Beatrice walking with a priest--ay, I am not sure it would n't
be more accurate to say conspiring with a priest: but you
shall judge.
They were in a room of the Palazzo Udeschini, at Rome--a
reception room, on the piano nobile. Therefore you see it: for
are not all reception-rooms in Roman palaces alike?
Vast, lofty, sombre; the walls hung with dark-green tapestry--a
pattern of vertical stripes, dark green and darker green; here
and there a great dark painting, a Crucifixion, a Holy Family,
in a massive dim-gold frame; dark-hued rugs on the tiled floor;
dark pieces of furniture, tables, cabinets, dark and heavy; and
tall windows, bare of curtains at this season, opening upon a
court--a wide stone-eaved court, planted with fantastic-leaved
eucalyptus-trees, in the midst of which a brown old fountain,
indefatigable, played its sibilant monotone.
In the streets there were the smells, the noises, the heat, the
glare of August of August in Rome, "the most Roman of the
months," they say; certainly the hottest, noisiest, noisomest,
and most glaring. But here all was shadow, coolness,
stillness, fragrance-the fragrance of the clean air coming in
from among the eucalyptus-trees.
Beatrice, critical-eyed, stood before a pier-glass, between two
of the tall windows, turning her head from side to side,
craning her neck a little--examining (if I must confess it) the
effect of a new hat. It was a very stunning hat--if a man's
opinion hath any pertinence; it was beyond doubt very
complicated. There was an upward-springing black brim; there
was a downward-sweeping black feather; there was a defiant
white aigrette not unlike the Shah of Persia's; there were
glints of red.
The priest sat in an arm-chair--one of those stiff, upright
Roman arm-chairs, which no one would ever dream of calling
easy-chairs, high-backed, covered with hard leather, studded
with steel nails--and watched her, smiling amusement,
indulgence.
He was an oldish priest--sixty, sixty-five. He was small,
lightly built, lean-faced, with delicate-strong features: a
prominent, delicate nose; a well-marked, delicate jaw-bone,
ending in a prominent, delicate chin; a large, humorous mouth,
the full lips delicately chiselled; a high, delicate, perhaps
rather narrow brow, rising above humorous grey eyes, rather
deep-set. Then he had silky-soft smooth white hair, and,
topping the occiput, a tonsure that might have passed for a
natural bald spot.
He was decidedly clever-looking; he was aristocratic-looking,
distinguished-looking; but he was, above all, pleasant-looking,
kindly-looking, sweet-looking.
He wore a plain black cassock, by no means in its first youth
--brown along the seams, and, at the salient angles, at the
shoulders, at the elbows, shining with the lustre of hard
service. Even without his cassock, I imagine, you would have
divined him for a clergyman--he bore the clerical impress, that
odd indefinable air of clericism which everyone recognises,
though it might not be altogether easy to tell just where or
from what it takes its origin. In the garb of an Anglican
--there being nothing, at first blush, necessarily Italian,
necessarily un-English, in his face--he would have struck you,
I think, as a pleasant, shrewd old parson of the scholarly
--earnest type, mildly donnish, with a fondness for gentle mirth.
What, however, you would scarcely have divined--unless you had
chanced to notice, inconspicuous in this sober light, the red
sash round his waist, or the amethyst on the third finger of
his right hand--was his rank in the Roman hierarchy. I have
the honour of presenting his Eminence Egidio Maria Cardinal
Udeschini, formerly Bishop of Cittareggio, Prefect of the
Congregation of Archives and Inscriptions.