Caesar or Nothing

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"That is Marcus Aurelius."

"An Emperor?"

"Yes, an Emperor and a philosopher."

"And why have they made him riding such a little, potbellied horse?"

"I don't know, man."

"He looks like a man taking a horse to water at a trough. Why does he
ride bare-back? Hadn't they invented stirrups at that period?"

Preciozi was a bit perplexed; before making a reply he gazed at the
statue, and then said, confusedly:

"I think so."

They crossed the Piazza Campidoglio and went out by the left side of the
Palazzo del Senatore. Down the Via dell' Arco di Severo, a street that
runs down steps to the Forum, they saw a large arch that seemed sunk in
the ground, and beyond, further away, another smaller arch with only one
archway, which arose in the distance as if on top of the big arch. A
square yellow tower, burned by the sun, lifted itself among the ruins;
some hills showed rows of romantic cypresses, and in the background the
blue Alban Mountains stood out against a grey sky.

"Would you like to go down to the Forum?" said the abbe. "Down there
where the stones are? No. What for?"

"Do you wish to see the Tarpeian Rock?"

"Yes, man. But explain to me what this rock was."

Preciozi got together all his information, which was not much.

They went by the Via Monte Tarpea, and came back by the Via della
Consolazione.

"They must have thrown people who were already dead off the Tarpeian
Rock," said Caesar, after hearing the explanation.

"No, no."

"But if they threw them down alive, the majority of those they chucked
down here would not have died. At most they would have dislocated an
arm, a leg, or a finger-joint. Unless they chucked them head first."

Preciozi could not permit the mortal effects of the Tarpeian Rock to be
doubted, and he said that its height had been lessened and the level of
the soil had risen.

After these explanations Caesar found the spot of Roman executions
somewhat less fantastic.

"How would you like to go to that church in the Forum?" said Preciozi.

"I was going to propose that we should go to the hotel; it must be
lunch-time."

"Come along."

_THE CHURCH AND COOKING_

Caesar had Marsala and Asti brought for the abbe, who was a gourmet.

While Preciozi ate and drank with all his jaws, Caesar devoted himself
to teasing him. The waiter had brought some cream-puffs and informed
them that that was a dish every one ate that day. Laura and Preciozi
praised the puffs, and Caesar said:

"What an admirable religion ours is! For each day the church has a saint
and a special dish. The truth is that the Catholic Church is very wise;
it has broken all relations with science, but it remains in harmony with
cooking. As Preciozi was a moment ago saying with great exactitude,
this close relation that exists between the Church and the kitchen is
moving."

"I said that to you?" asked Preciozi. "What a falsehood!"

"Don't pay any attention," said Laura.

"Yes, my dear abbe," retorted Caesar, "and I even believe that you added
confidentially that sometimes the Pope in the Vatican gardens, imitating
Francis I after the battle of Pavia, is wont to say sadly to the
Secretary of State: 'All is lost, save faith and ... good cooking.'"

"What a_bufone! What a bufone!" exclaimed Preciozi, with his mouth
full.

"You are giving a proof of irreligion which is in bad taste," said
Laura. "Only janitors talk like that."

"On such questions I am an honourary janitor."

"That's all right, but you ought to realize that there are religious
people here, like the abbe...."

"Preciozi? Why, he's a Voltairean."

"Oh! Oh! My friend...." exclaimed Preciozi, emptying a glass of wine.

"Voltaireanism," continued Caesar. "There is nobody here who has faith,
nobody who makes the little sacrifice of not eating on Fridays in Lent.
Here we are, destroying with our own teeth one of the most beautiful
works of the Church. You will both ask me what that work is...."

"No, we will not ask you anything," said Laura, waving a hand in the
air.

"Well, it is that admirable alimentary harmony sustained by the Church.
During the whole year we are authorized to eat terrestrial animals, and
in Lent aquatic ones only. Promiscuous as we are, we are undoing the
equilibrium between the maritime and the land forces, we are attacking
the peaceful rotation of meat and fish."

"He is a child," said Preciozi, "we must leave him alone."

"Yes, but that will not impede my Spaniard's heart, my Cardinal's
nephew's heart from bleeding grievously.... Shall we go to the cafe,
Abbe?"

"Yes, let us go."

_THE MARVELLOUS BIRD OF ROME_

They left the hotel and entered a cafe in the Piazza Esedra. Preciozi
made a vague move to pay, but Caesar would not permit him to.

"What do you wish to do?" said the abbe.

"Whatever you like."

"I have to go to the Altemps palace a moment."

"To see my uncle?"

"Yes; then, if you feel like it, we can take a long walk."

"Very good."

They went towards the centre of the town by the Via Nazionale. It was a
splendid sunny afternoon.

Preciozi went into the Altemps palace a moment; Caesar waited for him in
the street. Then, together they went over to opposite the Castel Sant'
Angelo, crossed the river, and approached the Piazza di San Pietro. The
atmosphere was wonderfully clear and pure; the suave blue sky seemed to
caress the pinnacles and decorations of the big square.

Preciozi met a dirty friar, dark, with a black beard and a mouth from
ear to ear. The abbe showed no great desire to stop and speak with him,
but the other detained him. This party wore a habit of a brown colour
and carried a big umbrella under his arm.

"There's a type!" said Caesar, when Preciozi rejoined him.

"Yes, he is a peasant," the abbe said with disgust.

"If that chap meets any one in the road, he plants his umbrella in his
chest, and demands his money or his ... eternal life."

"Yes, he is a disagreeable man," agreed Preciozi.

They continued their walk, through the Piazza Cavallegeri and outside
the walls. As they went up one of the hills there, they could see the
facade of Saint Peter's continually nearer, with all the huge stone
figures on the cornice. "The fact is that that poor Christ plays a sad
role there in the middle," said Caesar.

"Oh! Oh! My friend," exclaimed the abbe in protest.

"A plebeian Jew in the midst of so many princes of the Church! Doesn't
it strike you as an absurdity?"

"No, not absurd at all."

"The truth is that this religion of yours is Jewish meat with a Roman
sauce."

"And yours? What is yours?"

"Mine? I have not got past fetichism. I worship the golden calf. Like
the majority of Catholics."

"I don't believe it."

They looked back; they could see the dome of the great basilica shining
in the sun; then, to one side, a little viaduct and a tower.

"What a wonderful bird you keep in this beautiful cage!" said Caesar.

"What bird?" asked Preciozi.

"The Pope, friend Preciozi, the Pope. Not the popinjay, but the Pope
in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has a feather fan like a
peacock's tail; he speaks like the cockatoo, only he differs from them
in being infallible; and he is infallible, because another bird,
also marvellous, which is called the Holy Ghost, tells him by night
everything that takes place on earth and in heaven. What very
picturesque and extravagant things!"

"For you who have no faith everything must be extravagant."

Caesar and Preciozi went on encircling the walls and reading the various
marble tablets set into them, and ascended to the Janiculum, to the
terrace where Garibaldi's statue stands.

_POOR TINDARO_

"But, are you anti-Catholic, seriously?" asked Preciozi. "But do you
believe any one can be a Catholic seriously?" said Caesar. "I can, yes;
otherwise I shouldn't be a priest."

"But are you a priest because you believe, or do you make believe that
you believe because you are a priest?"

"You are a child. I suppose you hate the Jesuits, like all Liberals."

"And I suppose you hate Masons, like all Catholics."

"No."

"No more do I hate Jesuits. What is worse, I read the life of Saint
Ignatius Loyola at school, and he seemed to me a great man."

"Well, I should think so!"

"And the Jesuits have some power still?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes, man. They give the Church its direction. Oh, nobody fools the
Society. You can see what happened to Cardinal Tindaro."

"I don't know what did happen to him," said Caesar, with indifference.

"No?"

"No."

"Well, Cardinal Tindaro decided to follow the inspirations of the
Society and made many Jesuits Cardinals with the object that when Pope
Leo XIII died, they should elect him Pope; but the Jesuits smelled the
rat, and when Leo XIII got very ill, the Council of Assistants of the
Society had a meeting and decided that Tindaro should not be Pope, and
ordered the Austrian Court to oppose its veto. When the election came,
the Jesuit Cardinals gave Tindaro a fat vote, out of gratitude, but
calculated not to be enough to raise him to the throne, and in case it
was, the Austrian Cardinal and the Hungarian had their Empire's veto to
Tindaro's election in their pocket."

"And this Tindaro, is he intelligent?"

"Yes, he is indeed; very intelligent. Style Leo XIII."

"Men of weight."

"Yes, but neither of the two had Pius IX's spirit." "And the present
one? He is a poor creature, eh?"

"I don't know, I don't know...."

"And the Society of Jesus, is it on good terms with this Pope?"

"Surely. He is their creation."

"So that the Society is really powerful?"

"It certainly is! Without a doubt! It has a pleasant rule, and
obedience, and knowledge, and money...."

"It has money too, eh?"

"Has it money? More than enough."

"And in what form? In paper?"

"In paper, and in property, and industries; in steamship companies, in
manufactories...."

"I would make an admirable business manager."

"Well, your uncle, the Cardinal, could get you put in touch with the
Society."

"Is he a friend of theirs?"

"Close as a finger-nail."

Caesar was silent a moment, and then said:

"And I have heard that the Society of Jesus was, at bottom, an
anti-Christian organization, a branch of Masonry...."

"_Macche_!" exclaimed the abbe. "How could you believe that? Oh, no, my
friend! What an absurdity!"

Then, seeing Caesar burst into laughter, he calmed himself, wondering if
he was making fun of him.

They went down the hill, where the monument to Garibaldi flaunts itself,
to the terrace of the Spanish Academy.

The view was magnificent; the evening, now falling, was clear; the sky
limpid and transparent. From that height the houses of Rome were spread
out silent, with an air of solemnity, of immobility, of calm. It
appeared a flat town; one did not notice its slopes and its hills; it
gave the impression of a city in stone set under a glass globe.

The sky itself, pure and diaphanous, augmented the sensation of
withdrawal and quietude; not a cloud on the horizon, not a spot of smoke
in the air; silence and repose everywhere. The dome of St. Peter's had
the colour of a cloud, the shrubberies on the Pincio were reddened by
the sun, and the Alban Hills disclosed the little white towns and the
smiling villas on their declivities.

Preciozi pointed out domes and towers; Caesar did not hear him, and he
was thinking, with a certain terror:

"We shall die, and these stones will continue to shine in the sunlight
of other winter evenings."

_THE VATICAN FAMILY_

Making an effort with himself, he threw off this painful idea, and
turning to Preciozi, asked:

"So you believe that I might have made a nice career in the Church?"

"You! I certainly do think so!" exclaimed Preciozi. "With a cardinal for
uncle, _che carriera_ you could have made!"

"But are there enough different jobs in the Church?"

"From the Pope to the canons and the Papal Guards, you ought to see
all the hierarchies we have at the Vatican. First the Pope, then the
Cardinals in bishop's orders, next, the Cardinals in priest's
orders, then the Cardinal's in deacon's orders, the Secretaries,
the _compisteria_ of the Holy College of Cardinals, the Patriarchs,
Archbishops, Bishops, and the Pontifical Family."

"Whose family is that? The Pope's?"

"No; it is called that, as who should say, the General Staff of the
Vatican. It is made up of the Palatine Cardinals, the Palatine Prelates,
the Participating Privy Chamberlains, the Archbishops and Bishops
assisting the Pontifical throne, the Domestic Prelates, who form
the College of Apostolic Prothonotaries, the Pontifical Masters of
Ceremonies, the Princes Assisting the Throne, the Privy Participating
Cape-and-Sword Chamberlains, the Privy Numbered Cape-and-Sword
Chamberlains...."

"Cape-and-Sword! Didn't I tell you that that poor Christ plays a sorry
part on the facade of Saint Peter's?" exclaimed Caesar.

"Why, man?"

"Because all this stuff about capes and swords doesn't seem very fitting
for the soul of a Christian. Unless, of course, the knights of the sword
and cape do not use the sword to wound and the cape for a shield, but
only wield the sword of Faith and the cape of Charity.... And haven't
you any gentlemen of Bed-and-Board, as they have at the Spanish Court?"

"No."

"That's a pity. It is so expressive,... bed and board. Bed and board,
cape and sword. Who wouldn't be satisfied? One must admit that there is
nobody equal to the Church, and next to her a monarchy, when it comes
to inventing pretty things. That is why it is said, and very well said,
that there is no salvation outside of the Church."

"You are a pagan."

"And I believe you are one, too."

"_Macche_!"

"What comes after all those Privy Cape-and-Sword Chamberlains, my dear
Abbe?"

"Next, there is the Pontifical Noble Guard, the Swiss Papal Guard,
the Palatine Guard of Honour, the Corps of Papal Gendarmes, the Privy
Chaplains, the Privy Clerics, the suite of His Holiness. Next come the
members of the Palatine Administration, the Congregations, and more
Secretaries."

"And do the Cardinals live well?"

"Yes."

"How much do they make?"

"They get twenty thousand lire fixed salary, besides extras."

"But that is very little!"

"Certainly! It used to be much more, at the time of the Papal States.
Out of their twenty thousand lire they have to keep a carriage."

"Those that aren't rich must have a hard time."

"Just imagine, some of them have to live in a third-floor apartment.
There have been some that bought their red robes second-hand."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Are those robes so expensive?"

"Yes, they are expensive. Quite. They are made of a special cloth
manufactured in Cologne."

"Are there many Cardinals who are not of rich families?"

"A great many."

"Well, you people have ruined that job."

They went to Trastevere and there they took the tram. Preciozi got
out at the Piazza Venezia and Caesar went on to the end of the Via
Nazionale.

_A TALK ABOUT MONEY_

"Where have you been?" asked Laura, on seeing him.

"I've been taking a walk with the abbe."

"It's evident that you find him more interesting than us women."

"Preciozi is very interesting. He is a Machiavellian. He has a candour
that is assumed and a dulness that is assumed. He plays a little comedy
to get out of paying, at the cafe or in the tram. He is splendid. I
think, if you will pardon me for saying so, that the Italians are damned
close."

"People that have no money are forced to be economical."

"No, that isn't so. I have known people in Madrid who made three pesetas
a day, and spent two treating a friend."

"Yes, out of ostentation, out of a desire to show off. I don't like
pretentious people."

"Well, I believe I prefer them to skinflints."

"Yes, that's very Spanish. A man wasting money, while his wife and
children are dying of hunger.... The man who won't learn the value of
money is not the best type."

"Money is filthy. If it were only possible to abolish it!"

"For my part, son, I should like less to have it abolished than to have
a great deal of it." "I shouldn't. If I could carry out my plans, all I
should need afterwards would be a hut to live in, a garret."

"Our ideas differ."

"These people that need clothes and jewels and perfumes fairly nauseate
me.... All such things are only fit for Jews."

"Then I must surely be a Jewess."

VIII

OLD PALACES, OLD SALONS, OLD LADIES

_THE CARDINAL UNCLE_

As the Cardinal gave no indication of curiosity to see Caesar, Caesar
several times said to Laura:

"We ought to call on uncle, eh?"

"Do as you choose. He isn't very anxious to see you. Apparently he takes
you for an unbeliever."

"All right, that has nothing to do with calling on him."

"If you like I will go with you."

The Cardinal lived in the Palazzo Altemps. That palace is situated in
the Via di S. Apellinare, opposite a seminary. The brother and sister
proceeded to the palace one morning, went up the grand staircase, and
in a reception-room they found Preciozi with two other priests, talking
together in low tones.

One was a worn, pallid old man, with his nose and the borders of his
nasal appendage extremely red. Caesar considered that so red a nose in
that livid, ghastly face resembled a lantern in a melancholy landscape
lighted by the evening twilight. This livid person was the house
librarian.

"His Eminence is very busy," said Preciozi, after bowing to the callers.
He spoke with a different voice from the one he used outside. "I will go
in, in a moment, and see if you can see him."

Caesar stepped to the window of the reception-room: one could see the
court of the old palace and the colonnade surrounding it.

"This house must be very large," he said.

"You shall see it later, if you like," replied the abbe. A little after
this Preciozi disappeared, and reappeared again in the opening of a
glass door, saying, in the discreetly lowered voice which was no doubt
that of his domestic functions:

"This way, this way."

They went into a large, cold, shabby room. Through an open door they
could see another bare salon, equally dark and sombre.

The Cardinal was seated at a table; he was dressed as a monk and had the
air of being in a bad humour. Laura went promptly to him and kissed his
hand. Caesar bowed, and as the Cardinal did not deign to look at him,
remained standing, at some distance from the table.

Laura, after having saluted her uncle as a pillar of the Church, talked
to him as a relative. The Cardinal cast a rapid glance at Caesar, and
then, scowling somewhat less, asked him if his mother was well and if he
expected to be long in Rome.

Caesar, vexed by this frigid reception, answered shortly in a few cold
words, that all of them were well.

The Cardinal's secretary, who was by the window assisting at the
interview, shot angry looks at Caesar.

After a brief audience, which could not have lasted over five minutes,
the Cardinal said, addressing Laura:

"Pardon me, my daughter, but I must go on with my work"; and
immediately, without a look at his nephew or his niece, he called the
secretary, who brought him a portfolio of papers.

Caesar opened the glass door for Laura to pass.

"Would you like to see the palace?" Preciozi asked them. "There are some
antique statues, magnificent marbles, and a chapel where Saint Aniceto's
body is preserved."

"Let's leave Saint Aniceto's body for another day," Caesar replied
sardonically.

Laura and Caesar went down the stairway.

"There was no need to come, to behave like that," she said, upset.

"How so?"

"How so! You behaved like a savage, no more nor less." "No, he was the
one that behaved like a savage. I bowed to him, and he wasn't willing
even to look at me."

"You made up for it by staring at him as if he had been some curious
insect in a cage."

"It was his fault for not being even barely polite to me."

"Do you think that a Cardinal is an ordinary person to whom you say:
'Hello! How are you? How's business?'"

"I met an English Cabinet Minister in a club once and he was like
anybody else."

"It's not the same thing."

"Do you believe that perhaps our uncle considers that he fulfils a
providential mission, a divine mission?"

"What a question! Of course he does."

"Then he is a poor idiot. However, it's nothing to me. Our uncle is a
stupid fool."

"You discovered that in such a little while?"

"Yes. Fanatical, vain, fatuous, pleased with himself.... He is of no use
to me."

"Ah, so you thought he would be of some use to you?"

"Why not?"

Her brother's arbitrary manner of taking things irritated and at the
same time amused Laura.

She believed that he made it a rule to persist in always doing the
contrary to other people.

Laura and her friends of both sexes used to run across one another in
museums, out walking in the popular promenades, and at the races. Caesar
didn't go to museums, because he said he had no artistic feeling; races
didn't interest him either; and when it came to walking, he preferred to
wander at random in the streets.

As his memory was not full of historical facts, he experienced no great
esthetic or archeological thrills, and no sympathy whatsoever with the
various herds of tourists that went about examining old stones.

At night, in the salon, he used to give burlesque descriptions, in
his laconic French, of street scenes: the Italian soldiers with
cock-feathers drooping from a sort of bowler hat, the porters of
the Embassies and great houses, with their cocked hats, their blue
great-coats, and the staff with a silver knob in their hands.

The precise, jocose, biting report of his observations offended Laura
and her lady friends.

"Why do you hate Italians so much?" the Countess Brenda asked him one
day.

"But I don't hate them."

"He speaks equally badly of everybody," explained Laura. "He has a bad
character."

"Is it because you have had an unhappy life?" the Countess asked,
interested.

"No, I don't think so," said Caesar, feeling like smiling; instead of
which, and without knowing why and without any reason, he put on a sad
look.

_EXERCISES IN HYPOCRISY_

Laura, with her feminine perspicacity, noted that from that day on the
Countess looked at Caesar a great deal and with melancholy smiles; and
not only the mother appeared interested, but the daughter too.

"I don't know what it is in my brother," thought Laura; "women are
attracted to him just because he pays no attention to them. And he knows
it; yes, indeed he does, even thought he acts as if he were unconscious
of it. Both mother and daughter taken with him! Carminatti has been
routed."

The Countess quickly discovered a great liking for Laura, and as they
both had friends in good Roman society, they made calls together. Laura
was astonished enough to hear Caesar say that if there was no objection,
he would go with them.

"But the majority of our friends are old ladies, devout old ladies."

"All the better."

"All right. But if you come, it is on condition that you say nothing
that would shock them." "Surely."

Caesar accompanied the Countess Brenda and his sister to various
aristocratic houses, and at every one he heard the same conversation,
about the King, the Pope, the Cardinals, and how few or how many
people there were in the hotels. These topics, together with slanders,
constituted the favourite motive for conversation in the great world.

Caesar conversed with the somewhat flaccid old ladies ("castanae
molles," as Preciozi called them) with perfect hypocrisy; he regarded
the classic decorations of the salons, and while he listened to rather
strange French and to most elegant and pure Italian, he wondered if
there might be somebody among all this Papal society whom he could use
to forward his ambitions.

Sometimes among the guests he would meet a young "monsignor," discreetly
smiling, whose emerald ring it was necessary to kiss. Caesar would kiss
it and say to himself: "Let us practise tolerance with our lips."

In many of these salons the mania for the English game called "bridge"
had caught with great violence.

Caesar hated card-games. For a man who made a study of the
stock-exchange, the mechanism of a card-game was too stupid to arouse
any interest. But he had no objection to playing and losing.

The Countesses Brenda and San Martino had "bridge-mania" very hard, and
they used to go to Brenda's room in the evening to play.

After playing bridge a week, Caesar found that his money was insensibly
melting away.

"Look here," he said to Laura.

"What is it?"

"You have got to teach me bridge."

"I don't know how to play, because I have no head for such things and I
forget what cards have been played; but they gave me a little book on
the game. I will lend it to you, if you like."

"Yes, give me it."

Caesar read the book, learned the intricacies of the game, and the next
few evenings he acquitted himself so well that the Countess of San
Martino marched off to her room with burning cheeks and almost in tears.

"What a cad you are!" Laura said to him at lunch some days later,
laughing. "You are fleecing those women."

"It's their own fault. Why did they take advantage of my innocence?"

"They have decided to go and play in Carminatti's room without telling
you."

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