Stories Toto Told Me (Valancourt Classics) (2 page)

Bibliography for Further Reading

Benkovitz, Miriam J.
Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo: A Biography
. New York: Putnam,
1977
.

Cruise, Colin. “Baron Corvo and the Key to the Underworld.”
The Victorian Supernatural
. Edited by Nicola Bown, Carolyn Burdett, and Pamela Thurschwell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004
.
128
-
148
.

Ganteau, Jean-Michel. “Fantastic, but Truthful: The Ethics of Romance.”
Cambridge Quarterly
32
.
3
(
2003
):
225
-
238
.

Gilsdorf, Jeanette W., and Nicholas A. Salerno. “Frederick W. Rolfe, Baron Corvo: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings about Him.”
English Literature in Transition
23
(
1980
):
3
-
83
.

Healy, Philip. “Man Apart: Priesthood and Homosexuality at the End of the Nineteenth Century.”
Masculinity and Spirituality in Victorian Culture
. Edited by Andrew Bradstock, Sean Gill, Anne Hogan, and Sue Morgan. Basingstoke: Macmillan,
2000
.
100
-
115
.

Modlish, Maureen. “Frederick William Rolfe (Baron Corvo).”
British Novelists,
1890
-
1929
:
Traditionalists
. Edited by
Thomas F. Staley. Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol.
34
. Detroit: Gale,
1984
.
249
-
254
.

Parker, Jeffrey D. “Frederick William Rolfe (Baron Corvo).”
British Short-Fiction Writers,
1880-1914
:
The Romantic Tradition
. Edited by William F. Naufftus
.
Dictionary of Literary Biography. Vol.
156
. Detroit: Gale,
1995
.
291
-
300
.

Symons, A. J. A.
The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography
. Introduction by Julian Symons.
1934
, revised
1955
. Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1966
.

Weeks, Donald.
Corvo
. London: Joseph,
1971
.

Woolf, Cecil.
A Bibliography of Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo
.
1957
. Revised edition, London: Hart-Davis,
1971
.

Woolf, Cecil, and Brocard Sewell, eds.
New Quests for Corvo: A Collection of Essays by Various Hands
. Introduction by Pamela Hansford Johnson. London: Icon,
1961
.

Note on the Text

  The text of the present edition is that of the first edition, published by John Lane at London in
1898.
The original edition contained a handful of minor printer’s errors, mostly with regard to the spelling of Italian words. Where it was clear that errors were the printer’s, not Corvo’s, they have been silently corrected for this edition.

Stories Toto Told Me

Stories Toto Told Me

I

ABOUT SAN PIETRO AND SAN PAOLO

O
nce
upon a time, sir, the people in Rome were building two churches; the one for San Pietro on the Monte Vaticano, and the other for San Paolo outside the walls of the city. The two saints used to spend all their spare time sitting on one of the balconies of heaven, and watching the builders; for they were both very anxious about their churches. San Pietro desired to have his church finished before that of San Paolo; and so, every night after it was dark outside, he used to leave the keys of heaven in the porch, and ask his brother, Sant’Andrea, to give an eye to the gate while
he went round the corner for a minute or two. Then he would slip down to the church of San Paolo, and take to pieces the work which the builders had done during the day; and if there were any carvings, or pillars, or things of that sort which took his fancy, he would carry them away and build them into his own church, patching up the part he had taken them from so well that no one could tell the difference. And so, while the builders of the church of San Pietro made a progress which was wonderful, the builders of the church of San Paolo did not make any progress at all.

  This went on for a long while, and San Paolo became more uneasy in his mind every day, and he could not take his food, and nothing gave him any pleasure. Santa Cecilia tried to amuse him with some new songs she had made; but this made him quite angry, for he said that a woman ought to learn in silence with subjection.

  One day, while he was leaning over the balcony, he saw two pillars taken into his church, which were of yellow antique, most rare and precious, and had been sent from some foreign country (I do not know its name). He was altogether delighted; and he went down to the gate and asked San Pietro to be so kind as to tell him whether he had ever seen finer pillars. But San Pietro only said they were rather pretty, and then he asked San Paolo to get out of the way and let him shut the gate, in case some improper souls should sneak in.

  That night, sir, when it was dark, San Pietro went and robbed those two pillars of yellow antique, and set them up in his own church. But in the morning, San Paolo, who had thought of nothing but his new pillars all through the night, said a black mass because it was shorter, and then went on to the balcony to have the pleasure of looking at his church with its beautiful pillars of yellow antique. And when he saw that they were not there he became disturbed in his mind, and he went and sat down in a shady place to consider what he should do next. After much thought, it appeared to him that he had been robbed, and as he knew that a person who has once committed a theft will continue to steal as long as he remains free, he resolved to watch his church at night, that he might discover who had stolen his pillars.

  During the day the builders of the church of San Paolo put up two fresh pillars of yellow antique, and two of porphyry, and two of green antique as well. San Paolo gloated over these fine things from his seat on the balcony, for he knew them to be so beautiful that they would tempt the thief to make another raid, and then he would catch him.

  After the Ave Maria, he made friends with one of the angels, who was putting on his armour in the guard-room before taking his place in the line of sentries who encircle the city of God both by day and night. These angels, sir, are a hundred cubits high, and San Paolo asked one of them, whose post was near the gate, to hide him under his wings so that he could watch for the robber without being seen. The angel said that he was most happy to oblige; for San Paolo was a Roman of Rome, and very well thought of in heaven; and when the night came on San Paolo hid in the shadow of his feathers.

  Presently he saw San Pietro go out of the gate, and the light, of which the bodies of the saints are made, went with him, so that, though the earth was in darkness, San Paolo could see plainly all that he did. And he picked up the two fresh pillars of yellow antique, and the two of red porphyry, and also the two of green antique in his hand, just as you, sir, would pick up six paintbrushes; and he carried them to his own church on the Monte Vaticano and set them up there. And when he had patched up the place from which he had taken the pillars so that they could not be missed, he came back into heaven.

  San Paolo met him at the gate and accused him of thieving, but San Pietro answered blusteringly that he was the Prince of the Apostles, and that he had a right to all the best pillars for his church. San Paolo replied that, once before, he had had occasion to withstand San Pietro to the face because he was to be blamed (and that was at Antioch, sir); and then high words arose, and the two saints quarrelled so loudly that the Padre Eterno, sitting on His great white throne, sent San Michele Arcangiolo to bring the disputants into His Presence.

  Then San Paolo said:

  “O Re dei secoli, immortale et invisibile,—The citizens of Rome are building two churches, the one for me and the other for San Pietro; and for some time I have noticed that while the builders of my church do not seem to make any progress with their work, the church of San Pietro is nearly finished. The day before yesterday (and to-day is Saturday), two pillars of yellow antique were set up in my church, most beautiful pillars, O Signor Iddio, but somebody stole them away during the night. And yesterday six pillars were set up, two of yellow antique, two of green antique, and two of porphyry. To-night I watched to see if they would be stolen; and I have seen San Pietro go down and take them to his own church on the Monte Vaticano.”

  Then the Padre Eterno turned to San Pietro and asked if he had anything to say.

  And San Pietro answered:

  “O Re del Cielo,—I have long ago learnt the lesson that it is not well to deny that which La Sua Divina Maestà knows to be true; and I acknowledge that I have taken the pillars, and many other things too, from the church of San Paolo, and have set them up in my own. Nevertheless, I desire to represent that there is no question of robbery here. O Dio Omnipotente, You have deigned to make me the Prince of the Apostolic College, the Keeper of the Keys of Heaven, and the Head of Your Church on earth, and it is not fitting that the churches which men build in my honour should be less magnificent than those which they build for San Paolo. Therefore, in taking these pillars that San Paolo makes such a paltry fuss about, I am simply within my right—a right which belongs to the dignity of the rank which lo Splendore Immortale della Sua Maestà has been graciously pleased to confer upon me.”

  But this defence did not content the Padre Eterno. He said that the secret method in which San Pietro worked was a proof that he knew he was doing what he ought not to do; and further, that it was not fair to the men who were building the church of San Paolo to take away the fine things for which they spent their money for the honour of San Paolo. So He cautioned San Pietro not to allow it to occur again.

  On the next day there was a festa and the builders did not work; but on the Monday they placed in the church of San Paolo several slabs of lapis lazuli and malachite; and during the night San Pietro, who was the most bold and daring of men, had the hardihood to take them away and put them in his own church, right before the very eyes of San Paolo, who stood at the gate watching him. By the time he returned, San Paolo had made a complaint before the Padre Eterno; and San Pietro was most severely spoken to, and warned that, if he persisted in his disobedience, not even his exalted rank, and general usefulness, and good conduct would save him from punishment.

  The following day, which was Tuesday, a marvellous baldachino of jasper and violet marble, being a gift from the Grand Turk, was put up in the church of San Paolo; and at night San Pietro went down as usual and robbed it. For the third time San Paolo complained to the Padre Eterno, and then all the Court of Heaven was summoned into the Presence to hear judgment pronounced.

  The Padre Eterno said—and His Voice, sir, was like rolling thunder—that as San Pietro had been guilty of disobedience to the Divine Decree, in that, urged on by vanity, he had taken the property of San Paolo for his own church on the Monte Vaticano; and by so doing had prevented the church of San Paolo from being finished; it was an Order that, until the end of time, the great church of San Pietro in Rome should never be completed. Also, the Padre Eterno added that, as He would give no encouragement to sneaks and telltale-tits, the church of San Paolo outside the walls, though finished, should be subjected to destruction and demolition, and, as often as it was rebuilt, so often should it be destroyed.

  And you know, sir, that the church of San Paolo is always being burnt down or blown up, and that the church of San Pietro has never left the builders’ hands.