unlike a Gregorian chant. The trees rose brightly and youthfully from
the grassy hill-side steps, each leaf shining as though it was
varnished, and the yellow globes of fruit gleaming like so much
imprisoned sunshine. Here was no shade, no weird grayness, but
everything was either vivid gold or vivid green. Janet said this.
"_I_ am the latter, I think," said Baker, "to be caught here again on
these terraces. I don't know what your experience has been, but for my
part I detest them; I have been lost here again and again. You get into
them and you think it all very easy, and you keep going on and on. You
climb hopefully from one to the next by those narrow sidling little
stone steps, only to find it the exact counterpart of the one you have
left, with still another beyond. And you keep on plunging up and up
until you are worn out. At last you meet a man, and you ask him
something or other beginning with 'Purtorn'--"
"What in the world do you mean?" said Janet, breaking into laughter.
"I am sure I don't know; but that is what you all say."
"Perhaps you mean 'Peut-on,'" suggested Margaret.
"Well, whatever I mean, the man always answers 'Oui,' and so I am no
better off than I was before, but keep plunging on," said Baker,
ruefully.
But the Professor now opened a more instructive subject. "Lemons are the
most important product of Mentone," he began. "As they can be kept
better than those of Naples and Sicily, they command a large price. The
tree flowers all the year through, and the fruit is gathered at four
different periods. The annual production of lemons at Mentone is about
thirty millions."
"Thirty millions of lemons!" I said, appalled. "What an acid idea!"
"The idea may be acid, but the air is not," said Margaret. "It is
singularly delicious, almost intoxicating."
And in truth there was a subtle fragrance which had an influence upon
me, although no doubt it had much more upon Margaret, who was peculiarly
sensitive to perfumes.
"Have you heard the legend of the Mentone lemons?" said Verney.
"No; what is it? We should be _very_ pleased to hear it," said Miss
Elaine, throwing herself down upon the grass in what she considered a
rural way. She was bestowing her smiles upon Verney that day; she had
mentioned to me on the way up the hill that she did not approve of
giving too much of one's attention "to one especial gentleman
exclusively"--it was so "conspicuous." I was smiling inwardly at this,
since the only "conspicuous" person among us, as far as attention to
"the gentlemen" was concerned, was Miss Elaine herself, when I caught
her glance directed towards Margaret and Lloyd. This set me to thinking.
Could she be referring to them? They had been much together, without
doubt, for Margaret liked him, and he was very kind to her. My poor
Margaret, she was very precious, to me; but to others she was only a
pale, careworn woman, silent, quiet, and no longer young. With the
remembrance of Miss Elaine's words in my mind, I now looked around for
Margaret as we sat down on the grass to hear Verney's legend; but she
had strolled off down the long green and gold aisle with Lloyd.
"Miss Severin is so well informed that she does not care for our simple
little amusements," said Miss Elaine, in her artless way.
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO L' ANNUNZIATA]
"Once upon a time, as we all know," began Verney, "Adam and Eve were
banished from the garden of Paradise. Poor Eve, sobbing, put up her hand
just before passing through the gate and plucked a lemon from the last
tree beside the angel. The two then wandered through the world together,
wandered far and wide, and at last, following the shores of the
Mediterranean, they came to Mentone. Here the sea was so blue, the
sunshine so bright, and the sky so cloudless, that Eve planted her
treasured fruit. 'Go, little seed,' she said; 'grow and prosper. Make
another Eden of this enchanting spot, so that those who come after may
know at least something of the tastes and the perfumes of Paradise.'"
The Professor had not remained to hear the legend; he had gone up the
mountain, and we now heard him shouting; that is, he was trying to
shout, although he produced only a sort of long, thin hoot.
"What can that be?" I said, startled.
"It is the Professor," answered Mrs. Trescott. "It is his way of
calling. He has his own methods of doing everything."
It turned out that he had found a path down which the lemon girls were
coming from the terraces above. We went up to this point to see them
pass. They were all strong and ruddy, and walked with wonderful
erectness, balancing the immense weight of fruit on their heads without
apparent effort; they were barefooted, and moved with a solid, broad
step down the steep, stony road. The load of fruit for each one was one
hundred and twenty pounds; they worked all day in this manner, and
earned about thirty cents each! But they looked robust and cheerful, and
some of them smiled at us under their great baskets as they passed.
One afternoon not long after this we went to the Capuchin monastery of
the Annunziata. Some of us were on donkeys and some on foot, forming
one of those processions so often seen winding through the streets of
the little Mediterranean town. We passed the shops filled with the
Mentone swallow, singing his "Je reviendrai" upon articles in wood, in
glass, mosaic, silver, straw, canvas, china, and even letter-paper, with
continuous perseverance; we passed the venders of hot chestnuts, which
we not infrequently bought and ate ourselves. Then we came to the
perfume distilleries, where thousands of violets yield their sweetness
daily.
"They cultivate them for the purpose, you know," said Verney. "It's a
poetical sort of agriculture, isn't it? Imagination can hardly go
further, I think, than the idea of a violet farm."
We passed small chapels with their ever-burning lamps; the new villas
described by the French newspapers as "ravishing constructions"; and
then, turning from the road, we ascended a narrow path which wound
upward, its progress marked here and there by stone shrines, some
freshly repainted, others empty and ruined, pointing the way to the holy
church of the Annunziata.
"The only way to appreciate Mentone is to take these excursions up the
valleys and mountains," said Mrs. Clary. "Those who confine themselves
to sitting in the gardens of the hotels or strolling along the Promenade
du Midi have no more idea of its real beauty than a man born blind has
of a painting. Descriptions are nothing; one must _see_. I think the
mountain excursions may be called the shibboleth of Mentone; if you do
not know them, you are no true Israelite."
Verney had a graceful way of gathering delicate little sprays and
blossoms here and there and silently giving them to Janet. The Professor
had noticed this, and to-day emulated him by gathering a bunch of
mallow with great care--a bunch nearly a yard in circumference--which
he presented to Janet with much ceremony.
"Oh, thanks; I am _so_ fond of flowers!" responded that young person.
"Is it asphodel? I long to see asphodel."
Now asphodel was said to grow in that neighborhood, and Janet knew it;
by expressing a wish to see the classic blossom she sent the poor
Professor on a long search for it, climbing up and down and over the
rocks, until I, looking on from my safe donkey's back, felt tired for
him. And it was not long before our donkeys' steady pace left him far
behind.
"With its pale, dusty leaves and weakly lavender flowers, it is, I
think, about as depressing a flower as I have seen," said Inness,
looking at the mammoth bouquet.
"I might fasten it to the saddle, and relieve your hands, Miss
Trescott," suggested Verney. So the delicate gray gloves relinquished
the pound of mallow, which was tied to the saddle, and there hung
ignominiously all the remainder of the day.
The church and convent of L'Annunziata crown an isolated vine-clad hill
between two of the lovely valleys behind Mentone. The church was at the
end of a little plaza, surrounded by a stone-wall; in front there was an
opening towards the south, where stood an iron cross twenty feet high,
visible, owing to its situation, for many a mile. The stone monastery
was on one side; and the whole looked like a little fortification on the
point of the hill. We went into the church, and looked at the primitive
ex-votos on the wall, principally the offerings of Mediterranean sailors
in remembrance of escape from shipwreck--fragments of rope and chain,
pictures of storms at sea, and little wooden models of ships. In
addition to these marine souvenirs, there were also some tokens of
events on dry land, generally pictures of run-aways, where such
remarkable angels were represented sitting unexpectedly but calmly on
the tops of trees by the road-side that it was no wonder the horses ran.
But the lovely view of sea and shore at the foot of the great cross in
the sunshine was better than the dark, musty little church, and we soon
went out and seated ourselves on the edge of the wall to look at it.
While we were there one of the Capuchins, clad in his long brown gown,
came out, crossed the plaza, gazed at us slowly, and then with equal
slowness stooped and kissed the base of the cross, and returned, giving
us another long gaze as he passed.
[Illustration: THE MONASTERY OF L'ANNUNZIATA]
"Was that piety or curiosity?" I said.
"I think it was Miss Trescott," said Baker.
Now as Miss Elaine was present, this was a little cruel; but I learned
afterwards that Baker had been rendered violent that day by hearing that
his American politeness regarding Miss Elaine's self-bestowed society
had been construed by that young lady into a hidden attachment to
herself--an attachment which she "deeply regretted," but could not
"prevent." She had confided this to several persons, who kept the secret
in that strict way in which such secrets are usually kept. Indeed, with
all the strictness, it was quite remarkable that Baker heard it. But not
remarkable that he writhed under it. However, his remarks and manners
made no difference to Miss Elaine; she attributed them to despair.
While we were sitting on the wall the Professor came toiling up the
hill; but he had not found the asphodel. However, when Janet had given
him a few of her pretty phrases he revived, and told us that the plaza
was the site of an ancient village called Podium-Pinum, and that the
Lascaris once had a chateau there.
"The same Lascaris who lived in the old castle at Mentone?" said Janet.
"The same."
"These old monks have plenty of wine, I suppose," said Inness, looking
at the vine terraces which covered the sunny hill-side.
"Very good wine was formerly made around Mentone," said the Professor;
"but the vines were destroyed by a disease, and the peasants thought it
the act of Providence, and for some time gave up the culture. But lately
they have replanted them, and wine is now again produced which, I am
told, is quite palatable."
"That is but a cold phrase to apply to the _bon petit vin blanc_ of
Sant' Agnese, for instance," said Verney, smiling.
Soon we started homeward. While we were winding down the narrow path, we
met a Capuchin coming up, with his bag on his back; he was an old man
with bent shoulders and a meek, dull face, to whom the task of patient
daily begging would not be more of a burden than any other labor. But
when we reached the narrow main street, and found a momentary block,
another Capuchin happened to stand near us who gave me a very different
impression. Among the carriages was a phaeton, with silken canopy, fine
horses, and a driver in livery; upon the cushioned seat lounged a young
man, one of Fortune's favorites and Nature's curled darlings, a little
stout from excess of comfort, perhaps, but noticeably handsome and
noticeably haughty--probably a Russian nobleman. The monk who stood near
us with his bag of broken bread and meat over his back was of the same
age, and equally handsome, as far as the coloring and outline bestowed
by nature could go. His dark eyes were fixed immovably upon the occupant
of the phaeton, and I wondered if he was noting the difference; it
seemed as if he must be noting it. It was a striking tableau of life's
utmost riches and utmost poverty.
That evening there was music in the garden; a band of Italian singers
chanted one or two songs to the saints, and then ended with a gay
Tarantella, which set all the house-maids dancing in the moonlight. We
listened to the music, and looked off over the still sea.
"Isn't it beautiful?" said Mrs. Clary. "I think loving Mentone is like
loving your lady-love. To you she is all beautiful, and you describe her
as such. But perhaps when others see her they say: 'She is by no means
all beautiful; she has this or that fault. What do you mean?' Then you
answer: 'I love her; therefore to me she is all beautiful. As for her
faults, they may be there, but I do not see them: I am blind.'"
[Illustration: CAPUCHIN MONKS]
That same evening Margaret gave me the following verses which she had
written:
MENTONE.
"_And there was given unto them a short time before they went forward._"
Upon this sunny shore
A little space for rest. The care and sorrow,
Sad memory's haunting pain that would not cease,
Are left behind. It is not yet to-morrow.
To-day there falls the dear surprise of peace;
The sky and sea, their broad wings round us sweeping,
Close out the world, and hold us in their keeping.
A little space for rest. Ah! though soon o'er,
How precious is it on the sunny shore!
Upon this sunny shore
A little space for love, while those, our dearest,
Yet linger with us ere they take their flight
To that far world which now doth seem the nearest,
So deep and pure this sky's down-bending light
Slow, one by one, the golden hours are given
A respite ere the earthly ties are riven.
When left alone, how, 'mid our tears, we store
Each breath of their last days upon this shore!
Upon this sunny shore
A little space to wait: the life-bowl broken,
The silver cord unloosed, the mortal name
We bore upon this earth by God's voice spoken,
While at the sound all earthly praise or blame,
Our joys and griefs, alike with gentle sweetness
Fade in the dawn of the next world's completeness.
The hour is thine, dear Lord; we ask no more,
But wait thy summons on the sunny shore.
II
"Thy skies are blue, thy crags as wild,
Thine olive ripe, as when Minerva smiled."
--BYRON.
"So having rung that bell once too often, they were all carried off,"
concluded Inness, as we came up.
"Who?" I asked.
"Look around you, and divine."
We were on Capo San Martino. This, being interpreted, is only Cape
Martin; but as we had agreed to use the "dear old names," we could not
leave out that of the poor cape only because it happened to have six
syllables. We looked around. Before us were ruins--walls built of that
unintelligible broken stone mixed at random with mortar, which confounds
time, and may be, as a construction, five or five hundred years old.
"They--whoever they were--lived here?" I said.
"Yes."
"And it was from here that they were carried off?"
"It was."
"Were they those interesting Greek Lascaris?" said Mrs. Trescott.
"No."
"The Troglodytes?" suggested Mrs. Clary.
"No."
"The poor old ancient gods and goddesses of the coast?" said Margaret.
"No."
"But who carried them off?" I said. "That is the point. It makes all the
difference in the world."
"I know it does," replied Inness; "especially in the case of an
elopement. In this case it happened to be Miss Trescott's friends
(always with two r's), the Sarrasins. The story is but a Mediterranean
version of the boy and the wolf. These ruins are the remains of an
ancient convent built in--in the remote Past. The good nuns, after
taking possession (perhaps they were inland nuns, and did not know what
they were coming to when they came to a shore), began to be in great
fear of the sea and Sarrasin sails. They therefore besought the men of
Mentone and Roccabruna to fly to their aid if at any time they heard the
bell of the chapel ringing rapidly. The men promised, and held
themselves in readiness to fly. One night they heard the bell. Then
westward ran the men of Mentone, and down the hill came those of
Roccabruna, and together they flew out on Capo San Martino to this
convent--only to find no Sarrasins at all, but only the nuns in a row
upon their knees entreating pardon: they had rung the bell as a test.
Not long afterwards the bell rang again, but no one went. This time it
really was the Sarrasins, and the nuns were all carried off."
"Very dramatic. The slight discrepancy that this happened to be a
monastery for monks makes no difference: who cares for details!" said
Verney, who, under the pretence of sketching the ruins, was making his
eighth portrait of Janet. He said of these little pencil portraits that
he "threw them in." Janet was therefore thrown into the Red Rocks, the
"old town," the Bone Caverns, the Pont St. Louis, Dr. Bennet's garden,
the cemetery, Capo San Martino, and before we finished into Roccabruna,
Castellare, Monaco, Dolce Acqua, Sant' Agnese, and the old Roman Trophy
at Turbia.
Leaving the ruins, we went down to the point, where the cape juts out
sharply into the sea, forming the western boundary of the Mentone bay.
Opposite, on the eastern point, lay blanche Bordighera, fair and silvery
as ever in the sunshine. We found the Professor on the point examining
the rocks.
"This is a formation similar to that which we may see in process of
construction at the present moment off the coast of Florida," he
explained.
"Not _coquina_?" cried Miss Graves, instantly going down and selecting a
large fragment.
"It is conglomerate," replied the Professor, disappearing around the
cliff corner, walking on little knobs of rock, and almost into the
Mediterranean in his eagerness.
"That word conglomerate is one of the most useful terms I know," said
Inness. "It covers everything: like Renaissance."
"The rock is also called pudding-stone," said Verney.
"Away with pudding-stone! we will have none of it. We are nothing if not
dignified, are we, Miss Elaine?" said Inness, turning to that young
lady, who was bestowing upon him the boon of her society for the happy
afternoon.
"I am sure I have always thought you had a _great_ deal of dignity, Mr.
Inness," replied Miss Elaine, with her sweetest smile.
We sat down on the rocks and looked at the blue sea. "It is commonplace
to be continually calling it blue," I said; "but it is inevitable, for
no one can look at it without thinking of its color."
"It has seen so much," said Mrs. Clary, in her earnest way; "it has
carried the fleets of all antiquity. The Egyptians, the Greeks, the
Phoenicians, the Carthaginians, and the Romans passed to and fro
across it; the Apostles sailed over it; yet it looks as fresh and young
and untraversed as though created yesterday."
[Illustration: MONACO]
"It certainly is the fairest water in the world," said Janet. "It must
be the reflection of heaven."
"It is the proportion of salt," said the Professor, who had come back
around the rock corner on the knobs. "A larger amount of salt is held in
solution in the Mediterranean than in the Atlantic. It is a very deep
body of water, too, along this coast: at Nice it was found to be three
thousand feet deep only a few yards from the shore."
"These Mediterranean sailors are such cowards," said Inness. "At the
first sign of a storm they all come scudding in. If the Phoenicians
were like them, another boyhood illusion is gone! However, since they
demolished William Tell, I have not much cared."
"The Mediterranean sailors of the past were probably, like those of the
present, obliged to come scudding in," said Verney, "because the winds
were so uncertain and variable. They use lateen-sails for the same
reason, because they can be let down by the run; all the coasting xebecs
and feluccas use them."
"Xebecs and feluccas--delicious words!" said Janet.
"I still maintain that they are cowards," resumed Inness. "The other
day, when there was that capful of wind, you know, twenty of these
delicious xebecs came hurrying into our little port, running into each
other in their haste, and crowding together in the little pool like
frightened chickens under a hen's wings. And they were not all delicious
xebecs, either; there were some good-sized sea-going vessels among them,
brig-rigged in front with the seven or eight small square sails they
string up one above the other, and a towel out to windward."
"The winds of Mentone are wizards," said Margaret; "they never come from
the point they seem to come from. If they blow full in your face from
the east, make up your mind that they come directly from the west. They
are enchanted."
"They are turned aside by the slopes of the mountains," said Baker,
practically.
"But the Mediterranean has not lived up to its reputation, after all,"
said Janet. "I expected to see fleets of nautilus, and I have not seen
one. And not a porpoise!"
"For porpoises," said Miss Graves, who had knotted a handkerchief around
her conglomerate, and was carrying it tied to a scarf like a
shawl-strap--"for porpoises you must go to Florida."
We left the cape and went inland through the woods, looking for the old
Roman tomb. We found it at last, appropriately placed in a gray old
olive grove, some of whose trees, no doubt, saw its foundations laid.
The fragment of old roadway near it was introduced by Inness as "the
Julia Augusta, lifting up its head again." It had laid it down last at
the Red Rocks. The tomb originally was as large as a small chapel; one
of the side walls was gone, but the front remained almost perfect. This
front was in three arches; traces of fresco decoration were still
visible under the curves. Below were lines of stone in black and white
alternately, and the same mosaic was repeated above, where there was
also a cornice stretching from the sides to a central empty space, once
filled by the square marble slab bearing the inscription. We found Lloyd
here, sketching; but as we came up he closed his sketch-book, joined
Margaret, and the two strolled off through the old wood, which had, as
Inness remarked, "as many moving associations" as we chose to recall,
"from the feet of the Roman legions to those of the armies of Napoleon."
"I wish we knew what the inscription was," said Janet, who was sitting
on the grass in front of the old tomb. "I should like to know who it was
who was laid here so long, long ago."
"Some old Roman," said Baker.
"He might not have been old," said Verney, who was now sketching in his
turn. "There is another Roman tomb, or fragment of one, above us on the
side of the mountain, and the inscription on that one gives the name of
a youth who died, 'aged eighteen years and ten months,' two thousand
years ago, 'much sorrowed for by his father and his mother.'"
"Love then was the same as now, and will be the same after we are gone,
I suppose," said Janet, thoughtfully, leaning her pretty head back
against an old olive-tree.
"A reason why we should take it while we can," observed Inness.
The Professor and Miss Graves now appeared in sight, for we had come
across from the cape in accidental little groups, and these two had
found themselves one of them. As the Professor had his sack of specimens
and Miss Graves her conglomerate, we thought they looked well together;
but the Professor evidently did not think so, for he immediately joined
Janet.
"I do not know that there is any surer sign of advancing age in a man
than a growing preference for the society of very young girls--mere
youth _per se_, as the Professor himself would say," said Mrs. Clary to
me in an undertone.
Meanwhile the Professor, unconscious of this judgment, was telling Janet
that she was standing upon the site of the old Roman station "Lumone,"
mentioned in Antony's Itinerary, and that the tomb was that of a
patrician family.
Mrs. Trescott was impressed by this. She said it was "a paean moment" for
us all, if we would but realize it; and she plucked a fern in
remembrance.
* * * * *