Caesar or Nothing Part 44

One couldn't understand a thing like this except in a town which had a mania for the gigantic, the t.i.tanic.

They left the baths and started along. They followed the Via di Porta San Sebastiano, between two walls. They left behind the imposing ruins of the Baths of Caracalla and various establishments for archeological reconstructions, and the carriage stopped at the gate of the Catacombs.

They went in, guided by the abbe, and arrived at a sort of office.

They each paid a lira for a taper which a friar was handing out, and they joined a group of other people, without quite knowing what they expected next. In the group there were two German Dominicans, a tall one whose fiery red beard hung to his waist, and a slim one, with a nose like a knife.

_IRREVERENT CICERONE_

It was not long before another numerous group of tourists came out of a hole in the floor, and among them was a Trappist brother who came over to where Don Calixto and Caesar were. The Trappist carried a stick, and a taper twisted in the end of the stick. He asked if everybody understood French; any one that didn't could wait for another group.

"I don't understand it," said the Canon.

"I will translate what he says, to you," replied Caesar.

"All right," answered the Canon.

"_En avant, messieurs_," said the Trappist, lighting his taper, and requesting them all to do the same.

They went around giving one another a light, and with their little candles aflame they began to descend into the Catacombs.

They went in by a gallery as narrow as one in a mine, which once in a while broadened into bigger s.p.a.ces.

In certain spots there were openings in the roof.

Caesar had never thought about what the celebrated Catacombs would be like, but he had not expected them so poor and so sinister.

The sensation they caused was disagreeable, a sensation of choking, of suffocation, without one's really getting any impression of grandeur.

The place seemed like an abandoned ant-hill. The wide s.p.a.ces that opened out at the sides of the pa.s.sage were chapels, the monk said.

The Trappist cicerone contributed to removing any serious feelings with his chatter and his jokes. Being familiar with these tombs, he had lost respect for them, as sacristans lose it for the saints they brush the dust off of with a feather-duster. Moreover, he judged everything by an esthetic criterion, completely devoid of respect; for him there were only sepulchres with artistic character, or without it; of a good or a poor period; and the latter sort he struck contemptuously with his stick.

The marine Breton was irritated, and asked Caesar several times:

"Why is that permitted?" "I don't know," answered Caesar.

The monk made extraordinary remarks.

Explaining the life of the Christians in the earliest eras of Christianity, he said:

"In this century the habits of the pontiffs were so lax that the Pope had to go out accompanied by two persons to insure his modest behaviour."

"Oh, oh!" said a young Frenchman, in a tone of vexation.

_"Ah! C'est L'histoire,"_ replied the monk.

Caesar translated what the Trappist had said, to Don Calixto and the Canon, and they were both really perplexed.

They followed the long, narrow galleries. It was a strange effect, seeing the procession of tourists with their burning candles. One didn't notice the modern clothes and the ladies' hats, and from a distance the procession lighted by the little flames of the candles, had a mysterious look.

At the tail of the crowd walked two men who spoke English. One was a "gentleman" little versed in archeological questions; the other a tall person with the face of a scholar. Caesar drew near them to listen. The one was explaining to his companion everything they saw as they went along, the signification of the emblems cut in the tablets, and the funerary customs of the Christians.

"Didn't they put crosses?" asked the unlearned gentleman.

"No," said the other. "It is said that for the Romans the _crux_ represented the gallows! Thus the earliest representation of the Crucified is a drawing in the Kirchnerian museum, which shows a Christian kneeling before a man with a donkey's head, who is nailed to a cross. In Greek letters one reads: 'Alexamenes adores his G.o.d.' They say this drawing comes from the Palace of the Caesars, and it is considered to be a caricature of Christ, drawn by a Roman soldier on a wall."

"Didn't they put up images of Christ, either?"

"No. You do not consider that they were at the height of the discussion as to whether Christ was ugly or beautiful."

The tall gentleman got involved in a long dissertation as to what motives they had had, some to insist that Christ's person was of great beauty, others to affirm that it was of terrible ugliness.

Caesar would have liked to go on listening to what this gentleman said, but Don Justo joined him. The Trappist was in front of two mummies, explaining something, and he wanted Caesar to translate what he was saying.

Caesar did this bit of interpreting for him. The candles were beginning to burn out and it was necessary to leave.

The cicerone took them rapidly along a gallery at whose end there was a stairway, and they issued into the sunlight. The monk extinguished the taper on his stick, and began crying:

"Now, gentlemen, do you want any scapulars, medals, chocolate?"

Caesar looked over his companions in the expedition. The Canon was indifferent. The old maritime Breton showed signs of profound indignation, and his daughter, the little French mystic, had tears in her eyes.

"That poor little French girl, who arrived here so full of enthusiasm, has come out of these Catacombs like a rat out of a sewer," said Caesar.

"And why so?" asked Don Calixto.

"Because of the things the monk said. He was really scandalous."

"It is true," said the Canon gravely. "I never would have believed it."

_"Roma veduta, fede perduta,"_ said Don Calixto. "And as for you, Caesar, hasn't this visit interested you?"

"Yes, I have been interested in trying to keep from catching cold."

AGRO ROMANO

The landau that the Breton family was in took the Appian, Way, and Caesar and Don Calixto's carriage followed behind it.

They pa.s.sed the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and were able to look ahead along the old road, on whose sides one sees the remains of aqueducts, which at evening-fall have a grandeur so imposing. Don Calixto and Don Justo were discussing a question of home politics.

On them magnificently indifferent, the broken sepulchres, the abandoned arches invaded by gra.s.s, the vestiges of a gigantic civilization, did not produce the least impression.

The coachman pointed out Frascati on the slope of a mountain, Albano, Grotta Ferrata, and Tivoli.

Caesar felt the grandeur of the landscape; the enormous sadness of the remnants of aqueducts, which had the colour of rusty iron, beneath a sky of pink clouds.

At dusk they turned back. Caesar felt a weight on his spirits. The walls of the Baths of Caracalla looked threatening to him. Those great towering thick walls, broken, brick-colour, burned by the sun, gave him an impression of the strength of the past. There were no trees, no houses near them; as if those imposing ruins precluded any life round about. Only one humble almond-tree held out its white flowers.