The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome | Page 3

names fell hastily from the driver's lips as his horse went on
at a fast trot. There was the Palazzo Colonna, with its garden edged by
meagre cypresses; the Palazzo Torlonia, almost ripped open by recent
"improvements"; the Palazzo di Venezia, bare and fearsome, with its
crenelated walls, its stern and tragic appearance, that of some fortress
of the middle ages, forgotten there amidst the commonplace life of
nowadays. Pierre's surprise increased at the unexpected aspect which
certain buildings and streets presented; and the keenest blow of all was
dealt him when the cabman with his whip triumphantly called his
attention to the Corso, a long narrow thoroughfare, about as broad as
Fleet Street,* white with sunshine on the left, and black with shadows
on the right, whilst at the far end the Piazza del Popolo (the Square of
the People) showed like a bright star. Was this, then, the heart of the
city, the vaunted promenade, the street brimful of life, whither flowed
all the blood of Rome?

* M. Zola likens the Corso to the Rue St. Honore in Paris, but I have
thought that an English comparison would be preferable in the present
version.--Trans.
However, the cab was already entering the Corso Vittorio Emanuele,
which follows the Via Nazionale, these being the two piercings effected
right across the olden city from the railway station to the bridge of St.
Angelo. On the left-hand the rounded apsis of the Gesu church looked
quite golden in the morning brightness. Then, between the church and
the heavy Altieri palace which the "improvers" had not dared to
demolish, the street became narrower, and one entered into cold, damp
shade. But a moment afterwards, before the facade of the Gesu, when
the square was reached, the sun again appeared, dazzling, throwing
golden sheets of light around; whilst afar off at the end of the Via di
Ara Coeli, steeped in shadow, a glimpse could be caught of some sunlit
palm-trees.
"That's the Capitol yonder," said the cabman.
The priest hastily leant to the left, but only espied the patch of greenery
at the end of the dim corridor-like street. The sudden alternations of
warm light and cold shade made him shiver. In front of the Palazzo di
Venezia, and in front of the Gesu, it had seemed to him as if all the
night of ancient times were falling icily upon his shoulders; but at each
fresh square, each broadening of the new thoroughfares, there came a
return to light, to the pleasant warmth and gaiety of life. The yellow
sunflashes, in falling from the house fronts, sharply outlined the
violescent shadows. Strips of sky, very blue and very benign, could be
perceived between the roofs. And it seemed to Pierre that the air he
breathed had a particular savour, which he could not yet quite define,
but it was like that of fruit, and increased the feverishness which had
possessed him ever since his arrival.
The Corso Vittorio Emanuele is, in spite of its irregularity, a very fine
modern thoroughfare; and for a time Pierre might have fancied himself
in any great city full of huge houses let out in flats. But when he passed
before the Cancelleria,* Bramante's masterpiece, the typical monument
of the Roman Renascence, his astonishment came back to him and his

mind returned to the mansions which he had previously espied, those
bare, huge, heavy edifices, those vast cubes of stone-work resembling
hospitals or prisons. Never would he have imagined that the famous
Roman "palaces" were like that, destitute of all grace and fancy and
external magnificence. However, they were considered very fine and
must be so; he would doubtless end by understanding things, but for
that he would require reflection.**
* Formerly the residence of the Papal Vice-Chancellors.
** It is as well to point out at once that a palazzo is not a palace as we
understand the term, but rather a mansion.--Trans.
All at once the cab turned out of the populous Corso Vittorio Emanuele
into a succession of winding alleys, through which it had difficulty in
making its way. Quietude and solitude now came back again; the olden
city, cold and somniferous, followed the new city with its bright
sunshine and its crowds. Pierre remembered the maps which he had
consulted, and realised that he was drawing near to the Via Giulia, and
thereupon his curiosity, which had been steadily increasing, augmented
to such a point that he suffered from it, full of despair at not seeing
more and learning more at once. In the feverish state in which he had
found himself ever since leaving the station, his astonishment at not
finding things such as he had expected, the many shocks that his
imagination had received, aggravated his passion beyond endurance,
and brought him