he had no plans, or the
slightest idea what direction to take. The Cardinal, no doubt, did not
feel any desire to know him.

Caesar often proceeded by more or less absurd hypotheses. "Suppose," he
would think, "that I had an idea, a concrete ambition. In that case it
would behoove me to be reserved on such and such topics and to hint
these and those ideas to people; let's do it that way, even though it be
only for sport."

Preciozi was the only person who was able to give him any light in
his investigations, because the guests at the hotel, most of them, on
account of their position, thought of nothing but amusing themselves and
of giving themselves airs.

Caesar discovered that Preciozi was ambitious; but besides lacking an
opening, he had not the necessary vigour and imagination to do anything.

The abbe spoke a macaronic Spanish, which he had learned in South
America, and which provoked Caesar's laughter. He was constantly saying:
"My friend," and he mingled Gallicisms with a lot of coarse expressions
of Indian or mulatto origin, and with Italian words. Preciozi's dialect
was a gibberish worthy of Babel.

The first day they went out together, the abbe wanted to show him divers
of Rome's picturesque spots. He led him behind the Quirinal, through
the Via della Panetteria and the Via del Lavatore, where there is a
fruit-market, to the Trevi fountain. "It is beautiful, eh?" said the
abbe.

"Yes; what I don't understand," replied Caesar, "is why, in a town where
there is so much water, the hotel wash-basins are so small."

Preciozi shrugged his shoulders.

"What types you have in Rome!" Caesar went on. "What a variety of noses
and expressions! Jesuits with the aspect of savants and plotters;
Carmelites with the appearance of highway men; Dominicans, some with
a sensual air, others with a professorial air. Astuteness, intrigue,
brutality, intelligence, mystic stupor.... And as for priests, what a
museum! Decorative priests, tall, with white shocks of hair and big
cassocks; short priests, swarthy and greasy; noses thin as a knife;
warty, fiery noses. Gross types; distinguished types; pale bloodless
faces; red faces.... What a marvellous collection!"

Preciozi listened to Caesar's observations and wondered if the
Cardinal's nephew might be a trifle off his head.

"Point out what is noteworthy, so that I may admire it enough," Caesar
told him. "I don't care to burst out in an enthusiastic phrase for
something of