Caesar or Nothing by Pio Baroja

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Monsignor Spada was a vigorous man, despite his age. He looked frank
and intelligent, but one guessed that there was a hidden bitterness and
desolation in him. He wore a black cassock with red edges and buttons.

Kennedy went close and was about to kneel to the Cardinal, but he
prevented him.

Caesar explained his ideas to the Cardinal with modesty. He felt that
this man was worthy of all his respect.

Monsignor Spada listened attentively, and then said that he understood
nothing about financial matters, but that on principle he was in favour
of having the administration of all the Church's property kept entirely
at home, as in the time of Pius IX. Leo XIII had preferred to replace
this paternal method by a trained bureaucracy, but the Church had not
gained anything by it, and they had lost credit through unfortunate
negotiations, buying land and taking mortgages.

Caesar realized that it was useless to attempt to convince a man of
the intelligence and austerity of the Cardinal, and he listened to him
respectfully.

Monsignor Spada conversed amiably, he escorted them as far as the door,
and shook hands when they said good-bye.

THE ABBÉ TARDIEU

Then they went to see the Abbé Tardieu. The abbé lived in the Piazza.
Navona. His office, furnished in modern style, produced the effect of a
violent contrast with Cardinal Spada's sumptuous study, and yet brought
it to mind. The Abbé Tardieu's work-room was small, worldly, full of
books and photographs.

The abbé, a tall young man, thin, with a rosy face, a long nose, and a
mouth almost from ear to ear, had the air of an astute but jolly person,
and laughed at everything said to him. He was liveliness personified.
When they entered his office he was writing and smoking.

Caesar explained about his financial knowledge, and how he had gone on
acquiring it, until he got to the point where he could discern a law, a
system, in things where others saw nothing more than chance. The Abbé
Tardieu promised that if he knew a way to utilize Caesar's knowledge, he
would send him word. In respect to giving him letters of introduction to
influential persons in Spain, he had no objection.

They took leave of the abbé.

"All this has to go slowly," said Kennedy.

"Of course. One cannot insist that it should happen all at once."

_BERNINI_

"If you have nothing to do, let's take a walk," said the Englishman.

"If you like."

"Have you noticed the fountains in this square?"

"No."

"They are worth looking at."

Caesar contemplated the central obelisk. It is set on top of a rock
hollowed out like a cavern, in the mouth of which a lion is seen.
Afterwards they looked at the fountains at the ends of the square.

"The sculptures are by Bernini," explained Kennedy. "Bernini belonged to
an epoch that has been very much abused by the critics, but nowadays he
is much praised. He enchants me."

"It is rather a mixed style, don't you think?"

"Yes."

"The artist is not living?"

"For heaven's sake, man! No."

"Well, if he were alive today they would employ him to make those
gewgaws some people present to leading ladies and to the deputies of
their district. He would be the king of the manufacturers of ornate
barometers."

"It is undeniable that Bernini had a baroque taste."

"He gives the impression of a rather pretentious and affected person."

"Yes, he does. He was an exuberant, luxuriant Neapolitan; but when he
chose he could produce marvels. Haven't you seen his Saint Teresa?"

"No."

"Then you must see it. Let's take a carriage."

They drove to the Piazza San Bernardo, a little square containing three
churches and a fountain, and went into Santa Maria della Vittoria.

Kennedy went straight toward the high altar, and stopped to the left of
it.

In an altar of the transept is to be seen a group carved in marble,
representing the ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Caesar gazed at it absorbed.
The saint is an attractive young girl, falling backward in a sensual
spasm; her eyes are closed, her mouth open, and her jaw a bit
dislocated. In front of the swooning saint is a little angel who
smilingly threatens her with an arrow.

"Well, what do you think of it?" said Kennedy.

"It is wonderful," exclaimed Caesar. "But it is a bedroom scene, only
the lover has slipped away."

"Yes, that is true."

"It really is pretty; you seem to see the pallor of the saint's face,
the circles under her eyes, the relaxation of all her muscles. Then the
angel is a little joker who stands there smiling at the ecstasy of the
saint."

"Yes, that's true," said Kennedy; "it is all the more admirable for the
very reason that it is tender, sensual, and charming, all at once."

"However, this sort of thing is not healthy," murmured Caesar, "this
kind of vision depletes your life-force. One wants to find the same
things represented in works of art that one ought to look for in life,
even if they are not to be found in life."

"Good! Here enters the moralist. You talk like an Englishman," exclaimed
Kennedy. "Let us go along."

"Where?"

"I have to stop in at the French Embassy a moment; then we can go where
you like."

_CORNERS OF ROME_

They went back to the carriage, and having crossed through the centre of
Rome, got out in front of the Farnese Palace.

"I will be out inside of ten minutes," said Kennedy.

The Farnese Palace aroused great admiration in Caesar; he had never
passed it before. By one of the fountains in the _piazza,_ he stood
gazing at the huge square edifice, which seemed to him like a die cut
from an immense block of stone.

"This really gives me an impression of grandeur and force," he said to
himself. "What a splendid palace! It looks like an ancient knight in
full armour, looking indifferently at everything, sure of his own
worth."

Caesar walked from one end of the _piazza_ to the other, absorbed in the
majestic pile of stone.

Kennedy surprised him in his contemplation.

"Now will you say that you are a good philistine?"

"Ah, well, this palace is magnificent. Here are grandeur, strength,
overwhelming force."

"Yes, it is magnificent; but very uncomfortable, my French colleagues
tell me."

Kennedy related the history of the Farnese Palace to Caesar. They went
through the Via del Mascherone and came out into the Via Giulia.

"This Via Giulia is a street in a provincial capital," said Kennedy;
"always sad and deserted; a Cardinal or two who like isolation are still
living here."

At the entrance to the Via dei Farnesi, Caesar stopped to look at two
marble tablets set into the wall at the two sides of a chapel door.

Cut on the tablets were skeletons painted black; on one, the words:
"Alms for the poor dead bodies found in the fields," and on the other:
"Alms for the perpetual lamp in the cemetery."

"What does this mean?" said Caesar.

"That is the Church of the Orison of the Confraternity of Death. The
tablets are modern."

They passed by the "Mascherone" again, and went rambling on until they
reached the Synagogue and the Theatre of Marcellus.

They went through narrow streets without sidewalks; they passed across
tiny squares; and it seemed like a dead city, or like the outskirts of a
village. In certain streets towered high dark palaces of blackish stone.
These mysterious palaces looked uninhabited; the gratings were eaten
with rust, all sorts of weeds grew on the roofs, and the balconies were
covered with climbing plants. At corners, set into the wall, one saw
niches with glass fronts. A painted madonna, black now, with silver
jewels and a crown, could be guessed at inside, and in front a little
lantern swung on a cord.

Suddenly a cart would come down one of these narrow streets without
sidewalks, driving very quickly and scattering the women and children
seated by the gutter.

In all these poor quarters there were lanes crossed by ropes loaded with
torn washing; there were wretched black shops from which an odour of
grease exhaled; there were narrow streets with mounds of garbage in the
middle. In the very palaces, now shorn of their grandeur, appeared
the same decoration of rags waving in the breeze. In the Theatre of
Marcellus one's gaze got lost in the depths of black caves, where smiths
stood out against flames.

This mixture of sumptuousness and squalor, of beauty and ugliness, was
reflected in the people; young and most beautiful women were side by
side with fat, filthy old ones covered with rags, their eyes gloomy, and
of a type that recalled old African Jewesses.

_WHAT CAN BE READ ON WALLS_

Caesar and Kennedy went on toward the Temple of Vesta and followed the
river bank until the Tiber Embankment ended.

Here the banks were green and the river clearer and more poetic. To the
left rose the Aventine with its villas; in the harbour two or three tugs
were tied up; and here and there along the pier stood a crane. Evening
was falling and the sky was filling with pink clouds.

They sat down awhile on the side of the road, and Caesar entertained
himself deciphering the inscriptions written in charcoal on a mud-wall.

"Do you go in for modern epigraphy?" asked Kennedy.

"Yes. It is one of the things I take pleasure in reading, in the towns
I go to; the advertisements in the newspapers and the writings on the
wall."

"It's a good kind of curiosity."

"Yes, I believe one learns more about the real life in a town from such
inscriptions than from the guide- and text-books."

"That's possible. And what conclusions have you drawn from your
observations?"

"They are not of much value. I haven't constructed a science of
wall-inscriptions, as that fake Lambroso would have done."

"But you will construct it surely, when you have lighted on the
underlying system."

"You think my epigraphical science is on the same level as my financial
science. What a mistake!"

"All right. But tell me what you have discovered about different towns."

"London, for instance, I have found, is childish in its inscriptions and
somewhat clownish. When some sentimental foolishness doesn't occur to a
Londoner of the people, some brutality or rough joke occurs to him."

"You are very kind," said Kennedy, laughing.

"Paris has a vulgar, cruel taste; in the Frenchman of the people you
find the tiger alternating with the monkey. There the dominant note on
the walls is the patriotic note, insults to politicians, calling them
assassins and thieves, and also sentiments of revenge expressed by
an _'A mort Dupin!'_ or _'A mort Duval!'_ Moreover, there is a great
enthusiasm for the guillotine."

"And Madrid?"

"Madrid is at heart a rude, moral town with little imagination, and
the epigraphs on the walls and benches are primitive."

"And in Rome what do you find?"

"Here one finds a mixture of pornography, romanticism, and politics.
A heart pierced by an arrow and poetic phrases, alternate with some
enormous piece of filthiness and with hurrahs for Anarchy or for the
_'Papa-re.'_"

"Well done!" said Kennedy; "I can see that the branch of epigraphy you
practise amounts to something. It should be systematized and given a
name."

"What do you think we should name it? Wallography?"

"Very good."

"And one of these fine days we can systematize it. Now we might go and
get dinner."

They took a tram which was coming back from St. Paul's beyond the Walls,
and returned to the heart of the city.

_THE MONK WITH THE RED NOSE_

The next day Caesar was finishing dressing when the servant told him
that a gentleman was waiting for him.

"Who is it?" asked Caesar.

"It's a monk."

Caesar went to the salon and there found a tall monk with an evil face,
a red nose, and a worn habit.

Caesar recalled having seen him, but didn't know where.

"What can I do for you?" asked Caesar.

"I come from His Eminence, Cardinal Fort. I must speak with you."

"Let's go into the dining-room. We shall be alone there."

"It would be better to talk in your room."

"No, there is no one here. Besides, I have to eat breakfast. Will you
join me?"

"No, thanks," said the monk.

Caesar remembered having seen that face in the Altemps palace. He was
doubtless one of the domestic monks who had been with the Abbé Preciozi.

The waiter came bringing Caesar's breakfast. "Will you tell me what it
is?" said Caesar to the ecclesiastic, while he filled his cup.

The monk waited until the waiter was gone, and then said in a hard
voice:

"His Eminence the Cardinal sent me to bid you not to present yourself
anywhere again, giving his name."

"What? What does this mean?" asked Caesar, calmly.

"It means that His Eminence has found out about your intrigues and
machinations."

"Intrigues? What intrigues were those?"

"You know perfectly well. And His Eminence forbids you to continue in
that direction."

"His Eminence forbids me to pay calls? And for what reason?"

"Because you have used his name to introduce yourself into certain
places."

"It is not true."

"You have told people you went to that you are Cardinal Fort's nephew."

"And I am not?" asked Caesar, after taking a swallow of coffee.

"You are trying to make use of the relationship, we don't know with what
end in view."

"I am trying to make use of my relationship to Cardinal Fort? Why
shouldn't I?"

"You admit it?"

"Yes, I admit it. People are such imbeciles that they think it is an
honour to have a Cardinal in the family; I take advantage of this stupid
idea, although I do not share it, because for me a Cardinal is merely an
object of curiosity, an object for an archeological museum...."

Caesar paused, because the monk's countenance was growing dark. In the
twilight of his pallid face, his nose looked like a comet portending
some public calamity.

"Poor wretch!" murmured the monk. "You do not know what you are saying.
You are blaspheming. You are offending God." "Do you really believe that
God has any relation to my uncle?" asked Caesar, paying more attention
to his toast than to his visitor.

And then he added:

"The truth is that it would be extravagant behaviour on the part of
God."

The monk looked at Caesar with terrible eyes. Those grey eyes of his,
under their long, black, thick brows, shot lightning.

"Poor wretch!" repeated the monk. "You ought to have more respect for
things above you."

Caesar arose.

"You are bothering me and preventing me from drinking my coffee," he
said, with exquisite politeness, and touched the bell.

"Be careful!" exclaimed the monk, seizing Caesar's arm with violence.

"Don't you touch me again," said Caesar, pulling away violently, his
face pale and his eyes flashing. "If you do, I have a revolver here with
five chambers, and I shall take pleasure in emptying them one by one,
taking that lighthouse you carry about for a nose, as my target."

"Fire it if you dare."

Fortunately the waiter had come in on hearing the bell.

"Do you wish anything, sir?" he asked.

"Yes, please escort this clerical gentleman to the door, and tell him on
the way not to come back here."

Days later Caesar found out that there had been a great disturbance at
the Altemps palace in consequence of the calls he had made. Preciozi
had been punished and sent away from Rome, and the various Spanish
monasteries and colleges warned not to receive Caesar.

XV

GIOVANNI BATTISTA, PAGAN

"My dear Caesar," said Kennedy, "I believe it will be very difficult for
you to find what you want by looking for it. You ought to leave it a
little to chance."

"Abandon myself to events as they arrive? All right, it seems a good
idea."

"Then if you find something practicable, utilize it."

Kennedy took his friend to a statue-shop where he used to pass some of
his hours. The shop was in a lane near the Forum, and its stock was in
antiques, majolicas, and plaster casts of pagan gods.

The shop was dark and rather gloomy, with a small court at the back
covered with vines. The proprietor was an old man, with a moustache,
an imperial, and a shock of white hair. His name was Giovanni Battista
Lanza. He professed revolutionary ideas and had great enthusiasm about
Mazzini. He expressed himself in an ironical and malicious manner.

Signora Vittoria, his wife, was a grumbling old woman, rather devoted to
wine. She spoke like a Roman of the lowest class, was olive-coloured and
wrinkled, and of her former beauty there remained only her very black
eyes and hair that was still black.

The daughter, Simonetta, a girl who resembled her father, blond, with
the build of a goddess, was the one that waited on customers and kept
the accounts.

Simonetta, being the manager, divided up the profits; the elder son was
head of the workshop and he made the most money; then came two workmen
from outside; and then the father who still got his day's wages, out
of consideration for his age; and finally the younger son, twelve or
fourteen years old, who was an apprentice.

Simonetta gave her mother what was indispensable for household expenses
and managed the rest herself.

Kennedy retailed this information the first day they went to Giovanni
Battista Lanza's house. Caesar could see Simonetta keeping the books,
while the small brother, in a white blouse that came to his heels, was
chasing a dog, holding a pipe in his hand by the thick part, as if it
were a pistol, the dog barking and hanging on to the blouse, the small
boy shrieking and laughing, when Signora Vittoria came bawling out.

Kennedy presented Simonetta to his friend Caesar, and she smiled and
gave her hand.

"Is Signore Giovanni Battista here?" Kennedy asked Signora Vittoria.

"Yes, he is in the court." she answered in her gloomy way.

"Is something wrong with your mamma?" said Kennedy to Simonetta.

"Nothing."

They went into the court and Giovanni Battista arose, very dignified,
and bowed to Caesar. The elder son and the two workmen in white blouses
and paper caps were busy with water and wires, cleaning a plaster mould
they had just emptied.

The mould was a big has-relief of the Way of the Cross. Giovanni
Battista permitted himself various jocose remarks about the Way of
the Cross, which his son and the other two workmen heard with
great indifference; but while he was still emptying his store of
anti-Christian irony, the voice of Signora Vittoria was heard, crying
domineeringly:

"Giovanni Battista!"

"What is it?"

"That's enough, that's enough! I can hear you from here."

"That's my wife," said Giovanni Battista, "she doesn't like me to be
lacking in respect for plaster saints." "You are a pagan!" screamed the
old woman. "You shall see, you shall see what will happen to you."

"What do you expect to have happen to me, darling?"

"Leave her alone," exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; "you always
have to be making mother fly into a rage."

"No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a rage."

"Giovanni Battista is used to living among gods," said Kennedy, "and he
despises saints."

"No, no," replied the cast-maker; "some saints are all right. If all
the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, I would go to church
oftener; but to go and look at those statues in the Jesuit churches,
those figures with their arms spread and their eyes rolling.... Oh, no!
I cannot look at such things."

Caesar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself very well;
but that he was not precisely a star when it came to working. After the
mould for the bas-relief was cleaned and fixed, the cast-maker invited
Caesar and Kennedy to have a glass of wine in a wine-shop near by.

"How's this, are you leaving already, father?" said Simonetta, as he
went through the shop to get to the street.

"I'm coming back, I'm coming back right away."

_SUPERSTITIONS_

The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same lane,
and settled themselves by the window. This post was a good point of
observation for that narrow street, so crowded and so picturesque.

Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with kerchiefs, half
head-dress and half muffler, and with black eyes and expressive faces.
Opposite was a booth of coloured candies, dried figs strung on a reed,
and various kinds of sweets.

A wine-cart passed, and Kennedy made Caesar observe how decorative it
was with its big arm-seat in the middle and its hood above, like a
prompter's box.

Giovanni Battista ordered a flask of wine for the three of them. While
he chatted and drank, friends of his came to greet them. They were men
with beards, long hair, and soft hats, of the Garbaldi and Verdi type so
abundant in Italy.

Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, a native of
Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; the other, for contrast,
looked like a buffoon and was the possessor of a grotesque nose, long,
thin at the end and adorned with a red wart.

"My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them," said Giovanni Battista,
laughing.

"And why so?" asked Caesar.

"Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a few
pennies...."

"Your wife must have a lively temper,..." said Caesar.

"Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but very
superstitious. Christianity has produced nothing but superstitions."

"Giovanni Battista is a pagan, as his wife well says," asserted Kennedy.

"What superstitions has your wife?" asked Caesar.

"All of them. Romans are very superstitious and my wife is a Roman. If
you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck
is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the
other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must
spit on the ground to keep away the _jettatura_. Three priests together
is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well in Rome,
because we see three and up to thirty priests together."

"A spider is also very significant," said Kennedy; "in the morning it is
of bad augury, and in the evening good."

"And at noon?" asked Caesar.

"At noon," answered Lanza, laughing, "it means nothing to speak of. But
if you wish to make sure whether it is a good auspice or a bad, you kill
the spider and count its legs. If they are an even number, it is a good
omen; if uneven, bad."

"But I believe spiders always have an even number of legs," said Caesar.

"Certainly," responded the old man; "but my wife swears they do not;
that she has seen many with seven and nine legs. It is religious
unreasonableness."

"Are there many people like that, so credulous?" asked Caesar.

"Oh, lots," replied Lanza; "in the shops you will find amulets, horns,
hands made of coral or horseshoes, all to keep away bad luck. My wife
and the neighbour women play the lottery, by combining the numbers of
their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their
children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of
the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery
ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems
are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of
letters in the name or something of that sort. It is comical, so much
religion and so much superstition."

"But you confuse religion and superstition, my friend," said Kennedy.

"It's all the same," answered the old man, smiling his suavely ironical
smile. "There is nothing except Nature."

"You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista?" asked the
Englishman.

"Yes, I believe in the earth's miracles, making trees and flowers grow,
and the miracle of children's being born from their mothers. The other
miracles I do not believe in. What for? They are so insignificant beside
the works of Nature!"

"He is a pagan," Kennedy again stated.

_YOUNG PAINTERS_

They were chatting, when three young lads came into the tavern, all
three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft hats, flowing
cravats, long hair, and pipes. "Two of them are fellow-countrymen of
yours," Kennedy told Caesar.

"They are Spanish painters," the old man added. "The other is a sculptor
who has been in the Argentine, and he talks Spanish too."

The three entered and sat down at the same table and were introduced to
Caesar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the Italian, was a real type.
Of very low stature, he had a giant's torso and strong little legs. His
head was like a woe-begone eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish,
eyes round, and hair black.

Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and full of
vehemence.

He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, mingling them
with blasphemies and curses. Things struck him as the best or the worst
in the world. For him there doubtless were no middle terms.

One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged,
and named Cortés; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and coarse, seemed
rather a bully.

Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the workshop, no doubt
because his conscience troubled him, and though with difficulty, he got
up and left. Kennedy, Caesar, and the two Spaniards went toward the
Piazza, del Campidoglio, and Buonacossi marched off in the opposite
direction.

On reaching the Via Nazionale, Kennedy took his leave and Caesar
remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, who had the air of
a bully, started in to make fun of the Italians, and to mimic their bows
and salutes; then he said that he had an engagement with a woman and
made haste to take his leave.

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