Lapis Niger, the black stone of the so-called tomb of Romulus. Whether
the smooth slab of black marble actually covered the ashes of Romulus,
or was a later monument put up to his memory, has not yet, I believe,
been established. They do know that the inscription on the cippus
beneath the stone is written in the most ancient Latin which has yet
come to light--the epigraphists are still cracking their brains trying
to read it. Is it not pleasant to have the sceptical German historians
routed? To have our Romulus and Remus given back to us, our Tarquins,
our Numa Pompilius, and Egeria? To tell the truth, I never gave them up,
I always kept a sneaking belief in demigods and heroes, took Hawthorne’s
word against the Teutons. Now I am being justified right and left. Boni
finds the Tomb of Romulus in the Roman Forum, Dr. Evans finds the palace
of Minos, and the labyrinth of the Minotaur in Crete.
To comfort-loving persons Rome is the most satisfactory place in the
world for the study of man--from the savage of thirty centuries ago in
his tree coffin, fished up from the bottom of Lake Trasimeno (now at the
Museum Papa Giulio), to Victor Emmanuel in his tomb at the Pantheon.
Think of it, the first king of Young Italy sleeping in a temple of
Ancient Rome which has been in use ever since it was built in the year
27 B.C. Athens is a thousand times more beautiful than Rome, but to the
ultra modern Greece seems on the outskirts of “to-day.” Here, here in
Rome, we fancy we are in the midst of things, and creature comforts are
still to be had, as in the days of Lucullus (I recommend you an
_omelette soufflée aux surprises à la Grand Hotel_! Outside an ordinary
hot soufflée--the surprise is the heart, cold sublimated chocolate
ice-cream)!
Not long since, while lunching at that luxurious restaurant, we became
aware of a personage at the next table. Everybody looked at him; it was
impossible not to look at him. He was a large, masterful man with a high
color, young gray hair, and a look of power I have not often met. We
began to guess his nationality. I immediately claimed him. “He is an
American, a Western senator, from Montana or Washington State.”
There was something large and dauntless about him, the free look of one
coming from a young country.
“Please find out who that gentleman at the next table is?” our host said
to the waiter.
The man seemed surprised at the question.
“That is Cecil Rhodes, sir,” he answered.
After that we could not help catching some of his talk--perhaps we did
not try very hard--it was brilliant, exhilarating, and cordial. His
guests were hardly more _en rapport_ with him than the rest of us in
the room. He was not unconscious that the people who sat near, the
waiters, even the sphinx-like manager, hovering in the offing with
impassive face, were thrilled by being in his company: nor could his
attitude be called conscious. He merely seemed aware of us, could no
more help dominating the chance crowd in a fashionable restaurant than
his fellows in the Transvaal.
It happened that after lunch we took our friends “sightseeing” to the
Kircheriano Museum, where we found one of the earliest Roman citizens
and his wife, still lying side by side in the very earth the mourners
threw over them, his rude stone weapons, her primitive household
utensils close to their hands. There, you see, are the two ends of your
chain of interest (there is not a missing link between),--the
prehistoric man at the Kircheriano Museum and the man who is making
history, Cecil Rhodes, on his way to South Africa, lunching at the Grand
Hotel!
XII
THE ANNO SANTO
PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, February 7, 1900.
“If I am ever a rich man,--” Patsy began.
“Which heaven forfend--you have not the gift!” said the monsignore.
“Wait and see!--I shall build a great church.”
“Like St. Peter’s there?”
We were on the terrace. The sun was setting behind the chapel of the
Vatican. There was still light enough for the yellow of the sun-soaked
façade, the pale blue of the dome, to tell against the gray and rosy
sky.
“Oh, make it the Parthenon! They both give a fellow the same sort of
feeling as being in love does, or seeing Niagara.”
“It is not a bad use to put a fortune to,” the monsignore agreed.
“It is about time the artists had their innings!” Patsy declared. “I
should like to be referee. Gladiators, prize-fighters wouldn’t be in
it. What fun _can_ there be in backing such creatures, or even a horse?
I would rather stake my fortune on an architect like Bramante--trust my
future reputation to a painter like Pinturricchio than to a Flying
Childers or a Goldsmith Maid.”
“First catch your hare,” said the monsignore.
“The woods are full of ’em. Give the artists a chance, and you’ll see
the trouble is not with them! The opportunity must come first. A country
has the art it deserves. When we Americans want beauty as much as we
want rapid transit we shall get it.”
“There are _some_ signs,” said the monsignore. “We have art patrons who
pay enormous sums for old masters.”
“Our art patrons lack imagination,” said Patsy. “It is so easy, so
obvious, to buy ‘old masters,’ to patronize Leonardo da Vinci and
Botticelli! I should pick my men, give ’em the track, and let ’em show
their paces. Wait till I build my cathedral: you will see an architect,
a painter, and a sculptor or two.”
“‘The hand that rounded Peter’s dome, wrought with a sad sincerity,’”
quoted the monsignore. He had come to tell us about the Pope’s opening
the _Porta Santa_ on Christmas eve,--the first of the many functions of
this _Anno Santo_.
Finally we “muzzled” Patsy, and the monsignore seized his chance to
speak.
“As the ceremony was in the portico of St. Peter’s,” he said, “a
comparatively small place, very few invitations were issued. The papal
throne was erected near the _Porta Santa_,--the Jubilee door,--it is the
one on the extreme right of the portico, you will remember it by the
cross upon it. The Pope knocked three times upon the _Porta Santa_ with
a mallet, saying as he did so, “_Aperite mihi portas justitiae_ (Open to
me the door of justice).” At the words the door (which was last opened
by Leo the Twelfth, in 1825) fell away as if by magic, and His Holiness
walked alone into the vast empty church, where there was no other living
being but himself. He tottered down the aisle, past the splendid tombs
of his predecessors, beneath that unmarked sepulchre over the door,
where Pius the Ninth lies waiting the day when he must make room for him
in his tomb as he made room for him on his throne. At the shrine of St.
Peter the Pope knelt and said a prayer. For me that was the great
moment in the whole gorgeous ceremony.”
“It all comes back to the simple human situation of an old man passing
the tomb where he soon must lie!” was Patsy’s comment.
“It is just the simple human situation that the Church always comes back
to,” said the monsignore.
“Oh, I say! simple, you know! That’s putting it a little strong. The
scene you describe is simple and touching, but, as a rule, the services
over there are more gorgeous and theatrical than religious!”
“Granted,--St. Peter’s is the stage on which the dramas of the church
are played. Why not? Why not use every art to the glory of God--music,
the drama, all the rest? There are a hundred quiet parish churches where
one can go for devotion and aspiration.”
Patsy’s company is always stimulating, but he rather interfered with my
getting all the information I wanted from the monsignore. I did manage
to extract the facts that the _Anno Santo_ was instituted by Boniface
VIII., in 1300, that it was originally meant to celebrate it every
hundred years; that the Romans petitioned to have the time shortened to
every fifty years, then to thirty-three years (the supposed earthly life
of Christ), and finally to every twenty-five years; that at the five
other Basilicas in Rome ceremonies like those at St. Peter’s were
celebrated on the same day--a cardinal opening the _Porta Santa_ in
each, and that during the _Anno Santo_ plenary indulgence is obtainable
by all Catholics who pass a certain number of times in a given number of
days, through the holy doors of St. Peter’s, and the five other
Basilicas, repeating the appointed prayers.
“Every twenty-five years, you say?” Patsy insisted, “and the last
Jubilee was in 1825--how is that?”
“In 1850 and again in 1875 Rome was so unsettled that the observance of
the _Anno Santo_ was not expedient,” said the monsignore, shortly.
“Let me see,” mused Patsy; “in 1850 Pius the Ninth was at Gaeta, trying
a change of air for his health, and Mazzini was at the head of the Roman
Republic. In 1875, Pius still thought that the Dukes of Savoy were only
casual visitors and had not yet realized that they had come to Rome to
stay. Isn’t that about the size of it?”
“My dear boy,” said the monsignore imperturbably, “_now_ you are talking
about things you do _not_ understand.” He talked of other things for a
few moments and then went away.
On Christmas Eve the pilgrims began to arrive in torrents, and have been
pouring in and out of the city ever since. They will not be allowed to
come in July and August--supposed to be the least healthy months. They
have gathered from the uttermost parts of the earth hordes of strangers
invading Rome as I believe it has not been invaded since the days of
Attila and his Huns. From the terrace we see pilgrims from all the
Catholic nations of the earth pass to bow the knee and drop the _obolo_
at the feet of the Prisoner of the Vatican. These vast pilgrimages,
sometimes several thousand strong--are admirably managed. A dearth of
cabs is the first sign we notice of their arrival. The piazza is
deserted, not a cab in sight. A little later a procession of cabs,
crowded with pilgrims (six to a carriage) and their belongings--the
queerest boxes, bales, bundles begin to rattle across the piazza to the
vast buildings in the rear of the Vatican where the pilgrims lodge. They
usually stay three days; during that time they are received by the
Pope, visit all the Basilicas, see the sights, and depart richer in
experience and plenary indulgence, leaving the Pope, the shop keepers,
hotel keepers, and cabmen richer in money. Each flood gilds (or silver
plates) poor old Rome till it shines as it has not shone in years.
I did not suppose there were so many splendid costumes left in the world
as have passed through the Piazza of St. Peter’s and under my eyes
during these few months! Hungarians in tight-fitting black breeches,
jackets trimmed with black astrakhan and long high boots. Herzegovinians
with wonderful garments of white sheepskin, embroidered in red silk
outlined designs (the woolly side of the sheepskin is worn next the
person, the outside looks like parchment), fur-trimmed boots, hair cut
square across the shoulders, faces of rapt devotion. The Poles were a
superb group, the women wore costumes of striped vermilion and emerald
green, the men, scarlet breeches, green jackets, and picturesque woollen
caps. There were Cossacks from the river Don, with long, gray woollen
caftans down to their heels, high pointed caps, and cartridge belts over
their shoulders, they would be ugly customers to come up against on a
less peaceful excursion. While driving, we passed one Don Cossack who
reminded us so vividly of Taras Bulba, the hero of Gogol’s Iliad of the
North, that we followed him for half an hour, as he stalked about the
city, looking at the sights as if they were all perfectly familiar to
him. He was a giant with a mane of bronzed hair, dark eyes, high cheek
bones, and a look of indomitable power, of silent reserved strength,
that made the careless casual passer-by seem an effete, over-civilized
being. He wore jewel-handled daggers stuck in a waist belt, fastened
with turquoises “as big as my two thumbs.” He must be “somebody” at
home.
The other evening J. brought home the news that there were a lot of
pilgrims lodged in the wing of the Palazzo Torlonia, opposite his
studio. The next morning R. and I hurried over to the Borgo St. Angelo
to see what was to be seen. The Palazzo Giraud Torlonia, which has a
splendid front on the Borgo Nuovo, only a block away from the
Rusticucci--has two long wings in the rear, with a courtyard between
them, the entrance to both wings being on the Borgo St. Angelo, rather a
squalid back street. The studio is a vast room as big as a church on
the second floor. When my mother was in Rome, on her wedding journey,
she danced in this room at one of the famous balls, given by old
Torlonia, the banker prince, the founder of the family, and grandfather
of the present incumbent, J.’s landlord. The studio--at the time J. took
it the only available one in Rome large enough for his purpose--could
only be had by hiring the whole wing, with its three stories, the right
to _re-let_ being refused. This makes him master of all he surveys, as
the grim, stone-paved courtyard, with its ever-flowing fountain fringed
with maidenhair fern, goes with his wing.
I received a shock on entering the studio, and looking at the big
picture for the first time in days. The little blindfold Love who led
the procession of the centuries in The Flight of Time, has been painted
out! He now exists only in my memory, and in the cartoon, a red chalk
drawing hanging in our hall. Though the composition is better without
him, it gave me a pang to find him gone. To console me, I found three
portrait studies of the beautiful Lady K.
From the studio windows we could see into the vast high rooms of the
opposite ell, which is hired for the pilgrims, when, as on this
occasion, they cannot all be accommodated in the huge _lazzaretto_ the
Pope built during the last cholera summer. That was in 1884. Naples was
decimated by the disease; everybody believed that the cholera would come
to Rome (everybody except J., who calmly passed the summer here). The
Pope built the great _lazzaretto_ against the cholera’s coming; King
Humbert, of the high courage, went to meet the cholera, went to
pest-stricken Naples, walked through the hospital wards where the
cholera patients lay, spoke comfortably to them, won new glory for the
brave house of Savoy, a fresh hold on his people’s hearts. As the
_lazzaretto_--it has never been used as such--was not big enough to hold
the French pilgrimage, some of it spilled over into the empty wing of
the Torlonia Giraud Palace, across the courtyard from the studio.
When R. and I arrived on the scene it was the hour of bedmaking. We
could see the neat, light figures of the nuns (to whose care the
entertainment of the pilgrims is entrusted) tucking in the sheets,
smoothing out the pillows of the long lines of white cots that filled
the rooms. On the sidewalk, outside the green door--all our doors in
the Borgo seem to be green--sat a group of old men smoking the solemn,
after-breakfast pipe. Feeling that we must see the pilgrims at nearer
view, we went down to the street and out of our door just in time to
meet a rosy young sister as she came out of the opposite door with a
little old peasant woman, whose face was wrinkled and brown as an
English walnut. The old peasant wore over a full white linen shirt a
dark cloth jacket cut square at the bosom, with straps going over the
shoulders. The double-breasted jacket was fastened with silver buttons
and heavily embroidered in a charming pattern with variegated silks. On
her head was a plain white cap of sheer muslin turned back over the
ears, and hanging to the shoulders. Under the muslin cap was a sort of
gilt skull-cap. She wore a heavy plaited skirt of dark blue broadcloth,
sabots painted black, long earrings of filigree gold inset with seed
pearls. Even beside the pure linen of the sister, she positively shone
with cleanliness.
“Look well at that jacket,” I said to R., “did you ever see one like it
before?”
“Why, it is _our_ Breton jacket!”
_You_ perhaps remember that at the old yellow house where R. lives
there is a trunk full of “dressing up things,” the theatrical wardrobe
of the children, largely made up of the old finery of three preceding
generations!
“Did you ever see that cap before?” I asked R.
“Why it’s grandmama’s cap!”
“Long ago, when you were only a baby, grandmother and I passed a summer
in Brittany. At Quimper, where we spent some happy weeks, a jacket like
that was made for me, and we found the one and only model for
grandmama’s cap.”
The little old peasant woman carried a large blue cotton umbrella, with
time-yellowed ivory handle and points, a perfect ark, under which three
even four generations might take refuge from a deluge. I looked at her
so intently, with such a passion of longing memory, that she must have
seen something more than common curiosity in my glance, for she gave me
a second look less preoccupied, more gentle than the first, and then
paused. I grasped the opportunity, and going up to her asked in French
how things were at Quimper? She listened patiently, politely,
understanding nothing of what I said till I pronounced the magic word
“Quimper.” Then the old eyes grew keen and intent. She put out a hand
and answered me in a flood of kindly Breton, whose sound only was
familiar to me. For some minutes we stood there in the middle of the
Borgo St. Angelo, shaking hands, looking intently at each other, first
one, then the other repeating the word “Quimper!” To her it meant home;
to me, the one thing dearer! Then with a last tightening of the hands we
parted. We recognized other of the Breton costumes, from
St.-Pol-de-Leon, Douarnenez, the Morbihan, we remembered having seen
some of them at the great pardon of Ploërmel. The caps of Quimper are
quite distinct from the caps of Quimperle, you understand, though the
towns are not far apart!
That afternoon, with a roll of thunder drums and a flash of lightning,
the deluge descended upon the Borgo. I rushed to the watch-tower--our
upper terrace, to see the storm. From the four quarters of the sky the
lightning swords smote at each other; from the soft white clouds above
the Castle St. Angelo came rose-colored lightning with a growl; from a
purple rack over St. Peter’s a piercing yellow zigzag, like a Saracen
blade, followed by the crack of cannon. Veils of rain fell, mixed with
the white spray of the fountains, and were driven in smoky sheets across
the square. The piazza was alive with pilgrims coming away from St.
Peter’s, where service was just over, the steps were black with people.
The pilgrims scattered like leaves before the storm; the skirts of women
and priests were blown about, like the bewitched draperies of the
Bernini statues on the façade of the church. In the midst of the
hurrying, scurrying crowd I made out the blue umbrella ark of Quimper,
valiantly held up by a tall young peasant; my little old woman--perhaps
his mother--paddled along on one side, a stout wench--perhaps his
wife--on the other. The cabs were all snatched up in a moment. Down in
the Borgo I could see the _gobbo_ waiting for me at our door. I had to
keep a pressing engagement and dared not delay till the tempest passed,
lest the _gobbo_ and his cab be ravished from my sight. As we rattled
along the Borgo Nuovo, I recognized the _parroco_; he was without an
umbrella and was getting soaked to the skin. As we would pass his door
it seemed the part of friendship to give him a lift.
“Stop!” I cried to the _gobbo_; “the _parroco_ is going our way, we will
take him home.”
“There is no use in stopping,” said the _gobbo_. I insisted. Sulky and
grumbling he drew up just outside the hospital of the Santo Spirito. The
water was rushing through the gutter like a small millstream.
“Jump in, _padre_, we will take you home.”
“No, no. Thank you--it is impossible!”
I persisted.
“Drive on!” he cried impatiently to the _gobbo_. To me more gently, “It
would not do for me to be seen driving with a lady.”
As the _gobbo_ whipped up the old white horse, a crowded carriage
containing four women and two foreign-looking priests passed us. I
looked back at the _parroco_; he shrugged his shoulders, his lips formed
the words, “What can you expect? They are French!”
“What did I tell you, _Signora mia_?” murmured the _gobbo_. “It would
have been a scandal for the poor _parroco_ to be seen driving with you!”
Wasn’t that slap at the French nice? The _parroco_ served his two years
in the army when he was young; he is a good Italian, a son of the soil,
a son of the Church. The passions of his race are strong in him, and in
spite of his cassock he hates a Frenchman!
Coming home late that evening we found behind our door a small wallet
lined with coarse red morocco. It contained nothing but memoranda of
modest expenditures:
Cab, one franc.
Candles, six sous.
Tobacco, fifty centimes.
Rosary of amethyst beads (for Berthe), four francs.
Souvenirs of Rome, seven francs, etc.
Crabbedly written on the flyleaf was the address of a priest of
Vaucluse. _Vaucluse!_ Isn’t that a name to conjure with? We read the
poor priest’s case as easily as his simple record of expenses. No people
are quite so attentive to the pilgrims as the “light-fingered gentry.”
The thief who stole the pocket-book, after taking out whatever of value
it contained, threw it into our doorway to be rid of it. J. has sent it
by post to the priest at Vaucluse; it will at least help him to make up
his accounts.
“Souvenirs,” always a staple of Roman trade, are more in evidence in the
shop windows than ever. The French pilgrims buy a great many souvenirs.
We saw our old friend from Quimper in a shop in the Borgo. To get
another look at her, and to show her to Patsy, who was with me, we went
in and looked at souvenirs. Besides the “articles of religion” there
were semi-religious articles; spoons, pens, pins, a thousand useless
nothings bearing the triple crown, the keys of Peter, the sacred
initials. The shop-keeper laid a tray full before Patsy, who turned them
over indifferently. “Fancy keeping stamps in this,” he held up a box
with the white dove of the _Spirito Santo_ inlaid upon the cover, “or
cutting _Punch_ with that!” he displayed a paper knife with the figure
of the Lamb. “I say, you know, the common use the shop-keepers put these
sacred symbols to is more than I can stand!”
The shop-keeper thought he understood; we caught his whisper to his
wife, “They are not Christians, they are Saracens!” to us he said, “Have
patience, sir, here is your affair!”
He opened a drawer under the counter. It contained the same souvenirs,
the same boxes, spoons, pens, paper-knives, what-nots, with Mahomedan
symbols, instead of Christian--the crescent, the star, the scimitar, the
monogram of the prophet.
“No, not quite our affair,” said Patsy. “We are not Mahomedans.”
The shop in which we were chaffering is in the very shadow of Peter’s
dome; the bells in the clock tower were ringing the _Ave_.
The cry is, Still they come! Pilgrims, pilgrims, pilgrims. By just
sitting tight on our terrace and using our eyes, the uttermost parts of
Christendom have been brought to us. Sardinians, for instance. When
Patsy came back from his moufflon hunting trip in Sardinia, and talked
familiarly about “Sards,” we were devoured with curiosity to see them
for ourselves. A week after, the “Sards” arrived in force. They are more
like Corsicans, or even Spaniards, than like Italians; they have grave,
dark, impassive faces, and an expression of sombre reserve. The men’s
dress is in keeping with their character; a black woollen, knitted
bonnet, like a sailor’s cap, hangs on one side to the shoulder,
close-fitting jacket, leggings, and sash, all black. Their coarse
homespun linen shirts, made very full in the bosom and sleeves, and worn
without starch, are a great improvement on the dreadful stiff, white
armor in which our men encase themselves for their sins! The “Sards’”
only ornaments were silver buckles worn at the knees and on the shoes.
One morning J., who had started early for the studio, came back to tell
me that a group of Filipinos had just gone over to St. Peter’s.
“How do you know they are Filipinos?”
“I don’t _know_; they look like two Filipino art students who used to be
in Rome. One of them was named Luna. He was the best draughtsman in the
studio; he beat everybody at drawing; seemed to have a dash of the
Japanese dexterity.”
“Was he any relation to General Luna?”