"Do you see the wound in his side?" asked Mr. George.
"Yes," replied Rollo, "and the drops of blood coming out."
"He has dropped his sword," said Mr. George. "It is lying there near his hand."
"What a short sword!" said Rollo. "There are some other things lying on the ground beneath him, but I do not know what they are."
"Nor I," said Mr. George. "One of them seems to be a sort of trumpet. People think from that that this man was a herald."
"But I thought he was a gladiator," said Rollo.
"They call him a gladiator," replied Mr. George, "but nobody really knows what the statue was originally intended for. You see it was dug up out of a heap of rubbish, just as almost all these statues were, and people have to guess what they were intended for. This statue was dug up in a garden-a garden belonging to an ancient Roman villa."
"What does that cord around his neck mean?" asked Rollo.
"They think it means that the man was a Gaul. The Gauls used to wear such cords, I believe."
"I thought he was a Dacian," said Rollo.
"I suppose it is uncertain who he was," replied Mr. George; "but look at his face. See the expression of it. It is an expression of mingled suffering and rage, and yet he looks as if he were so far gone as to begin to be unconscious of every thing around him."
"Yes," said Rollo; "he does not seem to notice us at all."
"In that," said Mr. George, "is shown the great skill of the sculptor, to express such different, and, as one would think, almost conflicting emotions in the same face, at the same time."
After looking at the statue some time longer, Rollo and Mr. George walked around the room, and looked at the other pieces of sculpture that there were there. They afterwards came back again to the gladiator, in order to take one more view of it before they went away. Mr. George advised Rollo to look at it well, and impress the image of it strongly on his mind.
"It is one of the treasures of the world," said he; "and in the course of your life, though you may never see it here, in the original, again, you will meet with casts of it and drawings of it without number, and you will find descriptions of it and allusions to it continually recurring in the conversation that you hear and the books that you read. Indeed, the image of the Dying Gladiator forms a part of the mental furnishing of every highly-cultivated intellect in the civilized world."
CHAPTER VIII. THE TARPEIAN ROCK.
One morning while Mr. George and Rollo were taking breakfast together in the dining room of the hotel, Mr. George remarked that he had received some news that morning.
"Is it good news, or bad news?" asked Rollo.
"It is good for me," replied Mr. George, "but I rather think you will consider it bad for you."
"Tell me what it is," said Rollo, "and then I will tell you how I consider it."
So Mr. George informed Rollo that the news which he had received was, that there had been an arrival from America, and that the last night's post had brought the papers to town.
"And so," said Mr. George, "I am going to spend the morning at Piale's[6] library, reading the papers, and you will be left to entertain yourself."
[Footnote 6: Pronounced Pe-ah-ly's.]
"O, that's no matter," said Rollo. "I can get Charles Beekman to go with me. We can take care of ourselves very well."
"What will you do?" asked Mr. George.
"I want to go and see the Tarpeian Rock," said Rollo. "I read about that rock, and about Tarpeia, in a history in America, and I want to see how the rock looks."
"Do you know where it is?" asked Mr. George.
"No," said Rollo; "but I can find out."
"Very well," said Mr. George; "then I leave you to take care of yourself. You can get Charles to go, if his mother will trust him with you."
"She will, I am sure," said Rollo.
"Why, you got lost when you took him the other day," said Mr. George, "and you had ever so much difficulty in finding your way home again."
"O, no, uncle George," said Rollo, "we did not have any difficulty at all. We only had a little fun."
Soon after breakfast Mr. George bade Rollo good by, and went off to the bookstore and library, where he was to see and read the American papers. As soon as his uncle had gone, Rollo went up to Mrs. Beekman's room, and knocked at the door. A well-dressed man servant came to the door. It was Mr. Beekman's courier.
"Walk in, Mr. Rollo," said the courier; "Mrs. Beekman and Charles will come in a minute."
So Rollo went in. The room was a small parlor, very beautifully furnished. In a few minutes Mrs. Beekman and Charles came in, followed by Charles's sister, a lively young lady about twelve years of age. Her name was Almira, though they usually called her Allie.
Rollo informed Mrs. Beekman, when she came into the room, that he had come to ask her to allow Charles to go and make an excursion with him. He was going, he said, to see the Tarpeian Rock.
"O, I would not go to see the Tarpeian Rock," said Mrs. Beekman. "Some ladies of my acquaintance went to see it the other day, and they said it was nothing at all."
"Ah, yes, mother!" said Charles, in an entreating tone of voice, "let me go with Rollo."
"Why, there is nothing at all to see," said Mrs. Beekman. "It is only a small, steep face of a rock in a bank. On the Hudson River Railroad you see rocks and precipices forty times as picturesque, all along the way."
Still Rollo and Charles were very desirous to go. The truth was, it was not so much what they expected to see at the end of the excursion, which made it so alluring to them, as the interest and excitement of the various adventures which they thought they would meet with on the way. Finally Mrs. Beekman said that she had not the least objection in the world to their going to see the rock, only she was herself perfectly convinced that they would not find any thing worth seeing.
"I wish Allie could go too," said Rollo.
"Yes, mother," said Allie, clapping her hands.
"Why, do you care about seeing the Tarpeian Rock?" asked her mother.
"Yes, mother," said Allie, "I wish to see it very much, though I don't know what it is. What is it, Rollo?"
"I'll tell you all about it on the way," said Rollo, "if you can only go with us."
"But she cannot walk there," said Mrs. Beekman. "No lady ever walks in Rome."
"I will take a carriage," said Rollo.
"I am afraid you don't know how to manage about a carriage," said Mrs. Beekman.
"Yes, mother," replied Charles, "he knows how to manage about a carriage perfectly well. I tried him the other day."
Mrs. Beekman finally gave a tardy and reluctant consent to the children's proposal. She did not manage the case very wisely. She should have considered in the first instance what her decision ought to be, and then she should have adhered to it. If she was going to consent at all, she should have consented cordially, and at once. For parents first to refuse their children's request, and then allow themselves to be induced to change their determination by the entreaties and persuasions of the children themselves, is bad management.
Allie went into her mother's bed room to get ready, and in a few minutes returned, her countenance beaming with animation and pleasure.
They all went down to the door of the hotel. There were several carriages standing in the square. The coachmen, as soon as they saw the party at the door, all began to hold up their whips, and to call to Rollo. Some of them began to move their horses towards him.
Rollo glanced his eyes rapidly at the several coaches, and selecting the one which he thought looked the best, he beckoned to the coachman of it. The coachman immediately drew up to the door. He then jumped down from the box, and opened the carriage door.
Before getting in, however, Rollo wished to make his bargain; so he said to the coachman,-
"To the Capitol. Two pauls."
He spoke these words in the Italian language. He had learned the Italian for "two pauls" long before, and he had looked out the Italian name for the Capitol in his Guide Book that morning, so as to be all ready. The Italian name which he found was Campidoglio.