Part 42 (1/2)
”Really?”
”I should think so.”
”But you would have to live in Madrid.”
”Certainly.”
”Would you leave here?”
”Yes, why not?”
”Then, not another word, we will say no more about it. When the time comes, you will write to me and say: 'Don Calixto, the moment has arrived for you to remember your promise: I want to be a Deputy.'”
”Very good. I will do it, and you shall present me as candidate for Castro... Castro... what?”
”Castro Duro.”
”You will see me there then.”
”All right. And now, another favour. There is a Canon from Zamora here, a friend of mine, who came on the pilgrimage and who desires nothing so much as to see Saint Peter's and the Catacombs rather thoroughly. I could explain everything to him, but I am not sure about the dates. Will you come with us?”
”With great pleasure.”
”Then we shall expect you here at ten.”
”That will be fine.”
Sure enough, at ten Caesar was there. Don Calixto and his friend the Canon Don Justo, who was a large gentleman, tall and fleshy and with a long nose, were waiting. The three got into the carriage.
”I hope this priest isn't going to be one of those library rats who know everything on earth,” thought Caesar, but when he heard him make a couple of mistakes in grammar, he became tranquil.
_THEODORA AND MAROZIA_
As they pa.s.sed the Castel Sant' Angelo, Caesar began to tell the story of Theodora and her daughter Marozia, the two women who lived there and who, for forty odd years, changed the Popes as one changes cooks.
”You know the history of those women?” asked Caesar.
”I don't,” said the Canon.
”Nor I,” added Don Calixto.
”Then I will tell it to you before we get to Saint Peter's. Theodora, an influential lady, fell in love with a young priest of Ravenna, and had him elected Pope, by the name of John X. Her daughter Marozia, a young girl and a virgin, gave herself to Pope Sergius III, a capricious, fantastic man, who had once had the witty idea of digging up Pope Formosus and subjecting him, putrefied as he was, to the judgment of a Synod. By this eccentric man Marozia had a son, and afterwards was married three times more. She exercised an omnipotent sway over the Holy See. John X, her mother's lover, she deposed and sent to die in prison.
With his successor, Leo VI, whom she herself had appointed Pope, she did the same. The following Pope, Stephen VII, died of illness, twenty months after his reign began, and then Marozia gave the Papal crown to the son she had had by Sergius III, who took the name of John XI. This Pope and his brother Alberic, began to feel their mother's influence rather heavy, and during a popular revolt they decided to get Marozia into their power, and they seized her and buried her alive in the _in pace_ of a convent.”
”But is all this authentic?” asked the Canon, completely stupefied.
”Absolutely authentic.”
The Canon made a gesture of resignation and looked at Don Calixto in astonishment.
While Caesar was telling the story, the carriage had pa.s.sed down a narrow and rather deserted street, called Borgo Vecchio, in whose windows clothes were hanging out to dry, and then they came out in the Piazza di San Pietro. They drove around one edge of this enormous square. The sky was blue. A fountain was throwing water, which changed to a cloud in the air and produced a brilliant rainbow.