"Success to the dinner! Am sending Felice. He will give you this
letter.--R. V."
IX
It was the sweetest morning of the Roman winter. The sun shone with a
gentle radiance, and the motionless air was fragrant with the odour of
herbs and flowers. Outside the gate which leads to the old Appian Way
grooms were waiting with horses, blanketed and hooded, and huntsmen in
red coats, white breeches, pink waistcoats, and black boots, were
walking their mounts to the place appointed for the meet. In a line of
carriages were many ladies, some in riding-habits, and on foot there was
a string of beggars, most of them deformed, with here and there, at
little villages, a group of rosy children watching the procession as it
passed.
The American and English Ambassadors were riding side by side behind a
magnificent carriage with coachman and tiger in livery of scarlet and
gold.
"Who would think, to look on a scene like this, that the city is
seething with dissatisfaction?" said the Englishman.
"Rome?" said the American. "Its aristocratic indifference will not allow
it to believe that here, as everywhere else in the world, great and
fatal changes are going on all the time. These lands, for example--to
whom do they belong? Nominally to the old Roman nobility, but really to
the merchants of the Campagna--a company of middlemen who grew rich by
leasing them from the princes and subletting them to the poor."
"And the nobles themselves--how are they faring?"
"Badly! Already they are of no political significance, and the State
knows them not."
"They don't appear to go into the army or navy--what do they go into?"
"Love!"
"And meantime the Italian people?"
"Meantime the great Italian people, like the great English people, the
great German people, and the people of every country where the
privileged classes still exist, are rising like a mighty wave to sweep
all this sea-wrack high and dry on to the rocks."
"And this wave of the people," said the Englishman, inclining his head
toward the carriage in front, "is represented by men like friend Rossi?"
"Would be, if he could keep himself straight," said the American.
"And where is the Tarpeian rock of friend Rossi's politics?"
The American slapped his glossy boot with his whip, lowered his voice,
and said, "There!"
"Donna Roma?"
"A fortnight ago you heard his speech on the liveries of scarlet and
gold, and look! He's under them himself already."