Cæsar often proceeded by more or less absurd hypotheses. “Suppose,” he would think, “that I had an idea, a concrete ambition. In that case it would behoove me to be reserved on such and such topics and to hint these and those ideas to people; let’s do it that way, even though it be only for sport.”
Preciozi was the only person who was able to give him any light in his investigations, because the guests at the hotel, most of them, on account of their position, thought of nothing but amusing themselves and of giving themselves airs.
Cæsar discovered that Preciozi was ambitious; but besides lacking an opening, he had not the necessary vigour and imagination to do anything.
The abbé spoke a macaronic Spanish, which he had learned in South America, and which provoked Cæsar’s laughter. He was constantly saying: “My friend,” and he mingled Gallicisms with a lot of coarse expressions of Indian or mulatto origin, and with Italian words. Preciozi’s dialect was a gibberish worthy of Babel.
The first day they went out together, the abbé wanted to show him divers of Rome’s picturesque spots. He led him behind the Quirinal, through the Via della Panetteria and the Via del Lavatore, where there is a fruit-market, to the Trevi fountain. “It is beautiful, eh?” said the abbé.
“Yes; what I don’t understand,” replied Cæsar, “is why, in a town where there is so much water, the hotel wash-basins are so small.”
Preciozi shrugged his shoulders.
“What types you have in Rome!” Cæsar went on. “What a variety of noses and expressions! Jesuits with the aspect of savants and plotters; Carmelites with the appearance of highway men; Dominicans, some with a sensual air, others with a professorial air. Astuteness, intrigue, brutality, intelligence, mystic stupor.... And as for priests, what a museum! Decorative priests, tall, with white shocks of hair and big cassocks; short priests, swarthy and greasy; noses thin as a knife; warty, fiery noses. Gross types; distinguished types; pale bloodless faces; red faces.... What a marvellous collection!”
Preciozi listened to Cæsar’s observations and wondered if the Cardinal’s nephew might be a trifle off his head.
“Point out what is noteworthy, so that I may admire it enough,” Cæsar told him. “I don’t care to burst out in an enthusiastic phrase for something of no value.”