THE DOVE-COT
The old town of Sorrento is situated on an elevated plateau, which
stretches into the sunny waters of the Mediterranean, guarded on all
sides by a barrier of mountains which defend it from bleak winds and
serve to it the purpose of walls to a garden. Here, groves of oranges
and lemons, with their almost fabulous coincidence of fruitage with
flowers, fill the air with perfume, which blends with that of roses and
jessamines; and the fields are so starred and enameled with flowers
that they might have served as the type for those Elysian realms sung
by ancient poets. The fervid air is fanned by continual sea-breezes,
which give a delightful elasticity to the otherwise languid climate.
Under all these cherishing influences, the human being develops a
wealth and luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favored
regions. In the region about Sorrento one may be said to have found the
land where beauty is the rule and not the exception. The singularity
there is not to see handsome points of physical proportion, but rather
to see those who are without them. Scarce a man, woman, or child you
meet who has not some personal advantage to be commended, while even
striking beauty is common. Also, under these kindly skies, a native
courtesy and gentleness of manner make themselves felt. It would seem
as if humanity, rocked in this flowery cradle, and soothed by so many
daily caresses and appliances of nursing Nature, grew up with all that
is kindliest on the outward,--not repressed and beat in, as under the
inclement atmosphere and stormy skies of the North.
The town of Sorrento itself overhangs the sea, skirting along rocky
shores, which, hollowed here and there into picturesque grottoes, and
fledged with a wild plumage of brilliant flowers and trailing vines,
descend in steep precipices to the water. Along the shelly beach, at
the bottom, one can wander to look out on the loveliest prospect in the
world. Vesuvius rises with its two peaks softly clouded in blue and
purple mists, which blend with its ascending vapors,--Naples and the
adjoining villages at its base gleaming in the distance like a fringe
of pearls on a regal mantle. Nearer by, the picturesque rocky shores of
the island of Capri seem to pulsate through the dreamy, shifting mists
that veil its sides; and the sea shimmers and glitters like the neck
of a peacock with an iridescent mingling of colors: the whole air is a
glorifying medium, rich in prismatic hues of enchantment.
The town on three sides is severed from the main land by a gorge two
hundred feet in depth and forty or fifty in breadth, crossed by a
bridge resting on double arches, the construction of which dates back
to the time of the ancient Romans. This bridge affords a favorite
lounging-place for the inhabitants, and at evening a motley assemblage
may be seen lolling over its moss-grown sides,--men with their
picturesque knit caps of scarlet or brown falling gracefully on one
shoulder, and women with their shining black hair and the enormous
pearl ear-rings which are the pride and heirlooms of every family. The
present traveler at Sorrento may remember standing on this bridge and
looking down the gloomy depths of the gorge, to where a fair villa,
with its groves of orange-trees and gardens, overhangs the tremendous
depths below.
Hundreds of years since, where this villa now stands was the simple
dwelling of the two women whose history we have begun to tell you.
There you might have seen a small stone cottage with a two-arched
arcade in front, gleaming brilliantly white out of the dusky foliage
of an orange-orchard. The dwelling was wedged like a bird-box between
two fragments of rock, and behind it the land rose rocky, high, and
steep, so as to form a natural wall. A small ledge or terrace of
cultivated land here hung in air,--below it, a precipice of two hundred
feet down into the Gorge of Sorrento. A couple of dozen orange-trees,
straight and tall, with healthy, shining bark, here shot up from the
fine black volcanic soil, and made with their foliage a twilight shadow
on the ground, so deep that no vegetation, save a fine velvet moss,
could dispute their claim to its entire nutritious offices. These
trees were the sole wealth of the women and the sole ornament of the
garden; but, as they stood there, not only laden with golden fruit,
but fragrant with pearly blossoms, they made the little rocky platform
seem a perfect Garden of the Hesperides. The stone cottage, as we have
said, had an open, whitewashed arcade in front, from which one could
look down into the gloomy depths of the gorge, as into some mysterious
underworld. Strange and weird it seemed, with its fathomless shadows
and its wild grottoes, over which hung, silently waving, long pendants
of ivy, while dusky gray aloes uplifted their horned heads from great
rock-rifts, like elfin spirits struggling upward out of the shade. Nor
was wanting the usual gentle poetry of flowers; for white iris leaned
its fairy pavilion over the black void like a pale-cheeked princess
from the window of some dark enchanted castle, and scarlet geranium and
golden broom and crimson gladiolus waved and glowed in the shifting
beams of the sunlight. Also there was in this little spot what forms
the charm of Italian gardens always,--the sweet song and prattle of
waters. A clear mountain-spring burst through the rock on one side
of the little cottage, and fell with a lulling noise into a quaint
moss-grown water-trough, which had been in former times the sarcophagus
of some old Roman sepulchre. Its sides were richly sculptured with
figures and leafy scrolls and arabesques, into which the sly-footed
lichens with quiet growth had so insinuated themselves as in some
places almost to obliterate the original design; while, round the
place where the water fell, a veil of ferns and maiden's-hair, studded
with tremulous silver drops, vibrated to its soothing murmur. The
superfluous waters, drained off by a little channel on one side, were
conducted through the rocky parapet of the garden, whence they trickled
and tinkled from rock to rock, falling with a continual drip among the
swaying ferns and pendent ivy wreaths, till they reached the little
stream at the bottom of the gorge. This parapet or garden-wall was
formed of blocks or fragments of what had once been white marble, the
probable remains of the ancient tomb from which the sarcophagus was
taken. Here and there a marble acanthus-leaf, or the capital of an old
column, or a fragment of sculpture jutted from under the mosses, ferns,
and grasses with which prodigal Nature had filled every interstice and
carpeted the whole. These sculptured fragments everywhere in Italy seem
to whisper, from the dust, of past life and death, of a cycle of human
existence forever gone, over whose tomb the life of to-day is built.
"Sit down and rest, my dove," said Dame Elsie to her little charge, as
they entered their little enclosure.
Here she saw for the first time, what she had not noticed in the heat
and hurry of her ascent, that the girl was panting and her gentle bosom
rising and falling in thick heartbeats, occasioned by the haste with
which she had drawn her onward.
"Sit down, dearie, and I will get you a bit of supper."
"Yes, grandmother, I will. I must tell my beads once for the soul of
the handsome gentleman that kissed my forehead to-night."
"How did you know that he was handsome, child?" said the old dame, with
some sharpness in her voice.
"He bade me look on him, grandmother, and I saw it."
"You must put such thoughts away, child," said the old dame.
"Why must I?" said the girl, looking up with an eye as clear and
unconscious as that of a three-year-old child.
"If she does not think, why should I tell her?" said Dame Elsie, as she
turned to go into the house, and left the child sitting on the mossy
parapet that overlooked the gorge. Thence she could see far off, not
only down the dim, sombre abyss, but out to the blue Mediterranean
beyond, now calmly lying in swathing-bands of purple, gold, and orange,
while the smoky cloud that overhung Vesuvius became silver and rose in
the evening light.
There is always something of elevation and purity that seems to come
over one from being in an elevated region. One feels morally as well
as physically above the world, and from that clearer air able to look
down on it calmly with disengaged freedom. Our little maiden sat for
a few moments gazing, her large brown eyes dilating with a tremulous
lustre, as if tears were half of a mind to start in them, and her
lips apart with a delicate earnestness, like one who is pursuing some
pleasing inner thought. Suddenly rousing herself, she began by breaking
the freshest orange-blossoms from the golden-fruited trees, and,
kissing and pressing them to her bosom, she proceeded to remove the
faded flowers of the morning from before a little rude shrine in the
rock, where, in a sculptured niche, was a picture of the Madonna and
Child, with a locked glass door in front of it. The picture was a happy
transcript of one of the fairest creations of the religious school of
Florence, done by one of those rustic copyists of whom Italy is full,
who appear to possess the instinct of painting, and to whom we owe many
of those sweet faces which sometimes look down on us by the wayside
from rudest and homeliest shrines.
The poor fellow by whom it had been painted was one to whom years
before Dame Elsie had given food and shelter for many months during a
lingering illness; and he had painted so much of his dying heart and
hopes into it that it had a peculiar and vital vividness in its power
of affecting the feelings. Agnes had been familiar with this picture
from early infancy. No day of her life had the flowers failed to be
freshly placed before it. It had seemed to smile down sympathy on her
childish joys, and to cloud over with her childish sorrows. It was
less a picture to her than a presence; and the whole air of the little
orange-garden seemed to be made sacred by it. When she had arranged her
flowers, she kneeled down and began to say prayers for the soul of the
young gallant.
"Holy Jesus," she said, "he is young, rich, handsome, and a king's
brother; and for all these things the Fiend may tempt him to forget his
God and throw away his soul. Holy Mother, give him good counsel!"
"Come, child, to your supper," said Dame Elsie. "I have milked the
goats, and everything is ready."