Caesar or Nothing Part 27

"Let's go to the Villa Borghese. The carriage will be here in a moment."

"All right. Let us go there."

A two-horse victoria with rubber tires was waiting at the door, and Laura and Caesar got in. The carriage went past the Treasury, and out the Porta Salaria, and entered the gardens of the Villa Borghese.

The morning had been rainy; the ground was damp; the wind waved the tree-tops gently and caused a murmur like the tide. The carriage rolled slowly along the avenues. Laura was very gay and chatty. Caesar listened to her as one listens to a bird warbling.

Many times while listening he thought: "What is there inside this head?

What is the master idea of her life? Has she really any idea about life, or has she none?"

After several rounds they crossed the viaduct that unites the Villa Borghese with the Pincio gardens.

_FROM THE PINCIO TERRACE_

They approached the great terrace of the gardens by an avenue that has busts of celebrated men along both sides.

"Poor great men!" exclaimed Caesar. "Their statues serve only to decorate a public garden." "They had their lives," replied Laura, gaily; "now we have ours."

Laura ordered the coachman to stop a moment. The air was still murmuring in the foliage, the birds singing, and the clouds flying slowly across the sky.

A man with a black box approached the carriage to offer them postcards.

"Buy two or three," said Laura.

Caesar bought a few and put them into his pocket. The vendor withdrew and Laura continued to look at Rome with enthusiasm.

"Oh, how beautiful, how lovely it is! I never get tired of looking at it. It is my favourite city. '_O fior d'ogni citta, donna del mondo_.'"

"She is no longer mistress of the world, little sister."

"For me she is. Look at St. Peter's. It looks like a shred of cloud."

"Yes, that's so. It's of a blue shade that seems transparent."

Bells were ringing and great majestic white clouds kept moving along the horizon; on the Janiculum the statue of Garibaldi rose up gallantly into the air, like a bird ready to take wing.

"When I look at Rome this way," murmured Laura, "I feel a pang, a pang of grief."

"Why?"

"Because I remember that I must die, and then I shall not come back to see Rome. She will be here still, century after century, full of sunlight, and I shall be dead.... It is horrible, horrible!"

"And your religion?"

"Yes, I know. I believe I shall see other things; but not these things that are so beautiful."

"You are an Epicurean."

"It is so beautiful to be alive!"

They stayed there looking at the panorama. Below, in the Piazza del Popolo, they saw a red tram slipping along, which looked, at that distance, like a toy.

A tilbury, driven by a woman, stopped near their carriage. The woman was blond with green eyes, prominent cheek-bones, and a little fur cap. At her feet lay an enormous dog with long flame-coloured hair.

"She must be a Russian," said Caesar.

"Yes. Do you like that type?"

"She has a lot of character. She looks like one of the women that would order servants to be whipped."

The Russian was smiling vaguely. Laura told the coachman to drive on.

They made a few rounds in the avenues of the Pincio. The music was beginning; a few carriages, and groups of soldiers and seminarians, crowded around the bandstand; Laura didn't care for bra.s.s bands, they were too noisy for her, and she gave the coachman orders to drive to the Corso.

_MEETING MARCHMONT_

They pa.s.sed in front of the Villa Medici, and when they got near the Piazza, della Trinita de' Monti they met a man on horseback, who, on seeing them, immediately approached the carriage. It was Archibald Marchmont, who had just arrived in Rome.

"I thought you had forgotten us," said Laura.

"I forget you, Marchesa! Never."

"You say you came to Rome...."

"From Nice I had to return to London, because my father was seriously ill with an attack of gout."

"He is well again?"

"Yes, thank you. You are coming back from a drive?"

"Yes."

"Don't you want to come and have tea with my wife and me?"

"Where?"

"At the Hotel Excelsior. We are staying there. Will you come?" "All right."

Laura accepted, and they went to the Via Veneto with the Englishman riding beside them.

They went into the hotel and pa.s.sed through to the "hall" full of people, Marchmont sent word to his wife by a servant, to come down.

Laura and Caesar seated themselves with the Englishman.

"This hotel is unbearable," exclaimed Marchmont; "there is nothing here but Americans."

"Your wife, however, must like that," said Caesar.