The Path to Rome Part 25

Dark Etruria lay behind me, forgotten in the backward of my march: a furnace and a riddle out of which religion came to the Romans--a place that has left no language. But below me, sunlit and easy (as it seemed in the cooler air of that summit), was the arena upon which were first fought out the chief destinies of the world.

And I still looked down upon it, wondering.

Was it in so small a s.p.a.ce that all the legends of one's childhood were acted? Was the defence of the bridge against so neighbouring and petty an alliance? Were they peasants of a group of huts that handed down the great inheritance of discipline, and made an iron channel whereby, even to us, the antique virtues could descend as a living memory? It must be so; for the villages and ruins in one landscape comprised all the first generations of the history of Rome. The stones we admire, the large spirit of the last expression came from that rough village and sprang from the broils of that one plain; Rome was most vigorous before it could speak. So a man's verse, and all he has, are but the last outward appearance, late and already rigid, of an earlier, more plastic, and diviner fire.

'Upon this arena,' I still said to myself, 'were first fought out the chief destinies of the world'; and so, played upon by an unending theme, I ate and drank in a reverie, still wondering, and then lay down beneath the shade of a little tree that stood alone upon that edge of a new world. And wondering, I fell asleep under the morning sun.

But this sleep was not like the earlier oblivions that had refreshed my ceaseless journey, for I still dreamt as I slept of what I was to see, and visions of action without thought--pageants and mysteries--surrounded my spirit; and across the darkness of a mind remote from the senses there pa.s.sed whatever is wrapped up in the great name of Rome.

When I woke the evening had come. A haze had gathered upon the plain.

The road fell into Ronciglione, and dreams surrounded it upon every side. For the energy of the body those hours of rest had made a fresh and enduring vigour; for the soul no rest was needed. It had attained, at least for the next hour, a vigour that demanded only the physical capacity of endurance; an eagerness worthy of such great occasions found a marching vigour for its servant.

In Ronciglione I saw the things that Turner drew; I mean the rocks from which a river springs, and houses all ma.s.sed together, giving the steep a kind of crown. This also accompanied that picture, the soft light which mourns the sun and lends half-colours to the world. It was cool, and the opportunity beckoned. I ate and drank, asking every one questions of Rome, and I pa.s.sed under their great gate and pursued the road to the plain. In the mist, as it rose, there rose also a pa.s.sion to achieve.

All the night long, mile after mile, I hurried along the Ca.s.sian Way.

For five days I had slept through the heat, and the southern night had become my daytime; and though the mist was dense, and though the moon, now past her quarter, only made a vague place in heaven, yet expectation and fancy took more than the place of sight. In this fog I felt with every step of the night march the approach to the goal.

Long past the place I had marked as a halt, long past Sette Vene, a light blurred upon the white wreaths of vapour; distant songs and the noise of men feasting ended what had been for many, many hours--for more than twenty miles of pressing forward--an exaltation worthy of the influence that bred it. Then came on me again, after the full march, a necessity for food and for repose. But these things, which have been the matter of so much in this book, now seemed subservient only to the reaching of an end; they were left aside in the mind.

It was an inn with trellis outside making an arbour. In the yard before it many peasants sat at table; their beasts and waggons stood in the roadway, though, at this late hour, men were feeding some and housing others. Within, fifty men or more were making a meal or a carousal.

What feast or what necessity of travel made them keep the night alive I neither knew nor asked; but pa.s.sing almost un.o.bserved amongst them between the long tables, I took my place at the end, and the master served me with good food and wine. As I ate the clamour of the peasants sounded about me, and I mixed with the energy of numbers.

With a little difficulty I made the master understand that I wished to sleep till dawn. He led me out to a small granary (for the house was full), and showed me where I should sleep in the scented hay. He would take no money for such a lodging, and left me after showing me how the door latched and unfastened; and out of so many men, he was the last man whom I thanked for a service until I pa.s.sed the gates of Rome.

Above the soft bed which the hay made, a square window, unglazed, gave upon the southern night; the mist hardly drifted in or past it, so still was the air. I watched it for a while drowsily; then sleep again fell on me.

But as I slept, Rome, Rome still beckoned me, and I woke in a struggling light as though at a voice calling, and slipping out I could not but go on to the end.

The small square paving of the Via Ca.s.sia, all even like a palace floor, rang under my steps. The parched banks and strips of dry fields showed through the fog (for its dampness did not cure the arid soil of the Campagna). The sun rose and the vapour lifted. Then, indeed, I peered through the thick air--but still I could see nothing of my goal, only confused folds of brown earth and burnt-up gra.s.ses, and farther off rare and un-northern trees.

I pa.s.sed an old tower of the Middle Ages that was eaten away at its base by time or the quarrying of men; I pa.s.sed a divergent way on the right where a wooden sign said 'The Triumphal Way', and I wondered whether it could be the road where ritual had once ordained that triumphs should go. It seemed lonely and lost, and divorced from any approach to sacred hills.

The road fell into a hollow where soldiers were manoeuvring. Even these could not arrest an attention that was fixed upon the approaching revelation. The road climbed a little slope where a branch went off to the left, and where there was a house and an arbour under vines. It was now warm day; trees of great height stood shading the sun; the place had taken on an appearance of wealth and care. The mist had gone before I reached the summit of the rise.

There, from the summit, between the high villa walls on either side--at my very feet I saw the City.

And now all you people whatsoever that are presently reading, may have read, or shall in the future read, this my many-sided but now-ending book; all you also that in the mysterious designs of Providence may not be fated to read it for some very long time to come; you then I say, entire, englobed, and universal race of men both in gross and regardant, not only living and seeing the sunlight, but dead also under the earth; shades, or to come in procession afterwards out of the dark places into the day for a little, swarms of you, an army without end; all you black and white, red, yellow and brown, men, women, children and poets--all of you, wherever you are now, or have been, or shall be in your myriads and deka myriads and hendeka myriads, the time has come when I must bid you farewell--

_Ludisti satis, edisti satis, atque bibisti; Tempus abire tibi est...._

Only Lector I keep by me for a very little while longer with a special purpose, but even he must soon leave me; for all good things come to an end, and this book is coming to an end--has come to an end. The leaves fall, and they are renewed; the sun sets on the Vexin hills, but he rises again over the woods of Marly. Human companions.h.i.+p once broken can never be restored, and you and I shall not meet or understand each other again. It is so of all the poor links whereby we try to bridge the impa.s.sable gulf between soul and soul. Oh! we spin something, I know, but it is very gossamer, thin and strained, and even if it does not snap time will at last dissolve it.

Indeed, there is a song on it which you should know, and which runs--

[Bar of music]

So my little human race, both you that have read this book and you that have not, good-bye in charity. I loved you all as I wrote. Did you all love me as much as I have loved you, by the black stone of Rennes I should be rich by now. Indeed, indeed, I have loved you all!

You, the workers, all puffed up and dyspeptic and ready for the asylums; and you, the good-for-nothing lazy drones; you, the strong silent men, who have heads quite empty, like gourds; and you also, the frivolous, useless men that chatter and gabble to no purpose all day long. Even you, that, having begun to read this book, could get no further than page 47, and especially you who have read it manfully in spite of the flesh, I love you all, and give you here and now my final, complete, full, absolving, and comfortable benediction.

To tell the truth, I have noticed one little fault about you. I will not call it fatuous, inane, and exasperating vanity or self- absorption; I will put it in the form of a parable. Sit you round attentively and listen, dispersing yourselves all in order, and do not crowd or jostle.

Once, before we humans became the good and self-respecting people we are, the Padre Eterno was sitting in heaven with St Michael beside him, and He watched the abyss from His great throne, and saw s.h.i.+ning in the void one far point of light amid some seventeen million others, and He said:

'What is that?'

And St Michael answered:

'That is the Earth,' for he felt some pride in it.

'The Earth?' said the Padre Eterno, a little puzzled... 'The Earth?

...?... I do not remember very exactly...'

'Why,' answered St Michael, with as much reverence as his annoyance could command, 'surely you must recollect the Earth and all the pother there was in heaven when it was first suggested to create it, and all about Lucifer--'

'Ah!' said the Padre Eterno, thinking twice, 'yes. It is attached to Sirius, and--'

'No, no,' said St Michael, quite visibly put out. 'It is the Earth.

The Earth which has that changing moon and the thing called the sea.'

'Of course, of course,' answered the Padre Eterno quickly, 'I said Sirius by a slip of the tongue. Dear me! So that is the Earth! Well, well! It is years ago now... Michael, what are those little things swarming up and down all over it?'

'Those,' said St Michael, 'are Men.'

'Men?' said the Padre Eterno, 'Men... I know the word as well as any one, but somehow the connexion escapes me. Men...' and He mused.

St Michael, with perfect self-restraint, said a few things a trifle staccato, defining Man, his dual destiny, his hope of heaven, and all the great business in which he himself had fought hard. But from a fine military tradition, he said nothing of his actions, nor even of his shrine in Normandy, of which he is naturally extremely proud: and well he may be. What a hill!

'I really beg your pardon,' said the Padre Eterno, when he saw the importance attached to these little creatures. 'I am sure they are worthy of the very fullest attention, and' (he added, for he was sorry to have offended) 'how sensible they seem, Michael! There they go, buying and selling, and sailing, driving, and wiving, and riding, and dancing, and singing, and the rest of it; indeed, they are most practical, business-like, and satisfactory little beings. But I notice one odd thing. Here and there are some not doing as the rest, or attending to their business, but throwing themselves into all manner of att.i.tudes, making the most extraordinary sounds, and clothing themselves in the quaintest of garments. What is the meaning of that?'

'Sire!' cried St Michael, in a voice that shook the architraves of heaven, 'they are wors.h.i.+pping You!'

'Oh! they are wors.h.i.+pping _me!_ Well, that is the most sensible thing I have heard of them yet, and I altogether commend them. _Continuez,'_ said the Padre Eterno, _'continuez!'_

And since then all has been well with the world; at least where _Us continuent._

And so, carissimi, mult.i.tudes, all of you good-bye; the day has long dawned on the Via Ca.s.sia, this dense mist has risen, the city is before me, and I am on the threshold of a great experience; I would rather be alone. Good-bye my readers; good-bye the world.

At the foot of the hill I prepared to enter the city, and I lifted up my heart.

There was an open s.p.a.ce; a tramway: a tram upon it about to be drawn by two lean and tired horses whom in the heat many flies disturbed.

There was dust on everything around.

A bridge was immediately in front. It was adorned with statues in soft stone, half-eaten away, but still gesticulating in corruption, after the manner of the seventeenth century. Beneath the bridge there tumbled and swelled and ran fast a great confusion of yellow water: it was the Tiber. Far on the right were white barracks of huge and of hideous appearance; over these the Dome of St Peter's rose and looked like something newly built. It was of a delicate blue, but made a metallic contrast against the sky.

Then (along a road perfectly straight and bounded by factories, mean houses and distempered walls: a road littered with many sc.r.a.ps of paper, bones, dirt, and refuse) I went on for several hundred yards, having the old wall of Rome before me all this time, till I came right under it at last; and with the hesitation that befits all great actions I entered, putting the right foot first lest I should bring further misfortune upon that capital of all our fortunes.

And so the journey ended.