right though; there is not work enough to go round; one must consider
one’s own interests or we should all go bankrupt. That’s what ‘mind your
business’ means! If you don’t look out for yourself, some one else
must.”
J. came up on the terrace at that moment; Vera waved her little hand
gaily to him.
“What news from Messina?”
“No news; I wish I knew how they are getting on.”
“I have a letter from the Avvocato Bonanno, asking about the family of
Count Q.”
“I have just come from there. I will write him. The Count can speak now,
but he’s paralyzed, he will never walk again.”
“You’re fretting to get back to Sicily; so am I.”
It was true; since his return from the cruise of the “Bayern,” Rome,
even his studio, seemed tame to J. How could he, and Vera too, long to
go back to that place of death, when Rome, the Eternal City, wooed with
the voice of her fountains, the perfumed breath of her villas, the
beauty of her everlasting hills?
“I have had an inspiration,” Vera made the pretty insistent gesture of
her finger that rules us all. “This is the psychological moment to
exhibit your Diana. Rome is sick with grief! There’s nothing going on,
not a reception, not even a dinner. Any invitation to do anything,
besides give money and sew garments _pro Calabria e Sicilia_, will be a
godsend. That’s the practical side of it; then there’s the other side.
We have supped full on horrors; comfort us with a sight of the lovely
lady.”
Most of her friends follow Vera’s advice, for her’s is a master spirit;
when she takes hold of one’s affairs, somehow they always march.
The next week was a busy one. Vera decided that we must ask “all Rome”
to the exhibition. In order to do this we borrowed lists from all sorts
of people. A little white and gold book, the Roman social register,
contains the names of all the Court people, the diplomats, and those who
belong to the “smart set.” Then there were the lists of the San Lucca
Academy and the Art Club. From the bankers and hotels we gathered as
many names of the transient Americans as possible; all our friends
helped us. When the long list was ready I sent to an employment bureau
for some one to direct the envelopes.
She came, bringing her credentials, at five o’clock; as she was an
English lady, and evidently very poor, we asked her to stay to tea. She
sat in the Savonarola chair (it belonged to Giovanni Costa, the great
artist--J. bought it after his death) and took her tea timidly, spilling
a little on her poor faded dress, and crumbling the _pan-forte di Siena_
(sent us at Christmas from Milan) over the best Persian rug. That ought
to have been a warning to me, but it wasn’t! We sent the envelopes and
the lists to her and turned our minds to other things. The exhibition
was to open Tuesday, February 2nd. The envelopes were promised for the
previous Saturday, so that the cards might be put in, the stamps
affixed, the invitations posted Saturday night. They would then be
received on Sunday morning, a good leisure time when busy people have
time to read their mail. Vera, Athol, and Wilfred Thompson came to dine
Saturday to help us with the envelopes. It was our first social meeting
since that fatal night of December 28th; we had all of us need of a
little joy; the pain of the last month had left its mark.
Agnese herself bought the stamps; she would trust no other. I had meant
to send the cards by hand--it costs no more, and would have given
employment to Alessandro, a _poveraccio_ who has attached himself to us.
“These _biglietti_ are important?” asked Agnese when I consulted her
about Alessandro.
“Of the greatest importance.”
“Listen to me, Signora. I would not destroy your confidence in
Alessandro, no, nor in any other, but the distances are far, the Tiber
is near--Alessandro might, by accident, let fall a bunch of these
letters as he crosses the bridge. The _postino_ is obliged to make _his_
rounds, the _carabinieri_ keep an eye on him. No, it is safer to trust
the post!”
Agnese’s dinners are not like Attilio’s (Vera’s great Neapolitan chef),
but she has a way of cooking truffles in white wine and serving them in
a napkin, to be eaten with fresh butter, that seems to please. Checco of
the Concordia gets us the truffles from some mysterious unfailing
source, when they are not to be had in the market. Agnese’s _fritta
dorata_ of shrimps, cuttlefish and artichokes is fit for the King or the
Pope, or Mr. Roosevelt--his sister once ate one of Agnese’s golden frys
and liked it. After dinner the table was cleared, two white aprons were
borrowed for Vera and me, and the big packages of envelopes were opened
and laid out on the table.
“We had better look them over, don’t you think?” said Athol, the wise,
taking up an envelope. “She has a good handwriting--but she makes queer
work of these foreign titles. His Excellency the Count and the Countess
Lutzow,--really now that won’t do!”
We looked at each other in despair; each had found the most egregious
and impossible blunders. All the addresses except the English and
Americans, it had been agreed, were to be written in French.
“They must all be done over again!” I cried.
“No, no, it’s not so bad as that. The English ones are all right. We
must go over the whole lot, though, sort out the bad ones and redirect
them.
“Who is going to do it?” I groaned. That was the question. Vera’s
handwriting, though distinguished, is cryptic, owing to her having
learned to write German and Russian before the Latin script. Athol’s
tired hand had held the pen for eight hours that day, and could not be
further taxed. J.’s handwriting is a work of art, and art is long; my
own is frankly bad. Thompson had thrown himself into the work of putting
in the cards and sticking up the envelopes.
“Handwriting is the only thing that does not improve with practice--the
more a man writes, the worse he writes,” said Athol. Here the bell rang
insistently; a minute later Agnese announced:
“_Quella Signora bella ed alta!_”
The beautiful and tall lady followed close upon her, Elinor Diederich,
daughter of those gods of our youth, William and Louisa Hunt. Despair,
dismay, doubt vanished before her; she blew them all away, as the fresh
west wind blows vapors and fog and leaves the sun bright in the sky;
that is what it is to inherit the temperament of genius.
“Of course,” said Elinor, picking up one of the badly directed
envelopes, “I knew this would happen. That’s the reason I came. I have
had an experience of that poor thing’s work myself. I brought my pen; my
handwriting’s the best thing about me.” She was hard at it, directing
invitations in a handsome hand, as if that had been her calling.
At ten o’clock the bell rang again; there was a parley in the
anticamera; a faint odor of cigarette smoke floated into the room.
“It’s Emilio,” J. exclaimed. “Show the Signorino in!”
Emilio Benlieuri, the Spanish sculptor, one of our familiars, appeared
in the doorway, a tall lean melancholy man with the burning eyes and the
grave bearing of the Valencian Don.
He bowed low to the whole company. “I kiss your feet, Senora,” he began
in Castilian.
“I kiss your hand, Caballero,” I responded.
“It is getting late,” whispered Elinor, “really, this isn’t the time for
compliments. Make him put on the stamps--they’ll taste good to a hungry
man!”
The Valencian, who speaks no English, understood the large gesture with
which Elinor invited him to join the circle, and drew up a chair to the
round table.
“One more volunteer to the relief!” murmured Vera. “_Per carità_ Agnese,
a sponge; the situation is saved!”
Silence settled upon the dining room; the only sounds were the
scratch-scratch of Elinor’s pen, the snores of Romulus curled up at
Vera’s feet, the tinkle of the fountain up on the terrace under the
stars near the Pretorian’s cinerary urn, the rustle of the cards going
into the envelopes. On the Gothic sideboard which J. made for our Roman
home, the pile of invitations, sealed and stamped, rose higher and
higher, finally hiding the legend carved in quaint letters at the top:
“Better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred
therewith.”
How much better we never realized perhaps till that night, when the
loyalty and devotion of our friends helped us out of that tight place.
Love is the real lifting power when all is said. The love of the whole
world was helping Italy in her dark hour; the love of our little circle
of heart friends lifted and carried us over that difficult moment,
smoothed out the only hitch in the preparations for Vera’s exhibition.
We worked till long after midnight. The faithful Valencian was the last
to go; he departed in a cab, taking the invitations with him to the
Posta Generale. Sunday morning “all Rome” received the card at its
breakfast.
Lorenzo, the _muratore_, one of our oldest friends, arrived early Sunday
morning to put the studio in order. Lorenzo was Villegas’s factotum in
the days when our dear Maestro lived in his Andalusian villa on the
Viale Pariole, before his Mother Spain called him to Madrid to be
custodian of her greatest treasure, the Prado Museum. We had not sent
for Lorenzo because we knew he had met with an accident. What wireless
telegraphy had summoned him just when he was needed?
“What a pleasure to see thee!” Agnese exclaimed as she let Lorenzo in.
“And thy foot? Will it allow thee to work? The Signore was bewailing
that thou couldst not wax the studio floor. Thou knowest he believes no
other is to be trusted.”
“It is true that I am lame. Behold my foot. I can wear no boot, only
this slipper of a giant. But as to waxing the floor, I can do it on my
knees. The Signore is right, I only can execute that labor with
fidelity. As to the injury--well, it was received in the service of the
electric company that employs me. They have agreed to pay me a pension
till I can go back to work. What matters it if the recovery is retarded?
I draw my three francs a day, fresh and fresh. Do you think I would
abandon the Signore at such a moment? Thou art new in this house. Who
was it that prepared the old studio for the visit of her Majesty the
Queen? But that was years ago before thy time!”
From that moment I had no anxiety about the studio. Lorenzo, a
Romagnolo, is a tireless worker, one of those Italians who have won for
their countrymen the reputation of being the greatest workers in the
world.
“I wish I could buy him!” sighed J. when I told him Lorenzo had come.
Monday was a busy day; the old Portuguese leather chair, that the Queen
sat in on her last visit, was taken over to the studio, the best rugs,
the two Japanese screens, and the Savonarola chair. A table was put near
the door with some sheets of paper, pens and ink, in case anybody should
want to write. At the last minute Brother Harry, who happened to be
passing through Rome, gave a valuable hint:
“Of course you are going to send that portrait of the mother to the
studio?”
“Why?” said J., “I never thought of it.”
“Well, think of it now,” said Brother Harry. We thought of it, in the
end, thought well of it. The day the exhibition opened the portrait of
the old Chieftainess stood on an easel in the studio, ready to “receive”
visitors with Diana.
Agnese called me early Tuesday morning.
“Signora, let us go to the studio to arrange the flowers,” she said.
“With respect I should prefer it were done before Lorenzo comes. He is
_prepotente_, some things he knows, I do not deny; but the flowers--ah,
that is an art by itself!”
At five minutes of ten the last touch had been given to the studio; J.
and I stood waiting to receive the guests.
“Suppose nobody comes!”
The answer came quick and sharp; Lorenzo, dressed in his best, wearing
one ordinary and one giant boot, his hair shining like the studio floor,
threw open the door and announced with a beaming smile:
“_Quel Signorino matto!_” That mad young man.
“So you thought you would play this hand without me?” said a familiar
voice.
“Patsy!”
Where had he come from? We last heard of him at the hacienda of our
friend the Argentino, in South America.
“Same old two-and-sixpence, always in at the death! There’s no end of a
swell from the Celestial Empire on the stairs!”
“His Excellency the Minister of China,” Lorenzo announced.
The Chinese Minister, followed by his suite, walked into the studio on
the stroke of ten, the first minute of the first day of the exhibition.
“Art, you see, is a matter of importance to these people,” Pasty
murmured to me. “An invitation to a studio deserves to be treated with
respect. When you show that tableau in America I wonder if the mayor,
the governor, the sheriff, or even the hog-reeve, will take the trouble
to come and see it. The representative of the Chinese Empire comes in
person at the first possible moment. That’s my idea of a civilized
people!”
The Minister and J. were talking in pantomime, none the less cordially
for that. His Excellency wore seraphic clothes, had lovely polished
manners; his hand was smooth as a roseleaf, his long nails were
miraculous. The party stayed for some time and seemed pleased with their
visit. After they had gone, leaving a faint perfume of sandalwood and
straw-matting behind them, one of the younger men returned. (He was not
of the Legation we heard afterwards). From the first he had seemed
deeply impressed with the Diana; he hurried up to J., and pointing to
the divine Huntress whispered:
“I beg your pardon, Mister; is that God?”
Our next visitor was a dark energetic Italian, with beautiful manners.
He gave no name, none of us had any idea of who he was. He was deeply
interested in the painting, looked at it from every point of view, and
asked many questions about its final destination. He was not an artist,
of that we felt sure, but he was a man with more than a dilettante’s
interest in art. At the end of his visit, as he went towards the door,
he saw the pens and paper lying on the table.
“Shall I write my name?” he asked politely; then in a bold hand wrote
“Luigi Rava.”
“Who is he?” I asked after the dark unknown had driven off in his
carriage.
“Only the Minister of Education. Rome seems to be taking your show
seriously,” Patsy declared. “That was a good idea, writing his name;
mind you make everybody else follow suit. You’re likely to have some
interesting autographs before you’re finished.”
None so interesting as the Chinese Minister’s and it was too late for
that. We followed Patsy’s advice; after that all the visitors wrote
their names. That afternoon the studio was crowded with all sorts and
conditions of men and women; artists, tourists, ambassadors, beauties
and princes.
“You are the fashion; don’t be too much puffed up by that,” Patsy
admonished; “it’s because yours is the only free show open in town!”
The exhibition was to have lasted five days; we had to keep it open a
fortnight. As Patsy said, it became the fashion to drop into the studio,
a spacious room in the handsome new Studio Corrodi by the Tiber. We
never liked it so well as the old studio in the Borgo Sant’ Angelo, but
it was more convenient for such a reception. There is a pretty garden
with a brand new fountain and brand new flowers at the Corrodi; it is
smart, up to date, belonging to the new order of things in Roma Nuova.
One afternoon Archbishop Ireland and his train of attendant Abbesses
came to see us. The Archbishop’s sister and several other Mothers
Superior had come from America to visit Rome; they were a picturesque
group. The Archbishop’s sister was a cheery delightful soul; another of
the Mothers was so lovely J. wanted to paint her as Santa Theresa. We
met them first at the studio of Carolus Duran (now Director of the
French Academy) in the Villa Medici. The “_Chèr Maitre_” has brought
several of his masterpieces from Paris to Rome, among others a study for
a crucifixion, a really noble composition; America ought to have it. The
Church is so rich in our country that she could well afford to give him
a handsome order for it. The Abbesses in their long veils, taking tea
with the great French painter, was one of those impressions of the
contrasts of Roman life I shall not forget. They all came to our studio;
among the treasured names in the list of autographs are those of Mother
Celestine, Mother Seraphine, Mother Agnes Gonzaga.
“They remind me,” said Patsy, after the Archbishop and the ladies took
their leave, “of Sir Joseph Porter, K. C. B., his sisters and his
cousins and his aunts!”
Patsy was of the greatest use. He was at the studio almost as much as we
ourselves. He devoted himself to the humbler guests if there happened to
be some great personage to whom J. had to attend.
“It’s a good thing to have friends in every calling,” said Patsy; “you
never know just when they may come in handy.” I had reproached him for
neglecting lovely Donna Beatrice for old Checco, the proprietor of the
Concordia restaurant.
“Checco has given me credit many a time when it would have gone hard
with me to get a meal anywhere else!” he said.
On the eighth of February a note came from the Marchese Guiccioli, Queen
Margherita’s gentleman-in-waiting. The superscription, Casa della Regina
Madre, set the whole house in a flutter. Eugenio, the porter, himself
brought the royal messenger up in the lift. Agnese, who took the letter
from him, came hurrying to the terrace, where Ignazio and I were talking
about the wall flowers.
“See to it,” I was saying, “that this thing does not happen again. You
were paid a large price for these flowers, enormous sums were charged
for _concime_ (fertilizer) and they have done badly. Last season they
were poor spindly little things, while those that sprang by chance from
a crevice in the wall by the water pipe were a glory. Expound to me the
reason of this absurdity.”
“Signora, how can I explain the laws of God? It is according to their
nature. Those wall flowers that come up by chance without care always
seem the fairest, perhaps because they grow beyond our reach. Those you
speak of so abusively smelt like honey; you yourself complained that
they attracted not only the butterflies but the bees from the priest’s
hive.”
“A messenger from the Palazzo Margherita brought this.” Agnese offered
the letter on the best silver tray she so rarely is willing to use. It
is not well, she argues, that the first-comer should know we have such a
valuable thing in the house, and use it so commonly. It might be stolen
or, almost as bad, reported so that the tax for _richezza mobile_ would
be augmented.
“This letter is for the Signore,” I said.
“Without doubt--the Signora has reason--but being of so much importance
she will open it?”
“Certainly not.” Agnese and Ignazio were burnt up with curiosity about
the letter; they could hardly wait till J.’s return. Lorenzo, who had
followed Agnese, is more canny though quite as curious.
“Imbeciles! don’t you know that to break the seal of a letter from the
Casa Reale is an offense? I know perfectly well what it contains; as I
see you are beside yourselves with curiosity, I will tell you that--you
too shall know in good time!”
J. had gone for a walk along the Tiber to the Ponto Milvio; he returned
sooner than I expected. Eugenio, panting with suspense, had pursued and
brought him back. The letter brought the news that Queen Margherita
would come to the studio the next afternoon. As we were already in
apple-pie order, there was nothing for Lorenzo to do but put fresh
laurel branches in the vases and add a little polish to the “Queen’s
Chair.”
Punctually to the minute the royal carriage drew up at the door of the
Studio Corrodi. The servants on the box were dressed in dark
colors,--the splendid scarlet liveries, alas! are Queen Margherita’s no
longer; they are only worn by the servants of the reigning Queen. J.
received her Majesty at the carriage door and escorted her up the marble
stair to the big new studio. What a contrast to the dear old studio with
the ancient courtyard, the murmuring fountain hundreds of years old, the
water-worn stones dark with ages, where the maiden-hair fern grows in
great feathery tufts! It all came back to me with a sudden rush of
memory, as I followed the Queen up the wide white marble stair. I saw
the two long flights of hollowed travertina steps that led to the old
studio, the uneven brick floor, the window that gave on the court, where
the falcon and the white doves from the Vatican lived, the birds of
whose wings J. made such endless studies for the Hours in his “Triumph
of Time.” How many hours, months, years, had flown by since we three
last met!
Queen Margherita walked across the polished floor with the light step of
a girl, and quite naturally, without prompting, took her place in the
“Queen’s Chair.” The social temperature rose--we felt as children for
whom “the party has begun.” How does she do it? That’s her secret, she
could not tell us if she would. She is one of those rare beings who
bring their own sunshine with them, whose presence warms us to the
heart’s core! We hold out our hands towards the kindly glow, as we
stretch chilled fingers to a cheerful fire.
“It’s because she’s all there!” Patsy said afterwards, trying to explain
what we had all felt. After one quick glance about the studio, the royal
visitor fixed her eyes on the big canvas.
“This is your Diana of the Tides for the new museum at Washington?” she
said to J. “A fine opportunity; I congratulate you. At what height will
it be placed, at what distance will it be seen?”
Her questions about the Diana, and the building it was painted for, were
direct and to the point. She showed the closely trained mind of a woman
used to dealing with many kinds of affairs, of giving instant and
undivided attention to the matter in hand. “She was all there,” as Patsy
put it. There was a great lesson in the power of concentration she
showed. She is a busy active woman; every hour, each quarter of an hour
of every day has its appointed duty. We had a sense that she took them
up one by one with the same whole-hearted earnestness that made every
word she said worthy to be graven on our memories. After she had looked
a long time at the Diana, she walked across the studio to the easel with
the portrait of the old Chieftainess. J. told her something of her life
and work, and referred to the story that appeared a few days before in
the Tribuna. In a recent speech before the _Circolo Italiano_ of Boston,
my mother had snapped out this witticism:
“The American Eagle came out of the egg of Columbus.”
The _mot_ so delighted the Italians that it was quoted by the Italian
press all over the world.
“What a beautiful old age!” sighed the Queen Mother, as she looked at
the portrait of the woman who has been called in Boston’s Little Italy,
“_La Nonna degl’ Italiani_.”
“You have painted a portrait of old age as it ought to be,” Queen
Margherita continued; with that smile of hers, a little graver than of
old but with the same piercing sweetness.
“Remember that,” murmured Patsy. “She hits the nail on the head every
time; that’s the reason she has done so much for her generation. Come to
think of it, they are two of a kind; both have served greatly and been
greatly rewarded!” He looked from the face of the portrait on the easel
to the face of the royal lady who stood before it.
“Your portrait of _Il Povero Re_,” said the Queen Mother to J., “has
changed color. I am troubled about it. I fear it may be because I always
take it with me from Rome to Gressoni every year. I fear the jarring may
have hurt it.”
It was arranged then and there that J. should call upon the Countess
Villamarina, the Queen Mother’s companion, and see what was wrong with
his portrait of King Umberto. We all went down to the carriage; the
Queen Mother shook hands with us all graciously, and promised she would
come again to the studio some day.
We watched the landau with the sober liveries drive away. Across the
Tiber the regiment of Philippus was returning to the barracks, after
rifle practice at the Tor di Quinto. The gay notes of the royal march
sounded joyously; the proud horses of the royal landau arched their
beautiful necks--it was as if they recognized the music and tried to
keep step to it.