ROME.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5583, 5 June 1896, Page 1

ROME.

♦ BY EMILE ZOLA. [Translated Bt Ernest Alfred Vizetellt.] (All Bights Reserved.) CoiPrER IV.— (Continued.) Celia, for her part, had determined to win Attilio on the very first day when their eyes had met. And it was from a window of the Palazzo Buongiovanni that she had perceived him one afternoon of mortal weariness. He had just raised his head, and she had taken him for ever and given herself to him with those large, pure eyes of hers as they rested on his own. She was but an amoroso. — nothing more; he pleased her ; she had set . her heart on him — hini and none other. She would have waited twenty years for him, but she relied on winning him at once by quiet stubbornness of will. People declared that the terrible fury of the Prince, her father, had proved impotent against her respectful, obstinate silence. He, man of mixed blood as he was, son of an American woman, and husband of an- English woman, laboured but to retain his own name and fortune intact amidst the downfall of others ; and it was rumoured that as the result of a quarrel which he had picked with his wife, whom he accused of not sufficiently watching over their daughter, the Princess had revolted, full not only of the pride of a foreigner who had brought a huge dowry in marriage, but also of such p^a'-n, frank egotism that she had declared she no longer found time enough to attend to herself, let alone another. Had she not already done ■enough in bearing him five children ? She thought so ; and now she spent her time, in worshipping herself, letting Celia do as she listed, and taking no further interest in the household through which swept stormy gusts. However, the carriage was again about to pass the Buongiovanni mansion, and Dario forewarned Pierre. "You see," said he, "Attilio has come back. And now look up at the third window on the first floor." It was at once rapid and charming. Pierre saw the cnrtain slightly drawn aside and Celia's gentle face appear. Closed, candid lily, she did not smile, she did not move. Nothing could be read on those pure lips, or in those clear but fathomless eyes ot hers. Yet she was taking Attilio to herself, and giving herself to him without reserve. And soon the curtain fell once more. " Ah, the little mask !" . muttered Dario. " Can one ever tell what there is behind so much innocence ?" • . . . ; ■ . As Pierre turned .i^ound he perceived Attilio, whose head was still raised, and whose face was also motionless and pale, with closed mouth, and widely opened eyes. And the young priest was deeply touched, for this was love, absolute love in its sudden omnipotence, true love, eternal and juvenescent, in which ambition and calculation played no part. Then Dario ordered the coachman to drive up to the Pincio ; for, before or after the Corso, the round of the Pincio is obligatory on fine, clear afternoons. First came the Piazza del Popolo, the most airy and regular square of Borne, with its conjunction of thoroughfares, its churches and fountains, its central obelisk, and its two clumps of trees facing one another at either end of the small white paving-stones, betwixt the severe and sun-gilt buildings. Then, turning to the right, the carriage began to climb the inclined way to the Pincio — a magnificent winding ascent, decorated with basreliefs, statues, and fountains — a kind of apotheosis of marble, a commemoration of ancient Borne," rising amidst greenery. Up above, however, Pierre found the garden small, little better than a large square, with just the four necessary roadways to enable the carriages to drive round and round as long as they pleased. An uninterrupted line of busts of the great men of ancient and modern Italy fringed these roadways. But what Pierre most admired was the trees — trees of the most rare and varied kinds, chosen and tended with infinite care, and nearly always evergreens, so that in winter and summer alike the spot was adoinad with lovely foliage of every imaginable shade of verdure. And besides these trees, along the fine, breezy roadways, Dario's victoria began to tarn, following the continuous, unwearying stream of the other carriages. Pierre remarked one young woman of modest demeanour and attractive simplicity who sat alone in a dark blue victoria, xlrawn by a well-groomed, elegantly-har-nessed horse. She was very pretty, short, with chestnut hair, a creamy conplexion, and large gentle eyes. Quietly robed in dead-leaf silk, she wore a large hat, which alone looked somewhat extravagant. And seeing that Dario was staring at her, the priest inquired her name, whereat the young prince smiled. Oh ! she was nobody, La Tonietta was the name that people gave her ; she was one of tl c few .dsmi-mondaines that Eoman society talked of. Then, with the freene3s and frankness -which his race displayed in such matters, Dario added some particulars. La Tonietta's origin was obscure ; some saidthst she was the daughter of an inn-keepsr of Tivoli,and , others that of A Neapolitan banker. At all events, she "was very intelligent, had educated herself, and knew thoroughly well how to receive and entertain people at the little palazzo in the Via dei Mille, which had been given to her by old Marquis Manfredi now deceased. She made no scandalous show, had but ore protector at a time, and the princesses and duchesses who paid attention to her at the Corso , cv.cry afternoon, considered her nice-look-ino*. One peculiarity had made her somewhat notorious. There was someone whom she loved and from whom she nevei

accepted aught but a bouquet of white roses ; and folks would smile indnlgently when at times for weeks together she was seen driving round the Pincio with those pure white bridal flowers on the carnage seat. . . Dario, however, suddenly paused in his explanations to address a ceremonious bow to a lady, who, accompanied by a gentleman, drove by in a large landau: Then he. simply said to the priest: "My mother." Pierre already knew of her. Viscount dela Chone had told him her story, how, after Prince Onofrio Boccanefa's death, she had married again although she was already fifty; how at the Corso, just like some young girl, she had hooked with' her eyes a handsome man to her liking — one, too, who was fifteen years her junior. And Pierre also Tm'ivr who that man was, a certain Jules Laporte, an ex-sergeant of the papal Swiss Guard, an ex-traveller in relics, compromised in an extraordinary "false relic" j fraud ; and he was further aware that Laporte's wife had made a fine-looking Marquis Montefiori of him, the last of the fortunate adventurers of romance, triumph- | ing a 3 in the legendary lands, where shepherds are wedded to queens. At the next turn, as the large landau again went by, Pierre looked at the couple. The Marchioness was really wonderful, blooming with all the classical Eoman i beauty, tall, opulent, and very dark, with j the head of a goddess, and regular if some- • what massive features, nothing as yet 'betraying her age except the down upon I her upper lip. And the Marquis, the Romanised Swiss of Geneva, really had a proud Hearing, with his solid soldierly figure and long wavy moustaches. People said that he was in nowise a fool but, on the contrary, very gay and very supple, just the man to please women. His wife so gloried in him that she dragged him about and displayed him everywhere, having begun life afresh with him as if she were still but twenty, spending on him the little fortune which she had saved from the Villa Montefiori disaster, and so conpletely forgetting her son that she only saw the latter now and again at the promenade and acknowledged his bow like ! that of some chance acquaintance. ) "Let us g^to see the sun set behind St Peter's," all at once said Dario, conscientiously playing his part as a showman of curiosities. . The victoria thereupon returned to the terrace where a military band was now playing with a terrific blare 1 of brass instruments. In order that their occupants might hear the music, a large number of carriages had already drawn up, and a growing ciwd of loungers on foot had assembled there. And from that beautiful terrace so broad and lofty, one of the most, wonderful views of Borne was offered to the gaze. Beyond the Tiber, beyond the -pale chaos of the new district of the castle meadows, and between the greenery of Monte Mario and the Janiculum arose St Peter's. Then on the left came all the olden city, an endless stretch of roofs, a rolling sea of edifices as far as the eye could reach...,, But one's glances alwaya came back to' St Peter's, towering: into the azure with pure and sovereign grandeur. And, seen from the terrace, the slow sunsets in the depths of the vast sky behind the colossus were sublime. Sometimes, there are topplings of sanguineous clouds, battles of giants hurling: mountains at one another and succumbing beneath the monstrous ruins of flaming cities. Sometimes only red streaks or fissures appear on the surface of a sombre lake, as if a net of light has been flung to fish the submerged orb from amidst the seaweed. Sometimes, too, there is a rosy mist, a kind of delicate dust which falls, streaked with pearls by ■ a distant shower, whose curtain is drawn across the . mystery of the horizon. And sometimes there is a triumph, a cortege of gold and purple chariots of cloud rolling along a highway of fire, galleys floating upon an azure sea. fantastic and extravagant pomps slowly sinking into the less and less fathomable abyss of the twilight. But that night the sublime spectacle presented itself to Pierre with a calm, blinding, desperate grandeur. At first, just above the dome of St Peter's, the sun, descendingin a spotless, deeply limpid sky, proved yet so resplendent that one's eye could not face its brightness. And in this resplendency the dome seemed to be incandescent, you would have said a dome of liquid silver; whilst the surrounding districts, the house-roots of the Borgo, were as though changed into a lake of live embers. Then, as the sun was by degreesinch'ned,itlostsome of its blaze, and one could look ; and soon afterwards sinking with majestic slowness it disappeared behind the dome, which showed forth darkly blue, while the orb, now entirely hidden, set an aureola around it, a glory like a crown of flaming rays. And then began the dream, the dazzling ■ symbol, the singular illumination- of the row of windows beneath the. cupola which were transpierced by the light and looked lika the ruddy mouths of furnaces, in such wise that one might have imagined the dome to be poised upon a brazier, isolated, in the air, as though raised and upheld , by the violence of the fire. It all lasted barely three minutes. Down below the jumbled roofs of the Borgo besame steeped in violet vapour, sank into increasing gloom, whilst from the Janiculum to Monte i Mario the horizon showed its firm black line. And it was the. sky then which bei came all purple and gold, displaying the i infinite placidity of a supernatural radiance ; above the earth which faded into nihility. j Finally the % last window reflections were » extinguished^ the glow of the heavens de- . parted, and nothing remained but the . vague, fading roundness of the dome of St i Peter's amidst the all-invading night. r And, by some subtle connection of ideas,

Pierre at that moment once again saw rising before him the lofty, sad, declining figures of Cardinal Boccanera and old Orlando. On the evening of that day when he had learnt to know them, one after the other, both so great in the obstinacy of their hope, they seemed to be there, erect on the horizon above their annihilated city, on the fringe of the heavens which death apparently was about to seize. Was everything then to crumble with them? was everything to fade away and disappear in the falling night following upon accomplished Time ? (To be continued.)