But she forgave me, said nothing and threw her gaze like a projector in the direction of Toppi, illumining his entire body. You, too, would have laughed had you seen how this poor old devil was set aglow and aflame by this gaze – clear from the prayer book to the fishbone with which he nearly choked to death.

Fortunately for both of us Magnus arose and invited us to follow him into the garden.

“Come, let us go into the garden,” said he. “Maria will show you her favorite flowers.”

Yes, Maria! But seek no songs of praise from me, oh poet! I was mad! I was as provoked as a man whose closet has just been ransacked by a burglar. I wanted to gaze at Maria but was compelled to look upon the foolish flowers – because I dared not lift my eyes. I am a gentleman and cannot appear before a lady without a necktie. I was seized by a curious humility. Do you like to feel humble? I do not.

I do not know what Maria said. But I swear by eternal salvation – her gaze, and her entire uncanny countenance was the embodiment of an all-embracing meaning so that any wise word I might have uttered would have sounded meaningless. The wisdom of words is necessary only for those poor in spirit. The right are silent. Take note of that, little poet, sage and eternal chatterbox, wherever you may be. Let it be sufficient for you that I have humbled myself to speak.

Ah, but I have forgotten my humility! She walked and I and Toppi crawled after her. I detested myself and this broad-backed Toppi because of his hanging nose and large, pale ears. What was needed here was an Apollo and not a pair of ordinary Americans.

We felt quite relieved when she had gone and we were left alone with Magnus. It was all so sweet and simple! Toppi abandoned his religious airs and I crossed my legs comfortably, lit a cigar, and fixed my steel-sharp gaze upon the whites of Magnus’s eyes.

“You must be off to Rome, Mr. Wondergood. They are probably worrying about you,” said our host in a tone of loving concern.

“I can send Toppi,” I replied. He smiled and added ironically:

“I hardly think that would be sufficient, Mr. Wondergood!”

I sought to clasp his great white hand but it did not seem to move closer. But I caught it just the same, pressed it warmly and he was compelled to return the pressure!

“Very well, Signor Magnus! I am off at once!” I said.

“I have already sent for the carriage,” he replied. “Is not the Campagna beautiful in the morning?”

I again took a polite look at the country-side and said with emotion:

“Yes, it is beautiful! Irwin, my friend, leave us for a moment. I have a few words to say to Signor Magnus – ”

Toppi left and Signor Magnus opened wide his big sad eyes. I again tried my steel on him, and bending forward closer to his dark face, I asked:

“Have you ever observed dear Magnus, the very striking resemblance between your daughter, the Signorina Maria, and a certain – celebrated personage? Don’t you think she resembles the Madonna?”

“Madonna?” drawled out Magnus. “No, dear Wondergood, I haven’t noticed that. I never go to church. But I fear you will be late. The Roman fever – ”

I again seized his white hand and shook it vigorously. No, I did not tear it off. And from my eyes there burst forth again those two tears:

“Let us speak plainly, Signor Magnus,” said I. “I am a straightforward man and have grown to love you. Do you want to come along with me and be the lord of my billions?”

Magnus was silent. His hand lay motionless in mine. His eyes were lowered and something dark seemed to pass over his face, then immediately to disappear. Finally he said, seriously and simply:

“I understand you, Mr. Wondergood – but I must refuse. No, I will not go with you. I have failed to tell you one thing, but your frankness and confidence in me compels me to say that I must, to a certain extent, steer clear of the police.”

“The Roman police,” I asked, betraying a slight excitement. “Nonsense, we shall buy it.”

“No, the international,” he replied. “I hope you do not think that I have committed some base crime. The trouble is not with police which can be bought. You are right, Mr. Wondergood, when you say that one can buy almost any one. The truth is that I can be of no use to you. What do you want me for? You love humanity and I detest it. At best I am indifferent to it. Let it live and not interfere with me. Leave me my Maria, leave me the right and strength to detest people as I read the history of their life. Leave me my Campagna and that is all I want and all of which I am capable. All the oil within me has burned out, Wondergood. You see before you an extinguished lamp hanging on a wall, a lamp which once – Goodbye.”

“I do not ask your confidence, Magnus,” I interjected.

“Pardon me, you will never receive it, Mr. Wondergood. My name is an invention but it is the only one I can offer to my friends.”

To tell the truth: I liked “Thomas Magnus” at that moment. He spoke bravely and simply. In his face one could read stubbornness and will. This man knew the value of human life and had the mien of one condemned to death. But it was the mien of a proud, uncompromising criminal, who will never accept the ministrations of a priest! For a moment I thought: My Father had many bastard children, deprived of legacy and wandering about the world. Perhaps Thomas Magnus is one of these wanderers? And is it possible that I have met a brother on this earth? Very interesting. But from a purely human, business point of view, one cannot help but respect a man whose hands are steeped in blood!

I saluted, changed my position, and in the humblest possible manner, asked Magnus’s permission to visit him occasionally and seek his advice. He hesitated but finally looked me straight in the face and agreed.

“Very well, Mr. Wondergood. You may come. I hope to hear from you things that may supplement the knowledge I glean from my books. And, by the way, Mr. Toppi has made an excellent impression upon my Maria” —

“Toppi?”

“Yes. She has found a striking resemblance between him and one of her favorite saints. She goes to church frequently.”

Toppi a saint! Or has his prayer book overbalanced his huge back and the fishbone in his throat. Magnus gazed at me almost gently and only his thin nose seemed to tremble slightly with restrained laughter. – It is very pleasant to know that behind this austere exterior there is so much quiet and restrained merriment!

It was twilight when we left. Magnus followed us to the threshold, but Maria remained in seclusion. The little white house surrounded by the cypress trees was as quiet and silent as we found it yesterday, but the silence was of a different character: the silence was the soul of Maria.

I confess that I felt rather sad at this departure but very soon came a new series of impressions, which dispelled this feeling. We were approaching Rome. We entered the brightly illuminated, densely populated streets through some opening in the city wall and the first thing we saw in the Eternal City was a creaking trolley car, trying to make its way through the same hole in the wall. Toppi, who was acquainted with Rome, revelled in the familiar atmosphere of the churches we were passing and indicated with his long finger the remnants of ancient Rome which seemed to be clinging to the huge wall of the new structures: just as if the latter had been bombarded with the shells of old and fragments of the missiles had clung to the bricks.

Here and there we came upon additional heaps of this old rubbish. Above a low parapet of stone, we observed a dark shallow ditch and a large triumphal gate, half sunk in the earth. “The Forum!” exclaimed Toppi, majestically. Our coachman nodded his head in affirmation. With every new pile of old stone and brick the fellow swelled with pride, while I longed for my New York and its skyscrapers, and tried to calculate the number of trucks that would be necessary to clear these heaps of rubbish called ancient Rome away before morning. When I mentioned this to Toppi he was insulted and replied:

“You don’t understand anything: better close your eyes and just reflect that you are in Rome.”

I did so and was again convinced that sight is as much of an impediment to the mind as sound: not without reason are all wise folk on the earth blind and all good musicians deaf.

Like Toppi I began to sniff the air and through my sense of smell I gathered more of Rome and its horribly long and highly entertaining history than hitherto: thus a decaying leaf in the woods smells stronger than the young and green foliage. Will you believe me when I say that I sensed the odor of blood and Nero? But when I opened my eyes expectantly I observed a plain, everyday kiosk and a lemonade stand.

“Well, how do you like it?” growled Toppi, still dissatisfied.

“It smells – ”

“Well, certainly it smells! It will smell stronger with every hour: these are old, strong aromas, Mr. Wondergood.”

And so it really was: the odor grew in strength. I cannot find comparisons to make it clear to you. All the sections of my brain began to move and buzz like bees aroused by smoke. It is strange, but it seems that Rome is included in the archive of the silly Wondergood. Perhaps this is his native town? When we approached a certain populous square I sensed the clear odor of some blood relatives, which was soon followed by the conviction that I, too, have walked these streets before. Have I, like Toppi, previously donned the human form? Ever louder buzzed the bees. My entire beehive buzzed and suddenly thousands of faces, dim and white, beautiful and horrible, began to dance before me; thousands upon thousands of voices, noises, cries, laughters and sighs nearly set me deaf. No, this was no longer a beehive: it was a huge, fiery smithy, where firearms were being forged with the red sparks flying all about. Iron!

Of course, if I had lived in Rome before, I must have been one of its emperors: I remember the expression of my face. I remember the movement of my bare neck as I turn my head. I remember the touch of golden laurels upon my bald head – Iron! Ah, I hear the steps of the iron legions of Rome. I hear the iron voices: “Vivat Cæsar!”

I am hot. I am burning. Or was I not an emperor but simply one of the “victims” when Rome burned down in accordance with the magnificent plan of Nero? No, this is not a fire. This is a funeral pyre on which I am forcibly esconsced. I hear the snake-like hissing of the tongues of flame beneath my feet. I strain my neck, all lined with blue veins, and in my throat there rises the final curse – or blessing? Think of it: I even remember that Roman face in the front row of spectators, which even then gave me no rest because of its idiotic expression and sleepy eyes: I am being burned and it sleeps!

“Hotel ‘Internationale’” – cried Toppi, and I opened my eyes.

We were going up a hill along a quiet street, at the end of which there glowed a large structure, worthy even of New York: it was the hotel where we had previously wired for reservations. They probably thought we had perished in the wreck. My funeral pyre was extinguished. I grew as merry as a darkey who has just escaped from hard labor and I whispered to Toppi:

“Well, Toppi, and how about the Madonna?”

“Y-yes, interesting. I was frightened at first and nearly choked to death – ”

“With a bone? You are silly, Toppi: she is polite and did not recognize you. She simply took you for one of her saints. It is a pity, old boy, that we have chosen for ourselves these solemn, American faces: had we looked around more carefully we might have found some more beautiful.”

“I am quite satisfied with mine,” said Toppi sadly, and turned away. A glow of secret self-satisfaction appeared upon his long, shiny nose. Ah, Toppi, Ah, the saint!

But we were already being accorded a triumphal reception.

February 14.

Rome, Hotel “Internationale.”

I do not want to go to Magnus. I am thinking too much of his Madonna of flesh and bone. I have come here to lie and to play merrily and I am not at all taken by the prospect of being a mediocre actor, who weeps behind the scenes and appears on the stage with his eyes perfectly dry. Moreover, I have no time to gad about the fields catching butterflies with a net like a boy.

The whole of Rome is buzzing about me. I am an extraordinary man, who loves his fellow beings and I am celebrated. The mobs who flock to worship Me are no less numerous than those who worship the Vicar of Christ himself, two Popes all at once. – Yes, happy Rome cannot consider itself an orphan!

I am now living at the hotel, where all is aquiver with ecstacy when I put my shoes outside my door for the night, but they are renovating a palace for me: the historic Villa Orsini. Painters, sculptors and poets are kept busy. One brush-pusher is already painting my portrait, assuring me that I remind him of one of the Medicis. The other brush-pushers are sharpening their knives for him.

I ask him:

“And can you paint a Madonna?”

Certainly he can. It was he, if the signor recollects, who painted the famous Turk on the cigarette boxes, the Turk whose fame is known even in America. And now three brush-pushers are painting Madonnas for me. The rest are running about Rome seeking models. I said to one, in my barbarous, American ignorance of the higher arts:

“But if you find such a model, Signor, just bring her to me. Why waste paint and canvas?”

He was evidently pained and mumbled:

“Ah, Signor – a model?”

I think he took me for a merchant in “live stock.” But, fool, why do I need your aid for which I must pay a commission, when my ante-chamber is filled with a flock of beauties? They all worship me. I remind them of Savanarola, and they seek to transform every dark corner in my drawing room, and every soft couch into a confessional. I am so glad that these society ladies, like the painters, know so well the history of their country and realize who I am.

The joy of the Roman papers on finding that I did not perish in the wreck and lost neither my legs nor my billions, was equal to the joy of the papers of Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection of Christ – in reality there was little cause for satisfaction on the part of the latter, as far as I am able to read history. I feared that I might remind the journalists of J. Cæsar, but fortunately they think little of the past and confined themselves to pointing out my resemblance to President Wilson. Scoundrels! They were simply flattering my American patriotism. To the majority, however, I recall a Prophet, but they do not know which one. On this point they are modestly silent. At any rate it is not Mahomet: my opposition to marriage is well known at all telegraph stations.

It is difficult to imagine the filth on which I fed my hungry interviewers. Like an experienced swine-herd, I gaze with horror on the mess they feed upon. They eat and yet they live. Although, I must admit, I do not see them growing fat! Yesterday morning I flew in an aeroplane over Rome and the Campagna. You will probably ask whether I saw Maria’s home? No. I did not find it: how can one find a grain of sand among a myriad of other grains – But I really did not look for it: I felt horror-stricken at the great altitude.