Cæsar arose, and after shaking the monk’s fat hand, he left the convent. He returned to Rome on foot, crossing the river again, and looking at the Tiberine island; and arrived without hurrying at the hotel. He wrote to his friend Azugaray, requesting him to discover, by the indications he gave him, who the rich widow that had property in Toledo could be.
THE LICENTIATE MIRÓ
The next day Cæsar decided to pursue his investigations, and went to see Father Miró.
Father Miró lived in a college in the Via Monserrato. Cæsar inspected the map of Rome, looking for that street, and found that it is located in the vicinity of the Campo de’ Fiori, and took his way thither.
The spring day was magnificent; the sky was blue, without a cloud; the tiled roofs of some of the palaces were decorated with borders of plants and flowers; in the street, dry and flooded with sunshine, a water-carrier in a cart full of fat, green bottles, passed by, singing and cracking his whip.
Cæsar crossed the Campo de’ Fiori, a very lively, plebeian square, full of canvas awnings with open stalls of fruit under them. In the middle stood the statue of Giordano Bruno, with a crown of flowers around its neck.
Then he took the Via de’ Cappellari, a narrow lane and dirty enough. From one side to the other clothes were hung out to dry.
He came to the college and entered the church contiguous to it. He asked for Father Miró; a sacristan with a long moustache and a worn blue overcoat, took him to another entrance, made him mount an old wooden staircase, and conducted him to the office of the man he was looking for.
Father Miró was a tiny little man, dark and filthy, with a worn-out cassock, covered with dandruff, and a large dirty square cap with a big rosette.
“Will you tell me what you want?” said the little priest in a sullen tone.