Chapter VI: Book IV: The Millipede (2)

He started off in front. Fleurissoire followed with downcast eyes. The street was narrow and steep; the sun blazed; sweating, hustling, effervescing, the crowd clamoured and gesticulated and sang, while Fleurissoire panted bewildered through their midst. A number of half-naked children were dancing in front of a barrel organ; a kind of mountebank was getting up an impromptu lottery at two-sous the ticket, for a fat plucked turkey, which he was holding up at the end of a stick; Protos, to seem more natural, took a ticket as he passed, and disappeared into the crowd; Fleurissoire, unable to advance, thought he had lost him for good; then, after he had managed to get through the obstruction, he caught sight of him again, walking briskly up the hill, with the turkey under his arm.

At last the houses became smaller and further apart, fewer people were to be seen, and Protos slackened his pace. He stopped in front of a barber’s shop and, turning to Fleurissoire, winked his eye; then, twenty paces further on, stopped again in front of a little low door and rang the bell.

The barber’s window was not particularly attractive but Father Cave doubtless had his reasons for pointing it out; moreover, Fleurissoire would have had to go a long way back before finding another, which would no doubt have been equally uninviting. The door was left open on account of the excessive heat; a wide-meshed curtain kept the flies out and let the air in; one had to raise it to go in; he entered.

Truly, a skilful fellow, this barber! After soaping Amédée’s chin, he cautiously pushed aside the lather with a corner of his towel and brought to light the fiery pimple, which his nervous client pointed out to him. Oh, somnolence! Oh, warmth and drowsiness of the quiet little shop! Amédée, half lying in the leather arm-chair, with his head leaning comfortably back, let himself drift. Ah! just for one short moment to forget! To think no more of the Pope and the mosquitoes and Carola! To imagine himself back to Pau with Arnica; to imagine himself somewhere--anywhere else--no longer to know where he was!... He shut his eyes, then half opening them, saw as in a dream on the wall opposite him, a woman with streaming hair issuing out of the Bay of Naples, and bringing up from the watery depths, together with a voluptuous sensation of coolness, a glittering bottle of hair-restorer. Above this advertisement were arranged, on a marble slab, more bottles, a stick of cosmetic and a powder puff, a pair of tweezers, a comb, a lancet, a pot of ointment, a glass jar in which a few leeches were indolently floating, a second glass jar which contained the long ribbon of a tapeworm and lately a third jar which was without a lid, half full of some gelatinous substance, and had pasted on its crystalline surface a label, inscribed by hand, in large fancy capitals, with the word ANTISEPTIC.

The barber now, in order to bring his work to perfection, spread afresh an unctuous lather over the already shaven chin, and with the gleaming edge of a second rasor, which he sharpened on the palm of his damp hand, he set about his final polishing. Amédée thought no more of his appointment, thought no more of leaving, began to doze off.... It was just at this moment that there came into the shop a loud-voiced Sicilian, rending the peacefulness with his clatter; it was then that the barber, plunging at once into talk, began to shave with a less attentive hand, and with a sudden sweep of his blade--pop! the pimple was beheaded!

Amédée gave a cry and was putting his hand to the cut, from which a drop of blood came oozing:

“_Niente! Niente!_” said the barber, holding back his arm; then, taking a piece of discoloured cotton-wool from the back of the drawer, he lavishly dipped it into the ANTISEPTIC and applied it to the place.

Without caring now whether the passers-by turned to look at him, Amédée fled down the hill towards the town--where else but to the first druggist’s he could find?

He showed his hurt to the man of healing--a mouldy, greenish, unhealthy-looking old fellow, who smiled and, taking a little round of sticking-plaster out of a box, passed his broad tongue over it and....

Flinging out of the shop, Fleurissoire spat with disgust, tore off the slimy plaster and, pressing his pimple between two fingers, made it bleed as much as he could. Then, having wetted his handkerchief with saliva--his own this time--he rubbed the place. Then, looking at his watch, he was seized with panic, rushed up the street at a run, and arrived in front of the Cardinal’s door, perspiring, panting, bleeding, red in the face, and a quarter of an hour late.

VI

Protos welcomed him with a finger on his lips.

“As long as the servants are there, nothing must be said to arouse suspicion. They all speak French. Not a word--not a sign to betray us! Don’t go plastering him with ‘Cardinals,’ whatever you do. Your host is Ciro Bardolotti, the chaplain. As for me, I’m not ‘Father Cave’ but plain Cave. Understand?” And abruptly changing his tone and smacking him on the shoulder, he explained in a loud voice: “Here he is, by Jove! It’s Amédée! Well, old man, you’ve been a fine time over your shave! In another moment or two, per _Baccho_, we should have sat down without you. The turkey that turneth on the spit beginneth to glow like the setting sun!” Then, in a whisper: “Ah, my dear sir, how painful it is to play a part! My heart is wrung....” Then in a loud voice: “What do I see? A cut? Thou bleedest, my lad. Run, Dorino, to the barn and fetch a cobweb--a sovereign remedy for wounds....”

Thus clowning it, he pushed Fleurissoire across the lobby, towards a terrace garden, where a table lay spread under a trellis of vine.

“My dear Bardolotti, allow me to introduce my cousin, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire. He’s a devil of a fellow, as I told you.”

“I bid you welcome, sir guest,” said Bardolotti with a flourish, but without rising from the arm-chair in which he was sitting; then, pointing to his bare feet, which were plunged in a tub of clear water:

“These pedal ablutions improve my appetite and draw the blood from my head.”

He was a funny little roundabout man, whose smooth face gave no indication of age or sex. He was dressed in alpaca; there was nothing about him to denote a high dignitary; one would have had to be exceedingly perspicacious, or else in the secret--like Fleurissoire--to have discovered a discreet touch of cardinalesque unction beneath the joviality of his manners. He was leaning sideways on the table, fanning himself languidly with a kind of cocked hat made out of a sheet of newspaper.

“Er ... er ... highly flattered ... er ... er ... what a charming garden!” stuttered Fleurissoire, finding speech and silence equally embarrassing.

“Soaked enough!” cried the Cardinal. “Hullo, someone! Take away this tub! Assunta!”

A young maidservant came running up, plump and debonair; she took up the tub and emptied it over a flower-bed; her breasts were bursting out of her stays and all a-quiver beneath the muslin of her bodice; she stayed laughing and lingering beside Protos, and the gleam of her bare arms made Fleurissoire uncomfortable. Dorino put the fiaschi down on the table, which had no cloth on it; and the sun, streaming joyously through the wreaths of vine, set its frolic touch of light and shade on the dishes.

“We don’t stand upon ceremony here,” said Bardolotti, and he put on the paper hat. “You take my meaning, my dear sir?”

In a commanding tone, emphasising the syllables and beating with his fist on the table, Father Cave repeated in his turn:

“We don’t stand upon ceremony here!”

Fleurissoire gave a knowing wink. Did he take their meaning? Yes, indeed, and there was no need for reiteration; but he racked his brains in vain for a pregnant sentence that would say nothing and convey everything.

“Speak! Speak!” prompted Protos. “Make a pun or two. They understand French perfectly.”

“Come, come, sit down!” said Ciro. “My dear Cave, stick your knife into this _pastecca_ and slice it up into Turkish crescents. Are you one of those persons, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire, who prefer the pretentious melons of the north--prescots--cantaloups--whatnots--to our streaming Italian watermelons?”

“Nothing, I’m sure, could come up to this--but please allow me to refrain; I’m feeling a bit squeamish,” said Amédée, who was still heaving with repugnance at the recollection of the druggist.

“Well, then, some figs at any rate! Dorino has just picked them.”

“No, not any either. Excuse me.”

“That’s bad! That’s bad! Make a pun or two,” whispered Protos in his ear. Then aloud: “We must dose that squeamish stomach of yours with a little wine and get it ready for the turkey. Assunta, fill our worthy guest’s glass!”

Amédée was obliged to pledge his hosts and drink more than he was accustomed to; this, added to the heat and fatigue of the day, soon fuddled him. He joked with less effort. Protos made him sing; his voice was shrill but it enraptured his audience. Assunta wanted to kiss him. And yet from the depths of his poor battered faith there rose a sickening and undefinable distress; he laughed so as not to cry. He admired Cave’s easy naturalness.... Who but Fleurissoire and the Cardinal could ever have imagined that he was playing a part? Bardolotti’s dissimulation and self-possession were for that matter, no whit inferior to the _abbé’s_, and he laughed and applauded and lewdly jostled Dorino, when Cave, upsetting Assunta in his arms, nuzzled her with his face; and then, as Fleurissoire, with a bursting heart, bent towards Cave and murmured: “How you must be suffering!” Cave seized his hand behind Assunta’s back and pressed it silently, his head turned aside and his eyes cast up to Heaven.

Then, rising abruptly, Cave clapped his hands:

“Now then, you must leave us! No, you can clear away later. Be off with you! Via! Via!”

He went to make certain that Dorino and Assunta were not eavesdropping, and came back with a face turned suddenly long and grave, while the Cardinal, passing his hand over his countenance, effaced in an instant all its profane and factitious gaiety.

“You see, Monsieur de la Fleurissoire, you see, my son, to what we are reduced! Oh, this acting! this shameful acting!”

“It makes me turn in loathing,” added Protos, “from even the most innocent joys--from the purest gaiety.”

“God will count it to your credit, my poor dear Father Cave,” went on the Cardinal, turning towards Protos; “God will reward you for helping me to drain this cup,” and, by way of symbol, he tossed off the wine which remained in his half-emptied glass, while the most agonised disgust was painted on his features.

“What!” cried Fleurissoire, bending forward, “is it possible that even in this retreat and under this borrowed habit, your Eminence....”

“My son, call me plain Monsieur.”

“Forgive me! I thought in private....”

“Even when I am alone I tremble.”

“Can you not choose your servants?”

“They are chosen for me; and those two you have seen....”

“Ah! if I were to tell him,” said Protos, “that they have gone straight off to report our most trifling words to....”

“Is it possible that in the palace....”

“Hush! No big words! You’ll get us hanged. Don’t forget that it’s to the chaplain Ciro Bardolotti that you’re speaking.”

“I am at their mercy,” wailed Ciro.

And Protos, who was sitting with his arms crossed on the table, leant across it towards Ciro.

“And if I were to tell him,” said he, “that you are never left alone, night or day, for a single hour!”

“Yes, whatever disguise I put on,” continued the bogus Cardinal, “I can never be sure that some of the secret police aren’t at my heels.”

“What! Do these people here know who you are?”

“You misunderstand him,” said Protos. “You are one of the few persons--and I say it before God--who can pride themselves on establishing any resemblance between Cardinal San-Felice and the modest Bardolotti. But try to understand this--their enemies are not the same! While the Cardinal in his palace has to defend himself against the freemasons, chaplain Bardolotti is threatened by the....”

“Jesuits!” interrupted the chaplain wildly.

“That has not yet been explained to him,” said Protos.

“Ah! If we’ve got the Jesuits against us too!” sobbed Fleurissoire. “But who would have thought it? Are you sure?”

“Reflect a little; you will see it is quite natural. You must understand that the Holy See’s recent policy, all made up as it is of conciliation and compromise, is just the thing to please them and that the last encyclicals are exactly to their taste. Perhaps they are not aware that the Pope who promulgated them is not the _real_ one; but they would be heart-broken if he were changed.”

“If I understand you rightly,” Fleurissoire took him up, “the Jesuits are allied with the freemasons in this affair.”

“How do you make that out?”

“But Monsieur Bardolotti has just revealed....”

“Don’t make him say absurdities.”

“I’m sorry. I know so little about politics.”

“That is why you must believe just what you are told and no more: two great parties are facing each other--the Lodge and the Company of Jesus; and as we who are in the secret cannot get support from either of them without discovering ourselves, we have them both against us.”

“What do you think of that? Eh?” asked the Cardinal.

Fleurissoire had given up thinking; he was utterly bewildered.

“Yes, they are all against us,” went on Protos; “such is always the way when one has truth on one’s side.”

“Ah! how happy I was when I knew nothing!” wailed Fleurissoire. “Alas! never, never more shall I be able to know nothing!” ...

“He has not yet told you all,” continued Protos, touching him gently on the shoulder. “Prepare for something more terrible still....” Then, leaning forward, he whispered: “In spite of every precaution, the secret has leaked out; a certain number of sharpers are using it to make a house-to-house collection in the departments which have a reputation for piety; they act in the name of the Crusade and rake in money which in reality ought to come to us.”

“How frightful!”

“Added to which,” said Bardolotti, “they throw discredit and suspicion on us and oblige us more than ever to make use of the greatest cunning and caution.”

“Look here! Read this!” said Protos, holding out a copy of the _Croix_ to Fleurissoire; “it’s the day before yesterday’s paper. This short paragraph tells its own story!”

“‘We cannot too earnestly warn devout souls against certain individuals who are going about the country disguised as ecclesiastics, and in particular against a certain pseudo-canon who, under pretext of being entrusted with a secret mission, shamefully abuses the credulity of the public and actually extorts money from them for a so-called CRUSADE FOR THE DELIVERANCE OF THE POPE. The name alone sufficiently proclaims the absurdity of the business.’”

Fleurissoire felt the ground give way beneath his feet.

“Whom can one trust then? Shall I tell you in my turn, gentlemen, that it is perhaps due to this very swindler--this false canon, I mean--that I am with you to-day?”

Father Cave looked gravely at the Cardinal, then, striking his fist on the table:

“I suspected as much!” he cried.

“Everything contributed to make me fear,” continued Fleurissoire, “that the person who informed me of the affair was herself a victim of this rogue’s blandishments.”

“It would not surprise me,” said Protos.

“You see now,” went on Bardolotti, “how difficult our position is, between these sharpers on the one hand, who have stepped into our shoes, and the police on the other, who, when they mean to catch _them_, may very well lay hold upon _us_ instead.”

“What is one to do?” wailed Fleurissoire. “I see danger everywhere.”

“Are you surprised now at our excessive prudence?” asked Bardolotti.

“And can you fail to understand that at moments we do not hesitate to clothe ourselves in the livery of sin and feign indulgence towards the most culpable of pleasures?”

“Alas!” stammered Fleurissoire, “you at any rate do no more than feign, and you only simulate sin to hide your virtues. But I....” And as the fumes of wine and the vapours of melancholy, drunken retchings and hiccuping sobs all beset him at once, he began--bent double in Protos’s direction--by bringing up his lunch and then went on to tell a muddled story of his evening with Carola and the lamented loss of his virginity. Bardolotti and Father Cave had a hard job to prevent themselves from bursting into laughter.

“But have you been to confession, my son?” asked the Cardinal, full of solicitude.

“I went next morning.”

“Did the priest give you absolution?”

“Far too readily. That’s why I’m so uneasy. But how could I confide to him that I was no ordinary pilgrim ... reveal what it was that brought me here?... No, no! It’s all over now. It was a chosen mission that demanded the service of a blameless life. I was the very man. And now it’s all over! I have fallen!” Again he was shaken by sobs and as he struck little blows on his breast, he repeated: “I’m no longer worthy! I’m no longer worthy!...” Then he went on in a kind of chant: “Ah! you who hear me, you who see my anguish, judge me, condemn me, punish me.... Tell me what extraordinary penance will wash away my extraordinary guilt. What chastisement?”

Protos and Bardolotti looked at one another. The latter rose at last and began to pat Amédée on the shoulder:

“Come, come, my son! You mustn’t let yourself go like that. Well, yes! you have sinned, but, hang it all, you are still needed. (You’ve dirtied yourself; here, take this napkin; rub it off.) But of course I understand your anguish, and since you appeal to us, we will give you the means of redeeming yourself. (You’re not doing it properly. Let me help you.)”

“Oh, don’t trouble! Thank you! Thank you!” said Fleurissoire as Bardolotti, scrubbing the while, went on:

“At the same time, I understand your scruples; out of respect to them, I will begin by setting you a little task; there’s nothing conspicuous about it, but it will give you the opportunity of atoning and be a test of your devotion.”

“I ask nothing more.”

“Dear Father Cave, have you that little cheque about you?”

Protos pulled a paper out of the inner pocket of his shirt.

“Surrounded on all sides by enemies as we are,” went on the Cardinal, “we sometimes find it difficult to cash the offerings which a few generous souls send us in response to our secret solicitations. Watched at the same time by the freemasons and the Jesuits, by the police and by the swindlers, it would not be suitable for us to be seen presenting cheques or money orders at the banks and post offices, where our person might be recognised. The sharpers Father Cave was telling you about just now have thrown such discredit on our collections!” (Protos, in the meantime, was thrumming impatiently on the table.) “In short, here is a modest little cheque for six thousand francs which I beg you, my son, to cash in our stead; it is drawn on the Credito Commerciale of Rome by the Duchess of Ponte Cavallo; though it was addressed to the archbishop, the name of the payee has purposely been left a blank, so that it may be cashed by the bearer. Do not scruple to sign it with your own name, which will arouse no suspicions. Take care not to let yourself be robbed of it or of.... What is the matter, my dear Father Cave? You seem agitated.”

“Go on! Go on!”

“...or of the money which you will bring back to me ... let me see ... you return to Rome to-night; you can take the six o’clock express to-morrow evening; you will be at Naples again at ten and you will find me waiting for you at the station. After that we will think of employing you on some worthier errand.... No, no, my son, do not kiss my hand. Can you not see there is no ring on it?”

Amédée had half prostrated himself at his feet. The Cardinal touched his forehead, and Protos, taking him by the arm, shook him gently:

“Come, come! another glass before you start. I am very sorry I can’t go back to Rome with you; but I’m kept here by all sorts of business--besides, it’s better we shouldn’t be seen together. Good-bye! Let me embrace you, my dear Fleurissoire. May God keep you! I thank Him for having permitted me to know you.”

He accompanied Fleurissoire to the door, and as he was leaving:

“Ah! sir,” he said, “what do you think of the Cardinal? Is it not distressing to see the state to which persecution has reduced such a noble intelligence?”

Then, as he went back to the bogus Cardinal:

“You fathead! That was a bright idea of yours, wasn’t it, to get your cheque endorsed by a silly ass who hasn’t even got a passport, and whom I shall have to shadow?”

But Bardolotti, heavy with sleep, let his head roll upon the table, murmuring:

“We must keep the old ’uns busy.”

* * * * *

Protos went indoors to take off his wig and his peasant’s costume; he appeared a little later, looking thirty years younger and dressed like a bank clerk or a shop assistant of inferior grade. He had very little time to catch the train he knew Fleurissoire was going to take, and he went off without taking leave of the slumbering Bardolotti.

VII

Fleurissoire got back to Rome and the Via dei Vecchierelli that same evening. He was extremely tired and persuaded Carola to allow him to sleep.

The next morning, as soon as he woke, his spot, from the way it felt, seemed to him odd; he examined it in the glass and found that a yellowish scab had formed over the part that had been grazed; the whole had a decidedly nasty look. As at that moment he heard Carola outside on the landing, he called her in and begged her to examine the place. She led Fleurissoire up to the window and at first glance assured him:

“It’s not what you think.”

To tell the truth, Amédée had not thought particularly of _it_, but Carola’s attempt to reassure him had the contrary effect of filling him with alarm. For, indeed, directly she asserted that it was not _it_, it meant there was a chance that it might be. After all, was she really certain that it wasn’t? It seemed to him quite natural that it should be; for there was no doubt that he had sinned; he deserved that it should be _it_; it must be _it_. A cold shudder went down his spine.

“How did you get it?” she asked.

Ah! what signified that occasional cause--the rasor’s cut or the chemist’s spittle? The real, the root cause, the one that had earned him this chastisement, could he with decency tell her what it was? Would she understand him if he did? She would laugh, no doubt.... As she repeated her question:

“It was a barber,” he said.

“You ought to put something on it.”

This solicitude swept away his last doubts; what she had said at first was merely to reassure him; he saw himself with his face and body eaten away by boils--an object of disgust to Arnica; his eyes filled with tears.

“Then you think....”

“No, no, dearie, you mustn’t get into such a state; you look like a funeral. In the first place, it would be impossible to tell it at this stage, even if it is that.”

“It is! It is!... Oh! it serves me right! It serves me right!” he repeated.

She was touched.

“And, besides, it never begins like that. Shall I call Madam in to tell you so?... No? Well, then, you’d better go out a little to distract your thoughts. Go and get a glass of Marsala.” She kept silent for a moment. At last, unable to restrain herself any longer:

“Listen,” she broke out. “I’ve something serious to tell you. You didn’t happen to meet a sort of _curé_ yesterday, with white hair, did you?”

“Why?” asked Fleurissoire in amazement.

“Well ...” she hesitated again; then, looking at him and seeing how pale he was, she went on impulsively: “Well, don’t trust him. Take my word for it, you poor lamb; he means to fleece you. I oughtn’t to tell you so, but ... don’t you trust him.”

Amédée was getting ready to go out, not knowing whether he was on his head or on his heels; he was already on the stairs, when she called him back:

“And mind, if you see him again, don’t tell him that I said anything. You’d as good as murder me.”

* * * * *

Decidedly, life was becoming too complicated for Amédée. And, what is more, his feet were frozen, his head burning and his ideas topsyturvy. How was he to know where he was, if Father Cave himself turned out to be a humbug?... Then, the Cardinal too perhaps?... But the cheque then? He took the paper out of his pocket, felt it and was reassured by its reality. No, no! It wasn’t possible! Carola was wrong. And then what did she know of the mysterious interests that compelled poor Cave to play double? It was much more likely that the whole thing was some paltry vengeance of Baptistin’s, against whom, in fact, the _abbé_ had warned him.... No matter! he would keep his eyes open wider than ever; he would suspect Cave for the future just as he already suspected Baptistin; and who knows if even Carola ...?

“And, indeed,” he said to himself, “here we have at once the consequence and the proof of that initial vice--the collapse of the Holy See; everything comes tottering down with that. Whom can one trust if not the Pope? And once the corner-stone on which the Church was built gives way, nothing else deserves to be true.”

Amédée was walking hurriedly in the direction of the post office; he was in great hopes of finding news from home--honest, comfortable news, on which he could at length rest his wearied confidence. The slight mistiness of early morning and that southern profusion of light in which everything seemed melting away into a vaporous haze--seemed losing substance and reality--increased his dizziness; he walked as though in a dream, doubting the solidity of the ground, of the walls--doubting the actual existence of the people he passed--doubting, above all, his own presence in Rome.... Then he pinched himself so as to wake from this horrid dream and find himself again in Pau, in his own bed, with Arnica already up and bending over him with the accustomed question on her lips: “Have you slept well, dear?”

At the post office they recognised him and made no difficulty in giving him another letter from his wife.

“...I have just heard from Valentine de Saint-Prix,” wrote
Arnica, “that Julius is in Rome, too, where he has been summoned to
a congress. I am so glad to think that you will meet him!
Unfortunately Valentine was not able to give me his address. She
thinks he is at the Grand Hotel, but she isn’t sure. She knows,
however, that he is going to the Vatican on Thursday morning; he
wrote beforehand to Cardinal Pazzi so as to be given an audience.
He has just been to Milan, where he saw Anthime, who is in great
distress because he can’t get what the Church promised him after
his conversion; so Julius means to go and ask the Holy Father for
justice; for of course he knows nothing about it as yet. He is
sure to tell you about his visit and then you will be able to
inform him.

“I hope you are being very careful to take precautions against the
malaria and that you are not tiring yourself too much. I shall be
so glad when you write to say that you are coming home....” Etc.

Then, scribbled in pencil across the fourth page, a few words from Blafaphas:

“If you go to Naples, you should take the opportunity of finding
out how they make the hole in the macaroni. I am on the brink of a
new discovery.”

Joy rang through Amédée’s heart like a clarion. But it was accompanied by a certain misgiving. Thursday, the day of the audience, was that very day. He had not dared send his clothes to the wash and he was running short of clean linen--at any rate, he was afraid so. That morning he had put on yesterday’s collar; but it suddenly ceased to seem sufficiently clean, now that he knew there was a chance of seeing Julius. The joy that this circumstance would otherwise have caused him was slightly dashed. As to returning to the Via dei Vecchierelli, it was not to be thought of if he intended to catch his brother-in-law on his way out from the audience--and this would be less agitating than looking up at the Grand Hotel. At any rate, he took care to turn his cuffs; as for his collar, he pulled his comforter up to cover it, which had the added advantage of concealing his pimple as well.

But what did such trifles matter? The fact is, Fleurissoire felt unspeakably cheered by his letter; and the prospect of renewing contact with one of his own people, with his own past life, abolished at one sweep the monsters begotten of his traveller’s imagination. Carola, Father Cave, the Cardinal, all floated before him like a dream which is suddenly interrupted by the crowing of the cock. Why had he left Pau? What sense was there in this absurd fable which had disturbed him in his happiness? There was a Pope, bless us! and he would soon be hearing Julius declare that he had seen him. A Pope--that was enough. Was it possible that God should have authorised such a monstrous substitution? Fleurissoire would certainly never have believed it if it had not been for his absurd pride in the part he had to play in the business.

Amédée was walking hurriedly; it was all he could do to prevent himself from running; at last he was regaining confidence, whilst around him once more everything recovered weight and size, and natural position and convincing reality. He was holding his straw hat in his hand; when he arrived in front of the basilica, he was in such a state of lofty exhilaration that he began to walk round the fountain on the right-hand side; and as he passed to the windward of the spray, allowing it to wet him, he smiled up at the rainbow.

Suddenly he came to an abrupt stop. There, close to him, sitting on the base of the fourth pillar of the colonnade, surely that was Julius he caught sight of? He hesitated to recognise him, for if his attire was respectable, his attitude was very far from being so; the Comte de Baraglioul had placed his black straw Cronstadt beside him on the crook of his walking-stick, which he had stuck into the ground between two paving-stones, and all regardless of the solemnity of the spot, with his right foot cocked up on his left knee (like any prophet in the Sixtine Chapel), he was propping a note-book on his right knee, while from time to time his pencil, poised in air, swooped down upon the pages, and he began to write; so absorbed was his attention, and the dictates of his inspiration so urgent, that Amédée might have turned a somersault in front of him without his noticing it. He was speaking to himself as he wrote; and though the splashing of the fountain drowned his voice, the movement of his lips was plainly visible.

Amédée drew near, going discreetly round by the other side of the pillar. As he was about to touch him on the shoulder:

“In that case, what does it matter?” declaimed Julius, and he consigned these words with a final flourish to his note-book; then, putting his pencil in his pocket and rising abruptly, he came nose to nose with Amédée.

“In Heaven’s name, what are _you_ doing here?”

Amédée, trembling with emotion, began to stutter without being able to reply; he convulsively pressed one of Julius’s hands between both his own. Julius, in the meanwhile, was examining him:

“My poor fellow, what a sight you look!”

Providence had dealt unkindly with Julius; of the two brothers in-law who were left to him, one was a church mouse and the other a scarecrow. It was less than three years since he had seen Amédée--but he thought him aged by at least twelve; his cheeks were sunken; his Adam’s apple was protuberant; his magenta comforter enhanced the paleness of his face; his chin was quivering; his blear eyes rolled in a way which should have been pathetic, but was merely grotesque; his yesterday’s expedition had left him with a mysterious hoarseness, so that his voice seemed to come from a long way off. Full of his preoccupations:

“So you have seen him?” he said.

“Seen whom?” asked Julius.

This “whom” sounded in Amédée’s ears like a knell and a blasphemy. He particularised discreetly:

“I thought you had just come from the Vatican.”

“So I have. Excuse me, I was thinking of something else.... If you only knew what has happened to me!”

His eyes were sparkling; he looked on the verge of jumping out of his skin.

“Oh, please!” entreated Fleurissoire, “talk about that afterwards; tell me first of all about your visit. I’m so impatient to hear....”

“Does it interest you?”

“You’ll soon know how much. Go on, go on, I beg you.”

“Well, then,” began Julius, seizing hold of Fleurissoire by one arm and dragging him away from the neighbourhood of St. Peter’s, “perhaps you may have heard in what miserable poverty our poor brother Anthime has been living as a result of his conversion. He is still waiting in vain for what the Church promised to give him in order to make up for the loss inflicted on him by the freemasons. Anthime has been duped; so much must be admitted. I don’t know, my dear fellow, how this affair strikes you--as for me, I consider it an absolute farce ... but it’s thanks to it perhaps that I’m more or less clear as to the matter in hand, about which I’m most anxious to talk to you. Well, then--a _creature of inconsequence_! That’s going rather far perhaps ... and no doubt his apparent inconsequence hides what is, in reality, a subtler and more recondite sequence--the important point is that what makes him act should not be a matter of interest, or, as the usual phrase is, that he should not be merely actuated by interested motives.”

“I don’t follow you very well,” said Amédée.

“True, true! I was straying from the subject of my visit. Well, then, I had determined to take Anthime’s business in hand.... Ah, my dear fellow, if you’d seen the apartment in which he’s living in Milan! ‘You can’t possibly stay on here,’ I said to him at once. And when I think of that unfortunate Veronica! But he’s going in for asceticism--turning into a regular saint; he won’t allow anyone to pity him--and as for blaming the clergy! ‘My dear friend,’ I said to him, ‘I grant you that the higher clergy are not to blame, but it can only be because they know nothing about it. You must let me go and tell them how matters stand.’”

“I thought that Cardinal Pazzi....” suggested Fleurissoire.

“Yes, but it wasn’t any good. You see, these high dignitaries are all afraid of compromising themselves. It was necessary for someone who was quite an outsider to take the matter up. Myself, for instance. For just see in what a wonderful way discoveries are made!--I mean, the most important ones; the thing seems like a sudden illumination--but not at all--in reality one hasn’t ceased thinking of it. So with me; for a long time past I had been worrying over my characters--their excessive logic, and at the same time their insufficient definition.”

“I’m afraid,” said Amédée gently, “that you’re straying from the point again.”

“Nothing of the kind,” went on Julius; “it’s you who don’t follow my idea. In short, I determined to present the petition to the Holy Father himself, and I went this morning to hand it to him.”

“Well? Quick! Did you see him?”

“My dear Amédée, if you keep interrupting all the time.... Well, you can’t imagine how difficult it is to get to see him.”

“Can’t I?” said Amédée.

“What did you say?”

“I’ll tell you by and by.”

“First of all, I had entirely to give up any idea of presenting my petition myself; it was a neat roll of paper. But as soon as I got to the second antechamber (or the third, I forget which), a great big fellow, dressed up in black and red, politely removed it.”

Amédée began to chuckle like a person with private information who knows there is good reason to laugh.

“In the next antechamber, I was relieved of my hat, which they put on a table. In the fifth or sixth, I waited for a long time in the company of two ladies and three prelates, and then a kind of chamberlain came and ushered me into the next room, where as soon as I was in the presence of the Holy Father (he was perched, as far as I could see, on a throne with a sort of canopy over it) he instructed me to prostrate myself--which I did--so that I saw nothing more.”

“But surely you didn’t keep your head bowed down so low that....”

“My dear Amédée, it’s all very well for you to talk; don’t you know that one can be struck blind with awe? And not only didn’t I dare raise my head, but every time I tried to speak of Anthime, a kind of major-domo, with a species of ruler, gave me a little tap on the back of my neck, which made me bow it again.”

“But at any rate, did _he_ speak to you?”

“Yes, about my book, which he admitted he hadn’t read.”

“My dear Julius,” said Amédée, after a moment’s silence, “what you have just told me is of the highest importance. So you didn’t see him! And from your whole account one thing stands out clear--that there’s a mysterious difficulty about seeing him. Alas! all my cruellest apprehensions are confirmed. Julius, I must now tell you ... but come along here--this street is so crowded....”

He dragged him into an almost deserted _vicolo_, and Julius, amused rather than otherwise, made no resistance.

“What I am going to confide to you is so grave.... Whatever you do, don’t make any sign. Let’s look as if we weren’t talking about anything important and make up your mind to hear something terrible.--Julius, my dear friend, the person you saw this morning....”

“Whom I didn’t see, you mean.”

“Exactly ... is not the _real one_.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I tell you that you can’t have seen the Pope, for the monstrous reason that ... I have it from a secret and unimpeachable source--the real Pope has been kidnapped.”

This astonishing revelation had the most unexpected effect upon Julius. He suddenly let go Amédée’s arm, and running on ahead, he called out at the top of his voice right across the _vicolo_:

“Oh, no! no! Not that! Good God! No! Not that!”

Then, drawing near Amédée again:

“What! I succeed--with great difficulty--in clearing my mind of the whole thing; I convince myself that there’s nothing to be expected--nothing to be hoped for--nothing to be admitted; that Anthime has been taken in--that the whole thing is quackery--that there’s nothing left to do but to laugh at it--when up you come and say: ‘Hold hard! There’s been a mistake--a miscalculation--we must begin again.’ Oh, no! Not a bit of it! Never in the world! I shan’t budge. If he isn’t the real one, so much the worse.”

Fleurissoire was horrified.

“But,” said he, “the Church....” And he regretted that his hoarseness prevented any flights of eloquence. “But supposing the Church herself is taken in?”

Julius planted himself in front of him, standing crosswise so as almost to block up the way, and in a mocking, cutting voice which was not like him:

“Well! What the dickens does it matter to you?”

Then a doubt fell upon Fleurissoire--a fresh, formless, atrocious doubt which was absorbed in some indefinable way into the thick mass of his discomfort--Julius, Julius himself, this Julius to whom he was talking, this Julius to whom he clung with all the longing of his heart-broken faith--this Julius was not the _real_ Julius either.

“What! Can it be you who say such things? You, Julius? On whom I was counting so? The Comte de Baraglioul, whose writings....”

“Don’t talk to me of my writings, I beg. I’ve heard quite enough about them this morning from your Pope--false or true, whichever he may be. Thanks to my discovery, the next ones will be better--you may count upon that. I’m anxious to talk to you now about serious matters. You’ll lunch with me, won’t you?”

“With pleasure; but I must leave you early. I’m expected in Naples this evening ... yes, on some business, which I’ll tell you about. You’re not taking me to the Grand, I hope?”

“No; we’ll go to the Colonna.”

Julius, on his side, was not at all anxious to be seen at the Grand Hotel in company with such a lamentable object as Fleurissoire; and Fleurissoire, who felt pale and worn out, was already in a twitter at being seated full in the light at the restaurant table, directly opposite his brother-in-law and exposed to his scrutinising glance. If only that glance had sought his own, it would have been more tolerable; but no, he felt it already going straight to the border line of his magenta comforter, straight to that frightful spot where the suspicious pimple was budding, hopelessly divulged. And while the waiter was bringing the hors-d’œuvre:

“You ought to take sulphur baths,” said Baraglioul.

“It’s not what you think,” protested Fleurissoire.

“I’m glad to hear it,” answered Baraglioul, who, for that matter, hadn’t thought anything; “I just offered the suggestion in passing.” Then, throwing himself back in his chair, he went on in a professorial manner:

“Now this is how it is, my dear Amédée. I contend that ever since the days of La Rochefoucauld we have all followed in his footsteps like blundering idiots; I contend that self-advantage is _not_ man’s guiding principle--that there _are_ such things as disinterested actions....”

“I should hope so,” interrupted Fleurissoire, naïvely.

“Don’t be in such a hurry, I beg. By _disinterested_ I mean gratuitous. Also that evil actions--what are commonly called evil--may be just as gratuitous as good ones.”

“In that case, why commit them?”

“Exactly! Out of sheer wantonness--or from love of sport. My contention is that the most disinterested souls are not necessarily the best--in the Catholic meaning of the word; on the contrary, from the Catholic point of view, the best-trained soul is the one that keeps the strictest accounts.”

“The one that ever feels its debt towards God,” added Fleurissoire seraphically, in an attempt to keep up to the mark.

Julius was obviously irritated by his brother-in-law’s interruptions; he thought them ludicrous.

“A contempt for what may serve is no doubt the stamp of a certain aristocracy of nature.... So once a man has shaken free from orthodoxy, from self-indulgence and from calculation, we may grant that his soul may keep no accounts at all?”

“No! No! Never! We may not grant it!” exclaimed Fleurissoire vehemently; then suddenly frightened by the sound of his own voice, he bent towards Baraglioul and whispered:

“Let’s speak lower; we shall be overheard.”

“Pooh! How could anyone be interested in what we are saying?”

“Oh, my dear Julius, I see you have no conception what the people of this country are like. I’ve spent only four days here, but during those four days the adventures I’ve had have been endless, and of a kind to teach me caution--pretty forcibly too--though it wasn’t in my nature, I swear. I am being tracked!”

“It’s your imagination.”

“I only wish it were! But what’s to be done? When falsehood takes the place of truth, truth must needs dissemble. As for me, with this mission that has been entrusted to me (I’ll tell you about it presently), placed as I am between the Lodge and the Society of Jesus, it’s all up with me. I am an object of suspicion to everyone; everything is an object of suspicion to me. Suppose I were to confess to you, my dear Julius, that just now when you met my distress with mockery, I actually doubted whether it was really you to whom I was talking--whether you weren’t an imitation Julius.... Suppose I were to tell you that this morning before I met you, I actually doubted my own reality--doubted whether I was really here in Rome--whether I wasn’t just dreaming--and whether I shouldn’t wake up presently at Pau, lying peacefully beside Arnica, back again in my everyday life.”

“My dear fellow, you’ve got fever.”

Fleurissoire seized his hand and in a voice trembling with emotion:

“Fever!” he cried. “You’re right! It’s fever I’ve got--a fever that cannot--that _must_ not be cured; a fever which I hoped would take you too when you heard what I had to reveal--which I hoped--yes, I own it--you too would catch from me, my brother, so that we might burn together in its consuming fires.... But no! I see only too clearly now that the path I follow--the dark and dangerous path I am called upon to follow--must needs be solitary too; your own words have proved it to me. What, Julius? Can it be true? _He_ is not to be seen? No one succeeds in seeing him?”

“My dear fellow,” said Julius, disengaging himself from his clasp and in his turn laying a hand on the excited Amédée’s arm, “my dear fellow, I will now confess something I didn’t dare tell you just now. When I found myself in the Holy Father’s presence ... well, I was seized with a fit of absent-mindedness....”

“Absent-mindedness?” repeated Fleurissoire, aghast.

“Yes. I suddenly caught myself thinking of something else.”

“Am I really to believe you?”

“For it was precisely at that very moment that I had my revelation. ‘Well, but,’ said I to myself, pursuing my first idea, ‘supposing the evil action--the crime--is gratuitous, it will be impossible to impute it to its perpetrator and impossible, therefore, to convict him.’”

“Oh!” sighed Amédée, “are you at it again?”

“For the motive of the crime is the handle by which we lay hold of the criminal. And if, as the judge will point out, _is fecit cui prodest_.... You’ve studied law, haven’t you?”

“I beg your pardon?” said Amédée, with the beads of perspiration standing on his brow.

But at that moment the dialogue was suddenly interrupted; the restaurant page-boy came up to them holding a plate on which lay an envelope inscribed with Fleurissoire’s name. Petrified with astonishment, he opened the envelope and found inside it these words:

“You have not a moment to lose. The train for Naples starts at
three o’clock. Ask Monsieur de Baraglioul to go with you to the
Crédit Industriel, where he is known and where he will be able to
testify to your identity.”

“There! What did I tell you?” whispered Amédée, to whom this incident was a relief rather than otherwise.

“Yes. I admit it’s very odd. How on earth do they know my name and that I have an account at the Crédit Industriel?”

“I tell you they know everything.”

“I don’t much fancy the tone of the note. The writer might have at any rate apologised for interrupting us.”

“What would have been the use? He knows well enough that everything must give way to my mission. I’ve a cheque to cash.... No, it’s impossible to tell you about it here; you can see for yourself that we are being watched.” Then, taking out his watch: “Yes, there’s only just time.”

He rang for the waiter.

“No, no,” said Julius. “You’re my guest. The Crédit’s not far off; we can take a cab if necessary. Don’t be flurried. Oh, I wanted to say that if you’re going to Naples this evening you can make use of this circular ticket of mine. It’s in my name, but it doesn’t matter.” (For Julius liked to be obliging.) “I took it in Paris, thinking that I should be going further south; but I’m kept here by this congress. How long do you think of staying?”

“As short a time as possible. I hope to be back to-morrow.”

“Then I’ll expect you to dinner.”

* * * * *

At the Crédit Industriel, thanks to the Comte de Baraglioul’s introduction, Fleurissoire had no difficulty in cashing his cheque for six bank-notes, which he slipped into the inner pocket of his coat. In the meantime he had told his brother-in-law, more or less coherently, the tale of the cheque, the Cardinal and the _abbé_. Baraglioul, who went with him to the station, listened with only half an ear.

On their way, Fleurissoire went into a shirtmaker’s to buy himself a collar, but he didn’t put it on at once, so as not to keep Julius waiting outside the shop.

“Haven’t you got a bag?” he asked as Fleurissoire joined him.

Fleurissoire would have been only too glad to go and fetch his shawl and his night things; but own up to the Via dei Vecchierelli before Baraglioul? It couldn’t be thought of.

“Oh, only for one night!” he said brightly. “Besides, there isn’t time to go round by my hotel.”

“Where are you staying?”

“Oh, behind the Coliseum,” replied Amédée at a venture.

It was as if he had said: “Oh, under a bridge!”

Julius looked at him again:

“What a funny fellow you are!”

Did he really seem so queer? Fleurissoire mopped his brow. For a few moments they paced backwards and forwards in front of the station in silence.

“Well, we must say good-bye now,” said Baraglioul, holding out his hand.

“Couldn’t you ... couldn’t you come with me?” stammered Fleurissoire timidly. “I don’t exactly know why, but I’m a little nervous about going by myself.”

“You came to Rome by yourself. What can happen to you? Excuse me for not going with you on to the platform, but the sight of a train going off always gives me an inexpressible feeling of sadness. Good-bye. Good luck! And bring back my return ticket to Paris with you when you come to the Grand Hotel to-morrow.”