seven in the morning, with the news that the King would be at the studio
in an hour. He came in an automobile with two aides, an admiral and a
general. They all wore uniform and looked very smart and well turned
out. Agnese and I watched them from the terrace (the studio is opposite
the palazzo where we live). I was not allowed to go to the studio; Athol
and J. decided it would not be suitable, the visit being so early and of
so informal a nature; I was, of course, dreadfully disappointed. Lorenzo
was there to open the door; he apparently managed to leave it ajar, for
he gave me an account of the visit.
“His Majesty speaks every language as if it were his own--they all do,
it is a gift like another. It was most unfortunate for me, considering
the Signore talks Italian, that they spoke in Ingerlish, which
resembles--with respect, Signora--the chatter of monkeys. Something I
understood, however, by observing their faces. His Majesty pointed to
the horses; they interested him; has he not the finest horses in the
world? Before his Majesty departed he inquired if he should write his
name in the book. The Signore ran to turn over a virgin page; this his
Majesty would not allow but wrote his name with all the others, just
where it came naturally, when he could have had a whole page to himself.
You can see for yourself what a fine big signature he has; he might well
be proud of it, but he is not proud--_nostro re_! He handed the pen to
the Signor Ammiraglio, saying--that I could understand for it was in
Italian--‘See that you write your name better than I have written mine.’
On the table lay the photographs the Signore made at Messina; when his
Majesty saw them he turned back. They studied all those terrible
pictures of the ruins together, and they talked again in that language I
do not understand.”
They stayed twenty-five minutes by the clock on the Castle Sant’
Angelo,--Agnese kept watch of the time; then they all came down to the
street. The King shook hands with J., wrapped his long military cloak
about him (the air was keen), and got into the motor. The porter and
Lorenzo, standing very straight like soldiers on either side of the
door, saluted. The porter’s wife, the little stepson and the new baby
all leaned from the window over the door.
“Observe, observe, Signora mia, his Majesty smiles, he is pleased,”
whispered Agnese, all in a flutter. “Ah, what a good kind heart!”
The motor flashed past the Palazzo Frankenstein, and Agnese and I came
down “to hear all about it.” Coffee for all hands was demanded and
furnished forthwith. In the kitchen Lorenzo, Eugenio and Agnese talked
for an hour about the King’s visit. All I could get out of J. was the
last precious sentence of the interview:
“When I thanked him for the honor of the visit, King Victor said, ‘Not
at all, my mother told me to come.’ His English is beautiful, just like
Queen Margaret’s.”
VI
AT PALAZZO MARGHERITA
“The Signorina with the bright eyes, who lives in the handsome
_villino_,” Agnese began, “asks if the Signora can use her carriage
today. That fat beast, her coachman, is very avaricious, he will expect
a _mancia_ of three francs--still if we employ Napoleone, it will cost
more--besides with a private carriage _se fa più figura_.”
“As to making a good appearance, that’s of no consequence; the
Signorina’s carriage, however, has better springs than Napoleone’s,
rubber tires as well. What didst thou say?”
“As the Signora was occupied I said yes, with _tante grazie_, and
combined that the ‘milor’ should come at two o’clock. The afternoons are
short; as the _mancia_ must be paid, it is better to have one’s money’s
worth.” Agnese wears thirty-two flawless pearls in her mouth--as she
said these things she showed them all to me with the guileless smile of
an infant.
Could it be by chance that Vera’s carriage was offered for this
particular day? Impossible! Besides, Agnese knows I never go out till
four. I have to believe in miracles, such miraculous things happen. Can
it be that Agnese works the oracle? _Basta!_ best not lift the veil from
such comfortable mysteries. We were booked to call on the Marchesa
Villamarina at half past two o’clock; we had spoken to no living soul of
this, and here was a fat coachman, a fine coach and pair coming to take
us in state to the palace of the Regina Madre. If our very walls have
ears, if our correspondence is tampered with, the result is
fortunate--let us accept the “milor” the gods send us!
We drove up sunny Via Veneto, through the Ludovisi quarter, past the
smart hotels that have sprung up near the Palazzo Margherita--the Savoy,
Regina, Palace, half a dozen more named out of compliment to the Queen
Mother. If the sacrifice had to be made, the beautiful Villa Ludovisi
cut up into house lots, transformed into the fashionable quarter of
Rome, the great winter watering place, it’s a little comfort that the
best site now serves for the site of Queen Margherita’s palace.
“Do you remember the violets that used to grow here?
“I can smell them now!”
“It’s hard to forgive that vandalism, even if building lots were
necessary.”
Other things are necessary; the cool shade of ancient cedars, their
resinous breath at hot noontide, the plashing of water in moss-grown
fountains, the rustle of birds at nesting time, the carpet of anemones
beneath immemorial trees, the laurel and asphodel that once grew here in
the garden that was Sallust’s, that has been sacred ground to poet and
artist from Horace’s time to Crawford’s.
Palazzo Margherita faces Via Veneto with its smug hotels; behind the
palace lie a few roods of ground, a shrunken splendor, the last vestige
of the noble Villa Ludovisi. Here are shadowy walks between gnarled ilex
trees, and a few old statues, the last of a great company. A high wall
shuts off the Queen’s garden from the Via Sallustiana, on the left; at
the back on the Via Boncompagni, the wall is surmounted by a balustrade
with antique amphorae etched with a fine network of black and yellow
stains. Perhaps they once held the wine that served at Sallust’s
banquets--it was of the best, Falernian perhaps.
“A pleasant drive to you!” Herr Schmidt, at the door of his hotel, bowed
and smiled. A gong clanged behind him; a crowd of porters in green baize
apron and pages in buttons rushed from within, as the big hotel omnibus,
covered with travelers’ luggage, crowded with tourists, drew up at the
entrance.
“Isn’t he a type with his automobile, his big wife wearing the old
Orsini diamonds?” I murmured.
The Roman hotel-keeper today is a far more important personage than the
poet and artist he has ousted from their garden of delight, the lovely
Villa Ludovisi. If he were really a Roman, it wouldn’t matter so much;
but nine times out of ten he is a German or a Swiss. Herr Schmidt is a
very rich man and much considered, while Enrico, the painter, who used
to spend long delicious days sketching in the Villa--Enrico, who loves
and paints the Campagna Romana as it has never been painted
before--Enrico’s coat is threadbare as Martial’s only toga.
“Are you asleep?”
“No, only dreaming.”
“Wake up, we’re there.”
We were expected; the sentries at the gate allowed the fat coachman to
drive the “milor” into the courtyard.
“The last time we were here together was at a dinner of Mrs. Draper’s,”
J. reminded me. When General Draper was American ambassador he lived
here, as did his predecessor, Mr. Wayne MacVeagh; in those days it was
called the Palazzo Piombino. After the death of King Umberto the palace
became the Roman residence of the Queen Mother.
A picturesque person in plush breeches, wearing a silver chain of
office, received and showed us up the grand staircase. No mean economy
of space or height here, or in the long corridor with the marble
doorways; our palace builders at home must study Roman interiors as well
as Italian gardens.
“Don’t you remember the MacVeaghs’ ball and Queen Margherita walking
through this corridor with the Ambassador?” J. asked.
“Of course; she wore a blue brocade dress and her incomparable pearls;
it all comes back to me. King Umberto was in uniform; he carried a
helmet with white plume under his arm. Mr. and Mrs. Charles Francis
Adams were here. Do you remember the Austrian diplomat’s fascinating
court dress? And that Russian military attaché in Cossack uniform with a
black patch over one eye?”
“Yes, what a hero you thought him till I told you his poor eye had been
knocked out by a careless woman’s umbrella.”
The Marchesa Villamarina received us in the room where Mrs. MacVeagh
used to give tea. As we sat talking, we heard a merry little scream of
dismay; the Marchesa, excusing herself, hurried to the next room. Then
we heard a laugh like a silver chime.
“It’s her voice,” I whispered.
In a moment the Marchesa returned, smiling and merry.
Queen Margherita, her eyes bright with laughter, received us in her
library. The Queen’s dress was like the plumage of a silver pheasant;
dress is a fine art with her. You never know what she has on, but you
always know it is the perfect thing for the hour. The library is an
immense apartment, even for Rome, full of color and atmosphere. It
suits her as the background in a Velasquez portrait suits the central
figure. The highest point of light was a blaze of yellow azaleas on the
mantel. There was no senseless bric-a-brac, but every article of
furniture was a gem. One who reads the character of a person from the
room he or she lives in, would guess that this was the home of a woman
of taste and of action; it was comfortable rather than luxurious; there
was nothing of the “dreadful too much.” On the walls hung a few
pictures, among them J.’s Dante in Exile. On the writing table stood his
portrait of King Umberto. J. saw in a moment what had happened to it.
The portrait is a silver-point drawing. When these are first made their
color is very like a pencil drawing; with time the silver becomes
oxidized, and turns darker, the tone improving every year till it
becomes a rich soft tarnished color. While J. was explaining this to
Queen Margherita, the Marchesa told me what had been the matter.
“In writing her name upon the photograph her Majesty designed to give
you, she had the misfortune to upset the ink.”
“She too? Is she so human?”
“It is because her Majesty is so human,” said the Marchesa, “that one
has that adoration for her.”
* * * * *
“I’ve had a letter from Belknap,” said J. a few days after this, “asking
me to go back to Messina with him.”
“You’re not going?” I cried.
“Of course he is,” said Vera. She was playing ball with Patsy on the
terrace.
“I can’t bear it; besides you must finish your Pan.’
“Your father would have gone.”
There was nothing for me to say to that.
“Take me with you,” said Patsy.
“And me!” cried Vera, all on fire.
“I can’t _take_ you; but there’s nothing to prevent your all making a
trip to Sicily. You have always wanted to--” he looked at me. “This is
your chance, a little later though--it’s such a cold season.”
“How can he be so keen about getting back to that awful place?” I
exclaimed.
“It’s because there is so much more work to do there than there ever was
in the world before,” said Vera. “Every one who has been down feels the
same way.”
“You have said it!” This from Patsy, the golden butterfly. “A man’s
happiest when he’s working to the limit, when there’s not one minute of
time left in the day to get a grouch on!”
“What have you to say about it?” said Vera, looking at J.
“I would rather have had this letter than a big commission; we may start
any day. You will see the Q.’s? Bonanno is sure to ask news of them,” J.
went on.
“Let’s go now,” said Vera. “The Q.’s are far the most interesting of
your _profughi_.”
There was still time before sunset, so Vera and I, escorted by Patsy,
started to walk to the Q.’s. We crossed the Tiber, pausing on the bridge
to watch the soldiers, maneuvering the big awkward pontoons on the river
above, the part that makes the curve of the S. It was a gorgeous
afternoon; the air was golden, sparkling, full of life.
“‘How tenderly the haughty day fills his blue urn with fire!’”
Patsy quoted. “I bet that was written in Rome!”
On the Lungo Tevere a young officer passed, riding a spirited bay.
“Look out!” cried Patsy warningly. Vera, startled by the prancing horse,
sprang aside; the officer saluted.
“It’s Philippus!” I cried, as the bay danced along sidewise like a
skittish crab.
“Whoever he is, he ought to give that beast more work and less corn!”
Patsy flicked the dust the bay had kicked up from his sleeve.
“No matter about the dust; he’s alive! We shall all be dust soon
enough.”
Patsy left us at the gate.
Although there was a nip in the air, we found old Count Q. in the
garden.
“Babbo sits out whenever he can,” said Rosalia, oldest of the Count’s
seven remaining daughters. “Since the earthquake he knows no peace
within.”
When I told them J. was going to Messina, the Count’s drawn face
changed; he began to sob pitifully. Rosalia, a faded beauty with tragic
eyes (she had lain beneath the ruins of their house at Messina for
twenty-four hours), put a finger to her lips.
“Speak not of Sicily, I pray!” she whispered, “though in truth he thinks
of nothing else. He dreams each night the house is falling.”
The Count is seventy years old, and paralyzed. His house was destroyed
with his oldest son’s next door. For days he heard his son’s voice and
his little grandchildren’s calling for help. They were buried so deep
that when help came it was too late. One of the granddaughters was the
girl of the emerald scarab ring Bonanno told us of.
“How goes on the sewing?” I asked Rosalia.
“Famously; a thousand thanks for the machine. All the cotton is made up.
The parents now sleep between sheets; we others shall have that luxury
soon.”
The Countess and her daughters had worked early and late, making bed
linen and underclothes of the cotton cloth sent by our committee. I
asked Rosalia if there was any message for Bonanno.
“Tell the Signor Avvocato that we are more fortunate than many--God has
sent us friends,” she said. “Would the Signore have the infinite
kindness to carry him a little notepaper, of the most miserable kind, a
few envelopes? His last letter was written on a bit of paper torn from
the wall. I am sure he has done everything--but if he would write to
_mamina_ and set her mind at rest--tell her the graves are marked, that
she will know in which each of them lies--Nonna, Maddelena, Nina?”
“All this shall be related to the _avvocato_ without fail. Courage,
_remember_, look forward, not back!”
“_Altro!_ It is what I most desire.” Rosalia fought back the tears. We
left her, smiling bravely, at her post beside the poor old paralyzed
father.
“Did you ever see a handsomer family?” I asked Vera as we walked away.
“Rosalia is still fine, the next four are pretty as pinks, the two
youngest real beauties. Which is that at the window? I can’t tell them
apart.”
“Not since they’ve begun to smile? That’s the youngest, Beatrice--watch
for the dimple when she laughs.”
“Wherever did she get that smart toggery?”
“Some of you soft-hearted Americans! She was lovely in her big black
hat, the latest fashion. Can any of them do anything to earn money?”
“They could not earn a _centesimo_ among them all. The Count owned a lot
of valuable real estate in Messina; they lived on their rents. In the
end something surely will be saved; you can’t wipe out real estate. Such
pretty girls are sure to marry.”
“If you had only seen it all, you would understand--it’s chaos! It will
take years, a generation perhaps, before things can be straightened out.
Meanwhile ‘it is not always May.’”
“But Beatrice and the other little one--They are lovely!”
“Beauty is a poor _dote_--young kittens soon make old cats! No, _cara
mia_, they have no chance. You Americans can’t understand: you are still
primitive. The American carries off his wife as the Indian his squaw.
You are at the natural selection stage.”
“Well, we have been--“
“The man assumes the responsibility of the woman’s support?”
“As a rule!”
“It’s bad form for a man to ask a dowry or allowance from the girl’s
father?”
“The unpardonable sin.”
“I know; my brother married an American. Her father gave her an
allowance, but when she died he never offered to pay her funeral
expenses--his own child. We thought this unfeeling--dreadful! Americans
tell me it probably never occurred to him.”
“We think it is far better for young people to make their own way,” I
maintained.
“The parents who bring a child into the world,” Vera argued, “especially
a female child, are responsible for her support. When she marries, they
are bound to settle the largest sum upon her they can afford. They must
make a sacrifice for their child.”
There is a sort of finality about a disaster like the Q.’s that we
Americans can hardly conceive of; with us failure so often spells
success. If a young man’s father is ruined, we say of him (we are
beginning to say it of his sister)--“This gives him a chance to show the
stuff he’s made of!”
After leaving Vera I went back to the terrace, to watch the sun set over
Mons Vaticanus. Ignazio was there before me, grafting a new American
Beauty rose on the stem of the big Banksia.
“You have three sisters, Ignazio,” I began. “You have told me your
father is dead.”
“And in Paradise, I trust, this long time; I have not grudged masses for
his soul.”
“A good son! How did he leave his money? Did your sisters have dowries?”
“He divided his money into two parts--my mother already being in glory.
A little more than half he left to me, the only son. That was right, for
so the greater part of the property remains in the _casa paterna_. The
other half he divided between my three sisters. The oldest went into a
convent; it was her wish, you understand. Her share was paid just as if
she had married. The second espoused a _vignerolo_ and invested her
money in a new vineyard; they have prospered. The little one, Teresina,
would go to the convent, where was Maria, the oldest. But that one, she
is intelligent, fine, very fine, sent Teresina a letter--God knows how
she managed it--telling her on her life not to come to that convent.
Soon Teresina found a husband, a baker; he has a good business.
Teresina has given him plenty of mouths to feed, three boys and five
girls. That is better than a convent. Yes, I believe in the good God,
Signora; I am not a free mason, nor an anarchist, but I think a girl can
serve Him as well in the world, and far more pleasantly, than in a
convent.”
“You have a daughter?”
“With respect, I have four. No convent for them; it is worse than a
prison! If my daughter went to a prison I might see her again; but to a
convent, never--it is finished.”
“You will give your girls a good dowry.”
“I am a poor man, times are hard, that fellow Cesare, my assistant, is a
thief--the Signora knows it--but something I shall do for them.”
Poor Rosalia, poor Beatrice! Who would “do” for them? As Vera said, the
Q.’s were my most interesting _profughi_. That good Samaritan, Miss Jane
Sedgwick, found them soon after they came to Rome. When she first saw
them, they were living in one dreadful dark room; the whole family sat
like statues of stone around that dismal hole; the old Count’s dreadful
sobbing was the only sign of life they gave. A pitiful smile dawned on
the mother’s face when Miss Sedgwick drew out a fifty-franc bill. Here
was a visitor who did more than ask questions and write down answers, a
committee that committed itself--recklessly perhaps, but
effectively--that justified itself not by its statistics but by its
work.
On the twentieth of February, J. departed with his chief, Captain
Belknap, for Messina, and I was left to devote myself to my _profughi_.
Before he started we went to take leave of Mr. and Mrs. Griscom; happily
we found them at home.
“Don’t you need a suit of clothes?” her Excellency asked J. as she gave
him a cup of tea.
“I need several; most of mine have been given away.” He glanced at me.
“I must make out with what’s left though--I don’t look too shabby for
Messina?”
“The idea! It’s only that--I have a tailor--he makes really very well--I
thought you might order a suit--“
“Do, I beg!” interrupted the Ambassador. “That Sicilian tailor has made
me six suits already--I can’t use any more--he makes too well--they’ll
never wear out!”
“How is your plumber doing?” asked Mrs. Griscom.
“Not so well as your tailor. He can’t follow his trade in Rome; if I
could only send him to America, where plumbing is a fine art and takes
the place of bric-a-brac!”
“And the new baby?” How could she remember that Lucia Calabresi had a
baby!
Though aching to go to Sicily, Patsy remained in Rome to help me with my
_profughi_. I had some of my “cases” from Countess Pasolini, some from
Miss Noble Jones (her brother, our old friend Wallace Jones, was once
Consul at Messina), others I read of in the papers. Patsy was studying
counterpoint with a professor of music, Dante with a professor of
literature, Arabic with a professor of Oriental languages--all late of
the University of Messina.
“The professors and schoolmasters are having the roughest time of all,”
he declared. “The devil and the lawyers look after their own. The
_avvocatos_ and the _medicos_ all over Italy have organized to help
their fellows--but these poor teachers!” He had just ferreted out a new
professor and family. “They receive one franc and a half a day from the
general committee--that keeps the breath of life in ’em--but the father,
the only one capable of earning a _soldo_, has to stand in line and wait
for hours every day to draw the money. If you could have seen their
room! I spent those two hundred francs on chairs, beds and blankets.
‘Who gives promptly, gives twice,’ Mr. Parrish says. Isn’t he a corker?
Don’t let ’em get discouraged--that’s his argument; it’s the delay that
breaks their hearts. Those who have the stuff left in them ought to be
kept hard at work, nose to the grindstone.”
Mrs. Griscom’s Ladies’ Auxiliary was the best committee I ever served on
because it had the least red tape. Like the old vigilantes of the West,
it was created for an urgent need, lived a short life with the maximum
of work, the minimum of talk. My colleagues, Mesdames Samuel Abbott,
Winthrop Chanler, and Nelson Gay, worked each according to their lights,
meeting with the Ambassadress from time to time to compare notes and
vote supplies. The work was quietly done, with little fuss or feathers.
Every _soldo_ was well spent, and passed direct from the treasury to the
sufferer. Jane Sedgwick and Luella Serrao were my right and left hand
(Luella is the widow of our dear Teodoro, for years the lawyer of the
Embassy, always the friend of the Americans in Rome), Patsy was my
flying Mercury, Elinor Diederich took the Q.’s and other _profughi_
under her wing.
Luella had a patriarchal family from Bagnara in her care, an old man and
woman with a screed of children and grandchildren. She had been telling
me about them one afternoon as we were walking together; just as we
turned out of the Piazza Venezia, into the Via Nazionale, a clear voice
hailed us:
“_Mia grande Signora!_” Luella, delicate as a windflower, paused. A
great gaunt woman, wearing a black kerchief over her head and a quaint
short skirt, stood before us. She touched her fingers to her lips; then
with the graceful Oriental gesture stooped and touched the hem of the
“grande Signora’s” garment, and passed on.
“That was Sora Clara from Bagnara,” Luella explained. “She was
discharged from the hospital yesterday.”
We were now passing the fine old palace of the Preffetura. “How well I
remember coming to see you there!” I said, looking at the stern façade,
“when the Prefect had that stroke of apoplexy. It was said the nursing
of his American daughter-in-law saved his life.”