IV

When the Baron awoke on Saturday he remembered Roma with a good deal of

self-reproach, and everything that happened during the following days

made him think of her with tenderness. During the morning an

aide-de-camp brought him the casket containing the Collar of the

Annunziata, and spoke a formal speech. He fingered the jewelled band and

golden pendant as he made the answer prescribed by etiquette, but he was

thinking of Roma and the joy she might have felt in hailing him cousin

of the King.

Towards noon he received the telegram which announced the death of his

maniac wife, and he set off instantly for his castle in the Alban Hills.

He remained long enough to see the body removed to the church, and then

returned to Rome. Nazzareno carried to the station the little hand-bag

full of despatches with which he had occupied the hour spent in the

train. They passed by the tree which had been planted on the first of

Roma's Roman birthdays. It was covered with white roses. The Baron

plucked one of them, and wore it in his button-hole on the return

journey.

Before midnight he was back in the Piazza Leone, where the Commendatore

Angelelli was waiting with news of the arrest of Rossi. He gave orders

to have the editor of the Sunrise sent to him so that he might make a

tentative suggestion. But in spite of himself his satisfaction at

Rossi's complete collapse and possible extermination was disturbed by

pity for Roma.

Sunday was given up to the interview with the journalist, the last

preparations for the Jubilee, and various secular duties. Monday's

ceremonials began with the Mass. The Piazza of the Pantheon was lined

with a splendid array of soldiers in glistening breastplates and

helmets, a tall bodyguard through which the little King passed to his

place amid the playing of the national hymn. In the old Pantheon itself,

roofed with an awning of white silk which bore the royal arms, flares

were burning up to the topmost cornice of the round walls. A temporary

altar decorated in white and gold was ablaze with candles, and the

choir, conducted by a fashionable composer of opera, were in a golden

cage. The King and Queen and royal princes sat in chairs under a velvet

canopy, and there were tribunes for cabinet ministers, senators,

deputies, and foreign ambassadors. Religion was necessary to all state

functions, and the Mass was a magnificent political demonstration

carried out on lines arranged by the Baron himself. He had forgotten

God, but he had remembered the King, and he had thought of Roma also.

She wept at all religious ceremonies, and would have shed tears if she

had been present at this one.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024