sunny smile, have opened the gate to Spring. Upon the country that
spreads around our goodly Riviera city, the flush of almond blossoms
still lies rosily, to fade soon into the paler tones of pear and apple
and cherry bloom. The trees are budding, to help with their faint
green for contrast, but the green that is fullest at this time lies
over the fresh, brown earth, where spring crops have come to life and
are growing fast in the keen, sunlit air. Nursery gardens spread fair
and far about the town, with little white and trellis-covered cottages
in their midst for the husbandmen—gardens that have neat furrows
intersecting them for water-supply, and that make a rich show in market
produce. This is towards Albaro, on Genoa’s eastern side, and the low
front of Albaro’s hill is adorned with many a white old palace and the
slender columns of marble _loggias_ that are fresco-painted within.
From the town’s ramparts these many marble buildings have a great
effect, that stand amidst green gardens, with roofs lying upon a bright
sky, and—walking along the straight and dusty road that makes, towards
the sunrise, for the sea-shore, and is flanked on both sides with
arbutus trees—the white colonnades of the _Paradiso_ palace are before
you all the time to make you remember for ever after the look of marble
arches on a green hillside and a strong blue sky.
Among the streets the spring cannot make itself quite so well
remembered, nor can the sun have such an effect, but here, as
elsewhere, April, May, and even March have quite another beauty from
January. The sunlight is dashed even across the dark narrowness of Via
San-Luca, and streams across the Piazza Soziglia to light upon the very
counter of Signor Giordano’s shop. Surely bargains must be the less
sharply driven, and the smiles of fair purchasers the more persuasive!
But then Tuesday is the night of _la marchesa Bice’s_ ball, and one
must make one’s profit when one can, for in a small town, where the
people are proverbially stingy, ’tis not every day that business is to
be done!
_Il Signor Giordano_ is a great man in Genoa. He has the largest shop
for the novelties of fashion, and is moreover almost the only one of
the first _negozianti_ who go to London as well as to Paris for spring
and autumn modes. On the other hand, he is not _too_ expensive! He
has his own interest at heart, of course, but he thinks to further it
better by a judicious lowness of price than by an assumption of foreign
exorbitance, as some others do. Then he is not impervious to female
flattery, and something can be done with him in this wise! The windows
of Signor Giordano’s shop are of plate-glass. Years ago there were no
shops in Genoa that had plate-glass for windows, that had any windows
at all in fact, just as there were no _cittadine_, or cabs, in the
streets, and private carriages were so few that one could tell them all
apart by their liveries: just as there were no gas lanterns but only
oil lamps in the public thoroughfares. Even now the shops that have
real plate-glass windows are few enough, and those that have them so
broad and so fine as Signor Giordano are fewer still. His premises are
large, large for a provincial town of Italy—and his young shopmen are
civil, his goods deftly displayed in the window; all these advantages
go to make the store in Via Soziglia one of the town’s favourites. So
to-day it is well beset with female customers—prudent and economical
mammas, eager daughters, placidly lavish young matrons, who are
the most acceptable of all to Signor Giordano—everybody wants some
adornment, great or small, for the coming festivity. A neat brougham
stops at the door, whence there steps a slim-figured and pale-faced
little dame, tastefully dressed in the latest of Paris fashions. ‘It
is the _Contessa Capramonte, per Bacco_,’ says the foreman in the
front shop to the great Signor Giordano, who is reading his _Corriere_
behind. [The _Corriere_ is the great mercantile paper.] ‘Excellent!
Show her those new gauzes that we had last night;’ then advancing to
meet this most graceful of customers, ‘Your servant, madam,’ bows the
vender of fashions to their wearer; ‘what might be your ladyship’s
pleasure this afternoon?’
And soon the hopeful comer is on the usual high wooden stool before
the counter, all the new Paris gauzes displayed for her choice, with
a dark and tall and perfumed young man to show them off, and the
proprietor himself close at hand to take advice of, to jest and chat
with besides, as these Italian ladies are never afraid to jest with
their social inferiors. ‘Pretty,’ ejaculates she, admiringly, as the
tall young man crushes and drapes a citron-coloured gauze the better
for the sunlight to catch and beautify it! ‘But with that stuff I shall
need a silk dress of the colour besides; it will cost me too much!’
‘Truly your ladyship has the love of fun,’ laughs fat Signor Giordano
at her elbow; ‘we know pretty well what the _Contessa Capramonte_ has
for money!’ ‘Truly,’ pouts the pretty lady; ‘_you_ are a good husband
one can see. Do you not reflect on the face which that sour-visaged
Count will make when I bring him the bill, and have no more money, of
the poor pittance he gives me, to pay it with? Oh, but _I_ must reflect
upon it, however!’ ‘The bill will not arrive yet awhile, and then, when
the Signor Conte sees your ladyship in that dress, whose colour fits so
perfectly to the complexion, which is the talk of our town——!’ ‘Come,
have a care,’ laughs the lady back again, but with no foolish blush.
Then considering, while the fatal look of indecision comes slowly
to her pretty face, ‘for the rest you are right, Signor Giordano;
no colour suits me so well, and with an assortment of tea-roses——’
‘And the diamonds of the Capramonte family,’ puts in the great man,
dexterously. ‘Yes, with the diamonds, perhaps,’ ruminates she. ‘Holy
Madonna! it will be a sight for men to come from far and wide to see,’
murmurs the gauze vendor, fervently, and the dark youth ejaculates, ‘I
believe it!’ as he is paid to do.
‘Well, I suppose I must,’ sighs the customer, and then there comes
a question of quantity, and the Signor Giordano’s advice is again
required about the number of metres for skirt, tunic, scarf and bodice,
the which great matter cannot be decided until the manner of making
have also been chosen, for _la Contessa_ says that for economy she
is going to have this dress made at home by her maid! It is pretty
well certain the matter will be settled and unsettled over again at
least twenty times by maid and mistress when the latter gets home,
but meanwhile it pleases her to discuss it with the shopman, so forty
metres are at last pronounced to be the necessary amount, and the lady
can always have more afterwards, remarks the perfumed shop-youth with
appropriate judgment.
[Illustration: SHOPMAN AND PURCHASER.]
‘Two francs a metre, you said, did you not?’ asks the Countess,
innocently, watching the soft silk stuff being measured out. ‘Dear
madam, no; three francs,’ corrects Signor Giordano with all suavity,
and still the pale-coloured folds pass quickly through the hands of the
tall young man. His thumb is on the great scissors, he has counted the
forty metres, but ‘Stop, stop!’ cries the lady’s eager voice; ‘I must
do without the dress, then—for certainly all _that_ money, 120 francs,
_Dio_, never shall I obtain it from my husband! Pity,’ adds she, rising
gracefully, and replacing the high stool in its place, ‘for the colour
suits me to perfection, and the stuff pleases me; this satin stripe is
new, and looks well—but 120 francs—heaven forbid!’ ‘Eh, well,’ concedes
the shopman, glancing at his humble satellite over the counter, ‘what
do you think? For _such_ a customer it would be worth while to make a
reduction, is it not true? She would make such a figure, _per Bacco_!
Let us make it two francs and eighty centimes. For _you_ I will make a
sacrifice,’ adds _il Signor Giordano_, with an admiring bow, ‘only’—and
this in a lower tone—‘her ladyship will not mention the price.’ The
concession is indifferently well received. Scoffs the customer, with
a pretty toss of her small head, ‘I do not jest! Two francs a metre,
or else I buy my dress elsewhere; and if I cannot find another to my
taste, I stay at home to-morrow night.’ This is said poutingly, and
master and man utter at once a deprecating ejaculation. ‘Two francs!’
pleads the former; ‘sweet lady, I couldn’t do it! If heaven had
but been more generous to me, how proudly would I have made a gift
of the thing which has been fortunate enough to please you, but——’
‘Preposterous!’ laughs the beauty,’what a good thing that I know you!
Well—make it two francs and thirty _centesimi_! You will not? Oh, well,
I find my dress easily elsewhere. And there are to be many ladies
of great beauty at _la marchesa’s_ on Tuesday night. I should have
required silk for the skirt too!’ These parting shafts are sent home as
the lady retreats gracefully to the door. ‘_Addio_,’ nods she, and the
plate-glass swings to behind her, the citron-coloured gauze is folded
away off the counter. Yet both vendor and purchaser know well enough it
will be out again in a trice, and addressed, moreover, to the Palazzo
Capramonte.
So sure, in fact, is the shopman of this that when, five minutes later,
another and less constant customer sees, admires, and would purchase
that frail fabric, he is not afraid positively to state that forty
_metri_ of it are sold to the Contessa Capramonte; he is not ashamed
either, when asked the price by this next customer, to give it only
as two francs and fifty _centesimi_, but then this second lady is a
foreigner, and will not bargain, and the Signor Giordano knows exactly
how much to put on, because he knows how much a Genoese lady will have
off before she buys. Is it waste of time? Not at all, the shopman will
tell you—only part of the day’s work.
The _Contessa_ walks leisurely from Soziglia down the Via de’ Orefici,
and goes into a jeweller’s shop in this jewellers’ street, where,
over lumps of pale pink coral and finely-wrought trinkets of silver
and gilt-silver filigree, she plays her play over again, to come out
triumphant with a necklace, whose dainty lumps and loops and wires
are cunningly fashioned into leaves and roses. The necklace is not
for herself, for a Genoese lady despises the produce of that darkly,
strangely winding street, where the booths stand out freely to view,
and glitter with the light silver wares, or are rich with the red heavy
coral; but bargaining comes to her as second nature, so she has fought
none the less bravely over the trinket because the commission is for a
foreign friend. Thoughts of that dress have not strayed from her mind
all the same, and before the _Contessa_ drives out of Soziglia the
citron gauze has been purchased for two francs and fifty _centesimi_
the _metro_, which was the exact sum on which Signor Giordano meant
they should meet from the beginning; and silk to match, and flowers,
and ribbons have been added to the bill, all for something more than
the one, for something less than the other said at first. So _la
Contessa_ goes home to her palace at Carignano, where banksia roses are
blooming against the wall, and pink and white fruit-blossoms in the
_villa_, while a purple Judas-tree is a-flower before the house. And
the Signor Giordano goes home to the flat in Castelletto, where, though
it is five storeys high, flowers still bloom upon the terrace and over
the _pergola_, for winter is past, and we are in spring-time.
La Pettinatrice.
The Hairdresser.
Marrina has her hands full to-day; for though it is quite too hot for
early May—so hot that the first whiteness and crispness of a _pezzotto_
is gone before the week is out—there is to be a ball to-night, and a
ball in the sad old halls of the deserted Royal Palace; the king is
coming to Genoa—the king and the people’s favourite, our much-loved
Princess Margherita. Even the sparing Genoese do not grudge a little
money to be brightest and happiest on such an occasion. The people
and the shops are gay—the very streets, and walls, and houses seem
to shine with joy of the prospect; illuminations are preparing in the
public ways, the stalls of the _fioraje_ are well stocked, and on the
Acquasola the trees are a-flower, bright with green and wide spreading,
the air is sweet with acacia-scent and laburnum. Marrina lives without
the city’s gates, on the side towards the great cemetery. Why she lives
there, who knows, as she often says? For, although the way into town
is not further than even a buxom woman, like herself, can comfortably
do in half-an-hour, it is more trouble than it is worth, this being
obliged to pick up one’s petticoats, and turn out along the dusty
highway every blessed morning of one’s life—whether the sun be hot or
the _Tramontana_ bleak—just to coil, and plaster, and construct aloft
those heavy black masses of the Signora De Maroni’s hair! But, then, if
one always had a reason for everything one did, _Madonna_, life would
be a purgatory indeed! This is Marrina’s philosophy, and, indeed, the
rents are not so high without the walls, and one has a breath for one’s
money in summer time, if a colder blast in winter.
This morning there is little room for complaint of any sort. The
weary-white valley of the Bisagno opens out to the sea, and is,
perhaps, not beautiful in itself, because the shingle of its river’s
bed lies around so wide with so small a thread of water in its midst;
but, on either side of it, and beyond the dusty roads which hem its
margin, green slopes rise gently with palaces on their sides where they
are nearest the town, and with fruit trees in blossom and chestnut
trees in leaf, on the opposite slopes of Albaro, which the market
gardens of _manenti_ make green the sooner. Pinkest peach bloom is
over, but the cherry and the pear, and the tender-toned apple-blossom
have not cast all their flowers yet, while the may and the blackthorn
spread white and pink patches on hedge-rows inland, and, on the mossy
turf of the Quesia Valley some two miles ahead, violets bloom beneath
bright chestnut trees, and primroses on banks and boulders, faint
narcissus breathes a scent where the air plays freely, and cowslips
hang their heads in the sunshine. _La Pettinatrice_ does not often see
these things, it is true, for her own house stands nearer town upon
the high road, where the Bisagno is thick with the soap-suds of many
washerwomen who flog clothes upon hard flint, as they stand in its
stream. But she has an aunt who lives up there where the water flows
clean, and glides off mill-wheels into deep, green pools, and she has
plucked the faintly streaked tulips from out the new spring wheat, and
she knows the bloom of the fruit trees, though she is a town woman born
and bred.
The dust lies thick on the road; although the summer has scarce
begun, the sun shines hotly down, and Marrina is minded to spend two
_soldi_ that she may escape both dust and heat in a very insecure and
closely-packed conveyance that runs to the Virgin’s gate of Porta Pila.
Yet the sun is on Marrina’s broad back worse than ever, the dust whirls
in her face from the open door and the flies are numerous, but a little
altercation with the omnibus inmates makes up for all this and more.
There is a man who carries the most fragrant of truffles with stale
fish in a basket, and another who has just eaten freely of garlic and
onions, but both of them discourse well with the comely _pettinatrice_,
and she finds no fault in them. Marrina is a well-preserved woman
of some thirty years. She is, perhaps, a little more showy-looking
than some, even of the town-women of her age—that comes from her life
amongst many classes, and a little also because Marrina has no husband,
no home of her own, and no children. She has a shapely figure, that
is a little too short for its size, a full round throat which the
sun has burnt brown, a face that is one shade whiter than the throat,
and a fine head of black crimped hair, whereon her own craft is amply
displayed; her mouth is large, with full red lips and white teeth, her
cheeks are rosy, her eyes twinkle proudly, and she wears white thread
stockings and black shoes; her petticoats set out richly from her broad
hips, her dress is gaily patterned, her kerchief falls aside a little
at the neck, her hands are plump and smooth.
[Illustration: LA PETTINATRICE IN AN OMNIBUS.]
The gate-keeper at Porta Pila, the host of the Osteria degli Amici,
at the corner, the woman who sells fried fish two steps further on,
all greet _la pettinatrice_ as she comes across the drawbridge, with
swinging gait, to turn up the first road on the right. La Signora De
Maroni is the first to have her hair dressed, for she is a constant
customer; but other thoughts and wider plans are rife in Marrina’s
brain to-day, and she bestows but scant attention on this lady’s
well-greased plaits. The morning’s unfailing gossip loses none of its
excellence, however, for the grist is more rather than less plentiful
to the mill. ‘Does _vossignoria_ call to mind the linendraper’s wife
who used to rent the little house with the _pergola_ here above the
convent?’ ‘That little red-haired one? Well, what of her?’ demands the
lady sharply. She is a fine woman for her years, and has a handsome
pile of hair, but _hers_ is black, which is common-place, and besides
the linendraper’s wife is ten years younger! Marrina knows all this.
‘_Giusto_,’ she answers glibly, ‘what a wit your worship has, to be
sure! Red it _is_—red enough to scare the devil! Well, they’ve made
a failure, they don’t live up here; they’ve only got a bit of a place
now—you should see what a misery—down in Via Giulia!’ ‘Truly,’ murmurs
La Signora De Maroni, well pleased. ‘I should think she wouldn’t be on
the Acquasola to see the Princess, then?’ ‘I believe you, she won’t,’
laughs Marrina, crimping a poor handful of front hair as she speaks!
Then, taking a hairpin from between her teeth, where it has been held
for convenience, and placing it firmly through the towering structure
of her victim’s head, ‘She’s too vain to show herself without a new
silk dress! It’s quite ridiculous at her age! If it were yourself now,
one would understand!’ ‘Go away with you,’ laughs the flattered dame,
now holding the hot irons ready, to have the little flat curls of long
usage made and plastered upon her forehead! ‘Yes, yes, it is true,’
continues Marrina, ‘and yet what is youth good for, I say? Only to play
the fool. See there that new bride of Signor Parini, the goldsmith!
People made such a noise of her youth and her beauty—only fourteen
years old, and a wife! Well, how does she use it? Not been a mother
three months, and a mere chit of sixteen as she is, before they do
say’—and _la pettinatrice’s_ voice sinks to an impressive whisper which
la Signora De Maroni alone is able to hear.
But the daily erection is done, and Marrina has no time for gossip
this morning. ‘Does _vossignoria_ go to the opera to-night to see the
Princess?’ she asks, rolling down her sleeves again. ‘Eh, _povera me_!
No, indeed I do not,’ answers the lady! ‘Not even for a joke could
I persuade that wretch of a De Maroni to hire me a box! And he that
everyone tells me is so rich. Shame on him!’ Marrina laughs loudly.
‘They are all so, those husbands,’ she says. ‘The Virgin defend _me_
from one!’ And with a ‘_dunque domani_,’ she is gone. La Signora
De Maroni has neither so interesting a head nor so interesting a
conversation as many whose hair she will do this day, for Marrina has
twisted and combed and greased those black locks every morning for
the last five years; so, swiftly running down the ninety-four dark and
dirty steps, perhaps not with the lightest of footfalls, she is glad to
greet the cobbler again, who stitches in the portico, and to be out in
the spring air. There are two more subscribing clients to be finished
off, and after that who knows how many chance heads of ladies who are
going to the Princess’s ball?
The next customer lives up one of the fine new streets. She is not so
rich as the De Maroni, but she is noble, and has better hair—hair that
it’s a pleasure to stick the pins into, as la _pettinatrice_ has been
heard to say. Lilacs are blooming, with snowy guelder roses behind
the tall railings of private gardens in Via Serra, and the banksia
buds have grown so wildly that their long and flowering sprays fall
back over the wall into the street. Marrina plucks a blossom with
which to greet her customer. It is not hers to pluck, but why should
that signify, any more than it can signify she should make fun of the
_bourgeoise_ De Maroni with this younger and prettier rival of the
aristocracy, telling of the grey hairs that lie underneath, if only
you lift the well-greased black ones, and of how that old husband of
hers refused to spend his money to take her to the opera. ‘And with
reason,’ says Marrina for comment; ‘if the poor devil must needs spend
money, ’tis natural he should prefer to spend it for a pretty face.’
Then the lady laughs, and quite agrees, and they fall to the discussion
of this one and that one—for this customer is young, and has her many
gallants, and Marrina is always very useful for gossip and scandal.
_La signora_ is going to the opera, and then to the ball—not with her
husband, of course—and must needs consult Marrina about her toilet, for
a _pettinatrice_ sees the costume of many a fine lady, and can advise
so as to make or to mar many an evening’s happiness.
On this occasion the pretty countess gets many a hint, and knows what
most of the _marchese_ will wear to-night, so that she is able still
to devise—with _la pettinatrice’s_ help—some extravagance that shall
outvie them all. Fortunately for her, she is a favourite with Marrina,
and may trust just a little more to the discretion of Marrina’s tongue
than all the poor ladies who confided the secret of their toilets to
her yesterday—because, though her hands will work amongst hair till far
into the coming night, Marrina dressed many a head yester eve, whose
owner sat upright in a chair till this morning—nor thought anything
of it—for appearance sake! ‘Amuse yourself, Signora Contessa, and have
a care for that poor little marquis of last week, now that you have a
new gallant,’ says Marrina, deftly placing the last pile. ‘_Dio_, what
time I waste with you,’ adds she, as the church clock strikes! And she
is down the stair, down the street almost with the thought, and out
into the flower-strewn Acquasola, where the air is flushed with summer
sunshine, and waxen blossoms stand stiffly amid the broad leaves of
horse-chestnuts in the sloping avenue. La Marchesa Tagliafico lives
on the Salita dei Cappucini, where she can see the flowering creepers
against the tall old wall of the Villetta de’ Negri opposite, that
is now the new Acquasola, where she can hear the rush of the cascade,
and scent the limes and acacias off the public-gardens, and watch the
nobility driving round of a warm Sunday evening; where she is close
to the ancient Church of the Cappucini, besides, and can stand beneath
its cypresses two minutes after leaving home, to visit its _Presepio_
at Epiphany or its _Santo Sepolcro_ in Holy Week, to hear its _Frati
Predicatori_, to attend mass and buy waxen images on all or any of the
_festas_. La Marchesa is one of the devout; nevertheless she is to be
at the ball to-night, and Marrina is to do her hair.
Even _la pettinatrice’s_ goodly strength is well-nigh spent and her
fingers greased to the bone, before the last head is finished off,
for, in spite of her only having taken half-an-hour’s rest to see the
Princess drive round the gardens, it is midnight long past when the
final touch is put to the final Marchesa. The day’s work is over, but
Marrina does not go home to the tall house on the dusty road beyond
Porta Pila. She too must have her night’s recreation. Who would expect
the love of folly to be spent in a woman of that figure and those eyes,
even though her calendar count thirty birth-days? But after the gas-lit
night, the summer sunshine still comes back, bright and pure, and fresh
apple-blossoms blow beside _la pettinatrice’s_ home.
Fisher-Folk.
When the high road of the eastern Riviera has left the town behind
a space, and has even travelled clear of the last palaces without
the walls of the city of marbles—when it has crossed that tongue of
Albaro’s Hill that divides the waves, and, having left sea behind
in Genoa’s Bay, comes back to more sea that laps freely upon a free
and rocky coast—when it has coiled closely round corners and skirted
precipices for many a mile—it comes, on its way, across a little town
where the hills rise abruptly behind, and the orange groves are thick
around, and the villas of nobles lie sumptuously upon the shore.