Maud Howe Elliott

“ Sympathy for Italy was at its height, the great scheme for the unification was growing silently and strongly. England, the mighty ally, was helping Italy prepare for the struggle. Looking back at the England of that day, one seems to see a whole army of Raleighs spreading their cloaks before the feet of the young Queen Victoria. All England seems to have shared in the youth, the hope, the courage of the Queen. With Galli, the romantic Italian, the universal enthusiasm became personal; he fell in love, not with the sovereign, but with the woman, which makes all the difference. ”

“ We came, bringing our guardian angel Vittoria, the tall seamstress, to cook and take care of us. Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi, must have looked like our Vittoria—calm, gentle, with rare sweetness and remarkable beauty. We sent up from Rome oil, wine, vinegar, and groceries enough to last out our stay. The Marchesa has a loaf of bread come by mail every day from Rome for the babes; she is a woman of resource, she does the impossible, the only thing worth doing! Elena’s mother makes bread for us; it is coarse and rather hard, but it suits us well enough. ”

“ From the terrace we see pilgrims from all the Catholic nations of the earth pass to bow the knee and drop the obolo at the feet of the Prisoner of the Vatican. These vast pilgrimages, sometimes several thousand strong—are admirably managed. A dearth of cabs is the first sign we notice of their arrival. The piazza is deserted, not a cab in sight. A little later a procession of cabs, crowded with pilgrims (six to a carriage) and their belongings—the queerest boxes, bales, bundles begin to rattle across the piazza to the vast buildings in the rear of the Vatican where the pilgrims lodge. ”

“ VIAREGGIO—LUCCA—RETURN TO ROME Viareggio, October 15, 1898.
The long mole runs far out into the sea, the light-house stands at the extreme end; here we watch the fishing-boats come in every evening, the sailors poling them along the mole to their harborage in the river. They build boats at Viareggio; the real interest of the town, quite apart from the watering-place life, centres in the weatherbeaten sailors, the cumbrous craft with their rich colored sails, the smell of tar, oakum, and fish. ”

“ After watching Oreste with his two best friends, his horse and his dog, start on the long night journey to Rome, we went back to the castle garden, where our landlord treated us to anecdotes touching that interesting family, the Orsini.
Everything comes to him who knows how to wait! Ever since we first went to live at the Palazzo Rusticucci I have longed to climb to the top of Monte Cavo, the highest of the Alban hills. From our terrace you can see the front of the old Passionist monastery on its summit glinting white in the sun. ”

“ Others are stable-strappers at Rome or Naples. The only able-bodied men we have seen at work are the barber{109} and the blacksmith. The women do practically all the work of the community; they dig, plough, sow, and reap. The free, proud bearing this gives them is wonderful; their beauty surpasses belief. Michael Angelo’s sibyls spin at every street corner, Raphael’s Madonnas suckle their children at every doorway. The old women are either strong and upright, like Elena’s grandmother, or, if they go to pieces and crouch into withered crones, it is with an admirable sombre dignity. ”

“ He is beloved of artists, a collector of antiquities, a genial, not a melancholy Dane, a wise physician, and one of the most picturesque figures in our Roman world. The sun was still staining the sky when we sat down. By the time old Nena brought the ices from the trattoria below, the full yellow moon came up over the Sabine Hills, flooding every corner with its yellow light. Below, in the baker’s shop, the nightingale sang to the roses. Our best rose, il Capitano Christi, is a very large, flat, pink rose, growing on a stiff stalk with long, fierce thorns. ”

“ It would not have been etiquette to use the Italian royal carriage to pay the papal visit!
Prince Doria’s ball for the Kaiser at the splendid Palazzo Doria—one of the finest of the Roman palaces—must have been gorgeous; the picture gallery was a blaze of glory,—you remember there the great Velasquez portrait of Pope Innocent X.?—all the jewels in Rome were present except the emeralds of the Pope’s tiara. ”

“ Soon after four o’clock the sea-breeze comes up and life begins again. By five I am ready for tea on the terrace. Sometimes we go instead to Ronzi and Singer’s for granite, a sort of sherbet made of snow from the mountains flavored with coffee or lemon, very delicious and cooling to the blood. By this time the streets are filled with people. The Roman girls look charming in their pretty light summer dresses; pink muslin seems to be the fashion this season. Dinner gets pushed back later and later; we really must reform. ”

“ We therefore forbore to mention Brenner, the station in the Alps between the Austrian Tyrol and Italy, which I believed to be even higher.
The town of Roccaraso is above the station, a castello perched aloft on a spur of one of the upper Abruzzi. Below us is a wide, flat valley, all around us are crowding blue mountains, head rising above head, like inquisitive giants peeping over one another’s shoulders. The air is like rarefied electricity; the water has been tested and guaranteed absolutely pure—you know bad water is the danger of these remote, primitive villages. ”

“ Once in the studio one lost sight of the royal personage in the connoisseur, the lover and patron of art. It is no wonder that the artists look upon her as their friend. To her art is one of the serious concerns of life, one of the matters which it is her duty as a sovereign, as the mother of her people, to foster by every means in her power. ”

“ The city has been a Babel of foreign tongues, a kaleidescope of foreign faces and costumes. One tastes life as from a goblet filled and brimming over with sparkling, heady wine. That old gogpate, Z——, has let his villa, carriage, servants, even his precious Antonio, the best cook in Rome. ”

“ In all my life I have never met with such simple kindliness as there is here; it’s a sort of Kingdom-come place, where everybody feels responsible for everybody else. Nothing of the am-I-my-brother’s-keeper feeling here! Of course, it is all Pfarrer Kneipp; the whole atmosphere of place and people is the expression of a great, ardent heart which beats for sick humanity, which rages against all shams and cruelties. ”

“ On the left of the house is a terrace, where they dine in summer. Here a flaming heart in gray and white paving-stones took my fancy. The house is large and luxurious; there are roses everywhere inside and out.
To-day is Palm Sunday. The chambermaid who brings my morning coffee brought me a bit of olive-branch, instead of palm, from early service. Later we went to high mass at the cathedral in Sorrento. The procession was headed by the bishop, his acolytes, and some smart young canons in rose-colored satin capes. ”

“ We consider it quite a feat to break up housekeeping after nearly seven years in the Palazzo Rusticucci, and to sleep the last night in Rome under our own roof. Very busy all day saying good-by. In the morning Ignazio carried away the last load of our beloved plants. Before he came I gathered all the flowers, and took an armful of roses, oleanders, and jessamine to the cemetery in memory of the dear one who made this Eternal City a second home to me—who shall say to how many others? ”

“ Though many of the Roman codgers are more or less connected with the Vatican, there are scores who have no relations with it, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Hebrews, and the like.
Rome must have been more picturesque when the Pope took his airing on the Pincio, instead of walking and driving inside the walls of the Vatican garden, as he does now. In those days the whole populace went down on their knees whenever he appeared. Then the cardinals wore their splendid vermilion robes every day: they must have made a joyful note of color in the landscape! ”

“ Old Nena took Ignazio by the sleeve: “Come away, man,” she said gruffly; “will it help matters for you to have a fit of apoplexy?”
Filomena, the soft hearted, took his other arm; between them they led him into the house. Pompilia, made of sterner stuff, remained to listen to the baker.
“We have no capital punishment in Italy,” Giuseppe explained to me. “The King’s assassin will be sentenced to solitary confinement for life.”
“Was the man an anarchist?” I asked.
“An anarchist, yes; and an Italian—more shame to him. But, Signora mia, he comes from your country; read for yourself.” ”

“ Under a dark gnarled tree a group of people had made themselves comfortable. On the trunk above their heads two long garlic stalks were nailed crosswise to avert evil. Directly below the cross sat a lovely young woman suckling a large baby; it must have been eighteen months old. Beside her an aged woman held in her lap a four-year-old child whose chubby hands were stretched out to touch the nursling; in the shadow behind stood a grave bearded man. The huckster’s cart that had brought them was drawn up near by, the donkey could be dimly seen munching a bundle of hay. ”

“ Helen came in a little later with a bunch twice as big and a glow of pink peonies added; in the middle of the tea-drinking Sartorio arrived with a gigantic armful of yellow gorse. Spring is really here! The trees are all green now. When we first came the stone pines were the chief glory; now the Pincio is gay with snow-white maple trees and flowering shrubs, mostly white and purple. Is there any rotation of color in flowers? It has often struck me there must be! Sometimes everything in blossom seems to be lilac, another season it is all yellow, then all red. ”

“ I trust it is not necessary to tell you that the wild ones are by far the best. We clambered down a steep path jewelled with wild flowers to the very edge of Diana’s mirror. I dipped my hand in the clear cold water. It is hard to realize that where this gemlike lake now sparkles in the sunlight there was once a pit of fire, that the sides where the pleasant strawberries grow were once coated with a velvet bloom of sulphur like the crater of Vesuvius. ”

“ Scientific methods, you see; even in Rome we cannot escape them! Then we went and looked at the spot where the Jewish citizens of Rome piously burned the body of Julius Cæsar, and at what remains of the house where Cæsar lived, a corner of the dining-room, with the white mosaic pavement, and a piece of wall painted with a decoration of fruit, flowers, green trees, and a pointed bamboo trellis, in the same style as the Villa Livia, built by the widow of Augustus, who, perhaps, had admired Aunt Calpurnia’s dining-room, and when her time came to build imitated it! ”

“ A melancholy twilight pervades everywhere, except in my den, where I keep one eye of the house open to read, write, cipher, and catch fleas by. I go out early, do my errands, make my visits, and try to be at home by ten; sometimes I am delayed till twelve. Luncheon is at one; after this the whole {15}household, the whole city, takes its siesta. From two till four Rome sleeps! Down in the piazza the workmen lie at full length on the pavement, their arms under their heads. Cabmen curl up inside their cabs, horses sleep between the shafts, even small boys sleep! ”

“ I said to her.
“They have killed our King!” wailed Pompilia.
“It is true,” Filomena sobbed; “I heard it when I went to mass.”{339}
We dressed immediately and went out into the street, to find that it was only too true. Giuseppe the baker standing at his shop door, white as his linen clothes, read aloud the dreadful news from his morning paper. In the dark shop behind, his boy fed the crackling fire with brushwood as if nothing out of the common had happened. The loaves were ready for the oven; it was his business to keep up the fire. ”

“ This is one of the prosperous provinces of Italy. The town of Como has silk manufactories, where the best Italian silk stockings are made and the nicest of the piece silks. There is a feeling of comparative bien être in all classes which adds much to one’s own comfort. The flood of travellers that pours through here brings a certain prosperity, though I incline to think it a specious one. Everybody asks, “What would Italy do without the tourists?” Perhaps if the people were not so busy making silly knicknacks to sell to tourists, they would pay more attention to cultivating their land. ”

“ The weird forms of the petrified rivers of lava, once red and molten, now grim and black, suggest human bodies writhing in the clutch of horrid monsters. Here a huge trunk madly wrenches itself from the toils, there a vast body lies supine and agonized, the last resistance passed. When we left our carriage at the foot of the funicular railway, I felt I had passed through several circles of the Inferno. Dante must have received many of the impressions he transmits to us from Vesuvius. ”

“ In the very best vase were a single white rose from my mother’s favorite tree, the Catherine Cook, and one mammoth pink one from Captain Christy. We marched first to the salon, the most honorable room. The parroco dipped a silver sprinkler in the lustral water, which he sprinkled in four directions, north, south, east, west, saying as he did so, “Bless, O Lord, this place, that in it may be health, chastity, victory, virtue, humility, goodness, sweetness, the fulness of law and thanksgiving, and may this blessing abide in this place and upon all those who dwell herein.” ”