She knew they were talking of it, but she did not think he had been appointed yet. Her husband was there, why not ask him?
Sensitive to literal truths only, Schmoll said:
“Your husband is not yet a Minister? When he is appointed, I will ask you for an interview. It is an affair of the highest importance.”
He paused, throwing from his gold spectacles the glances of a blind man and of a visionary, which kept him, despite the brutal exactitude of his temperament, in a sort of mystical state of mind. He asked, brusquely:
“Were you in Italy this year, Madame?”
And, without giving her time to answer:
“I know, I know. You went to Rome. You have looked at the arch of the infamous Titus, that execrable monument, where one may see the seven-branched candlestick among the spoils of the Jews. Well, Madame, it is a shame to the world that that monument remains standing in the city of Rome, where the Popes have subsisted only through the art of the Jews, financiers and money-changers. The Jews brought to Italy the science of Greece and of the Orient. The Renaissance, Madame, is the work of Israel. That is the truth, certain but misunderstood.”
And he went through the crowd of visitors, crushing hats as he passed.
Princess Seniavine looked at her friend from her box with the curiosity that the beauty of women at times excited in her. She made a sign to Paul Vence who was near her:
“Do you not think Madame Martin is extraordinarily beautiful this year?”