Caesar or Nothing Part 15

"Yes, but that will not impede my Spaniard's heart, my Cardinal's nephew's heart from bleeding grievously.... Shall we go to the cafe, Abbe?"

"Yes, let us go."

_THE MARVELLOUS BIRD OF ROME_

They left the hotel and entered a cafe in the Piazza Esedra. Preciozi made a vague move to pay, but Caesar would not permit him to.

"What do you wish to do?" said the abbe.

"Whatever you like."

"I have to go to the Altemps palace a moment."

"To see my uncle?"

"Yes; then, if you feel like it, we can take a long walk."

"Very good."

They went towards the centre of the town by the Via n.a.z.ionale. It was a splendid sunny afternoon.

Preciozi went into the Altemps palace a moment; Caesar waited for him in the street. Then, together they went over to opposite the Castel Sant'

Angelo, crossed the river, and approached the Piazza di San Pietro. The atmosphere was wonderfully clear and pure; the suave blue sky seemed to caress the pinnacles and decorations of the big square.

Preciozi met a dirty friar, dark, with a black beard and a mouth from ear to ear. The abbe showed no great desire to stop and speak with him, but the other detained him. This party wore a habit of a brown colour and carried a big umbrella under his arm.

"There's a type!" said Caesar, when Preciozi rejoined him.

"Yes, he is a peasant," the abbe said with disgust.

"If that chap meets any one in the road, he plants his umbrella in his chest, and demands his money or his... eternal life."

"Yes, he is a disagreeable man," agreed Preciozi.

They continued their walk, through the Piazza Cavallegeri and outside the walls. As they went up one of the hills there, they could see the facade of Saint Peter's continually nearer, with all the huge stone figures on the cornice. "The fact is that that poor Christ plays a sad role there in the middle," said Caesar.

"Oh! Oh! My friend," exclaimed the abbe in protest.

"A plebeian Jew in the midst of so many princes of the Church! Doesn't it strike you as an absurdity?"

"No, not absurd at all."

"The truth is that this religion of yours is Jewish meat with a Roman sauce."

"And yours? What is yours?"

"Mine? I have not got past fetichism. I wors.h.i.+p the golden calf. Like the majority of Catholics."

"I don't believe it."

They looked back; they could see the dome of the great basilica s.h.i.+ning in the sun; then, to one side, a little viaduct and a tower.

"What a wonderful bird you keep in this beautiful cage!" said Caesar.

"What bird?" asked Preciozi.

"The Pope, friend Preciozi, the Pope. Not the popinjay, but the Pope in white. What a very marvellous bird! He has a feather fan like a peac.o.c.k's tail; he speaks like the c.o.c.katoo, only he differs from them in being infallible; and he is infallible, because another bird, also marvellous, which is called the Holy Ghost, tells him by night everything that takes place on earth and in heaven. What very picturesque and extravagant things!"

"For you who have no faith everything must be extravagant."

Caesar and Preciozi went on encircling the walls and reading the various marble tablets set into them, and ascended to the Janiculum, to the terrace where Garibaldi's statue stands.

_POOR TINDARO_

"But, are you anti-Catholic, seriously?" asked Preciozi. "But do you believe any one can be a Catholic seriously?" said Caesar. "I can, yes; otherwise I shouldn't be a priest."

"But are you a priest because you believe, or do you make believe that you believe because you are a priest?"

"You are a child. I suppose you hate the Jesuits, like all Liberals."

"And I suppose you hate Masons, like all Catholics."

"No."

"No more do I hate Jesuits. What is worse, I read the life of Saint Ignatius Loyola at school, and he seemed to me a great man."

"Well, I should think so!"

"And the Jesuits have some power still?"

"Yes."

"Really?"

"Yes, man. They give the Church its direction. Oh, n.o.body fools the Society. You can see what happened to Cardinal Tindaro."

"I don't know what did happen to him," said Caesar, with indifference.

"No?"

"No."

"Well, Cardinal Tindaro decided to follow the inspirations of the Society and made many Jesuits Cardinals with the object that when Pope Leo XIII died, they should elect him Pope; but the Jesuits smelled the rat, and when Leo XIII got very ill, the Council of a.s.sistants of the Society had a meeting and decided that Tindaro should not be Pope, and ordered the Austrian Court to oppose its veto. When the election came, the Jesuit Cardinals gave Tindaro a fat vote, out of grat.i.tude, but calculated not to be enough to raise him to the throne, and in case it was, the Austrian Cardinal and the Hungarian had their Empire's veto to Tindaro's election in their pocket."

"And this Tindaro, is he intelligent?"