The conquest of Rome - Matilde Serao

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kept private, but no less bitter for that; the love of success, success only, nothing else than success—all this had been born in his innermost soul. Yet sometimes, in the dark hours of despair, he was prostrated with unspeakable debility; humiliation drove out pride; he felt himself a poor, miserable, futile creature. Like lovers, when bad fortune overtakes them, he felt unworthy of Rome. Ah! he must possess himself in patience, fortify himself with persistence, temper his strength in adversity, purify his spirit in the cleansing fire, like a saint of old, in order to be worthy of Rome. Sacred as a priestess, mother, bride, Rome must have expiations and sacrifices, must have a heart unalloyed and a will of iron!

      'Ceprano! Ceprano! Fifteen minutes' stop!' was being shouted outside.

      The Honourable Sangiorgio looked about him, listened as one dazed. He had been raving.

      * * * * *

      First a bar of pallid green; then a cold, livid lightness, creeping slowly upward until it reached the top of the heavens. In that chillness of expiring night opened the vast Roman Campagna. It was an ample plain, whose colour was as yet indistinct, but which here and there undulated like the dunes of the seashore. This Sangiorgio observed as he stood erect by the window. The dense shadows as yet unconquered by the encroaching whiteness gave the Campagna the aspect of a desert. Not a tree in sight. Only, from time to time, a tall thick hedge, that seemed to make a circular bow and run away.

      The stations now began to look gray, all wet still with the nocturnal dews, their windows barred and their green shutters closed, these taking on a reddish tint; the mean little oleanders, with their branches hanging down and their blossoms dropping on the ground, looked as though they were weeping; and there was the clock with large, white disc, splashed with moisture, the dark hands and the fat body likening it to a two-legged spider. The station-master, huddled up in his cloak, with a scarf wound about the lower part of his face, marched with lowered cape up and down among the porters. In the cold morning air an insidious, acrid smell of damp earth pierced to the brain. A large place high up on a hill, fortified by a surrounding wall and two towers, stood forth gray and ancient, with a medieval air: it was Velletri.

      The train seemed to be waking up. In the next compartment there was a scraping on the floor, and two people were talking. Out of a first-class window protruded the head of a Spanish priest, with hard, shaven cheeks of a bluish hue, who was lustily puffing at a cigar. And as the white, frosty dawn irradiated the whole sky, the nakedness of the Campagna appeared in all its grandeur. On those fields, stretching beyond sight and dimly lighted, grew a sparse, short grass of a soft, marshy green; here and there were yellowish stains, blotched with brown, of coarse, rude earth, stony, muddy, uncultivable. It was an imperial desert ungraced by any tree, undarkened by any shadow of man, untraversed by any flight of bird; it was desolation, enormous and solemn.

      In the contemplation of this landscape, which resembled nothing else whatever, Sangiorgio was seized by a growing surprise that absorbed all his individual dreams. He stood looking out, mute and motionless, from the corner of the coach trembling with cold, conscious that the beating of his temples was abating. Then by degrees his eyelids became heavy, a sensation of lassitude came over his whole body; he felt the full fatigue of his wakeful night. He would have liked to stretch himself out in the railway-carriage with a comfortable ray of sunshine streaming in through an open window, and to get an hour's sleep before reaching Rome; he was envious of the people who had spent the long hours of the night in getting renewed strength from sleep.

      The journey was now seeming intolerably long to Sangiorgio, and the spectacle of the Campagna in its majestic poverty was oppressive to him. Would it never end? Would he never be in Rome? He was worn out: a sensation of torpor was spreading from his neck through all his limbs, his mouth was pasty and sour, as if he were convalescing from an illness, and his impatience became painful, a sort of small torture; he began to pity himself, as though an injustice had been done him. The ordinary passenger trains were too slow; he had done wrong to come in this one, expecting to sleep during the night; this last hour had been unendurable. The reality of his dreams was upon him, close as close could be, and the proximity caused him a shock of gladness. He felt he was hastening towards Rome, like a lover to his lady; he strove to be calm, inwardly ashamed of himself. But the last twenty minutes were a veritable spasm. With his head out of the window, receiving the damp smoke of the engine in his face, without a further look at the Campagna, without a glance at the fine aqueducts running over the plain, he stared into the distance, believing and fearing that at every moment Rome would appear, and was depressed by a vague feeling of terror. The Campagna vanished behind him as if it were drowning, going down with the moist fields, the yellow aqueducts, and the little white road-labourers' houses. The locomotive seemed to be increasing its speed, and from time to time gave vent to a long, long, piercing whistle twice and thrice repeated. At nearly all the windows heads were peering out.

      Where was Rome, then? It was nowhere to be seen. So strong was his trepidation that when the train commenced to slacken the Honourable Sangiorgio sank down on the seat; his heart beat under his throat as though it filled up his whole chest. As he stepped down upon the platform from the footboard, the violent throbbing within him was answered by as many imaginary hammer-like blows upon the head. Yet all that the railway officials said was 'Rome.' But he was seized with a slight trembling in the legs; the crowd surrounded him, pushed him, jostled him, without paying any attention to him. He was between two currents of passengers, arrived simultaneously by two trains, from Naples and Florence. The Honourable Sangiorgio was bewildered among so many people; he leaned against the wall, his handbag at his feet, and his eyes wandered through the crowd as if in search of someone. The station was still quite damp and rather dark, smelling horribly, as usual, of coal, of oil, of wet steel, and was full of black waggons and high piles of accumulated luggage. All faces were tired, sleepy, ill-humoured, expanding into a yawn about the mouth; their sole expression was one of indifference, not hostile, but invincible.

      No one noticed the deputy, who had unfastened his overcoat with the childish motive of displaying his medal. Twice he called to a porter, who went off without listening to him. Instead, the employés of the railroad were gathering round a group of gentlemen in tall hats, with pale, bureaucratic countenances, who had on black tailcoats and white cravats under buttoned-up overcoats, their collars up, and their faces sallow from short sleep. They bore the aspect of persons of position accomplishing a high social formality. When from a coach in the Florence train a tall, slender, fashionable lady alighted they all uncovered. Then a thin old gentleman got out. The group closed in; the lean gentleman bowed, while the lady smilingly bent her head over a proffered bunch of flowers. From the now open coats shone an array of white shirtfronts; smiles flitted over the visages, which had quickly coloured. On some of the watchchains hung four or five medals.

      'His Excellency!' was murmured roundabout.

      Then the whole group began to move, the fine lady giving her arm to the thin old man, the deputies and other high functionaries following. The Honourable Sangiorgio stayed behind mechanically, having remained alone. On the Piazza Margherita he saw the whole procession get into carriages between the rows of friends, who were lined up bowing. The lady put her head out at the door and smiled. He saw them all drive off after her, and was alone in the great square. On the ground lay moisture, as though it had been raining. All the windows of the Albergo Continentale were shut. To the left lay the Corso Margherita still building, heaped up with stones, beams, and rubbish. The hotel omnibuses turned, about to start. Three or four hackney-coaches remained behind through the laziness of the coachmen, who sat smoking and waiting. At the right was an empty tavern, closed up, and on a high stone wall a screeching advertisement of the Popolo Romano. Over all hung a thick, soggy atmosphere, an enveloping mist, a somewhat disagreeable odour. The nauseous sight was there of a city scarce awake in the limp heaviness of an autumn morning, with that fever-tainted breath which seems to be emitted by the houses.

      The Honourable Francesco Sangiorgio was exceedingly pale, and he was cold—in his heart.

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      That day he must resist and not go to

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