Momma wishes me to state that the word Italy, in any language, will for
ever be associated in her mind with the journey from Genoa to Pisa. We
had our own lunch basket, so no baneful anticipation of cutlets fried in
olive oil marred the perfect satisfaction with which we looked out of
the windows. One window, almost the whole way, opened on a low
embankment which seemed a garden wall. Olives and lemon trees grew
beyond it and dropped over, and it was always dipping in the sunlight to
show us the roses and the shady walks of the villas inside, white and
remote; now and then we saw the pillared end of a verandah or a plaster
Neptune ruling a restricted fountain area. Out of the other window
stretched the blue Gulf of Genoa all becalmed and smiling, with freakish
little points and headlines, and here and there the white blossom of a
sail. The Senator counted eighty tunnels--he wants that fact mentioned
too--some of them so short that it was like shutting one's eyes for an
instant on the olives and the sea. Nevertheless it was an idyllic
journey, and at four o'clock in the afternoon we saw the Leaning Tower
from afar, describing the precise angle that it does in the illustrated
geographies. Momma was charmed to recognise it, she blew it a kiss of
adulation and acclaim, while we yet wound about among the environs, and
hailed it "Pisa!" It was as if she bowed to a celebrity, with the homage
due.
What the Senator called our attention to as we drove to the hotel was
the conspicuous part in municipal politics played by that little old
brown river Arno. In most places the riparian feature of the landscape
is not insisted on--you have usually to go to the suburbs to find it,
but in Pisa it is a sort of main street, with the town sitting
comfortably and equally on each side of it looking on. Momma and I both
liked the idea of a river in town scenery, and thought it might be
copied with advantage in America, it afforded such a good excuse for
bridges. Pisa's three arched stone ones made a reason for settling there
in themselves in our opinion. The Senator, however, was against it on
conservancy grounds, and asked us what we thought of the population of
Pisa. And we had to admit that for the size of the houses there weren't
very many people about. The Lungarno was almost empty except for
desolate cabmen, and they were just as eager and hospitable to us and
our trunks as they had been in Genoa.
In the Piazza del Duomo we expected the Cathedral, the Leaning Tower,
the Baptistry, and the Campo Santo. We did not expect Mrs. Portheris; at
least, neither of my parents did--I knew enough about Dicky Dod not to
be surprised at any combination he might effect. There they all were in
the middle of the square bit of meadow, apparently waiting for us, but
really, I have no doubt, getting an impression of the architecture as a
whole. I could tell from Mrs. Portheris's attitude that she had
acknowledged herself to be gratified. Strange to relate, her
gratification did not disappear when she saw that these mediæval
circumstances would inconsistently compel her to recognise very modern
American connections. She approached us quite blandly, and I saw at once
that Dicky Dod had been telling her that poppa's chances for the
Presidency were considered certain, that the Spanish Infanta had stayed
with us while she was in Chicago at the Exhibition, and that we fed her
from gold plate. It was all in Mrs. Portheris's manner.
"Another unexpected meeting!" she exclaimed. "My dear Mrs. Wick, you
_are_ looking worn out! Try my sal volatile--I insist!" and in the
general greeting momma was seen to back violently away from a long
silver bottle in every direction. Poppa had to interfere. "If it's all
the same to you, Aunt Caroline," he said, "Mrs. Wick is quite as usual,
though I think the Middle Agedness of this country is a little trying
for her at this time of year. She's just a little upset this morning by
seeing the cook plucking a rooster down in the backyard before he'd
killed it. The rooster was in great affliction, you see, and the way he
crowed got on momma's nerves. She's been telling us about it ever since.
But we hope it will pass off."
Mrs. Portheris expanded into that inevitable British story of the
officer who reported of certain tribes that they had no manners and
their customs were abominable, and I, at a mute invitation from Dicky,
stepped aside to get the angle of the Tower from a better point of view.
Mr. Dod was depressed, so much so that he came to the point at once. "I
hope you had a good time in Genoa," he said. "We should have been there
now, only I knew we should never catch up to you if we didn't skip
something. So I heard of a case of cholera there, and didn't mention
that it was last year. Quite enough for Her Ex. I say, though--it's no
use."
"Isn't it?" said I. "Are you sure?"
"Pretty confoundedly certain. The British lion's getting there, in great
shape--the brute. All the widow's arranging. With the widow it's 'Mr.
Dod, you will take care of _me_, won't you?' or 'Come now, Mr. Dod, and
tell me all about buffalo shooting on your native prairies'--and Mr. Dod
is a rattled jay. There's something about the mandate of a middle-aged
British female."
"I should think there was!" I said.
"Then Maffy, you see, walks in. They don't seem to have much
conversation--she regularly brightens up when I come along and say
something cheerful--but he's gradually making up his mind that the best
isn't any too good for him."
"Perhaps we don't begin so well in America," I interrupted
thoughtfully. "But then, we don't develop into Mrs. P.'s either."
Dicky seemed unable to follow my line of thought. "I must say," he went
on resentfully, "I like--well, just a _smell_ of constancy about a man.
A fellow that's thrown over ought to be in about the same shape as a
widower. But not much Maffy. I tried to work up his feelings over the
American girl the other night--he was as calm!"
"Dicky," said I, "there are subjects a man _must_ keep sacred. You must
not speak to Mr. Mafferton of his first--attachment again. They never do
it in England, except for purposes of fiction."
"Well, I worked that racket all I knew. I even told him that American
girls as often as not changed their minds."
"_Richard!_ He will think I--what _will_ he think of American girls! It
was excessively wrong of you to say that--I might almost call it
criminal!"
Dicky looked at me in pained surprise. "Look here, Mamie," he said, "a
fellow in my fix, you know! Don't get excited. How am I going to confide
in you unless you keep your hair on!"
"What, may I ask, did Mr. Mafferton say when you told him that?" I asked
sternly.
"He said--now you'll be madder than ever. I won't tell you."
"Mr. Dod--Dicky, haven't we been friends from infancy!"
"Played with the same rattle. Cut our teeth together."
"Well then----"
"Well then," he said, "do you mind putting your parasol straight? I like
to see the person I'm talking to, and besides the sun is on the other
side. He said he didn't think it was a privilege that should be extended
to all cases."
"He did, did he?" I rejoined calmly. "That's like the British--isn't
it?"
"It would have made such a complication if I'd kicked him," confessed
Mr. Dod.
The Senator, momma, and Mrs. Portheris stood in the cathedral door.
Isabel and Mr. Mafferton occupied the middle distance. Mr. Mafferton
stooped to add a poppy to a slender handful of wild flowers he held out
to her. Isabel was looking back.
"It will be pleasant inside the Duomo," I said. "Let us go on. I feel
warm. I agree with you that the situation is serious, Dicky. Look at
those poppies! When an Englishman does that you may make up your mind to
the worst. But I don't think anybody need have the slightest respect for
the affections of Mr. Mafferton."
Inside the Duomo it was pleasant, and cool, and there was a dim
religious light that gave one an opportunity for reflection. I was so
much engaged in reflection that I failed to notice the shape of the
Duomo, but I have since learned that it was a basilica, in the form of
a Latin cross, and was simply full of things which should have claimed
my attention. Momma took copious notes from which I see that the Madonna
and Child holy water basin was perfectly sweet, and the episcopal throne
by Uervellesi in 1536 was the finest piece of tarsia work in the world,
and the large bronze hanging lamp by Vincenzo Possento was the object
which assisted Galileo to invent the oscillations of the pendulum. The
Senator was much taken with the inlaid wooden stalls in the choir, the
subjects were so lively. He and his Aunt Caroline nearly came to words
over a monkey regarding its reflection in a looking glass, done with a
realism which Mrs. Portheris considered little short of profane, but
which poppa found quite an excusable filip to devotions which must have
been such an all day business in the sixteenth century. Outside,
however, poppa found it difficult to approve the façade. To throw four
galleries over the street door, he said, with no visible means of
getting into them or possible object for sitting there, was about the
most ridiculous waste of building space he had yet observed.
"But then," said Dicky Dod, who kept his disconsolate place by my side,
"they didn't seem to know how to waste enough in those pre-elevator
days. Look at the pictures and the bronzes and the marble columns inside
there--ten times as much as they had any use for. They just heaped it
up."
"That's so, Dicky, my boy," replied poppa; "we could cover more ground
with the money in our century. But you've got to remember that they
hadn't any other way worth mentioning of spending the taxes. Religion,
so to speak, was the boss contractor's only line."
Dicky remarked that it had to be admitted he worked it on the square,
and momma said that no doubt people built as well as they knew how at
that time, but nothing should induce her to add her weight to the top of
the Leaning Tower.
"It is very remarkable and impressive," said momma, "the idea of its
hanging over that way all these centuries, just on the drop and never
dropping, but who knows that it may not come down this very day!"
"My dear niece, if I may call you so," remarked Mrs. Portheris urbanely,
"it was thus that the builders designed this great monument to stand; in
its inclination lies the triumph of their art."
"I can't say I agree with you there, Aunt Caroline," said poppa; "that
tower was never meant to stand crooked. It's a very serious defect, and
if it happened nowadays, it would justify any Municipal Board in
repudiating the contract. Even those fellows, you see, were too sick to
go on with it, in every case. Begun by Bonanus 1174. Bonanus saw what
was going to happen and gave it up at the third storey. Then Benenato
had _his_ show, got it up to four, and quit, 1203. The next architect
was--let me see--William of Innsbruck. He put on a couple more, and by
that time it began to look dangerous. But nothing happened from 1260 to
1350, and it struck Tomaso Pisano that nothing would happen. He risked
it anyhow, ran up another storey, put the roof on, and came in for the
credit of the whole miracle. I expect Tomaso is at the bottom of that
idea of yours, Aunt Caroline. He would naturally give the reporters that
view."
Mrs. Portheris listened with a tolerance as badly put on as any garment
she was wearing. "I do not usually make assertions," she said when poppa
had finished, "without being convinced of the facts," and I became aware
for the first time that her upper lip wore a slight moustache.
"Well, you'll excuse me, Aunt Caroline----"
"All my life I have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa as a feat of
architecture," replied his Aunt Caroline firmly. "I do not propose to
have that view disturbed now."
"Perhaps it _was_ so, my dear love," put in momma deprecatingly, and Mr.
Dod, with a frenzied wink at poppa, called his attention to the
ridiculous Pisan habit of putting immovable fringed carriage-tops on
cabs.
"It undoubtedly was," said Mrs. Portheris, with an embattled front.
"But--Great Scott, aunt!" exclaimed poppa, recklessly, "think what this
place was like--all marsh, with the sea right alongside; not four miles
off as it is now. Why, you couldn't base so much as a calculation on
it!"
"I must say," said Mrs. Portheris in severe surprise, "I knew that
America had made great advances in the world of invention, but I did not
expect to find what looks much like jealousy of the achievements of an
older civilisation."
The Senator looked at his aunt, then he put his hat further back on his
head and cleared his throat. I prepared for the worst, and the worst
would undoubtedly have come if Dicky Dod had not suddenly remembered
having seen a man with a foreign telegram looking for somebody in the
Cathedral.
"It's a feat!" reiterated Mrs. Portheris as the Senator left us in
pursuit of the man with the telegram.
"It's fourteen feet," cried the Senator from a safe distance, "out of
the perpendicular!" and left us to take the consequences.