Comfortless bed-room—National fear of water—Waste of
time—Occupations of the different members of the
family—Volunnia's sitting-room—Her acquirements.
When the marchesa was gone, I proceeded to take a survey of my
apartment, which, had I not resolutely set aside all comparison with
England and English customs, would have been mentally noted down as
exceedingly uncomfortable. There was no fireplace or stove, no carpet
on the stone floor, no curtains to the bed, at the head of which was
placed a _bénitier_ for holy water, a palm that had been blessed at
Easter, and a little print of some saint. The rest of the furniture
consisted of an old-fashioned inlaid chest of drawers, surmounted
by a small looking-glass; four walnut-wood chairs, with cane seats;
and a washing-stand, or rather tripod, just holding the basin, and
beneath it a very small jug. But what redeemed the otherwise meagre
aspect of the room was the profusion of oil-paintings, in massive
gilt frames, with which the walls were closely covered. Of many, the
colours were too darkened by time, or they were hung too high, to
enable me to make out their subjects; but, judging from those I could
more easily distinguish, I concluded the collection related either to
the martyrdoms of saints, in their most varied form of suffering—one
picture especially quite disturbed me, St Apollonia kneeling, a tray
full of bleeding teeth in one outstretched hand, while she clasps the
instrument employed in their extraction to her breast with the other—or
to scenes from mythology, singularly inappropriate—all evidently
belonging to the school of Bologna, which, diffused by the numerous
pupils of the Caracci, is the predominant one in the Marche.
The meagreness of the lavatory arrangements, I confess, however, no
pictorial embellishments could redeem; and I made interest with the
good-humoured girl who speedily came to offer her services, to bring me
that British desideratum, a tub, which for the period of my stay should
be considered exclusively as mine. She was much puzzled at first at
this request.
“Is the signorina ill?—has she taken cold, that she wishes, _con
rispetto parlando_, to have a foot-bath?”
It is a curious but authentic fact, that in the middle and south
of Italy feet or foot gear are never spoken of without a prefatory
apologetic expression, such as, “saving your presence,” “with all
respect,” and so forth. The most inadmissible topics, to our way of
thinking, are unblushingly discussed, but an Italian will pause in a
story to ask your pardon for mentioning his boots.
“No, I am not ill,” I said, laughing; “but it is the custom of the
English to be very fond of washing.”
“Madonna mia! signorina! Be careful. Too much may disagree with you.
Shall I bring you a little white wine to mix with the water? The
Marchesa Silvia always does so when the children require to be washed.
The baby is sometimes bathed in broth.”
I was so amused I could scarcely decline with becoming gravity.
“At least for your face, signorina: with that fine
complexion”—remember, reader, her mission as a waiting-maid was to
flatter—“you surely do not risk spoiling it with water. A little _brodo
lungo_ (weak broth) of lean veal, every particle of fat carefully
skimmed off—that is what many ladies in Macerata use; it softens,
and yet nourishes the skin. Others have a custom of spreading a
handkerchief out at night to imbibe the early dew, and then gently rub
their faces with it, soaked as it is with the cooling moisture; but
that can only be done in summer. Then there is milk just warm from the
cow—some prefer it to anything else. Would the signorina at least try
that?”
But as I was deaf to all her persuasions, the abigail at last left me
to repose, having first inquired whether she was to bring me a cup of
_caffè nero_ at seven in the morning, according to the custom of some
members of the family; or whether I would prefer not being disturbed,
or at least not breaking my fast until ten, when _caffè e latte_ would
be served to me in my room, as it was to all the padroni: which latter
alternative I willingly acquiesced in.
It is difficult to give an account of the occupations of people who are
never occupied, or, at best, have so slender an amount of employment,
so few interesting pursuits, that what they contrive to expand into an
entire day's avocations, would not engage two hours with a person to
whom the economy of time was a precious consideration. The healthful
excitement of a day divided between intellectual employment and
active bodily exercise—the eagerness with which every spare moment
is husbanded, as if time were wanting for what it is thought needful
should be done; all this is comparatively unknown amongst a class which
has found, by bitter experience, that energy of mind and pre-eminence
in learning are dangerous gifts, tormenting, or even fatal to their
possessor.
Italians are not great sleepers in general, and several members of the
family, after the early cup of black coffee, would be dawdling about
their rooms in dressing-gown and slippers, though not visible till
after the second refection of _café au lait_ which was served to me,
with a little round plateful of cakes, on a waiter of silver, richly
chased, but rarely cleaned. Amongst the early ones were papà, who rose
with the lark to pursue, barnacles on nose, his legal researches; the
marchesa, who carried on a tolerable amount of letter-writing with
political malcontents—the manœuvres and harmless intrigues attending
which were an indispensable stimulus to her existence—though, for
the sake of Alessandro, as well as to avoid the unpleasantness
of banishment or sequestration, she took care to eschew directly
compromising herself or any of her correspondents; and Silvia,
engaged from morning to night with the children, who were bribed with
sweetmeats to be quiet, deluded by promises of visionary rewards into
submission when rebellious, and taught to wreak their vengeance on
the chairs and tables whenever they gave themselves a knock. Besides
the two small individuals I had seen at supper to claim their mother's
care, there was a most important personage wholly dependent on her—an
uninteresting infant of eight months old, just released from his
swaddling-clothes, and already attired in high frocks, long sleeves,
and trowsers; the light costume peculiar to English babies, technically
termed “short coats,” being looked upon, it may interest British
mothers to know, as exceedingly incorrect.
As to the others, they appeared at different hours, Oliverotto the
latest: he never showed himself till noon, when, dressed in a very
elaborate morning costume, he sauntered out to the caffè to hear the
news, play a game at billiards, and get an appetite for dinner. The
good Alessandro always went to _far due passi_, and have a little
conversazione before three o'clock also, but then he had been busy for
two or three hours in his _scrittojo_ with the _fattore_ or bailiff,
who was his prime-minister in the complicated family concerns. The
revenues of landed proprietors in this country, as I have already
explained in detail, being derived from the division of the produce
of their farms with the peasants by whom they are cultivated, much
vigilance is required in looking after the different contadini, and
ascertaining that each one sends in the padrone's moiety of wine, oil,
wheat, and Indian corn, without more peculation than is inevitable;
which done, there is the care of disposing of the stores of grain and
other articles of consumption, which, after retaining what is necessary
for the household, the possidente sells to traders, either for home
supply or foreign exportation.
According to her promise, Volunnia came to fetch me, that I might be
introduced in form to her own apartments, which were on the second
floor. On our way to them, we passed through the two saloons and large
entrance-hall appropriated to the marchesa, which had evidently been
the state-rooms of the palazzo in its palmy days, and in their general
arrangements resembled others of the same description with which I
had become familiar in Ancona: gilded sofas and arm-chairs, covered
with faded damask, stationed immovably along the walls, a profusion of
pictures and carved _consoles_, embellished by tall mirrors. In the
one, where she told me her sister-in-law habitually received, there
were a few modern additions, some light chairs, a round table, strewn
with such newspapers as she could contrive to get together, and a
number of little squares of carpet placed in array before the grim,
high-backed seats, that seemed to look frowningly on these tokens of
that modern degeneracy which shrank from contact with the marble floor
whereon, in their day, the feet of the best and fairest had contentedly
reposed.
Volunnia's sitting-room contained tokens of her tastes and attainments,
which, to do her justice, were of no common order, especially when
it is borne in mind how much difficulty she must have overcome in
acquiring the accomplishments of which a piano, or rather spinet, a
harp, and a number of paintings on ivory, gave the indication—to say
nothing of the severer studies that a score or two of Latin and old
French and English authors, on a dusty book-shelf, revealed to my gaze.
After she had played a sonata from Paesiello, and taken down some
of her paintings, framed in those circles of ebony familiar to our
childhood as containing effigies of old gentlemen in bag-wigs and
white frills, for my approving inspection; after reading aloud a page
of English to show me her proficiency, and obtaining a promise that
I would give her a lesson every day while I remained there; after
permitting me to turn over her books in the vain hope of finding
anything more modern than Young's _Night Thoughts_ and the _Spectator_
in the English department, or Pascal and Madame de Sévigné in the
French, while she proffered, as some light reading in Italian,
Alfieri's translation of Sallust's _Conspiracy of Catiline_—after, I
say, all these preliminaries, Volunnia laid aside her homage to the
Sacred Nine, and, betaking herself to a minute inspection of my toilet,
seemed more intent upon a sacrifice to the graces, than the singular
_négligé_ of her attire had at first led me to anticipate.
Having made her very happy by the assurance that she might have
whatever she liked in my wardrobe copied for her own wear, she took
me into her bed-room to see an elaborate bonnet that had just come
from Rome, which she intended to appear in at Easter. As she tried it
on complacently, the droll effect of the smart _coiffure_ over the
dingy wrapper and coarse woollen shawl pinned round her throat to
conceal all sorts of deficiencies, irresistibly reminded me of Miss
Charity Pecksniff in the wedding-bonnet and dimity bed-gown. The one in
question was a bright yellow, and Volunnia asked me, as she adjusted it
before the glass, whether it did not become her complexion, which, she
had been told, was quite Spanish in its tints.
Of course I did not disturb the harmless conceit, and we went
down-stairs to turn over my stock of finery as lovingly as possible.