exceedingly amused at the facility with which eight such different
tempers can amalgamate, upon compulsion. Our small quarters bring us
in contact continually, and we harmonize like schoolboys. At this
moment the Marseilles trader and the two Frenchmen are throwing stones
at something that is floating out with the tide; the surgeon has
dropped his Italian grammar to decide upon which is the best shot; the
Belgian is fishing off the wall, with a pin hook and a bit of cheese;
and the two Sicilians are talking _lingua franca_, at the top of their
voices, to Carolina, the guardian's daughter, who stands coquetting on
the pier just outside the limits. I have got out my books and
portfolio, and taken possession of the broad stair, depending on the
courtesy of my companions to jump over me and my papers when they go
up and down. I sit here most of the day laughing at the fun below, and
writing or reading alternately. The climate is too delicious for
discontent. Every breath is a pleasure. The hills of the amphitheatre
opposite to us are covered with olive, lemon, and orange trees; and in
the evening, from the time the land breeze commences to blow off shore
until ten or eleven, the air is impregnated with the delicate perfume
of the orange-blossom, than which nothing could be more grateful. Nice
is called the hospital of Europe; and truly, under this divine sky,
and with the inspiriting vitality and softness of the air, and all
that nature can lavish of luxuriance and variety upon the hills, it is
the place, if there is one in the world, where the drooping spirit of
the invalid must revive and renew. At this moment the sun has crept
from the peak of the highest mountain across the bay, and we shall
scent presently the spicy wind from the shore. I close my book to go
upon the wall, which I see the surgeon has mounted already with the
same object, to catch the first breath that blows seaward.
It is Sunday, and an Italian summer morning. I do not think my eyes
ever woke upon so lovely a day. The long, lazy swell comes in from the
Mediterranean as smooth as glass; the sails of a beautiful yacht,
belonging to an English nobleman at Nice, and lying becalmed just now
in the bay, are hanging motionless about the masts; the sky is without
a speck, the air just seems to me to steep every nerve and fibre of
the frame with repose and pleasure. Now and then in America I have
felt a June morning that approached it, but never the degree, the
fulness, the sunny softness of this exquisite clime. It tranquilizes
the mind as well as the body. You cannot resist feeling contented and
genial. We are all out of doors, and my companions have brought down
their mattresses, and are lying along the shade of the east wall,
talking quietly and pleasantly; the usual sounds of the workmen on the
quays of the town are still, our harbor-guard lies asleep in his boat,
the yellow flag of the lazaretto clings to the staff, everything about
us breathes tranquillity. Prisoner as I am, I would not stir willingly
to-day.
* * * * *
We have had two new arrivals this morning--a boat from Antibes, with a
company of players bound for the theatre at Milan; and two French
deserters from the regiment at Toulon, who escaped in a leaky boat,
and have made this voyage along the coast to get into Italy. They knew
nothing of the quarantine, and were very much surprised at their
arrest. They will, probably, be delivered up to the French consul. The
new comers are all put together in the large chamber next us, and we
have been talking with them through the grate. His majesty of Sardinia
is not spared in their voluble denunciations.
Our imprisonment is getting to be a little tedious. We lengthen our
breakfasts and dinners, go to sleep early and get up late, but a
lazaretto is a dull place after all. We have no books except
dictionaries and grammars, and I am on my last sheet of paper. What I
shall do, the two remaining days, I cannot divine. Our meals were
amusing for a while. We have but three knives and four glasses; and
the Belgian, having cut his plate in two on the first day, has eaten
since from the wash-bowl. The salt is in a brown paper, the vinegar in
a shell; and the meats, to be kept warm during their passage by water,
are brought in the black utensils in which they are cooked. Our
tablecloth appeared to-day of all the colors of the rainbow. We sat
down to breakfast with a general cry of horror. Still, with youth and
good spirits, we manage to be more contented than one would expect;
and our lively discussions of the spot on the quay where the table
shall be laid, and the noise of our dinners _en plein air_, would
convince the spectator that we were a very merry and sufficiently
happy company.
I like my companions, on the whole, very much. The surgeon has been in
Canada and the west of New York, and we have travelled the same
routes, and made in several instances, the same acquaintances. He has
been in almost every part of the world also, and his descriptions are
very graphic and sensible. The Belgian talks of his new king Leopold,
the Sicilians of the German universities; and when I have exhausted
all they can tell me, I turn to our Parisians, whom I find I have met
all last winter without noticing them, at the parties; and we discuss
the belles, and the different members of the _beau monde_, with all
the touching air and tone of exiles from paradise. In a case of
desperate ennui, wearied with studying and talking, the sea wall is a
delightful lounge, and the blue Mediterranean plays the witch to the
indolent fancy, and beguiles it well. I have never seen such a
beautiful sheet of water. The color is peculiarly rich and clear, like
an intensely blue sky, heaving into waves. I do not find the
often-repeated description of its loveliness exaggerated.
Our seven days expire to-morrow, and we are preparing to eat our last
dinner in the lazaretto with great glee. A temporary table is already
laid upon the quay, and two strips of board raised upon some ingenious
contrivance, I can not well say what, and covered with all the private
and public napkins that retained any portion of their maiden
whiteness. Our knives are reduced to two, one having disappeared
unaccountably; but the deficiency is partially remedied. The surgeon
has "whittled" a pine knot, which floated in upon the tide, into a
distant imitation; and one of the company has produced a delicate
dagger, that looks very like a keepsake from a lady; and, by the
reluctant manner in which it was put to service, the profanation cost
his sentiment an effort. Its white handle and silver sheath lie across
a plate, abridged of its proportions by a very formidable segment.
There was no disguising the poverty of the brown paper that contained
the salt. It was too necessary to be made an "aside," and lies plump
in the middle of the table. I fear there has been more fun in the
preparation than we shall feel in eating the dinner when it arrives.
The Belgian stands on the wall, watching all the boats from town; but
they pass off down the harbor, one after another, and we are destined
to keep our appetites to a late hour. Their detestable cookery needs
the "sauce of hunger."
The Belgian's hat waves in the air, and the commissary's boat must be
in sight. As we get off at six o'clock to-morrow morning, my portfolio
shuts till I find another resting place, probably Genoa.
LETTER XXVI.
SHORE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN--NICE--FUNERAL SERVICES OF MARIA
THERESA, ARCHDUCHESS OF AUSTRIA--PRINCIPALITY OF MONACO--ROAD
TO GENOA--SARDINIA--PRISON OF THE POPE--HOUSE OF
COLUMBUS--GENOA.
The health-magistrate arrived at an early hour, on the morning of our
departure from the lazaretto of Villa Franca. He was accompanied by a
physician, who was to direct the fumigation. The iron pot was placed
in the centre of the chamber, our clothes were spread out upon the
beds, and the windows shut. The _chlorin_ soon filled the room, and
its detestable odor became so intolerable that we forced the door, and
rushed past the sentinel into the open air, nearly suffocated. This
farce over, we were permitted to embark, and, rounding the point, put
into Nice.
The Mediterranean curves gracefully into the crescented shore of this
lovely bay, and the high hills lean away from the skirts of the town
in one unbroken slope of cultivation to the top. Large, handsome
buildings face you on the long quay, as you approach; and white
chimneys, and half-concealed parts of country-houses and suburban
villas, appear through the olive and orange trees with which the
whole amphitheatre is covered. We landed amid a crowd of half-naked
idlers, and were soon at a hotel, where we ordered the best breakfast
the town would afford, and sat down once more to clean cloths and
unrepulsive food.
As we rose from the table, a note, edged with black, and sealed and
enveloped with considerable circumstance, was put into my hand by the
master of the hotel. It was an invitation from the governor to attend
a funeral service, to be performed in the cathedral that day, at ten
o'clock, for the "late Queen-mother, Maria Theresa, Archduchess of
Austria." Wondering not a little how I came by the honor, I joined the
crowd flocking from all parts of the town to see the ceremony. The
central door was guarded by a file of Sardinian soldiers; and,
presenting my invitation to the officer on duty, I was handed over to
the master of ceremonies, and shown to an excellent seat in the centre
of the church. The windows were darkened, and the candles of the altar
not yet lit; and, by the indistinct light that came in through the
door, I could distinguish nothing clearly. A little silver bell
tinkled presently from one of the side-chapels, and boys dressed in
white appeared, with long tapers, and the house was soon splendidly
illuminated. I found myself in the midst of a crowd of four or five
hundred ladies, all in deep mourning. The church was hung from the
floor to the roof in black cloth, ornamented gorgeously with silver;
and, under the large dome, which occupied half the ceiling, was raised
a pyramidal altar, with tripods supporting chalices for incense at the
four corners, a walk round the lower base for the priests, and
something in the centre, surrounded with a blaze of light,
representing figures weeping over a tomb. The organ commenced pealing,
there was a single beat on the drum, and a procession entered. It was
composed of the nobility of Nice, and the military and civil officers,
all in uniform and court dresses. The gold and silver flashing in the
light, the tall plumes of the Sardinian soldiery below, the solemn
music, and the moving of the censers from the four corners of the
altar, produced a very impressive effect. As soon as the procession
had quite entered, the fire was kindled in the four chalices; and, as
the white smoke rolled up to the roof, an anthem commenced with the
full power of the organ. The singing was admirable, and there was one
female voice in the choir, of singular power and sweetness.
The remainder of the service was the usual ceremonies of the Catholic
church, and I amused myself with observing the people about me. It was
little like a scene of mourning. The officers gradually edged in
between the seats, and every woman with the least pretension to
prettiness was engaged in anything but her prayers for the soul of the
late Archduchess. Some of these, the very young girls, were pretty;
and the women, of thirty-five or forty apparently, were fine-looking;
but, except a decided air of style and rank, the fairly grown-up
belles seemed to me of very small attraction.
I saw little else in Nice to interest me. I wandered about with my
friend the surgeon, laughing at the ridiculous figures and villainous
uniforms of the Sardinian infantry, and repelling the beggars, who
radiated to us from every corner; and, having traversed the terrace of
a mile on the tops of the houses next the sea, unravelled all the
lanes of the old town, and admired all the splendor of the new, we
dined and got early to bed, anxious to sleep once more between sheets,
and prepare for an early start on the following morning.
* * * * *
We were on the road to Genoa with the first gray of the dawn: the
surgeon, a French officer, and myself, three passengers of a courier
barouche. We were climbing up mountains and sliding down with locked
wheels for several hours, by a road edging on precipices, and overhung
by tremendous rocks, and, descending at last to the sea-level, we
entered _Mentone_, a town of the little principality of _Monaco_.
Having paid our twenty sous tribute to this prince of a territory not
larger than a Kentucky farm, we were suffered to cross his borders
once more into Sardinia, having posted through a whole State in less
than half an hour.
It is impossible to conceive a route of more grandeur than the famous
road along the Mediterranean from Nice to Genoa. It is near a hundred
and fifty miles, over the edges of mountains bordering the sea for the
whole distance. The road is cut into the sides of the precipice, often
hundreds of feet perpendicular above the surf, descending sometimes
into the ravines formed by the numerous rivers that cut their way to
the sea, and mounting immediately again to the loftiest summits. It is
a dizzy business, from beginning to end. There is no parapet, usually,
and there are thousands of places where half a "shie" by a timid
horse, would drop you at once some hundred fathoms upon rocks wet by
the spray of every sea that breaks upon the shore. The loveliest
little nests of valleys lie between that can be conceived. You will
see a green spot, miles below you in turning the face of a rock; and
right in the midst, like a handful of plaster models on a carpet, a
cluster of houses, lying quietly in the warm southern exposure,
embosomed in everything refreshing to the eye, the mountain sides
cultivated in a large circle around, and the ruins of an old castle to
a certainty on the eminence above. You descend and descend, and wind
into the curves of the shore, losing and regaining sight of it
constantly, till, entering a gate on the sea-level, you find yourself
in a filthy, narrow, half-whitewashed town, with a population of
beggars, priests, and soldiers; not a respectable citizen to be seen
from one end to the other, nor a clean woman, nor a decent house. It
is so, all through Sardinia. The towns from a distance lie in the most
exquisitely-chosen spots possible. A river comes down from the hills
and washes the wall; the uplands above are always of the very choicest
shelter and exposure. You would think man and nature had conspired to
complete its convenience and beauty; yet, within, all is misery, dirt,
and superstition. Every corner has a cross--every bench a priest,
idling in the sun--every door a picture of the Virgin. You are
delighted to emerge once more, and get up a mountain to the fresh air.
As we got farther on toward Genoa, the valleys became longer by the
sea, and the road ran through gardens, down to the very beach, of
great richness and beauty. It was new to me to travel for hours among
groves of orange and lemon trees, laden with both fruit and flower,
the ground beneath covered with the windfalls, like an American
apple-orchard. I never saw such a profusion of fruit. The trees were
breaking under the rich yellow clusters. Among other things, there
were hundreds of tall palms, spreading out their broad fans in the
sun, apparently perfectly strong and at home under this warm sky. They
are cultivated as ornaments for the churches on sacred days.
I caught some half dozen views on the way that I shall never get out
of my memory. At one place particularly, I think near Fenale, we ran
round the corner of a precipice by a road cut right into the face of a
rock, two hundred feet at least above the sea; and a long view burst
upon us at once of a sweet green valley, stretching back into the
mountains as far as the eye could go, with three or four small towns,
with their white churches, just checkering the broad sweeps of
verdure, a rapid river winding through its bosom, and a back ground of
the Piedmontese Alps, with clouds half-way up their sides, and snow
glittering in the sun on their summits. Language cannot describe these
scenes. It is but a repetition of epithets to attempt it. You must
come and see them to feel how much one loses to live always at home,
and _read_ of such things only.
The _courier_ pointed out to us the place in which Napoleon imprisoned
the Pope of Rome--a low house, surrounded with a wall close upon the
sea--and the house a few miles from Genoa, believed to have been that
of Columbus.
* * * * *
We entered Genoa an hour after sunrise, by a noble gate, placed at the
western extremity of the crescented harbor. Thence to the centre of
the city was one continued succession of sumptuous palaces. We drove
rapidly along the smooth, beautifully paved streets, and my
astonishment was unbroken till we were set down at the hotel.
Congratulating ourselves on the hindrances which had conspired to
bring us here against our will, we took coffee, and went to bed for a
few hours, fatigued with a journey more wearisome to the body than the
mind.
* * * * *
I have spent two days in merely wandering about Genoa, looking at the
exterior of the city. It is a group of hills, piled with princely
palaces. I scarce know how to commence a description of it. If there
were but one of these splendid edifices, or if I could isolate a
single palace, and describe it to you minutely, it would be easy to
convey an impression of the surprise and pleasure of a stranger in
Genoa. The whole city, to use the expression of a French guide-book,
"_respire la magnificence_"--breathes of splendor! The grand street,
in which most of the palaces stand, winds around the foot of a high
hill; and the gardens and terraces are piled back, with palaces above
them; and gardens, and terraces, and palaces still above these;
forming, wherever you can catch a vista, the most exquisite rising
perspective. On the summit of this hill stands the noble fortress of
St. George; and behind it a lovely open garden, just now alive with
millions of roses, a fountain playing into a deep oval basin in the
centre, and a view beneath and beyond of a broad winding valley,
covered with the country villas of the nobility and gentry, and
blooming with all the luxuriant vegetation of a southern clime.
My window looks out upon the bay, across which I see the palace of
_Andria Doria_, the great winner of the best glory of the Genoese; and
just under me floats an American flag, at the peak of a Baltimore
schooner, that sails to-morrow morning for the United States. I must
close my letter, to send by her. I shall remain in Genoa a week, and
will write you of its splendor more minutely.
LETTER XXVII.
FLORENCE--THE GALLERY--THE VENUS DE MEDICIS--THE TRIBUNE--THE
FORNARINA--THE CASCINE--AN ITALIAN FESTA--MADAME CATALANI.
FLORENCE.--It is among the pleasantest things in this very pleasant
world, to find oneself for the first time in a famous city. We sallied
from the hotel this morning an hour after our arrival, and stopped at
the first corner to debate where we should go. I could not help
smiling at the magnificence of the alternatives. "To the Gallery, of
course," said I, "to see the Venus de Medicis." "To Santa Croce," said
one, "to see the tombs of Michael Angelo, and Alfieri, and
Machiavelli." "To the Palazzo Pitti," said another, "the Grand Duke's
palace, and the choicest collection of pictures in the world." The
embarrassment alone was quite a sensation.
The Venus carried the day. We crossed the Piazza de Granduca, and
inquired for the gallery. A fine court was shown us, opening out from
the square, around the three sides of which stood a fine uniform
structure, with a colonnade, the lower story occupied by shops and
crowded with people. We mounted a broad staircase, and requested of
the soldier at the door to be directed to the presence of the Venus,
without delay. Passing through one of the long wings of the gallery,
without even a glance at the statues, pictures, and bronzes that lined
the walls, we arrived at the door of a cabinet, and, putting aside the
large crimson curtain at the entrance, stood before the enchantress. I
must defer a description of her. We spent an hour there, but, except
that her divine beauty filled and satisfied my eye, as nothing else
ever did, and that the statue is as unlike a thing to the casts one
sees of it as one thing could well be unlike another, I made no
criticism. There is an atmosphere of fame and circumstantial interest
about the Venus, which bewilders the fancy almost as much as her
loveliness does the eye. She has been gazed upon and admired by troops
of pilgrims, each of whom it were worth half a life to have met at her
pedestal. The painters, the poets, the talent and beauty, that have
come there from every country under the sun, and the single feeling of
love and admiration that she has breathed alike into all, consecrate
her mere presence as a place for revery and speculation. Childe Harold
has been here, I thought, and Shelley and Wordsworth and Moore; and,
farther removed from our sympathies, but interesting still, the poets
and sculptors of another age, Michael Angelo and Alfieri, the men of
genius of all nations and times; and, to stand in the same spot, and
experience the same feeling with them, is an imaginative pleasure, it
is true, but as truly a deep and real one. Exceeding, as the Venus
does beyond all competition, every image of loveliness painted or
sculptured that one has ever before seen, the fancy leaves the eye
gazing upon it, and busies itself irresistibly with its pregnant
atmosphere of recollections. At least I found it so, and I must go
there again and again, before I can look at the marble separately,
and with a merely admiring attention.
* * * * *
Three or four days have stolen away, I scarce know how. I have seen
but one or two things, yet have felt so unequal to the description,
that but for my promise I should never write a line about them.
Really, to sit down and gaze into one of Titian's faces for an hour,
and then to go away and dream of putting into language its color and
expression, seems to me little short of superlative madness. I only
wonder at the divine faculty of sight. The draught of pleasure seems
to me immortal, and the eye the only Ganymede that can carry the cup
steadily to the mind. How shall I begin to give you an idea of the
Fornarina? What can I tell you of the St. John in the desert, that can
afford you a glimpse, even, of Raphael's inspired creations?
The _Tribune_ is the name of a small octagonal cabinet in the gallery,
devoted to the masterpieces of the collection. There are five statues,
of which one is the Venus de Medicis; and a dozen or twenty pictures,
of which I have only seen as yet Titian's two Venuses, and Raphael's
St. John and Fornarina. People walk through the other parts of the
gallery, and pause here and there a moment before a painting or a
statue; but in the Tribune they sit down, and you may wait hours
before a chair is vacated, or often before the occupant shows a sign
of life. Everybody seems entranced there. They get before a picture,
and bury their eyes in it, as if it had turned them to stone. After
the Venus, the Fornarina strikes me most forcibly, and I have stood
and gazed at it till my limbs were numb with the motionless posture.
There is no affectation in this. I saw an English girl yesterday
gazing at the St. John. She was a flighty, coquettish-looking
creature, and I had felt that the spirit of the place was profaned by
the way she sailed into the room. She sat down, with half a glance at
the Venus, and began to look at this picture. It is a glorious thing,
to be sure, a youth of apparently seventeen, with a leopard-skin about
his loins, in the very pride of maturing manliness and beauty. The
expression of the face is all human, but wrought to the very limit of
celestial enthusiasm. The wonderful richness of the coloring, the
exquisite ripe fulness of the limbs, the passionate devotion of the
kindling features, combine to make it the faultless ideal of a perfect
human being in youth. I had quite forgotten the intruder, for an hour.
Quite a different picture had absorbed all my attention. The entrance
of some one disturbed me, and as I looked around I caught a glance of
my coquette, sitting with her hands awkwardly clasped over her
guide-book, her mouth open, and the lower jaw hanging down with a
ludicrous expression of unconsciousness and astonished admiration. She
was evidently unaware of everything in the world except the form
before her, and a more absorbed and sincere wonder I never witnessed.