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Inevitable

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<h2 class="main">CHAPTER VII</h2> At the hotel, however, he spoke to Cornélie politely, as though there had been no embarrassment, no wrangling interchange of words between them, and he even asked her quite simply—because his mother and sisters had some calls to pay that afternoon—whether they should go to the Palatine together. “I passed it the other day,” she said, indifferently. “And don’t you intend to see the ruins?” “No.” “Why not?” “They don’t interest me. I can’t see the past in them. I merely see ruins.” “But then why did you come to Rome?” he asked, irritably. She looked at him and could have burst into sobs: “I don’t know,” she said, meekly. “I could just as well have gone somewhere else. But I had formed a great idea of Rome; and Rome disappoints me.” “How so?” “I find it hard and inexorable and devoid of feeling. I don’t know why, but that’s the impression it makes upon me. And I am in a mood at present which somehow makes me want something less insensible and imperturbable.” He smiled: “Come along,” he said. “Come with me to the Palatine. I must show you Rome. It is so beautiful.” She felt too much depressed to remain alone; and so she put on her things and left the hotel with him. The cabmen outside cracked their whips: “Vole? Vole?” they shouted. He picked out one: “This is Gaetano,” he said. “I always take him. He knows me, don’t you, Gaetano?” “Si, signorino. Cavallo di sangue, signorina!” said Gaetano, pointing to his horse. They drove away. “I am always frightened of these cabmen,” said Cornélie. “You don’t know them,” he answered, smiling. “I like them. I like the people. They’re nice people.” “You approve of everything in Rome.” “And you submit without reserve to a mistaken impression.” “Why mistaken?” “Because that first impression of Rome, as hard and unfeeling, is always the same and always mistaken.” “Yes, it’s that. Look, we are driving by the Forum. Whenever I see the Forum, I think of Miss Hope and her orange lining.” He felt annoyed and did not answer. “This is the Palatine.” They alighted and passed through the entrance. “This wooden staircase takes us to the Palace of Tiberius. Above the palace, on the top of the arches, is a garden from which we look down on the Forum.” “Tell me about Tiberius. I know that there were good and bad emperors. We were taught that at school. Tiberius was a bad emperor, wasn’t he?” “He was a dismal brute. But why do you want me to tell you about him?” “Because otherwise I can take no interest in those arches and chambers.” “Then let us go up to the top and sit in the garden.” They did so. “Don’t you feel Rome here?” he asked. “I feel the same everywhere,” she replied. But he seemed not to hear her: “It’s the atmosphere around you,” he continued. “You should try to forget our hotel, to forget Belloni and all our fellow-visitors and yourself. When anybody first arrives here, he has all the usual trouble about the hotel, his rooms, the table-d’hôte, the vaguely likable or dislikable people. You’ve got over that now. Clear your mind of it. And try to feel only the atmosphere of Rome. It’s as if the atmosphere had remained the same, notwithstanding that the centuries lie piled up one above the other. First the middle ages covered the antiquity of the Forum and now it is hidden everywhere by our nineteenth-century craze for travel. There you have Miss Hope’s orange lining. But the atmosphere has always remained the same. Unless I imagine it....” She was silent. “Perhaps I do,” he continued. “But what does that matter to me? Our whole life is imagination; and imagination is a beautiful thing. The beauty of our imagination is the consolation of our lives, to those of us who are not men of action. The past is beauty. The present is not, does not exist. And the future does not interest me.” “Do you never think about modern problems?” she asked. “The woman question? Socialism? Peace?” “Well, yes, for instance.” “No,” he smiled. “I think of them sometimes, but not about them.” “How do you mean?” “I get no further. That is my nature. I am a dreamer by nature; and my dream is the past.” “Don’t you dream of yourself?” “No. Of my soul, my inner self? No. It interests me very little.” “Have you ever suffered?” “Suffered? Yes, no. I don’t know. I feel sorry for my utter uselessness as a human being, as a son, as a man; but, when I dream, I am happy.” “How do you come to speak to me so openly?” He looked at her in surprise: “Why should I be reticent about myself?” he asked. “I either don’t talk or I talk as I am doing now. Perhaps it is a little odd.” “Do you talk to every one so intimately?” “No, hardly to anybody. I once had a friend ... but he’s dead. Tell me, I suppose you consider me morbid?” “No, I don’t think so.” “I shouldn’t mind if you did. Oh, how beautiful it is here! Are you drinking Rome in with your very breath?” “Which Rome?” “The Rome of antiquity. Under where we are sitting is the Palace of Tiberius. I see him walking about there, with his tall, strong figure, with his large, searching eyes: he was very strong, he was very dismal and he was a brute. He had no ideals. Farther down, over there, is the Palace of Caligula, a madman of genius. He built a bridge across the Forum to speak to Jupiter in the Capitol. That’s a thing one couldn’t do nowadays. He was a genius and a madman. When a man’s like that, there’s a good deal about him to admire.” “How can you admire an age of emperors who were brutes and mad?” “Because I see their age before my eyes, in the past, like a dream.” “How is it possible that you don’t see the present before you, with the problems of our own time, especially the eternal problem of poverty?” He looked at her: “Yes,” he said, “I know. That is my sin, my wickedness. The eternal problem of poverty doesn’t affect me.” She looked at him contemptuously: “You don’t belong to your period,” she said, coldly. “No.” “Have you ever felt hungry?” He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. “Have you ever pictured yourself leading the life of a labourer, of a factory-girl who works until she’s worn out and old and half-dead for a bare crust of bread?” “Oh, those things are so horrible and so ugly: don’t talk about them!” he entreated. The expression of her eyes was cold; the corners of her lips were depressed as though by a feeling of distaste; and she rose from her seat. “Are you angry?” he asked, humbly. “No,” she said, gently, “I am not angry.” “But you despise me, because you consider me a useless creature, an æsthete and a dreamer?” “No. What am I myself, that I should reproach you with your uselessness?” “Oh, if we could only find something!” he exclaimed, almost in ecstasy. “What?” “An aim. But mine would always remain beauty. And the past.” “And, if I had the strength of mind to devote myself to an aim, it would above all be this: bread for the future.” “How abominable that sounds!” he said, rudely but sincerely. “Why didn’t you go to London, or Manchester, or one of those black manufacturing towns?” “Because I hadn’t the strength of mind and because I think too much of myself and of a sorrow that I have had lately. And I expected to find distraction in Italy.” “And that is where your disappointment lies. But perhaps you will gradually acquire greater strength and then devote yourself to your aim: bread for the future. I sha’n’t envy you, however: bread for the Future!...” She was silent. Then she said, coldly: “It is getting late. Let us go home....” <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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