After this came rich days in Florence. Everything was a delight to me
there, from the granite paving of the streets, to palaces, churches,
galleries, and parks. I stood in reverence before the Medici monuments
in Michael Angelo's sanctuary. The people attracted me less; the women
seemed to me to have no type at all, compared with the lovely faces and
forms at Milan and Parma. The fleas attracted me least of all.
Dall 'Ongaro received every Sunday evening quite an international
company, and conversation consequently dragged. With the charming
Japanese wife of the English consul, who spoke only English and
Japanese, neither of her hosts could exchange a word. There were
Dutchmen and Swiss there with their ladies; sugar-sweet and utterly
affected young Italian men; handsome young painters and a few prominent
Italian scientists, one of whom, in the future, was to become my friend.
I had a double recommendation to the Danish Minister at Florence, from
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and from an old and intimate friend of
his in Copenhagen. When I presented my letters, he exclaimed, in
annoyance: "These special recommendations again! How often must I
explain that they are unnecessary, that all Danes, as such, are welcome
to my house!"--This was the delicate manner in which he let me
understand that he was not inclined to do anything whatever for me.
Moreover, he began at once with regrets that his family were absent, so
that he was not in housekeeping, and could not entertain anyone.
At a production of Émile Augier's _Le Fils de Giboyer_, at which all
the foreign diplomatists were present, he, too, turned up. While the
other diplomatists greeted each other silently with a nod, he made more
of the meeting than any one else did, went from place to place in the
stalls, shook hands, spoke French, German, English and Italian by
turns, was all things to all men, then came and sat down by me, made
himself comfortable, and in a moment was fast asleep. When he began to
snore, one after another of his colleagues turned their heads, and
smiled faintly. He slept through two acts and the intervals between
them, in spite of the voices from the stage and the loud talking
between the acts, and woke up in the middle of the third act, to mumble
in my ear, "It is not much pleasure to see the piece played like this."
At my favourite restaurant, _Trattoria dell'antiche carrozze_, I was
one day witness to a violent dispute between a Polish noble who, for
political reasons, had fled from Russian Poland, and Hans Semper, a
Prussian, author of a book on Donatello. The latter naturally
worshipped Bismarck, the former warmly espoused the cause of Denmark.
When I left, I said politely to him:
"I thank you for having so warmly defended my country; I am a Dane."
The next day the Pole came to look for me at the restaurant, and a
closer acquaintance resulted. We went for many walks together along the
riverside; he talking like a typical Polish patriot, I listening to his
dreams of the resuscitated Poland that the future was to see. I mention
this only because it affords an example of the remarkable coincidences
life brings about, which make one so easily exclaim: "How small the
world is!" This Pole became engaged several years afterwards to a young
Polish girl and left her, without any explanation, having got entangled
with a Russian ballet dancer. I made her acquaintance at Warsaw fifteen
years after I had met him at Florence. She was then twenty-six years of
age, and is one of the women who have taught me most; she told me the
story of her early youth and of the unengaging part my acquaintance of
1870 had played in it.
At Florence I saw Rossi as Hamlet. The performance was a disappointment
to me, inasmuch as Rossi, with his purely Italian nature, had done away
with the essentially English element in Hamlet. The keen English
humour, in his hands, became absurd and ridiculous. Hamlet's hesitation
to act, he overlooked altogether. Hamlet, to him, was a noble young man
who was grieved at his mother's ill-behaviour. The details he acted
like a virtuoso. For instance, it was very effective during the mimic
play, when, lying at Ophelia's feet, he crushes her fan in his hands at
the moment when the King turns pale. I derived my chief enjoyment, not
from the acting, but from the play. It suddenly revealed itself to me
from other aspects, and I fell prostrate in such an exceeding
admiration for Shakespeare that I felt I should never rise again. It
was touching to hear the Italians' remarks on _Hamlet_. The piece was
new to them. You frequently heard the observation: "It is a very
philosophical piece." As people changed from place to place, and sat
wherever they liked, I overheard many different people's opinions of
the drama. The suicide monologue affected these fresh and alert minds
very powerfully.
That evening, moreover, I had occasion to observe human cowardice,
which is never accounted so great as it really is. There was a noise
behind the scene during the performance, and immediately afterwards a
shout of _Fuoco!_ The audience were overmastered by terror. More than
half of them rushed to the doors, pulled each other down, and trampled
on the fallen, in their endeavours to get out quickly enough; others
rushed up on the stage itself. As there was not the least sign of fire
visible, I of course remained in my seat. A few minutes later one of
the actors came forward and explained that there had been no fire; a
fight between two of the scene-shifters had been the cause of all the
alarm. The good-humoured Italians did not even resent the fellows
having thus disturbed and interrupted the performance.
John Stuart Mill had given me an introduction to Pasquale Villari, who,
even at that time, was _commendatore professore_, and held a high
position on the Board of Education, but was still far from having
attained the zenith of his fame and influence. When the reserve of the
first few days had worn off, he was simply splendid to me. When
anything I said struck him as being to the point, he pressed my hands
with all the ardour of youth, and he applauded every joke I attempted
with uproarious laughter.
Some twenty years were to elapse before I saw him again. Then he called
upon me in Copenhagen, wishing to make my acquaintance, without in the
least suspecting that I was the young man who, so long before, had come
to him from Mill. He looked with amazement at books in which he had
written with his own hand, and at old letters from himself which I
produced. I visited him again in 1898. His books on Machiavelli and
Savonarola entitle him to rank among the foremost students and
exponents of Italy.
I went one day to the great annual fair at Fiesole. Shouting and
shrieking, the people drove down the unspeakably dusty road with such
haste, carelessness and high spirits that conveyances struck against
each other at every moment. It was the life represented in Marstrand's
old-time pictures. In crowded Fiesole, I saw the regular Tuscan country
type, brown eyes, yellow or clear, white skin, thin, longish face,
brown or fair, but never black hair, strong, healthy bodies. The
masculine type with which I was acquainted from the soldiers, was
undeniably handsomer than our own, in particular, was more intelligent;
the young women were modest, reserved in their manner, seldom entered
into conversation with the men, and despite the fire in their eyes,
manifested a certain peasant bashfulness, which seems to be the same
everywhere.