Caesar or Nothing Part 35

"Leave her alone," exclaimed the elder son, ill at ease; "you always have to be making mother fly into a rage."

"No, my boy, no; she is the one who makes me fly into a rage."

"Giovanni Battista is used to living among G.o.ds," said Kennedy, "and he despises saints."

"No, no," replied the cast-maker; "some saints are all right. If all the churches had figures by Donatello or Robbia, I would go to church oftener; but to go and look at those statues in the Jesuit churches, those figures with their arms spread and their eyes rolling.... Oh, no!

I cannot look at such things."

Caesar could see that Giovanni Battista expressed himself very well; but that he was not precisely a star when it came to working. After the mould for the bas-relief was cleaned and fixed, the cast-maker invited Caesar and Kennedy to have a gla.s.s of wine in a wine-shop near by.

"How's this, are you leaving already, father?" said Simonetta, as he went through the shop to get to the street.

"I'm coming back, I'm coming back right away."

_SUPERSt.i.tIONS_

The three of them went to a rather dirty tavern in the same lane, and settled themselves by the window. This post was a good point of observation for that narrow street, so crowded and so picturesque.

Workmen went by, and itinerant vendors, women with kerchiefs, half head-dress and half m.u.f.fler, and with black eyes and expressive faces.

Opposite was a booth of coloured candies, dried figs strung on a reed, and various kinds of sweets.

A wine-cart pa.s.sed, and Kennedy made Caesar observe how decorative it was with its big arm-seat in the middle and its hood above, like a prompter's box.

Giovanni Battista ordered a flask of wine for the three of them. While he chatted and drank, friends of his came to greet them. They were men with beards, long hair, and soft hats, of the Garbaldi and Verdi type so abundant in Italy.

Among them were two serious old men; one was a model, a native of Frascati, with the face of a venerable apostle; the other, for contrast, looked like a buffoon and was the possessor of a grotesque nose, long, thin at the end and adorned with a red wart.

"My wife has a deadly hatred for all of them," said Giovanni Battista, laughing.

"And why so?" asked Caesar.

"Because we talk politics and sometimes they ask me for a few pennies...."

"Your wife must have a lively temper,..." said Caesar.

"Yes, an unhappy disposition; good, awfully good; but very superst.i.tious. Christianity has produced nothing but superst.i.tions."

"Giovanni Battista is a pagan, as his wife well says," a.s.serted Kennedy.

"What superst.i.tions has your wife?" asked Caesar.

"All of them. Romans are very superst.i.tious and my wife is a Roman. If you see a hunchback, it is good luck; if you see three, then your luck is magnificent and you have to swallow your saliva three times; on the other hand, if you see a humpbacked woman it is a bad omen and you must spit on the ground to keep away the _jettatura_. Three priests together is a very good sign. We ought all to get along very well in Rome, because we see three and up to thirty priests together."

"A spider is also very significant," said Kennedy; "in the morning it is of bad augury, and in the evening good."

"And at noon?" asked Caesar.

"At noon," answered Lanza, laughing, "it means nothing to speak of. But if you wish to make sure whether it is a good auspice or a bad, you kill the spider and count its legs. If they are an even number, it is a good omen; if uneven, bad."

"But I believe spiders always have an even number of legs," said Caesar.

"Certainly," responded the old man; "but my wife swears they do not; that she has seen many with seven and nine legs. It is religious unreasonableness."

"Are there many people like that, so credulous?" asked Caesar.

"Oh, lots," replied Lanza; "in the shops you will find amulets, horns, hands made of coral or horseshoes, all to keep away bad luck. My wife and the neighbour women play the lottery, by combining the numbers of their birthdays, and the ages of their fathers, their mothers, and their children. When some relative dies, they make a magic combination of the dates of birth and death, the day and the month, and buy a lottery ticket. They never win; and instead of realizing that their systems are of no avail, they say that they omitted to count in the number of letters in the name or something of that sort. It is comical, so much religion and so much superst.i.tion."

"But you confuse religion and superst.i.tion, my friend," said Kennedy.

"It's all the same," answered the old man, smiling his suavely ironical smile. "There is nothing except Nature."

"You do not believe in miracles, Giovanni Battista?" asked the Englishman.

"Yes, I believe in the earth's miracles, making trees and flowers grow, and the miracle of children's being born from their mothers. The other miracles I do not believe in. What for? They are so insignificant beside the works of Nature!"

"He is a pagan," Kennedy again stated.

_YOUNG PAINTERS_

They were chatting, when three young lads came into the tavern, all three having the air of artists, black clothes, soft hats, flowing cravats, long hair, and pipes. "Two of them are fellow-countrymen of yours," Kennedy told Caesar.

"They are Spanish painters," the old man added. "The other is a sculptor who has been in the Argentine, and he talks Spanish too."

The three entered and sat down at the same table and were introduced to Caesar. Everybody chattered. Buonacossi, the Italian, was a real type.

Of very low stature, he had a giant's torso and strong little legs. His head was like a woe-begone eagle, his nose hooked, thin, and reddish, eyes round, and hair black.

Buonacossi proved to be gay, exuberant, changeable, and full of vehemence.

He explained his artistic ideas with picturesque warmth, mingling them with blasphemies and curses. Things struck him as the best or the worst in the world. For him there doubtless were no middle terms.

One of the two Spaniards was serious, grave, jaundiced, sour-visaged, and named Cortes; the other, large, ordinary, fleshy, and coa.r.s.e, seemed rather a bully.

Giovanni Battista was not able to be long outside the workshop, no doubt because his conscience troubled him, and though with difficulty, he got up and left. Kennedy, Caesar, and the two Spaniards went toward the Piazza, del Campidoglio, and Buonacossi marched off in the opposite direction.

On reaching the Via n.a.z.ionale, Kennedy took his leave and Caesar remained with the two Spaniards. The red, fleshy one, who had the air of a bully, started in to make fun of the Italians, and to mimic their bows and salutes; then he said that he had an engagement with a woman and made haste to take his leave.

When he had gone, the grave Spaniard with the sour face, said to Caesar:

"That chap is like the dandies here; that's why he imitates them so well."

Afterwards Cortes talked about his studies in painting; he didn't get on well, he had no money, and anyway Rome didn't please him at all.

Everything seemed wrong to him, absurd, ridiculous.

Caesar, after he had said good-bye to him, murmured: "The truth is that we Spaniards are impossible people."