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The Eternal City, a novel by Hall Caine |
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Part 4. David Rossi - Chapter 5 |
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_ PART FOUR. DAVID ROSSI CHAPTER V The day was fine, and the city was bright with many flags in honour of the King. All the streets leading from the royal palace to the Hall of the Deputies were lined with people. The square in front of the Parliament House was kept clear by a cordon of Carabineers, but the open windows of the hotels and houses round about were filled with faces. David Rossi entered the house by the little private door for deputies in the side street. The chamber was already thronged, and as full of movement as a hive of bees. Ladies in light dresses, soldiers in uniform, diplomatists wearing decorations, senators and deputies in white cravats and gloves, were moving to their places and saluting each other with bows and smiles. Rossi slipped into the place he usually occupied among the deputies. It was the corner seat by the door on the left of the royal canopy, immediately facing the section, which had been apportioned to the Court tribune. He did not lift his eyes as he entered, but he was conscious of a tall, well-rounded yet girlish figure in a grey dress that glistened in a ray of sunshine, with dark hair under a large black hat, and flashing eyes that seemed to pierce into his own like a shaft of light. Beautiful ladies with big oriental eyes were about her, and young deputies were using their opera-glasses upon them with undisguised curiosity. There was much gossip, some laughter, and a good deal of gesticulation. The atmosphere was one of light spirits, approaching gaiety, the atmosphere of the theatre or the ballroom. The clock over the reporters' gallery showed seven minutes after the hour appointed, when the walls of the chamber shook with the vibration of a cannon-shot. It was a gun fired at the Castle of St. Angelo to announce the King's arrival. At the same moment there came the muffled strains of the royal hymn played by the band in the piazza. The little gales of gossip died down in an instant, and in dead silence the assembly rose to its feet. A minute afterwards the King entered amid a fanfare of trumpets, the shouts of many voices, and the clapping of hands. He was a young man, in the uniform of a general, with a face that was drawn into deep lines under the eyes by ill-health and anxiety. Two soldiers, carrying their brass helmets with waving plumes, walked by his side, and a line of his Ministers followed. His Queen, a tall and beautiful girl, came behind, surrounded by many ladies. The King took his seat under the baldacchino, with his Ministers on his left. The Queen sat on his right hand, with her ladies beside her. They bowed to the plaudits of the assembly, and the drawn face of the young King wore a painful smile. The Baron Bonelli, in court dress and decorations, stood at the King's elbow, calm, dignified, self-possessed--the one strong face and figure in the group under the canopy. After the cheering and the shouting had subsided he requested the assembly, at the command of His Majesty, to resume their seats. Then he handed a paper to the King. It was the King's speech to his Parliament, and he read it nervously in a voice that had not learned to control itself. But the speech was sufficiently emphatic, and its words were grandiose and even florid. It consisted of four clauses. In the first clause the King thanked God that his country was on terms of amity with all foreign countries, and invoked God's help in the preservation of peace. The second clause was about the increase of the army. "The army," said the King, "is very dear to me, as it has always been dear to my family. My illustrious grandfather, who granted freedom to the kingdom, was a soldier; my honoured father was a soldier, and it is my pride that I am myself a soldier also. The army was the foundation of our liberty and it is now the security of our rights. On the strength and stability of the army rest the power of our nation abroad and the authority of our institutions at home. It is my firm resolve to maintain the army in the future as my illustrious ancestors have maintained it in the past, and therefore my Government will propose a bill which is intended to increase still further its numbers and its efficiency." This was received with a great outburst of applause and the waving of many handkerchiefs. It was observed that some of the ladies shed tears. The third clause was about the growth and spread of anarchism. "My house," said the King, "gave liberty to the nation, and now it is my duty and my hope to give security and strength. It is known to Parliament that certain subversive elements, not in Italy alone, but throughout Europe, throughout the world, have been using the most devilish machinations for the destruction of all order, human and divine. Cold, calculating criminals have perpetrated crimes against the most innocent and the most highly placed, which have sent a thrill of horror into all humane hearts. My Government asks for an absolute power over such criminals, and if we are to bring security to the State, we must reinvigorate the authority to which society trusts the high mandate of protecting and governing." A still greater outburst of cheering interrupted the young King, who raised his head amid the shouts, the clapping of hands, and the fluttering of handkerchiefs, and smiled his painful smile. "More than that," continued the King, "I have to deplore the spread of associations, sodalities, and clubs, which, by an erroneous conception of liberty, are disseminating the germs of revolt against the State. Under the most noble propositions about the moral and economical redemption of the people is hidden a propaganda for the conquest of the public powers. "My aim is to gain the affection of my people, and to interest them in the cause of order and public security, and therefore my Government will present an urgent bill, which is intended to stop the flowering of these parasitic organisations, by revising these laws of the press and of public meeting, in whose defects agitators find opportunity for their attacks on the doctrines of the State." A prolonged outburst of applause followed this passage, mingled with a tumult of tongues, which went on after the King had begun to read again, rendering his last clause--an invocation of God's blessing on the deliberations of Parliament--almost inaudible. The end of the speech was a signal for further cheering, and when the King left the hall, bowing as before, and smiling his painful smile, the shouts of "Long live the King," the clapping of hands, and the waving of handkerchiefs followed him to the street. The entire ceremony had occupied twelve minutes. Then the clamour of voices drowned the sound of the royal hymn outside. Deputies were climbing about to join their friends among the ladies, whose light laughter was to be heard on every side. David Rossi rose to go. Without lifting his head, he had been conscious that during the latter part of the King's speech many eyes were fixed upon him. Playing with his watch-chain, he had struggled to look calm and impassive. But his heart was sick, and he wished to get away quickly. A partition, shielding the door of the corridor, stood near to his seat, and he was trying to get round it. He heard his name in the air around him, mingled with significant trills and unmistakable accents. All at once he was conscious of a perfume he knew, and of a girlish figure facing him. "Good-day, Honourable," said a voice that thrilled him like the strings of a harp drawn tight. He lifted his head and answered. It was Roma. Her face was lighted up with a fire he had never seen before. Only one glance he dared to take, but he could see that at the next instant those flashing eyes would burst into tears. The tide was passing out by the front doors where the carriages and the reporters waited, but Rossi stepped round to the back. He was on the way to the office of his newspaper, and dipping into the Corso from a lane that crossed it, he came upon the King's carriage returning to the Quirinal. It was entirely surrounded by soldiers, the military commander of Rome on the right, the commander of the Carabineers on the left, and the Cuirassiers, riding two deep, before and behind, so that the King and Queen were scarcely visible to the cheering crowd. Last in the royal procession came an ordinary cab containing two detectives in plain clothes. The office of the _Sunrise_ was in a narrow lane out of the Corso. It was a dingy building of three floors, with the machine-rooms on the ground-level, the composing-rooms at the top, and the editorial rooms between. Rossi's office was a large apartment, with three desks, that were intended for the editor and his day and night assistants. His day assistant received him with many bows and compliments. He was a small man with an insincere face. Rossi drank a cup of coffee and settled to his work. It was an article on the day's doings, more fearless and outspoken than he had ever published before. Such a day as they had just gone through, with the flying of flags and the playing of royal hymns, was not really a day of joy and rejoicing, but of degradation and shame. If the people had known what they were doing, they would have hung their flags with crape and played funeral marches. "Such a scene as we have witnessed to-day," he wrote, "like all such scenes throughout the world, whether in Germany, Russia, and England, or in China, Persia, and the darkest regions of Africa, is but proof of the melancholy fact that while man, as the individual, has been nineteen hundred years converted to Christianity, man, as the nation, remains to this day for the most part utterly pagan." The assistant editor, who had glanced over the pages of manuscript as Rossi threw them aside, looked up at last and said: "Are you sure, sir, that you wish to print this article?" "Quite sure." The man made a shrug of his shoulders, and took the copy upstairs. The short day had closed in when Rossi was returning home. Screamers in the streets were crying early editions of the evening papers, and the cafes in the Corso were full of officers and civilians, sipping vermouth and reading glowing accounts of the King's enthusiastic reception. Pitiful! Most pitiful! And the man who dared to tell the truth must be prepared for any consequences. David Rossi told himself that he _was_ prepared. Henceforth he would devote himself to the people, without a thought of what might happen. Nothing should come between him and his work--nothing whatever--not even ... but, no, he could not think of it! _ |
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