only black; they are delicious. The lake and the raspberries refreshed
us somewhat. The spell of the place--far from the beaten track of
travel, where we were neither wanted nor expected--was very strong, but
we were so worn that we shrank from the terrors of another night at the
inn, and our boots were so knocked up by yesterday’s climb that we could
not face the hardships of the trail. We consulted Fra Diavolo; he was
gloomier than ever.
“If the _forestieri_ are so fastidious, they might go to Naples, the
_giornaliere_--diligence--will start in an hour for Anversa, where they
can get the train.”
“_Ma come si fa?_ What will become of you, the horse, and the mule?”
“Yesterday I brought these abominable animals as well as yourselves
safely over that infamous devil’s road. To-day I return by the proper
road, fit for a Christian, not merely for goats and asses,” he began
angrily; then a thought struck him and he changed his tune:
“It is true there are greater dangers in going by a strange road than by
one, however poor, that one is acquainted with. The animals are the
_sindaco’s_, and more valuable than the _forestieri_ realize. Would they
abandon me in this strange _paese_, where I have no relatives, not even
a friend? Hearts of stone! At least they must pay a man to help lead
back these poor, abandoned ones, which they may despise, but which the
_sindaco_ doubtless finds useful.”
To see Fra Diavolo work himself into this state of righteous indignation
was well worth the price we paid a man to help convey the blind horse
and the lame mule back to Roccaraso. As the diligence did not leave for
an hour, we saw the caravan start, Fra Diavolo riding the horse, the
Scannan following upon the mule.
The carriage road leading down from the town is quite as steep, if a
trifle smoother, than the trail; on one side there is a sheer drop of a
hundred feet to a stony gorge below. The driver of the _giornaliere_ was
very drunk; the harness of one horse, a restive gray, was made almost
entirely of an old clothes-line. As soon as we started the gray sat
down like a circus horse, his front feet firmly planted in the road
before him, whereupon the clothes-line traces broke.
“What did I say, Manfredo?” cried the driver to the guard. “Would it not
have been a sin to put a good harness on this _cavallaccio maledetto_? I
tell you he has never been driven before. Would it be sensible to waste
good leather traces upon this _brutta bestia_?”
“_Zitto, Orlando!_” said the guard, who was sober.
I am afraid I screamed to be let down from the box seat.
“Neither horse, harness, nor driver is fit for the road if the voyagers
wish to reach Anversa alive,” J. said firmly; “send them back
immediately and provide others, or I will appeal to the _sindaco_.”
A little, dried-up man scrambled out from the stuffy interior of the
_giornaliere_ and joined the fray.
“The Signor Marchese is right, Manfredo; send Orlando back with that
hangman’s brute. The return diligence will be here in ten minutes; we
will take one of their animals, and you yourself must drive.” We waited
a full half hour for the incoming stage. In the crowd of loiterers that
quickly gathered we recognized the man we had paid to help Fra Diavolo
lead the animals back to Roccaraso. “What have you done with the mule of
his Excellency?” J. asked. The fellow pointed to the trail. “He is on
his way home. Fra Diavolo found he could manage both beasts very well
alone.”
When the other stage arrived, Manfredo persuaded its driver to exchange
one of his horses with us, and Orlando Furioso to change places with
him. A fat arch-priest put down the window and looked out.
“What in the name of all the saints is the matter with that evil horse?”
“_Illustrissimo_, the animal is like one of yourselves,--he does not
like to work,” said the thin little man, a lawyer from Scanno.
“_Grazie, grazie_ (thank you),” said the arch-priest, taking the chaff
in good part.
Once we had started, everything went like magic. The drive from Scanno
to Anversa is as fine as the Cornice or the Sorrento drives. It is
mostly down hill, and took us just three hours; the return trip takes
five. I had been almost afraid to sit outside lest, after our sleepless
night, I should go to sleep and fall off, but the great gray mountains
and the grim gray gorges kept me awake. The road runs nearly all the way
beside the river Saggittario, which has more moods than one would have
imagined possible in a single thread of water. Sometimes it dashes,
white and angry, over a rough bottom between rocky sides; then it
spreads out into clear pools, “alive with trout,” the lawyer said.
Sometimes it is green and full of fight, sometimes brown, still, and
lazy. We saw an eagle light on a crag far over our heads. We were really
dazed with the wonders we had seen by the time we reached Anversa, where
we took the train. We had to go all around Robin Hood’s barn, so that we
did not get home to Roccaraso till after dark.
On our way from the station we were overtaken by Mariuccia, who was
eager to hear how we had fared.
“_Aimé, ’Gnor’_, when I saw Fra Diavolo return with the animals and
without your illustrious selves I was much afflicted! The inhabitants of
Scanno _sono gente mal educata, e di nessuna fede_ (people without
breeding or good faith). The _sindaco_ himself was much alarmed, good
man; I must take the news to his house that you have returned safely.”
“What is that you are carrying on your head, Mariuccia?”
“_’Gnora_, it is a little chest.” It was the most fascinating little
_cinque cento_ chest I ever saw, half the usual size, finely carved, and
looking as if it might be meant to hold jewels or treasure, as indeed it
was.
“To whom does it belong? Where are you taking it?” I touched it with my
bare hand: it was encrusted with earth.
“It belongs to one who is forgotten. I am taking it to the house next
yours. It is for _una povera creatura morta_ (a poor dead child). The
mother will give the _cassetta_ a thorough cleaning, and it will be as
good as when it was first put in the ground.”
“Good-night, Mariuccia! it is cold, we must hurry.”
“_Andiamo presto_: Let us hasten; I too am _in fretta_ (a hurry); we
must carry the infant to the church to-night.”
There was no getting rid of Mariuccia; the lid of the chest clap-clapped
with every step she took; the thing smelt of mortality.
“Where did the chest come from?”
“_’Gnora_, a few years ago when they built the railway an ancient
cemetery was disturbed. The bones of those who had been buried were all
put into the new graveyard, and such of the coffins as were whole were
stored in that old ruined church. When the very poor have need, they
help themselves. I am taking this to my cousin, but I would not have it
known by the neighbors, so I waited till dark, and, as you see, I am
taking it home by the quietest way.”
We were at last at our own door.
“_Buona notte_, Mariuccia.”
“_Felicissima notte, ’Gnora._”
J. says things have changed very little since he made his first trip
through the Abruzzi in the early eighties. He with two other artists
went first to Saracinesco, where they stayed at the house of Belisario,
the son of an old model of Fortuny’s (the great Spanish painter). They
had heard about the place from another Roman model called Fagiolo or the
Bean. When Fagiolo was a boy, his father gave him a large bag of beans
one morning and sent him out to plant a field. It was a fine, bright
day, and the boy, meeting other boys, decided to put off his work till
afternoon and went off birds’-nesting. Suddenly the sun began to set and
he realized that he had done nothing with the beans. He hurried to the
field, and digging one deep hole buried all the beans; then he went
home.
“You are late, my son. Where have you been?” asked the father.
“There were many beans; I have planted them all,” said the boy. By and
by, when it was time for vegetables to come up, the father was very much
troubled that nothing came up in the bean-field. One day he discovered
in the farthest corner a perfect thicket of tangled, spindly beans. From
that day the boy was known as Fagiolo.
The three artists were invited by Fagiolo to a feast, which J. describes
as the most primitive he has ever shared. They found the family all
gathered in the large living-room of a rather superior peasant’s house.
The floor was of mother earth, otherwise the room resembled our own
glorious kitchen at Roccaraso; there were golden-brown bladders of lard
and strings of garlic hanging from the ceiling; in front of the open
hearth were hand-wrought andirons with little cages at the top in which
the pipkins of food were kept hot. Fagiolo made them welcome, and his
wife having announced that the _polenta_ was ready, the husband
literally laid the board. The guests and the family seated themselves,
the children on wooden stools, the grown-up people on rush-bottomed
chairs, and Fagiolo took a large board from the corner. With a knife he
scraped off the dried meal sticking to it out at the door, the fowls
gathering to feed upon the scrapings. Then he passed his hand across the
board and, finding it comparatively smooth, laid it upon the knees of
the company, who were sitting in a circle. Next he took from the crane,
where it hung over the fire, a large three-legged iron pot of _polenta_
(hasty pudding) and emptied it upon the board. His wife with a long
pudding-stick spread out the mush to the proper thickness, then each
person staked out his claim by drawing a circle in the _polenta_ with a
leaden spoon. The smallest child, they noticed, drew the biggest circle,
and J. confesses to having drawn the smallest. Next Fagiolo took from
the cage in the andiron, where it had been keeping warm, a saucepan
filled with snails stewed in brown gravy, and helped each person to a
share of the snails, putting it down carefully within the limits of the
circle. That was all the feast, except the inevitable _vino di paese_,
which really takes the place of meat with these people.
By the advice of their host, Belisario, the artists had given their
money to Fagiolo to keep, as he was known to be honest, and would be
less likely to be suspected of having it than Belisario, in whose house
they were staying. After the snail feast Fagiolo went off to the inn.
Flattered by the honor the strangers had done him, he drank more than
was good for him, and began to boast of the money, several hundred
francs, the painters had confided to him. The sum grew in telling to
several thousand, and the news getting to Belisario that Fagiolo had
boasted at the inn, he begged the artists to depart without delay,
saying that he could no longer be responsible for their safety.
“The signori must depart, but to-day, at once; and yet they must appear
not to depart.”
“Explain yourself. How is it possible to depart and to appear not to
depart?”
“_Ma, è semplicissimo!_ The illustrious ones go out to sketch every day,
is it not so? Well, to-day they go as usual, but they do not return, and
these dogs will believe that they of Olevano have robbed them. The
signori must make haste to reach Tivoli before dark; there are brigands
about; the _carabinieri_ are on the lookout for them.”
“Nobody ever troubles artists.”
“For a good reason, they are not usually worth meddling with. If it had
not been for that cabbage-headed imbecile, Fagiolo! Ask him if I tell
you the truth.”
Fagiolo was even more frightened than Belisario. He actually wept.
“_Per carità_, my Signors, depart! depart! If you hope to see another
day, if you would not see your poor Fagiolo, who has served you
faithfully, put in prison for your murder.”
The three artists started, carrying their sketching kits, wearing their
red berrettas (flat red caps, something like Tam o’ Shanters). They took
the precaution to tuck their soft felt hats inside their waistcoats,
and, leaving the rest of their traps to be sent after them, set out
merrily on their sixteen-mile tramp to Tivoli. The road was most
beguiling; it leads through Vicovaro along the river Anio--down which
floated the mother of Romulus with her immortal twins--past “Cold
Digentia,” where the winter birding nets were set on Horace’s Sabine
farm. Is it wonderful that they loitered? that they even delayed to make
_un leggero bozzetto_ (just a note) of a small gray _castello_ perched
like an eagle’s nest on the top of a high hill? A white path zigzagged
up to the gate, an olive-grove clustered at the foot of the hill, a row
of stone pines ran along the sky line. The mere “bozzetti” grew into
serious sketches. All at once they saw outlined against the sky a long
procession of peasants coming back from their work in the fields below.
The women--riding in pairs upon the patient mules and asses, hung with
bells that jingled at every step--were singing the litany, the men made
the responses in their gruff voices.
“_Ave Maria, gratia plena._”
“_Ora pro nobis!_” then came the guttural “angk, angk!” of the men, and
the blows of their heavy sticks upon the backs of the poor beasts.
“They are singing the _Ave Maria_, which means that it must be late,”
said the eldest of the three artists, the Spaniard, Catherez. “We must
be going.”
It was nearly sunset, and they were not half way to Tivoli. They
exchanged their berrettas for their felt hats, and began to walk in
good earnest. Soon after dark they met a band of _carabinieri_, who
brought them to a halt.
“Where do you come from?”
“Saracinesco.”
“That is so likely! From what inn?”
“It should be known to you that there is no inn there where one may
sleep. We stayed at the house of Belisario.”
“Where are you going?”
“To Tivoli.”
It began to rain. They thought they had answered enough questions and
were impatient to be off. J. was the first to move. A guard caught him
by the coat and began to feel of him suspiciously.
“What have you got there?” He pulled out the innocent berretta. “A
disguise? What do honest men want with disguises? Have you any papers to
prove that what you say is true?”
They had all taken out sportsmen’s licenses before leaving Rome, but,
unfortunately, they had mixed the papers up. Ricardo Villegas loftily
presented a license describing J.
“How is this? English? five foot eleven? fair complexion? By the mass,
these papers are stolen! This man is no Inglese. He is not above five
feet seven, and he is as dark as a Moor. In the name of the King, I
arrest you.”
They were marched off to Tivoli, to spend the night in the vast, bare
guard-room, where every hour the grave _carabinieri_ came and went in
squads, as the guards were changed. In the morning they were allowed to
send telegrams to their respective consuls in Rome, and by ten o’clock
they were set at liberty, with a warning to be more careful in future.
The artists suspected, justly or unjustly, that the weather had much to
do with their arrest. It was a miserable evening, when three possible
brigands in the hand might be reckoned as worth more than a whole band
in the bush!
VII
VIAREGGIO--LUCCA--RETURN TO ROME
VIAREGGIO, October 15, 1898.
The long mole runs far out into the sea, the light-house stands at the
extreme end; here we watch the fishing-boats come in every evening, the
sailors poling them along the mole to their harborage in the river. They
build boats at Viareggio; the real interest of the town, quite apart
from the watering-place life, centres in the weatherbeaten sailors, the
cumbrous craft with their rich colored sails, the smell of tar, oakum,
and fish. This morning we watched a pair of old salts calking the seams
of a dory; they had a fire and a pot full of black bubbling stuff,
“pitch, pine, and turpentine.” It is late in the season for sea-bathing;
this morning we were the only people who braved the pleasant cool water.
There is a fine beach with a gradual slope and, as far as I have
discovered, no undertow. Last night we walked in the _pineta_, the
wonderful old pine forest that embraces Viareggio, spreading out in a
half circle, sheltering it from the north winds and leaving it open to
the kindly influences of the sea.
Viareggio is full of memories of Shelley; we saw the place where his
body was washed ashore, where Trelawney found and burned it in the old
classic fashion. We heard the question discussed whether the yacht Don
Juan was lost by accident (she was a crank boat) or had been run down by
a felucca, whose piratical sailors believed Lord Byron to be on board
with a chest of treasure. I suppose we shall never know the truth, so as
I am loath to think ill of any sailor, I shall go on believing it was an
accident.
It is strange to find ourselves again on the high road of travel, after
the loneliness of the Abruzzi. Since the days of the Phoenicians,
invading armies of Huns, Goths, Longbeards, palmers, pilgrims, and their
descendants, tourists and tramps have patrolled every step of the road
we are now travelling.
We drove from Viareggio to Lucca, two and a half hours, through the
beautiful Tuscan country in its glowing harvest colors,--every farm a
glory, with heaped barrels of grapes waiting to be trodden into wine,
strings of yellow, yellow Indian corn and scarlet peppers hanging over
the fronts of the houses. The way led through an olive grove: all about
us were twisty witch trees, a misty gray wood in which one looked right
and left for Merlin and Vivian. Then came a chestnut forest, the great
bursting burs filled with big shiny Italian chestnuts. We stopped at the
house of a vine grower known to our driver, and asked leave to visit the
vineyard. The proprietor, a tall lean man, with a touch of the faun
about him (J. wants to paint him as the god Pan) welcomed us cordially.
The large Tuscan speech strikes sweetly on our ears after the clipped
Italian of the Abruzzi. Even the working people in Tuscany have a
certain elegance in turning a phrase which southern Italians of far
greater culture lack. Nothing could be more up to date than this Tuscan
vineyard, almost as tidy and progressive as the German vineyards. That,
after all, is the great thing about travelling; you visit not only
different countries, but different ages. A thousand years lie between my
friend “Pittsbourgo’s” Etruscan method of ploughing, at Pietro Anzieri,
and the system on which this neat thrifty Tuscan vineyard is run.
“Those look like American Isabella grapes!” we exclaimed.
“They are what they appear to be,” said the _vignajuòlo_; “behold an
experiment! Many of my best vines were destroyed by the phylloxera, an
obnoxious insect which girdles the roots so that the vines die! Do you
think I would allow myself to be vanquished by a mere insect? I send to
North America for these hardy vines which have so bitter a root that the
vile insect touches them not. I graft the native Italian grape upon the
American vine and wait. Meanwhile, until I am sure of my grafting, not
to lose all profit, I allow the American vines to bear grapes from which
I make wine of some sort. I tell you in confidence, it is only fit for
_contadini_ to drink, I would not offend you by offering it to you. _Ma,
pazienza!_ by and by, I shall cut back the vine to the grafting, and the
native vine will flourish upon the American root! Then I shall have a
wine worthy to offer _vostra signoria_!”
Here is progress for you; here is a man not satisfied to do as his
fathers did; here is a country of to-day, a people with a future!
Having made the _giro_ of the vineyard, we came back to the large
stuccoed farmhouse which had originally been painted a violent pink; now
the color, softened by sun, rain, and time, is a rich variegated
yellow. With a gracious gesture, our host threw open the door, and stood
smiling in the sun, the matchless human sunshine of Italy in his dark
shy face. When he talked about his vines he had been all animation; the
ceremony of inviting a lady into his dwelling was rather irksome to him.
“The signori will do me the honor of entering my poor abode?” He showed
us into an apartment only a shade less austere than the waiting-room of
a convent. It was clean, cold, and of a frightful bareness. Let us hope
there was an enchanting kitchen--like our never-to-be-forgotten kitchen
at Roccaraso--somewhere in the offing, where our handsome Pan might take
his ease.
“The signori will do me the honor to try a glass of my wine?”
J. asked if he had any wine of Chianti. He laughed.
“_Eccellenza_, shall I tell you the truth? I have tuns of wine which I
shall sell for Chianti. All you _forestieri_ know that name and demand
that wine. The real wine of Chianti would not supply the town of Lucca.
Chianti is a small _paese_; its wine is good, who shall deny it? but
not so good as that which you will honor me by trying!”
I held out for a glass of the “Americano”; it tastes rather like the
unfermented grape juice we have at home.
* * * * *
Lucca at last! a dear, queer, delightful old town with ramparts and
fortifications in fine preservation. It has a delicious slumberous
quality: its glorious days are in the past; its mediæval walls
effectually shut out the rustle and bustle of to-day. My earliest
childish impressions concerning Lucca centre about certain long thin
glass bottles bearing the words “Sublime Oil of Lucca,” always in
evidence at home when there was to be a dinner party. Cross German Mary,
the swarthy culinary goddess of our youth, used to hold one of those
deceitful bottles gingerly in a clawlike hand, letting the sublime
liquid trickle drop by drop into the yellow mixing-bowl wherein she
compounded salad dressing such as I have not since tasted. Later in life
I was once delayed by a crowd on State Street, Chicago, outside a
wholesale warehouse on which was written in large letters “Cotton Seed
Oil.” I had to wait for a moment while a crate full of spick and span
new _empty_ bottles with fresh gold labels bearing the familiar legend
“Sublime Oil of Lucca” was carried into the warehouse! Can you solve me
that mystery?
During our first dinner in Lucca, I inevitably demanded “_un poco di
quest’olio sublimo_.”
“_Ecco lo quà, Signora_ (behold it here, lady),” said the fat waiter,
offering a familiar straw-covered flask of oil, just like those we have
in Rome. Sublime Oil of Lucca in long, thin, deceitful bottles is not to
be had in Lucca!
My second impression of the town is connected with another cook, the
excellent Pompilia: she was born here and first went out to service with
a great lady who lived in Florence in the winter, and at Bagni di Lucca
in the summer. I have often been made to feel my inferiority to that
lady, and enjoyed a certain revenge in refusing to drive out to see
Bagni di Lucca, whose fine hotels and bath establishment do not tempt
us. We prefer Lucca and the “Universe,” a queer old caravansary, whose
limitations we endure in that transcendental spirit with which Margaret
Fuller accepted the larger universe. The hotel has been a palace of some
importance: our bedroom is of the size and character of the stage of
Covent Garden Theatre, when set for the last act of Othello. The gloomy
majesty of the furniture is quite appalling; the two stupendous beds
could easily accommodate the whole family of children at Orton House.
The first day we drove out into the neighboring country, where we found
the same joyous harvest atmosphere we left in the Abruzzi. The town of
Lucca is mellow with another harvest, the great art harvest of the
renaissance; pictures and marbles that strike us fresh and strong from
the dead hands that made them, not too familiar like the more famous
works of Florence and Venice. We never before knew much of Matteo
Civitalis, the statuary; he is now our loving friend for life. Fra
Bartolomeo, the Lucca painter, we already knew, though not so intimately
as now. We have put in some days of hard sightseeing. Did I say hard?
no, splendid, soul inspiring. I feel as if I had put my lips to the
fountain of life, and drawn deep draughts of inspiration. There are
great churches, grim St. Romano and San Michele, the cathedral with its
precious jewel, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, one of the most lovely
monuments of the renaissance. As we lingered near the tomb the old
sacristan approached; he eyed us anxiously before speaking.
“The signori are interested in sculpture?” We said that we were. “If
their excellences have time, I will gladly show them what the church
contains of interest to the amateur.”
How often he must have been snubbed and hurried by breathless tourists!
“A thousand thanks. We have come to Lucca partly to see the cathedral of
St. Martino; figure to yourself if we have time!”