“Yes, it is a beautiful stage-setting, but there is no performance,” said Cæsar.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Don Calixto.
“That this is an empty place. It would have been well to build a temple as large and light as this in honour of Science, which is humanity’s great creation. These statues, instead of being stupid or warlike Popes, ought to be the inventor of vaccination or of chloroform. Then one could understand the chilliness and the fairly menacing air that everything in the place wears. Let people have confidence in the truth and in work, that is good; but that a religion founded on mysteries, on obscurities, should build a bright, challenging, flippant temple, is ridiculous.”
“Yes, yes,” said Don Calixto, always preoccupied in keeping the Canon from hearing, “you talk like a modern man. I myself, down in my heart, you know.... I believe you follow me, eh?”
“Yes, man.”
“Well, I think that all this has no transcendency.... That is to say....”
“No, it has none. You may well say so, Don Calixto.”
“But it did have it. That cannot be doubted, can it? And a great deal. This is undeniable.”
IT IS A MAGNIFICENT BUSINESS CONCERN
“It was really a magnificent business concern,” said Cæsar. “Think of monopolizing heaven and hell, selling the shares here on earth and paying the dividends in heaven! There’s no guarantee trust company or pawn-broker that pays an interest like that. And at its height, how many branches it developed! Here, in this square, I have a friend, a Jewish dealer in rosaries, who tells me his trade is flourishing. In three weeks he has sold a hundred and fifty kilos of rosaries blessed by the Pope, two hundred kilos of medals, and about half a square kilometre of scapulars.”