Every day during our visit to Rome I had reminded myself of the Reverend
Mother's invitation to call on her, and a sense of moral taint had
prevented me, but now I determined to see her at least by going to
Benediction at her Convent church the very next day.
It happened, however, that this was the time when the Artists' Club of
Rome were giving a Veglione (a kind of fancy-dress ball), and as Alma
and my husband desired to go to it, and were still in the way of using
me to keep themselves in countenance, I consented to accompany them on
condition that I did not dress or dance, and that they would go with me
to Benediction the following day.
"Dear sweet girl!" said Alma. "We'll do whatever you like. Of course we
will."
I wore my soft satin without any ornaments, and my husband merely put
scarlet facings on the lapels of his evening coat, but Alma was clad in
a gorgeous dress of old gold, with Oriental skirts which showed her
limbs in front but had a long train behind, and made her look like a
great vampire bat.
It was eleven o'clock before we reached the theatre, but already the
auditorium was full, and so well had the artists done their work of
decoration, making the air alive with floating specks of many-coloured
lights, like the fire-flies at Nemi, that the scene was one of
enchantment.
It was difficult to believe that on the other side of the walls was the
street, with the clanging electric bells and people hurrying by with
their collars up, for the night was cold, and it had begun to rain as we
came in, and one poor woman, with a child under her shawl, was standing
by the entrance trying to sell evening papers.
I sat alone in a box on the ground tier while Alma and my husband and
their friends were below on the level of the _poltroni_ (the stalls)
that had been arranged for the dancing, which began immediately after we
arrived and went on without a break until long after midnight.
Then there was supper on the stage, and those who did not eat drank a
good deal until nearly everybody seemed to be under the influence of
alcohol. As a consequence many of the people, especially some of the
women (not good women I fear), seemed to lose all control of themselves,
singing snatches of noisy songs, sipping out of the men's glasses,
taking the smoke of cigarettes out of the men's mouths, sitting on the
men's knees, and even riding astride on the men's arms and shoulders.
I bore these sights as long as I could, making many fruitless appeals to
my husband to take me home; and I was just about to leave of myself,
being sick of the degradation of my sex, when a kind of rostrum, with an
empty chair on top of it, was carried in on the shoulders of a number of
men.
This was for the enthronement of the Queen of Beauty, and as it passed
round the arena, with the mock judges in paper coronets, walking ahead
to make their choice, some of the women, lost to all sense of modesty,
were shouting "Take _me_! Take _me_!"
I felt sure they would take Alma, so I reached forward to get a better
view of her, where she stood below my box; but as they approached her,
with the chair still empty, I saw her make a movement in my direction
and say something to the judges about "the little nun," which made my
husband nod his head and then laugh uproariously.
At the next moment, before I knew what they were doing, six or seven men
jumped into my box, lifted me on to the rostrum and placed me in the
chair, whereupon the whole noisy company in the theatre broke into wild
shouts of salutation and pelted me with flowers and confetti.
If there was any pride there was more mortification in the position to
which Alma and my husband had exposed me, for as I was being carried
round the arena, with the sea of foaming faces below me, all screaming
out of their hot and open mouths, I heard the men cry:
"Smile, Signorina!"
"Not so serious, Mademoiselle!"
It would do no good to say what memories of other scenes flashed back
on my mind as I was being borne along in the mad procession. I felt as
if it would last for ever. But it came to an end at length, and as soon
as I was released, I begged my husband again to take me home, and when
he said, "Not yet; we'll all be going by-and-by," I stole away by
myself, found a cab, and drove back to the hotel.
The day was dawning as I passed through the stony streets, and when I
reached my room, and pulled down my dark green blinds, the bell of the
Capuchin monastery in the Via Veneto was ringing and the monks were
saying the first of their offices.
I must have been some time in bed, hiding my hot face in the
bed-clothes, when Price, my maid, came in to apologise for not having
seen me come back alone. The pain of the woman's scrutiny was more than
I could bear at that moment, so I tried to dismiss her, but I could not
get her to go, and at last she said:
"If you please, my lady, I want to say something."