The conquest of Rome

by Matilde Serao

The first time, the furniture fell into bits; the second, the old man fell dead, face down and arms out; the third, the walls of the house crumbled, burying everything beneath them, making a tomb of the house Donna Angelica would not visit.

His dream was perpetually changing. He thought that on the day of the first meeting in this house, he through some curious cause had forgotten the hour of the appointment, and was fretting his brain to recall whether it was for two o'clock or three, but was not sure, could not remember.

Then he left Montecitorio at noon, so as to be in time, but in the corridor he met the old Prime Minister, who stopped him, and, while stroking his flowing white beard, talked to him about the Basilicata, salt, peasants, and things scarcely intelligible to Sangiorgio, so absent-minded did he seem.

He contrived to escape from him, but on the threshold of the portico he met the Honourable Giustini, whose hump had become enormous, and whose venomous grin gave him a pain in the chest, as if a leech had been sucking his blood. Giustini barred his way, crossing his crooked legs, talking to him of Rome, Rome that pretended to be lazily asleep, but that was really very wide awake; and he clenched his arm, hurting him as he did so. Eventually Sangiorgio tore himself abruptly away from Giustini's grasp, and ran across the Piazza Colonna, where a female voice hailed him from a closed carriage. He did not want to stop, yet felt he was being drawn to the carriage against his will. A pair of black, sparkling eyes gazed upon him with love and desire; there were the luscious, alluring lips that had kissed him, and were ready to kiss him again; there were the soft, caressing hands; there was the strong, sweet odour of violets; there was Donna Elena Fiammanti, who had liked him, and liked him still, and who, without moving her lips, said to him:

'Come with me! come, remember it all! Remember when we met on Christmas Day at the Janiculum; remember the night of the ball, and the moon, and the Piazza di Spagna; remember the roses I left at your house that day; remember the kiss I gave you in the theatre after the duel; remember all my kisses, all my love; come with me—with me is joy, with me is pleasure, with me you shall not weep, with me you shall not suffer. So come, tell me what afflicts you, and I will comfort you; I will not tell you of my sorrows, me you shall have no need to comfort.'

But he bent his head, stuffed up his ears, shut his eyes, in order not to hear that fascinating voice, in order not to see that face grow mournfully sad. He said a name to himself—'Angelica'—his talisman, and it seemed as if its echo struck Donna Elena in the heart, as if she threw herself back despairingly in the carriage, and ordered the coachman to drive quickly away.

Sangiorgio ran on and on. All the carriages he met were full, all the friends he met tried to stop him, a crowd hedging him in on all sides prevented his progress. Dogs got in his way. He ran on and on, panting, panting. Now he could not be in time; it was too late. Donna Angelica would be there already. She would have gone; she would not have waited. What a long way to go, what obstacles, what hindrances! At last he had reached the place. Red in the face, out of breath, hopeless, he now stopped short. In front of the door walked the Honourable Oldofredi, sardonic, dangerous, grinning. The very wound in his face that Sangiorgio had inflicted grinned. He was walking back and forth on guard, hideous, hateful, vengeful, implacable.

* * * * *

The house was No. 62, Piazza di Spagna. At the door an itinerant flower-girl had set down her basket of spring flowers: pale, odorous Parma violets, double roses, sweet-smelling jonquils. The staircase was dark, and three doors opened upon the landing. Sangiorgio's card was affixed to the central door by two pins. In a small anteroom Noci had put a bridal coffer of handsomely carved oak, on which lay a cushion of red and yellow silk, and by its side stood three or four stools and a table. A bronze lamp was suspended from the ceiling. It was always burning, and created an illusion of night in the rather gloomy anteroom, whose ugly ceiling and whose walls were covered by painted canvas, which concealed some grotesque pictures and a large map of France. The sitting-room had a large window overlooking the square. It was a spacious, cheerful, sunny room. Damask curtains of old rose and pale green, falling over a widow-shade of yellow lace, softened the garish light of day. The walls were stretched with satin of a light nut colour, which disappeared beneath Persian rugs and squares of antique brocades, artistically draped, and held in place by a shining metal shield, by a silver scimitar, or by fan-shaped tufts of peacock's feathers. A sandalwood rosary, one of the long necklaces of perfumed beads which Turkish women are always running through their fingers to scent their hands, and to kill heavily hanging time by a monotonous pastime—such a Turkish rosary, not for praying, but for pleasure of touch and mind, a comboloi hung upon one of the walls; from the other hung a great white veil with silver stars, the gear worn by Eastern women called feredje. But the strange, dominant feature was on the walls—a piece of antique, yellow brocade, something like an oriflamme, with a Latin cross, cut lengthwise and crosswise in black velvet, a cross that stood out strikingly amid all the quiet tints of hazelnut, dull brick, and pale pink which prevailed in the room. The place was extremely luxurious. There was not a single piece of bare wooden furniture, not a table or stool with sharp corners; everything was velvet, silk, and satin. In vases of opalescent glass were hyacinths, mauve lilac, white and blue; an orchid in a Japanese vase was languidly shedding its leaves. On an immense divan eiderdown cushions lay, heaped up in a corner, in fabrics of purple, scarlet, amaranth, light pink, in short every shade of red, from the faint blush in the heart of the white rose to the darkest wine colour; this might serve for a chair, a bed, or a throne. The two windows of the bedroom also fronted upon the Piazza di Spagna; it was a sort of second parlour, draped with dark blue velvet striped white and silver. There was no bed, but only a low divan, over which lay a blue and silver cover with a long, ornate 'A' worked in the middle. Overhead a tent, which was the colour of the nocturnal sky, and, like it, sprinkled with stars, threw down a discreet shadow. It formed a peculiar triangle, sustained by silver ropes and loops. A rosewood cupboard relieved this sombre tone, besides some of the small, dainty, coquettish furniture of the kind affected by the Pompadour.