POLICEMAN: “_Forse l' avremo oramai”_ (Perhaps we shall have it
presently.)
We did not have it at all that Sunday, possibly because it was the day
after the assassination of the King of Portugal, and the flags were at
half-mast everywhere. So we went, such of us as liked, to the parapet
overlooking the Piazza del Popolo, and commanding one of those prospects
of Rome which are equally incomparable from every elevation. I, for my
part, made the dizzying circuit of the brief drive on foot in the dark
shadows of the roofing ilexes (if they are ilexes), and then strolled
back and forth on the paths set thick with plinths bearing the heads of
the innumerable national great--the poets, historians, artists,
scientists, politicians, heroes--from the ancient Roman to the modern
Italian times. I particularly looked up the poets of the last hundred
years, because I had written about them in one of my many forgotten
books, till I fancied a growing consciousness in them at this encounter
with an admirer; they, at least, seemed to remember my book. Then I went
off to the cafe overlooking them in their different alleys, and had tea
next a man who was taking lemon instead of milk in his. Here I was beset
with an impassioned longing to know whether he was a Russian or
American, since the English always take milk in their tea, but I could
not ask, and when I had suffered my question as long as I could in his
presence I escaped from it, if you can call it escaping, to the more
poignant question of what it would be like to come, Sunday after Sunday,
to the Pincio, in the life-long voluntary exile of some Americans I
knew, who meant to spend the rest of their years under the spell of
Rome. I thought, upon the whole, that it would be a dull, sad fate, for
somehow we seem born in a certain country in order to die in it, and I
went home, to come again other Sundays to the Pincio, but not all the
Sundays I promised myself.
On one of these Sundays I found Roman boys playing an inscrutable game
among the busts of their storied compatriots, a sort of “I spy” or “Hide
and go whoop,” counting who should be “It” in an Italian version of
“Oneary, ory, ickory, an,” and then scattering in every direction behind
the plinths and bushes. They were not more molestive than boys always
are in a world which ought to be left entirely to old people, and I
could not see that they did any harm. But somebody must have done harm,
for not only was a bust here and there scribbled over in pencil, but the
bust of Machiavelli had its nose freshly broken off in a jagged fracture
that was very hurting to look at. This may have been done by some
mistaken moralist, who saw in the old republican adviser of princes that
enemy of mankind which he was once reputed to be. At any rate, I will
not attribute the mutilation to the boys of Rome, whom I saw at other
times foregoing so many opportunities of mischief in the Villa
Bor-ghese. One of them even refused money from me there when I
misunderstood his application for matches and offered him some coppers.
He put my tip aside with a dignified wave of his hand and a proud
backward step; and, indeed, I ought to have seen from the flat, broad
cap he wore that he was a school-boy of civil condition. The Romans are
not nearly so dramatic as the Neapolitans or Venetians or even as the
Tuscans; but once in the same pleasance I saw a controversy between
school-boys which was carried on with an animation full of beauty and
finish. They argued back and forth, not violently, but vividly, and one
whom I admired most enforced his reasons with charming gesticulations,
whirling from his opponents with quick turns of his body and many a
renunciatory retirement, and then facing about and advancing again upon
the unconvinced. I decided that his admirable drama had been studied
from the histrionics of his mother in domestic scenes; and, if I had
been one of those other boys, I should have come over to his side
instantly.
The Roman manners vary from Roman to Roman, just as our own manners, if
we had any, would vary from New-Yorker to New-Yorker. Zola thinks the
whole population is more or less spoiled with the conceit of Rome's
ancient greatness, and shows it. One could hardly blame them if this
were so; but I did not see any strong proof of it, though I could have
imagined it on occasion. I should say rather that they had a republican
simplicity of manner, and I liked this better in the shop people and
work people than the civility overflowing into servility which one finds
among the like folk, for instance, in England. I heard complaints from
foreigners that the old-time deference of the lower classes was gone,
but I did not miss it. Once in a cafe, indeed, the waiter spoke to me in
_Voi_ (you) instead of _Lei_ (lordship), but the Neapolitans often do
this, and I took it for a friendly effort to put me at my ease in a
strange tongue with a more accustomed form. We were trying to come
together on the kind of tea I wanted, but we failed, if I wanted it
strong, for I got it very weak and tepid. I thought another day that it
would be stronger if I could get it brought hotter, but it was not, and
so I went no more to a place where I was liable to be called You instead
of Lordship and still get weak tea. I think this was a mistake of mine
and a loss, for at that cafe I saw some old-fashioned Italian types
drinking their black coffee at afternoon tea-time out of tumblers, and
others calling for pen and ink and writing letters, and ladies sweetly
asking for newspapers and reading them there; and I ought to have
continued coming to study them.
As to my conjectures of republican quality in the Romans, I had explicit
confirmation from a very intelligent Italian who said of the anomalous
social and political situation in Rome: “We Italians are naturally
republicans, and, if it were a question of any other reigning family, we
should have the republic. But we feel that we owe everything, the very
existence of the nation, to the house of Savoy, and we are loyal to it
in our gratitude. Especially we are true to the present king.” It is
known, of course, that Menotti Garibaldi continues the republican that
his father always was, but I heard of his saying that, if a republic
were established, Victor Emmanuel III. would be overwhelmingly chosen
the first president. It is the Socialists who hold off unrelentingly
from the monarchy, and not the republicans, as they can be differenced
from them. One of the well-known Roman anomalies is that some members of
the oldest families are or have been Socialists; and such a noble was
reproached because he would not go to thank the king in recognition of
some signal proof of his public spirit and unselfish patriotism. He
owned the generosity of the king's behavior and his claim upon popular
acknowledgment, but he said that he had taught the young men of his
party the duty of ignoring the monarchy, and he could not go counter to
the doctrine he had preached.
If I venture to speak now of a very extraordinary trait of the municipal
situation at Rome, it must be without the least pretence to authority or
to more than such superficial knowledge as the most incurious visitor to
Rome can hardly help having. In the capital of Christendom, where the
head of the Church dwells in a tradition of supremacy hardly less
Italian than Christian, the syndic, or mayor, is a Jew, and not merely a
Jew, but an alien Jew, English by birth and education, a Londoner and an
Oxford man. More yet, he is a Freemason, which in Italy means things
anathema to the Church, and he is a very prominent Freemason. With
reference to the State, his official existence, though not inimical, is
through the fusion of the political parties which elected him hardly
less anomalous. This combination overthrew the late Clerical city
government, and it included Liberals, Republicans, Socialists, and all
the other anti-Clericals. Whatever liberalism or republicanism means,
socialism cannot mean less than the economic solution of regality and
aristocracy in Europe, and in Italy as elsewhere. It does not mean the
old-fashioned revolution; it means simply the effacement of all social
differences by equal industrial obligations. So far as the Socialists
can characterize it, therefore, the actual municipal government of Rome
is as antimonarchical as it is antipapal. But the syndic of Rome is a
man of education, of culture, of intelligence, and he is evidently a man
of consummate tact. He has known how to reconcile the warring elements,
which made peace in his election, to one another and to their outside
antagonists, to the Church and to the State, as well as to himself, in
the course he holds over a very rugged way. His opportunities of
downfall are pretty constant, it will be seen, when it is explained that
if a measure with which he is identified fails in the city council it
becomes his duty to resign, like the prime-minister of England in the
like case with Parliament, But Mr. Nathan, who is as alien in his name
as in his race and religion, and is known orally to the Romans as Signor
Nahtahn, has not yet been obliged to resign. He has felt his way through
every difficulty, and has not yet been identified with any fatally
compromising measure. In such an extremely embarrassing predicament as
that created by the conflict between the labor unions and the police
early in April, and eventuating in the two days' strike, he knew how to
do the wise thing and the right thing. As to the incident, he held his
hand and he held his tongue, but he went to visit the wounded workmen in
the hospital, and he condoled with their families. He was somewhat
blamed for that, but his action kept for him the confidence of that
large body of his supporters who earn their living with their hands.
It is said that the common Romans do not willingly earn their living
with their hands; that they like better being idle and, so far as they
can, ornamental. In this they would not differ from the uncommon Romans,
the moneyed, the leisured, the pedigreed classes, who reproach them for
their indolence; but I do not know whether they are so indolent as all
that or not. I heard it said that they no longer want work, and that
when they get it they do not do it well--a supposed effect of the
socialism which is supposed to have spoiled their manners. I heard it
said more intelligently, as I thought, that they are not easily
disciplined, and that they cannot be successfully associated in the
industries requiring workmen to toil in large bodies together; they will
not stand that. Also I heard it said, as I thought again rather
intelligently, that where work is given them to do after a certain
model, they will conform perfectly for the first three or four times;
then their fatal creativeness comes into play, and they begin to better
their instruction by trying to improve upon the patterns--that is, they
are artists, not artisans. They must please their fancy in their work or
they cannot do it well. From my own experience I cannot say whether this
is generally or only sometimes true, but I can affirm that where they
delayed or erred in their work they took their failure very amiably. I
never saw sweeter patience than that of the Roman matron who had
undertaken a small job of getting spots out of a garment, and who quite
surpassed me in self-control when she announced, day after appointed
day, that the work was not done yet or not done perfectly; she was
politeness itself.
On the other hand, some young ladies at a fashionable concert which the
queen-mother honored with her presence did not seem very polite. They
kept on their immense hats, as women still do in all public places on
the European continent, and they seized as many chairs as they could for
friends who did not come, and at supreme moments they stood up on their
chairs and spoiled such poor chance of seeing the queen-mother as the
stranger might have had. While the good King Umberto lived the stranger
would have had many other chances, for it is said that the queen showed
herself with him to the people at the windows of their palace every
afternoon; but in her widowhood she lives retired, though now and then
her carriage may be seen passing through the streets, with four special
policemen on bicycles following it. These waited about the doorway of
the concert-hall that afternoon and formed a very simple, if effective,
guard. In fact, it might be said that in its relations with the popular
life the reigning family could hardly be simpler. The present king and
queen are not so much seen in public as King Umberto and Queen
Margherita were, but it is known from many words and deeds that King
Victor Emmanuel wishes to be the friend, if not the acquaintance, of his
people. When it was proposed to push the present tunnel, with its walks
and drives and trolley-lines, under the Quirinal Palace and gardens, so
as to connect the two principal business quarters of the city, the king
was notified that the noise and jar of the traffic in it might interfere
with his comfort. He asked if the tunnel would be for the general
advantage, and, when this could not be denied, he gave his consent in
words to some such effect as “That settles it.” When the German Emperor
last visited Rome he is said to have had some state question as to
whether he should drive on a certain occasion to the Palatine with the
king's horses or the pope's. He who told the story did not remember how
the question was solved by the emperor, but he said, “Our king walked.”
All this does not mean republican simplicity in the king; a citizen king
is doubtless a contradiction in terms anywhere out of France, and even
there Louis Philippe found the part difficult. But there is no doubt
that the King of Italy means to be the best sort of constituional king,
and, as he is in every way an uncommon man, he will probably succeed.
One may fancy in him, if one likes, something of that almost touching
anxiety of thoughtful Italians to be and to do all that they can for
Italy, in a patriotism that seems as enlightened as it is devoted. If I
had any criticism to make of such Italians it would be that they
expected, or that they asked, too much of themselves. To be sure, they
have a right to expect much, for they have done wonders with a country
which, without great natural resources except of heart and brain,
entered bankrupt into its national existence, and has now grown
financially to the dimensions of its vast treasury building, with a
paper currency at par and of equal validity with French and English
money. If the industrial conditions in Italy were so bad as we
compassionate outsiders have been taught to suppose, this financial
change is one of the most important events accomplished in Europe since
the great era of the racial unifications began. No one will pretend that
there have not been great errors of administration in Italy, but
apparently the Italians have known how to learn wisdom from their folly.
There has been a great deal of industrial adversity; the cost of living
has advanced; the taxes are very heavy, and the burdens are unequally
adjusted; many speculators have been ruined, and much honestly invested
money has been lost. But wages have increased with the prices and rents
and taxes, and in a country where every ounce of coal that drives a
wheel of production or transportation has to be brought a thousand miles
manufactures and railroads have been multiplied.
The state has now taken over the roads and has added their cost to that
of its expensive army and navy, but no reasonable witness can doubt that
the Italians will be equal to this as well as their other national
undertakings. These in Rome are peculiarly difficult and onerous,
because they must be commensurate with the scale of antiquity. In a city
surviving amid the colossal ruins of the past it would be grotesque to
build anything of the modest modern dimensions such as would satisfy the
eye in other capitals. The Palace of Finance, at a time when Italian
paper was at a discount almost equal to that of American paper during
the Civil War, had to be prophetic of the present solvency in size. The
yet-unfinished Palace of Justice (one dare not recognize its beauty
above one's breath) must be planned so huge that the highest story had
to be left off if the foundations were to support the superstructure;
the memorial of Victor Emmanuel II. must be of a vastness in keeping
with the monuments of imperial Rome, some of which it will partly
obscure. Yet as the nation has grown in strength under burdens and
duties, it will doubtless prove adequate to the colossal architectural
enterprises of its capital. Private speculation in Rome brought disaster
twenty-five years ago, but now the city has overflowed with new life the
edifices that long stood like empty sepulchres, and public enterprises
cannot finally fail; otherwise we should not be digging the Panama Canal
or be trying to keep the New York streets in repair. We may confide in
the ability of the Italians to carry out their undertakings and to pay
the cost out of their own pockets. It is easy to criticise them, but we
cannot criticise them more severely than they criticise themselves; and
perhaps, as our censure cannot profit them, we might with advantage to
ourselves, now and then, convert it into recognition of the great things
they have accomplished.