Part 43 (2/2)
Don Calixto smiled, and Caesar understood that the good Canon was taking advantage of the information to save a penny.
XXI. DON CALIXTO IN THE CATACOMBS
Don Calixto and the Canon were very anxious to visit the Catacombs.
Caesar knew that the visit is not entirely agreeable, and attempted to dissuade them from their intention.
”I don't know whether you gentlemen know that one has to spend the entire day there.”
”Without lunch?” asked the Canon.
”Yes.”
”Oh, no; that is impossible.”
”One has to sacrifice oneself for the sake of Christianity,” said Caesar.
”You haven't much desire to sacrifice yourself,” retorted Don Calixto.
”Because I believe it is damp and unwholesome down there, and a Christian bronchitis would not be wholly pleasant, despite its religious origin. And besides, as you already know, one must go without food.”
”We might eat something there,” said Don Justo.
”Eat there!” exclaimed Caesar. ”Eat a slice of ham, in front of the niches of the Catacombs! It would make me sick.”
”It wouldn't me,” replied the Canon.
”In front of the tombs of martyrs and saints!”
”Even if they were saints, they ate too,” replied the Canon, with his excellent good sense.
Caesar had to agree that even if they were saints, they ate.
There was a French family at the hotel who were also thinking of going to see the Catacombs, and Don Calixto and Don Justo decided to go the same day with them. The French family consisted of a Breton gentleman, tall and whiskered, who had been at sea; his wife, who looked like a village woman; and the daughter, a slender, pale, sad young lady. They had with them, half governess, half maid, a lean peasant-woman with a suspicious air.
The young lady confessed to Caesar that she had been dreaming of the Catacombs for a long while. She knew the description Chateaubriand gives of them in _Les Martyres_ by heart.
The next day the French family in one landau, and Don Calixto with the Canon and Caesar in another, went to see the Catacombs.
The French family had brought a fat, smiling abbe as cicerone.
Five persons couldn't get inside the landau, and the Breton gentleman had to sit by the driver. Don Calixto offered him a seat in his carriage, but the Breton, who must have been obstinate as a mule, said no, that from the driver's seat he enjoyed more of the panorama.
They halted a moment, on the abbe's advice, at the Baths of Caracalla, and went through them. The cicerone explained where the different bathing-rooms had been and the size of the pools. Those cyclopean buildings, those high, high arches, those enormous walls, left Caesar overcome.
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