not well to mention his name--came into the dining-room, a waiter
stumbled and dropped a tray full of valuable Venetian glass; every piece
was smashed: the second time, the big chandelier fell down from the
ceiling. That evening the proprietor begged this person to leave the
hotel, said all the other guests would go if he did not, as it was
evident he had the _malocchio_. _Basta!_ let us speak of other things.”
After the visitor left I went up to the terrace to feed the goldfish.
Pompilia was on her knees digging around the roots of the big
honeysuckle. I looked at Soracte, beloved of Horace. Soracte looked at
me.
“Pompilia, do you know any one who has the _malocchio_?” She turned
pale, scrambled to her feet, and made the sign against witchcraft with
the first and fourth finger.
“_Signora mia, che pavra mi ha fatto_ (What a fright you gave me)!” She
reflected a moment: “You remember the _carbonaro_ who used to bring the
charcoal every Saturday? I told you he cheated us; you discharged him.
It was not true, he gave good measure. I do not wish to harm him, but
every time he came into the kitchen some _disgrazia_ happened. The soup
was burned, the milk curdled, or the salt got into the ice-cream.”
“Do you believe the _carbonaro_ wished to injure us? Did he desire to
bring misfortune?”
“It is his misfortune to bring misfortune,” Pompilia reluctantly
explained; “one may even be sorry for him, but one spits as one passes
him, and makes the _corni_ (horns) with the hand behind the back to
avert the _jettatura_. _Ma, Signora mia, per carità, parliamo d’altre
cose_ (For charity’s sake, let us talk of other things)! Observe this
noble tulip, the first to bloom of those Hollandish bulbs we set out in
the autumn.” She feels the flowers to be hers quite as much as ours, as
indeed they are, she is so faithful in caring for them.
We put on all our war-paint for the Z----’s party; so did the other
guests. It was one of the best dinners I have seen in Rome. Everybody
seemed on their mettle to make it go off well. It was put through with
unlimited conversational fireworks and champagne. De Gooch thawed out as
I have never known him to do before; he is usually congealed by the
chilly atmosphere which he, poor man, brings with him. I asked Mr.
Z---- how he accounted for the evil stories. He said:
“Some enemy, who spreads the reports, takes this dreadful way to destroy
him!”
The dinner was so merry that the coming of the coffee instead of being a
relief was a surprise. M. de Gooch after a moment’s hesitation refused
the cup offered him.
“I am rather proud of my coffee, change your mind and try a little,”
said Mrs. Z----.
I was sitting on the other side of De Gooch, and heard him say in a low
voice,--
“Are you sure of your cook?”
“Perfectly; he is a Piedmontese, he has been with us ten years, his
coffee may be trusted.”
Do you know what that meant? It meant that De Gooch is afraid of being
poisoned, that poison is most commonly administered in coffee or
chocolate, _vide_ the Roman idiom, “_Ha bevuto una tazza di cioccolata_
(He has drunk a cup of chocolate).” I asked Mr. Z---- if he believed
anybody wanted to murder De Gooch. He said:
“I do not believe him in more danger of poison than of a lightning
stroke. It is not wonderful, however, that he thinks he is.”
“Is not the _malocchio_ very like the voodoo?” I asked.
“It is a horse of the same color. Both came out of darkest Africa, whose
shadows fall across the broad earth.”
I take back every word I ever said against missionaries!
Poisoning, like other sins, has two degrees, the mortal and the venial.
If M. de Gooch is in no danger from the mortal, we, according to Nena
and Pompilia, were in danger of the venial not so long ago. During a
short absence of Pompilia’s we had a foreign cook, and parted with her
not on the best terms. The day after she left Pompilia returned, coming
to me in the course of the morning with a long list of groceries; those
staples, _farina_, _Parmegiano_, and _caffé_, headed the memorandum.
“But we cannot have used up five kilos of coffee. It is impossible that
we are out of flour and Parmesan cheese; we bought them only three days
ago.”
You see I am getting on, I now manage--though it is highly disapproved
of by the powers that be--to lay in a few groceries, which I buy at the
_Unione Militare_--government stores like the Army and Navy Stores in
London.
“When I returned this morning, there was not a crumb in the house,” said
Pompilia. Nena was appealed to.
“Nena, what about the _Parmegiano_, the _farina_, and the _caffé_ you
bought the other day?”
“Signora, I was obliged to throw them all into the _immondezza_
(garbage).”
“But why?”
“Signora! I say nothing. That black Tedesca, when she left, did not wish
us others well, nor even your signorial selves. I did what I did for the
best.” She looked at Pompilia for confirmation. The cook shook her
handsome head.
“With respect, Nena has done right. I would neither have served on your
table, nor allowed another to touch any food that black German had in
her hands. What bad thing may she not have mixed with it?”
I suppose I looked annoyed at the thought of the good food wasted; they
both eyed me judicially, but firmly.
“Remember, Madama, that you commanded me three times before I would take
that blessed order to the _Unione_,” Nena urged. “I myself knew it was a
waste of money to buy those groceries when the German was leaving so
soon. You asked me the first time Monday, on the stairs; I told you that
the shop shut early on account of a _festa_; you asked me again Tuesday,
upon the terrace (you were potting the large acanthus at the time) if I
had been to the _Unione_; I told you that my rheumatism was too bad for
me to walk so far. You told me for the third time Wednesday, in this
very room, in the presence of the Tedesca, to buy those things! I ask
you, was it possible for me to longer disobey, especially as the Tedesca
heard you give the order?”
Nena is perfectly honest in deed, if not in word; I would trust her with
uncounted money. This was no comedy, such as they often play for my
benefit; I felt the reality of it.
“What sort of bad thing do you mean? Poison?” I blurted out with the
coarse Anglo-Saxon instinct of calling a spade a spade. Such brusqueness
hurts the subtler Latin nature. “Signora! I make no charges. I would not
say poison, no, but something that might make one very ill for a day or
for an hour; how do I know?”
They got away as soon as they could; we have not spoken of the matter
since. The next time I was at the Vatican I dropped into the Sala
Borgia, and took a good look at the charming portrait of Lucrezia
Borgia, by Pinturicchio, filled with a realizing sense that the Rome of
the Borgias was not so far away from my Rome as I had formerly supposed.
It is hard for us to realize the deadly significance to an Italian of
the suggestion that one may have the evil eye. I was walking one day
with a young American girl to whom I had been unfolding some of the
tragedies I have known connected with the superstition. She took it all
lightly and joyously, after the manner of her kind; and later during our
walk, when a saucy, tormenting beggar pursued us, she made the sign of
the _corni_ as I had described it to her, shaking the hand slightly,
with the first and fourth finger extended. Then the beggar became
convulsed with anger and seemed almost beside herself, shrieking out
such a torrent of abuse that we were glad to jump into a cab and fly
from the wrath to come. The poor creature was not to be blamed: she knew
that once the shadow of suspicion falls, it means social
excommunication, banishment outside the pale of whatever society one
belongs to--a thing, like illness or death, as much to be dreaded by the
pauper as by the Pope. Many people, by the way, believed that Pius IX
had the evil eye, and made the sign of the _corni_ behind hat or fan as
they received his benediction in front of St. Peter’s. The Romans
generally are not supposed to be as superstitious as the Neapolitans. In
Naples most people wear, as a charm, a little hand of gold, coral, or
mother of pearl, with the fingers in the attitude to avert evil. Even
the horses wear horns upon their harnesses! Some of our Roman friends
are not without faith in the efficacy of horns. One day, when my painter
had occasion to go behind the big canvases in his studio, he found that
an artist who had dropped in during his absence had drawn horns with a
bit of charcoal all over the backs of his pictures. Later, when the work
was finished and the Queen came to the studio to see it, the friend
claimed some of the credit for the royal visit.
“You owe all your luck to my horns,” he said, half in fun, half in
earnest.
June 24, 1899.
Last night was St. John’s eve. I gave Pompilia and Filomena a holiday,
meaning to take the opportunity to get rid, with Nena’s aid, of some of
the year’s accumulation of worn-out kitchen utensils. Pompilia is very
obstinate about giving up such things; she must have had
[Illustration: _A Lost Love_
From a red chalk drawing in the Collection of Mr. Thomas W. Lawson]
[Illustration: Copyright, 1900, by John Elliott.
From a Copley Print. Copyright, 1901, by Curtis & Cameron, Publishers,
Boston.]
a rag-and-bottle man for an ancestor. Nena, who sells every conceivable
bit of trash I give her, aids and abets me in these acts of
insubordination. She was not in her usual spirits. I heard her scolding
the little Jew boy who brought home an old terra-cotta cinerary urn we
had bought in the morning from his mother Sora Giulia.
“What dirty _robaccia_ do you bring into this clean house?” she demanded
in her gruff sailor’s voice.
“_Cosa ne so io?_ the signori bought it to-day. I heard my father say it
once contained the ashes of a soldier of the Pretorian guard.”
“What guard?”
“Of the old time, a hundred years ago, maybe; they were like the
_carabinieri_.”
Nena took the urn, grumbling under her breath, “_Li mortacci tuoi_ (Your
miserable dead)!”
“_Hein?_ what did you say?”
“_Va a mori ammazzato_ (Go and die killed)!” She slammed the door upon
him.
A minute later she brought the urn into the den and put it carefully
down on the table where I was writing. “That rascally boy of Sora
Giulia’s brought this home.”
“You formerly were friendly with Sora Giulia.”
She wiped her eyes with a little red wrinkled hand that trembled;
something troubled her seriously.
“What has happened? tell me frankly.”
She began to cry openly: “_Miché_ (the cat) has been gone three days; he
will never return. I shall not again see that dear animal!”
“_Miché_ will come back; perhaps he has had a fight, as he did once
before.”
“No, no, Signora! then he was only absent one night, after the manner of
cats. No, _era troppo bello, era troppo bello_ (he was too beautiful),”
she wailed. I suppose I looked as puzzled as I felt, for she broke into
impassioned explanations. “He was too beautiful, he was fat and tender
as well; _quelli maladetti Ebrei_ (those cursed Jews) have killed him to
make one of their accursed feasts; they have doubtless already eaten
him; _povera bestia, era troppo bello_!”
To console her I proposed that we get to work on the business before us.
In a closet on the stairs, of which Nena has a duplicate key, Pompilia
had locked up empty green wicker _ricotta_ baskets, marmalade bottles,
petroleum cans, a pair of discarded brooms, and other such rubbish.
“Can you sell the petroleum cans?”
“_Ma certo_, I get a _paulo_ (ten cents apiece) for them. The poor use
them for flower pots and for many other things.”
“And these old brooms, can you get anything for them?”
“The brooms I shall not sell. It would offend the _scoparo_, who is my
friend and has a family to support; but as we happen to be in need of
them, I will, with your permission, take these brooms home.”
“All the articles in this closet are yours, and welcome, on condition
you take them away this evening. It is known to you that if Pompilia
were here she would never let them go.”
“You have reason, Signora; I will go immediately, taking with me all I
can carry and returning for the rest.”
After she left I went up to the terrace for the sunset. The swallows
were swooping low overhead; the smell of the gardenias would have been
overpowering indoors; the passion flower vine was in full bloom, the
oleanders ablaze with tender pink blossoms the same color as the sky. As
I was mooning about, leaning on the parapet and watching the blue fade
out of Peter’s dome, I became aware of a hubbub in the street below.
There were cries of “_Una strega, una strega_ (A witch, a witch),”
“_Scacciala, scacciala_ (Chase her, chase her),” hoots of derision,
screams of laughter.
“How she runs! _Brava vecchiarella_ (Good for you, old woman)!”
“_Viliacchi_ (Cowards)!”
The noise grew nearer, the crowd seemed to be stopping at our _portone_.
“_Che te possono scanna_ (May you be slaughtered)!” The deep bass voice
was familiar. I leaned over the parapet just in time to see Nena, a tiny
figure, with two brooms over her shoulder, turn and hurl defiance at her
tormentors, in the front rank of whom I recognized the little Jew boy.
“_Guastate_ (May you waste away)! “With this true witch’s curse Nena
managed to shut the door of the big _portone_ in the faces of her
pursuers. I ran and opened the old green door of the apartment to let
her in.
“What in the name of the apostles has happened?”
Nena was trembling with passion.
“Ah, that Hebrew Jew! I will punish him yet. He led the others on,
saying I was a witch. Truly, Signora, it was not a happy chance that
made you give me those brooms to take home this particular evening, the
night on which the ignorant and superstitious believe that the witches
ride. In every other house in the Borgo a dish of salt and a broom are
placed outside the window, that the witches may be averted from entering
and fly away on the broomstick. Doubtless Pompilia saved these brooms
for that object--but, as you know, I am not superstitious, I don’t
believe such stuff. To take me for a witch, _me_!”
Nena cannot be more than four feet seven inches high; she has a rough
gray head, sharp black eyes, and a long nose. She wears a queer,
old-fashioned three-cornered shawl over her stooping shoulders, her feet
swim about in a pair of my old boots. There was, I confess, some excuse
for the jest!
St. John’s eve! Witch’s night! In order that no harm may befall one, it
is safest to sit up all night. To sit up all night alone, or in the
company of one’s family, is rather cold comfort; so the sociable Romans
spend the night in one vast nocturnal picnic. We left home at ten
o’clock; in the Piazza Scossa Cavalli we found every cab gone except the
_gobbo’s_ (hunchback’s). This was great luck, to be driven by the
_gobbo_, all the more as it was by chance; if we had engaged him
beforehand, it would not have counted. As soon as we started J. sneezed.
“_Salute, Signore_ (Your health, sir,--the equivalent of ‘Bless you’),”
said the _gobbo_. This meant more luck. By the time we reached the Via
Merulana the _gobbo’s_ white horse--a white horse is lucky--dropped into
a walk. The crowd of cabs was so great that from there on to the Piazza
San Giovanni we were obliged to move at a snail’s pace.
“_Volete spigo, Signori?_” cried a vendor, thrusting a bunch of lavender
into the cab.
“_Bisogna prenderla, Signori_,” said the _gobbo_; “you must buy lavender
for yourself, for me, even for my poor beast. It is the rule to wear
lavender on St. John’s eve.” We bought lavender for the party, the white
horse included.
A little farther on another vendor stopped us.
“How is this?” he said gravely; “you are without red carnations; that is
not well.”
“He is right, Signori,” said the _gobbo_; “we must wear red carnations
as well as lavender.”
We bought enough red carnations for an army.
“What do the lavender and the carnations signify?”
“Who knows, Signora? it is the custom to wear them. One says it brings
_buona fortuna_, another that it keeps the witches away; it is well to
be on the safe side.”
As the cab came to a dead stop for a moment outside a _trattoria_, a
saucy boy sprang on the step and asked for a _soldo_ to buy a dish of
snails.
“Do not refuse,” said the _gobbo_; “he is a good boy; it is the custom
on the eve of San Giovanni to eat snails and _polenta_, as you may see
for yourselves.”
Over the door of the _trattoria_ hung an illuminated transparency: on
one side was a picture of a large snail, on the other a witch riding a
broomstick.
“_Aglo, Aglo_ (Garlic). Who wants _aglo_? There is nothing so good
against the _fascino_ (fascination) as _aglo_!”
We bought a pair of long-stemmed garlic blossoms, in shape not unlike
the classic thyrsus.
“_Campanelle, campanelle_, who wants the _campanelle_? The witches fly
away at the sound of these marvellous _campanelle_.”
Everybody but ourselves had apparently already bought _campanelle_; all
the people in the carriages and on the sidewalk carried these small
terra-cotta bells, which they rang violently at each other and at the
witches. The bells were of two sizes.
“Buy a large one for yourself, Signore, and a small one for the lady,”
counselled the _gobbo_.
“And one for you and one for the mare?”
“Naturally. The animal cannot well spare a hand to ring her
_campanello_, so we will tie it about her neck.”
Peacock feathers were next offered; the _gobbo_ was prejudiced against
them and advised us not to buy them. There seems to be a divided feeling
about peacocks’ feathers; some people hold that they bring bad luck,
others that they avert it.
We left the carriage at the piazza, which was lined with booths,
illuminated with flaring torches. These stalls extend quite a distance
down the Via Appia Nuova, outside Porta San Giovanni. Some displayed the
classic bush, from the earliest time the sign of the wine shop. Outside
one of the most important booths hung a large painted head of the wine
god crowned with leaves, bearing the words, “_A Baccho_.” At some stalls
fried pancakes and _gnocchi di patate_ were sold. _Gnocchi_ is one of
the delicious Roman dishes. It is made of potatoes and corn meal,
bewitched together into miniature oval croquettes, and served with a
rich sauce of tomato conserve and Parmesan cheese; truly a dish fit for
the gods. Near the _gnocchi_ booth was a stall hung with evergreens,
where a man in white linen clothes and cap stood beside an enormous
roasted hog, brandishing a huge knife.
“_Majale arosto--ah che bel majale_ (Roast pig--oh, what a beautiful
pig).”
At some of the stands toys and dolls were sold. I was kept away from
certain of these, as J. said the toys were shockingly indecent; those I
saw were ordinary every-day toys which the elders bought for the
children. When one goes to the _festa_ of San Giovanni one takes the
whole family along,--grandmothers, grandfathers, babies, and all. The
noisy people were all gathered together in the piazza and the Via Appia
Nuova; the quieter sort were scattered about in groups on the outskirts
of the crowd. On the right-hand side, at a little distance from the
Church of St. John Lateran, there is a hillside with ancient ilex trees.
This dark hillside was dotted with torches and candles, each the centre
of a knot of people. We soon left the turmoil in the neighborhood of
the booths, and strayed about among the quieter folks. Under a dark
gnarled tree a group of people had made themselves comfortable. On the
trunk above their heads two long garlic stalks were nailed crosswise to
avert evil. Directly below the cross sat a lovely young woman suckling a
large baby; it must have been eighteen months old. Beside her an aged
woman held in her lap a four-year-old child whose chubby hands were
stretched out to touch the nursling; in the shadow behind stood a grave
bearded man. The huckster’s cart that had brought them was drawn up near
by, the donkey could be dimly seen munching a bundle of hay.
“Behold Mary and the Child, St. Elizabeth and St. John, with the good
St. Joseph taking care of them all,” said Vincenzo, who had seen us and
followed us up from the piazza. As we stood entranced before this living
Holy Family the moon rose full and yellow over the dark hillside; for a
moment we saw it behind the head of that young mother like a halo. It
was a group worthy the pencil of Raphael.
“_Che belli fanciulli_ (What beautiful children),” I said to Vincenzo.
St. Elizabeth, hearing the innocent words, caught the little St. John
behind her, scowling and muttering angrily at me.
“Come away, quickly,” said Vincenzo, urging me down the hill; “don’t you
know that you must never praise a child in that way of all times on the
night of San Giovanni!”
“It is time to go home,” said J. I begged a few minutes’ grace, for just
at that moment a heavy car hung with laurel garlands drawn by milk-white
oxen with gilded horns creaked into the piazza. The car was filled with
young men in costume singing to the music of guitar and mandolin. They
were all masked; from the trappings of the car and their cultivated
voices we fancied them to be persons of some distinction.
A high tenor voice pierced the babel of sound: “_Sei la Rosa piu bella
che c’è_ (Thou art the most beautiful rose that is)!”
It was near midnight: the fun was growing fast and furious. J., who from
the first had objected to the expedition, backed up by Vincenzo, now
declared that it was impossible for me to stay longer. An unwilling
Cinderella, I was torn away on the stroke of twelve. “It is not a seemly
revel,” I was told; “dreadful things happen, respectable people do not
stay after midnight.” To me it was all a wonderful revelation; I was in
pagan Rome, where Bacchus and Vesta were worshipped, where Italy’s
spoiled children, the Roman populace, took their pleasure, as they have
done with little change ever since Rome was, since “step bread” was
distributed gratis on the steps of the Capitol, and the costly games of
the Colosseum kept them amused and pacific!
Till broad daylight I heard the people coming home ringing their little
terra-cotta bells, singing sntches of the song of the evening: “_Sei la
Rosa piu bella che c’è._” As I look back at that riot of youth and age,
where the faces of faun and satyr leered at nymph and dryad, the whole
pagan scene is sweetened and purified by that vision of the Holy
Family.
X
ISCHIA
CASAMICCIOLA, ISLAND OF ISCHIA, July 10, 1899.
Our coming to this volcanic islet--tossed up out of the sea an æon ago,
still warm with the earth’s vital heat--was due to chance, like most
things that are worth while. We had driven over that morning from
Sorrento to Castellamare through odorous orange and lemon groves, and
were so filled with the beauty of land and sea, that going to any city,
even to our Rome, seemed a waste of life. We reluctantly boarded the
crowded train for Naples. In the same carriage were a _mercante di
campagna_ and his daughter, the most lovely Italian girl I ever saw. Her
hair clustered in purple shadowed masses like bunches of grapes about
her perfect face; her complexion was golden and red--no pink and white
prettiness, but a rich and memorable beauty. They had left home early;
to have more time in the city, they partook of their breakfast, Bologna
sausage, bread, garlic, and wine on the train. They were so friendly
that we forgave them everything--even their fourteen bundles which
entirely filled the luggage rack--even their garlic! The father opened
the conversation.
“My son, he is in America; he worked on the Brooklyner Bridger. You have
seen it, yes?”
“We have seen it many times, we have even crossed it.”
This brought us all very near together. Putting his hand into his pocket
the _mercante di campagna_ brought out a fistful of rice, which he
presented to me.
“Behold a sample of the rice I am taking to Naples to sell.”
Not knowing exactly what else to do with it, I tied the rice in a corner
of my pocket handkerchief. He next handed me the _Corriere di Napoli_,
two days old. The first thing in the newspaper that caught my eye was an
advertisement of the _Società Napoletana di Navigazione a Vapore_. “The
steamer for Ischia sails at eleven o’clock; return tickets eight
francs.”
We were due in Naples at ten, the train for Rome left at three! Five
hours in Naples, which has for us but three resources: the museum, the
aquarium, the antiquarians! It was the day
[Illustration: _Ischia_
From a photograph]
[Illustration]