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Beyond, a wild waste of field and broken land led up to Santa Maria Maggiore; and the grand old bells sent their far voices ringing in deep harmony to our windows; and on the Eve of Saint Peter's day, when Saint Peter's was a dream of stars in the distance and the gorgeous fireworks gleamed in the dark sky above the Pincio, we used to climb the high tower above the house and watch the still illumination and the soaring rockets through a grated window, till the last one had burst and spent itself, and we crept down the steep stone steps, half frightened at the sound of our own voices in the ghostly place.
Personally I like it in the fading light from close at hand, and in a bright light from a distance, as one sees it, for instance, from the Pincio. We spoke a little, but not much, of the war. They were both for fighting on till final victory, whatever the cost, and both spoke with admiration of the inflexible and stubborn spirit of the British nation.
So lofty was the post from which Paullus gazed, as he overlooked the mighty town, that his eye reached even beyond the city-walls on the Quirinal, and passing over the broad valley at its northern base, all glimmering with uncertain lights and misty shadows, rested upon the Collis Hortulorum, or mount of gardens, now called Monte Pincio, which was at that time covered, as its name indicates, with rich and fertile shrubberies.
In the grounds of the Villa Borghese, the little Roman Bois de Boulogne, there were certainly some majestic clumps of greenery, some regal avenues where carriages took a turn in the afternoon before the obligatory drive to the Pincio; but Pierre was more touched by the reserved garden of the villa that villa dazzling with marble and now containing one of the finest museums in the world.
Then here and there were the Pincio showing like a stagnant mere, the Villa Medici uprearing its campanili, the castle of Sant' Angelo brown like rust, the spire of Santa Maria Maggiore aglow like a burning taper, the three churches of the Aventine drowsy amidst verdure, the Palazzo Farnese with its summer-baked tiles showing like old gold, the domes of the Gesu, of Sant' Andrea della Valle, of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, and yet other domes and other domes, all in fusion, incandescent in the brazier of the heavens.
On returning on one occasion to the Pincio Pierre spent a delightful morning there, penetrated by the charm of this little nook with its scanty evergreens, and its admirable vista of all Rome and St. Peter's rising up afar off in the soft limpid radiance.
He spent an afternoon on the Pincio for his convictions, and then retired into private life. 'Let me serve in a foreign army France, Austria, Russia, I do not care. They are more horrified than ever. 'You have not a spark of patriotism! To serve a foreign power! How dreadful! And as for the Russians, they are all heretics. Perhaps they are. I will try diplomacy. 'What?
The Monte Pincio seemed a vast amphitheatre filled with spectators; the balconies of the two churches at the corner of the Via del Babuino and the Via di Ripetta were crammed; the steps even seemed a parti-colored sea, that was impelled towards the portico; every niche in the wall held its living statue. What the count said was true the most curious spectacle in life is that of death.
Extremely ignorant, like all the daughters of the Roman nobility, having learnt the little she knew in a convent of French nuns, she had grown up cloistered in the black Boccanera palace, having no knowledge of the world than by those daily drives to the Corso and the Pincio on which she accompanied her mother.
She sat listlessly watching the crowd on Monte Pincio; children chasing each other, or toddling about with nurses in bright-red jackets; carriages going round and round, ever and anon bringing into the sunshine gleams of gay Roman scarfs, or bright autumnal ribbons fluttering in the breeze.
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