Roma beata; letters from the Eternal city

IX

BLACK MAGIC AND WHITE—WITCH’S NIGHT

The strangest thing about life in Rome is that you not only do as the Romans do, but end by thinking as the Romans think, feeling as the Romans feel! Take, for example, the feeling most of the foreign residents have about the evil eye, the malocchio or jettatura, as it is indifferently called. I never knew an Italian who did not hold to this superstition more or less. Americans who have lived long in Rome either reluctantly admit that “there does seem to be something in it,” or if they are Roman born, quietly accept it as one of those things in heaven and earth that philosophy fails to take account of. In some things the Italian is free from superstition compared with the Celt or the Scot: for instance, the fear of ghosts or spirits is so rare that I have never met with it; on the other hand, the belief in the value of dreams as guides to action is deep rooted and widespread. The dreambook in some families is hardly second in importance to the book of prayer. The Italian’s eminently practical nature makes him utilize his dreams in “playing the lotto,” as the buying of lottery tickets is called. To dream of certain things indicates that you will be lucky and should play. The choice of the number is the chief preoccupation of the hardened lottery player. It is decided by the oddest chance,—the number on a banknote which one has lost and found again, the number of a cab which has brought one home from some delightful festivity. The number must always be associated with something lucky. I remember in Venice once calling on a friend who lives in a noble old palace on the Canale Grande. The pali, the dark posts rising out of the green water for the mooring of gondolas, bear the heraldic colors of the owner of the palace, and the doge’s cap, showing that the family gave a doge to Venice. Stepping from my gondola to the water-worn marble stair, I was helped by one of the servants, an old man with the suave, sympathetic manners that make the Italians the best servants in the world. I put him down as a majordomo of the old school whom my friends probably had taken over with the palace, the library, and the historic murder that goes with them. I had brought some flowers, which he insisted upon carrying. He led the way across a square courtyard to an outer stairway with a wonderful carved marble balustrade, lions rampant at the top and bottom. Suddenly he stopped and whispered to me:

“Signora,—a thousand excuses for the liberty,—but will you have the inexpressible gentility to tell me your age?”

The question was so startling that he got the right answer before my inevitable counter-question, “Why do you wish to know?” which he pretended not to hear, drowned in a flood of gratitude.

“You have conferred an immense benefit on me. The signora is expecting you.”

He had my wrap off and the drawing-room door open in a twinkling. That was not fair play; he had his answer: I would have mine. I put my question to his mistress. She laughed indulgently.

“Beppino is up to his old tricks. I told him this morning I was expecting a lady he did not know; he was on the lookout for you. When a stranger comes to the house for the first time it is the greatest possible luck to play in the lotto the figures which make up his age.”

Our servants all play regularly, sometimes winning small sums, always imagining that they will win the quaterno. The lottery and the Monte di pietà—somehow one associates them together—are now under government control, as they were formerly under the control of the Church. It is assumed as a foregone conclusion that men will gamble, that men will pawn their goods; therefore it is expedient that these inevitable concomitants of city life should be administered by the government, in order that the accruing profits should return to the people by helping to pay the expenses of their government. The lottery always appears to me like a tax offered to the citizens in the form of a gilded pill.

The Monte di pietà seems to be a really beneficent institution; it is well administered, the percentage charged on the money loaned being as low as is practicable. Poor old Nena’s coral earrings and gold beads live there chronically, only appearing upon her small person periodically on “feast” days. Several times webs of fine linen, silverware, and other household furnishings have been offered me at so low a price by one of our clients (we use the old Roman term for the army of hangers-on which has grown up about us) that I feared to buy them lest I should be purchasing stolen goods. On investigation I found the woman’s business was to buy unredeemed pledges at the regular sales of the Monte, and to hawk them about to private customers. After that I had not the heart to buy anything she offered, it seemed like building our house of the driftwood of despair. The Monte is a huge gray palace occupying a whole square behind the Palazzo Santacroce. Over the main entrance hangs a life-sized crucifix. The institution was founded in the year 1539 and has been in operation ever since.

The evolution of Christian out of pagan Rome is not more interesting than the evolution still going on of Rome the modern capital out of that picturesque, mediæval Rome of the “forties,” which my mother has described to me so vividly that it is as if I myself had seen it.

Since we have been here, the old meek horse-cars have been taken off, and horrible “electrics” whiz by our door and stop at the corner of the Piazza of St. Peter’s. And—even worse, I am almost afraid to write it to you—we have a telephone!

A telephone in the Eternal City! In the beginning I was as much shocked by the idea as you can be. The first conversation over the wire consoled me. Ice-chests, electric cars, and telephones only bring home more strongly the feeling that life in Rome is modern, mediæval, and pagan, all at the same time; it is all here in strata, like the rubbish Signor Boni is excavating from the Roman Forum. When you first come here you assume that you must burrow about in ruins and prowl in museums to get back to the days of Numa Pompilius or Mark Antony. It is not necessary; you only have to live, and the common happenings of daily life—yes, even the trolley car and your bicycle—carry you back in turn to the Dark Ages, to the early Christians, even to prehistoric Rome!

The day our telephone was installed I was called by the ding-a-ling of the bell, and “centrale” put me in communication, not only with our friend, Mrs. Z——, but with the Rome of Horace and the witch Canidia as well.

“Can you come to dinner next Monday?” Mrs. Z—— began.

“We will come with leaps and shrieks of joy.”

“Wait; do not accept till you hear who else is coming. We are giving the dinner in honor of M. de Gooch.”

“So much the better. We like to meet distinguished Frenchmen.”

“You are sure you do not mind meeting this particular Frenchman?”

“Why in the name of common sense should we mind?”

“Well, you know what they say about him?”

“Yes.”

“And you are not afraid? I am positively grateful to you. We are having the hardest time to fill the eight places at the table.”

“What particular variety of heathen are you inviting?”

“American.”

That afternoon we had a visit from an American gentleman, a friend of ours and of the Z——’s.

“Shall we meet next Monday at the Z——’s dinner?” I asked in the course of conversation.

“No, they were good enough to invite me, but I got out of it.”

I stared at him—he is one of the Z——’s greatest friends.

“Yes, the fact is I will not go where I have to meet that man.”

“You? you believe that M. de Gooch has the evil eye?”

“It is all very well for you to look scornful! Just wait a little. I used to take your point of view, but so many uncomfortable things happened that I now avoid the man like the plague.”

“What sort of uncomfortable things?”

“We were once at a hotel in Naples. The first time that person—it is 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

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

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

of Sts. Peter and Paul, a national holiday—that meant the museum would 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,—