covered with white sheets; between them a stage somewhat larger than
that of a street Punch, with a curtain representing a characteristic
Sienese brick wall enclosing a fountain; several rows of rough wooden
benches, and one of chairs,--this was what we saw by the dim light of
one lamp. We sat on the last bench. The audience probably would be more
entertaining than the play. But the humble shall be exalted. The woman
on the front row bade us come up higher. The small boy who acted as
usher told us we might have two of the chairs for two _soldi_ more. The
ticket-seller even came in, and in soft pleading tones said that we
might have any places we wanted; why then should we choose the worst?
But we refused the exaltation.
The audience now began to arrive in good earnest. Five ragged boys of
the _gamin_ species, one of a neater order with his little sister by the
hand, two soldiers, a lady with a blue feather in her bonnet, and her
child and nurse, two young girls,--and the benches were almost filled.
Our friend the ticket-seller became very active as business grew brisk.
She was always running in and out, now giving this one a seat, now
rearranging the reserved chairs, and now keeping the younger members of
the audience in order. _Ragazzini_, she called the unruly boys who stood
up on the benches and whistled and sang, so that I wondered what
diminutive she gave the swells on the front row. This was amusing
enough, but our dinner-hour was half-past six. J. looked at his watch;
it was a quarter past. The ever-watchful keeper of the show saw him.
"Ah, the _Signore_ must not be impatient. _Ecco!_ the music was about to
begin." Begin it did indeed, to be continued with a persistency which
made us fear it would never end. The musicians were two. A young man in
velveteen coat and long yellow necktie played the clarionet, and another
the cornet. They knew only one tune,--a waltz I think it was meant to
be,--but that they gave without stint, playing it over and over again,
even while the ticket-seller made them move from their chairs to a long,
high box by the wall; and when a third arrived with a trombone they let
him join in when and as it best pleased him. When we had heard at least
the twenty-fifth repetition of the waltz, had looked at the scuffling of
the _ragazzini_ until even that pleasure palled, had seen the soldiers
smoke _sigaro Cavour_ after _sigaro Cavour_ so that the air grew heavy,
and had watched the gradual growth of the audience until every place was
filled, our patience was exhausted. Behold! we said to the woman with
the gentle voice, it was now seven. The play was announced for six. Was
this right? In a house not far off every one was eating, and two covers
were laid for us. But here we were in this dark room in our hunger,
waiting for marionettes whose wires for aught we knew were broken. She
became penitent. The _signorini_ must forgive her. The wires were not
broken, but he who pulled them had not arrived. There was yet time.
Would we not go and dine and then come back? She would admit us on our
return.
And so we went and had our dinner, well seasoned with polite
conversation. The ticket-agent was true to her word. When we reappeared
at her door, the curtain was pulled at once. In the mean time the
musicians had been suppressed, not only out of hearing but out of sight.
The room was so crowded that many who had arrived during our absence
were standing. Indeed, there must have been by this time fully five
francs in the house. All were watching with entranced eyes the movements
of four or five puppets. The scene represented an interior, which I
suppose, was that of the prison to one side of the Bridge of Sighs. That
it was intended for a cell also seemed evident, because the one portable
piece of furniture on the stage was a low, flat couch of a shape which
as every one who has been to the theatre, but never to prison, knows is
peculiar to the latter. It was impossible to lose sight of it, as the
_dramatis personæ_ made their exits and entrances over it. It was rather
funny to see the villain of the piece after an outbreak of passion, or
an elegant long-haired page in crimson clad, after a gentlemanly speech,
suddenly vault over it. We could not discover what the play was about.
Besides the two above-mentioned characters there was a puppet with a
large red face and green coat and trousers who gave moral tone to the
dialogue, and another with heavy black beard and turban-like head-dress,
and much velvet and lace whom we took to be a person of rank. As they
came in and out by turn, it was impossible to decide which was the
prisoner. With the exception of the jumps over the couch, there was
little action in the performance. Its only two noticeable features
were--first, the fact that villain, page, moralist, and magnate spoke in
exactly the same voice and with the same expression; and, secondly, that
they had an irrepressible tendency to stand in the air rather than on
the floor, as if they had borrowed Mr. Stockton's negative-gravity
machine. The applause and laughter and rapt attention of the audience
proved the play to be much to their liking. But for us inappreciative
foreigners a little of it went a great way. As nothing but talk came of
all the villany and moralizing and grandeur and prettiness,--which may
have been a clever bit of realism of which the English drama is not yet
capable,--and as there was no apparent reason why the dialogue should
ever come to an end, we went away after the next act. The ticket-seller
was surprised at our sudden change from eagerness to indifference, but
not offended. She thanked us for our patronage and wished us a _felice
notte_.
With the darkness the gayety of the town had increased. In the large
theatre a play was being performed by a company of amateurs. Having had
tickets given us, we looked in for a few minutes, but found it as wordy
as that of the puppets. In a neighboring piazza the proprietor of a
large van, like those to be seen at country fairs at home, was
exhibiting a man, arrayed in a suit of rubber, with a large brass
helmet-like arrangement on his head, who, it seemed, could live at the
bottom of the sea, along with Neptune and the Naiads, as comfortably as
on dry shore. _Ecco!_ There was the tank within, where this marvel could
be seen,--a human being living under the water and none the worse for
it! Admission was four _soldi_, but _per militari e ragazzi_ ("for the
military and children") it was but two! So it seems that the soldiers
who abroad are to strike terror into the enemy, at home are ranked with
the young of the land, since like them their name is legion! There were
about a dozen in the crowd, and, all unconscious of the sarcasm, they
hurried up the steps and into the show, while an old man ground out of a
hand-organ the appropriate tune of "_O, que j'aime les militaires!_"
But dramas and shows were not the only Sunday-evening amusements. The
_caffès_ were crowded. Judging from the glimpses we had into little
black, cavern-like wine-shops, another Saint Bernardino is needed to set
makers of gaming-tools in Siena to the manufacture of holier articles.
And more than once, as we walked homewards in the starlight, we heard
the voices of the three minstrels singing of human passion in the
streets where Catherine so often preached the rapture of divine love. If
swans were now seen in visions by fond Sienese matrons, they would wing
their way earthward and not heavenward, as in the days when Blessed
Bernardo's mother dreamed dreams.
AN ITALIAN BY-ROAD.
"_And the name of the going up the
side of the hill is called
Difficulty._"
"_Is not the place dangerous? Hath
it not hindered many in their
pilgrimage?_"
We left Siena the morning after the marionette exhibition. The major,
when he heard at breakfast that we were going, asked us point blank
several questions about Boston publishers, his book probably being still
uppermost in his thoughts. Later he sent his card to our room to know at
what hour we started; he wished to see us off. The young lady of
architectural proclivities shook hands and bade us good-by, saying she
had often ridden a sociable with her cousin in England.
After all, there was not much for the major to see. We could not ride
through the streets, and so could not mount the machine for his benefit.
But he was interested in watching us strap the bags to the
luggage-carrier, and pleased because of this opportunity to entertain us
with more American reminiscences. I am afraid his amusement in Siena was
small. In return for the little we gave him he asked us to come and see
him in Rome, where he would spend the winter, and added that if we
expected to pass through Cortona he would like to write a card of
introduction for us to a friend of his there, an Italian who had married
an English lady. Cortona was a rough place, and we might be glad to have
it. He had forgotten his friend's name, but he would run upstairs and
his wife could tell him. In a minute he returned with the written card.
We have had many letters of introduction, but never one as singular as
the major-general's. As he knew our names even less well than that of
his Cortona friends, he introduced us as "an American lady and gentleman
riding a _bicycle_!" Only fancy! as the English say. Our parting with
him was friendly. Then he stood with Luigi and Zara until we disappeared
around the corner of the street.
What a ride we had from Siena to Buonconvento! This time the road was
all _giù_, _giù_, _giù_. It was one long coast almost all the way, and
we made the most of it. We flew by milestone after milestone. Once we
timed ourselves: we made a mile in four minutes. The country through
which we rode was sad and desolate. On either side were low rolling
hills, bare as the English moors, and of every shade of gray and brown
and purple. Here rose a hill steeper than the others, with a black cross
on its summit; and here, one crowned with a group of four grim
cypresses. Down the hillsides were deep ruts and gullies, with only an
occasional patch of green, where women were watching sheep and swine.
Once we came to where three or four houses were gathered around a small
church, but they were as desolate as the land. We heard voices in the
distance, but there was no one in sight. When on a short stretch of
level road we stopped to look at this strange gray land, the grayer
because dark clouds covered the sky, we saw that above the barrenness
the sun shone on Siena, and that all her houses, overtowered by the
graceful La Mangia and the tall Duomo Campanile, glistened in the bright
light.
About five miles from the city the desolation was somewhat relieved, for
there were hedges by the roadside, and beyond sloping olive-gardens and
vineyards. Poplars grew by little streams and sometimes we rode under
oaks. On the top of every gray hill, giving it color, was a farm-house,
rows of brilliant pumpkins laid on its red walls, ears of yellow corn
hung in its _loggia_, and gigantic haystacks standing close by. There
were monasteries too, great square brick buildings with tall towers, and
below spire-like cypresses. But between the farms and fertile fields
were deep ravines and dry beds of streams. The road was lonely. Now and
then flocks of birds flew down in front of the tricycle, or large white
geese came out from under the hedge and hissed at us. For a few minutes
a man driving a donkey-cart made the way not a little lively. He did not
see us until we wheeled by him. Then he jumped as if he had been shot.
"_Dio!_" he exclaimed, "but you frightened me!" He laughed, however, and
whipping up his donkey rattled after us as if eager for a race, talking
and shouting all the while until we were out of hearing. One or two
peasants passed in straw chariot-shaped wagons, and once from a
farm-house a woman in red blouse and yellow apron, with a basket on her
head and a dog at her heels, came towards us. It was in this same
farm-house we met a Didymus. We stopped, as we had a way of doing when
anything pleased us, and he came out to have a better look at the
_tramway_. And how far did we expect to go to-day? he asked. To Monte
Oliveto, we told him, for, like pious pilgrims, we thought to make a
day's retreat with the monks there. "To Monte Oliveto! and in a day, and
on that machine!" and he laughed us to scorn. "In a week, the _Signore_
had better say." Later a stone-breaker's belief in us made some amends
for the farmer's contempt. We were riding then. "_Addio!_" he cried,
even before we reached him.
I shall always remember a little village through which we rode that
morning, because it was there we saw the first large stone-pine growing
by the roadside, which showed we were getting farther south, and because
of the friendliness of a peasant. It was a poor place. The people were
ragged and squalid and sickly, as if the gloom of the hills had fallen
upon them. We asked at a shop for a lemon, but there was not one to be
had. "Wait," cried a woman standing close by, and she disappeared. She
returned almost immediately with a lemon on whose stem there were still
fresh green leaves. "_Ecco!_" she said, "it is from my garden." "How
much?" asked J., as she handed it to him. "Oh, nothing, sir," and she
put her hands behind her back. We made her take a few coppers, for the
children we told her. As far as it lay in her power I think she was as
courteous as those men in a certain Italian town who, in days long past,
fought together for the stranger who came within their gates, so eager
were they all, not to cheat him, as is the way with modern landlords,
but to lodge him at their own expense, so that there were no inns in
that town.
Before we reached Buonconvento the sun came out and the clouds rolled
away. It had rained here earlier in the morning. The roads were sticky
and the machine ran heavily, and trees and hedges were wet with
sparkling raindrops. There is an imposing entrance to the little town, a
pointed bridge over a narrow stream, with a Madonna and Child in marble
relief at the highest point, an avenue of tall poplars with marble
benches set between, and then the heavy brick walls blackened with age,
and the gateway, its high Gothic arch decorated with the old Sienese
wolf and a more recent crop of weeds.
We rode from one end to the other,--a two minutes' ride,--without
finding a _trattoria_. At length we appealed to the crowd. Where was the
_trattoria_? No one understood; and yet that very morning J. had been
asked if he were not a Florentine! Perhaps _monsieur_ speaks French? and
a little Frenchman in seedy clothes jauntily worn, and with an
indescribable swagger, came forward, hat in hand. The effect of his
coming was magical. For unknown reasons, when it was found that J. could
speak French after a fashion, his Italian was all-sufficient. The inn
was here; we were directly in front of it, and the _padrone_, who had
been at our elbows all the time, led the way into it. The Frenchman
gallantly saw us through the crowd to the room where we were to dine. It
was the best _trattoria_ in the place, but poor enough, he said. Such
bread and cheese! horrible! and he shrugged his shoulders and raised his
hands to heaven in testimony thereof. He did not live in Buonconvento,
not he. He came from Paris. Then he complimented J. on his Italian, to
make up in some measure for the failure of the people to appreciate it,
and with a bow that might have won him favor at court, and a "I salute
you, _monsieur_ and _madame_," he politely left us before our dinner was
served. He was a strolling actor, the _padrone_ said; he and his troupe
would give a performance in the evening.
[Illustration: CHIUSURE.
_Page 68._]
The fact that we were going to Monte Oliveto annoyed the _padrone_. The
monastery is a too successful rival to his inn. Few travellers, except
those who are on their way to Monte Oliveto, pass through his town, and
few who can help it stay there over night. His list of the evils we
should have to endure was the sauce with which he served our beefsteak
and potatoes. We must leave the post road for one that was stony and
steep. Our velocipede could not be worked over it. It would take hours
to reach the monastery, and we had better not be out after dark, for
there were dangers untold by the way. But when he had said the worst he
became cheerful, and even seemed pleased when we admired his kitchen,
where brass and copper pots and pans hung on the walls, and where in one
corner was a large fireplace with comfortable seats above and a
pigeon-house underneath. But when we complimented him on the walls of
his town, Bah! he exclaimed, of what use were they? They were half
destroyed. They would be no defence in war-times.
He was right. The walls, strong by the gate, have in parts entirely
disappeared, and in others, houses and stables have been made of them.
It is on the open space by these houses that the men have their
playground. They were all there when we arrived, and still there when we
left. Young men, others old enough to be their fathers, and boys were,
each in turn, holding up balls to their noses, and then, with a long
slide and backward twist of the arm, rolling them along the ground,
which is the way Italians play bowls.
Before the afternoon was over we cursed in our hearts the Tuscan
politeness we had heretofore praised. About a mile from Buonconvento the
road to Monte Oliveto divided. We turned to the right. But two peasants
with ox-teams called out from below that we must not go that way. It was
all bad. But to the left it was good, and _piano_, ascending but gently,
and we had much better take it. In an evil moment we did. That it ill
behooves a wise man to seek counsel in every word spoken to him, we
found to our cost. In the first place the ascent was not gentle,--we had
not then learned that an Italian calls every hill that is not as
straight up and down as the side of a house, _piano_,--and in the second
place the road was not good, but vilely bad. Unfortunately, for half a
mile or perhaps more it was fair enough. But when we had gone just so
far that we were unwilling to turn back we discovered our mistake. The
road we had not taken was that built by the monks hundreds of years ago;
we had chosen the new and not yet finished by-way. It was heavy with
dust and dirt, and full of ruts and loose stones. Over it we could not
ride or even push the tricycle without difficulty. It was in keeping,
however, with the abomination of desolation lying to each side. For we
were now in a veritable wilderness, a land of deserts and of pits, where
few men dwell. All around us were naked, colorless chalk-hills, abrupt
precipices and ravines. A few chestnut-trees, a rose-bush covered with
red berries growing from the gray earth, were the only green things we
passed for miles. It was weary and slow work, and the sun was low on the
hill-tops before we came to the point where the two roads met. At some
distance above us we saw a large red building surrounded by cypresses,
and we knew this must be Monte Oliveto Maggiore. So we took heart again.
But our trouble was not over. The road was better only by comparison,
and it was still impossible to ride, and hard work to push or pull the
tricycle. It was built of bricks, which lay as if they had been
carelessly shot out of a cart and left where and how they fell. A little
farther on it divided again. A woman was walking towards us, and J.
asked her which was the road to the convent (_il convento_). "You must
go back," she said; "it lies miles below,--Buonconvento." "These
peasants are fools," said J. in angry English to her very face; but she,
all unconscious, smiled upon us. We went to the left, which fortunately
was just what we ought to have done. But it was provoking that instead
of getting nearer to the monastery, we seemed to be going farther from
it. With one turn of the road it appeared to be above, and with the next
below us. Now it was on one side and now on the other, until I began to
feel as if we were the answer to the riddle I had so often been asked in
my childhood, the mysterious "What is it that goes round and round the
house and never gets in?" Soon the sun set behind the hills, and the sky
grew soft and golden. We met several peasants bearing large bundles of
twigs on their heads. There were one or two shrines, a chapel, and a
farm-house in front of which a priest stood talking to a woman. But on
we went without resting, J. pushing the machine and I walking behind,
womanlike shirking my share of the work. The road grew worse until it
became nothing but a mass of ruts and gullies washed out by the rain,
and led to a hill from which even Christian would have turned and fled.
But we struggled up, reaching the top to see the gate of the monastery
some sixty or seventy feet below. Finally we came to the great brick
gateway which in the dull light--for by this time the color had faded
from the sky--rose before us a heavy black pile, beyond whose archway we
saw only shadow and mystery. As we walked under it our voices, when we
spoke, sounded unnatural and hollow. On the other side the road wound
through a gloomy grove of cypresses, growing so close together that they
hedged us about with impenetrable darkness. Once several silent figures,
moving noiselessly, passed by. Had we, by mischance, wandered into a
Valley of the Shadow of Death?
The cypress grove, after several windings, brought us face to face with
the building at which we had already so often looked from the distance.
Even in the semi-darkness we could see the outline distinctly enough to
know we were standing in front of the church, and that the detached
building a little to our left was a barn or stable. But not a light
shone in a window, not a doorway was in sight. I recalled my convent
experience of bygone years, and remembered that after eight o'clock in
the evening no one was admitted within its walls. Was there a rule like
this at Monte Oliveto, and was six the hour when its bolts and bars were
fastened against the stranger? As we hesitated where to go or what to do
next, three or four workmen came from the stable. J. spoke to them, and
one offered to show him the entrance to the monastery while I waited by
the tricycle. It was strange to stand in the late evening and in the
wilderness alone, with men whose speech I barely understood and whose
faces I could not see. For fully five minutes I waited thus while they
talked together in low voices. But at last I heard one cry, _Ecco!_ here
was the _padrone_; and they all took off their hats. A dog ran up and
examined me, and then a man, who I could just make out in the gloom,
wore a cassock and the broad-brimmed priestly hat, joined the group.
"_Buona sera_," he said to me.
Could I speak to him in French, I asked. Yes, he assented, what was it I
wanted? When I told him we wished to stay in the monastery, he said he
had not expected us. We had not written.
"But," I exclaimed, "we thought strangers were allowed to stay here."
"Yes," he answered; "there is a _pension_ in the monastery, but it is
for artists."
"And my husband is an artist," I interrupted eagerly, for from his
manner I feared he would refuse us admission. After all, what did he
know about us except that, vagrant-like, we were wandering in the
mountains at a most unseasonable hour? Indeed, when later I reflected on
the situation, I realized that we must have seemed suspicious
characters. At this critical moment J. returned. His guide had led him
to a small side-door beyond the church. There he rang and rang again.
The bell was loud and clear, and roused many echoes within, but nothing
else. The guide, perplexed, then led him back. I told him with whom I
was speaking, and he continued the conversation with the _padrone_. Had
they talked in Italian only, or in French, they might have understood
each other; but instead they used a strange mixture of the two, to their
mutual bewilderment. If this kept on much longer we should undoubtedly
spend the night in the open air. In despair I broke in in French: "But,
my father, cannot we stay this one night?"
"Certainly," he said, fortunately dropping all Italian. "That is what I
was explaining to _monsieur_. You can stay, but of course we have
nothing prepared. We will do our best."
If he had said he would do his worst, provided we were rid of the
tricycle for the night, and were ourselves taken indoors where we might
sit down, we should have been thankful.