be closed; we know every fish in the great aquarium, the finest in the
world. Do we not always go there? did we not spend two hours there on
our way down, pay to see the awful octopus fed, and to receive a shock
from the electric fish? A visit to the antiquarians for some varieties
of junk even more enticing than our Roman haunts would cost us more than
eight francs.
Ischia! The name set vibrating a deep chord of memory. O Edward Lear,
Edward Lear, you are responsible for many vagarious wanderings! I could
think of nothing but the picture in the Nonsense Book of the old person
of Ischia. Is he still growing friskier and friskier? still dancing
jigs, eating figs?
“Have you ever been to Ischia?” I asked the _mercante di campagna_.
“Frankly, the sea incommodes me too much to make the voyage; but I have
a brother who drives a cab at Casamicciola. The signori should not fail
to visit the island,” he said.
The girl smiled encouragement. “This is just the season for the baths,”
she said; “they are miraculous for rheumatism, gout, every kind of
lameness. When they went there Olivetta, the wife of my uncle Ercole,
could not walk at all--_adesso, corre com’un diavolo_ (now she runs like
a devil).”
“_Pur troppo_ (Altogether too much)!” grumbled the _mercante_, just like
any other brother-in-law.
“The signori will employ my uncle Ercole? he drives a piebald horse.
They will give the uncle and aunt _tanti saluti_ from me?” the beauty
persisted.
Her influence, combined with Edward Lear’s, was too strong to resist.
Rome is always there; it was now or never for Ischia!
We caught the little steamer which carried us steadily enough across the
Bay of Naples. The shores were a living panorama done in sapphire and
emerald. Fishing smacks with slanting lateen sails colored, discolored,
one with a picture of Maria Stella del Mare painted upon it, flitted by
us before the light breeze. The steamer had once been a private yacht;
though her brasses are neglected and her deck less like polished satin
than it must have been in her palmy days, she still has a sporting,
rakish air, in keeping with our escapade. We passed Procida, a shining
isle of beauty, where I was half tempted to land and search for the
enchanted princess who must inhabit it!
We landed at Casamicciola in a small boat. The patient women waiting on
the quay took our trunks on their heads, the cabmen mobbed us politely,
trying to wrest our hand-bags from us.
“Ercole!” cried J. “Is Ercole, he who drives a piebald horse, among
you?”
“_Ecco mi quà, Signor Marchese_ (Behold me here, Lord Marquis)!” Ercole
(Hercules) scarcely looks his part. He is small and wizened, but he has
the merry eyes of his brother, the _mercante di campagna_, while his
laugh oddly recalls his lovely niece’s. From the beginning Ercole took
and still keeps possession of us. “First to the Piccola Sentinella,” he
announced. The piebald breasted the steep hill at a sharp pace. Ten
minutes’ climb brought us to the Hotel of the Small Sentinel, a low
building with a roof of light corrugated iron. Most of the hotels in
southern Italy are old palaces or monasteries, heavily built of stone or
stucco. Madam Dombré, the proprietress (she is an Englishwoman and makes
us exceedingly comfortable), says that all the buildings put up on the
island since the earthquake have been constructed under government
supervision and are lightly built like the hotel. Everything here dates
from the earthquake. Ercole says such a thing took place before the
_terremoto_, or so many years after it. Mme. Dombré, whose daughter was
killed by it, speaks as if it happened yesterday.
“There was a concert in the dining-room of our hotel at the time, it was
on the 28th of July, 1883, mid-season, you know; the house was full.
There came a dreadful rumbling noise. The house shook once, twice,
sideways, and then came crashing down in a ruined heap. The pianist at
the piano, the singer with the song on her lips, were dashed into
Purgatory without an instant’s warning! Out of a population of
thirty-five hundred, seventeen hundred of our people perished in the
earthquake.”
Since that time Casamicciola has been almost deserted by foreigners who
are now only just beginning to return; a few more come each year.
The morning after our arrival Ercole drove me willy-nilly to the
_stabilimento_, as they call the baths. Somehow he had divined the heel
of Achilles,--my bicycle ankle. The smiling _medico_ agreed with him
that the treatment was “indicated,” and forthwith delivered me over into
the hands of Olivetta--she who once was lame and now runs like a devil.
The baths are large, not so smartly appointed as some of the German
establishments, such as Homburg or Ems, yet they have a certain
classical flavor of architecture, pleasantly suggestive of the old Greek
inhabitants who were driven away from the island (they called it
Pithecusa) in the fifth century B.C. by the fearful eruptions of Mt.
Epomeo. Olivetta led me to a small marble room, put me in a comfortable
chair, placed the offending ankle on a bench, and bade me “_abbia
pazienza_ (have patience),” while she went to get the “_fango_.” In five
minutes she returned, bringing a jar full of liquid gray clay very like
what sculptors use.
“_Guardi, questo fango viene proprio caldo dalle viscere della terra_
(Observe, this mud comes hot from the entrails of the earth).” The giant
Typhoëus, transfixed by Zeus’s thunderbolt, lies chained under the
island; the roar of the earthquake is his voice, the lava flood his
tears. You may believe it or not: I do not find it difficult to accept.
Poor old giant, I feel sorry for him, reduced to tending hospital
fires, to warming up poultices for the gouty!
Olivetta built a sort of mould of hot clay wherein the foot was
comfortably coddled for thirty minutes. She next gave it a hot douche
for five minutes, then left me to meditate for another thirty minutes in
a warm mineral bath which smelt of hot flat-irons.
The serious business of the day over, we were free to explore the
country. Ercole and the piebald took us for a nineteen-mile drive around
the island, which rises sharply from the sea to its highest point, Mt.
Epomeo. The vineyards wrap Ischia from seashore to mountain peak in a
shimmering screen of green. The vines hang from tree to tree, making a
leafy roof overhead and green sun-pierced walls to the long alleys,
where innumerable classic bunches are slowly ripening. The grapes are
still small and immature, but exquisite in form and color. In October,
the season of the vintage, this must be the most beautiful place on
earth. Here one understands why the Roman soldiers in Britain, when they
first saw the Kentish hop vines, thought they had found the nearest
thing to the grape that savage northland produced. In their efforts to
make wine from hops they produced the first beer made in England.
On our way home we met a pair of boys driving a donkey laden with the
coarse gray pottery which has been made here since the days of the
Romans. The _creta_ (gray clay) from which it is made, looks very like
the mud used at the _stabilimento_. We stopped to examine the mugs, the
jugs, the donkey, and his astonishing garments.
“Behold, Madama, _l’asino del colonello_!” said Ercole.
“Who is the colonel?”
“_Un gran signore, un Inglese._ He comes here every year for the baths.”
“What can a _gran signore_ do with this poor little animal?”
“He protects it. When he first saw this donkey, the poor beast being
much afflicted with sores, was sadly tormented by flies. The _colonello_
taking pity upon it provided pantaloons--two pair; a pair for the hind
legs, a pair for the fore legs, as you perceive. He also pays the boys
two francs a month to treat the creature well; he provides petroleum to
bathe its sores, and now and again orders it a sea bath. It is his
idea. He may be right. How do I know? With respect, the soul of his
grandmother may have entered the body of that ass.”
A little further on Ercole drew up the piebald again.
“Behold other of the _colonello’s_ beneficiaries,” he said. Two tiny
dwarfs saluted us, asking with Ischian gentleness for alms. There was no
whine to their voices, no consciousness of degradation, nothing of that
brazen effrontery of the Neapolitan beggar, which makes one despair of
the regeneration of the Neapolitan “submerged tenth”!
“_Sono buoni ed onesti_ (They are good and honest),” said Ercole, adding
a soldo from his own pocket to what J. gave them.
“They are called Pasquale and Restituta. It is only a few years that
they have been obliged to beg. They worked at their trades--he at brick
making, she at straw braiding; they are past working now. They are not
very old, but such people have little vigor. I remember their wedding.
All the town was there, the _sindaco_ and the schoolmaster as well. We
all gave something for their housekeeping, one a goat, one a pair of
fowls, one a piece of furniture. If you could have seen their little
marriage-bed, _Signora mia_, it was like a doll’s bed.”
We drove along for another mile or two, passed the straw factory, where
we were obliged to buy some ugly fans, out of respect to Ercole’s views.
On the Marina he stopped again to let us see “_Il Fungo_,” a big
mushroom-shaped rock in the sea. The setting sun touched Procida into an
unearthly beauty, it shone like the golden city of Jerusalem.
“There is Teodora!” said Ercole, pointing with his whip to a group of
sailors sitting on the bottom of an overturned boat. In their midst sat
a strange figure mending a net.
“You see that old woman sewing? She is a deaf-mute, and she believes
that she is a man. If it were true it would be miraculous, _perché ha
fatto una figlia_ (because she has “made” a daughter). She avoids all
women, spends all her time with the fishermen. As she cannot talk and
mends their nets for them--they do not object.”
Teodora laid down the long black cigar she was smoking and took off her
hat to us. Save for a short dark skirt she was dressed like a man.
“It is against the law for a woman to wear pantaloons,” Ercole
explained.
“But not for asses or men?”
Ercole laughed immoderately--part of his pleasant flattery.
We made the ascent of Mt. Epomeo; after completing the course of eleven
baths, we wished to put to the test what they had done for me. We drove
to Fontana, taking our luncheon with us--why do things taste best out of
a basket? We left Ercole and the piebald at the inn and climbed to the
summit of the extinct volcano where there is a curious hermitage
dedicated to St. Nicola cut out of the volcanic tufa rock. The view from
here is not so fine as it is half way up the mountain. It is rather too
much like looking down upon a dissected map, but it does give one a
wonderful geographical sensation, fixes the relations between the
Sorrentine peninsula, Vesuvius, the islands of the Sirens, Capri, the
promontory of Circeo (where Circe lived), Procida the golden, and the
other points of this earthly paradise, between Terracina on the north
and the Punta di Campanella on the south. We were helped to orient
ourselves by Lucia, a “lady guide,” who joined us half way up the
mountain. She is a handsome old woman with wild white hair, bright blue
eyes, and a shrewd peasant face. She hailed me at sight as an American.
“How do you know that I am not English?” I asked.
“I can always recognize the _Americani, Signora mia_.”
“By what sign do you know us?” I asked.
“By the expression of the countenance.”
When I first came to Italy I should have scoffed at this; now I have
lived away from home so long that I too recognize the American
expression,--nervous, sensitive, masterful,--the Look Dominant!
“_Si vede Procida, La Spagna, io veggio a te!_” Lucia crooned a stave of
the old Neapolitan song, Funiculi Funicula, in a cracked voice.
“Yes, yes, I know both _Americani ed Inglesi_; my daughter’s husband is
an _Inglese_.”
“Where did she meet him?”
“Here on Mt. Epomeo, where else? _Una bella ragazza_ (She was a pretty
girl)! You may not believe it, Signori, but there is no difference
between my daughter and me save a matter of fifteen years. At fifty she
is just what I was,--at sixteen she was her mother over again. You would
not think it, eh? Well, one can speak about it, now that one is so old.
She was called the most beautiful girl in all Ischia. How do I know if
it was true? I could not think so, you see, because she was myself over
again, and I never saw any difference between myself and the other
girls.”
“I hope your daughter has a good husband.”
“_Grazie a Dio_, a good husband, yes, yes, a good husband.”
“Who was that pretty girl at the inn down at Fontana?” J. asked.
“_Bella? quella ragazza? faccia di patate_ (Pretty? that girl? a potato
face)! Ai! if you could have seen my Eva! The Madonna herself was not
more beautiful. That girl, the innkeeper’s daughter, is as awkward as a
cow, and she squints besides, as her mother did before her.”
“_No, no_,” J. protested; “_è un bel pezzo di donna_ (she is a fine
piece of a woman).”
Lucia gave him a keen look. “The signore should not laugh at the poor
girl. _Il buon Dio_ does not give a handsome face to every woman.”
“Fortunately, for the peace of the world, that is true.”
“But the signore is an artist? one sees that from his manner of looking
at things. Well, if the innkeeper’s Anna is a pretty girl, call me a
_bruttona_ (big ugly thing). If my daughter had not been out of the
common, do you think a rich gentleman would have married her? Yes, yes,
I am telling you the truth. She does no work, they live in a palazzo, my
daughter has servants to wait on her, do you believe it? she does not
even comb her own hair! And she has jewels, such diamonds! For every
child she gives him, he gives her a great pearl, each bigger than the
last.”
“How many children have they?”
“_Ha fatto quattro maschi e tre femmine_ (She has borne four males and
three females), all straight and well formed. The youngest is Lucia, for
the poor old _nonna_ (grandmother) at Ischia.”
“Where do they live?”
She pointed across the sea. “What do I know of foreign countries? I am
of the island. Here I was born, here I shall die.”
“You must be very proud of your grandchildren.” This is always a safe
remark.
“_Ha ragione, eccellenza, guardi_ (You are right, excellency, observe),
I am only a poor _ignorante_, but I made the great _matrimonio_ for my
daughter. Eva was always here with me, upon the flanks of Epomeo,
guiding the foreigners, but for me she would be here still, as my mother
and her mother before her were here. In those days before the
_terremoto_ many strangers came to Epomeo. From the first moment the
young _Inglese_ saw the girl he was _innamorato_. He came every day, he
pretended to sketch the mountain. I knew he was no artist; why, any one
could see he was _un gran signore_ by the way he spent his money. One
day he asked leave to paint my daughter. I said, ’_Scuse, Signore_, you
are a rich gentleman, I am only a beggar, _ma io sono padrona della mia
figlivola_ (I am the mistress of my little daughter). The day Eva takes
a husband he will be _padrone_; till that time, _scusi, Signore, ma sono
padrona io_!’ Would you believe it? a week from that day Eva and the
_Inglese_ were married by the priest who married her father and mother
and who gave her the holy rite of baptism.”
Sing me a song of the wisdom of old women!
I was bent upon exploring the hermitage, in spite of Lucia. The hermit
has departed the way of hermits and others. In his stead reigns Orlando,
a cross old man, between whom and Lucia there is war to the knife.
“Their excellencies are not going down without seeing the hermitage?” he
whined.
“Certainly not,” J. assured him.
“Do not go in; it is a dirty hole, and there is nothing to see,”
whispered Lucia, catching me by the sleeve.
“That silly old woman is tiring out the lady,” said Orlando to J.;
“drive her away, she is a pest.” As I put my foot on the lowest step of
the rough-hewn rock stairway leading to the hermitage, Lucia fell back
and said no more. I was evidently out of her domain and in the enemy’s
territory. As she had said, there was little to see in the two rooms cut
out of the living rock. Orlando’s bed, a pile of straw, occupied the
outer room, the inner cell served as his kitchen and larder. He offered
bread and wine; we were firm in refusing refreshment; his feelings were
soothed by a _mancia_, and by telling him we should come again and take
his photograph (our kodak had been forgotten).
“The next time their excellencies come they must not let that old
_chiacchierone_ (gossip) hang on to them. She pesters the travellers so
with her talk that she frightens them away. Truly you will find it set
down in the red book of the strangers (Baedeker) that a guide is
unnecessary, though a few _soldi_ are due to the person living in the
hermitage, who is ready and able to explain intelligently the view and
the locality.”
At the foot of the steps Lucia again took us in charge, after an
exchange of malevolent glances with Orlando.
“_Stregona_ (Big old witch),” Orlando muttered.
“_Birbacaione_ (Big rogue),” mumbled Lucia.
She came down with us as far as the cab.
“_Addio, eccellenza, e mille grazie._”
“_Addio_, Lucia, and thanks to you.” At the turn of the road we looked
back and saw the strong, bent little woman leaning against the wall,
waiting to guide the next _forestieri_ who might turn up.
“Is it true what Lucia tells us about her daughter?” I asked Ercole.
“Who knows? these old women gossip to amuse strangers. There is a new
story for every day in the week. We must not believe everything that we
hear.”
Was Ercole jealous, too?
The next time I saw Olivetta she began to chatter about Lucia.
“She told you about her daughter? Yes? It is quite true. The girl
caught the fancy of a rich milord, and he married her. One thing I am
sure Lucia did not tell you. Her son-in-law has bought her a nice
cottage, the best house in Fontana, he gives her a handsome income;
truly, Lucia is rich, but she is avaricious. I ask you, does she not
look like a beggar? That is all a comedy; she has good clothes and
shoes. Truly, I should not be surprised if, when she dies, we should
find that Lucia is the richest woman in Ischia; it is a shame that she
should ask money from the strangers.”
“Perhaps it is not the money so much as the occupation Lucia likes,” I
suggested.
“_Ma ché_, she is robbing others who would gladly take her place. There
is the excellent Orlando, he is my relation. Poor man, he is lame and
cannot work. As long as Lucia remains there is no chance for another
guide; _è fina quella donna_ (she is a sharp one, that woman). Ask the
_colonello_,--he can tell you all about Lucia and her daughter.”
The _colonello_, protector of the poor and purveyor of pantaloons to
suffering donkeys, is at this hotel. He is a delightful, warm-blooded
creature, who cannot be quite comfortable unless everybody else in
sight--even an ass--is comfortable too. Like the others, he had a great
deal to say about Lucia; of all the personages we have met--the place is
full of personages--she seems to have the most marked character.
“Gad, sir, the old woman is right,” said the colonel. “The day she goes
out of the guide business she will go to pieces. Why should she give up
her job because her daughter has married into another sphere? I’m d--d
if I don’t like her spirit!”
“What is the daughter like?” I asked.
“She is a good sort,” said the colonel. “When her husband took her to
his mother’s house, what do you suppose they did with her? sent her to
school, had her taught like a child. She learned many things, how to
talk small talk, how to behave at table, how to dress and all the rest
of it. When they thought she had learned enough she came home to her
husband. He gave a great dinner to introduce her to his family--oh, they
all acted sensibly. The bride behaved very nicely and quietly, they all
liked her for her pretty manners (you know the people hereabouts have
excellent manners, better than half the aristocracy at home, I tell
them) as well as for her remarkable beauty; she must have been worth
seeing in those days. After the dinner was over and the guests had left
the dining-room, the husband coming back for something found his wife
going round the table collecting the ends of the cigars the men had left
on their plates.
“‘What on earth do you want with those nasty things?’ he asked.
“‘I shall send them to my poor old father at Ischia!’
“She had been in the habit of picking up the ends of the travellers’
cigars for the old man. Do you wonder that she has made a good wife and
mother? I tell you she has a good heart; if a woman has that, what else
matters?”
When we made our second trip to Epomeo to keep faith with Orlando, Lucia
was nowhere visible; we made the ascent without her. Orlando held
undisputed possession of Epomeo.
“Where is your friend Lucia?” we asked.
He fairly spluttered, “_Una vecchiarella stupida senza educazione_ (A
stupid old woman without education)! Do you know what I believe? I
believe that her daughter and son-in-law are in Ischia. When they are on
the island, Lucia sits all day at her window dressed in her Sunday
clothes. To see her you would never fancy that she was the guide to Mt.
Epomeo--not that there is any need of a guide, as you yourselves
perceive.”
On our way through Fontana we passed a neat cottage, caught a whiff of
fragrance of oleanders in the garden, a glimpse of an old woman sitting
bolt upright in an armchair, a flash from her sharp blue eyes. It was
Lucia, our little old guide, her wild hair neatly coifed by a peasant
cap; she sat up as if she were sitting for her photograph, stiff,
uncomfortable, wretched in her finery.
That night at the hotel an interesting couple who had arrived since the
morning sat opposite to us at dinner; a tall, silent man who looked as
if he might have been in the army, and a grave, handsome woman of fifty.
She has a certain noble amplitude of brow, a width between the eyes, a
calm quality of face and figure, very restful in contrast to certain
giddy young ladies of her age who enliven the table d’hote. She speaks
English with a slight accent. We made acquaintance over the mustard,
which we both prefer _à l’Anglaise_. The gentleman spoke of Ischia and
the neighboring parts of the country with such familiarity that I asked
him about my enchanted island, Procida.
“It is such an ideal looking place that it ought only to be inhabited by
beautiful rose-colored maidens,” I said.
He looked at his wife as he answered me.
“Ischia is the island for handsome women,” he said. “Procida is best
seen as you have seen it, from a distance. It is the place where the
Italian convicts are sent.”
Was not that a sad pricking of a rainbow bubble? His next words atoned
for that shattered illusion; they were addressed to his wife.
“Eva, my dear,” he said, “let me give you a little of this _vino di
paese_ (wine of the country). It comes from the _vigna_ on Mt. Epomeo,
it is the kind you used to like when you were a girl.”
At the name Eva I looked at the _colonello_, who was devouring green
figs at the end of the table. He answered my questioning look by one of
acquiesence.
Orlando was right! Lucia’s daughter and the husband of Lucia’s daughter
had come to Ischia to see Lucia!
“May I trouble you to hand me that other plate of figs?” said the
_colonello_. “The figs of Ischia are the finest in the world. I
sometimes wonder how many figs a man may eat and live.”
Suddenly light dawned! The _colonello_ is undoubtedly the “Old Person of
Ischia.” On the flanks of Epomeo we had looked for him, in the
sun-pierced alleys of Ischian vineyards, among the sailors on the
Marina, even in the halls of the _stabilimento_--our quest, the magnet
that drew us out of the path of duty (_that_ led back to Rome and the
studio), the hero of Lear’s verse. He was here, sleeping under the same
roof with us, sitting at the same table! Have not we ourselves seen him
eat scores, possibly hundreds of figs? If we could postpone our return
to Rome we should doubtless get up into the thousands, for,--
“There was an old person of Ischia,
Whose conduct grew friskier and friskier.
He danced hornpipes and jigs,
And ate thousands of figs,
This lively old person of Ischia.”
XI
OLD AND NEW ROME--PALESTRINA
PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, 1899.