Part 46 (1/2)
As they pa.s.sed down the slope leading to the Capitol, in a little street to the left, the Via Monte Tarpea, they saw a funeral procession ready to start. At that moment the corpse was being brought into the street.
Several women in black were waiting by the house door with lighted candles.
The priest, in his white surplice and holding up his cross, gave the order to start, and pushed to the front of the crowd; four men raised the bier and took it on their shoulders, and the procession of women in black, men, and children, followed behind. Bells with sharp voices began again to sound in the air.
”Oh, isn't it sad!” said Susanna, lifting her hand to her breast.
They watched how the procession moved away, and then Caesar murmured, ill-humouredly:
”It is stupid.”
”What?” asked Susanna.
”I say that it's stupid to take pleasure in feeling miserable. What we are doing is absurd and unhealthy.”
Susanna burst into laughter, and when she said good-night to Caesar she squeezed his hand energetically.
XXIII. THE 'SCUTCHEON OF A CHURCH
”Susanna Marchmont,” Caesar wrote to his friend Alzugaray, ”is a beautiful woman, rich, and apparently intelligent. She has given me to understand that she feels a certain inclination for me, and if I please her well enough, she will get a divorce and marry me.
”I have discovered the reasons for her inclination, first in a desire to revenge herself on her husband by marrying the brother of the woman he has fallen in love with; secondly, in my not having made love to her, like the majority of the men she has known.
”Really, Susanna is a beautiful woman; but whereas other women gain by being looked at and listened to, with her it is not so. In this beautiful woman there is something cold, utilitarian, which she does not succeed in hiding by her artistic effusions. Besides she has a great deal of vanity, but stupid vanity. She has asked me if I couldn't manage to acquire a high-sounding, decorative t.i.tle in Spain.
”If Susanna knew that in my heart I keep up her friends.h.i.+p only through inertia, because I have no plans, and that her millions and her beauty leave me cold, she would be dumfounded; I believe that perhaps she would admire me.
”At present we devote ourselves to walking, talking, and telling each other our impressions. Any one would say that we intentionally play a game of being contrary; whatsoever she finds wonderful seems worthy of contempt to me, and vice-versa. It is strange that such absolute disagreement can exist. This Sunday afternoon we have been taking a long walk, half sentimental, half archeological.
”I went to get her at her hotel; she came down, looking very smart, with an unmarried friend, also an American and also very chic.
”The three of us walked toward the Forum. We pa.s.sed under the arch of Constantine. A small beggar-boy preceded us, getting ahead and turning hand-springs. I gave him some pennies. Susanna laughed. This woman, who pays bills of thousands of pesetas to her milliner, doesn't like to give a copper to a ragam.u.f.fin.
”We turned off a bit from the avenue and went up on the right, toward the Palatine. Among the ruins some women were pulling up plants and putting them into sacks. At the end of the road, on the slope, there were Stations of the Cross, and some boys from a school were playing, guarded by priests with white rabbits.
”It was impossible to go further, and we went down the hill toward the Piazza di San Gregorio. On the open place in front of the church that is in this square, some vagabonds were stretched out on the ground; an old man with a long h.o.a.ry beard and a pipe with a chain, two dark youths with shocks of black hair, and a red-headed woman with silver hoops in her ears and a baby in her arms.
”The two young boys threw me a glance of hatred, and stared at Susanna and her friend with extraordinary avidity.
”What very false ideas must have been going through their minds! I might have approached them and said politely:
”'Do not imagine that these ladies are of different stuff from this red woman who has the baby in her arms. They are all the same. There is no more difference than what is caused by a little soap and some money.'
”'Let us go in and see the church,' said Susanna.
”'Good. Come along.'
”The church has a flight of stone steps and two cypresses to one side.