for comrades to walk, and I feel that we are going to be real comrades
and friends.”
“I _hope_ so,” I said, for I was liking him more and more all the time.
Then we didn’t talk for a little time, and I began to enjoy looking
into the windows of the smart shops that are on the Via Tornabuoni,
and at the gay crowds that shift and change so constantly. There were
dandies lounging at the curbs, swinging their canes, curling their
mustaches, and searching through the crowd, with soft-sentimental brown
eyes, for some pretty girl at whom they could stare--to stare, in
Italy, is a compliment! Then there were bright spots made by the women
with their high-heaped trays of flowers, and the funny spots made by
the insistent little boys who try to sell postcards and sometimes can’t
be discouraged even by a sharp “Basta!” which seems to mean “Get out!”
and “Enough!” and other things of that kind, all rolled into one!
In the street, the sharp cracking of the cabmen’s whips and their
shrill, high calls made a new sound for me to add to my collection,
and the beautiful motors which slid by made me wish that Elaine
McDonald could have _one glimpse_; because one day at Roberta’s sewing
club when all the rest of the girls were saying that my going away was
fine and everything, Elaine had said that she would rather stay in
Pennsylvania than go and hobnob with organ grinders, and _I_ think she
was jealous.
I liked all this more than I can say, and with Mr. Wake I wasn’t
bothered by the crowds. Florence has about the same population as
Baltimore, although Mr. Wake said it didn’t seem so because so many
Italians crowd in a few rooms, and they live so tightly packed. One can
walk to the edge of the city anywhere easily, for it doesn’t cover much
space, but to me it seemed very large and, at first, confusing.
After we had walked some time we turned in a tiny street that had an
archway over it, and seemed as dark as ink from contrast to the sunny
street we’d left. I liked it, and, as I picked my way over the big
cobblestones, I said so.
“It is a part of Florence that most tourists miss,” said Mr. Wake,
“and it is too bad, for it is the most characteristic part. Ah, here
we are--” he ended and we turned in a tiny doorway from which came the
pleasant smell of hot sugar and warm bread.
We got our cakes--which were very good--and took them in our hands,
and went on a few doors, around a corner, up a few steps--and those
right in the street at the back of some great palace--and then we
turned into a broader way and found a shop that had the entire front
open--they roll up during the day time and stay up even through all the
winter--and here I had coffee and Mr. Wake a tiny glass of wine, and
we ate and drank as the girl who had served us looked on and smiled.
It was _very_ pleasant, and I had a _fine_ time! I told him about my
interview with Signor Paggi and he thought I had got off easily.
After we had eaten and talked we walked up past the Loggia dei Lanzi
which has statues in it that commemorate all sorts of historic events
and faces the square in which there is a replica of Michael Angelo’s
David; the square is large, and very busy with quickly passing
people, and the people who pause to make small groups that are always
dissolving, and ever reforming; and these people always look futile. I
didn’t know why, but Mr. Wake said that the Palazzo Vecchio, which is
at right angles to the Loggia dei Lanzi and looks scornfully down over
everything, made it.
“See that old building over there?” he said, as he pointed with his
cane.
“Um hum,” I answered, as I looked way up at the great big tower, and
tried to keep my mouth shut while doing it. I don’t know why it is so
easy to look up with your mouth open!
“In there,” said Mr. Wake, “are ghosts who talk of making war upon a
neighboring town. They fear that Fiesole is growing too strong, Fiesole
that looks down from the hill behind you.”
“Did they fight like that?” I asked.
“Exactly like that! And without putting anything on the bill-boards
about it beforehand. . . . You see Italy was--not so long ago either--a
land of little countries, for each city had its rulers, and fought for
its rights, to keep its possessions, or to gain others. . . . And a lot
of the plans went on in there--” and again he pointed with his cane.
“How old is it?” I asked, and then he told me and I gasped, for it was
begun late in twelve hundred and finished in thirteen-hundred, fourteen.
“Not so old for Florence,” said Mr. Wake, after my gasp, “you know the
original Battistero, or Baptistery, was built probably in seventh or
eighth century. It was remodeled to its present condition, practically,
in 1200.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said, and humbly.
“Well, you’ve lots of time. And you’ll need it. There’s lots to see;
the house where Dante lived, and the tomb of Galileo, and the grave of
Mrs. Browning, and the literary landmarks--Thomas Hardy wrote things in
this town, and George Eliot came here, and oh, ever so many more--and
right before you in the middle of this square Savonarola was burned--”
And I had to ask who he was; I knew that I had heard the name, but I am
lots better at remembering faces then I am at remembering names.
“The Billy Sunday of the year of our Lord, 1490,” said Mr. Wake, “who,
after he had had more good art burned than has ever been produced
since, displeased his followers, the Florentines, who tortured
him--poor chap--and right over in that building, Jane--and then burned
him.”
“Why did he want the pictures burned?” I asked.
“The subjects hadn’t any slickers on,” said Mr. Wake.
“Feel anything here?” asked Mr. Wake, after we had been quiet a few
minutes.
“I feel as if I don’t matter much,” I answered.
“That’s it. . . . The old building smiles scornfully, and says, ‘You
will pass, but I shall stay!’”
Then we walked across the square between the cabs and motors, with the
crowd, made up of soldiers and officers, and the big policemen--the
carabinieri--who wear flowing capes and feathers in their hats, and
always travel in pairs. As we reached the other side Mr. Wake told me
one more thing, and then took me home.
I noticed a statue of a man who was carrying off a beautiful woman who
struggled. There was lots of action in it; the girl looked as if she
could play forward and the man looked as if he would be a whopper at
the bat.
Mr. Wake saw me looking at them and said: “That’s the way they did
it in the old days, and, no doubt, had I lived then, I wouldn’t be a
bachelor. . . . Would you like the story?”
“Very _much_,” I answered.
“Well,” he said, as he twirled his cane, “this was the way of it. Very
early in the history of Rome, the debutante crop must have been low,
for there weren’t enough wives for the young men, who were up and
coming and probably wanted some one to darn their socks and to smile
when they told their jokes. And then perhaps there was an extra income
tax on the unmarried; they knew a lot about torture those days and so
it is not impossible! Anyway, the Romans made a great festival in honor
of Neptune, and they invited all the neighboring people to come and
bring their families, and in the midst of the games the young Roman
dandies rushed in among the spectators, and each selected a maiden that
he thought he would like for his wife--it had to be a case of love at
first sight, Jane--and carried her off.
“Soon after, the Sabine men, who were probably considerably put out,
came bearing down upon Rome with loud shouts and the brandishing of
glittering steel, and I myself can see the glare of it in the sun this
day! . . . But the Romans drove them back that time. However--and now
we have the real nub of the story, Jane, and the real confession of the
heart of woman--although the records have it that the Sabine brides put
up a most unholy row when they started out upon their wedding journeys,
they evidently liked the job of being Roman wives, and really respected
the men who didn’t even give them time to pack or to cry just once
again on mother’s shoulder, for before the second battle opened between
the enraged and outraged Sabines and the conquering males of Rome, the
Roman wives, once Sabine girls, rushed between the warring factions and
plead so prettily for peace that it was granted, and the story goes on
that the two people were so united that their Kings reigned together,
and that all thereafter was both peaceful and prosperous.”
“Oh!” I said. I did _like_ that story. “Did you ever feel like doing
that!” I asked, for I thought it might be a confession of men as well
as of women.
“I have,” he answered, “and if I had--perhaps--perhaps it would have
been better!” and then he smiled down at me, but the smile didn’t bring
out his laugh wrinkles, but instead it made him look strangely old and
tired, which made me wonder. We walked on, for a little time, silently.
“By the way,” I said as we reached the covered corridor that is
opposite the big Uffizi Gallery, “my Fairy Godmother writes letters!”
“And floats them to you upon dew?” asked Mr. Wake, “or does a spider
throw them to you with a silver, silken thread?”
“No,” I responded, “she puts a blue charm on the upper right hand
corner, and the letter comes to me!”
“And something of a marvel at that,” commented Mr. Wake. Then he
dismissed fancies, and added, “You have heard from her?”
“Twice,” I answered, “I had a letter yesterday, and one that was posted
only an hour after it came to-day.”
“I’ve a certain feeling--a want for seeing how fairy godmothers write,”
said Mr. Wake.
“It’s in my pocket,” I told him, and we stopped and I fumbled around
until I found the large, stiff square.
“There--” I said. Mr. Wake took it.
“No doubt you think me a strange old chap,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I answered, “a great many people are interested in writing
nowadays.”
“It isn’t that, but your fairy godmother brought to my mind the years
when I believed in fairies. . . . A very nice writing, isn’t it? I
think it is most charming, don’t you, Jane?”
“See how it looks on the page,” I said, taking it from him quickly, and
then the letter from its envelope. “It _is_ pretty, isn’t it?”
“‘Dear, dear Child:--’” he read, and then suddenly, as if he were
irritated, or had been hurt sharply, added, “Here, here--I don’t want
to be reading your letters! And my soul, I must be getting you home!
I’ve a dinner engagement over South of the Arno, and I will have to
speed up a bit--”
And we did.
* * * * *
At dinner Leslie was uppish and unpleasant. I think she was still
smarting from Mr. Paggi’s attack, and that her pride was so shaken she
had to pretend some of the assurance that she had lost that afternoon.
Anyway, something made her get into a very elaborate dinner dress, and
put a high, Spanish comb in her hair, and wear her big, platinum-set
ring of diamonds, and a little flexible pearl-set bracelet, and a
platinum chain with pearls on that. She looked beautiful, but Mother
never thought it was in good taste to wear things that are unsuitable,
and I don’t either.
Leslie sailed in after Beata had brought in the soup, and Miss Meek,
with whom Leslie had struck up a feud at the first meal, burst out
with, “Oh, my eye! Look at the Queen of Sheba!” which seemed to make
Leslie awfully mad, so when Miss Bannister asked me what I had done
during the afternoon, I told every one--to change the current--in spite
of the fact that Miss Bannister had said, “One of my deaf days, and it
doesn’t matter in the least, don’t you know. Only asked to be polite.
Pass the bread.”
“Mr. Wake?” said Leslie, after I had told of my walk, and the Loggia
dei Lanzi and the Sabine story. “And he took you into an alley
restaurant to eat? How _odd_!”
“Perhaps the poor old bounder is jolly hard up,” said Miss Meek, who
tries to be kind to people she likes.
“It wasn’t that,” I said, and I said it sharply, for I was getting
more and more out of temper with Leslie. “We were hunting around for
_atmosphere_; you ought to know what it is, _Miss_ Parrish, you talk
about it enough. . . . He has a villa out the Fiesole way and I guess a
person with a villa wouldn’t worry about a few cents, although I would
like him _just_ as well if he had to!”
“_That’s_ the staunch-hearted flapper!” put in Miss Meek, as
Leslie murmured, “So many of the climbing sort rent fearful little
places--really no more than chicken coops, and then call them villas!
_So_ amusing--”
“Did you mean my friend?” I asked quickly, as I felt angry hot spots
burn on my cheeks. You have to fasten Leslie. She likes to be mean
in a remote, detached way, which is the meanest way one can be mean!
Of course she didn’t own up to it; I might have known she wouldn’t!
Instead, she answered with, “_Really_, why would I mean your friend
whom I’ve never seen? What _possible_ interest would I have in him?”
I didn’t answer that; I couldn’t, I was too angry. I ate instead, and
so fast that I afterward came as close to feeling that I had a stomach
as I ever do. If I had known then how Leslie would come to feel about
Mr. Wake, and how she was one day to say, “Why didn’t you _tell_ me he
wrote books?” I would have been comforted. But the veil that covers the
future is both heavy and thick, (I guess I must have gotten that out of
some book, but I can’t remember where) and that evening I was to have
nothing to comfort me.
Something diverted me on the way to my room, and that was Beata, who
sat in the hall with her head on her pretty arms that were dropped on a
table.
“Why, Beata!” I said, for she looked so forlorn, and I put my hand on
her shoulder. That made her raise her head, and she looked at me and
tried to smile, but there were tear stains on her cheeks and her heavy
lashes were moist, and I saw that the red tie was crumpled up in her
hand and I was certain that the tie was a little link in her story.
“Oh, Signorina,” she whimpered, and timidly groped for my hand, and
when she found it she held to it tightly, while I patted her shoulder
with the free one.
It seemed strange to stand there with her, understanding and helping
each other without a word, when Leslie and I could not understand or
help each other, with all our words in common.
Leslie sailed by at that moment, and raised her brows as she looked at
the tableau I made with Beata.
She thought it was common. But it was not. I am not always certain of
my judgment of her then, because at that time I didn’t like her, but
I know I am right in saying that she at that moment was the ordinary
soul, for she would have gone past need, and--raised her brows in
passing!
CHAPTER TEN
CREAM PUFFS, THE TWILIGHT, AND--
The week that followed the day of our first visit to Signor Paggi
allowed us all to find our grooves and to settle into them. And each
day I, in my going, started with a continental breakfast--one can slip
over these quickly!--and after I had had my two rolls and a pot of
something that smelled a _little_ like coffee and tasted a _lot_ like
some health drink, I went on to two hours of practising. I finished
these when the clock struck eleven, and then I’d write letters, or
sew fresh collars and cuffs in my blue serge, or wash stockings and
underwear, or walk until it was time for the mellow, soft-toned bell
that hung in the hall to be rung and for Beata to say, “È pronto!”
which of course meant lunch, and that it was one.
After lunch I had two more hours of practising and then I could do as I
liked again. Sometimes I walked--always if I hadn’t in the morning--and
sometimes I read or wrote, and once in a while Miss Meek asked me
to play “draughts,” by which she meant checkers, or Miss Bannister
would call me in her room to show me some old, faded, once brown, now
yellowing photographs of the house where she had lived as a girl, and
where her father, who had been “The Vicar,” had died. And I always said
they were _beautiful_, and she would nod, and keep on nodding for quite
a while, and point out the vine that her mother had planted, and the
place where her father sat under the trees and read his books, and the
spot where she and her little sister, who was dead, had had their dolly
parties. I think she enjoyed doing it, and I was so glad that I could
look at the photographs and say that they were _lovely!_ and ask her
little questions which she seemed to like answering.
Dinner and the evenings were all about the same, with Mr. Hemmingway
“a-hemming” and trying to remember, and Miss Meek barking out “Oh,
lud!”, or asking Leslie how “Lady Vere de Vere” was this evening?
And Miss Bannister squeaking out questions and then telling whoever
answered them that she didn’t care what they said. And “not to bother,
please--” and then--my room, for Leslie and Viola were very thick at
that time--and they wouldn’t have included me in any of their plans,
even if I had let my pride weaken and let them see that I was a little
lonely sometimes.
Of course I knew that I was in Florence to work, and that I was the
luckiest girl in the world to be there, and I told myself that _over_
and _over_ again! But a person’s heart will go on feeling just as it
wants to--in spite of all the person’s reasoning and sense--and I
must admit that some of those hours after dinner found me--well, not
_exactly_ happy. I think I really would have been pretty close to the
edge of honestly real misery if it hadn’t been for my Artist, who was
working a good deal at night.
After I’d snapped on my electric light, which only lit the center of
the great big room and made deep shadows behind each piece of furniture
and turned the corners into inky blotches, I used to go to my window.
If my artist were working, I’d go back to the electric turn, switch it
off, and then cross the room again, scramble up to sit on the sill, rub
my shins, for I always seemed to hit something in crossing! and--watch.
At first, he was painting with a model, and the model was a little
Italian boy, and that was the most fun to see, because the artist’s
arranging him was interesting. He worked quickly those nights, and
not very long. . . . Then came his working alone, and--what Leslie
would have called, “Real _drama_, my dear!” For more than once I saw
him stand away from his canvas, and study it in a way that told me he
didn’t think it right. . . . And once he dropped his palette on a
table, flung himself down in a chair and dropped his head in his hands.
I can’t describe how interested I got in that picture and in the
artist. I liked him even then--which does seem silly--but I did, and
although I had never seen him enough closely to know his face, nor, of
course, the picture, I felt that I must go tell him that it was _fine_,
and that he mustn’t be discouraged! I reached the point--and after only
a little time of looking into his work room--of talking half aloud, and
saying all the things I wanted to say right to him.
“It’s _really_ good,” I would say, “you _mustn’t_ get discouraged! What
do you do with that stick you hold?”
Of course he didn’t answer, but it helped me, and I will say here that
when any one is miserable from thinking of the kind of noise that they
are used to at home, and the way their mother looks when she sits by
the table with the drop light on it, mending, it is a good thing to get
_really_ interested in some one else! I know. I speak from experience!
That was the way the first week went; the second one started out with
the most interesting experience, and it ended with another one--and one
that I never, at that point, would have imagined _could_ be! But Fate
has a great many little knots in her threads which make her change the
pattern as she weaves, and Viola’s dislike of sickness, and being with
sick people, made Fate pause, then take a stitch and--draw me close to
Leslie!
I reckoned time, quite naturally, not with the start of a calendar
week, but from the day that I took my lesson. And it was on Wednesday,
at five on a rainy afternoon, just after my second lesson that I came
up the Via Tornabuoni all alone, stopped to buy three cream puffs, and
then thought I’d step into the Duomo which almost fills the big Piazza
del Duomo, and from its dome looks not only over all the city but far
off to the hills.
It was hazy inside, for incense was floating, but the chill of the
outside air that had come with the rain was gone, and the candles on
the big altar made a pretty bright yellow blotch in the center of all
the gray.
To people who only know churches in America, churches in Italy won’t
be understood, for Americans go to church stiffly, and then hurry off
criticizing the sermon or complaining about the hymns that were sung;
they never would think of standing around to talk in church the way the
Italians do; or think of going into church carrying a live rooster by
the feet, or of sitting down in the back of a church to eat a loaf of
black bread and a slice of orange-colored cheese. But the Italians do
this, and all sorts of informal things, and it does make the churches
seem very home-like and warm, and it’s nice to go in them. I wandered
around, and I even thought of eating a cream puff, but I decided I
wouldn’t because I hadn’t been brought up to it, and because it would
spoil my dinner and because cream puffs sometimes squeeze out when you
bite and I had on my best suit, so I carried them in that tender way
that a person carries cream puffs and enjoyed the real Italy that one
finds _in_ the churches.
There was a soldier from the ranks talking with his mother--I heard him
call her “Madre mia”--which means “Mother of mine,” and she smiled up
at him until her face looked like a little winter apple--it was so full
of wrinkles--and kept her hand on his arm which she kept patting.
Near them, on her knees by a confessional--which is a little box that
looks like a telephone booth but really holds a Priest who _tries_ to
help you, instead of something that squeaks out, “The party doesn’t
_an_swer,”--was another sort of Italian, a woman who was beautifully
dressed, and behind her was her maid who wore the gay costume of the
Roman peasant and who carried the beautiful lady’s little white dog.
Officers stood in groups chatting. Others came, dropped to their knees
a moment, crossed themselves, and then joined them.
And a shabby old man with a lump on his back came in, got down to his
knees very stiffly, and there looked at the altar for a long, long time
as his lips moved. I don’t know why that made my throat feel cramped,
because he was getting help, and for that moment all of the big church
was his, and his God was close to him, I know. But I did feel a little
funny, and so I hurried on, to look at a statue by a man named Michael
Angelo, who died nearly four hundred years ago, but whose work is still
in style.
After that I watched a little boy and girl who were sitting on a
kneeling chair, listened to the Priests, who were having a service up
by the main altar, and then I went out.
I had been inside quite a little while, I knew, after I saw the outdoor
light, for it was much darker, and the rain less a rain and more a
fog. The people who hurried across the shining square with their funny
flat umbrellas, looked like big black toadstools, and all the lights
reflected in the puddles, and the bright windows were hazed.
I didn’t want to put up my umbrella, because I love the feeling of a
little moisture on my cheeks when I walk fast and get hot, but I had my
cream puffs, and my best suit on, and so I did. And oh, how lucky it
was that I did, for if I hadn’t--but that comes later.
I went down the steps, and across the Piazza del Duomo, keeping my eye
out for the trams, (they call street cars “trams” in Florence) the cabs
with their shouting, huddled up drivers, and the purring motors, and I
turned down the street that would take me past the English Pharmacy,
for I needed a toothbrush.
On this I had gone along a few feet when I saw a man ahead of me who
swayed. I was quite used to seeing drunken men at home, but I wondered
about him; and when I remembered that Mr. Wake said the Italians never
drank too much, I wondered whether he was ill.
But I only wondered idly, as you do wonder on streets about things you
pass, and I might have passed him if he hadn’t, as I was beside him,
suddenly clutched the handle of my umbrella just below the place I held
it. Then he stood swaying, and looking down at me with eyes that were
glazed and seemed close to sightless, as he said, “I beg pardon, Madam,
I do--humbly beg--your pardon, I--”
And then he moistened his lips, and stopped, and I saw that he was
really very ill.