“By the side of the church of the Navicella, we passed the Villa Mattei,
and Susanna wished to go in. What a beautiful property! What splendid
terraces those in that garden are! What laurels! What lemon-trees! What
old statues! What heavy shade of pines and live-oaks!
“Kennedy, who has an admirable knowledge of every corner of Rome, has
told me that at the beginning of the XIX Century the Villa Mattei was
the property of Godoy. King Charles IV and his wife were in Rome, living
in the Barberini Palace, and they spent their days in the seclusion of
the Villa Mattei; and while the favourite and the Queen, who had now
become a harpy, walked in those poetical avenues, bordered with box
and laurel, the good Bourbon, now an old man, walked behind them, his
forehead ornamented like a faun’s, enchanted to watch them; I don’t know
whether he was playing the flute.
“Susanna’s friend laughed at the thought of the good Charles IV, with
his waistcoat and his long coat, and his satyr’s excrescences, and his
rural flute; but the allusion did not find favour with Susanna, whether
because she thought of her husband’s infidelities, or because she
considered, that if her father gets to be the shoe-king, she will then
have a certain spiritual relationship to the Bourbons. In the Villa
Mattei we saw an _ediculo_, which rises at the edge of a terrace, amidst
climbing plants. There, as an inscription says, Saint Philip Neri talked
to his disciples of things divine. From the terrace one can see the
Baths of Caracalla, and part of the Roman Campagna behind them.
“We came out of the Villa Mattei and left the Piazza, della Navicella
and came down through a place where there is a wall with arches, under
which some beggars have built huts out of gasoline cans. There is an
eating-place thereabouts called the Osteria di Porta Metronia.
“Susanna’s friend consulted her book, and the result was that we found
we were in the Vale of Egeria.
“From there we came out by a narrow road running along a wall, not a
very high one, over which green laurel branches projected. We saw an
obelisk at the end of the road, and the entablature of Saint John the
Lateran. The group of statues, reddish brown, silhouetted against the
sky, made a very strange effect.
“We started to go down by the Via di San Sisto Vecchio, which also runs
along by a wall. At the bottom of the slope there is a mill, with a deep
race. Susanna’s friend said she would enjoy bathing there.
“We came out, at nightfall, almost opposite the Baths of Caracalla.
“‘They ought to knock these ruins down altogether,’ I said.
“‘Why so?’ asked Susanna.
“‘Because they appear to be standing here to demonstrate the uselessness
of human energy.’ Susanna was very little interested as to whether
human energy is useful or useless.
“I am, because my own energy forms a part of human energy, and for no
other reason.
“We came back past the Forum, but today we did not come upon any
funerals. To demand that somebody should die every day and his corpse be
carried out at twilight to feed tourists’ emotions, would, I think, be
demanding too much.
“When we reached her hotel, Susanna let her friend go up first; and as
soon as we were alone, she looked at me expressively, placing one hand
on her breast, and said to me, in nasal Spanish:
“_‘Mi corazón arde en mucha llama.’_
“I don’t believe it.”