The Marchesa Belloni's boarding-house was situated in one of the
healthiest, if not one of the most romantic quarters of Rome. One
half of the house had formed part of a villino of the old Ludovisi
Gardens, those beautiful old gardens regretted by everybody who knew
them before the new barrack-quarters were built on the site of the old
Roman park, with its border of villas. The entrance to the pension
was in the Via Lombardia. The older or villino portion of the house
retained a certain antique charm for the marchesa's boarders, while
the new premises built on to it offered the advantages of spacious
rooms, modern sanitation and electric light. The pension boasted a
certain reputation for comfort, cheapness and a pleasant situation:
it stood at a few minutes' walk from the Pincio, on high ground, and
there was no need to fear malaria; and the price charged for a long
stay, amounting to hardly more than eight lire, was exceptionally
low for Rome, which was known to be more expensive than any other
town in Italy. The boarding-house therefore was generally full. The
visitors began to arrive as soon as October: those who came earliest
in the season paid least; and, with the exception of a few hurrying
tourists, they nearly all remained until Easter, going southward to
Naples after the great church festivals.
Some English travelling-acquaintances had strongly recommended the
pension to Cornélie de Retz van Loo, who was travelling in Italy by
herself; and she had written to the Marchesa Belloni from Florence. It
was her first visit to Italy; it was the first time that she had
alighted at the great cavernous station near the Baths of Diocletian;
and, standing in the square, in the golden Roman sunlight, while
the great fountain of the Acqua Marcia gushed and rippled and the
cab-drivers clicked with their whips and their tongues to attract
her attention, she was conscious of her "nice Italian sensation,"
as she called it, and felt glad to be in Rome.
She saw a little old man limping towards her with the instinct of
a veteran porter who recognizes his travellers at once; and she read
"Hotel Belloni" on his cap and beckoned to him with a smile. He saluted
her with respectful familiarity, as though she were an old acquaintance
and he glad to see her; asked if she had had a pleasant journey,
if she was not over-tired; led her to the victoria; put in her rug
and her hand-bag; asked for the tickets of her trunks; and said that
she had better go on ahead: he would follow in ten minutes with the
luggage. She received an impression of cosiness, of being well cared
for by the little old lame man; and she gave him a friendly nod as
the coachman drove away. She felt happy and careless, though she had
just the faintest foreboding of something unhappy and unknown that
was going to happen to her; and she looked to right and left to take
in the streets of Rome. But she saw only houses upon houses, like so
many barracks; then a great white palace, the new Palazzo Piombino,
which she knew to contain the Juno Ludovisi; and then the vettura
stopped and a boy in buttons came out to meet her. He showed her into
the drawing-room, a gloomy apartment, in the middle of which was a
table covered with periodicals, arranged in a regular and unbroken
circle. Two ladies, obviously English and of the æsthetic type, with
loose-fitting blouses and grimy hair, sat in a corner studying their
Baedekers before going out. Cornélie bowed slightly, but received
no bow in return; she did not take offence, being familiar with the
manners of the travelling Briton. She sat down at the table and took
up the Roman Herald, the paper which appears once a fortnight and
tells you what there is to do in Rome during the next two weeks.
Thereupon one of the ladies asked her, from the corner, in an
aggressive tone:
"I beg your pardon, but would you please not take the Herald to
your room?"
Cornélie raised her head very haughtily and languidly in the direction
where the ladies were sitting, looked vaguely above their grimy heads,
said nothing and glanced down at the Herald again; and she thought
herself a very experienced traveller and smiled inwardly because she
knew how to deal with that type of Englishwoman.
The marchesa entered and welcomed Cornélie in Italian and in
French. She was a large, fat matron, vulgarly fat; her ample bosom
was contained in a silk cuirass or spencer, shiny at the seams
and bursting under the arms; her grey frizzled hair gave her a
somewhat leonine appearance; her great yellow and blue eyes, with
bistre shadows beneath them, wore a strained expression, the pupils
unnaturally dilated by belladonna; a pair of immense crystals sparkled
in her ears; and her fat, greasy fingers were covered with nameless
jewels. She talked very fast; and Cornélie thought her sentences as
pleasant and homely as the welcome of the lame porter in the square
outside the station. The marchesa led her to the lift and stepped in
with her; the hydraulic lift, a railed-in cage, running up the well
of the staircase, rose solemnly and suddenly stopped, motionless,
between the second and the third floor.
"Third floor!" cried the marchesa to some one below.
"Non c'e acqua!" the boy in buttons calmly called back, meaning thereby
to convey that--as seemed natural--there was not enough water to move
the lift.
The marchesa screamed out some orders in a shrill voice; two facchini
came running up and hung on to the cable of the lift, together with the
ostensibly zealous boy in buttons; and by fits and starts the cage rose
higher and higher, until at last it almost reached the third storey.
"A little higher!" ordered the marchesa.
But the facchini strained their muscles in vain: the lift refused
to stir.
"We can manage!" said the marchesa. "Wait a bit."
Taking a great stride, which revealed the enormous white-stockinged
calf of her leg, she stepped on to the floor, smiled and gave her
hand to Cornélie, who imitated her gymnastics.
"Here we are!" sighed the marchesa, with a smile of satisfaction. "This
is your room."
She opened a door and showed Cornélie a room. Though the sun was
shining brightly out of doors, the room was as damp and chilly as
a cellar.
"Marchesa," Cornélie said, without hesitation, "I wrote to you for
two rooms facing south."
"Did you?" asked the marchesa, plausibly and ingenuously. "I really
didn't remember. Yes, that is one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms
facing south.... This is really a beautiful room."
"I'm sorry, but I can't accept this room, marchesa."
La Belloni grumbled a bit, went down the corridor and opened the door
of another room:
"And this one, signora?... How do you like this?"
"Is it south?"
"Almost"
"I want it full south."
"This looks west: you see the most splendid sunsets from your window."
"I absolutely must have a south room, marchesa."
"I also have the most charming little apartments looking east: you
get the most picturesque sunrises there."
"No, marchesa."
"Don't you appreciate the beauties of nature?"
"Just a little, but I put my health first."
"I sleep in a north room myself."
"You are an Italian, marchesa, and you're used to it."
"I'm very sorry, but I have no rooms facing south."
"Then I'm sorry too, marchesa, but I must look out somewhere else."
Cornélie turned as though to go away. The choice of a room sometimes
means the choice of a life.
The marchesa caught hold of her hand and smiled. She had abandoned
her cool tone and her voice was all honey:
"Davvero, that's one of those foreigners' ideas: rooms facing
south! But I have two little kennels left. Here...."
And she quickly opened two doors, two snug little cupboards of rooms,
which showed through the open windows a lofty and spacious view of
the sky, outspread above the streets and roofs below, with the blue
dome of St. Peter's in the distance.
"These are the only rooms I have left facing south," said the marchesa,
plaintively.
"I shall be glad to have these, marchesa."
"Sixteen lire," smiled la Belloni.
"Ten, as you wrote."
"I could put two persons in here."
"I shall stay all the winter, if I am satisfied."
"You must have your way!" the marchesa exclaimed, suddenly, in her
sweetest voice, a voice of graceful surrender. "You shall have the
rooms for twelve lire. Don't let us discuss it any more. The rooms
are yours. You are Dutch, are you not? We have a Dutch family staying
here: a mother with two daughters and a son. Would you like to sit
next to them at table?"
"No, I'd rather you put me somewhere else; I don't care for my
fellow-countrymen when travelling."
The marchesa left Cornélie to herself. She looked out of the window,
absent-mindedly, glad to be in Rome, yet faintly conscious of the
something unhappy and unknown that was going to happen. There was a tap
at her door; the men carried in her luggage. She saw that it was eleven
o'clock and began to unpack. One of her rooms was a small sitting-room,
like a bird-cage in the air, looking out over Rome. She altered the
position of the furniture, draped the faded sofa with a shawl from the
Abruzzi and fixed a few portraits and photographs with drawing-pins to
the wall, whose white-washed surface was broken up by rudely-painted
arabesques. And she smiled at the border of purple hearts transfixed
by arrows, which surrounded the decorated panels of the wall.
After an hour's work her sitting-room was settled: she had a home
of her own, with a few of her own shawls and rugs, a screen here,
a little table there, cushions on the sofa, books within easy
reach. When she had finished and had sat down and looked around her,
she suddenly felt very lonely. She began to think of the Hague and
of what she had left behind her. But she did not want to think and
picked up her Baedeker and read about the Vatican. She was unable to
concentrate her thoughts and turned to Hare's Walks in Rome. A bell
sounded. She was tired and her nerves were on edge. She looked in the
glass, saw that her hair was out of curl, her blouse soiled with coal
and dust, unlocked a second trunk and changed her things. She cried
and sobbed while she was curling her hair. The second bell rang; and,
after powdering her face, she went downstairs.
She expected to be late, but there was no one in the dining-room and
she had to wait before she was served. She resolved not to come down
so very punctually in future. A few boarders looked in through the
open door, saw that there was no one sitting at table yet, except a
new lady, and disappeared again.
Cornélie looked around her and waited.
The dining-room was the original dining-room of the old villa, with a
ceiling by Guercina. The waiters loitered about. An old grey major-domo
cast a distant glance over the table, to see if everything was in
order. He grew impatient when nobody came and told them to serve the
macaroni to Cornélie. It struck Cornélie that he too limped with one
leg, like the porter. But the waiters were very young, hardly more than
sixteen to eighteen, and lacked the waiter's usual self-possession.
A stout gentleman, vivacious, consequential, pock-marked, ill-shaven,
in a shabby black coat which showed but little linen, entered,
rubbing his hands, and took his seat, opposite Cornélie.
He bowed politely and began to eat his macaroni.
And this seemed to be the signal for the others to begin eating,
for a number of boarders, mostly ladies, now came in, sat down
and helped themselves to the macaroni, which was handed round
by the youthful waiters under the watchful eye of the grey-haired
major-domo. Cornélie smiled at the oddity of these travelling types;
and, when she involuntarily glanced at the pock-marked gentleman
opposite, she saw that he too was smiling.
He hurriedly mopped up his tomato-sauce with his bread, bent a little
way across the table and almost whispered, in French:
"It's amusing, isn't it?"
Cornélie raised her eyebrows:
"What do you mean?"
"A cosmopolitan company like this."
"Oh, yes!"
"You are Dutch?"
"How do you know?"
"I saw your name in the visitors' book, with 'la Haye' after it."
"I am Dutch, yes."
"There are some more Dutch ladies here, sitting over there: they
are charming."
Cornélie asked the major-domo for some vin ordinaire.
"That wine is no good," said the stout gentleman, vivaciously. "This
is Genzano," pointing to his fiasco. "I pay a small corkage and drink
my own wine."
The major-domo put a pint bottle in front of Cornélie: it was included
in her pension without extra charge.
"If you like, I will give you the address where I get my wine. Via
della Croce, 61."
Cornélie thanked him. The pock-marked gentleman's uncommon ease and
vivacity diverted her.
"You're looking at the major-domo?" he asked.
"You are a keen observer," she smiled in reply.
"He's a type, our major-domo, Giuseppe. He used to be major-domo in
the palace of an Austrian archduke. He did I don't know what. Stole
something, perhaps. Or was impertinent. Or dropped a spoon on the
floor. He has come down in the world. Now you behold him in the
Pension Belloni. But the dignity of the man!"
He leant forward:
"The marchesa is economical. All the servants here are either old or
very young. It's cheaper."
He bowed to two German ladies, a mother and daughter, who had come
in and sat down beside him:
"I have the permit which I promised you, to see the Palazzo Rospigliosi
and Guido Reni's Aurora" he said, speaking in German.
"Is the prince back then?"
"No, the prince is in Paris. The palace is not open to visitors,
except yourselves."
This was said with a gallant bow.
The German ladies exclaimed how kind he was, how he was able to do
anything, to find a way out of every difficulty. They had taken endless
trouble to bribe the Rospigliosi porter and they had not succeeded.
A little thin Englishwoman had taken her seat beside Cornélie.
"And for you, Miss Taylor, I have a card for a low mass in His
Holiness' private chapel."
Miss Taylor was radiant with delight.
"Have you been sight-seeing again?" the pock-marked gentleman
continued.
"Yes, Museo Kircheriano," said Miss Taylor. "But I am tired out. It
was most exquisite."
"My prescription, Miss Taylor, is that you stay at home this afternoon
and rest."
"I have an engagement to go to the Aventino...."
"You mustn't. You're tired. You look worse every day and you're losing
flesh. You must rest, or you sha'n't have the card for the low mass."
The German ladies laughed. Miss Taylor, flattered, in an ecstasy of
delight, gave her promise. She looked at the pock-marked gentleman
as though she expected to hear the judgement of Solomon fall from
his lips.
Lunch was over: the rump-steak, the pudding, the dried figs. Cornélie
rose:
"May I give you a glass out of my bottle?" asked the stout
gentleman. "Do taste my wine and tell me if you like it. If so,
I'll order a fiasco for you in the Via della Croce."
Cornélie did not like to refuse. She sipped the wine. It was
deliciously pure. She thought that it would be a good thing to drink
a pure wine in Rome; and, as she reflected, the stout gentleman seemed
to read her quick thought:
"It is a good thing," he said, "to drink a strengthening wine while
you are in Rome, where life is so tiring."
Cornélie agreed.
"This is Genzano, at two lire seventy-five the fiasco. It will last
you a long time: the wine keeps. So I'll order you a fiasco."
He bowed to the ladies around and left the room.
The German ladies bowed to Cornélie.
"Such an amiable man, that Mr. Rudyard."
"What can he be?" Cornélie wondered. "French, German, English,
American?"