I hurried over to St. Peter’s and caught up with the Filipinos before
they had made the third chapel of prayer. They are small, swarthy men;
their faces show a strange mingling of races, something of the
Malay, he Mongol, the Latin, with a fourth element I did not
recognize,--rather deadly looking folk, I thought, but very devout in
their behavior at church.
When royalty comes to the Vatican there is a deal of pother. The morning
of the King of Siam’s visit to the Pope, we were waked at dawn by the
carts fetching the royal yellow sand, and the men spreading it thick
over the streets where the wheels of royalty were to pass. The King,
whom we saw perfectly, is a fierce-looking little fellow; he was dressed
in quite the most lovely uniform I have ever seen; white broadcloth,
embroidered in gold. Do you suppose their good clothes are any
mitigation to the _ennui_ of sovereigns? I should think they might be.
Easter Sunday, 1900.
We thought we had seen Rome crowded before, but we had not! During the
past week, the crowds have been almost inconceivable. By Wednesday all
the bathrooms at the Grand Hotel that could be spared had been turned
into bedrooms. Last night a pair of travellers slept in the red plush
cushioned elevator, and two in the big comfortable hotel omnibus. Cabs
are a rare commodity--even the _gobbo_ has deserted us and hired himself
out by the week to the pilgrims. The electric cars (did I tell you they
had put these pests in under our very windows?) are so jammed that we go
for the most part “shanks’ mare.” Many of our friends have let their
apartments, and gone away for the rest of the season. We could have got
a good price for ours; but in spite of the undeniable inconvenience (the
cost of provisions has almost doubled), we would not have missed the
experience. The city has been a Babel of foreign tongues, a kaleidescope
of foreign faces and costumes. One tastes life as from a goblet filled
and brimming over with sparkling, heady wine. That old gogpate, Z----,
has let his villa, carriage, servants, even his precious Antonio, the
best cook in Rome. He said to J., “I cannot afford to stay in Rome when
the price of _filet_ has doubled and I can get my whole year’s rent by
letting the villa for three months.”
“We cannot afford _not_ to stay in Rome when it is so interesting,” said
J. There you have the two ways of looking at life--the Philistine’s and
the artist’s!
We have taken part in a canonization--there remained but that--of all
the ceremonials on “that stage of the Church” incomparably the most
sumptuous we have seen. When I heard that the new saint’s name was La
Salle, stirred by memories of Parkman’s “Discovery of the Great West,” I
insisted upon having tickets to one of the private tribunes. I confess
it was a disappointment to find that we were making a saint of the
wrong Lasalle, _not_ our own René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle,
but another doubtless excellent person described as “a distinguished
educator priest.” You have heard about so many ceremonies that I will
only speak of the _river_ of bishops! I did not suppose there were so
many bishops in the world. They passed down the vast church in a line of
seething white and gold, stretching from the entrance down the nave to
the very chair of Peter behind the high altar. Every bishop carried a
tall white wax torch, whose yellow flame lighted up his white and gold
vestments, his gold-tipped mitre and crozier. I shall never forget that
dazzling splendor! I have seen so many of these great pageants that I am
rather _blasée_ about them, but those gorgeous bishops in their
immaculate white and gold robes outshone even the arrogant vermilion
cardinals, the purple canons with their gray fur capes--even that man of
ivory and iron, Leo XIII., carried aloft in the Sedia Gestatoria, on the
shoulders of six crimson lackeys, the triple crown blazing on his head.
On the 31st of May I happened in to Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a dear
church, built on the ruins of an ancient temple of Minerva. Fra Angelico
is buried here (how can his native Fiesole spare his bones)? There is an
ancient Greek sarcophagus, with Hercules taming the Nemean lion in
relief; there is a picture of Torquemada, the terrible confessor of
Isabella; there is an adorable flower-bespattered tomb carved by that
sweetest of statuaries, Mino da Fiesole, and a hundred other “features”!
In the piazza outside stands an engaging marble elephant, with the
smallest of Egyptian obelisks on his back; altogether the place is a
good example of what one is forever harking back to,--Rome’s golden
blending of things Greek, Egyptian, classic, pagan, early Christian,
renaissance, and rococo!
In the pulpit who should be thundering away, whacking the dusty crimson
cushions till the beautiful old carved pulpit shook, but our friend the
_parroco_! He seemed so much in earnest that I paid two cents for a
chair and sat down to listen to him. His subject was the erudition of
Mary, “the most learned woman,” he said, “who has ever lived. Her
knowledge of languages--she spoke at least twenty--proves this. She is
known to have talked with Moabites, Samaritans, Egyptians, and other
persons, to the number of twenty different nationalities.” The
hypothesis that some of these persons may have spoken Aramaic, Mary’s
own language, was not admitted by the preacher.
Coming out after church, I overheard one well-dressed _contadina--senza
cappello_ (without a hat), a social grade is marked by the wearing of a
hat--say to another peasant woman,--
“My son has preached a new sermon on the Madonna on each of the
thirty-one days of her month. He has done well.” I thought he had!
It was the _parroco’s_ mother. She had the same soft dark eyes, the same
mouth, the same smile--the mother for whose sake, as he himself told us,
he became a priest. “_Poverella_,” he said, “it was her wish; I am all
that she has; how could I disappoint her? and she believes that one day
I shall receive the cardinal’s hat!”
He had come as he always does, the Saturday before Easter, to bless the
house. Pompilia and Filomena had been on their marrow-bones for a week,
rubbing, scrubbing, polishing, setting the house in order for the rite.
On the kitchen dresser the prescribed food to be eaten on Easter Sunday
was neatly arranged: eggs and _mortadella_ for breakfast; lamb, green
peas, a certain broth made with lemon and eggs, served only on this day
of the year, and the sweet dish already prepared,--what the Italians
call _zuppa Inglese_, and we call Italian cream! In a vase were
carefully preserved the blossoms of wall flowers, stocks, and violets,
from the sepulchre of Holy Thursday at the church near by in the Piazza
Scossa Cavalli; these, according to tradition, must deck our Easter
dinner table. It was four o’clock when the _parroco_ reached our house.
He was very smart in his neat beretta,--a high, square, black silk
cap,--his best white linen cotta trimmed with handsome lace, freshly
starched and ironed. It was “done up,” I’ll be bound, by that good brown
mother of his. He was followed by an imp of a boy with the oddest snub
nose, and hair growing almost down to his eyebrows, who made the
responses and carried the silver holy-water vessel by a pair of
enchanting wrought handles. We formed a procession, headed by the
_parroco_ and the imp; next came the _padrona di casa_ (myself); behind
me walked Pompilia the cook in the time-honored striped black silk which
I had given to Nena, and she, “_per miseria_,” had sold to the cook;
after her, Filomena, the prettiest girl in the Borgo, in her best blue
frock and a rose in her hair; the procession was brought up in the rear
by Nena,--the witch, the snuff-taker, the footman, the mainstay and
comfort of the whole household. She had borrowed a clean apron, smoothed
her rough, gray hair, and redeemed her coral beads and gold earrings
from pawn at the Monte di Pieta. There were flowers everywhere in the
house, the terrace had been rifled, roses, roses, roses, red, pink,
saffron. In the very best vase were a single white rose from my mother’s
favorite tree, the Catherine Cook, and one mammoth pink one from Captain
Christy. We marched first to the salon, the most honorable room. The
_parroco_ dipped a silver sprinkler in the lustral water, which he
sprinkled in four directions, north, south, east, west, saying as he did
so, “Bless, O Lord, this place, that in it may be health, chastity,
victory, virtue, humility, goodness, sweetness, the fulness of law and
thanksgiving, and may this blessing abide in this place and upon all
those who dwell herein.”
Whether by chance or intention, a few drops fell upon a group of family
portraits hanging on the wall. Our dear sunny chamber was next blessed,
then the dining-room, the den, finally the servants’ quarters and the
kitchen. In each room the prayer was repeated, the water sprinkled. The
_parroco_ was in a hurry, he could not wait to taste a _gocciatino di
vino_ or a bit of the _pizze_ Filomena’s mother had sent us from her
home in Umbria,--there were many more houses to be blessed before
nightfall. We went with him to the door, shook hands, slipping into his
palm a small envelope--the imp carried openly the silver plate in which
I dropped his share of the modest offering, then with hasty bows and
smiles and “_buona pasqua_ (happy Easter)” the pair of them clattered
down the long _travertina_ staircase, past the recumbent Etruscan
ladies, with their button-like eyes, who guard our stair, leaving me to
enjoy our clean, sweet-smelling house. On the terrace an hour later,
drinking in the glory of the sunset, came an odd sense of the fitness
and familiarity of it all. This blessing the house, the food, the
penates, the tools, the effigies of ancestors is the Little Ambervalia
Pater describes so deliciously in Marius, the Epicurean; there is, too,
an echo in it of the Vestalia, the festival in honor of Vesta, held at
the house of the Vestal Virgins on the 9th of June, “after which the
temple was closed for five days for ceremonial cleansing!” At home, in
God’s own country, the ceremony survives under the name of spring
cleaning. It was a wonderful stormy sunset; St. Peter’s and the piazza
seen in this ferment of light and shadow recalled a curious allegorical
design of Bernini’s, in which the two curving wings of his colonnade are
made to suggest the arms of Christ’s Vicar, spread out to enfold the
world, Angelo’s dome being worked in as a sort of papal tiara floating
over the whole.
XIII
THE QUEEN’S VISIT
PALAZZO RUSTICUCCI, ROME, Easter, 1900.
“Buona Pasqua!” said Filomena, when we came into breakfast this morning.
Her Easter offering lay on the table, two hard-boiled eggs in a little
basket of twisted bread at each plate. Soon after, Pompilia brought her
inevitable _regalo_, a pair of lilac tissue paper fans (she has a
relative who works in the paper factory). As I passed the door
Pompilia’s annual basket of flowers, sent by her cousins every Easter,
was brought in. Ignazio, the gardener, met us on the terrace with a pot
of the biggest violets I have ever seen.
“Only yourself, Signora, and the Princess Doria, in all Rome, have these
magnificent violets, the last novelty from Londra. The Prince has just
introduced them. His gardener is my friend; _così_ I am able to offer
this _bel’ vasino di fiori_!”
A little later, Lorenzo, Villegas’ factotum, arrived with a basket of
lemons from the Villino garden, covered with their own glossy green
leaves and intoxicating blossoms; the petals are thick, pink outside,
white inside, like orange flowers, only larger, and with a less cloying
perfume.
We were up on the terrace in time to see the Host carried through the
street; that was not allowed when we first came to live in the Borgo
Nuovo. Little by little the old picturesque ceremonies of the Church are
creeping back. It is a pretty sight. First march lovely little girls in
white, scattering flowers; then come acolytes, deacons, young clerics--I
am hazy about their titles--swinging censers, carrying the crucifix and
banner; the arch-priest bearing the Sacrament in a golden monstrance,
over which he holds protectingly the sides of his long, stiff,
embroidered vestment, above his head a white and gold _baldacchino_
supported by four young priests. The whole procession, children,
acolytes, priests, attendant women in black veils, went singing across
the piazza of St. Peter’s and down our street under a rain of pink and
green disks of tissue paper thrown from the windows in lieu of flowers.
Across the street Giuseppe, the baker, in white cap and drawers, naked
to the waist, stood at his shop door cooling his heated body. Behind him
in the dark shop as the boy opened the oven door and fed the flame with
armfuls of brushwood, we caught the roar and blaze of fagots in a fiery
cavern.
Giuseppe, a radical (the _parroco_ says a Freemason, that means sure
damnation) stood at his door as the procession passed and nodded to his
little girl, the prettiest of the attendant cherubim, dropping rosebuds.
It is pleasant to see one’s daughter chosen before others, and religion
is an excellent thing in woman, according to Giuseppe’s philosophy. The
crisp, appetizing smell of his hot bread suggested luncheon, which, in
honor of the _festa_, was served on the terrace. The atmosphere has been
ecstatically clear and golden all day, the view sublime, snow-clad peaks
in the distance, the foreground purple, hazy, delicious. The bells of
St. Peter’s (silent since Holy Thursday) have made constant music in the
air. A fine day, with a trifle too much breeze for dignity; it blows the
girls’ curls and draperies, even the scant skirts of the young priest
pacing back and forth on the monastery terrace across the way, breviary
in hand. He always ignores our presence, looks through us as if we were
made of glass; but I catch him gazing with longing eyes at our roses and
lilies that nod and gossip behind their screen of ivy; at the passion
flowers and honeysuckles, haunts of the bee and butterfly. He knows as
well as we do every stage of our roof garden’s history since that day
six years ago when we potted the pink ivy geranium and the white
carnation from the Campo di Fiori, the beginning of this earthly
paradise. We have had a great deal of rain lately, which has been good
for the yellow and orange-colored lichens that enamel the tiled roofs
all about us, and alas! very good for slugs and snails. As to wall
flowers, they simply ramp from every crack and cranny of the gorgeous
_cinque cento_ cornice, with its sharp-cut egg and dart (symbols of life
and death), fragments of which still cling to the inner walls of our
courtyard. The wild flowers run riot over the Corridojo di Castello, the
quaint old fortified passage leading from the Vatican to the Castel
Sant’ Angelo. The Corridojo, built of tufa stone, is two stories high;
the upper story is open like a loggia, the lower closed, with little
slits to let in the light. Just behind our Palazzo the Corridojo
crosses a back street by an enchanting arch, with the arms of the Pope
who built or restored it carved on a stone escutcheon. In the old days
the passage was used in time of danger as an escape from the Vatican to
the fortress of Sant’ Angelo; the Pope himself always kept the keys,
according to Patsy, who dropped in for tea and _maritozzi_ and gave us a
discourse on the subject.
“Who keeps the keys now?” I asked.
“_Chi lo sa?_ Since 1870 the Corridojo has been walled up. I once got a
peep into it. ’T is going to wrack and ruin, which is a shame and
disgrace.”
“Whose fault is it?”
“_Chi lo sa?_ Lay it to the municipality,--they deserve a few extra
curses thrown in for luck, on account of the artificial rockwork with
which they are defacing the Pincio and the Janiculum.”
“Perhaps the Corridojo is no-man’s-land, now that the Vatican belongs to
the Pope and the fortress to the King?”
“_Chi lo sa?_” said Patsy again. “When the Italians came to Rome they
meant to leave the Borgo under the temporal control of the papacy.
Consequently at the first plebiscite (October 2, 1870) no urn was
provided for the Borgo’s vote. You don’t suppose a fellow like that,” he
pointed to the baker, “would let such a little thing keep him out of
United Italy? The first returns of the day were brought in from this,
the fourteenth, _rione_ (ward), by two strapping fellows, who marched up
to the Capitol carrying between them a big urn with the votes from the
Borgo. I have heard that your friend the baker’s father was one of
them.”
“And this morning that man’s granddaughter walked in the procession of
the Sacrament!”
“For the matter of that, here comes Prince Nero’s grandson wearing the
King’s uniform. Both Blacks and Whites, _Dio grazie_, are fast fading
into Grays.”
Beppino, very stiff in his military togs, was shown up on the terrace by
Nena the shabby, who always manages to open the door to fashionable
visitors.
“How do you like your service, Beppino? Your uniform is very becoming,”
I began.
“I don’t like it at all! Fancy being obliged to clean one’s own horse,
to polish one’s own boots--it’s not to be endured!”
It has to be endured; and, moreover, Beppino is enormously improved by
his six months’ endurance of the obligatory military service. Those
fiery brown eyes of his have grown serious.
“Is it true that you voted at the last election?” asked Patsy.
“It is true,” said Beppino.
“How did your grandfather take it?” Patsy persisted.
“I asked the Prince’s leave,” Beppino replied. “He said that for thirty
years he had obeyed the Pope and abstained from voting, that he was too
old to change his politics, but that I was free to do as I liked.”
“How do you account for such an extraordinary change of heart?”
“It’s all the Queen’s doing; she is so good; she is so clever. We
Italians owe more to her than to any one alive to-day!”
Beppino is the son of the son of one of the stoutest pillars of the
Church.
“_Avanti la caccia_ (On with the chase)!” Patsy and I had been snail
hunting when Beppino came up.
“Here is a sharp stick; if you run it round under the edge of the
flower-pot you will get them quicker. Snail, I condemn you to the
parabolic death!” Beppino threw a large fat snail out over the terrace
wall. “That’s the easiest way; it spares our feelings and gives the
snail a chance for his life. He disappears in a parabolic curve; he may
fall upon a passing load of hay and be carried away to batten upon other
rose-leaves.”
Suddenly, like thunder out of a clear sky, there appeared upon the
peaceful terrace the _parroco_, with two black-a-vised French priests,
preceded and announced by Nena. The _parroco_ apologized; he said the
gentlemen were anxious to see our view. The elder Frenchman never looked
at the view at all, but examined the walls of the palace in a way I did
not like. The _parroco_ is always a welcome, if scarcely an easy guest.
I hated his friends; they glanced with so indifferent an eye at the
flowers and seemed so much more interested in the chimneys that J. and
Lorenzo had cleverly contrived to keep me warm. When at last the three
black figures disappeared down the terrace stairs, we other three drew a
long breath.
“Good riddance,” said Patsy.
“You have not seen the last of their cassocks nor them,” said Beppino
(he had an English nurse and governess, and speaks rather better English
than most people). “I believe they mean to buy the palazzo over your
heads. When will your lease be up?”
“In September; but we have the right to renew.”
“No Roman lease holds in case of sale,” said Beppino. “You will find
that clause in your contract. You will see I am right. Some time ago
_Sua Santita_ requested such religious orders as had no house in Rome to
establish one here. During the _Anno Santo_ many have acted on the hint
and bought property in Rome. I heard my grandfather say there were some
French monks looking out for a place near the Vatican. This is just the
sort of thing that would suit them.”
Was not that a thunder clap? Characteristic too that Beppino, the astute
Roman, should first suspect it. When J. came home from the studio and
heard of the priests’ visit, he said: “Beppino is right; the Palazzo
Rusticucci will be transformed into a monastery. They have already
turned Mr. Vedder out of his studio after twenty years; we shall be the
next to go.”
I can’t and won’t believe that this may be our last Easter here. Just
as terrace and house have grown to fit us like soul and body, to be
turned out into the bare, ugly world of hotels,--impossible!
The other day when I was at the studio J. told me that in consequence of
the disappearance of ten francs he had finally decided to part with
Pietro. He has often arrived at this decision before, but the creature,
with a sort of uncanny second sight, always disarms him just in time by
some act of faithfulness, some pretty attention; for Pietro is one of
those Italians with a real genius for service. I happened to be at the
studio when he applied to J. for the place and overheard their
conversation.
“Signorino,” Pietro began, “you are my unique hope; do not abandon me,
the poor _disgraziato_ you have befriended so long: I regard you as my
father.” (Pietro is at least twenty years older than J.)
“Where have you been all this time?” J. asked.
“Signorino, it is necessary for me to tell you the truth, or some
unsympathetic person might do so: I have been in prison, though I am
quite innocent.”
“What were you charged with?”
“It was that affair with Fagiolo the model; you perhaps remember.”
“The time you bit Fagiolo in the leg and gave him such a _coltellata_
(stab) that he had to be sent to San Giacomo (the hospital)? I
remember.”
“_La storia era molto esaggerata, però non potevo mai vedere quell’uomo_
(The story was much exaggerated, but I never could bear the sight of
that man).”
J. remembered the affair, and thought Pietro had been rather hardly
dealt with.
“Since I was discharged it is impossible to find employment; nobody
wants a man, however innocent, who has been in prison.”
“Where is your wife?”
“_Aimé!_ was there ever so unfortunate a man? Zenobia, who, as you know,
is a good seamstress and my sole means of support, broke her leg
yesterday; this morning they carried her to the hospital of the Santo
Spirito.”
J. engaged him on the spot, and Pietro has been in charge of the studio
ever since. He has done very well; the only trouble has been that small
sums of money, cigarettes, and boxes of matches are always
disappearing. J. has spoken several times to Pietro about it. He always
denies having taken anything. J. feels very half hearted about sending
him away; he says that it will be impossible for the man to get another
situation if he dismisses him for stealing. Besides, except for the
pilfering, Pietro is the very man for the place; he takes good care of
the studio, knows all about cleaning palettes and washing brushes, keeps
the courtyard neat and full of such growing things as can exist with the
little sun that penetrates to it, and is devoted to J.’s happy family,
which just now consists of Checca, the lame jackdaw, bought from some
boys in the street who were tormenting her, a pair of ducks, a stray
black dog, and the prettiest maltese kitten you ever saw.
The jackdaw, a most diverting bird, is as curious as a coon. The other
day she flew up on the easel from behind and pecked a hole in the
picture on which J. was working. She put her closed bill through the
canvas, then opened it wide, which made a straight up and down tear, to
which the creature put her ridiculous eye and peeped through to see what
J. was doing.
“Do you really think Pietro is the thief?” I asked. “It would be too
suicidal in him to throw away his last chance!”
“Just what Pietro says,” answered J., “but who else can it be? There is
a Yale lock to the door with two keys; I keep one, Pietro the other.”
While we were talking about him, Pietro came in to move an old stove
which had stood in the corner of the studio all winter without being
lighted. J. is sending it with other household stuff to the auction
room. As Pietro moved the stove its door swung open and out rolled a
quantity of cigarettes, matches, silver and copper coin, paint rags,
orange peel, and among the rubbish a brand new ten-franc note.