Preciozi laughed at these jokes, as if they were a child’s bright sayings; but at times Cæsar appeared to him to be an innocent soul, and at other times a Machiavellian who dissembled his insidious purposes under an extravagant demeanour.
When Preciozi was involved in some historic dissertation, Cæsar used to ask him ingenuously:
“But listen, abbe; does this really interest you?”
Preciozi would admit that the past didn’t matter much to him, and then with one accord, they would burst out laughing.
Cæsar said that Preciozi and he were the most anti-historic men going about in Rome.
One morning they went to the Piazza del Campidoglio. It was drizzling; the wet roofs shone; the sky was grey.
“This intrusion of the country into Rome,” said Cæsar, “is what gives the city its romantic aspect. These hills with trees on them are very pretty.”
“Only pretty, Don Cæsar? They are sublime,” retorted Preciozi.
“What amazement I shall produce in you, my dear abbé, when I tell you that all my knowledge in respect to the Capitol reduces itself to the fact that some orator, I don’t know who, said that near the Capitol is the Tarpeian Rock.”
“You know nothing more about it?”