing better; certainly we will talk about it again. Good-night, Honourable Schuffer.'

The postilion mazurka was now greatly enlivening the ball. There were three circles of dancers: near the entrance to the parterre, in the centre of the floor, and on the stage. A woman masquerader dressed as a Bersagliere officer, with plumed hat over one ear, bare arms coming out from beneath the gold fringes of her epaulets, and breeches fitting closely at the knee, was dancing with a girl disguised as a Satanic imp. Both were as serious as could be, repulsing everyone who wanted to separate them. The boxes, too, were now filled with ladies and gentlemen come from receptions and balls. The first and second tiers were entirely taken up. In the box next to the 'barge,' in the first tier, were to be seen the delicate and graceful Florentine beauty of Elsa Bellini, married to Novelli, and the blond opulence of Lalla Terziani. Both ladies had come from the Valle. With them were Rosolino Scalia, the Sicilian deputy of military carriage; the little Prince of Nerola, the new deputy from the Abruzzi; a young man of distinguished mien, with a small black moustache; Novelli and Terziani, the two husbands.

'Honourable Sangiorgio,' said the little Prince, leaning over the side of the box.

'Well, honourable colleague?' said the other, raising his head.

'If you see Sangarzia, will you be good enough to tell him I am here? Do you know who will be elected, the day after to-morrow, for the Budget Committee?'

'The Honourable Ferrante, of course.'

'I think not—I think not,' replied the Prince, smiling maliciously.

As Sangiorgio went away he heard remarks from the box like 'Clever fellow!' and 'Gifted Southerner!'

He looked at various boxes in search of Sangarzia. In one, of the first tier, were the two Neapolitan sisters Acquaviva, one of them married to the deputy Marquis di Santa Marta, the other to the deputy Count Lapucci. The Countess, dark and vivacious, with a thick-lipped, deep-hued mouth, with two flashing eyes, was the very opposite of her husband, a dark, slender, very taciturn, very pensive young man, said to be haughty, although he was a Socialist deputy. The Santa Marta pair was different. The wife, fair and curly-haired, had a childish face and a frank expression, and was very simply gowned; the husband was fair, with languid eyes and an indolent manner. The Countess Lapucci was laughing loudly; the Marchioness di Santa Marta was smiling. Count Lapucci was watching the crowd silently, his thumbs stuck in his waistcoat pockets; the Marquis di Santa Marta was chatting affably with the Honourable Melillo, the strong financial man from the Basilicata, with a heart too open to women, a confirmed celibate, which made him interesting in the eyes of unmarried girls, whom he did not care about. The Honourable Melillo answered Francesco Sangiorgio's bow with an elaborate salute and a patronizing wave of the hand, and Sangiorgio drew near the box while his name was being mentioned. The Honourable Melillo was no doubt speaking of the bright promise his fellow-countryman gave.

The wife of the Secretary-General of Finance had arrived in the box near the door, after an evening party at the Quirinal. This graceful, slight Piedmontese, with the pale, interesting face of an invalid, wore a low-cut dress, was loaded with jewels, frequently coughed, continually carried her pocket-handkerchief to her rather bright lips, nervously pulled her chamois gloves up to her elbows. The Honourable Pasta, the Subalpine lawyer, with shaven chin and fair, grizzled whiskers, was saying something very witty to her, that made her laugh. The Honourable Cimbro, the Piedmontese journalist-deputy, staring through his glasses, his necktie having slipped up under his ears, was a man apparently embarrassed by his own presence, whereas the Secretary-General, rather bald, with a thick, stout moustache, sat in solemn silence, looking at the stage as if he did not notice it. When Sangiorgio passed, he made him a low bow, full of meaning, almost sentimental, the appreciative bow of a Secretary-General showing his gratitude to the man who has afforded him the pleasure of attacking his Minister.

'Where may Sangarzia be?' thought Francesco to himself, threading his way with difficulty through the ever-increasing crowd.

The Baroness Noir was in her box, her serpentine form clad in a strange, close-fitting garment of shot silk, on which tulips and peacocks' feathers were embroidered, and she had gathered about her a little sub-Ministerial staff of foreign affairs. Her husband had, in fact, been Secretary-General. He was holding aloof, at the back of the box, like a diplomat awaiting appointment, but the Honourable di San Demetrio, a self-possessed Abruzzan, with an already whitening black beard, who had strong aspirations towards the Cabinet, was well in front, under the full light. Besides, there was the Honourable di Campofranco, a frigid Sicilian, the son of Italy's most prominent female politician, the Princess di Campofranco. The Honourable di San Demetrio was talking, explaining, mayhap, some section of the Budget Report, and the little Baroness was listening attentively, slapping her fingers with her fan. Hustled by the crowd, Sangiorgio stopped for a moment under her box; he felt fatigued from head to foot, the lights dazzled him, and the atmosphere, pregnant with acrid odours, stifled him.

'Sangiorgio!' exclaimed San Demetrio.

He started, as if from a dream.

'Do you know if the Honourable Mascari has registered to speak on the other side in the debate on the Foreign Budget?'

'No, he has not registered.'

'Positively?'

'Positively.'

'Thank you; excuse the question.'

And he went back to his place, happy in the knowledge that there was to be one opponent less. Sangiorgio stood straight and motionless against the wall, feeling at ease in that position and shutting his eyes against the light. Seymour and Marchetti came up to him, arm-in-arm. They presented a marked contrast, these two apostles of social science: Seymour, dark and severe, with the upward curving chin of a man of energy and a brush of black hair beginning to streak with white; Marchetti, with a frank, fresh face, a long chestnut beard, and the sparkling blue eyes of an enthusiast. They were both strolling about in morning coats, and therefore did not venture to speak to any of the ladies.

'Are you bored, Sangiorgio?' asked Seymour.

'A little. I am tired, too.'

'Were you at the office this evening?' inquired Marchetti.

'No. What was being done there?'

'Nothing very substantial yet—not much work,' remarked Seymour, adjusting his glasses on his nose. 'Why do you not have your speech printed, Sangiorgio?'

'What is the use?' he answered in a tone of sincere doubt. 'I shall return to the charge in a different way when the Agricultural Budget comes up,' he then went on, as if reanimated.

The orchestra just then struck up Strauss' lively, inspiriting waltz, 'Freuet euch des Lebens,' a general movement took place, the circle spread outward, people were crowded back under the boxes, the deputies were separated, and Sangiorgio was left alone. The ladies in the boxes were gazing down enviously at the dancers enjoying themselves below; they were obliged to sit still, up there, while the music and the sight of the rest on the floor made them itch to join in the dancing. Three or four, who had come low-necked from a ball at the Huffer House, were exhibiting themselves in all the splendours of their dress. Little Prince Nerola was now in his cousin's box, the Countess di Genzano, the fascinating, Titianesque blonde. In the background was to be seen the sallow but still handsome face, almost noble in outline, of the Minister of Grace and Justice, the inflexible and gallant official, as unswerving in his inflexibility as he was in his gallantry. Sangiorgio roused himself from the state of torpor he had fallen into: he must find Sangarzia.

Looking carefully, box for box, he at last succeeded in discovering him in the second tier, near the royal box. A domino in black silk, highly fashionable, with a tight, black veil covering her head and face, and wearing a large bunch of pinks, was sitting in a front chair; beside her was the Honourable Valitutti, a rich, olive-hued Calabrian, with a black beard and the face of a taciturn Arab; in the background sat the Honourable Fraccareta, one of the largest corn merchants in the Puglia country; in the middle was the Honourable Sangarzia, the sympathetic Sicilian, the formidable swordsman, the perfect gentleman, whom everybody loved.

'Who might the lady be?' wondered Sangiorgio, on his way up to the second floor.

Some lady, put out at not being able to dance, was going home in ill-humour, letting her train drag, her mouth twisted as a woman's is who has been forbidden something. And behind her came husband and lover, with the thankful expression of men who have been bored, and who at last hope to get to bed. The five black dominos, who had been sitting the whole evening in a box without either moving or speaking, like so many conspirators, now came down on the arms of five youths; silent, lugubrious couples they were; they might have been bound for a funeral banquet. Just behind them the Honourable Carusio descended the stairs, a deputy with a head as bald as a billiard-ball, with an extravagantly long, pointed, Napoleonic beard, reaching to his stomach, and with the air of a timorous, anxious person, full of apprehensions and full of worries.

'My dear colleague,' began Carusio, suddenly stopping Sangiorgio on the first landing, 'excuse me if I stop you like this; you must pardon me—I am in great trouble. A relative of mine, from the provinces, who is visiting here, made me come to this affair, which he had never seen. Imagine what a dreadful nuisance! I can scarcely endure it. And so the Prime Minister is very ill?'

'No, not very—not very,' answered Sangiorgio, smiling. 'It is only the gout he is suffering from.'

'Are you quite sure, my dear colleague? Is your news at least accurate?'

'I went to find out in person.'

'Oh, thank you ever so much, my dear colleague! I am so glad I met you. You have relieved me from a great anxiety. If the Prime Minister were to become seriously ill, just think what confusion! If he were to die, what complications!'

'God forbid!' said Sangiorgio, still smiling.

'Yours to command, my dear colleague: I am delighted; I am infinitely obliged to you. You may count upon me at any time, I assure you; do not spare me. You could not have come to the rescue more opportunely. Good-night, good-night, honourable colleague!'

'Good-night! I hope you will sleep well. The Prime Minister will be better to-morrow.'

'Thank you again, thank you.'

Sangiorgio knocked very gently at No. 15. Fraccareta's voice said 'Come in!' Sangiorgio half opened the door, and said:

'Excuse me, honourable colleagues: I am looking for the Honourable Sangarzia.'

'Here I am—here I am!'

And they went outside together, the black domino with the pinks having scarcely turned her head.

'Nerola, the Prince, wants you, Honourable Sangarzia.'

'Oh, my dear Sangiorgio, Nerola and yourself could not have done me a greater service! I was at a loss how to get away from here. And where is the Prince?'

'He is in the first tier now, with the Countess Genzano.'

'Let us get there quickly.'

He went back into the box, put on his long cape over his evening coat, bowed to the woman and his two colleagues, and descended the stairs with Sangiorgio.

'What a good service you have rendered me! The lady was getting tired of it—probably wanted to dance. Have you come from the Countess's?'

'I do not know her.'

At this there issued forth from a box in the first tier a feminine figure strangely attired in a Turkish costume, with head and face hidden by a close white veil.

'Come with me,' she murmured with her soft voice to Sangiorgio.

'No need to wish you good luck, colleague,' whispered Sangarzia, taking leave of him.

'Come with me,' the woman repeated, bearing on his arm to draw him away.

It was half-past two. People were hastening to the cloakrooms to go home, getting into their overcoats listlessly, wrapping up their heads in scarfs, like so many acrobats, who after performing in the street put on old, worn wraps over their tawdry, spangled finery.

'Come, come!' urged the woman, seized with impatience, while Sangiorgio was donning his great-coat.

Outside she at once singled out her carriage, and got in eagerly, dragging Sangiorgio in after her.

'Home!' she said to the coachman.

But once in the carriage, behind the drawn blinds, she quickly unwound the veil from her head and threw it on the opposite seat. She disencumbered herself of the Oriental garb, jerking out the pins and tearing at the embroidery. A cloak with a hood lay at the bottom of the carriage; this she put on. Sangiorgio silently assisted her. She looked out into the street for a moment.

'Ah, there is the moon!' she murmured with great tenderness.

And she tapped on the pane to tell the coachman something. Immediately the carriage stopped, in the Piazza Barberini. She got out quickly, and pulled the hood on her cloak over her head.

'Drive home!' she ordered the coachman. 'Tell Carolina she may go to bed. I have the key.'

They were left alone in the Piazza Barberini. The stream of the fountain, tall and translucent, shone brightly in the moonlight.

'Shall we walk a little?' she said. 'It was suffocating in the ballroom.'

He offered her an arm, determined to show surprise at nothing. They went along the Via Sistina, the great thoroughfare which looks so aristocratic by day and so ghostly at night. She nestled up to him as though she was cold and fearsome, as if she pretended to be small and wanted his protection. Nevertheless, she was strong and tall in her black cloak, and under the hood where her eyes were sparkling. And that person and those eyes had the peculiar quality of magnetism—the violent fascination that stirs the senses. Again Francesco Sangiorgio felt as he had in her drawing-room, when she had so ruthlessly cast love into contempt. The sensation was profound and sharp, without any sweetness whatever—a revulsion, a storm, a sort of inebriation.

'How quiet it is!' she observed, in a voice slightly a-tremble, which shook every nerve in Sangiorgio's body.

'Say something else,' he whispered.

'What?' she asked, leaning against his shoulder.

'Anything, anything—I like your voice so much!'

But the Countess Fiammanti made no answer. They had arrived at the little square of the TrinitÀ dei Monti. The obelisk stood erect in the bright moonlight, and its tall, slender shadow was imprinted on the wall of the church. The rising road, leading to the Villa Medici and the Pincio, was quite lustrous. They bent over the high parapet of the square, whence so many melancholy visitors have gazed upon Rome in the hours of twilight. But Rome was very dimly visible, shrouded in a white, moon-washed vapour, which almost seemed a continuation of the sky, a slant of the horizon covering houses, bell-towers, and cupolas.

'One can see nothing. What a pity!' exclaimed Donna Elena. And, taking hold of Sangiorgio's arm rather forcibly, she led him to a narrow stair in front of the TrinitÀ—not the stair with two balusters to the church, but the steps going up to the convent, where the monks and the children they are educating live together. This stairway has a little landing before the door, and a railing. Donna Elena made Sangiorgio go up there.

'Shall we knock at the convent?' she asked him, as if trying the iron chain. 'We are two frozen pilgrims begging for shelter!'

She laughed, showing those resplendent white teeth that made her smile so irresistible. Only she never smiled, she always laughed.

But neither was there any view from their elevated position, except that the diaphanous, whitish, milky ocean of mist looked larger yet. Straight in front were discernible the few lights, which still remained unextinguished at three o'clock in the morning, in the Via Condotti. Below, the Piazza di Spagna lay spread out, in its reposeful and magnificent architectural beauty, from the Via Propaganda Fide to the Via Babuino.

'Let us go away from here,' she said.

He allowed himself to be taken in leading-strings; this, his first romantic adventure, gave him intense pleasure. This lady, for she was a lady in spite of the lightness and audacity of her conduct, aroused all the desires of a virile man, provincial, imaginative, and by nature sentimental. This was a real romance, and this fine lady, wrapped in her fur cloak, scented, wearing magnificent diamonds that glistened in the moonlight, who had sent her carriage away so as to walk with him here, at night, through the streets of Rome—this splendid creature seduced him by everything she was and everything she represented. He succumbed to her personal fascination, the stronger through the peculiarity of the circumstances. His wonted, ordinary scruples were overcome, and he yielded to this new triumph for his vanity, flattered, exultant, and delighted over his conquest.

They went down the steps in the moonbeams that seemed to bathe the stones of old Rome. On the last step but two, Donna Elena withdrew her arm from Sangiorgio's and sat down. She now looked quite small and black, cowering down on the stair, with her head in her hands and her elbows on her knees, as she gazed at the lovely Bernini fountain, with its bowl overbrimming. Sangiorgio had not seated himself; he was standing upright by her side, eyeing her with a sense of masculine fatuity, which filtered through his submissiveness. The pretty woman seemed downcast, squatting on the ground like a beggar, a bundle of dark clothes, under which perhaps an anxious soul was alive in a throbbing heart. And it almost seemed to him as though he were her lord.

'Do you like the fountain?' she asked in her melodious voice, raising her head.

'It is rather handsome.'

'Yes, it is,' she agreed with a nod. 'Why do you not sit down?'

And she appeared not to be addressing him, but speaking to the purling waters, which for ever fell back into the drowned bowl. He sat down on the step beside her.

'Have you no cigars? Will you not smoke a little?'

'I am sorry I have no cigarettes for you.'

'Never mind. But you smoke!' He lighted a cigar, and she inhaled its aroma.

'What brand is it?'

'A Minghetti.'

'Your Minghetti has a nice odour.' And she watched him smoke, following the thin, blue streak as it vanished into the air. A closed carriage emerged from the Via Due Macelli, passed them with extreme rapidity, and disappeared in the direction of the Via Babuino.

'They are coming from the ball,' he said.

'What a hideous affair that ball was!' whispered Donna Elena softly.

'Yes,' replied Sangiorgio to the harmonious voice by whose caress he felt his nerves excited to the point of painfulness.

Suddenly she jumped to her feet, as if propelled by a spring.

'I am cold, I am cold; let us be off!' she exclaimed roughly.

She folded her cloak more tightly about her than ever, pulled her hood further forward over her forehead, clung to his arm, and dragged him away, towards the Via Propaganda. He had thrown his cigar down, and all at once was conscious that this woman's mind was changing, and that he could not count on her at all. But he proudly kept his peace. Probably his vanity had been an empty fiction. Who could reckon on the caprice of a woman? He shrugged his shoulders, laughing at himself, who for a moment had believed he might master one of these frivolous creatures.

She uttered not a word, hastening her pace along the Via Due Macelli, as though greatly affected by the cold and intending to overcome it by walking; she stared at the ground, without turning to her companion. Sangiorgio did not ask her whither they were bound in this fashion; he was resolved to stay with her till the end, despite the blow she was giving his pride. When they reached the corner of the Via Due Macelli, she turned abruptly into the Via Angelo Custode.

'I live here,' he observed, for the sake of saying something.

'Here?' she cried, stopping still for a moment. 'Where?'

'At No. 50—over there.'

'Do you live alone?'

'I do.'

'Let us go up,' she said, making a motion to cross the street. 'I will warm myself at your fire!'

'There is no fire.'

'No matter; I will warm myself playing the piano!'

'There is no piano,' he replied, determined to hear her out.

'I don't care!' was all she said.

* * * * *

Two days later Francesco Sangiorgio was elected a member of the Budget Committee.

CHAPTER III

Mild, genteel applause, coming from small, female, well-gloved, though rather listless hands, greeted the noisy conclusion of the pianist, an insignificant, meagre, dark little dot of a creature, who was invisible behind the piano.

'What feeling!' exclaimed the wife of a Puglian deputy, a stout woman with a torrent of black curls on her red, shining forehead.

'Splendid, splendid, delightful!' said Signora di Bertrand, the wife of a high functionary, a frail Piedmontese, with a Madonna face, wearing a brocaded cloak threaded with gold.

And from one lady to another, from group to group, along sofas, from easy-chairs to small stools, under the palm branches in the pots, under the brackets bearing statuettes, from the pianoforte to the door, swiftly ran the current of feminine approval. Those standing on the threshold of the Ministerial drawing-room nodded two or three times, as if secretly wearied. Only His Highness, the Oriental Prince in exile, ponderously ensconced in an armchair, made no sign. With his bloated, sallow visage, grown here and there with patches of nondescript, speckling beard, with the contemplative apathy of a bulky Oriental, he remained quiet, thinking perhaps of the dramatic incantations of the Aidas who had been one of the boasts of his throne, as he sat with his big, round eyes half shut under the soft, red rim of his fez.

But the female chatter reopened, and Donna Luisa Catalani, the Minister's wife, the mistress of the house, who had rested during the music, renewed her round of bows and compliments and smiles; and her white cashmere gown, her diamond rosettes, her small head, her provokingly pretty face, her somewhat peculiar headdress, were to be seen everywhere, as though there was not one Donna Luisa, but ten of her.

'How fatiguing these receptions are!' languidly said the Countess Schwarz, an extremely thin woman, with livid countenance, with fluffy fringe, in imitation, probably, of Sarah Bernhardt. Sunk in a comfortable easy-chair, and huddled in her furs like a sick, shivering bird, she merely moved her lips to sip her cup of tea.

'Donna Luisa is not tired; she is made of iron,' murmured Signora Gallenga, wife of the Secretary-General of Finance, coughing slightly and smoothing her pointed, Chinese eyebrows. 'It would be too much for me. I am glad my receptions are small. Were you at the Parliament to-day, Countess?'

'I never go.'

The graceful Piedmontese saw the error of her question. Count Schwarz had succeeded in becoming a provincial councillor, but never a deputy.

'I was there,' interposed Signora Mattei, the wife of another Secretary-General, a Tuscan woman as brown as a peppercorn, with fiery eyes, a rapid tongue, and a black hat buried under poppies. 'It was an interesting meeting.'

'And not to have been there!' exclaimed Signora Gallenga. 'How unfortunate! And did Sangiorgio speak?'

'Yes, yes——'

But a 'hush' now circulated through the room. A robust lady, with a mighty bosom tightly cuirassed in red satin, with a broad, good-natured face, sang a moving romance by Tosti. She had undone her pelisse, throwing it back on her shoulders, and with her hands in her muff, her veil down on her eyes, quite serenely, without a single quiver in a line of her face, she poured out her lamentations in the music of the Abruzzan master. Donna Luisa, standing in the middle of the drawing-room among fifty ladies seated, listened with the polite attention of a hostess; but she was assailed by an uneasy feeling, since she observed that in the two adjoining parlours there were people—ladies waiting to come in. It was the most important reception of the season; in the drawing-room reigned the quiet of a hothouse and the sweet, sugary smell of a place where there are many women. Standing along the wall, encased in severe frock-coats, was a row of commanders, bald and silent, who had left the Court of Accounts at half-past four, of officials from the Treasury, of men from other Government offices. But they preserved the statuesque immobility of the bureaucratic make-up, the unwearying patience, the endless, incalculably long expectation by dint of which they passed from one grade to another, until they had forty years of service behind them; to them this reception was an infinitesimal fraction of the forty years of service.

A sigh of relief was audible; the romance was finished, and Luisa Catalani complimented the singer, who was smiling like the full moon. Then the hostess immediately left the room; there were seven or eight ladies in the next room.

'What was the Chamber like to-day?' asked a fair, pale-faced Minister's daughter, who had newly arrived.

'Very warm. I do not understand how our men keep from getting ill,' replied another, spreading out her fan by way of original illustration.

'Sangiorgio spoke very well,' murmured Signora Giroux, a little lady with white hair and a sweet smile—her ladyship of the Agricultural Department.

'He is from the South,' remarked Donna Luisa Catalani. 'Was there anyone in the diplomatic gallery?'

'Countess di Santaninfa and Countess di Malgra.'

'Fine hats?'

'Might pass,' answered the pallid blonde abstractedly.

Over in a corner a group of girls was prattling in lively fashion, with their jackets unbuttoned because of the heat, and showing the fine texture of their dark cloth dresses. Enrichetta Serafini, daughter of the Minister of Public Works, a brunette in mourning, was talking for half a dozen, and gathered about her were the Camilly girl, an Italian born in Egypt; the Borla girl, a predestined old maid, condemned by the everlasting youth of her mother; the Fasulo girl, a lymphatic person, with large, meditative eyes, an accountant's niece; the Allievo girl, a nice, quiet thing; and the single aristocratic bud, all fair under the white plume in her hat—Donna Sofia di Maccarese.

'I prefer Tosti to all the rest,' maintained Enrichetta Serafini. 'He can make one weep.'

'Denza, too, makes one weep at times,' observed the Borla girl, who did not know how to sing, and was obliged to listen to her fifty-year-old mother.

'And you, Donna Sofia, which do you like best?'

'Schumann,' she murmured, without another word.

The others stopped. They did not know his music. But the Serafini girl, nervous and vivacious, answered:

'But all that music must be sung well. Pardon me'—lowering her voice—'perhaps you like the lady who has just sung?' And the whole group giggled surreptitiously.

'The best singer in Rome is the Fiammanti,' added the young Camilly girl, with her round, white face, with her languid gaze—this Oriental transplanted to Italy.

The other girls remained silent. The Borla pursed her lips in token of reproof; the Fasulo cast down her eyes; the Allievo blushed; only Donna Sofia di Maccarese did not change countenance, either not knowing or not caring about Countess Fiammanti.

'Is it true that she is to marry the deputy Sangiorgio?' asked the Serafini.

'No, no,' replied the Camilly, with a peculiar smile.

This time the girls exchanged the mute, expressive looks into which society compels girls to condense their meaning. In the drawing-room a great concourse of ladies had gathered; the warm atmosphere of heavy clothes was spreading, and an odour of tea and opopanax, of beaver and marten. Nearly all of them were talking now, in couples, or in groups of three or four, with certain nods and certain subtle modulations of the voice, gossiping about the Chamber of Deputies, gravely discussing the Honourable Bomba's delivery, saying which gallery they liked best, commenting on the colour of the carpets, describing the flesh-coloured waistcoats of the Honourable Count Lapucci and the romantic face—like a pensive Christ's—of the Honourable Joanna. And Signora Gallenga, an authority on literature, announced the following:

'This year the Abruzzo is fashionable in literature and the Basilicata in politics.'

So they thought they were doing politics in right earnest, elated by their own chatter, they, with their light little heads. But no other performer moved to the piano, and as the placid, middle-aged lady who had languished with Tosti was taking her third cup of tea, a hardly perceptible stir took place in the drawing-room, and Donna Angelica Vargas, tall and lovely, walked across the room with her rhythmic step, seeking out Donna Luisa Catalani. She was dressed in black, as usual, with an iridescence of some sort about her person and her hat. Donna Luisa ran towards her with her prettiest smile. They made low bows to each other, and a subdued colloquy began between them.

The people in the room pretended not to hear, from politeness, but an embarrassing silence prevailed, as sometimes happens among a number of persons none of whom wants to speak first. His Highness Mehemet Pasha had opened his eyes wide, and ogled the beautiful Italian, so chaste in appearance, but whose large eyes reminded him of his Eastern women, for whom he perhaps was longing. Then those large, fine eyes, shining like the black pearls on her dress, cast an intelligent glance all round the room, and as Donna Luisa Catalani turned away, singly, by twos, by threes did the women come and surround Donna Angelica Vargas, to exchange amenities with her; and although her husband was not Prime Minister, although she was the wife of a Minister of Commerce holding a non-political portfolio, although in that drawing-room were three or four wives of political Ministers, important men, pillars of the Cabinet, yet she was the centre of all this adulation, and in the simplicity of her manner there lay something queenly.

* * * * *

To feel the cold less, while writing in that long, narrow parlour, without a fire, in the Via Angelo Custode, Sangiorgio had thrown an old coat over his legs. At eight the servant had brought him a cup of coffee, in bed, and while she was cleaning the chilly room he put on his clothes, so as to begin work. The girl did the other room quickly, and went away without a word, looking sullen and resentful, like all poor wretches who cannot reconcile themselves to penury and hard work. But the sweeping being done in haste, dirt remained in the corners of the floor. The window-curtains were yellow with dust, and a horrible smell of stale rubbish hung in both rooms. Barely had the servant vanished, trailing her feet in a pair of men's shoes, when Sangiorgio, without a look at that melancholy inner courtyard, with balconies full of old boxes and broken glass, and worm-eaten, filthy loggias, set to writing at a small student's table. He had settled down to work, among a lot of Parliamentary papers and a heap of letters from the Basilicata, on large, white sheets of commercial foolscap, dipping his pen into a wretched clay inkpot. Towards ten o'clock an intolerable sensation of cold had crept over his feet and legs; he still had three hours' work before him, and therefore went to his bedroom for an old overcoat, which he spread over his legs. He did this automatically, without taking his mind off the Parliamentary report which had absorbed him for a week. The fire that burned within him was manifest in the large, clear handwriting with which he covered the big sheets of paper; his preoccupation showed plainly in his face, in his—as it were—introspective glance, ignoring all things external.

Sheets of paper were now heaping up at his left; he did not stop writing except to refer to Parliamentary Blue-books, or to consult a fat volume of agricultural reports, or a dirty, little, torn notebook. At eleven, as he was engrossed in his task, the slight grating of a key was heard, and a woman entered, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

'It is I,' she said softly, clasping a bunch of roses to her breast. He lifted his head, and stared at her with the bewildered eyes of one not yet sufficiently aroused from his employment to recognise a new-comer.

'Do I disturb you?' asked Elena, with her flutelike voice. 'Yes, yes, I am disturbing you! Go on with your writing—do your work. I will read a book.'

'There are no books here you would like,' he replied, not remembering to thank her for having come.

She rummaged among the papers with her slender hands, gloved in black and hampered by the bunch of roses. Sangiorgio smiled at her complacently. She was always so fascinating, with those heavy lips of hers, red and moist, with those strange eyes of indefinable colour, with that graceful opulence of figure, that even to look at her, to have her present, here, in his own room, was always a new delight to him.

'There is nothing there!' she laughed. 'I could never read about the quantity of polenta the peasants of Lombardy eat, and how many potatoes the Southerners. That would make me too melancholy. Do your writing—do your writing, Franz; do not mind me.'

And he got up, and went over to kiss her on the eyes, through her thin veil, as she liked it; she made a face like a greedy child receiving a sweetmeat. He returned to his writing. Elena walked up and down in the parlour, as if trying to get warm: in this room, on this bleak March day, it was freezing.

'Are you not cold, Franz?' asked Elena from the sofa, whence she was curiously eyeing the pictures on the hooks.

'A little,' he answered, without ceasing from his writing.

She again reviewed the room in all its squalor, realized in what a state of decent poverty he existed, and watched him, writing so swiftly at that little table, where he was obliged to draw in his elbows so as not to brush the papers over the edge. And into the eyes of the woman watching the tireless worker came a new light of tenderness which he did not see.

Now leaning against the mantelpiece, she reviewed her surroundings, first examining the three photographs of a corporal, a stout gentleman, and a boy belonging to the Nazzareno school, and then the three libellous oleographs representing the Royal Family.

'Franz, have you ever had your photograph taken?' she inquired, looking at herself in the mirror, and adjusting the bow on her hat.

'Yes, at Naples once, when I was a student,' he answered, turning over some Parliamentary records.

'And have you it now?'

'No, of course not.'

'If you had it, I should want it,' she insinuated in a voice like a child's.

'Is the original not enough for you?'

'No,' was Elena's reflective response. He got up again, came over and took her hands, and asked her:

'Then, you like me?'

'Yes—yes—yes,' she sang on three musical notes.

Francesco returned to the table, where he resumed his work. She hazarded a step to the threshold of his bedroom, and cast a glance inside.

'Franz,' said she, 'you did not come to the Valle last night.'

'There was the Budget Committee up till eleven. Afterwards I was too tired.'

'A number of people came to see me in my box—Giustini, for instance. How do you come to be so intimate with him?'

'He is useful to me,' he answered simply, without looking up.

'He speaks ill of you.'

'I hope so.'

'To be sure, he never praises anyone but mediocrities. You will become a great statesman, Franz!'

'Oh, that will take a long time,' he replied tranquilly, noting down some figures on a small piece of paper.

'Gallenga and Oldofredi came, too. Oldofredi makes love to me.'

'Quite right of Oldofredi,' he murmured gallantly.

She laughed, and vanished into the adjoining room. It was so cold and ugly that for a moment she shrank back in repulsion. She scanned the woollen arabesques on the bedquilt, which the servant had given a furious shaking. But it was the large grease-spot on the blue-cloth easy-chair which caused her to turn her head; her feminine instincts made her wince at that grease-spot. She walked about the room in search of an unavailable article: on the chest of drawers were only two candlesticks without candles and a clothes-brush, and nothing that would serve her purpose; on the toilet-table were only two combs and a broken bottle of Felsina water. The place was as bare as a hermit's cell. At last she descried, on the stand near the bed, a water-bottle and glass, and, beaming with pleasure, untied her bundle of roses, thrust three or four into the neck of the decanter, a few into the cup, dropped a handful on the coverlet at the foot of the bed, and then, being at a loss where to put any more, stuffed two under the pillow. Moving cautiously, she went back to the chest of drawers, and opened the top drawer, which contained neckties and gloves; here, too, she left some of her roses. A portrait lay thrown in there, still in its envelope. It was her own. A light shadow of displeasure flitted across her face, and quickly disappeared. In that miserable room, in that murky light that came from the courtyard, in that stench of kitchen slops, the roses gave out a vernal freshness, the essence of a garden, a remembrance of sunlight, an atom of fragrance.

'I have finished,' said Sangiorgio, appearing in the doorway.

'Let us go home to lunch.'

'Do you think we shall have done by half-past one?'

'Why?'

'I have an appointment with a constituent.'

'Well, I hope so, as I also have an appointment—at two.'

'With a constituent?'

'With Oldofredi.'

'Indeed,' he answered, putting on his overcoat.

'He is to tell me how he came to be unwilling to marry Angelica Vargas.'

'Was he intending to marry her?'

'Yes, and he did not want to. Perhaps, though, it was she who refused. Nearly everyone dislikes Oldofredi, especially in Parliament. Do you know him?'

'No; I am not interested in him.'

'You are quite pale; what is the matter?'

'I don't know; probably it is the cold.'

'Come, come away to my house; there is a fire there, and you can warm yourself!'

He accompanied her, without saying a word about the roses.

* * * * *

The Honourable Oldofredi was not a particularly assiduous frequenter of the Parliamentary library. He occasionally went there to look for a friend, but did not read; he never asked for books or papers. Malicious tongues among the deputies, forsooth, had it that he did not know how to read. Now, as he entered the library that day, and found Sangiorgio seated in front of a veritable mountain of books, flying through statistical works, skimming over the pages of volumes of political economy, history, and social science with that impetuosity in research and preparation which characterizes the provincial Southerner, at the sight of this the fatuous Oldofredi smiled disdainfully. He had first put his head in at the door, to see if it was the colleague he was in search of; then, prompted by some new idea, he went in, although he had not seen his friend. He began to saunter idly up and down, blowing the remains of a cigarette out of a small amber mouthpiece. The Honourable Oldofredi, despite his reputation as a Don Juan and a swashbuckler, was neither a handsome nor a powerful man; he was a machine of bones and sinews badly put together, the whole of his elongated person had an unpleasant, battered appearance, his face was of a repulsively cadaverous hue; in his eyes lay vacant stupidity, and all his limbs were so disjointed as to make him look like a perambulating automaton.

Sangiorgio, from the moment he rested his eyes on him, could not take them away again. A sort of irritating fascination drew the Basilicatan's attention from the statistics and the works on political economy, and attracted him to the deputy from the Marches, whom he detested and hated through some vague instinct of sectionalism, lover's jealousy, and ambition. While Oldofredi walked to and fro, he stared at him fixedly, holding his pen over the paper. This Don Quixote, disliked by the whole Chamber, hateful to all the women, ignorant, stupid, and devoid of ability, who with all these forbidden qualities had nevertheless always been successful in his re-election, in having himself talked about, and in holding a position of prominence in political and social life—this man weighed on Sangiorgio's stomach like some indigestible food to which repugnance is instinctive. Oldofredi was a political sword-swallower. His duels were no longer a topic of conversation, unless in a vague way, as if about something doubtful and distant, because it was so many years since anyone had ventured to challenge him. But no personal dispute could happen in which he was not concerned as second, or arbiter, or adviser, and neither inside the Chamber nor out of it was there a surer or readier authority on fighting. This endowed this coarse, commonplace individual with a halo of romance, and in the annals of gossip it was stated that women were prompt to lay their wavering virtue at the feet of this Orlando of the Marches, who in their eyes could be counted on as a formidable champion to cover their transgressions.

'Have you seen friend Bomba by chance, Honourable Sangiorgio?' queried Oldofredi, stopping opposite the writer.

'I? No,' replied the other curtly, raising his head.

'Where can he be hiding? He is not in the hall; that ass of a Borgonero was making a speech there about some foolery or other. I have been looking for Bomba everywhere. He can only be here, in the company of that idiot of a Giordano Bruno. Do you, Sangiorgio, believe Giordano Bruno existed?'

'I? yes,' he answered dryly.

Sangiorgio gave Oldofredi a frigid stare, which would have baffled a less conceited talker. But he continued to walk up and down, with his nose in the air. He lighted another cigarette, making a noisy rustle with his long, ugly, ungainly person, which disturbed the quiet of that studious place. In the little adjoining room at the right the Honourable Gasperini, the white-bearded Tuscan with a subtle smile and a pair of sharp eyes behind his spectacles, had already looked up twice in the midst of his perusal of some financial thesis; he had shrugged his shoulders, annoyed at Oldofredi's obtrusiveness. Arrived at the other door, which opened into the room on the left, he stood still on the threshold, and leaned against the jamb, with his hands in his pockets. In this room the Honourable Giroux, a slow, grave old gentleman with half-closed lids and sleepy look, was reading in a large tome bound in parchment. Oldofredi smiled; then, returning to Sangiorgio's table, accosted him with another sneer:

'He is in there, you know, with Copernic.'

'Who?' asked the other, with the same studied coldness.

'Giroux. Not satisfied with bothering people about his own philosophical absurdities, he has invented some for Copernic. Who may this Copernic be? Pah! Giroux will swear he knew him in Turin, and that he was a carbonaro!'

And Oldofredi burst out laughing. But he did not see the strong and set expression of displeasure in Sangiorgio's face; he did not observe the slight nervous tremble which made the pen dance between the Southern deputy's fingers.

'And over on the other side is Gasperini, the ex-secretary, who certainly is reading the proceedings of the British Parliament, so as to be able to argue against Giroux to-morrow. What do you think of it?'

'Nothing.'

'Well, I shall pick up Gasperini with two fingers, and put him into Giroux's arms; then their reconciliation will be accomplished, Copernic and Bentham will bless them, and Italian finance—and agriculture, too—will go on in the same way as before—that is to say, as badly as possible.'

This he announced in a loud voice, not caring whether the others overheard him. Sangiorgio glanced at both doors, as though signifying his apprehension.

'No, they are not listening. When Giroux is with Copernic he hears nothing, and Gasperini is befogged in English finance. And what if they did hear!'

He made his favourite motion of defiance with his shoulders, one of the gestures which had won him the reputation of being a brave man.

'They might answer you,' replied Sangiorgio in an equivocal tone.

'Oh no! they would not answer at all! More likely they would make a note of it, and remind me of it at a future time, in the hall, in a lobby, or in a newspaper. That's the way in politics. Or probably they would try to forget to do even that, as so many others have forgotten. You seem to be new here; you have a great deal left to learn. One thing, my dear sir, I can inform you of myself: in politics one must never reply immediately, to a man's face, directly. Either one forgets or one waits.'

'And supposing you should get an immediate answer?' rejoined Sangiorgio more glacially than ever.

'What! Imagine, my dear new deputy, that for five years in these precincts I have gone about saying the whole truth to everybody concerning facts, men, and events, at the top of my voice, merely to relieve my liver. Has anyone had the courage to defend himself, to answer me to my face? No one has—no one, my dear new deputy!'

'And how is that?' said Sangiorgio, his eyes rooted to the paper he had been writing upon, as if in reflection.

'Come, now! It is because the old ones have exhausted their whole supply of courage—if they ever had any—and the young ones have not yet begun to draw on theirs—if they ever do have any.'

'Do you think so, Oldofredi?'

'Great heavens! Do I think so! The Chamber is full of cowards!'

'It is not, Honourable Oldofredi.'

'Cowardice and Company, that is the name of the firm!'

'I assure you it is not, Oldofredi.'

'You are giving me the lie, it seems to me?'

'Certainly.'

'Do you give me the lie?'

'Yes—I do.'

'You want to prove to me that the Chamber is not cowardly?'

'Yes.'

'I live in the Via Frattina, No. 46, I dine at the Colonne, and I shall be at the Apollo this evening.'

'Very well.'

'Good-day.'

'Good-day.'

Oldofredi shrugged his shoulders, flicked the ashes off his cigarette, and went out, shaking his loose limbs. Sangiorgio dipped his pen into the inkpot, and resumed his writing. The occupants of the next room had heard nothing, especially as the conversation had been carried on in an ordinary tone of voice. Gasperini was turning over the English financial reports, Giroux was immersed in Copernic, and Sangiorgio made notes from Tullio Martello's 'Storia dell' Internazionale.'

CHAPTER IV

When the Honourable Sangiorgio entered the Parliament cafÉ at seven to dine, when he went into that dark, oppressive vault, which was, as it were, in a state of fumigation, sundry heads were turned, and his name was whispered in well-bred undertones by the diners. Only two or three tables were vacant. After a moment of indecision, Sangiorgio sat down at one with three chairs unoccupied. At once, from the next table, the Honourable Correr, the young deputy of the Right, nodded to him amicably, and the Honourable Scalatelli, a Colonel of carabineers, with a peaked, grizzly beard and merry eyes, scrutinized him with interest. The other two, ex-deputies, the great Paulo, the big Paulo, the strong Paulo, continued to dispute with the little Paduan Mephistopheles, Berna, a queer spirit.

'Is it true, then, Sangiorgio, about the duel?' asked Correr in a subdued voice.

'It is true,' answered the other, looking over the bill of fare.

'Your first duel?'

'My first.'

'Have you ever taken fencing lessons?'

'A few.'

'You are rash. Oldofredi is a remarkable fencer.'

'A duel—a duel? Who is fighting?' exclaimed the bulky Paulo, having just administered 'donkey' to his friend Berna, who had treated him to 'idiot.'

'Here, the Honourable Sangiorgio with Oldofredi,' explained Correr.

'A fine opponent, by God! He is left-handed, is Oldofredi; you had better take that into consideration, Honourable Sangiorgio.'

'I was not aware of it, but I will consider it.'

'And the seconds—who are the seconds?' inquired the gigantic Paulo, the colossus, the molossus, whom every duel intoxicated.

'Count Castelforte and Rosolino Scalia; I am waiting for them to dine with me,' courteously replied Sangiorgio.

'Excellent! A good choice—seconds not given to mediation, will attempt no friendly settlement on the ground.'

'Was the duel unavoidable, Sangiorgio?' inquired Scalatelli.

'Unavoidable.'

'Oldofredi has good luck, Sangiorgio. I fought with him some years ago, and he cut my wrist,' calmly elucidated Scalatelli.

At this, the Count di Castelforte and Rosolino Scalia came upon the scene, and singled out Sangiorgio. The Count preserved the aristocratic chill that emanated from his whole self, from his tall, lean person, from his long, black, whitening beard, from the half-inborn, half-literary composure of a nobleman and a writer. Rosolino Scalia comported himself like an officer in plain clothes, with flower at buttonhole and moustache scented; but he, too, was cool and serious. Castelforte engaged in conversation with Correr and Scalatelli, while Scalia removed his topcoat.

'Well,' asked Sangiorgio, 'what has happened?'

'Nothing as yet,' replied Scalia with reserve—'or very little.'

Sangiorgio asked no further questions. The beginning of the dinner of the three men was marked by complete silence. Castelforte was, as usual, supercilious, Scalia grave, and Sangiorgio impassive.

'The seconds are Lapucci and Bomba,' said Scalia, helping himself to wine. 'We are to meet them at half-past nine. Have you provided for sabres, Sangiorgio?'

'Yes.'

'Very well,' said Castelforte. 'I hope you have had them sharpened; nothing is worse, in a duel, than blunt swords. The duel becomes too long, and the gashes are always ridiculously broad, indecently so.'

'I have had them ground by Spadini himself.'

'Well done,' commented Scalia. 'A protracted duel has all sorts of disadvantages; it smacks of the burlesque, for one. One thing I advise you, Sangiorgio: think of nothing, and worry about nothing, but at the first onset rush in; do not wait for your enemy, and make no calculations, simply go at him; for beginners this is the only chance of success.'

'On the other hand,' interjected Castelforte, 'as I was led to understand by Lapucci, the conditions will be of a most serious kind. But you are not in jest, Sangiorgio; it is natural that between two serious men these things should be taken seriously.'

'I have no intention of joking,' observed Sangiorgio, taking some salad.

'All the better. Have you a doctor?'

'No.'

'Let us take the usual doctor—Alberti,' said Scalia. 'I will attend to it this evening.'

A small boy in livery, whose cap wore the inscription 'CaffÈ di Roma,' came into the place, looking about for someone. He had a note for the Honourable Sangiorgio.

'The Speaker of the Chamber has sent for me at the Roma cafÉ, where he will be until half-past nine.'

'And you will go,' said Castelforte. 'But stand your ground; do not allow your purpose to be changed.'

'Scalia! Scalia!' cried the mastiff Paulo from the other table, no longer capable of reticence, 'take care what place you choose for the duel! Let it be near a house, an inn, a farm—any sort of shelter. Since I once had to bring back poor Goffredi, wounded in the lungs, and gasping and spitting blood at every jolt of the carriage, over three miles of highroad all stones and ruts, I made a vow never to act as second again unless there was a bed ready within fifty yards.'

'Then it would be better to have it in a house,' suggested Correr.

'A house! Not at all!' exclaimed Scalia. 'It is unlucky in a house. All duels in houses end badly.'

The seconds rose, and for five minutes more conversed with their principal, all standing up together. They were watched with curiosity from the other tables, but the three faces betrayed nothing. Then followed a great profusion of vigorous handshakes and of bows. Sangiorgio, left alone, settled the bill. The guests at the other tables also left, bidding Sangiorgio farewell.

'Good luck, colleague! Ram it down the wolf's jaws!' said Correr.

'I wish you a steady hand, Honourable Sangiorgio,' added Scalatelli.

'Do not look at him if you believe in the evil-eye,' advised Berna.

But from the middle of the room the enormous Paula, with sudden familiarity, shouted out while he laughed:

'Good-bye, Sangiorgio, and I tell you what: aim at his face!'

He understood that they all went away doubtful about the issue. He left two minutes later. At the door he met a reporter of a morning paper, who asked him for news.

'Nothing yet,' was his answer.

'In case—well, in case of—may I come to your house to-morrow for information?' persisted the beardless youth with the boyish manner.

'Angelo Custode, 50,' said the other, moving off.

At the CaffÈ di Roma the Speaker was finishing dinner with his friend, Colonel Freitag, a large man of childish mien, of high-pitched, reedy voice. The Speaker had the worn-out appearance of an individual resting from some unprofitable labour. As soon as Sangiorgio accosted him he went straight to the point:

'Cannot this ugly business be mended, honourable colleague?'

The Speaker repressed a nervous little gesture and bit his lips.

'I think not, sir.'

'Now, come, honourable colleague—has there not been some misunderstanding? A duel between two deputies is a grave matter; it ought not to occur without cause.'

'There was no misunderstanding, I assure you, Speaker.'

'I have experience in such things: Oldofredi is rather excitable, you are young, and some joke was taken the wrong way. One ought to be careful on these occasions, colleague; to-morrow the newspapers will talk, and then a scandal will arise.'

'I hope not. In any case, there is no remedy.'

'No one will make Oldofredi say that you, Sangiorgio, brought about this duel for notoriety's sake.'

And the Speaker cast a narrowly scrutinizing glance at the Southern deputy's face, but read in it only indifference, impassivity, and he seemed to abandon his attempt at mediation.

'Have the seconds fixed upon the conditions?' he inquired.

'Not yet; I am to meet them at eleven.' And he rose to go.

'Take my advice—give no information to reporters; a Parliamentary duel is a godsend to them. Good luck, honourable colleague!'

Sangiorgio departed, feeling that the Speaker's frigid speech and the Honourable Freitag's obdurate silence both meant the same thing.

Out in the street, in the Corso, he stopped and hesitated. He had arranged to meet his seconds at the Aragno cafÉ, although he was now possessed of an invincible repugnance against his nocturnal vagabondage, this wandering from one cafÉ to another, against those artificial camping-grounds of deputies, journalists, and idlers without a home of their own, who, having no family, spent their evenings in those hot, smoke-laden places. An intense disgust was growing up in him for the people who came and asked questions, and wanted to know, and offered comments, and were for ever indifferent. He knew that Castelforte and Scalia must have come together with Lapucci and Bomba at the Uffici; he therefore preferred to walk slowly up towards Montecitorio, purchasing some newspapers at the kiosk in the Piazza Colonna, and reading them by lamplight under the Veian portico.

Two or three evening papers announced the duel with some ceremony; one gave initials only, but alleged that attempts at conciliation had proved fruitless. He put them into his pocket, and, seized somewhat with impatience, began to pace up and down opposite the Parliament. The great windows of the offices were all alight; the clerks were still at work. But the square, the large square without shops, was deserted. He walked back and forth, round the obelisk from the Uffici del Vicario to the Via degli Orfanelli, and from the Via degli Orfanelli to the Via della Missione, his hands in his pockets, his head down, stepping out at a lively gait to combat the dampness that penetrated to the bone.

The porch door of the Albergo Milano, which fronts upon the square, was closing after the arrival of the last omnibus from the station, and Sangiorgio's seconds had not yet appeared. He became irritated at being observed by the deputies who had passed the evening in the Chamber, and when anyone showed himself in the doorway Sangiorgio stopped, or else turned away fretting with vexation. At length Scalia and Castelforte came out upon the steps; the tall figure of the Lombard Count was outlined against the shorter but sturdier frame of the Sicilian deputy. They were talking eagerly at one another; then they ceased, and made their way down. Sangiorgio joined them at a run.

'I did not wish to wait for you at the cafÉ. It is full of people, and they all want to know about it, and I have no desire to look as if I were posing,' he explained to his seconds.

'You did well,' said Scalia. 'When one is to fight, it is best not to be seen, from motives of delicacy. That poser of an Oldofredi was declaiming the whole evening at the Colonne; he is at the theatre now, at the Apollo, for the purpose of being admired. Enough of that—everything seems to be in readiness.'

'The Acqua Acetosa, outside the Popolo gate, is a good place,' suggested Castelforte, 'because one can get there so quickly. We have fixed on the hour of ten, and shall call for you at half-past eight.'

All three of them walked in the direction of Sangiorgio's house. He smoked in silence.

'Are you nervous, eh?' asked Scalia.

'Not in the least!'

'Well, then, try to get some sleep. Have you any brandy at home?'

'No.'

'Brandy is a good thing in case of a duel. I shall bring some on the ground to-morrow morning. But do you try to sleep.'

'Confound it! I shall sleep!'

'We have ruled out no strokes,' resumed Castelforte. 'That was what you wanted, I think.'

'Exactly so.'

'I have notified Dr. Alberti,' added Scalia; 'he is coming; his experience will be of great value. Do not trouble about a carriage; we shall bring a landau ourselves. Only be ready punctually, for we must arrive in good time.'

'How is it, Sangiorgio, that you have never fought a duel?'

'Oh, we in the Basilicata are very slow to wrath.'

'It would not seem so,' laughed Castelforte.

Hereupon, as they went up through the Via Angelo Custode, they remained silent. Their three shadows were cast conspicuously on the empty street: Castelforte's, lean and almost ghostly; Scalia's, rigidly martial; Sangiorgio's, small but solid.

* * * * *

Alone at last. The tallow candle shed a dim light in the cold and barren parlour, whose stale air was mingled with the bad kitchen smells which came up from the inner courtyard. Alone at last—he was glad of it, with that savage desire for solitude which frequently invaded his being.

On that afternoon and evening the strong sentiment in him of contempt for man, always latent in his breast, had grown apace; for seven hours he was passing through one of the great human trials which leave the soul embittered, disappointed, sickened. In the solitude of his little apartment, in the nocturnal lucidity of his brain, which no man, nor thing, nor circumstance had, up till then, been able to obscure, all the pettiness, the love of compromise, the coldness, the indifference, the stinted zeal of the people he had met with, now stood before him, arrayed, classified, definite. First, the difficulty of finding seconds against Oldofredi, who had a reputation for swordsmanship; then, the very limited enthusiasm of Scalia and Castelforte; all the advice, all the suggestions, all the inconsiderate sayings, all the melancholy forecasts, pitying inquiries, unmeaning, superficial compliments—all this multitude of words, of phrases, of unpleasant accents, disgusted him as they once more filed before his mind, reminding him again of men's meanness and smooth hypocrisy.

He felt how everyone, acquaintances and strangers, friends and foes, admirers and detractors, far or near, entertained an adverse judgment of him because of his duel with Oldofredi. He was conscious of the offensive commiseration of some, of the ironical sneers of others, of the wrathful envy of others still, of the profound contempt of very many. He was aware that his audacious exploit of venturing to measure swords—he, the young, inexperienced novice—with a fire-eater whom no one any longer dared insult, and who was an old deputy, was bringing down upon him ridicule, pity, and disdain. In that hour he had the whole of public opinion against him, and felt overwhelmed by the injustice of humanity. It was bliss to him to be alone, to be able to shut himself up with his bitterness and his broken illusions. But he was not quite alone, no—something there was that lay shining on the sofa. And as he took the candle in hand in order to see better, a glistening streak glowed forth. In the watches of the night the sharp-edged swords watched too.

They, at all events, did not lie. Stubborn was their strength in attack and defence; it was enough to smooth their sides for five minutes, and the power of good and evil was in them. They never dissembled, but were ready—loyally ready—to parry mortal strokes, to pierce, to cut, to kill; one in his hand, the other in his enemy's; blade against blade; edge against edge—those faithful swords! The word of man by its unkindness congeals the blood, or through its bitterness poisons the heart; a good blade does its work honestly, cuts straight and deep. The human tongue inflicts rending wounds; the sword scarcely gives pain, because of the rapid precision of the blow.

Sangiorgio, irresistibly attracted by the sheen of the steel, went to sit on the sofa, and ran his finger along the keen edge of one of the sabres. What did seconds, deputies, friends, enemies, reporters, matter now? The whole affair depended on those two weapons; the end would be decided by a well-tempered, well-sharpened piece of steel. End? He looked about, as if looking for the person who had said the word. But he was alone; the swords lay by his side; his gaze was raptly fixed upon them. For others the night preceding a duel is a night of agitation, of nervousness, of walking the floor; others all have a woman to be reassured by airiness, a relative to whom a letter must be written, a friend entitled to a note, a servant to be charged with an important errand; others are not afraid, perhaps, but they all feel a little troubled, a trifle thoughtful, a particle of remorse; all others are either elated or try to forget, at the idea of the end; some great interest of the heart must suffer; the soul is exalted or cast down, thrilled or plunged in lethargy. Of all this there was no question with Sangiorgio; no woman, no parents, no friends, no servants; not a line to be written, not a word to be said, not an order to be given. In vain did Sangiorgio seek in his heart for the great interest to be hurt at the notion of the end.

Whom would it grieve if to-morrow Oldofredi sent him home seriously wounded or dead? To what man or woman would this matter? No one would care—no one; he was alone, in face of the swords, in face of the end. And in that cool process of elimination, in that misanthropical method of selection of men and sentiments, he arrived at himself, at his grand, absorbing, selfish passion: political ambition. If he were wounded next day—badly or slightly would be equally significant of defeat—then the absolute end would come to his profound, intense, burning desire for fame and power. Wounded or dead, no tears of woman, no love of friend, no affectionate regrets, would be his portion; but he, Sangiorgio, would be the sole mourner of his own lost hopes of renown, his own dreams of ambition wrecked in the physical and moral shame of the disaster. The swordthrust which to-morrow pierced his flesh, cut through his muscles, sundered his veins, would find its way to his heart, that hard, fast-closed heart, where only one passion lived, and would give that passion a mortal wound. The slow, substantial task, at which he had been labouring so long with the diligence of an ant, with inflexible persistency, might crumble to nothing the next day. Then, of what account all the strength put forth, all those endeavours, privations, abstinences, all those pangs endured in silence? One stroke of a sword, and all this was vain. Thus, in the smoky light of the tallow candle, in the night, in the solitude, those naked sabres for one brief instant frightened him.

At half-past eight precisely the seconds arrived. Sangiorgio, completely dressed, his overcoat buttoned and his lustrous, tall silk hat on a table, was rather pale, but quite composed; only by a scarcely perceptible tremble of one corner of his mouth did he show the least sign of agitation.

'Where are the sabres?' inquired Castelforte.

'Here.'

Castelforte took them from their sheaths separately, touched their points, ran his finger along their edges, bent them backwards and forwards with the points stuck into the floor, and tried them again and again, making flourishes in the air.

'Have you a scarf or a silk handkerchief, to tie them together?'

Sangiorgio had a scarf ready. Scalia put the sabres into a bag, about which he wound the neckcloth, took up the gauntlet lying on the lounge, and looked at Castelforte, saying:

'Shall we go?'

'Yes, let us go.'

They descended the dark staircase. The coachman opened the door of the landau, Scalia threw the swords and the glove on one of the seats; then they all three jumped quickly into the carriage. They drove through the Via Due Macelli, where the florist was displaying a large show of roses, and thence into the Piazza di Spagna. From the woolly clouds gathering in the sky a few drops of wet fell upon the carriage windows.

'It is raining,' said Sangiorgio.

'That does not matter,' said Castelforte. 'A duel in the rain is more dramatic.'

In the Via del Babuino demolitions were in progress. Heaps of ruins blocked the mouths of the side-streets; the beginning of the Via Vittoria was all topsy-turvy, since the drain-pipes were being mended. By the time they had reached the Piazza del Popolo, the rain was heavier, and was falling with as lively a patter as though it were hail.

'It will leave off,' said Scalia. 'The wind is changing.'

Outside the gate the carriage stopped, to take up the doctor, who was waiting at the CaffÈ dei Tre Re. Under his arm he had a case of instruments and some lint. He took a seat opposite Sangiorgio, beside Castelforte. He was in cheerful humour, and told tales of other duels he had witnessed.

And as the landau went at a gallop over the muddy stones of the Flaminian Way, the first Ponte Molle tram left the station, and rattled off half empty, bouncing and swaying on the rails.

The carriage then passed the gasometer, and rapidly bent into the street leading to the Villa Glori. Under the Arco Oscuro the country loomed in sight; the first trees were visible beyond the walls.

Then Sangiorgio, who up to that time had been sunk in a sort of mental and moral stupor, in a sort of weariness of brain and heart, roused himself in a state of reaction. Castelforte had lowered a window, and the fresh air came whistling in. As the road happened to be sloping upwards, the carriage was moving at a walk. Sangiorgio began to revive and to think. By degrees, during the approach to the appointed place, all his nervous force concentrated in his teeth, which he bit closer and closer together, minute by minute. He also seized one of the window-tassels in his hand, and closed his fingers upon it with more and more vigour. Under his eyes a streak of warm red appeared, which began to spread irregularly downward. But, as his fervour grew, all desire to show it outwardly diminished; he was slowly shutting himself up with himself, in a sort of romantic, idolatrous self-communion, and to the remarks of the doctor and his seconds he vouchsafed no other reply than a series of more than usually violent nods. The horses puffed hard on the inclining road; at last, at the Villa Glori, the descent began. Then the carriage started off again at a fast trot. There were no more walls; henceforth, to right and left, blooming hedges sped by the carriage windows. For a while it seemed to Sangiorgio as though girls were running along offering him bunches of hawthorn. Then the hedges ceased, and the carriage drove in between two rows of elms, whose tops quivered gently in the wind. A wild shudder ran through Sangiorgio's body, and the flush under his eyes was gone. They had arrived. He wanted to jump out at once; Castelforte held him back.

'Remain in the carriage with the doctor,' said he. 'The exact spot is not agreed upon yet. Wait a little.'

The seconds got out. Sangiorgio stayed inside at the window.

They were first on the ground. The cabin at the Acqua Acetosa was deserted. Doors and shutters were closed. There was not a vestige of life. The great plain stretched along the river, green, treeless, and without a human creature. Far away, in the direction of the Villa Ada, a long file of white sheep was distinguishable against the uniform green and ash-gray, and a hooded shepherd was standing there erect and motionless.

Castelforte and Scalia walked out upon the plain, gesticulating. The weather was clearing a little, though there were still rumblings and threatening signs. The immense area, grown with useless herbage, was such a mournful and desolate wilderness that the shapes of the two well-dressed men moving among the blooming chicory created a curious dissonance in the scene. The Tiber, swollen and livid, was tossing in angry turbulence. Castelforte and Scalia turned back slowly, arguing the while. Sangiorgio was beginning to tremble with impatience. The carriage seemed suffocating to him, and he could barely breathe.

The two seconds drew near again. Castelforte leaned in at the window.

'We have found a good place; it is a little soft, but not slippery. We must wait to see if the others are satisfied with it.'

'Here they come!' said Sangiorgio, whose senses had become excessively acute through the excitement.

Indeed, the noise of a carriage was audible, and it rapidly grew more defined; the vehicle turned into the plain at a fast gallop, and drew up at a short distance from the hut, in the middle of the field. The door opened, and Oldofredi, Lapucci, and Bomba leaped down.

These last advanced towards Castelforte and Scalia, who came to meet them; Sangiorgio's doctor and Oldofredi's kept aside, kneeling in the grass and opening out their cases, so as to have everything ready. Oldofredi remained near his carriage, with his topcoat on, smoking and playfully tapping the croup of one of the horses with his thin bamboo cane. Sangiorgio, his body half out of the door, was casting hesitating glances about. What enraged him was his inexperience, the newness of the thing, and his ignorance of the formalities. Was he to stay in the coach, or alight as his adversary had done? He looked at the seconds. Castelforte and Lapucci, bent low, were clearing the ground with their feet and drawing lines with their walking-sticks. Scalia came to the window.

'Be quick! Leave your topcoat and hat in the carriage.'

He took the swords and gauntlet, and turned to the spot chosen for the encounter. Bomba also turned, with a pair of swords and another gauntlet. Sangiorgio, whose breast and temples were throbbing, shivered with expectancy and eagerness, threw aside his hat, tore off topcoat, coat, waistcoat, and necktie, and rushed impetuously towards the seconds. The sharp, hard ring of the swords cast on the grass by Scalia checked him. Castelforte shouted to him from the distance:

'Keep on your coat! It is cold!'

Sangiorgio returned, fetched his great-coat, drew it over his shoulders, and joined the seconds. In the centre of the duelling-ground Castelforte and Lapucci were drawing lots for the choice of swords and the privilege of giving the words of command. Scalia and the doctor took Sangiorgio between them, and spoke to him quietly:

'Have you taken a mouthful of brandy?'

'No.'

'That's bad. One ought always to fortify one's self.'

'I shall not need it,' was Sangiorgio's mental retort.

'I am to give the words of command in the fight. You are to choose the swords,' said Castelforte. 'Do you wish to examine ours?'

'I choose our own,' answered Lapucci; 'here they are.'

Oldofredi, who was in another part of the ground, considering the landscape with an anemone between his lips, veered to the right-about. Castelforte stepped up to Sangiorgio, put a sword into his grasp, tied its handle to his wrist, and accompanied him to his post. The doctors moved off twenty paces. Scalia stayed at Sangiorgio's left, and Bomba at Oldofredi's left. Lapucci and Castelforte took up their position in the middle, opposite one another, each with sword in hand.

Oldofredi bore a more stupid and vacant expression than usual; certainly his mind was as yet unoccupied with what ought to have concerned him most.

Castelforte, with his cavalry Captain's manner, looked imperiously at Sangiorgio and then at Oldofredi.

'Gentlemen——' he began in a singing tone.

Sangiorgio, whose blood had run violently to his face, stared at him; Oldofredi spat out the anemone, and with an aristocratic gesture dropped his overcoat from his shoulders.

'Gentlemen, it would be an insult to admonish two men of your breeding to comport yourselves in perfectly chivalrous fashion. I will only remind you that you must immediately stop as soon as you hear the word "Halt!" and that you must not attack excepting at the command "Go!" Now let us begin.'

He gave Lapucci a nod, who replied with another, and called out:

'Guard!'

With a hardly noticeable movement Oldofredi advanced his right foot, bent his arm and sword to the proper angle, and planted himself firmly on his legs. Sangiorgio sprang to the attitude of guard with a bound, stretching out his right arm and sword in such a rigid straight line that he might have been of iron.

'Go!' commanded Castelforte.

And they made a dash at one another. Oldofredi's sword struck Sangiorgio's, which was aimed at him in a thrust, warded it off, and slid down upon the padded glove. But Sangiorgio, raising arm and weapon with savage strength, beat back his enemy's blade, and all but broke his sword guard in the onslaught.

'Halt!' shouted Castelforte, interposing his own weapon.

The two combatants obeyed, and resumed their places. Oldofredi, a little pale, was smiling; he had gauged his foe. Sangiorgio, however, in whose breast raged the fury of a bull that has seen red, kept his mouth shut, and breathed vehemently through his nose.

'Guard!' said Castelforte again.

Sangiorgio, with his arm extended, and his steel's point directed at his adversary's face, glowered at him with such fierce, menacing eyes that Oldofredi took note of it.

'Go!' exclaimed Castelforte.

This time Oldofredi attacked, making for his opponent's body; Sangiorgio, standing steady, his arm outstretched and his point at the enemy's eyes, did not parry. But as he saw the blade, with which a feint had been made at his stomach, flash by his eyes and about to reach his face, he met it with a grinding stroke, so sweeping and so determined that Oldofredi's sword fell from his hand, and remained suspended from the lash.

'Halt!' shouted Castelforte.

Lapucci and Bomba hastened to refasten Oldofredi's weapon to his wrist.

'Good! Another score!' whispered Castelforte into his principal's ear.

Sangiorgio was in a serener state of mind. An internal exultation of pride gratified expressed itself in his face. His teeth closed together. Oldofredi was back at his post, his sword in hand, but this time he was white with the pallor of rage. His teeth, too, were interlocked, and his brow was as dark as if ready to hurl thunderbolts.

At the word of command he flew at his enemy at a bound, without a feint or any sort of artifice in fencing, intending to split his head open. But before his sword could reach its mark, the point of Sangiorgio's cut into his nether lip, and rent his whole cheek as far as the temple. The four seconds precipitated themselves on the duellists, and the doctors ran up. Oldofredi was dragged aside, and made to sit on a stretcher surrounded by the six men. Sangiorgio stood alone, sword in hand, half undressed, and dazed, under the leaden sky which once more sent down a muddy shower.

* * * * *

While the carriage was passing under the Porta del Popolo indistinctly he heard Castelforte ask the doctor:

'How many stitches will be required?'

'Ten.'

'How many days will he be laid up?'

'Twenty—unless a violent fever sets in.'

'By God, what a fine stroke!' interjected Scalia, gleefully pulling at his cigar.

'And then there is the scar,' added Castelforte, laughing. 'Oldofredi will not forget that stroke!'

The doctor got out at the San Giacomo hospital, after making an appointment to sign the record of the duel. At the mention of this, Sangiorgio broke his silence.

'Are you hungry?' Scalia asked him.

'He ought to be; he certainly deserves an appetite,' said Castelforte.

And they both smiled complacently.

The seconds had not embraced their principal on the ground, so as not to be seen, but during the return, in the carriage, they gradually gave themselves up to affectionate demonstrations. Their coolness and stiffness were gone; they looked at Sangiorgio lovingly, with shining eyes, spoke of him proudly, tenderly, as of a good son who has passed an examination and carried off the highest number of marks. Castelforte actually tapped him two or three times on the shoulder—a very unusual piece of familiarity as coming from this grand gentleman. They caressed him with their eyes, with the tone of their voices, with flattering words, showing how they valued him and how well they were disposed towards him after the duel. He received this flood of new friendship very quietly; the tension of his nerves was relaxing more and more, giving room to a strong desire for physical life, in which he would not think, but would only eat, digesting the meal in a warm room, and then sleep soundly for several hours. He smiled at his seconds like a boy who has distinguished himself at his examinations, like a little girl after her first communion. The whole scene of the Acqua Acetosa, with that great, bleeding, streaming gash on his adversary's face, had now vanished; he felt nothing but the blissful happiness of triumphant rest. His features had expanded, his eyes had lost their feverish glitter, his jaws were loosely set: Francesco Sangiorgio looked like a dolt.

* * * * *

The luncheon at the Roma cafÉ was loud and lively. Once a minute Castelforte and Scalia filled Sangiorgio's glass. He ate and drank plentifully, happy in the doing of it, acknowledging by nods the amiable remarks of his two seconds, laughing when they spoke of Oldofredi's mortification, which hurt him far more than his wound.

At dessert the genial humour increased.

'Because,' Scalia was continuing, 'because I have a great experience of duels, and I was anxious on your account, my dear Sangiorgio. Your opponent was strong and brave, and had fought twenty times. You were new at it, inexperienced—and so, of course—I was anxious——'

'Oldofredi was not!' interjected Castelforte.

'He seemed to be in a jocular mood on the ground,' remarked Sangiorgio.

'Oldofredi never makes a joke,' said Scalia sententiously. 'One need not believe in his posings. At the third attack, let me assure you, my dear colleagues, he was raving; he went at you, Sangiorgio, as if he wanted to cleave your skull. What a stroke, ye holy fiends!'

'What a stroke, by God!' chimed in Castelforte.

And the same complimentary speeches began over again; they were rather monotonous, rather exaggerated, as though proffered by persons still under a recent vivid impression, who repeat the same story a hundred times, rocking themselves to the same tune and unable to think of anything else. Thus the tale was retold three or four times. The Honourable Melillo, who had been at lunch with the Honourable Cermigniani at the Colonne, and who was somewhat concerned about his Basilicatan colleague, had come down by way of the Corso to see if he might meet his carriage, and while he was jabbering politics, shouting, excitedly gesticulating, vociferating, quoting figures and demolishing calculations, he espied the group of three at table in the eating-house. So the Honourable Melillo, the blonde member with the red face and the white waistcoat, had joined them, in order to embrace Sangiorgio, and meantime Cermigniani, the deputy from the Abruzzi, stood by, listening to the account given by the seconds, tugging mechanically at his black beard, throwing in exclamations, and, seized with warlike ardour, planting himself in a sort of offensive attitude.

Bencini, the old deputy of the Right, the clever old lukewarm Catholic, suspected of deriding God and the devil alike, was chatting and laughing in spirited fashion, at the other end of the room, with Gambara, the dean of the old Conservative party. Bencini, inquisitive and talkative as a woman, came to offer his congratulations, although he scarcely knew Sangiorgio. But the witty, paradox-loving Tuscan entertained a deep dislike for Oldofredi's vainglorious, swaggering stupidity. He chuckled as he thought of the fury of the deputy from the Marches. Quoth he:

'Oldofredi cannot consign this affair to oblivion; they have sewed it on his face! Fortunately, we are not in the dog-days at present, or he might try to bite.'

And all of them, gathered about Sangiorgio, burst out laughing. Castelforte told Gambara, who had come up to him, the story over again, and Gambara smiled placidly as he looked at Sangiorgio with the eye of an old Parliamentarian fond of studious and brave young deputies. Cermigniani and Melillo were listening to the brilliant tittle-tattle of Bencini, with his cackling speech and his dry laugh.

It was almost a procession that escorted Sangiorgio to the landau. The sun had come out, the top of the carriage had been lowered, and Melillo insisted on getting in with him. And all the way down the Corso there was shaking of hands, bows, nods, congratulations, gestures, and smiles, in lavish profusion. The street was full of deputies, journalists, business men, and reporters, standing about after lunch to enjoy a little sunshine before going to Montecitorio. The Honourable Chialamberto, the short Ligurian deputy, was having a discussion with Colonel Dicenzo, a lean Abruzzan of ascetic appearance; both bowed low to the four deputies as they passed, at the same time nudging one another. As for the deputy Carusio, in the Piazza Colonna he rushed to the carriage door, made the coachman stop, hugged and kissed Sangiorgio, shouting excitedly that he was on his way to the Prime Minister's, to inform him of the happy result of the duel.

In the Chamber an ever-growing demonstration occurred, of which Sangiorgio was the centre. The Speaker maintained, as was his wont, his proper dignity, but in the smile with which he greeted Sangiorgio there was something cordial, something affable, a sort of kindly light. The Honourable Freitag, big and stout, with his head sunk between his shoulders, and in the habit of swinging his bulk up and down the dark corridors like an elephant, asked the Southern deputy, in his small, piping voice:

'In the face, was it not?'

'In the face.'

The rest did nothing but stop and congratulate one another with hearty handshakes; they all wanted particulars of the duel. Scalia, Castelforte, and even Melillo, were all besieged; the tale went round of the three sundry attacks and the final stroke; the bellicose deputies listened with sparkling eyes and with occasional exclamations of praise; the pacific deputies listened silently and smiling, thinking of a tournament. A few—the cruellest—wanted to be told more, had the length and depth of Oldofredi's wound described to them, asked if he had bled much, if the wound would heal soon, if the scar would be very plain. But all over the House, by every one, even by the most cautious, even by those who ventured only a word and a bow, the profound antipathy was evinced which was entertained for Oldofredi by most of his fellow-members. In many of them lingered secret rancour because of a sentence, a glance, some trifling insult received and merely endured from forbearance, so as to avoid talk and scandal.

A few rare friends of Oldofredi held aloof, satisfying themselves with offering Sangiorgio no felicitations. When Lapucci and Bomba entered the Chamber as if nothing had happened, at about four o'clock, inquiries were scarce, and were dictated by cold curiosity. The two seconds felt, in their turn, the isolation of their principal, who lay in bed, with face and head bandaged, in a state of violent fever. Few asked about him; they thought, one and all, that the wound was a well-merited punishment for his sovereign insolence, but that one ought to be charitable towards the vanquished.

The enthusiasm for Sangiorgio continued until evening, waxing higher still at the dinner-hour. Overwhelmed and confused, but always preserving his external calm, which was now and then varied by a stolid smile, he let them say and do what they pleased, listening to everybody and everything, yielding to the enjoyment of this new popularity.

He repaired to the Costanzi Theatre, where the 'Huguenots' was being performed, took an orchestra stall, and listened to the music, with which he was unfamiliar, in a half-imbecile state. Behind him, two young men were discussing the duel, pointing at him as the individual who had inflicted the sword-cut on Oldofredi; they spoke in a whisper, but he heard them very well, as he was giving but one ear to the music. After the first act he felt the glow of an ardent gaze upon his face: Donna Elena Fiammanti was looking at him from a box. He betook himself up there automatically. Opening the door, he stepped into the minute room separated from the box and the public by a red curtain. Two arms surrounded his neck, and an agitated voice spoke:

'Oh, Franz! oh, Franz! Why did you fight on my account? It was not worth while!'

On their way downstairs, after the opera—in the course of which at least ten visits had been paid at the box—as Donna Elena leant upon his arm, her eyes moist with pleasure and pride, he saw, in the lobby, the monster Paulo putting on a huge overcoat. Of a sudden, the whole fog of vanity was dispelled, and Sangiorgio felt an impulse to throw himself on that gallant gentleman's broad breast. It was he, the mastiff, who had advised him to aim at the face. On the ground he had remembered nothing but that counsel.

CHAPTER V

The case had come up expectedly two days after a public holiday. In one of the Italian provinces, on that festal day of patriotic celebration, some of the municipal board and the communal council had made most overt manifestations of advanced republican sentiments. The royalist councillors had immediately resigned their seats; telegrams had been despatched to deputies, newspapers, men of influence; the question had all in a moment assumed a serious aspect.

The summer season had arrived, and the sittings were dragging along in weary fashion; foreign politics had already sunk into their summer sleep; no important laws were being passed; the diversion came up unexpectedly, as a surprise, and was therefore welcome, and received general attention. The love-making between the Chamber and the Ministry had grown languid, like all passions meeting response and gratification; intimacy had brought disgust to those who had loved too warmly, and the commencement of the dispute, which grew more and more complicated, was the lash that stung the surfeited, apathetic lovers to activity. They had neither the inclination left, nor the strength, for fervent love. They now met to fight, to exchange insults, to wage a war of suspicion, political calumny, and private slander. The chief accused was the Minister of Home Affairs, who, obedient to his ideal worship of liberty, had not found it in his heart to cast off the aforesaid municipality.

A man of profound thought, large ideas, fine character, accustomed to take a broader view of political questions than was tolerable to the petty spirit of other politicians, ever rising to a lofty conception of things, he stated that the liberty of political conscience must be respected. In private amused at the unwonted importance attached to the affair, he said there was 'no likelihood that these little aldermen would burn down the temple of our institutions.' He declared publicly that the matter was trifling; and to the anxious, deeply-concerned people who came to appeal to him he showed the calm front of the superior individual, which seemed a pretence, but actually was the security of a quiet mind.

But all round him, surreptitiously and visibly, raged the desire for a crisis. All the malcontents, the ambitious, the mediocre, the envious incapables, the conceited fools, agitated, combined, held meetings, talked, harnessing mediocrity with envy, ambition with conceit, discontent with folly. They shouted in the cafÉs, made speeches at the eating-houses, arranged little sub-conspiracies in the parlours of the furnished houses where deputies had lodgings, behaved like arch-plotters at the tables set out in summer by Ronzi and Singer, the liquor-sellers, in the Piazza Colonna.

All day, at all the railway-stations, from all parts of Italy, deputies were arriving with small hand-bags—the emergency-week bag, into which a careful wife packs four shirts, six pocket-handkerchiefs, a pair of slippers, a clothes-brush, and so on, against the possibility of sudden departure. There were already three hundred and fifty deputies in Rome, an unusual number, never mustered in the most active winter sessions. And probably every one of the three hundred and fifty was expecting, believing, wishing, hoping to become, was certain of becoming, a Minister after the crisis.

The Minister—a strong, good, and wise man—either did not hear, or, if he did, ascribed no importance to the increasing clamour about the crisis.

'There will be no crisis,' he smilingly replied to those who asked him about it in friendly conversation. 'There will be no crisis,' he stated to those whom he assured of the fact with a preoccupied air of condescension.

At bottom he knew the political world and the men composing it. He was fully aware that the Prime Minister was on his side, that the seven other Ministers were with him, that this powerful body of nine would not allow itself to be ousted for no earthly reason but the refusal of a Mayor to sign an address to the King and his raising the cross of the tricoloured banner. He knew the furious lust for power of his eight colleagues, the tenacity of those oysters sticking to the rock; to attain it they had gone through all kinds of political sufferings and agony, and now they would sooner die than let go their hold. He smiled as he thought of what strength proceeds from weakness; he smiled, and felt safe.

But he passed on to a more moral flight of thought: his fine beliefs were still intact from scepticism, his faith in human conscience was yet unshaken. He felt that this supreme worship of liberty was rooted in every Italian heart and brain; he knew that mean interests might for a moment possess those hearts and brains; but that all would vanish in the presence of a great idea.

Malicious whispers, misrepresentations, false or fabricated news which reached him, were without effect; in vain would some true friend caution him and counsel a pessimistic view. The Home Minister maintained his ideality, which was touched ever so little with bitterness: he was not subject to defeat; he felt morally and materially secure, united with his brother Ministers in a generous cause that itself was strength. He ignored the approach of a political crisis, this Minister; besides, in the political caldron all kinds of characters were cooking, and the traits of every section of Italy were represented. The Sicilians were conspicuous for their warm feeling, mixed with irony and common-sense; the Neapolitans shouted and waved their arms; the Romans waited patiently and temporized, but knew the moment for action; the Tuscans laughed behind their spectacles, smiled mockingly under their moustaches, Mephistophelian and ambitious as they were, and laughed at each other and all the rest; the Lombards, with their aristocratic tendencies, flocked together in a solitary group; the Piedmontese and the Ligurians came and went, and made a bustle without speaking, their communications with each other being through the eye. But the most fiery, the most rebellious and wild, were the members from the smaller provinces—the Abruzzi, the Marches, the Romagnas, the Campania, the Calabrias, the countrymen, the representatives of the provinces that give life and wealth to the great cities, the deputies who had a genuine love for politics, who believed in them, who thought politics were the greatest force in human life, who became drunk with them as with strong wine.

But in the midst of all these latent elements of discord the men of the Basilicata never spoke, but coalesced, formed groups; frigid and impeccable, they asked no questions and gave no answers. The Minister, the stanch man and true, felt safe; he had never known fear at any juncture—and now he smiled.

When the Minister of Home Affairs entered the hall, on the day when the question was to be brought up, a prolonged murmur ran along the benches. He did not fail to observe it, but, a strong man in great things and small, he had the good sense not to look about, nor to look up at the galleries. It at once occurred to him, however, that the matter was more serious than he at first had considered it. Indeed, on the first day he had said to the Prime Minister, in a tone of unconcern:

'There is a lot of talk about this municipal affair.'

'Heat-blossoms,' the Prime Minister had replied, with a smile.

'Do you agree with me?'

'Of course I agree with you,' answered the other, without, however, specifying upon what points.

'Do you think Don Mario Tasca's speech will be important?'

'One of the usual speeches.'

And they talked of other things.

His other colleagues in the Cabinet had shielded themselves behind a strict reserve. Vargas only, the Minister of Fine Arts, a lean, dried-up old man, consumed by devouring ambitions, had offered some uncertain resistance, which the Minister of Home Affairs had combated in an uncertain tone. In the Chamber, however, there was undeniable evidence of a prospectively hot debate. Turning over some of his papers with eyes lowered, the Home Minister became conscious, from the loud, Parliamentary buzz, that at least 400 members must be present. He glanced up at the diplomatic gallery, where the Countess di Santaninfa, lovely and pensive, and dressed in black, was scanning the hall with melancholy eyes, and where the Countess di Malgra, a pale, seductive blonde, who was that day wearing a yellow straw hat, never for an instant ceased from intently considering the assembly. The civil service gallery was full; in the press gallery a triple row of heads anxiously bent forward.

'They smell powder,' thought the Minister. And he looked at his two or three brother Ministers, as if he had something to tell them, but they wore such an indifferent air that he said nothing. He therefore merely glanced at the House. It had quieted down, but had a hard, solid appearance; it was a substantial body of 400 silent, expectant men. And in a quarter of an hour, at three o'clock, the orator of the Right, Don Mario Tasca, began his address from the top bench of the last section but one, in a stillness like that of an empty church. The Prime Minister had come softly into the hall, and had sat down at the end of the Cabinet bench. Don Mario Tasca was a white-haired old man, with pink skin, and a white beard for a collar. His style was elegant; it had rounded periods accompanied and completed by circular manual gestures, resembling the rotation of a small wheel. The speech flowed on and on, softly and gently, with never a failure of the voice, never a check, just like the song of a bird. The orator did not look at the Minister; he looked into the air, like an inspired genius. He never bent his head to refer to his notes, but was as one who knows his part by memory. But, under all this external suavity, his discourse yet sounded of rebuke; the speaker mentioned neither individuals nor facts, but, confining himself to terms somewhat vague, stated that certain institutions and certain ideas were being assailed which hitherto no one had ever thought of impugning. It was a speech that did not rail, and was rather nebulous, perhaps; still, it accused. It withheld names, but it scorched consciences.

The Minister paid close attention, and from time to time glanced sideways at the Premier, who never once turned in his direction; the other Ministers also listened attentively to Don Mario Tasca, who continued in his beautiful, fluent prose. All the deputies were turned to the right and were lending ear; up above the whole public was leaning forward; the two Countesses—the dark and the fair—seemed to be drinking in Don Mario Tasca's words.

He spoke for one hour, with never a halt, and scarcely a blunder, and without the least change in the colour of his vocal tone. He challenged the Minister, in his last sentences, which became briefer and ever more contracted, to answer whether he intended to persist in this criminal do-as-you-like, go-as-you-please system. A very, very long murmur of applause rewarded Don Mario Tasca.

The Minister, before replying, tried to question his chief with his eyes, but the Prime Minister was writing, and this was therefore impossible. He then rose, and answered very placably, very judicially, reducing the question to its lowest terms, declaring it unimportant, planing and smoothing all the facts, having recourse to a number of highly-sensible arguments, foregoing expansion into fine language, which he believed inept. And as he spoke so calmly, he looked about, casting questioning glances at the deputies' faces, as if seeking their approval. But their faces did not light up, for they were displeased. The deputies were not mollified—no, not they; they had come here wrought up by a week of debate and anticipation, the matter was very serious, and the Minister had tried to deal them another hand by belittling the whole affair.

Fruitlessly did he lavish the best of his cleverness and ingenuity, as well as striking sallies both lucid and logical; he continued in the wrong key, not having caught the spirit of the occasion, blind to the circumstance that good oratory was the thing on a day when a crisis threatened. He took note of the general dissatisfaction but without understanding its cause—he still thought he could win this battle with the plain weapons of reason. But glacial silence prevailed in the hall at the close of his defence.

Niccolo Ferro, the Radical deputy, hereupon requested the floor. The Minister frowned; that moment foreboded peril. Niccolo Ferro, the best speaker of the Extreme Left, calm, lucid, imperturbable, strong in logic as in rhetoric, threw so clear a light on the situation that it was no longer subject to doubt. The action of that Mayor was held up in its real and great importance; it was a sign of the times; no one would venture to violate liberty of conscience so far as to prohibit or punish such manifestations. He treated of the historical traditions of the communes, of the long strife in Italy for the attainment of that state of freedom, which was yet in the bud, but which would soon blossom out. A Councillor is a man, he is a citizen, said the orator; he thinks according to his convictions, and acts as he thinks. Institutions are not destroyed by the hands of men, but fall because of their inherent corruption; not men strangle them, but new ideas are their ruin. They fatally rot through the germs of disease they contain; nothing can ever save them when decay has progressed so far.

Fundamentally Niccolo Ferro was both pleased and displeased with the Minister, and he declared it openly.

He was displeased because he, the champion of liberty, was attempting to throw ridicule on the courageous and bold conduct of this clear-sighted municipality; he was pleased because he knew that the old faith never changed in the hearts of upright men, despite the allurements of despotism to those in power; and he was convinced that never would a tyrannous act be done under instruction from that illustrious man.

The illustrious man had absorbed the whole speech, while nervously twisting his gray moustache. He looked at Niccolo Ferro, his friend, very gently, quite unreprovingly. He felt crushed; he felt the amazement of the Chamber at this fresh piece of audacity from the Radical party; he felt that they all, friend and foe, wanted to force him into an equivocal position, from which there was no escape. He could neither declare himself out and out of Niccolo Ferro's opinion, nor oppose him. In that hour he was conscious of having indulged in a too loyal policy, founded on truth alone, inspired solely by lofty principles, independent of men and events, poetical almost and unreal—a policy so unpractical that it lent itself to ready defeat by both the Right and the Left at the same time. The illustrious man recognised all this, but could say nothing. Possibly, in this peril the old Prime Minister, by addressing the house in his kindly, easy way, might save the situation; he might put Don Mario Tasca's mystical, lyrical apprehensions, and Niccolo Ferro's uncalled-for petulance, in their proper places. But the old Premier was reading a letter, as though he were in the peace of his study instead of in the tumult of the hall.

The floor was then given to the Honourable Sangiorgio, and immediately the assembly was hushed. The Prime Minister raised his hoary head, and looked at the Basilicatan deputy as piercingly as if he were trying to read his soul; the Home Minister breathed a sigh of relief, supposing that what himself and the Premier had omitted Sangiorgio would say. Sangiorgio was clever, and was friendly to the Ministry, so that he could not fail to set things right.

Instead, in one first cruel sentence, the Honourable Sangiorgio fell fiercely and with concentrated wrath upon the Government's home policy. Don Mario Tasca and Niccolo Ferro had said too little, whether for or against. Things really bore a far graver aspect. For a year back the worst disorder had reigned in the management of internal affairs; there was no longer a guiding hand, no longer a bridle; the public officials performed their duties at haphazard, or did nothing at all, having no orders. The policy of the Home Department was founded on equivocation and culpable carelessness; these elastic theories of liberty were causing havoc. And this bitter, almost tragical vein of attack was readily guessed to correspond to the sentiment of the House, which murmured approval of each sentence. Sangiorgio cited facts. He enumerated the Republican associations, which in the course of a year had increased beyond measure; he declared that Republican committees were multiplying everywhere, and likewise rebellious acts, which were done not by that single Mayor, nor in that single place, but by other public officials elsewhere. He spoke of a Prefect who had consented to take part in a banquet where toasts to the King were prohibited, and said that the Minister of Home Affairs, although he knew of it, and in spite of the articles in the Royalist newspapers, had not reprimanded such Prefects, Commissioners, and delegates, all of whom were allowed the free scope of their own opinions and own will, committing deeds inexcusably arbitrary or weak. But the dominant note was their indolence, their shameful neglect. No energetic circular of instructions was ever sent from Rome. The reports of the most zealous functionaries always remained unanswered, or were replied to ambiguously; at Rome, a number of philosophical and sociological deductions were indulged in, but never was an energetic step taken.

The Chamber applauded Sangiorgio so vociferously that the Speaker was obliged to call for order twice. Sangiorgio spoke with a peculiar hardness of voice, with such sharp accent and brevity of phrase, and with such bare simplicity, that the smallest points told. His facts were like so many blows from an unerring weapon, each striking the mark remorselessly. It was a document of impeachment, a summary compiled with the cold cruelty of a judge in vindication of law and ethics. Sangiorgio's face was set and severe, his features were rigid; he did not smile, did not gesticulate, nor had recourse to any of the common artifices of oratory; he seemed to be so sure of his cause, and so wrapt up in it, that he considered a cold, precise exposition sufficient. He supplied no comments, or very few, but enumerated facts, proceeding from one to another, with the occasional remark: 'But that is not all; there is more.' This sentence, repeated at intervals of three or four minutes with the regularity of a tragic refrain, made a deep impression; nervous tremors seem to run down the spinal column of that great body in the Chamber.

The atmosphere of Parliament was laden with electricity. No one was writing, no one was reading—all were turned towards the speaker; groups of listeners had gathered near his section; some had even climbed the stairs, as if to drink in Sangiorgio's words, in their exaggerated attentiveness. Up above, in the diplomatic gallery, had appeared the ever-beautiful Countess Lalla d' Ariccia, who was the surest barometer of a crisis, for she never came excepting in electrical weather. Donna Luisa Catalani was leaning over, her little head tied about with a white veil, and beside her Donna Angelica Vargas looked down, her lovely face unveiled, quite pink at the temples, under the excitement of curiosity.

The speaker recapitulated all he had said, using his synthesis upon the audience with the force of a hammer. And without adding any deductions, without challenging reply, without so much as expecting one, and in disdain of whatever argument from whatever opponent, he read out the following motion:

'That the Chamber, disapproving of the Ministry's home policy, now proceed with the business of the day. Francesco Sangiorgio.'

Then there arose such a huge, irrepressible clamour that for five minutes the Speaker rang his bell in vain. Discussion rang all over the hall, on the steps, in the hemicycle, on the benches, in the galleries—everywhere. The ladies in the diplomatic gallery stared and stared, themselves, perhaps, also seized with nervous agitation.

And the strong, honest man who was Minister of Home Affairs had, without budging, received the strokes of the Honourable Sangiorgio in his breast, half admiring his adversary's might.

Only, towards the end, when the ultimate solution was becoming plain, a growing doubt assailed him. After that extremely vigorous attack, coming from the Centre, from a Ministerialist, from a man who had shown democratic leanings, the situation was so perilous that only the Prime Minister could relieve it. Defence now devolved upon the senior, the chief, the old Parliamentarian. A new and bitter suspicion sprang from the Minister's heart to his head, and in those five minutes of Parliamentary uproar, like certain poisonous plants indigenous to the tropics so this suspicion spread apace in his soul. He looked at the old Prime Minister as penetratingly as if he wanted to tear the truth from out of him, yet, fearing lest some emotion might cloak his voice, he said not a word to him, nor asked him a single question, but merely looked at him, expecting him to come out of his silence, to come to life, for that morning he might as well have been dead. The Prime Minister, however, remained speechless, and went on writing, stroking his beard with his other hand. And the Minister of Home Affairs suddenly composed himself inwardly, showing nothing outwardly but a slight pallor.

Certainty was at hand, and it was irrefragable. He felt himself abandoned, felt himself betrayed. His colleagues and the Prime Minister had left him to fall alone. They had already separated from him, as though shunning a corpse because of its nauseous odour. Assuredly the betrayal was complete; they wanted to be rid of him, as of a diseased arm or a cancerous leg. The Chamber would have none of him henceforth—that he felt. When the Speaker gave him permission to answer in his own justification, in frank, calm tones the illustrious man was heard to say:

'I have no remarks to make; I accept the Sangiorgio motion.'

At the division, a majority of thirty votes went against him. The Minister of Home Affairs had fallen.

A week after the official Ministerial organ, all the other newspapers following suit, published this:

'It is now ascertained that, in the reconstruction of the Cabinet, Don Silvio Vargas will exchange from the Fine Arts to the Home Department. The Honourable Sangiorgio, in vain requested to join in the new combination, has persistently refused, and has left for the Basilicata.'