The Cabala and the Woman of Andros, page 4
When we remounted the steps an hour later, then, we found the guests already arrived and awaiting their hostess. Among other privileges Miss Grier had long reserved to herself a prerogative of royalty, that of being the last arrival at one’s own parties. In the hall the maître-d’hôtel gave me a note reading: Please take in Mlle. de Morfontaine, a high Merovingian maiden who may invite you to her villa at Tivoli. In a few moments Miss Grier had slipped in and was greeting her guests in a hurried zigzag across the room. She was dressed after a costume-plate by Fortuny, conceived in salamander red and black. About her neck hung a rare medal of the Renaissance, much larger than any other woman would have ventured to wear.
As this woman wanted to be in a position to hear every word spoken at her table Rome had long had good reason to complain of the crowded arrangements of her dinners; we were packed together like the hurried diners at Modane. But she had still other conventions to challenge: she discussed the food; she reversed the direction of conversation from the right to the left hand at the least convenient opportunities; she talked to the servants, chattily; she shifted the conversation from French to English or Italian capriciously; she referred to guests who had been invited but had not been able to come. One suddenly became aware that she was not eating the courses that were served to us. She began with a little bowl of breadcrumbs and walnuts; to this she added later—while we confronted a faisan Souvaroff dressed with truffles and foie gras and graced with that ultimate dark richness which it is the privilege of Madeira to confer on game—an American cereal, soaked in hot water and touched with butter. Nor could she restrain herself from teasing her guests in a dangerous way, and with almost inspired precision: a political Duke on his dull speeches; Mrs. Osborne-Cady on the career as a concert-pianist that she had sacrificed to a more than usually disappointing home-life. For a moment at the beginning of the meal her electric eyes paused at my place and she began to murmur ominously, but thinking better of it she ordered the servant to offer me some more oeufs cardinal adding with a sort of insolence that they were the only oeufs cardinal that one could eat in Europe and that Mémé (the elder Princess Galitzine) was a little fool to vaunt her chef, who had received his training in railway-stations, etc., etc.
The high Merovingian maiden at my left was Mademoiselle Marie-Astrée-Luce de Morfontaine, daughter of Claude-Elzéar de Morfontaine and Christine Mézières-Bergh; her grandfather Comte Louis Mézières-Bergh had married Rachel Krantz, the daughter of the great financier Maxi Krantz, and had been the French ambassador to the Vatican in 1870. She was then, excessively rich, for she owned, they said, more shares in the Suez Canal than the Rothschilds: She was tall, large-limbed and bony, without somehow being too thin. Her high white face, framed between two carnelian ear pendants, recalled some symbolical figure in a frieze of Giotto, out of drawing, but radiating gaunt spiritual passions. She had a hoarse voice and a rapt manner, and for the first ten minutes said many foolish things because her mind was afar off; one felt vaguely that it would come around in its own time. This it presently did and with considerable impact. She outlined to me the whole Royalist movement in France. She seemed to believe as passionately in its aim as she depised its practice. There can be no king in France, she cried, until catholicism has had a great revival there. France cannot be great save through Rome. We are Latins; we are not Goths. They are forcing alien systems upon us. Eventually we shall find ourselves, our kings, our faith, our Latin hearts. I shall see France return to Rome before I die, she added clasping her hands before her chin. I replied faintly that both the French and Italian temperaments seemed to me singularly unrepublican, whereupon she laid her long pale hand upon my sleeve and invited me to come that week-end to her villa.
You will hear the whole argument, she said. And the Cardinal will be there.
I asked which Cardinal? The pain on her face showed me that at least for the circle in which she moved there were not seventy cardinals, but one.
Cardinal Vaini, of course. The College at present is singularly free of uninteresting priests, but surely the only cardinal with learning, with distinction, with charm, is Cardinal Vaini.
I had so often encountered learning, distinction and charm (to say nothing of piety) in the lower reaches of the Church that I was shocked to learn that these qualities were so rare higher up.
Besides she added, what other is friendly to France, the rebellious daughter? You have not yet met the Cardinal? Such knowledge! And to think that he will not write! If I may say it without disrespect His Eminence is afflicted with a sort of—inertia. The whole world is waiting for an explanation of certain contradictions in the Fathers; he is the only man who can do it; yet he remains silent. We beg him with prayers. It is in his power to effect the reentry of the Church into literature. Perhaps he might singlehanded carry through the cause we all have so at heart.
I asked shyly what cause this might be.
She turned toward me with some surprise. Why, the promulgation of the Divine Right of Kings as a dogma of the Church. We hope to have an Ecumenical Council called for that purpose within the next twenty-five years. I thought that of course you knew; in fact I assumed that you were one of our workers.
I replied that I was both an American and a Protestant, an answer that I felt relieved me of the burden of being a catholic royalist.
Oh, she said, we have many adherents who at first glance would appear to have no interest in the movement: we have Jews and agnostics, artists, and, yes, even anarchists.
I now felt quite sure that I was sitting beside an insane person. They don’t lock you up when you have millions, I said to myself. The idea of trying to collect a Council, in the Twentieth Century, to give crowns a supernatural sanction and to enroll the sanction among the articles of obligatory belief, was no mere pious revery; it was lunacy. We were prevented from returning to the subject that evening, but several times I found her spacious half-mad glance resting on me with greater implication of intimacy than I was quite ready to acknowledge.
I will send the car for you at eleven, she murmured as she passed me in leaving the table. You must come. I shall have a great favor to ask of you.
On returning to the drawing-rooms I found myself beside Ada Benoni, daughter of a popular senator. Although she seemed almost too young to go out in the evening, she had that soft cautious sophistication of well-brought-up Italian girls. I asked her almost at once if she would tell me about the Cabala.
Oh, the Cabala’s only some people’s joke, she answered. There is no Cabala, really. But I know what you mean. And the young girl’s eyes carefully estimated the distance between us and the company on all sides. By Cabala they mean a group of people that are always together and have a lot in common.
Are they all rich? I asked.
No . . . she answered thoughtfully. We mustn’t speak so loudly. Cardinal Vaini can’t be rich, nor the Duchess d’Aquilanera.
But they’re all intellectual?
The Princess d’Espoli isn’t intellectual.
Then what have they in common?
Oh, they haven’t anything in common, except . . . except that they despise most people, you and me and my father and so on. They’ve each got one thing, some great gift, and that binds them together.
Do you believe that they work together and plan trouble here and there?
The girl’s forehead wrinkled and she reddened slightly. No, I don’t think they mean to, she said softly.
But they do? I insisted.
Well, they sit over there in Tivoli and talk about us and somehow, without knowing it, they then do something.
How many of them do you know?
Oh, I know all of them a little, she replied quickly. Everybody knows all of them. Except, of course, the Cardinal. I love them all, too. They’re only bad when they’re together, she explained.
Mlle. de Morfontaine has asked me to spend the week-end at her villa in Tivoli. Will I see them there?
Oh, yes. We call that the hotbed.
Is it all right? Have you any advice to give me before I go?
No.
Yes, you have.
Well, she admitted, drawing her eyebrows together, I advise you to be . . . to be stupid. It’s hard. You must expect them to be very cordial at first. They have a way of getting very excited about people and then getting tired of them and dropping them. Except every now and then they find someone they like and they adopt him or her for good, and there’s a new member of the Cabala. Rome’s full of people who went through the rapids and didn’t stick. Miss Grier’s especially that way. She’s just met you lately, hasn’t she?
Why, yes,—just this afternoon.
Well, she’ll have you around every minute of the day for a while. She’s coming over in a minute to ask you to stay to her midnight supper. She has famous midnight suppers.
But I can’t. I was here to tea and immediately asked to dinner. It would be ridiculous to stay to midnight. . . .
It’s not ridiculous in Rome. You’re just getting into the rapids, that’s all. Everybody cultivates their friendships in rushes. It’s very exciting. Don’t try and fight against it. If you do that you lose the best of everything. Do you want to know how I know about your being in the rapids? Well, I’ll tell you. My fiancé was to have come to the dinner tonight, and an hour before, a note was brought to his house asking him to come next Friday instead and go to the Opera also. She does that often and it only means that she has found some new friend she insists on keeping by her that evening. Of course the second invitation, the consoling one, is always bigger and more showy than the first, but we get angry.
I should say so. I’m sorry I was the one to prevent . . .
Oh, that’s all right, she answered. Vittorio’s out waiting for me in the car now.
So it was that when Blair and I presented ourselves before Miss Grier to take our leave, she drew me aside with an irresistible vehemence and standing against my ear said: You are to come back here tonight. There will be some people in to a late supper whom I want you to meet. You can, can’t you?
I made some show of protest, and the effect was appalling. But, my dear young man, she cried, I’ll have to ask you to trust me. There is something of the first importance that I want to put to you. The fact is I have already telephoned a very dear friend of mine. . . . Please now, just as a favor to me, put off what you had planned. There’s a very great service we want to ask you.
Of course with that I fairly folded up, as much with surprise as compliance. Apparently the whole Cabala wanted me to do favors.
Thank you, thank you so much. About twelve.
It was then about ten. Two hours to kill. We were about to go to the Circus, when Blair exclaimed:
Say, do you mind if I drop in and see a friend of mine for a minute. If I’m going Tuesday I ought to say goodbye and see how he is. Do you hate sick people?
No.
He’s a nice fellow, but he hasn’t long to live. He’s published some verse in England; one of the thousand, you know. It got an awful rap. Maybe he’s quite a poet, but he can’t get over that diction. He’s awfully adjectival.
We climbed down the Spanish Steps and turned in at the left. On the stairs Blair stopped and whispered: I forgot to tell you that he’s watched over by a friend, a sort of water-colourist. They’re dead-poor and it’s all they can do to get a doctor. I meant to lend them some more money—what have you with you?
We assembled a hundred lire and knocked at the door. Receiving no answer we pushed it open. There was a lamp burning in the further of two mean rooms. It stood beside a bed and cast its light on the remorseless details of a barricade built during the last stages of consumption against a light vaulter; bowls and bottles and stained cloths. The sleeping invalid was sitting high in bed, his head turned away from us.
The artist must have gone out for a minute to look for some money, said Blair. Let’s stay around a bit.
We went into the other room and sat in the dark looking at the moonlight that filled the Fountain of the Boat. There were fireworks on the Pincian Hill in memory of some battle on the Piave and the tender green of the sky seemed to tremble behind the Chinese blooms that climbed the night. A friendly tram entered the square at intervals, stopped inquiringly, and bustled out again. I tried to remember whether Virgil had died in Rome . . . no, buried near Naples. Tasso? Some piercing-sweet pages of Goethe, the particular triumph of Moissi who brings to them his wide-open eyes and elegiac voice. Presently we heard a call from the next room: Francis. Francis.
Blair went in: I guess he’s gone out a minute. Can I do something for you? I’m going in a day or two and I called around to see how much better you are. Would it tire you if we sat with you a bit? . . . Come on in, say!
For the moment Blair had forgotten the poet’s name and our introduction was slurred over. The sick man looked his extremity, but his fever gave to his eyes an eager and excited air; he seemed willing to listen or to talk for hours. My eye fell upon a rough pencilled note that lay on the table beyond the invalid’s reach: Dear Dr. Clarke: he spat up about two cupfuls of blood at 2 P.M. He complained so of hunger that I had to give him more than you said. Be back at once. F.S.
Have you been able to write anything lately? Blair began.
No.
Do you read much?
Francis reads to me. He pointed to a Jeremy Taylor on his feet. You’re Americans, aren’t you? I have a brother in America. In New Jersey. I was to have gone over there.
The conversation lapsed, but he kept staring at us, smiling and bright-eyed, as though it were swift and rare.
By the way, are there any books you’d like us to lend you?
Thank you. That would be fine.
What, for instance?
Anything.
Think of one you’d like especially.
Oh, anything. I’m not particular. Only I suppose it would be hard to find any translations from the Greek?
Here I offered to bring in a Homer in the original and stammer out an improvised translation.
Oh, I should like that most of all, he cried. I know Chapman’s well.
I replied, unthinking, that Chapman’s was scarcely Homer at all, and suddenly beheld a look of pain, as of a mortal wound, appear upon his face. To regain control of himself he bit his finger and tried to smile. I hastened to add that in its way it was very beautiful, but I could not recall my cruelty; his heart seemed to have commenced bleeding within him.
Blair asked him if he had almost enough poems for a new book.
I don’t think about books any more, he said. I just write to please myself.
But the insult to Chapman had been working in him; he now turned his face away and great tears fell upon his hands. Excuse me. Excuse me, he said. I’m not well, and I seem to . . . to do this about nothing.
There was a search for a handkerchief, but none being found he was persuaded to use mine.
I don’t want to go away without seeing Francis, said Blair. Do you know where I might find him?
Yes, yes. He’s around the corner at the Café Greco. I begged him to go and get some coffee; he’d been here all day.
So Blair left me with the poet, who seemed to have forgiven me and was ready for the hazards of further conversation. Feeling it was better I did the talking, I began to discourse upon everything, on the fireworks, on the wildflowers of Lake Albano, on Pizzetti’s sonata, on a theft in the Vatican library. His face showed clearly what matter pleased him; I experimented on it, and discovered that he was hungry for hearing things praised. He was beyond feeling indignant at abuses, beyond humor, beyond sentiment, beyond interest in any bits of antiquarian lore. Apparently for weeks together in the wretched atmosphere of the sick-room Francis had neglected to speak highly of anything and the poet wanted before he left the strange world to hear some portion of it praised. Oh, I laid it on. His eyes glowed and his hands trembled. Most of all he desired the praise of poetry. I launched upon a history of poetry, calling the singers by name, getting them wrong, assigning them to the wrong ages and languages, characterizing them with the worn epithets of an encyclopedist, and drawing upon what anec-dotage I could,—all bad, but somehow marshalling the glorious throng. I spoke of Sappho; of how a line of Euripides drove mad the citizens of Abdera; of Terence pleading with audiences to come to him rather than to the tight-rope walkers; of Villon writing his mother’s prayers before the great picture-book of a cathedral wall; of Milton in his old age, holding a few olives in his hand to remind himself of his golden year in Italy.
Quite suddenly in the middle of the catalogue he burst out fiercely: I was meant to be among those names. I was.
The boast must have revolted me a little and my face have shown it, for he cried again: I was. I was. But now it’s too late. I want every copy of my books destroyed. Let every word die, die. When I’m dead I don’t want a soul to remember me.
I murmured something about his getting well.
I know more about it than the doctor, he replied, staring at me with stern fury. I studied to be a doctor. And I watched my mother and brother die, just as I am dying now.
There was no answer for that. We sat silent. Then in a gentler voice he said:
Will you promise me something? My things weren’t good enough; they were just beginning to be better. When I am dead I want you to make sure that Francis does what he promised. There must be no name on my grave. Just write: Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
There was a noise in the next room. Blair had returned with the water-colourist. We withdrew. The poet was too sick to see us again and when I came back from the country he had died and his fame had begun to spread over the whole world.
Book Two
Marcantonio
