ROME, February, 18--.
MY DEAR MAMMA:--Yes, it is Rome, mamma, and everybody is impressed.
The boys talk of emperors all the time; Edith is wild over Madonnas
and saints, and Mrs. Jerrold runs from Paul’s house to Paul’s walks and
Paul’s drives and Paul’s stand at the prisoner’s bar, and reads the Acts
through five times a day, in the most religious and Romanistic spirit.
No one could make more fuss over a patron saint, I am sure. For my part,
I feel as if I were in the most terrible ghost story. The old Romans are
all around me. Underneath the street noises, I seem to hear cries, and
in the air I half see a constant flashing of swords and scars and blood,
and I can’t even put my foot on the Roman pavement without wondering
which dead Caesar my saucy Burt boot No. 2 is walking over. I shouldn’t
mind trampling old Caligula, but I don’t like the thought on general
principles. I feel all out of place, so modern and fixed up and
flimsy. If I could get into old picturesque clothes and out of the
English-speaking quarter, I should not be so oppressed and might worship
Rome. But I seriously think I shall die if I stay here much longer.
There’s a spirit-malaria that eats into my life. I feel as if all the
volumes of Roman history bound in heavy vellum, that papa has in his
study, were laid right on top of my little heart, so that every time it
beats, it thumps against them, and I assure you, mamma, its worse than
dyspepsia. If I could only get out on a New England hillside, where
there were no graves more important than those of grasshoppers and
butterflies! What should I do when I got there? Take off my hat, and
scream for joy, and feel free and glad to be in a fresh country, with
rich, warm, untainted earth and young life.
But all this is nonsense, mamma, and I shouldn’t be writing it, if
I hadn’t just come from the catacombs of St. Calixtus. To think of
Albert’s insisting upon going there the very first thing! But so he
did, and so we went, and talked solemnly about the Appian Way, and saw
everybody’s tombs and ashes, and quoted poetry, until I stuck a pin in
Albert’s arm and sang Yankee Doodle, to keep from crying. Then, oh, how
shocked they looked. Even Mr. Mann seemed ashamed of me. When we reached
the place, we each took a candle and the guide led the way down into
the bowels of the earth. Mamma, they are very unpleasant. There were two
German youths along, and green lizards crawled all over. They winked at
me. The way grew so narrow that we had to walk one by one through lines
of wall perforated with holes for dead bodies. Once in a while we would
come to a small chapel, for miserable variety’s sake, and be told to
admire some very old, very wretched painting. Jonah and the whale were
represented in a double-barreled miracle picture. Not only was the whale
about to swallow Jonah, but he was only as large as a good-sized brook
trout, while Jonah towered away above him like a Goliath. I found myself
wondering if the guide had convulsions, and, if he should have one now,
and die, how many days would pass before we should eat each other. And
would they take me first, because I am youngest and plumpest? Albert
would make good soup bones, and Eric’s shoulder serve as a delicious
fore-quarter. And by the time we came to the top again, I was all ready
to cry. And then, mamma, I did an awful thing. Mr. Mann exclaimed: “Why,
Miss Mae, how frightened you look. You are quite white.” And I answered
very sharply: “What a disagreeable man you are. I’m not frightened at
all.” I said it in a dreadful tone, and how his face changed. He looked
so strangely. Everybody was still but Albert, and he said, “Why, Mae,
you are very rude to Mr. Mann.” Even then I didn’t apologize. So here we
are at sword’s points, and all the rest sympathizing with my foe, who
is only on the defensive. Why am I such a belligerent? I can’t conceive
where I got my nature, unless from that very disagreeable dear old
grandpapa of papa’s, who fought the whole world all his life. But how
egotistic I am, even to my mother. Of course you want to know how we
are lodged and clothed and fed. We have taken apartments, as I presume
Albert wrote you, on the Via San Nicolo da Tolentino, quite near the
Costanzi hotel, which is in the height of the fashion as a hotel; near
too, which is better, to Mr. Story’s studio and the old Barberini palace
and the Barberini square and fountains. Off behind, is that terrible
church of the Cappucini, with its cemetery underneath of bones and
skulls and such horrors. I like the apartments very much, principally
because I have made three staunch friends and one good enemy, in the
kitchen. The padrona,--she’s the woman who keeps the house, and serves
us, too, in this case--though Mrs. Jerrold has a maid to wait on the
table and care for our rooms--well, the padrona is my first friend. Her
cousin, a handsome southern Italian, is here on a visit, and she is not
only my friend, but my instructress. She tells me lovely stories about
her home and the peasants and their life, while I sit on the floor with
Giovanni,--friend number three and eldest son of the padrona,--and even
Roberto, my enemy, the crying baby of three years, hushes his naughty
mouth to listen to Lisetta, for that is the cousin’s name. I am so
glad I studied Italian as hard as I did for my music, for it comes very
easily to me now, and already I slip the pretty words from my halting
tongue much more smoothly and quickly than you would imagine I could.
Mrs. Jerrold isn’t quite satisfied, and would prefer the Costanzi, only
she doesn’t believe in letting us girls stay at large hotels. She and
Edith are shocked at my kitchen tastes, so that I generally creep off
quietly and say nothing about it. It is strange for me to have to keep
anything secret, but I am learning how.
As for our clothes, O, mamma, Edith is ravishing in a deep blue-black
silk, with a curly, wavy sort of fringe on it, and odd loopings here
and there where you don’t expect to find them. What can’t a Parisian
dressmaker do? They have such a wonderful idea of appropriateness, it
seems to me. Now, at home you know we girls always wear the same sort
of thing, but Madame H---- says no, Edith, and I should dress very
differently; and now Edith’s clothes all have a flow, and sweep, and
grace about them, and her silks rustle in a stately way as she walks,
while my dresses haven’t any trimming to speak of, but are cut in a
clinging, square sort of way, with jackets, and here and there a buckle,
that makes me feel half the time as if I were playing soldier in a
lady-like fashion. But what a budget this is. How shocked the people
here would be. They take travel so solemnly, mamma, and treat Baedeker,
like the Bible,--and here am I crushing down Rome, and raising Paris on
top of it. Indeed, I can’t help it, for Paris is utterly intoxicating.
It takes away your moral nature and adds it all into your powers of
enjoyment. Well, good-bye, my dear, and keep writing me tremendous
letters, won’t you; for I do love you dearly.
Your loving daughter,
MAE.
Mae felt a great deal better when she had finished the letter, and, like
a volatile girl as she was, buttoned her Burt boots and Paris gloves,
singing gaily a dash from Trovatore in a very light-hearted manner.
“Why, you look like a different girl,” cried Eric, as she entered the
parlor, where he and Mr. Mann were sitting. “Mrs. Jerrold, Edith, and
Albert have gone on in a carriage, and you are left to my tender care;
will you ride or walk?”
“How can you ask? My feet are quite wild. No wonder I am a different
girl. Are we not going to the Pincian hill to look at the live world and
people? I have just unlocked the stop-gates and let the blood bound in
my veins as it wants to.”
“It has been taking the cinque-pace, I should say from your long face
to-day.”
“O, it has only been trying to keep step with the march of the ages, or
some such stately tread, but it was hard work, and now the dear life
of me hops, skips and jumps, like this,” and Mae seized her brother and
danced across the room, stopping very near Mr. Mann, who stood with his
back to them, drumming on the window pane. She looked at him quizzically
and half raised her eyebrows.
Eric shook his head, and said aloud in his outspoken way: “You owe him
an apology, Mae, for this morning’s rudeness.”
Mr. Mann turned quickly. “I am surprised, Eric. Let your sister find out
for herself when she is rude.”
“Bless me,” cried Eric, “what is the row?”
Mae looked determined. “Are you going to the Pincian with us?” she
asked.
“No, I am going to stay home.”
“Well, good-bye, then. Come, Eric.” The door closed behind them.
Mr. Mann stood by the window and watched them walk away. Mae, with her
eager, restless, fresh life showing out in every motion; Eric, with his
boy-man air and his student swing and happy-go-lucky toss of his head.
Mr. Mann smiled and then he sighed. “That’s a good boy, so square and
fair and merry--and a queer girl,” he added. “Rome isn’t the place for
her. She must get away, though why I should take care for her, or worry
about her, little vixen. I don’t see.” Still he smiled as one would over
a very winning, very wicked child, and shortly after took his hat and
went to the Pincio, after all.
Meantime, the brother and sister had walked gaily along, passed the
Spanish Steps, and were on the Pincian hill. Here, Mae was indeed happy.
The fine equipages and dark, rich beauty of the Italians delighted her,
and she and Eric found a shaded bench, and watched the carriages drive
round and round, and criticised, and admired, and laughed like two idle
children. They bought some flowers, and Mae sat pulling them to pieces,
when they caught sight, down the pathway, of two approaching Piedmontese
officers.
“O,” cried Mae, and dropped her flowers, and clasped her hands, and
sprang to her feet, “O, Eric, are they gods or men?”
The Piedmontese officer is godlike. He must be of a certain imposing
height to obtain his position, and his luxurious yellow moustaches and
blue black eyes, enriched and intensified by southern blood, give him a
strange fascination. The cold, manly beauty and strength of a northern
blonde meet with the heat and lithe grace of the more supple southerner
to produce this paragon. There is a combination of half-indolent
elegance and sensuous langour, with a fire, a verve, a nobility, that
puts him at the very head of masculine beauty. Add to the charms of
his physique, the jauntiest, most bewitching of uniforms, the clinking
spurs, the shining buttons, the jacket following every line of his
figure, and no wonder maidens’ hearts seek him out always and young
pulses beat quicker at his approach.
Mae’s admiration was simply rapturous. Utterly regardless of the pretty
picture she herself made, of her vivid coloring and sparkling beauty,
she stood among her dropped flowers until the two pairs of eyes were
fixed upon her. Then she became suddenly aware of her attitude and with
quick feminine cunning endeavored to transfer her admiration to some
beautiful horses cantering by, exclaiming in Italian, that the officers
might surely understand she was thinking only of the fine animals: “O,
what wonderful horses!”
The foreign pronunciation, Eric’s amusement, Mae’s confusion, were not
lost upon the men. Their curiosity was piqued, their eyes and pride
gratified. They sauntered leisurely past, only to turn a corner and
quicken their steps again toward the bench where Eric and Mae were
seated. They found the brother and sister just arising, and followed
them slowly.
An Italian is quick to detect secrets. The two had not proceeded far
before one said to the other; “Eh, Luigi, we are not the only interested
party.”
Luigi looked slowly around and saw a crowd of Italian loungers gazing
at the little stranger with their softly-bold black eyes full of
admiration. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. “Bah, they gaze in that
way at all womankind. See, now they are watching the next one,” and as
he spoke, the boys turned with one accord to stare at a young Italian
girl, who pressed closer to the side of her hook-nosed old duenna:
“It is not those loungers that I noticed,” replied the other. “Look
there,” and he waved his hand lightly toward the left, where, under a
large-leafed tree, gazing apparently in idleness, stood a young man.
“Ah,” said Luigi, still incredulous, “he sees nothing but Rome; he is
fresh from over the seas.”
“No, no, watch his eyes,” replied the other.
They were assuredly fixed, with a keen searching glance, on a little
form before them, and as Eric and Mae suddenly turned to the left, the
stranger, half carelessly, but very quickly, crossed to another path,
from which he could watch them, but be, in his turn, unobserved.
“Jealous,” laughed Luigi, shrugging his shoulders again. “Her lover,
probably.”
“No,” replied Bero, “but he may be some time.” Then after a moment’s
pause, “Good evening,” he said carelessly. “I am going to say my prayers
at vespers. I’ve been a sorry scamp of late.”
Luigi laughed disdainfully and lightly. “You want to get rid of me?
Well, be it so. I don’t want to lose my heart over a little foreigner. I
have other game. However, Lillia shall not know of it. Addio, Bero.” So
Luigi went off the other way, and Bero, with a flushed face, followed
Mae at a distance, and kept an eye on the stranger, flattering himself
that he was quite unnoticed by those sharp, keen eyes. He was mistaken,
Norman Mann had seen the officers before they saw him, had watched their
footsteps, and had a pretty clear idea of the whole affair.
Mae walked on happily, chatting with Eric, and with that vague,
delightful feeling of something exciting in the air. She knew there was
an officer behind her, because she had heard the clicking spurs, but she
only guessed that he might be one of the two who had passed--the
taller, perhaps,--which, of course, he was. She had, moreover, in some
mysterious way, caught sight of a figure resembling Norman Mann, trying,
she thought, to avoid her. Her spirits rose with the half-mystery, and
she grew brighter and prettier and more magnetic to the two followers as
she tossed her shoulders slightly and now and then half-turned her sunny
head.
As for Eric, he was totally unconscious of any secrets. He fancied
himself and his pretty, nice, little sister all alone by their very
selves, and he went so far as to expatiate on the vastness of the world,
and how in this crowd there was no other life that bordered or touched
on theirs.
To which Mae replied: “You don’t know; you may fall in love with one of
these very Italian girls, or my future husband may be walking behind
me now.” When she had said this, she flushed scarlet and was very much
ashamed of herself in her heart.
“We must go home now,” Eric replied, quite disdaining such sybilistic
remarks. So they left the hill and went down the Steps in the rich
afternoon light, and so homewards. Of course the Italian and Mr. Mann
still followed them; Norman on the other side of the street, the Italian
in a slyer, less conspicuous manner, by taking side streets, or the next
parallel pavement, and appearing only at every corner in the distance.
He appeared, however, close at hand, as Mae and Eric turned into
their lodgings. His eyes met Mae’s. She blushed involuntarily as she
recognized him, and at once, in that moment, there was an invisible
half-acquaintance established between the two. If they should ever meet
again, they would remember each other.
Mae crept off to the kitchen that evening, to beg for another of
Lisetta’s stories, and quite forgot her walk, the officer, and Norman
Mann while she listened to the
STORY OF TALILA.
Talila was a young girl, destined to be a nun. She was a naughty little
girl and would make wry faces at the thought, and wish she could be a
man, a soldier or sailor, instead of being a woman and a nun; and as she
grew older she would dance all the time, and didn’t say her prayers very
much, and was so bad that the priest sent for her to see him. He told
her how wicked she was, and that, too, when she was to be the bride of
the church; but she said the church had many, many brides, and she would
rather be the bride of Giovanni; and that she loved red-cheeked babies
better than beads, and songs were nicer than prayers. Should she sing
him such a pretty, gay one she knew? And the priest could hardly keep
from laughing at the bright-eyed, naughty, naughty Talila. But he said:
“If Giovanni does not want to marry you, will you then become the bride
of the church?” And Talila laughed aloud and tossed her head. “Giovanni
longs to marry me, Father,” she said, “I know that already.” But the
Father sent for Giovanni and gave him money if he would say he did
not want to marry Talila. At first he would not say so, but the Father
showed him a purse all full of silver, which Talila’s mother had brought
him, for it was she who had vowed Talila should be a nun. Then the
Father said: “This is yours if you say as I wish, and if not, you shall
be cursed forever, and all your children shall be cursed, because you
have married the bride of the church.” Then Giovanni crossed himself and
took the bag of silver, and the priest sent for Talila, and she heard
her Giovanni say he didn’t want to marry her--she had better be a nun;
and she threw up her brown arms and screamed aloud, and fell down as if
dead. And afterwards she was very ill, and when she grew better she had
forgotten everything and was only a little child, and she loves little
children, and is ever with them, but she calls them all Giovanni. They
play together by the bay through the long day, and at night she takes
them to their mothers, and goes alone to her home. But alas! she
never tells her beads, or prays a prayer, and sorry things are said of
her--that God gave her up because she left Him. But the children all
love her, and she loves them.