“Nothing doing; I don’t know what that is either,” thought Cæsar; “the truth is that one is terribly ignorant. To make matters even, what a well of knowledge about questions of finance there is in my cranium!”
Cæsar continued on to the Piazza Venezia, contemplated the palace of the Austrian Embassy, yellow, battlemented; and stopped under a big white umbrella, stuck up to protect the switchman of the tramway.
“Here, at least, the weight of tradition or history is not noticeable. I don’t believe this canvas is a piece of Brutus’s tunic, or of Pompey’s campaign tent. I feel at home here; this canvas modernizes me.”
The square was very animated at that moment: groups of seminarians were passing in robes of black, red, blue, violet, and sashes of contrasting colours; monks of all sorts were crossing, smooth-shaven, bearded, in black, white, brown; foreign priests were conversing in groups, wearing little dishevelled hats adorned with a tassel; horrible nuns with moustaches and black moles, and sweet little white nuns, with a coquettish air.
The clerical fauna was admirably represented. A Capuchin friar, long-bearded and dirty, with the air of a footpad, and an umbrella by way of a blunderbuss or musket under his arm, was talking to a Sister of Charity.
“Undoubtedly religion is a very picturesque thing,” murmured Cæsar. “A spectacular impressario would not have the imagination to think out all these costumes.”
Cæsar took the Corso. Before he reached the Piazza Colonna it began to rain. The coachmen took out enormous umbrellas, all rolled up, opened them and stood them in iron supports, in such a way that the box-seat was as it were under a campaign tent.
Cæsar took refuge in the entrance to a bazaar. The rain began to assume the proportions of a downpour. An old friar, with a big beard, a white habit, and a hood, armed with an untamable umbrella, attempted to cross the square. The umbrella turned inside out in the gusts of wind, and his beard seemed to be trying to get away from his face.
“Pavero frate!” said one of the crowd, smiling.
A priest passed hidden under an umbrella. A tough among the refugees in the bazaar-doorway said that you couldn’t tell if it was a woman or a priest, and the cleric, who no doubt heard the remark, threw a severe and threatening look at the group.