THE DOVE-COT.
The old town of Sorrento is situated on an elevated plateau, which
stretches into the sunny waters of the Mediterranean, guarded on all
sides by a barrier of mountains which defend it from bleak winds and
serve to it the purpose of walls to a garden. Here, groves of oranges
and lemons,--with their almost fabulous coincidence of fruitage with
flowers, fill the air with perfume, which blends with that of roses and
jessamines; and the fields are so starred and enamelled with flowers
that they might have served as the type for those Elysian realms sung by
ancient poets. The fervid air is fanned by continual sea-breezes, which
give a delightful elasticity to the otherwise languid climate. Under
all these cherishing influences, the human being develops a wealth and
luxuriance of physical beauty unknown in less favored regions. In the
region about Sorrento one may be said to have found the land where
beauty is the rule and not the exception. The singularity there is not
to see handsome points of physical proportion, but rather to see those
who are without them. Scarce a man, woman, or child you meet who has not
some personal advantage to be commended, while even striking beauty is
common. Also, under these kindly skies, a native courtesy and gentleness
of manner make themselves felt. It would seem as if humanity, rocked
in this flowery cradle, and soothed by so many daily caresses and
appliances of nursing Nature, grew up with all that is kindliest on the
outward,--not repressed and beat in, as under the inclement atmosphere
and stormy skies of the North.
The town of Sorrento itself overhangs the sea, skirting along rocky
shores, which, hollowed here and there into picturesque grottoes, and
fledged with a wild plumage of brilliant flowers and trailing vines,
descend in steep precipices to the water. Along the shelly beach, at
the bottom, one can wander to look out on the loveliest prospect in the
world. Vesuvius rises with its two peaks softly clouded in blue and
purple mists, which blend with its ascending vapors,--Naples and the
adjoining villages at its base gleaming in the distance like a fringe
of pearls on a regal mantle. Nearer by, the picturesque rocky shores of
the island of Capri seem to pulsate through the dreamy, shifting mists
that veil its sides; and the sea shimmers and glitters like the neck
of a peacock with an iridescent mingling of colors: the whole air is a
glorifying medium, rich in prismatic hues of enchantment.
The town on three sides is severed from the main land by a gorge two
hundred feet in depth and forty or fifty in breadth, crossed by a bridge
resting on double arches, the construction of which dates back to
the time of the ancient Romans. This bridge affords a favorite
lounging-place for the inhabitants, and at evening a motley assemblage
may be seen lolling over its moss-grown sides,--men with their
picturesque knit caps of scarlet or brown falling gracefully on one
shoulder, and women with their shining black hair and the enormous pearl
earrings which are the pride and heirlooms of every family. The present
traveller at Sorrento may remember standing on this bridge and looking
down the gloomy depths of the gorge, to where a fair villa, with its
groves of orange-trees and gardens, overhangs the tremendous depths
below.
Hundreds of years since, where this villa now stands was the simple
dwelling of the two women whose history we have begun to tell you. There
you might have seen a small stone cottage with a two-arched arcade
in front, gleaming brilliantly white out of the dusky foliage of an
orange-orchard. The dwelling was wedged like a bird-box between two
fragments of rock, and behind it the land rose rocky, high, and steep,
so as to form a natural wall. A small ledge or terrace of cultivated
land here hung in air,--below it, a precipice of two hundred feet down
into the Gorge of Sorrento. A couple of dozen orange-trees, straight
and tall, with healthy, shining bark, here shot up from the fine black
volcanic soil, and made with their foliage a twilight shadow on the
ground, so deep that no vegetation, save a fine velvet moss, could
dispute their claim to its entire nutritious offices. These trees were
the sole wealth of the women and the sole ornament of the garden; but,
as they stood there, not only laden with golden fruit, but fragrant with
pearly blossoms, they made the little rocky platform seem a perfect
Garden of the Hesperides. The stone cottage, as we have said, had an
open, whitewashed arcade in front, from which one could look down into
the gloomy depths of the gorge, as into some mysterious underworld.
Strange and weird it seemed, with its fathomless shadows and its wild
grottoes, over which hung, silently waving, long pendants of ivy, while
dusky gray aloes uplifted their horned heads from great rock-rifts, like
elfin spirits struggling upward out of the shade. Nor was wanting the
usual gentle poetry of flowers; for white iris leaned its fairy pavilion
over the black void like a pale-cheeked princess from the window of some
dark enchanted castle, and scarlet geranium and golden broom and crimson
gladiolus waved and glowed in the shifting beams of the sunlight. Also
there was in this little spot what forms the charm of Italian gardens
always,--the sweet song and prattle of waters. A clear mountain-spring
burst through the rock on one side of the little cottage, and fell with
a lulling noise into a quaint moss-grown water-trough, which had been in
former times the sarcophagus of some old Roman sepulchre. Its sides were
richly sculptured with figures and leafy scrolls and arabesques, into
which the sly-footed lichens with quiet growth had so insinuated
themselves as in some places almost to obliterate the original design;
while, round the place where the water fell, a veil of ferns and
maiden's-hair, studded with tremulous silver drops, vibrated to its
soothing murmur. The superfluous waters, drained off by a little channel
on one side, were conducted through the rocky parapet of the garden,
whence they trickled and tinkled from rock to rock, falling with a
continual drip among the swaying ferns and pendent ivy-wreaths, till
they reached the little stream at the bottom of the gorge. This parapet
or garden-wall was formed of blocks or fragments of what had once been
white marble, the probable remains of the ancient tomb from which the
sarcophagus was taken. Here and there a marble acanthus-leaf, or the
capital of an old column, or a fragment of sculpture jutted from under
the mosses, ferns, and grasses with which prodigal Nature had filled
every interstice and carpeted the whole. These sculptured fragments
everywhere in Italy seem to whisper from the dust, of past life and
death, of a cycle of human existence forever gone, over whose tomb the
life of to-day is built.
"Sit down and rest, my dove," said Dame Elsie to her little charge, as
they entered their little inclosure.
Here she saw for the first time, what she had not noticed in the heat
and hurry of her ascent, that the girl was panting and her gentle bosom
rising and falling in thick heart-beats, occasioned by the haste with
which she had drawn her onward.
"Sit down, dearie, and I will get you a bit of supper."
"Yes, grandmother, I will. I must tell my beads once for the soul of the
handsome gentleman that kissed my forehead to-night."
"How did you know that he was handsome, child?" said the old dame, with
some sharpness in her voice.
"He bade me look on him, grandmother, and I saw it."
"You must put such thoughts away, child," said the old dame.
"Why must I?" said the girl, looking up with an eye as clear and
unconscious as that of a three-year old child.
"If she does not think, why should I tell her?" said Dame Elsie, as she
turned to go into the house, and left the child sitting on the mossy
parapet that overlooked the gorge. Thence she could see far off, not
only down the dim, sombre abyss, but out to the blue Mediterranean
beyond, now calmly lying in swathing-bands of purple, gold, and orange,
while the smoky cloud that overhung Vesuvius became silver and rose in
the evening light.
There is always something of elevation and parity that seems to come
over one from being in an elevated region. One feels morally as well as
physically above the world, and from that clearer air able to look down
on it calmly with disengaged freedom. Our little maiden, sat for a few
moments gazing, her large brown eyes dilating with a tremulous lustre,
as if tears were half of a mind to start in them, and her lips apart
with a delicate earnestness, like one who is pursuing some pleasing
inner thought. Suddenly rousing herself, she began by breaking the
freshest orange-blossoms from the golden-fruited trees, and, kissing and
pressing them to her bosom, she proceeded to remove the faded flowers of
the morning from before a little rude shrine in the rock, where, in a
sculptured niche, was a picture of the Madonna and Child, with a locked
glass door in front of it. The picture was a happy transcript of one of
the fairest creations of the religious school of Florence, done by one
of those rustic copyists of whom Italy is full, who appear to possess
the instinct of painting, and to whom we owe many of those sweet
faces which sometimes look down on us by the way-side from rudest and
homeliest shrines.
The poor fellow by whom it had been painted was one to whom years before
Dame Elsie had given food and shelter for many months during a lingering
illness; and he had painted so much of his dying heart and hopes into it
that it had a peculiar and vital vividness in its power of affecting the
feelings. Agnes had been familiar with this picture from early infancy.
No day of her life had the flowers failed to be freshly placed before
it. It had seemed to smile down sympathy on her childish joys, and to
cloud over with her childish sorrows. It was less a picture to her than
a presence; and the whole air of the little orange-garden seemed to be
made sacred by it. When she had arranged her flowers, she kneeled down
and began to say prayers for the soul of the young gallant.
"Holy Jesus," she said, "he is young, rich, handsome, and a king's
brother; and for all these things the Fiend may tempt him to forget his
God and throw away his soul. Holy Mother, give him good counsel!"
"Come, child, to your supper," said Dame Elsie. "I have milked the
goats, and everything is ready."