Caesar or Nothing Part 4

"Ah, yes."

Caesar kept on reading, and Laura continued to watch the landscape which hurried by outside the window. After a while she exclaimed:

"O Lord, what hideous things!"

"What things?"

"Those war-s.h.i.+ps."

Caesar looked where his sister pointed. In a roadstead brilliant with sunlight he saw two men-of-war, black and full of cannons.

"That's the way one ought to be to face life, armed to the teeth,"

exclaimed Caesar.

"Why?" asked Laura.

"Because life is hard, and you have to be as hard as it is in order to win."

"You don't consider yourself hard enough?"

"No."

"Well, I think you are. You are like those rough, pointed rocks on the sh.o.r.e, and I am like the sea.... They throw me off and I come back."

"That is because, perhaps, when you get down to it, nothing makes any real difference to you."

"Oh, _bambino!_" exclaimed Laura, taking Caesar's hand with affectionate irony. "You always have to be so cruel to your mamma."

Caesar burst into laughter, and kept Laura's hand between both of his.

"The Englishman feels sad looking at us," he said. "He doesn't dream that I am your brother."

"Open the door, I will tell him to come in."

Caesar did so, and Laura invited the young Englishman to enter.

"My brother Caesar," she said, introducing them, "Archibaldo Marchmont."

They both bowed, and Marchmont said to Laura in French:

"You are very cruel, Marchesa."

"Why?"

"Because you run away from us people who admire and like you. My wife asked me to present her to you. Would you like her to come?"

"Oh, no! She mustn't disturb herself. I will go to her."

"a.s.suredly not. One moment."

Marchmont went out into the corridor and presented his wife to Laura and to Caesar.

An animated conversation sprang up among them, interrupted by Laura's exclamations of delight on pa.s.sing one or another of the wonderful views along the Riviera.

"You are a Latin, Marchesa, eh?" said Marchmont.

"Altogether. This is our sea. Every time I look at it, it enchants me."

"You are going to stop at Nice?"

"No, my brother and I are on our way to Rome."

"But Nice will be magnificent...."

"Yes, that's true; but we have made up our minds to go to Rome to visit our uncle, the Cardinal."

The Englishman made a gesture of annoyance, which did not go unperceived by his wife or by Laura. On arriving at Nice, the Englishman and his Yankee wife got out, after promising that they would be in Rome before many days.

Laura and Caesar remained alone and chatted about their fellow-travellers. According to Laura, the couple did not get along well and they were going to separate.

IN ITALY

In the middle of the afternoon they arrived at Ventimiglia and changed trains.

"Are we in Italy now?" said Caesar.

"Yes."

"It seems untidier than France."

"Yes; but more charming."

The train kept stopping at almost all the little towns along the route.

In a third-cla.s.s car somebody was playing an accordeon. It was Sunday.

In the towns they saw people in their holiday clothes, gathered in the square and before the cafes and the eating-places. On the roads little two-wheeled carriages pa.s.sed quickly by.

It began to grow dark; in the hamlets situated on the seash.o.r.e fishermen were mending their nets. Others were hauling up the boats to run them on to the beach, and children were playing about bare-footed and half-naked.

The landscape looked like a theatre-scene, the setting for a romantic play. They were getting near Genoa, running along by beaches. It was growing dark; the sea came right up to the track; in the starry, tranquil night only the monotonous music of the waves was to be heard.

Laura was humming Neapolitan songs. Caesar looked at the landscape indifferently.

On reaching Genoa they had supper and changed trains.

"I am going to lie down awhile," said Laura.

"So am I."