Caesar or Nothing Part 24

"Little and... a great deal," said Caesar.

"No, little."

"Do you believe that I have little will-power?"

"I am telling you what your hand says."

"Look here. My hand's opinion doesn't interest me so much as yours, because you are an intelligent woman. Do you believe I have no will-power?"

"A sibyl doesn't discuss her affirmations."

"Now you are worried about your lack of will-power," said Mlle. de Sandoval, mockingly.

"Yes, I am, a bit."

"Well, I think you have will-power enough," she retorted; "what you do lack is a little more amiability."

"Fortunately for you and for me, you are not so perspicacious in psychology as this young lady."

"I don't expect to earn my living telling fortunes."

"I don't believe this young lady expects to, either. You have told me what I am," Caesar pursued; "now tell me what is going to happen to me."

"Let me look," said Mlle. Cadet; "close your hand. You will make a journey." "Very good! I like that."

"You will get into a desperate struggle...."

"I like that, too."

"And you will win, and you will be defeated...."

"I don't like that so much."

Mile. Cadet could not give other details. Her sibylline science extended no further. During this chiromantic interlude, the dancing kept up, until finally, about three in the morning, the party ended.

XI. A SOUNDING-LINE IN THE DARK WORLD

_THE ADVICE OF TWO ABBeS_

The Abbe Preciozi several times advised Caesar to make a new attempt at a reconciliation with the Cardinal; but Caesar always refused.

"He is a man incapable of understanding me," he would insist with nave arrogance.

Preciozi felt a great liking for his new friend, who invited him to meals at good hotels and treated him very frequently. Almost every morning he went to call on Caesar on one pretext or another, and they would go for a walk and chat about various things.

Preciozi was beginning to believe that his friend was a man with a future. Some explanations that Caesar gave him about the mechanism of the stock-exchange convinced the abbe that he was in the presence of a great financier.

Preciozi talked to all his friends and acquaintances about Cardinal Fort's nephew, picturing him as an extraordinary man; some took these praises as a joke; others thought that it was really very possible that the Spaniard had great talent; only one abbe, who was a teacher in a college, felt a desire to meet the Cardinal's nephew, and Preciozi introduced him to Caesar.

This abbe was named Cittadella, and he was fat, rosy, and blond; he looked more like a singer than a priest.

Caesar invited the two abbes to dine at a restaurant and requested Preciozi to do the ordering.

"So you are a nephew of Cardinal Fort's?" asked Cittadella. "Yes."

"His own nephew?"

"His own nephew; son of his sister."

"And he hasn't done anything for you?"

"Nothing."

"It's a pity. He is a man of great influence, of great talent."

"Influence, I believe; talent, I doubt," said Caesar.

"Oh, no, no! He is an intelligent man."

"But I have heard that his _Theological Commentaries_ is absolutely absurd."

"No, no."

"A crude, ba.n.a.l book, full of stupidities...."

"_Macche_!" exclaimed the indignant Preciozi, neglecting the culinary conflict he was engaged in.

"All right. It makes no difference," replied Caesar, smiling. "Whether he is a famous man, as you two say, or a blockhead, as I think, the fact remains that my uncle doesn't wish to have anything to do with me."

"You must have done something to him," said Cittadella.

"No; the only thing is that when I was small they told me the Cardinal wished me to be a priest, and I answered that I didn't care to be."

"And why so?"

"It seems to me a poor job. It's evident that one doesn't make much at it."

Cittadella sighed.

"Yes, and what's more," Preciozi put in, "this gentleman says to anybody who cares to listen, that religion is a farce, that Catholicism is like a dish of Jewish meat with Roman sauce. Is it possible that a Cardinal should bother about a nephew that talks like that?"

The Abbe Cittadella looked very serious and remarked that it is necessary to believe, or at least to seem to believe, in the truths of religion.

"Is the Cardinal supposed to have money?" asked Caesar.