njoy, suffer, and love! But Pierre afterwards
reflected that this was not a fit task for youth, and that to appreciate
the divine enjoyment of such a retreat, all art and blue sky, ripe age
was needed, age with victories already gained and weariness following
upon the accomplishment of work. He chatted with some of the young
pensioners, and remarked that if those who were inclined to dreaminess
and contemplation, like those who could merely claim mediocrity,
accommodated themselves to this life cloistered in the art of the past,
on the other hand artists of active bent and personal temperament pined
with impatience, their eyes ever turned towards Paris, their souls eager
to plunge into the furnace of battle and production.

* Here is the French Academy, where winners of the "Prix de
Rome" in painting, sculpture, architecture, engraving, and
music are maintained by the French Government for three
years. The creation dates from Louis XIV.--Trans.

All those gardens of which Pierre spoke to Dario and Benedetta with so
much rapture, awoke within them the memory of the garden of the Villa
Montefiori, now a waste, but once so green, planted with the finest
orange-trees of Rome, a grove of centenarian orange-trees where they had
learnt to love one another. And the memory of their early love brought
thoughts of their present situation and their future prospects. To these
the conversation always reverted, and evening after evening Pierre
witnessed their delight, and heard them talk of coming happiness like
lovers transported to the seventh heaven. The suit for the dissolution of
Benedetta's marriage was now assuming a more and more favourable aspect.
Guided by a powerful hand, Donna Serafina was apparently acting very
vigorously, for almost every day she had some further good news to
report. She was indeed anxious to finish the affair both for the
continuity and for the honour of the name, for on the one hand Dario
refused to marry any one but his cousin, and on the other this marriage
would explain everything and put an end to an intolerable situation. The
scandalous rumours which circulated both in the white and the black world
quite incensed her, and a victory was the more necessary as Leo XIII,
already so aged, might be snatched away at any moment, and in the
Conclave which would follow she desired that her brother's name should
shine forth with untarnished, sovereign radiance. Never had the secret
ambition of