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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 2. The Republic Of Man - Chapter 1 |
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_ PART TWO. THE REPUBLIC OF MAN CHAPTER I The Piazza Navona is the heart and soul of old Rome. In other quarters of the living city you feel tempted to ask: "Is this London?" or, "Is this Paris?" or, "Is this New York or Berlin?" but in the Piazza Navona you can only tell yourself, "This is Rome!" In an apartment-house of the Piazza Navona, David Rossi had lived during the seven years since he became Member of Parliament for Rome. The ground floor is a Trattoria, half eating-house and half wine-shop, with rude frescoes on its distempered walls, representing the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius in eruption. A passage running by the side of the Trattoria leads to the apartments overhead, and at the foot of the staircase there is a porter's lodge, a closet always lighted by a lamp, which burns down the dark passage day and night, like a bloodshot eye. In this lodge lived a veteran Garibaldian, in his red shirt and pork-pie hat, with his old wife, wrinkled like a turkey, and wearing a red handkerchief over her head, fastened by a silver pin. David Rossi's apartments consisted of three rooms on the fourth floor, two to the front, the third to the back, and a lead flat opening out of them on to the roof. In one of the front rooms on the afternoon of the Pope's Jubilee, a young woman sat knitting with an open book on her lap, while a boy of six knelt by her side, and pretended to learn his lesson. She was a comely but timid creature, with liquid eyes and a soft voice, and he was a shock-headed little giant, like the cub of a young lion. "Go on, Joseph," said the woman, pointing with her knitting-needle to the line on the page. "'And it came to pass....'" But Joseph's little eyes were peering first at the clock on the mantel-piece, and then out at the window and down the square. "Didn't you say they were to be here at two, mamma?" "Yes, dear. Mr. Rossi was to be set free immediately, and papa, who ran home with the good news, has gone back to fetch him." "Oh! 'And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the Valley of Sorek, whose name was Delilah. And the lords of the Philistines came unto her, and said unto her, Entice him and see wherein his great strength lieth....' But, mamma...." "Go on with your lesson, Joseph. 'And she made him sleep....'" "'And she made him sleep upon her knees, and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head....'" At that moment there came a knock at the door, whereupon the boy uttered a cry of delight, and with a radiant face went plunging and shouting out of the room. "Uncle David! It's Uncle David!" The tumultuous voice rolled like baby thunder through the apartment until it reached the door, and then it dropped to a dead silence. "Who is it, Joseph?" "A gentleman," said the boy. _ |
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