Caesar or Nothing by Pio Baroja

P >> Pio Baroja >> Caesar or Nothing

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22

Caesar had no settled goal. On a plan of the city, hung in a newspaper
kiosk, he found the situation of the Piazza Esedra, the hotel and the
adjacent streets, and continued slowly ahead.

"How many people there must be who are excited and have an irregular
pulse on arriving for the first time in one of these historic towns,"
thought Caesar. "I, for my part, was in that situation the first time I
clearly understood the mechanism of the London Exchange."

Caesar continued down the Via Nazionale and stopped in a small square
with a little garden and a palm. Bounding the square on one side arose
a greenish wall, and above this wall, which was adorned with statues,
stretched a high garden with magnificent trees, and among them a great
stone pine.

"A beautiful garden to walk in," said Caesar. "Perhaps it is an historic
spot, perhaps it isn't. I am very happy that I don't know either its
name or its history, if it really has one." From the same point in the
Via Nazionale, a street with flights of steps could be seen to the left,
and below a white stone column.

"Nothing doing; I don't know what that is either," thought Caesar; "the
truth is that one is terribly ignorant. To make matters even, what a
well of knowledge about questions of finance there is in my cranium!"

Caesar continued on to the Piazza Venezia, contemplated the palace of
the Austrian Embassy, yellow, battlemented; and stopped under a big
white umbrella, stuck up to protect the switchman of the tramway.

"Here, at least, the weight of tradition or history is not noticeable. I
don't believe this canvas is a piece of Brutus's tunic, or of Pompey's
campaign tent. I feel at home here; this canvas modernizes me."

The square was very animated at that moment: groups of seminarians were
passing in robes of black, red, blue, violet, and sashes of contrasting
colours; monks of all sorts were crossing, smooth-shaven, bearded, in
black, white, brown; foreign priests were conversing in groups, wearing
little dishevelled hats adorned with a tassel; horrible nuns with
moustaches and black moles, and sweet little white nuns, with a
coquettish air.

The clerical fauna was admirably represented. A Capuchin friar,
long-bearded and dirty, with the air of a footpad, and an umbrella by
way of a blunderbuss or musket under his arm, was talking to a Sister of
Charity.

"Undoubtedly religion is a very picturesque thing," murmured Caesar. "A
spectacular impressario would not have the imagination to think out all
these costumes."

Caesar took the Corso. Before he reached the Piazza Colonna it began to
rain. The coachmen took out enormous umbrellas, all rolled up, opened
them and stood them in iron supports, in such a way that the box-seat
was as it were under a campaign tent.

Caesar took refuge in the entrance to a bazaar. The rain began to assume
the proportions of a downpour. An old friar, with a big beard, a white
habit, and a hood, armed with an untamable umbrella, attempted to cross
the square. The umbrella turned inside out in the gusts of wind, and his
beard seemed to be trying to get away from his face.

"Pavero frate!" said one of the crowd, smiling.

A priest passed hidden under an umbrella. A tough among the refugees in
the bazaar-doorway said that you couldn't tell if it was a woman or a
priest, and the cleric, who no doubt heard the remark, threw a severe
and threatening look at the group.

It stopped raining, and Caesar continued his walk along the Corso. He
went a bit out of his way to throw a glance at the Piazza di Spagna.
The great stairway in that square was shining, wet with the rain; a few
seminarians in groups were going up the steps toward the Pincio.

Caesar arrived at the Piazza del Popolo and stopped near some
ragamuffins who were playing a game, throwing coins in the air. A
tattered urchin had written with charcoal on a wall: "Viva Musolino!"
and below that he was drawing a heart pierced by two daggers.

"Very good," murmured Caesar. "This youngster is like me: an advocate of
action."

It began to rain again; Caesar decided to turn back. He took the same
route and entered a café on the Corso for lunch. The afternoon turned
out magnificent and Caesar went wandering about at random.

_THE CICERONE_

At twilight he returned to his inn, changed, and went to the salon.
Laura was conversing with a young abbé. "The Abbé Preciozi.... My
brother Caesar."

The Abbé Preciozi was one of the household of Cardinal Fort, who had
sent him to the hotel to act as cicerone to his nephew.

"Uncle has sent the abbé so that he can show you Rome." "Oh, many
thanks!" answered Caesar. "I will make use of his knowledge; but I
don't want him to neglect his occupations or to put himself out on my
account." "No, no. I am at your disposition," replied the abbé, "His
Eminence has given me orders to wait on you, and it will not put me out
in the least."

"You will have dinner with us, Preciozi?" said Laura.

"Oh, Marchesa! Thank you so much!"

And the abbé bowed ceremoniously.

The three dined together, and afterwards went to the salon to chat.
One of the San Martino young ladies played the viola and the other the
piano, and people urged them to exhibit their skill.

The talkative Neapolitan turned over the pieces of music in the
music-stand, and after discussing with the two _contessinas_, he placed
on the rack the "Intermezzo" from _Cavalleria Rusticana_.

The two sisters played, and the listeners made great eulogies about
their ability.

Laura presented Caesar and the Abbé Preciozi to the Countess Brenda and
to a lady who had just arrived from Malta.

"Did you know Rome before?" the Countess asked Caesar in French.

"No."

"And how does it strike you?"

"My opinion is of no value," said Caesar. "I am not an artist. Imagine;
my specialty is financial questions. Up to the present what has given me
the greatest shock is to find that Rome has walls."

"You didn't know it?" asked Laura.

"No."

"Dear child, I find that you are very ignorant."

"What do you wish?" replied Caesar in Spanish. "I am inclined to be
ignorant of everything I don't get anything out of."

Caesar spoke jokingly of a square like a hole in the ground, out of
which rises a white column similar to the one in Paris in the Place
Vendôme.

"What does he mean? Trajan's column?" asked Preciozi. "It must be," said
Laura. "I have a brother who's a barbarian. Weren't you in the Forum,
too?"

"Which is the Forum? An open space where there are a lot of stones?"

"Yes."

"I passed by there; there were a good many tourists, crowds of young
ladies peering intently into corners and a gentleman with a bag over his
shoulder who was pointing out some columns with an umbrella. Afterwards
I saw a ticket-window. 'That doubtless means that one pays to get in,' I
said, and as the ground was covered with mud and I didn't care to wet my
feet, I asked a young rascal who was selling post-cards what that place
was. I didn't quite understand his explanation, which I am sure was very
amusing. He confused Emperors with the Madonna and the saints. I gave
the lad a lira and had some trouble in escaping from there, because he
followed me around everywhere calling me Excellency."

"I think Don Caesar is making fun of us," said Preciozi.

"No, no."

"But really, how did Rome strike you, on the whole?" asked the abbe.

"Well, I find it like a mixture of a monumental great city and a
provincial capital."

"That is possible," responded the abbe. "Undoubtedly the provincial city
is more of a city than the big modern capitals, where there is nothing
to see but fine hotels on one hand and horrible hovels on the other. If
you came from America, like me, you would see how agreeable you would
find the impression of a city that one gets here. To forget all the
geometry, the streets laid out with a compass, the right angles...."

"Probably so."

The abbe seemed to have an interest in gaining Caesar's friendship.
Caesar said to him that, if he wished, they could go to his room to chat
and smoke. The abbe accepted with gusto, and Caesar, being a suspicious
person, wondered if the Cardinal might have sent the abbe to find out
what sort of man he was. Then he considered that his ideas must be of no
importance whatsoever to his uncle; but on the chance, he set himself
to throwing the abbé off the scent, talking volubly and emitting
contradictory opinions about everything.

After chattering a long while and devoting himself to free paradox,
Caesar thought that for the first session he had not done altogether
badly. Preciozi took leave, promising to come back the next day.

"If he reports our conversation to my uncle, the man won't know what to
think of me," reflected Caesar, on going to bed. "It would not be too
much to expect, if His Eminence became interested and sent to fetch me.
But I don't believe he will; my uncle cannot be intelligent enough to
have the curiosity to know a man like me."

VI

THE LITTLE INTERESTS OF THE PEOPLE IN A ROMAN HOTEL

_INTIMACIES_

During some days the main interest of the people in the hotel was the
growing intimacy established between the Marchesa Sciacca, who was the
lady from Malta, and the Neapolitan with the Pulcinella air, Signor
Carminatti.

The Maltese must have been haughty and exclusive, to judge from the
queenly air she assumed. Only with the handsome Neapolitan did she
behave amiably.

In the dining-room the Maltese sat with her two children, a boy and a
girl, at the other end from where Caesar and Laura were accustomed
to sit. At her side, at a table close by, chattered and jested the
diplomatic Carminatti.

The Marquis of Sciacca was ill with diabetes; he had come to Rome
to take a treatment, and during these days he did not come to the
dining-room.

The Marchesa was one of those mixed types, unharmonious, common among
mongrel races. Her black hair shone like jet, her lips looked like an
Egyptian's, and her eyes of a very light blue showed off in a curious
way in her bronzed face. She powdered her face, she painted her lips,
she shaded her eyes with kohl. Her appearance was that of a proud,
revengeful woman.

She ate with much nicety, opening her mouth so little that she could put
no more than the tip of her spoon between her lips; with her children
she talked English and Italian in equal perfection, and when she heard
young Carminatti's facetious remarks she laughed with marked impudence.
Signer Carminatti was tall, with a black moustache, a hooked nose,
well-formed languid eyes, lively and somewhat clownish gestures; he was
at the same time sad and merry, melancholy and smiling, he changed his
expression every moment. He was in the habit of appearing in the salon
in a dinner-jacket, with a large flower in his button-hole and two or
three fat diamonds on his chest. He would come along dragging his feet,
would bow, make a joke, stand mournful; and this fluency of expression,
and these gesticulations, gave him a manner halfway between woman and
child.

When he grew petulant, especially, he seemed like a woman. "Macché!"
he would say continually, with an acrid voice and the disgusted air of
an hysterical dame.

In spite of his frequent petulant fits, he was the person most esteemed
by the ladies of the hotel, both young and married.

"He is the darling of the ladies," the Countess Brenda said of him,
mockingly.

Laura had not the least use for him.

"I know that type by heart," she asserted with disdain.

During lunch and dinner Signor Carminatti did not leave off talking for
a moment with the Maltese. The Marchesa Sciacca's children often wanted
to tell their mother something; but she hushed them so as to be able to
hear the bright sayings of the handsome Neapolitan.

The San Martino young ladies and the Countess Brenda's daughter kept
trying to find a way to steal Carminatti for their group; but he always
went back to the Maltese, doubtless because her conversation was more
diverting and spicy.

_THE CONTESSINA BRENDA_

The Countess Brenda's daughter, Beatrice Brenda, in spite of her pea-hen
air, was always endeavouring to stir up the Neapolitan and to start a
conversation with him; but Carminatti in his light-hearted way would
reply with a jest or a fatuous remark and betake himself again to the
Marchesa Sciacca, who would make her disturbing children hush because
they often prevented her from catching what the Neapolitan was saying.

She was not to be despised, not by a long shot, was Signorina Bice, not
in any respect; besides being very rich, she was a beautiful girl and
promised to be more beautiful; she had the type of Titian's women, an
opaline white skin, as though made of mother-of-pearl, plump milky arms,
and dark eyes. The one thing lacking in her was expression.

She used frequently to go about in the company of an aristocratic
old maid, very ugly, with red hair and a face like a horse, but very
distinguished, who ate at the next table to Laura and Caesar.

One day Carminatti brought another Neapolitan home to dinner with him,
a fat grotesque person, whom he instigated to emit a series of
improprieties about women and matrimony. Hearing the scandalous sallies
of the rustic, the ladies said, with an amiable smile:

"He is a _benedetto_."

The Contessina Brenda, fascinated by the Neapolitan, went to the
Marchesa Sciacca's table. As she passed, Carminatti arose with his
napkin in one hand, and gesticulating with the other, said:

"Contessina. Allow me to present to you Signor Cappagutti, a merchant
from Naples."

Signor Cappagutti remained leaning back tranquilly in his chair, and the
Contessina burst out laughing and began to move her arms as if somebody
had put a horse-fly on her skirt. Then she raised her hand to her face,
to hide her laughter, and suddenly sat down.

_DANCING_

As it rained a great deal the majority of the guests preferred not to go
out. In the evenings they had dances. Caesar did not appear at the first
one; but his sister told him he ought to go. Caesar was at the second
dance, so as not to seem too much of an ogre. As he had no intention of
dancing, he installed himself in a comer; and while the dance went on he
kept talking with the Countesses Brenda and San Martino.

Various young men had arrived in the room. They exhibited that Southern
vivacity which is a trifle tiresome to the onlooker, and they all
listened to themselves while they spoke. The Neapolitan and two or three
of his friends were introduced to Caesar; but they showed him a certain
rather ostentatious and impertinent coolness.

Signor Carminatti exchanged a few words with the Countess Brenda, and
purposely acted as if he did not notice Caesar's presence.

The Neapolitan's chatter did not irritate Caesar in the slightest, and
as he had no intention of being his rival, he listened to him quite
entertained.

Caesar noted that the San Martino ladies and some friends of theirs
had a predilection for types like Carminatti, swarthy, prattling, and
boastful South Italians.

The ladies showed an affectionate familiarity with the girls; they
caressed them and kissed them effusively.

_YOU ARE AN INQUISITOR_

Laura, who was dancing with an officer, approached her brother, who was
wedged into a corner, behind two rows of chairs.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, stopping and informing her
partner that she was going to sit down a moment.

"Nothing," answered Caesar, "I am waiting for this waltz to finish, so
that I can get away."

"You are not enjoying yourself?"

"Pish!"

"Nevertheless, there are amusing things about it."

"Ah, surely. Do you know what happened to me with the Countess Brenda?"

"What did happen?"

"When she came in and gave me her hand, she said: 'How hot your hands
are; mine are frozen.' And she held my hands between hers. That was
comical."

"Comical! Why?"

"How do I know?"

"It is comical to you, because you see only evil motives. She held your
hand. Who knows what she may be after? Who knows if she wants to get
something out of you? She has an income of eighty or ninety thousand
lire, perhaps she wants to borrow money from you."

"No, I know she doesn't."

"Then, what are you afraid of?"

"Afraid! Afraid of nothing! Only it surprised me."

"That's because you look at everything with the eye of an inquisitor.
One must be suspicious: be always on one's guard, always on the watch.
It's the attitude of a savage."

"I don't deny it. I have no desire to be civilized like these people.
But what does come to me is that the husband of our illustrious and
wealthy friend wears in his breast that porte-bonheur, which I believe
is called horns."

"Of course; and you haven't discovered that his family is a family of
assassins? How Spanish! What a savage Spaniard I have for a brother!"

Caesar burst into laughter, and taking advantage of the moment when
everybody was going to the buffet, left the room. In the corridor, one
of the San Martino girls, the more sweet and angelic of the two, was in
a corner with one of the dancers, and there was a sound like a kiss.

The little blonde made an exclamation of fright; Caesar behaved as if he
had noticed nothing and kept on his way.

"The devil!" exclaimed Caesar, "that angelic little princess hides in
corners with one of these _briganti_. And their mother has the face to
say that they don't know how to bait a hook! I don't know what more she
could wish. Although it is possible that this is the educational scheme
of the future for marriageable girls."

In the entrance-hall of the hotel were the Marchesa Sciacca's two
children, attended by a sleeping maid; the little girl, seated on a
sofa, was watching her brother, who walked from one side to the other
with a roll of paper in his hand. In the entrance hall, opposite the
hotel door, there was a bulletin, which was changed every day, to
announce the different performances that were to be given that night at
the theatres of Rome.

The small boy walked back and forth in front of the poster, and
addressing himself to a public consisting of the sleeping maid and the
little girl, cried:

"Step up, gentlemen! Step up! Now is the time. We are about to perform
_La Geisha_, the magnificent English operetta. Walk right in! Walk right
in!"

While the mother was dancing with the Neapolitan in the ball-room, the
children were amusing themselves thus alone.

"The truth is that our civilization is an absurdity. Even the children
go mad," thought Caesar, and took refuge in his room.

During the whole night he heard from his bed the notes of the waltzes
and two-steps, and dancers' laughter and shouts and shuffling feet.

_THEY ARE JUST CHILDREN_

The next day, Laura, before going out to make a call, appeared at
lunch-time most elegantly dressed, with a gown and a hat from Paris, in
which she was truly most charming.

She had a great success: the San Martinos, the Countess Brenda, the
other ladies congratulated her. The hat, above all, seemed ideal to
them.

Carminatti was in raptures.

"E bello, bellissimo_," he said, with great enthusiasm, and all the
ladies agreed that it was _bellissimo_, lengthening the "s" and nodding
their heads with a gesture of admiration.

"And you don't say anything to me, _bambino_?" Laura inquired of Caesar.

"I say you are all right."

"And nothing more?"

"If you want me to pay you a compliment, I will tell you that you are
pretty enough to make incest legitimate." "What a barbarian!" murmured
Laura, half laughing, half blushing.

"What has he been saying to you?" two or three people inquired.

Laura translated his words into Italian, and Carminatti found them
admirable.

"Very appropriate! Very witty!" he exclaimed, laughing, and gave Caesar
a friendly slap on the shoulder.

The Marchesa Sciacca looked at Laura several times with reflective
glances and a rancorous smile.

"The truth is that these Southern people are just children," thought
Caesar, mockingly. "What an inveterate preoccupation they have in the
beautiful."

The Neapolitan was one of those most preoccupied with esthetics.

Caesar had a room opposite Signor Carminatti's, and the first few days
he had thought it was a woman's room. Toilet flasks, sprays, boxes of
powder; the room looked like a perfumery shop.

"It is curious," Caesar used to think, "how these people from famous
historic towns can combine powder and the _maffia_, opoponax and
daggers."

Almost every night after dinner there was an improvised dance in the
salon. Somebody played the languorous waltzes of the Tzigane orchestras
on the piano. The Maltese and Carminatti used to sing romantic songs, of
the kind whose words and music seem to be always the same, and in which
there invariably is question of panting, refulgent, love, and other
suggestive words.

One Sunday evening, when it was raining, Caesar stayed in the hotel.

In the salon Carminatti was doing sleight-of-hand to entertain the
ladies. Afterwards the Neapolitan was seen pursuing the Marchesa Sciacca
and the two San Martino girls in the corridors. They shrieked shrilly
when he grabbed them around the waist. The devil of a Neapolitan was an
expert at sleight-of-hand.

VII

THE CONFIDENCES OF THE ABBE PRECIOZI

_NATURAL VARIETIES OF NOSES AND EXPRESSIONS_

Caesar admitted before his conscience that he had no plans, or the
slightest idea what direction to take. The Cardinal, no doubt, did not
feel any desire to know him.

Caesar often proceeded by more or less absurd hypotheses. "Suppose," he
would think, "that I had an idea, a concrete ambition. In that case it
would behoove me to be reserved on such and such topics and to hint
these and those ideas to people; let's do it that way, even though it be
only for sport."

Preciozi was the only person who was able to give him any light in
his investigations, because the guests at the hotel, most of them, on
account of their position, thought of nothing but amusing themselves and
of giving themselves airs.

Caesar discovered that Preciozi was ambitious; but besides lacking an
opening, he had not the necessary vigour and imagination to do anything.

The abbé spoke a macaronic Spanish, which he had learned in South
America, and which provoked Caesar's laughter. He was constantly saying:
"My friend," and he mingled Gallicisms with a lot of coarse expressions
of Indian or mulatto origin, and with Italian words. Preciozi's dialect
was a gibberish worthy of Babel.

The first day they went out together, the abbé wanted to show him divers
of Rome's picturesque spots. He led him behind the Quirinal, through
the Via della Panetteria and the Via del Lavatore, where there is a
fruit-market, to the Trevi fountain. "It is beautiful, eh?" said the
abbé.

"Yes; what I don't understand," replied Caesar, "is why, in a town where
there is so much water, the hotel wash-basins are so small."

Preciozi shrugged his shoulders.

"What types you have in Rome!" Caesar went on. "What a variety of noses
and expressions! Jesuits with the aspect of savants and plotters;
Carmelites with the appearance of highway men; Dominicans, some with
a sensual air, others with a professorial air. Astuteness, intrigue,
brutality, intelligence, mystic stupor.... And as for priests, what a
museum! Decorative priests, tall, with white shocks of hair and big
cassocks; short priests, swarthy and greasy; noses thin as a knife;
warty, fiery noses. Gross types; distinguished types; pale bloodless
faces; red faces.... What a marvellous collection!"

Preciozi listened to Caesar's observations and wondered if the
Cardinal's nephew might be a trifle off his head.

"Point out what is noteworthy, so that I may admire it enough," Caesar
told him. "I don't care to burst out in an enthusiastic phrase for
something of no value."

Preciozi laughed at these jokes, as if they were a child's bright
sayings; but at times Caesar appeared to him to be an innocent soul, and
at other times a Machiavellian who dissembled his insidious purposes
under an extravagant demeanour.

When Preciozi was involved in some historic dissertation, Caesar used to
ask him ingenuously:

"But listen, abbe; does this really interest you?"

Preciozi would admit that the past didn't matter much to him, and then
with one accord, they would burst out laughing.

Caesar said that Preciozi and he were the most anti-historic men going
about in Rome.

One morning they went to the Piazza del Campidoglio. It was drizzling;
the wet roofs shone; the sky was grey.

"This intrusion of the country into Rome," said Caesar, "is what gives
the city its romantic aspect. These hills with trees on them are very
pretty."

"Only pretty, Don Caesar? They are sublime," retorted Preciozi.

"What amazement I shall produce in you, my dear abbé, when I tell you
that all my knowledge in respect to the Capitol reduces itself to the
fact that some orator, I don't know who, said that near the Capitol is
the Tarpeian Rock."

"You know nothing more about it?"

"Nothing more. I don't know if Cicero said that, or Castelar, or Sir
Robert Peel."

Preciozi burst into merry laughter.

"What statue is that?" asked Caesar, indicating the one in the middle of
the square.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22