Caesar or Nothing Part 33

Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets without sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the women and children seated by the gutter.

In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes loaded with torn was.h.i.+ng; there were wretched black shops from which an odour of grease exhaled; there were narrow streets with mounds of garbage in the middle. In the very palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared the same decoration of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of Marcellus one's gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where smiths stood out against flames.

This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and ugliness, was reflected in the people; young and most beautiful women were side by side with fat, filthy old ones covered with rags, their eyes gloomy, and of a type that recalled old African Jewesses.

_WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS_

Caesar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta and followed the river bank until the Tiber Embankment ended.

Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more poetic. To the left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the harbour two or three tugs were tied up; and here and there along the pier stood a crane. Evening was falling and the sky was filling with pink clouds.

They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Caesar entertained himself deciphering the inscriptions written in charcoal on a mud-wall.

"Do you go in for modern epigraphy?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, in the towns I go to; the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the newspapers and the writings on the wall."

"It's a good kind of curiosity."

"Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town from such inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books."

"That's possible. And what conclusions have you drawn from your observations?"

"They are not of much value. I haven't constructed a science of wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have done."

"But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted on the underlying system."

"You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as my financial science. What a mistake!"

"All right. But tell me what you have discovered about different towns."

"London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its inscriptions and somewhat clownish. When some sentimental foolishness doesn't occur to a Londoner of the people, some brutality or rough joke occurs to him."

"You are very kind," said Kennedy, laughing.

"Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the people you find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There the dominant note on the walls is the patriotic note, insults to politicians, calling them a.s.sa.s.sins and thieves, and also sentiments of revenge expressed by an _'A mort Dupin!'_ or _'A mort Duval!'_ Moreover, there is a great enthusiasm for the guillotine."

"And Madrid?"

"Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagination, and the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive."

"And in Rome what do you find?"

"Here one finds a mixture of p.o.r.nography, romanticism, and politics.

A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alternate with some enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs for Anarchy or for the _'Papa-re.'_"

"Well done!" said Kennedy; "I can see that the branch of epigraphy you practise amounts to something. It should be systematized and given a name."

"What do you think we should name it? Wallography?"

"Very good."

"And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now we might go and get dinner."

They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul's beyond the Walls, and returned to the heart of the city.

_THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE_

The next day Caesar was finis.h.i.+ng dressing when the servant told him that a gentleman was waiting for him.

"Who is it?" asked Caesar.

"It's a monk."

Caesar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with an evil face, a red nose, and a worn habit.

Caesar recalled having seen him, but didn't know where.

"What can I do for you?" asked Caesar.

"I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak with you."

"Let's go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there."

"It would be better to talk in your room."

"No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat breakfast. Will you join me?"

"No, thanks," said the monk.

Caesar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps palace. He was doubtless one of the domestic monks who had been with the Abbe Preciozi.

The waiter came bringing Caesar's breakfast. "Will you tell me what it is?" said Caesar to the ecclesiastic, while he filled his cup.

The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said in a hard voice:

"His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to present yourself anywhere again, giving his name."

"What? What does this mean?" asked Caesar, calmly.

"It means that His Eminence has found out about your intrigues and machinations."

"Intrigues? What intrigues were those?"

"You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you to continue in that direction."