Caesar or Nothing Part 38

Caesar asked him where they manufactured those religious toys, and the pedlar told him in Westphalia.

Kennedy went to look at a picture by Sa.s.soferrato, which is in one of the chapels, and meanwhile the rosary-seller showed the church door to Caesar and explained the different bas-reliefs, cut in cypress wood by Greek artists of the V Century, and representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments.

Kennedy came back, they got into the carriage again, and they drove to the Benedictine abbey.

"Is the abbot Hildebrandus here?" asked Kennedy.

Out came the abbot, a man of about fifty, with a gold cross on his breast. They exchanged a few friendly words, and the superior showed them the convent.

The refectory was clean and very s.p.a.cious; the long table of s.h.i.+ning wood; the floor made of mosaic. The crypt held a statue, which Caesar a.s.sumed must be of Sant' Anselmo. The church was severe, without ornaments, without pictures; it had a primitive air, with its columns of fine granite that looked like marble. A monk was playing the harmonium, and in the opaque veiled light, the thin music gave a strange impression of something quite outside this life.

Afterwards they crossed a large court with palm-trees. They went up to the second story, and down a corridor with cells, each of which had on the lintel the name of the patron saint of the respective monk. Each door had a card with the name of the occupant of the room.

It looked more like a bath-house than a monastery. The cells were comfortable inside, without any air of sadness; each held a bed, a divan, and a small bookcase.

By a window at the end of the pa.s.sage, one could see, far away, the Alban Hills, looking like a blue mountain-range, half hidden in white haze, and nearby one could see the trees in the Protestant cemetery and the pyramid of Caus Cestius close to them.

Caesar felt a sort of deep repugnance for the people shut up here, remote from life and protected from it by a lot of things.

"The man who is playing the harmonium in this church with its opaque light, is a coward," he said to himself. "One must live and struggle in the open air, among men, in the midst of their pa.s.sions and hatreds, even though one's miserable nerves quiver and tremble."

After showing them the monastery, the abbot Hildebrand took them to his study, where he worked at revising ancient translations of the Bible. He had photographic copies of all the Latin texts and he was collating them with the original.

They talked of the progress of the Church, and the abbot commented with some contempt on the worldly success of the Jesuit churches, with their saints who serve as well to get husbands and rich wives as to bring winning numbers in the lottery.

Before going out, they went to a window, at the other end of the corridor from where they had looked out before. Below them they could see the Tiber as far as the Ripa harbour; opposite, the heights of the Janiculum, and further, Saint Peter's.

When they went out, Kennedy said to Caesar:

"What devilish effect has the abbey produced in you, that you are so much gayer than when we went in?"

"It has confirmed me in my idea, which I had lost for a few days."

"What idea is that?"

"That we must not defend ourselves in this life, but attack, always attack."

"And now you are contented at having found it again?"

"Yes."

_PIRANESI'S GARDEN_

"I am glad, because you have such a pitiable air when you are sad. Would you like to go to the Priory of Malta, which is only a step from here?"

"Good."

They went down in the carriage to the Priory of Malta. They knocked at the gate and a woman came out who knew Kennedy, and who told them to wait a moment and she would open the church.

"Here," said Kennedy, "you have all that remains of the famous Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. That anti-historic man Bonaparte rooted it out of Malta. The Order attempted to establish itself in Catania, and afterwards at Ferrara, and finally took refuge here. Now it has no property left, and all that remains are its memories and its archives."

"That is how our descendants will see our Holy Mother the Church. In Chicago or Boston some traveller will find an abandoned chapel, and will ask: 'What is this? 'And they will tell him: 'This is what remains of the Catholic Church.'"

"Don't talk like an Homais," said Kennedy.

"I don't know who Homais is," retorted Caesar.

"An atheistical druggist in Flaubert's novel, _Madame Bovary_. Haven't you read it?"

"Yes; I have a vague idea that I have read it. A very heavy thing; yes, ... I think I have read it."

The woman opened the door and they went into the church. It was small, overcharged with ornaments. They saw the tomb of Bishop Spinelli and Giotto's Virgin, and then went into a hall gay with red flags with a white cross, on whose walls they could read the names of the Grand Masters of the Order of Malta. The majority of the names were French and Polish. Two or three were Spanish, and among them that of Caesar Borgia.

"Your countryman and namesake was also a Grand Master of Malta," said Kennedy.

"So it seems," replied Caesar with indifference. "I see that you speak with contempt of that extraordinary man. Is he not congenial to you?"

"The fact is I don't know his history."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

"How strange! We must go tomorrow to the Borgia Apartment in the Vatican."

"Good."

They saw the model of an ancient galley which was in the same hall, and went out through the church into the garden planned by Piranesi.

The woman showed them a very old palm, with a hole in it made by a hand-grenade in the year '49. It had remained that way more than half a century, and it was only a few days since the trunk of the palm had broken.

From the garden they went, by a path between trees, to the bastion of Paul III, a little terrace, from which they could see the Tiber at their feet, and opposite the panorama of Rome and its environs, in the light of a beautiful spring suns.h.i.+ne....

XVIII. CaeSAR BORGIA'S MOTTO, "AUT CaeSAR, AUT NIHIL"

_THE BORGIAS_

The next day was one of the days for visiting the Borgia Apartment.

Caesar and Kennedy met in the Piazza di San Pietro, went into the Vatican museum, and walked by a series of stairs and pa.s.sageways to the Gallery of Inscriptions.

Then they went down to a hall, at whose door there were guards dressed in slashed clothes, which were parti-coloured, red, yellow, and black.

Some of them carried lances and others swords.

"Why are the guards here dressed differently?" asked Caesar.