Porta del Popolo, and looked out upon a large portion of the city, the
view embracing the Pincio and St. Peter’s, Monte Mario, and the
Quirinal. The entrance on the street was dismal and prison-like. A long,
dark corridor led back to a small court at the bottom of a great pit
formed by the walls of the crowded houses, and the stones of the
pavement were flooded with the drippings from the buckets of all the
neighborhood, as they slid up and down the wire guys leading into the
antique well in one corner, and rattled and splashed until they were
drawn up by an unseen hand far above in the maze of windows and
balconies--an ingenious and simple way of drawing water, quite common in
Rome. From this sunless court-yard a broad, musty staircase twisted and
turned capriciously up past narrow, gloomy passages to the upper floors
of the house. At the fourth story began a narrow wooden staircase,
always perfumed with the odors of the adjacent kitchens; and it grew
narrower and steeper and more crooked until it met a little dark door at
the very top, bearing the name of Tyck. The suite of rooms which Tyck
occupied made up one of those mushroom-like wooden stories that are
lightly stuck on the top of substantial stone or brick buildings. They
add to the beauty of the silhouette, but detract from the dignity of the
architectural effect, and look like the cabin of a wrecked ship flung
upon the rocks. From the outside, quaint little windows, pretty hanging
gardens, or an airy _loggia_ make the place look cheerful and cosy.
Within, one feels quite away from the world; far up beyond neighbors and
enclosing walls, tossed on a sea of roofs, and with a broad sweep of the
horizon on every side. Such a perch is as attractive as it is difficult
to reach, and offers to the artist the advantages of light, quiet, and
perfect freedom. Tyck’s rooms were three in number. A narrow corridor
led past the door of the store-room to the studio--a large, square room
with a great window on the north side and smaller ones with shutters on
the east and west. From the studio a door opened into the chamber, in
turn connected with the store-room. Thus there was a public and a
private entrance to the studio.
The Christmas breakfast had more than ordinary significance: it was to
be the occasion of the presentation of Tyck’s household to his artist
friends. This, perhaps, needs explanation. At the time of our departure
from Antwerp, Tyck was engaged to be married to a young lady, the
daughter of a Flemish merchant, and there was every prospect of a
wedding within a year. After he had been absent two or three months her
letters ceased to come, and Tyck learned from a friend that the thrifty
father of the girl had found a match more desirable from a mercenary
point of view, and had obliged his daughter to break engagement number
one in order to enter into a new relation. Tyck, after some months of
despondency, at last made an alliance with a Jewish girl of the working
class, and it was at the Christmas breakfast that Lisa was to be
presented for the first time to the rest of the circle. When I entered
the studio there were already a good many fellows present. The apartment
was a picture in itself; and a long dining-table placed diagonally
across the room, bearing piles of crockery and a great _pièce montée_ of
evergreen and oranges, and surrounded by a unique and motley assemblage
of chairs, did not detract from the picturesqueness of the interior.
As studios go, this would not, perhaps, have been considered luxurious
or of extraordinary interest, but it had a character of its own. Two
sides of the room were hung with odd bits of old tapestry and stray
squares of stamped leather, matched together to make an irregular
patchwork harmonious in tone and beautifully rich in color. In the
corner were bows and arrows, spears, and other weapons, brought from
Java, a branch or two of palm, and great reeds from the Campagna with
twisted and shrivelled leaves, yellow and covered with dust. Studies of
heads and small sketches were tucked away between the bits of tapestry
and leather, and thus every inch of these walls was covered. On another
wall was a book-shelf with a confused pile of pamphlets and
paper-covered books, and under this hung a number of silk and satin
dresses, various bits of rich drapery, a coat or two, and a Turkish fez.
The remaining wall, and the two narrow panels on either side of the
great window, were completely covered with studies of torsos, drawings
from the nude, academy heads, sketches of animals and landscapes,
together with a shelf of trinkets, a skeleton, and a plaster death-mask
of a friend hung with a withered laurel-wreath. Quaint old chairs, bits
of gilded stage furniture, racks of portfolios, a small table or two
covered with the odds and ends of draperies, papers, sketches, the
accumulation of months, filled the corners and spread confusion into the
middle of the room. Three or four easels huddled together under the
light, holding stray panels and canvases and half-finished pictures, a
lay-figure--that stiff and angular caricature of the human form--and a
chair or two loaded with brushes, color-box, and palettes, witnessed
that tools were laid aside to give room for the table that filled every
inch of vacant space. In one corner was an air-tight stove, and this was
piled up with dishes and surrounded by great tin boxes, whence an
appetizing steam issued forth, giving a hint of the good things awaiting
us. The bottles were beginning to form a noble array on the table, and
as often as a new guest appeared, a servant with a _porte-manger_ and a
couple of bottles would contribute to the army of black necks and add to
the breastwork of loaded dishes that flanked the stove. Tyck was in his
element, welcoming heartily and with boyish enthusiasm every arrival,
and leading the shout of joy at the sight of a fat bundle or a heavy
weight of full bottles. By eleven o’clock every one was on hand, and
there was an embarrassment of riches in the eating and drinking line.
Before sitting down at the table--there were eighteen of us--we made a
rule that each one should in turn act as waiter and serve with his own
hand the dishes he had brought, the intention being to divide the
accumulated stock of dishes into a great many different courses. French
was chosen as the language of the day.
While we were discussing the question of language, Lisa came in and was
presented to us all in turn, impressing us very favorably. She was
slight, but not thin, with dark hair, large brown eyes, and a
transparent pink-and-white complexion--a fine type of a Jewess. She took
the place of honor at Tyck’s right hand, and we sat down in a very jolly
mood.
The _menu_ of that breakfast would craze a French cook, and the
arrangement of the courses was a work of great difficulty, involving
much general discussion. The _trattorie_ of Rome had been ransacked for
curious and characteristic national dishes; every combination of goodies
that ingenious minds could suggest was brought, and plain substantials
by no means failed. In the _hors d'œuvre_, we had excellent fresh
caviare, the contribution of a Russian; Bologna sausage and nibbles of
radish; and, to finish, _pâté de foie gras_. Soup _à la jardinière_ was
announced, and was almost a failure at the start-off, because one very
important aid to the enjoyment of soup, the spoons, had been forgotten
by the contributor. A long discussion as to the practicability of
leaving the soup to the end of the meal, meanwhile ordering spoons to be
brought, terminated in the employment of extra glasses in place of
spoons and soup-plates. Then all varieties of fish followed in a rapid
succession of small courses. Tiny minnows fried in delicious olive-oil;
crabs and crawfish cooked in various ways; Italian oysters, small, thin,
and coppery in flavor; canned salmon from the Columbia River; _baccalà_
and herrings from the North Sea; broad, gristly flaps from the body of
the devil-fish, the warty feelers purple and suggestive of the stain of
sepia and of Victor Hugo--all these, and an abundance of each, were
passed around. An immense joint of roast beef, with potatoes,
contributed by an Englishman; a leg of mutton, by a Scotchman; a roast
pig, from a Hungarian; the potted meat of Australia, and the tasteless
_manzo_ of Italy, formed the solid course. Next we devoured a whole
flock of juicy larks with crisp skins, pigeons in pairs, ducks from the
delta of the Tiber, a turkey brought by an American, pheasants from a
Milanese, squash stuffed with meat and spices, and a globe of _polenta_
from a Venetian. At this point in the feast there were cries of quarter,
but none was given. An English plum-pudding of the unhealthiest species,
with flaming sauce; a pie or two strangely warped and burned in places,
from the ignorance of the Italian cook or the bad oven; pots of jelly
and marmalade, fruit mustard, stewed pears, and roasted chestnuts,
_ekmekataïf_ and _havláh_ from a Greek, a profusion of fruits of all
kinds, were offered, and at last coffee was served to put in a
paragraph. The delicate wines of Frascati and Marino, the light and dark
Falernian, a bottle of Tokay, one of Vöslau, thick red wine of Corfu,
and flasks of the ordinary Roman mixture--a little more than water, a
little less than wine--Capri _rosso_ and _bianco_, Bordeaux and
Burgundy, good English ale and porter, Vienna beer, American whiskey,
and Dutch gin, Alkermes, Chartreuse, and Greek mastic, made, all told, a
wine-list for a king, and presented a rank of arguments to convert a
prohibitionist. This was no orgy that I am describing, simply a jolly
breakfast for eighteen Bohemians of all nationalities--a complex,
irregular affair, but for that reason all the more delightful.
When we were well along in the bill of fare, a little incident occurred
which put me out of the mood for further enjoyment of the breakfast, and
for the rest of the day my position was that of silent spectator,
watching the amusements with an expression not calculated to encourage
sport. To begin with, I was unusually sensitive to nervous shocks, from
the fact that my first impression of Rome had been intensely
disagreeable. I found myself in a strangely exciting atmosphere, and
subject to unpleasant influences. The first night passed in Rome was
crowded with visions, and I cannot recall a period of twenty-four hours
during my residence in that city that has not its unpleasant souvenir
of strange hallucinations, wonderful dreams, or some shock to my nerves.
The meeting with Tyck was doubtless the occasion of my visions and
restlessness on the night before the Bohemian breakfast. The events of
the previous winter in Antwerp came freshly to my mind; I lived over
again that dark season of horrors, and the atmosphere of Rome nourished
the growth of similar strange fancies. There was, however, in my train
of thoughts on Christmas Eve no foreboding that I can recall, no
prophetic fear of a continuance of the strange relations with that black
poodle which had already taken away the best half of our circle. It
needed little, nevertheless, to put me in a state of mind very similar
to that which tortured me for months in Antwerp.
But to return to the breakfast. While we were at the table a hired
singer and guitar-player, a young girl of sixteen or seventeen years,
sang Italian popular songs and performed instrumental pieces. She had
nearly exhausted her list when she began to sing the weird, mournful
song of Naples, “Palomella,” at that time quite the rage, but since worn
threadbare, and its naïve angles and depressions polished down to the
meaningless monotony of a popular ditty. We heard a dog howl in the
sleeping-room as the singer finished the ballad, and Lisa rose to open
the door. My seat on Tyck’s left brought me quite near the door, and I
turned on my chair to watch the entrance of the animal. A black poodle,
as near as I could judge the exact counterpart of the Flemish dog,
quietly walked into the room, evidently perfectly at home. My first calm
reflection was that it was an hallucination, a mental reproduction of
one of the grim pictures of the past winter; I could not believe my own
vision, and it was some time before I came to realize the fact that my
senses were not deceived. I was about to ask Tyck if he had noticed in
the dog any curious resemblance to our self-appointed companion in
Antwerp, when he turned, and, as I thought then, with a lingering touch
of the old superstitious fear in his voice, said: “You’ve noticed the
dog; he belongs to Lisa. When he first came here, a month ago, I was
horrified to find in him the image of our Flemish friend. Lisa laughed
me out of my fears, saying that the animal had been in the family for
six months or more, and at last I began to look upon him as a harmless
pup, and to wonder only at the strange coincidence.” But I could not
turn the affair into a joke or forget for a moment past events, now
recalled so vividly to my mind. This was the third time that a black
poodle had taken a liking to one of us, and two out of the three
attachments had already proved fatal to the human partner. It was not by
any means clear that the same dog played these different renderings of
one part, but to all appearance it was the identical poodle. If in two
cases this friendship of the dog for his self-chosen master had proved
fatal, it was but a natural inference that the third attachment would
terminate in a similar manner. But Tyck was in better health than ever
before, notwithstanding the companionship of the dog. Was not this a
proof of the folly of my superstition? I asked myself. Reasons were not
wanting to disprove the soundness of my logic. It was undoubtedly true
that stranger and more wonderful coincidences had happened, and nothing
had come of them, and it was undeniable that the imagination might
distort facts to such a degree that coincidences would be suspected
where none existed. If it were only a coincidence, fears were childish.
And the dog manifested no particular friendship for Tyck; he belonged to
Lisa, and seemed to take no special notice of any one else.
The _déjeuner_ went on without further interruption, and the guitar girl
drummed away until the table was cleared. We were not at a loss for
entertainments after the feast was ended. Tyck’s costumes were drawn
upon, and a Flemish musician sang a costume duet with a Walloon
sculptor, one being laced up in a blue satin ball-dress, and the other
staggering under the weight of a janissary’s uniform. Later on there
was a dancing _concours_, in which the Indian war-dance, the English
jig, the negro walk-around, the tarantella, the Flemish _reuske_, and
the Hungarian _csárdás_ each had its nimble-footed performers. The scene
was worth putting upon canvas. The confusion of quaint and rare
trinkets, the abundance of color-bits, and the picturesque groups of
figures in all the costumes that could be improvised for the dance or
the song--a museum of _bric-à-brac_ and a carnival of characters--all
this made a _tableau vivant_ of great richness and interest.
About the middle of the afternoon the entertainment began to flag a
little, and the moment there was a lull in the sport some one proposed a
trip to Ponte Molle. The vote was immediately taken and carried, and we
marched out to the Piazza del Popolo and engaged an omnibus for the rest
of the day.
The straggling suburb outside the Porta del Popolo was lively with
pleasure-seeking Romans. The wine-shops were full of sad-eyed peasants
and weary, careworn laborers; all the mournful character of a Roman
merry-making was unusually prominent on this cheerless holiday, and the
cloaked natives chatted as solemnly as if they were mourners at a
funeral. Roman festivities are, in general, not calculated to divert the
participants to a dangerous extent. Wine-drinking is the chief
amusement; and even under the enlivening influences of his potations the
Roman rarely loses his habitual seriousness of manner, but bears himself
to the end of the orgy as if he expected every moment to be called upon
to answer for the sins of his ancestors. As we drove along the straight,
broad road that raw afternoon, we met numberless carts and omnibuses
filled with laborers returning from the wine-shops in the Campagna; the
sidewalks were crowded with people on their way to and from the
_trattorie_ near the Tiber; and scarcely a song was heard, rarely a
laugh sounded above the rattle of the wheels. The natives were making a
business of amusement, and formed a staid and sober procession, on an
occasion when in Germany or Belgium the frolics and noisy merriment of
the people would have known no bounds short of the limit of physical
endurance. We were probably regarded as escaped maniacs because we
persisted in breaking the voiceless confusion by our hearty Flemish
songs. We left the omnibus in the yard of a _trattoria_ at some distance
out in the Campagna, and strolled over the hills for an hour, watching
the dark, cold mountains and the broad, sad-tinted waste spread out
before us. The solemn beauty of the Campagna is always impressive; under
a gray sky it assumes a sombre and mournful aspect. To the north of the
city, the low, flat-topped hills combine in a peculiar way to form
silhouettes of great nobleness of character and simplicity of line. They
are the changeless forms that endure like the granite cliffs, monumental
in their grandeur. When moving shadows of the clouds form purple patches
across these hills, and the dull gray of the turf comes into occasional
relief in a spot of strong sunlight, the scene is one of unique and
matchless beauty--a heroic landscape, with wonderful vigor and dignity
of line and extraordinary delicacy of tone. That afternoon the dog,
which had accompanied Tyck on the excursion, furnished us our chief
amusement. We tossed sticks down the steep gravel banks, to watch his
lithe black form struggle through the brambles, seize the bit, and
return it to us. He, poor animal, had probably been shut up within the
walls of Rome longer than the rest of the party, and entered into the
outdoor frolics with even more zest than his human companions. Below the
_trattoria_ there was a narrow brook bridged by a rail, and we tried to
get the poodle to walk this narrow path, but with no success. Tyck at
last made the attempt, to encourage the dog, but on his way back he
slipped and wet his feet and ankles thoroughly. Most of us thought this
accident of not the least importance, but one or two of the old
residents advised a return to the wine-shop, hinting of a possible
serious illness in consequence of the wetting. At the _trattoria_ Tyck
dried himself at the large open fire in the kitchen, and we thought no
more of it. The old Porta del Popolo answered our chorus with a
welcoming echo as we drove in, shortly after dark, and mingled with the
shivering crowd hurrying to their homes. Our Christmas had at least been
a merry one to the most of us, but I could not forget the incident of
the dog; and as I walked through the streets to my cheerless room a
strange dread gradually took entire possession of me in spite of my
reason.
For a day or two, that least amusing of all occupations, studio-hunting,
kept me busy from morning till night, and I saw none of the
breakfast-party. It was beginning to surprise me that Tyck did not make
his appearance, when I had a call from Lisa, bearing a message from him,
saying he was slightly unwell and wanted me to come and see him. I lost
no time in complying with his request. On my way to his room the same
old dread, stifled for a while in the busy search for rooms, came back
with all its force, and I already began to suffer the first agonies of
grief at the loss of my friend. For, although the message was hopeful
enough, it came at a time when it seemed the first sign of the
fulfilment of my forebodings, and from that moment I looked upon Tyck as
lost to us. Not pretending to myself that it was an excusable weakness
on my part to become the victim of what would generally be declared a
morbid state of the imagination; reasoning all the while that the
weather, the peculiar, tomb-like atmosphere of Rome, our previous
experience in Antwerp, and our long absence from the distractions and
worldliness of a civilized society would have caused this state of mind
in healthier organizations than my own; I still could not help thinking
of my friend as already in the clutch of death, and soon to be numbered
as the third lost from our little circle, while the fourth was still to
wait.
Tyck was in bed when I entered his chamber. There was a fresh glow deep
in his brown cheek, and his eyes seemed to me brighter than usual; still
there was no visible sign of a dangerous illness, and my reason laughed
at my fears. He complained of dizziness, headache, pains in the back,
and coughed at intervals. His manner showed that his mind was troubled,
and from Lisa I learned that he had not yet received the expected
remittance for the sale of his last pictures sent to London. The winter
was severe and fuel expensive; models were awaiting payment, and the
rent-day was drawing near. I gave Lisa all the money I had with me, and
charged her to keep me posted as to the wants of the household, if by
any bad fortune Tyck should be obliged to keep his room for any length
of time. She afterwards told me that later in the day several friends
called, suspected the state of affairs, and each contributed according
to his purse--always without the knowledge of the sufferer.
Every day after that, I passed a portion of the daylight in Tyck’s room.
His cough gradually grew more violent, and in a day or two he became
seriously ill with high fever. The doctor, a spare, wise-looking German,
of considerable reputation as a successful practitioner in fever cases,
was called that day and afterwards made more frequent visits than the
length of our purses would warrant. On the third or fourth day he
decided that the disease was typhoid fever, and commenced a severe and
to us inexperienced nurses a harsh treatment, dosing continually with
quinine and blistering the extremities. Before the end of a week Tyck
fell into long spells of delirium, and recognized his friends only at
intervals. His tongue was black, and protruded from his mouth, and
between his fits of coughing he could at last only whisper a few words
in Italian. We had been in the habit of conversing at discretion in
English, French, Flemish, or German; talking always on art questions in
French, telling stories in the picturesque Flemish patois, and reserving
the German and English languages for more solemn conversation. Tyck
would frequently attempt to use one of these languages when he wished to
speak with me during his illness, aware of my slight acquaintance with
Italian, and it was most painful to witness his struggles with an
English or French sentence. The words seemed too rasping for his tender
throat and blistered tongue; the easy enunciation of the Italian vowels
gave him no pain, and in a sigh he could whisper a whole sentence.
When at last Lisa was quite worn out with nursing, and there was need of
more skilful and experienced hands to administer the medicines and
perform the thousand duties of a sick-room, the doctor advised us to
make application at a convent for a sister to come and watch at night.
We did so, and on the evening of the same day a cheerful, home-like
little body, in the stiffest of winged bonnets, climbed the long stairs
and took immediate possession of the sick-room, putting things into
faultless order in a very few moments. Her first step was to banish the
dog to a neighboring studio, and I awaited her entrance into the
painting-room with some anxiety. The long table had been removed, but
otherwise the studio remained just the same as it was on the day of the
feast. A regiment of bottles was drawn up near the window; various
tell-tale dishes, broken glasses, and other _débris_ cluttered the
corner near where the stove stood, and I was sure that a lecture on the
sin of the debauchery which had brought my friend to a sick-bed awaited
me the moment the sister saw these proofs of our worldliness. She
trotted out into the studio at last, in the course of her busy
preparation for the night; and then, instead of bursting forth with a
reproof, she covered her face with her hands, turned about, and walked
out of the house. I, of course, followed her and begged for an
explanation. She hesitated long, but finally with some difficulty said
she could not stay in a room where such pictures decorated the walls,
and before she would consent to return she must be assured of their
removal or concealment. I hastened up, covered all the academy studies
with bits of newspaper; and the sister returned and went on with her
duties as if nothing had happened. So the expected lecture was never
delivered. In the sight of the greater enormity of academy studies, she
clearly thought it useless to lecture on the appetite.