Complete works of hall c.., p.332
Complete Works of Hall Caine, page 332
“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 dy name. Dy kingum tum. Dy will be done on eard as it is in Heben. Gib us dis day our dayey bread, and forgib us our trelspasses as we forgib dem dat 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 noiseless 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 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 on 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!
The train of thought was interrupted by voices in the street, and the doctor 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.
PART ONE — THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE
TWENTY YEARS LATER
I
It was the last day 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 had gathered in the great Piazza of St. Peter.
Boys and women were climbing up every possible elevation, 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 apartments 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 Damasus. 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, but what can he do? Even the Bull proclaiming the Jubilee laments the loss of the temporal power which would have permitted him to renew the enchantments of the Holy City.”
“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, “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 coming 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? Perhaps 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.”
“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 moustache and cropped black mane.
“Ah, yes,” said the old Frenchman. “Much water has run under the bridge since then, sir. Changed since I was here? Rome? You’re right, sir. ‘When Rome 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.
“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. 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.”
“Not 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.”
“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 welfare 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 carriage 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.
“Do you happen to know who that is?” said the gay Roman. “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?”
“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 shoulder in the direction of the palace, “has been taxing bread to build more battleships, and Rossi has risen against him. But 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.”
“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.”
II
The subject of the Frenchman’s denunciation looked harmless 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 profusion. 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.
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 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. He 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! 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.”
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 believe me. ‘He sees the future clear,’ they say, ‘as an almanack made by God.’”
Just then there was a commotion in the crowd, an imperious 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 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.
She lifted from the blue silk cushions of the carriage a small 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.
III
The Baron Bonelli 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.
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 Council-room with some of the Ministers, but expects to be out presently. 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.”
“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 everything before them, so that when they speak even monarchs are bound to obey. 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, an infidel of hard and cynical spirit, a sceptic and a tyrant.”
“Which view do the people take?”
“Can you ask? The people hate him 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.”
“Yet he rules them all, nevertheless?”
“Yes, sir, with a rod of iron — people, Court, princes, Parliament, King as well — and seems to have only one unsatisfied desire, to break up the last remaining rights of the Vatican and rule the old Pope himself.”
“And yet he invites us to sit in his Loggia and look at the Pope’s procession.”
“Perhaps because he intends it shall be the last we may ever see of it.”
“The Princess Bellini and Don Camillo Murelli,” said Felice’s sepulchral voice from the door.
An elderly aristocratic beauty wearing nodding white plumes came in with a pallid young Roman noble dressed in the English fashion.
“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 convenient to come next time,” said the young Roman.
