THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT 
 
 From the Library of 
 
 Henry Goldman, Ph.D. 
 
 1886-1972
 
 THE ETERNAL CITY
 
 , $?all Came's 
 
 The Shadow of a Crime. 
 
 A Son of Hagar. 
 
 The Deemster. 
 
 The Bondman. 
 
 The Scapegoat. 
 
 The Manxman. 
 
 The Christian. 
 
 The Eternal City.
 
 The 
 
 Eternal City 
 
 By 
 
 Hall Caine 
 
 He looked for a city which hath foun- 
 dations whose builder and maker is God 
 
 New York 
 
 D. Appleton and Company 
 1901
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1901, 
 BY HALL CAINE. 
 
 AH rights reserved.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PROLOGUE ....... 
 
 PART ONE 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE .... 9 
 
 PART TWO 
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN .... 58 
 
 PART THREE 
 ROMA ........ 104 
 
 PART FOUR 
 DAVID Rossi ....... !65 
 
 PART FIVE 
 THE PRIME MINISTER ..... 252 
 
 PART SIX 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME ..... 335 
 
 PART SEVEN 
 THE POPE ....... 426 
 
 PART EIGHT 
 THE KING ....... 528 
 
 PART NINE 
 THE PEOPLE ....... 582 
 
 EPILOGUE ....... 635 
 
 T

 
 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 HE was hardly fit to figure in the great review of life. A 
 boy of ten or twelve, in tattered clothes, with an accordion 
 in a case swung over one shoulder like a sack, and under the 
 other arm a wooden cage containing a grey squirrel. It was 
 a December night in London, and the Southern lad had noth- 
 ing to shelter his little body from the Northern cold but his 
 short velveteen jacket, red waistcoat, and knickerbockers. He 
 was going home after a long day in Chelsea, and, conscious 
 of something fantastic in his appearance, and of doubtful 
 legality in his calling, he was dipping into side streets in 
 order to escape the laughter of the London boys and the at- 
 tentions of policemen. 
 
 Coming to the Italian quarter in Soho, he stopped at the 
 door of a shop to see the time. It was eight o'clock. There 
 was an hour to wait before he would be allowed to go indoors. 
 The shop was a baker's, and the window was full of cakes 
 and confectionery. From an iron grid on the pavement there 
 came the warm breath of the oven underground, the red glow 
 of the fire, and the scythe-like swish of the long shovels. The 
 boy blocked the squirrel under his armpit, dived into his 
 pocket, and brought out some copper coins and counted them. 
 There was ninepence. Ninepence was the sum he had to take 
 home every night, and there was not a halfpenny to spare. 
 He knew that perfectly before he began to count, but his 
 appetite had tempted him to try again if his arithmetic was 
 not at fault. 
 
 The air grew warmer, and it began to snow. At first it 
 was a fine sprinkle that made a snow-mist, and adhered 
 wherever it fell. The traffic speedily became less, and things 
 looked big in the thick air. The boy was wandering aimlessly 
 
 1
 
 2 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 through the streets, waiting for nine o'clock. When he 
 thought the hour was near, he realised that he had lost his 
 way. He screwed up his eyes to see if he knew the houses 
 and shops and signs, but everything seemed strange. 
 
 The snow snowed on, and now it fell in large, corkscrew 
 flakes. The boy brushed them from his face, but at the next 
 moment they blinded him again. The few persons still in the 
 streets loomed up on him out of the darkness, and passed in a 
 moment like gigantic shadows. He tried to ask his way, but 
 nobody would stand long enough to listen. One man who 
 was putting up his shutters shouted some answer that was 
 lost in the drumlike rumble of all voices in the falling snow. 
 
 The boy came up to a big porch with four pillars, and 
 stepped in to rest and reflect. The long tunnels of smoking 
 lights which had receded down the streets were not to be seen 
 from there, and so he knew that he was in a square. It would 
 be Soho Square, but whether he was on the south or east of 
 it he could not tell, and consequently he was at a loss to know 
 which way to turn. A great silence had fallen over every- 
 thing, and only the sobbing nostrils of the cab-horses seemed 
 to be audible in the hollow air. 
 
 He was very cold. The snow had got into his shoes, and 
 through the rents in his cross-gartered stockings. His red 
 waistcoat wanted buttons, and he could feel that his shirt was 
 wet. He tried to shake the snow off by stamping, but it clung 
 to his velveteens. His numbed fingers could scarcely hold 
 the cage, which was also full of snow. By the light coming 
 from a fanlight over the door in the porch he looked at his 
 squirrel. The little thing was trembling pitifully in its icy 
 bed, and he took it out and breathed on it to warm it, and 
 then put it in his bosom. The sound of a child's voice laugh- 
 ing and singing came to him from within the house, muffled 
 by the walls and the door. Across the white vapour cast out- 
 ward from the fanlight he could see nothing but the crystal 
 snowflakes falling wearily. 
 
 He grew dizzy, and sat down by one of the pillars. After 
 a while a shiver passed along his spine, and then he became 
 warm and felt sleepy. A church clock struck nine, and he 
 started up with a guilty feeling, but his limbs were stiff and 
 he sank back again, blew two or three breaths on to the squirrel 
 inside his waistcoat, and fell into a doze. As he dropped off 
 into unconsciousness he seemed to see the big, cheerless house, 
 almost destitute of furniture, where he lived with thirty or
 
 PROLOGUE 3 
 
 forty other boys. They trooped in with their organs and ac- 
 cordions, counted out their coppers to a man with a clipped 
 moustache, who was blowing whiffs of smoke from a long, 
 black cigar, with a straw through it, and then sat down on 
 forms to eat their plates of macaroni and cheese. The man 
 was not in good temper to-night, and he was shouting at 
 some who were coming in late and at others who were sharing 
 their supper with the squirrels that nestled in their bosoms, 
 or the monkeys, in red jacket and fez, that perched upon 
 their shoulders. The boy was perfectly unconscious by this 
 time, and the child within the house was singing away as if 
 her little breast was a cage of song-birds. 
 
 As the church clock struck nine a class of Italian lads 
 in an upper room in Old Compton Street was breaking up for 
 the night, and the teacher, looking out of the window, said : 
 
 " While we have been telling the story of the great road to 
 our country a snowstorm has come, and we shall have enough 
 to do to find our road home." 
 
 The lads laughed by way of answer, and cried : " Good- 
 night, doctor." 
 
 " Good-night, boys, and God bless you," said the teacher. 
 
 He was an elderly man, with a noble forehead and a long 
 beard. His face, a sad one, was lighted up by a feeble smile; 
 his voice was soft, and his manner gentle. When the boys 
 were gone he swung over his shoulders a black cloak with a 
 red lining, and followed them into the street. 
 
 He had not gone far into the snowy haze before he began 
 to realise that his playful warning had not been amiss. 
 
 " Well, well," he thought, " only a few steps, and yet so 
 difficult to find." 
 
 He found the right turnings at last, and coming to the 
 porch of his house in Soho Square, he almost trod on a little 
 black and white object lying huddled at the base of one of the 
 pillars. 
 
 " A boy," he thought, " sleeping out on a night like this ! 
 Come, come," he said severely, " this is wrong," and he shook 
 the little fellow to waken him. 
 
 The boy did not answer, but he began to mutter in a 
 sleepy monotone, " Don't hit me, sir. It was the snow. I'll 
 not come home late again. Ninepence, sir, and Jinny is so 
 cold." 
 
 The man paused a moment, then turned to the door and 
 rang the bell sharply.
 
 4 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 II 
 
 HALF-AN-HOUR later the little musician was lying on a 
 couch in the doctor's surgery, a cheerful room with a fire and a 
 soft lamp under a shade. He was still unconscious, but his damp 
 clothes had been taken off and he was wrapped in blankets. 
 The doctor sat at the boy's head and moistened his lips with 
 brandy, while a good woman, with a face of a saint, knelt at 
 the end of the couch and rubbed his little feet and legs. 
 After a little while there was a perceptible quivering of the 
 eyelids and twitching of the mouth. 
 
 " He is coming to, mother," said the doctor. 
 
 " At last," said his wife'. 
 
 " My poor little countryman ! Another victim of the men 
 who live on the white slavery of our Italian boys. The scoun- 
 drels ! They scour the villages and country places, tempt the 
 parents with promises of two pounds, three pounds, four 
 pounds to part with their boys, leave some lying indenture of 
 apprenticeship to evade the law, bring the little orphaned 
 ones to England in droves like cattle, lodge them in some 
 house more bare than a barrack, give them an accordion, or 
 an organ, a monkey, or a squirrel, or a cage of white mice, 
 and then drive them out into the streets to beg or to starve." 
 
 " Poor little man ! " 
 
 " It makes my throat throb to think of their sufferings, 
 and none the less because the scoundrels who inflict them 
 are sons of my own beloved Italy." 
 
 " What will God do with such men in the next world, I 
 wonder ? " 
 
 " He seems to do nothing in this world, mother, and that's 
 the best reason why we should ourselves do something. If 
 there's law in England to protect the innocent and punish the 
 guilty, I will bring some of these scoundrels to justice." 
 
 The boy moaned and opened his eyes, the big helpless eyes 
 of childhood, black as a sloe, and with long black lashes. He 
 looked at the fire, the lamp, the carpet, the blankets, the 
 figures at either end of the couch, and with a smothered cry 
 he raised himself as though thinking to escape. 
 
 " Carino ! " said the doctor, smoothing the boy's curly 
 hair. " Lie still a little longer." 
 
 The voice was like a caress, and the boy sank back. But 
 presently he raised himself again, and gazed around the room 
 as if looking for something. The good mother understood
 
 PROLOGUE 5 
 
 him perfectly, and from a chair on which his clothes were 
 lying she picked up his little grey squirrel. It was frozen 
 stiff with the cold and now quite dead, but he grasped it 
 tightly and kissed it passionately, while big teardrops rolled 
 on to his cheeks. 
 
 " Carino ! " said the doctor again, taking the dead squirrel 
 away, and after a while the boy lay quiet and was comforted. 
 
 " Italiano si ? " 
 
 " Si, Signore." 
 
 " From which province ? " 
 
 " Campagna Romana, Signore." 
 
 " Where does he say he comes from, doctor ? " 
 
 " From the country district outside Rome. And now you 
 are living at Maccari's in Greek Street isn't that so ? " 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 " How long have you been in England one year, two 
 years ? " 
 
 " Two years and a half, sir." 
 
 " And what is your name, my son ? " 
 
 " David Leone." 
 
 " A beautiful name, carino ! David Le-o-ne," repeated the 
 doctor, smoothing the curly hair. 
 
 " A beautiful boy, too ! What will you do with him, 
 doctor?" 
 
 " Keep him here to-night at all events, and to-morrow 
 we'll see if some institution will not receive him. David 
 Leone ! Where have I heard that name before, I wonder ? 
 Your father is a farmer ? " 
 
 But the boy's face had clouded like a mirror that has been 
 breathed upon, and he made no answer. 
 
 " Isn't your father a farmer in the Campagna Romana, 
 David?" 
 
 " I have no father," said the boy. 
 
 " Carino ! But your mother, is alive yes ? " 
 
 " I have no mother." 
 
 " Caro mio ! Caro mio ! You shall not go to the institu- 
 tion to-morrow, my son," said the doctor, and then the mirror 
 cleared in a moment as if the sun had shone on it. 
 
 " Listen, father ! " 
 
 Two little feet were drumming on the floor above. 
 
 " Baby hasn't gone to bed yet. She wouldn't sleep until 
 she had seen the boy, and -I had to promise she might come 
 down presently."
 
 6 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Let her come down now," said the doctor. 
 
 The boy was supping a basin of broth when the door burst 
 open with a bang, and like a tiny cascade which leaps and 
 bubbles in the sunlight, a little maid of three, with violet 
 eyes, golden complexion, and glossy black hair, came bound- 
 ing into the room. She was trailing behind her a train of 
 white nightdress, hobbling on the portion in front, and car- 
 rying under her arm a cat, which, being held out by the neck, 
 was coiling its body and kicking its legs like a rabbit. 
 
 But having entered with so fearless a front, the little 
 woman drew up suddenly at sight of the boy, and, entrench- 
 ing herself behind the doctor, began to swing by his coat-tails, 
 and to take furtive glances at the stranger in silence and 
 aloofness. 
 
 " Bless their hearts ! what funny things they are to be 
 sure," said the mother. " Somebody seems to have been tell- 
 ing her she might have a brother some day, and when nurse 
 said to Susanna, ' The doctor has brought a boy home with 
 him to-night,' nothing was so sure as that this was the 
 brother they had promised her, and yet now . . . Roma, 
 you silly child, why don't you come and speak to the poor 
 boy who was nearly frozen to death in the snow ? " 
 
 But Roma's privateering fingers were now deep in her 
 father's pocket, in search of a specimen of the sugar-stick 
 which seemed to live and grow there. She found two sugar- 
 sticks this time, and sight of a second suggested a bold adven- 
 ture. Sidling up toward the couch, but still holding on to 
 the doctor's coat-tails, like a craft that swings to anchor, she 
 tossed one of the sugar-sticks on to the floor at the boy's side. 
 The boy smiled and picked it up, and this being taken for suf- 
 ficient masculine response, the little daughter of Eve proceeded 
 to proper overtures. 
 
 "Oo a boy?" 
 
 The boy smiled again and assented. 
 
 "Oo me brodder?" 
 
 The boy's smile paled perceptibly. 
 
 "Oo lubme?" 
 
 The tide in the boy's eyes was rising rapidly. 
 
 " Oo lub me eber and eber ? " 
 
 The tears were gathering fast, when the doctor, smoothing 
 the boy's dark curls again, said : 
 
 "You have a little sister of your own far away in the 
 Campagna Romana yes?"
 
 PROLOGUE 7 
 
 " No, sir." 
 
 " Perhaps it's a brother." 
 
 " I ... I have nobody," said the boy, and his voice 
 broke on the last word with a thud. 
 
 " You shall not go to the institution at all, David," said 
 the doctor softly. 
 
 " Doctor Roselli ! " exclaimed his wife. But something in 
 the doctor's face smote her instantly and she said no more. 
 
 "Time for bed, baby." 
 
 But baby had many excuses. There were the sugar-sticks, 
 and the pussy, and the boy-brother, and finally her prayers 
 to say. 
 
 " Say them here, then, sweetheart," said her mother, and 
 with her cat pinned up again under one arm and the sugar- 
 stick held under the other, kneeling face to the fire, but 
 screwing her half closed eyes at intervals in the direction of 
 the couch, the little maid put her little waif-and-stray hands 
 together and said : 
 
 " Our Fader oo art in Heben, alud be my name. Dy 
 kingum turn. Dy will be done on eard as it is in Heben. 
 Gib us dis day our dayey bread, and forgib us our trels- 
 passes as we forgib dem lat trelspass ayenst us. And lee us 
 not into temstashuns, but deliber us from ebil . . . for eber 
 and eber. Amen." 
 
 The house in Soho Square was perfectly silent an hour 
 afterward. In the surgery the lamp was turned down, the 
 cat was winking and yawning at the fire, and the doctor sat 
 in a chair in front of the fading glow and listened to the 
 measured breathing of the boy behind him. It dropped at 
 length, like a pendulum that is about to stop, into the noise- 
 less beat of innocent sleep, and then the good man got up and 
 looked down at the little head on the pillow. 
 
 Even with the eyes closed it was a beautiful face; one of 
 the type which great painters have loved to paint for their 
 saints and angels sweet, soft, wise, and wistful. And where 
 did it come from? From the Campagna Romana, a scene of 
 poverty, of squalor, of fever, and of death? 
 
 The doctor thought of his own little daughter, whose life 
 had been a long holiday, and then of the boy whose days had 
 been an unbroken bondage. 
 
 " Yet who knows but in the rough chance of life our little 
 Roma may not some day . . . God forbid ! " 
 
 The boy moved in his sleep and laughed the laugh of a
 
 8 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 dream that is like the sound of a breeze in soft summer 
 grass, and it broke the thread of painful reverie. 
 
 " Poor little man ! he has forgotten all his troubles." 
 
 Perhaps he was back in his sunny Italy by this time, 
 among the vines and the oranges and the flowers, running 
 barefoot with other children 011 the dazzling whiteness of the 
 roads ! . . . Perhaps his mother in heaven was praying her 
 heart out to the Blessed Virgin to watch over her fatherless 
 darling cast adrift upon the world! 
 
 " Oh, the cry of the children, the cry of the children ! 
 The little, helpless, innocent victims of the social maelstrom. 
 All the world over their cry goes up to heaven, and woe to the 
 nation, or the government, or the dynasty that will not heed 
 or hear it ! " 
 
 That thought was a key which unlocked the lavender- 
 closet of his most solemn and sacred memories. No one in 
 the great, free land of his adoption, not even the saint who 
 was his wife, had ever yet opened the door of it. A palace 
 in Rome himself young, ardent, enthusiastic, burning with 
 love of country and desire to serve . its cause his father a 
 Prince of the Papal Court, proud, imperious, and uncom- 
 promising the Pope trying in vain to make peace between 
 them expulsion poverty obscurity exile England a 
 new name a new profession life among the people liberty! 
 Then marriage with a good Englishwoman almost as solitary 
 as himself, and last of all, like the angel's breath on the pool 
 of Bethesda, the birth of their child, their little Roma 
 Roma, the healer of his heart Roma, after the city of his 
 soul! 
 
 The train of his memories was interrupted by voices in the 
 street, and he drew the curtain of the window aside and 
 looked out. The snow had ceased to fall, and the moon was 
 shining; the leafless trees were casting their delicate black 
 shadows on the whitened ground, and the yellow light of a 
 lantern on the opposite angle of the square showed where a 
 group of lads were singing a Christmas carol. 
 
 "While shepherds watched their flocks by night, all seated on 
 
 the ground, 
 The angel of the Lord came down, and glory shone around." 
 
 Doctor Roselli closed the curtain, put out the lamp, 
 touched with his lips the forehead of the sleeping boy, and, 
 went to bed.
 
 PAET ONE 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 
 
 TWENTY YEARS LATER 
 I 
 
 IT was the last day of the last month of the last year of 
 the century. In a Bull proclaiming a Jubilee the Pope had 
 called his faithful children to Rome, and they had come from 
 all quarters of the globe. To salute the coming century, and 
 to dedicate it, in pomp and solemn ceremony, to the return of 
 the world to the Holy Church, one and universal, the people 
 gathered in the great Piazza of St. Peter. 
 
 The sergeants of police said that some had passed the 
 night there. Through the mist of early morning their spec- 
 tral images glimmered in a sea of shadows. As light breathed 
 through the haze you could define first a figure and then a face, 
 in a waste of indistinguishable shapes. Through the chill 
 air coming off the Campagna you could hear the sharp crackle 
 of carriage wheels on the Roman pavement as the people 
 came up the side streets. The white sheets of vapour began 
 to roll away, and silently out of the east rose the great drowsy 
 disc of red. Then from some unseen rock above a mighty 
 bell began, and it was followed after a moment by a grand 
 pealing of all the bells of Rome. 
 
 As day dawned the growing light showed a prodigious 
 circle. It was like a mountain tarn whose vast amplitude has 
 been swirled out of the rocks by the wash of ages. On either 
 side the smooth round walls, and in front a gigantic glacier, 
 with two peaks and a round forehead in the sky, and giant 
 boulders down below. You thought you could hear the waters 
 as they moved in the mountain breeze, and were fed by 
 streams that flowed into the mighty basin. 
 
 The light came in its leaden greyness, and the glacier
 
 10 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 was the great Basilica of St. Peter, the round walls were the 
 embracing arms of the Colonnade of Bernini, the two peaks 
 were the two clock towers, the giant boulders were the statues 
 of apostles with drawn swords, the obelisks with their in- 
 scriptions and the fountains throwing up spray; and the 
 noise of the waters was the murmur of an immense mass of 
 people already crowded into the square. 
 
 The sun shot its first beam on to the golden cross of the 
 Basilica, and it glistened in the sunrise like the topmost 
 peaks at Chamounix, and the broad blaze came down the blue 
 dome and over the white walls and rested on the round sea 
 of human faces. 
 
 The balcony of St. Peter's was shaded by a wide awning, 
 and the portico was adorned with red and gold hangings, 
 draped around a large representation of the arms of the Pope. 
 At the top of the great steps, which were strewn with sand 
 and sprinkled with sprigs of box, a space was kept clear by a 
 cordon of infantry. 
 
 Two double lines of troops traversed the square below. 
 One of them stretched in a half circle from a bronze gate 
 under the colonnade on the right to an arch beneath the clock 
 tower on the left. This was intended for the procession of 
 the Pope as it came out of the Vatican and passed into St. 
 Peter's, and it was kept clear like the empty bed of a 
 dammed-up stream. The other line of troops crossed the 
 square diagonally from the street in front of the Basilica to 
 the central entrance, and this was like a river that was some- 
 times rippling, sometimes rushing, but always running. 
 
 When the clock struck seven the doors were opened, and 
 the human tide began to rise up the steps and to flow into the 
 church. First came the pilgrims from distant places, a mixed 
 and motley company. Now a band of bronzed creatures, sul- 
 len-eyed and heavy-featured, and clad in sheepskins and 
 leather. Then a group of bright-eyed Neapolitan women with 
 red handkerchiefs on their heads, strings of coral around 
 their necks and silver pins in their blue black hair. And 
 then a troop of poor men in red flannel cloaks, or of women, 
 chiefly old, in black dresses and lace veils. With each batch 
 walked a clerical guide, sometimes a rustic Monsignor wearing 
 the broad violet waist-band over his black cassock, but gen- 
 erally a simple priest, unkempt, unshaven, with shaggy 
 beaver battered by the rain, and heavy shoes stained by 
 the soil.
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE H 
 
 Toward eight o'clock came files of men and boys, carrying 
 banners with inscriptions in yellow and gold. One such file 
 was a deputation of French working-men, come to pay their 
 devotion to the Holy Father and proclaim him the friend of 
 democracy and the Workmen's Pope. 
 
 As the clock struck nine the stream rising up the steps to 
 the portico was being traversed by gentlemen in dress coats 
 and by ladies in long black veils, wearing jewels and bril- 
 liants. Dividing them, in companies of eight and ten, came 
 the priests of the future, the students of the papal colleges, 
 in sashes of red and blue and green, and in one case cassocks 
 of scarlet, which splashed the steps like a stream of blood. 
 Then came little knots of nuns, in black hoods that hid their 
 downcast faces; and last of all, in gorgeous unifoi'ms of every 
 kind and blazing with decorations, the diplomatic corps ac- 
 credited to the Vatican. 
 
 By this time there was an immense concourse within St. 
 Peter's, yet the mass of crowded and mixed humanity was 
 still larger outside. The people now covered the piazza round 
 and round from side to side, except where the black and red 
 carabineers and the black and blue police on foot and on 
 horseback kept places clear in case of a crush. 
 
 The vast mountain tarn seemed to have been casting up 
 its spray on to its sides, for every window and balcony round 
 about was decorated with gay trappings and swarming with 
 faces. 
 
 The Jubilee was to be a sacred one, but it could not be 
 said that this crowd conveyed a universal sense of solemnity 
 and awe. There were the girls who dance the Tarantella at 
 the hotels, gleesome little maidens with figures just rounding 
 into sensuous womanhood; there were the models in short 
 skirts and bright stockings who wait for artists on the Span- 
 ish steps, and the girls of the people with their dark Oriental 
 mischievous eyes. Then there were monks in black, brown 
 and white, each with his big, ungainly umbrella; a priest 
 with the face of an old woman, but helpless-looking and un- 
 tidy, because he has no woman to take care of him; a smart 
 officer of the Italian army in his blue cloak and with his 
 matronly wife beside him; a greasy seller of sherbet and yel- 
 low beans ; a screamer crying " La Vera Roma ; " a pick- 
 pocket with the thick bull-neck of the Trasteverine the 
 Roman " cockney " from across the Tiber getting up panics 
 and slanting off at sight of the police; and the beggars with
 
 12 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 their various deformities, hobbling, and shuffling, and whin- 
 ing : " A penny for the love of God ! For the blessed Virgin's 
 sake! For Christ's sake, and may God bless you and the 
 Madonna and all the Saints ! " 
 
 Last of all in this mixed and motley assembly there was 
 the vast army of foreigners, the forestieri, thick as stars on 
 a full-starred night, English, American, French, Russian, 
 Spanish, all who regard Kome as an artistic play-ground, and 
 come for sights religious sights most of all. In that wide 
 cosmopolis you might hear every tongue of Europe, and every 
 tone of English, from the coo of the pretty pink-and-white 
 English miss in her sailor hat to the bugle note of the bright 
 American girl with her red Baedeker and her short skirt. 
 
 All were there, all languages, all peoples, all ages, the East 
 and the West, the past and the present, called back to the 
 Eternal City that was born of the loins of the world. Nations 
 sink and rise, but humanity is immortal, and that spectacle 
 of beauty and majesty under the glorious light of heaven 
 St. Peter's, the people, Rome, on one spot at one moment 
 seemed like a flashing glance of the face of God. 
 
 II 
 
 BOYS and women were climbing up every possible eleva- 
 tion, and a bright-faced girl who had conquered a high place 
 on the base of the obelisk was chattering down at a group of 
 her friends who were listening to their cicerone. 
 
 " Yes, that is the Vatican," said the guide, pointing to a 
 square building at the back of the colonnade, " and the apart- 
 ments of the Pope are those on the third floor, just on the 
 level of the Loggia of Raphael. The Cardinal Secretary of 
 State used to live in the rooms below, opening on the grand 
 staircase that leads from the Court of Damascus. There's 
 a private way up to the Pope's apartment, and a secret passage 
 to the Castle of St. Angelo." 
 
 " Say, has the Pope got that secret passage still ? " 
 
 "No, sir. When the Castle went over to the King the 
 connection with the Vatican was cut off. Ah, everything is 
 changed since those days! The Pope used to go to St. 
 Peter's surrounded by his Cardinals and Bishops, to the roll 
 of drums and the roar of cannon. All that is over now. The 
 present Pope is trying to revive the old condition seemingly,
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 13 
 
 but what can he do? Even the Bull proclaiming the Jubilee 
 laments the loss of the temporal power, which would have per- 
 mitted him to renew the enchantments of the Holy Qity." 
 
 " Tell him it's just lovely as it is," said the girl on the 
 obelisk, " and when the illuminations begin . . ." 
 
 " Say, friend," said her parent again, " I'll get you to give 
 me the inwardness of this business. Rome belonged to the 
 Pope yes ? Then the Italians came in and took -it and made 
 it the capital of Italy so ? " 
 
 " Just so, and ever since then the Holy Father has been a 
 prisoner in the Vatican, going into it as a cardinal and com- 
 ing out of it as a corpse, and to-day will be the first time a 
 Pope has set foot in the streets of Rome ! " 
 
 " My ! And shall we see him in his prison clothes ? " 
 
 " Lilian Martha ! Don't you know enough for that ? Per- 
 haps you expect to see his chains and a straw of his bed 
 in the cell? The Pope is a king and has a court that's the 
 way I am figuring it." 
 
 " True, the Pope is a sovereign still, and he is surrounded 
 by his officers of state Cardinal Secretary, Majordomo, 
 Master of Ceremonies, Steward, Chief of Police, Swiss 
 Guards, Noble Guard and Palatine Guard, as well as the 
 Papal Guard who live in the garden and patrol the precincts 
 night and day. He receives, too, the same as ever Cardinal 
 Secretary every morning at ten Majordomo first and third 
 Fridays Master of Ceremonies once a week there's a list 
 of them all on the walls of the Papal ante-camera, with the 
 days and hours of their audiences." 
 
 " Then where the nation . . . prisoner, you say ? " 
 
 " Prisoner indeed ! Not even able to look out of his 
 windows on to this piazza on the 20th of September without 
 the risk of insult and outrage and Heaven knows what will 
 happen when he ventures out to-day ! " 
 
 " Well ! this goes clear ahead of me ! " 
 
 Beyond the outer cordon of troops many carriages were 
 drawn up in positions likely to be favourable for a view of 
 the procession. In one of these sat a Frenchman in a coat 
 covered with medals, a florid, fiery-eyed old soldier with 
 bristling white hair. Standing by his carriage door was a 
 typical young Roman, fashionable, faultlessly dressed, pallid, 
 with strong lower jaw, dark watchful eyes, twirled-up mous- 
 tache and cropped black mane. 
 
 " Ah, yes," said the old Frenchman. " Much water has
 
 14 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 run under the bridge since then, sir. Liberty? License you 
 mean, sir. The law lets people do as they please these days. 
 Only itself to blame if they petition and palaver and run 
 away with everything. Changed since I was here? Rome? 
 You're right, sir. Wasn't in the hands of the invading army 
 then, and its revenues hadn't gone into their corrupt coffers. 
 ' When Home falls, falls the world ; ' but it can alter for all 
 that, and even this square has seen its transformations. 
 Holy Office stands where it did, the yellow building behind 
 there, but this palace, for instance this one with the people 
 in the balcony . . ." 
 
 The Frenchman pointed to the travertine walls of a 
 prison-like house on the farther side of the piazza. The lower 
 windows were barred across like so many iron cages, and at 
 the entrance to a courtyard, which gave a glimpse of green 
 within, stood a door-porter in red and brown livery and 
 cocked hat, holding a staff tipped with silver and tasselled 
 with gold. 
 
 " Do you know whose palace that is ? " 
 
 " Baron Bonelli's, President of the Council and Minister 
 of the Interior." 
 
 " Precisely ! But do you know whose palace it used 
 to be?" 
 
 " Belonged to the English Wolsey, didn't it, in the days 
 when he wanted the Papacy ? " 
 
 " Belonged in my time to the father of the Pope, sir old 
 Baron Leone ! " 
 
 "Leone! That's the family name of the Pope, isn't it?" 
 
 " Yes, sir, and the old Baron was a banker and a cripple. 
 I saw him once at this very door. He was getting out of his 
 carriage swathed in furs, and a dozen stalwart servants were 
 ducking and dipping at his feet. ' Signor Baron ! ' ' Will 
 your Excellency be pleased to walk ? ' One foot in the grave, 
 and all his hopes centred in his son. ' My son,' he used to 
 say, ' will be the richest man in Rome, some day ; richer than 
 all their Roman princes, and it will be his own fault if he 
 doesn't make himself Pope. ' ' 
 
 " He has, apparently." 
 
 " ISTot that way, though. When his father died, he sold 
 up everything, and having no relations looking to him, he 
 gave away every penny to the poor. That's how the old 
 banker's palace fell into the hands of the Prime Minister of 
 Italy an infidel, an Antichrist."
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 15 
 
 " So the Pope is a good man, is he ? " 
 
 " Good man, sir ? He's not a man at all, he's an angel ! 
 Only two aims in life the glory of the Church and the wel- 
 fare of the rising generation. Gave away half his inheritance 
 founding homes all over the world for poor boys. Boys 
 that's the Pope's tender point, sir! Tell him anything tender 
 about a boy and he breaks up like an old swordcut." 
 
 The eyes of the young Roman were straying away, from 
 the Frenchman to a rather shabby single-horse hackney car- 
 riage which had just come into the square and taken up its 
 position in the shadow of the grim old palace. It had one 
 occupant only a man in a soft black hat. He was quite 
 without a sign of a decoration, but his arrival had created a 
 general commotion, and all faces were turning toward him. 
 
 " Listen ! " said the old soldier, " I'll tell you something, 
 and then you'll know Pius the Tenth, and if people say dif- 
 ferent you can swear they lie. My name is De Raymond, and 
 I was a captain in the Papal Zouaves. Yes, sir, wounded the 
 day the Italians came into Rome, and the wound has never 
 healed. My good wife was at home at Versailles, when the 
 telegram reached her that I was down and Rome was lost; 
 she went to bed, and that same day our boy was born. It 
 killed her, God rest her soul, but before she died she called 
 the priest and the child was baptized." 
 
 The young Roman was scarcely listening. His eyes were 
 on the man in the soft black hat and he was hearing the name 
 " David Rossi ! " which rippled over the surface of the crowd 
 like the first morning breeze .over a mere. 
 
 " Well, sir, it was twenty years afterward when I wanted 
 my son to be made one of the Pope's Noble Guard. Only a 
 hundred francs a month, but two of them are on duty with 
 the Holy Father always. Just three vacancies, sir, and I ap- 
 plied a day too late. ' Let me see the Holy Father himself,' I 
 said. ' No use,' said the Under-Secretary ; 'the nominations 
 are made and the Holy Father will be vexed.' ' Only let me 
 see him,' I said, and he did. He was right, though the Holy 
 Father was very angry. ' Monsignor,' he said, ' why didn't you 
 tell him the nominations were made ? ' ' I did, your Holiness, 
 but he insisted on seeing you himself,' and then the Pope grew 
 pale and rose to dismiss me. ' Wait a minute, Holy Father,' 
 I said. ' Do you remember the story of Phinehas's wife in the 
 Book of Samuel ? ' < What of it ? ' ' She called her son Icha- 
 bod, because his father was killed in battle, and because the
 
 16 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 same day the ark of God was taken.' ' Well ? ' ' Do you remem- 
 ber what day this is, Holy Father ? It is the anniversary of the 
 day the Italians came in at Porta Pia and the Pope lost the 
 Holy City. I was wounded that day, and the wound has never 
 healed ; and my boy was born that day, too, and his mother, who 
 is dead, called him Ichabod, because the ark of God was taken 
 and the glory was departed from Israel.' " 
 
 " And what did the Pope say ? " 
 
 " ' Monsignor,' " he said, " ' strike out any name you please, 
 and write Ichabod de Raymond.' " 
 
 The fiery old Frenchman's throat was thick and his eyes 
 were wet, but the young Roman said in a dry voice : 
 
 " Do you happen to know who that is ? That man in the 
 cab under the balcony full of ladies ? Can it be David Rossi ? " 
 
 " David Rossi, the anarchist ? " 
 
 " Some people call him so. Do you know him ? " 
 
 " JSTo not at all certainly not I only know his writings 
 in the newspapers." 
 
 " Ah, yes, of course ! His articles in the Sunrise are quoted 
 all over Europe, and he must be as well known in Paris as in 
 Rome." 
 
 " I know nothing about the man except that he is an enemy 
 of his Holiness." 
 
 " He intends to present a petition to the Pope this morning, 
 nevertheless." 
 
 " Impossible ! " 
 
 " Haven't you heard of it ? These are his followers with the 
 banners and badges." 
 
 He pointed to the line of working-men, who had ranged 
 themselves about the cab, with banners inscribed variously, 
 " Garibaldi Club," " Mazzini Club," " Republican Federation," 
 and " Republic of Man." 
 
 " Your friend Antichrist," tipping a finger over his shoul- 
 der in the direction of the palace, " has been taxing bread to 
 build more battleships, and Rossi has risen against him. ' Tax 
 anything else you please,' he says, ' but don't tax what the peo- 
 ple live upon. It's wrong in principle, tyrannical in practice, 
 and there's no protest but the knife.' " 
 
 " Humph ! They look as if there might be knives enough 
 lurking in their hip pockets." 
 
 " So failing in the press, in Parliament, and at the Quirinal, 
 he is coming to the Pope to pray of him to let the Church play 
 its old part of intermediary between the poor and the oppressed
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 17 
 
 in short, to protest against the militarism that is going on in 
 Europe, and thus stay a worse plague than has eaten into the 
 vitals of humanity since St. Michael sheathed his sword over 
 old St. Angelo, you know." 
 
 " Preposterous ! " 
 
 "So?" 
 
 " To whom is the Pope to protest ? To the King of Italy 
 who robbed him of his Holy City ? Pretty thing to go down on 
 your knees to the brigand who has stripped you ! And at whose 
 bidding is he to protest? At the bidding of his bitterest 
 enemy ? Pshaw ! " 
 
 " You persist that David Rossi is an enemy of the Pope ? " 
 
 " The deadliest enemy the Pope has in the world." 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE subject of the Frenchman's denunciation looked harm- 
 less enough as he sat in his hackney carriage under the shadow 
 of old Baron Leone's gloomy palace. A first glance showed a 
 man of thirty-odd years, tall, slightly built, inclined to stoop, 
 with a long, clean-shaven face, large dark eyes and dark hair 
 which covered the head in short curls of almost African pro- 
 fusion. But a second glance revealed all the characteristics 
 that give the hand-to-hand touch with the common people, 
 without which no man can hope to lead a great movement. 
 
 There was imagination and a latent sadness in the eyes, 
 which seemed usually to be looking at something beyond this 
 life; but there was power also in their dark lashes when they 
 fell on things that were near. There was tenderness and sen- 
 timent in the mobile mouth, but firmness and decision as well ; 
 and the whole expression of the dark brown face, which was 
 subdued, a little jaded, very kindly and human, and with a 
 tired smile of much sweetness, was that of a man with great 
 and consuming heart, in whom sympathy with humanity must 
 be a fiery furnace and hope of its redemption a burning bush. 
 
 From the moment of David Rossi's arrival there was a 
 tingling movement in the air, and from time to time people 
 approached and spoke to him, when the tired smile struggled 
 through the jaded face and then slowly died away. After a 
 while, as if to subdue the sense of personal observation, he took 
 a pen and oblong notepaper and began to write on his knees. 
 
 Meantime the quick-eyed, facile crowd around him, the
 
 18 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 brilliant, wondrous, patient Latin race big children such as 
 Shakespeare loved beguiled the tedium of waiting with good- 
 humoured chaff. One great creature with a shaggy mane and a 
 sanguinary voice came up, bottle in hand, saluted the downcast 
 head with a mixture of deference and familiarity, then climbed 
 to the box-seat beside the driver, and in deepest bass began the 
 rarest mimicry. lie was a true son of the people, and under an 
 appearance of ferocity he hid the heart of a child. To look at 
 him you could hardly help laughing, and the laughter of the 
 crowd at his daring dashes showed that he was the privileged 
 pet of everybody. Only at intervals the downcast head was 
 raised from its writing, and a quiet voice of warning said : 
 
 " Bruno ! " 
 
 Then the shaggy head on the box-seat slewed round and 
 bobbed downward with an apologetic gesture, and ten seconds 
 afterwards plunged into wilder excesses. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " mopping with one hand his forehead under his 
 tipped-up billicock, and holding the bottle with the other. 
 " It's hot ! Dog of a Government, it's hot, I say ! Have a drink, 
 brother? What's it saying in the spelling-book when one 
 poor man helps another poor man God laughs. Good for pel- 
 lagra now the Government has taxed the salt. Mr. Carabineer, 
 will you do me the pleasure ? " offering the bottle to a military 
 policeman. " No ? Of course not ! My mistake, sir ; forgot 
 old Vampire was looking at you," indicating with a lurch 
 of the thumb over his shoulder the palace of the Prime 
 Minister behind him. " ' Another anarchist plot ! Attempt 
 to murder a policeman ! ' Never mind ! here's to the exports 
 of Italy, brother; and may the Government be the first of 
 them." 
 
 " Bruno ! " 
 
 " Excuse me, sir ; the tongue breaks no bones, sir ! All 
 Governments are bad, and the worst Government is the best. 
 Look at those ladies in the balcony now. They're thinking of 
 nothing but their pretty hats, bless them. There's a dear little 
 jewel with a star in it ; put it up at auction and it would fetch 
 a king's ransom. My wife hasn't got one much better than 
 that, and my old mother is going about in her red cotton hand- 
 kerchief. Well, well, the rich ye have always with ye. But 
 the parts are to be reversed in the next world that's what 
 Giuseppe's donkey says when they give him the stick." 
 
 " Yet you thought you had got the millennium when you 
 got the Statute," said a thick voice from the crowd.
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 19 
 
 " So we did, sonny, but we were like the Dutchman's dog. 
 ' Schneider,' said the Dutchman, ' you are free.' ' But where 
 can I go ? ' said Schneider. * You are free,' said the Dutchman. 
 ' But what can I eat ? ' ' You are free, I tell you.' Next day 
 Schneider was found dead in a ditch. ' He can't blame me ; I 
 gave him his liberty, didn't I ? ' said the Dutchman." 
 
 " You ought to be ashamed of yourself talking like that of 
 your king and country," said another choking voice. 
 
 " Hello ! It's Signor Paul Pry, the King's chief ostler. He's 
 got three hundred horses under him, and they live in clover. 
 Where he is well off, there's his country ? Don't go yet, Uncle 
 Paul ! How's your old brother, who sleeps in the caves, and 
 lives on porridge and polenta ? " 
 
 The great clock of St. Peter's struck ten over the peals of 
 laughter. 
 
 " Not long now ! The Pope is as punctual as the stars. 
 Expect him at ten and he is never later than half -past one. 
 Look at that old clock winking ! Been winking up there 
 for three hundred years. Seen something in that time, eh, 
 brothers ? Has always the same face, though, whether it keeps 
 time for Boniface or Pius the old sinner or the old saint 
 and goes on wagging its tail whatever they're doing down 
 below." 
 
 " You are only a priest-eater, and you ought to be put down 
 you and all your kidney and you would, too, if the Pope 
 came into his own." 
 
 " Hello ! Who's it now ? Mr. Pulcinello, the Pope's barber ! 
 Gets eighty francs a month for coming from the Condotti every 
 morning, and shaves the Holy Father free." 
 
 " If it wasn't for the Pope you would all be worse off, and 
 grass would grow in the streets of Rome." 
 
 " Good change too. Only weeds there now, sonny." 
 
 " Bruno ! " 
 
 A feeble old man was at that moment crushing his way up 
 to the cab. Seeing him approach, David Rossi rose and held 
 out his hand. The old man took it, but did not speak. 
 
 " Did you wish to speak to me, father ? " 
 
 " I can't yet," said the old man, and his voice shook and his 
 eyes were moist. 
 
 David Rossi stepped out of the cab, and with gentle force, 
 against many protests, put the old man in his place. 
 
 " I come from Carrara, sir, and when I go home and tell 
 them I've seen David Rossi, and spoken to him, they won't
 
 20 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 believe me. ' He sees the future clear,' they say, ' as an al- 
 manack made by God.' " 
 
 Just then there was a commotion in the crowd, an im- 
 perious voice cried, " Clear out," and the next instant David 
 Rossi, who was standing by the step of his cab, was all but run 
 down by a magnificent equipage with two high-stepping horses 
 and a fat English coachman in livery of scarlet and gold. 
 
 His dark face darkened for a moment with some powerful 
 emotion, then resumed its kindly aspect, and he turned back to 
 the old man without looking at the occupant of the carriage. 
 
 It was a lady. She was tall, with a bold sweep of fulness in 
 figure, which was on a large scale of beauty. Her hair, which 
 was abundant and worn full over the forehead, was raven black 
 and glossy, and it threw off the sunshine that fell on her face. 
 Her complexion had a golden tint, and her eyes, which were 
 violet, had a slight recklessness of expression. Her carriage 
 drew up at the entrance of the palace, and the porter, with the 
 silver-headed staff, came running and bowing to receive her. 
 She rose to her feet with a consciousness of many eyes upon 
 her, and with an unabashed glance she looked around on the 
 crowd. 
 
 There was a sulky silence among the people, almost a sense 
 of antagonism, and if anybody had cheered, there might have 
 been a counter demonstration. At the same time, there was a 
 certain daring in that marked brow and steadfast smile which 
 seemed to say that if anybody had hissed she would have stood 
 her ground. 
 
 Not the type that painters paint for their ideal of sinless 
 and stainless women, not the Madonna, but a superb being in 
 that first full bloom of womanhood which is the most glorious 
 creation of God. 
 
 She lifted from the blue silk cushions of the carriage a half- 
 clipped black poodle with a bow of blue ribbon on its forehead, 
 tucked it under her arm, stepped down to the street, and passed 
 into the courtyard, leaving an odour of ottar of roses behind 
 her. 
 
 Only then did the people speak. 
 
 " Donna Roma ! " 
 
 The name seemed to pass over the crowd in a breathless 
 whisper, soundless, supernatural, like the flight of a bat in the 
 dark.
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 21 
 
 IV 
 
 THE Baron had invited certain of his friends to witness the 
 Pope's procession from the windows and balconies of his palace 
 overlooking the piazza, and they had begun to arrive as early as 
 half-past nine. The first to come were the American Ambas- 
 sador, General Potter, an elderly soldier, with a fluent tongue, 
 but a stiff lower jaw, and Mrs. Potter, a stout lady with familiar 
 manners. Immediately behind them came the English Am- 
 bassador, Sir Evelyn Wise, with Lady Wise, younger, smarter, 
 more reserved, with the indescribable air that belongs to the 
 diplomatic service. 
 
 In the green courtyard they were received by the porter in 
 the cocked hat, on the dark stone staircase by lackeys in knee- 
 breeches and yellow stockings, in the outer hall, intended for 
 coats and hats, by more lackeys in powdered wigs, and in the 
 first reception-room, gorgeously decorated in the yellow and 
 gold of the middle ages, by Felice, in a dress coat, the Baron's 
 solemn personal servant, who said, in sepulchral tones : 
 
 " The Baron's excuses, Excellency ! Engaged in the Coun- 
 cil-room with some of the Ministers, but expects to be out pres- 
 ently. Sit in the Loggia, Excellency ? " 
 
 " So our host is holding a Cabinet Council, General ? " said 
 the English Ambassador. 
 
 " A sort of scratch council, seemingly. Something that 
 concerns the day's doings, I guess, and is urgent and important. 
 You know him, of course, Lady Wise ? " 
 
 The wife of the English Ambassador knew the Baron very 
 slightly. Her husband was newly accredited to the Quirinal, 
 and everything in Rome was new to them. 
 
 " A great man, General, if half one hears about him is 
 true." 
 
 "Great?" said the American. "Yes, and no, Sir Evelyn, 
 according as you regard him. In the opinion of some of his 
 followers the Baron Bonelli is the greatest man in the country 
 - greater than the King himself and a statesman too big for 
 Italy. One of those commanding personages who carry every- 
 thing before them, so that when they speak even monarchs are 
 bound to obey. Certainly a man of great talents, indomitable 
 pride, immense courage, and enormous wealth. Has the advan- 
 tage of noble birth, too, and antiquity of race. The idol of the 
 army as well, and by the power and prestige that gives him he 
 seems to rule Parliament and even the King. Indeed the King
 
 22 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 is said to have professed willingness to see him made Dictator, 
 and Parliament seems ready to proclaim him Minister for life. 
 That's one view of his picture, Sir Evelyn." 
 
 " And the other view ? " 
 
 General Potter glanced in the direction of a door hung with 
 curtains, from which there came at intervals the deadened 
 drumming of voices, and then he said: 
 
 " A man of implacable temper and imperious soul, the in- 
 carnation of Caesarism and every pagan ideal of government. 
 A Minister who is the head rather than the hand of the King, 
 and owes his favour with his sovereign to the accident that the 
 King is weak and superstitious, and almost afraid to live in the 
 Quirinal because it was the house of the priests, while he is 
 strong and sceptical, and would sleep soundly in the chair of 
 St. Peter itself. Like Napoleon, a man with a deep contempt 
 for public opinion, for representative government and the 
 rights of man, and, like Voltaire, an infidel of hard and cynical 
 spirit and an open enemy of the Church." 
 
 " In short, according to his enemies, a ferocious tyrant ? " 
 
 " You've figured it up, Sir Evelyn," said the American. 
 " The people don't know what they want, and are at the mercy 
 of the biggest liar that comes along. The only value of Parlia- 
 ments is to criticise the acts originated by those who are ahead 
 of them ! The King is the symbol of unity and the ark of 
 salvation, and what every country requires is a central power, 
 a strong monarchy, which has no interest but the interest 
 of the whole. The King, the King, always the King, except 
 when it's the army, the army, the army ! " 
 
 " A champion of militarism, of course ? " 
 
 " Militarism is his mania, and his ideal is to make Italy, 
 whether alone or by alliance, once more master of the world by 
 force of arms ; or, if that is impossible, to make Rome in its 
 resurrection the diplomatic centre of Europe." 
 
 " And the people ? " 
 
 " They hate him, of course, for the heavy burden of taxation 
 with which he is destroying the nation in his attempt to build 
 it up." 
 
 " And the clergy, and the Court, and the aristocracy ? " 
 
 " The clergy fear him, the Court detests him, and the 
 Roman aristocracy are rancorously hostile to him." 
 
 " Yet he rules them all, nevertheless ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, with a rod of iron people, Court, princes, Parlia- 
 ment, King as well and seems to have only one unsatisfied
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 23 
 
 desire, to break up the last remaining rights of the Vatican 
 and rule the old Pope himself." 
 
 The ladies laughed. " And yet he asks us to sit in his 
 balcony and look at the old Pope's procession ! " 
 
 " Perhaps because he intends it shall be the last we shall 
 ever see." 
 
 " The Princess Bellini and Don Camillo Murelli," said 
 Felice's sepulchral voice from the door. 
 
 An elderly aristocratic beauty wearing nodding white 
 plumes, a little, soft, blonde dahlia of a woman, slightly over- 
 blown, came in with a pallid young Roman noble dressed in the 
 English fashion, in a check tweed suit, having the bottom of 
 his trousers turned up and an eyeglass screwed into one eye. 
 
 " You come to church, Don Camillo ? " 
 
 " Heard it was a service which happened only once in a 
 hundred years, dear General, and thought it mightn't be con- 
 venient to come next time," said the young Roman. 
 
 " And you, Princess ! Come now, confess, is it the perfume 
 of the incense which brings you to the Pope's procession, or 
 the perfume of the promenaders ? " 
 
 " Nonsense, General ! " said the little woman, tapping the 
 American with the tip of her lorgnette. " Who comes to a 
 ceremony like this to say her prayers ? Nobody whatever, and 
 if the Holy Father himself were to say . . ." 
 
 "Oh! oh!" 
 
 " I agree with the Princess," said Don Camillo. " Who 
 can take a Miserere solemnly while the hymn of life is singing 
 in the soul? Who can think of the mysteries of a Divine 
 passion while all the mysteries of human passion are evoked by 
 this radiant morning and the smiles of that happy crowd? 
 Look!" 
 
 They walked to the balcony which opened off the room, and 
 a murmur came up to them like that of the long waves of the 
 Atlantic to passengers on a ship, at sea. 
 
 " Is it the Miserere or the mise-en-scene which brings them 
 to this spectacle ? " 
 
 " Which reminds me," said the little dahlia, " where is 
 Donna Roma ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed, where is Donna Roma ? " said the young 
 Roman. 
 
 " When was Donna Roma absent from a reception given 
 by Baron Bonelli ? " said the dahlia, with a significant trill of 
 laughter.
 
 24 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Who is Donna Eoma ? " said the Englishman. 
 
 " Santo Dio ! the man doesn't know Donna Roma ! " 
 
 The white plumes bobbed up, the powdered face fell back, 
 the little twinkling eyes closed, and the company laughed and 
 seated themselves in the Loggia. 
 
 " Donna Roma, dear sir," said the young Roman, " is a 
 type of the fair lady who has appeared in the history of every 
 nation since the days of Helen of Troy one of those exquisite 
 creatures whose lovely eyes and rosy mouth exercise a function 
 in the state." 
 
 " Poor state ! " laughed the Princess. 
 
 " In the orchard of the nation she is the flower of flowers. 
 Wherever she goes a perfume of adoration follows her, and 
 everybody makes way for her as for a sovereign. In the world 
 of beauty and elegance through which she moves she is a queen, 
 and as such she makes her own manners and her own morality." 
 
 " Poor morality ! " 
 
 " Has a woman of this type, then, identified herself with 
 the story of Rome at a moment like the present?" said the 
 Englishman. 
 
 The young Roman smiled, bowed his head aside and opened 
 his arms, palms inward, as if playing an invisible accordion. 
 
 " Why did the Prime Minister appoint so-and-so ? Donna 
 Roma! Why did he dismiss such-and-such? Donna Roma! 
 What feminine influence imposed upon the nation this or that ? 
 Donna Roma ! Through whom come titles, decorations, hon- 
 ours ? Donna Roma ! Who pacifies intractable politicians 
 and makes them the devoted followers of the Ministers? 
 Donna Roma ! Who organises the great charitable committees, 
 collects funds and distributes them? Donna Roma! Always, 
 always Donna Roma ! " 
 
 " So the day of the petticoat politician is not over in Italy 
 yet?" 
 
 "Over? It will only end with the last trump. But dear 
 Donna Roma is hardly that. With her light play of grace and 
 a whole artillery of love in her lovely eyes, she only intoxicates 
 a great capital and " with a glance toward the curtained door 
 " takes captive a great Minister." 
 
 " Just that," and the white plumes bobbed up and down. 
 
 " Hence she defies conventions, and no one dares to question 
 her actions on her scene of gallantry." 
 
 " Drives a pair of thoroughbreds in the Corso every after- 
 noon, and threatens to buy an automobile."
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 25 
 
 " Has debts enough to sink a ship, but floats through life 
 as if she had never known what it was to be poor." 
 
 "And has she?" 
 
 The voices from behind the curtained door were louder than 
 usual at that moment, and the young Roman drew his chair 
 closer. 
 
 " Donna Roma, dear sir, was the only child of Prince 
 Volonna. Nobody mentions him now, so speak of him in 
 a whisper. The Volonnas were an old papal family, holding 
 office in the Pope's household, but the young prince of the 
 house was a Liberal, and his youth was cast in the stormy 
 days of the middle of the century. As a son of the revolution 
 he was expelled from Rome for conspiracy against the papal 
 Government, and when the Pope went out and the King came 
 in, he was still a republican, conspiring against the reigning 
 sovereign, and, as such, a rebel. Meanwhile he had wandered 
 over Europe, going from Geneva to Berlin, from Berlin to 
 Paris. Finally he took refuge in London, the home of all the 
 homeless, and there he was lost and forgotten. Some say he 
 practised as a doctor, passing under another name, others say 
 that he spent his life as a poor man in your Italian quarter of 
 Soho, nursing rebellion among the exiles from his own country. 
 Only one thing is certain ; late in life he came back to Italy as 
 a conspirator enticed back, his friends say was arrested on 
 a charge of attempted regicide, and deported to the island of 
 Elba without a word of public report or trial." 
 
 " Domicilio Coatto a devilish and insane device," said the 
 American Ambassador. " Supposed to be imposed only upon 
 those who have grown up in vice, are intolerant of ties, careless 
 of the law, and a permanent danger to society." 
 
 " Was that the case with Prince Volonna ? " 
 
 " Just so," said the Roman. " But ten or twelve years after 
 he disappeared from the scene a beautiful girl was brought to 
 Rome and presented as his daughter." 
 
 "Donna Roma?" 
 
 "Yes. Her youth and loveliness alone would have been 
 enough to arrest attention in a city devoted to beauty, but she 
 had the further advantage of being presented by the most 
 courted man in the kingdom." 
 
 " Baron Bonelli?" 
 
 " The Prime Minister of United Italy ! It turned out that 
 he was a distant kinsman of the refugee, and going to London 
 he discovered that the Prince had married an English wife 
 3
 
 26 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 during the period of his exile, and left a friendless daughter. 
 He found the child at last Heaven knows how or where; 
 rumour says that the squalid story of the early life of your 
 Lady Hamilton is an idyl compared with Donna Roma's ad- 
 ventures." 
 
 " Madonna mia ! " said the little Princess, and agahi the 
 white plumes bobbed up and down. 
 
 " Out of pity for a great name he undertook the guardian- 
 ship of the girl, sent her to school in France, and finally 
 brought her to Rome, and established her in an apartment on 
 the Trinita de' Monti, under the care of an old aunt, poor as 
 herself, and once a great coquette, but now a faded rose which 
 has long since seen its June." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then ? " once more the playing of the invisible accordion 
 " Ah, who shall say what then, dear friend ? We can only 
 judge by what appears Donna Roma's elegant figure, dressed 
 in silk by the best milliners Paris can provide, queening it over 
 half the women of Rome." 
 
 " And now her aunt is conveniently bedridden," said the 
 little. Princess, " and she goes about alone like an English- 
 woman; and to account for her extravagance, while everybody 
 knows her father's estate was confiscated, she is by way of being 
 a sculptor, and has set up a gorgeous studio, full of nymphs 
 and cupids and limbs." 
 
 " Where," said the young Roman, " she is visited and flat- 
 tered by all the great ones of the earth, and flatters them in 
 return with a pretty mouth which is accustomed at once to the 
 sweetness of love and the hardness of fate." 
 
 " And without an atom of talent she gets commissions for 
 which the first sculptors in Italy would give their ears." 
 
 " And all by virtue of: what ? " said the Englishman. 
 
 " By virtue of being " the invisible accordion again 
 " the good friend of the Baron Bonelli ! " 
 
 " Meaning by that ? " 
 
 " Nothing and everything ! " said the Princess with 
 another trill of laughter. 
 
 " In Rome, dear friend," said Don Camillo, " a woman can 
 do anything she likes as long as she can keep people from talk- 
 ing about her." 
 
 " Oh, you never do that apparently," said the Englishman. 
 " But why doesn't the Baron make her a Baroness and have 
 done with the danger ? "
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 27 
 
 " Because the Baron has a Baroness already." 
 
 " A wife living ? " 
 
 " Living and yet dead ! " 
 
 The voices beyond the curtained doorway were audible 
 again, and those who knew the Baron recognised the sound of a 
 blow on the chest, which was a habit of his when angry or 
 excited. 
 
 " A sad story, Sir Evelyn," said the young Roman. " Wife 
 married against her will a girl, a child, with light curls and 
 pensive blue eyes weeps bitterly on her wedding-day, but 
 afterwards consoles herself with a young officer, who, like her- 
 self, is fond of dancing. One day she appears at a masked ball 
 as a Bacchante white tunic, bare arms, and clinging robes 
 that barely conceal her limbs. Dances with her young officer 
 until midnight, when her husband comes out with her wraps, 
 and without a word they get into the carriage. The drive is 
 long and dark ' Where are we going ? ' she asks, and he an- 
 swers : ' I've given my orders ! ' At last she gets out trembling 
 and in terror at his ancestral home, a country castle of un- 
 known age in the Alban hills. ' This is to be your residence for 
 the rest of your life,' he says. In less than a year she is a hope- 
 less imbecile and he has come back to Rome and the world." 
 
 "Terrible!" 
 
 " But why do these little thoughtless things run up 
 against men like that ? " says the Princess. 
 
 " What you tell me about Donna Roma inclines me to think 
 that she is more sinned against than sinning," said the English- 
 man. " I dare say the Baron, like most public men in the East, 
 has only the Eastern may I say the scriptural ? idea of wom- 
 an, an accessory to his political position. Roma ! A name like 
 music. Born in England, you say? Probably in the poor 
 quarter of Soho. Perhaps a British subject still ! In that case 
 she is a protegee of mine in one sense, and if I can ever be of 
 use to her . . ." 
 
 The little white plumes were dancing above the little gleam- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " Another conquest for dear Roma ! Well, well ! all tastes 
 are tastes ! " 
 
 V 
 
 THE curtain parted over the inner doorway, and three gen- 
 tlemen came out. The first was a tall, spare man, about fifty 
 years of age, with an intellectual head, features cut clear and
 
 28 THE ETERNAL, CITY 
 
 hard like granite, glittering eyes under overhanging brows, 
 black moustaches turned up at the ends, and iron-grey hair 
 cropped very short over a high forehead. It was the Baron 
 Bonelli. He was faultlessly dressed, had an air of distinction, 
 and made an instantaneous impression of force and power. 
 
 One of the two men with him had a face which looked as if 
 it had been carved by a sword or an adze, good and honest but 
 blunt and rugged; and the other had a long, narrow head, like 
 the head of a hen a lanky person with a certain mixture of 
 arrogance and servility in his expression. 
 
 The company rose from their places in the Loggia, and 
 there were greetings and introductions. 
 
 " Sir Evelyn Wise, gentlemen, the new British Ambassador 
 General Morra, our Minister of War, Commendatore Angel- 
 elli, our Chief of Police. A thousand apologies, ladies! A 
 Minister of the Interior is one of the human atoms that live 
 from minute to minute and are always at the mercy of events. 
 You must excuse the Commendatore, gentlemen, he has urgent 
 duties outside." 
 
 The Prime Minister spoke with the lucidity and emphasis 
 of a man accustomed to command, and when Angelelli had 
 bowed all round he crossed with him to the door. 
 
 " If there is any suspicion of commotion, arrest the ring- 
 leaders at once. Let there be no trifling with disorder by 
 whomsoever begun. The first to offend must be the first to be 
 arrested, whether he wears cap or cassock." 
 
 " Good, your Excellency," and the Chief of Police went out. 
 
 " Commotion ! Disorder ! Madonna mia ! " cried the little 
 Princess. 
 
 " Calm yourselves, ladies. It's nothing ! Only it came to 
 the knowledge of the Government that the Pope's procession 
 this morning might be made the excuse for a disorderly dem- 
 onstration, and of course order must not be disturbed even 
 under the pretext of liberty and religion." 
 
 " So that was the public business which deprived us of 
 your society ? " said the Princess, with the sweetest twinkle 
 of her little eyes. 
 
 " And left my womanless house the duty of receiving you in 
 my absence," said the Baron, with a stately bow. Then in ex- 
 planation of his preceding words he added: 
 
 " The Pope, dear friends, is a good and venerable man, but 
 he show r s disrespect and antagonism to all that Italy holds dear, 
 and it is the duty of the Government to see that this latest of
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 29 
 
 his challenges is not turned to account by the enemies of the 
 King." 
 
 " Can it be possible that your Excellency apprehends anoth- 
 er Anarchist rising ? " said the Englishman. 
 
 " In Rome ? No ! A city of sleepy ones of aristocratic 
 calm of benevolent indifference. All the rest of the world 
 boils and bubbles, Rome smiles at everything.: it is the Eternal 
 City, with an unfailing faith in its own destinies. Its pro- 
 letariat an inert mass; its nobles chiefly idlers in the court 
 of their goddess, love; its middle class the only one to be 
 reckoned with, and they live on the civil service, and therefore 
 support the law. All the same the Pope is a person of no coun- 
 try, he has forbidden his faithful ones to be patriots and take 
 part in the affairs of Italy; and it is possible for the man of 
 the piazza the man in the street, as you say to imagine that 
 this celebration at the end of the century strikes the note of a 
 sort of international Christian Socialism, in which the Holy 
 Father stands for the people against all kings and govern- 
 ments." 
 
 " Preposterous idea ! " 
 
 " Preposterous, indeed, Princess. A people's Pope is an 
 impossible being. A Pope who is tolerant of other faiths or 
 authority is illogical and absurd. The policy of priests known 
 as the Vatican must ever remain a mystery to the outer world, 
 but its propaganda is, and -always must be, anti-democratic. As 
 a matter of fact, the present Pope is the most determined up- 
 holder of the Vatican idea the absolute rule of one man." 
 
 " And yet the priests of his own academy say he is a Liberal 
 Pope? " said the Englishman. 
 
 " The priests of my academy know better, your Excellency. 
 His life has been the last exposure of that silliest absurdity a 
 people's Pontiff." 
 
 The Baron bowed his guests to their seats, stood with his 
 back to a wide ingle, and gave his version of the Pope's career. 
 
 " His father was a Roman banker lived in this house, 
 indeed and the young Leone was brought up in the Jesuit 
 schools and became a member of the Noble Guard: handsome, 
 accomplished, fond of society and social admiration, a man of 
 the world. This was a cause of disappointment to his father, 
 who had intended him for a great career in the Church. They 
 had their differences, and finally a mission was found for him 
 and he lived a year abroad. The death of the old banker 
 brought him back to Rome, and then, to the astonishment of
 
 30 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 society, he renounced the world and took holy orders. Why he 
 gave up his life of gallantry did not appear . . ." 
 
 " Some affair of the heart, dear Baron," said the little 
 Princess, with another melting look. 
 
 " No, there was no talk of that kind, Princess, and not a 
 whisper of scandal. Some said the young soldier had married 
 in England, and lost his wife there, but nobody knew for cer- 
 tain. There was less doubt about his religious vocation, and 
 when by help of his princely inheritance he turned his mind to 
 the difficult task of reforming vice and ministering to the 
 lowest aspects of misery in the slums of Rome, society said he 
 had turne,d Socialist. His popularity with the people was un- 
 bounded, but in the midst of it all he begged to be removed to 
 London. There he set up the same enterprises, and tramped 
 the streets in search of his waifs and outcasts, night and day, 
 year in, year out, as if driven on by a consuming passion of pity 
 for the lost and fallen. In the interests of his health he was 
 called back to Rome and returned here a white-haired man of 
 forty." 
 
 " Ah ! what did I say, dear Baron ? The apple falls near the 
 tree, you know ! " 
 
 " By this time he had given away millions, and the Pope 
 wished to make him President of his Academy of Noble 
 Ecclesiastics, but he begged to be excused. Then Apostolic 
 Delegate to the United States, and he prayed off. Then Nun- 
 cio to Spain, and he went on his knees to remain in the Cam- 
 pagna Romana, and do the work of a simple priest among a 
 simple people. At last, without consulting him, they made 
 him Bishop and afterwards Cardinal, and, on the death of the 
 Pope, he was Scrutator to the Conclave, and fainted when 
 he read out his own name as that of Sovereign Pontiff of the 
 Church." 
 
 The little Princess was wiping her eyes. 
 
 " Then all the world was changed. The priest of the 
 future disappeared in a Pope who was the incarnation of the 
 past. Authority was now his watchword. What was the 
 highest authority on earth? The Holy See! Therefore, the 
 greatest thing for the world was the domination of the Pope. 
 If anybody should say that the power conferred by Christ on 
 his Vicar was only spiritual, let him be accursed! In Christ's 
 name the Pope was sovereign supreme sovereign over the 
 bodies and souls of men acknowledging no superior, holding 
 the right to make and depose kings, and claiming to be su-
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 31 
 
 preme judge over the consciences and crimes of all the peas- 
 ant that tills the soil and the prince that sits on the throne ! " 
 
 " Tre-men-jous ! " said the American. 
 
 The company laughed, the Baron smiled. " It was the only 
 logic, General Potter. The Pope was right on his own lines. 
 What happened? The pious chief of the Militia of the Cross 
 began to look forward to a day when he should be again sur- 
 rounded by an army. His predecessor had been content to 
 cavil and carp about the restoration of the temporal power of 
 the Pope in these poor little Papal States, but he dared to 
 dream of the revival of the Holy Roman Empire. The divine 
 rule of humanity from the chair of St. Peter ! A united world 
 worshipping at one altar! The tiara and the sword bound to- 
 gether again for the conquest of the world ! Nations to have 
 what Governments they pleased, but the Holy See to be over 
 everything ! Rome to be the court of arbitration for economic 
 as well as international differences, and the Vicar of Christ to 
 be all in all!" 
 
 " A magnificent dream, your Excellency." 
 
 " Oh, I recognise its magnificence, Sir Evelyn the magnifi- 
 cence of a mirage. The grandeur and amplitude of a concep- 
 tion that will be carried into execution when humanity is fed 
 on pap and put back into swaddling clothes. And to-day we 
 are to hear the first trumpet blast that calls on the Church to 
 return to the past and suffocate the twentieth century in the 
 mysticism of the tenth." 
 
 " All the same, it stirs my blood like a draught of wine," 
 said the Englishman, " and I'm doubly anxious to see the man 
 who thought of it." 
 
 " You'll see more than that to-day," said the Baron ; " you'll 
 see the first failure of the Church in its claim to the heirship of 
 the world. You've heard of the order in the Pope's Bull about 
 the simultaneous salutation? No? At noon the Pope will go 
 up to the balcony of St. Peter's and bless the nations of the 
 earth in one solemn benediction. Then all the church bells 
 will ring as signal to the four quarters of the globe of the dawn 
 of the new era. At that moment everything in Rome, in Italy, 
 in Europe, in Christendom whatever the hour elsewhere is 
 to come to a dead stand for thirty seconds, while all the world 
 salutes the coming century." 
 
 " Tremenjous! " said the American again. 
 
 " Will it happen ? " said the Englishman. 
 
 The Baron laughed. " If it does it will strike a triumph for
 
 32 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the Church before the century begins, and some of us may as 
 well throw up the sponge." 
 
 " But, dear Baron," said the little Princess, " don't you 
 think there was an affair of the heart after all ? " and the little 
 plumes bobbed sideways. 
 
 The Baron laughed again. " The Pope seems to have half 
 of humanity on his side already he has all the women appa- 
 rently." 
 
 All this time there had risen from the piazza into the room 
 a humming noise like the swarming of bees, but now a shrill 
 voice came up from the crowd with the sudden swish of a 
 rocket. 
 
 " Look out ! " 
 
 The young Roman, who had been looking over the balcony, 
 turned his head back and said: 
 
 " Donna Roma, Excellency." 
 
 But the Baron had gone from the room. 
 
 " He knew her carriage wheels apparently," said Don 
 Camillo, and the lips of the little Princess closed tight as if 
 from sudden pain. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE return of the Baron was announced by the faint rustle 
 of a silk under-skirt and a light yet decided step keeping pace 
 with his own. He came back with Donna Roma on his arm, 
 and over his coolness and calm dignity he looked pleased and 
 proud. 
 
 The lady herself was brilliantly animated and happy. A 
 certain swing in her graceful carriage gave an instant impres- 
 sion of perfect health, and there was physical health also in the 
 brightness of her eyes and the gaiety of her expression. Her 
 face was lighted up by a smile which seemed to pervade her 
 whole person, and make it radiant with overflowing joy. A 
 vivacity which was at the same time dignified and spontaneous 
 appeared in every movement of her harmonious figure, and as 
 she came into the room there was a glow of health and happi- 
 ness that filled the air like the glow of sunlight through a veil 
 of soft red gauze. 
 
 " What a lovely face," whispered the wife of the English- 
 man. 
 
 " She's certainly beautiful, and I must allow she's well 
 dressed," said the little Princess.
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 33 
 
 She wore a picture hat with ostrich plumes and a tight- 
 fitting astrachan coat with ermine lining and long flowing skirt 
 that threw out the grace of her full round form, and there was 
 a scarf of old lace about her neck which heightened the bril- 
 liancy of her violet eyes. 
 
 " I thought you admired her immensely," whispered the 
 Englishwoman again, and the little Princess replied: 
 
 " I ? What nonsense ! Do you think I'm a man, my dear ? " 
 
 She saluted the Baron's guests with a smile that fascinated 
 everybody. There was a modified air of freedom about her, as 
 of one who has a right to make advances, a manner which capti- 
 vates all women in a queen and all men in a lovely woman. 
 
 " Ah, it is you, General Potter ? And my dear General 
 Morra? Camillo mio!" (The Italian had rushed upon her 
 and kissed her hand.) " Sir Evelyn Wise, from England, isn't 
 it? I'm half an Englishwoman myself, and I'm very proud 
 of it." 
 
 Having thus gone through the men, her little battle of 
 coquetry ended in kisses for the women. 
 
 " Dearest Roma ! Enraptured to see you ! " said the 
 Princess. 
 
 " Charming, isn't she ? " said the American. 
 
 " I don't believe a word of that story," said the Englishman. 
 
 She had smiled frankly into Sir Evelyn's face, and he had 
 smiled back without knowing it. There was something con- 
 tagious about her smile. The rosy mouth with its pearly teeth 
 seemed to smile of itself, and the lovely eyes had their separate 
 art of smiling. Her lips parted of themselves, and then you felt 
 your own lips parting. 
 
 " Yes, there's some terrible charm about her," whispered 
 the American, " something beyond my comprehension." 
 
 " She has lived that's all I see in it," replied the English- 
 man. 
 
 In a moment she had engaged everybody in a lively conver- 
 sation. Notwithstanding her natural gaiety and animation, 
 those who knew her saw that she was labouring under excite- 
 ment, and her joyous face seemed to say that the cause of it was 
 a happy one. She was constantly pulling the scarf of lace, and 
 sometimes it fell off her neck, and the young Roman picked it 
 up. Then she laughed, and to keep herself quiet she opened 
 her coat, over a dove-grey gown, and threw herself back in an 
 easy-chair, when there was a glimpse of a dainty shoe and a 
 blue-figured stocking.
 
 34 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " You were to have been busy with your fountain to-day 
 ..." began the Baron. 
 
 " So I expected," she said in a voice that was soft yet full, 
 " and I did not think I should care to see any more spectacles 
 in Home, where the people are going in procession all the year 
 through but what do you think has brought me ? " 
 
 " The artist's instinct, of course," said Don Camillo. 
 
 " No, just the woman's to see a man ! " 
 
 " Lucky fellow, whoever he is ! " said the American. " He'll 
 see something better than you will, though," and then the 
 golden complexion gleamed up at him under a smile like sun- 
 shine. 
 
 " But who is he ? " said the young Roman. 
 
 " I'll tell you. Bruno you remember Bruno ? " 
 
 " Bruno ! " cried the Baron. 
 
 " Oh ! Bruno is all right," she said, and, turning to the 
 others, " Bruno is my man in the studio my marble pointer, 
 you know. Bruno Rocco, and nobody was ever so rightly 
 named. A big, shaggy, good-natured bear, always singing or 
 growling or laughing, and as true as steel. A terrible Liberal, 
 though; a socialist, an anarchist, a nihilist, and everything 
 that's shocking." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, ever since I began my fountain . . . I'm making 
 a fountain for the Municipality it is to be erected in the new 
 part of the Piazza Colonna. I expect to finish it in a fortnight. 
 You would like to see it? Yes? I'll send you cards a little 
 private view, you know." 
 
 "But Bruno?" 
 
 " Ah ! yes, Bruno ! Well, I've been at a loss for a model 
 for one of my figures . . . figures all round the dish, you 
 know. They represent the Twelve Apostles, with Christ in the 
 centre giving out the water of life." 
 
 " But Bruno ! Bruno ! Bruno ! " 
 
 She laughed, and the merry ring of her laughter set them 
 all laughing. 
 
 " Well, Bruno has sung the praises of one of his friends 
 until I'm crazy . . . crazy, that's English, isn't it ? I told you 
 I was half an Englishwoman. American? Thanks, General! 
 I'm ' just crazy ' to get him in." 
 
 " Simple enough hire him to sit to you," said the Princess. 
 
 " Oh," with a mock solemnity, " he is far too grand a person 
 for that! A member of parliament, a leader of the Left, a
 
 35 
 
 prophet, a person with a mission, and I daren't even dream 
 of it. But this morning, Bruno tells me, his friend, his idol, 
 is to stop the Pope's procession, and present a petition, so I 
 thought I would kill two birds with one stone see my man and 
 see the spectacle and here I am to see them ! " 
 
 " And who is this paragon of yours, my dear ? " 
 
 " The great David Eossi ! " 
 
 "That maul" 
 
 The white plumes were going like a fan. 
 
 " Why not ? They say he is beautiful. Tall, dark, dis- 
 tinguished, great ecstatic eyes, solemn expression, and deep 
 vibrating voice one of those voices that go through and 
 through you not a husky ' Left ' voice that cracks on the top 
 note, you know." 
 
 " The man is a public nuisance and ought to be put down 
 by the police," said the little Princess, beating her foot on the 
 floor. 
 
 " He has a tongue like a sword and a pen like a dagger," 
 said the young Roman. 
 
 Donna Roma's eyes began to flash with a new expression. 
 
 " Ah, yes, he is a journalist, isn't he, and libels people in 
 his paper? " 
 
 " The creature has ruined more reputations than anybody 
 else in Europe," said the little Princess. 
 
 " I remember now. He made a terrible attack on our young 
 old women and our old young men. Declared they were 
 meddling with everything called them a museum of mum- 
 mies, and said they were symbolical of the ruin that was coming 
 on the country. Shameful, wasn't it ? Nobody likes to be talked 
 about, especially in Rome, where it's the end of everything. 
 But what matter? The young man has perhaps learned free- 
 dom of speech in some free country. We can afford to forgive 
 him, can't we? And then he is so interesting and so hand- 
 some ! " 
 
 The words, the tones, the glances, had gone flashing around 
 the room like veiled lightning, and the American looked over 
 at the Englishman, who dropped his head and thought, " It's 
 true, there's something terrible about her something strange, 
 at all events." 
 
 " An attempt to stop the Pope's procession might end in 
 tumult," said the American General to the Italian General. 
 " Was that the danger the Baron spoke about ? " 
 
 " Yes," said General Mora. " The Government have been
 
 36 
 
 compelled to tax bread, and of course that has been a signal 
 for the enemies of the national spirit to say that we are starv- 
 ing the people. This David Rossi is the worst Roman in Rome. 
 He opposed us in Parliament and lost. Petitioned the King 
 and lost again. Now he intends to petition the Pope with 
 what hope, Heaven knows." 
 
 " With the hope of playing on public opinion of course," 
 said the Baron cynically. 
 
 " Public opinion is a great force, your Excellency," said the 
 Englishman. 
 
 " A great pestilence," said the Baron warmly. 
 
 "What is David Rossi?" 
 
 " An anarchist, a republican, a nihilist, anything as old 
 as the hills, dear friend, only everything in a new way," said 
 the young Roman. 
 
 " David Rossi is the politician who proposes to govern the 
 world by the precepts of the Lord's Prayer," said the American. 
 
 "The Lord's Prayer!" 
 
 " A dreamer of other days, dear friend," said Don Camillo. 
 " Caught the sacred sickness abroad somewhere, and brought 
 the phantasm of his sick head, intoxicated with God, into the 
 Rome of the resurrection. Lombroso would have shut him up 
 in an asylum. We are more liberal, we only send him to the 
 Chamber of Deputies, where he formulates his unpractical 
 theories and draws up statistics of how much polenta the 
 peasants eat." 
 
 The Baron paraded on the hearthrug. " David Rossi," he 
 said compassionately, " is a creature of his age. A man of 
 generous impulses and wide sympathies, moved to indignation 
 at the extremes of poverty and wealth, and carried away by 
 the promptings of the eternal religion in the human soul. A 
 dreamer, of course, a dreamer like the Holy Father himself, 
 only his dream is different, and neither could succeed without 
 destroying the other. In the millennium Rossi looks for, not 
 only are kings and princes to disappear, but popes and prelates 
 as well." 
 
 " And where does this unpractical politician come from ? " 
 said the Englishman. 
 
 " We must ask you to tell us that, Sir Evelyn, for though 
 he is supposed to be a Roman, he seems to have lived most 
 of his life in your country. As silent as an owl and as inscru- 
 table as a sphinx. Nobody in Rome knows certainly who his 
 father was, nobody knows certainly who his mother was. Some
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 37 
 
 say his father was an Englishman, some say a Jew, and some 
 say his mother was a gipsy. A self-centred man, who never 
 talks about himself, and cannot be got to lift the veil which 
 surrounds his birth and early life. Came back to Rome eight 
 years ago, and made a vast noise by propounding his platonic 
 scheme of politics was called up for his term of military 
 service, refused to serve, got himself imprisoned for six months 
 and came out a mighty hero was returned to Parliament for 
 no fewer than three constituencies, sat for Rome, took his place 
 on the Extreme Left, and attacked every Minister and every 
 measure which favoured the interest of the army encouraged 
 the workmen not to pay their taxes and the farmers not to pay 
 their rents and thus became the leader of a noisy faction, and 
 is now surrounded by the degenerate class throughout Italy 
 which dreams of reconstructing society by burying it under 
 ruins." 
 
 " A sort of religious anarchist apparently? " 
 
 " Say a visionary like the Pope, Sir Evelyn. His sover- 
 eign ideal is a vaporous dream which he calls the ' Republic 
 of Man.' The fatherhood of God ! The brotherhood of man ! 
 Equality of human rights ! Unity of humanity ! Abolition 
 of war, of national boundaries, of the custom-house officer, 
 of the soldier, of distinctions of race, of ownership of land, 
 of capital, of authority, of the Vatican, of ... of every- 
 thing!" 
 
 " Makes one think of the magnificent hallucinations of the 
 Early Christian ascetics," said the Englishman. 
 
 " Even hallucinations can make revolutions," said the 
 American. 
 
 " Lived in England, you say ? " 
 
 " Apparently, and if his early life could be traced, it would 
 probably be found that he was brought up in an atmosphere of 
 conspiracy perhaps under the influence of some vile revolu- 
 tionary living in London under the protection of your too lib- 
 eral laws. Therefore one of the men who in every age interpret 
 by their own sufferings the sufferings of the world, and gather 
 about them, without intending it, all the low-bred rascals who 
 try to hurry society into dissolution and anarchy." 
 
 Donna Roma sprang up with a movement full of grace and 
 energy. " Anyhow," she said, " he is young and good-looking 
 and romantic and mysterious, and I'm head over ears in love 
 with him already." 
 
 " Well, every man is a world," said the American.
 
 38 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " And what about woman ? " said Roma. 
 He threw up his hands, she smiled full into his face, and 
 they laughed together. 
 
 VII 
 
 A FANFARE of trumpets came from the piazza, and with a 
 cry of delight Roma ran into the balcony, followed by all the 
 women and most of the men. 
 
 " Only the signal that the cortege has started," said Don 
 Camillo. " They'll be some minutes still." 
 
 " Santo Dio ! " cried Roma. " What a sight ! It dazzles 
 me ; it makes me dizzy ! It's like an immense living thing, a 
 moving creature, great, but undefined, a mighty centogambe 
 with multitudinous heads; and the sound that comes up from 
 it is like the buzz of a million grasshoppers." 
 
 After a moment she began to pick out her friends from 
 the maze in which all faces were at first confused in one magic 
 sensation. 
 
 That's the Ninety-third Infantry beyond the obelisk, and 
 those, with the cock feathers, are the Bersaglieri. There's Com- 
 mendatore Angelelli, the chief of police what's he doing 
 down there, I wonder ? That's Fedi, the Pope's doctor. Every- 
 body sends for him, and he knows all the secrets ah, he could 
 tell us something ! There's Madame Sella, the Queen's dress- 
 maker she has married her daughter to a Cavaliere, and 
 would get her son into the Ministry if she had one. That's 
 Palomba, the Mayor, in his big gilt carriage; and that's his 
 wife beside him, the pale, sweet lady with the roving eyes. 
 Palomba is a millionaire, and has his supper served on gold, 
 but his wife is really out of her mind, poor creature ah, 
 love is a sugared pill ! There's Olga the journalist, and Lena 
 the cartoonist they say Lena's husband is Olga's lover and 
 that's young Charles Minghelli standing by the carriage of 
 the old gentleman covered with medals. Charles is Palomba's 
 nephew he got into trouble at the Embassy in London, and 
 had to leave the service. Oh, what a lovely sight ! All the 
 costumes of Europe ! But how funny the men look in evening 
 dress in the morning. Wonder if the policemen gave them 
 away when they came down the street, and said ' Good-night ' 
 to them as usual." 
 
 Her face beamed, her eyes danced, and she was all aglow 
 from head to foot. The American Ambassador stood behind
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 39 
 
 her, and, as permitted by his greater age, he tossed back the 
 shuttlecock of her playful talk with chaff and laughter. 
 
 "How patient the people are! See the little groups on 
 camp-stools, munching biscuits and reading the journals. ' La 
 Vera Roma! ' " (mimicking the cry of the newspaper sellers). 
 " Look at that pretty girl the fair one with the young man in 
 the Homburg hat ! She has climbed up the obelisk, and is in- 
 viting him to sit on an inch and a half of corbel beside her." 
 
 " Ah, those who love take up little room ! " 
 
 " Don't they ? What a lovely world it is ! I'll tell you what 
 this makes me think about a wedding! Glorious morning, 
 beautiful sunshine, flowers, wreaths, bridesmaids ready ; coach- 
 men all a posy, only waiting for the bride ! " 
 
 " A wedding is what you women are always dreaming about 
 you begin dreaming about it in your cradles it's in a wom- 
 an's bones, I do believe," said the American. 
 
 " Must be the ones she got from Adam, then," said Roma. 
 
 Meantime the Baron was still parading the hearthrug in- 
 side and listening to the warnings of his Minister of War. 
 
 " You are resolved to arrest the man ? " 
 
 " If he gives us any opportunity yes." 
 
 " You do not forget that he is a Deputy ? " 
 
 " It is because I remember it that my resolution is fixed. In 
 Parliament he is a privileged person; let him make half as 
 much disorder outside and you shall see where he will be." 
 
 " Anarchists ! " said Roma. " That group below the bal- 
 cony ? Strange ! I don't feel the least repugnance ! " 
 
 " Did you think they were a kind of wild beast that ought 
 to be shut up in cages ? " 
 
 " Certainly I did, but then I think that of every son of 
 Adam. Is David Rossi among them? Yes? Which of them? 
 Which ? Which ? Which ? The tall man in the black hat with 
 his back to us ? Oh ! why doesn't he turn his face ? Should I 
 shout?" 
 
 " Roma ! " from the little Princess. 
 
 " I know ; I'll faint, and you'll catch me, and the Princess 
 will cry 'Madonna mia! J and then he'll turn round and look 
 up." 
 
 "My child!" 
 
 "He'll see through you, though, and then where will you 
 be?" 
 
 " See through me, indeed ! " and she laughed the laugh a 
 man loves to hear, half -raillery, half-caress.
 
 40 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Donna Roma Volonna, daughter of a line of princes, mak- 
 ing love to a nameless nobody ! " 
 
 " Shows what a heavenly character she is, then ! See how 
 good I am at throwing bouquets at myself ? " 
 
 " Well, what is love, anyway ? A certain boy and a certain 
 girl agree to go for a row in the same boat to the same place, 
 arid if they pull together, what does it matter where they come 
 from?" 
 
 " What, indeed ? " she said, and a smile, partly serious, 
 played about the parted mouth. 
 
 " Could you think like that ? " 
 
 "I could! I could! I could!" 
 
 The Minister of War was looking grave. 
 
 " The man has a great following. Remember, whatever 
 their differences, the priests are with him." 
 
 " They are always with everybody who is aiming to over- 
 throw the royal dynasty," said the Baron. 
 
 " If the Pope should receive his petition and listen to 
 him . . ." 
 
 " Let him ! Let the Pope join hands with any of the vision- 
 aries who are trying to bring society back to barbarism, and we 
 shall know what to do. Against the combined plague of cleri- 
 calism and anarchism some vigorous international measures 
 would soon be necessary, and that would be the end of the Holy 
 Roman Empire and of the Millennium of the Lord's Prayer 
 as well." 
 
 The clock struck eleven. Another fanfare of trumpets came 
 from the direction of the Vatican, and then the confused noises 
 in the square suddenly ceased and a broad " Ah ! " passed over 
 it, as of a vast living creature taking breath. 
 
 " They're coming ! " cried Roma. " Baron, the cortege is 
 coming." 
 
 " Presently," the Baron answered from within. 
 
 Roma's dog, which had slept on a chair through the tumult, 
 was awakened by the lull and began to bark. She picked it up, 
 tucked it under her arm and ran back to the balcony, where 
 she stood by the parapet, in full view of the people below, with 
 the young Roman on one side, the American on the other, and 
 the ladies seated around. 
 
 By this time the procession had begun to appear, issuing 
 from a bronze gate under the right arm of the colonnade, and 
 passing down the channel which had been kept open by the 
 cordon of infantry. At first a mixed anachronistic company,
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 41 
 
 with gentlemen in evening dress, having glittering stars on 
 their shirt fronts, and chamberlains in silk stockings and 
 ruffs. 
 
 Roma abandoned herself to the fascinations of the scene, 
 and her gaiety infected everybody. 
 
 " Camillo, you must tell me who they all are. There now 
 those men who come first in black and red ? " 
 
 " Laymen," said the young Roman. " They're called the 
 Apostolic Cursori. When a Cardinal is nominated they take 
 him the news, and get two or three thousand francs for their 
 trouble." 
 
 " Good for them ! And those fine fellows in tight black vest- 
 ments like Spanish bullfighters ? " 
 
 " The Mazzieri ! They carry the mace to clear the way." 
 
 " Of course, the mace ! That's the big, bright silver stick, 
 the same as the porter's ! And this gorgeous person glittering 
 like a gamecock ? " 
 
 " That's the Pope's jeweller. He makes the Holy Rose and 
 takes care of the Pope's crown." 
 
 " Looks it, bless him ! And what is the person in red and 
 purple ? " 
 
 " Master of the Holy Hospice, and that old priest behind 
 him is one of the Tinder-Sacristans." 
 
 " And these little fat folk in white lace pinafores? " 
 
 " Singers of the Sistine Chapel. That's the Director, old 
 Maestro Mustafa used to be the greatest soprano of the cen- 
 tury." 
 
 " Thought he looked like an old woman gone wrong," said 
 the American. 
 
 "Did you, now?" 
 
 " Well, look at his figure." 
 
 " But a woman's figure is ... but that's a mysten r out- 
 side of man's inferior nature. Go on, Camillo mio." 
 
 " Those men in the long black robes are lawyers of the 
 Apostolic palace." 
 
 " And this dear old friar with the mittens and rosary and 
 the comfortable linsey-woolsey sort of face ? " 
 
 " That's Father Pifferi of San Lorenzo, confessor to the 
 Pope. He knows all the Pope's sins." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Roma. 
 
 At that moment her dog barked furiously, and the old friar 
 looked up at her, whereupon she smiled down on him, and then 
 a half smile played a-bout his good-natured face. 
 4
 
 42 THE ETEENAL CITY 
 
 " He is a Capuchin, and those Frati in different colours 
 coining behind him . . ." 
 
 " I know them ; see if I don't," she cried, as there passed 
 under the balcony a double file of friars and monks, nearly all 
 alike, fat, ungainly, flabby, puffy specimens of humanity, car- 
 rying torches of triple candles, and telling their beads as they 
 walked. 
 
 The brown ones Capuchins and Franciscans ! Brown and 
 white Carmelites ! Black Augustinians and Benedictines ! 
 Black with a white cross Passionists ! And the monks all white 
 are Trappists. I know the Trappists best, because I drive out to 
 Tre Fontane to buy eucalyptus and flirt with Father John." 
 
 " Shocking ! " said the American. 
 
 " Why not ? What are their vows of celibacy but con- 
 spiracies against us poor women? Nearly every man a woman 
 wants is either mated or has sworn off in some way. Oh, how I 
 should love to meet one of those anchorites in real life and 
 make him fly ! " 
 
 " Well, I dare say the whisk of a petticoat would be more 
 frightening than all his doctors of divinity." 
 
 An immense Gonfalone was going past, followed by a long 
 line of clergymen. 
 
 " These are the Monsignori," said Don Camillo. " Secret 
 Chaplains and Secret Chamberlains. That one is the Uditore 
 Generale of the Apostolic Room. This one is the Prefect of the 
 Ceremonies. They go with the Pope to the Hall of Vestments, 
 where he puts on his sacred robes." 
 
 " Do they dress him up ? " 
 
 " Oh, dear no ! That is an honour reserved for much higher 
 dignitaries. Here they come the General of the Jesuits, they 
 call him the Black Pope." 
 
 " Good morning, Signor, the successor of Loyola ! " 
 
 " Look ! Bishops and Archbishops in white linen mitres, 
 and Cardinals in silver and gold, all aglow with crimson and 
 guipure lace. That one is a Cardinal Bishop he puts on the 
 Pope's pluviale." 
 
 "What's the pluviale?" 
 
 " The pluviale . . . I'll show you when the Pope comes. 
 The one behind in the red rochet with silver mitre is a Cardinal 
 Priest. He gives the Pope a gilded candle with a handle to 
 hold it by made of silk embroidered with gold ; and the one in 
 the tunic is a Cardinal Deacon he carries the candlestick, in 
 case the Pope should grow tired."
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 43 
 
 " Listen ! " 
 
 From a part of the procession which had passed the balcony 
 there came the sound of harmonious voices. 
 
 "The singers of the Sistine Chapel! They're singing a 
 hymn." 
 
 "I know it. ' Veni, Creator!' How splendid! How 
 glorious ! I feel as if I wanted to cry ! " 
 
 But she was still smiling at the whole world becaiise it was 
 so great and so beautiful, when the Baron came up behind, and, 
 leaning against the pilaster of the window, spoke over her 
 shoulder to the Minister of War, who stood beside her. 
 
 " That's the enemy within our gates ! An actor versed in 
 every art of arresting the eye and ear of the populace, and with 
 the experience of sixteen centuries in playing the drama of 
 sovereignty. Now, if to this pageantry is added a little senti- 
 ment, who knows what seed it may fertilise in a soil ploughed 
 by seventy thousand priests and harrowed by men like David 
 Rossi ! " 
 
 .All at once the singing stopped, the murmuring and speak- 
 ing of the crowd ceased too, and there was a breathless mo- 
 ment, such as comes before the first blast of a storm. A 
 nervous quiver, like the shudder that passes over the earth at 
 sundown, swept across the piazza, and the people stood motion- 
 less, every neck stretched, and every eye turned in the direction 
 of the bronze gate, as if God were about to reveal Himself from 
 the Holy of Holies. Then in that grand silence there came the 
 clear call of silver trumpets, and at the next instant the 
 Presence itself. 
 
 " The Pope ! Baron, the Pope ! " 
 
 The atmosphere was charged with electricity. A great roar 
 of cheering went up from below like the roaring of surf, and 
 it was followed by a clapping of hands like the running of 
 the sea off a shingly beach after the boom of a tremendous 
 breaker. 
 
 An old man, dressed \vhollv in white, carried shoulder-high 
 on a chair glittering with purple and crimson, and having a 
 canopy of silver and gold above him. He wore a triple crown, 
 which glistened in the sunlight, and but for the delicate white 
 hand which he upraised to bless the people, he might have been 
 mistaken for an image. 
 
 His face was beautiful, and had a ray of beatified light on 
 it a face of marvellous sweetness and great spirituality. 
 
 Tt was a thrilling moment, and Roma's excitement was in-
 
 44 T11E ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tense. " There he is ! All in white ! He's on a gilded chair 
 under the silken canopy ! The canopy is held up by prelates, 
 and the chairmen are in knee-breeches and red velvet. Look at 
 the great waving plumes on either side ! " 
 
 " Peacock's feathers ! " said a voice behind her, but she paid 
 no heed. 
 
 " Look at the acolytes swinging incense, and the golden 
 cross coming before ! What thunders of applause I can 
 hardly hear myself speak. It's like standing on a cliff while the 
 sea below is running mountains high. No, it's like no other 
 sound on earth ; it's human fifty thousand unloosed throats 
 of men ! That's the clapping of ladies listen to the weak ap- 
 plause of their white-gloved fingers. Now they're waving their 
 handkerchiefs. Look ! Like the wings of ten thousand butter- 
 flies fluttering up from a meadow." 
 
 " Like the creation of a queen bee," said the cynical voice 
 behind. 
 
 " I'll wave my own handkerchief ! I must ! I can't 
 help it ! " 
 
 There were deafening shouts in Italian, French, and Eng- 
 lish. "Long live the Pope-King!" "Long live the Work- 
 men's Pope ! " 
 
 Roma's mental and physical abandonment was by this time 
 complete ; she was waving her handkerchief and crying " Viva 
 il Papa Re!" 
 
 " Some of the ladies are fainting. Yes, they're losing their 
 senses." 
 
 " They'll lose something more valuable soon their purses, 
 if they don't take care," said the voice behind, but still Roma 
 heard nothing. 
 
 " They're bearing him slowly along. He's coming this way. 
 Look at the Noble Guard in their helmets and jack-boots. And 
 there are the Swiss Guard in Joseph's coat of many colours! 
 We can see him plainly now. Do you smell the incense? It's 
 like the ribbon of Bruges. Thepluviale? That gold vestment ? 
 It's studded on his bi'east with precious stones. How they blaze 
 in the sunshine ! He is blessing the people, and they are falling 
 on their knees before him." 
 
 " Like the grass before the scythe ! " 
 
 " How tired he looks ! How white his face is ! No, not 
 white ivory ! No, marble Carrara marble ! He might be 
 Lazarus who was dead and has come back from the tomb ! No 
 humanity left in him ! A saint ! An angel ! "
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 4.5 
 
 " The spiritual autocrat of the world ! " said the voice be- 
 hind. 
 
 " Viva il Papa Re! He's going by! Viva il Papa Re! He 
 has gone. . . . Well ! " 
 
 She was rising from her knees and wiping her eyes, trying 
 to cover up with laughter the confusion of her rapture. 
 
 " Such are the enchantments of eternal Rome Rome, the 
 lighthouse on the rock of time ! " said the Baron. 
 
 " Well," said the American, " if the Pope is a symbol we'll 
 just stick to our flag. Seems to me it isn't too good for a man 
 to be attended like a pagan god." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 There was a sound of voices in the distance chanting 
 dolorously. 
 
 " The cantors intoning the Tu es Petrus" said Don 
 Camillo. 
 
 " No, I mean the commotion down there. Somebody is 
 pushing through the Guard." 
 
 " It's David Rossi," said the American. 
 
 " Is that David Rossi ? Oh, dear me ! I had forgotten all 
 about him." She moved forward to see his face. " Why . . . 
 where have I ... I've seen him before somewhere." 
 
 A strange physical sensation tingled all over her at that 
 moment, and she shuddered as if with sudden cold. 
 
 "What's amiss?" 
 
 "Nothing! But I like him. Do you know, I really like 
 him." 
 
 " Women are funny things," said the American. 
 
 " They're very nice, though, aren't they ? " And two rows 
 of pearly teeth between parted lips gleamed up at him Avith 
 gay raillery. 
 
 Again she craned forward. " He is on his knees to the 
 Pope! Now he'll present the petition. No ... yes ... the 
 brutes ! They're dragging him away ! The procession is going 
 on ! Disgraceful ! " 
 
 " Long live the Workmen's Pope ! " came up from the 
 piazza, and under the shrill shouts of the pilgrims were heard 
 the monotonous voices of the monks as they passed through the 
 open doors of the Basilica intoning the praises of God. 
 
 " They are lifting him on to a car," said the American. 
 " David Rossi ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he is going to speak." 
 
 " How delightful ! Shall we hear him ? Goodj How glad
 
 46 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 I am that I came ! He is facing this way ! Oh, yes ; those 
 are his own people with the banners! Baron, the Holy 
 Father has gone on to St. Peter's, and David Rossi is going 
 to speak." 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 A quivering, vibrating voice came up from below, and in a 
 moment there was a dead silence. 
 
 VIII 
 
 " BROTHERS, when Christ Himself was on the earth going up 
 to Jerusalem, He rode on the colt of an ass, and the blind and 
 the lame and the sick came to Him, and He healed them. 
 Humanity is sick and blind and lame to-day, brothers, but the 
 Vicar of Christ goes on." 
 
 At the words an audible murmur came from the crowd, such 
 as goes before the clapping of hands in a Roman theatre, a 
 great upheaval of the heart of the audience to the actor who 
 has touched and stirred it. 
 
 " Brothers, in a little Eastern village a long time ago, there 
 arose among the poor and lowly a great Teacher, and the 
 only prayer He taught His followers was the prayer ' Our 
 Father who art in Heaven.' It was the expression of man's 
 utmost need, the expression of man's utmost hope. And not 
 only did the Teacher teach that prayer He lived according 
 to the light of it. All men were His brothers, all women 
 His sisters: He was poor, He had no home, no purse, and no 
 second coat; when He was smitten He did not smite back, 
 and when He was unjustly accused He did not defend Him- 
 self." 
 
 The long " Ah ! " again, as of sympathy and emotion. 
 
 " Nineteen hundred years have passed since then, brothers, 
 and the Teacher who arose among the poor and lowly is now 
 a great prophet. All the world knows and honours Him, and 
 civilised nations have built themselves upon the religion He 
 founded. A great Church calls itself by PTis name, and a 
 mighty kingdom, known as Christendom, owes allegiance to 
 His faith. But what of His teaching? He said: 'Resist 
 not evil,' yet all Christian nations maintain standing armies. 
 He said : ' Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth,' 
 yet the wealthiest men are Christian men, and the richest 
 organisation e in the world is the Christian Church. He said:
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 47 
 
 ' Our Father who art in Heaven,' yet men who ought to 
 be brothers are divided into states, and hate each other as 
 enemies. He said : ' Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done 
 on earth as it is done in Heaven,' yet he who believes it 
 ever will come is called a fanatic and a fool. He said : ' Give 
 us day by day our daily bread,' yet Governments tax our bread 
 so as to nullify God's gift, and give to the few the soil of the 
 earth which belongs to all ! " 
 
 Some murmurs of dissent were drowned in cries of " Go 
 on!" "Speak!" "Silence!" 
 
 " Is Christ Himself at fault, brothers ? Has the world 
 found out that He is impossible? Are the laws of life too 
 much for Him? The Teacher of the past is lost in the present, 
 and we who look back over the centuries are saying with the 
 broken-hearted woman at the empty tomb of her Master : 
 ' They have taken my Lord away, and I know not where they 
 have laid Him.' " 
 
 "Hush!" "Silence!" "Listen!" "Let him speak!" 
 " Go on ! " 
 
 " Foremost and grandest of the teachings of Christ are two 
 inseparable truths the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
 hood of man. But in Italy, as elsewhere, the people are 
 starved that king may contend with king, and when we appeal 
 to the Pope to protest in the name of the Prince of Peace, he 
 remembers his temporalities and passes on ! " 
 
 At these words the emotion of the crowd broke into loud 
 shouts of approval, with which some groans were mingled. The 
 company on the balcony were moving in their places. 
 
 " ISTo doubt about it," said the American. " This is one 
 of the men with the power of reaching the people." 
 
 " Yes, he is able to play the melodramatic part in political 
 affairs," said the Baron. 
 
 Roma had turned her face aside from the speaker, and 
 her profile was changed- the gay, sprightly, airy, radiant look 
 had given way to a serious, almost a melancholy expression. 
 Something in David Rossi's voice had opened a cell in her 
 memory which had been long periled up. She closed her eyes 
 and saw, as in a magic mirror, faces and scenes which she 
 seemed to have known in some other existence. A dark house 
 in a gloomy city the air outside full of mist and snow an 
 old mnn kissing her herself a child and somebody else with a 
 voice like this. . . . But a faintness came over her, and when 
 she heard the voice again it was a long way off, in a rumble of
 
 48 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 other sounds, like the noises that come through the vanishing 
 fumes of an anaesthetic. 
 
 " We have two sovereigns in Rome, brothers, a great State 
 and a great Church, with a perishing people. We have soldiers 
 enough to kill us, priests enough to tell us how to die, but no 
 one to show us how to live." 
 
 " Corruption ! Corruption ! " 
 
 " Corruption indeed, brothers ; and who is there among us 
 to whom the corruptions of our rulers are unknown ? Who can- 
 not point to the wars made that should not have been made? to 
 the banks broken that should not have broken? to the debts 
 paid that should not have been contracted? to the magistrates 
 who act on their own heads, and the police who invent plots to 
 give themselves the credit of revealing them? Who does not 
 know of the Camorra that saves great criminals, and the Mafia 
 that murders honest men? And who in Rome cannot point to 
 the Ministers who allow their mistresses to meddle in public 
 affairs and enrich themselves by the ruin of all around ? " 
 
 The little Princess on the balcony was twisting about. 
 
 " What ! Are you deserting us, Roma ? " 
 
 And Roma answered from within the house, in a voice that 
 sounded strange and muffled : 
 
 " It was cold on the balcony, I think." 
 
 Then the little Princess laughed a bitter laugh, like the 
 laugh of the creature of the woods that laughs at night, and 
 David Rossi heard it and misunderstood it, and his nostrils 
 quivered like the nostrils of a horse, and when he spoke again 
 his voice shook with passion. 
 
 " Who has not seen the splendid equipages of these privi- 
 leged ones of fortune their gorgeous liveries of scarlet and 
 gold emblems of the acid which is eating into the public 
 organs? lias Providence raised this country from the dead 
 only to be dizzied in a whirlpool of scandal, hypocrisy, and 
 f rau d only to fall a prey to an infamous traffic without a name 
 between high officials of low desires and women whose reputa- 
 tions are long since lost ? It is men and women like these who 
 destroy their country for their own selfish ends. Very well ; let 
 them destroy her, but before they do so, let them hear what one 
 of her children says: the government you are building up on 
 the whitened bones of the people shall be overthrown the 
 King who countenances you, and the Pope who will not con- 
 demn you, shall be overthrown, and then and not till then 
 will the nation be free."
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 49 
 
 At this there was a terrific clamour. The square resounded 
 with confused voices. " Bravo ! " " Dog ! " " Dog's murderer ! " 
 "Traitor!" "Long live David Rossi!" "Down with the 
 Vampire ! " 
 
 The ladies had fled from the balcony back to the room with 
 cries of alarm. " There will be a riot." " The man is inciting 
 the people to rebellion ! " " This house will be first to be at- 
 tacked!" 
 
 " Calm yourselves, ladies. No harm shall come to you," 
 said the Baron, and he rang the bell. 
 
 There came from below a babel of shouts and screams. 
 
 " Madonna mia ! What is that ? " cried the Princess, wring- 
 ing her hands; and the American Ambassador, who had re- 
 mained on the balcony, said : 
 
 " The Carabineers have charged the crowd and arrested 
 David Rossi." 
 
 " Thank God ! " 
 
 The storm of noises seemed to sweep under the house and 
 down a gorge which deadened it. 
 
 " They're going through the Borgo," said Don Camillo, 
 " and kicking and cuffing and jostling and hustling all the 
 way." 
 
 " Don't be alarmed ! There's the Hospital of Santo Spirito 
 round the corner, and stations of the Red Cross Society every- 
 where," said the Baron, and then Felice answered the bell. 
 
 " See our friends out by the street at the back, Felice. 
 Good-bye, ladies ! Have no fear ! The Government does not 
 mean to blunt the weapons it uses against the malefactors who 
 insult the doctrines of the State." 
 
 " Excellent Minister! " said the Princess. " Such canaglia 
 are not fit to have their liberty, and I would lock them all up 
 in prison." 
 
 And then Don Camillo offered his arm to the little lady 
 with the white plumes, and they Came almost face to face with 
 Roma, who was standing by the door hung with curtains, fan- 
 ning herself with her handkerchief, and parting from the 
 Fnglish Ambassador. 
 
 " Donna Roma," he was saying, " if T can ever be of use to 
 you, either now or in the future, I beg of you to command me." 
 
 Her hand in his was quivering like a captive bird, and he 
 thought as he turned away, " Yes, there is a strange mixture 
 of heaven and earth in her, and God knows which will come 
 out top."
 
 r,0 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Look at her ! " whispered the Princess. " How agitated 
 she is ! A moment ago she was finding it cold in the Loggia ! 
 I'm so happy ! " 
 
 At the next instant she ran up to Roma and kissed her. 
 " Poor child ! How sorry I am ! You have my sympathy, my 
 dear ! But didn't I tell you the man was a public nuisance, 
 and ought to be put down by the police ? " 
 
 " Shameful, isn't it," said Don Camillo. " Calumny is a 
 little wind, but it raises such a terrible tempest." 
 
 " Nobody likes to be talked about," said the Princess, 
 " especially in Rome, where it is the end of everything." 
 
 " But what matter ! Perhaps the young man has learned 
 freedom of speech in a free country ! " said Don Camillo. 
 
 " And then he is so interesting and so handsome," said the 
 Princess. 
 
 Roma made no answer. There was a slight drooping of the 
 lovely eyes and a trembling of the lips and nostrils. For a 
 moment she stood absolutely impassive, and then with a flash 
 of disdain she flung round into the inner room. 
 
 Meantime, the American Ambassador and his wife were 
 saying their adieux to the Baron. 
 
 " In my country, your Excellency, we don't look upon popu- 
 lar demonstrations as an insult to the powers of the State." 
 
 " What do you do, dear General ? " 
 
 " We regard them as you regard the heiroglyphs on your 
 obelisks, as so many writings on the wall, and we set ourselves 
 to decipher them." 
 
 The Baron bowed and smiled coldly. Only the Minister of 
 War remained. His sword-carved face looked angular and 
 angry, and he was taking up his hat to go. 
 
 " Perhaps the mission of the twentieth century is neither 
 the papacy's nor the monarchy's," he said. " These anarchist 
 outbreaks are like the fumaroles on Vesuvius, through which 
 the steam escapes with a whistle. There are constant rum- 
 blings in the earth and nothing will grow on the surface. Why? 
 Because something is going on underneath." 
 
 The Baron smiled again and bowed very low. 
 
 IX 
 
 ROMA had taken refuge in the council-room a room whose 
 three walls seemed built in blocks of blue-books, while the 
 fourth was open to the square. There had been much busi-
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 51 
 
 ness that morning, and a copy of the constitutional statute 
 lay open on a large table, which had a plate-glass top with pho- 
 tographs under the surface. 
 
 In this passionless atmosphere, so little accustomed to such 
 scenes, Roma sat in her wounded pride and humiliation, with 
 her head down, and her beautiful, white hands over her face. 
 The whole earth seemed to sink under her, and she was strug- 
 gling to keep back her sobs. It was like the Day of Judgment, 
 and her doom had fallen on her out of a sky of cloudless blue. 
 
 She heard measured footsteps approaching, and then a hand 
 touched her on the shoulder. She looked up and drew back as 
 if the touch stung her. A sudden change had come over her 
 beautiful face, and the violet eyes almost seemed as if they 
 had bled. Her lips closed sternly, and she got up and began 
 to walk about the room, and then she burst into a torrent of 
 anger. 
 
 " Did you hear them ? The cats ! How they loved to claw 
 me, and still purr and purr! Before the sun is set the story 
 will be all over Rome ! It has run off already on the hoofs of 
 that woman's English horses. She'll drive them until they 
 drop, taking the news everywhere. How they'll gloat over it 
 in their tea-room in the Corso all the fantastic old Philemoris 
 and the faded Baucises who have been jealous of me for years! 
 To-morrow morning it will be in every newspaper in the king- 
 dom. Olga and Lena and every woman of them all who lives 
 in a glass house will throw stones. 'The new Pompadour! 
 Who is she ? ' Oh, I could die of vexation and shame ! " 
 
 The Baron leaned against the table and listened, twisting 
 the ends of his moustache. 
 
 " The Court will turn its back on me now. They only 
 wanted a good excuse to put their humiliations upon me. Tho 
 ostlers and grooms who call themselves Conti and Commend a- 
 tori, and the little antique frights who have grown old and still 
 try to fascinate men they'll carry their ugly necks like 
 gazelles and find me too notorious ! It's horrible ! I can't bear 
 it. I won't. I tell you, I won't !" 
 
 But the lips, compressed with scorn, began to quiver visibly, 
 and she threw herself into a chair, took out her handkerchief, 
 and hid her face on the table. 
 
 At that moment Felice came into the room to say that the 
 Commendatore Angelelli had returned and wished to speak 
 with his Excellency. 
 
 " I will see him presently," said the Baron, with an im-
 
 52 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 passive expression, and Felice went out silently, as one who 
 had seen nothing. 
 
 The Baron's calm dignity was wounded. " Be so good as to 
 have some regard for me in the presence of my servants," he 
 said. " I understand your feelings, but you are much too ex- 
 cited to see things in their proper light. You have been pub- 
 licly insulted and degraded, but you must not talk to me as 
 if it were my fault." 
 
 " Then whose is it ? If it is not your fault whose fault 
 is it? " she said, and the Baron thought her red eyes flashed up 
 at him with an expression of hate. He took the blow full in the 
 face but made no reply, and his silence broke her answer. 
 
 " No, no, that was too bad," she said, and she reached over 
 to him and he kissed her, and then sat down beside her and 
 took her hand and held it. At the next moment her brilliant 
 eyes had filled with tears and her head was down and the hot 
 drops were falling on to the back of his hand. 
 
 After a while she became calmer, but with the calm of deso- 
 lation, the calm after the cyclone, when the world is a waste 
 where there had once been a garden in which flowers smiled 
 and the grass was green. 
 
 " I suppose it is all over," she said. 
 
 " Don't say that," he answered. " We don't know what a 
 day may bring forth. Before long T may have it in my power 
 to silence every slander and justify you in the eyes of all." 
 
 At that she raised her head with a smile and seemed to look 
 beyond the Baron at something in the vague distance, while 
 the glass top of the table, which had been clouded by her 
 breath, cleared gradually, and revealed a large house almost 
 hidden among trees. It was a photograph of the Baron's castle 
 in the Alban hills. 
 
 " Only," continued the Baron, " you must get rid of that 
 man Bruno." 
 
 " I will discharge him this very day T will ! I will ! T 
 will ! " 
 
 There was an intense bitterness in the thought that what 
 David Rossi had said must have come of what her own servant 
 told him that Bruno had watched her in her own house day by 
 day, and that time after time the two men had discussed her 
 between them. 
 
 " I could kill him," she said. 
 
 "Bruno Roceo?" 
 
 " No, David Rossi."
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 53 
 
 But the real torment came of the thought that she had. 
 been so near to loving him had almost raised him to a poetic 
 height of adoration in her own eyes when he had disgraced 
 and degraded her. 
 
 " Have patience, he shall be punished," said the Baron. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " He shall be put on his trial." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " Sedition. The law allows a man to say what he will about 
 a Prime Minister, but he must not foretell the overthrow of 
 the King. The fellow has gone too far at last. He shall go to 
 Santo Stefano." 
 
 "What good will that do?" 
 
 " He will be silenced and crushed." 
 
 She looked at the Baron with a sidelong smile, and some- 
 thing in her heart, which she did not understand, made her 
 laugh at him. 
 
 " Do you imagine you can crush a man like that by trying 
 and condemning him ? " she said. " He has insulted and hu- 
 miliated me, but I'm not silly enough to deceive myself. Try 
 him, condemn him, and he will be greater in his prison than 
 the King on his throne." 
 
 The Baron twisted the ends of his moustache again. 
 
 "Besides," she said, "what benefit will it be to me if you 
 put him on trial for inciting the people to rebellion against 
 the King? The public will say it was for insulting yourself, 
 and everybody will think he was punished for telling the 
 truth." 
 
 The Baron continued to twist the ends of his moustache. 
 
 " Benefit ! " She laughed ironically. " It will be a double 
 injury. The insult will be repeated in public again and again. 
 First, the advocate for the crown will read it aloud, then the 
 advocate for the defence will quote it, and then it will be dis- 
 cussed and dissected and telegraphed until everybody in court 
 knows it by heart and all Europe has heard of it." 
 
 The Baron made no answer, but watched the beautiful face, 
 now very pale, behind which conflicting thoughts seemed to 
 wriggle like a knot of vipers. Suddenly she leaped up with 
 a spring. 
 
 " I know," she cried, " I know ! I know ! I know ! " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Give the man to me, and I will show you how to escape 
 from this humiliating situation."
 
 54 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Roma ? " said the Baron, but he had read her thought 
 already. 
 
 " If you punish him for this speech you will injure both of 
 us and do no good to the King." 
 
 " It's true." 
 
 " Take him in a serious conspiracy, and you will be doing 
 us no harm and the King some service." 
 
 " No doubt." 
 
 " You say there is a mystery about David Rossi, and you 
 want to know who he is, who his father was, and where he spent 
 the years he was away from Rome." 
 
 " I would certainly give a good deal to know it." 
 
 " You want to know what vile refugee in London filled him 
 with his fancies, what conspiracies he is hatching, what secret 
 societies he belongs to, and, above all, what his plans and 
 schemes are, and whether he is in league with the Vatican." 
 
 She spoke so rapidly that the words sputtered out of her 
 quivering lips. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, I will find it all out for you." 
 
 " My dear Roma ! " 
 
 " Leave him to me, and within a month you shall know "- 
 she laughed, a little ashamed " the inmost secrets of his soul." 
 
 She was walking to and fro again, to prevent the Baron 
 from looking into her face, which was now red over its white, 
 like a rose moon in a stormy sky. 
 
 The Baron thought. " She is going to humble the man by 
 her charms to draw him on and then fling him away, and thus 
 pay him back for what he has done to-day. So much the better 
 for me if I may stand by and do nothing. A strong Minister 
 should be unmoved by personal attacks. He should appear to 
 regard them with contempt." 
 
 He looked at her, and the brilliancy of her eyes set his heart 
 on fire. The terrible attraction of her face at that moment 
 stirred in him the only love he had for her. At the same time 
 it awakened the first spasm of jealousy. 
 
 " I understand you, Roma," he said, " you are splendid ! 
 You are irresistible! But remember the man is one of the in- 
 corruptible." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " ~No woman who has yet crossed his path seems to have 
 touched him, and it is the pride of all such men that no woman
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 55 
 
 " I've seen him," she said. 
 
 " Take care ! As you say, he is young and handsome." 
 
 She tossed her head and laughed again. 
 
 The Baron thought : " Certainly he has wounded her in a 
 way no woman can forgive." 
 
 " And what about Bruno ? " he said. 
 
 " He shall stay," she answered. " Such men are easy 
 enough to manage." 
 
 " You wish me to liberate David Rossi and leave you to deal 
 with him ? " 
 
 " I do ! Oh, for the day when I can turn the laugh against 
 him as he has turned the laugh against me ! At the top of his 
 hopes, at the height of his ambitions, at the moment when he 
 says to himself, ' It is done '- he shall fall." 
 
 The Baron touched the bell. " Very well ! " he said. " One 
 can sometimes catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than 
 with a hogshead of vinegar. We shall see." 
 
 A moment later the Chief of Police entered the room. " The 
 Honourable Rossi is safely lodged in prison," he said. 
 
 " Commendatoref' said the Baron, pointing to the book 
 lying open on the table, " I have been looking again at the 
 statute, and now I am satisfied that a Deputy can be arrested 
 by the authorisation of Parliament alone." 
 
 " But, Excellency, if he is taken in the act, according to the 
 forty-fifth article, the parliamentary immunity ceases." 
 
 " Commendatore, I have given you my opinion, and now 
 it is my wish that the Honourable David Rossi should be set 
 at liberty." 
 
 " Excellency ! " 
 
 "Be so good as to liberate him instantly, and let your 
 officers see him safely through the streets to his home in the 
 Piazza Navona." 
 
 The little head like a hen's went down like a hatchet, and 
 Commendatore Angelelli backed out of the room. 
 
 THE great clock of St. Peter's struck twelve, and, at the 
 same moment, a breeze seemed to blow under the house with a 
 sound such as comes from the ground-swell over autumn leaves. 
 Roma and the Baron stepped up to the windows and looked out 
 on the piazza. Under the sunlit awning of the great balcony of
 
 56 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the Basilica a small figure was lifting its little hands, and 
 spreading its white sleeve-like wings. It was the Pope saluting 
 the new century and blessing all the nations of the earth in one 
 solemn benediction. His face could not be discerned, but his 
 voice rose like a bell on a rock at sea in tones of warning, sup- 
 plication, and love 
 
 " Jfay the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, in whose power and au- 
 thority we confide, intercede for us to the Lord." 
 
 "Amen ! " 
 
 "And may the blessing of Almighty God [f], Father [f], Son [f] 
 and Holy Gliost descend upon you and remain with you forever" 
 
 " Amen /" 
 
 The human waves beneath were still. Over all the piazza, 
 as far as the embracing arms of the colonnade, the people 
 knelt, without noise, and only the flashing forest of the soldiers' 
 bayonets could be heard when, at the last word of the Bene- 
 diction, the rifles clanged on the pavement. 
 
 The silence was profound and awful. All the noises of life 
 had ceased, and it was almost as if the world were trembling 
 before it plunged into some abyss. 
 
 Then the mid-day cannon of the Castle of St. Angelo 
 boomed out over the city, and the people on their knees clutched 
 at each other as if the familiar sound had been the voice of God 
 on the Day of Judgment. At the next moment the bells were 
 ringing first the great bell of St. Peter's, and then all the 
 church bells of the city, clashing and clanging together. 
 
 By this time the white wings under the sunlit awning were 
 dropping the Bulls from the great balcony, and people were 
 struggling for the slips of paper as they fell. Then the little 
 figure moved away with its huge fans on either side of it and 
 the ordinary life of the world was resumed. 
 
 Only half a minute, and yet it seemed as if for that period 
 all human hearts had ceased to beat. When Roma came to 
 herself she was rising from her knees, and the Baron was in the 
 act of rising beside her. He rose with a shamefaced look, and 
 turning to Roma, who was closing her astrachan coat to go, he 
 took hold of it by the revers and began to fasten it over her 
 full and graceful form. The joyous smile had come back to 
 her face, and as he stood in front of her he reached over to kiss 
 her again, but she turned her head aside and his lips only 
 touched her cheek.
 
 THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE 57 
 
 Then she laughed and took his arm, and he saw her to the 
 carriage. The joy of life and motion had returned to her 
 already, and she walked with a quick, high-lifting of the feet, 
 as if the wings of Mercury were under her ankles. Going 
 through the outer room, with its gilding of the middle ages, 
 she spoke in her ordinary cheery way to the servants. 
 
 " Good day, Felice ! " and Felice's icy smile was like the 
 glint of a glacier. 
 
 " What a treasure that man is ! Sees nothing ! Must have 
 been brought up in the Vatican and caught the manners of a 
 Cardinal!" 
 
 " You shall have him at Trinita de' Monti if you wish it," 
 said the Baron. And thus they passed through the gloomy 
 throne- room, with its faded arm-chair turned to the wall, as it 
 had been since the days when the crippled old banker enter- 
 tained Popes and dreamed of making them. 
 
 The crowd was running out of the piazza in rivers of people 
 011 foot, irate coachmen were shouting to Carabineers on horse- 
 back, and over the many sounds of the ebbing tide of humanity 
 were heard the clashings and plungings of the church bells in 
 the sunlit air above the city, like thunder set to music. It was 
 with difficulty that the porter with the silver mace made a way 
 to the carriage that stood waiting before the courtyard. 
 . Donna Roma sprang up to her place and sank back into the 
 blue silk cushions, and a lackey in powdered wig brought up 
 the dog and put it beside her. As the liveries of scarlet and 
 gold disappeared around the corner, the Baron saw a white- 
 gloved hand waving- to him with a quick motion, and a lovely 
 face smiling as behind a veil.
 
 PAET TWO 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 
 
 THE Piazza Navona is the heart and soul of old Rome. In 
 other quarters of the living city you feel tempted to ask: "Is 
 this London ? " or, " Is this Paris ? " or, " Is this New York or 
 Berlin ? " but in the Piazza Navona you can only tell yourself, 
 " This is Eome ! " 
 
 It lies like a central spider in a cobweb of little streets, and 
 is connected with the main thoroughfares by narrow lanes 
 which have iron posts across their entrances relics of the 
 troublous times when it was necessary to chain back the mob. 
 One might read the story of papal Rome in the volume of the 
 Piazza Navona alone, for truly the stones cry out. 
 
 One end of the Piazza is magnificent. There stands the 
 Braschi Palace, now the office of the Ministry of the Interior, 
 but still barred across its lower story. Against the wall of the 
 Braschi leans the broken trunk of the Pasquin statue, whose 
 glorious loins are father to half the great art of the world. 
 Near to both stands the palace of the Pamphili, with the papal 
 arms on its doorpost, and every stone of its structure cemented 
 by the blood of the Pope who gave it to a Jezebel in the days of 
 his strength, and was repaid on the day of his death by an 
 insult to his dishonoured corpse. Next to the Pamphili stands 
 the Church of St. Agnes, built of splendid marbles; and down 
 the middle of the piazza there runs a line of three fountains, 
 which culminate in an obelisk, on which a dove sits with the 
 branch of promise in its bill. 
 
 But the deluge is rising again for all that, and out of the 
 maze of streets beyond, where fruit-stalls stand on the pave- 
 ment, where the washing is suspended from the windows, and 
 where bird-cages hang on the walls, there surges up from the 
 other end of the Navona a wave of indistinguishable edifices 
 shops, cafes, arches, apartment-houses sweeping away one by 
 58
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 59 
 
 one the old Roman palaces, with their broken columns, broken 
 capitals, broken statuary, and broken water-troughs, as well as 
 the creeping moss and trailing vine which have tried for cen- 
 turies to cover their gorgeous ruin. 
 
 In one of these modern structures, an apartment-house 
 nearly opposite to the obelisk and the church, David Rossi had 
 lived during the seven years since he became Member of Parlia- 
 ment for Rome. The ground floor is a Trattoria, half eating- 
 house and half wine-shop, with rude frescoes on its distempered 
 walls, representing the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius in erup- 
 tion. A passage running by the side of the Trattoria leads 
 to the apartments overhead, and at the foot of the staircase 
 there is a porter's lodge, a closet always lighted by a lamp, 
 which burns down the dark passage day and night, like a 
 bloodshot eye. 
 
 In this lodge lived a veteran Garibaldian, in his red shirt 
 and pork-pie hat, with his old wife, wrinkled like a turkey, and 
 wearing a red handkerchief over her head, fastened by a silver 
 pin. David Rossi's apartments consisted of three rooms on the 
 fourth floor, two to the front, the third to the back, and a lead 
 flat opening out of them on to the roof. 
 
 In one of the front rooms on the afternoon of the Pope's 
 Jubilee, a young woman sat knitting with an open book on her 
 lap, while a boy of six knelt by her side, and pretended to 
 learn his lesson. She was a comely but timid creature, with 
 liquid eyes and a soft voice, and he was a shock-headed little 
 giant, like the cub of a young lion. 
 
 " Go on, Joseph," said the woman, pointing with her kiiit- 
 ting-needle to the line on the page. " ' And it came to 
 pass 
 
 But Joseph's little eyes were peering first at the clock on 
 the mantel-piece, and then out at the window and down the 
 square. 
 
 " Didn't you say they were to be here at two, mamma ? " 
 
 " Yes, dear. Mr. Rossi was to be set free immediately, and 
 papa, who ran home with the good news, has gone back to fetch 
 him." 
 
 " Oh ! ' And it came to pass afterward that he loved a 
 woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah . . .' 
 But, mamma . . ." 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 " Why did the police put Uncle David in prison ? " 
 
 " Because he is a good man, dear, and loves the people."
 
 60 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " Go on, Joseph. ' And the lords of the Philistines . . .' " 
 
 " ' And the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and 
 said unto her, Entice him and see wherein his great strength 
 lieth . . .' But, mamma, didn't you say the police put people 
 in prison for doing wrong ? " 
 
 " Go on with your lesson, Joseph. You've made me lose the 
 place. Where were we ? ' And she made him sleep . . .' " 
 
 " ' And she made him sleep upon her knees, and she called 
 for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of 
 his head . . .' But, mamma, he hasn't got his head shaved off 
 in the picture." 
 
 The big-headed cub rolled over to the window to look 
 again at a theatrical poster on a neighbouring hoarding, rep- 
 resenting Samson, blind and helpless, in the house of his 
 enemies. 
 
 " Joseph, you are very naughty to-day. Didn't you promise 
 to learn your lesson if I allowed you to read about Samson out 
 of Uncle Eossi's Bible ? " 
 
 But at that moment there came a knock at the door, where- 
 upon the boy uttered a cry of delight, and with a radiant face 
 went plunging and shouting out of the room. 
 
 " Uncle David ! It's Uncle David ! " 
 
 The tumultuous voice rolled like baby thunder through the 
 apartment until it reached the door, and then it dropped to a 
 dead silence. 
 
 " Who is it, Joseph ? " 
 
 " A gentleman," said the boy. 
 
 II 
 
 IT was the fashionable young Roman with the watchful 
 eyes and twirled-up moustache, who had stood by the old 
 Frenchman's carriage in the Piazza of St. Peter. 
 
 " Pardon me, madam," he said. " I wish to speak with Mr. 
 Tiossi. I bring him an important message from abroad. He is 
 coming along with the people, but to make sure of an interview 
 T hurried ahead. May I wait ? " 
 
 "Certainly! Come in, sir! You say he is coming? Yes? 
 Then he is free ? " 
 
 The woman's liquid eyes were glistening visibly, and the 
 man's watchful ones seemed to notice everything.
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN f,l 
 
 " Yes, madam, he is free. I saw him arrested, and I also 
 saw him set at liberty." 
 
 " Really ? Then you can tell me all about it ? That's good ! 
 I have heard so little of all that happened, and my boy and 1 
 have not been able to think of anything else. Sit down, sir ! " 
 
 " As the police were taking him to the station-house in the 
 Borgo," said the stranger, " the people made an attempt to 
 rescue him, and it seemed as if they must certainly have suc- 
 ceeded if it had not been for his own intervention." 
 
 " He stopped them, didn't he ? I'm sure he stopped them ! " 
 
 " He did. The delegate had given his three warnings, and 
 the Brigadier was on the point of ordering his men to fire, 
 when the prisoner threw up his hands before the crowd." 
 
 "I knew it! Well?" 
 
 " ' Brothers,' he said, ' let no blood be shed for my sake. 
 Let no mother be made childless, no child fatherless, no wife a 
 widow ! We are in God's hands. Go home ! ' ' 
 
 " How like him ! And then, sir ? " 
 
 " Then the crowd broke up like a bubble, and the officer 
 who was in charge of him uncovered his head. ' Room for the 
 Honourable Rossi!' he cried, and the prisoner went into the 
 prison." 
 
 The liquid eyes were running over by this time, and the 
 soft voice was trembling: "You say you saw him set at lib- 
 erty?" 
 
 "Yes! I was in the public service myself until lately, so 
 they allowed me to enter the police-station, and when the order 
 for release came I was present and heard all. ' Deputy,' said 
 the officer, ' I have the honour to inform you that you are free.' 
 ' But before I go I must say something,' said the Deputy. ' My 
 only orders are that you are to be set at liberty,' said the officer. 
 ' Nevertheless, I must see the Minister,' said Mr. Rossi. But 
 the crowd had pressed in and surrounded him, and in a moment 
 the flood had carried him out into the street, with shouts and 
 the waving of hats and a whirlwind of enthusiasm. And now 
 he is being drawn by force through the city in a mad, glad, wild 
 procession." 
 
 " But he deserves it all, and more far, far more ! " 
 
 The stranger looked at the woman's beaming eyes, and said, 
 " You are not his wife no ? " 
 
 "Oh, no! I'm only the wife of one of his friends," she 
 answered. 
 
 " But you live here? "
 
 G2 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " We live in the rooms on the roof." 
 
 " Perhaps you keep house for the Deputy." 
 
 " Yes that is to say yes, we keep house for Mr. Rossi." 
 
 " Of course you admire him very much ? " 
 
 " Nobody could help doing that, sir. He is so good, so 
 unselfish. In fact, he is perfect he really hasn't a fault. He 
 is . . ." 
 
 She stopped, for something in the man's look arrested her. 
 
 " May I ask what your husband's name is ? " 
 
 " Bruno Rocco, and when I say he is Mr. Rossi's friend, sir, 
 you must not think I presume. Perhaps it was the way they 
 met first that made them such close comrades. They met in 
 prison." 
 
 " In prison ? " 
 
 " I mean the military prison. Mr. Rossi had been called up 
 for military service, and had refused to serve, so they sent him 
 to the Castle for punishment. At last they ordered the strait- 
 waistcoat, and kept him for forty-eight hours in pain and 
 suffering like Christ. He never uttered a word or a moan, but 
 the soldier who had been sent to torture him it was Bruno, 
 I've heard him tell the story he went to the Captain and he 
 said : ' Captain, I can't do this work any longer.' ' Can't you, 
 now ? ' said the Captain, taunting him. ' Then perhaps you can 
 do the other man's work instead ? ' ' Give it to me if you like,' 
 said Bruno ; ' I'm willing, and by God I'll bear it better than 
 my own. ' ' 
 
 " And they did ? " 
 
 " They did, sir, and Bruno and Mr. Rossi were side by 
 side. Their trouble didn't last long, though. It got known 
 outside, and there was a great agitation, and that liberated 
 both of them." 
 
 " Somebody inside the Castle must have told the story ? " 
 
 " I did I was laundress in the barracks then, sir, but I had 
 to leave after that, and mother and father, who had lived there 
 since I can remember, were turned out too. It didn't matter in 
 the end, though. I married Bruno shortly afterward and we 
 came to keep house for Mr. Rossi, and then he persuaded the 
 landlord to take father as porter in the lodge below." 
 
 At that moment the room, which had been gloomy, was 
 suddenly lighted by a shaft of sunshine, and there came from 
 some unseen place a musical noise like the rippling of waters 
 in a fountain. 
 
 "It's the birds," said the woman, and she threw open a
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 63 
 
 window that was also a door and led to a flat roof on which 
 some twenty or thirty canaries were piping and shrilling their 
 little swollen throats in a gigantic bird-cage. 
 
 "Mr. Eossi's?" 
 
 " Yes, and he is fond of animals also dogs and cats and 
 rabbits and squirrels especially squirrels." 
 
 " Squirrels ? " 
 
 " He has a grey one in a cage on the roof now. But he is 
 not like some people who love animals he loves children, too. 
 He loves all children, and as for Joseph . . ." 
 
 " The little boy who cried ' Uncle David ' at the door ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. One day Bruno said ' Uncle David ' to Mr. 
 Rossi, and he has been Uncle David to my little Joseph ever 
 since." 
 
 " Your husband and Mr. Rossi are not very much alike, 
 though, are they ? " 
 
 " They're as different as can be, sir different in everything. 
 Bruno never wore a collar, not to speak of a dress coat, while 
 Mr. Rossi is the gentleman through and through. Then Bruno 
 is manly and genial and kindly, and though they call him an 
 anarchist, the only explosions he makes are explosions of 
 laughter, but he is a terrible fighter for all that, and he 
 wouldn't shrink from any insult he could hurl at a foe, whereas 
 Mr. Rossi . . ." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Mr. Rossi is hasty and passionate, but he couldn't hate 
 his worst enemy, and when they hurl their insults at him 
 ' They hurt nobody but myself/ he says." 
 
 " Meaning by that ? " 
 
 " That he has no wife and child to make him feel them 
 tenfold. There's one person he can never forgive, though." 
 
 " Who is that ? " 
 
 "Himself; and if he thought he had done anybody an in- 
 jury he would walk barefoot to every Basilica in the city." 
 
 Her cheeks were flushed and her timid eyes were brave and 
 brilliant, like the eyes of one who looks on the sun at its setting 
 and finds it bigger and brighter and more glorious for the 
 vapour of the earth through which he sees it. 
 
 " This is the dining-room, no doubt," said the stranger in 
 his chilling voice. 
 
 "Unfortunately, yes, sir." 
 
 " Why unfortunately ? " 
 
 " Because there is the hall, and here is the table, and (here's
 
 64 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 not even a curtain between, and the moment the door is opened 
 he is exposed to everybody. People know it, too, and they take 
 advantage. He would give the chicken off his plate if he 
 hadn't anything else. I have to scold him a little sometimes 
 I can't help it. And as for father, he says he has doubled 
 his days in purgatory by the lies he tells, turning people 
 away." 
 
 " That will be his bedroom, I suppose," said the stranger, 
 indicating a door which the boy had passed through. 
 
 " No, sir, his sitting-room. That is where he receives his 
 colleagues in Parliament, and his fellow-journalists, and his 
 electors and printers and so forth. Come in, sir." 
 
 The walls were covered with portraits of Mazzini, Garibaldi, 
 Kossuth, Lincoln, Washington, and Cromwell, and the room, 
 which had been furnished originally with chairs covered in 
 chintz, was loaded with incongruous furniture. 
 
 " Joseph, you've been naughty again ! My little boy is all 
 for being a porter, sir. He has got the butt-end of his father's 
 fishing-rod, you see, and torn his handkerchief into shreds to 
 make a tassel for his mace." Then with a sweep of the arm, 
 " All presents, sir. He gets presents from all part's of the 
 world. The piano is from England, but nobody plays, so 
 it is never opened ; the books are from Germany, and the 
 bronze is from France, but the strangest thing of all, sir, is 
 this." 
 
 " A phonograph ? " 
 
 " It was most extraordinary. A week ago a cylinder came 
 from the Island of Elba." 
 
 " Elba ? From some prisoner perhaps ? " 
 
 " A dying man's message, Mr. Rossi called it. ' We must 
 save up for an instrument to reproduce it, Sister,' he said. 
 But, look you, the very next day the carriers brought the phono- 
 graph." 
 
 " And then he reproduced the message ? " 
 
 " I don't know I never asked. He often turns on a cylin- 
 der to amuse the boy, but I never knew him try that one. This 
 is the bedroom, sir you may come in." 
 
 It was a narrow room, very bright and lightsome, with its 
 white counterpane, white bed curtains, and white veil over the 
 looking-glass to keep it from the flies. 
 
 " How sweet ! " said the stranger. 
 
 " It would be but for these," said the woman, and she 
 pointed to the other end of the room, where a desk stood
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAX 65 
 
 between two windows, amid heaps of unopened newspapers, 
 which lay like fishes as they fall from the herring net. 
 
 " I presume this is a present also ? " said the stranger. He 
 had taken from the desk a dagger with a lapis-lazuli handle, 
 and was trying its edge on his finger-nail. 
 
 " Yes, sir, and he has turned it to account as a paper-knife. 
 A six-chambered revolver came yesterday, but he had no use 
 for that, so he threw it aside, and it lies under the news- 
 papers." 
 
 " And who is this ? " said the stranger. He was looking at 
 a faded picture in an ebony frame which hung by the side of the 
 bed. It was the portrait of an old man with a beautiful fore- 
 head and a patriarchal face. 
 
 " Some friend of Mr. Rossi's in England, I think." 
 
 " An English photograph, certainly, but the face seems to 
 me Roman for all that. Ah! this is English enough, though," 
 said the stranger. He had taken from its nail a similar picture 
 frame, half hidden by the bed curtain. It contained a small 
 framed manuscript, such as in old times devout persons drew 
 up as a covenant with God, and kept constantly beside them. 
 
 " He loves England, sir, and is never tired of talking of its 
 glory and greatness. He loves its language, too, and writes all 
 his private papers in English, I believe." 
 
 At that moment a thousand lusty voices burst on the air, as 
 a great crowd came pouring out of the narrow lanes into the 
 broad piazza. At the same instant the boy shouted from the 
 adjoining room, and another voice that made the walls vibrate 
 came from the direction of the door. 
 
 " They're coming ! It's my husband ! Bruno ! " said the 
 woman, and the ripple of her dress told the stranger she had 
 gone. 
 
 He stood where she left him, with the little ebony picture 
 frame in his hand ; and while the people in the street sang the 
 Garibaldi hymn, and came marching to the tune of it, he read 
 the words that were written in English under cover of the 
 glass : 
 
 " From ivhat am I called 9 
 
 From the love of riches, from the love of honour, from the lore of 
 home, and from the love of woman. 
 
 To iv hat am I called ? 
 
 To poverty, to purity, to obedience, to the ivorsliip of God, and to the. 
 service, of humanity.
 
 06 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Why am I called ? 
 
 Because it has pleased the Almighty to make me friendless, home- 
 less, a wanderer, an exile, without father or mother, sister or brother, 
 kith or kin. 
 
 Hoping my heart deceives me not, with fear and trembling I sign 
 my unworthy name, 
 
 D. L. London" 
 
 III 
 
 LAUGHING, crying, cheering, chaffing, singing, David Rossi's 
 people had brought him home in triumph, and now they were 
 crowding upon him to kiss his hand, the big-hearted, baby- 
 headed, beloved children of Italy. 
 
 The object of this aurora of worship stood with his back 
 to the table in the dining-room, looking down and a little 
 ashamed, while Bruno, six feet three in his stockings, hoisted 
 the boy on to his shoulder, and shouted as from a tower to 
 everybody as they entered by the door: 
 
 " Come in, sonny, come in ! Don't stand there like the 
 Pope between the devil and the deep sea. Come in among the 
 people," and Bruno's laughter rocked through the room to 
 where the crowd stood thick on the staircase. " We've given 
 them a dose to-day, haven't we ? Old Angelelli looked as green 
 as a grasshopper. See him ? He meant to pour the entire penal 
 code on the master, and accuse him of every crime in Christen- 
 dom. Robbing a safe, high treason, high fiddle-stick, and 
 Heaven knows what! Tenfold sentence to death, loss of all 
 rights in this world and the next, and the scaffold swindled 
 because he has only one head to sweep off." 
 
 " The Baron has had a lesson, too," said a man with a sheet 
 of white paper in his hand. "He dreamed of getting the 
 Collar of the Annunziata out of this." 
 
 " The pig dreamed of acorns," said Bruno. 
 
 " But he knows now that government by chief of police 
 won't work as well as government by Parliament." 
 
 " If a man brings wolves into the house with' the children 
 he must expect to hear them cry," said Bruno. 
 
 " It's a lesson to the Church as well," said the man with the 
 paper. " She wouldn't have anything to do with us. ' I alone 
 strike the hour of the march,' says the Church." 
 
 " And then she stands still ! " said Bruno. 
 
 " The mountains stand still, but men are made to walk,"
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN f.7 
 
 said the man with the paper, " and if the Pope doesn't advance 
 with the people, the people must advance without the Pope." 
 
 " The Pope's all right, sonny,'' said Bruno, " but what does 
 he know about the people ? Only what his black-gowned beetles 
 tell him!" 
 
 " The Pope has no wife and children," said the man with the 
 paper. 
 
 " Old Vampire could find him a few," said Bruno, and then 
 there was general laughter. 
 
 " Brothers," said David Rossi, " let us be temperate. 
 There's nothing to be gained by playing battledore and shuttle- 
 cock with the name of an old man who has never done harm to 
 any one. The Pope hasn't listened to us to-day, but he is a 
 saint all the same, and his life has been a lesson in well-doing." 
 
 " Anybody can sail with a fair wind, sir," said Bruno. 
 
 " What has happened to-day," said Rossi, " has convinced 
 me that the people have no helper but God, and no justice but 
 His law. But let us be prudent. There's no need for violence, 
 whether of the hand or of the tongue. That man is strongest 
 who is strong through suffering and resignation. You've found 
 that out this morning. If you had rescued me from the police, 
 I should have been in prison again by this time, and God knows 
 what else might have happened. I'm proud of your patience 
 and forbearance; and now go home, boys, and God bless you." 
 
 " Stop a minute ! " said the man with the paper. " Some- 
 thing to read before we go. While the Carabineers kept Mr. 
 Rossi in the Borgo the Committee of Direction met in a cafe' 
 and drew up a proclamation." 
 
 " Read it, Luigi," said David Rossi, and the man opened 
 his paper and read : 
 
 "Having appealed in vain to Parliament and to the King 
 against the tyrannical tax which the Government has imposed 
 upon bread in order that the army and navy may be increased, 
 and having appealed in vain to the Pope to intercede with the 
 Civil authorities, and call back Italy to its duty, it now be- 
 hoves us, as a suffering and perishing people, to act on our own 
 behalf. Unless annulled by royal decree, the tax will come into 
 operation on the first of February. On that day let every 
 Roman remain indoors until an hour after Ave Maria. Let 
 nobody buy so much as one loaf of bread, and let no bread be 
 eaten, except such as you give to your children. Then at the 
 first hour of night, let us meet in the Coliseum, tens of thou- 
 sands of fasting people, of one mind and heart, to determine
 
 08 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 what it is our duty to do next, that our bread may be sure and 
 our water may not fail." 
 
 "Good!" "Beautiful!" "Splendid!" 
 
 " Only wants the signature of the president," said the 
 reader, and Bruno called for pen and ink. 
 
 " Before I sign it," said David Rossi, " let it be understood 
 that none come armed. Is that a promise ? " 
 
 " Yes," said several voices, and David Rossi signed the 
 paper. 
 
 " And now, brothers," said Rossi, taking out of his breast- 
 pocket the oblong notebook which he had vised in the piazza, 
 " while you were writing in the cafe I was writing in the cell, 
 and since we have read our proclamation we will also read our 
 creed and charter." 
 
 " Good ! " 
 
 " I call it that because our enemies are telling us we don't 
 know what we want or what we are doing. We are visionaries, 
 dreamers, millennarians, and religious anarchists, and our 
 vaporous hallucinations would hurry society to dissolution and 
 death ! " 
 
 " They don't understand our Latin," said Bruno. 
 
 " Time they did, Bruno," said Rossi, " and that's why I 
 wrote this paper." 
 
 " Read it," cried many voices, and David Rossi opened his 
 book and read : 
 
 " ' The Republic of Man. Our Creed and Charter. Our 
 Charter is the Lord's Prayer! ' " 
 
 " Good again ! " cried Bruno. 
 
 " They'll tell us we've got the sacred sickness, brothers, but 
 we'll remind them that revolutions made in the name of inter- 
 est, of politics, of parties, and of imperialism always fail, while 
 revolutions made in the name of religion may drop back, but 
 they never die until they have achieved their victory." 
 
 " God doesn't pay wages on Saturday, but He pays ! " said 
 Bruno, and then the company composed themselves to listen. 
 
 " ' The Lord's Prayer contains six clauses. 
 
 " ' Three of these clauses concern chiefly the spiritual life 
 of man, the other three concern chiefly the temporal life 
 of man. 
 
 " ' The Lord's Prayer says : Ovr Father who art in Heaven. 
 
 " ' Tf God is the father of all men, all men are brothers, and 
 as brothers all men are equal. 
 
 " ' Therefore, all authority arrogated by man over man is
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 69 
 
 wrong. All government of man over man is wrong. Hence 
 kings have 110 right to exist. 
 
 " ' If all men are brothers, all men should live as brothers. 
 To live as brothers is to live in peace and concord. 
 
 " ' Therefore, all war between nation and nation is wrong. 
 Hence armies have no right to exist. National frontiers have 
 110 right to exist. The national spirit which is called patriot- 
 ism has no right to exist. 
 
 "'The Lord's Prayer says: Give us this day our daily 
 bread. 
 
 " ' Our daily bread comes from the land. No man made the 
 land. It is God's gift to mankind. It belongs to all men. 
 Therefore, individual ownership of land is wrong. Individual 
 control of the fruits of the land is wrong. 
 
 " ' The Lord's Prayer says: Thy Kingdom come; Thy will 
 lie done in earth as it is done in Heaven. 
 
 " ' If we may pray Thy Kingdom come, we may expect it to 
 come. If God's Kingdom is not to come on earth as it is in 
 Heaven, if it is only a dream, then the Lord's Prayer is a de- 
 lusion, a cruel mockery, and a betrayal of the hearts and hopes 
 of the human family ! ' ' 
 
 " Right ! " " Good ! " " Bravo ! " " That will give them 
 something to think about ! " And the man who read the 
 proclamation said, " The Church has spent centuries over the 
 theology of the Lord's Prayer time she began to think of its 
 sociology also." 
 
 " That's our Charter as I see it, gentlemen," said David 
 Eossi, " and now for the Creed we deduce from it." 
 
 "Hush! Silence!" 
 
 " ' We believe that the source of all right and all power is 
 God. 
 
 " ' We believe that Government exists to secure to all men 
 equally the natural rights to whi^h .they are born as sous 
 of God. 
 
 " ' We believe that all governments must derive their power 
 from the people governed. 
 
 " ' We believe that no artificial differences among men can 
 constitute a basis of good government. 
 
 " ' We believe that when a government is destructive of the 
 natural rights of man it is man's duty to destroy it,' " 
 
 " Bravo ! " came in many voices, and there was some clap- 
 ping of hands, but without any change of tone David Eossi 
 went on reading:
 
 70 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " ' We believe that all forms of violence are contrary to the 
 spirit of God's law. ' " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " ' We believe that prayer and protest are the only weapons 
 of warfare which humanity may use prayer addressed to God, 
 protest addressed to man. 
 
 " ' We believe that they are the most effectual weapons 
 humanity has ever used against the evils of the world. 
 
 " ' We believe that they are the only weapons used or coun- 
 tenanced by Christ. 
 
 " ' We believe that where they do not take effect in them- 
 selves they take double effect in suffering.' " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " ' We believe . . .'" 
 
 " No ! " " Yes ! " " It's a long game, though ! " " Hush ! " 
 "Goon, sir!" 
 
 " ' We believe that it is the duty of all men to use the 
 Lord's Prayer, to believe in it, to live according to its light, 
 and to protest against everything which is opposed to its 
 teaching. 
 
 " ' We believe this is the only way man can help to bring to 
 pass the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven. 
 
 " ' Therefore in the sure and certain hope of that kingdom 
 by the love we bear to the brothers whom God has given us 
 by the hate we feel for injustice and wrong by the memory 
 of the martyrs by the sufferings of the people we dedicate 
 ourselves as subjects and servants of the Republic of Man. 
 
 " ' And to its Creed and Charter we hereto subscribe our 
 names, in the name of Him who taught us to pray : 
 
 " ' Our Father who art in Heaven 
 
 " ' Hallowed be Thy name 
 
 " ' Thy Kingdom come Thy will he done in earth as it is in 
 Heaven 
 
 " ' Give us this day our daily bread 
 
 " ' And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass 
 against us. 
 
 " ' And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.'" 
 
 " Amen ! " said the coinpany, fifty voices at once. 
 
 " That is our idea as I understand it," said David Rossi, 
 " so I've signed my name to it, and those who agree with me 
 may do the same. And as grand results may flow from trivial 
 causes, the Republic of Man from this day forward will be
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN fl 
 
 a reality, and not a dream, watching parliaments, discussing 
 measures, taking up the defence of prisoners and demanding 
 justice for the oppressed, until without a throne or legal title 
 it holds a sovereign power throughout the world, stronger than 
 any sceptre on earth." 
 
 With that he tore out of his notebook a leaf covered on one 
 side with the most delicate characters, and in a moment there 
 was a movement toward the table. 
 
 " Great, sir ! Great ! " said the man who had read the 
 proclamation. " They'll say we're setting up a new church, 
 though." 
 
 " There's room for one between the Vatican and the 
 Quirinal," said Bruno. 
 
 " A big church, too," said the man. " The church outside 
 the churches." 
 
 " Old Vampire will have something else to think of besides 
 his dear little Donna Romas when he gets hold of this," said 
 somebody, and again there was general laughter. 
 
 As the men signed the paper they passed out of the apart- 
 ment, laughing and talking, and their voices died away in 
 drumming sounds down the staircase. When it came to 
 Bruno's turn he put the boy to stand on the table. 
 
 " Here goes ! " he said. " Every kick sends the ass on," and 
 with his tongue in his cheek he signed his name in letters as 
 shapeless as an old shoe. 
 
 There was only one man left. It was the fashionable young 
 Roman with the watchful eyes and twirled-up moustache. He 
 took up the pen last, and signed " Charles Minghelli." 
 
 David Rossi looked at him and read the name he had writ- 
 ten. 
 
 " For you, sir ! " said the young man, taking a letter from 
 a pocket inside his waistcoat. 
 
 David Rossi opened the letter and read : " The bearer of 
 this is one of ourselves. He has determined upon the accom- 
 plishment of a great act, and wishes to see you with respect 
 to it." 
 
 " You come from London ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " You wish to speak to me ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " You may speak freely." 
 
 The young man glanced in the direction of Bruno and of 
 Bruno's wife, who stood beside him.
 
 72 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " It is a delicate matter, sir," he said. 
 
 " Come this way," said David Rossi, and he took the 
 stranger into his bedroom. 
 
 IV 
 
 DAVID Rossi took his seat at the desk between the windows, 
 and made a sign to the man to take a chair that stood near. 
 The man was something of a dandy, and as he sat down he 
 pulled up his trousers at the knees, stretched his arms to shoot 
 out his cuffs, and threw up his neck to adjust his collar. 
 
 " Your name is Charles Minghelli ? " said David Rossi. 
 
 " Yes. I have come to propose a dangerous enterprise." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " That somebody on behalf of the people should take the 
 law into his own hands." 
 
 The man had spoken with perfect calmness, and after a 
 moment of silence David Rossi replied as calmly : 
 
 " I will ask you to explain what you mean." 
 
 The man smiled, made a deferential gesture, and answered, 
 " You will permit me to speak plainly ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " Thanks ! I have heard your Creed and Charter. I have 
 even signed my name to it. It is beautiful as a theory most 
 beautiful ! And the Republic of Man is beautiful too. It is 
 like one of the associations of the early Church, a state within 
 a state, the real government, the real constitution, without 
 authority, without crowns, without armies, yet intended to rule 
 the world by the voluntary allegiance of mankind. Beautiful ! " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " But more beautiful than practical, dear sir, and the ideal 
 thread that runs through your plan will break the moment the 
 rough world begins to tug at it." 
 
 " I will ask you to be more precise," said David Rossi. 
 
 " With pleasure. You have proclaimed a meeting in the 
 Coliseum to protest against the bread-tax. What if the Gov- 
 ernment prohibits it? Your principle of passive resistance 
 will not permit you to rebel, and without the right of public 
 meeting your association is powerless. Then where are you ? " 
 
 David Rossi had taken up his paper-knife dagger and was 
 drawing lines with the point of it on the letter of introduction 
 which now lay open on the desk. The man saw the impression 
 he had produced, and went on with more vigour.
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 73 
 
 " One of your people said you would be accused of setting 
 up a new church, but while I listened to you, dear sir, I thought 
 I could hear one of the Fathers of the old faith teaching over 
 again the fatal resignation of Catholicism. He who suffers is 
 stronger than he who fights ! Obey the lawful authorities ! Be 
 subject to the higher powers ! Render unto Caesar the things 
 which are Caesar's ! Tribute to whom tribute is due ! Custom 
 to whom custom! Fear to whom fear. That has been the 
 doctrine of the Catholic Church for ages. And what has it 
 brought the Church to? To what it is in Rome to-day a 
 butterfly whose body has been eaten away by spiders, leaving 
 nothing but the beautiful, useless, powerless wings ! " 
 
 David Rossi had put down the dagger, and was listening 
 with closed eyes. The man watched the quivering of his eye- 
 lids, smiled slightly, and continued: 
 
 " If the governments of the world deny you the right of 
 meeting, where are your weapons of warfare? What is the 
 battering-ram with which you are going to make your breach in 
 the world's Porta Pia? On the one side armies on armies of 
 men marshalled and equipped with all the arts and engines of 
 war ; on the other side a helpless multitude with their hands in 
 their pockets, or paying a penny a week subscription to the 
 great association that is to overcome by passive suffering the 
 power of the combined treasuries of the world ! " 
 
 David Rossi had risen from his seat, and was walking back- 
 ward and forward with a step that was long and slow. 
 
 " Well, and what do you say we ought to do ? " he said. 
 
 " Cease to abandon ourselves to the caprices of a tyrant, and 
 assert the rights of man," said the stranger. 
 
 " In what way are the people of Rome to assert the rights 
 of man ? " said David Rossi. 
 
 " The people of Rome I didn't say that. We know what 
 the Romans are. Patient ? Yes- the only virtue of the ass ! 
 Peaceful? JSTo doubt or they would have been suffocated long 
 ago in this police-ridden state. They are like their climate 
 the scirocco is in their bones, and they have nerve for nothing. 
 Somebody must act for them. Somebody like you, who has 
 come back to the old world nerved and refreshed by the 
 bracing airs of freedom which blow across the new one of the 
 great souls who are beacons on the path of humanity . . ." 
 
 " Be definite what are we to do ? " said David Rossi. 
 
 A flash came from the man's eyes, and he said in a thick 
 voice : 
 
 6
 
 74: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Remove the one man in Rome whose hand crushes the 
 nation." 
 
 "The Prime Minister?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 " You expect me to do that ? " 
 
 " No ! I will do it for you. . . . Why not ? If violence is 
 wrong it is right to resist violence." 
 
 David Rossi returned to his seat at the desk, touched the 
 letter of introduction, and said : 
 
 " That is the great act referred to in this letter from Lon- 
 don?" 
 
 " Yes. It isn't pretty, is it ? But don't think I'm mad. 
 I know what I'm saying. I have thought of this plan and 
 brooded over it, until it has attained a gigantic power over me 
 and become stronger than myself." 
 
 David Rossi turned full round on the man. 
 
 " Why do you come to me ? " he said. 
 
 " Because you can help me to accomplish this act. You 
 are a Member of Parliament, and can give me cards to the 
 Chamber. You can show me the way to the Prime Minister's 
 room in Monte Citorio, and tell me .the moment when he is to 
 be found alone." 
 
 David Rossi's face was pale, but when he spoke his voice 
 was calm with the calmness of a frozen lake that has a river 
 running underneath. 
 
 " I do not deny that the Prime Minister deserves death." 
 
 " A thousand deaths, sir, and everybody would hail them 
 with delight." 
 
 " I do not deny that his death would be a blessing to the 
 people." 
 
 " On the day he dies, sir, the people will live." 
 
 " Or that crimes great crimes have been the means of 
 bringing about great reforms." 
 
 " You are right, sir but it would be no crime." 
 
 " Nor should I say that to take the life of a tyrant is to be 
 guilty of murder." 
 
 " Oh, they knew what they were doing when they sent me 
 to you, sir." 
 
 David Rossi spoke calmly but with great earnestness. 
 
 " The man," he said, " who goes openly into the presence 
 of the oppressor and kills him face to face, then stands to be 
 arrested or torn in pieces, takes his trial, pleads guilty, says,
 
 THE REPUBLIC OP MAN 75 
 
 1 1 did not kill the Baron Bonelli, I killed the Prime Minister ; 
 I did not kill the man, I killed the institution; condemn me, 
 hang me, shoot me, bury me alive, intomb me in a cell not 
 much bigger than a coffin, where I shall see no human face, and 
 hear no human voice, I am content; I await the coming revo- 
 lution ' let the world call him what it will, madman, fanatic, 
 fool that man needs some other name than assassin." 
 
 The stranger's face flushed up, his eyes seemed to burn, and 
 he leaned over to the desk and took up the dagger. 
 
 " See ! Give me this ! It's exactly what I want. I'll put 
 it in a bouquet of flowers, and pretend to offer them. Only a 
 way to do it, sir ! Say the word may I take it ? " 
 
 " But the man who assumes such a mission," said David 
 Rossi, " must know himself free from every thought of personal 
 vengeance." 
 
 The dagger trembled in the stranger's hand. 
 
 " He must be prepared to realise the futility of what he 
 has done to know that even when he succeeds he only changes 
 the persons not the things, the actors not the parts. And when 
 he fails he must be prepared to find that wounded tyranny 
 has no mercy, and threatened despotism has tightened its 
 chains." 
 
 The man stood like one who has been stunned, with his 
 mouth partly open, and balancing the dagger on one hand. 
 
 " More than that," said David Rossi, " he must be prepared 
 to be told by every true friend of freedom that the man who 
 uses force is not worthy of liberty that the conflict of intel- 
 lects alone is human, and to fight otherwise is to be on the level 
 of the brute that we are men, and that the human weapon 
 is the brain, not the claws and the teeth, and that all victories 
 other than the victories of the brain and heart are barbarous 
 and bestial shed around them what halo you will." 
 
 The man threw the dagger back on the desk and laughed. 
 
 " I knew you talked like that to the people statesmen do 
 sometimes that's all right it's pretty, and it keeps the peo- 
 ple quiet but we know . . ." 
 
 David Rossi rose with a sovereign dignity, but he only 
 said: 
 
 " Mr. Minghelli, our interview is at an end." 
 
 A change had come over the face of the stranger, and the 
 watchful eyes now wore a ferocious expression. But he only 
 flipped a speck of dust off his coat, and said : 
 
 " So you dismiss me ? "
 
 Y6 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 David Rossi bowed in silence. The man gave a furious side- 
 glance and stepped to the door. 
 
 " Now that you know what I am, perhaps you will scratch 
 my name off your Creed and Charter, and tell them in London 
 to turn me out of their brotherhood ? " 
 
 " You turn yourself out, sir. You have nothing in common 
 with the people, and have no right to be among them." 
 
 The man's profile at the door was frightful. 
 
 " It is such men as you," said David Rossi, " who put 
 back the progress of the world and make it possible for the 
 upholders of authority to describe our efforts as devilish 
 machinations for the destruction of all order, human and di- 
 vine. Besides that, you speak as one who has not only a 
 perverted political sentiment, but a personal quarrel against 
 an enemy." 
 
 The man faced around sharply, came back with a quick step, 
 and said : 
 
 " You say I speak as one who has a personal quarrel with 
 the Prime Minister. Perhaps I have ! I heard your speech 
 this morning about his mistress, with her livery of scarlet and 
 gold. You meant the woman who is known as Donna Roma 
 Volonna. What if I tell you she is not a Volonna at all, but 
 a girl the Minister picked up in the streets of London, and has 
 palmed off on Rome as the daughter of a noble house, because 
 he is a liar and a cheat ? " 
 
 David Rossi gave a start, as if an invisible hand had smit- 
 ten him in the face. 
 
 " Her name is Roma, certainly," said the man, with a flash 
 in his eyes, " that was the first thing that helped me to seize 
 the mysterious thread." 
 
 David Rossi's face grew pale, and he scarcely breathed. 
 
 " Oh, I'm not talking without proof," said the man, seeing 
 that his words went home. " I was at the Embassy in London 
 ten years ago when the Ambassador was consulted by the 
 police authorities about an Italian girl, who had been found 
 at night in Leicester Square. Mother dead, father gone back 
 to Italy she had been living with some people her father gave 
 her to as a child, but had turned out badly and run away." 
 
 David Rossi had fixed his eyes on the stranger with a kind 
 of glassy stare. 
 
 " I went with the Ambassador to Bow Street, and saw the 
 girl in the magistrate's office. She pleaded that she had been 
 ill-treated, but we didn't believe her story, and gave her back
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 77 
 
 to her guardians. A month later we heard that she had run 
 away once more and disappeared entirely." 
 
 David Rossi was breathing audibly, and shrinking like an 
 old man into his shoulders. 
 
 " I never saw that girl again until a week ago, and where 
 do you think I saw her ? " 
 
 David Rossi swallowed his saliva, and said : 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 " In Rome. I had trouble at the Embassy, and came back 
 to appeal to the Prime Minister. Everybody said I must reach 
 him through Donna Roma, and one of my relatives took me to 
 her rooms. The moment I set eyes on her I knew who she 
 was. Donna Roma Volonna is the girl Roma Roselli, who was 
 lost in the streets of London." 
 
 David Rossi seemed suddenly to grow taller. 
 
 " You scoundrel ! " he said, in a voice that was hollow and 
 choked. 
 
 The man staggered back and stammered : 
 
 " Why . . . what . . ." 
 
 " I knew that girl." 
 
 " You knew . . ." 
 
 " Until she was seven years of age she was my constant 
 companion she was the same as my sister and her father 
 was the same as my father and if you tell me she is the 
 mistress . . . You infamous wretch ! You calumniator ! You 
 villain ! I could confound you with one word, but I won't. 
 Out of my house this moment. And if ever you cross my 
 path again I'll denounce you to the police as a cut-throat and 
 an assassin." 
 
 Stunned and stupefied, the man opened the door and fled. 
 
 " BY the Holy Virgin, little one, I must have a word in that 
 argument," said Bruno in the dining-room, with kindling eyes 
 and clenched fist. 
 
 But at the next moment the stranger came flying out, and 
 Bruno contented himself with making the sign with the finger 
 to avert the evil eye as the man's pallid face disappeared 
 through the outer door. 
 
 " Just one of his white heats," said Bruno, under his breath, 
 with a side-glance at the bedroom. " He'll do something some 
 day."
 
 78 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Heaven and the saints forbid ! " said Bruno's wife, and 
 then David Rossi came out with his long, slow step, looking 
 pale but calm, and tearing up a letter into small pieces, which 
 he threw into the fire. 
 
 Little Joseph, who had been busy with his mace, rushed 
 upon Rossi with a shout, and when Rossi rose from stooping 
 over the boy, his face was red and the tones of his voice were 
 natural. 
 
 " What was amiss, sir ? They could hear you across the 
 street," said Bruno. 
 
 " A man whose room was better than his company, that's 
 all." 
 
 " What's his name," said Bruno, consulting the sheet which 
 the company had signed. " ' Charles Minghelli ' ? Why, that 
 must be the Secretary who was suspected of forgery at the 
 Embassy in London, and got dismissed." 
 
 " I thought as much ! " said David Rossi. " No doubt the 
 man attributed his dismissal to the Prime Minister, and wanted 
 to use me for his private revenge." 
 
 " That was his game, was it ? Why didn't you let me know, 
 sir? He would have gone downstairs like a falling star. You 
 turned him out, though, arid he'll tie that on his finger, at all 
 events. He is as fine as a razor, but he looks as if he carried 
 a small arsenal on his hip. Lie's stuff to take with a pair of 
 tongs, anyway, and now that I remember, he's the nephew of 
 old Palomba, the Mayor, and I've seen him at Donna Roma's. 
 ' Charles Minghelli ? ' Of course ! That was the name on a 
 letter she gave me to post, in one of her perfumed violet en- 
 velopes, with her monogram engraved on the front of it." 
 
 There was a thumping knock at that moment, and the 
 boy, who had been playing with the buttons of David Rossi's 
 coat, shouted: 
 
 " Me ! Me ! " and, seizing his mace, marched with a strut to 
 the door and opened it. 
 
 " Who is it ? " said the boy within. 
 
 " Friends," said a voice without. 
 
 A waiter in a white smock, with a large tin box on his head, 
 entered the hall, and behind him came the old woman from 
 the porter's lodge, with the wrinkled face and the red cotton 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Come in," cried Bruno. " I ordered the best dinner in 
 the Trattoria, sir, and thought we might perhaps dine together 
 for once."
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN . 79 
 
 " Good," said David Rossi. 
 
 " Here it is, a whole basketful of the grace of God, sir ! 
 Out with it, Riccardo," and while the women laid the table, 
 Bruno took the dishes smoking hot from their temporary oven 
 with its charcoal fire. 
 
 " Artichokes good. Chicken good again. I must be a 
 fox I was dreaming of chicken all last night! Gnocchi! 
 (potatoes and flour baked.) Agradolce! (sour and sweet.) 
 Fagioletti! (French beans boiled) and a half flask of Chiaiiti ! 
 Who said the son of my mother couldn't order a dinner? All 
 right, Riccardo, come back at Ave Maria." 
 
 The waiter went off, and the company sat down to their 
 meal, Bruno and his wife at either end of the table, and David 
 Rossi on the sofa, with the boy on his right, and the cat curled 
 up into his side on the left, while the old woman stood in front, 
 serving the food and removing the plates. 
 
 " I'm as hungry as a wolf and as thirsty as a sponge," said 
 Bruno, sticking his knife into the chicken. 
 
 " Bruno," said his wife with a warning look, and a glance 
 at Joseph, who, with eyes dubiously closed, was bringing his 
 little hands together. 
 
 " Oh ! All right, Elena ! Go ahead, little one," and while 
 Bruno sat with his fists on the table and knife and fork pointing 
 heavenwards, Joseph said six words of grace. 
 
 " Good for you, Giuseppe-Mazzini-Garibaldi ! Short text, 
 long sermon! We'll take a long drink on the strength of it. 
 Let me fill up your glass, sir. No? Tut! Drink wine and 
 leave water to the mill." 
 
 And, while they ate and drank, the little April gales of 
 gossip went flying around the room, with fitful gleams of sun- 
 shine and some passing showers. 
 
 " Look at him ! " said the old woman, who was deaf, pointing 
 to David Rossi, with his two neighbours. " Now, why doesn't 
 the Blessed Virgin give him a child of his own? " 
 
 " She has, mother, and here he is," said David Rossi. 
 
 " You'll let her give him a woman first, won't you ? " said 
 Bruno. 
 
 " Ah ! that will never be," said David Rossi. 
 
 " What does he say ? " said the old woman, with her hand 
 at her ear like a shell. 
 
 "He says he won't have any of you," bawled Bruno. 
 
 " What an idea ! But I've heard men say that before, and 
 they've been married sooner than you could say ' Hail Mary.' "
 
 80 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " It isn't an incident altogether unknown in the history of 
 this planet, is it, mother ? " said Bruno. 
 
 " The man who doesn't marry must have a poor opinion of 
 women," said the old woman. 
 
 "And a poor opinion of the Almighty, too," said Bruno. 
 " Male and female created He them at least, I am led to 
 believe so every day of my life." 
 
 " Men will be talking," said Elena. " Go on with your 
 dinner, Bruno, and don't raise your voice so." 
 
 " There are only two kinds of women, sir ordinary women 
 and your wife," said Bruno, winking gaily. 
 
 " And there are only two kinds of men sensible men and 
 your husband," said Elena. 
 
 " The horse's kick doesn't hurt the mare, you see," said 
 Bruno. " But women, bless their sweet faces, are the springs 
 of everything in this world man-springs especially." 
 
 " A heart to share your sorrows and joys is something, and 
 the man is not. wise who wastes the chance of it," said the old 
 woman. " Does he think parliaments will make up for it when 
 he grows old and wants something to comfort him ? " 
 
 " Hush, mother ! " said Elena, but Bruno made mouths at 
 her to let the old woman go on. 
 
 " As for me, I'll want somebody of my own about me to 
 close my eyes when the time comes to put the sacred oil on 
 them," said the old woman. 
 
 And then David Rossi, with the sweetness of his voice in 
 conversation, said, " I know that a woman's love is the strong- 
 est and purest and best in the world except the love of God, yet 
 if I found myself caring too much for any one I should run 
 away." 
 
 " That's right, sir. In the battle of love he wins who flies," 
 said Bruno. 
 
 " If a man has dedicated his life to work for humanity," 
 said David Rossi, " he must give up many things father, 
 mother, wife, child. He must bid a long farewell to all earthly 
 affections, and be prepared to become, if need be, a homeless 
 wanderer, treading a path which he knows beforehand will be 
 choked with sorrows." 
 
 The corner of Elena's apron crept up to the corner of her 
 eye, but the old woman, who thought the subject had changed, 
 laughed and said : 
 
 " That's just what I say to Tommaso. ' Tommaso,' I say, 
 * if a man is going to be a policeman he must have no father,
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 81 
 
 or mother, or wife, or child no nor bowels neither,' I say. And 
 Tommaso says, ' Francesca,' he says, ' the whole tribe of gentry 
 they call statesmen are just policemen in plain clothes, and I 
 do believe they've only liberated Mr. Eossi as a trap to catch 
 him again when he has done something.' " 
 
 " They won't catch you though, will they, mother ? " shouted 
 Bruno. 
 
 " That they won't ! I'm deaf, praise the saints, and can't 
 hear them." 
 
 " Beautiful dispensation of Providence in a witness ! Let 
 me examine you, mother. Three questions the police ask a 
 woman to begin with." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Three questions," bawled Bruno. " What's your name 
 and yoiir father's name, how old are you, and how many chil- 
 dren have you got ? Now, let's see how you know your lesson 
 how old are you, mother ? " 
 
 " Francesca Maria fu Giuseppe," answered the old woman. 
 
 " My mistake, mother how many children have vou 
 got?" 
 
 " Sixty-seven, your worship." 
 
 " Excellent witness! " said Bruno, and he laughed until he 
 cried. 
 
 Another knock came from the staircase. 
 
 " Me ! Me ! " cried the boy, and the mace with its tattered 
 handkerchief went to the door again. 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " Friends." 
 
 " Who is it this time, Garibaldi-Mazzini-Washington ? Oh ! 
 Old John again!" 
 
 An old man stood on the threshold. He was one of David 
 Rossi's pensioners. Ninety years of age, his children all dead, 
 he lived with his grandchildren, and was one of the poor human 
 rats who stay indoors all day and come out with a lantern at 
 night to scour the gutters of the city for the refuse of cigar- 
 ends. 
 
 " Come another night, John ! Don't expect the Villa Bor- 
 ghese, sonny," said Bruno. 
 
 But David Rossi would not send him away empty, and he 
 was going off with the sparkling eyes of a boy, when he said : 
 
 "I heard you in the piazza this morning, Excellency! 
 Grand! Only sorry for one thing." 
 
 " And what was that, sonny ? " said Bruno.
 
 82 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " What his Excellency said about Donna Roma. She gave 
 me a half franc only yesterday, sir stopped the carriage to do 
 it, too ! " 
 
 " So that's your only reason . . ." began Bruno. 
 
 " Good reason, too. Good-night, John ! " said David Eossi, 
 and Joseph closed the door. 
 
 " Oh, she has her virtues, like every other kind of spider," 
 said Bruno. 
 
 " I'm sorry I spoke of her," said David Rossi. 
 
 " You needn't be, though. She deserved all she got. I 
 haven't been two years in her studio without knowing what 
 she is." 
 
 " It was the man I was thinking of, and if I had remem- 
 bered that the woman must suffer . . ." 
 
 " Tut ! She'll have to make her Easter confession a little 
 earlier, that's all." 
 
 " If she hadn't laughed when I was speaking . . ." 
 
 " You're on the wrong track now, sir. That wasn't Donna 
 Roma. It was the little Princess Bellini. She's always stretch- 
 ing her neck and screeching like an old gandery goose. Do 
 Donna Roma justice ; she's a better piece than that. Never saw 
 her, sir? Oh, a splendid woman! Stood in the centre of the 
 balcony, sir women are as fond of sitting up in a balcony as a 
 horse of looking over a gate and if you had seen her there you 
 would have said she was as sweet to look upon as one of the 
 apples of Eden, but she's just as cunning as the serpent of 
 old Nile." 
 
 Dinner was now over, and the boy called for the phono- 
 graph. David Rossi went into the sitting-room to fetch it, and 
 Elena went in at the same time to light the fire. She was 
 kneeling with her back to him, blowing on to the wood, when 
 she said in a trembling voice : 
 
 " I'm a little sorry myself, sir, if I may say so. I can't 
 believe what they say about the mistress, but even if it's true we 
 don't know her story, do we? " 
 
 " Perhaps you're right, sister," said David Rossi. 
 
 When he returned to the dining-room with the phonograph, 
 the dishes had been gathered up, the old grandmother had gone, 
 and Joseph had ranged two lines of chairs from the table to the 
 door, back to back, with a space between them, and various 
 walking-sticks across the top to represent the courtyard to the 
 palace. And dressed in his father's coat, turned inside out to 
 display a gorgeous lining of red flannel, he was navigating the
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 83 
 
 narrow strait with his mace like a three-decker flying all its 
 flags, while Bruno, in his shirt sleeves, was laughing until he 
 shook at the boy's strutting step and whisking tail. 
 
 " Laugh too much and you'll get the heart-ache," cried 
 Elena from the inner room. 
 
 " I'm going to be as quiet as oil, mamma," said Bruno, and 
 he lit a cigar which was twisted like a corkscrew. 
 
 Then the phonograph was turned on, and Joseph marched 
 to the tune of " Swanney River " and the strains of Sousa's 
 band, while David Rossi leaned on the mantel-piece and 
 thought of a country far away, where a man is a man and the 
 air is free. 
 
 " Mr. Rossi," said Bruno, between a puff and a blow. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Have you tried the cylinder that came first ? " 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "How's that, sir?" 
 
 " The man who brought it said the friend who had spoken 
 into it was dead," and then with a shiver through his teeth, 
 " It would be like a voice from the grave I doubt if I dare 
 hear it." 
 
 " Like a ghost speaking to a man, certainly especially if 
 the friend was a close one." 
 
 " He was the closest friend I ever had, Bruno he was 
 my father." 
 
 "Father?" 
 
 " Foster father, anyway. For four years he clothed and fed 
 and educated me, and I was the same as his own son." 
 
 " Had he no children of his own ? " 
 
 " One little daughter, no bigger than Joseph when I saw her 
 last Roma." 
 
 "Roma?" 
 
 " Yes, her father was a Liberal, and her name was Roma." 
 
 He had taken from the mantel-piece the sheet with the 
 signatures, and was drawing his pen from his pocket. " How 
 beautiful the child was ! Her hair was as black as a raven, and 
 her eyes were like two sloes." 
 
 Elena had come back to the room and was standing listen- 
 ing, with her soiled hands by her side. 
 
 " What became of her? " she said. 
 
 " When her father came to Italy on the errand which ended 
 in his imprisonment, he gave her into the keeping of some 
 Italian friends in London. I was too young to take charge
 
 84 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 of her then. Besides, I left England shortly afterward and 
 went to America." 
 
 " Where is she now ? " said Elena, and David Rossi struck 
 out the last name on the list and answered, with his head down : 
 
 " When I returned to England . . . she was dead." 
 
 " Well, there's nothing new under the sun of Rome Donna 
 Roma came from London," said Bruno. 
 
 David Rossi felt the muscles of his face quiver. 
 
 " Her father was an exile in England, too, and when he 
 came back on the errand that ended in Elba, he gave her away 
 to some people who treated her badly I've heard old Teapot, 
 the Countess, say so when she's been nagging her poor niece." 
 
 David Rossi breathed painfully, and something rose in his 
 throat. 
 
 " Strange if it should be the same," said Bruno. 
 
 " But Mr. Rossi's Roma is dead," said Elena. 
 
 " Ah, of course, certainly ! What a fool I am ! " said Bruno. 
 
 David Rossi had a sense of suffocation, of wanting more 
 space in the world, and he went out on to the lead flat. 
 
 VI 
 
 THE Ave Maria was ringing from many church towers, and 
 the golden day was going down with the sun behind the dark 
 outline of the dome of St. Peter's, while the blue night was 
 rising over the snow-capped Apennines in a premature twilight 
 with one twinkling star. A shiver seemed to pass through the 
 air with the rising of the evening breeze and the rustling of 
 the fallen leaves, as if the old earth were chattering its teeth. 
 
 David Rossi's ears buzzed as with the sound of a mighty 
 wind rushing through trees at a distance. Bruno's last words 
 on top of Charles Minghelli's had struck him like an alarum 
 bell heard through the mists of sleep, and his head was stunned 
 and his eyes were dizzy. He buttoned his coat about him, and 
 walked quickly to and fro on the lead flat by the side of the 
 cage, in which the birds were already bunched up and silent. 
 
 The night came on rapidly, and as the darkness fell a scroll 
 of pictures seemed to unfold before his memory, and all of 
 them in the lurid light of calamity. At one moment he was in 
 London, the great city under the wing of the fog. Within the 
 walls of a happy home there was a cheerful fire, a venerable old 
 man, a saintly woman, and an innocent child with violet eyes,
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 85 
 
 who sang all day long as if her little breast was a cage of song- 
 birds. At the next moment he was back in Rome, within the 
 gilded walls of an old palace, with powdered lacqueys carrying 
 silver salvers, and the same child grown to be a woman, beauti- 
 ful, stately, majestic, dressed magnificently and tended like a 
 queen, but surrounded by an atmosphere of shame. Then a 
 shudder ran through his blood, and a voice whispered in his 
 soul, " Better she were dead ! " And listening to this voice he 
 told himself she was dead, she must be dead, for God was good, 
 and such a calamity could not be. 
 
 Before he was aware of the passing of time, the church bells 
 were tolling the first hour of night that solemn sound with its 
 single stroke first and last, which falls upon the ear with the 
 chilling reverberation of the bell swinging on a rock in the 
 open sea. The windows of the convent of Trinita de' Monti 
 were lit up by this time, and there were dim lights, too, in the 
 Passionist Monastery. Brides of Christ and children of the 
 cells, he could see them saying the psalm for the dead, in their 
 dark church, with one oil lamp burning under the face of the 
 monk who read the prayers, while his fellow-monks knelt in 
 the shadows, chanting their responses in voices that echoed as 
 in a tomb. Happy were they in the simplicity of their life, for 
 Fate played no cruel part to turn it into a grim and hideous 
 jest. 
 
 " But she is dead," he thought. " God guides our steps to 
 good ends through all their various falterings. He could not 
 have allowed me to do it ! She is dead ! " 
 
 Presently he became aware of flares burning in the Piazza 
 of St. Peter, and of the shadows of giant heads cast up on the 
 walls of the vast basilica. It was the crowd gathering for the 
 last ceremonial of the Pope's Jubilee, and at the sound of a 
 double rocket, which went up as with the crackle of musketry, 
 little Joseph came running on to the roof, followed by his 
 mother and Bruno. 
 
 David Rossi took the boy into his arms and tried to dispel 
 the gloom of his own spirits in the child's joy at the illumina- 
 tions. First came twelve strokes of the great bell, then from 
 the cross on the ball of St. Peter's there burst a tongue of flame, 
 and then the fire ran round the wide curves of the dome, 
 leapt along the parapet of the fagade, dropped down the round 
 columns, vaulted over the pediment, and played about the capi- 
 tals, the cupolas, the clocks, and the statues of the apostles until 
 the entire edifice was pricked out in tens of thousands of spark-
 
 86 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 ling lamps, and the piazza below and the city behind stood 
 forth in a dazzling white light with deep black shadows. 
 Another rocket went up, and in a moment the white lights 
 turned to golden, and the piazza looked like a cauldron over 
 a fire and the city seemed as if the gates of a vast furnace 
 had been opened on it. Then the lamps began to burn fitfully 
 and to go out one by one, and in the broken lines of the 
 great building a fairyland of magic palaces appeared to 
 rise up and die down under the supernatural glory of the 
 failing lights, until the ethereal phantoms had faded bit by 
 bit, and the Basilica had fallen as it were to ruins and melted 
 away. 
 
 " Ever see 'luminations before, Uncle David ? " said Joseph. 
 
 " Once, dear, but that was long ago and far away. I was a 
 boy myself in those days, and there was a little girl with me 
 then who was no bigger than you are now. But it's growing 
 cold, there's frost in the air, besides it's late, and little boys 
 must go to bed." 
 
 " Well, God is God, and the Pope is His Prophet," said 
 Bruno, when Elena and Joseph had gone indoors. " It was like 
 day! You could see the lightning conductor over the Pope's 
 apartment ! Pshew ! " blowing puffs of smoke from his twisted 
 cigar. " Won't keep the lightning off, though." 
 
 " Bruno ! " 
 
 "Yes, sir?" 
 
 " Donna Roma's father would be Prince Volonna ? " 
 
 " Yes, the last prince of the old papal name. When the 
 Volonna estates were confiscated, the title really lapsed, but old 
 Vampire got the lands." 
 
 " Did you ever hear that he bore any other name during 
 the time he was in exile ? " 
 
 " Sure to, but there was no trial and nothing was known. 
 They all changed their names, though." 
 
 " Why . . . what . . ." said David Rossi in an unsteady 
 voice. 
 
 " Why ? " said Bruno. " Because they were all condemned 
 in Italy, and the foreign countries were told to turn them out. 
 But what am I talking about ? You know all that better than 
 I do, sir. Didn't your old friend go under a false name ? " 
 
 " Very likely I don't know," said David Rossi, in a voice 
 that testified to jangled nerves. 
 
 " Did he ever tell you, sir ? " 
 
 "I can't say that he ever , , , Certainly the school of
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 87 
 
 revolution has always had villains enough, and perhaps to pre- 
 vent treachery . . ." 
 
 " You may say so ! The devil has the run of the world, 
 even in England. But I'm surprised your old friend, being like 
 a father to you, didn't tell you at the end anyway . . ." 
 
 " Perhaps he intended to and then perhaps . . ." 
 
 David Rossi put his hand to his brow as if in pain and per- 
 plexity, and began again to walk backward and forward. 
 
 A screamer in the piazza below cried Trib-un-a!" and 
 Bruno said : 
 
 " That's early ! What's up, I wonder ? I'll go down and 
 get a paper." 
 
 Darkness had by this time re-invaded the sky, and the stars 
 looked down from their broad dome, clear, sweet, white, and 
 serene, putting to shame by their immortal solemnity the poor 
 little mimes, the paltry puppet-shows of the human jackstraws 
 who had just been worshipping at their self-made shrine. 
 
 " The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament 
 showeth His handiwork." 
 
 David Rossi uttered these words aloud, but he tried in vain 
 to get some of the calmness of the night into his soul. Before 
 his eyes there passed, as before, the shifting and unsubstantial 
 scroll of memory. He was back in London again, and under 
 the great glass roof of a railway station, amid the choking 
 smoke of the engines and the deafening scream of the steam- 
 whistles, he was saying " Good-bye " to an old man with a 
 patriarchal beard. " Good-bye, my son ! I will write to you in 
 good time, and then I shall have something to say which may 
 perhaps surprise you. Good-bye, and God bless you." And 
 then, silence, a face blotted out, a voice buried in a house of 
 bondage, which closed its doors on a living man and opened 
 them only to put out a corpse. 
 
 Stay ! In the scroll of memory there was one other picture. 
 Rome once more, and an ex-prisoner from Elba finding him out 
 in the Chamber of Deputies. "I bring you a dying man's 
 message," he said, and put into his hand a little cardboard box. 
 " He lived at large, and had a garden in which he grew flowers 
 for the children, but he was forbidden to write letters, and the 
 post was watched." The box contained a cylinder for the 
 phonograph, and bore this inscription: "For the hands of 
 D. L. only to be destroyed if Deputy David Rossi does not 
 know where to find him." 
 
 The Tiber below was running over its bed of mud with.
 
 88 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 a turbulence that was like the tumult in David Rossi's mind, 
 toiling in darkness and tormented by doubts, and the formless 
 things sweeping down with the current were like the appari- 
 tions of fear which he could not bring himself to challenge. 
 But just then the church clock struck eight, and he thought he 
 heard a voice saying : 
 
 " Have courage ! Dive to the bottom of this mystery ! 
 Heaven is over all ! " 
 
 As David Rossi returned to the house, Elena, who was un- 
 dressing the boy, saw a haggard look in his eyes, but Bruno, 
 who was reading his evening journal, saw nothing, and cried 
 out: 
 
 " Helloa ! Listen to this, sir. It's Olga. She's got a pen, 
 I can tell you. ' Madame de Pompadour. Hitherto we have 
 
 had the pleasure of having Madame , whose pressure on 
 
 the state and on Italy's wise counsellors was only incidental, 
 but now that the fates have given us a Madame Pompadour 
 . . .' Then there's a leading article on your speech in the 
 piazza. Praises you up to the skies. Look ! ' Thank God we 
 have men like the Honourable Rossi, who at the risk of . . .' " 
 
 But with a clouded brow David Rossi turned away from 
 him and passed into the sitting-room, and Bruno looked around 
 in blank bewilderment. 
 
 " Shall you want the lamp, sir ? " said Elena. 
 
 " Not yet, thank you," he answered through the open door. 
 
 The wood fire was glowing on the hearth, and in the acute 
 state of his nerves he shuddered involuntarily as its reflection 
 in the window opposite looked back at him like a fiery eye. He 
 opened the case of the phonograph, which had been returned to 
 its place on the piano, and then from a drawer in the bureau 
 he took a small cardboard box. The wood in the fire flickered 
 at that moment and started some ghastly shadows on the ceil- 
 ing, but he drew a cylinder from the box and slid it on to the 
 barrel of the phonograph. Then he stepped to the door, shut 
 and locked it. 
 
 VII 
 
 " WELL ! " said Bruno. " If that isn't enough to make a 
 man feel as small as a sardine ! " 
 
 There was only one thing to do, but to conceal the nature of 
 it Bruno flourished the newspaper and said : 
 
 " Elena, I must go down to the lodge and read these articles
 
 THE REPUBLIC OP MAN 89 
 
 to your father. Poor Donna Roma, she'll have to fly, I'm 
 afraid. Bye-bye, Garibaldi-Mazzini ! Early to bed, early to 
 rise, and time enough to grow old, you know ! ... As for Mr. 
 Rossi, he might be a sinner and a criminal instead of the hero 
 of the hour ! It licks me to little bits." And Bruno carried his 
 dark mystery down to the cafe to see if it might be dispelled 
 by a litre of autumnal light from sunny vineyards. 
 
 Meantime, Joseph, being very tired, was shooting out a 
 pettish lip because he had to go to bed without saying good- 
 night to Uncle David, and his mother, making terms with this 
 pretence, consented to bring his nightdress down to him instead 
 of taking his little body up to it, thinking David Rossi might 
 be out of the sitting-room by that time, and the boy be pacified. 
 But when she returned to the dining-room the sitting-room 
 door was still closed, and Joseph was pleading to be allowed to 
 lie on the sofa until Uncle David carried him to bed, and after 
 various promises that he would not sleep he was permitted to lie 
 down in his nightdress with his day-clothes scattered over him. 
 All went well for thirty seconds, and then the little curly poll 
 on the cushion gave undoubted signs of vanquishment in the 
 great battle of all child-like natures with the mighty monster 
 sleep. 
 
 " I'm not asleep, mamma," came in a drowsy voice from the 
 sofa, but almost at the same moment the measured breath 
 slowed down, the watch-lights blinked themselves out, and the 
 little soul slid away into the darksome kingdom of unconscious- 
 ness. 
 
 A mother's joy is like a child's, and Elena laughed to her- 
 self as she sat on the other end of the sofa and took up the little 
 man's garments and smelt them one by one, and then turned 
 out his pockets and noted their wonderful contents a cork, a 
 pebble, a broken button, and a rusty nail. 
 
 Suddenly, in the silence of the room, she was startled by a 
 voice. It came from the sitting-room. Was it Mr. Rossi's 
 voice ? No ! The voice was older and feebler than Mr. Rossi's, 
 and less clear and distinct. Could it be possible that somebody 
 was with him? If so, the visitor must have arrived while she 
 was in the bedroom above. But why had she not heard the 
 knock? How did it occur that Joseph had not told her? And 
 then the lamp was still on the dining-room table, and save 
 for the firelight, the sitting-room must be dark. 
 
 A chill began to run through her blood, and she tried to 
 hear what was said, but the voice was muffled by its passage 
 7
 
 90 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 through the wall, and she could only catch a word or two. 
 Presently the strange voice, without stopping, was broken in 
 upon by a voice that was clear and familiar, but now faltering 
 with the note of pain : " I swear to God I will ! " 
 
 That was Mr. Rossi's voice, and Elena's head began to go 
 round. Whom was he speaking to? Who was speaking to 
 him ? He went into the room alone, he was sitting in the dark, 
 and yet there were two voices. 
 
 At that moment little Joseph cried in his sleep, and after 
 she had put him to lie on his side, and comforted him and he 
 was quiet, she listened again, but all was still. In the blank 
 silence she was beginning to tell herself that she, too, had 
 dozed off and been dreaming, when the nightmare came again, 
 first in the sound of David Rossi's long slow step on the 
 thin carpet over the tiled floor, and then in a certain whizzing 
 noise, which was followed after a moment by the same strange 
 voice. 
 
 A light dawned on her, and she could have laughed. What 
 had terrified her as a sort of supernatural thing was only 
 the phonograph ! But after a moment a fresh tremor struck 
 upon her in the agony of the exclamations with which David 
 Rossi broke in upon the voice that was being reproduced by 
 the machine. She could hear his words distinctly, and he was 
 in great trouble. Hardly knowing what she did, she crept up 
 to the door and listened. Even then, she could only follow the 
 strange voice in passages, which were broken and submerged 
 by the whirring of the phonograph, like the flight of a sea-bird 
 which dips at intervals and leaves nothing but the wash of the 
 wave. 
 
 " David," said the voice, " when this shall come to your 
 hands ... in my great distress of mind ... do not trifle 
 with my request . . . but whatever you decide to do ... be 
 gentle with the child . . . remember that . . . Adieu, my son 
 . . . the end is near ... if death does not annihilate . . . 
 those who remain on earth ... a helper and advocate in 
 heaven . . . Adieu ! " And interrupting these broken words, 
 were half-smothered cries and sobs from David Rossi, repeat- 
 ing again and again : " I will ! I swear to God I will ! " 
 
 Elena could bear the pain no longer, and mustering up her 
 courage, she tapped at the door. It was a gentle tap, and no 
 answer was returned. She knocked louder, and then an angry 
 voice said : 
 
 "Who's there?"
 
 THE REPUBLIC OP MAN 91 
 
 " It's I Elena," she answered timidly. " Is anything the 
 matter ? Aren't you well, sir ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes," came back in a calmer voice, and after a shuffling 
 sound as of the closing of drawers, David Eossi opened the 
 door and came out. 
 
 As he crossed the threshold he cast a backward glance into 
 the dark room, as if he feared that some invisible hand would 
 touch him on the shoulder. His face was pale and beads of 
 perspiration stood on his forehead, but he smiled, and in a 
 voice that was a little hoarse, yet fairly under control, he said : 
 
 " I'm afraid I've frightened you, Elena." 
 
 " You're not well, sir. Sit down, and let me run for some 
 cognac." 
 
 "No! It's nothing! Only . . ." 
 
 " Take this glass of water, sir." 
 
 " That's good ! I'm better now, and I'm ashamed. Elena, 
 you mustn't think any more of this, and whatever I may do 
 in the future that seems to you to be strange, you must promise 
 me never to mention it." 
 
 " I needn't promise you that, sir," said Elena. 
 
 " Bruno is a brave, bright, loyal soul, Elena, but there are 
 times . . ." 
 
 " I know and I'll never mention it to anybody. But you've 
 taken a chill on the roof at sunset looking at the illuminations 
 that's all it is ! The nights are frosty now, and I was to 
 blame that I didn't send out your cloak." 
 
 And Elena thought, " I'll give two big candles to the Ma- 
 donna at St. Agostino's, and she'll save him from the fever." 
 
 Then she tried to be cheerful, and turning to the sleeping 
 boy, said : 
 
 " Look ! He was naughty again, and wouldn't go to bed 
 until you came out to carry him." 
 
 " The dear little man ! " said David Rossa. He stepped up 
 to the couch, but his pale face was pre-occupied, and he looked 
 at Elena again and said : 
 
 " Where does Donna Roma live ? " 
 
 " Trinita de' Monti eighteen," said Elena. 
 
 "Is it late?" 
 
 " It must be half -past eight at least, sir." 
 
 " We'll take Joseph to bed then." 
 
 He was putting -his arms about the boy to lift him when 
 a slippery-sloppery step was heard on the stairs, followed by a 
 hurried knock at the door.
 
 92 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 It was the old Garibaldian porter, breathless, bareheaded, 
 and in his slippers. 
 
 "Father!" cried Elena. 
 
 " It's she. She's coming up." 
 
 At the next moment a lady in evening dress was standing 
 in the hall. It was Donna Roma. She had unclasped her 
 ermine cloak, and her bosom was heaving with the exertion of 
 the ascent. 
 
 " May I speak to Mr. Rossi ? " she began, and then looking 
 beyond Elena and seeing him, where he stood above the sleep- 
 ing child, a qualm of faintness seemed to seize her, and she 
 closed her eyes for a moment. 
 
 David Rossi's face flushed to the roots of his hair, but he 
 stepped forward, bowed deeply, led the way to the sitting-room, 
 and, with a certain incoherency in his speech, said : 
 
 " Come in ! Elena will bring the lamp. I shall be back 
 presently." 
 
 Then lifting little Joseph in his arms, he carried him up to 
 bed, tucked him in his cot, smoothed his pillow, made the sign 
 of the cross over his forehead, and came back to the sitting- 
 room with the air of a man walking in a dream. 
 
 vni 
 
 As Roma climbed the stairs to David Rossi's rooms, the 
 conflicting thoughts which had wriggled within like a knot of 
 Egyptian vipers when she said to the Baron, " I could kill 
 him," were tormenting her again. But when she reached the 
 open door, and saw the man himself standing above the sleeping 
 child, she had a sensation like that which came to her at the 
 first sound of his voice a sense of having seen the picture 
 before somewhere, in some other existence perhaps and this 
 opening of an unnamed cell in her memory made her dizzy 
 and faint. 
 
 Then came David Rossi with his confused speech and man- 
 ners, followed by the timid woman with the lamp (Bruno's 
 wife, no doubt) ; and the moment she entered the sitting-room 
 she felt that she had regained her composure. 
 
 Being left alone, she looked around, and at a glance she took 
 in everything the thin carpet, the plain chintz, the prints, the 
 incongruous furniture. She saw the phonograph on the piano, 
 still standing open, with a cylinder exposed, and in the interval
 
 THE REPUBLIC OP MAN 93 
 
 of waiting she felt almost tempted to touch the spring. She 
 saw herself, too, in the mirror above the mantel-piece, with her 
 glossy black hair rolled up like a tower, from which one curly 
 lock escaped on to her forehead, and with the ermine cloak on 
 her shoulders over the white silk muslin which clung to her 
 full and lovely figure. 
 
 Then she heard David Eossi's footstep returning, and 
 though she was now completely self-possessed she was con- 
 scious of a certain shiver of fear, such as an actress feels in her 
 dressing-room at the tuning-up of the orchestra. Her back 
 was to the door and she heard the whirl of her skirt as he en- 
 tered, and then he was before her, and they were alone. 
 
 He was looking at her out of large, pensive, wonderful eyes, 
 and she saw him pass his hand over them and then bow pro- 
 foundly and motion her to a seat, and go to the mantel-piece 
 and lean on it. She was tingling all over, and a certain glow 
 was going up to her face, but when she spoke she was mistress 
 of herself, and her voice was soft and natural. 
 
 " I am doing a very unusual thing in coming to see you," 
 she said, " but you have forced me to it, and I am quite help- 
 less." 
 
 A faint sound came from him, and she was aware that he 
 was leaning forward to see her face, so she dropped her eyes, 
 partly to let him look at her, and partly to avoid meeting his 
 gaze. 
 
 " I heard your speech in the piazza this morning. It would 
 be useless to disguise the fact that some of its references were 
 meant for me." 
 
 He did not speak, and she played with the glove in her lap, 
 and continued in the same soft voice: 
 
 " If I were a man, I suppose I should challenge you. Being 
 a woman, I can only come to you and tell you that you are 
 wrong." 
 
 "Wrong?" 
 
 " Cruelly, terribly, shamefully wrong." 
 
 " You mean to tell me -. . ." 
 
 He was stammering in a husky voice, but she said quite 
 calmly : 
 
 " I mean to tell you that in substance and in fact what you 
 implied was false." 
 
 There was a dry glitter of hatred and repulsion in her eyes 
 which she tried to subdue, for she knew that he was looking at 
 her still.
 
 94 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " If . . . if . . ." his voice was thick and indistinct " if 
 you tell me that I have done you an injury . . ." 
 
 " You have a terrible injury." 
 
 She could hear his breathing, but she dared not look up, 
 lest he should see something in her face. 
 
 " Perhaps you think it strange," she said, " that I should 
 ask you to accept my assurance only. But though you have 
 done me a great wrong I believe you will accept it. Even your 
 enemies speak of you as a just man. You are known every- 
 where as a defender of women. Wherever a woman is wronged 
 by cruel and selfish men there your name rings out as her 
 friend and champion. Shall it be said that in your own person 
 you have made an innocent woman suffer ? " 
 
 " If ... if you give me your solemn word of honour that 
 what I said what I implied was false, that rumour and 
 report have slandered you, that it is all a cruel and baseless 
 calumny . . ." 
 
 She raised her head, looked him full in the face, and with- 
 out a quiver in her voice : 
 
 " I do give it," she said. 
 
 " Then I believe you," he answered. " With all my heart 
 and soul I believe you." 
 
 He had been thinking. " It is she ! The sweetness of 
 childhood and of girlish innocence a little faded, a little de- 
 praved, a little changed, but it is she ! " 
 
 " This man is a child," she thought. " He will believe any- 
 thing I tell him." And then she dropped her eyes again, and 
 turning with her thumb an opal ring on her finger, she began 
 to use the blandishments which had never failed with other 
 men. 
 
 " I do not say that I am altogether without blame," she 
 said. " I may have lived a thoughtless life amid scenes of 
 poverty and sorrow. If so, perhaps it has been partly the fault 
 of the men about me. When is a woman anything but what 
 the men around have made her ? " 
 
 She dropped her voice almost to a whisper, and added : 
 " You are the first man who has not praised and flattered me." 
 
 " I was not thinking of you," he said. " I was thinking 
 of another, and perhaps of the poor working women who, in a 
 world of luxury, have to struggle and starve." 
 
 She looked up, and a half smile crossed her face. It was 
 like the smile of the fowler, when the bird on the tree answers 
 to the decoy in the grass.
 
 THE REPUBLIC OP MAN 95 
 
 " I honour you for that," she said. " And perhaps if I had 
 earlier met a man like you my life might have been different. 
 I used to hope for such things long ago that a man of high 
 aims and noble purposes would come to meet me at the gate 
 of life. Perhaps you have felt like that that some woman, 
 strong and true, would stand beside you for good or for ill, in 
 your hour of danger and your hour of joy? " 
 
 Her voice was not quite steady she hardly knew why. 
 
 " A dream ! We all have our dreams," he said. 
 
 " A dream indeed ! Men came he was not among them. 
 They pampered every wish, indulged every folly, loaded me 
 with luxuries, but my dream was dispelled. I respected few 
 of them and reverenced none. They were my pastime, my 
 playthings. And they have revenged themselves by saying in 
 secret . . . what you said in public this morning." 
 
 He was looking at her constantly with his great wistful 
 eyes, the eyes of a child, and through all the joy of her success 
 she was conscious of a spasm of pain at the expression of his 
 sad face and the sound of his tremulous voice. 
 
 " We men are much to blame," he said. " In the battle of 
 man with man we deal out blows and think we are fighting 
 fair, but we forget that behind our foe there is often a woman 
 a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend and, God forgive us, we 
 have struck her, too." 
 
 The half smile that had gleamed on Roma's face was wiped 
 out of it by these words, and an emotion she did not understand 
 began to surge in her throat. 
 
 " You speak of poor women who struggle and starve," she 
 said. " Would it surprise you to hear that I know what it is 
 to do that? Yes, and to be friendless and alone quite, quite 
 alone in a cruel and wicked city." 
 
 She had lost herself for a moment, and the dry glitter in 
 her eyes had given way to a moistness and a solemn expression. 
 But at the next instant- she had regained her self-control, and 
 went on speaking to avoid a painful silence. 
 
 " I have never spoken of this to any other man," she said, 
 " I don't know why I should mention it to you to you of all 
 men." 
 
 He found no treachery in her fascinations. He only saw 
 his little Roma, the child who lived in her still, her innocent 
 sister who lay sleeping within. 
 
 She had risen to her feet, and he stepped up to her, and 
 looking straight into her eyes he said :
 
 96 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Have you ever seen me before ? " 
 
 " Never," she answered. 
 
 " Sit down," he said. " I have something to say to you." 
 
 She sat down, and a peculiar expression, almost a crafty 
 one, came into her face. 
 
 " You have told me a little of your life," he said. " Let me 
 tell you something of mine." 
 
 She smiled again, and it was with difficulty that she con- 
 cealed the glow of triumph in her cheeks. These big children 
 called men were almost to be pitied. She had expected a fight, 
 but the man -had thrown up the sponge from the outset, and 
 now he was going to give himself into her hands. Only for 
 that pathetic look in his eyes and that searching tone in his 
 voice she could have found it in her heart to laugh. 
 
 She let her cape drop back from her shoulders, revealing her 
 round bust and swan-like arms, and crossing one leg over the 
 other she displayed the edge of a lace skirt and the point of a 
 red slipper. Then she coughed a little behind a perfumed lace 
 handkerchief and prepared to listen. 
 
 " You are the daughter of an ancient family," he said, 
 " older than the house it lived in, and prouder than a line of 
 kings. And whatever sorrows you may have seen, you knew 
 what it was to have a mother who nursed you and a father who 
 loved you, and a home that was your own. Can you realise 
 what it is to have known neither father nor mother, to be home- 
 less, nameless, and alone ? " 
 
 She looked up a deep furrow had crossed his brow which 
 she had not seen there before. 
 
 " Happy the child," he said, " though shame stands beside 
 his cradle, who has one heart beating for him in a cruel world. 
 That was not my case. I never knew my mother." 
 
 The mocking fire had died out of Roma's face, and she 
 uncrossed her knees. 
 
 " My mother was the victim of a heartless man and a cruel 
 law. She tied to her baby's wrist a paper on which she had 
 written its father's name, placed it in the rota at the Foundling 
 of Santo Spirito, and flung herself into the Tiber." 
 
 Roma drew the cape over her shoulders. 
 
 " She lies in an unnamed pauper's grave in the Campo 
 Verano." 
 
 "Your mother?" 
 
 " Yes. My earliest memory is of being put out to nurse at 
 a farmstead in the Campagna. It was the time of revolution;
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 97 
 
 the treasury of the Pope was not yet replaced by the treasury 
 of the King, the nuns at Santo Spirito had no money with 
 which to pay their pensions ; and I was like a child forsaken by 
 its own, a fledgling in a foreign nest." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 " Those were the days when scoundrels established abroad 
 traded in the white slavery of poor Italian boys. They scoured 
 the country, gathered them up, put them in railway trucks like 
 cattle, and despatched them to foreign countries. My foster 
 parents parted with me for money, and I was sent to Lon- 
 don." 
 
 Roma's bosom was heaving, and tears were gathering in 
 her eyes. 
 
 " My next memory is of living in a large half -empty house 
 in Soho fifty foreign boys crowded together. The big ones 
 were sent out into the streets with an organ, the little ones 
 with a squirrel or a cage of white mice. We had a cup of tea 
 and a piece of bread for breakfast, and were forbidden to return 
 home until we had earned our supper. Then then the winter 
 days and nights in the cold northern climate, and the little 
 southern boys with their organs and squirrels, shivering and 
 starving in the darkness and the snow." 
 
 Roma's eyes were filling frankly, and she was allowing the 
 tears to flow. 
 
 " Thank God, I have another memory," he continued. " It 
 is of a good man, a saint among men, an Italian refugee, giving 
 his life to the poor, especially to the poor of his own people." 
 
 Roma's labouring breath seemed to be arrested at that mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " On several occasions he brought their masters to justice 
 in the English courts, until, finding they were watched, they 
 gradually became less cruel. He opened his house to the poor 
 little fellows, and they came for light and warmth between 
 nine and ten at night, bringing their organs with them. He 
 taught them to read, and on Sunday evenings he talked to 
 them of the lives of the great men of their country. He is 
 dead, but his spirit is alive alive in the souls he made to 
 live." 
 
 Roma's eyes were blinded with the tears that sprang to 
 them, and her throat was choking, but she said : 
 
 "What was he?" 
 . " A doctor." 
 
 " What was his name ? "
 
 98 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 David Rossi passed his hand over the furrow in his fore- 
 head, and answered : 
 
 " They called him Joseph Roselli." 
 
 Roma half rose from her seat, then sank back, and the lace 
 handkerchief dropped from her hand. 
 
 " But I heard afterwards long afterwards that he was a 
 Roman noble, one of the fearless few who had taken up poverty 
 and exile and an unknown name for the sake of liberty and 
 justice." 
 
 Roma's head had fallen into her bosom, which was heaving 
 with an emotion she could not conceal. 
 
 " One day a letter came from Italy, telling him that a 
 thousand men were waiting for him to lead them in an in- 
 surrection that was to dethrone an unrighteous king. It 
 was the trick of a scoundrel who has since been paid the 
 price of a hero's blood. I heard of this only lately only to- 
 night." 
 
 There was silence for a moment. David Rossi had put one 
 arm over his eyes. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " He was enticed back from England to Italy ; an English 
 minister violated his correspondence with a friend, and com- 
 municated its contents to the Italian Government; he was 
 betrayed into the hands of the police, and deported without 
 trial." 
 
 Roma was clutching at the bodice of her dress as if to keep 
 down a cry. 
 
 . " Was he never heard of again ? " 
 
 " Once only once by the friend I speak about." 
 
 Roma felt dizzy, as if she were coming near to some deep 
 places; but she could not stop something compelled her to 
 go on. 
 
 " W T ho was the friend ? " she asked. 
 
 " One of his poor waifs a boy who owed everything to 
 him, and loved and revered him as a father loves and reveres 
 him still, and tries to follow in the path he trod." 
 
 "What what was his name?" 
 
 " David Leone." 
 
 She looked at him for a moment without being able to 
 speak. Then she said : 
 
 " What happened to him? " 
 
 " The Italian courts condemned him to death, and the 
 English police drove him from England."
 
 THE REPUBLIC Otf MAN 99 
 
 " Then he has never been able to return to his own coun- 
 try?" 
 
 " He has never been able to visit his mother's grave except 
 by secret and at night, and as one who was perpetrating a 
 crime." 
 
 " What became of him? " 
 
 " He went to America." 
 
 " Did he ever return ? " 
 
 " Yes ! Love of home in him, as in all homeless ones, was 
 a consuming passion, and he came back to Italy." 
 
 "Where where is he now?" 
 
 David Rossi stepped up to her, and said : 
 
 " In this room." 
 
 She rose 
 
 " Then you are David Leone ! " 
 
 He raised one hand: 
 
 "David Leone is dead!" 
 
 There was silence for a moment. She could hear the 
 thumping of her heart. Then she said in an almost inaudible 
 whisper : 
 
 " I understand. David Leone is dead, but David Rossi is 
 alive." 
 
 He did not speak, but his head was held up and his face was 
 shining. 
 
 " Are you not afraid to tell me this ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 Her eyes glistened and her lips quivered. 
 
 " You insulted and humiliated me in public this moi-ning, 
 yet you think I will keep your secret ? " 
 
 " I know you will." 
 
 She felt a sensation of swelling in her throbbing heart, and 
 with a slow and nervous gesture she held out her hand. 
 
 " May I ... may I shake hands with you? " she said. 
 
 There was a moment of hesitation, and then their hands 
 seemed to leap at each other and clasp with a clasp of fire. 
 
 At the next instant he had lifted her hand to his lips and 
 was kissing it again and again. 
 
 A sensation of triumphant joy flashed through her, and 
 instantly died way. She wished to cry out, to confess, to say 
 something, she knew not what. But David Leone is dead rang 
 in her ears, and at the same moment she remembered what the 
 impulse had been which brought her to that house. 
 
 Then her eyes began to swim and her heart to fail, and she
 
 100 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 wanted to fly away without uttering another word. She could 
 not speak, he could not speak; they stood together on a preci- 
 pice where only by silence could they hold their heads. 
 
 " Let me go home," she said in a breaking voice, and with 
 downcast head and trembling limbs she stepped to the door. 
 
 IX 
 
 DOWN to that moment David Rossi had thought of Roma 
 only as the child he knew seventeen years before, as the daugh- 
 ter of Dr. Roselli, as his friend and foster-sister. But he 
 looked at her again as she passed him going to the door, and 
 now for the first time he saw her, not as the boy sees the girl, 
 but as the man sees the woman. How beautiful she had grown ! 
 And she was Roma ! His Roma, whatever the barrier that had 
 come between them ! Something warm tingled through him at 
 this thought, and looking at her with new eyes, he was filled 
 with a physical exultation which he had never felt before. 
 
 Reaching the door, she stopped, as if reluctant to leave, and 
 said in a voice still soft, but coming more from within : 
 
 " I wished to meet you face to face, but now that I have met 
 you, you are not the man I thought you were." 
 
 " Nor you," he said, " the woman I pictured you." 
 
 A light came into her eyes at that, and she looked up and 
 said : 
 
 " Then you had never seen me before ? " 
 
 And he answered after a moment : 
 
 " I had never seen Donna Roma Volonna until to-day." 
 
 " Forgive me for coming to you," she said. 
 
 " I thank you for doing so," he replied, " and if I have 
 sinned against you, from this hour onward I am your friend 
 and champion. Let me try to right the wrong I have done you. 
 I am ready to do it if I can, no matter at what self-abasement. 
 I am eager to do it, and I shall never forgive myself until it is 
 done. What I said was the result of a mistake let me ask 
 your forgiveness." 
 
 " You mean publicly ? " 
 
 " Yes ! At ten o'clock they send for my article for the 
 morning's paper. To-morrow morning I will beg your pardon 
 in public for the public insult I have offered you." 
 
 " You are very good, very brave," she said ; " but 110, I will 
 ask you not to do that."
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 101 
 
 "Ah! I understand. I know it is impossible to overtake a 
 lie. Once started it goes on and on, like a stone rolling down- 
 hill, and even the man who started can never stop it. Tell me 
 what better I can do tell me, tell me." 
 
 Her face was still down, but it had how a new expression 
 of joy. 
 
 " There is one thing you can do, but it is difficult." 
 
 " No matter ! Tell me what it is." 
 
 " I thought when I came here . . . but it is no matter." 
 
 " Tell me, I beg of you." 
 
 He was trying to look into her face again, and she was 
 eluding his gaze as before, but now for another, a sweeter 
 reason. 
 
 " I thought if if you would come to my house when my 
 friends are there, your presence 'as my guest, in the midst of 
 those in whose eyes you have injured me, might be sufficient of 
 itself to wipe out everything. But . . ." 
 
 She waited for his answer with a beating heart, but at first 
 he did not speak, and pretending to put away the idea, she said : 
 
 " But that is impossible : I cannot ask it. I know what it 
 would mean. Such people are pitiless they have no mercy." 
 
 " Is that all? " he said. 
 
 " Then you are not afraid ? " 
 
 " Afraid ! " 
 
 For one moment they looked at each other, and their eyes 
 were shining. She was proud of his power. This was no child 
 after all, but a man ; one who, for a woman's sake, could stand 
 up against all the world. 
 
 " I have thought of something else," she said. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " You have heard that I am a sculptor. I am making a 
 fountain for the Municipality, and if I might carve your face 
 into it . . ." 
 
 " It would be coals of fire on my head." 
 
 " You would need to sit to me." 
 
 "When shall it be?" 
 
 " To-morrow morning to begin with, if that is not too soon." 
 
 " It will be years on years till then," he said. 
 
 She bent her head and blushed. He tried again to look at 
 her beaming eyes and golden complexion, and for sheer joy of 
 being followed up she turned her face away. 
 
 " Forgive me if I have stayed too long," she said, making a 
 feint of opening the door.
 
 102 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I should have grudged every moment if you had gone 
 sooner," he answered. 
 
 " I only wished that you should not think of me with hatred 
 and bitterness." 
 
 " If I ever had such a feeling it is gone." 
 
 " Mine has gone too," she said softly, and again- she pre- 
 pared to go. 
 
 One hook of her cape had got entangled in the silk muslin 
 at her shoulder, and while trying to free it she looked at him, 
 and her look seemed to say, " Will you ? " and his look replied, 
 " May I ? " and at the physical touch a certain impalpable 
 bridge seemed in an instant to cross the space that had divided 
 them. 
 
 " Let me see you to the door ? " he said, and her eyes said 
 openly, "Will you?" 
 
 They walked down the staircase side by side, going step by 
 step, and almost touching. 
 
 " I forgot to give you my address eighteen Trinita de' 
 Monti," she said. 
 
 " Eighteen Trinita de' Monti," he repeated. 
 
 They had reached the second storey. " I am trying to re- 
 member," she said. " After all, I think I have seen you before 
 somewhere." 
 
 " In a dream, perhaps," he answered. 
 
 " Yes," she said. " Perhaps in the dream I spoke about." 
 
 They had reached the street, arid Roma's carriage, a hired 
 coupe, stood waiting a few yards from the door. 
 
 They shook hands, and at the electric touch she raised her 
 head and gave him in the darkness the look he had tried to take 
 in the light. 
 
 " Until to-morrow then," she said. 
 
 " To-morrow 7 morning," he replied. 
 
 " To-morrow morning," she repeated, and again in the eye- 
 asking between them she seemed to say, " Come early, will you 
 not ? there is still so much to say." 
 
 He looked at her with his shining eyes, and something of 
 the boy came back to his world-worn face as he closed the 
 carriage door. 
 
 "Adieu!" 
 
 " Adieu ! " 
 
 She drew up the window, and as the carriage moved away 
 she smiled and bowed through the glass. 
 
 He stood a moment where she had left him, bare-headed in
 
 THE REPUBLIC OF MAN 103 
 
 the piazza under the starlit sky, feeling as if the sun had ceased 
 to shine, and then he turned to go indoors. Bruno in the cafe 
 was singing a song against the Government, and on a seat 
 under an image of the Madonna with an oil lamp burning be- 
 fore it, a young man and a girl were reading their book of 
 dreams. The old Garibaldian lay snoring on his sofa in the 
 lodge, the stairs were silent, the dining-room was empty, and 
 Elena was moving about on the floor above. 
 
 David Rossi went out on to the roof again. He had his 
 leader to write for the morning's journal, and he must try to 
 fix his mind on it. Rome was humming on like a top that sings 
 as it sleeps. The electric lights marked out the line of the 
 Corso, and lay in broad sheets of moonlight splendour over the 
 piazzas at either end, as if the city had been lit up for a ball 
 and then suddenly deserted. Soft, languishing shadows lay 
 below, and the tremulous notes of a mandoline came from 
 some unseen place, with a tenor voice which sang a love song 
 in tones that quavered like a throstle's. 
 
 Under the stars, so bright, so calm, he could think of noth- 
 ing but Roma's steady eyes and enchanting smile. He re- 
 turned to the house, and passing into the sitting-room, a mod- 
 ified perfume hovered about him. The air was full of the sense 
 of a fascinating presence which was gone and yet remained. 
 
 Something white lay on the floor. It was a little lace hand- 
 kerchief, and in the stupefaction of his happiness he put it 
 to his lips, and then left stunned by some sudden thought. 
 
 He was saying to himself, " After all, she is the same as my 
 sister. She was dead and is alive again, she was lost and is 
 found," when a knock came to the door. 
 
 It was the boy from the printing-offiee for his article for 
 to-morrow's paper. 
 
 " Tell the manager this is all I have to-night," he said, and 
 taking an envelope he inserted the signed manuscript of his 
 Creed and Charter.
 
 PART THREE 
 ROMA 
 
 THE Piazza of Trinita de' Monti takes its name from a 
 church and convent which stand on the edge of the Pincian 
 Hill. You pass through it, under the long wall of the convent 
 garden, as you go to the public gardens of the Pincio, where 
 the municipal band plays in the afternoons of winter. Behind 
 the piazza and the church are the broad acres of the Borghese 
 gardens, with their woods of yew and cypress, and- in front of it 
 is the city, from the green slopes of Monte Mario, with its stone 
 pines against the sky, to the old Roman forts at the limits of 
 the outer plains. Palaces, hovels, towers, spires, and domes 
 lie framed as in a picture below, within the long ridge of the 
 Janiculum. 
 
 People come to the piazza in the afternoon to hear the nuns 
 and children of the Sacred Heart sing their office of Benedic- 
 tion, and to watch the sun as it sets in a blaze of gold behind the 
 great dome of St. Peter's, sending streaks of crimson up the 
 narrow streets like the rays of a celestial nimbus. A flight of 
 travertine steps, twisted and curved to mask their height, goes 
 down from the church to a diagonal piazza, the Piazza di 
 Spagna, which is always bright with the roses of flower-sellers, 
 who build their stalls around a fountain. 
 
 At the top of these steps there stands a house, four-square 
 to all winds, and looking every way over Rome. The sun rises 
 and sets on it, the odour of the flowers comes up to it from the 
 piazza, and the music of the band comes down to it from the 
 Pincio. Donna Roma occupied two floors of this house. One 
 floor, the lower one, built on arches and entered from the side 
 of the city, was used as a studio, the other one as a private 
 apartment. 
 
 104
 
 ROMA 105 
 
 Donna Roma's home consisted of ten or twelve rooms on the 
 second floor, opening chiefly out of a central drawing-room 
 which was furnished in red and yellow damask, papered with 
 velvet wall-papers, and lighted by lamps of Venetian glass 
 representing lilies in rose-colour and violet. Her bedroom, 
 which looked to the Quirinal, was like the nest of a bird in its 
 pale-blue satin, with its blue silk counterpane and its em- 
 broidered cushion at the foot of the bed ; and her boudoir, which 
 looked to the Vatican, was full of vases of malachite and the 
 skins of wild animals, and had a bronze clock on the chimney- 
 piece set in a statue of Mephistopheles. The only other 
 occupant of her house, besides her servants, was a distant 
 kinswoman, called her aunt, and known to familiars as the 
 Countess Betsy; but in the studio below, which was connected 
 with the living rooms by a circular staircase, and hung round 
 with masks, busts, and valuable weapons, there was Bruno 
 Rocco, her marble-pointer, the friend and housemate of David 
 Rossi. 
 
 Her porter at the door looked at her, after the manner 
 of his kind, when she drew up in the hired coupe after her 
 visit to the Piazza Navona, but she was in no mood for nice 
 observation, and when her maid, who had scuttled up ahead 
 from her gossiping place in the lodge, said something in the 
 hall about her aunt, the Countess, she did not hear. She went 
 direct to her bedroom, dismissed her maid immediately, and 
 when her dog came pushing his cold nose into her palm she 
 sent him away without a pat. 
 
 Nevertheless she did not go to bed at once, but sat long 
 without undressing, fingering one by one the toilet articles on 
 her dressing-table, and then brushing out her perfumed hair, 
 coiling it up on her head and dropping it down again. The 
 three lights on the Pope's Loggia, which are put out at ten 
 o'clock, were long since gone, the tinkling of the tram-cars 
 had ceased, and silence had descended on the city; when con- 
 sulting her tiny watch, she found that she had sat two hours 
 thinking. 
 
 The woman within had that night suffered a shock. She 
 had gone out proudly, gaily, defiantly, and had come home 
 humiliated, confused, and a little ashamed. But over all other 
 senses there was a certain delicious tenderness, a tingling of 
 warm blood, a current of irresistible attraction which she 
 fought against in vain. 
 
 She slept badly and had a painful dream of her father in 
 8
 
 106 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 heaven watching over his daughter on earth, and knowing all 
 her thoughts and all her doings. This was frightening, and 
 she felt as if she were a criminal and a sinner. All night long 
 she was haunted by big wistful eyes, which seemed to be her 
 father's eyes, and yet turned out to be the eyes of David Rossi. 
 They made her feel as if there were something contemptible 
 about her, and almost as if she were naked. But when she 
 awoke in the morning the sun was streaming into the room, 
 the street calls were coming up from the piazza, and she was 
 able to tear herself away from the cruel impressions. She 
 could smile at the memory of her dream of nakedness and think 
 of the experiences of the night before as of a drama at the 
 theatre which had held her for the time being with a spell. 
 
 When the maid brought in her tea she had recovered control 
 of herself, and everything that happened thereafter helped 
 her to regain possession of the woman she had been yesterday. 
 
 " A person in the hall has brought this letter from his Ex- 
 cellency," said the maid. 
 
 It was a letter from the Baron, sending Felice to be her 
 servant according to his promise. " As you say, he is a treas- 
 ure and sees nothing," wrote the Baron. " Don't look at the 
 newspapers this morning, my child, and if any of them send 
 to you say nothing." 
 
 Roma had scarcely finished her coffee and roll when a lady 
 journalist was announced. It was Lena, the rival of Olga both 
 in literature and love. 
 
 " I'm ' Penelope,' " she said. " ' Penelope ' of the Day, you 
 know. Come to see if you have anything to say in answer to 
 the Deputy Rossi's speech yesterday. Our editor is anxious 
 to give you an opportunity; and if you would like to reply 
 through me to Olga's shameful libels . . . Olga ? ' Fiori/ you 
 know. Haven't you seen her article? Here it is. Disgraceful 
 insinuations ! No lady could allow them to pass unnoticed." 
 
 " Nevertheless," said Roma, " that is what I intend to do. 
 Good-morning ! " 
 
 Lena had barely crossed the doorstep when a more im- 
 portant person drove up. This was the Senator Palomba, 
 Mayor of Rome, a suave, oily man, with little twinkling eyes. 
 
 " Come to offer you my sympathy, my dear ! Scandalous 
 libels. Liberty of the press, indeed ! Disgraceful ! It's in 
 all the newspapers I've brought them with me. One journal 
 actually points at you personally. See * A lady sculptor who 
 has recently secured a commission from the Municipality
 
 ROMA 107 
 
 through the influence of a distinguished person.' Most damag- 
 ing, isn't it ? The elections so near, too ! We must publicly 
 deny the statement. Ah, don't be alarmed ! Only a way out of 
 a nest of hornets. Nothing like diplomacy, you know. Of 
 course the Municipality will buy your fountain just the same, 
 but I thought I would come round and explain before pub- 
 lishing anything. 
 
 Roma said nothing, and the great man backed himself out 
 with the air of one who had conferred a favour, but before 
 going he had a favour to ask in return. 
 
 " It's rumoured this morning, my dear, that the Govern- 
 ment is about to organise a system of secret police and quite 
 right, too. You remember my nephew, Charles Minghelli ? I 
 brought him here when he came from Paris. Well, Charles 
 would like to be at the head of the new force. The very man ! 
 Finds out everything that happens, from the fall of a pin to an 
 attempt at revolution, and if Donna Roma will only say a word 
 for him . . . Thanks ! . . . What a beautiful bust ! Yours, 
 of course ? A masterpiece ! Fit to put beside the masterpieces 
 of old Rome. Council to-day, my dear adieu ! " 
 
 The Mayor was not yet out of the drawing-room when a 
 third visitor was in the hall. It was Madame Sella, a fashion- 
 able modiste, with social pretensions, who contrived to live on 
 terms of quasi-intimacy with her aristocratic customers. 
 
 " Trust I'm not de trop ! I knew you wouldn't mind my 
 calling in the morning. What a scandalous speech of that 
 agitator yesterday! Everybody is talking about it. In fact, 
 people say you will go away. It isn't true, is it ? No ? So 
 glad! So relieved! . . .By the way, my dear, don't trouble 
 about those stupid bills of mine, but . . . I'm giving a little 
 reception next week, and if the Baron would only condescend 
 . . . you'll mention it? A thousand thanks! Good-morning! 
 How charming you look in that simple gown ! Studio sack, 
 of course ! To think that mere alpaca could make any one look 
 so lovely ! " 
 
 " Count Mario," announced Felice, and an effeminate old 
 dandy came tripping into the room. He was Roma's landlord 
 and the Italian ambassador at St. Petersburg. 
 
 " So good of you to see me, Donna Roma. Such an un- 
 canonical hour, too, but I do hope the Baron will not be driven 
 to resign office on account of these malicious slanders. You 
 think not? So pleased! Naturally a Minister is sensitive 
 about attacks on his private life. Anarchists know that, and
 
 108 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 in a country where public opinion is so fickle, it's the oldest 
 political dodge, you know. So much for our liberal institu- 
 tions ! Always helping the agitators who are inciting the peo- 
 ple to the barricades." 
 
 Then stepping to the window, " What a lovely view ! The 
 finest in Rome, and that's the finest in Europe! I'm always 
 saying if it wasn't Donna Roma, I should certainly turn out my 
 tenant and come to live here myself . . . That reminds me of 
 something. I'm . . . well, I'm tired of Petersburg, and I've 
 written to the Minister asking to be transferred to Paris, and 
 if somebody will only whisper a word for me . . . How sweet 
 of you ! Adieu ! " 
 
 Roma was sick of all this insincerity, and feeling bitter 
 against the person who had provoked it, when an unseen hand 
 opened the door of a room on the Pincio side of the draw- 
 ing-room, and the testy voice of her aunt called to her from 
 within. 
 
 The old lady, who had just finished her morning toilet and 
 was redolent of scented soap, reclined in a white robe on a bed- 
 sofa with a gilded mirror on one side of her and a little shrine 
 on the other. Her face was a face of a thousand years ago 
 the face of a Roman empress without its power and her hair, 
 now grey, was still frizzled over her fine head in coquettish 
 curls. Her bony fingers were loaded with loose rings, arid a 
 rosary hung at her wrist. A cat was sitting at her feet, with a 
 gold cross suspended from its ribbon. 
 
 "Ah, is it you at last? You come to me sometimes. 
 Thanks ! " she said in. a withering whimper. " I thought you 
 might have looked in last night, and I lay awake until after 
 midnight." 
 
 " I had a headache and went to bed," said Roma. 
 
 "I never have anything else, but nobody thinks of me," 
 said the old lady, and Roma went over to the window. 
 
 " I suppose you are as headstrong as ever and still intend to 
 invite that man in spite of all my protests ? " 
 
 " He is to sit to me this morning, and may be here at any 
 time," said Roma. 
 
 " Just so ! It's no use speaking. I don't know what girls 
 are coming to. Goodness knows, the world is not so very ex- 
 acting. It only asks that people should govern themselves with 
 an appearance of propriety. When I was young a man like 
 that wouldn't have been allowed to cross the threshold of any 
 decent house in Rome. He would have been locked up in prison
 
 ROMA 109 
 
 instead of sitting for his bust to the ward of the Prime Min- 
 ister." 
 
 " Aunt Betsy," said Eoma, " I want to ask you a question." 
 
 " Be quick, then. My head is coming on as usual. Nata- 
 lina ! Where's Natalina ? " 
 
 " Was there any quarrel between my father and his family 
 before he left home and became an exile ? " 
 
 " Certainy not ! Who said there was ? Quarrel indeed ! 
 His father was broken-hearted, and as for his mother, she 
 closed the gate of the palace, and it was never opened again to 
 the day of her death. The Pope tried to make peace, but your 
 father was like you he was too headstrong. Natalina, give me 
 my smelling salts. And why haven't you brought the cushion 
 for the cat ? " 
 
 " Still, a man has to live his own life, and if my father 
 thought it right . . ." 
 
 " Right ? Do you call it right to break up a family, and, 
 being an only son, to let a title be lost and estates go to the 
 dogs ? " 
 
 " I thought they went to the Baron, auntie." 
 
 " Roma, aren't you ashamed to sneer at me like that ? At 
 the Baron, too, in spite of all his goodness ! As for your father, 
 I'm out of patience. He wasted his wealth and his rank, and 
 left his own flesh and blood to the mercy of others and all for 
 what?" 
 
 " For country, I suppose." 
 
 " For fiddlesticks ! For conceit and vanity and vainglory. 
 Go away. My head is fit to split. Natalina, why haven't you 
 given me my smelling salts? And why will you always for- 
 get to . . ." 
 
 Eoma left the room, but the voice of her aunt scolding the 
 maid followed her down to the studio. 
 
 Her dog was below, and the black poodle received her with 
 noisy demonstrations, but the humorous voice which usually 
 saluted her with a cheery welcome she did not hear. Bruno 
 was there, nevertheless, but silent and morose, and bending over 
 his work with a sulky face. 
 
 She had no difficulty in understanding the change when she 
 looked at her own work. It stood on an easel in a compart- 
 ment of the studio shut off by a glass partition, and was a 
 head of David Rossi which she had roughed out yesterday. 
 Not yet feeling sure which of the twelve apostles around the 
 dish of her fountain was the subject that Rossi should sit for,
 
 HO THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 she had decided to experiment on a bust. It was only a sketch, 
 but it was stamped with the emotions that had tortured her, 
 and it showed her that unconsciously her choice had been made 
 already. Her choice was Judas. 
 
 Last night she had laughed when looking at it, and she had 
 laughed to think how Koine would laugh if the man could be 
 persuaded to sit to his own fool's mirror. But this morning 
 she saw that it was cruel, impossible, and treacherous. It was 
 also false to the character of David Rossi, as she saw him now, 
 and she could forgive Bruno's sulkiness if it came of having 
 seen it. But since Bruno had spied upon her and talked of her 
 to his friend, and since he might talk of her work as she went 
 on with it, for the future she would turn the key on her own 
 part of the studio and thus stop his chatter. 
 
 A touch or two at the clay obliterated the sinister expres- 
 sion, and, being unable to do more until the arrival of her 
 sitter, she sat down to write a letter. 
 
 " MY DEAR BARON, Thanks for Cardinal Felice. He will 
 be a great comfort in this household if only he can keep the 
 peace with Monsignor Bruno, and live in amity with the Arch- 
 bishop of Porter's Lodge. Senator Tom-tit has been here to 
 suggest some astonishing arrangement about my fountain, 
 and to ask me to mention his nephew, Charles Minghelli, as a 
 fit and proper person to be chief of your new department of 
 secret police. Madame de Trop and Count Signorina have 
 also been, but of their modest messages more anon. 
 
 " As for D. R., my barometer is ' set fair,' but it is likely 
 to be a stormier time than I expected. Last night I decked 
 myself in my best bib and tucker, and, in defiance of all prec- 
 edent, went down to his apartment. But the strange thing 
 Avas that whereas I had gone to find out all about him, I hadn't 
 been ten minutes in his company before he told all about me 
 about my father, at all events, and his life in London. I be- 
 lieve he knew me in that connection and expected to appeal to 
 my filial feelings. Did, too, so strong is the force of nature, 
 and then and thereafter, and all night long I was like some- 
 body who had been shaken in an earthquake and wanted to cry 
 out and confess. It was not until I remembered what my 
 father had been or rather hadn't and that he was no more 
 to me than a name, representing exposure to the cruellest fate 
 a girl ever passed through, that I recovered from the shock of 
 D. R.'s dynamite.
 
 ROMA HI 
 
 " He has promised to sit to me for his bust, and is to come 
 this morning! Happily Roma is herself again, so please keep 
 away from her for the present and leave her to deal alone with 
 Pontifex Maximus of the Piazza ISTavona. Affectionately, 
 
 " KOMA. 
 
 " P.S. My gentleman has good features, fine eyes, and a 
 wonderful voice, and though I truly believe he trembles at the 
 sight of a woman and has never been in love in his life, he has 
 an astonishing way of getting at one. But I could laugh to 
 think how little execution his fusillade will make in this di- 
 rection." 
 
 " Honourable Kossi! " said Felice's sepulchral voice behind 
 her, and at that moment David Rossi stepped into the studio. 
 
 II 
 
 IN spite of her protestations, she was nervous and confused, 
 and she talked at random for a while. Putting David Rossi to 
 sit in the arm-chair on the platform for sitters, she rattled on 
 abdut everything her clay, her tools, her sponge, and the 
 water they had forgotten to change for her. He must not mind 
 if she stared at him that wasn't nice but it was necessary and 
 he must promise not to look at her work while it was unfinished 
 children and fools, you know the proverb was musty. 
 
 And while she talked she told herself that Thomas was the 
 apostle he must stand for. These anarchists were all doubters, 
 and the chief of doubters was the figure that would represent 
 them. 
 
 David Rossi did not speak much at first, and he did not join 
 in Roma's nervous laughter. Sometimes he looked at her with 
 a steadfast gaze, which would have been disconcerting if it 
 had not been so simple and childlike. Then his dark eyes would 
 fall with an apologetic expression, and he would sit a long time 
 silent, patting the fluffy head of the dog, which had taken a 
 sudden fancy for him, and was rubbing its nose into his side. 
 At length he looked out of the window to where the city lay 
 basking in the sunshine, and birds were swirling in the clear 
 blue sky, and began to talk of serious subjects. 
 
 " How beautiful ! " he said. " No wonder the English and 
 Americans who come to Italy for health and the pleasure of art
 
 112 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 think it a paradise where every one should be content. And 
 yet . . ." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Under the smile of this God-blessed land there is suffer- 
 ing such as can hardly be found in any other country of the 
 world." 
 
 "Is that so? Really?" 
 
 " Heaven knows I've no great faith in violence, but I don't 
 wonder at outbreaks when I see the poverty of this police- 
 ridden state." 
 
 " Yes, I daresay the taxes . . ." 
 
 " Taxes on the labourer's wages, on his bread, on his salt, on 
 the very air he breathes ! State pawnshops to drain his last 
 drop of blood, and state lotteries to strip him of the last rag 
 of independence ! No wonder if he sinks into every excess and 
 becomes a savage. I never go by a crowded alley, where men 
 are drinking and women are fighting and children crying at 
 their mother's skirts, without wanting to take off my hat to 
 the martyrs of humanity. Sometimes I think I cannot bear it 
 any longer, and must go away, as others have done." 
 
 " Head a little higher, please. Thanks ! Does that mend 
 matters to go away? " 
 
 " Yes, because the angel of exile goes with them. And 
 while their companions who devised plans for turning the 
 world upside down are sloughing their fine theories one by 
 one, or turning their coats for the sake of their pockets, they are 
 sowing the seed in foreign lands exciting the sympathy of the 
 nations by exposing the sores of their country." 
 
 " A little more this way, please thank you ! That doesn't 
 do much for them, does it ? " 
 
 " For them ? ~No ! ' God comfort the poor exiles their 
 path is a bridge of sighs ! ' my old friend used to say. Poor, 
 friendless, forgotten, huddled together in some dingy quarter 
 of a foreign city, one a music-master, another a teacher of lan- 
 guages, a third a supernumerary at a theatre, a fourth an 
 organ-man or even a beggar in the streets, yet weapons in the 
 hand of God and shaking the thrones of the world! " 
 
 " You have seen something of that, haven't you? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " In London ? " 
 
 " Yes. There's an old quarter on the fringe of the fashion- 
 able district. It is called Soho. Densely populated, infested 
 with vice, the very sewer of the city, yet an asylum of liberty
 
 ROMA 113 
 
 for all that. The refugees of Europe fly to it. Its criminals, 
 too, perhaps ; for misery, like poverty, has many bedfellows." 
 
 "You lived there?" 
 
 " Yes. There is a great public library not far away the 
 British Museum. It is the daily haunt of the exiles. They 
 are sure of a seat and warmth in winter comforts often de- 
 nied at home. I can see them still under the big blue dome. 
 A shabby coat here, a shiny hat there, a quaint figure over yon- 
 der. Dreaming dreams they are never to see realised, living 
 on, hoping, buoying themselves up with visions. One day a 
 place is empty. Where's old Giuseppe? Nobody knows. At 
 last somebody hears that on Sunday afternoon an unknown 
 man fell dead in Battersea Park. He was taken away by the 
 police, and then the crowd in Sunday clothes, smoking and 
 promenading, went on." 
 
 Roma was wiping her fingers with the sponge, and looking 
 sideways out of the window. " Your old friend, Doctor Roselli 
 ... he lived a life like that ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " He lived in Soho ? " 
 
 " In Soho Square when I knew him first. The house faced 
 to the north and had a porch and trees in front of it." 
 
 Roma was still wiping her fingers as with an unconscious 
 movement. 
 
 " The surgery was on the left of the hall, I remember. It 
 was a cosy room and always had a fire in winter. The stairs 
 went up towards the south, and on the first landing there were 
 two doors. One was to the bedroom of the doctor's little 
 daughter, the other was to a small conservatory fitted as a cage 
 for birds. There were twenty or thirty of them, all canaries, 
 and as soon as the sun rose on the glass roof they began to 
 sing. The child must have heard them when she awoke in the 
 morning." 
 
 The sponge had dropped to the floor, but Roma did not 
 observe it. She took up a tooth-tool and began to work on the 
 clay again. 
 
 " A little more that way, please thanks ! Do you think 
 your friend had a right to renounce his rank and to break up 
 his family in Italy ? Think of his father he would be broken- 
 hearted." 
 
 " He was I've heard my old friend say so. He cursed 
 him at last and forbade him to call himself his son." 
 
 "There!"
 
 114 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " But he would never hear a word against the old man. 
 ' He's my father that's enough,' he would say." 
 
 The tooth-tool, like the sponge, dropped out of Roma's 
 fingers. 
 
 " How stupid ! But his mother . . ." 
 
 " That was sadder still. In the early years of his exile she 
 would pray him to come home. ' You are the best of mothers/ 
 he would answer, ' but I cannot do so.' She used to correspond 
 with him secretly, sending him money and clothes. He shared 
 the money with his fellow-exiles and pawned the clothes to buy 
 them bread." 
 
 " He never saw her again ? " 
 
 " Xever, but he worshipped her very name. It was Roma, 
 I remember, and she was a tower of strength to him. 
 ' Mothers ! ' he used to say, ' if you only knew your power ! God 
 be merciful to the wayward one who has no mother ! ' ' 
 
 Roma's throat was throbbing. " He ... he was mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 " Yes. His wife was an Englishwoman, almost as friend- 
 less as himself." 
 
 " Eyes the other way, at the window thank you ! . . . Did 
 she know who he was ? " 
 
 " Nobody knew. He was only a poor Italian doctor to all of 
 us in Soho." 
 
 " They . . . they were . . . happy ? " 
 
 " As happy as love and friendship could make them. And 
 even when poverty came . . ." 
 
 " He became poor very poor ? " 
 
 " Very ! It got known that Doctor Roselli w r as a revolu- 
 tionary, and then his English patients began to be afraid. The 
 house in Soho Square had to be given up at last, and we went 
 into a side street. Only two rooms now, one to the front, the 
 other to the back, and four of us to live in them, but the misery 
 of that woman's outward circumstances never dimmed the radi- 
 ance of her sunny soul. She was an angel, God bless her! " 
 
 Roma's bosom was heaving and her voice was growing 
 thick. "She . . . died?" 
 
 David Rossi bent his head and spoke in short, jerky sen- 
 tences. " Her death came at the bitterest moment of want. 
 It was Christmas time. Very cold and raw. We hadn't too 
 much at home to keep us warm. She caught a cold and it 
 settled on her chest. Pneumonia ! Only three or four days al- 
 together. She lay in the back-room; it was quieter. The doc-
 
 ROMA 115 
 
 tor nursed her constantly. How she fought for life ! She was 
 thinking of her little daughter. Just six years of age at that 
 time, and playing with her doll on the floor." 
 
 His voice had enough to do to control itself. 
 
 " When it was all over we went into the front room and 
 made our beds on a blanket spread out on the bare boards. 
 Only three of us now the child with her father, weeping for 
 the mother lying cold the other side of the wall." 
 
 His eyes were still looking out at the window. In Roma's 
 eyes the tears were gathering. 
 
 " We were nearly penniless, but our good angel was buried 
 somehow. Oh, the poor are the richest people in the world ! I 
 love them ! I love them ! " 
 
 He put his hand to his head. Roma could not look at him 
 any longer. 
 
 " It was in the cemetery of Kensal Green. There was a 
 London fog and the grave-diggers worked by torches, which 
 smoked in the thick air. But the doctor stood all the time with 
 his head uncovered. The child was there too, and driving home 
 she looked out of the window and sometimes laughed at the 
 sights in the streets. Only six and she had never been in a 
 coach before ! " 
 
 At that moment was heard the boom of the gun that is fired 
 from the Castle of St. Angelo at midday, and she put down her 
 tools. 
 
 " If you don't mind, I'll not try to do any more to-day," she 
 said, in a husky voice. " Somehow it isn't coming right this 
 morning. It's like that sometimes. But if you can come at 
 this time to-morrow . . ." 
 
 " With pleasure," said David Rossi, and a moment later he 
 was gone. 
 
 She looked at her work and obliterated the expression 
 again. 
 
 " Not Thomas," she thought. " John the beloved dis- 
 ciple! That would fit him exactly. His mind was like a pal- 
 ace that is less beautiful in itself than for some monument of 
 the past that is preserved within it." 
 
 Her father ! She could see his reverent head ! The picture 
 was not the one she had been taught to think about, but how 
 clear, how real ! 
 
 As she went upstairs to dress for lunch, Felice gave her an 
 envelope bearing the seal of the Prime Minister, and told her 
 the dog was missing.
 
 116 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " He must have followed Mr. Rossi," said Roma, and with- 
 out ado she read the letter. 
 
 " DEAR ROMA, A thousand thanks for suggesting Charles 
 Minghelli. I sent for him, saw him, and appointed him im- 
 mediately. Thanks, too, for the clew about your father. 
 Highly significant ! I mentioned it to Minghelli, and the dark 
 fire in his eyes shone out instantly. It was light in a dark place, 
 illuminating something he knew before. A propos, your Pon- 
 tifex Maximus of Piazza Navona has published a Bull, which 
 he calls his ' Creed and Charter.' Full of mummery as old as 
 the Vatican, and as near to extinction. If any poor Prime 
 Ministers are to be saved it will be so as by fire. I crossed myself 
 twenty times while reading it. Adieu, my dear! You are on 
 the right track ! I will observe your request and not come near 
 you. I will not even ask you here, although the echoes of my 
 old house will be constantly crying ' Roma ! ' Affectionately, 
 
 " BONELLI." 
 
 Ill 
 
 NEXT morning Roma found herself dressing with extraordi- 
 nary care. Her lovely figure showed full and round in the long 
 alpaca sack which she wore in the studio, and a light silk coif 
 threw out the dark curling locks of her graceful head. But her 
 heart was a maze of many voices. She could not tell which of 
 them to listen to the unfamiliar voices that came with a fluid 
 tenderness from deep places, or the bitterer ones that were 
 always rising in her throat. 
 
 After coffee she went into the Countess's room as usual. 
 The old lady had made her toilet and her cat was purring on a 
 cushion by her side. 
 
 " Ah," is it you again ? You're so busy downstairs that I 
 wonder I even see anything of you now." 
 
 " Aunt Betsy, is it true that my father was decoyed back to 
 Italy by the police ? " 
 
 " How do I know that ? But if he was, it was no more than 
 he might have expected. He had been breeding sedition at the 
 safe distance of a thousand miles, and it was time he was 
 brought to justice. Besides . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " There were the estates, and naturally the law could not
 
 ROMA 117 
 
 assign them to anybody else, while there was no judgment 
 against your father." 
 
 " So my father was enticed back to Italy in the interests of 
 the next of kin ? " 
 
 " Korna ! How dare you talk like that ? About your best 
 friend, too ! " 
 
 " I didn't say anything against the Baron, did I ? " 
 
 " You would be an ungrateful girl if you did. As for your 
 father, I'm tired of talking. Only for his exile you would have 
 had possession of your family estates at this moment, and been 
 a princess in your own right." 
 
 " Only for his exile I shouldn't have been here at all, 
 auntie, and somebody else would have been the princess, it 
 seems to me." 
 
 The old lady dropped the perfumed handkerchief that was 
 at her nose and said : 
 
 " What do you talk about downstairs all day long, miss ? 
 Pretty thing if you allow a man like that to fill you with his 
 fictions. He is a nice person to take your opinions from, and 
 you are a nice girl to stand up for a man who sold you into 
 slavery, as I might say ! Have you forgotten the baker's shop 
 in London or was it a pastry-cook's, or what? where they 
 made you a drudge and a scullery-maid, after your father had 
 given you away ? " 
 
 " Don't speak so loud, Aunt Betsy." 
 
 " Then don't worry me by defending such conduct. Ah, 
 how my head aches ! Natalina, where are my smelling salts ? 
 Natalina ! " 
 
 " I'm not defending my father, but still . . ." 
 
 " Should think not indeed ! If it hadn't been for the Baron, 
 who went in search of you, and found you after you had run 
 away and been forced to go back to your slave-master, and then 
 sent you to school in Paris, and now permits you to enjoy half 
 the revenues of your father's estates, and forbids us to say a 
 word about his- generosity, where would you be? Madonna 
 mia? In the streets of London, perhaps, to which your father 
 had consigned you ! " 
 
 And the old lady shuddered as if she had peered down the 
 mouth of a crater. 
 
 " How did the Baron prevail upon my slave-master, as you 
 say, to part with me? He was no fool, and if he knew who I 
 was, and who my father had been . . ." 
 
 " Oh, don't ask me. Natalina ! . . . The Baron's no fool
 
 118 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 either, and he did it somehow. He cut away that English 
 connection completely, and now the mire and slime of your 
 father's life troubles you no more. Ah, you come sometimes, 
 Natalina ! Why do you put everything . . . What has become 
 of ... Will you never learn to . . ." 
 
 The Princess Bellini was waiting for Roma when she re- 
 turned to the drawing-room. The little lady was as friendly as 
 if nothing unusual had occurred. 
 
 " Just going for my walk in the Corso, my dear. You'll 
 come ? No ? Ah, work, work, work ! Well, I've got my work, 
 too. Every day something a concert, a conference, a charity 
 meeting, or a public function and then the omniscient and 
 omnipresent dressmaker, you know. I want to call at Treves' 
 for the new novel. Delightfully scandalous, I hear ! Talking 
 of that, how clever of you, my dear ! " 
 
 The little lady tapped Roma's arm with her pince-nez and 
 laughed. 
 
 " Everybody has heard that he is sitting to you, and every- 
 body understands. That reminds me I've a box at the new 
 opera to-morrow night : ' Samson ' at the Costanzi, you know. 
 Only Gi-gi and myself, but if you would like me to take you 
 and to ask your own particular Samson . . ." 
 
 Roma, with her eyes down, muttered something about the 
 Countess. 
 
 " Oh, I'll see to that," said the Princess. " The dear old 
 lady forgets her own young days, when she ran away w T ith the 
 little lieutenant who robbed her of her jewels, and left her 
 without husband or lover, or a penny to bless herself with." 
 
 " Honourable Rossi," said Felice at the door, and David 
 Rossi entered the room, with the black poodle bounding before 
 him. 
 
 " I must apologise for not sending back the dog," he said. 
 " It followed me home yesterday, but I thought as I was com- 
 ing to-day . . ." 
 
 " Black has quite deserted me since Mr. Rossi appeared," 
 said Roma, and then she introduced the deputy to the Princess. 
 
 The little lady was effusive. " I was just saying, Honour- 
 able Rossi, that if you would honour my box at the opera to- 
 night . . ." 
 
 David Rossi glanced at Roma. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Donna Roma is coming, and if you will . . ." 
 
 " With pleasure, Princess." 
 
 " That's charming ! After the opera we'll have supper at
 
 ROMA 119 
 
 the Grand Hotel. Good-day ! " said the Princess, and then in a 
 low voice at the door, " I leave you to your delightful duties, 
 my dear. You are not looking so well, though. Must be the 
 scirocco. My poor dear husband used to suffer from it shock- 
 ingly. Adieu ! " 
 
 Roma was less confused but just as nervous when she settled 
 to her work afresh, and as often as David Rossi looked at her 
 with his dark, wistful eyes under their long black lashes, she 
 heard that voice of fluid tenderness speaking to her again. 
 Nevertheless the other woman in her heart fought hard, re- 
 fusing to be caught like a sentimental simpleton in the current 
 of personal attraction. 
 
 " I've been thinking all night long of the story you told me 
 yesterday," she said. " No, that way, please eyes as before 
 thank you! About your old friend, I mean. He was a good 
 man I don't doubt that but he made everybody suffer. Not 
 only his father and mother, but his wife also. Has anybody a 
 right to sacrifice his flesh and blood to a work for the world ? " 
 
 " Christ did it," said David Rossi. " There never was a 
 martyr to country or religion but had to sacrifice the individual 
 to the universal. When a man has taken up a mission for 
 humanity his kindred must reconcile themselves to that." 
 
 " Yes, but a child, one who cannot be consulted, yet has to 
 suffer all the same. Your friend's daughter, for example. She 
 was to lose everything her father himself at last. How could 
 he love her ? I suppose you would say he did love her." 
 
 "Love her? He lived for her. She was everything on 
 earth to him, except the one thing to which he had dedicated 
 his life." 
 
 A half smile parted her lovely lips. 
 
 " When her mother was gone he was like a miser who had 
 been robbed of all his jewels but one, and the love of father, 
 mother, and wife seemed to gather itself up in the child." 
 
 The lovely lips had a doubtful curve. 
 
 " How bright she was, too ! I can see her still in the dingy 
 London house with her violet eyes and coal-black hair and 
 happy ways a gloam of the sun from our sunny Italy." 
 
 She looked at him. His face was calm and solemn. Did he 
 really know her after all ? She felt her cheeks flush and tingle. 
 
 " And yet he left her behind to come to Italy on a hopeless 
 errand," she said. 
 
 " He did." 
 
 " How could he know what would happen? "
 
 120 THBJ UTEKJXAL CITY 
 
 " He couldn't, and that troubled him most of all. He lived 
 in constant fear of being taken away from his daughter before 
 her little mind was stamped with the sense of how much he 
 loved her. Delicious selfishness! Yet it was not altogether 
 selfish. The world was uncharitable and cruel, and in the 
 rough chance of life it might even happen that she would be led 
 to believe that because her father gave her away, and left her, 
 he did not love her. That would be terrible to her, too ! " 
 
 Koma looked up again. His face was still calm and solemn. 
 
 " He gave her away, you say ? " 
 
 " Yes. When the treacherous letter came from Italy he 
 could not resist it. It was like a cry from the buried-alive 
 calling upon him to break down the door of their tomb. But 
 what could he do with the child? To take her with him was 
 impossible. A neighbour came a fellow countryman he kept 
 a baker's shop in the Italian quarter. ' I'm only a poor man,' 
 he said, ' but I've got a little daughter of the same age as yours, 
 and two sticks will burn better than one. Give the child to me 
 and do as your heart bids you ! ' It was like a light from 
 heaven. He saw his way at last." 
 
 Roma listened with head aside. The years of her childhood 
 were swarming back on her. 
 
 " One day he took the child and washed her pretty face and 
 combed her glossy hair, telling her she was going to see another 
 little girl and would play with her always. And the child was 
 in high glee and laughed and chattered and knew no difference. 
 It was evening when we set out for the stranger's house, and in 
 the twilight of the little streets happy-hearted mothers were 
 calling to their children to come in to go to bed. The Doctor 
 sent me into a shop to buy a cake for the little one, and she ate 
 it as she ran and skipped by her father's side." 
 
 Roma was holding her breath. Every word seemed to waken 
 a memory and to reveal a track that had been long years lost. 
 
 " The baker's shop was poor but clean, and his own little girl 
 was playing on the hearthrug with her cups and saucers. And 
 before we were aware of it two little tongues were cackling and 
 gobbling together, and the little back parlour was rippling over 
 with a merry twitter. The Doctor stood and looked down at 
 the children, and his eyes shone with a glassy light. ' You are 
 very good, sir,' he said, ' but she is good, too, and she'll be 
 a great comfort and joy to you always.' And the man said, 
 ' She'll be as right as a trivet, Doctor, and you'll be right too 
 you'll be made triumvir like Mazzini, when the republic is pro-
 
 ROMA 121 
 
 claimed, and then you'll send for the child, and for me, too, I 
 daresay.' But I could see that the Doctor was not listening. 
 ' Let us slip away now,' I said, and we stole out somehow." 
 
 Roma's eyes were moistening, and the little tool was trem- 
 bling in her hand. 
 
 " I led him through the dark streets home, but when we got 
 there the rooms were so lonely and silent. He found a broken 
 doll on the floor, I remember, and the pain of that little me- 
 mento of the child was almost too much for him. He wanted 
 to keep it, and lock it away, yet he wanted to give it back too. 
 It was the old struggle over again the child and his country, 
 the doll and the child." 
 
 The tears that had gathered in Roma's eyes were flowing 
 frankly. She permitted them to flow. 
 
 " Nothing would serve at last but he must take it back to 
 the little one, so we returned to the baker's shop. The child 
 had gone to bed by that time. Would he go upstairs and take 
 a last look at her asleep ? No, thank you, he didn't think he 
 would, but I could see that his throat was throbbing. So he 
 stood at the street door, and lowering his voice, as if the sleep- 
 ing child might hear, he said, l Give her this when she awakes 
 in the morning it will comfort her, poor thing ! ' And like a 
 guilty one he hurried away." 
 
 There was silence for some moments, and then from with- 
 out, muffled by the walls it passed through, there came the 
 sound of voices. The nuns and children of Trinita de' Monti 
 were singing their Benediction Ora pro nobis! 
 
 " I don't think I'll do any more to-day," said Roma. " The 
 light is failing me, and my eyes . . ." 
 
 " The day after to-morrow, then," said Rossi, rising. 
 
 " But do you really wish to go to the opera to-morrow 
 night?" 
 
 He looked steadfastly into her face and answered " Yes." 
 
 She understood him perfectly. He had sinned against her 
 and he meant to atone. She could not trust herself to look at 
 him, so she took the damp cloth and turned to cover up the 
 clay. When she turned back he was gone. 
 
 She went up to her bedroom and lay face downward on the 
 bed. The sweet, pure voices of the children followed her. Ora 
 pro nol>is! Ora pro nobis! 
 
 When she rose the struggle was over. A dead body of hate 
 which she had carried in her heart for years had fallen away. 
 She had buried it. It was gone. The church bells were strik- 
 9
 
 122 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 ing the first hour of night, but it seemed to her like the first 
 hour of day. 
 
 After dinner she replied to the Baron's letter of the day 
 before. 
 
 " DEAR BARON, I have misgivings about being on the right 
 track, and feel sorry you have set Minghelli to work so soon. 
 Do Prime Ministers appoint people at the mere mention of 
 their names by wards, second cousins, and lady friends gener- 
 ally? Wouldn't it have been wise to make inquiries? What 
 was the fault for which Minghelli was dismissed in London? 
 A Secretary of Legation is a biggish person to be dismissed so 
 suddenly. And now that I come to think of it, I thought his 
 face forbidding, dark, close, saturnine, with the nose of an 
 eagle and the eyes of a fox. 
 
 " As for D. R., I must have been mistaken about his know- 
 ing me. He doesn't seem to know me at all, and I believe his 
 shot at me by way of my father was a fluke. At all events, I'm 
 satisfied that it is going in the wrong direction to set Minghelli 
 on his trail. Leave him to me alone. Yours, 
 
 " EOMA. 
 
 " P.S. Princess Potiphar and Don Saint Joseph are to 
 take me to the new opera to-morrow night. D. R. is also to be 
 there, so he will be seen with me in public ! 
 
 " I have begun work on King David for a bust. He is not 
 so wonderfully good-looking when you look at him closely." 
 
 IV 
 
 THE little Princess called for Roma the following night, and 
 they drove to the opera in her magnificent English carriage. 
 Already the theatre was full and the orchestra was tuning up. 
 With the movement of people arriving and recognising each 
 other there was an electrical atmosphere which affected every- 
 body. Don Camillo came, oiled and perfumed, and when he 
 had removed the cloaks of the ladies and they took their places 
 in the front of the box, there was a slight tingling all over the 
 house. This pleased the little Princess immensely, and she 
 began to sweep the place with her opera-glass. 
 
 " Crowded already ! " she said. " And every face looking 
 up at my box ! That's what it is to have for your companion 
 Ihe most beautiful and the most envied girl in Rome. What
 
 ROMA 123 
 
 a sensation! Nothing to what it will be, though, when your 
 illustrious friend arrives." 
 
 At that moment David Kossi appeared at the back, and the 
 Princess welcomed him effusively. 
 
 " So glad ! So honoured ! Gi-gi, let me introduce you 
 Honourable Rossi, Don Camillo Luigi Murelli." 
 
 Roma looked at him- he had an air of distinction in a 
 dress coat such as comes to one man in a thousand. He 
 looked at Roma she wore a white gown with violets on one 
 shoulder and two rows of pearls about her beautiful white 
 throat. The Princess looked at both of them, and her little 
 eyes twinkled. 
 
 " Never been here before, Mr. Rossi ? Then you must allow 
 me to explain everything. Take this chair between Roma and 
 myself. No, you must not sit back. You can't mind observa- 
 tion so used to it, you know." 
 
 Without further ado David Rossi took his place in front of 
 the box, and then a faint commotion passed over the house. 
 There were looks of surprise and whispered comments, and 
 even some trills of laughter. 
 
 He bore it without flinching, as if he had come for it and 
 expected it, and was taking it as a penance for a fault. 
 
 Roma dropped her head and felt ashamed, but the little 
 Princess went on talking. " These long boxes on each side 
 of the stage are called Barcaccie. The one on the left is kept 
 for officers, you see, and the one on the right for gentlemen of 
 society without ladies. These boxes 011 the first tier are occu- 
 pied by Roman society generally, those on the second tier 
 mainly by the diplomatic corps, and the stalls are filled by all 
 sorts and conditions of people political people, literary peo- 
 ple, even tradespeople if they're rich enough or can pretend 
 to be." 
 
 " And the upper circles ? " asked Rossi. 
 
 " Oh," in a tired voice, " professional people, I think 
 Collegio Romano and University of Rome, you know." 
 
 "And the gallery?" 
 
 " Students, I suppose." Then eagerly, after bowing to 
 somebody below, " Gi-gi, there's Lu-lu. Don't forget to ask 
 him to supper. . . . All the beautiful young men of Rome are 
 here to-night, Mr. Rossi, and presently they'll pay a round of 
 calls on the ladies in the boxes." 
 
 Again the Princess bowed to somebody below, and said in a 
 lively voice, " Roma, there's Count Ooriolanus . . . We call
 
 124 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 him the first sword of Italy, Mr. Rossi. He has fought thirty- 
 three duels, and as that is exactly the number of the years of 
 our Lord . . ." 
 
 The voice of the Princess was suddenly drowned by the 
 sharp tap of the conductor, followed by the opening blast of the 
 overture. Then the lights went down and the curtain rose, but 
 still the audience kept up a constant movement in the lower 
 regions of the house, and there was an almost unbroken chat- 
 ter. Only at certain moments was there a short hush, and then 
 the low hum of gossip began again. 
 
 The curtain fell on the first act without anybody knowing 
 what the opera had been about, except that Samson loved a 
 woman named Delilah, and the lords of the Philistines were 
 tempting her to betray him. Students in the gallery, recognis- 
 able by their thin beards, shouted across at each other for the 
 joy of shouting, and spoke by gestures to their professors below. 
 People all over the house talked gaily on social subjects, and 
 there was much opening and shutting of the doors of boxes. 
 The beautiful young man called Lu-lu came to pay his re- 
 spects to the Princess, and there was a good deal of gossip and 
 laughter. 
 
 Meantime David Rossi sat silent, and at length Roma spoke 
 to him. 
 
 " I'm afraid you think our audiences very ill-mannered," 
 she said. 
 
 " The humblest audience in Trastevere, Whitechapel, or the 
 Bowery would behave better," he answered. 
 
 And then Don Camillo bit his lips and said : 
 
 " Excellent idea to make Samson the hero of an opera ! 
 Exactly in the spirit of the times, you know ! Everything has 
 to be on a large scale nowadays nations, empires, wars, every- 
 thing ! The Pope himself knew that when he dreamed of the 
 Holy Roman Empire, and if you are only starting a penny ton- 
 tine that must be big too. It must be international, you know ; 
 it must take the name of humanity, and its creed and charter 
 must be a sort of world-political testament. Oh, it would be 
 quite unfashionable not to be afflicted with megalomania in 
 these days, and I only hope," with a look at the little Princess, 
 " that the craze for big things will mercifully stop before it 
 affects us with big women." 
 
 But the effect of the speech was a little spoilt by an incident 
 which created more sensation than the opera. This was the 
 arrival of the Prime Minister, whose appearance provoked some
 
 ROMA 125 
 
 applause, which was succeeded by further glances at the Prin- 
 cess's box, and even some audible tittering 1 . 
 
 The second act was more dramatic than the first, showing 
 Samson in his character as a warrior, and when the curtain 
 came down again, General Morra, the Minister of War, visited 
 the Princess's box. 
 
 " So you're taking lessons in the art of war from the profes- 
 sor who slew an army with the jaw-bone of an ass? " said Don 
 Camillo. 
 
 " Wish we could enlist a few thousands of him jaw-bones 
 as well," said the General. " The gentleman might be worth 
 having at the War Office, if it was only as a jettatura." 
 
 " But I thought you had evil eyes enough at Monte Citorio, 
 judging by the storm of newspapers always beating down on 
 you. Aren't they telling you that your militarism will destroy 
 itself by its own strength, as our friend Samson is going to 
 do presently ? " 
 
 " Militarism is not the only thing that is to come to an end, 
 it seems," said the General. 
 
 " Oh, no ! In the millennium that is coming there are to be 
 no operas, no arts, no balls, no anything. These millenna- 
 rians are merciless they leave us nothing nowadays but some 
 acres in Arcadia and a cow." 
 
 " Don't let us think of it," laughed the Princess. " The 
 Roman soul shudders at 1he prospect. I'm going to buy a 
 big candle for the Madonna at St. Agostino's and ask her 
 to protect us." 
 
 " Sleep well ! These days will pass," said the General, ris- 
 ing. And then in a low voice to the Princess, with a glance 
 at Roma, " Your beautiful young friend doesn't look so well 
 to-night." 
 
 The Princess shrugged her shoulders. " Of the pains of 
 love one suffers but does not die." she whispered. 
 
 " You surely cannot mean . . ." 
 
 The Princess put the tip of her fan to his lips and laughed. 
 
 David Rossi spoke little, and as often as Roma looked at 
 him the natural buoyancy of her nature sank under a sense of 
 shame. He was going through this penance for her sake. He 
 could crush these butterflies in the palm of his hand, yet he 
 was submitting in silence to their innuendoes. 
 
 Roma was conscious of a strange conflict of feelings. The 
 triumph she had promised herself by David Rossi's presence 
 with her in public the triumph over the envious ones who
 
 126 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 would have rejoiced in her downfall brought her no pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 The third act dealt with the allurements of Delilah, and was 
 received with a good deal of laughter. 
 
 " Ah, these sweet, round, soft things they can do anything 
 they like with the giants," said Don Camillo. " Talk of woman 
 being unrecognised by the laws she makes them ! And in the 
 lists of Ministers of every civilised state women's names ought 
 to be everywhere, Minister of the Interior Donna Delilah. 
 Minister of Finance . . ." 
 
 " Gi-gi ! " protested the Princess, but she was choking with 
 laughter. 
 
 The Baron, who had dined with the King, came round at the 
 end of the act, wearing a sash diagonally across his breast, with 
 crosses, stars, and other decorations. He bowed to David Rossi 
 with ceremonious politeness, greeted Don Camillo familiarly, 
 kissed the hand of the Princess, and offered his arm to Roma to 
 take her into the corridor to cool she was flushed and over- 
 heated. 
 
 " I see you are getting on, my child ! Excellent idea to 
 bring him here ! Everybody is saying you cannot be the per- 
 son he intended, so his trumpet has brayed to no purpose." 
 
 " You received my letters? " she said in a faltering voice. 
 
 " Yes, but don't be uneasy. I'm neither the prophet nor 
 the son of a prophet if we are not on the right track. What 
 a fortunate thought about the man Minghelli ! An inspira- 
 tion ! You asked what his fault was in London forgery, my 
 dear ! " 
 
 " That's serious enough, isn't it ? " 
 
 " In a Secretary of Legation, yes, but in a police agent . . ." 
 
 He laughed significantly, and she felt her skin creep. 
 
 " Has he found out anything < " she asked. 
 
 " Not yet, but he is clearly on the trace of great things. It 
 is nearly certain that your King David is a person wanted by 
 the law." 
 
 Her hand twitched at his arm, but they were turning at the 
 end of the corridor and she pretended to trip over her train. 
 
 " Some clues missing still, however, and to find them we 
 are sending Minghelli to London." 
 
 " London ? Anything connected with my father ? " 
 
 " Possibly ! We shall see. But there's the orchestra and 
 here's your box ! You're wonderful, my dear ! Already you've 
 undone the mischief he did you, and one half of your task is
 
 ROMA 127 
 
 accomplished. Diplomatists ! Pshaw ! We'll all have to go to 
 school to a girl ! Adieu ! " 
 
 All through the next act Roma seemed to feel a sting on her 
 arm where the Baron had touched it, and she was conscious of 
 colouring up when the Princess said : 
 
 " Everybody is looking this way, my dear ! See what it is 
 to be the most talked of girl in Rome ! " 
 
 And then she felt David Rossi's hand on the back of her 
 chair, and heard his soft voice saying : 
 
 " The light is in your eyes, Donna Roma. Let me change 
 places with you for a while." 
 
 After that everything passed in a kind of confusion. She 
 heard somebody say : 
 
 " He's putting a good deal of heart into it, poor thing ! " 
 
 And somebody answered, " Yes, of broken-heart appar- 
 ently." 
 
 Then there was a crash and the opera was over, and she was 
 going out in a crowd on David Rossi's arm, and feeling as if 
 she would fall if she dropped it. 
 
 The magnificent English carriage drew up under the portico 
 and all four of them got into it. 
 
 " Grand Hotel ! " cried Don Camillo. Then dropping back 
 to his place he laughed and chanted : 
 
 " And the dead he slew at his death were more than he slew 
 in his life . . . and he judged Israel twenty years." 
 
 V 
 
 A MARSHY air from the Campagna shrouded the city as with 
 a fog, and pierced through the closed windows of the carriage, 
 but there was warmth and glow in the Grand Hotel. Passing 
 through an outer room under a glass roof where men (and some 
 women) sat smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee, the company 
 came to an inner restaurant, decorated in white and gold, and 
 blazing with electric lights and many mirrors. About little 
 round tables small groups were already gathered, and fresh 
 parties were constantly arriving. 
 
 One woman after another came in clothed in diamonds 
 under the fur cloak which hung over her bare arms and 
 shoulders, until the room was a dazzling blaze of jewels. As 
 each party entered their names were whispered by those who 
 were already seated, and the newcomers carried themselves with 
 the air of persons conscious of observation.
 
 128 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 People caught each other's eyes through lorgnettes and 
 eyeglasses, and there were constant salutations. The men 
 chattered, the women laughed, and there was an affectation of 
 baby-talk at nearly every table. Then supper was served, 
 glasses were held up as signals, and bright eyes began to play 
 about the room, until the atmosphere was tingling with electric 
 currents and heated by human passion. 
 
 Roma sat facing the Princess. She was still confused and 
 pre-occupied, but when rallied upon her silence she brightened 
 up for a moment and tried to look buoyant and happy. David 
 Rossi, who was on her left, was still quiet and collected, but 
 bore the same air as before of a man going through a penance. 
 
 This was observed by Don Camillo, who sat on the right 
 of the Princess, and led to various little scenes. 
 
 " Very good company here, Mr. Rossi. Always sure of 
 seeing some beautiful young women," said Don Camillo. 
 
 " And beautiful young men, apparently," said David Rossi. 
 
 The beautiful young man called Lu-lu was there, and reach- 
 ing over to Don Camillo, and speaking in a whisper between 
 the. puff of a cigarette and a sip of coffee, he said : 
 
 " Why doesn't the Minister buy the man up ? Easy enough 
 to buy the press these days." 
 
 " He's doing better than that," said Don Camillo. " He's 
 drawing him from opposition by the allurements of . . ." 
 
 "Office?" 
 
 " No, the lady," whispered Don Camillo, but Roma heard 
 him. 
 
 She was ashamed. The innuendoes which belittled David 
 Rossi were belittling herself as well, and she wanted to get up 
 and fly. 
 
 Rossi himself seemed to be xmconscious of anything hurt- 
 ful. Although silent, he was calm and cheerful, and his man- 
 ner was natural and polite. The wife of one of the royal aides- 
 de-camp sat next to him, and talked constantly of the King. 
 The King liked a ride every morning, and one member of the 
 Court had to be ready to go out with him at ten o'clock. That 
 was her husband's work, and he was on duty two weeks in every 
 two months. 
 
 Roma found herself listening to every word that was said 
 to David Rossi, but she also heard a conversation that was 
 going on at the other end of the table. 
 
 "Wants to be another Cola di Rienzi, doesn't he?" said 
 Lu-lu.
 
 ROMA 129 
 
 " Another Christ," said Don Camillo. " He'll be asking for 
 a crown of thorns by and by, and calling on the world to 
 immolate him for the sake of humanity. Look ! He's talking 
 to the little Baroness, but he is fifteen thousand miles above 
 the clouds at this moment." 
 
 "Where does he come from, I wonder?" said Lu-lu, and 
 then the two hands of Don Camillo played the invisible ac- 
 cordion. 
 
 " Madame de Trop says his father was Master of the House 
 to Prince Petrolium vice-prince, you know, and brought up 
 in the little palace," said the Princess. 
 
 " Don't believe a word of it," said Don Camillo, " and I'll 
 wager he never supped at a decent hotel before." 
 
 " I'll ask him ! Listen now ! Some fun," said the Princess. 
 " Honourable Rossi ! " 
 
 " Yes, Princess," said David Rossi. 
 
 The eyes of the little Princess swept the table with a 
 sparkling light. 
 
 " Beautiful room, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Beautiful." 
 
 " Never been here before, I suppose ? " 
 
 David Rossi looked steadfastly into her eyes and answered, 
 " Oh, yes, Princess. When I first returned to Italy eight years 
 ago I was a waiter in this house for a month." 
 
 The sparkling face of the little Princess broke up like a 
 snowball in the sun, and the two other men dropped their heads. 
 
 Roma hardly knew what her own feelings were. Humilia- 
 tion, shame, confusion, but above all, pride pride in David 
 Rossi's courage and strength. 
 
 The white mist from the Campagna pierced to the bone as 
 they came out by the glass-covered hall, and an old woman with 
 an earthenware scaldino, crouching by the marble pillars in the 
 street, held out a chill, damp hand and cried : 
 
 " A penny for God's sake ! May I die unconf essed if I've 
 eaten anything since yesterday. . . . God bless you, my 
 daughter ! and the Holy Virgin and all the Saints ! " 
 
 The streets were silent, and the noise of the carriage wheels 
 echoed between the high walls. It was late, and the electric 
 lights of the Via Nazionale were hopping out one by one, 
 leaving a tunnel of darkness, broken by gas-lamps which 
 burned yellow in the marshy gloom, like a topaz in a brooch 
 of jet. 
 
 At the door of her house Roma parted from the Princess,
 
 130 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 and said to Rossi, as the carriage drove away, " Come early 
 to-morrow. I've not yet been able to work properly somehow." 
 
 She was restless and feverish, and she would have gone to 
 bed immediately, but crossing the drawing-room she heard the 
 fretful voice of her aunt saying, " Is that you, Roma ? " and she 
 had no choice but to go into the Countess's bedroom. 
 
 A red lamp burned before the shrine, and the old lady was 
 in an embroidered nightdress, but she was wide awake, and her 
 eyes flashed and her lips trembled. 
 
 " Ah, it's you at last ! Sit down ! I want to speak to you. 
 Nataliiia ! " cried the Countess. " Oh, dear me, the girl has 
 gone to bed. Give me the cognac. There it is on the dress- 
 ing-table." 
 
 She sipped the brandy, fidgeted with her cambric hand- 
 kerchief, and said : 
 
 " Roma, I'm surprised at you ! You hadn't used to be so 
 stupid ! How ? Don't you see what that woman, is doing ? 
 What woman ? ' The Princess, of course. Inviting you to share 
 her box at the opera so that you may be seen in public with 
 that man. She hates him like poison, but she would swallow 
 anything to throw you and this Rossi together. Do you expect 
 the Baron to approve of that? His enemy, and you on such 
 terms with the man? Here, take back this cognac. I feel as 
 if I would choke. Natalina . . ." 
 
 " You're quite mistaken, Aunt Betsy," said Roma. " The 
 Baron was at the opera and came into the box himself, and he 
 approved of everything." 
 
 " Tut ! Don't tell me ! Because he has some respect for 
 himself and keeps his own counsel you are simple enough to 
 think he will not be offended. But I know him. I've known 
 him all my life. Even when he was a boy nobody could ever 
 make him cry. He was too proud to admit that any one could 
 hurt him. It's just the same now, and whatever you do to 
 humble him he will never allow himself to see it. But 7 see it, 
 and I say it is ungrateful and indecent." 
 
 The old lady's voice was dying down to a choking whisper, 
 but she went on without a pause. 
 
 " If you've no thought for yourself, you might have some 
 for me. You are young, and anything may come to you, but 
 I'm old and I'm tied down to this mattress, and what is to hap- 
 pen if the Baron takes offence ? The income he allows us from 
 your father's estates is under his own control still. He can cut 
 it off at any moment, and if he does, what is to become of me ? "
 
 ROMA 131 
 
 Roma's bosom was swelling under her heavy breathing, her 
 heart was beating violently and her head was dizzy. All the 
 bitterness of the evening was boiling in her throat, and it burst 
 out at length in a flood. 
 
 " So that is all your moral protestations come to, is it ? " she 
 said. u Because the Baron is necessary to you and you cannot 
 exist without him, you expect me to buy and sell myself accord- 
 ing to your necessities." 
 
 " Roma ! What are you saying ? Aren't you ashamed . . ." 
 
 " Aren't you ashamed ? You've been trying to throw me 
 into the arms of the Baron, and you haven't cared what would 
 happen so long as I kept up appearances." 
 
 " You ungrateful girl ! " 
 
 " You've done your best to break down every feeling of right 
 and wrong, and to make me think position and power and 
 wealth and rank are everything, no matter what price you pay 
 for them, and if anybody threatens them we are to fight for 
 them as dogs fight for a bone." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! I see what it is. You want to be the death of 
 me ! You will, too, before you've done. Natalina ! Where 
 is . . ." 
 
 " More than that, you've poisoned my mind against my 
 father, and because I couldn't remember him, you've brought 
 me up to think of him as selfish and vain and indifferent to his 
 own daughter. But my father wasn't that kind of man at all." 
 
 " Who told you that, miss ? " 
 
 " Never mind who told me. My father was a saint and 
 a martyr, and a great man, and he loved me with all his heart 
 and soul." 
 
 " Oh, my head ! My poor head ! . . . A martyr indeed ! A 
 socialist, a republican, a rebel, an anarchist, you mean ! " 
 
 " Never mind what his politics were. He was my father 
 that is enough and you had no right to make me think ill of 
 him, whatever the world might do." 
 
 Roma was superb at that moment, with her head thrown 
 back, her eyes naming, and her magnificent figure swelling and 
 heaving under her clinging gown. 
 
 " You'll kill me, I tell you. The cognac . . . ISTatalina 
 . . . ." cried the Countess, but Roma was gone. 
 
 Before going to bed Roma wrote to the Baron 
 
 " Certain you are wrong. Why waste time sending Charles 
 Minghelli to London? Why? Why? Why? The forger will
 
 132 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 find out nothing, and if he does, it will only be by exercise of 
 his Israelitish art of making bricks without straw. Stop him 
 at once if you wish to save public money and spare yourself 
 personal disappointment. Stop him! Stop him! Stop him! 
 
 " P.S. To show you how far astray your man has gone, 
 D. R. mentioned to-night that he was once a waiter at the 
 Grand Hotel ! " 
 
 VI 
 
 NEXT morning David Rossi arrived early. 
 
 " Now we must get to work in earnest," said Roma. " I 
 think I see my way at last." 
 
 It was not John the beloved disciple, John who lay in the 
 bosom of his Lord. It was Peter, the devoted, stalwart, brave 
 individual, human, erring but glorious Peter. " Thou art 
 Peter, and on this rock I build my church." 
 
 " Same position as before. Eyes the other way. Thank 
 you! . . . Afraid you didn't enjoy yourself last night no?" 
 
 " At the theatre ? I was interested. But the human spec- 
 tacle was perhaps more to me than the artistic one." 
 
 " You were thinking of the audience ? " 
 
 " Yes. If Italy is not content to be a simple museum of 
 curiosities, a school of singers and dancers, the cavaliere 
 servente of Europe, hanging on to the skirts of the other na- 
 tions, she must awake from some of her illusions. Neither 
 great armies nor great art will end the confusion and disorder 
 of a country in which the governing classes make merry while 
 the poor groan for bread. She must first reform her moral 
 essence she will, too, as sure as man is on earth and God is 
 in heaven. But I am no artist, you see. . . . How did you be- 
 come a sculptor? " 
 
 " Oh, I studied a little in the studios of Paris, where I went 
 to school, you see." 
 
 " But you were born in London ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why did you come to Rome ? " 
 
 " Rome was the home of my people, you know. And then 
 there was my name Roma ! " 
 
 " I knew a Roma long ago." 
 
 " Really ? Another Roma ? " 
 
 There was a tremor in her voice.
 
 ROMA 133 
 
 " It was the little daughter of the friend I've spoken about." 
 
 " How interest . . . No, at the window, please that will 
 do." 
 
 Roma was choking with a sense of duplicity, but save for a 
 turn of the head David Rossi gave no sign. 
 
 " She was only seven when I saw her last." 
 
 " That was long ago, you say ? " 
 
 " Seventeen years ago." 
 
 " Then she will be the same age as . . ." 
 
 " The first time I saw her she was only three, and she was 
 in her nightdress ready for bed." 
 
 Roma laughed a little, but she knew that every note in her 
 voice was confused and false. 
 
 " She said her prayers with a little lisp at that time. ' Our 
 Fader oo art in heben, alud be dy name. ' ' 
 
 He laughed a little now, as he mimicked the baby voice. 
 They laughed together, then they looked at each other, and then 
 with serious eyes they turned away. 
 
 " You'll think it strange, but I date my first conscious and 
 definite aspiration to the memory of that hour." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Ten years afterward, when I was in America, looking for 
 the message which was to redeem the world, the words of that 
 prayer came back to me in Roma's little lisp. ' Dy kingum 
 turn. Dy will be done on eard as it is in heben.' " 
 
 " So she . . ." 
 
 " She is responsible for everything, and whatever I do and 
 whatever the world does with me, she is the author of my work, 
 the loadstar of my life." 
 
 He mimicked the baby voice and laughed again, but she 
 could not join him now. This was the man she had set out 
 to betray! She felt as if she had walked blindfold to the edge 
 of a precipice, and then some one had torn the bandage from 
 her eyes and shown the abyss beneath her feet. 
 
 For some time after that she worked on without speaking, 
 feeling feverish and restless. But just as the silence was be- 
 coming painful, and she could bear it no longer, Felice came 
 to announce lunch. 
 
 " You'll stay ? I want so much to work on while I'm in the 
 mood," she said. 
 
 " With pleasure," he replied. 
 
 She ate hardly at all, for she was troubled by many mis- 
 givings, and through the wall of the drawing-room the voice of
 
 134 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 her aunt was hacking the air constantly as she called and 
 scolded the maid. 
 
 Did he know her? He did; he must; every word, every 
 tone seemed to tell her that. Then why did he not speak out 
 plainly ? 33ecause having revealed himself to her, he was wait- 
 ing for her to reveal herself to him. And why had she not 
 done so ? Because she was enmeshed in the nets of the society 
 she lived in ; because she was ashamed of the errand that had 
 brought them together; and most of all because she had not 
 dared to lay bare that secret of his life which, like an escaped 
 convict, dragged behind it the broken chain of the prison-house. 
 
 David Leone is dead! To uncover, even to their own eyes 
 only, the fact that lay hidden behind those words was like per- 
 sonating the priest and listening at the grating of the con- 
 fessional ! 
 
 No matter ! She must do it ! She must reveal herself as 
 her heart and instinct might direct. She must claim the 
 parentage of the noblest soul that ever died for liberty, and 
 David Rossi must trust his secret to the bond of blood which 
 would make it impossible for her to betray the foster-son of 
 her own father. 
 
 Having come to this conclusion, the light seemed to break 
 in her heavy sky, but the clouds were charged with electricity. 
 As they returned to the studio she was excited and a little 
 hysterical, for she thought the time was near. At that moment 
 a regiment of soldiers passed along under the ilex trees to the 
 Pincio, with their band of music playing as they marched. 
 
 " Ah, the dear old days ! " said David Rossi. " Everything 
 reminds me of them ! I remember that when she was six . . ." 
 
 "Roma?" 
 
 " Yes a regiment of troops returned from a glorious cam- 
 paign, and the Doctor took us to see the illuminations and 
 rejoicings. We came to a great piazza, almost as large as the 
 piazza of St. Peter's, with fountains and a tall column in the 
 middle of it." 
 
 " I know Trafalgar Square! " 
 
 " Dense crowds covered the square, but we found a place on 
 the steps of a church." 
 
 " I remember St. Martin's Church. You see, I know 
 London." 
 
 " The soldiers came in by the big railway station close 
 by . . ." 
 
 "Charing Cross, isn't it?"
 
 KOMA 135 
 
 " And they marched to the tune of the ' British Grenadiers,' 
 and the thunder of fifty thousand throats. And as their general 
 rode past, a beacon of electric lights in the centre of the square 
 blazed out like an aureole about the statue of a great English- 
 man who had died long ago for the cause which had then con- 
 quered." 
 
 " Gordon ! " she cried she was losing herself every mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " ' Look, darling ! ' said the Doctor to little Roma. And 
 Roma said, ' Papa, is it God ? ' I was a tall boy then, and stood 
 beside him. ' She'll never forget that, David,' he said." 
 
 " And she didn't . . . she couldn't ... I mean . . . Have 
 you ever told me what became of her ? " 
 
 She would reveal herself in a moment only a moment 
 after all, it was delicious to play with this sweet duplicity. 
 
 " Have you ? " she said in a tremulous voice. 
 
 His head was down. " Dead ! " he answered, and the tool 
 dropped out of her hand on to the floor. 
 
 " I was five years in America after the police expelled me 
 from London, and when I returned to England I went back to 
 the little shop in Soho." 
 
 She was staring at him and holding her breath. He was 
 looking out of the window. 
 
 " The same people were there, and their own daughter was a 
 grown-up girl, but Roma was gone." 
 
 She could hear the breath in her nostrils. 
 
 " They told me she had been missing for a week, and 
 then . . . her body had been found in the river." 
 
 She felt like one struck dumb. 
 
 " The man took me to the grave. It was the grave of her 
 mother in Kensal Green, and under her mother's name I read 
 her own inscription ' Sacred also to the memory of Roma 
 Roselli, found drowned in the Thames, aged twelve years.' " 
 
 The warm blood which had tingled through her veins was 
 suddenly frozen with horror. 
 
 " N"ot to-day," she thought, and at that moment a faint 
 sound of the band on the Pincio came floating in by the open 
 window. 
 
 " I must go," said David Rossi, rising. 
 
 Then she recovered herself and began to talk on other sub- 
 jects. When would he come again ? He could not say. The 
 parliamentary session opened soon. Pie would be very busy. 
 But he would let her know, and perhaps . . .
 
 136 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 She was holding out her hand and looking at him with a 
 nervous smile. Their hands clasped. She was conscious of an 
 answering pressure. The bells of St. Peter's rang the Ave 
 Maria, but they made less clamour in the crimsoning air 
 than the clamour in their hearts at that moment. 
 
 When David Rossi was gone Roma went upstairs, and 
 Natalina met her carrying two letters. One of them was 
 going to the post it was from the Countess to the Baron. The 
 other was from the Baron to herself. 
 
 Down the long terrace under the convent wall carriages 
 were returning from the Pincio through a mass of people on 
 foot ladies, gentlemen, children, and wet-nurses in bright 
 garments, with great silver pins in their coal-black hair. Roma 
 in the boudoir read her letter: 
 
 " MY DEAREST ROMA, A thousand thanks for the valuable 
 clue about the Grand Hotel. Already we have followed up 
 your lead, and we find that the only David Rossi who was ever 
 a waiter there gave as reference the name of an Italian baker 
 in Soho. Minghelli has gone to London, and I am sending him 
 this further information. Already he is fishing in strange 
 waters, and I am sure you are dying to know if he has caught 
 anything. So am I, but we must possess our souls in patience. 
 Your enemy is lying low these days, so your wand must be over 
 him already. It is the way with these impetuous gentry, these 
 makers of revolution always ready to take a sleeping draught 
 at the hands of a lovely woman. King David ? Yes, David and 
 Solomon, father and son, rolled into one? Who was his father, 
 I wonder? We shall soon know. 
 
 " But, my dearest Roma, what is happening to your hand- 
 writing ? It is so shaky nowadays that I can scarcely decipher 
 some of it. With love. B." 
 
 VII 
 
 " DEAR GUARDIAN, But I'm not I'm not ! I'm not in the 
 least anxious to hear of what Mr. Minghelli is doing in Lon- 
 don, because I know he is doing nothing, and whatever he says, 
 either through his own mouth or the mouth of his Italian 
 baker in Soho, I shall never believe a word he utters. As to Mr. 
 Rossi, I am now perfectly sure that he does not identify me at 
 nil. He believes my father's daughter is dead, and he has just 
 been telling me a shocking story of how the body of a young
 
 ROMA 137 
 
 girl was picked out of the Thames (about the time you took me 
 away from London) and buried in the name of Roma Roselli. 
 He actually saw the grave and the tombstone ! Some scoundrel 
 has been at work somewhere. Who is it, I wonder ? Yours, 
 
 " R. V." 
 
 Having written this letter in the heat and haste of the first 
 moment after David Rossi's departure, she gave it to Bruno 
 to post immediately. 
 
 " Just so ! " said Bruno to himself, as he glanced at the 
 superscription. 
 
 Next morning she dressed carefully, as if expecting David 
 Rossi as usual, but when he did not come she told herself she 
 was glad of it. Things had happened too hurriedly ; she wanted 
 time to breathe and to think. 
 
 All day long she worked on the bust. It was a new de- 
 light to model by memory, to remember an expression and 
 then try to reproduce it. The greatest difficulty lay in the 
 limitation of her beautiful art. There were so many memories, 
 so many expressions, and the clay would take but one of 
 them. 
 
 The next day after that she dressed herself as carefully 
 as before, but still David Rossi did not come. No matter ! It 
 would give her time to think of all he had said, to go over 
 his words and stories. There were the stories of her father, of 
 her mother, of his own boyhood, and (most intimate of all) the 
 stories of herself. How dangerously near to the brink of revela- 
 tion they had come sometimes ! How suddenly he had turned 
 to her as he said this, and when he said that how he looked at 
 her and smiled ! 
 
 Did he know her ? Certainly he knew her ! He must have 
 known from the first that she was her father's daughter, or 
 he would never have put himself in her power. His belief in 
 her was such a sweet thing. It was delicious. 
 
 Yet no! After all, he did not know her. He thought Roma 
 Roselli was dead. Why, then, did he trust her with his life's 
 secret ? She knew why she thought she knew ! It was be- 
 cause from the moment they met at the first look into her 
 eyes . . . 
 
 But she dare not think of that. It was a sweeter thing still. 
 It was still more delicious. 
 
 Next day also David Rossi did not come, and she began 
 to torture herself with misgivings. Was he indifferent? Had 
 10
 
 138 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 all her day-dreams been delusions? Little as she wished to 
 speak to Bruno, she was compelled to do so. 
 
 Bruno hardly lifted his eyes from his chisel and soft iron 
 hammer. " Parliament is to meet soon," he said, " and when 
 a man is leader of a party he has enough to do, you know." 
 
 " Ask him to come to-morrow. Say I wish for one more sit- 
 ting only one." 
 
 " I'll tell him," said Bruno, with a bob of his head over the 
 block of marble. 
 
 But David Rossi did not come the next day either, and 
 Bruno had no better explanation. 
 
 " Busy with his new ' Republic ' now, and no time to waste, 
 I can tell you." 
 
 Bruno's brusqueness did not hurt her, for she had begun 
 to justify David Rossi's absence to her own mind. Why should 
 he come ? He had his work to do, and it was a great work 
 for humanity, while she was only a trifler, an idler, a dilet- 
 tante. 
 
 " His thoughts are far away from me," she told herself. 
 
 The creeping misery of this idea deepened to distress when 
 three days more had passed and still David Rossi did not ap- 
 pear. It was now clear that he was avoiding her. The atmos- 
 phere in which she lived was hateful to him, and he could not 
 bear it. 
 
 " He will never come again," she thought, and then every- 
 thing around and within her grew dark and chill. 
 
 She was sleeping badly, and to tire herself at night she went 
 out to walk in the moonlight along the path under the convent 
 wall. She walked as far as the Pincio gates, where the path 
 broadens to a circular space under a table of clipped ilexes, 
 beneath which there is a fountain and a path going down to the 
 Piazza di Spagna. The night was soft and very quiet, and 
 standing under the deep shadows of the trees, with only the 
 cruel stars shining through, and no sound in the air save the 
 sobbing of the fountain, she heard a man's footstep on the 
 gravel coming up from below. 
 
 It was David Rossi. He passed within a few yards, yet he 
 did not see her. She wanted to call to him, but she could not 
 do so. For a moment he stood by the deep wall that overlooks 
 the city, and then turned down the path which she had come 
 by. A trembling thought that was afraid to take shape held 
 her back and kept her silent, but the stars beat kindly in an 
 instant and the blood in her veins ran warm. She watched
 
 ROMA 139 
 
 him from where she stood, and then with a light foot she fol- 
 lowed him at a distance. 
 
 It was true ! He stopped at the parapet before the church, 
 and looked up at her windows. There was a light in one of 
 them, and his eyes seemed to be steadfastly fixed on it. Then 
 he turned to go down the steps. He went down slowly, some- 
 times stopping and looking up, then going on again. Once 
 more she tried to call to him. u Mr. Rossi." But her voice 
 seemed to die in her throat. After a moment he was gone, the 
 houses had hidden him, and the church clock was striking 
 twelve. 
 
 When she returned to her bedroom and looked at herself in 
 the glass, her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling. 
 She did not want to sleep at all that night, for the beating of 
 her heart was like music, and the moon and the stars were 
 singing a song. 
 
 " If I could only be quite, quite sure ! " she thought, and 
 next morning she tackled Bruno. 
 
 Bruno was no match for her now, but he put down his 
 shaggy head like u bull that is facing a stone fence. 
 
 " Tell you the honest truth, Donna Roma," he said, 
 " Mr. Rossi is one of those who think that when a man has 
 taken up a work for the world it is best if he has no ties of 
 family." 
 
 "Really? Is that so?" she answered. "But I don't un- 
 derstand. He can't help having father and mother, can he ? " 
 
 " He can help having a wife, though," said Bruno, " and 
 Mr. Rossi thinks a public man should be like a priest, giving 
 up home and love and so forth, that others may have them 
 more abundantly." 
 
 " So for that reason . . ." 
 
 " For that reason he doesn't throw himself in the way of 
 temptation." 
 
 " And you think that's why . . ." 
 
 " I think that's why he keeps out of the way of women." 
 
 " Perhaps he doesn't care for them some men don't, you 
 know." 
 
 " Care for them ! Mr. Rossi is one of the men who think 
 pearls and diamonds of women, and if he had to be cast on a 
 desert island with anybody, he would rather have one woman 
 than a hundred thousand men." 
 
 The dear old stupid! He had fallen into her trap already, 
 and was telling her everything she wanted to know. But the
 
 140 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 spirit of falsehood was gleaming in her eyes, and she said 
 demurely : 
 
 " Ah, yes, but perhaps there's no ' one woman ' in the world 
 for him yet, Bruno." 
 
 " Perhaps there is, perhaps there isn't," said Bruno, and 
 his hammer fell on the chisel and the white sparks began 
 to fly. 
 
 " You would soon see if there were, wouldn't you, Bruno ? " 
 
 " Perhaps I would, perhaps I wouldn't," said Bruno, and 
 then he wagged his wise head and growled, " In the battle of 
 love he wins who flies." 
 
 "Does he say that, Bruno?" 
 
 " He does. One day our old woman was trying to lead him 
 on a bit. ' A heart to share your joys and sorrows is something 
 in this world,' says she." 
 
 "And what did Mr. Rossi say?" 
 
 " ' A woman's love is the sweetest thing in the world,' he 
 said ; ' but if I found myself caring too much for anybody I 
 should run away.' " 
 
 "Did Mr. Rossi really say that, Bruno?" 
 
 " He did upon my life he did! " 
 
 " So you think that now . . ." 
 
 " I think that now if I were a woman I should give up 
 thinking of him, and leave him to himself." 
 
 " It's good of you to speak so frankly, Bruno." 
 
 " Well, it wasn't a nice thing to do, but I made up my 
 mind to do it and it's done." 
 
 He had the air of a man who had achieved a moral victory, 
 and Roma, whose eyes were dancing with delight, wanted to 
 fall on his* stupid, sulky face and kiss and kiss it. 
 
 Late that night she sat in her boudoir writing a letter. The 
 lamp was on her left, and it cast the shadow of her head on to 
 the curtain of a window on her right. Sometimes she glanced 
 at the shadow and laughed to think how unmistakable it must 
 be to any one seeing it from the outside. Then her cheeks 
 burned at the sense of her own foolishness and she returned to 
 her letter. 
 
 But the letter was foolish too. When it was finished it had 
 neither signature nor superscription, and was unfit for the 
 hand of any human postman. " Come to me ! Why don't you 
 come? I have so much to say to you. I have a confession to 
 make. Tt will be such a surprise! You think somebody is 
 dead, but she isn't; she is alive, and very close to you. How
 
 KOMA 
 
 am I to tell you ? Should 1 play or sing something ? ' British 
 Grenadiers,' for example? Will you understand me by that, or 
 am I to speak quite plainly ? I must see you, and if you will 
 not come to me I must go to you. Perhaps you don't want 
 to come here any more. Let it be somewhere else then some- 
 where outside the walls, somewhere in the country, where we 
 can be alone for a while, you and I together. Isn't this a per- 
 fectly shocking letter? But won't you write me another one 
 just as shocking ? Do ! " 
 
 She waited until the church clock struck twelve, and then 
 went to bed. There she dropped her letter into the Dead Letter 
 Office of Love she put it under her pillow. And hearing the 
 rustle of the paper as she was falling asleep, she thought, " I'll 
 wake in the middle of the night and hear it, and then . . ." 
 
 It was very, very sweet, but it was very, very childish. Her 
 cheeks burned as before and she covered up her head. 
 
 During the afternoon of the day following the Princess 
 Bellini came in with Don Camillo. " Here's Gi-gi ! " she cried. 
 " He comes to say there's to be a meet of the foxhounds on 
 the Campagna to-morrow. If you'd like to come I'll take you, 
 and if you think Mr. Rossi will come too . . ." 
 
 " If he rides and has time to spare," said Roma. 
 
 " Precisely," said Don Camillo. " The worst of being a 
 prophet is that it gives one so much trouble to agree with one's 
 self, you know. Rumour says that our illustrious Deputy has 
 been a little out of odour with his own people lately, and is now 
 calling a meeting to tell the world what his ' Creed and Char- 
 ter ' doesn't mean. Still, a flight into the country might do no 
 harm even to the stormy petrel of politics, and if any one could 
 prevail with him . . ." 
 
 " Leave that to Roma, and see to everything else yourself," 
 said the Princess. " On the way to that tiresome tea-room in 
 the Corso, my dear. ' Charity and Work,' you know. Com- 
 mittee for the protection of poor girls, or something. But we 
 must see the old aunt first, I suppose. Come in, Gi-gi ! " 
 
 Three minutes afterward Roma was dressed for the street, 
 and her dog was leaping and barking beside her. 
 
 " Carriage, Eccellenza ? '' 
 
 " Not to-day, thank you ! Down, Black, down ! Keep the 
 dog from following me, Felice." 
 
 As she passed the lodge the porter handed her an envelope 
 bearing the seal of the Minister, but she did not stop to open 
 it. With a light step she tripped along the street, hailed a
 
 142 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 coupe, cried " Piazza Navona," and then composed herself to 
 read her letter. 
 
 When the Princess and Don Camillo came out of the 
 Countess's room Roma was gone, and the dog was scratching 
 at the inside of the outer door. 
 
 " Now where can she have gone to so suddenly, I wonder ? 
 And there's her poor dog trying to follow her ! " 
 
 " Is that the dog that goes to the Deputy's apartment ? " 
 
 " Certainly it is ! His name is Black. I'll hold him while 
 you open the door, Felice. There ! Good dog ! Good Black ! 
 Oh, the brute ! He has broken away from me." 
 
 "Black! Black! Black!" 
 
 " No use, Felice. He'll be half way through the street by 
 this time." 
 
 And going down the stairs the little Princess whispered to 
 her companion : " Now, if Black comes home with his mistress 
 this evening it will be easy to see where she has been." 
 
 Meantime Roma, in her coupe, was reading her letter 
 
 " DEAREST, Been away from Rome for a few days, and 
 hence the delay in answering your charming message. Don't 
 trouble a moment about the dead-and-buried nightmare. If 
 the story is true, so much the better. R. R. is dead, thank God, 
 and her unhappy wraith will haunt your path no more. But 
 if Dr. Roselli knew nothing about David Rossi, how comes 
 it that David Rossi knows so much about Dr. Roselli ? It 
 looks like another clue. Thanks again. A thousand thanks ! 
 
 " Still no news from London, but though I pretend neither 
 to knowledge nor foreknowledge, I am still satisfied that we are 
 on the right track. 
 
 " Dinner-party to-night, dearest, and I shall be obliged to 
 you if I may borrow Felice. Your Princess Potiphar, your 
 Don Saint Joseph, your Count Signorina, your Senator Tom- 
 tit, and will you believe it ? your Madame de Trop ! I can 
 deny you nothing, you see, but I am cruelly out of luck that 
 my dark house must lack the light of all drawing-rooms, the 
 sunshine of all Rome! 
 
 " How clever of you to throw dust in the eyes of your aunt 
 herself ! And these red-hot prophets in petticoats, how startled 
 they will soon be ! Adieu ! BONELLI." 
 
 As the coupe turned into the Piazza Navona, Roma was 
 tearing the letter into shreds and casting them out of the 
 window.
 
 ROMA 143 
 
 VIII 
 
 WHILE Roma climbed the last flight of stairs to David 
 Rossi's apartment, with the slippery-sloppery footsteps of the 
 old Garibaldian going before, Bruno's thunderous voice was 
 rocking through the rooms above. 
 
 " Love who loves you, and who loves not leave ! That's my 
 philosophy, sir. What do you say, Joseph-Mazzini-Garibaldi ( 
 Look at him, Mr. Rossi ! Republican, democrat, socialist, and 
 rebel ! Upsets the government of this house once a day regu- 
 larly dethrones the King and defies the Queen ! Catch the 
 piggy-wiggy, Uncle David ! Here goes for it one, two, three, 
 and away ! " 
 
 Then shrieks and squeals of childish laughter, mingled with 
 another man's gentler tones, and a woman's frightened re- 
 monstrance. And then sudden silence and the voice of the 
 Garibaldian in a panting whisper, saying, " She's here again, 
 sir!" 
 
 " Donna Roma ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Come in," cried David Rossi, and from the threshold to 
 the open hall she saw him, in the middle of the floor, with a 
 little boy pitching and heaving like a young sea-lion in his 
 arms. 
 
 He slipped the boy to his feet and said, " Run to the lady 
 and kiss her hand, Joseph." But the boy stood off shyly, and, 
 stepping into the room, Roma knelt to the child and put her 
 arms about him. 
 
 " What a big little man to be sure ! His name is Joseph, is 
 it? And what's his age? Six! Think of that! Have I 
 seen him before, Mrs. Rocco ? Yes ? Perhaps he was here 
 the day I called before? Was he? So? How stupid of me 
 to forget ! Ah, of course, now I remember, he was in his night- 
 dress and asleep, and Mr. Rossi was carrying him to bed." 
 
 The mother's heart was captured in a moment. " Do you 
 love children, Donna Roma? " 
 
 " Indeed I do ! " 
 
 " Nobody can be a good woman if she doesn't love chil- 
 dren," said Elena. 
 
 " And yet how strange ! " said Roma. " I must have had 
 no eyes for children for years, and now all at once the world 
 seems to be full of them." 
 
 During this passage between the women Bruno had grunted
 
 144: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 his way out of the room, and was now sidling down the stair- 
 case, being suddenly smitten by his conscience with the mem- 
 ory of a message he had omitted to deliver. 
 
 " Come, Joseph," said Elena. But Joseph, who had re- 
 covered from his bashfulness, was in no hurry to be off, and 
 Roma said : 
 
 " Ko, no ! I've only called for a moment. It is to say," 
 turning to David Rossi, " that there's a meet of the foxhounds 
 011 the Campagna to-morrow, and tell you from Don Camillo 
 that if you ride and would care to go . . ." 
 
 " You are going ? " 
 
 " With the Princess, yes ! But there will be no necessity 
 to follow the hounds all day long, and perhaps coming 
 home . . ." 
 
 " I will be there." 
 
 " How charming ! That's all I came to say, and so . . ." 
 
 She made a pretence of turning to go, but he said : 
 
 " Wait ! Now that you are here I have something to show 
 to you." 
 
 "Tome?" 
 
 " Come in," he cried, and, blowing a kiss to the boy, Roma 
 followed Rossi into the sitting-room. 
 
 " One moment," he said, and he left her to go into the bed- 
 room. 
 
 When he came back he had a small parcel in his hands 
 Avrapped in a lace handkerchief. The handkerchief fell out 
 of his hands as he unwound it, and she saw at a glance it 
 was cfne of her own. Their eyes met in a flash of under- 
 standing, and for a moment he looked nervous and con- 
 fused. 
 
 " I'm afraid that is yours," he faltered. " You must have 
 dropped it when you were here before. I suppose I ought to 
 return it . . ." 
 
 " No ! Oh, no ! You're mistaken," she said, but her nerves 
 tingled and her blood danced. 
 
 He put the handkerchief into his breast-pocket and held 
 out a little picture which had been wrapped in it. 
 
 " We have talked so much of my old friend Roselli that I 
 thought you might like to see his portrait." 
 
 " His portrait ? Have you really got his portrait ? " 
 
 " Here it is," and he put into her hands the English photo- 
 graph which used to hang by his bed. 
 
 She took it eagerly and looked at it steadfastly, while her
 
 EOMA 145 
 
 lips trembled and her eyes grew moist. There was silence for 
 a moment, and then she said, in a voice that struggled to 
 control itself, "So this was the father of little Roma? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Is it very like him ? " 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " What a beautiful face ! What a reverend head ! Did 
 he look like that on the day . . . the day he was at Kensal 
 Green?" 
 
 " Exactly." 
 
 " And on the night he took the doll back to Soho ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The excitement she laboured under could no longer be 
 controlled, and she lifted the picture to her lips and kissed 
 it. Then catching her breath, and looking up at him with 
 swimming eyes, she laughed through her tears and said : 
 
 " That is because he was your friend, and because . . . 
 because he loved my little namesake." 
 
 David Rossi did not reply, and the silence was too audible, 
 so she said, with another nervous laugh: 
 
 " Not that I think she deserved such a father. He must 
 have been the best father a girl ever had, but she . . ." 
 
 " She was a child," said David Rossi. 
 
 " Still, if she had been worthy of a father like that . . ." 
 
 " She was only seven, remember." 
 
 " Even so, but if she had not been a little selfish . . . 
 wasn't she a little selfish ? " 
 
 " You mustn't abuse my friend Roma." 
 
 Her eyes beamed, her cheeks burned, her nerves tingled. 
 It would be a sweet delight to egg him on, but she dare not go 
 any further. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said in a soft voice. " Of course 
 you know best. And perhaps years afterwards when she came 
 to think of what her father had been to her . . . that is to say 
 if she lived . . ." 
 
 Their eyes met again, and now hers fell in confusion. 
 
 " I want to give you that portrait," he said. 
 
 "Me?" 
 
 " You would like to have it ? " 
 
 " More than anything in the world. But you value it your- 
 self?" 
 
 " Beyond anything I possess." 
 
 " Then how can I take it from you ? "
 
 146 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " There is only one person in the world I would give it to. 
 She has it, and I am contented." 
 
 It was impossible to bear the strain any longer without 
 crying out, and to give physical expression to her feelings 
 she lifted the portrait to her lips again and kissed and 
 kissed it. 
 
 He smiled at her, she smiled back; the silence was hard to 
 break, but just as they were on the edge of the precipice the 
 big shock-head of the little boy looked in on them through the 
 chink of the door and cried : 
 
 " You needn't ask me to come in, 'cause I won't ! " 
 
 By the blessed instinct of the motherhood latent in her, 
 Roma understood the boy in a moment. " If I were a gentle- 
 man I would, though," she said. 
 
 " Would you?" said Joseph, and in he came, with a face 
 shining all over. 
 
 " Hurrah ! A piano ! " said Roma, leaping up and seat- 
 ing herself at the instrument. " What shall I play for you, 
 Joseph?" 
 
 Joseph was indifferent so long as it was a song, and with 
 head aside, Roma touched the keys and pretended to think. 
 After a moment of sweet duplicity she struck up the air she had 
 come expressly to play. 
 
 It was the " British Grenadiers." She sang a verse of it. 
 She sang in English and with the broken pronunciation of a 
 child 
 
 " Some talk of Allisander, and some of ITergoles; 
 Of Hector and Eyesander, and such gate names as these . . ." 
 
 The boy had caught the lilt in a moment and was marching 
 to the tune. David Rossi was standing with his foot on the 
 fender and his face to the fire. Roma was looking from one to 
 the other and watching both. 
 
 " But of all the world's gate he-e-roes ..." 
 
 Suddenly she became aware that David Rossi was looking 
 at her through the glass on the mantel-piece, and to keep her- 
 self from crying she began to laugh, and the song came to an 
 end. 
 
 At the same moment the door burst open with a bang, and 
 the dog came bounding into the room. Behind it came Elena, 
 who said
 
 ROMA 147 
 
 " It was scratching at the staircase door, and I thought it 
 must have followed you." 
 
 " Followed Mr. Rossi, you mean. He has stolen my dog's 
 heart away from me," said Roma. 
 
 " That is what I say about my boy's," said Elena. 
 
 " But Joseph is going for a soldier, I see." 
 
 " It's a porter he wants to be." 
 
 " Then so he shall he shall be my porter some day," said 
 Roma, whereupon Joseph \vas frantic with delight, and Elena 
 was saying to herself, " What wicked lies they tell of her I 
 wonder they are not ashamed ! " 
 
 The fire was going down and the twilight was deepening. 
 
 " Shall I bring you the lamp, sir ? " said Elena. 
 
 " Not for me," said Rorna. " I am going immediately." 
 But even when mother and child had gone she did not go. Un- 
 consciously they drew nearer and nearer to each other in the 
 gathering darkness, and as the daylight died their voices 
 softened and there were quiet questions and low replies. The 
 desire to speak out was struggling in the woman's heart with 
 the delight of silence. But she would reveal herself at last. 
 
 " I have been thinking a great deal about the story they 
 told you in London of Roma's death and burial, I mean. Had 
 you no reason to think it might be false ? " 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " It never occurred to you that it might be to anybody's 
 advantage to say that she was dead while she was still alive ? " 
 
 " How could it ? Who was to perpetrate a crime for the 
 sake of the daughter of a poor doctor in Soho a poor prisoner 
 in Elba ? " 
 
 " Then it was not until afterwards that you heard that the 
 poor Doctor was a great prince ? " 
 
 " Not until the night you were here before." 
 
 " And you had never heard anything of his daughter in the 
 interval ? " 
 
 " Once I had ! It was on the same day, though. A man 
 came here from London on an infamous errand . . ." 
 
 " What was his name ? " 
 
 " Charles Minghelli." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He said Roma Roselli was not dead at all, but worse than 
 dead that she had fallen into the hands of an evil man, and 
 turned out badly." 
 
 " Did you . . . did you believe that story ? "
 
 14-S THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Not one word of it ! I called the man a liar, and flung 
 him out of the house." 
 
 " Then you . . . you think ... if she is still living . . ." 
 
 " My Roma is a good woman." 
 
 Her face burned up to the roots of her hair. She choked 
 with joy, she choked with pain. His belief in her purity stifled 
 her. She could not speak now she could not reveal herself. 
 There was a moment of silence, and then in a tremulous voice 
 she said: 
 
 " Will you not call me Roma, and try to think I am your 
 little friend ? " 
 
 When she came to herself after that she was back in her 
 own apartment, in her aunt's bedroom, and kissing the old 
 lady's angular face. And the Countess was breaking up the 
 stupefaction of her enchantment with sighs and tears and 
 words of counsel. 
 
 " I only want you to preserve yourself for your proper 
 destiny, Roma. You are the fiancee of the Baron, as one 
 might say, and the poor maniac can't last long. As for what 
 you said so cruelly about breaking down feelings and so forth, 
 God is merciful, and there are things which can be atoned for 
 by prayer and fasting. But I implore you not to put yourself 
 in the power of society. It never forgives anybody who forgets 
 the good old respectabilities and quite right, too ! " 
 
 Before dressing for dinner Roma replied to the Minister : 
 
 " DEAR BARON BONELLI, Didn't I tell you that Minghelli 
 would find out nothing ? I am now more than ever sure that 
 the whole idea is an error. Take my advice and drop it. Drop 
 it ! Drop it ! I shall, at all events ! Yours, 
 
 " ROMA VOLONNA. 
 
 " Success to the dinner! Am sending Felice. He will give 
 you this letter. R. V." 
 
 IX 
 
 IT was the sweetest morning of the Roman winter. The sun 
 shone with a gentle radiance, and the motionless air was 
 fragrant with the odour of herbs and flowers. Outside the gate 
 which leads to the old Appian Way grooms were waiting with 
 horses, blanketed and hooded, and huntsmen in red coats, white 
 breeches, pink waistcoats, and black boots, were walking their
 
 ROMA 149 
 
 mounts to the place appointed for the meet. In a line of car- 
 riages were many ladies, some in riding-habits, and on foot 
 there was a string of beggars, most of them deformed, with 
 here and there, at little villages, a group of rosy children 
 watching the procession as it passed. 
 
 The American and English Ambassadors were riding side 
 by side behind a magnificent carriage with coachman and tiger 
 in livery of scarlet and gold. 
 
 " Who would think, to look on a scene like this, that the 
 city is seething with dissatisfaction ? " said the Englishman. 
 
 "Rome?" said the American. "Its aristocratic indiffer- 
 ence will not allow it to believe that here, as everywhere else in 
 the world, great and fatal changes are going on all the time. 
 These lands, for example to whom do they belong? Nomi- 
 nally to the old Roman nobility, but really to the merchants 
 of the Campagna a company of middlemen who grew rich 
 by leasing them from the princes and subletting them to the 
 poor." 
 
 " And the nobles themselves how are they faring ? " 
 
 " Badly ! Already they are of no political significance, and 
 the State knows them not." 
 
 " They don't appear to go into the army or navy what do 
 they go into ? " 
 
 " Love ! Their chief occupation is to marry their old Italian 
 titles to our young English and American fortunes. We help 
 them to it, too ! Mrs. Hiram P. Power is always around with 
 her daughter and her dollars. She's here this morning you'll 
 find her all over the place," and the American made a broad 
 sweep of his hand toward the carriages front and back. 
 
 " She leaves the worthy president of the Drill Hole Com- 
 pany slaving away in Wall Street, while she plays stewardess 
 of the commissariat at the Grand Hotel to a troop of Italian 
 torn-tits who chatter about their hearts, but have no sincerity, 
 no reverence, no enthusiasm, and only one idea of the resur- 
 rection of Rome a reckless social life, reproducing the vices of 
 antiquity with the facilities of modern civilisation." 
 
 " And meantime the Italian people ? " 
 
 " Meantime the great Italian people, like the great English 
 people, the great German people, and the people of every coun- 
 try where the privileged classes still exist, are rising like a 
 mighty wave to sweep all this sea-wrack high and dry on to the 
 rocks." 
 
 " And this wave of the people," said the Englishman, in-
 
 150 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 dining his head towards the carriage in front, " is represented 
 by men like friend Rossi ? " 
 
 " Would be, if he could keep himself straight," said the 
 American. " He has the big idea to begin with. Liberty 
 against Authority! Humanity against Empire! That's the 
 way I'm figuring it, sir, and I call it the most revolutionary 
 idea that has been put into operation since those early Chris- 
 tians used to meet in these catacombs. They had the big idea, 
 too. Caesar or Christ, which is it to be? But now Ca3sar and 
 Christ seem to be Siamese twins, and to share the throne to- 
 gether." 
 
 " And where is the Tarpeian rock of friend Rossi's poli- 
 tics?" 
 
 The American slapped his glossy boot with his whip, low- 
 ered his voice, and said, " There ! " 
 
 "Donna Roma?" 
 
 " A fortnight ago you heard his speech on the liveries of 
 scarlet and gold, and look ! He's under them himself already." 
 
 " You think there is no other inference ? " 
 
 The American shook his head. " Always the way with 
 these leaders of revolution. It's Samson's strength with Sam- 
 son's weakness in every mother's son of them." 
 
 " I cannot reconcile myself to your interpretation, General, 
 and I'll stick to my faith in Donno Roma in spite of all," said 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " Good-morning, General Potter ! " said a cheerful voice 
 from the carriage in front. 
 
 It was Roma herself. She sat by the side of the little 
 Princess, with David Rossi on the seat before them. Her eyes 
 were bright, there was a glow in her cheeks, and she looked 
 lovelier than ever in her close-fitting riding-habit. 
 
 The men rode up to the carriage, and there were saluta- 
 tions and introductions. Roma was in high spirits, and she 
 tossed back the shuttlecock of the American's playful talk with 
 jest and laughter. 
 
 " I had no conception you were such a boy until I saw you 
 in a red coat, General." 
 
 " Ah, you lovely young coward ! You can dare to say that 
 to my grey head, can't you ? " 
 
 With such light fence they passed down the old dead road 
 with its little shrines, its broken blocks of stone, and its scat- 
 tered wrecks of the graves of men and women. 
 
 At the meeting-place there was a vast crowd of on-lookers,
 
 ROMA 151 
 
 chiefly foreigners, in cabs and carriages and four-in-hand 
 coaches from the principal hotels. The Master of the Hunt 
 was ready, with his impatient hounds at his feet, and around 
 him was a brilliant scene. Officers in blue, huntsmen in red, 
 ladies in black, jockeys in jackets, a sea of feathers and flowers 
 and sunshades, with the neighing of the horses and yapping of 
 the dogs, the vast undulating country, the smell of earth and 
 herbs, and the morning sunlight over all. 
 
 Don Camillo was waiting with horses for his party, and 
 they mounted immediately. The horse for Roma was a quiet 
 bay mare with limpid eyes. General Potter helped her to 
 the saddle, and she went cantering through the long lush 
 grass. 
 
 " What has your charming young charge been doing with 
 herself, Princess," said the American. " She was always beau- 
 tiful, but to-day she's lovely." 
 
 " She's like Undine after she had found her soul," said the 
 Englishman. 
 
 The little Princess laughed. " Love and a cough cannot 
 be hidden, gentlemen," she whispered, with a look toward David 
 Rossi. 
 
 " You don't mean . . ." 
 
 Hush ! " 
 
 Meantime Rossi, in ordinary walking dress, was approach- 
 ing the horse he was intended to ride. It was a high strong- 
 limbed sorrel with wild eyes and panting nostrils. The Eng- 
 lish groom who held it was regarding the rider with a doubtful 
 expression, and a group of booted and spurred huntsmen were 
 closing around. 
 
 To everybody's surprise, the Deputy gathered up the reins 
 and leaped lightly to the saddle, and at the next moment he 
 was riding at Roma's side. Then the horn was sounded, the 
 pack broke into music, the horses beat their hoofs on the turf 
 and the hunt began. 
 
 There was a wall to jump first, and everybody cleared it 
 easily until it came to David Rossi's turn, when the sorrel re- 
 fused to jump. He patted the horse's neck and tried it again, 
 but it snorted, shied, and went off with its head between its 
 legs. A third time he brought the sorrel up to the wall, and 
 a third time it swerved aside. 
 
 The hunters had waited to watch the result, and as the 
 horse came up for a fourth trial, with its wild eyes flashing, its 
 nostrils quivering, and its forelock tossed over one ear, it was
 
 152 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 seen that the bridle had broken and Rossi was riding with one 
 rein. 
 
 " He'll be lucky if he isn't hurt," said some one. 
 
 " Why doesn't he give it the whip over its quarters ? " said 
 another. 
 
 But David Rossi only patted his horse until it came to the 
 spot where it had shied before. Then he reached over its neck 
 on the side of the broken rein, and with open hand struck it 
 sharply across the nose. The horse reared, snorted, and 
 jumped, and at the next moment it was standing quietly on 
 the other side of the wall. 
 
 Roma, on her bay mare, was ashen pale, and the American 
 Ambassador turned to her and said: 
 
 " Xever knew but one man to do a thing like that, Donna 
 Roma." 
 
 Roma swallowed something in her throat and said, " Who 
 was it, General Potter ? " 
 
 " The present Pope when he was a ISToble Guard." 
 
 " He can ride, by Jove ! " said Don Camillo. 
 
 " That sort of stuff has to be in a man's blood. Bom in 
 him must be ! " said the Englishman. 
 
 And then David Rossi came up with a new bridle to his 
 sorrel, and Sir Evelyn added, " You handle a horse like a man 
 who began early, Mr. Rossi." 
 
 " Yes," said David Rossi, " I was a stable-boy two years 
 in New York, your Excellency." 
 
 At that moment the huntsman who was leading with two 
 English terriers gave the signal that the fox was started, where- 
 upon the hounds yelped, the whips whistled, and the horses 
 broke into a canter. 
 
 Two hours afterwards the poor little creature that had been 
 the origin of the holiday was tracked to earth and killed. Its 
 head and tail were cut off, and the rest of its body was thrown 
 to the dogs. After that flasks were taken out, healths were 
 drunk, cheers were given, and then the hunt broke up, and the 
 hunters began to return at an easy trot. 
 
 Roma and David Rossi were riding side by side, and the 
 Princess was a pace or two behind them. 
 
 " Roma ! " cried the Princess, " what a stretch for a 
 gallop ! " 
 
 "Isn't it?" said Roma, and in a moment she was off. 
 
 u I believe her mare has mastered her," said the Princess, 
 and at the next instant David Rossi was gone too.
 
 ROMA 153 
 
 " Peace be with them ! They're a lovely pair ! " said the 
 Princess, laughing. " But we might as well go home. They 
 are like Undine, and will return no more.'' 
 
 MEANTIME, with the light breeze in her ears, and the beat of 
 her horse's hoofs echoing among the aqueducts and tombs, 
 Roma galloped over the broad Canipagna. After a moment she 
 heard some one coming after her, and for joy of being pursued 
 she whipped up and galloped faster. Without looking back 
 she knew who was behind, and as her horse flew over the hillocks 
 her heart leaped and sang. When the strong-limbed sorrel 
 came up with the quiet bay mare, they were nearly two miles 
 from their starting-place, and far out of the track of their fel- 
 low-hunters. Both were aglow from head to foot, and as they 
 drew rein they looked at each other and laughed. 
 
 " Might as well go on now, and come out by the English 
 cemetery," said Roma. 
 
 " Good ! " said David Rossi. 
 
 " But it's half-past two," said Roma, looking at her little 
 watch, " and I'm as hungry as a hunter." 
 
 " Naturally," said David Rossi, and they laughed again. 
 There was an osteria somewhere in that neighbourhood. He 
 had known it when he was a boy. They would dine on yellow 
 beans and maccaroni. 
 
 " What a lovely world it is ! " she said, pretending to look 
 round at the landscape. 
 
 " It is a lovely world," he answered, and then they laughed 
 once more. 
 
 Monte Genario's snow-capped peak was shining in hues of 
 opal and rose, and the Sabine hills looked bright and near, with 
 Tivoli and Palestrina trembling in a purple haze. But riding 
 side by side they were in a world that was all their own, and 
 the golden cloud that wrapped them round shut out everything 
 else on earth. 
 
 Presently they saw a house smoking under a scraggy clump 
 of eucalyptus. It was the osteria, half farmstead and half inn. 
 A timid lad took their horses, an evil-looking old man bowed 
 them into the porch, and an elderly woman, with a frightened 
 expression and a face wrinkled like the bark of a cedar, brought 
 them a bill of fare. 
 
 They laughed at everything at the unfamiliar menu, be- 
 ll
 
 154: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 cause it was soiled enough to have served for a year; at the 
 food, because it was so simple; and at the prices, because they 
 were so cheap. 
 
 Roma looked over David Rossi's shoulder as he read out the 
 bill of fare, and they ordered the dinner together. 
 
 " Maccaroni threepence ! Right ! Trout fourpence ! 
 Shall we have fourpennyworth of frout? Good! Lamb six- 
 pence! We'll take two lambs I mean two sixpennyworth's," 
 and then more laughter. 
 
 While the dinner was cooking they went out to walk among 
 the eucalyptus, and came upon a beautiful dell surrounded by 
 trees and carpeted with wild flowers. 
 
 " Carnival ! " cried Roma. " Now if there was anybody 
 here to throw a flower at one ! " 
 
 He picked up a handful of violets and tossed them over her 
 head. 
 
 " When I was a boy this was where men fought duels," 
 said David Rossi. 
 
 " The brutes ! What a lovely spot ! Must be the place 
 where Pharaoh's daughter found Moses in the bulrushes ! " 
 
 " Or where Adam found Eve in the garden of Eden ! " 
 
 They looked at each other and smiled. 
 
 " What a surprise that must have been to him," said Roma. 
 " Whatever did he think she was, I wonder ? " 
 
 " An angel who had come down in the moonlight and for- 
 gotten to go up in the morning ! " 
 
 " Nonsense ! He would know in a moment she was a 
 woman." 
 
 " Think of it! She was the only woman in the world for 
 him?" 
 
 " And fancy ! He was the only man ! " 
 
 The dinner was one long delight. Even its drawbacks were 
 no disadvantage. The table had been laid on a vine terrace, 
 which being thinned of its leaves by the cold of winter, revealed 
 an untidy farmyard with neglected pig-styes, but Roma would 
 not have things changed. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " she said. " We see the pig-styes slantwards 
 from here," and then they laughed again, and the wizened old 
 woman who waited, laughed with them, and called Roma 
 " Little Sister." 
 
 Roma had begun to speak in English. " ~No use hurting 
 the old lady," she whispered across the table, and David Rossi 
 pretended to be deceived.
 
 ROMA 155 
 
 " A beauty, isn't she ? " 
 
 " Yes, the old man is afraid she'll be kidnapped for a Ma- 
 donna," and then they laughed once more, and the old woman, 
 being a true daughter of the soil, laughed for joy of their 
 merry laughter. 
 
 The food was bad, and it was badly cooked and badly served, 
 but nothing mattered. 
 
 " Only one fork for all these dishes ? " asked David Rossi. 
 
 " That's the best of it," said Roma. " You only get one 
 dirty one." 
 
 Suddenly she dropped knife and fork, and held up both 
 hands. " I forgot ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I was to be Little Roma all day to-day." 
 
 " Why, so you are, and so you have been." 
 
 " That cannot be, or you would call her by her name, you 
 know." 
 
 " I'll do so the moment she calls me by mine." 
 
 " That's not fair," said Roma, and her face flushed up, for 
 the wine of life had risen to her eyes. 
 
 In a vineyard below a girl working among the orange-trees 
 was singing stornelli. It was a song of a mother to her son. 
 He had gone away from the old roof-tree, but he would come 
 back some day. His new home was bright and big, but the 
 old hearthstone would draw him home. Beautiful ladies 
 loved him, but the white-haired mother would kiss him 
 again. 
 
 They listened for a short dreaming space, and their laughter 
 ceased and their eyes grew moist. Then they called for the 
 bill, and the old man with the evil face came lip with a forged 
 smile from a bank that had clearly no assets of that kind to 
 draw upon. 
 
 " You've been a long time in this house, landlord," said 
 David Rossi. 
 
 " Very long time, Excellency," said the man. 
 
 " You came from the Ciociaria." 
 
 " Why, yes, I did," said the man, with a look of surprise. 
 " I was poor then, and later on I lived in the caves and grottoes 
 of Monte Parioli." 
 
 " But you knew how to cure the phylloxera in the vines, and 
 when your master died you married his daughter and came into 
 his vineyard." 
 
 " Angelica ! Here's a gentleman who knows all about us,"
 
 156 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 said the old man, and then, grinning from ear to ear, he 
 added 
 
 "Perhaps your Excellency was the young gentleman who 
 used to visit with his father at the Count's palace on the hill 
 twenty to thirty years ago ? " 
 
 David Rossi looked him steadfastly in the face and said, 
 " Do you remember the poor boy who lived with you at that 
 time?" 
 
 The forged smile was gone in a moment. " We had no boy 
 then, Excellency." 
 
 " He came to you from Santo Spirito and you got a hundred 
 francs with him at first, and then you built this pergola." 
 
 " If your Excellency is from the Foundling, you may tell 
 them again, as I told the priest who came before, that we never 
 took a boy from there, and we had no money from the people 
 who sent him to London." 
 
 " You don't remember him, then ? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Nor you ? " 
 
 The old woman hesitated, and the old man made mouths 
 at her. 
 
 " No, Excellency." 
 
 David Rossi took a long breath. " Here is the amount of 
 your bill, and something over. Good-bye ! " 
 
 The timid lad brought round the horses and the riders 
 prepared to mount. Roma was looking at the boy with pity- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 " How long have you been here ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ten years, Excellency," he replied. 
 
 He was just twelve years of age and both his parents were 
 dead. 
 
 " Poor little fellow ! " said Roma, and before David Rossi 
 could prevent her she was emptying her purse into the boy's 
 hand. 
 
 They set off at a trot, and for some time they did not ex- 
 change a word. The sun was sinking and the golden day was 
 dying down. Over the broad swell of the Campagna, treeless, 
 houseless, a dull haze was creeping like a shroud, and the long 
 knotted grass was swept by the chill breath of evening. Noth- 
 ing broke the wide silence of the desolate space except the low- 
 ing of cattle, the bleat of sheep that were moving in masses 
 like the woolly waves of a sea, the bark of big white dogs, the 
 shouts of cowherds carrying long staves, and of shepherds rid-
 
 ROMA 157 
 
 ing on shaggy ponies. Here and there were wretched straw 
 huts, with groups of fever-stricken people crouching over the 
 embers of miserable fires, and here and there were dirty pot- 
 houses, which alternated with wooden crosses of the Christ and 
 glass-covered shrines of the Madonna. 
 
 The rhythm of the saddles ceased and the horses walked. 
 
 " Was that the place where you were brought up ? " said 
 Roma. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And those were the people who sold you into slavery, so 
 to speak? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you could have confounded them with one word, 
 and did not ! " 
 
 " What was the use ? Besides, they were not the first 
 offenders." 
 
 " No, your father was more to blame. Don't you feel 
 sometimes as if you could hate him for what he has made 
 you suffer ? " 
 
 David Rossi shook his head. " I was saved from that bit- 
 terness by the saint who saved me from so much besides. 
 ' Don't try to find out who your father is, David,' he said, ' and 
 if by chance you ever do find out, don't return evil for evil, and 
 don't avenge yourself on the world. By and by the world will 
 know you for what you are yourself, not for what your father 
 is. Perhaps your father is a bad man, perhaps he isn't. 
 Leave him to God ! ' ' 
 
 " It's a terrible thing to think evil of one's own father, isn't 
 it ? " said Roma, but David Rossi did not reply. 
 
 " And then who knows ? perhaps some day you may dis- 
 cover that your father deserved your love and pity after all." 
 
 " Perhaps ! " 
 
 They had drawn up at another house under a thick clump 
 of eucalyptus trees. It was the Trappist Monastery of Tre 
 Pontane. Silence was everywhere in this home of silence. 
 Leaving the horses at the lodge, they walked through the outer 
 courts. They looked in at the windows of the library, where a 
 white-faced youth was bending in silence over a book. They 
 stood a moment at the door of the chapel, where the service of 
 Benediction was being sung in silence, with no sound but the 
 tinkling of a bell. Only the birds were singing aloud the 
 nightingales in the tall grey trees. 
 
 There was a clock tower, and they went up on to the roof.
 
 158 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 From that height the whole world around seemed to be in- 
 vaded by silence. It was like a sea after a storm, and the rem- 
 nants of the cities that lay dead under the Campagna were 
 the driftwood from the wrecks of a mighty fleet that was swal- 
 lowed up and gone. The long line of aqueducts that stretch 
 across the undulating waste looked like ships with torn sails 
 heading back to port after a lost battle, and Kome in the dis- 
 tance, rising out of purple haze, was a half-submerged island 
 on which the great dome of St. Peter's rested like an ark. 
 
 The silence of the world from that clock-tower was the 
 silence of all sacred things, the silence of the mass; and the 
 undying paganism in the hearts of the two that stood there had 
 its eloquent silence also. 
 
 Roma was leaning on the parapet with David Rossi behind 
 her, when suddenly she began to weep. She wept violently 
 and sobbed. 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked, but she did not answer. 
 
 After a while she grew calm and dried her eyes, called her- 
 self foolish and began to laugh. But the heart -beats were too 
 audible without saying something, and at length she tried 
 to speak. 
 
 " It was the poor boy at the inn," she said ; " the sight of 
 his sweet face brought back a scene I had quite forgotten," and 
 then, in a faltering voice, turning her head away, she told him 
 everything. 
 
 " It was in London, and my father had found a little Roman 
 boy in the streets on a winter's night, carrying a squirrel and 
 playing an accordion. lie wore a tattered suit of velveteens, 
 and that was all that sheltered his little body from the cold. 
 His fingers were frozen stiff, and he fainted when they brought 
 him into the house. After a while he opened his eyes, and 
 gazed around at the fire and the faces about him, and seemed 
 to be looking for something. It was his squirrel, and it was 
 frozen dead. But he grasped it tight and big tears rolled on to 
 his cheeks, and he raised himself as if to escape. He was 
 too weak for that, and my father comforted him and he lay 
 still. That was when I saw him first ; and looking at the poor 
 boy at the inn I thought ... I thought perhaps he was an- 
 other . . . perhaps my little friend of long ago . . ." 
 
 Her white throat was throbbing, and her faltering voice 
 was failing like a pendulum that is about to stop. 
 
 " Roma ! " he cried over his shoulder. 
 
 " David ! "
 
 ROMA 159 
 
 Their eyes met, their hands clasped, their pent-up secret was 
 out, and in the dim-lit catacombs of love two souls stood face 
 to face. 
 
 " How long have you known it ? " she whispered. 
 
 " Since the night you came to the Piazza Xavona. And 
 you?" 
 
 " Since the moment I heard your voice." And then she 
 shuddered and laughed. 
 
 When they left the house of silence a blessed hush had 
 fallen on them, a great wonder which they had never known 
 before, the wonder of the everlasting miracle of human hearts. 
 
 The sun was setting behind Rome in a glorious blaze of 
 crimson, with the domes of churches glistening in the hori- 
 zontal rays, and the dark globe of St. Peter's hovering over all. 
 The mortal melancholy which had been lying over the world 
 seemed to be lifted away, and the earth smiled with flowers and 
 the heavens shone with gold. 
 
 Only the rhythmic cadence of the saddles broke the silence 
 as they swung to the movement of the horses. Sometimes they 
 looked at each other, and then they smiled, but they did 
 hot speak. 
 
 The sun went down, and there was a far-off ringing of bells. 
 It was Ave Maria. They drew up the horses for a moment and 
 dropped their heads. Then they started again. 
 
 The night chills were coming, and they rode hard. Roma 
 bent over the mane of her horse and looked proud and happy. 
 
 Grooms were waiting for them at the gate of St. Paul, and, 
 giving up their horses, they got into a carriage. When they 
 reached Trinita de' Monti the lamplighter was lighting the 
 lamps on the steps of the piazza, and Roma said in a low voice, 
 with a blush and a smile : 
 
 " Don't come in to-night not to-night, you know." 
 
 She wanted to be alone. 
 
 XI 
 
 FELICE met Roma at the door of her own apartment, and 
 in more than usually sepulchral tones announced that the 
 Countess had wished to see her as soon as she came home. 
 Without waiting to change her riding-habit, Roma turned 
 into her aunt's room. 
 
 The old lady was propped up with pillows, and Xatalina was 
 fussing about her. Her eyes glittered, her thin lips were com-
 
 160 TiJE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 pressed, and regardless of the presence of the maid, she 
 straightway fell upon Roma with bitter reproaches. 
 
 " Did you wish to see me, aunt ? " said Roma, and the old 
 lady answered in a mocking falsetto: 
 
 " Did I wish to see you, miss ? Certainly I wished to see 
 you, although I'm a broken-hearted woman and sorry for the 
 day I saw you first." 
 
 " What have I done now ? " said Roma, and the radiant look 
 in her face provoked the old lady to still louder denunciations. 
 
 " What have you done ? Mercy me ! . . . Give me my salts, 
 Natalina ! " 
 
 " jSTatalina," said Roma quietly, " lay out my studio things, 
 and if Bruno has gone, tell Felice to light the lamps and see to 
 the stove downstairs." 
 
 The old lady fanned herself with her embroidered handker- 
 chief and began again. 
 
 " I thought you meant to mend your ways when you came 
 in yesterday, miss you were so meek and modest. But what 
 was the fact? You had come to me straight from that man's 
 apartments. You had! You know you had! Don't try to 
 deny it." 
 
 " I don't deny it," said Roma. 
 
 "Holy Virgin! She doesn't deny it! Perhaps you ad- 
 mit it ? " 
 
 " I do admit it." 
 
 "Madonna mia! She admits it! Perhaps you made an 
 appointment? " 
 
 " No, I went without an appointment." 
 
 " Merciful heavens ! She is on such terms with the man 
 that she can go to his apartments without even an appoint- 
 ment! Perhaps you were alone with him, miss? " 
 
 " Yes, we were quite alone," said Roma. 
 
 The old lady, who was apparently about to faint right away, 
 looked up at her little shrine, and said : 
 
 "Goodness! A girl! N T ot even a married woman! And 
 without a maid, too! " 
 
 Trying not to lose control of herself, Roma stepped to the 
 door, but her aunt followed her up. 
 
 " A man like that, too ! Not even a gentleman ! The hypo- 
 crite! The impostor! With his airs of purity and pretence! " 
 
 " Aunt Betsy," said Roma, " I was sorry I spoke to you as I 
 did the other night, not because anything I said was wrong, but 
 because you are weak and bedridden and suffering. Don't pro-
 
 ROMA 161 
 
 voke me to speak again as I spoke before. I did go to Mr. 
 Rossi's rooms yesterday, and if there is any fault in that, I 
 alone am to blame." 
 
 " Are you indeed ? " said the old lady, with a shrill piping- 
 cry. " Holy Saints ! she admits so much ! Do you know what 
 people will call you when they hear of it? A hussy. A 
 shameless hussy ! " 
 
 Roma was naming up, but she controlled herself and put 
 her hand 011 the door-handle. 
 
 " They will hear of it, depend 011 that," cried the Countess. 
 " Last night at dinner the women were talking of nothing else. 
 Felice heard all their chattering. That woman let the dog out 
 to follow you, knowing it would go straight to the man's rooms. 
 ' Whom did it come home with, Felice ? ' ' Donna Roma, your 
 Excellency.' ' Then it's clear where Donna Roma had been.' 
 Ugh ! I could choke to think of it. My head is fit to split ! 
 Is there any cognac . . . ? " 
 
 Roma's bosom was visibly stirred by her breathing, but she 
 answered quietly: 
 
 " 'No matter ! Why should I care what is thought of my 
 conduct by people who have no morality of their own to 
 judge me by ? " 
 
 " Really now ? " said the Countess, twisting the wrinkles of 
 her old face into skeins of mock courtesy. " Upon my word, I 
 didn't think you were so simple. Understand, miss, it isn't the 
 opinion of the Princess Bellini I am thinking about, but that of 
 the Baron Bonelli. He has his dignity to consider, and when 
 the time comes and he is free to take a wife, he is not likely to 
 marry a girl who has been talked of with another man. Don't 
 you see what that woman is doing? She has been doing it all 
 along, and like a simpleton you've been helping her. You've 
 been flinging away your chances with this Rossi and making 
 yourself impossible to the Minister." 
 
 Roma tossed her head and answered : 
 
 " I don't care if I have, Aunt Betsy. I'm not of the same 
 mind as I used to be, and I think no longer that the holiest 
 things are to be bought and sold like so much merchandise." 
 
 The old lady, who had been bending forward in her vehe- 
 mence, fell back on the pillow. 
 
 " You'll kill me ! " she cried. " Where did you learn such 
 folly? Goodness knows I've done my best by yoii. I have 
 tried to teach you your duty to the Baron and to Society. But 
 all this comes of admitting these anarchists into the house.
 
 162 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 You can't help it, though! It's in your blood! Your father 
 before you . . ." 
 
 Crimson and trembling from head to foot, Roma turned 
 suddenly and left the room. Natalina and Felice were listen- 
 ing on the other side of the door. 
 
 But not even this jarring incident could break the spell of 
 Roma's enchantment, and when dinner was over, and she had 
 gone to the studio and closed the door, the whole world seemed 
 to be shut out, and nothing was of the slightest consequence. 
 If she remembered her aunt's anger, she thought, " My father 
 bore more than that for me." If she recalled the schemes 
 of the Princess, she told herself they were petty and vain. 
 She had undergone transition to another state of being, and 
 was wrapped in a golden cloud which included only one person 
 beside herself. 
 
 Taking the damp cloth from the bust, she looked at her 
 work again. In the light of the aurora she now lived in, the 
 head she had wrought with so much labour was poor and in- 
 adequate. It did not represent the original. It was weak 
 and wrong. 
 
 She set to work again, and little by little the face in the clay 
 began to change. Xot Peter any longer, Peter the disciple, but 
 Another. It was audacious, it was shocking, but no matter ! 
 She was not afraid. 
 
 Time passed, but she did not heed it. She was working at 
 lightning speed, and with a power she had never felt before. 
 Sometimes she stood off from the bust to look at it, then came 
 back and went on again. The hot blood was in her cheeks. 
 She was glowing, breathing hard, laughing little trills of 
 laughter, but working on, on, on. 
 
 And while she worked, the influence of her new life was fill- 
 ing her mind with pictures. She was going over every incident 
 of the day, every word, every tone, every little trivial thing. It 
 was all so mysterious, so miraculous. The violets he had 
 plucked in the dell were her favourite flowers. Were they his 
 also? How strange! A look of pain had crossed his face when- 
 she dismissed him at the door. Had he wished to come in? 
 How sweet that was ! It was like galloping on the Campagna 
 with some one galloping behind you. But she had only wanted 
 to be alone, so that she might be the more alone with him. 
 Strange paradox ! Escaping, hiding, flying from some one, that 
 you may have him nearer, nearer, nearer! How suddenly 
 everything had happened ! Was it her dream of long ago
 
 ROMA 163 
 
 coining true at last her dream, of the man the right one 
 who was to meet her at the gate of life and take her up, up, up ? 
 
 Night came on, and the old Home, the Rome of the Popes, 
 repossessed itself of the Eternal City. The silent streets, the 
 dark patches, the luminous piazzas, the three lights on the 
 loggia of the Vatican, the grey ghost of the great dome, the 
 kind stars, the sweet moon, and the church bells striking one by 
 one during the noiseless night. 
 
 At length she became aware of a streak of light on the floor. 
 It was coming through the shutters of the window. She threw 
 them open, and the breeze of morning came up from the orange 
 trees in the garden below. The day was dawning over the 
 sleepy city. Convent bells were ringing for matins, but all else 
 was still, and the silence was sweet and deep. 
 
 She turned back to her work and looked at it again. It 
 thrilled her now. She walked to and fro in the studio and 
 felt as if she were walking on the stars. She was happy, happy, 
 happy ! 
 
 Then the city began to sound on every side. Cabs rattled, 
 electric trains tinkled, vendors called their wares in the streets, 
 and the new Rome, the Rome of the Kings, awoke. 
 
 Somebody was singing as he came upstairs. It was Bruno, 
 coming to his work. He looked astonished, for the lamps were 
 still burning, although the sunlight was streaming into the 
 room. 
 
 " Been working all night, Donna Roma ? " 
 
 " Fear I have, Bruno, but I'm going to bed now." 
 
 She had an impulse to call him up to her work and say, 
 " Look ! I did that, for I am a great artist." But, no ! Xot 
 yet ! Xot yet ! 
 
 She had covered up the clay, and turned the key of her own 
 compartment, when the bell rang on the floor above. It was the 
 porter with the post, and Xatalina, in curl papers, met her on 
 the landing with the letters. 
 
 One of them was from the Mayor, thanking her for what she 
 had done for Charles Minghelli ; another was from her land- 
 lord, thanking her for his translation to Paris; a third was 
 from the fashionable modiste, thanking her for an invitation 
 from the Minister. A feeling of shame came over her as she 
 glanced at these letters. They brought the implication of an 
 immoral influence, the atmosphere of an evil life. 
 
 There was a fourth letter. It was from the Minister him- 
 self. She had seen it from the first, but a creepy sense of im-
 
 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 pending trouble had made her keep it to the last. Ought she 
 to open it ? She ought, she must ! 
 
 "My DARLING CHILD, You cannot drop it now. It would 
 be weak and foolish. Besides, it is impossible. Everybody 
 knows what you set out to do. Think of awakening some 
 morning to find all Koine laughing at you! Donna Roma 
 caught in her own nets ! Mademoiselle Manon Lescaut in her 
 own toils! Cruel and unjust, but inevitable, and these red-hot 
 prophets in petticoats, how they would scream! 
 
 " News at last, too, and success within hail. Minghelli, the 
 Grand Hotel, the reference in London, and the dead-and-buried 
 nightmare have led up to and compassed everything! Prepare 
 for a great surprise David Rossi is not David Rossi, but a 
 condemned man who has no right to live in Italy! Prepare, 
 for a still greater surprise he lias no right to live at all! 
 
 " So you are avenged ! The man humiliated and degraded 
 you. He insulted me also, and did his best to make me resign 
 my portfolio and put my private life on its defence. You set 
 out to undo the effects of his libel and to punish him for his 
 outrage. You've done it ! You have avenged yourself for both 
 of us ! It's all your work ! You are magnificent ! And now 
 let us draw the net closer . . . let us hold him fast ... let us 
 go on as we have begun . . ." 
 
 Her sight grew dim. The letter seemed to be full of 
 blotches. It dropped out of her helpless fingers. She sat a long 
 time looking out on the sunlit city, and all the world grew dark 
 and chill. Then she rose, and her face was pale and rigid. 
 
 "No, I will not go on! " she thought. "I will not betray 
 him! I will save him! He insulted me, he humiliated me, he 
 was my enemy, but ... I love him ! I love him ! "
 
 DAVID Rossi was in his bedroom writing his leader for next 
 morning's paper. A lamp with a dark shade burned on the 
 desk, and the rest of the room was in shadow. It was late, and 
 the house was quiet. 
 
 The Government had convoked Parliament for the day 
 after to-morrow. Copies of the King's speech had been sent in 
 confidence to the leaders of parties and to the press. As editor 
 of the Sunrise, David Rossi was writing the ambiguous forecast 
 which etiquette prescribes in such cases. 
 
 " The public will not be surprised if the King's speech 
 recommends . . ." 
 
 The door opened softly, and Bruno, in shirt-sleeves and 
 slippered feet, came on tiptoe into the room. He brought a 
 letter in a large violet envelope with a monogram on the front 
 of it, and put it down on the desk by Rossi's side. It was 
 from Roma. 
 
 " DEAR DAVID Rossi, Without rhyme or reason I have 
 been expecting to see you here to-day, having something to say 
 which it is important that you should hear. May I expect 
 you in the morning? Knowing how busy you are, I dare not 
 bid you come, yet the matter is of great consequence and admits 
 of no delay. It is not a subject on which it is safe or proper to 
 write, and how to speak of it I am at a loss to decide. Have 
 you ever known what it is to feel that it would be the act of a 
 friend to say something, yet just because you are a friend you 
 cannot bring yourself to say it ? That is my case now, compli- 
 cated perhaps by other and more personal considerations. But 
 you shall help me. Therefore come without delay. There! I 
 
 165
 
 166 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 have bidden you come in spite of myself. Judge from that how 
 eager is my expectation. In haste, ROMA V. 
 
 " P.S. What a day we had on the Campagna ! I have 
 sometimes closed my eyes and taken a breath back into yester- 
 day as into a dream that is fading away, and found it difficult 
 to believe that it has all come true. Only think ! You and I 
 have come into each other's lives again, like two streams which, 
 running underground, have burst into the sunlight. Isn't it 
 beautiful? How lonely I must have been in spite of all my 
 noisy surroundings ! And how I must have wanted a big 
 brother! Want me for a sister, please, and I shall be so 
 happy. 
 
 " P.S. ~No. 2. I open my envelope again, to wonder if you 
 can ever forgive me the humiliations you have suffered for my 
 sake. To think that / threw you into the way of them ! And 
 merely to wipe out an offence that is not worth considering! 
 I am ashamed of myself. I am also ashamed of the people 
 about me. You will remember that I told you they were pitiless 
 and cruel. They are worse they are heartless and without 
 mercy. But how bravely you bore their insults and innu- 
 endoes ! I almost cry to think of it, and if I were a good 
 Catholic I should confess and do penance. See ? I do confess, 
 and if you want me to do penance you will come yourself and 
 impose it. 
 
 " P.S. No. 3. Just had proof how much of a revolutionary 
 my poor father must have been. The moment I put his picture 
 into the boudoir there was anarchy on every side. All my 
 other pictures, as well as the creatures of my menagerie the 
 stuffed tiger and the stuffed wolf and the lion's skin on the 
 couch rebelled against his saintly presence. The clock with 
 the figure of Mephistopheles it was a birthday present from 
 the Baron was loudly and especially truculent. So to keep 
 the peace I've turned them all out and banished them to my 
 aunt's bedroom. There they have been received with tears of 
 pity and many maledictions on the ingratitude of their former 
 keeper. When you come again you will find me living in an 
 atmosphere that will make you imagine that one of the cells of 
 our convent has wandered from over the way. So you see what 
 you've done for me with your stories of my father and mother 
 and their sweet and noble poverty. 
 
 " Come soon. Don't say you cannot, and don't talk about 
 Parliament and such trifles. You must come ! I command it !
 
 DAVID ROSSI 167 
 
 If you don't come I shall persuade myself there is a hated 
 woman in the wind, and she is keeping you away. 
 
 " Soberly, I have a great scheme to prevent mischief coming 
 to you, and to bring out all things well. It is my secret and I 
 must not whisper a word about it yet. But when I think of it, 
 and all that is to come of it, I say to myself, ' Roma, my child, 
 you are really a wonderful woman after all, and no doubt the 
 history of the world would have been quite, quite different if by 
 great misfortune you had never been born. 
 
 " But everything depends upon your coming. So, like a 
 good boy, come at once. R. V." 
 
 It was the first letter that David Rossi had received from 
 Roma, and as he read it the air seemed to him to be filled with a 
 sweet girlish voice. He could see the play of her large, bright, 
 violet eyes. The delicate fragrance of the scented paper rose to 
 his nostrils, and without being conscious of what he was doing 
 he raised the letter to his lips. 
 
 Then he became aware that Bruno was still in the room. 
 The good fellow was in the shadow behind him, pushing things 
 about under some pretext and trying to make a noise. When 
 he came into the light, David Rossi could see by the expression 
 of his face, under its unfailing good-humour, that he had some- 
 thing to say to him. 
 
 "Want anything else to-night, sir?" 
 
 " Not to-night, Bruno. Give this to Francesca for the boy 
 when he comes from the office, and go to bed. Elena has gone ? " 
 
 " Just gone, sir." 
 
 " And Joseph, of course ? " 
 
 " Fast asleep these three hours." 
 
 " Dear little man ! Don't let me keep you up, Bruno." 
 
 " Sure you don't want anything, sir ? " said Bruno with 
 confusion. 
 
 David Rossi rose and walked about the room with his 
 slow step. 
 
 " You have something to say to me, haven't you ? " 
 
 " Well, yes, sir yes, I have." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 Bruno scratched his shock head and looked about as if for 
 help. His eyes fell on the letter lying open in the light on the 
 desk. 
 
 " It's about that, sir. I knew where it came from by the 
 colour and the monogram."
 
 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Bruno began to look frightened, and then in a louder voice, 
 that bubbled out of his mouth like water from the neck of a 
 bottle, he said: 
 
 " Tell you the truth, sir, people are talking about you." 
 
 " What are they saying, Bruno ? " 
 
 " Saying ? . . . I nearly knocked a man down for it less 
 than an hour ago. He was drunk, but truth comes out with 
 the wine, and what's the use if it's true ? " 
 
 "If what's true, old friend?" 
 
 " That something has come between you and the people." 
 
 " They're saying that, are they ? " 
 
 " They are. And doesn't it look like it, sir ? You'll allow 
 it looks like it, anyway. When you started the Republic, sir, 
 the people had hopes of you. But a month is gone and you 
 haven't done a thing." 
 
 David Rossi, with head down, continued to pace to and fro. 
 
 " ' Patience,' I'm saying. ' Go slow and sure,' says I. 
 That's all right, sir, but the Government is going fast enough. 
 Forty thousand men called out to keep the people quiet, and 
 when the bread-tax begins on the first of the month the blessed 
 saints know what will happen. A man might as well die of a 
 bullet as of the want of bread, and six feet of earth are the same 
 for all." 
 
 David Rossi did not reply, and from fear alone Bruno went 
 on repeating himself. 
 
 " When you started the Republic, sir, the people had hopes 
 of you. But a month is gone, and you haven't done a thing. 
 ~Not a thing . . . and a month is gone and . . ." 
 
 " What do the people say is the reason I do nothing? " 
 
 "The reason? Ever heard the saying, 'Sun in the eyes, 
 the battle lost? ' That's the reason, sir. Sun in the eyes you 
 know what that means. To-morrow night we ought to hold our 
 first meeting of the Committee of Direction. You called it 
 yourself, sir, yet they're laying odds you won't be there. Where 
 will you be ? In the house of a bad woman ? " 
 
 " Bruno ! " cried Rossi in a stern voice, " what right have 
 you to talk to me like this ? " 
 
 Bruno was frightened at what he had said, but he tried to 
 carry it off with a look of passion. 
 
 " Right ! The right of a friend, sir, who can't stand by and 
 see you betrayed. Yes, betrayed, that's the word for it. Be- 
 trayed ! Betrayed ! It's a plot to ruin the people through the
 
 DAVID ROSSI 169 
 
 weakness of their leader. A woman drawn across a man's trail. 
 The trick is as old as the ages. Never heard what we say in. 
 Borne ? ' The man is fire, the woman is tow ; then conies the 
 devil and puts them together.' " 
 
 David Rossi was standing face to face with Bruno, who was 
 growing hot and trying to laugh bitterly. 
 
 " Oh, I know what I'm saying, sir. The Prime Minister is 
 at the bottom of everything. David Rossi never goes to Donna 
 Roma's house but the Baron Bonelli knows all about it. They 
 write to each other every day, and I've posted her letters my- 
 self. Her house is his house. Carriage, horses, servants, 
 liveries how else could she support it? By her art, her 
 sculpture ? " 
 
 Bruno was still frightened to the bottom of his soul, but he 
 continued to talk and to laugh bitterly. 
 
 " She's deceiving you, sir. Isn't it as plain as daylight ? 
 You hit her hard, and old Vampire too, in your speech on the 
 morning of the Pope's Jubilee, and she's paying you out for 
 both of them." 
 
 " That's enough, Bruno." 
 
 " All Rome knows it, and everybody will be laughing at you 
 soon." 
 
 " You've said enough, I tell you. Go to bed." 
 " Oh, I know ! The heart has its reasons, but it listens to 
 none." 
 
 " Go to bed, I tell you ! " cried David Rossi, and then Bruno 
 was silent, for he knew that Rossi was angry in earnest at 
 last. 
 
 " Isn't it sufficient that by your tittle-tattle you caused me 
 to wrong the lady ? " 
 "/did?" 
 " You did." 
 " I did not." 
 
 " You did, and if it hadn't been for the tales you told me 
 before I knew her, or had even seen her, I should never have 
 spoken of her as I did." 
 
 " She deserved all you said of her." 
 
 " She didn't deserve one word of it, and it was your lies that 
 made me slander her." 
 
 Bruno's eyes flinched as if a blow had fallen on them. Then 
 he tried to laugh. 
 
 " Hit me again ! The skin of the ass is used to blows. Only 
 don't go too far with me, David Rossi." 
 12
 
 170 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Then don't you go too far with your falsehoods and sus- 
 picion." 
 
 " Suspicion ! Holy Virgin ! Is it suspicion that she has 
 had you at her studio to make a Roman holiday for her friends 
 and cronies ? By the saints ! Suspicion ! " 
 
 And Bruno, losing himself, laughed until the room rang. 
 
 " Go on, if it becomes you." 
 
 " If what becomes me ? " 
 
 " To eat her bread and talk against her." 
 
 " That's a lie, David Rossi, and you know it. It's my own 
 bread I'm eating. My labour belongs to me, and I sell it to 
 my employer. But my conscience belongs to God and she 
 cannot buy it." 
 
 David Rossi's white and angry face broke up like a snow- 
 flake in the sun. 
 
 " I was wrong when I said that, Bruno, and I ask your 
 pardon." 
 
 The fierce light in Bruno's eyes was gone in a moment. 
 
 " Do you say that, sir ? And after I've insulted 
 you?" 
 
 David Rossi held out his hand, and Bruno clasped it. 
 
 " I had no right to be angry with you, Bruno, but you are 
 wrong about Donna Roma. Believe me, dear friend, cruelly, 
 awfully, terribly wrong." 
 
 " You think she is a good woman." 
 
 " I know she is, and if I said otherwise, I take it back and 
 am ashamed." 
 
 " Beautiful ! If I could only believe in her as you do, sir. 
 But I've known her for two years." 
 
 " And I've known her for twenty." 
 
 Bruno's face expressed astonishment. 
 
 " Shall I tell you who she is ? She is the daughter of my 
 old friend in England." 
 
 " The one who died in Elba? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " The good man who found you and fed you, and educated 
 you when you were a boy in London ? " 
 
 " That was the father of Donna Roma." 
 
 Then he was Prince Volonna, after all ? " 
 
 " Yes, and they lied to me when they told me she was dead 
 and buried." 
 
 Bruno was silent for a moment, and then in a choking 
 voice he said :
 
 DAVID ROSSI 
 
 " Why didn't you strike me dead when I said she was de- 
 ceiving you ? Forgive me, sir ! " 
 
 " I do forgive you, Bruno, but not for myself for her." 
 
 Bruno turned away with a dazed expression. 
 
 As he opened the door the light fell on the phonograph 
 which rested on the piano in the outer room, and he pointed to 
 it and said: 
 
 " Was it this that told you, sir ? " 
 
 Rossi bent his head. 
 
 " Was that the message on the cylinder ? " 
 
 Again Rossi bent his head. 
 
 "It was my old friend's dying message, telling me where 
 his daughter was, and what dangers surrounded her, and call- 
 ing on me to save and protect her." 
 
 Bruno returned a pace or two. 
 
 " Perhaps that was what took you . . . there ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And to carry out your mission, you let the fools and 
 feather-brains insult you and laugh at you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The dog's eyes in Bruno's bushy face began to shine and 
 run over. 
 
 " Forget what I said about going to Donna Roma's, sir." 
 
 Rossi sat down and took up his pen. 
 
 " No, I cannot forget it," he said. " I will not forget it. I 
 will go there no more." 
 
 " Then you have carried out your old friend's wish, sir ? " 
 
 " God knows ! I've done my best. Anyhow, it's all over." 
 
 " You intend to break off the connection ? " 
 
 Rossi did not reply. 
 
 " Why should you if she is your old friend's daughter ? " 
 
 " Bruno, have you forgotten what I told you the night she 
 came here first, that if ever I found myself caring too much for 
 any one I should fly away from her ? " 
 
 " But why ... if she's a good woman ? " 
 
 " Do you remember the visit of Charles Miiighelli ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " He wanted to make his public work a channel for his per- 
 sonal feeling, and I flung him out of the house." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " If I go one step farther I shall be in the same case myself." 
 
 Bruno was silent for a moment, and then he said in a thick 
 voice :
 
 172 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I understand ! God help you, David Eossi. It's a lonely 
 road you mean to travel." 
 
 Eossi drew a long breath and made ready to write. 
 
 " I shall be present at the meeting to-morrow, Bruno. 
 Good-night," 
 
 " Good-night," said Bruno, and the good fellow went out 
 with wet eyes. 
 
 IT 
 
 THE night was far gone, and the city lay still, while Rossi 
 replied to Eoma. 
 
 " MY DEAR E., You have nothing to reproach yourself with 
 in regard to my poor doings, or tryings-to-do. They were 
 necessary, and if the penalties had been worse a hundredfold I 
 should not chew the cud of my bargain now. Besides your 
 wish, I had another motive, a secret motive, and perhaps if I 
 were a Catholic, I should confess, too, although not with a view 
 to penance. Apparently, it has come out well, and now that it 
 seems to be all over, both your scheme and mine, now that the 
 wrong I did you is to some extent undone, and my own object 
 is in some measure achieved, I find myself face to face with a 
 position in which it is my duty to you as well as to myself to 
 bring our intercourse to an end. 
 
 " As you say, my work is waiting for me. I am in hourly 
 expectation of pressing public business, and my time is no 
 longer my own. But I should not be honest, or do justice to 
 my own feelings, if I allowed you to believe that this is the 
 only reason for our separation. There is another ground for it, 
 and I regret that I cannot explain myself as frankly as I could 
 wish to do. My correspondence through the post has never at 
 any time been safe from official supervision, messages by hand 
 are difficult or impossible at present because of the doubt or 
 distrust of our servants, and therefore, for your sake, I dare not 
 be explicit. 
 
 " The truth is that we cannot be friends any longer, for the 
 reason that I love some one in whom you are, unhappily, too 
 much interested, and because there are obstacles between that 
 person and myself which are decisive and insurmountable. 
 This alone puts it on me as a point of honour that you and I 
 should never see each other again. Each of my visits adds to 
 my embarrassment, to the feeling that I am doing wrong in
 
 DAVID ROSSI 173 
 
 paying them, and to the certainty that I must give them up 
 altogether. 
 
 " Thank you again and again for the more than pleasant 
 hours we have spent together. It is not your fault that I must 
 bury the memory of them in oblivion. This does not mean that 
 it is any part of the painful but unavoidable result of circum- 
 stances I cannot explain, that we should not write to each other 
 as occasion may arise. Continue to think of me as your 
 brother your brother far away to be called upon for counsel 
 in your hour of need and necessity. And whenever you call, 
 be sure I shall be there. 
 
 " Meantime, it has not been without reflection that I have 
 at length compelled myself to say this, or to resist the tempta- 
 tion to go to you at your call, even now when the first objects 
 of my visits have been served. 
 
 " What you say of an important matter suggests that some- 
 thing has come to your knowledge which concerns myself and 
 the authorities; but when a man has spent all his life on the 
 edge of a precipice, the most urgent perils are of little moment, 
 and I beg of you not to be alarmed for my sake. Whatever it 
 is, it is only a part of the atmosphere of danger I have always 
 lived in the glacier I have always walked upon and ' if it is 
 not now, it is to come ; if it is not to come, it will be now the 
 readiness is all.' Good-bye ! Heaven be over you ! Yours, 
 dear E , D." 
 
 Ill 
 
 DURING some hours of next day the sitting-room of David 
 Rossi's apartment was in wild disorder. The old Garibaldian 
 and his deaf wife were pushing the furniture into passages, and 
 Elena and little Joseph were bringing chairs from the bedroom 
 and kitchen. When they had finished, there was a table at one 
 end, and a line of mixed chairs under the portraits that hung 
 on the walls. The sitting-room was now ready for the meeting 
 of the Committee of Direction. 
 
 They came at eight o'clock, thirty men of many nationali- 
 ties. Strange figures, and as various as strange. Some well- 
 dressed, some ill-dressed, some that looked like journalists, pro- 
 fessors, advocates, and members of Parliament, and others that 
 looked like tailors and locksmiths. 
 
 Bruno received them in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a Tus- 
 can cigar, conscious of a certain austerity of atmosphere
 
 174 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 among them, but laughing and joking and trying to take things 
 lightly. 
 
 " Good-evening, sir ! Cold to-night, isn't it ? The Honour- 
 able will be here presently. Just received the King's speech, 
 and polishing it off for the paper ! Working like wildfire, I can 
 tell you. That's all right, you know. Who doesn't burn him- 
 self can't expect to light others. . . . Helloa ! Come in, sonny 1 
 Where did the cloak come from? Fire at a monastery some- 
 where ! Take care ! The habit doesn't make the monk, you 
 know. Now, the Honourable never feels the cold. He is in 
 there without a fire, like a monk in a cell. Well, the general 
 must do something or the soldier wants to know why." 
 
 It was a vain effort. The company came in silently, almost 
 moodily, looking at each other and at the portraits with a vague 
 and listless stare. For some minutes they stood in the middle 
 of the floor and there was some suppressed whispering. When 
 some one sneezed there was silence in a moment. Clearly the 
 air was full of trouble. 
 
 Bruno's loiid laugh had ceased to rock through the room, he 
 had put out his cigar, pulled on his cloak, and was beginning to 
 perspire on his forehead, when the door of the bedroom opened 
 and David Rossi came out. 
 
 The Deputy looked calm and self-confident, and walking 
 into the midst of the men with a deliberate stride, shook hands 
 with all of them. They responded coldly, in some cases 
 haughtily, and looked sour and dissatisfied. One or two of them 
 bit their lips at him with undisguised severity, and others tried 
 to avoid his gaze. He took his seat at the head of the table 
 and called on them to take their places. 
 
 The first business was the reading of the report of the pro- 
 ceedings since the previous meeting. The secretary was Luigi 
 Conti, the man who had read the proclamation on the day of 
 the Pope's Jubilee. He was a short, stiff-set man, with a chol- 
 eric face, a thick neck, and a shrill voice. His minutes were 
 few and brief. The " Creed and Charter " as drawn up by the 
 President had been adopted by the Committee of Direction, 
 and copies had been sent out broadcast. The response from all 
 over Europe had been great, and the subscriptions had gone up 
 tenfold. 
 
 " That's all there is to report," said Luigi, closing his book 
 with a noisy clasp. " And now," he said in a tone of antago- 
 nism, " the Committee is waitinsr for information and direc- 
 tion. The President is the official head of our democracy, and
 
 DAVID ROSSI 175 
 
 we look to him for guidance. On the day we started our asso- 
 ciation we were told that the Republic of Man was to be a 
 reality, not a dream, watching parliaments, discussing meas- 
 ures, taking up the defence of innocent prisoners, demanding 
 justice for the oppressed, and legislation for the weak and 
 downtrodden. That was a month ago, and meanwhile we 
 have done nothing. Perhaps the President will tell us 
 why." 
 
 The secretary wagged his head over his thick neck, and 
 sat down amid murmurs of approval. David Rossi rose in 
 silence. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " before we go any further it seems 
 necessary to clear the ground. The report says that our Creed 
 and Charter has had a response all over Europe, and the sub- 
 scriptions to our international association have gone up ten- 
 fold. Let us be sure that no part of this result has been due to 
 a misconception of our motives. I should not feel myself to be 
 an honest man if I used any one's name or any one's money 
 while there is the least possibility of error. So I have written 
 something that there may be no uncertainty, and I shall print 
 it that there may be no mistake." 
 
 With that, he took out his oblong note-book, and, amidst a 
 watchful silence, began to read. 
 
 " What our Creed and Charter does not imply. 
 
 " It does not imply that the whole structure of existing 
 society is wrong and wicked. 
 
 " It does not imply that by violence of any kind we must 
 abolish kings, armies, national barriers, individual ownership 
 in land and individual control of wealth. 
 
 " It does not imply that we should reduce the world to a 
 condition in which it would be without towns, books, news- 
 papers, universities, armies, and governments. 
 
 " It does not imply that we may remedy moral evils by 
 carrying civilisation back to barbarism. 
 
 " It does not imply that the whole life of the world has been 
 wrong and false for six thousand years. 
 
 " It does not imply that during all this time there has been 
 no God governing the world to good ends." 
 
 The watchful silence was broken by some murmurs of dis- 
 sent, and Rossi raised his head from his note-book. 
 
 " It was necessary to say so much for the benefit of our 
 friends," he said, " seeing that some of them seem to have 
 supposed that we intended to create a new heaven and a new
 
 176 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 earth. And now let us say something for the benefit of our 
 enemies." 
 
 With that he turned to the note-book again, and the silence 
 became icy. 
 
 " What our Charter does imply. 
 
 " It does imply that there is a God who rules the world in 
 justice. 
 
 " That natural law is unceasingly bringing order out of 
 chaos, harmony out of discord, unity out of division, and 
 peace out of strife. 
 
 " That everything that has befallen the world has been made 
 to contribute to its ultimate good. 
 
 " That in due course, under the operation of natural law, 
 many of the remaining evils will be wiped out. 
 
 " That national barriers will be broken down. 
 
 " That war will become impracticable. 
 
 " That individual ownership of the soil of the earth will 
 become impossible. 
 
 " That individual control of capital will become unprofit- 
 able. 
 
 " That arrogated authority will end. 
 
 " That kings will cease to exist. 
 
 " That men will live like brothers without distinction of 
 race or nationality. 
 
 " That all men will have daily bread. 
 
 " And that this will come to pass in the near or the dis- 
 tant future in obedience to natural law, because it is God's 
 will, God's justice; because God is good, because God is 
 love." 
 
 Again the silence was broken by murmurs of dissent, and 
 once more Rossi raised his head. 
 
 " It was necessary to say so much for the benefit of our 
 enemies, gentlemen," he said, " that they may see that it is not 
 revolution but evolution we look to as a means by which all 
 things are to work out well. And if they say that then our 
 association is only a dream, an idea, we will show them that it 
 has its practical side as well." 
 
 So saying, he turned to his note-book and read a third time. 
 
 " How can we help on the principles of our Creed and 
 Charter ? 
 
 " By praying the Lord's Prayer. 
 ' By protesting when its principles are violated. 
 
 " By protesting against all war.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 177 
 
 " By protesting in whatsoever way is possible against being 
 compelled to take up arms as a soldier. 
 
 "By protesting against oaths of allegiance to kings and 
 princes. 
 
 "By protesting against all laws which give individual 
 ownership in the land which belongs to all. 
 
 "And by suffering for such protests when called upon to 
 do so." 
 
 The murmurs of dissent were now louder than before, but 
 Rossi continued to ignore them. 
 
 " That is the meaning of our Creed and Charter, gentle- 
 men," he said, in a calm but firm voice, " and it was necessary 
 to say so, in order that friends and enemies alike may know that 
 it is a democracy we aim at, not a demonarchy an arcadia, if 
 you will, but not an anarchy. And if they ask us when our 
 Republic of Man is to come to practical results, we say when 
 the world is ready for it, until first here and then there, as this 
 or that country is ripe for it, it will govern the powers that 
 govern the world." 
 
 At this there were shouts of " Oh " and some derisive 
 laughter, but Rossi went on with imperturbable serenity. 
 
 " In that grand result, gentlemen," he said, " Rome has a 
 place assigned to her. She is the Eternal City. Her immor- 
 tality is a mystery. Other cities decay and die down when their 
 work is done. Rome alone remains through all ages and civili- 
 sations. Once she was the capital of a Pagan Republic. The 
 Republic fell, and she became the capital of an Empire. The 
 Empire fell, and she became the capital of Christendom. Xow 
 she is the capital of Italy, a passing phase. Her destiny is to 
 be the capital of the world's great congress the court of the 
 Republic of Man." 
 
 David Rossi had hardly sat down, when half a dozen of the 
 Committee rose to their feet. 
 
 " Luigi has the word," said Rossi, and with a white and 
 twitching face the secretary began to speak. 
 
 " We know now why we have done nothing during the last 
 month," he said. " It is because, according to the view of our 
 President, there is nothing to do. Since our last meeting he 
 has whittled away our object until it has no practical force and 
 value. Then we were told that when a government is destruc- 
 tive of the natural rights of men it is man's duty to destroy 
 it. Noiv we are tdfld that natural law does everything. If that is 
 so, what are we here for? ^Yhat is the use of our association?
 
 178 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Why do we grumble at the bread-tax? And what is the good 
 of holding the meeting in the Coliseum? But, if it isn't so, 
 why is our President cutting our legs from under us, and whit- 
 tling our objects away? " 
 
 " Why ? " said another speaker. " Isn't it clear enough 
 why ? Because he is trying to run with the hare and hunt with 
 the hounds. Because he is trying to make the interests of the 
 people agree with the interests of their devourers. Time was 
 when nobody saw so clearly the corruptions of government and 
 the iniquities of our social state. But society has got hold of 
 him, new friends have intervened, he has sold his inheritance 
 for a mess of pottage, and great houses and great people, and 
 theatres and fox-hunts, and liveries of scarlet and gold have 
 bought him body and soul." 
 
 " Let us be calm," said a third speaker his own voice 
 quivered and broke. His name was Malatesta, a member of 
 Parliament, and a follower of David Rossi on the Left. " What 
 have we lost by this month in which we have done nothing? 
 The King's speech to-morrow will suggest a bill for the control 
 of the press, the right of association, and the right of public 
 meeting. After the great response to our Creed and Charter 
 we might have expected as much, and in a month we might 
 have been prepared for it. We arc not prepared, and what is 
 the consequence? The country is in the hands of the Govern- 
 ment, and, thanks to the procrastination of our President, the 
 Prime Minister may do as he pleases." 
 
 " Procrastination ! " said a shrill voice. It was Luigi again. 
 His choleric face was white with passion. " Why shouldn't we 
 speak plainly ? I tell you what it is the opportune moment is 
 being lost because our leader is afraid to act. And why is he 
 afraid to act? Because he is an honest man, and will not use 
 any one's name or any one's money while there is any doubt 
 about his object? Bah! Shall I tell you why? Because he is 
 in the hands of a woman ! And who is this woman ? The very 
 woman he held up to scorn a month ago as the acid that was 
 corrupting the public powers the mistress of the Prime Min- 
 ister! Ah! the truth is out at last, is it? Very well; take it, 
 put it in your pipe and smoke it ! " 
 
 The contagion of passion had infected everybody, and by 
 this time the room was in a tumult. Men were shuffling to 
 their feet. Bruno, who had been standing by the door, was 
 getting round to the side of the table. Luig*i was lashing up 
 his anger with continued protests.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 179 
 
 " Oh, he can't frighten me ! I've told him the truth, and 
 he knows it." 
 
 David Rossi rose at last. He was the only man in the 
 room who had control of himself. 
 
 " Brothers," he said in measured accents, " when a man has 
 undertaken a work for humanity, he must be prepared to sink 
 his private quarrels, and I sink this insult to myself." 
 
 " Thought as much," said Luigi, looking around and laugh- 
 ing a shrill laugh of contempt. 
 
 " But," said Rossi in the same measured accents, " I cannot 
 allow this insult to a good and pure woman." 
 
 Again Luigi laughed, and some of the others joined him. 
 
 " I say," said Rossi in a firm voice, " I cannot allow this 
 insult to a good and pure woman to go unchallenged, and 
 the man who made it must be told that he is a common slan- 
 derer." 
 
 "Liar!" cried Luigi, and then something unexpected hap- 
 pened. 
 
 Bruno, after an inarticulate exclamation, was seen to move 
 from the side of the table, and before any one knew what had 
 happened, Luigi was in his arms, his legs were kicking in the 
 air, and at the next moment his little fat body had fallen on the 
 floor with a thud. 
 
 Then there was a general commotion, and in the midst of it 
 David Rossi's voice, thick with anger, ordered Bruno out of the 
 room. 
 
 Bruno rolled out with his shaggy head down and his hands 
 in his trouser pockets like a schoolboy who has been whipped, 
 while Rossi, white as a sheet, his breast heaving and his breath 
 coming quick, pushed through to where Luigi lay and picked 
 him up. 
 
 " I'm ashamed," he said. " I wouldn't have had it for 
 worlds. He shall be punished." 
 
 " Leave him alone, sir," said Luigi, pocketing a knife which 
 he had drawn in his rage. " It was my own fault. I ask your 
 pardon." 
 
 He was a different man in a moment, and some of the others 
 came up to Rossi in silence and offered him their hands. 
 
 "Let us adjourn and meet again when we are more our- 
 selves," said Rossi. " We should be fine leaders of a new age 
 of brotherhood and peace if we began by a vulgar brawl. Go 
 home, and God bless you ! " 
 
 The men trooped out without a word more and Rossi turned
 
 180 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 into his bedroom. After a few moments a timid tap came to 
 the door. 
 
 " Who's there ? " he cried. 
 
 It was Elena with a letter. 
 
 " What's to do with Bruno ? " she said. " He has gone to 
 bed, and I can't get a word out of him." 
 
 " He did wrong and I was compelled to reprove him." 
 
 " Poor Bruno ! He would lay down his life for you, sir, 
 but he is like a dog he'll bark at a king, and when you speak 
 back he is broken-hearted." 
 
 " Tell him I'm sorry and it's all over," said Rossi. 
 
 He took up the dagger paper-knife to open the letter. 
 
 Elena had scarcely left the room when her mother entered 
 with a tray on which there was a dish of smoking spighetti. 
 
 " You've eaten no dinner to-day, my son, and I've brought 
 you this for your supper. Come, now, put your books and 
 letters out of your head and get something on your stomach. 
 Do you think that books can feed you? People say they can, 
 but it's all nonsense. Take a book on an empty inside and 
 after you've held it up for two hours tell me if you have eaten 
 enough. Books are not things for a Christian. Put them 
 away, my son. . . . Xot hungry, you say? Tell you what it 
 is, you want a wife to manage you. If I was only a bit younger, 
 I would marry you myself, and bring you to your senses. Come, 
 now, son, for charity's sake, some of these good spighetti. . . . 
 Thats' right! Buona sera!" 
 
 IV 
 
 THE letter was from Roma. 
 
 " MY DEAR D., Your letter has thrown me into the wild- 
 est state of excitement and confusion. I have done no work 
 all day long, and when Black has leapt upon me and cried, 
 1 Come out for a walk, you dear, dear dunce,' I have hardly 
 known whether he barked or talked. 
 
 " I am sorry our charming intercourse is to be interrupted, 
 but you can't mean that it is to be broken off altogether. You 
 can't, you cant, or my eyes would be red with crying, instead of 
 dancing with delight. 
 
 " Yet why they should dance I don't really know, seeing 
 you are so indefinite, and I have no right to understand any-
 
 DAVID ROSSI 181 
 
 thing. If you cannot write by post, or even send messages by 
 hand, if my man F. is your enemy, and your housemate B. is 
 mine, isn't that precisely the best reason why you should come 
 and talk matters oveH Come at once. I bid you come! In a 
 matter of such inconceivable importance, surely a sister has a 
 right to command. 
 
 "In that character, I suppose, I ought to be glad of the 
 news you give me. Well, I am glad ! But being a daughter of 
 Eve, I have a right to be curious. I want to ask questions. 
 You say I know the lady, and am, unhappily, too deeply 
 interested in her who is she? Does she know of your love 
 for her? Is she beautiful? Is she charming? Give me one 
 initial of her name only one and I will be good. I am so 
 much in the dark, and I cannot commit myself until I know 
 more. 
 
 " You speak of obstacles, and say they are decisive and 
 insurmountable. That's terrible, but perhaps you are only 
 thinking of what the poets call the ' cruel madness ' of love, as 
 if its madness and cruelty were sufficient reason for flying away 
 from it. Or perhaps the obstacles are those of circumstances; 
 but in that case, if the woman is the right one, she will be 
 willing to wait for such difficulties to be got over, or even to 
 find her happiness in sharing them. Or perhaps fearful 
 thought there are two women in question, and while love draws 
 one way, duty draws another. In that event, I beg of you to 
 weigh well what you are doing. Duty is a terrible tyrant, and 
 has wrecked more lives than love itself. 
 
 " See how I plead for my unknown sister ! Which is sweet 
 of me, considering that you don't tell me who she is, but leave 
 me to find out if she is likely to suit me. But why not let me 
 help you? Come at once and talk things over. 
 
 " Yet how vain I am ! Even while I proffer assistance with 
 so loud a voice, I am smitten cold with the fear of an impedi- 
 ment which you know a thousand times better than I do how to 
 measure and to meet. Perhaps the woman you speak of is 
 unworthy of your friendship and love. I can understand that 
 to be an insurmountable obstacle. You stand so high, and have 
 to think about your work, your aims, your people. And per- 
 haps it is only a dream and a delusion, a mirage of the heart, 
 that love lifts a woman up to the level of the man who loves 
 her. 
 
 " Then there may be some fault some grave fault. I can 
 understand that too. We do not love because we should, but
 
 182 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 because we must, and there is nothing so cruel as the inequality 
 of man and woman in the way the world regards their con- 
 duct. But I am like a bat in the dark, flying at gleams of light 
 from closely-curtained windows. Will you not confide in me? 
 Do! Do! Do! 
 
 " Besides, I have the other matter to talk about. You re- 
 member telling me how you kicked out the man M ? He 
 
 turned spy as the consequence, and has been sent to England. 
 You ought to know that he has been making inquiries about 
 you, and appears to have found out various particulars. Any 
 day may bring urgent news of him, and if you will not come to 
 me I may have to go to you in spite of every protest. 
 
 " To-morrow is the day for your opening of Parliament and 
 I have a ticket for the Court tribune, so you may expect to see 
 me floating somewhere above you in an atmosphere of lace and 
 perfume. Good-night ! Your poor bewildered sister, 
 
 " BOMA." 
 
 V 
 
 NEXT morning David Rossi put on evening-dress, in obedi- 
 ence to the etiquette of the opening day of Parliament. Before 
 going to the ceremony he answered Roma's letter of the night 
 before. 
 
 " DEAR Ii., If anything could add to the bitterness of my 
 regret at ending an intercourse which has brought me the hap- 
 piest moments of my life, it would be the tone of your sweet 
 and charming letter. You ask me if the woman I love is 
 beautiful. She is more than beautiful, she is lovely. Her soul 
 shines in her face, and it is pure and true and noble. 
 
 " You ask me if she knows that I love her. I have never 
 dared to disclose the secret of my heart to her, and if I could 
 have believed that she had ever so much as guessed at it, I 
 should have found some consolation in a feeling which is too 
 deep for the humiliations of pride. You ask me if she is 
 worthy of my friendship and love. She is worthy of the love 
 and friendship of a better man than I am or can ever hope to be. 
 
 " Yet even if she were not so, even if there were, as you say, 
 a fault in her, who am I that I should judge her harshly? I am 
 not one of those who think that a woman is fallen because cir- 
 cumstances and evil men have conspired against her. I reject 
 the monstrous theory that while a man may redeem the past, a
 
 DAVID ROSSI 183 
 
 woman never can. I abhor the judgment of the world by which 
 a woman may be punished because she is trying to be pure, and 
 dragged down because she is rising from the dirt. And if she 
 had sinned as I have sinned, and suffered as I have suffered, I 
 would pray for strength enough to say, ' Because I love her 
 we are one, and we stand or fall together.' 
 
 " But she is sweet, and pure, and true, and brave, and noble- 
 hearted, and there is no fault in her, or she would not be the 
 daughter of her father, who was the noblest man I ever knew or 
 ever expect to know. Xo, the root of the separation is in my- 
 self, in myself only, in my circumstances and the personal situa- 
 tion I find myself in. 
 
 " And yet it is difficult for me to state the obstacle which 
 divides us, or to say more about it than that it is permanent 
 and insurmountable. I should deceive myself if I tried to be- 
 lieve that time would remove or lessen it, and I have contended 
 in vain with feelings which have tempted me to hold on at any 
 price to the only joy and happiness of my life. 
 
 " To go to her and open my heart is impossible, for personal 
 intercourse is precisely the peril I am trying to avoid. How 
 weak I am in her company! Even when her dress touches me 
 at passing, I am thrilled with an emotion I cannot master; 
 and when she lifts her large bright eyes to mine, I am the slave 
 of a passion which conquers all my will. 
 
 " No, it is not lightly and without cause that I have taken 
 a step which sacrifices love to duty. I love her, with all my 
 heart and soul and strength I love her, and that is why she and 
 I, for her sake more than mine, should never meet again. 
 
 " I note what you say about the man M , but you must 
 
 forgive me if I cannot be much concerned about it. There is 
 nobody in London who knows me in the character I now bear, 
 and can link it to the one you are thinking of. Good-bye, 
 again ! God be with you and keep you always ! D." 
 
 Having written this letter, David Eossi sealed it carefully 
 and posted it with his own hand on his way to the opening of 
 Parliament. 
 
 YT 
 
 THE day was fine, and the city was bright with many flags in 
 honour of the King. His visit was to the Hall of the Deputies, 
 as the larger and more convenient of the two legislative cham-
 
 184 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 bers. . All the streets leading- to it from the royal palace were 
 lined with people. The square in front of the Parliament 
 House was kept clear by a cordon of Carabineers, but the open 
 windows of the hotels and houses round about were filled with 
 faces. 
 
 A military band was drawn up by the portico, ready to re- 
 ceive the signal as the King approached, and royal guards in 
 glistening helmets stood waiting at the door. A way was kept 
 for carriages to draw up and discharge their occupants, and 
 reporters with note-books in hand were jotting down the names 
 of distinguished persons as they arrived. Deputies on foot 
 were sometimes recognised by the public in the outer square 
 and streets, and greeted with slight cheering. 
 
 Coming from the direction opposite to the palace, David 
 Rossi had encountered no crowds until he reached the piazza. 
 Then he entered' the house unobserved by the little private door 
 for deputies in the side street. The chamber was already 
 thronged, and as full of movement as a hive of bees. Ladies in 
 light dresses, soldiers in uniform, diplomatists wearing decora- 
 tions, senators and deputies in white cravats and gloves, were 
 moving to their places and saluting each other with bows and 
 smiles. 
 
 . It was a semicircular chamber with formal rows of stalls 
 round its curved side, upholstered in red velvet. On its straight 
 side there was a broad platform, on which stood a large 
 gilded arm-chair under a baldacchino, also of red velvet, with 
 the cross of the reigning House embroidered on it in gold. A 
 gallery for reporters and for the undistinguished public ran 
 round the upper part of the walls, and the roof was a dome 
 of glass. 
 
 David Rossi slipped into the place he usually occupied 
 among the deputies. It was the corner seat by the d-oor on the 
 left of the royal canopy, immediately facing the section which 
 had been apportioned to the Court tribune. He did not lift 
 his eyes as he entered, but he was conscious of a tall, well- 
 rounded yet girlish figure in a grey dress that glistened in a 
 ray of sunshine, with dark hair under a large black hat, and 
 flashing eyes that seemed to pierce into his own like a shaft 
 of light. 
 
 Beautiful ladies with big oriental eyes were about her, and 
 young deputies were using their opera-glasses upon them with 
 undisguised curiosity. There was much gossip, some laughter, 
 and a good deal of gesticulation. The atmosphere was one of
 
 DAVID ROSSI 185 
 
 light spirits, approaching gaiety, the atmosphere of the theatre 
 or the ballroom. 
 
 The clock over the reporters' gallery showed seven minutes 
 after the hour appointed, when the walls of the chamber shook 
 with the vibration of a cannon-shot. It was a gun fired at the 
 Castle of St. Angelo to announce the King's arrival. At the 
 same moment there came the muffled strains of the royal hymn 
 played by the band in the piazza. The little gales of gossip 
 died down in an instant, and in dead silence the assembly rose 
 to its feet. 
 
 A minute afterwards the King entered amid a fanfare of 
 trumpets, the shouts of many voices, and the clapping of hands. 
 He was a young man, in the uniform of a general, with a face 
 that was drawn into deep lines under the eyes by ill-health and 
 anxiety. Two soldiers, carrying their brass helmets with wav- 
 ing plumes, walked by his side, and a line of his Ministers fol- 
 lowed. His queen, a tall and beautiful girl, came behind, sur- 
 rounded by many ladies. 
 
 The King took his seat under the baldacchino, with his 
 Ministers on his left. The Queen sat on his right hand, with 
 her ladies beside her. They bowed to the plaudits of the assem- 
 bly, and the drawn face of the young King wore a painful 
 smile. 
 
 The Baron Bonelli, in court dress and decorations, stood at 
 the King's elbow, calm, dignified, self-possessed the one strong 
 face and figure in the group under the canopy. After the 
 cheering and the shouting had subsided he requested the assem- 
 bly, at the command of His Majesty, to resume their seats. 
 Then he handed a paper to the King. 
 
 It was the King's' speech to his Parliament, and he read it 
 nervously in a voice that had not learned to control itself. But 
 the speech was sufficiently emphatic, and its words were gran- 
 diose and even florid. 
 
 It consisted of four clauses. In the first clause the King 
 thanked God that his country was on terms of amity with all 
 foreign countries, and invoked God's help in the preservation 
 of peace. The second clause was about the increase of the 
 army. 
 
 " The army," said the King, " is very dear to me, as it has 
 always been dear to my family. My illustrious grandfather, 
 who granted freedom to the kingdom, was a soldier; my 
 honoured father was a soldier, and it is my pride that I am 
 myself a soldier also. The army was the foundation of our 
 13
 
 186 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 liberty and it is now the security of our rights. On the strength 
 and stability of the army rest the power of our nation abroad 
 and the authority of our institutions at home. It is my firm 
 resolve to maintain the army in the future as my illustrious 
 ancestors have maintained it in the past, and therefore my 
 Government will propose a bill which is intended to increase 
 still further its numbers and its efficiency." 
 
 This was received with a great outburst of applause and the 
 waving of many handkerchiefs. It was observed that some of 
 the ladies shed tears. 
 
 The third clause was about the growth and spread of an- 
 archism. 
 
 "My house," said the King, "gave liberty to the nation, 
 and now it is my duty and my hope to give security and 
 strength. It is known to Parliament that certain subversive 
 elements, not in Italy alone, but throughout Europe, throughout 
 the world, have been using the most devilish machinations for 
 the destruction of all order, human and divine. Cold calculat- 
 ing criminals have perpetrated crimes against the most inno- 
 cent and the most highly placed, which have sent a thrill of 
 horror into all humane hearts. My Government asks for an 
 absolute power over such criminals, and if we are to bring 
 security to the State, we must reinvigorate the authority to 
 which society trusts the high mandate of protecting and gov- 
 erning." 
 
 A still greater outburst of cheering interrupted the young 
 King, who raised his head amid the shouts, the clapping of 
 hands, and the fluttering of handkerchiefs, and smiled his 
 painful smile. 
 
 " More than that," continued the King, " I have to deplore 
 the spread of associations, sodalities, and clubs, which, by an 
 erroneous conception of liberty, are disseminating the germs of 
 revolt against the State. Under the most noble propositions 
 about the moral and economical redemption of the people, is 
 hidden a propaganda for the conquest of the public powers. 
 
 " Leaders, whose sole motive is blind envy of a social state 
 superior to their own, are diffusing hate between the classes 
 by inculcating doctrines that cut at the root of public order 
 and threaten the existence of the dynasty. Associations, which 
 have not even asked the permission of the authorities, are hid- 
 ing under the cloak of religion and texts of Scripture their 
 true character, which is political and subversive. 
 
 " My aim is to gain the affection of my people, and to
 
 DAVID ROSSI 187 
 
 interest them in the cause of order and public security, and 
 therefore my Government will present an urgent bill, which is 
 intended to stop the flowering of these parasitic organisations, 
 by revising these laws of the press and of public meeting, in 
 whose defects agitators find opportunity for their attacks on 
 the doctrines of the State." 
 
 A prolonged outburst of applause followed this passage, 
 mingled with a tumult of tongues, which went on after the 
 King had begun to read again, rendering his last clause an 
 invocation of God's blessing on the deliberations of Parliament 
 almost inaudible. 
 
 The end of the speech was a signal for further cheering, 
 and when the King left the hall, bowing as nervously as before, 
 and smiling his painful smile, the shouts of " Long live the 
 King," the clapping of hands, and the waving of handkerchiefs 
 followed him to the street. The entire ceremony had occupied 
 twelve minutes. 
 
 Then the clamour of voices drowned the sound of the royal 
 hymn outside. Deputies were climbing about to join their 
 friends among the ladies, whose light laughter was to be heard 
 on every side. 
 
 David Rossi rose to go. Without lifting his head, he had 
 been conscious that during the latter part of the King's speech 
 many eyes were fixed upon him. Playing with his watch 
 chain, he had struggled to look calm and impassive. But his 
 heart was sick, and he wished to get away quickly. 
 
 A partition, shielding the door of the corridor, stood near 
 to his seat, and he was trying to get round it. He heard his 
 name in the air around him, mingled with significant trills and 
 unmistakable accents. All at once he was conscious of a per- 
 fume he knew, and of a girlish figure facing him. 
 
 " Good-day, Honourable," said a voice that thrilled him like 
 the strings of a harp drawn tight. 
 
 He lifted his head and answered. It was Roma. Her face 
 was lighted up with a fire he had never seen before. Only 
 one glance he dared to take, but he could see that at the next 
 instant those flashing eyes would burst into tears. 
 
 The tide was passing out by the front doors where the car- 
 riages and the reporters waited, but Rossi stepped round to 
 the back. No one was going that way, except two or three old 
 men of his own party who were grumbling their way down the 
 stairs, and one or two young Deputies who were talking of 
 staking money in the lottery on the number of the clauses of
 
 188 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the King's speech, the number of minutes he had been late in 
 arriving, and the number of the day of the month 4, 7, and 25. 
 
 David Rossi was on the way to the office of his newspaper, 
 and dipping into the Corso from a lane that crossed it, he came 
 upon the King's carriage returning to the Quirinal. It was 
 entirely surrounded by soldiers, the military commander of 
 Rome on the right, the commander of the Carabineers on the 
 left, and the Cuirassiers, riding two deep, before and behind, 
 so that the King and Queen were scarcely visible to the cheer- 
 ing crowd. Last in the royal procession came an ordinary cab 
 containing two detectives in plain clothes. 
 
 To David Rossi it was a painful sight. Miserable and 
 doomed, whatever its nourishes, was the institution that had to 
 be maintained by such a retinue. A throne broad-based on the 
 love of the people might be strong and right, but a throne that 
 had to be protected from their hate, or even from the dagger 
 of the assassin, was weak and wrong. Not to be king of all the 
 kingdoms of the earth should a true man live an abject life 
 such as that procession gave hint of. The young King, who 
 had just spoken as if he were a god, was being taken home as if 
 he were a prisoner. 
 
 The office of the Sunrise was in a narrow lane out of the 
 Corso. It was a dingy building of three floors, with the ma- 
 chine-rooms on the ground-level, the composing-rooms at the 
 top, and the editorial rooms between. David Rossi's office was 
 a large apartment, with three desks', that were intended for the 
 editor and his day and night assistants. 
 
 His day assistant received him with many bows and compli- 
 ments. He was a small man with an insincere face. 
 
 Rossi drank a cup of coffee and settled to his work. It was 
 an article on the day's doings, more fearless and outspoken than 
 he had ever published before. Such a day as they had just 
 gone through, with the flying of flags and the playing of royal 
 hymns, was not really a day of joy and rejoicing, but of degra- 
 dation and shame. If the people had known what they were 
 doing, they would have hung their flags with crape and played 
 funeral marches. 
 
 The young King, whose speech had been made for him by a 
 Minister who despised the people, and touched up by some man 
 of letters who was only thinking of his flowers of rhetoric the 
 King, who was supposed to hold his sceptre by the will of the 
 nation had done his utmost to annul every authority of Par- 
 liament and to suppress the rights which were the last asylum
 
 DAVID ROSSI 189 
 
 of the liberties of the country. The new regulations which had 
 been proposed represented the death of government by the 
 people, and the birth of government by the police constable, as 
 standing for the Minister and the throne. 
 
 " No wonder the King is a soldier," he wrote. " All kings 
 are soldiers. The uniform of the soldier is the badge of the 
 positions they fill and the rights they arrogate. Who says King 
 says soldier, army, national barriers, the frontier, the sentinel, 
 the custom-house officer, everything that divides man from 
 man. To divide man from man is necessary to the King in 
 order that he may reign and rule. 
 
 " And no wonder kings surround themselves with armies. 
 Armies are the engines of arrogated power intended to separate 
 nation from nation and to keep down the rights of the dispos- 
 sessed. They are the great devourers of the world, the Jugger- 
 nauts of empires, and can only end by trampling to death the 
 powers that made them." 
 
 It was the old idea of government that the King was the 
 law, the authority, the State. To revert to that theory, whether 
 in the name of king or public security, was to turn back the 
 clock that marks the progress of the world. Christianity came 
 to wipe out such ideas of government to show that the law 
 was the State, that the State was the expression of the con- 
 science of the people, and the conscience of the people the ex- 
 pression of the divine. No man could claim to represent that 
 conscience. In no man was it right to do so ; in no man was 
 it even sane and logical, except, perhaps, the Pope of Rome 
 himself. 
 
 " Such a scene as we have witnessed to-day," he concluded, 
 "like all such scenes throughout the world, whether in Ger- 
 many, Eussia, and England, or in China, Persia, and the dark- 
 est regions of Africa, is but proof of the melancholy fact that 
 while man, as the individual, has been nineteen hundred years 
 converted to Christianity, man, as the nation, remains to this 
 day, for the most part utterly Pagan." 
 
 The assistant editor, who had glanced over the pages of 
 manuscript as Eossi threw them aside, looked up at last and 
 said: 
 
 " Are you sure, sir, that you wish to print this article? " 
 " Quite sure." 
 
 The man made a shrug of his shoulders, and took the copy 
 upstairs. 
 
 The short day had closed in when Eossi was returning home.
 
 190 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Screamers in the streets were crying early editions of the even- 
 ing papers, and the cafes in the Corso were full of officers and 
 civilians, sipping vermouth and reading glowing accounts of 
 the King's enthusiastic reception. Pitiful ! Most pitiful ! And 
 the man who dared to tell the truth must be prepared for any 
 consequences. 
 
 David Rossi told himself that he was prepared. Henceforth 
 he would devote himself to the people, without a thought of 
 what might happen. Nothing should come between him and 
 his work for humanity nothing whatever not even . . . but, 
 no, he could not think of it ! 
 
 He was turning into the Piazza Navona, when a tall young 
 man, of soldierly bearing, stepped up beside him, and spoke in 
 a low tone. 
 
 "The Honourable Mr. Eossi, I think?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " My name is De Raymond. I belong to the Pope's Guard. 
 I think His Holiness may have something to say to you." 
 
 "Does he know that I am not a good Catholic?" 
 
 " He knows you are not a Protestant. But it is something 
 social, something political, something that affects the position 
 you are placed in at present. And, of course, His Holiness 
 would not ask you to meet himself." 
 
 "Whom, then?" 
 
 " A representative I would have the honour to take you to." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 " To-morrow morning at eleven, if that will do." 
 
 " Very well." 
 
 " I will be waiting 011 this spot. Meantime our interview 
 is quite confidential ? " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 VII 
 
 Two letters were awaiting David Rossi in his room. 
 
 One was a circular from the President of the Chamber of 
 Deputies summoning Parliament for the day after to-morrow 
 to elect officials and reply to the speech of the King. 
 
 The other was from Roma, and the address was in a large, 
 hurried hand. David Rossi broke the seal with nervous fingers. 
 
 " MY DEAR FRIEND, I know ! I know ! I know now what the 
 obstacle is. B. gave me the hint of it on one of the days of last 
 week, when I was so anxious to see you and you did not come.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 191 
 
 It is your unflinching devotion to your mission and to your 
 public duties. You are one of those who think that when a 
 man has dedicated his life to work for the world, he should 
 give up everything else father, mother, wife, child and live 
 like a priest, who puts away home, and love, and kindred, that 
 others may have them more abundantly. I can understand 
 that, and see a sort of nobility in it too, especially in days when 
 the career of a statesman is only a path to vainglory of every 
 kind. It is great, it is glorious, it thrills me to think of it. 
 
 " But I am losing faith in my unknown sister that is to be, 
 in spite of all my pleading. You say she is beautiful that's 
 well enough, but it comes by nature. You say she is sweet, and 
 true, and charming and I am willing to take it all on trust. 
 But when you say she is noble-hearted, I respectfully refuse 
 to believe it. If she were that, you would be sure that she 
 would know that friendship is the surest part of love, and to 
 be the friend of a great man is to be a help to him, and not 
 an impediment. 
 
 " My gracious! What does she think you are? A cavaliere 
 servente to dance attendance on her ladyship day and night ? I 
 shall certainly despise her if that is her hope and expectation. 
 No, no ! Give me the woman who wants her husband to be a 
 man, with a man's work to do, a man's burdens to bear, and a 
 man's triumphs to win, whatsoever they are and wheresoever 
 they take him, down to the depths of disappointment or up to 
 the glory of the cross. 
 
 " Yet perhaps I am too hard on my unknown sister that is 
 to be or ought to be, and it is only your own distrust that 
 wrongs her. If she is the daughter of one brave man and really 
 loves another, she knows her place and her duty. It is to be 
 ready to follow her husband wherever he must go, to share his 
 fate whatever it may be, and to live his life, because it is now 
 her own. 
 
 " And since I am in the way of pleading for her again, let 
 me tell you how simple you arc to suppose that because you 
 have never disclosed your secret she may never have guessed it. 
 Goodness me ! To think that men who can make women love 
 them to madness itself can be so ignorant as not to know that 
 a woman can always tell if a man loves her, and even fix the 
 very day and hour and minute when he looked into her eyes and 
 loved her first. 
 
 " And if my unknown sister that ought to be knows that 
 you love her, be sure that she loves you in return. Have you
 
 192 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 thought of that. A thousand to one she loved you before you 
 dreamt of loving her, and waited and watched for the return 
 of the dove of promise she had cast out on to the waters of 
 your heart. Then trust her. Take the counsel of a woman and 
 go to her. Remember, that if you are suffering by this separa- 
 tion, perhaps she is suffering too, and if she is worthy of the 
 love and friendship of a better man than you are, or ever hope 
 to be (which, without disparaging her ladyship, I respectfully 
 refuse to believe), let her at least have the refusal of one or 
 both of them. 
 
 " Good-night ! I go to the Chamber of Deputies again the 
 day after to-morrow, being so immersed in public matters (and 
 public men) that I can think of nothing else at present. Hap- 
 pily my bust is out of hand, and the caster (not B. this time) 
 is hard at work on it. 
 
 " You won't hear anything about the M doings, yet I 
 
 assure you they are a most serious matter. Unless I am 
 much mistaken there is an effort on foot to connect you with 
 my father, which is surely sufficiently alarming. M is re- 
 turning to Rome, and I hear rumours of an intention to bring 
 pressure on some one here in the hope of leading to identifica- 
 tion. Think of it, I beg, I pray ! Your friend, R." 
 
 VIII 
 
 AT eleven o'clock next morning the young Noble Guard was 
 waiting for David Rossi by the corner of the Piazza Navona. 
 They got into a carriage and drove along the bank of the Tiber. 
 The carriage drew up in the Ripetta, a busy thoroughfare, be- 
 fore a grey palace which Rossi recognised. It was the Jesuit 
 College. 
 
 A black gate, resembling the portcullis to a castle, crossed 
 the mouth of the portico, shutting off everything within. The 
 bell was answered immediately, and without a word being 
 spoken the two men were taken up a flight of stone stairs. A 
 pale and emaciated young priest stood waiting at the top. He 
 showed them into a room in silence, and then left them. The 
 room overlooked the street, but it was closely curtained and 
 dark, and had the dead atmosphere of a chamber whose windows 
 are rarely opened. A sound of men's voices singing had fol- 
 lowed them from the courtyard. 
 
 There were two principal pictures on the wall. One of
 
 DAVID ROSSI 193 
 
 them showed a figure dressed wholly in white, the other a figure 
 dressed wholly in black. 
 
 " We call them the white and the black popes," whispered 
 the young Guard. 
 
 Under the black pope hung a text-card with the words, 
 "Let those who live in obedience be led and guided by their 
 Superior, like the corpse which may be turned and handled in 
 any way." On a table by the wall there was a Madonna in a 
 glass case. It was a beautiful face and figure the ideal of 
 pure, sinless womanhood, which even in monasteries and cells 
 is a sustaining force to man. David Rossi looked at it with a 
 great tenderness, tears rose to his eyes, and the voices of the 
 men came floating to him from below. 
 
 The singing ceased, there was a step outside, the door 
 opened, and a large man in a black soutane broidered with scar- 
 let and wearing a scarlet skull-cap entered the room. 
 
 The young Guard kissed the episcopal ring, presented 
 Rossi, smiled, and went away. 
 
 " Pray sit, Mr. Rossi," said the Cardinal, and he placed a 
 chair for him facing the window. 
 
 Although his voice was naturally a harsh one, the tones 
 were soft; and despite an ungainly figure, his manner was 
 suave and gracious. He sat with his back to the light, and 
 opened the conversation with a playful hope that Mr. Rossi was 
 not afraid of the Jesuits. The world made them the scapegoats 
 of humanity, but they were happy enough if they bore away 
 its sins. 
 
 " I understand His Holiness has something to say to me," 
 said Rossi. 
 
 Without replying, the Cardinal paid some graceful compli- 
 ments to Rossi himself. In days when politicians were for the 
 most part light and even corrupt persons, when the whole 
 power of the State was in the hands of anti-Christians, when 
 the baneful effects of secret societies, especially the Freema- 
 sons, were so keenly felt, it was something to find a statesman 
 with so strong a sentiment of religion. The legislative assem- 
 blies of Europe had need of such men. 
 
 " Perhaps these evils are permitted by our Divine Master 
 for the purgation of the world ; but you have proved, dear sir, 
 that it is not necessary that men should be irreligious in order 
 to be Liberal, or offend against the principles of morality that 
 they may love their country." 
 
 " Does the Holy Father know," said David Rossi, " that I am
 
 194 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the man who tried to stop his procession, and was flung out of 
 the way by his soldiers ? " 
 
 " That," said the Cardinal, with a scarcely perceptible hesi- 
 tancy, " that was a case in which a warm heart overcame the 
 dictates of a cool head. The Holy Father is the Workmen's 
 Pope, and there is nothing nearer to his paternal breast than 
 the material welfare of the lowly ones. But to have joined 
 hands with their advocate at such a moment would have been 
 to insult the reigning powers and make terms with the spirit of 
 rebellion." 
 
 David Rossi was about to speak, but with a smile and a 
 conciliatory gesture the Cardinal raised his hand and a large 
 sapphire set in brilliants flashed in the light. 
 
 " We have come nearer into line since then, dear sir. The 
 new projects of law which are directed against you are directed 
 against us as well ; a fresh subject of bitterness has been added 
 to our griefs, and we are both suffering from the hostility of 
 the Government." 
 
 Then the Cardinal spoke of the many societies connected 
 with the Church that would be affected by the proposed law, 
 the sodalities, banks, clubs, circles, and schools. 
 
 " On the first pretext of the police, it will be easy to dissolve 
 all these associations, which have been conducted during many 
 years for the good of the Church and the people. It will no 
 longer be possible to hold a meeting or to carry a banner or 
 emblem which the police chooses to regard as seditious. Indeed, 
 the dissolution of the clerical clubs would be a religious cam- 
 paign, and we are by no means sure that it is not intended to 
 carry war into the camp of the Vatican under the cover of 
 public security and the suppression of anarchism. Be that 
 as it may, it is clear that the same method of defence which 
 will be good for your associations will be good for ours 
 also." 
 
 " And that is what, your Eminence ? " 
 
 The Cardinal cleared his throat. 
 
 " You are aware that the Holy Father has forbidden his 
 faithful children to participate in the affairs of a Government 
 which exists by the abrogation of his rights and the spoliation 
 of his treasure." 
 
 Rossi bowed assent. 
 
 " But the Church does not deny itself the right to take part 
 in the secular affairs of Italy where to do so is hopeful of good 
 results to the Catholic Church, and it would not be opposed to
 
 DAVID ROSSI 195 
 
 any honourable plans of freedom which are agreeable to moral- 
 ity and religion." 
 
 " You think of a Catholic party in the Assembly ? " 
 
 "TXo, Mr. Rossi. A Catholic party in the Assembly of 
 Italy would have to begin by abandoning the temporal claims 
 of the Pope. It is not necessary. One of the parties already 
 there might serve as well your own, for example." 
 
 "You mean," said Rossi, "that the Holy Father would 
 liberate his people from his injunction, and tell them to vote 
 forme?" 
 
 " Why not ? Politically our objects at this moment are the 
 same. You could not protect your own associations without 
 protecting ours. But you are weak while we are strong. The 
 clerical clubs are all over Italy. They keep records of the 
 people everywhere. We are in touch with them in Rome, and 
 can call them up at a given signal. With our strength behind 
 you it will be possible for you to tell Parliament that Ministers 
 do not represent the country, and challenge them to prove it. 
 You will overthrow the Government." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " You will have saved Italy from a cruel religious war, pro- 
 tected the rights of public meeting, and preserved your own 
 associations and those of the Church." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then," said the Cardinal, playing with the gold chain that 
 hung from his neck, " you will remember the power that helped 
 you to office, and think of the dolorous circumstances in which 
 it is placed, with its papal palace occupied by the King, its 
 convents and monasteries converted into barracks 'and police 
 offices, its treasury confiscated, and its Holy Head deprived of 
 the independence which is necessary for the free exercise of his 
 apostolic mission." 
 
 " In short," said Rossi, " we should, in return for your as- 
 sistance, heal the discord between Italy and the Holy See by 
 helping to restore the temporal power of the Pope ? " 
 
 Without replying, the Cardinal bent his head. 
 
 " Would anything else be expected of us ? " 
 
 " Mr. Rossi," said the Cardinal, " I have had the honour to 
 read some of your writings, and I rejoice in your faith in the 
 destinies of Rome. That the Eternal City will once more rule 
 the world, that a special mission is assigned to her by God, is 
 our own conviction also. It is especially the faith of the Holy 
 Father; and if by pen and tongue you can help toward the
 
 196 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 founding of a great federative league of all the States of the 
 world, each governed by its own laws and rulers, but all subject 
 to Rome as their metropolis, you will inscribe your name among 
 the greatest benefactors of the people and the Church." 
 
 David Rossi did not reply immediately, and the Cardinal 
 added : 
 
 " But perhaps that is a miracle which we have no right to 
 look for in our day although," he said with a subtle gleam in 
 his slow eyes, " an article like yours in this morning's paper on 
 the evils of militarism and the arrogated rights of kings cannot 
 but help on that sublime conception of the Holy Father of a 
 spiritual kingdom on earth under the sovereignty of the Vicar 
 of Jesus Christ himself." 
 
 There was a long pause, and then David Rossi said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 " I am sorry, your Eminence, but what you propose is quite 
 impossible. My people are weak and their rights are in peril, 
 but I should not feel myself an honest man if I agreed to ac- 
 cept your help." 
 
 " And why not ? " said the Cardinal. 
 
 " Because I see no difference between the principles I op- 
 pose and those you ask me to support except a difference of 
 form, and no difference between the spectacle of the King's pro- 
 cession yesterday and the Pope's procession of a month ago ex- 
 cept a difference of clothes." 
 
 The Cardinal made a slight contemptuous sound in his 
 throat, and a gold-buckled shoe and red stocking protruded 
 from the edge of his black cassock. 
 
 " We should be changing the King for the Pope that's all," 
 said Rossi. 
 
 " Would you not be changing a fallible and corrupt head of 
 government for an infallible an incorruptible one ? " asked the 
 Cardinal. 
 
 " Is the Pope infallible in the world of fact ? " said 
 Rossi. 
 
 " Pontiffs," said the Cardinal, " have no infallibility except 
 in faith and morals, but the spiritual and the temporal are so 
 closely interwoven that certain theologians think it might per- 
 haps be difficult to say where infallibility would end in a Pope 
 who directed the affairs of a state." 
 
 " That," said Rossi, " is exactly what was said of the em- 
 perors and kings of the pagan world. They claimed to be not 
 only of the spirit, but the very blood of the gods. Put the Pope
 
 DAVID ROSSI 197 
 
 of to-day at the head of a state because he is a Pope, and his 
 rule must claim to be the divine rule. If it does not, it is arro- 
 gated, meaningless, and illogical. To be the rule of the divine, 
 it must be the rule of one who is not only infallible but impec- 
 cable and untemptable. There is only one infallible, impec- 
 cable and untemptable being. That is God, and to put a man in 
 God's place is idolatry. It was the idolatry of the pagan world 
 which Christianity came to wipe away. And yet the Church 
 asks the world to go back to that idolatry. It never will, it 
 never can. The world has outgrown it." 
 
 The Cardinal shifted in his chair and said in a tone of the 
 utmost suavity: 
 
 " Then, bad as in your opinion is the rule of the world un- 
 der the kings, with their militarism and corruption, you think 
 the temporal rule of the Popes would be no better ? " 
 
 " Much worse, your Eminence," said Rossi. " Christianity 
 has not been two thousand years in the world without uprooting 
 the monstrous fiction that the will of the king is the will 
 of the divine, and we dethrone an unrighteous king without 
 fear; but set up a ruler who claims to be infallible, whether 
 in the world of fact or dogma, or both, and you establish a 
 bulwark of superstition which would make it as awful to 
 rise up against an unrighteous Pope as to rise up against 
 God." 
 
 " You make no allowance, then, for the probability that the 
 Pope would be righteous, not unrighteous that he would be 
 the father of all men, with no interest to serve but the well- 
 being of the whole human family ? " 
 
 " None whatever," said Rossi, " because the same argument 
 is used for every monarch, and it comes to nothing. The Pope 
 is a man, and a man has his own interest to serve before 
 any other." 
 
 " You make no allowances, too, for the life of grace which 
 in the Holy Father might be expected to subdue the selfish 
 impulses of poor human creatures," said the Cardinal. 
 
 " I do, your Eminence ; but, on the other hand, I make 
 allowances for the environment which, in all who hold absolute 
 power, tends to make an unselfish man selfish, a modest man 
 proud, a good man bad. The only atmosphere that surrounds 
 a Pope, like the only atmosphere that surounds a king, is an 
 atmosphere of servility and flattery. It develops the evil, not 
 the noble muscles of his soul. No man is better for being Pope, 
 and the saintly man is worse."
 
 198 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The Cardinal's chair was creaking under the movement of 
 his body, and a gold cross which had been fixed in his sash 
 swung loose from his neck. 
 
 " And if," he said, " the divine rule of the world is not to 
 be looked for from Popes and kings, pray where is it to come 
 from?" 
 
 " From Humanity," said David Rossi. 
 
 The Cardinal held up both hands with a mock gesture which 
 even his courtesy could not repress. 
 
 " Why not ? " said David Rossi. " The sentiment in Hu- 
 manity is the noblest and holiest thing we have in the world. 
 It is our only proof of God, of immortality, and of right 
 and wrong." 
 
 " Poor Humanity ! What of its frightful errors ? Its out- 
 breaks as of hell itself? " said the Cardinal. 
 
 " Nothing," said David Rossi, " except that they began in 
 heaven. The very worst of them came of good impulses and 
 ended in good results. Humanity is the only thing divine in 
 this world. You can't appeal to it, as you can to King or Pope, 
 on the ignoble side of the heart or senses. It only answers 
 to the true and the everlasting." 
 
 " Poor miserable Humanity ! " said the Cardinal. " Differ- 
 ing no more in the tenth century and the twentieth than the 
 shifting pictures of the kaleidoscope what has happened to the 
 world that you have become a god ? 
 
 " But I must not trouble you to prolong this interview," he 
 said, rising from his chair. " The Holy Father thought so well 
 of you that he will be sorry to hear that you are to be num- 
 bered among those who, by the doctrines of a false democracy, 
 retard the pacification of souls by the gospel." 
 
 " The gospel," said Rossi, also rising, " has had many in- 
 carnations, your Eminence. The first of them was when it 
 entered into the body of a Jew and took a Jewish colour. It 
 didn't rest there, thanks to St. Paul, but was next incarnated 
 in the body of a Roman Emperor. Unhappily, so far as the 
 Catholic Church goes, it has rested there, thanks to the Popes 
 and their Senate, the Sacred College. But the gospel has 
 had another and a far greater incarnation its incarnation 
 into Humanity. That is what is going on in the world now. 
 Humanity is the Pope of the twentieth century." 
 
 The Cardinal, who had been moving towards the door, was 
 arrested, and stood. 
 
 " The Pope I dream of, the sublime Pontiff of the future,"
 
 DAVID ROSSI 199 
 
 said Rossi, " will be no longer content to live in the mummy of 
 a Roman emperor. He will live in the body of Humanity. 
 He will see that the old dynastic world is dead, and a world of 
 the peoples is coming on, and that the Christendom of Rome 
 must widen out to be the Christendom of the world. He will 
 not look to the sovereigns and classes, which are shadows van- 
 ishing away, but to thfe people who are realities, and last for 
 ever; he will know that the strength of the Church in all ages 
 and all countries is the poor, and when they kneel at his feet to 
 ask him to protect their bread, he will not set all his tempo- 
 ralities against the hunger of one starving child." 
 
 The Cardinal was moved, even against his convictions, and 
 being an honest man he did not attempt to conceal it. 
 
 " I'm sorry," he said, " and the Holy Father will be sorry, 
 that one with so strong a sentiment of religion must hence- 
 forth be numbered among the enemies the most serious 
 enemies of the Church." 
 
 " My reverence to His Holiness," said Rossi in a low voice. 
 " Tell him if you will that a humble and unknown son looks 
 up to him with the deepest love and veneration. Tell him that 
 a fatherless man feels towards him, though so high above, as to 
 a father, whose hand he would go far to touch. But God gave 
 me a will that is free, and I cannot give it up even to the 
 saintliest man in all the world." 
 
 " Good-bye, my son," said the Cardinal. " I shall think of 
 you very often. Your faith in Humanity is beautiful, but you 
 are awakening a monster, and God knows what it may do to 
 you yet. Take care ! Take care ! " 
 
 The Cardinal saw his visitor to the black gate below, and 
 then went through the chill corridors with drooping head. The 
 traffic in the street was thick and noisy, and the sun outside 
 was warm and bright. 
 
 IX 
 
 ON reaching home, David Rossi found his day assistant 
 waiting for him with a troubled face. 
 
 There was bad news from the office. The morning's edition 
 of the Sunrise had been confiscated by the police owing to the 
 article on the King's speech and procession. A proof of the 
 issue had been sent the night before to the office of the Pro cur a- 
 tore del Re; but that morning at eleven all unsold copies had 
 been seized at the newsagents. The proprietors of the paper
 
 200 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 were angry with their editor, and demanded to see him im- 
 mediately. 
 
 " Tell them I'll be at the office at four o'clock, as usual," 
 said Rossi, and he sat down to write a letter. 
 
 It was to Roma. The moment he took up the pen to write 
 to her, the air of the room seemed to fill with a sweet feminine 
 presence that banished everything else. It was like talking to 
 her. She was beside him. He could hear her soft replies. 
 
 " If it were possible to heighten the pain of my feelings 
 when I decided to sacrifice my best wishes to my sense of duty, 
 a letter like your last would be more than I could bear. The 
 obstacle you deal with is not the one which chiefly weighs with 
 me, but it is a very real impediment, not altogether disposed of 
 by the sweet and tender womanliness with which you put it 
 aside. In that regard what troubles me most is the hideous 
 inequality between what the man gives and what he gets, and 
 the splendid devotion with which the woman merges her life in 
 the life of the man she marries only quickens the sense of his 
 selfishness in allowing himself to accept so great a prize. 
 
 " In my own case, the selfishness, if I yielded to it, would 
 be greater far than anybody else could be guilty of, and of all 
 men who have sacrificed women's lives to their own career, I 
 should feel myself to be the most guilty and inexcusable. My 
 dear and beloved girl is nobly born, and lives in wealth and 
 luxury, while I am poor poor by choice, and therefore poor for 
 ever, without father or mother, brought up as a foundling, and 
 without a name that I dare call my own. 
 
 " I do not complain of this, and down to the present mo- 
 ment, if I have remembered it with pain, I have also thought of 
 it with joy. It was the badge of my calling, the sign manual 
 of God's will, to set me apart, being a man cut off from any 
 earthly tie, for a work for the world. For ten years I have 
 taken up the part to which Nature herself assigned me. And 
 what is the result? I am a pauper, an outcast, one who must 
 be ready to go through any dangers any day for the work he 
 has set before himself friendless, kinless, loveless, joyless, 
 and alone. 
 
 " What then ? Shall such a man ask such a woman as she 
 is to come into the circle of his life, to exchange her riches for 
 his poverty, her comfort for his suffering? No! 
 
 "Besides, what woman could do it if I did? Women can 
 be unselfish, they can be faithful, they can be true ; but don't 
 ask me to say things I do not want to say women love wealth
 
 DAVID ROSSI 201 
 
 and luxury and ease, and shrink from pain and poverty and 
 the forced marches of a hunted life. And why shouldn't they ? 
 Heaven spare them all such sufferings as men alone should bear. 
 
 " Yet all this is still outside the greater obstacle which 
 stands between me and the dear girl from whom I must sepa- 
 rate myself now, whatever it may cost me, as an inexorable 
 duty. I entreat you to spare me the pain of explaining further. 
 Believe that for her sake my resolution, in spite of all your 
 sweet and charming pleading, is strong and unalterable. 
 
 " Only one thing more. If it is as you say it may be, that 
 she loves me, though I had no right to believe so, that will 
 only add to my unhappiness in thinking of the wrench that she 
 must suffer. But she is strong, she is brave, she is the daugh- 
 ter of her father, and I have faith in the natural power of 
 her mind, in her youth and the chances of life for one so beauti- 
 ful and so gifted, to remove the passing impression that may 
 have been made. 
 
 " Good-bye, yet again ! And God bless you! D. 
 
 " P.S. I am not afraid of M , and come when he may, 
 
 I shall certainly stand my ground. There is only one person in 
 Rome who could be used against me in the direction you in- 
 dicate, and I could trust her with my heart's blood." 
 
 BEFORE two o'clock next day the Chamber of Deputies was 
 already full. The royal chair and baldacchino had been re- 
 moved and their place was occupied by the usual bench of the 
 President. Below the bench of the President was the table of 
 the Ministers, with its ten chairs, still empty. Between the 
 table of the Ministers and the first row of circular stalls there 
 was an open space, containing nothing but the desk of the 
 official shorthand writers. 
 
 The seats of the Deputies were mostly occupied, though a 
 few of the members stood in groups on the floor. In the central 
 gallery were two lines of journalists, some of them sketching, 
 others writing descriptive notes. The galleries at the sides 
 were filled with Senators, diplomatists, ladies, and the gen- 
 eral public. 
 
 When the Prime Minister took his place, cool, collected, 
 smiling, faultlessly dressed and wearing a flower in his button- 
 hole, he was greeted with some applause from the members, and 
 14
 
 202 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the dry rustle of fans in the ladies' tribune was distinctly 
 heard. The leader of the Opposition had a less marked recep- 
 tion, and when David Rossi glided round the partition to his 
 place on the extreme left, there was a momentary hush, fol- 
 lowed by a buzz of voices. 
 
 Then the President of the Chamber entered, with his secre- 
 taries about him, and took his seat in a central chair under 
 a bust of the young King. Ushers, wearing a linen band 
 of red, white, and green on their arms, followed with portfo- 
 lios, and with little trays containing water-bottles and glasses. 
 Conversation ceased, and the President rang a hand-bell 
 that stood by his side, and announced that the sitting was 
 begun. 
 
 The first important business of the day was the reply to the 
 speech of the King, and the President called on the member 
 who had been appointed to undertake this duty. A young 
 Deputy, a man of letters, then made his way to a bar behind 
 the chairs of the Ministers and read from a printed paper a 
 florid address to the sovereign. 
 
 The address recited the clauses and terms of the King's 
 speech, with expressions of approval. His Majesty's Parlia- 
 ment rejoiced to learn, that his Government proposed to in- 
 crease still further the strength and efficiency of the army. 
 They also rejoiced that safety of life and property was to be se- 
 cured to the nation by measures intended to punish the crimi- 
 nals who threatened law and order. Most of all, they rejoiced 
 that the parasitic organisations which disseminated the seeds 
 of rebellious and anarchist doctrines were to be cut off by a 
 vigorous remodelling of the privileges of the press and public 
 meeting. 
 
 Having read his printed document, the Deputy proceeded to 
 move the adoption of the reply. 
 
 With the proposal of the King and the Government to in- 
 crease the army he would not deal. It required no recom- 
 mendation. The people were patriots. They loved their coun- 
 try, and would spend the last drop of their blood to defend it. 
 The only persons who were not with the King in his desire to 
 uphold the army were the secret foes of the nation and the 
 dynasty persons who were in league with their enemies. 
 
 " That," said the speaker, " brings us to the next clause of 
 our reply to His Majesty's gracious speech. We know that 
 there exists among the associations aimed at a compact be- 
 tween strangely varying forces between the forces of social-
 
 DAVID ROSSI 203 
 
 ims, republicanism, unbelief, and anarchy, and the forces of 
 the Church and the Vatican. 
 
 " These natural enemies are joining hands to pull down the 
 nation and the monarchy. The Church, to which we gave a 
 guarantee of liberty in the exercise of its religious rights, is 
 abusing our leniency to teach doctrines of hatred against the 
 State. Its journals and its priests are writing and preaching 
 insolent abuse of the institutions of the country. The Prince 
 of the Church, this loud-voiced advocate of peace for the rest 
 of the world, never opens his lips without lamentations about 
 the loss of his temporal power, which can have no object and 
 no meaning if they are not intended to incite our people to 
 a fratricidal war, or provoke the Governments of Europe to 
 take up arms against us on his behalf." 
 
 This was received with almost universal applause, during 
 which the speaker mixed himself a glass of sherbet from a bowl 
 brought by an usher, stirred and drank it, and then continued : 
 
 " More than that, gentlemen, the Church helps every propa- 
 ganda inspired by hatred against the State ; and it is within the 
 knowledge of the Government that certain persons who have 
 taken the oath of allegiance to the reigning sovereign as mem- 
 bers of this House are in close communication with the agents 
 and ministers of the Vatican." 
 
 At this statement there was a great commotion. Members 
 on the Left protested with loud shouts of " It is not true," and 
 in a moment the tongues and arms of the whole assembly 
 were in motion. The President rang his bell, and the 
 speaker concluded. 
 
 " Let us draw the teeth of both parties to this secret con- 
 spiracy, that they may never again use the forces of poverty 
 and discontent to disturb public order." 
 
 When the speaker sat down, his friends thronged around 
 him to shake hands with him and congratulate him. 
 
 Then the eyes of the house and of the audience in the gal- 
 lery turned to David Eossi. He had sat with folded arms and 
 head down while his followers screamed their protests. But 
 passing a paper to the President, he now rose and said : 
 
 " I ask permission to propose an amendment to the reply to 
 the King's speech." 
 
 "You have the word," said the President. 
 
 David Rossi read his amendment. At the feet of His 
 Majesty it humbly expressed an opinion that the present was 
 not a time at which fresh burdens should be laid upon the
 
 204 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 country for the support of the army, with any expectation 
 that they could be borne. Misfortune and suffering had 
 reached their climax. The cup of the people was full. 
 
 At this language some of the members laughed. There were 
 cries of " Order " and " Shame," and then the laughter was 
 resumed. The President rang his bell, and at length silence 
 was secured. David Rossi began to speak in a voice that was 
 firm and resolute. 
 
 " If," he said, " the statement that members of this House 
 are in alliance with the Pope and the Vatican is meant for me 
 and mine, I give it a flat denial. And, in order to have done 
 with this calumny once and for ever, permit me to say that 
 between the Papacy and the people, as represented by us, there 
 is not, and never can be, anything in common. In temporal 
 affairs, the theory of the Papacy rejects the theory of the 
 democracy. The theory of the democracy rejects the theory 
 of the Papacy. The one claims a divine right to rule in the 
 person of the Pope because he is Pope. The other denies 
 all divine right except that of the people to rule them- 
 selves. 
 
 " Temporal government by the Pope, whether in Rome or 
 throughout the world, could only be established on a basis of 
 the Pope's absolutism in principle if not in practice, on a basis 
 of the Pope's infallibility in fact as well as in dogma; while 
 the theory of democracy is to banish the ignis fatuus of ab- 
 solutism and infallibility whether in Pope or King. No, there 
 is 110 alliance between the cause of the people and the tem- 
 poral claims of the Papacy. There is war, bitter war. The 
 one belongs to the future, the other to the past, and the Papacy 
 as a temporal power is doomed by every law of progress. The 
 leaders of the people do not ally themselves with a hope 
 that is dead." 
 
 This was received with some applause mingled with 
 laughter and certain shouts flung out in a shrill hysterical 
 voice. The President rang his bell again, and David Rossi 
 continued : 
 
 " The proposal to increase the. army," he said, " in a time 
 of tranquillity abroad but of discord at home, is the gravest 
 impeachment that could be made of the Government of a 
 country. Under a right order of things Parliament would be 
 the conscience of the people, Government would be the servant 
 of that conscience, and rebellion would be impossible. But this 
 Government is the master of the country and is keeping the
 
 DAVID ROSSI 205 
 
 people down by violence and oppression. Parliament is dead. 
 For God's sake let us bury it ! " 
 
 Loud shouts followed this outburst, and some of the dep- 
 uties rose from their seats, and crowding about the speaker 
 in the open space in front, yelled and screamed at him like a 
 pack of hounds. He stood calm, playing with his watch-chain, 
 while the President rang his bell and called for silence. The 
 interruptions died down at last, and the speaker went on : 
 
 " If you ask me what is the reason of the discontent which 
 produces the crimes of anarchism, I say, first, the domination 
 of a Government which is absolute, and the want of liberty of 
 speech and meeting. In other countries the discontented are 
 permitted to manifest their woes, and are not punished unless 
 they commit deeds of violence; but in Italy alone, except Rus- 
 sia, a man may be placed outside the law, torn from his home, 
 from the bedside of his nearest and dearest, and sent to domi- 
 cilio coatto to live or die in a silence as deep as that of the 
 grave. Oh, I know what I am saying. I have been in the 
 midst of it. I have seen a father torn from his daughter, and 
 the motherless child left to the mercy of his enemies." 
 
 This allusion quieted the House, and for a moment there 
 was a dead silence. Then through the tense air there came a 
 strange sound, and the President demanded silence from the 
 galleries, whereupon the reporters rose and made a negative 
 movement of the hand with two fingers upraised, pointing at 
 the same time to the ladies' tribune. 
 
 One of the ladies had cried out. David Rossi heard the 
 voice, and, when he began again, his own voice was softer and 
 more tremulous. 
 
 " Xext, I say that the cause of anarchism in Italy, as every- 
 where else, is poverty. Wait until the 1st of February, and 
 you shall see such an army enter Rome as never before invaded 
 it. I assert that within three miles of this place, at the gates 
 of this capital of Christendom, human beings are living lives 
 more abject than that of savage man. 
 
 " Housed in huts of straw, sleeping on mattresses of leaves, 
 clothed in rags or nearly nude, fed on maize and chestnuts and 
 acorns, worked eighteen hours a day, and sweated by the tyr- 
 anny of the overseers, to whom landlords lease their lands while 
 they idle their days in the salons of Rome and Paris, men and 
 women and children are being treated worse than slaves, and 
 beaten more than dogs." 
 
 At that there was a terrific uproar, shouts of " It's a lie ! "
 
 206 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 and " Traitor ! " followed by a loud outbreak of jeers and 
 laughter. Then, for the first time, David Rossi lost control of 
 himself, and, turning upon the Parliament with flaming eyes 
 and quivering voice, he cried: 
 
 " You take these statements lightly you that don't know 
 what it is to be hungry, you that have food enough to eat, and 
 only want sleep to digest it. But 7 know these things by bitter 
 knowledge by experience. Don't talk to me, you who had 
 fathers and mothers to care for you, and comfortable homes 
 to live in. I had none of these. I was nursed in a poorhouse 
 and brought up in a hut on the Campagna. Because of the 
 miserable laws of your predecessors my mother drowned her- 
 self in the Tiber, and I knew what it was to starve. And I am 
 only one of many. At the very door of Rome, under a Chris- 
 tian Government, the poor are living lives of moral anaemia 
 and physical atrophy more terrible by far than those which 
 made the pagan poet say two thousand years ago Faucis vivit 
 humanum genus the human race exists for the benefit of 
 the few." 
 
 The silence was breathless while the speaker made this 
 personal reference, and when he sat down, after a denuncia- 
 tion of the militarism which was consuming the heart of the 
 civilised world, the House was too dazed to make any man- 
 ifestation. 
 
 In the dead hush that followed, the President put the 
 necessary questions, but the amendment fell through without 
 a vote being taken, and the printed reply was passed. 
 
 Then the Minister of War rose to give notice of his bill for 
 increased military expenditure, and proposed to hand it over 
 to the general committee of the budget. 
 
 The Baron Bonelli rose next as Minister of the Interior, 
 and gave notice of his bill for the greater security of the pub- 
 lic, and the remodelling of the laws of the press and of as- 
 sociation. 
 
 He spoke incisively and bitterly, and he was obviously ex- 
 cited, but he affected his usual composure. 
 
 " After the language we have heard to-day," he said, " and 
 the knowledge we possess of mass meetings projected, it will not 
 surprise the House that I treat this measure as urgent, and 
 propose that we consider it on the principle of the three read- 
 ings, taking the first of them in four days." 
 
 At that there were some cries from the Left, but the Min- 
 ister continued:
 
 DAVID ROSSI 207 
 
 " It will also not surprise the House that, to prevent the 
 obstruction of members who seem ready to sing their Miserere 
 without end, I will ask the House to take the readings with- 
 out debate." 
 
 Then in a moment the whole House was in an uproar and 
 members were shaking their fists in each other's faces. In 
 vain -the President rang his bell for silence. At length he put 
 on his hat and left the Chamber, and the sitting was at an end. 
 
 Out in the lobby a group of Rossi's followers were wait- 
 ing for him. 
 
 " What is to be done ? " they asked. 
 
 " Meet me at the office of the Sunrise to-morrow afternoon 
 at four," he replied, and then turned to go home. 
 
 Going out by a side street, he caught a glimpse of a car- 
 riage, with coachman in scarlet livery, passing through the 
 piazza, but he only dropped his head and went on. 
 
 XI 
 
 THE last post that night brought Rossi a letter from Roma. 
 
 " MY DEAR, DEAR FRIEND, It's all up ! I'm done with her ! 
 My unknown and invisible sister that is to be, or rather isn't to 
 be and oughtn't to be, is not worth thinking about any longer. 
 You tell me that she is good and brave, and noble-hearted, and 
 yet you would have me believe that she loves wealth, and ease, 
 and luxury, and that she could not give them up even for the 
 sweetest thing that ever comes into a woman's life. Out on 
 her! What does he think a wife is? A pet to be pampered, 
 a doll to be dressed up and danced on your knee? If that's 
 the sort of woman she is, I know what I should call her. A 
 name is on the tip of my tongue, and the point of my finger, 
 and the end of my pen, and I'm itching to have it out, but I 
 suppose I must not write it. Only don't talk to me any more 
 about the bravery of a woman like that. 
 
 " The wife I call brave is a man's friend, and if she knows 
 what that means, to be the friend of her husband to all the 
 limitless lengths of friendship, she thinks nothing about sacri- 
 fices between him and her, and differences of class do not exist 
 for either of them. Her pride died the instant love looked out 
 of her eyes at him, and if people taunt her with his poverty, or 
 his birth, she answers and says : ' It's true he is poor, but his
 
 208 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 glory is that he was a workhouse boy who hadn't father or 
 mother to care for him, and now he is a great man, and I'm 
 proud of him, and not all the wealth of the world shall take me 
 away.' 
 
 " Oh, how I wish that heaven would inspire me to speak to 
 this woman! I suppose I must have been thinking of her all 
 last night after your letter came, for some time in the morning 
 I woke with a dream that was so dear and delicious. I was at 
 the Court ball at the Quirinal, and I was dressed more beauti- 
 fully than I had ever been dressed before, and looked lovelier 
 than I had ever looked in my life. And the great people in 
 their decorations were good to me, and I danced and danced in 
 the brilliant light, but all the time my heart was in the dark- 
 ness outside with some one who could not be there, and when I 
 escaped I ran to him, and he rushed on me like fire and folded 
 me in his arms and kissed me, and I said : * Take me, clasp 
 me close, be a man and hold me, and nothing and nobody shall 
 come between us.' 
 
 " But, oh dear, oh dear ! I suppose your fine friend who 
 loves herself so much better than she loves love would think 
 me a forward thing and perhaps even suspect I was a wicked 
 woman; but the woman of my dreams wouldn't have cared 
 much about that, and if you had told her that you were a poor 
 man from choice as well as necessity, she would have stripped 
 off her diamonds in a twinkling. 
 
 " One thing I will say, though, for the sister that isn't to be, 
 and that is, that you are deceiving yourself if you suppose that 
 she is going to reconcile herself to your separation while she is 
 kept in the dark as to the cause of it. It is all very well for 
 you to pay compliments to her beauty and youth and the natu- 
 ral strength of her mind to remove passing impressions, but 
 perhaps the impressions are the reverse of passing ones, and if 
 you go out of her life what is to become of her? Have you 
 thought of that? Of course you haven't. Let me tell you, 
 then, what is likely to happen. The veil ! Think of it ! Death, 
 and yet not death, that's the cruelty of it. It has none of the 
 peace of death, or its inevitableness or its compensations. She 
 loves him, but she must think of him as one who is dead, and 
 perhaps weep a little for him, too, because some dark shadow 
 rose between them, and all was lost and vain. And he loves 
 her, and feels her tears in his heart, wherever he may be, and 
 they follow him and burn him like drops of liquid fire. 
 
 " No, no, no 1 My poor sister, you shall not be so hard on
 
 DAVID ROSSI 209 
 
 her. In my darkness I could almost fancy that I personate 
 her, and I am she and she is I. Conceited, isn't it? But I 
 told you it wasn't for nothing I was a daughter of Eve. Any- 
 how I have fought hard for her and beaten you out and out, 
 and now I don't say : ' Will you go to her? ' You will I know 
 you will. 
 
 " To-morrow I go to the Chamber of Deputies again ! I'm 
 dying to see the end of that imbroglio, only I hate to ask a 
 third time for tickets from the same quarter, and shall be so 
 happy and proud if you will send me one in your name, and let 
 me go in for the first time under your wing and countenance. 
 I dare say it will be a ticket for the people's tribune, but I 
 shall like it all the better for that, being in the act of wean- 
 ing myself from places and people that have poisoned my life 
 too long. 
 
 " My bust is out of the caster's hand, and ought to be under 
 mine, but I've done no work again to-day. Tried, but the glow 
 of soul was not there, and I was injuring the face at every 
 touch. 
 
 " ISTo further news of'M , and my heart's blood is cold 
 
 at the silence. But if you are fearless, why should I be afraid ? 
 Your friend's friend, R." 
 
 XII 
 
 THE large room of the editor at the office of the Sunrise was 
 filled at four o'clock next day by the fifty odd deputies who 
 sat on the Extreme Left. Excitement was written on every 
 countenance. The air was tense and hot. " It is the beginning 
 of the end," said everybody. 
 
 David Rossi presided. His face was white and his manner 
 was nervous, but the piercing glances he cast about him showed 
 plainly that he was more troubled about his friends than his 
 enemies. 
 
 " The position in which we find ourselves to-day," he said, 
 " is not peculiar to Italy; it exists in England, in Germany, in 
 Russia, and wherever the old principle of monarchy is strug- 
 gling with the new principle of representative government. 
 
 " The greatest contribution which the nineteenth century 
 made to the world's progress was what it did to alter the 
 political status of man. It broke down the theory of authority 
 and it set up the theory of liberty. It destroyed the pagan 
 principle of absolutism and established the Christian principle
 
 210 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 of individual rights. But absolutism has been fighting freedom 
 ever since. It has fought it in revolutions and been beaten. It 
 has fought it in courts of law and been beaten. It is now 
 fighting it in Parliament as its last outwork, and it must be 
 beaten again." 
 
 Then he explained what the Government proposed to do. 
 It asked Parliament to vote on a bill without debate. That 
 was an attempt to close the mouth of Parliament. To close 
 the mouth of Parliament was to close the minds of the people, 
 and to close the minds of the people was to put the country 
 at the mercy of a corrupt and unscrupulous Minister. Voters 
 would be bought and sold, and representative government 
 would be a farce. 
 
 " When a man entered Parliament," said Rossi, " he would 
 cease to be a name and become a number. He would belong to 
 a congregation of councillors who need never be consulted, 
 a college of political cardinals with a head above them who 
 could wipe out all their work." 
 
 There was some strained laughter at this thrust, and the 
 speaker went on to tell a story. It was of a Pope, who, as head 
 of one of his congregations, found his will opposed to the will 
 of his Cardinals. They had voted against him with their black 
 counters, whereupon he took off his white skull-cap, and laying 
 it over the black balls, he said, " Your Eminences, they are all 
 white, apparently my resolution is passed." 
 
 " Do we want the Parliament of the people to be as power- 
 less as the Congregation of a Pope ? " said Rossi. " If not, we 
 must fight to uphold its reality." 
 
 With that, he expounded his scheme of opposition. The 
 closure could only be put on Parliament by help of its own 
 elected head its President. If, at the sitting three days hence, 
 the President put the bill to the vote without allowing discus- 
 sion, the instant he had done so the members of their party 
 should rise in their places like one man, and, with outstretched 
 arms, cry, " Away ! Away ! " In the face of that protest, the 
 President would suspend the sitting, and when he presented 
 himself on the day of the second reading, he would encounter 
 the same protest. 
 
 What would be the result? The President would be com- 
 pelled to resign, and public business would be impossible until 
 a successor had been elected, who would undertake to respect 
 the privileges of Parliament. 
 
 " This," said Rossi, " is the only thing we can do as a mi-
 
 DAVID EOSSI 211 
 
 nority. As long as there is a rag of parliamentary liberty, we 
 will stand on it. And if they arrest us and imprison us, let 
 them do so. We shall have public opinion at our back, and 
 public opinion is the strongest force in the world stronger 
 than governments or armies and sooner or later it must pre- 
 vail." 
 
 The effect of this advice was not favourable. Amid mur- 
 murs and groans one of the men rose and made a violent speech. 
 It was Malatesta. 
 
 " What's the good of punishing the President ? " he said. 
 " The Prime Minister is the prime mover in this, as in every- 
 thing. He is the real cap of lead that presses on Italian life. 
 He is the Pope who would put his white hat over our black 
 counters, and we should begin and end with him." 
 
 This was received with exclamations of approval, and, grow- 
 ing red and hot, the Deputy continued : 
 
 " Let us give up talking about Parliament. It is only a 
 houseful of parasitic clients and time-servers the fig-leaf 
 which absolutism is using to cover its nakedness. Let us go 
 to the people outside." 
 
 Loud shouts greeted this outburst, and the speaker raised 
 his voice and cried again : 
 
 " Think what the man is doing ! He is stopping your work- 
 men from strikes, your co-operative societies from co-operating, 
 your trades unions from carrying a banner, your poor peasantry 
 from meeting next week in the Coliseum to protest against the 
 tax on bread. He is flooding the city with soldiers. He is 
 tearing starving men from the plough to shoot down their 
 brothers and sisters because they are starving! He is paving 
 the way for famine, and for the pestilence which famine brings 
 in its train ! Hasn't he done enough ? Are we to be trampled 
 under foot? Haven't we the ordinary courage of Romans? 
 Our leaders are like the seven sleepers. What do they pre- 
 scribe? Some sleeping-draught, to ease the pains of the people? 
 Some lengthening of the chain of the prisoner? Useless, and 
 worse than useless ! Is there no one to utter the living word ? 
 The time calls for the leader who will gather the blood of his 
 heart into the palm of his hand and scatter it abroad to warm 
 suffering souls." 
 
 A universal shout followed those words, and while the 
 Deputy was still on his feet another man had begun to speak. 
 It was Luigi Conti. 
 
 " You're right, brother," he said. " The people are tired of
 
 212 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 speechifying. It is time to act, and happily we are able to do 
 so. Our new association, the Republic of Man, will give us the 
 sinews of war. Fifty thousand francs in hand, and funds com- 
 ing every day from the committees in England and Germany 
 and Russia. We can get supplies of muskets from Belgium, 
 and, thanks to conscription, our young men can handle 
 arms." 
 
 David Rossi rose again, and with difficulty obtained a 
 hearing. 
 
 "Brothers," he said, in his vibrating voice, "every man 
 whose understanding is riot darkened by passion, must see that 
 what you are proposing is to commit robbery and murder. 
 Robbery, because you propose to use for purposes of violence 
 funds that were given you to promote peace; and murder 
 because you propose to put helpless men, women, and children 
 into the way of being mown down by tens of thousands. It 
 shall not be done! I resist, and I forbid it." 
 
 There was silence for a moment, and then Malatesta said : 
 
 " You threaten to oppose us ? " 
 
 " I will oppose you." 
 
 A general groan followed this declaration, and there was 
 much cross-speaking. Then, with a face of deadly whiteness, 
 Malatesta rose again. 
 
 " Very well," he said ; " since our leader says our first duty 
 is to deal with this question in Parliament, I am ready I am 
 Avilling. Only," he added, and his black eyes flashed, " if the 
 Prime Minister, at the sitting three days hence, does what he 
 says he will do, and we are silenced, and have no remedy then 
 . . . then, by God, Til fire." 
 
 "Audi!" "And I!" "And I!" "And I!" "And I!" 
 
 And the voices rang through the room like a volley of 
 musketry. 
 
 In the midst of this clamour David Rossi rose again. 
 
 " You threaten," he said, " to shoot the Prime Minister in 
 Parliament. If you do that, what will you be doing? You 
 will be following the example of the Government you de- 
 nounce you will be using violence against violence, and 
 proclaiming yourselves the enemies of law and order. And 
 what will be the result? Public opinion throughout Europe 
 will be against you, and you will fling the people back into 
 the vortex of despair. Future generations will curse you, and 
 you will turn back the clock that marks the progress of the 
 world."
 
 DAVID ROSSI 213 
 
 " No matter ! " cried Malatesta, laughing wildly. " We'll 
 take the consequences. We shall not be called cowards, at all 
 events." 
 
 Certain of the other men joined his laughter, and he lost 
 himself in personal innuendoes. Some people preached the doc- 
 trine that freedom was not to be purchased by a drop of blood. 
 Moral courage? Give them a little physical courage for a 
 change. 
 
 " Brothers," said David Rossi, rising again, " if you knew 
 how little personal reason I have for protecting the Baron 
 Bonelli, how my heart tempts me to stand by while his life 
 is taken, you would know that it is only at the call of conscience 
 I tell you the moment the crime is committed I leave your 
 side for ever." 
 
 " Of course you do," cried Malatesta. " You go out to save 
 your own skin. Why? Because you've lost your courage. 
 Luigi," he cried, " you are a good Catholic what do people 
 do when they've lost something ? " 
 
 " Say a Hail Mary to St. Anthony," said Luigi, and then 
 there was general laughter. 
 
 But Malatesta was too hot for trifling. 
 
 " I tell you what it is, gentlemen," he cried. " The party 
 is going to pieces, because our leader is a poltroon and a cow- 
 ard!" 
 
 There was dead silence. David Rossi stood motionless at 
 the head of the table. 
 
 " Don't you understand me, sir ? " said Malatesta. 
 
 " Perfectly," said David Rossi. 
 
 " Well, I have no wish to delay the moment when you ask 
 for satisfaction. Shall it be to-morrow?" 
 
 "Xo, to-day," said David Rossi. 
 
 "And where?" 
 
 " Here." 
 
 "And when?" 
 
 " Now." 
 
 David Rossi's face was livid. It was with difficulty that he 
 uttered a word. 
 
 Somebody began to protest. It was brutal ! Inconceivable ! 
 The objector was silenced. At moments of intense excitement 
 the most extraordinary things become possible. 
 
 " Lock the doors," cried one voice, and another voice called 
 for weapons. 
 
 " Swords or revolvers which ? " said Malatesta.
 
 214 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Kevolvers," cried Kossi, in measured accents. " They will 
 be more swift and sure." 
 
 Malatesta grew pale. " All right," he said, smiling largely, 
 but it was clear that fear had taken hold of him. 
 
 Revolvers were forthcoming in a moment, seconds were 
 appointed, and the method of duelling determined. It was to 
 be the simplest method. The combatants were to be at liberty 
 to fire at any moment after taking their places ; but if one fired 
 first and missed, the other was to have the right to advance as 
 close as he pleased to his opponent. 
 
 The hush was breathless. Rossi, deadly pale, but calm and 
 silent, took his revolver without looking at it. Malatesta, 
 flushed and noisy, cocked his revolver carefully. Then the 
 company fell aside, and the two men stood back to back and 
 walked from the middle to the ends of the room. 
 
 The moment Malatesta reached the wall, he turned quickly 
 and fired. When the smoke cleared, Rossi was seen to be 
 standing unhurt, with his revolver by his side. 
 
 Then the tension was awful. Rossi did not move, and 
 Malatesta was visibly trembling from head to foot. 
 
 "Well, be quick! Take your revenge," he blurted out. 
 
 But still Rossi remained standing. 
 
 " Have mercy, will you ? " cried Malatesta in a voice broken 
 by agony. 
 
 Then a strange thing happened. 
 
 Rossi took some steps forward, then stopped, and raising his 
 arm, he fired into the ceiling. 
 
 There was a confused murmur among the men huddled by 
 the walls. 
 
 " This was necessary," said Rossi. " I could not cry ' peace ' 
 any longer while my people thought I was afraid." 
 
 Malatesta flung himself at Rossi's feet in the first torrent 
 of overwhelming emotion. " Forgive me," he cried, " forgive 
 me, forgive me ! " 
 
 " Get up," said Rossi. " I forgive you. But remember, 
 from this hour onward, your life belongs to me." 
 
 XIII 
 
 DAVID Rossi went home with a heavy heart. The great force 
 which he had called into existence was passing beyond his 
 control. A fierce democracy surging around him demanded 
 that he should follow where he had expected to lead.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 215 
 
 " My God ! my God ! What can I do with this people ? " 
 he asked himself. 
 
 But the worst torture he suffered was the secret torture of 
 his own heart. 
 
 " Why did I try to save that man's life ? " he thought. 
 
 The Baron Boiielli had been the enemy of Dr. Roselli, and 
 had sent him to exile and death. 
 
 " I hate the man," he thought. 
 
 The moment he became conscious of this idea he was ter- 
 rified, and began to struggle against it. It was a temptation 
 of the devil, and he would put it behind his back. 
 
 But everything helped and encouraged it. On reaching 
 home, he found the old Garibaldian porter standing by the 
 door. 
 
 " One moment, Honourable," he whispered with a mysteri- 
 ous air, and then drawing the Deputy into his lodge at the end 
 of the passage, and hiding behind the muslin curtains, he 
 pointed to a young man who was going leisurely down the 
 street. 
 
 " Look there, sir ! There he is ! " 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " A detective, of course. He has been dogging your steps 
 for days. Old Vampire is after you. Take care ! Better an 
 ounce of liberty than a pound of gold, you know." 
 
 Conviction had taken hold of Rossi, but he reproved the 
 old soldier. A detective yes ! Set on, perhaps, by the chiefs 
 of police. Such men spent their lives in seeking for crime. 
 They couldn't help it. It was the natural deformity of the 
 police mind that few men were innocent for them, and none 
 were above suspicion. But the statesmen . . . no, it was im- 
 possible, he wouldn't believe it. 
 
 That night old John came for his weekly pension, and after 
 he had received it he lingered a moment like a man who wished 
 to say something. At length, in a husky voice, he whispered 
 
 " Darkness with darkness keeps dark. Excellency, can you 
 keep a secret ? " 
 
 His grandson was in the new secret service, and had been 
 told to keep watch on somebody. He watched him every day, 
 and every night he reported to the Minister of the Interior 
 himself. 
 
 " Better be a wood-bird than a cage-bird, Excellency," the 
 old man whispered, " and may the blessed Saints preserve you ! " 
 
 Rossi understood at length the reference in the House of
 
 216 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Deputies to his intercourse with the Vatican he had. been 
 followed to the Jesuit College. The Baron Bonelli was his 
 own enemy, as well as the enemy of Dr. Roselli, and he was 
 using the lowest methods of the law to compromise and catch 
 him. 
 
 "Why did I try to save the man's life?" he asked himself 
 again. 
 
 Bruno came home with a mysterious story. The Prime 
 Minister had that day visited Trinita de' Monti in the absence 
 of Donna Roma, and Bruno had overheard his conversation 
 with Felice. 
 
 " ' Felice,' says old Vampire, ' you've never had reason to 
 regret that I deprived myself of your invaluable services and 
 gave the benefit of them to your mistress?' 'Never, Excel- 
 lency,' said the ' Cardinal.' ' You are quite content to receive 
 two salaries instead of one ? ' ' Quite, Excellency.' ' Then tell 
 me what has happened here since I heard from you last ? ' ' 
 
 Rossi reproved Bruno for eavesdropping, but his blood was 
 boiling. The Baron Bonelli was Roma's enemy as well as her 
 father's; he was using her as a weapon against himself, and 
 Heaven alone knew what degradation she was suffering at the 
 man's hand. 
 
 " Why did I try to save his contemptible life? " he thought 
 again and again. 
 
 Next morning a colleague in Parliament called upon him. 
 He was a big, bluff, hearty creature a doctor. 
 
 " This won't do at all," he said. " You're as white as a 
 ghost and as nervous as a cat, and old Francesca says you 
 haven't eaten anything worth talking of for a week. Remem- 
 ber what the Romans say ' City in hunger, citadel taken.' 
 Not hungry? Of course you're not that's just the mischief. 
 Look here, old fellow ! you'll have to go out of town. You 
 will ! By the Holy Saints, you will ! Good men are scarce, and 
 you know Avhat we say in Piedmont 'At the end of the game 
 the king goes into the sack as well as the footman.' But your 
 game is not over yet, and what do you say to a week at Porto 
 d'Anzio? . . . When? Now to-day first train down." 
 
 David Rossi saw through the artifice instantly. His col- 
 leagues were trying to get him out of the way. They intended 
 to carry out their threat, in spite of all his protests. In open 
 Parliament, at the moment when the Minister was trampling 
 on the constitutional rights of the people, they meant to shoot 
 him down. And why shouldn't they? The man was putting
 
 DAVID ROSSI 217 
 
 himself beyond the reach of human law. Very well ! send him 
 to the bar of divine justice ! It would be justifiable homicide ! 
 
 And David Eossi? David Eossi had only to stand aside 
 and let things take their course. When the blow was struck, 
 he would be far away, and no one would be able to assert that 
 he had aided or abetted it. Nay, it could even be proved that 
 he had protested against the proposal, and stood to be shot at in 
 order to uphold his protest. " But this is the devil fighting a 
 way out for my conscience," he thought, and he said aloud : 
 
 " No, I will not leave Eome at present. I have my duty as 
 a Deputy, and I must be in Parliament the day after to- 
 morrow." 
 
 The day-editor came from the office of the Sunrise with a 
 letter from his proprietors. They were surprised at his curt 
 refusal to meet them on the confiscation of the issue of two 
 days ago, and, after earnest consideration of the situation, 
 they had concluded that his duties as Deputy and his responsi- 
 bilities as editor were liable to conflict, and therefore they 
 suggested that he should resign his seat in Parliament. 
 
 " Another temptation of the devil," he thought, and he sat 
 down instantly to resign his position as editor. " I shall be 
 ready to relinquish my chair as soon as my successor has been 
 appointed," he wrote; and the assistant carried off his letter 
 with many smirks and smiles. 
 
 His mind was confused with conflicting impulses, and he 
 could not settle to work. So he sent upstairs for little Joseph, 
 and spent a great part of the day playing with the boy on the 
 floor. Joseph was portiere as usual, clad in the gorgeous finery 
 of his father's biggest hat and his jacket turned inside out. 
 And when David Eossi came on hands and knees and inquired 
 in the manner of a dog for Donna Eoma's poodle, the great 
 person who presided over the portone drove him away with his 
 mace, and he went off barking. 
 
 " Holy Virgin ! Who would believe he had a newspaper 
 and a Parliament on his head ! " said old Francesca, and she 
 laughed until she cried. 
 
 Night fell, and he was no further advanced than at the 
 beginning of the day. He helped Elena to put little Joseph 
 to bed, and then returned to his room to walk and to think. 
 What was he to do? Stand aside and let the Minister meet 
 with the death he deserved ? Or go to the authorities and warn 
 them that a crime was about to be committed ? To these ques- 
 tions he could find no answer. 
 15
 
 218 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 On the one side were the rights and liberties of the people, 
 the memory of Dr. Roselli's wrongs, the thought of himself, 
 and, above all, of Koma. On the other side was conscience 
 strong, grim, and inexorable ! 
 
 The great fact of all was his own hatred of the Minister 
 and his interest in the man's death. Baron Bonelli was the 
 worst enemy he had in the world. Rightly considered, he was 
 the true obstacle between Koma and himself, the dark cloud of 
 danger which made their union impossible. 
 
 " If he were dead, we might live," he thought. But that 
 was precisely why the man must not die. If he consented to 
 the Minister's death, if he stood by and permitted it, he knew 
 that every hour of his future life would be racked by the mem- 
 ory of how he had allowed his private interest to beguile his 
 conscience. 
 
 But must he betray his colleagues instead? They were his 
 friends, his confederates; he had created the cause they were 
 trying to uphold, and must he send them to prison because they 
 had passed beyond his control ? 
 
 He slept little that night, and awoke next morning with no 
 clearer view of the situation. Weak, helpless, broken-spirited, 
 and very humble, he turned to thoughts of God. He would 
 seek help from above. 
 
 Since his days with Dr. Roselli in London, he had not 
 been in the habit of going to church, but he would go to church 
 to-day. Surely the church, the old mother church, which had 
 seen so many sorrows, would have some answer for a perplexed 
 and tortured mind. 
 
 He walked along the bank of the Tiber, crossed the bridge 
 and came to the great square in front of St. Peter's. It was 
 very quiet and almost empty. The fountains were playing in 
 the early morning sunlight, the clock in the cupola was chim- 
 ing, and a Swiss Guard, in his parti-coloured uniform, was 
 walking to and fro with a rifle on his shoulder before the 
 bronze gate to the Vatican. 
 
 A cul-de-sac, cut off from the stream of life and the world, 
 leading to nothing but itself, and echoing only to the boot of 
 the armed sentinel, such was the way to the great monument 
 of the church and the home of its anointed head. 
 
 " My God ! My God ! What am I to do with this people ? " 
 thought Rossi, and in a spirit of reverent submission he en- 
 tered the Basilica. 
 
 The great church presented its usual morning aspect the
 
 DAVID ROSSI 219 
 
 marble floor, the glistening walls, the gilded roof, the scarlet 
 hangings, and the window of the dove over the altar in the apse, 
 glowing in the sunshine with the light of an amber eye. 
 
 In the Chapel of the Chorus, before a few worshippers on 
 their knees, the canons were chanting their office in weary and 
 monotonous voices. When it was over they gathered up their 
 books and went off briskly, like workmen relieved at the dinner 
 hour, chatting cheerfully as they passed into the sacristy. 
 
 The Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament was closed, but out- 
 side its iron gates a large group of countrymen were kneeling 
 with their tired faces towards the altar. One of their number 
 was reading a prayer and the others were repeating the re- 
 sponses. They were pilgrims, who had come for the indulgences 
 of the Holy Year. 
 
 Before the black statue of St. Peter another group of pil- 
 grims, miserably clad, were passing one by one, each of them 
 in turn putting his lips and forehead to the worn and pol- 
 ished foot. Their poor cheeks were thin and pinched, their 
 eyes were dull and lifeless, but their devotion was deep and 
 true. 
 
 A third group of pilgrims better dressed than the others, 
 the men chiefly in sheepskins, the women in black lace shawls, 
 were kneeling about the tomb of the apostle. They were peas- 
 ants from a distant province, and they were being led by a 
 priest, who was himself a peasant, from church to church and 
 from relic to relic, that they too might win some exemption 
 from the pains of the purgatory waiting for all. 
 
 The arch-priest of the Basilica passed across the nave to the 
 sacristy. As Secretary of State to the Pope, he wore the scar- 
 let robes of a Cardinal, and had a Monsignor walking behind 
 him. The poor pilgrims in their miserable clothes, with their 
 tired and expressionless faces, crowded about him and kissed 
 his ring. He allowed them to do so, but he looked at few of 
 them and spoke to none. 
 
 " My God ! My God ! What am I to do with this people ? " 
 
 The Church was giving no answer to the cry ringing in 
 Eossi's heart. Devotion, sincerity, fervour all these were 
 there! But the message of the Church to the human soul 
 what was it? Fear! 
 
 Fear of God! Fear of Christ! Fear of the hereafter! 
 Fear of the unknown ! 
 
 Such was the beginning and end of the message of the 
 Catholic Church to the human soul, as Rossi saw it at that
 
 220 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 moment, and fear had no answer to a heart that was craving 
 for courage and strength. 
 
 David Rossi returned home and called for the boy again. 
 They fed the squirrels on the roof, and going into the great 
 cage, the canaries lit on them one after another, until they 
 looked as if they were playing in an apple orchard and had 
 shaken the blossoms over their heads. 
 
 But when the day closed in, and Rossi had seen little 
 Joseph to bed, and written his article for next morning's paper, 
 the same irresolution returned. 
 
 He went out to walk in the darkness of the streets. Had 
 this old city, which had witnessed so many struggles, no an- 
 swer for him anywhere? 
 
 Going up to the Roman Forum, he walked along the broken 
 parapets until he came under the sere old mass of the Colise- 
 um. The amphitheatre was empty and silent. Not a sound 
 of bird or beast or man among the vast and awful ruins. 
 Only the faint rattle of wheels in the streets behind, the 
 thin tinkle of the electric trams, and the other noises of far-off 
 life. Dark, desolate, long dead, like an inverted skull with 
 toothless jaws and eyeless sockets, like the moon seen 
 through a telescope, charred and lifeless, like a crater whose 
 fire is spent such was the great monument of the old Pagan 
 mother! 
 
 Fear was not the religion of man in her day ! Men were not 
 afraid to die then ! This old amphitheatre had once heard the 
 trumpets of the grand entry of the Emperors, and rang with 
 the shouts of the Imperial people, and witnessed the intoxica- 
 tion of ferocious love when Roman ladies turned down their 
 inexorable thumbs on the fallen and lost. 
 
 But what was the message of the Pagan world to the human 
 soul? Death! Only death! 
 
 Wait ! Had this old monument of the dead centuries no 
 memories but those of bloody gladiatorial spectacles? 
 
 David Rossi began to think of the martyrs who had died on 
 that spot, and straightway the empty Coliseum began to be 
 filled with an audience of ghosts. What a power in martyr- 
 dom ! Roman Emperors, Roman ladies, Imperial people what 
 were they now? Only dust and ashes. But the martyrs were 
 alive ! 
 
 The golden house of Nero was gone, but that cross of wood 
 on which the Saviour stretched his arms and died was govern- 
 ing the world still ! To die, not for your friends only, but for
 
 DAVID ROSSI 221 
 
 your enemies also, that was the great secret ! And life life 
 by martyrdom that was the message of Christ ! 
 
 As Rossi thought of this a voice, at first very faint, seemed 
 to speak within him, and he saw, in an instant, as by a flash of 
 light, what he ought to do in the Chamber of Deputies the fol- 
 lowing day. He could see himself doing it, and the hair of his 
 head stood up. 
 
 XIV 
 
 BEFORE going to bed that night Rossi replied to Roma : 
 
 MY DEAREST, Bruno will take this letter, and I will charge 
 him on his soul to deliver it safely into your hands. When you 
 have read it, you will destroy it immediately, both for your sake 
 and my own. 
 
 " From this moment onward I throw away all disguises. 
 The duplicities of love are sweet and touching, but I cannot 
 play hide-and-seek with you any longer. 
 
 " You are right it is you that I love, and little as I under- 
 stand and deserve it, I see now that you love me with all your 
 soul and strength. I cannot keep my pen from writing it, and 
 yet it is madness to do so, for the obstacles to our union are 
 just as insurmountable as before. 
 
 " It is not only my unflinching devotion to public work that 
 separates us, though that is a serious impediment; it is not 
 only the inequality of our birth and social conditions, though 
 that is an honest difficulty. The barrier between us is not 
 merely a barrier made by man, it is a barrier made by God it 
 is death. 
 
 " Think what that would be in the ordinary case of death by 
 disease. A man is doomed to die by cancer or consumption, and 
 even while he is engaged in a desperate struggle with the 
 mightiest and most relentless conqueror, love comes to him with 
 its dreams of life and happiness. What then? Every hour of 
 joy is poisoned for him henceforth by visions of the end that is 
 so near, in every embrace he feels the arms of death about him, 
 and in every kiss the chill breath of the tomb. 
 
 " Terrible tragedy ! Yet not without relief. Nature is 
 kind. Her miracles are never ending. Hope lives to the last. 
 The balm of God's healing hand may come down from heaven 
 and make all things well. JSTot so the death I speak of. It is 
 pitiless and inevitable, without hope or dreams.
 
 222 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Remember what I told you in this room on the night you 
 came here first. Had you forgotten it ? Your father, charged 
 with an attempt at regicide, as part of a plan of insurrection, 
 was deported without trial, and I, who shared his views, and 
 had expressed them in letters that were violated, being outside 
 the jurisdiction of the courts, was tried in contumacy and con- 
 demned to death. 
 
 " I am back in Italy for all that, under another name, my 
 mother's name, which is my name, too, thanks to the merciless 
 marriage laws of my country, with other aims and other 
 opinions, but I have never deceived myself for a moment. 
 The same doom hangs over me still, and though the court 
 which condemned me was a military court, and its sentence 
 would be modified by a Court of Assize, I see no difference be- 
 tween death in a moment on the gallows, and in five, ten, twenty 
 years in a cell. 
 
 " What am I to do ? I love you, you love me. Shall I, like 
 the poor consumptive, to whom gleams of happiness have come 
 too late, conceal everything and go on deluding myself with 
 hopes, indulging myself with dreams? It would be unpardon- 
 able, it would be cruel, it would be wrong and wicked. 
 
 " ISTo, it is impossible. You cannot but be aware that my 
 life or liberty are in serious jeopardy, and that my place in 
 Parliament and in public life is in constant and hourly peril. 
 Every letter that you have written to me shows plainly that you 
 know it. And when you say your heart's blood runs cold at the 
 thought of what may happen when Minghelli returns from 
 England, you betray the weakness, the natural weakness, the 
 tender and womanly weakness, Avhich justifies me in saying 
 that as long as we love each other, you and I should never meet 
 again. 
 
 " Don't think that I am a coward and tremble at the death 
 that hangs over me. I neither fear the future nor regret the 
 past. In every true cause some one is called to martyrdom. To 
 die for the right, for humanity, to lay down all you hold most 
 dear for the sake of the poor and the weak and the down-trod- 
 den and God's holy justice it is a magnificent duty", a privi- 
 lege ! And I am ready. If my death is enough, let me give the 
 last drop of my blood, and be dragged through the last degrees 
 of infamy. Only don't let me drag another after me, and en- 
 danger a life that is a thousand times dearer to me than 
 my own. 
 
 " What am I ? I am a man under God's hand from hia
 
 DAVID ROSSI 223 
 
 cradle upwards, and I do not complain, for he whom God's hand 
 rests on has God at his right hand. He wished me to give my- 
 self, He called me with a baptism as of fire to my work, and to 
 help me to do it He took away from me family and kindred and 
 friends and home. Shall love come at the last and hold me 
 back? 
 
 " It would do that and more far more. I want you, 
 dearest, I want you with my soul, but my doom is certain, it 
 waits for me somewhere, it may be here, it may be there, it may 
 come to me to-morrow, or next day, or next year, but it is com- 
 ing, I feel it, I am sure of it, and I will not fly away. But if I 
 go on until my beloved is my bride, and my name is stamped all 
 over her, and she has taken up my fate, and we are one, and the 
 world knows no difference, what then? Then death with its 
 sure step will come in to separate us, and after death for me, 
 danger, shame, poverty for you, all the penalties a woman pays 
 for her devotion to a man who is down and done. 
 
 " I couldn't bear it. The very thought of it would unman 
 me. It would turn heaven into hell. It would disturb the 
 repose of the grave itself. 
 
 " Isn't it hard enough to do what is before me without tor- 
 menting myself with thoughts like these? It is true I have 
 had my dreams like other men dreams of the woman whom 
 Heaven might give a man for his support the anchor to which 
 his soul might hold in storm and tempest, and in the very hour 
 of death itself. But what woman is equal to a lot like that? 
 Martyrdom is for man. God keep all women safe from it ! 
 
 " Have I said sufficient ? If this letter gives you half the 
 pain on reading it that I have felt in writing it, you will be 
 satisfied at last that the obstacles to our union are permanent 
 and insuperable. The time is come when I am forced to tell 
 you the secrets which I have never before revealed to any hu- 
 man soul. You know them now. They are in your keeping, 
 and it is enough. 
 
 " I do not send you the cards for the Chamber, because for 
 reasons of my own I could wish you not to come not to- 
 morrow at all events. 
 
 " Heaven be over you ! And when you are reconciled to our 
 separation, and both of us are strong, remember that if you 
 want me I will come, and that as long as I live, as long as I am 
 at liberty, I shall be always ready, always waiting, always near. 
 God bless you, my dear one ! Adieu ! DAVID LEONE."
 
 224 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 XV 
 
 LONG before ten o'clock next morning the little streets 
 around the House of Parliament were blocked with excited 
 crowds. The piazza in front was kept open by a cordon of 
 soldiers, and lines of Carabineers were posted down the prin- 
 cipal thoroughfares to clear a passage for the deputies. 
 
 Inside the Chamber the excitement was yet more intense. 
 As early as half -past nine members had begun to gather in the 
 corridors. The little company of fifty men who constituted the 
 Extreme Left were walking, most of them bareheaded, in the 
 courtyard out of the principal lobby. David Rossi was not 
 yet among them, and they were looking alternately at their 
 watches and at the door leading from the entrance hall. At 
 two minutes to ten their leader was still absent, and they be- 
 gan to glance into each other's faces with looks of relief 
 and hope. 
 
 " He'll not come now," said one. " Thank God ! " said an- 
 other, and they turned to go to their places. 
 
 Meantime the larger party that followed the Government 
 had been gathering in agitated groups and talking in bated 
 breath. The talk was, that the Prime Minister, who had eyes 
 everywhere, had found out something. As a result, he had gone 
 to the Quirinal early this morning and held counsel with the 
 King. Then, coming down to the House, he had sent for the 
 President and communicated some command of His Majesty. 
 After that he had sent for the Minister of War, and immedi- 
 ately afterwards two companies of infantry had been called 
 up. They were in the House now. 
 
 When the clock struck ten the Ministerial party trooped 
 into the Chamber, and in a moment the corridors were empty. 
 
 The Baron Bonelli was then in the Presidential room at the 
 top of the great staircase. He was perfectly calm and self- 
 possessed, and wore the usual flower in his buttonhole. The 
 Questore (the Sergeant of the House) had come to say the 
 President was about to take his seat, when one of the ushers, 
 with the tri-coloured badge, brought in a card on which a 
 message was written. 
 
 " Bring the lady up at once," said the Baron. 
 
 The lady was Roma, and the Baron met her at the door. 
 
 " This is like old times," he said. " But why are you here 
 to-day, my child ? " 
 
 " Why not to-day? " she asked.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 225 
 
 " Because ... to tell you the truth, there may be trouble. 
 Your friend, Pontifex Maximus of the Piazza Navona, is 
 credited with a desire to create a disturbance. In any case the 
 sitting may be disagreeable, and I advise you to go home." 
 
 " But you excite my interest beyond expression, and I would 
 not go home for worlds," said Roma. 
 
 " As you please," said the Baron, leading the way to the 
 entrance to the gallery, and chatting on other subjects. How 
 lovely she looked this morning! Was he never to see her any 
 more alone ? Surely he had waited long enough. There was ari 
 important matter which they had never yet cleared up. When 
 should he call ? 
 
 " I have a reception to-morrow afternoon to show my foun- 
 tain and studies and so forth," said Roma. 
 
 " I will be there," said the Baron, and he kissed her hand 
 and left her. 
 
 The door of the gallery had closed, and the Minister was 
 turning to go into the Chamber, when he came face to face with 
 David Rossi, who was hurrying to his seat. By a sudden im- 
 pulse he stopped and spoke to him. 
 
 " Mr. Rossi," he said, in his quiet, incisive accents, " if you 
 will take the advice of an adversary, you will be careful about 
 what you do to-day. Permit me to tell you that you stand on 
 the edge of a precipice; and if you have no regard for your own 
 life and liberty, you ought at least to respect the dignity of 
 this Chamber in the eyes of Europe." 
 
 The two men were alone in the lobby, and the Minister 
 waited a moment for a reply, but David Rossi only bowed and 
 passed on. 
 
 Through her white kid glove the kiss of the Baron's lips 
 was still stinging on Rorna's hand, and she was blushing with 
 shame at a certain sense of her own insincerity when the usher 
 in attendance showed her into the Court tribune. The little 
 Princess was there already, with Don Camillo and a foreign 
 acquaintance. All the galleries were crowded, and nearly every 
 seat below was occupied. The sun was shining through the 
 cupola and the heat was already very great. 
 
 Full as the House was, there was a strange silence. Xo 
 laughter, no joking, no talking, no saluting of the ladies in the 
 tribunes. Only a restless turning to the clock under the re- 
 porters' gallery, and the swish of the large leaves of a square 
 pamphlet which lay on every desk, headed " Chamber of Depu- 
 ties. Project of Law presented by the Minister of the Interior
 
 220 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 (Bonelli), together with the Minister of War (Morra), for the 
 better security of the public." 
 
 Don Camillo was pointing out the deputies to his foreign 
 friend. 
 
 " Those are the Ministers 011 the bench under the Presi- 
 dent's chair ' the bench of the accused ' the Radicals call it. 
 Solemn-looking? Yes, solemn as owls. When a man becomes 
 a Minister his laughing days are over. The Prime Minister? 
 Not in yet. Ah, there he is ! That's Bonelli coming in now. 
 Firm face, you say ? Looks as if it had been moulded in iron 
 and then twisted awry. Means mischief this morning, it seems 
 to me." 
 
 " Will you lend me your opera-glass, Gi-gi ? " said Roma. 
 
 David Rossi had also entered the House, and Roma scanned 
 his face closely. It was ashen pale. 
 
 " I will make him look up," thought Roma, and she gazed 
 steadfastly down at him. Presently his eyes rose to the Court 
 tribune for a moment. She knew that he saw her, for his lips 
 twitched, and the fingers that played with his watch-chain 
 trembled. The opera-glass almost fell out of her hands. She 
 was in a fever of excitement. 
 
 At five minutes after ten the President entered the Cham- 
 ber, followed by his secretaries. He took his seat in silence, and 
 in silence he rang his bell. 
 
 " The sitting has begun," he said. 
 
 The minutes of the day were read in a loud, clear voice, but 
 nobody heard them, because nobody listened. Then the Prime 
 Minister rpse to move the first reading of his bill for the better 
 security of the public, and the silence was as the silence of a 
 glacier. Beating every word with his fist on the table, he said 
 the conditions were urgent, and therefore it was the will of the 
 King and the desire of the Government that the vote should be 
 taken without debate. 
 
 Immediately two or three members rose on the Left and 
 cried, " I ask permission to speak." But the President, pre- 
 tending not to hear or see them, rang his bell and put the 
 question. 
 
 " I ask to speak," cried a dozen shrill voices from the Left, 
 but at the same moment a hundred voices on the Right roared 
 "Vote!" 
 
 " Those who are in favour say ' Aye,' " said the President. 
 
 " Aye " shouted two hundred and fifty voices at once. 
 
 " I ask to speak ! " cried another hysterical voice on the Left.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 227 
 
 " Those who are against say ' No ' " said the President. 
 
 " I ask to speak ! I ask to speak ! " 
 
 " I think the ' Ayes ' have it, the ' Ayes ' have it," said the 
 President, and then there was a terrific clamour. The Left 
 stood up in a body and shouted their protests at the Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 "It's illegal!" "It's null and void! ;> "It's against the 
 statute ! " 
 
 The Prime Minister rose again, and straightway he became 
 the target for a volley of insults. 
 
 " Traitor! " " Scoundrel! " " Accidenti! " " A fit take you." 
 
 In the midst of this uproar, from her place in the tribune, 
 Roma distinctly saw, amid the swaying of arms and the shaking 
 of fists, the glint of revolvers. Under cover of the commotion 
 two men on the Left had drawn their weapons and were prepar- 
 ing to fire at the Baron. lie would be killed. Would nobody 
 stop them ? Did no one see them except herself ? 
 
 Koma found herself on her feet, trying to cry out but unable 
 to do so, when suddenly something else happened. David Rossi 
 stepped out of his place and stood directly between the Baron, 
 and the men with the revolvers. 
 
 Roma screamed and felt herself falling forward. The 
 uproar seemed to fade away, her eyes became dazed, darkness 
 and silence came in one stride over the palpitating light and 
 deafening noise, she heard her own name spoken above her, and 
 then all was gone. 
 
 When David Rossi at the height of the tumult stepped into 
 the open space on the floor between the bench of the Ministers 
 and the first row of desks, and covered the Baron with his larger 
 figure, his own people knew perfectly what he was doing. Of all 
 the courses they had counted on this was the last that he 
 should prevent the execution of their threat to kill the Prime 
 Minister by making it necessary that in order to do so they 
 must first kill him. 
 
 In their bewilderment at this act their voices failed them in 
 an instant, and there was a moment of breathless silence. But 
 the larger party on the Right misunderstood both Rossi's 
 action and its effect on his followers, and seeing a man standing 
 with his back immediately before a Minister who was on his 
 feet, waiting to speak, they leapt to the conclusion that a low- 
 bred insult was intended, and with one accord they arose and 
 shouted at the offender. 
 
 The Left recovered from their surprise at seeing this error,
 
 228 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 and replied to their adversaries with howls of indignant de- 
 rision. The scene that followed was only one stage removed 
 from bedlam. 
 
 " Gutter snipe ! " " Jail bird ! " " Scum of the poorhouse! " 
 cried the Right. 
 
 " Fools ! " " Asses ! " cried the Left. 
 
 Meantime David Rossi continued to stand before the Baron, 
 with his face towards his own people, and one by one they 
 turned away from him and trooped out of the House. 
 
 " Long live the Republic ! " they shouted as they went. 
 
 " Long live the King ! " replied their adversaries. 
 
 When the seats on the Left were entirely empty, the clamour 
 on the Right subsided, and the bell of the President began to be 
 heard. Then, as Rossi was about to follow his people, the 
 Baron touched him on the shoulder and said, with a flushed 
 face, in a bitter whisper : 
 
 " Honourable, when you wish to insult me again, be good 
 enough to choose some other method than standing between 
 me and my Parliament." 
 
 XVI 
 
 OUT in the corridor one of the ushers was hurrying along 
 with a glass of water and a bottle of brandy. 
 
 " What's amiss ? " asked some one. 
 
 " A lady is ill," the usher answered. " She has been carried 
 up to the Presidential drawing-room." 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " Donna Roma." 
 
 The man who had just now stood to be shot at turned white 
 as a sheet and trembled violently. He ran upstairs in front of 
 the usher, three steps at a time. 
 
 Before a door of a room at the head of the great staircase 
 a group of servants were huddled together. Rossi would have 
 pushed through, but they stopped him. 
 
 " Sorry, Honourable," said the doorkeeper. " I have orders 
 to admit nobody." 
 
 At that instant the Prime Minister came up with a quick 
 step, whereupon the doorkeeper fell aside, and the Baron passed 
 into the room. 
 
 Rossi felt an impulse to push the ushers away, but his frame, 
 strung like a bow a moment ago, was now relaxed and power- 
 less. He would have given all the world to do the least thing
 
 DAVID ROSSI 229 
 
 for Roma at that moment, the very least little thing, but he was 
 kept out and could do nothing. 
 
 With a scared look he was glancing through the open door 
 and hearing voices from an inner chamber when his colleague, 
 the Doctor, came out of the room. 
 
 " What is it, in Heaven's name ? " he asked in a husky whis- 
 per. " Is she ill \ Is she better ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes." 
 
 "Thank God! Oh, thank God!" he said, choking with 
 emotion and laying hold of his colleague's arm. 
 
 The Doctor looked at him and smiled. 
 
 " Why, it was nothing," he said. " A fainting fit, that's all. 
 The heat and the noise and . . ." 
 
 " Are you sure it's nothing worse ? Hadn't you better go 
 back and stay with her a little longer ? " 
 
 " Tut ! I didn't think, old fellow, that you could be fright- 
 ened at . . ." 
 
 " Yes, yes, but a woman, you know one can't bear that a 
 woman . . ." 
 
 The big, bluff doctor grew red about the eyes and his voice 
 thickened with unwonted feeling. 
 
 " By God, Rossi, you're a man. I saw what you did five 
 minutes ago, and now . . . Stay here; she'll be out presently. 
 God bless you, old chap ! " 
 
 Then David Rossi heard the rustle of a woman's dress, 
 and the voice of somebody speaking, soothingly, lovingly, 
 almost familiarly. But he turned away from the door and 
 a perfume that he knew followed him as he passed up the 
 stairs. 
 
 From the library on the third floor he looked down to the 
 piazza. Roma's carriage was waiting by the portico, and pres- 
 ently Roma herself got into it, half supported by the Baron, 
 who was bareheaded and smiling. She was very pale, but she 
 smiled back at him as she sank into her seat. 
 
 David Rossi would have given his soul for that smile. He 
 went home with a tortured mind. 
 
 "What have I done?" he thought. "I hate that man, I 
 want him dead, yet I have saved his life ! What is the re- 
 sult? I have thrown Roma back into his hands. That is all 
 it comes to, and I have lied against my own heart!" 
 
 Half an hour after he reached the Piazza Xavona, a letter 
 came by a flying messenger on a bicycle. It was written in 
 pencil and in large straggling characters.
 
 230 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " DEAR MR. Rossi, Your letter has arrived and been read, 
 and, yes, it has been destroyed, too, according to your wish, 
 although the flames that burnt it burnt my hand also, and 
 scorched my heart as well. 
 
 " No doubt you have done wisely. You know better than I 
 do what is best for both of us, and I yield, I submit. Only 
 and therefore- I must see you immediately. There is a mat- 
 ter of some consequence on which I wish to speak. It has 
 nothing to do with the subject of your letter nothing directly, 
 at all events nor yet is it in any way related to the Minghelli 
 mischief -making. So you may receive me without fear. And 
 you will find me with a heart at ease. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you that if you wouldn't come to me I must 
 go to you ? Expect me this evening about Ave Maria, and ar- 
 range it that T may sec you alone. ROMA V. 
 
 " P.S. T saw and I understood what you did in the Cham- 
 ber to-day, but I suppose that for your people's sake I must 
 neither speak nor think of it." 
 
 XVII 
 
 As Ave Maria approached, David Rossi became still more 
 agitated. The sky had darkened, but there was no wind; the 
 air was empty, and he listened with strained attention for every 
 sound from the staircase and the street. At length he heard 
 a cab stop at the door, and a moment afterwards a light hurry- 
 ing footstep in the outer room seemed to beat upon his heart. 
 
 The door opened and Roma came in quickly, with a scarcely 
 audible salutation. He saw her with her golden complexion 
 and her large violet eyes, wearing a black hat and an astrachan 
 coat, but his head was going round and his pulses were beat- 
 ing violently, and he could not control his eyes. 
 
 " I have come for a minute only," she said. " You received 
 my letter ? " 
 
 Rossi bent his head. 
 
 " David, I want the fulfilment of your promise." 
 
 " What promise ? " 
 
 " The promise to come to me when I stand in need of you. 
 I need you now. My fountain is practically finished, and to- 
 morrow afternoon I am to have a reception to exhibit it. Every- 
 body will be there, and I want you to be present also." 
 
 " Is that necessary ? " he asked.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 231 
 
 " For my purposes, yes. Don't ask me why. Don't question 
 me at all. Only trust me and come." 
 
 She was speaking in a firm and rapid voice, and looking up 
 he saw that her brows were contracted, her lips were set, her 
 cheeks were slightly flushed, and her eyes were shining. He 
 had never seen her like that before. " What is the secret of it ? " 
 he asked himself, but he only answered, after a brief pause : 
 
 " Very well, I will be there." 
 
 " That's all. I might have written, but I was afraid you 
 might object, ant! I wished to make quite certain. Adieu ! " 
 
 He had only bowed to her as she entered, /ind now she was 
 going away without offering her hand. 
 
 " Roma," he said, in a voice that sounded choked. 
 
 She stopped but did not speak, and he felt himself growing 
 hot all over. 
 
 " I'm relieved so much relieved to hear that you agree 
 with what I said in my letter." 
 
 " The last in which you wish me to forget you ? " 
 
 " It is better so far better. I am one of those who think 
 that if either party to a marriage " he was talking in a con- 
 strained way " entertains beforehand any rational doubt 
 about it, he is wiser to withdraw, even at the church door, 
 rather than set out on a life-long voyage under doubtful aus- 
 pices." 
 
 " Ah, well ! " she said, taking a long breath and turning 
 a little away. 
 
 " But don't think I shall not suffer in parting from you, 
 Roma. Thy will lye done. There are moments in life when it 
 isn't easy to say that. At least I can pray that you may be 
 happy and perhaps in eternity . . ." 
 
 " Didn't we promise not to speak of this ? " she said impa- 
 tiently. Then their eyes met for a moment, and he knew that 
 he was false to himself and that his talk of renunciation was a 
 mockery. 
 
 " Roma," he said again, " if you want me in the future you 
 must write." 
 
 Her face clouded over. 
 
 " For your own sake, you know . . ." 
 
 " Oh, that ! That's nothing at all nothing now." 
 
 " But people are insulting me about you and . . ." 
 
 "Well and you?" 
 
 The colour rushed to his cheeks and he smote the back of a 
 chair with his clenched fist.
 
 232 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I tell them . . ." 
 
 " I understand," she said, and her eyes began to shine again. 
 But she only turned away, saying : " I'm sorry you are angry 
 that I came." 
 
 " Angry ! " he cried, and at the sound of his voice as he said 
 the word their love for each other went thrilling through and 
 through them. 
 
 The rain had begun to fall, and it was beating with smart 
 strokes on the window panes. 
 
 " You can't go now," he said, " and since you are never to 
 come here again there is something you ought to hear." 
 
 She took a seat immediately, unfastened her coat, and 
 slipped it back on to her shoulders. 
 
 The thick-falling drops were drenching the piazza, and its 
 pavement was bubbling like a lake. 
 
 " The rain will last for some time," said Rossi, looking out, 
 " and the matter I speak of is one of some urgency, therefore 
 it is better that you should hear it now." 
 
 Taking the pins out of her hat, Roma lifted it off and laid it 
 in her lap, and began to pull off her gloves. The noble young 
 head with its glossy hair and lovely face shone out with a new 
 beauty. 
 
 Rossi hardly dared to look at her. He was afraid that if 
 he allowed himself to do so he would fling himself at her 
 feet. " How calm she is," he thought. " What is the mean- 
 ing of it?" 
 
 He went to the bureau by the wall and took out a small 
 round packet. 
 
 " Do you remember your father's voice ? " he asked. 
 
 " That is all I do remember about my father. Why? " 
 
 " It is here in this cylinder." 
 
 She rose quickly and then slowly sat down again. 
 
 " Tell me," she said. 
 
 " When your father was deported to the island of Elba, he 
 was a prisoner at large, without personal restraint but under 
 police supervision. The legal term of domicilio coatto is from 
 one year to five, but excuses were found and his banishment 
 was made perpetual. He saw prisoners come and go, and in the 
 sealed chamber of his tomb he heard echoes of the world out- 
 side." 
 
 " Did he ever hear of me ? " 
 
 " Yes, and of myself as well. A prisoner brought him news 
 of one David Rossi, and under that name and the opinions
 
 DAVID ROSSI 233 
 
 attached to it he recognised David Leone, the boy he had 
 brought up and educated. He wished to send me a message." 
 
 " Was it about . . ." 
 
 " Yes. The letters of prisoners are read and copied, and 
 to smuggle out by hand a written document is difficult or 
 impossible. But at length a way was. discovered. Some one 
 sent a phonograph and a box of cylinders to one of the pris- 
 oners, and the little colony of exiled ones used to meet at your 
 father's house to hear the music. Among the cylinders were 
 certain blank ones. Your father spoke on to one of them, and 
 when the time came for the owner of the phonograph to leave 
 Elba, he brought the cylinder back with him. This is the 
 cylinder your father spoke on to." 
 
 With an involuntary shudder she took out of his hands a 
 circular cardboard-box, marked in print on the outside : " Se- 
 lections from Faust," and in pencil on the inside of the lid: 
 " For the hands of D. L. only to be destroyed if Deputy David 
 Rossi does not know where to find him." 
 
 The heavy rain had darkened the room, but by the red 
 light of a dying fire he could see that her face had turned 
 white. 
 
 " And this contains my fathers voice," she said. 
 
 " His last message." 
 
 " He is dead two years dead and yet . . ." 
 
 " Can you bear to hear it ? " 
 
 " Go on," she said, hardly audibly. 
 
 He took back the cylinder, put it on the phonograph, wound 
 up the instrument, and touched the lever. Through the strokes 
 of the rain, lashing the window like a hundred whips, the whiz- 
 zing noise of the machine began. 
 
 He was standing by her side, and he felt her hand 011 
 his arm. 
 
 Then through the sound of the rain and of the phonograph 
 there came a clear, full voice: 
 
 " David Leone your old friend Doctor Eoselli sends you 
 his dying message . . ." 
 
 The hand 011 Rossi's arm clutched it convulsively, and, in 
 a choking whisper, Roma said : 
 
 " Wait ! Give me one moment." 
 
 She was looking around the darkening room as if almost 
 expecting a ghostly presence. 
 
 She bowed her Ijead. Her breath came quick and fast. 
 
 " I am better now. Go on," she said. 
 16
 
 234 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The whirring noise began again, and after a moment the 
 clear voice came as before : 
 
 " My son, the promise I made when we parted in London I 
 fulfilled faithfully, but the letter I write to you never came to 
 your hands. It was meant to tell you who I was, and why I 
 changed my name. That is too long a story now, and I must 
 be brief. I am Prospero Volonna. My father was the last 
 prince of that name. Except the authorities and their spies, 
 nobody in Italy knows me as Koselli and nobody in England as 
 Volonna nobody but one, my poor dear child, my daughter 
 Eoma." 
 
 The hand tightened on Rossi's arm, and his head began to 
 swim. 
 
 " Little by little, in this grave of a living man, I have heard 
 what has happened since I was banished from the world. The 
 treacherous letter which called me back to Italy and decoyed 
 me into the hands of the police was the work of the man who 
 now holds my estates as the payment for his treachery." 
 
 " The Baron ? " 
 
 Rossi had stopped the phonograph. 
 
 " Can you bear it ? " he said. 
 
 The pale young face flushed with resolution. 
 
 " Go on," she said. 
 
 When the voice from the phonograph began again it was 
 more tremulous and husky than before. 
 
 " After he had betrayed the father, what impulse of fear or 
 humanity prompted him to take charge of the child, God alone, 
 who reads all hearts, can say. He went to England to look for 
 her, found her in the streets to which she had been abandoned 
 by the faithlessness of the guardians to whom I left her, and 
 shut their mouths by buying them to the perjury of burying 
 the unknown body of an unfortunate being in the name of my 
 beloved child." 
 
 The hand on Rossi's arm trembled feebly, and slipped down 
 to his own hand. It was cold as ice. The voice from the 
 phonograph was growing faint. 
 
 " She is now in Rome, living in the name that was mine in 
 Italy, amid an atmosphere of danger and perhaps of shame. 
 My son, save her from it. The man who betrayed the father 
 may betray the daughter also. Take her from him. Rescue 
 her. It is my dying prayer." 
 
 The hand in Rossi's hand was holding.it tightly, and his 
 blood was throbbing at his heart.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 235 
 
 " David," the voice from the phonograph was failing rapidly, 
 " when this shall come to your hands the darkness of the grave 
 will be over me. ... In my great distress of mind I torture 
 myself with many terrors. . . . Do not trifle with my request. 
 But whatever you decide to do ... be gentle with the child. . . . 
 I dream of her every night, and send my heart's heart to her on 
 the swelling tides of love. . . . Adieu, my son. The end is near. 
 God be with you in all you do that I did ill or left undone. 
 And if death's great sundering does not annihilate the memory 
 of those who remain on earth, be sure you have a helper and an 
 advocate in heaven." 
 
 The voice ceased, the whirring of the instrument came to 
 an end, and an invisible spirit seemed to fade into the air. The 
 pattering of the rain had stopped, and there was the crackle 
 of cab wheels on the pavement below. Roma had dropped 
 Rossi's hand, and was leaning forward on her knees with both 
 hands over her face. After a moment, she wiped her eyes with 
 her handkerchief and began to put on her hat. 
 
 " How long is it since you received this message ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " On the night you came here first." 
 
 " And when I asked you to come to my house on that . . . 
 that useless errand, you were thinking of ... of my father's 
 request as well ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You have known all this about the Baron for a month, 
 yet you have said nothing. Why have you said nothing ? " 
 
 " You wouldn't have believed me at first, whatever I had 
 said against him." 
 
 "But afterwards?" 
 
 " Afterwards I had another reason." 
 
 " Did it concern me ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 " Now that I have to part from you I am compelled to tell 
 you what he is." 
 
 " But if you had known that all this time he has been 
 trying to use somebody against you . . ." 
 
 " That would have made no difference." 
 
 She lifted her head and a look of fire, almost of fierceness, 
 came into her face, but she only said, with a little hysterical 
 cry, as if her throat were swelling: 
 
 " Come to me to-morrow, David ! Be sure you come ! If
 
 236 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 you don't come I shall never, never forgive you ! But you will 
 come ! You will ! You will ! " 
 
 And then, as if afraid of breaking out into sobs, she turned 
 quickly and hurried away. 
 
 " She can never fall into that man's hands now," he thought. 
 And then he lit his lamp and sat down to his work, but the 
 light was gone, and the night had fallen on him. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 NEXT morning David Rossi had not yet risen when some one 
 knocked at his door. It was Bruno. The great fellow looked 
 nervous and troubled, and he spoke in a husky whisper. 
 
 "You're not going to Donna Roma's to-day, sir?" 
 
 " Why not, Bruno ? " 
 
 " Have you seen her bust of yourself ? " 
 
 " Hardly at all." 
 
 " Just so. My case, too. She has taken care of that 
 locking it up every night, and getting another caster to cast 
 it. But I saw it the first morning after she began, and I 
 know what it is." 
 
 " What is it, Bruno ? " 
 
 " You'll be angry again, sir." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Judas that's what it is, sir; the study for Judas in the 
 fountain for the Municipality." 
 
 "Is that all?" 
 
 " All ? . . . But it's a caricature, a spiteful caricature ! 
 And you sat four days and never even looked at it ! I tell you 
 it's disgusting, sir. Simply disgusting. It's been done on pur- 
 pose, too. When I think of it I forget all you said, and I hate 
 the woman as much as ever. And now she is to have a recep- 
 tion, and you are going to it, just to help her to have her laugh. 
 Don't go, sir ! Take the advice of a fool, and don't go ! " 
 
 "Bruno," said Rossi, lying with his head on his arm, "un- 
 derstand me once for all. Donna Roma may have used my head 
 as a study for Judas I cannot deny that since you say it is so 
 but if she had used it as a study for Satan, I would believe 
 in her the same as ever." 
 
 "You would?" 
 
 "Yes, by God! So now, like a good fellow, go away and 
 leave her alone."
 
 DAVID ROSSI 237 
 
 The streets were more than usually full of people when 
 Rossi set out for the reception. Thick groups were standing 
 about the hoardings, reading a yellow placard, which was still 
 wet with the paste of the bill-sticker. It was a proclamation, 
 signed by the Minister of the Interior, and it ran : 
 
 "Romans, It having come to the knowledge of the Government 
 that a set of misguided men, the enemies of the throne and of society, 
 known to be in league with the republican, atheist, and anarchist 
 associations of foreign countries, are inciting the people to resist the 
 just laws made by their duly elected Parliament, and sanctioned by 
 their King, thus trying to lead them into outbreaks that would be un- 
 worthy of a cultivated and generous race, and would disgrace us in 
 the view of other nations the Government hereby give notice that 
 they will not allow the laws to be insulted with impunity, and there- 
 fore they warn the public against the holding of all such mass meet- 
 ings in public buildings, squares, and streets, as may lead to the 
 possibility of serious disturbances." 
 
 XIX 
 
 THE little Piazza of Trinita de' Monti was full of carriages, 
 and Roma's rooms were thronged. David Rossi entered with 
 the calmness of a man who is accustomed to personal observa- 
 tion, but Roma met him with an almost extravagant saluta- 
 tion. 
 
 " Ah, you have come at last," she said in a voice that was 
 intended to be heard by all. And then, in a low tone, she 
 added, " Stay near me, and don't go until I say you may." 
 
 Her face had the expression that had puzzled him the day 
 before, but with the flushed cheeks, the firm mouth and the 
 shining eyes, there was now a strange look of excitement, al- 
 most of hysteria. 
 
 The company was divided into four main groups. The 
 first of them consisted of Roma's aunt, powdered and perfumed, 
 propped up with cushions on an invalid chair, and receiving 
 the guests by the door, with the Baron Bonelli, silent and 
 dignified, but smiling his icy smile, by her side. A second 
 group consisted of Don Camillo and some ladies of fashion, who 
 stood by the window and made little half-smothered trills of 
 laughter. The third group included Lena and Olga, the jour- 
 nalists, with Madame Sella, the modiste ; and the fourth group
 
 238 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 was made up of the English and American Ambassadors, Count 
 Mario, and some other diplomatists. 
 
 The conversation was at first interrupted by the little pauses 
 that follow fresh arrivals ; and after it had settled down to the 
 dull buzz of a beehive, when the old brood and their queen 
 are being turned out, it consisted merely of hints, giving 
 the impression of something in the air that was scandalous 
 and amusing, but could not be talked about. 
 
 "Have you heard that . . ." "Is it true that . . ." 
 " No ? " " Can it be possible ? " " How delicious ! " and then 
 inaudible questions and low replies, with tittering, tapping of 
 fans, and insinuating glances. 
 
 But Roma seemed to hear everything that was said about 
 her, and constantly broke in upon a whispered conversation 
 with disconcerting openness. 
 
 "That man here!" said one of the journalists at Rossi's 
 entrance. " In the same room with the Prime Minister! " said 
 another. " After that disgraceful scene in the House, too ! " 
 
 " I hear that he was abominably rude to the Baron yester- 
 day," said Madame Sella. 
 
 " Rude? He has blundered shockingly, and offended every- 
 body. They tell me the Vatican is now up in arms against 
 him, and is going to denounce him and all his ways." 
 
 " ~No wonder ! He has made himself thoroughly disagree- 
 able, and I'm only surprised that the Prime Minister . . ." 
 
 " Oh, leave the Prime Minister alone. He has something 
 up his sleeve. . . . Haven't you heard why we are invited here 
 to-day? No? Not heard that . . ." 
 
 " Really ? So that explains. ... I see, I see ! " and then 
 more tittering and tapping of fans. 
 
 " Certainly, he is an extraordinary man, and one of the 
 first statesmen in Europe." 
 
 " It's so unselfish of you to say that," said Roma, flashing 
 round suddenly, " for the Minister has never been a friend of 
 journalists, and I've heard him say that there wasn't one of 
 them who wouldn't sell his mother's honour if he thought he 
 could make a sensation." 
 
 " Love? " said the voice of Don Camillo in the silence that 
 followed Roma's remark. "What has marriage to do with 
 love except to spoil it ? " And then, amidst laughter and the 
 playful looks of the ladies by whom he was surrounded, he gave 
 a gay picture of his own povei-ty, and the necessity of mar- 
 rying to retrieve his fortunes.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 239 
 
 " What would you have ? Look at my position ! A great 
 name, as ancient as history, and no income. A gorgeous pal- 
 ace, as old as the pyramids, and no cook ! " 
 
 " Don't be so conceited about pour poverty, Gi-gi," said 
 Roma. " Some of the Roman ladies are as poor as the men. 
 As for me, Madame Sella could sell up every stick in my house 
 to-morrow, and if the Municipality should throw up my foun- 
 tain . . ." 
 
 " Senator Palomba," said Felice's sepulchral voice from 
 the door. 
 
 The suave, oily little Mayor came in, twinkling his eyes 
 and saying: 
 
 " Did I hear my name as I entered ? " 
 
 " I was saying," said Roma, " that if the Municipality 
 should throw up my fountain . . ." 
 
 The little man made an amusing gesture, and the con- 
 strained silence was broken by some awkward laughter. 
 
 " Roma," said the testy voice of the Countess, " I think I've 
 done my duty by you, and now the Baron will take me back. 
 Natalina! Where's iSTatalma ? " 
 
 But half-a-dozen hands took hold of the invalid chair, and 
 the Baron followed it into the bedroom. 
 
 " Wonderful man ! " " Wonderful ! " whispered various 
 voices, as the Minister's smile disappeared through the door. 
 
 The conversation had begun to languish when the Princess 
 Bellini arrived, and then suddenly it became lively and gen- 
 eral. 
 
 " I'm late, but do you know, my clear," she said, kissing 
 Roma on both cheeks, " I've been nearly torn to pieces in com- 
 ing. My carriage had to plough its way through crowds of 
 people." 
 
 " Crowds ? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed, and the streets are nearly impassable. An- 
 other demonstration, I suppose ! The poor must always be 
 demonstrating." 
 
 " Ah ! yes," said Don Camillo. " Haven't you heard the 
 news. Roma ? " 
 
 " I've been working all night and all day, and I have heard 
 nothing," said Roma. 
 
 " Well, to prevent a recurrence of the disgraceful scene of 
 yesterday, the King has promulgated the Public Security Act 
 by royal decree, and the wonderful crisis is at an end." 
 
 "And now?"
 
 240 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Now the Prime Minister is master of the situation, and 
 has begun by proclaiming the mass meeting which was to have 
 been held in the Coliseum." 
 
 " Good thing too," said Count Mario. " We've heard 
 enough of liberal institutions lately." 
 
 " And of the scandalous speeches of professional agitators," 
 said Madame Sella. 
 
 " And of the liberty of the press," said Senator Palomba. 
 And then the effeminate old dandy, the fashionable dressmaker, 
 and the oily little Mayor exchanged significant nods. 
 
 " Wait ! Only wait ! " said Roma, in a low voice, to Rossi, 
 who was standing in silence by her side. 
 
 " Unhappy Italy ! " said the American Ambassador. " With 
 the largest array of titled nobility and the largest army of 
 beggars. The one class sipping iced drinks in the piazzas dur- 
 ing the playing of music, and the other class marching through 
 the streets and conspiring against society." 
 
 " You judge us from a foreign standpoint, dear friend," said 
 Don Camillo, " and forget our love of a pageant. The Princess 
 says -our poor are always demonstrating. We are all always 
 demonstrating. Our favourite demonstration is a funeral, with 
 drums beating and banners waving. If we cannot have a 
 funeral we have a wedding, with flowers and favours and floods 
 of tears. And when we cannot have either, we put up with a 
 revolution, and let our radical orators tell us of the wickedness 
 of taxing the people's bread." 
 
 " Always their bread," said the Princess, with a laugh. 
 
 " In America, dear General, you are so tragically sincere, 
 but in Italy we are a race of actors. The King, the Parliament, 
 the Pope himself . . ." 
 
 "Shocking!" said the little Princess. "But if you had 
 said as much of our professional agitators . . ." 
 
 " Oh, they are the most accomplished and successful actors, 
 Princess. But we are all actors in Italy, from the greatest 
 to the least, and the ' curtain ' is to him who can score off 
 everybody else." 
 
 " So," began the American, " to be Prime Minister in 
 Rome . . ." 
 
 " Is to be the chief actor in Europe, and his leading part 
 is that in which he puts an end to his adversary amidst a burst 
 of inextinguishable laughter." 
 
 " What is he driving at ? " said the English to the American 
 Ambassador.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 
 
 " Don't you know ? Haven't you heard what is coming ? " 
 And then some further whispering. 
 
 " Wait, only wait ! " said Roma. 
 
 " Gi-gi," said the Princess, " how stupid you are ! You're 
 all wrong about Roma. Look at her now. To think that 
 men can be so blind! And the Baron is no better than 
 the rest of you. He's too proud to believe what I tell him, 
 but he'll learn the truth some day. He is here, of course? 
 In the Countess's room, isn't he? ... How do you like my 
 dress?" 
 
 " It's perfect." 
 
 "Really? The black and the blue make a charming effect, 
 don't they? They are the Baron's favourite colours. How agi- 
 tated our hostess is ! She seems to have all the world here. 
 When are we to see the wonderful work? What's she waiting 
 for? Ah, there's the Baron coming out at last! " 
 
 " They're all here, aren't they ? " said Roma, looking round 
 with flushed cheeks and flaming eyes at the jangling, slandering 
 crew, who had insulted and degraded David Rossi. 
 
 " Take care," he answered, but she only threw up her head 
 and laughed. 
 
 Then the company went down the circular iron staircase to 
 the studio. Roma walked first with her rapid step, talking 
 nervously and laughing frequently. 
 
 The fountain stood in the middle of the floor, and the 
 guests gathered about it. 
 
 " Superb ! " they exclaimed one after another. " Superb ! 
 Superb!" 
 
 The little Mayor was especially enthusiastic. He stood near 
 the Baron, and holding up both hands he cried : 
 
 " Marvellous ! Miraculous ! Fit to take its place beside 
 the masterpieces of old Rome ! " 
 
 " But surely this is ' Hamlet ' without the prince," said the 
 Baron. " You set out to make a fountain representing Christ 
 and his twelve apostles, and the only figure you leave unfinished 
 is Christ Himself." 
 
 He pointed to the central figure above the dish, which was 
 merely shaped out and indicated. 
 
 " Not only one, your Excellency," said Don Camillo. 
 " Here is another unfinished figure intended for Jnda>. ap- 
 parently." 
 
 " I left them to the last on purpose," said Roma. " They 
 were so important, and so difficult. But I have studies for
 
 242 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 both of them in the boudoir, and you shall give me your advice 
 and opinion." 
 
 " The saint and the satyr, the God and the devil, the be- 
 trayed and the betrayer what subjects for the chisel of the 
 artist ! " said Don Camillo. 
 
 " Just so," said the Mayor. " She must do the one with 
 all the emotions of love, and the other with all the faculties of 
 hate." 
 
 " ISTot that art," said Don Camillo, " has anything to do 
 with life that is to say, real life . . ." 
 
 " Why not? " said Roma, sharply. " The artist has to live 
 in the world, and he isn't blind. Therefore, why shouldn't he 
 describe what he sees around him?" 
 
 " But is that art ? If so, the artist is at liberty to give his 
 views on religion and politics, and by the medium of his art 
 he may even express his private feelings return insults and 
 wreak revenge." 
 
 " Certainly he may," said Roma, " the greatest artists have 
 often done so." Saying this, she led the way upstairs 
 and the others followed, with a chorus of hypocritical ap- 
 proval. 
 
 " It's only human, to say the least." " Of course it is ! " 
 " If she's a woman and can't speak out, or fight duels, it's a 
 lady-like way, at all events." And then further tittering, 
 tapping of fans, and significant nods at Rossi when his back 
 was turned. 
 
 Two busts stood on pedestals in the boudoir. One of them 
 was covered with a damp cloth, the other with a muslin veil. 
 Going up to the latter first Roma said, with a slightly quaver- 
 ing voice : 
 
 " It was so difficult to do justice to the Christ that I am 
 almost sorry I made the attempt. But it came easier when I 
 began to think of some one who was being reviled and humili- 
 ated and degraded because he was poor and wasn't ashamed of 
 it, and who was always standing up for the weak and the down- 
 trodden, and never returning anybody's insult however shame- 
 ful and false and wicked, because he wasn't thinking of himself 
 at all. So I got the best model I could in real life and this 
 is the result." 
 
 With that she pulled off the muslin veil and revealed the 
 sculptured head of David Rossi, in a snow-white plaster cast. 
 The features expressed pure nobility, and every touch was a 
 touch of sympathy and love.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 243 
 
 A moment of chilling silence was followed by an under- 
 breath of gossip. " Wbo is it ? " " Christ, of course." " Oh, 
 certainly, but it reminds me of some one." " Who can it be ? " 
 " The Pope ? " " Why, no ; don't you see who it is ? " " Is it 
 really ? " " How shameful ! " " How blasphemous ! " 
 
 Roma stood looking on with a face lighted up by two 
 flaming eyes. " I'm afraid you don't think I've done justice to 
 my model," she said. " That's quite true. But perhaps my 
 Judas will please you better," and she stepped up to the bust 
 that was covered by the wet cloth. 
 
 " I found this a difficult subject also, and it was not until 
 yesterday evening that I felt able to begin on it." 
 
 Then, with a hand that trembled visibly, she took from the 
 wall the portrait of her father, and offering it to the Minister, 
 she said : 
 
 " Some one told me a story of duplicity and treachery it 
 was about this poor old gentleman, Baron and then I knew 
 what sort of person it was who betrayed his friend and master 
 for thirty pieces of silver, and listened to the hypocrisy, and 
 flattery, and lying of the miserable group of parasites who 
 crowded round him because he was a traitor, and because he 
 kept the purse." 
 
 With that she threw off the damp cloth, and revealed the 
 clay model of a head. The face was unmistakable, but it ex- 
 pressed every baseness cunning, arrogance, cruelty, and sen- 
 suality. 
 
 The silence was freezing, and the company began to turn 
 away, and to mutter among themselves, in order to cover their 
 confusion. " It's the Baron !" "Xo?" "Yes." "Disgrace- 
 ful!" "Disgusting!" "Shocking!" " A scarecrow !" 
 
 Roma watched them for a moment, and then said : " You 
 don't like my Judas? Xeither do I. You're right it is dis- 
 gusting." 
 
 And taking up in both hands a piece of thin wire, she cut 
 the clay across, and the upper part of it fell face downward with 
 a thud on to the floor. 
 
 The Princess, who stood by the side of the Baron, offered 
 him her sympathy, and he answered with his icy smile : 
 
 " But these artists are all slightly insane, you know. That 
 is an evil which must be patiently endured, without noticing 
 too much the ludicrous side of it." 
 
 Then, stepping up to Roma, and handing back the portrait, 
 the Baron said, with a slight frown :
 
 244 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I must thank you for a very amusing afternoon, and bid 
 you good-day." 
 
 The others looked after him, and interpreted his departure 
 according to their own feelings. " He is done with her," they 
 whispered. " He'll pay her out for this." And without more 
 ado they began to follow him-. 
 
 Roma, flushed and excited, bowed to them as they went out 
 one by one, with a politeness that was demonstrative to the 
 point of caricature. She was saying farewell to them for ever, 
 and her face was lighted up with a look of triumphant joy. 
 They tried to bear themselves bravely as they passed her, but 
 her blazing eyes and sweeping curtseys made them feel as if 
 they were being turned out of the house. 
 
 When they were all gone, she shut the door with a bang, and 
 then turning to David Rossi, who alone remained, she burst 
 into a flood of hysterical tears, and threw herself on to her 
 knees at his feet. 
 
 XX 
 
 " DAVID ! " she cried. 
 
 " Don't do that. Get up," he answered. 
 
 His thoughts were in a whirl. He had been standing aside, 
 trembling for Roma as he had never trembled for himself in 
 the hottest moments of his public life. And now he was alone 
 with her, and his blood was beating in his breast in stabs. 
 
 " Haven't I done enough ? " she cried. " You taunted me 
 with my wealth, but I am as poor as you are now. Every penny 
 I had in the world came from the Baron. He allowed me to 
 use part of the revenues of my father's estates, but the income 
 was under his control, and now he will stop it altogether. I 
 am in debt. I have always been in debt. That was my bene- 
 factor's way of reminding me of my dependence on his bounty. 
 And now all I have will be sold to satisfy my creditors and I 
 shall be turned out homeless." 
 
 " Roma . . ." he began, but her tears and passion bore 
 down everything. 
 
 " House, furniture, presents, carriages, horses, everything 
 will go soon, and I shall have nothing whatever! No matter! 
 You said a woman loved ease and wealth and luxury. Is that 
 all a woman loves? Is there nothing else in the world for 
 any of us ? Aren't you satisfied with me at last ? " 
 
 " Roma," he answered, breathing hard, " don't talk like that. 
 I cannot bear it."
 
 DAVID ROSSI 245 
 
 But she did not listen. " You taunted me with being a 
 woman," she said through a fresh burst of tears. " A woman 
 was incapable of friendship and sacrifices. She was intended 
 to be a man's plaything. Do you think I want to be my hus- 
 band's mistress ? I want to be his wife, to share his fate, what- 
 ever it may be, for good or bad, for better or worse." 
 
 " For God's sake, Eoma ! " he cried. But she broke in on 
 him again. 
 
 " You taunted me with the dangers you had to go through, 
 as if a woman must needs be an impediment to her husband, 
 and try to keep him back. Do you think I want my husband 
 to do nothing. If he were content with that he would not 
 be the man I had loved, and I should despise him and leave 
 him." 
 
 "Koma! . . ." 
 
 " Then you taunted me with the death that hangs over you. 
 When you were gone I should be left to the mercy of the 
 world. But that can never happen. Xever! Do you think a 
 woman can outlive the man she loves as I love you? . . . 
 There ! I've said it. You've shamed me into it." 
 
 He could not speak now. His words were choking in his 
 throat, and she went on in a torrent of tears: 
 
 " The death that threatens you comes from no fault of 
 yours, but only from your fidelity to my father. Therefore I 
 have a right to share it, and I will not live when you are dead." 
 
 " If I give way now," he thought, " all is over." 
 
 And clenching his hands behind his back to keep himself 
 from throwing his arms around her, he began in a low voice : 
 
 " Roma, you have broken your promise to me." 
 
 " I don't care," she interrupted. " I would break ten thou- 
 sand promises. I deceived you. I confess it. I pretended to 
 be reconciled to your will, and I was not reconciled. I wanted 
 you to see me strip myself of all I had, that you might have 
 no answer and excuse. Well, you have seen me do it, and now 
 . . . what are you going to do noii'V 
 
 " Roma," he began again, trembling all over, " there have 
 been two men in me all this time, and one of them has been 
 trying to protect you from the world and from yourself, while 
 the other . . . the other has been wanting you to despise all 
 his objections, and trample them under your feet. ... If I 
 could only believe that you know all you are doing, all the risk 
 you are running, and the fate you are willing to share . . . but 
 no, it is impossible."
 
 246 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " David," she cried, " you love me ! If you didn't love me, I 
 should know it now at this moment. But I am braver than 
 you are. . . ." 
 
 " Let me go. I cannot answer for myself." 
 
 " I am braver than you are, for I have not only stripped 
 myself of all my possessions, and of all my friends I have even 
 compromised myself again and again, and been daring and 
 audacious, and rude to everybody for your sake. ... I, a 
 woman . . . while you, a man . . . you are afraid . . . yes, 
 afraid . . . you are a coward that's it, a coward ! . . . No, no, 
 no ! What am I saying ? . . . David Leone ! " 
 
 And with a cry of passion and remorse she flung both arms 
 about his neck. 
 
 He had stood, during this fierce struggle of love and pain, 
 holding himself in until his throbbing nerves could bear the 
 strain no longer. 
 
 " Come to me, then come to me," he cried, and at the mo- 
 ment when she threw herself upon him he stretched out his 
 arms to receive her. 
 
 " You do love me ? " she said. 
 
 " Indeed, yes ! And you ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes, yes ! " 
 
 He clasped her in his arms with redoubled ardour, and 
 pressed her to his breast and kissed her. The love so long pent 
 up was bursting out like a liberated cataract that sweeps the 
 snow and the ice before it. 
 
 All at once the girl who had been so brave in the great 
 battle of her love became weak and womanish in the moment 
 of her victory. Under the warmth of his tenderness she 
 dropped her head on to his breast to conceal her face in her 
 shame. 
 
 " You will never think the worse of me ? " she faltered. 
 
 " The worse of you ! For loving me ? " 
 
 " For telling you so and forcing myself into your life ? " 
 
 " My darling, no ! " 
 
 She lifted her head, and he kissed away the tears that were 
 shining in her eyes. 
 
 " But tell me," he said, " are you sure quite sure ? Do you 
 know what is before you ? " 
 
 " I only know I love you." 
 
 He folded her afresh in his strong embrace, and kissed her 
 head as it lay on his breast. 
 
 " Think again," he said. " A man's enemies can be merciless.
 
 DAVID ROSSI 247 
 
 They may watch you and put pressure upon you, and even hu- 
 miliate you for my sake." 
 
 " J^o matter ! I am not afraid," she answered, and again 
 he tightened his arms about her in a passionate embrace, and 
 covered her hair and her neck and her hands and her finger- 
 tips with kisses. 
 
 They did not speak for a long time after that. There was 
 no need for words. He was conquered, yet he was conqueror, 
 and she was happy and at peace. The long fight was over, and 
 everything was well. 
 
 He put her to sit in a chair, and sat himself on the arm of 
 it, with his face to her face, and her arms still round his neck. 
 It was like a dream. She could scarcely believe it. He whom 
 she had looked up to with adoration was caressing her. She 
 was like a child in her joy, blushing and half afraid. 
 
 He ran his hand through her hair and kissed her forehead. 
 She threw back her head that she might put her lips to his fore- 
 head in return, and he kissed her full, round throat. 
 
 Then they exchanged rings as the sign of their eternal 
 union. \Vhen she put her diamond ring, set in gold, on to his 
 finger, he looked grave and even sad ; but when he put his plain 
 silver one on to hers, she lifted up her glorified hand to the 
 light, and kissed and kissed it. 
 
 They began to talk in low tones, as if some one had been lis- 
 tening. It was the whispering of their hearts, for the angel 
 of happy love has no voice louder than a whisper. She asked 
 him to say again that he loved her, but as soon as he began 
 to say it she stopped his mouth with a kiss. 
 
 They talked of their love. She was sure she had loved him 
 before he loved her, and when he said that he had loved her 
 always, she protested in that case he did not love her at all. 
 
 They talked of the pain of love. Did love always begin with 
 pain ? Love must be a twin thing, two spirits bom in different 
 breasts, and crying and crying until they come together. That 
 union was the real beginning of the love-life, and all that went 
 before it was but the agony of birth. 
 
 The church bells began to ring the Ave Maria, and they 
 closed their eyes to listen. They wanted to remember this hour 
 as the hour of the new birth of their love, so they clasped hands 
 and dreamt themselves back into silence. But through the 
 silence of their tongues the bells came laden with other voices. 
 One bell was like the voice of a happy child playing in the 
 morning sunshine; another bell was like the sweet voice of a
 
 248 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 boy in a choir, going up, up, up to the gate of heaven ; a third 
 bell was like a girl's voice calling across a meadow, fresh with 
 the perfume of verdure and wild flowers ; a fourth was like the 
 voice of a sailor on the shore of a sunlit sea ; and then the far- 
 off boom of the big bell of St. Peter's was like the voice of the 
 sea itself, telling of the lovers who were lost in its depths. But 
 all the bells of Rome were ringing for them, and the Ave 
 Maria was their own. 
 
 They rose at length to close the windows, and side by side, 
 his arm about her waist, her head leaning lightly on his shoul- 
 der, they stood for a moment looking out. The mother of 
 cities lay below in its lightsome whiteness, and over the ridge of 
 its encircling hills the glow of the departing sun was rising 
 in vaporous tints of amber and crimson into the transparent 
 blue, with the dome of St. Peter's, like a balloon, ready to rise 
 into a celestial sky. 
 
 " A storm is coming," he said, looking at the colours in the 
 sunset. 
 
 " It has come and gone," she whispered, and then his arm 
 folded closer about her waist. 
 
 It took him half-an-hour to say adieu. After the last kiss 
 and the last handshake, their arms would stretch out to the 
 utmost limit, and then close again for another and another and 
 yet another embrace. 
 
 XXI 
 
 WHEN at length Rossi was gone, Roma ran into her bedroom 
 to look at her face in the glass. The golden complexion was 
 heightened by a bright spot on either cheek, and a tear-drop 
 was glistening in the corner of each of her eyes. 
 
 She went back to the boudoir. David Rossi was no longer 
 there, but the room seemed to be full of his presence. She sat 
 in the chair again, and again she stood by the window. At 
 length she opened her desk and wrote a letter: 
 
 " DEAREST, You are only half-an-hour gone, and here I am 
 sending this letter after you, like a handkerchief you had for- 
 gotten. I have one or two things to say, quite matter-of-fact 
 and simple things, but I cannot think of them sensibly for joy 
 of the certainty that you love me. Of course, I knew it all the 
 time, but I couldn't be at ease until I had heard it from your 
 own lips; and now I feel almost afraid of my great happiness.
 
 DAVID EOSSI 249 
 
 How wonderful it seems! And, like all events that are long- 
 expected, how suddenly it has happened in the end! To think 
 that a month ago only a little month you and I were both in 
 Rome, within a mile of each other, breathing the same air, 
 enclosed by the same cloud, kissed by the same sunshine, and 
 yet we didn't know it ! 
 
 " Oh, my dear, sweet sisters, you who are living joyless and 
 uncaressed, don't lose heart ! Just another moment, just the 
 turn of a corner somewhere, and his eyes will meet yours, and 
 you will be happy, happy, happy ! 
 
 " Soberly, though, I want you to understand that I meant 
 all I said so savagely about going on with your work, and not 
 letting your anxiety about my welfare interfere with you. I 
 am really one of the women who think that a wife should fur- 
 ther a man's aims in life if she can ; and if she can't do that, she 
 should stand aside and not impede him. So go on, dear heart, 
 without fear for me. 1 will take care of myself, whatever 
 occurs. Don't let one hour or one act of your life be troubled 
 by the thought of what would happen to me if you should fall. 
 Dearest, I am your beloved, but I am your soldier also, ready 
 and waiting to follow where my captain calls: 
 
 " 'Teach me, only teach, Love! 
 
 As I ought 
 
 I will speak thy speech, Love, 
 Think thy thought.' 
 
 " And if I was not half afraid that you would think it 
 bolder than is modest in your bride to be, I would go on with 
 the next lines of my sweet quotation. 
 
 " Another thing. You went away without saying you for- 
 give me for the wicked duplicity I practised upon you. It was 
 very wrong, I suppose, and yet for my life I cannot get up any 
 real contrition on the subject. There's always some duplicity 
 in a woman. It is the badge of every daughter of Eve, and it 
 must come out somewhere. In my case it came out in loving 
 you to all the lengths and ends of love, and drawing you on 
 to loving me. I ought to be ashamed, but I'm not, I'm glad. 
 
 " I did love first, and, of course, I knew you from the be- 
 ginning, and when you wrote about being in love with some one 
 else, I knew quite well you meant me. But it was so delicious 
 to pretend not to know, to come near and then to sheer off 
 again, to touch and then to fly, to tempt you and then to run 
 17
 
 250 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 away, until a strong tide rushed at me and overwhelmed me, 
 and I was swooning in your arms at last. 
 
 "Dearest, don't think I made light of the obstacles you 
 urged against our union. I knew all the time that the risks of 
 marriage were serious, though perhaps I am not in a position 
 even yet to realise how serious they may be. Only I knew also 
 that the dangers were greater still if we kept apart, and that 
 gave me courage to be bold and to defy conventions. 
 
 " Which brings me to my last point, and please prepare to be 
 serious, and bend your brow to that terrible furrow which 
 comes when you are fearfully in earnest. What you said of 
 your enemies being merciless, and perhaps watching me and 
 putting pressure upon me to injure you, is only too imminent a 
 danger. The truth is that I have all along known more than 
 I had courage to tell, but I was hoping you would understand, 
 and now I tremble to think how I have suffered myself to be 
 silent. 
 
 " The Minghelli matter is an alarming affair, for I have 
 reason to believe that the man has lit on the name you bore 
 in England, and that when he returns to Rome he will try to 
 fix it upon you by means of me. This is fearful to contem- 
 plate, and my heart quakes to think of it. But happily there 
 is a way to checkmate such a devilish design, and it is within 
 your own power to save me from life-long remorse. 
 
 " I don't think the laws of any civilised country compel a 
 man's ivife to compromise him, and thinking of this gives me 
 courage to be unmaidcnly and say : Don't let it be long, dearest ! 
 I could die to bring it to pass in a moment. With all my great, 
 great happiness, I shall have the heartache until it is done, and 
 only when it is over shall I begin to live! 
 
 " There ! You didn't know what a forward hussy I could 
 be if I tried, and really I have been surprised at myself since 
 I began to be in love with you. For weeks and weeks I have 
 been thin and haggard and ugly, and only to-day I begin to be 
 a little beautiful. I couldn't be anything but beautiful to-day, 
 and I've been running to the glass to look at myself, as the only 
 way to understand why you love me at all. And I'm glad so 
 glad for your sake. 
 
 " Good-bye, dearest ! You cannot come to-morrow or the 
 next day, and what a lot I shall have to live before I see you 
 again ! Shall I look older? No, for thinking of you makes me 
 feel younger and younger every minute. How old are you? 
 Thirty-four? I'm twenty-four and a half, and that is just
 
 DAVID ROSSI 251 
 
 right, but if you think I ought to be nearer your age I'll wear 
 a bonnet and fasten it with a bow. ROMA. 
 
 " P.S. Don't delay the momentous matter. Don't ! Don't ! 
 Don't ! " 
 
 She dined alone that night that she might be undisturbed in 
 her thoughts of Rossi. Ordinary existence had almost disap- 
 peared from her consciousness, and every time Felice spoke as 
 he served the dishes his voice seemed to come from far away. 
 
 She went to bed early, but it was late before she slept. 
 
 For a long time she lay awake to think over all that had hap- 
 pened, and when the night was far gone, and she tried to fall 
 asleep in order to dream of it also, she could not do so for sheer 
 delight of the prospect. But at last, amid the gathering clouds 
 of sleep, she said " Good-night " with the ghost of a kiss, and 
 slept until morning. 
 
 When she awoke it was late and the sun was shining into 
 the room. She lay on her back and stretched out both arms 
 for sheer sweetness of the sensation of health and love. 
 Everything was well, and she was very happy. Thinking of 
 yesterday, she was even sorry for the Baron, and told herself she 
 had been too bold and daring. 
 
 But that thought was gone in a moment. Body and soul 
 were suffused with joy, and she leapt out of bed with a spring. 
 
 A moment afterwards Natalina came with a letter. It was 
 from the Baron himself, and it was dated the day before: 
 
 " Minghelli has returned from London, and therefore I must 
 see you to-morrow at eleven o'clock. Be so good as to be at 
 home, and give orders that for half-an-hour at least we shall 
 be quite undisturbed 
 
 Then the sun went out, the air grew dull, and darkness fell 
 over all the world.
 
 PAET FIVE 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 
 
 IT was Sunday. The storm threatened by the sunset of the 
 day before had not yet come, but the sun was struggling 
 through a veil of clouds, and a black ridge was rising over the 
 horizon. 
 
 At eleven o'clock to the moment the Baron arrived. As 
 usual, he was faultlessly dressed, and he looked cool and tran- 
 quil. 
 
 " I am to show you into this room, Excellency," said Felice, 
 leading the way to the boudoir. 
 
 "Thanks! . . . Anything to tell me, Felice?" 
 
 " Nothing, Excellency," said Felice. Then, pointing to the 
 plaster bust on its pedestal in the corner, he added in a lower 
 tone, " He remained last night after the others had gone, 
 and . . ." 
 
 But at that moment there was the rustic of a woman's dress 
 outside, and, interrupting Felice, the Baron said in a high- 
 pitehed voice : 
 
 " Certainly ; and please tell the Countess I shall not forget 
 to look in upon her before I go." 
 
 Roma came into the room with a gloomy and firm-set face. 
 The smile that seemed always to play about her mouth and 
 eyes had given place to a slight frown and an air of defiance. 
 But the Baron saw in a moment that behind the lips so sternly 
 set, and the straight look of the eyes, there was a frightened 
 expression, which she was trying to conceal. He greeted her 
 with his accustomed calm and naturalness, kissed her hand, 
 offered her the flower from his buttonhole, put her to sit in 
 the arm-chair with its back to the window, took his own seat on 
 the couch in front of it, and leisurely drew off his spotless 
 gloves. 
 
 252
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 253 
 
 Not a word about the scene of yesterday, not a look of pain 
 or reproof. Only a few casual pleasantries, and then a quiet 
 gliding into the business of his- visit. 
 
 " What an age since we were here alone before ! And what 
 changes you've made ! Your pretty nest is like a cell ! Well, 
 I've obeyed your mandate, you see. I've stayed away for a 
 month. It was hard to do bitterly hard and many a time 
 I've told myself it was imprudent. But you were a woman. 
 You were inexorable. I was forced to submit. And now, what 
 have you got to tell me ? " 
 
 " Nothing," she answered, looking straight before her. 
 
 " Nothing whatever ? " 
 
 " Nothing whatever." 
 
 She did not move or turn her face, and he sat for a mo- 
 ment watching her. Then he rose, and began to move about 
 the room. 
 
 " Let us understand each other, my child," he said, gent- 
 ly. " Will you forgive me if I recall facts that are fa- 
 miliar?" 
 
 She did not answer, but looked fixedly into the fire, while 
 he leaned on the stove and stood face to face with her. 
 
 " A month ago, a certain Deputy, an obstructionist politi- 
 cian, who has for years made the task of government difficult, 
 uttered a seditious speech, and brought himself within the 
 power of the law. In that speech he also attacked me, and 
 shall I say? grossly slandered you. Parliament was not in 
 session, and I was able to order his arrest. In due course, he 
 would have been punished, perhaps by imprisonment, perhaps 
 by banishment, but you thought it prudent to intervene. You 
 urged reasons of policy which were wise and far-seeing. I 
 yielded, and to the bewilderment of my officials, I ordered the 
 Deputy's release. But he was not therefore to escape. You 
 undertook his punishment. In a subtle and more effectual way, 
 you were to wipe out the injury he had done, and requite him 
 for his offence. The man was a mystery you were to find out 
 all about him. He was suspected of intrigue you were to dis- 
 cover his conspiracies. Within a month, you were to deliver 
 him into my hands, and I was to know the inmost secrets of his 
 soul" 
 
 It was with difficulty that Roma maintained her calmness 
 while the Baron was speaking, but she only shook a stray lock 
 of hair from her forehead, and sat silent. 
 
 " Well, the month is over. I have given you every oppor-
 
 254 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tunity to deal with our friend as you thought best. Have you 
 found out anything about him ? " 
 
 She put on a bold front, and answered : " No." 
 
 "So your effort has failed?" 
 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 " Then you are likely to give up your plan of punishing 
 the man for defaming and degrading you ? " 
 
 " I have given it up already." 
 
 " Strange ! Very strange ! Very unfortunate also, for we 
 are at this moment at a crisis when it is doubly important to 
 the Government to possess the information you set out to find. 
 Still, your idea was a good one, and I can never be sufficiently 
 grateful to you for suggesting it. And although your efforts 
 have failed, you need not be uneasy. You have given us the 
 clues by which our efforts are succeeding, and you shall yet 
 punish the man who insulted you so publicly and so grossly." 
 
 " How is it possible for me to punish him ? " 
 
 " By identifying David Rossi as one who was condemned in 
 contumacy for high treason sixteen years ago." 
 
 " That is ridiculous," she said. " Sixteen months ago I 
 had never heard the name of David Rossi." 
 
 The Baron stooped a little and said : 
 
 " Had you ever heard the name of David Leone ? " 
 
 She dropped back in her chair, and again looked straight 
 before her. 
 
 " Come, come, my child," said the Baron caressingly, and 
 moving across the room to look out of the window, he tapped 
 her lightly on the shoulder. 
 
 " I told you that Minghelli had returned from London." 
 
 " That forger ! " she said hoarsely. 
 
 " ISTo doubt ! One who spends his life ferreting out crime 
 is apt to have the soul of a criminal. But civilisation needs 
 its scavengers, and it was a happy thought of yours to think of 
 this one. Indeed, everything we've done has been done on 
 your initiative, and when our friend is finally brought to jus- 
 tice the fact will really be due to you, and you alone." 
 
 The defiant look was disappearing from her eyes, and she 
 rose with an expression of pain. 
 
 " Why do you torture me like this ? " she said. " After what 
 has happened, isn't it quite plain that I am his friend, and 
 not his enemy? " 
 
 " Perhaps," said the Baron. His face assumed a deathlike 
 rigidity. " Sit down and listen to me."
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 255 
 
 She sat down, and he j-eturned to his place by the stove. 
 
 " I say you gave us the clues we have worked upon. Thosd 
 clues were three. First, that David Rossi knew the life-story 
 of Doctor Roselli in London. Second, that he knew the story 
 of Doctor Roselli's daughter, Roma Roselli. Third, that he 
 was for a time a waiter at the Grand Hotel in Rome. Two 
 minor clues came independently, that David Rossi was once a 
 stable-boy in New York, that his mother drowned herself in 
 the Tiber, and he was brought up in a Foundling. By these 
 five clues the authorities have discovered eight facts. Permit 
 me to recite them." 
 
 Leaning his elbow on the stove and opening his hand, the 
 Baron ticked off the facts one by one on his fingers. 
 
 " Fact one. Some thirty odd years ago a woman carrying 
 a child presented herself at the office in Rome for the registry 
 of births. She gave the name of Leonora Leone, and wished 
 her child, a boy, to be registered as David Leone. But the 
 officer in attendance discovered that the woman's name was 
 Leonora Rossi, and that she had been married according to the 
 religious rites of the Church but not according to the civil 
 regulations of the State. The child was therefore registered as 
 David Rossi, son of Leonora Rossi and of a father unknown." 
 
 " Shameful ! " cried Roma. " Shameful ! Shameful ! " 
 
 " Fact two," said the Baron, without the change of a tone. 
 " One night a little later the body of a woman found drowned 
 in the Tiber was recognised as the body of Leonora Rossi, and 
 buried in the pauper part of the Campo Verano under that 
 name. The same night a child was placed by an unknown hand 
 in the rota of Santo Spirito, with a paper attached to its wrist, 
 giving particulars of its baptism and its name. Its name was 
 David Leone." 
 
 The Baron ticked off the third of his fingers and continued : 
 
 " Fact three. Fourteen years afterwards a boy named 
 David Leone, fourteen years of age, was living in the house of 
 an Italian exile in London. The exile was a Roman prince 
 under the incognito of Doctor Roselli ; his family consisted of 
 his wife and one child, a daughter named Roma, four years of 
 age. David Leone had been adopted by Doctor Roselli, who 
 had picked him up in the street." 
 
 Roma covered her face with her hands. 
 
 " Fact four. Four years later a conspiracy to assassinate 
 the King of Italy was discovered at Milan. The chief con- 
 spirator turned out to be, unfortunately, the English exile,
 
 256 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 known as Doctor Roselli. By the good offices of a kinsman, 
 jealous of the honour of his true family name, he was not 
 brought to public trial, but deported by one of the means 
 adopted by all Governments when secrecy or safety are in ques- 
 tion. But his confederates and correspondents were shown 
 less favour, and one of them, still in England, being tried in 
 contumacy by a military court which sat during a state of 
 siege, was condemned for high treason to the military punish- 
 ment of death. The name of that confederate and correspond- 
 ent was David Leone." 
 
 Roma's slippered foot was beating the floor fast, but the 
 Baron went on in his cool and tranquil tone. 
 
 " Fact five. Our extradition treaty excluded the delivery of 
 political offenders, but after representations from Italy, David 
 Leone left England. He went to America. There he was first 
 employed in the stables of the Tramway Company in New 
 York, and lived in the Italian quarter of the city, but after- 
 wards he rose out of his poverty and low position, and became a 
 journalist. In that character he attracted attention by a new 
 political and religious propaganda. Jesus Christ was law-giver 
 for the nation as well as for the individual, and the redemp- 
 tion of the world was to be brought to pass by a constitution 
 based on the precepts of the Lord's Prayer. The creed was suf- 
 ficiently sentimental to be seized upon by fanatics in that coun- 
 try of countless faiths, but it cut at the roots of order, of 
 property, even of patriotism, and being interpreted into action 
 seemed likely to lead to riot." 
 
 The Baron twisted the ends of his moustache, and said, with 
 a smile : " David Leone disappeared from NBAV York. From 
 that time forward no trace of him has yet been found. He was 
 as much gone as if he had ceased to exist. David Leone was 
 dead." 
 
 Roma's hands had come down from her face, and she was 
 picking at the buttons of her blouse with twitching fingers. 
 
 " Fact six," said the Baron, ticking off the thumb of his 
 other hand. " Twenty-five or six years after the registration of 
 the child David Rossi in Rome, a man, apparently twenty-five 
 or six years of age, giving the name of David Rossi, arrived in 
 England from America. He called at a baker's shop in Soho 
 to ask for Roma Roselli, the daughter of Doctor Roselli, left 
 behind in London when the exile returned to Italy. They told 
 him that Roma Roselli was dead and buried." 
 
 Roma's face, which had been pale until now, began to glow
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 257 
 
 like a fire on a gloomy night, and her foot beat faster and 
 faster. 
 
 " Fact seven. David Rossi appeared in Rome, first as a 
 waiter at the Grand Hotel, but soon afterwards as a journalist 
 and public lecturer, propounding precisely the same propa- 
 ganda as that of David Leone in New York, and exciting the 
 same interest." 
 
 "Well? What of it?" said Roma. "David Leone was 
 David Leone, and David Rossi is David Rossi there is no more 
 in it than that." 
 
 The Baron clasped his hands so tight that his knuckles 
 cracked, and said, in a slightly exalted tone : 
 
 " Eighth and last fact. About that time a man called at the 
 office of the Campo Santo to know where he was to find the 
 grave of Leonora Leone, the woman who had drowned herself 
 in the Tiber twenty-six years before. The pauper trench had 
 been dug up over and over again in the interval, but the officials 
 gave him their record of the place where she had once been 
 buried. He had the spot measured off for him, and he went 
 down on his knees before it. Hours passed, and he was still 
 kneeling there. At length night fell, and the officers had to 
 warn him away." 
 
 Roma's foot had ceased to beat on the floor, and she was 
 rising in her chair. 
 
 " That man," said the Baron, " the only human being who 
 ever thought it worth while to look up the grave of the poor 
 suicide, Leonora Rossi, the mother of David Leone, was David 
 Rossi. Who was David Leone ? David Rossi ! Who was 
 David Rossi? David Leone! The circle had closed around 
 him the evidence was complete." 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 Roma had leapt up and was walking about the room. Her 
 lips were compressed with scorn, her eyes were flashing, and she 
 burst into a torrent of words, which spluttered out of her 
 quivering lips. 
 
 " Oh, to think of it ! To think of it ! You are right ! The 
 man who spends his life looking for crime must have the soul 
 of a criminal ! He has no conscience, no humanity, no mercy, 
 no pity. And when he has tracked and dogged a man to his 
 mother's grave his mother's grave he can dine, he can laugh, 
 he can go to the theatre ! Oh, I cannot endure you ! I hate 
 you ! There, I've told you ! Xow, do with me as you please ! " 
 
 The deathlike rigidity in the Baron's face decomposed into
 
 258 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 an expression of intense pain, but he only passed his hand over 
 his brow, and said, after a moment of silence : 
 
 " My child, you are not only offending me, you are offending 
 the theory and principle of Justice. Justice has nothing to do 
 with pity. In the vocabulary of Justice, there is but one word 
 duty. Duty called upon me to fix this man's name upon him, 
 that his obstructions, his slanders, and his evil influence may 
 be at an end. And now Justice calls upon you to do the 
 same." 
 
 The Baron leaned against the stove, and spoke in a calm 
 voice, while Iloma, in her agitation, continued to walk about 
 the room. 
 
 " Being a Deputy, and Parliament being in session, David 
 Rossi can only be arrested by the authorisation of the Chamber. 
 In order to obtain that authorisation, it is necessary that the 
 Attorney-General should draw up a statement of the case. The 
 statement must be presented by the Attorney-General to the 
 Government, by the Government to the President, by the Presi- 
 dent to a Committee, and by the Committee to Parliament. 
 Towards this statement the police have already obtained im- 
 portant testimony, and a complete chain of circumstantial evi- 
 dence has been prepared. But they lack one link of positive 
 proof, and until that link is obtained, the Attorney-General is 
 unable to proceed. It is the keystone of the arch, the central 
 fact, without which all other facts fall to pieces the testimony 
 of somebody who can swear, if need be, that she knew both 
 David Leone and David Rossi, and can identify the one with 
 the other." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 The Baron, who had stopped, continued in a calm voice: 
 " My dear Roma, need I go on ? Dead as a Minister is to all 
 sensibility, I had hoped to spare you. There is only one person 
 known to me who can supply that link. That person is your- 
 self." 
 
 Roma's eyes were red with anger and terror, but she tried to 
 laugh over her fear. 
 
 " How simple you are, after all ! " she said. " It was Roma 
 Roselli who knew David Leone, wasn't it? Well, Roma Roselli 
 is dead and buried. Oh, I know all the story. You did that 
 yourself, and now it cuts the ground from under you." 
 
 " My dear Roma," said the Baron, with a hard and angry 
 face, " if I did anything in that matter it was done for your 
 welfare, but whatever it was, it need not disturb me now.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 259 
 
 Roma Roselli is not dead, and it would be easy to bring people 
 from England to say so." 
 
 "You daren't! You know you daren't! It would expose 
 them to persecution for perpetrating a crime." 
 
 " In England, not in Italy." 
 
 Roma's red eyes fell, and the Baron began to speak in a 
 caressing voice. 
 
 " My child, don't fence with me. It is so painful to silence 
 you. ... It is perhaps natural that you should sympathise 
 with the weaker side. That is the sweet and tender if illogi- 
 cal way of all women. But you must not imagine that when 
 David Rossi has been arrested he will be walked off to his death. 
 As a matter of fact, he must go through a new trial, he must be 
 defended, his sentence must in any case be reduced to imprison- 
 ment, and it may even be wiped out altogether. That's all." 
 
 " All ? And you ask me to help you to do that ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " I won't ! " 
 
 " Then you could if you would ? " 
 
 "I can't! 
 
 " Your first word was the better one, my child." 
 
 " Very well, I won't ! I won't ! Aren't you ashamed to 
 ask me to do such a thing? According to your own story, 
 David Leone was my father's friend, yet you wish me to give 
 him up to the law that he may be imprisoned, perhaps for life, 
 and at least turned out of Parliament. Do you suppose I am 
 capable of treachery like that ? Do you judge of everybody by 
 yourself? . . . Ah, I know that story, too! For shame! For 
 shame ! " 
 
 The Baron was silent for a moment, and then said in an 
 impressive voice : 
 
 " I will not discuss that subject with you now, my child- 
 you are excited, and don't quite know what you are saying. I 
 will only point out to you that even if David Leone was your 
 father's friend, David Rossi was your own enemy." 
 
 " What of that ? It's my own affair, isn't it ? If I choose to 
 forgive him, what matter is it to anybody else? I do forgive 
 him ! Now, whose business is it except my own ? " 
 
 " My dear Roma, I might tell you that it's mine also, and 
 that the insult that went through you was aimed at me. But 
 I will not speak of myself. . . . That you should change your 
 plans so entirely, and setting out a month ago to ... to ... 
 shall I say betray . . . this man Rossi, you are now striving to
 
 2GO THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 save him, is a fact which admits of only one explanation, and 
 that is that . . . that you . . ." 
 
 " That I love him yes, that's the truth," said Roma boldly, 
 but flushing up to the eyes and trembling with fear. 
 
 There was a deathlike pause in the duel. Both dropped 
 their heads, and the silent face in the bust seemed to be looking 
 down on them. Then the Baron's icy cheeks quivered visibly, 
 and he said in a low, hoarse voice: 
 
 " I'm sorry ! Very sorry ! For in that case I may be com- 
 pelled to justify your conclusion that a Minister has no human- 
 ity and no pity. It may even be necessary to play the part of 
 the husband in the cruel story of the lover's heart. If David 
 Rossi cannot be arrested by the authorisation of Parliament he 
 must be arrested when Parliament is not in session, and then 
 his identity will have to be established in a public tribunal. In 
 that event you will be forced to appear, and having refused to 
 make a private statement in the secrecy of a magistrate's office, 
 you will be compelled to testify in the Court of Assize." 
 
 "Ah, but you can't make me do that ! " cried Roma excit- 
 edly, as if seized by a sudden thought. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Never mind why not. That's my secret. You can't do it, 
 I tell you," she cried excitedly. 
 
 He looked at her as if trying to penetrate her meaning, and 
 then said : 
 
 " We shall see." 
 
 At that moment the fretful voice of the Countess was 
 heard calling to the Baron from the adjoining room. 
 
 II 
 
 ROMA went to her bedroom when the Baron left her, and 
 remained there until late in the afternoon. In spite of the bold 
 front she had put on, she was quaking with terror, and tortured 
 by remorse. Never before had she realised David Rossi's peril 
 with such awful vividness, and seen her own position in rela- 
 tion to him with such hideous nakedness. 
 
 Was it her duty to confess to David Rossi that at the begin- 
 ning of their friendship she had set out to betray him ? Only so 
 could she be secvire, only so could she be honest, only so could 
 she be true to the love he gave her and the trust he reposed 
 in her.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 261 
 
 Yet why should she confess ? The abominable impulse was 
 gone. Something sweet and tender had taken its place. To con- 
 fess to him now would be cruel. It would wound his beautiful 
 faith in her. 
 
 And yet the seeds she had sown were beginning to fructify. 
 They might spring up anywhere at any moment, and choke the 
 life that was dearer to her than her own. Thank God, it was 
 still impossible to injure him except by her will and assistance. 
 But her will might be broken and her assistance might be 
 forced, unless the law could be invoked to protect her against 
 itself. It could and it should be invoked ! When she was mar- 
 ried to David Kossi no law in Italy would compel her to witness 
 against him. 
 
 But if Eossi hesitated from any cause, if he delayed their 
 marriage, if he replied unfavourable to the letter in which she 
 had put aside all modesty and asked him to marry her soon 
 what then? How was she to explain his danger? How was she 
 to tell him that he must marry her before Parliament rose, or 
 she might be the means of expelling him from the Chamber, 
 and perhaps casting him into prison for life? How was she 
 to say : " I was Delilah, I set out to betray you, and unless you 
 marry me the wicked work is done ! " 
 
 The afternoon was far spent, she had eaten nothing since 
 morning, and was lying face down on the bed, when a knock 
 came to the door. 
 
 " The person in the studio to see you," said Felice. 
 
 It was Bruno in Sunday attire, with little Joseph in top- 
 boots, and more than ever like the cub of a young lion. 
 
 " A letter from him, miss," said Bruno. 
 
 It was from Rossi. She took it without a word of greeting, 
 and went back to her bedroom. But when she returned a 
 moment afterwards, her face was transformed. The clouds had 
 gone from it, and the old radiance had returned. All the 
 brightness and gaiety of her usual expression were there as she 
 came swinging into the drawing-room, and filling the air with 
 the glow of health and happiness. 
 
 " That's all right," she said. " Tell Mr. Rossi I shall expect 
 to see him soon ... or no, don't say that . . . say that as he 
 is over head and ears in work this week he is not to think it 
 necessary. . . . Oh, say anything you like," she said, and the 
 pearly teeth and lovely eyes broke into an aurora of smiles. 
 
 Bruno, whose bushy face and shaggy head had never once 
 been raised since he came into the room, said :
 
 262 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " He's busy enough, anyway what with this big meeting 
 coming off on Wednesday, and the stairs to his rooms as full 
 of people as the Santa Scala." 
 
 " So you've brought little Joseph to see me at last ? " said 
 Roma. 
 
 " He has bothered my life out to bring him, ever since you 
 said he was to be your porter some day." 
 
 " And why not ? Gentlemen ought to call on the ladies, 
 oughtn't they, Joseph ? " 
 
 And Joseph, whose curly poll had been hiding behind the 
 leg of his father's trousers, showed half of a face that was 
 shining all over. 
 
 " Listen ! " said Roma, with a merry twinkle. A band of 
 music was going through the piazza on its way home from the 
 Pincian gardens. " Let us go and look at them," said Roma, 
 and, taking hold of Joseph's hand, she skipped off with him to 
 her boudoir, and put him to stand on the writing-desk in front 
 of the window. 
 
 " It's the ' Royal March,' isn't it, Joseph ? You know the 
 ' Royal March ' ? Of course you do ! And look at the people, 
 and the priests, and the monks, and the students, and the car- 
 riages, and the dogs, and the perambulators, and the motor- 
 cars, and the babies and the nurses, and the little boys and girls. 
 Beautiful ! Isn't it beautiful ? But, see ! See here do you 
 know who this is ? This gentleman in the bust ? " 
 
 " Uncle David," said the boy. 
 
 " What a clever boy you are, Joseph ! " 
 
 " Doesn't want much cleverness to know that, though," said 
 Bruno, from the door. "It's wonderful! It's magnificent! 
 And it will shut up all their damned . . . excuse me, miss, 
 excuse me." 
 
 " And Joseph still intends to be a porter ? " 
 
 " Dead set on it, and says he wouldn't change his profes- 
 sion to be a king." 
 
 " Quite right, too ! And now let us look at something a little 
 birdie brought me the other day. Come along, Joseph. Here 
 it is ! Down on your knees, gentleman, and help me drag it 
 out. One two and away ! " 
 
 From the knee-hole of the desk came a large cardboard box, 
 and Joseph's eyes glistened like big black beads. 
 
 " ISTow, what do you think is in this box, Joseph ? Can't 
 guess? Give it up? Sure? Well, listen! Are you listening? 
 Which do you think you would like best a porter's cocked
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 263 
 
 hat, or a porter's long coat, or a porter's mace with a gilt head 
 and a tassel ? " 
 
 Joseph's face, which had gleamed at every item, clouded and 
 cleared, cleared and clouded at the cruel difficulty of choice, 
 and finally looked over at Bruno for help. 
 
 " Choose now which ? " 
 
 But Joseph only sidled over to his father and whispered 
 something which Roma could not hear. 
 
 "What does he say?" 
 
 " He says it is his birthday on Wednesday," said Bruno. 
 
 " Bless him ! He shall have them all, then," said Roma, and 
 Joseph's legs, as well as his eyes, began to dance. 
 
 The cords were cut, the box was opened, the wonderful hat 
 and coat and mace were taken out, and Joseph was duly in- 
 vested. In the midst of this ceremony Roma's black poodle came 
 bounding into the room, and when Joseph strutted out of the 
 boudoir into the drawing-room the dog went leaping and bark- 
 ing beside him. 
 
 " Dear little soul ! " said Roma, looking after the child ; but 
 Bruno, who was sitting with his head down, only answered with 
 a groan. 
 
 Roma looked at him, and saw for the first time that his 
 simple face was troubled. It bore an expression of almost 
 comical sadness, and his dog's eyes were wet and gloomy. 
 
 " What is the matter, Bruno ? " she asked. 
 
 He brushed his coat-sleeve across his eyes, set his teeth, 
 and said with a savage fierceness : 
 
 "What's the matter? Treason's the matter, telling tales and 
 taking away a good woman's character that's what is the mat- 
 ter ! A man who has been eating your bread for years has been 
 lying about you, and he is a rascal and a sneak and a damned 
 scoundrel, and I would like to kick him out of the house." 
 
 " And who has been doing all this, Bruno ? " 
 
 " Myself. It was I who told Mr. Rossi the lies that made 
 him speak against you on the day of the Pope's Jubilee, and 
 when jou asked him to come here I warned him against you, 
 and said you were only going to pay him back and ruin him." 
 
 " So you said that, did you? " 
 
 " Yes, I did." 
 
 " And what did Mr. Rossi say to you ? " 
 
 " Say to me? I wonder he didn't kill me. ' She's a good 
 woman,' says he, ' and if I have ever said otherwise, I take it 
 all back, and am ashamed.' "
 
 264: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 "He said that, did he?" 
 
 " He did. But the devil was in me, and I wasn't convinced. 
 Only yesterday I told him not to come to your reception, be- 
 cause I had seen your bust the morning you began, and it was a 
 caricature, and meant for Judas." 
 
 " And what did Mr. Rossi say to that ? " 
 
 " ' Bruno,' he said, ' if Donna Eoma had used my head for 
 Satan I should believe in her the same as ever.' And now you 
 are heaping coals of fire on me, and I can't bear it, and I won't." 
 
 Roma, who had turned to the window, heaved a sigh and 
 said : " It has all come out right in the end, Bruno. If you 
 hadn't spoken against me to Mr. Rossi, he wouldn't have spoken 
 against me in the piazza, and then he and I should never have 
 met and known each other and been friends. All's well that 
 ends well, you know." 
 
 " Perhaps so, but the miracle doesn't make the saint, and 
 you oughtn't to keep me any longer." 
 
 " Do you mean that I ought to dismiss you ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Bruno," said Roma, " I am in trouble just now, and I may 
 be in worse trouble by and by. I am to be poor, and my enemies 
 are going to be cruel and merciless. I don't know how long I 
 may be able to keep you as a servant, but I may want you as a 
 friend, and if you leave me now . . ." 
 
 " Oh, put it like that, miss, and I'll never leave you, and as 
 for enemies . . ." 
 
 Bruno was doubling up the sleeve of his right arm, when 
 Joseph and the poodle came back to the room. Roma received 
 them with a merry cry, and there was much noise and laughter. 
 At length the gorgeous garments were taken off, the cardboard 
 box was corded, and Bruno and the boy prepared to go. 
 
 " You'll come again, won't you, Joseph ? " said Roma, and 
 the boy's face beamed. 
 
 " I suppose this little man means a good deal to you, 
 Bruno ? " 
 
 " Everything," said Bruno. " God bless the little imps, 
 what would a man be without children? Five francs a week 
 richer in pocket and a million a minute poorer in pleasure. 
 Taking his ease instead of easing their little aches, sleeping at 
 nights instead of stumping about the bedroom in his slippers, 
 but with a heart as hard as a gizzard and a soul as dry as dust. 
 Isn't that so, Joseph-Mazzini-Garibaldi ? " 
 
 " And his mother ? "
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 265 
 
 " Oh, she ! She's crazy ! I do believe she'd die, or disappear, 
 or drown herself if anything happened to that boy." 
 
 "And Mr. Rossi?" 
 
 " He's been a second father to the boy ever since the young 
 monkey was born." 
 
 " Well, Joseph must come here sometimes, and let me try to 
 be a second mother to him, too. . . . What is he saying now ? " 
 
 Joseph had dragged down his father's head to whisper some- 
 thing in his ear. 
 
 " He says he's frightened of your big porter downstairs." 
 
 " Frightened of him! He is only a man, my precious ! Tell 
 him you are a little Roman boy, and he'll have to let you up. 
 Will you remember ? You will ? That's right ! By-bye ! " 
 
 Before going to sleep that night, Roma switched on the 
 light that hung above her head and read her letter again. She 
 had been hoarding it up for that secret hour, and now she was 
 alone with it, and all the world was still. 
 
 " Saturday Night. 
 
 " MY DEAR ONE, Your sweet letter brought me the intoxi- 
 cation of delight, and the momentous matter you speak of is 
 under weigh. It is my turn to be ashamed of all the great to-do 
 I made about the obstacles to our union when I see how 
 courageous you can be. Oh, how brave women are all women 
 every woman who ever marries a man! To take her heart 
 into her hands, and face the unknown in the fate of another 
 being, to trust her life into his keeping, knowing that if he 
 falls she falls too, and will never be the same again! What 
 man could do it? ISTot one who was ever born into the world. 
 Yet some woman does it every day, promising some man that 
 she will let me finish your quotation 
 
 " 'Meet, if thou require it, 
 
 Both demands, 
 Laying flesh and spirit 
 In thy hands.' 
 
 " Dearest, I have got the better of our bargain, and if I held 
 off it was partly because I knew it must be so. But what chil- 
 dren we are, men and women who love each other, standing 
 aloof with a shy fear of each other, when we should join hands 
 and play. I wanted you every moment, and it was terrible to 
 have the dearest thing in the world within one's reach and feel 
 compelled to put it away. But that is all over now. I am going 
 18
 
 266 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 to live at last, to face the world with a new front, and to leave 
 the future in the hands of God. 
 
 " Don't think I am too much troubled about the Minghelli 
 matter, and yet it is pitiful to think how merciless the world 
 can be even in the matter of a man's name. A name is only a 
 word, but it is everything to the man who bears it honour 
 or dishonour, poverty or wealth, a blessing or a curse. If it is 
 a good name, everybody tries to take it away from him, but if 
 it's a bad name and he has attempted to drop it, everybody tries 
 to fix it on him afresh. 
 
 " The name I was compelled to leave behind me when I re- 
 turned to Italy, was a bad name in nothing except that it was 
 the name of my father, and if the spies and ferrets of authority 
 ever fix it upon me, God only knows what mischief they may do. 
 But one thing I know that if they do fix my father's name 
 upon me, and bring me to the penalties which the law has im- 
 posed on it, it will not be by help of my darling, my beloved, my 
 brave, brave girl with the heart of gold. 
 
 " Dearest, I wrote to the Capitol immediately on receiving 
 your letter, and to-morrow morning I will go down myself to 
 see that everything is in train. I don't yet know how many 
 days are necessary to the preparations, but earlier than Thurs- 
 day it would not be wise to fix the event, seeing that Wednes- 
 day is the day of the great mass meeting in the Coliseum, and, 
 although the police have proclaimed it, I have told the people 
 they are to come. There is some risk at the outset, which it 
 would be reckless to run, and in any case, the time is short. 
 
 " Good-night ! I can't take my pen off the paper. Writing 
 to you is like talking to you, and every now and then I stop 
 and shut my eyes, and hear your voice replying. Only it is 
 myself who make the answers, and they are not half so sweet as 
 they would be in reality. Ah, dear heart, if you only knew 
 how my life was full of silence until you came into it, and now 
 it is full of music ! Good-night, again ! D. R. 
 
 " Sunday Morning. 
 
 " Just returned from the Capitol. The legal notice for the 
 celebration of a marriage is longer than I expected. It seems 
 that the ordinary term is twelve days at least, covering two suc- 
 cessive Sundays (on which the act of publication is posted on 
 the board outside the office) and three days over. For grave 
 and extreme reasons, one of these Sundays, or even both, may be 
 dispensed with, but I saw no ground on which we could swear
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 267 
 
 before a magistrate that our case was as urgent as death, so I 
 submitted to the usual regularity, furnished the necessary par- 
 ticulars, and the first of our banns has been published to-day. 
 Only twelve days more, my dear one, and you will be mine, 
 mine, mine, and all the world will know ! " 
 
 It took Roma a good three-quarters of an hour to read this 
 letter, for nearly every other word seemed to be written out of a 
 lover's lexicon, which bore secret meanings of delicious import 
 and imperiously demanded their physical response from the 
 reader's lips. At length she put it between the pillow and her 
 cheek, to help the sweet delusion that she was cheek to cheek 
 with some one and had his strong, protecting arms about her. 
 Then she lay a long time, with eyes open and shining in the 
 darkness, trying in vain*to piece together the features of his 
 face. But in the first dream of her first sleep she saw him 
 plainly, and she ran, she raced, she rushed to his embrace. 
 
 Next day brought a message from the Baron. 
 
 " DEAR ROMA, Come to the Palazzo Braschi to-morrow 
 (Tuesday) morning at eleven o'clock. Don't refuse, and don't 
 hesitate. If you do not come, you will regret it as long as you 
 live, and reproach yourself for ever afterwards. Yours, 
 
 " BONELLI." 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE Palazzo Braschi is a triangular palace, whereof one 
 front faces to the Piazza ISTavona and the two other fronts to 
 side streets. A magnificent staircase, with sixteen columns 
 of Oriental granite, six colossal statues, and a narrow rivulet 
 of frayed and dirty druggetting meandering up its marble 
 steps, leads to a cheerless hall on the topmost storey, where mes- 
 sengers and porters sit and lounge in untidy uniforms. This 
 is the entrance to the cabinet of the Minister of the Interior, 
 usually the President of the Council and Prime Minister 
 of Italy. 
 
 Roma arrived at eleven o'clock, and was taken to the Min- 
 ister's room immediately, by way of an outer chamber, in which 
 colleagues and secretaries were waiting their turn for an in- 
 terview. The Baron was seated at a table covered with books 
 and papers. There was a fur rug across his knees, and at his 
 right hand lay a small ivory-handled revolver. He rose as 
 Roma entered, and received her with his glacial politeness.
 
 268 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " How prompt ! And how sweet you look to-day, my child ! 
 On a cheerless day like this you bring the sun itself into a poor 
 Minister's gloomy cabinet. That simple black and white hat is 
 charming. Sit down." 
 
 Roma was not deceived by the false accent of his wel- 
 come. 
 
 " You wished to see me ? " she said. 
 
 He rested his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his 
 hand, looked at her with his never-varying smile, and said: 
 
 " I hear you are to be congratulated, my dear." 
 
 She changed colour slightly. 
 
 "Are you surprised that I know?" he asked. 
 
 " Why should I be surprised ? " she answered. " You know 
 everything. Besides, this is published at the Capitol, and 
 therefore common knowledge." 
 
 His smiling face remained perfectly impassive. 
 
 " Now I understand what you meant on Sunday. It is a 
 fact that a wife cannot be called as a witness against her hus- 
 band. I am beaten. I confess it, and I congratulate you on 
 your acuteness." 
 
 She knew he was watching her face as if looking into the 
 inmost recesses of her soul. 
 
 " But isn't it a little courageous of you to think of mar- 
 riage ? " 
 
 " Why courageous ? " she asked, but her eyes fell and the 
 colour mounted to her cheek. 
 
 " Why courageous ? " he repeated. 
 
 He allowed a short time to elapse, and then he said in a low 
 tone, " Considering the past, and all that has happened . . ." 
 
 Her eyelids trembled and she rose to her feet. 
 
 " If this is all you wished to say to me . . ." 
 
 " No, no ! Sit down, my child. I sent for you in order to 
 show you that the marriage you contemplate may be difficult, 
 perhaps impossible." 
 
 " I am of age there can be no impediment." 
 
 " There may be the greatest of all impediments, my dear." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean . . . but wait ! You are not in a hurry ? A num- 
 ber of gentlemen are waiting to see me, and if you will permit 
 me to ring for my secretary . . . Don't move. Colleagues 
 merely! They will not object to your presence. My ward, you 
 know almost a member of my own household. Ah, here is the 
 secretary. Who now ? "
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 269 
 
 " The Minister of War, the Prefect, Commendatore An- 
 gelelli and one of his delegates," replied the secretary. 
 
 " Bring the Prefect first," said the Baron, and a severe 
 looking man of military bearing entered the room. 
 
 " Come in, Senator. You know Donna Roma. Our busi- 
 ness is urgent she will allow us to go on. I am anxious to 
 hear how things stand and what you are doing." 
 
 The Prefect began on his report. Immediately the new 
 law was promulgated by royal decree he had sent out a circular 
 to all the Mayors in his province, stating the powers it gave the 
 police to dissolve associations and to forbid public meetings. 
 
 " But what can we expect to do in the provincial towns, 
 your Excellency, while in the capital we are doing nothing ? 
 The chief of all subversive societies is in Rome, and the di- 
 recting mind is at large among ourselves. Listen to this, sir." 
 
 The Prefect took a newspaper from his pocket and began 
 to read : 
 
 "Romans, The new decree law is an attempt to deprive us of lib- 
 erties which our fathers made revolutions to establish. It is, there- 
 fore, our duty to resist it, and to this end we must hold our meeting 
 on the first of February according to our original intention. Only 
 thus can we show the Government and the King what it is to oppose 
 the public opinion of the world. . . . Meet in the Piazza del Popolo 
 at sundoicn and ivalk to the Coliseum by ivay of the Corso. Be 
 peaceful and orderly, and God put it into the hearts of your rulers to 
 avert bloodshed." 
 
 " That is from the Sunrise? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, the last of many manifestoes. And what is the 
 result? The people are flocking into Rome from every part 
 of the province." 
 
 " And how many political pilgrims are here already ? " 
 
 " Fifty thousand, sixty, perhaps a hundred thousand. It 
 cannot be allowed to go on, your Excellency." 
 
 " It is a levee-en-masse certainly. "What do you advise? " 
 
 " First, that the Sunrise be sequestered." 
 
 " We'll speak of that presently. Next ? " 
 
 " Xext, that the correspondents of foreign newspapers who 
 send false inventions and exaggerations abroad be delicately 
 conducted over the frontier." 
 
 "And next?" 
 
 " That the enemies of the Government and the State, whose
 
 270 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 erroneous conceptions of liberty have led to this burst of 
 anarchist feeling, be left to the operation of the police laws." 
 
 The Baron glanced at Roma. Her face was flushed, and her 
 eyes were flashing. 
 
 " That," he said, " may be difficult, considering the num- 
 ber of the discontented. What is the strength of your police ? " 
 
 " Seven hundred in uniform, four hundred in plain clothes, 
 and five hundred and fifty municipal guards. Besides these, 
 sir, there are three thousand Carabineers and eight thousand 
 troops." 
 
 " Say twelve thousand five hundred armed men in all?" 
 
 " Precisely, and what is that against fifty, a hundred, per- 
 haps a hundred and fifty thousand people ? " 
 
 " You want the army at call ? " 
 
 " Exactly, but above everything else we want the permis- 
 sion of the Government to deal with the greater delinquents, 
 whether deputies or not, according to the powers given us 
 by the Statute." 
 
 The Baron rose and held out his hand. " Thanks, Senator ! 
 The Government will consider your suggestions immediately. 
 Be good enough to send in my colleague, the Minister of War." 
 
 When the Prefect left the room Roma rose to go. 
 
 " You cannot suppose this is very agreeable to me ? " she 
 said, in an agitated voice. 
 
 " Wait ! I shall not be long. . . . Ah, General Morra ! 
 Roma, you know the General, I think. Sit down, both of 
 you . . . Well, General, you hear of this lev ee- en-mass e? " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 " The Prefect is satisfied that the people are moved by a 
 revolutionary organisation, and he is anxious to know what 
 force we can put at his service to control it." 
 
 The General detailed his resources. There were sixteen 
 thousand men always under arms in Rome, and the War Office 
 had called up the old timers of two successive years perhaps 
 fifty thousand in all. 
 
 " As a Minister of State and your colleague," said the Gen- 
 eral, "I am at one with you in your desire to safeguard the 
 cause of order and to protect public institutions, but as a man 
 and a Roman I cannot but hope that you will not call upon 
 me to act without the conditions required by law." 
 
 " Indeed, no," said the Baron, " and in order to make sure 
 that our instructions are carried out with wisdom and hu- 
 manity, let these be the orders you issue to your staff: First,
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 271 
 
 that in case of disturbance to-morrow night, whether at the 
 Coliseum or elsewhere, the officers must wait for the proper 
 signal from the delegate of police." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 " Next, that on receiving the order to fire, the soldiers must 
 be careful that their first volley goes over the heads of the 
 people." 
 
 " Excellent ! " 
 
 " If that does not disperse the crowds, if they throw stones 
 on the soldiers or otherwise resist, the second volley I see no 
 help for it the second volley, I say, must be fired at the per- 
 sons who are leading on the ignorant and deluded mob." 
 
 " Ah ! " 
 
 The General hesitated, and Roma, whose breathing came 
 quick and short, gave him a look of tenderness and gratitude. 
 
 " You agree, General Morra ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I see no alternative. But if the blood of their 
 leader only infuriates the people, is the third volley . . ." 
 
 " That," said the Baron, " is a contingency too terrible to 
 contemplate. My prediction would be that when their leader 
 falls, the poor misguided people will fly. But in all human 
 enterprises the last word has to be left to destiny. Let us leave 
 it to destiny in the present instance. Adieu, dear General ! 
 Be good enough to tell my secretary to send in the Chief of 
 Police." 
 
 The Minister of War left the room, and once more Roma 
 rose to go. 
 
 " You cannot possibly imagine that a conversation like 
 this ..." she began, but the Baron only interrupted her 
 again. 
 
 " Don't go yet. I shall be finished presently. Angelelli can- 
 not keep me more than a moment. Ah, here is the Commenda- 
 tore." 
 
 The Chief of Police came bowing and bobbing at every 
 step, with the extravagant politeness which differentiates the 
 vulgar man from the well-bred. 
 
 " About this meeting at the Coliseum, Commendatore 
 has any authorisation been asked for it ? " 
 
 " None whatever, your Excellency." 
 
 " Then we may properly regard it as seditious ? " 
 
 " Quite properly, your Excellency." 
 
 " Listen ! You will put yourself into communication with 
 the Minister of War immediately. He will place fifty thou-
 
 272 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 sand men at the disposition of your Prefect. Choose your dele- 
 gates carefully. Instruct them well. At the first overt act of 
 resistance, let them give the word to fire. After that, leave 
 everything to the military." 
 
 " Quite so, your Excellency." 
 
 " Be careful to keep yourself in touch with me until mid- 
 night to-morrow. It may be necessary to declare a state of 
 siege, and in that event the royal decree will have to be ob- 
 tained without delay. Prepare your own staff for a general 
 order. Ask for the use of the cannon of St. Angelo as a sig- 
 nal, and let it be understood that if the gun is fired to-morrow 
 night every gate of the city is to be closed, every outward 
 train is to be stopped, and every telegraph office is to be put 
 under control. You understand me ? " 
 
 " Perfectly, Excellency." 
 
 " After the signal has been given let no one leave the city, 
 and let no telegraphic message of any kind be despatched. In 
 short, let Rome from that hour onward be entirely under the 
 control of the Government." 
 
 " Entirely, your Excellency." 
 
 " The military have already received their orders. After 
 the call of the delegate of police, the first volley is to be fired 
 over the heads of the people and the second at the ringleaders 
 and chief rioters. But if any of these should escape . . ." 
 
 The Baron paused, and then repeated in a low tone with the 
 utmost deliberation : 
 
 " I say, if any of these should escape, Commendatore . ." 
 
 " They shall not escape, your Excellency." 
 
 There was a moment of profound silence, in which Roma 
 felt herself to be suffocating, and could scarcely restrain the 
 cry that was rising in her throat. 
 
 " Let me go," she said, when the Chief of Police had backed 
 and bowed himself out ; but again the Baron pretended to mis- 
 understand her. 
 
 " Only one more visitor ! I shall be finished in a few 
 minutes," and then Charles Minghelli was shown into the 
 room. 
 
 The man's watchful eyes blinked perceptibly as he came 
 face to face with Roma; but he recovered himself in a mo- 
 ment, and began to brush with his fingers the breast of his 
 frock-coat. 
 
 " Sit down, Minghelli. You may speak freely before Donna 
 Roma. You owe your position to her generous influence, you
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 273 
 
 may remember, and she is abreast of all our business. You've 
 seen the Attorney-General again ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And what is his decision ? " 
 
 " The same as before. He declines to ask Parliament for 
 the arrest of a Deputy until he is in a position to complete an 
 instruction that will satisfy his conscience and the law." 
 
 " Very well ! In that case we must find some other means 
 of overtaking the delinquents who, though guilty, are pro- 
 tected by their privilege. . . . You know all about this meet- 
 ing at the Coliseum ? " 
 
 Minghelli bent his head. 
 
 " The delegates of police have received the strictest orders 
 not to give the word to the military until an overt act of- re- 
 sistance has been committed. That is necessary as well for the 
 safety of our poor, deluded people as for our own credit in the 
 eyes of the world. But an act of rebellion in such a case is a 
 little thing, Mr. Minghelli." 
 
 Again Minghelli bent his head. 
 
 " A blow, a shot, a shower of stones, and the peace is broken 
 and the delegate is justified." 
 
 A third time Minghelli bent his head. 
 
 " Unfortunately, in the sorrowful circumstances in which 
 the city is placed an overt act of resistance is quite sure to be 
 committed." 
 
 Minghelli flecked a speck of dust from his spotless cuff 
 and said: 
 
 " Quite sure, your Excellency." 
 
 There was another moment of profound silence in which 
 Roma *felt her heart beat violently. 
 
 " Adieu, Mr. Minghelli. Tell my secretary as you pass out 
 that I wish to dictate a letter." 
 
 The letter was to the Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 " Dear colleague," dictated the Baron. " I entirely ap- 
 prove of the proposal you have made to the Governments of 
 Europe and America to establish a basis on which anarchists 
 should be suppressed by means of an international net through 
 which they can with difficulty escape. My suggestion would 
 be the universal application of the Belgian clause in all exist- 
 ing extradition treaties, whereby persons guilty of regicide 
 may be dealt with as common murderers. In any case please 
 say that the Government of Italy intends to do its duty to the 
 civilised world, and will look to the Governments of other
 
 274 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 countries to allow it to follow up and arrest the criminals who 
 are attempting to reconstruct society by burying it under 
 ruins." 
 
 Notwithstanding all her efforts to appear calm, Roma felt 
 as if she must go out into the streets and scream. Now she 
 knew why she had been sent for. It was in order that the 
 Baron might talk to her in parables in order that he might 
 show her by means of an object lesson as palpable as pitiless, 
 what was the impediment which made her marriage with David 
 Rossi impossible. 
 
 The marriage could not be celebrated until after eleven 
 days, but the meeting at the Coliseum must take place to- 
 morrow, and as surely as it did so it must result in riot and 
 David Rossi must be shot ! 
 
 The secretary gathered up his note-book and left the room, 
 and then the Baron turned to Roma with beaming eyes, and 
 lips expanding to a smile. 
 
 " Finished at last ! A thousand apologies, my dear! Twelve 
 o'clock already ! Let us go out and lunch somewhere." 
 
 " Let me go home," said Roma. 
 
 She was trembling violently, and as she rose to her feet 
 she swayed a little. 
 
 " My dear child ! You're not well. Take this glass of 
 water." 
 
 " It's nothing. Let me go home." 
 
 The Baron walked with her to the head of the stair- 
 case. 
 
 " I understand you perfectly," she said, in a choking voice, 
 " but there is something you have not counted upon and you are 
 quite mistaken." 
 
 And making a great call on her resolution she threw up 
 her head and walked firmly down the stairs. 
 
 Immediately on reaching home she wrote to David Rossi : 
 
 " I must see you to-night. Where can it be ? To-night ! 
 Mind, to-night! To-morrow will be too late ROMA." 
 
 Bruno delivered the note by hand and brought back an 
 answer : 
 
 " DEAREST, Come to the office at nine o'clock. Sorry I 
 cannot go to you. It is impossible. D. R. 
 
 " P.S. You have converted Bruno and he would die for
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 275 
 
 you. As for the ' little Roman boy,' he is in the seventh heaven 
 over your presents, and says he must go up to Trinita de' Monti 
 to begin work at once." 
 
 IV 
 
 THE atmosphere of a newspaper office when the journal is 
 going to press is like the atmosphere of a steamship at sea at 
 the beginning of the night. If all goes well the movement is as 
 regular and drowsy as that of the engines whose monotonous 
 beat is heard from below, but if anything unusual occurs out- 
 side, the air within is quickened by many currents, and there 
 is a haunting sense of disaster which is only allayed by the 
 light of morning or the sight of port. 
 
 The office of the Sunrise at nine o'clock that night tingled 
 with excitement. An outer sheet had already gone to press, 
 and the machines in the basement were working rapidly. In 
 the business office on the first floor people were constantly 
 coming and going, and the footsteps on the stairs of the com- 
 posing-room sounded through the walls like the irregular beat 
 of a hammer. 
 
 The door of the editor's room was frequently swinging open, 
 as reporters with reports, messengers with telegrams, and boys 
 with proofs came in and laid them on the desk at which the 
 sub-editor sat at work. 
 
 David Rossi stood by his desk at the farther end of the 
 room. This was the last night of his editorship of the Sunrise, 
 and by various silent artifices, the staff were showing their 
 sympathy with the man who had made it, and was forced to 
 leave it. 
 
 One by one they came for counsel, or to take his .last com- 
 mands. He smiled at them with his tired and kindly smile, but 
 seemed scarcely conscious of their attentions. His hair was 
 slightly disordered, his loose necktie had fallen out of its knot, 
 and he looked preoccupied and distraught. 
 
 The excitement within the office of the Sunrise corre- 
 sponded to the commotion outside. The city was in a ferment, 
 and from time to time unknown persons, the spontaneous re- 
 porters of tumultuous days, were brought in from the outer 
 office to give the editor the latest news of the night. Another 
 trainful of people had arrived from Milan ! Still another from 
 Bologna and Carrara ! The storm was growing ! Soon would
 
 276 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 be heard the crash of war! Their faces were eager, and their 
 tone was one of triumph. They pitched their voices high, so 
 as to be heard above the reverberations of the machines, whose 
 deep thud in the rooms below made the walls vibrate like the 
 sides of a ship at sea. 
 
 David Kossi did not catch the contagion of their joy. At 
 every fresh announcement his face clouded. The unofficial 
 head of the surging and straining democracy, which was filling 
 itself hourly with hopes and dreams, was unhappy and per- 
 plexed. He was trying to write his last message to his people, 
 and he could not get it clear because his own mind was 
 confused. 
 
 "Romans," he wrote first, "your rulers are preparing to resist 
 your right of meeting, and you have nothing to oppose to the muskets 
 and bayonets of their soldiers but the bare breasts of a brave but peace- 
 ful people. No matter ! Fifty, a hundred, five hundred of you killed 
 at the first volley, and the day is won ! The, reactionary government 
 of Italy all the reactionary governments of Europe will be borne 
 down by the righteous indignation of the world." 
 
 It would not do ! He had no right to lead the people to 
 certain slaughter, and he tore up his manifesto and be- 
 gan again. 
 
 "Romans," he wrote the second time, "when reforms cannot he 
 effected without the spilling of blood, the time for them ?ias not yet 
 come, and it is the duty of a brave and peaceful people to wait for the 
 silent operation of natural law and the mighty help of moral forces. 
 TJierefore at the eleventh hour 1 call upon you in the names of your 
 wives and children to desist from protest, to submit to tyranny, to 
 abandon demonstration which can only be made at the risk of your 
 lives, and to leave it to Almighty God to find some other way by which 
 the world may hear the voice of the cry of your suffering." 
 
 It was impossible ! The people would think he was afraid, 
 and the opportune moment would be lost. 
 
 One man in the office of the Sunrise was entirely outside 
 the circle of its electric currents. This was the former day- 
 editor who had been appointed by the proprietors to take Eossi's 
 place, and was now walking about with a silk hat on his head, 
 taking note of everything and exercising a premature and 
 gratuitous supervision. To-morrow everything would be
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 2 77 
 
 changed; the subversive policy of the Sunrise would give place 
 to a loyal constitutionalism, and the tatterdemalions of the 
 streets would be no more seen within its walls. 
 
 David Rossi was tearing up the second of his manifestoes 
 when this person came to say that a lady in the outer office was 
 asking to see him. 
 
 " Show her into the private waiting-room," said Rossi. 
 
 " But may I suggest," said the man, " that considering who 
 the lady is, it would perhaps be better to see her elsewhere ? " 
 
 " Show her into the private room, sir," said Rossi, and the 
 man shrugged his shoulders and disappeared. 
 
 As David Rossi opened the door of a small room at his right 
 hand, something rustled lightly in the corridor outside, and a 
 moment afterwards Roma glided into his arms. She was pale 
 and nervous, and after a moment she began to cry. 
 
 " Dear one," said Rossi, pressing her head against his 
 breast, " what has happened ? Tell me ? " 
 
 He kissed her hands and her hair, and after a while she 
 lifted her face and their lips touched. 
 
 " Something has frightened you. You look anxious." 
 
 " Xo wonder," she said, and then she told him of her sum- 
 mons to the Palazzo Braschi, and of the business she saw done 
 there. 
 
 There was to be a riot at the meeting at the Coliseum, be- 
 cause if need be the Government itself would provoke violence. 
 The object was to kill him, not the people, and if he stayed in 
 Rome until to-morrow night there would be no possibility of 
 escape. 
 
 " My darling," she said, " you must fly. You are the victim 
 marked out by all these preparations you, you, nobody but 
 you and, therefore, I have come to warn you." 
 
 She was all in a tremor, and her lips twitched with excite- 
 ment, but his face cleared while she spoke, and when she was 
 done he smiled and kissed her. 
 
 " It is the best news I've heard for days," he said. " If I am 
 the only one who runs a risk . . ." 
 
 "Risk! My dearest, don't you understand? Your life is 
 in danger, and you must fly before it is quite impossible." 
 
 " It is already impossible," he answered. 
 
 " At this time to-morrow it will be, for every gate will be 
 closed, and every train out of the city stopped. You must go 
 to-night. To-morrow will be too late." 
 
 He drew off one of her white gloves and kissed her finger-tips.
 
 278 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " My dear one," he said, " if there were nothing else to think 
 of, do you suppose I could go away and leave you behind me? 
 That is just what somebody expected me to do when he per- 
 mitted you to witness his preparations. But he was mistaken. 
 It is impossible. I cannot and I will not leave you." 
 
 Her pale face was suddenly overspread by a burning blush, 
 and she threw both arms about his neck. 
 
 " Very well," she said, " I will go with you." 
 
 " Darling ! " he cried, and he clasped her to his breast again. 
 " But no ! That is impossible also. Our marriage cannot take 
 place for ten days." 
 
 "No matter! I'll go without it." 
 
 " Without marriage ? " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " But think what a name you would leave behind you." 
 
 " I don't care. And if somebody counted upon my being 
 afraid of what people would say, he was mistaken in that, 
 too." 
 
 " My dear one, you don't know what you are saying. You 
 are too good, too pure . . ." 
 
 " Hush ! Our marriage is nothing to anybody but our- 
 selves, and if we choose to go without it . . ." 
 
 " My dear, pure girl ! " 
 
 " I can't hear you," she said. Loosening her hands from his 
 neck, she had covered her ears. 
 
 He held her closer to him and said : 
 
 " Dearest, I know what you are thinking of, but it must 
 not be." 
 
 " I can't hear a word you're saying," she said, beating her 
 hands over her ears. " I am a woman, and yet I'm ready to 
 go now, this very minute and if you don't take me it is be- 
 cause you are a man, and you love other things better than 
 you love me." 
 
 " My darling, don't tempt me. If you only knew what it 
 costs me . . . but I would rather die . . ." 
 
 " I don't want you to die. That's just it ! I want you to 
 live, and I am willing to risk everything everything . . ." 
 
 Her warm and lovely form was quivering in his arms, and 
 his heart was labouring wildly. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " he cried. " I love you too much. Think ! 
 Only think! Your father charged me to rescue you from a 
 danger that threatened you, and shall I ... Heaven forbid! 
 I can't, and I won't ! "
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 279 
 
 Then a shiver ran over her, and she buried her face in his 
 breast. 
 
 " Dearest," he whispered over her head. " You are so good, 
 so pure, so noble that you don't know how evil tongues can wag 
 at a woman because she is brave and true. But I must remem- 
 ber my mother and if your poor father is to rest in his 
 grave . . ." 
 
 His voice broke and he stopped. She was breathing heavily, 
 and holding on to him as if in fear that she would fall. 
 
 " See how much I love you," he whispered again, " when I 
 would rather lose you than see you lower yourself in your own 
 esteem. . . . And then think of my people! My poor people 
 who trust me and look up to me so much more than I deserve. 
 I called them and they have come. They are here now, tens of 
 thousands of them. And they will be here to-morrow wherever 
 I may be. Shall I desert them in their hour of need thinking 
 of my own safety, my own happiness? No! You cannot wish 
 it ! You do not wish it ! I know you too well ! Roma ! My 
 Roma I " 
 
 She lifted her head from his breast. " You are right," she 
 said. " You must stay." 
 
 " That's better." 
 
 " I am ashamed. It was only the other day that I talked 
 of a wife being her husband's friend to all the limitless lengths 
 of friendship, and now . . ." 
 
 " My sweet girl ! " 
 
 " Can you ever forgive me for being frightened at the first 
 sight of danger and telling you to fly ? " 
 
 " I will always love you for it." 
 
 " And you will never think the worse of me for offering to 
 go with you ? " 
 
 " I will love you for that, too." 
 
 " I must be brave," she said, drawing herself up proudly 
 though her lips were trembling, her voice was breaking and her 
 eyes were wet. " That's what a woman must be if she is the 
 wife of a man who has a man's work to do in the world, and a 
 high and noble mission." 
 
 " My brave girl ! " 
 
 " Whether you are right or wrong in what you are doing it 
 is not for me to decide, but if your heart tells you to do it you 
 must do it, and I must be your soldier, ready and waiting for 
 my captain's call." 
 
 "My heroine!"
 
 280 
 
 " It is not for nothing that I am my father's daughter. 
 He risked everything and so will I, and if they come to m 
 to-morrow night and say that . . . that you . . . that you 
 are . . ." 
 
 " Hush, dearest ! " 
 
 The proud face had fallen on his breast again. But after 
 a moment it was raised afresh, and then it was shining all 
 over. 
 
 " That's right ! How doubly beautiful your face is when it 
 smiles, Roma ! Roma, do you know what I'm going to do when 
 this is all over? I'm going to spend my life in making you 
 smile all the time." 
 
 She gave him a sudden kiss, and then broke out of his 
 arms. 
 
 " I must be going. I've stayed too long. I may not see 
 you before the meeting, but I won't say ' good-bye.' " 
 
 " My brave, brave girl ! " 
 
 " Oh, it isn't that. I've thought of something, and now 
 I know what I'm going to do." 
 
 " What is it ? " 
 
 " Don't ask me." 
 
 " What is it ? " he demanded, laying hold of her. 
 
 " It's all right. Don't look so frightened. I'm not going to 
 kill myself. Let me go." 
 
 She opened the door. 
 
 " Come to me to-morrow night I shall expect you," she 
 whispered, and waving her glove to him over her head she 
 disappeared from the room. 
 
 He stood a moment where she had left him, trying to think 
 what she intended to do, and then he returned to his desk in 
 the outer office. His successor was there, looking sour and 
 stubborn. 
 
 " Mr. Rossi," he said, " this afternoon I was told at the 
 Press Club that the authorities were watching for a plausible 
 excuse for suppressing the paper. And considering the rela- 
 tions of this lady to the Minister of the Interior, and the dan- 
 ger of spies . . ." 
 
 " Listen to this carefully, sir," interrupted Rossi. " When 
 you come into possession of the chair I occupy you shall do 
 as you think well, but to-night it is mine, and I shall conduct 
 the paper as I please." 
 
 " Still, you will allow me to say . . ." 
 
 "ISTot one word."
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 281 
 
 " Permit me to protest . . ." 
 ">' " Leave the room immediately." 
 
 When the man was gone, David Rossi wrote a third and last 
 version of his manifesto : 
 
 "Romans Have no fear ! Do not allow yourselves to be terrified 
 by the military preparations of your Government. Believe a man 
 who has never deceived you the soldiers will not fire upon the people ! 
 Violate no law. Assail no enemy. Respect property. Above all, 
 respect life. Do not allow yourselves to be pushed into the doctrine of 
 physical force. If any man tries to provoke violence, think him an 
 agent of your enemies and pay no heed. Be brave, be strong, be pa- 
 tient, and to-morrow night you will send up such a cry as will ring 
 throughout the world. Romans, remember your fathers and be great." 
 
 Rossi was handing his manuscript to the sub-editor, that 
 it might be sent upstairs, when all at once the air seemed to 
 become empty and the world to stand still. The machine in 
 the basement had ceased to work. There was a momentary 
 pause, such as comes on the steamship at sea when the engines 
 are suddenly stopped, and then a sound of frightened voices and 
 the noise of hurrying feet. Somebody ran along the corridor 
 outside and rapped sharply at the door. 
 
 At the next moment the door opened and four men en- 
 tered the room. One of them was an inspector, another was 
 a delegate, and the others were policemen in plain clothes. 
 
 " The journal is sequestered," said the inspector to David 
 Rossi. And turning to one of his men, he said, " Go up to the 
 composing-room and superintend the distribution of the type." 
 
 " Allow no one to leave the building," said the delegate to 
 the other policemen. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the inspector, " we are charged to make 
 a perquisition, and must ask you for the keys of your desks." 
 
 "What is this?" said the delegate, taking the manifesto 
 out of Rossi's fingers and proceeding to read it. 
 
 At that moment the editor-elect came rushing into the room 
 with a face like the rising sun. 
 
 " I demand to see a list of the things sequestered," he cried. 
 
 " You shall do so at the police-office," said the inspector. 
 
 "Does that mean that we are all arrested?" 
 
 "Not all. The Honourable Rossi, being a Deputy, is at 
 liberty to leave." 
 
 " Thought as much," said the new editor, with a contemptu- 
 19
 
 282 T nB ETERNAL CITY 
 
 ous snort. And turning to Rossi, and showing his teeth in a 
 bitter smile, he said: " What did I say would happen? Has it 
 followed quickly enough to satisfy you ? " 
 
 The inspector and the delegate had opened the editor's desks 
 and were rummaging among their papers when David Rossi put 
 on his hat and went home. 
 
 At the door of the lodge the old Garibaldian was waiting in 
 obvious excitement. 
 
 " Old John has been here, sir," he said. " Something to 
 tell you. Wouldn't tell me. But Bruno got it out of him 
 at last. Must be something serious, for the big booby has been 
 drinking ever since. Hear him in the cafe, sir? I'll send 
 him up." 
 
 Half an hour afterwards Bruno staggered into Rossi's room. 
 He had a tearful look in his drink-deadened eyes, and was 
 clearly struggling with a desire to put his arms about Rossi's 
 neck and weep over him. 
 
 " D'ye know wha' ? " he mumbled in a maudlin voice. " Ole 
 Vampire is a villain ! Ole John 'member ole John ? well, ole 
 John heard his grandson, the 'elective, say that if you go to 
 the Coliseum to-morrow night . . ." 
 
 " I know all about it, Bruno. You may go to bed." 
 
 " Stop a minute, sir," said Bruno, with a melancholy smile. 
 " You don't unnerstand. They're going t' shoot you. See ? 
 Ole John- 'member ole John ? Well, ole John . . ." 
 
 " I know, Bruno. But I'm going nevertheless." 
 
 Bruno fought with the vapour in his brain and said : " You 
 don' mean t' say you inten' t' let yourself be a target . . ." 
 
 " That's what I do mean, Bruno." 
 
 Bruno burst into a loud laugh. " Well, I'll be ... wha' the 
 devil. . . . But you shan't go ! I'll ... I'll see you damned 
 first ! " 
 
 " You're drunk, Bruno. Go and put yourself to bed." 
 
 The drink-deadened eyes flashed, and to grief succeeded 
 rage. " Pu' mysel' t' bed ! D'ye know wha' I'd like t' do t' 
 you for t' nex' twenty-four hours? I'd jus' like yes, by Bac- 
 chus I'd jus' like to punch you in t' belly and put you to 
 bed." 
 
 And straightening himself up with drunken dignity, Bruno 
 stalked out of the room. 
 
 The Baron Bonelli in the Piazza Leone was rising from 
 his late and solitary dinner, when Felice entered the shaded 
 dining-room, and handed him a letter from Roma. It ran :
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 283 
 
 " This is to let you know that I intend to be present at 
 the meeting in the Coliseum to-morrow night. Therefore, if 
 any shots are to be fired by the soldiers at the crowd, or their 
 leader, you will know beforehand that they must also be fired 
 at me." 
 
 As the Baron held the letter under the red shade 'of the 
 lamp, the usual immobility of his icy face gave way to a rap- 
 turous expression. 
 
 " She's magnificent ! The woman is magnificent ! And 
 worth fighting for to the bitter end." 
 
 Then, turning to Felice he told the man to ring up the 
 Commendatore Angelelli, and tell him to send for Minghclli 
 without delay. 
 
 NEXT day began with heavy clouds lying low over the city, 
 a cold wind coming down from the mountains, and the rum- 
 bling of distant thunder. Nevertheless the people who had 
 come to Rome for the demonstration at the Coliseum seemed 
 to be in the streets the whole day long. From early morning 
 they gathered in the Piazza Navona, inquired for David Rossi, 
 and stood by the fountains and looked up at his windows. 
 
 The old Garibaldian had orders to deny him to everybody, 
 but nobody seemed to complain. Hour by hour the people came 
 with news of the city, sent up messages and went away. Can- 
 non was being planted in the Piazza del Popolo ! Soldiers were 
 stationed around the Coliseum ! Lines of infantry were ranged 
 in the streets! No matter! "He knows his chickens!" the 
 people said, and they were not afraid. 
 
 As the day wore on the crowds increased. 
 
 All the public squares seemed to be full of motley, ill-clad, 
 ill-nourished, but formidable multitudes. Towards evening 
 the tradesmen began to shut up their shops, and a regiment 
 of cavalry paraded the principal streets with a band that played 
 the royal march. At that the people in the Piazza Navona, 
 shivering under the Tramontane and huddling together to keep 
 themselves warm, turned their faces to David Rossi's house 
 and broke into a hungry cheer. 
 
 Meantime, the dictator to whom thousands were looking up, 
 was miserable and alone. He was feeling the agony of having 
 seized on an ideal and the danger of reducing it to action,
 
 284 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The ideal was to bring the moral force of civilised man to bear 
 against oppression and wrong; the danger was the danger of 
 riot and bloodshed. He had cried " Peace," but the perils of 
 protest were so many, and so near. A blow, a push, a quarrel 
 at a street corner, and God knows what might happen ! It was 
 like the gigantic gambling of war, with the awful vicissitudes 
 of triumph and defeat, and the haunting risk of accident. 
 
 But the frenzy and sweat of David Rossi's body and soul 
 had still another channel of torment. He had slept badly, and 
 on awakening in the dim light his first thought had been of 
 Roma. Over the tenderness and the tingling of warm blood 
 which came with the sense of her fresh and lovely figure, there 
 was the pang of losing her if the end of that day's work was 
 tragic, and life which was at length opening its sweetness to 
 him, was snatched away. 
 
 Then the story that Roma told him the night before of the 
 pressure put upon her by the Baron took new and terrible 
 aspects, and he was tortured by a secret pain which he had 
 never felt before. He saw her in the power of the Minister 
 after he had gone tormented, tempted, tried until her will 
 was broken and she gave herself up to the man at last. 
 
 An oath burst from his lips and a red flame passed before 
 his eyes when he thought of this, and he leapt out of bed as 
 if something in his brain had suddenly snapped. He had not 
 a doubt about what he had been doing, and he would go on 
 with it whatever happened. But he must think of the con- 
 sequences no more. It was a strain that human nerves could 
 not endure. 
 
 Elena came with his coffee. The timid creature kept look- 
 ing at him out of her liquid eyes as if struggling with a desire 
 to speak, but when she did so it was only on indifferent subjects. 
 
 Bruno had got up with a headache and gone off to work. 
 Little Joseph was very trying this morning, and she had 
 threatened to whip him. 
 
 Her father had been upstairs to say that countless people 
 were asking for the Deputy, and he wished to know if any- 
 body was to come up. 
 
 " Tell him I want to be quite alone to-day," said Rossi, and 
 then the soft voice ceased, and the timid creature went out with 
 a guilty look. 
 
 Like a man who is going on a long and perilous journey, 
 David Rossi spent the morning in arranging his affairs. He 
 looked over his letters and destroyed most of them. The let-
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 285 
 
 ters from Roma were hard to burn, but he read each of them 
 again, as if trying to stamp their words and characters on his 
 brain, and with a deep sigh he committed them to the flames. 
 
 He took from its frame the covenant which hung by his bed 
 and burnt it with other private and political papers. Then he 
 wrote a short letter to Roma, and put it in his pocket to post 
 on his way to the Piazza. Finally he made his will, and called 
 Elena and her father to witness it. 
 
 It was twelve o'clock by this time and Francesco, in her 
 red cotton handkerchief, brought up his lunch. The good old 
 thing looked at him with a comical expression of pity on her 
 wrinkled face, and he knew that Bruno had told his story. 
 
 " Come now, my son ! Put away your papers and get some- 
 thing on your stomach. People eat even if they're going to the 
 gallows, you know." 
 
 After lunch Rossi called upstairs for Joseph, and the shock- 
 headed little cub was brought down, with his wet eyes twink- 
 ling and his petted lip beginning to smile. 
 
 " Joseph has been naughty, Uncle David," said Elena. " He 
 is crying for the clothes Donna Roma gave him, and he says 
 he must go out because it is his birthday." 
 
 " Does a man cry when he is seven ? " said Uncle David. 
 
 Thereupon Joseph, keeping his eyes upon his mother, whis- 
 pered something in Uncle David's ear, and straightway the 
 gorgeous garments were produced. 
 
 " Joseph will promise not to go out to-day, won't you, 
 Joseph?" 
 
 And Joseph rubbed his fists into his eyes and was under- 
 stood to say " Yes." 
 
 But it was in vain that Rossi tried to break the strain of 
 painful thoughts. 
 
 " You're not looking at me, Uncle David. Why don't you 
 look ? " cried Joseph, but still Uncle David's eyes kept wander- 
 ing from their play. 
 
 At four o'clock Bruno came home, looking grim and reso- 
 lute. 
 
 " I was pretty drunk last night, sir," he said, " but if there's 
 shooting to be done this evening I'm going to be there." 
 
 The time came for the two men to go, and everybody saw 
 them to the door. 
 
 " Adieu," said Rossi. " Thank you for all you've done for 
 me, and may God bless you! Take care of my little Roman 
 boy. Kiss me, Joseph ! Again! For the last time! Adieu!"
 
 286 THB ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Ah, God is a good old saint. He'll take care of you, my 
 son," said the old woman. 
 
 " Adieu, Uncle David ! Adieu, papa ! " cried Joseph over 
 the banisters, and the brave little voice, with its manly fal- 
 setto, was the last the men heard as they descended the stairs. 
 
 The Piazza del Popolo was densely crowded and seemed to 
 be twice as large as usual. Bruno elbowed a way through for 
 himself and Rossi until they came to the obelisk in the centre 
 of the great circle. On the steps of the obelisk a com- 
 pany of artillery was stationed with a piece of cannon which 
 commanded the three principal thoroughfares of the city, the 
 Corso, the Ripetta and the Babuino, which branch off from 
 that centre like the ribs from the handle of a fan. Without 
 taking notice of the soldiers the people ranged themselves in 
 order and prepared for their procession. At the ringing of 
 Ave Maria the great crowd linked in files and turned their 
 faces toward the Corso. 
 
 Bruno walked first, carrying from his stalwart breast a 
 standard, on which was inscribed, under the title of the " Re- 
 public of Man," the words : " Give us this day our daily bread." 
 At intervals of a dozen yards came other standards, inscribed : 
 " Resist riot evil," " Thy kingdom come," under the names of 
 the clubs, guilds, and associations to which they belonged. 
 Rossi had meant to walk immediately behind Bruno, but he 
 found himself encircled by a group of his followers. One of 
 them was Luigi Conti, another was Malatesta, a third was the 
 Doctor Deputy. ISTo sovereign was ever surrounded by more 
 watchful guards. 
 
 By the spontaneous consent of the public, the traffic in the 
 street was suspended, and crowds of the people of the city had 
 turned out to look on. The four tiers of the Pincian hill were 
 packed with spectators, and every window and balcony in the 
 Corso was filled with faces. All the shops were shut up, and 
 many of them were barricaded within and without. A regi- 
 ment of infantry was ranged along the edge of the pavement, 
 and the people passed between two lines of rifles. 
 
 As the procession went on, it was constantly augmented. At 
 the Piazza Colonna, a group of deputies who had come out 
 to look, caught the contagion of the moment, and stepped 
 into the procession. At the Piazza Venezia, a crowd of young 
 students from the Royal University took their places and 
 marched on. 
 
 The column which had been four abreast when it started
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 287 
 
 from the Popolo, was eight abreast before it reached the end 
 of the Corso, and the last of the line had not yet left the Piazza. 
 There were no bands of music and there was no singing, but at 
 intervals some one at the head of the procession would begin 
 to clap, and then the clapping of hands would run down the 
 street like the rattle of musketry. 
 
 Such a procession had never been known even in Rome, the 
 city of spectacles; and the Corso, which had witnessed the pro- 
 cessions of Popes, with their red glow of cardinals and bishops, 
 as well as the processions of kings, with their glitter of armed 
 men, had never yet looked on a scene like this. Men in sheep- 
 skins and men in broadcloth, men whose cheeks were pinched by 
 pellagra, or yellow with malaria, and men with full and florid 
 faces. 
 
 Going up the narrow streets beyond the Venezia, the people 
 passed into the Forum out of the living city of the present 
 into the dead city of the past, with its desolation and its 
 silence, its chaos of broken columns and cornices, of corbels 
 and capitals, of wells and water-courses, lying in the waste in 
 which they had been left by the earthquake which had passed 
 over them, the earthquake of the ages and so on through the 
 arch of Titus to their meeting-place in the Coliseum. 
 
 All this time, David Rossi's restless eyes had passed ner- 
 vously from side to side. Going down the Corso he had been 
 dimly conscious of eyes looking at him from windows and bal- 
 conies. He was struggling to be calm and firm, but he was in a 
 furnace of dread, and beneath his breath he was praying from 
 time to time that God would prevent accident and avert blood- 
 shed. He was also praying for strength of spirit, and feeling 
 like a guilty coward. His face was deadly pale, the fire within 
 seemed to consume the grosser senses, and he walked along like 
 a "man in. a dream. 
 
 At intervals people spoke to him. " This is wonderful," said 
 one, and another said it would be " written in history." He 
 hardly heard them. The one man who was not uplifted by that 
 thrilling demonstration was the man who had made it. But 
 though he was tormented by fears, he was exalted by the fever 
 that burnt in him. 
 
 " If Rossi speaks to-day," said somebody, " it is not Rome 
 alone that will hear."
 
 288 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 VI 
 
 HALF an hour before Ave Maria Eoma had put on an incon- 
 spicuous cloak, a plain hat and a dark veil, and walked down to 
 the Coliseum. Soldiers were stationed on all the high ground 
 about the circus, and large numbers of persons were already 
 assembled inside. The people were poor and ill-clad, and they 
 smelt of garlic and uncleanness. " His people, though," 
 thought Roma, and so she conquered her repulsion. 
 
 Three tiers encircle the walls of the Coliseum, like the gal- 
 leries of a great theatre, and the first of these was occupied by 
 a regiment of Carabineers. There was some banter and chaff 
 at the expense of the soldiers, but the people were serious for all 
 that, and the excitement beneath their jesting was deep and 
 strong. 
 
 The low cloud which had hung over the city from early 
 morning seemed to lie like a roof over the topmost circle of 
 the amphitheatre, and as night came on the pit below grew dark 
 and chill. Then torches were lit and put in prominent places 
 long pitch sticks covered with rags or brown paper. The 
 people were patient and good-humoured, but to beguile the 
 tedium of waiting they sang songs. They were songs of labour 
 chiefly, but one man started the Te Dcurn, and the rest joined 
 in with one voice. It was like the noise the sea makes on a 
 heavy day when it breaks on a bank of sand. 
 
 After a while there was a deep sound from outside. The pro- 
 cession was approaching. It came on like a great tidal wave 
 and flowed into the vast place in the gathering darkness with 
 the light of a hundred fresh torches. 
 
 In less than half an hour the ruined amphitheatre was a 
 moving mass of heads from the ground to its topmost storey. 
 Long sinuous trails of blue smoke swept across the people's 
 faces, and the great brown mass of circular stones was lit up in 
 fitful gleams. 
 
 Roma was lifted off her feet by the breaker of human beings 
 that surged around. At one moment she was conscious of 
 some one behind who was pressing the people back and making 
 room for her. At the next moment she was aware that through 
 the deep multitudinous murmur of voices that rumbled as in a 
 vault somebody near her was trying to speak. 
 
 The speaking ceased and there was a sharp crackle of ap- 
 plause which had the effect of producing silence. In this si- 
 lence another voice, a clear, loud, vibrating voice, said " Ro-
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 289 
 
 mans and Brothers," and then there was a prolonged shout of 
 recognition from ten thousand throats. 
 
 In a moment a dozen torches were handed up, and the 
 speaker was in a circle of light and could be seen by all. It 
 was Rossi. He was standing bareheaded on a stone, with a 
 face of unusual paleness. He was wearing the loose cloak of the 
 common people of Rome, thrown across his breast and shoulder. 
 Bruno stood by his left side holding a standard above their 
 heads. At his right hand were two other men who partly con- 
 cealed him from the crowd. Roma found herself immediately 
 below them, and within two or three paces. 
 
 After a moment the shouting died down, and there was no 
 sound in the vast place, but a soft, quick, indrawn hiss that 
 was like the palpitating breathing of an immense flock of sheep. 
 Then Rossi began again. 
 
 " First and foremost," he said, " let me call on you to pre- 
 serve the peace. One false step to-night and all is lost. Our 
 enemies would like to fix on us the name of rebels. Rebels 
 against whom? There is no rebellion except rebellion 
 against the people. The people are the true sovereign, and the 
 only rebels are the classes who oppress them. They may wear 
 the uniform of soldiers, or the court dress of ministers, but if 
 they are not the subjects and servants of the people they are the 
 real rebels after all. This is a deep truth, let who will deny it." 
 
 A murmur of assent broke from the crowd. Rossi paused, 
 and looked around at the soldiers. 
 
 " Romans," he said, " do not let the armed rebels of the 
 State provoke you to violence. It is to their interest to do 
 so. Defeat them. You have come here in the face of their 
 rifles and bayonets to show that you are not afraid of death. 
 But I ask you to be afraid of doing an unrighteous thing. It 
 is on my responsibility that you are here, and it would be an 
 undying remorse to me if through any fault of yours one drop 
 of blood were shed. 
 
 " I call on you as earnestly as if my nearest and dearest were 
 among you, liable to be shot down by the rifles of the mili- 
 tary, not to give them any excuse for violence. I call on you 
 to swear with me that you will not resist evil. Swear ! " 
 
 The people answered instantly, and the oath was taken with 
 a universal shout. Roma turned to look at the soldiers. As far 
 as she could see in the uncertain light they were standing 
 passively in their circle, with their rifles by their sides. 
 
 " Romans," said Rossi again, " a month ago we protested
 
 290 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 against an iniquitous tax on the first necessary of Me. The an- 
 swer is sixty thousand men in arms around us. Therefore we 
 are here to-night to appeal to the mightiest force on earth, 
 mightier than any army, more powerful than any parliament, 
 more absolute than any king the force of moral sympathy 
 and public opinion throughout the world." 
 
 At this there were shouts of " Bravo " and some clapping 
 of hands. 
 
 " The upholders of oppression will ask you what need you 
 have of moral sympathy if you have your representative gov- 
 ernment, your ballot-boxes and votes. Tell them that repre- 
 sentative government may be made the instrument of the privi- 
 leged classes, and votes may be of no avail. If the votes of 
 men were rightly apportioned, the people would be the sov- 
 ereigns in every country on the globe. 
 
 " It is because they are not rightly apportioned that reac- 
 tionary governments exist nearly everywhere, that the poor are 
 taxed out of all proportion to the rich, that the soil, which is 
 the patrimony of the human race, is in the hands of the few 
 to the disadvantage of the many, and that capital, which is the 
 wages of all, is the monopoly of banks and trusts." 
 
 " Bravo ! Bravo ! Bravo ! " came from every side in ex- 
 cited cries. 
 
 " It is because the votes of the people are not rightly appor- 
 tioned that reactionary governments in Italy have been able to 
 keep us out of the divinest part of our human patrimony the 
 patrimony of our intelligence. Generation after generation we 
 have lived in the darkness of ignorance, that the rebels of the 
 ruling classes might do their best to reduce us to the condition 
 of beasts of burden. I thank rny good, kind, merciful God that 
 they have not been able to do so altogether. Man is divine, 
 man is God-like, and the Almighty has not allowed that even 
 his worst oppressors should bring him down to the level of 
 the brutes." 
 
 Rossi's vibrating voice had risen almost to the shrillness of 
 a cry, and he was answered by a deep " Ah " that was like the 
 sough of an ebbing sea. 
 
 " And during this age-long rebellion against the true sov- 
 ereignty of the world, what has the Church been doing? The 
 Church belongs to the people. Its Founder was a man of the 
 people. He was called the Son of Man. He was born poor, 
 lived poor, and had compassion upon the multitude. Has the 
 Church declared itself on the side of the people? What is the
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 291 
 
 word of life which the Church speaks to a sick and suffering 
 world? The Church tells you to be content with your lot, to 
 be patient and resigned, to respect the laws of civil authority, 
 to believe that human society is impressed with the stamp and 
 character which God meant to give it. 
 
 " The Church tells you that you must never be seditious, 
 that you must cultivate religion, that you must find in the 
 prospect of another world consolation for the trials of this one. 
 If you are rich, you must give alms to the poor. If you are 
 poor, you must submit to the rich. Whether you are rich or 
 poor you must be obedient to the bishops, and bow your knee 
 to the authority of the Pope. Such is the word of life which 
 the Church gives to a sick world through the mouth of its 
 sovereign pontiff. Are you content with these admonitions? 
 When you asked for bread have they given you a stone ? " 
 
 A cry as of pain burst from the people, but the speaker did 
 not pause. 
 
 " Is it true that the Popes always are, and always have been 
 since early centuries, and always must be on the side of the 
 thrones and princes? Is it true that the thrones and princes 
 pass away while the people last for ever? Is it true, as your 
 bishops say, that social democracy is a social evil, and political 
 democracy a religious crime ? " 
 
 A strange light came into Rossi's eyes, and he raised his 
 voice to something like a shout. 
 
 " What is democracy ? " he cried. " Democracy is the break- 
 ing down of the barriers that divide man from man. It is 
 the fulfilment of the law of equality, not merely between body 
 and body, but between soul and soul. ' Thy kingdom come 
 on earth as it is in heaven.' Democracy is an attempt at the 
 practical realisation of that prayer. Democracy believes that 
 the grand voice of God speaks through the people. Democracy 
 recognises the brotherhood of man. Democracy sees only one 
 division among men good men and bad men, just men and un- 
 just men, followers of God's law and rebels against it. This 
 is democracy, and all the rest is a superstition and a lie." 
 
 The people broke into loud cries of assent, but again the 
 speaker did not stop. 
 
 " Why does not the Church recognise the truly religious 
 character of democracy? Why does it not see that democracy 
 is Christianity, that Christianity is democracy, and that there 
 is no true definition of the one that is not a description of 
 the other?
 
 292 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Remember the words of one of the great men of our 
 country : ' When the arms of Christ even yet stretched out on 
 the cross shall be loosened to clasp the whole human family in 
 one embrace, there will be no more Italians, or Englishmen, 
 or Frenchmen, or Americans, or rich, or poor, or kings, or 
 beggars, but only men.' " 
 
 The deep " Ah " came again from every side. It was like 
 the heaving up of the hearts of the people, and Rossi was com- 
 pelled to pause for a while. 
 
 "Romans and brothers," he continued, "by the decree of 
 God, revealed in the history of humanity, the world is march- 
 ing towards democracy. Democracy is the true evolution of 
 God's will in natural law. It is, therefore, irresistible. It is 
 moving the world onward to new destinies as surely as the 
 earth is moving in the spheres. It is the law of life, let who 
 will close his eyes to it or bury his head in the sand." 
 
 There was some cheering, but Rossi raised his head and it 
 died away. 
 
 " And what is our duty ? " he said. " Our duty as men, in 
 the face of injustice and oppression, is to assert the sovereignty 
 of the people. Our duty as men is to overthrow by moral 
 force, not by violence all governments that are not of the 
 people, all parliaments that arc hostile and corrupt, all kings 
 and thrones, and self-constituted authorities. Our duty as 
 men is to remove every obstacle in the path of the people, and 
 if among these obstacles the Papacy proves to be one, then, in 
 God's name, let us not draAV back before a phantom. The soul 
 of the Church is one thing, and the body of the Church is an- 
 other. The soul of the Church is with the people. It is 
 divine, and it Avill live for ever. If the body of the Church 
 is against the people, it will encounter the whirlwind and be 
 swept away." 
 
 The cloak had fallen from Rossi's breast, and his arms were 
 swinging in wild gestures to right and left. There was si- 
 lence for a moment, and then a tremendous cry. It was diffi- 
 cult to realise at first whether it was a shout of approval 
 or disapproval. The speaker had hit deep down at the 
 idol of ages, and the voice that went up from the people 
 was like the fierce groan that comes from the bosom of a sul- 
 len sea. 
 
 In the commotion of the moment, Bruno stepped in front 
 of Rossi, and covered him. Roma felt as if she were losing 
 consciousness, but the confused cries died away, and, before she
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 293 
 
 recovered herself, Rossi had put Bruno aside and was speaking 
 again. 
 
 " What is our duty as Romans ? " he said. " Our duty as 
 Romans is to bring the prestige of a great name, sacred among 
 the nations and a pledge of the world's respect and love, to the 
 service of God and man. There is something more in this place 
 to-night than a perishing people crying for bread. There is 
 the human race calling for justice. Ours is a solemn mission, 
 the mission of proving to the world that humanity is one, that 
 all men are sons of God and brothers in Him. On the edge of 
 this silent Campagna, with the dust of nations beneath our 
 feet, we are assisting at the dawn of a new era. We are re-cre- 
 ating an Eternal City which should be the Pantheon of Hu- 
 manity, the Angel of Light among the peoples, the court and 
 congress of the world." 
 
 There was no question of division now there was only a 
 deep murmur of assent. 
 
 " Romans, if your bread is moistened by tears to-day, think 
 of the power of suffering and be strong. Think of the history 
 of these old walls. Think of the words of Christ : ' Which of 
 the prophets have not your fathers stoned ? ' The prophets of 
 humanity have all been martyrs, and God has marked you out 
 to be the martyr nation of the world. Suffering is the sacred 
 flame that sanctifies the human soul. Pray to God for strength 
 to suffer, and He will bless you from the heights of heaven." 
 
 The people were weeping audibly on every hand. 
 
 " Brothers, you are hungry, and I say these things to you 
 with a beating heart. Your children are starving, and I swear 
 before God that from this day forward I will starve with them. 
 If I have eaten two meals a day hitherto, for the future I will 
 eat but one. But let the powers that are held over you do 
 their worst. If they imprison you for resisting their tyrannies, 
 others will take your place. If they kill your leader, God wiD 
 raise up another who will be stronger than he. Swear to me 
 in this old Coliseum, sacred to the martyrs, that come what 
 may, you will not yield to injustice and wrong." 
 
 There was something in Rossi's face at that last moment 
 that seemed to transcend the natural man. He raised his right 
 arm over his head and in a loud voice cried, " Swear ! " 
 
 The people took the oath with uplifted hands and a great 
 shout. It was terrific. 
 
 Rossi stepped down, and the excitement was overwhelming. 
 The vast crowd seemed to toss to and fro under the smoking
 
 294 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 lights like a tumultuous sea. The simple-hearted Roman 
 populace could not contain themselves. 
 
 Something they did not understand carried them away, but 
 the word of hope had been spoken to them, and they cheered 
 and wept like children. Men clasped each other's hands, and a 
 poor woman, a contadina, with stays outside her bodice, put her 
 arms about Roma's neck and kissed her. 
 
 The crowd began to break up, and the people went off sing- 
 ing. Rossi and his group of friends had disappeared when 
 Roma turned to go. She found herself weeping and singing, 
 too, but for another reason. The danger was passed, and all 
 
 was over 
 
 Going out by one of the arches, she was conscious of some- 
 body walking beside her. Presently a voice said: 
 
 "You don't recognise me in the darkness, Donna Roma?" 
 
 It was Charles Minghelli. He had been told to take care 
 of her. Could he offer her his escort home ? 
 
 " No, thank you," she replied, and she was surprised at her- 
 self that she experienced no repulsion. 
 
 Her heart was light, a great weight had been lifted away, 
 and she felt a large and generous charity. At the top of the 
 hill she found a cab, and as it dipped down the broad avenue 
 that leads out of the circle of the dead centuries into the world 
 of living men, she turned and looked back at the Coliseum. It 
 was like a dream. The moving lights the shadows of great 
 heads on the grim old walls the surging crowds the cheers 
 from hoarse throats. But the tinkle of the electric tram 
 brought her back to reality, and then she noticed that it had 
 begun to snow. 
 
 Bruno ploughed a way for David Rossi, and they reached 
 home at last. 
 
 " Ah, here you are, thank God ! " said the old Garibaldian, 
 flourishing his pork-pie hat. 
 
 " You thought there would be shooting, didn't you ? " cried 
 Bruno. " But we've brought him home as safe as a sardine." 
 
 " Praise the Virgin and all the saints! " said the old woman, 
 and then Rossi tried to answer, but his voice was gone, and he 
 made only a husky croak. 
 
 Elena was standing at the door of David Rossi's rooms, with 
 an agitated face. 
 
 " All right, Elena ! " Bruno bawled up the stairs. 
 
 "Have you seen anything of Joseph?" she asked.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 295 
 
 "Joseph?" 
 
 " I opened the window to look if you were coming, and in 
 a moment he was gone. On a night like this, too, when it isn't 
 too safe for anybody to be in the streets." 
 
 " Has he still got the clothes on ? " said Bruno. 
 
 " Yes, and the naughty boy has broken his promise and must 
 be whipped." 
 
 The men looked into each other's faces. 
 
 " Donna Koma ? " said Rossi. 
 
 " I'll go and see," said Bruno. 
 
 " I must have a rod, whatever you say. I really must ! " 
 said Elena. 
 
 VII 
 
 ROMA reached home in a glow of joy. She told herself that 
 Rossi would come to her in obedience to her command. He 
 must dine with her to-night. Seven was now striking on all 
 the clocks outside, and to give him time to arrive she put 
 back the dinner until eight. Her aunt would dine in her 
 own room, so they would be quite alone. The conventions 
 of life had fallen absolutely away, and she considered them 
 no more. 
 
 Meantime she must dress and perhaps take a bath. A cer- 
 tain sense of soiling which she could not conquer had followed 
 her up from that glorious meeting. She felt a little ashamed 
 of it, but it was there, and though she told herself " They were 
 his people, poor things," she was glad to take off the clothes 
 she had worn at the Coliseum. 
 
 There was an almost voluptuous delight in dressing afresh 
 that night. The strain of past days was gone, and she foresaw 
 no danger in the near future. 
 
 Before Parliament could finish its sitting she would be mar- 
 ried to David Rossi and beyond all risk of injuring him. She 
 lived in the joy of her future happiness, and threw her whole 
 soul into it. 
 
 With colour heightened by emotion and the bath, she was 
 more lovely that night than she had ever been before. En- 
 thusiasm and success increased her beauty, and the sense of 
 having gone triumphantly through another chapter of her 
 soul's life had its effect on her body also. The blood pulsed 
 visibly under her skin, her bosom rose and fell and her eyes 
 gleamed with looks of love under the upward curve of their
 
 296 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 long black lashes. She could not help knowing that she was 
 beautiful, and it made her proud and happy. 
 
 She combed out the curls of her glossy black hair, put her- 
 self into a loose tea-gown and red slippers, took one backward 
 glance at herself in the glass, and then going into the drawing- 
 room, she stood by the window to dream and wait. The snow 
 was still falling in thin flakes, but the city was humming on, 
 and the piazza down below was full of people. 
 
 After a while the electric bell of the outer door was rung, 
 and her heart beat against her breast. " It's he," she thought, 
 and in the exquisite tumult of the moment she lifted her arms 
 and turned to meet him. 
 
 But when the door was opened it was the Baron Bonelli who 
 was shown into the room. lie was in evening dress, with black 
 tie and studs, which had a chilling effect, and his manner was 
 cold and as calm as usual. 
 
 " Well," he said, sitting down after his first salutations. 
 
 " Well ! " she answered, hardly trying to disguise her dis- 
 appointment. 
 
 The poodle, which had been sleeping before the fire, awoke, 
 yawned, stretched itself, and recognising the Baron, came up 
 to him to be caressed, but he pushed the dog away. 
 
 " I regret," he said, " that we must enter on a painful in- 
 terview." 
 
 " As you please," she answered, and sitting on a stool by the 
 fire she rested her elbows 011 her knees, and looked straight be- 
 fore her. 
 
 " Your letter of last night, my dear, produced the result 
 you desired. I sent for Commendatore Angelelli, invented 
 some plausible excuses, and reversed my orders. I also sent 
 for Minghelli and told him to take care of you on your reckless 
 errand. The matter has thus far ended as you wished and I 
 trust you are satisfied." 
 
 She nodded her head without turning round, and bore her- 
 self with a certain air of defiance. 
 
 " But it is necessary that we should come to an understand- 
 ing," he continued. " You have driven hard, my child. With 
 all the tenderness and sympathy possible, I am compelled to 
 speak plainly. I wished to spare your feelings. You will not 
 permit me to do so." 
 
 The incisiveness of his speech cut the air like ice falling 
 from a glacier, and Roma felt herself turning pale with a sense 
 of something fearful whirling around her.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 297 
 
 " According to your own plans, David Rossi is to marry 
 you within a week, although a month ago he spoke of you in 
 public as an unworthy woman. Will you be good enough to 
 tell me how this miracle has come to pass ? " 
 
 She laughed, and tried to carry herself bravely. 
 
 " If it is a miracle, how can I explain it ? " she said. 
 
 " Then permit me to do so. He is going to marry you be- 
 cause he no longer thinks as he thought a month ago; because 
 he believes he was wrong in what he said, and would like to 
 wipe it out entirely." 
 
 " He is going to marry me because he loves me," she an- 
 swered hotly. " That's why he is going to marry me." And 
 with a fiery brightness in her eyes, she turned round and added, 
 " Because he loves me with a love that is pure and holy." 
 
 At the next moment a f aintness came over her, and a misty 
 vapour flashed before her sight. In her anger she had torn open 
 a secret place in her own heart, and something in the past of 
 her life seemed to escape as from a tomb. 
 
 " Then you have not told him ? " said the Baron in so low 
 a tone that he could scarcely be heard. 
 
 " Told him what? " she said. 
 
 " The truth the fact." 
 
 She caught her breath and was silent. 
 
 " My child, you are doing wrong. There is a secret between 
 you already. That is a bad basis to begin life upon. And the 
 love that is raised on it will be a house built on the sand." 
 
 Her heart was beating violently, but she turned on him 
 with a burning glance. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she said, while the colour increased 
 in her cheeks and forehead. " I am a good woman. You know 
 I am." 
 
 " To me, yes ! The best woman in the world," he answered. 
 
 She had risen to her feet, and was standing by the chimney 
 piece. 
 
 " Understand me, my child," he said affectionately. " When 
 I say you are doing wrong, it is only in keeping a secret from 
 the man you intend to marry. Between you and me . . . there 
 is no secret." 
 
 She looked at him with haggard eyes. 
 
 " For me you are everything that is sweet and good, but for 
 another who knows ? When a man is about to marry a wom- 
 an, there is one thing he can never forgive. Need I say what 
 that is? No use telling him that her heart is pure her soul 
 20
 
 298 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 untainted that it was the impulse of a moment and that her 
 will was forced or suspended. The fact, ' Yes,' or ' No,' that is 
 the question." 
 
 The glow that had suffused her face changed to the pallor 
 of marble, and she turned to the Baron and stood over him 
 with the majesty of a statue. 
 
 " Is it you that tell me this ? " she said. " You you ! Can 
 a woman never be allowed to forget ? Must the fault of another 
 follow her all her life ? Oh, it is cruel ! It is merciless . . . 
 But no matter ! " she said in another voice, and, turning away 
 from him she added, as if speaking to herself : " He believes 
 everything I tell him. Why should I trouble ? " 
 
 The Baron followed her with a look that pierced to the 
 depths of her soul. 
 
 " Then you have told him a falsehood ? " he said. 
 
 She pressed her lips together and made no answer. 
 
 " That was foolish. By-and-bye, somebody may come along 
 who will tell him the truth." 
 
 " What can anyone tell him that he has not heard already ? 
 He has heard everything, and put it all behind his back." 
 
 " Could nobody bring conviction to his mind ? Nobody 
 whatever? Not even one who had no interest in slander- 
 ing you ? " 
 
 She looked at him in a frightened way. 
 
 " You don't mean that you . . ." 
 
 " Why not ? He has come between us. What could be more 
 natural than that I should tell him so ? " 
 
 A look of dismay came over her face, and it was followed 
 by an expression of terror. 
 
 " But you wouldn't do that," she stammered out. " You 
 couldn't do it. It is impossible. You are only trying me." 
 
 His face remained perfectly passive, and she seized him by 
 the arm. 
 
 " Think ! Only think ! You would do no good for your- 
 self. You might stop the marriage yes! But you wouldn't 
 carry out your political purpose. You couldn't! And while 
 you would do no good for yourself, think of the harm you would 
 do for me. He loves me and you would hurt his beautiful faith 
 in me, and I should die of grief and shame." 
 
 She stopped to question his face, which had begun to ex- 
 press suffering. 
 
 "And then I love him! Oh, how much I love him! The 
 other wasn't love. You know it wasn't."
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 299 
 
 She spoke rapidly, without waiting to think of the effect of 
 her words. 
 
 " You are cruel, my child," he said, speaking with dignity. 
 " You think / am hard and unrelenting, but you are selfish and 
 cruel. You are so concerned about your own feelings that 
 you don't even suspect that perhaps you are wounding 
 mine." 
 
 " Ah, yes, it is too bad," she said, dropping to her knees at 
 his feet. " After all you have been very good to me thus far, 
 and it was partly my own fault if matters ended as they did. 
 Yes, I confess it. I was vain and proud. I wanted all the 
 world. And when you gave me everything, being so tied your- 
 self, I thought I might forgive you. . . . But I was wrong 
 I was to blame nothing in the world could excuse you I saw 
 that the moment afterwards. I really hadn't thought at all 
 until then but then my soul awoke and then . . ." 
 
 She turned her head aside that he might not see her face. 
 
 " And then love came, and I was like a woman who had mar- 
 ried a man thirty years older than herself married without 
 love just for the sake of her pride and vanity. But love, real 
 love, drove all that away. It is gone now, I only wish to lead a 
 good life, however humble it may be. Let me do so ! ... 
 Don't take him away from me! Don't . . ." 
 
 She stammered and stopped, with the sudden consciousness 
 of what she was doing. She was pleading for the life of the 
 man she loved to his enemy, the man who said he loved her. 
 
 " What a fool I am ! " she said, leaping to her feet. " What 
 fresh story can you tell him that he is likely to believe ? " 
 
 " I can tell him that, according to the law of nature and of 
 reason, you belong to me," said the Baron. 
 
 " Very well ! It will be your word against mine, will 
 it not ? " 
 
 " I can tell him," continued the Baron, " that before God I 
 am your husband ; and if he comes between us, it will only be 
 as your lover and your paramour." 
 
 " Tell him," said Eoma, " and he will fling your insults in 
 your face." 
 
 The Baron rose and began to walk about the room, and 
 there were some moments in which nothing could be heard but 
 the slight creaking of his patent-leather boots. Then he said : 
 
 " In that case I should be compelled to challenge him." 
 
 " Challenge him ! " She repeated the words with scorn. 
 " Is it likely ? Do you forget that duelling is a crime, that you
 
 300 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 are a Minister, that you would have to resign, and expose your- 
 self to penalties ? " 
 
 The Baron bowed his head. " There are moments in a 
 man's life when he does not consider such things when his 
 political aims are swallowed up by his personal feelings. I 
 know the world thinks that I am first the statesman. But 
 you . . . you ought to know that whatever the strength of my 
 political ambition, I am above everything else a man." 
 
 Iloma's face, which had worn a smile of triumph, became 
 clouded again. 
 
 " If a man insults me grievously in my affections and my 
 honour, I will challenge him," said the Baron. 
 
 " But he will not fight it would be contrary to his prin- 
 ciples," said Roma. 
 
 " ] n that event he will never be able to lift his head in Italy 
 again. But make no mistake on that point, my child. The 
 man who is told that the woman he is going to marry is secretly 
 the wife of another, must either believe it or he must not be- 
 lieve it. If he believes it he casts her off for ever. If he does 
 not believe it, he fights for her name and his own honour. If 
 he does neither, he is not a man." 
 
 Roma had returned to the stool, and was resting her elbows 
 on her knees and gazing into the fire. 
 
 "Have you thought of that?" said the Baron. "If the 
 man fights a duel it will be in defence of what you have told 
 him. In the blindness of his belief in your word he will be 
 ready to risk his life for it. Are you going to stand by and see 
 him fight for a lie ? " 
 
 Roma hid her face in her hands. 
 
 " Say he is wounded it will be for a lie ! Say he wounds 
 his adversary that will be for a lie too! " 
 
 Roma listened with a sense of fear and guilt. 
 
 " Say that David Rossi kills me what then? He must fly 
 from Italy, and his career is at an end. If he is alone, he is a 
 miserable exile who has earned what he may not enjoy. If you 
 are with him you are both miserable, for a lie stands between 
 you. Every hour of your life is poisoned by the secret you 
 cannot share with him. You are afraid of blurting it out in 
 your sleep. At last you go to him and confess everything. 
 What then ? The idol he worshipped has turned to clay." 
 
 Roma listened, panting and crushed. 
 
 " Then think of his remorse ! What he thought an act of 
 retribution is a crime. The dead man had told the truth, and
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 301 
 
 he committed murder on the word of a woman who was a de- 
 ceiver a drab." 
 
 Roma raised her hands to her head as if to avert a blow. 
 The Baron came nearer, and stood immediately above her as he 
 marshalled one terror after another. 
 
 "Or say that I kill David Rossi what then? You have 
 allowed him to die for a lie. But that is not all. The dead 
 know everything. Being dead, David Rossi knows all, and 
 you live in fear of your own death because you think he waits 
 for you in the other world to charge you with your untruth." 
 
 " Stop ! Stop ! " she cried, in a choking voice, and lifting 
 her face, distorted with suffering, he saw tears in her brilliant 
 eyes. To see Roma cry touched the only tenderness of which 
 his iron nature was capable. He patted the beautiful head 
 at his feet, and said in a low, caressing tone : 
 
 "Why will you make me seem so hard, my child? There 
 is really no need to talk of these things. They will not occur. 
 How can I have any desire to degrade you since I must degrade 
 myself at the same time? I have 110 wish to tell anyone the 
 secret which belongs only to you and me. In that matter you 
 were not to blame, either. It was all my doing. I was swelter- 
 ing under the shameful law which tied me to a dead body, and 
 I tried to attach you to me. And then your beauty your love- 
 liness . . ." 
 
 " Oh, why didn't I die ? " said Roma. She was looking 
 straight into the fire, and the big drops were rolling down 
 her cheeks. 
 
 " Come ! It's not so bad as that. But if the marriage 
 cannot take place without the consequences I speak of, you 
 must see that it is better that it should not take place at all 
 Postpone it. Don't let it trouble you that the banns are pub- 
 lished. A marriage can be celebrated at any time within one 
 hundred and eighty days. Before that Parliament will have 
 risen, the man will be arrested, and the law will take its course. 
 As to the rest, leave everything to Time ! All our little heart- 
 aches yield to that remedy, my child ! " 
 
 At that moment Felice announced Commendatore An- 
 gelelli. Roma walked over to the window and leaned her face 
 against the glass. Snow was still falling, and there were some 
 rumblings of thunder. Sheets of light shone here and there in 
 the darkness, but the world outside was dark and drear. Would 
 David Rossi come to-night? She almost hoped he would not.
 
 302 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 VIII 
 
 BEHIND her the Prime Minister, who had apologised for 
 turning her house into a temporary Ministry of the Interior, 
 was talking to his Chief of Police. 
 
 " You were there yourself ? " 
 
 " I was, Excellency. I went up into a high part and looked 
 down. It was a strange and wild sight." 
 
 " ITow many would there be ? " 
 
 " Impossible to guess. Inside and outside, Romans, coun- 
 try people, perhaps a hundred thousand." 
 
 " And Rossi's speech ? " 
 
 " The usual appeal to the passions of the people, Excellency. 
 The people were the only authority. The sovereignty of the 
 people must be established at all costs. The ruling classes 
 were the real rebels, and even the Church was conspiring 
 against the poor. In short, the familiar attempt to promote 
 hate between the classes. But clever! Very clever! your Ex- 
 cellency. An extraordinary exhibition of the art of flying be- 
 tween wind and water. We couldn't have found a word that 
 was distinctly seditious, even if we hadn't had your Excel- 
 lency's order to let the man go on." 
 
 " You have stopped the telegraph wires ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And the foreign correspondents ? " 
 
 " The troublesome ones are held in their houses, and told 
 to keep themselves at the disposition of the police." 
 
 " When the meeting was over, Rossi went home ? " 
 
 " He did, Excellency." 
 
 " And the hundred thousand ? " 
 
 " In their excitement they began to sing and to march 
 through the streets. They are still doing so. After going 
 down to the Piazza ISTavona, they are coming up by the Piazza 
 del Popolo and along the Babuino with banners and torches." 
 
 "Men only?" 
 
 " Men, women and children." 
 
 " You would say that their attitude is threatening ? " 
 
 " Distinctly threatening, your Excellency." 
 
 " Let your delegates give the legal warning and say that 
 the gathering of great mobs at this hour will be regarded as 
 open rebellion. Allow three minutes' grace for the sake of 
 the women and children, and then ... let the military do their 
 duty."
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 303 
 
 " Quite so, your Excellency." 
 
 " After that you may carry out the instructions I gave 
 you yesterday." 
 
 " Certainly, your Excellency." 
 
 " Keep in touch with all the leaders. Some of them 
 will find that the air of Rome is a little dangerous to their 
 health to-night and may wish to fly to Switzerland or to 
 England, where it would be difficult or impossible to follow 
 them." 
 
 Roma heard behind her the thin cackle as of a hen over her 
 nest, which always came when Angelelli laughed. 
 
 " Their meeting itself was illegal, and our licence has 
 been abused." 
 
 " Grossly abused, your Excellency." 
 
 " The action of the Government was too conciliatory, and 
 has rendered them audacious, but the new law is clear in pro- 
 hibiting the carrying of seditious flags and emblems." . 
 
 " We'll deal with them according to Articles 134 and 252 
 of the Penal Code, your Excellency." 
 
 " You can go. But come back immediately if anything 
 happens. I must remain here for the present, and in case of 
 riot, I may have to send you to the King." 
 
 Angelelli's thin voice fell to a whisper of awe at the men- 
 tion of Majesty, and after a moment he bowed and backed out 
 of the room. 
 
 Roma did not turn round, and the Minister, who had 
 touched the bell and called for pen and paper, spoke to her 
 from behind. 
 
 " I daresay you thought I was hard and inhuman at the 
 Palazzo Braschi yesterday, but I was really very merciful. In 
 letting you see the preparations to enclose your friend as 
 in a net, I merely wished you to warn him to fly from the 
 country. He has not done so and now he must take the con- 
 sequences." 
 
 Felice brought the writing materials and the Baron sat 
 down at the table. There was a long silence in which nothing 
 could be heard but the scratching of the Minister's pen, the 
 snoring of the poodle, and the deadened sound through the 
 wall of the Countess's testy voice scolding Natalina. 
 
 Roma stepped into the boudoir. The room was dark and 
 from its unlit windows she could see more plainly into the 
 streets. Masses of shadow lay around, but the untrodden steps 
 were white with thin snow, and the piazza was alive with black
 
 304 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 figures which moved on the damp ground like worms on an 
 upturned sod. 
 
 She was leaning her hot forehead against the glass and 
 looking out with haggard eyes, when a deep rumble as of a 
 great multitude came from below. The noise quickly increased 
 to a loud uproar, with shouts, songs, whistles and shrill sounds 
 blown out of door-keys. Before she was aware of his presence 
 the Baron was standing behind her, between the window and 
 the pedestal with the plaster bust of Rossi. 
 
 " Listen to them," he said. " The proletariat indeed 1 ... 
 And this is the flock of bipeds to whom men in their senses 
 would have us throw the treasures of civilisation, and hand 
 over the delicate machinery of government." 
 
 He laughed bitterly, and drew back the curtain with an im- 
 patient hand. 
 
 "Democracy! Christian Democracy! Vox Populi, vox 
 Dei! The sovereignty and infallibility of the people ! Pshaw! 
 I would as soon believe in the infallibility of the Pope ! " 
 
 The crowds increased in the piazza until the triangular 
 space looked like the rapids of a swollen river, and the noise 
 that came up from it was like the noise of falling cliffs and 
 uprooted trees. 
 
 " Fools ! Rabble ! Too ignorant to know what you really 
 want, and at the mercy of every rascal who sows the wind and 
 leaves you to reap the whirlwind.'' 
 
 Roma crept away from the Baron with a sense of physical 
 repulsion, and at the next moment, from the other window, 
 she heard the blast of a trumpet. A dreadful silence followed 
 the trumpet blast, and then a clear voice cried : 
 
 " In the name of the law I command you to disperse." 
 
 It was the voice of a delegate of the police. Roma could 
 see the man on the lowest stage of the steps with his tri-coloured 
 scarf of office about his breast. A second blast came from the 
 trumpet, and agin the delegate cried : 
 
 " In the name of the law I command you to disperse." 
 
 At that moment somebody cried, " Long live the Republic 
 of Man ! " and there was great cheering. In the midst of the 
 cheering the trumpet sounded a third time, and then a loud 
 voice cried, " Fire ! " 
 
 At the next moment a volley was fired from somewhere, a 
 cloud of white smoke was coiling in front of the windows at 
 which Roma stood, and women and children in the vagueness 
 below were uttering acute cries.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 305 
 
 "Oh! Oh! Oh!" 
 
 " Don't be afraid, my child. Nothing has happened yet. 
 The police had orders to fire first over the people's heads." 
 
 In her fear and agitation Roma ran back to the outer room, 
 and a moment afterwards Angelelli opened the door and stood 
 face to face with her. 
 
 " What have you done ? " she demanded. 
 
 " An unfortunate incident, Excellency," said Angelelli, as 
 the Baron appeared. " After the warning of the delegate the 
 mob laughed and threw stones, and the Carabineers fired. 
 They were in the piazza and fired up the steps." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Unluckily there were a few persons on the upper nights 
 at the moment, and some of them are wounded, and a child 
 is dead." 
 
 Roma muttered a low moan and sank on to the stool. 
 
 "Whose child is it?" 
 
 " We don't yet know, but the father is there, and he is 
 raging like a madman, and unless he is arrested he will provoke 
 the people to frenzy, and there will be riot and insurrection." 
 
 The Baron took from the table a letter he had written 
 and sealed. 
 
 " Take this to the Quirinal instantly. Ask for an immedi- 
 ate audience with the King. When you receive his written 
 reply call up the Minister of War and say you have the royal 
 decree to declare a state of siege." 
 
 Angelelli was going out hurriedly. 
 
 " Wait ! Send to the Piazza. Navona and arrest Rossi. Be 
 careful ! You will arrest the Deputy under Articles 134 and 
 252 on a charge of using the great influence he has acquired 
 over the people to urge the masses by speeches and writings to 
 resist public authority, and to change violently the form of 
 government and the constitution of the State." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 Angelelli disappeared, the acute cries outside died away, 
 the scurrying of flying feet was no more heard, and Roma was 
 still on the stool before the fire, moaning behind the hands that 
 covered her face. The Baron came near to her and touched 
 her with a caressing gesture. 
 
 " I'm sorry, my child, very sorry. Rossi is a poet, not a 
 statesman, but he is none the less dangerous on that account. 
 The hundred and one groups playing for their own hand in 
 Parliament are easily dealt with by any government, but a man
 
 306 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 like this, who wants nothing, and means something, and lives 
 in the faith of an idea, is not to be trifled with in any country. 
 No wonder he has fascinated you, as he has fascinated the 
 people, but time will wipe away an impression like that. The 
 best thing that can happen for both of you is that he should 
 be arrested to-night. It will save you so many ordeals and so 
 much sorrow." 
 
 At that moment a cannon shot boomed through the dark- 
 ness outside, and its vibration rattled in the windows and 
 walls. 
 
 " The signal from St. Angelo," said the Baron. " The gates 
 are closed and the city is under siege." 
 
 IX 
 
 WHEN in the commotion of the household caused by the 
 near approach of the crowd which brought Rossi home from 
 the Coliseum, little Joseph slipped down the stairs and made 
 a dash for the street, he chuckled to himself as he thought how 
 cleverly he had eluded his mother, who had been looking out 
 of the bedroom window, and those two old watch-dogs, his 
 grandfather and grandmother, who were nearly always at 
 the door. 
 
 It was not until he was fairly plunged into the great sea 
 of the city, and had begun to be a little dazed by more lights 
 than he ever saw when he closed his eyes in bed, that he re- 
 membered he had disobeyed orders and broken his promise not 
 to go out. But even then, he told himself, he was not respon- 
 sible. He was Donna Roma's porter now. Therefore, he 
 couldn't be Joseph, could he? 
 
 So, with his magic mace in hand, the serious man of seven 
 marched on, and reconciled himself to his disobedience by 
 thinking nothing more about it. People looked at him and 
 smiled as he passed through the Piazza Madama where the 
 Senate House stands, and that made him lift his head and walk 
 on proudly, but as he went through the Piazza of the Pantheon 
 a boy who was coming out of a cook-shop with a tray on his 
 head, cried : " Helloa, kiddy ! playing Pulcinello ? " and that 
 dashed his worshipful dignity for several minutes. 
 
 It began to snow, and the white flakes on his gold braid 
 clouded his soul at first, but when he remembered that porters 
 had to work in all weathers, he wagged his sturdy head and
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 307 
 
 strode on. He was going to Donna Koma's according to her 
 invitation, and he found his way by his recollection of what 
 he had seen when he made the same journey on Sunday. Here 
 a tramcar coming round a corner, there a line of posts across 
 a narrow thoroughfare, and then a fat man with a gruff voice 
 shouting something at the door of a trattoria. 
 
 At the corner of a lane there was a shop window full of 
 knives and revolvers. He didn't care for knives they cut 
 people's fingers but he liked guns, and when he grew up to 
 be a man he would buy one and kill somebody. 
 
 Coming to the Piazza. Monte Citorio, he remembered the 
 soldiers at the door of the House of Parliament, and the cellar 
 full of long guns with knives (bayonets) stuck on the ends of 
 their muzzles. One of the soldiers laughed, called him 
 " Uncle," and asked him something about enlisting, but he 
 only struck his mace firmly on the flags and marched on. 
 
 At the corner of the Piazza Colonna he had to wait some 
 time before he could cross the Corso, for the crowds were com- 
 ing both ways and the traffic frightened him. He had made 
 various little sorties and had been driven back when a soft 
 hand was slipped into his fat palm and he was piloted across 
 in safety. Then he looked up at his helper. It was a girl, 
 with big white feathers in her hat, and her face painted pink 
 and white like the face of the little Jesus in the cradle in 
 church at Christmas. She asked him what his name was and 
 he told her ; also where he was going, and he told her that too. 
 It was dark by this time, and the great little man was begin- 
 ning to be glad of company. 
 
 " Aren't you afraid of carrying that heavy stick ? " she 
 said. 
 
 It wasn't a stick, and he wasn't a bit tired of carrying it. 
 
 " But aren't you tired yourself? " she said, and he admitted 
 that perhaps it was so. 
 
 So she picked him up, and carried him in her arms while 
 he carried the mace, and for some minutes both were satisfied. 
 But presently some one in the Via Tritone cried out, " Helloa, 
 here comes the Blessed Bambino," whereupon his worshipful 
 dignity was again wounded and he wriggled to the ground. 
 
 It began to thunder and there were some flashes of light- 
 ning, whereupon Joseph shuddered and crept closer to the 
 girl's side. 
 
 " Are you afraid of lightning, Joseph ? " she asked. 
 
 He wasn't. He often saw it at home when he went to bed.
 
 308 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 His mother held his hand and he covered up his head iu the 
 clothes, and then he liked it. 
 
 The girl took the wee, fat hand again, and the little feet 
 toddled on. 
 
 After vain efforts to snatch a kiss, which were defeated by a 
 proper withdrawal of the manly head in the cocked hat, the girl 
 with the feathers and the doll's face left him in the Via due 
 Macelli under a bright electric lamp that hung over the door 
 of a cafe-chantant. 
 
 Joseph knew then that he was not far from Donna Roma's, 
 and he began to think of what he would do when he got there. 
 If the big porter at the door tried to stop him he would say, 
 " I'm a little Roman boy," and the man would have to let him 
 go up. Then he would take charge of the hall, and when he 
 had not to open the door he would play with the dog, and some- 
 times with Donna Roma. 
 
 With sound practical sense he thought of his wages. Would 
 it be a penny a week or twopence? He thought it would be 
 twopence. Men didn't work for nothing nowadays. He had 
 heard his father say so. 
 
 Then he remembered his mother, and his lip began to drop. 
 But it rose again when he told himself that of course she would 
 come every night to put him to bed as usual. " Good-night, 
 mamma ! See you in the morning," he would say, and when 
 he opened his eyes it would be to-morrow. 
 
 He was feeling sleepy now, and do what he would he could 
 hardly keep his eyes from closing. But he was in the Piazza 
 di Spagna by this time, and his little feet in their top-boots be- 
 gan to patter up the snowy steps. 
 
 There are three principal landings to the Spanish Steps, 
 and the great little man of seven had reached the second of 
 them when a noise in the streets below made him stop and turn 
 his head. 
 
 A great crowd, carrying hundi-eds of torches, was marching 
 into the piazza. They were singing, shouting, and blowing 
 whistles and trumpets. It was like Befana in the Piazza 
 Navona, and when Joseph blinked his eyes he almost thought 
 he was at home in bed. 
 
 All at once silence then soldiers then a jump all over 
 his body like that which came to him when he was falling asleep 
 then a sense of something warm then a buzzing noise 
 then a boom like that of the gun of St. Angelo at dinner- 
 time . . . then a deep, familiar voice calling and calling to
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 309 
 
 him, and his eyes opened for a moment and saw his fa- 
 ther's face. 
 
 " Good-night, papa ! So sleepy ! See you in the morning ! " 
 
 And then nothing more. 
 
 While Elena waited for Bruno's return with little Joseph, 
 she went up and downstairs between David Rossi's apartment 
 and her own on all manner of invented errands. Meantime she 
 tried to keep down her anxiety by keeping up her anger. Joseph 
 was so worrisome. When he came home he would have to 
 be whipped and sent to bed without his supper. It was true his 
 verdura was ready on the stove, but he must not be allowed to 
 touch it. You really must be strict with children. They 
 would like you all the better for it when they grew up to be 
 men and women. 
 
 But every moment broke down this brave severity, until the 
 desire to punish Joseph for his disobedience was all gone. She 
 stood at the head of the stairs and listened for his voice and his 
 little pattering feet. If she had heard them, her anxious ex- 
 pression would have given way to a cross look and she would 
 have scolded both father and son all the way up to bed. But 
 they did not come, and she turned to the dining-room with a 
 downcast face. 
 
 " Where can the boy be ? If I could only have him back ! 
 I will never let him out of my sight again. Never ! " 
 
 David Rossi, who was walking in the sitting-room to 
 calm his nerves after a trying time, tried to comfort her. It 
 would be all right. Depend upon it, Joseph had gone up 
 to Donna Roma's. She was to remember what Bruno told 
 them on Sunday. " The little Roman boy." Joseph had 
 thought of nothing else for three days, and this being his birth- 
 day . . . 
 
 "You think so? You really think . . ." 
 
 "I'm sure of it. Bruno will be back presently, carrying 
 Joseph on his back. Or perhaps Donna Roma will send the boy 
 home in the carriage, and the great little man will come up- 
 stairs like the Mayor. Meantime she has kept him to play 
 with, and . . ." 
 
 " Yes, that must be it," said Elena, with shining eyes. " The 
 Signorina must have kept him to play with ! He must be play- 
 ing now with the Signorina ! " 
 
 At that moment through the open door there came the 
 sound of a heavy tread on the stairs, mingled with various
 
 310 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 voices. Elena's shining face suddenly clouded, and Rossi, who 
 read her thought, went out on to the landing. Bruno was com- 
 ing up the staircase with something in his arms, and behind 
 him were the Garibaldian and his old wife and a line of 
 strangers. 
 
 Rossi ran down two flights of the stairs and met them. He 
 saw everything as by a flash of lightning. The boy lay in his 
 father's arms. He was white and cold, with his head fallen 
 back, and his hair matted with flakes of snow. His gay coat 
 was open, and his little stained shirt was torn out at the breast. 
 A stranger coming behind was carrying the cocked hat 
 and mace. 
 
 Elena, who was at the head of the stairs by this time, was 
 screaming. 
 
 " Keep her away, sir," said Bruno. The poor fellow was 
 trying to be brave and strong, but his voice was like a voice 
 from the other side of an abyss. 
 
 They took the boy into the dining-room, and laid him on a 
 sofa. There was no keeping the mother back. She forced her 
 way through, and laid hold of the child. 
 
 " Get away, he's mine," she cried fiercely. 
 
 And then she dropped on her knees before the boy, threw 
 her arms about him and called on him by his name. 
 
 " Joseph ! Speak to me ! Open your eyes and speak ! . . . 
 What have you been doing with my child? He is ill. Why 
 don't you send for a doctor? Don't stand there like fools. Go 
 for a doctor, I tell you . . . Joseph ! Only a word ! . . . Have 
 you carried him home without his hat on? And it's snowing 
 too! He'll get his death of cold . . . what's this? Blood on 
 his shirt? And a wound? Look at this red spot. Have they 
 shot him ? No, no, it's impossible ! A child ! Joseph ! Joseph ! 
 Speak to me. f . . . Yes, his heart is beating." She was press- 
 ing her ear to the boy's breast. " Or is it only the beating in 
 my head? Oh, where is the doctor? Why don't you send 
 for him?" 
 
 They could not tell her it was useless, that a doctor 
 had seen the child already, and that all was over. All they 
 could do was to stand around her with awe in their faces. 
 She understood them without words. Her hair fell from 
 its knot, and her eyes began to blaze like the eyes of a 
 maniac. 
 
 " They've killed my child ! " she cried. " He's dead ! My 
 little boy is dead ! Only seven and it was his birthday ! Oh,
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 311 
 
 God! My child! What had he done that they should kill 
 him?" 
 
 And then Bruno, who was standing by with a wild lustre in 
 his eyes, said between his teeth, " Done ? Done nothing but 
 live under a government of murderers and assassins." 
 
 The room filled with people. Neighbours who had never 
 before set foot in the rooms came in without fear, for death 
 was among them. They stood silent for the most part, only 
 handing round the table the little cocked 'hat and the mace, 
 with sighs and deep breathing. But some one speaking to Rossi 
 told him what had happened. It was at the Spanish Steps. 
 The Delegate gave the word, and the Carabineers fired over the 
 people's heads. But they hit the child and made him cold. His 
 little- heart had burst. 
 
 " And I was going to whip him," said Elena. " Not a min- 
 ute before I was talking about the rod, and not giving him his 
 supper. Oh, God, I can never forgive myself." 
 
 And then the blessed tears came and she wept bitterly. 
 
 David Rossi put his arms about her and her head fell on to 
 his breast. All barriers were broken down, and she clung to 
 him and cried. He smoothed her hair and comforted her, say- 
 ing in a low and tremulous voice, " ' He will gather his lambs 
 in his arms and carry them in his bosom.' " 
 
 The strangers dropped their heads and began to go away. 
 " Who says man says misery," said the Garibaldian, as he wiped 
 his rheumy eyes, and gently pushed the people out. His old 
 wife, who had taken charge of the hat and mace, was being 
 comforted by some women near the door. " He was so full of 
 fun," she said. " ' Grandma,' he used to say . . ." but she 
 could go no further. " Well, we all of us come into the 
 world crying, and none of us go out smiling," the women an- 
 swered. 
 
 Just then there were cries in the piazza. " Hurrah for the 
 Revolution ! " and " Down with the destroyers of the people ! " 
 came in the woolly tones of voices shouting in the snow. Some- 
 body on the stairs explained that a young man was going about 
 waving a bloody handkerchief, and that the sight of it was ex- 
 asperating the people to frenzy. Women were marching 
 through the streets, and the entire city was on the point of 
 insurrection. 
 
 In the dining-room the stricken ones were still standing by 
 the couch. Presently there was a sound of singing outside. A 
 great crowd was coming into the piazza singing the Garibaldi
 
 312 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 hymn. Bruno heard it, and the wild lustre in his eyes gave 
 place to a look of savage joy. An awful oath burst from his 
 lips, and he ran out of the house. At the next moment he was 
 heard in the street, singing in a thundering voice : 
 
 " The tombs are uncovered, 
 
 The dead arise, 
 The martyrs are rising 
 Before our eyes. " 
 
 The old Garibaldian threw up his head like a war-horse at 
 the call of battle, and his rickety limbs were going towards 
 the door. 
 
 " Stay here, father," said Rossi, and the old man obeyed 
 him. 
 
 Elena was quieter by this time. She was sitting by the 
 child and stroking his little icy hand. 
 
 David Rossi, who had hardly spoken, went into his bedroom. 
 His lips were tightly pressed together, his eyes were bloodshot 
 and his breath was labouring hard in his heaving breast. The 
 white heat of the despairing man was terrible. 
 
 " I can bear no more of it," he thought. " I have tried all 
 peaceful means in vain. The man must die . . . and I must kill 
 him!" 
 
 He took up his dagger paper-knife, tried its point on his 
 palm with two or three reckless thrusts and threw it back on 
 the desk. Then he went down on his hands and knees and rum- 
 maged among the newspapers lying in heaps under the window. 
 At last he found what he looked for. It was the six-chambered 
 revolver which had been sent to him as a present. " I'll kill 
 the man like a dog," he thought. 
 
 He loaded the revolver, put it in his breast pocket, went 
 .back to the sitting-room, and made ready to go out. 
 
 " Look ! " said Elena, as he passed through the dining-room. 
 She had been turning out the boy's pockets, and was crying over 
 his little treasures as they came up one by one a cork, a peb- 
 ble, a rusty nail, and a piece of string. 
 
 It was more than Rossi could bear, and without looking, 
 he turned to the door. 
 
 " I'll not be long," he said. Something in his voice made 
 Elena lift her eyes, and when she saw him it was almost as if 
 another man stood before her. 
 
 "Mr. Rossi! . . . Brother . . . What are you going to do?" 
 she cried, but he was gone before the words were spoken.
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 313 
 
 TEN was striking on the different clocks of the city. Felice 
 had lit the stove in the boudoir and the wood was burning in 
 fitful blue and red flames. There was no other light in the 
 room, and Roma lay with her body on the floor, and her face 
 buried on the couch. 
 
 The world outside was full of fearful and unusual noises. 
 Snow was still falling, and the voices heard through it had a 
 peculiar sound of sobbing. The soft rolling of thunder came 
 from a long way off, like the boom of a slow wave on a distant 
 sand-bank. At intervals there was the crackle of musketry, like 
 the noise of rockets sent up in the night, and sometimes there 
 were pitiful cries, smothered by the unreverberating snow, like 
 the cries of a drowning man on a foundering ship at sea. 
 
 Roma, face downward, heard these sounds in the lapses of 
 a terrible memory. She was seeing, as in a nightmare, the inci- 
 dents of a night that was hardly six weeks past. One by one 
 the facts flashed back upon her with a burning sense of shame, 
 and she felt herself to be a sinner and a criminal. 
 
 It was the night of the Royal ball at the Quirinal. The 
 blaze of lights, the glitter of jewels, the brilliant throng of 
 handsome men and lovely women, the clash of music, the whi rl 
 of dancing, and finally the smiles and compliments of the 
 .King. Then going home in the carriage in the early morning, 
 swathed in furs over her thin, white silk, with the Baron, in 
 his decorations worn diagonally over his white breast, and 
 through the glass the waning moon, the silent stars, the empty 
 streets. 
 
 Then this room, this couch, sinking down on it, very tired, 
 with eyes smiling and half closed, and nearly gone already into 
 the mists of sleep. And then the Baron at her feet, pressing 
 his lips to her wrist where the pulse was beating, kissing her 
 arms and shoulders ..." Oh, dear! You are mad ! I must nof 
 listen to you. Let me go ! " And then burning words of love 
 and passion : " My wife ! My wife that is to be." . . . " Oh, 
 God, what will become of me ? I hate you ! " . . . And then 
 the call of her aunt from the adjoining chamber, "Roma!" 
 Finally, with a long shudder, making no answer to the caress- 
 ing voice at her ear, going out of the room, trembling and 
 silent, like one who had passed through an earthquake, the 
 human earthquake that lays bare the secret of sex. 
 
 The sobbing sounds from outside broke in on Roma's night- 
 21
 
 314 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 mare, and when the chain of memory linked on again it was 
 morning in her vision, and the Countess was comforting her in 
 a whimpering voice. 
 
 "After all, God is merciful, and there are things that 
 happen to everybody that can be atoned for by prayer and 
 penance. Besides, the Baron is a man of honour, and the poor 
 maniac can't last much longer." 
 
 The sobbing sounds in the snow, the cries far away, the 
 crackle of the rifle-shots, the rumble of the thunder broke in 
 again, and the elements outside seemed to whirl round her in 
 the tempest of her trouble. For a moment she lifted her head 
 and heard voices in the next room. 
 
 The Baron was still there, and from time to time, as he 
 wrote his despatches, messengers came to take them away, to 
 bring replies and to deliver the latest news of the night. The 
 populace had risen in all parts of the city, and the soldiers had 
 charged them. There had been several misadventures and 
 many arrests. The large house of detention by St. Andrea delle 
 Fratte was already full, but the people continued to hold out. 
 They had disconnected the gas at the gasometer and cut the 
 electric wires, and the city was plunged in darkness. 
 
 " Tell the electric light company to turn on the flash-light 
 from Monte Mario," said the Baron. 
 
 And when the voices ceased in the drawing-room there came 
 the deadened sound of the Countess's frightened treble behind 
 the wall. 
 
 " Oh, Holy Virgin, full of grace, save me ! It would be a 
 sin to let me die to-night! Holy Virgin, see! I have given 
 thee two more candles. Art thou not satisfied ? Save me from 
 murder, Mother of God." 
 
 Roma saw another phase of her vision. It was filled with a 
 new face, which made her at once happy and unhappy, proud and 
 ashamed. Hitherto the only condition on which she had been 
 able to live with the secret of her life was that she should think 
 nothing about it. Now she was compelled to think, and she 
 was asking herself if it was her duty to confess. 
 
 Before she married David Rossi she must tell him every- 
 thing. She saw herself trying to do so. He was looking 
 vacantly before him with the deep furrow that came into his 
 forehead when he was strongly moved. She had sobbed out her 
 story, telling all, excusing nothing, and now she was waiting 
 for him to speak. He would take her side, he would tell her 
 she had been more sinned against than sinning, that she had
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 315 
 
 been young and alone at the mercy of an evil man, and that 
 her will had not consented. 
 
 At last he spoke, " I thought the daughter of Joseph Roselli 
 would have starved first ! " She began to sob, but he showed 
 no mercy. " I thought my little Roma . . ." he said, and 
 then she heard no more, for his voice was thick, and her own 
 sobs were stifling her. After that he looked at her with swim- 
 ming eyes, and she thought his heart would fight for her. But 
 no ! " Why did you come to me and tell that lie ? " he said, 
 and then she could go no further. She could not confess to the 
 plot to capture and degrade him. Her heart was bursting, but 
 when she touched him he seemed to shrink away. " Well, there's 
 no help for it ! Good-night ! " he said, and then the world was 
 a blank, life was gone, and everything was dust and ashes. 
 
 " No, no ! It is impossible ! " she cried aloud, and, startled 
 by the sound of her voice, the Baron came into the room. 
 
 " My dear child ! " he said, and he picked her up from the 
 floor. " I shall never be able to forgive myself if you take 
 things like this. Every tear you shed will burn my flesh like 
 fire. Come now, dry these beautiful eyes and be calm." 
 
 " I have come to a decision," she said. " It may be sudden, 
 but it is irrevocable, therefore do not try to alter it. I am 
 going away." 
 
 " Yes, yes," he answered, " but don't let us talk of that now. 
 You are disturbed. Things have happened so suddenly. By- 
 and-bye you will be better and then everything will seem dif- 
 ferent." 
 
 " My life here is at an end and I must go away. It has been 
 wrong and false, and I am determined to put an end to it. I do 
 not blame you more than myself, but I am ashamed of what has 
 happened and I cannot bear to think of it any longer." 
 
 " This comes of sleeplessness, my child. Confess, now, that 
 you have not been sleeping lately. Sleep, a little sleep, and all 
 the world is changed.". 
 
 She did not listen to him, but leaning on the stove and fin- 
 gering with one hand the frame of her father's picture which 
 hung above it, she said : 
 
 " I see now that happiness was not for me. There must 
 be some punishment for every sin, however little one has been 
 guilty of it, and perhaps this is God's way of asking for an 
 expiation. It is very, very hard ... it seems more than I de- 
 serve . . . and heavier than I can bear . . . but there is no 
 help for it."
 
 316 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The tears she brushed from her eyes seemed to be gathering 
 in her throat. 
 
 " The bitterest part of it is that I must make others suffer 
 for it also. He must suffer who has loved and trusted me. His 
 love for me, my love for him, this has been dragging him down 
 since the first day I knew him. Perhaps he is in prison by 
 this time." 
 
 Sobs interrupted her for a moment, and in a caressing tone 
 the Baron tried to comfort her. It was natural that she 
 should feel troubled, very natural and very womanly. But time 
 was the great remedy for human ills. It would heal every- 
 thing. 
 
 " Well, everything seems to be over now," she said. " I will 
 not trouble anybody much longer. I will break with the past 
 altogether, and leave everything behind me. In any case I 
 must have left this place soon. I am in debt to the landlord 
 and to Madame Sella and to ... to everybody. Perhaps when 
 I am gone you will send somebody to settle up. I will take 
 nothing with me but the dress I stand in. The jewelry, the 
 horses and the carriage, and the furniture will bring some- 
 thing. Do as you please with what I have, and if there is any- 
 thing short perhaps you will make it up in memory of all that 
 has happened. You will have nothing more to pay out of 
 my father's estate, anyway . . . 
 
 " I shall be sorry to leave my aunt, although she has not 
 been good company, and we have never been friends. But she 
 will be better off in her last days under your protection, and 
 she may come to think more kindly of me by-and-bye. If not, I 
 can't help it now. I will go away to-morrow to begin a new 
 life, and may God forgive me, and help me to purge my soul of 
 the stain of the past." 
 
 Her voice failed her, and she broke down once more. 
 
 " Roma," said the Baron, " you are not well. When we 
 meet again. . . ." 
 
 " We can never meet again where I am going to." 
 
 She raised her beautiful eyes and he understood in a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "Do you mean that?" he asked. 
 
 She bowed her head. 
 
 " You intend to bury yourself in a convent ? " 
 
 " If they will have me yes. It is my only refuge now. 
 Where else can I hide myself? When a woman cannot look 
 into the face of the one she loves . . . when she has brought
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 317 
 
 grief and pain and imprisonment on him who loves her 
 best . . ." 
 
 "Roma," said the Baron, "/ love you too. Do you forget 
 that ? I love you, and I will not think of losing you." 
 
 The impassive man had undergone a change. He was try- 
 ing to put his arms about her. She was holding him off. 
 
 " I do not wish to reproach you, but I cannot listen to 
 you," she said. " You must think of me as one who is 
 dead." 
 
 " But I don't mean to think of you as one who is dead. 
 I want you you you! I want your living heart to answer 
 to my heart. I want the breath of your hair, and the light of 
 your eyes, and the kiss of your lips. You shall not go into a 
 convent. When heaven has given a young woman beauty and 
 gifts like yours she has no right to bury them in a cell. I re- 
 fuse to think of it. And then I have waited for you so long! 
 Is it nothing that before this man came into your life I was 
 with you always? Think of your childhood . . . Have you 
 anything to reproach me with in the care I took of you then? 
 And now that you are a woman what do I want but to put you 
 where your beauty ^and your gifts give you the right to be 
 ahead of every woman in Italy who does not sit upon a throne." 
 
 Again he tried to put his arms about her, and again she 
 held him off, but with a feebler hand than before. 
 
 " Roma, you have wounded and humiliated and insulted me, 
 but you are the only woman in the world I would give one 
 straw to have. I will make you the wife of the Dictator of 
 Italy, and when all these troubles are over and you are great 
 and have forgotten what has taken place . . ." 
 
 " I can never forget and I don't want to be great. I only 
 want to be good. Leave me ! " 
 
 " You are good. You have always been good. What hap- 
 pened was my fault alone and you have nothing to reproach 
 yourself with. I found you growing up to be a great woman, 
 and passing out of my legal control, while I was bound down to 
 a poor, helpless, living corpse. Some day you would meet a 
 younger, freer man, and you would be lost to me for good. 
 Wasn't it human to try to hold you to me until the time came 
 when I could claim you altogether? And if meanwhile this 
 man has interposed . . ." 
 
 He pointed to the bust on the pedestal. She looked up at 
 it, and then dropped her head. 
 
 " Say no more," she said. " I could not marry you, because
 
 318 THE ETEKNAL CITY 
 
 I do not love you. But my will is broken I have no more 
 strength leave me alone." 
 
 He allowed a moment to elapse, and when he spoke again 
 he had regained his old impassive manner. 
 
 " Put the man out of your mind, my dear, and all will be 
 well. Probably he is in the hands of the authorities already. 
 God grant it may be so! No fear of his arrest this time! It 
 cannot be complicated by the danger of scandal. Nobody else's 
 name and character will be concerned in it. And if it serves to 
 dispose of a dangerous man and a subversive politician I am 
 willing to let everything else sleep." 
 
 He paused a moment, and then added in his most incisive 
 accents. " But if not, the law must take its course, and David 
 Leone must complete what David Rossi has begun." 
 
 At that moment Felice's dark form stood against the light 
 in the open door. 
 
 " Comrnendatore Angelelli and Charles Minghelli, Excel- 
 lency." 
 
 As the Baron went back to the drawing-room Roma re- 
 turned to the window. Scales of snow adhered to the glass, and 
 it was difficult to see anything outside. But the masses of 
 shadow and sheets of light were gone, and the city lay in utter 
 darkness. The sobbing sounds, the crackle of musketry and 
 the rumble of thunder were all gone, and the air was empty and 
 void. 
 
 At one moment there was a soft patter as of a flock of 
 sheep passing under the window in the darkness. It was a com- 
 pany of riflemen going at a quick march over the snow with 
 torches and lanterns. 
 
 Voices came from the next room and Roma found herself 
 listening. 
 
 " Apparently the insurrection is suppressed, your Excel- 
 lency." 
 
 " I congratulate you." 
 
 -" The soldiers are patrolling the streets, and all is quiet." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 " We have some hundreds of rioters in the houses of de- 
 tention, and the military courts will begin to sit to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 " Excellent ! " 
 
 " The misadventures have been few and unimportant the 
 child I spoke of being the only one killed." 
 
 " You have discovered whose child it was ? "
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 319 
 
 "Yes. Unluckily . . ." 
 
 Roma felt dizzy. A thought had flashed upon her. 
 
 " It is the child of Donna Roma's man, Bruno Rocco, and 
 apparently . . ." 
 
 A choking cry rang through the room. Was it herself who 
 made it? 
 
 " Go on, Commendatore. Apparently . . ." 
 
 " The child was dressed in some carnival costume, and ap- 
 parently he was on his way to this house." 
 
 Roma's dizziness increased, and to save herself from falling 
 she caught at a side-table that stood under the bust. 
 
 On this table were some sculptor's tools a chisel and a 
 small mallet, with which she had been working. 
 
 There was an interval in which the voices were deadened 
 and confused. Then they became clear and sharp as before. 
 
 " But the most important fact you have not yet given me. 
 I trust you are only saving it up for the last. The Deputy 
 Rossi is arrested ? " 
 
 " Unfortunately . . . no, Excellency." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " He left home immediately after the outbreak, and has not 
 been seen since. Presently the flash-light will be turned on by 
 a separate battery from Monte Mario, and every corner of the 
 city shall be searched. But we fear he is gone." 
 
 "Gone?" 
 
 " Perhaps by the train that left just before the signal." 
 
 Roma felt a cry rising to her throat again, but she put 
 up her hand to keep it down. 
 
 " No matter ! Commendatore, send telegrams after the 
 train to all stations up to the frontier, with orders that nobody 
 is to alight until every carriage has been overhauled. Min- 
 ghelli, go to the Consulta immediately, and ask the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs to despatch a portrait of Rossi to every for- 
 eign Government." 
 
 " But no portrait exists, Excellency. It was a difficulty I 
 found in England." 
 
 " Yes, there is a portrait. Come this way." 
 
 Roma felt the room going round as the Baron came into it 
 and switched on the light. 
 
 " There is the only portrait of the illustrious Mr. Deputy, 
 and our hostess will lend it to be photographed." 
 
 " Never! " said Roma, and taking up the mallet, she struck 
 the bust a heavy blow, arid it fell in fragments to the floor.
 
 320 THE 'ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Half an hour afterwards Roma was sitting amid the wreck 
 of her work when the Baron, wearing- his fur-lined overcoat and 
 pulling 011 his gloves, came into the boudoir. 
 
 " I am compelled," he said, " to inflict my presence upon 
 you for a moment longer in order to tell you what my attitude 
 in the future is to be, and what feelings are to guide me. I 
 will continue to think of you as my wife according to the law 
 of nature, and of the man who has come between us as your 
 lover. I will not give you up to him whatever happens; and if 
 he tries to take you away, or if you try to go to him, you 
 must be prepared to find that I offer every resistance. Two 
 passions are now engaged against the man, and I will not shrink 
 from any course that seems necessary to subdue either him or 
 you, or both." 
 
 " Do what you please," she answered. " Degrade me, drag 
 me in the dust, if you like, but you will not make me help you 
 to destroy David Rossi, whatever you do." 
 
 " We shall see. I have conquered worse obstacles, and 
 who knows? perhaps in this instance Nature herself will fight 
 for me to call you back to your true place and your duty." 
 
 An involuntary shudder passed over her, and she looked at 
 him with frightened eyes. 
 
 " Meantime, my child, remember that in my eyes you are 
 as pure as a Madonna always have been, always will be. Good- 
 night ! " 
 
 A moment afterwards she heard the patrol challenging him 
 on the piazza. Then " Pardon, Excellency," and the soft swish 
 of carriage wheels in the snow. 
 
 XI 
 
 WHEN Rossi left home he was like a raging madman. His 
 knees tottered under him and a misty vapour filled his eyes, but 
 his heart was alive with rage and hatred. 
 
 He made straight for the Palazzo Braschi at the other side 
 of the piazza, and going up the marble staircase on limbs that 
 could scarcely support him, his thoughts went back in a broken 
 maze to the scene he had left behind. 
 
 " Our little boy dead ! Dead in his mother's arms ! Oh, 
 God, let me meet the man face to face! . . . Our innocent 
 darling! The light of our eyes put out in a moment! Our 
 sweet little Joseph! . . '. Shall there be no retribution? God
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 321 
 
 forbid ! The man who has been the chief cause of this crime 
 shall be the first to suffer punishment ! No use wasting time on 
 the hounds who executed his orders. They are only delegates 
 of police, and over them is this Minister of the Interior. He 
 alone is responsible, and he is here ! " 
 
 When he reached the green baize door to the hall he 
 stopped to wipe away the perspiration which stood on his fore- 
 head although his face was flecked with snow. The messengers 
 looked scared when he stepped inside, and they answered his 
 questions with obvious hesitation. The Minister was not in his 
 cabinet. He had not been there that night. It was possible the 
 Honourable might find his Excellency at home. 
 
 Rossi turned on his heel instantly, and went hurriedly 
 downstairs. He would go to the Palazzo Leone. There was 
 no time to lose. Presently the man would hide himself in the 
 darkness like a toad under a stone. 
 
 As he left the Ministry of the Interior he heard the singing 
 of the Garibaldi hymn in the distance, and turning into the 
 Corso Victor Emmanuel, he came upon crowds of people and 
 some noisy and tumultuous scenes. 
 
 One group had broken into a gun shop and seized rifles and 
 cartridges; another group had taken possession of two electric 
 tramcars, and tumbled them on their sides to make a barri- 
 cade across the street; and a third group was tearing up the 
 street itself to use its stones for missiles. " Our turn now," 
 they were shouting, and there were screams of delirious 
 laughter. 
 
 As Rossi crossed the bridge of St. Angelo the cannon was 
 fired from the Castle, and he knew that it was meant for a sig- 
 nal. " No matter ! " he thought. " It will be too late when the 
 soldiers arrive." 
 
 Notwithstanding the tumult in the city the Piazza of St. 
 Peter's was silent and deserted. Not the sound of a footfall, 
 not the rattle of a carriage-wheel; only the drip-drip of the 
 fountains, whose waters were playing in the lamp-light through 
 the falling snow, and the echoing hammer of the clock of the 
 Basilica. 
 
 The porter of the Palazzo Leone was asleep in his lodge, 
 and Rossi passed upstairs. 
 
 " I'll bring the man to justice now," he thought. " He im- 
 agined we were only tame cats and would submit to anything. 
 He was wrong. We'll show him we know how to punish tyrants. 
 Haven't we always done so, we Romans? He has a sharp
 
 322 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tongue for the people, but I have a sharper one here for 
 him." 
 
 And he felt for the revolver in his breast-pocket to make 
 certain it was there. 
 
 The lackey in knee-breeches and yellow stockings who an- 
 swered the inside bell was almost speechless at the sight of the 
 white face which confronted him at the door. No, the Baron 
 was not at home. He had not been there since early in the 
 evening. Had he gone to the Pref ettura ? Possibly ! Or the 
 Consulta ? Perhaps. 
 
 " Which, man, which ? " said Rossi, and to say something 
 the lackey stammered " The Consulta," and closed the door. 
 
 Rossi set his face towards the Foreign Office. There was a 
 light in the stained-glass windows of the Pope's private chapel 
 the Holy Father was at his prayers. A canvas-covered barrow 
 containing a man who had been injured by the soldiers, was 
 being carried into the Hospital of Santo Spirito, and a woman 
 and a child were walking and crying beside it. 
 
 The streets were covered with broken tiles which had been 
 thrown on to the heads of the cavalry as they galloped through 
 the principal thoroughfares. Carabineers with revolvers in 
 hand were dragging themselves on their stomachs along the 
 roofs, trying to surprise the rioters who were hiding behind 
 chimney-stacks. Some one shouted : " Cut the electric wires ! " 
 and men were clambering up the tall posts and breaking the 
 electric lamps. 
 
 The Consulta the office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs 
 - stands in the Piazza of the Quirinal, and when Rossi reached 
 it the great square of the King was as silent as the great square 
 of the Pope had been. 
 
 Two sentries were in boxes on either side of the royal gate, 
 and one Carabineer was in the doorway. The gardens down the 
 long corridor lay dark in the shadows, but the fountain with 
 sculptured horses, the splashing water, and the front of the 
 building were white under the electric lamps as if from a daz- 
 zling moon. 
 
 Before turning into the silent courtyard of the Consulta, 
 Rossi paused and listened to the noises that came from the 
 city. Men were singing and women were screaming. The rat- 
 tle of musketry mingled with the cries of children. And over 
 all was the steady downfall of the snow, and the dull rumble 
 of distant thunder. 
 
 Rossi held his head between his hands to prevent his senses
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 323 
 
 from leaving him. His rage was ebbing away, and he was be- 
 ginning to tremble. Nevertheless, he forced himself to go on. 
 As he rang the bell at the Foreign Office, he was partly con- 
 scious of a secret desire that the Prime Minister might not be 
 there. 
 
 The porter was not sure. The Baron's carriage had just 
 gone. Let him ask on the telephone. . . . No, there had been a 
 messenger from the Minister of the Interior, but the Minister 
 himself had not been there that night. 
 
 Rossi took a long breath of relief and went away. He had 
 returned to the bright side of the piazza when the lights seemed 
 to be wiped out as though by an invisible wing, and the entire 
 city was plunged in darkness. At the next moment a squadron 
 of cavalry galloped up to the Quirinal, and the gates of the 
 royal palace and of the Consulta were closed. 
 
 Midnight struck. 
 
 For two hours the soldiers had been charging the crowds by 
 the light of lanterns and torches. They had arrested hundreds 
 of persons. Chained together, two and two, the insurgents had 
 been taken to the places of detention, amid the cries of their 
 women and children. " Who knows whether we shall see each 
 other again ! " said the prisoners, as they passed into the 
 " House of Pain." One old woman went on her knees to the 
 soldiers, and begged them to have pity on the people. " They 
 are your brothers, my sons," she cried. 
 
 One o'clock struck. 
 
 The streets were still dark, but a search-light from Monte 
 Mario was sweeping over the city like a flash of a supernatural 
 eye. With tottering limbs, and his head on his breast, David 
 Rossi was walking down the Via due Macelli, towards the col- 
 umn of the Immaculate Conception, when a young girl spoke 
 to him. 
 
 " Honourable," she said, " is it true that the little boy is 
 dead? ... it is? Oh, dear! I met him in the Corso, and 
 brought him up as far as the Varietes, and if I had only taken 
 him all the way. . . . Oh, I shall never forgive myself ! " 
 
 Out of his comfortless heart he did his best to comfort her. 
 She had nothing to reproach herself with. It was God who had 
 done this, and little Joseph was in Heaven. 
 
 " I shall always think of that, Honourable," said the girl. 
 And then she lifted her poor face, painted like a doll's but 
 innocent as an angel's, and asked him if he would kiss her. 
 He kissed her on the forehead, and she went her way.
 
 324 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The city was quiet, and all was hushed on every side when 
 Rossi found himself on a flight of steps at the back of Roma's 
 apartment. From these steps a door opened into the studio. 
 One panel of the door was glazed, and a light was shining from 
 within. Going cautiously forward, Rossi looked into the room. 
 Roma was seated on a stool, with her hands clasped in her 
 lap, and her hair hanging loose. She was very pale. Her face 
 expressed unutterable sadness. 
 
 Rossi listened for a moment, but there was not a sound 
 to be heard except that of the different clocks chiming the 
 quarter. Then he tapped lightly on the glass. 
 
 " Roma ! " he said in a low tone. " Roma ! " 
 
 She rose up and shrank back. Then coming to the door, 
 and shielding her eyes from the light, she put her face close to 
 the pane. At the next moment she threw the door open. 
 
 " It is you ? " she said in a tremulous voice, and taking his 
 hand she drew him hurriedly into the house. 
 
 XII 
 
 AFTER the Baron was gone, Roma had sat a long time in 
 the dark among the ruins of the broken bust. Notwithstanding 
 her courageous bearing, she was consumed by fear. The great 
 fact remained. What the Baron had said was true. She knew 
 it was true. In her inmost heart she must always know it. 
 Therefore, if she married David Rossi there would be one 
 chamber of her heart which he could never enter. Would that 
 be love, trust, wedlock, complete surrender? 
 
 When twelve o'clock struck she was feeling hot and fever- 
 ish, and in spite of the coldness of the night she rose and 
 opened the windoAv. The snow had ceased to fall, the thun- 
 der was gone, and the city was quiet. Through the still air 
 came the soft swell of an organ and the faint sound of voices. 
 The nuns of Trinita de' Monti were singing their midnight 
 office. 
 
 Roma closed her eyes and listened. She could see and hear 
 everything. The dim church, the iron screen across it, the 
 lines of white figures, like ghosts, kneeling in the shadows, the 
 altar lit up by two or three small candles, and then the voice 
 of one of the nuns who was singing above the rest. How sweet ! 
 How solemn ! Peace ! The Church was peace peace and rest 
 after the noise and riot of life. If the sisters would receive
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 325 
 
 her, she would still go into the convent. It was her only hope 
 now, her only refuge. 
 
 She thought of Rossi. He was gone and he might never 
 hear what had befallen her, but perhaps he would come there 
 some day, and sit before the screen at Benediction, and hear 
 her voice as she heard the voice of the nun, and recognise her 
 by that and so learn everything. And then he would suffer. 
 There was a strange, sweet, secret, unfathomable joy in the 
 thought that Rossi would suffer when he found where she was 
 and what she had done. 
 
 Tears were falling on her hands as the singing ended. At 
 that moment the revolving searchlight on Monte Mario passed 
 over the room. The white flash lit up the broken fragments at 
 her feet, and brought a new train of reflections. The bust she 
 destroyed had been only the plaster cast; the piece-mould re- 
 mained and might be a cause of danger. 
 
 She closed the window, took a candle, and went down to the 
 studio to put the mould out of the way. She had done so and 
 was sitting to rest and to think when Rossi's knock came at 
 the door. In a moment all her dreams were gone. She was 
 clasped in his arms and had put up her mouth to be kissed. 
 
 "Is it you?" 
 
 " Roma ! " 
 
 It was not at first that she realised what was happening 1 , that 
 they were together again, when all had seemed to be over. But 
 after a moment she recovered from her bewilderment, and ex- 
 tinguished the candle lest Rossi should be seen from outside. 
 Then she clung to him afresh, and he tightened his arms 
 about her. 
 
 They were in the dark, save at intervals when the revolving 
 light in its circuit of the city swept across the studio, and lit 
 up their faces as by a flash of lightning. He seemed to be 
 dazed. His weary eyes looked as if their light were almost 
 extinct. 
 
 " You are safe ? You are well ? " she asked. 
 
 " Oh, God, what sights ! " he said. " You have heard what 
 has happened ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes! But you are not injured?" 
 
 " The people were peaceful and meant no evil, but the 
 soldiers were ordered to fire, and our little boy is dead." 
 
 " Don't let us speak of it. ... The police were told to arrest 
 you, but you have escaped thus far, and now . . ." 
 
 " Bruno is taken and hundreds of others are in prison."
 
 326 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 "But you are safe? You are well? You are uninjured?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered, between his teeth, and then he cov- 
 ered his face with his hands. " God knows I did my best 
 to prevent this bloodshed I would have laid down my life 
 to prevent it." 
 
 " God does know it." 
 
 " Take this." 
 
 He drew something from his breast-pocket and put it into 
 her hands. 
 
 It was the revolver. 
 
 " I cannot trust myself any longer." 
 
 " You haven't used it ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 " I should have done so if I could have met the man face 
 to face." 
 
 "The Baron?" 
 
 " I searched for him everywhere, and couldn't find him. 
 God kept him out of my way to save me from sin and shame." 
 
 With a frightened cry she put down the revolver and 
 clasped her hands about his neck. He began to recover his 
 dazed senses and to smooth the hair on her damp forehead. 
 
 " My poor Koma ! You didn't think we were to part like 
 this?" 
 
 Her arms slackened and she dropped her head on to his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Last night you told me to fly, and I wouldn't do so. There 
 was no man in Rome I was afraid of then. But to-night there 
 is some one I am afraid of. I am afraid of myself." 
 
 " You intend to go ? " she said, lifting her face. 
 
 " Yes ! I shall feel like a captain who deserts his sinking 
 ship. Would to God I could have gone down with her! . . . Yet 
 no ! " he cried impetuously. " She is not lost yet. Everything 
 is in God's hands. Perhaps there is work for me abroad now 
 that the paths are closed to me at home. Let us wait and 
 see." 
 
 They were both silent for a while. 
 
 " Then it's all over," she said, gulping down a sob. 
 
 " God forbid ! This black night in Rome is only the begin- 
 ning of the end. It will be the dawn of the resurrection every- 
 where." 
 
 " But it is all over between you and me," she faltered. 
 
 " Indeed, no ! No, no ! I cannot take you with me. That is
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 327 
 
 impossible. I couldn't see you suffer hunger and thirst and the 
 privations of exile, but . . ." 
 
 " Our marriage cannot be celebrated now, and that being 
 so . . ." 
 
 " The banns are good for half a year, Roma, and before 
 that time I shall be back. Have no fear! The immortality 
 stirring beneath the ruins of this old city will give us victory 
 all over Italy. I will return and we shall be very happy. How 
 happy we shall be ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes," she brought out at intervals. 
 
 " Be brave, my girl, be brave ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes." 
 
 The revolving search-light flashed through the room at that 
 moment and she dropped her face again. 
 
 " Dearest," she said faintly, " if I should not be here when 
 you come back . . ." 
 
 He started and seized her arm. 
 
 " Roma, you cannot intend to submit to the will of that 
 man?" 
 
 She shook her head as it rested on his shoulder. 
 
 " The man is a tyrant. He may put pressure upon you." 
 
 " It is not that." 
 
 " He may even make you suffer for my sake." 
 
 " Nor that either." 
 
 " By-and-bye he may require everybody to take an oath of 
 allegiance to the King." 
 
 " I have taken mine already to my King." 
 
 " Roma, if you wish me to stay I will do so in spite of 
 everything." 
 
 " I wish you to go, dearest." 
 
 " Then what is it you fear ? " 
 
 "Nothing only . . ." 
 
 " But you are sad. Why is it ? " 
 
 " A foreboding. I feel as if we were parting for ever." 
 
 He passed his hands through her hair. " It may be so. 
 Only God can tell." 
 
 " It was too sweet dreaming. I was too happy for a little 
 while." 
 
 " If it must be, it must be. But let us be brave, dear ! We, 
 who take up a life like this, must learn renunciation . . . Cry- 
 ing, Roma ? " 
 
 " No ! Oh, no ! But renunciation ! That's it renuncia- 
 tion." She could feel the beating of her heart against his
 
 328 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 breast. " Love comes to everyone, but to some it comes too 
 late, and then it comes in vain." She was striving to keep 
 down her sobs. " They have only to conquer it and renounce it, 
 and to pray God to unite them to their loved ones in another 
 life." She was choking, but she struggled on. " Sometimes I 
 think it must be my lot to be like that. Other women may 
 dream of love and home and children . . ." 
 
 " Don't unman me, Roma." 
 
 " Dearest, promise me that whatever happens you will think 
 the best of me." 
 
 " Roma ! " 
 
 " Promise me that whoever says anything to the contrary 
 you will always believe I loved you." 
 
 " Why should we talk of what can never happen? " 
 
 " If we are parting for ever ... if we are saying a long 
 farewell to all earthly affections, promise me . . ." 
 
 " For God's sake, Roma ! " 
 
 " Promise me ! " she cried in a voice of pitiful entreaty. 
 
 " I promise ! " he said. " And you ? " 
 
 " I promise too I promise that as long as I live, and wher- 
 ever I am and whatever becomes of me, I will . . . yes, because 
 1 cannot help it ... I will love you to the last." 
 
 Saying this in passionate tones, she drew down his head, 
 and he met her kiss with his lips. 
 
 " Ft is our marriage, Rossi. Others are married in church, 
 and by the hand, and with a wedding. We are married in our 
 spirits and our souls." 
 
 A long time passed during which they did not speak. The 
 search-light flashed in on them again and again with its super- 
 natural eye, and as often as it did so Rossi looked at her with 
 strange looks of pity and of love. 
 
 Meantime, she cut a lock from her hair, tied it with a piece 
 of ribbon, and put it in his pocket with his watch. Then sho 
 dried her eyes with her handkerchief, and pushed it in 
 his breast. 
 
 The night went on, and nothing was to be heard but the 
 chiming of clocks outside. At length through the silence there 
 came a muffled rumble from the streets. 
 
 " You must go now," she said, and when the next flash 
 came round she looked up at him with a steadfast gaze, 
 as if trying to gather into her eyes the last memories of his 
 face. 
 
 " Adieu ! "
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 329 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " It is still dark, but the streets are patrolled and every 
 gate is closed, and how are you to escape . . ." 
 
 " If the soldiers had wished to take me they could have done 
 so a hundred times." 
 
 " But the city is stirring. Be careful for my sake. Adieu ! " 
 
 " Roma," said Rossi, " if I do not take you with me it is 
 partly because I want your help in Rome." 
 
 Roma was seized with sudden palpitation. 
 
 " Think of 'the poor people I leave behind me in poverty 
 and in prison. Think of Elena when she awakes in the morn- 
 ing, alone with her terrible grief. Some one should be here to 
 represent me for a time at all events to take the messages 
 I must send, the instructions I will have to give. It will be a 
 dangerous task, Roma, a task that can only be undertaken by 
 some one who loves me, some one who . . ." 
 
 " That is enough. Tell me what I can do," she said, and 
 she whispered to herself, " I can wait." 
 
 They arranged a channel of correspondence, and then Roma 
 began her adieux afresh. 
 
 " Roma," said Rossi again, " since I must go away before 
 our civil marriage can be celebrated, is it not best that our 
 spiritual one should have the authority and blessing of the 
 Church?" 
 
 Roma looked at him and trembled. 
 
 " When I am gone God knows what may happen. The 
 Baron may be a free man any day, and he may put pressure on 
 you to marry him. In that case it will be strength and courage 
 to you to know that in God's eyes you are married already. It 
 will be happiness and comfort to me, too, when I am far away 
 from you, and alone." 
 
 " But it is impossible." 
 
 " Not so. A declaration before a parish priest is all that 
 is necessary. ' Father, this is my wife.' ' This is my husband.' 
 That is enough. It will have no value in the eye of the law, 
 but it will be a religious marriage for all that." 
 
 " There is no time. You cannot wait . . ." 
 
 " Hush ! " The clocks were striking three. " At three 
 o'clock there is mass at St. Andrea delle Fratte. That is your 
 parish church, Roma. The priest and his acolyte are the only 
 witnesses we require." 
 
 " If you think . . . that is to say ... if it will make you 
 happy, and be a strength to me also. . . ." 
 22
 
 330 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 "Kun for your cloak and hat, dearest in ten minutes it 
 will be done." 
 
 " But think again." She was breathing audibly. " Who 
 knows what may happen before your return? Will you never 
 repent ? " 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 " But . . . but there is something . . . something I ought 
 to tell you something painful. It is about the past." 
 
 " The past is passed. Let us think of the future." 
 
 " You do not wish to hear it ? " 
 
 " If it is painful to you no ! " 
 
 " Will nothing and nobody divide us ? " 
 
 " Nothing and nobody in the world." 
 
 She gulped down another choking sob and threw both arms 
 about his neck. 
 
 " Take me then. I am your wife before God and man." 
 
 XIII 
 
 IT was still dark overhead and the streets with their thin 
 covering of snow were as silent as a catacomb. Through the 
 door of the church, when the leather covering was lifted, there 
 came the yellow light of the candles burning on the altar. The 
 priest in his gold vestments stood with his face to the glisten- 
 ing shrine and his acolyte knelt beside him. There was only 
 one worshipper, an old woman who was kneeling before a chair 
 in the gloom by a side chapel. The tinkle of the acolyte's bell, 
 and the faint murmur of the priest's voice, were the only sounds 
 that broke the stillness. 
 
 Rossi and Roma stepped up on tiptoe, and as the Father 
 finished his mass and turned to go they made their declaration. 
 The old man was startled and disturbed, but the priest commits 
 no crime who listens to the voice of conscience, and he took 
 their names and gave them his blessing. They parted at the 
 church door. 
 
 " You will write when you cross the frontier ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you will be faithful to all your promises ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Adieu, then, until we meet again ! " 
 
 " If I am long away from you, Roma . . ."
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 331 
 
 " You cannot be long away. You will be with me every day 
 and always." 
 
 She was assuming a lively tone to keep up his courage, but 
 there was a dry glitter in her eyes and a tremor in her voice. 
 
 " When I go to bed at night I shall be thinking of you, when 
 I am asleep I shall be dreaming of you, and when I awake in the 
 morning I shall be thinking of you again." 
 
 He took her full, round, lovely form in his arms for a last 
 embrace. " If the result of this night's work is that I am ar- 
 rested, and brought back and imprisoned . . ." 
 
 " I can wait for you," she said. 
 
 " If I am banished for life . . ." 
 
 " I can follow you." 
 
 " If the worst conies to the worst, and one way or another 
 death itself should be the fate that falls to me . . ." 
 
 " I can follow you there, too." 
 
 " If we meet again we can laugh at all this, Roma." 
 
 " Yes, we can laugh at all this," she faltered. 
 
 " If not ... Adieu ! " 
 
 "Adieu!" 
 
 She disengaged her clinging arms, with one last caress; 
 there was an instant of unconsciousness, and when she recov- 
 ered herself, he was gone. 
 
 At the next moment there came through the darkness the 
 measured tramp, tramp, tramp of the patrol. With a quivering 
 heart, Roma stood and listened. There was a slight movement 
 among the soldiers, a scarcely perceptible pause, and then the 
 tramp, tramp, tramp as before. Rossi looked back as he turned 
 the corner, and saw Roma, in her light cloak, gliding across 
 the silent street like a ghost. 
 
 Three or four hundred yards inside the gate of St. John 
 Lateran, in one of the half -finished tenement houses on the out- 
 skirts of Rome, there is a cellar used as a resting-place and 
 eating-house by the carriers from the country who bring wine 
 into the city. This cellar was the only place that seemed to be 
 awake when Rossi walked towards the city walls. The door was 
 open, and the light of a wood fire burning on an open hearth, 
 like the hearth of a smithy, came out to him as he passed along 
 the street. He stepped up and looked down. Some eight or 
 nine men, in the rude dress of wine-carriers, with loose shirts 
 and white waistbands, the ends of their trousers tucked into 
 their top-boots, and their red-lined overcoats scattered about 
 them, lay dozing or talking on the floor. They had been kept
 
 332 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 in Rome overnight by the closing of the gate, and were waiting 
 for it to be opened in the morning. 
 
 Without a moment's hesitation David Rossi stepped down 
 and spoke to the men. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " you know me. I am Rossi. The 
 police have orders to arrest me. Will you help me to get out 
 of Rome?" 
 
 " What's that ? " shouted a drowsy voice from the smoky 
 shadows of the cellar. 
 
 " It's the Honourable Rossi," said a lad who had shambled 
 up. ' ( The oysters are after him, and will we help him to 
 escape." 
 
 " Will we ? It's not will we, it's can we, Honourable," said 
 a thick-set man, who lifted his head from an upturned horse- 
 saddle. 
 
 In a moment the men were all on their feet, asking questions 
 and discussing chances. The gate was to be opened at six, and 
 the first train north was to go out at half-past nine. But 
 the difficulty was that everybody in Rome knew Rossi. Even 
 if he got through the gate, he could not get on to the train 
 within ten miles of the city without the certainty of recog- 
 nition. 
 
 " I have it ! " said the thick-set man with the drowsy voice. 
 " There's young Carlo. He got a scratch in the leg last night 
 from one of the wet nurses of the Government, and he'll have 
 to lie upstairs for a week at least. Why can't he lend his 
 clothes to the Honourable? And why can't the Honourable 
 drive his cart back to Monte Rotondo, and then go where he 
 likes when he gets there ? " 
 
 " That will do," said Rossi, and so it was settled. 
 
 A few minutes before six o'clock, a line of wine-carts drove 
 up to the gate of St. John Lateran. 
 
 In the little hooded seats, each like the arc of a moon, sat the 
 drivers in their red-lined overcoats, their white waistband, blue 
 trousers and top-boots, with their empty barrels built up be- 
 hind them, and their little watch-dogs barking by their sides. 
 
 The lad drove first, the thick-set man with the drowsy voice 
 came next, and then came David Rossi. 
 
 The sky was still dark and leaden-hued, but a smell of dawn 
 was in the air, and the street vendors were beginning to cry. 
 
 Half a dozen officers in uniform stood by the open gate, 
 some with steel rods in their hands, others with rifles and 
 bayonets. One of the officers held an open note-book and by a
 
 THE PRIME MINISTER 333 
 
 light from the window of the custom-house lodge he took the 
 names of all who left the city. 
 
 This was an unusual precaution and the carriers were not 
 prepared for it. 
 
 When Rossi was asked for his name he hesitated. 
 
 " Your name don't you hear me ? " shouted the officer. 
 
 The stiff-set man with the drowsy voice came to Rossi's 
 rescue. " Carlo ! " he called back, " Carlo Conti, the gentleman 
 is asking you for your name." And then turning to the of- 
 ficer, he touched his ear and said : " Deaf, sir," and lurched 
 his finger over his shoulder. 
 
 " Go on," said the officer, and Rossi passed through. 
 
 The day dawned, and as Rossi drove in the line of tinkling 
 wine-carts, he looked back on Rome. The city was entirely cov- 
 ered with snow. In the morning mist which enveloped the hills 
 around, it lay like a dead thing under a shroud. Domes, spires, 
 cupolas, campanili, the broad curves of the Coliseum, the trees 
 of the Pincio, and the undulating line of the Palatine, all 
 were white with a deathly whiteness. The bell of the Passion- 
 ist Retreat began to ring, and then in single strokes, like a 
 knell rung in a sepulchre, came the reverberating bell of 
 St. Peter's. 
 
 It was a bitter hour for Rossi. He gazed back on Rome 
 with dim eyes and an aching heart. He was leaving it in sad- 
 ness, in sorrow, almost in shame. The people who had believed 
 in him and followed him, the friends who had loved him and 
 stood by him where were they? Dead, in disgrace, or in 
 prison. And he was flying away ! He felt guilty and ashamed, 
 and had half an impulse to turn back. But something outside 
 himself restrained him, and he continued to go on. " Neverthe- 
 less, not my will but Thine be done ! " 
 
 The sun rose and the lad who was driving the first of the 
 wine-carts began to sing. Rossi looked back at the city a sec- 
 ond time, and now the domes and cupolas were glistening with 
 gleams of sunlight on the snow. The thought of last night was 
 bitterest of all now, when the sweet morning had fully dawned. 
 But hope came with the memory of the past. 
 
 Rome, the city of the Emperors, the city of the Popes, the 
 city of the Kings, would be the city of the peoples after all! 
 Rome, from which the word of division had first gone forth, 
 when man divided humanity into two races, the race of the 
 rich and the race of the poor, the race of the bond and the race 
 of the free, the race of the friend and the race of the foe, was
 
 334 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the same Rome from which the word of Unity would yet go out 
 to tell the world that it was one. 
 
 It was God's decree, and no one could resist it. It was the 
 rising tide on the seashore, and none could keep it back. Popes, 
 who ruled in the name of infallibility and must therefore be 
 despots let who will deceive themselves Kings who reigned 
 in the name of liberty and suffered their servants to withdraw 
 the rights which they had no title from God to grant, all, all 
 would disappear! 
 
 When Rossi looked back on Rome again the sun had melted 
 the thin snow and the city lay basking under a cloudless sky. 
 By this time the wine-carts had reached the top of a hill on 
 the Campagna, the lad who was driving the first of them was 
 making the aqueducts ring with his singing, and the other 
 drivers were asleep. 
 
 Rossi took his last look back on the city of his soul. She 
 held everything that was dear to him. Would he ever see her 
 again ? Roma ! Roma ! His two Romas ! 
 
 Tears filled his eyes and blotted out everything. The wine- 
 carts dipped over the hill, and the horses tinkled along. 
 
 When the train which left Rome for Florence and Milan at 
 9.30 in the morning arrived at the country station of Monte 
 Rotondo, eighteen miles out, a man in top-boots, blue trousers, 
 a white waistband and a red-lined overcoat got into the peo- 
 ple's compartment. The train was crowded with foreigners 
 who were flying from the risks of insurrection, and even the 
 third-class carriages were filled with well-dressed strangers. 
 They were talking bitterly of their experiences the night be- 
 fore. Most of them had been compelled to barricade their bed- 
 room doors at the hotels, and some had even passed the night 
 at the railway station. 
 
 " It all comes of letting men like this Rossi go at large," 
 said a young Englishman with the voice of a pea-hen. " For 
 my part I would put all these anarchists on an uninhabited 
 island and leave them to fight it out among themselves." 
 
 " Say, Rossi isn't an anarchist," said a man with an Ameri- 
 can intonation. 
 
 "What is he?" 
 
 " A dreamer of dreams." 
 
 " Bad dreams then," said the voice of the pea-hen, and 
 there was general laughter.
 
 ROMA awoke next morning with a feeling of joy. The dan- 
 gers of last night were over and David Rossi had escaped. 
 Where would he be by this time ? She looked at her little round 
 watch and reckoned the hours that had passed against the speed 
 of the train. 
 
 But suddenly the unspeakable elation of victory gave place 
 to a poignant memory. She remembered what the Baron had 
 said on leaving her : " I will continue to think of you as my 
 wife according to the law of Nature, and of the man who has 
 come between us as your lover." This brought back a sense of 
 infamy and made her feverish and afraid. 
 
 So far as she was herself concerned things were in a more 
 dangerous state than before. She had married David Rossi and 
 yet the secret of her soul he did not know. It was true he would 
 not listen when she tried to tell him. Nevertheless she must 
 confess everything. It was the only way. But when ? And 
 how? 
 
 Natalina came with the tea and the morning newspaper. 
 The maid's tongue went faster than her hands as she rattled 
 on about the terrors of the night and the news of the morning. 
 Meantime Roma glanced eagerly over the columns of the paper 
 for its references to Rossi. He was gone. The authorities were 
 unable to say what had become of him. 
 
 With boundless relief Roma turned to the other items of 
 intelligence. The journal was the organ of the Government 
 and it contained an extract from the Official Gazette, and the 
 text of a proclamation by the Prefect. The first announced 
 that the riot was at an end and Rome was quiet; the second 
 notified the public that by royal decree the city was declared 
 to be in a state of siege, and that the King had nominated a 
 Royal Commissioner with full powers. 
 
 335
 
 336 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Besides this news there was a general account of the insur- 
 rection. The ringleaders had been anarchists, socialists and 
 professed atheists, determined on the destruction of both 
 throne and altar by any means, however horrible. Their vic- 
 tims had been drawn, without seeing where they were going, 
 into a vortex of disorder, and the soldiers had defended society 
 and the law. Happily the casualties were few. The only fatal 
 incident had been the death of a child, seven years of age, the 
 son of a workman. The people of Rome had to congratulate 
 themselves on the promptness of a government which had rein- 
 stated authority with so small a loss of blood. 
 
 Roma remembered what Rossi had said about Elena 
 " think of Elena when she awakes in the morning, alone with 
 her terrible grief " and putting on a plain dark cloth dress she 
 set off for the Piazza Navona. 
 
 It was eleven o'clock and the sun was shining on the melt- 
 ing snow. Rome was like a dead city. The breath of revolu- 
 tion had passed over it. Broken tiles lay on the pavement of 
 the slushy streets, and here and there were the remains of 
 abandoned barricades. The shops, which are the eyes of a city, 
 were nearly all closed and asleep. Houses which could claim 
 foreign protection had hung out their national flags, and sol- 
 diers and police with a look of fatigue were marching through 
 every thoroughfare. 
 
 At a flower-shop, which was opened to her knock, Roma 
 bought a wreath of white chrysanthemums. A group of men 
 and women stood at the door in the Piazza ISTavona and she re- 
 ceived their kisses on her hands. The Garibaldian followed her 
 up the stairs, and his old wife, who stood at the top, called her 
 " Little Sister," and then burst into tears. 
 
 Roma was much affected on entering the house. Elena saw 
 her coming and by right of the dignity which the company 
 of death gives to the humblest of the afflicted, she rose up and 
 kissed her on the cheek. Then the stricken mother took Roma's 
 hand and led her into the dining room. 
 
 The boy lay on the couch, just where Roma had first seen 
 him, when David Rossi was lifting him up asleep. He might 
 have been asleep now, so peaceful was his expression under the 
 mysterious seal of death. The blinds were drawn, and the 
 sun came through them with a yellow light. Four candles were 
 burning on chairs at the head and two at the feet. The little 
 body was still dressed in the gay clothes of the festival, and the 
 cocked hat and the gilt-headed mace lay beside it. But the
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 337 
 
 little chubby hands were clasped over a tiny crucifix, and the 
 hair of the little shock head was brushed smooth and flat. 
 
 " There he is," said Elena, in a cracked voice, and she went 
 down on her knees between the candles. 
 
 Roma, who could not speak, put the wreath of chrysanthe- 
 mums on the brave little breast, and knelt by the mother's side. 
 At that they all broke down together. The old woman was 
 the first to speak. 
 
 " Madonna Santa ! It's hard, but let the Blessed Virgin 
 do as she likes. I washed him myself. I wouldn't let anybody 
 else touch him. His sweet little body was just as white as a fish, 
 bless him. And knowing how proud he was of the clothes you 
 gave him . . ." 
 
 " Don't, mamma, don't, don't ! " cried Elena. 
 
 And then Elena in her turn began to talk of the boy, his 
 little ways, his disposition, his playthings, his prattle, his am- 
 bitions, and what he said he would do for mamma when he grew 
 up to be a man and went to live at Donna Roma's. 
 
 " And now . . . there he is ! " she said in her cracked voice 
 and again her tears began to flow. 
 
 " He's smiling, isn't he ? Isn't he smiling ? Perhaps he 
 didn't feel anything. . . . Yes? Do you think perhaps he 
 didn't even know ? Oh, how I wish I had his portrait ! I'll want 
 his portrait for his grave. If I had only thought of it in time ! 
 It was his birthday and he was up with the sun in the morning 
 to put on his new suit. And now . . . there he is ! " 
 
 The old Garibaldian wiped his rheumy eyes and began to 
 talk of David Rossi. He was as fond of Joseph as if the boy 
 had been his own son. But what had become of the Honour- 
 able ? Before daybreak the police had made a domiciliary per- 
 quisition in the apartment, carried off his papers and sealed 
 up his rooms. 
 
 " Have no fear for him," said Roma, and then she asked 
 about Bruno. All they knew was that Bruno had been arrested 
 and locked up in the prison called Regina Coeli. 
 
 " Poor Bruno ! He'll be dying to know what is happening 
 here," said Elena. 
 
 " I'll see him," said Roma. 
 
 It was well she had come early. In the stupefaction of their 
 sorrow the three poor souls were like helpless children and had 
 done nothing. Roma sent the Garibaldian to the sanitary office 
 for the doctor, who was to verify the death, to the office of 
 health to register it, and to the Municipal office to arrange for
 
 338 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the funeral. It was to be a funeral of the third category, with 
 a funeral car of two horses and a coach with liveried coach- 
 men. The grave was to be one of the little vaults, the Fornelli, 
 set apart for children. The priest was to be instructed to buy 
 many candles and order several Frati. The expense would be 
 great, but Roma undertook to bear it, and when she left the 
 house the old people kissed her hands again and loaded her with 
 blessings. 
 
 II 
 
 THE Roman prison with the extraordinary name, " The 
 Queen of Heaven," is a vast yellow building on the Trastevere 
 side of the river. Behind it rises the Janiculum, in front of it 
 runs the Tiber, and on both sides of it are narrow lanes cut off 
 by high walls. There is a large entrance hall which is sepa- 
 rated from the penitentiary by a flight of steps and an iron 
 gate. Four Carabineers are stationed at the outer door, the 
 lanes are patrolled by infantry and the hill is also guarded. 
 
 On the morning after the insurrection a great many per- 
 sons had gathered at the entrance of this prison. Old men, who 
 were lame or sick or nearly blind, stood by a dead wall which 
 divides the street from the Tiber, and looked on with dazed and 
 vacant eyes. Younger men nearer the entrance read the proc- 
 lamations posted up on the pilasters. One of these was the 
 proclamation of the Prefect announcing the state of siege, 
 another was the proclamation of the Royal Commissioner call- 
 ing on citizens to consign all the arms in their possession to 
 the Chief of Police under pain of imprisonment. 
 
 In the entrance hall there was a crowd of women, each car- 
 rying a basket or a bundle in a handkerchief. They were young 
 and old, dressed variously as if from different provinces, but 
 nearly all poor, untidy and unkempt. Through them, among 
 them and above them moved the white and red plumes of the 
 soldiers on guard, and at frequent intervals the clamour of 
 their mournful tongues was silenced by the loud command of 
 a Carabineer. 
 
 " It is a great punishment God has sent us," said the women 
 in the entrance hall, and the men outside ground their teeth 
 and muttered, " There'll be a shower of crosses after this." 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 " Only bread and water for breakfast, a plate of soup for 
 dinner and nothing after that until morning," said the women.
 
 THE ROMAN OF HOME 339 
 
 And the men muttered under their breath, " He's the hard bone 
 of Italy, curse him ! But wait, only wait ! " 
 
 "Silence!" 
 
 "I've brought a basket full of the grace of God, but the 
 maccaroni is getting cold and they don't open the door." 
 
 " Silence ! " 
 
 The iron gate was opened, and an officer, two soldiers and 
 a warder came out to take the food which the women had 
 brought for their relatives imprisoned within. Then there 
 was a terrific tumult. " Mr. Officer, please ! " " Please, Mr. 
 Officer ! " " Be kind to Giuseppe, and the Saints bless you ! " 
 " My turn next !" "No, mine!" "Don't push!" "You're 
 pushing yourself ! " " You're knocking the basket out of my 
 hands!" "Getaway!" "You cat! You . . ." 
 
 " Silence ! Silence ! Silence ! " cried the officer, shouting 
 the women down, and meantime the men in the street outside 
 curled their lips and tried to laugh. 
 
 Into this wild scene, full of the acrid exhalations of human 
 breath, and the nauseating odour of unclean bodies, moved, 
 nevertheless, by the finger of God himself, the cab which 
 brought Roma to see Bruno discharged her at the prison door. 
 
 The officer on the steps saw her over the heads of the women 
 with their outstretched arms, and judging from her appear- 
 ance that she came on other business he called to a Carabineer 
 to attend to her. 
 
 " I wish to see the Director," said Roma. 
 
 " Certainly, Excellency," said the Carabineer, and with 
 a salute he led the way by a side door to the offices on the floor 
 above. 
 
 The Governor of Regina Coeli was a middle-aged man with 
 a kindly face, but under the new order he could do nothing. 
 
 " Everything relating to the political prisoners is in the 
 hands of the Royal Commissioner," he said. 
 
 " Where can I see him, Cavaliere ? " 
 
 " He is with the Minister of War to-day, arranging for the 
 Military Tribunals, but perhaps to-morrow at his office in the 
 Castle of St. Angelo . . ." 
 
 " Thanks ! Meantime can I send a message into the 
 prison? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And may I pay for a separate cell for a prisoner, with 
 food and light if necessary ? " 
 
 " Undoubtedly."
 
 340 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Roma undertook the expense of these privileges and then 
 scribbled a note to Bruno : 
 
 " DEAR FRIEND, Don't lose heart ! Your dear ones shall be 
 cared for and comforted. lie whom you love is safe, and your 
 darling is in heaven. Sleep well ! These days will pass. R. V." 
 
 In Italy a funeral follows hard upon a death. By order of 
 the authorities little Joseph was buried the same day. It was 
 near the hour of Ave Maria when Roma had returned to the 
 Piazza Navona. The municipal undertaker had come and the 
 little body lay in a stained deal coffin bearing a small metal 
 shield, inscribed, " Joseph Mazzini Bruno, Aged seven years, 
 Died February 1st." 
 
 While the bells of Rome were ringing, the funeral car and 
 the carriage drove up to the door. The priest came upstairs 
 in his white surplice and black stole. Behind him were his 
 assistants carrying the cross and the aspersorium. Two brown 
 friars with lighted candles had entered in front of them. 
 
 Everyone knelt. The priest sprinkled the coffin with holy 
 water and intoned the Psalm, " Out of the depths have I cried 
 unto Thee. Hear thou my voice, Lord ! " 
 
 Elena was on her knees by the coffin, and Roma stood be- 
 side her, holding tightly her trembling hands. The old people 
 knelt behind the priest, and the doorway and landing were filled 
 with a throng of neighbours. 
 
 The buriers lifted up the little bier, the friars with the 
 lighted candles took their places behind it, and the priest led 
 the way downstairs, intoning the antiphon, " The humbled 
 bones shall _ exult unto the Lord." 
 
 Elena and Roma remained where they were, while the pro- 
 cession passed out of the house. The voices of the priest and of 
 his assistants came up to them in a dying rumble. 
 
 A moment later the staircase was silent, and the house was 
 empty. Then the desolation of Elena's heart overcame her and 
 she burst into sobs. After a while she became calmer and Roma 
 took her upstairs to her own apartment. From there they 
 could look down on the piazza and see the procession as it 
 passed to the church. 
 
 It was a grand funeral, such as had rarely been seen in that 
 quarter. First, the funeral car which was brilliantly embel- 
 lished with the wreath of white chrysanthemums hanging from 
 the cross, then the coach with liveried coachmen, then the friars
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 341 
 
 with lighted candles, and last of all the crowd of neighbours 
 with bare heads and faces lit with awe. Elena was comforted 
 by its grandeur and even dried her eyes and smiled. 
 
 But when the procession was gone her desolation again over- 
 came her, and she sank on her knees before a little painted fig- 
 ure of the Madonna which stood on the night table by the bed. 
 
 " Oh, Holy Virgin," she prayed, " why didst thou extin- 
 guish the life of my little one? Thou art so lovely, thou art 
 so gracious, how couldst thou find it in thy heart to take him 
 from me ? Take me also, oh, Blessed Virgin ! My treasure is 
 gone! My joy is gone! My husband is gone too ! What have 
 I to live for now ? Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with 
 thee. . . . Amen ! " 
 
 Unable to see through the mist that dimmed her eyes, Roma 
 turned softly and stole out of the house. That night she 
 wrote the first part of a letter to David Rossi : 
 
 " David my David ! It is early days to call you by a 
 dearer name, but the sweet word is on the tip of my pen, and 
 I can hardly help myself from scribbling it. You wished me 
 to tell you what is happening in Rome, and here I am begin- 
 ning to write already, though when and how and where this 
 letter is to reach you, I must leave it to Fate and to yourself 
 to determine. Fancy ! Only eighteen hours since we parted ! 
 It seems inconceivable ! I feel as if I had lived a lifetime. 
 
 " Do you know, I did not go to bed when you left me. I 
 had so many things to think about. And, tired as I was, I slept 
 little, and was up early. The morning dawned beautifully. It 
 was perfectly tragic. So bright and sunny after that night of 
 slaughter. No rattle of cars, no tinkle of trams, no calls of 
 the water carriers and of the pedlars in the streets. It was 
 for all the world like that awful quiet of the sea the morning 
 after a tempest, with the sun on its placid surface and not a 
 hint of the wrecks beneath. 
 
 " I remembered what you said about Elena and went down 
 to see her. The poor girl has just parted with her dead child. 
 She did it with a brave heart, God pity her, taking comfort in 
 the Blessed Virgin, as the mother in heaven who knows all our 
 sorrows and asks God to heal them. Ah, what a sweet thing it 
 must be to believe that. Do you believe it ? " 
 
 Here she wanted to say something about her secret. She 
 tried to but she could not do it.
 
 342 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I couldn't see Bruno to-day, but I hope to do so to-mor- 
 row, and meantime I have ordered food to be supplied to him. 
 If I could only do something to some purpose ! But five hun- 
 dred of your friends are in Regina Coeli, and my poor little 
 efforts are a drop of water in a mighty ocean. 
 
 " Rome is a deserted city to-day, and but for the soldiers 
 who are everywhere it would look like a dead one. The steps 
 of the Piazza di Spagna are empty, not a model is to be seen, 
 not a flower is to be bought, and the fountain is bubbling in 
 silence. After sunset a certain shiver passes over the world, 
 and after an insurrection something of the same kind seems 
 to pass over a city. The churches and the hospitals are the only 
 places open, and the doctors and their messengers are the only 
 people moving about. 
 
 " Just one of the newspapers has been published to-day and 
 it is full of proclamations. Everybody is to be indoors by nine 
 o'clock, and the cafes are to be closed at eight. Arms are to 
 be consigned at the Questura, and meetings of more than four 
 persons are strictly forbidden. Rewards of pardon are offered 
 to all rioters who will inform on the ringleaders of the insur- 
 rection, and of money to all citizens who will denounce the con- 
 spirators. The military tribunals are to begin to-morrow and 
 domiciliary visitations are already being made. Your own 
 apartments have been searched and sealed and the police have 
 carried off papers. 
 
 " Such are the doings of this evil day, and yet selfish 
 woman that I am I cannot for my life think it is all evil. 
 Has it not given me you ? And if it has taken you away from 
 me as well, I can wait, I can be patient. Where are you now 
 I wonder ? And are you thinking of me while I am thinking of 
 you ? Oh, how splendid ! Think of it ! Though the train may 
 be carrying you away from me every hour and every minute, 
 before long we shall be together. In the first dream of the 
 first sleep I shall join you, and we shall be cheek to cheek and 
 heart to heart. Good-night, my dear one ! " 
 
 Again she tried to say something about her secret. But no ! 
 " Not to-night," she thought, and after switching off the light 
 and kissing her hand in the darkness to the stars that hung 
 over the north, she laughed at her own foolishness and went 
 to bed.
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 343 
 
 III 
 
 THE work of the Military Tribunals began at eight o'clock 
 the following morning. The sun had risen, the slush of the 
 snow was gone, and the courtyard of the Castle of St. Angelo 
 was bright and busy. Officers in the uniform of various regi- 
 ments, carrying portfolios and papers, were coming and going 
 with quick steps. A line of policemen in hats and cock 
 feathers kept a way clear from the gate to the Castle, and 
 civilians with tickets of admission were permitted to pass. As 
 the Castle clock was striking, the black van of Regina Coeli 
 rattled over the stones of the courtyard with the first batch of 
 prisoners. There were ten of them, nearly all poorly clad, and 
 when they stepped down at the door there was a clank of chains 
 in the morning air. 
 
 The military court sat in a large gloomy chamber with 
 arched roof and sandstone walls. It was divided into two 
 unequal parts, the larger part for judges and counsel, the 
 smaller part for the public. A long horse-shoe table, covered 
 with green cloth, stood under a portrait of the King which 
 was draped with flags and surmounted by a streamer bearing 
 the words, " The law is equal for all." In the centre of the 
 horse-shoe the President sat in a large red arm-chair, with his 
 assistant Judges on either side. At tables in the well of the 
 court the prosecutors and defenders were sitting with the official 
 instructors, the secretaries and their deputies. Everybody was 
 in military uniform, whether of infantry, cavalry, artillery or 
 engineers, and nearly all wore orders. Beyond a wooden bar- 
 rier the public were huddled together in an oblong space with- 
 out seats. 
 
 Meantime, the Royal Commissioner sat in his private office 
 upstairs with two of the Ministers of State. One of these was 
 the Baron Bonelli and the other was the Minister of War. The 
 Baron looked fresh and composed, for the tumults of the past 
 days had ruffled neither his temper nor his toilet. General 
 Morra looked troubled, and his blunt and rugged face seemed 
 more than ever like a thing carved out by an adze. The Royal 
 Commissioner, who wore the uniform of a general, was a 
 small man with a doubtful expression. His left eye had a 
 fixed pupil, which gave the effect of a squint. 
 
 " General," said the Baron, seating himself by a table, " the 
 Government has complete confidence in your wisdom and di- 
 plomacy, or it would not have recommended the King to place
 
 344 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 you in this position, but it may satisfy my colleague " he 
 made a gentle motion of his hand towards the Minister of War, 
 who was walking uneasily to and fro " and perhaps relieve 
 you of a certain burden of responsibility, if I ask you to say at 
 the outset what you have done, what you are doing, and what 
 the programme is which you propose to follow." 
 
 " With pleasure, Excellency," said the Royal Commissioner, 
 " and perhaps the simplest way is to read the Verbale of what 
 we have done down to date." 
 
 " Do," said the Baron, and the Royal Commissioner rose, 
 opened a portfolio and began to read. 
 
 " In the name of His Majesty by the grace of God and the 
 will of the nation, King . . ." 
 
 " Skip that," said the Baron. 
 
 The Royal Commissioner turned a page and began again. 
 
 " It having been proved by the reading of documents and 
 the deposition of witnesses . . ." 
 
 "And that . . ." 
 
 The Royal Commissioner turned another page. 
 
 " Considering that the riot on the night of February 1st 
 was the work of propaganda made in the ways above indicated, 
 Rome was by royal decree declared to be in a state of siege, a 
 Royal Commissioner was appointed, the city was divided into 
 four zones, each under the command of a general, the streets 
 and squares were occupied by military cordons, and the tri- 
 bunal of war was authorised to judge civilians arrested as 
 rioters according to the conditions of military law." 
 
 " Come to the regulations." 
 
 " The Royal Commissioner has ordered that for the present 
 theatres, wine-shops, and cafes shall be closed at 8 p. m., meet- 
 ings of more than four persons shall be forbidden, the circula- 
 tion of revolutionary writings and seditious proclamations 
 shall be treated as treason and . . ." 
 
 The Minister of War stopped in his walk, and the Royal 
 Commissioner paused. 
 
 " Go on," said the Baron. 
 
 " And that any action aimed against the sovereign, de- 
 signed to change the form of Government or to cause danger 
 to the State, shall be considered as high treason and dealt 
 with by summary judgment." 
 
 "Good! What about the journals sequestered?" 
 
 The Royal Commissioner read a list of them. It ended 
 with the Sunrise.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 345 
 
 " What about the societies suppressed ? " 
 
 The Royal Commissioner read the names. The last of them 
 was the " Republic of Man." 
 
 " What about domiciliary perquisitions ? " 
 
 The Royal Commissioner read the addresses of houses and 
 apartments in which incriminating documents had been seized 
 for the discovery of the plot and the circumstances of com- 
 plicity. 
 
 " And now for the rioters arrested." 
 
 " There are nearly five hundred, your Excellency. This is 
 a list of them." 
 
 It ended with " Bruno Rocco, sculptor's assistant, 14 Piazza 
 Navona, accused of violent resistance to the authorities on the 
 night of the first of February, and the wounding of various 
 soldiers." 
 
 " Good ! " said the Baron again. " You are more than mer- 
 ciful, dear General, to the lesser delinquents who had thrown 
 themselves into the hands of the law. But what of the greater 
 criminals who led on the ignorant and deluded crowd? Have 
 you drawn up a warrant against David Rossi ? " 
 
 " It is here, Excellency." 
 
 " Read it." 
 
 The Minister of War resumed his uneasy walk, and the 
 Royal Commissioner began to read. 
 
 " David Rossi, of 14 Piazza ISTavona, to whom are imputed 
 the crimes mentioned in Articles 134 and 252 of the Penal 
 Code, being out of the reach of justice, is accused of having by 
 his intelligence and energy, and the great influence he has 
 acquired among the people, by writings in public journals, by 
 speeches in public places and by the institution of associations, 
 conspired to carry on a subversive propaganda, to circulate 
 revolutionary ideas, to urge the masses to resist authority and 
 to change violently the constitution of the State, and particu- 
 larly of contributing to the riot of the first of February, the 
 said David Rossi is hereby ordered to present himself for trial 
 before the military tribunal sitting in the Castle of St. Angelo 
 in Rome within . . . days of the date hereof, under pain of 
 being tried and condemned in contumacy for the crimes herein 
 detailed." 
 
 The Minister of War put his clenched hand on the table. 
 " You cannot issue a warrant like that," he said. 
 
 " Why not ? " said the Baron. 
 
 " Because Rossi is a Deputy. A Deputy must be taken in 
 23
 
 346 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the act. The statute says clearly that only the flagrant offence 
 can annul the immunity of a member of Parliament. Rossi 
 is gone, and you cannot follow him." 
 
 " My dear colleague," said the Baron, smiling, " you are 
 talking nonsense. What is the crime with which the man is 
 charged ? Conspiracy ! What is conspiracy ? Is it like murder, 
 a crime committed in a moment ? No ! It is an offence which 
 goes on all the time. Therefore conspiracy itself is flagrance, 
 and any man can be arrested who can be proved to conspire." 
 
 " Tell me by what means you can prove that Rossi is con- 
 spiring without the trial to which you have no right to sum- 
 mon him." 
 
 " By the means we employ to prove the crime of every 
 criminal." 
 
 " The secret inquiry ? " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " In that case, Excellency, you must be good enough to 
 proceed without my assistance. I have no sympathy with the 
 aims of David Rossi. As a Minister of State and your col- 
 league, I have been with you in your desire to safeguard the 
 cause of order and the rights of existing institutions. But as 
 a man and a Roman I am against you when you violate the 
 statute and cut at the liberties of the nation. Your Excel- 
 lency, I have the honour to wish you good-morning." 
 
 The Minister of War saluted the Baron as if he had been 
 a private in uniform and walked briskly out of the room. 
 
 The Baron took a flower from his buttonhole and put it 
 to his nose. 
 
 " The man is a fool," he said after a moment. " Still, he 
 is so far right that we can only issue your warrant, if at all, 
 upon the clearest evidence of conspiracy. What evidence have 
 you?" 
 
 " Not too much, your Excellency." 
 
 "No incriminating documents?" 
 
 " None." 
 
 " You have made your domiciliary visitation and found 
 nothing? " 
 
 " Nothing of consequence ? " 
 
 " Who are your witnesses ? " 
 
 " Tommaso and Francesca Mariotti, of 14 Piazza Navona, 
 porter and portress, Elena Rocco and Bruno Rocco, Charles 
 Minghelli, agent of police, and Donna Roma Volonna of 
 18 . . ."
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 347 
 
 " Drop that name out." 
 
 "Your Excellency?" 
 
 " Drop that last name out for the present. What is Min- 
 ghelli doing for you ? " 
 
 " I have sent him into Regina Coeli as a prisoner." 
 
 " As a prisoner ? " 
 
 " To meet other prisoners and gather evidence." 
 
 "And the Director?" 
 
 " He was difficult at first, but I sent for him last night and 
 he is all right now. ' I don't want you to do a bad action, 
 Cavaliere,' I said. ' You are the Director of a great prison, 
 and it is your duty to serve your King and country. We have 
 reason to believe that the riot of the first of February was in- 
 stigated by a revolutionary organisation and that one at least 
 of your prisoners knows all the facts of the plot and the cir- 
 cumstances of the complicity. His name is Bruno Rocco. He 
 has a good heart and he committed the crime with which he 
 is charged under the influence of persons above him. Help us 
 to discover who those persons are, and you will be doing a ser- 
 vice to the Government.' " 
 
 " And what is the result ? " 
 
 " Minghelli has been put into a cell next to Bruno's ; the 
 two men are friends already and have opened up communica- 
 tion with each other, by means of raps on the wall in the usual 
 language of prisoners." 
 
 The fixed pupil of the left eye of the Royal Commissioner 
 squinted badly at that moment and his face broke into a smile. 
 
 " General," said the Baron, rising to go, " I am satisfied you 
 are on the right track, and it will give me pleasure to inform 
 the King that your management of this difficult enterprise 
 promises to justify the confidence I felt when I proposed you 
 for your distinguished position." 
 
 During the short half-hour occupied by this interview the 
 Military Tribunal had proceeded with despatch. Ten prisoners 
 had been condemned to sentences of imprisonment ranging 
 from ten days to ten years, and the black van of Regina Coeli 
 was rattling over the stones again.
 
 348 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 IV 
 
 ROMA awoke that morning with a sense of pain. Almost 
 before she was back into her bodily presence from the joyful 
 shadowland of dream the Baron's incisive accents were hack- 
 ing at her ear : " I have conquered worse obstacles in my time, 
 and perhaps in this instance Nature herself will fight for me 
 to call you back to your true place and your duty." 
 
 She began to realise the price she had paid for victory. 
 Thus far she had beaten the Baron yes ! But David Rossi ? 
 Had she sinned against God and against her husband? 
 
 She must confess. There was no help for it. And there 
 must be no hesitation and no delay. 
 
 Natalina came into the bedroom and threw open the shut- 
 ters. She was bringing a telegram, and Roma almost snatched 
 it out of her hands. It was from Rossi and had been sent off 
 from Chiasso. " Crossed frontier safe and well." 
 
 Roma made a cry of joy and leapt out of bed. All day long 
 that telegram was like wings under her heels and made her walk 
 with an elastic step. 
 
 While taking her coffee she remembered the responsibilities 
 she had undertaken the day before for the boy's funeral and 
 Bruno's maintenance and for the first time in her life she 
 began to consider ways and means. Her ready money was 
 getting low, and it was necessary to do something. 
 
 Then Felice came with a sheaf of papers. They were trades- 
 men's bills and required immediate payment. Some of the men 
 were below and refused to go away without the cash. 
 
 There was no help for it. She opened her purse, discharged 
 her debts, swept her debtors out of the house, and sat down to 
 count what remained. 
 
 Very little remained. But what matter? The five words of 
 that telegram were five bright stars which could light up a 
 darker sky than had fallen on her yet. 
 
 The only thing that hurt her was the implication, which 
 the importunities of the tradesmen conveyed, that she was 
 nobody now that the friendship and favour of the Baron were 
 gone. She remembered her art, and her pride rose in revolt. 
 The world should see that she was somebody after all, somebody 
 for herself, and not merely a creature living in the light of 
 a great man's smiles. 
 
 In this high mood she went down to the studio silent 
 now in the absence of the humorous voice that usually rang in
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 349 
 
 it, and with Bruno's chisels and mallet lying idle with his sack 
 on a block of half-hewn marble. Uncovering her fountain she 
 looked at it again. It was good work; she knew it was good, 
 she could be certain it was good. It should justify her yet, 
 and some day the stupid people who were sheering away from 
 her now would come cringing to her feet afresh. 
 
 That suggested thoughts of the Mayor. She would write, 
 to him and get some money with which to meet the expenses of 
 yesterday as well as the obligations which she might perhaps 
 incur to-day or in the future. 
 
 " Dear Senator Palomba," she wrote, " no doubt you have 
 often wondered why your much-valued commission has not 
 been completed before. The fact is that it suffered a slight ac- 
 cident a few days ago, but a week or a fortnight ought to see it 
 finished, and if you wish to make arrangements for its recep- 
 tion you may count on its delivery in that time. Meantime 
 as I am pressed for funds at the moment I shall be glad if 
 you can instruct your treasurer at the Municipality to let 
 me have something on account. The price mentioned, you 
 remember, was 15,000 francs, and as I have not had anything 
 hitherto I trust it may not be unreasonable to ask for half 
 now, leaving the remainder until the fountain is in its 
 place." 
 
 Having despatched this challenge by Felice, not only to the 
 Mayor, but also to herself, her pride, her poverty, and to the 
 great world generally, she put on her cloak and hat and drove 
 down to the Castle of St. Angelo. 
 
 When she returned an hour afterwards there was a dry 
 glitter in her eyes, which increased to a look of fever when she 
 opened the drawing-room door and saw who was waiting there. 
 It was the Mayor himself. The little oily man in patent- 
 leather boots, holding upright his glossy silk hat, was clearly 
 nervous and confused. Tie complimented her on her appear- 
 ance, looked out of the window, extolled the view, and finally, 
 with his back to his hostess, began on his business. 
 
 " It is about your letter, you know," he said, awkwardly. 
 " There seems to be a little misunderstanding on your part. 
 About the fountain, I mean." 
 
 " ^one whatever, Senator. You ordered it. I have exe- 
 cuted it. Surely the matter is quite simple." 
 
 " Impossible, my dear. I may have encouraged you to an 
 experimental trial. We all do that. Rome is eager to discover 
 genius. But a simple member of a corporate body cannot
 
 350 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 undertake . . . that is to say, on his own responsibility, you 
 know . . ." 
 
 Roma's breath began to come quickly. " Do you mean that 
 you didn't commission my fountain ? " 
 
 " How could I, my child? Such matters must go through a 
 regular form. The proper committee must sanction and re- 
 solve . . ." 
 
 " But everybody has known of this, and it has been gen- 
 erally understood from the first." 
 
 " Ah, understood ! Possibly ! Rumour and report perhaps." 
 
 " But I could bring witnesses high witnesses the very 
 highest if needs be . . ." 
 
 The little man smiled benevolently. 
 
 " Surely there is no witness of any standing in the State 
 who would go into a witness box and say that without a con- 
 tract, and with only a few encouraging words . . ." 
 
 The dry glitter in Roma's eyes shot into a look of anger. 
 " Do you call your letters to me a few encouraging words 
 only ? " she said. 
 
 " My letters ? " The glossy hat was getting ruffled. 
 
 " Your letters alluding to this matter, and enumerating the 
 favours you wished me to ask of the Prime Minister." 
 
 " My dear," said the Mayor after a moment, " I'm sorry if 
 I have led you to build up hopes, and though I have no au- 
 thority ... if it will end matters amicably ... I think I 
 can promise ... I might perhaps promise a little money for 
 your loss of time." 
 
 " Do you suppose I want charity ? " 
 
 "Charity, my dear?" 
 
 " What else would it be ? If I have no right to everything 
 I will have nothing. I will take none of your money. You 
 can leave me." 
 
 The little man shuffled his feet and bowed himself out of the 
 room with many apologies and praises which Roma did not 
 hear. For all her brave words her heart was breaking and she 
 was holding her breath to repress a sob. The great bulwark 
 she had built up for herself lay wrecked at her feet. She had 
 deceived herself into believing that she could be somebody for 
 herself. Going down to the studio she covered up the fountain. 
 It had lost every quality which she had seen in it before. Art 
 was gone from her. She was nobody. It was very, very 
 cruel. 
 
 But that glorious telegram rustled in her breast like a cap-
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 351 
 
 tive song-bird, and before going to bed she wrote to David 
 Rossi again : 
 
 " Your message arrived before I was up this morning, and 
 not being entirely back from the world of dreams I fancied it 
 was an angel's whisper. This is silly, but I wouldn't change 
 it for the greatest wisdom if in order to be the most wise and 
 wonderful among women I had to love you less. 
 
 " Attention ! Business first, and other things afterwards. 
 Most of the newspapers have been published to-day, and some 
 of them are blowing themselves out of breath in abuse of you, 
 and howling louder than the wolves at the Capitol before rain. 
 The Military Courts began this morning and they have already 
 polished off fifty victims. Rewards for denunciations have now 
 deepened to threats of imprisonment for non-denunciation. 
 General Morra, Minister of War, has sent in his resignation, 
 and there is bracing weather in the neighbourhood of the 
 Palazzo Braschi. An editor has been arrested, many journals 
 and societies have been suppressed, and twenty thousand of the 
 contadini who came to Rome for the meeting in the Coliseum 
 have been despatched to their own communes. Finally, the 
 Royal Commissioner has written to the Pope calling on him to 
 assist in the work of pacifying the people, and it is rumoured 
 that the Holy Office is to be petitioned by certain of the Bishops 
 to denounce the ' Republic of Man ' as a secret society (like the 
 Freemasons) coming within the ban of the Pontifical con- 
 stitutions. 
 
 " So much for general news, and now for more personal 
 intelligence. I went down to the Castle of St. Angelo this 
 morning and was permitted to speak to the Royal Commis- 
 sioner. Recognised him instantly as a regular old-timer at the 
 heels of the Baron, and tackled him on our ancient terms. The 
 wretch he squints and he smoked a cigarette all through the 
 interview couldn't allow me to see Bruno during the private 
 preparation of the case against him, and when I asked- if the 
 instruction Avould take long he said, ' Probably, as it is compli- 
 cated by the case of some one else who is not yet in custody.' 
 Then I asked if I might employ separate counsel for the de- 
 fence, and he shuffled and said it was unnecessary. This de- 
 cided me, and I walked straight to the office of the great law- 
 yer, Napoleon Fuselli, promised him five hundred francs by to- 
 morrow morning, and told him to go ahead without delay. 
 
 " But heigh-ho, nonny ! Coming home I felt like the
 
 352 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 witches in Macbeth. ' By the pricking of my thumbs some- 
 thing wicked this way comes.' It was Senator Tom-tit, the 
 little fat Mayor of Home. His ambition is to be a noble, 
 and to Avear the green ribbon of St. Maurice and Lazarus, as 
 none know better than myself. Wanting money on my foun- 
 tain, I had written to the old wretch, but the moment we met 
 I could see what was coming, so I braved it out, bustled about 
 and made a noise. It was a mistake ! There had been no com- 
 mission at all! But if a little money would repay me for a 
 loss of time . . . 
 
 " It wasn't so much that I cared about the loss of the fees, 
 badly as I needed them. It was mainly that I had allowed 
 the summer flies who buzzed about me for the Baron's sake to 
 flatter me into the notion that I was an artist, when I was 
 really nobody for myself at all. 
 
 " This humour lasted all afternoon, and spoiled my diges- 
 tion for dinner, which was a pity, for there was some delicious 
 wild asparagus. But then I thought of you and your work, 
 and the future when you will come back with all Rome at your 
 feet, and my vexation disappeared and I was content to be 
 nothing and nobody except somebody whom you loved, and who 
 loved you, and that was to be everything and everybody in 
 the world. 
 
 " I don't care a rush about the matter now, but what do 
 you think I've done ? Sold my carriage and horses ! Actually ! 
 The little job-master, with his tight trousers, close cropped 
 head and chamois-leather waistcoat, has just gone off, after 
 cheating me abominably. No matter! What do I want with 
 a grand carriage while you are going about as an exile and 
 an outcast? I want nothing you have not got, and all I have 
 I wish you to have too, including my heart and my soul and 
 everything that is in them . . ." 
 
 She stopped. This was the place to reveal the great secret. 
 But she could not find a way to begin. " To-morrow will do," 
 she thought, and so laid down the pen. 
 
 V 
 
 EARLY next morning Roma received a visit from the lawyer 
 who conducted the business of her landlord. He was a middle- 
 aged man in pepper-and-salt tweeds, and his manner was 
 brusque and aggressive.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 353 
 
 " Sorry to say, Excellency, that I've had a letter frorn 
 Count Mario at Paris saying that he will require this apart- 
 ment for his own use. He regrets to be compelled to disturb 
 you, but having frequently apprised you of his intention to 
 live here himself he presumes . . ." 
 
 " When does he want to come ? " said Roma. 
 
 " At Easter." 
 
 " That will do. My aunt is ill, but if she is fit to be 
 moved . . ." 
 
 " Thanks ! And may I perhaps present . . ." 
 
 A paper in the shape of a bill came from the breast-pocket 
 of the pepper-and-salt tweeds. Roma took it and, without look- 
 ing at it, replied: 
 
 " You will receive your rent in a day or two." 
 
 " Thanks again. I trust I may rely on that. And mean- 
 time . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " As I am personally responsible to the Count for all money 
 due to him, may I ask your Excellency to promise me that 
 nothing shall be removed from this apartment until my ar- 
 rears of rent have been paid ? " 
 
 " I promise that you shall receive what is due from me in 
 two days. Is not that enough ? " 
 
 The pepper-and-salt tweeds bowed meekly before Roma's 
 flashing eyes. 
 
 " Good-morning, sir." 
 
 " Good-morning, Excellency." 
 
 The man was hardly out of the house when a woman was 
 shown in. It was Madame Sella, the fashionable modiste. 
 
 " So unlucky, my dear ! I'm driven to my wit's end for 
 money. The people I deal with in Paris are perfect demons, 
 and are threatening all sorts of pains and penalties if I don't 
 send them a great sum straight away. Of course if I could get 
 my own money in it wouldn't matter. But the dear ladies of 
 society are so slow, and naturally I don't like to go to their 
 gentlemen, although really I've waited so long for their debts 
 that if . . ." 
 
 " Can you wait one day longer for mine ? " 
 
 " Donna Roma ! And we have always been such friends 
 too ! " 
 
 " You'll excuse me this morning, won't you ? " said Roma, 
 rising. 
 
 " Certainly. I'm busy too. So good of you to see me.
 
 354 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Trust I've not been de trap. . And if it hadn't been for those 
 stupid bills of mine . . ." 
 
 Roma sat down and wrote a letter to one of the Strozzini 
 (stranglers), who lend money to ladies on the security of 
 their jewels. 
 
 " I wish to sell my jewelry," she wrote, " and if you have 
 any desire to buy it I shall be glad if you can come to see me 
 for this purpose at four o'clock to-morrow." 
 
 " Roma ! " cried a fretful voice. 
 
 She was sitting in the boudoir, and her aunt was calling to 
 her from the adjoining room. The old lady, who had just fin- 
 ished her toilet, and was redolent of perfume and scented soap, 
 was propped up on pillows between her mirror and her Ma- 
 donna, with her cat purring on the cushion at the foot of 
 her bed. 
 
 " Ah, you do come to me sometimes, don't you ? " she said, 
 with her embroidered handkerchief at her lips. " What is this 
 I hear about the carriages and horses? Sold them! It is in- 
 credible. I will not believe it unless you tell me so yourself." 
 
 " It is quite true, Aunt Betsy. I wanted money for various 
 purposes and among others to pay my debts," said Roma. 
 
 " Goodness ! It's true ! Give me my salts. There they are 
 on the card table beside you. ... So it's true! It's really 
 true ! You've done some extraordinary things already, miss, 
 but this . . . Mercy me ! Selling her own horses ! And she 
 isn't ashamed of it ! ... I suppose you'll sell your clothes 
 next, or perhaps your jewels." 
 
 " That's just what I want to do, Aunt Betsy." 
 
 " Holy Virgin ! What are you saying, girl ? Have you lost 
 all sense of decency? Sell your jewels ! The thing is unheard 
 of in society that has any respect for itself. Goodness ! Your 
 jewels ! Your ancestral jewels ! You must have grown utterly 
 heartless as well . as indifferent to propriety or you wouldn't 
 dream of selling the treasures that have come down to you 
 from your own mother's breast, as one might say." 
 
 " My mother never set eyes on any of them, auntie, and if 
 some of them belonged to my grandmother, she must have been 
 a good woman because she was the mother of my father, and she 
 would rather see me sell them all than continue to live in debt 
 and disgrace." 
 
 " Go on ! Go on with your English talk ! Or perhaps it's 
 American, is it ? You want to kill me, that's what it is ! You 
 will, too, and sooner than you expect, and then you'll be sorry
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 355 
 
 and ashamed. . . . Such blasphemy ! Go away ! Why do you 
 come to worry me ? Isn't it enough . . . Natalina ! Nat-a- 
 linal" 
 
 Late that night Roma resumed her letter to David Rossi : 
 
 " Dearest, you are always the last person I speak to before 
 I go to bed, and if only my words could sail away over Monte 
 Mario in the darkness while I sleep they would reach you on 
 the wings of the morning. When my letter comes to your 
 hands it will be a sort of diary nearly as old as the hills, which 
 don't look half as old as your diarist does these days, because 
 they have never been in love and known what it is to be parted 
 from you so long. 
 
 " You want to know all that is happening, and here goes 
 again. The tyrannies of military rule increase daily, and some 
 of its enormities are past belief. Court sat all day yesterday 
 and polished off eighty-five poor victims. Ten of them got 
 ten years, twenty got five years, and about fifty got periods 
 of one month to twelve. It's wicked, it's barbarous, and I'm 
 now entirely of your opinion that the real use of a standing 
 army, whatever the pretences of patriotism, is to suppress the 
 people who pay for it. 
 
 " Lawyer Napoleon F. was here this afternoon to say that 
 he had seen Bruno, and begun work in his defence. Strangely 
 enough he finds a difficulty in the quarter from which it might 
 least be expected. Bruno himself is holding off in some unac- 
 countable way which gives Napoleon F. an idea that the poor 
 soul is being got at. Apparently you will hardly credit it 
 he is talking doubtfully about you, and asking incredible ques- 
 tions about his wife. Lawyer Napoleon actually inquired if 
 there was ' anything in it,' and the thing struck me as so silly 
 that I laughed out in his face. It was very wrong of me not to 
 be jealous, wasn't it ? Being a woman I suppose I ought to 
 have leapt at the idea, according to all the natural laws of 
 love. I didn't, and my heart is still tranquil. But poor Bruno 
 was more human, and Napoleon has an idea that something is 
 going on inside the prison. He is to go there again to-morrow 
 and let me know. 
 
 " Such doings at home too ! I've been two years in debt to 
 my landlord, and at the end of every quarter I've always prayed, 
 like a modest woman, to be allowed to pass by unnoticed. The 
 celebrity has fallen on me at last, though, and I'm to go at 
 Easter. Madame De Trop, too, has put the screw on, and
 
 356 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 everybody else is following suit. Yesterday, for example, I had 
 the honour of a call from everyone in the world to whom I 
 owed twopence. Remembering how hard it used to be to get a 
 bill out of these people, I find their sudden business ardour 
 humorous. They do not deceive me, nevertheless. I know the 
 die is cast, the fact is known. I have fallen from my high 
 estate of general debtor to everybody and become merely an 
 honest woman. 
 
 " Do I suffer from these slings of fortune ? Not an atom. 
 When I was rich or seemed to be so, I was often the most 
 miserable woman in the world, and now I'm happy, happy, 
 happy ! 
 
 " There is only one thing makes me a little unhappy. Shall 
 I tell you what it is ? Yes, I will tell you because your heart is 
 so true, and like all brave men you are so tender to all women. 
 It is a girl friend of mine a very close and dear friend, and 
 she is in trouble. A little while ago she was married to a good 
 man, and they love each other dearer than life and there ought 
 to be nothing between them. But there is, and it is a very 
 serious thing too, although nobody knows about it but herself 
 and me. How shall I tell you? Dearest, you are to think my 
 head is 011 your breast and you cannot see my face while I tell 
 you my poor friend's secret. Long ago it seems long she 
 was the victim of another man. That is really the only word 
 for it, because she did not consent. But all the same she feels 
 that she has sinned and that nothing on earth can wash away 
 the stain. The worst fact is that her husband knows nothing 
 about it. This fills her with measureless regret and undying 
 remorse. She feels that she ought to have told him, and so 
 her heart is full of tears, and she doesn't know what it is her 
 duty to do. 
 
 " I thought I would ask you to tell me, dearest. You are 
 kind, but you mustn't spare her. I didn't. She wanted to draw 
 a veil over her frailty, but I wouldn't let her. I think she would 
 like to confess to her husband, to pour out her heart to him, 
 and begin again with a clean page, but she is afraid. Of course 
 she hasn't really been faithless, and I could swear on my life 
 she loves her husband only. And then her sorrow is so great, 
 and she is beginning to look worn with lying awake at nights, 
 though some people still think she is beautiful. I dare say you 
 will say serve her right for deceiving a good man. So do I 
 sometimes, but I fell strangely inconsistent about my poor 
 friend, and a woman has a right to be inconsistent, hasn't she ?
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 357 
 
 Tell me what I am to say to her, and please don't spare her be- 
 cause she is a friend of mine." 
 
 She lifted her pen from the paper. " He'll understand," 
 she thought. " He'll remember our other letters and read be- 
 tween the lines. Well, so much the better, and God be good 
 to me ! " 
 
 " Good-night ! Good-night ! Good-night ! I feel like a 
 child as if the years had gone back with me, or rather as if 
 they had only just begun. You have awakened my soul and all 
 the world is different. Nearly everything that seemed right 
 to me before seems wrong to. me now, and vice versa. Life? 
 That wasn't life. It was only existence. I fancy I must have 
 been some elder sister of mine who went through everything. 
 Think of it ! When you were twenty and I was only ten ! I'm 
 glad there isn't as much difference now. I'm catching up to 
 you metaphorically, I mean. If I could only do so really ! 
 But what nonsense I'm talking ! In spite of my poor friend's 
 trouble I can't help talking nonsense to-night." 
 
 VI 
 
 Two days later Natalina, coming into Roma's bedroom, 
 threw open the shutters and said : 
 
 " Letter with a foreign postmark, Excellency. ' Sister An- 
 gelica, care of the Porter.' It was delivered at the Convent, 
 and the porter sent it over here." 
 
 " Give it to me," said Roma, eagerly. " It's quite right. I 
 know whom it is for, and if any more letters come from the 
 same person bring them to me immediately." 
 
 Almost before the maid had left the room Roma had torn 
 the letter open. It was dated from a street in Soho : 
 
 " MY DEAR WIFE, As you see I have reached London, and 
 now I am thinking of you always, wondering what sufferings 
 are being inflicted upon you for my sake and how you meet 
 and bear them. Do not hate me for all I have brought upon 
 you. To think of you there, in the midst of our enemies, is a 
 spur and an inspiration. Wait ! Only wait ! If my absence 
 is cruel to you it is still more hard to me. I will see your 
 lovely eyes again before long, and there will be an end of all
 
 358 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 our sadness. Meantime continue to love me, and that will work 
 miracles. It will make all the slings and slurs of life seem to be 
 a long way off and of no account. Only those who love can 
 know this law of the human heart, but how true it is and 
 how beautiful! 
 
 " I got out of Rome as the driver of a wine-cart that was 
 going back to one of the villages of the Campagna, and for the 
 next hours I felt myself unnaturally wretched. God knows I 
 had not been guilty of that night-long dream of hell, but I felt 
 myself a criminal. How many mothers and wives had I caused 
 to weep ? How many children had I robbed of their fathers ? 
 If I went on what else would happen? If I stopped short 
 what expiation could I make ? And I was flying away from 
 my people, from Rome and from you ! Could it be possible 
 that I was wrong and the world right? That my idea was a 
 dream? That I had been led on by pride and the desire of 
 victory rather than by the hand of God ? 
 
 " But while my soul was furrowed by these cruel doubts 
 I remembered that other men before me, and one of them my 
 Master and friend, had gone through this Gethsemane, so I 
 braced myself and went on. 
 
 " There were various incidents, scarcely worth mentioning 
 now. Soldiers came on the train at the frontier and examined 
 every compartment. One of them recognised me, but he took 
 no notice. The armies of Europe belong to the people, and 
 when the time comes arid the word is spoken the world will see 
 what they will do. After passing the frontier, and despatching 
 a telegram to you, there was no further excitement. Only the 
 monotonous noises of the train, its dull hum and tran-tran as 
 it travelled through the night, with the flashing of passing 
 trains, the sudden silence of the stoppings, and the breathing 
 of sleeping people. 
 
 " We reached London in the early morning when the grey 
 old city was beginning to stir after its sleepless rest. I had 
 telegraphed the time of my arrival to the committee of our 
 association, and early as it was some hundreds of our people 
 were at Charing Cross to meet me. They must have been sur- 
 prised to see a man step out of the train in the costume of 
 driver of a wine-cart on the Campagna, for I had not yet found 
 an opportunity to change my clothes. But perhaps that helped 
 them to understand the position better, and they formed into 
 procession and marched to Trafalgar Square as if they had 
 forgotten they were in a foreign country.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 359 
 
 " To me it was a strange and moving spectacle. The mist 
 like a shroud over the great city, some stars of leaden hue 
 paling out overhead, the day dawning over the vast square, the 
 wide silence with the far-off hum of awakening life, the Eng- 
 lish workmen stopping to look at us as they went by to their 
 work, and our company of dark-bearded men, emigrants and 
 exiles, sending their hearts out in sympathy to their brothers 
 in the South. As I spoke from the base of the Gordon statue 
 and turned towards St. Martin's Church, I could fancy I saw 
 your white-haired father on the steps with his little daugh- 
 ter in his arms. 
 
 " You will not be surprised to hear that the telegraph 
 service in Rome was long enough under control to enable the 
 Government to poison England with official telegrams. Con- 
 sequently the only idea here of the First of February is that 
 it was an anarchist outbreak led by a gang of desperate crimi- 
 nals who desired nothing but the downfall of all order, human 
 and divine. Kothing is known of the violence and oppression 
 instituted by the Government, and the press is loud in its con- 
 demnation of myself as one whose programme consists in the 
 abolition of the upper classes. Strange and pitiful anomaly, 
 that the press of the world, which is the voice of the people, the 
 press which is the parliament of the people, is the first to oppose 
 the movements of the people and all but the last to join them. 
 
 " I will write again in a day or two, telling you what we are 
 doing. Meantime I enclose an address which I wish you to get 
 printed and posted up. Take it to old Albert Pellegrino in the 
 Stamperia by the Trevi. Tell him to mention the cost and the 
 money shall follow. Call at the Piazza Navona and see what 
 is happening to Elena. Poor girl ! Poor Bruno ! And my 
 poor dear little darling! 
 
 " Take care of yourself, my dear one. I am always think- 
 ing of you. It is a fearful thing to have taken up the burden 
 of one who is branded as an outcast and an outlaw. I cannot 
 help but reproach myself. There was a time when I saw my 
 duty to you in another way, but love came like a hurricane out 
 of the skies and swept all sense of duty away. My wife! my 
 Roma! You have hazarded everything for me, and some day 
 I will give up everything for you. 
 
 "'PROCLAMATION TO THE PEOPLE. 
 
 " ' Romans The sky is dark, the heavens are void, we are travelling 
 beneath the storm cloud, but the pillar of fire is going on. You can
 
 360 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 bear me witness that I told you that to destroy violence by violence is 
 impossible, and that there is no permanent revolution except a moral 
 one. But what has been has been, and I will not draw back. I take 
 the responsibility of what has happened, and I am grateful to God 
 that the decisive moment has come at last. If my heart sinks at the 
 thought of your sufferings, I glory in your martyrdom. Yours is a 
 holy war, and the God of Justice has entrusted to you a sacred mis- 
 sion. To be among those who are oppressed and afflicted and despised 
 and rejected is to belong to the empire of Christ. That is the largest 
 and the greatest and the mightiest empire on the earth. 
 
 " ' Brothers, do not yield. Continue to assert the right of associa- 
 tion, for that is the rock of liberty. Don't be afraid of threats. They 
 (ire only the expression of fear. The government is struck to the very 
 heart, and knows it. Respect property, respect religion, the symbols 
 of religion, the churches and the priests. Don't be hard on the sol- 
 diers; they are men like ourselves u'ho are dispossessed of their rights 
 and are only doing their duty. Drop the dagger and dynamite ; they 
 destroy the only weapon we can wield, the weapon of public opinion. 
 Live in the strength of our great idea UNITY. 
 
 " ' Wives, stand by your husbands. Mothers, support your sons. 
 If they suffer there will be a day of reckoning. If they fall God will 
 treasure up their blood. There is something beyond the Piazza del 
 Popolo, there is something beyond daily bread. There is the eternal 
 spirit of justice, and if your children are to know it their mothers 
 must hold fast. 
 
 " 'Romans, you ivill not think that because I am not with you I 
 have fled from fear. In the mid-hour of our starless night ivhen the 
 angel of exile said, 'Follow me,' she kneiv that I would rather have 
 laid down my life a thousand times. But there is a higher power 
 working out, everything, and the day is coming when I shall return. 
 Preserve yourselves for that day, my brothers, for when I come it 
 will not be alone. It will be with such a force behind me as will 
 make the prisons open their doors and the thrones of tyrants tremble. 
 
 " 'DAVID ROSSI.'" 
 
 VII 
 
 OLD Albert Pellegrino, thin, unwashed, with a soiled white 
 apron hanging from his neck, a paper cap of the shape of a 
 biretta on his head, and a pair of spectacles and a shade over 
 his eyes, was standing by his printing case in the depths of 
 his long narrow workshop when Roma called on him with the 
 Proclamation, So much- beauty with its little gusts of perfume
 
 THE ROMAX OF ROME 361 
 
 had rarely penetrated that close atmosphere with its odour of 
 printer's ink and its yellow gas-light, and the old man took off 
 his paper cap and bowed in some embarrassment. Roma men- 
 tioned her business and the printer's confused face became 
 very grave. 
 
 " Let me look at it," he said, and holding the paper close 
 to his eyes he read it attentively. Then he looked at Roma 
 over the top of his spectacles and was silent for a moment. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " The printer who prints this must be prepared for conse- 
 quences," said the old man. 
 
 " You think it is risky ? " said Roma. 
 
 " Extremely risky. The Royal Commissioner has forbid- 
 den all seditious proclamations under pain of imprisonment." 
 
 " You consider this one seditious ? " 
 
 " Look at it," said the old man, running a black-edged 
 finger-nail over the concluding lines of the copy. " It threatens 
 the throne of the King." 
 
 " Nevertheless it must be printed," said Roma. 
 
 " In that case, as the printer would run so much risk . . ." 
 
 " I quite understand that. Would twice his usual 
 terms? . . ." 
 
 The old man nodded approvingly. 
 
 " But there is the posting. That will be risky, too. It will 
 have to be done at night, and by a man who is prepared for 
 anything. " 
 
 " Give him four times his usual fee and get him to work 
 at once," said Roma, preparing to go. 
 
 " One moment. The Honourable Rossi is the soul of honour 
 and I could trust him with my last penny. But nobody knows 
 what will become of him and . . ." 
 
 " You want your money now ? How much is it ? " said 
 Roma, taking out her purse. 
 
 The printer mentioned a monstrous price. Roma paid it 
 and left the shop. A gust of fresh air and a blaze of dazzling 
 sunlight met her as she turned her back on the old man's awk- 
 ward bowing and opened the door to the street. 
 
 Roma's next errand was to the Piazza Xavona. She walked 
 to it by way of the narrow streets which go down from the 
 Piazza Colonna. The shops were now open, the eyes of the 
 city were awake, and save for soldiers who were stationed at 
 every corner, Rome had resumed its normal aspect. But the 
 doorposts of many houses were covered with yellow posters an- 
 24
 
 362 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 nouncing sales, and the neighbourhood of Monte di Pieta, the 
 pawn-shop controlled by the state, was thronged with people 
 carrying bundles, and Jew brokers buying forfeited pledges. 
 In the poorer thoroughfares people made the sign with the fore- 
 finger which means dying of hunger, and the atmosphere was 
 dolorous and depressing. 
 
 The house in the Piazza Navona was full of trouble. There 
 was no one in the lodge as Roma went by, and going up to 
 David Rossi's apartment she found the two old people at the 
 foot of the stairs to Elena's room, with looks of stupefaction, 
 holding a letter between them and trying to read it. 
 
 " Our poor girl has gone," said the Garibaldian. " At 
 eight o'clock this morning she went out by herself. ' She is 
 going to mass, and that will be a comfort,' thinks I. And 
 now look ! " 
 
 Roma read the letter. It was from Elena. 
 
 " DEAR PAPA AND MAMMA, My heart is broken and I must 
 go away. When this letter reaches you I shall be gone to a 
 place where you cannot follow me. Therefore do not try to find 
 out what has become of me. All will be well with me, so I hope 
 you may not be unhappy. 
 
 " The keys to Mr. Rossi's rooms came back from the Ques- 
 tura yesterday. I think you ought to send them to Donna 
 Roma. It will save you from responsibility, and you can still 
 pass through to attend to the birds. I want the mistress to 
 have my little Madonna. I shall not need it in the place I 
 am going to. 
 
 " Adieu, dear mamma and papa. Forgive me if I cause 
 you pain. ELENA." 
 
 " She sent it by a flying messenger. ' A woman gave it me 
 in the street,' he said. ' She was crying,' said he." The Gari- 
 baldian's rheumy eyes began to run over. 
 
 " She has made away with herself that's it," said the old 
 woman, with her apron at the corner of her mouth. " These 
 troubles have turned her head, and the Tiber has taken her." 
 
 " Don't say that," said Roma. " Besides, who knows ? She 
 may have gone into some convent as a lay sister, and didn't 
 tell you where because she was afraid you might try to bring 
 her back." 
 
 " What does the Signorina say? " said the old woman, with 
 her wrinkled hand like a shell at her ear.
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 363 
 
 " A convent," bawled the Garibaldian. " She says the poor 
 child . . ." 
 
 "The Saints bless you, Signorina; you are a saint your- 
 self," said the old woman. 
 
 " At all events there is nothing to do now but wait," said 
 Roma. " Don't say anything more than you can help to any- 
 body, and above all don't speak to the police." 
 
 " God bless thee, lady ! What can I give thee for bringing 
 comfort to an old woman's heart? Didn't the poor girl wish 
 thee to have her Madonna? Thou shalt! Thou shalt take it 
 with thee this very minute. And may the Blessed Virgin be 
 gracious to thine own heart and comfort thee when thou 
 wantest a mother." 
 
 At four o'clock that afternoon Roma was sitting by her 
 lace-covered dressing-table, on which were spread the dainty 
 articles of jewelry she was about to sell. There was an old 
 cameo, with gold setting of Roman workmanship; a jewelled 
 chatelaine; an antique cross of lapis-lazuli, surrounded by 
 pearls; a necklace of brilliants in old silver setting; a coronet 
 of diamonds with bracelets and brooch to match; and an 
 ancient enamelled shrine set in rubies, attached to an old chain 
 set in pearls. Besides these, which were ancestral jewels, and 
 had been given to her by the Baron as from her grandmother, 
 on her twenty-first birthday, there were modern pieces which 
 the Baron had presented for himself a ring of rubies set with 
 rose diamonds, a diamond cross, a turquoise and diamond neck- 
 lace, and a rope of oriental pearls. 
 
 It was a dazzling galaxy of light, and the woman's heart 
 was torn at the thought of parting with such treasures. Her 
 eyes gleamed in the glass before her, then filled and overflowed. 
 To end the torture she gathered up the jewels into her morocco 
 jewel case, shut the lid, and turned the key. 
 
 She was in the act of doing so when Felice brought in a 
 letter from the Baron. 
 
 " DEAR ROMA, I hear with astonishment and regret that 
 you contemplate the sale of your ancestral jewels. There is 
 no law even in Italy to prevent you from doing so, but such a 
 proceeding would be visited by the severest censures of society 
 unless the necessity were urgent and imperative. That neces- 
 sity cannot arise while I am ready and waiting to prevent it. 
 You have only to speak and I am here to listen; only to ask 
 and you will receive. I beg of you once more to put away all
 
 364 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 false modesty, all dreams and all delusions, that it may be my 
 pleasure and privilege to serve you now and always. Yours, 
 
 " BONELLI." 
 
 Felice was still at the door. " Risposta, Eccellenza? " 
 
 " Say there is no answer," said Roma. 
 
 An hour afterwards she was replying to David Rossi. 
 
 " Your letter to Sister Angelica arrived safely, and worked 
 more miracles in her cloistered heart than ever happened to the 
 ' Blessed Bambino.' Before it came I was always thinking 
 ' Where is he now ? Is he having his breakfast ? Or is it din- 
 ner, according to the difference of time and longitude ? ' All I 
 knew was that you had travelled north, and though the sun 
 doesn't ordinarily set in that direction the sky over Monte 
 Mario used to glow for my special pleasure like the gates of the 
 New Jerusalem. 
 
 " Your letters are so precious that I will ask you not to 
 fill them with useless things. Don't tell me to love you. The 
 idea! Didn't I say I should think of you always? I do! I 
 think of you when I go to bed at night, and that is like opening 
 a jewel case in the moonlight. I think of you when I am asleep, 
 and that is like an invisible bridge which unites us in our 
 dreams ; and I think of you when I awake in the morning, and 
 that is like a cage of song-birds that sing in my breast the 
 whole day long. 
 
 " But you are dying to hear what is really happening in 
 Rome, so your own especial envoy must send off her budget 
 as a set-off against those official telegrams. ' ISTot a day with- 
 out a line,' so my letter will look like words shaken out of a 
 literary pepper-box. Let me bring my despatches up to date. 
 
 " Military rule severer than ever, and poverty and misery 
 on all sides. Families of reserve soldiers starving, and meetings 
 of chief citizens to succour them. Donation from the King 
 and from the ' Black ' Charity Circle of St. Peter. Even the 
 clergy are sending francs, so none can question their sincerity. 
 Bureau of Labour besieged by men out of work, and offices oc- 
 cupied by Carabineers. People eating maize in polenta and 
 granturco, with the certainty of sickness to follow. Red Cross 
 Society organised as in time of war, and many sick and 
 wounded hidden in houses. 
 
 " Such is the sad aspect of things here, and, on the other 
 side, there are various forms of rejoicing. Shops open as usual
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 365 
 
 and bill-posters putting up notices of performances in theatres 
 and music-halls. Ball predicted, and ladies out in their car- 
 riages as if the First of February had never been. Oh, these 
 Romans ! Children of the hour, living from minute to minute ! 
 Oh, David Rossi ! when I think of what you are doing, of what 
 you have done, I ask myself what is to be the end of it all. But 
 no, I will not think of that. Who am I that I should bring you 
 into a moral desert ? 
 
 " And now for more personal matters. The Proclamation 
 is in hand, and paid for, and will be posted first thing in the 
 morning. From the printer's I went on to the Piazza Navona 
 and found a wilderness of woe. Elena has gone away, leaving 
 an ambiguous letter behind her, which led the old people to be- 
 lieve that for the loss of her son and husband she had destroyed 
 herself. I pretended to think differently, and warned them 
 to say nothing of their daughter's disappearance, thinking 
 that Bruno might hear of it and find food for still further 
 suspicions. 
 
 " Lawyer Napoleon F. has seen the poor soul again, and 
 been here this evening to tell me the result. It will seem to 
 you incredible. Bruno will do nothing to help in his own 
 defence. Talks of ' treachery ' and the ' King's pardon.' Na- 
 poleon F. thinks the Camorra is at work with him, and tells of 
 how criminals in the prisons of Italy have a league of crime 
 with captains, corporals and cadets. My own reading of the 
 mystery is different. I think the Camorra in this case is the 
 Council, and the only design is to entrap by treachery one of 
 the ' greater delinquents not in custody.' I want to find out 
 where Charles Minghelli is at present. Nobody seems to know. 
 
 " As for me, what do you suppose is my last performance ? 
 I've sold my jewels ! Yesterday I sent for one of the strozzini, 
 and the old Shylock came this evening and cheated me unmer- 
 cifully. No matter! What do I want with jewelry, or a fine 
 house and servants to follow me about as if I were a Cardinal ? 
 If you can do without them so can I. But you need not say 
 you are anxious about what is happening to me. I'm as happy 
 as the day is long. I am happy because I love you, and that 
 is everything. 
 
 " Only one thing troubles me the grief of the poor girl I 
 told you of. She follows me about, and is here all the time, 
 so that I feel as if I were possessed by her secret. In fact, I'm 
 afraid I'll blab it out to somebody. I think you would be sorry 
 to see her. She tries to persuade herself that because her soul
 
 366 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 did not consent she was really not to blame. That is the thing 
 that women are always saying, isn't it? They draw this dis- 
 tinction when it is too late and use it as a quibble to gloss over 
 their fault. Oh, I gave it her! I told her she should have 
 thought of that in time, and died rather than yield. It was 
 all very fine to talk of a minute of weakness mere weakness of 
 bodily will not of virtue, but the world splits no straws of that 
 sort. If a woman has fallen she has fallen, and there is no 
 question of body or soul. 
 
 " Oh, dear, how she cried ! When I caught sight of her red 
 eyes, I felt she ought to get herself forgiven. And after all I'm 
 not so sure that she should tell her husband, seeing that it 
 would so shock and hurt him. She thinks that after one has 
 done wrong the best thing to do next is to say nothing about 
 it. There is something in that, isn't there ?_ 
 
 " One thing I must say for the poor girl she has been a 
 different woman since this happened. It has converted her. 
 That's a shocking thing to say, but it's true. I remember that 
 when I was a girl in the Convent, and didn't go to mass be- 
 cause I hadn't been baptised and it was agreed with the Baron 
 that I shouldn't be, I used to read in the Lives of the Saints 
 that the darkest moments of ' the drunkenness of sin ' were the 
 instants of salvation. Who knows? Perhaps the very fact 
 by which the world usually stamps a woman as bad is in this 
 case the fact of her conversion. As for my friend, she used to 
 be the vainest young thing in Rome, and now she cares nothing 
 for the world and its vanities. 
 
 " How inconsistent I am about her ! Her moral elevation 
 may be due to the same cause as my own, if I have any. It may 
 be love that has awakened her better nature. What a democrat 
 Love is ! He doesn't care a pin about your fine ladies, and if 
 they want to take his eye they've got to come down to the con- 
 dition of the milkmaid who has nothing But the light of her 
 own to catch him by. It's lovely ! 
 
 " Which reminds me that you'll be meeting no end of beau- 
 tiful English women. I remember they're shockingly sweet, 
 those fair, soft things with complexions like a rose moon, and 
 eyes like the sky in June. They are sure to admire you and 
 run after you, and I want them to do so. And yet if I were 
 to think that any other woman was near you while I am so far 
 away, I should die. Love is such a contradictory little fellow ! 
 He wasn't brought up in a college of logic anyway. 
 
 " I'm talking nonsense again and must go to bed. Two days
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 367 
 
 hence my letter will fall into your hands why can't I do so ? 
 Love me always. That will lift me up to your own level, and 
 prove that when you fell in love with me love wasn't quite 
 blind. I'm not so old and ugly as I was yesterday, and at all 
 events nobody could love you more. Good-night ! I open my 
 window to say my last good-night to the stars over Monte 
 Mario, for that's where England is ! How bright they are 
 to-night! How beautiful! ROMA." 
 
 VIII 
 
 NEXT morning the Countess was very ill, and Roma went to 
 her immediately. The room was full of the odour of burning 
 pastilles and the ribbon of Bruges, and the sick woman was 
 writhing in pain, pressing her hand to her side and moaning 
 fretfully. 
 
 " I must have a doctor," she said. " It's perfectly heartless 
 to keep me without one all this time." 
 
 " Aunt Betsy," said Roma, " you know quite well that but 
 for your own express prohibition you would have had a doctor 
 all along." 
 
 " For mercy's sake, don't nag, but send for a doctor im- 
 mediately. Let it be Dr. Fedi. Everybody has Dr. Fedi 
 now." 
 
 Fedi was the Pope's physician and therefore the most 
 costly and fashionable doctor in Rome. 
 
 Dr. Fedi came with an assistant who carried a little case of 
 instruments. He examined the Countess, her breast, her side, 
 and the glands under her arms, shot out a solemn underlip, put 
 two fingers inside his collar, twisted his head from side to side, 
 and announced that the patient must have a nurse immedi- 
 ately. 
 
 " Do you hear that, Roma ? Doctor says I must have a 
 nurse. Of course I must have a nurse. I'll have one of the 
 English nursing sisters. Everybody has them now. They're 
 foreigners, and if they talk they can't do much mischief." 
 
 The Sister was sent for. She was a mild and gentle crea- 
 ture, in blue and white, but she talked perpetually of her 
 Mother Superior who had been bed-ridden for fifteen years, yet 
 smiled sweetly all day long; that exasperated the Countess and 
 fretted her. When the doctor came again the patient was 
 worse.
 
 368 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Your aunt must have dainties to tempt her appetite and 
 so keep up her strength." 
 
 " Do you hear, Roma ? " 
 
 " You shall have everything you wish for, auntie." 
 
 " Well, I wish for strawberries. Everybody eats them who 
 is ill at this season." 
 
 The only strawberries in Rome at the time were forced and 
 therefore expensive. 
 
 " It can't last long," said the doctor aside. " Your aunt has 
 internal cancer. If the tumours had been diagnosed while still 
 small nephrectomy might have been possible. Now they are be- 
 yond the reach of legitimate surgery." 
 
 The strawberries were bought, but the Countess scarcely 
 touched them, and they were finally consumed in the kitchen. 
 
 When the doctor came a third time the patient was much 
 emaciated and her skin had become sallow and earthy. Again 
 he shot out his underlip and twisted his head with his fingers 
 inside his collar. 
 
 " It would not be right of me to conceal from you the grav- 
 ity of your condition, Countess," he said. " In such a case we 
 always think it best to tell a patient to make her peace with 
 God." 
 
 " Oh ! don't say that, Doctor," whimpered the poor with- 
 ered creature on the bed. 
 
 " But while there's life there's hope, you know. And mean- 
 time I'll send you an opiate to relieve the pain." 
 
 When the doctor was gone, the Countess sent for Roma. 
 
 " That Fedi is a fool," she said. " I don't know what people 
 see in him. I should like to try the Bambino of Ara Coeli. 
 The Cardinal Vicar had it, and why shouldn't I ? They say it 
 has worked miracles. It may be dear, but if I die you will 
 always reproach yourself. If you are short of money you can 
 sign a bill at six months and before that the poor maniac 
 woman will be gone and you'll be the wife of the Baron." 
 
 " If you really think the Bambino will . . ." 
 
 " It will ! I know it will." 
 
 " Very well, I will send for it." 
 
 Roma sent a letter to the Superior of the Franciscans at the 
 friary of Ara Coeli asking that the little figure of the infant 
 Christ, which is said to restore the sick, should be sent to her 
 aunt, who was near to death. 
 
 At the same time she wrote to an auctioneer in the Via due 
 Macelli, requesting him to call upon her. The man came im-
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 36$ 
 
 mediately. He had little beady eyes, which ranged round the 
 dining-room and seemed to see everything except Roma herself. 
 
 " I wish to sell up my furniture," said Roma. 
 
 " All of it ? " 
 
 " Except what is in my aunt's room and the room of her 
 nurse, and such things in the kitchen, the servants' apartments 
 and my own bedroom as are absolutely necessary for present 
 purposes." 
 
 "Quite right. When?" 
 
 " Within a week if possible." 
 
 The Bambino came in a carriage with two horses, and the 
 people in the street went down on their knees as it passed. 
 One of the friars in priest's surplice, carried it in a box with 
 the lid open, and two friars in brown habits walked before it 
 with lifted candles. But as the painted image in its scarlet 
 clothes and jewels entered the Countess's bedroom with its grim 
 and ghostly procession, and was borne like a baby mummy to 
 the foot of her bed, it terrified her, and she screamed. 
 
 " Take it away," she shrieked. " Do you want to frighten 
 me out of my life. Take it away ! " 
 
 The grim and ghostly procession went out. Its visit had 
 lasted thirty seconds and cost a hundred francs. 
 
 When the doctor came again the outline of the Countess's 
 writhing form had shrunk to the lines of a skeleton under the 
 ruffled counterpane. 
 
 " It's not the Bambino you want it's the priest," he said, 
 and then the poor mortal who was still afraid of dying began to 
 whimper. 
 
 " And, Sister," said the doctor, " as the Countess suffers so 
 much pain you may increase the opiate from a dessertspoonful 
 to a tablespoonful, and give it twice as frequently." 
 
 That evening the Sister went home for a few hours' leave, 
 and Roma took her place by the sick bed. The patient was 
 more selfish and exacting than ever, but Roma had begun to 
 feel a softening towards the poor tortured being, and was try- 
 ing her best to do her duty. 
 
 It was dusk, and the Countess, who had just taken her 
 opiate in the increased doses, was out of pain, and wished to 
 make her toilet. Roma brought up the night table and the 
 mirror, the rouge-pot, the rabbit's foot, the puff, the pencil, 
 and the other appurtenances of her aunt's toilet-box. And 
 when the fragile thing, so soon to be swallowed up by the earth 
 in its great earthquake, had been propped up by pillows, she
 
 370 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 began to paint her wrinkled face as if she was about to dance 
 a minuet with death. First the black rings about the lan- 
 guid eyes were whitened, then the earthen cheeks were rouged, 
 and finally the livid lips and nostrils were pencilled with the 
 rosy hues of health and youth. 
 
 Roma had turned on the electric light, but the glare op- 
 pressed the patient, and she switched it off again. The night 
 had now closed in, and the only light in the room came from 
 the little red oil-lamp which burned before the shrine. 
 
 The drug began to operate and its first effect was to loosen 
 the old lady's tongue. She began to talk of priests in a tone 
 of contempt and braggadocio. 
 
 " I hate priests," she said, " and I can't bear to have them 
 about me. Why so ? Because they are always about the dead. 
 Their black cassocks make me think of funerals. The sight of 
 a graveyard makes me faint. Besides, priests and confessions 
 go together, and why should a woman confess if she can avoitl 
 it ? When people confess they have to give up the thing they 
 confess to, or they can't get absolution. Fedi's a fool. Give 
 it up indeed ! I might as well talk of giving up the bed that's 
 under me." 
 
 Roma sat on a stool by the bedside, listening intently, yet 
 feeling she had no right to listen. The drug was rapidly in- 
 toxicating the Countess, who went on to talk as if some one 
 else had been in the room. 
 
 " A priest would be sure to ask questions about that girl. 
 I would have to tell him why the Baron put me here to look 
 after her, and then he would prate about the Sacraments and 
 want me to give up everything." 
 
 The Countess laughed a hard, evil laugh, and Roma felt 
 an icy shudder pass over her. 
 
 " ' I'm tied,' said the Baron. ' But you must see that she 
 waits for me. Everything depends upon you, and if all comes 
 out well . . .'" 
 
 The old woman's tongue was thickening, and her eyes in 
 the dull red light were glazed and stupid. 
 
 Roma sat motionless and silent, watching with her own 
 dilated eyes the grinning sinner, as she poured out the story of 
 the plot for her capture and corruption. At that moment she 
 hated her aunt, the unclean, malignant, unpitying thing who 
 had poisoned her heart against her father, and tried to break 
 down every spiritual impulse of her soul. 
 
 The diabolical horse-laughter came again, and then the devil
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 371 
 
 who had loosened the tongue of the dying woman in the intoxi- 
 cation of the drug made her reveal the worse secret of her 
 tortured conscience. 
 
 " Why did I let him torment me ? Because he knew some- 
 thing. It was about the child. Didn't you know I had a child ? 
 It was born when my husband was away. He was coming 
 home, and I was in terror." 
 
 The red light was on the emaciated face. Roma was sit- 
 ting in the shadow with a roaring in her ears. 
 
 " It died, and I went to confession. ... I thought nobody 
 knew. . . . But the Baron knows everything. . . . After that 
 I did whatever he told me." 
 
 The thick voice stopped. Only the ticking of a little clock 
 was audible. The Countess had dozed off. All her vanity of 
 vanities, her intrigues, her life-long frenzies, her sins and suf- 
 ferings were wrapped in the innocence of sleep. 
 
 Roma looked down at the poor, wrinkled, rouged face, now 
 streaked with sweat, and with black lines from the pencilled 
 eyebrows, and noislessly rose to go. She was feeling a sense of 
 guilt in herself that stirred her to the depths of abasement. 
 
 The Countess awoke. She was again in pain, and her voice 
 was now different. 
 
 "Roma! Is that you?" 
 
 " Yes, aunt," 
 
 " Why are you sitting in the darkness ? I have a horror of 
 darkness. You know that quite well." 
 
 Roma turned on the lights. 
 
 " Have I been speaking ? What have I been saying ? " 
 
 Roma tried to prevaricate. 
 
 " You are telling me a falsehood. You know you are. 
 You gave me that drug to make me tell you my secrets. But 
 I know what I told you and it was all a lie. You needn't think 
 because you've been listening ... It was a lie, I tell you . . ." 
 
 The Sister came back at that moment, and Roma went to 
 her room. She did not write her usual letter to David Rossi 
 that night. Instead of doing so, she knelt by Elena's little 
 Madonna, which she had set up on a table by her bed. 
 
 Her own secret was troubling her. She had wanted to take 
 it to some one, some woman who would listen to her and com- 
 fort her. She had no mother, and her tears had begun to fall. 
 
 It was then that she thought of the world-mother, and re- 
 membered the prayer she had heard a thousand times but 
 never used before:
 
 372 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, how, and 
 at the hour of death Amen ! " 
 
 When she rose from her knees she felt like a child who had 
 been crying and was comforted. 
 
 IX 
 
 FOR some days after this the house was in a tumult. Men 
 in red caps labelled " Casa di Vendita " were tearing up car- 
 pets, dragging out pieces of furniture and marking them. The 
 catalogue was made and bills were posted outside the street 
 door announcing a sale of " Old and New Objects of Art " in 
 the " Appartamento Volonna." Then came the " Grand Espo- 
 sizione " it was on Sunday morning and the following day 
 the auction. 
 
 Roma built herself an ambush from prying eyes in one cor- 
 ner of the apartment. She turned her boudoir into a bed- 
 room and sitting-room combined. From there she heard the 
 shuffling of feet as the people assembled in the large dis- 
 mantled drawing-room without. She was writing at a table 
 when some one knocked at the door. It was the Commenda- 
 tore Angelelli, in light clothes and silk hat. At that moment 
 the look of servility in his long face prevailed over the look of 
 arrogance. 
 
 " Good-morning, Donna Roma. May I perhaps . . ." 
 
 "Come in." 
 
 The lanky person settled himself comfortably and began on 
 a confidential communication. 
 
 " The Baron, sincerely sorry to hear of your distress, sends 
 me to say that you have only to make a request and this un- 
 seemly scene shall come to an end. In fact, I have authority to 
 act on his behalf as an unknown friend, you know and 
 stop these proceedings even at the eleventh hour. Only a word 
 from you one word and everything shall be settled satisfac- 
 torily." 
 
 Roma was silent for a moment, and the Commendatore con- 
 cluded that his persuasions had prevailed. Somebody else 
 knocked at the door. 
 
 " Come in," said the Commendatore largely. 
 
 This time it was the auctioneer. " Time to begin the sale, 
 Signorina. Any commands? " He glanced from Roma to An- 
 gelelli with looks of understanding.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 3^3 
 
 " I think her Excellency has perhaps something to say," said 
 Angelelli. 
 
 " Nothing whatever. Go on," said Roma. 
 
 The auctioneer disappeared through the door and Angelelli 
 put on his hat. 
 
 " Then you have no answer for his Excellency." 
 
 " None." 
 
 " Bene," said the Commendatore, and he went off whistling 
 softly." 
 
 The auction began. At a table on a platform where the 
 piano used to stand sat the chief auctioneer with his ivory 
 hammer. Beneath him at a similar table sat an assistant. 
 As the men in red caps brought up the goods the two auction- 
 eers took the bidding together, repeating each other in the 
 manner of actor and prompter at an Italian theatre. 
 
 The English Sister came to say that the Countess wished 
 to see her niece immediately. The invalid, now frightfully 
 emaciated and no longer able to sit up, was lying back on her 
 lace-edged pillows. She was plucking with shrivelled and bony 
 fingers at her figured counterpane, and as Roma entered she 
 tried to burst out on her in a torrent of wrath. But the sound 
 that came from her throat was like a voice shouted on a windy 
 headland, and hardly louder than the muffled voices of the auc- 
 tioneers as they found their way through the walls. 
 
 Roma sat down on the stool by the bedside, stroked the cat 
 with the gold cross suspended from its neck, and listened to the 
 words within the room and without as they fell on her ear 
 alternately. 
 
 " Roma, you are treating me shamefully. While I am lying 
 here helpless you are having an auction actually an auction 
 at the door of my very room." 
 
 " Camera da letto della Signorina ! Bed in noce, richly 
 ornamented with fruit and flowers." " Shall I say fifty ? " 
 "Thank you, fifty." "Fifty." "Fifty-five." "Fifty-five." 
 " No advance on fifty-five ? " " Gentlemen, Gentlemen ! The 
 beautiful bed of a beautiful lady and only fifty-five offered 
 for it. . . ." 
 
 " If you wanted money you had only to ask the Baron, and 
 if you didn't wish to do that you had only to sign a bill at six 
 months as I told you before. But no ! You wanted to humble 
 and degrade me. That's all it is. You've done it, too, and I'm 
 dying in disgrace." 
 
 " Secretaire in walnut ! Think, ladies, of the secrets this
 
 374 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 writing-desk might whisper if it would ! How much shall I 
 say?" "Sixty lire." "Sixty." "Sixty-five." "Sixty-five." 
 " Writing desk in walnut with the love letters hardly out of it 
 and only sixty-five lire offered ! " 
 
 " This is what comes of a girl going her own way. Society 
 is not so very exacting, but it revenges itself on people who 
 defy the good old respectabilities. And quite right, too ! Pity 
 they could not be the only ones to suffer, but they can't. Their 
 friends and relations are the real sufferers, and as for me .** 
 
 The Countess's voice broke down into a maudlin whimper. 
 Without a word Roma got up to go. As she did so she met 
 Natalina coming into the room with the usual morning plate 
 of forced strawberries. They had cost four francs the pound. 
 
 Some time afterwards, from her writing-table in the bou- 
 doir bedroom, Roma heard a shuffling of feet on the circular 
 iron stairs. The people were going down to the studio. Pres- 
 ently the auctioneer's voice came up as from a vault. 
 
 " And now what am I offered for this large and important 
 work of modern art ? " 
 
 There was a ripple of derisive laughter. 
 
 " A fountain worthy, when finished, to rank with the mas- 
 terpieces of ancient Rome." 
 
 More derisive laughter. 
 
 " Now is the time for anti-clericals. Gentlemen, don't all 
 speak at once. Every day is not a f esta. How much ? Nothing 
 at all ? Not even a soldo ? Too bad. Art is its own reward." 
 
 Still more laughter, followed by the shuffling of feet coming 
 up the iron stairs, and a familiar voice on the landing it was 
 the Princess Bellini's " Madonna mia ! what a fright it is to 
 be sure ! " 
 
 Then another voice it was Madame Sella's " I thought 
 so the day of the private view, when she behaved so shock- 
 ingly to the dear Baron." 
 
 Then a third voice it was the voice of Olga, the journal- 
 ist " I said the Baron would pay her out, and he has. Before 
 the day is over she'll not have a stick left or a roof to cover 
 her." 
 
 Roma dropped her head on to the table. Try as she might 
 to keep a brave front, the waves of shame and humiliation were 
 surging over her. 
 
 Some one touched her on the shoulder. It was Natalina 
 with a telegram ! " Letter received : my apartment is paid for 
 to end of June : why not take possession of it 2 "
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 3Y5 
 
 From that moment onward nothing else mattered. The 
 tumultuous noises in the drawing-room died down, and there 
 was no sound but the voices of the auctioneer and his clerk, 
 which rumbled like a drum in the empty chamber. 
 
 It was four o'clock. Opening the window, Roma heard the 
 music of a band. At that a spirit of defiance took possession 
 of her, and she put on her hat and cloak. As she passed 
 through the empty drawing-room, the auctioneer, who was 
 counting his notes with the dry rustle of a winnowing machine, 
 looked up with his beady eyes and said : 
 
 " It has come out fairly well, Madame better than we 
 might have expected." 
 
 On reaching the piazza she hailed a cab. " The Pincio ! " 
 she cried, and settled in her seat. When she returned an hour 
 afterwards she wrote her usual letter to David Rossi. 
 
 " High doings to-day ! Have had a business on my own 
 account, and done a roaring trade ! Disposed of everything in 
 the shop except what I wanted for myself. It isn't every trades- 
 woman who can say that much, and I'm only a beginner to 
 boot! 
 
 " Soberly, I've sold up. Being under notice to leave this 
 apartment I didn't want all this useless furniture, so I thought 
 I might as well get done with it in good time. Besides, what 
 right had I to soft beds and fine linen while you were an exile 
 sleeping heaven knows where ? And then my aunt, who is very 
 ill and wants all sorts of luxuries, is rather expensive. So for 
 the past week my drawing-room has been as full of fluting as a 
 frog pond at sunset, and on Sunday morning people were bang- 
 ing away at my poor piano as if it had been a hurdy-gurdy at 
 an osteria. 
 
 " But oh dear, how stupid the world is ! People thought 
 because I was selling what I didn't want I must be done. You 
 would have laughed to hear their commentaries. To tell you 
 the truth I was so silly that I could have cried, but just at the 
 moment when I felt a wee bit badly down came your tele- 
 gram like an angel from heaven and what do you think I 
 did? The old Adam, or say the new Eve, took possession of 
 me, and the minute the people were gone I hired a cab a com- 
 mon garden cab, Roman variety, with a horse on its last legs 
 and a driver in ragged tweeds and drove off to the Pincio! 
 I wanted to show those fine folk that I wasn't done, and I did ! 
 They were all there, my dear friends and former flatterers
 
 376 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 every one of them who has haunted my house for years, asking 
 for this favour or that, and paying me in the coin of sweetest 
 smiles. It seemed as if fate had gathered them altogether for 
 my personal inspection and wouldn't let a creature escape. 
 
 " Did they see me ? Not a soul of them ! I drove through 
 them and between them, and they bowed across and before 
 and behind me, and I might have been as invisible as Asmodeus 
 for all the consciousness they betrayed of my presence. Was I 
 humiliated ? Confused ? Crushed ? Oh dear no ! I was proud. 
 I knew the day would come, the day was near, when they must 
 try to forget all this and to persuade themselves it had never 
 been, when for my own sake, even mine, and for yours, most 
 of all for yours, they would come back humble, so humble and 
 afraid. 
 
 " So I gave them every chance. I was bold and I did not 
 spare them. And when the sun began to sink behind St. Peter's 
 and the band stopped, and we turned to go, I know which of 
 us went home happy and unashamed. Oh, David Rossi! If 
 you could have been there ! 
 
 " I must write again on other matters. Meantime, one 
 item of news. Lawyer Napoleon, who continues to go to 
 Regina Coeli to see the bewildering Bruno, saw Charles Min- 
 ghelli there in prison clothes. If the god who settles the ques- 
 tion of sex had only remembered to make your wife the pro- 
 curator general, think how different the history of the world 
 would have been ! The worst of it is he mightn't have remem- 
 bered to make you a woman; and in any case, things being so 
 nicely settled as they are, I don't think I want to be a man. I 
 waft a kiss to you on the wings of the wind. It's ponente to- 
 day; so it ought to be warm. ROMA. 
 
 " P.S. My poor friend is still in trouble. Although not a 
 religious woman, she has taken to saying a ' Hail Mary ' every 
 night on going to bed, and if it wasn't for that I'm afraid she 
 would commit suicide, so frightful are the visions (of how Na- 
 ture herself might come to convict her) that enter her head 
 sometimes. I've told her how wrong it would be to do away 
 with herself, if only for the sake of her husband, who is away. 
 Didn't I tell you he was away at present? It would hurt you 
 dreadfully if 7 were to die before you return, wouldn't it ? But 
 I'm dying already to hear what you think of her. Write! 
 Write ! Write ! "
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 
 
 WHEN the King of Terrors could no longer be beaten back 
 the Countess sent for the priest. Before he arrived she insisted 
 on making her toilet and receiving him in the dressing-gown 
 which she used to wear when people made ante-camera to her 
 in the days of her gaiety and strength. 
 
 The priest came in his black cassock and she was clearly 
 terrified at sight of him. But he was a simple man who be- 
 lieved what he taught without trying too hard to understand 
 it, and with a few coaxing words he comforted her. She was 
 like one who had to go through an operation and for some 
 time she could not consent to be alone with him. When she 
 had conquered this fear she was afraid that the doors of the 
 room were not properly closed and that people were listening at 
 the key-holes. The priest appeased her on this head also, and 
 he went down on one knee that she might whisper into his ear. 
 
 During the time of the Countess's confession Roma sat in 
 her own room with a tremor of the heart which she had never 
 felt before. Something personal and very intimate was creep- 
 ing over her soul. She heard the indistinct murmur of the 
 priest's voice at intervals, followed by a sibilant sound as of 
 whispers and sobs. 
 
 The confession lasted fifteen minutes and then the priest 
 came out of the room. " ISTow that your relative has made her 
 peace with God," he said, " she must receive the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment, Extreme Unction and the Apostolic Blessing." 
 
 He went away to prepare for these offices and the English 
 Sister came to see Roma. " The Countess is like another 
 woman already," she said, but Roma did not go into the sick 
 room. 
 
 The priest returned in half an hour. He had now two 
 assistants, one carrying the cross and banner, the other a ves- 
 sel of holy water and the volume of the Roman ritual. The 
 Sister and Felice met them at the door with lighted candles. 
 
 " Peace be to this house ! " said the priest. 
 
 And the assistants said, " And to all dwelling in it." 
 
 Then the priest took off an outer cloak, revealing his white 
 eurplice and violet stole, and followed the candles into the 
 Countess's room. The little card table had been covered with 
 a damask napkin and laid out as an altar. All the dainty arti- 
 cles of the dying woman's dressing-table, her scent-flasks, 
 rouge-pots and puffs, were huddled together with various medi- 
 25
 
 378 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 cine bottles on a chest of drawers at the back. It was two 
 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun was shining, so the cur- 
 tains were drawn and the shutters closed. In the darkened 
 room the candles burned like stars. 
 
 The priest took a little box out of his breast and put it on 
 the altar. Then taking the sprinkler he sprinkled the counter- 
 pane with holy water in the form of a cross. The Countess 
 prayed fervently in a low indistinguishable murmur and 
 clutched at the bed-clothes. 
 
 Opening the holy pyx, taking out a wafer and elevating it, 
 the priest approached the lace-edged pillow and the emaciated 
 face, red with rouge, and placed it on the outstretched tongue. 
 
 The Blessed Sacrament being received the priest adminis- 
 tered Extreme Unction. Again the counterpane was sprinkled 
 with holy water, while the anthem was recited by all present. 
 " Thou shalt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be 
 cleansed. Thou shalt wash me and I shall be made whiter 
 than snow." 
 
 The table covered by its white cloth was brought nearer to 
 the bed and three basins were placed on it. One of these con- 
 tained water, another contained white bread without crust, and 
 into the third the assistants broke seven pieces of cotton wool. 
 A candle was put into the dying woman's nerveless fingers, and 
 the sign of the cross was made all over the room, with the 
 words, " Let the demons fly for ever from this place." 
 
 Then dipping his right thumb into a small vessel of the 
 sacred oil which he carried suspended from his neck, the priest 
 made the sign of the cross over the" dying woman's pencilled 
 eyes and said, " Through this Holy Unction (-}-) and His most 
 loving mercy may the Lord remit thee whatever thou hast done 
 amiss through the sight." 
 
 Again dipping his thumb in the oil the priest made the sign 
 of the cross over the ears, the nose, the mouth, the hands and 
 the feet, repeating the same prayer for the sins of hearing, of 
 smell, of taste and speech, of touch and of walking. Then the 
 seven pieces of cotton wool were taken out of the basin one by 
 one to wipe the oil away, and the Lord's prayer was said in si- 
 lence down to the words, " Lead us not into temptation and 
 deliver us from evil, Amen." 
 
 All the time the assistants and the Sister were reciting in a 
 monotone the seven penitential psalms. Finally the priest 
 pronounced the Apostolic Blessing. 
 
 " And now I by a faculty conceded to me by the Holy See
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 379 
 
 accord to thee, Elizabeth, a plenary indulgence, and the remis- 
 sion of all thy sins, in the name of the (+) Father, and (+) of 
 the Son, and (-J-) of the Holy Ghost Amen." 
 
 The ghostly viaticum was now 'over, and the priest and his 
 assistants left the house. But the pale, grinning shadow of 
 death continued to stand by the perfumed couch. 
 
 Roma had not been present at these offices, and presently 
 the English Sister came to say that the Countess wished to 
 see her. 
 
 " It's perfectly miraculous," said the Sister. " She's like 
 another woman." 
 
 " Has she had her opiate lately ? " said Roma, and the Sister 
 answered that she had. 
 
 Roma found her aunt in a kind of mystical transport. A 
 great light of joy, almost of pride, was shining in her face. 
 
 " All my pains are gone," she said. " All my sorrows and 
 trials too. I have laid them all on Christ, and now I am going 
 to mount up with Him to God." 
 
 Clearly she had no sense of her guilt towards Roma. Quite 
 the contrary. She began to take a high tone with her, the tone 
 of a saint towards a sinner. 
 
 " You must conquer your worldly passions, Roma. You 
 have been a sinner but you must not die a bad death. For in- 
 stance, you are selfish. I am sorry to say it, but you know you 
 are. You must confess and dedicate your life to fighting the 
 sin in your sinful heart, and commend your soul to His mercy 
 who has washed me from all stain." 
 
 But the Countess's ethereal transports did not wholly 
 eclipse her worldly vanities when she proceeded to preparations 
 for her funeral. 
 
 " Let there be a Requiem Mass, Roma. Everybody has it. 
 It costs a little certainly, but we can't think of money in a 
 case like this. And send for the Raveggi Company to do the 
 funeral pomps, and see they don't put me on a tressel. I am 
 a noble and have a right to be laid on the church floor. See 
 they bury me on high ground. The little Pincio is where the 
 best people are buried now, just above the tomb of Duke Mas- 
 simo." 
 
 Roma continued to say " Yes," and " Yes," and " Yes," 
 though her very heart felt sore. 
 
 Two hours afterwards the Countess was in her death agony. 
 The tortured body had prevailed over the rapturous soul, and 
 she was calling for more and more of the opiate. Everybody
 
 380 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 was odious to her and her angular face was snapping all 
 round. 
 
 The priest came to say the prayers for the dying. It was 
 near to sunset, but the shut'ters were still closed, and the room 
 had a grim solemnity. A band was playing on the Pincio, and 
 the strains of an opera mingled with the petitions of the 
 " breathing forth." 
 
 Everybody knelt except Roma. She alone was standing. 
 But her heart was on its knees and her whole soul was pros- 
 trate. 
 
 The priest put a crucifix in the Countess's hand and she ' 
 kissed it fervently, pronouncing all the time with gasping 
 breath the name, " Gesu, Gesu, Gesu ! " 
 
 The passing bell of the parish church was tolling in slow 
 strokes, and the priest was praying fast and loud : 
 
 " May Christ who called thee receive thee, and let angels 
 lead thee into the bosom of Abraham." 
 
 At one moment the crucifix dropped from the dying wom- 
 an's hands, and her diamond rings, now too large for the 
 shrivelled fingers, fell on to the counterpane. A little later her 
 wig fell off and for an instant her head was bald. Her fore- 
 head was perspiring ; her breath was rattling in her chest. At 
 last she became delirious. 
 
 " It's a lie ! " she cried. " Everything I've said is a lie ! I 
 didn't kill it ! " Then she rolled aside and the crucifix fell on 
 to the floor. 
 
 The priest, who had been praying faster and faster every 
 moment, rose to his feet and said in an altered tone, " We 
 commend to thee, O Lord, the soul of thy handmaiden, Eliza- 
 beth, that being dead to the world she may live to Thee, and 
 those sins which through the frailty of human life she has 
 committed Thou by the indulgence of Thy most loving kind- 
 ness may wipe out, Through Christ our Lord Amen." 
 
 The priest's voice died down to an inarticulate murmur 
 and then stopped. A moment afterwards the curtains were 
 drawn back, the shutters parted and the windows thrown open. 
 A flood of sunset light streamed into the room. The candles 
 burnt yellow and went out. The mystic rites were at an end. 
 
 The English Sister was putting the crucifix back into the 
 icy hands and closing the glazed eyes ; the cat was mewing and 
 scratching at the bed-clothes, and some one was saying in a 
 matter-of-fact way: 
 
 " I presume the deceased has settled her temporal affairs."
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 381 
 
 
 
 Roma fled back to her own room. Her storm-tossed soul 
 was foundering. 
 
 The band was still playing on the Pincio and the sun was 
 going down behind St. Peter's when Roma took up her pen 
 to write. 
 
 " She is dead ! The life she clung to so desperately has left 
 her at last. How she held on to it ! And now she has gone 
 to give an account of the deeds done in this body. Yet who 
 am I to talk like this ? Only a poor unhappy fellow sinner. 
 
 " After confession she thought she was forgiven. She im- 
 agined she was pure, sinless, soulful. Perhaps she was so, and 
 only the pains of death made her seem to fall away. But what: 
 a power in confession ! Oh the joy in her poor face when she 
 had lifted the burden of her sins and secrets off her soul ! For- 
 giveness ! What a thing it must be to feel one's self for- 
 given . . ." 
 
 " I cannot write any more to-day, my dear one, but there 
 will be news for you next time, great and serious news." 
 
 XI 
 
 ROMA fulfilled her promise to the Countess. The funeral 
 pomps, if she could have seen them, would have satisfied her 
 vain little mind. On going to the parish church the procession 
 covered the entire length of the Via Gregoriana. First the 
 banner with skull, cross-bones and hour-glass, then a con- 
 fraternity of lay people, then twenty paid mourners in evening 
 dress, then fifty Capuchins at two francs a head with yellow 
 candles at three francs each, then the cross, then the secular 
 clergy two and two, then the parish priest in surplice and 
 black stole with servitors and acolytes, then a stately funeral car 
 with four horses richly harnessed, and finally four coaches with 
 coachmen and footmen in gala livery. The bier was loaded 
 with flowers and streamers and the cost of the cortege was 
 nearly a thousand francs. 
 
 The bell tolled, the procession chanted, the church was 
 reached. At the church door the priest repeated the words " The 
 humbled bones shall exult unto the Lord," and the coffin, gor- 
 geously emblazoned with a shield bearing a coat of arms, was 
 placed in the middle of the floor. A square of candles was 
 ranged round it, and the wreaths and flowers were brought in 
 from the bier. The friars with their lighted candles stood
 
 382 I'HE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 
 
 about the body and the priest and his clergy went up to the 
 altar. The altar was draped in a vast black cloth surmounted 
 by a large gold cross. 
 
 When the mourners had taken their places the priest and his 
 assistants chanted the Office for the Dead. It was long and 
 they took it leisurely; the antiphon, the Vespers with the De 
 Profundis, the Matins with its lessons, Lauds with the Miserere 
 and the joyful psalms at the end. By the time they had come 
 to the tremendous words, " I am the resurrection and the life," 
 the church was filled with people. 
 
 The new-comers were former friends of the Countess, liv- 
 ing still the life she had lived in the days of her strength. 
 During her illness they had stopped at her door on the 
 way to the Pincio, and sent up their servants to write their 
 names in a book kept in the hall. This morning they had 
 dressed themselves in black and come out a little earlier than 
 usual. 
 
 The Office for the Dead being finished, the Requiem Mass 
 began. A choir of fifty professional voices, perched up like 
 birds in a gilt cage, sang the Kyrie Eleison, while the officiat- 
 ing priest, in his vestments with acolytes carrying the candles 
 and bearing up his train, ascended the altar and incensed it. 
 Then the music of lamentation swept through the church 
 like a wild storm, rising, falling, sometimes screaming through 
 the air, and then dying down like the voice of an angry sea. 
 At one moment it seemed to be gone, but it returned in a 
 mournful wail, as the soprano trilled out the notes of sorrow 
 and they rang in the vault of the lofty roof. 
 
 At length the music ceased and the mass proceeded. Fi- 
 nally the priest put on his cope and gave the absolution. Walk- 
 ing round the coffin he sprinkled it with holy water, and walk- 
 ing round it again he incensed it. The Requiem ended with 
 a burst of prayer and praise. " Deliver me, O Lord, from 
 eternal death in that tremendous day." Then the singers shuf- 
 fled their feet and went off, their work being done. 
 
 The gorgeous service had cost five hundred francs. 
 
 By this time the great people had begun to go. Roma had 
 hardly been conscious of their presence. Kneeling in one of 
 the benches at right angles to the altar she had bowed her 
 head and tried to pray. ~No prayer would come. One picture 
 was flitting constantly before the eyes of her soul. She saw 
 herself kneeling a few paces from that spot with David Rossi 
 at her side.
 
 THE EOMAN OF ROME 383 
 
 As she passed out of the church with head down some one 
 spoke to her. It was the Baron, carrying his hat, on which 
 there was a deep black band. His tall spare figure, high fore- 
 head, straight hair and features hard as iron made a painful 
 impression. 
 
 " Sorry I cannot go on to the Campo Santo," he said, and 
 then he added something about breaks in the chain of life 
 which Roma did not hear. 
 
 " I trust it is not true, as I am given to understand, that 
 on leaving your apartment you are going to live in the house 
 of a certain person whom I need not name. That would, I 
 assure you, be a grave error, and I would earnestly counsel you 
 not to commit it." 
 
 She made no reply but walked on to the door of the car- 
 riage. He helped her to enter it, and then said, " Remember, 
 my attitude is the same as ever. Do not deny me the satisfac- 
 tion of serving you in your hour of need." 
 
 When Roma came to full possession of herself after the Re- 
 quiem Mass the cortege was on its way to the cemetery. There 
 was a line of carriages. Most of them were empty empty as 
 the mourning of which they formed a part. The parish priest 
 sat with his acolyte, who held a crucifix before his eyes so that 
 his thoughts might not wander. He took snuff and said his 
 Matins for to-morrow. 
 
 The necropolis of Rome is outside the Porta San Lorenzo, 
 by the church of that name. The bier drew up at the House of 
 Deposit. When the coaches discharged their occupants Roma 
 saw that except the paid servants of the funeral she was the 
 only mourner. The Countess's friends, like herself, disliked the 
 sight of churchyards. 
 
 The House of Deposit, a low-roofed chamber under a 
 chapel, contained tressels for every kind and condition of the 
 dead. One place was labelled " Reserved for distinguished 
 corpses." The coffin of the Countess was put to rest there, 
 until the buriers should come to bury it in the morning, the 
 wreaths and flowers and streamers were laid over it, the priest 
 sprinkled it again with holy water, and then the funeral was at 
 an end. 
 
 " I will not go back yet," said Roma, and thereupon the 
 priest and his assistants stepped into the carriages. The drivers 
 lit cigarettes and started off at a brisk trot. 
 
 It had been a gorgeous funeral, and the soul of the Countess 
 would have been satisfied. But the grinning King of Terrors
 
 384 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 has stood by all the time, saying, " Vanity of vanities, all is 
 vanity ! " 
 
 Roma bought a wreath of white flowers at a stall outside the 
 cemetery gates, and by help of a paper given to her in the of- 
 fice she found the grave of little Joseph. It was in a shelf of 
 vaults like ovens, each with its marble door, and a photograph 
 on the front. They were all photographs of children, sweet 
 smiling faces, a choir of little angels, now singing round the 
 throne in heaven. The sun was shining on them, and the tall 
 cypress trees were singing softly in the light wind overhead. 
 Here and there a mother was trimming an oil-lamp that hung 
 before her baby's face, and listening to the little voice that was 
 not dead but speaking to her soul's soul. 
 
 Roma hung her wreath on Joseph's vault and turned away. 
 Going out of the gates she met a great concourse of people. 
 At their head was a Capuchin carrying a black wooden cross 
 with sponge, spear, hammer and nails attached. Two boys 
 in blue and white carried candles by his side. The crowd be- 
 hind were of the poorest, chiefly women and girls with shawls 
 and handkerchiefs on their heads. It was Friday and they 
 were going to the church of San Lorenzo to make the proces- 
 sion of the stations of the cross. Scarcely knowing why she 
 did so Roma followed them. 
 
 The people filled the Basilica. Their devotion was deep and 
 touching. As they followed the friar from station to station 
 they sang in monotonous tones the strophes of the Stabat 
 Mater. 
 
 " Ah, Mother, fountain of love, make me feel the strength 
 of sorrow that I may mourn with thee." 
 
 Their prayer seemed hardly needful. They were the starv- 
 ing wives and daughters of men in prison, men in hospital, 
 and the reserve soldiers. Poor wrecks on life's shore, thrown 
 up by the tide, they had turned to religion for consolation, and 
 were sending up their cry to God. 
 
 When they had finished their course and ended their can- 
 ticles of grief they gathered about the pulpit and the Capuchin 
 got up to preach. He was a bearded man with a face full of 
 light, almost of frenzy, and a cross and a rosary hung from 
 his girdle. He spoke of their poverty, their lost ones, their 
 privations, of the dark hour they were passing through, and of 
 answers to prayers in political affairs. During this time the 
 silence was breathless, but when he told them that God had 
 sent their sufferings upon them for their sins, that they must
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 385 
 
 Confess their sins, in order that their holy mother, the Church, 
 might save them from their sins, there was a deep hum in the 
 air like the reverberation in a great shell. 
 
 A line of confessional boxes stood in each of the church 
 aisles, and as the preacher described the sorrows of the man- 
 God, his passion, his agony, his blood, the women and girls, 
 weeping audibly, got up one by one and went over to confess. 
 No sooner had one of them arisen than another took her place. 
 And each as she rose to her feet looked calm and comforted. 
 
 The emotion of the moment was swelling over Eoma like 
 a flood. If she could unburden her heart like that ! If she 
 could cast off all the trouble of her days and nights of pain 1 
 One of the confessional boxes had a penitential rod protruding 
 from it, and going past the front of it she had seen the face 
 of the priest. It was a soft, kindly, human face. She had seen 
 it before somewhere perhaps in the Pope's procession. 
 
 At that moment a poor girl with a handkerchief on her 
 head, who had knelt down crying, was getting up with shining 
 eyes. Roma was shaken by violent tremors. An overpowering 
 desire had come upon her to confess. For a moment she held 
 on to a chair, lest she should fall to the floor. Then by a sud- 
 den impulse, in a kind of delirium, scarcely knowing what 
 she was doing until it was done, she flung herself in the place 
 the girl had risen from, and with a palpitating heart said in a 
 tremulous voice through the little brass grating: 
 
 " Father, I am a great sinner hear me, hear me ! " 
 
 The measured breathing inside the confessional was ar- 
 rested, and the peaceful face of the priest looked out at the 
 hectic cheeks and blazing eyes. 
 
 " Wait, my daughter. Do not agitate yourself. Say 
 the Confiteor." 
 
 She tried to speak but her words were hardly audible or 
 coherent. 
 
 " I confess ... I confess ... I cannot, Father." 
 
 A pinch of snuff dropped from the old man's fingers. 
 
 " Are you not a Christian ? " 
 
 " I have not been baptised, but I was educated in a con- 
 vent and . . ." 
 
 " Then I cannot hear your confession. Baptism is the 
 door of the Church and without it . . ." 
 
 " But I am in great trouble. For Our Lady's sake, listen to 
 me. Oh, listen to me, Father, only listen to me." 
 
 Although accustomed to the sufferings of the human heart,
 
 386 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 a measureless pity came over the old priest, and he said in a 
 kind and tender voice: 
 
 " Go on, my daughter. I cannot give you absolution, for 
 you are not a child of the Church, but I am an old man and if 
 I can help your poor soul to bear its burden, God forbid that 
 I should turn you away." 
 
 In a torrent of hot words Roma poured out her trouble, hid- 
 ing nothing, extenuating nothing and naming and blaming no 
 one. At length the throbbing breath and quivering voice died 
 down, and there was a moment's silence, in which the dull 
 rumble in the church seemed to come from far away. Then 
 the voice behind the grating said in tender tones : 
 
 " My daughter, you have committed no sin in this case and 
 have nothing to repent of. That you should be troubled by 
 scruples shows that your soul is pure and that you are living 
 in communion with God. Your bodily health is reduced by 
 nervousness and anxiety, and it is natural that you. should 
 imagine that you have sinned where you have not sinned. 
 That is the sweet grace of most women, but how few men! 
 What sin there has been is not yours, therefore go home and 
 God comfort you." 
 
 " But, dear Father ... it is so good of you, but have you 
 forgotten . . ." 
 
 " Your husband ? No ! Whether you should tell him it is 
 beyond my power to say. In itself I should be against it, for 
 why should you disturb his conscience and endanger the peace 
 of a family? Your scruples about Nature coming to convict 
 you, being without grounds of reason, are temptations of the 
 devil and should be put behind your back. But that your mar- 
 riage was a religious one only, that the other person (you did 
 right not to name him, my child) may use that circumstance 
 to separate you, and that your confession to your husband, if 
 it came too late, would come prejudiced and worse than in vain, 
 these are the facts that make it difficult to advise you for your 
 safety and peace of mind. Let me consult some one wiser than 
 myself. Let me, perhaps, take your secret to a high place, a 
 kindly ear, a saintly heart, a venerable and holy head. Come 
 again, or leave me your name if you will, and if that holy per- 
 son has anything to say you shall hear of it. Meantime go 
 home in peace and content, my daughter, and may God bring 
 you into his true fold at last." 
 
 When Roma got up from the grating of the confessional 
 she felt like one who had passed through a great sickness and
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 387 
 
 was now better. Her whole being was going through a mi- 
 raculous convalescence. A great weight had been lifted off, she 
 was renewed as with a new soul and her very body felt light 
 as air. 
 
 The preacher was still preaching in his tremulous tones, and 
 the women and girls were still crying as Roma passed out of the 
 church, but now she heard all as in a dream. It was not until 
 she reached the portico, and a blind beggar rattled his can in 
 her face, that the spell was broken, so sudden and mysterious 
 was the transition when she came back from heaven to earth. 
 
 XII 
 
 BY the first post next morning " Sister Angelica " received 
 a letter from David Rossi. 
 
 " DEAREST, Your budget arrived safely and brought me 
 great joy and perhaps a little sadness. Apart from the pain I 
 always suffer when I think of our poor people, there was a little 
 twinge as I read between the lines of your letter. Are you not 
 dissimulating some of your happiness to keep up my spirits 
 and to prevent me from rushing back to you at all hazards? 
 You shall be really happy some day, my dear one. I shall hear 
 your silvery laugh again as I did on that glorious day in the 
 Campagna. Wait, only wait! We are still young and we 
 shall live. 
 
 " Pray for me, my heart, that what my hand is doing may 
 not be done amiss. I am working day and night. Meetings, 
 committees, correspondence early and late. A great scheme 
 is afoot, dearest, and you shall hear all about it presently. I 
 am proud that I judged rightly of the moral grandeur of your 
 nature, and that it is possible to tell you everything. 
 
 " We have elected a centre of action and mapped out our 
 organisation. Everybody agrees with me on the necessity for 
 united action. Europe seems to be ready for a complete change, 
 but the first great act must be done in Rome. I find encourage- 
 ment everywhere. The brotherly union of the peoples is going 
 on. A power stronger than brute force is sweeping through 
 the world. 
 
 " Meantime the myriads of men who live by Discord are 
 trying to drown the voice of Nature and God. 
 
 " Another of the devices used to divide humanity is the
 
 388 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Church. According to your letter they are using it again in 
 Rome. This is dangerous. The poor priests in every country 
 are beset on both sides, on the side of the civil power to 
 maintain its authority, however evil it may be, and on the side 
 of the Church to protect its temporalities. I enclose an address 
 to the priests. You will get old Albert Pellegrino to print it 
 and post it as he did the other Proclamation. God grant it 
 may do good ! 
 
 " Poor Bruno ! You are no doubt right that pressure is 
 being put upon him to betray me. It is not for myself only 
 that I am troubled. It would be a lasting grief to me if his 
 mind were poisoned. Charles Minghelli being in prison in the 
 disguise of a prisoner means that anything may happen. When 
 the man came to me after his dismissal in London it was to ask 
 help to assassinate the Baron. I refused it and he went over to 
 the other side. The secret tribunal in which cases are pre- 
 pared for public trial is a hellish machine for cruelty and in- 
 justice. It has been abolished in nearly every other civilised 
 country, but the courts and gaols of our beautiful Italy con- 
 tinue to be the scene of plots in which helpless unfortunates are 
 terrorised by expedients which leave not a trace of crime. A 
 prisoner is no longer a man, but a human agent to incriminate 
 others. His soul is corrupted, and a price is put upon treach- 
 ery. See Bruno yourself if you can, and save him from him- 
 self and the people whose only occupation in life is to secure 
 convictions. 
 
 " And now, as to your friend. Comfort her. The poor girl 
 is no more guilty than if a traction engine had run over her 
 or a wild beast had broken on her out of his cage. She must 
 not torture herself any longer. It is not right, it is not good. 
 Our body is not the only part of us that is subject to diseases, 
 and you must save her from a disease of the soul. 
 
 "As to whether she should tell her husband, I can have 
 but one opinion. I say Yes by all means. In the court of con- 
 science the sin, where it exists, is not wholly or mainly in the 
 act. That had been pardoned in secret as well as in pub- 
 lic. God pardoned it in David. Christ pardoned it in the 
 woman of Jerusalem. But the concealment, the lying and 
 duplicity, these cannot be pardoned until they have been 
 confessed. 
 
 " Another point, which your pure mind, dearest, has never 
 thought of. There is the other man. Think of the power he 
 holds over your friend. If he still wishes to possess her in spite
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 389 
 
 of herself, he may intimidate her, he may threaten to reveal 
 all to her husband. This would make her miserable, and per- 
 haps in the long run, her will being broken, it might even 
 make her yield. Or the man may really tell her husband in 
 order to insult and outrage both of them. If he does so where is 
 she? Is her husband to believe her story then? 
 
 " To meet these dangers let her speak out now. Let her 
 trust her husband's love and tell him everything. If he is a 
 man he will think, ' Only her purity has prompted her to tell 
 me,' and he will love her more than ever. Some momentary 
 spasm he may feel. Every man wishes to believe that the flower 
 he plucks is faultless. But his higher nature will conquer his 
 vanity and he will say, ' She loves me, I love her, she is inno- 
 cent, and if any blow is to be struck at her it must go 
 through me.' 
 
 " My love to you, dearest. Your friend must be a true 
 woman, and it was very sweet of you to be so tender with her. 
 It was noble of you to be severe with her too, and to make her go 
 through purgatorial fires. That is what good women always 
 do with the injured of their own sex. It is a kind of pledge 
 and badge of their purity; and it is a safeguard and shield, 
 whatever the unthinking may say. I love you for your severity 
 to the poor soiled dove, my dear one, just as much as I love 
 you for your tenderness. It shows me how rightly I judged the 
 moral elevation of your soul, your impeccabiity, your spirit of 
 fire and heart of gold. Until we meet again, my dar- 
 ling D. K." 
 
 The " Proclamation to the Priests " was as follows : 
 
 " Not in Italy and in Ireland only, but in Russia, in France, in 
 America, and throughout the world, the priests of the Catholic Church 
 come from the people. Why is it, then, that in the struggles of the. 
 people with, the powers held over them the priests of the Church are so 
 often employed to suppress the people, to quell their enthusiasm, and 
 damp their aspirations 9 
 
 "My brothers, the answer is not far to seek. There is such a 
 thing as the Soul of the Church, and there is such a thing as the Body 
 of the Church. The Soul of the Church is divine, infallible, un- 
 changeable, and will live for ever. The Body of the Church is human, 
 limited, and liable to decay. The Soul of the Church is humble and 
 kneels at the foot of the Cross. The Body of the Church is proud and 
 sits by the thrones of princes.
 
 390 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Priests of the Church, your Bishops tell you that the aims of the 
 people are blasphemous and contrary to the commandments of the 
 Decalogue. It is the old cry over again, the same that has been raised 
 against every reform carried out by the martyrs of humanity since 
 the days of Christ himself. 
 
 "But if the aims of the people are not according to religion, and 
 if their leaders are godless men, it is your duty to come in and save 
 them from both evils. Do not let it be said any longer that the Church 
 is only an obsolete phase in the development of humanity which hin- 
 ders progress. Let the salvation of the human family come through 
 priests of the Church, and the irreligious and the godless will dis- 
 appear. 
 
 " Yet are the aims of the people irreligious ? Listen to the voices 
 that are thrilling Uirough the world. The people are speaking all 
 over the earth with pentecostal tongues. Socialism, communism, 
 anarchism, perhaps, but these are aspirations not systems, symptoms 
 of disease not principles of cure. And there is one cry common to all 
 the cry for human unity. This is the voice that is going up every- 
 where, and I ask you to consider if it is not the voice of Jesus. 
 
 "Priests of Jesus, place the open gospel before you, and say if 
 Christ did not teach that we are one flock with one shepherd and that 
 all men are sons of God and brothers in Him. 
 
 "Is it only in heaven that the human family is to realise this per- 
 fection ? Did he mean that on earth there are to be cruel divisions 
 and hideous inequalities, and that Nature and God plainly show that 
 they desire and create them 9 Wfiy then did he teach us to pray 
 ' Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven ?' 
 
 "But even if the kingdom of heaven on earth is an unattainable 
 millennium, you who are the priests of Jesus will not deny to his chil- 
 dren the comfort of his dream. I dream of a Church that will put 
 away its temporalities which tempt it to divide men into two classes, 
 the rich and the poor, and into many nations, friends and foes. I 
 dream of a Holy Father of the people who will be made spiritual sov- 
 ereign on earth not by the Holy Spirit acting on seventy Cardinals in 
 the secrecy of sealed doors, but on the whole world in the light of 
 heaven. This is the sublime Church and the sublime Pontiff I dream 
 of, and, God willing, I shall live to see them. 
 
 "DAVID ROSSI."
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 391 
 
 XIII 
 
 " MY DEAR DAVID Eossi, All day long I've been carrying 
 your letter round like a reliquary, taking a peep at it in cabs, 
 and even, when I dare, in omnibuses and the streets. I have 
 just come back from the printer. That old Albert is a hum- 
 bug. He raised mountains of difficulty. Former Proclama- 
 tion gave him a great deal of trouble and anxiety; has been 
 in terror of arrest and confiscation ever since, and bill-poster 
 has been sleeping with similar nightmares. Moral more 
 money. He got it and all is well. 
 
 " What you say about Bruno has put me in a fever, and I 
 have written to the Director General for permission to visit 
 him. Even Lawyer Napoleon is now of opinion that Bruno is 
 being made a victim of that secret inquisition. No Holy In- 
 quisition was ever more unscrupulous. Lawyer N. says the 
 authorities in Italy have inherited the traditions of a bad 
 regime. To do evil to prevent others from doing it is hor- 
 rible. But in this case it is doing evil to prevent others from 
 doing good. I am satisfied that Bruno is being tempted to be- 
 tray you. If I could only take his place! Would their plots 
 have any effect upon me? I should die first. 
 
 " And now about my friend. I can hardly hold my pen 
 when I write of her. What you say is so good, so noble. I 
 might have known what you would say and yet . . . 
 
 " Dearest, how can I go on ? Can't you divine what I wish 
 to tell you? Your letter compels me to confess. Come what 
 may I can hold off no longer. Didn't you guess who my poor 
 friend was? I thought you would remember our former cor- 
 respondence when you pretended to love somebody else. You 
 haven't thought of it apparently, and that is only another 
 proof a bitter sweet one this time of your love and trust. 
 You put me so high that you never imagined that I could 
 be speaking of myself. I was, and my poor friend is my poor 
 self. 
 
 " It has made me suffer all along to see what a pedestal of 
 purity you placed me on. The letters you wrote before you 
 told me you loved me, when you were holding off, made me 
 ashamed because I knew I was not worthy. More than once 
 when you spoke of me as so good, I couldn't look into your 
 eyes. I felt an impulse to cry, ' No, no, no,' and to smirch the 
 picture you were painting. Yet how could I do it? What
 
 392 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 woman who loves a man can break the idol in his heart? She 
 can only struggle to lift herself up to it. That was what I tried 
 to do, and it is not my fault that it is not done. 
 
 " I have been much to blame. There were moments when 
 duty should have made me speak. One such moment was be- 
 fore we married. Do you remember that I tried to tell you 
 something ? You were kind and you would not listen. ' The 
 past is past,' you said, and I was only too happy to gloss it 
 over. You didn't know what I wished to say, or you would 
 not have silenced me. I knew, and I have suffered ever since. 
 I had to speak, and you see how I have spoken. And now I 
 feel as if I had tricked you. I have got you to commit yourself 
 to opinions and to a line of conduct. Forgive me ! I will not 
 hold you to anything. Take it all back and I shall have no 
 right to complain. 
 
 " Besides, there were features in my own case which I did 
 not present to you in my friend's. One of them was the fear 
 of being found out. Dearest, I must not shield myself behind 
 the sweet excuse you find for me. I did think of the other man. 
 It wasn't that I was afraid that he would intimidate me and so 
 corrupt my love. Not all the tyrannies of the world could do 
 that now. But if from revenge or a desire to wrest me away 
 from you by making you cast me off he told you his story be- 
 fore I had told you mine ! That was a day-long and night-long 
 teror, and now I confess it lest you should think me better 
 than I am. 
 
 " Another thing you did not know. Dearest, I would give 
 my life to spare you the explanation, but I must tell you every- 
 thing. You know who the man is, and it is true before God 
 that he alone was to blame. But my own fault came after- 
 wards. Instead of cutting him off I continued to be on good 
 terms with him, to take the income he allowed me from my 
 father's estate, and even to think of him as my future husband. 
 And when your speech in the piazza seemed to endanger my 
 prospects I set out to destroy you. 
 
 " It is terrible. How can I tell you and not die of shame ? 
 Now you know how much I deceived you and the infamy of my 
 object makes me afraid to ask for pardon. To think that I 
 was no better than a Delilah when I met you first ! But heaven 
 stepped in and saved you. How you worked upon me ! First, 
 you re-created my father for me, and I saw him as he really 
 was, and not as I had been taught to think of him. Then you 
 gave me my soul and I saw myself. Darling, do not hate me.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 393 
 
 Your great heart could not be capable of a cruelty like that if 
 you knew what I suffered. 
 
 " Last of all love came, and I wanted to hold on to it. Oh, 
 how I wanted to hold on to it ! That was how it came about 
 that I went on and on without telling you. It was a sort of 
 gambling, a kind of delirium. Everything that happened I 
 took as a penance. Come poverty, shame, neglect, what mat- 
 ter? It was only wiping out a sinful past, and bringing me 
 nearer to you. But when at last he who had injured me threat- 
 ened to injure you through me I was in despair. You could 
 never imagine what mad notions came to me then. I even 
 thought of killing myself, to end and cover up everything. 
 But no, I could not break your heart like that. Besides, the 
 very act would have told you something, and it was terrible 
 to think that when I was dead you might find out all this 
 pitiful story. . 
 
 " jSTow you know everything, dearest. I have kept nothing 
 back. As you see, I am not only my poor friend but some one 
 worse myself. Can you forgive me ? I dare not ask it. But 
 put me out of suspense. Write. Or better still, telegraph. 
 One word only one. It will be enough. 
 
 " I would love to send you my love, but to-night I dare not. 
 I have loved you from the first, and I can never do anything 
 but love you, whatever happens. I think you would forgive 
 me if you could realise that I am in the world only to love you, 
 and that the worst of my offences comes of loving you more 
 than reason or honour itself. Whatever you do, I am yours, 
 and I can only consecrate my life to you. 
 
 " It is daybreak, and the cross of St. Peter's is hanging 
 spectral white above the mists of morning. Is it a symbol of 
 hope, I wonder? The dawn is coming up from the southeast. 
 It would travel quicker to the northwest if it loved you as 
 much as I do. I have been writing this letter over and over 
 again all night long. Do you remember the letter you made 
 me burn, the one containing all your secrets ? Here is a letter 
 containing mine but how much meaner and more perilous ! 
 Your poor unhappy girl. ROMA." 
 
 XIV 
 
 ROMA took possession of Rossi's apartment. When she went 
 down to prepare the old people and to show them Rossi's tele- 
 gram they were as happy as children. The deaf old woman 
 26
 
 394: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 talked perpetually. There was no news of Elena and the theory 
 of the convent was visibly breaking down, but they were pray- 
 ing every day to Saint Anthony. Yesterday had been the 
 " month's mind " of the boy's death, and they had taken a 
 bunch of violets to the Campo Santo ; but there was a beautiful 
 wreath there already the Blessed Virgin had remembered 
 little Joseph. 
 
 Bruno ? Ah, yes, they had heard from Bruno and been al- 
 lowed to see him. But he was so strange, so hard, so cruel. 
 When they broke down at the first sight of his prison clothes 
 he told them to be quiet and not make a fool of him. All he 
 would talk of was Elena. Some one had told him she was gone, 
 and when they hinted at the idea of the convent he laughed 
 and swore. 
 
 Next day Roma removed into her new quarters. A few 
 trunks containing her personal belongings, the picture of her 
 father and Elena's Madonna, were all she took with her. A 
 broker glanced at the rest of her goods and gave a price for 
 the lot. Most of the plaster casts in the studio were broken 
 up and carted away. The fountain being of marble had to be 
 put in a dark cellar under the lodge of the old Garibaldian. 
 Only one part of it was carried upstairs. This was the mould 
 for the bust of Rossi and the block of stone for the head 
 of Christ. 
 
 Except for her dog Roma went alone to the Piazza Navona, 
 Felice having returned to the Baron and Natalina being dis- 
 missed. The old woman was to clean and cook for her and 
 Roma was to shop for herself. It didn't take the neighbours 
 long to sum up the situation. She was Rossi's wife. They 
 began to call her Signora. 
 
 Coming to live in Rossi's home was a sweet experience. 
 The room seemed to be full of his presence. The sitting-room 
 with its piano, its phonograph, and its portraits brought back 
 the very tones of his voice. The bedroom was at first a sanc- 
 tuary, and she could not bring herself to occupy it until she 
 had set up the little Madonna. Then it became a bower, and 
 to sleep in it brought a tingling sense which she had never 
 felt before. 
 
 Living in the midst of Rossi's surroundings she felt as 
 if she were discovering something new about him every min- 
 ute. His squirrels on the roof made her think of him as a boy, 
 and his birds, which were nesting, and therefore singing from 
 their little swelling throats the whole day long, made her thrill
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 395 
 
 and think of both of them. His presents from other women 
 were a source of almost feverish interest. Some came from. 
 England and America, and were sent by women who had never 
 even seen his face. They made her happy, they made her 
 proud, they made her jealous. 
 
 During the first days at the Piazza Navona she persuaded 
 herself that living in that quarter was the most delightful thing 
 that could be imagined. First there was the artistic spectacle 
 of the narrow streets with their old courtyards, carved stones 
 and tiny lamps before the shrines of the Virgin. Then there 
 was the human spectacle of the open windows always occupied 
 by women's heads. The cobblers plying their trade on the 
 pavement, the vendors calling, the donkeys braying, and the 
 children shouting at their play. 
 
 It Avas all so natural, so kindly. She was beginning to exist 
 among her fellow beings for the first time, and when her sense 
 of smell was hurt by the acrid exhalations of unclean people 
 she told herself it was partly a false refinement which made 
 her suffer. 
 
 Above all she was touched by the spectacle of human pov- 
 erty and suffering, because that brought her nearest of all to 
 David Rossi. There were the lodging houses where old men 
 lay in a bed for a penny, and the " locande " where they leant 
 their arms over a rope for a halfpenny. There was the Royal 
 Monte di Pieta, the state pawnshop, and the Royal Banco del 
 Lotto, the state lottery. There were the carts going round to 
 collect offerings for the poor, and the excitable Latin people 
 throwing clothes from the windows. There was the disease of 
 poverty, the pellagra which attacks people who live on maize, 
 the Sisters of the Red Cross Society moving among the 
 sick, the doctors taking their sleeping draughts to the dy- 
 ing, and Death leaving its own sleeping draught with the 
 dead. 
 
 From Trinita de' Monti she had looked on this as on a 
 scene at a theatre witnessed from a private box, but now she 
 was in the midst of it. It was the atmosphere David Rossi lived 
 in. He might have come to it from necessity, but he had re- 
 mained in it from choice. The young woman with her tender 
 sympathies, her delicate senses, and her refinement of mind 
 suffered tortures but thought she was content. 
 
 It was Rossi, Rossi, always Rossi! Every night on going 
 to bed in her poor quarters her last thought was a love-prayer 
 in the darkness, very simple and foolish and childlike, that he
 
 396 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 would love her always whatever she was, and whatever the 
 world might say, or evil men might do. 
 
 This mood lasted for a week and then it began to break. 
 At the back of her happiness there lay anxiety about her letter. 
 She counted up the hours since she posted it and reckoned the 
 time it would take to receive a reply. If Rossi telegraphed she 
 might hear from him in three days. She did not hear. 
 
 " He thinks it better to write," she told herself. Of course 
 he would write immediately, and in five days she would receive 
 his reply. On the fifth day she called on the porter at the con- 
 vent. He had nothing for " Sister Angelica." 
 
 " There must be snow on the Alps, and therefore the mails 
 are delayed," she thought, and she went down to Piale's where 
 they post up telegrams. There was snow in Switzerland. It 
 was just as .she imagined, and her letter would be delivered 
 in the morning. It was not delivered in the morning. 
 
 " How stupid of me ! It would be Sunday when my letter 
 reached London." She had not counted on the postal arrange- 
 ments of the English Sabbath. One day more, only one, and 
 she would hear from Rossi and be happy. 
 
 But one day went by, then another, and another, and still 
 no letter came. Her big heart began to fail and the rainbow 
 in the sky of her life to pale away. The singing of the birds 
 on the roof pained her now. How could they crack their little 
 throats like that? It was raining and the sky was dark. 
 
 Then the Garibaldi an and his old wife came upstairs with 
 scared looks and with papers in their hands. They were sum- 
 moned to give evidence at Bruno's trial. It was to take place 
 in three days. 
 
 " Well, I'm deaf, praise the Saints, and they can't make 
 much of me," said the old woman. 
 
 Roma put on her simple black straw hat with a quill 
 through it and set off for the office of the lawyer, Napoleon 
 Fuselli. 
 
 " Just writing to you, dear lady," said the great man, drop- 
 ping back in his chair. " Sorry to say my labour has been in 
 vain. It is useless to go further. Our man has confessed." 
 
 " Confessed ? " Roma clutched at the lapel of her coat. 
 
 " Confessed and denounced his accomplices." 
 
 " His accomplices ? " 
 
 " Rossi in particular, whom he has implicated in a serious 
 conspiracy." 
 
 " What conspiracy ? "
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 397 
 
 " That is not yet disclosed. We shall hear all about it the 
 day after to-morrow." 
 
 " But why ? With what object ? " 
 
 " Pardon ! Apparently they have promised the clemency 
 of the court, and hence in one sense our object is achieved. It 
 is hardly necessary to defend the man. The authorities will 
 see to that for us." 
 
 " What will be the result? " 
 
 " Probably a trial in contumacy. As soon as Parliament 
 rises for Easter, Rossi will be summoned to present himself 
 within ten days. But you will be the first to know all about 
 it, you know." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " The summons will be posted upon the door of the house 
 he lived in, and on the door of any other house he was known 
 to have frequented." 
 
 " But if he never hears of it, or if he takes no heed ? " 
 
 " He will be tried all the same, and when he is a condemned 
 man his sentence will be printed in black and posted up in 
 the same places." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then Rossi's life in Rome will be at an end. He will be 
 interdicted from all public offices and expelled from Par- 
 liament." 
 
 "AndBruiio?" 
 
 " He will be a free man the following morning." 
 
 Roma went home dazed and dejected. A letter was wait- 
 ing for her. It was from the Director of the Roman prisons. 
 Although the regulations stipulated that only relations should 
 visit prisoners, except under special conditions, the Director 
 had no objection to Bruno Rocco's former employer seeing 
 him at the ordinary bi-monthly hour for visitors to-morrow, 
 Sunday afternoon. 
 
 At two o'clock next day Roma set off for Regina Coeli. 
 
 XV 
 
 THE prison of Regina Coeli is constructed on the lines of 
 a broken wheel, the axle being the open Rotunda and the 
 spokes the lines of cells. It is partly judicial and partly penal. 
 All prisoners wear prison clothes and are subject to the general
 
 398 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 regulations. The convicts are chiefly printers and their work- 
 shop is the great printing-office of the State. Acts of Parlia- 
 ment are printed there, as well as the " Official Gazette " which 
 details the movements of the King, with the balls, dinner- 
 parties and receptions at the royal palaces. From this source 
 chiefly the prisoners obtain their knowledge of what goes on 
 in the world without. All the men who print the paper wear 
 numbers and some of them wear chains. 
 
 When the iron gate which shut out the world of the living 
 had clanged back on Bruno he found himself in a cell alone. 
 It was near midnight, and as the hour was striking two ward- 
 ers came in, one carrying a smoky lantern whereby he glanced 
 around, another carrying a hammer with which he tested the 
 bars of the window. These were the Battitori, and when they 
 had gone from his own cell the prisoner could hear the rat-tat- 
 tat of their hammer as they passed down the cells of his cor- 
 ridor. At 2.30 and at 5 they came again. It was their 
 nightly round. 
 
 Bruno did not sleep. For the first time that night he had 
 time to realise what had happened. lie was thinking of little 
 Joseph and his heart was bleeding. In the cell next to him on 
 the right somebody sobbed the whole night through. It was 
 a boy of seventeen. 
 
 At nine next morning a bell rang, a little trap in the door 
 of the cell fell open, and a convict who dragged a chain at his 
 leg pushed in a piece of bread and a can of water. At eleven 
 warders came and led him to an office 011 the world side of an 
 inner iron gate, where a military magistrate sat with his as- 
 sistants to prepare papers for the public trial. 
 
 "Name?" said the magistrate, and the assistant read 
 from a ledger. 
 
 " Bruno Rocco, sculptor's assistant, 14, Piazza Navona, 
 violent resistance to the authorities and wounding Carious 
 soldiers." 
 
 " Is this the man who lives in the house with the Dep- 
 uty Eossi ? " 
 
 " The same." 
 
 " Look here, my good fellow. You seem to be an honest 
 man. Tell me, where is your friend the Deputy ? " 
 
 " Find out for yourself," said Bruno. 
 
 " Silence! " cried the warder. 
 
 " What do you mean by answering the magistrate like 
 that ? " said the assistant.
 
 THE ROMAN OF HOME 300 
 
 " I mean that I'm not in swaddling clothes, and he mustn't 
 try to stuff me with pap," said Bruno. 
 
 " Put him in prison clothes, then, and feed him for two 
 days on bread and water," said the magistrate. 
 
 Bruno was taken to the bath, his own clothes were removed, 
 and he was told to put on a suit made of coarse grey cloth with 
 a broad black stripe. Then he was conducted to the court- 
 yard for exercise. 
 
 The recreation ground, like the prison itself, was con- 
 structed on the principle of a wheel. An armed warder stood 
 on an elevated axle-tree, and the prisoners walked to and fro 
 like caged bears in the space between the spokes. The wheel 
 was in the open air and some of the sounds of the outer world 
 came over the boundary walls. There was a convent school 
 near by, and Bruno could hear the merry voices of the children 
 :~t play. He thought of Joseph and the iron entered into his 
 soul. 
 
 Late in the afternoon the Director sent for him, and he 
 was taken to a little dark office by the inner iron gate at which 
 the Governor of the prison receives the complaints of his pris- 
 oners. 
 
 " My man," said the Director, " it has just been put into 
 my power to make you comfortable, but if you insult the mili- 
 tary authorities I shall be compelled to withhold privileges and 
 have recourse to severe measures." 
 
 " Let the military authorities look out," said Bruno. " I've 
 got friends who will take care of me." 
 
 Back in the cell he thought of Elena. Poor girl! Poor 
 mother! What would she be doing now? The funeral must 
 take place soon, and she had next to no money. But Mr. Rossi 
 would see to that. He would see to everything. God bless 
 him ! God bless Elena ! God bless both of them ! 
 
 The Battitori had made their midnight round, the boy 
 in the cell on the right was quiet, and Bruno was settling him- 
 self to sleep when he heard a low knocking on the wall at 
 his left. 
 
 " Who's there? " he shouted. 
 
 There was a moment's silence, and then the knocking came 
 again. 
 
 " It's a prisoner trying to speak to me," thought Bruno. 
 Somebody was being badly treated and wanted help. All at 
 once he remembered what he had heard of the language of 
 prisoners, the knocks that represent the letters of the alphabet,
 
 400 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 and starting up he returned the signal. A moment afterwards 
 he was talking easily to the occupant of the adjoining cell. 
 
 " Long live anarchy," his neighbour knocked out, and Bruno 
 replied, " Long live the revolution." 
 
 " Are you Bruno Rocco ? " 
 
 "Yes. Do I know you?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Who are you?" 
 
 " I am . . . number 333, penal part." 
 
 "Convict?" 
 
 " Yes. Proof-reader ' Official Gazette.' Knew you by num- 
 ber of your cell. Get to know everything. Read all about your 
 child. Sorry for you. Not even chance of seeing poor boy 
 buried." 
 
 " Somebody outside will look to that." 
 
 " Good. Anything I can do for you ? " 
 
 " Get to know what Deputy Rossi is doing." 
 
 " I will. Good-night ! " 
 
 "Good-night!" The correspondence ended with a salute 
 of many knocks, and Bruno fell asleep. Next morning he was 
 taken before the magistrate again. 
 
 " Bruno Rocco," said the magistrate, " you know you are 
 guilty, and if you get ten years' seclusion it will be no less 
 than you may expect. But you didn't belong to the directing 
 set and if you will be a sensible man and help us in this difficult 
 inquiry we may be able by the clemency of the King to do 
 something for you. Come now, can you tell us who was the 
 chief cause of this riot ? " 
 
 " Of course I can," said Bruno. 
 
 "Good! Who was it?" 
 
 "Mr. Hunger! . . . You don't know him! And yet he is 
 your neighbour and lives next door." 
 
 Bruno laughed until the room rang. The magistrate bit 
 his lip. 
 
 " My good man, you don't seem to be aware that we are not 
 your fellow prisoners, and that under military law we can 
 order you to be flogged." 
 
 " And you don't seem to be aware that I'm not one of the 
 oysters of Italy, and that all the flogging you can inflict won't 
 open my mouth." 
 
 " Let's try it," said the magistrate, and contrary to regula- 
 tions, Bruno was taken out arid flogged. He did not flinch or 
 utter a sound.
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 401 
 
 " Courage ! " said the chaplain, as Bruno, giddy and dazed, 
 looked up at the sky, and with an air of defiance staggered 
 back to his cell. 
 
 XVI 
 
 IT was the third night after the riot. The Battitori had 
 made the first of their nightly rounds and Bruno was still 
 awake. He was waiting for the knocking from the adjoining 
 wall. It came at last in low beats. 
 
 " Are you there ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Been lashed, haven't you ? " 
 
 " ~No matter ! They'll pay for it all some day." 
 
 " Heard the news ? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Rossi's gone." 
 
 "Gone?" 
 
 " Fled to England . . . Fact. In to-night's ' Gazette.' It's 
 all over the prison." 
 
 " But that's the very man I was looking to . . ." 
 
 " Thought so." 
 
 " And who is to bury my poor little . . ." 
 
 " The public buriers will see to that." 
 
 Measured steps in the corridor interrupted the knocking and 
 the conversation came to an end. Bruno did not sleep. Gloomy 
 and bitter thoughts were taking possession of him and he 
 walked up and down in the darkness. A few minutes after five 
 in the morning his neighbour knocked again. 
 
 " Wasn't pretty, Rossi going away." 
 
 " That's all right. Glad he has escaped." 
 
 " How escaped ? Being Deputy he was in no danger of 
 being arrested. Must be something else." 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 " You ought to know best . . . Any woman in the wind ? " 
 
 " Hold hard, sonny." 
 
 " All right. Heard there was, though. Sorry for you, 
 old fellow. Anything else I can do for you? Have safe 
 means of correspondence. Want any news from outside ? " 
 
 " Yes. Where's my wife, and has she enough to go on with, 
 and what did she do about the funeral ? " 
 
 " I'll see to it. ... There's the voice of God going."
 
 402 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The " voice of God " was the bell which announced nine 
 o'clock and the distribution of bread and water. 
 
 The poison had entered into Bruno's soul, and unworthy 
 thoughts about Elena began to rise in his heart. At eleven 
 o'clock the warder came to say that some one was there to 
 inquire into his case. It was the Lawyer Napoleon Fuselli. 
 Bruno saw him in an office above the altar in the Rotunda. 
 There was an oval glass panel in the door, and throughout the 
 interview a warder walked to and fro on the iron landing out- 
 side and looked into the room at intervals. 
 
 " I am instructed to defend you," said the lawyer. 
 
 "Who by?" 
 
 " Donna Roma, your former employer." 
 
 But the poison had done its work and Bruno's soul was filled 
 with suspicions. Why Donna Roma ? Did she want to get him 
 out of prison in order that he might watch his wife? The 
 lawyer could make nothing of him. 
 
 " I'll see you again," said the advocate, and Bruno was taken 
 back to his cell. There he brooded over the idea that had taken 
 possession of him until every tender word that Rossi had 
 spoken to Elena seemed to leap to his memory. He hated 
 himself for his evil thoughts, yet he could not banish them. 
 " I'm a fool, they're like brother and sister," he told himself, 
 but peace would not come. That night the knocking came 
 again. 
 
 " Are you asleep ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Had an answer from outside." 
 
 " Drop it, sonny. I've had enough." 
 
 " All right. That's the best way to take it." 
 
 "Take what?" 
 
 " She's gone ! " 
 
 Bruno did not knock his reply. He shouted it. 
 
 " Elena ! " 
 
 " Hush ! Do you want to go into the punishment cells ? " 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 " Your . . . wife ... is ... gone." 
 
 " Where to ? " 
 
 " Nobody knows. People say to England." 
 
 " It's a lie ... The man was the same to me as my own 
 brother." 
 
 " Don't think of it. Sleep well. Good-night ! " 
 
 "PerChristo! . . . Gone! . . . To England!"
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 403 
 
 Bruno was ensnared, and next morning he rang the bell on 
 his door and demanded to see the Director. 
 
 " How long am I to be kept here before my case comes on ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Until the magistrates are ready to make the preliminary 
 examinations," answered the Director. 
 
 "Is there no limit of time? Do innocent men never go 
 mad while they are waiting for their trials ? " 
 
 " My good fellow," said the Director, " take my advice, do 
 what is wanted of you, and your case may be completed soon. 
 Go on as you are going and God knows how long it will last." 
 
 " Meantime you are treating a citizen as if he were con- 
 demned to the gallows." 
 
 " Silence ! " cried the warder. 
 
 " Silence yourself," cried Bruno, and he pushed the warder 
 with his elbow. 
 
 " This man is always violent, Cavaliere," said the warder, 
 whereupon the Director ordered four days in the punishment 
 cells. 
 
 XVII 
 
 THE punishment cells are in a separate building, across the 
 courtyard, and on the edge of the prison grounds. Beyond the 
 high Avails are narrow lanes in which armed sentries pace day 
 and night. The beautiful green hill of the Janiculurn, where 
 people walk for pleasure, rises at the back, while immediately 
 in front the muddy and turbulent waters of the Tiber surge and 
 race. Prisoners in punishment cells can hear the band when it 
 plays operatic music on the Pincio, and also the deep boom- 
 ing of the bell of St. Peter's when it rings for prayers. 
 
 The door of Bruno's cell was marked " Special, four days 
 bread and water." During the first night in his new quarters 
 the prisoner seemed to be alone, but on the second night he 
 heard footsteps in the corridor mingled, with the clank of 
 chains. The door of an adjoining cell was opened and closed, 
 and Bruno knew he had a neighbour. In the silence of that 
 night a low voice in the darkness seemed to be speaking at 
 his ear. 
 
 " Helloa there ! " 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 "Hush! Be quiet if you don't want the strait-waistcoat." 
 
 " Where are you ? "
 
 404 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " In the next cell of course. But there's a hole under the 
 bed that we can talk through." 
 
 " Where have I heard your voice before ? " said Bruno. 
 
 "My voice . . . Nowhere. You've heard my knocking 
 though. I'm 333. Tried to escape last night. Got nabbed, 
 and here I am again. News for you." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Kossi's been telling them in London that he did every- 
 thing he could to prevent bloodshed, and if it hadn't been for 
 the intemperance of some drunken followers . . ." 
 
 "Did he say that?" 
 
 " Afraid he did." 
 
 A cry like a groan mixed with blood came from Bruno's 
 throat. 
 
 " Isn't pretty, is it ? Especially if it's true that while you 
 are locked up here he is enjoying himself in England with an- 
 other man's wife." 
 
 " In the name of heaven . . ." 
 
 " But that's a lie, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Maybe it is, maybe it isn't, Who knows ? " 
 
 Two days passed. Bruno spent them in uttering blas- 
 phemies and dashing himself against the walls of his cell. The 
 Lawyer Napoleon Fuselli came again, but Bruno refused to 
 answer his questions and talked vaguely of treachery. Old 
 Francesca and the Garibaldian were allowed to see him, but 
 he only asked them if it was the fact that Elena had gone. 
 
 At length the Director sent for him. It was late at night 
 and the interview took place in the private office attached to 
 the punishment cells. There was a certain agitation in the 
 Director's manner, such as comes to a good man when he is 
 doing a bad action. 
 
 " My poor fellow," he said, " I'm grieved for you. No doubt 
 you thought you were joining in a good work, while in fact you 
 were sacrificing yourself to men who have since deserted you. 
 Why should you persist in a useless silence which will only 
 condemn you to a long imprisonment when by speaking the 
 truth you may save yourself from further suffering? And 
 though a pardon may be difficult to obtain, yet I pledge my 
 word that if you are condemned . . ." 
 
 " Hold hard, sir. Let's speak plainly," said Bruno. " You 
 want me to denounce Mr. Rossi, don't you? I'm pretty bad, 
 but I've not come to that yet, and be damned to you." 
 
 " Silence ! " shouted the warder, and he struck Bruno across
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 405 
 
 the mouth. At the next moment the warder was on the ground, 
 the Director had whistled, other warders had assembled, and 
 Bruno was being handcuffed. 
 
 " The strait-waistcoat for twenty-four hours," said the Di- 
 rector, and Bruno was hustled into his cell. 
 
 The strait-waistcoat is a stiff piece of rough canvas reaching 
 to the knees and laced down the back with the arms tightened 
 about the body. In this instrument of torture Bruno rolled 
 on the floor until sleep brought him relief. When he awoke 
 he heard the slow booming of the bell of St. Peter's and knew 
 it was morning. 
 
 Bad as was his bodily suffering his mental anguish was 
 worse. All at once a light shot through his brain. He was 
 thinking of a bottle which he always carried about with him. 
 It was a bottle of prussic acid, and on changing his clothes he 
 had smuggled it into one of his boots. He could feel it there 
 now, and no charm worn about the neck of a woman ever 
 brought such a sense of safety. Since Joseph was dead and 
 Elena gone and Rossi had betrayed him there was nothing left 
 but to die. 
 
 That night after the strait-waistcoat had been removed 
 Bruno took the bottle out of his boot, uncorked it, and tested 
 the measure of its contents. The phial was full, not a drop 
 had been wasted. And being able to free himself at pleasure 
 from torments which had driven him to despair, he felt calmer, 
 and his sufferings became more supportable. 
 
 " After the Battitori," he thought, and with an easier mind 
 he waited for midnight. It seemed to come very soon. There 
 was the usual tramp of feet in the corridor, the usual click 
 of the lock, the usual flash of light from a smoky lantern, the 
 usual rat-tat-tat on the iron bars of the window, and the usual 
 clang of the double doors of the cell. The deep boom of the 
 bell of St. Peter's was rumbling off into that mysterious silence 
 which is the frontier of the country called the Past. Midnight 
 was gone, life was over. 
 
 Bruno rose from his plank bed, and uncorked the bottle 
 again. The flogging, the strait-waistcoat and the bread and 
 water which had helped to break down his intellect and his 
 soul had reduced his body also. Lights danced before his eyes 
 in the darkness, and he could hardly stand erect. At that mo- 
 ment he hated all the world, but remembering that he was leav- 
 ing for ever he tried to conquer his bitterness. 
 
 " Good-bye, Elena ! And David Rossi, adieu to you too !
 
 406 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 You've done me many a good turn, but by God I'm even with 
 you at last." 
 
 He laughed aloud as he thought like this, a delirious laugh, 
 and at the next moment somebody was calling to him. 
 
 " Bruno." It was the neighbour of the next cell. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " What are you laughing at ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " You're a fool. The guard told me what happened last 
 night. Think of a man having a chance of getting out of a 
 hole like this, and not going ! You'll be sent to Porto Longone 
 after your trial, and the guards can't be humane with you 
 there because they have instructions to be severe. Say half a 
 word and down you go like the ball on St. Ignazio's at the 
 twelve o'clock gun. Awful place. Built on a rock bristling 
 with cannon, and with five iron-clads beneath." 
 
 Bruno laughed again, an insane and mocking laugh. 
 
 " Besides, isn't it worth something to get even with a 
 man who has deceived you ? If it were my case, the prison isn't 
 built that would hold me until I had squared accounts." 
 
 " Good-night, old chap." 
 
 " You've only to say the word, so to speak, and out you go." 
 
 " Shut up, sonny. You don't know. They wanted me to 
 denounce him ? " 
 
 " And why not ? He is gone, isn't he ? They only want to 
 keep him away." 
 
 " But what am I to denounce him for ? " 
 
 " Anything. Find out what they want you to say, and say 
 it. What's the odds. . . . Get out, you fool, and go to Eng- 
 land." 
 
 There was a cruel moment of hesitation and distress. Then 
 the bottle went back to Bruno's boot, and his tortures came 
 again. As the clocks chimed 12.30 he rang the bell on his door 
 and asked to see the Director. 
 
 " I have an urgent communication to make to him I want 
 to confess," he said. 
 
 No sooner had he taken this decisive step than he repented 
 and wished to draw back. It was too late. The Director had 
 been awakened and Bruno was summoned to his room. 
 
 Going down the corridors with a warder on either side, 
 Bruno was like a man reduced to imbecility. The sleeping 
 prison was very quiet and only the echo of the footsteps of the 
 three men broke the silence with a hollow and sepulchral
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 407 
 
 sound. As they passed through the iron gate beyond the altar 
 and confessional boxes a cold rush of fresh night air came into 
 their faces from the world without. 
 
 The Director received Bruno with cordial expressions, and 
 asked him what he had to communicate. He did not know. 
 He looked as if he had lost his memory. The chief warder, 
 who was present, consulted a letter, and silently handed it to 
 the Director. After the Director had glanced at the letter he 
 said to Bruno, 
 
 " My good fellow, I see what you wish to say, but not being 
 a scholar no doubt you have difficulties in saying it. Therefore 
 the chief warder will write a statement to my dictation and 
 if it expresses your intention you will sign." 
 
 Bruno, who made no answer, continued to stand with a stu- 
 pid expression between the warders while the Director dictated 
 and the chief warder wrote. 
 
 " I, Bruno Rocco, sculptor's assistant, 14, Piazzo Xavona, 
 now under arrest at Regina Coeli, and awaiting trial for par- 
 ticipation in the riot of the 1st of February, do hereby sol- 
 emnly declare that the said riot was instigated by a true and 
 proper revolutionary organisation, with the object of violently 
 changing the constitution and the government, and dethron- 
 ing and assassinating the King, that the chief centre of rebel- 
 lion was the association known as the ' Republic of Man,' and 
 the directing mind was the Deputy David Rossi." 
 
 Bruno brushed his sleeve across his eyes. " Hold hard. 
 What's going on ? " he said. 
 
 " A good action is going on," said the Director. " As a 
 Roman citizen you are exposing a conspiracy, and denouncing 
 an enemy of the constitution and the King. Listen ! The next 
 clause will be an appeal for the clemency of the Court, and, in 
 the event of condemnation, a petition for pardon to the Keeper 
 of the Seals. You sign the paper and all is over." 
 
 Bruno signed it. Then he was removed to a cell reserved 
 for paying prisoners. Going back through the corridors he 
 walked like a blind man, and one of the warders took hold of 
 him. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 FRESH eggs and salad were brought to Bruno for breakfast 
 next morning, but he could not eat. It was Saturday. On 
 Sunday at eleven o'clock the priest came to say mass and to
 
 408 THB ETERNAL CITY 
 
 hear confessions. The altar, a movable structure, was drawn 
 out from the wall and put to stand in the middle of the Ro- 
 tunda, so that it could be seen from every corridor of the 
 wheel-shaped prison. Then the doors of the cells were opened 
 about six inches and fastened with an iron hasp. By this means 
 the prisoners inside could see the priest. 
 
 It was a touching spectacle. To the eye of God who shall 
 say how piteous? The long lines of doors ajar, each with its 
 kneeling form and drooping head. Twelve hundred human 
 wrecks from the ocean of life, none seeing another, and all look- 
 ing towards the lighted altar. The sun was shining on the 
 world without and a stray sunbeam from a skylight overhead 
 made rolling clouds of the ascending incense. 
 
 Bruno leaned against the door and tried to follow the mass. 
 At first he was unable to do so. He saw the consecration but 
 he did not lower his head. He was like a man who had lost 
 something and could not tell what. He had lost his soul. 
 
 But after the last gospel came the prayers that are said 
 together by priest and people. The voices of Bruno's fellow 
 prisoners fell on his ear like the rumble of waves on a long sea- 
 shore, and stirred something within him that had been lying 
 asleep. The words he had said so often, yet thought so little 
 about until now, the sublime words in which the poor unseen 
 beings about hirn invoked the pity of heaven came to him with 
 a new meaning. 
 
 " Hail Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweet- 
 ness and our hope, unto thee we cry, the exiled children of Eve, 
 to thee we sigh, moaning and weeping in this vale of tears . . . 
 O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary Amen." 
 
 Bruno dropped to his knees and covered his eyes and wept. 
 
 At twelve o'clock the convict who served out the food 
 brought him boiled lamb and egg-gravy, instead of soup, but 
 again he could not eat. At 2.30 there was a great shuffling of 
 feet in the corridors. It was the bi-monthly visiting hour, and 
 prisoners were being taken to see their friends. To Bruno's 
 surprise a warder came to say that a friend was asking for him 
 also. Reluctantly, and with a growl, Bruno got up to go to 
 the visiting-room. 
 
 The visiting-room of Regina Coeli is constructed on the 
 principle of a rat-trap. It is an oblong room divided into 
 three compartments longitudinally, the partition walls being 
 composed of wire and resembling cages. The middle compart- 
 ment is occupied by the armed warder in charge who walks
 
 THE ROMAN OP ROME 4.99 
 
 up and down; the compartment on the prison side is divided 
 into many narrow boxes each occupied by a prisoner, and 
 the compartment on the world side is similarly divided into 
 sections each occupied by a visitor. 
 
 When Bruno entered this room he was deafened by a roar of 
 voices. Thirty prisoners and as many of their friends were try- 
 ing to talk at the same time across the compartment in the 
 middle, in which the warder was walking. Each batch of 
 friends and prisoners had fifteen minutes for their interview 
 and everybody was shouting so as to be heard above the rest. 
 
 Being pushed into a box Bruno saw a face in the corre- 
 sponding section at the other side of the two wire partitions. 
 After a moment he recognised his visitor. It was Donna Roma. 
 He did not speak to her, and she did not attempt to speak 
 to him. Then he saw that she was adressing the warder, who 
 saluted and disappeared. 
 
 A feeling of moral and physical nausea had taken possession 
 of Roma when she was shown into this place. After some 
 minutes of the hellish tumult she had asked to see the Director. 
 The message was taken upstairs, and the Director came down 
 to speak to her. 
 
 " Do you expect me to speak to my friend in this place and 
 under these conditions ? " she asked. 
 
 " It is the usual place, and these are the usual conditions," 
 he answered. 
 
 " If you are unable to allow me to speak to him in some 
 other place, under some other conditions, I must go to the 
 Minister of the Interior." 
 
 The Director bowed. " That will be unnecessary," he said. 
 " There is a room reserved for special circumstances," and, 
 calling a warder, he gave the necessary instructions. He was 
 a good man in the toils of a vicious system. 
 
 A few minutes afterwards Roma was alone in a small bare 
 room with Bruno, except for two warders who stood in the 
 door. She was shocked at the change in him. His cheeks 
 which used to be full and almost florid were shrunken and pale ; 
 a short grizzly beard had grown over his chin; and his eyes 
 which had been frank and humorous were fierce and evasive. 
 Six weeks in prison had made another man of him, and like a 
 dog who has been changed by sickness and neglect he knew it 
 and growled. 
 
 " What do you want with me ? " he said angrily, as Roma 
 looked at him without speaking. 
 27
 
 410 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 She flushed and begged his pardon, and at that his jaw 
 trembled and he turned his head away. 
 
 " I trust you received the note I sent in to you, Bruno ? " 
 she said. 
 
 "When? What note?" 
 
 " On the day after your arrest, saying your dear ones should 
 be cared for and comforted." 
 
 "And were they?" 
 
 " Yes. Then you didn't receive it? " 
 
 " I was under punishment from the first." 
 
 " I also paid for a separate cell with food and light. Did 
 you get that ? " 
 
 " No, I was nearly all the time on bread and water." 
 
 His sulkiness was breaking down and he was showing some 
 agitation. She lifted her large dark eyes on him and said in 
 a soft voice : 
 
 " Poor Bruno ! ~No wonder they have made you say things." 
 
 His jaw trembled more than ever. " No use talking of 
 that," he said. 
 
 " Mr. Rossi will be the first to feel for you." 
 
 " I don't want to talk of it, I tell you." 
 
 " Ah, Bruno, do not deceive your soul." 
 
 He turned his head and looked at her with a look of pity. 
 "She doesn't know," he thought. "Why should I tell her? 
 After all she's in the same case as myself. What hurts me will 
 hurt her. She has been good to me. Why should I make her 
 suffer?" 
 
 " If they've told you falsehoods, Bruno, in order to play on 
 your jealousy and inspire revenge . . ." 
 
 " Where's Rossi ? " he said sharply. 
 
 "In England." 
 
 " And where's Elena ? " 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 He wagged his poor head with a wag of wisdom, and for a 
 moment his clouded and stupefied brain was proud of itself. 
 
 " It was wrong of Elena to go away without saying where 
 she was going to, and Mr. Rossi is in despair about her." 
 
 " You believe that ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do." 
 
 These words staggered him and he felt mean and small com- 
 pared to this woman. " If she can believe in them why can't 
 I ? " he thought. But after a moment he smiled a pitiful smile 
 and said largely, " You don't know, Donna Roma. But / do
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 411 
 
 and they don't hoodwink me. A poor fellow here a convict, 
 he works on the ' Gazette ' and hears all the news he told me 
 everything." 
 
 " What's his name ? " said Koma. 
 
 "Number 333, penal part. He used to occupy the next 
 cell." 
 
 " Then you never saw his face ? " 
 
 " No, but I heard his voice, and I could have sworn I 
 knew it." 
 
 " Was it the voice of Charles Minghelli ? " 
 
 "Charles Ming 
 
 " Time's up," said one of the warders at the door. 
 
 " Bruno," said Roma, rising. " I know that Charles Min- 
 ghelli who is now an agent of the police has been in this prison 
 in the disguise of a prisoner. I also know that after he was 
 dismissed from the embassy in London he asked Mr. Rossi to 
 assist him to assassinate the Prime Minister." 
 
 Bruno was pressing his head between his hands and thinking 
 of the cowardice arid baseness of his conduct. 
 
 " Right about," cried the warder, and with a bewildered 
 expression the prisoner turned to go. Roma followed him 
 through the open courtyard, and until he reached the iron 
 gate he did not lift his head. Then he faced round with eyes 
 full of tears, but full of fire as well, and raising one arm he 
 cried in a resolute voice : 
 
 "All right, sister! Leave it to me, damn me! I'll see it 
 through." 
 
 " My brother," she answered, " tell all." 
 
 The private visiting-room had one disadvantage. Every 
 word that passed was repeated to the Director. Later the same 
 day the Director wrote to the Royal Commissioner : 
 
 " Sorry to say the man Rocco has asked for an interview to 
 retract his denunciation. I have refused it and he has been 
 violent with the chief warder. But inspired by a sentiment of 
 justice I feel it my duty to warn you that I have been misled, 
 that my instructions have been badly interpreted, and that 
 I cannot hold myself responsible for the document I sent you." 
 
 The Commissioner sent this letter on to the JMinister of the 
 Interior, who immediately called up the Chief of Police. 
 
 " Commendatore," said the Baron, " what was the offence 
 for Avhich young Charles Minghelli was dismissed from the 
 service in London ? " 
 
 " He was suspected of forgery, your Excellency."
 
 412 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " The warrant for his arrest was drawn out but never exe- 
 cuted?" 
 
 " That is so, and we still hold it at the office." 
 
 " Commendatore ! " 
 
 "Your Excellency?" 
 
 " Let the papers that were taken at the domiciliary visita- 
 tion in the apartments of Deputy Rossi, and his man Bruno be 
 gone through again let Minghelli go through them. You 
 follow me ? " 
 
 " Perfectly, Excellency." 
 
 " Let your Delegate see if there is not a letter among them 
 from Rossi to Bruno's wife you understand ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " If such a letter can be found let it be sent to the Under 
 Prefect to add to his report for to-morrow's trial, and let the 
 public prosecutor read it to the prisoner." 
 
 " It shall be done, your Excellency." 
 
 XIX 
 
 AT eight o'clock the next morning Roma was going into the 
 courtyard of the Castle of St. Angelo when she met the car- 
 riage of the Prime Minister coming out. The coachman was 
 stopped from inside, and the Baron himself alighted. 
 
 " You look tired, my child," he said. 
 
 " I am tired," she answered. 
 
 " Hardly more than a month, yet so many things have 
 happened ! " 
 
 " Oh that ! That's nothing nothing whatever." 
 
 " Why should you pass through these privations ? Roma, if 
 I allowed these misfortunes to befall you it was only to let you 
 feel what others could do for you. But I am the same as ever, 
 and you have only to stretch out your hand and I am here to 
 lighten your lot." 
 
 "All that is over now. It is no use speaking as you spoke 
 before. You are talking to another woman." 
 
 " Strange mystery of a woman's love ! That she who set 
 out to destroy her slanderer should become his slave! If he 
 were only worthy of it ! " 
 
 " He is worthy of it ! " 
 
 " If you should hear that he is not worthy that he has 
 even been untrue to you ? "
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 413 
 
 "I should think it a falsehood, a contemptible falsehood." 
 
 " But if you had proof, substantial proof, the proof of his 
 own pen? . . ." 
 
 " Good-morning ! I must go." 
 
 " My child, what have I always told you ? You will give the 
 man up at last and carry out your first intentions." 
 
 With a deep bow and a scarcely perceptible smile the Baron 
 turned to the open door of his carriage. Roma flushed up 
 angrily and went on, but not before the poisoned arrow had 
 gone home. 
 
 The military tribunal had begun its session. A ticket which 
 Roma presented at the door admitted her to the well of the 
 court where the advocates were sitting. The advocate Fuselli 
 made a place for her by his side. It was a quiet moment and 
 her entrance had attracted attention. The judges in the red 
 arm-chairs at the green-covered horse-shoe table looked up from 
 their portfolios, and there was some whispering beyond the 
 wooden bar where the public were huddled together. One other 
 face had followed her, but at first she dared not look at that. 
 It was the face of the prisoner in his prison clothes sitting be- 
 tween two Carabineers. 
 
 The secretary was reading the indictment. Bruno was not 
 only charged with participation in the riot of the first of 
 February, but also with being a promoter of associations de- 
 signed to change violently the constitution of the state. It was 
 a long document and the secretary read it slowly and not very 
 distinctly. In the silence and solemnity of the court other 
 sounds penetrated the thick sandstone walls of the gloomy 
 chamber. At intervals one could hear as a monotonous under- 
 tone the tramp of a company of soldiers who were drilling in 
 the courtyard, and the sharp calls of their commanding officer. 
 The atmosphere was altogether military. Except the advocate 
 Fuselli every official in court was in uniform. Some had 
 epaulettes and some wore decorations. The differences of 
 wristbands, red, gold, blue, showed the differences of rank and 
 regiment. 
 
 When the indictment came to an end the Public Prosecutor 
 rose to expound the accusation and to mention the clauses of 
 the Code under which the prisoner's crime had to be considered. 
 He was a young captain of cavalry with restless eyes and a 
 twirled up moustache. His long cloak hung over his chair, 
 his light gloves lay on the table by his side, and his sword 
 clanked as he made graceful gestures. He was an elegant
 
 414: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 speaker much preoccupied about beautiful phrases, and obvi- 
 ously anxious to conciliate the judges. 
 
 " Illustrious gentlemen of the tribunal," he began, and then 
 went on to a compliment to the King, a flourish to the name 
 of the Prime Minister, a word of praise to the army, and finally 
 a scathing satire on the subversive schemes and associations 
 which it was desired to set up in place of existing institutions. 
 The most crushing denunciation of the delirious idea which 
 had led to the unhappy insurrection was the crude explanation 
 of its aims. A universal republic founded on the principles 
 enunciated in the Lord's prayer! Thrones, armies, navies, 
 frontiers, national barriers, all to be abolished! So simple! 
 So easy! So childlike! But alas so absurd! So entirely 
 oblivious of the great principles of political economy and in- 
 ternational law and of impulses and instincts profoundly sculp- 
 tured in the heart of man ! 
 
 After various little sallies which made his fellow officers 
 laugh and the judges smile, the showy person wiped his big 
 moustache with a silk handkerchief, and came to Bruno. This 
 unhappy man was not one of the greater delinquents who by 
 their intelligence had urged on the ignorant crowd. He was 
 merely a silly and. perhaps drunken person who if taken away 
 from the wine-shop and put into uniform would make a valiant 
 soldier. The creature was one of the human dogs of our 
 curious species. His political faith was inscribed with one 
 word only Rossi. He would not ask a severe punishment on 
 such a deluded being, but he would request the Court to con- 
 sider the case as a means of obtaining proof against the dark if 
 foolish minds (fit subjects for Lombroso) which are always 
 putting the people into opposition with their King, their con- 
 stitution, and the great heads of the Government. 
 
 The sword clanked again as the young soldier sat down. 
 Then for the first time Roma looked over at Bruno. His big 
 rugged face was twisted into an expression of contempt, and 
 somehow the human dog of our curious species, sitting in his 
 prison clothes between the soldiers, made the elegant officer look 
 like a little pet pug. 
 
 " Bruno Rocco, stand up," said the president. " You are 
 a Roman, aren't you?" 
 
 " Yes, I am- I'm a Roman of Rome," said Bruno. 
 
 The witnesses were called. First a Carabineer to prove 
 Bruno's violence. Then another Carabineer, and another, and 
 another, with the same object. After each of the Carabineers
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 415 
 
 had given his evidence the president asked the prisoner if he 
 had any questions to ask of the witnesses. 
 
 " None whatever. What they say is true. I admit it," he 
 said. 
 
 At last he grew impatient and cried out, " I admit it, I tell 
 you. What's the good of going on ? " 
 
 The next witness was the Chief of Police. Commendatore 
 Angelelli was called to prove that the cause of the revolt was 
 not the dearness of bread but the formation of subversive asso- 
 ciations, of which the " Republic of Man " was undoubtedly the 
 strongest and most virulent. The prisoner, however, was not 
 one of the directing set, and the police knew him only as a 
 sort of watchdog for the Honourable Rossi. 
 
 " The man's a fool. Why don't you go on with the trial ? " 
 cried Bruno. 
 
 " Silence," cried the usher of the court, but the prisoner 
 only laughed out loud. 
 
 Roma looked at Bruno again. There was something about 
 the man which she had never seen before, something more than 
 the mere spirit of defiance, something terrible and tremendous. 
 
 " Francesca Maria Mariotti," cried the usher, and the old 
 deaf mother of Bruno's wife was brought into court. She 
 wore a coloured handkerchief on her head, as usual, and two 
 shawls over her shoulders, but looked cold and nervous. Being 
 a relative of the prisoner she was not sworn. 
 
 " Your name and your father's name ? " said the president. 
 
 " Francesca Maria Mariotti," she answered. 
 
 " I said your father's name." 
 
 " Seventy-five, your Excellency." 
 
 " I asked you for your father's name." 
 
 " None at all, your Excellency." 
 
 A Carabineer explained that the woman was nearly stone 
 deaf, whereupon the president, who was irritated by the laugh- 
 ter his questions had provoked, ordered the woman to be re- 
 moved. 
 
 " Tommaso Mariotti," cried the usher, and the Garibaldian, 
 wearing his usual red shirt, came into court. 
 
 "Tommaso Mariotti," said the president, after the prelim- 
 inary interrogations, " you are a porter at the Piazza Navona, 
 and will be able to say if meetings of political associations were 
 held there, if the prisoner took part in them, and who were the 
 organising authorities. Now answer me, were meetings ever 
 held in your house ? "
 
 416 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The old man turned his pork-pie hat in his hand and made 
 no answer. 
 
 " Answer me. We cannot sit here all day doing nothing." 
 
 " It's the eternal city, Excellency we can take our time," 
 said the old man. 
 
 " Answer the president instantly," said the usher. " Don't 
 you know he can punish you if you don't?" 
 
 At that the Garibaldian's eyes became moist and he looked 
 at the judges. " Generals," he said, " I am only an old man, 
 not much good to anybody, but I was a soldier myself once. I 
 was one of the ' Thousand,' the ' Brave Thousand ' they called 
 us, and I shed my blood for my country. Now I am more than 
 threescore years and ten and the rest of my days are numbered. 
 Do you want me for the sake of what is left of them, to betray 
 my comrades ? " 
 
 " Next witness," said the president, and at the same mo- 
 ment a thick half-stifled voice came from the bench of the 
 accused. 
 
 " Why the don't you go on with the trial ? " 
 
 " Prisoner," said the president, " if you continue to make 
 these interruptions I shall stop the trial and order you to 
 be flogged." 
 
 Bruno answered with a peal of laughter. The president 
 he was a bald-headed man with the heavy jaw of a blood- 
 hound looked at him attentively for a moment, and then 
 said, to the men below : 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 The next witness was the Director of Regina Coeli. He 
 deposed that the prisoner had made a statement to him which 
 he had taken down in writing. This statement amounted to a 
 denunciation of the Deputy David Rossi as the real author 
 of the crime of which he with others was being charged. 
 
 After the denunciation had been read the president asked 
 the prisoner if he had any questions to put to the witness, and 
 thereupon Bruno cried in a loud voice : 
 
 " Of course I have. It is exactly what I've been wait- 
 ing for." 
 
 He had risen to his feet, kicked over a chair which stood 
 in front of him and folded his arms across his breast. 
 
 " Ask him," said Bruno, " if he sent for me late at night 
 and promised me my pardon if I would denounce David Rossi." 
 
 " It was not so," said the Director. " All I did was to ad- 
 vise him not to observe a useless silence which could only con-
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 417 
 
 demn him to further imprisonment if by speaking the truth 
 he could save himself and serve the interests of justice." 
 
 " Ask him," said Bruno, " if the denunciation he speaks of 
 was not dictated by himself." 
 
 " The prisoner," said the Director, " made the denunciation 
 voluntarily and I rose from my bed to receive it at his urgent 
 request." 
 
 " Ask him if I said one word to denounce David Rossi." 
 
 " The prisoner had made statements to a fellow prisoner, 
 and these were embodied in the document he signed." 
 
 The advocate Fuselli interposed. " Then the Court is to 
 understand that the Director who dictated this denunciation 
 knew nothing from, the prisoner himself ? " 
 
 The Director hesitated, stammered, and finally admitted 
 that it was so. " I was inspired by a sentiment of justice," he 
 said. " I acted from duty." 
 
 " This man fed me on bread and water," cried Bruno. 
 " He put me in the punishment cells and tortured me in the 
 strait-waistcoat with pains and sufferings like Jesus Christ's, 
 and when he had reduced my body and destroyed my soul he 
 dictated a denunciation of my dearest friend and my uncon- 
 scious fingers signed it." 
 
 " Don't shout so loud," said the president. 
 
 " I'll shout as loud as I like," said Bruno, and everybody 
 turned to look at him. It was useless to protest. Something 
 seemed to say that no power on earth could touch a man in a 
 mood like that. 
 
 The next witness was the chief warder. He deposed that 
 he was present at the denunciation, that it was made volun- 
 tarily, and that no pressure whatever was put upon the 
 prisoner. 
 
 " Ask him," cried Bruno, " if on Sunday afternoon when 
 I went into his cabinet to withdraw the denunciation he re- 
 fused to let me." 
 
 " It is not true," said the witness. 
 
 " You liar," cried Bruno, " you know it is true, and 
 when I told you that you were making me drag an innocent 
 man into the galleys I struck you, and the mark of my fist is 
 on your forehead still. There it is, as red as a cardinal, while 
 the rest of your face is as white as a Pope." 
 
 The president no longer tried to restrain Bruno. There 
 was something in the man's face that was beyond reproof. It 
 was the outraged spirit of Justice.
 
 418 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The chief warder went on to say that at various times he 
 had received reports that Rocco was communicating important 
 facts to a fellow prisoner. . . . 
 
 " Where is this fellow prisoner ? Is he at the disposition 
 of the Court ? " said the president. 
 
 " I'm afraid he has since been set at liberty," said the wit- 
 ness, whereupon Bruno laughed uproariously and pointing to 
 some one in the well, he shouted : 
 
 " There he is there ! The dandy in cuffs and collar. His 
 name is Minghelli." 
 
 " Call him," said the president, and Minghelli was sworn 
 and examined. 
 
 " Until recently you were a prisoner in Regina Coeli, and 
 have just been pardoned for public services." 
 
 " That is true, your Excellency." 
 
 " It's a lie," cried Bruno. 
 
 Minghelli leaned on the witness's chair, caressed his small 
 moustache and told his story. He had occupied the next cell 
 to the prisoner, and talked with him in the usual language of 
 prisoners. The prisoner had spoken of a certain great man 
 and then of a certain great act, and that the great man had 
 gone to England to prepare for it. He understood the great 
 man to be the Deputy Rossi and the great act to be the over- 
 throw of the constitution and the assassination of the King. 
 
 " You son of a priest," cried Bruno, " you lie ? " 
 
 " Bruno Rocco," said the president, " do not agitate your- 
 self. You are under the protection of the law. Be calm and 
 tell us your own story." 
 
 XX 
 
 " YOUR Excellency," said Bruno, " this man is a witness by 
 profession and he was put into the next cell to torture me and 
 make me denounce my friends. I didn't see his face, and I 
 didn't know who he was until afterwards, and so he tore me to 
 pieces. He said he was a proof-reader on the ' Official Ga- 
 zette ' and heard everything. When my heart was bleeding for 
 the death of my poor little boy only seven years of age, he 
 was killed in the riot, your Excellency he poisoned my mind 
 about my wife, and said she had run away with Rossi. It was 
 a lie, but I was brought down by flogging and bread and water 
 and I believed it, because I was mad and my soul was exhausted 
 and dead. But when I found out who he was I tried to take
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 419 
 
 back my denunciation, and they wouldn't let me. Your Ex- 
 cellency, I tell you the truth. Everybody should tell the truth 
 here. I alone am guilty, and if I have accused anybody else I 
 ask pardon of God. As for this man he is an assassin and I 
 can prove it. He used to be at the Embassy in London and 
 when he was sacked he came to Mr. Rossi and proposed to as- 
 sassinate the Prime Minister. Mr. Rossi flung him out of the 
 house, and that was the beginning of everything." 
 
 " This is not true," said Minghelli, red as the gills of a 
 turkey. 
 
 " Isn't it? Give me the cross, and let me swear the man a 
 liar," cried Bruno. 
 
 Roma was breathing hard and rising to her feet, but the 
 advocate Fuselli restrained her and rose himself. In six sen- 
 tences he summarised the treatment of Bruno in prison and 
 denounced it as worthy of the cruellest epochs of tyrannical 
 domination, in which men otherwise honourable could become 
 satyrs in order to save the dynasty and the institutions and to 
 make their own careers. 
 
 " Mr. President," he cried, " I call on you in the name of 
 humanity to say that Justice in Italy has nothing to do with a 
 barbarous system which aims at obtaining denunciations 
 through jealousy and justice through revenge." 
 
 The president was deeply moved. " I have made a solemn 
 promise under the shadow of that venerable image," he pointed 
 to the effigy above him, " to administer justice in this case, and 
 to the last I will do my duty." 
 
 The Public Prosecutor rose again and obtained permission 
 to interrogate the prisoner. 
 
 " You say the witness Minghelli told you that your wife 
 had fled with the Honourable Rossi ? " 
 
 " He did, and it was a lie like all the rest of it." 
 
 " How do you know it was a lie ? " 
 
 Bruno made no answer, and the young officer took up a 
 letter from his portfolio. 
 
 " Do you know the Honourable Rossi's handwriting ? " 
 
 " Do I know my own ugly fist ? " 
 
 " Is that the Honourable Rossi's writing ? " said the officer, 
 handing the envelope to the usher to be shown to Bruno. 
 
 " It is," said Bruno. 
 
 "Sure of it?" 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 " You see it is a letter addressed to your wife ? "
 
 420 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I see. But you needn't go on washing the donkey's head, 
 Mister I know what you are getting at." 
 
 " You must not speak like that to him, Rocco," said the 
 president. " Remember, he is the honourable repesentative 
 of the law." 
 
 " Mustn't I, Excellency ? Then tell his honourableness that 
 David Rossi and my wife are like brother and sister, and any- 
 body who makes evil of that isn't stuff to take with a pair 
 of tongs." 
 
 Saying this, Bruno flung the envelope back on to the table. 
 
 " Don't you want to read it ? " 
 
 " Not I ! It's somebody else's correspondence, and I'm not 
 an honourable representative of the law." 
 
 " Then permit me to read it to you," said the Public Pros- 
 ecutor, and taking the letter out of the envelope he began 
 in a loud voice : 
 
 " ' Dearest Elena . . .'" 
 
 " That's nothing," Bruno interrupted. " They're like 
 brother and sister, I tell you." 
 
 The Public Prosecutor went on reading. 
 
 " ' I continue to be overwhelmed with grief for the death 
 of our poor little Joseph.' " 
 
 " That's right ! That's David. Rossi. He loved the boy the 
 same as if he had been his own son. Go on." 
 
 " '. . . Our child your child my child, Elena.' " 
 
 " Nothing wrong there. Don't try to make mischief of 
 that," cried Bruno. 
 
 " ' But now that the boy is gone, and Bruno is in prison, 
 perhaps for years, the obstacles must be removed which have 
 hitherto prevented you from joining your life to mine and liv- 
 ing for me, as I have always lived for you. Come to me then, 
 my dear one, my beloved . . .' " 
 
 Here Bruno, who had been stepping forward at every 
 word, snatched the letter out of the Public Prosecutor's 
 hand. 
 
 " Stop that ! Don't go reading out of the back of your 
 head," he cried. 
 
 No one protested, everybody felt that whatever he did this 
 injured man must be left alone. Roma felt a roaring in her 
 ears and for some minutes she could scarcely command herself. 
 In a vague way she was conscious of the same struggle in her 
 own heart as was going on in the heart of Bruno. This, then, 
 was what the Baron referred to when he spoke of Rossi being
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 421 
 
 untrue to her, and of the proof of his disloyalty in his own 
 handwriting. 
 
 Bruno, who was running his eyes over the letter, read parts 
 of it aloud in a low husky voice : 
 
 " ' And now that the boy is gone and Bruno is in pris- 
 on ... perhaps for years . . . the obstacles must be re- 
 moved . . .' " 
 
 He stopped, looked up, and stared about him. His face 
 had undertaken an awful change. Then he returned to the 
 letter and in jerky broken sentences he read again : 
 
 " ' Come to me then . . . my dear one . . . my be- 
 loved 
 
 Until that moment an evil spirit in Roma had been saying 
 to her, in spite of herself, " Can it be possible that while you 
 have been going through all those privations for his sake he 
 has been consoling himself with another woman ? " Impossi- 
 ble! The letter was a manifest imposture. She wouldn't be- 
 lieve a word of it. 
 
 But Bruno was still in the toils of his temptation. " Look 
 here," he said, lifting a pitiful face. " What with the bread 
 and water and the lashes I don't know that my head isn't light, 
 and I'm fancying I see things . . ." 
 
 The paper of the letter was crackling in his hand, and his 
 husky voice was breaking. Save for these sounds and the 
 tramp tramp tramp of the soldiers drilling outside, there 
 was a dead silence in the court. 
 
 " You are not fancying at all, Rocco," said the Public Pros- 
 ecutor. " We are all sorry for you, and I am sure the illustrious 
 gentlemen of the tribunal pity you. Your comrade, your mas- 
 ter, the man you have followed and trusted, is false to you. He 
 is a traitor to his friend, his country, and his King. The de- 
 nunciation you made in prison is true in substance and in fact. 
 I advise you to adhere to it, and to cast yourself on the clem- 
 ency of the court." 
 
 " Here you shut up your head and let a man think," 
 said Bruno. 
 
 Roma tried to rise. She could not. Then she tried to cry 
 out something, but her tongue clave to the roof of her mouth. 
 Would Bruno break down at the last moment? 
 
 Bruno, whose face was convulsed with agony, began to 
 laugh in a delirious way. " So my friend is false to me, is 
 he ? Very well, I'll be revenged." 
 
 He reeled a little and the letter dropped from his hand,
 
 422 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 floated a moment in the air, and fell to the ground a pace or 
 two further on. 
 
 " Yes, by God, I'll be revenged," he cried, and he laughed 
 again. 
 
 He stooped, lifted one leg, seemed to pull at his boot, and 
 again stood erect. 
 
 " I always knew the hour would come when I should find 
 myself in a tight place and I've always kept something about 
 me to help me to get out of it. Here it is now." 
 
 In an instant, before anyone could be aware of what he was 
 doing, he had uncorked a small bottle which he held in his 
 hand and swallowed the contents. 
 
 " Long live David Rossi ! " he cried, and he flung the empty 
 bottle over his head. 
 
 Everybody was on his feet in a moment. It was too late. 
 In thirty seconds the poison had begun its work, and Bruno 
 was reeling in the arms of the Carabineers. Somebody called 
 for a doctor. Somebody else called for a priest. 
 
 " That's all right," said Bruno. " God is a good old saint. 
 He'll look after a poor devil like me." Then he began to sing : 
 
 " The tombs are uncovered, 
 
 The dead arise, 
 The martyrs are rising 
 Before our eyes. " 
 
 " Long live David Rossi ! " he cried again, and at the next 
 moment he was being carried out of court. 
 
 In the tumult that ensued everybody was standing in the 
 well of the judges' horse-shoe table. The deaf old woman, with 
 her shawls slipping off her shoulders, was wringing her hands 
 and crying. " God will think of this," she said. The Gari- 
 baldian was gazing vacantly out of his rheumy eyes and saying 
 nothing. Roma, who had recovered control of herself, was 
 looking at the letter, which she had picked up from the floor. 
 
 " Mr. President," she cried over the heads of the others, 
 " this letter is not in Mr. Rossi's handwriting. It is a forgery. 
 I am ready to prove it." 
 
 At that moment one of the Carabineers came back to tell 
 the judges that all was over. 
 
 " Gone! " said one after another, more often with a motion 
 of the mouth than with the voice. 
 
 The president was deeply agitated. " This court stands
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 423 
 
 adjourned," he said, " but I take the Almighty to witness that 
 I intend to ascertain all responsibility in this case and to bring 
 it home to the guilty ones, whosoever and whatsoever they 
 may be." 
 
 XXI 
 
 " MY DEAR DAVID Rossi, You will know all about it before 
 this letter reaches you. It is one of those scandals of the law 
 that are telegraphed to every part of the civilised world. Poor 
 Bruno ! Yet no, not poor great, glorious, heroic Bruno ! He 
 ended like an old Roman and killed himself rather than betray 
 his friend. When they played upon his jealousy, and tempted 
 him by a forged letter, he cried, ' Long live David Rossi,' and 
 died. Oh, it was wonderful. The memory of that moment 
 will be with me always like the protecting and strengthening 
 hand of God. I never knew until to-day what human nature is 
 capable of. It is divine. 
 
 " But how mean and little I feel when I think of all I 
 went through in the court this morning ! I was really going 
 through the same tortures as Bruno, the same doubt and the 
 same agony. And even when I saw through the whole miser- 
 able machination of lying and duplicity I was actually in 
 terror for Bruno lest he should betray you in the end. Betray 
 you! His voice when he uttered that last cry rings in my 
 ears still. It was a voice of triumph triumph over deception, 
 over temptation, over jealousy and over self. 
 
 "Don't think, David Rossi, lhat Bruno died of a broken 
 heart, and don't think he went out of the world believing that 
 you were false. I feel sure he came to that court with the full 
 intention of doing what he did. All through the trial there was 
 something in his bearing which left the impression of a pur- 
 pose unrevealed. Everybody felt it, and even the judges ceased 
 to protest against his outbursts. The poor prisoner in convict 
 clothes, with dishevelled hair and bare neck, made everyone 
 else look paltry and small. Behind him was something mightier 
 than himself. It was Death. Then remember his last cry, 
 and ask yourself what he meant by it. He meant loyalty, love, 
 faith, fidelity. He intended to say, ' You've beaten me, but no 
 matter; I believe in him and follow him to the last.' 
 
 "Recent and awful as all this is, I must not allow it to 
 swamp all other interests. I must tell you what else is going 
 on. To-night's Tribuna announces that Charles Minghelli is
 
 424 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 under arrest. It is a real arrest this time, for forgery at the 
 Embassy in London, not for participation in this infamous af- 
 fair. Such are the means by which unscrupulous authorities 
 discredit and dispose of their dangerous instruments after 
 they have done with them! Your Proclamation to the priests 
 has made a profound impression. At eight o'clock on the morn- 
 ing it appeared I was looking out of the window when a young 
 priest approached a copy that was posted on the walls of the 
 church opposite, and after glancing to right and left to make 
 sure that he was not being watched, he stooped and kissed the 
 paper. When I looked up again an hour afterwards the Proc- 
 lamation was torn down. Clearly there is division in the camp 
 even of the Vatican, although it is rumoured that the Holy 
 Office is about to issue to certain bishops a rescript condemn- 
 ing the ' Republic of Man ' and practically demanding the 
 anathema against all Catholics throughout the world who con- 
 tinue to belong to it. 
 
 " As you see, I am here in your own quarters, but I keep in 
 touch with ' Sister Angelica ' and still have no answer to my 
 letter. I invent all manner of excuses to account for your 
 silence. You are busy, you are on a journey, you are waiting 
 for the right moment to reply to me at length. If I could only 
 continue to think so, how happy I should be ! But I cannot 
 deceive myself any longer. 
 
 " It is perhaps natural that you should find it hard to for- 
 give me, but you might at least write and put me out of sus- 
 pense. I think you would do so if you knew how much I suffer. 
 Your great soul cannot intend to torture me. To-night the 
 burden of things is almost more than I can bear and I am 
 nearly heart-broken. It is my dark hour, dearest, and if you 
 had to say you could never forgive me, I think I could easier 
 reconcile myself to that. I have been so happy since I began 
 to love you, I shall always love you even if I have to lose you, 
 and I shall never, never be sorry for anything that has occurred. 
 
 " Not receiving any new letters from you, I am going back 
 on the old ones, and there is a letter of only two months ago 
 in which you speak of just such a case as mine, May I quote 
 what you say ? 
 
 " ' Yet even if she were not so (i. e., worthy of your love and 
 friendship), even if there were, as you say, a fault in her, who 
 am I that I should judge her harshly? . . , I reject the mon- 
 strous theory that while a man may redeem the past a woman 
 never can . . . And if she has sinned, as I have sinned, and
 
 THE ROMAN OF ROME 425 
 
 suffered as I have suffered, I will pray for strength to say, 
 " Because I love her we are one, and we stand or fall together." ' 
 
 " It is so beautiful that I am even happy while my pen 
 copies the sweet, sweet words, and I feel as I did when the old 
 priest spoke so tenderly on the day I confessed, telling me I 
 had committed no sin and had nothing to repent of. Have 
 I never told you about that? My confessor was a Capuchin, 
 and perhaps I should have waited for his advice before going 
 farther. He was to consult his General or his Bishop or some 
 one and to send for me again. 
 
 " But all that is over now and everything depends upon 
 you. In any case, be sure of one thing, whatever happens. 
 Bruno has taught me a great lesson, and there is not anything 
 your enemies can do to me that will touch me now. They 
 have tried me already with humiliation, with poverty, with 
 jealousy, and even with the shadow of shame itself. There is 
 nothing left but death. And death itself shall find me faith- 
 ful to the last. Good-bye! Your poor unforgiven girl, 
 
 " EOMA." 
 
 The morning after writing this letter Roma received a 
 visit from one of the Noble Guard. It was the Count de 
 Raymond. 
 
 " I am sent by the Holy Father," he said, " to say that he 
 wishes to see you." 
 
 28
 
 PAET SEVEN 
 THE POPE 
 
 ON the morning appointed for the visit to the Vatican, 
 Roma dressed in the black gown and veil prescribed by eti- 
 quette for ladies going to an audience with the Pope. Her 
 golden complexion had paled visibly from the anxieties she had 
 gone through, but the Spanish head-dress suited well with her 
 black hair and upright figure, and she looked taller than ever 
 and more handsome. 
 
 The young Noble Guard in civilian clothes was waiting for 
 her in the sitting-room. When she came out of the bedroom 
 he was standing with a solemn face before the bust of David 
 Rossi, which she had lately cast afresh and was. beginning to 
 point in marble. 
 
 " This is wonderful," he said. " Perfectly wonderful ! A 
 most astonishing study." 
 
 Roma smiled and bowed to him. 
 
 " Christ of course, and such reality, such feeling, such love ! 
 So human too ! It seems difficult to believe that it is merely a 
 work of imagination. It might have been studied from the 
 living Christ Himself. But shall I tell you what surprises 
 me most of all ? " 
 
 " What ? " said Roma, with a radiant smile that set the 
 soldier smiling. 
 
 " What surprises me most is the extraordinary resemblance 
 between your Christ and the Pope." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Indeed yes ! Didn't you know it ? No ? " 
 
 Roma shook her head, but smiled the same overflowing 
 smile. 
 
 " It is almost incredible. Younger certainly, but the same 
 features, the same expression, the same tenderness, the same 
 426
 
 THE POPE 427 
 
 strength! Even the same vertical lines over the nose which 
 make the shako dither on one's head when something goes 
 wrong and His Holiness is indignant." 
 
 Roma's smile was dying off her face like the sun off a field 
 of corn, and she was looking sideways out of the window. 
 
 " Has the Pope any relations ? " she asked. 
 
 " None whatever, not a soul. The only son of an only son. 
 If the old Baron had had a brother I should have said your 
 model must have been a brother's son. But you must have 
 been thinking of the Holy Father himself, and asking yourself 
 what he was like thirty years ago. Come now, confess it ! " 
 
 Roma laughed. The soldier laughed. " Shall we go ? " 
 she said. 
 
 A carriage was waiting for them, and they drove by the 
 Tor di Nona, a narrow lane which skirts the banks of the Tiber, 
 across the bridge of St. Angelo, and up the Borgo. The morn- 
 ing was bright, but the city was sad and heavy. At one corner 
 there was a group of poor people buying granturco, which did 
 duty for bread, and at another corner a crowd of old men and 
 children stood with cans and jugs at the door of a soup-kitchen. 
 In the open space before the Castle was posted a picket of in- 
 fantry, and the well-dressed pedestrians looked at them with 
 gloomy and irritated eyes. Shabby and unshaven priests 
 trudged among the poorest without reverence or respect, and 
 now and then a cardinal's coach with its lumbering black 
 horses, keeping no time in their steps, went swinging and 
 swaying along. 
 
 Roma was nervous and pre-occupied. Why had she been 
 sent for ? What could the Pope have to say to her ? 
 
 " Isn't it unusual," she asked, " for the Pope to send for 
 anyone especially a woman, and a non-Catholic ? " 
 
 " Most unusual. But perhaps Father Pifferi . . ." 
 
 " Father Pifferi?" 
 
 " He is the Holy Father's confessor, and preaches to him, 
 and his Court, through Lent." 
 
 "Is he a Capuchin?" 
 
 " Yes. The General at San Lorenzo." 
 
 " Ah, now I understand," said Roma. Light had dawned 
 on her and her spirits began to rise. 
 
 " Father Pifferi is an old friend of the Holy Father's and 
 has known him all his life. Comes and goes in the papal apart- 
 ment without regard to the Majordomo, and speaks to His 
 Holiness exactly as he likes. In fact, Cortis Cortis is the
 
 428 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Pope's valet Cortis says there are high words on both sides 
 occasionally, and sometimes the Holy Father has to be put 
 to bed." 
 
 " The Pope is very tender and fatherly, isn't he ? " 
 
 "Fatherly? He is a saint on earth, that's what he is. 
 Impetuous, perhaps, but so sweet and generous and forgiving. 
 Makes you shake in your shoes if you've done anything amiss, 
 but when all is over and he puts his arm on your shoulder and 
 tells you to think no more about it, you're ready to die for him 
 even at the stake." 
 
 Roma's spirits were rising every minute, and her nervous- 
 ness was fading away. Since things had fallen out, she 
 could take advantage of her opportunities. She would tell the 
 Pope everything, and he would advise with her and covmsel 
 her. She would speak about David Rossi, and the Pope would 
 tell her what to do. 
 
 The great clock of the Basilica was striking ten with a 
 solemn boom as the carriage rattled over the stones of the 
 Piazza of St. Peter's wet with the play of the fountains and 
 bright with the rainbows made by the sun. 
 
 They alighted at the bronze gate under the text at the end 
 of the colonnade which runs, " Come let us go up into 
 the house of the Lord, let us worship in His holy temple." 
 But the papal apartments were less like a temple than a pal- 
 ace, and less like the home of a priest than the abode of a 
 king. 
 
 First a picket of Swiss Guards in their striped uniform of 
 yellow and red ; then a gorgeous staircase, the Scala Pia, 
 with more Swiss Guards at the top; then a courtyard, the 
 Court of Damasus, sunny and silent save for the reverbera- 
 tion of closing doors and the striking of a silver-belled clock; 
 then another staircase, with marble balustrades and a stained- 
 glass window; then a gendarme in white breeches, jack-boots, 
 and bearskin; then a magnificent hall, the Sala Clementina, 
 with more Swiss Guards and a corporal in command; then 
 another large hall, the Hall of the Palfrenieri, with half a 
 dozen of the men, in red damask liveries of the time of Louis 
 XIV., who carry the Pope in his chair of state; then another 
 room with Palatine Guards in black tunics, gold epaulets, and 
 shakoes that had red plumes; then still another room with 
 Bussolanti, laymen in violet cassocks and flowing streamers; 
 and finally an apartment hung with tapestries, furnished with 
 a large crucifix between two tall lamps, and occupied by a
 
 THE POPE 429 
 
 Noble Guard with a brass helmet on his head and a drawn 
 sword in his hand. 
 
 In this room Roma's companion left her, and one of the 
 Bussolanti took her in charge. It was the anniversary of the 
 Pope's consecration, and the Holy Father was receiving the 
 usual address from his Cardinals and clergy. The next room 
 was the throne room, and beyond it were the ante-chamber and 
 the Pope's private apartments. 
 
 A chaplain of the Pope's household came to say that by 
 request of Father Pifferi the lady was to step into an anteroom ; 
 and Roma followed him into a small adjoining chamber, car- 
 peted with cocoanut matting and furnished with a marble- 
 topped table and two wodden chest-seats, bearing the papal 
 arms. The little room opened on to a corridor overlooking a 
 courtyard, a secret way to the Pope's private rooms, and it had 
 a door to the throne room also. 
 
 " The Father will be here presently," said the chaplain, 
 " and His Holiness will not be long." 
 
 Roma, who was feeling some natural tremors, tried to re- 
 assure herself by asking questions about the Pope. The chap- 
 lain's face began to gleam. He was a little man, with round 
 red cheeks and pale grey eyes, and the usual tone of his voice 
 was a hushed and reverent whisper. 
 
 "Faint? Yes, ladies do faint sometimes often, I may 
 say and they nearly always cry. But the Holy Father is so 
 gentle, so sweet." 
 
 " He must be a saint," said Roma. 
 
 " Indeed yes. His saintly character could not be exag- 
 gerated. In fact, it can only have been surpassed by Him 
 whose Vicar he is." 
 
 The door to the throne room opened and there was a gleam 
 of violet and an indistinct buzz of voices. The chaplain 
 disappeared, and at the next moment a man in the dress 
 of a waiter came from the corridor carrying a silver soup- 
 dish. 
 
 " You're the lady the Holy Father sent for ? " 
 
 Roma smiled and assented. 
 
 " I'm Cortis Gaetano Cortis the Pope's valet, you know 
 and of course I hear everything." 
 
 Roma smiled again and bowed. 
 
 " I bring the Holy Father a plate of soup every morning 
 at ten, but I'm afraid it is going to get cold this morning." 
 
 "Will he be angry?"
 
 4:30 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Angry ? He's an angel, and couldn't be angry with any 
 one." 
 
 " He must indeed be good, everybody says so." 
 
 " He is perfect. That's about the size of it. None of your 
 locking up his bedroom when he goes into the garden and 
 putting the key into the pocket of his cassock, same as in the 
 old Pope's days. I go in whenever I like, and he lets me take 
 whatever I please. At Christmas some rich Americans wanted 
 a skull-cap to save a dying man, and I got it for the asking. 
 Now an old English lady wants a stocking to cure her rheuma- 
 tism, and I'll get that too. I've saved a little hair from the 
 last cutting, and if you hear of anybody . . ." 
 
 The valet's story of his perquisites was interrupted by the 
 opening of the door of the throne room and the entrance of a 
 friar in a brown habit. It was Father Pifferi. Seeing him in 
 the daylight, Roma had no difficulty in recognising the saintly 
 old man who had been pointed out to her in the Pope's pro- 
 cession. His face was mellow but full of light; his white 
 beard was long and patriarchal; his voice was soft and his 
 manners gentle. 
 
 " Don't rise, my daughter," he said, and closing the door 
 behind the valet, he gathered up the skirts of his habit and sat 
 down on the chest-seat in front of her. 
 
 " When you came to me with your confidence, my child, and 
 I found it difficult to advise with you for your peace of mind, I 
 told you I wished to take your case to a wiser head than mine. 
 I took it to the Pope himself. He was touched by your story, 
 and asked to see you for himself." 
 
 " But, Father . . ." 
 
 " Don't be afraid, my daughter. Pius the Tenth as a Pope 
 may be lofty to sternness, venerating his own person because it 
 stands in God's place, but as a man he is humble and simple 
 and kind. Forget that he is a sovereign and a pontiff, and think 
 of him as a tender and loving friend. Tell him everything. 
 Hold nothing back. And if you must needs reveal the confi- 
 dences of others, remember that he is the Vicar of Him who 
 keeps all our secrets." 
 
 " But, Father . . . 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " His very saintliness will make it difficult to speak to 
 him." 
 
 " Don't say that. His fatherly heart knows the sorrows 
 and sufferings of all his children."
 
 THE POPE 431 
 
 " But he is so high, so holy, so far above the world and its 
 temptations . . ." 
 
 " Don't say that either, my daughter. The Holy Father is 
 a man like other men. He is the father of every one, not only 
 because he is infallible, but because he has known what it is to 
 sin and be forgiven . . . Shall I tell you something of his life? 
 The world knows it only by hearsay and report. You shall hear 
 the truth, and when you 'have heard it you will go to him as a 
 child goes to its father, and no longer be afraid." 
 
 II 
 
 " THIRTY-FIVE years ago," said Father Pifferi, " the Holy 
 Father had not even dreamt of being Pope. He was the only 
 child of a Roman banker, living in a palace on the opposite 
 side of the piazza. The old Baron had visions, indeed, of 
 making his son a great churchman by the power of wealth, but 
 these were vain and foolish, and the young man did not share 
 them. His own aims were simple but worldly. Pie desired to 
 be a soldier, and to compromise with his father's disappointed 
 ambitions he asked for a commission in the Pope's Noble 
 Guard." 
 
 The old friar put his hands into the vertical pockets in the 
 breast of his habit, and looked up at the ceiling as he went 
 on speaking. 
 
 " All this is no secret, but what follows is less known. The 
 soldier, who had the charm of an engaging personality, led 
 the life of an ordinary young Roman of his day, frequenting 
 cafes, concerts, theatres, and balls. In this character he met a 
 poor woman of the people, and came to love her. She was a 
 good girl, with soft and gentle manners, but a heart of gold 
 and a soul of fire. He was a good man and he meant to marry 
 her. He did marry her. He married her according to the 
 rites of the Church, which are all that religion requires and 
 God calls for." 
 
 Roma was leaning forward on her seat and breathing be- 
 tween tightly closed lips. 
 
 " Unhappily, then as now, a godless legislature had sepa- 
 rated a religious from a civil marriage, and the one without 
 the other was useless. The old Baron heard of what had hap- 
 pened and tried to defeat it. A cardinal had just been created 
 in Australia, and an officer of the Noble Guard had to be sent
 
 432 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 with the Ablegate to carry the biglietto arid the skull-cap. At 
 the request of the Baron his son was appointed to that mission 
 and despatched in haste." 
 
 Roma could scarcely control herself. 
 
 " The young husband being gone, the father set himself to 
 deal with the wife. He had not yet relinquished his hopes of 
 seeing his son a churchman, and marriage was a fatal im- 
 pediment. A rich man may have many instruments, and the 
 Baron was able to use some that were evil. He played upon 
 the conscience of the girl, who was pure and virtuous ; told her 
 she was not legally married, and that the laws of her country 
 thought ill of her. Finally, he appealed to her love for her 
 husband, and showed her that she was standing in his way. He 
 was not a bad man, but he loved his son beyond truth and to 
 the pei-version of honour, and was ready to sacrifice the woman 
 who stood between them. She allowed herself to be sacrificed. 
 She wiped herself out that she might not be an obstacle to her 
 husband. She drowned herself in the Tiber." 
 
 Roma could not control herself any longer, and made a 
 half-stifled exclamation. 
 
 " Then the young husband returned. He had been travel- 
 ling constantly, and no letters from his wife had reached him. 
 But one letter was waiting for him in Rome, and it told him 
 what she had done. It was then all over ; there was no help for 
 it, and he was overwhelmed with horror. lie could not blame 
 the poor dead girl, for all she had done had been done in love; 
 he could not blame himself, for he had meant no wrong in 
 making the religious marriage, and had hastened home to com- 
 plete the civil one; and he could not reproach his father, for if 
 the Baron's conduct had led to fearful consequences, it had 
 been prompted by affection for himself. But the hand of 
 God seemed to be over him, and his soul was shaken to its 
 foundations. From that time forward he renounced society 
 and all worldly pleasures. Eight days he went into retreat 
 and prayed fervently. On the ninth day he joined a religious 
 house, the Novitiate of the Capuchins at San Lorenzo. The 
 young soldier, so gay, so handsome, so fond of social admi- 
 ration, became a friar." 
 
 The old Capuchin looked tenderly at Roma, whose wet eyes 
 and burning cheeks seemed to tell of sympathy with his story. 
 
 "In those days, my daughter, the nuns of Thecla served 
 the Foundling of Santo Spirito." 
 
 Roma began to look frightened and to feel faint.
 
 THE POPE 433 
 
 "It was usual for a member of our house to live in the 
 hospital iu order to baptise the children and to confess the 
 sick and the dying. We took it in turns to do so, staying one 
 year, two years, three years, and then going back to the mon- 
 astery. I was myself at Santo Spirito for this purpose at the 
 time I speak about, and it was not until three or four years 
 afterwards that I became Superior of our house, and returned 
 to San Lorenzo. There I found the young Noble Guard, and, 
 wisely or unwisely, I told him a new phase of his own story." 
 
 " There was a child ? " said Roma, in a strange voice. 
 
 The Capuchin bent his head. " That much he knew al- 
 ready by the letter his wife had left for him. She had intended 
 that the child should die when she died, and he supposed that 
 it had been so. But pity for the little one must have over- 
 taken the poor mother at the last moment. She had put the 
 babe in the rota of the hospital, and thus saved the child's 
 life before carrying out her purpose upon her own." 
 
 The Capuchin crossed his knees, and one of his bare feet 
 in its sandal showed from under the edge of his habit. 
 
 " We had baptised the boy by a name which the mother 
 had written on a paper attached to his wrist, and the identity 
 of that name with the name of the Noble Guard led to my reve- 
 lation. Nature is a mighty thing, and on hearing what I told 
 him the young brother became restless and unhappy. The in- 
 stincts of the man began to fight with the feelings of the 
 religious, and at last he left the friary in order to fulfil 
 the duty which he thought he owed to his child." 
 
 "He did not find him?" 
 
 "He was too late. According. to custom, the boy had been 
 put out to nurse on the Campagna, by means of the little 
 dower that was all his inheritance from the State. His foster 
 parents passed him over to other hands, and thus by the abuse 
 of a good practice the child was already lost." 
 
 Roma tried to speak but she could not utter a word. 
 
 " What happened then is a long story. The old Baron was 
 now dead and the young friar had inherited his princely for- 
 tune. Dispensations got over canonical difficulties, and in 
 due course he took holy orders. His first work was to establish 
 in Rome an asylum for friendless orphans. He went out into 
 the streets to look for them, and brought them in with his own 
 hands. His fame for charity grew rapidly, but he knew well 
 what he was doing. He was looking for the little fatherless 
 one who owned his own blood and bore his name."
 
 434 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Koma was now sitting with drooping head, and her tears 
 were falling on her hands. 
 
 " Five years passed, and at length he came upon a trace of 
 the boy and heard that he had been sent to England. The 
 unhappy father obtained permission and removed to London. 
 There he set up the same work as before and spent in the same 
 way his great wealth. He passed five years more in a fruitless 
 search, looking for his lost one day and night, winter and sum- 
 mer, in cold and heat, among the little foreign boys who play 
 organs and accordions in the streets. Then he gave up hope 
 and returned to Rome. His head was white and his heart was 
 humble, but in spite of himself he rose from dignity to dignity 
 until at length the old Baron's perverted ambitions were ful- 
 filled. For his great and abounding charity, and still greater 
 piety, he was promoted to be Bishop; seven years afterwards 
 he was created Cardinal, and now he is Pope Pius the Tenth, 
 the saint, the saviour of his people, once the storm-tossed, sor- 
 rowing, stricken man . . ." 
 
 "David Leone?" 
 
 The Capuchin bowed. " That was the Holy Father's name. 
 He committed no sin and has nothing to reproach himself 
 with, but nevertheless he has known what it is to fall and to 
 rise again, to suffer and be strong. Tell me, my daughter, is 
 there anything you would be afraid to confide to him ? " 
 
 " Nothing ! Nothing whatever ! " said Roma, with tears 
 choking her voice and streaming down her cheeks. 
 
 The door to the throne room opened again and a line of 
 Cardinals came out and passed down the secret corridor, talking 
 together as they walked, old .men in violet, most of them very 
 feeble and looking very tired. At the next moment the chap- 
 lain came in for Roma. 
 
 " The Holy Father will be ready to receive you presently," 
 he said in his hushed and reverent whisper, and she rose to 
 follow him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 THE Pope had just passed through a memorable scene. In 
 his grand throne room, decorated in red and gold, seated on 
 his throne covered with red velvet, and surmounted by an em- 
 broidered canopy, vested in his red senatorial cape, richly 
 trimmed, and his camauro cap edged with fur, and wearing 
 his patriarchal cross and his episcopal diamond ring, he had
 
 THE POPE 435 
 
 received his Sacred College, his Patriarchs, Archbishops, 
 Bishops, Prelates of Colleges and Congregations, Chamber- 
 lains and military dignitaries, 011 the anniversary of his coro- 
 nation as Sovereign Pontiff of the Universal Church and 
 Bishop of Rome. 
 
 The gorgeous company had stood around him in a broad 
 belt of violet and black, the Cardinals in front, a half-circle of 
 withered old men in flowing capes, and the officers of the Noble 
 Guard at the back in their superb manhood and glittering 
 uniform. 
 
 After a cushion had been placed at the Pope's feet and the 
 Sacred College had gone through the office of obedience, by 
 kissing his jewelled hand and the gold cross on his shoe, as the 
 devotion or strength of each might dictate, the oldest of the 
 Cardinals stepped forward and read an address. He was a 
 man of ninety, with sleepy eyes and a worn-out voice. 
 
 " Most Blessed Father," he said, " Your Sacred College is 
 glad to offer to your Holiness its felicitations on this joyful 
 anniversary of an auspicious day. 
 
 " In these times, Blessed Father, when the liberty and inde- 
 pendence of the Holy See has been violated, when Rome, this 
 holy city, this metropolis of the empire of Jesus Christ, has 
 been confiscated by a parricidal government, when men arise 
 who do not conceal their desire to destroy with the Pontiff's 
 temporal power the dignity and faith of the Church, we thank 
 Divine Providence that the Catholic Church is presided over 
 by our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius the Tenth. 
 
 " These are evil days, your Holiness, and in the midst of 
 rebellions and insurrections, and, the sufferings that come from 
 them as from a devastating whirlwind, sweeping over all your 
 people in every land, we remember that the Vatican is not only 
 a prison, but a Sinai from which an infallible word is spoken, 
 and we look to you as the common Father of all the faithful to 
 recall the world to its duty, and to give from the lips of your 
 Beatitude the sovereign word of guidance. Oh, great lamp 
 which shines from the heights of this sacred hill ! Oh, light 
 which comes from heaven, shine now upon the nations ! Oh, 
 great voice of God on earth ! Oh, voice that shakes the world, 
 speak to a people that is full of affection for their Holy Pontiff. 
 
 " Blessed Father, your Sacred College well know how dear 
 to your heart is the desire to behold Rome head of the world 
 once more by the strength of peace and love. We trust and 
 believe that your inheritance is certain and is near, and that the
 
 436 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 prophetic vision in which you have foreseen it has already radi- 
 ated the globe. The Eternal One has said to his Vicar, ' I will 
 place thy seat above all the seats of the earth,' and profoundly 
 trusting that the precious life of your Blessedness may be 
 spared to witness the realisation of this promise, we beg your 
 Holiness to accept the homage of your Sacred College, and to 
 be pleased to impart to us your Apostolic Benediction." 
 
 The old Cardinal read the address with many pauses, and 
 was more than once assisted by one of the Chamberlains to a 
 glass of water. When he had finished the Pope raised his 
 head and replied. 
 
 " Venerable brethren," he said, in a full and vibrating 
 voice, which was clearly the relic of a noble organ, " a kindly 
 emotion, an affection peculiarly paternal, fills our heart at once 
 more receiving this token of your devotion. 
 
 " It has pleased you, my Lord Cardinal, to make allusion to 
 our domestic troubles and bitternesses, which deepen in gravity 
 day by day. There are those who will not realise that the Pope, 
 who, by divine law, is placed above all human ordinances, can- 
 not therefore be the subject of any man, and that the temporal 
 sovereignty of the Roman Pontiff is necessary to the free ex- 
 ercise of his apostolic mission. But none can fail to see that 
 the Holy Father has been imprisoned in the Vatican, that his 
 ministers have been dispersed, his altars destroyed, his tem- 
 ples profaned, and his property plundered. 
 
 " Venerable brethren, the Church and civil society have in 
 many ages been threatened by revolution and by the father of 
 revolutions, which is Satan. But in these unhappy days there 
 are dark significations of future things, which the Church must 
 needs consider. Communism, socialism, secret societies, and 
 anti-clerical clubs are pests which have been frequently rep- 
 robated and easily disowned. But there has arisen in our 
 time a new religion, which, taking the names of holy things, 
 and using the language of Scripture, is trying to poison Chris- 
 tendom and upset the social order. Men whose minds are not 
 well balanced, making a profession of religious faith, are de- 
 signing castles in the air which would seem strange and ri- 
 diculous if they did not make us weep, evoking a phantasm of 
 universal brotherhood to take the place of pontifical and im- 
 perial empires, with our holy Rome as the principal centre of 
 their fantastic visions. 
 
 " Profaning Christianity, treating the Gospel as a dream- 
 book of democracy, twisting beyond belief the sacred text, sepa-
 
 THE POPE 437 
 
 rating one part of Christ's teaching from another, these men 
 have created a new God, instituted a new worship, and made 
 themselves pontiffs and prophets to their new divinity. Man 
 is the god of the new religion; and the sacredness of work, of 
 labour, of material interest, is the hymn that is being sung to 
 him. The mandate has gone forth that the people are sover- 
 eigns, and therefore the State is nothing but a mob which is 
 mistress and dictatress of itself. 
 
 " Venerable brethren, is it necessary that the Holy Father 
 should teach you how false and dangerous are such impious 
 doctrines, which deify man and make him adore himself 
 in the entity which is styled Humanity? These homicidal 
 theories of demagogues are directed by the genius of evil to 
 destroy religion and the Church. The words liberty and de- 
 mocracy are only a pretext, an imposture, a bait of the biblical 
 serpent, and in too many cases they would be properly inter- 
 preted Revolution and Regicide. It is Caiphas prophesying 
 and Judas preaching the gospel. It is war between the natural 
 and the divine. It is the ancient device of Satan to turn the 
 thoughts of men to the bread that perishes, forgetting the sac- 
 ramental bread, the bread of life. It is an effort to overthrow 
 the sacred authority of the Pontiff, to extirpate the Christian 
 faith, and to annihilate civil society. 
 
 " My Lord Cardinal, you are pleased to ask for the word 
 that will indicate the direction in which Catholic activity 
 should be displayed in the midst of so much anarchy. Our 
 counsel, then, is to call upon the clergy to deliver the people 
 from the seductions of the demagogue, and to forbid them to 
 belong to the associations he forms for the furtherance of his 
 infamous aims. Many such associations have been referred to 
 the Holy See, and one such, which has imhappily gathered 
 great influence throughout Europe, has been laid before the 
 Supreme Congregation of the Universal Inquisition, with the 
 result that it has fallen under the censure of the pontifical con- 
 stitution condemning societies which entertain plans against 
 the Church or against legitimate powers, and are therefore 
 to be reprobated by the faithful, who are forbidden to take any 
 part in them, whatever quarter of the earth they dwell in. 
 
 " Meantime, my brethren, since it has been permitted by our 
 Divine Master, for the expiation of the people's sin in listen- 
 ing to evil counsels, that they should suffer by injustice, by 
 parliaments which are anti-religious assemblies, by tribunals 
 which are seats of corruption, by police courts and gaols which
 
 438 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 are scenes of secret tyranny, let us call upon God to avert His 
 judgment. During this penitential week, and especially on 
 Holy Thursday, let us call our suffering children into St. 
 Peter's; let us put back the hour of Tenebrae to the ancient 
 time of night, encourage the congregation to join in the re- 
 sponses, and particularly in the Miserere, and thus direct all 
 men's eyes to that cross which, once a sign of infamy, must 
 govern mankind still, humbling the proud, weakening the per- 
 fidy of the Pharisees, and speaking over the troubled world 
 the holy words of pardon and peace. 
 
 " So much for the present, venerable brethren, and for the 
 future it will be our pleasure at the next Consistory to fill up 
 your splendid order by designating fifteen ineffable men to the 
 honour of the Roman purple, in the hope of strengthening the 
 work of the Holy Spirit in its influence on the destinies of 
 mankind." 
 
 Immediately the Pope had finished, the Cardinals, Arch- 
 bishops, Bishops, Prelates of the Colleges and Congregations, 
 and the Chamberlains, lay and ecclesiastical, filed in front 
 of him and kissed his hand and foot. After that he rose, and 
 holding up two fingers of the right hand, pronounced the Apos- 
 tolic Benediction, and then, leaning on the arm of one of his 
 private participant chamberlains, he left the throne room. 
 
 A moment later the gorgeous company was gone, and the 
 Bussolante was at the door with Roma. A chamberlain took 
 charge of her there, and passed her to a secret chamberlain at 
 the door of an ante-chamber adjoining. This secret chamber- 
 lain, a layman in ruffs of the age of Charles V., handed her on 
 to a Monsignor in a violet cassock, and the Monsignor accom- 
 panied her to the door of the room in which the Pope was sit- 
 ting. 
 
 " As you approach," he said in a low tone, " you will make 
 three genuflexions, one at the door, another midway across 
 the floor, the third at the Holy Father's feet. You feel well ? " 
 
 "Yes," she faltered. 
 
 The door was opened, the Monsignor stepped one pace into 
 the room, and then knelt and said 
 
 " Donna Roma Volonna, your Holiness." 
 
 Roma was on her knees at the threshold; a soft, full, kindly 
 voice, which she could have believed she had heard before, 
 called on her to approach; she rose and stepped forward, the 
 Monsignor stepped back, and the door behind her was closed. 
 She was in the Presence.
 
 THE POPE 4.39 
 
 IV 
 
 THE Pope, now dressed wholly in white, was seated in a 
 simple chair by a little table in a homely room surrounded by 
 bookcases and some busts of former pontiffs. There were 
 little domesticities of intimate life about him, an empty soup- 
 dish, a cruet stand, a plate and a spoon. He had a face of great 
 sweetness and spirituality, and as Roma approached he bent his 
 head and smiled a fatherly smile. She knelt and kissed his 
 ring, and continued to kneel by his chair, putting one hand 
 on the arm. He placed his own mittened hand over hers and 
 patted it tenderly, while he looked into her face. 
 
 The little nervous perturbation with which Roma had en- 
 tered the room began to leave her, and in the awful wearer of 
 the threefold crown she saw nothing but a simple, loving 
 human being. A feminine sense crept over her, a sense of 
 nursing, almost of motherhood, and at that first moment she 
 felt as if she wanted to do something for the gentle old man. 
 Then he began to speak. His voice had that tone which comes 
 to the voice of a man who has the sense of sex strong in him, 
 when a woman is with him and his accents soften per- 
 ceptibly. 
 
 " My daughter," he said, " Father Pifferi has spoken about 
 you, and by your permission, as I understand it, he has repeated 
 the story you told him. You have suffered, and you have my 
 sympathy. And though you are not among the number of my 
 children, I sent for you, that, as an old man to a young woman, 
 by God's grace I might strengthen you and support you." 
 
 She kissed his ring again and continued to kneel by the 
 arm of his chair. 
 
 " Long ago, my child, I knew one who was in something like 
 the same position, and perhaps it is the memory of what befell 
 that poor soul which impels me to speak to you. She was one 
 of the women who might have been the mother of a great 
 man. . . . But she is dead, her story is dead, too ; let time 
 and nature cover them." 
 
 His voice had a slight tremor. She looked up. There was a 
 hush, a momentary thrill. Then he smiled again and patted 
 her hand once more. 
 
 " You must not let the world weaken you, my child, or cause 
 you to doubt the validity of your marriage. Whether it is a 
 good marriage, in effect as well as intention (one of you being 
 still unbaptised), it is for the Church, not the world, to decide.
 
 440 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The world's judgment on a woman who has been the victim 
 of a man is wicked and cruel. No matter what her trials and 
 temptations may have been, in the world's view a woman soiled 
 is a woman spoiled, a woman wronged is a woman fallen. It 
 is the same now as it was in the days of the woman of Jeru- 
 salem. The Pharisees, who have not been impervious to the 
 indulgence of their own sex, are always ready to say, ' Moses in 
 the law commanded that such should be stoned.' But oh, infi- 
 nite pity and delicacy of the soul most sacredly virtuous, Jesus 
 is always stooping and writing on the ground as though He 
 heard them not." 
 
 Again Roma kissed the ring of the Pope, and again he 
 patted the hand that lay under his. 
 
 " Nevertheless, there is something I wish you to do, my 
 daughter," he said in the same low tones. " I wish you to 
 tell your husband. If you don't do so, you will mortgage your 
 future, prejudice your veracity, and do a great wrong to the 
 beautiful spirit of your love." 
 
 " Holy Father," said Roma, " I have already told him. I 
 had done so before I spoke to Father Pifferi, but only under 
 the disguise of another woman's story." 
 
 " And what did your husband say ? " 
 
 " He said what your Holiness says. He was very charitable 
 and noble ; so I took heart and told him everything." 
 
 " And what did he say then ? " 
 
 A cloud crossed her face. " Holy Father, he has not yet 
 said anything." 
 
 "Not anything?" 
 
 "He is aAvay; he has not replied to my letter." 
 
 " Has there been time ? " 
 
 " More than time, your Holiness, but still I hear nothing." 
 
 " And what is your conclusion ? " 
 
 " That my letter has awakened some pity, but now that he 
 knows I am the wife I spoke about and he is the husband in- 
 tended, he cannot forgive me as he said the husband would 
 forgive, and his generous soul is in distress." 
 
 " My daughter, could you wish me to speak to him ? " 
 
 The cloud fled from her face. " It is more than I deserve, 
 far more, but if the Holy Father would do that . . .". 
 
 " Then I must know the names you must tell me every- 
 thing." 
 
 "Yes, yes!" 
 
 " Who is your father, my child ? "
 
 THE POPE 
 
 "My father died in banishment. He was a Liberal. I 
 fear your Holiness would call him a revolutionary. He was 
 Prince Prospero Volonna." 
 
 " As I thought. All noble minds love liberty, but in many 
 the understanding is in conflict with the heart. Who was the 
 other man ? " 
 
 " He was a distant kinsman of my father's, and I have 
 lately discovered that he was the principal instrument in my 
 father's deportation. He was my guardian, a Minister and 
 a great man in Italy. It is the Baron Bonelli, your Holiness." 
 
 "Just so, just so !" said the Pope, tapping his foot in obvious 
 heat. " A man of most unholy life, my daughter. A diabolical 
 representative of Antichrist. . . . But go on, my child. Who 
 is your husband ? " 
 
 " My husband is a different kind of man altogether." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " He has done everything for me, Holy Father, everything. 
 Heaven knows what I should have been how without him." 
 
 " God bless him ! God bless both of you ! " 
 
 " I came to know him by the strangest accident. He is a 
 Liberal, too, and a Deputy, and thinking of the corruptions of 
 the Government, he pointed to me as the mistress of the Min- 
 ister. It was not true, but I was degraded, and . . . and I set 
 out to destroy him." 
 
 " A terrible vengeance, my child. Only the Minister could 
 have thought of it." 
 
 " Then I found that my enemy was one of my father's 
 friends, and a true and noble man. Holy Father, I had begun 
 in hate, but I could not hate him. The darkness faded away 
 from my soul, and something bright and beautiful came in its 
 place. I loved him, and he loved me. With all our hearts 
 we loved each other." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then he came back to me. I knew all the -secrets I had set 
 out to learn, but I could not give them up, and when I refused 
 he threatened me." 
 
 " And what did you do ? " 
 
 " I married my husband and withstood every temptation. 
 It wasn't so very hard, for I cared nothing for wealth and 
 luxury now. I only wanted to be good. God himself should 
 see how good I could be." 
 
 The Pope's eyes were moist. He was patting the young 
 woman's trembling hand. 
 29
 
 442 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Love has saved you, ray daughter. God is love, and love 
 is the bridge that unites heaven and earth. Even if you had 
 been as the Magdalene out of whom Christ cast seven devils, if 
 you had sinned and been the creature of the Minister, God's 
 love would have purified you and lifted you up. My blessing 
 rest on you, my daughter, and may the man you have married 
 be worthy of your love and trust." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed he is," said Roma. She could hardly keep 
 herself from crying. The voice of the Pope when he spoke of 
 love had been so like another voice that it thrilled her. 
 
 " He was your father's friend, you tell me ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness, and although we met again so re- 
 cently, I had known him in England when I was a child." 
 
 "A Liberal, you say?" 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness." 
 
 " The enmity of the Minister was the fruit of political 
 warfare ? " 
 
 " Nothing but that at first, though now . . ." 
 
 " I see, I see. And the secrets you speak of are only . . ." 
 
 " Only the doings of twenty years ago, which are dead and 
 done with." 
 
 " Then your husband is older than you are ? " 
 
 The young woman broke into a sunny smile, which set 
 the Pope smiling. 
 
 " Only ten years older, your Holiness. He is thirty- 
 four." 
 
 " Where does he come from, and what was his father? " 
 
 " He was born in Rome, but he does not know who his 
 father was." 
 
 " What is he like to look upon ? " 
 
 " He is like ... I have never seen any one so like . . . 
 will your Holiness forgive me?" 
 
 The colour had mounted to her eyes, her two rows of pearly 
 teeth seemed to be smiling, and the sunny old face of the Pope 
 was smiling too. 
 
 " Say what you please, my daughter." 
 
 " I have never seen any one so like the Holy Father," she 
 said softly. 
 
 Her head was held down and there was a little- nervous 
 tremor at her heart. The Pope patted her hand affection- 
 ately. 
 
 " Have I asked you his name, my child ? " 
 
 " His name is David Rossi."
 
 THE POPE 443 
 
 The Pope rose suddenly from his seat, and for the first time 
 his face looked dark and troubled. 
 
 " David Rossi ? " he repeated in a husky voice. 
 
 Roma began to tremble. "Yes," she faltered. 
 
 "David Rossi, the revolutionary?" 
 
 " Indeed no, your Holiness, he is not that." 
 
 " But my child, my child, he is the founder of a revolu- 
 tionary society which this very day the Holy Father has con- 
 demned." 
 
 He walked across the room and she rose to her feet and 
 looked after him. 
 
 " One of the men who are conspiring against the peace of 
 the Church banded together to fight the Church and its head." 
 
 " Don't say that, your Holiness. He is religious deeply 
 religious, and far more an enemy of the Government and the 
 King." 
 
 She began to talk wildly, almost aimlessly, trying to defend 
 Rossi at all costs. 
 
 " Holy Father," she said, " shall I tell you a secret ? There 
 is nobody else in the world to whom I could tell it, but I can 
 tell it to you. My husband is now in England organising a 
 great scheme among the exiles and refugees of Italy. What it 
 is I don't know, but he has told me that it will lead to the con- 
 quest of the country and the downfall of the throne. Whether 
 it is to be a conspiracy in the ordinary sense, or a constitutional 
 plan of campaign, he has not said, but everything tells me that 
 it is directed against the politics of Rome and not against its 
 religion, and is intended to overthrow the King, and not the 
 Pope." 
 
 The Pope, who had been standing with his back to Roma, 
 turned round to her with a look of fright. His eyebrows had 
 met over the vertical lines on his forehead, and this further 
 reminder of another face threw Roma into still greater con- 
 fusion. 
 
 " ' When I come back it will be with such a force behind 
 me as will make the prisons open their doors and the thrones 
 of tyrants tremble.' That's what he said, your Holiness. The 
 movement will come soon, too, I am sure it will, and then your 
 Holiness will see that instead of being irreligious men, the 
 leaders of the people . . ." 
 
 The Pope held up his hand. " Stop! " he cried. " Say no 
 more, my child. God knows what I must do with what you 
 have said already."
 
 444 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Then Roma saw what she had done in the wild gust of her 
 emotion, and in her terror she tried to take it back. 
 
 " Holy Father, you must not think from what I say that 
 David Rossi is for revolution and regicide . . ." 
 
 " Don't speak, my child. You cannot know what an earth- 
 quake you have opened at my feet. Let me think! Let me 
 learn my duty before God and man." 
 
 There was silence for a moment, and then Roma gulped 
 down the great lumps in her throat and said, " I am only an 
 ignorant woman, Holy Father, and perhaps I have said too 
 much, and do not understand. But what I have told your 
 Holiness was told me in love and confidence. And the Holy 
 Father is wise and good, and whatever he does will be for the 
 best." 
 
 The Pope returned to his chair with a bewildered look, and 
 did not seem to hear. Roma sank to her knees by his side and 
 said in a low, pleading tone : 
 
 " My husband's faith in me is so beautiful, your Holiness. 
 Oh, so beautiful. I am the only one in the world to whom he 
 has told all his secrets, and if any of them should ever come 
 back to him . . ." 
 
 " Don't be afraid, my daughter. What you said in simple 
 confidence shall be as sacred as if it had been spoken under 
 the seal of the confessional. But you have told me a terrible 
 story, and only the Heavenly Father knows what His servant 
 ought to do with it." 
 
 Roma looked up at the troubled old face, lately so serene 
 and sunny, and realised for a moment the awful responsibility 
 of a human being who wears the tiara. Then her mind went 
 back to the story the Capuchin had told her, and in the same 
 low, pleading tone, she said : 
 
 " If I could tell your Holiness more about him who he is 
 and where he comes from a place so lowly and humble, your 
 Holiness ... if I could show you how he has suffered and 
 what a dreadful shadow still hangs over him, your fatherly 
 heart would pity and love him." 
 
 " Tell me no more, my child. It is better I should not 
 know. Pity ought to have no place in what duty tells me to 
 do. But I can love David Rossi for all that. I do love him. 
 I love him as a lost and wayward son, whose hand is raised 
 against his Father, though he knows it not." 
 
 Roma was about to speak again, more directly and point- 
 edly than before, when a doubt took hold of her. After all,
 
 THE POPE 445 
 
 Leone was a common surname, and it was not usual in Italy to 
 give a son the Christian name of his father. What she had 
 taken for certainty might be no more than a coincidence. 
 
 There was a bell-button on the Pope's chair. He pressed it, 
 and the Participante returned to the room without knocking. 
 The Pope rose and took Roma's hand. 
 
 " Go in peace and with my blessing, my child. I bless you ! 
 May my fatherly blessing keep you pure in heart, may it 
 strengthen you in all temptations, comfort you in all trials, 
 avert from you every evil omen, and bring you into the fold of 
 Christ's children at the last." 
 
 The Participante stepped forward and signed to Roma to 
 withdraw. She rose and left the presence chamber, stepping 
 backward and too much moved to speak. Not until the door 
 had been closed did she realise that she was crossing the throne 
 room, and that the Bussolante was walking beside her. 
 
 WHEN the Pope walked in his garden that afternoon as 
 usual, the old Capuchin was with him. From the door of the 
 Vatican they drove in the Pope's landau with two of the Noble 
 Guard riding beside the carriage, and one of the chamberlains 
 walking behind it, through lanes enshrouded in laurel and 
 ilex, until they reached the summer-house on the top of 
 the hill. There the old men stepped down, the Pope in his 
 white cassock, white overcoat and red hat, the Capuchin in 
 his brown habit, skull-cap and sandals. The Pope's cat, a crea- 
 ture of reddish coat, which followed him into the garden as a 
 dog follows his master, leapt out of the carriage after them. 
 
 In front of the round tower of the summer-house there is a 
 high terrace shaded by orange and magnolia trees, and having a 
 circle of garden seats. The venerable old men sat on one of 
 these seats, and the cat took his place on the gravel path in front 
 of them. So high were they that the great dome of St. Peter's 
 seemed almost on a level with their faces, while Rome lay 
 below like a city seen from a balloon. Beyond spread the broad 
 Campagna, green and undulating as a summer sea; farther 
 still, shining in shifting hues of opal and blue, rose the Alban 
 hills with little white towns dotted over their rocky sides ; and 
 last of all, going off like ghosts in a purple haze, appeared the 
 snow-clad heights of the solemn Apennines.
 
 446 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 
 
 The Pope was more than usually grave and silent. Once or 
 twice the Capuchin said, " And how did you find my young 
 penitent this morning '{ " 
 
 " Bene, bene!" the Pope replied. 
 
 But at length the Pope, scraping the gravel at his feet with 
 the ferule of his walking-stick, began to speak on his own 
 initiative. 
 
 " Father ! " 
 
 "Your Holiness?" 
 
 " The inscrutable decree of God which made me your Pon- 
 tiff, has not altered our relations to each other as men? " 
 
 The Capuchin took snuff and answered, " Your Holiness is 
 always so good as to say so." 
 
 " You are my master now just as you were thirty years ago, 
 and there is something I wish to ask of you." 
 
 " What is it, your Holiness ? " 
 
 " You have been a confessor many years, Father ? " 
 
 " Forty years, your Holiness." 
 
 " In that time you have had many difficult cases ? " 
 
 " Very many." 
 
 " Father, has it ever happened that a penitent has revealed 
 to you a conspiracy to commit a crime ? " 
 
 " More than once it has happened." 
 
 " And what have you done ? " 
 
 " Persuaded him to reveal it to the civil authorities, or else 
 tell it to me outside the confessional." 
 
 " Has the penitent ever refused to do so ? " 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " But if ... if the case were such as made it difficult for 
 the penitent to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, 
 having regard to the penalties the revelation would bring with 
 it. . . if by reason of ties of blood and affection such revelation 
 were humanly impossible, and it would even be cruel to ask 
 for it, what would you do then ? " 
 
 " Nothing, your Holiness." 
 
 " Not even if the crime to be committed were a serious one, 
 and it touched you very nearly ? " 
 
 The Capuchin shook out his coloured print handkerchief 
 and said, " That could make no difference, your Holiness." 
 
 " But suppose you heard in confession that your brother is 
 to be assassinated, what is your duty? " 
 
 " My duty to the penitent who reveals his soul to me is to 
 preserve his secret."
 
 THE POPE 447 
 
 " And what is your duty to God ? " 
 
 The handkerchief dropped from the Capuchin's hand. 
 
 " Is there not such a thing as the abuse of the confes- 
 sional ? " said the Pope. 
 
 " Undoubtedly." 
 
 " Where, for example, the penitent speaks in bad faith and 
 attempts to draw the priest into a conspiracy to commit a 
 crime ? " 
 
 " In that case, of course, it is no confession." 
 
 " May there not be such a thing as an unconscious abuse of 
 the confessional, where the penitent speaks in good faith, but 
 nevertheless draws the priest into a knowledge of crime about 
 to be committed, and thereby into the position of an accom- 
 plice ? " 
 
 " It would seem to be so, your Holiness." 
 
 " Then the penitent who reveals a conspiracy to kill your 
 brother commits an abuse of the confessional, and it is your 
 duty to God to save your brother's life." 
 
 " That is held by some theologians. It has even been acted 
 upon in some instances. I do not like it, but I cannot gain- 
 say it." 
 
 " If such is your duty in the case of a conspiracy to kill 
 your brother, it must be the same in the case of a conspiracy 
 to kill your enemy ? " 
 
 " Quite the same, your Holiness." 
 
 The Pope paused, scraped the gravel with the ferule of his 
 stick and said: 
 
 " Father, I am in the position of the confessor who has guilty 
 knowledge of a conspiracy against the life of his enemy." 
 
 The Capuchin pushed his handkerchief into his sleeve and 
 dropped back into his seat. After a moment the Pope told 
 the story of what Roma had said of Rossi's plans abroad. 
 
 " A conspiracy," he said, " plainly a conspiracy." 
 
 " And what do you understand the conspiracy to be ? " 
 
 "Who can say? Perhaps a recurrence to the custom of 
 the Middle Ages, when citizens who had been banished by their 
 opponents used to apply themselves in exile to attempt the 
 reconquest of their country by stirring up the factions at 
 home." 
 
 " You think that is Rossi's object ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 The Capuchin shifted uneasily the skull-cap on his crown, 
 and said :
 
 448 THE ETEKNAL CITY 
 
 " Holy Father, I trust your Holiness will leave the mat- 
 ter alone." 
 
 "Why so?" 
 
 " In reading history I do not find that such enterprises have 
 usually been successful. I see, rather, how commonly they 
 have failed. And if it was so in the Middle Ages when the 
 arts of war were primitive, how much less likely are the 
 conspiracies of secret societies, the partial and superficial ris- 
 ings of refugees, to be serious now in the days of standing 
 armies." 
 
 " True. But is that a good reason for doing nothing in 
 this instance? The most impotent of the risings in the past 
 had the effect of giving credit to despotism and weakening the 
 position of the people at home. And that is what the con- 
 spiracy of this man Rossi will do to-day. It will not conquer 
 the country, but it will exasperate the Government, thwart the 
 progress of civilisation, shed innocent blood, and worsen the 
 economic condition of the poor." 
 
 " But, Holy Father, think. You cannot disclose the secrets 
 this poor lady has revealed to you. Her confession was only 
 a confidence, but your Holiness knows well that according to 
 moral theology there is such a thing as a natural secret which 
 it would be a grave fault to reveal. Facts which of their own 
 nature are confidential belong to this order. They are assimi- 
 lated to the confessional, and as such they should be re- 
 spected." 
 
 " Indeed they should." 
 
 " Then it is not possible for your Holiness to reveal what 
 you heard this morning without bringing trouble to the peni- 
 tent and wronging her in relation to her husband." 
 
 " God forbid that I should do so, Avhatever happens. But 
 is a priest forbidden to speak of a sin heard in confession if he 
 can do so in such a way that the identity of the penitent cannot 
 be discovered ? " 
 
 " Your Holiness intends to do that ? " 
 
 "Why not? Doesn't St. Alphonsus sanction it, and isn't 
 it the counsel of nearly all the theologians ? " 
 
 " The Holy Father is himself a theologian and he knows 
 best. For my own part, your Holiness, I think it a danger to 
 tamper with the secrets of a soul, whatever the good end in 
 view or the evil to be prevented." 
 
 The Capuchin looked round to where the horses were paw- 
 ing the path and the Guards stood by the carriage.
 
 THE POPE 449 
 
 " Thirty-five years ago we had a terrible lesson in such 
 dangers, your Holiness." 
 
 The Pope dropped his head and continued to scrape the 
 gravel. 
 
 " Your Holiness remembers the poor young woman who 
 told her confessor she was about to marry a rich young man. 
 The confessor thought it his duty to tell the young man's 
 father in general terms that such a marriage was to be con- 
 tracted. What was the result? The marriage took place in 
 secret and ended in grief and death." 
 
 The Pope rose uneasily. " We will not speak of that. It 
 was a case of a father's pride and perverted ambition. This is 
 a different case altogether. A man who is a prey to diabolical 
 illusions, an enemy of the Church and of social order, is hatch- 
 ing a plot which can only end in mischief and bloodshed. The 
 Holy Father knows it. Shall he keep this guilty knowledge 
 locked in his own bosom ? God forbid ! " 
 
 " Then you intend to warn the civil authorities ? " 
 
 " I must. It is my duty. How could I lay my head on 
 my pillow and not do it ? But I will do it discreetly. I will 
 commit no one, and this poor lady shall remain unknown." 
 
 The Capuchin rose. " His Holiness could only act from the 
 noblest motives, and Heaven grant that whatever he does may 
 work out well. But to exercise the ' epikeia ' in any case of the 
 secrets of a soul is like taking a plunge in the dark over a 
 yawning precipice. We know where our foot starts from, but 
 only God knows where it may alight." 
 
 The venerable old men, each leaning on his stick, walked 
 down a path lined by clipped yews, shaded by cypresses, and 
 almost overgrown with crocus, anemone, and violet. Sud- 
 denly from the bushes there came a nutter of wings, followed 
 by the scream of a bird, and in a moment the Pope's cat had 
 leapt on to a marble which stood in the midst of the jungle. 
 It was an ancient sarcophagus, placed there as a fountain, but 
 the spring that had fed it was dry, and in its moss-grown 
 mouth a bird had made its nest. The cat was about to pounce 
 down on the eggs when the Pope laid hold of it. 
 
 " Ah, Meesh, Meesh," he said, " what an anarchist you are, 
 to be sure ! . . . Honsignor ! " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness," said the Chamberlain, coming up 
 behind. 
 
 " Take this gatto rosso back to the carriage, and keep him 
 in domicilio coatto until we come."
 
 450 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The Monsignor laughed and carried off the cat, and the 
 Pope put his mitteiied hand gently on the little speckled eggs. 
 
 " Poor things ! they're warm. Listen ! That's the mother 
 bird screaming in the tree. Hark ! She's watching us, and 
 waiting for us to go. How snugly she thought she had kept 
 her secret." 
 
 The Capuchin drew a long breath. " Yes, nature has the 
 same cry for fear in all her offspring." 
 
 " True," said the Pope. 
 
 " It makes me think of that poor girl this morning." 
 
 The Pope walked back to the carriage without saying a 
 word. As he returned to the Vatican, the Angelus was ringing 
 from all the church bells of Rome, the city was bathed in crim- 
 son light, the sun was sinking behind Monte Mario, and the 
 stone pines on the crest of the hill, standing out against the 
 reddening sky, were like the roofless columns of a ruined 
 temple. 
 
 VI 
 
 BRUNO was buried on the following day. The Freemasons 
 had asked pel-mission to undertake the funeral, and the car that 
 bore his body was surmounted by their badge where usually 
 the cross would be. It was Palm Sunday, and the company 
 which had accompanied the cortege was joined at the gates of 
 the cemetery by a crowd that came out of the Church of San 
 Lorenzo carrying palms and sprigs of box. 
 
 Speeches were made over the grave in denunciation of the 
 police and the magistrates. A great crime had been com- 
 mitted, and the people answered it with a vote against the 
 Government, a vote of censure and of death. " The blood of 
 Bruno Rocco," said a speaker, " has fallen like sacred rain on a 
 soil parched by pitiless skies, and an heroic spirit will spring up 
 from this urn to awaken the conscience of Rome." Delegates 
 of police in private clothes were scattered among the mourn- 
 ers, listening attentively to what was said. 
 
 Roma was not there. To keep herself from painful 
 thoughts, Sunday as it was, she worked on her bust. Towards 
 noon old Francesca came up with a letter. The porter from 
 Trinita de' Monti had brought it and he was waiting below 
 for a present. In a kind of momentary delirium Roma 
 snatched at the envelope and emptied her purse into the old 
 woman's hand.
 
 THE POPE 451 
 
 " Santo Dio ! " cried Francesca, " all this for a letter ? " 
 
 " Never mind, godmother," said Roma. " Give the money 
 to the good man and let him go." 
 
 " It's from Mr. Rossi, isn't it ? Yes ? I thought it was. 
 You've only to say three Ave Marias when you wake in the 
 morning and you get anything you want. I knew the Signora 
 was dying for a letter, so . . ." 
 
 " Yes, yes, but the poor man is waiting, and I must get 
 on with my work, and . . ." 
 
 " Work ? Ah, Signora, in paradise you won't have to waste 
 your time working. A lady like you will have violins and 
 celestial bread and . . ." 
 
 " The man will be gone, godmother," said Roma, hustling 
 the deaf old woman out of the room. 
 
 But even when Roma was alone she could not at first find 
 courage to open the envelope. There was a certain physical 
 thrill in handling it, in turning it over, and in looking at the 
 stamps and the postmark. The stamps were French and the 
 postmark was of Paris. That fact brought a vague gleam of 
 joy. Rossi had been travelling, and perhaps he had not yet 
 received her letter. 
 
 With a trembling kiss and a little choking prayer she 
 broke the seal at last, and as the letter came rustling out of 
 the envelope she glanced at the closing lines : 
 
 " Your Faithful Husband." 
 
 She caught her breath and waited a moment, tingling all 
 over. Then she unfolded the paper and read : 
 
 " DEAREST, A telegram from Rome, published in the Paris 
 newspapers this morning, reports the trial and death of Bruno. 
 To say that I am shocked is to say little. I am shaken to my 
 foundations. My heart is bursting and my hand can with dif- 
 ficulty hold the pen. 
 
 " The news first reached me last evening, when I was in a 
 restaurant with a group of journalists. We were at dinner, 
 but I was compelled to rise and return to my lodgings. I must 
 have been almost in delirium the whole night long. More than 
 once I started from my sleep with the certainty that I heard 
 Bruno's voice calling to me. Once I went to the window and 
 looked out into the silent street. And yet I knew all the time 
 that my poor friend lay dead in prison. 
 
 " O God, is there to be no punishment in this world for 
 men who vitiate the foundations of justice? Talk of anarchy
 
 452 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 this is judicial anarchy. I was prepared for much after what 
 you told me, but the tortures inflicted upon Bruno would pass 
 belief if I did not know that they differ only in degree from 
 the tyrannies of the prisons in every country where the old 
 false concept of law still exists, by which the police are mas- 
 ters instead of servants of the people. 
 
 " Poor Bruno ! I do not hold with suicide under any cir- 
 cumstances. A man's life does not belong to himself. Each of 
 us is a soldier, and no sentinel ought to kill himself at his 
 post. Who knows what the next turn of the battle will be ? It 
 is our duty to the general to see the fight out. But when the 
 sentinel dies rather than pass a false watchword, suicide is 
 sacrifice, death is victory, and God takes his martyr under the 
 wings of His mercy. 
 
 " The poor fellow died believing I had been false to him ! 
 I knew him for eight years, and during that time he was more 
 faithful to me than my shadow. He was the bravest, staunch- 
 est friend man ever had. And now he has left me, thinking 
 I have wronged him at the last. Oh, my brother, do you not 
 know the truth at last? In the world to which you are gone 
 does no heavenly voice tell you ? Does not death reveal every- 
 thing? Can you not look down and see all, tearing away the 
 veil that clouded your vision here below ? Is it only vouchsafed 
 to him who remains on earth to know that he was true to the 
 love you bore him ? God forbid it ! It cannot, cannot be. 
 
 " Dearest, I came to Paris unexpectedly ten days ago . . ." 
 
 Roma lifted her swimming eyes. " Then he hasn't received 
 it," she thought. 
 
 " Called in haste, not only to organise our Italian people 
 for the new crusade, but to compose by a general principle the 
 many groups of Frenchmen who, under different names, have 
 the same aspirations Marxists, Possibilists, Boulangists, 
 Guesdists, and Central Revolutionists, with their varying 
 propaganda, co-operative, trade-unionist, anti-semite, national, 
 and I know not what I had almost despaired of any union of 
 interests so pitifully subdivided when the news of Bruno's 
 death came like a trumpet-blast, and the walls of the social 
 Jericho fell before it. Everybody feels that the moment of 
 action has arrived, and what I thought would be an Italian 
 movement is likely to become an international one. A great 
 outrage on the spirit of Justice breaks down all barriers of race 
 and nationality. 
 
 " God guide us now. What did our Master say ? ' The
 
 THE POPE 4.53 
 
 dagger of the conspirator is never so terrible as when sharp- 
 ened on the tombstone of a martyr.' With all the heat of my 
 own blood I tremble when I think what may be the effect of 
 these tyrannies. Of course the ruling classes at home will 
 wash their hands of this affair. When a Minister wants to 
 play Macbeth he has no lack of grooms to dabble with Dun- 
 can's blood. But the people will make no nice distinctions. I 
 wouldn't give two straws for the life of the King when this 
 crime has touched the conscience of the people. He didn't do 
 it ? No, he does nothing, but he stands for all. Anarchists did 
 not invent regicide. It has been used in all ages by people 
 who think the spirit of Justice violated. And the names of 
 some who practised it are written on marble monuments in 
 letters of gold." 
 
 Roma began to tremble. Had the Pope been right after 
 all? Was it really revolution and regicide which Rossi con- 
 templated ? 
 
 " Oh, my dear one, my heart aches when I think of the evils 
 which may come to our beloved country as a result of these 
 outrages. The real bulwark between the people and their 
 oppressors should be the Church, but the Church is hopeless 
 in that interest and past praying for. In the midst of a social 
 ferment such as the world has never witnessed before, what in 
 God's name is the Church doing ? Singing anthems and mise- 
 reres in Basilicas, administering and receiving sacraments, 
 with her priests in copes of broidered gold, while a great 
 part of the world is dying of moral and physical starvation ! 
 No matter! God is good, and He will not allow Himself 
 to be deceived by some words in Latin and two lighted 
 candles. 
 
 " It is reported here that at the next consistory the Pope 
 will create fifteen new cardinals. This is the Church's answer 
 to the all-absorbing problems with which the age confronts her. 
 The engine of life is overcharged and near to explosion. Very 
 well ! put more weight on the safety-valve. The Pope is a saint. 
 I feel an indescribable tenderness towards him; but when I 
 think of that old man out of touch with his time, embarrassed 
 by survivals from dead centuries, minded about his temporali- 
 ties, his little court, his handful of carpet soldiers, and at the 
 mercy of the gross ignorance of the world which prevails among 
 the ruling councillors of the Vatican laying his dying hand 
 upon future generations to rule them when he is dust and 
 ashes, I feel that I want to weep.
 
 454 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Oh, if I were still a good Catholic, how I should hold on 
 to my faith in the Holy Spirit ! Think of that houseful of old 
 bachelors, the College of Cardinals, few of them distinguished 
 for intellect, many of them the authors of treatises which up- 
 hold follies discredited by science and abandoned by philos- 
 ophy, most of them the enemies of progress and the champions 
 of a political faith which every civilised nation has left behind, 
 frightened by the sound of the march of the people, divided 
 into their twelve tribes of Scribes and Pharisees, forty belong- 
 ing to Italy, twelve to the kingdom of Naples, four to the little 
 Mafia-ridden island of Sicily, arid only thirteen to France, Ger- 
 many, England, and America combined and yet destined to 
 elect the Pontiff who is to be the infallible guide of faith and 
 morals to millions of unborn humanity. Thank God for the 
 deep well of Christian love and piety which keeps the Church 
 alive amid abuses that would sweep it to destruction if it were 
 not divine ! " 
 
 Roma raised her eyes again. Yes, the Pope was right after 
 all. Rossi was an enemy of the Church, and perhaps he was 
 doing his utmost to destroy it. 
 
 " Dearest, don't think that because I am so moved by all 
 this that other and dearer things are not with me always. 
 Never a day or an hour passes but my heart speaks to you as if 
 you could answer. I have been anxious at not hearing from 
 you for ten days, although I left my Paris address in London 
 for your letters to be sent on. Sometimes I think my enemies 
 may be tormenting you, and then I blame myself for not bring- 
 ing you with me, in spite of every disadvantage. Sometimes 
 I think you may be ill, and then I have an impulse to take the 
 first train and fly back to Rome. I know I cannot be with 
 you always, but this absence is cruel. Happily it will soon 
 be over, and we shall see an end of all sadness. Don't suffer 
 for me. Don't let my cares distress you. Whatever happens, 
 nothing can divide us, because love has united our hearts for 
 ever. 
 
 " That's why I'm sure of you, Roma, sure of your love and 
 sure of your loyalty. Otherwise how could I stay an hour 
 longer after this awful event, tortured by the fear of a double 
 martyrdom the martyrdom of myself and of the one who is 
 dearest to me in the world. 
 
 " The spring is coming to take me home to you, darling. 
 Don't you smell the violets? Adieu! 
 
 " YOUR FAITHFUL HUSBAND."
 
 THE POPE 455 
 
 Roma slept little that night. Joy, relief, disappointment, 
 but, above all, fear for Rossi, apprehension about his plans, and 
 overpowering dread of the consequences kept her awake for 
 hours. Early next day a man in a blue uniform brought a 
 letter from the Braschi Palace. It ran : 
 
 " DEAR ROMA, I must ask you to come across to my office 
 this morning, and as soon as convenient. You will not hesitate 
 to do so when I tell you that by this friendly message I am 
 saving you the humiliation of a summons from the police. 
 Yours, as always, affectionately, BONELLI." 
 
 VII 
 
 THE Minister of the Interior sat in his cabinet before a table 
 covered with blue-books and the square sheets of his " proj- 
 ects of law," and the Commendatore Angelelli, with his 
 usual extravagant politeness, was standing and bowing by 
 his side. 
 
 " And what is this about proclamations issued by Rossi ? " 
 said the Baron, fixing his eyeglasses and looking up. 
 
 " We have traced the printer who published them," said 
 Angelelli. " After he was arrested he gave the name of the 
 person who paid him and provided the copy." 
 
 The Baron bowed without speaking. 
 
 " It was a certain lady, Excellency," said Angelelli in his 
 thin voice, " so we thought it well to wait for your instruc- 
 tions." 
 
 " You did right, Commendatore. Leave that part of the 
 matter to me. And Rossi himself he is still in England ? " 
 
 " In France, your Excellency, but we have letters from both 
 London and Paris detailing all his movements." 
 
 " Good." 
 
 " The Chief Commissioner writes that during his stay in 
 London Rossi lodged in Soho, and received visits from nearly 
 all the representatives of revolutionary parties. Apparently 
 he united many conflicting forces, and not only the Democratic 
 Federations and the Socialist and Labour Leagues, but also the 
 Radical organisations, and various religious guilds and unions 
 gathered about him." 
 
 The Baron made a gesture of impatience. " It's a case of 
 birds of a feather. London has always been the central home
 
 456 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 of anarchy under various big surnames. What does the Com- 
 missioner understand to be Rossi's plan ? " 
 
 " Rossi's plan, the Commissioner thinks, is to send back 
 the Italian exiles, and to disperse them, with money and litera- 
 ture gathered abroa'd, among the excited millions at home." 
 
 " Wonderful ! " said the Baron. " The heathen rage to- 
 gether and the people imagine a vain thing." 
 
 Angelelli laughed his thin laugh, like a hen cackling over 
 its nest. Then he said : 
 
 " But the Prefect of Paris has formed a more serious 
 opinion, your Excellency." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " That Rossi is conspiring to assassinate the King." 
 
 The Baron blinked the glasses from his nose and sat up- 
 right. 
 
 " Apparently he was having less success in Paris, where 
 the moral plea has been overdone, when reports of the Rocco 
 incident. . ." 
 
 " A most unlucky affair, Commeiidatore." 
 
 " Meeting at cafes in order to avoid the control of the po- 
 lice ... In short, although he has no exact information, the 
 Prefect warns us to keep double guard over the person of His 
 Majesty." 
 
 The Baron rose and perambulated the heathrug. " A pret- 
 ty century, truly, for fools who pass for wise men, and for 
 weaklings who threaten when the distance is great enough ! 
 . . . Commeiidatore, have you mentioned this matter to any- 
 body else ? " 
 
 " To nobody whatever, Excellency." 
 
 " Then think no more about it. It's nothing. The public 
 mind must not be alarmed. Tighten the cord about our man 
 in Paris. Adieu ! " 
 
 The Baron's next visitor was the Prefect of the Province, 
 who looked more solemn and soldierly than ever. 
 
 " Senator," said the Baron, " I sent for you to say that the 
 Council has determined to put an end to the state of siege." 
 
 The Prefect bowed again severely. 
 
 " The insurrection has been suppressed, the city is quiet, 
 and the severities of military rule begin to oppress the people." 
 
 The Prefect bowed again and assented. 
 
 " The Council has also resolved, dear Senator, that the 
 country shall celebrate the anniversary of the King's accession 
 with general rejoicings."
 
 THE POPE 457 
 
 " Excellent idea, sir," said the Prefect. " To wipe out the 
 depression of the late unhappy times by a public festival is ex- 
 cellent policy. But the time is short." 
 
 " Very short. The anniversary falls on Easter Monday. 
 That is to say, a week from to-day. You will therefore take 
 the matter in hand immediately and push it on without fur- 
 ther delay. The details we will discuss later, and arrange all 
 programmes of presentations and processions. Meantime I 
 have written a proclamation announcing the event. Here it 
 is. You can take it with you." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 " The King will also sign a decree of amnesty to all the au- 
 thors and accomplices of the late acts and attempts at rebel- 
 lion who were not the organising and directing minds. That 
 is also written. Here it is. But His Majesty has not yet 
 signed it." 
 
 The Prefect took a second paper from the Baron's hand, 
 glanced his eyes over it, and read certain passages. " Seeing 
 that on a day of public rejoicing we could not restrain an 
 emotion of grief . . . turning a pitying eye upon the inex- 
 perienced youths drawn into a vortex of political disorder . . . 
 we therefore decree and command the following acts of sov- 
 ereign clemency . . ." " May I expect to receive this in the 
 course of the day, your Excellency ? " 
 
 " Yes. And now for your own part of the enterprise, 
 dear Senator. You will order all mayors of towns to assemble 
 in Rome to complete the preparations. You will arrange a 
 procession to the Quirinal, when the people will call the King 
 on to the balcony and sing the National Hymn. You will order 
 banners to be made bearing suitable watchwords, such as ' Long 
 live the King,' ' May he govern as well as reign,' ' Long live the 
 Crown,' the ' Elag,' and (perhaps) the ' Army.' You will op- 
 pose these generating ideas to ' Atheism ' and ' Anarchy.' The 
 essential point is that the people must be caused by festivals, 
 songs, bands of music, and processions, to think of the throne 
 as their bulwark and the King as their saviour, and to take ad- 
 vantage of every opportunity to attest their gratitude to both. 
 You follow me ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " Then lose no time, Senator. . . . One moment." 
 
 The Prefect had risen and reached the door. 
 
 " If you can double the King's guard and change the com- 
 pany every day until the festival is over . . ." 
 30
 
 458 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Easily, your Excellency. But wait; the Vatican Chief of 
 Police has asked for help on Holy Thursday." 
 
 " Give it him. Let the timid old men of the Sacred Col- 
 lege have no excuse for saying we take more care of the King 
 than of the Pope." 
 
 The Minister of Justice was the next of the Baron's visitors. 
 He was a short man with a smiling and rubicund face, and he 
 wore yellow kid gloves. 
 
 " All goes well and wisdom is justified of her children," said 
 the Baron, rising again and promenading the hearthrug. " The 
 national sentiment, dear colleague, is a sword, and either we 
 must use it on behalf of the Government and the King, or 
 stand by and see it used by the hostile factions." 
 
 " Men like Rossi are not slow to use it, sir," said the little 
 Minister. " Tut ! It's not Rossi I'm thinking of now. It's the 
 Church, the clergy, rich in money and in the faith of the popu- 
 lace. That's why I wanted to do something as a set-off against 
 those mourning demonstrations which the Pope has ap- 
 pointed." 
 
 " Yes, the old gentleman of the Vatican knows the instincts 
 and cravings of our people, doesn't he, sir? He knows they 
 like a show, and the seasoning of their pleasures with a little 
 religion." 
 
 " It's the rustiest old weapon in the Pope's arsenal, dear 
 colleague, but it may serve unless we do something. If the 
 people can be persuaded that the Pope is their one friend in 
 adversity, there couldn't be a better feather in the Papal cap. 
 Happily our people love to sing and to dance as well as to weep 
 and to pray. So we needn't throw up the sponge yet." 
 
 Both laughed, and the little Minister said, " Besides, it is 
 so easy to change religious processions into political ones. And 
 then the Vatican is always intriguing with the powers of re- 
 bellion and preaching obedience to the Pope alone." 
 
 The creaking of the Baron's patent leather boots stopped, 
 and he drew up before his colleague. 
 
 " Watch that sharply," he said, " and if you see any sign on 
 the part of the Vatican of intriguing with men like Rossi, any 
 complicity with conspiracy, or any knowledge of plots pointing 
 to revolution and regicide, let the Council hear of it immedi- 
 ately. The law of guarantees may be repealed in a constitu- 
 tional country, and then some of these high and low speculators 
 in the misfortunes of their country, these old gentlemen who 
 know the will and purposes of the Creator, may find it foretold
 
 THE POPE 459 
 
 that they shall ascend their Santa Scala on their knees . . . 
 and descend from it by their necks." 
 
 The Baron's face had suddenly whitened with passion, and 
 his little colleague looked at him in alarm. A secretary en- 
 tered the room and handed the Baron a card. The Baron fixed 
 his eyeglasses and read : 
 
 Monsiynor Mario, 
 
 Camcricre iSeyrelo l j artecijjanta 
 
 dl tiua Saul itd Pio X. 
 Vaticaiw. 
 
 " St. Anthony ! Talk of the angels . . ." muttered the little 
 Minister. 
 
 " Will you perhaps . . ." 
 
 " Certainly," said the Minister, and he left the room. 
 
 " Show the Monsignor in," said the Baron. 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE Monsignor was young, tall, slight, almost fragile, and 
 had thin black hair and large spiritual eyes. As he entered in 
 the long black overcoat which covered his cassock, he bowed and 
 looked slowly around the room. His subdued expression was 
 that of a sheep going through a gate where the dogs may be, 
 and his manner suggested that he would fly at the first alarm. 
 
 The Baron looked over his eyeglasses and measured his man 
 in a moment. " Pray sit," he said. 
 
 At the next moment the young Monsignor and the Baron 
 were seated at opposite sides of the table. 
 
 " I am sent to you by a venerable and illustrious person- 
 age . . ." 
 
 " Let us say the Pope," said the Baron. 
 
 The young Monsignor bowed and continued, " to offer on 
 his behalf a word of counsel and of warning." 
 
 " It is an unusual and distinguished honour," said the 
 Baron. " But perhaps I should have been more sensible of its 
 value if it had been offered a little earlier to the clergy 
 and to the people." 
 
 The Monsignor looked up and waited. 
 
 " I mean," said the Baron, " that perhaps it would have been 
 of the greatest utility in the late unhappy risings if the clergy 
 had pronounced without delay a word of peace and concilia-
 
 460 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tion. Thus far they have done nothing. Why? Perhaps be- 
 cause their head himself has been silent." 
 
 The young ecclesiastic drew himself up and said with some 
 dignity, " You are unjust, sir, to the venerable Father of the 
 Vatican, who deplores more than any one the erroneous con- 
 ception of religion and liberty which resulted in those lament- 
 able outbreaks. Whatever his view of the forces which pro- 
 voked them, he has not only invoked the Christian charity and 
 zeal of his clergy in the work of pacification, but has even 
 adapted the services of the Church in this holy penitential 
 season to prayer and supplication for the sorrowful circum- 
 stances in which his people find themselves." 
 
 The Baron twisted his moustache and said, " I have heard 
 of it. The venerable Father of the Vatican is no doubt wise 
 in his generation. I have a profound respect for his intellect 
 and intuition." 
 
 The Monsignor looked up uneasily. " My errand this morn- 
 ing is strangely at conflict with your Excellency's impeach- 
 ment," he said. 
 
 " Say opinion," said the Baron more suavely. 
 
 " I am instructed to inform you that the Holy Father has 
 reason to believe a further and more serious insurrection is 
 preparing, and to warn you to take the necessary steps to se- 
 cure public order and to prevent bloodshed." 
 
 The Baron did not move a muscle. " If the Holy Father 
 has special knowledge of a plot that is impending . . ." 
 
 " Not special, only general, but sufficient to enable him to 
 tell you to hold yourself in readiness." 
 
 " How long has the Holy Father been aware of this ? " 
 
 " Not long. In fact, only since yesterday morning," said 
 the Monsignor, and fearing he had said too much he added, 
 " I only mention this to show you that the Holy Father has lost 
 no time." 
 
 " But if the Holy Father knows that a conspiracy is afoot, 
 he can do doubt help us to further information." 
 
 The Monsignor shook his head. 
 
 " You mean that he will not do so ? " 
 
 " No. The Holy Father may have little cause to be grate- 
 ful to His Majesty's Government, but it would grieve his fa- 
 therly heart to hear of the unnecessary sufferings of even the 
 most rebellious of his children." 
 
 The Baron smiled his chilling smile. " Beautiful ! " he 
 said.
 
 THE POPE 461 
 
 " But perhaps a little short in the article of the meaning, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 The young ecclesiastic was becoming hot. " This man is 
 trying to provoke me in order to make me speak," he thought, 
 and the Christian law which he had taken as a guide restrained 
 his anger. 
 
 " I have delivered my message, sir, and have nothing more 
 to say." 
 
 "Am I, then, to understand that the information with 
 which His Holiness honours me came to him secretly." 
 
 " Yes, sir, secretly, and it is, therefore, not open to fur- 
 ther explanation." 
 
 " So it reached him by the medium of the confessional ? " 
 
 The Monsignor rose from his seat. " Your Excellency can- 
 not be in earnest." 
 
 " You mean that it did not reach him by the medium of the 
 confessional? " 
 
 " Certainly not." 
 
 " Then he is able to tell me everything, if he will ? " 
 
 The Monsignor became agitated. " The Holy Father's in- 
 formation came through a channel that is assimilated to the 
 confessional, and is almost as sacred and inviolate." 
 
 " But obedience to the Pope liberates from all other re- 
 sponsibility. His Holiness has only to say ' Speak,' and his 
 faithful child must obey." 
 
 The Monsignor became confused. " His informant is not 
 even a Catholic, and he has, therefore, no right to command 
 her." 
 
 " So it is a woman," said the Baron, and the young ecclesi- 
 astic dropped his head. 
 
 " Tt is a woman and a non-Catholic, and she visited the 
 Holy Father at the Vatican yesterday morning, is that so?" 
 
 " I do not assert it, sir, and I do not deny." 
 
 The Baron did not speak for a moment, but he looked 
 steadily over his eyeglasses at the flushed young face before 
 him. Then he said in a quiet tone : 
 
 " Monsignor, the relations of the Pope and the Government 
 are delicate, and if anything occurred to carry the disagree- 
 ment further it might result in a serious fratricidal struggle." 
 
 The Monsignor was trying to regain his self-possession, and 
 he remained silent. 
 
 " But whatever those relations, it cannot be the wish of the 
 Holy Father to cover with his mantle the upsetters of order
 
 4G2 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 who are rutting at the roots of the Church as well as the 
 State." 
 
 " Therefore I am here now, sir, thus early and thus openly," 
 said the Monsignor. 
 
 " Monsignor/' said the Baron, " if anything should occur to 
 for example the person of the King, it cannot be the wish 
 of His Holiness that anybody myself for instance should be 
 in a position to say to Parliament and to the Governments of 
 Europe, ' The Pope knew everything beforehand, and therefore 
 not having revealed the particulars of the plot, the venerable 
 Father of the Vatican is an accomplice of murderers.'" 
 
 The young ecclesiastic lost himself utterly. " The Pope," 
 he said, "knows nothing more than I have told you." 
 
 " Yes, Monsignor, the Pope knows one thing more. He 
 knows who was his informant and authority. It is necessary 
 that the Government should know that also, in order that it 
 may judge for itself of the nature of the conspiracy and the 
 source from which it may be expected." 
 
 The Monsignor was quivering like a limed bird. " I have 
 delivered my message, and have only to add that in sending me 
 here His Holiness desired to prevent crime, not to help you to 
 apprehend criminals." 
 
 The Baron's eyeglasses dropped from his nose, and he spoke 
 sharply and incisively. " The Government must at least know 
 who the lady was who visited His Holiness at the Vatican yes- 
 terday morning, and led him to believe that a serious insurrec- 
 tion was impending." 
 
 " That, your Excellency never will, or can, or shall know." 
 
 " So it is a case of non-possumus? " 
 
 The Monsignor was bowing himself out of the room when 
 the Baron's secretary opened the door and announced another 
 visitor. 
 
 " Donna Roma, your Excellency." 
 
 The Monsignor betrayed fresh agitation, and tried to go. 
 
 " Bring her in," said the Baron. " One moment, Mon- 
 signor." 
 
 " I have said all I am authorised to say, sir, and T feel 
 warned that I must say no more." 
 
 " Don't say that, Monsignor. There is nothing so unprac- 
 tical and so absurd as a man warned of God. . . . Ah, Donna 
 Roma ! " 
 
 Roma, who had entered the room, replied with reserve and 
 dignity.
 
 THE POPE 463 
 
 " Allow me, Donna Roma, to present Monsignor Mario of 
 the Vatican," said the Baron. 
 
 " It is unnecessary," said Roma. " I met the Monsignor yes- 
 terday morning." 
 
 The young ecclesiastic was overwhelmed with confusion. 
 
 " My respectful reverence to His Holiness," said the Baron, 
 smiling, " and pray tell him that the Government will do its 
 duty to the country and to the civilised world, and count on the 
 support of the Pope." 
 
 Monsignor Mario left the room without a word. 
 
 IX 
 
 THE Baron pushed out an easy-chair for Roma and twisted 
 his own to face it. 
 
 " How are you, my child ? " he asked. 
 
 " One lives," said Roma, with a sigh. 
 
 He missed her smile that sunny smile that used to be her 
 greatest charm, coming, as it were, into a room before her, and 
 filling the air with a glow. Her full round form in its delicate 
 silk blouse had lost none of the exquisite femininity which 
 never failed to make his pulses tingle, but her face was paler 
 than usual, and seemed to bear traces of recent suffering. 
 
 " What is the matter, my dear ? You are ill and unhappy." 
 
 She eluded the question and said, " You sent for me what 
 do you wish to say? " 
 
 He told her. The printer of certain seditious proclamations 
 had been arrested, and in the judicial inquiry preparatory to 
 his trial he had mentioned the name of the person who had 
 employed and paid him. 
 
 " You cannot but be aware, my dear, that you have ren- 
 dered yourself liable to prosecution, and that nothing nothing 
 whatever could have saved you from public exposure but the 
 good offices of a powerful friend." 
 
 Roma drew her lips tightly together and made no answer. 
 
 "But what a situation for a Minister! To find himself 
 ruled by his feelings for a friend, and thus weakened in the 
 eyes of his servants, who ought to have no possible hold on 
 him." 
 
 Roma's gloomy face began to be compressed with scorn. 
 
 " You have perhaps not realised the full measure of the 
 indignity that might have befallen you. For instance a cruel
 
 464 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 necessity the police would have been making a domiciliary 
 visitation in your apartment at this moment." 
 
 Roma made a faint, involuntary cry, and half rose from her 
 seat. 
 
 " Your letters and most secret papers would by this time 
 be exposed to the eyes of the police . . . ISTo, no, my child; 
 calm yourself, be seated, thanks to my intervention this will 
 not occur." 
 
 Roma looked at him, and found him more repulsive to her 
 at that moment than he had ever been before. Even his dainti- 
 ness repelled her the modified perfume about his clothes, his 
 waxed moustache, his rounded finger-nails, and all the other 
 refinements of the man who loves himself and sets out to please 
 the senses of women. 
 
 "You will allow, my dear, that I have had sufficient to 
 humiliate me without this further experience. A ward who 
 persistently disregards the laws of propriety and exposes her- 
 self to criticism in the most ordinary acts of life was surely a 
 sufficient trial. But that was not enough. Almost as soon as 
 you have passed out of my legal control you join with those 
 who are talking and conspiring against me." 
 
 Roma continued to sit with a gloomy and defiant face. 
 
 " How am I to defend myself against the humiliations you 
 put upon me in your own mind? You give me no chance to 
 defend myself. I cannot know what others have told you. I 
 know no more than you repeat to me, and that is nothing 
 at all." 
 
 Roma was biting her compressed lips and breathing audibly. 
 
 " How am I to defend myself against the humiliations I 
 suffer in the minds of the public? There is only one way, and 
 that is to allow it to be believed that, in spite of all appear- 
 ances, you are still playing a part, that you are going to all 
 lengths to punish the enemy who traduced you and publicly 
 degraded you." 
 
 Roma tried to laugh, but the laugh was broken in her throat 
 by a rising sob. 
 
 " I have only to whisper that, dear friend, and society at 
 all events will credit it. Already it knows the most minute 
 details of your life, and it will believe that when you threw 
 away every shred of propriety and went to live in that man's 
 apartment, it was only in order to play the old part shall I 
 say the Scriptural part? of possessing yourself of the inmost 
 secrets of his soul"
 
 THE POPE 465 
 
 The clear, sharp whisper in which the Baron spoke his last 
 words cut Roma like a knife. She threw up her head with 
 scorn. 
 
 " Let it believe what it likes," she said. " If society cares 
 to think that I have allowed nay life to be turned upside down 
 for the sake of hatred, let it do so. The future will show that 
 it is not hatred but love which makes me go through all this 
 . . . this suffering. But what matter? Happiness exists for 
 me only in suffering, and I care for nobody's abuse and want 
 nobody's pity." 
 
 At the sound of her own voice her eyes, which had shone 
 with a certain brilliancy, filled with tears, and the Baron, in 
 whom love and jealousy were moving at the same moment, said 
 in a low tone : 
 
 " And is it of no interest to you that I am suffering also ? A 
 man may not show that he suffers. His pride as well as his 
 sex forbids it. And in my case there are peculiar reasons why, 
 if I suffer, I should say nothing. But though I crush down my 
 feelings and hide them from the world and even from you . . . 
 perhaps they are none the less bitter because they have no 
 relief." 
 
 For the first time in Roma's knowledge of the Baron his 
 voice trembled with emotion, and for a moment she felt pity 
 for him. 
 
 " Ah, well, it will not last long," she said with a sigh. 
 
 " No, things cannot last long in this way," he answered. 
 
 " I feel that they will end, perhaps unexpectedly, and T am 
 not sure that I shall regret it." 
 
 He looked at her keenly and began to say, " Do you mean 
 that . . ." 
 
 " I mean that I shall die, and so bring all this painful strug- 
 gle to a close." 
 
 He smiled and pulled at his moustache. " What an idea ! 
 Die? My dear child, no! You will live live in both senses. 
 You cannot help it. The lust of life is in your blood. You are 
 one of the women in every age and country who find no ob- 
 stacles in their way but gtAriumphantly through a world which 
 no woman's heart can re&t. Such women bend everything 
 before them. Xo sentimetMSjity thwarts their will, no infirm- 
 ity weakens it. ... Roma, if if I were not bound hand and 
 foot, by a monstrous law if I were free . . ." 
 
 The Baron's secretary interrupted by opening the door. 
 
 " Let them wait," said the Baron impatiently.
 
 466 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " It's Nazzareno, Excellency," said the secretary. 
 
 " Ah ! Let him come in," said the Baron. " You remember 
 jSTazzareno, Roma ? My steward at Albano ? " 
 
 An elderly man with a bronzed face and shaggy eyebrows, 
 bringing an odour of the fields and the farmyard, was ushered 
 into the room. 
 
 " Come in, ISTazzareno ! You've not forgotten Donna 
 Roma? You planted a rosebush on her first Roman birth- 
 day, you remember. It's a great tree by this time, per- 
 haps." 
 
 " It is, Excellency," said the steward, bowing and smiling, 
 " and nearly as full of bloom as the Signorina herself." 
 
 " Well, what news from Albano ? " 
 
 The steward told a long story of operations on the estates 
 planting birch in the top fields, and eucalyptus in the low 
 meadow, fencing, draining, and sowing. 
 
 "And . . . and the Baroness?" said the Baron, turning 
 over some papers. 
 
 " Ah ! her Excellency is worse," said the old man. " The 
 nurse and the doctor thought you had better be told exactly, 
 and that is the object of my errand." 
 
 " Yes ? " The papers rustled in the Baron's fingers as he 
 shuffled and sorted them. 
 
 The steward told another long story. Her Excellency was 
 weaker, or she would be quite ungovernable. And so changed! 
 When he was called in yesterday she was so much altered that 
 he would not have known her. It was a question of days, and 
 all the servants were saying prayers to Mary Magdalene. 
 
 " Have some dinner downstairs before you return, ISTaz- 
 /areno," said the Baron. " And when you see the doctor this 
 evening, say I'll come out some time this week if I can. Good- 
 mi truing ! " 
 
 Roma's tenderness towards the Baron was gone. The man 
 was odious to her. His emotion had been merely self-pity, a 
 feeling possible to the most selfish natures. The i-epulsion he 
 inspired in her deepened to loathing when he began to speak 
 affectionately the instant the door closed on the steward. 
 
 " Look at this, my dear. It's fro.m His Majesty." 
 
 She did not look at the letter he put before her, so he told 
 her what it contained. It offered him the Collar of the Annun- 
 ziata, the highest order in Italy, making him a cousin to the 
 King. 
 
 She could not contain herself any longer. " I want to
 
 THE POPE 467 
 
 tell you something," she said, " so that you may know once for 
 all that it is useless to waste further thought on me." 
 
 He looked at her with an indulgent smile. 
 
 " I am married to Mr. Rossi," she said. 
 
 " But that is impossible. There was no time." 
 
 " We were married religiously, in the parish church, on the 
 morning he left Rome." 
 
 The indulgent smile gave way to a sarcastic one. 
 
 " Then why did he leave you behind ? If he thought that 
 was a good marriage why didn't he take you with him? But 
 perhaps he had his own reason, and the denunciation of the 
 poor man in prison was not so far amiss." 
 
 " That was an official lie, a cowardly lie, if you want to 
 know," said Roma, and her eyes burned with anger. 
 
 "Was it? Perhaps it was. But I have just heard some- 
 thing else about Mr. Rossi that is undoubtedly true. T have 
 heard from the Prefect of Paris that he is organising a con- 
 spiracy for the assassination of the King." 
 
 A look of fear which she could not restrain crossed Roma's 
 face. 
 
 " More than that, and stranger than that, I have just heard 
 also that the Pope has some knowledge of the plot." 
 
 Roma felt terror seizing her, and she asked in a constrained 
 voice, " Why ? What has the Pope told you ? " 
 
 " Only that an insurrection is impending. It seems that 
 his informant is a woman . . . Who can she be, I won- 
 der?" 
 
 Roma knew that a look of alarm was depicted on her face. 
 The Baron was fixing his eyes on her and she tried to elude his 
 gaze. 
 
 " Whoever she is she must know more," he said in a severe 
 voice, " and whatever it is she must reveal it." 
 
 Roma got up, looking very pale, and feeling very feeble. 
 When she reached the door the Baron was smiling and holding 
 out his hand. 
 
 " Will you not shake hands with me? " he said. 
 
 " What is the use ? " she answered. " When people shake 
 hands it means that they wish each other well. You do not 
 wish me well. You are trying to force me to betray my hus- 
 band. . . . But Fll die first" she said, and then turned and 
 fled, for her beautiful eyes had filled with tears. 
 
 When Roma was gone the Baron wrote a letter to the 
 Pope:
 
 468 THE ETERNAL. CITY 
 
 " YOUR HOLINESS, Providential accident, as your chamber- 
 lain would lell you, has enabled His Majesty's Government to 
 judge for itself of that source of your Iloliness's information 
 which your Holiness very properly refused to reveal. At the 
 same time official channels have disclosed to His Majesty's 
 Government the nature of the conspiracy of which your Holi- 
 ness so patriotically forewarned them. This conspiracy appears 
 to be no less serious than an attempt to assassinate the King, 
 but as a detailed knowledge of so vile a plot is necessary in order 
 to save the life of our august sovereign, His Majesty's Govern- 
 ment asks you to grant the Prime Minister the honour of an 
 audience with your Holiness in the cause of order and public 
 security. Hoping to hear of your Holiness's convenience, and 
 trusting (hat your Holiness will not disappoint the hopes of 
 those who are dreaming even yet of a reconciliation of Church 
 and State, F am, \vilh all reverence, your Holiness's faithful son 
 and servant, BONKLU." 
 
 X 
 
 ROMA went home full of uncertainty. Her head felt light as 
 when the air is charged with electricity before a thunderstorm. 
 She could not doubt the Pope, yet she was in dread of circum- 
 stances, which no man may control. And behind everything 
 else, like a haunting assassin in the darkness of night, was 
 a secret fear of herself. 
 
 Going into the bedroom, she sat down immediately at the 
 desk between the windows, and wrote in a nervous and strag- 
 gling hand a hasty letter to Rossi. 
 
 " My dearest," she said, " your letter reached me safely last 
 evening, and though I cannot answer it properly at the present 
 moment, I must send a brief reply by mid-day's mail, because 
 there are two or three things it is imperative I should say im- 
 mediately. 
 
 " The first is that I wrote you a very important letter to 
 London twelve days ago, and it is clear that you have not yet 
 received it. The contents were of the greatest seriousness and 
 also of the greatest secrecy, and I should die if any other eye 
 than yours were to read them ; therefore do not lose a moment 
 until you ask for the letter to be sent after you to Paris. Write 
 to London by the first post, and when the letter has come to 
 your hand, do telegraph to me saying so. ' Received,' that will 
 be sufficient, but if you can add one other little word expressing
 
 THE POPE 469 
 
 your feeling on reading what I wrote ' Forgiven,' for instance 
 my feeling will not be happiness, it will be delirium. 
 
 " The next thing I have to say, dearest, is about your letters. 
 You know they are more precious to me than my heart's blood, 
 and there is not a word or a line of them I would sacrifice for 
 a queen's crown. But they are so full of perilous opinions and 
 of hints of programmes for dangerous enterprises, that for your 
 sake I am afraid. It is so good of you to tell me what you are 
 thinking and doing, and I am so proud to be the woman who 
 has the confidence as well as the love of the most talked-of man 
 in Europe, that it cuts at my heart to ask you to tell me no 
 more about your political plans. Nevertheless, I must. Think 
 what would happen if the police took it into their heads to 
 make a domiciliary visitation in this house. And then think 
 of what a fearful weapon it puts into the hands of your ene- 
 mies, if, hearing that I know so much, they put pressure upon 
 me that I cannot withstand ! Of course, that is impossible. I 
 would die first. But still . . . 
 
 " My last point, dearest . . ." 
 
 Her pen stopped. How was she to put what she wished to 
 say next? David Rossi was in real danger a double danger. 
 There was the danger from within as well as from without. His 
 last letter showed plainly that he was engaged in an enterprise 
 which his adversaries would call a plot. Thinking of what 
 he had written in palliation of regicide, the gigantic phantom 
 of conspiracy rose up before her excited imagination. She re- 
 membered her father, doomed to a life-long exile and a lonely 
 death, and asked herself if it was not always the case that the 
 reformer partly reformed his age, and partly was corrupted 
 by it. 
 
 If she could only draw David Rossi away from associations 
 that were always reeking of revolution, if she could bring him 
 back to Rome before he was too far involved in plots and with 
 plotters ! But how could she do it ? To tell him the plain 
 truth that he was going headlong to domicilio coatto was use- 
 less. She must resort to artifice. A light shot through her 
 brain, her eyes gleamed, and she began again : 
 
 " My last point, dearest, is that I am growing jealous. 
 Yes, indeed, jealous ! I don't know whom I am jealous of, but 
 I am jealous, and it is wearing my very life away. I know you 
 love me, but knowing it doesn't help me to forget that you are 
 always meeting women who must admire and love you. I 
 tremble to think you may be happy with them. I want you to
 
 470 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 be happy, yet I feel as if it would be treason for you to be 
 happy without me. What an illogical thing love is! But 
 where Love reigns jealousy is always the Prime Minister. 
 Couldn't you be a little jealous ? I know the character of your 
 soul is too great for that infirmity. Still it would be delicious 
 and I should love it. But at least you must take pity on me, 
 and in order to banish my jealousy you must come back im- 
 mediately . . ." 
 
 Her pen stopped again. No, the artifice was too trivial, too 
 palpable, and lie would certainly see through it. She tore up ' 
 the sheet and began afresh. 
 
 " My last point, dearest, is that I fear you are forgetting 
 me in your work. While thinking of the revolution you are 
 making in Europe, you forget the revolution you have already 
 made in this poor little heart. Of course I love your glory 
 more than I love myself, yet I am afraid it is taking you away 
 from me, and will end by leading you up, up, Tip, out of a 
 woman's reach. Why didn't I give yovi my portrait to put in 
 your watch-case when you went away ? Don't let this folly dis- 
 gust you, dearest. A woman is a foolish thing, isn't she? But 
 if you don't want me to make a torment of everything you will 
 hasten back in time to . . ." 
 
 She threw down the pen and began to cry. Hadn't she 
 promised him that come what would, her love for him should 
 never stand in his way ? In the midst of her tears a little stab 
 at her heart made her think of something else, and she took up 
 the pen again. 
 
 " My last point, dearest, is that I am ill, and very, very 
 anxious to see you soon. My health has been failing ever since 
 you left Rome. Perhaps the anxieties I have gone through 
 have been partly the cause of this, but I am sure that your 
 absence is chiefly responsible, and that no doctor and no medi- 
 cine would be so good for me as one rush into your arms. 
 Therefore come and give me back all my health and happiness. 
 Come, I beg of you. Leave it to others to do your work abroad. 
 Come at once before things have gone too far, come, come, 
 come ! " 
 
 She hesitated, wanting to say, " Not that I am very ill . . ." 
 And then, " You mustn't come if there is any risk to your- 
 self . . ." And again, " I would never forgive myself if . . ." 
 But she crushed down her qualms, sealed her letter, and sent 
 the Garibaldian to post it. 
 
 Then she gathered up the entire body of David Rossi's let-
 
 THE POPE 471 
 
 ters, and putting some fascinotti (light firewood) into the stove 
 she sat on the ground to burn them. It was necessary to re- 
 move all evidence that could be used against him in the event 
 of a domiciliary visitation. One by one as the letters were 
 passed into the fire she read parts of them, and some of the 
 passages seemed to stand out afresh in the flames. " Your 
 friend must be a true woman, and it was very sweet of you to be 
 so tender with her." ..." There is always a little twinge when 
 1 read between the lines of your letters. Are you not dissimu- 
 lating . . . to keep up my spirits ?" . . . " You shall smile and 
 recover all your girlish spirits ... 1 shall hear your silvery 
 laugh again as I did on that glorious day in the Campagna." 
 ..." It shows how rightly I judged the moral elevation of 
 your soul, your impeccability, your spirit of fire and your heart 
 of gold." 
 
 While the letters were burning she felt herself to be under 
 the influence of a kind of delirium. It was almost as though 
 she were committing suicide. 
 
 Old Francesca came in to lay the table for lunch. She had 
 been out to mass at the Church of the Servants of the Sick. 
 " That's the Magdalen's Church," she said. " I always go there 
 on Holy Monday and hear the beautiful lesson about Magda- 
 len and Mary and the pound of ointment. Do you know why, 
 Signorina? Because I was mad once and the Magdalen 
 saved me." 
 
 It was not long after her marriage and her husband was at 
 the wars. A child had come, a boy, a big lusty boy. Being 
 alone, she was poor, and had nothing to eat but the graiiturco. 
 The child was worrisome, he couldn't get enough nourish- 
 ment, and she was weak and faint. 
 
 " One day I had noises in my head and couldn't hear any- 
 body speak. Then the police came and tore my baby from my 
 breast, saying I was going to kill it, though I loved it more than 
 life. They took me to the madhouse by Santo Spirito, but I 
 prayed to the Magdalen and she gave me back my boy. Ah, 
 little sister, the Magdalen is good to women when their heads 
 are bad. That's because He " (pointing to the bust of Christ) 
 " was good to her when she had seven devils. Santa Madda- 
 lena ! Santo Gesu ! " said the deaf old woman, and going up to 
 the marble head she knelt and kissed it.
 
 472 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 XI 
 
 THE Pope had begun the day with the long task of adminis- 
 tering the sacrament to the lay members of his household, yet 
 at eight o'clock he was back in his library in the midst of 
 his morning receptions, surrounded by a bevy of camerieri, 
 monsignori, and messengers. First came a Cardinal Prefect of 
 Propaganda to report the doings of his congregation; then an 
 ambassador from Spain to tell of the suppression of religious 
 orders; and finally the majordomo to recite the official pro- 
 gramme for the public ceremonies which the Pope had ordered 
 for Holy Thursday. 
 
 Though the majordomo wore ecclesiastical purple, he had 
 the dapper look of a dancing-master. He ticked off his items 
 one by one as he read them aloud, and the Pope, who sat in his 
 arm-chair with head down, playing absently with the gold 
 tassels of the white sash which he wore over his white cassock, 
 punctuated the paragraphs with " Bene " (right). 
 
 " According to the wish of your Holiness," said the major- 
 domo, " the Papal ceremonies of Maundy Thursday will all be 
 public." 
 
 "Bene!" said the Pope. 
 
 " The Papal ' Chapel,' usually held in the Sistine, and by 
 Pope Gregory XVI. in the Quirinal, will be held this year in 
 St. Peter's and be open to all coiners." 
 
 11 Bene!" 
 
 " Your Holiness will give the Benediction at the end of 
 mass either from the sedia gestatoria in front of the high altar 
 and in the midst of the people, or, as Pope Gregory did, from 
 the Loggia looking into the Basilica." 
 
 " Let it be from the chair." 
 
 " The Lavanda will take place at four in the afternoon in 
 St. Peter's, and be open to everybody." 
 
 "Bene!" 
 
 " Watch will be kept by the Papal Court before the ' Sepul- 
 chre ' (the urn), and at nine o'clock your Holiness will descend 
 from your apartments to visit it, accompanied by your Noble 
 and Swiss Guard with lighted torches." 
 
 "Bene!" 
 
 " Then your Holiness will rest for an hour in the Sacristy 
 until the time for Tenebrac." 
 
 " In the Sacristy of St. Peter's ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness."
 
 THE POPE 473 
 
 " Between half -past nine and half-past ten o'clock ? " 
 
 " Precisely. Tenebrse will be set back to ten, as in olden 
 times, and if your Holiness wishes to be present on the throne 
 you will wear the red cope and mitre and formale of silver 
 cloth, but if your Holiness does not desire to be publicly seen 
 you will go in private to the coretto (gallery)." 
 
 "Bene!" 
 
 As the little majordomo proceeded with his programme 
 his face had shone with the light of the visions of splendour 
 he conjured up, but the Pope's countenance had grown weary, 
 and his " Bene " slow and tired. 
 
 It was now ten o'clock, and Cortis, the valet, brought the 
 usual plate of soup. Then came a large man with bold features 
 and dark complexion, wearing a purple robe edged with red 
 and a red biretta. It was the Cardinal Secretary of State. 
 
 "What news this morning, your Eminence?" said the 
 Pope. 
 
 " The Government," said the Cardinal Secretary, " has just 
 published a proclamation announcing a jubilee in honour of the 
 King's accession. It is to begin on Monday next, and there are 
 to be great feasts and rejoicings." 
 
 " A jubilee at a time like this ! What a wild mockery of the 
 people's woes ! How many poor women and children must go 
 hungry before this royal orgy has been paid for ! God be w r ith 
 us ! Such injustice and tyranny in the Satanic guise of clem- 
 ency and indulgence is almost enough to explain the homicidal 
 theories of the demagogues and to justify men like Rossi. . . . 
 Any further news of him ? " 
 
 " Yes. He is at present in Paris, in close intercourse with 
 the leaders of every abominable sect." 
 
 " You have seen this man Rossi, your Eminence ? " 
 
 " At the request of your Holiness I once met him at the 
 Jesuit College." 
 
 " What is he like to look upon the typical demagogue, 
 no?" 
 
 " Ko. I am bound to say no, your Holiness. And his con- 
 versation, though it is full of the jargon of modern liberalism, 
 has none of the obscenities of Voltaire." 
 
 " Some one said . . . who was it, I wonder ? . . . some one 
 said he resembled the Holy Father." 
 
 " ]STow that you mention it, your Holiness, there is perhaps 
 a remote resemblance." 
 
 " Ah! who knows what service for God and humanity eveu 
 31
 
 474 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 such a man might have done if in early life his lines had been 
 cast in better places." 
 
 " They say he was an orphan from his infancy, your 
 Holiness." 
 
 " Then he never knew a father's care and guidance ! Un- 
 happy son ! Unhappy father ! But merciful providence of 
 God ! If the father of a man like that were still alive and had 
 to realise that by his teaching or his neglect the one he had 
 brought into the world had grown up to be a heretic, an artisan 
 of rebellion and a minister of corruption what misery, what 
 remorse ! " 
 
 " Monsignor Mario," said the low voice of a chamberlain, 
 and at the next moment the Pope's messenger to the Prime 
 Minister was kneeling in the middle of the floor. 
 
 In nervous tones and broken sentences, looking up at inter- 
 vals to see the effect of his words, the Monsignor told his story. 
 The Pope listened intently, the vertical lines on his forehead 
 deepening and darkening every moment, until at length he 
 burst out impatiently : 
 
 " But my son, you do not say that you said all this in addi- 
 tion to your message? " 
 
 " I was drawn into doing so in defence of your Holiness." 
 
 " You told the Minister that my information came through 
 the channel of a simple confidence ? " 
 
 " He insinuated that the Holy Father was perhaps breaking 
 the seal of the confessional . . ." 
 
 " That my informant was a non-Catholic and a woman ? " 
 
 " He implied that your Holiness had only to command her 
 to reveal the conspiracy to the civil authorities, and there- 
 fore . . ." 
 
 " And you said she was here on Saturday morning? " 
 
 "He hinted that the Holy Father was an accomplice of 
 criminals if he had known this without revealing it before, and 
 that was why . . ." 
 
 " And she came in at that moment, you say ? " 
 
 " At that very moment, your Holiness, and said she had met 
 me on Saturday morning." 
 
 " Man, man, what have you done ? " cried the Pope, rising 
 from his seat and pacing the room. 
 
 The chamberlain continued to kneel in utter humility, until 
 the Pope, recovering his composure, put both hands on his 
 shoulders and raised him to his feet. 
 
 " Forgive me, my son. I was more to blame than you were.
 
 THE POPE 4Y5 
 
 It was wrong to trust anyone with a verbal message in the 
 cabinet of a fox. The Holy Father should have no inter- 
 course with such persons. But this is God's hand. Let us 
 leave everything to the Holy Spirit." 
 
 At that moment the Papal Majordomo returned with a 
 letter. It was the Baron's letter to the Pope. After the Pope 
 had read it he stepped into a little adjoining room which con- 
 tained nothing but a lounge and an easy -chair. There he lay 
 on the lounge and turned his face to the wall. 
 
 XII 
 
 AT four o'clock in the afternoon the Pope and Father Pif- 
 feri were again walking in the garden. The groves of Judas 
 trees were shedding their crimson blossoms and the path 
 had a covering of bloom ; the atmosphere was full of -the 
 odour of honeysuckle and violet, and through the sunlit air 
 the swallows were darting with shrill cries and the glitter of 
 wings. 
 
 " And what does your Holiness intend to do ? " asked the 
 Capuchin. 
 
 " Providence will direct us," said the Pope with a sigh. 
 
 " But your Holiness will refuse the request of the Govern- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " How can I do so without exposing myself to misunder- 
 standing? Suppose the King is assassinated, what then ? The 
 Government will tell the world that the Pope knew all and did 
 nothing." 
 
 " Let them. It will not be an incident without parallel in 
 the history of the Church. And the world will only honour 
 your Holiness the more for standing firm on the sanctity of 
 the human soul." 
 
 " Yes, if the confessional were in question. The world 
 knows that the seal of the confessional is sacred and must be 
 observed at all costs. But this is not a case of the confes- 
 sional." 
 
 " Didn't your Holiness say you would observe it as such? " 
 
 "And I shall. But what about the public? Accident has 
 told the Government that this is riot a case of the confessional, 
 and the Government will tell the world. What follows? If 
 J refuse to do anything the enemies of the Church will give 
 it out that the Holy Father is the accomplice of a regicide,
 
 476 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 ready and willing to intrigue with the agents of rebellion to 
 regain the temporal power." 
 
 " Then you will receive the Prime Minister ? " 
 
 " No I Or if so, only in the company of his superior." 
 
 "The King?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The Capuchirr removed his skull-cap with an uneasy hand 
 and walked some paces without speaking. 
 
 " Will he come, your Holiness ? " 
 
 " If he thinks I hold the secret on which his life depends 
 assuredly he will come." 
 
 " But you are sovereign as well as Pope is it possible for 
 you to receive him?" 
 
 " I will receive him as the King of Sardinia, the King of 
 Italy if you will, but not as the King of Rome." 
 
 The Capuchin took his coloured handkerchief from his 
 sleeve and rolled it in his palms, which were hot and per- 
 spiring. 
 
 " But, Holy Father," he said, " what will be the good? Say 
 that all difficulties of etiquette can be removed, and you can 
 meet as man to man, as David Leone and Albert Charles why 
 will the King come? Only to ask you to put pressure upon 
 your informant to give more information." 
 
 The Pope drew himself up on the gravel path and smote his 
 breast with indignation. " Never ! It would be an insult to 
 the Church," he said. " It is one thing to expect the Holy 
 Father to do his duty as a Christian even to his enemy, it is 
 another thing to ask him to invade the sanctity of a private 
 confidence." 
 
 The Capuchin did not reply, and the two old men walked 
 on in silence. As the light softened the swallows increased 
 their clamour and song birds began to call from neighbouring 
 trees. Suddenly a startled cry burst from the foliage, and, 
 turning quickly, the Pope lifted up the cat which, as usual, was 
 picking its way at his heels. 
 
 " Ah Meesh, Meesh ! I've got you safely this time. ... It 
 was the poor mother-bird again, I suppose. Where is her nest, 
 I wonder ? " 
 
 They found it in the old sarcophagus, which was now 
 almost lost in leaves. The eggs had been hatched, and the fledg- 
 lings, with eyes not yet opened, stretched their featherless necks 
 and opened their beaks when the Pope put down his hand to 
 touch them.
 
 THE POPE 477 
 
 " Monsignor," said the Pope over his shoulder, " remind me 
 to-morrow to ask the gardener for some worms." 
 
 The cat, from his prison under the Pope's arm, was watch- 
 ing the squirming nest with hungry eyes. 
 
 " Naughty Meesh ! haughty ! " said the Pope, shaking one 
 finger in the cat's face. " But Meesh is only following the 
 ways of his kind, and perhaps I was wrong to let him see the 
 quarry/' 
 
 The Pope and the Capuchin walked back to the Vatican for 
 joy of the sweet spring evening with its scent of flowers and 
 song of birds. 
 
 " You are sad to-day, Father Pifferi," said the Pope. 
 
 " I'm still thinking of that poor lady," said the Capuchin. 
 
 At the first hour of night the Pope attended the recitation 
 of the rosary in his private chapel, and then returning to his 
 private study, a room furnished with a table and two chairs, 
 he took a light supper, served by Cortis in the evening dress 
 of a civilian. His only other company was the cat, which sat 
 on a chair on the opposite side of the table. After supper he 
 wrote a letter. It ran :- 
 
 " SIRE, Your Minister informs us that through official 
 channels he has received warning of a plot against your life, 
 and believing that we can give information that will help him 
 to defeat so vile a conspiracy, he asks us for a special audience. 
 It is not within our power to promise more assistance than we 
 have already given ; but this is to say that if your Majesty 
 yourself should wish to see us, we shall be pleased to receive 
 you, with or without your Minister, if you will come in private 
 and otherwise unattended, at the hour of 21^ on Holy Thursday 
 to the door of the Canons' House of St. Peter's, where the 
 bearer of this message will be waiting to conduct you to the 
 Sacristy. 
 
 " Nil timendum nisi a Deo. Pius P.P.X." 
 
 Having despatched this letter to the Quirinal by the hand 
 of a Noble Guard, instructing him to use all secrecy and to 
 bring back a reply, the Pope sat down to look at newspapers 
 marked for him by his readers, to wait and to think. 
 
 An hour passed, the Noble Guard had not returned, and the 
 Pope rose to look out of the window. The piazza below lay 
 silent as a mountain pool, sending no sound into the air save 
 the splash of the two fountains. Between them rose the dark 
 column of the obelisk with its fiery inscription, " Christ con-
 
 478 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 quers, Christ reigns, Christ is triumphant." At the edge of 
 the square were the shadowy outlines of the palace of the 
 Prime Minister, once the home of the Pope's own father, the 
 perverted but loving old heart that had now been thirty-five 
 years in its grave. And beyond, splashed with streaks of light 
 and humming on in the distance, Rome! 
 
 Looking out on the city as it lay below him in the night, the 
 Pope was moved. The Eternal City! The Holy City! The 
 City of the Pope! Lost to him for the moment, but still the 
 city of his children ! 
 
 Thrilling and touching sight ! From that very spot, or near 
 it, the great Popes of old had dreamt the magnificent dream of 
 the divine rule of humanity, the sacred empire of the earth. 
 And now, without a foot of land that he could call his own, 
 the Pontiff was a prisoner among his own people and his palace 
 was a cell. 
 
 No matter ! " Christ conquers, Christ reigns, Christ is 
 triumphant!" Rome would return like a prodigal son to the 
 father who stood waiting with outstretched arms to receive it. 
 The age already struggling in the pangs of the new birth would 
 be born again to religion and the Church. And the Pope, with 
 a little kingdom but a universal sovereignty, without raising 
 armies or levying taxes, reigning but not governing, presiding 
 but not commanding, would be the spiritual and temporal 
 arbiter of the world ! 
 
 To calm his nerves, carried away by this sublime vision, and 
 to relieve his impatience while he waited for the return of his 
 messenger, the Pope drew the curtain of his bookcase, took 
 down a book and began to read. It was a black-letter volume 
 of the earliest ages of printing, and at the page at which it 
 opened of itself he read : 
 
 " God, knowing the danger of such an aggregation of powers, and 
 desiring to save His worshippers, not. with the splendour of the dia- 
 dem but with the humility of the Cross, has divided, the functions of 
 the two powers, willing that the Emperors should have need of the 
 Pontiffs for eternal, life, and that the Pontiffs should depend upon the 
 Emperors in temporal things. The sacred ministry ought by no 
 means to arrogate to itself the administration of secular business, and 
 those who have the government of such, business cannot without, vio- 
 lence interfere in the affairs of heaven." 
 
 The Pope rose from his seat with rigid limbs. Who had 
 been speaking? Was it a Lutheran, a Mazzinian, a Liberal,
 
 THE POPE 4Y9 
 
 an enemy of the Church like this man Kossi ? It was a Pope, a 
 great Pope of the early Church, when the Church was humble 
 and meek and poor. 
 
 The Pope closed the book, and tried to tell himself that since 
 the times of Gelasius the position of the Church had changed. 
 It was useless. What Gelasius had said was true true in its 
 essence, true in its history, true in its theology, true to Christ's 
 law and His holy example. 
 
 " God, knowing the danger of such an aggregation of 
 powers . . ." 
 
 Could it be possible that such dangers were dogging the feet 
 of the Pope still? In this age, this hour, this moment, in his 
 own person, to-night, now ? 
 
 The Pope felt the perspiration breaking out on his forehead, 
 and he opened the window to let in the cool night air. Re- 
 membering his doings of the last days his preparations for 
 the ceremonies in St. Peter's, his conversations with Father 
 Pifferi, his message to the Minister, his letter to the King he 
 asked himself whether his conclusions and conduct would have 
 been the same if he had not been thinking of his perils and 
 responsibilities as a prince ? 
 
 He thought of the young woman who had been to see him, 
 of her revelations, her appeals, the wistful look in her eyes, and 
 the plaintive note in her voice. 
 
 " After all, the King may refuse," he thought, and taking 
 a long breath of relief he turned to close the window. 
 
 At that moment the silence of the piazza was broken by the 
 noise of carriage wheels rattling over the stones, and some 
 minutes later the Count de Raymond, in the costume of a 
 civilian, was kneeling at the Pope's feet, and saying : 
 
 " Your Holiness, His Majesty the King will come." 
 
 THE ceremonies in St. Peter's on Maundy Thursday ex- 
 ceeded in pomp and magnificence anything that could be re- 
 membered in Rome. From early morning until nightfall the 
 vast Basilica presented to the eye the scene of a gigantic fair, 
 with its countless thousands moving to and fro. Towards ten 
 o'clock it was densely crowded from the portico to the altar 
 in the apse. 
 
 The great concourse consisted chiefly of the poor. They
 
 480 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 came from evei-y quarter of the city and the Campagna. Men 
 with pale faces holding rosaries in their fingers, women carry- 
 ing little children and crossing them with holy water. Beggars 
 with withered hands, distorted legs, and unsightly arm-stumps, 
 shuffling, hobbling, squatting, or kneeling. Thus the tide of 
 sorrowing people flowed through the Basilica in channels of 
 suffering and Avant. 
 
 It was a great triumph for the Church. In the face of the 
 anti-religious Governments of Europe she had proved that the 
 mightiest sentiment in the people was the sentiment of re- 
 ligion. When their dark hour came they turned to her. 
 
 The Papal Court was proud of itself. Some of its members 
 made no effort to conceal their delight at the blow they had 
 struck at the ruling classes. But there was one man in Rome 
 who felt no joy in his triumph. It was the Pope. 
 
 He had gone to mass in the morning in white cope and 
 mitre of gold cloth, seated in his sedia gestatoria, surrounded 
 by Cardinals, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Prelates and 
 Generals of Orders, down long lines of soldiers who presented 
 arms and then fell on their knees. Slowly advancing through 
 a seething mass of people, whose shouts of welcome had risen 
 like a deafening wave up to the gilded roof, he had reached his 
 throne with its silver cloth and gold beflowerings. He had re- 
 ceived the homage of his Sacred College in their copes of violet 
 and heard the great bells overhead ring out the Gloria. He 
 had carried the Blessed Sacrament on foot, under a baldachino 
 upheld by bishops, preceded by cardinals with lighted candles, 
 and surrounded by Bussolanti bearing torches, to the Chapel of 
 Repose, while contralto voices shrilled like the notes of the 
 nightingale through the lofty church. Finally he had given 
 the triple Benediction in the middle of the nave, borne up on 
 the shoulders of his palfrenieri above the surging waves of 
 faces, which were hushed to silence at the sound of his voice, 
 and moved to tears and exalted to frenzy by the tremendous 
 thought that it was the voice and the blessing of God. But 
 when mass was over, and he was back in his apartments, he 
 remembered the story of an tipper room in Jerusalem, where 
 Jesus instituted His sacrament, and asked himself if all this 
 pomp were needed that the Pope and his people should say 
 their prayers. 
 
 He had washed the feet of twelve poor men who had been 
 gathered from the streets of Rome to represent the twelve 
 apostles, and put to sit in white linen on a platform decorated
 
 THE POPR 481 
 
 with red damask and gold braid. Preceded by his auditors and 
 acolytes carrying candles, surrounded by his chamberlains in 
 red and his prelates in violet, he had reached his throne under 
 the statue of St. Peter robed for the occasion in pontifical 
 garments and wearing a mitre on the black head and a ring 
 on the black finger. But after he had used the water and the 
 towel while his Bussolante held the basin and his chamber- 
 lain upheld the ends of his falda, and after he had kissed each 
 foot of the twelve amid the wild exclamations of the people, he 
 went back to his apartments thinking of Christ who lived with 
 the poor and loved them. 
 
 At nine o'clock at night he had visited the " urn " called 
 the " Sepulchre." Borne amid the light of torches on his sedia 
 with his flabelli waving on either hand, under a white canopy 
 upheld by prelates, he had passed through the glittering rooms 
 of his own palace, along the dark corridors of the Vatican and 
 down the marble stairs, accompanied by his guards in helmets 
 and preceded by the papal cross covered with a violet veil, into 
 the great Basilica, lit only by large candles in iron stands, and 
 looking plain and barn-like and full of shadows in the gloom 
 and the smoky air. But after he had visited the Sepulchre, 
 gorgeously illuminated, while the cantors sang the Verbum 
 Caro, after he had knelt in silence and had risen, and the 
 torches of his procession had been put out, and he had returned 
 to his chair to be borne into the Sacristy, and the poor people, 
 lifted to a height of emotion not often reached by the human 
 soul, had broken again into a last delirious shout of affection, 
 he dropped his head and wept. . 
 
 At that moment the Sacristy was empty save for the cus- 
 todian in black cassock and biretta, who was warming his 
 hands over a large bronze scaldino; but in the Archpriest's 
 room adjoining, with its gilt arm-chair and stools of red plush, 
 Father Pifferi in his ordinary .brown habit was waiting for the 
 Pope. The bearers put down the chair, knelt and kissed the 
 Pope's feet in spite of his protest, backed themselves out with 
 deep obeisance, and left the two old men together. 
 
 " Have they arrived ? " asked the Pope. 
 
 " Xot yet, your Holiness," said the Capuchin. 
 
 " How were they to come ? " 
 
 " By the Borgo Santo Spirito, past the Rota, behind the 
 colonnade, along Santa Monica, in front of the Holy Inquisi- 
 tion and the Campo Santo, to the door of the Canons' house. 
 All quiet and dark ways at night."
 
 482 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Is Count cle Raymond waiting below ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness." 
 
 Through the thick walls came the sounds of cheering in the 
 Basilica, still kept up but now floating away. 
 
 " Father, have you any faith in presentiments ? " 
 
 " Sometimes, your Holiness. When they continue and are 
 persistent . . ." 
 
 " I have had a presentiment which has been with me all my 
 life all my life as Pope, at all events. The blessed God who 
 abases and lifts up has thought fit to raise my lowliness to the 
 most sublime dignity that exists on earth, but I have always 
 lived in the fear that some day I should be torn down from it, 
 and the Church would suffer." 
 
 " God forbid, your Holiness ! " 
 
 " That was why I refused every place and every honour. 
 You know how I refused them, Father ! " 
 
 " Yes, but God knew better, your Holiness, and Pie pre- 
 served you to be a blessing and a comfort to His people." 
 
 "His holy will be done! But the shadow which has been 
 over me will not be lifted. Cause prayers to be said for me. 
 Pray for me yourself, Father." 
 
 " Your Holiness is in low spirits. And to-day of all days ! 
 Ah, how happy is the Church which has seen the hand of God 
 place in the chair of St. Peter a soul capable of comprehending 
 the necessities of his children and a heart desirous of satisfying 
 them!" 
 
 " I hardly know what is to come of this interview, Father, 
 but I must leave myself in the hands of the Holy Spirit." 
 
 " There is no help for it now, your Holiness." 
 
 " Perhaps I should not have gone so far but for this wave 
 of anarchy which is sweeping over the world. . . . You be- 
 lieve the man Rossi is secretly an anarchist?" 
 
 " I am afraid he is, your Holiness, and one of the worst 
 enemies of the Church and the Holy Father." 
 
 " They say he was an orphan from his infancy, and never 
 knew father, or mother, or home." 
 
 " Pitiful, very pitiful ! " 
 
 " I have heard that his public life is not without a certain 
 perverted nobility, and that his private life is pure and good." 
 
 " His relation to the lady would seem to say so, your 
 Holiness." 
 
 " But the Holy Father may be sorry for a wayward son, and 
 yet be forced to condemn him for all that. He must cut him-
 
 THE POPE 483 
 
 self off from all such men, lest his adversaries should say that, 
 while preaching peace and the moral law, he is secretly en- 
 couraging the devilish agents of atheism, anarchy and 
 rebellion." 
 
 " Perhaps so, your Holiness." 
 
 " Father, do you think the care of temporal things is ever 
 a danger and temptation ? " 
 
 " Sometimes I think it is, your Holiness, and that the Holy 
 Father would be better without lands or fleshly armies." 
 
 " How late they are ! " said the Pope ; but at the same 
 moment the door opened, and a Noble Guard knelt on the 
 threshold. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " The personages you expect have come, your Holiness." 
 
 " Bring them in," said the Pope. 
 
 XIV 
 
 THE young King, who wore the uniform of a cavalry officer, 
 with sword and long blue cloak, knelt to the Pope and kissed 
 his ring, while the Prime Minister, who was in ordinary civil- 
 ian costume, bowed deeply, but remained standing. 
 
 " Pray sit," said the Pope, seating himself in the gilded 
 arm-chair, with the Capuchin on his left. 
 
 The King sat on one of the wooden stools in front of the 
 Pope, but the Baron continued to stand by his side. Between 
 the Pope and the King was a wooden table on which two large 
 candles were burning. The young King was pale, and the ex- 
 pression of his twitching face was timid. 
 
 " It was good of your Holiness to see us," he said, " and 
 perhaps the gravity of our errand may excuse the informality 
 of our visit." 
 
 The Pope, who was leaning forward on the arms of his 
 c-hair, only bent his head. 
 
 " His Excellency," said the King, indicating the Baron, 
 " tells me he has gained proof of an organised conspiracy 
 against my life, and he says that your Holiness holds the 
 secret of the conspirators." 
 
 The Pope, without responding, looked steadily into the face 
 of the young King, who became nervous and embarrassed. 
 
 " Not that I'm afraid," he said, " personally afraid. But 
 naturally I must think of others my family my people
 
 484: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 even of Italy and if your Holiness ... if your . . . your 
 Holiness . . ." 
 
 The Baron, who had been standing' with one arm across his 
 breast, and the other supporting his chin, intervened at this 
 moment. 
 
 " Your Majesty," he said, " with your Majesty's permission, 
 and that of his Holiness," he bowed to both sovereigns, " it 
 may be convenient if I state shortly the object of our visit." 
 
 The young King drew a breath of relief, and the Pope, who 
 was still silent, bent his head again. 
 
 " Some days ago your Holiness was good enough to warn 
 his Majesty's Government that from private sources of infor- 
 mation you had reason to fear that an assault against the pub- 
 lic peace was to be attempted." 
 
 The Pope once more assented. 
 
 " Since then the Government has received corroboration of 
 the gracious message of your Holiness, coupled with very defi- 
 nite predictions of the nature of the revolt intended. In short, 
 we have been told by our correspondents abroad that a con- 
 spiracy of European proportions, involving the subversive ele- 
 ments of England, France, and Germany, is to be directed 
 against Rome as a centre of revolution, and that an at- 
 tempt is to be made to assail constituted society by striking 
 at our King." 
 
 "Well, sir?" 
 
 " Your Holiness may have heard that it is the intention of 
 1he Government and the nation to honour the anniversary of 
 His Majesty's accession by a festival. The anniversary falls 
 on Monday next, and we have reason to fear that Monday is the 
 day intended for the outbreak of this vile conspiracy." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Your Holiness may have differences with His Majesty, 
 but you cannot desire that the cry of suffering should mingle 
 with the strains of the royal march." 
 
 " If your Government knows all this, it has its remedy 
 let it alter the King's plans." 
 
 " The advice with which your Holiness honours us is 
 scarcely practicable. For the Government to alter the King's 
 plans would be to alarm the populace, demoralise the services, 
 and to add to the unhappy excitement which it is the object 
 of the festival to allay." 
 
 " But why do you come to me ? " 
 
 " Because, your Holiness, our information, although con-
 
 THE POPE 485 
 
 elusive, is too indefinite for effective action, and we believe 
 your Holiness can supply the means by which we may preserve 
 public order, and " with an apologetic gesture " save the 
 life of the King." 
 
 The Pope was moving uneasily in his chair. " I will ask 
 you to be good enough to speak more plainly," he said. 
 
 The Baron's heavy moustache rose at one corner to a fleet- 
 ing smile. " Your Holiness," he said, " is already aware that 
 accident disclosed to us the source of your -information. It was 
 a lady. This knowledge enabled us to judge who was the 
 subject of her communication. It was the lady's lover. Official 
 channels give us proof that he is engaged abroad in plots 
 against public order, and thus . . ." 
 
 " If you know all this, sir, what do you want with me ? " 
 
 " Your Holiness may not be aware that the person in ques- 
 tion is a Deputy, and that a Deputy cannot be arrested with- 
 out the fulfilment of various conditions prescribed by law. 
 One of those conditions is that some one should be in a position 
 to denounce him." 
 
 The Pope half rose from his chair. " You ask me to de- 
 nounce him ? " 
 
 The Baron bowed very low. " The Government does not 
 presume so far," he said. " It only hopes that your Holiness 
 will require your informant to do so." 
 
 " Then you want me to outrage a confidence ? " 
 
 " It was not a confession, your Holiness, and even if it had 
 been, as your Holiness knows better than we do, it would not' 
 be without precedent to reveal the facts which are necessary 
 to be known in order to prevent crime." 
 
 The Capuchin's sandals were scraping on the floor, but the 
 Pope raised his left hand, and the friar fell back. 
 
 " You are aware," said the Pope, " that the lady you speak 
 of as my informant is married to the Deputy ? " 
 
 " We are aware that she thinks she is." 
 
 " Thinks ? " said the indignant voice of the Capuchin, but 
 the Pope's left hand was .raised again. 
 
 " In short, sir, you ask me to require the wife to sacrifice 
 her husband ? " 
 
 " If your Holiness calls it so to perform an act that will 
 preserve the public peace . . ." 
 
 " I do call it so." 
 
 The Baron bowed, the young King was restless, and there- 
 was a moment's silence. Then the Pope said,;
 
 486 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Putting aside the extreme unlikelihood that the lady 
 knows more than she has said, and we have already commu- 
 nicated, what possible inducement do you expect us to offer 
 her that she should sacrifice her husband ? " 
 
 " Her husband's life," said the Baron. 
 
 "His life?" 
 
 " Your Holiness may not know that the Governments of 
 Kurope, having ascertained the existence of a wide-spread plot 
 against civil society, have joined in measures of repression. 
 One of these is the extension to all countries of what is called 
 the Belgian clause in treaties, whereby persons guilty of regi- 
 cide or of plots directed against the lives of sovereigns are 
 made liable to extradition." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " The Deputy Rossi is now in Berlin. If he were de- 
 nounced with the conditions required by law as conspiring 
 against the life of the King, we might have him arrested to- 
 night and brought back as a common murderer." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Your Holiness may not have heard that since the late 
 unhappy riots the Parliament, in spite of the protests of His 
 Majesty, has re-established capital punishment for all forms 
 of high treason." 
 
 " Therefore," said the Pope, " if the wife were to denounce 
 her husband for participation in this conspiracy he would be 
 sentenced to death." 
 
 " For this conspiracy yes," said the Baron. " But the 
 present is not the only conspiracy the man Rossi has engaged 
 in. Eighteen years ago he was condemned in contumacy for 
 conspiracy against the life of the late King. He has not yet 
 suffered for his crime, because of the difficulty of bringing it 
 home. In that case, as in this, there is only one person known 
 to the authorities who can fulfil the conditions required by law. 
 That person is the informant of your Holiness." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " If your Holiness can prevail upon the lady to identify her 
 lover as the man condemned for the former conspiracy, he will 
 be helping her to save her husband's life from the penalty due 
 for the present ope." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Mis Majesty is willing to promise your Holiness that, 
 whatever the result of a new trial in assize to follow the old 
 one in contumacy, he will grant a complete pardon,"
 
 THE POPE 487 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then the Deputy Rossi will be banished, the threatened 
 conspiracy will be crushed, the public peace will be preserved, 
 and the King's life will be saved." 
 
 The Pope leaned forward on the arms of his chair, but he 
 did not speak, and there was silence for some moments. 
 
 " Thus your Holiness must see," said the Baron suavely, 
 " that in asking you to obtain the denunciation of the man 
 Rossi, the Government is only looking to your Holiness to fulfil 
 the mission of mercy to which your venerated position has 
 destined you." 
 
 " And if I refuse to exercise this mission of mercy ? " 
 
 The Baron bowed gravely. " Your Holiness will not re- 
 fuse," he said. 
 
 " But if I do what then ? " 
 
 " Then . . . your Holiness ... I was about to say some- 
 thing." 
 
 " I am listening." 
 
 " The man we speak of is the bitterest enemy of the Church. 
 Whatever his hypocrisies, he is at once an atheist and a 
 Freemason, sworn to allow no private interests or feelings, 
 no bonds of patriotism or blood, to turn him aside from 
 his purpose, which is to overthrow Society and the Church." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He is also a bitter personal enemy of the Holy Father, 
 and knows no object so near as that of tearing him from his 
 place and shaking the throne of St. Peter." 
 
 "Well, sir?" 
 
 " The police and the army of the Government are the only 
 forces by which the Holy Father can be protected, and without 
 them the bad elements which lurk in every community would 
 break out, the Holy Father would be driven from Rome, and 
 his priests assaulted in the streets." 
 
 " But what will happen if I refuse to outrage the sanctity 
 of an immortal soul in spite of all this danger? " 
 
 " Your Holiness asks me what will happen if you refuse to 
 obtain the denunciation of a man whom your Holiness knows 
 to be conspiring against public order ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " What will happen will be ... your Holiness, I am 
 speaking . . ." 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " That if the crime is committed and the King is killed, I,
 
 488 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the Minister of His Majesty, will be in a position to say and 
 to call upon this friar to witness that the Pope knew of it 
 beforehand, and under the most noble sentiments about the 
 sanctity of an immortal soul gave a supreme encouragement 
 to regicide." 
 
 " And then, sir 2 " 
 
 " The world draws no nice distinctions, your Holiness, and 
 the Vatican is now at war with nearly all the Powers and 
 peoples of Europe. In. the presence of a monstrous crime 
 against the most innocent and the most highly placed, the 
 world would say that what the Pope did not prevent the Pope 
 desired, what the Pope desired the Pope designed, and that the 
 Vicar of the Prince of Peace attempted to rebuild his temporal 
 power by means of the plots of conspirators and the daggers 
 of assassins." 
 
 The sandals of the Capuchin were scraping the floor again, 
 and once more the Pope put up his hand. 
 
 " You come to me, sir, when you have exhausted all other 
 means of obtaining your end ? " 
 
 " Naturally the Government wishes if possible to spare 
 your Holiness an unusual and painful ordeal." 
 
 " The lady has resisted all other influences ? " 
 
 " She has resisted all influences which can be brought to 
 bear upon her by the proper authorities." 
 
 " I have heard of it, sir. I have heard what your ' authori- 
 ties ' have done to humble a helpless woman. She had been 
 the victim of a heartless man, and by knowledge of that fact 
 your ' authorities ' have tempted and tried her. They tried her 
 with poverty, with humiliation, with jealousy and the shadow 
 of shame. But the blessed God upheld her in the love which 
 had awakened her soul, and she withstood them to the last." 
 
 The Baron, for the first time, looked confused. 
 
 " I have also heard that in order to achieve the same end 
 one of your gaols has been the scene of a scandal which has 
 outraged every divine and human law." 
 
 " Your Holiness must not accept for truth all that is 
 printed in the halfpenny papers." 
 
 " Is it true that in the cell where a helpless unfortunate 
 was paying the penalty of his crime your ' authorities ' intro- 
 duced a police agent in disguise to draw him into a denuncia- 
 tion of his accomplice? " 
 
 " These are matters of state, your Holiness. I do not assert 
 them and I do not deny."
 
 THE POPE 489 
 
 " In the name of humanity I ask you are such ' authorities ' 
 punished, or do they sit in the cabinets of- your Ministers 
 of the Interior ? " 
 
 " No doubt the officials went too far, your Holiness, but 
 shall we for the sake of a miserable malefactor who told one 
 story to-day and another to-morrow drag our public service 
 through courts of law ? Pity for such persons is morbid senti- 
 mentality, your Holiness, unworthy of a strong and enlight- 
 ened government." 
 
 " Then God destroy all such governments, sir, and the bad 
 and unchristian system which supports them. Allow that the 
 man was a miserable malefactor, it was not he alone that was 
 offended, but in his poor, degraded person the spirit of Jus- 
 tice. What did your ' authorities ' do ? They tortured the 
 man by his love for his wife, by the memory of his murdered 
 child, by all that was true and noble and divine in him. They 
 crucified the Christ in that helpless man, and you stand here 
 in the presence of the Vicar of Christ to excuse and de- 
 fend them." 
 
 The Pope had risen in his chair and lifted one hand over 
 his head with a majestic gesture. Involuntarily the young 
 King, who had been ashen pale for some moments, dropped to 
 his knees, but the Baron only folded his arms and stiffened 
 his legs. 
 
 " Have you ever thought, sir, of the end of the unjust 
 Minister ? Think of his dying hour, tortured with the memory 
 of young lives dissolved, mothers dead, widows desolate, and 
 orphans left in tears. Think of the day after his death when 
 he who has passed through the world like the scourge of God 
 lies at its feet, and no one so mean but he may spurn the dis- 
 honoured carcass. You are aiming high, your Excellency, 
 but beware, beware ! " 
 
 The Pope sat down, and the King, ashamed of his weak- 
 ness, rose to his feet. 
 
 " Your Majesty," said the Pope, " the day will come when 
 we must both present ourselves before God to render to Him 
 an account of our deeds, and I being far more advanced in 
 years will assuredly be the first. But I would not dare to 
 meet the eye of my Judge if I did not this day warn you of the 
 dangers in which you stand. Only God knows by what in- 
 scrutable decree of Providence one man is made a Pope or a 
 King, while another man, his equal or superior, is made a beg- 
 gar or a slave. But God who made Popes and Kings meant 
 32
 
 490 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 them to be the fathers, not the seducers of their subjects. A 
 sovereign may be a man of good intentions, but if he is weak, 
 and allows himself to fall into the hands of despotic Ministers, 
 he is a worse affliction than the cruellest tyrant. Think well, 
 your Majesty ! A throne may be a quagmire, and a man may 
 be buried in it and buried alive." 
 
 The young King began to falter some incoherent words, but 
 without listening the Pope rose to end the audience. 
 
 " You promise me," said the Pope, " that if I say if in 
 order to avoid bloodshed and to prevent a crime, I obtain from 
 this lady the identification of her husband as the person con- 
 demned for the former conspiracy, you will spare and pardon 
 him whatever happens ? " 
 
 " Holy Father, I give you my solemn word for it." 
 
 " Then leave me ! Let me think ! . . . Wait ! If she con- 
 sents, where must she go to ? " 
 
 "To the Procura by the Ponte Kipetta, and, as time presses, 
 at ten o'clock on Saturday morning," said the Baron. 
 
 " Leave me ! Leave me ! " 
 
 The King knelt again and kissed the Pope's hand, but the 
 Baron only bowed as he passed out behind his sovereign. 
 
 The opening of the doors let in a wave of sound that was 
 like the roll of a great wind in a cave. Tenebrse had been going 
 on for some time in .the Basilica, and the people were singing 
 the Miserere. 
 
 "Did you hear him, Father?" said the Pope. "Isn't it 
 almost enough to justify a man like Rossi that he has too meet 
 a despot like that ? " 
 
 " We'll talk of it to-morrow," said the Capuchin. 
 
 The friar touched a bell, and the palfrenieri returned with 
 the chair. 
 
 XV 
 
 IN the Sacristy, on his way back to St. Peter's, the Pope was 
 robed afresh in cope of red and a mitre and formale of silver 
 cloth. Thinking of the scene he had passed through, and 
 listening to the surge and swell of the far-off singing, a meas- 
 ureless pity for the people filled his soul. 
 
 " The poor shall eat, and shall be filled, and they shall praise 
 the Lord." 
 
 The procession formed again, but with no cross and only two
 
 THE POPE 491 
 
 candles, the Pope was raised in his chair and carried through 
 the tortuous corridors. 
 
 A great rush of sound met him at the entrance to the 
 Basilica, the peal of fifty thousand human voices. It was like 
 the voice of the multitudinous waves which break on the life- 
 boat when it leaves the harbour and faces the open sea. The 
 Pope, on the shoulders of his bearers, felt like the captain who 
 goes out at night to people perishing on a foundering ship. 
 
 Darkness pervaded the sanctuary, and only the grand skele- 
 ton, with its colossal statues and gigantic forms, emerged from 
 the gloom. Vast, boundless, wrapped in night, with here and 
 there a momentary ray from a dying and smoking torch, and 
 far down the nave a red glow from the Chapel of Repose. 
 There was something terrible in the scene, as of a chaotic world 
 that had been made and then unmade, and in this midnight 
 hour breathed out its wail of woe. 
 
 The people, as the Pope passed through them, continued to 
 sing the Miserere. Their faces were unseen, save for the 
 glimmering of the passing candles ; most of them were on their 
 knees, and all were abandoned to their religious feelings. The 
 high altar was divested of every ornament, its cross was covered 
 with a black veil, and its beauty and majesty were gone. The 
 Pope's throne, too, was despoiled of its canopy, and there was 
 not a morsel of cloth on which he could put his feet. The 
 triangular candlestick was dark, and the last light had been 
 hidden behind the altar. 
 
 " Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great 
 mercy ! " 
 
 The low wail of voices rose and fell in the dark vault, and 
 the Pope covered his face and wept, thinking of the awful event 
 that Tenebra3 typified, the mystery of the Divine Passion, the 
 dark hour two thousand years ago, when the rocks were rent and 
 the graves were opened and the veil of the temple was torn 
 in twain ; and then of the last awful cry, " My God, my God, 
 why hast Thou forsaken me ! " and the light of the world hidden 
 for a while in the darkness of the tomb ! 
 
 Was it hidden still, hidden now, when despotism was the 
 only answer given to suffering, when morality and worship were 
 abandoned to the civil powers, when the whole forces of civil- 
 ised states were in the hands of the anti-Christian, when a fear- 
 ful wave of heresy was sweeping its fetid waters over parlia- 
 ments and governments, when anarchy was making its devas- 
 tating march over the kingdoms of the world !
 
 492 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Deliver me from blood, O God, thou God of my salva- 
 tion!" 
 
 The moan of the people singing their Miserere in the dark- 
 ness seemed to the Pope at that moment like the cry of the 
 human soul against injustice and wrong. The vast but helpless 
 human family sending up its cry to God, to the great Being far 
 off, not to be reached or to be moved save only by a cry little 
 children alone in the night, when all was dark and dead. 
 
 Old Maestro Mustafa, the soprano in the choir, trilled out 
 the last notes of sorrow, and the Miserere came to an end. In 
 the grand silence which followed there was a loud rattling 
 sound, like the hammering of the Battitori in a prison cell, 
 then a rolling noise as of an iron door going back on its 
 wheels, a bright flash from the epistle side of the altar, and 
 finally a blaze of glittering light from a huge cross which 
 was suspended from the dome. 
 
 It was the symbol of the resurrection, and to the Pope it 
 was a symbol of the Church as well. The Church was not 
 dead. It was Christ, and it could not die. It was not to be 
 conquered by tyranny, or heresy, or anarchism, or innovating 
 manias. It was the one hope and anchor of humanity, and the 
 type of eternal life. 
 
 The Pope dropped to his knees and prayed. 
 
 " O Father in heaven, help me in these evil days to uphold 
 my heavenly office. In the midst of plots and conspiracies be 
 strength of my strength, and support me with Thy Holy Spirit. 
 O Lord on high, who fillest heaven and earth, Thou knowest 
 how my enemies watch for my halting, but let not Thy Holy 
 Church be abased by the weakness of Thy servant. Thou know- 
 est I am old and full of days, but let not my soul fail me. Thou 
 knowest the inmost place of my heart, but let no secret fear 
 assail or pity weaken me. Touch me with Thy finger of fire, 
 pour upon me the healing of Thy grace, and though I be called 
 upon to cut off my right hand, let not Thy Church be humbled 
 by any feebleness of my failing flesh." 
 
 The procession had formed again, with its chamberlains, lay 
 and ecclesiastic, its Bussolanti, its acolytes, and its Swiss and 
 ISToble Guard. But the Pope did not rise, and some one 
 whispered, " The Holy Father is ill." 
 
 After a long waiting a chamberlain touched the Pope on 
 the shoulder, and he looked up and rose. Then the chair-bearers 
 brought the chair, but he motioned them aside, and turned to 
 walk through the church. He walked with manifest weakness,
 
 THE POPE 493 
 
 but a resolute step, and his face was lit up by a light that 
 seemed to be shining from within. The people did not cheer 
 him as before. They fell to their knees, and dropped their 
 heads. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 day, being Good Friday, was passed by the Pope in 
 religious retreat, which was interrupted by indispensable busi- 
 ness only. After Mass of the Presanctified he sat in his study 
 with his confessor, while his chaplain in black passed through 
 on tiptoe from the private chapel, and his chamberlains, tired 
 out by the ceremonies of yesterday, dozed on their stools in the 
 outer hall. 
 
 The day was bright but the room was darkened, and the 
 hearts of the two old men were heavy. Over the face of the 
 Pope there was a cloud of trouble, and the countenance of the 
 Capuchin was solemn to the point of sternness. The friar sat 
 in the old-fashioned easy-chair with his bare feet showing from 
 under the edge of his brown habit ; the Pope lay on the lounge 
 with both hands in the vertical pockets of his white woollen 
 cassock. 
 
 " Your Holiness is not well this morning? " 
 
 " Not very well, Father Pifferi." 
 
 " Your Holiness was disturbed by the interview in the 
 Sacristy. But you should think no more about it. In any 
 case, what the Minister proposed was impossible, therefore you 
 must dismiss it from your mind. To ask a wife to reveal the 
 secrets of her husband would be tyranny worse than the rack. 
 Besides, it would be uncanonical, and your Holiness could 
 never consider it." 
 
 "How so?" 
 
 " Didn't your Holiness promise that whatever the nature of 
 this poor lady's confidence you would hold it as sacred as the 
 confessional ? " 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " What is the confessional, your Holiness? It is a tribunal 
 in which the priest is judge and the penitent a prisoner who 
 pleads guilty. Is the priest to call witnesses to prove other 
 crimes? He has no right and no power to do so." 
 
 " But where the penitent wittingly or unwittingly is in the 
 position of an accomplice, what then, Father Pifferi ? "
 
 494 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Even then it is expressly forbidden to demand the names 
 of others upon the plea of preventing evil. Your Holiness 
 knows that Benedict XIV. made a canon to prohibit it, order- 
 ing that whosoever said such conduct was lawful was ipso facto 
 excommunicated with an excommunication which could only 
 be removed by the Pope himself and at the hour of death. How 
 then can you hold this lady.'s confidence as sacred and yet ask 
 her to denounce her "husband ? " 
 
 The Pope rose with a face full of pain, walked to the book- 
 case, and took down a book. " Listen, Father," he said, and he 
 began to read : 
 
 " If the penitent was obliged under pain of mortal sin to 
 reveal his accomplices to repair a common injury, I have 
 maintained against other theologians that even then the con- 
 fessor cannot oblige him to do so." 
 
 " There ! " cried the Capuchin. " What did I say ? Gaume 
 is wise, and the other theologians, who are they ? " 
 
 " Only," continued the Pope, turning a page and holding up 
 one finger, " he can and must oblige him to make known his 
 accomplices to other persons who can arrest the scandal." 
 
 The Capuchin took a long breath. " Is that what the Holy 
 Father intends to do in this instance ? " 
 
 " He can and must" the Pope repeated, and putting the 
 book back he returned to the couch and covered his face. 
 
 " Poor lady ! Poor child ! . . . But are you quite sure that 
 her husband is plotting to commit a crime? Remember, we 
 have only the Minister's word for it, your Holiness." 
 
 " And her own voluntary confession." 
 
 " But that was in haste and confusion, and in the emotion 
 of the poor soul's desire to prove that Rossi was rather an 
 enemy of the King than of the Pope. Now if in a calmer mo- 
 ment she can show that her husband is really not a conspira- 
 tor . . ." 
 
 " I will go no further," said the Pope. 
 
 " Or, having her own unhappy certainty that her husband 
 has been drawn into doings that can only end in a common in- 
 jury, she should see for herself a way to prevent or to repair it 
 by going to him . . ." 
 
 " In that case," said the Pope, " I should say to her, ' Go, 
 my child, and God speed you. If you can warn your husband 
 and turn him from his purpose, not all the powers of earth or 
 hell shall move me to disturb your conscience.' " 
 
 " But if she cannot do any of these things, Holy Father? "
 
 THE POPE 4.95 
 
 " Then . . . there is no help for it ... I can and I must," 
 said the Pope. 
 
 The Capuchin took snuff, and dried his moistening eyes. 
 
 " It will break her heart. Thus far she has resisted every 
 other influence, and must she now . . . Holy Father ? " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " How do we know but this man the Minister is using 
 you as his last weapon against this woman? He may easily 
 have two objects. These political resentments are often related, 
 either as cause or effect, to personal passions. And if it should 
 appear that you would be helping the fowler to take his game 
 in the nets . . ." 
 
 " Eh ? " The Pope rose to his feet. 
 
 " Isn't it the oldest trick of the man who has wronged a 
 woman to use the injury itself to wrong her again? If she 
 should denounce her husband, whatever the motive, her hus- 
 band must cast her off. What then? Then this man, defying 
 and desecrating her religious marriage . . ." 
 
 " God forbid it ! " said the Pope. 
 
 " Her story is the story of Tamar, your Holiness, and 
 Amnon's second evil may be greater than the first." 
 
 " But if the Minister is Amnon, her husband may be Ab- 
 salom and shall the Holy Father stand by and witness 
 Absalom's crime ? " 
 
 " Then because Tamar, being a good woman, has rent her 
 clothes and revealed her secret, must the Holy Father, who is 
 the guardian of all good women against the drunkenness and 
 lust of the passions of the world . . ." 
 
 " It is in God's hand, Father. We must leave all to the 
 Holy Spirit." 
 
 The Capuchin dropped his head, and there was a long 
 pause, in which the Pope walked nervously about the room. 
 
 " Poor child ! " said the Capuchin. " Perhaps her heart 
 has been too much set on human love." 
 
 The Pope sighed. 
 
 " Yet who are we whose hearts are closed to earthly affection 
 to prescribe a limit to human love ? " 
 
 " Who indeed ? " said the Pope. 
 
 " Do you recall her resemblance to any one, your Holi- 
 ness ? " 
 
 The Pope stopped in his walk and looked towards the ciir- 
 tained window. 
 
 " The same soft voice and radiant smile, the same atti-
 
 496 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tude of idolatry towards the husband she is devoted to, the 
 same . . ." 
 
 " The Sisters of the Sacred Heart will take her when all is 
 over," said the Pope. 
 
 " And the man, too, whatever his errors, has a certain 
 grandeur of soul, that lifts him far above these chief gaolers 
 and detectives who call themselves statesmen and diplomatists, 
 these scavengers of civilisation . . ." 
 
 " He must go back to America and begin life again," said 
 the Pope. 
 
 " Listen, Holy Father," said the Capuchin ; and drawing a 
 large yellow paper from the deep fold in his sleeve, he began 
 to read : 
 
 " / dream of a Church that will put away its temporalities, which 
 tempt it to divide men into two classes, the rich and the poor, and into 
 many nations, friends and foes. I dream of a Holy Father of the 
 people who will be made spiritual sovereign on earth, not by the Holy 
 Spirit acting on seventy Cardinals in the secrecy of sealed doors, but 
 on the whole world in the light of heavvn. This is the sublime Church 
 and the sublime Pontiff I dream of, and, God willing, 1 shall live to 
 see them." 
 
 The Pope's eyes were red and his cheeks were wet. " Oh, 
 why," he cried, " why didn't some one take hold of a man like 
 that before it was too late? When he was young and uncon- 
 taminated, and his heart was pure and his life stainless, why, 
 why, why ? . . . But now, wrong in principle, in policy, in 
 doctrine, covering his head with the bloody cap of anarchy 
 and trying to extirpate with the sacred dignity of the Pontiff 
 the authority of the Church itself what can the Pope do but 
 put his foot on such a man and destroy him? " 
 
 " Then God help the Holy Father," said the Capuchin, 
 " if in order to prevent a son from destroying him he must 
 needs destroy a son ! " 
 
 Two hours later Father Pifferi went off to fetch Roma, and 
 the Pope sat down to his mid-day meal. The room was very 
 quiet, and in the absence of the church bells the city seemed 
 to sit in silence. Cortis stood behind the Pope's chair, and the 
 cat sat on a stool at the opposite side of the table. 
 
 The chamberlains, lay and ecclesiastical, waited in the ante- 
 chamber, and the Swiss and Noble Guards, the Palatine Guards 
 and the Palfrenieri dotted the decorated halls that led to the 
 royal stairs. 
 
 But the saintly old man, who had a palace, yet no home,
 
 THE POPE 497 
 
 servants, yet no family, an army, yet no empire, who was the 
 father of all men, yet knew no longer the ordinary joys and 
 sorrows of human life, sat alone in his little plain apartment 
 and ate his simple dish of spinach and beans. 
 
 XVII 
 
 ROMA had spent all the week working on the bust. It was a 
 comfort to trace the features of Rossi's face, to touch them into 
 new forms of expression, to make the absent man speak to her, 
 and to wait, as it were, for a reply. But it was also a constant 
 reminder of dangers and anxieties, and the company of Rossi's 
 marble counterpart became a prolonged torture. Shining tears 
 were always trembling in her eyes while the chisel was in her 
 hand, and at sight of her wet eyelashes and whitening lips her 
 housemates began to be alarmed. 
 
 Old Francesca told various stories of the Civil War, while 
 she fanned the charcoal to cook the meals, or cleaned the house 
 to prepare for the annual visit of the priests. 
 
 " We lived in Trastevere then, Signora, and when there had 
 been a battle we always saw it coming down the street people 
 sitting out on the steps, and the soldiers telling the news as 
 they came along. We women at the washing trough didn't 
 know who would be hit next, so we stood scared and silent until 
 the blow fell, and then the one who was struck would wipe her 
 bare arms, slip her handkerchief over her head and turn into 
 the little church. All cool and echoing there, Signora, and 
 nobody inside perhaps but some other woman who had lost her 
 husband and was fingering her beads. Ah, Gesu buono ! I 
 had many a fright in those days, but they came to nothing, 
 and I might as well have eaten something and slept at nights, 
 and put my trust in God. Come, little sister, here are some 
 nice new ceci and veal." 
 
 Roma " saw the battle coming down the street " every day 
 and hour. On Tuesday the Ministerial papers were full of 
 accounts of the proposed Jubilee of the King, with loud praises 
 of the amnesty. On Wednesday the papers of the Opposition 
 were just as full of dark hints of some disaster which might be 
 expected to follow the shameful carousal. On Thursday the 
 walls were covered with proclamations announcing the royal 
 programme, and on Friday these posters were plastered over 
 with pictures of a death's head and cross-bones. 
 
 Roma's fear for Rossi was reaching the point of terror.
 
 498 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Day by day the conviction deepened in her mind that he was 
 engaged in a dangerous conspiracy, and one by one came the 
 proofs that the police were watching him and waiting for him. 
 She felt powerless to intercept or to protect him. It was the 
 same as if he had been ill of a dangerous malady and she was 
 forbidden to approach him. But it tranquillised her to remem- 
 ber that, in spite of all consequences, if the worst happened 
 she could fly to him and warn him. 
 
 Good Friday's Ministerial paper announced in its official 
 column that late the night before the King, attended by the 
 Minister of the Interior, had paid a surprise visit to the Mint, 
 which was in the Via Fondamenta, a lane approached by way 
 of the silent passage which leads to the lodging of the Canons 
 of St. Peter's. Roma was puzzling over the inexplicable an- 
 nouncement, when old John, one of Rossi's pensioners, knocked 
 at her door. His face and his lips were white, and when Roma 
 offered him money he put it aside impatiently. 
 
 " You musn't think a gold hammer can break the gate of 
 heaven, Eccellenza," the old man said. 
 
 Then he told his story. The King had seen the Pope in 
 secret the night before, and there was something going on 
 about the Honourable Rossi. John knew it because his grand- 
 son had left Rome that morning for Chiasso, and another mem- 
 ber of the secret police had started for Modane. If Donna 
 Roma knew where the Honourable was to be found, she had bet- 
 ter tell him not to return to Italy. 
 
 " Better be a wood-bird than a cage-bird, you know," the 
 old man whispered. 
 
 Roma thanked him for his news, and then warned him of 
 the risk he ran, being dependent on his grandson and his grand- 
 son's wife. 
 
 " That's nothing," he said, " nothing at all now." 
 
 Last night he had dreamed a dream. He thought he was a 
 strong man again, with his children about him, and beholden 
 to no one. How happy he had been ! But when he awoke, and 
 found it was not true, and that he was old and feeble, he felt 
 that he could bear it no longer. 
 
 " I'm in the way and taking the food of the children, so 
 it can't last long, Eccellenza," he said in a tremulous voice, 
 smiling with his toothless mouth, and nodding slightly as 
 he went away. 
 
 In the uneasy depths of Roma's soul only one thing was 
 now certain. Her husband was in danger, and he must not
 
 THE POPE 499 
 
 attempt to cross the frontier. Yet how was he to be prevented ? 
 The difficulty was enormous. If only Rossi had replied to her 
 letter by telegram, as she had asked him to do, she might have 
 found some means of communication. At length an idea oc- 
 curred to her, and she sat down to write a letter. 
 
 " Dearest," she wrote, while her eyes shone with a kind 
 of delirium and tears trickled down her cheeks, " I am very 
 ill, and as you cannot come to me I must go to you. Don't 
 think me too weak and womanish, after all my solemn promises 
 to be so strong and brave. But I can only live by love, dearest, 
 and your absence is more than I can bear. You will think I 
 ought to be content with your letters, and certainly they have 
 been very sweet and dear to me ; but they are so few, and they 
 come at such long intervals, and now they seem to have stopped 
 altogether. Perhaps at the bottom of my selfish heart, too, I 
 think your letters might be a wee bit more lover-like, but then 
 men don't write real love letters, and nearly every woman 
 would confess, if she told the truth, that she is a little disap- 
 pointed in that regard. 
 
 " I know my husband has other things to think about, great 
 things, high and noble aims and objects, but I am only a woman 
 in spite of my loud pretences, and I must be loved, or I shall 
 die. Not that I am afraid of dying, because I know that if 
 I die I shall be with you in a moment, and this cruel separation 
 will be at an end. But I want to live, and I'm certain I shall 
 begin to feel better after I have passed a few moments at your 
 side. So I shall pack up immediately and start away on the 
 wings of the morning. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed if you find me looking pale and thin and 
 old and ugly. How could I be anything else when the particu- 
 lar world I live in has been sunless all these weeks? I know 
 your work is very pressing, especially now when so many things 
 are happening; but you will, put it aside for a little while 
 won't you, and take me up into the Alps somewhere, and nurse 
 me back to health and happiness. Fancy ! We shall be boy 
 and girl again, as in the days when you used to catch butter- 
 flies for me, and then look sad when, like a naughty child, I 
 scrunched them ! 
 
 " Au revoir, dearest. I shall fall into your hands nearly as 
 soon as this letter. I tremble to think you may be angry with 
 me for following you and interrupting your work. If you show 
 it in your face I shall certainly expire. But you will be good 
 to your poor pilgrim of love and comfort and strengthen her.
 
 500 
 
 All the time you have been away she has never forgotten you 
 for a moment no, not one waking moment. An ordinary 
 woman who loved an ordinary man would not tell him this, 
 but you are not ordinary, and if I am I don't care a pin to 
 pretend. 
 
 " Expect me, then, by the fastest train leaving Rome to- 
 morrow morning, and don't budge from Paris until I arrive. 
 
 " ROMA." 
 
 The strain of this letter, with its conscious subterfuge and 
 its unconscious truth, put Roma into a state of fever; and 
 when she had finished it and sent it to the post, her head was 
 light, and she was aware for the first time that she was really ill. 
 
 The deaf old woman, who helped her to pack, talked with- 
 out ceasing of Rossi and Bruno and Elena ad little Joseph, 
 and finally of the King and his intended jubilee. 
 
 " I don't take no notice of Governments, Signora. It's the 
 same as it used to be in the old days. One Pope died, and 
 his soul went into the next. First an ugly Pope, then a hand- 
 some one, but the soul was the same in all. Wet soup or dry 
 that's all I trouble about now; and I don't cafe who gets the 
 taxes so long as I can. pay . . . What do you say, Tommaso ? " 
 
 The Garibaldian had come upstairs smiling and winking, 
 and holding out a letter. " From Trinita de' Monti," he whis- 
 pered. Flushing crimson and trembling visibly, Roma took 
 the letter out of the old man's hands with as much apprehen- 
 sion as if he had tried to deal her a blow, and went off to 
 her room. 
 
 " What do I say, Francesca? I say it's a good thing to be 
 a Christian in these days, and that's why I always carry a sharp 
 knife and a rosary." 
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE letter bore the Berlin postmark. 
 
 " MY DEAR WIFE, I left Paris rather unexpectedly three 
 days ago and arrived here on Tuesday. The reason of this 
 sudden flight was the announcement in the Paris papers of 
 the festivities intended in Rome in honour of the King's acces- 
 sion. Such a shameless outrage on the people's sufferings in 
 the hour of their greatest need seemed to call for immediate 
 and effectual protest, and it was thought wise to push on the 
 work of organisation with every possible despatch . . ."
 
 THE POPE 501 
 
 " There is a train north at 9.30," thought Roma. " I must 
 leave to-night, not in the morning." 
 
 " If somebody would write a book on the ' Waste of Na- 
 tions,' what a history of improvidence, what a gallery of pub- 
 lic spendthrifts it would be ! Next Monday they will be 
 crowning the King with flowers, calling him ' sublime ' and 
 ' valorous ' and ' invincible ' and ' august ' and ' clement,' deaf- 
 ening him with music, singing, dancing, feasting, and pouring 
 out champagne like water, while the people are starving and no 
 voice of lamentation sounds for them. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Roma, when I see the scandalous prodigali- 
 ties of great wealth and the cruel sufferings of pauperism, I 
 do not any longer wonder at the rebellion and crime of the dis- 
 inherited classes I am only surprised at their patience. It is 
 raining to-day, and as I write I lift my eyes and see in the 
 Friedrichstrasse below a little ragged boy walking by the side 
 of a ragged woman. The poor mother does not rebel because 
 her little boy is not clothed and fed as the little boys of other 
 women are, and the little boy does not cry because he is born 
 the son of a ragged mother. They are so patient, so awfully 
 patient. Perhaps the merciful God shuts their eyes to the 
 hideous inequalities which it tears my heart to see. But, oh, 
 the deep chasms at our feet, here, there, everywhere ! When 
 I think of it all I feel the need of weeping, but when I remem- 
 ber how many poor women and children must go hungry for 
 this shameful debauch which is intended I want to do some- 
 thing and by God I will . . ." 
 
 Roma stopped. Her eyes were wet, her throat was surging, 
 but above all other things was fear fear for Rossi and ap- 
 prehension of the thing he meant to do. 
 
 " Oh, Roma, Roma, my dear Roma, I understand your 
 father now, and can sympathise with him at last. He held 
 that even regicide might become a necessary weapon in the 
 warfare of humanity, and though I knew that some of the 
 greatest spirits had recourse to it, I always thought this belief 
 the defect of your father's quality as a prophet and the limit 
 of his vision. But now I see that the only difference between 
 us was that his heart was bigger than mine, and that in those 
 cruel crises where the people are helpless and can do nothing 
 by constitutional means, revolution, not evolution, may seem 
 to be their only hope . . ." 
 
 Roma felt hysterical. There could no longer be any doubt 
 of Rossi's intention.
 
 502 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I don't tell you anything definite about our plans, dearest, 
 partly because of the danger of this letter going astray, and 
 partly because I don't think it right to saddle my wife with the 
 responsibility of knowing a programme that is weighted with 
 issues of such immense importance to so many. I know there 
 is not a drop of blood in her veins that isn't ready to flow for 
 me, but that is no reason for exposing her to the danger of 
 even the prick of her little finger. 
 
 " Briefly, our cry is ' Unite ! Unite ! Unite ! ' As soon as 
 our scheme is complete, and associates all over Europe receive 
 the word to commence concerted movement, the tyrants at the 
 heads of the States will find the old edifices riddled and honey- 
 combed, and ready to fall. 
 
 " Meantime the worst dangers are from the standing armies 
 with which the great States have surrounded themselves. This 
 was the evil that led to the disasters of the First of February. 
 It threatens further consequences now, so as a grain of mustard 
 seed may grow into a great tree, I send you a short proclama- 
 tion, and you will ask old Pellegrino to print 500 copies im- 
 mediately and deliver them to some one who will call in my 
 name. The messenger will be Malatesta, a member of our 
 party, who knows the means by which papers may be circu- 
 lated in barracks, and I think perhaps he owes me the risk he 
 will undertake in running the blockade. 
 
 " 'Soldiers The principle of universal love which was preached 
 from the 'Mount of Olives is far from fulfilled, although the world is 
 marching on under the rule of natural law to the abolition of war. 
 Begun in savage conditions, and having passed already through its per- 
 sonal, family, civic, and provincial developments, war is doomed to die 
 in that international union of the peoples which in the near or far-off 
 future will be the supreme victory of right over might. But in the 
 meanwhile I call on you as men who offer your country the sacrifice of 
 your lives to consider the moral bearing and legality of some of the 
 activities you are asked to undertake. 
 
 " ' The business of the soldier is to fight the enemies of his country, 
 and he has no right to fight his own people. When he does so he is 
 false to his masters, and therefore a rebel and a traitor. This is the 
 true logic, let who will gainsay it. 
 
 " ' Roman soldiers, inheritors of the glory of our fathers, when you 
 are commanded to execute martial law, does nothing tell you that you 
 are fighting against brothers? Refuse to do it. If ever again the 
 eagles of the army call on you to terrorise your brethren for demand- 
 ing the right to live, throw down your arms like brave men rather than 
 commit murder and fratricide. DA VID ROSSI.' "
 
 THE POPE 503 
 
 Roma imagined she could see everything as it was intended 
 to be the signal, the rising, the regicide. " There is a train at 
 2.30, I must catch that one," she thought. 
 
 " Dearest, don't attempt to reply to this letter, for I may 
 leave Berlin at any moment, but whether for Geneva or Zurich 
 I don't yet know. I can give you no address for letter or tele- 
 gram, and perhaps it is best that at the critical moment I 
 should cut myself off from all connection with Rome. Before 
 many days I shall be with you, my absence will be over, and 
 God willing I shall never leave your side again . . ." 
 
 Roma was growing dizzy. Rossi was rushing on his death 
 and there was no help for him. It was like the awful hand of 
 the Almighty driving him blindly on. 
 
 " I see that the Pope has been condemning me, and cutting 
 off the members of the ' Republic of Man ' from communion 
 with the Church. I'm sorry sorry for the poor souls who 
 yearn for supernatural religion and will now have to organise 
 themselves outside the Church and its tutelage sorry for the 
 Pope, towards whom I feel, have always felt, and will continue 
 to feel, a deep tenderness, let him denounce me as he will. Oh, 
 if that great heart with its pity for the poor, its compassion 011 
 the multitude, and its Christ-like love of women and little 
 children, could only put away its temporalities and its search 
 for dominion, the old Adam of Jesuitry, the sounding brass 
 and tinkling cymbals of clericalism, what a leader in the new 
 crusade he would be ! 
 
 " Adieu, my darling. Iveep well. A friend writes that 
 letters from Rome are following me from London. They must 
 be yours, but before they overtake me I shall be holding you in 
 my arms. How I long for it ! I am more than ever full of 
 love for you, and if I have filled my letter with business I have 
 other things to say to you the very moment that we meet. Don't 
 expect me until you see me in your room. Be brave ! Now is 
 the moment for all your courage. Remember you promised to 
 be my soldier as well as my wife ' ready and waiting when 
 her captain calls.' D." 
 
 Roma was standing with Rossi's letter in her hand her 
 face and lips white, and her head full of a roaring noise 
 when a knock came to the bedroom door. Before answering 
 she thrust the letter into the stove and set a match to it. 
 
 " Donna Roma ! Are you there, Signora ? " 
 
 " Wait . . come in."
 
 504 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The old woman's head, in its coloured handkerchief, ap- 
 peared through the half-opened door. 
 
 " A Frate in the sitting-room to see you, Signora." 
 
 It was Father Pifferi. The old man's gentle face looked 
 troubled. Roma gave him a rapid, penetrating, and fearful 
 glance. 
 
 " The Holy Father wishes to see you again," he said. 
 
 " Does he want me to ... to do any harm to my husband ? " 
 said Roma in a tremulous voice. 
 
 " Indeed no, my daughter. On the contrary, he wishes you 
 to save him." 
 
 Roma thought for a moment ; then she said, " Very well, 
 let us go," and she went back to her room to make ready. The 
 last of the letter was burning in the stove. 
 
 XIX 
 
 ROMA returned to the Vatican with the Capuchin. There 
 were the same gorgeous staircases and halls, the same soldiers, 
 chamberlains, Bussolanti and Monsignori, the same atmos- 
 phere of the palace of an emperor. But in the little plain 
 apartment which they entered, not as before by way of the 
 throne room, but by a secret corridor with cocoanut matting 
 and narrow frosted windows, the Pope stood waiting, like a 
 simple priest, in a white woollen cassock. 
 
 He smiled as Roma approached, a sad smile, and his weary 
 eyes, when she looked timidly into his face, were full of the 
 measureless pity that is in the eyes of the surgeon who is 
 about to vivisect a dumb creature because it is necessary for 
 the welfare of the human race. 
 
 She knelt arid kissed his ring. He raised her and put her to 
 sit on the lounge, sitting in the arm-chair himself, and con- 
 tinuing to hold her hand. The Capuchin stood by the window, 
 holding the curtain a little aside as if looking out on the piazza. 
 
 " You believe the Holy Father would not send for you to 
 injure yovi? " he said. 
 
 " I am sure he woiild not, your Holiness," she answered. 
 
 " And though I disapprove of your husband's doings, you 
 know I would not willingly do him any harm ? " 
 
 " The Holy Father would not do harm to any one ; and my 
 husband is so good, and his aims are so noble, that nobody who 
 really knew him could ever try to injure him,"
 
 THE POPE 505 
 
 He looked into her face; it shone with a frightened joy, and 
 pity grew upon him. 
 
 " Your devotion to your husband is very sweet and beauti- 
 ful, my daughter, and it grieves the Holy Father's heart to 
 trouble it. But it seems to be his duty to do so, and he must 
 do his duty." 
 
 Again she looked up timidly, and again the sense came to 
 him of dumb eyes full of entreaty. 
 
 " My daughter, your husband's motives may not be bad. 
 They may even be good and noble. It is often so with men of 
 his sympathies. They see the disparity of wealth and poverty, 
 and their hearts are torn with anger and with pity. They hear 
 great problems knocking at the door of life, and calling for 
 solution. They feel the unrest of suffering humanity, which is 
 preparing the consciences of men for the changes that must 
 surely come. But, my child, they do not know that true and 
 lasting reforms, such as affect the whole human family, 
 can only be accomplished by God and by the authority of 
 His Holy Church and Pontificate, and that it must be the 
 bell of St. Peter's which announces them to the world." 
 
 As the Pope was speaking the colour ran up Roma's face 
 like a flag of distress. She looked helplessly round at the 
 Capuchin. The dumb eyes seemed to ask when the blow 
 would fall. 
 
 " As a consequence, what is he doing, my daughter ? Ignor- 
 ing the Church, which like a true mother is ever anxious to 
 bear the burden of human weakness and suffering, he is setting 
 up a new gospel, such as would reduce mankind to a worse 
 barbarism than that from which Christ freed us. Is this con- 
 duct worthy of your devotion, my child ? " 
 
 Roma fixed her timid eyes on the Pope's face and an- 
 swered : 
 
 " I have nothing to do with my husband's opinions, your 
 Holiness. I have only to be true to the friendship he gives 
 me and the love I bear him." 
 
 " My child," said the Pope, " ask yourself what your hus- 
 band is doing at this moment. ^Xot content with sowing the 
 seeds of discord in Parliament and by the press, he is wan- 
 dering through Europe, gathering up the adventurers who work 
 in darkness in every country, and hatching a conspiracy which 
 would lead to a state of anarchy throughout the world." 
 
 Roma withdrew her hand from the hand of the Pope and 
 made an exclamation of dissent, 
 33
 
 506 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Ah, I know what you would say, my daughter. He did 
 not set out to produce anarchy. Such men never do. But 
 once they have started their mischievous propaganda the un- 
 thinking masses carry it to its logical issues. It is always so. 
 They begin with evolution and end with revolution. They 
 begin with peace and end with violence. And the only sequel 
 to your husband's aims must be the destruction of civil So- 
 ciety, of Government, and of the Church." 
 
 Roma's fingers were clasped convulsively in her lap. She 
 lifted her timid but passionate face and said : 
 
 " I know nothing about that, your Holiness. I only know 
 that whatever he is doing his heart laid it upon him as a duty, 
 and his heart is pure and noble." 
 
 " My daughter, your husband may be the greatest of pa- 
 triots in spirit and intention, but nevertheless he is one of the 
 criminal and visionary teachers of this unhappy time who are 
 deluding the ignorant crowd with promises that can never be 
 realised. Anarchy, chaos, the uprooting of religion and 
 morality, of justice, human dignity, and the purity of do- 
 mestic life these are the only possible fruits of the seed he 
 is sowing." 
 
 The timid eyes began to flash. " I did not come here to 
 hear this, your Holiness." The Pope put his hand tenderly on 
 her hands. 
 
 " Remember, my child, what you said yourself on your 
 former visit." 
 
 Roma dropped her head. 
 
 " The authorities know all about it." 
 
 "Holy Father!" 
 
 " It was necessary." 
 
 " Then . . . then somebody must have told them." 
 
 " I told them. The Holy Father revealed no more than 
 was necessary to relieve his conscience and to prevent crime. 
 It was your own tongue that told the rest, my daughter." 
 
 He recalled what had passed in the cabinet of the Prime 
 Minister, and Roma felt as if something choked her. " No 
 matter ! " she said, with the same frightened but passionate 
 face. " David Rossi is prepared for anything, and he will be 
 prepared for this." 
 
 " The authorities already knew more than I could tell 
 them," said the Pope. " They knew where your husband was 
 and what he was doing. They know where he is now, and they 
 are preparing to arrest him."
 
 THE POPE 5QY 
 
 Roma's nerves grew more and more excited, the timid look 
 gave place to a look of defiance. 
 
 " They tell me that he is in Berlin at this moment. Is it 
 true?" 
 
 Roma did not reply. 
 
 " They say their advices from official sources leave no doubt 
 that he is engaged in conspiracy." 
 
 Still Roma did not reply. 
 
 " They say confidently that the conspiracy points to rebel- 
 lion, and is intended to include regicide. Is it so ? " 
 
 Roma bit her lip and remained silent. 
 
 " Can't you trust me, my child? Don't you know the Holy 
 Father? Only give me some hope that these statements are 
 untrue, and the Holy Father is ready to withstand all evil in- 
 fluences against you, and face the world in your defence." 
 
 Roma felt as if something would snap within her brain. " I 
 cannot say ... I do not know," she faltered. 
 
 " But have you any uncertainty, my daughter ? If you 
 have the least reason to believe that these statements are 
 slanders of malicious imaginations, tell me so, and I will give 
 your husband the benefit of the doubt." 
 
 Roma rose to her feet, but she held on to the edge of the 
 table that stood by her side, rigid, quivering, frail and silent. 
 The Pope looked up at her with great weary eyes, and con- 
 tinued in a caressing tone: 
 
 " If unhappily you have no doubt that your husband is en- 
 gaged in dangerous enterprises can you not dissuade him from 
 them?" 
 
 " No," said Roma, struggling with her tears, " that is im- 
 possible. Whether he is right or wrong it is not for me to sit 
 in judgment upon him. Besides, long ago, before we were 
 married, I promised that I would never stand between him and 
 his work, and I never can, never." 
 
 " But if he loves you, my child, would he not wish for your 
 sake to avoid the danger ? " 
 
 " I can't ask him. I told him to go on without thinking of 
 me, and I would take care of myself whatever happened." 
 
 Her eyes were now shining with her tears. The Pope patted 
 the hand on the table. 
 
 " Can you not at least go to him and warn him, and thus 
 leave him to judge for himself, my daughter? " 
 
 " Yes . . . no, that is impossible also," 
 
 "Why so, my child?"
 
 508 TIIE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Because I don't know where he is, and I shouldn't know 
 where to find him. In his last letter he said it was better I 
 should not know." 
 
 " Then he has cut himself off from you entirely ? " 
 
 " Entirely. I am to see him next in Rome." 
 
 " And meantime, that he may not run the risk of being 
 1 raced by his enemies, he has stopped all channels of communi- 
 cation with his friends ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The Pope's face whitened visibly, and an inward voice said 
 to him, " This is God's hand. Death is waiting for the man in 
 Rome and he is walking blindly on to it." 
 
 The great weary eyes looked with compassion on Roma's 
 quivering face. " There's no help for it," thought the Pope. 
 He felt the stab in his own heart already. 
 
 " Suppose, my child . . . suppose it were within your power 
 to hinder evil consequences, would you do it ? " 
 
 " I am a woman, Holy Father. What can a woman do to 
 hinder anything ? " 
 
 " In the history of nations it has sometimes happened that 
 a woman has been able to save life and protect society by rais- 
 ing a little hand like this." 
 
 The Pope lifted Roma's quivering fingers from the table. 
 
 " If there is anything I can do, your Holiness, without 
 breaking my promise or betraying my husband . . ." 
 
 " It is a terrible ordeal, my child. For a wife, God knows 
 how terrible." 
 
 " No matter ! If it will save my husband . . . Tell me, 
 your Holiness." 
 
 He told her the proposal of the Prime Minister and the 
 promise of the King. His voice vibrated. He was like a man 
 who was wounding himself at every word. She looked at him 
 until he had finished, without ability to speak. 
 
 " You ask me to denounce my husband? " 
 
 " It is the only way to save him, my daughter." 
 
 She looked round the room with helpless eyes, full of a 
 dumb appeal for mercy or the chance of escape. Then the 
 blessed tears came again and she did not try to keep them 
 back. 
 
 " Holy Father," she said, in a choking voice, " that is what 
 his enemies have been asking me to do all this time, and be- 
 cause I have refused they have persecuted me with poverty 
 and shame. And now that I come to you for refuge and shelter,
 
 THE POPE 509 
 
 thinking your fatherly arms will protect me, you . . . even 
 you . . ." 
 
 She broke off as by a sudden thought, and said : " But it is 
 impossible. He is my husband, therefore 1 cannot witness 
 against him." 
 
 " My heart bleeds for you, my child, and I am ashamed to 
 gainsay you. But an oath is not necessary to a denunciation, 
 and if it were so the law of this unchristian country would not 
 recognise you as Rossi's wife." 
 
 " But he will know who has denounced him. I am the only 
 one in the world to whom he has told his secrets, and he will 
 hate me and part from me." 
 
 " You will have saved his life, my daughter." 
 
 " What is it to me to have saved his life if he is lost to me 
 for ever ? " 
 
 " Is it you that say that, my child you that have sacrificed 
 so much already ? Doesn't the highest love remember first the 
 welfare of the loved one and think of itself the last ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes ; I didn't know what I was saying. But he will 
 curse me for destroying his cause." 
 
 " His cause will be destroyed in any case. It is doomed 
 already. And when his visionary schemes are in the dust, and 
 all is lost and vain, and your tears are powerless to bring back 
 the past . . ." 
 
 " But he will be banished, and I shall never see him again." 
 
 " It will be the less of two evils, my child," said the Pope. 
 And in it the solemn, vibrating voice that rang in Eoma's ears 
 like the voice of Rossi, he added, " ' Whosoever sheds man's 
 blood by man shall his blood be shed.' " 
 
 The passionate and quivering face of the young woman was 
 again stricken dumb, and in a low tone the Pope went on to 
 picture the deep dishonour of a shameful death. 
 
 " Inglorious, degraded, with no future, no reward, leaving 
 no sweet memories of love and tenderness a tomb sealed with 
 silence over the ashes of an outcast son." 
 
 Again Roma held on to the table, feeling at every moment 
 as if she might fall with a crash. 
 
 " That's what would come to your husband if he were ar- 
 rested and condemned for a conspiracy to kill the King. And 
 even if the humane spirit of the age snatched him from death 
 what then ? A cell in a prison on a volcanic rock on the sea, 
 a stone sepulchre for the living dead, buried like a toad in a 
 hole left by the running lava of life, guarded, watched, tor-
 
 510 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tured in body and soul a figure of tremendous tragedy, the 
 hapless man once worshipped by the people spreading impotent 
 hands to the outer world, until madness comes to his relief and 
 suicide helps him to escape into eternity and leave only his 
 wasted body on the earth." 
 
 Roma could bear the nervous tension no longer. " I'll do 
 it," she said. 
 
 " My brave child ! " said the Capuchin, turning from the 
 window, with a face broken up by emotion. 
 
 " It is one thing to repeat a secret if it is to harm any one, 
 and quite another thing if it is to do good, isn't it ? " said 
 Roma, in a helpless, childlike voice. 
 
 " Indeed it is," said the Capuchin. " Your husband will 
 see that what you have done has saved him from death itself, 
 and he will love you more than ever." 
 
 " No, he will never forgive me I know that quite well. 
 He will never imagine I would have died rather than do it. 
 But I shall know I have done it for the best." 
 
 " Indeed you will." 
 
 " And though he may part from me, and half the world may 
 be between us he there and I here never to meet again . . . 
 in this world at least . . ." 
 
 " You will be like two streams flowing side by side, my 
 child, going to the same sea, and meeting only there." 
 
 Roma's eyes were shining with fresh tears, and she was 
 struggling to keep back her sobs. " When we parted on the 
 night he went away we said perhaps we were parting for ever 
 bidding a long farewell to all earthly affections, all love and 
 happiness. I promised to be faithful to death itself, I re- 
 member, but I was thinking of my own death, not his, and I 
 didn't imagine that to save his life I must betray his . . ." 
 
 But at that moment she broke down utterly, and the Pope, 
 who had returned to his seat, rose again to comfort her. 
 
 " Calm yourself, my daughter," he said. " What you are 
 going to do is an act of heroic self-sacrifice. Be brave and 
 heaven will reward you." 
 
 She grew calmer after a while, and then Father Pifferi 
 made arrangements for the visit to the Procura. He would call 
 for her at ten in the morning. 
 
 " Wait ! " said Roma. A new light had come into her face 
 the light of a new idea. 
 
 u What is it, my daughter ? " said the Pope. 
 
 " Holy Father, there is something I had forgotten. But I
 
 THE POPE 511 
 
 must tell you before it is too late. It may alter your view of 
 everything. When you hear it you may say, * You must not 
 speak a word. You shall not speak. It is impossible.' " 
 
 " Tell me, my child." 
 
 Roma hesitated and looked from the Capuchin to the Pope. 
 " How can I tell you ? " she said. " It is so difficult. I hadn't 
 meant to tell any one. Yet I must tell you I must tell 
 you now." 
 
 " Go on, my daughter." 
 
 " My husband's name . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Rossi is not really his name, your Holiness. It is the 
 name he took on returning to Italy, because the one he had 
 borne abroad had been involved in trouble." 
 
 " Just so," said the Pope, and he thought, " Such men often 
 have aliases." 
 
 " Holy Father, David Rossi was a friendless orphan." 
 
 " I have heard so," said the Pope. 
 
 " He never knew his father not even by name. His mother 
 was a poor unhappy woman who had been cruelly deceived by 
 everybody. She drowned herself in the Tiber." 
 
 " Poor soul ! " said the Pope, and thought to himself, " It 
 is the old sad story." 
 
 " He was nursed in the Foundling, your Holiness, and 
 brought up in a straw hut in the Campagna, and then sold as a 
 boy into England." 
 
 The Pope moved uneasily in his seat. " To how many 
 how very many of our poor Italian boys has this fate fallen ! " 
 he said. 
 
 " My father found him on the streets of London on a win- 
 ter's night, your Holiness, carrying a squirrel and an accordion. 
 He wore a ragged suit of velveteens which used to be laughed 
 at by the London boys, and that was all that sheltered his 
 little body from the cold. ' Some poor man's child,' my father 
 thought. But who can say if it was so, your Holiness ? " 
 
 The Pope was silent. A sudden change had come over his 
 face. Roma's eyes were held down, her voice was agitated, she 
 was scarcely able to speak. 
 
 " My father was angry with the boy's father, I remember, 
 and if at that time he had known where to find him I think he 
 would have denounced him to the public, or even the police." 
 
 The Pope's head sank in his breast; the Capuchin looked 
 steadfastly at Roma.
 
 512 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " But who knows if he was really to blame, your Holiness ? 
 He may have been a good man after all one of those who have 
 to suffer all their lives for the sins of others. Perhaps . . . 
 perhaps that very night he was walking the streets of London, 
 looking in vain among its waifs and outcasts for the little lost 
 boy who owned his own blood and bore his name.' 2 
 
 The Pope's face was white and quivering. His elbows 
 rested on the arms of his chair and his wrinkled hands were 
 tightly clasped. Roma's nerves were growing more and more 
 excited, but she struggled on. 
 
 " And perhaps he has told himself a hundred times since 
 then that whatever sins his son may have committed, and 
 whatever his faults and his errors, they are partly his own 
 transgressions, seeing that his boy was so friendless in the 
 world, and never had a father's hand to guide him." 
 
 Roma stopped. There was a prolonged silence. The at- 
 mosphere of the room seemed to be whirling round with fright- 
 ful rapidity to one terrific focus. 
 
 " Holy Father," said Roma at length, in a low tone, " if 
 David Rossi were your own son, would you still ask me to 
 denounce him ? " 
 
 The Pope lifted a face full of suffering and said in his deep, 
 vibrating voice, " Yes, yes ! More than ever for that a thou- 
 sand times more than ever." 
 
 " Then I will do it," said Roma. 
 
 The Pope rose up in great emotion, laid both hands on her 
 shoulder and said, " Go in peace, my daughter, and may God 
 grant you at least a little repose." 
 
 XX 
 
 AFTER recitation of the Rosary, the Pope, who had kept his 
 religious retreat throughout the day, announced, to the aston- 
 ishment of his chamberlains, his desire to walk in the garden 
 at night. With Father Pifferi carrying a long Etruscan lamp 
 he walked down the dark corridors with their surprised Pal- 
 frenieri, and across the open courtyards with their startled 
 sentinels, to where the arches of the Vatican opened upon the 
 soft spring sky. 
 
 The night was warm and quiet, and the moon, which had 
 just risen and was near the full, shone with steady brilliance. 
 Long black lines like walls marked the ilex hedges, and the
 
 THE POPE 513 
 
 great shadow of the dome of St. Peter's Was lying like a fallen 
 balloon on a flat plot of Italian gardening, in which the name 
 of Pius X. Pont. Max. was picked out in a box. 
 
 There was not a breath of wind, and no sound anywhere 
 save the occasional croaking of a frog, the church bells were 
 silent out of reverence for the penitential day, and the slum- 
 bering city itself, under a sheet of electric light, seemed to 
 listen and be still. 
 
 The venerable old men walked without speaking, and only 
 the beating of their sticks on the gravel seemed to break the 
 empty air. At length the Pope stopped and said : 
 
 " How strange it all was, Father Pifferi ! " 
 
 " Very strange, your Holiness," said the Capuchin. 
 
 " Rossi is not his name, it seems." 
 
 " ' Not really his name ' was what she said." 
 
 " His mother was deceived by every one, and she drowned 
 herself in the Tiber." 
 
 " That was so, your Holiness." 
 
 " He was nursed in the Foundling, brought up in the Cam- 
 pagna, and then sold as a boy into England." 
 
 " It is really extraordinary," said Father Pifferi. 
 
 " Most extraordinary," repeated the Pope. 
 
 They looked steadily at each other for a moment, and then 
 walked on in silence. Little sparks of blue light pulsed and 
 throbbed and floated before their faces, and the moon itself like 
 a greater firefly came and went in the interstices of the thin- 
 leaved trees. The Pope, who shuffled in his walking, stopped 
 again. 
 
 " Who can he be, I wonder ? " 
 
 The Capuchin drew a deep breath. " We shall know every- 
 thing to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Yes," said the Pope, " we shall know everything to- 
 morrow morning." 
 
 Some dark phantom of the past was hovering about them, 
 and they were afraid to challenge it. 
 
 At that moment the silence of the listening air was broken 
 by a long clear call, which rang out through the night without 
 any warning, and then stopped as suddenly. 
 
 " The nightingale," said the Pope. 
 
 A mighty flood of melody floated down from some unseen 
 place, in varying strains of divine music broken by many 
 pauses, and running through every phase of jubilation, sorrow, 
 and pain. It ended in a low wail of unutterable sadness, a
 
 514 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 pleading, yearning cry of anguish, which seemed to call on 
 God Himself to hear. When it was over, and all was hushed 
 around, the world seemed to have become void. 
 
 The Pope's feet shuffled on the gravel. " I shall never 
 forget it," he said. 
 
 " It was wonderful," said the Capuchin. 
 
 " I was thinking of that poor lady," said the Pope. " Her 
 pleading voice will ring in my ears as long as I live." 
 
 " Poor child ! " said the Capuchin. 
 
 " After all we could not have acted otherwise. Don't you 
 think so, Father Pifferi ? Considering everything, we could 
 not possibly have acted otherwise." 
 
 " Perhaps we could not, your Holiness." 
 
 They turned the bend of an avenue, where the path under 
 their feet rustled with the thick blossom shed from the over- 
 hanging Judas trees. 
 
 " Surely, this is where the little mother bird used to be," 
 said the Pope. 
 
 " So it is," said the friar. 
 
 " Strange, she has not sprung out as usual. Ah, Meesh is 
 not here, and perhaps that's the reason." And feeling for the 
 old sarcophagus, the Pope put his hand gently down into it. A 
 moment afterwards he said in another tone, " Father, the 
 young birds are gone." 
 
 " Flown, no doubt," said the friar. 
 
 " No. See," said the Pope, and he brought up a little nest 
 filled with a ruin of fluff and feathers. 
 
 " Meesh has been here, indeed," said the friar. 
 
 The venerable old men walked on in silence until they re- 
 entered the vaulted courtyards of the Vatican. Then the Pope 
 turned to the Capuchin and said in a breaking voice, " You'll 
 go with the poor lady to the Procura in the morning, Father 
 Pifferi. If the magistrates ask questions which they should not 
 ask, you will protect her, and even forbid her to reply, and if 
 she breaks down at the last moment you will support and com- 
 fort her. After that ... we must leave all to the Holy Spirit. 
 God's hand is in this thing ... it is in everything. He will 
 bring out all things well well for us, well for the Church, well 
 for the poor lady, and even for her husband, whoever he 
 may be." 
 
 " Whoever he may be," repeated the Capuchin.
 
 THE POPE 515 
 
 XXI 
 
 EARLY in the morning of Holy Saturday, Roma was sum- 
 moned as a witness before the Penal Tribunal of Rome. The 
 citation, which was signed by a magistrate, required that she 
 should present herself at the Procura at ten o'clock the same 
 day, " to depose about facts on which she would then be in- 
 terrogated," and she was warned that if she did not appear, 
 " she would incur the punishment sanctioned by Article 176 
 of the Code of Penal Procedure." 
 
 The city was not yet fully awake on that last of the peni- 
 tential days, the street calls were echoing in the fresh spring- 
 air and swallows were squirling overhead, when Roma set 
 out alone. 
 
 The Procura, which is the central home of the secret tri- 
 bunal, stands on the western bank of the Tiber. One of its 
 floors is devoted to the department of the Procurator of the 
 King, another floor to the department of the Procurator 
 General, and a third floor to the little cabinets of the Judges 
 of Inquiry, whose function it is to build up cases for the 
 public courts. 
 
 Roma found Father Pifferi waiting for her at the door of 
 the building. The old Capuchin looked anxious. He glanced 
 at her pale face and quivering lips and inquired if she had 
 slept. She answered that she was well, and they turned to go 
 upstairs. Carabineers were coming and going on the stone 
 steps. The house was full of movement. 
 
 On the landing of the first floor Commendatore Angelelli, 
 who was wearing a flower in his buttonhole, approached them 
 with smiles and quick bows to lead them to the office of the 
 magistrate. It was to be the office of the Procurator General 
 himself on this occasion, as reasons of prudence as well as 
 courtesy to Donna Roma required that the head of the depart- 
 ment should personally conduct the inquiry. 
 
 " Only a form," said the Questore. " It will be nothing 
 nothing at all." 
 
 Commendatore Angelelli led the way into a silent room 
 furnished in red, with carpet, couch, arm-chairs, table, a stove, 
 and two large portraits of the King and Queen. 
 
 " Sit down, please. Make yourselves perfectly comfort- 
 able," said the Chief of Police, and he passed into an ad- 
 joining room. 
 
 A moment afterwards he returned with two other men.
 
 516 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 One of them was an elderly gentleman, who wore with his 
 frock-coat a close-fitting velvet cap decorated with two bands 
 of gold lace. This was the Procurator General, and the other, a 
 younger man, carrying a portfolio, was his private secretary. 
 A marshal of Carabineers came to the door for a moment. 
 
 " Don't be afraid, my child. No harm shall come to you," 
 whispered Father Pifferi. The good Capuchin himself was 
 trembling visibly. 
 
 The Procurator General was gentle and polite, but he dis- 
 missed the Chief of Police, and would have dismissed the 
 Capuchin also, but for vehement protests. 
 
 " Very well, I see no objection, sit down again," he said. 
 
 It was a strange three-cornered interview. Father Pifferi, 
 quaking with fear, thought he was there to protect Roma. The 
 Procurator General, smiling and serene, thought she had come 
 to complete a secret scheme of personal revenge. And Roma 
 herself, sitting erect in her chair, in her black Eton coat and 
 straw hat, and with her wonderful eyes turning slowly from 
 face to face, thought only of Rossi, and was silent and calm. 
 
 The secretary opened his portfolio on the table and pre- 
 pared to write. The Procurator General sat in front of Roma 
 and leaned slightly forward. 
 
 " You are Donna Roma Volonna, daughter of the late 
 Prince Prospero Volonna ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " You were born in England and lived there as a child ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Although you were young when you lost your father, you 
 have a perfect recollection both of him and of his asso- 
 ciates ? " 
 
 " Of some of his associates." 
 
 " One of them was a young man who lived in his house as a 
 kind of adopted son ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You are aware that your father was unhappily involved in 
 political troubles ? " 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " You know that he was arrested on a serious charge ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " You also know that, when condemned to death by a mili- 
 tary tribunal for conspiring against the person of the late 
 sovereign, his sentence was commuted by the King, but that 
 one of his associates, condemned at the same time, and for the
 
 THE POPE 517 
 
 same crime, escaped all punishment because he was not then at 
 the disposition of the law? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That was the young man who lived with him as his 
 adopted son ? " 
 
 " It was." 
 
 There was a moment's pause during which nothing could 
 be heard but the quick breathing of the Capuchin and the 
 scratching of the secretary's pen. 
 
 " During the past few months you have made the acquaint- 
 ance in Rome of the Deputy David Rossi ? " 
 
 " I have." 
 
 The Capuchin moved in his seat. " Acquaintance ! The 
 lady is married to the Deputy." 
 
 The Procurator General's eyes rose perceptibly. " Mar- 
 ried?" 
 
 " That is to say religiously married, which is all the Church 
 thinks necessary." 
 
 " Ah, I see," said the Procurator General, suppressing a 
 smile. " Still I must ask the lady to make her statement in her 
 natal name." 
 
 " Go on, sir," said the Capuchin. 
 
 " Your intimacy with the Honourable Rossi has no doubt 
 led him to speak freely on many subjects ? " 
 
 " It has." 
 
 " He has perhaps told you that Rossi was not his father's 
 name." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That it was his mother's name, and though strictly his 
 legal name also, he has borne it only since his return to 
 Rome?" 
 
 " That is so." 
 
 It was the Capuchin's turn to look surprised. His sandalled 
 feet shuffled on the carpet, and he prepared to take snuff. 
 
 " The Honourable Rossi has been some weeks abroad, and 
 during his absence you have no doubt received letters from 
 him?" 
 
 " I have." 
 
 " Can you tell me if in any of these letters he has said any- 
 thing of a certain revolutionary propaganda ? " 
 
 The Capuchin, with his finger and thumb half raised, 
 stopped and said, " I forbid the question, sir." 
 
 " Father General ! "
 
 518 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I mean that I counsel the lady not to answer it." 
 
 The Procurator General suppressed another smile, directed 
 this time at Koma, and said, " Bene! " 
 
 " Be calm, my daughter," whispered the Capuchin. 
 
 " At least," said the Procurator General, " you can now be 
 certain that you had seen the Honourable Rossi before you met 
 him in Rome ? " 
 
 " I can." 
 
 " In fact you recognise in the illustrious Deputy the young- 
 man condemned in contumacy eighteen years ago ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Perhaps in his letters or conversations he has even ad- 
 mitted the identity ? " 
 
 " He has." 
 
 " Only one more question, Donna Roma," said the Procura- 
 tor General, with another smile. " Your father's name in 
 England was Doctor Roselli, and the name of his young con- 
 federate . . ." 
 
 " Courage, my child," whispered the Capuchin, taking 
 Roma's ice-cold hand in his own trembling one. 
 
 " The name of his young confederate was . . ." 
 
 " David Leone," said Roma, lifting her eyes to the face of 
 Father Pifferi. 
 
 " So David Leone and David Rossi are one and the same 
 person ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Roma, and the Capuchin dropped back in his 
 seat as if he had been dealt a blow. 
 
 " Thank you. I need trouble you no more. My secretary 
 will now prepare the precis." 
 
 Commendatore Angelelli returned with the Carabineer, and 
 there was some talking in low tones. " Report for the Com- 
 mittee of the Chamber, sir ? " " That is unnecessary at this 
 moment, the House having risen for Easter." " Warrant for 
 the arrest, then ? " " Certainly. Here is the form. Fill it 
 up, and I will sign." 
 
 While the secretary wrote his precis at one side of the table, 
 the Chief of Police prepared his mandato at the other 'side, re- 
 peating the words to the Carabineer who stood behind his 
 chair. " We . . . considering the conclusions of the Public 
 Minister . . . according to Article 187 of the Code . . . order 
 the arrest of David Leone, commonly called David Rossi . . . 
 imputed guilty of attempted regicide in the year . . . and 
 tried and condemned in contumacy for the crime contem-
 
 THE POPE 519 
 
 plated in Article . . . And to such effect we require the 
 Corps of the Royal Carabineers to conduct him before us to be 
 interrogated on the facts above stated, and call on all officials 
 and agents of the public force to lend a strong hand for the 
 execution of the present warrant. Age, 34 years. Height, 1.79 
 metres. Forehead, lofty. Eyes, large and dark. Nose, Roman. 
 Hair, black with short curls. Beard and moustache, clean 
 shaven. Corporatura, distinguished." 
 
 When the secretary had finished his precis he read it aloud 
 to Roma and his superior. 
 
 " Good ! Give the lady the pen. You will sign this paper, 
 Donna Roma and that will do." 
 
 Roma and Father Pifferi had both risen. " Courage," the 
 Capuchin tried to say, but his quivering lips emitted no sound. 
 Roma stood a moment with the pen in her fingers, and her 
 great eyes looked slowly round the room. Then she stooped 
 and wrote her name rapidly. 
 
 At the same moment the Procurator General signed the war- 
 rant, whereupon the Chief of Police handed it to the Cara- 
 bineer, saying, " Lose no time Chiasso," and the soldier went 
 out hurriedly. 
 
 Roma held the pen a moment longer, and then it dropped 
 out of her fingers. 
 
 " Come," said the Capuchin, and they left the room. 
 
 There was a crowd on the embankment by the corner of the 
 Ripetta bridge. The body of a beggar had been brought out 
 of the river, and it was lying there for the formal inspection 
 of the officials who report on cases of sudden death. Roma 
 stopped to look at the dead man. It was Old John. He had 
 committed suicide. 
 
 Father Pifferi took Roma's arm and drew her away from 
 the painful spectacle. But nothing mattered to her now. She 
 was like a woman walking in her sleep. 
 
 XXII 
 
 IT was said at the Vatican that the Pope had not slept all 
 night. The attendant whose duty it was to lie awake while the 
 Holy Father expected to sleep said he heard him praying in 
 the dark hours, and at one moment he heard him singing a 
 hymn. 
 
 To the Pope it had been a night of searching self-examina-
 
 520 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tion. Pictures of his life had passed before him in swift re- 
 view, pulsing and throbbing out of the darkness like the light 
 of a firefly, now come, now gone. 
 
 First the Conclave, the three scrutators, and himself as 
 one of them. The first scrutiny, the second scrutiny, the third 
 scrutiny, and his own name going up, up, up, as he pro- 
 claimed the votes in a loud voice so that all in the chapel might 
 hear. One vote more to his own name, another, still another; 
 his fear, his fainting ; the gentle tones of an old Cardinal say- 
 ing, "Take your time, brother; rest, repose a while." Then 
 the election, the awful sense of being God's choice, the almost 
 unearthly joy of the supreme moment when he became the 
 Vicar of Christ on earth. 
 
 Then the stepping forth from the dim conclave into the full 
 light of day to be proclaimed the representative of the Al- 
 mighty, the living voice of God, the infallible one. The sun- 
 less chapel, the white and crimson vestments, the fisherman's 
 ring, the vast crowd in the blazing light of the piazza, the sud- 
 den silence, and the clear cry of the Cardinal Deacon ring- 
 ing out under the blue sky, " I announce to you joyful tidings 
 the Most Eminent and Reverend Cardinal Leone, having 
 taken the name of Pius X., is elected Pope." Then the call of 
 silver trumpets, the roar of ten thousand human throats, the 
 surging mass of living men below the balcony, and the joybells 
 ringing out the glad news from every church tower in Rome, 
 that a new King and Pontiff had been given by God to His world. 
 
 How long ago it all appeared ! And in the meantime-r- 
 what? Ten years of imprisonment in one house, never going 
 further than the limits of the little plot of land which lay 
 about it, never seeing any faces but those of the people who 
 came to kneel at his feet, never hearing any voices save those 
 which hailed him as the representative of the Almighty; but 
 nevertheless knowing only one goal, pursuing one idea, cherish- 
 ing one hope, brooding over one dream the goal of an earthly 
 theocracy, the idea of a world-dominion for the Church, the 
 hope of a golden age for the gospel, the dream of a time when 
 Christ himself in the person of His Vicar would take up the 
 government of his people, when the Eternal City would be re- 
 stored to its rightful king, when Peter's holy sword would es- 
 tablish a spiritual and temporal sovereignty, and build up 
 that Kingdom of God which was to cover all the kingdoms 
 of the earth! Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus 
 triumphat !
 
 THE POPE 521 
 
 Somewhere in the dark hours the Pope dozed off, and then 
 Sleep, the maker of visions, dispelled his dream. Another 
 picture a picture which had pursued him at intervals both in 
 sleeping and waking hours, ever since the great day when he 
 stepped out on to the balcony and was saluted as a god came 
 to him again that night. He called it his presentiment. The 
 scene was always the same. A darkened room, a chapel, an 
 altar, himself on his knees, with the sense of Someone bending 
 over him, and an awful voice saying into his ears : " You, the 
 Vicar of Jesus Christ; you, the rock on which the Saviour 
 built His Church; you, the living voice of God; you, the in- 
 fallible one; you, who fill the most exalted dignity on earth 
 remember you are but clay! " 
 
 The Pope awoke with a start, and to break the oppression 
 of painful thoughts he turned on the light, propped himself up 
 in bed, and taking a book from the night table he began to read. 
 It was the story of a father doomed to destroy his son, or suffer 
 the son to destroy the father. They had been separated early 
 in the son's life, and now that they met again they met as foes, 
 and the son drew his sword upon his father without knowing 
 who he was ! 
 
 One by one the incidents of the history linked themselves 
 with the incidents of the day before, and the lonely old man of 
 the Vatican childless, kinless, homeless for all his state, and 
 cut off from every human tie began to think of things that 
 were still farther back than the conclave and the proclama- 
 tion- things of the dead past which nature had seemed to 
 bury with so kind a hand, covering the grave with grass and 
 flowers. 
 
 A sweet young face, timid and trustful ; a sudden shock such 
 as makes the world crumble beneath a man's feet; a vague 
 sense of guilt and shame, unreasonable, unmerited, unjustifi- 
 able, yet not to be put away ; a blank period of humiliation ; the 
 opening of eyes in a new world; the humblest place in a re- 
 ligious house; the kitchen of the Novitiate. Then a great 
 yearning, a great restlessness; coming out of the convent; dis- 
 pensations ; holy orders ; works of charity ; travels in foreign 
 lands and searchings day and night in the streets of a cruel 
 city for some one who had been lost and was never found. 
 
 The Pope put down the book and turned out the light. It 
 was then that he sang and prayed. 
 
 When Cortis came with the Pope's breakfast in the frayed 
 edge of the morning (for the Vatican is an early house), the 
 34
 
 522 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 chamberlain outside the bedroom door whispered to the valet, 
 " The Holy Father has been with the angels all night long." 
 
 There was a Papal " Chapel " in St. Peter's that morning 
 with a procession of white vestments in honour of the Mass of 
 the Resurrection, but the Pope did not attend. He sat alone in 
 his simple chamber, with curtains drawn across the marble 
 columns to obscure the bed, fingering the crucifix which 
 hung from his neck, and waiting for the ringing of the Easter 
 bells. 
 
 The little door to the private corridor opened quietly, and 
 Father Pifferi entered the room. 
 
 "Well?" said the Pope. 
 
 " It is all over," said the Capuchin. 
 
 " Did the poor child . . . did she bear up bravely ? " 
 
 " Very bravely, your Holiness." 
 
 " No weakness, no hysteria ? She did not faint or break 
 down at the end ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, she was composed perfectly composed 
 and quiet." 
 
 " Thank God ! " 
 
 " It was most extraordinary. A woman denouncing her 
 husband, and yet so calm, so terribly calm." 
 
 " God helped her to bear her burden. God help all of us 
 in our hour of need ! " 
 
 The Pope lifted the crucifix to his lips, and added, " And 
 the man ? " 
 
 "Rossi?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " After she had signed the denunciation a warrant for his 
 arrest was made out and given to the Carabineers." 
 
 " It mentioned everything ? " 
 
 " Everything." 
 
 " Who he is and all about him ? " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness." 
 
 The Pope fingered his crucifix again, and said, " Who is he, 
 Father Pifferi ? " 
 
 The Capuchin did not reply. 
 
 " Father Pifferi, I ask you who he is ? " 
 
 Still the Capuchin did not reply, and the Pope smiled a 
 pitiful smile, touched the friar's arm with a caressing gesture, 
 and said, " Don't be afraid for the Holy Father, carissimo. If 
 that poor child, who would have died rather than sacrifice her 
 husband, could be so calm and strong . . ."
 
 THE POPE 523 
 
 "Holy Father," said the Capuchin, "when you asked the 
 lady to denounce David Eossi you thought of him only as an 
 enemy of the Church and of its head, trying to pull down both 
 and destroy civil society isn't that so ? " 
 
 The Pope bent his head. 
 
 "Holy Father, if ... if you had known that he was 
 something more than that . . . something nearer ... if, for 
 example, you had been told that . . . that he was the relative 
 of a priest, would you have asked for his denunciation just 
 the same ? " 
 
 The old Capuchin had stammered, but the Pope answered in 
 a firm voice, " That would have made no difference, my son. 
 The blessed Scriptures do not conceal the sin of Judas, and 
 shall we conceal the offences of those who come within the 
 circle of our own families ? " 
 
 " Holy Father," said the Capuchin, " if you had been told 
 that he was related to a prelate of your domestic house- 
 hold . . ." 
 
 He stopped, and the Pope answered in a voice that trembled 
 slightly, " Still it would have made no difference. The enemies 
 of the Almighty are watching day and night, and shall His 
 holy Church be imperilled and abased by the weakness of 
 His servant ? " 
 
 " Holy Father, if ... if you had been told that . . . that 
 he was the kinsman of a Cardinal? " 
 
 The Pope was struggling to control himself. " Even then 
 it would have made no difference. I am old and weak, but God 
 would have supported me, and though I had been called upon 
 to cut off my right hand, or give my body to be burned, 
 still . . ." 
 
 His voice quivered and died in his throat, and there was a 
 moment's pause. 
 
 " Holy Father," said the Capuchin, turning his eyes away, 
 " if you had been told that he was the nearest of kin to the 
 Pope himself . . ." 
 
 The Pope dropped the crucifix which was trembling in his 
 hand, and half rose from his chair. " Then . . . even then 
 ... it would have . . . but the will of God be done," he said, 
 and he could not utter another word. 
 
 At that moment the Easter bells began to ring. The deep- 
 toned bell of St. Peter's came first with its joyful peal, and 
 then the bells of the other churches of the city took up the 
 rapturous melody. In the Basilica the veil before the altar had
 
 524 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 been rent with a loud crash, and the Gloria in Excelsis was 
 being sung. 
 
 At the same moment a prelate vested in a white tunic en- 
 tered the Pope's room, and kneeling in the middle of the floor, 
 he said, " Holy Father, I announce to you great joy. Hal- 
 lelujah! The Lord is risen again." 
 
 The Pope tried to rise from his seat, but could not do so. 
 " Help me, Monsigiior," he said faintly, and the prelate raised 
 him to his feet. Then leaning on the prelate's arm, he walked 
 to the door of his private chapel. On reaching it he looked 
 back at Father Pifferi, who was going silently out of the room. 
 
 " Addio, carissimo," he said, in a pitiful voice, but the 
 Capuchin could not reply. 
 
 Some moments afterwards the Pope was quite alone. 
 The arched windows of the little chapel were covered with 
 heavy red curtains, but the clanging of the brass tongues in the 
 cupola, the deep throb of the organ, and the rolling waves of 
 the voices of the people singing the grand Hallelujah, found 
 their way into the darkened chamber. But above all other 
 sounds in the ears of the Pope as he lay prostrate on the altar 
 steps was the sound of a voice which said, " You, the Vicar 
 of Jesus Christ : you, the rock on which the Saviour built His 
 Church; you, the living voice of God; you, the infallible one; 
 you, who fill the most exalted dignity on earth remember you 
 are but clay! " 
 
 XXIII 
 
 "AcQUA Acetosa!" " Eoba Vecchia!" " Kannocchie ! " 
 The street cries were ringing through the Navona, the 
 piazza was alive with people, and strangers were saluting each 
 other as they passed on the pavement when Roma returned 
 home. At the lodge the Garibaldian wished her a good Easter, 
 and at the door of the apartment the curate of the parish, who 
 in cotta and biretta was making his Easter call to sprinkle the 
 rooms with holy water, gave her a smile and his blessing, while 
 old Francesca inside the house, laying the Easter sideboard 
 of cakes, sausages, and eggs, put both hands behind her back, 
 like a child playing a game, and cried : 
 
 " Now, what does the Signora think I've got for her ? " 
 It was a letter, and as the old woman produced it she was 
 glowing with happiness at the joy she was bringing to Roma. 
 " The porter from Trinita de' Monti brought it," she said,
 
 THE POPE 525 
 
 " and he told me to tell you there's a lay sister called Sister 
 Angelica at the convent now, and he is afraid that other letters 
 may go astray . . . Aren't you glad you've got a letter, Si- 
 gnora ? I thought Signora would die of delight, and I gave the 
 man six soldi." 
 
 Roma was turning the envelope over and over in her hands, 
 thinking what a call to joy a letter of Rossi's used to be, and 
 wondering if she ought to open this one. 
 
 " Well, that was the way with me too when Tommaso was 
 at the wars. But this is Easter, Signora, and the Blessed Vir- 
 gin wouldn't bring you bad news to-day. Listen ! That's the 
 Gloria. I can always hear the church bells on Holy Saturday. 
 The first time after I was deaf Joseph was a baby, and I took the 
 wrappings off his little feet while the bells were ringing, and he 
 walked straight away ! 
 
 The letter was dated from Zurich. It ran : 
 
 " MY DEAR ROMA, Your letters and I seem to be running a 
 race which shall return to you first. I was compelled to leave 
 Berlin before my long-delayed correspondence could arrive 
 from London, and now it seems probable that I must leave 
 Zurich before it can follow me from Berlin. As a consequence 
 I have not heard from you for weeks not since your letter 
 about your friend, you remember and I am in agonies of im- 
 patience to know what has happened to you in the interval. 
 
 " I came to Switzerland the day before yesterday, pushed 
 on by the urgency of affairs at home. Here we hold the last 
 meeting of our international committee before I go back to 
 Italy. This will be to-morrow (Friday) night, and according 
 to present plans I set out for Rome on Saturday morning. 
 
 " How different my return will be from my flight a few 
 Aveeks ago ! Then I was plunged in despair, now I am buoyed 
 up with hope ; then my soul was furrowed by doubts, now it is 
 braced up with certainties; then my idea was a dream, now it 
 is a practical reality. 
 
 " Oh, Roma, my Roma, it is a good thing to live. After 
 all, the world is no Gethsemane, and when a man has a beauti- 
 ful life like yours belonging to him he may be forgiven if he 
 forgets the voices which assail him with fears. They have 
 come to me sometimes, dearest, in this long and cruel silence, 
 and I have asked myself hideous questions. What is happen- 
 ing to my dear one in the midst of my enemies ? What suffer- 
 ings are being inflicted upon her for my sake? She is brave,
 
 526 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 and will bear anything, but did I do right to leave her behind ? 
 Bruno died rather than betray me, and she will do more 
 infinitely more in her eyes she will see me die, rather than 
 imperil a cause which is a thousand times more dear to me 
 than my life. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed at this language, dearest. At the bot- 
 tom of my heart I know that nothing fatal is going to occur. 
 Never have I felt so sure of the future. What signs of the 
 times everywhere ! In England, notwithstanding temporary 
 reaction; in France, notwithstanding the domination of the 
 army; in Germany, notwithstanding anti-liberal and pseudo- 
 social legislation; in Russia itself, that ancient rampart of 
 despotism, notwithstanding the spasms of effete Czardom; and 
 in our own lovely and beloved Italy, notwithstanding the 
 thunder of the Vatican and the lightning of the Quirinal ! 
 
 " Addio, carissimo ! Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as 
 a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death. If there 
 were any possibility of our love increasing it would increase 
 after going through dangers like these. Keep well, dearest. 
 Preserve that sweet life which is so precious to me that I can- 
 not live without it. Do you remember, it was the 2nd of Feb- 
 ruary when we parted in the darkness at the church door, and 
 now it is Easter, and the day after to-morrow we shall hear the 
 Easter bells ! Spring is here, and in the unchangeable change- 
 ableness of nature I see the resurrection of humanity and 
 listen to the Gloria of God. 
 
 " You cannot answer this letter, dear, because I shall al- 
 ready be on the way to Rome before it reaches you, but you can 
 send me a telegram to Chiasso. Do so. I shall look out for the 
 telegraph boy the moment the train stops at the station. Say 
 you are well and happy and waiting for me, and it will be like 
 a smile from your lovely lips and eyes on the frontier of my 
 native land. 
 
 " My train is due to reach Rome 011 Sunday morning at 
 seven o'clock. Perhaps I might have timed the journey so as to 
 arrive on Saturday night, but for one consideration. May I 
 whisper it ? I couldn't possibly go to an hotel with you so near 
 it wouldn't be human, would it ? and yet I do not want to go 
 to the ISTavona until we have completed that civil marriage at 
 the Capitol which we were compelled to leave unfinished. To 
 tell you the truth, I have now some doubts about our religious 
 marriage, seeing that one of us was unbaptised. Meet me, 
 therefore, at the railway station on Sunday morning, and let
 
 THE POPE 527 
 
 your face be the first I see when the train draws up in Rome. 
 Then ... let me hear your voice, and let my heart become 
 a King. D. R." 
 
 Roma had grown paler and paler as she read this letter. 
 The man's love and "trust were crushing her. Tears filled her 
 eyes and flooded her face. But her soul, which had been 
 stunned and had fallen, recovered itself and arose.
 
 PAET EIGHT 
 THE KING 
 
 IN the middle of Europe and on the border of the freest of 
 its free lands, surrounded by mountains yet with roads from 
 every other country converging on its centre as spokes on the 
 axle of a wheel, there is a little city which has long been a 
 rallying point for liberty and is still an asylum of exiles and 
 refugees. This city is Zurich, associated in the eye of com- 
 merce with silk and music, but in the eye of political history 
 Avith theoretical ideas, with plans of campaign, with councils 
 and conspiracies, and even the secret plots and crimes which 
 have shaken the thrones of the world. 
 
 On the night of Good Friday, in one of the sheltered restau- 
 rants which fringe the lake on which Zurich stands, a group 
 of twenty to thirty men were taking an evening meal together 
 in honour of David Rossi's return to Home. 
 
 They were at once a pathetic and a humorous company. 
 Soldiers of the Revolution and dreamers of dreams, there was 
 hardly one of them who had not spent a part of his life in 
 prison. Poets and visionaries, they were all poor and some 
 were penniless, but they beheld radiant palaces where others 
 saw miserable huts. Lassallians, Marxists, Guesdists, Possi- 
 bilists, Boulangists, and heaven knows what, devoted to great 
 ideas, living for them, suffering for them, and ready to die for 
 them, however hopeless or even foolish, full of vapourings or 
 wanting in practical sense they might be, yet the saving grace 
 of an unfailing good-humour was among these children of to- 
 morrow; and as they ate their German hams and tongues and 
 drank their pots of Bale beer, they laughed like boys escaped 
 from school. 
 
 Then came the speeches, impassioned denunciations of the 
 social system and fervid international prophecies. The first 
 528
 
 THE KING 529 
 
 speaker was a tall, spare Frenchman, with long grey hair and 
 drooping Chinese moustaches, wearing a large-brimmed soft 
 hat and a flowing cloak, and looking like a wandering Trouba- 
 dour. He was for revolution in general, and particularly for 
 the extermination of kings. 
 
 " The crowned heads of Europe make a great noise when one 
 of themselves is assassinated," said the Frenchman, " but what 
 of the thousands of poor men and soldiers whom they are 
 always killing ? " 
 
 The next speaker was an Italian residing in Zurich, a man 
 with blazing eyes, upturned moustache, and a hat pulled over 
 his eyes after the manner of the villain of a booth show. He 
 was for exterminating the Pope. Kings, thank God, were 
 exterminating themselves, physically and morally, by those 
 intermarriages for which a corrupt autocratic Church, pretend- 
 ing to uphold the Council of Trent, was granting dispensations 
 at great cost. But the Pope, with his expedients to perpetuate 
 the eternal tyranny of clericalism, was trying to get hold of 
 men's souls and bodies, consciences, and worldly goods. 
 
 " Let us tell him he can't do it," said the Italian. " His 
 thunderbolts against the ' Republic of Man ' are only the 
 roarings of a man dancing on hot ploughshares. The world 
 has no use for a Pope who has only put off the old man to 
 put on the old woman." 
 
 Then came a big, bluff German, with a shaggy head and 
 face, stern nose and mouth, but kindly and humorous eyes. 
 He was against Christianity generally, as an enemy of liberty 
 and progress. The Gospel was antiquated and useless. It tried 
 to withdraw the labouring classes from the struggle for their 
 rights, and exhorted them to patience and submission. 
 
 " So far as this world goes, the Gospel of Jesus Christ 
 leaves the poor man in the lurch," said the German. " Some 
 pretend to believe that to religion is assigned the mission of 
 bringing a new social and political order, based on the common 
 brotherhood of man. Nonsense! No use scratching a chil- 
 blain. The Gospel is the faith of slaves and dotards, out of 
 sympathy with civilisation, and the people's cause is riding on 
 the billows that are sweeping it to destruction." 
 
 A Swiss speaker followed a man with a large idealist fore- 
 head and a mass of glossy black hair thrown back from it 
 denouncing militarism, and congratulating his own country on 
 not paying millions to join the game of European diplomacy. 
 
 Then came a gigantic Russian with tired eyes and a jaded
 
 530 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 expression. He also was for revolution. The sanguinary 
 struggle of '48 would be repeated, the ' days of June ' would 
 return, the proletariat in the theatre of European politics 
 would again play its part. 
 
 " War is war," said the Kussian, " and the people of my 
 country, feeling themselves for the first time to be a part of the 
 great human family, will not be content much longer to fight 
 in the darkness of subterranean passages." 
 
 Then David Rossi's health was drunk as " the new com- 
 mander-in-chief of freedom," " the inspired saint of a divine 
 idea," " the son and heir of Mazzini " ; and amid frantic shouts 
 from the old soldiers of the Revolution, and clapping of hands 
 from an unseen crowd of listeners (poor men from the Italian 
 quarter of Zurich) standing outside under the open windows, 
 the guest rose to reply. 
 
 He was noticeably changed since his flight from Rome. His 
 bronzed face was paler, his cheeks thinner, his dark eyes looked 
 larger, his tall figure stooped perceptibly, and he had the air of 
 a man who was struggling to conceal a consuming nervousness. 
 His speech, which was spoken in a voice worn by over-use, was 
 an adroit effort to compose conflicting groups. 
 
 He began with a rapid eulogy of every country represented 
 in the company England, the refuge of the world's reformers ; 
 France, the grave of absolutism and the birthplace of individual 
 rights; Germany, the cradle of unity; America, the pioneer of 
 light in lands of darkness; Russia, the scene of an awakening 
 people; Switzerland, the home of the Referendum, free as her 
 pine-clad mountains and stable as her granite rocks ; and last of 
 all his own beloved Italy, mother of the nations, and destined 
 leader of a new regime. 
 
 Thus taking his hearers captive at the outset, he proceeded 
 to demolish nearly everything they had said. 
 
 " Let us not trouble to abuse the kings," he said. " The 
 kings of Europe are good men for the most part, honestly 
 trying to do their best for their people, and even using the 
 weapons of socialism and republicanism to cut the ground from 
 under socialists and republicans. It is the only way they can 
 live a little longer, and the world can afford to leave them 
 alone." 
 
 " Good ! " shouted the Frenchman in the broad-brimmed hat. 
 
 " Let us not abuse the Pope either," said Rossi. " Pius X. 
 is a saint on earth, if ever there was one; and if he has exer- 
 cised arbitrary power in the name of religion, I ask you which
 
 THE KING 531 
 
 of us could have gone through ten years' seclusion in one hoiise, 
 believing his rule infallible and his judgments the direct channel 
 of the Holy Ghost, and not come out of it a worse man than he 
 was before, an hallucinated person, a tyrant, and perhaps a 
 madman ? " 
 
 " Hear ! hear ! " cried the Italian with the blazing eyes. 
 
 " And above all, let us not abuse the Gospel," said Rossi. 
 " No religion ever set to work with such an energetic social 
 mission; the message of Jesus is a message to man in his 
 worldly as well as other-worldly situation, and Christianity is 
 far from being a world-denying creed which has no goal to set 
 before this life. The Gospel aims at founding a kingdom on 
 earth as deep as human need and as pure as the kingdom of 
 heaven, and in that prayer which some of us have taken as 
 the charter of our association, the founder of our faith has 
 turned a light upon the world of hunger, poverty, misery, and 
 disease." 
 
 " Bravo ! " shouted the big, bluff German. 
 
 " Let us respect the Church too," said Rossi, " remembering 
 the little sweet churches scattered over every land, with their 
 crosses and spires, the standards of the everlasting to the four 
 winds; their altars, with their deep and touching influences 
 at marriage, birth, and death; their good priests and devoted 
 sisters, with their self-sacrifice and sympathy among our 
 women and children. Shall we disturb this messenger of the 
 Eternal? God forbid it !" 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! " Some of the unbelieving soldiers of the 
 Revolution were using their pipe-hands to wipe their eyes. 
 
 " Brothers," said Rossi, " we are enemies of the monarchy, 
 not of the monarchs, of the Papacy, not of the Pope, but we are 
 not going to exterminate either of them by violence. Regicide 
 and revolution are after all only the old iron of progress, and 
 murder does not cease to be murder because it is used to pre- 
 vent murder. Such weapons are of no use in the war of 
 civilisation, and we repudiate and disown them." 
 
 The gigantic Russian, caught up in the contagion of the 
 moment, was cheering lustily. 
 
 " All the same we are conspirators," said Rossi. " I am a 
 conspirator. I have been a conspirator all my life. I am a 
 conspirator against the king of my own country, and I am 
 a conspirator against the Pope. I left Rome in order to carry 
 out a conspiracy intended to pull them down eventually. But 
 my weapon is knowledge, not gunpowder, and by your help, as
 
 532 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 an international organisation, I have been able to create such a 
 network of associations that for the future the civilised world 
 must know everything that happens in Italy. If that works 
 well it will be enough. It will put an end to kings who feast 
 while their people famish more effectually than any regicide. 
 Public opinion is the most powerful force in the world, and no 
 evil can live long in the face of it. Daggers and revolvers, the 
 mad riots of the piazza and the revolts of the barricades, are as 
 nothing compared with the power of knowledge. Educate! 
 Educate! Associate! Associate! These are our watchwords 
 and our weapons of warfare." 
 
 The shouts of the men inside the supper room were drowned 
 by the clapping of hands of those without. Rossi's voice 
 softened and his eyes glistened when he came to a close. 
 
 " I am going back to Home to-morrow, and I thank you for 
 this send-off. Since I left home two months ago, the strokes of 
 fate have fallen thick and fast upon me. There are friends 
 I shall not find they have paid for their fidelity with their 
 blood. Others have suffered for my sake, and been tempted 
 and tried and tortured. Brothers, I ask you to remember our 
 women. We do not always think of them. When in our 
 youth we burn our ships behind us, and because we love truth 
 better than ourselves, take up a course which we know before- 
 hand must be beset by storm and tempest, we are apt to forget 
 the wives who have to share it with us. They do not think of 
 our ideals, and their politics are generally another name for 
 love. So much the sweeter and nobler their existence of 
 loyalty and self-sacrifice. Don't we all know the story of it? 
 A girl, well-born and tenderly nurtured, perhaps surrounded by 
 luxury, after a struggle with society or family, comes bravely 
 to share a life of love and poverty with her refugee, her revolu- 
 tionary, marked out from the first for exile or prison or the 
 scaffold. God bless all women ! Is there a man in the world 
 who could do what they do every day? Not one." 
 
 At the end of Rossi's speech some of the old soldiers of the 
 Revolution embraced him and wept over him. Then, gloriously 
 full of Bale beer, they tried to escort him back to his hotel, but 
 he slipped away unobserved. 
 
 Rossi slept that night within sound of the light waves of the 
 lake lapping the edge of the shore, and next morning at ten 
 o'clock he was at the Bahnhof to take the train for Italy. A 
 little crowd was waiting for him in the open space in front of 
 the platform, chiefly Italians in the blue smocks and peaked caps
 
 THE KING 533 
 
 of porters and street-sweepers. Rossi passed through them and 
 shook hands. 
 
 " Going straight through, Honourable ? " 
 
 " No, I shall sleep at Milan to-night and go on to Rome in 
 the morning." 
 
 " Addio, Onorevole!" 
 
 "Addio!" 
 
 II 
 
 THE moment the train started, Rossi gave himself up to 
 thoughts of Roma. Where was she now? He closed his eyes 
 and tried to picture her. She was reading his letter. He 
 recalled particular passages, and saw the smile with which she 
 read them. Peace be with her ! The light pressure of her soft 
 fingers was on his hands already, and through the tran-tran of 
 the train he could hear her softest tones. 
 
 Everything that happened that day reminded him of Roma. 
 When he opened his eyes the train was running along the side 
 of the lake, and a young girl of ten or twelve in the corridor 
 was looking out at the white-sailed yachts. Something in her 
 upright form, her firm-set feet, her bright and fearless look, 
 and the suggestion of undeveloped womanhood in her figure, 
 brought back a memory of Roma as she used to be in her days 
 in London. The girl's mother was sitting opposite to Rossi, 
 and she glanced across at him and smiled. 
 
 When the train ran into the station at Brunnen, Rossi him- 
 self was in the corridor, and he saw standing on the platform a 
 young lady who was clearly waiting for some one. There was 
 that indescribable touch of femininity about her which no 
 man's heart can resist, and her face, which had been smiling all 
 over, suddenly clouded as with a shadow of disappointment, 
 and then burst into sunshine again, when a young officer, home 
 for his Easter holidays, stepped out of the train. She smiled 
 in Rossi's direction as they walked together down the platform, 
 and in a moment time and space were nothing, and he was back 
 in Rome already by the power of his yearning love. 
 
 The train started afresh, and Rossi closed his eyes again in 
 an effort to recall something in one of Roma's playful letters 
 about the loveliness of Englishwomen. Yes, they were lovely, 
 and so in a different way were the women of France, the women 
 of Germany, and these soft-voiced women of Switzerland. 
 The strange thing was that he found all women lovely now. 
 He felt like a young mother to whom God has given a beautiful
 
 534: THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 child. All at once the world is full of beautiful children. But 
 still her own is the most beautiful of them all. 
 
 Nature as well as humanity seemed to smile on Rossi that 
 day. He thought the lakes had never looked so lovely. It was 
 early when they ran along the shores of Lucerne, and the white 
 mists, wrapping themselves up on the mountains, were gliding 
 away like ghosts. One after another the great peaks looked 
 over each other's shoulders, covered with pines as with vast 
 armies crossing the Alps, thick at the bottom and with thinner 
 files of daring spirits at the top. The sun danced on the waters 
 of the lake like fairies on a floor of glass, and when the train 
 stopped at Fluelen the sound of the waterfalls mingled with the 
 singing of birds and the ringing of the church bells. It was 
 the Gloria. All the earth was singing its Gloria. " Glory to 
 God in the highest." 
 
 Rossi's happiness became almost boyish as the train ap- 
 proached Italy. When the great tunnel was passed through, 
 the signs of a new race came thick and fast. Shrines of the 
 Madonna, instead of shrines of the Christ; long lines of field- 
 workers, each with his hoe, instead of little groups with the 
 plough; grey oxen with great horns and slow step, instead of 
 brisk horses with tinkling bells. 
 
 Signs of doubtful augury for the most part, but Rossi was 
 in no mood to think of that. He let down the carriage win- 
 dow that he might drink in the air of his own country. In 
 spite of his opinions he could not help doing that. The mystic 
 call that comes to a man's heart from the soil that gave him 
 birth was coming to him also. He heard the voice of the vine- 
 dresser in the vineyard singing of love always of love. He 
 saw the oranges and lemons, and the roses white and red. He 
 caught a glimpse of the first of the little cities high up on the 
 crags, with its. walls and tower, and Campo Santo outside. His 
 lips parted, his breast swelled. It was home! Home! 
 
 The day waned, the sky darkened, and the passengers in the 
 train, who had been talking incessantly, began to doze. Rossi 
 returned to his seat, and thought more seriously about Roma. 
 All his soul went out to the young wife who had shared his 
 sufferings. In his mind's eye he was reading between the lines 
 of her letters, and beginning to reproach himself in earnest. 
 Why had he imposed his life's secret upon her, seeing the risk 
 she ran, and the burden of her responsibility? 
 
 The battle with his soul was short. If he had not trusted 
 Roma, he would never have loved her. If he had not stripped
 
 THE KING 535 
 
 his heart naked before her, he would never have known that she 
 loved him. And if she had suffered in his absence he would 
 make it all up to her on his return. He thought of their 
 joyous day on the Campagna, and then of the unalloyed hours 
 before them. What would she be doing now? She would be 
 sending off the telegram he was to receive at Chiasso. God 
 bless her ! God bless everybody ! 
 
 The thought of Eoma's telegram filled the whole of the last 
 hour before he reached the frontier. He imagined the words it 
 would contain : " Well and waiting. Welcome home." But 
 was she well? It was weeks since he had heard from her, and 
 so many things might have happened. If he had managed his 
 personal affairs with more thought for himself, he might have 
 received her letters. 
 
 Heavy clouds began to shut out the landscape. The tem- 
 perature had fallen suddenly, and the wind must have risen, 
 for the trees, as they flashed past, were being beaten about. 
 Rossi stood in the corridor again, feeling feverish and im- 
 patient. 
 
 At length the train slackened speed, the noise of the wheels 
 and engine abated, and there came a clap of thunder. After a 
 moment there was a far-off sound of church bells which were 
 being run to avert the lightning, and then came a downpour of 
 rain. It was raining in torrents when the train drew up at 
 Chiasso, but the carriages were hardly under cover of the plat- 
 form when Rossi was ready to step out. 
 
 " All baggage ready ! " " Hand baggage out ! " " Chiasso ! " 
 " The Customs ! " 
 
 The station hands and porters were shouting by the stop- 
 ping train, and Rossi's dark eyes with their long lashes were 
 looking through the line of men for some one who carried a 
 yellow letter. 
 
 " Facchino ! " 
 
 "Signore?" 
 
 " Seen the telegraph boy about ? " 
 
 " No, Signore." 
 
 Rossi leapt down to the platform, and at the same moment 
 three Carabineers, who had been working their heads from right 
 to left to peer into the carriages as they passed, stepped up to 
 him and offered a folded white paper. 
 
 He took it without speaking, and for a moment he stood 
 looking at the soldiers as if he had been stunned. Then he 
 opened the paper and read: " M andaio di Cattura . . .
 
 536 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 We . . . order the arrest of David Leone, commonly called 
 David Eossi . . ." 
 
 A cold sweat burst in great beads from his forehead. Again 
 he looked into the faces of the soldiers. And then he laughed. 
 It was a fearful laugh the laugh of a smitten soul. 
 
 The scene had been observed by passengers trooping to the 
 Customs, and a group of English and American tourists were 
 making apposite comments on the event. 
 
 "It's Eossi!" "Eossi?" "The anarchist." "Travelled 
 i n our train ? " " Sure ! " " My ! " 
 
 The marshal of Carabineers, a man with shrunken cheeks 
 and the eyes of a hawk, dressed in his little brief authority, 
 strode with a lofty look through the spectators to telegraph the 
 arrest to Eoine. 
 
 Ill 
 
 WHEN the train started again, Eossi was a prisoner sitting 
 between two of the Carabineers with the marshal of Carabineers 
 on the seat in front of him. His heart felt cold within him 
 . and his chin buried itself in his breast. He was asking himself 
 how many persons knew of his identity with David Leone, and 
 could connect him with the trial of eighteen years ago. There 
 was but one. 
 
 Eossi leapt to his feet with a muttered oath on his lips. 
 The thing that had flashed through his mind was impossible, 
 and he was himself the traitor to think of it. But even when 
 the imagined agony had passed away, a hard lump lay at his 
 heart and he felt sick and ashamed. 
 
 The marshal of Carabineers, who had mistaken Eossi's ges- 
 ture, closed the carriage window and stood with his back to it 
 until the train arrived at Milan. A police official was waiting 
 for them there with the latest instructions from Eome. In 
 order to avoid the possibility of a public disturbance in the 
 capital on the day of the King's Jubilee, the prisoner was to be 
 detained in Milan until further notice. 
 
 " Seems you're to sleep here to-night, Honourable," said the 
 soldier. Eemembering that it had been his intention to do 
 so when he left Zurich, Eossi laughed bitterly. 
 
 It was now dark. A prison van stood at the end of a line of 
 hotel omnibuses, and Eossi was marched to it between the 
 measured steps of the Carabineers. News of his arrest had 
 already been published in Milan, and crowds of spectators were
 
 THE KING 537 
 
 gathered in the open space outside the station. He tried to 
 hold up his head when the people peered at him, telling himself 
 that the arrest of an innocent man was not his but the law's 
 disgrace; yet a sense of sickness surprised him again and he 
 dropped his head as he buried himself in the van. 
 
 On the dark drive to the prison in the Via Filangeri the 
 Carabineers grumbled and swore at the hard fate which kept 
 them out of Rome at a time of public rejoicing. There was to 
 be a dinner on Monday night at the barracks on the Prati, and 
 on Tuesday morning the King was to present medals. 
 
 Rossi shut his eyes and said nothing. But half an hour 
 later, when he had been put in the " paying " cell, and the mar- 
 shal of Carabineers was leaving him, he could not .forbear to 
 speak. 
 
 " Officer," he said, fumbling his copy of the warrant, 
 " would you mind telling me where you received this paper ? " 
 
 " At the Procura, of course," said the soldier. 
 
 " Some one had denounced me there can you tell me who 
 it was?" 
 
 " That's no business of mine, Honourable. Still, as you 
 wish to know . . ." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " A lady was there when the warrant was made out, and if 
 I had to guess who she was ..." 
 
 Rossi saw the name coming in the man's face, and he flung 
 out at him in a roar of wrath. 
 
 " You liar ! Get out of this in a moment." 
 
 During the long hours of the night he tried to account for 
 his arrest to the exclusion of Roma. He thought of every 
 woman whom he had known intimately in England and 
 America, and finally of Elena and old Francesca. It was use- 
 less. There was only one woman in the world who knew the 
 secrets of his early life. He had revealed some of them him- 
 self, and the rest she knew of her own knowledge. 
 
 No matter ! There was no traitor so treacherous as circum- 
 stance. He would not believe the lie that fate was thrusting 
 down his throat. Roma was faithful, she would die rather than 
 betray him, and he was a contemptible hound to allow himself 
 to think of her in that connection. He recalled her letters, her 
 sacrifices, her brave and cheerful renunciation, and the hard 
 lump that had settled at his heart rose up to his throat. 
 
 Morning broke at last, As the grey dawn entered the cell 
 the Easter bells were ringing. Rossi remembered in what other 
 35
 
 538 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 conditions he had expected to hear them, and again his heart 
 grew bitter. A good-natured warder came with his breakfast 
 of bread and water, and a smuggled copy of a morning journal, 
 called the Perseveranza. It contained an account of his arrest, 
 and a leading article on his career as a thing closed and ruined. 
 The public would learn with astonishment that a man who had 
 attained to great prominence in Parliament and lived several 
 years in the fierce light of the world's eye, had all the time 
 masqueraded in a false character, being really a criminal con- 
 victed long ago for conspiring against the person of the late 
 King. Such an event was by no means without precedent in 
 the history of Italy, but it was sufficiently startling to act as a 
 warning to a confiding public. Rossi burst into a laugh and 
 flung the paper away. 
 
 The sun shone, the sparrows chirped, the church bells rang 
 the whole day long. Towards evening the warder came with 
 another newspaper, the Corriere della Sera. It explained that 
 the sensational arrest of the illustrious Deputy, which had fallen 
 on the country like a thunderbolt, was not intended as punish- 
 ment for an offence long past and forgotten, but as a means of 
 preventing a political crime that was on the eve of being com- 
 mitted. The Deputy had been abroad since the unhappy riots 
 of the First of February, and advices from foreign police left no 
 doubt whatever that he had contemplated a preposterous raid of 
 the combined revolutionary clubs of Europe against Italy, timed 
 with almost fiendish imagination to break out on the festival of 
 the King's Jubilee. It would be remembered that certain proc- 
 lamations pointed to such a scheme, and it was understood that 
 the arrest of the printer, and the discovery of his channel of 
 communication, had led to a result on which the Government 
 and the country had to be congratulated. 
 
 Rossi slept as little on Sunday night as on the night before. 
 The horrible doubts which he had driven away were sucking at 
 his heart like a vampire. He tried to invent excuses for Roma. 
 She was intimidated ; she was a woman and she could not help 
 herself. Useless, and worse than useless ! " I thought the 
 daughter of Joseph Roselli would have died first," he told him- 
 self. 
 
 The good-natured warder brought him another newspaper in 
 the morning, the Secolo, an organ of his own party. Its tone 
 was the bitterest of all. " We have reason to believe that the 
 unfortunate event, which cannot but have the effect of setting 
 back the people's cause, is due to the betrayal of one of their
 
 THE KING 539 
 
 leaders by a certain fashionable woman who is near to the 
 person of the President of the Council. It is the old story over 
 again, the story of man's weakness and woman's deception, 
 with every familiar circumstance of humiliation, folly, and 
 shame." 
 
 There could be no doubt of it. It was Eoma who had 
 betrayed him. Whatever her reasons or excuse, the result was 
 the same. She had given up the deepest secrets of his soul, and 
 his life's work was in the dust. 
 
 The marshal of Carabineers came to say that they were to 
 go on to Home, and at nine o'clock they were again in the train. 
 People in holiday dress were promenading the platform and the 
 station was hung with flags. A gentleman in a white waistcoat 
 was about to step into the compartment with the Carabineers 
 and their prisoner, when, recognising his travelling companions, 
 he bowed and stepped back. It was the Sergeant of the Cham- 
 ber, returning after the Easter vacation from his villa on one of 
 the lakes. Rossi sent a ringing laugh after the man, and that 
 brought him back. 
 
 " I'm sorry for you, Honourable, very sorry," he said. 
 " You've deceived us all, but now you are seen in your true 
 colours, and apparently throwing off all disguise." 
 
 The Sergeant was so far right that Rossi was another man. 
 Whatever had been tender and sweet in him was now hard and 
 bitter. The train started for Rome, and the soldiers drew the 
 straws out of their Tuscan cigars and smoked. Rossi coiled 
 himself up in his corner and shut his eyes. Sometimes a sneer 
 curled his lips, sometimes he laughed aloud. 
 
 He was remembering the thoughts which had occupied him 
 when he began his journey thoughts of his work, his party, 
 his people, and then of Roma. He was telling himself that 
 this was a fitting close to his wonderful mission. Betrayed! 
 and by the one being whom Heaven seemed to have given him 
 for his support. 
 
 They were travelling by the coast route, and when the 
 train ran into Genoa a military band at the foot of the monu- 
 ment to Mazzini was playing the royal hymn. But the fes- 
 tivities of the King's Jubilee were eclipsed in public interest 
 by the arrest of Rossi and the collapse of the conspiracy which 
 it was understood to imply. The marshal of the Carabineers 
 brought the local papers, and one of them was full of details of 
 " The Great Plot." An exact account was given from a semi- 
 military standpoint of the plan of the supposed raid. It
 
 540 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 included the capture of the arsenal at Genoa and the assassina- 
 tion of the King at Rome. 
 
 Another of the Genoese journals gave " The Truth of the 
 Arrest." It would be remembered that on the day of the 
 Pope's Jubilee the now notorious Deputy had attacked the 
 authorities in Church and State, accusing the one group of 
 hypocrisy and the other of corruption, and pointing in particu- 
 lar to a certain high official of low desires, and a woman whose 
 reputation was long since lost. The " official " indicated was 
 the President of the Council and the " woman " was one whose 
 unconventional conduct had been a subject of criticism. The 
 Deputy was allowed the liberty of his free speech, but his doom 
 had nevertheless been fixed. It was now an open secret that the 
 lady herself undertook his punishment. To destroy the man 
 who had degraded her, she had even seemed to abandon her 
 social position, thus deceiving society and- her associates, and 
 after some kind of marriage ceremony she had taken up her 
 home in the house of her victim, possessing herself by these 
 means of all his secrets. Whatever might be thought of the 
 method of revenge it had proved completely successful. At 
 the crowning moment of the man's career, he ||ad fallen into 
 the hands of the woman he had humiliated, and he was now 
 the laughing-stock of the world. 
 
 Rossi smiled as he read all this such a smile ! From that 
 hour onward everything seemed to speak of treachery. The 
 olive trees in the plantations told the tradition of the Divine 
 One in the hour of his betrayal, and the little cities on the crags, 
 with their high walls and watch-towers, spoke of the perils of 
 surprise. 
 
 The train ran through countless tunnels like the air throxigh 
 a flute, now rumbling in the darkness, now whistling in the 
 light. Rossi closed his eyes and shut out the torment of passing 
 scenes, and straightway he was seeing Roma. He could only 
 see her as he had always seen her, with her golden complexion, 
 her large violet eyes and long curved lashes, her mouth which 
 had its own gift of smiling, and her glow of health and happi- 
 ness. Whatever she had done he knew that he must always 
 love her. This worked on him like madness, and once again 
 he leapt to his feet and made for the corridor, whereupon the 
 Carabineers, who had been sleeping, got up and shut the door. 
 
 Night fell, and the moon rose, large and blood-red as a set- 
 ting sun. When the train shot on to the Roman Campagiia, 
 like a boat gliding into open sea, the great and solemn desola-
 
 THE KING 541 
 
 tion seemed more than ever withdrawn from the sights and 
 sounds of the living world. Rossi remembered the joy of joys 
 with which he had expected to cross the familiar country. Then 
 he looked across at the soldiers, who were snoring in their 
 seats. 
 
 When the train stopped at Civita Vecchia, the Carabineers 
 opened the door to the corridor that their prisoner might stretch 
 his legs. Some evening papers from Rome were handed into 
 the carriage. Rossi put out his hand to pay for them, and to 
 his surprise it was seized with an eager grasp. The. newsman, 
 who was also carrying a tray of coffee, was a huge creature, with 
 a white apron and a paper cap. 
 
 " Gaffe, sir ? Caffe ? " he called, and then in an undertone, 
 " Don't you know me, old fellow ? Caffe, sir ? Thank you." 
 
 It was Rossi's colleague, the Doctor Deputy. 
 
 "Milk, sir? With pleasure, sir. Venti centesimi, sir. . . . 
 All right, old chap. Keep your eyes open at the station at 
 Rome. . . . Change, sir? Certainly, sir. . . . Coupe waiting 
 on the left side. Look alive. Addio! . . . Caffe! Caffe!" 
 
 The lusty voice died away down the platform, and the train 
 started again. Rossi felt giddy. He staggered back to hi.s 
 seat and tried to read his evening papers. It struck him that 
 the Tribuna was full of the Jubilee. In the morning there had 
 been mass at the Pantheon, and the procession of the King had 
 consisted of battalions of grenadiers and infantry, brigades of 
 artillery and engineers, a cavalry regiment and a squadron of 
 Carabineers on horseback. A salvo of one hundred cannon had 
 been fired from the Castle of St. Angelo at midday, and the 
 Mayors of the province had walked with banners and bands of 
 music to the Piazza of the Quirinal, where the crowd had sung 
 the national hymn and called the King on to the balcony. 
 
 The Sunrise, the paper founded by Rossi himself, seemed to 
 be full of the Prime Minister. He had that day put the crown 
 on a career of the highest distinction; the King had conferred 
 the Collar of the Annunziata upon him; and in view of the 
 continued rumblings of unrest it was even probable that he 
 would be made Dictator. 
 
 The Avanti seemed to Rossi to be full of himself. When 
 the country recovered from the delirium of that day's ridiculous 
 doings, it would know how to judge of the infamous methods of 
 a Minister who had condescended to use the devices of a Delilah 
 for the defeat and confusion of a political adversary. With the 
 woman herself they would not deal. She was one of those fatal
 
 54:2 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 women who were the truest incarnation of a great symbolical 
 name. It was understood that she was still living in the scene 
 of her treachery, and honest women would not envy her if she 
 could sleep that night on the bed of the man she had betrayed 
 while he lay in one of the cells of Regina Coeli. 
 
 Rossi felt as if he were suffocating. He put a hand into a 
 side-pocket, and his copy of the warrant crinkled there under 
 his twitching fingers. If he could only meet with Roma for a 
 moment and thrust the damning document in her face ! 
 
 When the train ran along the side of the Tiber, they could 
 see a great framework of fireworks which had beep erected on 
 the Pincio. It represented a gigantic crown and was all ablaze. 
 At length the train slowed down and entered the terminus at 
 Rome. Rossi remembered how he had expected to enter it, and 
 he choked with wounded pride. 
 
 There were the thumpings and clankings and the blinding 
 flashes of white light, and then the train stopped. The station 
 was full of people. Rossi noticed Malatesta among them, the 
 man whose life he had spared in the duel he had been compelled 
 to fight. 
 
 " Now then, please ! " said the marshal of Carabineers, and 
 Rossi stepped down to the platform. A soldier marched on 
 either side of him; the marshal walked in front. The people 
 parted to let the four men pass, and then closed up and came 
 after them. Not a word was spoken. 
 
 With pale lips and a fixed gaze which seemed to look at 
 nobody, Rossi walked to the end of the platform, and there the 
 crush was greatest. 
 
 " Room ! " cried the marshal of Carabineers, making for the 
 gate at which a porter was taking tickets. A black van stood 
 outside. 
 
 Suddenly the marshal was struck on the shoulder by a hand 
 out of the crowd. He turned to defend himself, and was struck 
 on the other side. Then he tried to draw a weapon, but before 
 he could do so he was thrown to the ground. One of the two 
 other Carabineers stooped to lift him up, and the third laid hold 
 of Rossi. At the next instant Rossi felt the soldier's hand fall 
 from his arm as by a sword cut, and somebody was crying in 
 his ear : 
 
 " Now's your time, sir. Leave this to me and fly." 
 
 It was Malatesta. Before Rossi fully knew what he was 
 doing, he crossed the lines to the opposite platform, passed 
 through the barrier by means of his Deputy's medal permitting
 
 THE KING 543 
 
 him to travel on the railways, and stepped into a coupe that 
 stood waiting with an open door. 
 
 " Where to, signore ? " 
 
 " Piazza Navona presto." 
 
 As the carriage rattled across the end of the Piazza Mar- 
 gherita a company of Carabineers was going at quick march 
 towards the station. 
 
 IV 
 
 WHEN a limb of the body is said to sleep, the first symptoms 
 of returning vitality is intense pain. It is not otherwise with the 
 soul ; and when, at call of Rossi's last letter, Roma awoke from 
 the sleep of love and stupor of fear in which she had betrayed 
 his secret in order to save his life, she suffered agony at the 
 thought of the degradation to which she had condemned him. 
 
 At ten o'clock on Saturday night the screamers in the street 
 were crying the arrest of Rossi. The telegrams from the fron- 
 tier gave an ugly account of his capture. He was in disguise, 
 and he made an effort to deny himself, but thanks to the 
 astuteness of the Carabineer charged with the warrant the 
 device was defeated, and he was now lodged in the prison at 
 Milan, where it was probable that he would remain some 
 days. 
 
 The old Garibaldian, who brought up the evening newspaper, 
 was full of compassion for Roma ; but she was filled with disgust 
 for herself, and she dismissed him as quickly as possible that he 
 might not see the spectacle of her misery and shame. 
 
 Early next morning old Francesca came in from her Easter 
 communion to ask Roma to fill up her ticket for the parish 
 priest. She was blazing with indignation at a story published 
 in a Sunday journal. It was a story of Roma's part in the pro- 
 ceedings, the same that Rossi had read at Genoa. 
 
 " It's shameful, it's wicked, and God will hear of it. But, 
 would you believe me, there are some that say there's something 
 in it. Tommaso is one of them, and I told him he ought to be 
 ashamed of himself. ' I am ashamed of myself, mother,' he 
 says, ' but what is a man to think ? ' he says." 
 
 Roma half -closed her eyes and listened. The world thought 
 her an immoral woman. If she had been that, how easily things 
 might have been otherwise ! ISTevertheless, all the lower natures 
 would continue to say so, and hypocritical natures would judge 
 of her conduct according to their interpretation of her char-
 
 5M THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 acter. The pain of this thought added to her former sufferings, 
 and she felt sick and ill. 
 
 The deaf old woman tried to tempt her to eat an Easter din- 
 ner of brodetto (a soup) and lamb as well as the hard eggs and 
 sausages, and the crusted Easter cake that had been blessed by 
 the priest. She could eat nothing. Late in the afternoon the 
 Garibaldian sent up an awkward message that she must not 
 think of going out, because people were talking about her, and 
 it would not be safe. A group of Rossi's noisiest and least 
 scrupulous followers were wandering about the piazza with the 
 signs of a deep and silent shame in their faces. 
 
 On Monday morning before Roma had risen, her poodle 
 came to her bedside. It had been poisoned. The poor creature 
 put up its paw on the counterpane and looked at her with its 
 glazed eyes as if trying to tell her of its pain. Within an hour 
 it was dead. 
 
 From that time onward Roma's feelings took a new turn. 
 Her crushing self-reproach at the degradation of David Rossi, 
 fallen, lost, and in prison, gave way to an intense bitterness 
 against the Baron, successful, radiant, and triumphant. She 
 turned a bright light upon the incidents of the past months and 
 saw that the Baron was responsible for everything. He had in- 
 timidated her. His intimidation had worked upon her con- 
 science and driven her to the confessional. The confessional 
 had taken her to the Pope, and the Pope in love and loyalty and 
 fatal good faith had led her to denounce her husband. It was 
 a chain of damning circumstances, helped out by the demon of 
 chance, but the first link had been forged by the Baron, and he 
 was to blame for all. 
 
 She hated the man. The thought of his relation to her 
 father made her boil with indignation ; the thought of his rela- 
 tion to herself made her shudder with disgust ; the thought of 
 his relation to David Rossi made her choke with wrath. 
 
 Bands of music were promenading the streets. Before 
 breakfast the rejoicings of the day had begun. Towards mid- 
 day drunken fellows in the piazza were embracing and crying, 
 " Long live the King," and then " Long live the Baron Bonelli." 
 The public kitchens were full, the wine-shops were crowded, the 
 Banco di Lotto was doing a brisk trade, and groups of gamblers 
 sitting at tables on the pavements were playing cards, with their 
 knives stuck in the wood underneath to be ready for a sudden 
 call. 
 
 Towards evening there was an attempt to improvise a Car-.
 
 THE KING 545 
 
 nival. A dozen vagabonds in dirty hired costumes, the men in 
 overall pinafores of brown holland, the women in blue wire 
 masks, a Pulcinello in a cone hat and a white cotton blouse, 
 with paper lanterns and candles, some spring flowers and bags of 
 confetti, went prancing through the piazza on cabs with jingling 
 bells, crying Ecco il moccolo, and then Senza moccolo-o-o! 
 
 It was a vulgar orgy, but from the upper parts of the town 
 there came reports of more pretentious doings. Triumphal 
 arches, banners and badges, flags and inscriptions, processions 
 of soldiers, and great outbursts of cheering for the King and his 
 Minister. 
 
 Roma's disgust deepened to contempt. Why were the people 
 rejoicing? There was nothing to rejoice at. Why were they 
 shouting and singing? It was all got-up enthusiasm, all false, 
 all a lie. By a sort of clairvoyance, Roma could see the Baron 
 in the midst of the scenes he had prearranged. He was sitting 
 in the carriage with the King and Queen, smiling his icy smile, 
 raising his hat and bowing, while the people bellowed by their 
 side. And meantime David Rossi was lying in prison in Milan, 
 in a downfall worse than death, crushed, beaten, and broken- 
 hearted. 
 
 Old Francesca brought a morning paper. It was the Sun- 
 rise, and it contained nothing that did not concern the Baron. 
 His wife had died on Saturday there were three lines for that 
 incident. The King had made him a Knight of the Order of 
 Annunziata there was half a column on the new cousin to the 
 royal family. A state dinner and ball were to be held at the 
 Quirinal that night, when it might be expected that the Presi- 
 dent of the Council would be nominated Dictator. 
 
 Roma could see the Baron at the King's table. He was 
 chatting gaily without a thought of her sufferings. Less than 
 a year ago she had sat by his side. When she remembered that 
 night she shuddered with aversion, and a vague sense of ven- 
 geance rose in her soul. But in all her misery there was one 
 ray of comfort; if she had betrayed Rossi she had saved his 
 life. 
 
 In another column of the Sunrise she found an interview 
 with the Baron. The journal called for exemplary punishment 
 on the criminals who conspired against the sovereign and en- 
 dangered the public peace ; the Baron, in guarded words, replied 
 that the natural tendency of the King would be to pardon such 
 persons, where the crimes were of old date, and their present 
 conspiracies were averted, but it lay with the public to say
 
 546 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 whether it was just to the throne that such lenity ought to be 
 encouraged. 
 
 When Roma read this a red light seemed to flash before 
 her eyes, and in a moment she understood what she had to do. 
 The Baron intended to make the King break his promise to 
 save the life of David Rossi, casting the blame upon the coun- 
 try, to whose wish he had been forced to yield. There was no 
 earthly tribunal, no judge or jury, for a man who could do a 
 thing like that. He was putting himself beyond all human 
 law. Therefore one course only was left to send him to the 
 bar of God ! 
 
 When this idea came to Roma she did not think of it as 
 a crime. In the moral elevation of her soul it seemed like an 
 act of retributive justice. Her heart throbbed violently, but it 
 was only from the stress of her thoughts and the intensity of 
 her desire to execute them. 
 
 One thing troubled her, the purely material difficulties in 
 the way. She revolved many plans in her mind. At first she 
 thought of writing to the Baron asking him to see her, and 
 hinting at submission to his will ; but she abandoned the device 
 as a kind of duplicity that was unworthy of her high and noble 
 mission. At last she decided to go to the Piazza Leone late 
 that night and wait for the Baron's return from the Quirinal. 
 Felice would admit her. She w r ould sit in the Council Room, 
 under the shaded lamp, until she heard the carriage wheels in 
 the piazza. Then as the Baron opened the door she would rise 
 out of the red light and do it. 
 
 In the drawer of a bureau she had found a revolver which 
 Rossi had left with her on the night he went away. His name 
 had been inscribed on it by the persons who sent it as a pres- 
 ent, but Roma gave no thought to that. Rossi was in prison, 
 therefore beyond suspicion, and she was entirely indifferent to 
 detection. When by presence of mind and resolution she had 
 done what she intended to do she would give herself up. She 
 would avow everything, seek no means of justification and ask 
 for no mercy even in the presence of death. Her only defence 
 would be that the Baron who was guilty had to be sent to the 
 supreme tribunal. It would then be for the court to take the 
 responsibility of fixing the moral weight of her motive in the 
 scales of human justice. 
 
 With these sublime feelings she began to examine the re- 
 volver. The young woman remembered that when Rossi had 
 given it to her she had recoiled from the touch of the deadly
 
 THE KING 547 
 
 weapon and it had fallen out of her fingers. No such fear 
 came to her now, and she turned it over in her delicate hands 
 and tried to understand its mechanism. There were six 
 chambers, and to know if they were loaded she pulled the 
 trigger. The vibration and the deafening noise shook but did 
 not frighten her. 
 
 The deaf old woman had heard the shot, and she came up- 
 stairs panting and with a pallid face. 
 
 " Mercy, Signora ! What's happened ? The Blessed Virgin 
 save us ! A revolver ! " 
 
 Roma tried to speak with unconcern. It was Mr. Rossi's 
 revolver. She had found it in the bureau. It must be loaded 
 it had gone off. 
 
 The words were vague, but the tone quieted the old woman. 
 " Thank the saints it's nothing worse. But why are you so pale, 
 Signora ? What's the matter with you ? " 
 
 Roma averted her eyes. " Wouldn't you be pale too if a 
 thing like this had gone off in your hands? " 
 
 By this time the Garibaldian had hobbled up behind his 
 wife, and when all was explained the old people announced that 
 they were going out to see the illuminations on the Pincio. 
 
 " They begin at eleven o'clock and go on to twelve or one, 
 Signora. Everybody in the house has gone already, or the shot 
 would have made a fine sensation." 
 
 " Good-night, Tommaso ! Good-night, Francesca ! " 
 
 " Good-night, Signora. We'll have to leave the street door 
 open for the lodgers coming back, but you'll close your own door 
 and be as safe as sardines." 
 
 The Garibaldian raised his pork-pie hat and left the door 
 ajar. It was half-past ten and the piazza was very quiet. Roma 
 sat down to write a letter. 
 
 " Dearest," she wrote, " I have read in the newspapers what 
 took place on the frontier and I am overwhelmed with grief. 
 What can I say of my own share in it except that I did it for 
 the best ? From my soul and before God, I tell you that if I 
 betrayed you it was only to save your life. And though my 
 heart is breaking and I shall never know another happy hour 
 until God gives me release, if I had to go through it all again 
 I should have to do as I have done. . . . 
 
 " Perhaps your great heart will be able to forgive me some 
 day, but I shall never forgive myself or the man who compelled 
 me to do what I have done. Before this letter reaches you in 
 Milan a great act will be done in Rome. Do you remember
 
 548 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 saying that in every age Providence sends some being into the 
 world to teach tyrants they are but men ? Providence is going 
 to use my feeble arm to this great end. But you must know 
 nothing more about it until it is done. Your name must go 
 down to history without stain or blemish. . . . 
 
 " Good-bye, dearest. Try to forgive me as soon as you can. 
 I shall know it if you do ... where I am going to eventually 
 . . . and it will be so sweet and beautiful. Your loving, erring, 
 broken-hearted ROMA." 
 
 A noisy group of revellers were passing through the piazza 
 singing a drinking song. When they were gone a church clock 
 struck eleven. Roma put on a hat and a veil. Her impatience 
 was now intense. Being ready to go out she took a last look 
 round the rooms. They brought a throng of memories of 
 hopes and visions as well as realities and facts. The piano, the 
 phonograph, the bust, the bed. It was all over. She knew she 
 would never come back. 
 
 Her heart was throbbing violently, and she was opening the 
 bureau a second time when her ear caught the sound of a step 
 on the stairs. She knew the step. It was the Baron's. 
 
 She stopped, with an indescribable sense of terror, and gazed 
 at the door. It stood partly open as the Garibaldian had left it. 
 
 Through that door the Baron Avas about to enter. He was 
 coming up, up, up to his death. Some supernatural power 
 was sending him. 
 
 She grew dizzy and quaked in every limb. Still the step 
 outside came on. At length it reached the top, and there Avas 
 a knock at the door. At first she could not answer, and the 
 knock Avas repeated. 
 
 Then the free use of her faculties came back to her. There 
 Avas more of the Almighty in all this than of her own design. 
 It was to be. God intended her to kill this guilty man. 
 
 " Come in ! " she cried. 
 
 V 
 
 AMONG the laws of nature there is one of awful solemnity 
 in Avhich the deepest secrets of human character may lie the 
 law of adaptability. The doctor, the magistrate, the lawyer, 
 the journalist and the priest are all marked by the deforming 
 influences of their trades, and one of the most painful examples 
 of character subdued to the necessities of life is seen in the
 
 THE KING 549 
 
 soul of the statesman. But in the great moments of existence, 
 the moments of triumph and defeat, of love and passion, the 
 impression of occupation falls off like a mantle, and only the 
 man remains. 
 
 When the Baron awoke on Saturday he remembered Roma 
 with a good deal of self-reproach, and everything that happened 
 during the following days made him think of her with tender- 
 ness. During the morning an aide-de-camp brought him the 
 casket containing the Collar of the Annunziata and spoke a 
 formal speech. He fingered the jewelled band and golden 
 pendant as he made the answer prescribed by etiquette, but he 
 was thinking of Roma and the joy she might have felt in hailing 
 him cousin of the King. 
 
 Towards noon he received the telegram which announced 
 the death of his maniac wife, and he set off instantly for his 
 castle in the Alban Hills. He remained long enough to see the 
 body removed to the church, and then returned to Rome. Naz- 
 zareno carried to the station the little hand-bag full of de- 
 spatches with which he had occupied the hour spent in the train. 
 They passed by the tree which had been planted on the first of 
 Roma's Roman birthdays. It was covered with white roses. 
 The Baron plucked one of them and wore it in his buttonhole 
 on the return journey. 
 
 Before midnight he was back in the Piazza Leone, where 
 the Commendatore Angelelli Avas waiting with news of the 
 arrest of Rossi. He gave orders to have the editor of the 
 Sunrise sent to him so that he might make a tentative sugges- 
 tion. But in spite of himself his satisfaction at Rossi's com- 
 plete collapse and possible extermination was disturbed by pity 
 for Roma. 
 
 Sunday was given up to the interview with the journalist, 
 the last preparations for the Jubilee and various secular duties. 
 Monday's ceremonials began with the Mass. The Piazza of 
 the Pantheon was lined with a splendid array of soldiers in 
 glistening breastplates and helmets, a tall body-guard through 
 which the little King passed to his place amid the playing of 
 the national hymn. In the old Pantheon itself, roofed with an 
 awning of white silk which bore the royal arms, flares were 
 burning up to the topmost cornice of the round walls. A 
 temporary altar decorated in white and gold was ablaze with 
 candles, and the choir, conducted by a fashionable composer of 
 opera, were in a golden cage. The King and Queen and royal 
 princes sat in chairs under a velvet canopy, and there were
 
 550 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tribunes for cabinet ministers, senators, deputies and foreign 
 ambassadors, Religion was necessary to all state functions, 
 and the Mass was a magnificent political demonstration carried 
 out on lines arranged by the Baron himself. He had forgotten 
 God, but he had remembered the King, and he had thought of 
 Roma also. She wept at all religious ceremonies and would 
 have shed tears if she had been present at this one. 
 
 From the Pantheon they passed to the Capitol, amid the 
 playing of bands of music which showered through the streets 
 their hail of sound. The magnificent hall was crowded by a 
 brilliant company in silk dresses and decorations. An address 
 was read by the Mayor, reciting the early misfortunes of Italy, 
 and closing with allusions to the prosperity of the nation under 
 the reigning dynasty. In his reply the King extolled the army 
 as the hope of peace and unity, and ended with a eulogy of the 
 President of the Council, whose powerful policy had dispelled 
 the vaporous dreams of unpractical politicians who were threat- 
 ening the stability of the throne and the welfare of its loyal 
 subjects. 
 
 The Baron answered briefly that he had done no more than 
 his duty to his King, who was almost a republican monarch, and 
 to his country, which was the freest in the world. As for the 
 visionaries and their visions, a few refugees in Zurich, cheered 
 011 by the rabble abroad, might dream of constructing a univer- 
 sal republic out of the various nations and races, with Rome as 
 their capital, but these were the delirious dreams of weak minds. 
 
 " Dangerous ! " said the Baron, with a smile. " To think of 
 the eternal dreamer being dangerous ! " 
 
 The King laughed, the senators cheered, the ladies waved 
 their handkerchiefs, and again the Baron remembered Roma. 
 
 The procession to the Quirinal was a prolonged triumph. 
 Every house was hung with flags, every window with red and 
 yellow damask. The clubs in the Corso were crowded with 
 princes, nobles, diplomats, and distinguished foreigners. Civil 
 guards by hundreds in their purple plumes lined the streets, 
 and the pavements were packed with loyal people. It was a 
 glorious pageant, such as Roma loved. 
 
 The mayors of the province, followed by citizens under their 
 appointed leaders and flags, came up to the Quirinal as the 
 Baron had appointed, and called the King on to the balcony. 
 The King accepted the call, and made a sign of thanks. But 
 stepping back into the house the young sovereign was nervous 
 and perturbed. He was a well-meaning man, with every virtue
 
 THE KING 551 
 
 but little strength; he loved his people, and even dreamt of 
 being the liberator and uniter of his country ; he constantly pro- 
 tested that he was a good Catholic, although the Pope excom- 
 municated him in effect if not by name. Standing on the 
 balcony, while the drums beat and the royal march pealed 
 forth, he remembered that it was the scene of many exciting 
 moments of the Papacy, and suddenly he had become afraid. 
 The Baron comforted him. 
 
 " For my part," said the Baron, " a long-continued study of 
 religion has made me a sceptic. At twenty I tried to under- 
 stand the dogmas of the Church and the mysteries of faith. At 
 fifty-five I know that the Pope himself does not understand 
 them. Therefore I cease to think of such things and bow my 
 head to the laws of life." 
 
 " Still one cannot always conquer a superstition," said the 
 King, " and standing out there I confess it occurred to me that 
 these rejoicings would soon be at an end, and then . . ." 
 
 " If I can relieve your majesty of the burden of your respon- 
 sibility," began the Baron . . . 
 
 The King called a law officer of the crown and ordered that 
 papers should be prepared immediately creating the Baron 
 Bonelli by royal decree Dictator of Italy for a period of six 
 months from that date. " If Roma were here now," thought 
 the Baron. 
 
 Then night came, and the state dinner at the royal palace 
 was a moving scene of enchantment. One princess came after 
 another, apparently clothed in diamonds. The Baron wore the 
 Collar of the Annunziata, and the foreign Ambassadors, who 
 as representatives of their sovereigns were entitled to pre- 
 cedence, gave place to him, and he sat on the right of the 
 Queen. On his own right sat the little Princess Bellini, who 
 was a lady of the Annunziata by virtue of her late husband's 
 rank. She had recently returned from Paris, where her face 
 had been enamelled, and she was afraid to laugh lest her mask 
 should crack. Xevertheless her tongue wagged constantly. 
 
 " And you've seen nothing of Donna Roma ... no ? Ah, 
 yes, everybody is talking of it. To live in that man's apart- 
 ments was so indelicate. In fact it was shocking, and it puts 
 her out of society for ever. Whatever her motive, no self- 
 respecting person can marry her now. For my part, I have 
 never allowed a man to sleep in my house since my husband 
 died. Even when my brother comes to Rome, I send him to an 
 hotel . . . But dear Roma was so reckless. She was always
 
 552 TH E ETERNAL CITY 
 
 going about alone like a cook. . . . And Rossi ? He'll be exe- 
 cuted . . . yes? Do you know, I liked him! I liked his 
 figure so tall and shapely. He reminded me of an English 
 footman I used to have." 
 
 " Did he sleep in the house ? " 
 
 " Naturally. I selected him myself. He was married, and 
 so faithful and his wife was so ugly too." 
 
 The Baron's icy smile and incisive sarcasm played about 
 the elderly beauty, while he compared her fashionable morality 
 with the unconventional virtue of the girl she criticised. 
 " Roma is worth a wilderness of such women," he thought. 
 
 After dinner he led the Queen to an embroidered throne 
 under a velvet baldachino in a gorgeous chamber which had 
 been the chapel of the Popes. Then the ball began. What 
 torrents of light ! What a dazzling blaze of diamonds ! What 
 lovely faces and pure white skins ! What soft bosoms and full 
 round forms! What gleams of life and love in a hundred 
 pairs of beautiful eyes! But there was a lovelier face and 
 form in the mind of the Baron than any his eyes could see, 
 and excusing himself to the King on the ground of Rossi's 
 expected arrival, he left the palace. 
 
 Fireflies in the dark garden of the Quirinal were emitting 
 drops of light as the Baron passed through the echoing courts, 
 and the big square in front, bright with electric light, was 
 silent save for the footfall of the sentries at the gate. 
 
 The Baron walked in the direction of the Piazza Navona. 
 His self-reproach was becoming poignant. He remembered the 
 threats he had made and told himself he had never intended 
 to carry them out. They were only meant to impress the 
 imagination of the person played upon, as might happen in 
 any ordinary affair of public life. 
 
 The Baron's memory went back to the last state ball before 
 this one, and he felt some pangs of shame. But the disaster 
 of that night had not been due to the cold calculation to which 
 he had attributed it. The cause was simpler and more human 
 love of a beautiful woman who was slipping away from him, 
 the girding sense of being bound body and soul to a wife that 
 was no wife, and the mad intoxication of a moment. 
 
 ISTo matter! Roma should not lose by what had happened. 
 He would make it up to her. Considering her unconventional 
 conduct, it was no little thing he intended to do, but he 
 would do it, and she would see that others were capable of 
 sacrifice.
 
 THE KING 553 
 
 The people were on the Pincio and the streets were quiet. 
 When the Baron reached the Piazza Navona there was hardly 
 anybody about, and he had difficulty in finding the house. 
 No one saw him enter and he met with nobody on the stairs. 
 So much the better. He was half ashamed. 
 
 After he had knocked twice a voice which he did not 
 recognise told him to come in. When he pushed the door 
 open Roma, in hat and veil, stood before him with her .back 
 to a bureau. He thought she looked frightened and ill. 
 
 VI 
 
 " MY dear Roma," said the Baron, " I bring you good news. 
 Everything has turned out well. Nothing could have been 
 managed better, and I come to congratulate you." 
 
 He was visibly excited, and spoke rapidly and even loudly. 
 
 " The man was arrested on the .frontier you must have 
 heard of that. He was coming by the night train on Saturday, 
 and to prevent a possible disturbance they kept him in Milan 
 until this morning." 
 
 Roma continued to stand with her back to the bureau. 
 
 " The news was in all the journals yesterday, my dear, and 
 it had a splendid effect on the opening of the Jubilee. When 
 the King went to Mass this morning the plot had received its 
 death-blow and our anxiety was at an end. To-night the man 
 will arrive in Rome, and within an hour from now he will be 
 safely locked up in prison." 
 
 Every nerve in Roma's body was palpitating, but she did not 
 attempt to speak. 
 
 " It is all your doing, my child yours, not mine. Your 
 clever brain has brought it all to pass. ' Leave the man to me,' 
 you said. I left him to you, and you have accomplished every- 
 thing." 
 
 Roma drew her lips together and tried to control herself. 
 
 " But what things you have gone through in order to achieve 
 your purpose! Slights, slurs, insults! Not only that, but 
 poverty and even privation and every degradation and shame. 
 No wonder the man was taken in by it. Society itself was taken 
 in. And I yes, I myself was almost deceived." 
 
 " Shall it be now ? " thought Roma. The Baron was on the 
 hearthrug directly facing her. 
 
 " But you knew what you were doing, my dear. It was all 
 36
 
 554 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 a part of your scheme. You drew the man on. In due time he 
 delivered himself up to you. He surrendered every secret of his 
 soul. And when your great hour came you were ready. You 
 met it as you had always intended. ' At the top of his hopes he 
 shall fall,' you said." 
 
 Roma's heart was beating as if it would burst its bounds. 
 
 " He has fallen. Thanks to you, this enemy of civil society, 
 this slanderer of women, is down, What skill ! What patience ! 
 What diplomacy ! And what will and nerve too ! Who shall 
 say now that women are incapable of great things ? " 
 
 " How I hate this man ! " thought Roma. He had thrown 
 open his overcoat, revealing the broad expanse of his shirt- 
 front, crossed by the glittering collar of the Annunziata, and 
 was promenading the hearthrug without a thought of his peril. 
 
 " The journals of half Europe will have accounts of the 
 failure of the ' Great Plot.' There was another plot, my dear, 
 which did not fail. Europe will hear of that also, and by to- 
 morrow morning the world will know what a woman may do to 
 punish the man who traduces and degrades her ! " 
 
 " Why don't I do it ? " thought Roma. She was fingering 
 the revolver on the bureau behind her, and breathing fast and 
 audibly. 
 
 " What a surprise for society when it knows all ! Already 
 it suspects something. I told you that I should encourage 
 the idea that in spite of appearances you were only playing a 
 part. But when society sees you return to your former way of 
 life . . ." 
 
 The Baron was trying to laugh lightly. 
 
 "You shall have everything back, my dear. Carriages, 
 jewelry, apartments, exactly as you parted with them. I have 
 kept all under my own control, and in a single day you can be 
 reinstated." 
 
 Roma's palpitating heart was hurting her. 
 
 " But won't you sit down, my child ? I have something to 
 tell you. It is important news. The Baroness is dead. Yes, 
 she died on Saturday, poor soul. Should I play the hypocrite 
 and weep? Why should I? For fifteen years a cruel law, 
 which I dare not attempt to repeal by divorce in a Catholic 
 country, has tied me to a living corpse. Shall I pretend to 
 mourn because my burden has fallen away? . . . Roma, sit 
 down, my dear ; don't continue to stand there . . . Roma, I am 
 free, and we can now carry out our marriage. You can be my 
 wife at last, as we always thought and intended."
 
 THE KING 555 
 
 " Now ! " thought Roma, moving a little forward. 
 
 " Ah, don't be afraid of anything. I am not afraid, and 
 you needn't be afraid either. Certainly rumour has coupled 
 our names already. But what matter about that ! I don't 
 even care if scandal has mixed you up with another man. No 
 one shall insult you, whatever has occurred. Wherever I go 
 you shall go too. If they cannot do without me they shall not 
 do without you, and in spite of everything you shall be received 
 everywhere." 
 
 " Is that all you had to say ? " said Roma. 
 
 " Not all. There is something else, and I couldn't wait for 
 the newspapers to tell you. The King has appointed me Dic- 
 tator for six months. That means that you will be more 
 courted than the Queen. What a revenge! The women who 
 have been turning their backs upon you will bend their 
 backs before you. You will break down every barrier. You 
 will . . ." 
 
 " Wait," said Roma. 
 
 The Baron had been approaching her and she lifted her hand. 
 
 " You expect me to acquiesce in this lie ? " 
 
 "What lie? "my child. 
 
 " That I denounced David Rossi in order to destroy him. 
 It is true that I did denounce him unhappy woman that I am 
 but you know perfectly why I did it. I did it because I 
 was forced to do it. You forced me." 
 
 At the sound of her own voice, her eyes had begun to fill. 
 
 " And now you ask me to pretend that it was all done from 
 an evil motive and you offer me the rewards of guilt." 
 
 Her wet eyes flashed on him, and her voice thickened with 
 anger. 
 
 " Do you think I'm a murderer that you can offer me the 
 price of blood^ Have you any shame ? You come here to ask 
 me to marry you, knowing that I am married already here of 
 all places, in the house of my husband." 
 
 Her brilliant eyes were blinded with tears, and her voice 
 could not control itself. 
 
 " He is my husband, whatever I have done for him." 
 
 The Baron pulled at his moustache and answered ten- 
 derly : 
 
 " My child," he said, " if I have asked you to acquiesce in 
 the idea that what you did was from a certain motive it was 
 only to spare you pain. I thought it would be easier for you 
 to do so now, things being as they are. It was only going
 
 556 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 back to your original purpose, forgetting all that has inter- 
 vened." 
 
 Roma fell back to the bureau. 
 
 " I only asked you to return to your old self, my dear. Your 
 old strong self the woman with the love of life in her very 
 blood without sentimentality or any sort of weakness the 
 mistress, the Helen of Italy." 
 
 His voice softened, and he said in a low tone : " If I am so 
 much to blame for what has been done, perhaps it was because 
 you were first of all at fault. At the beginning my one offence 
 consisted in agreeing to your proposal. It was the statesman 
 who committed that error, and the man has suffered for it ever 
 since. Do you think it was nothing to me that while I was 
 bound and growing old you were falling into the hands of a 
 younger man ? You know nothing of jealousy, my child how 
 can you ? but its pains are as the pains of hell." 
 
 He tried to approach her once more. 
 
 " Come, dear, try to be yourself again. Forget this moment 
 of fascination, and rise afresh to your old strength and wisdom. 
 I am willing to forget . . . whatever has happened I don't 
 ask what. I am ready to wipe it all away, just as if it had 
 never been. And now I am free, and waiting to carry out all I 
 promised." 
 
 In spite of his soft words and gentle tones, Roma was gazing 
 at him with an aversion she had never felt before for any human 
 being. 
 
 " Have no qualms about your marriage, my child. I assure 
 you it is no marriage at all. In the eye of the civil law it is 
 frankly invalid, and the Church could annul it at any moment, 
 being no sacrament, because you are unbaptised and therefore 
 not in her sense a Christian." 
 
 He took another step towards her and said : 
 
 " But if you have lost one husband another is waiting for 
 you a more devoted and more faithful husband one who can 
 give you everything in the place of one who can give you noth- 
 ing. . . . And then that man has gone out of your life for 
 good. Whatever happens now, it is impossible that you and he 
 can ever come together again. But I am here still . . . Don't 
 answer hastily, Roma. Think what it is I offer to do. Isn't it 
 something that I am ready to face the opprobrium that will 
 surely come of marrying the most criticised woman in Rome ? " 
 
 Roma felt herself to be suffocating with indignation and 
 shame.
 
 THE KING 557 
 
 " You see I am suing to you, Roma I who have never sued 
 to any human being. Even when I was a child I would not sue 
 to my own mother. Since then I have done something in life 
 I have justified myself, I have given my country a place among 
 the nations, I stand for it in the eye of the world and yet 
 and yet I am at your feet." 
 
 By a sudden impulse he fell to his knees, and tried to take 
 hold of the hem of her skirt. She drew it back as if the touch 
 of his hand would soil it. 
 
 " Get up," she said in a sharp, shrill voice. " I may be a 
 guilty woman, but I am not a wicked one. I am conscious of 
 all the sacrifices you would have to make to marry me without 
 your throwing them in my face, but I would not be your wife if 
 you could give me the crown itself." 
 
 The Baron rose from his knees and tried to laugh. 
 
 " As you will. I must needs accept the only possible in- 
 terpretation of your words. I thought my devotion in spite of 
 every provocation might burn away your bitterness. But 
 if . . ." (he was getting excited) " if you have no respect for 
 the past, you may have some regard for the future." 
 
 She looked at him with a new fear. 
 
 " Naturally, I have no desire to humiliate myself further by 
 suing to a woman who despises me. It will be sufficient to 
 punish the man who is responsible for my loss of esteem in the 
 eyes of one who has so many reasons to respect me." 
 
 " You mean that you will persuade the King to break his 
 promise ? " 
 
 " The King need not be persuaded after he has appointed 
 his Dictator." 
 
 " So the King's promise to pardon Mr. Rossi will be set 
 aside by his successor? " 
 
 " If I leave this room without a better answer . . . yes." 
 
 Roma drew from behind the revolver ehe had held in her 
 hand. 
 
 " You will never leave this room," she said. 
 
 The Baron stood perfectly still, and there was a moment of 
 deadly silence. 
 
 Then came the rattle of carriage wheels on the stones of 
 the piazza, followed immediately by a hurried footstep on the 
 stairs. 
 
 Roma heard it. She was trembling all over, and her cruelly 
 palpitating heart seemed to burst through her breast. 
 
 A moment afterwards there was a knock at the door. Then
 
 558 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 another knock, and another. It was imperative, irregular 
 knocking. 
 
 Roma, who had forgotten all about the Baron, was rooted 
 to the spot on which she stood. The Baron, who had under- 
 stood everything, was also transfixed. 
 
 Then came a thick, vibrating voice, " Roma ! " 
 
 Roma made a faint cry and dropped the revolver out of her 
 graspless hand. The Baron picked it up instantly. He was the 
 first to recover himself. 
 
 " Hush ! " he said in a whisper. " Let him come in. I will 
 go into this room. I mean no harm to any one ; but if he should 
 follow me if you should reveal my presence remember what I 
 said before about a challenge. And if I challenge him his shrift 
 will have to be swift and sure." 
 
 The Baron stepped into the bedroom. Then the emotional 
 voice came again, " Roma ! Roma ! " 
 
 Roma staggered to the door and opened it. 
 
 VII 
 
 FLYING from the railway station in the coupe, down the 
 Via Nazionale and the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Rossi had 
 seen by the electric light the remains of the day's festoons, tri- 
 umphal arches, banners, embroideries, emblems, and flowers. 
 These things had passed before his eyes like a flash, yet they 
 had deepened the bitterness of his desire to meet with Roma 
 that he might thrust the evidence of her treachery into her 
 face. 
 
 But when he came to his own house and Roma opened the 
 door to him and he saw her, looking so ill, her cheeks so pale, 
 her beautiful eyes so large and timid, and her whole face ex- 
 pressing such acute suffering, his anger began to ebb away and 
 he wanted to take her into his arms in spite of all. 
 
 Roma knew she was opening the door to Rossi, whatever 
 the strange chance which had brought him there, and when 
 she saw him she made a faint cry and a helpless little run to- 
 wards him, and then stopped and looked frightened. The mo- 
 mentary sensation of joy and relief had instantly died away. 
 She looked at his world-worn face, so disfigured by pain and 
 humiliation, and the arms she had outstretched to meet him 
 she raised above her head as if to ward off a blow. 
 
 He saw under the veil she wore the terror which had seized
 
 THE KING 559 
 
 her at sight of him, and by that alone he knew the depths of 
 the abyss between them. But this only increased the measure- 
 less pity he felt for her. And he could not look at her without 
 feeling that whatever she had done he loved her, and must 
 continue to love her to the last. 
 
 Tears rose to his throat and choked him. He opened his 
 mouth to speak, but at first he could not utter a word. At 
 length he fumbled at his breast, tore at his shirt front, so that 
 his loose neckerchief became untied, and finally drew from 
 an inner pocket a crumpled paper. 
 
 " Look ! " he said with a kind of gasp. 
 
 She saw at a glance what the paper was, and dared not look 
 at it a second time. It was the warrant. She dropped into a 
 chair with bowed head and humble attitude, as if trying to sink 
 out of sight. 
 
 " Tell me you know nothing about it, Roma," he said. 
 
 She covered her face with both hands and was silent. 
 
 " Tell me. Roma, uncover your face and tell me." 
 
 She had expected that he would flame out at her, but his 
 voice was breaking. She lifted her head and tried to look at 
 him. His great eyes were fixed on her with an expression she 
 had never seen before. She wanted to speak and could not do 
 so. His lip trembled, and she hung her head and covered her 
 face again, unable to say a word. 
 
 By this time he knew full well that she was guilty, but he 
 tried to persuade himself that she was innocent, to make ex- 
 cuses for her and to find her a way out. It was a pitiful and 
 hopeless struggle. 
 
 " The newspapers say that the warrant was made at your 
 instruction, Roma that you were the informer who de- 
 nounced me. It cannot be true. Tell me it is not." 
 
 She did not speak. 
 
 " Look at the name on it David Leone. That is a name 
 which could only be written in a man's blood. For God's sake, 
 Roma, tell me you did not write it ? " 
 
 Still she did not speak. 
 
 " I told you everything myself, Roma. It was in this very 
 room, you remember, the night you came here first. You asked 
 me if I wasn't afraid to tell you, and I answered no. You 
 couldn't deceive the son of your own father. It wasn't natu- 
 ral. I was right, wasn't I ? " 
 
 She began to cry beneath her hands. 
 
 " I thought there was only one person in the world who
 
 560 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 knew David Leone. But perhaps there was somebody else. Is 
 there somebody else, Roma? Help me to remember." 
 
 She wanted to look up, but her emotion did not allow her to 
 glance at his face again. 
 
 " Or perhaps some of my letters have been violated. You 
 can't be blamed for that, Roma. Was it so? Tell me. Don't 
 be afraid, dear." 
 
 To look into his eyes now would kill her. Notwithstand- 
 ing his hopeful words she knew that his face must be deepen- 
 ing in despair. 
 
 " I wrote this name on one of them, I remember. That was 
 when I told you all that there was a shadow between us, the 
 shadow of death, and I could not reconcile myself to endanger- 
 ing a life that was a thousand times dearer to me than my own. 
 It is impossible that you can have revealed the most sacred 
 secret of my soul. Tell me it is impossible." 
 
 She felt him take hold of her hand and draw it gently down 
 from her face. 
 
 " Look at the ring on your hand, dear. And look at this 
 one on mine. You are my wife, Roma, and does a man's 
 wife betray him ? " 
 
 Her crying was now audible. His voice cracked at every 
 word. 
 
 " You promised that as long as you lived wherever you 
 might be, and whatever became of us, you would be faithful to 
 the end. . . . We were married before God, too, and whom 
 God has joined together no man can put asunder. We can't 
 do it ourselves, dear. It is impossible. . . . Therefore, this is 
 impossible. . . . Tell me it is impossible, Roma." 
 
 He dropped her hand, and it fell like a lifeless thing to 
 her side. There was a moment of silence, and then he 
 went on wresting excuses for her from the hidden recesses of 
 his brain. 
 
 " The newspapers say our marriage was a part of your plot 
 that you were playing with me and drawing me on. But 
 that is only what my friends have been saying all along. I 
 offended many of them, and some I lost for ever, because I 
 wouldn't believe what they told me. I will not believe it now 
 unless you tell me yourself that it is true." 
 
 She couldn't breathe, her heart was beating cruelly. 
 
 " It isn't true. It cannot be. You have suffered so much 
 for my sake. And then you are here in my house bearing 
 my name sleeping in my bed."
 
 THE KING 561 
 
 Her throbbing heart and nerves could not bear the strain 
 much longer. 
 
 " I know it isn't true, but I want to hear it from your own 
 lips. One word. Only one. Why shouldn't you speak, dear? 
 Say it wasn't you who denounced me to the magistrate. Say 
 you know nothing of this warrant. Say . . . say that . . . say 
 anything . . . anything. Don't you see I'll believe you 'what- 
 ever you say, Roma ? " 
 
 Her emotion became so great that she could control herself 
 no more, but making a great effort she uncovered her face and 
 said: 
 
 " Have pity on me. I cannot speak. I cannot think." 
 
 He looked steadfastly down at her as if he would penetrate 
 to her soul. She tried again. 
 
 " I know quite well it is impossible for you to forgive me, 
 but if I could explain . . ." 
 
 " Explain ! What can there be to explain ? Did you de- 
 nounce me to the magistrate ? " 
 
 "If you could only know what happened and led up to 
 it . . ." 
 
 " Did you denounce me to the magistrate ? " 
 
 " I wrote letters which you have not received . . ." 
 
 " But did you denounce me to the magistrate ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 His pale face seemed to become ashen. " Then it's true," 
 he said, in a voice which hardly passed beyond his throat. 
 " What they say is true that when you came here first it was 
 to deceive and destroy me." 
 
 She hung her head and did not attempt to excuse herself. 
 He passed one hand over his eyes, and after a moment re- 
 covered his former manner. 
 
 " After all, that cannot be the reason you denounced me, 
 Roma, and it isn't in itself so hard a thing to forgive. I had 
 done you an injury. I had said you were not a good woman, 
 and I was wrong cruelly, shamefully wrong. It was only 
 natural if your first thought was to avenge yourself. But 
 when I knew that what I had said was false in substance and 
 in fact, I did my best to wipe it out. From that hour onward 
 I was your friend and champion. Therefore you could not 
 go on with your plan, whatever it might be." 
 
 " ~No, no, indeed no." 
 
 " It is a lie that ever since then you have been drawing me 
 on in the interests of the Baron."
 
 562 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Indeed, indeed it is." 
 
 " The man deceived your father and was trying to deceive 
 you, and you hate him as much as I do ? " 
 
 "With all my soul I hate him." 
 
 " Then why . . . why did you betray me into his hands ? " 
 
 " Because . . . only because . . ." 
 
 A faint sound came from the bedroom. Roma heard it, but 
 Rossi, in the tumult of his brain at searching for excuses for 
 Roma, heard nothing. 
 
 " Perhaps he was putting pressure upon you. I always 
 knew he would do so. You were poor, and he was playing 
 upon your poverty. Was he playing upon your poverty, 
 Roma?" 
 
 " I would give worlds if I could shield myself . . ." 
 
 " Or perhaps he promised you something. He was going 
 to be good to you while I had left you friendless and alone. I 
 could almost forgive him if ... Did he promise you some- 
 thing, Roma ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 " He promised to save your life." 
 
 " My life ! And you denounced me because he promised 
 to save my life ! Didn't you know that I would have given it 
 again and again rather than witness the wrecking of my work ? 
 You did know it." 
 
 His voice had risen to a cry of wrath. 
 
 " Before I agreed to our marriage I put everything before 
 you. I told you my life and liberty were in hourly jeopardy. 
 But you were not afraid. You are one of the women who think 
 a man's wife should share his aims if she can, and if she can't, 
 she should step aside and not impede them." 
 
 She made no resistance, but sat looking before, with swim- 
 ming eyes, while he burst upon her in a voice of scorn. 
 
 " When we parted at the church door you were going to be 
 so brave. Whatever happened to me as the consequence of my 
 course in life you were ready for it. You would share my exile, 
 my imprisonment, my death if such should be, and continue 
 firm and faithful to the last. And now, because an enemy 
 promises to spare me . . . spare me, my God! . . . Oh, oh, 
 oh!" 
 
 " David," she said, and at the sound of his name she sobbed, 
 " I cannot ask you to forgive me . . ." 
 
 " Forgive you ! " he cried, " ask the poor to forgive you
 
 THE KING 563 
 
 the poor whose lot I was trying to lighten the poor women 
 and children who in a world of luxury and corruption have to 
 struggle and starve." 
 
 She continued to look at his tortured face, without trying to 
 keep back her tears. 
 
 " I would have pledged my life on you, Roma. Everybody 
 else was watching and dogging me, but I would have trusted 
 the daughter of Doctor Roselli with my soul itself." 
 
 She looked at his face with glistening eyes. It was not 
 anger there now, but a crushing sorrow. His idol was broken, 
 his faith was dead. 
 
 " I imagined every kind of home-coming but this, Roma. 
 When I heard of your sufferings I counted them all up against 
 the day of reckoning when I should return to punish those who 
 had injured you. And now . . ." 
 
 Tears filled his eyes and choked his voice. 
 
 " David, you cannot forgive me I know that quite well. 
 And I don't want to excuse myself or to blame anybody else " 
 (she looked nervously towards the bedroom door and raised 
 her voice), " whoever it may be, and however wickedly he may 
 have acted. But if I could speak if my mouth were not 
 closed if I dare explain . . ." 
 
 Again there was a faint sound from the adjoining room. 
 
 " I knew what you would say, dear that you would have 
 given your life a hundred times rather than save it at the loss 
 of all that you had worked for and hoped to bring to pass. And- 
 perhaps I should have steeled myself to the great sacrifice and 
 been proof against every trial. But I am no heroine, David, 
 and I could not raise myself to your lofty heights. I am only a 
 poor weak woman who loves you, and when I said that death 
 would find me faithful to the last, I was thinking of my 
 death, not yours, and I could not see you die." 
 
 He felt the need of weeping; he wanted to sob like a 
 child. 
 
 " It is not your fault if the love you brought home to me is 
 dead. I hoped that before you came I might die too. I think 
 my soul must be dead already, and here I lay it at your feet. 
 I dare not hope for pardon, but if your great heart could par- 
 don me . . ." 
 
 He felt his soul fill with love and forgiveness. 
 
 " But I know very well it is impossible . . ." 
 
 "Nothing is impossible, Roma. We are all children in 
 God's hand, erring little children, and if the light of His love
 
 564 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 which lights up the book of life could shine on two more un- 
 fortunate ones . . ." 
 
 She felt a sensation of swelling in her throbbing heart, and 
 rose up with shining eyes. 
 
 " Roma, I confess that when I escaped from the police I 
 came here to avenge myself. They are following me, and I 
 shall inevitably be taken. But if you tell me that it was only 
 your love that led you to denounce me your love and nothing 
 but your love though I am betrayed and fallen and may be 
 banished or condemned to death still . . ." 
 
 " I do say so ! I do ! I do ! " 
 
 " Swear it, Roma." 
 
 "I swear . . ." 
 
 " The woman lies," said a voice behind them. 
 
 The Baron stood in the bedroom doorway. 
 
 VIII 
 
 THE Baron's impulse on going into the bedroom had been 
 merely to escape from one who must be a runaway prisoner, 
 and therefore little better than a madman, whose worst mad- 
 ness would be provoked by his own presence. When he realised 
 that Rossi was self-possessed, and even magnanimous in his 
 hour of peril, the Baron felt ashamed of his hiding-place and 
 was on the point of coming out. In spite of his pride he was 
 compelled to overhear the conversation with Roma, and was 
 humiliated by the generosity of the betrayed man. Roma's 
 vehement assertion of her hatred of himself humbled him 
 deeply, but what made him feel his inferiority most of all was 
 the clear note of her love for Rossi. 
 
 Knight of the Annunziata ! Cousin of the King ! Presi- 
 dent of the Council! Dictator! These things had meant 
 something an hour ago. But now what were they? Nothing 
 in the eyes of this woman against the least of the claims of 
 this babbler and pauper whom he had despised. 
 
 The agony was intolerable. For the first time in the 
 Baron's life his ideas, usually so clear and exact, became con- 
 fused. Standing motionless behind the door, while Roma's 
 plea and Rossi's forgiveness rang in his ears he felt his own 
 baseness as he had never felt it before. This made an uncon- 
 trollable anger rise within him. His humiliation was too ab- 
 ject. Roma was lost to him. He was going mad.
 
 THE KING 565 
 
 He looked at the revolver which he had snatched up when 
 Roma let it fall, examined it, made sure that it was loaded, 
 cocked it, put it in the right-hand pocket of his overcoat, and 
 then opened the door. 
 
 The two in the other room did not at first see him. Roma's 
 brilliant eyes, glistening with unshed tears, were looking ten- 
 derly at Rossi. At the sound of her voice the Baron's jealousy 
 became more violent than ever. 
 
 After a moment of silence Rossi spoke. " Roma," he said, 
 " what is this gentleman doing here ? " 
 
 The Baron laughed and tried to put into a logical sequence 
 the ideas that were besieging his brain. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be as reasonable to ask what you are doing 
 here? I understand that this apartment belongs now to the 
 lady. The lady belongs to me, and when she denounced you to 
 the examining magistrate, it was because I wished and re- 
 quird it." 
 
 He did not stop to consider, but went on repeating himself 
 with the same confusion of ideas. 
 
 " The lady belongs to me. She has belonged to me from 
 the first, and if she told you that what you said in the piazza 
 was untrue she told you what was false. According to the laws 
 of nature and of reason I am this lady's husband, and if any 
 man comes after me it can only be as her paramour." 
 
 Rossi made a step forward, but Roma intervened. The 
 Baron gripped firmly the revolver in his pocket, and said : 
 
 " Take care, sir. If a man insults me he must be pre- 
 pared to take the consequences. ... I can have no interest in 
 slandering the lady, since I must slander myself at the same 
 time. But what you said in the piazza was true in substance 
 and in fact, and now that you have come between us it is natu- 
 ral that I should tell you so." 
 
 Rossi was breathing heavily, but trying to retain the mas- 
 tery of himself. His hands were clenched and his lips tightly 
 closed. 
 
 " You ask me to believe, sir, that the lady I have married 
 is secretly the wife of another man. Isn't that it? If you 
 cannot prove what you say I warn you that in one minute I 
 will fling you headlong out of that window. If you can prove 
 it you may do as much for me." 
 
 The Baron attempted to laugh. " The lady is the only 
 authority," he said. " Ask her. See if she will deny what 
 I say."
 
 566 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " And so she will ! Roma, forgive me for putting the ques- 
 tion, but a falsehood like this, affecting the character of a 
 good woman, ought to be stopped in the slanderer's throat. 
 Don't be afraid, dear. You know I will believe you before any- 
 body in the world. Say the man speaks falsely and I'll stake 
 my life on your word." 
 
 Roma saw the momentary look of triumph with which 
 Rossi turned to her, and she sank into a chair. The terrible 
 moment she had lived in fear of had come to pass. By the deep 
 treachery of circumstances the letters she had written to Rossi 
 had not yet reached him, and her enemy was telling his story 
 before she told hers. 
 
 What was she to do ? She would have said anything at that 
 moment and believed herself justified before God. But even 
 dissimulation itself would be of no avail. Whatever she did, 
 she was in a difficulty which might have awful consequences. 
 If she denied the Baron's story, Rossi would do as he had said 
 If she did not deny it, the vengeance that would otherwise 
 light on the Baron would fall on her. She remembered the 
 Baron's threat of a challenge, and trembled. 
 
 Roma stood for a moment looking in a helpless way from 
 Rossi to the Baron, and from the Baron back to Rossi. She 
 made an effort to speak, but at first she could not do so. At 
 length she said: 
 
 " David, if I could tell you everything . . ." 
 " Everything ! It is only one thing I want to know, Roma." 
 He was looking at her with searching eyes. The eyes of 
 the examining magistrate had not been so searching. 
 
 " Roma, don't you understand, dear ? This gentleman 
 forgive me, dear this gentleman says that before you married 
 me you . . . had already belonged to him. That's what he 
 means, and it's false, isn't it ? " 
 
 Roma did not reply and the Baron gave a grating laugh. 
 This tortured Rossi, and the suspicions which he had been 
 trying to banish since he entered the house seemed to return 
 upon him with redoubled force. 
 
 " Speak, Roma. I beseech you for the sake of your dear 
 father as well as your honour, speak." 
 
 " If I could say anything one way or another . . ." 
 " ' Yes ' or ' 'No,' that is all that is necessary." 
 " If you had received my letters addressed to England . . ." 
 " Letters ? What matter about letters now ? Roma, a man 
 charges you with deceiving your husband in the nearest and
 
 THE KING 567 
 
 dearest relation of life. Perhaps he does so from evil motives, 
 hoping to separate you and me, but he urges his accusation 
 as a proof that when you denounced me to the magistrate you 
 were carrying out his wish and will. It's a lie, isn't it? Tell 
 me it's a lie. For God's sake tell me." 
 
 Roma remembered how a few minutes ago Rossi had been 
 on the point of opening his arms to her, and in the struggle 
 of her woman's heart with the difficulty which closed her 
 mouth she tried to look up at him with the eyes of love. " If 
 I could only look at him," she thought, and she raised her 
 pale face with its trembling lips. But she could see noth- 
 ing in Rossi's eyes but the magistrate who was interroga- 
 ting her. 
 
 " Can't you trust me, David ? " she said, trembling very 
 much. 
 
 " Trust you ? Haven't I trusted you long enough ? Isn't 
 it due to me that at a moment like this you should speak 
 plainly? " 
 
 The voice in which he said this was unlike his own, and his 
 face had become gloomy and tragic. 
 
 " Roma, why are you crying ? You don't mean to tell me 
 that I am to believe what the man says ? " 
 
 Then a thought came to her and calmed for a moment the 
 tumult of her feelings. " David," she said, " if you will re- 
 member what I said in my letters about my friend . . ." 
 
 "Your friend?" 
 
 " I call her my friend." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " My poor friend was my poor self," she said, and then she 
 covered her face with her hands. 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 " You mean to say that when you wrote of a friend who 
 before her marriage had been the victim of another man you 
 were writing about yourself ? " 
 
 " Yes," she said timidly. 
 
 " And without telling me anything about it you allowed me 
 to marry you ? " 
 
 She did not reply, but she thought, " His heart will be 
 touched with compassion. He will remember what he said in 
 his reply about trusting the husband's love. ' Some momentary 
 spasm he may feel . . . but his higher nature will conquer . . . 
 and he will say, she loves me and she is innocent, and if any 
 blow is struck at her it will go through me.' "
 
 568 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 But when Rossi spoke again his voice was as hoarse as a 
 raven's. 
 
 " If that is so, there is nothing more to say. The woman 
 who could do a thing like that could do anything. There is 
 nothing I would not believe her capable of." 
 
 She looked up at him with a pathetic remonstrance, but he 
 met her eyes with the gaze of a relentless judge who had tried 
 and condemned her. 
 
 " David," she said, " you told me to tell everything, and I 
 did so, and if you had received my letters . . ." 
 
 " Afterwards perhaps ; but what was the good of that ? " 
 
 " It was only because I loved you and was afraid to lose 
 you . . ." 
 
 He laughed savagely. " Love ! " he cried. " Do you talk to 
 me of love again? Perhaps you will tell me now that when 
 vou denounced me to the magistrate it was only to save my 
 life?" 
 
 She did not attempt to justify herself further. She felt 
 crushed and guilty before the injured and fallen man. He 
 stood by a table with his soft felt hat in one twitching hand, 
 and in the other the crumpled paper of the warrant. 
 
 " So it's true, is it ? What the newspapers have been saying 
 is true that you married me and pretended to be poor and 
 came to live in this house only to possess yourself of my secrets 
 that you might reveal them to your lord and master ? " 
 
 She tried to protest but he bore her down with his mad 
 laughter, and wheeled round on the Baron, who had been 
 standing in silence behind him. 
 
 " That's why you have met here to-night, I suppose. But 
 you didn't expect to be disturbed, did you ? You didn't expect 
 to see me. You thought I was stowed away in a cell and you 
 could meet in safety." 
 
 " David, some day you will be sorry for saying this, and 
 then it will be too late to . . ." 
 
 " Oh, silence ! silence ! You have deceived me from the 
 beginning, arid this," crushing the warrant in his hand and 
 flinging it away, " is the proof of your deception. Oh, my 
 brain ! my brain ! I shall go mad ! " 
 
 Roma leapt to her feet. " It isn't true ! I tell you it isn't 
 true." And then turning to the Baron with flame in her eyes 
 she said, " Tell him it isn't true. You know it isn't, and if 
 you've one spark of humanity you'll say so." 
 
 The Baron tried to laugh. " True," he said. " Of course
 
 THE KING 569 
 
 it's true. Every word the man has uttered is true. Don't ask 
 me to lie to him as you have lied from first to last." 
 
 At that Rossi's mad laughter stopped suddenly, and he 
 marched on the Baron with fury in his face. 
 
 " You scoundrel ! " he said. " You've succeeded, you've 
 separated us, it is all over between us, but I understand you 
 perfectly at last. You have used the unhappy lady's shame to 
 compel her to carry out your infamous designs, and now that 
 she is done with, she must lose the man who played with her as 
 well as the man she played with." 
 
 Roma saw the Baron, who was scowling in his anger, feel 
 for something in the side pocket of his overcoat. "But one 
 doesn't quarrel with an escaped criminal," he said. "It is 
 sufficient to call the police. . . . Police ! " he cried, lifting his 
 voice and taking a step forward. 
 
 Roma saw Rossi stand between the Baron and the door, and 
 she tried to warn him, but she could not utter the least cry. 
 
 " Let me pass," said the Baron. 
 
 " Not yet, sir," said Rossi, and he flung his soft hat on to 
 the side table. " You have something to do before you go. 
 The lives of men like you are insults to every man who has a 
 mother, a daughter, or a wife, and before you leave this room 
 you will go down on your knees and beg the pardon of your 
 victim in the sacred name of Woman." 
 
 Roma saw the Baron draw the revolver. She saw Rossi 
 spring upon him, and seize him by the glittering collar of the 
 Annunziata which hung over his shirt front. She saw the men 
 go struggling through the door of the sitting-room into the 
 dining-room. She covered her ears with her hands to shut out 
 the sounds from the outer chamber, but she heard Rossi's 
 hoarse voice that was like the growl of a wild beast. Then 
 came the deafening report of a pistol-shot, then the vibration 
 of a heavy fall, and then dead silence. 
 
 Roma was still standing with her hands over her ears, shak- 
 ing with terror and scarcely able to breathe, when footsteps 
 resounded on the floor behind her. Giddy and dazed, with one 
 agonizing thought she turned, saw Rossi, and uttered a cry 
 of relief. But he was coming down on her with great staring 
 eyes and the look of a desperate maniac. For one moment he 
 stood over her in his ungovernable rage, and scalding and blis- 
 tering words poured out of him in a torrent. 
 
 " I've killed him. D'you hear me ? I've killed him. But 
 it's as much your work as mine, and you will never think of 
 37
 
 570 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 yourself henceforward without remorse and horror. I curse 
 you by the love you've wronged and the heart you've broken. I 
 curse you by the hopes you've wasted and the truth you've out- 
 raged. I curse you by the memory of your father, the memory 
 of a saint and martyr." 
 
 Before his last words were spoken Roma had ceased to hear. 
 With a feeble moan interrupted by a faint cry she had slowly 
 retreated before him, and then fallen face downwards. Every- 
 thing about her, Rossi, herself, the room, the lamp on the table 
 and the shadows cast by it, had mingled and blended, and gone 
 out in a complete obscurity. 
 
 IX 
 
 WHEN Roma regained consciousness, there was not a sound 
 in the apartment. Even the piazza outside was quiet. Some- 
 body was playing a mandolin a long way off, and the thin 
 notes were trembling through the still night. A dog was bark- 
 ing in the distance. Save for these sounds everything was 
 still. 
 
 Roma lay for some minutes in a state of semi-conscious- 
 ness. Her head was swimming with vague memories, and she 
 was unable at first to disentangle the thread of them. At 
 length she remembered all that had happened, and she wept 
 bitterly. 
 
 But when the first tenderness was over the one feeling 
 which seized and held her whole being was hatred of the Baron. 
 Rossi had told her the man was dead and she felt no pity. The 
 Baron deserved his death, and if Rossi had killed him it was 
 no crime. 
 
 She was still lying where she had fallen when a noise as of 
 some one moving came from the adjoining room. Then a 
 voice called to her. 
 
 " Roma ! " 
 
 It was the Baron's voice, broken and feeble. A great terror 
 took hold of her. Then came a sense of shame, and finally a 
 feeling of relief. The Baron was not dead. Thank God ! O 
 thank God ! 
 
 She got up and went into the dining-room. The Baron was 
 on his knees struggling to climb to the couch. His shirt front 
 was partly dragged out of his breast and the Order of the An- 
 nunziata was torn away. There was a streak of blood over
 
 THE KING 571 
 
 his left eyebrow, and no other signs of injury. But his eyes 
 themselves were glassy, and his face was pale as death. 
 
 " I'm dying, Roma." 
 
 " 111 run for a doctor," she said. 
 
 " No ! Don't do that. I don't want to be found here. 
 Besides, it's useless. I know exactly what has happened. A 
 point of the serrated edge of the Order has pierced the brain 
 near the eye. The first effect was unconsciousness, the next 
 will be internal bleeding, the last will be coma and death. In 
 five minutes a clot of blood will have covered the lacerated 
 brain, and I shall lose consciousness again. Stupid, isn't it?" 
 
 " Let me call for a priest," said Roma. 
 
 " Don't do that either. You can do me more good your- 
 self, Roma. Give me a drink." 
 
 Roma was fighting with an almost unconquerable repug- 
 nance for the man who had done her so much wrong, but sim- 
 ple human pity for the suffering creature got the better of 
 hatred. She brought him the drink of water, and with shaking 
 hands she held the glass to his trembling lips. 
 
 " He said I ought to ask your pardon, Rorna. Perhaps I 
 ought. But I didn't intend to injure you. God knows I did 
 not. I intended to do the best for you." 
 
 " How do you feel ? " said Roma. . 
 
 " Worse," he answered. " A case of fatal injury to the 
 brain sometimes lasts for days. Mine will not be so long. Biit 
 don't be afraid. I'm not. I was never afraid of anything in 
 life, and I'm not going to be afraid of death." 
 
 He smiled a melancholy smile and added, " How startled 
 his reverence would have been if I had allowed you to call 
 the priest ! It wouldn't have been fair. But I've not been 
 a bad man. Sufficient unto every one is his own burden, 
 you know." 
 
 He looked into her eyes with evident contrition, and 
 said, "I wonder if it would be fair to ask you to forgive me? 
 Would it ? " 
 
 She did not answer, and he stretched himself and sighed. 
 His breathing became laboured and stertorous, his skin hot, 
 and his eyes dilated. 
 
 " How do you feel now ? " asked Roma. 
 
 " I'm going," he replied, and he smiled again. 
 
 Roma was still fighting hard with her repugnance. The 
 Baron had been the origin of every evil that had entered into 
 her life. He had forced her to betray her husband, then lied to
 
 572 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 him, and finally separated them for ever. But the human soul 
 was gleaming out of the wretched man at the last, and he was 
 looking at her now with pleading eyes which plainly could 
 not see. 
 
 " Are you there, Roma ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " At least promise that you will not leave me." 
 
 " I will not leave you now," she answered in a low voice. 
 
 After a moment he roused himself with an effort and said, 
 " And this is the end ! How absurd ! They'll find me here in 
 any case and what a chatter there'll be! The Chamber the 
 journals all the scribblers and speechifiers. What will Eu- 
 rope say ? Another Boulanger perhaps ! But I'm sorry for 
 Italy. Nobody can say I did not love my country. Where 
 her interest lay I let nothing interfere. And just when every- 
 thing seemed to triumph . . ." 
 
 He attempted to laugh. Roma shuddered. 
 
 " It was the star of the Annunziata that did it. The man 
 threw it with such force. To think that it's been the aim of 
 my life to win that Order and now it kills me! Ridiculous, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Again he attempted to laugh. 
 
 " There's a side of justice in that, though, and I'm not 
 going to whine. The Pope tried to paint an awful end, but his 
 nightmare didn't frighten me. We must all bow our heads 
 to the law of compensation the Pope as well as everybody 
 else. But to die stupidly like this . . ." 
 
 He was speaking with difficulty and dragging at his shirt 
 front. Roma opened it at the neck and something dropped on 
 to the floor. It was a lock of glossy black hair tied with a red 
 ribbon such as lawyers use to bind documents together. Dull 
 as his sight was he saw it. 
 
 " Yours, Roma ! You were ill with fever when you first 
 came to Rome, you remember. The doctors cut off your beau- 
 tiful hair. This was some of it. I've worn it ever since. 
 Silly, wasn't it ? " 
 
 Tears began to shine in Roma's eyes. The cynical man 
 who laughed at sentiment had carried the tenderest badge of it 
 in his breast. 
 
 " I used to wear some of my mother's in the same place 
 when I was younger. She was a good woman, too. When she 
 put me to bed she used to repeat something : ' Hold thou my 
 hands,' I think. . . . May I hold your hands, Roma ? "
 
 THE KDsG 573 
 
 Roma turned away her head but she held out her hand, and 
 the dying man kissed it. 
 
 " What a beautiful hand it is ! I think I should know it. 
 among all the hands in the world. How stupid ! People have 
 been afraid of me all my life, Roma; even my mother was 
 afraid of me when I was a child; but to die without once 
 having known what it was to have some one to love you. . . . 
 I believe I'm beginning to rave." 
 
 The mournful irony of the words was belied by the tremu- 
 lous voice. 
 
 " My little comedy is played out, I suppose, and when the 
 curtain is down it is time to go home. Death is a solemn sort 
 of home-going, Roma, and if those we've injured cannot for- 
 give us before we go . . ." 
 
 But the battle of hate in Roma's heart was over. She had 
 remembered Rossi and that had swept away all her bitterness. 
 As the Baron stood to her, so she stood to her husband. They 
 were two unf orgiven ones, both guilty and ashamed. 
 
 " Indeed, indeed I do forgive you, as I hope to be forgiven," 
 she said, whereupon he laughed again, but with a different note 
 altogether. 
 
 Then he asked her to lift up his head. She placed a cushion 
 under it, but still he called on her to lift his head higher. 
 
 " Can you lift me in your arms, Roma ? . . . Higher still. 
 So ! ... Can you hold me there ? " 
 
 " How do you feel now ? " she asked. 
 
 " It won't be long," he answered. His respiration came in 
 whiffs. 
 
 Roma began to repeat as much as she could remember of 
 the prayers for the dying which she had heard at the deathbed 
 of her aunt. The dying man smiled an indulgent smile into 
 the young woman's beautiful and mournful face and allowed 
 her to go on. As she prayed faster and faster, saying the 
 same words over and over again, she felt his breathing grow 
 more faint and irregular. At length it seemed to stop, and 
 thinking it was gone altogether, she made the sign of the cross 
 and said : 
 
 " We commend to Thee, O Lord, the soul of Thy servant 
 Gabriel, that being dead to the world he may live to Thee, and 
 those sins which through the frailty of human life he has 
 committed, Thou by the indulgence of Thy most merciful 
 loving-kindness may wipe out, through Christ our Lord 
 Amen."
 
 574 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Then the glazed eyes opened wide and lighted up with a 
 pitiful smile. 
 
 " I'm dying in your arms, Roma." 
 
 Then a long breath, and then : 
 
 " Adieu ! " 
 
 He had tried to subdue all men to his will, and there was 
 one man he had subdued above all others himself. Nature 
 has her hour of revenge on every one who sacrifices humanity to 
 ambition, whether he wears the crown of the tyrant or the tiara 
 of the saint. There is a greater man that the great man the 
 man who is too great to be great. 
 
 SOME time elapsed. It might have been half an hour, a 
 quarter of an hour, or less, but to the young woman holding her 
 enemy in her arms and saying prayers for his soul it seemed like 
 eternity. When she was sure that all was over a great horror 
 seized her. Her own voice, which had been the only sound she 
 heard, broke off in a dying rumble, and there was a deep silence. 
 She found herself alone with death, and it presented itself to 
 her in its most awful aspect. It was the same as if she had 
 committed murder and had her victim at her feet. True that 
 Rossi's hand had struck the blow, but that was in self-defence, 
 and as though by accident. She alone had intended to kill the 
 Baron, and her sense of guilt was the same as if she had actually 
 killed him. 
 
 There had been no light in the dining-room except the re- 
 flection from the lamp in the sitting-room, and now it fell with 
 awful shadows on the whitening face turned upward on the 
 couch. The pains of death had given a distorted expression, 
 and the eyes remained open. Roma wished to close them, but 
 dared not try, and the image of inanimate objects standing in 
 the light was mirrored in their dull and glassy surface. The 
 dog in the distance was still barking, and a company of tipsy 
 revellers were passing through the piazza singing a drinking 
 song with a laugh in it. When they were gone the clocks out- 
 side began to strike. It was one o'clock, and the hour seemed 
 to dance over the city in single steps. 
 
 Roma's terror became unbearable. She recalled the last 
 words of Rossi : " I've killed him, but it is as much your work 
 as mine, and you will never think of yourself henceforward 
 without remorse and horror." Feeling herself to be a murderer,
 
 THE KING 575 
 
 she acted on a murderer's impulse arid prepared to fly. When 
 she recalled the emotions with which she had determined to kill 
 the Baron and then deliver herself up to justice, they seemed so 
 remote that they might have existed only in a dream or belonged 
 to another existence. 
 
 Trembling from head to foot, and scarcely able to support 
 herself, she fixed her hat and veil afresh, put 011 her coat, and, 
 taking one last fearful look at the wide-open eyes on the couch, 
 she went backwards to the door. She dare not turn round from 
 a creeping fear that something might touch her on the shoulder. 
 
 The door was open. No doubt Rossi had left it so, and she 
 had not noticed the circumstance until now. Out on the land- 
 ing she stood and listened. A lady and two gentlemen were 
 coming upstairs talking and laughing. They were the people 
 who lived in the apartments below. One of them was the con- 
 ductor of the Municipal band. He was returning from his 
 work on the Pincio with a roll of music under his arm and his 
 gloves stuck in his sword handle. Roma waited until the cheer- 
 ful company had entered their rooms and their voices had 
 deadened away. Then she closed her own door with a gentle 
 click and began to go softly downstairs. All her heroism was 
 gone, and she felt like a wretched criminal. 
 
 She had got as far as the first landing when a poignant 
 memory came to her the memory of how she had first de- 
 scended those stairs with Rossi, going side by side, and almost 
 touching. The feeling that she had been fatal to the man since 
 then nearly choked and blinded her, but it urged her on. If 
 she remained until some one came, and the crime was dis- 
 covered, what was she to say that would not incriminate her 
 husband ? 
 
 Suddenly she became aware of other sounds from below 
 the measured footsteps of soldiers. She knew who they were. 
 They were the Carabineers, and they were coming for Rossi, 
 who had escaped and was being pursued. 
 
 Roma turned instantly and with a noiseless step fled back 
 to the door of the apartment, opened it with her latch-key, 
 closed it silently, and bolted it on the inside. This was done 
 before she knew what she was doing, and when she regained 
 full possession of her faculties she was in the sitting-room, and 
 the Carabineers were ringing at the electric bell. 
 
 They rang repeatedly. Roma stood in the middle of the 
 floor, listening and holding her breath. 
 
 " Deuce take it ! " said a voice outside. " Why doesn't the
 
 5T6 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 woman open the door if she doesn't want to get herself into 
 trouble? She's at home, at all events." 
 
 " So is he, if I know anything," said a second voice. " He 
 drove here anyway not a doubt about that." 
 
 " Let's see the porter he'll have another key." 
 
 " The old fool is out at the illuminations. But listen . . ." 
 (the door rattled as if some one was shaking it). " This door is 
 fastened on the inside." 
 
 There was a chuckling laugh, and then, " All right, boys ! 
 Down with it ! " 
 
 A moment afterwards the door was broken open and four 
 Carabineers were in the dining-room. Roma awaited their 
 irruption without a word. She continued to stand in the 
 middle of the sitting-room looking straight before her. 
 
 " Holy saints, what's this ? " cried the voice she had heard 
 first, and she knew that the Carabineers were bending over the 
 body on the couch. 
 
 " His Excellency ! " 
 
 " Lord save us ! " 
 
 Roma's head was dizzy, and something more was said which 
 she did not follow. At the next moment the Carabineers had 
 entered the sitting-room; she was standing face to face with 
 them, and they were questioning her. 
 
 " The Honourable Rossi is here, isn't he ? " 
 
 " No," she answered in a timid voice. 
 
 " But he has been here, hasn't he ? " 
 
 " No," she answered more boldly. 
 
 "Do you mean to say that the Honourable Rossi has not 
 been here to-night ? " 
 
 " I do," she said, with exaggerated emphasis. 
 
 The marshal of the Carabineers, who had been speaking, 
 looked attentively at her for a moment, and then called on his 
 men to search the rooms. 
 
 " What's this ? " said the marshal, taking up a sealed letter 
 from the bureau and reading the superscription : " ' L'on. 
 Davide Rossi, Carceri Giudiziarie di Milano.' " 
 
 " That's a letter I wrote to my husband and haven't yet 
 posted," said Roma. 
 
 " But what's this ? " cried a voice from the dining-room. 
 ;< Presented to the Honourable David Rossi by the Italian 
 colony in Zurich.' " 
 
 Roma sank into a seat. It was the revolver. She had for- 
 gotten it.
 
 THE KING 577 
 
 " That's all right," said the marshal, with the same chuckle 
 as before. 
 
 Dizzy and almost blind in her terror, Roma struggled to her 
 feet. " The revolver belongs to me," she said. " Mr. Rossi 
 left it in my keeping when he went away two months ago, and 
 since that time he has never touched it." ' 
 
 " Then who fired the shot that killed his Excellency, 
 Signora ? " 
 
 " I did," said Roma. 
 
 Instinctively the man removed his hat. 
 
 Within half an hour Roma had repeated her statement at 
 the Regina Coeli, and the Carabineers, to prevent a public 
 scandal, had smuggled the body of the Baron, under the cover of 
 night, to his office in the Palazzo Braschi, on the opposite side 
 of the piazza. 
 
 XI 
 
 ONE thought was supreme in David Rossi's mind when he 
 left the Piazza Navona that the world in which he had lived 
 was shaken to its foundations and his life was at an end. The 
 unhappy man wandered about the streets without asking him- 
 self where he was going or what was to become of him. 
 
 Remnants of the day's rejoicing met him at every step. At 
 one moment he was conscious that the rockets from the Pincio 
 were descending over the city like glittering showers from a 
 fountain of fire in yellow, blue, and red drops, which expired as 
 they fell and left only the deep dark night. At the next 
 moment he was looking down the Corso, which was lit up like 
 an altar with lamps of many colours. 
 
 "What have these people to rejoice about?" he asked 
 himself. 
 
 In one of the smaller piazzas a bonfire was burning out and 
 two or three ragged boys were warming themselves by the dying 
 embers. This suited better with his mood. The world was a 
 chaos, the sport of a demon of chance. 
 
 " There goes a poor fellow with a tile off," said somebody. 
 It was one of the Carabineers, who walk two and two. They 
 had heard him speaking to himself as he passed them in the dark. 
 
 The bank of the river was less irritating than the streets, 
 and passing through the desolate waste of the Ghetto, under the 
 arch of the old Cenci palace with its worm-eaten beams, he came 
 out by the broken line of the hospital of the Good Brothers.
 
 578 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The muddy turbulent waters of the Tiber were like the black 
 mirror of his clashing passions. 
 
 Many feelings tore his heart, but the worst of them was 
 anger. He had taken the life of the Baron. The man deserved 
 his death and he felt no pity for his victim and no remorse for 
 his crime. But that he should have killed the Minister, he 
 who had twice stood between him and death, he who had re- 
 sisted the doctrine of violence and all his life preached the 
 gospel of peace, this was a degradation too shameful and 
 abject. 
 
 The woman had been the beginning and end of everything. 
 " How I hate her ! " he thought. He was telling himself for the 
 hundredth time that he had never hated anybody so much 
 before, when he became aware that he had returned to the 
 neighbourhood of the Piazza Navona. Without knowing what 
 he was doing, he had been walking round and round it. 
 
 A veglione (masked ball) had been held in the Teatro Valle, 
 and a number of flashy men and women were coming out as he 
 passed, some in red and black dominoes, others in cocked hats 
 and feathers. Several couples skipped away arm in arm, singing 
 snatches and throwing confetti, but two girls saluted Rossi in 
 the inane falsetto of the Carnival, smirked up into his face, 
 and said something about love. 
 
 " But what worse are these wretched beings than women of 
 greater pretensions? All women are alike. I hate every one 
 of them," he thought. 
 
 He had began to picture Roma as he had seen her that night. 
 The beautiful, mournful, pleading face, which he had not really 
 seen while his eyes looked on it, now rose before the eye of his 
 mind. This caused a wave of tenderness to pass over him 
 against his will, and his heart, so full of hatred, began to melt 
 with love. 
 
 All the cruel words he had spoken at parting returned to his 
 memory and he told himself that he had been too hasty. Instead 
 of bearing her down he should have listened to her explanation. 
 Before the Baron entered the room she had been at the point of 
 swearing that her love, and nothing but her love, had caused her 
 to betray him. 
 
 He told himself she had lied, but the' thought was hell, and 
 to escape from it he made for the bank of the river again. This 
 time he crossed the bridge of St. Angelo, and passed up the 
 Borgo to the piazza of St. Peter's. But the piazza itself 
 awakened a crowd of memories. It was there in a balcony that
 
 THE KING 579 
 
 he had first seen Koma, not plainly, but vaguely in a summer 
 cloud of lace and sunshades. 
 
 " And to think it is all over ! " he thought. 
 
 Then it occurred to him that it must have been on this spot 
 that Roma was inspired with the plot which had ended with his 
 betrayal. At that thought all the bitterness of his soul re- 
 turned. He told himself she deserved every word he had said 
 to her, and blamed himself for the humiliation he had gone 
 through in his attempts to make excuses for what she had done. 
 To the curse he had hurled at her at the last moment he added 
 words of fierce anger, and though they were spoken only in his 
 brain, or to the dark night and the rolling river, they intensified 
 his fury. 
 
 " Oh, how I hate her ! " he thought. 
 
 People had said he was like Samson betrayed by Delilah, 
 and if like Samson he could pull down the house of his enemies 
 on his own head and theirs he thought he should be content. 
 Impossible ! Puerile ! What a fool a man could be when his 
 moral world was broken up ! 
 
 The piazza was quiet. There was a light in the Pope's 
 windows, and a Swiss Guard was patrolling behind the open 
 wicket of the bronze gate to the Vatican. A porter in gor- 
 geous livery was yawning by the door of the Prime Minister's 
 palace. The man was waiting for his master. He would have 
 to wait. 
 
 The clock of St. Peter's struck one, and the silent place be- 
 gan to be peopled with many shadows. The scene of the Pope's 
 Jubilee returned to Rossi's mind. He saw and heard every- 
 thing over again. The crowd, the gorgeous procession, the 
 Pope, and last of all his own speech. A sardonic smile crossed 
 his face in the darkness as he thought of what he had said. 
 
 " Is it possible that I can ever have believed those fables ? " 
 
 Churches, basilicas, religious ceremonials, bells, priests, 
 popes they were all lies. Who said the world was ruled by 
 justice? What fool invented the fiction of a beneficent Provi- 
 dence? It must have been some monk in a convent who had 
 not yet learned what it was to live. 
 
 " But where can I fly to ? " he thought. 
 
 He was tramping down the Trastevere, picturing his trial 
 for the murder of the Baron, with Roma in the witness-box 
 and himself in the dock. The cold horror of it all was insup- 
 portable, and he told himself that there was only one place 
 in which he could escape from despair.
 
 580 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The unhappy man had begun to think of taking his own 
 life. He had always condemned suicide. He had even con- 
 demned it in Bruno. But it was the death grip of a man 
 utterly borne down, and there was nothing else to hold 
 on to. 
 
 Then there was something more in suicide than wiping out 
 the shame of a weakness which had ruined the cause of the 
 people there was the desire for vengeance. By killing him- 
 self he would avenge himself on Roma. Perhaps she did not 
 even yet realise what she had done. His death would compel 
 her to realise it. 
 
 " This is womanish," he thought, but he could not put the 
 idea away. 
 
 The day began to break, and he turned back towards the 
 piazza of St. Peter's thinking of what he intended to do and 
 where he would do it. By the end of the Hospital of Santo 
 Spirito there was a little blind alley bounded by a low wall. 
 Below was the quick turn of the Tiber and no swimmer was 
 strong enough to live long in the turbulent waters at that 
 point. He would do it there. 
 
 The streets were silent, and in the grey dawn, that mystic 
 hour of parturition when the day is being born and things are 
 seen in places where they do not exist, when ships sail in the 
 sky and mountains rise around lowland cities, David Rossi be- 
 came aware in a moment that a woman was walking on the 
 pavement in front of him. He could almost have believed that 
 it was Roma, the figure was so tall and full and upright. But 
 the woman's dress was poorer, and she was carrying a bundle 
 in her arms. When he looked again he saw that her bundle 
 was a child, and that she was weeping over it. 
 
 " Taking her little one to the hospital," he thought. 
 
 But on turning into the little Borgo he saw that the woman 
 went up to the Rota, knelt before it, kissed the child again and 
 again, put it in the cradle, pulled the bell, and then, crying 
 bitterly, hastened away. 
 
 Rossi remembered his own mother, and a great tide of sim- 
 ple human tenderness swept over him. What he had seen the 
 woman do was what his mother had done thirty-five years be- 
 fore. He saw it all as by a mystic flash of light, which looked 
 back into the past. 
 
 Suddenly it occurred to him that the Rota had been long 
 since closed, and therefore it was physically impossible that 
 anybody could have put a child into the cradle. Then he
 
 THE KING 581 
 
 remembered that he had not heard the bell or the woman's 
 footsteps, or the sound of her voice when she wept. 
 
 He stopped and looked back. The woman was returning 
 in the direction of the piazza of St. Peter's. By an impulse 
 which he could not resist he followed her, overtook her and 
 looked into her face. 
 
 Again he thought he was looking at Roma. There was 
 the same nobility in the beautiful features, the same sweetness 
 in the tremulous mouth, the same grandeur in the great dark 
 eyes. But he knew perfectly who it was. It was his mother. 
 
 It did not seem strange that his mother should be there. 
 From her home in heaven she had come down to watch over 
 her son. She had always been watching over him. And now 
 that he too was betrayed and lost, now that he too was broken- 
 hearted and alone . . . 
 
 He was utterly unmanned. " Mother ! Mother ! I am 
 coming to you ! Every door is closed against me, and I have 
 nowhere to go to for sanctuary. I am coming! ... I am 
 
 coming 
 
 Then the spirit paused, and pointing to the bronze gate of 
 the Vatican, said, with infinite tenderness : 
 " Go there ! "
 
 PAET NINE 
 THE PEOPLE 
 
 His Holiness Pope Pius X. had that day held a secret Con- 
 sistory in the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican to publish the 
 nomination of fifteen new cardinals of the Church. 
 
 " Venerable brethren," he had said, " to-day we cover with 
 the honour of the Roman purple the fifteen ineffable men of 
 whom we spoke on the anniversary of our coronation." 
 
 After a cardinal had read the names and titles of the prel- 
 ates, the Pope said : 
 
 " What think you of it, venerable brethren? " 
 
 But without waiting for a reply he continued: 
 
 " Therefore by the authority of the Omnipotent God and 
 Ihe Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, 
 we hereby create and proclaim as cardinals these fifteen in- 
 effable men, who by their devotion and genius have merited 
 well of the Church and the Apostolic Sec." 
 
 The Pope's Allocution, which was spoken in Latin, dealt 
 with the problems of the temporal power. There were those 
 who agreed with the Canonists that the Pope held the power 
 of both swords, the spiritual and the temporal, by virtue of the 
 words of Christ which said, " I will give to thee the keys." On 
 the other hand, there were those who held with the early Popes 
 that the sacred ministry ought by no means to arrogate to itself 
 the administration of secular affairs. Some maintained that it 
 was impossible for the Pope to abdicate his sovereignty with- 
 out the spontaneous acquiescence of the Sacred College, the 
 clergy, and the religious congregations; that the Pope was the 
 custodian, not the owner of the temporal powers of the Church, 
 and that he could never set aside the oath he had taken as 
 guardian of the Apostolic See not to alienate them. Others 
 were of opinion that as the Pope was not subject to his car- 
 582
 
 THE PEOPLE 583 
 
 dinals and clergy he could not be controlled by their will or 
 bound by an oath to them, and that as the temporal powers of 
 the Church had ceased to exist, he could not be said to alien- 
 ate what he never possessed. 
 
 " Venerable brethren," said the Pope, " accustomed as we 
 are to communicate with you concerning joyful and mournful 
 things, we cannot be silent on the subject, especially now, 
 when the difficulties and dangers of the temporal claims of the 
 Papacy are so constantly present with us ; when it is more than 
 ever necessary to stand by that irremovable landmark between 
 God and Caesar for which the martyrs shed their blood, and 
 when it is clear that the temporal power of the Pontiff can 
 not attain to absolute independence unless it extends not over 
 Rome alone but over the world. 
 
 " Venerable brethren, we ask you to ponder well the words, 
 ' Whosoever shall be great among you shall be your minister ' ; 
 and to consider carefully the awful burden which the new 
 dogma of infallibility has added to the old sovereignty of the 
 Pope. Men, not angels,, are the ministers of God, and is it not 
 full of peril to the welfare of the Church that a sinful, erring 
 man should seek to carry the weight of a temporal government 
 in which he is not controlled by the divine counsels? 
 
 " But, oh, how happy we are in our Catholic faith, my 
 brethren, and in the certainty that God has willed to save His 
 worshippers, not with the splendour of the diadem, but with 
 the humility of the Cross! And oh, Rome, what glory is re- 
 served for thee, mother of cities, when the Holy Church, with- 
 out a fleshly army or a foot of earth which it can call its 
 own, has yet attained to the rule of the whole world under 
 the dome of our sacred Basilica with the precious words 
 emblazoned there : ' Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will 
 build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
 against it.' " 
 
 When the Allocution had been pronounced, everybody felt 
 that from some cause unknown the trumpet blast of the Pope 
 had weakened since the anniversary of his coronation. And 
 the Pope knew that the Pontiff who should relinquish the tem- 
 poral claims of the Papacy would have more difficulties to en- 
 counter within the circle of his own household than in the 
 broad realm of the world. 
 
 But meantime there were the usual compliments and con- 
 gratulations, the usual Vatican bows, the usual Vatican smiles, 
 the usual Vatican commonplaces, and the cardinals returned
 
 584 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 to their lodgings to drink the health of their new colleagues, 
 and receive the poetic addresses of aspiring friends. 
 The Pope went back to his room to think and to pray. 
 
 II 
 
 : .J9 
 
 THAT night the Pope slept badly. Turning on the light 
 that hung above his bed, he occupied the sleepless hours in 
 reading the Roman newspapers of the day, with their story 
 of Rossi's arrest at Chiasso, and their cruel account of Roma's 
 motives. 
 
 " Poor soul ! He will be in prison by this time. And she, 
 poor child . . ." 
 
 The Pope sighed, took up another newspaper and read : " No 
 doubt the natural tendency of His Gracious Majesty will be to 
 pardon even this vile conspiracy against his own life and the 
 public peace, but it lies with the people to say whether it is just 
 to the nation and the dynasty that such royal clemency should 
 be encouraged." 
 
 It was the Prime Minister who was speaking, and the Pope 
 thought : " He promised me faithfully to save the young man's 
 life, yet now . . ." 
 
 A sense of having been duped oppressed the Pope, and he 
 read on to escape reflection. It was after one o'clock when he 
 turned out his light, and still he heard the bands of music that 
 were playing in the city, arid saw the falling drops from the 
 fireworks on the Pincio. 
 
 The Pope awoke next morning in the dreary hour of cock- 
 crow, and rang for his valet while he was still in bed. When 
 Cortis came he was greatly agitated. 
 
 " What's amiss, Gaetanino ? " said the Pope. 
 
 " A madman, your Holiness," said the valet. " They wanted 
 me to awaken your Holiness, and I wouldn't do it. A madman 
 is down at the bronze gate and insists on seeing you." 
 
 At this moment the Maestro di Camera came into the room. 
 He Was also greatly agitated. 
 
 " What is this about some poor madman at the bronze 
 gate ? " asked the Pope. 
 
 " I have come to tell your Holiness," said the master of the 
 household. " The man declares he is pursued, and demands 
 sanctuary." 
 
 "Who is he?"
 
 THE PEOPLE 585 
 
 " He says he will give his name to the Holy Father only, but 
 his face . . ." 
 
 " The man's mad," said the valet. 
 
 " Be quiet, Gaetano. A man who begs sanctuary is of all 
 others the one who has a right to conceal his name." 
 
 " His face," continued the Maestro di Camera, " is known to 
 the Swiss Guard, and when they sent up word . . ." 
 
 The Pope sat up and said, " Is it perhaps . . ." 
 
 " It is, your Holiness, therefore I was afraid to order that a 
 man of such notoriety should be flung out of the precincts with- 
 out first . . ." 
 
 "Where is he now?" 
 
 "He has forced his way in as far as the Sala Clementina, 
 and nothing but physical force . . ." 
 
 Sounds of voices raised in dispute could be heard in a distant 
 room. The Pope listened and said : 
 
 " Let the man come up immediately." 
 
 " Here, your Holiness ? " 
 
 " Here." 
 
 The Maestro di Camera had hardly gone from the Pope's 
 bedroom when the Secretary of State entered it with hasty steps. 
 
 " Your Holiness," he said, " you will not allow yourself to 
 receive this 'person? It is sufficiently clear that he must have 
 escaped from the police during the night, probably by the help 
 of confederates, and to shelter him will be to come into collision 
 with the civil authorities." 
 
 " The young man demands sanctuary, your Eminence, and 
 whatever the consequences we have no right to refuse it." 
 
 " But sanctuary is obsolete, your Holiness. It has not been 
 confirmed for nearly a hundred years." 
 
 " Nothing can be obsolete that is of divine institution, your 
 Eminence. Sanctuary was created by the decree of God. Who, 
 then, are we that we should say it has ceased to exist ? " 
 
 " But, your Holiness, it can only exist by virtue of con- 
 cession from the State, and the present relation of the Church 
 to the State of Italy . . ." 
 
 " That, your Eminence, only gives twofold force to the 
 position of the Vatican as a place of refuge and immunity." 
 
 " But the civil law, which guarantees to the Holy 
 Father . . ." 
 
 " Your Eminence, I will ask you to let the young man 
 come in." 
 
 " Your Holiness, I beg, I pray, reflect . . ." 
 38
 
 586 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Let the young man come in, your Em. . . ." 
 
 The Pope had not finished when the words were struck out 
 of his mouth by an apparition which appeared at his bedroom 
 door. It was that of a young man whose eyes were wild, whose 
 nostrils were quivering, and whose clothes hung about him in 
 rags as if they had been torn in a recent struggle. He had a 
 look of despair and suffering, yet it was the same to the Pope 
 at that moment as if he were looking at his own features in a 
 glass. 
 
 The young man was surrounded by Swiss Guards, and the 
 Maestro di Camera pushed in ahead of him. Coming face to 
 face with the Pope, propped up in his bed, the' loud tones in 
 which he was protesting died in his throat^ and he stood in 
 silence on the threshold of the room. 
 
 The Pope was first to speak. In a tender and tremulous 
 voice he said : 
 
 " What is it you wish to say to me, my son ? " 
 
 The young man seemed to recover his self-possession, but 
 without a genuflexion or even a bow of the head, and with a 
 slightly defiant manner he said, " My name is David Leone. 
 They call me Kossi, because that was my mother's name and 
 they said I had no right to my father's. I am a Roman, and 
 I have been two months abroad. For ten years I have worked 
 for the people, and now I am denounced and betrayed to the 
 police. Three days ago I was arrested on returning to Italy, 
 and to-night by the help of friends I have escaped from the 
 Carabineers. But every gate is closed against me and I can- 
 not get out of Rome. This is the Vatican, and the VaVcan 
 is Sanctuary. Therefore it is the only place left to a man who 
 *is betrayed and hunted. Will v you take me in ? " 
 
 The Pope looked at the Swiss Guard, and said in the same 
 tremulous voice, " Gentlemen, you will take this young man to 
 your own quarters, and see that no Carabineer lays hands on 
 him without my knowledge and consent." 
 
 " Your Holiness ! " protested the Cardinal Secretary, but 
 the Pope raised his hand and silenced him. 
 
 Rossi's defiant manner left him. " Wait," he said. " Be- 
 fore you decide to take me in you must know more about 
 me, and what I am charged with. I am the Deputy Rossi who 
 is said to have instigated the late riots. The warrant for my 
 arrest accuses me of treason and an attempt on the person of 
 the late King. It is false, but you must look at it for yourself. 
 Here it is."
 
 THE PEOPLE 587 
 
 So saying he plunged into his pocket for the paper, and 
 then said, " It is gone ! I remember now I flung it at the feet 
 of my betrayer." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Pope, still addressing the Swiss 
 Guard, " if the civil authorities attempt to arrest this young 
 man you may tell them they can only do so by giving a written 
 promise of safety for life and limb." 
 
 Rossi's wild eyes began to melt. " You are very good," 
 he said, " and I will not deceive you. Although I am inno- 
 cent of the crime they charge me with, I have broken the 
 law of God and of my country, and if you have any fear of 
 the consequences you must turn me out while there is still 
 time." 
 
 " Your Holiness," said the Cardinal Secretary again, and he 
 tried to speak some whispered words, but once more the Pope 
 raised his hand and silenced him. 
 
 Rossi's voice began to break. " You are heaping coals of 
 fire on my head. To tell you the truth I have never been a 
 friend of the Vatican, and if you decide to shelter me you will 
 be protecting one who has done his best to pull you from your 
 place." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Pope, " instead of taking this young 
 man to your quarters, let him be lodged in the empty apartment 
 below my own which was formerly occupied by the Secretary of 
 State." 
 
 Rossi broke down utterly and fell to his knees. The Pope 
 raised two fingers and blessed him. 
 
 " Go to your room and rest, my son, and God grant you a 
 little repose." 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 By an impulse he could not resist, Rossi had risen from his 
 knees, taken two or three steps forward, knelt again by the 
 side of the bed, and put his lips to the Pope's hand. 
 
 Did some supernatural voice, unheard by the others and 
 not yet intelligible to himself, cry to him with the mighty and 
 mysterious call of blood to blood? Who shall say? 
 
 But to one of the little company gathered there in the 
 leaden light of dawn Rossi's own voice was sufficiently super- 
 natural. Thirty years of the Pope's life had rolled backward 
 in a moment, and his youth of as long ago stood up before 
 him like a spectre face to face. 
 
 With dizzy eyes that gleamed under his grey brows the Pope 
 followed the young man out until, surrounded by the Swiss
 
 588 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Guard, he had passed from the room. Then he rose and turned 
 into his private chapel for his usual early mass. 
 
 Ill 
 
 LESS than half an hour afterwards a rumour swept through 
 the Vatican like the gust of whistling wind that goes before a 
 storm. The Pope met it as he was coming from mass. 
 
 " What is it, Gaetanino ? " he asked. 
 
 " Something about an assassination, your Holiness," said 
 the valet, and the Pope stood as if thunderstruck, for he 
 thought of Rossi and the King. 
 
 After a while the vague report became more definite. It 
 was not the King but the Prime Minister who had been assas- 
 sinated. 
 
 The Pope's private room began to fill with pallid faces. 
 The Cardinal Secretary was there, the Maestro di Camera, and 
 at length the little Majordomo. By this time a special mes- 
 sage had reached the Vatican from one of its watchers outside, 
 and they were able to discuss the circumstances. The Prime 
 Minister had been found dead in his official palace in the 
 Piazza Navona. He had dined at the Quirinal and remained 
 there for the opening of the state ball, therefore he could not 
 have reached the Palazzo Braschi before eleven or twelve 
 o'clock. Two shots had been heard about midnight, and the 
 body had been discovered in the early morning. 
 
 The Pope listened and said nothing. 
 
 The Cardinal Secretary told another story. The Deputy 
 Rossi, who had been brought to Rome by the train from Genoa 
 which arrived punctually at 11.45, had been rescued by a gang 
 of ruffians at the station. The rescue had been pre-arranged, 
 and the man had jumped into a coupe and driven off at a gal- 
 lop. The coupe had gone down the Via Nazionale, and a few 
 minutes before twelve o'clock it had been seen to turn into 
 the Piazza Navona. It was by the accident that the Carabi- 
 neers had followed in pursuit of the escaped prisoner that the 
 murder had been discovered. 
 
 Still the Pope said nothing. But his head was held down 
 and his soul was full of trouble. 
 
 The group of prelates -looked into each other's faces with 
 suspicion and terror. A storm was gathering round the Vati- 
 can, and who could say what would happen if the Pope per-
 
 THE PEOPLE 589 
 
 sisted in the course he had just taken? At length the Cardinal 
 Secretary approached His Holiness, and said with a deep 
 genuflexion : 
 
 " Holy Father, you will forgive me at this moment of doubt 
 and suspense if my words are not those of submission; but I 
 fear the tenderness of your fatherly heart has betrayed you 
 into sheltering a criminal. It is not merely that the man Rossi 
 is a revolutionary accused of an attempt to overthrow the Gov- 
 ernment of his country. That might give you the right to 
 shelter him as a political refugee who has escaped to this house 
 as to another territory. But there cannot be a question that 
 he is a murderer also, and if you keep him here you will violate 
 the law of every civilised state and expose yourself to the con- 
 demnation of the world." 
 
 The Pope did not reply. Other words in another voice were 
 drumming in his ears with a new and terrible meaning : " I 
 have broken the law of God and of my country, and if you have 
 any fear of the consequences you must turn me out while there 
 is still time." 
 
 " Your Holiness will also remember," said the Cardinal 
 Secretary, " that by the regulation of the civil authorities 
 which guarantees to the Holy Father the rights of sovereignty, 
 it is expressly stated that he holds no powers which are con- 
 trary to the laws of the State and of public order. Therefore 
 to conceal and protect a criminal would be of itself to commit 
 a crime, and God alone can say what the effect and consequence 
 might be to the Vatican and to the Church." 
 
 " Oh, silence ! silence ! " cried the Pope, lifting a face full 
 of suffering. " There are other and higher and more awful 
 things to think of than effects and consequences. Leave me ! 
 leave me ! " 
 
 The Cardinal Secretary and his colleagues bowed to the 
 Pope with profound obedience and backed out of the room. A 
 moment afterwards the young Monsignor entered. He was 
 bringing a newspaper in his hand, for as Cameriere Parteci- 
 pante he was one of the Pope's readers. 
 
 " Holy Father," he said in his nervous voice, " I bring you 
 bad news." 
 
 " What is it, my son ? " said the Pope, with a pitiful ex- 
 pression. 
 
 " The assassin of the Prime Minister turns out to be some 
 one . . ." 
 
 "Well?"
 
 590 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Some one known to your Holiness." 
 
 " Don't be afraid for the Holy Father. . . . Tell me, Mon- 
 signor." 
 
 " It is a lady, your Holiness." 
 
 "A lady?" 
 
 " She has been arrested and has confessed." 
 
 "Confessed?" 
 
 " It is Donna Eoma Volonna, your Holiness. She shot the 
 Prime Minister with a revolver, and her motive was revenge." 
 
 The Pope lifted his head and looked at the young Monsi- 
 gnor with an expression which no language can describe. Be- 
 lief, joy, shame, and remorse were mingled in one flash of his 
 broken and bankrupt face. He was silent for a moment and 
 then he said : 
 
 " Say nothing of this to the young man in the room below. 
 If he is in sanctuary let him also be in peace. Whatever he is 
 to hear of the world without must come through me alone. 
 Give that as my order to everybody. And may God who has 
 had mercy on His servant be 'good to us all ! " 
 
 IV 
 
 IN penance for the joy he had felt on learning that Roma, 
 not Rossi, had assassinated the Minister, the Pope became her 
 advocate in his own mind, and watched for an opportunity to 
 save her. Every day for a week Monsignor Mario read the 
 newspapers to the Pope that he might be fully abreast of 
 everything. 
 
 The first morning the journals merely reported the crime. 
 The headless one with the fearful hands had stalked over the 
 city in the middle of night in the shape of incarnate murder 
 and the citizens of Rome would awake to hear the news with 
 consternation, horror, and shame. It was almost enough to 
 justify the idea abroad which stamped their country as a nur- 
 sery of assassins. 
 
 The evening journals contained obituary articles and ap- 
 preciations of the dead man's character. He was the Richelieu 
 of Italy, the chivalrous and devoted servant of his country, 
 and one of the noblest figures of the age. Some had thought 
 him severe in recent measures, but perhaps he knew better 
 than his critics the perils of the hour. Whatever clouds had ob- 
 scured his popularity, it was certain that he had to contend
 
 , THE PEOPLE 591 
 
 j > 
 
 with almost overmastering forces, economic difficulties, the 
 burden of great armaments, and the unrelenting animosity of 
 the Vatican. But he had the instincts of a statesman and a 
 ruler of men, and he had been struck down as the representa- 
 tive of civilisation at a moment when his power and influence 
 were most needed by his distracted country. 
 
 " A cruel fate indeed," said the Sunrise, " that we should 
 have to write with the English poet, ' The good die first, and 
 they whose hearts are dry as summer dust burn to the socket.' " 
 
 " Extras " were published giving descriptions of the city 
 under the first effects of the terrible news. Rome was literally 
 draped in mourning. It was a forest of flags at half-mast. All 
 public buildings, embassies, cafes, and places of public amuse- 
 ment were closed. Great crowds were gathering in the Corso, 
 the Piazza Colonna and the principal thoroughfares, and an 
 eager throng had stood for hours outside the Palazzo Braschi. 
 Members of the diplomatic corps were going to the Foreign 
 Office to express in the names of their sovereigns their condo- 
 lence and horror. 
 
 There were detailed accounts of how the news was broken 
 to the King. At breakfast an aide-de-camp had hinted that a 
 great calamity had befallen Italy; but when the King asked 
 what it was, the aide-de-camp answered that he did not know. 
 An hour afterwards the Conservator of the Quirinal came to 
 say that the Dictator was ill, and a little later the Queen told 
 the King that the Baron was dead. His Majesty, who was 
 inexpressibly shocked, had cried, " Who will govern Italy 
 now ? " He had since convoked a meeting of the remaining 
 members of his Government, countermanded all fetes and re- 
 ceptions in connection with his Jubilee (a celebration due 
 chiefly to the loyalty and devotion of the dead Minister), and 
 placed a wreath on the bier. 
 
 The Pope was puzzled, and calling a member of his Noble 
 Guard (it was the Count de Raymond), he sent him out into 
 the city to see for himself. 
 
 When the Count de Raymond returned he told another 
 story. The people, while deploring the crime, were not sur- 
 prised at it. Baron Bonelli had refused to understand the 
 wants of the nation. He had treated the people as slaves and 
 shed their blood in the streets. Where such opinions were not 
 openly expressed there was a gloomy silence. Groups could be 
 seen under the great lamps in the Corso reading the evening 
 papers. Sometimes a man would mount a chair in front of
 
 592 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the Cafe Aragno and read aloud from the latest " extra." The 
 crowd would listen, stand a moment, and then disperse. 
 
 Next day the journals were full of the assassin. Thanks to 
 the promptitude of the police, she had been caught red-handed, 
 and was now strictly guarded in prison. It was Donna Roma 
 Volonna, ward of the murdered man. Such a fact would of 
 itself stir the heart and conscience of mankind. She appeared 
 to assign a sort of revenge as her motive, and declared that 
 she had no accomplices. This, however, was not believed by 
 the police, who had grounds for suspecting a combined clerical 
 and anarchist plot to overthrow the monarchy. A few days ago 
 there were reports of her denunciation of the Deputy Rossi, 
 but the latest developments seemed to prove that this was only 
 a ruse. It was significant that Rossi, whose noisy doings were 
 obscured by the greater events of the day, had been rescued by 
 his followers and was still at large. 
 
 As for the assassin herself, many things were incomprehen- 
 sible in her character, unless you approached it with the right 
 key. Young and with a fatal beauty, fantastic, audacious, a 
 great coquette, always giving out a perfume of seduction and 
 feminine ruin, she was one of those women who live in the 
 atmosphere of infamous intrigue, and her last victim had been 
 her first friend. Even with the memory of the poisonings of 
 the Borgias, it was with deep and intense horror, mingled with 
 shame, that Italy had to confess that such a woman could be a 
 Roman princess, while the man for whose love she had (appar- 
 ently) committed her unnatural crime was the nameless off- 
 spring of the Foundling and the poorhouse. 
 
 " We cannot but express sorrow," said the Government 
 organ, " that the penalty of the gallows has been abolished for 
 a crime which outrages every instinct of humanity, and a wish 
 that the criminal could be tried before a court less likely than 
 a jury to be influenced by spasms of sentimeiitalism." 
 
 Once more the Pope was puzzled, and he sent out his Noble 
 Guard again. The Count de Raymond returned to say that in 
 corners of the cafes people spoke of the Baron as a dead dog, 
 and said that if Donna Roma had killed him she did a good act, 
 and God would reward her. 
 
 " Ah, nothing is got without paying for it, and God never 
 pays out of proportion," said the Pope. 
 
 The assizes happened to be in session, and the opening of 
 the trial was reported on the following day. When the pris- 
 oner was asked whether she pleaded guilty or not guilty, she
 
 THE PEOPLE 593 
 
 answered guilty. The court, however, requested her to recon- 
 sider her plea, assigned her an advocate, and went through all 
 the formalities of an ordinary case. A principal object of the 
 prosecution had been to discover accomplices, but the prisoner 
 continued to protest that she had none. She neither denied 
 nor extenuated the crime, and she acknowledged it to have 
 been premeditated. When asked to state her motive, she said it 
 was hatred of the methods adopted by the dead man to wipe out 
 political opponents, and a determination to send to the bar 
 of the Almighty one who had placed himself above human law. 
 
 " This nonsense," said the Sunrise, " was her sole defence, 
 and she continued to avow it with the utmost stubbornness, in 
 spite of palpable proof that she had been the tool of a schem- 
 ing politician and of a desperate gang who have taken an oath 
 of blood." 
 
 The Pope sent his Noble Guard to the next day's hearing 
 of the trial, and when the Count de Raymond came back his 
 eyes were red and swollen. The beautiful and melancholy face 
 of the young prisoner sitting behind iron bars that were like 
 the cage of a wild beast had made a pitiful impression. Her 
 calmness, her total self-abandonment, the sublime feelings that 
 even in the presence of a charge of murder expressed them- 
 selves in her sweet voice, had moved everybody to tears. Then 
 the prosecution had been so debasing in its questions about her 
 visits to the Vatican and in its efforts to implicate David Rossi 
 by means of a letter addressed to the person at Milan. 
 
 " But I did it," the young prisoner had said again and 
 again with steadfast fervour, only deepening to alarm when 
 evidence concerning the revolver seemed to endanger the ab- 
 sent man. 
 
 There had been some conflicting medical evidence as to 
 whether the death could have been due to a pistol-shot, and 
 certain astounding disclosures of police corruption and prison 
 tyranny. A judge of the Military Tribunal had given startling 
 proof of the Prime Minister's complicity in an infamous case, 
 ending with the suicide of the prisoner's man-servant in open 
 court, and an old Garibaldi an among the people, packed away 
 beyond the barrier, had cried out : 
 
 " He was just a black-dyed villain, and God Almighty save 
 us from such another." 
 
 This laying bare of the machinery of statecraft had made 
 a great sensation, and even the judge on the bench, being a just 
 man, had lowered his eyes before the accused at the bar. As
 
 594 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 the prisoner was taken back to prison past the Castle of St. 
 Angelo and the Military College, the crowds had cheered her 
 again and again, and sitting in an open car with a Carabineer 
 by her side, she had looked frightened at finding herself a 
 heroine where she had expected to be a malefactor. 
 
 " Poor child ! " said the Pope. " But who knows the hidden 
 designs of Providence, whether manifest in the path of His 
 justice or His mercy? " 
 
 Next day, when the Noble Guard returned to the Vatican, 
 he could scarcely speak to tell his story. The trial had ended 
 and the prisoner was condemned. Reluctantly the judge had 
 sentenced her to life-long imprisonment. She had preserved 
 the same lofty demeanour to the last, thanked her advocate, 
 and even the judge and jury, and said they had taken the only 
 true view of her act. Her great violet eyes were extraordinarily 
 dilated and dark, and her face was transparent as alabaster. 
 
 " You have done right to condemn me," she said, " but God, 
 who sees all, will weigh my conduct in the scale of His holy 
 justice." The entire court was ia tears. 
 
 When the time came to remove the lady the crowd ran out to 
 see the last of her. There was a van and a company of Cara- 
 bineers, but the emotion of the people mastered them and they 
 tried to rescue the prisoner. This was near the Castle of 
 St. Angelo, and the gates being open, the military rushed her 
 into the fortress for safety. She was there now. 
 
 The Prime Minister was to be buried 011 the following day. 
 From his room in the Vatican the Pope heard the funeral 
 march. 
 
 " But the rolling drums will not drown the voice of God," 
 said the Pope, and again he sent out his Noble Guard to see. 
 
 The young soldier returned with a shocking story. The 
 King and the Government had intended to give the Baron a 
 state funeral, and there had been a brilliant procession, with 
 Ambassadors representing foreign sovereigns, Generals repre- 
 senting the Army, Delegates from municipalities, Judges in 
 crimson robes, Senators, Deputies, and squadrons of cavalry 
 glittering and ablaze. The shrill trumpets and the muffled 
 drums had played the Dead March, the gun of St. Angelo had 
 boomed every five minutes, and the bells of Monte Citorio and 
 the Capitol had tolled with slow and monotonous clang. A 
 Requiem Mass had been sung in the Church of the Cancelleria, 
 and a royal chaplain had given absolution to the corpse of the 
 infidel. But when the time came to set out for the Campo
 
 THE PEOPLE 595 
 
 Santo the dense throng in the Corso Victor Emmanuel looked 
 threatening, and to avoid a panic the course of the procession 
 had been altered. Crossing the Campo''de' Fiori, it had come 
 out on the bank of the Tiber, and there it had been stopped by 
 the crowd, the funeral car surrounded and the coffin seized and 
 flung over the Bridge of the Four Heads into the river. That 
 night thousands of torches blazed in Rome, and a line of men 
 marched along the Corso singing songs and hymns as on a day 
 of festival. 
 
 " Terrible ! " said the Pope. " But woe to him who does not 
 discern the Lord's voice in the blast which uproots the oak." 
 
 When Parliament opened after its Easter vacation, the 
 Count de Raymond was sent in plain clothes to its first sitting. 
 The galleries and lobbies were filled. There was suppressed but 
 intense excitement. During the moments of waiting some 
 mounted from the hall to the gallery; others descended from 
 the gallery to the hall. Each was questioning his neighbour. 
 Rumour said the Government had resigned, and the King, who 
 was in despair, had been unable to form another Ministry. A 
 leader of the Right was heard to say that Donna Roma had done 
 more for the people in a day than the Opposition could have 
 accomplished in a hundred years. " If these agitators on the 
 Left have any qualities of statesmen, now's their time to show 
 it," he said. 
 
 But what would Parliament say about the dead man. The 
 President entered and took his chair. After the minutes had 
 been read there was a moment's silence. Not a word was 
 uttered, not a voice was raised. " Let us pass on to the next 
 business," said the President. 
 
 Meantime people were pouring into Rome from every prov- 
 ince. The death of the Baron and the condemnation of Roma 
 had awakened the conscience of Italy. There was profound 
 emotion on every hand, and the nation stood trembling on the 
 verge of future events. A decided opinion prevailed that Rome 
 was on the eve of another episode in its history. It might lead 
 to the fall of the dynasty and to a change in the international 
 position of the Pope. But where was Rossi ? After all, he was 
 a high-minded and incorruptible man, and though diplomatists 
 had called him a dreamer, perhaps he was not wrong in thinking 
 the old order was doomed and dead. " It isn't the Campagna 
 only that is undermined with catacombs," said somebody. 
 
 " True, true ! " said the Pope. 
 
 The Pope surprised himself with a certain feeling of pride,
 
 596 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 a certain swelling of the breast and thickening of the throat. 
 This made him think again of Roma. Ah ! if she had not been 
 guilty of that crime, how different everything might be ! But 
 she was stained with blood, and a high-minded and incorruptible 
 man could no longer stand beside her. 
 
 That cast the Pope back on a deepening sense of his own 
 responsibility. Though she said nothing about it and impli- 
 cated no one, the crime the poor lady had committed was the 
 result of the compulsion put upon her to denounce her husband. 
 How far was he chargeable with that denunciation? 
 
 The Pope sent his Noble Guard to the Castle of St. Angelo 
 to inquire after the prisoner, and the young soldier brought 
 back a pitiful tale. Donna Roma was ill and could not be 
 removed at present. Her nervous system was completely ex- 
 hausted and nobody could say what might not occur. Never- 
 theless, she was very brave, very sweet and very cheerful, and 
 everybody was in love with her. The Castle was occupied by a 
 brigade of Military Engineers, and the Major in command was 
 a good Catholic and a faithful son of the Holy Father. He had 
 lodged his prisoner in the bright apartments that used to be the 
 Pope's, although the prison for persons committed by the Penal 
 Tribunals was a dark cell in the middle of the Maschio. She 
 had expressed a desire to be received into the Church, and had 
 asked the Major to send for Father Pifferi. 
 
 " Go back and tell the Major that I will go instead," said 
 the Pope. 
 
 " Holy Father ! " 
 
 " Ask him if the secret passage between the Vatican and 
 the Castle of St. Angelo can still be opened up." 
 
 Count de Raymond returned to say that the Major would 
 open it. In the present political crisis no one could tell what a 
 day would bring forth, and in any case he would take the 
 consequences. 
 
 The Noble Guard held four unopened letters in his hand. 
 They were addressed to the Honourable Rossi in a woman's 
 writing, and had been re-addressed to the Chamber of Deputies 
 from London, Paris, and Berlin. 
 
 " An official from the post-office gave me these letters, and 
 asked me if I could deliver them," said the young soldier. 
 
 " My son, my son, didn't you see that it was a trap ? " said 
 the Pope. "But no matter! Give them to me. We must 
 leave all to the Holy Spirit."
 
 THE PEOPLE 597 
 
 V 
 
 " THE dress of a simple priest to-day, Gaetanino," said the 
 Pope, when his valet came to his bedroom on the following 
 morning. 
 
 After he had put on the black cassock the Pope looked at 
 himself in the long glass and smiled. " They thought the Holy 
 Father wasn't ' black ' enough the other morning, but he is black 
 enough now, at all events." 
 
 The valet laughed immoderately at the political pun, and 
 began to talk of Rossi, to whom he had just taken breakfast. 
 
 "Mad, your Holiness! Sits all day with his head in his 
 hands, and when you speak to him looks up as if he were seeing 
 a ghost." 
 
 " Perhaps he is, my son," said the Pope with a sigh. 
 
 The valet had brought something to keep things safe. It 
 was a loaded stick, and he kept it by his bed. 
 
 " Your Holiness won't allow me to lock the staircase door, 
 and heavens ! what's to happen if a madman walks in on you in 
 the middle of the night ? " 
 
 " Gaetaiio," said the Pope severely, " throw that thing out 
 of window." 
 
 " Your Holiness ! " 
 
 " Throw it out, I say." 
 
 The valet pushed out his lower lip and obeyed. 
 
 After Mass and the usual visit of the Cardinal Secretary, 
 the Pope called for the young Count de Raymond. 
 
 " We'll go down to our guest first," he said, putting into the 
 side-pocket of his cassock the letters which the Noble Guard had 
 given him. 
 
 The way to the secret passage from the Vatican to the castle 
 of St. Angelo was a circular iron stair, which passed by the 
 former apartments of the Secretary of State. The superb young 
 soldier went down first, and the old Pope shuffled behind. 
 
 " To think I was once as supple as you are, Ichabod ! Ah ! 
 life is a long journey, but the merciful God doesn't ask us to do 
 it twice." 
 
 They found Rossi sitting in a large, sparsely furnished room, 
 by an almost untouched breakfast. He lifted his head when he 
 heard steps, and rose as the Pope entered. His pale, intellectual 
 face, with its watery smile, was a picture of despair. " Some- 
 thing has died in him," thought the Pope, and an aching sad- 
 ness, which had been gnawing at his heart for days, returned.
 
 598 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " They make you comfortable in this o- Id place, my son? " 
 
 " Yes, your Holiness." 
 
 " And you have everything you wish for? " 
 
 " More than I deserve, your Holiness." 
 
 " You have suffered, my son. But, in the providence of 
 God, who knows what may happen yet ? " 
 
 " Even God cannot 'undo what is done, your Holiness." 
 
 " Don't lose heart. Take an old man's word for it life is 
 worth living. The Holy Father has found it so in spite of 
 many sorrows." 
 
 A kind of pitying smile passed over the young man's miser- 
 able face. " Mine is a sorrow your Holiness can know nothing 
 about I have lost a wife," he said. 
 
 There was a moment of silence. Then the Pope said in a 
 voice that shook slightly, " You don't mean that your wife is 
 dead, but only . . ." 
 
 " Only," said Rossi, with a curl of the lip, " that it was she 
 who betrayed me." 
 
 There was another moment of silence. 
 
 " It's hard, my son, very hard. But who knows what 
 influences . . ." 
 
 " Curse them ! Curse the influences, whatever they were, 
 which caused a wife to betray her husband." 
 
 The Pope, who was sitting with both hands on the knob of 
 his stick, quivered perceptibly. " My son," he said, " you have 
 much to justify you, and it is not for me to gainsay you alto- 
 gether. But God rules His world in righteousness, and if this 
 had not happened, who knows but that worse might have be- 
 fallen you ? " 
 
 " Nothing worse could have befallen me, your Holiness, than 
 to be betrayed by the one being on whose loyalty I would have 
 staked my life." 
 
 The Pope thought, " It is his poor idol that has died in him." 
 Then he said aloud, " Yes, I understand what it is to build one's 
 faith on a human foundation. The foundation fails, and then 
 the heart sinks, the soul totters. But bad as this . . . this 
 betrayal is, you do very wrong if you refuse to see that it saved 
 you from the consequences the awful consequences before God 
 and man of your intended conduct." 
 
 Rossi looked up into the Pope's reproving face. " What 
 conduct, your Holiness ? " 
 
 " The terrible conduct which formed the basis of your plans 
 on returning to Home."
 
 THE PEOPLE 599 
 
 " You mean . . . what the newspapers talked about ? " 
 
 The Pope bent his head. 
 
 " A conspiracy to kill the King ? " 
 
 Again the Pope bent his head. 
 
 " You believed that, your Holiness ? " 
 
 " Unhappily I was compelled to do so." 
 
 " And she ... do you suppose she believed it ? " 
 
 She believed you were engaged in conspiracies. There 
 was nothing else she could believe in the light of what you had 
 said and written." 
 
 After a moment Rossi began to laugh. " And yet you say 
 the world is ruled in righteousness ! " he said. A dreary sense 
 of blankness had come over him, and there seemed to be nothing 
 left to do but to laugh. 
 
 " Regicide ! It was reasonable, too. I talked of her father, 
 and told her I understood him at last. Ha, ha, ha ! " 
 
 The Pope's face was whitening. " Do you tell me it was a 
 mistake ? " he asked. 
 
 " Indeed I do. The only conspiracies I was engaged in were 
 conspiracies to found associations of freedom which had been 
 forbidden by the tyrannical new decree. But what matter ! If 
 an error like that can lead to results like these, what's the good 
 of trying ? I used to pin my faith to natural law and think the 
 divine will worked itself out through all our various f alterings. 
 ... I was a fool. There is no divine will ! " And he laughed 
 again. 
 
 The Pope tried to reprove him, but the look of the piteous 
 young face arrested his anger. " Something else is dead in him 
 now," he thought. " Before it was Roma ; now it is God." The 
 Pope thought of his own share in the awful error which had 
 shattered the young man's life, and dropped his head. 
 
 " What things I have made myself believe ! " said Rossi. 
 " I used to believe in the Lord's .Prayer as a testament for the 
 nations. ' Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.' 
 With that prayer I was ready to confront the world the men 
 who talked about the kingdom of heaven as a Utopia, and those 
 who resisted the people in the struggle for their rights. What 
 madness ! " 
 
 The Pope closed his eyes and listened. 
 
 " I used to believe in the future of Rome, too. Hitherto it 
 had destroyed all who arrogated a claim to it emperors, popes, 
 kings. Like gamblers they had gained it, like gamblers they 
 lost it. But it was only waiting for its true sovereign the
 
 600 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 people the peoples of the whole earth, and in the destinies of 
 the world it would again become the world-city. What folly ! " 
 
 At the end of every sentence Rossi laughed bitterly. 
 
 " And the Gospel I used to believe in the Gospel also. It 
 was not a world-denying creed, a religion of miserabilism. The 
 Gospel declared war on the world's misery, and aimed at found- 
 ing a community among men as wide as human life and as deep 
 as human need. The Gospel ! Think of it . . ." 
 
 " And the Pope too I had my dreams of the Pope as well. 
 He was to divest himself of temporalities and armies and 
 empires and worldly possessions, because he was to see that the 
 mastership of souls was alone worth having. His cardinals 
 were to be the great and good from every corner of the earth, 
 and he was to put away the philosophy and political economy to 
 which the Church has been pinned down since the Middle Ages. 
 He was to be the Great Christian, the Great Citizen. I saw 
 him standing before the world as the saviour of the labouring 
 classes, the father of the weak and the oppressed. I thought 
 the new century would see the idea converted into reality by 
 the will of God and the rule of law. What a dream! What 
 delusion ! There is no God and no law, and the world is a 
 chaos." 
 
 Frightened at his own words, and conscious of nothing but 
 a desire to make the Pope suffer, Rossi was like a man who 
 was murdering his own child because its mother had been false 
 to him. 
 
 The Pope, who was deeply moved, looked up into the young 
 man's tortured face, without knowing that his own tears were 
 streaming. Old memories were astir within him, and he was 
 carried back into the past of his own life. He was remembering 
 the days when he too had reeled beneath the blow of a terrible 
 fate, and all his hopes and beliefs had been mown down as by a 
 scythe. But God had been good. His gracious hand had healed 
 the wound and made all things well. 
 
 Taking the letters from the pocket of his cassock the Pope 
 laid them on the table. 
 
 " These are for you, my son," he said, and then he turned 
 away. His throat was hurting him, he could say no more. 
 
 Going down the narrow roofed-in passage to the castle of 
 St. Angelo, with shafts of morning sunshine slanting through 
 its lancet windows, and the voices of children at play coming 
 up from the street below, the Pope told himself that he must 
 be severe with Roma. The only thing irremediable in all that
 
 THE PEOPLE 601 
 
 had happened was the assassination, and though that, in God's 
 hands, had been turned to the good of the people, yet it raised 
 a barrier between two unhappy souls that might never in this 
 life be passed. 
 
 "Poor child! Poor flower broken by the storms of fate! 
 But I must reprove her. Before I give her the Blessed Sacra- 
 ment she must confess and show a full contrition." 
 
 VI 
 
 IN the grey old castle of St. Angelo, at the top of a long 
 brick stairway of very slow ascent, having a drawbridge at the 
 bottom, the tomb of the Emperor Hadrian midway, and vari- 
 ous barred and bolted cells on either side, there is an apart- 
 ment of three lightsome rooms and a loggia overlooking the 
 city. These rooms, once the refuge of the Pope in stormy days 
 of Papal rule, were now Roma's prison. 
 
 Above hung the great clock of the castle, and its monoto- 
 nous pendulum could be plainly heard through the vaulted ceil- 
 ing. Below were the ramparts on which stood the cannon that 
 gave the time of day to Rome. Beneath the round walls ran 
 the river, and the voices of boatmen could be plainly heard 
 when the grated windows were open. Beyond lay the Capitol, 
 the Coliseum, the domes of countless churches, the Campagna, 
 the Alban Hills, Frascati, Tivoli, and Albano. 
 
 Roma was lying on a bed-chair in the frescoed room which 
 had been the Pope's salon. She was wearing a white dress, and 
 it made her unruffled brow look like alabaster. Her large eyes, 
 which were closed, had blue rings on the lids, and her mouth, 
 once so rosy and so gay with laughter and light words, was 
 colourless as marble. 
 
 A lay sister, in a black and white habit, moved softly about 
 the room. It was Bruno's widow, Elena. She was the Sister 
 Angelica who had entered the convent of the Sacred Heart. It 
 was there she had buried her own trouble until, hearing of 
 Roma's, she had begged to be allowed to nurse her. 
 
 A door opened and an officer, in a mixed light and dark 
 blue uniform, entered. It was the doctor of the regiment. 
 
 "Sleeping, Sister?" 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Poor soul ! Let her sleep as long as she can." 
 
 But at that moment Roma opened her big, beautiful, tired 
 39
 
 602 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 eyes, and held out a little white hand. " Is it you, doctor ? " 
 she said, with a smile. 
 
 " And how is my patient this morning ? Better, I think." 
 
 " Much better ! In fact, I feel no pain at all to-day." 
 
 " She never does. She never feels anything if you believe 
 her," said Elena, who was standing behind the bed-chair. 
 
 "Tired, Sister?" 
 
 " Why should I be tired, I wonder ? " 
 
 " Sitting up all night with me. Your big burden is very 
 troublesome, doctor." 
 
 " Tut ! You mustn't talk like that." 
 
 " If all gaolers were as good to their prisoners as mine are 
 to me ! " 
 
 " And if all prisoners were as good to their gaolers . . . 
 But I forbid that subject. I absolutely forbid it ... Ah, 
 here comes your breakfast." 
 
 A big ungainly soldier in uniform trousers and a linen 
 jacket and cap had come in with a tray on which there was a 
 smoking basin. The doctor tasted a spoonful of the contents 
 and fell on the soldier with loud reproaches. 
 
 " Too much salt again ! Didn't I tell you the Signora's 
 soup wasn't to have so much salt in it ? " 
 
 The great bluff fellow began to look moist about the eyes. 
 He had meant to put in less, but if it wasn't right . . . 
 
 Roma said no, it was better than ever this morning, and 
 the moist eyes began to shine. 
 
 "You're from Sicily, aren't you, cook?" 
 
 " Yes, from Sicily, Signora." 
 
 Roma leaned back to Elena and said in an undertone, 
 " That's where he has gone to, isn't it? " 
 
 " Some people say so, but nobody knows where he is." 
 
 " No news yet ? " 
 
 " None whatever." 
 
 " Sicily must be a lovely place, cook? " 
 
 " It is, Signora. It's the loveliest place in the world." 
 
 " Last night I had such a beautiful dream, doctor. Some- 
 body who had been away came back, and all the church bells 
 rang for him. I thought it was noon, I remember, for the big 
 gun of the castle had just been fired. But when I woke it was 
 quite dark, yet there was really something going on for I could 
 hear people singing in the city and bands of music playing." 
 
 " Ah, that . . . I'm afraid that was only . . . only the 
 sequel to the Prime Minister's funeral. Rome is not sorry that
 
 THE PEOPLE 603 
 
 Baron Bonelli is dead, and last night a procession of men and 
 women marched along the streets with songs and hymns, as on 
 a night of carnival . . . But I must be going. Sister, see she 
 takes her medicine as usual, and lies quiet and does not excite 
 herself. Good-morning ! " 
 
 When the cook also had gone Roma raised herself on her 
 elbow. " Did you hear what the Doctor said, Elena ? The 
 death of the Baron has altered everything. It was really no 
 crime to kill that man, and by rights nobody should suffer 
 for it." 
 
 " Donna Roma ! " 
 
 " Ah ! no, I didn't mean that. Yet why shouldn't I ? And 
 why shouldn't you? Didn't he kill Bruno and our poor dear 
 little Joseph? . . ." 
 
 Elena was crying. " I'm not thinking of myself," she 
 said. 
 
 " I'm not thinking of myself, either," said Roma, " and I'm 
 not going to give in at the eleventh hour. But David Rossi 
 should come back. He will come back. I am sure he will, and 
 my dream will come true." 
 
 " And then you, Donna Roma . . ." 
 
 "I?" 
 
 Roma fell back on her bed-chair. " No, I shall not be here, 
 that's true. It's a pity, but after all it makes no difference. 
 And if David Rossi has to come back . . . over . . . over my 
 dead body, as you might say . . . who is to know ... or care 
 . . . except perhaps . . . some day . . . when he . . ." 
 
 Roma struggled on, but Elena broke down utterly. 
 
 The door opened again, and a sentry on guard outside 
 announced the English Ambassador. 
 
 "Ah! Sir Evelyn, is it you?" 
 
 The English gentleman held down his head. " Eorgive me 
 if I intrude upon your trouble, Donna Roma." 
 
 " Sit ! Give his Excellency a chair, sister. . . . Times have 
 changed since I knew you first, Sir Evelyn. I was a thought- 
 less, happy woman in those days. But they are gone, and I do 
 not regret them." 
 
 " You are very brave, Donna Roma. Too brave. Only for 
 that your trial must have gone differently." 
 
 " It's all for the best, your Excellency. But was there any- 
 thing you wished to say to me ? " 
 
 " Yes. The report of your condemnation has been received 
 with deep emotion in my country, and as the evidence given in
 
 604 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 court showed that you were born in England, I feel that I am 
 justified in intervening on your behalf." 
 
 " But I don't want you to intervene, dear friend." 
 
 " Donna Roma, it is still possible to appeal to the Court of 
 Cassation." 
 
 " I have no desire to appeal there is nothing to appeal 
 against." 
 
 " There might be much if you could be brought to see that 
 that ... in fact so many pleas are possible, and all of them 
 good ones. For instance . . ." 
 
 The Englishman dropped both eyes and voice. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " According to the law of Italy, if a man attempts to use 
 criminal violence to a woman she may kill him without being 
 guilty of murder, because he has tried to do that which before 
 God and man constitutes a crime." 
 
 Roma did not answer, but her breathing was quick and 
 loud. 
 
 " Donna Roma, you were tried and condemned on a charge 
 of going to the Prime Minister's cabinet with the intention of 
 killing him, and of killing him there. But if it could be 
 proved that he came to your house, and that, to shield another 
 person not now in the hands of justice, you . . ." 
 
 Roma raised herself in terror. " What are you saying, your 
 Excellency ? " 
 
 " Look ! " 
 
 The Englishman had drawn from his breast-pocket a crum- 
 pled sheet of white paper. 
 
 " Last night I visited your deserted apartment in the Piazza 
 Navona, and there, amid other signs that were clear and con- 
 vincing the marks of two pistol-shots I found this." 
 
 " What is it ? Give it to me," cried Roma. She almost 
 snatched it out of his hand. It was the warrant which Rossi 
 had rolled up and flung away. 
 
 " How did that warrant come there, Donna Roma ? Who 
 brought it ? What other person was with you in those rooms 
 that night? What does he say to this evidence of his presence 
 on the scene of the crime ? " 
 
 Roma did not speak immediately. She continued to look at 
 the Englishman with her large mournful eyes until his own 
 eyes fell, and his voice ceased, and there was no sound but the 
 crinkling of the warrant in Roma's hand. Then she said, very 
 softly :
 
 THE PEOPLE 605 
 
 " Excellency, you must please let me keep this paper. As 
 you see, it is nothing in itself, and without my testimony you 
 can make nothing of it. I shall never appeal against my sen- 
 tence, and therefore it can be no good to me or to anybody. 
 But it may prove to be a danger to somebody else somebody 
 whose name should be above reproach." 
 
 She stretched out a sweet white hand and touched his own. 
 
 " Haven't I done enough wrong to him already, and isn't this 
 paper a proof of it ? Must I go farther still, and bring him to 
 the galleys? You cannot wish it. Don't you see that the 
 police would have to deny everything? And I if you forced 
 me to speak, I should deny everything also." 
 
 A gentle, brave dauntlessness rang in her voice, and the 
 Englishman could with difficulty keep back his tears. 
 
 " Excellency, Sir Evelyn, friend . . . tell me I may keep 
 the paper." 
 
 The Englishman rose and turned his head away. " It is 
 yours, Donna Roma you must do as you please with it." 
 
 She kissed the paper and put it in her breast. 
 
 " Good-bye, dear friend." 
 
 He tried to answer, " Good-bye ! God bless you ! " The 
 words would not come. 
 
 "The Major!" said the voice of the sentry. The Com- 
 mandant of the Castle came into the room. 
 
 " Ah ! Major ! " cried Roma. 
 
 " The doctor tells me you are better this morning." 
 
 " Much better." 
 
 " It is my duty my unhappy duty to bring you a painful 
 message. The authorities, thinking your presence in Rome a 
 cause of excitement to the populace, have decided to send you 
 to Viterbo." 
 
 " When is it to be, Major? " 
 
 " To-morrow about midday." 
 
 " I shall be quite ready. But have- you sent for Father 
 Pifferi?" 
 
 " I came to speak about that also. Sister, return to your 
 room for the present." 
 
 Elena went out. 
 
 " Donna Roma, a great personage has asked to see you in 
 the place of the Father General. He will come in through 
 that doorway. It leads by a passage, long sealed up, to the 
 apartment of the Pope in the Vatican, and he who comes and 
 goes by it must be unknown and unseen."
 
 606 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 "Major!" 
 
 But the Major was going hurriedly out of the room. A 
 moment afterwards the Pope entered in his black cassock as a 
 priest. 
 
 VII 
 
 " RISE, my child ! God knows if the Holy Father ought to 
 give you his blessing. She who commits a crime which involves 
 the lives and happiness of others is a criminal twice told. But 
 far be it from me to add bitterness to your remorse in finding 
 yourself in this place and guilty of this sin. Are you alone? " 
 
 " Quite alone, Holy Father." 
 
 " Sit down. The Holy Father will sit beside you." 
 
 The Pope sat beside Roma. He was trying to be severe with 
 her. It was very difficult. His hand strayed down to his side 
 and took hold of hers. At every hard word there was a tender 
 pressure. 
 
 " My child, the present hour is dark and the future is more 
 menacing still. Civil society is shaken to its foundation, and 
 God alone can say what may happen. But the Lord's hand is 
 in the whirlwind and He will bring out all things well. Only 
 one thing He cannot do even God cannot bring back the past, 
 and annul a crime that has been committed . . . Be calm, my 
 daughter, be calm ! " 
 
 Roma was perfectly calm, but the Pope could scarcely con- 
 trol himself. 
 
 "My child, I see now that we made a mistake. The con- 
 spiracies of David Rossi were not criminal, and his aims were 
 not unrighteous. I have been instructed on that subject, and 
 now I see everything in a different light. All you said about 
 your husband was true. He is no atheist and anarchist, but a 
 true Christian and lover of humanity. And though mankind 
 may never attain to his grand ideals, it can and ought to strive 
 after them. Yes, a great mistake, my child, although a natural 
 and perhaps excusable one, and if it had not been for this terri- 
 ble event . . . But there, there ! we will not talk of it." 
 
 He patted the hand that lay under his own as if he had been 
 quieting a crying child. 
 
 " Although you have done so wrong, your courage and 
 patience have touched all our hearts, my daughter, and but for 
 the act of a moment what might not be possible even yet? 
 Even the past of your poor unhappy life might be wiped out as 
 Mary wiped out her sins with the tears with which she washed
 
 THE PEOPLE 607 
 
 her Master's feet. And now that Governments are falling and 
 thrones are tottering and David Rossi may come back . . ." 
 
 Roma made a cry of joy. The Pope paused and raised a 
 warning finger. 
 
 " Ah ! you must never think of that, my daughter you 
 must never think of it. Your temptation was terrible, and God 
 in His wisdom has used your act to awaken the conscience of 
 the world. But when a woman is guilty of a crime, an awful 
 crime which shuts the guilty one out of the fold of the human 
 family, she must never . . . Far be it from me to add one pang 
 to the pain of your position, my child . . . Yet David Rossi 
 should be kept free from stigma; his name must be clear and 
 unblemished." 
 
 Roma felt dizzy with a sense of the Pope's error. " He 
 must never know," she thought. 
 
 "It is a pity yes, a great pity; but alas! it cannot be 
 otherwise. You can never rejoin your husband. Your crime 
 stands between you now. . . . But I came on a different errand, 
 my child. Are you quite ready ? " 
 
 " Quite, your Holiness," said Roma, and the Pope prepared 
 to receive her into the Church. 
 
 He put questions in order to satisfy himself that during her 
 residence in the convent she had been sufficiently instructed, 
 and then called upon her to make a conditional confession. 
 
 " Repeat the words after me, my child." 
 
 She knelt at his feet and put her hands together. 
 
 " ' Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry that I have ever offended 
 Thee . . .'" 
 
 " ' Oh, my God, I am heartily sorry that I have ever offended 
 Thee . . .'" 
 
 " ' Because Thou art so good, because Thou hast been so 
 good to me, and because Thou hast saved me from hell . . .' " 
 
 " ' Because Thou art so good, because Thou hast been so 
 good to me, and because Thou hast saved me from hell . . .' " 
 
 " ' And by Thy grace I will never offend Thee any more.' " 
 
 " ( And by Thy grace I will never offend Thee any more.' " 
 
 Then she repeated in like manner the profession of faith, 
 and this being done, he baptised her conditionally. She was 
 very humble and devout. After the baptism he said : 
 
 " Baptism wipes out all your sins, my daughter, but if for 
 your soul's comfort you could wish to make a full confession 
 before I give you the Blessed Sacrament . . ." 
 
 " Will it be under the seal, your Holiness? "
 
 608 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 The Pope bowed. " You are now a child of the Church, and 
 whatever you say will be sacred." 
 
 " Then I could wish to confess, your Holiness. I have 
 wished it ever since the end of my trial, and perhaps that was 
 why I sent for Father Pifferi." 
 
 " You shall ; but take care accuse nobody else, my 
 daughter." 
 
 The Pope gave the blessing and closed his eyes to listen. 
 Roma continued to kneel at his feet. She said the Confiteor 
 and then began her particular confession. 
 
 " Father, I have been a great sinner, and when I said in 
 court that I killed the Minister, I told a falsehood to shield 
 another." 
 
 " My child ! " The Pope had risen to his feet. 
 
 There was a moment of ghastly silence. Then the Pope sat 
 down again with rigid limbs and said in a husky voice: 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 Roma went on with her confession. She spoke of her 
 intention to kill the Minister after he had forced her to de- 
 nounce her husband. She spoke of her preparations for killing 
 him. She spoke of the night of the crime when she was setting 
 out on her terrible errand. 
 
 " But he came to me in my own rooms at that very 
 moment . . ." 
 
 " In ... in your own rooms ? " 
 
 " Yes, and that was really the cause of everything." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Somebody else came afterwards." 
 
 " Somebody . . ." 
 
 " A friend." 
 
 "A ... friend?" 
 
 She put her hand in her breast and drew out the warrant. 
 
 " This one," she said. 
 
 The Pope took the paper. It rustled as he opened it. There 
 was no other sound except that of his rasping breathing. 
 
 " You do not mean to say ... to imply . . ." 
 
 The Pope's eyes wandered vaguely about the room, but they 
 came back to the face at his feet and he said : 
 
 " No, no ! You cannot mean that, my child. Tell me I 
 have misunderstood you and come to a wrong conclusion." 
 
 Roma touched the Pope's cassock. " Forgive me, Holy 
 Father. I couldn't die with a lie on my lips, but I intended 
 to confess to Father Pifferi, and so . . ."
 
 THE PEOPLE 609 
 
 The Pope rose again, and standing over Roma he laid hold 
 of her by the shoulders. " Deny it," he cried. " I command 
 you to deny it ! You want me to believe that it was he, not 
 you, who committed the crime. That he is a murderer an 
 assassin ! " 
 
 He pushed her from him, and she fell back with her hands 
 covering her face. Then he passed his arm over his eyes as if to 
 brush away the clouds that had gathered there, and muttered in 
 a broken and feeble voice : " O God, Thou knowest my foolish- 
 ness ! I am poor and needy. Make haste unto me, O God ! 
 Hide not Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble." 
 
 Roma was crying, and after a moment he became aware of 
 it. " My child ! My poor child ! You must bear with me. I 
 am an old man now. Only a weak old man, and to tell you the 
 truth, I've known much trouble." 
 
 She rose to her feet and kissed his trembling hand. He 
 was still holding the warrant. 
 
 " Where did this come from ? " he asked. 
 
 " The English Ambassador brought it this morning. He 
 had found it in our rooms in the Piazza Navona." 
 
 " I remember now. ' I flung it at the feet of my betrayer,' 
 he said. But my brain is confused. Things run together in it. 
 In your own rooms, you say? " 
 
 " Yes, for it was there, and not in the Minister's cabinet, as 
 the police pretended, that it all took place." 
 
 " My child, you must allow me to keep this paper." 
 
 Roma rose in great alarm. " You will not think of giving 
 it to the authorities ? " she said. " That was what the Ambas- 
 sador wished to do, but I told him if he brought it as proof 
 against another person I should deny everything. Besides, 
 Holy Father, what I have told you this time has been under the 
 seal of the confessional, and you will not reveal it to any one." 
 
 The Pope did not seem to hear. " Lord, Lord," he mur- 
 mured, " let me eat ashes for bread and mingle my drink with 
 weeping." 
 
 " And then, Holy Father, there is something I have not 
 told you. He who killed the Minister did so in self-defence. 
 His act was an accident, but if it had not happened the Minister 
 would have killed him." 
 
 She had knelt again and was fingering the skirt of the Pope's 
 cassock. 
 
 " I am the only one who is really guilty of the crime, 
 because I intended to commit it. But if his hand was the
 
 610 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 instrument and I am to suffer, I shall think of it as an atone- 
 ment. After all, I betrayed him, and though I did it from 
 love and not from hate, the consequences are the same and he is 
 broken-hearted." 
 
 The Pope's white head was bent very low. 
 
 " And then, I cannot suffer very much, you know. I am 
 ill really ill and my trouble will not last very long." 
 
 Her big beautiful eyes were shining. 
 
 " And if, as you say, God is using what has happened to 
 bring out all things well, perhaps He means me to give my- 
 self in the place of some one who is better, and nobler and 
 more necessary." 
 
 Her lip quivered, her voice shook, and she brushed away a 
 tear. 
 
 " I dreamt about it last night, Holy Father. I thought my 
 husband had come back to Rome and all the bells were ringing. 
 Only a dream, and perhaps you don't believe in such foolishness. 
 But it was so sweet to think that if I couldn't live for my 
 husband, at least I could die for him and so wipe out every- 
 thing." 
 
 The Pope could bear no more. 
 
 " It is not for me to gainsay you, my daughter. I came 
 here to see Mary Magdalene, and I find the soul of the Mother 
 of God herself." 
 
 " Bless me, Holy Father." 
 
 " I bless you, my child. But an old man who has blessed 
 many needs your own blessing now." 
 
 VIII 
 
 DAVID Rossi sat all day in his room in the Vatican reading 
 the letters the Pope had left with him. They were the letters 
 which Roma had addressed to him in London, Paris, and 
 Berlin. 
 
 He read them again and again, and save for the tick of the 
 clock there was no sound in the large gaunt room but his stifled 
 moans. The most violently opposed feelings possessed him, 
 and he hardly knew whether he was glad or sorry that thus 
 late, and after a cruel fate had fallen, these messages of peace 
 had reached him. 
 
 A spirit seemed to emanate from the thin transparent sheets 
 of paper, and it penetrated his whole being. As he read the
 
 THE PEOPLE 611 
 
 words, now gay, now sad, now glowing with joy, now wailing 
 with sorrow, a world of fond and tender emotions swelled up 
 and blotted out all darker passions. 
 
 He could see Roma herself, and his heart throbbed as of old 
 under the influe'nce of her sweet indescribable presence. Those 
 dear features, those marvellous eyes, that voice, that smile 
 they swam up and tortured him with love and with remorse. 
 
 How bravely she had withstood his enemies ! To think of 
 that young, ardent, brilliant, happy life sacrificed to his suffer- 
 ings ! And then her poor, pathetic secret how sweet and 
 honest she had been about it ! Only a pure and courageous 
 woman could have done as she did ; while he, in his blundering 
 passion and mad wrath, had behaved like a foul-minded tyrant 
 and a coward. What loud protestations of heroic love he had 
 made when he imagined the matter affected another man! 
 And when he learned that it concerned himself, how his vaunted 
 constancy had failed him, and he had cursed the poor soul whose 
 confidence he had invited ! 
 
 But above all the pangs of love and remorse, Rossi was 
 conscious of an overpowering despair. It took the form of 
 revolt against God, who had allowed such a blind and cruel 
 sequence of events to wreck the lives of two of His innocent 
 children. When he took refuge in the Vatican he was still 
 clinging to some waif and stray of hope. It was gone now, 
 and there was no .use struggling. The nothingness of man 
 against the pitilessness of fate made all the world a blank. 
 
 Rossi had rung the bell to ask for an audience with His Holi- 
 ness when the door opened and the Pope himself entered. 
 
 " Holy Father, I wished to speak to you." 
 
 " What about, my son ? " 
 
 " Myself. Now I see that I did wrong to ask for your 
 protection. You thought I was innocent, and there was some- 
 thing I did not tell you. When I said I was guilty before God 
 and man, you did not understand what I meant. Holy Father, 
 I meant that I had committed murder." 
 
 The Pope did not answer, and Rossi went on, his voice ring- 
 ing with the baleful sentiments which possessed him. 
 
 " To tell you the truth, Holy Father, I hardly thought of it 
 myself. What I had done was partly in self-defence, and I did 
 not consider it a crime. And then, he whose life I had taken 
 was an evil man, with the devil's dues in him, and I felt no 
 more remorse after killing him than if I had trodden on a 
 poisonous adder. But now I see things differently. In coming
 
 612 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 here I exposed you to danger at the hands of the State. I ask 
 your pardon, and beg you to let me go." 
 
 " Where will you go to ? " 
 
 " Anywhere nowhere I don't know yet." 
 
 The Pope looked at the young face, cut deep with lines of 
 despair, and his heart yearned over it. 
 
 " Sit down, my son. Let us think. Though you did not 
 tell me of the assassination, I soon knew all about it. ... 
 Partly in self-defence, you say?" 
 
 " That is so, but I do not urge it as an excuse. And if I 
 did, who else knows anything about it ? " 
 
 " Is there nobody who knows ? " 
 
 " One, perhaps. But it is my wife, and she could have no 
 interest in saving me now, even if I wished to be saved. ... I 
 have read her letters." 
 
 " If I were to tell you it is not so, my son that your wife is 
 still ready to sacrifice herself for your safety . . ." 
 
 " But that is impossible, your Holiness. There are so many 
 things you do not know." 
 
 " If I were to tell you that I have just seen her, and, not- 
 withstanding your want of faith in her, she still has faith in 
 you . . ." 
 
 The deep lines of despair began to pass from Rossi's face, 
 and he made a cry of joy. 
 
 " If I were to say that she loves you, and would give her life 
 for you . . ." 
 
 " Is it possible ? Do you tell me that ? In spite of every- 
 thing ? And she where is she ? Let me go to her. Holy 
 Father, if you only knew! I'll go and beg her pardon. I 
 cursed her! Yes, it is true that in my blind, mad passion, I 
 . . . But let me go back to her on my knees. The rest of 
 my life spent at her feet will not be enough to wipe out my 
 fault." 
 
 " Stay, my son. You shall see her presently." 
 
 " Can it be possible that I shall see her ? I thought I sho\ild 
 never see her again ; but I counted without God. Ah ! God is 
 good after all. And you, Holy Father, you are good too. I 
 will beg her forgiveness, and she will forgive me. Then we'll 
 fly away somewhere we'll escape to Africa, India, anywhere. 
 We'll snatch a few years of happiness, and what more has any- 
 body a right to expect in this miserable world ? " 
 
 Exalted in the light of his imaginary future, he seemed to 
 forget everything else his crime, his work, his people.
 
 THE PEOPLE 613 
 
 " Is she at home still ? " 
 
 " She is only a few paces from this place, my son." 
 
 " Only a few paces ! Oh, let me not lose a moment more. 
 Where is she ? " 
 
 " In the Castle of St. Angelo," said the Pope. 
 
 A dark cloud crossed Rossi's beaming face and his mouth 
 opened as if to emit a startled cry. 
 
 " In ... in prison ? " 
 
 The Pope bowed. 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " The assassination of the Minister." 
 
 " Roma ? . . . But what a fool I was not to think of it as 
 a thing that might happen ! I left her with the dead man. 
 Who was to believe her when she denied that she had killed 
 him?" 
 
 " She did not deny it. She avowed it." 
 
 " Avowed it ? She said that she had . . ." 
 
 The Pope bowed again. 
 
 " Then . . . then it was . . . was to shield me ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Rossi's eyes grew moist. He was like another man. 
 
 " But the court . . . surely no court will believe her." 
 
 " She has been tried and sentenced, my son." 
 
 " Sentenced ? Do you say sentenced ? For a crime she did 
 not commit? And to shield me? Holy Father, would you 
 believe that the last words I spoke to that woman . . . but she 
 is an angel. The authorities must be mad, though. Did no- 
 body think of me? Didn't it occur to any one that I had been 
 there that night ? " 
 
 " There was only one piece of evidence connecting you with 
 the scene of the crime, my son. It was this." 
 
 The Pope drew from his breast the warrant he had taken 
 from Roma. 
 
 "She had it?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Rossi's emotions whirled within him in a kind of hurri- 
 cane. The despair which had clamoured so loud looked mean 
 and contemptible in the presence of the mighty passion which 
 had put it to shame. But after a while his swimming eyes 
 began to shine, and he said : 
 
 " Holy Father, this paper belongs to me and you must per- 
 mit me to keep it." 
 
 " What do you intend to do, my son ? "
 
 614 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " There is only one thing to do now." 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " To -save her." 
 
 There was no need to ask how. The Pope understood, 
 and his breast throbbed and swelled. But now that he had 
 accomplished what he came for, now that he had awakened the 
 sleeping soul and given it hope and faith and courage to face 
 justice, and even death if need be, the Pope became suddenly 
 conscious of a feeling in his own heart which he struggled 
 in vain to suppress. 
 
 " Far be it from me to excuse a crime, my son, but the 
 merciful God who employs our poor passions to His own 
 great purposes, has used your act to great ends. The 
 world is trembling on the verge of unknown events and no- 
 body knows what a day may bring forth. Let us wait a 
 while." 
 
 Rossi shook his head. 
 
 " It is true that a crime will be the same to-morrow as 
 to-day, but the dead man was a tyrant, a ferocious tyrant, and 
 if he forced you in self-defence . . ." 
 
 Again Rossi shook his head, but still the Pope struggled on. 
 
 " You have your own life to think about, my son, and who 
 knows but in God's good service . . ." 
 
 " Let me go." 
 
 " You intend to give yourself up ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The Pope could say no more. He rose to his feet. His 
 saintly face was full of a dumb yearning love and pride, which 
 his tongue might never tell. He thought of his years of dark 
 searching, ending at length in this meeting and farewell, and 
 an impulse came to him to clasp the young man to his swelling 
 and throbbing breast. But after a moment, with something of 
 his old courageous calm of voice, he said: 
 
 " I am not surprised at your decision, my son. It is worthy 
 of your blood and name. And now that we are parting for the 
 last time, I could wish to tell you something." 
 
 David Rossi did not speak. 
 
 " I knew your mother, my son." 
 
 "My mother?" 
 
 The Pope bowed and smiled. 
 
 " She was a great soul, too, and she suffered terribly. Such 
 are the ways of God." 
 
 Still Rossi did not speak. He was looking steadfastly into
 
 THE PEOPLE 615 
 
 the Pope's quivering face and making an effort to control him- 
 self. 
 
 The Pope's voice shook and his lip trembled. 
 
 " Naturally, you think ill of your father, knowing how 
 much your mother suffered. Isn't that so ? " 
 
 Rossi put one hand to his forehead as if to steady his reel- 
 ing brain, and said, " Who am I to think ill of any one, having 
 made my own wife suffer ? " 
 
 The Pope smiled again, a timid smile. 
 
 "David . . ." 
 
 Rossi caught his breath. 
 
 " If, in the providence of God, you were to meet your father 
 somewhere, and he held out his hand to you, would you . . . 
 wherever you met and whatever he might be ... would you 
 shake hands with him?" 
 
 " Yes," said Rossi ; " if we met in prison itself, and he were 
 the lowest convict at the galleys." 
 
 The Pope fetched a long breath, took a step forward, and 
 silently held out his hand. At the next moment the young man 
 and the old Pope were hand to hand and eye to eye. 
 
 They tried to speak and could not. 
 
 " Farewell ! " said the Pope in a choking voice, and turning 
 away he tottered out of the room. 
 
 IX 
 
 ALL day long the atmosphere of the Vatican had been that 
 of a ship flying before a storm. The prelates of the household 
 had whispered together with white and quivering faces; the 
 Swiss and Noble Guards had exchanged hurried words at 
 passing, and messengers had been running constantly be- 
 ween the apartments of the Majordomo and the office of the 
 Maestro di Camera. A storm was on the horizon, the anxious 
 officers were on the quarter-deck, and only the captain was 
 below. 
 
 It was not until after the Angelus that the Pope consented 
 to see the Cardinal Secretary. At length the Cardinal had 
 sent down something like an imperative message. The mat- 
 ter was one of great urgency. It would admit of no further 
 delay. 
 
 When the Cardinal Secretary entered the' Pope's room, his 
 large ungainly figure, in the black soutane broidered with scar-
 
 616 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 let, was less supple, his voice was less soft, and his manners 
 were less suave and gracious than usual. 
 
 " What is it now, your Eminence ? " said the Pope in a 
 tired voice. He was sitting before the little stove, with his 
 white cassock drawn up slightly at the ankles, warming his 
 slippered feet at the blue flame of the wood fire. 
 
 The Cardinal Secretary explained. Since ten o'clock that 
 morning he had been compelled to carry on, without the coun- 
 sel of his Holiness, a correspondence of the utmost gravity 
 with the civil authorities. By some means still unknown, the 
 authorities had come to know that a person against whom they 
 had issued a warrant of arrest was being sheltered in the 
 Vatican, and as it was a danger to public tranquillity that the 
 man should be at large, they called upon the Pope to deliver 
 him up without delay. 
 
 " And what was your answer, your Eminence ? " 
 
 " My answer was that we did not acknowledge the presence 
 within our precincts of the person alluded to, but alternatively 
 if he were here, the promise of the Government of Italy for the 
 safeguarding of the Holy See gave the Vatican the rights of a 
 separate State, from which a political refugee could in no wise 
 be demanded." 
 
 " And what was their reply ? " 
 
 " Their reply, your Holiness, was that the Law of Guarantees 
 by Article 17 expressly excluded from the privileges of the Vati- 
 can all acts opposed to public order, and to protect an escaped 
 prisoner was to expose the Pope to the penal laws." 
 
 " What did you say to that, your Eminence ? " 
 
 " I said the Law of Guarantees, if it had any meaning, gave 
 the Pope the rights and jurisdiction of a sovereign, and as a 
 sovereign he could not be subject to the laws of another 
 country." 
 
 "And then?" 
 
 " Then, your Holiness, the civil authorities sent a formal 
 warning that if the person asked for and known to be sheltered 
 in the Vatican were not put outside its precincts within the 
 course of the day, they would be reluctantly constrained to send 
 agents of the public force to effect his arrest." 
 
 " And you replied ? " 
 
 " I replied that by Article Y it was forbidden to any agent 
 of the public force to enter the Vatican without the express 
 authority of the Sovereign Pontiff, and that the Pontiff forbade 
 such entry and would resist it."
 
 THE PEOPLE 617 
 
 " And their answer to that? " 
 
 " Their answer to that . . . will your Holiness look out of 
 his window? . . . their answer to that is a regiment of infantry 
 from the barracks in the Borgo and a company of artillery with 
 a piece of cannon." 
 
 The Cardinal Secretary, unable to preserve his customary 
 suavity, was speaking in a harsh voice and moving uneasily 
 about the room. 
 
 " Your Holiness will do me the justice to remember that I 
 warned you. If, when this person presented himself with his 
 insane demand for sanctuary, your Holiness . . . but your 
 Holiness's Allocution was the real beginning of the evil. It 
 gave an impression of weakening which the Government has not 
 been slow to take advantage of, and now . . ." 
 
 The Pope made an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Well, we must act immediately, your Holiness. On the 
 approach of the military the Swiss Guard closed and barricaded 
 the bronze gate, whereupon the captain in command sent in 
 word that if the door were not opened within an hour he would 
 order his artillery to fire on it." 
 
 The Pope rose from the stove. He was aroused at last. 
 Looking out of the window, he saw the soldiers drawn -up in the 
 piazza. Then walking to and fro, he muttered to himself in 
 broken sentences, " Oh, Thou in whose hands are the ends of the 
 earth. ... In the whirlwind of Thine awful will we are as bats 
 flying in the darkness. . . . What am I to do ? What am I to 
 do now ? " 
 
 " If your Holiness asks me what you ought to do now, I 
 say nothing." 
 
 "Nothing?" 
 
 " Let them fire at the bronze gate and blow it down. That 
 will at least show Catholics and Catholic States the intoler- 
 able situation of the Pope and his Ministers." 
 
 " You advise resistance ? " 
 
 " As much resistance as may be necessary to prove to the 
 world that we are the victims of violence." 
 
 " And the blood that may be shed meanwhile ? " 
 
 " That ... as to that, your Holiness ... if unhappily it 
 should happen . . ." 
 
 " Leave me, your Eminence. Let me think. Let me 
 think." 
 
 Some minutes passed. Outside the Pope's door there was a 
 commotion that was noiseless but intense. Soldiers were taking 
 40
 
 618 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 up their station there with loaded revolvers and drawn swords. 
 Inside the room there was a silent but tingling atmosphere. 
 At one moment the Maestro di Camera came to say that the 
 apartments of the pavilion in the garden were ready for the 
 Pope's reception. At the next moment the Majordomo an- 
 nounced that the Pope's carriage had been brought round to the 
 door in the Fondamenta, and that the lanes along Santa Monica 
 were dark and quiet. Finally, Cortis spread out the black cas- 
 sock which the Pope had worn in the Castle of St. Angelo, and 
 said something about escape. 
 
 The Pope had returned to the stove, and was crouching over 
 it with his white skull-cap half covered by his hands, when 
 there came from the piazza without the loud call of a trumpet. 
 It was the trumpet of a Delegate of Public Security. The Pope 
 knew what it meant, and he rose to his feet. With firm steps 
 he walked to the door and opened it. The guards stationed 
 there fell back in surprise. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Pope, " if you wish to come with Us 
 We will beg you to put up your swords." 
 
 " Your Holiness ! " cried the Guards ; but they obeyed. 
 
 The Pope walked through the long corridors with a strag- 
 gling line of soldiers behind him. He descended the great stair- 
 case and entered the great hall. A company of Swiss Guards 
 stood armed inside the bronze gate, which was barred with iron 
 bolts and buttressed with wooden beams. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said the Pope, " We will ask you to unfix 
 your bayonets and unload your rifles." 
 
 " Your Holiness ! " cried the Swiss ; but they obeyed also. 
 
 " Now open this door," said the Pope. 
 
 " Your Holiness ! " 
 
 " Open it." 
 
 The bronze gate was thrown open. 
 
 The captain outside had enough to do to keep up the cour- 
 age of his men. Struggling against their traditional Italian 
 superstition, they looked restless and unreliable. At one 
 moment they thought they saw the Pope at his window, and 
 they appeared to be on the point of hailing him with an out- 
 burst of voices. The hour of armistice seemed never-ending; 
 the day was gone, and the darkness was deepening rapidly. 
 But at length the Delegate gave the signal, and the captain 
 followed it with the word of command. Then the men closed 
 up in the colonnade of Bernini, which leads to the bronze door. 
 
 It was at that instant the door opened.
 
 THE PEOPLE 619 
 
 " Ready ! " cried the captain, and the men gripped their 
 arms as if preparing for an attack from the inside. 
 
 At the next moment a white figure appeared in the open 
 doorway, with the light of the lamps of the colonnade on his 
 pale worn face. It was the Pope. The rifles dropped from the 
 men's shoulders, and they took a long breath. 
 
 " Soldiers," said the Pope, " what have you come for? To 
 bombard the Vatican? The door is open, and you are free to 
 enter. Why do you bring your rifles and cannon? There is 
 nobody here to resist you except one weak old man." 
 
 The soldiers stood in speechless dismay. 
 
 " Do you wish to search this house? Search it. Sack it if 
 you will. But remember, it is God's house, and He covers it 
 with the vast wings of his protection." 
 
 The soldiers began to drop back. 
 
 " Does nothing tell you that you are taking up arms against 
 a father? Throw them down, my sons, and may God for- 
 give you." 
 
 By one impulse, without a word, the soldiers in front flung 
 their rifles on to the steps. The captain shouted something, but 
 only the Pope took heed of him. 
 
 " Go back to your master, sir, and tell him that from this day 
 forward the Holy See abandons all intestine resentments that 
 are related to political passion. ~^o longer shall it be said" that 
 the Pontiff is a king with a court and army. ~No longer shall it 
 be repeated that the temporal sovereignty of the Pope in one 
 little city is necessary to the independence of a spiritual king- 
 dom that is as wide as the world. The sovereignty of souls is 
 enough for the Holy Father, but his throne is on the rock of 
 Christ, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." 
 
 The captain had turned about and was pushing his way 
 through his men. 
 
 " Go back all of you, and tell everybody that the Lord's 
 injunction that the Minister of His Word should divest himself 
 of worldly possessions is to be honoured at last in the history of 
 His Church. My sons, fight for justice, for your souls fight 
 for justice, even unto death fight for justice, and God will over- 
 throw your enemies." 
 
 By this time all the soldiers had thrown down their arms, 
 and the captain had leapt to the back of a horse which stood at 
 the end of the line and galloped away.
 
 620 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 THE doctor of the Engineers, not entirely satisfied with his 
 diagnosis of Roma's illness, prescribed a remedy of unfailing 
 virtue hope. It was a happy treatment. The past of her life 
 seemed to have disappeared from her consciousness and she lived 
 entirely in the future. It was always shining in her eyes like a 
 beautiful sunrise. 
 
 The sunrise Roma saw was beyond the veil of this life, but 
 the good souls about her knew nothing of that. They brought 
 her every piece of worldly intelligence that was likely to be good 
 news to her. By this time they imagined they knew where her 
 heart lay, and such happiness was in her white face when as 
 soldiers of the King they whispered treason that they thought 
 themselves rewarded. 
 
 They told her of the attempted attack on the Vatican with 
 all its results and consequences army disorganised, the Borgo 
 Barracks shut up, soldiers wearing republican cockades and 
 marching arm in arm, the Government helpless and the Quirinal 
 in despair. 
 
 " I'm sorry for the poor young King," she said, " but 
 still . . ." 
 
 It was the higher power working with blind instruments. 
 Rossi would come back. His hopes, so nearly laid waste, would 
 at length be realised. And if, as she had told Elena, he had to 
 return over her own dead body, so to speak, there would be 
 justice even in that. It would be pitiful but it would be glori- 
 ous also. There were mysteries in life and death, and this was 
 one of them. 
 
 She was as gentle and humble as ever, but every hour she 
 grew more restless. This conveyed to the soldiers the idea that 
 she was expecting something. Notwithstanding her plea of 
 guilty, they thought perhaps she was looking for her liberty out 
 of the prevailing turmoil. 
 
 " I will be very good and do everything you wish, doctor. 
 But don't forget to ask the Prefect to let me stay in Rome over 
 to-morrow. And, Sister, do please remember to waken me early 
 in the morning, because I'm certain that something is going to 
 happen. I've dreamt of it three times, you know." 
 
 " A pity ! " thought the doctor. " Governments may fall 
 and even dynasties may disappear, but judicial authorities 
 remain the same as ever, and the judgment of the court must 
 be carried out."
 
 THE PEOPLE 621 
 
 Nevertheless he would speak to the Prefect. He would say 
 that in the prisoner's present condition the journey to Viterbo 
 might have serious consequences. As he was setting out on 
 this errand early the following morning, he met Elena in the 
 ante-room, and heard that Roma was paying the most minute 
 attention to the making of her toilet. 
 
 " Strange ! You would think she was expecting some one," 
 said Elena. 
 
 " She is, too," said the doctor. " And he is a visitor who 
 will not keep her long." 
 
 The soldier who brought Roma her breakfast that morning, 
 brought something else that she found infinitely more appetis- 
 ing. Rossi had returned to Rome ! One of the men below had 
 seen him in the street last night. He was going in the direc- 
 tion of the Piazza Navona, and nobody was attempting to arrest 
 him. 
 
 Roma's eyes flashed like stars, and she sent down a message 
 to the Major, asking to be allowed to see the soldier who had 
 seen Rossi. 
 
 He was a big ungainly fellow, but in Roma's eyes who shall 
 say how beautiful ? She asked him a hundred questions. His 
 dense head was utterly bewildered. 
 
 The doctor came back with a smiling face. The Prefect 
 had agreed to postpone indefinitely the transfer of their prisoner 
 to the penitentiary. The good man thought she would be very 
 grateful. 
 
 " Ah, indefinitely ? I only wished to remain over to-day ! 
 After that I shall be quite ready." 
 
 But the doctor brought another piece of news which threw 
 her into the wildest excitement. Both Senate and Chamber 
 of Deputies had been convoked late last night for an early 
 hour this morning. Rumour said they were to receive an 
 urgent message from the King. There was the greatest com- 
 motion in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parliament, and 
 the public tribunes were densely crowded. The doctor himself 
 had obtained a card for the Chamber, but he was unable to get 
 beyond the corridors. Nevertheless, the doors being open 
 owing to the heat and crush, he had heard something. Vaguely, 
 for five minutes, he had heard one of their great speakers. 
 
 " Was it ... was it, perhaps . . ." 
 
 " It was." 
 
 Again the big eyes flashed like stars. 
 
 " You heard him speak ? "
 
 622 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " I heard his voice at all events." 
 
 " It's a wonderful voice, isn't it ? It seems to go through 
 and through you. And you really heard him? Can it be pos- 
 sible ! Oh, it will all work out for the best. You'll see it will." 
 
 Elena, the sad figure in the background of these bright 
 pathetic scenes, thought Roma was hoping for a reconciliation 
 with Rossi. She hinted as much, and then the fierce joy in the 
 white face faded away. 
 
 " Ah, no, I'm not thinking of that, Elena." 
 
 Her love was too large for personal thoughts. It had risen 
 higher than any selfish expectations. 
 
 " But it's marvellous," she said. " To think that I had so 
 nearly destroyed him, and out of my very denunciation comes 
 all this triumph ! God has done it all. He does everything. 
 You wouldn't think it sometimes, but it's so." 
 
 They helped her on to the loggia. The day was warm, and 
 the fresh air would do her good. She looked out over the city 
 with a loving gaze, first towards the Piazza Navona, then 
 towards the tower of Monte Citorio, and last of all towards 
 Trinita de' Monti and the House of the Four Winds. But she 
 was seeing things as they would be when she was gone, not to 
 \ 7 iterbo, but on a longer journey. 
 
 "Elena?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Do you think he will ever learn the truth ? " 
 
 " About the denunciation ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I should think he is certain to do so." 
 
 " Why I did it, and what tempted me, and . . . and every- 
 thing?" 
 
 " Yes, indeed, everything." 
 
 " Do you think he will think kindly of me then, and forgive 
 me and be merciful ? " 
 
 " I am sure he will." 
 
 A mysterious glow came into the pallid face. 
 
 " Even if he never learns the truth here he will learn it 
 hereafter, won't he? Don't you believe in that, Elena that 
 the dead know all ? " 
 
 " If I didn't how could I bear to think of Bruno ? " 
 
 " True. How selfish I am ! I hadn't thought of that. We 
 are in the same case in some things, Elena." 
 
 The future was shining in the brilliant eyes with the radi- 
 ance of an unseen sunrise.
 
 THE PEOPLE 623 
 
 "Dear Elena?" 
 
 " Ye-s." 
 
 " Do you think it will seem long to wait until he conies ? " 
 
 " Don't talk like that, Donna Koma." 
 
 " Why not ? It's only a little sooner or later, you know. 
 Will it?" 
 
 Elena turned aside, and Roma answered herself. 
 
 " I don't. I think it will pass like a dream like going to 
 bed at night and awaking in the morning. And then both 
 together there." 
 
 She took a long deep breath of unutterable joy. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " that I may sleep until he comes knowing 
 all, forgiving everything, loving me the same as before, and 
 every cruel thought dead and gone and forgotten." 
 
 She asked for pen and paper and wrote a letter to Rossi : 
 
 " DEAREST, I hear the good news, just as I am on the point 
 of leaving Rome, that you have returned to it, and I write to 
 ask you not to try to alter what has happened. Believe me, it 
 is better so, and there is a kind of justice in the way things 
 have fallen out. The world is full of work for you yet, and 
 you must go on from strength to strength, never turning back, 
 whoever drops by the way. Do not allow yourself to think of 
 that occurrence as a crime. It was a judgment. Therefore 
 leave matters alone. It is my last request. And if in the 
 far-off future people say, ' She betrayed him, yes, but she gave 
 herself for him at the end,' it will be very sweet to think of 
 where I shall be. 
 
 " I am to be removed to Viterbo shortly, but don't think I 
 shall be long away. I shall soon rejoin you. Do you know how 
 I mean ? The instant it happens I shall be with you, and I 
 shall remain with you always and you will not be afraid. 
 
 " God bless you, dear ! You were angry with me when we 
 parted, but more than ever I love you now. Don't think our 
 love has been wasted. ' 'Tis better to have loved and lost than 
 never to have loved at all.' How beautiful ! ROMA." 
 
 "P.S. I send you another lock of hair. Do you forget 
 that I gave you one before ? But then you have so many things 
 to remember." 
 
 Having written her letter, and put her lips to the enclosure, 
 she addressed the envelope in a bold hand and with a brave
 
 624 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 flourish : " All' Illustrissimo Signer Davide Rossi, Camera dei 
 Deputati." 
 
 " You'll post this immediately I am gone, Sister," she said. 
 
 Elena pretended to put the letter away for that purpose, but 
 she really smuggled it down to the Major, who despatched it 
 forthwith to the Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 " And now I'll go to sleep," said Roma. 
 
 She slept until midday with the sun's reflection from the 
 white plaster of the groined ceiling of the loggia on her still 
 whiter face. Then the twelve o'clock gun shook the walls of 
 the castle, and she awoke while the church bells were ringing. 
 
 " I thought it was my dream coming true, Sister," she 
 said. 
 
 The doctor came up at that moment in a high state of 
 excitement. 
 
 " Great news for you, Donna Roma. The King has abdi- 
 cated and a Republic has been proclaimed." 
 
 Roma's trembling and exultant eyelids told a touching story. 
 
 " Is there anything to see ? " 
 
 " Only the new flag on the Capitol." 
 
 " Let me look at it." 
 
 He helped her to rise. " Look ! There it is on the clock 
 tower." 
 
 " I see it. ... That will do. You can put me down now, 
 doctor." 
 
 An ineffable joy shone in her face. 
 
 " It was my dream after all, Elena." 
 
 After a moment she said, " Doctor, tell the Prefect I am 
 quite ready to go to Viterbo. In fact I wish to go. I should 
 like to go immediately." 
 
 " I'll tell him," said the doctor, and he went out to hide his 
 emotion. 
 
 The Major came to the open arch of the loggia. He stood 
 there for a moment, and there was somebody behind him. 
 Then the Major disappeared, but the other remained. It was 
 David Rossi. He was standing like a man transfixed, looking 
 in speechless dismay at Roma's pallid face with the light of 
 heaven on it. 
 
 Roma did not see Rossi, and Elena, who did, was too fright- 
 ened to speak. Lying back in her bed-chair with a great hap- 
 piness in her eyes, she said : 
 
 " Sister, if he should come here when I am gone . . . no, I 
 don't mean that . . . but if you should see him and he should
 
 THE PEOPLE 625 
 
 ask about me, you will say that I went away quite cheerfully. 
 Tell him I was always thinking about him. Ko, don't say that 
 either. It might make him unhappy to think I loved him so 
 much at the last. Certainly it would have been sweet, as you 
 say, to be reconciled before going, but he must never think I 
 regretted what I did, or that I died broken-hearted. Say fare- 
 well for me, Elena. Addio Carissimo! That's his word, you 
 know. Addio Carissimo!" 
 
 Rossi, blinded with his tears, took a step in the loggia, and 
 in a low voice, very low and soft and tremulous, as if he were 
 trying not to startle her, he cried : 
 
 "Roma!" 
 
 She raised herself, turned, saw him, and by a supernatural 
 effort rose to her feet. Without a word he opened his arms to 
 her, and with a little frightened cry she fell into them and was 
 folded to his breast. 
 
 XI 
 
 THE scene in the Chamber of Deputies, from which Rossi 
 had come, was irregular and without precedent, as all great 
 incidents are, but vivid and deeply moving. Ten o'clock was 
 the hour for which the Chamber was convoked, but long before 
 that time every bench was occupied, and all the public galleries 
 were packed. While waiting for their President the Deputies 
 occupied themselves with conversation on the events of the last 
 few days, which had left everybody dizzy by their rapidity and 
 importance. The latest news was- that the Court was in dis- 
 may, the courtiers were dispersing in terror, the Quirinal was 
 deserted by the worshippers who had formerly thronged the 
 palace, and the young King, who had heaped honours upon flat- 
 terers, was left alone. 
 
 As the mute fingers of the clock approached ten the buzz of 
 voices died down. Then in the hush of waiting there came a 
 new subject of interest. David Rossi was seen to enter the 
 House from behind the partition that ran by the side of his 
 seat. He was very pale and somewhat thinner than before, 
 but calm and strong. His frock-coat was buttoned over his 
 breast, and his hair was more carefully brushed than usual. 
 He bowed to no one, and took his place without raising his 
 head. 
 
 The bench of the Ministers alone was unoccupied when the 
 President entered the House. After his secretaries had taken
 
 026 'THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 their seats, he rang his bell amid breathless silence, and then 
 arose with a paper in his hand. 
 
 " I am commanded by his Majesty to present a communica- 
 tion to the Chamber," he said. Unfolding the paper he began 
 to read : 
 
 " The acts of disobedience and violence committed against 
 Us during the past week, and the indications of a disposition 
 to commit others, force Us to withdraw for the present from 
 Our subjects, whom We still love as ever. 
 
 " During the last eight years We have made every prac- 
 ticable effort for the benefit of Our people, and can only grieve 
 if these efforts have been frustrated. But thinking that We 
 individually may be the chief or only obstacle to the pacifica- 
 tion of Italy We now abdicate Our throne, and commend to the 
 lawful authorities the duty of preserving order, protecting the 
 palaces, the churches, and public monuments, and saving Our 
 subjects from the horrors of civil war." 
 
 The President sat down in silence. But the silence lasted 
 a few moments only, and it was followed by the hum of five 
 hundred voices. Everybody seemed to speak at once, and the 
 opinions were many and conflicting. Charged with democratic 
 heat, the Deputies on the Left were shouting, " Best thing he 
 can do," " It's a case of willy-nilly." One man was heard to 
 cry, " So fare the enemies of the people," and another, " First 
 stage abdication, second stage civil war." Not one voice was 
 raised for the King, even on the benches of the Right. 
 
 Suddenly a clear voice was heard above the babel, " Mr. 
 President, I ask permission. to speak." 
 
 It was David Rossi. 
 
 " The Honourable Rossi has the word," said the President, 
 and the multitudinous voices died down to silence. 
 
 " I move," said Rossi, " that every honour be paid to his 
 Majesty on taking his departure from Rome. The traditions 
 of his royal house, the bravery and fidelity of his ancestors, 
 entitle him to respect. But his own unblemished character 
 demands our homage, and it is not his fault that as the repre- 
 sentative of a doomed and dying system he must be the last of 
 the sons of Italy to tread the path of exile." 
 
 The effect of these words was to make the entire Chamber 
 ashamed the Left of their cries, the Right of their silence. 
 After the motion had been put to the House and carried Rossi 
 rose again. 
 
 " Mr. President," he said, " we cannot lose time in vain
 
 THE PEOPLE 627 
 
 formalities. The delay of a moment would be a crime. The 
 monarchical principle being dead in Italy, the people must seize 
 the helm of state. I move (1) that the King has abdicated de 
 facto and de jure; (2) that the form of government shall hence- 
 forth be a Republic; (3) that the Roman Pontiff, who has 
 publicly affirmed that his kingdom is not of this world, shall 
 enjoy all guarantees for his independence in the exercise of his 
 spiritual power." 
 
 The motion was carried without dissent amid shouts of 
 " Long live the Republic." When the huzzas had ended David 
 Rossi rose a third time. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " the Republican eagle alone will 
 not work miracles, and God knows what trials are in store for 
 the modern structure which we are now raising on the ruins of 
 ancient society. We are on the edge of a precipice, and it is 
 right that we should remember the dangers of our position. 
 Unless we act wisely now, the lack of education in our people, 
 the unfitness of our habits for republican institutions, and the 
 other bad fruits of the past regime, may work evils worse than 
 those of a theocratic government. But the country ought not, 
 it must not fall into anarchy. Therefore I move that a plebis- 
 cite of the entire nation be taken forthwith for the election of 
 a President who shall form a council that will give a stable 
 organisation to the commonwealth; and meantime that a pro- 
 visional government be appointed composed of the following 
 members." 
 
 He read a list of twelve names taken from every side of the 
 House, and sat down amid loud shouts of his own name also. 
 
 Three or four Deputies rose immediately. The first to 
 speak was on the Extreme Right. He said it was the duty of 
 those who had been chiefly responsible for the crisis to meet its 
 responsibilities, therefore the Honourable Rossi must be ready 
 to serve on the Provisional Government. The last to speak 
 was 011 the Extreme Left. He said it was characteristic of 
 their leader not to think of himself when honours had to be dis- 
 tributed, but his followers would demand that he should take 
 his share of them. Men in power had used every evil machina- 
 tion to make him a victim, and even a woman had been em- 
 ployed to corrupt and betray him; but he had escaped 
 unscathed; this was his hour of triumph, and he must be pre- 
 pared to enjoy it. 
 
 People afterwards remembered that at that moment the 
 King and his abdication were forgotten. All eyes were on
 
 628 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 Kossi. He sat with bowed head, trifling with his watch-chain, 
 as his habit was when moved or undecided. At length he rose 
 once more, and his fourth speech wiped his previous ones 
 utterly out of memory. His lips trembled slightly, and his 
 voice had the note of a solemn and poignant melancholy that 
 was deeper than pathos. The people in the galleries had risen 
 to their feet, and were stretching their necks to see. 
 
 " My friend says this is my hour of triumph," he said. " It 
 is the reverse of that. It is my hour of shame. He thinks I 
 have been the victim of a woman. He is wrong. The woman 
 is my victim. She lies in prison under the stigma of a crime 
 of which I alone am guilty. It was my hand that struck down 
 the late Prime Minister. That was why I disappeared a week 
 ago, and this is why I came back to-day." 
 
 The consternation produced by these words is indescribable. 
 People were too dazed to know what to think. 
 
 " I came back," the poignant voice continued, " to deliver 
 myself up to the Chamber, because the warrant already issued 
 against me is now useless, and because, being a Deputy, and 
 therefore the representative of more than myself, I am subject 
 to Parliament alone. But I did not intend to intrude myself 
 upon the Chamber in this way, and only the compulsion of the 
 moment has prevailed with me to do so." 
 
 The silence was awful, and every word seemed to ring in a 
 half-opened sepulchre. 
 
 " Now you know why I did not include my own name in the 
 list of a Provisional Government. It was neither modesty nor 
 fear of duty, but the sense of being stained, and therefore im- 
 possible. Only for that how proud and how eager should I 
 have been to support my country in this epoch of regeneration, 
 this reawakening of the great people to whom it has twice 
 before been granted to lay the foundations of a new civilisation ! 
 But in this one thing I am like another man. I have sinned, 
 and I may stand on the frontier of the promised land, but I 
 may not enter it. Such is the expiation demanded by the 
 Almighty." 
 
 He paused and looked round. A pitiful smile passed over 
 his face, and the Chamber concluded that he was about to say 
 a sentimental farewell to the scene of so many struggles, suc- 
 cesses, and defeats. But after a moment he said, simply: 
 
 " Mr. President, I place myself at the disposition of Par- 
 liament." 
 
 The moment he had sat down one of the Ushers of the
 
 THE PEOPLE 629 
 
 House, with a tri-coloured badge 011 his arm, stepped up and 
 handed him a letter. He was seen to open it with trembling 
 fingers and read it again and again. 
 
 Then the unexpected happened. In the tense air rose a 
 voice from the Right. The speaker was an ex-President of 
 the Council, a Royalist and a Marquis. When he was seen to 
 rise it was expected that he would move the appointment of 
 the Committee which would order Rossi's arrest. 
 
 " Nobody will accuse me of sympathy with the opinions 
 of the honourable member," he said, " and nobody will suspect 
 me of want of respect for law and reverence for human life. 
 But I take it upon myself to say that not from this side of the 
 Chamber will any steps be taken to punish a crime of which we 
 know nothing except on the evidence of one who has denounced 
 himself in order that another may not suffer. For the rest, 
 I will only say, in the name of the Chamber, and in my own 
 name, that Parliament will think it an irreparable loss if it 
 must lose the presence of a member who during the past eight 
 years has never been known to strike an mifair blow, or say 
 an insincere word, or speak ill of any one a dauntless, stain- 
 less Roman gentleman." 
 
 The effect of this generous eulogy was overwhelming. To 
 relieve the strain of the last quarter of an hour the entire 
 audience, Deputies and public, broke into a great shout of 
 applause, and there was nothing seen on any side but heaving 
 breasts and swimming eyes. 
 
 Then came cries of "Rossi!" "Rossi!" But Rossi's 
 place was empty. He was gone. No one had seen him go. 
 
 XII 
 
 TEN days later Roma had neither been liberated nor re- 
 moved. " It will not be necessary," was the report of the doc- 
 tor at the Castle to the officers of the Procura and the Prefe- 
 tura. The great liberator and remover was on his way. 
 
 At Rossi's request Dr. Fedi had been called in, and he had 
 diagnosed the case exactly. Roma was suffering from an 
 internal disease, which was probably hereditary, but certainly 
 incurable. Strain and anxiety had developed it in life earlier 
 than usual, but in any case it must have come. Thus the 
 fairest flowers have the deadly canker. Such is the law of 
 nature.
 
 630 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 At first Rossi rebelled with all his soul and strength. To 
 go through this long and fierce fight with life, and to come out 
 victorious, and then, when all seemed to promise peace and a 
 kind of tempered happiness, to be met by Death the uncon- 
 querable, the inevitable oh, it was terrible, it was awful! 
 
 He called in specialists; talked of a change of air; even 
 brought himself, when he was far enough away from Roma, to 
 the length of suggesting an operation. The doctors shook their 
 heads. At last he bowed his own head. His bride-wife must 
 leave him. He must live on without her. 
 
 Once he had confronted this idea he saw that everything 
 was for the best. There was no other end. It was the only 
 way. The all-wise God, who had ordered that he must pass 
 away from his own people, because like Moses he had tres- 
 passed, was first softening the separation by severing the 
 dearest tie. 
 
 While the country was busy with her plebiscite, Rossi was 
 passing his days at the Castle of St. Angelo. The people had 
 learnt the story of Roma and Rossi by this time, and it had 
 stirred the fires of love always burning in the children of Italy. 
 They waited in little groups outside the gate to see him come 
 and go. Sometimes they would speak to him, showing him 
 the latest bulletin of the elections, with his own name stand- 
 ing high. But the faint smile of the stricken man discouraged 
 such overtures, and at length he was allowed to pass in silence. 
 
 Meantime Roma was cheerful, and at moments even gay. 
 Her gaiety was heart-breaking. Blinding bouts of headache 
 were her besetting trouble, but only by the moist red eyes did 
 any one know anything about them. When people asked her 
 how she felt, she told them whatever she thought they wished 
 to hear. It brought a look of relief to their faces, and that 
 made her happy. A bright, pathetic, tragic figure, such as 
 only a woman can be. 
 
 With Rossi, during these ten days, she had carried on the 
 fiction that she was getting better. This was to break the news 
 to him. And he on his part, to break the news to her, had pre- 
 tended to believe the story. They made Elena help the little 
 artifice, and even engaged the doctors in their mutual de- 
 ception. 
 
 " And how is my darling to-day ? " 
 
 " Splendid ! There's really nothing to do with me. It's 
 true I have suffered. That's why I look so pale. But I'm 
 better now, Elena will tell you how well I slept last night.
 
 THE PEOPLE 631 
 
 Didn't I sleep well, Elena? Elena . . . Poor Elena is going 
 a little deaf and doesn't always speak when she is spoken to. 
 But I'm all right, David. In fact, I'll feel no pain at all before 
 long, and then I shall be well." 
 
 " Yes, dear, you'll feel no pain at all before long, and then 
 you'll be well." 
 
 It was pitiful. All their words seemed to be laden with 
 double meanings. They could find none that were not. 
 
 But the time had come when Roma resolved she must speak 
 plainly. Rossi had lifted her into the loggia. He did that 
 every day, carrying her not on his arm as a woman carries a 
 child, but against his breast, as a man carries his wife when he 
 loves her. She always puts her arms around his neck, pretend- 
 ing it was necessary for her safety, and when he laid her gently 
 in the bed-chair she pulled down his head and kissed him. 
 The two little journeys were the delights of the day to Roma. 
 To Rossi they were a deepening trouble. 
 
 It was the sweetest day of the sweetest Roman spring, and 
 Roma wore a light tea-gown with a coil of white silk about her 
 head such as is seen in the portraits of Beatrice Cenci. The 
 golden complexion was quite gone, there was a hard line along 
 the cheek, a deep shadow under the chin, the nostrils were 
 pinched and the mouth was drawn. But the large eyes, though 
 heavy with pain, were full of joy. They did not weep any 
 more, for all the tears were shed, and the light of another world 
 was reflected in their depths. 
 
 Rossi sat by her side, and she took one of his hands and 
 held it on her lap between both her own. Sometimes she 
 looked at him and then she smiled. She, who had lost him for 
 a little while, had got him back at last. It was only just in 
 time. A little break, and they would continue this there. 
 Ah, she was very happy ! 
 
 Rossi's free hand was supporting his head, and he was try- 
 ing to look another way. Do what he would to conquer it, the 
 spirit of rebellion was rising in his heart again. " O God, is 
 this just ? Is this right ? " They were alone on the loggia. 
 Above was the cloudless blue sky, below was the city, hardly 
 seen or heard. 
 
 " David," she began, in a faint voice. 
 
 "Dearest?" 
 
 " I have been so happy in having you with me again that 
 there is something I have forgotten to tell you." 
 
 "What is it, dear?"
 
 632 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 " Promise me you will not be shocked or startled." 
 
 " What is it, dearest ? " he repeated, although he knew too 
 well. 
 
 " It is nothing. . . . Yes, hold my hands tight. So ! ... 
 Really, it's nothing. And yet it is everything. It is ... 
 it is death." 
 
 " Roma ! " 
 
 Her eyelids trembled, but she tried to laugh. 
 
 " Yes, dear. True ! ]STot immediately. Oh no, not imme- 
 diately. But signed and sealed, you know, and not to be put 
 aside that anybody may be happy much longer." 
 
 She was laughing almost gaily. But all the same she was 
 watching him closely, and now that her word was spoken she 
 suddenly became conscious of a secret desire which she had not 
 suspected. She wanted him to contradict her, to tell her she 
 was quite wrong, to convince and defeat her. 
 
 " Poor little me ! Pity, isn't it ? It would have been so 
 sweet to go on a little longer especially after this reconcilia- 
 tion. And when one has kept one's heart under bolt and bar 
 so long . . ." 
 
 Her sad gaiety was breaking down. " But it's better so, 
 isn't it ? " 
 
 He did not reply. 
 
 " Ah, yes, it's better so when you come to think of it." 
 
 " It's terrible ! " said Rossi. 
 
 " Don't say that. It's a thing of every day. Here, there, 
 everywhere. God wouldn't allow it to go on if it were terrible." 
 
 " It's bitterly cruel for all that." 
 
 " Not so cruel as life. Not nearly. For instance the 
 world wants you, dear, but it doesn't want me any more. You 
 would have to put me away, and that would be harder to bear 
 than death far harder." 
 
 " My darling ! What are you saying ? " 
 
 " It's true, dear. You know it's true. God can forgive a 
 woman even if she's a sinner, but the world can't if she's only 
 a victim of sin. It's part of the cruelty of things, but there's 
 no use repining." 
 
 " Roma," said Rossi, " I take God to witness that if that 
 were all that stood between us nothing and nobody should sepa- 
 rate you and me. They who wanted me would have to take 
 you also. I would tell the world that you had every virtue and 
 every heroism, and without you I could do nothing." 
 
 Her eyes filled with a fresh joy.
 
 " You set me too high still, dear, and yet you know that I 
 was too small and weak for you with your great work. That 
 was why I failed you at the end. It wasn't my fault that I 
 betrayed you. I couldn't help it, so . . ." 
 
 " Don't speak of my betrayal. I thank God for it, and see 
 now that it was the best that could have happened." 
 
 She closed her eyes. " Is it your own voice, dearest ? 
 Really yours? I could almost fancy it is the voice I hear in 
 my dreams. But if the woman who loved you had been one of 
 the great heroines . . ." 
 
 " I don't want one of the great heroines. I want a woman, 
 a sweet, true woman, and if her love for me blinds her to 
 everything else . . ." 
 
 " Hush ! I shall wake and the dream will pass." 
 
 A little jet from his heart of flame burst out in spite of his 
 warning brain, and he was carried away for the moment. 
 
 " My poor darling, you must get well for my sake. You 
 must think of nothing but getting well. Then we'll go away 
 somewhere to Switzerland, as you said in your letter. Or 
 perhaps to England, where you were born, and where your 
 father lived his years of exile. Dear old England ! Mother- 
 land of liberty! I'll show you all the places." 
 
 She was dizzy with the beautiful vision. 
 
 " Oh, if I could only go on like this for ever ! But I mustn't 
 1 >ten to you, dearest. It's no use, you know. Now, is it? " 
 
 The spirit which had exalted him for a moment took flight, 
 i id 'his heart rose into his throat. 
 
 " Now is it ? " she repeated. 
 
 He did not answer, and she dropped back with a sigh. Ah, 
 i was cruel fencing. Every word was a sword, and it was 
 cutting a hundred ways. 
 
 At that moment a newsman below cried : " Result of the 
 Plebiscite Election of the President of the Republic," and a 
 little later a band of music passed down the street. Roma, 
 who loved bands of music, asked Rossi to lift her up that she 
 might look at it. A little drummer boy was marching at the 
 head of the procession, gaily rolling his rataplan. 
 
 " He reminds me of little Joseph," she said, and she laughed 
 heartily. Strange mystery of life that robs death of all its 
 terrors ! 
 
 He put his arm about her to support her as they stood by 
 the parapet, and this brought a new tremor of affection, as well 
 as a little of the old physical thrill and a woi'ld of fond and 
 41
 
 634 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 tender memories. She looked into his eyes, he looked into 
 hers; they both looked across to Trinita de' Monti, and in the 
 eye-asking between them she said plainly, " Do you remember 
 over there ? " 
 
 Ah, love is of the soul, but who shall say the body has no 
 part in it? Youth and beauty are the bridge of love, and the 
 soul is the stream itself that washes shore and shore. 
 
 Roma was assisted back to the bed-chair, and then, conver- 
 sation being impossible, Rossi began to read. Every day he 
 had read something. Roma had made the selections. They 
 were always about the great lovers Francesca and Paolo, 
 Dante and Beatrice, even Alfred de Musset and poor John 
 Keats, with the skull-cap which burnt his brain. To-day it 
 was Roma's favourite peom: 
 
 " Teach me, only teach, Love! 
 
 As I ought 
 
 I will speak thy speech, Love, 
 Think thy thought ..." 
 
 His right hand held the book. His left was between Roma's 
 hands, lying blue-veined in her lap. She was looking out on 
 the sunlit city as if taking a last farewell of it. He stopped 
 to stroke her glossy black hair and she reached up to his lips 
 and kissed them. Then she closed her eyes to listen. His 
 voice rose and swelled with the ocean of his love, and he felt as 
 if he were pouring his life into her frail body. 
 
 " Meet, if thou require it, 
 
 Both demands, 
 Laying flesh and spirit 
 In thy hands." 
 
 Her blanched lips moved. She took a deep breath and 
 made a faint cry. He rose softly and bent over her with a 
 trembling heart. Her breathing seemed to have ceased. Had 
 sleep overtaken her? Or had the tender flame expired? 
 
 " Roma ! " 
 
 She opened her eyes and smiled. 
 
 " Not yet, dear soon," she said.
 
 EPILOGUE 
 IN THE FUTURE 
 
 THE beautiful Roman spring, with its blush and breath of 
 flowers, has come again, and the sweet mother earth is just as 
 young as she was fifty years ago, although two more tired and 
 worn-out generations have been hushed to sleep on her breast. 
 
 An old gentleman of eighty odd years is at the Campo 
 Santo. He is tall and slight, with a clean-shaven face that is 
 full of tenderness and a white head of Jovian grandeur. 
 
 He stands leaning on a stick in the colonnade in which 
 Roman nobles are buried, in front of a marble tomb which 
 bears an inscription of one word only VOLONNA. After a 
 moment he turns away, then stops and looks back, goes on a 
 few paces and looks back again, as if finding it difficult to tear 
 himself from the spot. 
 
 Rome, which loves a festival, keeps festa again to-day. 
 Flags are flying in the streets, bands are playing in the piazzas, 
 and the people are in holiday costume. There are fewer signs 
 of ostentatious wealth than there were before, fewer badges of 
 servitude, and fewer marks of poverty. Save for this the city 
 is the same, for the eternal does not change. The thoroughfares 
 are teeming with life, and the overflowing current is going 
 through many channels in one direction the direction of the 
 Piazza Colonna. A new fountain is to be unveiled in honour 
 of a great event. Rome, born of the loins of the world, is 
 keeping the anniversary of the day when she became the 
 world-city. 
 
 In a trattoria on the Piazza Navona a company of young 
 students from the university, eating their midday meal, are 
 making the place ring with jests and happy laughter. A 
 venerable old man enters. It is the old gentleman who was at 
 the Campo Santo. He remains standing in the middle of the 
 floor and gazes around as if bewildered. Silence falls on the 
 
 635
 
 636 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 group of students, and each looks at the other with the amused 
 and indulgent look of happy youth. A waiter steps up to the 
 old man and leads him to a side table. After a moment he is 
 eating a dish of maccaroiii and the jests and laughter of the 
 youthful generation are going on as before. 
 
 " Found here, wasn't it, Luigi the fountain, you know ? " 
 
 " It was found in the cellar, sir, right under where you're 
 sitting." 
 
 The old gentleman raises his head as if to listen, but a band 
 of music goes banging through the piazza and it drowns all 
 voices. When silence is restored a middle-aged man in the 
 cassock of a priest, sitting near to the students, joins in their 
 conversation. 
 
 " Just so, and you young people of the future ages have got 
 to think of us old folk who have fought the fight before you. 
 Tremendous things ahead of you. Yes, and tremendous things 
 behind you too." 
 
 " Came along pretty rapidly at last, didn't they, Mon- 
 signor ? " 
 
 " Seemed to, but didn't really. Natural law had been doing 
 her own work towards unity for centuries before man began. 
 Mountains, seas, language all the barriers had been going 
 down. St. Gothard tunnels, Channel tunnels, Suez canals, 
 connections of the Danube and the Rhine, the telegraph, the 
 railway, commercial treaties, trusts, international exhibitions 
 what were they all doing but obeying the irresistible natural 
 law which works out the brotherhood of men ? " 
 
 "But the Church, Monsignor you allow that things went 
 rapidly in the Church ? " 
 
 " Not at all. The great Pope who gave up temporal power 
 was only the sequel to the Pope who failed to found the Holy 
 Roman Empire, as well as the Pope who established infalli- 
 bility and thereby destroyed absolutism. But ' My Kingdom 
 is not of this world ' is a maxim older than any of the Popes, 
 and the Church has never known fifty such peaceful and pros- 
 perous years as since it went back to the Gospel which forbade 
 all formal interference of religion in worldly affairs." 
 
 " But, Monsignor, won't you allow that monarchy dropped 
 out rapidly ? " 
 
 " At last it did, but the theory of the state-idol was dead 
 from the days when humanity destroyed the monstrous abor- 
 tion of divine right. What remained was only the ghost of 
 monarchy, and it was easy enough to lay that."
 
 EPILOGUE 637 
 
 " But war and wealth and ownership ^f land don't you 
 think they disappeared pretty quickly ? " 
 
 " No, because they were disappearing all through the 
 centuries. They carried the seeds of dissolution within them- 
 selves, and every development they made was only a stage in 
 their decay. Now we see that it wasn't necessary for right to 
 use might in order to remain right, and that there is practical 
 wisdom as well as beautiful religion in the lofty saying, ' But I 
 say unto you that you resist not evil.' " 
 
 " Ah, yes, they all thought the new order was a Utopia, 
 didn't they?" 
 
 " Everything is a Utopia at the beginning which offers 
 social amelioration. But the International Federation is 
 founded, even England, last of the great nations, has fallen 
 into line, and the grand Christian dream of two thousand years 
 ago is beginning to come to pass. No millennium ! No king- 
 dom of heaven on earth although there are those of us who 
 no longer regard even that as a mere Utopia." 
 
 The old gentleman at the side table, leaning his head on his 
 hand, is listening intently. 
 
 " Meantime, Monsignor, the great initiators are the great 
 martyrs- witness the ceremony in the Colonna this afternoon." 
 
 " Initiators are always martyrs always have been, always 
 must be. But that's no reason why we shouldn't be initiators 
 if we've got the mettle in us. We should live for an ideal. It 
 is the only thing worth living for, and even if we have to die 
 for it we should die like men, and base our hopes on citizenship 
 of another and greater Eternal City. Who are the people who 
 are there already? Are they those who exercised lordship in 
 this world ? Or are they the men who were in prison and 
 in chains, the men who were burnt and the men who were 
 crucified ? " 
 
 " He is there anyhow lay your life on that," said one of 
 the students, and a shade of sadness passes over all their 
 youthful faces. 
 
 " Ever see him, Monsignor ? " 
 
 " No, he was gone before my time. They elected him first 
 President of the Republic and made ready to give him a vast 
 ovation, but he had disappeared. He thought he had sinned 
 like Moses and couldn't enter the promised land." 
 
 " What became of him, do you think ? " 
 
 " Who can say ? It's fairly certain that during that ten 
 years' European war which put an end to warfare, he spent his
 
 638 THE ETERNAL CITY 
 
 life on the battle-fields as a nurse and a doctor. After that 
 who knows? Such men never do anything as history counts 
 doing, but they are the salt of the earth for all that. He 
 courted obscurity and got it at last. A homeless wanderer, 
 long dead in some distant country, no doubt, and like Moses 
 again no one knows the place of his grave. But there would 
 be a great shout above, my sons, when that soul was welcomed 
 home." 
 
 There is general silence again, and the grave young faces 
 look down. 
 
 " And she . . . she was . . ." 
 
 " Yes, she was a martyr also the greater martyr of the two 
 when you come to think of it. They say the cult of the Blessed 
 Virgin has done more to raise the status of women than any 
 other cause at work since the days of chivalry. I should like 
 to believe it. But look at Italy where our poor sisters used to 
 slave in the fields until their faces had lost the human look. 
 Arid look at France, where outside Notre Dame, with its 
 incense and guttering candles and pealing organ, its bleeding 
 Christ and its weeping Virgin, there used to be the Morgue 
 with a young girl's beautiful body lying on the slab. There is 
 one thing raises the status of woman, though, if an old fellow 
 in a cassock tells you so that's love. And love was what made 
 her a martyr." 
 
 " It made her a genius, too, Moiisignor, if that head of the 
 Christ in the fountain was modelled from his head." 
 
 " Ah, yes they were the last of the great lovers." 
 
 This word raises the spirits of the young students, and they 
 begin to laugh and jest again. Meantime the old gentleman at 
 the side table is shuffling in his seat. A waiter approaches him 
 and asks if he is going to see the statue unveiled. 
 
 " Whose statue ? " he asks, with an obvious effort. 
 
 " Why, don't you know, sir ? David Rossi's. He lived in 
 this house and the statue was found in the cellar." 
 
 The old gentleman rises and quietly goes away. No one 
 sees him go. The merry laughter of the young students fol- 
 lows him into the street, where he is almost borne down by the 
 great concourse that is pressing up to the Piazza Colonna. 
 
 THE END
 
 "THE BOOK OF THE YEAR" 
 
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 "Throughout there is an epigrammatic force which would 
 make palatable a less interesting story of human lives or one less 
 deftly told." London Saturday Review. 
 
 Joost Avelingh. 
 
 " Aside from the masterly handling of the principal characters 
 and general interest in the story, the series of pictures of Dutch 
 life give the book a charm peculiarly its own." New York 
 Herald. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 FELIX GRAS'S ROMANCES. 
 
 The White Terror. 
 
 A Romance. Translated from the Provencal by Mrs. 
 Catharine A. Janvier. Uniform with " The Reds of the 
 Midi" and "The Terror." i6mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "No one has done this kind of work with finer poetic grasp or more 
 convincing truthfulness than Felix Gras. . . . This new volume has the 
 spontaneity, the vividness, the intensity of Interest of a great historical 
 romance." Philadelphia Times. 
 
 The Terror. 
 
 A Romance of the French Revolution. Uniform with 
 "The Reds of the Midi." Translated by Mrs. Catharine 
 A. Janvier. i6mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " If Felix Gras had never done any other work than this novel, it would 
 at once give him a place in the front rank of the writers of to-day. . . . 'The 
 Terror ' is a story that deserves to be widely read, for, while it is of thrilling 
 interest, holding the reader's attention clo.-ely, there is about it a literary 
 quality that makes it worthy of something more than a careless perusal." 
 Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 The Reds of the Midi. 
 
 An episode of the French Revolution. Translated from 
 the Provengal by Mrs. Catharine A. Janvier. With an 
 Introduction by Thomas A. Janvier. With Frontispiece. 
 i6mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 1 ' I have read with great and sustained interest ' The Reds of the 
 South,' which you were good enough to present to me. Though a work of 
 fiction, it aims at painting the historical features, and such works if faith- 
 fully executed throw more light than many so-called histories on the true 
 roots and causes of the Revolution, which are so widely and so gravely mis- 
 understood. As a novel it seems to me to be written with great skill." 
 William E. Gladstone. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 THE SUCCESSOR TO "LOOKING BACKWARD/' 
 Equality. 
 
 By EDWARD BELLAMY. I 2mo. Cloth, $1.25; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 "The book is so full of ideas, so replete with suggestive aspects, so rich in 
 quotable parts, as to form an arsenal of argument for apostles of the new de- 
 mocracy. . . . The humane and thoughtful reader will lay down ' Equality ' 
 and regard the 'world about him with a feeling akin to that with which the 
 child of the tenement returns from his ' country week ' to the foul smells, the 
 discordant noises, the incessant strife of the wonted environment. Immense 
 changes are undoubtedly in store for the coming century. The industrial trans- 
 formations of the world for the past hundred years seem to assure for the next 
 hundred a mutation in social conditions commensurately radical. The tendency 
 is undoubtedly toward human unity, social solidarity. Science will more and 
 more make social evolution a voluntary, self-directing process on the part of 
 man." SYLVESTER BAXTER, in the Review of Re-view s. 
 
 " ' Equality ' is a greater book than ' Looking Backward,' while it is more 
 powerful; and the smoothness, the never-failing interest, the limpid clearness 
 and the simplicity of the argument, and the timeliness, will make it extremely 
 popular. Here is a book that every one will read and enjoy. Rant there is 
 none, but the present system is subjected to a searching arraignment. Withal, 
 the story is bright, optimistic, and cheerful." Boston Herald. 
 
 " Mr. Bellamy has bided his time the full nine years of Horace's counsel. 
 Calmly and quietly he has rounded out the vision which occurred to him. . . . 
 That Mr. Bellamy is earnest and honest in his convictions is evident. That 
 hundreds of earnest and honest men hold the same convictions is also evident. 
 Will the future increase, or decrease, the number?"- Ne-iv York Herald. 
 
 " So ample was Mr. Bellamy's material, so rich is his imaginative power, 
 that 'Looking Backward' scarcely gave him room to turn in. ... The 
 betterment of man is a noble topic, and the purpose of Mr. Bellamy's ' Equal- 
 ity ' is to approach it with reverence. The book will raise many discussions. 
 The subject which Mr. Bellamy writes about is inexhaustible, and it has never- 
 failing human interest." New York Times. 
 
 "'Equality' deserves praise for its completeness. It shows the thought 
 and work of years. It apparently treats of every phase of its subject. . . . 
 Altogether praiseworthy and very remarkable." Chicago Tribune. 
 
 " There is no question at all about the power of the author both as the 
 teller of a marvelous story and as the imaginative creator of a scheme of earthly 
 human happiness. ' Equality ' is profoundly interesting in a great many differ- 
 ent ways." Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 000137820 7 
 
 'RY GOLDMAN 
 4E BOOKS 
 W. TH ST. 
 
 VNGELES