The Three Cities Trilogy: Rome | Page 4

an acute desire to satisfy himself immediately. Nine
o'clock had struck but a few minutes previously, he had the whole
morning before him to repair to the Boccanera palace, so why should
he not at once drive to the classic spot, the summit whence one
perceives the whole of Rome spread out upon her seven hills? And
when once this thought had entered into his mind it tortured him until
he was at last compelled to yield to it.
The driver no longer turned his head, so that Pierre rose up to give him
this new address: "To San Pietro in Montorio!"
On hearing him the man at first looked astonished, unable to
understand. He indicated with his whip that San Pietro was yonder, far

away. However, as the priest insisted, he again smiled complacently,
with a friendly nod of his head. All right! For his own part he was quite
willing.
The horse then went on at a more rapid pace through the maze of
narrow streets. One of these was pent between high walls, and the
daylight descended into it as into a deep trench. But at the end came a
sudden return to light, and the Tiber was crossed by the antique bridge
of Sixtus IV, right and left of which stretched the new quays, amidst
the ravages and fresh plaster-work of recent erections. On the other side
of the river the Trastevere district also was ripped open, and the vehicle
ascended the slope of the Janiculum by a broad thoroughfare where
large slabs bore the name of Garibaldi. For the last time the driver
made a gesture of good-natured pride as he named this triumphal route.
"Via Garibaldi!"
The horse had been obliged to slacken its pace, and Pierre, mastered by
childish impatience, turned round to look at the city as by degrees it
spread out and revealed itself behind him. The ascent was a long one;
fresh districts were ever rising up, even to the most distant hills. Then,
in the increasing emotion which made his heart beat, the young priest
felt that he was spoiling the contentment of his desire by thus gradually
satisfying it, slowly and but partially effecting his conquest of the
horizon. He wished to receive the shock full in the face, to behold all
Rome at one glance, to gather the holy city together, and embrace the
whole of it at one grasp. And thereupon he mustered sufficient strength
of mind to refrain from turning round any more, in spite of the impulses
of his whole being.
There is a spacious terrace on the summit of the incline. The church of
San Pietro in Montorio stands there, on the spot where, as some say, St.
Peter was crucified. The square is bare and brown, baked by the hot
summer suns; but a little further away in the rear, the clear and noisy
waters of the Acqua Paola fall bubbling from the three basins of a
monumental fountain amidst sempiternal freshness. And alongside the
terrace parapet, on the very crown of the Trastevere, there are always
rows of tourists, slim Englishmen and square-built Germans, agape

with traditional admiration, or consulting their guide-books in order to
identify the monuments.
Pierre sprang lightly from the cab, leaving his valise on the seat, and
making a sign to the driver, who went to join the row of waiting cabs,
and remained philosophically seated on his box in the full sunlight, his
head drooping like that of his horse, both resigning themselves to the
customary long stoppage.
Meantime Pierre, erect against the parapet, in his tight black cassock,
and with his bare feverish hands nervously clenched, was gazing before
him with all his eyes, with all his soul. Rome! Rome! the city of the
Caesars, the city of the Popes, the Eternal City which has twice
conquered the world, the predestined city of the glowing dream in
which he had indulged for months! At last it was before him, at last his
eyes beheld it! During the previous days some rainstorms had abated
the intense August heat, and on that lovely September morning the air
had freshened under the pale blue of the spotless far-spreading heavens.
And the Rome that Pierre beheld was a Rome steeped in mildness, a
visionary Rome which seemed to evaporate in the clear sunshine. A
fine bluey haze, scarcely perceptible, as delicate as gauze, hovered over
the roofs of the low-lying districts; whilst the vast Campagna, the
distant hills, died away in a pale pink flush. At first Pierre distinguished
nothing, sought no particular edifice or spot, but gave sight and soul
alike to the whole of Rome, to the living colossus spread out below him,
on a soil compounded of the dust of generations. Each century had
renewed the city's glory